Retro Report – Retro Game Experience

Unfortunately I can’t travel back in time…yet, but at some points certain rifts in the timeline open up, allowing you to witness the gaming splendors of days gone past. By connecting all my old video game cloth maps and strategy guides overlays I am able to pinpoint the exact time and location of these phenomena, allowing me to witness a glimpse of the golden days. That or you can use the internet.
By combining a significant amount of classic games, consoles and arcade machines in a single spot the flow of time is interrupted and a lens is created that allows you to witness gaming as it used to be and in my opinion, as it should be!

I ventured forth unto this nexus of retro rememberobilia alongside another brave adventurer and fellow gamer, my brother, to chronicle this event, and of course to play some sweet classics at the Retro Game Experience in Hilversum, Netherlands.

Set up in the Beeld en Geluid museum archive (Visual and Audio Archive) enthusiasts all around the land displayed their collections of consoles and arcade machines for people to play and remember and to introduce to the newer less civilized gaming generation. Greeted on entry by the smooth white sheen of several Blast City arcade cabinets, a grin automatically appears on almost everyone’s face as hearts start pumping in anticipation of checking out that flickering mayhem on the screens in the distance.

A whole row was set up, complete with the mandatory old-school CRT display monitors lining up some of the best classic consoles out there, starting off at the Playstation and moving down in time from there to the 16 bit era and beyond when tapestreaming was common and the pixels kept getting bigger. Playing Pitfall feels just as good as it ever was, and as avid fighter fans we got to score some time on the Neo Geo playing Fatal Fury with those ever awesome arcade stick controllers, showing a product that has lasted in quality throughout the decades!

At the head of table was one of the old gods himself, the Vectrex! encased in its stylish blue throne, the tiny vector powered console sported its ever smooth vector shaped graphics with MineStorm on display. Those graphics where bright enough to scorch the images right on your retinas and combined with its matching overlay and the smooth controller it’s one of the best way to play games and go blind in the process.

My love for arcade games and cabinets is very high and as I played the Vectrex my eyes slowly strayed off to the left to the arcade machines, several Blast City and Taito arcade cabinets were on display, featuring such classics as R-type, Street Fighter and two of Capcom’s Versus series. It was fun showing off my skills in getting blown up in R-type to the crowd, and bashing my brother at a seizure inducing match of Marvel vs Capcom, sitting up close to those screens makes the whole game feel bigger and in your face, which makes sense at that range and if you have to have your brain reset, the best way is with Marvel vs Capcoms mind shattering supermoves!

Though the Blast City arcade cabinet design isn’t the prettiest in my opinion, it is nice to be able to sit down. There was also a Beatmania machine, not often seen in the Netherlands, these complex rhythm games still boggle my mind, but it is always impressive seeing someone master the game on the highest setting.

Showing off their wares at the other side of the expo were the folks of Magixbuttons, with a vast assortment of classic games on sale, be sure to check out their website for all kinds of videogame related wares and articles.
On display at the far side were some really neat display cases showing off some awesome handheld consoles, varying from the familiar Gameboys to pocket-size arcades and the Nintendo’s game-and-watch DS precursors. Moving on were the more familiar consoles featuring their weird and obscure add ons, like the Sega Megadrive Mouse, and the Nintendo 64DD never released outside of Japan.

Whilst smearing my nose along the display cases I bumped into Gamekings’ very own Steven Saunders, who is a big retro fan himself. These guys have been around a long time providing quality reports on gaming news in the Netherlands.  And yes that long-haired viking on the right is me.

Moving on to the second floor was probably the best part of the entire expo, and brought back some of the best memories I have regarding video games and arcades, let me set the stage for you.
First off is the sound you’ll hear, an almost melodic mish- mash of different pumping video game music, interwoven  with each other that creates an almost hypnotic sound, so recognisable to classic arcades, beckoning you like a siren’s call into that dark room, showing nothing but darkness, lit up by various screens seen between moving silhouettes and the occasional cry of victory emanating from the void. As you press on and pass the threshold the sounds become even louder as a chorus of video game effects and music washes over you, along with the heat of 20+ radiating arcade cabinets. You are in.

The senses become overstimulated as everywhere you look you see something that peaks your interest and you almost get confused and panic as you don’t know where to start, after a few seconds you automatically start grinning and start moving along the ever shuffling crowd, peeking beyond shoulders and necks to see what everyone is playing, becoming more and more anticipated for your turn to show the crowd your mettle.
And you haven’t even played a game yet.

It was perfect, the room had a really funky coloured style ceiling that added to the eighties/nineties feel of the whole setting, and the cabinets were set up closely next to each other, making it feel like a true arcade. Veering left at entry brought us to the large sit-down cabinets of Daytona and Star-Wars Racer, along with a true Afterburner unit, complete with tilting/swiveling seat, needless to say my brother and I took the opportunity to blow some planes from the sky in awesome Sega glory.

Of course a Daytona begs for a versus challenge and I laughed all the way as my brother slammed my stock car into the Sonic decorated wall while we both sang the Daytona theme. Some of the best Midway games were lined up, you can’t have an arcade with Mortal Kombat, and the best one, part two, was present along with the record-breaking NBA jam. Even the obscure but awesome Simpson arcade beat em up was present, one not often seen!

Moving on to the other half of the room we were greeted by the alien shape of a true Computer Space unit! One of the first commercially sold arcade cabinets, paving the way for the remaining cabinets, featuring the mighty titans such as Space Invaders, Galaga, Centipede and many more. Coming full circle and finishing our walkthrough was a very neat Star Wars Arcade, scorching eyeballs with its disco style vector graphics.

Seeing all these classics together one more time is truly a sight to behold and while I was standing there looking at the people all I could see was smiles and I wondered why these kinds of places disappeared, as they clearly bring so much joy, excitement and solidarity to people. It truly was a Retro Game Experience and one I am definitely looking forward to experience again!

Retro Report Preview – Retro Game Experience

It’s not often that you can go to a museum and play some sweet retrogames at the same time, unless you count the time when I smuggled that Gameboy along on a school trip, but I just came back from the Retro Game Experience at the Beeld and Geluid in Hilversum (Netherlands) and soaked in much of the good stuff.

I’ll be posting a full report on all the classic game consoles and arcade machines that were on display shortly, including my run in with Gamekings’ very own Steven Saunders and the great folks of MagixButtons, with tons of pictures to boot.

Also TVGH is getting a bit of an overhaul sporting a new logo and banners, Stay tuned!

 

Retro Analysis – Shaq Fu

Really? That bad?

I am far from the first chroniclers of classic video games, everyone can have a say in the matter on the information superhighway in any way they want. Written articles like mine, video reports, audioblogs you name it. People tend to have strong opinions on the matter and are keen to let their voice heard on the internet, and as with all voices the louder you yell, more people tend to notice you. ( that doesn’t mean they like what you’re saying though.) Throughout the years there has been a steady rise of “Angry gamers” reporting on the internet, reviewing games by mainly focussing on their flaws and explain just how bad a game really is. Some do this in a fun satirical way like James Rolfe, also known as the Angry Videogame nerd, going in minute details on the horrors of some of the more famous gaming mishaps. (be sure to check out his work on cinemassacre.com). Others like Angry Joe tend to burn a game as hard and as loud as possible, though often with valid points.  Some are better than others, and though it can be fun to slam on a title, I personally think a lot of these are over the top, comparing old games by today standards and don’t look at them in the correct mind and time set, sometimes caused by the mere fact that some of these reviewers didn’t play the game at its release, often caused by age difference.

Among these reviews there is a certain title that is often unanimously voted as one of the worst ones out there, heck there’s even a site dedicated to destroying all the copies of the game out there: Shaq-Fu.
Everytime I saw another Shaq-fu game getting slammed dunked in a review I wondered, was it that bad? I grabbed my copy from the shelf and looked at the back remembering the time I spent with it. The strange thing is I can certainly remember getting some enjoyment from the game. I purchased Shaq-Fu on a discount at a local toy shop, I was always strapped for cash as I was a lousy saver, and was playing basketball in the time so I knew who Shaquille O’Neil was and the Idea of a basketball player in a beat-em-up sounded like fun, as I was a fan of both. and come on, that cover alone is worth a million bucks!

The definition of Badass

The game suffers from a terrible stigma, enforced by years of bad reviews just for the sake of making bad reviews, but every game has a place in Videogame History, and I think it’s time to look at the game from an honest perspective, To give it a proper analysis with the correct mindset, as history is above all to seek out the truth of the past.

Lets look at the concept, Shaq was a popular basketball player in the height of his career, anxious to dabble in other fields like music and acting, around that time. Other well-known basketballers were also featuring in a couple of video games, so seeing a game released with a big star wasn’t that out of the ordinary, what made Shaq-Fu stand out was the fact that it was a beat-em-up. It would be obvious to make a basketball themed game but Delphine Software chose a different route and made Shaq fight it out with a whole bunch of out of this world creatures and characters. I’ve seen a lot of critique on this concept and the story around it. The big man wanted to prove he could do more than shoot hoops and while his music and acting career got panned you can’t blame a guy for trying. The game suffered the same fate, but it almost always gets mentioned along the ill-fated rap albums and movies, already giving it more negativity then it deserves.

So lets leave that Aside and what do you have? A fighting game  featuring a host of original characters and one larger then life basketball player, set in a mystical world of martial arts with monsters and unique worlds to visit. It already sounds a lot better without mentioning the movie Kazaam, don’t you think?

Can’t save the world without Pepsi!

Which Leads me to the story, another part of the game that was unnecessarily criticized upon, to sum it up, Shaq gets teleported to a mystical martial realm at the request of an old man in an old shop, confusing the big man with the one from the stars, (allstar pun intended)  to save his grandson from some evil deity. Crazy, no? Personally I think it’s hilarious, it has that Golden Child kinda vibe, you know that awesome movie from the 90s starring Eddy Murphy. With beat-em ups the story is usually afterthought, but they put some effort in the intro and the world around it and I say bonus points to that. The story isn’t something to trash this game about, we’ve accepted the fact that italian plumbers get transported to magical mushroom kingdoms, and if you’ve ever tried to wrap your head around the Tekken franchise storylines, you know these kind of games don’t really need one, but they bothered with some effort and it’s certainly not in the way.

Explore the Second world with awesome map screens!

So lets see what else is wrong with the game, people tend to criticise the first thing they see, and that’s usually the graphics, I’ve played this game on the Megadrive, so I’ll review it from that perspective. The graphics of shaq-fu are actually pretty good!  Lets start with the stages, each of them are unusually varied, the world of shaq-fu features ancient temples and shrines but also futuristic technology and haunting barren wastelands.  The stages feel big, this is mainly due to the size of the of the characters. You’ll notice that the characters are a tad smaller than your usual street fighter clone, but even in their small demeanor they sport a lot of detail and once the fighting you’ll notice another great feature in the game’s graphics, the smooth animation!

Lightning to the crotch!

The character sprites in Shaq Fu feature some surprisingly smooth animation for its time. Each attack features a fair amount of animation frames making them feel real smooth and impressive, but it’s the small details that really make the characters shine. Kaori’s tail flows smooth and catlike behind her, Mephis cloak swirls neatly along his arms as he moves around, and Colonel’s cybernetic armor transforms with each attack he makes. Like any other beat-em ups, Shaq Fu features special moves, and they are as well animated as the characters themselves, Demons made of Lightning snap at your opponent as they are cast, giant spiked balls shine accordingly as they plummet down for the kill, and each fireball trembles with power before they are launched. Having all this stuff fly around on the screen is a joy to the senses, each character also features a series of unique dashes and backflips for defensive purposes, where one makes a smooth somersault backwards, and the other seems to phase in and out of existence to avoid their foes.

Shields up!

All of this Graphical splendor is accompanied by some amazing sound design and music. Fireballs shriek accordingly along the screen, each punch has a significant “Oomph” behind it and Sett’s teleport just sounds like he’s ripping reality apart just to move a few meters backward. While the Megadrive isn’t know for its awesome sound capabilities, the soundtrack of Shaq Fu just sounds terrific on the system, to this day I still have it crammed on my MP3 Player, it’s that good. Each stage has a different setting, like asian, futuristic and middle-eastern and all the songs enforce that theme without sounding out-of-place stays consistent throughout.

The backround detail is pretty awesome.

If you’ve never played the game, you would probably think “Holy crap! I need to play this right now!”, which leads us to the gameplay and probably the main cause of frustration for a lot of players.  Shaq fu plays like a standard Beat-em-up, but there are some differences that make it stand out. For one, there are no combo’s. Sure you can string up a series of moves, but if you’re familiar with the game you can interrupt those easily, also there’s no combo counter. So it’s a lot of hit and miss, planning your moves strategically is key and you really have to time your actions correctly in order to do some damage without getting clobbered in the meantime. But the main problem to most is executing these moves, Shaq Fu’s controls are terribly stiff. There seems to be a slight delay between the button input and the reaction on-screen, which is mainly caused by the aforementioned smooth and sometimes lengthy animations. There is no frame skipping and each move has to complete their animations that can make the controls seem unresponsive making it feel like input lag, and unfortunately with beat-em-ups, controls are one of the most important aspects of the game. It makes the game feel sluggish, add to that the complexity of the special moves and you’re bound to be frustrated when losing again tot the often unfair AI (I’m looking at you Nezu.)

This guy will break you (the little chap on the right)

So lets summarise, we have a good-looking, great sounding fighter, with a funky storyline featuring a sports celebrity and a whole host of original funky characters marred by clunky controls. Personally I think it’s scores right on enough area’s to give it a fair score, so is it really such a bad game? Well the controls are the main problem, and as said that is pretty key in this genre so it takes big hits on that, but the moves are often so cool you’ll want to keep trying just to see them pop out again and make you feel like you mastered the game. I’d personally say it is an okay game (I can already hear the mob with torches and pitchforks coming up the road to my castle.) I’m glad I bought it at the time, and even though I ripped off all the flesh around my thumbs with this game, I certainly had enough fun with it and I’d still pop it in for a good laugh. If you’ve never played the game before, and are interested by all the stories on the internet about the true quality of the game, keep all the stuff I just said in mind and you’ll no doubt find a game with many interesting features and not the hellspawn many have made of it.

Bonus Soundtrack!

Classic Game Review – Boppin’

Remember Shareware? Those big “demos” offering about a third of a game for you to try out before buying it, free to distribute to whomever you wanted? Thats how games got around back in those days, back when we didn’t have that series of tubes called the Information super Highway, now we’re going back into the Dark Ages! You know when you’re old if you can remember the days without the internet, still with everything so readily available nowadays I can’t but feel that there was a lot more value over a game that you acquired back then, but that’s probably a personal opinion.

Anyhoo, back to Shareware. Shareware games could come from, well anywhere! from friends, family, computer magazines, that smelly kid from school you name it. Now if you were lucky you got a clean disk with a neat sticker on it describing a list of contents, most magazines did this very neatly, but most of the time, it was usually a blanque sticker with a cryptic description on the front like: Rott.arj or ComKeen4.zip, giving a slight indication of the contents. The worst were those oddly coloured, non labeled floppy’s you never knew what horrors they contained and for some reason they always made weird noises in your floppy drive, making you rue the moment you ever slid it into your computer.

But then again, it also added a sence of mystery and discovery, what did the floppy hold? what kind of game could a Rott be? and how in the hell was I supposed to extract an ARJ file again? We had an enormous pile of disks at home and scrounging through this Treasure trove had often led to some very interesting revelations, and i’ll be tapping into it regularly on TVGH to share my findings, first up: Boppin’

I fired up Boppin not knowing what to expect and was greeted by the all familiar Apogee logo, as you know Apogee means action, and when a game starts with that particular screen I know i’m in for a good time. Some of my favorite classic games hail from the Apogee library and you’ll see many of those pop by in the future. Now the first thing that struck me as odd, where the two Triangle shaped characters sitting on top of the Apogee logo waving at me. I cocked a brow in confusion and pressed on be greeted by the next screen, depicting a bloody Teddybear emanating a haunting laughter. My other brow joined the already cocked one and I wondered what kind of madness I had stepped into.

Just like the intro from Saved by the Bell

Well Madness is the right word, just explaining the storyline is enough for a man to lose his sanity,  lovecraftian style! but since I’m already running up and down the stairs of madness on a regular basis I’ll give it a shot anyway.
Imagine a multitude of universes each created by someone or somethings imagination, among one of these is the homeworld of  videogame characters Yeet and Boik, called Arcapaedia. (lost yet? I know I am!)
Whilst playing their arcade games they discover that all of the in-game monsters have gone missing.  apparently they have been stolen by Hunnybunnyz and hidden into various shapes throughout the universe. To make sure that there’s something to fight against, the two heroes set out to release all the monsters back into their games. Let’s get Boppin’!

Horrors!

Now read that three more times and plug your fingers into your ears to prevent your brain from oozing out and you’re set. The story sets the tone perfectly, as in you have no Idea what to expect.
The gameplay of Boppin is as unique as it’s storyline, i’d never seen anything like it. The only thing that comes close to comparing is a game like Tetris on the Gameboy, except imagine holding the console upside down while playing it.
Wherein Tetris blocks of various shapes fel down, and it was up to players to fit them al neatly together to remove them from the playing field, in Boppin you have to shoot blocks upward to create various shapes to be able remove those.

Throwing sushi to release monsters, makes sense.

Boppin adds the extra challenge, that each block created for the player to launch upwards is made of a certain object, shape, material, that can only be matched up with the same kind that are up in the playing field. And if that wasn’t enough, the only way to release the aforementioned monsters is to line the blocks in certain shapes, like Crosses and Squares.  and if you think that’s complicated, here’s the fun part, you can only launch the blocks upwards at 45 degree angles, miss your target or hit a block of a different pattern  and you can kiss your Hit points goodbye, complete with the wailing cry’s of the protagonists. Launch too many shapes in the wrong directions and it’s game over.

Try and make proper shapes out of that!

Explaining the gameplay is way more complicated then the game itself, it’s very easy to pick and the controls are right on. Yeet and Boik can move around the field horizontally so you can line up each throw with ease, there are also elevators and directional pads placed around each level that can give you some leverage or allow for some crazy shot combinations. The game is even better with two players, both players can play at the same time and help each other out or steal some high scores with cunning trickery, just don’t be surprised if you get a keyboard jammed in kneecap.
At the end of each stage when all the blocks are removed from the field, you get an overview ot the monsters you released and you move on to the next stage, and that’s one of the best parts of the game. Each stage is completely different from the next, sometimes you’re in a garden, throwing diamonds, in the next stage you’re on a cirquit board smashing chips around. you’ll move from sushi tables, to blueprints and badly drawn school doodles each with their own set of items to throw around. This makes you want to keep on playing, just to see what kind of wacky world is hanging around the corner.  Each world features it’s own music and they really enforce the theme of the stage, you’ll find yourself humming along in the late hours of the evening while you’re squinting at the screen looking for the right angle to throw that obsidian jewelstone.

Releasing Pac Man Ghosts inside what looks like a Colon.

The graphics and humour in Boppin’ are crude and effective, the monster sprites look great and each stage has a vibrant feel and while they are totally different from each other the whole style stays consistent. It’s always a surprise to see what kind of funky monsters are released in each level, and the variation of shapes to throw around makes each level something to look forward to. Yeet and Boik are very likable and I still giggle when I fail a level and they blow their own brains out or perform seppuku out of sheer frustration.

AAAAAAAAHHHHH!

Boppin’ is a real hidden gem and unfortunately not well know among gamers of old. It’s  one of those “ow god is it midnight already?” games and still holds up to this day, it features a simple but solid concept that is very well executed. I recommend it to any puzzle fan to grab a friend and waste the wee hours in the night, heck even if you’re not into these kind of games I’d still tell you to give it a whirl.

Re-introduction & Classic Game Review: Cyber Troopers Virtual On

Boy a lot can happen in half a year, and looking at this blog, a lot can “not” happen as well.  A couple of times now i’ve claimed to keep this blog updated on a regular basis and failed miserably. Most of this was caused by personal matters on which I won’t go into any further on this blog as this is about the history of videogames, not my fumblings with this mythical “outside world”. But I just wanted to give you an explanation on the lack of updates, and try to make up on lost time by posting more articles and reviews and hopefully the aforementioned video’s. (see previous posts).

With my goals vaguely on order, I can assume my role as self proclaimed know it all on videogames memorabilia… but what do I know you say?  I have played videogames sinds the dawn of time (that was around age 7-8.) and have since been enthralled into that world making it my hobby, education and daytime job.  Though I have been out of the business for a while, I kept my interest and continued filling my brain with gaming knowledge and since I can’t shut up about it, I created this blog to take note of the ever growing legacy of videogames.

As the next generation of videogames is upon us, we must never forget to look back and see how it has gotten this far, as there is much to learn from the past, I will expand this blog beyond reviews and articles to include new features filled with interesting knowledge and opinions of gaming past, but more on that later, to get back into the feeling let’s start off with a Classic Game Review.

Classic Game Review – Cyber Troopers Virtual On.

-Get Ready-

Enter the mid-90s, The Sony Playstation and the Sega Saturn were just released and we were slowly transitioning from the 16 bit to the 32 bit era, games became bigger and more emphasis was put on that curious thing called “3D graphics”. Now 3D graphics weren’t new, Starfox showed us a sample with help of the FX chip on the Super NES and the PC was already sporting games with eye poppin polygons. But there was still one powerhouse that reigned supreme over every platform on this matter, the arcade!

Yes, the now legendary realm of the arcade from forgotten ages once reigned justly in the videogame world, these Titans brought us the best in cutting edge gaming technology and people were always looking forward to when the gods would step down and grace us with a console port of their games, only to find out they were mostly inferior. Not that they weren’t any fun, on the contrary,  but there was seldom a game from that time that was granted the honor of being “Arcade Perfect”.

There weren’t a lot of arcades in the Netherlands, even during their high times, in fact I think there were only 2 big ones. The good thing about that was that most of the best arcade games were gathered at one of these locations, a Titanmoot if you will.  So when my Dad took me and my brother we got to bask in all the splendor of these lost Shangri-la’s.

Now I can tell you all about all the great things witnessed there, but I’ll go into detail about that another time. Amidst all the sleek black arcade cabinets there was a White 2-seater unit sticking out, adorned with bright pink and blue colours and an odd sounding digitized voice beckoning like the siren’s call. Upon further inspection the next curiosity popped up, the control panel featured no buttons, and two joysticks. No not the simple balltops sticks found on regular arcades, no these were actually reminiscent of fighter jet sticks, and two of them! So I tilted my eyes from the control panel and stared at the screen to see for what game these twinsticks served. Now I don’t know how long I was staring there but at some point I noticed my brother standing next to me gazing at the screen with similar awe.  Giant robots rendered in clean, sharp and stylised graphics were fighting eachother using all manner of weaponry in enclosed arena like environments, dashing at eachother at blazing speed unleasing screen filling, retina scorching destruction. I managed to tear my eyes of the screen and  leaned back to peek over my brothers shoulder at the side of the cabinet to check out the Title: Sega’s Cyber Trooper Virtual On.

Bright Pink and Blue stands for Awesome.

Now Sega had a lot of “Virtua/Virtual” games out there in the arcade, There was a Virtua Racing, Fighting, Soccer and so on, but I never heard of “On” Before. So the only logical explanation is that “On” Stands for Giant Awesome Robot Battles.
As we clambered into the seats our dad provided the machine with the required coinage and the machine beckoned us to choose our Virtuaroids for battle. As our selected machines were launched from a giant carrier onto the big blue ocean, our surroundings faded as we were pit against eachother on a docking pad coloured by the orange glow of a setting sun. As you know most kids are fairly proficient in driving giant robots and the tank-like controls of the virtuals worked perfectly with the twin stick controls.  Our dad kept fueling our matches with coins as we blew eachother to smithereens and as we left the arcade at the end of the day I knew this game would rank among my favorites.

Getting hits and moving around is key.

Unfortunatly Virtual On was only released on the Ill-fated Sega Saturn, and I never got to play the game beyond the arcade, however word reached me of a PC release, and with the via that then new “internet” thing I managed to aquire a copy with the help of my cousin’s and his allmighty credit card.

The PC version is actually a port of the Saturn version, and while the conversion is inferior to that of it’s arcade counterpart it still captures the feel of original. Virtual On’s graphics sport that unique Sega-Feel that most Sega Arcade games featured at that time, crisp colourfull graphics, high framerates and that blocky aesthetic defining the Virtua series.  This works perfectly in the square surroundings of the battle arena’s but even more on Virtuaroid design. The blocky features of the robots only enhance the style and create a good harmony with the surroundings, the use of bright colour makes them stand out clearly and create a good contras with the backdrops. if I could describe Virtual’s visuals in one word, it’s Polygons, Polygons everywhere. The game doesn’t use any fancy particle effects, even the explosions are made of big circle shaped polygons and it perfectly defines the look of the game and makes it stand out among the rest.

Giant Polygon lasers, the only way to blow stuff up.

During each bout the players are dropped into Arena’s with varied sizes and settings, featuring ancient temples, giant space elevators, moon hangars and whatnot. Littered around these battlegrounds are obstructions like containers and walls that help you avoid enemy fire and gives you breathing time for your weapons to reload. The goal of the game is basically to blow eachother up, two mech’s enter one mech leaves. Each Virtuaroid varies in size and strength, similar to a beat em up. All mech’s are fitted with 3 weapons, a close range strike, a ranged attack and something with a big explosive range, like mines or grenades, when pressing both fire buttons a special is unleashed and when timed correctly can turn the tide of any battle. Along the fire buttons are the boost buttons, which allows you to zip arround fast to avoid enemy fire and gain an advantagious position.  This makes every battle fast and frantic, but fun, and when giant robots are finally called into service, i’ll be the first to sign up.

The best way to play Virtual On.

In the arcades the game works perfectly with the twin stick controls, however on the consoles and PC the controls are tricky and hard to get a hang on, you will get the hang of it on the long term, but it can get a tad frustrating at times. unfortunatly, the twin stick controller was only made for the saturn, so I had to fumble with the keyboard, but I didn’t let that spoil the fun.
Another gripe I have with the game is the music, in all fairness they are true Sega arcade style tunes and are kind of a staple of the series, but the game features very cheery upbeat music that you wouldn’t really expect during epic hardcore robot battles. They are recognisable i’ll give you that, and when you hear those ear wrecking tunes, you know you’re playing Virtual on.

In the end Virtual On stands out, and in a good way, it’s fast, frantic and fun if you can overcome the controls The first Virtual On is hard to find these days, but the Sequel, Oratorio Tangram is available on XBLA/PSN and it features more Mech’s and better graphics, be sure to check it out even if it’s just to cringe at that typical music.

Classic Game Review – Eternal Champions

Eternal Champions, Eternal Classic.

Strangely enough one of my first experiences with Eternal Champions was a pretty poor one. Like before, we go back several decades into the past to see where it all started.
I was at a pc/gaming expo, I cant recall when or where this was exactly, only that I can thank my parents for taking me there, since these things were a rare occurance in the Netherlands.
The one thing I can recall strongly is the plenthora of weird controllers that were demo’d there, for instance I saw the debut of the Fragmaster  there (look it up), according to the guy in the stand, mouse and keyboard would be a thing of the past with this weird horseshoe controller, apparently in the future human hands would also be mutated into grotesk multi-limbed tentacles because that was the only way you could properly control this abomination (Still if i’d see one today i’d buy it in a split second).

I also got to try out a prototype head tracking… thing, a ginormous VR helmet contraption with a giant sensor on the front, that would allow you to mimic your head movements on the screen in an Unreal demo, the problem was you’d have to move your head at extreme angles to get any results, making you A. lose sight of the screen, B. utterly destroy your spinal cord C. Look like a complete moron while doing so. ( plus the huge sensor in the front would probably fry your lobe with extensive use.)

The Cover alone makes this game worthy of a purchase.

But the worst one of all was the Sega Activator, which can only be described as a giant octagonal sensor ring, placed on the floor with the player positioned in the centre, each “facet” of the ring would emit a IR laser upwards and when interrupted by say, an arm or a leg, would send a signal to the console like a controller input. This would generate the effect that when you swinged a punch or a kick, the character on screen would recieve that command and act accordingly. The game that was used to demo the device was none other then, you guessed it Eternal Champions.

I had heard of the game, seen some screenshots of it, but it never enjoyed my full interest or attention. (wisdom unfortunatly comes with the ages). Curious as I was, I had to try it out, I mean motion control was the future of gaming right? It was a disaster, picking a character was hard enough, but I was dragon punching and spin kicking all the way, while my onscreen character jitterd a few inches, threw a random punch and was eventually K.O’d by the in-game Timer. Ow I didn’t lose or anything because my opponent had the same problems and in the end we just ended up tired without a single landed hit. I gave the poor man at the stand a tip of my hat and didn’t give it a second thought.

Move forward a few months, me and my brother were avid gamers and since we both wanted to play at the same time, most of the time, we played two player games on his Sega Megadrive. And what better way to enforce our sibling rivalry then with beat-em-ups, one of our favorite genres at the time. Since we didn’t have a lot of cash (and we were cheapskates) we rented a lot of games at the local video store, this resulted in a lot of hit and misses because back then you often picked a game based on the cover art. One day we wanted to try a new one and stumbled on Eternal Champions, I recall us both being a bit sceptical about renting it, it wasnt a capcom game and everyone knew Street Fighter was the best, plus I remembered playing it with the Activator and the horrors that ensued, but to this day i’m very glad we brought it home with us that day.

We fired up the game and were greeted by the familiar shining SEGA logo, suddenly a reptillian creature materialised out of clear water and struck the logo with his spinning clawhand, destroying it with an ear shattering explosion! We had to see that again! we pressed the reset button and to our surprise saw a different character akin to gangster from the fifties swing in on a rope kicking the logo to pieces midflight, while tipping his hat and flipping a coin with a grin afterwards. This process repeated a couple of times till we saw all the characters molest the SEGA logo in any way possible and the tip of our fingers started to bleed from ramming that reset button, but this single startup feature set the game on a straight course for awesome.

After the Title screen we were greeted by the Eternal Champion, the main antagonist of the game and were introduced to one of the games strongest points. The story.
Beat em ups usually have flimsy stories with oddball character archs that serves as filler between the fights, but this was a whole different.. uh. story.

Apparently each of the playable unique individuals died at various points in time, the Eternal Champion plucked them from their timeline at the moment of their death, seeking the ultimate fighting challenge and as a reward, offer to return the victor back to their own timeline moments before their death, allowing them to alter their timeline and survive. For it’s time I thought this was a very clever premise, and provided an excellent motivation for each fighter to win the competition. To make it even better, the game featured detailed character profiles, describing their life, abilities and the eventual cause of their death, these were very well written and the somber music in the background made me quite sad, now that’s impressive for a 16 bit game!

This guy is hard as nails.

The first thing that strikes you in Eternal Champions is how many options the game gives you, aside from the standard one player and versus mode, there was a tournament option, the aforementioned character bio’s and a very, VERY robust training mode to hone your skills with your favorite character against AI opponents or combat drones that could set at specific heights and response times. It really felt like a complete package.

But what about the gameplay? all my Aktivator induced worries flew out the window the moment  we fought our first couple of bouts, each character has a very unique fighting style and moveset, and no special move feels the same. The hits connect well and the moves really feel like they have a lot of force behind them. The game makes use of the 6 button layout, featured on the newer megadrive controllers, since my brother and I were cheapskates and rather spent money on games then on periphials we ended up playing most of our beat-em-ups with the classic 3 button layout, far from ideal but we mastered the technique at some point and never looked back.

Classic Game Review – Axelay

Making up for lost time, another classic game review of one of my favorite SNES titles.

Shoot em up’s aka “Schmups” are an interesting genre and also one of the older ones out there. They usually involve a lone spaceship/giant robot/kolibri (look it up) against innumerable enemies each firing a similar amount of bullets toward said shiprobotkolibri.

These games focus primarily on challenge, forcing the player to memorize complex attack patterns all the whilst testing their much needed ninja reflexes by throwing everything but the kitchen sink at them, on second thought the kitchen sink is probably the first thing that’ll try to kill you.

Lets go back 20 years, things like the internet and youtube were nonexistant (well they were there but they need a lot of coal and a steady fire to keep it running) , and actual game footage was a rare sight.
There were only a few ways to actually see a game in motion: On those rare game tv shows like Video Power (i’ll get to that later), seeing the game run in Demo mode in a store or hold the game package in front of your face and wiggle it up and down while staring at the screenshots on the back.
Since I live in the Netherlands you could forget about seeing proper game related stuff on TV and people kept looking weird at me while I was waving around game boxes in front of my face, so I had to get my fix on the Demo units in the Toy stores.

This tends to happen a lot in these kinds of games…

Everytime I went to town with my mom I’d stay behind at one of the stores and hang around the game section until she was done, browsing all the wonderfull box arts and pressing my nose against the screens of the demo’s on display till my eyes bled and had the demo completely memorised.  Back then you bought your game based on the boxart and the screenshots on the back, or if you were a rich kid and had a subscription to a magazine you could base your purchases on reviews.
It added a sense of mystery, no developement logs, no previews, no video reviews, it made spending your hard saved penny’s on a title all the more intense, then again you could also be buying a turd of a game for all you knew…

One day I was at the local Intertoys expecting the demo tv to show Super Probotector (again, Europe, Contra was way cooler with robots.) which had been running for a few weeks now, nothing wrong with that, but seeing Red Falcon blow up the city in the intro gets old after the 40th time. But no, something new was running!

What the heck is an Axelay? awesome thats what!

It was a top down shooter, i’d seen those before on the PC, like Major Stryker and Space Goose, but this one looked amazing, the screen was literally pouring down from the horizon as the lone vessel dispached countless of enemies above a green ocean using all manner of weaponry, switching them on the fly to adapt to the different enemy types. The screen faded an the title appeared, Axelay…whoa!

I kept staring at the screen, I had to see more, the title faded and the next demo level appeared, showing to my surprise a side scrolling shooter, with the same ship blasting through space wreckage, maneuvering past giant mechanised doors into a humongous spinning colony, using different weapons to dispatch new enemy types. My eyes switched to the console  in the glass cabinet for a microsecond…mh the clerk didn’t change the cartridge, this was the same game! I was gobsmacked.

I didn’t own a SNES back then, but a good friend of mine let me play on his, and to my luck he actually purchased the game so I was able to experience it’s splendor first hand. (thanks Ed.)

Konami’s Axelay is one of my top ranking SNES games, to start off the graphics are one of the best seen on the system, the top down sections feature parralax scrolling, which gives the effect that the world is rolling down from the horizon as you fly over it, and the game uses large amounts of mode 7 effects, big rotating sprites giving an amazing sense of scale and magnitude.

Mode 7 goodness.

No stage is the same, from lush green earth like planets to space colony’s, Lava planets and something resembling the human colon, each stage featured unique enemies and weapons which drives the player to keep playing to see what the next stage will hold. Massive bosses guarded the end of each stage and the switch in perspective on each level allowed for some very cool strategy’s needed to beat them.

Things heat up in the later stages.

The sound in this game is nothing short of spectacular, each weapon has the desired effect stuck on them and the game features those satisfying heavy explosions only the SNES can produce, picking your weapons and hearing that super crisp voice sample confirming your selection never fails to impress.

But probably the best part is the soundtrack, composer Taro Kudou created unique themes for each stage, each fitting the atmosphere they portray and keep the player pumped till the very end. One of my favorite songs to this day is the colony theme from stage 2, hearing that song hit it’s peak, and seeing your home planet appear through the open sections of the colony as it slowly rotates past, is one of those game defying moments I will never forget.

These kind of setpieces are what make the game shine.

All that fancy stuff of course is useless if the gameplay doesnt hold up, well there’s one word to sum it up, as the Spanish Peacock said to the Scotchman: B-A-L-A-N-C-E, balance.
Axelay is a very well balanced game, has just the right length, just the right difficulty, just the right amount of variation in each stage to keep it fresh, but familiar. The controls are spot on, and when you die, you’re usually to blame yourself.

This fight never gets old.

Each stages allows you to pick three weapons, and after each stage a new one gets added, this adds to the replayability as you try each stage with a different loadout, none of the weapons are underpowered, so you want to check them all out in each combination. Never have I played another Schmup this satisfying.

At the beginning of this year I aquired a copy of the game for myself, and i’d pop this gem in anyday. if you like the genre and never played it, you certainly missed out.

Classic Game Review – Ultima Underworld, The Stygian Abyss.

After a year of absence, through the Shadowgate and past the Lands of Lore I return from the darkest of crevasse to entertain you with tales of old, historical facts and experiences of the ever growing lineage of videogames.
I’ve had some startup problems in the past, but I hope to offer a steady flow of posts this time and the aforementioned videos are also still underway, so keep checking!

Like all games from that time, the box art was stellar.

Now from the darkest of crevasse I shall take thee into, yet another dark crevasse! namely the Stygian Abyss of the Ultima Underworld!

Treachery and doom!

Let me take you back roughly 20 years ago, aquiring pc games was very interesting back then. Sure you could buy games in the store just like today, but they usually weren’t bigger then a few floppy disks so people were swapping them out faster then venerial diseases.
Of course the downside of that was that you didn’t get any boxart or manuals with it, unless someone was kind enough to photocopy all the pages of the manual but even then they were hard to read as most of the screenshots didn’t really copy all that well, also most games back then still featured actual manuals, thick logs with tons of information and backstory to supplement the game. I used to love buying a game and reading through those masterpieces, setting the mood for the game and sniffing that sweet new manual aroma (You know what i’m talking about).
But the point is, most games we got back then were copies of originals, with only the label revealing any information of it’s contents be it Underworld.arj or Rott.zip, and the suggestion of the person who gave it to us to “check it out, it’s cool!”

Flaming letters are usually evil.

And so we entered the Stygian Abyss, with little to no knowledge what the hell we were doing and where we were going, only adding more to the mystery of the experience!
I say “we” because while I have played Ultima Underworld myself, the first main experience I had with the game was looking over the shoulder of my dad while he treaded through the dungeon in search of Baron Almric’s Daughter. So in this case you could see me as a “Chronicler of Deeds” regarding my first experience with this game.

Brittannia is in peryl! …apparently!

A disembodied head swirling from the void speaks to us foretelling us of a brother plotting a great evil! The idea that a floating face was talking didn’t surprise us that much, but the fact that he was actually talking to us with a real voice coming out of the speakers is what stunned me in particular. We had gotten this game around the same time my dad acquired an actual soundblaster for his pc, remember these were the Dark Ages, pc’s only gave ear shattering beeps and boops unless you installed an actual sound card into your computer.

This was one of those awesome 90’s intros, hand drawn pixel animated faces and stiff dialogue, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Since we had no prior knowledge of the Ultima series we knew nothing of the avatar and the whole backstory of the game’s universe but apparently we were at the wrong place at the wrong time and charged with the task of rescueing the Baron’s daughter from the aforementioned Stygian Abyss in order to clear our name.

Candles offered some light, until you found the more better torches.

So there we stood, clothed in rags,  the doors of the only way out closed shut as the last line of sunlight vanished with a loud clang and only to be seen again when the voice of the Baron’s daughter sounded.
And we had no idea how everything worked…

The Stygian Abyss is a First Person Role playing game, wherein the player creates an avatar and guides him through layers and layers of dungeons vanquishing foes and befriending inhabitants during his/her quest.
And that’s were it went wrong in the first place.

During the start of the game, you get to pick what kind of character you want, how you look and what skills you want to focus on.
Since swimming was a big part of the game, the first few avatars kept drowning untill we picked the swimming skill which saved a lot of hassle when gurgling through the underground rivers. Small details like, picking a right or left handed character, meant you actually had to put the weapon in the right slot in order to be able to draw it, it sounds silly but it took us few moments to figure that one out.
As you can see from the screenshots the game featured a robust interface and while we dabbled into the fabled 3rd dimension before with Wolvenstein 3D, this was on a whole different level, with elevated area’s, pits, underwater lakes and currents. The graphics were good and consistent, the interface may look big and obtrusive, but it never stood in the way, as it was a big part of the gameplay.

There was a lot to see in the game.

As we took our first steps into the dungeon, we inevitably encountered our first foes, ranging from rats, to big maggots and those infernal rock slinging goblins! Combat was tricky as you had to charge up your swing and time it right to get a good hit, and it was very easy to lose track of your enemy in those dark corridors, but your prime warning for battle was that nerve wrecking music that began once the battle unfolded.

It was a great mechanic to explain to us that danger was imminent, and since there were friendly NPC’s running around as well it prevented us from chopping at everything at first sight, as these inhabitants offered means of trade and backstory for the player.

You would find all sorts of junk.

During the game the player finds all manner of items and equipment to improve your character, ranging from a pile of debris (god you found a lot of those) to armor and food. I always found it funny to find a roast chicken or a fresh loaf of bread in a dark and danky dungeon, and this game always made me hungry for some reason, as your bags would soon be packed with all manner of food. There was a magic system in the game featuring runes, but we didn’t understand it at the time and any success we had with a spell backfired most of the time, so it was mostly unused.
It was pretty easy to get lost in all those dark hallways, but the ingame map featured the option to write down notes on the map itself, so you could look back and see what doors where locked and which jumps led to certain doom, to this day I still miss being able to scribble on maps in most games.

Brilliant!

Deeper and deeper we went, through underground settlements and cavernous wastelands, meeting ever stronger foes ranging from gray lizard men to green lizard men! Until at some point… we got stuck. Yes, we never finished the game unfortunately, either we just couldn’t find the exit, or our game was bugged and after a very long play session we moved on and left our avatar stranded in one of the later levels of the game. It was unfortunate though, the whole run, figuring out how the game worked along the way really made the experience worthwhile.

If you’re a big fan of games like Oblivion and Skyrim, and not shy of replaying the classics I recommend a playthrough since this is the game Bethesda drew their inspiration from for their Elder Scrolls series. The graphics are still impressive for it’s time(remember this was released a year before Doom). The soundtrack is all adlib goodness and gives that eerily lonely feeling, and even though the controls in the game are a tad stiff, the rest still holds up.

Lost in Space.

A slight breeze hits me as I exit the vessel and I let the rain drop onto my face for a few seconds. It is a welcome change after breathing recycled air for several days, it tends to taste funny after a while. The docking bay was situated on one of the taller buildings and it took me quite some time to get to street level. I didn’t mind, I got a good look at the city on my way down. it was raining again, it always seems to rain when I come here.

It was raining again...

The street was fairly empty, a few people were walking around ignoring the rain as if it were nothing and the cars moved at an equally lazy pace. I could see the commodity exchange and the end of the street, but that would have to wait. I had a contact waiting for me at the bar and I wasnt going to be late. Neon signs and Holograms invited me for drinks and promise of exotic dancers. As I moved towards the enterance I checked my clock to see what tim……. “what the..!? 22:37? I have school tomorrow! I gotta go to bed!” I shut off the game, cursing myself several seconds later for forgetting to save and hit the sack.

Have you ever had this? I have, on several occasions I might add.

Immersion is quite a powerful tool and it’s secrets remain very sought-after by game developers to this date. In case you were unaware, Immersion is the state of consciousness where an immersant’s awareness of physical self is diminished or lost by being surrounded in an engrossing total environment; often artificial… *cough* In layman’s terms, when a game drags you in so far you feel like you’re actually in there, shooting monsters, commanding armies or grooming ponies.

There are several games which I distinctly rememeber that had that effect on me. These games made me forget all and everything around me, they pulled me into their world and would not let me out until dinner time. Now it could be that since I was at a younger age, the effect of immersion is a lot stronger as the only thing you have to worry about at the age of 8-13  is whether there’s any ice cream left in the freezer and if Ninja Turtles is on tonight.  I’d like to tell you how I felt when I played these games and why those games created that feeling so strongly. For today I picked one of my classics for the PC:

Wing Commander: Privateer.

The Wing Commander space combat simulator series hails from the 199o’s and provided some of the best space opera storytelling and gameplay found on pc. The Wing Commander games focused primarily on linear storytelling and mission structures, that is untill they released Wing Commander Privateer.

Suddenly I was given a small vessel, a few credits and the overall message to “go nuts” in a living, breathing universe. Want to blow stuff up? become a pirate. Want to trade and dominate the market? become a merchant. Want to blow stuff up and get paid  for it? become a mercenary. The game offered me freedom I did not yet experience in any other game that I had played before. I could fly around in my ship, get lost in space and encounter other tradesmen or get blow to smithereens by everyone else. But the best part for me, was the ability to land on planets and space stations. I was amazed at the variations of places this universe would take me. The cold steel decks of mining colonies, the colourful and crowded promenades of pleasure planets, Massive space capitals, military bases you name it. It really felt like I was going somewhere.

The solid comfort of a Meteorite Mining Base.

Now keep in mind, this was before the day’s of MMO and sandbox games and while there were games out there that offered similar situations, the whole presentation of the game made it complete for me. Space is very interesting to a little boy at the age of ten, and Privateer allowed me to indulge on my space faring needs, spiralling my imagination to distant planets and galaxies.

The Wing Commander universe was already an established.. eh.. universe and as a fan of the series the familiarity of terms, enemies and Designs really helped in making the world feel convincing.
The game used big sprites to render ships, planets and space stations. Fly up to close to these and your retinas would be scorched by the size of those pixels, but back then it was pretty impressive. You could see the ships from almost any angle and asteroids rotated ominously toward your cramped cockpit, ready to crush you into the dark cold void. In game communication with other pilots and even enemies allowed you to smack talk before blasting someone to bits or barter your way out of an attack from pirates.

Great shot kid, now don't get cocky.

But the best part of the graphics was probably all the pre-rendered stuff. Whether you were landing on a planet, travelling through hyperspace or just simply standing on a promenade, you were treated to a short animated clip showing your actions in a cool cinematic presentation.

Blasting off a refinery into the void.

The locations themselves were looping animations that I could stare at for hours, cars driving by, people faffing about, ships flying taking off in the distance, it felt really alive and convincing.  All this was further enforced by the great atmospheric adlib music, although nowadays it sounds a bit like a drowning synthesizer, but when I hear those tunes again i’m right back there on New Constantinople.

Wing Commander Privateer remains one of my all time favorites and made me a big fan of the Space Trading and Combat genre. I tend to fire up the game every now and again and it holds up surprisingly well. unfortunately nowadays the genre has kind of died out, sure there are a few titles here and there but none combine that perfect blend of arcade action and merchantile gameplay as Wing Commander Privateer, that drew me in so long ago.

2012, more posts, videos and whatnot!

Another Year past, another year added to videogame history. As a gaming history gets long and longer,  I hope to make this blog a bigger part of my life and start updating it on a more regular basis.

Coming up this month a review of a classic shoot up on the snes and an article i’ve tinkering on.

Also in the pipeline is some sort of video review/blog to show of actual footage of the game with snappy comments and tidbits. Don’t worry I’ll refrain from showing my hideous visage in these vids , because it’s meant to be about the games but since my english sounds something like Autin Powers’ Goldmember (look it up) I need to brush that up before I start shattering eardrums.

Game on!