GapKids Adventure

Posted on October 15, 2009 by Multimedia Mike

I spied GapKids Adventure at my favorite spent shop and hoped that I had located the sequel to the Snow Day game, one of the first games from this Gaming Pathology project (and I know that such a game exists, and I know I will locate it one day). Alas, this is unrelated to Snow Day save for its GapKids theme and the probability that it was distributed in the same way as Snow Day (at various GapKids stores). My copy of the sleeve has the handwritten note “code 427” on the front of the sleeve. Will this game feature more of that GapKids trickery goading players to return to the store at set intervals in order to learn secret codes to access more games?

The game sleeve is larger than a typical CD-ROM sleeve because it contains a pair of paper glasses similar to cheap red/blue “3D” glasses. However, these glasses have red tint over both eyes.

GapKids Adventures -- Game sleeve and red-tinted glasses

It turns out that the glasses will be used to “decode” certain obscured clues throughout the game. Such clues look like this secret clue poster which, for some reason, is hanging in the character’s bedroom:

I haven’t seen this technique since the tech specs found on the back of Transformers toy packages over 2 decades ago. I can’t shake the feeling that there must be some standard color adjustment tool found in many graphic editors which would allow you to undo the masking.

Anyway, the game, apparently written in Flash 6.0 circa 2002-2003, has the player selecting either a boy or a girl, dressing them, gathering useful items from their bedroom, selecting a mode of transport and heading over to the tree house after completing some athletic obstacle courses.

The tree house sits atop a magnificent tree with an intricate ladder maze which must be negotiated before partaking in the recreational treasures of the tree house:

The ladder maze is platformer action which somehow manages to defy both the rules of real world physics (as all platformers do with their platforms moving to and fro in mid-air) as well as accepted video game physics (jump on a moving platform and the character remains stationary in air as the platform moves out from beneath).

So I finally get to the tree house (the gameplay was arduous enough that I almost gave up). What’s inside? Well, we have an optical illusion book, a fortune teller fold-up that can be printed, a certificate of completion in the form of a poster that can be completed and printed, a DJ mix station activity, and a secret password that accesses a bonus half pipe game. Oh, and there’s also a compartment with a numeric lock. This is where the code that was scrawled on the sleeve (and was seen earlier in the game using the red shading mechanism) comes into play. What’s the hidden secret in the compartment?

These kids are keeping a monkey prisoner in their tree house! It seems animal rights types would be all over Gap Inc. if anyone had ever heard of this game in the first place (Google searches only produce references to Snow Day).

Also in the tree house is a video game system that offers 2 games. GapKids Adventure was created by a group named Orange Design who demo a number of Flash games on their site. I get the feeling that the 2 arcade games here are Flash games that they had laying around and thought this would be a good opportunity to publish them. One is a Lunar Lander-type game. Wouldn’t you know– here’s the exact Flash game on their website.

The other is standard Pong game with a twist– the whole game field is obscured by the same red masking as the clues, necessitating the use of the red glasses.

GapKids Adventure -- Table Tennis; Pong obscured

You might be able to sort out the clues if you stare at the static images long enough. But you’ll be lost trying to find the paddle and the ball in this field without the glasses.

The game sleeve threatens that this is only Volume 1 so I will be on the lookout for more volumes. Or I suppose I could email the creators who still seem to be in business.

Update:: Thanks to my contact at Orange Design who informed me that they only produced 1 volume of this game.

See Also:

Snow Day: The GapKids Quest, perhaps the most popular post on this blog, if only because it revealed long lost codes to special games
GapKids Adventure Archived at Internet Archive

At MobyGames:

Real World Application

Posted on October 11, 2009 by Multimedia Mike

As a big fan of the Resident Evil series of games, I was a tad befuddled when I encountered this out in the real world:

I pass by this gate on one of my regular workouts. Every time I pass the gate, I wonder… am I expected to take the jewel in the eye? Or am I supposed to look around and find a matching red jewel for the other eye? Shouldn’t there be a piece of paper somewhere nearby which explains this? What kind of hoops do I need to jump through in order to procure that piece of paper? And most importantly, what are the consequences of completing this puzzle? Can I expect zombies to spring up? From inside the gate or behind me outside the gate? I need to advance this story somehow.

As an aside, I have been meaning to bring my camera along to photograph this odd gate but keep forgetting. Then I recall that this exists in one of the most thoroughly photographed cities on the planet and a simple Google image search can reveal any square inch that you’re looking for.

See Also:

At MobyGames:

Resident Evil series of games

TAS Capsules #3

Posted on October 11, 2009 by Multimedia Mike

Time for more of these TAS capsules, as many as I can stand to do today.

I have played Battletoads & Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team (SNES) and I remember it being quite difficult. I’m glad to sit back and allow the TAS to take its course, which is highly entertaining. This game, as with any Battletoads title presents many different styles of gameplay and many unique quirks to the proceedings, while offering a great soundtrack. I’m still thankful I never bothered to try mastering all 7 levels.

Battletoads and Double Dragon -- Meeting the Dark Queen

I don’t remember much about Chip ‘N Dale: Rescue Rangers (NES) except that it was exceptionally easy. The TAS reminds me heavily of Clockwork Knight. I have to hand it to Fat Cat– he has enlisted quite a crew: He has the gangster lizards and gangster weasels (the latter wielding plunger guns), as well as the ninja flying squirrels.

Chip 'n Dale's Rescue Rangers -- Gangster lizards in the casino

Chip 'n Dale's Rescue Rangers -- Gangster weasels with plunger guns

Chip 'n Dale's Rescue Rangers -- Ninja flying squirrels

The casino in the game ostensibly offers its customers the opportunity to wager on horse “darby”:

Chip 'n Dale's Rescue Rangers -- Horse Darby Derby

Maybe “derby” has trademark protection.

Werewolf: The Last Warrior (NES) is the most baffling and hilarious TAS I have watched in awhile. Mercifully, it was short at under 10 minutes. It’s a terribly buggy game and the TAS makes sharp use of that fact– occasionally, all sprites are gone (including the player) and the game just starts scrolling slowly around fields that are obviously incorrectly tiled:

Level 4 has enemies that feel the need to exclaim “OH!” for some reason:

Werewolf: The Last Warrior -- Guards say "OH!"

When the eponymous hero reaches the house of the final boss, it’s a scientist-type guy who guzzles a bottle of something. I was waiting for him to turn into something ferocious and powerful, but he just turned into the same kind of werewolf that the character already was. How could the guy possibly expect to win? The hero already has a whole game’s worth of experience at being this werewolf monstrosity. Anyway, after that boss battle, there is a lull while some victory music plays and the TAS author does a fantastic job at making the Werewolf dance to the music while he’s waiting for the final boss to manifest.

I feared that Karnov for the NES was going to suck heavily and I was right. The TAS was less than 9 minutes but it felt much, much longer. I know this game is quite popular, which I have never really understood.

Either Karnov is a badass or the bosses are all wusses. He actually dispatched most of them in the TAS before they even showed up on screen. The TAS didn’t mention “Abuses programming errors” in its attributes, and I suppose it’s technically true that the player didn’t, e.g., run through any walls. Watch this trio of enemies, though:

And… I think that’s pretty much my breaking point for today. Thanks for reading along. Maybe I’ll have the fortitude to do a part 4 someday.

See Also:

At MobyGames:

TAS Capsules #2

Posted on September 27, 2009 by Multimedia Mike

Oh, I’m not done with these TAS capsule reviews yet. See part 1 for a broader explanation.

Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six (NES) makes me long for Bionic Commando. It also makes me research who the Sinister Six are so I can write accurate descriptions for MobyGames (these licensed games often make me to that). Random notes: killer targeted electricity is a threat in the first level; stage 3 has an area without light, not sure how I would negotiate it if I had to actually play; it might be possible to turn on the light but the speedrunner didn’t have a need.

It also occurs to me that having yourself a gang of 6 really lends itself well to a platformer video game.

No matter how horrifying the NES Ghosts ‘N Goblins title was, Super Ghouls ‘N Ghosts for SNES is worse in just about every way. The game (at least the speedun version) opens with the opening boss urinating fireballs on you.

Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts -- Demon's urination

Then there is the giant sperm wafting through the air in a later level. And what’s with the many swinging guillotines on the ship level? Who thought that would be a neat idea?

Super Ghouls & Ghosts -- Guillotines on a ship

Milon’s Secret Castle (NES) was a bit painful to watch, only because I remember how arduous it was to play and finish, which I did, fair and square, back in 1991, when it was on loan from a friend. Before that, however, I had rented it one weekend and was immediately stuck on the first floor of the castle, just as most players find themselves. For those not in the know on this game, it is impossible to make any progress without knowing how to do a certain block shooting and moving trick that is completely non-obvious. I can attest to the non-obviousness of this since my highly trained, Nintendo nerd eyes spent an entire weekend trying to figure out how to make any progress whatsoever.

Milon's Secret Castle -- scaling the castle wall

Oh, the things I used to put up with. What was I thinking?

As for Demon Sword (NES), it’s fun to watch the TAS but I’m glad I never bothered to play it. Though I found it humorous that this miniboss apparently shops at Target:

The musical score seems heavily influenced by Ninja Gaiden. Also, who builds graveyards on large, steep mountains?

I already knew that Trojan (NES) was a short game. After I mastered it (in a single, short rental period), I figured I could probably play it from start to finish in about 10 minutes. The TAS managed to do it in a little more than 6 minutes.

Trojan (NES) -- Post-apocalypse VW Beetle

Ghosts ‘N Goblins for the NES is every bit as insane as I recall. ‘Nuff said.

Nightshade (NES) always looked fascinating, and I even own a copy that I picked up cheap. But I never got a chance to play it. The TAS is utterly bewildering. Something about a private detective/wannabe superhero (in a town where the real superhero has just been knocked off) is trying to stop an ancient Egyptian-themed villain. Something like that.

Tom & Jerry: The Ultimate Game of Cat and Mouse! (NES) makes me wonder why Tom is so obsessed with one measly mouse– Jerry is honestly the least of the house’s pest problems (roaches, ants, spiders and even some ghost insects). My favorite part was the NES in-game. How very meta.

Cobra Triangle (NES) from Rare makes me wonder how much code was reused from R.C. Pro-Am. The game exhibits a weird sense of humor on the stage with guarding swimmers.

Cobra Triangle -- Mission: Guard the People

Enemy boats and even UFOs are dragging swimmers out of the safe zone and you have to drag them back.

And then I come to Hydlide (NES). I have unresolved issues regarding this game which I easily place in my bottom 5 list of all NES games. I think it may have been a little cathartic to view this TAS as I got to relive my most painful gaming experience in all of about 10 minutes. Everything about this game is the epitome of awful and it must be preserved in MobyGames for all time. I actually rented it twice and eventually completed it. And I remember a screen with a background identical to this one, on which I ground out many an experience level, giving me perhaps the worst headache of my entire life:

This is about the time when I snapped and decided I didn’t want to do this TAS screenshot recon any longer.

See Also:

At MobyGames:

TAS Capsules #1

Posted on September 26, 2009 by Multimedia Mike

Point harvesting has a glorious and storied tradition among MobyGames contributors. To that end, I sometimes like to go over to TASVideos.org and fire up an emulator to watch a tool-assisted speedrun while gathering plenty of emulator screenshots. This is low effort and high-yield in MobyGames contribution points.

However, nothing disabuses me of my nostalgia for old S/NES games like watching these speedruns. “Did I just watch the exact same level being played 13 times in a row, but with different colored backgrounds each time? Would I have patiently and tenaciously played through this game 20 years ago?” Regrettably, the answers to both of the foregoing questions is a slightly ashamed “yes”.

There are too many of these games to warrant individual posts. Further, I obviously didn’t get a good enough feel for the games to be able to write authoritatively about any of them. Instead, I thought I would do brief capsule reviews and highlight 1 or 2 things that caught my eye about each.

The Mask (SNES game based on the 1994 movie) faces off with a Mask’d Dorian in the finale of his eponymous game. That has to be the most grotesque deviation from the storyline– how can they both be wearing the Mask at the same time?

The Mask (SNES) -- Stanley fights Dorian and both have Masks

Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel has a Wolverine knock-off for a boss:

Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel -- Wolverine boss

To be fair, I think it’s supposed to be an actual, anthropomorphized wolverine rather than a human with claws.

In Daffy Duck: The Marvin Missions (SNES), the Lava Lakes “Pleasure Resort” sounds a bit out of place for this type of game:

Daffy Duck: The Marvin Missions -- Lava Lakes Pleasure Resort

Bart’s Nightmare (SNES) violates Simpsons canon by merely having Bart working hard on homework; everything else that doesn’t make sense about the game is explained away by it all being in Bart’s dream. This is the most dull game to watch.

I didn’t recognize Burns as the boss in this level until I analyzed the screenshots later:

The Simpsons: Bart's Nightmare -- Burns boss in a biplane

Ghoul School (NES) looks like a terribly annoying game. I should probably read up on the storyline if it’s available online, but it seems like the monsters are doing fine and minding their own business, improving themselves, when this mohawked punk shows up at their school and starts causing trouble. Or it could be that the monsters conquered.

The Goonies (NES) is absurdly short (the TAS is done in about 2.5 minutes). It might make more sense if I ever saw the movie, but then again, probably not.

The Goonies (NES) -- Guy in a suit pursue our young hero

Watching the TAS for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game (NES), I’m hard-pressed to recall the many Pizza Hut plugs in the original arcade game, but perhaps I wasn’t so in tune with the product placement issue back then. Maybe I noticed but laughed at how lame it looked… just like now:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Killer snowmen and Pizza Hut product placement

Final Fight 3 (SNES) includes a section where the “heroes” invade someone’s boat and beat up the captain (who is trained to hold his own, mind you). Then again, the protagonists of these games have never been shy about trespassing on private property in the pursuit of justice.

Final Fight 3 -- Fight the captain on his own boat

In Robocop 3 (NES), our mechanized hero has a final face-off with ninjas that auto-destruct once you key in a code while a knowledge worker toils in the background:

Robocop 3 -- Face-off the ninjas and computer geek

The game features a new low in level design when it makes you backtrack over one level (level 4 is the same as level 3 with Robocop walking in the other direction).

Spelunker (NES) — oh, how I hated this game as a child. Thanks to the miracle of TAS, I can finally see what I missed by not being able to get more than about 10 virtual meters from the starting point in this game. Not much, apparently, and the game is still as obnoxious as I remember, and I gave that game an honest try (again, not much else to play, and I had this on loan from a friend).

Did you know there was a Transformers NES game back in the day? Transformers: Convoy no Nazo, as you might have guessed from the title, was a Japanese game (though there was also a Commodore 64 strategy-type game I remember reading about). After witnessing the TAS for Convoy no Nazo, I feel glad I never had a Transformers game to louse up my Transformers-obsessed childhood.

Transformers: Convoy no Nazo -- fighting Decepticon badge

The hero of this game is Ultra Magnus. Bosses include (I think) Unicron (at least, there’s a round thing in the back of the stage) and also a giant Decepticon symbol. Megatron isn’t even the final boss (it’s the giant Decepticon T-rex Trypticon). It’s interesting to learn that video game adaptations in Japan are every bit as half-assed as their American counterparts.

Transformers: Convoy no Nazo -- Fighting Megatron boss

To their credit, they got the “More than meets the eye” trademark musical lick reasonably duplicated with the NES’s limited sound generation capability.

More TAS capsules to come.

See Also:

Part 2 of this S/NES TAS capsule series
Sega CD capsule reviews, in the same spirit as these (and part 2)

At MobyGames:

Got A PlayStation 3

Posted on August 25, 2009 by Multimedia Mike

I can’t believe I now belong to the current generation of gaming, and it’s more fun than I thought it would be. Pursuant to last week’s announcement that Sony would drop the price of their PlayStation 3 to US$300 immediately, I finally sprung for the console, a Blu-Ray remote, one game and one Blu-Ray movie. (Yeah, I could wait until the PS3 Slim drops in a few weeks. But it’s rumored that it won’t support the “Other OS” option and I still have some remote interest in being able to program this thing.)

The game I purchased along with the console is Ninja Gaiden Sigma. Always thinking of MobyGames, I was sure to choose the Greatest Hits edition so that I could have something to contribute to the database (cover art, in this case). I’m not sure about the screenshot aspect yet. The PS3 makes it very difficult to capture anything from the console. This is the best I can do for now, which probably won’t cut it for MobyGames posterity:

I’m cheerful that my high end NEC LCD monitor does, in fact, support HDCP so that I can play at full 1080p resolution (for the record, the NEC 24″ MultiSync LCD 2490WUXi). For audio, I have a Creative brand 5.1 system that can accept 5.1 Dolby and DTS via optical. Setting up all the speakers is a bit unwieldy, so I just went with the headphones tonight. It’s good to know that I have all the right equipment; I just don’t have a good environment in which to set it all up.

Sigma is great, though, at least for what I have played so far (not much). I have read that the modern incarnation of the Ninja Gaiden games are insanely difficult action games. I always figured that this squares with the original 8-bit NES series which had a reputation of being some of the most maddeningly challenging action games produced at the time (particularly the first). I completed all 3 back in the day but I wonder if I have what it takes to push through this thing.

I feel helpless without screenshot capability. I get twitchy when I boot up a game for the first time and am not compulsively capturing screenshots of anything halfway interesting or useful for documentation purposes. Indeed, it’s difficult for me to just sit back and enjoy a game these days without obsessively thinking about documenting it. I have read that version 2.5 of the PS3 firmware (due last October) introduced the ability to capture screenshots and view them in the PS3’s photo gallery, a feature that was supposed to be opt-in for individual games. I can’t figure out if that ever came to pass, how to activate the feature, or if Sigma allows it.

The PS3 unit is quite amazing. Blu-Ray playback is more seamless than DVD playback ever was. I have played DVDs on a variety of DVD-ROM drives and standalone units and it has always been a clunky and somewhat unresponsive experience when navigating menus. Blu-Ray feels much slicker, at least for this one movie I have (last year’s Tropic Thunder).

Of course the unit came with a bunch of cables. The bizarre thing was that I packed them all right back in the box, unopened, because they’re all quite standard and I already have spares laying about– a standard PC-style power cable, a mini-USB connector for the controller, and for video, I already have the appropriate HDMI/DVI cable for my monitor.

See Also:

The time I got a PlayStation 2

At MobyGames:

Gaming Pathology

Piles Of Games, Copious Free Time, No Standards

Author: Multimedia Mike

GapKids Adventure

Real World Application

TAS Capsules #3

TAS Capsules #2

TAS Capsules #1

Got A PlayStation 3