Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Best of Western VGM Poll Pt. 1

We've got another video game music poll going on, this time specifically for Western music, since they were largely skimmed over in the all-encompassing poll. Based on the number of votes so far, it probably won't reach anywhere near 1000 like the last one, but more votes would definitely be appreciated!

At any rate, here is the first group of cool songs I've picked out from the ones voted on so far, as well as others that deserve some attention:

Unreal Title Theme

I really like the unique sound of the Unreal music engine. It's technically just another tracker format like MOD and S3M, but like the SNES SPC sound chip, it's quite distinctive.

Turrican 2 - The Wall

This poll should be largely dominated by Chris Huelsbeck and Turrican music, because it's some of his best work. I picked this one in particular just because I hadn't heard it before, but the soundtracks to all three games (and even their Genesis and SNES counterparts, Mega Turrican and Super Turrican) are really damn good.

Acid Tetris - Tearing Up Spacetime

I think this game had to change its name to "Acid Brick Breaker" or something to avoid the name infringement. But I remember it being a cool freeware game back in the mid-90s with support for tracker formats. This pre-loaded song is really excellent.

Barkley Shut Up & Jam Gaiden - jonathan taylor thomas

This song got a lot of love in the last poll. Like the game itself, it encapsulates the cliches of RPG battle themes while at the same time being really damned awesome.

Sleepwalker - Zoo

The only thing I know about this game is that it apparently obtained the Eek the Cat! license when it came to the SNES. Issues like that interest me, but in the meantime you'll have to make do with the rad music.

Starcraft - Terran 3

I only ever played the Terrans in Starcraft because their music was awesome.

Jets n Guns - Death from Above

If you like the Scott Pilgrim vs. The World soundtrack, this is well worth checking out, as it combines Commodore 64 music with heavy metal.

Shadow of the Beast - Welcome

Dig the flutes on this whole soundtrack, really.

One Man and His Droid - Theme

This is another song which I'm embarassed to admit I've never heard before, but is amazing. It's hard to pinpoint the exact point where it becomes awesome because it happens at least four times.

Monday, November 28, 2011

Update - 11/28 - Ultima (pt. 5 of 5), Otomedius, Eye of the Beholder, Electronic Popple, 3d Ultra Pinball, Baruusa no Fukushuu

The final part of the Ultima article has now been posted, which finishes up by giving a quick briefing of Ultima Online, a handful of cancelled games and fan works, several books and guides, and most importantly, an exclusive interview with Lord British himself, who also recently had a documentary made about his journey into space. The article in total is 15 meaty pages long, putting it up there with the Shin Megami Tensei article in sheer length. Also of note is a preview of the Ultima Collector's Guide by Stephen Emond, a massive 800+ page catalog of Ultima memorabilia and trivia. You can read a bit about it at his Rockethub page, although it's already got enough donations to put it into production. And keeping up with the WRPG theme, please enjoy a review of the Eye of the Beholder series, a trilogy of first person dungeon crawlers.

At any rate, what have you spent your precious holiday gaming time with? Uncharted 3? Arkham City? Skyrim? I spent the past few weeks with Otomedius, to cover the recently released Otomedius Excellent, which somehow got localized despite being a very, very Japanese series. The only reason I got so enamored with it is due to Konami shooter fanboyness, which these games deliver in droves. It is a bit odd, though, considering they reference so many titles that never got releases outside of Japan, but this article should help sort all of that out. Even as someone who spent far too long with it at the expense of much better games, they're...really not all that great. I've seen it get torn to shreds in some reviews, which is harsh, but perhaps not unfair. Beyond the Konami love, its focus is largely on boobs and grinding for weapons, whereas the core games are fairly mediocre by Gradius/Parodius standards.

Additional articles this post-Thanksgiving update include 3D Ultra Pinball, a series of, well, pinball games put out by Dynamix in the 90s; Baruusa no Fukushuu, a side-scrolling action game for the X68000; Electronic Popple, an amusingly goofy Korean beat-em-up; and Giftpia, a Japan-only Gamecube from the guys that would eventually develop Chibi Robo, and has that same outright bizarreness to it. They also created the (similarly Japan-only) Captain Rainbow for the Wii, which Nintendo silently buried before focusing on exploiting its franchises for the dozenth time (although doing it reasonably well, at least) and ignoring anything that isn't guaranteed to sell a million copies. Oh, and the weekly kusoge is Battle Construction Vehicles, a...construction vehicle battle simulator where you can attack your opponent with giant bees. You may remember it being posted on the blog a few years back, but something this bizarre is worth catalouging for the ages.

I also forgot to post last update on the blog, so if you only read this site through an RSS reader or whathaveyou, here's the text below:

The fourth part of the Ultima article is now up - since the main series is covered, this one focuses on the various sub-series and spinoffs. These include the Worlds of Adventure games, which featured pulp novel-inspired settings like prehistoric islands and martian landscapes; the Runes of Virtue series, simplified (but fun) versions for the Game Boy; and, of course, the incredibly influential Ultima Underworld series, being one of the first true 3D free roaming RPGs.

Beyond Ultima, we have three sort of lesser known shooters: Eliminate Down, the pricey but well designed Mega Drive entry; Bio Hazard Battle, featuring bugs and all manners of creepy crawleys; and Imperium, a vertical shooter with an experience point-based power up system. And continuing our fascination with Konami Famicom titles, we also have a look at Dragon Scroll, the company's valiant attempt at a Zelda clone. Your Weekly Kusoge is Voyeur, one of the many awful FMV games featuring tackily implemented "adult" themes, "gameplay" in the loosest of sense of the word. And this thing was supposed to be one of the highlights of the Phillips CDi!

Reggies Entertainment System – South African TV advert

It’s taken 20 years to get here, but I’ve finally archived one of the Reggies TV Entertainment System adverts which were shown on South Africa TV – likely from Saturday 2nd November 1991.

Recently I interviewed David Hayter for GamesTM magazine (the article is due out 22 December – expect scans from myself). It was epic, and he’s a great guy, very funny and eloquent. After this I decided to watch an old tape of Guyver Dark Hero which I had, since it stars Mr Hayter, and I thought I’d do a review for here. Anyway, turns out halfway through, the tape starts skipping to the point where it’s unwatchable. I lift the flap and notice the tape itself has started curling at the edge, causing a series of grooves. Probably due to poor storage on my part – left it at the bottom of an old cabinet.

Suddenly it dawns on me that I have even older tape, with home recorded footage from South Africa, featuring an advert for the Reggies Entertainment System, which was a Famicom clone branded by one of South Africa’s leading toy stores. Reggies is kind of a competitor to Toys R Us. I wrote about Christmas in South Africa for The Escapist before, mentioning this tape. At the time of the article I searched, but couldn’t find it (I did find a photo of myself though, as a child playing a Famicom on Christmas day, but that’s never becoming public). So given that one of my tapes was already dead, it was time to find this Reggies tape.

A long time ago, when my parents upgraded to DVD, they were going to throw most of their old tapes out. Their plan was to keep some blanks to record films on TV, but chuck those a decade or more older. Being the nostalgic kind I obviously demanded they give them to me, and so I inherited about thirty BASF VHS tapes – a mixture of 180, 200 and 240 minutes. Luckily they let me keep leave in their loft, and when visiting for the holidays I would enjoy going through said tapes. About a quarter are tapes with kids shows on them, mostly Smurfs. The rest a collection of documentaries (Attenborough's Living Planet) and totally awesome obscure films (My Science Project being one such badass entry).

Anyway, around 2003 both my brother and I were over for the holidays, and we decided to have an epic video marathon. So we set the TV, machine and tapes up in an old holiday caravan, and spent a couple of weeks watching most of them (we skipped the documentaries and long series like Lonesome Dove). After exhausting the films we even started watching the Smurfs. Drunk on Christmas wine it was actually kinda cool, and very nostalgic. At one point we also spotted some ads, including those for the Reggies machine.

Fast forward to today and I was determined to fine this ad. Well, it’s taken at least 12 tapes, watching the 3 or 4 hours of footage on fast-forward to finally find it. I went through every Smurf tape in the box, assuming the ad was during a kids show, and couldn’t find it. I went through all the kids shows and films – nothing! I did find some cool stuff though: half a Kurt Russell film, where he’s a journalist searching for a serial killer. A video for Tom Petty’s Learning to Fly, broadcast on daytime TV, which BLEW my mind back when I was ten years old (Google it to find out why). Some really cool adverts, including one for Volkswagen, where a guy overtakes one on his bicycle. And a show celebrating the 2nd Birthday of the M-Net TV channel. I also found an old news story regarding the 1993 WTC bombing, which was rather chilling, and also a news story from Waco.

The Reggies advert was nowhere to be found though. Right when I was about to give up, I tried an old tape that used to have Police Academy 4 and 5 on it, before my dad used to tape for something else. Fast forward to near the end, and lo and behold, there’s one of the Reggies ads!

And how many seconds did I get for wasting my entire Sunday? About 9 seconds.

The ironic thing is this isn’t even the ad I was looking for – the one I can recall was much longer, and prefaced by an advert for chocolate Easter Eggs. Still, this is all you’re getting because I really can’t be bothered to spend anymore time on this. I have fulfilled my duty to archive history.


According to X-Rates currency exchange website:

In November 1991
1 Rand = 20p (£GBP)
1 Rand = 35c ($USD)

So 20 Rand = £4 / $7

200 Rand = £40 / $70

I seem to recall games costing as much 100 Rand though, at least the good NES games, like SMB3. Crappy stuff like Mickey Mouse was about 20 Rand.

The advert also starts with what sounds like the sfx from Dynamite Headdy. Weird. I left the follow-up advert in place, since it dates the whole thing. Likely it was recorded Saturday morning, since the next ad talks about M-Net programmes on Sunday 3rd November.

Notice how they emphasise that it’s the SA version, implying the correct plug is bundled with the system? Which I think was a result of a lot of stores selling grey-market models from Hong Kong which came with the wrong power adapter (I think my first system actually had a replacement provided by the store, which was a little too strong and soon burned the system out).

The most significant thing is that it features footage of Castlevania 2 running on Famicom hardware, as a cartridge. As far as I can tell Akumajou Dracula 2 was only released on the Famicom Disk System, making this visual proof of a rarity: FDS games converted to cartridge format for bootlegging in other countries. Another good example is Snake's Revenge, which I actually played while in a store - it was running via Famicom cartridge despite never having been released on Famicom (it was NES only). On that day I had asked for a game with guys in a jungle - I had been thinking of Contra. The guy broke out a few such games, one of which was Snake's Revenge. I went home with Contra that day, but always wish I'd gone with SR, simply because of the rarity of it being in Famicom cartridge form...

Any way, it’s not a great advert, but it’s something.

Also, while I have your attention, and since we’re talking about M-Net, if anyone has any old monthly M-Net TV guides circa 1986-1995 I would be interested in having one or two of them (for certain research purposes).

Naughty Dog wipes Vaseline in your eyes for Uncharted 3

I am so mad right now. Naughty Dog are idiots, complete and utter idiots. Uncharted 3 has now been ruined. Well done Naughty Dog, you collection of morons.

This is not a satirical post, this is me explaining my hatred for motion blur.

Let me tell you a story about Uncharted 2. When I first started playing it I thought my new HD TV was broken, and was ready to take it back to the store for a replacement. There was some terrible smudging of the visuals whenever anything moved. I had this problem with the PSP, which was the fault of the old screen being crap, but none of my PS3 games so far had really had this problem. There was some slight colour smudge, but fiddling with the settings eventually made it go away on most games.

But with UC2 there was terrible, horrible smudging when you moved, making everything fuzzier than an acid trip at Woodstock. I had been to bachelor parties which were clearer and more focused than this crap. And no fiddling with settings could make it go away. Obviously my TV must have been ****ed. So I ask on NTSC-uk’s technical forum, and eventually it transpires that this Vaseline vision, this smudged greasy look which obscured my clarity, was called “motion blur” and was intentional.

I was forced to suffer it.

Then I discover that UC3 lacked this. Huzzah! I thought. Naughty Dog had seen sense to bless me with pure clarity. A few pissants on forums bitched about it, but **** em I thought, I wanted clarity. I needed clarity. Any way, long story short, ND also screwed with the aiming and so have now released a patch to correct this:

Except as they also put it:
* Fixed the missing Motion Blur effects

It’s not fixing it, you imbeciles, it’s ****ing with it. I DON’T WANT SMUDGING!

Well done, idiots. The best thing about UC3 over its predecessor has now been removed, forcing me to play it either unpatched with broken controls, or patched so that it controls, but looks like absolute ass. And let me emphasise this – if UC3 lacked Vaseline vision before, that means it wasn’t now implemented for technical reasons. The game ran just fine without it. It should be OPTIONAL. It was implemented because ND are a bunch of cretins.

So I am forced to play without the patch, I am forced to play offline, I am forced to use broken controls. ARGH!!!

If I wanted anything less than absolute pure 100% crystal SHARP visuals, I’d use my SD TV and an RF cable, instead of the $1000 HD TV and HDMI cable I bought.

If I wanted blurring, I’d play without my corrective spectacles. Or better yet, for all those myopic whiners on ND’s forum, why don’t YOU just remove YOUR glasses?

If wanted blurring, I’d get drunk.

If wanted blurring, I’d smoke marijuana.

If I wanted blurring, I’d punch myself in the face until I saw stars.

If I wanted blurring, I’d go to a redneck bar, hand out baseball bats, then call ever man in there a panty-wearing sissy.

If I wanted blurring, I would buy some Vaseline and swab it over my eyes and my TV and then put MORE Vaseline on my eyes.

Some people have tried to persuade me that motion blurring is anything other than absolutely ****ing terrible, by showing videos of PC games with and without motion blurring. And you know what?

In every single example motion blurring still sucks. It will always suck.

Anything which is a step away from absolute 100% fidelity sucks.

I hate motion blurring! I didn't buy a PS3, buy an HD TV and then pay £40 for a game with the visual clarity of an Atari 2600 game FFS!

Sunday, November 27, 2011

The New Gamepro Quarterly journal

Not too long ago, Gamepro Magazine announced a switch in format, from a typical monthly magazine to a quarterly "journal" that would focus less on news and reviews, and more on features. This sounded like a brilliant idea to me, as it would establish something more meaningful that would be worth paying money for and re-reading, rather than something to pick up for five minutes, glean a few review scores, then put back on the magazine rack. The first issue of this new version of Gamepro hit the bookstores recently, and I picked it up a few days ago.

For anyone unfamiliar with the magazine's evolution lately, it's a taken a huge departure from its 5.0 HOT smiley face and PROTIP origins, both of which have long been staples of ironic hipster websites everywhere. For a long time it was kept alive for reasons no one really understood, even though no one I knew appeared to actually read it - it always seems like it was meant for kids, which I guess would answer my own question. A couple years ago it shifted gears and got a makeover into a more mature format. I liked the change in direction, and they employed writers whose works I admired, but at the same time never actually bought an issue - their cover stories were consistently about topics I had zero interest in, and each issue felt remarkably flimsy.

The new format is a bit beefier - it feels weightier with a total page count of 148. It retails for $9.99, but costwise that puts in the league of Brit mags like Edge and games(tm), both of which use heavier stock that looks and feels quite a bit nicer. All of read on the 'net so far are people complaining about the "148 pages of epic win!" tagline on the cover, which seems like a silly thing to get in a huff about.

In spite of initial impressions when holding it, it really is packed to the brim with content, with tons upon tons of features. A few pages are devoted to artwork for the upcoming Western-developed fighting game Skullgirls, the meanings of color and psychology (and how it affects games), a quick summary of the launch window games for the PlayStation Vita, a standard "best games in 2012" preview, a lengthy section called "Now Playing", where staff members casually discuss what's on their minds (probably the best holdver from the old format) and numerous others. A bunch are simply a page or two long, like the one that ponders why all video game heroes look the same, and another showing off obscure t-shirts of the writers. However, most features clock in at six-to-eight pages. The benefit of these short-but-sweet articles is that if one doesn't catch your fancy, just flip a few more pages and maybe you'll find something more suited to you. On some levels they might appear shallow, but for what they are, they work well.

For example, it's hard to explain much about the intricacies of Final Fantasy in a limited amount of space, but the primer does a reasonable job of sorting it all out for newbies. There's also a brief article about the history of Zelda, though it seems like every mag has one of those (Future Publishing put out a whole special issue devoted to it) so it doesn't stand out as much. The one explaining what the hell a MOBA is (that's basically the title of the article) that's also quite well done. (They're sorta like an RTS where you control a single player character and you help the other guys, who are controlled automatically.)

There's a lot of introductory-type stuff which hits more towards the mainstream than readers of this site would probably like, so it's not exactly Gamefan, but at the same time the writers have an obvious appreciation outside of the usual AAA blockbusters that's usually featured prominently in US game magazines.

I do have to take issue with the cover article, which ranks the top 50 fighting game characters of all time. There are some things which rub me slightly the wrong way - not so much that they picked characters from Super Smash Bros., so much as Marth, Pikachu and Link aren't really original fighting game characters. More annoyingly, its preface is meant to defuse any "where's my favorite character?" arguments, but its problem is much larger they that - they almost entirely ignored SNK's line of fighers. These aren't some fringe, obscure games either, they were one of the most popular developers in the 90s, and just because their properties haven't been kept alive in the same way that Capcom's have, doesn't mean they should've been ignored. I don't expect everyone to know how goddamned awesome Gato from Mark of the Wolves is, but where's Terry Bogard? Kyo Kusanagi? Iori Yagami? Geese Howard? Haohmaru? That's only scratching the surface of the huge array of iconic characters in SNK fighting games, and only one that even got a mention was Mai Shiranui under the "hottest gals" category. Why were the others passed over in favor of joke entries like "Red Guy" from Karate Champ, Meat from Mortal Kombat 4, and the midget from Thrill Kill, which was never even officially released? It's things like this which suggest that the people in charge of the list either weren't knowledgeable enough about the genre, or were otherwise pandering to a readership who they suspect wouldn't get the references. Given the quality and approach of the rest of the magazine, I'm going to lean towards the latter. But I've rambled on enough and leave any more bitching to the thread on the Neo-geo.com forums that's undoubtedly devoted to it.

SNK fanboyish aside, it really is a classy issue. The content is generally great, the layouts are classy and distinct (a huge step above Edge's recent awful redesign), and it's solid enough to be worth the $10, even if it does make me wistful for the days of 200+ page issues of Next Generation that cost half the price.

Friday, November 25, 2011

Satellablog deserves our appreciation and respect

I’ve been meaning to post about Satellablog for months, but kept forgetting.

Apologies to all involved. Satellablog is dedicated to all things Satellaview, the satellite-based add-on system for the Super Famicom in Japan. Arguably one of several forerunners to today’s PSN and XBLA download services. The problem is, the service contained a lot of exclusive content, available nowhere else (most infamously a special version of Zelda which was dumped). In addition, neither Nintendo nor any of the companies from the time are interested in archiving or preserving this rare data. So it falls to Kiddocabbusses and his comrades to source the memory packs from Japan, pray they contain a never before found download, and then dump them for the world. It’s an expensive mission (there’s a donation plea), but it does yield rewards, such as the Satella-shooting trilogy, which ties in with our own Dezaemon feature. I feel no shame in saying that it’s absolutely worth donating a few spare dollars for the preservation of games history. Satellablog and its many ROM dumping specialists deserve our utmost appreciation and respect – because Nintendo sure as f*** doesn’t care about this stuff. Without us, the obsessive geeknocrats, history would simply die. My only criticism: create a proper site with easily navigable news archives. Blogs just don’t cut it for something so important.

GamesTM 116 – History of Metroidvania

I take a look at the latest issue of GamesTM, which includes a 6 page feature on Metroidvania games.

This month’s issue of GamesTM features the following (copied from NTSC-uk, courtesy of PrinnySquad).

Skyrim - 9
Battlefield 3 - 7
Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary - 8
Uncharted 3 - 9
Assassin's Creed Revelations - 8
Batman: Arkham City - 9
Dance Central - 360 - 8
Shinobi - 3DS - 4
Kinect Sports: Season 2 - 360 - 5
Modern Warfare 3 - 8
Saints Row: The Third - 7
Rayman Origins - 7
Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3 - 7
Kirby Mass Attack - DS - 8
Sonic Generations - 7
Real Steel - 360 - 6
The Adventures of TinTin - 6
Raving Rabbids Alive and Kicking - 6
King of Fighters XIII - 8
Disney Universe - 3

2012 Preview Special
Chat With Naughty Dog about the past, present and future
A Look at the new SSX
A look at the trend for remakes, reboots and rebirths

Operation Raccoon City
Backstage with the people behind Zelda's 25th Anniversary Concerts.
Chat with Tood McFarlane about work on Kingdoms of Amalur
Tim Schafer on his new thing and the merit of Kinect
thatgamecompany talk about Journey.

Behind the Scenes: Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver
Year In Review 1985
Conversion Catastrophe - Kung Fu Master on Speccy
The History of Metroidvania - the forerunners to the genre.

My main reason for posting though is my 6 page article on Metroidvania games. No credit as usual for the writer of said piece – though I was technically asked to write it as a favour, so I don’t begrudge this too much. The first dps is hi-res enough to read, though seeing as I’m getting paid for the article (at least I hope I get paid!) I don’t think I can get away with making the entire article free to read online – at least not until they put it on their website or the next issue is out. Of course if someone else, somewhere, has put hi-res scans up, by all means read it and pass the links around.

With it being the 25th anniversaries of Metroid and Castlevania, it seemed time to cover the portmanteau they went on to create later with Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night. Ironically most entries predate these two titles, showing that the genre classification is erroneous. But it’s still fun. There’s 24 entries, one for each year of the anniversary, with the 25th title to be voted for on GamesTM’s forum, or discussed here. I also quote Jeremy Parish, which I’m sure he is not pleased about! Sorry Jez, but at least you got credit whereas I did not. I also included interview quotes from several key people.

The list (year of release, then alphabetically):

Pharaoh’s Curse (Atari 8-bit, C64)
Below the Root (C64, DOS, Apple)
Brain Breaker (Sharp X1)
CrossBlaim (MSX)
Sacred Armour of Antiriad (Spectrum, C64, Amstrad)
Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest (NES)
Codename: Droid (BBC)
Legacy of the Wizard (NES)
Zeliard (DOS, PC88)
Zillion (SMS)
Blaster Master (NES)
Euphory (Sharp X1)
Exile (BBC)
Predator (MSX)
The Scheme (PC88)
Wonderyboy III: DT (SMS)
Takahashi Meijin Boukenjima IV (Famicom)
The Divide: Enemies Within (PS1)
Vigilance on Talos V (DOS)
Cave Story (PC)
La Mulana (PC)
Aquaria (PC)
Treasure Adventure Game (PC)

It’s not perfect, but I had around 80 titles on a rough list covering anything even remotely similar, which I whittled down to about 50 series entries, then 40, then 35, and then it got tricky requiring many redrafts.

My goal: differentiate the list from everyone else’s.

That’s why I’ve got silly stuff like the MSX release of Predator, and lots of obscure games. The trend? Metroidvania style games are predominantly on computers, followed by the NES. A reflection on the perception that console titles need to be simpler? Could be why console Metroidvanias are so well loved – they filled a desperately empty gap. Because admit it – how many other games like Super Metroid are on the SNES? Very few.

As for omissions, I left out some popular titles because I just can’t stand them. I absolutely hate Tombi for example – the jumping, where your guy flails forward in an uncontrollable belly flop, is unbearable. How can anyone stand playing that? It feels broken and uncomfortable. Metroidvanias are all about the jumping, and with Tombi every time I press the jump button I want to break the controller. Another omission was Shantae. I don’t care what anyone says, it looks great but the level design is dull, linear and really not much fun. Shadow Complex was on the list, but then I thought: that’s a little obvious. Why waste space on something people know and are enjoying, when something like Treasure Adventure Game can do with the publicity instead?

My big regret?

I never included Link: Faces of Evil, or Zelda: Wand of Gamelon, for the CDi. They just slipped my mind, but they actually follow the Metroidvania template quite nicely. And I love them dearly. For starters, for all the complaints about the controls, when using a wired controller (as opposed to the crappy infra-red remote) the jumping is more comfortable than the jumping in Tombi. I can actually dictate the direction for Link and Zelda, and they don’t lunge forwards with that moronic belly flop.

The rest of the world continues to spout vitriolic hatred for the Link/Zelda games, and people on various Zelda forum boards openly state that they 1) absolutely hate the games for existing and 2) will never, ever play them because they’re not true Zelda games. Their kind of passionate, blinkered, refusal to accept any other-point-of-view mentality, is something I’ve mainly seen with religious extremists. You know, the kind who claim dinosaur bones were put in the earth by the devil to deceive humanity.

How can you claim to hate something, and then refuse to examine it on the grounds that it’s inauthentic, when in that same sentence you admit that you have no idea what it’s even like? That’s like me saying: I hate apples, I’ve never eaten apples and I never will eat apples or even think about what apples are because I know that apples aren’t really fruit and so don’t even need to know what they are because I already know what they are not (ie: not fruit).


Bottom line: obsessive Zelda fans who claim to hate the CDi titles while simultaneously refusing to play them are retarded. To form an educated opinion on something you need to understand it first. Otherwise it’s just a mob mentality, no better than those crowds who wanted to burn women for witchcraft.

I suppose I would have removed Below the Root to fit Link/Zelda in. Interestingly, they were both by the same man, the late great Dale DeSharone. May he rest in peace.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Dammit, that pixel art deserves a better game.

A while ago Parasitus: Ninja Zero by a team called Heart Attack Machine caught my attention on the XBox Live Indie Game marketplace. The screenshots promised a great 2D action platformer experience a la Castlevania, with some gorgeous sprite work for an indie game. Unfortunately, the game was not that great. The controls were awkward and the pacing was off. The game runs very fast overall, feeling like those old Chaplin movies run in 30fps. Furthermore the mostly fine dot graphics (with some lazy elements here and there) were spoiled by superficial hi-res CGI effects. So after going through the trial I passed on buying the full game.

Now recently HAM put out a prequel to their first game, dubbed Invasion. It was clear that it used many graphics assets from Parasitus, but it at the same time it looked more polished, as if some of the more unfitting background elements were phased out. I was hopeful to see my complaints rectified, although the new game was in a different subgenre.

At the place of the swordfighting in Parasitus stands a run 'n gun experience. But the controls are just as bad, if not worse. The games have that weird uneducated jumping mechanics where the character stops rising into the air the exact instance one lets going the button. Also in Invasion one shoots diagonally up by holding the left or right shoulder bumper, respectively. Holding both fires straight up, but when you press the left bumper while running right, nothing happens. Worst of all, doing any of this may lock up the fire button for seconds, resulting in many cheap hits because you simply can't fire.

Then there's this:

Seriously? You put that in the same game with the best pixel work on all of XBLIG? Are you quite insane?! One good thing about Parasitus besides the graphics was the fact that it didn't try to tell much of a story (at least not in the trial). Well, their first game didn't do so good on the marketplace, so they probably looked at hits like Braid and thought: "Lots of text equals success!" Needless to say, the writing is as abysmal as can be, with more pathetic, forced innuendos than Magna Cum Laude, and the crappy mugshots kill whatever cozy Amiga atmosphere the CGI effects left over.

OK, I might be a bit hard on the games. After all, they're not actually that bad, just alright homebrew games, with really really bad writing in the second, but I guess really really bad is the standard for writing in indie games, anyway. It's just that they hold back one of the more competent pixel artists in indie gaming today, while fun and even publisher-backed "2D" games often have to be covered in drab shadow figures or insipid flat-shaded "newgrounds" shapes. So, how do we tell this artist what could be accomplished with a team that knows to design (and write!) a great game around those great pixels?

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Ouch, that looks like it hurt!

Getting injured in video games is usually inconsequential. The hero loses a chunk of his health bar, maybe bleeds a little on the floor, but as soon as he's dealt with the enemy and marches on, you'd never be able to tell he's just been perforated by a gunload of hollow point bullets. Or take the amazon warrior, who needs no protection aside from her metal bikini, as her skin proves just as impenetrable as the steel her risque fashion choice is made of.

There's various reasons for that. Of course technical and workload limitations are always an issue, but aesthetic choice probably also spared us beaten-up, teethless brawler protagonists and RPG love interests covered in scars and bruises. Less superficial accounting for wounds also brings extraordinary game design challenges: How much fun is it being a platformer hero with a realistically depicted broken leg?

That doesn't mean that no one has ever tried showing us players what's going on with our alter egos on the screen. Here is a look at games that went through the lengths of visibly abusing their characters for our enjoyment. While there are tons of cars, tanks, planes and mechas that have been torn to shreds in the history of video games, we're only looking at characters of pixellated or polygonal flesh and blood. Gratuitous death animations aren't enough to qualify, either—characters have to live with their injuries, at least until the next health pack shows up.

Ghosts 'n Goblins (1985)

In the old days of low resolution and few colors, wounds on a player character simply wouldn't have been recognizable as such. There weren't many pixels left in between Arthur's beard and his helmet to make any scratches identifiable, so to show that he's now more vulnerable after a hit, the clever pixel artist at Capcom just took away his armor, leaving him running around in his underpants. A second hit then will leave nothing but hsi crumbling bones. This mechanic lives on in the game's various sequels, and is even picked up for the series reboot Maximo (2002). Capcom's own Black Tiger (1987) and Natsume's Pocky & Rocky 2 (1994) work similarly, too. (picture right: Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, GBA; below: Maximo)

Super Mario Bros. (1985)

Released just a little bit later than Ghosts 'n Goblins, Super Mario Bros. shows another workaround for the fact that Mario's face can't take any more red pixels beside his cap and moustache. When he gets hurt, he simply shrinks in size. One could argue about the eligibility of this example, though. In the original, the small size appears to be his natural state. In Super Mario Bros. 2 (1988, pictured), however, Mario starts out big, and in the later 3D games that drop the feature, he's no dwarf, either.

Gladiator (1986)

Fighting games seem to be the predestined genre for this. But fighting game characters also start out with stripping their clothes instead of ripping their flesh. Hits on the different parts of a characters' armor will make them fall off, another hit on the now unprotected part kills. It is interesting to note how at least the Japanese version knew no discrimination of the sexes and shows the female warrior just as bare-chested as her male counterparts.

Developer Allumer refined the concept with their 1992 game Blandia, and it has since been imitated in various other, predominantly Japanese, fanservice-y fighting games like Fighting Vipers (1995) and Soul Calibur IV (2008), not to name all those Doujin strip fighters. Many gamers have been very curious what pieces of armor Ivy was supposed to lose.

Art of Fighting (1992)

NOW we're talking! Art of Fighting is the first game were players really can beat each other's faces to pulp. Towards the end of the fight, both combatants are often hardly recognizable, anymore. The game also became infamous because Yuri and King could get their shirts blown off when finished with a fireball attack, which carried over into the first King of Fighters games. Art of Fighting 2 works in the same way, but unfortunately SNK dropped the feature for the 3rd episode.

Time Killers (1992)

In the wake of Mortal Kombat came this new epitome of bad taste. The game featured fatalities just like its role model, but character's arms could also be severed during combat, forcing them to go on with a limited moveset. Continued with Bloodstorm (1994), where combatants could also go on without their legs, skidding over the floor on their intestines.

Wolfenstein 3D (1992)

Most first person shooters automatically disqualify for this list because... well, because you never get to see your character. Wolfenstein 3D circumvented this issue by placing the head of hero Blascovich into the on-screen display, where you can see it growing bloodier and bloodier the lower your health gets. id used the same feature in Doom (1993), and the animated mugshots were also adopted by the later Might & Magic games.

Robinson's Requiem (1994)

Another first person game, but Silmaril's science fiction retelling of Robinson Crusoe befittingly is a survival adventure. Visible damage comes into play on the player character's profile, which is used to apply bandages, makeshift splints and medication. This game is one of the rare occasions where your health also affects your general performance. As an extreme, your character literally goes blind when birds hack at his eyes! Continued with the sequel Deus (1996), which also adds an infrared view with your skeleton. Both games are available bundled at GOG.com. Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (2005) features a simplified variant, so does Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2004), although the latter without visually showing the damage.

Götzendiener (1994)

As our first example of story-driven damage, Götzendiener falls back to the old hurting=stripping formula. The heroine in this very short game starts out in cpativity of a demon. A knight in shining armor comes to rescue her, but dies together with his foe. No longer under watch, the resolute damsel takes her rescue into her own hands, losing parts of her garments with each chapter.

Many later games have taken the same approach: Die Hard: Arcade (1996), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2003), Heavy Metal: FAKK 2 (2000). The latter has the heroine frequently changing her attire to counteract to the textile decay, which doesn't mean she's gonna show less skin that way, as her outfits just get skimpier and skimpier.

Resident Evil (1996)

Capcom's horror shocker didn't modify Chris' or Jill's models or textures to show how grave their condition is, but the animation. Injured zombie hunters started limping, which also made them significantly slower.

Kinda adopted by Silent Hill (1999), only Harry Mason always runs like he's just been shot in the foot.

Super Mario 64 (1996)

One of the innovators of the category makes his return. Mario doesn't shrink anymore, but when he's at the last quarter of his health, he's visibly out of puff. This becomes a very popular feature in cartoony 3rd person games, even just on the N64: Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon (1997), The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Conker's Bad fur Day (2001) ... the list goes on.

This has also been seen in 2D games like Mega Man X4. Do you know any examples that predate Super Mario 64?

Bushido Blade (1997)

Bushido Blade and its sequel do away with the silly health bar convention in weapon based fighters entirely, and instead semi-realistically accounts for damage done to indivudual body parts. It doesn't have any of the instant gratuitous feedback of Time Killers, but characters start to limp when injured, and they'll wear bandages in the following fight.

Deathtrap Dungeon (1998)

The game that motivated this post. From my article on the title: "There is, however, one really cool feature that got dropped in the conversion [to the PSX]: On the PC, all the damage the adventurers took would show on their body. You see their bruises, cuts — even arrows keep sticking in their flesh until healed." 'nuff said...

Jurassic Park: Trespasser (1998)

Almost doesn't count, because it's not actually the heroine's body that changes appearence, just the tatoo on her chest gets tainted red.

Illbleed (2001)

Another interesting variant on cloth damage, and also a really surprising twist on New Game Plus. Eriko has to rescue her friend from a cursed amusement park, but whenever she fails and one of her friend dies in a second playthrough, her clothes get ripped apart a little more, posing a real moral dillemma for the young male player. If you really screw up, in the end she'll be covered by nothing more than smears of mud and three tiny shreds of cloth at three laughably convenient spots.

Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus (2003)

Possibly the first fighting game to bring Art of Fighting's approach into the third dimension, the failed comeback of a former Mortal Kombat developer featured quite impressive damage ranging from cuts, dirt and bruises to torn clothes.

Fable (2004)

Fable sure as hell didn't go for short-lived diversions. In Peter Molineux' most persistent obsession yet, you don't get a love interest, you get spouses—lots of them. And you don't get merely injured, you get scars. By the second game those were the least of your worries, though, as skilled characters automatically turned into monstrous beings suffering from gigantism and shiny blue varices all over their body.

Fight Night 2004 (2kduh!)

As a genre were endurance is one of the deciding factors for victory, sports games simulated fatigue in some way or the other since 8-bit times, with slower movement, weaker passes or whatever. With growingly powerful hardware, especially wrestling and boxing games started to go to great lengths to convey how exhausted the combatants got. The most excessive example yet is the Fight Night series, where characters not only get cuts, black eyes and bruises, but also sweat like pigs and start dribbling when they've no energy left in their bodies. (picture below: Fight Night Round 4)

Oneechanbara (2005)

"You're bleeding!"
"Don't worry, that's not my blood."

The girls of the Bikini Samurai Squad turn into a bloody mess when they hurt others. Zombies bleed all over them with their cursed blood, eventually forcing them into a murderous frenzy. They also occasionally have to shake the blood of their swords, lest they become useless. Particularly tasteless: Some of the games offer settings to vary the color of the blood, white being one of the possible choices. It looks naughty.

Retro Game Challenge / Game Center CX: Robot Ninja Haggleman (2007)

Although it is predominantly a hommage to Ninja Jajamaru-kun, the fake-classic action platformer series also contains a nod to Ghosts 'n Goblins—only the little ninja doesn't lose his armor, instead is eyes bulge out. The spin-off Haggleman - Koume Version on Game Center CX: Arino no Chousenjou 2 features the ninja's sister, who has her arm in a sling after a hit.

Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009)

Actually another entry from the Götzendiener school, but nonetheless deserving of its own entry, because Batman also gets scratched here and there, and grows awesome stubble on his chin over the course of this longer-than-planned mission.

Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe (2008) and Mortal Kombat (2011)

You'd think that the one series so famous for its sadistic treatment of its characters would have jumped the train earlier, but up to Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, characters may have lost gallons of blood, but they could only really be injured—and instantly killed—with Fatalities. The 2011 reboot goes one step further with x-ray vision for special combos.

The 3rd Birthday (2011)

Another stripping game, only here Aya Brea's clothing status is directly tied to her health. She can lose an impressive amount of fiber, but scratch marks also prove the monsters didn't just want to see her naked.

El Shaddai (2011)

It may be the shittiest high-profile game of this console generation, in El Shaddai instead of a health bar you see your armor cracking and shattering, revealing that the protagonist doesn't actually have huge man-boobs.

Tomb Raider (2012)

In Tomb Raider Underworld, the grave robbing brit could already get wet and dirty. (No, not what you're thinking!) Now trailers of the new reboot show a very beaten-up Lara Croft soaked in blood. It remains to be seen how it will all work out in the game, though.

Screenshots taken from Strategy Informer, GameFAQs and GOG.com.