61 Frames Per Second : mega man

One Girl's Ancient Struggle Against Bad Games

Nadia Oxford — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 03:35:00 GMT

It's pretty cool these days for girls to stand up and say, “I'm a gamer!” Bonus admiration is issued if they do it with only half their clothes on, but male gamers are usually just happy to know we walk amongst their ranks. Game companies are definitely happy about us, because we spend money on everything from puppy sims to big games with big guns.

I'll let you in on a little secret. Girls have always liked games. What's different is that developers, game publications and marketing divisions are making an effort to let us know what's going on in the industry. Young females are being encouraged to try a little bit of everything and settle down into something they love, whether it's ponies or blowing someone's brains onto the ceiling. I'm glad, because I remember how awkward it was to be a girl gamer during those crucial years when I cared about what other people thought of me.

Mackey's retrospective on Bart vs The Space Mutants for the NES is what started me thinking back to those uncomfortable days when I wasn't just a girl gamer, but a “weird” one at that. My circle of friends was primarily made up of females in spite of my tomboyish ways, and I was invited to my fair share of girl-populated birthday parties. Most of these party houses had an NES, and even though games were almost strictly thought of as boy's stuff back in the olden days, the system never went ignored. We played plenty of games.

The problem? The games were all of the sucky, licensed variety--Bart vs The Space Mutants being a prime example of a wasted video game rental at an all-girl party. Not just once, either. No, you could count on a shitty licensed game like Home Alone to make a repeat appearance at parties as a five-dollar rental. We were often completely baffled by the vague goals and awful controls these games offered, but few of my friends wanted to move beyond the comfort of a familiar name. Sometimes they'd pick at a Mario title for a little while, thank God, but I was usually doomed to watch my friends struggle with an unplayable game for hours. My suggestions for games were usually shot down; even if the hostesses' brother had amassed an impressive collection of games, there was no question about exchanging Macaulay Culkin's unwinnable wank festival for something more solid, like Mega Man or Cobra Triangle.

Few of my girl friends played Nintendo, and it's no wonder. Nobody felt compelled to research what was out there with commercials being primarily boy-oriented, and when they did play, they were let down by shoddy licensed trash. They probably decided games weren't worth their time outside of a party environment, and with good reason. I was teased for being game-crazy and for reading Nintendo Power, but obviously, I'm glad I stuck to my guns. Girls, cave in to drugs and booze if you must, but Just Say No to bad games. You can do so much better.

(Disclaimer: please don't cave in to drugs and booze.)

Related Links:

Up All Night: Ex-Mutants
Indiana Jones, We Hardly Know Ye
Trailer Review: Scribblenauts

Genres I'd Like to See on the Wii: 3rd Person Shooters

Amber Ahlborn — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 02:00:00 GMT

Hello, developer studios? Yes, the Wii remote is motion sensitive. It's pretty nifty and I know some of you are super excited about he MotionPlus add-on. However, did you know the Wii-mote also has a pointer function? Yeah, that sensor bar thing with the infrared light. Oh? You keep forgetting about that function eh? Keep getting distracted by the wiggle waggle hmm? Well wake the hell up already because you're missing some golden opportunities!

Maybe I'm a touch off base here, but it seems to me that the pointer functionality is a little bit neglected within the Wii library. Considering how superior an experience the pointer offers over the analogue stick when it comes to aiming, you'd think, you'd really think, the Wii library would abound with quality titles that take advantage of that function, and you'd be wrong.

With that in mind, I'd like to see some third person shooters on the Wii. Many people focus on first person shooters when talking about how natural a match the pointer is, but I believe, and have for a long time, that the pointer would benefit third person shooters even more.

I am really not a fan of the FPS, the lack of peripheral vision bugs me especially if the action gets intense. Plus, I like to see the character I'm playing. Third person shooters are a lot more fun for me. I can see what's behind my character and the pulled out camera invites more usage of platforming and adventure elements. On the down side, actually aiming your weapons can be problematic.

Various solutions to the issue of aiming include auto aiming, lock-on systems, and even switching to FPS mode for precision shooting at the expense of movement, all of which see use in the Ratchet and Clank series. While convenient, they do remove most of the skill involved in actually aiming, as the game does the work for you. The weapons in the Jak games mostly rely on the auto aim feature. It works pretty well but only because the guns either have wide ranges of effect or spray bullets machine gun style. Even though you have little control over your aim, you're going to hit something.

Oh but would it not be fantastic to just point and shoot? To sweep the reticule across multiple enemies leaving a trail of lock-ons to fire off a missile massacre all while skillfully running and leaping? To do it all without having to hold down multiple buttons to strafe or relying on the game to do it all for you?

It's a perfect match I fantasize about. I dream of remakes or new entries into the Mega Man Legends series; a pair of games that suffered from some clunky controls. Or, holiest of holies, a third person Metroid game.

Where are the TPS games? Anything buried in a mini-game collection doesn't count. C'mon devs, this should be an obvious choice!

Related Links:

Underrated: Metal Arms - Glitch in the System

End Game: The Necessary Evil of Boss Fights

A Few Thoughts on Wii Graphics

Chiptune Friday - Mega Man vs. Memphis Bleek

Derrick Sanskrit — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Hip hoppers love video games, there's no denying it. More than any other genre of music, the hip hop community outright loves video games. Sure, Soulja Boy might not be the spokesperson we all want for either form of entertainment, but at least he's being open and honest about our shared nerdery.

This is why Tae K's Mega Man Mixtape should come as no surprise to anybody. Released online just over a year ago, Tae K takes the popular medium of the hip hop mixtape - wherein DJs provide their own beats for a variety of well-known vocal tracks - and used nothing but samples from the library of Mega Man games on the NES for his beats. This form of mashup mixtape is nothing new, having risen to prominence a few years ago with Danger Mouse's "The Grey Album" and Greg Gillis's Girl Talk project, but it's still damn fun and worth celebration. So crank up the volume, hit play, grab a drink and get your dance on while you think about busting up some robot masters, because here comes Memphis Bleek's "Like That" set to Mega Man 4's Skullman music:

If you dug this, you can download the whole 14 track mix, including some Nas, Outkast, Beastie Boys, Lupe Fiasco, 50 Cent, Kanye West, Ciara, the aformentioned Soulja Boy and more on Tae K's blog. I particularly enjoy the final track, Young Buck's "Shorty Wanna Ride" set to the end theme from Mega Man 3.

Related hip-hoppery:
Ludacris Presses The Start Button
You Got Soul, But You're Not A Soulja Boy
Chiptune Friday: Super Mario vs. M.I.A.

Criterion Collection + Videogames = Best GAF Thread Ever

Peter Smith — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Over the years, much has been made of Mega Man's hideous box art, and of the general pimplyness of game art's 8-bit pubescence. But ere we hurl stones at an older era's ugly glass houses, let us first look to our own, or something!

Like this, for example. Now that is some garish shit. Even the boxes for major games like Metroid Prime 3 aren't likely to win any design awards. Most of the time, they evoke summer-blockbuster viewing more than the subtler experiences their contents (hopefully) provide. They also tend to be stuffed full of colorful characters, when, more often, the unique experience of a game comes not from its characters but from the texture of its world.

Perhaps realizing this, some clever commenter over at NeoGAF started a thread soliciting game box art designed in the vein of Criterion Collection DVDs — playful, inventive, minimalistic, gorgeous. It is — ahem — the best thread ever. So much the best that even I, not much for Photoshop, spent a few hours mocking up some covers myself. Hit the jump for my efforts and my favorites from the thread.

Super Mario 64 - McBacon
Very much in the Criterion mold, which some contributors didn't quite catch.

Dr. Mario - somnific
Elegant, simple, instantly recognizable. Awesome work.

Bioshock - Bernbaum
This one's ingenious, and (given its simplicity) remarkably eerie in its evocation of the lost city.

Mirror's Edge - Jocchan
There are a bunch of Mirror's Edge pics in this thread, many of them very handsome, but this one makes a highbrow art reference in a non-arbitrary way.

Donkey Kong Country - Jocchan
Really captures the playfulness and tactile quality of many Criterion covers in a way that also perfectly suits the game.

Sonic the Hedgehog - zaidr
Just a great idea, and it also emphasizes how Sonic and co (in their earliest, best form) are less characters than multicolored, shiny projectiles in a giant pinball machine.

Okay — here are mine:

I've always loved that sunset/sunrise scene on Zelda's title screen; by hiding what's on the other side, it implies mystery and adventure in a way unskippable owl monologues never will.

Another wonderful thing about Zelda 1 is the mystery of the ancient. I wanted this picture to look like the dusty cover of some '60s anthropology book, but I'm not good enough at Photoshop for that, so instead it looks like the poster for an IFC documentary about Bali.

Then there's Zelda's sense of loneliness, which I thought was well-served by this Asher Durand painting. I picked that font cause it made me think of academic editions of 19th-century American classic novels (which often have Asher Durand paintings on the cover, as well). If I were really working for Criterion, I'd make sure to find a Durand painting with some hollow tree roots, to emphasize that sense in Zelda that there are secrets (to everyone!) tucked away everywhere.

The original Metroid is a scary game, largely because of the feeling of exploring a dead world. Those Chozo statues don't have a comic-book back story; they're just sitting there, creeping you the fuck out. Dead birds tell no tales, friends. (Until they get sequels, anyway.)

Using game assets seems like something of a cheat on these covers, since part of the goal is to suggest a tactile quality that the games themselves leave to the imagination. But when the game art is as immortal as Yoshitaka Amano's, it's hard to say no. (Sorry — that second one doesn't scan so well on a white background.)

So there you have it. (Sadly, the word "Actraiser" superimposed on El Greco's "Annunciation" wasn't as awesome as I'd hoped.) Go check out the thread, then start demanding better from your favorite game publishers!

The All New Retro: Bust-a-Groove and Low-Poly Love

John Constantine — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I won’t deny it. My gaming tastes are a little unusual. Take my emulation aversion. Does a normal person spend months and months tracking down a rare and expensive cheat device so they can play an imported SNES game when they could download a ROM and SNES emulator in about ten seconds? No. This is not how a normal person behaves. As I slowly morph into something approximating an adult, I’ve been noticing another strange predilection in my gaming brain: a love of low-polygon graphics.

Some games do not age with grace. Their mechanics, and especially their graphics, develop the distinct taste of vinegar when they used to be wine just five years before. Yet the games of the 32- and 64-bit era, games that I thought were repulsive even at the time, are starting to take on a strange allure. Take a look at this screenshot from Tomb Raider 3 as a prime example:

It’s a relic, no pun intended. The cliff face is made of perfect right angles, covered in muddy textures doing their best to look like rock. Lara herself looks like a drawing dummy. This screenshot should be a text book example of why early polygonal graphics are best-forgotten growing pains from the medium’s adolescence. Given, low-poly graphics like these have survived. Most 3D Nintendo DS games are comparable to this screen, though they can be much better. Square-Enix’s Final Fantasy IV is not unlike graphics seen in the best the Playstation and Nintendo 64 had to offer ten years ago. DS games of its ilk though feature graphics of necessity, not of stylistic choice. Style is where I see the potential beauty of low-poly graphics. Ugly as they are, they could make for a whole new style of retro game design.

In the same way that Retro Game Challenge and Mega Man 9 have leveraged NES-level visual limitations to inform and color compelling game designs, I can see a designer intentionally choosing a low-poly presentation to inform their game. Instead of the game looking antiquated and ugly, you have a ready made cubist style that can make for extremely expressive games. Just look at Katamari Damacy.

Bust-a-Groove, Enix’s long forgotten rhythm game pictured at the top of this post, is what got me thinking about the potential of low-polygon design. Its models are primitive, but appealing in their simplicity and expressive thanks to the game’s excellent motion captured dances. Imagine if that game hadn’t come out in 1998. Say it came out in 2016. Would we say it’s ugly? Or would we say approvingly, “That’s old school.”? Retro even.

Mark my words, dear reader. It’ll happen. And it will be, if nothing else, interesting when it does.

Related links:

Not All Games Age Well
Question of the Day: Why Can’t I Emulate?
The 61FPS Review: Retro Game Challenge
Continuing the Old-School Conversation
Don’t Call It Retro: Mega Man 9 and Design Resurrection

Mega Man Rap Video: Creative Work, a Lot of Filth, or Both?

Nadia Oxford — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 04:58:00 GMT

I have with me a video that people either seem to hate, or enjoy immensely. Simply titled “Mega Man 2,” it's a rap/metal conglomerate remix that, in my opinion, is catchy and pretty well put-together.

There's also forkfuls of swearing, which is what seems to turn people off. I don't think Mega Man would belt out lyrics like “From the windows/To the walls/'Til the sweat drips from my ballz”, no matter what any Robot Master might throw at him. But I guess worse has happened for the sake of a rhyme.

If you want to start complaining about continuity errors, you may as well ask why this video has Rush despite the Mega Man 2 theme. Rush and Protoman.

Video after the jump. What do you think?

Related Links:

The Mega Man Robot Club
Mega Man 9 Bosses Look Like Mega Man Bosses
Scene Re-Dub Attempts To Make Up for Mega Man X4's Past Sins

The Earthbound Legal Conundrum In-Depth

Nadia Oxford — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 04:13:00 GMT

The recent news about Earthbound never coming to the Virtual Console because of legal reasons has struck up a chorus of “But--” and “How come--”. People are understandably upset that Ness's adventure is going to remain in eBay Hell forever, and they want solid answers about why this wretched thing is happening.

There still aren't any solid answers, but the good man in charge of Mother 3's recent fan translation, Tomato, has put together an incredibly in-depth list of reasons why Nintendo is erring on the side of caution. Put in simplest terms, the Internet has made it easier than ever to conjure reasons for an IP lawsuit, and Nintendo already has numerous lawsuits hanging off it at any one time like parasitic fish on the belly of a whale. Even a company like Capcom likely doesn't see half the number of lawsuits Nintendo does, thus explaining why it shrugged off the release of Mega Man and Mega Man 2 on the Virtual Console, despite numerous musical “tributes” in both games.

As Tomato put it:

To avoid crap lawsuits, Nintendo has a team of legal people who have to go through everything Nintendo plans to release and look for anything that can cause potential lawsuits. Then these things are fixed if necessary.

The point is: they’re trying to avoid lawsuits in the first place. It doesn’t matter if they could clearly successfully win lawsuits brought against them; they’d still lose money in the process. Having this team of legal people is cheaper than putting up with every lawsuit that every crazy money-hungry company hits them with.

Remember Star Tropics, an 8-bit RPG by Nintendo? When we were kids, Mike pelted his enemies with a Yo-Yo. On the Virtual Console, his Yo-Yo became a “Star” because some Canadian company owns the rights to the Yo-Yo name. Likely said Canadians are too busy drinking and racing moose to care about an old Nintendo game, but Nintendo figures, why take the risk?

“So why is this all a problem now?” asks the Internet collective. “Why wasn't it a problem when Earthbound first came out for the SNES?”

There were copyright problems, and as Tomato notes, they were addressed. The awesomely-named “Grateful Dead Valley” became “Peaceful Rest Valley.” The Red Cross that marked in-game hospitals was removed, because sure enough the Red Cross will pitch a fit over logo copyrights otherwise. Dr Andonuts' “Sky Walker” craft became the “Sky Runner,” and the logo on the vaguely Coke-ish looking trucks was changed to something generic.

(The “Coke” logo was better off altered, anyway: the trucks in Mother 2 feature a suggestive white line under the word “Come.”)

So is this the very end, my friends? Is a VC release for Earthbound utterly hopeless? Tomato paints a pretty convincing argument, but like the UFO people often say, I want to believe. It's a funny old world out there, and it's full of just as many happy surprises as it is soul-crushing disappointments. Maybe all the lawyers in the world will simultaneously learn how to love again and Earthbound will show them the way.

Related Links:

Abandon All Hope: No Earthbound for the Virtual Console
Whatcha Listening To: The Earthbound Soundtrack
Earthbound and Back Again

WTFriday: A Sad Dog's Rush Cosplay

Nadia Oxford — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:50:00 GMT

On Christmas Day of 2008, an individual with a bad fake accent received a camera for a present, much as we're all rewarded for the hard work we performed during the birth of our Lord. Knowing the Internet was sorely lacking in pointlessly adorable content, this person went on to film his own series, “Dog Time,” starring a yellow lab with the saddest face in dogdom.

Episode 9 is relevant to our interests: the dog cosplays as Rush, Mega Man's trusty red pooch.

I swear the first words out of my mouth were, “Awwww, he wants to hang himseeeeelf!”

I work with dogs occasionally, so I like to think I can read them. I'm stumped with this puppy, though. I can't decide if he's really obedient to his master, or just really, really depressed.

“There is no Dog. Er, God.”

Related Links:

WTFriday: Mario versus Air Man
WTFriday: The Super Mario Bros Anime
WTFriday: The Star Fox 64 Promo Video

Fandom Unplugged: The Beginning

Nadia Oxford — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 04:26:00 GMT

“Fandom,” that which compels us to gravitate to others who enjoy our pursuits (video games), can be a difficult thing to tolerate thanks to a certain percentage of maniacs. You would be amazed at how heated a debate can get if it's about whether or not Miles Edgeworth from Phoenix Wright is circumcised. We witness these baffling arguments, and we swear we'll never get so passionate about such stupidities. But the very next week, we lose ourselves in a message board argument and pound out words like “GAYlo” before we pull back the reins and gape in horror at what we've become.

Why do we fall so easily? Is this what comes of the Internet and other technologies that save us enough time to wonder with friends in Brazil about whether or not Dr Light built Roll with certain “hardware?” Or is fandom just part of an ancestral grouping instinct that dates back to a swampy era wherein our ancestors declared everyone to be either “Crug” (“Part of my awesome tribe”) or “Flarth” (“Part of that other, lamer tribe”)?

Game-based fandoms are among the largest on the Internet. Gamers took to the onine world with ease to eke out cheats and fellow fans, whereas grandma was perfectly happy for the Petunia Club to continue its weekly meetings in the Church basement. Video games have always been at the cutting edge of technology, and technology changes quickly. But even riding the edge of the wave won't guarantee that you'll wake up tomorrow in Disney's Word of the Future. Gaming fandom and its accompanying drama long predates the Internet, dating back to the ancient days when we communicated through smoke signals and skin drums.

Okay, nothing like that. Still, pre-Internet fandom was thick with drama, even though arguments were printed through Letters to the Editor that were delivered by old men mounted on racing snails. In the coming days, I'll be looking back at the evolution of gaming fandom, with a special emphasis on how I remember it: the letters to magazines, the schoolyard gatherings, the thrill of seeing Mega Man X art in Nintendo Power and knowing that there were in fact other Mega Man fans out there, even if I couldn't converse with them immediately.

Provided you're old enough to know that the Internet wasn't with us in Eden, what do you remember about the dark ages of gaming fandom?

Related Links:

Roundtable Discussion: The Fandom Phenomenon, Part 1
Brave New Super Mario World
Fandom: Gone to the Movies

Fami Star Wars: Just Because It’s In English Doesn’t Mean It Makes Sense

John Constantine — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:00:00 GMT

You ever have that moment when you think about buying a game that you plain know you aren’t going to play that much, but you need to have it sitting on your shelf? You know, when you’re at the flea market and you drop fifteen bucks on a copy of Mega Man Soccer. Because it’s Mega Man Soccer, dag nab it, and that’s reason enough! This is sort of logic that’s been tempting me to spend forty dollars on this bad boy:

The cartridge alone is an insane piece of pop art. It wants to sit on a mantle above a fire place, radiating weirdness, cultural otherness, and raw, unadulterated sweetness. Not nearly as much weirdness, otherness, and sweetness as the actual game inside the cartridge, that goes without saying. As I mentioned in a post just a few weeks back, the damn game’s first level ends with Darth Vader transforming into a giant, anime-eyed scorpion.

Despite my hang ups about emulation, I may forego purchasing the actual cartridge of Namco’s monstrosity. According to Jeremy Parish’s minty fresh Retronauts blog, Romhacking.net just released an English translation patch for Fami Star Wars. This is just what this game needs: more cognitive dissonance. Text isn’t going to make it any easier to comprehend why Luke Skywalker has to save Obi-Wan Kenobi and Han Solo from side-scrolling levels. It couldn’t hurt though.

Here’s some video to remind you why you should play this game:

Hit up Parish’s feature here and stick around to read the rest of the blog. Not only is Retronauts awesome, but you can catch the musings of 61FPS’ own Nadia Oxford and Bob Mackey there as well.

Related links:

Videogames: Star Wars' Last Hope
Star Wars: A New Halo
Star Wars, Lucasarts, Bioware: You’re Doing It Wrong.
Why Wasn’t The Clone Wars A Video Game?

WTFriday: The Splash Woman Rap

Bob Mackey — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:00:00 GMT

Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week.

"Sometimes it's hard to be Splash Woman..."
- Tammy Wynette, "Stand By Your Mega Man"

Thanks to the kind folks at Game Music 4 All, I've become obsessed with some of the more creative video game remixes out there, like the Mother mashup I posted about yesterday. The weekly WTFriday falls on something just as awesome, but far more bizarre: an original Mega Man 9 music video featuring a completely-original rap set to Splash Woman's stage music. The lyrics to said rap shine a little more light on the obvious sexual tension between Mega Man and Splash Woman, and also give us a disturbing look into an alternate universe where Sonic Team somehow became responsible for creating Mega Man's music. But rest assured that Knuckles' rapping abilities fall short when compared to this fan-made project.

Related Links:

WTFriday: The Super Mario Bros. Anime
WTFriday: The Soothing Sounds of Yoshi
WTFriday: Bob's Game Is a Big Ol' Slice of Psycho

Mega Man 9: Powered Up and LittleBigGalaxyMan

John Constantine — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Every now and again, I curse the internet and its countless paths. It’s easy to get lost in here. it’s easy to lost literal hours of your life on completely meaningless, mindless drivel. How many times have you, dear reader, fallen into a YouTube spiral, clicking related video after related video until the moving images no longer hold meaning? Every URL is perilous I tell you. Then I come to my senses and remember the all important truth about the 21st century: the internet is awesome. As is meaningless, drivel, and the access we have to it.

Despite my recent renaissance with the game, I probably wouldn’t have found out about this brave soul’s Mega Man: Powered Up adventures if it wasn't for aimless internet wandering. They've made a close-to-perfect recreation of Galaxy Man’s stage from Mega Man 9. Behold:

It does, however, show the limitations of Mega Man: Powered Up’s versatility as a device for recreating classic Mega Man. Mega Man 1’s levels are faithfully preserved in the core Powered Up game but it’s impossible to replicate the wide-open rooms in Galaxy Man’s stage without turning them into multiple areas. All the same, very cool.

And, internet spirals being what they are, this video led me directly into the arms of another Galaxy Man recreation, this time in Mega Man: Powered Up’s descendant, LittleBigPlanet. This one’s obviously less perfect, but is still swell. It also helps highlight the merits of Mega Man 9’s lo-fi presentation; can you imagine how lame a Mega Man platformer would be if it actually looked like this?

Related links:

Little Big Trailblazer: Revisiting Mega Man Powered Up, User-Generated Content Pioneer
Mega Man 9 Bosses Look Like Mega Man Bosses
More Downloadable Remakes! More, Says I!
The Five Greatest Enhanced Remakes - And Five That Weren't So Great, Part 2

Dracula's Bad Day

Nadia Oxford — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 04:40:00 GMT

On the Internet, there is a man named Kajetokun. Kajetokun brought us videos like Over 9000 and Gutsman's Ass, so you may have already decided you hate him, even if you weren't familiar with his name.

Since hate doesn't tend to slow down the contributions of the creatively insane, Kajetokun has posted another something on YouTube. It's A Day in Dracula's Life. In fact, it's the only day in Dracula's Life. No sooner is Dracula resurrected by the dark priest Shaft than his delicious pot roast dinner is interrupted by the arrival of Richter Ballmont.

What follows is a lot of cursing and stuffing of meat and money into candles and lanterns.

Dracula regrets the loss of Succubus. I can't imagine why he'd be upset over the loss of a sex-crazed female demon.

Related Links:

Wasted Rentals, Wasted Youth: Bram Stoker's Dracula
What Is a Man? More Than a 4chan Meme
Castlevania III: Dracula's Reign Ends, Sypha's Baby Factory Opens

How About a Disembodied Mega Man Head to Start your Weekend

Cole Stryker — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 23:00:00 GMT

Japanese artist Masao has been busy, uploading new bizarre takes on classic video game characters to his Pixiv account. Since regular readers of 61FPS are huge Mega Man fans (you'd have left a long time ago if you weren't), here is an ultra-creepy drawing of a Megaman 1-Up.

More surreal video game art after the jump:

Happy Friday!

(via Attract Mode)

When Tiger Handhelds Ruined Hope and Birthdays

Nadia Oxford — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 01:01:00 GMT

I grew up in a recession that echoes these days of cheer and plenty to a certain degree. One key difference is that parents in the '80s were less likely to risk riding the credit bronco. If there was no money to get you the latest tech toy, you damn well weren't getting the latest tech toy.

That's why some lucky kids had Nintendo and other kids had to settle for Tiger's Electronic Handhelds.

Topless Robot has a gallery of the 10 Most Worthless Tiger Electronic Handheld Games. You risked receiving these little beeping plastic bricks if you asked for a Nintendo game that had a Tiger counterpart. For a fraction of the cartridge price, you could play a fraction of the game.

Topless Robot correctly emphasises that it wasn't so bad to unwrap some generic Tiger football game, or some kind of nameless Ninja adventure. It was the “adaptations” that caused you to wipe your eyes and nose on your sleeve when mom wasn't looking. It shouldn't have been legal to let Tiger adapt Sonic the Hedgehog if the company knew from the start that the stupid animal was only going to be capable of running in place.

There should be a Wall of Names erected for the brave children who remained hopeful through their disappointment and convinced themselves—for however few seconds—that the Mega Man III Tiger game was just as fulfilling as the NES cartridge. That's what their grandmothers told them when they opened their present, and everyone knows grandma never lies.

The Topless Robot article also includes commercial footage. Most of them have faded from my memory, but I remember thinking that the ad for Tiger's Aladdin was stupid. “If you defeat Jafar and free Jasmine, you win!” You mean I don't win if Jafar turns into a giant cobra and bites me in the eye?

Related Links:

Where is the PSP?
iPhone Owners are Gamers, Idiots
How Sony Can Save the PSP in 2009

Some Games Nadia Played in 2008 Instead of Working: Mega Man 9

Nadia Oxford — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 22:55:00 GMT

When I have to call up numbers for any reason, I rely on “funny” math. 1+1 = cow and whatnot. I don’t like math and math doesn’t like me. There’s a reason why I’m scrabbling as a writer and not pursuing my dream career as an epidemiologist (no, I’m serious).

This is my roundabout say of saying I miscounted the days and my “Ten Games Nadia Played, etc,” list isn’t going to hit double digits. It will be forever young and I’m comfortable with that.

One reason I might be so bad with numbers is because I spent a significant amount of my childhood playing Mega Man games instead of doing something useful. When you’re a Mega Man fan, what use is there for numbers above eight? Of course, when it comes time to count the sheer number of sequels and offshoots Mega Man has appeared in, you’re kind of boned. I thought I’d just do like the rabbits from Watership Down and refer to large numbers as “Hrar”--but then rumours of Mega Man 9 showed up and around and I knew the title deserved my attempt to count above eight.

The first substantial details about Mega Man 9 came through the June 2008 edition of Nintendo Power. It was pretty heartening to read jaw-dropping revelations about a highly anticipated title through a print magazine; that sort of thing just doesn’t happen so much anymore.

At first I was disappointed that Capcom wasn’t though with state-of-the-art turbo-powered graphics for Mega Man 9, but then I quickly realized it was pretty clever on their part. Mega Man games have always had pleasing graphics, but they should be about gameplay, tinny music and controls you can swear by.

Nostalgia is a powerful, blinding master that still has hordes of twenty-somethings believing that the cartoons and video games that raised them in the ’80s contained beautiful statements on the human condition instead of subliminal suggestions to buy toys. Mega Man 9 caters to every pore in an ’80s/‘90s fan boy, or fan girl; when I played it, my reflexes were whisked back to the summer I slowly mastered Mega Man 3, my very first Mega Man game.

That comparison alone is assurance that Mega Man 9 is more than empty nostalgia. It’s a phone call back to our eleven-year-old selves, a visit from a loving but slightly eccentric military grandfather who pokes you in your paunch and orders you to drop and give him fifty. Maybe we didn’t need a reminder of how nastily hard games were when we were kids, but the fact Mega Man trusted me help him rescue Doctor Light without first subjecting me to an hour-long tutorial makes me adore him, no matter what he put me through.

Related Links:

Mega Man 9 Goes Back To Your Roots. Way Back.
Mega Man 9 Bosses Look Like Mega Man Bosses
My Last Mega Man 9 Post, I Swear

Know Your Mega Man Boss Weaknesses. It Will Save Your Life.

Nadia Oxford — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 22:46:00 GMT

Quick. Name Snake Man's weakness in Mega Man III.

Your two seconds are up. Do you know it? That's what I thought.

According to the word on the wind, I'll be getting a BB Gun for Christmas. I plan to arm myself and quiz citizens of the world on their Mega Man trivia. You would do well to study up, and to stock up on Red Bull (I'm thinking about being lenient on ignorant gamers who provide a suitable offering to slake my wrath. They might not be wholly spared, but a shot to the bum is preferable to a shot through the eye).

It just so happens Cybermoon Studios has visual references for Mega Man boss weaknesses. The games covered include Mega Man, Mega Man 2, Mega Man 3 and Mega Man 9.

Which means when I stuff the business end of my Red Ryder up your nose and slur “Dust Man. Which is it?”, you're going to have a problem. Unless CyberMoon keeps drawing for the good of humanity.

Related Links:

The Mega Man Robot Club
Mega Man 2 vs Mega Man 3 The Battle For Everlasting Peace
Mega Man 9 Bosses Look Like Mega Man Bosses

Mega Man Dies and Goes To Robot Hell For His Sins

Nadia Oxford — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 05:01:00 GMT

Wise people are known to furrow their brows, stroke their beards and wonder why Doctor Wily just doesn't throw his entire stable of robot jerks at Mega Man. There are two answers to that question. First, there is certainly something psychological with Wily's slow trickle of Robot Masters; the even distribution gives Mega Man a challenge, but doesn't overpower him. This, in turn, leads to some rambling theory about every human's need to chase a Questing Beast.

The second answer is probably the right one: if Mega Man had to fight every Robot Master at once, his games wouldn't be much fun, stupid.

Gee, the guy who put together this video makes it look so easy. In fact, there's something primal and just a little sexual about this nine-man confrontation.

Just when you thought we'd never see another interesting Robot Master, here comes METBUBBNEAANAASOMANKNANWOAOAAIR Man.

Related Links:

What I'm Playing This Weekend: Mega Man Anniversary Collection
Mega Man is a Dick
Mega Man 9 Trailer: I'm Drowning in My Childhood

Little Big Trailblazer: Revisiting Mega Man Powered Up, User-Generated Content Pioneer

John Constantine — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 15:00:00 GMT

When I wrote up Where Is the PSP a few days back, I left out the fact that I’m largely responsible for the neglect of my own little Sony portable. Not because I haven’t been buying games, but because I haven’t taken the time to properly equip the thing to take full advantage of its potential. Up until yesterday, I had been using the same 32MB memory stick that came with my launch PSP back in 2005, pretty much cutting me off from any and all downloadable content available and, more often than not, limiting my ability to even update its firmware. Well, thanks to some good ol’fashioned Black Friday scavenging, my PSP has eight honking gigabytes to play with. I updated the firmware (I was a full version behind apparently), browsed the recently launched PSP PSN store (functional!), and grabbed some demos (Syphon Filter lives up to its reputation). But once the house cleaning and redecoration was finished, I moved on to the real impetus behind the upgrade: finally exploring Mega Man Powered Up’s DLC and user-generated levels.

This remake of Mega Man’s original adventure is really the unsung harbinger of the current gaming zeitgeist. Not only is it a lavish remake of a two-dimensional classic, not only did it lay the groundwork for Mega Man’s triumphant 8-bit rebirth, but it boasts one of console and portable gaming’s beefiest level creation tools. You can make all sorts of devious challenges, chock full of all the killer platforming, shooting, and bottomless pits any proper Mega Man needs, and then upload them to Powered Up’s easy to navigate web portal. Sure it sounds like a rote addition to any flagship game here at the end of 2008, but keep in mind that Powered Up came out almost three years ago. This is long before folks were singing the praises of Halo 3’s Forge, a solid year before people even knew Little Big Planet existed, and it’s all on a portable. The available levels, and there are many, are pretty swell after a random sampling. There’s even a token Super Mario Bros. 1-1 recreation.

Powered Up is also something of a cautionary tale. Capcom supported Powered Up with regular and free DLC, including asset packs for level creation (Ghosts ‘N Goblins level tools rule) alongside all sorts of extras like unique challenge course levels for every character in the game (every robot master is playable in every part of the game) and a plethora of, um, costumes for Roll (sexy kitty Roll? Sheesh, Japan…). But, after months of DLC, Capcom stopped because no one freaking bought Mega Man Powered Up! The lesson here is that, no matter how great your game, no matter how well you support it, no matter how great its ongoing features, it doesn’t mean people will play. Here’s hoping Media Molecule’s initial success holds for longer than a single year.

You can pick up Mega Man Powered Up for $12.00 on Amazon. Go. Go buy it now. If you do and make some levels, shoot me an email at johnc at nerve dot com, and I will play the bejesus out of it before posting the goodness right here.

Related links:

The Five Greatest Enhanced Remakes - And Five That Weren't So Great, Part 2
Mega Man's Nightmare: A Hard Hat With a Strategy
Games We Will Never Get to Play: Mega Man Mania AKA Game Boy Anniversary Collection
Mega Man is a Dick
The 61FPS Review: LittleBigPlanet - Part 2
Four More Games That ARE Awesome Remade In LittleBigPlanet

Mega Man's Nightmare: A Hard Hat With a Strategy

Nadia Oxford — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 03:03:00 GMT

If sharks learn to walk on land, the human race is going to have a problem. Similarly, if Mega Man's Hard Hats/Metools/Mettaurs start to think about effective attack patterns beyond duck-shoot-duck-shoot, our future robot childen are going to have problems.

I tried to come up with a song to express Mega Man's frustration here, but I haven't gotten beyond, "The Hat Came Back."

The Mega Man Robot Club
Mega Man 9 Bosses Look Like Mega Man 9 Bosses
My Last Mega Man 9 Post, I Swear

Your Way: Chrono Trigger and The Glory of Options

John Constantine — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:15:00 GMT

I spent the Thanksgiving holiday not shopping, not overeating, not doing much of anything outside of that most traditional holiday pursuit: catching up with family. Not the extended fam, just the nuclear, and even then we weren’t all around. Sometimes work and obligation gets in the way and not everyone can make it home, just the way it goes. It was just me and the parents. And Chrono Trigger, obviously. A true homecoming, really; early winter playthroughs of Chrono Trigger have been, for me, as much a tradition as seeing loved ones during the season but I’d fallen out of rhythm over the past three years. Excited as I was to play the game again, I was going in with some trepidation. Not over the two new dungeons, the new ending, or the re-written dialogue. (The script, by the way, saw far more significant changes than was previously reported. The re-write isn’t bad by any means, but some of the charm of Ted Woolsey’s original is lost.) No, I was worried about the incorporation of the PS1 version’s animated cutscenes. I skipped the earlier re-release because the thought of slowdown in Chrono Trigger is nauseating, but getting to avoid the cutscenes was an added bonus. Nothing against the anime stuff, it’s fine that it exists, but the game’s story simply doesn’t need those scenes. Not to mention how they break the game’s seamless presentation.

So it was a nice surprise when I saw this screen:

Much like the original SNES version, Chrono Trigger DS offers you a choice before the game even starts. In addition to letting you choose if you want battles to play in the Horii-standard turn-based fighting or the mid-‘90s-Sakaguchified active mode, CTDS asks if you want to use the new touch screen interface and if you want to turn off the anime cinemas. Not only that, but you can change the settings you choose whenever you want throughout the game, in a menu that is literally overflowing with customization options. Four pages of them in fact, letting you toggle everything from the anachronistic run button, menu cursor memory, even tutorial messages. You name it. And all of your current settings are listed on a single page on the DS’ top screen while you change them on the bottom. It is one of the most considerate features I have ever seen included in a game.

There is a lot to be said for a game being unchangeable by the time it reaches a player’s hands. This is what the creators wanted you to play and experience, so why should you be able to alter that? But I can’t tell you how much more I would enjoy Super Mario Galaxy if I could turn off Mario’s constant grunting and yelping, Resistance 2 if I could turn off the NPC-ally chatter, if I could just re-map the damn buttons in Mega Man Anniversary Collection on Gamecube. Think how much more enjoyable all of the 3D Zeldas would be if you could turn off tutorials? These might not seem like deal breakers, but sometimes it’s the niggling annoyances in a game that stick with you more than the story or actual gameplay. In letting you tune your experience, a game’s designer can not only ensure you get the most out of your time with their creation, but also let you glean an even greater appreciation for the work that went into making it. A perfect example is the ability to switch out the HD sprites for the originals in the recently released Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. Trust me, you don’t appreciate just how gorgeous the new characters are until you’ve seen the overgrown, pixilated classics hopping about in widescreen.

I enjoyed Persona 3 more because it let me turn off the voiceovers. I enjoyed Resistance: Fall of Man more because it let me completely remap the controls. And I enjoyed Chrono Trigger DS even more because of its truly generous options. What do you think, readers? How far should game designers let you tweak their games to ensure you play the best game you can?

Related links:

The Death Of Awesome Pack-In Material
Populous: Text Based Tutorials Need to Die In A Fire
This Week in Shrieking Annoyances
RPGs: Turn Based VS. Real Time - FIGHT!
TVTropes' "Woolseyisms"

Mega Man Fan Movie Trailer

Nadia Oxford — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 03:25:00 GMT

Okay, well...

So...

Um, I really do admire the gentlemen who play Thomas Light and Albert Wily in this upcoming(?) Mega Man fan movie. Imagine asking your dad to roleplay as a dude who hangs out with a giggly female robot all day, or as a power-hungry German man (anyone who speaks German can't be power-hungry). Imagine his reaction.

"You want me to do what? While wearing a lab coat?"

I'm also digging the designs for the original six robots. Looks like someone spent the extra thirty cents on the fancy brand of tinfoil.

I've seen a lot of Mega Man fan movie trailers come and go. I kind of hope this project sees its way to fruition just so I can stop feeling I belong to the most shiftless fandom on the Internet.

The Mega Man Robot Club
Mega Man 9 Goes Back To Your Roots. Way Back.
The Delights of Continuity in Mega Man and Abroad

Achievements and Trophies and Unlocking, Oh Meh

John Constantine — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:30:00 GMT

Amazing things are going to happen in 2009. In the first third of the year, we’ll be playing a trifecta of raw, unadulterated Capcom goodness in the form of Street Fighter IV, Bionic Commando, and Resident Evil 5, Killzone 2 will finally come out and not look anything like the concept footage shown at E3 2005, we might find out just what the hell Alan Wake is, and maybe, just maybe, it’ll turn out that Final Fantasy XIII is actually a videogame and not just a three minute clip of a chick with nice hair. Home might even come out! Instead of the adorable little freak version of you that putters around your Wii games – or your Xbox 360, which is the exact same little freak but with hands and a selection of shirts from Old Navy – you’ll get to have a version of yourself that is iPod commercial ready, with glossy hair sharp enough to cut a Nomura character. You’ll get to go bowling, wonder why no one’s playing Warhawk and show off all your trophies. And you will have trophies, rest assured. Come ’09, Sony’s making them an obligatory component of any and all PS3 games.

I don’t necessarily think achievements and trophies are a bad thing, especially for the type of player who enjoys setting themselves inane goals outside a game’s explicit ones. I just don’t understand why they have to be a necessary feature in every game. Nor do I see it as an effective way for players to, and pardon my French, wave their dicks at each other. Does anyone honestly care that their pals playing Gears of War have killed three-hundred thousand monsters? Finding ways to twist the fundamental rules of a game to make it something new is a time honored tradition. Just look at speedrunning for a perfect example. But unless a developer is inspired to put these sorts of objectives into their game, why force them to spend time on tacked on content?

No more ranting on the subject, I promise.

Note: The Mega Man 9 achievements are kind of neat. Perhaps I am wrong.

Related links:

Progress Quest: Playstation 3 Growing Up and The General Beauty of Firmware Updates
The Curious Case of Playstation Home
Whatcha' (Wish You Were) Playing: How Does Your Garden Grow?
Let the Mega Man 9 Speedruns Continue

WTFriday: Mario Versus Air Man

Bob Mackey — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week.

Today's WTFriday is more strange than stupid, but it's worth looking at nonetheless. Listen, I'm only human and sometimes I reach my capacity for hate. That being said, ROM hacks usually are stupid; they either make your playable character naked/demonic/into feces, or they're "remixes" which are unplayably hard for everyone except the hacker himself. The ROM hack I'm about to show you is unplayably hard, but it's also undeniably cool; and you also have the benefit of watching a YouTube video of said hack instead of having to suffer through it yourself. Believe it or not, this is an extremely modified hack of the original Super Mario Brothers:

Going to the page for this video will give you a ROM download link, but I urge you to not take advantage of this kind offer, lest you rob this hack of its magic. Plus, I'm pretty sure it was made with voodoo, or one of the dark arts. You don't want that stuff in your computer.

Related Links:

WTFriday: Atlus Takes on Third Wave Feminism
WTFriday: The Star Fox 64 Promo Video
WTFriday: Mega Man A Cappella

How Chicago Inadvertently Penned an Anthem for Dead Anime Fathers

Nadia Oxford — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:47:00 GMT

The other day, I was browsing a retail establishment when Chicago's "You're the Inspiration" came over the store speakers. Suddenly, I felt very sad.

It was an interesting reaction and not one I would have had a few years ago. Having surrendered my youth to the modern day equivilent of potato mines (retail), I'm familiar with the safe music that's piped over the speakers to keep the masters and beasts complacent. I would never give Chicago another thought ever again if not for an Elite Beat Agents scenario involving an anime girl's dead father.

Surely I'm not the only one who's come to associate games with certain licensed songs. The Japanese have been sneaky about it since we were kids: Mario's invincibility music is lifted straight from Jesus Christ Superstar and more than one tune in the early Mega Man games sounded like a tribute to Guns n Roses and/or Metallica. But legitimate songs being used in games (or to advertise games) is quickly becoming popular and I'm increasingly interested in the association aspect. This doesn't apply so much to games like Guitar Hero or Rock Band, which usually have you belting out tunes in a club, or possibly a fancy club. I'm referring to instances where a song is used to define a game, or an in-game scenario like the ones in Elite Beat Agents.

For instance, I will forever associate the song "Mad World" with Gears of War--more specifically, a giant goddamn spider from Gears of War (Sidenote: I very much prefer Tears for Fears' half-frantic original to Jules' whiny lamentation). Gears of War 2's commercial has taken the song association route as well, though I don't remember anything about the choice. I am uncool--but perhaps the song is not as an effective choice as Mad World since there's no association in my head?

"Under the Sea," of course, belongs to Bioshock. In fact, Bioshock's licensed selection is brilliant and goes a long way in defining the game overall. "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window" is benign, but "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window" stuttering over and over on a damaged jukebox in a silent, busted-up bar is a memory that will visit your dreams often, if you're like me. Also, there is a specific instance wherein the player hears the sad drone of "Danny Boy". It is a brilliant touch of atmosphere.

I'm limiting myself by gushing on about my experiences alone. What songs have embedded themselves into your memory because of a game? Bonus points if your parents made out to the song as youth and are now horrified to see it squandered in a video game.

Related Links:

Warner Music Wants More Royalties
The Economist Weighs In On Music Games
Wii Are Not Amused

The Protomen: Making Two Old Men Awesome Since 2008

Nadia Oxford — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 03:39:00 GMT

Over the years, Capcom has attempted to add depth to our robot hero, Mega Man. I mean, they've really attempted it, God bless 'em. Even though the end product reads like a story written by a ten-year-old science fiction fanatic with ADD, we shall give Capcom an A for Aeffort.

But even though we have a good idea of Mega Man's inner workings (gears, bolts, some black stuff), what do we know about his creator, Doctor Light? I mean, we know his hair and beard are poofy like some anime Zeus'. We know that he likes a pipe now and then oops wait not in America. We also know that his inventions, however well-meaning, initiated vicious wars between humans and robots that spanned across generations.

Oh, but we don't talk about Dr Light's little "oops." Shhh, look. Look over here. Look at this cute little robot dog. Hold still while it eats your skull.

I am an unapologetic fangirl of The Protomen, the fine lads who constructed a Mega Man rock opera. The first album is about Protoman defecting to Doctor Wily's band of killer robots and Mega Man trying to convince his brother through song (unsuccessfully) that he is a good boy. The second album, coming...soon, I imagine, is a prequel with special emphasis on Wily and Light and certain events that cause humanity's spin down the toilet.

I've listened to three leaked songs: "Breakin' Out" (available on The Protomen's website), No Easy Way Out and the hella rad "Father of Death." Going by the lyrics, a young Dr Light is distraught over horribly failed attempts to set things right in a doomed city. Meanwhile, Wily tries to make off with Light's girl, who snaps back that she is loyal, always, for "If the shadow blacks out the sun--there will be light." Excuse me, I need a cigarette.

It's all overblown in that lovable style of The Protomen, but it's just so danged cool at the same time. Will this lovely bit of Opera finally give us the reason why Dr Light wears slacks and Dr Wily wears jeans? What horrible story of heartbreak is behind this fashion...choice?

Related Links:

Whatcha Listening To: The Protomen (And So Should You)
Whatcha Listening To: The Earthbound Soundtrack
Pixies Cover the Theme From Narc

The Eternal Question: Why Is Super Mario Bros. Fun?

John Constantine — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:00:00 GMT

No, seriously, take a minute to think about it. Pour yourself a stiff drink or brew up a nice cuppa tea, put on your thinking cap and try to summarize your conclusion in a single sentence. It’s a peculiar question, really. I found myself trying to answer it late last night after spending some time with Mirror’s Edge. DICE’s platformer shares a lot of the same fundamentals as good ol’ SMB and, concerning the question at hand, both are fun for similar reasons. Super Mario Bros. lets you go wild on a playground where the laws of gravity are paying only loose attention and injury is not a threat. You can run and jump to your heart’s content, and if you see something, like a shiny coin or glowing box that might hide unknown treats, you can hit it with your fist and never worry about bloodied knuckles. Super Mario Bros. is fun because running and jumping, whether in real life or on a screen, is fun, and it’s this maxim that’s fueled platforming as a genre for twenty-five years. But the greatest platformers, the Marios and the Mega Mans, owe their success to more than just running and jumping. They also let you change their world. In Mario, especially in later series entries that allowed flight, crushing bricks opens new ways to move through the Mushroom Kingdom’s surreal landscapes. Mega Man has to destroy robots to ensure safe landings after a jump. If jumping and running was all you did in Jon Blow’s Braid, it could barely be called a game at all.

When you settle into Mirror’s Edge, when you trust yourself to move through the level properly and let DICE’s carefully laid out obstacle courses subtly guide you, it manages to transcend the natural abstraction that comes from making things on TV move. It is physically and mentally affecting. It is fun. But, and mind you I’ve only played the first three levels of the game, all you do is run, jump, and climb. It is purely a jungle gym, and when you’re confronted by hostile elements, your chief task is to avoid them, not eliminate them from the play field (at least, not unless it’s absolutely necessary to do so.) As I continue through the game, I find myself stopping to wonder if there’s something else I’m supposed to be doing, some other facet of the challenge that is going to change the rules after you’ve learned how to run. What is its platformer hook and, more importantly, does it need one?

I’m beginning to suspect that Mirror’s Edge isn’t revolutionary because of its presentation, perspective, or control. It’s revolutionary because it’s redefining the plumber’s definition of fun.

Related links:

Mirror’s Edge: Everything You’ve Heard Is True
Trailer Review: Mirror’s Edge
E3 Day 4: No Blades, No Bows. Leave Your Weapons Here.
Mario Will Not Retire. He Will Outlive Us All.
Super Mario World is Terrifying!

Games We Will Never Get to Play: Mega Man Mania AKA Game Boy Anniversary Collection

John Constantine — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Now, technically speaking, it is very possible that we will one day get to play this game, or rather, games. We could go to Ebay and drop the $100+ on all of the original carts and fire ‘em up on whatever hardware we may have available to play original Game Boy games (Super Game Boy, Game Boy Player, Game Boy Advance, hell, why not Gunpei Yokoi’s glorious grey brick from 1989 if we’re feeling especially devoted to an authentic experience.) We could download one of them fancy emulators and five ROMs. We could just go ahead and wait for the inevitable, when the DS Ware store gets a little Capcom love and we all drop fifteen dollars on all five games. But we will never, ever get to pop a Game Boy Advance cart into a machine, hit power, and play the aborted Mega Man Anniversary Collection.

Planned to release shortly after its older console brethren in late 2004, the GBA Anniversary Collection compiled the five Game Boy Rockman World games, known as Mega Man: Dr. Wily’s Revenge and Mega Man II through V here in the States. When it comes to old fashioned Mega Man-ning, these games are far from essential. I through IV are amalgamations of NES I through V, with the respective robot master levels being slightly remixed. They did sport a handful of additions, each game starring a brand new boss (Mega Man Killers) that gave up a unique weapon, and all of them culminating in a new Dr. Wily fortress. Like most Game Boy games, the Rockman World adventures were cramped affairs, with too-big sprites and levels that never properly emulated the big, open hallways of console Mega Mans. Anniversary Collection was delayed for eighteen months before getting officially cancelled in January 2006. The real loss here is that more people didn’t get a chance to play Rockman World V, a cart rare when it was first released and that’s fetched a high price on the collector’s market for a long time. The only totally original game of the series, it’s also Mega Man’s most unique outing: instead of fighting eight worker robot “Mans”, you take on nine (nine!) robots based on the planets in our solar system. Mega Man also got a robot kitty and his Mega Buster charge shot was replaced by the Mega Arm.

Hopefully, we’ll get easy access to this lost relic of the Blue Bomber’s history at some point in the future. In the mean time, enjoy this hilariously narrated play through of V.

Related links:

Game Compilations: The Good, the Bad, and the Fugly
What I'm Playing This Weekend: Mega Man Anniversary Collection
Games We Will Never Get to Play: River City Ransom Online
Games We Will Never Get to Play: Kenji Eno’s D2 for M2

Game Compilations: The Good, the Bad, and the Fugly

John Constantine — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 22:00:00 GMT

Time was, I thought game compilations, museum, and anniversary collections, and anything else you’d want to call them were the cat’s meow. Greatest thing since sliced bread. The *ahem* tits. Then The Mega Man Anniversary Collection for Gamecube came out back in 2004. Fifty simoleons for all eight console Mega Man games plus an opportunity to finally play Mega Man: The Power Battle and Power Fighters? Sounds like a dream come true. Then I found out that instead of the A button making the little blue fella shoot and the B button making him jump, the buttons were reversed for the compilation. There is no way to change this control scheme. It turns playing Mega Man 1 through 6 into a personalized hell, the place where cheat code users go when they die. Compilations are dangerous business because, more often than not, the publisher puts no effort whatsoever into them and people buy them anyway. That’s how you end up with Mega Man’s jumping and shooting getting reversed, how Sega releases not one, but two Sonic the Hedgehog collections with fantastic unlockables that are almost impossible to unlock, and how Namco can release the same damn Galaga/Dig Dug/Pac-man collection nine-hundred times.

Of course, they really can be a treat. Despite all the load times and inaccessible unlockables, the Sonic Mega Collection is still a great way to play Sonic at his best. Occasionally, budget numbers like the Capcom Classics Mini Mix, a no-frills GBA collection with Bionic Commando NES, Strider NES, and Mighty Final Fight, can come along and introduce you to games you’ve never ever heard of. (Seriously, Mighty Final Fight? When did that happen? It’s got mini Haggar!) They are a more palatable alternative to Virtual Console-style downloads too, as far as price is concerned. Sega’s just-announced Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection for PS3 and Xbox 360 comes with forty games, and for thirty bucks you get what Nintendo would charge $120 for on Wii. Plus, they wouldn’t even all fit on the Wii’s memory! But again, the production values are highly questionable. As Jeremy Parish pointed out with the screen Sega released of Shinobi III, the emulation work on this new collection isn’t exactly screaming HD-console-quality visuals. Look at this:

That's a game that Backbone Entertainment has already put on Xbox Live Arcade! It didn't look half that muddy. See?

So, what’s the problem? Why can’t Sega, and every other publisher with a mind to, release well-considered, value-laden collections like the Capcom Classics Collection (which has radical Street Fighter tutorials?)

(Link: Joystiq)

Editor's Note: Pictured at the top is Sega's own Fantasy Zone Complete collection. It is awesome.

Related links:

What I'm Playing This Weekend: Mega Man Anniversary Collection
Sega "Gets" the Wii
Infinite Mega Man 9: Composer Ippo Yamada Talks Living Up to a Serious Musical Pedigree
Where I Draw the Line With Retro
Growl, Snarl, Bark: Screw Attack's Top 10 Genesis Games

The 61FPS Review: LittleBigPlanet - Part 1

Derrick Sanskrit — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Many would agree with me the LittleBigPlanet is the most significant game release of 2008. Sure, Spore was a big deal, but it was only the next logical step in Will Wright's Sim series. LittleBigPlanet is a platform for whatever the user wants it to be, a venue for sharing and interaction, and a robust toolbox for imaginative and aspiring game designers. There's no denying LittleBigPlanet is an impressive and forward-thinking new box of toys for the kids, but is it a fun game? With one week of Sackboy inhabitance under my belt, I'm prepared to render my first impressions.

First, an astounding "Yes!" LittleBigPlanet succeeds in its campaign to bring fun back to gaming. From the charming tutorials narrated by Stephen Fry (remember his delightful British voiceovers in the feature film treatment of Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy? Accompanying those wonderful Shynola-produced animated sequences? The very definition of whimsy, right there.) to the wondrously expressive characters and environments, the fancifully capricious score of licensed music to the patchwork globe user-interface, everything about this package just oozes fun the way a frat boy at a party oozes Axe body spray, only you'll want to spend the whole evening with LittleBigPlanet, wake up next to it the following day and ask if it has plans the next night.

There are, of course, a few areas where the fun breaks into "well, that's annoying." While the stages included on disc are ingeniously designed spectacles of platform peril, precise jumps and landings are frustratingly difficult due to the fact that Sackboy sort of floats into place rather than the stop-on-a-dime runs and jumps we've gotten used to from Mario and Mega Man. I've lost dozens of innocent Sackboys to spike pits, poison gas, and electrified obstacles because they didn't quite land jumps the way I expected them to. This brings me to my next qualm, the ever-archaic lives system. Each checkpoint throughout the stage allows you to respawn there for a certain number of lives before you fail the entire stage and I am left wondering why. Shouldn't an all-ages game focused on cooperation and fun like this allow at least the option for infinite lives? It's quite annoying to make it more than halfway through a stage filled with challenging obstacles only to come across one of those aforementioned difficult-to-land jumps, quickly fail at it four times and have to start back at the very beginning again. Just let me try this jump until I get it right! There are wonderfully informative tutorial videos on how to use each and every tool and object in the game's create mode, but while there are easy-to-use reality-altering pause, fast-forward and rewind commands for the world around Sackboy in create mode, these timeline controls do not apply to the videos, which continue uninterrupted until they end. Miss something important? You have to wait for the video to be over, then hit the switch to start the whole thing over again.

But enough whining, because what LittleBigPlanet does well it does astonishingly well. Not only is the story mode included on disc thoughtful and compelling, it continuously activates the players imagination. Every stage introduces obstacles and puzzles and enemies unseen before and then provides you with the tools and knowledge to make those elements or your own crazier takes on them. The true measure of a game's fun for me has always been how much I find myself thinking about it when I'm not playing, such as keeping track of the time I spend running for trains outside of WiiFit or pondering my place in the universe and how that effects my fashion choices outside of The World Ends With You. Well, this past weekend, waiting for a train after a Halloween party, I found myself dreaming up obstacles to build for my little Sackboy. Within seconds I had pulled out the sketchbook and doodled this curious little environmental puzzle:

Having played with the create tools for an hour or two by the time I'd sketched this, I already had a general idea of how it would all work, and it took maybe five minutes to build as a functioning prototype in-game. No, it's not huge or world-altering, but as a small bit of a larger environment it's enormously satisfying. This brings us to the biggest aspect of LittleBigPlanet and the hardest to review: user-generated content. LittleBigPlanet is all about sharing. If you don't make your own stages and/or play other people's stages, you're only playing an incredibly small part of the game. Sure, betas have been out for a while, but the full game and its server have only been around for about a week and, having played around 45 user-generated stages at this point, I can say that I'm honestly blown away by what some people are making. Of course they aren't all great, it's commonly accepted that a majority of all user-generated contet will be complete rubbish, but it's a testament to either the creativity of the early adopters or the jury process of how the stages are organized that so many of the user-created stages I've played so far have been beautiful and well thought-out experiments in game design, from underwater temples to basketball courts to classic game soundtracks to a recreation of the Pac-Man arcade. The only reason I haven't finished LittleBigPlanet's story mode yet is that I feel propelled to check out the new user-created stages every time I turn the game on, I am just so fascniated by them all. (Edit: Shortly after writing this, I did face off against the final boss and earned my "Just Beginning" trophy for completing story mode.)

Clearly so far, LittleBigPlanet is not a perfect gaming experience, but it transcends. LittleBigPlanet is so compelling, so unique, so inspirational that it will undoubtedly be played widely for the entire lifespan of the Playstation3 and beyond and is likely to usher in a whole new generation of gaming like Super Mario Bros, Wolfenstein 3D and Dance Dance Revolution before it. Unlike last year's PS3 blockbuster Ratchet & Clank which was billed by critics as being the first game to look like you were playing a Pixar movie, LittleBigPlanet strikes me as the game that would result if the creative minds at Pixar decided to make a game instead of a movie. What can be done in games that can't be done in other media? What can be done in games that hasn't been done in games before? How can we make all of this a compelling emotional experience for players, regardless of age, gender, or nationality? I believe LittleBigPlanet will reshape the way both gamers and game designers approach the medium and, as is the whole point of the software, bring the two groups even closer together.

Look for continued impressions and final analysis to come...

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