101 Games In 1

Posted on October 22, 2009 by Multimedia Mike

For at least the past 5 years, I have been seeing kiosk vendors in malls selling special video game systems. These items boast many games hardwired into devices which are just controllers with a few A/V cables for plugging directly into a television. You know the places — kiosks staffed by shady-looking, shifty-eyed characters who greet you with the customary, “You’re not a cop, right? Because you have to tell me if you are or else it’s entrapment.” It’s obvious to any video game geek that these systems are just some 8-bit NES emulation mechanism attached to a store of illicit NES ROMs, all packed inside the controller.

Really, it’s a nifty idea, just not altogether on the up-and-up. Creating and selling hardware that duplicates NES functionality is okay since the NES patents expired years ago. But the copyrights on the ROMs are in no way expired.

I was surprised to see one of these devices in a significantly more mainstream retail outlet– a Walgreens store, specifically. It was only $9.99 and claimed 101 games.

The most vivid screenshot on the package was quite obviously Arkanoid. When I turned on the unit (which requires unscrewing the battery cover to insert the batteries-not-included), I was greeted by Pac-Man:

I gave it a whirl. There are, in fact, 101 individual games (unlike that 1997-in-1 fraud I wrote about once) which I have listed at the end of this entry for reference. As an expert in American NES games, I know that most of them are games that were never released in America. Almost all of them are incredibly simple, obviously mapper-less games (memory mappers were used in NES cartridges to effectively expand the amount of data a game could have; lack of a mapper limits the possible size and complexity of a game). The most complex game I saw in the menu was Super C which used Nintendo’s MMC3 mapper hardware. Then again, the game had been stripped of its title screen and I didn’t play past the first level; it’s entirely possible that someone whittled this down to be an abbreviated, mapper-less version of the original game. I’m fairly confident that none of these games use battery backup features, thus obviating the need to emulate any non-volatile RAM.

As for actual gameplay, the experience is a bit disappointing. The joypad is very stiff. There are 4 buttons on the right side of the controller, but they’re actually just 2 A buttons and 2 B buttons. The select and start buttons sit just above the reset button which goes back to the Pac-Man greeting screen and that’s not a very user friendly feature. I was just getting into Super C when I noticed that particular problem.

Overall, this is probably as much of a letdown as that 1997-in-1 device. This device was cheaper, sure. But this device also required a little more time to notice how bad it is.

See Also:

1997-in-1 handheld gaming device

At MobyGames:

Here’s the full list of 101 games:

Save on T-virus

Posted on October 21, 2009 by Multimedia Mike

I know that it’s old hat to see such ludicrous, catch-all advertisements. But every now and then, one grabs you. Like when I was refreshing my memory recently regarding the T-virus of the Resident Evil series. Amazon promises to hook me up with a good deal.

To be fair, there seems to be a song by that name by an act named Atyss.

Roketz

Posted on October 20, 2009 by Multimedia Mike

Sometimes, all I have to go on is a CD-ROM. That’s how it was with Roketz. Turns out it’s a DOS game. Time to fire up DOSBox and have at it. The credits, however, imply that there was also an Amiga version that preceded the DOS version.

I had some trouble making a go of this until I remembered to severely crank up the CPU cycles in DOSBox — this game was from 1996, after all. It’s also the first and only game I have seen which uses a 720×350 color graphics mode. The game is set in a dystopian future, probably — I think the preceding story screenshot was supposed to establish setting for this game. The art style is not in keeping with the rest of the game.

As for the game, it reminds me a lot of those Positech racing games I played quite some time ago. Race around a 2D map and shoot at other players while collecting powerups. This game functions in both free-for-all combat mode as well as lap racing mode.

There are also powerups to be purchased, including a teddy bear for good luck:

The game was developed by an Estonian group called Bluemoon. They still have a functioning website where they claim credit for helping to create both Kazaa and Skype. And they created the beloved SkyRoads game. Both SkyRoads and Roketz are available for free download from their website

See Also:

Rocky Racers and Kombat Kars, which are somewhat similar to this game

At MobyGames:

SkyRoads series

TAS Capsules #4

Posted on October 19, 2009 by Multimedia Mike

More TAS capsules! Let’s go…

First, let’s do Prince of Persia, the NES version. I think I’ve seen this particular TAS at least 3 times but for some reason, I didn’t capture a series of screenshots. I know I’ve seen this play out entirely too many times. I remember playing the DOS version of the game a long time ago and I think I even made it out of the dungeon. It may have been groundbreaking at the time, and perhaps even offer some fascinating, puzzling, and challenging gameplay to this day. But you have to admit that it’s boring to watch even the speedrun and dull to perform the capture chore since so many places in the game all look the same.

Still, I managed to capture this frame of animation which makes it look like the prince has to go potty really bad:

From there, I moved on to Nosferatu for the SNES. Any description you can find of this game (save perhaps for its own box copy) will immediately peg it as a brazen Prince of Persia ripoff. Which it is, make no mistake. However, it’s a good deal more interesting to watch than the original PoP game. For starters, the hero is 100% badass as he takes down werewolves, Frankenstein monsters, zombies, mummies, and eventually Dracula himself, all with his fists (and feet of fury).

Nosferatu (SNES) -- Final boss battle with Dracula

The graphics are significantly more appealing than in PoP. Everything in the castle gets into the act of trying to get the hero– the books in the library fly out at you and even the artwork comes to life and take you down. The only gripe I had with the graphics were that a number of outdoor scenes (where boss battles usually took place) did not make use of the parallax scrolling so commonly found in the 16-bit era. I would have to review the SNES internal technical documents again (my second favorite behind the NES) but I think these scenes might be using a graphical mode that only allows one plane due to a higher resolution or higher number of colors.

Nosferatu (SNES) -- Battling with vomiting zombie boss

It should be noted that Dracula really dropped the ball as a manager when he promoted the zombie in the above screenshot to miniboss. I don’t think he was really up to the task. Every time the hero lands a hit, the zombie keels over and visibly vomits.

Journey to Silius (NES) brings back a lot of memories since I remember working hard to beat the game. Thankfully, the TAS demonstrates that the graphics and gameplay were diverse enough over its stages that it’s not an embarrassment to remember playing through the whole thing back in the day.

The most curious thing that stuck out at me based on the speedrun was that, according to the wanted posters in the background of level 1, there is a fugitive penguin on the loose:

I remember thinking that Wrath of the Black Manta (NES) was pretty lame back in the day, and that was before I really took the time to think through the things that are being presented to me in video games. Wrath has the eponymous ninja trotting the globe from New York City to Tokyo to Rio de Janeiro and back to New York City in order to bust up a drug ring and also get to the bottom of some kidnappings. The game would have us believe that a kidnapping victim had time to leave a detailed note about the kidnapping at the scene of the crime before he was abducted:

Also, the ninjas in this game can fly simply by attaching a sheet to their wrists and ankles. They remind me of cartoonish flying squirrels:

Wrath of the Black Manta -- Flying ninjas

The final game from this set is the venerable Gradius (NES). If you’ve never taken the time to watch a TAS, this is a good time to start. Go to this Gradius TAS page and watch one of the video versions linked. As the page description notes, “This is probably one of the best illustrations on how to create art out of a simplistic and otherwise uninteresting game to watch.” It’s exhilarating and a static screenshot doesn’t begin to do it justice, but when has that ever stopped me? Here are the iconic Easter Island space heads from the series:

See Also:

Previous in the TAS Capsules series (#3)

At MobyGames:

Dole’s 5-A-Day Adventure

Posted on October 18, 2009 by Multimedia Mike

So far, all of the food-related advergames I have seen on this blog have been for items that are not held in high regard by nutritionists. So here is Dole’s 5-A-Day Adventures which promises to teach us all about proper nutrition and exercise in the most cloying ways imaginable.

Dole's 5-A-Day Adventures -- Overal game map

So this is pretty straightforward. There are 8 areas, as seen in the above screenshot. Each one provides the player with a lecture about some aspect of nutrition or exercise, usually delivered by anthropomorphic produce (“Hey kids! Remember to eat lots of me and my friends!”). Here’s the phyto chemical parade. I’m trying to figure out if there is a demographic that would be old enough to comprehend words like “phyto chemical” yet still young enough to withstand the inanity of this game.

Dole's 5-A-Day Adventures -- Phyto chemical parade

Afterwards — and the UI is a bit confusing in this respect — the player can choose to either take the Challenge or the Ultimate Challenge for a given area. The respective challenges are a bit misnamed. The unadorned “Challenge” is actually significantly tougher and revolves around trivia that is sometimes multiple choice (as seen in the next screenshot) and sometimes interactive (like having to build a food pyramid). Players earn tokens for correctly answering these questions.

Dole's 5-A-Day Adventures -- Fit Kid Challenge

The “Ultimate Challenge” is an insidious misnomer. These present a series of yes/no questions where correct answers are awarded a gold star each. After a little playing, you will no doubt notice a distinct pattern: all the answers are a resounding “Yes”. And they all seem to be somewhat behaviorally-oriented:

Dole's 5-A-Day Adventures -- Ultimate Challenge

Other questions were along the lines of “I sang one of the 5-A-Day songs to my family”; “I sang a 5-A-Day song with my friends.” It was around this time that I decided this was a little messed up. Let’s face it– the only way that kids are going to be exposed to this is in a compulsory context in a classroom environment. And here is this automated mechanism dispassionately supplying repeated negative feedback if a child dares to answer that he or she did not sing a 5-A-Day song.

With any luck, some budding computer hackers exposed to this at a precious young age were able to reverse engineer the data file format, which the game was nice enough to store in a folder on the desktop. Let’s have a look:

Dole's 5-A-Day Adventures -- Hacking the data file format

Then launch the game again, select the hacked file:

Dole's 5-A-Day Adventures -- Token load dialog box

Then call the teacher over to show off the fact that I successfully completed all the objectives in the game, and may I please go outside and play?

Dole's 5-A-Day Adventures -- A winner is me

After feeling like I emerged triumphant in that skirmish, I checked my pantry only to discover a shelf of Dole brand canned products. So it seems Dole has won the larger battle here.

The CD-ROM I have is marked “2000 edition” and I found references on the internet dated as early as 1998. I also found a portfolio page from a company named IDD which claims credit for this game. IDD is not mentioned in the credits for my version, nor is their screenshot similar to anything in my edition. I was able to contact someone involved in the creation of this edition at eMotion Studios and my contact confirmed that there were just these 2 versions of the game.

See Also:

Taco Bell Tek Kids games — In the virtual schoolyard, the Tek Kids would probably bully around the kids from this game
The Lost Island of Alanna — Cherry Coke’s CD-ROM tie-in

At MobyGames:

A Tale of Two City Builder Games

Posted on October 17, 2009 by Multimedia Mike

I have had these two games sitting in my inventory for a long time, procured from various eBay raids, and waiting to be entered into MobyGames: Build City and Create City. Since they sound so similar, I wanted to attack them both at the same time. I assume they both fall into the category of city building games, the archetype of which is SimCity which, I must confess, I have never played. I have, however, played a game called Moonbase which had me managing said lunar installation. I also greatly enjoyed Skateboard Park Tycoon very early in this experiment.

Proceeding alphabetically, I delved into Build City first. I found no manual on disk and no in-game help. However, there was a demo mode which tutored me just a little bit. So I jumped into the first mission delegated by the monarch. I can place farms, roads, houses, and markets anywhere on my little plot of land. But building this stuff costs money and I only start out with 400 gold. I’m expected to grow this town to 500 people and have 1500 units of food harvested into storage by the end of 2 game years. I got off to a difficult start.

Indeed, the very beginning of the game is the toughest part as you’re trying to spend your precious 400 gold in such a way as to build the population up to just 100 people. Why is that important? Because at that threshold, the town can support a church. When a church is near a housing unit, that unit becomes more prosperous. More prosperous households are more reliable taxpayers. After awhile, the treasury sort of takes care of itself. But getting to that point is a big hump to get over. At other population thresholds, the player also gets to build schools, medical offices, and most importantly, taverns. There is only one means of recreation in the early 1700s when this game is set, and that is alcohol consumption.

I had to toy with a number of configurations of farms, roads, and houses at the outset. Once the gold started going down and into the red (there is debt in this game), I didn’t know any way to recover so I would start over. Eventually, I remembered that there is a configurable tax rate. It is possible to raise that at the cost of some citizens leaving.

There are 10 missions in Build City handed down by the monarch, each with very clear cut, measurable goals that can be monitored through your status screen. Some missions build on previous missions. E.g., the first mission has you building a new city from scratch while the second and third missions specify that you monkey with that established city. The mission goals make for some odd gameplay decisions, like when I needed to demolish some farmland to make room for new houses. Actually, just as I was about to do that, an earthquake struck my game, obviating the need for such tough choices. But then later on, my town’s recreational rating was too low. This meant I needed to erect a new tavern next to a church (I think I demolished a medical clinic to do so) and I even went so far as to demolish a block of housing to build another tavern. Hey, I already had enough population according to the mission parameters but I needed that recreational rating to climb.

I also found myself messing with the tax rate in unusual ways. At one point, I deliberately raised it in order to keep the population from growing which would put undue burden on the food stores. I did this when I had already hit my population goal and I was just waiting for the mission time period to expire.

Build City -- Finding my way as a medieval city planner

Eventually, I hit my stride and completed about half the missions when I took time out to try Create City. I chuckled as I thought about the irony if it turned out to be the same as Build City. That struck me as unlikely since the CD-ROM had a different company on it. I should know better by now. Yep, it’s the same game.

Studying the contents of the disc, I got the impression is was actually an AOL CD. But then I found a PDF manual for the game which described Build City almost precisely save for the title. The instructions explicitly describe the game as taking place in the 1700s. I’m not sure how that picture of modern skyscrapers found its way into the cover art.

So it’s the same game. That doesn’t make the game better or worse by itself. In fact, I tried Create City and I think it might be the better of the two titles. It has a copyright date on the title screen of 2 years later and has a few UI refinements. The graphics are quite different (still 1700s, more so, even). And there are even 3 more missions in campaign mode (though 2 are tutorials), while gone is the demo mode. And there are trees littering the landscape that must be cleared with extreme prejudice. However, there is also an option to plant more trees. I couldn’t find anything in my statistics to indicate that the citizenry would care about more trees, though.

I kind of like this (these) game(s) and I might try again sometime. Now I need to figure out if the titles should be entered into the database separately or combined.

This game was apparently created in Macromedia Director which makes it the single most involved game I have ever seen created with Director (and you know I have seen a lot of them for this project). It was engineered by one individual as well (save for the music).

See Also:

At MobyGames:

Gaming Pathology

Piles Of Games, Copious Free Time, No Standards

101 Games In 1

Save on T-virus

Roketz

TAS Capsules #4

Dole’s 5-A-Day Adventure

A Tale of Two City Builder Games