I must have been seven or eight years old, and I remember when my brother and I received that very first Legend of Zelda NES cart. We tore apart the plastic cellophane and opened up the box to reveal… a gold cart.
We, along with millions of other kids, then spent their every waking hour on the first Zelda game released in the United States. Video game magazines then were hardly available (most having died off in the Video Game Crash of ‘83), there was no internet, let alone a GameFaqs.com, with easy-to-access information… everything was word of mouth. So when we put the cart it, we didn’t know what to expect… hell, we didn’t even know what to do. But we loved it.
When we found the first dungeon, walked inside, and the music turned to ominous (keep in mind, in those days we were used to only one or two music scores for an entire console game) we all looked to one another and wondered “Just where the hell were we?”. I think we may even have gotten scared and ran out of the dungeon, fearing that Link’s three measly hearts wouldn’t cut what we were about to face (which would end up being a few measly bats and a pretty weak boss).
We spent hours trying to figure our way through dungeons, hand drawing maps, not knowing where to go, finding items we had no idea what the hell they did. We fought through bad engrish, and we didn’t have one single walkthrough to help us. We had to rely on friends of friends whose friends had parents who would let them call the Nintendo hint helpline, or who had an older brother that had figured it out on their own.
I remember dungeon eight could only be found on the map by blowing a whistle at a certain fairy pond. Mind you there were no hints to lead you here. We spent close to a year trying to figure this out, and nobody we knew had even gotten that far. Lo and behold, one day my brother’s friend was goofing off, and blowing the whistle in every screen, and when he got to that particular fairy pond, blew the whistle, the pond dried up and the staircase appeared. We all looked at each other as our mouths dropped and just sat speechless for minutes.
In the end, I think it took us two years or so to complete Zelda… not that it was a hard game, not that it was we were dumb (maybe we were a little dumb) but because there was nothing that would tell us where to go or what did what (especially if you were one to lose the instruction manual, as we children so often did). Now you can onto the net, and in two clicks your answer is solved.
But back then, there were very few complex adventure games (console wise that is… if you were into Sierra dominated PC gaming back then, you were screwed and destined to log onto sierra BBS’ or buying hint books), so it was possible to take a year or two to solve and beat one game.
Into the future
Now every month (sometimes, every week) epic games that take hundreds of hours to complete are released, with complex gameplay and complicated puzzles, and lots of extra content… yet, it seems it only takes a couple weeks to a month of heavy playing (okay, sometimes two, max) to beat these games. I wonder how many of us (me included) can sit at one RPG or adventure game, get stuck on an area and then feel the itchy fingers and desire to head onto the internet to check for the answer.
But why waste time when the next best game is coming out tomorrow, or sitting on your shelf ready to play?
There is definitively something gone from the classic feeling of gaming in the retro era, but it’s a double edged sword. I would rather have the selection of games now than the selection I had back then, because if we had the same selection back then, we probably wouldn’t have spent two years playing Zelda.
But if you ever find yourself wondering… just wondering…what the hell it was like to be us back in the mid to late 80’s, go ahead, put in (or ROM up, or virtual console it up) a NES game you’ve never played (give Castlevania 2: Simons Quest a go!) and try to get through it without anything other than the manual it came with…hours of brain numbing exploration…trial and error…maybe a good ol' pen and paper.
The good, the bad, and the hope for a better tomorrow; all these are wrapped up in this week.
First, the bad. The XBox 360 turned 4. I'm not questioning the status of the 360 as the Ultimate Console Force in the Universe. I'm merely pointing out that, after four years, Microsoft still has issues ensuring the 360 remains Fully Operational, which in turn has left their XBox empire Vulnerable to Sony and Nintendo. Those of you reading this will likely fall into one of two camps: "Wow, fours years and no red ring of death yet!" or "Aargh! Four years and two 360s later, maybe this one will work." Sadly, for all the awesome brought to us by Halo, Assassin's Creed, and Madden, the 360 may always be remembered as much for its hardware issues as its gaming successes. And that's the bad side of the 360's birthday.
On the good side, we have the 5 year anniversary of World of Warcraft. The giant empire that sucked away the spare time of much of the free world has only been around for five years. Really, only five. Meanwhile, the origins of the Warcraft franchise are 15 years old. While I would love to join the masses celebrating a long Thanksgiving holiday with twenty hour marathon sessions in Azeroth... my internet connection at my current address makes WoW totally unplayable. I might have to stick with Orcs and Humans. And I'm ok with that.
And as for the hopes of a better tomorrow: Black Friday, meet the recessed gaming industry. Across the country, studios are showing a reluctance to hire. It is an understandable reluctance. Until we know for sure that the economy has stabilized and that the average consumer will open the wallet for a $50 title, development studios have to play conservatively. This holiday season is the perfect opportunity for consumers to provide that encouragement to the gaming industry.
So this weekend, do your part for the global economic recovery. Buy lots and lots of video games thus encouraging studios to invest in new workers, driving down unemployment and providing enjoyment and entertainment for all. Remember, only you can spark the gaming industry!
By now you've no doubt heard that Nintendo's last quarterly fiscal report was not as awesome as we have come to expect from Nintendo. Depending on where you get your financial news, you may be half convinced that the lower Wii numbers are a sign of doom for the company and an indicator of a tragic collapse in the gaming industry. In reality, it is no big deal. In fact, it might actually be good for gamers.
Yes, the PS3 has passed the Wii in monthly sales. There is an excellent reason for that. Two of them. Sony finally brought the PS3 price down to reality and the Wii, it seems, has just about saturated the market. With no equivalent of the Red Ring of Death to encourage repeat customers and help pad sales, once the Wii market is saturated the sales numbers will drop. That doesn't mean the death of the Wii. It simply means Nintendo's game has changed.
Now, more than at any other time since the release of the Wii, Nintendo will rely on software to drive revenue. If they want to continue to rake in a cool billion a quarter, they will have to sell games to all those millions of people who bought a Wii. That means Nintendo will have to find some good games for the Wii. And that could be a challenge, and that is why this is good for us.
For a very long time, the Wii has been flooded with crapware and cheap, ugly ports. Crapware and cheap, ugly ports do not make for happy accountants. We will only get burned by shoddy Wii titles so many times before we as gamers start to write off the Wii... and the Wii has been largely written off as a serious gaming platform. Nintendo's own franchise titles (New Super Mario Bros. Wii, for example) will continue to fly off the shelves in swarms... but Nintendo will have to do better. The occasional awesome Mario or Zelda title will not be enough to refill the corporate cash pipeline. Nintendo will have to come up with high quality, third party titles somewhere.
The result of rapidly declining Nintendo revenues, then, should be an increase in the number of high quality titles for us millions to play on our Wiis. Now that Nintendo will have to rely on software sales and has admitted they have dropped the ball in release good quality games, I think the company will focus more on what is published for the Wii. Better Wii games will mean more money for Nintendo.
From abysmal 8-bit graphics to fully 3D worlds on your cell phone, gaming has gone where just about nothing (except maybe Linux) has gone before. And that would be everywhere.
But no sooner does the gaming industry roll over the cell phone market than a brand new challenge appears. Coming soon, I have no doubt, to a website near you... triple A titles for ebook readers. At this stage, thanks to Barnes and Noble, it is inevitable.
A quick recap on the dedicated eBook market as it stands today (and ignoring the legacy devices still sold by some publishers). There are basically three players: Amazon, Sony, and now Barnes and Noble. The interesting thing is that Barnes and Noble has decided to base their new entry into the race on Google's Android OS. Android, as I'm sure you know, is largely Google's answer to the iPhone and the iPod Touch, which are now being hailed by Apple as gaming devices on the same level as the PSP. In short, that means we now have an eBook reader that is backed by a somewhat open operating system that will no doubt become a significant focus of mobile game developers. The only problem is that screen.
Ebook reader screens are not exactly high performance, color drenched devices. They focus on battery life and being easy on the eyes, not accurate renderings of oozing alien guts. So, how will game developers adapt to low refresh rate, black and white screens? Excellent question. Other than text-based and puzzle games, I haven't a clue. But someone will do it. And when one studio goes there successfully, other will follow. And, in time, if the eBook reader succeeds on the market, gaming will adapt and the ebook space will become as saturated and competitive as the cell phone game market is now. This newest evolution of the video game might be the most interesting and creatively demanding one yet. It should be fun to watch.
No doubt, if any studio announced they were working on a Starship Troopers title, the vast majority of the media would assume a movie spin-off. Huge amounts of venom would be spewed on the company making a cheap Halo clone. Meanwhile, the original Starship Troopers, the Heinlein novel version, is languishing in the shadows... waiting.
Someone needs to bring it out of the shadows. I see this game primarily as an RPG. Character development primarily comes via promotion within the ranks of the military. In the novel, as a soldier moves up the ranks within the military, they still make the drop from orbiting spacecraft to planetary surface. The highest ranking general drops alongside the lowest rookie trooper. In the game, this would mean that as you move up the ranks, complexity and depth is only added. Little is taken away. There would not be a point at which you would stop shooting insects and concentrate on conducting a battle strategy. No, you would be conducting the battle, monitoring your units, watching for strategic opportunities, while doing your job as the Ultimate Orkin Man. Imagine trying to fight in WoW style cmbat while managing a Medieval 2 style battle strategy. Unless you're the poor soul who has to come up with the interface for such a game, that's probably an attractive idea... assuming it can be made fun.
And in between insect smashing action maps, as you visit various bases and stations for training or rest, you will be gradually exposed to the culture and backstory behind the war you are fighting, similar to how you are gradually enlightened in Half Life 2. Story is one factor that seperate great games from simply good ones, and the story in the novel can be easily adopted for the single player campaign of the game, no matter what choices you make.
In addition, the diverse ways to play would add both replay value and depth. Playing through the game without allowing yourself to promote past trooper should not be boring. But working up the ranks to general or admiral of the fleet should be equally interesting, for different reasons. Starship Troopers, faithfully rendered from the novel, should allow for an unprecedented level of depth and diversity within the game outside of the storyline. And that is before we consider the diversity of maps types, ranging from large planetary occupations to ultra small-scale raids.
Bottom line, ignore the movie and read the novel. Just about every location in the book, from boot camp to scorching a planet, can be imagined as part of an engaging and deep RPG. There is a real diamond of a game buried in that book, and I hope someone brings it to light soon.
Just played Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood recently, and it was good stuff; a decent McShooter dripping with pure, unadulterated "western", a theme I've always enjoyed. The guns are modest, dusty Winchesters and Colt Single Action Armies, rather than the usual modern guns and doofus sci-fi weapons. The dialogue is all hardboiled hick from the 188os ("AHM A CALLIN' YU OUT.") The Unwritten Law of the Size of Your Cowboy Hat, as Yahtzee so brilliantly pointed out, is in full effect. The music is classic western ragtime, and the gunshot sound effects straight out of the old movies and serials. And most important of all, that moral quagmire you find in the best of tales from the Old West shines through; the bad guys are vicious and brutal (worst of them a renegade a-hole Confederate colonel who vows to "return the darkies to bondage") while the goodies not much better (the poor Navajo learn this lesson quite the hard way). Bound in Blood was polished and enjoyable enough to intrigue passers-by as I played it, including my fiance M, who then asked why isn't "The Western" more often of a theme in videogames. After all, many games are about shootin' shit, and many westerns are also about shootin' shit, and there's no shortage of tough guy tropes in either for children and man-children of all ages to roleplay as. The answers to that is 1) the videogame industry right now is fixated on McShooters, the gameplay of which doesn't always lend well to westerns (or, "the guns are shite", as Yahtzee phrases it), and 2) the western HAD in fact been a fairly common theme in videogames prior to these times, even right at the very beginning, such as Nintendo's very first game (Sheriff), the very first Japanese arcade game to be brought to the United States (Taito's Western Gun, via Midway), and as one of the first light gun games for both arcade and home console (Atari's Outlaw and the extremely rudimentary Shootout for the original Magnavox Odyssey). And without further ado, here's six more Western-themed videogames of note.
6. Mad Dog McCree
In the early days of gaming, Laserdisc/FMV games allowed many a company to dive into the videogame market using Old Media methods (such as Z-grade actors and cheesy props) without any of the fuss of dealing with the newer technologies videogames relied on. The drawback was, of course, that's little interactivity involved in a "game" that's basically a movie which runs on Quick Time Events. That didn't stop now-defunct American Laser Games from churning out a slew of these types of games, including this one.
In Mad Dog McCree you play the part of a nameless stranger who has obviously encountered the cowpoke equivalent of Caracas, Venezuela, being that he is shot at within half a minute of arriving into town. Seems that Mad Dog McCree and his gang are running wild, inflicting the town to such violence and humiliation as the imprisonment of its own sheriff at 2:24, the bad acting of the sheriff at 4:41, and the hilariously insane murder of the sheriff at 5:11. Fortunately, McCree's crew are complete dumbasses, as can be seen at 3:31; unfortunately however, the deliciously vicious cruelty of Mad Dog himself knows no bounds, as can be seen at 6:17 when he casually tries to blow up your grizzled friend with tens of pounds of dynamite.
While McCree was able to inspire a couple sequels, and the campy cowboy charm enduring (love the town mortician's various commentary that plays when you are killed), the title was obviously not a worthy pricey purchase then or now, as the "game" isn't much of one and requires at least a light gun of some sort to be remotely decent. But thanks to the unique interfaces of newer gaming platforms, Mad Dog McCree has encountered a renaissance as part of an affordable Wii bundle and even an iPhone release, where you'll be poking those outlaws to death with your finger. Make sure to use the middle one for Mad Dog, he deserves it for all this trouble.
5. Gun.Smoke
If the town in Mad Dog McCreetakes place in Caracas, Venezuela, then the events in this game must occur during the Siege of Sarajevo. Ain't no wussy Z-grade actors in costume here in Gun.Smoke (sic, likely to avoid legal trouble with the show of the same name); cowboy hero Billy Bob, in his quest to free the town of Hicksville from the grasp of a family of robber barons known as the Wingates, will be taking on an endless horde of desperadoes, killers, Indians, snipers, bombers, ninjas, and a madman who's so obsessed with dynamite, it's literally on his mind. As in, lashed to his forehead. Fortunately, Billy Bob is armed with what could only be described as twin nineteenth-century RC-P90's. The tagline for this game reads: "RAIN OF BULLETS WITH THE TWO DEATH-DELIVERING GUNS". They aren't kidding.
The NES release of Gun.Smoke is a triumph from a musical standpoint. Despite the technical limitations, composers Ayako Mori and Junko Tamiya crafted a wonderful MIDI soundtrack that successfully evokes memories of Ennio Morricone, Luis Bacalov, and Vaughn Monroe. It was one of the earliest examples of videogame music achieving art and legitimacy. Not bad for bleeps and bloops.
4. Sunset Riders
Sunset Riders was, I believe, the last title directed by one of Konami's great arcade gurus, H. Tsujimoto of Super Contra fame. Sunset Riders was certainly one of his best, and ranks right up there with the other Konami arcade greats of this period such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Simpsons; addictive gameplay that supports 4 players (!!), allowing a group of friends to blast their way through a very Wild West. Click the video to meet your heroes: bounty hunters Steve, Billy, Bob, and Cormano.
Believe it or not, Cormano, with his pink poncho and sombrero, is NOT the gay one. That would be Billy, who can be seen here sulking while his compadres wolf whistle at a showgirl revue. Who says Brokeback Mountain was groundbreaking?
Anyway, the plot is incidental: the four gunslingers come across a bright idea for a payday, which is kill all the worst outlaws in the Wild West and collect their bounties. This puts them in the crosshairs for every scoundrel out there, and believe me, if you are in a four-player posse, there will be a lot of them. At the end of level you track down your quarry, who's always a memorable boss character, including the vaudeville scumbag twins The Smith Bros., the preening Briton Richard Rose, and my favorite, a gracious thug named "El Greco", who's armed with a whip and hoplon shield and who, upon death, bequeaths his blood red sombrero to Cormano so that the latter doesn't have to look so gay anymore. Gracias, El Greco!
Humorous Old West antics aside, the game is classic, hectic arcade fun, as four friends fight off armies of killers firing at them from all angles while traveling through wild set pieces such as trains, horse chases, even across the backs of a buffalo herd. When is this one coming to XBLA?
3. Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist
There's actually been several different Western entries into the adventure game genre, but this somewhat little-known entry from Sierra's Al Lowe is a favorite. It was in fact a favorite of Al Lowe himself, over the rest of his other creations, and that includes the popular Leisure Suit Larry series. The game had, aside from the expected Sierra-style adventure gaming, an entertaining, joke-packed storyline starring a charming, bittersweet character who is classic Old West knight errant, as the game's memorable prologue ballad tells you below (or, you can listen to Lowe himself warbling it).
So Pharkas was once a gunfightin' prodigy who retired (very) early when outlaw Kenny the Kid humbled him. Now a candy ass pharmacist, Pharkas finds his past coming back to haunt him when he's embroiled in a town conspiracy, and may need to dust off those six shooters when trouble threatens those he loves. The game's puzzles and exploration, more so than most of Sierra's games and certainly others in the genre, intertwine well with Pharkas' humor and storyline, even contributing a bit of deconstruction to the Old West hero trope (Pharkas' self-discovery gets bittersweet when the player helps him track down his old gunslinger paraphernalia). Frankly, it was one of the best adventure games of that period, and if you have any sort of interest in the genre (especially since it's poised for a comeback these days), be sure to check this out somehow, or at least hope for a re-release soon.
2. GUN
If there was any type of theme that lends to the sandbox genre, it's clearly the western. Ride around small towns, committing mayhem, hunting for treasure or bounty on the side, gambling parlors, drunken fights with whores at bordellos...all that screams "GTA clone". Hell, plenty of the Old West frontier, the Chihuahuan Desert for example, is LITERALLY a sandbox.
There's been a few western-themed sandbox games (including one on the horizon for next year, Red Dead Redemption), but the best of them was arguably Neversoft's GUN. Although short (which, in my view, these days merely means its filler-free), GUN was much more truer to the elements of the genre that makes it fun to play: very open-ended, plenty of sidequests, and lots of crazy offbeat activities to distract yourself with, including scalping dead bodies and sticking hapless citizens with "dynamite arrows" (see below).
Also featuring an all-star voice cast including Kris Kristofferson, Thomas Jane (of Hung fame, who does great VA work as anyone who's played The Punisher on the original Xbox can tell you), Brad Douriff (yay, the Doctor from Deadwood!), Ron Perlman (yay, period!), and Lance Henrikson (fuck yes, period!), GUN is a great choice if you enjoy the sandbox genre (particularly before the genre drowned in linear, filler-humping GTA xeroxes) , and if you like a good western, then you've struck gold.
1. Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive
This is the one that managed to addict even M, despite all the quality of the others (er, well whatever quality Mad Dog McCree has). M is at best a (highly) casual gamer and, while interested in games with western themes, couldn't be arsed with dealing with the gaming stuff that comes along with it. That's where Infograme's execellent Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive comes in.
It's hard to describe just what the heck genre Desperados is for the uninitiated, but the best would be a "tactical puzzler"; think Police Quest: SWAT 2 with a touch of The Lost Vikings. You play as hired gun John Cooper, brought aboard by a railroad tycoon to stop a vicious train bandit in hopes that one thief could catch another. Cooper labors to assemble a gang to catch the desperado (and boy does he; if only human resource schmoes in our industry were as committed), only for them all to discover just how deep the banditry runs.
Each of Cooper's gang has advantages and disadvantages they can ply; Cooper for example has stealthy throwing knives but his spurs make a ruckus when he walks about, while freed plantation worker Sam has access to explosives and even a bag with a rattlesnake in it, and on and on for a total of seven or so different allies. The game then tosses however many of your posse the narrative currently gives you access to into a sprawling map, where you guide your allies via mouse-and-hotkey to mission success by any means you wish, or in M's case, any means necessary. In other words, I was quite surprised M's method of sneaking around a large female plantation worker in the second level. The woman, busily working a cauldron outside a shack, is overlooking much of the area leading to the exit for Cooper and Sam to escape from, and killing innocents is not an option the game allows. So what's M's solution? Distract the lady with Cooper's chiming pocket watch? Crawl through the cotton fields out of sight? Slip through and over nearby buildings? Nah. M settled for punching her in the back of the head, then beating her while she's down on the ground so that the poor lady stayed KO'd for the rest of the level. Argued M: "Hey! It's not like she died!" Classic western-style moral ambiguity that Sergio Leone would've no doubt appreciated.
Bioware. As RPG makers go, the reputations don't get much more spotless than Bioware. Perhaps recently best known for Neverwinter Nights 2, Bioware has thrown its massive hat into the MMO arena. This is a good thing, I think.
Of somewhat more concern is the franchise Bioware attempting to MMO-ify. We've seen Star Wars in an online RPG format before. And it hasn't gone well. Granted, in the world of quality games, Sony Online Entertainment is to Bioware what a raw, greasy hamburger is to a 32oz top sirloin. So the general lack of consistent, high quality goodness from Star Wars Galaxies shouldn't in any way be taken to mean that The Old Republic will be a weak title.
But now there is no need to speculate. Beta sign ups are here. No matter how you slice it, this should be one of the most anticipated and closely watched game betas of the year. In the next few months we should be getting a fairly good feel for just how well Bioware has put this game together. Personally, I have extremely high expectations from these developers and cannot wait to see this game in action.
