We All Fall Down

The Focal Point

  • Reading time:4 mins read

It seems to me that the distinction here between the “big” and the “small” is one of focus. And I think that’s what made me think of B-games.

Silent Hill 2, Ico, and Shenmue are all very small games in the sense that they each consist of really one key theme, or concept — with maybe a related secondary theme, that helps to flesh out and color the primary one.

Further, each game is mechanically, substantially, practically designed so as to illustrate the theme at hand as well as possible. The games don’t always succeed; there are often silly elements present for no good reason. Some of the mechanics aren’t thought-through or implemented as well as they might be. The intent is there, though.

Ico is about Yorda, and the intent to create affection, a protective impulse for her. The game is designed in order to do that, without any distraction. There is no life meter because it’s not about life and death. You can die if you do something retarded, like jump from ten stories up, but that’s just there to keep the player from doing something retarded and to make the world feel more believable. What genius there is in the game is in what it chooses to omit, in order to make its point.

Silent Hill 2 is about James’s emotional state; the entire game is a dive into his subconscious, into his guilt and sorrow and his inability to let go. Everything — well, nearly everything — exists as an ingredient for exploring this: the monsters, the level construction, the imagery. Even the way the game determines the ending is tied into what the player focuses on; how he or she has, intentionally or not, chosen to narrate the game and thereby illustrate the details of James’s condition, through his or her behaviour. There are a bunch of issues with the practical implementation (particularly in the actual moment-to-moment details of gameplay), that threaten to get in the way. Ultimately they don’t occlude the underlying design, though.

Shenmue exists to illustrate the mundane beauty of Being. That life is in the moments, not in the goals. Some people complain that the game is boring; those same people probably wouldn’t think of staying up all night just to watch a sunrise. It’s almost Hitchcockian in the way that, right from the start, implicit in the gameplay, the game lets the player in on something that the main character can’t even see, to try to make its point.  In a way, Ryo himself is kind of a caricature of the average singleminded teenager who would likely play Shenmue, and thereby a perfect tool for the game’s purposes. Everything in the game exists either in attempt to illustrate the simple beauties of life, or to support the plot and characters which wind through this mission — in time, perhaps, to get to the point of seeing what the game has been trying to show the player from the outset, and thereby clearly state its case.

The games feel small in the same sense that a good movie will always be too short, and a bad movie will always be too long.

Same deal with B-games. Often as not, they exist to illustrate one concept. That concept might be philosophical or emotional; mostly it has to do with a unique idea for a play mechanic, or some other gimmick. Anyway, these games don’t mess around; for well or ill, the entire game exists to try to get that central idea across. See Gyromite or Pikmin — which I do consider a B-game. Heck, see Katamari Damacy. It is effective because in the end, its entire being is focused on getting one thing across.

In contrast, games which try to please everyone (like, say, Final Fantasy) try to include something to please everyone. So they come off as unfocused. Expansive. Big. Games which exist solely to reflect some outside idea (like, say, the games based on the Lord of the Rings movies) by nature don’t really have a focal point of their own. So regardless of their craft, they tend to feel empty.

Optional behavior

  • Reading time:1 mins read

That’s a thought.

The focal point of Gradius is the Options. It always has been. They are the most uncanny element of the game. They are one of the most critical elements to success. They are what make Gradius what it is.

G5 knows this. As mentioned, it designs the controls and the power-up systems around the Options. There is also the respawning, though. Unless, for some foolheaded reason, you set the game to restart you at a checkpoint, the Options wait around for you to reclaim. They are the powerups you keep with you throughout the game, regardless of error. With the Options in hand, it’s not too difficult to get back on track. All you need are a few speed-ups and a laser. That’s not hard to earn back.

Options, for all their enigmatic charm, are the heart of Gradius as a game and a series. G5 is the first game, though, to notice that; to be entirely built around them. At least, so far as I am aware.

…

I intend to dwell on this for a while.

Ultima disappointment

  • Reading time:8 mins read

Gradius V has now arrived.

It is, of course, terrific. I could go into detail. Instead, I ask:

WHERE’S MY LORD BRITISH?!?!

I could have sworn it was there at E3, last year. Now player two just steers a red-tinged Vic clone.

GIVE ME MY LORD BRITISH, MISTER IUCHI.

WHERE’S MY COPPER SPACESHIP OF LOVE, NAKAGAWA?

…

Otherwise, all is good.

EDIT:

Here are some things from an IM conversation with Shep over the evening:

—
Gradius V is really, really good. It’s pretty hard. It’s the kind of hard where you get a little further every time, though.

It’s also got a lot of… details. I mean. You can set two different kinds of respawn behavior, in the options. The default is Life Force style. You can also set it to go back and restart at checkpoints, though, as in the other Gradius games. If you really want to.

If you get your ship fully sped-up, it nowhere near as too-fast as in past games. And then it cycles back. If you want to slow down, you just get another capsule and select it again, to reset.

Also. You don’t need your shield to be depleted entirely, to activate a new one. This is actually helpful.

The game looks like Ikaruga, stylistically. You can tell they just dumped everything they learned about rendering a 3D 2D shooter into this.

It also, though… incorporates some elements of Ikaruga’s decoration. Along with all of the Gradius and Life Force stuff. Subtle things.

Like the tube that the player’s ship flies out of, as Ikaruga begins. I swear that’s in the background somewhere.

When you play for long enough, or maybe when you get far enough, or when you reach a high enough score (I’m not sure which), you unlock more credits. To start with. Much as in Ikaruga.

There is a little Bangai-O influence in here. Mostly with how chaotic it can get, and the way the options work now.

The remixes of old Gradius and Life Force tunes somehow make them sound majestic. Epic. Something from a big space opera. That’s part of the whole tone the game tries to capture. This elegant… space thing. Even the font on the side of the DVD case looks like the one used in the logo for The Last Startighter Starfighter.

After three or four tries (and after having already practiced all last E3), I managed to improve enough to beat the first level on one life. I’ve discovered if you can power up the Viper to full strength by the beginning of level two, you should have few problems for a while. If not — well. It’s not impossible, like other Gradius games. It’s just much tougher. Treasure manages to always leave leeway — some desperate means to get through a situation, even if you’ve no real means to protect yourself.

So far.

Limeade! BRB

Smiley: I want Limeade.

Actually. The boss of level four — I blew two credits on it when I went in with full power (and still had all of the options for the subsequent lives). Then I went back and beat it without a single power-up. Not even a speed-up.

It’s. I really like the balance here.

Smiley: Whrr? That… didn’t used to happen in the old games. Dying was a pretty big deal.

I know. It’s been a real torture in past games. Now it’s just… very bothersome. It makes the game much more hair-raising. You have to try that much harder.

limeade! brb

Smiley: Now you’re just taunting me.

The game does similarly. I mean. It has fun with the player. In that virtuosic, subconsciously self-aware Treasure way.

In round three, three-quarters of the way through the level, you blast a hole in the floor and start scrolling down. You know that boss-thing from Gradius, that pops up at the end of every level? One of those starts chasing you down the snaking corridor, shooting all the while. You need to either aim your options to shoot behind and above you, to hit it while you’re running away and dodging its shots and trying not to get crushed against the walls, or you need to wedge yourself through a corner and behind it, so it passes you. Before you’re done, another one appears. Then another. And then you’re done with that section. You start to scroll to the right. You shoot your way through a few barriers. Now you’re in a narrow corridor, with very little space to move around. And another one of those boss-things starts to hurtle right at you, from the right side of the screen, spinning as it goes. Then another. Then another. And another. And another. And another. If you’re fully powered-up, you can blow up each one an instant before it collides with you. Otherwise, you need to duck into any crevices you can find or somehow time it to slip past as they spin.

It’s… just toying with you.

At one point, you go through a time warp and meet the Vic Viper from some earlier Gradius game and you have to help it defeat an older boss. [EDIT: Actually, that’s not so. After beating level seven, it becomes clear what’s going on.] After that comes a huge sequence of boss battles. One after another. There’s another stage where it calmly throws an entire screen full of asteroids at you, to find a path through. And you scream.

It likes to scare the hell out of you. But. It’s Treasure. So. There’s always a way through, if you know what you’re doing. Usually more than one. They just like trying to rattle you.

As in every Gradius game since 2, there are four different power-up schemes. All of the facets except for the Options one are more or less standard, across the board. One scheme will have rear shot; another will have double. One will have this kind of missile, one will have that. The factor that all of these are balanced around, however, is the options: how the options behave. And rightly so, since they’re a big part of what makes Gradius what it is.

The first scheme is a the classic one. The options just follow you as normal. If you hold R1, they freeze in place, relative to your ship. Easy enough.

The third scheme causes the options to line up vertically, above and below you. When you press R1, you pull them in or stretch them out.

The fourth one allows you to gyrate the options quickly around the axis of the Viper. When you have the laser, this is particularly interesting to witness.

The second scheme is the scheme; the scheme which makes Gradius V what it is. Namely, it lets you aim the options. By default, they shoot forward; when you hold R1, then press a direction on the D-pad, you swoop the options’ beam in that direction. When you let go of R1, the beam stays fixed. It’s… kind of like Forgotten Worlds. You can aim them in any angle. And. Most levels are designed around you doing this constantly.

Now. There’s only one kind of laser. The only other things which really change, from scheme to scheme, are the bomb and the double shot. And, again, they change according to the option behavior. In scheme 2, clearly, you have no need for a standard double shot, since you can just aim the options wherever. Instead, you have a rear gun. Of course, this means when you aim the options… you get a lot of bullets. Because the options have the double-shot as well…

Scheme 1 is the “classic Gradius” scheme. Scheme 2 is the G5 scheme, essentially. Scheme 3 is for tacticians, who want to precisely control where they’re putting what shots. Scheme 4 is kind of the opposite. It’s for going nuts.

And. Actually. More than the other Gradius games I’ve played, this game does seem designed specifically to allow any of these approaches. Even if the second one is the one it’s really made for, you can still come at it with any of the above strategies. And heck, again, you can even set it to the old style of respawning, using checkpoints, if you want to go all the way with the “classic Gradius” layout.

It’s a very flexible game, in that Treasure way: amenable to, and understanding of, the different ways people go at material like this.
Depending on your approach, the challenge will be a little different.

It really took someone with a bit of distance to dissect the series and put it back together again, to make it everything that it could be but never quite was (with one exception). Mostly, fun. Focused. And yes, majestic.

“‘Chicken-chaser’? Does that mean you… chase chickens?”

  • Reading time:2 mins read

I just got Fable.

Why the fuck is there a top-level menu item to watch commercials for other, unrelated games published by Microsoft? I mean. Could they not have used that disc space for something more constructive?

I feel slightly dirty for having witnessed this.

EDIT:

I actually am enjoying the hell out of this, even if it’s not what I expected. It’s not even close. I was waiting for a cross between Shenmue and Morrowind. That sounded like the original concept for the game, anyway. Now it’s more like the offspring of Zelda and The Sims.

It sure ain’t the revolutionary leap it was touted as. It has a lot of charm, though. Even if the save system is bothersome, and I CAN’T GET THE DAMNED GOD-VOICE TO SHUT UP.

If the game were to just leave me alone and let me do my own thing without badgering me like, uh, any recent version of Zelda, I would have little problem with it. From what I’ve seen. Even its dumb videogamey qualities (the chests littered around the game world) seem on some level deliberate. If the game were to take itself seriously, I might not feel the same way. The tone is just what’s needed, though, to make it work in the form it is.

…

This evening, as I was pouring virtual beer into a virtual barmaid, in real life a terror-soaked voice echoed from down the street: “HELP! OH GOD, HELP! CALL THE POLICE! SOMEBODY! HELP ME PLEASE! SAVE ME! OH GOD! POLICE!” And. So on.

This was followed by another voice: “What the FUCK‘s your problem, huh?” And a smacking sound.

Then. Nothing.

Several minutes later, we heard a series of loud noises. Noises I have trouble finding words for. They sounded like the midway between a buzz-saw and someone sucking ice cream through a straw.

I don’t know what connection, if any, exists between the above events.

EDIT 2:

I just realized why the music so made me think of Danny Elfman — to the point where I was constantly tempted to mutter “something’s up with Jack/something’s up with Jack…”.

It’s because the music is written by Danny Elfman.

I, uh, had forgotten that.

Chilled Pain

  • Reading time:2 mins read

Where did Henry’s bottle of white wine go?

It vanished around the time I picked up the rusty axe.

I… never even got a chance to use it. I was saving it for a special occasion.

I notice that, contrary to expectation, I actually don’t mind the “item box” mechanism in this game. It makes sense, within the game’s format. Every hole you encounter is akin to a save point; it’s just that when you warp back to your room to save, you have other tasks to attend to; things to check on, things to put into and take out of the chest, things to reference. It’s a bit of a vacation, both for Henry and for the player. Much as how in Morrowind I dump all of the tools I know I won’t need for my upcoming task into some corner of my stolen house, if I know I don’t need three golf clubs and several clips of ammo, and I figure I won’t need all of these puzzle panels anytime soon, I can just dump them in the room and cut down on the clutter; free them from my mind.

This stands in contrast to the previous games, where the player is forced to continually carry a huge inventory of random objects, wondering when the game will demand they be put to use. It somehow feels more organic this way. Especially since, hell, you’ve got the room there to hold your crap. It’s like your own pocket dimension. Why not use it to your advantage, instead of lugging everything with you?

I also enjoy the logic of the game’s puzzles, so far. They’re kind of contrived, yes. Yet they rely entirely on the logic of what has already been established. And again, they help to tie the Room into the game as a more advanced concept than as just a save point.

I. Was going to say something else. I can’t remember. (EDIT: It was that the game is structured such that the player doesn’t really need to juggle items, to keep everything in inventory that he wants or needs. There’s no inventory management. The mechanic is more a convenience than anything.)

The game has been referencing Rear Window continually. However, Henry just now began to notice the parallel himself. This strikes me as terrific.

Roomination

  • Reading time:4 mins read

My reluctance to throw things away — my propensity to collect: it has to do with evidence. Evidence to whom; to myself? Evidence of the links between the world within me and that without. Evidence that the things I know of did, at least once, exist. Once those physical tokens are gone, there is no more certainty. I can’t be sure of anything anymore.

I have played the first hour of Silent Hill 4: The Room. Yes, it arrived today (alongside Plan 9 From Outer Space and Glen or Glenda); I am not allowed to play much further until all accountable women have returned to roost.

Nevertheless. The game is supposed to have been principally inspired by Being John Malkovich. That is quickly obvious, now that I have the chance to inspect it more well than before. This knowledge also offers some possible, if incomplete, clues regarding just what’s happening in the game.

Before the opening credits disseminate (another addition to the series, and not an unwelcome one), the game provides a short introduction in the first-person perspective that will later be common to scenes transpiring in The Room in question. In this sequence, however, the room is different: bloodied, rusted over, dirty, abandoned-looking; it resembles the “dark world” from the earlier Silent Hill games. Henry, the main character, is understandably surprised — or, should I say, alarmed. He does not seem to recognize anything. He also, I noticed, fails to cast a reflection in the picture frames scattered around his apartment — frames which reflect everything else around him. I pinpointed this as intentional, especially given that only minutes later, once the credits play and Henry wakes up again in a “normal” version of his bedroom, he no longer seems at all confused by the room’s (clean, yet otherwise mostly-identical) furnishings.

Henry still does not have a reflection, however. In cutscenes, he does; just not in the game proper.

So. Never mind that.

The people on the street outside the window walk like robots. Most of them wear the exact same clothes, and walk in synchronization. A polygonal edge to the hole behind the cabinet flickers into and out of existence as the camera rotates past it. The effect is hard to ignore, given the size of the area in question, its prominent location, and how important this hole is supposed to be.

The soundtrack comes on a separate disc, in a little paper sleeve. Luckily, it does slide easily into the game case. Still, considering that the previous game in the series made space for its soundtrack by default, this all could have been a little prettier.

Although I yet again am not allowed to remap the controls at will, at least the default scheme works for me. For some reason, as minor as the changes were from the previous games, I had real problems playing Silent Hill 3 with any of its predesigned setups. Everything felt like it was in the wrong place; it made me feel a little ill, even. Strange, the psychological effect of control design. I wonder if it could be put to real use, rather than ignored or made as invisible (or as “realistic”) as possible, as are the current strategies.

There’s… something here. Maybe.

Tonally, the game reminds me more of Silent Hill 2 than of the other two. This is not a bad thing. Perhaps it is an intentional thing, even. It also feels tangibly different — more like a mystery than a horror story — and is so far intriguing in that.

EDIT: Naoto Ohshima is involved again, as a camera programmer. I noticed his name flash by in the credits to the first Silent Hill, I believe as some kind of graphics programmer; did he do anything in the middle two games?

Artoon is owned by Konami now, yes? Or involved with them somehow?

EDIT 2: And I like the way the camera works. Mostly. I don’t think I’ve seen quite this technique before.

KOF: Maximum Impact (PS2/SNK Playmore)

  • Reading time:1 mins read

by tim rogers [don’t capitalize my name, please]
red text by [name redacted]
green text by tim rogers
teal text by [name redacted]

Yeah… I don’t know what happened here.

King of Fighters was a union of Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting; there were other characters from other places, to be sure, and there were plenty of new ones. [Here, you cut out my explanation that in KOF: Maximum Impact, Geese Howard is running for President of the United States. There are political posters and everything.] [Yeah, I liked that part. You took too long to get to the following sentence, though.] The first thing King of Fighters did right was remove the damn stupid plane-switching and the god-forsaken nausea-inducing zooming. This spirit has carried the series into the present with a vigor that only fans previously known as “hardcore” could appreciate: each new game in the series subtracts one unnecessary formerly-experimental element for each new feature it adds. [clue 1b]

( Continue reading at Insert Credit )

Geneology

  • Reading time:1 mins read

After the establishment of Rosa, the Duck annals have begun to resemble Tolkien. A prurient quote from Rosa:

What Dell licensed from the Disney corporation was the name Donald Duck. [At that time,] Donald was […] actually like an actor. He was a different character in each cartoon. A comic book has to be based on an actual character with a history. So Carl Barks took the name Donald Duck and created a… well, a character, that didn’t even look exactly like the Disney Donald Duck. […] But, he created an entire history around this duck; a family, Uncle $crooge, Duckburg, Gladstone Gander, etc. These were all creations of Carl Barks. This is the universe that all the other duck writers and artists based their stories on.

And now Rosa, with his nerdlike extrapolative tendencies, has become the new standard. And it’s getting a little insane. (In the best way.)

I really need to read those last dozen or so Rosa stories. I’ve not seen any of his work since toward the end of the second Gladstone era. I tried to subscribe to Gemstone’s new Scrooge book. Their site rejected my propositions, however. I will try again later.

Passing the message

  • Reading time:1 mins read

I just wrote the following on the rear of a five-dollar bill. The modern kind, you know, with all the white space.

When I was little
I knew a woman
who would give me
candy fish from a jar.
Her name was Helen.
She owned a fruit store
on main street.
Her voice had a rasp.
Her lip had a mustache.
When she gave change,
she did the math out
on a notepad
on the counter,
one step at a time.
She itemized each item.
She mouthed its name.
She looked to me
for affirmation.
I stared back.
Helen is dead now.
Her store is gone.
I still enjoy candy fish.

Dragon Warier

  • Reading time:4 mins read

There is something strange about the renaming of Dragonquest, in the West. Linguistically, the two titles imply different concepts. (That much is clear; if they didn’t, then the game would never have been renamed.) The word “Quest” denotes a search. It is somewhat more ambiguous, and uncertain. There is no guarantee of the direction or of success, in a quest. It is, in effect, a venture into the unknown. With luck, some fruit might come of it. The word “Warrior” conjures an image of a large man with a codpiece, bashing something’s head in with a big stick.

In this case, the former is more appropriate a title in that the game is basically about the quest; about its purpose. It is a template, more or less, for the execution of an extended search as the body of a videogame. That is why it exists. The western title, however, implies a focus on character that isn’t present in the game. Who is this “Dragon Warrior”? The hero? Erdrick/Loto? Dragonlord/Dracolord? None of the above, I say. Though the intention, I venture, is to pretend that the hero, thereby the player, plays the role of this “warrior”. It is not enough to suggest that the player is to be sent on a quest, and for any function and role to come as a result of the actions required by this goal; it appears that the Western player must feel important. He must feel that the world revolves around him, as it might an epic hero. Or at least, that’s what Nintendo figured when they localized the game.

I’m not saying that this is a correct or an incorrect set of assumptions about the cultural biases of one territory against the next. I just find it interesting that someone clearly thought that there was a significant enough a disparity to account for it.

Perhaps, rather than it being a cultural issue wholly, it is more of a Nintendo issue. You recall what I have been saying for a while about Super Mario Bros. and what the game did, in effect, to the popular conceptions of game design and focus. Maybe this just follows the shift from concept to character.

I wonder whether the change in title had any effect. I’d like to think that some people would be frustrated when faced with a game which seemed to purport a focus upon character, and was really more about a melancholy search, and all the travails necessitated in the process. The level-chugging and growth does serve a purpose here, to illustrate just how hard this particular quest is; how much work and trial and error is required, just to set a couple of things right. It’s kind of bleak, yet educational. And it’s filled with moments of whimsy.

It’s not about any person. It’s bigger than that in a sense. In another sense, it’s just not concerned with individuals. It’s a concept game.

Had the game been labeled more well, would it have done better over here? Would it have done worse?

What about now? Were Squenix to release DQ8 as “Dragon Quest VIII” over here, rather than bow to Nintendo’s convention, would it make a difference? Would people get it?

It might be time to give it a chance. Heck, Castlevania is called “Castlevania” in Japan now, rather than “Akumajou Dracula”. There’s precedent. And it’s not like too many people here would be confused. Foew who are not already fond of Dragon Warrior would be confused by the change, as they probably have barely heard of the series, despite its influence — and I think most of the existing fanbase would welcome it.

Or. Perhaps not.

EDIT: See comments.

Ishmael

  • Reading time:1 mins read

by [name redacted]

I can’t remember his name, so I will call him Ishmael.

It was hard to avoid Ishmael, as he was in most of my classes. Some of those classes consisted of little but heated debate between the two of us, as the other students sat dumbfounded and the teachers hid under their desks. Still, as little common ground as we shared, at least Ishmael was a worthy adversary.

( Continue reading at Insert Credit )

Thunderstorm hovercrafts

  • Reading time:2 mins read

F-Zero GX does, indeed, go fast.

…

I enjoy this, lots. This game has spirit.

The original F-Zero never caught me. It struck me as little more than a glittery tech demo for the totally amazing Mode-7 capabilities of the SNES. Then, I had that problem with a lot of SNES releases.

This is clearly a real game.

* *

It occurs to me that there could be a less-deep reason for the whole Kobe/Igarashi twist in the Castlevania series. Igarashi, of course, includes Kobe’s games in his revised timeline. (He also omits Dark Night Prelude, or “Castlevania Legends”, as it’s called here, for even murkier purposes.) The obvious rationale is that these games generally aren’t all that good (save Circle of the Moon, which is fun and well-made for what it is), and that they kind of ruin the storyline that Igarashi had been putting together.

A less-obvious and less-inspiring possibility lies in something that I learned from someone at Konami a few days ago. It seems that every development studio has independent rights to the games it produces. Even for as self-referential a company as Konami, it seems that the different studios have to be careful not to reference each other’s games without permission, for legal reasons. So KCE Tyo can inwardly reference anything it wants (Castlevania, Contra, Gradius, and so on) — but it can’t mention games made by, say, KCEJ (Kojima), without reason. And vice-versa. And all around.

So.

Hmm…

VROOM VROOM

  • Reading time:3 mins read

I picked up the GBC remake of the SFC remake of Dragon Warrior 1 & 2.

Gosh, the changes are nice.

Gosh, the game is easy now.

Really. I’m not sure what’s up with that. The game used to have the same syndrome as The Legend of Zelda and the first couple of Phantasy Stars, whereby the player was fenced in by impossible odds. Now one is more or less free to stroll at will. Money and experience are everywhere. Red slimes take one hit to kill at level one, where they take several in the original version. Or I seem to recall so, anyway. Not sure what to make of this quality.

However. Everything else is strangely just-right, in its tone and sensibility. I don’t recall much actual story in the original game. I don’t remember the townspeople saying much. Now they’re all miserable and scared and angry, and have halfway-interesting things to say about their own lives and problems. It’s all kind of bleak, yet strangely perfect. Then there are all of the little additions like the girl who finds the hero attractive and follows him around town for no other reason, which well illustrate the heart behind the game.

I thought I’d played this remake before. I don’t remember any of what I see, though.

This is nice.

I got it for eight dollars.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington sure ends abruptly. I haven’t seen a Capra movie since I was aware enough to appreciate one. Looks like I need to go back and take another look at It’s a Wonderful Life and It Happened One Night. Again with the little details, which give the piece life — the expressions and reactions of even the minor characters or the extras.

The Trouble With Harry is gorgeous; it’s one of the few pictures that Hitchcock mostly filmed on location, and it shows. It also shows when the movie jumps to a set, although not as disconcertingly as in, say, The Birds. The cinematography is brilliant. The script is interesting. Herrman’s score — his first, for a Hitchcock picture — is above-average for him. The wardrobe, with its light New England jackets and autumn gear, feels as real and refreshing as the scenery. The acting, save Shirley MacLaine, is terrible.

The script, although interesting, demands a certain degree of shrewdness in its players. It doesn’t work on its own. In the right hands, it could seem like genius. Here, it deflates into so much awkward air. A shame. A shame in general. Maybe it would have been better as a silent film.

On that note, I am almost convinced that the Coens intended Barton Fink to be in Black and White. Just look at the choices in cinematography. The use of light and dark. Then turn down the color dial on your TV. Suddenly, the movie commands about twice the power it did a moment before. there is so much less distraction. The nightmare logic all makes sense. Where before you might furrow your brow and wonder what just happened, now you accept without question. Maybe even nod.

It’s still a perplexing movie. I think I might like it. I’m not sure. I think I have to watch it a few more times. I’m not sure if I want to. I think I might.

So.

THE RETURN OF FRED?!

  • Reading time:7 mins read

Today was a nice day. I went for a walk. Although I did not intend to go that way, I once again found myself in the Electronics Botique a few blocks away. I had no reason to stop there. I am not at much liberty to squander money, at the moment. I saw little to draw me back, the last time I was in the store. Yet there I was, somehow. And the “old platforms bin”, absent entirely a few days ago, was returned.

Some of the games in it weren’t even all that bad. Mixed amongst the old sports and wrestling and licensed games, I saw almost-pristine copes of Fear Effect, both 1 and 2. Two near-mint copies of MGS. A curious PlayStation-era update to Galaga. And. Blaster Master: Blasting Again.

…

For $2.99.

…

Let’s explain, shall we.

This is one of the rarest Playstation games around. Only a few thousand copies were pressed, as far as I know. It was Sunsoft’s final game before the US branch of the company went under and the Japan branch disappeared into obscurity. From what I understand, the game was mostly produced due to incessant requests from North American fans of the original Blaster Master (much as with the contemporary Metroid resurgence) — so this was the game’s primary market.

It’s not like the game is impossible to find, or all that valuable; the demand is low, since not many people are even aware that the game exists. It got no publicity at all. Anyone who didn’t know that the game was in development probably missed it altogether. Many who were waiting for it (I included) probably didn’t realize it had been released until some while later. I was surprised that it had come out at all. I mean, it barely did.

So. Incredibly obscure game; direct sequel to a game generally considered one of the best ever made for the NES (and one of my personal favorites); $2.99.

So why, besides the obvious, was the game was so inexpensive? Yes, it was used. Closer inspection, however, revealed it as about the most used used game I had ever seen. At least, on the surface. The case seemed like it had been dropped in a bathtub. The manual and traycard were all warped and crinkly.I opened the instruction manual; the pages were all stuck together and torn. The gloss on the traycard was effectively glued to the plastic of the jewel case, meaning it could not be removed without tearing the hell out of the card.

Still. $2.99. Blaster Master. Rare.

So, all right. I took it home, and I replaced all of the elements of the jewel case save the bottom half of the tray. It doesn’t really look all that bad.

The disc itself is more or less pristine. So I put it in the drive.

Now. You know how after you spend years pining after that elusive obscure game, you usually realize there is a reason why the game was so obscure to start with? Your dreams are shattered and you become just that more bitter in your outlook toward life?

That ain’t the case here.

Shep had already described it to me in some detail. I can’t recall where he found his copy. I remember that he was fairly positive about it. I am about an hour in. I will be even more positive.

Aside from the typical camera and loading issues (which I will discuss in more detail in a moment), as yet I have no complaints about the game — in design, execution, temperment, tone, focus, or presentation. It is Blaster Master, in 3D. The adaptation is done as well as you can imagine it being done, and is in some ways far better.

While I don’t mean to overhype the game — it’s not going to change the world or anything — the most clear comparison I can make is to Metroid Prime. It’s an obvious one on the surface; the original games were near-identical in overall concept (if the details made them distinct enough to be individually memorable). Both were almost inherently two-dimensional concepts. Both involve exploring subterranian passages. Both were mostly popular in the West. Both were ignored for years by their original creators, probably in large part because, as these things go, they weren’t all that well-received in their own home countries.

And now, the ideas in the reinterpretation for 3D space are often similar — and often successful, for the same reasons in both games. I’m not going to go into the details; it would run too long. Just hold that image. It works for many of the same reasons Prime does.

Had this game received any publicity at all, and had it been produced in larger quantities, I am fairly certain that it could have made Sunsoft close to a household developer again. It’s just a damned good game, for what it is. It has a bunch of heart, and it knows what it’s doing.

The one non-camera-related frustration I have faced involves the game’s structure; unlike the original Blaster Master, which contained rather enormous levels perforated by the occasional screen change, Blasting Again (I’m growing more fond of that name, actually) takes place in a series of small rooms — perhaps the size what you’d see in Phantasy Star Online, although far more elaborate and platformy — connected by doorways. Every time you go through a doorway, you face a loading time of perhaps five to ten seconds. The loading screen itself is almost endearing to the long-time Blaster Master afficianado, as it attempts to channel the “SOPHIA zooming into the screen” image from the introduction of the NES game. The reference is successful (as are most of the other references: visual, musical, mechanical, tonal, conceptual). It’s just, you’ll be seeing about half as much of this screen as you will be seeing actual playtime.

Oh, also. The game is slightly inspired by Ocarina of Time. This has its strong elements. A less-strong one involves the sister of the hero (himself the son of Jason, from the original game). I’m not sure where she’s sitting; I want to think she’s in the guts of SOPHIA (as with the girl sidekick in Meta Fight, the less-bizarre Japanese version of Blaster Master), though that doesn’t seem to be the case. Either way, after an hour of play I am beginning to long for Navi. It doesn’t help in the least that Sister keeps demanding my attention right when I’m in the middle of some touchy action — and that I need to take my finger off the fire button, and find the Start button, to get rid of her. You think Rose has a bad sense of timing? Imagine if she were in Gradius, and ten times as talkative. Yeah. That’s kind of what it’s like.

Oh, right. This game is a little more action-oriented than the original Blaster Master. There is more shooting (and Metroid Prime-style jump-strafing) than platforming. And I have, as yet, found only one save point. It’s okay, though. It all works, so far.

Wow. I should… eat something.

EDIT: Okay. The game doesn’t save my control configuration. This is the level of minor annoyance that plagues the game. Nothing major; just the details which show what the game could have been, had there been more time or money or assistance.

However. This game is the best excuse ever for the “fast load” function of the Playstation 2. Really. As silly as it makes Silent Hill sound — that’s how much irritation it removes from the load times here. To the last, they are minimized to one or two seconds. I can deal with this.

Shin NeoWave

  • Reading time:4 mins read

After flipping past the official site again, I notice that, as a watered-down port of KOF2002 (itself a watered-down rehash of KOF’98), NeoWave is shameless enough to even retain the distinctive ’02 naming scheme for the teams. That is to say, the Iori Team is the “’96 Team” and the Burning Team is the “’99 Team”, and so on.

Now, if this naming scheme was poorly-conceived to begin with, its execution was even more questionable. Iori first appeared in KOF’95, so it feels strange that he is part of a team representing the following game (especially given how many other new characters were introduced in KOF’96). It is even weirder that there are no teams for ’94 or ’95, if the cast is truly supposed to present some kind of a retrospective of the series (itself not entirely a bad idea, for a dream match game — or at least I can see how it might sound like a good one). The rationalization comes from his teammates, Mature and Vice; indeed that specific team concoction first appeared in ’96. Yet something still feels forced here. Similarly, the New Face Team is listed as the “’98 Team” even though they first appeared in ’97. Again, it doesn’t really work.

Of course, now the 2000 and 2001 teams are absent — inexplicably in the former case — making the naming scheme basically meaningless for a game released in 2004. Although one would think that SNK could work out a deal with Eolith, I can understand how they might just not want to bother for a handful of characters SNK will probably rarely have burning need for again. I don’t understand where the 2000 agents went, however. Seth and Vanessa have become fan favorites (especially Vanessa, especially with me), and they are full-blooded SNK characters; among the last ever. So this decision just seems arbitrary. I don’t get it.

In effect, it means that even with the addition of Shingo, King, and Saisyu (all returned to the roster for NeoWave), the game has even fewer characters than the NeoGeo version. Given that NeoWave is SNK’s first game for the Atomiswave platform — a far more advanced system with, compared to what SNK is used to, nigh-unlimited storage and capacity — this is downright pathetic. What are they doing with all that empty canvas?

After some consideration, I have pieced together what I figure SNK and Noise Factory could have easily presented, for a game which in effect is supposed to be a celebration of ten years of The King of Fighters. The following took maybe ten minutes. With the current hardware, they would have all the space necessary, and more. They already have all of the sprites and most of the necessary code prepared. Aside from Eolith, all they would have to worry about is balancing — and in this case, I think some wobbly elements are excusable.

I have tried to keep with the “year” theme present in 2002 and NeoWave, for the purpose of illustration. Let’s see how I do.

Japan Team
Kyo, Benimaru, Daimon

Korea Team
Kim, Chang, Choi

Fatal Fury Team
Terry, Andy, Joe

Art of Fighting Team
Ryo, Robert, Yuri

Ikari Team
Leona, Ralf, Clark

Psycho Soldier Team
Athena, Kensou, Chin

Women’s Team
King, Mai, Mary

Girls Team
Malin, May Lee, Kula

Outlaw Team
Yamazaki, Gato, Lin

Justice Team
Tizoc, Bao, Jhun

’94 Team
Heavy D!, Lucky, Brian

’95 Team
Iori, Billy, Eiji

’96 Team
Geese, Krauser, Mr. Big

’97 Team
Yashiro, Shermie, Chris

’98 Team
Heidern, Takuma, Saisyu

’99 Team
K’, Maxima, Whip

’00 Team
Seth, Vanessa, Ramon

’01 Team
K9999, Angel, Foxy

’02 Team
Goenitz, Mature, Vice

’03 Team
Ash, Duo Lon, Shen Woo

EDIT
Chizuru
Shingo
Krizalid

BONUS
Kasumi, Xiangfei, Hinako

Depending on how you fare, either Chizuru or Shingo is the mid-boss. (Shingo is greatly overpowered in this case.) Again depending on prowess, the final boss is either Krizalid or a team of Kasumi, Xiangfei, and Hinako. The game would have some wacky, obviously non-canonical plot to explain why Shingo and the “filler girls” are such monsters. It would be the same for every team, although — as with ’98 — each team would get its own piece of art at the end.

And. There it is.

Oh well. Maybe in 2014, assuming that SNK is still around in some form, they might feel up to trying again. They might even have time to redraw a few sprites. (Please, no laughter.)