Original Spacewar!

Posted on April 5, 2008 by Multimedia Mike

You started out playing the Atari 2600? That’s nothing. Oh, you started even earlier, perhaps with an Odyssey² or even the original Odyssey? Get out of here. Today, I had the privilege of playing what is sometimes considered to be the very first video game ever— Spacewar!. The experience took place during a live demo of a restored, 45 year old, DEC PDP-1 computer at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, USA.

I had always heard the tales of this program but never paid them much mind. How good could such a game possibly be? I was roundly impressed when I saw it in action. I was one volunteer who got to demo the game for the crowd. The other player and I had makeshift controller boxes with 5 buttons– one for rotating left, one for rotating right, one for activating the thrusters, one for firing, and one for an emergency hyperspace jump. The goal is to take out the other ship. However, there is more to the game. There is a gravity center (sun) in the middle of the screen and both ships must take that into account and not get sucked in. Further, you will eventually run out of fuel and ammunition. Be advised.

I read now that there are many modern incarnations of that same game, following the exact same thread. However, as I type this, it occurred to me that one of my favorite NES games was somewhat inspired by this same concept, or at least the control scheme — Solar Jetman.

In Solar Jetman, you pilot a pod around different planets, collecting necessities and goodies. You rotate the ship and thrust while taking gravity into account. It’s all very unintuitive when you have a gamepad at your disposal. Maybe my Solar Jetman experience had something to do with why I got the hang of Spacewar! so quickly.

The first video game ever? Arguably. However, Google for the “story of mel” to read an epic tale about one Mel Kaye. According to that story, Mel had programmed blackjack on a few different business-oriented computers. The story seems to take place in the late 1950s. Spacewar! originated in 1962.

But who’s counting? Anyway, I think I’ll propose to MobyGames that PDP-1 be added as a platform.

10K Push

Posted on March 31, 2008 by Multimedia Mike

I would hate for March to transpire without a single entry (when I sat down to write this, I had honestly forgotten that I had already logged one post this month, but I am sort of committed to this evening’s gaming now). So here I am, again, at the very last minute. Hey, I think I’ll even resolve to springboard over the 10K mark on MobyGames tonight. May as well since I’m only 15 points away from the symbolic marker. That’s only 7 1/2 screenshots. I think the reason I have been putting this off for so long is because I haven’t had time to prepare my 10K acceptance speech.

It’s a good day to play a game because I just got a new shipment in from an eBay seller. That’s right! I’m still accumulating games from eBay sellers. That’s not as strange as the fact that I found a seller from whom I was able to order over a dozen games, many of which were not in the database yet. Many of these are old DOS games from the early-mid 1990s, some were later re-released on CD-ROM.

Here’s one that is already in the database but only had 2 screenshots: Wrath of the Demon. The reason it interested me is that the person who submitted the 2 screenshots claimed that he couldn’t get far enough into the game to gather anymore screenshots. I’m pleased to report that I was able to collect a few more, but mostly because I remembered to capture things like story screens, game over screens, etc.

I think this is actually a darn good game by 1990-1991 PC action game standards. At least, it excels in the audio/video departments with its parallax side scrolling and MT-32 soundtrack, both beautifully emulated via DosBox. Indeed, the jewel case copy gushes about the features: “Over 3 megabytes of graphics data; over 600 screens of actions! Smooth 15-level parallax scrolling…; Over 100 monsters, some larger than half the screen.” It makes me feel a bit short-changed since I couldn’t get much farther than the original screenshot poster.

The first level, seen above, has you riding horseback, jumping obstacles, and dodging birds. I guessed that last part. I later realized that I could hit the birds using the space bar even though I was pressing up on the gamepad to jump. With a little persistence, I eventually managed to clear this stage. Afterwards, a pair of monsters ambushes your campfire. You go into a sword battle with one while his friend chucks blades at you from a distance. I couldn’t come up with a strategy for besting them. So I had to sit through their victory dance:

No reason to stop there for tonight since I have plenty of new games that pique my curiosity. Try this title, for example: Forced Alliance: The Glarius Mandate. The game comes on 3 CD-ROMs, features a lot of Smacker animation files, and was published in 1997. It prominently features that bizarre animation style that came to characterize mid-90s 3D animation technology. There must be a name for it, but this is a perfect representation:

Force Alliance: The Glarius Mandate — Animation style

The game opens competently enough, with some good looking (for 1997) animations depicting a spaceship prospecting for minerals in an asteroid belt when a new alien threat attacks him. Some humans murmur ominously about this event and the game fast forwards by 10 years. This shows some recruits about to suit up for some space combat training. Unfortunately, this is when the game exhibits another characteristic that I recall was prevalent from the same gaming epoch: instability.

Force Alliance: The Glarius Mandate — Error dialog

So there is no getting past the intro of this game. I’ll try one more game that gives me no clues from the copy– a Mindscape-published game known only as MagnaFlux Runner. It turns out to be a fairly pointless little overhead racing game:

What can I say about it? Well, at least the MIDI music was nice. And it also allowed me an encounter with one of the strangest bugs ever:

Okay, so what happened is that I put the computer on auto-pilot, playing against itself. I was writing up the game’s description in TextPad. When the game got to level 2, I switched back to the game window. However, part of my text editor remained in the game’s window. That’s not the weird part. The weird part is that the cars seemed to be treating the text editor window as an impassable boundary! I think the behavior occurred as a result of the game window being obscured during a level change.

Anyway, watch for 10K points soon.

Panzer Dragoon 2: 2

Posted on March 8, 2008 by Multimedia Mike

The second installment of the Panzer Dragoon series was the single reason for my interest in the Sega Saturn. Even though I now understand that the full official title of Panzer Dragoon II: Zwei simply means Panzer Dragoon 2: 2 (II = 2 in Roman numerals, zwei = 2 in German).

Still, I have always had a major soft spot for this game, regardless of the fact that I have almost no clue what on earth is even going on in this game. The story has something to do with an adorable little mutant dragon and the human who just can’t bring himself to exterminate the precious little monster even those that is his village’s custom.

One day, the human is taking the dragon out for a spin, seeing if it can fly, when wouldn’t you know, a giant ship wipes out his village with a column of energy, Independence Day-style. He survives since he was outside the village and goes down to investigate and also beat up on some of the invaders raiding the village. The action becomes a third person shooter where your dragon just runs along a pre-scripted path but you are free to swivel 360 degrees and fire anywhere. At one point during the village battle, the ship overhead sees fit to drop a boulder in your direction. What an odd weapons system.

In the end, he gets whacked aside by the invading forces and sets out on a quest. Like I said, I’m never quite sure what’s going on or why, or who’s fighting whom. In the second level, you are racing through a canyon. At various junctures, another rider is cruising next to you. He seems to be fighting the same enemies as you and I don’t think you can hurt him.

After the canyon, there’s a brief real-time intermission where your ride takes off and glides to the ground below. It’s very tranquil and well animated. Then, it’s back to business– invading a fortress. The confusing part about this is that there seems to be other forces that are invading at the same time, so it’s not all up to you.

Panzer Dragoon 2 — Invading the fortress

Whatever. I still like the game. And now MobyGames will have a proper set of screenshots. Plus, I think I have a strategy for capturing good screenshots from Saturn games (and PS1 and PS2 games) through my DV bridge, purchased about a year ago.

Hunt Or Be Hunted

Posted on December 24, 2007 by Multimedia Mike

Actually, the title of this game is merely Hunt, which will make it annoying to search for when it gets into MobyGames soon. It’s of the “casual game” genre, or must be, because not only did I pick it up in the budget software section where I found My Fantasy Wedding and Bratz: Rock Angelz, but also because it was on clearance. It’s a curious genre cross between a first person shooter and a hunting game.

First, there is the section where you go out into the haunted or perhaps radioactive forest, armed with 4 different weapons, and mow down aggressive animals like bears and boars (later levels apparently have rabbits too):

When you reach the flagstaff, you have the opportunity to switch to a more traditional hunting scene in a more serene setting.

There’s a bear in that picture, but it’s a little far off. It’s easier when the random bear encounter occurs closer to you.

And that’s all I really feel like writing on Christmas Eve.

Blackhole Assault

Posted on December 23, 2007 by Multimedia Mike

Blackhole Assault for the Sega CD is another in a long line of games that I would have liked to like. I’m just a sucker for good looking graphics of the 16-bit console era, such as this space station against the backdrop of a Jovian moon:

In the next scene, the camera angle changes and moves slowly up the station, giving a feeling of depth to the lunar backdrop:

Unfortunately, the graphic style of the story scenes is perhaps the only redeeming quality of the experience. I had no idea what kind of game to expect going into this. It turns out that it’s a pure 1-on-1 fighting game. It seems that in the 22nd century, earthlings are trying to excavate resources from the rest of the solar system. Exploratory missions are disappearing “one bye [sic] one”, however, and at least one military commander is calling it like he sees it. “How can those fools say these are accidents when they’re obviously alien attacks?” I can relate– I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve said the same thing in the course of my daily affairs. But earth has a powerful weapon to deal with these alleged alien attacks: Cybernetic Anthropomorphic Machines or C.A.M.s for short. And these C.A.M.s have to take on powerful alien robots one-on-one at scenic locations throughout the solar system.

Above is the Phobos level. Like I said, the game is pretty. I just can’t abide the poor, clunky gameplay, even if we are just dealing with giant robots. Fortunately, the game features an exhibition mode which allows players to customize matchups with any of the available robots and any of the game’s 10 backdrops. Further, this mode can be configured for computer vs. computer, which allowed me to cycle through all 10 backdrops for screenshot purposes.

One more pretty screenshot– this one is called ‘Asteroid’. The backdrops really do work better in motion, though.

At MobyGames:

Blackhole Assault

Indiana Jetson

Posted on December 23, 2007 by Multimedia Mike

I scanned the big list of missing NES games and found 2 licensed titles that came later in the NES’ lifetime (i.e., after the release of the SNES). Titles from this era were generally quite well done by NES standards, even if they were overshadowed by the SNES.

Young Indiana Jones Chronicles — First boss

The first is The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, based on the TV show that aired in the early- to mid-1990s. As the title implies, a young Indy travels the globe, collects treasures, fights for what’s right, and rescues hot babes. Actually, I’m just guessing on that last one– the opening for stage 1 implies that there’s a damsel, but the trial and error tedium of the first level became too much for me before I finish off the boss. It’s side-scrolling action where Indy actually has a fairly realistically brief jump — a feature that always makes a gamer curse the times they have called for more realistic games. You don’t have much power in this game, but you can collect trademark Indy hats. If you get hit, you lose the hat, but that’s better than losing your weapon, which is what happens if you get hit without a hat. Back to the fist until you can find another weapon. If you get hit without a weapon or a hat, then you die.

Speaking of weapons, this game has an impressive range– whips, pistols, rifles, grenades, throwing knives, little bouncing rocks. Unfortunately, you can only pick up one weapon at a time and you lose it you sustain a hit.

Throughout the adventure, Indy collects gold. I am not sure what this achieves– it probably has some significance at the end of a level, where I never got to. The gold counter never seems to reset, even after a continue. And the strangest thing about the gold counter is that it wraps around after 99:

Before collecting the icon worth 3 gold points…
Young Indiana Jones Chronicles — Gold counter, before

After collecting the icon…
Young Indiana Jones Chronicles — Gold counter, after

Still, it is likely that Young Indy makes for a better gameplay experience than the Temple of Doom for the NES.

Next up is a Jetsons property– The Jetsons: Cogswell’s Caper, to be specific. Take a look at this screenshot and tell me what’s wrong:

The Jetsons: Cogswell’s Caper– Non-canon Astro

Come on– you all watched The Jetsons sometime in your life, you know exactly what’s wrong with that screenshot: there is no way that Astro the Dog is that articulate. It’s well known that Astro pronounced George as “Reorge”.

Putting aside such blatant cartoon canon violations, this game features a curious premise– George Jetson’s employer, Mr. Spacely, has learned that his corporate rival, Cogswell, is oppressing alien workers in order to get ahead in the industry. What’s the best course of action to compete with this threat? How about tasking his laziest and most incompetent employee, one George Jetson, with committing acts of corporate sabotage? Sounds like we have a premise for a game.

So George bumbles through multiple levels of side-scrolling action to achieve this goal, lest he be dinged on his annual performance review. I hesitate to call this a run and jump game because George is too lazy to jump. Instead, he uses a jet pack in short bursts to elevate himself. The offensive action reminds me mightily of Chip ‘N Dale: Rescue Rangers in that George picks up the copious boxes and other items that litter the landscape and tosses them at enemies.

The Jetsons: Cogswell’s Caper– Botannical gardens

There are also lots of switches in this futuristic game, switches that activate all kinds of machinery (and Rosie the Robot is on hand to tutor you in how to use the switch). A common switch is the gravity reversal switch that causes you to walk on the ceiling for a brief period. I must give the game credit for its internal consistency here:

The Jetsons: Cogswell’s Caper– Gravity consistency

George is walking along the ceiling. If George walks off the edge, it will have the same effect as walking into a pit.

Gaming Pathology

Piles Of Games, Copious Free Time, No Standards

Category: Action Games