Possibly Inspired

Looks like all that praise I gave the Swedes for their work on Minigore was a waste. I mentioned that one of the things that sets Minigore apart from other iPhone games is the great artwork/character design, from the protagonist to the beasties to the upcoming Bolshevik expansion, every character features the same cube shaped head with impossibly tiny bodies.

Well it turns out that the whole idea of a cubic head was not an original idea of the Swedes. No, they actually stole the head design from retired New England Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi. Of course they couldn't just steal a picture of Bruschi for their game so they took his cubic head, gave it a beard, a Shang Tsung hat and bam! you have John Gore, they also couldn't copy Bruschi's linebacker physique so to avoid lawsuits they went with the exact opposite.

For shame Sweden.

But in all seriousness, Bruschi retired today and not only does he have a great name but he also played some great football, won three Super Bowls and came back from a stroke. Plus he plays the fucking Saxophone! hopefully he wont become a network analyst wonk like so many former players before him. By the way, congratulations Tiki Barber you're the Marian Hossa of the NFL, enjoy your no rings.

Yes a fucking hockey joke.

Catherine Says

"No Man ought to be looked upon as guilty, before he has received his judicial Sentence; nor can the Laws deprive him of their Protection, before it is proved that he has forfeited all Right to it. What Right therefore can Power give to any to inflict Punishment upon a Citizen at a Time, when it is yet dubious, whether he is Innocent or guilty?"

-Catherine II of Russia

What that has to do with video games I dont know. Hey I cant be expected to do all the heavy lifting around here.

We'll be back with actual content tomorrow.

Marvel vs Capcom

At $15 per download Marvel vs. Capcom 2 might seem like a scam but considering that the physical version of the game stopped being produced long ago and copies go for more than $60 online then it looks like something of a steal. I finally took the plunge a week ago and, thankfully, the game has lived up to expectations.

Of course it has to be expected that it holds up, after all its less than 10 years old and it still has long lines of players at the arcades. Unlike every other older fighting game this one does not suffer from slowness or small non-detailed characters, the game is fun, fast paced, has a huge and varied roster of characters and contains special moves that are as easy to pull off as they are extravagant. The artwork is some of the best Capcom has pulled off in a game, each character was drawn in the game's style, they mercifully completely avoided using stock artwork.

Onto the 360 version. As I mentioned in a very early post on this blog, they smoothed out the pixels and made the game widescreen. This is really brilliantly seen while playing on an HDTV as the characters and the backgrounds pop off the screen. Everything from the kitschy soundtrack to the fighting system remains the same so it really is like getting home from school and turning on the Dreamcast.

Not all is the same as the original version, besides the technical improvements Capcom has also added a list of achievements which, though minimal, are still rather fun: win 100 online matches (impossible I'd say) beat the game (with no losses) with an all Avengers, Street Fighter, Darkstalkers, or X-Men team and so on. This is a great way to learn many characters but they certainly missed a few potential team ups: a Mega-Man team, Marvel villains, a what the fuck is that? team.

The download also comes with every character unlocked from the start. On the one hand I'm happy that I don't have to wait until I get enough points to play as Servbot but on the other I remember that unlocking characters was half the fun on the Dreamcast version. I understand they did this in order to get more parity in the Live matches but I'd still like to think that I'm playing towards something, especially since the ability to select a three Iron Man or three Cable team defeats the purpose.

The unlocked mega roster also creates a problem when playing simple arcade mode. It seems that the CPU only works with a select number of characters so opponent teams always seem to be the same. This leads to some characters apparently disappearing from the roster, so much so that when playing Vs the other day I was taken back at the sight of the Silver Samurai or Thanos, I even found myself asking who the fuck is Spiral?

But these issues are minimal and, more importantly, do not detract from the gameplay. This is still the most fun melee fighter out there and at $15 it is very accesible. Yes, other fighters have surpassed Mvc in terms or art, gameplay and so on but those either suffer from being too expensive, too inaccesible or too limited. The fact that Marvel is now out of the fighter business is disheartening, especially since DC doesn't get it, hopefully sales of this game will persuade them to come back. For now its best to keep enjoying this game and keep hoping for a new installment or perhaps fantasize about a Marvel vs Capcom vs DC vs SNK.

Oh Hey There

The charger on my laptop blew up the other day. Not literally of course but point is it doesnt work and I had to get a replacement, hence no entries. And thats a real shame with the new iPhone games I've downloaded and that MvC2 writeup I've been meaning to do.

But not to worry, I've ordered a replacement and we should be back to work as soon as eBay comes through. In the meantime I've been focusing my attention on catching up on Mad Men. I suggest everybody else do the same.

Stages: Blanka

Note: the title should be read as a parody of David Bowie's "Changes" (i.e Staaa aages)

Stages now takes us to Brazil, the only place (besides Boston) where green monsters are not only accepted but downright beloved. There really is no reason for Blanka to be from Brazil: he doesnt fit the stereotypes of the time (soccer players and carnaval) nor does he speak Portuguese or belong to one of the very specific social classes.

So what makes him Brazilian? well nothing, the story is that he was in a plane crash and separated by his mother as a boy. Apparently he was lily white (hence the name) but became green with time. He only fights in Brazil because originally he was to be a sorta black slave character, the design later evolved into a freaky green man.

Now onto the stage. Its a basic "jungle" setting with varied flora, fauna and various people cheering on the fighters. This could be anywhere really, there is nothing that specifically says "Brazil", there is no soccer, no favelas, no racial inequalities (though you can still sorta see some in the stage), no Seu Jorge to be found anywhere. Much of this can be explained away when we realize that the world wasn't as globalized in 1989 as it is now, there was no internet, City of God had not been made yet.

Instead of this being the Brazil stage, then, it simply becomes the nondescript Latin American third world stage. Blanka could have easily been from Colombia, Peru, Mexico and the same stage (with minor tweaks) could be used. It can be reasonably argued that the stage is set in the Amazon (a possible synonym for Brazil in the late 80's) but it could easily be any other river in Latin America so even if it is meant to be the Amazon it still feels like a cop out, especially since Brazil is such a visual country.

With time Street Fighter added at least one other Brazilian fighter that did not fight in the jungle while the Street Fighter IV stage for Blanka though is still very much influenced by the original. Given that Blanka is a feral beast I suppose we can give Capcom a pass for the jungle stage, if anything Blanka was not the Brazilian fighter in SF2 but rather the beastly one, he filled a required trope just as Honda was the burly one and Chun-Li the girl. The stage is simply another way in which Blanka fills that role.

Had the character been a soccer player, a plantation owner or Lula da Silva odds are he would not be fighting in the jungle, but instead in some other Brazilian landmark. The problem is that in 2009, after the character became iconic and beloved, it was time to move him somewhere else and they simply failed at that.

Pour Vous, Sagat

So guess what? apparently Sagat is the most powerful character in Street Fighter 4. This is odd, not only is he not even the boss but he hasnt been the boss since the first Street Fighter game, the one that doesn't even count!

I noticed when I first bought the game that the I had a difficult time beating him on Xbox Live, if not in regular arcade mode, because of his overpowering abilities: he has an uppercut that nullifies air attacks, two different fireballs, a devastating tiger knee, and the most powerful super combo attacks. When I decided to exploit his height to my advantage I found myself unable to get to his side of the screen through a see of tiger fireballs. It was demoralizing and only because he was so strong I've avoided using him.

But a few days ago I ran into a small obstacle: I could not clear the 11th challenge in time attack mode, one which removes all SC attacks, focus attacks and almost every other special move. It's 12 stages long and I was unable to get past the 7th stage with my usual characters (Sakura, Guile, Zangief and Viper), I really wanted that achievement so I decided to see exactly how strong Sagat actually was.

Suffice it to say I only had to play through that whole charade once. He made easy work of Zangief, Blanka, Guile and all the annoying little characters, by today I had gotten that achievement. Now to the crux of this whole thing: its addicting, playing as such a powerful character, which moves that are not so complicated to pull off, who is so overpowering is addictive. I mean just his fuckin kick is delivered with the passion of three men!

And for this I salute you Sagat. You came back. You were humiliated in the first game, scarred in the second, humiliated again by the live action movie but you have since made a proper comeback. I mean shit, you even have action figures devoted to you, vinyls even! You've come a long way baby and its only a matter of time before you become that face of the franchise. You're the Bryant Reeves of the fighting game genre.

Estrogen!

Some genius came out with a flowchart for Total Eclipse of the Heart today which might possibly be the greatest thing ever on the internet. The bad news is that since I saw it this morning I have not been able to get that damn song out of my head.

To commemorate the occasion lets talk about the most estrogen-filled woman power game of all time: Final Fantasy X2.

The only game in the much beloved Final Fantasy franchise to be a true sequel, X2 had you walk around as three female archetypes who were either trying to be in a girl band, save a planet or a marriage...I really dont remember. Fact is as soon as the J-Pop started to blast from my PS2 (and that was really quickly) I regretted buying the game.

Oddly enough the game was really popular even among male video game players, it probably had something to do with the outfits the three characters wear throughout the game. I mean what the fuck is this? I dont know but it leads to this and that leads to continued profit.

$$$$$

I played it for a few days and have no idea where it might be right now.

Alt. Beast.

This blog has an admittedly romanticized view of the late 80's to early 90's period in video game history. As such most of the reviews consist of me talking about how much I missed a certain game, how much I enjoyed it and how much I enjoy it now that we have been reunited. Well get ready to rock the proverbial boat because this is not one of those.

Altered Beast for the Sega Master System was one of the first games I played as a kid. It was a time when my allegiances were squarely with Sega and I considered all their games, from this to My Hero and Sonic, way better than Mario and his motley crew of castmates. I would change my mind quickly with time but this is how it was at first, and I indeed enjoyed this game to no end.

The main plot is pretty simple: you play a skinny white dude who walks around in a leotard punching zombies and assorted greek mythological beings in hopes of getting power ups that at first make him stronger (insert steroid joke here) and later turn him into one of four beasts (one for each stage).

While the plot is exceptional (and even more so to a young child), time has not been kind to the game. The game itself is slow, the main character is erratic in his punches and groin kicks, jumping requires too much technique and even though most cyclops' can be killed with one punch their sheer number makes for one difficult game. The level of difficulty is admirable the technological limitations make for some frustrating gameplay.

This is only a problem when our hero is in human form, once he converts to beast (wolf, dragon, tiger or the lazily powerful golden wolf) he speeds up and strengthens dramatically. The problem with this is that the game is only fun when the main character is a beast, at other times it feels like you're simply controlling an imbecile. This is quite a shame because the game does have an exorbitant amount of win in it, from the standard man-saves-woman plot to the mythological setting, the bosses and the excellent cut scenes once the protagonist is, well, altered.

This is a game I really wanted to like, I really wanted to buy it again and I really had it high on a pedestal as one of the best games for the old Sega system. But even though the concept is great, so much so that there was a PS2 sequel with some great stylized beasts, I simply could not get over how badly it has aged. Maybe one day I'll have a few too many Sapporos and download it on a whim, for now though it is one of only a handful of disappointments.

Stages: Ken Masters

Note: the title should be read as a parody of David Bowie's "Changes" (i.e Staaa aages)

The Ken stage is one of three U.S stages in the original Street Fighter II and it is likely the most subtle of them all. There is very little "America Fuck Yeah" in this stage, ironically its less of a showboat (ironic because it has fuckin boats you see), regardless you can still feel the Americana in the air.

Ostensibly Ken's stage is a dock in San Francisco with boats in the background, the biggest signifier of this actually being in America is the stars and stripes one one of the side boats. Besides the flag this could really be anywhere, especially since the figures in the background appear to be nondenominational. I have to believe that even in the early 90's they would try to show some diversity in an American crowd. Despite this omission, however, there is no reason to believe this is not America. I mean Ken fuckin Masters is fighting on this dock.

Because there is not much to see besides pink tugboats we must focus on the aforementioned characters. Here we see an instance of different versions of the game having significant differences when it comes to backgrounds (as opposed to the usual, graphical differences). The most noteworthy difference is the woman (the only woman?) on the boat who can be seen wearing significantly different outfits significantly depending on the game. The reason for this is unknown but that doesn't mean we wont speculate!

My first guess was that the version where the woman is dressed like a fucking mennonite was a cleaned up version wherein they tried to avoid having provocative women in the game. This immediately falls apart for two reasons: 1. the alternate version of the woman is not exactly wearing risque attire and b. this.

The second (and probably more accurate) would be that they were trying to avoid people thinking that because the men next to her are dressed like pimps then she would have to be a prostitute. Again, even in the more form-fitting outfit one would be hard pressed to think that the woman was a prostitute. Maybe they just went with the oversized dress in the SNES version to dissuade any assumptions.

In the end I'm a bit disappointed simply because there is not much going on here. If there is one synonym for America then as now its that it thinks highly of itself, people have tons of freedoms and can do pretty much whatever they want, this is completely missing from this stage and thats quite a downer.

It is good to see, however, that they eventually got their act together and they gave Ken a great stage in the Alpha/Zero games. Tons going on there, an apparent birthday party for his daughter, the dock, the boat and is that Morrigan? Felicia? good. The most interesting thing to happen in the SF2 background is when they move everything out of the way and have Zangief destroy a car.

Mario World Writeup

Given its immense depth, breadth and degree of technological advancement for its time it would be impossible to quantify Super Mario World in one blog post. But by golly we're gonna try, I mean if Hollywood managed to make a coherent (not really) film out of Southland Tales then how bad can I possibly fail?

Super Mario World is my second favorite game of all time, it came with my original Super Nintendo (together with Mario Kart) and the fact that I chose the console over going Disneyland only makes it that much more special. I spent countless hours, years even, finding every little secret in the game and 13 years later I'm not sure I've actually accomplished it.

The unfortunate (or fortunate) part of the whole thing is that after I bought it I managed to get to the exact same point I was all those years ago in only a couple of days, this didn't ruin the game for me, it merely proved how awesome I am.

From Star Road to the Special world to the alternate universe in which the Koopas wear pumpkin Mario masks I've achieved it and it feels great, but enough tooting my own horn, lets move on to the actual gameplay.

Even though Super Mario 3 is a great game this one completely revolutionized the franchise for the better. It took advantage of the superior engine, color pallette and graphics of the SNES instantly making any NES game graphically obsolete. The map in which Mario navigates is rich with color and small details as are the stages, the baddies, the bosses and even Mario himself.

Mario's arsenal in this installment consists of a feather that serves the same function as the raccoon leaf and the always powerful fireflower. I have a crush on the fireflower, its so useful that everything pales in comparison. Even though we lose Frogman Mario the fact that we now have Yoshi more than makes up for it. Its a fucking dinosaur that can fly, shoot fire and stomp the ground, thats pretty impressive and it gives Mario a huge advantage: from access to various secrets stages and portals to the ability to completely skip a stage by flying through it and then some.

The baddies are revised versions of those that appear in previous games. Perhaps most noteworthy are the goombas which now have a distinct tomato shape (as seen above). The bosses are still the Koopa kids and this game features the triumphant debut of Big Boo.

To describe the game would be impossible simply because its so well known, beloved and the gameplay is the same as any 2-D Mario game. That is to say: its simple, its easy to just pick it up and play and even though there are a select number of templates for stages (ghost house, climb, castle, timed) they are varied enough to keep it entertaining. All the different worlds are interconnected and make one pretty map, every other Mario game had a meta map in which our hero advances but none were interconnected, here there is a real sense of being able to travel back and forth as much as one desires.

The objective of the game escapes me, something about rescuing the Princess while also saving some infant Yoshi's all of which have been kidnapped by Bowser and his kids. Sounds like all the other Mario games but that makes it no less fun. There are no negatives in this game, aside from the desperation that can set in when one is unable to get through the forest of desperation.

Thats it. A series of random thoughts that will have to do as a Super Mario World review. We ddint even get to the football players! or the 17 life trick! but fuck it, maybe some other time. For now I'm just glad I have this game, its been too long since that faithful day when that asshat that was supposed to fix my SNES ended up keeping my copy never to return it.

Coming Soon: the long promised Koopa Kids post!

Full Gore

I find myself torn with Mini Gore for the iPhone. I want to love it because its hip factor and ease are remarkable but it also has its share of problems. The game features a square headed bearded man with a machine gun named John Gore whose sole mission is to not get killed by an onslaught of furry animal-like baddies which come at him in various sizes and in various quantities.

Its the smoothest game I've ever played on the platform, the on screen controls are intuitive and work like the analog sticks on a console controller, the character's movements are pretty automatic, the way the ammunition is fired off is reminiscent of a Contra or Metal Slug game, and the app icon is the most badass thing ever.

Indeed this is the best thing to come out of Sweden since Abba Zlatan Ibrahimovic. But it does have a few drawbacks which, despite the fact that they can be easily corrected with updates, bring the overall grade down a notch. For starters the in game upgrades are minimal: John Gore can find a crate that gives him temporary use of a shotgun (which isnt very useful) and he can collect three clovers (which look like the 4chan logo) and become a freakish monster for a brief period of time. These might be fun add-ons but they're minimal and inferior to the standard gun.

The game also has, as of this writing, only one level and no way of getting out of it successfully, its pretty demoralizing to realize that no matter how well everything is going you're gonna eventually die. The good news here is that an update similar to those for Pocket God can easily add a level, in fact there are screenshots floating around that show Gore shooting down some Bolsheviks in the snow, that looks very promising and hopefully the dollar paid for the game entitles the buyer to the updates.

The opening screen gives even more hopes as it shows an entire cast of baddies and even a damsel in distress which are not present in the current release but one can only imagine will be added later. With time, and with some hard Swedish labor, this survival game could easily become the best shooter on the mobile market.

The Accidental Video Game Porn Archive

This website is why user generated content on the Internet rocks. Fuck, I cant even imagine the days of the AOL walled garden or the days before blogs, myspace, facebook, rss readers and so on.

The accidental video game porn archive is a site that would not have been possible in those days, not only because of the difficulty of starting your own website but also dealing with limited technology that made gathering pictures, videos and so on impossible.

But this is no longer the case and now we are able to take old video games (which this blogger loves, obviously) and meticulously gather all the instances in which pornography accidentaly takes place in them.

The results are amazing, and they are grouped into handy categories depending on what type of pornography is occurring. The owner has also made life easier on us by separating each instance by alphabetical order, all served in a layout that is deliciously reminiscent of geocities.

The archive is huge, it includes situations from old games, new games, games we love, games we dont, games we've reviewed and even some that make this blogger very uncomfortable. Its a fucking cornucopia of awesome.

Check out tons more right here:
The Accidental Video Game Porn Archive

Picture Post 7

From War Gods for the N64, because not everything was as glamorous as I'd like to believe.

King of Fighters :(

Went down to the local Babbages E.B Games the other day since I had some disposable income and had heard that they sometimes carry SNES games (though they're mostly sports related) and was surprised to find that King of Fighters XII had already come out, excited I checked the price tag and decided that I did not have that much disposable income and promptly set it back down. I then proceeded to buy this instead.

I realized that I had not seen any actual reviews of the game yet, the previews all focused on how pretty the all-new hand drawn artwork is and while that certainly is the case it was still possible for such a good looking game to suck. And apparently it does.

The first place I looked for a review was the AV Club, the serious wing of The Onion whose reviews have gotten me down to the theaters to watch such films as The Wrestler, Away We Go and a small indy film called Watchmen. In short, I hold their reviews in high regard simply because their tastes mostly agree with mine.

I did find the KOF review and it's not pretty. The game is rushed, its missing some key characters, it has a small roster for a 3 on 3 game, its a money grab, there are too few stages and:

"Even worse, if you aren’t into online play, there’s little comfort to be found in the game’s single-player campaign, a five-stage time-trial championship that can be beaten in 10 minutes, tops. The tournament is interspersed with up-to-the-minute action-news coverage that has the audacity to imply excitement, but is completely generic and unrelated to your gameplay."

Brutal. I am no longer looking forward to this game and I'm not sure I can deal with that. Like I've said tons of time I love pretty art but do I love it enough to spend $60 on a mediocre game? no, $20? probably not, it is therefore entirely possible that I'll have to wait at least a year before it goes below that threshold.

What's even worse is that SNK seems to be missing more often then not when it comes to releasing games on the newer consoles. The Maximum Impact games are horrible, the older fighters are...older and now that the supposed saviour has been released and has failed to do what SFIV did for the Street Fighter franchise the future simply isnt looking too bright for the company. The franchise might have a rabid fanbase but how many lemons can that fanbase suffer through? You get one more chance SNK, make it count.

Stages: Chun Li

Note: the title should be read as a parody of David Bowie's "Changes" (i.e Staaa aages)

I suppose it was inevitable that a video game that purported to represent the worldwide political situation in the late 80's would include a few communist states. In the first installment of Stages we talked about one of these states, the Soviet Union, and today its the other (the one that still "exists") China.

The Chun-Li stage was not as blatantly commie as the USSR, this could have been for a number of reasons: 1. China was no the evil empire and had by then opened up to the U.S and begun to open up, economically at least, to the rest of the world. 2. The U.S simply did not know that much about China at the time, it wasnt as glamourous: dirty streets, people in bicycles, chickens. Its third world and that unpaved street? yeah that's how you can tell.

The background is really fascinating, there's an electric pole, because China is just getting electricity; some hanging meat, because refrigeration is so capitalist and, most fascinating at all: some boxes of Coca Cola. Amazing! talk about capturing the zeitgeist! sure today China is the most powerful country in the world but this stage shows the country becoming powerful, accepting capitalism, renouncing Mao...ok maybe it doesn't show that much, but it certainly paved the way for this and, of course, this.

China did advance socioeconomically (for some classes at least) from the time of that first stage until now but it, along with Chun Li's trademarked outfit, remain up until the newest Street Fighter which doesn't have individual stages per se but some are pretty obvious. Somewhere in between she moved her fights down to the Great Wall [nerd fact: that screen is from SF Alpha which takes place before SFII so technically she initially had her fights at the wall] as well as to some other corner of China.

Chun Li has become of one of the most important characters of the Street Fighter lineup, artbooks focus on her, there are tons of galleries full of cosplay, she got her own comic book, shes in Guitar Hero, hell she even got her own movie this year, one in which, perhaps ironically, she was not played by a Chinese girl. As a result its probable that she became, like Zangief, a standard of the country she represented even as that country and that stage became less representative of each other.

Basic Instinct

1. Ice guy
2. Fire guy
3. ???
4. Profit