Pole’s Big Adventure: Sega Rides the Retro Train, Takes Advantage of You

John Constantine — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:30:00 GMT

A couple of weeks back, Sega Japan launched a countdown website sporting a peculiarly recognizable icon: a pixilated mushroom. Instead of the spotted red or green associated with the company’s one-time rivals, this mushroom was purple with yellow spots. It was an ugly little blighter and fueled all sorts of speculation as to what would be shown at the end of the countdown. An 8-bit style Sonic & Mario platformer where Robotnik has poisoned all the mushrooms! An 8-bit style game where Alexx Kidd and Mario open a day spa and compete for Birdo, Athena, and Dig Dug’s affections!

Okay. Fair enough. I am the only man who thought Sega might be making either of those games. The 8-bit part was spot on though. The game turned out to be Pole’s Big Adventure, an WiiWare original aping early Famicom games in the spirit of Retro Game Challenge. The funky looking mushroom’s a big hint as to what Pole’s Big Adventure is all about, namely messing with preconceived notions based on Super Mario Bros. You don’t break bricks with your fist, you break them by shooting them, and the same goes for getting treats out of question boxes. Go down a pipe, immediately pop back up covered in… goo? The video isn’t clear on what you’re covered in. And when you do find that mushroom out there, it will make you grow until you die. Pretty clever there, Sega.

Pole’s Big Adventure isn’t the most brilliant parody, but it’s a noteworthy change from the usual vintage gaming send up. Playing on the most recognizable tropes in gaming history is a unique hook amidst the recent 8-bit design renaissance. Bionic Commando Rearmed and Legend of Kage 2 are expert examinations on old play models, but none of them are concerned with subverting a players nostalgia-born familiarity. It’ll be worth playing Pole’s Big Adventure solely to find out how far it goes in subverting that familiarity. And unlike most parodies, Pole’s is a full game.

Head over to Siliconera to check out another video, featuring pipe goo goodness.

Related Links:

Design Resurrection: How Capcom Finally Proved That It’s Game and Not Graphics That Matters
Don’t Call It Retro: Mega Man 9 and Design Resurrection
Follow Up: Mega Man 9 and Design Resurrection Part 2
More Downloadable Remakes! More, Says I!

WTFriday: Birdo's Gender Confirmed?

Bob Mackey — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games get you to laugh at it until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week.

One of the lingering question in the world of video games for the past 20 years has been "What the hell's up with Birdo?" He/she has basically been Nintendo's version of It's Pat, bewildering us all, challenging our concepts of gender, and perhaps breaking Yoshi's heart in some depraved reptile version of The Crying Game. Known as"Catherine" in Japan, I've always assumed that Birdo's biography was a victim of Nintendo's "make shit up" policy when it came to writing manuals. UNTIL TODAY.

In case you don't have the 20 year-old booklet immediately available, here's what the US instructions for Super Mario Bros. 2 have to say about Birdo:

"[Birdo] thinks he is a girl and likes to be called Birdetta. He likes to wear a bow on his head and shoot eggs from his mouth."

Yet, according to the Super Mario Wiki, the Japanese manual for Super Mario USA (the other Japanese version of the game) says pretty much the same thing. I'm going to go ahead and trust these people since they wrote 5000 words about Birdo.

This statement applies to all translations of the title, including the Japanese version. In Japan, Catherine is male as well, and likes to believe that he is female. Like Birdo, he likes to be called Cathy as opposed to his real name, Catherine. Birdo's masculinity is also part of contemporary canon in Japan, but it appears to have been retconned in the west save for sly references here and there.

Don't think that means we can close the book on Birdo's gender once and for all; recent reports about the Japanese Wii game Captain Rainbow--in which Birdo plays a prominent role--have complicated matters further. On Wired's Game|Life, Chris Kohler explains an in-game mission where you bust Birdo out of jail--and also why this game will never, ever come out in America:

The officer throws [Birdo] in jail for using the ladies' room when he's clearly a man. Birdo asks you to go to his/her house and find "evidence that I'm a woman." So you do. This is how it happens. As you walk into Birdo's bedroom, you hear... a buzzing. The pillow on her bed is vibrating and buzzing. You walk up to it, and Captain Rainbow looks under the pillow to find... an item that's censored out on the screen. It's covered up with a question mark. "Proof that the owner is a woman," it says, leaving it at that.

So you bring what is in all likelihood Birdo's vibrator back to the police robot, who accepts it, whatever it may be, as prima facie evidence that Birdo is a chick.

While you're pondering the gender and sex toy preference of Birdo this weekend, stare at the following freaks. You'll be glad you did.

Related Links:

WTFriday: FMV Hell
The Ten Most Adventurous Sequels in Gaming History, Part 1
Mario Will Not Retire. He Will Outlive Us All.

61 Frames Per Second : birdo

Pole’s Big Adventure: Sega Rides the Retro Train, Takes Advantage of You

WTFriday: Birdo's Gender Confirmed?