61 Frames Per Second : super mario bros

Silent Hill, Killer 7 and Not Having Fun With Great Games

John Constantine — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 02:00:00 GMT

I am less than taken with Bit.Trip Beat. Subsequent playings have not improved my opinion of the game. As I’ve gotten further into it, the fundamental flaws in its design I spotted at the beginning have been born out later in the game. Some people love it. I don’t. They think it’s fun. I don’t. C’est la vie.

As I mentioned in my article about Bit.Trip, though, I don’t think that games need to be fun in order for them to be good. I was pretty vague in making my point though. 61FPS reader Kit wrote me an email last week to ask just what the hell I was talking about. How can a game be good if it isn’t fun to play? Isn’t fun implicit in the very act of playing?

When’s a game good but not much fun?

Some games aren't fun in a traditional, visceral sense but are still substantive, engaging, and well designed. The two best examples of this are Silent Hill and Suda 51's Killer 7. Silent Hill games, particularly 1 and 2, are frustrating as hell. It's hard to see where you're going and your character is difficult to control even by survival horror standards. Beyond your basic interaction though, the games fill you with dread; they are never pleasant to play. The story, world, and actual play (moving your character, fighting enemies) are designed to make you feel uncomfortable. It doesn't matter. Silent Hill 2 is a good game because it taps primal emotions, like fear, at the same time as deeper, social emotions like guilt in the player. (David Cage from Quantic Dream actually gave a talk on the difference between social and primitive emotion in games last summer, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head since. If you're curious, check it out.)

Suda's Killer 7 is a little different, less about emotion than it is about dispassionately confusing the player. It discomfits with a dense narrative that is confusing and full of emotionally distant characters, strange noises, and weird camera angles. It also intentionally limits your range of movement and your perspective; you have to explore to succeed, but the game is constantly forcing you down rigidly defined paths. You cannot freely move through the environment. You have to stay on set path. Killer 7 isn't fun. It is artful. It's about challenging its player's perception. (What does it mean, does it mean anything at all, etc.) It's rare for a game to ask its player to think beyond solving a puzzle.

Neither game is what I'd consider fun in the way that say Super Mario Bros. 3 is fun, but they are nonetheless great.

What do you say, reader? Am I nuts? Or does a game have to be fun in order to be good?

Thanks again, Kit!

Related links:

The New Graphics Whores: Bit.Trip Beat is Gorgeous, But Retro Style Does Not Equate Quality
Interview Round Up: Suda 51, Shinji Mikami, and Mikami’s Replacements on Resident Evil
Ceci N'Est Pas Une 1-Up: The Surrealist Future of Postpunk Gaming
10 Years Ago This Week: Silent Hill

Shigeru Miyamoto and Blasphemy, A Match Made in Heaven

John Constantine — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 01:30:00 GMT

Every time I think of the happy American families playing Wii Play and Wii Sports, I smile a little inside. I love it that everyone’s playing videogames. It means there will be more of them. I have to laugh a little too, particularly when USA Today or some other milquetoast news outlet does a write up on Nintendo’s family friendliness. Nintendogs! Well we can all enjoy that right? Sure we can.

In another world, Nintendo wouldn’t have stayed in business in the United States past 1984. Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., and Mario Bros. would be their only legacy in the land of the free. One day that year, I imagine the following dialogue took place between Mr. Miyamoto and Nameless Nintendo of America Head:

NNOAH: “"Hey Shigeru, I hear ya gots the latest follow up to Donkey Kong ready! Whatcha got to make us rich, kid?"

Shigeru Miyamoto: “It’s a maze game! We’re going to make some of that proverbial Pac-man cash!”

NNOAH: “Genius! Tell me more.”

SM: “I call it Devil World! You play as a little dinosaur in hell. You push a crucifix around hell to collect dots. Satan sits at the top of the screen, clapping his hands.”

NNOAH: “…”

SM: “I already have an arcade in Oklahoma interested in buying cabinets and…”

NNOAH: “Shut up.”

SM: “But…”

NNOAH: “Shut up. Before you destroy us all!”

Can you imagine the ruckus Devil World would have caused? Satanic imagery in videogames! The blasphemy! The horror. God fearing Americans across the land would have called for Miyamoto’s blood. Donkey Kong machines would have been burned. Mario would never have become the icon he is, his good, mustachioed name sullied by sinful association.

I had completely forgotten Devil World existed until last week, hence the post. The game’s innocuous; its derivative play is a great example of Miyamoto’s growing pains as a designer. I’d never really thought about how strange it is, though. I can’t confirm this, but I’d bet good money that this game had something to do with Nintendo of America’s censorship policies in the 80s. They did refuse to have crosses in games, after all.

Related links:

Great Moments in Design: Kuribo's Shoe Rising
Wii Music: A Rare Miss For Miyamoto?
Shigeru Miyamoto, the Heartbreak...Man
Videogame, Non-Game, Old Game, New Game: The Miyamoto Rule

The Path is Real, Not A Fever Dream

John Constantine — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:00:00 GMT

In 1992, I woke up one morning, got dressed, and got on a large yellow bus plagued by self-doubt. Was Super Mario Bros. 4 real? Was there a game where Mario had to scale a blue giant with red hair, jumping from platform to platform to scale its towering form, using a kite to reach heights his stubby plumber’s legs couldn’t reach on their own? It seemed so real! I played it! Nah. Like an atrocious short story ending from some freshman creative writing workshop, it was all a dream. Super Mario Bros. 4 existed in my head. Much as I thought The Path did, until earlier today.

Like MMO Love, The Path was a game I first read about in an Edge preview almost two years ago, and it sounded far too good to be true. A surrealist re-telling of Red Riding Hood crafted by Belgian artists Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn, The Path would be a freeform adventure game comprised of three acts in three genres, crossing between point-and-click, third-person exploration, and a first-person conclusion. The Path aimed to not only reinterpret a time-honored fairytale but also explore the emotional experience of a girl growing up. Harvey and Samyn said that they wanted to do away with linearity entirely, to allow every interaction in the acts to feed into emergent, personalized narratives that deal in discomfort and fear triggered by the player. All of it rendered in stark, primary colored 3D imagery. I haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere in the press since. Who could blame me for thinking I’d just imagined it? It sounds incredible!

Turns out it’s coming out next week. Here’s a launch trailer, courtesy of Joystiq.

The Path looks suitably spooky here. It’s stocked with a few of the more prevalent psychological horror tropes that have prospered in the past decade: distorted woodland imagery, creepy little girls, unhinged narration, and the sort of screeching discordant soundtrack that would make John Carpenter proud. But there’s nothing here to indicate that Samyn and Harvey realized their ambitions in play. Only one way to find out, I suppose.

Man, I hope I’m not hallucinating this trailer or writing this article…

Editor’s Note: How sweet would a kite power up be in Mario? Ten year-old me was onto something.

Related links:

The Original Adventure - Now Portable
Whatcha Playing: The Thirst For Adventure, Pointing At Things, and Not Knowing What to Say
Question of the Day: How Do You Make a Horror Game Horrifying?
10 Years Ago This Week: Silent Hill

In Super Smashing Pumpkin Bros. Shy Guys Are Part Of Your Siamese Dream

Derrick Sanskrit — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:00:00 GMT

I've known plenty of fine folks who've wasted many late nights reskinning ROMs of their favorite old NES games to resemble their favorite pop culture characters or make philosophical statements in self indulgent ways. This, however, is something I'm shocked to have not seen before, considering the ROMs are about a decade old now. Steven and David Pukin reskinned Super Mario Bros 1 and 3 with Billy Corgan and various Smashing Pumpkins related ephemera to create Super Smashing Pumpkin Bros 1 and 2. Then, Macbee reskinned Super Mario Bros 2 with the whole band to make Super Smashing Pumpkin Bros 3. From the attire, I'd guess the third game is set during the Adore era. Billy's always bald and dressed in all black, so it's all gotta be Infinte Sadness or later, right?

See below for a trailer of all three games and then a link to download the ROMs yourself like I just did.

Click here to find all three ROM files. You'll need an NES emulator, of course, and the internet is full of them, so I'll leave that up to you. My personal favorite, though, is Nestopia for Mac OS X.

Related articles:
The Mountain Goats sing about Toad and Mario
Space Invaders versus Röyksopp
8-bit Radiohead
M.I.A. versus Super Mario Bros
RAC remixes the Legend of Zelda

Super Mario Speed Demon

Amber Ahlborn — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:00:00 GMT

Super Mario Bros. too slow for you? Try Hyper Mario Bros! If you don't develop a nervous tick after playing this game, then you're doing it wrong.

Language is no barrier here, I may not know what he's saying, but I know exactly what he means.

Related Links:

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

Let the Mega Man 9 Speed Runs Begin

Automated Musical Mario

The Super Mario 64 Great Mushroom Chase

Bob Mackey — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:00:00 GMT

The words "emergent gameplay" are thrown around a lot these days, but unless you're provided with a concrete example, it's sometimes hard to figure out what this term really means--which may have a lot to do with the fact that so many people misuse and overuse it. Essentially, emergent gameplay happens when the player of a video game develops their own goals within said game separate from the goals provided by the developers. And since I'd be a total hypocrite at this point if I didn't provide you with a stunning example, I'd like to talk a little bit about Mario 64; you see, whenever a players activates a 1UP mushroom in the game, it follows Mario until the two connect--then magic happens. Well, some Japanese gamers on YouTube decided to see if it was possible to activate a 1UP mushroom and collect all of the 8 red coins in a given level before the relentless extra life inevitably catches up with Mario. The results are hilarious, and about as tense as being stalked by Nemesis in Resident Evil 3. You don't know terror until a menacing green mushroom suddenly appears behind you, ready to strike.

Skip to 3:00 and wait for the fun to begin.

Special thanks to Zo from the Something Awful Forums for the tip.

Related Links:

Brave New Super Mario World
Seth McFarlane Animates Mario Short
Mario Will Not Retire. He Will Outlive Us All.

Pole’s Big Adventure: Sega Rides the Retro Train, Takes Advantage of You

John Constantine — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:30:00 GMT

A couple of weeks back, Sega Japan launched a countdown website sporting a peculiarly recognizable icon: a pixilated mushroom. Instead of the spotted red or green associated with the company’s one-time rivals, this mushroom was purple with yellow spots. It was an ugly little blighter and fueled all sorts of speculation as to what would be shown at the end of the countdown. An 8-bit style Sonic & Mario platformer where Robotnik has poisoned all the mushrooms! An 8-bit style game where Alexx Kidd and Mario open a day spa and compete for Birdo, Athena, and Dig Dug’s affections!

Okay. Fair enough. I am the only man who thought Sega might be making either of those games. The 8-bit part was spot on though. The game turned out to be Pole’s Big Adventure, an WiiWare original aping early Famicom games in the spirit of Retro Game Challenge. The funky looking mushroom’s a big hint as to what Pole’s Big Adventure is all about, namely messing with preconceived notions based on Super Mario Bros. You don’t break bricks with your fist, you break them by shooting them, and the same goes for getting treats out of question boxes. Go down a pipe, immediately pop back up covered in… goo? The video isn’t clear on what you’re covered in. And when you do find that mushroom out there, it will make you grow until you die. Pretty clever there, Sega.

Pole’s Big Adventure isn’t the most brilliant parody, but it’s a noteworthy change from the usual vintage gaming send up. Playing on the most recognizable tropes in gaming history is a unique hook amidst the recent 8-bit design renaissance. Bionic Commando Rearmed and Legend of Kage 2 are expert examinations on old play models, but none of them are concerned with subverting a players nostalgia-born familiarity. It’ll be worth playing Pole’s Big Adventure solely to find out how far it goes in subverting that familiarity. And unlike most parodies, Pole’s is a full game.

Head over to Siliconera to check out another video, featuring pipe goo goodness.

Related Links:

Design Resurrection: How Capcom Finally Proved That It’s Game and Not Graphics That Matters
Don’t Call It Retro: Mega Man 9 and Design Resurrection
Follow Up: Mega Man 9 and Design Resurrection Part 2
More Downloadable Remakes! More, Says I!

WTFriday: The Super Mario Bros. Anime

Bob Mackey — Fri, 16 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.

For as popular as Mario is, it's surprising that anime adaptations of The Mushroom Kindgdom have been shockingly few in number. That isn't exactly the case for American animation, though; if you were "lucky" enough to grow up in the late 80s and early 90s, there's no doubt that at some point your butt was parked in front of a TV airing one of the three Super Mario Bros. series painstakingly crafted by trained apes. For whatever reason, Japan never thought to inflict an animated version of their most popular fictional celebrity on the nation's youth, aside from two projects--and if you think I'm being unfair to the American Mario cartoons, watch about one minute of Super Mario World and feel free to change your opinion after you purchase a seeing-eye dog.

Today's WTFriday spotlight falls upon the 1986 Japanese movie, Super Mario Bros.: Peach-Hime Kyushutsu Dai Sakusen! (or, if you don't know what any of those words mean, Super Mario Bros.: Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach!). What's interesting about this movie is that with only the original Super Mario Bros. in existence, the writers really didn't have a lot of mythology to draw from. This is probably why the movie wants us to think Princess Peach and the entire Mushroom Kingdom exist in a video game independent of Mario, and that somehow our two favorite Italian plumbers work in a grocery store. But even with all of the weirdness and that one fucking licensed song that they won't stop playing, Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach is a neat little Nintendo time capsule with a fun 80s anime aesthetic. I'll post the first segment of the movie below; if you want to watch the rest, click here to access a playlist with the following six segments.

I also recommend you check out the other Mario anime, which is a strange adaptation of the Japanese folk tale, Momotaro. Even if the content isn't too overwhelming, the animation is a fantastic realization of all that great Nintendo instruction book art put into motion.

Related Links:

WTFriday: The Soothing Sounds of Yoshi
WTFriday: Bob's Game Is a Big Ol' Slice of Psycho
WTFriday: PuLiRuLa

Everybody Poops, But Pray Bowser Doesn't Need To

Nadia Oxford — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 23:54:00 GMT

Just when we got used to labelling RPGs as a narrow, stagnating genre, here comes Nintendo with a big idea about touring Bowser's bowels.

1UP dropped some details about Mario & Luigi 3 for the DS. The RPG features the kind of A-1 Weird story you're only going to squeeze out of Japan: the Mushroom Kingdom is suffering through a bout of disease that inflates its victims like balloons (oh man I know a group of fetishists who haven't been this excited since Dig Dug). Mario fails at being Doctor Mario, and Bowser suddenly grows ten sizes and eats everyone.

Of course, Bowser is never allowed to be the Final Evil in any Mario-based RPG. It turns out the big turtle is being controlled by dark forces who want to move into Peach's sugar-frosted castle and Bowser's millipede-infested pit. What are these forces up to? Aw, they just need a good summer home, no doubt. The important thing is Mario and Luigi are trapped inside Bowser's digestive system and the need an out. Protip, guys: there are two options and neither of them are as pretty as an afternoon's walk.

Evil doesn't rest, however, and Mario and Luigi must find a way to combat the deviants who've taken over the Mushroom Kingdom. The answer is the honkin' fire-breathing reptile that has become their home: the brothers manipulate nerve endings to make Bowser do their bidding. I actually flinched a little as I wrote that.

The Superstar Saga line of Mario RPGs has yet to capture my heart. The humour is fantastic, but the boss fights are tedious. Moreover, you can dress up a fetch quest in as many funny frills and red wigs as you want, but it's still a fetch quest and therefore automatically boring and unfunny.

Let's hope that poking Bowser's optical nerve brings joy to my heart.

Related Links:

Brave New Super Mario World
Super Mario World is Terrifying!
Oops, I Don't Like Super Mario RPG As Much As I Thought I Did

Live Action Mario Madness and the Culture of World 1-1

Nadia Oxford — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 01:24:00 GMT

The games industry can be a pretty volatile place. When things get rough, I ask myself if it's worth it, if I shouldn't be involved in a field that contributes more to the well-being of mankind in general (elephant racer).

Happily, I am often thrown a reminder of why I love games writing at the most crucial times. I love game culture. I love experiencing how games make people talk, think and act. Humankind has always needed leisure activities after coming down from a hard day at the office, the factory, or the Great Mammoth Hunt. There is a lot of truth to All Work and No Play, and video games can serve up that vital relaxation as effectively as television, music and movies.

Certain games are also as capable of entering mainstream culture as movies and television shows. Here's a Japanese re-enactment of Super Mario Bros using puppets and black screens. You've seen this kind of thing before, but Super Mario Bros, particularly World 1-1, is so ingrained in our culture that everyone recognises the game and enjoys different interpretations on it.

And even if you don't get as weepy over game culture as I do, watch this video for a most bizarre cameo by a Japanese Obama impersenator.

Related Links:

Brave New Super Mario World
The Eternal Question: Why Is Super Mario Bros Fun?
What I'm Playing This Weekend: Super Mario Bros 3

Wii Sports Now Top Selling Game Ever

Cole Stryker — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:00:00 GMT

So Wii Sports is now the top selling game of all time at over 40 million units sold. Of course, it was bundled with the Wii, so it's not as if anyone actually "bought" it, but then it wasn't some throwaway app like minesweeper that most users will never play. Every Wii owner has spent at least a few hours with the game. Wii Sports is most certainly gaming's most important cultural touchstone of the decade.

At the same time, it's tough to get excited about a somewhat gimmicky collection of minigames standing in as the symbol of what gaming is in the public eye. There are innovations in the medium that run deeper than a more interactive control scheme. Things like sandbox play, emergent narrative, massively multiplayer games, life simulation, alternate reality games and more. There are countless meaningful progressions since the days of Super Mario Bros., and the one that most people will remember is that in 2006, over thirty years later, we can swing a controller instead of pressing a button on it.

Celebrities Discuss Their Favourite Games

Nadia Oxford — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 00:41:00 GMT

When I'm not leaping like a circus bear here on 61 FPS for everyone's amusement, I can often be found digging up dirt on the lives of celebrities. For a pittance, I write snark about ladies and gentlemen who could bottle their farts and sell it for twice the money I’ll likely earn in my lifetime--and I’m even counting my upcoming stint as a rocket pack monkey trainer.

It’s the media’s responsibility--nay, pleasure--to remind the world that celebrities make mistakes, just like the rest of us. They must wipe their bottoms, just like the rest of us. And they like video games just like your mom and dad…if your dad hasn’t touched a game since Pac-Man and your mom still thinks Moon Patrol is the height of hardcore action.

Hooray for irrelevant glamour at the Spike Video Game Awards.

It’s not all bad. Some celebrities come up with the nicest surprises when questioned about their gaming habits. I tend to tune my brain into pictures of dancing cartoon animals when 50 Cent starts mouthing off about something, but now I admire him for admitting his prowess at Ms Pac-Man. Go, Fiddy! We don pink bows and join you as Sisters in liberation and gluttony.

Related Links:

50 Cent: Get RIck or Banned By Parent Groups Trying
Now You're a Killer, Just Like Mama!
Ludacris Presses the Start Button

A Lesson From Balloon Fight: Your Life Is Meaningless

Nadia Oxford — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 07:31:00 GMT

According to this video, put together with the aid of the Talking Heads, the only thing more meaningless than the toil of digital characters is the drudgery of our own lives. Think the Balloon Fight guy is so wild and free, drifting over the ocean? Think Jack from Harvest Moon is accomplishing something with the sweat of his brow? Yeah, keep on thinking that.

Inicidentally, I can name all the games used in this footage, but I'm stumped on one. Who's the blonde haired harpy who evidently likes to blow George Jetson's money at the shopping mall?

Related Links:

Mega Man Dies and Goes To Robot Hell For His Sins
Indie Dev Moment: Hunted Forever
WTFriday: "This Place Is All About Your Balls."

Fandom: Gone to the Movies

Amber Ahlborn — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Video game fans are something else. I've been a gamer since forever but despite my long term interest in the industry, I'm simply not at the level of people who create self playing Mario levels or sprite based Flash movies. These are the super fans who have talent (and a lot of time) on their hands and aren't afraid to use their powers for the forces of geekiness.

Today I simply must pay homage to the creation of one “Alvin Earthworm” who has brought us Super Mario Bros. Z.

Check out the first three episodes:

Super Mario Bros. Z takes the characters from the Mario and Sonic universes and mashes them together with a Dragon Ball Z inspired plot line, and it works freakishly well. Everything about this series has been polished to a shine with impressive sprite animation, sound, and clever writing. So far the series is up to episode 7 and it really does keep getting better.

You can find the full complement of episodes at the smbz homepage or just Google Super Mario Bros. Z to find them hosted all over the place; a good thing since the fan site has been crushed under the weight of its own popularity a few times already.

The only bad thing I can say about Super Mario Bros. Z is it's sure hard to wait for the next chapter. I know these are a lot of work and I appreciate your dedication Mr. “Earthworm”. So, when's episode 8 coming out?

Related Links:

How Deep Are You Into Fandom?

Brave New Super Mario World

The Mother 3 Strategy Guide: Fandom Done Right

Chiptune Friday: Blaze a Blaze in the Mushroom Kingdom

Derrick Sanskrit — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:00:00 GMT

It's been a busy week, hasn't it? Rather than give you one more thing to think about, here's a fairly straightforward and fun mash-up by Josh Console that pits Sri Lankan rapper M.I.A.'s first hit single "Galang" up against the timeless theme from the original Super Mario Bros.

Enjoy!

Related articles:
Digital, Super-Deformed Seth Rogan is Terrifying, Awesome (Remember M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" was in all of those Pineapple Express ads? Yeah...)
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Chiptune Friday: RAC vs. Zelda II

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!

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...

Related Articles:
Sackboy vs. Muhammad
LittleBigPlanet is Insane
The Natural World of LittleBigPlanet
Sony Fans, Meet Your New Totem, Sackboy

61FPS Reviews:
Dead Space
LOL
Dragon Quest IV
Ninja Gaidan 2 part 1 & part 2
Metal Gear Solid 4 part 1 & part 2
Wii Fit
Grand Theft Auto IV part 1, part 2 & part 3

Portrait of the Prince Pre-Persia

John Constantine — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:00:00 GMT

There’s something about seeing the physical inspiration for a fictional character that is both deeply exciting and unsettling. The pizza missing a lone slice, covered in tomato sauce and bubbling cheese, is downright creepy when you think about it as a basis for Toru Iwatani’s Pac-Man. Seriously think about it. That’s what Pac-man would look like if he was skinned! What does that say about Iwatani, or even me for thinking about it? Take good ol’ Mario Segali as another example. You can practically see the ghost of a red hat perched atop his mustachioed dome. Now picture him breaking bricks with his scalp and jumping on turtles. Sickly fascinating, no?

I’m told this footage of Jordan Mechner’s kid brother has been floating around the net for quite some time, but today’s the first time I’ve ever laid eyes on it. Some twenty years ago, Mechner dressed the lad up in whites and then set him off running, climbing, and falling as a model for his seminal masterwork, Prince of Persia. Thing is, the boy looks exactly like the Prince in motion.

Unsettling: I watch this terrified of long falls and hidden spikes. Exciting: Mechner didn’t have motion capture technology, just a primitive scanner and animation skills that resulted in a sprite every bit as fluid and human as the real deal.

The Prince certainly doesn’t look like Mechner’s brother any longer, having transformed into a goateed swashbuckler five years back, then into a scowling cosplayer/GWAR-fan, then into a sort of starry eyed dude covered in scarves who looks like he escaped from a Yoshitaka Amano print.

Know what’s creepier than seeing the real life basis for a game character? Seeing the character re-translated into reality. Behold your bother’s legacy, Mechner!

Editor's Note: That is not Mario Segali at all, merely a cruel hoax.

(Link: 1UP)

Related links:

Trailer Review: Prince of Persia
Character Case Study: When Good Characters Get Bad Attitudes
The Ten Greatest Opening Levels in Gaming History
Yeah, But Is It Art?: Pac-Man Championship Edition
Burn Your Skin for Pac-Man
Ms. Pac-Man: Feminist Champion

The Videogame Ages, part 2

John Constantine — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 22:00:00 GMT

In part one of The Videogame Ages, I discussed the inadequacy of “generation” language in gaming, and laid out The Golden Age of gaming. In part two, I look at the Silver and Bronze ages before taking a look at the modern era and the future.

The Silver Age – 1983 to 1996
8-Bit, 16-Bit, Early Handheld, Early 3D, Advanced PC and Arcade

The silver age of games is defined by expansion, in not just playability but breadth of experience. When home computers became affordable and home consoles began diversifying, games started transforming from immediate, single-mechanic experiences into more lasting forms. Silver age games were still about escalating challenge, but high scores ceased being the goal, replaced by definitive endings. Games started becoming more explicitly narrative-driven, as aesthetic justification on consoles and as the focus of many PC games (see the entire adventure game genre.) Portable gaming also started to rise to prominence during this period, early single-screen LCD games replaced by multi-game consoles like the Game Boy and Atari Lynx. Arcade and PC game technology pulled far away from home consoles, but all games were shifted from the rough visual abstraction of golden age games, into more aesthetically recognizable presentations – albeit still cartoonish impressionistic rather than realistic. The rise of polygonal 3D graphics, both real-time full 3D (Yu Suzuki’s Virtua series) and pre-rendered (Myst, etc.), at the end of the silver age marks the transition to bronze. In 1996, with the release of Mario 64, Tomb Raider, and Quake, the silver age comes to a close.

The Bronze Age – 1996 to 2006 (maybe)
32-bit, 64-bit, 128-bit, Death of Arcades, PC Equalization

While golden age games’ boundary was a single screen and silver age games were largely confined to movement from left to right or down to up, the bronze age is the birth of 3D space as gaming’s chief concern. This isn’t to say that games that take a place on a 2D plain ceased being important or a valid medium for experimentation (though they certainly became marginalized on consoles, PCs, and in arcades.) But creating spaces with depth similar to the physical world took center stage in design. This push toward realistic spaces is mirrored in game aesthetics. Nearly all the technological benchmarks of the bronze age have come from creating as lifelike a facsimile of real life as can be achieved on any technology. PC games typically set that high water mark, though by the end of 2006, home consoles had largely caught up to PCs, much as they did with arcade games during the first few years of the 20th century (arcades are close to extinct now.) Game narrative started heavily borrowing from film’s storytelling language, relying on scripted scenes voiced and acted by digital characters in an attempt to tell deeper stories, but games also started developing there own unique storytelling language during this period, some games allowing the player to always be immersed in drama through play (see: Half-Life.) Multiplayer games no longer required physical proximity with the rise of online play on both PCs and consoles, and portable gaming started offering richer, longer play experiences, akin to those found on consoles.

I’m not totally convinced that the bronze age has ended yet, but the telltale signs of gaming’s latest age-defining shift have been popping up with some frequency over the last few years. The argument can be made that the Heroic Age of gaming is one of community via online networks and MMOs, user-generated content (see: Spore, LittleBigPlanet, Halo 3, Boom Blox, etc.), and experiential gaming. Experiential gaming is a big one whose mettle has yet to be tested, whether or not broad physical activity, from waving a Wiimote to playing fake musical instruments, will catch on. It’s certainly a dramatic shift to see experiential gaming leave its one-time home, the arcade, and transform into a driving force of home gaming. Then again, who knows? Maybe the golden age of gaming has only just ended, and its now, when players can finally build games themselves inside of other games, that the silver age has begun. Let me know, dear reader.

Part 1

Related links:
Comparison of Wiki Articles Proves Geeks Inherited The Earth
MMO Predicts Life in 10 Years
Men Are From Hyrule, Women Are From Simville: If Gender Defines the Games We Play, Why Does Everyone Play By the Same Rules?
9/9/99 9 Years Later
Fix It: Alone in the Dark, Tiger Woods, and the Death of the Glitch
Everyone Will be Able to Rock

The Videogame Ages, part 1

John Constantine — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 21:30:00 GMT

This past Friday, I tried to slip a little piece of language into a discussion about game emulation that I was wary about using at all. At this point, the go-to boundaries for discussing videogames’ admittedly small history is console-technology generations. We say 8-Bit or 16-Bit because these are easy identifiers based on competing, contemporary technologies. But the language “The 8-Bit Generation” doesn’t account for arcade technology, PC games, or portable gaming. Now that Bob Dvorak’s Tennis for Two is officially fifty years-old, I think we can finally start applying broader terms to gaming’s evolutionary eras. Obviously history is fluid, and chances are these classifications won’t hold true in 2050, but for now they work. The Hesiodic ages, as laid out here, consider games on every platform; the rigid parameters of home consoles, the advanced nature of PC and Mac gaming throughout the 1980s and ‘90s, the fast strides made by arcade technology throughout that same period, and the predominantly inferior technology available in handheld gaming. Unlike Hesiod’s Ages of Man, however, the videogame ages are (mostly) a positive progression. Please note: these are not strict definitions. This is a discussion, and I want everyone to make their opinions heard in the comments section. Now then, onward to the Golden Age.

The Golden Age – 1958 to 1983
Dvorak, MIT, Early Arcade, Early Home Console

The golden age of gaming began in 1958 and was, for almost a decade and a half, almost exclusively concerned with tennis. It took Nolan Bushnell getting clever for us to start calling it Pong. Tennis for Two, Magnavox’s Odyssey, and Bushnell’s advice to “avoid missing ball for high score” was pretty much the only game in town until the mid-70s with some notable exceptions. The second videogame ever made has a more recognizable legacy in today’s games. Steve Russell’s Spacewar!, started in 1961 as a side-project of the Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT (history’s first hackers, dontchaknow,) shares the two-player, two-object dynamics of Pong but the gameplay focused on actually destroying your opponent in a science-fiction setting. These games set the standard for the golden age: individual play mechanics presented on single screens. By the late-70s and early-80s, as Atari and other early consoles that could play multiple games were becoming common, games started expanding in both scope and ambition. Adventure, Pitfall, and others introduced continuity in their worlds, while Pac-man and Donkey Kong made the first stabs at introducing narrative. On the technology end, 1980 saw scrolling action in Defender and the larval form of 3D play, vector graphics, in Battlezone. The game industry crash and the release of the Famicom in 1983 mark the end of this period.

Part 2

Related links:
Comparison of Wiki Articles Proves Geeks Inherited The Earth
MMO Predicts Life in 10 Years
Men Are From Hyrule, Women Are From Simville: If Gender Defines the Games We Play, Why Does Everyone Play By the Same Rules?
9/9/99 9 Years Later
Fix It: Alone in the Dark, Tiger Woods, and the Death of the Glitch
Everyone Will be Able to Rock

Lowering the Standard: Why Nintendo’s Hardcore vs. Casual Commitments Aren’t the Problem

John Constantine — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 23:00:00 GMT

I tend to sound overly pessimistic when talking about the Wii. I happen to love the system. I think the funky little box has quite a lot going for it and it’s given me a handful of unforgettable gaming experiences, with Wii Sports and No More Heroes chief among them. No, I’m not overly pessimistic about the Wii. I’m overly pessimistic about Nintendo. As much as I want to be excited about a new Punch-Out!, I can’t help but look at the facts: Nintendo has released more traditional, hardcore games in the Wii’s first two years than they did in the Gamecube’s first four and all of them, with the exceptions of Super Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, have been below the gold standard of Nintendo’s internally developed software from generations past. Super Paper Mario was a vicious bore of a game, Metroid Prime 3 had none of the creative spirit of the first two, Zelda: Twilight Princess was a bloated retread in dire need of an editor, and games like Fire Emblem and Super Mario Strikers were competent, but were simply more of the same. Even after this passed July’s E3, I wasn’t disturbed by Nintendo’s lack of support for hardcore gamers. I was disturbed by the apparent lowering of standards in their software. There are many Wii games that I am very excited to play, like MadWorld, Klonoa: Door to Phantomile, House of the Dead: Overkill, Oboro Muramasa, and Fragile. But none of these titles come from Nintendo.

I hate sounding like the disgruntled misanthrope. But I refuse to ask less of a development house that strove for nothing short of perfection in the past.

Related links:

WiiWare: Nintendo, Babe, It Just Isn’t Working Out
Disaster: Day of Crisis Comes Out in October. Right. Sure.
E3 Day Two: Spin, Malaise, Sony’s New Clothes, and Nintendo’s True Disruption
Christmas in Nintendoland: The Tokyo Conference

Miyamoto Says, "It Would Be Great If Music Education Started With Wii Music."

Nadia Oxford — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:56:00 GMT

As if I didn't already have to listen to my father go on about "these goddamn kids today who don't want to learn real guitar 'cause of Guitar Hero," now we have Shigeru Miyamoto himself talking about how awesome the world would be if music education started with Wii Music.

Iwata and Miyamoto discussed Wii Music on "Creator's Voice," a developer session hosted on Nintendo's web site.

Iwata: Well, there, with Wii Music, there's a strong possibility of raising people's basic level of music education.

Miyamoto: Yes. Thus, from now, I've even thought it would it would be great if kindergartens or elementary schools got Wii Music and began kid's music education with that...

My first school-related music experience involved garbage bags stretched over tin cans and held in place with rubber bands. How can we even think of replacing real instruments with such false, plastic alternatives?

Really, I'm kind of curious about Wii Music. Everyone scorned it at E3 2008, but everyone laughed at Wii Fit, too. Now everyone I know, and not just my grandmother, wants Wii Fit. We're talking about men who rock the Halo.

Miyamoto said something else that caught my paltry attention:

"I haven't really felt the happiness from making other games that I've had felt making Wii Music... I wasn't this excited while making Super Mario Bros."

Call me Looney Tunes, but it seems to me that only good things can come from a project that Miyamoto loved working on.

Related Links:

Toys are "Better Than Video Games"?
All Ages: Viva Pinata and Building Games for Children
Mario Will Not Retire. He Will Outlive Us All

The Future is Mystifying: E Ink

John Constantine — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:34:00 GMT

One-hundred thousand copies of Esquire’s October issue, hitting newsstands across the good ol’ U.S. of A. as I write and you read, are freaking me out. The other ones aren’t, they’re just magazines. But the one-hundred grand I’m talking about look like the future. The covers of these issues are equipped (infused? I’m not sure what word to use here.) with an E Ink display. That is to say, the paper itself is an electronic display with a shifting image. It’s fairly innocuous looking in this video, but the casual implementation here, the cover of a consumer magazine, has far reaching implications that are both terrifying and exciting as hell. Terrifying because we’re one step closer to Back to the Future II’s vision of 2015 being real. Exciting as hell because E Ink could be a whole new world for videogames.

Not just games journalism mind you, though that’s certainly a consideration. Imagine picking up the latest issue of Edge and finding previews of not static screens but pages and pages of game footage. No, I’m thinking of going to your local newsstand and walking away with an issue of full games. Given, the technology isn’t even close to this state yet, but just fantasize with me here: you walk into the shop and pick up the October 2035 issue of EGM. Turn to page four, touch the page, and play the latest revision of Tetris 4D. Centimeter-thick Super Mario Bros played by touching the bottom of a piece of paper. It would be, in a word, mad.

The future, dear reader. It’s looking awful futuristic.

(Link and video courtesy of Engadget, via NeoGAF user TTP)

Related links:

R.I.P. Xbox 720 and Playstation 4: The Future of Gaming
Bringing Sexy Back: Retro Controllers of the Future
The Death Of Awesome Pack-In Material

The One Thing I Know How To Say: "Thank You Mario..."

Derrick Sanskrit — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 16:00:00 GMT

John Darnielle is already a friend of Nerve, and now we know that he is a friend of gamers as well. John's musical project The Mountain Goats just released their new single "Thank You Mario, But Our Princess Is In Another Castle," a hauntingly delicate ballad from the perspective of an imprisoned Toad in Super Mario Bros. featuring Kaki King on drum, glockenspiel and backup vocals. Beautiful.

We'll forgive the fact that John references Magikoopas, who didn't appear until Super Mario World, by which point Toads were no longer held captive at the end of each world. The song is just too sweet and heart-touching to get caught up in nerd details.

Thanks again to our friends over at Pitchfork for sharing this bit of game-related beauty with us.

Related articles:
Sweet Sassy Molassy: Super Mario RPG on the Virtual Console
Mario Will Not Retire. He Will Outlive Us All.
Japan Scare Me: Mario And The Western Show
Pixies Cover "Theme from NARC"

What's in my MP3 Player: “Bowser is Pissed”

Amber Ahlborn — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Ahh, three day weekends are great, unless you spend them cleaning house. I'm not big on dusting so I tend to let things go for longer than I should. When I do clean it's a big job. Thankfully, I have a large collection of MP3s to toss into a play list and listen to as I scrub away. This always leads to me becoming reacquainted with many older songs buried in my music folder. One such is a fun little remix from the original Super Mario Bros. that I thought I'd share with you: “Bowser is Pissed” .

If there's anything I regret about modern video game music, it is that it has rendered the humble melody all but dead. Movie like orchestrated sound tracks are great, but they're a lot harder to hum. Game music composers didn't have a lot of resources to work with back in the 8- and 16-bit days, thus they had to make every note count. The results were some of the most memorable songs ever written. It's no wonder that the favorite inspirational hunting grounds for remixers are among the classics.

Remixer “PriZm” found such inspiration in the classic castle theme from Super Mario Bros. The original music is a bare three measures long but PriZm milked it for everything it was worth with some rockin' breakbeat. When I listen to this piece, I imagine it actually being used in a Mario game. As the music begins, Mario sets out down a long, treacherous corridor, leaping over lava pits and dodging the usual assortment of death traps. Then, just as the music hits the 2'47” mark, Bowser bursts on the scene and yes, he is seriously pissed.

Related Links:

What's in my MP3 Player: "Kindred"

Watcha Listening To: The Earthbound Soundtrack

Chiptune Friday: Little Nemo

Fix It: Alone in the Dark, Tiger Woods, and the Death of the Glitch

John Constantine — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 23:00:00 GMT

Today was an interesting day for getting a keen look at what happens when games come to the public in less than perfect shape. For starters, Atari and developer Eden took the middling reception of Alone in the Dark to heart. They’re showing off the Playstation 3 version of the game in Leipzig at the moment featuring in-progress fixes to the game’s unmanageable, glitchy camera as well as the iffy driving and inventory control in the game. They will also be releasing these fixes as a patch for the Xbox 360 edition of the game. Of course, Eden didn’t have to do this. They could have just gone the EA route, and (hilariously) said that those aren’t glitches! That’s just the way the game’s meant to be played.

Chances are though, EA will go ahead and patch Tiger Woods ’09 regardless of the funny marketing. This is the way of it with games in the age of net-enabled consoles; ship the game as soon as you possibly can, fix it later if you have to. PC games have enjoyed patching for well over a decade at this point but it’s still a new phenomenon in the world of devoted gaming machines. It’s a good thing, ultimately. If NES games with crippling slow down could have been patched, they would have been. The romantic in me, though, can’t help but be sad to see console games lose their permanent state. Glitches in classic games have a rich, memorable history. Take the classic infinite 1up exploit in Super Mario Bros.

Or, my personal favorite, the Mega Man 3 “pit” glitch.

Glitches may break some games, but they also have the capacity to add an entire layer of interaction with a game that the designer never even intended. The fact that games are now fluid objects and can be changed limits, to a small degree, how we can interact and explore within their boundaries. Not to mention how fixing glitches alters speedrunning. Patches are great, but game developers would do well to remember that not everything broken needs to be fixed.

Our thanks to Joystiq, Eurogamer, and YouTuber pabrtrky.

Related links:

Screen Test: Alone in the Dark
Follow Up: Mega Man 9 and Design Resurrection Part 2
We Are Watching Many, Many Speedruns. Join Us in Some Castlevania!
Free Running: How Speedruns and TAS Make New Games

NSFW: The Top Five Game-Based Pornos

John Constantine — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Seriously. Not safe for work.

As they used to say back on the farm, if it exists on this here planet, you can be cocksure there’s a porno based on it. Okay, you caught me. I didn’t grow up on a farm. I grew up in the middle of a lot of farms though, and I’m telling you, people on those farms used to say this all the time. The past twelve years of browsing the internet have taught me that this age-old maxim is absolutely true. Hollywood movie parodies have been a rich and lasting resource for triple-x features forever, birthing immortal classics like Edward Penishands, so videogames seem like a no-brainer. That’s not even taking into consideration modern gaming’s largely Japanese origins and that country’s penchant for all manner of costume-related perversions. We at 61 Frames Per Second, being the powerful cultural critics we are, have compiled this list of the top five Game-Based Pornos from east and west. Be warned: continuing to read may cause embarrassment for humanity, uncontrollable laughter, and occasional revulsion.

#5) Super Hornio Bros.

The image above is an internet staple, the “film” an affront against the senses. Yes, shortly after Nintendo allowed Bob Hoskins to play the world’s most recognizable gaming icon on the silverscreen, director Buck Adams cast Ron Jeremy as Hornio, the overalls-clad plumber star of Super Hornio Bros. Rumor has it that the day the video shipped to adult boutiques across the land, Shigeru Miyamoto threw up for over twelve hours straight and was institutionalized for a month.

#4) Many, Many Tifa Lockhart of Final Fantasy VII Videos

Final Fantasy VII was the RPG that changed the world, making cinematic presentation an integral part of game design and bringing role-playing out of the basement and into the mainstream. Most people say this is because of the epic for-its-time presentation. I say it was because Squaresoft decided to put giant boobs in it. The character of Tifa Lockhart, barely clothed and sporting some serious back-problem-causers, was a shameless move to sex-up the series and, unsurprisingly, it worked. There are literally hundreds of pornographic films in Japan starring actresses dressed up like Tifa (the pictured title spices things up even more with the star playing even more game stars, like Darkstalkers’ Morrigan.) For the record, I only know that many exist after research for this article. Seriously…

#3) WhoreLore – World of Whorecraft and Age of Bonan

WhoreLore is a special case because, like its multiple inspirations, it’s persistent. Formerly known as the World of Whorecraft, WhoreLore makes episodic, eerily accurate hardcore fare based on Blizzard’s World of Warcraft and Funcom’s recently released Age of Conan. They don’t go to the point of listing what kind of stat losses the actors experience as they disrobe, but the costumes, make-up, and dialogue are spot on. Bonan even goes so far as to literally recreate the opening mission of Age of Conan. For anyone out there feeling some kind of shame for their love of MMOs, don’t. Porn stars are just like you and are, apparently, even nerdier.

#2) Geki Fit

and

#1) Chinpo o Kitaeru Otona no Ingenware Training (Dick Drilling Adult's Lewd Word Self Training)

Like I said before, everything eventually becomes subject matter for porn. Everything. But our number one and two entries have left me incredulous. They are wholly strange, totally silly, and utterly Japanese. Both are based Nintendo’s most recent successes, specifically their non-games. These are lifestyle enhancers more than goal-oriented, character-driven “games”, which makes the smut they’ve inspired even more peculiar. Number two is Geki Fit. Inspired by Wii Fit, it is one-hundred and fifteen minutes of lewd yoga poses viewed from increasingly voyeuristic camera angles. There isn’t even any nudity. I’m not making this up.

Number one is Chinpo o Kitaeru Otona no Ingenware Training. Translated as Dick Drilling Adult's Lewd Word Self Training, it’s based on the Nintendo DS phenomenon, Brain Age. Yes, that’s right. It’s porn based on WORD PUZZLES AND MATH! Have you ever played these Brain Age games, dear reader? A disembodied, polygonal head quizzes you repeatedly with brain teasers and then judges your intelligence. I can’t even begin to imagine what this DVD is like. Does it ask you to read out loud? Does it ask you to memorize as many words as possible in thirty seconds? I have nightmares about people using this as a marital aid.

Nintendo, next time you’re trying to think of a clever name for a line of videogames, do not call them “Touch Generations”. Look what you did.

Many thanks to Kotaku, J-List, 1P Start, and Whorelore in the compilation of this staggering achievement in journalism.

Related links:
The Ten Greatest Classic Mega Man Levels
The Ten Videogames That Should Have Been Controversial
The Ten Greatest Opening Levels in Gaming History
The Ten Most Adventurous Sequels
The Ten Greatest Fire Levels

Personal Firsts: My Gaming Scrapbook, From A to Wii

John Constantine — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Written by Amber Ahlborn

At some point in the 1980s, the year nebulous in my memory, my mom bowled with her team every Thursday night. I loved Thursday nights because dad let me stay up late to watch M.A.S.H. and Benny Hill. Sometimes he and I would hop in the car and go visit mom at the alley, and that was the best. Dad would sit and watch mom bowl. Me? I would squeeze every last quarter I could get out of him. With a fist full of change and dollars soon to be converted into change, I’d walk down to the alley’s hamburger bar, snag a stool, and drag it through the glass doors into the arcade. Without deviation, I’d position my stool in front of the “Ostrich Game” and stay planted there until I ran out of money. I’m speaking of Joust of course, but at that age I could neither reach the controls without a stool to sit on nor read very well.

The Atari 2600 became my first home console. I had around a dozen games for it. I owned the usual suspects like Pac-Man, Pitfall, and Frogger, but I especially enjoyed playing Kaboom with my half brother. He was over ten years older than me and I put everything into trying to beat his high scores. Super Mario Bros. 2 ushered me into the NES era and I became a dedicated platformer fan with a little beat’em up on the side thanks to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

The Super NES became the first home console I bought with my own money (well, technically about 40% of it was my lunch money). With the SNES came a host of more firsts that introduced me to some of my greatest gaming loves. I discovered Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, and Mega Man X. Star Fox lead me into the third dimension and Chrono Trigger showed me that RPGs were not boring. While the N64 and Playstation fed me more of what I liked, the Gamecube and PS2 broadened my genre horizons even further.

Ico was the first game to give me a naturalistic puzzle environment to climb all over, and ever since I have loved these types of games. Pikmin primed me for future strategy titles and Katamari Damacy helped form my love of the really weird. With the advents of the DS and Wii the firsts keep rolling in.

What are your firsts? Did your tastes progress to ever widening genres or have you stuck with one obsession? Are you so new to gaming that everything is a first? It feels appropriate at this point in time to pause since the industry has recently experienced a few firsts itself. For the first time, graphical prowess is not the only draw for home consoles. The evolution of what games are and can mean to people marches on.

Looking off towards possible future firsts can be both encouraging and disheartening, depending on your perspective. As a primarily Wii gamer I’ve certainly hit both extremes. I’ve had the pleasure of playing my first “casual” games. I’ve also suffered my not-so-first frustrations with seeing deeper games watered down or shuffled to other systems. Even so, I keep a positive outlook and encourage all gamers, veteran and newcomer alike to keep the door open to firsts. You can never tell what your new love will be if you never bother to look. Give a try to that game you might be inclined to write off as “just not your thing”. It might be the very best thing you ever played.

For the first time ever, I played a video game with my mom. Every Sunday night we go bowling in my living room… and I always thought I hated sports games.