Thursday, April 28, 2011

They Don't Make Them This Hard Anymore

I have a ton of NES games.  Also a love and admiration of that generation of games that goes way back.  But didn't actually own one until my senior year of high school (two console generations later).  I was the kid who made friends with other kids who had a Nintendo. Eventually I worked out a trade with a buddy of mine at the time to trade my Magic the Gathering card collection for his NES with about 20something games and a very nice collection of accessories, we're talking the 4 score, the advantage, the powerpad, a couple zappers, an absurd number of controllers a few regular and a few turbo pads, game genie, and everything short of the power glove (which is a piece of shit anyway). 

Now that I actually owned this fine machine and its various accessories and games, I set out to reconquer the past, games I struggled with, games I only got to play briefly, games that I loved and played a great deal, all finally within my grasp.  I grew up in a small town and game stores were not something I had access to until I got my driver's license and could drive "into town".  So I had access to a few game stores that sold NES games for like 5 bucks a pop or less.  Rarer games I could either find on Ebay (which was still relatively new) or get lucky at a few stores and find a deal on.  I played the shit out of that thing and enjoyed the hell out of it, beat all kinds of games, those were some of my best gaming years of my life, while other people were fucking around with what I thought (and still do think) were shitty N64, decent PSX, non-existant Dreamcast, and emerging crappy PS2 and Gamecube games, I was enjoying the classics, and even caught up on some good SNES games that had come and gone before I had a chance to play or even hear of them while they were in the mainstream retail market.  So that should give the rest of this some context.

I want to talk about a few games that stood out for two reasons.  One; they were super fucking hard.  Two; they were beatable and didn't have crippling flaws that accounted for their difficulty.  Very few people actually beat them, or I knew very few people who beat them (we'll say less than 5 people, that's probably accurate).  Anyway I'm going to highlight 5 particular titles, I was going to try for 10, but I only found 7 and the 5 I settled on were really easy to pick out of that 7.  So I'll do a count down of the 5 best hard games I ever played (and maybe even beat or know someone who beat them).  Also if the game is part of a series and maybe the sequels are more difficult I just went with the first game in that series (since difficult games with sequels tended to breed tough(er) sequels).

Number 5:  Ghosts and Goblins.  This game is super hard and not impossible.  Two hits and you're dead, but you have a variety of weapons, interesting game progression, good music and a lot of different stuff to keep you going.  Also infinite continues and you start off from either the beginning of the stage you died on, or the halfway point if you made it that far, so there was enough to keep you going so the difficulty factor didn't turn you away from the game.  The controls are good, there's not a lot to complain about, it's just hard.  Also in order to get the good ending you have to beat the whole game twice, and the second time around is noticeably harder.  I did manage to beat this game, but when I took a crack at it recently I found myself easily discouraged and giving up after about an hour.  I suppose when I beat it about 10 years ago I didn't have the distraction of a dozen easy newer games to play instead and a much lower overall difficulty expectation from my games, plus the bragging rights were enough drive to keep me going then, nowadays, it doesn't quite elevate my sense of worth the same as it used to, and the only person I have to brag to is my wife and she could probably case less.  *shrugs*  Onwards!

Strange cover art, typical of early Capcom games on the NES

 This may not seem like a big deal, but this is a serious "oh shit, oh shit, oh shit" moment.  This game is full of these, and most aren't even boss fights like this one.

Number 4:  Castlevania!  My buddy George introduced me to the Castlevania series and I was honestly disappointed that after all these years I had never touched a Castlevania game.  Now George and I had a lot more fun with Castlevania 3 at first because of the neat backup characters and the "choose your path" style that gave the game the illusion of being non-linear.  However, one magical weekend, my love for the first game was ignited.  Two good buddies of mine (Don and Brian) decided we needed to beat the original Castlevania because we didn't know anybody who had ever beat it and we needed that satisfaction.  After 2 days of playing about 8 hours each day, we emerged victorious.  Six grueling levels of some of the most difficult action/platforming you can imagine was all that stood between us and victory.  Don was the only one who could seem to kill the Grim Reaper (level 5 boss), and after the first day we literally gave up on beating Dracula after trying for several hours to beat him.  Day two we started again, fresh and determined.  Our familiarity with the game after day one gave us a profound edge on day two, Don of course beat the Grim Reaper again allowing us to get past that hurdle once more, and after almost SIX HOURS of fighting Count Dracula, I FINALLY BEAT HIM!  Which would have been more exciting for everyone had we not burned out pretty bad after playing it for so long.  So mission accomplished, we beat what was thought to be the unbeatable and moved on to our next conquest....

Konami kept their covers classy and relevant.

This may seem like a spoiler, but if you play this game with the intent of beating it, you will see this screen more than any other in the entire game.

Number 3:  Ninja Gaiden.  I remember playing this briefly as a kid and a friend and I never got past the second level, EVER.  So as far as I was concerned this game didn't exist past level 2.  After I got my NES in high school I think I got as far as level 4 before quitting that time, and that was with help.  So the weekend before or following Castlvania we decided that Ninja Gaiden was a game that needed to be beaten.  Don, Brian and myself went to work.  This one we spent 3 days on.  The first day we got to the last boss and quit, day two Brian beat the last boss, and day three Don beat the last boss.  I didn't beat the last boss but I think I got to the last phase once or twice and got close without actually beating him.  I was satisfied with my contribution up to that point where I didn't feel the need to really play through the game again so I could beat it myself, I got to see the end, which was totally sweet, and we all pretty much laid the ground work for playing through the game quite seamlessly each discovering new tricks how to get past certain areas, and figuring out which weapons and tactics worked against certain bosses and so-forth.  But as far as I know, Don, Brian, (and from his account) an old roommate were the only people I knew personally who had beaten the game.  I even watched a fairly reputable gaming reviewer give up on an attempt he had made to beat the game not too long ago, so I guess that just goes to show how significant the victory over this punishing game could be.  About the game itself, excellent controls, AWESOME music, sweet cut scenes that helped give the game some storyline substance, neat mood setting graphics for the time.  All this came together to make this a sweet game, it was just super fucking hard also.  This game was a huge tease too, the levels were split into sub-stages, if you died or even got a game over you only had to start at the beginning of whatever sub-stage you were on, when you got to the final boss, and died, you got sent ALL THE WAY BACK to the first sub-stage of the last level (out of three long ass sub-stages), so we got hella fucking good at blazing through those three stages after three days of playing that motherfucker.  So yeah, fuck, that was frustrating as all hell.

Awesome cover art, the ninja being the only thing you'll recognize in the actual game.  This would probably be more accurate for the second Ninja Turtles game on the NES because the first level actually takes place in a burning building, no burning buildings in Ninja Gaiden, not a single one. 

Fist level, you can stick to walls, jump back and forth between walls, and there is this fun trick where you can move up a wall by jumping out and back real quick, but I wasn't very good at it and Don and Brian made fun of me for that pretty much the whole time.

Awesome cut scenes, very cinematic, gave the game a lot of substance beneath an already excellent game, and the translations weren't that bad either.

 This is either the halfway point cut scene or the end cut scene, or maybe both, but cool nonetheless.

Number 2:  Kid Icarus.  This game is like Mario, Metroid, and Zelda all kind of had a baby and it was in the form of the hardest fucking platforming game of all time as far as I'm concerned.  I know one guy who has beaten this game, and he seriously told me that it was years in the making (as much as a decade or more of playing the fucking game before he beat it).  I think it has to do with a combination of slightly awkward (but not necessarily broken) controls and unpredictable game play changes that really make this game a toughie.  Sad part is IF you can make it to the final level, that level and the final boss are easy mode, but I personally don't have the patience to get past the second level (and that was after a solid 6 hours of play time in an afternoon at one point).  So maybe some people may have beaten this one, but I don't know anybody who could likely recreate that scenario today.  I do believe that it is a beatable game because I have credible accounts from folks that have cleared it (prior to YouTube or any number of ways to just see some crazed person or pre-programmed robot seamlessly cruise through the game), so it meets my criteria for this list for that reason.  My recent attempt at this game was brief and frustrating as expected.  By the time I reached (1-2) I was both mentally and emotionally exhausted and not tempted to move on in the least.


Nintendo brand Nintendo games actually gave you an idea of what your game was going to look like and what you're in for.  They fail to mention this game is super fucking hard though.

 Vertical platforming, this game teaches the lesson that perhaps it should be used in small doses, not half or more of your game :/

Number 1:  Burai Fighter.  So this is a shoot em up, and not very many people have heard of it or really give a crap about it, but it's number 1 on this list for a very good reason.  It's a good fucking game if you give it a chance, and it's hard as shit!  The controls in this game are awesome, solid music soundtrack, you have free range to move around the screen while it scrolls along either up down or sideways (pretty unique for a shoot em up at the time).  You're a guy in a spacesuit of some kind and you have one of 3 guns you can power up to try and fight off the swarms of crazy crap that's going to come at you from all directions, this is further complicated by the fact that you're dodging obstacles and maneuvering through increasingly complicated terrain.  The difficulty in this game comes from two factors, the first being that if you touch or get hit by anything you're dead, and the second is some of the most intense boss fights outside of Blaster Master that I've ever experienced.  Another thing that really ups the ante is that you can't experience the entire game unless you play on the highest difficulty.  Easy mode you play the first 6 stages, Normal is the first 8, and Hard mode allows you to actually play through all 10 stages.  Really gives you some incentive to try all three difficulties where most games wouldn't offer anything other than the added challenge.  I haven't had problems clearing easy mode on my own in the past, and I could probably beat Normal mode once in a great while if I had the patience, but Hard mode ups the ante and creates a pretty hectic shoot em up that I really can't seem to beat.  However, back in the day, my buddy's older brother who was like the gaming expert back then did in fact manage to beat the game on Hard and finally beat the game, but for him, it was literally countless hours and days spent over the course of years before he put this one to rest, and if I recall correctly it was the last game in his collection that he finally beat.  I gave this one a shot on easy mode and managed to get to stage 2 after quite a few attempts, however did not get past the stage two boss after about an hour of playing.

Sweet ass cover art, and of course like any gutsy difficult game, they dangle the last boss in front of you even though you'll never fucking get to him probably ever.  Surprisingly, everything pictured is actually in the game though, good show Taxan.

You can move anywhere on the screen and shoot in 8 directions, just don't touch or get hit by anything and you'll be cool, also the direction in which you scroll will shift at certain parts in every level.

 First boss, and the only boss picture I could find online... A testament to the difficulty of the game I suppose.  This guy moves around the screen pretty fast, those crazy arms swing around randomly, and he shoots little bullets at you, oh and you can only damage him by shooting out his three eyes which those arms block.  If your gun isn't powered up pretty good you're probably fucked.

For my generation, the NES came out when I was real young, and frankly NES games were typically much harder than my gaming abilities, luckily my buddy had an older brother in high school, and he was a gaming god as far as I was concerned.  He set the bar for what a good gamer should be for me for a long time.  He was the person that influenced a lot of my taste in old games, and who's gaming library and games I watched him play over the years had a strong influence over how my current NES and SNES collection shaped up over the years.  He even helped me beat some of my PC games that didn't have NES counterparts because he enjoyed the challenge and the change of pace from normal console games.  Our association was mutually beneficial because if I remember correctly he used the money saved up from babysitting my sister and I to buy his SNES on the day it was released to the public. 

So there you go, there's my top 5 really hard, but also really good, NES game list with some good old anecdotes thrown in for good measure.  I probably won't do many lists like this unless it will give me a chance to briefly cover several games all at once that have similar memories and experiences tied up in them.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Without Further Adeiu, My Favorite Game Ever

There's been a pretty solid gap between my previous entry and this one, and for a good reason, didn't want to write some half-hearted bullshit before I gave some love to my favorite game on my favorite game console.  However, I didn't want to just write a small piece on this game either after all the hours, all the times played through, all the secrets learned over the years, all the everything about this game that makes it special for me.  I already wrote about the Super Nintendo and just how much it means to me, and influenced my childhood and has given me nothing but good feelings towards it to this day.  The story of my favorite game is an unusual one, the game is Mega Man X. 

 This cover art raised plenty of questions about the game, luckily the game delivered much more than the box could ever hope to convey.

At the time it was something of an afterthought, I had gotten the SNES that X-mas and I had some X-mas cash to throw around, but I ran into a problem, GAMES ARE FUCKING EXPENSIVE!  Anything new or worthwhile was 70 bucks, and I probably didn't have more than about 30 or 40 bucks MAYBE and we were at Toys R Us (Gamestop didn't exist back then, and any gaming boutique was not likely a place my parents would ever take me).  Toys R Us or KB (may it rest in peace), were my best bet for getting games back then because my parents didn't mind stopping by either one (they were conveniently located).  Anyhow, so I got discouraged because my parents to my distress weren't going to give me one red cent to buy anything related to this technological monster they just gifted to me days earlier, so I had to figure out how I was going to spend this dough and get some cool shit without having to rely on mom and dad for anything more than maybe help with tax.  So I picked up some action figures or something along those lines and found myself with like 10-15 bucks leftover and that's when the game isle caught my eye again.  They had a few games for like 10 bucks, and one of those at the time was Mega Man X. 

I was a huge fan of the series on Nintendo, but the X really threw me off, was it "ten" or "ex"?  and why not just give it the next logical number in the sequence if it was related to the series in any way?  Also why is he white and look kinda different?  To top it all off I had no idea what was the story with this game, there were no ads for it, I hadn't seen it in any magazines at the time, I was in virgin territory, heading for uncharted seas, and at 10 bucks, I set sail without any clue just how fucking awesome it was going to be, how much time I would spend, how many years it would entertain me, and how it was the best purchase value to satisfaction ratio of any one item I have ever owned in my entire life.  (To clarify, 10 bucks has turned into almost 20 years of satisfaction, I still pick it up and play through it every couple of months to this day, nothing I have ever owned has come close to that ever by a long shot).

So now that I've given the back story as to how I acquired this wealth of entertainment, let's actually talk about the fucking game.  First off, cool fucking story right out of the manual (read that baby cover to cover on the drive home from the toy store that night).  One Hundred or so years after the events of the regular Mega Man series, an Archeologist/Robotics buff Dr.Cain stumbles upon the buried remains of Dr Light's robot lab (Mega Man's creator).  Using X (mega man), he tries to recreate Light's work in the form of Sigma, unfortunately Cain doesn't seem to have the foresight to program Sigma with Asimov's rules of robotics (Isack Asimov is a science fiction writer who's writings on robots are famous for the 3 rules of robotics, which are guidelines that would prevent robots from ever harming human beings or turning against them for any reason).  Mega Man embodies this to the point where he literally destroys any robots designed or "altered" to harm human beings in any way.  With Dr. Wily, the ultimate conflict for mega man is that in the end he can never actually harm Wily because he is a human and doing so would violate his most basic rules of operation, even though Wily is the source of any robots harming people to begin with.  Sigma "somehow" (you figure it out later) gets infected and that fundamental programming gets corrupted, and thus Sigma goes on a crusade to destroy humanity and make way for a future where robots to carry on in their place.  Mega Man X steps into action and resumes his duties as humankind's robotic defender with the help of mysterious robot newcomer Zero.  Only now you have a enemy that you can fight and destroy, it just turns out that he's obnoxiously difficult to be rid of permanently (as the following 7 games in the series will make painfully clear to you).

Srs BzNz

So I fire this game up, and they don't fuck around, the music is intense and awesome, the graphics are top notch, the level of detail in the sprites and background is amazing, the controls are rock solid, they even added a wall jump feature which gives it a much greater level of control over the character than in the original series on the NES.  So I get through the intro level, and right away the first boss you fight is an un-winnable battle with this badass motherfucker who goes by the name of Vile.  He messes your shit up, laughs in your face, completely dominates you, and reminds you that you're yesterday's trash compared to him, and at this point I have absolutely nothing to go by to believe otherwise, so now what?!  Enter fucking Zero, you hear this distant sound of a charging weapon followed by the blast that comes from off screen and blasts the arm off of the huge Mech-like thing that Vile just effortlessly pulverized you with, and here comes Zero, about a head taller than Mega Man but clearly a force to be reckoned with.  As he goes to charge his second shot, Vile gets the fuck out of there, hops into his enormous flying ship he came in on, and bounces before he can take another hit from that crazy firepower that Zero is packing.  With the enemy turned tail, you get the pep talk from Zero about how Vile is literally a war machine and in time you might become powerful enough to effectively fight him, however, Zero has your back (which at this point is very reassuring), and in the mean time you have a war to fight and you can't let this minor set back stop you if you're going to defeat Sigma.

 An approximate breakdown of events described above via pictures I found on the internet.


At this point I'm so pumped I can't even wait to get the ball rolling and smash through this game.  I'm already convinced this is the best damn game in the series and I can't believe it was as cheap as it was.  Anyway, there was so much awesome shit in this game it completely blew my mind, they took a great concept with Mega Man, and made it so much better.  All kinds of secrets (and super secrets, hadouken anyone?), hidden health add ons, energy tanks, and hidden armor upgrades courtesy of Dr. Light!  I was blown away by this game and every time I played it I discovered a new trick or a fun thing I hadn't realized before, or a different trick to beating a boss.  Over the years I got good enough to beat bosses with or without special weapons and in any particular order that suited my mood at the time (eight stages, each with a unique boss at the end, typically there was a logical order to follow so that when you got new weapons from downed bosses, you'd use those weapons to exploit the weakness of another boss and defeat him much easier than using your standard weapon).  It's a fun game to figure out, one that is challenging after playing it many times over again, but still offers enough variation that the replay value is (at least for me) exceptionally high, especially for a game of that genre.  I think anyone who has any love for older games of that era would be doing themselves a great disservice by not giving this game a serious chance.  Anyone who owns this game probably has a special place in their heart for it, and anyone who doesn't clearly doesn't know what they're missing out on.

So how does this game hold up after all these years, well I sat down for about half an hour and had to stop myself from playing through the entire game.  This game somehow has infinite potential to entertain me like no other thing on this planet.  I love every minute of the game from the intro to the very end of the credits after beating it.  I like playing it alone, I like playing it with other people, I love trading notes and stories with other people who have played it and share a similar love for the game, and I love playing with an audience because I enjoy showing off how years of playing this game has paid off.  I don't know if I've played this game more than any other in terms of raw hours put into the game, but as for games I've played from start to finish (that could be played from start to finish), I've definitely played through this game more times than any other by far. 

This game is probably the most under rated game of all time.  Never saw an advertisement, there was no hype for the game, not even any love from Capcom in the form of "hey if you like this popular game, then try this other game we made so we can stay mega rich and keep pumping out games", and yet they must have produced a ton of copies because I don't think anybody would have trouble finding a copy to this day for a reasonable price.  What kills me is the underground success of this game would cause Capcom to over-hype the following two sequels on the SNES and never distribute enough copies to meet the demand for them, and thus I never owned X2 or X3 until many years after their original release, and years after SNES games phased out of mainstream retail sales (ie, I had to drop a small fortune on ebay to obtain them *grumbles*).

 The hover bike was one of the worst features of this game, and it made the cover...

They learned from the hover bike mistake, got Zero on the cover to get you pumped, this would probably be the only game in the series that could almost potentially reach the greatness of the original, too bad they didn't produce enough to meet the massive demand for this game.

Ok, so there you have it, the saga of Jaymbz and the video game phenomenon known as Mega Man X.  I would love to hear any feedback from anybody who has played or owned this game because as much as I've played this game, everybody has a unique perspective or thing to try that I haven't considered before, and it's just another testament to the game's genius (well it's creators genius anyway).  Alright, getting on towards really late so I'm going to wrap this up by saying that I'll be a bit more adamant about getting this out at my original pace rather than lollygagger's pace I took to write this one.
"Bodies are for hookers and fat people."
-Bender

Monday, April 18, 2011

At Last! Video Game Independence! ...and the price tag that came with it

So how to do deal with a child who wants something that you don't want them to have?  You give them false hope for obtaining that thing.  For me, this came in the form of a wager that I made with my dad at a very young age.  I started getting graded report cards in second grade, and I was usually the consistent B/C student, so my dad made the wager that if I ever got straight A's, he'd buy me an NES (later we changed that to the SNES when it came out).  Now what happens when that impossible wager backfires in your face?  Do you squelch on the bet, or do you suck it up and pay up?  I got straight A's my very last report card in 4th grade.  You can sure as hell bet that I ran home and waited at the door for dad to get home so I could take him down to wherever these things were sold and buy one of these things.  Much to my dismay they gave me the run around, and I mean BAD.  I was shattered, and after my birthday came around and I didn't get anything then, you can bet I had gave up hope.

 There's a new sheriff in town and his name is Super Nintendo

Complicating this situation was a move and my placement in a school I hated and had no say in whether or not I attended there.  That with dad hitting the road for work all the time instead of coming home every night took it's toll on me.  My grades plummeted and on the rare occasion that I brought up my previous scholastic track record, I was told that maintaining good grades was needed to obtain my prize.  Further discouraged, and having a lot of trouble making new friends, I was in a bad way, enough so that my parents actually started taking me to a psychiatrist to figure it out. 

Enter Christmas of 1994, the move, having a rough year, no friends, and very little to look forward to, even at Christmas.  Then it happened, I got through most of my presents on Christmas morning, and my dad came out of nowhere with a pretty good sized present of fairly ordinary rectangular dimensions.  Couldn't be an action figure it was too heavy.  Usually nerf guns, super soakers, legos, or any number of things that piqued my interest at the time that could have filled these dimensions would have a predictable feel to them, this didn't, and it was solid.  I had no clue what was about to happen to me.  I looked up kind of confused and they encouraged me to unveil this mysterious gift.  I opened it and promptly went into a combination of shock, ecstasy, bewilderment, and unhinged excitement at what I saw.  It was the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (with tw games AND two controllers.  I completely freaked, I ran laps, I attempted all sorts of crazed acrobatics, I hugged everybody, I shouted to the heavens, I made a rare fool out of myself.  The other cool thing was my parents gave me the old tv to hook it up in my room and so my journey to gaming independence was underway.

 If my parents had got me on camera I would've put the N64 kid to shame.

Ironically enough was in the following months, my grades improved, I participated in more social activities (I joined a street hockey league and met friends that I still have to this day), obviously I made more friends in school and out of school and had quite the profound turnaround.  Obviously this can't be all attributed to getting an SNES, but the hours I spent on it helped me sort out my frustrations, I got along with my family better, I was generally in a better mood after playing for a while, I had things to talk about besides hating school and life in general, it gave me a platform in which to center myself.  I use that and other hobbies similarly to this day when I'm stressed or upset and need help getting through rough patches in my life.


Toys R Us deal ftw!  Not only did I get the standard Super Mario World with my SNES, but I also got Super Mario All Stars.


Sometimes I wonder why I don't appreciate games like I used to, and when I looked back, I only have like maybe ten games by the time SNES stuff phased out of conventional retail sales.  This was because my parents would not buy games for me, absolutely refused, not even as gifts, I was the sole financier of any and all games I ever owned on the SNES (except Killer Instinct, my grandpa got that one for me even though I asked my parents for it, lol).  This meant that those games got played the fuck out of because I didn't have much in the way of options, it also meant that I got a new game about once every six months with whatever birthday or xmas money I could throw together.  Sometimes it meant I could buy a shiny new awesome game (upwards of 70 bucks), sometimes it meant hitting up the old Toys R Us ten buck specials, sometimes I could get like a greatest hits title (30 bucks).  I would pick up a Nintendo Power here and there and find a game, obsess over it to the point of ridiculousness for months.  I would imagine myself playing it, I would read the articles about it OVER AND OVER and any reviews, anything that would ease the tension until the day that I could go down and buy it.  What this did was make sure I made informed decisions on games that I wanted, and I made sure they were games that I could play the shit out of, and I always did.

 Eight of the Original Nine, missing is F-Zero because I fucking hated that game and got rid of it, the handwriting on the two Mario games is genuine 10 year old Jaymbz handwriting.

 My first three games got the honorary "Property of James" sticker because I intended to keep them FOREVER, and indeed still do.

So how is she holding up today you might ask?  Doing pretty good, other than some odd discoloration from years of use and exposure to the sun and whatever other factors I'm not accounting for, she runs like a champ and still works as well as the day I got it.  Both controllers work just fine, the AV cables were an upgrade, I use to have to use that funky cable adapter back in the day, but after I replaced my old tv in high school I tossed it in favor of the cleaner picture that AV cables offered.   I only recently boxed it up in favor of the "retro duo" a new snazzy small number that plays NES and SNES games and uses SNES controller ports.  I figure if I want to be able to bust out the old SNES in the future and fire it up for funsies to show off or whatever I better start babying it now before it does get too worn out.

Lots of memories, lots of great times, many many hours of gaming, she's played the greats, the ok's, and even the occasional stinker rented from the video store.

Because this is getting pretty wordy I'm going to hold off and write up a separate bit on any particular game later and give it my full undivided attention.  I just wanted to write about the SNES particularly because of what it represents to me as a gamer and a how much the hours of play time over the years has given me great joy and peace at times when I had neither.  Anyway, I need to dig through the old SNES collection and decide which of these games I'm going to write about, I could and may very well eventually write about all of them, but I need to find a good launching point.  Anyway, check back in later (if it's not up by the time you read this one too), and find out what I decided on.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Brilliance, Even By Today's Standards

Ok, so I'm finally going to talk about an NES game, but first let me explain my long and unusual affair with the NES.  As noted in a prior entry my father was something of a computer guru and his distaste for console systems because I suppose they were shitty PC's in their previous generations.  I think my dad assumed that anything the Nintendo could do, his PC would always be able to do better, games being no exception.  My mother of course seemed to think that if I had a Nintendo I'd never leave the house and I'd lose touch with reality or something (I did have a tendency to get frustrated and/or moody when I played video games).  She was probably right, but her logic wasn't exactly anything other than contradictory since she typically planted me in front of the TV most of the time, or go outside where I would probably end up at a friends house playing Nintendo.  Also I couldn't play computer games unless dad was around for the longest time, and I can tell you that I would get many more times frustrated and moody playing shitty dysfunctional old PC games than I ever did playing NES games at a friend or baby sitter's house.  So it was no wonder that most of my friends had a Nintendo when I was younger, and I had a lot of friends so I had my fair share of time with lots of different games.  So you'd think the first game I'd talk about would be Super Mario, and you'd be wrong, the first time I played that shit, I was sitting in a house full of screaming kids (some kind of day care), and everybody had to take turns and nobody was any better than anyone else (which is to say we all sucked shit at playing it), and it wasn't until years later when I got some time alone with that game that I came to appreciate, still can't beat it though.

This game I'm about to talk about is special to me, it captured my imagination, it sang to me in ways I didn't know a game could, and entertained me to no end. Also quite a few of my friends owned it so I got plenty of opportunities to try it out.  My fascination and adoration of this game probably far exceeds that of most people.  So without further adieu I'm going to talk about Blaster Master for a while.



A few features of these game really set it apart from many titles in the NES catalog.  Not to say that there aren't some games that are similar, Guardian Legend comes to mind, even Metroid to a small degree, I'm sure there are others that I'm missing.  However there are a few things about this game that for me changed what platforming/adventure games were about.  The first is it's brilliant quasi non-linear progression.  Having to go back to the very beginning of the game after beating the 3rd level and literally scaling the side of what otherwise would be an impossibly huge obstacle to get to the 4th level and thus allowing you to continue through the game completely turned my world upside down.  I was 5 or 6 when I first saw this game, and with all the shmups, and action adventure games out there at the time I was used to two things, purely linear progression, or linear progression that let you skip levels on the way, and then there was Metroid, but I hated Metroid at that age because it was too fucking hard (and indeed still pretty much is) and I got lost, but Blaster Master clearly outlined it's levels and they were numbered so you knew that you had to progress somehow, but you weren't going to get to level 4 from level 3? What madness is this?!  Another cool feature is the fact that you're pretty much playing two completely different games.  Tank game, and then little guy assaulting the fortress game.  Both of which are immensely entertaining and intertwined.  You gotta use the tank to get from place to place, but you gotta use the little guy to get special weapons for the tank, and fuck up bosses to get upgrades for your tank so you can get further in the game.  I can't think of another game had anything near as cool in terms of features in that particular genre at the time.

 I guess we all know how the pink power ranger spent her free time.

I also want to take the time to discuss the fact that this game is fucking beautiful and has one of the BEST soundtracks any NES game had to offer.  The graphics, sounds, even the enemy behavior was different from one level to the next, even recycled bad guys (what few they recycled) had different ways they would behave in different environments.  The level design is some of the best I can recall ever and probably still easily would make my top 5 if it came down to it.  The game gave you a lot of freedom to move around (more so as you get more upgrades for your tank), but not so much that you'd get lost for hours trying to figure out where to go.

I think I had savings bonds that matured before I ever got to this boss.


I'm not going to lie, this game is pretty fucking tough, not to the point where it's absurd, but it's not easy and it will occupy the better part of a long afternoon if you get serious about beating it.  There's no save feature and you only have 3 continues and 3 lives within each continue to beat the game otherwise it's game over and you have to start over. This game isn't impossible to beat without game genie like say.... the first Ninja Turtles game, but an infinite continues code might make progression through the game a lot more accessible to people who haven't played through it a bunch or had a knack for being good at games in general.  You're going to fucking die, I guarantee it, and unless you're good, you're probably going to hit the game over screen (the opening clip as the game starts) a few times before you make any significant progress through the game (which may mean losing hours of progress if you got really far).  So it's frustrating in that regard because you have to beat the game in one sitting (no save points), and it's not a terribly short game so you have to really pump yourself up to give this a serious play through.  Growing up, nobody I knew beat this game, even my buddy's older brother who was in high school and could be every game ever that you put in front of him.  He got to the last boss and got the bit fat game over slap to the face after dying one too many times.  Oh, another thing, I like how these assholes put the final boss on the cover of the game knowing you probably won't actually see him in the game more than maybe 2 or 3 times in your entire lifetime.  For some guys I grew up with, probably never at all.  One of my buddies and I couldn't get past level 2 EVER.  So when I saw somebody get past that (using a method I'll elaborate on in just a moment), I was already blown away.  The game had a fun flaw where 4 of the bosses you could hit them once with a grenade (required a turbo controller to pull off easily), hit the pause button while they were hit, and it would recount the hit over and over again so that after about a minute of pausing, when you un-paused, said boss was dead.  Quite handy especially since the boss fights in this game were FUCKING BRUTAL.  Taking 4 fights out of the equation really helped, although if someone wants to come forward and tell me that they beat the game and all the bosses without that glitch you win the internetz forever my friend (who does not exist in my world).  Also without a turbo controller (The NES Advantage or that awesome one that had the two buttons below the regular A and B for Turbo A and B) this game is exceptionally difficult.  I managed to beat this game in high school, I sat down with it for about a week, played through to the end with Game Genie (just using infinite lives or continues so I wouldn't get so frustrated I'd break the game).  Eventually I got good enough where I beat the game without game genie entirely but I only did it once and it is not a feat I've been able to recreate to this day.  Unfortunately this led to me burning out on the game really badly and shelving it for years.  I occasionally pop it in and play for like an hour or so until I get frustrated and quit (usually around level 2 or 3, but sometimes as far as 5).  Five is the make or break level for me, the boss is really tough and takes FOREVER to kill, bad enough where my hands will cramp up and I'll have to pause and come back to it after a few tries.  Once he goes down, usually the rest of the game is cake until the last boss.

 I have to dodge fucking bubbles for like 10 years before I can get one shot in...

So you'd think a game as good as this would have a slew of successful clones and sequels, well you'd be dead fucking wrong.  Every sequel has either been complete uninspired crap, or failed to utilize any of the features that made the original such a sensational work of art.  Only very recently did they create a Blaster Master game that followed the formula for success that the original had, it's called Blaster Master Reloaded (or something like that), it's only available for download on Wii Ware.  I highly recommend it, it captures the essence of the original quite well and makes a few much needed improvements (save points, better and more upgrades to not only the tank but the little guy too).  Also has the fun non-linear level design that made the first one so unique to begin with, so good stuff all around.  Only took the fuckers 20 years *sigh*...

Painful, Just don't do it, I promise you'll thank me.


So I fired up the original Blaster Master tonight and took a run at it.  I got to the second boss, but my NES Advantage is fucked up (buttons are sticking *frown*) and I don't have any alternatives at my disposal, so I had to use a regular controller and it was fail fase city.  I couldn't do the cheat, and I didn't have the mad skills to beat him without it tonight, so it was curtains for me and probably for the best otherwise I might still be playing it right now...  It didn't fail me though, the music was as timeless and epic as ever, and it looked just as cool as the first time I ever set eyes on it.  Good show Sunsoft (if you're still around), you made a fine game that will go down in the history books (or at least in the fond memories of this old gamer).

 OH FUCK, OH FUCK, OH FUCK, WHERE'S MY TURBO PAD?!

So there you have it, that's my first of many NES titles I'll be writing about, but for now, I'm going to wrap this up and carry on with my evening.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Weekends at the Arcade

A weakness in my parents armor when it came to entertainment was the arcade, here was a place that my entire family could go and enjoy themselves for the better part of an afternoon and not have to worry about bringing a bunch of junk back home.  So probably from about the time I was in 3rd grade up through Junior High school I want to say about once a month we'd make our way to the local arcade establishment and just have a great time.  I would try my hand at whatever sweet beat em up or fighting games were new or familiar, and my dad took a liking to some of the stranger "concept" stuff that wasn't too ridiculous.  My mother was a huge Centipede and Gauntlet fanatic, and my sister for the most part stuck to ski ball, ticket games, and dabbled in stuff like House of the Dead and Nighstalkers because she thought they were cool, and lets face it they were pretty cool (also I probably dragged her over to play some other fighting games because I was tired of getting my ass kicked by strangers, she was far too good of a sport).  So it was a pleasant outing, everybody was happy and it would help ease a long stressful week of work or school.  On to my point.



My dad and I rarely saw eye to eye on what "good" games were and so very rarely did a game come around that we could enjoy together that satisfied my need for something with some tacky violence and his need for something crazy and unique (that presumably pushed the technological envelope).  There were a few over the years but the one I remember best was Virtual On.  A fighting game on a 3 dimensional battlefield where two large Mech-Like robots go toe to toe blasting each other to bits, eight unique robots to choose from.  What was neat about this game wasn't so much that it was eye candy or had marvelous easily accessible controls.  It was probably the cool ass cabinet it came in, and the fact that it was probably the only game like it at the time that was any good and probably the only good game of it's kind for quite a while.  The cabinet had two seats with some kind of polarized glass or mirror between the two people so you couldn't see the other person's screen, and you used twin joysticks to pilot your character and fire the weapons and whatnot.  I thought it had an enclosed cockpit for each person (and it might have which made it that much cooler), but I'm not finding any examples of that in any of the pictures I've found.  The controls were kind of a bitch to get used to, and to this day I think part of that had to do with just the fact that they were kind of a work in progress to being with.  It wasn't cheap either, I want to say that it was like 75 cents to play it, so two people who wanted to go head to head had to drop a good buck fifty to satisfy their need for competition (a small fortune back then).  This did not seem to phase my dad however, once or twice at some point during our visit he'd drag me over there and we'd dump a good 5 bucks into that machine vying for robot fighting skill supremacy.  I don't honestly remember if either of us was any better than the other, I suppose we were probably about even or it didn't matter because neither of us was terribly competitive or smug enough to rub any obvious victory or string of victories in the others face.  It was just fun, and the alternative (playing the CPU) was miserable because they pretty much kicked the shit out of you after the second or third opponent you faced. 




So the question is have I had a chance to play this game recently?  YES, in a beautifully ported over version on the Sega Saturn.  Granted the ambiance of the "driver's seat", twin joysticks, and the screen partition is replaced with your living room, two Sega Saturn controllers (which admittedly offer a much more ironed out control scheme), and split screen view of the action in multiplayer (you can choose horizontal or vertical split screen, something I lot of future games should have taken a hint from).  The sounds and graphics are very much intact, and it's a bit more friendly in terms of single player as well (you can adjust the difficulty).  The Saturn was dirt cheap, like 40 bucks, and the fucking thing was sealed in the box it came in (even though that box was in sad shape via 2007 when I got it, lol).  The games for that thing are a bloody fortune so don't get too excited about picking one of these up.  Also finding decent controllers can be a bit of a chore as well.  There's a PC port for this monster as well that was released probably around the same time the Saturn version came out, and unless you want an exercise in frustration and failure, I would steer clear of it at all costs (no matter how low they may be).




When I asked my dad if he wanted to take it for a spin for old time sake (on the Saturn), he kind of gave me a sideways glance and told me he'd have to pass.  I guess a more genuine arcade experience would've been needed to get him back in the driver's seat for another round.

That's all for today, I'm going to see how far I can get in the arcade mode (not far by my estimate), and then get on with my day.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

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.

My Goal for This Blog

I'm a product of the 1980's and as video gaming goes, my fascination began at an early age.  I've always enjoyed arcades, the old console games, and pc games.  What I hope to accomplish with this blog is to reminisce on the finer games of the past and present, the games that have been a source of great joy and entertainment in the roughly two decades I've been video gaming as a hobby.  I'm hoping to dust off my severely neglected video game collection, talk about things that I remember about a particular title and discuss that game's finer points if it has any.  Certain genres may get a lot more attention than others, but this is a personal reflection so my own tastes and biases will eventually start to show through.

My inspiration for this comes from a book I read which basically detailed a large list of "must play" video games.  After flipping through it and occasionally reading some of the descriptions of the games, it has occurred to me that a lot of my personal favorites were not present and a lot of games I could care less about seemed to make the cut.  It also raised the question as to whether or not any of the people writing about any of these games had actually played it, or if they were just haphazardly throwing together other people's opinions and reviews.  So this is sort of a tribute to the games as I remember them, and I'll give them a good play through to see if they still can capture both my attention and admiration like they once did.  I'm most likely going to stick to games I own because if I don't own it, chances are there's a good reason for that (tight budget or lack of interest)

I'm debating tossing in the occasional commentary on any contemporary games as I have quite a few sitting around not being played and perhaps writing about them will give me the motivation to try them out.

Lastly, I enjoy playing video games with other people regardless of whether or not the game requires multiple participants, so any feedback from them will most likely be noted if I play a game with another person.

I look forward to seeing how this turns out.  It's late so I'm going to turn in, but tomorrow I'll get started with a classic PC game from the late 80's that has gotten a recent overhaul on the PSN.