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Yes please.

Moonwalker

Michael Jackson died yesterday, a loss that undoubtedly will be felt worldwide and for generations to come. I'm not a big fan, I own exactly one MJ album and thats Thriller (which everybody else owns) but I do have a few memories of the guy as well as an appreciation for what he represented and what he meant to millions of fans.

I grew up with an unrealistic fear of werewolves and thats because an older cousin was very much into the Thriller video and scared the fuck out of us with both the video and the shit he made up about how the werewolves in said video were real. For a few years there I refused to look out a window at night.

I also remember seeing him perform at halftime at a SuperBowl. The song was Black and White and the Super Bowl (probably one in which the Bills lost) was the earliest I remember.

And finally when learning how to drive the only song that would blast from the stereo was Billie Jean, when I finally got my license it was the first song I played when I first drove alone.

Its not surprising that my memories revolve around MJ's music because even though the scandals would surpass the music there was never any denying how great the music was. Even though he became fodder for stupid spoof movies and cheap comedians it is impossible to deny that the man was a fuckin legend.

Games and Nationalism pt 1

The recent announcement of a game called "AAA: El Videojuego" which is a wrestling game featuring the Mexican "AAA" league (think Mexicans wearing masks, lucha libre) got me thinking about something I mentioned in a previous post: how video game companies were now "pandering" to the Mexican audience.

The truth is there is no pandering, what is happening is that some time ago (I want to say around the time the FIFA games started including Mexican teams) videogame companies discovered that Mexico is a viable market for their wares. Capitalism needs to expand to ever increasing markets in order to continue to make money for the super rich capitalists. Mexico, and its diasporous citizenry accross the U.S and the world, was a market which consumed a fair amount of games but which had been ignored as far as content aimed squarely at them. The introduction of the lucha libre game is the culmination of the video game industry's expansion.

But the inclusion of anything Mexico is not a phenomenon limited to the magical time when Mexican soccer teams made it to FIFA, on the contrary, it has been around for some time and the occassions in which the country has been utilized by game makers is too vast to encapsulate here, so in lieu of that we're gonna go with a few examples.

My first exposure came with SNK's King of Fighters '94 which separated its fighters by country, the number of countries was limited and to my surprise Mexico was included and represented, not by stereotypes like the U.S team oddly, but by Ryo Sakazaki, Robert Garcia and Takuma (the characters from Art of Fighting). Obviously the characters arent "Mexicans" but they represented the country nonetheless, how this was decided I have no idea but the fact that it was might play a part in the popularity that KOF continues to have in the country, where tournaments continue to be played and merchandise continues to be sold. SNK included an actual Mexican character (a wrestler in fact) named Tizoc in later versions of the game.

Capcom had to follow suit and it did so in Super Street Fighter II with the introduction of T. Hawk who was an absolute mess in that he was big, bulky and impossible to control. He was more of a Native American to the point where I often wonder if they didnt want him to be from New Mexico. In 1994 Capcom debuted Darkstalkers where one of the bosses was a robot named Huitzil who was also, ostensibly, Mexican. The loinclothed Urien from Street Fighter III was another, probable, Mexican fighter from Capcom, the company would go all out in 2009 with (what else?) a Luchador named El Fuerte in Street Fighter IV.

This is not limited to fighting games, though. The Mexican soccer team has been present since most early adaptations of the sport. The great Mexican iconic Julio Cesar Chavez even had his own video game (and sequel!).

Obviously this list is very very short and missing some, no doubt, big entries. I will definitely do some more research as I do find this topic fascinating. I'm not trying to create an encyclopedia but I do want to see how it evolved: the earliest incarnations of Mexican teams or characters were, from what I remember, stereotypical and in many ways it continues to be so as the luchador continues to be the biggest signifier of the nationality.

Any tips on finding even more early appearances are greatly appreciated. The biggest thing I remember is a soccer team which consisted of angry brown skinned players but I dont remember the game nor the system. So for now this thing is TBC.

The Onion: Punch Out

Because The Onion is the best satirical newspaper ever I thought I'd share this great article that details a new documentary about Mike Tyson in Punch Out. Its a few months old, I read it when it was first posted and it was one of the reasons why I started eightbitter.

There is plenty of room to work with when reminiscing about the video games we grew up with, the NES, SNES and Sega generation of the late 80's/early 90's has grown up and become aware of the brilliance of our childhood video games despite their limitations. And we openly mock and venerate them, more so than past Coleco or Atari generations simply because our video games actually looked like video games and not dots or jumbled pixels.

Anyway, read the article its fuckin hilarious, heres an excerpt:

"'MY BODY [WAS] JUST SO TOTALLY COOL,' a wistful Super Macho Man said during promotional interviews. Twenty years after his heyday, the clinically depressed former bodybuilder is confined to a wheelchair, the result of medical complications arising from the weight of his enormous upper torso bearing down upon his tiny legs."

The rest is here

New Mike Tyson Documentary Features Exclusive Interviews With Super Macho Man, King Hippo

By the way that kickass Punch Out scarf can (could) be found here.

Golden Miner

Here's something different, lets talk about a game for the iPhone. The reason is simple: though it had never occurred to me apparently many believe that the iPhone (and the iPod Touch) are actual gaming machines that can compete with the DS, PSP or whatever other portable system is thrown out there.

I've always considered it at best a viable platform for touch based puzzle games but apparently you can have Sims, Metal Gears and even Sonics (no not these Sonics) decently ported into the phone. With the advent of the faster 3Gs the game market should grow more and more.

Besides Bubble Bash and the brilliant Pocket God I had never bought a game before, until yesterday that is when I went looking for something to spend a dollar on, finally landing on Golden Miner.

So what is this game about? well its really simple: you play as a heavier set Wario look alike prospector with overalls and a winch (not a wench) whose job it is to fish for gold and other assorted goodies underground. The Wario look alike is rewarded with points, he has to get a certain number in order to move on ot the next level. There is a 60 second time limit per round, a limit which proves brutal when Wario has to haul the heavier golden nuggets.

The game is surprisingly difficult: there are moles, skulls, rocks and barrels of fuckin TNT on the ground which get in the way, frustration can quickly set in at around level 20 but really who wants a game that can be beat with one play? at the current price you get 99 rounds for 99 cents, a really good deal.

The game was developed in Beijing so the constant misspellings of English are easily forgiven if not encouraged. The lack of proper grammar gives the game an overall clandestine feeling akin to eating at a taco stand in the middle of the night in Tijuana: you know its probably not good for you but it feels so right. Take this great description of what the bombs they sell you are good for:

"After you bought it, when you grab item, you can click the screen again to bomb the item"

Further proof of the clandestine nature of the game can be seen with the other character, the one which appears on the game icon, who sells you the items in between stages and who is referred to simply as Sexy Girl. There is no need for such a character in the game, its a gimmick and what is worse is that its a blatant attempt to capture what an American male would want to see in a character, but the name of the girl, her appearance and her temper are so exaggerated and gauche that it borders on the ironic, making it actually kind of hip. That made no sense whatsoever, the easiest way to explain it is with this link.

In the end its a fun little game, it has enough levels to keep one entertained and its cheap enough that it can easily find a spot in the second or third page of the iPhone.

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From Perfect Dark (or Perfect Dark Zero, I dont really know) mindless destruction

Flaming Mario

Well I finally figured out why I like the original Mario Bros. 3 graphics as opposed to the revamped SNES version of the same game.

Its because, as you can plainly see, when Mario changes to his fireball suit (as seen above) instead of having the traditional "painter" outfit, in Super Mario Bros. 3 he is wearing a customized Tampa Bay Buccaneers "creamsicle" outfit modeled after what the Bucs use to wear back when they sucked.

Even more obvious is Mario's mustache, sure they were prominent when he was created in the 80's but the fact that Bucco Bruce also had a mustache (albeit a more debonair one) is awfully suspicious.

Super Mario Bros 3

If there is one thing I've learned these past few days playing Super Mario Bros. 3 its that that is one fuckin hard game. If you're a game developer that wants to make a difficult game in 2009 you simply up the violence and the satanic imagery. If you want to do it in 1988 you call in this guy (and, ostensibly, his brother).

The beauty of early Super Mario games is that they start off easily enough with a couple of goombas and some tubes but by the end you're dealing with goombas, spiky monsters, piranha plants and (the best baddie ever) Boo. Not to mention a moving stage, quicksand, and all other kinds of natural obstacles. Fuck its like nature itself was against Mario rescuing Toadstool. (no, I will never call her Peach).

This is a primitive platformer, one with a plot that, if taken out of context, appears to be out of a bad LSD trip: you play as an Italian plumber with a mustache who must rescue the aforementioned princess from a lizard and his family, by jumping on various monsters, moving forward, going down tubes and climbing beanstalks. But dont worry, in your way you're aided by mushrooms, fireflowers, a leaf that turns you into a flying raccoon and a frog suit. This is what we were playing back in the early 90's and, yes, pretty soon we're gonna be running this country.

The gameplay level is so high, however, that these kitschy, nonsensical plot elements are quickly accepted and soon the player is engrossed in trying to get that fucking lizard. But this is limited to the games themselves, its no surprise then that when they tried to make the game into a tv show the results were fuckin horrible, when they tried to make it into a live action movie in which the subject matter was taken seriously starring John Leguizamo it was even worse.

Getting back to Super Mario 3, like I said its not an easy game, even though I managed to get pretty far ahead in one sitting it did feel challenging and I did have to repeat many a level. It is never tedious, however, because the levels are varied enough and it contains a high number of mini games which take the mind off the fact that you are failing to make it out of that water level.

Super Mario 2 was an atypical game in which one could play as both Mario Brothers as well as Toad and the Princess. It was also about pulling radishes out of the ground and defeating a pink dinosaur, so the true sequel to the original Mario game was Mario 3 and it was quite an improvement. Sure, Super Mario World of the SNES was better (imo, of course) because it introduced Yoshi (and I do love Yoshi) and the goombas were replaced by little tomato men but Super Mario 3 is not any less because of that.

If Nintendo is known for something in particular its for its ability to exploit its past for profit. This is not a bad thing when there is a progression in the games and this was certianly the case between 3, World and so on. I like the 3D Mario games (as introduced in Mario 64) but I love the sidescrollers even more, thankfully we can replay these either on the Wii, the old consoles or play new incarnations of the model on the handheld systems. Is Nintendo exploiting my nostalgia? yes but when its doing it with New Mario Bros and Superstar Saga then here have some more money.

Graphics wise I vaguely remember that the SNES version (on All Stars) had better colors while the NES version had a limited, opaque pallette. The Wii version is true to the original so the overall look of it is dated and often choppy, but few will argue with keeping it the way it was. The only thing missing would be hooking it up with an RF modulator to an old grainy TV and blowing on the cartridge to make it work, I'm sure I can survive without doing all of that.

I have yet to finish the game (I never did back in the day either) but I'll get around to it. I should also mention that the game features the Koopa Kids who are, I assume, Bowser's kids. The Koopa kids are the best part of this game as well as World so I'm going to devote an entire entry (later on) to them. Thats why we havent gone into it at this point.

To finish this thing off, who knew that a full twenty years later this game would retain its playability so well? I would have put my money on Sonic the Hedgehog.

We Could be Heroes

I finally found that Sega gamecard that I was talking about the other day and took a picture of it (its up there ^^^)

My Hero was possibly my favourite Sega Master System game. Actually the game I played the most was a rudimentary baseball game, which might of been this one (by the way, wasnt Reggie Jackson retired by the late 80's? I dont know, but how can you argue with shit like this)

Getting back to My Hero, the premise was simple: somebody (possibly a greaser or a punk) kidnapped your girlfriend and now its up to you (not the authorities) to drop kick your way through a park (with pyramids?) to rescue her. What I remember the most about it is that I couldnt get through the frogs that spit marbles at you.

It was like Double Dragon but without the meaningless up-down scrolling and you controlled a ninja preppy instead of a homosexual couple.

I'm not going to do it justice so here is the best youtube video ever



Also today is the 25th anniversary of Tetris, I guess that when it came out we were completely justified in our fear of the soviets being better than the U.S.

To commemorate the occassion Google has done the usual:


Good on ya Google.

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Someone actually made this game. Cant wait.

-Picture courtesy of Super Punch