The Rocketeer

Posted on December 10, 2007 by Multimedia Mike

Let’s try some free association. What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when viewing this NES screenshot?

The Rocketeer is one more movie-based NES game that somehow escaped notice during my previous efforts to flush all such titles from the list of unentered NES titles. It wasn’t until I read this Cracked.com article about 5 awesome sci-fi inventions that would actually suck, which happens to illustrate jet packs with a still from the 1991 Rocketeer movie, that I recalled seeing an adaptation in Nintendo Power.

Strangely, this Disney license was sold to Bandai rather than Capcom, the usual Disney partner in video gaming during that period.

All I remember about the movie is that I don’t remember anything about it. According to plot synopses on the internet — which the game follows faithfully in the intro — a crazy inventor develops a jet pack and a benevolent guy uses it to become a hero and save the world, or at least keep the technology out of the hands of Nazis.

The game starts off as a standard run and jump affair as I try to figure out if I’m supposed to be able to fly. I quickly comprehend that I have 6 offensive options at my disposal — fist, pistol, tommygun, spread gun, grenade, and bazooka — all from the get-go, provided that I have enough ammo points collected. The fist is free, the bazooka requires 20 ammo points. Everything else takes some amount in between. This is a nifty feature, save for the fact that it can be cumbersome to constantly cycle through all 6 options during the action (no cycling when paused).

Finally, I stumble upon a gas can powerup that extends a new power meter. This finally allows me to fly in wildly uncontrolled bursts. The game’s flight capability is a bit oversold. I’m guessing that it’s necessary to use both the jet pack and some fierce firepower to take down the first boss, which I was unable to do.

Here’s a curious feature about the game. Above is the opening shot (apparently, some of the movie’s story takes place against a movie industry backdrop). Note that the sign reads “Hollywoodland”. Next, look at some of the exposition text:

The text reads plain “Hollywood”. Do you know why that is? The answer comes courtesy of a Taco Bell placemat that I read some years ago during one of their many contests. The busy disposable placemat showed the Hollywood logo, probably to showcase a trip to Hollywood as a grand prize. Reading the fine print of the placemat revealed that the famed Hollywood logo in the hills is a registered trademark of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

3D Marble Flip

Posted on December 7, 2007 by Multimedia Mike

Welcome to the most casual of casual games– a computer simulation of those old marble labyrinth games you might have played as a child. I loved these, though I never had the privilege of owning one.

3D Marble Flip comes to us from Webfoot, the same group behind the eGames-published Safari Kongo. To its credit, this game, unlike that one, actually runs. So that’s one good thing I can say about it. It might be the only positive thing I have to say about the game.

I really wanted to like this game, since I liked those old labyrinth games so much. This title had potential but was seriously hampered by a rather key feature– physics. The gameplay is such that the player uses the cursor keys to tilt the game board in any direction. But as soon as the keys are released, the board immediately bounces back to a perfectly level orientation and the marble stops rolling. It somewhat ruins the concept. The gameplay feels like the marble is covered is something very sticky.

The goal of each maze is to pick up all the coins in the maze and then roll to a little pink pit. Avoid falling into the void, if possible. Thing is, it’s incredibly frustrating to actually get into the pit. The game seems to want you to be perfectly centered in the pit. As mentioned, the marble is incredibly sticky and you will have to keep maneuvering the board to get the marble off the walls of the pit as you combat that nagging feeling that the level should be over already.

An incredibly unusual item about this game — perhaps a first for all the games in the experiment, certainly of the casual gaming genre — is that the game has an AutoUpdater program. Just to make sure that this incredibly simple game is up to date. This game has a 2002 copyright date, yet the server still seems to be up and responding:

Checking for new version of AutoUpdate...
No new version of AutoUpdate found.
Checking for new version of 3D Marble Flip...
No new version of 3D Marble Flip found.
Update complete.

See Also:

Wooden Labyrinth 3D, this same concept done more than right

At MobyGames

3D Marble Flip

My Fantasy Wedding

Posted on November 25, 2007 by Multimedia Mike

Oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please, let this be an actual game which would merit its inclusion into MobyGames! I spotted My Fantasy Wedding in the clearance software section of an office supply shop. I purchased it even though I was unsure of whether it was technically a game vs., say, a shrink-wrapped wedding planning application. But it was still too tempting. When I got it home and peeled off the clearance sticker, I saw the ESRB rating badge — that means it has to be a game, right?

Who says there are no video games for girls?

You know, in a recent MobyGames forum thread, another long-time contributor expressed shock that I had not resorted to cheap or dirty tricks in order to keep gaining MobyGames contribution points. That depends — could it be considered an unfair advantage that I’m willing to try games that no one else would go near? The title screen of this game greets you with squeaky excitement as your virtual narrator describes all the business that needs to be attended to before the wedding may take place. The first thing to do is to choose your bride avatar. Then choose from among 4 wedding locations, and then choose your bridesmaids. Then, you get to choose your groom. Not only that, you get to choose his groomsmen. If all of that is too much work, you can always click the curler-wearing “mother” icon who will make these choices on your behalf and allow you to get straight to the important stuff — shopping.

Much of the action takes place at the mall where you shop for dresses, tuxes, jewelry, bouquets, cakes, and everything else that a happy bride needs for her big day. Where does the “game” aspect enter into play? There are a number of minigames interspersed throughout the mall shops, each with 3 levels. The incentive to complete these minigames is that success unlocks more options in all of the various stores; more dress styles, more cake types, more flower species, etc.

One minigame is a matching game which requires neither an explanation nor a screenshot — this must be the easiest type of minigame to engineer. At least it’s smart enough to limit the number of misses that the player gets. There is a gift packing game that is almost like a sideways Tetris block game — pack as many rectangular wedding presents into the car as possible. There is also a Pac-Man clone that has a slight twist– it’s the flower girl game where the flower girl leads the bride through a maze to collect various treasures for the wedding. The antagonist in the maze is just the single groom — the groom must not be allowed to see the bride. The twist is that the player controls the flower girl while the bride follows a few steps behind. So the game requires some real-time planning.

This was one of my favorite games — the invitation game. Fling letters at the letter carrier marching to and fro on the sidewalk. I think this game could be considered a spiritual clone of Paperboy since it’s possible to break windows on the buildings in the background. Those invitations must be using some thick, expensive card stock.

My Fantasy Wedding — Invitation minigame

This is the most messed-up of the 6 minigames that My Fantasy Wedding has to offer — the bouquet game. It seems that your friends think you are the recipient of entirely too much generosity. You have too many presents and they want to steal your presents. You need to lay down a suppressing fire consisting of bridal bouquets to pacify your covetous girlfriends until they get their own fantasy weddings. It’s important to fire bouquets constantly in this game because the floral ordnance travels slowly and these greedy girls are slick.

There is much music in the game. A lot of it can be selected at the wedding music store in the mall. These are all the different songs that can be played during the wedding proper. These themes are recognizable, traditional, and public domain. However, different minigames and stores have assorted songs playing in the background. Many seem to be one-off renditions of more modern (i.e., copyrighted) songs. I just know that the song which plays during the dice game (where you and your girlfriends roll dice for bridal shower gifts) is an homage to the 1999 Santana/Rob Thomas song, “Smooth”.

See Also:

Barbie as Princess Bride, featuring Mattel’s Barbie in the middle of her own wedding-planning adventure

At MobyGames:

My Fantasy Wedding
Wedding planning game group — there are enough to merit an entire group

First PS2 Games

Posted on October 21, 2007 by Multimedia Mike

The Sony PlayStation 2 is nearly 7 years old. Yet today was the first time I actually sat down and played an actual PS2 game. I got this PS2 unit some months ago, mostly for DVD playback. I have tried out a few PlayStation 1 titles on it. But I also have 3 PS2 games laying around.

The first one is called Evergrace, from the confusingly named FromSoftware. Apparently, this was a PS2 launch title. I purchased it while procuring a bunch of other cheap, old games from an eBay seller. Even though it was already in MobyGames (sans screenshots), it was cheap and in new condition, and I thought it might be nice to try a real PS2 game, and an RPG at that. I was disappointed. First, I tried to dutifully digest the manual before delving in since RPGs can be complicated. I have to pinch myself to keep from falling asleep since the manual goes into so much storyline. I skim the section on the controls and figure that they’ll make more sense in context, so I fire the game up. The first order of business is to check my speakers to see if anything is wrong. Nope– the music really is that cacophonic. Then the game assaults me with the same storyline I didn’t care about from the manual.

Eventually, the game gets rolling and you essentially have 2 characters to choose from — a guy and a girl — who will follow different paths in the game. Evergrace bills itself as an action RPG with an emphasis on equipment. I guess I’m supposed to kill creatures, get currency, exchange it for goods, and kill more creatures. I found the store, found out I was broke, went outside and tried to kill something, and learned that I was fairly ineffective in this task when using only my bare hands. I got bored of this quickly though I tried to give the game a fair shake. I even went back to the insomnia-curing manual a few times but couldn’t maintain the motivation.

The next title, Orphen: Scion of Sorcery, was also a launch title. I’m beginning to think that early adopters were awfully forgiving. I know these kind of graphics reigned supreme at one point but they seem fairly ho-hum these days. There is also the fact that for the past 7 years, I have largely been examining magazine and internet screenshots of PS2 games rather than seeing the actual games in action, which tends to elicit a far different reaction.

Anyway, Orphen— I had never looked too carefully at the literature for this one. I had always assumed it was an action game where the hero fired magic bullets. While that’s part of it, the game turns out to be of the genre action-RPG. RPGs really left me behind somewhere along the line. Mostly, I am used to the classic NES turn-based stylings of the original Final Fantasy game, the Ultima: Exodus port, and the classic Dragon Warrior series. The principle action in Orphen consists of encounters where characters square off with a number of enemies and quickly attack using offensive magic spells or magic weapons, or parry attacks with a magic shield. It’s RPG-ish, in a fast-paced way.

There is also some kind of storyline tying this all together. Based on the opening scenes, it was pretty obvious that Orphen must be based on an anime series, and sure enough. I’m not especially fond of anime to begin with and this game’s characters seem to embody much of what I despise. Still, I gave it the old college try. It’s a tad slow-going as you walk a few meters, run into a pre-scripted story advancement sequence, walk a few more meters, get more story, an enemy encounter, and then repeat. Apparently, that’s the whole game. The game’s copy lists as one of its key features “51 action-packed, event-based encounters.” I got through 5, maybe 6 of them, depending on how score is kept.

Finally, I decided to actually play a dreaded sports game– NHL Hitz 20-02. Generally, if I wind up with a sports game in my collection, it’s because A) it was dirt cheap, and B) because I wanted to study its multimedia files. This game served its purpose to that latter end. But how does the game play? The Hitz series is apparently a totally X-treme hockey experience based on licensed NHL teams. “No rules” is the overriding theme. The game assaults your auditory senses with Limp Bizkit in the opening FMV. Then there is quite a variety of activities available. Not only actual hockey, but violent minigames, such as body checking a number of players within a set time limit.

When I finally set up a screen capture process for my PS2 and Saturn games, at least I will know exactly what to capture for these 3 titles and be done with them.

See also:

Adventure in Toledo: Followup entry on Evergrace
Orphen Redux

Quattro Arcade

Posted on October 21, 2007 by Multimedia Mike

This past week, the company cafeteria was serving a dish labeled “baked penne pasta with quatro formagio”. It certainly sounds like an authentico Italiano experience, until one recalls that “quatro formagio” just means “4 cheese”. For some reason, though, seeing the dish reminded me of an NES game yet to be played and entered into the database— an unlicensed Codemasters cartridge called Quattro Arcade. Codemasters actually put out a bunch of these Quattro game quartets for various old time systems. In fact, Quattro Arcade is already in the database so I thought this would be a straightforward screenshot recon exercise. No such luck as the NES version has 4 completely different games.

The quality of these old, unlicensed NES games is generally nothing to write home about, so I can’t say I’m excited about this experience. However, Codemasters is unique in the sense that they have endured to this day and are still putting out titles. And there is at least one game of the four that I really get into: F-16 Renegade:

Quattro Arcade -- F16 Renegade, overhead portion

The manual for Quattro Arcade is available online. Wouldn’t you know, the authors saw fit to craft long-winded backstories for each of the 4 games. Look, F-16 Renegade is simply a fun, straightforward, curiously devoid of music, shoot-em-up game that alternates between overhead levels, as seen above, and third person behind-the-plane levels:

Quattro Arcade -- F16 Renegade, third-person view

All normal-looking planes (in the air) and normal tanks and missile batteries on the ground. There are powerups that enhance your offensive capability. The curious aspect of this is that the powerups carry over between the 2 different types of levels. And while one strike does your plane in, you only drop one power level when you get your next plane, instead of losing all of your firepower.

I made it to level 6 in this game. I am not sure how many levels there are, but level 4 was called “Rating… talented amateur”. So I suspect the game continues for some time.

There is a Dizzy title in this set. Dizzy seems to be a mainstay in Codemasters’ early IP repertoire. The game in this set, Go! Dizzy Go! struck me as sort of a bastard stepchild of Pac-Man.

On each map, collect all the fruit. Avoid the threats that are marching about, whatever they may be on this round. I can’t get past the idea of seahorses being a threat, but that’s just me. You can also push around columns of blocks. Okay, maybe it’s a little more reminiscent of a block-based puzzle game, e.g., a Lolo title.

Next up is Stunt Buggies. Drive around in an overhead perspective and collect bombs while enemy buggies work desperately to stop you. You can slow down enemy buggies, apparently by leaving some exhaust.

The final game in the quartet is C.J.’s Elephant Antics. The game actually starts in Paris:

Quattro Arcade -- CJ's Elephant Antics, Eiffel Tower action

It’s a side-scrolling game. C.J. must make his way home to Africa, according to the manual. He has an umbrella to slow descents. He can fire peanuts. Also, he can drop bombs. Until that last item, this seemed like an all-too-delightful kids game.

G.I. Joe: The Atlantis Factor

Posted on October 1, 2007 by Multimedia Mike

I played G.I. Joe: The Atlantis Factor a little bit tonight. I long had an aversion to the original G.I. Joe NES title from Taxan– I remember it being somewhat difficult, or perhaps I just was not up to the challenge. The graphics and gameplay were up to par, though. Capcom snared the license for this second title and I had high hopes.

The storyline involves the Cobra organization raising the lost continent of Atlantis. The G.I. Joe team has to infiltrate the place and put a stop to whatever is the bad guys are going. At first, General Hawk goes it alone but collects more team members as the game proceeds.

This is the first miniboss, a giant with an equally large cinder block sledge hammer. He may or may not have been a canon G.I. Joe franchise character with his own action figure; I never kept up with G.I. Joe as much as I did with Transformers.

G.I. Joe: The Atlantis Factor -- Boss with cinder block sledge hammer

There is no strategy at play here. Just hope you have powered up your primary gun enough, haven’t taken too much damage yet, and give him everything you’ve got, head on.

Another notable feature of this game is the wackiest password system I have ever encountered in any NES game:

G.I. Joe: The Atlantis Factor -- Huge password

I am ecstatic that I never rented this game and, therefore, never had to copy down a single password for this game.

Gaming Pathology

Piles Of Games, Copious Free Time, No Standards

Category: Action Games