Quest For The Code

Posted on November 30, 2009 by Multimedia Mike

Captain Novolin was a notorious SNES title about a diabetic superhero who fought off sugary snacks. If Seanbaby’s review of the game is to be believed, that’s about all there was to this (probably) well-meaning game that only wanted to educate children about certain health problems but has nonetheless gone down in video game history as a silly joke.

On that note, I present Starbright’s Quest for the Code, a star-studded video game assembled to teach kids about asthma. Actually, the game isn’t geared towards kids in general but rather is targeted specifically towards kids suffering from asthma. I have no idea if this game was ever marketed or intended to turn any kind of profit. The still shrink-wrapped copy I procured for a dollar in a spent shop stipulated that it was not to be sold but should be freely given to an asthmatic child.

Quest For The Code -- Diane Sawyer gives us the news

Here’s the story: Diane Sawyer — lending her newscasting talent to this charitable cause — breaks a story about a giant machine that has just landed in town and is threatening to release all manner of asthma triggers. The machine is run by one Mucus Airgon, someone who apparently really has it in for asthmatics and has a gang of 7 henchvillains creatively named “The Evil Seven”. So you know that 7 levels are going to be involved somehow. I should clarify at this point that the main thrust of the game is to educate asthmatic children how to live with asthma and that it does not have to be debilitating. It seems that Airgon’s grand plan is simply to demoralize asthmatic children. The gap between that and the “Profit!!” step remains a smidge hazy but I’m certain I have seen stranger premises in other games during this Gaming Pathology project.

The title of the game refers to the acquisition of 7 pieces of a code which will be used to destroy Airgon’s asthma-triggering machine. Or some such.

Quest For The Code -- Cuba Gooding, Jr. as your guide, Cyrus

Cuba Gooding, Jr. plays the guide, Cyrus and shows up, Matrix-style (as in, he mysteriously contacts you through your computer). He leads you first through a lung simulator to teach you how the human respiratory system operates and how asthma and its triggers act upon the system. I had a sinking feeling about the game play aspect of the proceedings as soon as I saw the first activity — cleaning up snot in the nose.

Now, I’ve put up with a lot of outlandishly silly game play concepts for this blog (measuring and cutting drapes continues to stand out in my mind). But how creatively bankrupt does your premise need to be before cleaning up snot becomes a viable game play mechanic?

Quest For The Code -- Auditing the kitchen

I hate to dwell too much on this point since this is most likely a kind-hearted charity effort. The game has 3 main types of game play, at least during the levels that I played, and not counting the cursory snot cleanup. The first type involves the player dragging different types of asthma triggers over areas of a room where that type of trigger can occur. The game then challenges the player about a good course of action for mitigating that trigger. This is seen above. The second type of game play, encountered after the player has finished auditing a room, is a simple point and click pixel hunt to determine the location of a member of the Evil Seven. After locating the dreaded villain, there is a trivia round where the player must answer a number of asthma-related trivia questions correctly in order to clear the level.

Quest For The Code -- Trivia game against the Mold Mob

There is at least one other type of game play on offer– after clearing the first 2 levels, the player gets to shoot mucus in an Asteroids clone. There is likely to be another minigame after the next 4 villains, based on the way the villains are grouped in the stage select screen.

As mentioned, a lot of famous people lent their voice talent to their game. Here’s the full list:

Cuba Gooding, Jr. as your guide, Cyrus
Diane Sawyer as “The Newscaster”
Kelsey Grammer as Mucus Airgon, leader of the Evil Seven
General H. Norman Schwarzkoff as Robo-Roach
Whoopi Goldberg as Moldy
Funkmaster Flex as Mold Mob game announcer
Jeff Goldblum as Alex Dander
Shaquille O’Neal as The Fuminator
Glenn Close as Chalktisha
Gwyneth Paltrow as Perfuma
Minnie Driver as Smokita

I would enjoy learning more about how this game was produced. The credits are quite extensive and a lot of work and talent went into it. Maybe one day I’ll put together a highlight reel of some of the villains from this largely Smacker-based game.

See Also:

Starbright Asthma CD-ROM Game: Quest for the Code at the Internet Archive

Halloween Special

Posted on October 31, 2009 by Multimedia Mike

It’s Halloween and I decided to do some MobyGames screenshot recon on two appropriately themed games. Inspired by Benj Edwards’ recent vintage scan, I decided to try out an entry in the Splatterhouse series. Further, I sprung for the iPhone version of Resident Evil 4: Mobile Edition, the most expensive iPhone app I have purchased to date (a whopping US$7).

First up is Splatterhouse for the NEC TurboGrafx-16. For the uninitiated, this series revolves around a slight modification of the classic slasher horror movie formula– the hero of the game (Rick, apparently, though the game itself doesn’t see fit to name him) is actually the machete-wielding, hockey mask-wearing, nigh-unstoppable killing machine. His target is not a camp full of teens but rather a house filled with ungodly abominations in which his girlfriend is being held captive. The graphics are decent for the early 16-bit video gaming area. There are a few rooms with many mirrors and I think you know what that translates to in a supernatural action game:

Yeah, that reflection is going to jump out of the mirror, many times over.

Rick’s weapon of choice is a large stick that happens to be laying around in most levels, which is a good thing because this big burly dude is unable to carry the stick while climbing up ladders to different levels. Different levels seem to have signature weapons that are highlighted in the level card, like shotgun, spears, and machetes. Even though he’s only the stage 3 boss, this chainsaw-handed monstrosity is easily the most menacing thing I saw in the game. The fact that Rick is facing off with him using a shotgun makes it perhaps the most badass scene in the entire game, even if the chainsaw sound effects were lacking.

In fact, many of the boss battles are quite creative, especially in level 2 when Rick fights a haunted room in what I dubbed The Ikea Nightmare:

You have to dodge falling debris, then fight a floating chair, 3 floating knives, and finally the painting. Oh, and don’t be standing under the chandelier because that will fall before it’s all over. Several boss battles have a “One more thing…” moment, so you have to be on your toes while the game still gives you control of the character.

While the game sticks well to a haunted / gory mansion motif, the decor grows incongruous at the end of stage 4 as I thought the character had just stumbled into Dracula’s castle. In this seemingly interminable hallway, Rick finds a golden machete as well as a gaggle of disembodied heads revolving around an inverted cross.

This confused me somewhat — is the inverted cross supposed to be an evil symbol? After a little digging, apparently, it’s construed to be an evil symbol to some. But compared to the rest of the horrors in the mansion, if you have to explain why this one particular artifact is evil, it’s probably not doing its job. Though I’m thinking that having the heads revolve around the number “666”, or worse yet, fighting a bunch of flying “6”s would have seemed ultimately hokey (not unlike fighting the giant Decepticon symbol in the Japanese Transformers NES game).

All in all, this was a lot of fun. It was a lot of trial and error in the classic side-scroller sense, but still enjoyable. Then again, remember what I’m used to doing for the sake of this blog — playing forgotten, obscure, or just plain bad games that no one else wants to bother with, all in order to fill gaps in the database. It’s nice to play a more famous and generally better game every now and then.

Then there’s Resident Evil 4: Mobile Edition. I’m a fairly big fan of the Resident Evil series in general and I qualify the 4th installment as one of my very favorite action games. And I have to give credit where credit is due — RE4:ME on the iPhone is quite the technical achievement and will wow disbelievers who doubt what the iPhone can do in the graphical department. (This illustrative screenshot is just a prerendered cinematic, though.)

Resident Evil 4: Mobile Edition -- Opening cinematic with Leon surrounded

All that said, I really don’t like RE4:ME. The game allegedly follows the primary flow of the original game, only dumbed down slightly given the limited input facilities of the iPhone. And those limited input facilities are really the rub here.

Resident Evil 4: Mobile Edition -- Shotgun vs. chainsaw

Honestly, I have had this same problem with a lot of iPhone games. Sure, you can touch the screen and you can tilt or shake the unit, but that doesn’t necessarily help with many different types of games. Such as this. Here, the player must use the touch-directional pad on the left to move and then use the context buttons on the right to switch to different modes (aiming vs. moving vs. using knife). Manually reloading the weapon is performed by shaking the unit which is a nice touch once you get used to it.

The beginning of the game starts Leon in an enclosed village area reminiscent of the original village from RE4. First, Leon can practice blasting the possessed Spaniards, slashing item boxes, and picking up items. After knocking off enough enemies, the first chainsaw dude appears. Even though I had already collected the shotgun, I couldn’t take him down. This was exacerbated by the fact that there are still many other enemies coming at the player at the same time as Mr. Chainsaw. It’s not effective use of the 6 shotgun shells to use them on the lower level goons and it’s unwieldy to constantly switch between weapons.

Plus, the very detailed graphics are on a very small screen and it’s quite difficult to focus on them for extended periods without growing fatigued or suffering from a headache.

See Also:

Bonus mission in Resident Evil 4 GameCube version

At the Apple App Store:

Resident Evil 4: Mobile Edition

At MobyGames:

Hello Kitty Bubblegum Girlfriends

Posted on October 27, 2009 by Multimedia Mike

Oh look, another Hello Kitty video game that isn’t in MobyGames yet. Dang it. All right, let’s just get this over with.

Really, I shouldn’t have a foul attitude about this. My last outing with a Hello Kitty game — Hello Kitty Dream Carnival — was actually quite the delightful romp. Hello Kitty Bubblegum Girlfriends is more of the same — colorful, simple, and actually very fun. I’m impressed that, even though Dream Carnival and Bubblegum Girlfriends were developed by different houses, they both carry a very consistent style. This probably goes to show that Sanrio exercises tight control over its licensees.

This game, like the other one, is a series of 8 rather well-engineered minigames. Here are the ones I found the most interesting.

First, I was all over Sky Bubble Popper, which is a variation of the Puzz Loop formula of which I have become a large fan thanks to Luxor and StoneLoops:

Hello Kitty Bubblegum Girlfriends -- Sky Bubble Popper

I always love a good Breakout clone and Cupcake Trampoline delivers while being the most exploitative minigame on offer:

Hello Kitty Bubblegum Girlfriends -- Cupcake Trampoline

Hello Kitty and her bunny friend use a trampoline to keep the squirrel in play grabbing ice cream cones and cupcakes. I hope the squirrel at least gets a cut of the spoils for her role.

I absolutely could not figure out what was going on with Bubble Gum Taxi which has something to do with picking up Tetris-looking pieces from the conveyor belt and placing them on a puzzle:

Hello Kitty Bubblegum Girlfriends -- Bubble Gum Taxi

Crazy Cookie Race eventually shaped up to be my favorite game and it had many pieces:

Hello Kitty Bubblegum Girlfriends -- Crazy Cookie Race

Place cookies from the bottom shelf onto the light outlines moving on the conveyor belts (first and third from the top). Those cookies come out baked and decorated on the second and fourth belts where they must be manually picked up and placed into the appropriate boxes on top before they reach the end of the belt. You’re going through a lot of ingredients but Hello Kitty’s friends have many more for you to use. You just need to click on them when they arrive with the ingredients and they will cheerfully drop them into the cauldron.

Interesting tech trivia: The credits for the game give a shout out to the Lua programming language, implying that it must be used in the game somehow.

See Also:

At MobyGames:

Candy Land

Posted on October 26, 2009 by Multimedia Mike

I’ve seen Operation and Clue adaptations in this Gaming Pathology project and now I come to another board game adaptation — Candy Land. I wonder if this will be a direct adaptation (like Clue) or an “inspired by” type of adaptation (like Operation). The answer turns out to be a mixture– it is a direct adaptation of the original Candy Land board game but with 8 minigames/side activities to keep things interesting.

As for the primary board game, the developers went through the trouble of lovingly modeling the beautiful Candy Landscape in 3D and rendering still shots that encompass every single space in the game. When moving from one space to the next, the player is treated to a somewhat clunky transition between these shots. With a little more computing horsepower, this could be a great FPS setting or some kind of 3D animated game.

Now here are some of the more unusual items that struck me about the side activities. In the Gingerbread Plum Forest, the player meets Plumpy who cheerfully describes himself as the last of the Plumpa Trolls. You would think that being the last of his race would be cause for despair, but not so. Plumpy wants nothing more than for you to tickle him into surrendering plums for a pie. Maybe that’s his way of coping with the trauma and depression.

Next to the Ice Cream Sea, the player has the opportunity to customize a giant sundae by clicking through the various layers in order to rotate through colors/flavors. Then, clicking on the creatures surrounding the sundae allows for decorating. Afterwards, ask the fairy to set the sundae adrift on the Ice Cream Sea where it is promptly devoured by a whale. It seems that eating it on shore would have been a positive idea. Then again, maybe it’s better to let the whale have at it considering that the sundae was decorated with bodily excretions from anthropomorphic confections and foodstuffs.

Candy Land -- Giant sundae set adrift in the Ice Cream Sea

The Lollipop Woods afford the player the opportunity to decorate giant lollipop trees using a special decorating machine. It turns out that lollipop decoration is performed in a CMYK colorspace.

This is Gloppy, the proprietor of the Molasses Swamp. There are no activities in the swamp except to interact with a few surroundings.

Candy Land -- Gloppy in the Molasses Swamp

Indeed, the highlight (lowlight?) of the swamp is when Gloppy implores you to — direct quote — “Come back again so we can get messy together.”

See Also:

At MobyGames:

Golem

Posted on October 25, 2009 by Multimedia Mike

If there’s one thing to appreciate about Golem, it’s the unusual level of candor the game’s creators were willing to express in the PDF manual regarding the source of most software problems:

Golem is a real time strategy (RTS) game developed by a Polish house named Longsoft (which isn’t in the database yet, which likely means that most of the developers listed in the credits are not in yet, which means I need to break out the Polish diacritics for copy and pasting). I have had limited success with RTS games so far but why should I let that stop me?

Golem intro FMV -- Meteors take down the Eiffel Tower

The manual establishes that there was an unspecified “cataclysm” that thrust the earth into chaos. The very well-produced opening FMV indicates that the cataclysm came in the form of radioactive meteors taking down the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, and the Sydney Opera House. The upshot is that the destruction of civilization in the ensuing tidal waves, combined with mutations, or lack thereof, caused the survivors to form 3 separate factions. The manual actually had a lot more detail. But am I the only one who gets bored extremely quickly when faced with a large volume of background story, particularly for sci-fi or fantasy games?

The game has to do with building facilities that harvest natural resources and then putting those resources to work building machines of war with which to attack the other factions. That’s the general impression I got from the manual. I’m pretty sure that this is the thrust of the famed Command & Conquer games, which I have never actually played (though I have collected several of the titles for the purposes of studying their multimedia). I gave the tutorial a whirl but when the game cut me loose, I was at a total loss. I came to the sad realization that today will not be the day that I learn to start caring about RTS games.

But that’s okay because I think I collected enough data for a reasonable MobyGames entry. I just wish I could figure out a way to rip the intro FMV, which appears to be encoded in Indeo 5, and upload it for posterity.

See Also:

Gender Wars, my first RTS on this blog
Star Wars: Force Commander
Ski Jumping 2004, also by a Polish software house, notable for how painful it is for a video game historian with a US keyboard to enter their credits into the database

At MobyGames:

101 Games In 1

Posted on October 22, 2009 by Multimedia Mike

For at least the past 5 years, I have been seeing kiosk vendors in malls selling special video game systems. These items boast many games hardwired into devices which are just controllers with a few A/V cables for plugging directly into a television. You know the places — kiosks staffed by shady-looking, shifty-eyed characters who greet you with the customary, “You’re not a cop, right? Because you have to tell me if you are or else it’s entrapment.” It’s obvious to any video game geek that these systems are just some 8-bit NES emulation mechanism attached to a store of illicit NES ROMs, all packed inside the controller.

Really, it’s a nifty idea, just not altogether on the up-and-up. Creating and selling hardware that duplicates NES functionality is okay since the NES patents expired years ago. But the copyrights on the ROMs are in no way expired.

I was surprised to see one of these devices in a significantly more mainstream retail outlet– a Walgreens store, specifically. It was only $9.99 and claimed 101 games.

The most vivid screenshot on the package was quite obviously Arkanoid. When I turned on the unit (which requires unscrewing the battery cover to insert the batteries-not-included), I was greeted by Pac-Man:

I gave it a whirl. There are, in fact, 101 individual games (unlike that 1997-in-1 fraud I wrote about once) which I have listed at the end of this entry for reference. As an expert in American NES games, I know that most of them are games that were never released in America. Almost all of them are incredibly simple, obviously mapper-less games (memory mappers were used in NES cartridges to effectively expand the amount of data a game could have; lack of a mapper limits the possible size and complexity of a game). The most complex game I saw in the menu was Super C which used Nintendo’s MMC3 mapper hardware. Then again, the game had been stripped of its title screen and I didn’t play past the first level; it’s entirely possible that someone whittled this down to be an abbreviated, mapper-less version of the original game. I’m fairly confident that none of these games use battery backup features, thus obviating the need to emulate any non-volatile RAM.

As for actual gameplay, the experience is a bit disappointing. The joypad is very stiff. There are 4 buttons on the right side of the controller, but they’re actually just 2 A buttons and 2 B buttons. The select and start buttons sit just above the reset button which goes back to the Pac-Man greeting screen and that’s not a very user friendly feature. I was just getting into Super C when I noticed that particular problem.

Overall, this is probably as much of a letdown as that 1997-in-1 device. This device was cheaper, sure. But this device also required a little more time to notice how bad it is.

See Also:

1997-in-1 handheld gaming device

At MobyGames:

Here’s the full list of 101 games:

Gaming Pathology

Piles Of Games, Copious Free Time, No Standards

Author: Multimedia Mike

Quest For The Code

Halloween Special

Hello Kitty Bubblegum Girlfriends

Candy Land

Golem

101 Games In 1