Video game
movies are almost their own genre at this point. Unfortunately
they're generally not all that great and are often compared against one
another as a throwaway part of the film industry. Of course there
are exceptions and many of them have huge fans, myself included, but
the phrase "for a video game movie" tends to detract from those films
within the genre that garner praise otherwise. I have to ponder
what the reason for this reputation truly is. Is it because of
the subject matter or the generally lower budgets? Perhaps it's
due to them usually being based on licensed properties or straying too
far from their source material? Or is it the ridiculous idea that
video games are just for kids and outliers? If I was asked what
the best video game related film is, I wouldn't respond with the film
that had the most star-studded cast, or was the most financially
successful, or even the one that is my all time favorite film.
No, I'd respond with what I believe is the best film in the genre to
this very day, 1984's The Last Starfighter.
Alex Rogan is
a teenager who dreams of getting out of the sleepy town he lives in and
making something more of his life. He lives with his mother and
younger brother in a small trailer park, which he is often called upon
to lend a hand in the maintenance of. One of his only means to
unwind is playing the arcade game Starfighter at a roadside store
operated by the trailer park's manager. The game drops the player
in the role of a lone starfighter, recruited by the Star League to
defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada. Alex seems
to have a natural gift at Starfighter and one night he completes the
game and achieves a record breaking score. Later that night a
strange car pulls up to the store and its driver asks Alex who broke
the Starfighter record. Once Alex states it was he who did so,
the driver introduces himself as Centauri, inventor of the game, and
asks Alex to step into his vehicle to discuss an important
matter. After Alex agrees, Centauri's vehicle is revealed to be a
spacecraft that transports them to Rylos, the world from the
game. There Alex learns that the game was created as a way to
find capable starfighters from worlds outside of the Star League, as
the conflict between Rylos and the Ko-Dan Empire is in fact real.
Alex is drafted to be a gunner in a Rylan spacecraft, known as a
Gunstar, and is partnered with a reptilian pilot named Grig.
While an android clone of Alex attempts to cover for him back on Earth,
Alex and Grig set off in a lone Gunstar to take on the Ko-Dan Armada
and liberate the galaxy.
Alex plays a game of
Starfighter while his little brother Louis looks on and gives him advice
On paper The
Last Starfighter sounds like it could be a typical teen film of the
early 1980's, with a pretty corny premise of video game aliens being
tossed in. However the film avoids all those cliches with how
well it is written, acted, and paced. The script is actually very
serious when it hits the larger beats of the relentless tyranny of the
Ko-Dan Empire. It's far more mature than many space operas in
this respect and gives itself time to allow for dialogue exchanges that
reveal depth in its characters. That's not to say it doesn't have
all the trappings of a classic space opera in its broad strokes.
Good and evil are clearly defined, there's a big reveal of the primary
villain, betrayal is a cornerstone of the villain's power, and the
heroes are a rag-tag group fighting against all odds. Now the
80's teen film tropes do show up at one point, but they are played for
fish out of water comedy involving Alex's android clone, and are almost
self-aware in how they are being used. These scenes also serve to
break up the heavier concepts of the film but never feel as if they
step out of the over all narrative or abandon character motivations.
The cast is
superb with Lance Guest playing Alex Rogan in addition to Beta, the
Centauri-delivered doppelganger of himself. Robert Preston as
Centauri channels an intergalactic version of his most famous role, The
Music Man's Professor Harold Hill. Dan O'Herlihy as Grig carries
most of the dialogue's weight and comedy in the film's third act, and
is probably best known to many as portraying The Old Man in 1987's
RoboCop. The rest of the cast is also very good, especially
Vernon Washington as Otis the trailer park manager, and Chris Hebert as
Alex's younger brother Louis. Louis has some very funny and very
genuine little brother lines that Chris Hebert hits
perfectly. Without such great performances from absolutely
everyone throughout the film, this easily could have dissolved into
nothing but a cheesy 80's teen movie. Thankfully it never
approaches anything of the like. It's a film about being a
teenager and looking to the rapidly approaching future on the horizon,
doing everything you can to reach out for that future, and all the
encounters along the way that change that journey. It's the
reason why of all the "video game" movies, and many 80's teen-centric
movies in general, The Last Starfighter has remained the most timeless
and least dated.
Alex arrives on Rylos
and meets Grig, the pilot of the Gunstar he is assigned to as a gunner
The Last
Starfighter is also very well known for being one of the first films to
extensively use computer graphics for its special effects. The
space battles, ships, some of the sets on Rylos, and pretty much
anything that a contemporary film of its time would use models or matte
paintings for, are instead computer rendered. The undertaking
required to create such effects at the time was incredible and many
home video releases of the film include a documentary that goes into
great detail concerning this. The clean, smooth renderings still
look great in my opinion and I find them very fitting for the movie's
video game related subject matter. Of course there isn't the
level of detail or realism seen with modern CG, but it absolutely does
not look dated since everything has a very uniform look and feel, with
object movement that doesn't betray conventional cinematography.
I also love the soundtrack of this film. Craig Safan's
compositions are perfect in creating a booming and triumphant sensation
to heighten action, while at the same time weave a somber and longingly
bittersweet tone when necessary. The title theme is especially
memorable and it is called back to throughout the film. Even if
you're familiar with this movie, give the soundtrack a listen to on its
own, you may be surprised at its complexity.
If there is
one disappointment with The Last Starfighter it is due to the era it
was released into. The American video game industry was going
through
a time of transition and restructuring, which meant taking less risks
like releasing games based on uncertain properties, even if there is a
reference to such in the end credits. An arcade game was in
development by Atari but never made it out of very early development
before being abandoned. Atari home console and computer versions
were
also in development, only to either be scrapped or reworked into other
games - Star Raiders II for Atari computers and Solaris for Atari 2600,
both outstanding games in their own right. The Last Starfighter
name
was slapped onto an NES conversion of the Commodore 64 game Uridium,
along with a few small changes, in a supreme display of cheaping out on
the license by Mindscape. This was a huge disappointment to me
when I
was finally able to track down a cartridge in the late
1990's, although Uridium is a fine game on its own merits. There
have also been more accurate fan games made since but it's a shame
there was never an official proper arcade game.
The CG renderings in
the film still look pretty amazing and create their own consistent
visual aesthetic
Unlike most
video game related feature films, The Last Starfighter had a much more
generous run on television and home video. I had seen the movie
broadcast on both local television stations as well as national
networks, including a MonsterVision screening hosted by Joe Bob Briggs
on TNT. Every video rental store I had ever been in had a VHS
copy of
it available. A widescreen collector's edition DVD released
in 1999 was one of the most feature-packed releases of any film I had
ever encountered. It includes a brand new documentary about the
film's
production, with tons of interviews and insight, all hosted by Alex
Rogan himself, Lance Guest. They actually built a fresh mock-up
of the
Starfighter arcade cabinet specifically for this feature and the disc
contains some very slick menus for a release from 1999. It has
since
been released on Blu-ray a few times, with the Arrow Video release from
2020 being the one to grab, as it looks great and contains all the
special features from the previous releases.
Although the
film ends by opening the door for the possibility of a sequel, it seems
such was never originally intended. Since 2008 there were some
rumblings of a sequel or reboot being in the works but they failed to
materialize. These have persisted right up through last year,
when a concept reel titled "The Last Starfighters" was revealed by Gary
Whitta, who is rumored to be working on a sequel script with Jonathan
R. Betuel, who wrote the original. While I would hate to see the
movie totally remade or re-imagined, I would love to see a sequel that
follows the first film in some way. Most importantly a sequel
should keep the same timeless concepts at its core, rather than being
massively contemporary or a total throwback.
Centauri barters with
a Rylan broker as he attempts to collect on discovering an Earth-based
starfighter
Of all the
"video game" movies this is the one I recommend most to those who
haven't seen it. It's not specifically tied to its era, it
doesn't require a modern audience to take a step back into a different
mindset, and it doesn't require being into video games to enjoy
it. Having spent my teenage years living in a small town I can
totally relate to some of the concepts the film touches on and some of
the frustrations Alex is faced with. I suppose that's one of the
things that makes the film feel so timeless to me. It also
doesn't try to be overly trendy the way most teen films do, instead
framing itself as kind of an old fashioned story - a fairy tale with a
sci-fi twist. I also have to mention that my favorite arcade game
is Namco's massive StarBlade from 1991, which plays an awful lot like a
loose adaptation of The Last Starfighter. The Last Starfighter
gets my highest recommendation and I believe it has the widest appeal
of all the movies that get talked about in retrogaming circles.
If you haven't seen this one please give it a watch.
id Software
and GT Interactive: The Match Made in Hell
id Software was
founded by John Romero, John Carmack, Adrian Carmack (obligatory "no
relation"!), and Tom Hall in 1990. Originally called "Ideas from the
Deep", lead programmer John Carmack devised a technological marvel that
had not been achieved up to that point: creating smooth side-scrolling
games for DOS PCs. So confident were they, they recreated Nintendo's
Super Mario Bros. 3 in the new game engine and propositioned the
company with their PC port. Nintendo refused, choosing to keep Mario
exclusive on their consoles, and it was then designer Tom Hall
rearranged the game into their own Commander Keen. Apogee Software
founder Scott Miller was so enamored with the games they were producing
he would write in anonymous letters, which John Romero was able to
decipher all had the same address. The different names on the letters
were to get past Softdisk's screening practices to prevent their
employees getting poached. Romero would speak to Miller and then
proposed Keen as a project they would like to do. They would
subsequently leave Softdisk and pursue writing their own games to be
released through Apogee and thus the legend began to take shape.
Apogee had a unique
mode of distribution for their games that was known as shareware. The
idea was a game would be written into three parts, and the first part
would be freely shared amongst players on floppy disks. This
effectively meant they didn't need to pour money into advertising, as
the players were marketing the games for them. id had been granted
stipends for their pizza orders and the like to keep churning out
games, but with each game that amount would get bigger. After several
releases they would create Wolfenstein 3D, and thus the first-person
shooter (FPS) as we know it today was born. This partnership with
Apogee had proven successful up to a point, but by time id was ready to
make Doom, they would sever ties with Apogee and publish the game
themselves, as mismanagement in the Apogee office led to id losing
sales on their games.
Doom would go on to
be a huge seller, generating tons of money for id. It too had a
shareware release, one that had spread like wildfire on millions of
computers. In 1994, GT Interactive Software (GTI) (a branch of
GoodTimes Home Video) had reached out to id about brokering what would
be a significant distribution deal. id rejected their offers multiple
times, prompting GTI to travel from New York to Dallas to make a formal
offer that id simply could not refuse. Their offer was an actual
advertising budget and the ability to sell their upcoming game Doom II:
Hell on Earth in retail stores. With a promise that GTI could sell 2
million units, id agreed, and this is the story of id Software and GT
Interactive.
Doom II: Hell on Earth Released: October
10, 1994
id sold the
registered and full version of the original Doom in 1993 via an
over-the-phone method that delivered the game to customers directly on
floppy disks. Rather than concentrate a budget on advertising the game,
id distributed it using their successful shareware approach where
players could freely share the first episode of the game without
negative legal ramifications. The players were effectively doing the
advertising for id and without having to break a piece off to Apogee
like before, rendered the company greater profits than ever. For Doom
II however, they had GTI pushing the game out in the retail world with
even larger returns. The game had no shareware or demo release, but
with a marketing budget and the reputation of its predecessor, being
one of the all-time greatest games ever produced on its side, it would
go on to sell over 2 million copies meeting their sales goal.
The game itself had
foregone the episode format in favor of 32 levels (or in FPS terms,
maps) broken up into thematic different thirds instead. Stylistically
the game was different from the original in that it took place on Earth
and the nameless space marine character faces off against Hell's
invading forces in order to save the world. The game added several new
enemies but was mostly unchanged save for a new Super Shotgun weapon
and the Megasphere power-up.
The Ultimate Doom Released: April 30,
1995
With GTI having
demonstrated that Doom had a place in the mainstream retail market,
they proposed releasing the original Doom the same way to generate even
more sales. Originally titled "The Definitive Doom Special Edition," it
would find its entry into the world as The Ultimate Doom. GTI pushed
for the game more than id wanted to work on it due to development on
their next game Quake having already begun. Designer John Romero and
map designers American McGee and Shawn Green were inactive at the time
while lead programmer John Carmack was trying to piece together Quake's
engine, so they led the effort. They would enlist the help of fan
community map authors Tim Willits (the company's future lead designer)
and John "Dr. Sleep" Anderson to help produce 9 new maps for what would
become the game's new 4th episode, Thy Flesh Consumed. In terms of
storyline continuity, not much effort was made to tie up Doom and Doom
II with the new episode, leaving it up to a community debate as to
whether it takes place in Hell or on Earth. The game had other subtle
modifications done by Romero for Deathmatch and an updated executable.
For the people that
purchased the phone-order version of the game, id dispatched free
upgrade patches to bring their games up to The Ultimate Doom. Thy Flesh
Consumed was harder than the original stock game, so if you were up for
the added challenge then it may have appealed to you. The first map
E4M1 Hell Beneath features a cameo of the Nine Inch Nails NIN logo in
the floor, a sign of what would come later with Quake.
Hexen: Beyond Heretic Released: October
30, 1995
Similar to Doom II
hitting the retail channels first before its predecessor, Hexen: Beyond
Heretic (or simply Hexen) was the first Raven Software game to market
under the GTI banner. John Romero was executive producer on Heretic, to
help acclimate the Raven Software team to build a game in the Doom
engine (retroactively named idTech1) and while Quake was still in
programming limbo would do it again for Hexen. The game would serve as
the second act in what would later be known as the Serpent Rider
Trilogy. In Hexen, the main antagonist is Korax, one of the Serpent
Rider brothers. While its predecessor Heretic was effectively a
medieval spin on Doom (the weapons function almost identical), Raven
would forego the episode format of the first game and introduce what is
known as the hub system. A hub would consist of a level that has
entrances to the other levels, whereby you would have to collect keys
or items to bring back to the main level to unlock the exit to progress
to the next hub. At the time it was a radical and fresh new concept and
would be the feature that Hexen was most known for. The game also
implemented selection from three different character classes: Fighter,
Cleric, and Mage, each of which have different attributes and provide
different gameplay experiences throughout to increase replay value.
The game pushed the
absolute boundaries of what the Doom engine was capable of, with
breakable glass and objects, doors that swing open, and a jump
function. Another novelty feature of the game was that in addition to
the standard MIDI music playback there was an option for CD audio as
well. The Redbook audio consists of higher quality Roland SC-55
renditions of the MIDI music, although not every MIDI track from the
game was included. A 3rd entry in the trilogy tentatively titled
Hecatomb was planned but was eventually canceled and later replaced
with direct sequels Hexen II and Heretic II.
Master Levels for Doom II Released: December
26, 1995
Since Doom launched
in 1993 with the ability to create your own maps and weapon assets out
of the box, there was a strong demand to edit the game. With virtually
no internet to really speak of quite yet on a mainstream level, the way
to access these mods was actually quite limited to floppy disk
exchanges or bulletin-board systems (BBSes). Until D!ZONE came along,
effectively creating shovelware compilations of various maps to throw
on CD-ROMs and sell in stores. id were not getting any of the action
from the sales of these discs, so they proposed a way to produce higher
quality map compilations in what would be called Master Levels for Doom
II. The name was a bit misleading in the sense one would assume it
meant the difficulty would be ratcheted up to an 11. It was really a
descriptor for the quality of the levels, engineered by some of id's
and the fan community's most popular map authors. Given Master Levels
was a collection of singular levels that didn't adhere to any episodic
format, it came with a program called DOOM-IT which was a menu
interface for selecting the levels to play. Upon completion of a level
an asterisk would be placed next to the map name and then you could
select another. As a bonus, id included their own compilation of maps
from the internet called Maximum Doom, consisting of thousands of maps,
but of equally dodgy quality to D!ZONE.
In contemporary
times with the era of MS-DOS long since come and gone, the DOOM-IT
utility is no longer usable (save for the use of DOSBox or a retro
computer). There exist utilities that can combine all the map WAD files
into a single MASTER LEVELS episode to play through in order.
Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders Released: March 31,
1996
Next up was the
retail release of Heretic, branded Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent
Riders. Like Doom in 1993, Heretic was independently published by id.
It had a shareware release (tucked away on The Ultimate Doom CD-ROM, my
first exposure to the game) and you could purchase the full game
over-the-phone. The Ultimate Doom's inclusion of an additional episode
proved to be so great that the new Heretic added two more of its own,
The Ossuary and The Stagnant Demesne, totaling out to a riveting 45
maps in all. Even before Hexen, Heretic was able to stretch the
boundaries of what the Doom engine was capable of up to that point. A
very welcome addition was the ability to manually look up and down,
rather than relying on centering your crosshairs on enemies perfectly
to get the game to autoaim up or down for you. The game introduced an
inventory system much akin to role-playing games (RPGs) of a wide
variety of different power-ups, like the Wings of Wrath to enable the
ability to fly or the Tome of Power that supercharges your arsenal to
deal more damage. The Morph Ovum may be one of the funniest novelties,
throwing these eggs at enemies turns them into harmless clucking
chickens.
The environment of
Heretic is particularly enthralling, with enemies that can shoot
tornadoes at you to throw you back, or bodies of water and icy terrains
that you can slip around on. Open your ears and you will find the
audible cues have more layers than Doom was capable of with ambient
sounds like bells gonging in the distance. Before Hexen pushed Doom's
envelope to the limit, Heretic demonstrated a sizable chunk of that
growth and gained Raven Software some serious mainstream attention.
Final Doom Released: June 17,
1996
A group of Doom
modders named TeamTNT were poised to release their 32 map 'megawad'
TNT: Evilution (TNT) on the internet, free to download, and then in the
11th hour John Romero swooped in to offer them the deal of a lifetime.
Turning the team pro just one day before release, TNT would go on to
become one half of Final Doom, the final retail release of the classic
Doom era. Members of the team, brothers Milo and Dario Casali,
submitted a handful of maps they crafted to id, who were impressed with
their work so much they were granted the opportunity to produce their
own 32 map 'megawad'. This second half would be called The Plutonia
Experiment (Plutonia), handcrafted by the Casalis for maximum
punishment. TeamTNT was fairly large, with a lot of different
contributors, making the TNT pack much of a mixed bag in the design
department, mostly to its critical detriment. Plutonia was more
polished and concise, with the brothers each dedicated to 16 maps each.
Final Doom offered nothing new over its core game Doom II, which both
map packs were built upon. Released almost a week before Quake, Final
Doom filled a niche for people with older computers that couldn't run
Quake well seeking a new game from id.
While Final Doom
received its share of panning from critics and players alike, TNT and
Plutonia were popular enough with their design themes that multiple
teams from the fan community produced sequels, TNT: Revolution and
Plutonia 2 (and even more). For all Final Doom's perceived flaws, the
TNT half had some rocking new music to heighten the intensity of
fragging some more demons. Plutonia recycled musical assets from Doom
and Doom II, but had its own fan pack release of new music years later.
TNT's voodoo doll puzzle and Plutonia's map filled with Arch-viles
chasing you down are among some of the highlights in this conquest, and
lest we forget one of my favorite maps ever, Deepest Reaches and its
haunting music.
Quake Released: June 22,
1996
After a year and a
half of development, Quake had finally emerged. What players like
myself were unaware of was the trials, tribulations, strife, and utter
chaos that ensued in the id offices to deliver the game unto us. John
Carmack, even with the assistance of Michael Abrash and John Hook, was
locked into a programming quagmire trying to build the fully 3D Quake
engine (retroactively named idTech2). The game was also among the first
to be playable over the internet with TCP/IP protocol. The networking
subsystem being a sizable endeavor all to its own, that Carmack looking
back said should have been a separate project. The artists and map
designers would create assets for the game that would have to be
scrapped and redone multiple times to coincide with the engine
development. John Romero was the lead designer on the game, intent on
creating something more rooted in melee combat in a medieval RPG world.
With it taking so long to create the game, it was deemed that his
original vision was too ambitious, and the game was stripped down to be
more like Doom, albeit the dark gothic themed HP Lovecraft-inspired
world remained.
Behind the scenes,
GTI offered to purchase id outright, which id had refused. id's new
business director Mike Wilson thus motioned for Quake to see a
shareware release, despite GTI proclaiming that the shareware format
was dead. The shareware CD-ROM featured the Redbook audio soundtrack by
Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails (who gets a nod in-game with the NIN
symbol once more emblazoning the nailgun ammo boxes). It also contained
id Stuff, software which contained full versions of Quake and other id
games that you could order the unlock codes for over the phone and
install right away. While id had released a multiplayer-only test demo
called Qtest (Official Quake Deathmatch Test) to sample how the game
would perform, players had already found ways to tap into the game's
file system and modify it. Upon the full game's release its gameplay
modes of standard Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Team Fortress, and
Rocket Arena would lay the groundwork basis for what virtually every
FPS game that came after would follow.
Hexen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel Released: September
3, 1996
In what would be the
final release through GTI, Hexen: Deathkings served as an expansion
pack for Hexen, extending the core game's storyline for an additional 3
hubs. Deathkings takes place immediately after Hexen ended, with the
player discovering the Chaos Sphere, but rather than the happy ending,
the player is transported to the Realm of the Dead. The 3 hub campaign
of Deathkings isn't easy, in fact it's incredibly difficult, but it's
what must be completed in order to reach the true ending. Respawning
enemies were a staple of Hexen, but Deathkings has more types of
enemies that reemerge to fight off to really ramp up the difficulty
factor. Weighing in at 20 maps in all for the expansion campaign,
Deathkings also includes Deathmatch exclusive levels packaged in its
own hub called Transit. The expansion has subtle changes, such as
retaining more inventory items when progressing to the next hub.
In all it takes a
certain degree of patience to undergo more action in the Hexen
universe, but Deathkings will certainly fit the bill if you're
interested in more item gathering torture.
Aftermath
The strenuous
development cycle of Quake and all the internal fighting that erupted
resulted in the resignation of John Romero with Michael Abrash, Shawn
Green, Jay Wilbur, Sandy Petersen, and Mike Wilson's departures
following soon after. With Quake only selling 250,000 units by
Christmas 1996, id would split with GTI and later sign with Activision,
taking a 49% ownership stake in id. Raven Software would likewise
partner up with Activision, still affiliated with the company to this
day. id would effectively continue where they left off with Quake and
release Quake Mission Pack No. 1 Scourge of Armagon (Hipnotic Software)
and Quake Mission Pack No. 2 Dissolution of Eternity (Rogue
Entertainment) in early 1997. Raven Software would release Hexen II in
August 1997 and Heretic II in November 1998. id would rebound from
their losses and reform with a larger team to release the masterfully
crafted and highly anticipated Quake II for Christmas 1997. id would
later revisit their past IPs in Wolfenstein and Doom before being
acquired by ZeniMax Media (owner of Bethesda Softworks) in June 2009.
Wizball - My
Favourite Game
by Merman
Sensible Software - Jon
Hare the artist and designer, and Chris Yates
the programmer - created the unique and incredible Wizball in 1987. It
was inspired by "painting by numbers" and the progressive weapons
system of Gradius / Nemesis in the arcades. Rather than a spaceship,
you control a bouncing ball containing the wizard. Collecting Green
Pearls allows you to add extra weapons and the Catellite, a small
satellite containing your pet cat. This is used to collect droplets of
colour.
The
original
loading screen from Wizball on the C64 and Collecting a
Green Pearl, with the icons at the top representing your power-ups.
(Note: These icons are shown at the bottom of the screen on NTSC
machines)
Mixing the colours (red,
green, and blue) in your lab allows you to "colour in" the levels,
which start out in shades of grey. It is this unique idea coupled with
the shoot 'em up action that really appealed to me. I first played it
on the Magnificent Seven compilation, which gathered seven of Ocean's
games from 1987 together (along with the bonus game, Yie Ar Kung Fu).
Adding to the game's
atmosphere was Martin Galway's brilliant soundtrack. Jon and Chris had
been in a band when they were younger and contributed ideas. Jon played
bass riffs that became the basis for the bonus round's music, while
Chris played a formidable guitar riff that became the "game over"
jingle. The title tune builds and changes dramatically, while the
high-score tune is a celebratory rumba rhythm. I recorded the music to
an audio cassette to listen to again and again.
On level
2,
mixing red and green gives the brown colour and level 3's blue
theme includes this miniature Mount Rushmore.
Wizball can be a tricky
game to get into, thanks to the control method, but persevere and gain
the first two power-ups (Thrust and Anti-Grav) and it becomes a lot
easier. Once you get the hang of the clever colour mixing, it's great
fun. ZZAP! 64 awarded the game 96%, but controversially it just missed
out on the Gold Medal award. The magazine later called it the Game of
the Decade.
As I have revisited many old columns
and topics this year, I realized I had not revisited one topic.
That topic is Champ Games. In my early days of writing, I
discussed Champ Games (or maybe Champ Programming as they were known
back in the mid to late 1990's) and their ports of classic arcade
games. Back then the ports for mainly for the PC computers.
If I recall correctly Champ Programming released their games as
shareware. Meaning you could download a free version of the game
with limited levels but if you wanted all the levels you had to
purchase the game. I don't remember the full catalog from Champ
Programming but remember that in 1990's you could really only play
arcade games in the arcade or use MAME to emulate. Due to the
technology at the time home arcade ports weren't quite as good as the
originals.
When I started writing for
Retrogaming Times Monthly, I had written about Champ Programming and
also looked into why it seemed like the company suddenly
disappeared. I believe I discovered that there were some
copyright issues that caused Champ Programming to close its doors,
which was a shame. But some time again I discovered that Champ
Programming had revived itself as Champ Games. (https://champ.games) Following
their website and Facebook group, it looked like Champ Games had turned
its focus toward developing ports of old arcade games for the Atari
2600 / VCS. I've watched video of the Champ Games port of Galaga
and it's incredible that the Atari 2600 / VCS had a version of Galaga,
I wish it was available for the Apple II. Champ Games looks to be
doing well with a multitude of games released and in development.
For fans of old arcade games and Champ Games it's well worth following
and supporting their efforts.
For those of us (like me) who were
fans of the original Champ Programming efforts, I discovered that
Archive.org has several of their games online and playable in your
browser:
I went through each of the games
listed and I have to say I was impressed with the effort put into each
game. All the games except Asterrocks were faithful to the
original arcade games. The original Asteroids used vector
graphics but Asterrocks went with a more modern approach which still
looked great and played fine.
Pac-Em and Ms. Pac-Em seemed to play
most like the original counterparts. Kong looked like the
original but the game felt quite a bit harder than the original arcade
version, not sure why. I had
trouble playing Galaxia, Galagon and Invaders. Not sure if it's
the browser emulation or what, but the game play was slow and virtually
unplayable. Asterrocks was playable but difficult to control
using a keyboard. Centiped was playable like the arcade version
but there was noticeable lag or lack of response occasionally when
trying to control the game. Again, some of these issues may
just be related to the nature of emulation and not necessarily the
fault of the games themselves.
When
one looks at these games one might be tempted to compare them to the
original versions, which are more available in modern times via MAME or
compilation packages. But if one takes a step back and considers
that these games were produced in the mid to late 1990's when the
options were more limited, you have to give Champ Programming props for
doing a fantastic job. I'm also happy to see the Champ folks come
back with their work on games for the Atari 2600 / VCS. I would
recommend folks give these versions of the classic arcade games a
spin. It may not be quite 100% like the original but they come
close and back in the 1990's, that's all you could ask.
Start a
Journey, See the World
Illusion of Gaia - My Favorite Game
Anyone who has spent some time
reading my contributions to these pages will see I mostly play a lot of
Famicom and NES, PC Engine, oddball arcade stuff, and other obscure
games. With that in mind it may come as a surprise that my
favorite video game is a Super Nintendo title. Illusion of Gaia
is a game that has become far better known over the years since its
release. It is the middle game in what is generally regarded as
an unofficial trilogy of Super Nintendo games developed by Quintet,
along with Soul Blazer and Terranigma. Some also consider the
first ActRaiser game part of the series, while the PlayStation game The
Grandstream Saga was created as a spiritual successor. Even in
that group of heavy hitters, Illusion of Gaia stands apart, with a
greater emphasis on story and character development than almost any
other action RPG of its time.
My copy of Illusion
of Gaia looks like it was pulled out of ancient ruins! No idea how the
box got worn like that, as I bought it off eBay around 2001.
I first encountered Illusion of Gaia
in a different way than any other video game. I didn't read about
it in Nintendo Power, my subscription having lapsed prior to it being
featured, and the small town I was living in at the time didn't afford
many opportunities to go shopping for expensive non-mainstream Super
Nintendo games. I actually first saw the game when it was
featured on the television shopping network QVC during a video game
presentation. They were taking pre-orders for the game and
showing footage of a kid at the studio playing it, which amounted to
him walking back and forth through a couple areas, unsure of what to
do. I recall the guest host from either Nintendo or their video
game distributor going on and on how the kid playing was "locked in"
and focused on the game because it was so exciting. His comments
didn't sell me on the game but have stuck in my memory as one of the
strangest marking ploys I've ever heard. Just the same, for
whatever reason that short glimpse of the game interested me, although
I would never see it in a store and nearly forgot about it.
Next year a Hollywood Video opened in
town, part of a video rental chain that was expanding to rival
Blockbuster, which we had stopped renting from due to false late
fees. At that time most of my game rentals came from the local
grocery store, which much to its credit had an eclectic assortment of
awesome games I probably wouldn't have experienced otherwise - Legend
of the Mystical Ninja, Wanderers from Ys, Musya, Final Fantasy Mystic
Quest, Spanky's Quest, and tons more. My step dad was heading
over to Hollywood Video to check it out a few weeks after it opened and
asked me if I wanted to go with him. With nothing particular in
mind, I roamed around the store a bit before finding their very large
video game section. A few things were different with Hollywood
Video compared to the grocery store or Blockbuster. All the video
games were five-day rentals for $5.00 and they all had their original
instruction booklets secured inside their plastic rental boxes.
Seeing Illusion of Gaia on the shelf instantly sparked the memory of
seeing it on TV and flipping through the thick instruction booklet
sealed the deal - I had to play this game. We rented it and over
the next couple days I completed it for the first time.
I'm not sure what it was but from the
moment I started the game up something about it just totally clicked
with me. I had a real emotional connection to the characters and
events that shaped them. I was immersed in the presentation and
music and all the little nuances. I actually sat back and thought
about things that occurred during the events of the game as it
proceeded. Perhaps it had something to do with my age at the
time, I was thirteen-years-old if my memory is correct. The game
actually made me feel sad in some parts and truly surprised in
others. It elicited a tangible response in me, especially the
ending, that I had never experienced before while playing a video
game. It just totally blew me away unlike anything else. As
the years rolled on I figured a lot of its impact must have had to do
with me being a kid at the time but no... Illusion of Gaia continues to
stir those feelings in me over twenty-five years later and has remained
my absolute favorite video game since that first play.
Young Will jumps down
from a ledge (left), the Moon Tribe are encountered many times
throughout the game (center), the first boss battle (right)
Illusion of Gaia is an action game
similar to The Legend of Zelda but with much more emphasis on a
structured narrative, revolving around travels with a group of
companions, akin to a traditional RPG. The game takes place
during the age of exploration, when travelers and adventurers set out
to search for relics and treasures to unravel the mysteries of the
ancient world. Young Will accompanied his father Olman on one
such expedition, from the seaside town of South Cape to the legendary
Tower of Babel. Upon discovering and entering the tower a
mysterious tragedy befalls the party and everyone is lost without a
trace - everyone except for Will. Will is unable to remember what
happened to the lost expedition, his father, how he escaped, or even
how he was able to return to South Cape. However in his
possession is a strange flute he recalls was found within the
tower. Stranger still, since his return he is able to move
objects through the power of thought alone. Unable to reconcile
the events of his father's lost expedition, Will sets out with his
friends in an attempt to piece together what happened to him in the
Tower of Babel.
What sets Illusion of Gaia apart from
many adventure games is Dark Space, a gateway that only Will can see
due to his psychic powers. When in Dark Space, Will can
communicate with Gaia, his guardian spirit. This serves as a
means to save the game and replenish Will's life, in addition to be
given progression advice and hints from Gaia. It is here at the
beginning that Gaia warns Will about an approaching comet that will
cause chaos and destruction, and tasks him with locating the Mystic
Statues. As the adventure progresses Gaia will also bestow new
powers upon young Will, granting him expanded abilities.
Additionally as Will gets deeper into his adventure, he will be able to
turn into two other beings from inside Dark Space. The first,
Freedan the Dark Knight, has a long sword for better reach and can also
learn various special abilities. The second, Shadow the Ultimate
Warrior, attacks with waves of pure energy from his body and can also
sink through floors to access new areas. A lot of the game is
spent changing back and forth between Will and Freedan, utilizing their
individual special abilities to solve puzzles and overcome
obstacles. While Shadow is the most powerful character on paper,
he doesn't appear until near the very end of the game and is really
only used for the final dungeon and end battle.
Due to its setting during the
rediscovery of the ancient world, Illusion of Gaia sends Will and
company to every corner of the planet as the adventure
progresses. There is a ton of diversity in the environments
encountered and each area has a unique feel and visual style.
Many sites are modeled on real-world locations and ancient structures,
even if some artistic liberties are taken on occasion. A bit of
myth and legend also works its way into the journey, mixing things up,
with reinterpretations such as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon being a
UFO that hovers above the Nazca lines. I love stuff like that,
combining different interpretations of myth and fact, both ancient and
contemporary. It makes the game just a tiny bit historic but
constantly throws surprising occurrences and plot twists at the player,
which keeps things engaging and unpredictable.
Illusion of Gaia
isn't afraid to slow the action down (left), Will must make a moral
decision (center), exploring the Seaside Palace (right)
Although always played from the same
perspective, there are two main styles of gameplay that make up
Illusion of Gaia, which will be familiar to anyone who has played an
RPG. Towns, villages, and non-action areas place emphasis on
talking with characters and exploring the environments to obtain
information. Action areas can be considered Illusion of Gaia's
dungeons and are centered around combat. Young Will uses his
flute as his primary weapon but he eventually learns an extremely
useful and powerful sliding kick. His psychic power can move some
objects and enemies, in addition to drawing items toward him.
Enemies generally drop small or large Dark Gems and collecting 100 of
them grants Will a Renew, what the game's extra lives are called.
Being revived with a Renew will start Will at the entrance to the area
where he lost his life, with half energy. Enemies will also
occasionally drop a Heart Gem, which allows Will to recover 5HP of his
life bar but these drops are rather infrequent. Destroying all
the enemies in an area will award one of three permanent status
upgrades: an increase of the life bar, an increase in attack strength,
or an increase in defense that will reduce damaged incurred. This
makes finding and destroying every enemy in every area critical to
building up Will's power. To assist in this an enemy radar is
displayed on the status screen. Clearing an area of all enemies
can also open up doors to new areas or reveal new paths, so be sure to
dispatch them all.
A side objective to exploration is
finding and collecting 50 Red Jewels that are hidden across the
world. The Jeweler Gem is encountered very early on in the game
and he will offer rewards depending on how many Red Jewels are
collected. Some of these can be very tricky to find, especially
one right at the beginning of the game that requires a fisherman to
pull a pot out of the ocean with his fishing line. Obtaining all
50 Red Jewels actually requires Will to make some questionable
decisions, such as telling a labor trader where an escaped laborer is
hiding. This is also something very unique about Illusion of Gaia
- death and despair are everywhere at every turn and this goes far
beyond fighting demons in dungeons. There is a global slave labor
trade that runs throughout the events of the game, with it permeating
nearly every industry within the world, especially mining. Most
towns try to hide this dirty secret under a shining facade but those
involved in the trade see it as a necessary part of business. A
couple lines of dialogue concerning this have always stuck with me, one
spoken by a man at a labor market, "These laborers are the same age as
you. Remember, there are people everywhere who live this way."
The other, much later in the game, occurs in a room where women are
weaving carpets that take forty years to complete. Essentially
they will spend their entire life weaving a single carpet in
bondage. A whip-holding supervisor in the room tells Will,
"Remember, little man. Some are born to misfortune."
At one point the party makes their
way to a small village littered with bones. It is later revealed
that the natives in the village have resorted to cannibalism due to how
scarce food has become. This is censored in the English release,
explaining the bones to be those of natives who perished due to hunger,
but it's easy to see what the original intent was. One of my
favorite places in the game, Angel Village, is inhabited by ancient
people who adapted to live underground. They will die if exposed
to the light and in the darkness they have learned to live devoid of
human expression and emotion. Will approaches one inhabitant
standing where a ray of sunlight is shining through the ceiling, and
states that she is motionless, as if her spirit was gone from her
body. In essence she has committed suicide by standing in the
light, possibly due to the lack of purpose from living without
emotion. There are many encounters such as these throughout the
game, little vignettes of the reality of life and death, that are
unexpected for a game of this era and platform. The entire
adventure has very dark undertones in this respect but hides it just a
bit below the surface, requiring the player to absorb these encounters
and then think about them as the game progresses.
Equally unexpected is the amount of
character development that occurs within the small group that
accompanies Will on his journey. The interactions among the group
are what really make the game more than a simple action title.
The cast changes and grows as the events of the game and time together
impact them. They actually mature as relationships are formed,
which is something I find lacking in most RPGs, including more modern
offerings. People leave, they come back, they're thrown curve
balls that upend their lives, they decide on different paths, or fate
pulls them in unexpected directions. Most importantly nearly
every story that has to do with the group pays off, and pays off fully,
with some real emotion and maturity. There may be a dark side to
every shining happy town but a notion of responsibility to change one's
predetermined path when able runs through the entire game.
Searching the Nazca
Plain for clues (left), Angel Village is interesting but ultimately sad
(center), Will sliding to attack at the Great Wall (right)
I'd be remiss if I didn't touch on
the music of Illusion of Gaia, which contains some of the most
incredible compositions to ever grace the hardware. Pounding
drums, eerily lonely flutes, soaring orchestrations, quiet moments of
remembrance... there is simply nothing like the soundtrack to this
game. The tune that plays while on the map screen is one that has
always stuck out for me in particular. It begins as a smooth
rhythmic whistle with a bit of backing, as if Will is whistling to
himself as he crosses the land. It then trails into acoustic
strumming, which further emphasizes the idea of a party walking from
one location to another, as if the group is playing this tune to pass
the time as they journey on. There are also some very haunting
pieces of music that are timed masterfully with story events. A
perfect example of this takes place on the Nazca Plain. An
encounter in this area still freaks me out and sends chills down my
spine - every time - even after all these years. Like genuine
actual shivers, from the first time I played it to my most recent
playthrough prior to writing this article. That encounter may not
surprise me anymore but man does it still freak me out for whatever
reason, and the music has a lot to do with that.
Although I love the game and it
remains my favorite, there are some things I really don't like about
it. While the music is amazing, it's honestly kind of strange
what little emphasis is placed on sound effects and how limited they
are. They're mostly relegated to sounds of enemies shooting,
areas opening up, and attacks deflecting. While there are sounds
for all these events, they are generally very quiet and simple.
What's strange is until specifically thinking about the modesty of the
game's sound effects, I really didn't notice them as being
lacking. The game's audio package doesn't feel empty or missing
and that has to do with the amazing music. Perhaps that's why the
sound effects are so subdued but not absent. Enemy design is also
pretty mixed although the bosses are generally impressive and the
character sprites are very nice.
Admittedly the later part of the game
really does begin to drag story wise, with the group narrative falling
to the wayside in favor of simply moving from dungeon to dungeon.
When the drive to journey off and explore these locations is character
driven it's fine but the push becomes to just go somewhere and clear it
out with minimal plot exposition. Granted, reason is always given
why Will needs to head to a specific place or look for the next quest
item but toward the end these events aren't very well explained.
Most of the time a discussion about an item or location is only spoken
of by a single NPC and can be missed, with the plot advancing via
Will's narration or internal monologue once exiting an area
regardless. This can catch you off guard, as walking to a town
exit will sometimes advance the game by leaps and bounds or mention
heading out for a special item unexpectedly. It would be nice if
more emphasis was placed on how or why events occur in these instances,
and if the player had to meet exploration or discussion objectives
before the plot went speeding off to the next key point. The
strange translation doesn't help much in this respect, with many
important exchanges near the end either phrased oddly or spoken in an
incorrect order.
Although the Mystic Statues are
framed early on as the key to solving the events of the game, exactly
what they are or what significance they hold within the world is never
explained. I see kind of what they were trying to do, with two
Mystic Statues either being created or revered as spiritual artifacts
each time the comet passes Earth, after the comet's creation around the
time the Tower of Babel was constructed. The Mystic Statues are
found near regions where ancient civilizations once flourished, created
and then destroyed by the evolutionary power of the comet, every 800
years when it passes Earth: Egypt and China on the comet's first pass,
Angkor Wat and the lost continent of Mu on its second pass, the Nazca
and Inca civilizations on its third pass, and finally when the events
of the game take place on the comet's fourth pass. The comet
having an 800 year orbital period and its current approach being the
fourth time it has arrived are specifically mentioned in the game as
major plot points. It also makes sense that only during the
"modern" age of exploration, in which the game takes place, would one
person have the means to be able to travel across the world and
discover all six Mystic Statues. However other than a tiny bit of
dialogue about who made them near the end of the game, what the Mystic
Statues are specifically or what power they contain remains a total
mystery from beginning to end. That's something that has never
sat right with me, no matter how much I think about it.
Mt. Kress can be
rather confusing (left), inventory fills quickly when playing
conservatively (center), Will in Dark Space with Gaia and his alter
egos (right)
Inventory management is a huge hassle
and the worst part of the game. There are only sixteen inventory
slots and often at least four of them will be taken up by quest
items. Some quest items can be dropped once utilized or will
automatically be cleared out at specific points but Will is often
saddled with them long after they are useful. While Red Jewels
can instantly be sent to Gem by activating one when equipped, there
still has to be space in inventory to first collect it. Herbs are
the only standard health replenishing consumable but they cannot be
purchased, instead there are a finite number of them spread throughout
the game. Inventory items do not stack, so the majority of Will's
inventory will usually be filled with herbs, conserved due to their
scarcity. The thing is while herbs are very useful early on when
Will is weak, they only replenish a very small amount of life, meaning
you'll need a whole lot of them to have any real effect later in the
game. They can get you out of a tight spot but are often more of
a bandage until a Dark Space can be found. Since dying and being
revived with a Renew starts Will with half energy, that can become a
better strategy once his life bar is built up. That said, if you
play perfectly and locate every herb, there is a point in the game were
you will have to toss one to collect a quest item as Will's inventory
will be full. Additionally the inventory system is very clunky,
making it both somehow difficult to equip an item you want yet easy to
select an item you don't.
Illusion of Gaia is a surprisingly
linear and story-structured game compared to most other action RPGs,
especially its cousins Soul Blazer and Terranigma. Some people
may dislike that but I really enjoy it. There's a story to be
told and the game is built around telling that narrative through
experiences and encounters. I understand the mechanic of
defeating all the enemies in every dungeon may also not sound appealing
but it has never bothered me. The game would greatly benefit from
a fresh translation as there are some terms and lines of dialogue that
were quite botched in the English release all those years ago.
Some of these aren't a huge issue but others have actually created
disagreement among some fans concerning interpretation of main game
events and even the ending. It's almost criminal that of all the
games that have received fan re-translations, Illusion of Gaia has
continued to be ignored.
I've probably played through Illusion
of Gaia at least thirty times over the years and enjoyed it each and
every time. When playing it again in preparation for writing this
article I did so over the course of a few evenings and every time I sat
down to play I was genuinely excited and looking forward to it.
Even if the mysteries had all been solved, even if I knew where the odd
spots in the translation were, even if I knew where to find the Red
Jewels, and even if I knew I'd get lost in the depths of Mu and the
heights of Mt. Kress. No other game has ever gotten close to the
impact Illusion of Gaia made upon me and continues to make upon me
every time I play it. I'm glad I still love it as much as ever
and that it has become far less obscure than it was when I first
discovered it decades ago.
Nightmare
/ Clean Octopus
The Lost Video Game of the Spanish Company Playmatic
I'm a Retrogaming Times reader
from Europe, mostly from the Tom Zjaba era, around the early 2000's. I
loved the regular sections like "The Many faces of..." Also back then
it gave me a US video game perspective, as opposed to Europe. In my
country, Spain, popular computers were the likes of Sinclair Spectrum
and Amstrad CPC. In Retrogaming Times I learned about Apple II, COCO,
TI-99/4A and consoles like ColecoVision and Intellivision. One of
the motivations that have led me to delve into the beginnings of the
video game in Spain is the lack of information and knowledge; there are
Spanish games that are still missing, and many remain unknown even to
the majority of Spanish fans. Proof of this is the arcade video
game Nightmare from the Playmatic company.
Detail of the Clean
Octopus
flyer, Playmatic. Source: Amado Ferri, Retrolaser.es.
BEGINNINGS
To speak of the beginnings of arcade
video game design in Spain it is necessarily to speak of CIDELSA,
Playmatic, and EFO SA, located in Barcelona. Playmatic was one of the
most important pinball manufacturing companies in Spain. EFO SA
(Electrónica Funcional Operativa SA) was commissioned to design
the
hardware for Playmatic's first solid state electronic pinball games,
based on the RCA COSMAC CDP1802 CPU. Their first model of this new era
of pinball was Space Gambler at the end of 1977, then imported to the
United States and Canada by Universe Affiliated International, Inc.
Playmatic Space
Gambler pinball
flyer, with electronics developed by EFO SA.
As a consequence of the video game
revolution at the end of the 1970's, in 1980 the CIDELSA brand (Centro
Industrial de Desarrollos Electrónicos S.A.) was born, devised
by Playmatic and EFO, and under it appeared the first video game
designed entirely in Spain, Destroyer. It was a vertical shooter,
contemporary to games like Galaxian, Phoenix and Astro Fighter.
Destroyer was followed by Altair, Altair II and Draco, the latter a
multiscreen game with two joysticks for independent control of the
character and direction of fire, in the style of arcades like Space
Dungeon (Taito) and the famous Robotron (Williams Electronics).
IN
SEARCH OF CHUBY, THE NIGHTMARE OCTOPUS
However, these first titles were not
the only ones released by Playmatic. While researching the history of
these companies while writing on Retrolaser.es, I found Playmatic's
record of several titles that were totally unknown to me. Among them
stood out Nightmare. I had little information then, except that other
titles such as Clean Octopus or Chuby were being considered for
Nightmare. But hardly anyone clearly remembered this machine, nor were
any images of the game available. Finally, thanks to contact with
a former Playmatic employee, I obtained graphic material with game
flyers. Likewise, Amado Ferri, pseudonym of this contact, cleared up
the confusion about the names: Nightmare was the original name, which
was kept for the Spanish version, while for the version planned for
foreign countries it was renamed to Clean Octopus. Chuby was simply the
name of the game's protagonist octopus.
Playmatic novelties
for 1982:
Spain '82 pinball for the World Cup, Miss Disco bingo machine,
and Night Mare video game.
The “Nigth” error in the marquee was fixed
in time. Source: Amado Ferri, Retrolaser.es.
Once the mysteries about this game
were clarified, only the most difficult part was missing: find a PCB
and get the game dumped to prevent it from disappearing forever. Thanks
to the enthusiasm of the members of the asociación A.R.C.A.D.E.,
based in Barcelona, over time a PCB corresponding to the Spanish
version (the so-called Nightmare, with texts in Spanish) was located by
two arcade fans: Jordi Beltrán and Paco Ortiz. Once the ROM was
dumped, MAME devs Tomasz Slanina, Miguel Angel Horna (aka "ElSemi") and
Roberto Fresca were in charge of studying the hardware in depth to
write a specific driver for emulating the game. Unfortunately the board
was missing the sound ROMs, consequently the emulation in MAME lacks
them.
As for the game itself, Nightmare
consisted of driving a friendly octopus named Chuby through eight
different screens. In each of them, ten hidden treasures had to be
recovered in labyrinths, which were plagued by enemies such as beetles,
crabs or scorpions. If the player took a long time to pass the screen,
the enemies ended up turning into piranhas, which were
indestructible. The greatest difficulty, however, was in the sea
currents that appeared on certain screens, with only a small hole to be
able to cross them and thus access other areas of the screen. On the
other hand, an interesting detail was that the game included a map that
allowed you to choose the order to complete each of the eight
screens. The hardware consisted of two RCA CDP1802 COSMAC, one as
main processor and one for sound, and two VDP (Video Display
Processors) similar to TMS9928 from Texas Instruments. This allowed
sprites to be layered to simulate more colors. Finally, the scores and
configuration of game parameters (difficulty, number of lives, etc.)
were saved in an EPROM.
Screen selection
(left), gameplay (center), title screen (right). The hardware uses two
VDPs to display multi-color sprites.
Nightmare was released in 1982
directly under Playmatic, thus eliminating the CIDELSA brand. After
Nightmare, Playmatic would abandon the business of video games and
would return to focus on the production of pinball. Fernando Yago,
designer of these games and considered the father of the commercial
video game in Spain, would also leave video games to start a new
professional career with Cedar Computer. But this would not be the
final outcome in his relationship with video games and arcade machines.
Nightmare used two
VDPs
to overlay
sprites to display more colors. Image credit: Tomasz Slanina.
RELATED
LINKS (in Spanish):
- EFOSA and CIDELSA, pioneers of
arcade video games, at Retrolaser.es. - Preserved Nightmare by EFO /
Playmatic, the octopus game, a Spanish arcade game from 1982, at
Recreativas.org.
When
our dear editor asked the writers to write about their favorite game
for the final issue, the directive was somewhat open ended so I decided
on a game on a modern system. That game would be Arms by Nintendo for the Nintendo
Switch. Arms was released by Nintendo in June of 2017, several
months after the Nintendo Switch was released. I bought the
Switch sometime in late 2017 or early 2018. My intent in
buying the switch was to have a portable game system to play while I
was traveling for work or for pleasure. While I liked playing
games on my iPhone initially, the fun had slowly gone away trying to
push button on a screen. While buying the Switch was a good
idea, the problem with buying the Switch system so early was that games
were quite lacking at that time. Most of the games were Nintendo
releases and third party games had yet to take off. I was not
aware of Arms at all during its initial release. I was looking
more for classic 80's arcade games and sports games versus a new
fighting game. That would explain some of purchases like Namco
Museum, FIFA 18, and RBI Baseball 2018.
Fast
forward to April of 2020 though. The country is in the early
stages of the COVID pandemic and everyone is on lockdown at home.
As documented in The Retrogaming Times, my Switch (and my Wii) became
lifelines. I played games and also exercised a lot using the game
systems, and still do even though we are no longer stuck at home.
At one point while using my Switch, I saw a news article mentioning
Arms and a free trial. I had just missed playing in a tournament
a week or two before, and as I was stuck at home and looking for ways
to stay active, I downloaded the Arms trial and gave the game a
spin. It took me a while but I realized I like Arms because I
could use the motion controls. I felt very active playing the
game and could break a little sweat. I played Arms a lot during
the free trial. However when the trial ended, I debated if I
wanted to pay $60 for the game. I thought about it for a week or
so and ended up purchasing the game late April or early May of 2020.
Now
in August 2022, Arms is my most played game versus any other program
(game or exercise) on my Switch. The Switch has me playing the
game for over 1500+ hours if I recall correctly, and I'm still playing
it today. I like jumping into a party match where I can do one
vs. one fights, among other games - basketball, volleyball, 2 v 2,
etc. There is also a ranked component where you fight someone
else in a best of three battle. The more you win, the higher your
rank goes. I managed to get myself to Rank 17 but have not
progressed beyond that in the past year or so.
Arms
is fun but can be frustrating as well. The party matches are fun
because you can fight and not worry about screwing up your rank.
It can be frustrating depending on the opponents. There are a lot
of nuances to the game and sometimes the matchup just won't go your
way. Ranked fights can be one of the more frustrating aspects of
the game. During the early days when you'd try ranked fighting,
you'd probably get matched to players at a similar level. As you
move up, sometimes you get matched up with a higher ranked
player. Higher ranked players aren't automatically better than
you, it means the player has won a lot of matches to advance.
That being said, I'd like to think of myself as decent Arms
player. As a player ranked 17, I have gotten matched up against
players ranked 18, 19, or 20 and simply gotten destroyed. For a
time, there were players in the upper ranks that looked to only play
against lower rank players they could beat easily, so they could move
up faster. I play sports so I understand the nature of
competition and I get frustrated purely because it's an ego thing.
These
days with Arms being over 5 years old, there are still a lot of players
playing party matches but less players (at least in my area) playing
ranked matches, and that is ok by me. I like to drop in, get some
games in and move on to the next thing. I am a strong supporter
of the Arms game though Nintendo hasn't announced a sequel or any
future plans. There's a small Reddit community still discussing
Arms and I hope Arms can be refreshed, updated and introduced to a new
generation. Arms isn't your typical button mashing fighting game,
which is probably why I like it. If you like button mashing,
stick with Super Smash Bros. If you have a Switch and like
fighting games with an online component, check out Arms. I think
you'll like it.
On the
occasion of our silver anniversary, many of our current staff take a
look back at their time with the newsletter and what lies ahead for
them.
Merman:
It was former
editor Bryan Roppolo who got me involved after I saw him posting about
Retrogaming Times Monthly on the Lemon64 forum. My initial contribution
was a "cult classic" article, highlighting a C64 game I love -
Mancopter from Datasoft. That column continued until 2014, a mixture of
reviews and news. When David Lundin, Jr. approached me about continuing
to write for the revived Times in 2016, I accepted. And I have managed
to contribute to every issue since, despite major health problems
during that time. The articles for this period have been a mixture of
news, reviews and retrospective pieces looking at a particular
publisher or genre.
A
reminder of my new venture and my first Retrogaming Times Monthly
appearance.
It was always
a privilege when my article was chosen to be the cover feature, getting
the headline on the front page of the "newspaper." Its been great fun
researching and writing these articles, and I have enjoyed being part
of the team. Going forward, I plan to publish a book / eBook compiling
all my articles under the name MORE C64 (with extra material,
unpublished pieces, and updates). So for more information on that,
check out my new website at www.c64books.co.uk and sign up
to the mailing list to find out more, follow me on Twitter at
@merman1974 or @c64books.co.uk and see my YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/merman1974
~ ~ ~
Donald Lee:
I must admit
that when David announced that The Retrogaming Times was going to end,
I was a bit disappointed. Not in David of course. Once I
got past the initial jitters of writing back in 2006, I looked forward
to writing a column as it was something fun to do... Keep in mind
that Retrogaming Times Monthly was published monthly (obviously) so I
would be literally writing just about every month. When RTM
abruptly stopped some years ago, I was equally disappointed, but in
some ways it was a blessing as it gave me a break. When David
decided to revive the magazine about six years ago, I immediately
jumped on board. The bi-monthly schedule has been good so I can
find topics to discuss and write about.
Focusing
specifically on the Apple II, when I started writing in 2006, the Apple
II series of computers had been discontinued for over a decade.
In the public eye, the Apple II was dead. But there was still a
small community of users developing hardware and software. It is
shocking to see that even in 2022, there is still activity within the
Apple II community. I have several pieces of modern software for
the Apple II that I play via emulation on my iMac. I never got
around to discussing the games at length in the magazine, but perhaps
one day I may return to writing about retrogaming.
While The
Retrogaming Times is coming to an end, the retrogaming communities
around the world will live on. What’s next for me? Outside
of writing, I’m generally busy and I will return to my regular job and
basketball activities. However, as I was talking to my friend
tonight, it so happened we were discussing about blogging. This
was more for my friend than me but I happened to look up some blogs I
had setup and guess what? I have an "Apple II Incider" blog
tentatively setup. I just haven’t registered an official domain
yet for the blog, but I have looked into domain name options so there
are some I could pick in the future.
Wrapping up
here, it has been a pleasure to write for Retrogaming Times Monthly /
The Retrogaming Times for much of the past 16 years. I have truly
enjoyed writing and sharing my experiences and I hope the readers have
enjoyed reading it. While there won’t be a next issue, perhaps I
will see you at a blog near you sometime in the future.
~ ~ ~
Dan Pettis:
Writing for
the Retrogaming Times has been one of the truest joys of my life. From
my time growing up obsessively reading Nintendo Power, Player's Guides,
and Game Informer, I’d always wanted to write for a video game
publication and this newsletter gave me the chance to live out my
dream. For that I’ll be eternally grateful.
I think the
coolest thing will be that my very first and last Retrogaming Times
articles wound up being about my all-time favorite game, Bucky O'Hare
for the NES. Bringing things full circle with the green rabbit could
not be more perfect to me. Some of my other favorite memories include
the pride of landing a cover story, and feeling like a real movie
critic by reviewing Sonic 2 after seeing it in a theater. The
ultra-hard NES games I reviewed and attempted to beat that gave me the
old-school feeling of accomplishment when I completed them, and the
other nostalgic feeling of wanting to smash a controller and pull my
hair out. There was penning a super lengthy retrospective on the
twentieth anniversary of the GameCube, and writing with twenty-one
different suggestions for new Smash Bros. characters. I also immensely
enjoyed cramming as many puns as I could into an article about the
recently released Zelda Game & Watch. Finally, there was the
genuine fear that I might get beaten up by the actor who played Shao
Kahn in Mortal Kombat Annihilation, when I found out he'd be appearing
at a local gaming convention I attended after I wrote a less then
stellar review of the second MK movie.
I have a few
people I'd like to thank, first and foremost, supreme kudos have to go
out to our tireless chief editor David Lundin, Jr., for keeping The
Retrogaming Times alive for so long, and for putting my articles out
there on the World Wide Web. Thank you for taking a chance on me and
for publishing so many of my pieces. Secondly, I have to give a special
shout out to my fabulous fiancée, who has been so supportive of
me chasing my dreams, and for being the best unpaid editor a nerd could
have, and for catching so many of my typos. Finally, I have to thank
all of our readers. You give us writers a reason to exist. Thank you
for reading and for keeping the old fashioned art of writing alive.
I’ll be taking
a brief break from writing about my favorite subject to focus on
planning my upcoming wedding, working on my house and playing more
games purely for fun. The best place to find my future dorky postings
will be on Instagram at the username Egonatello85. Finally I’d like to
leave you with one final piece of advice: follow your dreams and never
stop getting your game on!
~ ~ ~
David Lundin, Jr:
I first
discovered the original Retrogaming Times when I was a senior in high
school, late 1998 into 1999. At the time retrogaming was what
many consider "vintage gaming" today, as at the time you could walk
into a FuncoLand and purchase pretty much any game from the NES era to
what was then current - and I mean any game, usually for only a few
dollars. I read the newsletter off and on for years, continually
rediscovering it as life marched on. It was always interesting,
and informative, and just a bit humorous. When Tom Zjaba
announced in 2004 that Retrogaming Times issue 80 would be the last, a
number of people on the very large staff at the time expressed a desire
to continue. Tom granted their request and in June of that year
Retrogaming Times Monthly was launched with Adam King as editor, joined
by many of the regular writers who had contributed to the original
newsletter. The call went out, as it always had from the
beginning, for people to join the staff and send in articles. I
responded toward the end of the year and my first contribution was
published that December in Retrogaming Times Monthly issue 7, kicking
off a long-running column covering all the NES arcade conversions
released by Tengen.
Carving out my niche
in the newsletter in 2004 with Retrogaming Times Monthly issue 7, where
it all began for me.
While I wasn't
the most regular contributor back then, I tried to remain reasonably
frequent and found my niche comparing NES home ports of arcade games to
their original counterparts, even long after the Tengen titles ran
out. We had a few different editors during that time, writers
coming and going, different personalities, and both successful and
disastrous format changes (anyone reading remember the infamous RTM
blog issue?). Yet no matter the uncertainties faced, we pulled
together and kept the newsletter rolling until 2014. Reviving the
newsletter in 2016 as The Retrogaming Times was honestly undertaken to
allow its staff, readers, and history to conclude on a high note - with
a celebration and farewell at an appropriate milestone. That
milestone was to be the 20th anniversary in 2017 but once we arrived
there it was like old times and we decided to keep going. Here we
are, five years later, at an even bigger milestone - a quarter century
- and the time feels right to cap things off on that high note
mentioned earlier.
After we wrap
you'll still be able to find me right here - maintaining the legacy
archive,
answering and routing e-mails, and maintaining The Retrogaming Times
social media accounts. I'm also planning on getting a few of my
other mixed interest information and fansites going again at
classicplastic.net, which will continue to host all Retrogaming Times
legacy content separately, as it has since 2016.
Every Friday on The Retrogaming Times
Facebook
page (facebook.com/theretrogamingtimes),
we presented a Weekly Retrogaming Trivia question. This
just-for-fun
trivia challenge provided each week was an opportunity to test your
arcane
and oddball retrogaming knowledge. The answer to the question
from
the previous week was posted along with a new trivia question every
Friday!
Below is the recap of all
questions and
answers posted between this issue and the previous issue:
07/01/2022 - WEEK 269 Question: Japanese
pop star Yoko Ishino was featured in what Sega arcade game?
07/08/2022
- WEEK 270 Question: What
three games are utilized on the 1990 Nintendo World Championships
cartridge?
07/15/2022
- WEEK 271 Question: Mary
Barrows is the main antagonist of what horror game?
07/22/2022
- WEEK 272 Question:
"Rockabilly Paradise" is the subtitle of what game?
07/29/2022
- WEEK 273 Question: What was
the first amusement park operated by a video game company?
08/05/2022
- WEEK 274 Question: Who are
the playable characters in the original Japanese version of Guerrilla
War?
08/12/2022
- WEEK 275 Question: What is
the name of the player character in Konami's Yie Ar Kung-Fu?
08/19/2022
- WEEK 276 Question: The Bydo
Empire are the antagonists of what shooting game series?
08/26/2022
- WEEK 277 Question: Balloon
Saloon, Flying Saucers, and Window Pains are modes in what game?
Yoko Ishino on the
flyer for Teddy Boy Blues, her sprite is also used as our Upcoming
Events icon (left) Super Air Zonk's title screen
(right)
Answers: Week 269 Answer: Teddy Boy
Blues (1985). Week 270 Answer: Super Mario
Bros., Rad Racer, and Tetris. Week 271 Answer: Clock Tower. Week 272 Answer: Super Air Zonk. Week 273 Answer: Wonder Eggs in
Setagaya, Tokyo - operated by Namco from 1992 to 2000. Week 274 Answer: Che Guevara
and Fidel Castro, with the Japanese title being Guevara. Week 275 Answer: Oolong. Week 276 Answer: R-Type. Week 277 Answer: Barker Bill's
Trick Shooting (NES).
Although developed by
Irem, R-Type was distributed by Nintendo in the USA (left), Barker
Bill's Trick Shooting is an excellent NES lightgun game (right)
Thank
you for following us on our social
media accounts for many years of Weekly Retrogaming Trivia!
Reading
through past issues, I recall Scott Jacobi making reference to the
feeling of an episode of Saturday Night Live wrapping up, as he wrote
his farewell during his tenure as RTM Chief Editor. It's no
secret that his style of managing and editing the newsletter is what
I've attempted to emulate more than any other. In this moment I
feel less like a guest host of Saturday Night Live and maybe more like
Conan O'Brien on his last episode of Late Night. I didn't create
this newsletter, and I was probably one of the last people anyone
thought would step out of the shadows to edit and publish it, let alone
attempt to unify its history and maintain the archive.
I was only
able to do it because so many of you came along for the ride.
Those who were contributing day one, those who were reading day one -
and those who are first doing the same here at the end, in addition to
anyone discovering us years after we've wrapped. Late Night was
never the same after Conan O'Brien departed but it wasn't just because
of him, it was due to the unique mix of talents and dedication of
everyone coming together to make the show - lightning in a
bottle. The Retrogaming Times has been successful due to everyone
here sharing their experiences and knowledge over the years. If I
have anything to do with that success, it's simply for being along side
them.
In my time
serving as Chief Editor I've had the privilege and responsibility to do
things that I could have never imagined previously. I've had the
opportunity to welcome many new contributors to the lasting legacy of
the newsletter. I've documented occurrences from my younger days
that I had never discussed previously, finding parts of retrogaming
memories that go beyond games. I've written a eulogy for a lost
friend, who left this place far too soon and is still missed
terribly. I've had to defend the valid opinions and concerns of
our writers when they were challenged by established video game
industry creators. I've had the opportunity to publish so many
genuinely excellent articles and learn from those who submit
them. I stand by what I've said for so many years - this really
is the coolest gig in the retrogaming fandom, at least I've always
thought so. There have been ups and downs, challenges and
rewards, however I truly loved every moment. I'd be lying if I
said I wasn't quite misty-eyed as I close us out with this column.
Thinking back,
I guess I really must thank Adam King, the initial Chief Editor for
Retrogaming Times Monthly, for giving me a shot way back when. If
I didn't start there in 2004 we probably wouldn't be here now. I
never considered myself a "retrogamer" or a "collector" and surely not
a writer or anything like that. I played games, they were fun,
they never quit being fun as time moved on, and I enjoyed discussing
and learning about them. Back then it was never an intention to
have a huge library of games, they were simply prevalent and
cheap. I've written in past issues how attempting to reacquire a
copy of Dragon Power for the NES, after nearly all my games were stolen
in a robbery when I was nine-years-old, lead me down the path to
unintentionally "collecting" video games.
Looking through games at
the San Jose Flea Market in 2008. I did business with this
vendor, seen to the right of me, for many years across multiple cities.
Note the boxed clear green replacement Dreamcast shell and Densha de
Go! controller beside me - $1.00 each back then, I use both to this day.
Walking into a
FuncoLand store, grabbing the current price list, and then reading game
titles off to an employee for purchase wasn't to build a collection -
it was to be able to play all the games I didn't have the opportunity
to play before. That's how it went most of the time, with the
employee answering back, "Got it, got it, not that one, got it..."
until I would say, "Alright, that's good for today!" Then I'd get
rung up for the 15 - 30 games I requested, pay about $40 all said and
done, and walk out to the stunned expressions of other customers in the
store. I miss that time so much, if only because it made
everything so approachable for anyone. It kept old games from
being old because they were right there, right along side brand new
PlayStation games, with systems and accessories that were all
reasonably priced.
My last haul from local
game store "8 Bit Gamers" in 2015, with the surprise of a 500GB HD in
the Xbox, which lead me down the softmodding path for a while.
Of course the
reasonable prices wouldn't last as retrogaming became its own industry
and marketing juggernaut, both rivaling and influencing current
generation gaming. The flea market and yard sale finds began to
dry up. Even a local game store closed its doors, due to the very
old school and professional owner becoming shocked at the rising values
of old games and hardware. He realized it was fast becoming
something beyond the masses to have some affordable fun with, and
remembering the days when a boxed Sega Saturn would be $30 and you'd
pass it up as too expensive, he decided it was time to change
focus. I was happy that when I decided to slim my "collection"
way down, that most of my games were sold to him prior to his closure
and then sold to people who bought them to genuinely play and
enjoy. I was just starting to move to flashcarts, which along
with Optical Drive Emulators is how I play most games to this day.
I did make one
last purchase from him when he announced he was shutting the game store
down. I was on foot that day when he was liquidating inventory
and walked a mile and a half each way from the closest transit stop to
his store, to get there right when he opened. I got a pretty
amazing haul - a pair of Saturns, a Master System, Jaguar with
controller, PSOne, and an Xbox. I would have bought more but I
had to lug all that back by hand and in my backpack, even though he
offered to let me borrow a milk crate. Everything needed some
repair but one of those Saturns is actually still my main system.
I was only testing the Xboxes at the store to make sure they sounded
okay and that the drive door opened. Wasn't until I got home I
realized the one I grabbed had a 500GB HD and was softmodded.
That actually launched me into a couple years of softmodding Xboxes for
family and friends. I doubt he'll ever read this but if he does,
thanks Naht for operating such a great game store and giving many of us
in the South Bay a little taste of the old days for a while.
Standing with my first full
size arcade cabinet in 2007, a very rough Pole Position that I
converted into a stealth MAME setup (left).
At California Extreme 2012 with Klax, the one arcade game I can give
anyone an upper level competitive run at (center).
As my alter ego Taizo Hori / Dig Dug at California Extreme 2017, always
fun to see if anyone recognizes me after I change a few hours later
(right).
I dabble in a
lot of different hobbies, never going full-bore into any one specific
interest, but enjoying each of them and adapting experiences from one
into the others. An example of this is a Japanese slot machine I
completely rebuilt recently, using decades of electronics hobbyist
experience, and knowledge obtained in the past five years working on
radio control car gearboxes. Video games are the same way.
I've never been burned out on them and my love for playing games and
learning about them has never diminished one bit. Video games are
supposed to be fun, they are fun, they have never been anything but
that to me. They're not work, even they were my work off and on
over the years, the joy of experiencing them has never been outweighed
by anything else related. I'm honestly a fairly private person
but you probably wouldn't realize that if you ran into me at an event
or we were talking video games. I suppose this is all a really
roundabout way to say being part of the newsletter, especially these
past six years as Chief Editor, is a way for me to give back to an
awesome industry and hobby that has given me so much fun.
Thinking about it, that sounds an awful lot like something Tom said in
the very first issue twenty-five years ago.
My wife and I power
sliding through hotel hallways as the Hornet multiplayer cars from
Daytona USA at FanimeCon 2019 (left). Having ridiculous fun as my Street
Fighter main, Chun-Li, last Halloween (center).
Working on my small scale one-off Galaga Multigame MAME cabinet that is
setup
for classic vertical games (right).
While I am
forever thankful to everyone who has ever been a part of our
newsletter, there are three people I want to give a very special and
very heartfelt thank you to. First is Andrew Fisher, who has
contributed to every single issue of The Retrogaming Times. His
More C64! column is not only an important transitional link from
Retrogaming Times Monthly, it has given our publication reach in the
C64 hobbyist circles, allowing us to find global readership outside of
the Americas. With superb journalistic quality and enthusiasm in
every article, it lent credence to our newsletter right from the very
first issue of the re-launch. These are some of the many reasons
More C64! has been our lead-off column since near the beginning and has
continued as such right up to this final issue.
Next is Rob
Luther, who was outgoing senior staff and proprietor of Retrogaming
Times Monthly. It was only after getting his support and approval
that I moved forward in developing a new generation of the
newsletter. I truly feel very privileged to have been given such
an opportunity and to have Rob contribute to many of our issues.
Third is Tom Zjaba, creator of the original Retrogaming Times. I
never wrote for the generation of the newsletters in which he was
editor and publisher, but I was honored to have him write for
mine. A very special mention to Donald Lee, who like Andrew came
over from an earlier generation of the newsletter and really encouraged
me that there was still interest in a project such as this.
Special thanks
to KansasFest for being our constant promotion on the Upcoming Events
list, and contacting me right from the start to be hosted in our
listing. They are the most grass-roots of retro computing events
and it has been my pleasure to promote their annual convention within
our newsletter. I hope to get out there sometime and attend
myself. Apple II forever! I thank our staff and readers for
humoring me by not complaining about my "See You Next Game" column, my
own unique addition to the makeup of the newsletter, in the vein of
Howard Phillips' closing note at the end of each issue of Nintendo
Power that he was at the helm for. Doubly so for this longer than
usual final entry! Finally, thank you to my wife,
whom has always graciously tolerated many entire weekends and evenings
of me writing, editing, and taking care of newsletter business.
This final
issue isn't meant to say that we won't ever get together again down the
road or there won't ever be anything else from us. As you've read
in this issue much of our staff will continue elsewhere, whether with
parallel gigs they've been a part of during their tenure here or
entirely new projects about to begin. However it really does feel
right to cap Retrogaming Times right here at twenty-five years. I
will continue to maintain this site, the archive here, as well as
monitor our social media accounts and e-mail. So if you need to
contact the newsletter for any reason, please continue to do so and
I'll personally respond to you.
One thing I am
very proud of is we have remained 100% free and 100% independent since
day one. Not only this generation of the newsletter, but all the
way back to the original beginning. It is something that has
always been at our core - an open tablet for any retrogamer to inscribe
with their thoughts, memories, experiences, and musings. Keeping
our submissions open to pretty much anyone is why it has been my
absolute privilege to serve in the long line of Retrogaming Times Chief
Editors and Publishers.
Signing off one last time -
thank you for over six wonderful years as Chief Editor and nearly
eighteen years contributing to the greater newsletter.
So here at the
end, as I prepare to sign off for the final time, I hope we have
created something befitting of the legacy of a quarter century of
retrogaming fandom. We've been able to close out the greater
Retrogaming Times with proper fanfare and respect. I suppose from
the time the idea popped in my head to resume a new generation of the
newsletter, that has been what I most intended to accomplish.
I hope you
feel that is what we have done. The journey was only
possible with dedication of our contributors and you, our
readers. Thank you.
