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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.