Video Game Week continues!
You may have caught it earlier today if you follow me on Twitter, but today's post is all about the fond memories I have of stumbling on to the NES port of Maniac Mansion.
Being born in the early 80s and raised in a small town with very patient and kind parents, I was afforded an NES at an early age, though with little to no context to the world of video games. Sure, years down the line I would delve head on into the world of Nintendo Power and kindle the flame for my present-day pseudo-journalism, but at the time all I had for guidance in the world of video games was A - my older brother B - the playground and the miscreants therein and C - whatever was on the shelf at the local game rental place. I was raised on Mario, Excitebike and Ninja Turtles. The Nintendo catalog was fairly sparse. Even at my young age, though, I displayed a predilection for B-movies and the bizarre, macabre world of 1950s throwbacks. So imagine wonderment extremely piqued curiosity when I saw this cover art on the shelf at the local game-rental shack:
Thankfully, Maniac Mansion has seen enduring popular acclaim through the last 20 (20!!!) years. There have been numerous ports and remakes over the years, ensuring that as long as there is an audience, it remains possible and enjoyable to play Maniac Mansion just one more time. Maniac Mansion Deluxe is the reigning champ, being both excellent and free, so please - if you ever played it and just want to try it again, never heard of it and missed out on the history of it or just want to see where modern gaming came from, check it out. It really does hold up as a great game in the most essential way. I'll see you tomorrow.
Evening!
...and now to scare off the audience...
It's officially Video Game Week!
I mentioned in one of my first posts back from vacation that I would be doing more theme weeks and fleshing out my concepts to a fuller degree. This will serve as the first of such endeavors. So strap in and get ready to be subjected to my thoughts on old, forgotten and underrated Games I Have Loved. First up - Rare's momentum-killing Grabbed By The Ghoulies!
I say this, of course, with an affectionate disdain that any chagrined gamer can attest to wearing. The game is known, in some circles, as being one of the first major missteps by a company whose track record was otherwise legendary. Rare, the British game studio behind the deservedly loved Donkey Kong Country, Goldeneye, Killer Instinct and Banjo Kazooie, had been acquired by Microsoft in a rather controversial move. The first IP they released in the wake of the Microsoft acquisition was the curious, distinctly styled Grabbed By The Ghoulies. Until this point that company had maintained a solid string of critical and commercial successes. Here, though, was their first stumble. As a matter of course, the game became an exclusive Xbox title, released in 2003 to little fanfare. It lives on in infamy with few devoted fans. I humbly count myself among their numbers. But I'll get to that in a minute. First, a little background.
Just don't tell anyone.
Friday, kids. Good gawd.
Took long enough to get here. It's quickly become patio weather here in MPLS and I've even seen more than a share of kids rocking the shorts already, despite the fact it's only 60 at the moment. Considering how cold out it was just 10 days ago, though, I'll allow it. Myself, I can never wear shorts. Just don't care for them, plain and simple. I know that sounds nuts. But that's me, not you. You should enjoy short pants all you want. You should also enjoy your Friday night. If, like me, you're still shaking off the grip of a nasty little virus, you might not be out and tearing it up tonight. That's just fine, I dig. To improve your Friday night entertainment options take a look at this collection of posts I wrote about online content. I put online content in your online content so your online content will...never mind. Just peruse at your leisure.
Webcomics galore - A series of absurd and hysterical webcomics, all highly respected.
Nerdist - The best podcast also has a fantastic site now! Go and see!
Gamespite - A repository for retro/2D gaming with a great community to boot.
The Ricky Gervais Show - Also available in podcast form. Witness the insight of Karl Pilkington.
WTF With Marc Maron - An amazing series of interviews with the best, most notorious comedians alive today.
Nostalgia Critic - Tearing apart the best and worst of your childhood entertainment
Think Geek - Coolest shop I've been on.
I think between these posts you should be able to find something funny or insightful to help you relax and unwind this weekend. Take a look and enjoy coasting into Saturday.
I'm somewhere over the plains right now, hurtling along in a metal tube. Reminded of Louis C.K.'s bit about not being sufficiently amused by modern tech, I though I'd start poking around and maybe sneak in a post.
So where to start? Like any sane person about to embark on a trip through the airline system, I indulged in some preflight cocktails, so forgive my scattered musings.
Trapped on a plane and left to my own devices, i typically turn to a book. This flight made me fidgety, though, and I couldn't concentrate. Looking for a diversion I grabbed my trusty, well worn nintendo DS, a pleasant little distraction I only pulled out when bored or on a trip. While it's definitely been a worthwhile investment I occasionally forget all about it, only realizing it's there after buying tickets and packing a carry on bag. I guess I almost grab it out of habit. As a result the games I have are only ones I've really felt compelled to get - there's little fluff to my meager collection. Among these choice games are some of the more notable/requisite title for the system. GTA, Mario 64DS, Chrono Trigger (an excellent expanded remake, btw). The superstar among the bunch though?
Scribblenauts.
This game, made by the geniuses at 5th Cell, is both simple and deep. Your goal is just "get the starite" but doing so involves a task, anything from rescuing a princess to opening a traffic jam. How you go about doing that is the real trick of the game. Sporting a dictionary of over 20,000 words, you merely write an object and it appears. It's amazingly detailed, too. You want a boat? What kind? Yacht, schooner, dingy, hovercraft, raft, jet ski. They're all in there. Need something for self defense? Swords, guns, military equipment, ufos. You can create a black hole and suck up effecting on the screen just for the hell of it. Have to get to sunken treasure? Submarine! Shark in the way? Cthulu! Here's fun - summon a zombie and watch him infect any other people around. Cows run from ufos, bakers love pies, ninjas fight robots, vampires fight werewolves. It's a game that seems to have anticipated your every move. Even Memes from the web are in the list - long cat, philosoraptor, it's there.
Plane air is making me groggy, kinda sky drunk, not gonna keep pushing this. Timing is everything, so I'm wrapping here for now. Maybe more later.
All right, readers.
Another day, another tale of lost and found, memories just barely flashing on the edge of my subconcious.
As a kid in the Midwest, I spent my share of time in arcades and Circus Pizzas. Lots of great times to be had, playing games with friends and eating the horribly greasy and bland pizza that, for reasons unbekownst to me, was always cut into squares. To this day I hold a deep love and appreciation for the game, the glory, that is Skeeball. There is no activity like it, whatsoever. There's something unique yet elusive about it, something in the tactile sensation of rolling the wooden balls up the ramp. The unmatchable satisfaction for getting the bulls eye in the center. When I happen on a game as a grown man I can't resist the compulsion to indulge, no matter the amount of sore knees and shoulders afterword. No one said getting older is easy, after all. Cocktails are the difference, I find. What was whimsy as a kid is replaced by light inebriation and arrested development as someone in their late twenties. Alas, my love for Skeeball is not why I write this.
No, my friends.
Today's post is of another mystery solved! Like my post on Depresso, it's a tale of the internet leading me to what I had lost and forgotten.
Read on!
For years I had hazy memories of a game that I was enthralled with, yet whose name escaped me. My friend Scott and I would plunk down our quarters, sit in a cockpit, and steer a hover-craft type vehicle through tunnels and futuristic city-scapes, blasting aliens and hurtling forward with unstoppable momentum. It was a blast! The graphics I could recall were, at the time, mind blowing. Sure, there were plenty of other great games - Street Fighter II, the excellent Simpsons arcade game, the bizarre Play Choice 10 cabinets and even the legendary 6-player X-Men cabinets. Of course, my beloved Skeeball. None of these, however, held the same feel, the same je ne sais quois, that this strange, frenetic After Burner clone held. Looking back now, I realize it was de riguer for the time - mode 7 scaling, sleek Blade Runner-style cityscapes. The music was interesting too, as I recall.
Time passed, attention wandered. I discovered girls. I started playing music. Basically my life moved on from the arcades right before the arcades started to die out, anyway, so the timing was congruent with my forgetting the game. Years later, though, it came back to me. I don't even know why. It may have been a trip to Gameworks in Minneapolis. It may have been something I saw while surfing the web instead of writing a paper in college. Whatever it was, the memories started to come back, if only slightly. I had just the vaguest memories of playing the game, whatever it was. Gripping the joystick, feeling like I was holding on for dear life as I dodged attacks and steered through canals and tunnels. Laden with nostalgia, I wanted to play it again, maybe just to see if it held up, or maybe just to relive my childhood in the smallest, silliest way. But there was a problem.
I couldn't for the life of me remember the title.
All I knew were some of the vaguest details - the type of game, what it looked and felt like. I couldn't even nail down the year. How old was I? Was it 1991? 92? 94? No idea. So, completely blind on the web, I started to look, casually at first. It was one of those things I would pick up sporadically - twenty minutes here or there on Google or a vintage gaming site. I was hindered by my lack of specifics. At one point I stumbled onto the sprawling Arcade Game Museum and their wonderfully refinable search engine. Still, nothing came up that was right. Things were close, but nothing hit it on the head.
Toward the end of a work day I mentioned it to a coworker. It was slowly growing an bothering me. The more I searched the more I grew frustrated. I just wanted to know what it was at this point. I knew it existed, it had to have a title. He mused along with me, saying "So it was like some tunnel-racing thing?" It dawned on me to just try putting some descriptors like that into the search bar. What came up was closer than ever - a similar if less refined game called S.T.U.N. Runner. Indeed it was a tunnel racer, as the genre was known. So, I had a genre to work with. I kept poking away, bit by bit, patience increasing with every refinement of the terms.
Then I saw it.
A screenshot from the game. It was a eureka moment in the nerdiest way. Eagerly, I clicked on the link and lo and behold - the game. Released by Taito of Japan, it was called Night Striker. No wonder I couldn't recall it - the title was so generic it might as well have not had one. But there it was! In a rush it all came back - hunching over in the cabinet, yelling at the screen and elbowing my friend Scott as he grabbed the controls for his turn. The sounds of the arcade, the noise of other games in the background, feeling like you're the baddest kid in the world when you're nine years old. Nostalgia is a strange thing.
I may or may not have found a legal way to experience playing the game again, but suffice it to say I was able to satisfy the beast of childhood memories with a computer program and some ridiculous YouTube videos. It's pretty cheesy and dated, but take a look - seeing this awesomely old school game in action just makes me feel like a kid in the best way. To me it was like finding your old action figures and remembering the good times you had as a kid. It's another mystery I've been able to solve in my adult life, thanks once again to the depths of the web. Hell or high water, it's out there for finding, provided you know where to look. Happy hunting, kids.
Happy snowstorm, everyone! I am beginning to think I should consider a move to Alaska, as I seem to be the only person I know who genuinely gets excited by blizzards. In the interest of fighting community-wide cabin fever and the cooped-up-crazies I want to share a treasure trove of entertainment with you.
I speak of Gamespite, a blog I follow devotedly yet of which I have never formally become a member. Bear in mind, though, my reluctance is based only on my personal reticence at being a 'joiner', or a fear of being rejected. I probably sound more neurotic and weird than I intend to here, but I digress. It's thoroughly awesome and you should check it out.
Obvious personal nerdery aside, I love the site for both its content and tone. I first became acquainted with it from listening to the (now sadly defunct) Retronauts podcast from 1UP.com/. The host for the show, Jeremy Parish, has been maintaining the Gamespite domain for the last decade, on and off, as a place to write and host honest, heartfelt critiques about games both new and old. It certainly doesn't need an endorsement from me to keep it's momentum rolling; it's a thriving community that chugs along, creating some of the most interesting breakdowns on video games and culture I've read anywhere. Honestly, the driving factor behind my writing this article evangelizing the site is simply that I think Gamespite deserves the accolade and attention.
The site has become a repository for insightful and detailed articles on everything from psychological profiles on the background players in Nintendo games, to a forum full of some of the most intelligent, kind, and above all witty members, on the internet. Additionally there is the fantastic 'Let's Play!' section, where you can vicariously experience a game, either to relive it or experience it for the first time, most often with incredibly funny commentary that makes the experience akin to a modern MST3K. All of this and more, gathered and maintained by the persistent and prolific Parish.
While Parish has made no bones about his own passions, among them Klonoa and Mega Man Legends, he has been a well-rounded editor and publishes a broad cross section of the world of electronic gaming. The lion's share of the posts come from Parish himself, with contributor's columns being collected into themed issues he's dubbed Gamespite Quarterly, available for purchase in both soft and hardcover. Themes for issues go in suites, such as one for Heroes and another for Villains. The varying authors show their love for the overlooked and unsung, writing on sidekicks and bitplayers that they hold dear to their hearts. Other times its heavy, analytical critiques on the nature of choice in the medium, like Bioshock or Maniac Mansion. If all of this sounds way to intricately involved in the culture, try looking for something as familiar and famous as Mario and the impact its had on society.
What I find to be most enjoyable about the collective writings as a whole is the tone of the work - it's approached with both a reverence and light-hearted sense of humor, with little of the typical snark endemic of video game communities. Of course, this is not to say there is a dearth of knowing winks and elbows in the ribs, but the mood is one of appreciation and contemplative study that shows a genuine love of the subject matter. Take, for example, this massive list of articles, freely available for perusing.
If it seems like I'm rambling on in a disjointed matter, it's probably an accurate assessment,. It's most likely due to the over abundance of material that's been gathering over the years. For my non-gaming brethren it may seem like a shot in the dark into a niche community, but to a large part of the internet it's a well known haven, a group of friends and family that just seem to get each other. It's a place for kindred spirits to find people to play online with (Who Don't Suck, according to the thread title, in an inspired stroke of social networking) or to share their appreciation for heavy metal. It's a massive community that just exudes positivity.
Check Gamespite out, and if you have any interest in ye olden days of gaming, the Retronauts podcast is still available at the site linked above as well as iTunes. Take a look and see what you find.
I'm taking a gamble here and assuming I can fit in an entire entry in the usual style on a Friday evening. Maybe I'm too optimistic for my own productivity, or maybe I just think I can fit it in before my friends in the excellent hip hop duo Mnemosyne hit the stage tonight. Either way, I'm diving in head first.
I've previously written about my love for the music of Akira Yamaoka. Today I wanted to write a bit about how I became familiar with his work. The method in question is one of my favorite things of all time, but one that I am always a bit hesitant to really throw myself behind in a public spectrum due to the off putting nature of it. The love I speak of is Silent Hill 2. I realize how silly it sounds to say its the sequel that does it for me, but the fact that this game is the second entry in what would become a long running franchise is almost irrelevant due to its stand-alone nature.
But I digress.
Let me start over.
Silent Hill was a sleeper hit on the Playstation, released in the late 90s. There's not a great deal that you need to know about it for this article except : 1) its a psychological horror-based videogame 2) the distinct visual style is critical to the appeal and essence of the game 3) it is set in a town called Silent Hill, in which there is something very...wrong. Really, that is all one would need to know to be able to jump into SH2 and not feel like you were missing a crucial part of the story; the designers and directors did a fantastic job for creating a unique and independently strong game related only in setting and tone. That the game is rooted in psychological horror is also integral - its purpose is to disturb instead of scare, to unnerve rather than make you jump.
The protagonist of the game, James Sunderland, receives a letter in the mail from his wife Mary that says she is waiting for him in Silent Hill, in their "special place". Two problems lie within his receiving this letter - he can't recall what specifically that place would be and, most importantly, his wife is deceased. "Right," you may say with incredulity, "So what's the trick, she faked him out, or its a trap or something?" Very genre savvy of you, but no, it is no spoiler to say she is dead. No more. Corporeal yet unliving. It is the first indication that something is very wrong in the game, either with the town or perhaps our protagonist. What follows is a disturbing adventure into the depths of a man's psyche, searching frantically for a past that eludes him at every turn.
The game was released for the Playstation 2 and Xbox in September of 2001 and stood as a benchmark for many years for how to tell a story and create a rich, motivated character for players to control. (The fact that I dove headlong into the game after the terrorist attacks is the subject for an entirely different post altogether.) To this day, its legacy is one of high acclaim and a shining example of how to tell a tale of interactive fiction. I find myself thinking and describing it not really under the term of 'videogame' in my mind but as a movie you have an element of control over. It's not a free-roaming piece of sandbox city, a la Grand Theft Auto but a linear tale of curiosity and morbidity that the player guides James through. What allows for such a bizarre story to be told, and what continues over from the original game, is the atmosphere, both literally and figuratively.
Allow me to veer off the intended path for a moment to explain something technical.
The hardware for the original Playstation, though impressive for the time, was not without its limitations. In order to render large, open areas intended for exploration the designers had to limit what would be rendered and presented on screen. Basically it boiled down to not being able to create as full and detailed world as possible without some restrictions on graphical quality. The design team for Silent Hill, realizing that their game would put a heavy strain on the hardware, decided to disguise the limitations by incorporating it into the aesthetic. In a clever twist on form versus function, they used the distance-limiting fog of the era's computing power as a way to set mood and ambience for a spooky feeling. What was initially a lack of visible distance became a pervasive and eerie fog the player had to contend with. This fog, while not strictly necessary for the PS2 hardware, was retained for the somber and otherworldly nature it afforded.
Now, to get back on track.
The game, as I stated, is a disturbing tale of horror that guides you from a lookout over the town, through the town itself and into its depths, literally, as you search for your deceased wife, Mary. You descend onto a wooded path into town and when you arrive in town, it seems completely deserted. Unfortunately this turns out not to be the case, as James stumbles onto twisted and uncannily inhuman creatures that attack him and he is forced to defend himself. As he ventures through the empty town, quiet except for his footsteps, a feeling of unease comes over the player. Through the fog you can hear things moving, coming closer. Sometimes...things...swoop out of the darkness to attack. The game takes you through abandoned apartments, a dark hospital, through the historical society and into the depths of the towns old and decrepit prison beneath. It is a game not of bombast and jump scares but of dread and terror through perceived threats.
The nature of James' marriage and how he dealt with his wife's passing is involved as well, to an amazingly insightful degree. His character is one of a mourning man who struggles with loss and memories that are fading away, to be obscured by justification and self-assertion. I don't want to go to far into the details but the revelations about motivations and the nature of deceit the first time I played the game were revelatory and to this day its held as a pinnacle of story telling in the videogame industry. All of this adds up to why I feel like the game is a 'game' only in the loosest sense, defined only by medium and not experience.
What little soundtrack there is, is haunting and absolutely beneficial to the experience. Yamaoka created music and soundscapes that only heighten already-pervasive moods, be they the eerie and somber stretches of exploring alone, or the unnerving horror of a rotted-out hotel with strange creature crawling out of the woodwork. Synthed percussion hum like a heartbeat, pianos drone in haunting tones. To boot, there are themes for each character, or motifs, like an opera. Take a listen here to one of my favorite pieces of the game, let alone some of my favorite incidental music ever.
While I could write for pages and pages about this game and the entire series on top of it, I need to put a pin in this post. I can feel the fact that I want to do a more in depth analysis on the game and some of the themes down the line, so I will let today's entry serve as an introduction, or perhaps an enticement. If you're a gamer and haven't experienced it, you're missing out and should spring for the five or ten dollars it would cost to pick up a used copy. If you're not a gamer (my condolences) then either have someone walk you through just a few minutes of it or risk taking a look at the movie adaptation, which was a mixed bag. I personally enjoyed it - it's about as good of an translation as you could do with Hollywood's abysmal track record for movies based on games.
Honestly, I feel that the game stands on its own as a phenomenal piece of interactive fiction that is sorely unappreciated, even within its own audience. If you can handle the horror, give it a look. I'm glad I did. Stay tuned for more on this amazing game.
This post lies in sharp contrast to my writing about Depresso. Instead of pining about unreleased snippets, this will focus on the love of a guilty pleasure fully embraced.
The love I write about today is Zombies Ate My Neighbors, a magnificent send up/homage to the B-Movies of the 50's. Released for the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis in 1993, the game was a modest, if only mildly popular, success. An underrated and under appreciated run-and-gun game, ZAMN had the player taking on the role of either Zeke or Julie in a quest to save the titular neighbors from the flesh craving un-dead.
It made a lasting impact on me, to put it mildly.
Considering I was ten years old when I bought this game, its a pretty safe bet that this is where my love of zombie movies, or B-movies in general, stems from. Not only was it a goofy play on Night of the Living Dead and other classics, it was a frantic and creepy game that had a deliciously evil soundtrack. The whole game was one big love note to the drive in movies of yesteryear, with levels labeled as movies I wish to this day were real. Such as:
"Zombie Panic"
"Evening of the Undead"
"Dr. Tongue's Castle of Terror"
"Mars Needs Cheerleaders"
and my personal favorite:
"Dinner On Monster Island"
While the game itself utilizes a fairly simplistic mechanic of run, shoot, save your friends and flee, the surprising depth and joy comes from it's subtle suggestions. Par example - the weapons you use to defend yourself and save the neighbors are generally household items, as though the player is thrust into the game and scrambling for any defense available - squirt guns, fire extinguishers, soda cans,plates, knives and other things found lying around. In a delightful display of appreciation for source material, the item's effectiveness against different monsters is dependent of pop culture touchstones. Werewolves are easily killed by the silverware, weed-whackers cut through the plant-based pod people and exploding cans of soda douse the flames of little hell spawn demons. It's these silly little touches that make the game's world so rich and amusing.
My ten year old self, though, could make little distinction between ironic pastiche and the genuine article. Stuff I found creepy and awesomely spooky was actually just supposed to be awesomely cheesy. Eerie background music helped establish a subconscious appreciation for trip hop and ambient music. The fact that I watch Night of the Living Dead every Halloween? Look no further. The game itself is very straightforward. It's the mood and scene that fascinated me as a kid. When I see things like mash-up artists like Girl Talk gain massive notoriety I think of how this game exists solely to combine disparate elements into one massive in-joke. Basically the entire point is to look as an audience and say "I get the reference!" A very modern notion for a game almost twenty years old, especially when you consider the appeal of Edgar Wright.
Zombies At My Neighbors is a guilty pleasure of mine. I am well aware of its limited appeal and niche game play. It has a minor legacy - a small following online, and it even warranted a re-release on Nintendo's Virtual Console for the Wii, a place to allow the public to play old games on new hardware. If you ever have the chance I'd highly recommend giving it five minutes of your time.
Hopefully you'll find it as charming as I do.
