Total Carnage

Posted on March 1, 2007 by Multimedia Mike

There are already several versions of Total Carnage in MobyGames (including SNES, Amiga, Amiga CD32, and a Jaguar version published only 2 years ago). But there is not a PC version, as my CD-ROM for the eBay 50-lot grab bag advertises, so let’s dive in.

This game seems so darn familiar. Where have I heard of it before? When I start playing, it becomes all too clear: Total Carnage was an old arcade game that was ostensibly based on the same engine and gameplay concept as another popular arcade game at the time called Smash TV.

If you’re not familiar with either game, they are set apart by their control scheme. In the arcade version, the player controlled the on-screen character’s actions with 2 joysticks– 1 joystick controlled the character’s movements while the other joystick controlled the direction of fire. This meant that the directions of movement and fire were completely independent. This works great when you actually have 2 joysticks at your disposal. However, most home conversions have had to make due with the control facilities at the disposal of the nominal PC or console. This makes the game significantly tougher. To be sure, there are many, many ways to configure the game:

Total Carnage -- control scheme configuration

If you actually have 2 joysticks, you can certainly use them. If you have enough dexterity, you can recreate the free form control scheme using lots of keyboard keys. Or a combination of keys and a joystick/joypad. The easiest configuration (for me) is to simply accept the crippled ability and have one firing button on the gamepad so that I can only fire in the direction I am moving. I didn’t get very far with the any control scheme and I tried all kinds of combos. It’s probably just as well. I remember playing the game’s Smash TV predecessor on free play at a vintage arcade. Was that ever a tedious exercise. “Is this game over yet?” was all that my gaming companion and I could say.

Technical: The game has two FLIC files for FMV. Fun. It’s also interesting to note that when DOSBox (v0.65) saved the PNG screenshots, it saw fit to save them as 320×196 instead of 320×200. I have no idea why. Is there an undocumented VGA mode I don’t know about?

Robodemons

Posted on February 21, 2007 by Multimedia Mike

Here’s another obscure NES game that hasn’t yet made the MobyGames cut. It’s an unlicensed title from Color Dreams, the company with the baby blue NES cartridges. I’m pretty sure that this will be the first time I have actually played a Color Dreams title, and don’t think I’m happy about that. Since they were unlicensed, Nintendo never mentioned word one about titles like this in Nintendo Power, my chief source for all things Nintendo when I was into the 8-bit. Due to the WWW, I have since read dozens of overwhelmingly negative reviews for unlicensed games. And so it is with much apprehension that I dutifully dive into Robodemons.

The title screen is severely lackluster but showcases what is likely to be the game’s most notable feature– scratchy digitized voices using the NES’ exceptionally limited PCM capability. When I got into the actual gameplay, I quickly hypothesized that the game probably spent most of its ROM budget on these effects.

Press the start button and jump into the story exposition. I would include a screenshot but it’s written in the same font you see in those boxes above. The only way to make it out is to get a screen capture and magnify it several times. Here is the text:

In darker times the demon Kull, king of the nether world of Hades, created a machine to transplant the souls of demons into the body of robots. With this army of robodemons Kull became the unchallenged master of the earth. One day a great warrior decided to descend the seven gates of Hades and destory [sic] Kull forever…

So I think this electronic game is trying to make the ironic case that technology is satanic. Of course, Color Dreams might be an authority regarding matters of video games and spirituality since they later re-invented themselves as Wisdom Tree, makers of religious, unlicensed titles rather than just plain old unlicensed titles.

The game starts out with some fly-through shooting action:

Our hero has a boomerang for offense. It shoots straight out in front, angles upward a bit, and then returns on a slightly higher plane. Oh, and it’s even less useful than it sounds, especially against a bunch of nimble enemies who can fire in any direction. After much trial and error with this level, I decided that pacifism is the best policy and just concentrated on avoiding threats, especially since destroying an enemy requires being lined up with it on a horizontal plane which puts the protagonist at great risk. There is also the strategy of using the boomerang’s return path to hurt enemies but that’s extremely tricky.

It’s a short flight to the skeleton demon boss who, if you still have enough health, will succumb if you just hit him head on with enough boomerangs. Then, it’s down to Hades, if I’m not mistaken. It resembles a run-of-the-mill graveyard:

So now, I have both a shoot and a jump action available to me (except that the buttons are swapped from the usual orientation provided by these games). There are skeletons, flying creatures, little rolling objects that are starkly reminiscent of Phantom of the Opera masks, and giant, disembodied fangs as seen in the preceding screenshot. When I first encountered it, I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be jumping platform or a threat. I guessed wrong the first time. Also, the little red puddles in the ground result in your immediate death, should you step in.

I got to the boss of this level. It was a skeleton demon dog. I couldn’t beat it. I really didn’t care.

Okay, MobyGames is about to be one game closer to having a complete collection of NES titles. And I can put this unpleasantness behind me.

Garfield’s Mad About Cats

Posted on February 20, 2007 by Multimedia Mike

Destined to become a MobyGames description paragraph very soon: In Garfield’s Mad About Cats, Jon expresses displeasure with Garfield the Cat’s lack of motivation towards performing traditional rodent control duties. Still, Garfield is sympathetic to the mouse problem and assumes his alter-ego of Dr. Frankencat and, along with his assistant Eager (Odie), descends into the mad scientist lab in house dungeon. The mission: Create the perfect cat. To that end, Dr. Frankencat uses his computer to identify the most perfect traits of various cats from around the planet and assemble the features into a perfect cat.

The game is pretty slow moving at first and about 10 minutes in, I get a little worried that this might not be an actual game. The game allows you to select an attribute, such as tail and roar, and investigate a variety of cats from around the globe. When you do, Eager/Odie fetches a dish from the region where the cat hails from, as well as a bag of the specified attribute. Odie goes to work with the attribute while the big computer plays a brief video factoid about the selected feline species.

Garfield's Mad About Cats -- Brief Educational Video

My non-gaming fears are assuaged when the the game asks me if I would like to play Disco Jon. This turns out to be the first in a series of 12 random minigames/activities. The goal of this one is to memorize and replay the sequence of buttons to make Jon boogie down:

I like the metaphor present in this minigame: You only get 3 chances to get it right. Each time you screw up, one of the babe silhouettes loses interest and slips away.

Other games include a Whack-A-Mole clone (Whack-A-Rat); a Breakout clone (Burp Game) where Garfield uses his own belches to keep a mouse up in the air to hit all the cheese bricks; and a Space Invaders clone (Hack Attack) where a fleet of Nermals are descending upon Garfield and he must beat them back by coughing up hairballs. I was fairly disconcerted to see a sliding tile puzzle (Odie Maze)– I hate these, I hate these, I hate these! But this was the most messed up minigame by far– Fowl Shot:

Plant some poultry in the spring-loaded recliner, twist the chair to aim for the moving target, and fire. Even if you miss, as I did every time, it’s still great fun.

Speedy Eggbert

Posted on February 18, 2007 by Multimedia Mike

Speedy Eggbert is a title missing from MobyGames that caught my eye while perusing my big list recently. So I pull it out and, much to my chagrin, realize that it’s another accursed eGames title. Maybe today’s gaming excursion will be quick since I have such a dismal record with eGames titles thus far. Will I be 0 for 3, with a generous helping of spyware to show for it? Let’s find out.

I ran my spyware checker, installed the game, and then ran my spyware checker immediately afterwards. That same Conducent TimeSink tsad.dll file somehow found its way onto my machine between the two spyware check runs. I’m not exactly endeared when I see splash dialogs like this (read the small print carefully and note the relative sizes of the buttons):

eGames software -- Would you like to install our spyware?

I did some Googling for “egames spyware” and found that the state of Michigan actually did go after eGames for their spyware-related activities. Sometime in 2001, they said they would stop. This game predates said agreement. But I need to keep the DLL installed long enough to play the game. I take small comfort in the knowledge that the spyware was developed long before my web browser (Firefox) and hopefully doesn’t know how to investigate its information. Then again, Firefox’s on-disk data structures and file locations might be similar to earlier Netscape versions.

I next delve into the manual since I reason that this might be the only exposure I get to the game. It’s is allegedly a side-scrolling action game. These eGames titles always sound like such delightful, simplistic little romps that I actually would like to experience. Much to my surprise, this eGames game actually runs!

I can attest that we have an actual game here, and quite a lot of game, I should add. Speedy Eggbert is a side scrolling game, and parallax no less, which I always love — takes me back to the old SNES/Genesis days. It’s incredibly simplistic as far as these types of games go, and that fits right into my plan. Our hero — who, indeed, happens to be egg-shaped — wanders through countless colorful stages. He can walk left or right in well-animated motions, though the transition between the 2 directions is the slowest I have yet seen in any such game. He can duck and look down at the same time, or look up. Being able to scan up and down is remarkably useful in this game for locating unseen threats. But his real power is his vertical leap. There are two control buttons: one for short jump and the other for high jump. The challenge comes in knowing when to use which, and where, and keeping the two buttons straight.

There is a brief tutorial stage in a forest. After this, you unlock most of the areas in the game via a macro-level map. There are dozens of total levels and you don’t need to explore them in sequence. This is the first level that you can choose from– I call it “Housing Projects”:

Notice the presence of Lego-influenced trees. Playing this game made me realize something about game plots. While the backstory of a computer game is often the subject of ridicule, it’s somehow strangely necessary. All throughout Speedy Eggbert I found myself wondering what was going on and why our protaganist was doing this. I have no idea what the houses in the above level are for, why the surrounding area is mined, or what Eggbert hopes to achieve. I just know that the above screenshot depicts where I got stuck on that particular level since he can’t jump quite that high. No matter; there are plenty more to choose from.

Another area looks like you’re infiltrating a techno-fortress in outer space. This is sort of a make-your-own-backstory game. The first section has you jumping from platform to platform. I found myself wondering what would happen if you fell off a platform in space– fall forever? No, it turns out that there is space lava just beneath the platforms which hard boils our hero. Another stage is yet another techno-fortress which happens to be substantially bluer than the previous. Then we get into some real eye candy– I named this level “The Happy Fun Candyland of Suffering”:

Speedy Eggbert -- The Happy Fun Candyland of Suffering

Bright, colorful, playful, and full of unspeakable danger. In the above screenshot, Eggbert has eaten a lollipop powerup. The simple sugars give him a temporary rush which increases his jumping ability, enabling him to reach this platform with a selection of skateboards. A skateboard allows the player to cruise through a narrow hallway lined with bombs. The skateboard will detonate the bombs without hurting Eggbert. This application further serves to highlight defects in the game’s internal logic, but oh well.

I’m not sure if I like this next level or not. I call it “Glyphland” and I could assert that either A) it’s highly creative; or B) that the designers were getting extremely tired and/or lazy and just threw something together to meet some artificial deadline or goal.

That’s not all, though! The game features networked multiplayer via modem, serial cable, IPX, or TCP/IP. I have no idea what the multiplayer mode entails since the manual did not go into details, and it’s extraordinarily unlikely that I could convince someone else to try this game. Another interesting value add is that the game comes with a complete level designer, likely the same one that the creators used to build the game. Create your own mission by selecting background, scroll type, and music (10 tunes to choose from), and get to work laying down the level. This menu gives you a good idea of the various items and threats that are possible in the game if you didn’t get too far into any particular level.

Technically, Speedy Eggbert is written in Visual Basic, just as all eGames titles appear to be (at least the 3 I have seen so far). All of its data files have the extension .blp. Inside, they are actually a mixture of WAV files for sound, BMP files for graphics, and MIDI files for music (I actually sort of dig the music and can save these before I blow away the spyware-laden game). Then, there is a custom, constant-sized data format, about 50 KB each, which defines a level layout. An interested hacker could probably figure out the data format pretty easily using the level designer.

Psychotron And Co.

Posted on February 15, 2007 by Multimedia Mike

There’s one more Windows-based interactive movie on my list that I have neglected up to this point: Psychotron. To be fair, it’s actually just a demo that came on a disc with several other demos and 2 full games published by the same company (Merit Software). I vividly remember when I first picked up this title along with 19 others. I perused the multimedia on the CD-ROM, as is my custom. This demo had a number of Cinepak-encoded AVI videos. Videos that are pretty much on the bottom rung of all FMV I have experienced. Seriously, watching this junk almost made me snap and scrap this entire multimedia hobby if it meant I wouldn’t have to watch this kind of nonsense ever again.

How bad is it? First, the tracking lines. Yes, tracking lines. If I were to piece together their game-making process, I would have to assume that they filmed their actors with a tape-based videocamera and then replayed the video in a VCR hooked up to digital capture equipment. They most likely cued the tape in the right place, paused, started the capture gear, and unpaused the VCR. Thus, most videos seem to start with tracking bars.

Then there’s the actual content of the videos. The demo included scenes where you’re trying to get information from a mega-geek in a cemetary and from some mobsters at their poker game. Now, I have to admit that I’m an extremely poor judge of the acting craft. Generally, I can only spot bad acting if it’s really bad, especially wooden acting. These people play their characters as the most extreme stereotypes imaginable for nerds and Italian gangsters. I have edited together 7 videos (first 2 are the geek, last 5 are at the mobsters’ poker table) for your review:

Good acting? Bad acting? Overacting? Like I say, I’m no expert. But I’m not sure if I believe certain whiplash transitions like when the head mobster’s frustration turns to a calm resolve to cap you.

The Psychotron demo is a Windows app (MobyGames reports a DOS version but this demo is for Windows). It doesn’t work in native XP or Windows 95/VMware. Color me surprised. It looks like I will need to find a way to install Windows 3.1 (either on a real machine, via VMware, or through DOSBox) sooner or later to handle a number of games. I would still like to get a glimpse of how this game actually plays. I think this would be a great candidate for my I-movie engine re-implementation brainstorm, especially when I studied the directory structure and found dozens of straight text files that are shown in the game. Simple data structure; that’s what I’m guessing. From a spot check of some of the text files, I learned that the president of the United States in this game’s universe is Richard Marx.

I want to play some new game this evening. There is plenty to choose from on the disc. Here’s the menu:

Selection Menu for a bunch of Merit-published titles

I think I’ll check out that DOS-based full Blade Warrior game. Err, no I won’t. It crashes DOSBox (0.65). For giggles, I tried it in the WinXP command prompt. “Program too big to fit in memory.”

Let’s check out the demo for Isle Of The Dead. This works quite a bit better. The game is from 1993 and is sort of a one-off of Wolfenstein 3D. Your plane crash-landed on an island that happens to be infested with zombies. Explore around the island’s perimeter which is quite safe. Pick up your basic items (health, shotgun & shells, coconuts). You’ll get stuck pretty quick if you don’t use your machete to find just the right spot on the wall of vegetation in order to break through to where the real action is. The deadly action. The deadly, undead action. The nearly impossible-to-get-2-meters-into-the-jungle deadly undead action. One moment, you’re looking at this:

Isle Of The Dead -- Facing off with a zombie

The next moment, the zombie gang is tearing you to pieces (FMV! Flic files):

Okay, I’m pleased to say that I actually played a game today. So this is just the demo of Isle Of The Dead. According to this old review of the game, the full version cost $70! That’s not Canadian dollars, either– 214 is in Texas.

Safari Kongo

Posted on February 11, 2007 by Multimedia Mike

Safari Kongo sounds like another nice, lighthearted, kid-targeted, educational title. I was negligent not to notice the eGames logo on what looks like an OEM bundle CD-ROM. You may recognize the company name if you have ever perused the cheap CD-ROM section at a computer store. I have had a not-entirely-pleasant experience with one of their games so far. A game called Kid Mystic promised to be a delightful, possibly Zelda-type adventure. I’ll never be able to tell for sure since I have never, ever gotten it to run on any kind of actual Windows system, emulated Windows system (WINE), or virtualized Windows system (VMware). I’m a little more paranoid due to the fact that installing the game leaves behind some suspicious, spyware-looking files.

The game offers localization for U.S. English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, offering a small clue about where it was marketed. Safari Kongo also has video configuration options to select between 3Dfx Voodoo or Banshee cards, software rendering, or “other card”. The instructions claim that it is an OpenGL game. So why does the game complain that it can’t find a adequate version of Microsoft DirectX installed and then bail? At least I collected a splash screen:

The story of the game is that you are on safari with your significant other who is abducted by an uncannily Donkey Kong-looking monkey. Rescue him/her (configurable gender) before dinner time (the primate’s dinner time). It’s a colorful, 3D jumping adventure (according to the screenshots in the online help manual) featuring exceptionally little violence in keeping with eGames’ company charter. The game also looks to be written in Visual Basic (OpenGL libraries for VB? why not).

So I run Spybot Search & Destroy for good measure. It seems that there is a file called tsad.dll that was coincidentally installed right around the same time this morning that I installed Safari Kongo. tsad.dll is Conducent TimeSink, a module that spyware tracking sites claim is a conduit for tracking user behavior and delivering targeted ad campaigns. After I fight with the game long enough, I go ahead and remove the module. This causes the game to throw the following error on startup: “Run-time error ’53’: File not found: Addon2VB.DLL”.

Gaming Pathology

Piles Of Games, Copious Free Time, No Standards

Category: Action Games