Jumping Toaster Productions

Who is the Blue Bomber you ask? Well he’s most commonly referred to as Mega Man in North America, but if you’re from Japan, he’s known as Rock Man. Mega Man was first conceived in 1987 when he first appeared in his own title released by Capcom. His popularity grew after the first video game launch to become the company’s primary iconic character in the video game industry among such giants as Super Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog and Crash Bandicoot. 

Mega Man games were some of the most challenging games I have ever played in my life. Primarily due to the fact that Mega Man games had what the industry referred to as ‘Nightmare Levels’ where the chosen level will never be played the same way twice. Another factor of Mega Man’s popularity was that the player could gain the robot masters ‘special ability’ after defeating them in battle for use in later levels. The name ‘Rockman’ was initially conceived by Akira Kitamura, when he took the children’s game of Rock, Paper, and Scissors and applied it to Mega Man, where the Blue Bomber must choose a defeated bosses special ability to use against another boss. The name ‘Rock Man’ didn’t carry over well to North America due to the fact his robotic female counter partner ‘Roll’ never appeared in the game. Her absence made it confusing to the marketing team, thus the name Mega Man was chosen instead for the North American franchise. Over time Mega Man developed other ‘standard’ abilities that the player utilized from the start of the game like sliding and then charging up the ‘Mega Buster’ to release a large plasma projectile to make the game more challenging to play. 

Mega Man’s universe slowly spun off other amazing titles like Mega Man X, The Power Battle and went on to appear in numerous other Nintendo titles as a playable character. Mega Man’s popularity grew to such a huge following that he had an appearance in a short lived animation show called Captain N: The Game Master, and finally his own animation series Mega Man: The NT Warrior. The clean lines and attention to detail that Keiji Inafune uses in Mega Man universe to depict Akira Kitamura robot creations really drew me into the Mega Man franchise, which is why I’m such a fan! My favourite robot baddie out of the entire universe has got to be Guts Man. Something about a huge marauding robot flinging cubes of crushed metal at your head really speaks to me. 

If you’re interested in playing Mega Man there are lots of emulators out there online or if you can track down a copy of the Mega Man Anniversary Collection for the Xbox you can play all 10 Mega Man titles on your Xbox 360.

Happy Robot Hunting!

Mega Man is copyright of Capcom

I love my Nintendo DS Lite that I got for Christmas, I especially love the fact that my DS plays Game Boy Advance games! So many cool retro-games like Super Mario 3, Castlevania, Zelda, and Metroid, just to name a few that you can still find on eBay or craigslist. Personally, I find ‘recently-released’ games can’t hold my interest and provide a challenge that’s worth my money. Then I came across a great title that instantly peaked my curiosity; Dawn to Life ‘The Next Chapter’ by THQ coincidentally ‘Best of E3’ Winner 2009.

Looking at the box-art and the back it looked like a simplified version of Photoshop Illustrator meets Mario. I dropped about 40 dollars, picked up a copy, took it home, and Blamm-O! I was enthralled in the creative world of Drawn to Life! You couldn’t get me away from the cursed device. My evenings after work mainly composed of drawing the next object needed to complete the level. From carrot surfboards, to inflatable-women platforms, I made a very surreal game of my own starring my own hero Gangstapus! He was a mean purple pimp octopus, with a Rolex watch, fedora and rusty prison shiv. The drawing palette that you use to create your hero is pretty straight forward with a build in ‘help’ button in case you don’t recognize a certain tool. For the artist or anyone familiar with Photoshop they included some nice blending option tools that you can use to amp up your creation! The game also included an option to trade your creations with other users via WiFi connection, however you can only carry a maximum of two hero creations on the cartridge.

Overall the game itself is pretty linier, and takes no time completing it within a few hours if you choose the ‘default’ game objects to use. The content you provide as the ‘Creator’ is really the meat & potatoes that makes this title worth while to spend about 30-40 bucks on. For a long time now I’ve wanted my own side-scrolling game featuring my own creations and now I have it! 

Check out the official website here: http://www.drawntolife.com/

All images, logos, designs and trademarks are of THQ Inc. Licensed by Nintendo

I’ve been getting to know a good friend of mine again…my playstation! One of my favourite genres of video games are the ‘shooters’! Recently I’ve been addicted to R-Type, due to the fact that this game tests your patience on an extreme level. My wife has over heard me use numerous cuss words or sentence enhancers as I call them, within minutes of turning the game on. R-type is one of those special games where it seems near impossible to complete any level without dying at least once! The game throws multiple enemy ships at you at full force even on their ‘pussy’ setting. It is bloody aggravating to see the ‘Game Over’ screen again and again. Yet every morning there I am with my cup of coffee, mashing away at the controller in some kind of desperate attempt to thwart the baddies and save the universe! If you still have your original PSX kicking around in the closet and are fed up with current games and are in need of a real challenge, pick up R-Type off eBay and plug in!

Cheers