Purest Pinball Sim: Pro Pinball

Posted on January 2, 2007 by Multimedia Mike

Now that the Christmas-New Year holiday is officially over I decided to go with something easy this evening. According to my master spreadsheet, there is a Sega Saturn pinball game that has yet to make it’s way into the database: Pro Pinball by Empire Interactive. What game could be easier to process than a pinball game? Unfortunately, this is also the first Sega Saturn disc of this project to give me substantial trouble. Instead of booting, the Saturn just goes into its audio CD playback control console and offers to play any of the 25 red book audio tracks on the CD while thumping its stereo, 3D, rotating, ostensibly Gouraud-shaded volume power cubes. After enough console resets, the Saturn eventually agrees to play the disc and I fire up the video recording on my video capture card as I do not want to deal with this again.

Right away, the title screen informs me that this may merely be a new platform port of an existing game in the MobyGames database, Pro Pinball: The Web, already known to be available for DOS and Windows. Neither the Saturn plastic case copy nor the CD-ROM mention “The Web” but the title screen clearly does:

I’m not sure why the bottom of the title screen appears cut off. Perhaps a PAL game shoehorned into an NTSC format? The game’s boldest selling point is its endorsement by one Rick Stetta who I guess is the Kasparov of pinballing (Wikipedia knows something of his exploits). “The ultimate and most realistic computer pinball game I’ve ever played.”

It’s time to give it a whirl, especially since I went through so much trouble to get the game to boot in the first place. The main menu has an options screen with a sound test which also allows you to set the graphic sharpness (soft vs. sharp). I didn’t see a difference between the modes. Further, the main menu offers you a slideshow which shows up-close details of all aspects of the pinball table. Curious feature, but there it is.

The actual game is, well, a pinball game, pure and simple. Yes, the physics are all there and all very realistic. The control scheme is quite reasonable, with left on the gamepad affecting the 2 left-side flippers and the C button (the right-most button on the Saturn controller) triggering the right flipper. However, the response lag caused by piping the A/V through my ATI video card is killing me. Anyway, the ball is released, bounces around, hits things, the score mounts up, stuff flashes, there’s a dot-matrix screen where animations occur sometimes, and the game occasionally declares “Ball Frenzy!” where it shoots out lots of balls for you to bounce around simultaneously. The most interesting feature of this game that I have never seen before in a pinball sim is the ability to jolt the table, either forward by pressing up on the gamepad, or left or right by pressing the top left or right buttons on the controller.

Audio-wise, the game should stay entertaining with those 25 aformentioned red book CD audio tracks. And the right and left flippers actually come out of the correct speakers, though this was my first clue that something was amiss in the audio path between my Saturn and my headphones– the stereo was reversed.

So what’s my overall impression? Yeah, it’s a phenomenally accurate pinball simulation. But I have to tell you, I’m still highly partial to Epic MegaGames’ Epic Pinball. It occurred to me that this game might appeal to the pinball purist the way that the venerable Chessmaster series might appeal to the devotees of that timeless strategy game. Frankly, if I’m itching for a perfectly authentic pinball experience, I can always find some arcade or bar nearby with a machine. But I always appreciated the way that Epic Pinball brought some unusual twists (like the Enigma table) that you can’t get with a real pinball machine. Accurate computer simulations work best for things we can’t easily do in real life, like build cities or civilizations.

Cursory MobyGames Entry

Posted on January 2, 2007 by Multimedia Mike

All right, this exercise is paying off already: My first new game submission to MobyGames has been published. Check out the Hot Wired entry for cover art scans and higher resolution screenshots than those found in my initial blog post on the game.

And stay tuned for more fresh entries.

DOS Time: I.M. Meen

Posted on January 1, 2007 by Multimedia Mike

Tonight’s descent into gaming madness is I.M. Meen, another title from Simon & Schuster Interactive, who also brought us the business-as-war FPS Forbes Corporate Warrior. The cover of the CD-ROM bills it as an “action-packed 3D learning adventure for ages 9 and up”. That’s all I have to go on.

When I examine the contents of the CD-ROM, I realize that this must be a DOS-based game (also, the game’s copyright date is 1995). This gives me the opportunity to properly configure DOSBox for this experiment. I had forgotten just how slick DOSBox is as I do not often have occasion to use it. The game’s audio configuration has no trouble detecting DOSBox’s Sound Blaster emulation facilities and I’m off and running.

This eponymous villain has the most curious pet peeve: He can’t stand the thought of goody-goody children studying. He’s a proactive wizard/mad scientist/librarian/whatever so he creates a special book that can trap children in a labyrinth. In the intro animation, Meen manages to trap two more children — a boy and a girl — in the maze-book.

When you begin the game, you select between playing either the boy or the girl (with no notable difference between their in-game abilities) and you can also configure the play and reading levels. You are then cast into a Wolfenstein 3D-style maze where you immediately run into Meen’s traitorous Gnome lackey, Gnick, imploring you to rescue the children imprisoned in this dungeon by solving some kind of reading puzzles. Offensively, either child can throw a right hook using the space bar. This turns out to be enough to dispatch the giant blue spiders that infest the labyrinth. The trolls shown below, wielding spiked clubs, can usually sustain 2-3 blows from an elementary school student.

I.M. Meen gameplay; facing off with multiple trolls

The red meter under the boy’s face is the boy’s health. I have not yet figured out if there is any way to replenish this health. And facing off with the numerous trolls in the dungeon tends to hurt an awful lot. Fortunately, there are some other limited-use offensive range weapons to be found in the game, including a fire wand and explod-o-fruit. These are picked up using a right mouse click and dragged into one of the squares underneath the power meter. To equip a weapon, drag it into the hand icon at the bottom of the screen. As for the other icons, the Meen icon brings up the game menu, the compass icon is informational, and map icon shows the auto-cartography feature which is incredibly useful in a dungeon crawl like this where everything looks the same.

An interesting item about this FPS-influenced game is that it appears to be controllable completely by a mouse if the player so chooses. Granted, that would be a bit tricky. You can move the mouse to various sections of the field and the mouse cursor indicates which direction the player will move when pressing the left mouse button. Further, the right mouse button throws a left punch. This is a fairly violent game by educational entertainment standards. Still, I think the game could have benefited from a strafe-punch option.

So where does the educational aspect come into play? When you see a scroll on the wall, approach it, press the space bar, and find yourself confronted with such a puzzle:

Correct the punctuation errors to free a fellow child. It’s interesting to note that the screen resolution changes from 320×200 to 640×480 for the text editor, and that the text editor is quite decent in that it actually supports word jumping with Ctrl-left/right.

I know that video games, just like any other form of entertainment, necessitate some suspension of disbelief, and that I should not think too hard about any aspect of them, particularly the storyline. However, I have the worst time understanding what Meen could possibly have against studious children. Has he had to deal with one too many know-it-all, smarmy little brats in whatever his day-to-day dealings happen to entail? Was he pushed over the edge by all those “My child is an honor student at…” bumper stickers? If you examine the above note screenshot that needs its punctuation fixed, you will see that it is written by Meen’s paranoid gnome henchman, Gnick. Gnick’s paranoid disposition in the game is inconsistent with the insolent tone of the note. However, his level of English composition skill could be in keeping with the low levels of education that Meen desires in those around him.

It could be that Meen is insecure about his own intellectual prowess and seeks to incapacitate the learning process for young children so they can’t possibly grow up to expose him for the fraud he is. I think I know people like that in real life.

But if you wish to peer a little more deeply into his mind to understand Meen’s motivations, here is the entire intro video for the game:

First Saturn Game: Criticom

Posted on December 31, 2006 by Multimedia Mike

I have quite a bit of free time during this week between Christmas and New Years Day and I am using it to get into the groove of playing and writing up one game per day. I think I have the Windows thing locked down but I also have a lot of Sega CD, Saturn, and Dreamcast games to work through. I can’t say I’m necessarily looking forward to the Saturn part of the exercise, for it means that I need to dust off my old Saturn console, hook it up to my ATI video capture card and fight with it until both audio and video come through into my computer, and then hope beyond hope that the old gaming unit still agrees to play the old, used, possibly battered and scratched Saturn CD-ROMs. And don’t even get me started on the screenshot workflow.

But somehow, I managed to get it all hooked up. So here’s the first Sega Saturn game of the Gaming Pathology experiment– Criticom. The game title seemed somewhat familiar even though I don’t remember ever playing it. When I started watching the low-grade, 1995-era FMV, I realized that I had already watched all of the FMV files from this game thanks to my efforts to reverse engineer the dominant Saturn FMV format. So the entire game is already spoiled for me. Everything except for the actual gameplay, that is.

Criticom is a one-on-one fighting game with a sci-fi/fantasy backstory. Basically, there is some crystal artifact (I think this might be the game’s namesake) that is the source of a huge amount of power. This game is about 8 different fighters brawling to decide who gets the crystal.

The option screen explained what the controls were — 2 jab buttons, 2 kick buttons, and 2 ‘special’ buttons. I didn’t pay too much attention since I planned to just mash buttons, as is my custom on games like this. For my first match I chose the character Demonica. Even though the narration explains that not much is known about her, I have to admire her sheer courage for approaching hand-to-hand combat with almost no clothing.

Further, I must give the game credit for fleshing out its storyline and individual characters so well, each with its own animated FMV intro sequence. Even though the narration is read with the same emotion and cadence as you would expect from the narration at an elementary school Christmas production, the creators took pains to give each character depth outside of the fighting ring.

Speaking of the ring, that’s exactly what the combat arena is– a big circle sitting high up, sometimes atop fire or lava. If you fall, it’s match over. There are no rounds; rather, after your fighter’s energy meter is depleted, you get one more refill. And there is a configurable time limit for matches. So, in essence, a match can be won by KO, TKO, or knocking an opponent out of the ring.

So, I’m not very good at this. I mash buttons but don’t get much response from Demonica. She can’t possibly blame it on being too cold due to her ensemble since there is lava just below the ring. I get wiped out pretty quick, into the (hot) drink. That’s okay– there are plenty more characters to choose from. An unusual facet of this brawler is that more than half of the fighters are female (Exene, Demonica, Delara, and Yenji). There are 3 male fighters (Dayton, Gorm, and Sonork), and one presumably asexual robot named S.I.D. (sentient intelligence drone, if memory serves). I try the robot next:

S.I.D.’s intro (as read by the dispassionate narrator) explains that the S.I.D.s wander the land looking to kill carbon-based life forms. You would think that they would be better at it by now. What I’m saying is that I didn’t have much better luck playing him. I think one problem I might have is delay resulting from sending the Saturn A/V signal through my computer for presentation, which would account for the lack of responsiveness from the controls. Still, I think the game could have used a practice mode. I tried my luck with one more character — Yenji, sort of a futuristic ninja lady — and actually won a match, but only because my opponent tripped and fell out of the ring and into the abyss.

I remember using a separate video player to watch all the endings for the various characters. The most amusing one is for the S.I.D. robot. He claims the crystal, runs a robo-scan for analysis, recognizes its practical worthlessness, and tosses it aside.

Now that I have enough data for a MobyGames entry, I can finally do the same with this game.

At MobyGames:

Criticom

Forbes Corporate Warrior

Posted on December 30, 2006 by Multimedia Mike

If your reaction upon reading the title of today’s game, Forbes Corporate Warrior, instills a deep sense on confusion and even apprehension, don’t worry– that’s perfectly natural. Succinctly, the game uses the first person shooter (FPS) genre as a metaphor for the world of business. “Business is war! Cash is ammo!” is the tag line. I think this qualifies as some kind of gaming mash-up.

If you’re like me, your knowledge and understanding of economic theory does not extend much farther than hoping the ATM keeps spewing the green stuff. Personally, I found Corporate Warrior a bit difficult to wrap my head around. And the manual, which reads like an Econ 101 cheat sheet, doesn’t help much. Perhaps a direct plagiarism of the keyboard controls section will help you, the reader, to understand a bit better what goes on in this game:

*****************************************************************
3. Game Control:
*****************************************************************
Keyboard Commands

move                          arrow keys
fire weapon                   CTRL (hold down for rapid fire)
choose weapon                 number keys (1 through 9)
rotate thru weapons           TAB
change speed                  hold down SHIFT and arrow key
strafe                        hold down ALT and arrow key
increase Thrifty orientation  Z or DELete
increase Luxury orientation   A or INSert
sell stock/equity             END
buy back stock/equity         HOME
increase debt                 PG UP
decrease debt                 PG DN
scan competitor               C
answer the video phone        SPACE BAR
advanced Radar Mode           R
radar zoom in / zoom out      +/- (press several times)
shield On/Off                 S
exit to main menu             ESC

After awhile of trying to digest this mini-econ refresher course, I decided I should just dive into the game. It ought to just be a FPS dressed up in business-y sounding terms. The backstory is that a brilliant scientist developed a virtual reality helmet called the Direct Stimulus Market Interface (DSMI, which I believe would be pronounced “diss-me”). Some global illuminati organization got to her but she managed to get the helmet to you in order that you may be able to use it as a tool for good, or something like that. Her communications to you are highly reminiscent of Nigerian scammers.

So you start out in an exceptionally ratty little closet of an office equipped with the DSMI VR helmet. The game has you at the helm of a business with a certain amount of cash on hand. You are in a metaphorical business arena with different types of enemies (“competitors”, technically) bearing disparate characteristics. Your primary weapon for disabling competitors is the Price Slicer. That uses cash when it’s fired. You also spend cash to move, even more to run. Heck, it even costs money when you stand still, though not as much. I think the game is trying to convey the notion that it costs money to run a business.

The preceding screenshot depicts gameplay. The competitor in this case is a piranha, something that stalks you in packs and can’t be outrun. They can’t be destroyed by the Price Slicer; you have to upgrade to the Ad Blaster. The bottom of the screen depicts your stock performance through the quarter. Don’t let it dip too low or a disembodied female voice will torment you endlessly with, “Stock price dangerously low!” The same voice helpfully notifies you when your cash reserves are below a 1/2 million dollars.

I somehow managed to make it to the second stage by shooting enemies and collecting items (including weapons like the Ad Blaster and little blue boxes representing market share) until it was the end of the first fiscal quarter. The first thing I noticed was a slightly upgraded office.

The last FPS that I was even remotely good at was Doom. I seem to recall that affair being a matter of moving, shooting monsters, picking up items, and making sure that your health and ammo meters never went to zero. Pretty simple. I like simple. By that standard, Corporate Warrior is a very complex game. Your health and ammo meters are unified, represented as a cash reserve; there are equity, marketshare, debt and luxury/thriftiness trade-off levels to worry about and, in some cases, manipulate in real time. And on top of all that, remember to keep an eye on the radar and select between up to 9 different weapons depending on the enemy you’re facing off with. Stock price is apparently is paramount importance in the game but I could not quite figure out what factors were supposed to affect it. Indeed, out of all the keyboard instructions listed above, the function of which I had the best comprehension was “strafe”.

But if you’re any aspiring CEO with a penchant for FPS games, I definitely encourage you to check this one out.

Gravity Angels Part 1: Alien Discovery

Posted on December 29, 2006 by Multimedia Mike

Today’s “game” is a member of that much-reviled (by me) genre of video game, the interactive movie. This atrocity of game genres was spawned directly from the widespread availability of CD-ROM hardware and the vast quantities of space afforded to games. And what’s the first thing enterprising would-be game developers thought to do with this space? Hook a video camera up to a computer, record people (not necessarily trained actors, mostly people who worked in the office), and glue together film snippets with some code that allows the user to choose path A or path B at various junctures. Indeed, the interactive movie is also the type of game I most love to hate. Even though they’re horrible games, interactive movies often provide ample opportunity to study new multimedia formats, so-called full motion video or FMV data formats, which is my hobby pursuit and the main reason that I have so many games stockpiled in the first place.

Today’s game is called Gravity Angels Part 1: Alien Discovery from Brilliant Digital Entertainment (BDE). The title is a mouthful and it’s also ambitious. The “Part 1” implies that there will be many parts, but I’m not so confident (see also Seanbaby’s dissertation regarding the misnaming of Rapjam Volume 1). This game has “Multipath Movies” plastered all over it, including a link to www.multipathmovies.com, now defunct. Installing the game actually installs a program called the BDE Projector (BDE is Brilliant Digital Entertainment) which is shown above. Then it plays an intro by a singing, dancing, tuxedo-clad frog explaining how to use the Projector; I’m surprised the WB Network didn’t unleash legal hellfire upon them.

The Projector launches a .doc file containing instructions and a general overview of the Multipath Movies (MPMs). This document is the first clue that I have that something might be amiss. It keeps talking about how the Projector is used for previewing MPM content and then the player can choose to buy the movie from the website at which point it will be automatically streamed to the user’s computer. I was under the impression that this disc contained a full MPM. It comes with previews of various other MPM titles. And thankfully, it does come with the full content of Gravity Angels Part 1 on the CD-ROM. Phew. For a second there, I thought I got cheated out of… the absolutely negligible amount I paid for this CD ($34 / 50 CDs = how many pennies per CD?).

According to the previews, there are, in fact 3 more parts to Gravity Angels. So they weren’t just being hopeful.

I really don’t think I can spend too much time on the actual game itself. There’s not much to talk about. It’s an interactive movie. Every so often, there are squares on the screen prompting the user to make a path selection. You don’t really have to interact at these junctures as the game will seamlessly pick one (not sure how it chooses) and keep right on going without ever missing a beat. To go much further with any kind of review would be akin to reviewing a movie, which I’m just not qualified to do.

The Projecter allows you to fast forward which speeds up the animation and the sound, though there is no analogous rewind. Chapter skips, both forwards and backwards are supported, however.

The part about this whole affair that impresses me is that all of the animation does appear to be real-time 3D when I was fully expecting pre-rendered FMV. My first indication was that the FAQ section of the documentation explained that S3 and other video cards might have trouble because 3D hardware acceleration is still a young and rapidly growing field. Upon viewing the movie, I decided it’s way too unpolished to be pre-rendered. I have looked all over the CD-ROM copy and Digital Projector program but I cannot find any copyright date. By today’s standards, the 3D animation is absolutely pathetic, but looks reasonable by the standards of, maybe mid-90s 3D games. Googling for Multipath Movies reveals this Word Spy entry that notes the earliest press mention of the tech as October, 1996 (allegedly still in development at the time).

Technically, the interactive movies appear to be comprised of 3 files: a .nav file, a .map file, and a .bhf file. The BHF file is the big one. Presumably, it contains a lot of 3D vector information and how to animate them, along with audio data which, according to BDE’s partners page, is compressed using VoxWare audio compression. The main Gravity Angels BHF file on the CD-ROM is 162 MB large. I tend to think a lot of internet users were still on dialup in the mid-late 90s (or maybe that was just me) and I really don’t see how such a file could have been plausibly delivered online back then.

Now that I am running so much new, untrusted software on my Windows XP system, I am diligently running Spybot Search & Destroy frequently. The first thing the program picked up on today’s run was the BDE Digital Projector. Apparently, it is known to download and display rich 3D media advertisements on the desktop. Brilliant Digital appears to be no more as the last press release from their site is dated over 2 years ago. The spyware allegation makes this press release all the more interesting: BRILLIANT DIGITAL ENTERTAINMENT ANNOUNCES ONE BILLION RICH-MEDIA ADS SERVED, RELEASES NEW PLAYER VERSION.

I can’t help thinking that maybe BDE would have been better off in the long-term if they had focused on this type of content:

Gaming Pathology

Piles Of Games, Copious Free Time, No Standards

Author: Multimedia Mike