Monthly Archives: October 2002

UDLR, Chu Chu Chu

  • Reading time:2 mins read

Oy. Anyway, I finally — after far too long — got a copy of ChuChu Rocket! Advance. I played around with it a bit back around the system’s launch last year, so I knew what to expect. And yeah, it’s ChuChu Rocket!. It’s… a little creepy, and generally gives me an oddly wistful sensation, to notice how precisely the game captures its original Dreamcast flavour. I mean, this game still feels like a Dreamcast game. It’s got the same atmosphrere to it that I’ve always associated with the system. Heck, for some reason Sonicteam even tried to emulate the original game’s web page content in the GBA version. If the GBA had only four face buttons rather than the mere two, there’d be almost nothing wrong with this version.

Odd that the GBA suffers from the same problem for which the Dreamcast was always criticized: too few buttons.

As much as I’m glad to finally have a copy around (especially for under ten dollars, as it was), I feel almost a little uncomfortable with the game. It’s hard to place the sensation exactly, and it’s certainly not the game’s fault. Maybe a bit of it is a lingering sadness over the Dreamcast situation which normally manages to stay more or less repressed. But there are some other factors in there as well. Something to do with Sega content on a non-Sega machine? Associations which I’m not willing to bring completely into consciousness? I don’t know.

Arr.

  • Reading time:3 mins read

It occurred to me just now that I approach games like a designer. Every game is a learning experience for me, and is judged in terms of the quality of its construction and its original content. It’s as if I’m giving the final okay on every game I encounter. Yes, this design came together well. Yes, I’m proud of this one. No, go away, Acclaim. I almost never even think to examine a game from the outside. I generally need to get inside the heads of the design team in order to appreciate the work. I absorb developer interviews. Every detail about the design process which can be revealed. I revel in picking apart. For ultimately, I guess that I want to understand the essence of the medium.

… I just find this revelation to have its subtle twist of irony, at the moment. Maybe it is about time. Heck, it was about time for something. And this is something. Further, it’s something I’ve wanted to do for most of my life. From my first experiences with videogames, my thought has been “I can do that” — and further, that I probably could do it better. I didn’t want to just play these things; I wanted to be a part of the process.

I’ve never been an outsider, in terms of videogames. It’s one of the few realms in which I can say this with no hint of equivocation. They’re one of the few things I get, inside and out — probably more so than a large segment of the people actually producing the things today. So why haven’t I been doing anything about that? And I don’t just mean blabbering my views, which I do endlessly anyway (albeit never in any official form). Hell, this is an art like any other. It’s obvious I’ve been itching to flex my muse, and it’s obvious that I’m never going to be satisfied until I at least try my hand at something bigger than Crullo: Adventures of a Donut.

… Although, hey…

I think I’m needed. And I think I’ve got something to say. And I know I’m good enough to do something about that, if I just keep true to myself.

I was saying that next year was going to rock, and I’ve been saying it for a while. And now I know the reason. I might be taking a bit of a stand here, but I do believe I’ve found my calling. It’s hard not to feel enthusiastic about that.

This is going to work. It’s as simple as that. I’ve never been so sure about anything.

A short note…

  • Reading time:1 mins read

Oh, heck. KoF2002 is released today.

Six years flew by from the excitement…

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Phew. Finally got KoF’96 working on my Saturn. For a while there I thought the gameshark’s RAM element wasn’t compatible with the game for whatever reason. I’ve heard that KoF’95 was one of the few cart-and-disc combo games which was put out for the system, and that would certainly be a nightmare to deal with. I was hoping that ’96 was a bit more standard, but the first couple of attempts led nowhere.

I guess persistence is the key. And the result? Not half bad. It’s nowhere up to the level of the Dreamcast ports in most respects, but aside from the (incredible amount of) load time, it’s pretty darned close to the original Neo-Geo version. Here are some observations:

  • MY GOD, the load times.
  • The sound quality is mixed. Many of the standard grunts are of a high enough quality, and yet the special move calls will sound like they were recorded through a pillow. Iori is a great example of this syndrome: “Hah! Huaah! Mrrfsobi uua Rroore da! Hwah! Hoh!”
  • As with Dream Match 1999 for the Dreamcast, the music stops and starts again between rounds. Unlike the DC game, there’s a reason for it: the ten-second load time between every two rounds. Also unlike DM1999, the music doesn’t just restart from the beginning. Rather, there’s a set point mid-theme for each tune to kick back in. This was pretty decent planning, I thought.
  • At least there’s interesting character art during all of the loading that’s going on. Amongst the more interesting shots is one of Ralf in his original Ikari Warriors garb.
  • Since the music is all in redbook (making for easy ripping), it’s of a very high quality. The full-vocal rendition of the Psycho Soldier theme is particularly impressive, as are Esaka Forever and the bit of Wagner that Krauser has going. However you also get the usual setbacks from direct-spooled music — particularly seek lag. There’s a lot of misalignment between the music and visual clues in instances such as the game introduction.
  • It might just be me, but I think the sound is in mono. Maybe I have my Saturn arranged peculiarly, though. I’ll have to check on this.
  • There isn’t as much flexibility as I’d like in rearranging the game controls.
  • Being from 1996, there is unfortunately no practice mode.
  • I haven’t seen any particular extras, but then neither did I expect any.

I’m now kind of curious about how ’97 fares on the system. I’m certainly not about to go out and look for it at the moment, but still.

All right. I’ve got other things to do right now.