61 Frames Per Second : atari 2600

8-Bit Love: The Ten Greatest Vintage Game Songs to Have Sex To, part 2

John Constantine — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:00:00 GMT

Cyriaque Lamar is a New York-based writer with a New Jersey-bred weltanschauung. He’s had original work published at Cracked.com and performed at The New York International Fringe Festival. Cyriaque is thrilled to contribute to 61FPS, as it brings him one step closer to his childhood dream of living on the set of Nick Arcade.

5.) Final Fight CD – “Walk In the Park (Bay Area)”

System: Sega CD (1993)
Sounds Like: A sweaty nooner with Don Johnson.
I always loved the premise of Final Fight. The idea of a city’s mayor stripping down to his underjohns and beating the shit out of unemployed people in order to stimulate job growth was really ahead of its time. Wait? Mike Haggar was actually fighting to save his daughter from an evil street gang? And here I thought the game was some kind of radical Objectivist propaganda. This Bay Area theme is classic whatever console you play Final Fight on, but the Sega CD version pushes it to the limit with gale-force porno guitars. Seriously, these riffs are like an F4 on the Fujita Scale. In my mind’s eye, the person who would get the most out of this track wears a ton of sea foam green and frequents Fort Lauderdale whorehouses. Sometimes, you just gotta be that person. When it comes to the Sega CD, the only thing sleazier is Night Trap.

4.) Chrono Trigger – Schala’s Theme

System: Super Nintendo (1995)
Sounds Like: Ravi Shankar, Level 12 Bard.
Another track from wunderkind Yasunori Mitsuda? Man, I should just wear my Chrono Trigger fanboyism on a t-shirt. Or a hat! Yes, a big fucking sombrero like those worn by morbidly obese stockbrokers at Jimmy Buffet concerts. My sombrero will depict the final battle against Lavos, with Robo, Lucca and Magus executing the Omega Flare triple tech. After I conceive my first-born son wearing this sombrero, I will store it in the broom closet until his first day of middle school, at which point I will place my abomination of a hat on his head and send him on his way. When he inevitably comes home tearful and bruised, his Chrono Sombrero torn asunder, I will embrace him and say, “Today you learned what it is to be a man. We’re ordering pizza tonight.”

3.) Streets of Rage 2 – S.O.R. Super Mix

System: Sega Genesis (1992)
Sounds Like: The Madchester music scene mashed into a Mega Drive cartridge.
I lived in Baltimore a few years ago. My neighborhood was more Pink Flamingos than The Wire, mostly pleasant with pockets of dicey urbanity. This track by the great Yuzo Kushiro (Actraiser) syncs up with that time in my life rather aptly. I had the streets and I had the rage. I also had the sick piano breakdown at 1:36. That emotional miasma and sweet key work made for a heady love making combo. Still does. It was a weird time in my life, but not Streets of Rage 2 weird. Game’s about a twelve-year-old in rollerblades who dismantles a heavily-armed crime syndicate. Go figure.

2.) The Last Ninja 2 – “The Mansion”

System: Commodore 64 (1988)
Sounds Like: Coming home from work, only to discover John Carpenter banging your wife.
Matt Gray’s soundtrack to The Last Ninja 2 is one of the better things in life, and “The Mansion” is one of its most memorable tracks. Its utility goes far beyond the bedroom. Sure, you and a buddy can thrust away to this instrumental’s nearly eight minutes of analog acrobatics, but why not use it for a more grand occasion? “The Mansion” is a more than adequate proxy for Pachelbel. It’ll make your nuptials more like the wedding scene from Big Trouble in Little China.

1.) Tetris – “A-Type”

System: Game Boy (1989)
Sounds Like: Tetris. Duh.
There’s nothing inherently sexy about the Tetris theme. Thing is, everyone knows “A-Type”, and if you blast it in the sack, you will be your partner’s most memorable lover ever. Period. It doesn’t even matter how good or bad the sex is. Every time this pops into an ex-lover’s head, he or she’ll have no choice but to sigh, “[Your Name Here] balled me to the Tetris theme.” Decades may pass, but once they recall those opening Bolshevik bleep-bloops, a mnemonic trigger will kick in and your shining nudity will be all they have ever known.

Part 1

Previous Top Tens:

The Ten Greatest Ice Levels in Gaming History
The Ten Greatest Classic Mega Man Levels
The Ten Videogames That Should Have Been Controversial
The Ten Greatest Opening Levels in Gaming History
The Ten Most Adventurous Sequels in Gaming History
The Ten Greatest Fire Levels in Gaming History

8-Bit Love: The Ten Greatest Vintage Game Songs to Have Sex To, part 1

John Constantine — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:00:00 GMT

Cyriaque Lamar is a New York-based writer with a New Jersey-bred weltanschauung. He’s had original work published at Cracked.com and performed at The New York International Fringe Festival. Cyriaque is thrilled to contribute to 61FPS, as it brings him one step closer to his childhood dream of living on the set of Nick Arcade.

There are three reasons this list exists. First, I felt obliged to highlight 61FPS’s distinction as the gaming apparatchik of an internet sex publication. Second, I wished to showcase the unsung virtuosos of yesteryear who made masterworks using a limited palette of sounds. Finally, I intend to rebut those critics who still dismiss video games as low culture. Using the below examples, I intend to reclaim the carnal legacy of video games by evincing how early console music illustrated the gamut of human sexuality, from atavistic, heteronormative modes of eroticism to polymorphous perversity as delineated by Freud.

Plus, the thought of people sticking penises into vaginas to Nintendo music is funny.

10.) Radical Dreamers – “The Girl Who Stole the Stars”

System: Super Famicom Satellaview (1996)
Sounds Like: Koyaanisqatsi composed on Mario Paint.
Since roughly 95% of all human lovemaking involves someone with a XX chromosome pairing, I thought it necessary to seek out my female associates’ thoughts on which game music best applies to amore. The suggestions I received were few yet incisive — responses ranged from “the Kid Icarus theme” to “Who the eff effs to video games?” Ultimately though, I deferred to my own instincts and picked this pan-pipe jam from the Japan-exclusive, text-based sequel to Chrono Trigger. Composed by the legendary Yasunori Mitsuda, “The Girl Who Stole the Stars” is easily the most romantic theme on our list.

9.) Pole Position – Background noise

System: Atari 65XE (1985)
Sounds Like: Skynet becoming sentient.
The way I see it, there are two types of lovers in this world. The first type does it to The Whispers and The O’Jays, whereas the second diddles to Autechre, Radio-Activity-era Kraftwerk and the hum of AC units. The grating 8-bit drone of this Namco racing classic, is dedicated to the latter group — those who bang to cold, robotic minimalism. It’s also worth nothing that “PREPARE TO QUALIFY” is perhaps the best pre-coital war cry I’ve ever heard, particularly when your partner has no clue what you’re yelling about. Nothing improves foreplay like car metaphors and total incoherence. Remember the make-out scene from Gone In 60 Seconds?

Editor's Note: The Nerve and 61PFS by-laws state that no mention of Pole Position may go unaccompanied by this link.

8.) Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake – “Night Fall”

System: MSX2 (1990)
Sounds Like: Passion. Yearning. Crates.
Solid Snake, Big Boss, Naked Snake. Nobody pens phallic codenames quite like Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima. This harmonica-fueled ditty is from the Japanese version of Metal Gear 2. “Night Fall” is the only song on this list with an in-game pedigree as a sex jam — it plays when Solid Snake angles for some love during wartime. He totally strikes out, but what did you expect? With all that spying and peeping he does, I always figured Snake likes to watch.

7.) Zoda’s Revenge: StarTropics II – “Dungeon Theme #2”

System: Nintendo (1994)
Sounds Like: Vicki Sue Robinson’s “Turn the Beat Around” sung by an alcoholic Speak & Spell.
Most of the songs thus far have a “Quiet-Storm-meets-Q*Bert” vibe, so we’re going to shake it up with a certifiable club banger. When it comes to dance floor heaters about time-traveling teenagers fighting crudely-animated yetis, “Dungeon Theme #2” is impossible to trump. Play it at your next party and bookend it with some Crystal Castles and Futurecop. If some loser balks, matter-of-factly reply, “This is some old-school Japanese shit. Kanye’s totally sampling this for his next single.” You’ll only be half-lying.

6.) Donkey Kong Country 2 – “Stickerbrush Symphony”

System: Super Nintendo (1995)
Sounds Like: Massive Attack’s “Heat Miser” driven by a Casio horn section.
What the hell is this? This is a game about a pair of simians wearing Payless sneakers. It’s borderline profane to have a track this Sade-smooth in a Donkey Kong game, but consider the alternative — the DKC2 soundtrack could well have been five hours of the Donkey Kong Rap . Credit goes to Rare composer David Wise for making a bramble maze filled with bees sound downright silky. So silky, in fact, that it's perfect for exploring your partner's very own bramble maze.

Part 2

Previous Top Tens:

The Ten Greatest Ice Levels in Gaming History
The Ten Greatest Classic Mega Man Levels
The Ten Videogames That Should Have Been Controversial
The Ten Greatest Opening Levels in Gaming History
The Ten Most Adventurous Sequels in Gaming History
The Ten Greatest Fire Levels in Gaming History

Whatcha Reading: Racing the Beam

Joe Keiser — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 16:00:00 GMT

There are a lot ways to think about games—as cultural artifacts, works of art, works of programming craft. Racing the Beam asks you to think about games in a way that is rarely considered: as a negotiation between game developer and hardware platform, between an artist with vision and the constrained tool that must be used to bring that vision to life. It’s a particularly apt metaphor for the platform in question, the Atari 2600, as almost all of that console’s games were made by one-man programmer/artist/designers. The result is a video game history unlike any I’ve ever read.

Racing the Beam is full to the brim with interesting tidbits about the nature of the Atari’s hardware. Cost-cutting measures on the system meant it was designed in a very specific way, to play games like Pong and Combat but little else. That meant that nearly everything that was actually done with the console was an elaborate hack. Getting more than two characters on screen, a la Space Invaders? That was a hack. Getting cars to drive onto screen from the left and off the screen from the right? The Atari was never designed to do anything like that, so that’s a hack too. That beam of brightly colored safety in Yar’s Revenge? That’s an absolutely ingenious hack.

Told in this way the story of the Atari 2600 becomes a story of brilliant renaissance men, twisting to their whims a piece of hardware that turned out to be far more versatile than its creators could heave dreamed. It’s also supposed to be a story about how this weak system with almost no memory tempered the ideas of developers, but this comes off much less well. The way the book is written, even the system’s abominable port of Pac-Man looks like a miraculous work of laudable engineering. By the end, it almost makes you think that the Atari 2600 could run, well, anything, if only you put the right genius in front of it.

Still, maybe this is the best way to look at that time period. The people involved in the programming of the 2600 were wizards. All too often they were tasked with impossible projects, like converting a graphically rich arcade game to a console that couldn’t even hold an entire screen’s worth of data at once. The stories of how they succeeded and failed paint an important historical picture about the relationship between the system and the people who made art come alive on it.

Racing the Beam paints that picture well, but it’s still in many ways a book about a computer and some programmers. It will occasionally become dense with technical speak and it even sometimes boxes out esoteric machine code, so if you don’t have any technical knowledge you can expect to re-read some pages many times before your understanding becomes complete. It’s still worth it to try, though. Watching Atari's wheezing beast get tamed by the intellect of this industry’s forefathers is a great and necessary journey for anyone who cares about games.

Pick it up here: Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System (Platform Studies)

Related Links:

Whatcha Reading: 20 Years of Nintendo Power
The Videogame Ages, part 1
Death of the Gamer, Redefinition of the Audience

Alternate Soundtrack: Adventure vs. Adventure

Derrick Sanskrit — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 14:00:00 GMT

Longtime readers had to know this one was coming. Pitting the legendary Atari 2600 classic Adventure against the self-titled album from an electronic musician of the same name was all too easy. What's more, it's all too appropriate.

Warren Robinett's groundbreaking Adventure features absolutely no music and only the occassional sound effect for picking up and dropping objects, slaying or being attacked by dragons, and returning the chalice to the gold castle. There's a lot of silence, which is good for atmosphere but bad for fun. Let's see what we can do about that.

Oh yeah, much better. Adventure (aka Benny Boeldt)'s music adds a whole new dimension of grandeur to the lonely pixel's quest, and the electronic bleeps, bloops, clicks and hums blend beautifully with the bright blocky colors of the Atari 2600.

As always, feel free to leave your alternate soundtracks in the comments!

Previously:
The Original Adventure, Now Portable
Alternate Soundtrack: Noby Noby Boy vs. Daft Punk
Alternate Soundtrack: Sonic the Hedgehog vs. Ratatat

The Atari Jaguar and the Bit Wars

Nadia Oxford — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 03:05:00 GMT

The Angry Video Game Nerd is back, and he's kicking off his resurrection with a two-part series on the Jaguar. Part one offers a brief history of the Jaguar, but doesn't explore its impotent game library at any length. Instead, the Nerd talks about how the Jaguar helped loosen a very powerful advertising ankle trap: the “Bit Wars.”

Putting it simply, if you were a gamer and conscious in between the years of 1985 and 1996, you were led to believe that more “bits” in a console equals a better system. You also fell for it, at least until certain truths started to leak out from pores of the 32/64-bit system race.

The NES was a huge improvement over the Atari 2600. The Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis were a huge improvement over the rinky-dink graphics on the NES. 32-bit systems were capable of orchestrated audio, anime cutscenes and 3D graphics. And that's where the waters started to muddy up.

Before the 32/64-bit race began in earnest, I was going through a small obsessive fit with Capcom arcade games. In particular, Street Fighter Alpha, and (sigh) Dungeons and Dragons: Shadows Over Mystara. I thought for certain I'd see ports on the N64, because, duh, Nintendo's system was going to be the most powerful one in the console race! Why wouldn't it happen?

I posted the question on my high school's BBS and was laughed at by a lot of angry video game nerds who predated the Angry Video Game Nerd.

Storage space, development kits, costs...those meant little to me. It was all about the bits. Even though Squaresoft had thrown up its hands over the N64's cartridges and said, “Nope.” Even though Atari had long since made an ass of itself with the Jaguar.

It took a while, but I came to realise that “bits” were an advertising ruse that was even more effective and long-lived than Sega's infamous Blast Processing. The scope and vision of Super Mario 64 could never be achieved on the Playstation, but all things told, it didn't look much better than a Playstation game, and I had been bred to believe that the evolution of games was marked by its aesthetics.

The Nerd mentions how hard it was to convince his parents that a 16-bit Super Nintendo was actually a whole new experience next to the 8-bit Nintendo. At least the visual jump was evident from the start. My biggest challenge was convincing my parents that a 32-bit Playstation offered a whole new gameplay experience next to the N64. The N64 had Shadows of the Empire and Waverace; the Playstation had sprites, Final Fantasy VII, and Mega Man X4.

Problem was, I had long ago trained them to believe that “up” was the only way to go with bit counts. They weren't about to let me spend hundreds of dollars on a downgrade.

Eventually, I won. And my parents knew for sure they'd been duped when they heard the top-quality voice acting in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

Related Links:

Life Without Playstation
The Angry Video Game Nerd's House of Nintendo Horrors
Wasted Rentals, Wasted Youth: Bram Stoker's Dracula

Indie Dev Moment: Jumpman

Derrick Sanskrit — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:00:00 GMT

Sometimes, 8 bits is just too much. When my friends were gawking at San Andreas, I whipped out my plug'n'play Atari 2600 for some Circus Atari. And it ROCKED.

So, of course, I love Jumpman, a freeware desktop game by Andrew McClure fashioned as a modern love letter to the 4 bit platformers of old. Yes, the name "Jumpman" is somewhat sacred amongst retro gamers as the original name of Mario, but trust me when I say Jumpman is flippin' sweet. Literally, the sweetness is flippin', as the major brain-bending game mechanic here is rotating the pixelated world around Jumpman to help him evade enemies and get to the exit. There's a certain slickness to the way Jumpman moves, a reduced friction not often found in such games, and though it takes some getting used to, it works wonderfully for allowing Jumpman to glide across platforms as the world rotates around him.

The other really neat bit about Jumpman's design is the ability to see the next stage or two in the background, a gentle tease of challenges to come, especially as some stages are designed explicitly to mess with your head when they're in the background. Just check out this trailer:

The challenge is high, but the learning curve is smooth and comfortable, and the game remembers which of the nine paths you were on last, so you can always pick up close to where you left off later on. You can also draw your own rooms if you want a custom challenge, and we both know you do.

Jumpman is a free download for Mac and Windows and even works in Linux under Wine (though it doesn't seem to work that well for me when I'm under wine. The colors blur and the motion just gets me queasy). Download it here right now.

Recently on Indie Dev Moment:
Dyson
Spelunky
Gravity Bone
i made this. you play this. we are enemies.

Microsoft’s New Year’s Resolution

John Constantine — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 22:00:00 GMT

For the second time in history, an American company has created a massively successful videogame console. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is, without doubt, America’s greatest triumph since the Atari 2600. Of course, this is discounting personal computers of all stripes, and even the achievements of Microsoft’s first green-tinged box devoted to gaming. But 28 million consoles sold worldwide is a monumental feat for any gaming machine and, contrary to some speculation late last year, it looks like the system’s sales have yet to plateau. As far as creativity and growth of the medium, Microsoft pioneered downloadable content on home consoles, established one of the first easily accessible independent games services, and brought online gaming into more homes than ever before. Not to mention how they’ve published some of the most enjoyable traditional gaming fare — shooters like Halo 3 and Gears of War as well as RPGs like Fable 2 — of the last two years. Yes, kudos to you Microsoft. Ya done good.

BUT YOU CAN DO BETTER! What’s up with 2009, guys? Halo Wars? That’s what you’ve got? Where’s Alan Wake, you punks! Ninja Blade? How about a freaking action game without a ninja in it?! Geez!

Okay, okay. I am calm now. I am fine. Announcing some great first-party software for the 360 would be a pretty logical resolution for Bill Gates’ house of pancakes. But I was thinking more along the lines of modernization.

Microsoft should resolve to make Xbox Live free to all Xbox 360 owners in 2009. At the very least, they should expand on Xbox Live Silver Memberships, allowing more games to be played online at no additional cost as they did with Street Fighter HD Remix. Alternatively, they could start adding more perks, such as free Arcade downloads with Gold memberships. Regardless, now that Xbox Live has proven itself, it is time to stop charging players needlessly. There is absolutely no reason that Xbox owners should have to pay for multiplayer in 2009. Hell, if nothing else, making Xbox Live free would give the entire world one fewer reason to buy a Playstation 3.

Think about it, Microsoft. Oh, and announce some more first-party titles already. Not Too Human 2.

Related links:

Virtual Console New Year's Resolutions
Nintendo’s New Year’s Resolution
The New XBox Experience: A Brief Reaction

The Original Adventure - Now Portable

Derrick Sanskrit — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:00:00 GMT

The Atari 2600's Adventure holds several special places in gaming history. It was the first game to allow the main character to carry and use objects without entering a menu or command, it infamously featured gaming's very first easter egg, and, as the title implies, it was the first ever action-adventure game for a video game console, paving the way for The Legend of Zelda and countless others.

Well now the first ever action-adventure video game is available for the iPhone/iPod Touch. And its free. Go experience some video game history right now.

The game is tilt-controlled and you touch the screen to drop whatever item you're carrying. Gameplay is smooth and the flat pixel graphics are perfectly crisp. It's hi-def lo-fi portable retro gaming. You can even adjust the dragons' behavior and turn on and off a rumble function in the application's settings. My favorite feature, though, is that gameplay does not disrupt your iPod's audio playback, so you can create your own soundtrack to the classic game (and we all know how much I love doing that).

Of course, my test session with Adventure was backed by Adventure's 2008 album Adventure...and it was divine. Try it, I implore you.

Illustration taken from my friend Dave Roman's hilarious comic strip interpretation of Adventure. Read the whole thing here.

Related Articles:
The Videogame Ages Part 1 & Part 2
Chiptune Friday: Leeni's 8 Bit Heart PLUS Music Video for Adventure's "Ultrazone"
Ports That Need To Be Made: iTouchRez
Newtonica Brings iPhone Gaming Into The Realm of Awesome
Sega CD on iPhone: I Like Where This is Going

Where Did You Begin?

Amber Ahlborn — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:00:00 GMT

61 Frames Per Second has been chugging along for a few months now, collecting readers and writers alike. Whatever differences those who come here may have, we all share an interest in video games and thus, I've become curious. When did you first play a video game?

I was a wee lass when I played my first video game in a local arcade. My first console was the Atari 2600 and I've pretty much been dedicated to console games. Sure, I've dabbled in the occasional computer game and have owned hand held systems since the original Game Boy, but consoles hit the sweet spot for me. If I believed in fate I'd even say I was destined to be a console gamer since the Atari was first released the year I was born. Alas, I can't remember what exactly the first game I ever played was, but here are some close approximations of what I cut my teeth on way back in the day.

Joust

Donkey Kong Junior

Phoenix

Kangaroo

Are we feeling the nostalgia?

Edit: A big thank you to Peter Smith! There was a DOS game I played in the 1980's that I could not remember the name of.

Castle Adventure!

Related Links:

Don't Call It Retro: Mega Man 9 and Design Resurrection

Bringing Sexy Back: Retro Controllers of the Future

Earthbound and Back Again

Yahtzee Says, Support Your Local Independent Developer (He's Right).

Nadia Oxford — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:42:00 GMT

If you're 1) a gamer and 2) not insane, then one of your favourite all-time games is Cave Story. Cave Story was planned, designed and developed by one demigod, the radiant Pixel. One of the greatest games of all time came from two arms, two eyes and one brain.

Cave Story works so well because the graphics, sound, story and gameplay all compliment each other beautifully. But what if Pixel had proposed the title to, say, EA and had a hive mind work on the game? For starters, it would look and sound radically different because players today are all about the big noises and shiny things according to the Big Men In Charge (which is why Mega Man 9 has everyone leaping like dogs at a lambchop). The aesthetic shift alone would have sent Cave Story's delicate feng shui swirling down the toilet.

Yahtzee talks about the importance of indie games this week, specifically Braid on XBLA. His argument for indie titles against corporate titles is that too many cooks spoil the broth—or rather, too many faceless men in suits destroy the original intent. Sometimes we all need to step back and clear our heads with games that don't stray far from the man or woman who originally thought up the idea.

I don't feel guilty for playing the likes of Mario or Metroid or God help me, Mega Man.. I also very clearly remember a time when developers had a lot of creative control over their games and still managed to mass-produce a lot of cock-ups that clogged the industry's arteries and eventually felled it. I'm a person of balance; things like crooked picture frames drive me insane. Thus, I understand that corporate regulations are sometimes an evil necessity...but I wholly support the independent scene with my enthusiasm, love and moolah (since that's ultimately what it needs instead of the former).

I r dumb. I didn't really “get” Braid when I played the demo, but I will buy the game in full and try harder. Nothing thrives on homogenisation, the game industry least of all. It needs all the creative infusions it can manage.

Related Links:

Indie Dev Moment: A Game a Month from Kloonigames
Yahtzee on E3: Are We Gaming in an Age of Uncreativity?
Yahtzee and the Webcomics Plague

Raised On the Stuff: A Parental Thank You Letter in the Heart of August

John Constantine — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 23:00:00 GMT

My father turned sixty years-old today and, while he’s never been too into it, the man has been playing games from the beginning. It ain’t father’s day and it ain’t mother’s day but today seemed like an appropriate time to say thank you to every parent that has encouraged their child to pick up a controller. Happy birthday, pop.

Since their inception, videogames have been terrifying red-blooded American moms and dads. As What They Play found just recently, parents are more concerned about their kids playing videogames than they are about them drinking alcohol or watching porn. My parents? Not so much.

I am not positive when the system came into my home, but it was there before I was old enough to remember it being new. I still remember playing my very first game on my folks’ Atari 2600. I was four years old and my brother took it upon himself to teach me how to play Defender. I didn’t quite understand what I was doing other than moving up and moving down, but that was enough for me to be entertained. There were other games in the house. Pitfall and The Empire Strikes Back are the only two still fresh in my memory. My parents weren’t concerned by the fact that they’re children were playing games. They were simply happy to see one more thing interest us and spark our imaginations. We had an NES by 1987 and both my mother and father continued to foster our love of games all the way into adulthood.

To my mother, thank you for your constant and genuine interest in what fascinated your sons, for Sonic and Knuckles, and for letting your child go out in public dressed like Vincent Valentine.

To my father, thank you for the countless hours in Playland Arcade, for the many two-player sessions of Bad Dudes, and for that trip to Kiddie City Toys when you bought that copy of Mega Man 2 “for yourself”.

To any parents reading, well, you’re already gamers if you’re here. But to any who might not be, don’t be afraid of anything your child loves. Unless it’s knives. Or fire.

Related links:

Raised On the Stuff
The Ten Games That Should Have Been Controversial

Wow, Superman 64 Really Was Terrible

Nadia Oxford — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 23:33:00 GMT

The Angry Videogame Nerd isn't beloved by everyone, but I find comfort in his disjointed rantings. It's definitely a hit-or-miss affair, but when he latches onto a game that's actually worthy of his unbridled rage, fun for everyone ensues.

Somewhere in the back of the Bible, God warns us against mixing the Angry Videogame Nerd with Superman 64 for fear of igniting an early Apocalypse. We did not heed His warning and instead encouraged the union. Thankfully, we all survived the result and we all had a good laugh about our near-deaths.

I found the Nerd's rant particularly educational. We've gotten used to seeing Superman 64 near the top of every "Worst Games Evar" list, often second only to the Atari 2600's E.T.--the title that touched the game industry's with a glowing finger that killed rather than healed. But I never realised how ghastly Titus' disaster actually is. Superman 64's very existence offends me. It does not have the right to be matter. Why should it exist when worms and bugs die every day?

Sorry for the dramatic streak, I'm just having a bit of fun.

I often review games and manga in exchange for bags of weevil-ridden flour and vials of heroin--er, I mean, vials of not-heroin. Maybe I'm soft-hearted, but I rarely dole out failing grades. There are many, many mediocre pieces of work out there, but (in my opinion) few failures. In my book, you get a grade for having the determination and stones to put pen to paper and keep on going until you have a finished product.

There is not one speck of effort in Superman 64. It completely earns its failure. It revels in it like a little boy who picks his nose to gross out his elders. I guess it's possible at least one developer missed his kid's birthday because of deadlines, but I'd be surprised. Look up the game's intro on YouTube, where Lex "throws" some of Superman's loser friends into some virtual reality world...by standing completely still. His victims stand even more still. Hell, Lois Lame poses for the event like it's a glamour shot.

There's something to be said about Superman 64, though: it will always live on as one of history's worst examples of a video game. That's arguably preferable to sinking down into Mediocrity Mire* and never being heard of again.

(*Misery Mire's slightly more tolerable twin bog.)

Related Links:

Periphery: Angry Video Game Nerd Edition
Common: Rare Makes Bad Games