Minimum Carnage

I have to admit I thought of that title before even thinking of this entry. Minimum Carnage. Har har.

Maximum Carnage is a game for the SNES that came out in the mid 90's. As such, and like the JLA game we reviewed not too long ago, it offers a foray into the world of superheroes as envisioned in that horrifying decade. Namely big muscles, big explosions, misogyny and Rob Liefeld.

The game is based off the eponymous comic book event Marvel published in 1993 which saw Spider Man teaming up with the quintessential 90's anti-hero: Venom to destroy a much meaner version of Venom, if you will, the red gooey whatsit known as Carnage. I've never actually read this thing but I imagined that what ensued was full of testosterone and machismo.

To say that this game sucks would be unfair. It is, after all, a product of its time and even though its primary objective was to cash in on the successful comic book it does offer yet another version of the 3/4 beat-em-up. And as a member of such a fraternity it is fairly indistinguishable from the Double Dragon's and Turtles in Time's of its day. The graphics are good enough, as one would expect this is a colorful world with characters that take up a good chunk of the screen, and fighting moves that are on par with the fighters and beat em ups of the time.

But the drawbacks are too many to make this game worthwhile. The baddies are as repetitive as you would expect, you basically fight through New York beating up what appear to be old homeless men, punk teenagers and women. Yep Spider Man beats up on women in this one. When you reach the end of a level you fight a boss who is usually someone from Spider Man's rogue gallery. In the end, I assume, you take on Carnage himself.

The game is also unbelievably cheap. The lesser thugs will gang up on you and kick your ass solely because they have a numbers advantage. Yes you can eliminate these guys easily enough but not when you're punching one and another one decides to drop kick you from behind. The odd thing is this is labeled as a Spider Man-Venom game but its not two player, instead you have the ability (in some stages) to use Venom but for the most part its just you and Spidey. Had they made this a two player game the action would be much less frustrating. As it stands there are limited heals, you only get three lives and just one continue.

In later stages you can get some help from other superheroes but their help is limited and you actually have to get to these stages with your three lives and one continue. It's frustrating, its not worth the time and effort and it looks like they tried to sell this thing solely on the basis of its cartridge being red. Yes the cartridge is kickass but the gaming is the equivalent of being stabbed in the eye with a pencil.

Justice League Taskforce

Justice League Task Force is without a doubt a product of its time. You blow on the cartridge, put it into the slot, slide the power button and you're immediately transported back to the mid 90's. Sure it was a great time in general: pre 9/11, economic prosperity, new weekly episodes of both Full House and Family Matters, the apex of the Atlanta Braves dynasty. But for the comic book industry it was actually the dark ages.

The 90's will always be marred by the rise of the uber masculine superhero as first envisioned by Image Comics (google Rob Liefeld) and later adapted by both of the big two. Whereas the 80's signaled a revolution towards the anti hero, towards imperfect, often imbalanced heroes the 90's gave us loads of steroids, bad hair and unparalleled machismo. It wasn't pretty.

Not to say that JLA Taskforce isnt pretty: for a mid 90's game the character design is nice, with colorful, beefy sprites that take up a significant amount of TV real estate, nice background stages and decent music the game could justifiable be found at your local KMart for thirty bucks.

Where it falls apart is in the gameplay department. Like all fighting games of the era it tries to be Street Fighter but the action is too choppy and random to merit such a comparison. The six available characters (and three bosses) all play the same, they all (except one) have a charging attack and projectiles which can all be used with the hadoken command. Boring. Street Fighter tried to give us different fighting styles, JLA Taskforce takes two of those styles and applies them to known superheroes and calls it a game.

And a very difficult game at that! n00bs will soon be changing the difficulty setting when they discover that even the first character in the story is impossible to beat on medium. All of these characters fight cheap: you jump they throw you a projectile, you throw a projectile they jump kick you, before you realize it your life meter is flashing and you're about to die.

But lets get back to the available characters, shit lets break them down one by one:

Superman: the mere thought that anybody can challenge a guy that flies, has laser vision and is stronger then hell is laughable but I guess he's fighting fair here.

Batman: I fucking love Batman.

The Flash: not cool hat Flash but rather spandex muscles 90's Flash. Oh by the way Joe Higashi called he wants his tornado attack back.

Wonder Woman: because you need to have a woman in here. (Cheetah is also in it as a boss).

Aquaman: D'you wanna get high Aquaman???

Green Arrow: Wait Green Arrow is in this? holy fuck talk about your unlikely inclusions! yes I knew he was in it, yes this is the reason why I bought this game. Any more questions?

Like I said the stages are very easy on the eyes, from the Daily Planet globe to Aquaman's underwater Aquatic Justice center, even Batman's Gotham is as dark and pretentious as he is. By the way Green Arrow fights in the forest. Really? the forest? it's like the developers had never heard of Green Arrow but they figured since he looks like Robin Hood then he must be Robin Hood.

Oh shit, how about the story? its pretty easy to follow: Darkseid has declared war on earth (this is literally what it says) and its up to the JLA to fuck him up. Obviously the JLA is up to it and they go about doing it by....fighting against each other? try to figure that one out.

All in all a very interesting game that might be incredibly frustrating but is cool nonetheless. A DC fighting game is by definition kinda fun, especially since it wouldn't happen again until they struck a deal with Mortal Kombat to try to make both franchises relevant again.

Teaser

After all, Red & Black are my favourite colors.

Super Empire Strikes Back (!)

Super Empire Strikes Back is not, by any means, an easy game. It's a standard platformer in which the main character must pass through multiple stages fighting off multiple baddies with multiple weapons and the help of multiple, well, helpers. The reason why this game is more like Dungeons and Dragons than, say, Mega Man, is because while in MegaMan you encounter an enemy every once in a while in SESB it's a neverending parade of creatures trying to kill you.

You start off as Luke Skywalker in Hoth (a planet which is very cold) with a lightsaber and a pistol surveying the area for meteors or some shit. He gets to right around in a Tauntan, he gets to fight wampas and so on. You know like that in that one movie. Right from the get-go there are tons of enemies shooting off spores or bursting or running at you or fucking biting you. It is unrelentless and, for some reason, it takes about five lightsaber hits to kill some of these things.

Most levels are like this but in other planets or environments. In some you fly around in vehicles, in others you fight off a boss. The player is helped by a password system which keeps you from tearing your hair out in frustration every time you get killed (it happens often). You get a number of continues, when you use one Yoda's head tells you to "do or do not, there is no try". The voice of Darth Vader also appears sometimes.

Not much more to say about this game. The lightsaber seems weak like the other weapons mostly because the enemies are so tough and numerous. It was the middle game of the "Super" trilogy, followed by Super Return of the Jedi whose cover is the only instance of an official Star Wars product downplaying Slave Leia. Empire came out in 1993, a year or two before the relaunch of the original trilogy which signaled a resurgence of the Star Wars phenomenon.

Since the relaunch the machine has not stopped, producing three prequels of varying quality, as well as countless merchandise, television, video game in other properties. Star Wars has always been a part of the video game landscape to this day, from the early games to Shadows of the Empire for the N64, to KOTOR to Battlefront to the appearance of some characters in SoulCalibur 4. Lucas is not exactly hesitant to license his intellectual property and this could be readily seen in 1993 and even earlier on.

Mario RPG: A Primer

Released in 1996 Super Mario RPG might be the best game to ever come out for the SNES. I'd argue its the second best but we dont have time to talk about Mario World 2 right now. RPG was created by both Nintendo and Square as a combination of the famous Nintendo characters and the gameplay and style made famous by Square in such games as Chrono Trigger and the early Final Fantasies.

It was a complete overhaul of the Mario franchise: gone were the days of sidescrolling mario saving 2D Toadstool, now there was possibly the first ever 3D rendered Mario going through an up and down world, talking to townspeople, teaming up with Bowser and saving Princess Peach. Luigi was presumably MIA.

Like any other RPG the player could form his or her party to battle against foes in turn based combat. Bowser and Peach (or maybe it was still Toadstool) along with two new characters (probably Square characters) called Geno and Mallow. The first looks like an odd Italian magician while the other looks like a marshmallow or a cloud. Honestly it's kinda complicated. I'm sure there was a lot of thinking being done and a lot of weed being smoked. It should be noted that this is probably the first time Bowser is portrayed as a charismatic, if flawed, figure instead of an all out villain, this theme would continue in later games.

The bad guy is some crazy sword or something who runs the "Smithy Gang". I have no idea what this means but its definitely a poor choice of words. It reminds me of a smodcast. The group then walks around solving numerous puzzles, playing multiple mini games, gaining experience, talking to townspeople, gathering items and fighting enemies. You know like in those other RPG's of the time.

The graphics were fucking 3D renders! the gameplay smooth, the story innovative. In short it was a nice effort by both companies. The game did not have a sequel but there were numerous Mario RPG games released afterwards. Though they may be more imaginative and better graphically Super Mario RPG is still a worthy predecessor.

So what is all this about? well I wanted to get a copy of the game to review and reminisce. I have very special memories of this game and was curious to see if these memories were romanticized or justified. The problem is a copy for the SNES can run you about $50 on eBay, or more. So what's the alternative? the Wii virtual console. For about $8 the game is now ready to go on the
Wii, I've started playing it and will have a report up some day. But this was part 1, the primer if you will, hopefully the second part will be up soon.

This. Is. Jeopardy

To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the U.S Congress not ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) today we present a wallpaper from the SNES version of Jeopardy (the one I derided just one post ago).

I realize that:

• nobody has ever asked for a Jeopardy for the SNES wallpaper and
• I am quickly running out of shit to post

But how can I refute an opportunity to post this picture? Just look at Jim, I cant decide if he looks more like John Hodgman or Max Headroom. All I know is he has a ton of cash, not sure if he won though as there was a woman next to Rob and I did not bother to notice her total when I truncated her from the picture.

Anyway, enjoy the wallpaper and take a moment today to celebrate whatever random occurrence I picked up from wikipedia that I mentioned up there.

The King

This review for The Lion King for the SNES is only a placeholder. Why? because this game is so incredibly frustrating that I haven't been able to get past the second stage even though I've been playing it for the past two weeks. I haven't played it for long periods of time, mind you, but that's mainly because frustration sets in pretty quickly when fuckin Simba cant seem to swing on Hippo tails regardless of what button combinations one pushes. Phew that needed to get out. Like I said: placeholder, once I get around to beating it we'll have a closer look.

First of all the game is developed by Virgin. I had no idea Virgin even produced video games but I suppose it is a necessary step between space travel and bankrupt music stores. What is even more impressive, and a sign of the times, is that they actually had a Disney license. I know Disney will license just about anything but it says a lot about the unimportance of video games in 1994 that just anybody got a license from the big D.

The game starts off simply enough, you shuffle through some basic screens until Timon says "it starts" and you begin wandering around the Pridelands as Simba, jumping on assorted bugs, hedgehogs and lizards. It looks a lot like a non-CG Donkey Kong actually: a platformer set in a vividly colored jungle all set to great music (Lion King uses the music from the movie). But the similarities sorta end there, this game is not nearly as deep as Donkey Kong, its levels are much shorter and it is often more difficult to understand.

For example Simba doesn't actually have a life meter or any other logical way of knowing how close he is from dying. It seems that at random intervals, after an unknown number of hits, he just tips over. There are two bars at the top of the screen (which look like battery meters on a phone) but I have no idea what they mean. One of them measures how hard Simba can growl (I think) but he roars the same way regardless of whether its full or not. He also collects a bunch of random upgrades which, also, don't seem to have a purpose.

The artwork is great, I'd say that they spent most of their budget on graphics and forgot about gameplay. The characters look like those in the film, right down to the supporting animals which keep their great art deco style from the big screen. The game also features nicely done cut scenes with Mufasa, Rafiki and the rest of the gang.

Frustration begins to set in when you realize that the pretty art is a front for the bad game play. Sure its cool when Simba has to jump, ride and swing on animals but it sucks that there is no definite way to do these things. What's worse is that when you're required to jump from hippo tail to hippo tail five or six straight times and miss once Simba falls in a river (or on a birds nest, or something else) and you just lost a life. Yep, looks like Simba suffers from Megaman on spikes syndrome.

And that's what the second stage is about. I've gotten pretty close to beating it but he always falls! fuck if anybody ever needed opposable thumbs! It's a shame too because I want to keep playing this game. Not only because of my love of all things disney (except the Disney Channel) but also because some of the later stages look bad ass. Wildebeest run! older Simba! sure somewhere along the way Mufasa will die but we've had fifteen years to accept it and move on. Plus somewhere along the way Scar (one of the best villains in Disney ever) will make an appearance. I really should keep playing it.

Stay tuned I suppose.

Also: for no actual reason here's a picture of Bjork as a baby. Awwwww!

Rival Turf

Rival Turf! is the game that Batman Forever wanted and should have been. It's the quintessential 90's two player beat-em-up in which an unlikely pair must make their way through a city in turmoil in order to rescue a woman, or stop the drug trade or something like that. The objective here is unclear, there is a map and it appears that the characters are trying to make it down to the Mexican border? after a couple of stages in the city a helicopter arrives and takes you down "south of the border" with no actual explanation, you are then fighting in the jungle.

In Rival Turf! you select from one of two characters: Jack Flak whose look has made a complete 360 from outdated to back in style or Oozie Nelson who dresses like M.Bison (by the way was it standard for tough guys to dress like Eastern European dictators back in the early 90's?). They battle a substantial amount of stereotypes with names that say all you need to know about them, examples: Gigante is the big guy, Arnold is the bodybuilder, Reggie is the hip black guy and so forth.

This game, like many other, was based on a Japanese original. In this case it was the Rushing Beat series. Like MegaMan, Darkstalkers and many more games the developers simply replaced Japanese art with Western art (happened in anime too, how is this better than this? its not) and completely Americanized the characters. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but it is a shame that that Japanese cover was replaced with shit like this. I wonder when exactly the video game industry realized that gamers were into Japanese art and culture.

The gameplay is smooth, without a doubt the SNES was made for this type of game and its not surprising that titles such as Captain Commando, Ninja Turtles and Double Dragon were some of the most popular on the console. Rival Turf's characters are surprisingly big, they fill up the screen nicely and are drawn in a stylized way that still feels fresh. You get a total of six continues and five lives per continue, with infrequent health boosts and increasing difficulty a beginner can still get pretty far (I got up to stage 4 my first time). Two player mode should be easier and a lot more fun.

The beat-em-up genre sorta died as technology improved and games became smarter. The last one I remember is Fighting Force which was fun but not as much as the sidescrollers but with retro gaming now more accessible these old games return either through wide availability online (as downloads or at eBay) or through places like the Xbox Marketplace and Wii Store. This genre offers mindless co-op fun and works better with simplified graphics, sounds like a perfect concept for the iPhone.

Forever! Forever!

It seems that more than any other character Batman seems to go through phases: from the original detective to the campy Adam West show to the Alan Moore stories of the 80's, the first two 90's films, the gay Batman sequels and finally the Chris Nolan series. The story so far has been a constant fluctuation between taking the Bat seriously and treating him like a children's story. Batman Forever for the SNES treats tries to treat Batman like the former but ends up treating him like the latter.

And it makes sense too, the first two Batman films could be considered almost in the same category as the Nolan films, only injected with some Tim Burton crazy for good measure. Starting with Forever (and most ridiculously seen in Batman and Robin) the studios decided to turn Batman into a kids movie, complete with ridiculous villains and even more ridiculous gizmos all designed to sell more Happy Meals and increase profit margin. Two-Face for example was more eccentric than out of his fucking mind, the fact that Val Kilmer was Batman pretty much says it all (even though Clooney played him in the last, and worst, film, its Kilmer who personifies the kiddie Batman era).

The game is supposedly a direct translation of the film, not having seen the movie since it first came out I have no idea if this is the case. It takes a serious leap forward graphics-wise, the characters look and move like they have been pulled out of a Mortal Kombat game to the extent that as he moves Batman seems to be dancing around and is able to pull off the infamous MK crouching uppercut. There is a two-player co-op mode with the second player having the ability to play as Robin. The problem here is that, while the Dark Knight looks well graphically because he's not much more than a few splotches of black, Robin looks like a Mego doll. Also he wears the classic Robin outfit instead of the one he wore in the film (and in the fucking box!), you'd think someone would have noticed this inconsistency during motion capture.

Batman walks along some closed levels beating up an assortment of Arkham inmates and men in business suits with such names as Mad Ned, Amazon and (probably) Anvil. The baddies start off easy enough but once they start ganging up on Batman and pulling out chainsaws and flamethrowers it starts to get pretty complicated. What's worse is that the caped crusader is armed only with his arms (and apparently Batarangs and other weapons that I haven't been able to use) and only has six lives (less than a fucking cat), there is no Save feature, no continues and no password system so one can only advance so far before dying and having to start from the beginning.

This isn't a regular beat-em-up either, Batman has to solve puzzles, he has to climb up and down levels, has to fill a quota of beat up villains and find secret compartments and doors. Its hard enough that I had to consult a walkthrough online, I cant imagine how the average 8-year old ever managed to advance through this game in the late 90's, its not that the game itself is hard its just unnecessarily complicated. You do get clues along the way (in the form of riddles, ugh) but most of the riddles are cringe-worthy and completely obvious: oh you want me to "climb" something? look "up"? how imaginative!

My main issue with this game is that I bought it thinking it was the one with Poison Ivy, Schwarzenegger and nipple costumes, I was looking forward to some campy shit but instead I got a game that is more reliant on its "technological advances" (as described in the box) than any actual gameplay. It's not really fun, its frustrating, but its also kinda satisfying to get through because its so difficult. The only problem is that once you turn it off you're gonna have to start from the beginning when you want to play again, its demoralizing. But its also Batman, and its hard to be angry at Batman, even if he is a right wing lunatic.

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!

Bloody Dinosaurs

In 1993 Jurassic Park (the film) captured the imaginations and blah blah blah people got really into dinosaurs blah blah animatronics blah blah blah dna splicing and cgi, it was a great fucking movie. A year later a fighting game in which dinosaurs were protagonists came out, in 2009 I drive down to the swap meet and buy said game, Primal Rage, for seven dollars. I instantly feel like I overpaid.

First some background, when this came out I was in the fourth grade right in the middle of my love affair with my Super Nintendo. In retrospect I probably shoulda been outside playing sports, instead I was at home playing my games and wishing I had enough money to buy more. Primal Rage was one of the games I really wanted and never got so when I saw it for sale last week I knew I might be disappointed but I wanted it regardless.

I wasnt exactly disappointed; if there is one thing I've learned its that fighting games do not hold up as well as platformers so the fact that this game felt choppy and slow was not because the game is bad but rather because that is as good as it could get in 1994.

The game is one big bloody, testosterone riddled MMA dinosaur gang fight. First you select from a motley crew of horrible looking dinosaurs. Horrible as in you dont want to meet them in a dark alley, design wise they're actually kinda cool, even though some are blatant copies of each other (two T-Rex, two monkeys) in a manner reminiscent of Mortal Kombats many ninjas. The characters themselves appear to be models taken out of a Jason and the Argonauts movie, motion captured to give them a 3-D feel which, again, is strangely like Mortal Kombat. So similar is this to Mortal Kombat that one cant help but feel its intentional, even wikipedia seems to think so.

Story mode is actually kinda difficult to beat, ultimately without prior experience and without a game manual one is reduced to button mashing, its effective but by the second fight the opponent is not letting anything past its guard. The character I've been using is a nightmarish snake with legs named Vertigo, the only female character, she also has the longest reach and can teleport. Of course most fights devolve into two dinosaurs (or dinosaur sized apes) throwing bites at each others necks, trying to finish off the stylized health bars all while a disembodied voice urges you to RAGE! and tiny humans run around the background.

I do remember that the game was heavily advertised and there was a line of action figures (which I never had) and are still, I assume, easily available on eBay. They might be a bit too 90's for me to really want to buy now but I did want them as a kid.

Final verdict? its a keeper, especially now that I'm getting sort of good at it. I really hope that there is some sort of closure for the dinosaurs in the end but I wont know until I get past the third battle.

Bonus!
24 more songs were revealed for Guitar Hero 5. Some highlights? Hungry like the wolf, Feel Good Inc and fuckin BULLET WITH BUTTERFLY WINGS!!! full list at Kotaku.

Update!
I received my replacement RF Switch from eBay today, it took significantly less time than I expected and it works even better than I thought it would. Who knew the SNES, N64 and Gamecube could use the same switch? its like I'm playing the SNES in HD now, amazing.

Technical Difficulties

As is customary with 20 year old hardware the RF switch on my SNES gave out yesterday just a day after I bought two games, one of which is Super Mario World, so until I receive my replacement from that wonderful place known as eBay I wont be able to indulge in some nostalgia.

The days of rotating the coax cable into the winding nut thing are certainly not something I miss from my romanticized version of the 80's and 90's. Having to move the cable around so it works, having no avenue for replacing busted parts, having to deal with a shitty analog tv, having to work with these god forsaken things...ugh, good riddance.

Theres something to be said about HD and 1080 and shit and that something can be readily seen in my inability to play my Super Nintendo for a week and a half.

A Closer Look at Aladdin

I've been on a Disney kick lately, mostly because I spent two days this week at the happiest place on earth and its smaller, yet surprisingly fun, sister park. When you combine the bombardment of propaganda that place launches at you with my predisposition to accept such propaganda (because I had no childhood you see) the result is a couple of weeks of watching movies, buying merchandise and playing video games.

The last time I talked about Aladdin for the SNES I complained about how difficult yet fun it was. When your technology is limited you overcompensate with difficulty and for a few months, as I refused to play the game, I continued to believe my analysis. I decided to give it a second chance and beat the game in less than an hour.

The game only has six (or seven) stages, unlimited continues (in the form of passwords) and is a pretty standard, solid platformer. Every stage consists of Aladdin jumping on moving, non moving and floating platforms while throwing apples at baddies and collecting some sort of jewels. The two exceptions to this are the magic carpet stages: one that has Aladdin flying through a cavern avoiding obstacles (which defeated me the last time) and a bonus stage in which Aladdin and the Princess ride around at night collecting goodies, to a ringtone version of "A whole new world". There is only one boss and thats Jafar, first in standard issue and then in his badass snake version, as was customary with bosses in the 90's he wasnt much of a challenge.

After that the Genie steps in and theres a final cut scene in which Aladdin proves his sincerity or whatever by wishing for the Genie's freedom (like in the movie!), when all seems lost with Jasmine the Sultan steps in and, because hes a ruthless despot, decrees that there will be a new law that the Princess can now marry whoever she damn well wants. This would be where I take a jab at how "and thats how its been in the Middle East" ever since. But I'm above that so I wont.

So......theres another game beaten, the tally is now at two. Time to get some more games I suppose.

Bonus!
Kotaku has a great story on how Toad likes to flip people off. Link.

Pre-FIFA Soccer

Champions World Class Soccer came out, ostensibly, in 1994, the year of the U.S World Cup, the year when soccer finally gained some popularity in the United States. The Super Nintendo was already enjoying popularity so I suppose that a soccer video game was inevitable. This game fills that inevitability with all the technology available at the times (very little) and all the buzzwords they could fill into a title (many as it turns out).

The game itself is uneventful: it features a total of 32 teams ranging from the very good (Brazil) to the very bad (Bolivia) to Wales. I cant find a pattern in these teams, at first I thought these were the participants in the '94 WC but thats not the case. They're also not the best teams in the world, as noted above, so the criteria for selection seems nonsensical.

While on the subject of teams I should note that all available countries are still around today, I was looking forward to a Yugoslav or Soviet team but no dice. The teams on the cover are there either randomly or as selected by where the developers wanted to sell more copies. Shilling to Mexican audiences was not desirable yet.

The gameplay is that which you would expect for a 1994 soccer game. That is to say slow, choppy and random, maybe its because I dont have the manual but I have no idea what the difference is between the buttons: they all seem to be for passing while on offense and for changing between players and tackles while on defense.

Its a shame that graphics weren't advanced enough to permit detailed, accurate depictions of soccer kits because the early 90's were a great time for soccer shirts. Err... on second thought its probably best they weren't able to get the detail. Probably a great idea that detailed players weren't available, nor the MLS inaugural teams. Though now I feel like playing as Colombia and seeing if they bothered with Valderrama's hair.

For what its worth I played as France and was unable to score a goal, I'm not entirely sure if there are celebrations or whatnot. The thing is I've played old soccer games that are mindlessly enjoyable but this one is not one of them, and thats too bad because I vaguely remember playing this when I was a kid and enjoying it.

If I have something positive regarding the game its gotta be that the uniforms are kind of cool. Each team has a basic white and coloured uni, with a few variations in socks, stripes and stuff. Its kind of charming. Sure, nothing compared with the highly detailed unis of todays games but good enough.

Ninja Turtles

I received my TMNT: Tournament Fighters in the mail a couple of days ago, turned it on, played it for a bit and proceeded to be disappointed. The fighting seemed slow, the fighters small, the sound gimmicky. I then played it a bit more and I realized that it actually isnt a sucky game. The reason it appears slow is because I'm used to playing new generation games, the fighters are small and blurry because of my small screen and bad connection and the audio...well the audio is still pretty bad.

Lets talk about the game. There were three different versions: the Sega game which had Raph on the cover, the NES game with Leo and, the one I had, the SNES version with Don dancing with a shark. No love for Mike I guess. The games not only had different covers but they also had different character rosters and, obviously, different graphics.

Like I said, the game really isnt that bad. The available characters included the Turtles as well as five other non-turtle characters. Casey Jones was in there...in the Genesis version. April was also playable...in the Genesis version. The SNES game got some not so great characters, including a purple dinosaur looking guy named "War", Wingnut,, the Shredder, a token female character and a few more. I might have gotten over my initial disappointment of the game but I stil have issues with the available characters. I find myself not caring for any of them. I used to like Wingnut as I had that action figure but not anymore. I think the Rat King is the final boss. I dont remember if you can later select the Rat King but I hope so.

But there are many pluses, this is an old-school drawn fighting game. Of course its modeled after Street Fighter and KOF, but it also does a few other things those didnt have at the time (such as a separate bar for a super move). Each character has a unique stage, also reminiscent of SFII, each character has unique moves, most are able to throw projectiles using the standard Hadouken movement.

Sure this might be a bit forced but the Turtles is a franchise with so many discrepancies between all of its media appearances: what happens in the tv show is different than the movie, than the comic book and so on. That the video game would be just as disconnected is not surprising.

The game is good, yes its a bit slow and yes its a bit difficult but that was the norm when it came out. It really isnt fair to compare it to todays game but thats what we do because of what the norm is today. The biggest issue then really isnt that the character selection is poor but rather that this was not followed up on such in the same way that SF or KOF was. If it had been then TMNT: 2009 would be something else.

Donkey Kong Country

Once upon a time there was a deal made between two video game companies to work together, one was a game developer that was ahead of the game, the other was the flailing king of the entire medium. For a while there in the late 90's it was the partnership between Nintendo and Rare that showed what a video game could be. Though they developed many games, many good games, there was one that stood out as the best, I do believe it was one of their first also and from what I understand video games would not be the same after it.

Yes, I'm talking about Donkey Kong Country, the coolest game around during my childhood/adolescence, a game that I always wanted but was too poor to buy. I did play it many times, I had it on loan for a while, but I was never able to actually buy it. Until now that is. Thank you eBay.

What made this game so good? well lets remember that at the time it came out (1994) Nintendo was the king, the Playstation was about to take the thrown for a variety of reasons: dissent, cheaper cd games, more mature titles. You name it. But the SNES was offering games that looked so much better than the traditional PS fare. The SNES, a weaker machine than the PS or the Saturn, was capable of giving us games with characters that looked like moving action figures, the gameplay was smooth and fun while the CD consoles had to deal with polygons and load screens.

This game eventually franchised out into a few others that progressively introduced new characters. Though the monkey (or ape) protagonist changed the gameplay remained the same. Fifteen years after the original came out the fun that is to be had playing the original also remains. I got the game yesterday and have logged in a few hours now. Its easy, but its difficult, I dont really know how to describe it. I dont think I need to describe it, I'm sure everybody has played it and understands.

It doesnt take rocket science to play it, too many new games require one to read books and make decisions and wander around a vast state on a hummer. How friggin unnecesary, how grating! I understand that games have to evolve, I even understand that we tend to romanticize things from our childhood but that does not take away from the brilliance of this game.

Besides, they never could improve it. They came out with a DK for the N64 and it wasnt as good, in general Nintendo moved towards the same crowd that the PS had before realizing they couldnt compete and deciding to go back to making kids games. But for a while Nintendo was in a dark place, it appeared doomed, the relationship with Rare soured and they went over to Microsoft, never to return.

So this wasnt the normal eightbitter post. It wasnt a game review because there is no need to review a game like Donkey Kong Country. Everybody knows it, everybody loves it and even if they dont I simply assume that they do because it was so big during my childhood. Anyway, I'm just glad I finally have it.

Aladdin Sane

As promised tonight we tackle the difficult subject of talking about Aladdin. I mock Aladdin, I mocked it yesterday, I mock it today but the truth is this is the reason I bought a Super Nintendo again. No, not because I wanted to play Aladdin but rather I wanted to play the type of game that Aladdin represents.

This game is a side-scroller with one straight forward plot. You play as Aladdin, a young Arabian lad who has taken some time off from cataloging European history (look it up) to move across a screen with his monkey friend Abu (who wears a hat) to, I can only assume, save Princess Jasmine from Jafar and probably her incompetent father. Look I cant be bothered to remember the plot, it was a good movie and all but it was a long time ago.

Anyway the game plays pretty sweetly, its a variation on the platform concept wherein instead of using a gorilla, a small blue suited deviant or a plumber you use a heavily copyrighted Disney character. He still jumps around on tents, fights evil doers, throws apples, gets energy from food and so on. The only difference is that he does it in the Middle East and he's voiced by DJ Tanner's boyfriend.

There are climbing stages, running stages, stages with vehicles, bosses, and cut scenes. Its like a non-violent Double Dragon or Contra so even though its lame to play a Disney game I'm gonna keep playing this one because its entertaining.

There is also a Password system whereby in order to save your progress you simply put in a password to move directly to a particular stage. I wont say much about this here since I plan to write an entry about passwords while I wait for some games I bought on eBay or while I go to the swap meet and get some more games. Suffice it to say that passwords are now easily available and to prove it I'll tell you that the password to get to the second stage is genie-abu-aladdin-sultan. So there you go.

Brett Hull (who?) Hockey

Yet another game that came with my system: Brett Hull Hockey. It was one of three games and I already did an entry on one so I have no idea what I'm gonna do after I talk about Aladdin tomorrow. Yes, Aladdin. But we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Today we're talking about Brett Hull.

From what I can gather Brett Hull was a hockey player who, at the time this game came out played for the St. Louis Blues who are, of course, a hockey team. At the time he was probably a star and got his own video game. The brilliant thing about this game, and the time it came out really, is that professional sports leagues wouldnt just give you their license but that was not a problem, you could make your game anyway. Brett Hull Hockey has the NHLPA license but no NHL. Which means no logos and no team names. But the great thing was that they had the next best thing: city names on bicolor bars. To ease the fact that the NHL has two new york teams the Islanders bar says Long Island. This practice was a staple of unlicenced games. I think Madden even did it one year.

So how does the game play in 2009? surprisingly well. The graphics arent choppy at all, they movement is smooth, Bob Fuckin Costas is the announcer and he speaks like a robot. The only things I'm inclined to bitch about is that the Ice is too short (the field of play) and scoring is a bitch. There is fighting however and after each game you are treated to a metrosexual looking picture of Brett Hull giving you some advice.

That last link is for a picture from the '95 version so I'm inclined to believe its a series. Google results show that at least in one edition they had the NHL license. Unfortunately thats not the edition I have so, sadly, I am not able to call the Whalers a bunch of faggots in the comfort of my living room.

Final analysis? yay hockey!

Street Fighter II, a few Decades Later

One of the three games included with my $20 Super Nintendo, and the one I naturally gravitated towards, was Street Fighter II.

Ah SFII, you spawned a million clones, you kept Capcom alive, you profited from the Cold War, you brought nationalism to kids everywhere. So the real question became how good is this game? not how good was it at its peak but rather by todays standards. And though I realize that its unfair to subject a game to such standards I cant help but do it, specially since, well, I have nothing else to write about.

My first memories of Street Fighter center around the massive hype it generated in my elementary school. Yes, this was the game you had to play. So the first time I did it was at a local shady establishment of fun called "mundo divertido". They had about ten machines and there was a line to play SF. I eventually got to it, picked Dhalsim and got my ass promptly handed to me. But that didnt matter, what mattered is that I had played it, I had a story now see.

As I said there was a lot of hype, there was a lot of SF merchandise, official and clandestine, sold at the entrance to school, merchandise which I now wish I'd kept for ebay. But thats beyond the scope of this thing, the point is I had played it and I wanted more. So we scoured the local rental store until we finally got the opportunity to take it home for a few days. We played it like madmen for that one day. We might have beaten it a couple of times but it was only after struggling with those four bosses for hours on end. It was great.

And what is there not to like? you can pick one of EIGHT characters to play as, each with unique characteristics, moves, stages. Then there were the four final characters who you really did hate at the time because they were so cheap (except for Balrog, he was easy) but that made it that much better when you actually did beat it. The coolest character was Ken. Zangief was useless, Chun-Li we did not use for a while. Eight characters! so much variety!

The one thing that struck me as odd when I played it yesterday was how slow the game was. Obviously we did not feel that at the time, but now its kind of hard to get over. The fighting engine is great, it was great, but there are many flaws: aerial kicks and throws do an inordinate amount of damage, any fireball leaves the character throwing it motionless and vulnerable for a few seconds after throwing it.

The graphics are, of course, outdated but no less brilliant because of it. Theres so much pixelated goodness, even though the characters are smaller than I remember they still fill in enough of the screen and that which is not filled in is covered in the now iconic, glorious backgrounds. Sure I can bitch about the graphics twenty years later but we were lucky, at least we didnt have to deal with the Atari or Commodore graphics. So thats why Nintendo eventually won out. That second one looks like an error screen.

Now that I have the system, now that I also have an Xbox 360 with Street Fighter IV, will I keep playing the original? yes! its still remarkably playable. You go through it once or twice and you realize why exactly this series is so iconic, so memorable: it obviously came out at a time with a great deal of limitations but it was great nonetheless. It evolved through time too, they have a winning formula (which was widely copied as I said earlier) but they kept updating it with the times and in remains at the forefront of fighting games, and even though Capcom is shamelessly trying to cash in on our nostalgia at least they're doing it with quality products and with a respect towards what the game represents for losers like myself.