Egghead Software, The Root of My Toxcitity

My father studied computers in the early 80's and had the profound notion that this "PC" was going to be the future of everything, before that kind of thinking became commonplace.  Pretty smart guy.  What this meant for my very young self was that in place of a Nintendo in our living room in 1988 (like every other kid everywhere just about), we had a smoking fast 386 IBM PC, with kilobytes of processing speed and lifelike VGA graphics.  I actually wouldn't even learn of the Nintendo Entertainment System until I was a few years older.  If none of that means anything to you, that's probably normal.  The 386 we had was the Ferrari of home PC's at the time and with this "blazing fast" computer speed at our fingertips my dad assumed that any other piece of computing machinery was obsolete and unnecessary.  The Nintendo, a very modest bit of hardware in comparison, fit under that umbrella of inferiority.  So what was a young boy to do to try and stave away boredom when nothing was on basic TV, you've watched all your VHS tapes a million times, you don't know what Nintendo is yet and your three toys start losing some of their zazz?  You bug you dad to show you how to use this marvel of modern technology sitting in your living room.  I was 3-4 and my recollection of this is based purely on vague memories, but I do know that in order to figure out how to play games on the PC it required that I memorize dos commands before I knew how to read.  This was where my journey into the world of video games began.

I don't remember what my "first game" was, but I do remember a couple sweet titles we picked up at Egghead software.  I think they sold different software and stuff but it was my "game store" for a while before it fell off the face of the Earth.  My father's enthusiasm for PC ownership and eagerness for me to share that passion meant we went there pretty regularly.  We had a bunch of games and most of them were really hard or too awful to remember but one always sticks out in my mind probably because of the vivid memory of very mixed emotions tied to it.  This game was Thexder.  Thexder was infuriating for me at age four.  I loved it the moment I saw it, and I wanted it to be the best game ever.  This was me trying to squeeze blood out of a rock.  The appeal: we're talking about a game that had probably one of the sweetest cover arts I'd ever seen in my life (at the time), there was a giant mech in space on a fucking jet looking super badass, and YOU WERE GOING TO USE THAT MECH TO TRASH SOME BAD GUYS!  Then the intro music?!  Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, and the game itself had a nice track or two of sweet music.  Probably the earliest memory of solid music to accompany a game, most games around that time on PC rarely had memorable scores because you were cranking out pretty rough noise out of what I believe was the motherboard speaker (the one that beeps when you turn on the computer, yeah, they tried to use that for sound in games for a little while).

The pros of the game came from the aesthetics and mood set by the game.  As a young lad who watched a lot of Robotech and Transformers you can see how I was very easily pulled in by the allure of this game.  The game itself didn't quite deliver the goods.  The idea of this game is you're a robot who can turn into (transform into) a jet and fly around a bunch of "underground" maze levels and try and make your way to the end of each level without running out of energy (16 levels in all).  Your energy or life bar is finite and everything drains it.  Getting hit, shooting baddies, using shields to make baddies hit less hard, all these things used your energy and you had to haul ass to get to the end of the level before it ran out.  Gravity has a peculiar roll, as a mech, you're pretty much hugging the ground, and you're obnoxiously tall, so you can't fit through narrow corridors.  The jet is smaller and you can fly and navigate smaller corridors, but it can't stop, you're in constant motion in jet mode, and running into a wall or ceiling changes you back to robot mode plummeting back to the ground (which in some cases is hazardous), so navigating around can be a bit of an unfamiliar undertaking, and does not compare with other side-scrollers or shooter games.  What was most frustrating about this game is that I was the only person in the entire world who seemed to be playing this game.  No Nintendo Power, no friends or kids in the neighborhood to bounce ideas off of, and as the oldest child, no capable older brother to beat tough levels or get past tough spots, and my dad was just as bad at this game as I was (maybe worse) so that didn't help much either.  Eventually the difficulty of the game, the fact that I had trouble grasping that the object of the game (energy preservation, not shooting everything all the time), and frustrating controls, all wore on my young patience until it ran out.

Now how did I remember this game or even recall the title?  Found it on the PlayStation Network.  After 25 years this game was re-released as Thexder Neo with updated graphics, cleaned up controls, tons more levels, and even a classic mode if you're craving a return to the distant past (to seek redemption in my case).

First thing I noticed playing it again, game was much easier than I remembered.  Controls were much cleaner (maybe years of gaming, maybe a PS3 controller was better than an old clunky keyboard, probably a combination of factors).  Having a background of a lifetime of video gaming gave me the clarity to feel the game out better and understand the concepts and so I found myself enjoying the game much more.   What sold the game though was that the charm and ambiance of the game was intact and it just flooded me with a wave of nostalgia.  The ironic part is I'm still having trouble beating it, the difficulty factor (even from a more experience gaming standpoint) is there in spades.  Now I'm older and frustrated with the difficulty of the game at level 8-10 instead of 1 or 2.  They added some multiplayer to it, which almost turns it into a racing game.

It's surreal that this game has withstood the test of time since it's been remade with most of the original concepts and fundamentals intact.  I guess I still like it because of the fact that in 1988 I was the only person who owned it and suffered its trials and in 2011 I feel the exact same way with the remake.

So that will conclude our first bloggosode of Video Game Theatre, I'm just going to start jumping around and picking random games, play them (or not), share my experiences, and maybe some fun anecdotes.  I love telling stories and I figure if I have fun writing it, maybe someone will enjoy reading it, and even if they don't, that's ok too.