Draining Away
What was the first game to implement a life bar (compared with hit points or other measures of non-one-hit kills)?
It’s alive!
So I’m reading about Gothic architecture — and for all its ornamentation, it actually is pretty logical in its development.
The main ingredient in all Gothic architecture is the pointed arch — a construction that, besides its visual appeal, has some practical aspects in that it allows for a bunch more weight than would normally be bearable, by directing much of the above force outward to its vertical elements. This allows for the very tall, narrow, usually rectangular open spaces typical of Gothic structures. Of course, since the walls are bearing so much weight, chopping such great holes in them for the giant windows typical of the period (and indeed necessary to light such massive structures) — pointed-arch windowframes or not — requires extra support, to keep the structures from crumpling. Thus, the flying buttress — those weird sinewy diagonal bits that you often see outside great Gothic halls, propping them up from the outside.
To keep the buttresses tied up, and weigh down the end that isn’t directly supporting something, they are often capped with a pinnacle — thus all the weird pointy peaks, to accentuate the pointy arches (and therefore pointy roofs) and the sinewy buttresses and the huge windows. The odd, skeletal, sort of grim feeling that this architecture gives off is mostly a side effect of an organic sequence of ideas, that all work together to form a solid, workable structure of a certain interior dimension within certain real estate limitations.
As for Neo-Gothicism… well, that was just the Romantics being all breathless and sentimental. As a result, it’s not always so practical.
This is how I spend my days. No matter whether I plan to or not.
Galloping deities. I just realized that I’ve spent seven and a half hours doing nothing but staring at the screen, researching one random bit of stuff after another. The only constant strain was that it all tended to be centered around SNK in whatever manner — filtering out precisely what the intricacies of Eolith’s contract was with SNK when it was originally signed, what the Crystal System really was and why it’s never been used aside from that one soccer game out of Evoga (too complex to get into here, but I think I understand now). Rediscovering the names (which were mentioned to me dozens of times in the past, but my mind is a sieve for details like this) of all of SNK’s primary artists aside from Shinkirou (Tonko, I remembered at least). Sifting through the details of SNK’s bankruptsy and how it happened as it did. (Aruze is the scum of the earth, that’s how.)
And I am exhausted. If only I could put this kind of focus to work for the forces of good.
One slightly more entertaining-to-someone-other-than-me item, though, than other things I’ve learned today; the art to KoF2002 is apparently being done by the team of Hiroaki and Nona.
Okay, so that means nothing to you? It didn’t do a lot for me at first, either. I knew that Nona was the artist from KoF2001, and I mostly dug what he did for that game even if it rubbed a lot of other people the wrong way. So, fine. But who’s this Hiroaki? I learned he did the art for Bukiri One. That also didn’t mean much to me, although I knew one of the Another Strikers from KoF2000 had his origin there.
Finally I remembered the SNK art book that 
Shepard sent along with his other game stuff. I flipped to the end, and looked through the Buriri-One illustrations. It’s then that an earlier comment hit me. It hadn’t entirely registered, or maybe I wasn’t yet entirely sure whether to believe it.
This is the guy who did the art for KoF2000. And he’s fantastic. I mean, I thought that Tonko’s art for Last Blade and Mark of the Wolves was great. Heck, Tonko’s art was some of the first SNK artwork that really appealed to me. But Hiroaki is… I mean, jeez! (If my head weren’t throbbing right now, I’d look up a few examples again — but all of those windows are now closed. I might do so later, if I remember.) If you’ve seen KoF2000 (particularly some of the pictures in the art gallery), you’ll know what I mean.
So. Nona is still doing the character art, although he’s evidentially been instructed to tone down the weirdness quotient a bit. This is all fine by me, as his art has a certain grittiness and malease which I feel suits KoF perfectly and which the series has been lacking for a long while. His art is frankly just a little disturbing at times. I don’t think I want to know what else he draws in his free time. But aside from his style, he seems to understand, and do a great job at capturing, the personalities of the characters. His freehand art is kind of hit-and-miss, but at least it has personality and life to it. And again it’s certainly distinctive.
Meanwhile, everything else is apparently being handled by Hiroaki. Keep in mind the intro and ending sequences to KoF2000 when I say this. Yes? Yes.
This is the perfect team. I’m eternally grateful that Shinkirou decided to jump ship and move over to Capcom. We’ll never have to deal with his dated, grotesque mannequins again. And yet neither do we have the sharp anime look of ’99 and 2000 — which was nice, but perhaps not entirely appropriate for the intended tone of the series. I’m now really looking forward to seeing how the game turns out from a visual standpoint, as I don’t think there’s ever before been this much potential for the series.
I guess I can live without King. Gripe time is over; now let’s just see what the game does has to offer.
The $10,000,000 Commando
I keep typing these things off to random people as I sort them out in my head. It seems to make more sense, though, to dump them somewhere I can more easily dig for them later. So here this is.
Of course, Bionic Commando is a spin-off of Commando. We know this much.
It seems that the arcade version of Bionic Commando comes first. I saw it once in a LaVerdiers, years ago. I’m not sure if I ever got to play it, though. It’s super-deformed and action-oriented, but familiar. Apparently, Super Joe (from Commando) is the main character.
(As a note, Super Joe also is in a game I’d never seen before by the name of Speed Rumbler. He’s in a car this time, and someone kidnapped his family. It looks like Commando, only… with cars.)
The second game in the series is Bionic Commando for the NES. The main character is Ladd, and he’s out to defeat Hitler and save Super Joe. It’s an action-adventure sort of in the vein of Blaster Master or Metroid, with occasional overhead-view segments to hark back to the original Commando.
The Gameboy version of Bionic Commando (still the same title, yes) comes third. Super Joe has disappeared again while looking for a secret weapon known as “Albatross”. The main character is now Rad Spencer. It appears to play very similarly to the NES version.
Finally we get the Gameboy Color edition, Bionic Commando: Elite Forces. Super Joe’s gone yet again — only now he’s moved up to the title of Commander Joe. Maybe they figured a desk job would keep him from getting taken hostage all the time. No luck, though. Now there are two main characters — a nameless male and a female Bionic Commando, each of whom gets referred to throughout the game by whatever the player dubs them. The female one, with her purple pony-tail, seems to be the one given more focus. Also, the overhead-view throwbacks to the first Commando seem much more elaborate than before.
So:
[Commando]
[Speed Rumbler (?)]
- Bionic Commando (arcade)
- Bionic Commando (NES)
- Bionic Commando (Gameboy)
- Bionic Commando: Elite Forces (GBC)
…
Yes, I’m back from Otakon.