#punch out nes manual

[chesscayk]

(NES manual) glass joe with a hint of chub, anyone?

[therobotmonster]

In honor of he who died and rose after three days in the grave and now grants life ever lasting to his followers I thought it only right I got into the spirit once. So Dracula, this one's for you:

Just look at it.

You have what appears to be (and is) an accountant being menaced by boobalicious vampire women twice his size, so he's got Ethan Winters beaten to the punch by 34 years. But don't be fooled. One glance into his 30-yard stare and its obvious why only Mr. Weems can stop these sinister She-Vampires:

Weems is dead on the inside yet still living, where the she-vampires are animated from within with life, while dead.

He is their antithesis.

So yeah, a pile of jank with a fun name crossed my path, and now you all have to hear about it. If you're not hitting 'J', you have no one to blame but yourself.

Released on a scad of systems, but mostly the ZX Spectrum and the C64, The Astonishing Adventures of Mr. Weems & the She-Vampires is a sort of 'Gauntroidvania'. It's also trying to push the limits of how titillating a pre-NES era game could be, though the C64 port's interface missed that memo.

The hacked c64 version was the one I played, but giantbomb had a lot of gifs from the ZX verison that I've upscaled for demonstration purposes.

The only bit of story is from the back package. Weems wants to feel something, so he's decided to take on the Great She-Vampire or die in her buxom grasp. Fair.

This game is not recommended for people with epilepsy, dignity, or in general.

Mr. Weems has a garlic gun to defend his ever-dropping blood supply (vampire hunter is an odd professon with anemia) and destroy the baddies...

All three of them, which are all introduced on the first screen!

You've got bats, they pop out of pots and attack you.

The manual says these guys are Frankenstein's' monsters, but they're clearly the giant from Twin Peaks trying to warn you that you've bought a dud.

On the C64, the lesser she-vampires are clearly based on Dracula's brides, whereas on the ZX, they're more like ghosts with big naturals.

Which means that to get both kinds of vampire babe from the secondary cover, you'd have to buy a cassette for your c64, and and for your ZX. And I don't mean a cartridge, I mean a, Cassette tape.

If you manage to stalk your way all the way to the end and find the gear you need to destroy her, the Great She-Vampire awaits:

There's no boss fight, but there is a 1 pixel nip, at least on the ZX spectrum.

From there you book it back the way you came, only every screen now has a she-vampire chasing you in a murderous rage. Make it out, and you win. Or maybe you didn't, because just like the Dungeon of Fear and Hunger, you can never really escape Mr. Weems & the She-Vampires.

Only Weems increases the immersion by truamatizing you, the player. Mr. Weems is fine. You don't have to worry about the Weems.

So...

Is it a good game?

Not remotely, but that isn't the point in the slightest.

It's temping to say this is the Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies of video games, but that's not quite right. Weems has promise and ISCWSLaBMUZ doesn't make promises. It issues threats.

Mr. Weems has the charm of a concept that's all potential and zero execution. A dead-eyed accountant gunning his way in a Gauntlet-esq blitz through a vampire-babe infested castle is a fun idea, more-so with all the secret passages and 'gather items and backtrack to the boss' aspect. It's just everything else that goes wrong.

I mean, who doesn't want to hunt the Great She-Vampire to her penthouse for a good staking, I ask you?

[frankendykes-monster]

Looking at Splatterhouse...

Splatterhouse has always been a game in the back of my mind, though I hadn't played it in any form for nearly a decade. Luckily the PS store on PS4 is loaded with arcade titles so this was a no-brainer.

I'm sure video game players of literally every generation are familiar with and cherish at least one Namco arcade title. So many people have fond memories of Pac-Man, Galaga, Dig Dug, Pole Position, etc. but Splatterhouse has fallen by the wayside, and for very obvious reasons, that we will get to shortly.

First, some basics. Splatterhouse's arcade version doesn't provide much in the way of story. We are presented with an unlit mansion or large house as a couple, trapped in a thunderstorm, run inside. The woman screams and upon the start of the game you see the player character (the man of the two) dead on the ground from a blow to the head as a mask revives him. The manual for the PC Engine/Turbografx-16 version gives us a bit more context: we're following Rick and Jennifer, two parapsychology students on a trip to the fabled "West house" where famed parapsychologist Dr. West performed mysterious experiments, of which we can probably guess the results of.

Functionally, as a game in and of itself, Splatterhouse is...ehhh? It's similar to Kung-Fu Master (Kung-Fu on NES) from four years earlier without much changes. You punch, you jump, you duck kick, you do a slide kick (we will come back to this), and sometimes you can pick up weapons (we will definitely come back to this). Nothing special, within the first 30 seconds you've seen everything there is mechanically.

However no one is probably all that concerned given that opening stages in this game look like this:

Splatterhouse is *insanely* gruesome at times, even by modern standards. In 1988 it was surely the goriest game ever made, making the violence from the likes of Mortal Kombat several years later look even more cartoonish. The opening stages look the best if only because the game's difficulty insures most people would only see those, and they're strewn about if not outright decorated with human remains in various degrees of decay. Punching enemies out in most cases causes them to just fall over into a pile of entrails, but with weapons like the hatchet you can decapitate them or slam them against the wall with a plank of wood.

The "novelty" as it were to Splatterhouse is seeing what shit it can throw at you across all seven stages, though it gets needlessly difficult in the backhalf, with weapons disappearing from the game following the opening room in Stage 5 and way too many enemies swarming you from all sides at times. For my recent playthrough I fell back on save states for the last three stages. Splatterhouse is a fairly short game, an uninterrupted playthrough where you know what you're doing is only 30 minutes, but two minutes in this game feels like an eternity at times especially up against the later bosses.

Obviously the game takes cues from virtually every horror film of the previous thirteen years, though the fact that it doesn't devolve into a pile of references is a good show of how strong the creative direction on the title is. The most noteworthy thing is that Rick's mask, the Terror Mask, despite being a semi-sentient supernatural enemy, is designed to look like a hockey mask and evoke Jason Vorhees' design from Friday the 13th Part III (1982). It's odd mostly because the game never leans into something specific to slashers, you're mostly fighting monster a la Demons (1985) or House (1986). Stage bosses are the most overt references with Stage I having you take on flesh-eating monsters right out of The Deadly Spawn (1983), and then Stage II having you take down a possessed room of inanimate objects all flying at you.

The first four stages are manageable, though good luck against the Stage III boss (Biggy Man? Piggyman?) if you haven't picked up both shotguns. Is this what you're supposed to do? I don't know, and as I'll mention later I can't slide kick the boss to death. Starting with Stage V is where it gets brutal with a score of branching paths that are basically a luck of the dice if you picked an easy path or not, but this is also the stage where you finally rescue Jennifer.

Or not; the most genuinely fucked-up thing in this game is a pre-fight cutscene where she's transformed into an abomination that you must kill. She's easily the hardest boss in the game due to her speed and reach of her attacks, but you must do it, you must kill her, even she asks you to in between stages of the fight. It's revolting in context of how rescuing a love interest was a common video game trope that had recently exploded in popularity due to the likes of Super Mario Bros and The Legend of Zelda. The only way I managed to pull this fight off was by trapping her in the corner and consistently punching her out of her knock-back animation. For as hard as Splatterhouse is, it doesn't give you a lot of exploits or freebies, for the majority of the game the only way to do it is the developer's intended method.

Stage VI reveals that the house itself is alive as you climb down to the lowest levels and destroy the heart all the while little fetus things try to kill you. This reminds me of the final stage to Contra more than anything. Now is a good time to bring up the slide kick; this thing is way too difficult to perform on a moment's notice, at least for me. There's rarely a safe time to pull it off anywhere in the game and it's too easy to lose control coming out of it. This is in spite of you being invincible for the duration of the attack and how strong it is, it's just not worth it most of the time. Blah, just give me another axe please.

Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn (1987) is obviously the biggest influence on Splatterhouse from a random guy having to toughen up and kill every ghoul in sight to his girlfriend becoming an undead monster he must kill to the final boss being a giant head and accompanying arms, though Splatterhouse removes all the humor from the equation. I'm of the interpretation that the Terror Mask was using Rick (just as much as it was the other way around) to get in a rematch against Dr. West, who's now giant corpse we're fighting.

The game culminates with the house burning to the ground and the Terror Mask releasing Rick. Though there are two sequels, neither of which I've devoted much time to, neither of them seem to capture the raw disgust and horror of the arcade title. It's all about atmosphere which this game oozes with.

[transgirl-gaming-thoughts]

I feel like the DS family really missed out on the potential for home console ports. The 3DS got Virtual Console which is great, but especially the DS missed out on the possibilities of the four face buttons and the touch screen.

The first thing that comes to mind is Duck Hunt, which has only ever been released on the NES with the Zapper, and an arcade game. A DS port that enhanced the whole game and used the touch pad to shoot would have been great, or even a 3D Classics version for the 3DS with the same idea! I've only played Duck Hunt once at the National Videogame Museum because they had it set up as a kiosk, but I would love a way to play it myself without having to get a NES, Zapper, Duck Hunt cartridge, and a CRT monitor.

The 3DS gets crap for not having SNES Virtual Console, and making it exclusive to the "New" 3DS. Nintendo really tried to market the Gameboy Advance as a portable Super Nintendo... but then they only gave it 2 FACE BUTTONS? Lots of SNES ports didn't translate very well going from 4 to 2 buttons, and they also felt the need to add the voices from N64 games... which was annoying. For as hard as Nintendo pushed the "GBA = SNES" idea, they all but abandoned that thought when the DS came out and actually had 4 face buttons. We got a sequel to Yoshi's Island, a Chrono Trigger remake, Dragon Quest V and VI remakes, Final Fantasy III remake, Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem remake, Kirby Super Star Ultra... and that's that. Yeah, lot's of major series got DS remakes, but what about the poor GBA ports? Where's our 1:1 Super Mario World? Link to the Past? What about popular titles that didn't get rerelease, like Super Punch-Out, or Earthbound, or F-Zero, or even Super Mario All-Stars???

I think there's a lot of missed potential for not only rerelease sales, but enhanced games with the new resolution and duel screens. Earthbound could've shown your map on the bottom screen. Punch-Out could've shown you your combos like a Street Fighter manual. Link to the Past could've had an easy-access inventory for quick item switching.

The DS had a few so-so N64 remakes/rereleases, but the 3DS only had Ocarina of Time 3D and Majora's Mask 3D. Yes, the handheld that could fully render 3D and had controls similar to the N64 had only two N64 remakes and they were both Zelda. Hey, I love Zelda has much as the next gamer, but I would've loved to see the original Mario Party come over, or an actually good GoldenEye port, or a Paper Mario 64 portable remake!

All in all, I love these consoles, but there was so much missed potential. SNES emulation on DS is abysmal, so having dedicated ports would be a dream come true. The 3DS has homebrew SNES injects that work perfectly, and the "New" 3DS got the official SNES Virtual Console. I just wish Nintendo had taken advantage of these platforms for all they're worth.

[killscreencinema]

Kid Icarus (NES)

Kid Icarus, released by Nintendo for the NES in 1987, has always been a curiosity for me. I was only made aware of the character via the show Captain N: The Game Master...

By the way, one of the things that always irritated me about that intro is how Kevin is supposed to be "The GAME Master", yet when we see him play Punch-Out!!!, motherfucker's over there just button mashing King Hippo and running out his stamina like a noob. Looks like Captain N needs to get himself a Nintendo Power subscription.

Anyway, except for that show, I had never heard of nor played Kid Icarus, but it made me curious about it, as it must be a good game for him to be drafted into a team among the likes of Simon Belmont and Mega Man, instead of say Samus Aran, Link, or Mario. I could never get my hands on the game, though, and none of my friends had it. Hell, I didn't even realize his name is Pit until he became a Smash Bros character.

Sooooo skip ahead to now, when I finally got to play it, and... it's fine.

The game begins with Pit escaping from the Underworld after being gifted a magical bow and arrow from the goddess Palutena. He must traverse Angel Land to reach the evil Medusa in order to stop her siege on the Sky Palace and rescue Palutena. You wouldn't know any of this from playing the game though - you'd need the manual (or in my case, Wikipedia).

The game is an action platformer, similar in some respects to Metroid, although much more linear. You can upgrade your health and weapons the further you make it through the game, either by enduring training exercises, buying power-ups, or simply successfully making it through a stage. The game is spit into four worlds, and each world is split into four stages (except for the final world, which is just one stage). The first three stages of each world is pretty straightforward, but each world ends with a castle stage that can be annoyingly labyrinthine if you don't have a map.

The graphics of the game definitely seem crude, like one would expect from an NES launch title (which this was). There are times the gameplay can evil feel a little buggy, which is surprising consider the quality control Nintendo usually has for its first party titles. The game can be difficult as hell, as dying only once can set you all the way back to the beginning. This game doesn't cut you slack either - your health carries over level to level, so if you barely survived a boss battle, you better tread lightly in the next stage until you can find a healing spring. Thankfully there's a password system to somewhat mitigate the frustration factor.

The music is bouncy and catchy without becoming mindnumbing, which is helped by the factor that each stage has very distinct music. However, the music also doesn't really fully utilize the NES soundchip either. In fact, my biggest critique of this game as a whole is, while the concept was ambitious for the time, it doesn't fully utilize the technical capabilities of the system to pull it off. However, I will say this - the Eggplant Wizard is a funny villian design. I'm something of an "Eggplant Wizard" myself if you know what I mean ;)

(proceeds to make Eggplant Parmesean while whistling obliviously)

[stirpicus]

I don’t know if this is a stupid question or not, but did you grow up playing games or did you play any games when you were a kid? If so, and if you remember what did you own, and what was the first game you played? My first game was Mario Bros on the Wii. I asked because you said you wanted to be a “writer,” and that can mean anything, it doesn’t just mean video games. Did video games have anything to do with it? Did they inspire you to be a game writer?

Oh this is a fun one!

I was born in 1988 so I was still a pretty little kid during the heyday of the Sega vs. NES/SNES war. By the time I was old enough to start wanting a video game console in the mid-90s, my mom had witnessed her older sister’s kids go through 5+ harrowing (and expensive) years trying to keep up. From my mom’s perspective, it looked like a new console came out every year (at like $500 a pop no less!) and every time you needed to buy whole new games for it (which were also $60-100 apiece!). We didn’t have a ton of money, so she decreed that we would not be a video game console family at all and banned any talk of getting a Genesis, NES, SNES, whatever.

The one exception was my beloved grey brick of a Gameboy. See, that was only $100 and my mom was able to set the rule “It only gets played in the car.” I received that as a present in ‘92 or ‘93 and every dang road trip it was my everything. My games of choice were Kirby’s Dreamland 1 + 2, whatever lame movie tie-in games were out (I remember burning a lot of time on the tie-in Pagemaster and We’re Back! games), and Pokemon red when that eventually made it to North America towards the end of the 90s.

Now PC games, on the other hand... That was a whole other story.

My dad was an engineer at IBM so we had computers in the house before I was born. Some of my earliest memories are of punching in DOS command lines at our family’s computer to play Mickey’s Alphabet Adventure or Goofy’s Number Party. I had to copy the commands from index cards my dad left next to the keyboard for me because I couldn’t read yet. Consoles may have been banned in my house through the 90s but there was a whole world of PC games waiting for me to explore.

The single most formative game that I played on my family’s computer was The Secret of Monkey Island. No joke, that right there is the reason that I decided I wanted to be a writer. It was funny, it was exciting, all without any spoken dialogue - just words written on screen. (Ironically, I wouldn’t realize that “video game writer” was a job you could have until much, much later) That game led me to all the other LucasArts/Lucasfilm Games adventure games of the 90s which I played religiously. To this day, I still have practically every puzzle, every story beat of those games memorized. Last time I tried it a few years ago, I was still capable of running Secret of Monkey Island in less than 30 minutes.

But it wasn’t just adventure games that captivated me. I devoured games of every kind on my beloved computer and, when we got internet access in 1995, I became a connoisseur of shareware demos. For a kid without a ton of money to throw around it felt like I was let loose on an all-you-can-eat buffet... and eat I did. I probably played thousands of hours-worth of the opening levels of puzzle games, platformers, bizarre RPGs... Game developers in the early days of the internet seemingly threw anything and everything at the wall, hoping something would stick and become the new hit title. Particularly beloved memories from that time include Gubble and Rayman, beginning my love of games starring goofy-looking protagonists.

Around the end of the millennium we got our first computer with a 3D graphics card and, ooh baby, that was a whole new world of possibilities to get lost in. I had loved Rayman and now suddenly there was Rayman 2, which brought Rayman and his strange, wonderful world into 3D and I was entranced. There were even ports of the games my friends were playing on console! For the first time I could talk the latest games with my friends and I was in heaven. I think I spent more time playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 in 6th grade than I did sleeping, learning the perfect combos and technique to send my scores into the stratosphere on the wings of my manuals and bowl-grinds.

So all of this is a long-winded way of saying that, even though I didn’t have any video game consoles as a kid, video games have been a pretty deep part of my DNA for a long time now. I might not have figured out that “video game writer” was a job you could have until I was in college, but my deep love of the medium means I clicked in pretty easily.

This one was fun - Sorry if I wrote too much, ha!

[avoutput]

Gaps Between Worlds || Live, Love, Link

Nothing keeps a story going like a love interest. In almost every adventure story, at some point, the hero flirts with love, falls into it, is blinded by it, or is even betrayed by it. Love is the strongest emotional connection we share as humans, a double edged sword that can drive us, but also hinder us. Even when a story lacks a love interest, the listeners might begin to imagine one just to keep themselves interested. One adventure series has lacked cannon love for such a long time, it's hard to imagine how it’s been kept alive in our collective consciousness for as long as it has. The Legend of Zelda has jump-cut to Link saving Zelda so many times, but remains nebulous on what kind of relationship blossoms from their journey. As a longtime fan, I have been starving for more from the world of Hyrule, and I think fans across the world agree with me. The official Nintendo Hyrule Timeline wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for pressure from the fans. Before that release, it had been locked inside the mind of Miyamoto, creator of the series. But it didn’t really whet my appetite, because what I wanted is to know of Link and Zelda. Today, we are going to explore the facets of Link and Zelda’s many re-incarnated relationships, which could have turned into love, and where they must have gone after Gannon was sealed and their adventure came to an end.

Before we go any further, the usual caveats to my writing, just so you can get where my head is at. First, I am not going to be super concerned with minute details of the timeline in its purest sense. It has a tenuous linear connection from one game to the next, but it still can provide a little fun for us to speculate on. Second, I have completed every mainline adventure with two exceptions. I have made it to the end of Link’s Adventure and Twilight Princess, but I just never walked up those steps to beat Gannon. I can’t really put my finger on why, but usually I just lost interest by the time I made it to the end of the game. Everything else, including the GB, GBA, and DS releases, I have completed.

In the beginning, one of the most bizarre parts of the overall Zelda lore is how little we actually discuss Link’s obligation to do anything for Zelda. As the games mature, they motivate Link in more realistic ways, but I felt that they mostly lacked a real punch. Lets imagine you DID NOT read the manual for the NES titles, the original LoZ, it just starts by breaking the 4th wall. I always thought it was funny that it just drops you into the mountains with absolutely no direction, as if to say, “You bought the game, dummy, do something! Press a button… ooo… check out that cave!” However, what actually happens is Link saves Zelda’s handmaid, Impa, from an attack by some of Gannon’s henchmen. She then begs him to find the 8 fragments of the Triforce of Wisdom, which Zelda has hidden in 8 dungeons, and he just resolves to do it. In the next game though, she’s just struck with Sleepy Disney Princess disease. Classic. But have you ever noticed that true love’s kiss wasn’t an option here? That’s because Link is not her true love in this incarnation, so he has to kill the curse maker. LoZ and Link’s Adventure are directly related, so we know that in between the two games, they never became lovers. And I don’t know if you need any more proof about these games, but if you ever watched the 80’s Zelda cartoon… you’d know she’s better off.

Climbing up this timeline, we end up at the incredible Link To The Past, a story that’s titular description kind of defies its storyline unless you are really paying attention. Either way, the game has Link, a descendant of Hyrule Knights, being woken up by a psychic message from Zelda. As usual, Link has no real discernible parentage, but he does start off with an uncle. As I grew up, I often wondered if this was his real uncle or the Asian kind of uncle, just an older man with the same familial distance as an actual uncle, just not actually related. (It goes without saying that the west has this kind of uncle as well, but rarely does it rear its head as ubiquitously as in the east) Who knows what happened to his parents, the game never really goes into it. Either way, he runs into his possibly real uncle after following Zelda’s request, only, he is mortally wounded, and with his final breath, he begs Link to take up his blade and his responsibility. Again, he is motivated simply by some sense of obligation, but there is never a moment's glance of flirtation or love. By the end of the game, he revives his Uncle, the Priest, and the King, only to get on a boat and end up ship wrecked on Koholint island, where he dreams up a girl who is much more likely to become someone he could have a life with rather than Zelda.

Let’s take a quick moment to recognize Link has about 5 or 6 games that have nothing to do with his relationship to Zelda: Link’s Awakening, Oracle of Seasons/Ages, Majora’s Mask, and Minish Cap to name a few. In these games, it rarely meditates on his relationship to his previous adventure or the girl he left behind. Link is a very forward thinking… little boy? Adolescent? Teenager? It depends on the game. The more I think about this, maybe the more obvious it really is supposed to be. Zelda, Link, and Gannon are reborn into conflict over and over again. It’s possible that the stories that we play through are the only time they are born into a point of conflict. Basically, Link and Zelda might be born into a world without each other. Maybe the world only falls into chaos when all 3 of them are born. Maybe only when a certain amount of power accumulates on the dark side. The story just makes room for whatever it finds appropriate.

Climbing up the timeline, we get to the only game that implied young romance, Ocarina Of Time. Granted, it kind of dashes this with Majora’s Mask, but it's possible he could return to Hyrule for love. He is only 10. Still, in OoT, Link is the only character that keeps his memory of both the young timeline and the teen timeline. When you think about it, Link is pretty mature for a 10 year old, but waking up in the body of a 17 year old would throw you a bit. People in the future might have found him odd… if they weren’t scattered to the winds and mostly worried about famine, death, and Gannon. In both his young and teen timeline, the Zora princess is very interested in him, and yet, the game still ends with a longing look between Zelda and Link, Link remembering everything, Zelda new to the whole thing. Now, I am willing to admit that as a kid, I probably misread this as a longing look, as an adult, it's really just the culmination of Link’s struggle to finally right all the wrongs, but I was a young shipper, and I wanted everyone to fall in love. (You are reading the thoughts of a boy who was super upset that Ash wasn’t awakened by a kiss from Misty (or Pikachu), and instead the tears of all the Pokemon. I almost walked out of the theater. I was a fresh-faced 13.) Given everything we know about both games, and that we know the timeline splits here, it would stand to reason that since in either case, triumphant or not, Link doesn’t end up making baby Link and Linkles with Zelda. In the Triumphant Timeline Child Era, none of the games end with Link in love, including Twilight Princess. In the Adult Era, the Wind Waker series of games always finds Link closely aligned with Zelda, but the whole cell-shaded, PG universe basically ensures that all the people of Hyrule are grown out of the ground, like palm trees on the beach. In the end, Link always makes for the nearest boat or horse and follows the sun, trying to escape the PTSD that haunts him.

Finally, at the very beginning of the timeline is the largely maligned Skyward Sword. As of this writing, SS is the supposed beginning to the entire legend. It is also one of the few games where there does seem to be an infatuation between Zelda and Link. Throughout the game, they share what looks to be a mild flirtation. When I thought about this budding romance, I began to think it only appears that way because of some cultural filters. First, Nintendo likes to make games for kids, so they aim to get an E rating by the ESRB. So if we ratchet that up to M, the standard for modern day games if you want people to take them seriously, we can adjust the love meter on scale with E = Sesame Street and M = Breaking Bad. They might as well be engaging in some hard sexting, maybe a couple of low-cut Link bathroom mirror selfies. Don’t worry, he has his famous hat over the goods. Why do you think its shaped like that? Secondly, mild flirting in Japan is the equivalent of hardcore furry S&M in America. In actuality, what you are really seeing is the courtship of Link in a Wolf costume and Zelda dressed as a Fire Keese batting eyes at each other. Truly, in this world, Link and Zelda are destined for each other. They are the only freaks in the sky! With this assumption, I can conclude that the legend only continues because once, at the very beginning of their timeline, the Triforce of Courage and Wisdom banged it out. This could mean there is a whole series of games we have never played where the timeline is split at the top. One in which they have children and one where they don’t. Personally, I look forward to their kids journey in The Legend of Steve, the new holder of the Triforce of Wisdom. Let a girl save the boy for once!

There is always hope for our legendary heroes. You may not want them to be joined in glorious, child-making coitus, but I always have. I have always found it odd that it doesn’t end like most JRPG’s with a very obvious death of the “mains” so that love can’t blossom, or with a lavish royal wedding. The worst part is that often, Link has many love interests, but none of them are Zelda. There is some hope for them in the new Breath of the Wild timeline, which is supposedly the furthest in the future of the “official” timeline, so much so that there is no connective tissue left, so it might as well be a “new beginning”. I would actually hate for them to finally, really, fall in love in the BotW universe, mostly because it's my least favorite Zelda game of all time, squeaking past Skyward Sword and Wind Waker.  All 3 of which I dislike for a combination of gameplay-style and story, though honestly, the best part of BotW is the story. It's just a game I never want to play again. Rambling aside, I look forward to the fate of love between Zelda and Link in their next chapter. Maybe we’ll finally play as their love child some day. 

[thegame-r-boy]

LEGO MARIO TIME! - A short review of a collaboration between LEGO™ and Nintendo

So as many of you know, I AM A BIG Super Mario Fan! I played the first game of Super Mario Bros. 3 on the NES, which originaln cartridge I still have and also played the latest version of the 2D Super Mario game, called Super Mario Maker 2 and a 3D variant, called Super Mario Odyssey, both for the Switch. When I first found out in March of this year, that there will be a group project between LEGO™ and Nintendo, I was quite shocked! Fast forward 5 months later and today, I finally got my own LEGO™ Super Mario Bros. started pack! :) (The second one on the photo is for my as-of now unboarn child. In ca. 10 years, he/she could play it!

The box is really nice, it has an uneven feeling to it. It is something to definitely put on your shelf and let your friend feel your brag about them. Easily, that package is really a cool one!

Now, when you first open up the box, you get really LOADS of LEGO™ bricks to connect. And I mean, really LOADS of them! But after you settle down by that fact, you find the instructions enclosed in the package. So now, let’s start with the building proces - That is quite a long one, indeed!

When I first got up from my desk to build the LEGO™ Mario figure together, I just though “Oh, no, I need a tool from my garden shed!”. Yes, that is right - first, I needed a screwdriver, so I could open up the figurine and put two AAA’s batteries in it. So I got up, went to where my family had it’s tools, and fixed that figurine all together. Then, you have to take the mini-packages inside of the big one by their capital number (#1, #2, #3, #4, etc.) and build him up together.

Everytime goes well and the first time you open the Super Mari figure and hear this (this is heard every time you open it), it just feels like magic :) :

It’s sooooooo adorable!!! 😍😍😍

Now, I will have to get back to bricking everything together.

So far, so good! Because I don’t have that much time right now, I will add my personal review of this LEGO™/Nintendo package later in the late afternoon. Until then, wish me luck with building everything together! ;)

Edit: I’ve already built all the bricks together! Let’s continue! :D

After I continued my building session, I found out one thing: in order to start building the other sets for Mario, you MUST have a smartphone or other device!
There just aren’t any physical instructions or manuals in this box. You just have to use a screen to build everything together. That is kind of a bummer, if you are a parent/husband/wife/man/woman etc. who doesn’t like to use technology (myself included). What a bummer! :( 
So I had to download the app and start building everything together.

And then, you have to have both devices, that is the Super Mario figurine and your phone connected with the app. Which you can easily do.

After I finished putting those two objects together, my Super Mario figurine needed and update, which it got quite fast through my Wi-Fi connection.

After roughly 5 minutes of downloading the update, I was FINALLY ready to build everything up.

The app is quite nice actually. Every brick you have to stack up together is displayed on the screen of your smartphone. Heck, you can even rotate it in 3D, just like in Nintendo Labo! I think I needed around 2-3 hours to build everything from the ground up, although you must admit that I did quite speed up the process by doing everything as fast as possible. Even then, while I was building, I knew exactly which brick goes where. You just really can’t go wrong!

My first mini course! ^^

All in all, the experience of playing this toy was just great. As a long live Super Mario fan, there was just everything there - a cloud, a pipe, a goomba, a question block, etc. Too bad there was no Bowser included, but still, it was quite fun. By building these block together, I felt like I was a kid all over again. And by seeing what I’ve made, I was just more proud of that. Still, would I recommen buying this kit? Absolutely! But only, if you have a kid, that likes Super Mario or a videogame where you can play as this character. In fact, this kit is also a great conversation starter, therefore, I would recommend it do adults as well - single or already taken, it doesn’t matter.

The course was made and everything went fine. But there is one place where Mario was missing. And that is on the shelf (also got a punch from Sonic, ‘cause the Blue Blur is jealous about that Italian [pizza] :D):

Final Review: 9/10

The Good:

- Looks lovely

- Fun to build

- Even more fun to play

- It is a Nintendo/Mario game!

The Bad:

- There are no physical instructions in the box

- No Bowser

- You must have space, where there is no dust, to leave it somewhere

- Could be quite expensive for some

[ashfaqqahmad]

Faith versus Logic 4

Does God really make couples?

Click here to read the previous part of this article

There is a similar complication about weddings, in which case it is said that God makes the couples or the couples are made in heaven… Look at the wedding cards – somewhere you will find written that couples are made in heaven. Otherwise, on the rest of the earth, Pandits match the Kundalis and make them couples and somewhere else the pairs are even set without the matching by a Pandit/Kundali—  somewhere they set by themselves.

The common understanding and belief of our society are also that God makes couples and that’s why vocals of the songs like “Rab ne banaya tujhe mere liye, mujhe tere liye” can be heard.  

Now let’s consider this question with reasoning—  can it practically happen?

Suppose this is so, then first of all the casteist character of God emerges in front—  because in almost all religions, most marriages are fixed in the same caste, Pandits are also found to match the Kundalis of the same caste.

Why brother— wasn’t this system anthropogenic? In the early stages of human civilization, there was nothing like this, with the development of civilization human chain kept dividing into religions and castes, with them marriages too started to become homogeneous in the same way – means after looking at humans, God also turned a racist. Is man through God or God through man?

How Homo sapiens won the battle of survival?

Then there is also a belief in the case of God that God does not make mistakes. Is it so? how many marriages in the world, end at the threshold of Divorce. In western countries, marriage merely lasts for a few years and the situation in Muslim countries is just slightly better.

Talking about Western countries, at least three or four marriages are done by a man or a woman in their lives—  that eventually means the same amount of divorces. So how come, wrong pairs are made on such a large scale? That means if God makes Couples then in this case he makes horrible mistakes.

Biased characterization of God

Then it also reveals the masculine face of God— from past to present, thousands of such men may be found who had ten, twenty wives to sixteen thousand queens… but hardly a woman, with ten or twenty husbands will be found.

There are thousands of examples in Muslim countries where one man has more than one wife— but no woman will be found with more than one husband. Now don’t cry about the social recognition – because if God makes couples then this responsibility will fall on him.

Then one face of God will look like an unjust to you – in older times you will find plenty of people with names like slaves/kaneez/laundi/mistress who were never matched— even today people like Kalam, Atal, Ramdev, Maya, Mamta, Jaya may be found in our society who lived alone and went alone or will go alone.

Why was the happiness of that of a couple not written in all these cases— is it not injustice? Don’t say it was their wish – Neither would this have been a will of Modiji, otherwise why would he have been alone – but at least the marriage took place.

Then there is another trend nowadays, of gay couples— where the boy is determined to live with the boy and a girl with the girl, and in many societies of the West, it is already recognized and now it is allowed in India too. Now, this is just opposite to the reproductive nature, how God is making such a mistake?

Couples are also made in Live-in relationships, just like in a marriage, the difference is just of the certificate— Suddenly the attitude of God becomes interracial here. Why so?

On one side, Jannat was barred for ‘Gair-momins’, on the other side Aamir was matched to Reena, Kiran, Saif to Amrita, Kareena, All the children of Salim Khan were married to non-Muslims. Lord, isn’t this a matter of double standard?

Now there is society— which shouts to the core, that couples are formed in heaven but as soon as their son/daughter married a Muslim boy/girl – They raise the flag of Love Jihad and start to wail. When a Hindu daughter-in-law or son-in-law comes to a Muslim house, they start preparing to teach them Kalma and if a Dalit boy/girl marries an upper caste boy/girl, they do not delay in killing them with sword/gun.

Where did religion come from and how logical from the point of view of science?

In every such situation, the ‘Couples are made in heaven’ is wrapped, folded and hidden.

Look, brother— if you still believe that God makes couples, then face this accusation on God, or assume that we make the pairs, not God.

Religious books are not science research books

Religious books are not the books written on scientific research, but they are actually there so that people take the lesson from the things related to them, not to hold their stories and start searching science in them, whereas unfortunately people sit and start looking for science in those books which were written in those times when the knowledge about Earth or the Universe was very limited and very nominal. Now if people make claims, then those with a questioning nature will also raise questions.

Similarly, in my view the Quran is that instruction manual— it is a book of instructions, which is not meant to earn the reward but to read and to implement its instructions, to implement its teachings in one’s life. It tells you that as a human being or as a society how do you have to stay, how to live life and how to make decisions — through different events, it tells you the things you can apply in your life by learning through them. It is not any theory book which was written by Darwin or Einstein, that you start finding the rules of science in it.

what possibilities are there in the universe outside our planet

In any book, only the scientific rule or formulas can be entered of the time it was written, in which the corrections or radicals changes can occur with changing times. So it is obvious and natural to develop an error in the theory written in those old books— but the faith of the people is so strong that in the name of error their feeling gets a punch as hard as of Muhammad Ali’s, and the tarnishing and squealing feeling is relieved only by a bitter certificate.

If you really think that religious books written hundreds of years ago are science-based, then let’s consider a question. I hope that by not taking it otherwise, just considering it as a curiosity, we must solve it with our scientific cum religious intelligence.

There can be Up and Down on just one planet

In Surah-al-Bakra of the Quran, Allah while commanding the Adam, Eve and Iblees the devil, orders a punishment while saying that now you all get down and stay on the earth for a certain period of time (Verse No. 30-38)— This verse makes it clear that everybody is somewhere in the ‘Up’ and they are being asked to get ‘Down’. Even in normal language, we call him the ‘One above’. Similarly, the stories which are in the Vedas and Puran’s does also state that Devlok is somewhere ‘Up’ there and from there they come ‘Down’ as Deities themselves, and sometimes in the form of an Avatar.

If God is there then how can it be from the point of view of science

Now let’s get to the basic issue— in science, the law of ‘Up-Down’ is according to the Gravity, which applies to every planet. Till the time you are on the ground, you are in the restriction of ‘Up-Down’, but as soon as you step out of the planet and reach into space, the rule of ‘Up-Down’ ends automatically.

Now do an experiment— in the very centre of a room, hang a ball tied with thread. Suppose room is ‘Universe’ and the ball is your ‘Earth’… now because Gravity keeps you standing upright in every part of the planet and on your feet side is ‘Down’ and head side is ‘Up’ then according to the direction of the heads of humans present in different parts of the land according to that determine the exact ‘Up’.

How to write a book in Microsoft word  

According to the gravity Indian man’s head (above) is in the East direction (towards the front wall), the Jamaican man’s head is in the West direction (towards the back wall), an Algerian’s head in the South (towards the right wall), Hawaii’s man’s head is in the North (towards the left wall), the head of the person standing in Norway is (towards the roof) and the head of the person standing in New Zealand is on the side of (floor)…

So to say that the ‘Up & Down’ for the people standing in six different parts of the Earth are not equal, but at different angles— so now you have to tell that “Up & Down’ written in your books is on which side according to human beings on the earth? Also, do notice here that the universe is not as small as your imagined room, but it is so wide that from one end to the other It will take billions of years for light to reach.

Do not say here that your God or God ‘Above’ is everywhere because the celebrity outside the room (whatever name it has) can only be on one side of the room, while there are six directions in the form of front, back, right, left, top, bottom of the ball hanging in the middle of the room… so finally which side is your ‘Up’?

Click here to read the next part of this article

इस लेख को हिंदी में पढ़ने के लिये यहाँ क्लिक करें

[g0ldengaytime]

King Hippo in the NES Punch Out manual.

>:0

It’s literally that face.

[thearkhound]

Muneki Ebinuma’s commentary on various Technos projects

The following is a translation of various bulletin board posts that were allegedly posted by Technos Japan designer (and motion capture actor) Muneki Ebinuma on the now-defunct 喫茶ダブドラ/Kissa Dabudora (Double Dragon Teahouse) fansite back in the early 2000′s. Some of the inside stories he brought up he would later bring up in his Super Double Dragon and Double Dragon Advance commentaries he later wrote for the site Game Kommander, so these posts seem pretty legitimate.

Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20010305081410/http://www2.tkcity.net/~kissa/itadakimo.htm

Anecdote #1

When Kunio-kun no Jidaigeki Dayo Zen’in Shūgō! [a 1991 Famicom game. The title loosely translates to ”It’s Kunio-kun’s Historical Drama Play, Gather Everyone!”] was reaching the end of its development, I wrote a plan starring the Double Dragon brothers. It was basically the same gameplay system as Jidaigeki, but it took place in a kung-fu movie setting. It was supposed to be a Kunio-kun game, but it probably deviated a bit too much from the rest of the series. Development ended up being abandoned due to the strong popularity of the Kunio-kun sports game in our surveys, but I really wanted to make it. The Double Dragons were supposed to appear alongside Ryuichi and Ryuji [a pair of characters from the Downtown Nekketsu series modeled after Billy and Jimmy. In River City Ransom they were renamed Randy and Andy], since the project was intended to be a “festival of Technos” (of course, other guest characters would have also appeared). I was even planning to have Kunio perform the “shadowless kick” technique using a wire.

Anecdote #2

There’s quite many inside stories, so feel free to ask any questions you might have. Me nor Mr. Mitsuhiro Yoshida [co-director of Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari and many of the Downtown Nekketsu games alongside Mr. Hiroyuki Sekimoto] won’t mind.

The arcade version  of Double Dragon started development as a sequel to Nekkketsu Kōha Kunio-kun and since we were aiming for the U.S. market this time, we started development using the graphic image of Renegade as a basis[the export version of the original Kunio-kun]. I heard that Kunio and Riki were supposed to be the Twin Dragons themselves, since they wore gakurans [a type of Japanese school uniform] with dragon embroidery within their jackets. The Kunio-kun series afterward then became console-centric [after the first two arcade games].

The arcade version of Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone was not developed in-house by Technos, it was outsourced. However, the NES version [titled Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones outside Japan] was made in-house. Personally the first two games were my favorite. Double Dragon II in particular was perfect for me. The story was pretty good too.

The Super NES version [Super Double Dragon, released in Japan as Return of Double Dragon in a slightly revised version] was supposed to be a port of the arcade game using an 8-Megabit cartridge, which was the largest ROM size at the time, but we were not familiar with the hardware and we didn’t know how to compress the size of the sprites, so it was impossible to match the character sizes of the arcade version. The Technos Arcade Team were responsible for the graphics and programming, so they had a peculiar roughness to it.

There were many ideas that ended up being cut since I was young and inexperienced at the time. There were texts and images that were being made for cutscenes that were inserted into the game’s ROM, but ended up being unused. The ending and sibling confrontation were even programmed into the game, but I was forced to patch it out due to fears that it would end up bugging the game. We were given priority to meet the announced release date given by the company. Thinking about it now, I believe I was disqualified as a provider. Shodai Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun [a 1992 Super Famicom game that came out only in Japan. The title translates to “The Original Hot-Blooded Tough Guy Kunio”] also had a troublesome development as well, since that game was also being made by people with no prior experience working on the Super Famicom. It was a very brief development period of around six months. I ended up learning things the hard way and that earned me a reputation of sorts within Technos. The sound test [in the Japanese version] has music tracks that isn’t played anywhere else in the game, like the boss theme. Actually, the boss theme was supposed to start playing during the unused conversation sequences with the bosses. Marian, the game’s heroine, doesn’t even appear in the game at all [despite being depicted in the Japanese version’s manual].

During the development of Hybrid Wrestler [a 1994 wrestling for the Super Famitsu endorsed by actual wrestler Masakatsu Funaki], I asked one of the designers to draw Billy and Jimmy Lee in the same size as the Street Fighter II characters. He also drew Abobo lifting a large rock. However, we ended abandoning that plan to assist in the development of Popeye on the Super Famicom and the arcade game Shadow Force. There were also plans to port Shadow Force to the Super NES, but they were canceled. If American Technos hasn’t asked us to prioritize the development of Popeye, then maybe Shadow Force and Double Dragon fmight had been made. [Other Double Dragon fighting games were later made, but the project Ebinuma is talking about here seems to be unrelated to either of those].

Personally I want to make a perfect port of the arcade game with some additional content. [Ebinuma would later get his wish with Double Dragon Advance]. If it wasn’t for that particular programmer and designer, that sense of roughness would had never been born. I was blessed to have such a staff. A good team is capable of creating a masterpiece. I think a game can be even more interesting if you know the joy of bringing out one’s imagination and creativity. I hope new game creators will be born out of the people who are familiar with Technos games. I’m looking forward to such a game that will entertain me.

Actually there are some larger-than-life people making games. Everyone has great potential. Please do your best in your various fields. Make an effort and realize your dreams.

Anecdote #3

If I remember correctly, I was taken to the vacation home owned by Mr. Yoshihisa Kishimoto [director of the original Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun and the Double Dragon trilogy] and his family around the time the scenario [screenplay] for Kunio-tachi no Banka [a 1994 beat-’em-up for the Super Famicom. The title translates to “The Eulogy of Kunio and Friends] was being finalized, where he told me various stories. The screenplay was bulky like a movie screenplay, in which every character and line was thoroughly described on every scene.

He told me he wanted to take the image of the original Kunio-kun arcade and upgrade it for consoles. Unfortunately, Mr. Kōji Ogata, the character designer of the original Kunio-kun, was unavailable due to another project he was assigned to, so the character designs ended up being very different from the conceptual stages. I though the characters looked on paper, but when they appeared on-screen within the game, they were not well-received within the company. It was neither, realistic nor comical, but somewhere in-between. It was really regrettable. But I remember being really happy when I was shown the animation of Kunio doing the Bruce Lee backfist. There was also a stage that was drafted that ended up being cut, as well as a scene that was planned out that didn’t make it, as well as a scene that was impossible to realize due to technical difficulties. Other than, Kishimoto-san was pretty satisfied with the final product.

Instead of Mr. Kazuo Sawa, the usual composer for the Kunio-kun series, the music was instead composed by Mr. Kazunaka Yamane, who did the music for the first two Double Dragon games.

The pixel art for the backgrounds were exceedingly good too. And punching sound effects sounded painful too. It was pretty interesting that familiar characters from the original arcade game appeared too. The enemy’s A.I. programming was a bit different though. There were some aspects of a fighting game that could be seen there, but it was also different.

The TV commercial, which was shot in live-action, featured weapons that was brought in by the company’s staff. The nunchaku there was mine! Mr. Kishimoto was once again really proud of that work. I really another Nekketsu Kōha to be made.

An illustration from a 1991 pamphlet featuring various Technos Japan characters.

[superchartisland]

Renegade (Imagine, Spectrum, 1987)

Gallup Spectrum full price chart, Your Sinclair Issue 24, December 1987

[Throughout this project, I will be handing over this space to the viewpoints of others for guest posts. For this one I once again welcome Edward Okulicz, who previously wrote about Monty on the Run]

I love side-scrolling beat-'em-ups. They give you endless hours of utterly unrealistic fun. I mean, the very idea that you can only attack someone if they are on exactly the same horizontal plane! And that nobody can attack you from a 90 degree angle! It's the classic example of a genre which made huge compromises from reality in the aid of simplicity and fun. Because I'm sad, and also old, one of the things I'm most looking forward to in 2019 is the release of Streets of Rage 4, a game I've been waiting for someone to (officially, anyway) make for about 25 years. Streets of Rage 1 and 3 are very good games, but Streets of Rage 2 is certainly my favourite beat-'em-up of all time. Original it was not, of course. It was a superior but nonetheless blatant Final Fight clone, and Final Fight itself owed a lot to Double Dragon, which was one of the coolest arcade games of its time. Double Dragon didn't come out of nowhere, as it was in turn built off the ideas in Renegade.

Renegade is very much the ur-text for this kind of game. It doesn't have long scrolling levels from right to left, but short ones where you go back and forth taking out enemies. After you take out enough enemies, a boss appears at the same time as you fend off the last of the regular foes. In the arcades, it had a control system that probably seemed a bit odd at the time. Three buttons were used: one to attack left, one to attack right, and one to jump. Your standard attack is to punch, but if you attack in the direction you're not facing, you unleash a useful backwards kick. You can also jump and do a flying kick, and most, but not all, enemies can also be attacked while they're on the ground. You get on them and punch them in the face while they're on the ground. Once you learn you can't do this to the bosses until they're sufficiently weakened, it's great fun. It's really a wonder I didn't turn into a thug. (Then again, I played a lot of Bubble Bobble and I didn't turn into a bubble-blowing dragon either. What a pity.) What's surprising is that the 3-button scheme is a very effective control system that allows precise execution of the range of moves at times when you might be attacked on all sides. Well, you know, both sides, given the genre.

Of course, most home systems had one button on their joystick, two tops. How to reduce a relatively complex control system down to a one-button joystick becomes the most important part of the conversion. The Sega Master System version (which is heavily extended) and the NES version both make use of their controllers' two buttons, one for left, one for right, and both together to jump. The Commodore 64 version gave up and used three keys on the keyboard (left attack, jump, right attack) for maximum faithfulness and maximum awkwardness, unless you have particularly skilful toes. The Spectrum uses the joystick or keyboard, but always seems to use the keyboard to attack even with the joystick - the manual says the fire button is not used. This isn't a big issue in the days of emulators and mapping keys to controllers, of course. But it only makes use of one attack button (so why not use the stick, designers?). So to attack left, you press left plus the attack key together. Right plus the attack key attacks right. Up plus the attack key jumps. This is, unsurprisingly, a very bad control system. Forget pulling off smooth moves when being attached from all sides. Both sides. You know what I mean.

And good control is key to a good game. This seems like such a fundamental mistake in design that it renders the game stiff and unrewarding to play.

It's also disappointing, because Renegade is a well-designed game of a type that should be resilient to downgrading to home ports, and it looks like all the necessary elements are present here. The game ups the ante each stage from the easy first one (as long as you don't fall off the edge), to the second with motorcyclists that need to be neutralised with flying kicks, to the third with its physically imposing (female!) boss who requires excellent timing to land hits on or she'll knock you over, to the final two stages with one-hit melee kills and eventually a final boss with a gun. So to win the game you have to beat guys with one-hit kill razors and a guy with a one-hit kill gun, having death surround you in all directions, but of course, only being a threat in two of them!

Scrolling wasn't the Spectrum's forte, but the flick-screen to allow the full extent of the levels isn't as disorientating as I thought it would be. The way the enemies walk the same direction and speed as your hero makes for some amusing moments, like you have them on strings, or you're taking part in some very tight choreography (the arcade also did this, and I love it). The sprite work is good and clear, and the backgrounds do the best with the Spectrum's colour limitations, and there's even some in-game music, even if it sounds a bit... well, people didn't buy the Spectrum because of it's sound chip. I struggled to beat the first level, but I managed it because I realised that the flying kick is slightly easier to time and score hits with in this version compared to the others. I know I at least got to the guy with the gun in the C64 version.

I'm quite surprised to see that gaming magazines really rated this game at the time. Especially when compared to the colorful, satisfying, 3-key+stick Commodore version released at the same time, and the brisk, smooth NES version with cool extra bits like a on-bike fight sequence, this version plays awkwardly and to me just isn't fun. But it's probably also true that there were few really good side-scrolling beat-'em'-ups on the 8-bit systems. The various home versions of Double Dragon were uniformly incompetent, though Double Dragon II on the C64 is lively and enjoyable. Give or take some not-too-bad 8-bit conversions of some of Konami's amazing arcade cartoon licence brawlers, It would really take the 16-bit machines to really move all those bad dudes around for you to take your aggression out on.

[aion-rsa]

Does Friday the 13th’s Infamously Bad NES Game Deserve a Second Chance?

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Since it was released for the NES in 1989, Friday the 13th has found itself on many “worst” lists. GamePro once called it one of the ten worst games based on a film, EGM named it the eighth-worst console game of all-time in 1997, and even Nintendo Power (a publication that’s famous for rarely saying a bad word about any game on a Nintendo console) included Friday the 13th on their list of the worst games ever made. More recently, I included Friday the 13th on our list of the 15 worst NES games ever made. 

The game’s sometimes overwhelmingly negative reputation made it that much more surprising to see so many people rush to our comments section to defend Friday the 13th and say that it doesn’t belong anywhere near the conversation about the worst NES games ever. Some called it underrated, some called it ahead of its time, and some suggested that it might actually be kind of…good?

As a lifelong fan of the Friday the 13th franchise and someone who grew up with the Friday the 13th NES game, I couldn’t believe that this infamous part of the series’ legacy was getting such love. Was I just misremembering this game? Have the years somehow improved this much-maligned title? Is there a chance that there’s been a worthwhile retro Friday the 13th game waiting for me this whole time and that I’ve simply been dismissing it based on childhood memories and its reputation? 

Utterly intrigued by that possibility, I decided to boot up Friday the 13th again for the first time in a long time and take another look at it. What I found was a game that’s pretty far from good but is indeed far too intriguing to not at least be worthy of some kind of reappraisal. 

Let’s start with the basics. Friday the 13th is a 1989 NES game published by LJN (the notorious company at least partially responsible for some of the worst NES games ever made) but actually developed by Atlus: the studio that would go on to develop the Persona series and many other noteworthy games. Atlus also developed an adaptation of The Karate Kid for NES, which was actually the first licensed video game that LJN published and a kind of harbinger of the titles that would eventually define that company’s legacy.

The game itself sees you swap between six camp counselors as they do all of the things that suck about being in a Friday the 13th film (running from Jason, trying to save the campers, and dying) and none of the things that seem to keep people coming back to Camp Crystal Lake (sex, drugs, and watching Crispin Glover dance). Each counselor has their own unique stats and inventories, and if one of them dies, they’re gone forever. 

You’ve probably already guessed that your main goal is to defeat Jason, but the bulk of the game is actually spent wandering around the camp, fighting various minor enemies (wolves, zombies, crows, and bats), and trying to collect the supplies and weapons that you’re absolutely going to need if you want to put Jason down long enough to give someone the time they need to write a new screenplay that helps justify why the horniest youths in America are willing to return to this epicenter of violence and horror: New Jersey. 

I know that’s not a lot of information to go off of, but in order to accurately recreate the experience of playing Friday the 13th, you first need to be deprived of as much basic information as possible.

See, some fans like to call Friday the 13th a “hard” game, but it’s far more accurate to describe it as “confusing.” The game’s instruction manual presents itself as a detailed description of the experience (it even tells you to press Start to start the game, in case you didn’t know), but all but the most in-depth modern guides will leave you woefully unprepared for even the game’s most basic progression elements. 

It starts with navigation. There’s a very good chance that most people who played this game at a young age will vividly remember the first time they tried walking right only to look at their map and discover that they’ve actually been moving to the left the entire time. Part of the problem here is that the vast majority of the map consists of loops that are inherently difficult to navigate, but so far as I can tell, there’s no actual explanation for why the game works that way besides the most likely possibility that it’s simply broken.

I can get over the fact that the caves and woods areas in this game are almost impossible to navigate without a guide as they’re clearly designed to be confusing, but I have a much harder time dealing with the elements of this game that are seemingly unintentionally confusing. For instance, an early instructional scene says you need a torch to light fireplaces, which is strictly not true. For that matter, lighting fireplaces isn’t even as important this strangely prominent hint may lead you to believe it is.

Of course, it’s hard to talk about unintentionally confusing Friday the 13th mechanics without getting around to the star of the show: Jason Voorhees, aka the apparent “Maven of Mayhem” and “the Sultan of Slash.”

You technically have to defeat Jason three times across the course of three in-game days to beat Friday the 13th. Fortunately, you do have the option of either confronting Jason on the road/in the lake or in one of the cabins he’s currently stalking. The former sees you battle him in side-scrolling confrontations that should be familiar to most NES gamers, while the latter actually utilizes a Punch-Out!-style combat system that requires you to dodge Jason’s attacks and get a few hits in.

While Jason isn’t nearly as tough as the NES version of Mike Tyson, his chaotic movement patterns and the…questionable quality of the game’s combat controls are enough to ensure that most gamers will die horribly during their early attempts at one of these truly bizarre fight sequences. At least they accurately recreate the futility of getting in a boxing match with Jason, as we all learned from Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan.

Your confrontations against Jason may seem random, but that’s not technically the case. Jason actually follows a specific pathing pattern around the Camp Crystal Lake map, and the game notifies you whenever he’s entered a cabin. Actually, it turns out there are very few “random” events in Friday the 13th. While the drop rate of items like keys and vitamins is ultimately random, it’s possible to acquire weapons like the ax, torch, and pitchfork through a series of specific steps. It’s just that the confusing nature of those steps often makes it so that you’re rarely sure what you did to acquire these items and how to do it again. 

That turns out to be a big problem, as you practically need the best weapons in the game to stand a chance of beating Jason. You also preferably need to keep Mark and Crissy alive, as they are by far the most capable counselors in the game. While it’s kind of funny that the majority of the roster is little more than machete fodder (which weirdly honors the spirit of the films), it’s incredibly annoying to not feel incentivized to use the game’s character/inventory swapping mechanics simply because George and Paul are practically destined to die. 

While we’re on the subject of slasher victims, we’ve also got to talk about the campers. As it turns out, you don’t actually need to save all the campers to win this game. You just need to make sure some of them are alive at the end. That means it’s possible to see Friday the 13th’s incredibly disappointing end screen while nearly a dozen digital children are lying dead in a nearby area. This game is often remembered for the blunt brutality of its “You and your friends are dead” game over screen, but it’s the way this game treats children that proves these developers were not playing around.

Then again, Jason’s not even your biggest enemy in this game. No, I’m not talking about the zombies, wolves, and bats, and I’m not even talking about the bizarre optional boss battle against Mrs. Voorhees’ floating head. As it turns out, your biggest enemy in this game is time itself. 

There’s a series of soft and hard time limits in Friday the 13th that practically determine everything you do. Want to acquire the best weapons? You need to go for them in a pretty specific way to help ensure you have enough time to put them to use. Want to save all the children? You need to know how the amount of time you take to get to them will determine how many kids are alive by the time you reach the cabin (which is another element of the game that the developers don’t clearly explain). 

Time can even help determine how hard the game is and whether or not you get the right items. For instance, Jason is significantly more difficult to defeat in cabins on days two and three when he starts to utilize new attack patterns. You can make things easier on yourself by acquiring the sweater and pitchfork, but you need to know that you acquire the former by defeating Jason’s mom on day two and later by defeating her on day three. 

Even if you somehow figure all of that out through in-game notes, trial-and-error, or out-of-game guides, you still have to navigate the game’s confusing controls and layout quickly enough to ensure that you can actually accomplish all these things in time. Whether you realize it or not, Friday the 13th constantly has you on the clock. 

That’s the biggest problem with Friday the 13th. For all this talk about its open-ended design, unique multi-character mechanics, RPG systems, and free-roaming map, the game is ultimately a surprisingly linear experience. Unless you are a pro-level Friday the 13th player (which is probably not something you want to aspire to be), you kind of have to play this game in a very specific way in order to maximize your chances of beating it. The game just hides the best path forward by making everything so confusing that the only way to figure it all out is to keep trying and failing or just turn to a guide. 

Some have compared Friday the 13th to Dark Souls in that respect, but the key difference is that Dark Souls is actually fun to play along the way. Fun in gaming is obviously a subjective topic, but the way that so much of Friday the 13th’s gameplay is devoted to just “figuring it out” recalls the confusing, often unenjoyable design of two of its fellow bad NES games: Super Pitfall and Deadly Towers. 

When you get right down to it, Friday the 13th is still a pretty bad video game, especially when you look at it through the lens of modern gaming. Yet, it’s when you view the game from that same angle that you see why it’s so hard not to be at least a little in love with this title. 

First off, let’s not lose ourselves in the discussion of whether or not this game is “accurate” to the movies. Do the counselors in Friday the 13th fight zombies and wild animals? No, but in the grand history of shoehorned video game enemies, this game’s collection of hostile obstacles is honestly relatively fitting. 

I’ll also hear no ill words about Jason’s purple and blue outfit. It makes little to no sense for him to look like that, but the results are so damn charming that it’s really no wonder why his in-game design has developed a cult following that has honestly outlived the game itself. Even the game’s soundtrack is ultimately worth defending. It may be repetitive and occasionally grating, but it’s fairly strong in small doses and honestly does a pretty good job of selling the horror atmosphere. 

Actually, Friday the 13th’s greatest attribute all these years later is that it is a horror game. At a time when horror games on the NES were little more than nonexistent, Friday the 13th offered an often creepy (especially for young gamers) horror experience that attempted to recreate the feeling of having to survive a slasher scenario. Would it have been easier (maybe even better) to make a game where you played as Jason or just navigated some side-scrolling action levels as one of the counselors? Maybe, but given the previous failures of games based on Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Nightmare on Elm Street that tried similar things, you pretty much have to give Atlus credit for doing something different. 

“Different” might actually be the keyword here. I’m not ready to give Friday the 13th full credit for being ahead of its time (even if elements of the game like its day/night cycle and survival features kind of were), but it was distinct and interesting. At a time when the Friday the 13th film franchise was struggling to battle creative complacency while remaining true to the spirit of the series, the Friday the 13th NES game managed to do something different while staying relatively true to the movies in the ways that mattered most. 

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Is Friday the 13th a good game? Absolutely not, but maybe part of the reason it’s regularly referred to as one of the worst NES games ever made is that the game was just different enough to stay in your head long after memories of other bad games were repressed or simply faded away. 

The post Does Friday the 13th’s Infamously Bad NES Game Deserve a Second Chance? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[attract-mode-collective]

Just Another Late Night At The Game Center

And just another massive dose of game culture, as originally shared on the Attract Mode Twitter account, (most of) everything that was shared in the latter half of February. The first half was covered here.

Before I forget: the above is courtesy of erickimphotography.com.

Again, given how short Feb is supposed to be, I figured this post would be too... and it's not. So am wonder if going weekly might best going forward?

Anyhow, where did I leave off last time? Oh yeah; Valentine's Day. And here’s Amy Rose, from the day after, reminding us all that, as great as love can be, it also hurts (via sonicthehedgeblog)...

Check out this devastating big boot from Mario, one that would make the WWE's Undertaker or Kane proud (via suppermariobroth)...

You're no doubt familiar with Julie Bell's work, but are you aware of the close resemblance between her art & the artist herself? (via slbtumblng)...

Some nice, pixelated sukajans we have here (via kauzara)...

Look at these hipsters...

Look at these hipsters standing around, on a Brooklyn rooftop...

Look at these hipsters standing around, on a Brooklyn rooftop in leggings based upon the interactive menu for the Super Famicom's satellite modem peripheral. (via minusworld.co.uk)...

Am legit thinking of getting this shirt covered with quotes from people trying to figure out which Metal Gear character is gay (via kotaku.com)...

Am rather fond of Data Weave, which has more than a passing resemblance to the Eliss scarf that helped put the Attract Mode shop on the map (via prostheticknowledge)...

When you go to bed, don't forget to never use your Dreamcast as a pillow (nor should you ever place it on a bucket filled with leafy greens either, but you probably already knew that one; via posthumanwanderings)...

Not sure which SNK 40th Anniversary shirt I like more (via miki800.com)...

It's just Hidetaka Suehiro, playing... I think The Last Blade? Criminally underrated Neo Geo game btw (via nintendu)...

And the late, great Robin Williams playing Ground Zero Texas for the Sega CD (via celebgames)...

Plus the President of Turkey, circa 1990, playing Galaxy Force II for whatever reason (via historium)..

Pro-tip to any & all custom arcade cabinet sellers: if you're going to photograph someone playing a game on your thing, have said person actually play the thing (in this case, Robotron utilizes dual sticks and no buttons; via arcadephile)...

Today's recommended reading is a follow-up to another older post, one that's all about Willie Williams, who not only inspired Virtua Fighter's Jeffry McWild but also Tekken's Paul Phoenix (via lordmo)...

After seeing this gif of a young woman punching a dinosaur (or possibly a dragon) in the crotch, I may have to give Capcom Fighting Jam a second look (via kazucrash)...

Sticking with the subject of crotches for just one bit, everyone out there's familiar with PuLiRuLa, right? (via kazucrash)

Just a friendly reminder of how wacky commercials for the PlayStation 2 were back in the day (via kurhl)...

Back to the subject of dinosaurs... yet still sticking with fun under the sun (via sidestorygaiden)...

If I'm gonna share fan art of unofficial PlayStation 1 era mascots, then I have to pass along this rendering of Abe (via it8bit)...

Seen countless folk play music with a Game Boy or a NES... but a Dreamcast? @slowmagic is the very first, and with a Hello Kitty edition Dreamcast no less...

Does anyone know if these figures of Dorimukyasuko & friends were commercially produced or if they were just made for the Sega no Game wa Sekai Ichi~i~i~I ad that the image comes from? (via vgprintads)...

We've gotten snowfall here in NYC over the past few weeks, once during during sunset, but alas it wasn't nearly as pretty as this (via kirokazepixel)...

It's been ages since I've posted any Game Culture Snapshots, despite countless promises that I'd fix that. Well, until that finally happens, here just one, from IndieCade East 2018. Which was an epic bust, but hey, at least I finally got to play that Bill Viola game I first encountered at GDC 2008...

PLEASE tell me that GBA Video carts are the new hot means of distributing bootleg Hollywood flicks (via @katribou)...

This part from The Thing always reminded me of Asteroids on the Atari 7800 (via pixpunk)...

I posted this on Twitter, not realizing that I had shared it on the blog once before. But since I can’t find that original post, and since it's so damn nice, plus totally worth looking at again (via humanoidhistory)...

I also need to re-share that Tron movie poster cuz it's the first lead up to this Blade Runner-related spread from Joystik Magazine (via mendelpalace)...

As someone who fetishizes old video game magazines, I'm legit ashamed that I didn't know about Joystik sooner (via here & here)...

Please enjoy a healthy helping of scans from Lovely Sweet Dream, the dream journal that would become the basis of LSD for the PlayStation 1 (via here & here)...

Sorry, but I still think the idea of a multi-billionaire sending his sports car into space just cuz he can to be kinda cringey, yet that doesn't mean I'd don't think this pixelated recreation is any less pleasant (via it8bit)...

I've never been to Beverly Hills, so I have no idea if this portrayal according to Super Chase: Criminal Termination is accurate or not; maybe it was when the game was produced? (via obscurevideogames)...

Meanwhile, closer to where I am (somewhat; am not all that far from Long Island) is Mario & Yoshi & the Book of Revelation (via greathaircut)...

Are you playing Mario? Or is Mario playing you? (via suppermariobroth)...

Game Boys. And Game Girls. Mostly Girls. (via contac)

Before anyone asks, no, I do not have a bigger/wallpaper appropriate-sized version of this super sexy image of a couple of Wiis (via klaus-laserdisc)...

I think I kinda need to do this to my PlayStation (via dreamcast.tokyo)...

... Which reminds of those fancy, souped up by audiophiles PSXs I mentioned a whiles ago...

I celebrated Cat Day in Japan by posting this fave official King of Fighters illustration (via videogamesdensetsu)....

... along with this Monster Hunter fan art (via kerriaitken)...

... plus this highlight of a fave WarioWare: Twisted micro game (via suppermariobroth)...

So yeah, Flash sucks, I get that, but as the platform fades away, so does the opportunity to play games like Fear Less! (via zombie-chaser)...

Thankfully, WORLD OF HORROR, "a love letter to the cosmic horror work of Junji Ito", is something that's much more accessible (for now at least)...

I don't know much about Dujanah, which has you assuming the role of a Muslim woman with grievances against a military force that's occupying her Islamic homeland, other than it looks extremely compelling...

Yet another game I need to check out is CONTINUUM, which is a shmup that combines time manipulation and Tetris? (via alpha-beta-gamer)...

It's a legit shame that Jetpack Squad has seemingly fallen off the map (via shmups)...

Another shmup that I really, really want to play (though it's starting to feel increasingly unlikely) is AEROBAT, which looks just as gorgeous (and insane) today as it did the first time I laid eye (via shmups)...

Yet another game that was never meant to be, and the only thing we have here is some incredible looking concept art; if it ended up happening & was any good, I wonder if I'd be a PC-FX owner? (via videogamesdensetsu)...

If a Tokyo Dark Souls was ever to happen, which artist's take do you prefer; this one (via visor-visual)...

... or this one? (via mendelpalace)

You know about celebrity roasts, right? Well, a comedy club in Long Island City had one for Mario, though I have no idea how it went; I had kung fu practice that night...

Me, when the coffee kicks in (via anthony10000000)...

I had no idea that Typing of the Space Harrier was even a thing (via posthumanwanderings)...

It's a bit unsettling how some of Dreamcast Magazine's advice on how to survive Y2K are still useful today, in particular their words of wisdom regarding Seaman (via posthumanwanderings)...

Megadora Man, a Tokusatsu-esque take on the Mega Drive, for Beep! Mega Drive; am assuming his foes are inspired by the Famicom and PC Engine (though am not totally sure which is which; via obscurevideogames)...

Question: how hard would it be for someone in the US to get the first three issues of Famitsu from the Japanese Kindle Store? (via miki800.com)

Been well over a decade since first laying eyes and I FINALLY know the identity of the artist behind a series of Mario illustrations that has long left me stupefied: his name is Ishihara Gōjin (via videogamesdensetsu)...

I woke up the other day with a sense of purpose, with the knowledge that I finally have a mission in life: to do whatever I can to make this dancing kid from Sega Splash Golf a viral sensation (via sonicthehedgeblog)...

Though speaking of morning, been feeling run down as of late, though it's my own damn fault for not having breakfast. Which is why I can't wait for my Persona 3 toaster has yet to arrive (via gasp-theenemy)...

Had no idea that MAME can also emulate those crappy, Tiger handheld games; naturally there's not much to look at, since none of the background is part of the game's code (via lanceboyles)...

Eggman has a sense of humor (via voidirium)...

Eggman also has aesthetics (via posthumanwanderings)...

When you mess with the textures in Wind Waker for the sole purpose of making Vaporwave Link (via pmpkn)...

Man, I really wish each and every mech in Tech Romancer actually had its own anime (via ultrace)...

Before Mappy was a video game, it was a physical game involving real deal robots (via namcomuseum)...

And I swear, one of these days, we'll make available online Zac Gorman's print from Comics Vs Games 2...

In my time I've encountered lots & lots of BMO fan art, so much that it has become increasingly difficult to take notice and be impressed, yet this one managed to do so regardless (via it8bit)...

Let's all take a moment to appreciate the instruction manual for Cubivore, shall we (via skincoats)...

Cubivore's Japanese box art is also very nice (via gaygamer)...

An important message for all parents out there, concerning Minecraft (via reddit.com)...

When you can't afford the licensing fees for Miami Vice, Ghostbusters, Barbarella, I think... and maybe Logan's Run? (via mendelpalace)...

Given how Platoon ended up as a NES game, the idea of the Terminator on a Tiger handheld isn't totally far-fetched (via rewind01)...

And finally, PUT THAT CONTROLLER DOWN, NOW! (via fuzzyghost)

[always-thirsty-pocket]

I bought Arcade Archives: Punch-Out!!  ...never played it before but I love Punch-Out. ...But ooh boy, I wasn’t expecting it to be so different from the home console Punch-Out games.

Doesn’t seem to be about dodging and counter attacking, or recognizing boxer patterns, in fact, I had more luck button mashing than I did trying to play with the strategies of the console games.

It’s closer to Super Punch-Out in some ways where you guard jabs and body blows, but you gotta manually raise and lower your guard as opposed to your guard just defaulting to lower, and dodging blows and countering doesn’t seem to stun quite the same way as the console version. 

It’s a lot harder to be sure... and the sound design is the worst. There’s no music during the fights, and there’s an annoying voice announcing each one of your punches... And the bell sounds like a clown horn.

I still think there’s fun to be had, but unless you’re super hard core punch-out fan, I’d say stick to the NES, SNES, or the Wii version.

[nintendroid]

Nintendroid and Retro Cat VS Wrestling #3: Title Match Pro Wrestling for Atari 2600

A competitor well past its prime looking for a title shot. Unfortunately, the old vet just can’t keep up with the bigger, badder new guys.

Title Match Pro Wrestling is an Atari 2600 game release ten years after the debut of the console in 1987. It’s a port of the Atari 7800 version, designed by Alex DeMeo for Absolute Entertainment, whose other works are Pete Rose Baseball and Keystone Kapers. Title Match Pro Wrestling isn’t good but you feel that they really tried to make this into something worthwhile. Unfortunately with the rise of the NES, Title Match Pro just feels clunky and dated by Nintendo’s rewritten standards.

While boasting decent visuals and those famous Atari sound effects, Title Match Pro Wrestling hits a unforgiving stiff clothesline with it’s control setup.

It’s easy to over-complicate controls for a system that has a joystick consisting of a single button. Things as simple as a “punch” or a “kick” require moving the joystick up or down and hitting the button. Where it gets complicated is that your movement is also mapped to the joystick, so in my playthrough I couldn’t stand still and just knock my opponent's head in.

With controls that require a bit of practice just to master the basic gameplay, you have an unforgiving computer opponent that doesn’t care if you can play or not. You are his enemy and his sole purpose is to put you through that ring. Jerk.

Starting off, you have a roster of four wrestlers. This isn’t a licensed title so it’s all generic characters whose only differences are cosmetic with no difference in playstyle. The “manual” gives them all backstories totally worthy of a better game (there’s a CAW challenge for all my Fire Pro and WWE 2K players out there)

Your goal is to simply pin your opponent once you deplete his stamina meter located at the top of the screen. If you’ve played Wrestlemania for the NES, you’ll be familiar with Title Match Pro’s setup. Coincidentally, both games have similar flaws in that you have overbearing computer opponents who are hard to pin. 

You can kick and punch your opponent until the cows come home, but the only way to put them on the mat to set up for a pin is to body slam them. This requires you to grab your opponent by directing the joystick in their direction and to slam them, you point your joystick down and press the button. Using the same combination, you can go for a pin but I feel like it just worked when it felt like it.

Giving credit where it’s due, Title Match Pro has a couple of nifty features. One of them is “muscle mode”, which basically works like a quicktime event, requiring that you move the joystick back and forth as fast as possible. I didn’t get to take advantage of the feature much, since I was playing the computer, but I can see how this would be fun against a human player. You can also climb the top rope and jump on your opponent. While falling from the top rope, your character looks like a paper doll and falls with the grace of a dead leaf hitting the fall ground. Sounds beautiful doesn’t it?

Given that this is a 2600 game, there’s no campaign or anything like that. It may be a fun multiplayer game, but the single player mode only works as a time waster if you absolutely have nothing else to play. I wonder if anyone in gaming history has only had the option of just playing Title Match Pro for the 2600?

My rating for Title Match Pro Wrestling for the Atari 2600 is… Jobber.

While the game has some innovations, and sports satisfying presentation, it’s terribly dated, even by 1987 standards. If this game were an actual wrestler, he would be a mid-carder in a bush league promotion, feuding with M.U.S.C.L.E for the NES in front of a capacity crowd of 10 people in the local VFD in Bumblescum Nebraska.