61 Frames Per Second : game boy

I Appreciate You, Game Boy

Nadia Oxford — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 03:29:00 GMT

It's the Game Boy's 20th anniversary, and I feel like I ought to honour the little white brick. Problem is, I have no idea what I can say that hasn't already been said. Writing all my good feelings towards the ancient Nintendo handheld that served as a springboard for the portable consoles I love today feels awkward, like writing a letter to a friend who's bailed you out of jail. Game Boy, I want to say “thanks” to you...but the thought of doing it makes me blush and squirm. There just aren't any suitable words for how much I care about you. I'll take you out for beers.

The Game Boy vaulted me into “real” gaming; it was my first console after the Colecovision/Atari 2600 Frankenstein that introduced me to gaming, but didn't necessarily make me fall in love with the pastime. Sure, I had previously been mystified by Super Mario Bros, but I wouldn't own an NES until late in the system's life. It was games like Super Mario Land, Double Dragon and Final Fantasy Legend taught me that video games could have form and structure; they could be more than a score-counter. They could have goals, and tell stories.

When I managed to separate my mother from Tetris, of course.

They could also affirm the crummy nature of the human race. I would have many video games stolen from me as I grew up, and I imagine I'll have still more spirited away from under my nose, but my first real story of loss came during a dark time when my parents were forced to put their house up for sale. This meant a lot of showings, which meant a lot of strange kids slipping away from their parents to rummage through our cupboards with snotty noses and sticky paws. One day, after one such showing, our copies of Super Mario Land and Double Dragon went missing. Theft is a serious accusation to make without any sort of proof, but daaaaaay-um, I owe those kids a kick in the teeth.

But before Mario was whisked away to another castle, I started and finished Super Mario Land all on my own. It was the first side-scrolling adventure I completed by my lonesome; back then, it seemed so expansive. A fairly recent replay reminded me of how tiny the adventure actually is. Oh, youth.

Now that I'm loosened/boozed up, I can say it. Thanks, Game Boy, for being my first “real” game console. When I'm rich, I promise I'll acquire a million of you and build a castle by the sea.

Related Links:

Nifty Nostalgia: Super Game Boy
Chiptune Friday: Game Boy Hero
Kid Icarus on Game Boy: Did Anyone Get To Play This?

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

Vandal Hearts Resurrected, Has Terrible Character Art

John Constantine — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 22:00:00 GMT

You’d never suspect that, once upon a time, strategy RPGs were a rare and beautiful beast. Twelve years ago, you wouldn’t open a magazine and think, “Ah, yes, I see. This month there are thirteen different Game Boy games coming out from Namco, Square, Inis, Nippon Icchi, and Atlus that will allow me to train tiny warriors to walk across a colorful grid to slaughter evil beasts. Oh, look, there’s six more on Sony’s Playstation and nine more on Sega’s Saturn. Can’t wait to see next month’s haul. I’ll be moving across those grids and having fun until the sun goes out, by gum!” It just didn’t work like that. There were only a few of them. There was Tactic’s Ogre, which was made by Yasumi Matsuno. Then there was Final Fantasy Tactics which was, um, made by Yasumi Matsuno. But then there was Vandal Hearts, a dead ringer for Matsuno’s SRPGs that was, in fact, not made by Matsuno. It was one of Konami’s early Playstation/Saturn RPGs that, like its cousin Suikoden, could have easily been mistaken for a Super Nintendo game. It had its fans, but after one sequel it disappeared into videogame history. That’s why Konami’s announcement of a Xbox Live Arcade/Playstation Network prequel, Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment, is such a surprise. They showed off some of the game at their Gamer’s Night 2009 event and Vandal Hearts is looking pretty different ten years after its last installment. First, the game’s entirely polygonal now, with a much darker color palette than it had back in the day. Its character art also looks less like this:

And more like this:

Bleh.

Word is Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment is out on XBLA in August and PSN shortly thereafter. More snide commentary on the art style as we see it.

(Link: Siliconera)

Related links:

The 61FPS Review: Suikoden Tierkreis
PSOne on PSN: Somehow, it’s Suikoden
Beating the Dead Horse Who Has It Coming: Playstation Releases on PSN

Chiptune Friday: Game Boy Hero

Derrick Sanskrit — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 14:30:00 GMT

Last month, Game Boy musician Cornbeat finally released his long-anticipated EP Chip Hero through 8bitPeoples. As the name implies, Chip Hero presents itself as a concept extended play, the soundtrack to a future video game where the player simulates the live performance of Chiptune music with synthetic controllers resembling the vintage game consoles the songs were originally recorded with. Sounds familiar, no?

As would be expected for the soundtrack to such a game, the five tracks making up the twenty-minute soundtrack are great fun and you might just find yourself wanting to press buttons in time with the bleeps as well. Here now, for your week ending enjoyment, my favorite track from Chip Hero, "Backseat Driver":

Download Chip Hero from 8bitPeoples here.

Related Chiptunes:
Twilight Electric's "Razor Blades"
USK's "Little Sound Disko"
Anamanaguchi's "Helix Nebula"

Respect the Pokeymans

Nadia Oxford — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 03:05:00 GMT

Confession: Pokemon frightens me. It's nothing to do with the dead eyes of Jinx or Psyduck, either (okay, maybe a little). The truth is, Pokemon is intimidating. It's a sprawling franchise that sucks you in waist-deep after two steps.

A skeptic who spares naught but a quick glance at Pokemon sees a bunch of cash-in kids' games that merely scotch tapes a few new Muppets to its roster with each new installment. So untrue. Oh, so untrue.

I was a self-proclaimed Pokemon Master through 1998-1999. No ten-year-old had a chance against my Nidoking, “AAAAAA” (“I choose you! AAAAAA!”). No job supervisor could tear me away from my heated matches for dominance—because I knew all the best places to hide.

I ran out of slacker friends to play Pokemon with, and I took a long sabbatical. A friend of mine bought me a copy of Pokemon Pearl, and I decided it was time to whup preschoolers again.

I quickly came to realise that the audience for Pokemon has grown up—and not all its fanbase dropped away as the franchise aged. Nintendo is well aware that there is a well-seasoned adult fanbase that is far beyond coddling Pikachu and drinking punch with Charmander in the shade of a big tree. They want numbers. They want stats. They want evolution and the abortion of said evolution. They want berries and balance and Ghost-types versus Normal-types and legendary dragon Pokemon that look unsettlingly like giant centipedes.

I thought I was all set in the world of Pokemon Pearl merely because I raised a Gyrados from a Magikarp. Soon, I was dragging “Super Joe” back to a PokeCenter on the end of a frayed rope leash. He smelled like a fish washed up on a beachside highway.

I mean, I imagine that's what he smelled like.

The haters are off their rockers: Pokemon isn't a kiddy sell-out franchise. It's a deep piece of work that requires equal parts skill, luck and memorisation. Granted, Pokemon doesn't punish you if you decide to strong-arm your way up to and through the Elite Four, but when I opt out of the fashion shows, I can feel my Bidoof burning a hole in the back of my head with his glare.

His pretty, long-lashed glare.

Related Links:

Gaming: A Throwaway Hobby
To Be a Pokemon Master
Summon Baphomet With Pokemon

Nifty Nostalgia: Super Game Boy

Amber Ahlborn — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 03:30:00 GMT

I have a Gamecube connected to my TV. It sits right next to my Wii. Why have the Gamecube, since the Wii plays GC games you ask? To play GB/GBA games of course! As much as I enjoy the games released for my portable systems, I have never liked the portables themselves. I don't like the tiny screens or the cramped way I have to hold them (and I have small hands). So really, it's no wonder I thought the Super Game Boy was The Best Thing Ever back in the SNES days.

The Super Game Boy, in all its chunky glory, kept an entire library of portable games from ever occupying my neglected Game Boy. Aside from allowing me to play GB games on my TV, there was one other neat little thing that I loved about the Super Game Boy, indeed, something that absolutely fascinated me when I discovered it: the animated borders.

When the SGB displayed games on the TV, it always placed a frame around them. There were a variety to choose, and Nintendo being Nintendo, they went the extra mile to actually hide clever little animations in these frames. If you left the system idle long enough, something special was bound to happen. Check out some videos of my favorites after the jump.

This is the border that I first saw animate.

As much as I love my GBA Player, it does disappoint in that its borders lack the clever animations that its predecessors had.

Hat tip to GoNintendo.com for reminding me these things existed.

Related Links:

Games We Will Never Get to Play: Mega Man Mania AKA Game Boy Anniversary Collection

This Functional Game Boy Costume Will Show Us the Way

Nostalgia and Game Association

This Functional Game Boy Costume Will Show Us the Way

Nadia Oxford — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:06:00 GMT

Video game cosplayers, take note. We've seen enough of that smelly Cloud costume that gets dragged out of the closet year after year, convention after convention. The cardboard sword is sagging, and a moth ate through the crotch of your pants. I don't know what continuity you're honouring by letting Cloud go commando, but either way, the fantasy is dead and the children are frightened. Give it up.

Cosplay has long been the Internet's equivalent of that guy who sits above a dunk tank at a carnival. I have nothing against this particular perched gentleman, same as I have nothing against cosplayers. I just can't resist taking a shot.

In fact, everyone jabs cosplayers now and then. There is an ancestral instinct that causes us to mock men in tights; it's how our forebears protected themselves from bards. But it's a petty person who won't recognise true costume-design talent when they see it. I've seen some fantastic costumes in my (regrettable?) years of anime con attendance, but there hasn't been anything quite like the functional Game Boy who waddled around Ohayocon 2009 and graciously put up with people playing Tetris on his chest.

A video of the costume in action lies under the jump.

I haven't seen too many people dress up as game consoles, but the original Game Boy is by far the most popular choice. This is just the first time I've seen a Game Boy costume that works, though I have also witnessed wishful thinking. One year I took my little brother trick or treating on Halloween. He ran up to a kid on the street dressed as a Game Boy and started punching him in the buttons. That was a particularly violent Hallow's Eve.

Related Links:

Kid Icarus on Game Boy: Did Anyone Get To Play This?
Many Colors in the Hardcore Rainbow
Wasted Rentals, Wasted Youth: Bram Stoker's Dracula

Roundtable Discussion: Where is the Handheld Version of Console Wars?

Joe Keiser — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 20:00:00 GMT

Roundtable Discussion takes the intrepid 61FPS blogging team and pits it against itself in the search for deeper truth. The moderator for today is Joe Keiser.

Towards the end of the last roundtable, the topic swerved off-course into a discussion of the existence or nonexistence of handheld wars. I thought that the fact that question came up was interesting, because no matter how you parse it handheld fanboy battles seem to lack the vigor of their console cousins.

Which brings us to the question: do people have less of an emotional attachment to their portable systems compared to their TV-tethered ones? A different kind of emotional investment? Why do you think this could (or could not) be the case?

Joe: You can tell by the wording of the question that I do think people have less of an emotional investment in handhelds. The reason here is intentional marketing tactics perpetrated by Nintendo over decades, particularly at children. Handhelds are more populist—they're cheap and everyone has them, as proven by Game Boy and DS sales. But consoles, to kids, are a "prestige product"—they're more expensive, and the kid that has one is lucky as all hell. How could you possibly be more emotionally invested in your little Game Boy when everyone wants to come to your house to play Pokemon Stadium on your Nintendo 64? Which piece of hardware would you love more?

Since Nintendo has dominated handhelds for decades, this "little brother to console" marketing informs the whole culture.

Derrick: I totally agree with you, Joe, about the prestige issue. But personally it's all about what I play the most. In college, I loved the Gamecube more than the Gameboy Advance because I was at the dorm a lot and playing games socially in the living room was more exciting than private portable gaming. These days, I play my DS and iPod Touch a lot more than my Wii and PS3 because I spend several hours a day on trains. When I am home, I'm watching TV, eating and sleeping, so the consoles only get love when I make a vested effort to do so.

Cole: I've never owned a handheld, for several reasons. One is that I've always sort of felt that handhelds could only offer severely limited versions of what was available on consoles at the time (This has changed only recently). I think that because a lot of people have a general understanding that portables offer less than the cutting edge, they are not as committed to defending their preferred portable's capabilities.

Derrick: That tech lag is important, but there’s no denying that today’s portables are impressive little machines. Super Mario 64 DS looks much better than Super Mario 64—in fact, I’m surprised Nintendo hasn’t ported more N64 games. For that matter, Sega said the iPhone/Touch is as powerful as a Dreamcast. Handhelds these days are just as fast and pretty as consoles one or two generations ago with the benefit of portability. That’s a sort of cutting edge, isn’t it?

Cole: Yes, but with home consoles it's all about who's the fastest, prettiest, etc. We all know that portable systems are far behind, so in a way it's not worth bickering over when there are bigger windmills against which to charge.

Joe: Conceding for now that the technology might not be worth fighting for, it’s still interesting to keep in mind that other little gizmos, like cell phones, do have fan boy battles--at least if my teenage brother's endless quest for the smallest and flashiest new handset is any indication. Strange how the people who fight about this kind of stuff are avoiding that "small is the new big" fight to focus on the length and girth of their console's horizontal pixel resolution.

Brothers in Arms: Hour of Heroes for iPhone

Amber: I also think that in the case of "handheld wars" consumers take their cues from the companies. When Sega's marketing for its portable was attacking Gameboy, fans followed suit. However, when it became clear it was not a contest, Sega stopped pushing and fans stopped caring. The same thing came about when Sony was making its PSP push.

It's not too hard to buy multiple portable systems if you really want too. The cost isn't as prohibitive so there's less of a monetary reason to be protective of a singular purchase. Also, Nintendo's utter dominance takes some of the wind out of the sails of your handheld ship of war. Fan fights flare up when a contender steps onto the floor, but fade out when it becomes clear the title belt isn't going to change hands.

Bob: I fall mostly into Amber’s school of thought; when it comes to handhelds, Nintendo has been so absolutely dominant that portable console wars are entirely moot. The only time I really remember any kind of battle was back in Sega’s more aggressive marketing days, when they were touting the colorful graphics of the Game Gear over the pea soup-green aesthetic of the Game Boy. But we all know that the original Game Boy stuck around for a solid 10 years (the Pocket and Color models helped it hang on), pretty much erasing the history of any other competitor. For this reason, there’s really no precedent for a handheld console war, so I think the desire to start one never occurs.

Amber: But the fans are there. They may not be as volatile as they are for consoles, but bring up a subject like Apple challenging the DS with its iPhone line and you'll find fans jumping to attack and defend on both sides.

Previous Roundtable Discussions:

Roundtable Discussion: The Fandom Phenomenon Part 1
Roundtable Discussion: The Fandom Phenomenon Part 2
Roundtable Discussion: The Fandom Phenomenon Part 3

Swell Maps

John Constantine — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 21:30:00 GMT

A few years back, I picked up an issue of British gaming rag NGamer because a) it had the Nights sequel on the cover — Nights is awesome — and b) it came with a poster. A lot of game magazines come with posters, but this one was particularly sweet. One side was a complete map of Hyrule, exactly as it appears in A Link to the Past, and on the other, a complete map of Zebes from Super Metroid. These weren’t artist’s interpretations, these were the actual games printed on paper. Super Metroid was especially beautiful. Anyone familiar with the game could lean in and pick out particular rooms, places where the game itself is especially thrilling or well-constructed. But seeing the game as a whole was eye-opening.

After years of looking at game maps in strategy guides, I’d gotten numb to how they can give you a far greater appreciation and understanding of a game’s design than when you’re actually playing it. You can see just how carefully timed each obstacle in Sonic & Knuckles is or how vast Strider’s levels are despite being short to play through. The map also let’s you appreciate a game by transforming it into something you can’t have in the game itself. Taken as a whole, the map changed Super Metroid into something else entirely from the game I was so familiar with: an intricate, beautiful work of visual art as alluring in the macro as it was nuanced in the micro.

revolvingdork’s new laptop is another example of how a sidescroller is transformed when seen all at once. He had all of Super Mario Land laser-etched into his computer and the result is dramatic. It’s in paragraph form, starting in the upper left corner and ending in the bottom right, and retains the game’s linearity as a result. It also shows off just how dense and layered Super Mario Land is. Not too shabby for a black and white launch title. Follow the link to get a look.

(Link: Geekologie via GameLife. Image provided by Gavin Ward)

Related links:

Metroid Prime Trilogy Retrospective
Fun Fact: Metroid Meets Metronome
Metroid: Wishful Thinking
For Love of the Game: Metroid II Remakes
What's in my MP3 Player: Super Metroid “Jade Catacombs”

GameTrailers' Top Ten Game Creators. Bonus: Remembering Yokoi

Nadia Oxford — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 23:02:00 GMT

GameTrailers posted a countdown of the Top Ten Game Creators. It's a heartening list, even if there's some hardcore exclusions going on (Sid Meier? 'lo?), because it contains equal parts Japanese and non-Japanese developers. It's a strong testament to how gaming has become revered worldwide and is no longer just some loser hobby that once made frightened parents write to newspapers about Japanese mind control.

As gamers, we appreciate why this kind of diversity is important for the industry we love.

Fore666 said: sid meier, tim schafer, gabe newell,some of them should been on the list insted of all this japanese jerks

Well, I'm excited. I'm especially happy to see the inclusion of Gunpei Yokoi, whose contributions to gaming are nearly as significant as those of Miyamoto himself. Yokoi's death was early, extremely unfortunate and unfairly tainted by the Virtual Boy's crash and burn.

I often wonder what Yokoi would have had to contribute to the handheld community if he were still alive. Yokoi usually advocated simplicity over advanced technology. It didn't always send Nintendo where it needed to go, but the philosophy has served the company well in the handheld race. The gaming world initially made faces at the Nintendo DS' dual screens, and when the PSP was unveiled, the two side by side looked like a Pomeranian next to a Doberman. A few years later, someone's having the last laugh, and it isn't Sony.

It's interesting when you think about how much we value game designers now. When we were kids, we cared less who put together Super Mario Bros. We just knew it existed, and it was good enough for us. When I was eight years old, I never thought I'd ever put a face to “Inafking.”

Related Links:

Kid Icarus on Game Boy: Did Anyone Get To Play This?
Many Colors in the Hardcore Rainbow
Why God Why: More Saga Games on the Way

Santa's Welcome Bounty: Christmas Morning Games

Nadia Oxford — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 05:35:00 GMT

I know everyone who reads 61 FPS was a model child who was very thankful for the gifts they received at Christmas. Nobody went home loaded down with socks and underwear, tears stinging the backs of their eyes. Nobody played wistfully with the Manger scene, replacing their unfulfilled toy soldiers and enemy aliens with Joseph and the Shepherds. No, we were always good and unselfish.

Okay, but the Christmases that left us with mountains of toys effin' rocked, right? We still spared a thought for the poor kids who woke up to nothing but a can of pumpkin mix, but kind of forgot about them as we attacked our loot.

We were lucky, but at the same time, Christmas was often the only time of year we could hope to score games. Maybe that's why the holiday makes me so nostalgic; I was sometimes gifted with items I hadn't even dared to ask for.

Like the year I found a Gameboy under my grandparents' tree. It just seemed unreal. I went on believing it was a prop until we unpackaged it and turned it on (Nintendo has always had the common sense and courtesy to include batteries with their products).

We've since grown up, landed jobs and can buy games when we like—or we can at least choose to forgo the rent to buy a game, something our parents didn't do often for us (and they claim they love us). In many ways, being an adult rocks; I appreciate the access to beer and not having to forge report card grades. But I miss those rare Christmas games that made me look forward to and appreciate the hobby.

Have any good Christmas game stories to share? Did mom have to drag you to the turkey whilst prying you sweat hands from the game controller? Did grandma weep at the sight of your red eyes?

Related Links:

Christmas in Nintendoland: The Tokyo Conference
Nintendo Just Might Hate You
Spelunking Through Cave Story

Summon Baphomet With Pokemon

Nadia Oxford — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:36:00 GMT

There's a lot of excited talk today about a game based on Dante's Inferno. This is great news. Speaking of the inevitable inferno, if any if you plan to die shortly after me, Minos is probably going to spend a long time getting through my list of sins at Judgement; just throwing it out there in case you want to bring your DS or a book.

Games have already experienced Hell on the literal and storytelling level, but sometimes the medium spawns creatures and incantations from The Pit by pure accident. The original Pokemon has a nest of ukobacks living in the cartridge, which probably surprises no one. When you make two MISSINGNOs fight one another, the unholy electricity awakens them and they start screaming. Observe.

MISSINGNO was a huge deal if you were on the Pokemon bandwagon during the rise of Red and Blue. Everyone thought it was some kind of secret Pokemon--the "Missing Number." Nintendo said, "No, you idiots, it's an awful glitch. Don't touch it!" And of course we touched it and fucked up our games forever. I'm confident about the direction humanity is going in.

Related Links:

To Be A Pokemon Master
Comparison of Wiki Articles Proves Geeks Inherited the Earth
Going Back In There: My Very First Hour With Pokemon, Part 1

Blip Festival 2008 Primer - Part 2

Derrick Sanskrit — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 23:00:00 GMT

The 2008 Blip Festival is only two days away, so today we're taking a look at the man considered to be responsible for the whole NYC chiptune scene, Jeremiah Johnson, aka Nullsleep. We've featured him here back on July 4th, but with Blip Festival just days away and a brand-new Nullsleep EP released just this past week, it seemed the time was ripe for a second look.

Without further ado, please enjoy "Salvation for a Broken Heart" from the just-released Unconditional Acceleration EP:

Oh my goodness, those sounds. Can you believe that was all composed and performed on an original Game Boy? Did you even know the Game Boy was capable of such sweet harmonious bliss? Kind of makes the Wario Land soundtrack just seem lazy, huh? But surely this can't be interesting to watch performed, can it? Well, here's a video of Nullsleep playing that very same song to a crowd of passersby in Chinatown eighteen months ago:

And if he can get those kids to dance out in the street in broad daylight, just imagine the fun to be had in a club at night.

Nullsleep will be performing this Saturday night from 11:20pm till midnight. If you enjoyed "Salvation for a Broken Heart," be sure to download the entire Unconditional Ecceleration EP for free from 8bitpeoples.

Come on back tomorrow for some more sweet chiptuning, and we hope to see you at Blip Festival this weekend!

Related articles:
Blip Festival 2008 Primer - Part 1 - noteNdo
Chiptune Friday: Nullsleep vs. Depeche Mode
Chiptune Friday: Bit Shifter
Blip Festival: Reformat the Planet on Pitchfork.tv
Chiptune Friday: Anamanaguchi
Chiptune Friday: USK
Chiptune Friday: cry.on.my.console Pits M.I.A. vs. Super Mario Bros.

Kid Icarus on Game Boy: Did Anyone Get To Play This?

Nadia Oxford — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 03:58:00 GMT

Earlier, ScrewAttack reminisced about Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters for the Game Boy. Behold!

Did any of you good people out there own this game, or acquire it in a lopsided game trade on the schoolyard? After watching this, I'm kind of sorry I missed it.

I never liked the original Kid Icarus. This might have something to do with the fact that I wasn't very patient about the original Metroid, either. Both involved a vertical climb, but at least Samus could collect herself and try again if she fell down the shaft of Brinstar like the proverbial frog scaling the well wall. If Pit dropped off the edge of a platform, he wasn't shy about letting us know that he was doomed to splatter on the basement level of Hades, possibly after bouncing off the jagged edge of another platform or three.

("I'm finished!")

It looks as though Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters has downward scaling, which bumps it up a grade in my book. Pit even looks considerably more badass than I'd expect. All things told, he's still a cherub in a toga, but at least he'd finally be cool enough to invite to my birthday party.

I'm sorry, I had a flu shot today and I think my brain's had it.

Related Links:

Many Colors in the Hardcore Rainbow
To Be a Pokemon Master
Shut It, Old Man: The Absurd Extent of Nintendo's Secrecy

Games We Will Never Get to Play: Mega Man Mania AKA Game Boy Anniversary Collection

John Constantine — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Now, technically speaking, it is very possible that we will one day get to play this game, or rather, games. We could go to Ebay and drop the $100+ on all of the original carts and fire ‘em up on whatever hardware we may have available to play original Game Boy games (Super Game Boy, Game Boy Player, Game Boy Advance, hell, why not Gunpei Yokoi’s glorious grey brick from 1989 if we’re feeling especially devoted to an authentic experience.) We could download one of them fancy emulators and five ROMs. We could just go ahead and wait for the inevitable, when the DS Ware store gets a little Capcom love and we all drop fifteen dollars on all five games. But we will never, ever get to pop a Game Boy Advance cart into a machine, hit power, and play the aborted Mega Man Anniversary Collection.

Planned to release shortly after its older console brethren in late 2004, the GBA Anniversary Collection compiled the five Game Boy Rockman World games, known as Mega Man: Dr. Wily’s Revenge and Mega Man II through V here in the States. When it comes to old fashioned Mega Man-ning, these games are far from essential. I through IV are amalgamations of NES I through V, with the respective robot master levels being slightly remixed. They did sport a handful of additions, each game starring a brand new boss (Mega Man Killers) that gave up a unique weapon, and all of them culminating in a new Dr. Wily fortress. Like most Game Boy games, the Rockman World adventures were cramped affairs, with too-big sprites and levels that never properly emulated the big, open hallways of console Mega Mans. Anniversary Collection was delayed for eighteen months before getting officially cancelled in January 2006. The real loss here is that more people didn’t get a chance to play Rockman World V, a cart rare when it was first released and that’s fetched a high price on the collector’s market for a long time. The only totally original game of the series, it’s also Mega Man’s most unique outing: instead of fighting eight worker robot “Mans”, you take on nine (nine!) robots based on the planets in our solar system. Mega Man also got a robot kitty and his Mega Buster charge shot was replaced by the Mega Arm.

Hopefully, we’ll get easy access to this lost relic of the Blue Bomber’s history at some point in the future. In the mean time, enjoy this hilariously narrated play through of V.

Related links:

Game Compilations: The Good, the Bad, and the Fugly
What I'm Playing This Weekend: Mega Man Anniversary Collection
Games We Will Never Get to Play: River City Ransom Online
Games We Will Never Get to Play: Kenji Eno’s D2 for M2

For Love of the Game: The Legend of Zelda – The Shadowgazer

John Constantine — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:30:00 GMT

We could run a daily For Love of the Game feature on Zelda remakes alone. Zelda 1 with 16-bit graphics, Zelda 1 made out of Lego, two-dimensional Ocarina of Time, side-scrolling Ocarina of Time, Link’s Awakening running on Minish Cap’s engine, Twilight Princess dating sims, and on and on and on. People love Zelda, they always want more Zelda. But, and it’s a truth that’s taken a serious toll on the series, people tend to want Zelda exactly the way they’ve had it before, only slightly different. Fans aren’t the only ones who keep remaking Zelda; Eiji Aonuma’s been doing a bang-up job of it for almost a decade.

More interesting than homebrewers adding a special blend of basement hops to the same old quest-lager are those adventuresome folks making all new Zeldas. The re-appropriation of yesterday’s art can yield both inspired results, as with Zelda: Outlands, and well-meaning but forgettable outings like Parallel Worlds. It’s especially rare to see a homebrew Zelda filled with original sprites and scenarios. King Mob’s The Legend of Zelda: The Shadowgazer, from the looks of this trailer, is especially becoming. Some of the scenarios recall earlier Zeldas (at what point did fishing become a Zelda mainstay?), but the sheer craft on display keeps the game looking fresh. A giant King of Red Lions ship? Saving mewling goron pups from a sinister dream world? The return of Majora’s Mask’s three-day cycle as a platform for puzzle solving? These are big, fun ideas here, and they’re backed up by sprite-art chops to realize them.

The Shadowgazer’s been in production for quite awhile now, so here’s hoping King Mob manages to finish the game before life or Nintendo legal teams keep the dream from getting realized. Head on over to check out the demo.

Many thanks to NeoGAFfer Kai for spotting this diamond in the internet rough.

Related links:

Whatcha Playing: BS Zelda
Whatcha (Trying To) Play: Legend of Zelda: Parallel Worlds
Faster, Link! Kill! Kill!
Chiptune Friday: The Adventure of Link

Previous For Love of the Games:

Sonic 2 HD
Quest for Glory II
Rockman 7 FC
Outcast 2
Street Fighter One
Metroid II

The Videogame Ages, part 2

John Constantine — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 22:00:00 GMT

In part one of The Videogame Ages, I discussed the inadequacy of “generation” language in gaming, and laid out The Golden Age of gaming. In part two, I look at the Silver and Bronze ages before taking a look at the modern era and the future.

The Silver Age – 1983 to 1996
8-Bit, 16-Bit, Early Handheld, Early 3D, Advanced PC and Arcade

The silver age of games is defined by expansion, in not just playability but breadth of experience. When home computers became affordable and home consoles began diversifying, games started transforming from immediate, single-mechanic experiences into more lasting forms. Silver age games were still about escalating challenge, but high scores ceased being the goal, replaced by definitive endings. Games started becoming more explicitly narrative-driven, as aesthetic justification on consoles and as the focus of many PC games (see the entire adventure game genre.) Portable gaming also started to rise to prominence during this period, early single-screen LCD games replaced by multi-game consoles like the Game Boy and Atari Lynx. Arcade and PC game technology pulled far away from home consoles, but all games were shifted from the rough visual abstraction of golden age games, into more aesthetically recognizable presentations – albeit still cartoonish impressionistic rather than realistic. The rise of polygonal 3D graphics, both real-time full 3D (Yu Suzuki’s Virtua series) and pre-rendered (Myst, etc.), at the end of the silver age marks the transition to bronze. In 1996, with the release of Mario 64, Tomb Raider, and Quake, the silver age comes to a close.

The Bronze Age – 1996 to 2006 (maybe)
32-bit, 64-bit, 128-bit, Death of Arcades, PC Equalization

While golden age games’ boundary was a single screen and silver age games were largely confined to movement from left to right or down to up, the bronze age is the birth of 3D space as gaming’s chief concern. This isn’t to say that games that take a place on a 2D plain ceased being important or a valid medium for experimentation (though they certainly became marginalized on consoles, PCs, and in arcades.) But creating spaces with depth similar to the physical world took center stage in design. This push toward realistic spaces is mirrored in game aesthetics. Nearly all the technological benchmarks of the bronze age have come from creating as lifelike a facsimile of real life as can be achieved on any technology. PC games typically set that high water mark, though by the end of 2006, home consoles had largely caught up to PCs, much as they did with arcade games during the first few years of the 20th century (arcades are close to extinct now.) Game narrative started heavily borrowing from film’s storytelling language, relying on scripted scenes voiced and acted by digital characters in an attempt to tell deeper stories, but games also started developing there own unique storytelling language during this period, some games allowing the player to always be immersed in drama through play (see: Half-Life.) Multiplayer games no longer required physical proximity with the rise of online play on both PCs and consoles, and portable gaming started offering richer, longer play experiences, akin to those found on consoles.

I’m not totally convinced that the bronze age has ended yet, but the telltale signs of gaming’s latest age-defining shift have been popping up with some frequency over the last few years. The argument can be made that the Heroic Age of gaming is one of community via online networks and MMOs, user-generated content (see: Spore, LittleBigPlanet, Halo 3, Boom Blox, etc.), and experiential gaming. Experiential gaming is a big one whose mettle has yet to be tested, whether or not broad physical activity, from waving a Wiimote to playing fake musical instruments, will catch on. It’s certainly a dramatic shift to see experiential gaming leave its one-time home, the arcade, and transform into a driving force of home gaming. Then again, who knows? Maybe the golden age of gaming has only just ended, and its now, when players can finally build games themselves inside of other games, that the silver age has begun. Let me know, dear reader.

Part 1

Related links:
Comparison of Wiki Articles Proves Geeks Inherited The Earth
MMO Predicts Life in 10 Years
Men Are From Hyrule, Women Are From Simville: If Gender Defines the Games We Play, Why Does Everyone Play By the Same Rules?
9/9/99 9 Years Later
Fix It: Alone in the Dark, Tiger Woods, and the Death of the Glitch
Everyone Will be Able to Rock

The Videogame Ages, part 1

John Constantine — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 21:30:00 GMT

This past Friday, I tried to slip a little piece of language into a discussion about game emulation that I was wary about using at all. At this point, the go-to boundaries for discussing videogames’ admittedly small history is console-technology generations. We say 8-Bit or 16-Bit because these are easy identifiers based on competing, contemporary technologies. But the language “The 8-Bit Generation” doesn’t account for arcade technology, PC games, or portable gaming. Now that Bob Dvorak’s Tennis for Two is officially fifty years-old, I think we can finally start applying broader terms to gaming’s evolutionary eras. Obviously history is fluid, and chances are these classifications won’t hold true in 2050, but for now they work. The Hesiodic ages, as laid out here, consider games on every platform; the rigid parameters of home consoles, the advanced nature of PC and Mac gaming throughout the 1980s and ‘90s, the fast strides made by arcade technology throughout that same period, and the predominantly inferior technology available in handheld gaming. Unlike Hesiod’s Ages of Man, however, the videogame ages are (mostly) a positive progression. Please note: these are not strict definitions. This is a discussion, and I want everyone to make their opinions heard in the comments section. Now then, onward to the Golden Age.

The Golden Age – 1958 to 1983
Dvorak, MIT, Early Arcade, Early Home Console

The golden age of gaming began in 1958 and was, for almost a decade and a half, almost exclusively concerned with tennis. It took Nolan Bushnell getting clever for us to start calling it Pong. Tennis for Two, Magnavox’s Odyssey, and Bushnell’s advice to “avoid missing ball for high score” was pretty much the only game in town until the mid-70s with some notable exceptions. The second videogame ever made has a more recognizable legacy in today’s games. Steve Russell’s Spacewar!, started in 1961 as a side-project of the Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT (history’s first hackers, dontchaknow,) shares the two-player, two-object dynamics of Pong but the gameplay focused on actually destroying your opponent in a science-fiction setting. These games set the standard for the golden age: individual play mechanics presented on single screens. By the late-70s and early-80s, as Atari and other early consoles that could play multiple games were becoming common, games started expanding in both scope and ambition. Adventure, Pitfall, and others introduced continuity in their worlds, while Pac-man and Donkey Kong made the first stabs at introducing narrative. On the technology end, 1980 saw scrolling action in Defender and the larval form of 3D play, vector graphics, in Battlezone. The game industry crash and the release of the Famicom in 1983 mark the end of this period.

Part 2

Related links:
Comparison of Wiki Articles Proves Geeks Inherited The Earth
MMO Predicts Life in 10 Years
Men Are From Hyrule, Women Are From Simville: If Gender Defines the Games We Play, Why Does Everyone Play By the Same Rules?
9/9/99 9 Years Later
Fix It: Alone in the Dark, Tiger Woods, and the Death of the Glitch
Everyone Will be Able to Rock

Wasted Rentals, Wasted Youth: Bram Stoker's Dracula (SNES)

Nadia Oxford — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 01:33:00 GMT

The Angry Videogame Nerd has posted a Halloween Game Shitfest just in time for Satan's birthday. The first installment focuses on all the bad Dracula-themed games spanning back to the beginning of time. Turns out there are a good number of Dracula-bombs out there, and we're not even counting any of the lesser Castlevania titles.

Angry Nerd even takes a brief look at Bram Stoker's Dracula, which saw release on the NES, SNES and the Game Boy. I kind of feel like cringing into a ball and sucking my thumb when I say this, but I've played Bram Stoker's Dracula on the SNES and Gameboy. The experience was like biting a hangnail; oh so painful, but enjoyable in a masochistic way.

Hark! A flashback!

Most weeks, my parents allowed my brothers and I to rent a video game. We had to take turns, and my younger brother picked out Bram Stoker's Dracula one week. I wanted to throttle him.

The logical thing to do when a shit game is in your presence is to not play it, but I had kind of an obsession thing going on. Nintendo game in front of me? OMG, must play, no matter how painful. Actually, maybe there was a bit of a spite thing going on here, though all of this might have something to do with my childhood love for eating the syrup-covered styrofoam that used to line packages of butter tarts.

Bram Stoker's Dracula was pretty awful, though I have to give Jonathan Harker props for acting so calm under pressure. Man, just look at that confident strut. Look at that smooth knife action. Maybe he's just resigned himself to death, seeing as his "dagger" has the range of a newborn kitten's claws.

Dig those rad sound effects. Harker has to deal with Dracula's cloned angry hun army in the first level, in addition to their identical puppy mill pitbulls. If you can endure the pain and burrow beneath the constant "RUH, RUH!" you'll actually hear a half-decent soundtrack. Later levels had some creepy tunes, too.

My praise ends here, though, at a full-stop--not unlike the stone wall that stymies Harker early in the game. A wasted rental, overall. One of many, many, many.

Related Links:

What Is a Man? More Than a 4chan Meme
The Angry Video Game Nerd Says a Bad Word: Deadly Towers
Chiptune Friday: Do the Monster Mash!

Chiptune Friday: I Am Thinking It's A Sign...

Derrick Sanskrit — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 17:00:00 GMT

This week brings us a Game Boy cover of The Postal Service's "Such Great Heights" by Firebrand Boy, aka Philip Cunningham. Composed entirely in LSDJ, the gentle clicks, bleeps and bloops should be enough to make even the staunchiest hipster forget how very over this song they've been for years... at least until somebody mentions Garden State... ugh...

Anyway, here's the music:

If you enjoyed this, you can check out Firebrand Boy's recent releases popNaive from CrunchyCo and Songs for Cake from 8bitpeoples.

Related Chiptunes:
RAC's A Link To The Past
Leeni's 8-bit Heart
USK's Little Sound Disko
Nullsleep's Depeche Mode Megamix

Chiptune Friday: Leeni's 8 Bit Heart PLUS Bonus Music Video!

Derrick Sanskrit — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 16:30:00 GMT

Two things are certain in listening to Leeni's "Perfection Interrupted":

1 - This girl has some strong opinions about popular media.

2 - She must really dislike whoever this song is about.

Nonetheless, it is a beautiful example of a finely crafted pop song composed with the Game Boy's nanoloop.

If you enjoyed this sweet li'l jam, you can grab Leeni's 8 Bit Heart album from CD Baby or iTunes and learn more about Leeni on her website.

Also, it seems the hipster tastemakers over at Pitchfork.tv just keep on keeping on with the chiptune love for the fourth week in a row. First a music video by Truckasauras, then two weeks of the Reformat the Planet documentary, and this week they bring us a video from Baltimore musician Adventure for his single "Ultrazone":

Adventure openly admits that he is not trying to be a part of the chiptune scene, especially since he uses a midi keyboard and not video game hardware, but much like VHS or Beta and the dancepunk scene of the early aughts, the sound is so similar to what others are doing at the same time that its hard not to get lumped into the group.

Related articles:
Chiptune Friday Special Edition: Watch Reformat the Planet RIGHT NOW!
Chiptune Friday: Little Nemo the Dream Master PLUS Bonus Music Video!
Chiptune Friday: Little Sound Disko
Chiptune Friday Friday Friday with Truckasauras!

Fun Fact: Dylan Cuthbert - The Genre Masher

Derrick Sanskrit — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:00:00 GMT

So you think PixelJunk Eden is a deliciously freeing, genre defying romp through psychadelia but that the whole experience is vaguely familiar somehow? Maybe that's because Eden was designed by the same dude who programmed Star Fox back on the Super Nintendo. In fact, a quick look at Dylan Cuthbert's history in game design shows a pattern of smashing game genre conventions, all the while producing addictive works of beauty.

Way back in 1992, Dylan designed and programmed X, a first person shooter/puzzler that showed off wireframe 3D graphics on the Nintendo Game Boy, a feat that had never been achieved on the clunky grey box before OR after. Based on this exciting new style of gameplay, Nintendo hired Dylan's team at Argonaut Software to develop a 3D arcade shooter for the brand-new Super Nintendo. This led to the production of both Star Fox and the impressive Super FX chip hardware that powered it and many other great SNES games. After designing the unpublished Star Fox 2, a game which was set to mix up the shooting with healthy doses of action and RPG elements, Dylan went to work for Sony, where his prowess for showing off new 3D technology led to memorable tech demos for the Playstation 2, Playstation Portable, and Playstation 3

At his newly-formed Q-Games studio, Dylan and company designed the Playstation 3's XMB user interface, Star Fox Command for the Nintendo DS and Digidrive, an example of twitch-gaming that brilliantly mashed the puzzle and race genres into the must-have game of the Game Boy Advance's bitGenerations series (and the only one not designed by skip ltd.) Of course, Dylan's current work is the PixelJunk series of downloadable Playstation 3 games, including the action/puzzle/racer Racers, the arcade/real-time-strategy Monsters, and the hallucinogenic platform/racer/chill-out Eden, with more on the way.

Dream on, Dylan, you lovable madman.

Related articles:
Fun Fact: Metroid Meets Metronome
Far Out, Man.
Whatcha Playing: How Does Your Garden Grow
The Ten Most Adventurous Sequels in Gaming History, Part 3 (Star Fox 2)

Chiptune Friday: Little Sound Disko

Derrick Sanskrit — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 18:30:00 GMT

It's hard to believe that this track by Japanese Chiptuner USK was composed on a Game Boy. It's not because of the limited sounds and effects, oh no, that all works just fine. It's because this song clearly requires many more colors than even the Game Boy Color was capable of producing.

I present to you the Game Boy rave stylings of USK's "Little Sound Disko#05"

If you've enjoyed this jam, feel free to download the entire PICOPICODISCO EP for free from 8bitPeoples. If you're anything like me, all five tracks should certainly get you in the mood for a weekend full of PixelJunk Eden.

Related articles:
Chiptune Friday Friday Friday with TRUCKASAURAS!!!
Chiptune Friday: Nullsleep vs. Depeche Mode
Chiptune Friday: Reformat the Planet
Far Out, Man
Whatcha (Wish You Were) Playing: How Does Your Garden Grow?

CHIPTUNE FRIDAY FRIDAY FRIDAY with TRUCKASAURAS!!!

Derrick Sanskrit — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:00:00 GMT

It's been a week of DISAPPOINTMENT and EMPTY PROMISES from the Big 3 at E3, but here at 61 FRAMES PER SECOND things are JUST HEATING UP!

Get ready to have your EARS BLOWN OUT because THIS WEEKEND only at 61 FRAMES PER SECOND SECOND SECOND we've got the legendary TRUCKASAURAS-AURAS-AURAS!!!

These BAD BOYS from SEATTLE craft their WHITE HOT CLICKS, BLEEPS AND DOOTS using V-V-V-VINTAGE Roland drum machines and synths and sequence them all through AN OLD-SCHOOL GAME BOY GAME BOY GAME BOY!!!

TRUCKASAURAS bring such HEAVY HITS to the arena as "Super Copter," "Fak!!!," "Up, Up, Down, Down, L, R, L, R," and "Porkwich," on their FACE-MELTING debut LP TEA PARTIES, GUNS & VALOR.

For downloadable tickets to this MONSTROUS show of BRUTE TECHNOLOGICAL FORCE, visit your nearest Necodo.com or hear the full album below! Thanks, Necodo!

Related articles:
Chiptune Friday: IndepenDANCE Day Weekend: Nullsleep vs. Depeche Mode
Chiptune Friday: Crystal Castles
Chiptune Friday: Reformat the Planet
Chiptune Friday: Helix Nebula
Chiptune Friday: Taste the Rainbow

Chiptune Friday: IndepenDANCE Day Weekend

Derrick Sanskrit — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Today is Independence Day here in the United States, which means everyone in the country is off at a barbeque and setting off fireworks.

What better way to celebrate the United States' independence than with a New York chiptuner's take on one of the most popular British bands of the past few decades? I present to you Nullsleep's Depeche Mode Megamix, with chiptune takes on "Enjoy The Silence," "Photographic," "New Life," and "Everything Counts."

Fourteen-and-a-half minutes of nostalgic Game Boy bliss should delight everyone at your party of choice and comfort that hottie you've been eyeing all afternoon as you gaze drunkenly up at the colorful explosions in the night sky together.

Graphic from one of my favorite shirts from R Stevens.

Chiptune Friday: Reformat the Planet

Derrick Sanskrit — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Happy Chiptune Friday!

Two weeks ago I spotlighted Anamanaguchi in preparation for their upcoming NYC live gigs. Just a reminder, they're playing Cake Shop tonight and outside The Tank tomorrow as part of the Make Music Festival. Today, we showcase the headliner for tomorrow's free outdoor chiptune party at The Tank, Bit Shifter. Enjoy "Reformat The Planet":

This Game Boy-powered track also shares its title with the recently released documentary about the rising chiptune music scene. Here's the trailer:

If you liked this tune, feel free to download the rest of the "Information Chase" EP for free from 8bitpeoples.

Learn more about this weekend's free outdoor Bit Shifter & Anamanaguchi concert at the Tank.

We wish you an 8-bit solstice!

Chiptune Friday: 8bit bEtty Tastes the Rainbow

John Constantine — Fri, 23 May 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Written by Derrick Sanskrit

It's common practice at this point on the internet to have Dance Party Friday. Don't let us stop you. It's been a long week, you shake your groove thing. Please, allow us to contribute to your booty-shaking.

Here on Chiptune Friday, we will spotlight one of our favorite chiptune tracks every week, embracing our primitive gaming past while looking to the very sexy future so you can wiggle while you work it. This week, 8bit bEtty's cover of the classic Reading Rainbow theme song. bEtty uses the soundchips from the NES, Game Boy, and Commodore 64 alongside Pro Tools to craft these retro nuggets. Enjoy:

Reading Rainbow - 8bit bEtty

If you liked this track, you can download the whole Too Bleep To Bloop EP here.

For Love of the Game: Metroid II Remakes

Peter Smith — Mon, 12 May 2008 17:00:00 GMT

The original Metroid is one of my all-time favorite games, so my feelings about Metroid: Zero Mission, Nintendo's 2004 remake, are predictably mixed. Zero Mission repairs some of the archaic aspects of the original, like wonky controls, an annoying password system and the obligation to refill your energy every time you return to the game. On the other hand, it diffuses the sprawling, almost Lovecraftian eeriness of the original with its aggressive handholding — a trademark fault of late-period Nintendo games. It also unforgivably bungles one of the greatest climaxes in videogame history — the slaughter, by the player, of a shrieking brain in a jar, followed by a slippery-thumbed ascent up an exploding escape shaft — by tacking on a painfully out-of-place stealth section.

In any case, Nintendo's obvious follow-up was a remake of Metroid II: Return of Samus, a game that arguably needed revamping more than the original. Metroid II introduced a host of new ideas, but in many ways it's the black sheep of the series. Here's a video showing some gameplay:

The screen size, as you can guess, is a problem; the Metroid series is set in vast, disorienting labyrinths, and having the extra disorientation of a small viewing window doesn't help. The structure of the game is also unusual for the series. Where other Metroid games allow organic progression — high-jump boots, for example, might allow you to explore new areas by jumping over large obstacles — Metroid II requires the player to kill all the Metroids in an area before proceeding past otherwise impassable lava pools. It's an odd and arbitrarily linear way to lay out the game, and it makes II feel more conventional than its siblings.

Unfortunately, no remake of II has been announced in the years since Zero Mission, and, unsurprisingly given how obvious the idea is, a number of fans have stepped in to fill the niche. None of these fan remakes has been completed yet — and given the general survival rate of most fan projects, it's possible that none ever will be. But there's some really impressive work going on. Perhaps most impressive of all is Metroid: SR388:

According to Kotaku, SR388 isn't an explicit remake of II, despite being set in the same location — the titular homeworld of the Metroids. Whatever it is, some beautiful work has clearly gone into it, with new abilities and beautifully enhanced animation based off the sprites from Super Metroid. With ice and fire caverns, it also looks to add some variety to II's samey landscape. (Hopefully not too much, though, since the oppressive monotony was part of the original's menace.)

Here's another project, cleverly titled Another Metroid 2 Remake:

This one's also quite handsome, and looks to hew a little closer to the original game. The multi-layered parallax scrolling backgrounds give a lovely sense of depth; the animation seems to be based, reasonably enough, off of Zero Mission's.

This one may or may not be defunct; I actually downloaded and played the demo some months back, and it felt a little awkward, though again, some of the graphics are well done. (Side note: notice how every remake uses the same graphic of that li'l SR388 denizen who appeared in the intro to Metroid Fusion. [This little rotter.])

Deceased.

This one might have the most beautiful background of all.

Will any of these projects make it to completion? Stay tuned. Making games is a total pain in the ass, and making them for free tends to be more work for less reward than most projects can sustain. Still, Metroid II deserves a makeover, and if Nintendo's not going to provide it, it's nice to see how much craft Metroid fans are putting into the effort.