61 Frames Per Second : metroid

Genres I'd Like to See on the Wii: 3rd Person Shooters

Amber Ahlborn — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 02:00:00 GMT

Hello, developer studios? Yes, the Wii remote is motion sensitive. It's pretty nifty and I know some of you are super excited about he MotionPlus add-on. However, did you know the Wii-mote also has a pointer function? Yeah, that sensor bar thing with the infrared light. Oh? You keep forgetting about that function eh? Keep getting distracted by the wiggle waggle hmm? Well wake the hell up already because you're missing some golden opportunities!

Maybe I'm a touch off base here, but it seems to me that the pointer functionality is a little bit neglected within the Wii library. Considering how superior an experience the pointer offers over the analogue stick when it comes to aiming, you'd think, you'd really think, the Wii library would abound with quality titles that take advantage of that function, and you'd be wrong.

With that in mind, I'd like to see some third person shooters on the Wii. Many people focus on first person shooters when talking about how natural a match the pointer is, but I believe, and have for a long time, that the pointer would benefit third person shooters even more.

I am really not a fan of the FPS, the lack of peripheral vision bugs me especially if the action gets intense. Plus, I like to see the character I'm playing. Third person shooters are a lot more fun for me. I can see what's behind my character and the pulled out camera invites more usage of platforming and adventure elements. On the down side, actually aiming your weapons can be problematic.

Various solutions to the issue of aiming include auto aiming, lock-on systems, and even switching to FPS mode for precision shooting at the expense of movement, all of which see use in the Ratchet and Clank series. While convenient, they do remove most of the skill involved in actually aiming, as the game does the work for you. The weapons in the Jak games mostly rely on the auto aim feature. It works pretty well but only because the guns either have wide ranges of effect or spray bullets machine gun style. Even though you have little control over your aim, you're going to hit something.

Oh but would it not be fantastic to just point and shoot? To sweep the reticule across multiple enemies leaving a trail of lock-ons to fire off a missile massacre all while skillfully running and leaping? To do it all without having to hold down multiple buttons to strafe or relying on the game to do it all for you?

It's a perfect match I fantasize about. I dream of remakes or new entries into the Mega Man Legends series; a pair of games that suffered from some clunky controls. Or, holiest of holies, a third person Metroid game.

Where are the TPS games? Anything buried in a mini-game collection doesn't count. C'mon devs, this should be an obvious choice!

Related Links:

Underrated: Metal Arms - Glitch in the System

End Game: The Necessary Evil of Boss Fights

A Few Thoughts on Wii Graphics

Criterion Collection + Videogames = Best GAF Thread Ever

Peter Smith — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Over the years, much has been made of Mega Man's hideous box art, and of the general pimplyness of game art's 8-bit pubescence. But ere we hurl stones at an older era's ugly glass houses, let us first look to our own, or something!

Like this, for example. Now that is some garish shit. Even the boxes for major games like Metroid Prime 3 aren't likely to win any design awards. Most of the time, they evoke summer-blockbuster viewing more than the subtler experiences their contents (hopefully) provide. They also tend to be stuffed full of colorful characters, when, more often, the unique experience of a game comes not from its characters but from the texture of its world.

Perhaps realizing this, some clever commenter over at NeoGAF started a thread soliciting game box art designed in the vein of Criterion Collection DVDs — playful, inventive, minimalistic, gorgeous. It is — ahem — the best thread ever. So much the best that even I, not much for Photoshop, spent a few hours mocking up some covers myself. Hit the jump for my efforts and my favorites from the thread.

Super Mario 64 - McBacon
Very much in the Criterion mold, which some contributors didn't quite catch.

Dr. Mario - somnific
Elegant, simple, instantly recognizable. Awesome work.

Bioshock - Bernbaum
This one's ingenious, and (given its simplicity) remarkably eerie in its evocation of the lost city.

Mirror's Edge - Jocchan
There are a bunch of Mirror's Edge pics in this thread, many of them very handsome, but this one makes a highbrow art reference in a non-arbitrary way.

Donkey Kong Country - Jocchan
Really captures the playfulness and tactile quality of many Criterion covers in a way that also perfectly suits the game.

Sonic the Hedgehog - zaidr
Just a great idea, and it also emphasizes how Sonic and co (in their earliest, best form) are less characters than multicolored, shiny projectiles in a giant pinball machine.

Okay — here are mine:

I've always loved that sunset/sunrise scene on Zelda's title screen; by hiding what's on the other side, it implies mystery and adventure in a way unskippable owl monologues never will.

Another wonderful thing about Zelda 1 is the mystery of the ancient. I wanted this picture to look like the dusty cover of some '60s anthropology book, but I'm not good enough at Photoshop for that, so instead it looks like the poster for an IFC documentary about Bali.

Then there's Zelda's sense of loneliness, which I thought was well-served by this Asher Durand painting. I picked that font cause it made me think of academic editions of 19th-century American classic novels (which often have Asher Durand paintings on the cover, as well). If I were really working for Criterion, I'd make sure to find a Durand painting with some hollow tree roots, to emphasize that sense in Zelda that there are secrets (to everyone!) tucked away everywhere.

The original Metroid is a scary game, largely because of the feeling of exploring a dead world. Those Chozo statues don't have a comic-book back story; they're just sitting there, creeping you the fuck out. Dead birds tell no tales, friends. (Until they get sequels, anyway.)

Using game assets seems like something of a cheat on these covers, since part of the goal is to suggest a tactile quality that the games themselves leave to the imagination. But when the game art is as immortal as Yoshitaka Amano's, it's hard to say no. (Sorry — that second one doesn't scan so well on a white background.)

So there you have it. (Sadly, the word "Actraiser" superimposed on El Greco's "Annunciation" wasn't as awesome as I'd hoped.) Go check out the thread, then start demanding better from your favorite game publishers!

Metroid All Mine

Amber Ahlborn — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 01:30:00 GMT

I've been a gamer for a long time and while it is true that I like video game related collectibles and clothes and whatnot, I don't exactly own much in the way of such things. Well okay, I have a small pile of Pokemon and Bahamut from Final Fantasy 8 and 10, and a scattering of Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, and Mega Man figurines. Still, I don't actively collect video game related stuff. That said, I did trip over something on Amazon.com that made me squee...

Lookie what came in the mail today.

You have read my profile, right?

Sweet.

This sculpture comes from First 4 Figures. I'd actually seen preliminary graphic renderings of this thing long ago but had forgotten about it, only to rediscover it after its limited run had sold out. Disappointed, I figured I'd probably missed my chance of getting Samus in her classic Varia Suit (this is iconic Samus, other suits like the Light Suit are cool and all, but this is true Samus Aran). Then, late one night while browsing random stuff on Amazon I found her and she was mine, monthly spending budget be damned.

And yes, that is a picture of my cat.

Related Links:

Metroid Prime Trilogy Retrospective: Part Three

For Love of the Game: Metroid II Remakes

The Art of Metroid Prime, Echoes, and Corruption

Sailing the Internet Seas, Historical Preservation, and The Great Rumble Roses vs. Silent Hill vs. Metroid Dance Party Throwdown

John Constantine — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:30:00 GMT

Beware! Sail too far to the east, brave soul, and you will come upon that most dangerous of seas. The sky changes to a sickly fresh bruise color, all angry purple and yellow, and the waves will toss madness and froth against the bow. Even the sturdiest ship, the steadiest mind, will be shaken by the foul humors waiting for them beyond the horizon. Ye have been warned. Beware! Beware the internet!

I got lost in an internet vortex this afternoon. It all started innocently enough. Smooth sailing, reading Multiplayer’s interview with Steve Papoustis about Dead Space: Extraction. This led to Matt Hawkins’ Fort 90, and that’s when things started to veer off course. For anyone unfamiliar, Matt’s one of NYC’s great games journalists, but he’s also a madly prolific renaissance man. Fort 90 is a dangerous place, dense with images and text. It’s an easy place to lose your bearings, and that’s what happened to me. Matt linked to the Garry’s Mod work of one MrWhiteFolks. MrWhiteFolks made some spectacular high resolution images of No More Heroes character models stripped of their cel-shading. Very cool stuff. He also made this:

Oh there’s more. Much more.

The internet vortex is perilous, but when you’re hounding for anything and everything related to the videogame landscape, it reveals riches just like MrWhiteFolks’, erm, folk art. That’s what you call this right? That’s what you call it when Heather from Silent Hill 3 dance battles Pyramid Head from Silent Hill 2 in front of the assembled casts of Halo, Metroid, Rumble Roses, Dead or Alive, Gears of War, and Resident Evil 4?

I would like to close with pointing everyone to Edge’s recent feature on preserving videogames’ cultural history. It’s so easy to lose yourself bouncing between one article, one review, one preview, one speedrun, one ROM hack, one actual game to the next that it’s hard enough to process it all when you’re experiencing it in the moment. How do we even begin to preserve things like MrWhiteFolks’ creations? Do we preserve them? Are they important parts of gaming’s history?

Bet you’re all as lost as I am now.

Related links:

10 Years Ago This Week: Silent Hill
Resident Evil Arguments that Need to Die
Metroid Prime Trilogy Retrospective

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”

Underrated: Scurge – Hive

Amber Ahlborn — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Back in 2006 a video game starring a female bounty hunter battling against hordes of mutant alien scum was released. Our heroine was armed with a weapon that could fire different types of energy bolts to take advantage of enemy weaknesses and battled against all manner of life sucking alien foes. No, I'm not talking about Metroid, but rather a cool little title that pays very obvious homage to that most venerable of game series. And yet, for all that Scurge is thematically identical to Metroid: Fusion and Prime 3 Corruption in particular, it doesn't actually play like a Metroid title at all.

Released for both GBA (stated by many to be the superior version) and the DS, Scurge: Hive is a fast paced run and gun game with a bit of platforming added in. Metroid titles could simplistically be described as Legend of Zelda set in a sci-fi world with blaster guns instead of swords; games that encourage the slower pace of exploration and investigation into every nook and cranny. Scurge on the other hand constantly pushes the player forward in a frantic race against the clock. Have you played Metroid Prime 3? Remember the final planet, when Samus' Corruption Gauge starts its ominous count down and you have only so much time left to live? The entirety of Scurge is like that.

In a plot identical to what was seen in Metroid Prime 3, Bounty Hunter Jenosa Arma has been sent on a mission to contain a viral alien threat, and is herself infected at the beginning of the mission. The game play centers around her frantic rush from decontamination room to decontamination room, blasting the heck out of infected machines and organisms along the way. It's this play mechanic that really determines whether you will love or hate this game. If you enjoy having the intensity meter dialed to 11, then give Scurge a try if you're lucky enough to find it. However, if you hate being rushed then chances are you won't enjoy Scurge's adrenaline kick pacing.

Related Links:

Underrated: Klonoa Series

Boss Fight!: How I Bashed My Head Against Vagrant Story and Won

Remembering Earthworm Jim

For Love of the Game: Sonic 2 HD

Peter Smith — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:30:00 GMT

As I've said a number of annoying times, I've never cared much for ol' Sonic the Hedgehog, even in his beloved classic form. It's a design thing — I can tell you about any number of specific places in Mario, Zelda, Metroid and Mega Man levels, but Sonic levels seem to blur into a procession of the same compositional elements over and over. If you've seen one loop-the-loop, you've seen 'em all, especially when all it takes to get through them is holding right on the d-pad.

One column in which Sonic cannot be faulted, however, is presentation. Graphics and music have always been the little blue shinbiter's strong suit. That's why this fan project — an HD remake of Sonic 2 — is cool. Probably the most "classic" game in the series, 2 here gets a loving makeover, and you can check out the results in this second tech demo of the project.

One cool feature of the engine, though, almost makes me interested in actually playing Sonic again, and that's the zoomed-out view present in this build. Have you ever noticed how in Sonic games, you're constantly, y'know, running into things that you couldn't possibly have seen coming? That's partly because the sprites are so big — the view so zoomed in. Compared to Mario and co, you're pretty much trying to play a close-up; combine that with the speed and general looseness of Sonic gameplay and you've got a recipe for frustration. But if this remake allows you to play with a zoomed-out view, you'll, A), be able to actually appreciate the architecture of the levels, instead of merely watching it rush by you; and B) you know, play a fun game. Instead of a fun-looking game. Sorry, everyone!

Related posts:
Sonic Bound: After Three Botched Reboots, Sonic the Hedgehog May Finally Get His 3D Due
Do You Hold Any Hope For Sonic Unleashed?
Trailer Review: Sonic Unleashed
Sonic Unleashed Wii: Should Dimps be trying harder?
Sonic the Hedgehog: I'm Just Not that Into You
A Long-Scorned Sonic Fanfic Writer Seeks Redemption

Previous For Love of the Games:
Quest for Glory II
Rockman 7 FC
Outcast 2
Street Fighter One
Metroid II

Break On Through The Underside

Nadia Oxford — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:31:00 GMT

Announcements about fan-run game projects have a way of making us all slump our cheeks into our fists with a sigh. This could have something to do with the tendency of fan projects to never get anywhere. Oh sure, people gather and they talk all sorts of great ideas. That's the easy part. Then comes time to translate those big ideas into ones and zeroes. Suddenly, enthusiasm dulls. Everyone's too busy with work, school and peeling their flesh off their arm inch by inch, a far less painless endevour than programming game code. Six months pass since the last update, then a year. The forums because a ghost town. The hit counter starts to roll backwards. Somewhere, a big dog barks.

But maybe we need these creative failures; they make us all the more receptive to great ideas that are seen all the way through. For instance, The Underside. Inspired by Cave Story (great!), The Underside features an adorable little cat-character in exploration-based gameplay (great!!) as he tears through his corrupt world with the aid of a chainsaw (YES!!).

The Underside isn't yet done, so maybe it's a little early to celebrate its cartoony sadism. The latest video of its development, however, reveals a game that's quite far along. To slip and fall now would be unlikely...though not impossible. Death at this stage would be a damn shame, though.

Especially since The Underside is clearly its own game. The inspiration is obvious, but the graphics, environments and game engine are clearly original. The creators also tip their hats at Earthbound through clever character dialogue and design. Between Cave Story, Metroid and Earthbound, there are certainly worse games to be inspired by.

The Underside, the Mother 3 translation and Cave Story on WiiWare make my inner Nadia sing with joy for fan dedication in the game industry.

Related Links:

The Best News In Sixteen Thousand Years: Cave Story Coming To WiiWare
Spelunking Through Cave Story
Cave Story Medley On Piano

Greed Looks Good on Samus

Nadia Oxford — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 22:50:00 GMT

Yeah, uh, so I write fanfics. Shut up. The reason I'm revealing this and plunging my approval rating into the negatives (rather, further into the negatives) is because last week I made fun of the Valiant Nintendo Comics of olde...but I shouldn't. At least not all the time. It's really not easy to create a story where there is none.

Not to say that every creative endeavour should automatically get an A for Effort. The Worlds of Power books based on games like Mega Man 2 could have been a lot less stupid. On the other hand, when your cover art is defaulted to a game's box art (in other words, a flamer in blue spandex), I guess you may as well pound a few and see what you can come up with.

Valiant's Nintendo comics had moments that made my eyes ache, but at the same time it did a couple of things really well. For instance, Samus.

Samus has always been a girl of few words, except in Metroid Fusion when she caught a case of the chatties and wouldn't shut up about her ship, her mechanical love interest and her pet dog, Sparky. She's mostly been silent since, with Nintendo/Retro Studios preferring to leak bits of her past through subtle, adorable means. But at the beginning of time, Valiant had their own take on the female bounty hunter: brash, violent, cocky and greedy. And it was pretty cool.

Valiant's Samus wanted two things: money, and the chance to tap Captain N's white ass. The latter desire put her at odds often with Videoland's Princess Lana; they scrapped on occasion with Samus usually coming out on top (oh my) but more often they had to work together to foil whatever scheme of the week Mother Brain cooked up. In one issue, the N Team is framed for some kind of wankery, landing Samus and Lana in a women's prison (my oh my). The two work together to bring some semblance of order to Oz, with Samus blackmailing Kraid into helping them ("A week in solitary or a week in the hospital--it's your choice.")

Keep in mind that this comic comes from an era when enemy sprites couldn't stand much taller than the player sprite. If Samus tried to strongarm Kraid in the here and now, she'd end up like a bug on a windshield.

These days, a female game character's mettle is usually equal to the size of her boobies. If there's confidence to be had, it usually comes from chicks who are bold enough to fight with a thong bunched up their ass. Samus has no problem with whipping it all off when the mission's over (being raised by birds probably does funny things to modesty), but we know her best as a quiet, enclosed warrior. Valiant's interpretation of Samus might not have endeared fans today, but back then it was something different.

You can catch one of her adventures here.

Related Links:

The Erotic Adventure of Little Mac
Worlds of Power: Books That Worried Your Parents and Pissed Off Your Teachers
Are Comic Book Games Going To Get Better Soon? Please?

Lowering the Standard: Why Nintendo’s Hardcore vs. Casual Commitments Aren’t the Problem

John Constantine — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 23:00:00 GMT

I tend to sound overly pessimistic when talking about the Wii. I happen to love the system. I think the funky little box has quite a lot going for it and it’s given me a handful of unforgettable gaming experiences, with Wii Sports and No More Heroes chief among them. No, I’m not overly pessimistic about the Wii. I’m overly pessimistic about Nintendo. As much as I want to be excited about a new Punch-Out!, I can’t help but look at the facts: Nintendo has released more traditional, hardcore games in the Wii’s first two years than they did in the Gamecube’s first four and all of them, with the exceptions of Super Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, have been below the gold standard of Nintendo’s internally developed software from generations past. Super Paper Mario was a vicious bore of a game, Metroid Prime 3 had none of the creative spirit of the first two, Zelda: Twilight Princess was a bloated retread in dire need of an editor, and games like Fire Emblem and Super Mario Strikers were competent, but were simply more of the same. Even after this passed July’s E3, I wasn’t disturbed by Nintendo’s lack of support for hardcore gamers. I was disturbed by the apparent lowering of standards in their software. There are many Wii games that I am very excited to play, like MadWorld, Klonoa: Door to Phantomile, House of the Dead: Overkill, Oboro Muramasa, and Fragile. But none of these titles come from Nintendo.

I hate sounding like the disgruntled misanthrope. But I refuse to ask less of a development house that strove for nothing short of perfection in the past.

Related links:

WiiWare: Nintendo, Babe, It Just Isn’t Working Out
Disaster: Day of Crisis Comes Out in October. Right. Sure.
E3 Day Two: Spin, Malaise, Sony’s New Clothes, and Nintendo’s True Disruption
Christmas in Nintendoland: The Tokyo Conference

Whatcha Playing: Weight of the Stone

John Constantine — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:00:00 GMT

Videogames are rich with memorable moments. Born of both play and story, there are those images, those brief passages of achievement, that are emblazoned in your memory: the first time you clear 100,000 points in Tetris, the dogs bursting through the window in Resident Evil, the booming march that begins to play after the baby metroid’s sacrifice during Super Metroid’s climactic battle with Mother Brain. We are tied to these events thanks not only to those games’ mechanical and artistic design but because of our agency in them. We facilitate these conclusions and, since the game is well-made, we feel them. Another classic: Solid Snake’s first fight with the cyborg ninja, Grey Fox. Like so much of the Metal Gear Solid series, this sequence is ludicrous: simplistic to play, overdramatic, over-everything. But when Grey Fox begins screaming, “Make me feel!” and your controller begins to shake in time with his uncontrollable gesticulations, the scene becomes something else. In 1998, rumble technology was still relatively new in home gaming, so having this drama reflected in the physical world made that much more of an impression. Every time Snake was kicked in the gut or when you landed a hit amidst this half-man’s yowling was tangible.

I feel a lot like Grey Fox when I play videogames these days, particularly action fare. I want an action game to make me feel. Not necessarily a profound emotional reaction – though that’s always a plus – so much as a physical one. When I’m playing an action or sport game, it’s essential that the game translates the physicality and impact of my actions well lest the aesthetic façade covering the game’s rules be ruined. It’s no easy thing to affect either. This past week, I finished playing through what may well be Lucasarts’ final in-house game, the damn-near-ubiquitous Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. TFU is a good game, not a great one; its big-scale Jedi power fantasy is marred by some serious glitches and questionable design choices, like its over-reliance on quick time events. Even though I had a good time playing through it, I was perturbed by how weightless much of the action felt. It’s incredible that TFU’s three physics engines allow me to pick up almost every part of a game’s environment and toss it about willie-nillie, but a mammoth, building crushing boulder shouldn’t feel like it has the same mass as shoe-sized robot. (Before any of you Star Wars nerds pipe-up about size mattering not, shut up. Idiots.)

Alternatively, Sega’s Yakuza 2, a nearly three year-old game running on hardware that couldn’t hope to run the engine beneath TFU’s hood, has been an eye-opening physical experience. Yakuza 2 is, at heart, a modern Japanese role-playing game that trades ponderous turn-based fighting for beat’em-up combat that recalls Die Hard Arcade. Yakuza 2’s combat is deliciously precise and, more importantly, visceral. Every impact of the fist is felt in Yakuza 2, and it keeps what would otherwise be a very repetitive game constantly rewarding, but it takes every facet of the game working in concert for this to work. The fights are fast, never lasting more than ninety seconds, and there’s no discernible delay between your button inputs and your character’s moves outside of what seems natural (throwing a fat guy over your shoulder or landing a jump kick should, after all, take a few more seconds than a jab.) This is on top of impact sound effects (grunts, the exaggerated thump-pop of a blow landing). What puts it over the top is the game’s “Heat” moves, a one-button super move that activates a contextual one-hit kill provided you’ve filled a meter. “Heat” moves are brutal enough to make Tony Soprano blush, but their presentation is remarkable. The screen becomes slightly washed out, the camera provides a shifting, dramatic perspective, the controller shudders, and the onscreen characters enact serious violence like, say, ramming a thug’s head through a car windshield. But it all takes little more than five seconds. Every single aspect has weight and every aspect of the game is built to translate that weight to the player.

This marks the difference between a good game and a great game. Not every game needs to translate literal physicality, but every game should leave you feeling like you’ve transcended the many, many barriers between you and the actual game. When the controller, the television screen, and the cognitive dissonance between your brain and making something happen on screen disappear, that’s when the game becomes something more. It becomes unforgettable.

This is What We’re Playing. Here’s What We Played.

Whatcha Playing: Bubbles, Bubbles, Bubbles!!!
Whatcha Playing?: Final Ninja
Whatcha Playing: Cleaning House, Finding Roots
Whatcha Playing: The Thirst For Adventure, Pointing At Things, and Not Knowing What to Say
Whatcha Playing: The New Adventures of the Nintendo DS

The Delights of Continuity in Mega Man and Abroad

John Constantine — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 18:00:00 GMT

So you know, here be spoilers for a number of very old games.

Did you hear? Zero didn’t kill Dr. Light, Mega Man, Roll, and the rest of the motley robotic crew they hang out with! What a relief.

I’m not too proud to admit it: I gave a damn about the story in Mega Man. Not so much anymore, but back in the proverbial day, it was a legitimate selling point for me. Even beyond the melancholic future-pastoral in Mega Man 2’s largely implied narrative and into the series’ less-loved entries. The story became too explicit, too ridiculous, too full of whiny, awful voice acting, but, all the same, my imagination was too invested in fleshing out the world of 20XX to give a damn. Take the ending of Mega Man 7, wherein Mega Man defeats Dr. Wily and, instead of carting the irascible coot to jail for the eleventh time, the Blue Bomber put his arm-cannon against Wily’s skull claiming he was, “Gonna do what I should have done years ago.” Madness! This game surrounded Mega Man with cute, cuddly, comedic robot pals like Otto more than any other game in the series and yet here he was threatening murder. How did this happen? But, more importantly, was this a sign of how the dystopian future of Mega Man X came to pass?

See? Stupid or not, I was invested. Continuity is a strong hook but it isn’t especially well-suited to videogames broadly. Mega Man, and a number of other franchises, can afford the luxury of detailed continuity because new entries come out on an almost annual basis. But most of the time, games take years to develop and there are prolonged gaps between games. Look at Metroid. Eight years passed between its third and fourth entries. The story picked up right where it left off, but Nintendo didn’t rush to re-release Super Metroid for players to brush up on their lore. So why retain the story continuity at all? The continuity is a treat for older players, but it’s a barrier for new players who actually want to invest in the game’s characters. The majority of games don’t keep a running narrative thread, only character and thematic continuity (i.e. Ghosts ‘N Goblins will have Arthur the Knight fighting Satan to rescue The Princess.) What does it offer to a game when access to previous chapters is severely limited and not even a source of potential sales for the game’s maker?

Personally, I love continuity in my games. I like knowing characters and settings have history and that, when their series inevitably continues, that history and story will continue to affect them. It doesn’t matter how simplistic that story might be or how superficial an emotional link it creates between player and game. But in order for it to mean something, players need access to the previous chapters.

If you haven’t gotten my point yet, Capcom, I’m saying re-release the damn Anniversary Collection before Mega Man 9 comes out. Sheesh.

Related links:

Mega Man 9 Goes Back To Your Roots. Way Back.
The Ten Greatest Classic Mega Man Levels
For Love of the Game: Rockman 7 FC
What I'm Playing This Weekend: Mega Man Anniversary Collection

Trailer Review: Prince of Persia

Cole Stryker — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

There are a lot of things to like about the new Prince of Persia trailer. But I'm sad to see that our boy has been given a ghostly sidekick. She looks like equal parts Midna and Yorda, which means she'll probably save your butt and get in the way a lot. This was a slight problem in The Sands of Time, in which Princess Farah would accidently shoot arrows at the Prince. The red orbs that fling the Prince around are a little Metroid Prime-y, and the supplemental swinging granted by the sidekick seems to draw from Spidey.

I've always felt that the Prince of Persia series justified its high sales figures more than most games, largely because the game had excellent pacing and a singular sense of purpose - get from here to there. Linearity shoudn't be necessarily negative! All the puzzles were just tricky enough, and the time-reversal mechanic avoided a lot of death cinematics and load times. For the most part, each game was a steady stream of excellent, clever exploration and puzzle solving. It looks like that's been retained, but the inclusion of this chick seems a little superfluous. It's as if developrs of sequels have a checklist that must be completed during brainstorming sessions. They must do everything the old games did, but more. Adding a girl that enables you to jump just a little bit further? Check.

Who am I kidding. I'm going to love this game. Just look at him flipping out all over the place. Awesome!

What's in my MP3 Player: Kindred

Amber Ahlborn — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:00:00 GMT

I do not usually like music with vocals. There are exceptions. “Kindred”, a Super Metroid remix over at Overclocked Remix is truly a lovely, hauntingly atmospheric piece. The source music is the Maridia 1 theme and it suits the arrangement by remixers Pixietricks (vocals) and Zircon perfectly. I have a real soft spot for, well, pretty much anything related to the Metroid series but “Kindred” would have grabbed my attention even if it had been from something truly repugnant like Halo. I kid.

This particular track also has an interesting back story. Beloved remixer bLINd, an OCR veteran, has been stricken with a nasty medical condition called colitis. While I have never suffered from colitis myself, I certainly have a lot of first hand experience with it as a good friend of mine suffered from an extreme case of ulcerative colitis and, frankly, it nearly killed him. “Kindred” was created specially as part of a “Get Well Soon” project put together by the OCR community. Inspirational effort and heartfelt results. Stay strong bLINd.

Related Links:

What's in my MP3 Player: Yellow Valkyrie

What's in my MP3 Player: Endless Skies

Through the Fire and Flames on Mariopaint

Whatcha Playing: Cleaning House, Finding Roots

John Constantine — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:00:00 GMT

It has been well over a month since my last Whatcha Playing here at 61 Frames Per Second. The vicious truth of the matter is that I haven’t been playing that much since the beginning of July. The summer will do that to you. When the weather is as nice as its been here in the northeastern United States (mild, sunny as hell, great thunderstorms), its hard to devote eight hours of a Saturday to grinding RPG characters, engaging in manic shoot-outs, or even just taking in some classics (especially if your apartment isn’t air conditioned.) Last Thursday, though, I finally downloaded Bionic Commando Rearmed, a game I may have mentioned anticipating. Those first delicious minutes I spent grappling around the vibrant world GRIN created signaled one undeniable fact: come the weekend, it was time to play some freaking videogames.

But first I had to clean house. Twice a year, I take a look at my game library and growing collection of consoles and peripherals to take stock of what needs to stay, what can be tossed, and what needs to be reorganized. The process is cathartic. Old games in dire need of revisiting reclaim your attention, it’s determined what unbeaten titles need finishing, and old consoles end up reconnected to the TV for the first time in ages.

Cleaning house also reveals just what your predilections are. By the time I’d finished, the library was a bit lighter, and I had a nice smorgasbord put together for Saturday and Sunday. The Playstation 3 was going to get put through its paces with Bionic Commando, PixelJunk Eden, and Lair, the 360 would get love from Too Human and Braid, and the freshly reconnected Gamecube would play host to Metroid Fusion and a little Ninja Five-O.

What did I find out? Well, clearly, I have some kind of grappling hook obsession I need to work out. It also looks like my absence from playing games subconsciously drove me to get back to my platforming roots. I never did fire up Lair and played only a smattering of Too Human (more on those beasts later this week.) The craving for two-dimensions and precision jumps was undeniable. But it occurred to me that the games I was playing, Braid, Eden, and Bionic Commando, aren’t just relics of yesteryear but brand new games, full on fresh ideas. Seems developers broadly are cleaning house themselves these days and rediscovering just what works again.

Summer is in the home stretch now and fall’s bringing cool weather and games to match; the cutting edge of current technology and design will be our hands. A few months back, I felt rabid for the future and the evolution of three-dimensional, narrative driven design. But now that I’m finally playing on the regular again, I’m wondering just what it is I’ll be craving when the fall’s blockbusters arrive. Will I want the meaty story, the deep 3D space? Or will I just want to run and jump?

More Whatcha Playing:

Whatcha Playing: The New Adventures of the Nintendo DS
Whatcha Playing: Fallout (Metaphorically Speaking)
Whatcha' (Wish You Were) Playing: How Does Your Garden Grow?
Watcha Playing: Loving/Hating Mario Kart Wii
Whatcha Playing: How Many Buttons Do I Gotta Push?
Whatcha Playing: Fire Emblem is Pretty Hard
Whatcha Playing: Keeping the Beat, Drum Master Style
Whatcha Playing: A Little Singin’, a Little Dancin’
Whatcha Playing: Another Slice of Cake
Whatcha Playing: BS Zelda
Whatcha Playing: With a Little Help From My Friends

Overworld: Friday the 13th

John Constantine — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Overworld examines how one game or series establishes a unique sense of place.

Buzz for EA Redwood Shores’ Dead Space has gone from indifference to genuine excitement in the weeks since E3. Now that people have actually played the interactive paean to Cameron-Carpenter-styled horror, they’ve found that its forbidding atmosphere, sound, and HUD-free presentation are hype-worthy and legitimately scary. I haven’t gotten to try it out myself but I’m anxious to get my hands on it. Redwood Shores have taken the essential road to designing quality interactive horror; Dead Space is, at its core, a game about confinement, about being trapped in a hostile environment with limited means of survival. Videogames lend themselves to this method of creating tension and anxiety because their environments are, naturally, closed. System Shock’s dilapidated space station, Resident Evil’s mansion, and even the more expansive town of Silent Hill are perfectly closed spaces, places that simultaneously create dread and a functional goal: how do I get out?

It’s far rarer to see a game take the opposite route. After all, it isn’t easy to make a game that makes you feel lost. If a game forces you to lose yourself in its environment, by way of randomly generated environments or trick passages that lead to incongruous locations (as in Zelda’s Lost Woods), it risks frustrating the player – this is especially bad if the game’s intent is horror, since frustration can easily replace anxiety. It’s equally difficult to create a closed environment that is delicately constructed to confuse the player. The original Metroid and its Game Boy sequel are two of the only games that manage to successfully pull this off thanks to its series of identical hallways and dead ends. Another is Friday the 13th.

LJN’s Friday the 13th for the NES is, as the internet has noted on many occasions, a bad game. The film franchise itself isn’t good, best known twenty-five years after its inception for camp value (forgive the pun) than creating memorable chills. The game has cloying sound, poorly defined goals, terribly inaccurate controls, and inappropriate enemies (bats and endless waves of zombies were not common fixtures in the movies.) But the game’s world, Crystal Lake, and its surrounding caves, cabins, and forests, is remarkable at creating a sense of overwhelming fear through a mixture of mundane graphics and by leading the player off course.

The manmade structures in particular are sterile, empty, and eerie, even in daylight and the over-the-shoulder perspective and control in these environments cause constant disorientation. During outdoors sidescrolling, Friday the 13th is constantly altering your perception of the environment. If you follow a path down from one forest trail, you will not necessarily see the path leading up in the next. This might be bad design from a playability perspective but it manages to actually affect the feeling of being lost in the woods without directly using trick passages. Your map exacerbates the confusion, only giving a location on paths around the lake proper but not indicating the direction you’re actually moving in. Crystal Lake feels as confounding as any actual place you are only cursorily familiar with. You are being actively pursued by an unpredictable threat, and you are armed with a map you are forced to read on the run and often in the middle of the dark. Friday the 13th fails as a game but its world is a terrible, misleading success.

More Overworld:

Marble Madness

Related links:

For Love of the Game: Metroid II Remakes
Rebuttal - Say What About Metroid: Zero Mission?
Rebuttal Rebuttal – I Stand With Metroid

Play It Again, Sam

Amber Ahlborn — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:00:00 GMT

How many times have you bought the same game? I don't mean full on remakes like Metroid: Zero Mission or sports games sequels where they dusted off the old engine and updated the roster. I mean how many games did you repurchase because it was a special edition with some new features, or it was released for a different home system, or it was the hand held version?

I usually buy games once. I'm not interested in Chrono Trigger DS because I own the SNES cart. I don't pick up a lot of the popular Virtual Console games because I have the originals. When the GBA was shiny and new, I bought the hand held version of Super Mario Bros. 2 (Super Mario Advance) then immediately wondered why. I already owned it in the Super Mario All Stars compilation for the SNES so I sold my GBA version.

Presently, I'm on the fence about re-buying Okami. When Okami was exclusive to the PS2, I was among the indignant Wii owners who felt the game's brush mechanic was tailor made for the Wii and how could they not release it on that system. After the PS2 game was out, I was among the righteous fans who felt this wonderful title was criminally under appreciated and how lame was everybody else for not buying it.

Fast forward to the present and Okami has seen a re-release. It's on the system I wanted it to be on and I have a chance to throw my support behind a fantastic game a second time. But I already own it on the PS2 and is it really worth a re-purchase?

Have any games compelled you to buy them again? If so, why? What was the deal clincher? Speaking of deal clinchers, what games would you snap up a second copy in a heart beat if it saw a re-release? Metroid Prime 1 and 2 with Wii pointer aiming? Earthbound on the DS? Final Fantasy 7 with updated graphics? Mmmm, I could totally go for an updated Pokemon with maybe an enhanced monster roster...oh wait.

Related Links

Would You Play a Final Fantasy VII Remake? Hmmm?

Are You Buying Final Fantasy IV DS?

The Chrono Trigger Port: Are You Excited or Disappointed?

Metroid: Wishful Thinking

Periphery: Emotiv's EPOC is Strong in the Force

Cole Stryker — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 07:00:00 GMT

Have you ever wanted to pull off a screw attack with your MIND POWERS? How bout hucking a barrel with the grav gun, or smooching Tifa? It looks like you're one step closer to achieving that dream, you perv, with Emotiv's new EPOC headset, due for release by end of year:

Emotiv's elegant, lightweight EPOC headset is a piece of cutting-edge technology that grants Yoda-like telepathic powers, allowing players of computer games to move items on screen with merely their thoughts. Due for release by year's end, the $299 device will come bundled with an adventure game in which players complete tasks for an Asian sensei.

Apparently the device can sense your emotions and certain basic actions like "pushing" and "lifting". Hella creepy!

A test run reveals EPOC can be difficult to learn but mesmerizing once mastered. To think "vanish" and watch a cube disappear borders on unnerving.

Well color me skeptical. Brian Crecente of Kotaku also has his doubts.

"I'm not sure it's at the point of being as precise as it would need to be" to function as a console substitute for most games. I don't see it being a mainstream device in this form. That said, it's certainly beyond a gimmick. Game issues aside, it's uncanny."

That's the key takeaway. The first iteration is bound to be clunky, but subsequent iterations are almost surely the future of interactive entertainment. Like all technological developments of the last decade, the pornography industry will probably make it commercially viable if gaming cannot. Think Aldous Huxley's "feelies".

Boy, this would match up nicely with a Wii lightsaber game. We can dream, can't we?

(via USA Today)

Metroid: Wishful Thinking

Amber Ahlborn — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 15:00:00 GMT

I can't get enough Metroid. Already I want to see another entry into the series, be it on the DS or Wii, 2-D or 3-D. Like many I hoped the speculation about the Metroid Dread reference in Metroid Prime 3 indicated a new game on the horizon. For now though, all is quiet on the front. Nobody knows what Retro's current project is or if Nintendo has anything in the works for the series right now. So in the absence of any real information of any sort, I thought I'd share my wish list.

1. If it's a 3-D game, I want it on a console and I want the perspective to be in the third person. After trying to play Metroid Hunters, I've discovered I just can not see what the hell is happening on the small screen when I have to track tiny objects zooming in and out of 3-D space. Also, as much as I loved the Prime trilogy, I really don't care for the first person perspective. It imposes some limitations on just how acrobatic a character can be and besides, I like seeing the character I'm playing.

2. Mix 2-D and 3-D play styles. Super Mario Galaxy is a good example of what I mean here. Some actions just don't work well when you have a trailing camera; namely anything that requires fast, skilled jumping and climbing. A 2-D perspective and limitation of movement planes simplifies the various environmental hazards and makes what actions need to be taken very clear. Mario Galaxy was a 3-D game that effectively became 2-D in places where Mario had lots of fast, acrobatic maneuvering to do. The Prime trilogy itself employed this technique during morph ball tunnel sequences to maximize player control. I'd like to see it expanded on.

I envision a 3-D Metroid game where Samus walks through a door and transitions to an enclosed area locked to a 2-D path. These regions would be designed around her traditional jumping, grapple swinging, and speed booster skills ala Super Metroid. Some actions are just easier to do in 2-D and these sections of the game would exploit those particular play styles.

3. I would like to see the traditional Metroid elevator replaced or heavily supplemented with more free form travel. As I expressed in my Corruption retrospective, the ability to travel from one world region to any other region would go far to reduce backtracking tedium.

4. I want to see less hand-holding. I have nothing against hint systems, but hint systems should never be an imposition. Rather than having the option to turn them off, I would like to see them simply pop up upon player request. Maybe work it into the game world. Say... Samus can contact her ship (or whatever) at any time and request an area scan, the result being a marker popping up on her map showing a place of interest (where to go next). What I don't want to see is the game force feeding me info I'd rather figure out on my own. The element of discovery is one reason I play these games, I didn't pay for a guided tour.

5. I don't ever want to see the cerebral elements of puzzle solving and exploration reduced further than they were in Corruption. Metroid Prime 3 is as close as the series should ever get to shooter territory. These are action adventure games. Don't forget it!

6. How about a Metroid II remake on the DS or even WiiWare?

I think I'll just stop here or this list is going to be longer than your average ten year old's letter to Santa.

This concludes my week long Metroid special. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. See you next mission!

Related Links

Metroid Prime Trilogy Retrospective: Part One, Two, and Three

The Art of Metroid Prime, Echoes, and Corruption

For Love of the Game: Metroid II Remakes

Fun Fact: Metroid Meets Metronome

A Letter to the Undustry: How to Destroy the Female Gender Barricade

The Art of Metroid Prime, Echoes, and Corruption

Amber Ahlborn — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:00:00 GMT

While the debate over whether video games are an art form or not continues to rage, there can be no denying that fantastic visual art assets are used in many game titles. The Metroid Prime trilogy is a series particularly noted for its visual style and intense detail. To the artists at Retro Studios I tip my hat and dedicate this post to your fantastic work.

Welcome to the world.

Environmental art does not get enough respect. Character art is where most of the flash and romance sits, but as any gamer knows, you typically spend a lot more time looking at scenery than you do looking at its inhabitants. The skill with which environmental art is executed can mean the difference between a real living, breathing place, and an artificial stage set, static and forced.

These lovely screen shots are a tiny sampling from this thread by Matt Manchester who worked on Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Do click over to see a very large collection of excellent work.

Ahh, the Chozo Temple is one of my favorite pieces of concept art. I also love all of the work done on bringing to life the indigenous growing things. Some of the most distinct images I remember from the games involved the detailed plant life; like the mighty trees whose roots would nearly fill hallways in Prime, or the spherical fungus that, as time passed, would start sending out clouds of green spores in Echoes. The above three images are samples taken from the Metroid Database, another fantastic site for finding concept art, music, and other materials.

We live here.

I admit it, my own personal artistic preference is on character design. Over the years I have become much more aware and appreciative of environment designs, but my true love is with the critters and characters that go about their imagined lives within these worlds.

I can not get enough of this particular image. It has to be my absolute favorite piece of Metroid concept art. I remember first seeing it as a candidate for the box art (or perhaps it was just a place holder). Why oh why didn't they choose this for Echoes cover art? What a wonderful piece of work by Andrew Jones whose gallery at Conceptart.org can be found here.

Samus' look is iconic to the Metroid series and whatever variation on her armor she adorns, there is always a familiar shape to it. Whatever face she is given beneath the helmet, it is her famous Chozo battle armor that is her identity. I particularly love the Light suit, and yet, I will always come back to the classic Varia Suit as Samus Aran's definitive look. It's an elegant, yet powerful design and there's nothing else quite like it.

The cast of creatures that populate the worlds in the Metroid series are colorful and varied aliens. Another great spot to find images of them and more lore than you can shake an encyclopedia at is Wikitroid. Your one stop shop for details on everything Metroid.

Movement is life.

Metroid Prime

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

Ultimately, a creature design is just a drawing, a 3-D model is just a sculpture. They do not live if they do not move. It is in the animation that exists the final word on believability. Movement speaks volumes on personality, intention, and attitude where mere words would be mute. As in every other aspect of Metroid, the animation does not disappoint. Samus pops believably in and out of spinning jumps and the Morph Ball. Alien bugs trundle along the walls and ground, ignorant of your passing. Semi-sentient hexapedal reptiles run and leap fantastic distances. The worlds Samus explores are alive with animal motion.

Nintendo and Retro, thank you.

The final art galleries I wish to highlight can not be linked to, for they exist on the game discs themselves. All three games in the trilogy have extensive concept galleries that can be unlocked by completing these games, and starting with Echoes, each creature scan makes available that creature's model for close examination. These are features that every development team rightfully proud of their work should include on the game disc. Now if only I could find a comprehensive Metroid Prime art book featuring all of the artists so I knew who to thank for what. As a fellow artist, I find your work inspiring.

Metroid Prime Trilogy Retrospective: Part One

Metroid Prime Trilogy Retrospective: Part Two

Metroid Prime Trilogy Retrospective: Part Three

Fun Fact: Metroid Meets Metronome

Derrick Sanskrit — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Did you know that Nintendo's Rhythm Heaven was designed by the same guy who directed Metroid, Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion and Metroid: Zero Mission? It's true!

Though prolific Japanese musician Tsunku conceived the rhythm game and composed all of its ridiculously catchy music, it was prominent Nintendo designer Yoshio Sakamoto who directed the gameplay and design elements.

So WiiSports is what happens when the Super Mario Bros. director makes a sports game and Rhythm Heaven is what happens when the Metroid director makes a rhythm game? I can't wait to see what happens when the Kirby director makes a fighting game. Oh, wait a minute...

Related articles:
Metroid Prime Retrospective Parts 1, 2, and 3
E3 Opinion, Beacuse It's Cool to Complain...
Rebuttal Rebuttal – I Stand With Metroid
Make the Music With Your Games, Kids!

Rebuttal Rebuttal – I Stand With Metroid

Peter Smith — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 20:00:00 GMT

So, I recently incited the wrath of seemingly thousands of NeoGAF readers by defaming the good standing of Metroid: Zero Mission. One of them even said he hated me as much as he hated Amy Winehouse, which was so left-field I almost took it personally. Let me further establish that I am totally batshit, tastewise, by giving you my list of favorite games in the Metroid series:

1) Metroid
2) Metroid Prime
3) Metroid II: Return of Samus
4) Metroid Fusion
5) Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
6) Super Metroid
7) Metroid: Zero Mission
8) Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

See? I'm fuckin' nuts. I'm a madman. I'd slit my momma's throat for a nickel. Granted, I still think all of those games are pretty swell, but please feel free to completely disregard my opinions on Metroid, videogames in general, fluffy bunnies, etc. That said, since my fellow blogger Amber mounted a thoughtful and cogent defense of Zero Mission yesterday, I feel obliged to clarify my thoughts.

First of all, despite Amber's objections, I can't really attribute my preference for the original Metroid over Zero Mission to nostalgia, because I'd never played the original Metroid until the late '90s, when I was already a cantankerous teenager. I'd played Super Metroid well before that, and it never stuck with me as much.

As far as the popular notion that the original Metroid is unplayable — I think contemporary gamers have in some ways been spoiled by easier games and smoother controls. No doubt Zero Mission controls better than its source game, and no doubt Metroid is hard, but it's far from the hardest thing on the NES. I wouldn't call it unplayable, but one thing I would call it is "hostile." Which actually fits its themes pretty well.

One thing that games did by default back in the day was leave a lot to the imagination. There weren't a lot of system resources for story, comic-art interludes, etc. You could argue that the designers would've put that stuff in if they could have — ie, "It's only that way because it's on the NES." But that gets into the good ol' intentional fallacy. Once Metroid is out in the world, it doesn't matter what Gumpei Yokoi would've done if he'd had the resources. What matters is what's on the cart and how it affects us when we play. By leaving a lot to the imagination, Metroid invites you more openly into its world. This is one of the virtues of simplicity. It's the same reason I prefer The Legend of Zelda to A Link to the Past (a game for which I have far more nostalgic feelings), or Mega Man II to Mega Man VI, even though the later games are clearly more polished and planned. For me, Metroid lost something once it started explaining about Space Pirates and Chozo and so forth. Once those strange, ancient bird statues had a name, they went from the realm of the uncanny and dreamlike to just elements of a standard-issue space opera — one that happens to be very well done, but familiar material none-the-less.

I should also address my allegation that Zero Mission is full of hand-holding. As many people quite rightly pointed out, Zero Mission actually allows you to sequence break pretty substantially. This is definitely cool, I agree. (Actually, here's a remarkable chart of possible sequence breaks, which makes clear how malleable Zero Mission really can be.) So "hand-holding" may not be the right charge. Let me be more precise. For me, the distinction between Metroid and its sequels, and also between Zelda and its sequels, comes down to (bear with me) the difference between a godless world and a created world. The world of Metroid is truly alien. It's full of repetitions, corridors that go nowhere, areas with no apparent human purpose. (Memory limitations, I know — see "intentional fallacy" above.) In "modern gaming" terms, this means that it's, in some ways, less fun to run around in. That also means that it feels disorienting, atmospheric, organic, "real." (And on a side note, I'm not sure "fun" should be the ultimate determinant of a great videogame — if we want games to be art, great art is not always "fun" per se. . . a tangent you'll probably thank me for not following further.) Again, think of the space jockey in Alien. There's no explanation for it. It's just there.

In contrast — yes, there is no verbal explanation for a lot of stuff in Zero Mission. But let's look at the subtextual implications of the gameplay. Let's say you go into a room where you acquire the Ice Beam. Once you get it, you have to use the Ice Beam in a puzzle to get back out of the room. By establishing a logical construction like that, Zero Mission (like most other Metroid games) implies intelligent creation. There is a cause/effect structure, thereby tipping the hand of the creator. In Zero Mission, Zebes isn't an incomprehensible alien world. It's an intricately constructed puzzle box — a very well-made one, but a human artifact all the same, in the same way that the half-decayed ancient ruins Link wanders in Zelda become clever videogame constructions in Zelda III. I realize this is a subtle distinction, but to me, it makes a huge difference in the experience of playing the games. I'm an atheist, and that cold, atheistic Metroid just hits me where it hurts. No disrespect to Zero Mission, really. It's a great game. Metroid is a place.

Related:
Rebuttal: Say What About Metroid: Zero Mission
The Five Greatest Enhanced Remakes, and Five That Weren't So Great, Part 3
For Love of the Game: Metroid II Remakes

Rebuttal - Say What About Metroid: Zero Mission?

Amber Ahlborn — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Fellow blogger Peter Smith recently posted a list covering video game remakes: five that were great and five that weren't. As with any opinion, not everyone will agree and many of the titles on the “not great” list have caused strong negative reactions in the comments. Indeed, when I saw the proposed list before it went live I warned Mr. Smith that I would have some strong words about one particular game in a post of my own. To quote myself, “I vehemently protest your placing Zero Mission in a worst remakes list where it most definitely does not belong on any objective basis.” Here we go...

After reading Mr. Smith's assessment of Zero Mission, it seems to me that he assigns the nostalgia factor quite a bit of value over the revelations of more modern game design, at least in regards to the Metroid series. Now, I am the Queen of Metroid fans. Read my frikin' bio at the bottom of the comments section. It's my favorite series bar none and I find the original Metroid unplayable. I don't care what historical value it has, it is an old school pain fest for me. I tried playing it back in the day and didn't make it far. I've tried playing again more recently and faired no better. As such, I have a considerably different take on old school Metroid vs. new school Zero Mission.

It is true that the original Alien movie inspired Metroid. Alien was dark and foreboding, full of sci-fi industrial set pieces. Metroid did the best it could with the technology of the time to emulate this. Well, it certainly was foreboding. However, I really wouldn't call repetitive rooms and a flat black background spooky. As far as capturing the mood goes, Zero Mission does just fine. It adds detail to the world of Zebes without making it a remotely friendly place.

I gotta' be honest here; the goofy way Samus runs in the original is a mood killer by itself.

As for the supposed “comic book jibber-jabber” in Zero Mission...where? Other than a little plot text, the game is mute. It adds some nice background in the form of a late game cut scene that ties Zero Mission into the established history of the series but that's it. I recall no “bombardment of ancient wisdom” anywhere in the story. There's also an accusation of egregious hand-holding rampant in the game play. Compared to the original, this could be seen as true. Metroid offered nothing to the player in direction. You are turned loose on the planet without a map and no more directive than to kill the alien menace. The supposed hand holding in Zero Mission consists of a Super Metroid style map and a little cursor that indicates a target location, though no help on how to actually get there. I'm okay with this. Having goals gives the player an incentive to keep moving. You might find the hint system intrusive, but is it so bad that it eliminates exploration? If you want to see an obnoxious level of hand-holding in a Metroid game, play *Metroid Prime 3: Corruption or *Metroid Fusion. What I see in Zero Mission is easily ignored. As for the “openendedness” of the original; that's just a romantic way of saying it was really easy to get lost.

Speaking of romanticized views, many a Metroid fan waxes eloquent on how the series mood is all about isolation. I disagree. I see it as being all about independence. Samus needs no overseer, no matter how hostile and strange the world she finds herself on. She, and the player through her, is utterly self-sufficient and powerful because of this. This does not mean the world must be void of friendly life forms to maintain this reality. This is the way I feel when I play, as such, I've always found the negative reaction to the presence of ailed aliens and Chozo childhood flashbacks to be, well, silly.

When the player finally reaches the end of Metroid, a battle with a stationary target ensues and a timely escape must be accomplished: the end. Zero Mission goes a different route and gives us an unexpected treat by extending the game. I loved the stealth section. It added a well done change-up in the game play that brought in variety while being short enough to not overstay its welcome. Being chased by Space Pirates reflected the panic induced by the S-AX sequences found in Metroid Fusion (though perhaps not quite as intensely). Plus, there's the bonus of satisfaction to be had when you finally gain your full power, head back into the pirate ship, and reduce your foes to chunky salsa. Samus probably wasn't laughing maniacally while doing this but I was. The only beef I have with the stealth section is that it introduced the Samus spandex cat-suit, er, I mean Zero Suit; inspiration for hundreds of insulting pieces of fan art.

No surprise, I find Zero Mission to be an improvement over the original Metroid in every way. It's not simply a great recreation, making the game much more accessible to a larger audience, but it updates the game play and adds new twists to surprise even the veterans. Zero Mission isn't just an ace remake, it sets an example for how to take an aged game and breath new life into it while paying homage to the original material.

* Corruption and Fusion are awesome, but certain helper characters in these games need to just shut up and let Samus do her job.

For Love of the Game: Metroid II Remakes

A Letter to the Industry: How to Destroy the Female Gender Barricade

Amber Ahlborn — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Girl gamers, how to attract more women to games, making games for girls, various takes on these topics have been popping up a lot lately. This is a subject quite close to my own heart and I have compiled a few suggestions for game developers to consider when making their next title (assuming said game is aimed at an audience broader than “randy male youth”). These are not suggestions for how to make a game just for girls but rather, how not to drive us away...

Suggestion 1: Do not insult 50% of your potential audience.

In games where characters have any developed personality at all, male characters run the full gambit of possibilities while females typically fall into just four categories.

The Twit – Cute, clueless, possibly a Cloudcuckoolander. Is often your prize at the end of a rescue mission.

The Tomboy – Can handle herself in a fight and has the personality of a brick. That's okay though because she has the biggest bust size and probably wears leather.

The Innocent – Sweet and modest. She's typically unsure of herself until she gets a pep talk. Will do anything for her man even if it's impossibly stupid and/or suicidal. Usually the hero's love interest.

The Feisty One – Cute and spunky. Often a child. If she's at least within a five year range of the age of consent will probably be wearing some variation of Daisy Dukes.

This is not to say you can't find strong, self assured women who need absolutely no help kicking ass. After all, there's uuuhhh... Ultimecia, The Boss, Leorina, wait those are all villains/adversaries. Nice, strong woman = Bad! Kill it! Well, as awful as the personality limits tend to be, the body type category is even worse.

Unless you are making a game for the Playboy crowd, do not put a T&A girl in your game if you do not also have a Chippendales guy. Now, of course we like our game characters to be good looking. It's like the movies and Hollywood Homely; important characters never look ugly unless they look hideous. However, there is a difference between sexy and hypersexualized. If your female characters have gelatin filled watermelons strapped to their chests, watermelons that follow their own personal laws of physics, you have a problem. If your female character's skin tight outfit is so skin tight it looks painted on, you have a problem. Again, we do have positive role models. There's the lovely Jade and the mostly unseen Samus Aran. Alas, Nintendo does earn my Golden Kick-in-the-Groin Award for making the end game cheesecake shot a series tradition. I must ask the guys, would the complete absence of Samus smut turn you off the series? Is Metroid Prime the worst game in the series because Samus failed to *show skin?

Suggestion 2 – Do not assume male as the default.

The sex of most game characters is completely irrelevant. It has no bearing on the game what so ever. Did that hedgehog/purple dragon/space marine/ninja have to be a guy? Studies have shown that while guys have no avatar preference, women prefer to play as female characters. Next time you design a badass Longcoat, make it a girl. That grizzled old mentor with the BFS in your RPG? Why not a woman? The bald space marine? Hey, Ripley made the look work for her.

Suggestion 3 – Sure, sex sells, but why are you only selling to half your potential customers?

Story time. While I was perusing the shelves of a game store, I saw a box for an RC car racing game. I pulled it out and looked at the back of the box. You raced remote controlled monster trucks around tracks in toy rooms, parks, and other such locales. I flipped the box to its front and what do I see? There is an RC monster truck jumping over the ample chest of a bikini clad woman with a lip puckered “Oh My!” expression on her face. Really? It did not convince me to buy it.

I have no doubt that the advertising department has the hardest job in trying to sell games to women. The reason is as simple as it is depressing. Growing up, girls aren't taught that women pioneered the field of computer programming, we're discouraged to try hard in math class because “girls aren't good at math”. We aren't encouraged to like electronics, because “computers are boy toys”. We aren't encouraged to get into the game industry, because “it's a masculine job”. What the advertising department is really up against is generation upon generation of mental conditioning of women to not like or even look at your products. We have been lied to and asking somebody to make an ad that undoes that damage is one hell of a tall order. It is getting better though, more women are gaming and the more visible they are, the more the effect will snowball. Just make sure your poster girls aren't air brushed super models.

Final Word – No pink necessary or desired. Besides, it's a *boy color.

If you make a game for a guy, it's probably just as fun for a gal. Also, elements like more interesting stories and deeper characters seen as being attractive to women are also appreciated by men. So where is the dividing line between a girl game and a guy game? There simply isn't one. Sex specific appeal exists at the opposite poles, but there is no dividing line in the vast middle, where most games fall. All you, the game developer, need to avoid is building a gender barricade in the first place.

* aside from her head

* actually it's gender arbitrary, pick whatever you like

Ms. Pac-Man: Feminist Champion

John Constantine — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Get into a conversation with a gamer about feminist icons in their medium of choice and they’ll probably give you one answer: Samus Aran. Miss Aran is the take-no-prisoners bounty hunter star of Nintendo’s twenty year-old Metroid series. She’s capable, powerful, athletic, a natural blonde, and she takes no-guff from space pirates, space jellyfish, or giant brains perched atop tyrannosaurus-rex bodies. There’s a huge problem though. In almost every Metroid, a better performance in the game is rewarded with images of a de-robed, tarted-up Samus. See what I mean?

Way to pour a steaming pile of objectification all over my empowered female protagonist, Nintendo!

Gaming’s true feminist is Ms. Pac-Man. Observe!

Thanks to Gwynne and Feministing for the education.

The Ten Videogames That Should Have Been Controversial, Part 3

John Constantine — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:13:00 GMT

Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!

We cite Punch-Out!! here not for starring Mike Tyson (a controversial figure, even before his rape conviction), but for the degree to which it epitomizes a trend that would dominate gaming in the late-'80s and early-'90s: the "beat up stereotypes from around the world" gameplay model. Granted, most of Punch-Out!!'s characters are too ludicrous to really offend; it's hard to imagine Pacific Islanders getting all up in arms about King Hippo being kind of a jackass. That said, the sight of cross-eyed Piston Honda babbling "Sushi, Kamikaze, Fujiyama, Nipponichi!" as a mid-match battle cry is a little unsettling. — PS

Persona 3

I’ve written about Persona 3’s disturbing imagery before: “It’s always strange when games filled with truly troubling imagery go unnoticed by the most vocal anti-game pundits. Persona 3, Atlus’ exceptional RPG in the long running Shin Megami Tensei series, has been released not once but twice in the past twelve months without eliciting even a peep out of Joe Lieberman or Focus on the Family. For those unfamiliar with the game, the reason Persona 3 might ruffle some feathers is its protagonists, a team of troubled high school students who control guardian spirits to battle demons. And oh yeah, they release these spirits by shooting themselves in the head.” Seriously! Teens! Shooting themselves repeatedly in the FACE! No one even said anything about all the teens shooting themselves in the face. — JC

Metroid II: Return of Samus

Metroid II is about xenocide; your goal is to slaughter an entire alien species. Yes, there are many games about destroying evil alien species. Usually, though, said species are attacking the Earth or something. Or they're at least competent to make moral decisions. Metroids are space jellyfish. They're not evil, they're just hungry. And the series storyline establishes pretty clearly that the Space Pirates are breeding the things for their own evil ends. Exterminating the Space Pirates would be one thing, but the Metroids are mere low-functioning animals. As you proceed through the game, you watch a steadily declining count of how many of the poor little bastards you have left to vaporize. Imagine if this thing was set in a nature preserve. — PS

Fable

Peter Molyneux may not have delivered on his promise of creating the greatest role-playing game of all time with Fable but it was still a remarkably forward thinking game. Consider this: Fable was released in the United States on September 14th, 2004, a mere four months after Massachusetts started issuing same-sex marriage licenses and two months before senatorial, congressional, and presidential elections where constitutionally banning same-sex marriage was a tent pole issue. I applaud Molyneux for creating a game where a man can fall in love and marry another man. But I am shocked that Fable didn’t cause videogame content to be another talking point that election season. — JC

Click here for Part 1
Click here for Part 2

Previous Top Tens:
The Ten Greatest Opening Levels in Gaming History
The Ten Most Adventurous Sequels
The Ten Greatest Fire Levels

The Ten Videogames That Should Have Been Controversial, Part 2

John Constantine — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:12:00 GMT

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Call of Duty 4 is a game obsessed with realism, its depiction of combat situations and the tools of war meticulous to an almost terrifying degree. Early in the game, you are placed in the gunner’s seat of an AC-130 Spectre over a Ukrainian field, the night vision view of an aerial assault looking no different than an Iraq war newscast, the radio confirmation of kills unsettlingly casual; a game so realistic that it mimics a soldier’s detachment from killing. It’s strange then that the game, for all its incessant specificity, sends the player to kill Arab soldiers in “the Middle East”, and not an actual nation. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has sold over seven million copies in a war-weary United States in under a year. Am I the only one who finds this sort of depersonalization unsettling? — JC

Mick and Mack: Global Gladiators

Fast-food promotional games are pretty fucked up, as a whole. Selling this nasty grub to kids via smiling cartoon characters and hop-and-bop platforming — well, it may not cross over into "immoral", but it's certainly sleazy. The 1992 McDonald's promo-piece Mick and Mack: Global Gladiators, however, crosses that line by hopping onto the kid-friendly environmentalism in vogue at the time. (See also Captain Planet, Sonic the Hedgehog, etc.) The problem here is that McDonald's' own environmental record was far from clean; as a massive distributor of factory-farmed beef, the company was (and is) directly responsible for a huge amount of pollution, deforestation and energy wastage. Bastards were cutting down the same sparkling-green rainforests through which their grinning shills were merrily traipsing. — PS

Heavenly Sword

It might seem strange that we’ve chosen to single-out Heavenly Sword as our example of an absurdly over-sexualized female protagonist. Dead or Alive, a series that’s persisted for just over a decade now without causing a kerfuffle despite its bizarre, hyper sexuality, might seem like a more logical target. You might even say that Heavenly Sword’s a poor example considering its emphasis on Nariko’s empowerment in a male dominated fantasy world. But let me ask you, if Nariko is such a great warrior, savior of her people even though they hate her for being a woman, why does she go to war in her underpants? She is fighting people with swords in her underpants. No one thought mention to developer Ninja Theory that underpants are not effective armor? Nariko stands in for the legions of silly, objectified, hyper-sexualized female game protagonists. We’re giving Lara the day off on this one. — JC

Click here for Part 1
Click here for Part 3

The Ten Videogames That Should Have Been Controversial, Part 1

John Constantine — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:11:00 GMT

Games have been raising hackles since their inception. Howell Ivy kick-started gaming and controversy’s relationship when he designed Death Race in 1976, a simple black and white game that was, well, about running people over for points. That was enough to get America riled up, prompting 60 Minutes to run the first of many, many televised news stories about the psychological effects of gaming. But public outrage is unpredictable. Politicians and parent groups have been shocked by d-list titles like Manhunt and Night Trap while more popular, widely played games with far more inflammatory content have passed by unnoted. Today, 61 Frames Per Second presents The Ten Videogames That Should Have Been Controversial. A number of these are games that we are surprised did not cause uproar in a number of communities. The rest are games that we ourselves find seriously questionable in content. How do you feel about these videogames? Indifferent? Appalled? Leave a comment and let us know. — John Constantine

NARC

I don't know about you, but I have at least a couple of friends who have occasionally sold drugs. They're pretty lucky they grew up in the relatively permissive '90s, and not in the merciless, Reaganite '80s presented in NARC. Sure, NARC gives you bonus points for arresting dealers instead of killing them, but that's because it's almost impossible to do. Far easier is just perforating them on the spot. As my fellow blogger Cole notes, "I guess dismembering hundreds is okay if they're pushin'." In fact, there was some parental outrage over NARC's unprecedented level of gore, but its moral assumptions went pretty much unchallenged. — Peter Smith

Pokémon

Have you ever noticed that there are no regular, powerless domesticated animals in any of the Pokémon games, cartoons, comics et cetera? Let's say your pre-teen brother/sister/cousin goes out for a walk one day and comes across a pigeon in the street. They then capture this pigeon in a small cage and train it to fight the dogs, lizards and ponies that the other neighborhood kids have captured and trained to fight, as well as stray cats and sewer rats that can then be captured and trained for similar purposes. Yeah, that scenario is a little awesome, but it's also pretty horrifying, right? When Michael Vick is involved in a dogfighting circuit, the media explodes with rage, but when your kids do it in a Nintendo game it gets rated E for Everyone by the ESRB. — Derrick Sanskrit

Final Fantasy Tactics

As much as Final Fantasy Tactics’ tale of political intrigue in the feudal fantasy-scape of Ivalice is concerned with a power struggle between church and state, it’s hard to get past the game’s barely veiled indictment of Christian lore. Tactics' villains are essentially the Catholic Church. Their central figure is Saint Ajora, a 'child of God' with twelve disciples, one of whom betrayed him and sent him to his death. 'Cept it turns out Ajora wasn't really the son of God, but a power-hungry war-mongering mortal who was sneakily made divine through church skulduggery and historical revisionism. Good thing RPGs require so much reading, otherwise there might have been some good ol’ fashioned game burnings back in 1998. — JC

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The Ten Greatest Opening Levels in Gaming History, Part 3

John Constantine — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 01:45:00 GMT

Sonic the Hedgehog - Green Hill Zone

By the time the original Sonic the Hedgehog came out, Super Mario World had been out for six months in Japan. In almost every way, Mario had the edge on Sonic — more levels, more power-ups, more variety, more gaming. But there was one thing you couldn't take away from Sonic, and that was the sheer dazzle of starting up the game and entering Green Hill Zone. To this day, Green Hill Zone looks spectacular, with its sparkling ocean, lush vegetation and abstract geometry — not to mention Masato Nakamura's unforgettable music. Mario had a lot to offer, but in terms of pure physicality, most of Dinosaur Land seems awfully drab next to Green Hill Zone. (Plus, it was 1991 — "zones" were just cooler than "lands", for Chrissakes.) — PS

Shadow of the Colossus - Valus

Shadow of the Colossus’s opening moments are less mysterious, and therefore less grand, than the opening moments of Ico. As players, we are given exposition and context through narration (however vague it may be) and the game’s protagonist Wander states a clear goal while an evil god tells him how to achieve it. This is a far cry from the confounding and almost entirely silent internment of a horned boy in a decaying castle. But Shadow of the Colossus’ first level, toppling the colossus Valus, is a singular moment in gaming history. Valus stands at one end of an enclosed valley opposite you and, at first, it doesn’t seem that big. Then you run towards it, feeling the ground shake through your controller, the music swells, and you jump on its enormous leg, searching for a handhold. It is, in the truest sense of the word, epic. Even God of War 1 and 2’s opening battles against the hydra and the Colossus of Rhodes seem miniscule in comparison. — JC

Metroid Prime - Space Pirate Frigate

To fully appreciate the beginning of Metroid Prime, play through the beginning of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Both openings teach you how to play the game, but Twilight Princess teaches you like you're in the remedial class, instead of someone who (knowing Nintendo's fan base) probably has a doctorate in Zelda. It takes hours of cat-placating, monkey-placating and goat-herding to even get a sword. Prime takes it easy on you, but you never feel condescended to. Its tutorials are thoroughly skippable; expert players can finish the Space Pirate Frigate in five minutes flat. But beyond that, it's a beautiful, self-contained introduction to the game's spooky atmosphere. Every console Zelda after A Link to the Past has started you out in a village full of whiners you have to coddle before you get to adventure. Prime throws you into a dark, eerie spacecraft where something horrible has happened. Get in and get out before its orbit decays and you die. Chills. — PS

Half-Life 2 – City 17

“Wake up, Mr. Freeman. Wake up, and smell the ashes.” As Gordon Freeman, your journey through the bleak streets of City 17 begins a mere sixty seconds after the game’s title has faded to black. The mundane environment tells you everything you need to know about how life works in a world where civilization has crumbled; tired and scared citizens mutter in the corners of a train terminal, Combine soldiers threaten and abuse, and rare familiar faces urge you to escape immediately. Half-Life’s greatest success has always been keeping the player in constant control of the action while still herding them along a set path. Half-Life 2’s opening level, Freeman’s arrival in City 17 and his flight from the Combine across the city’s rooftops, engages and informs in equal measure while providing an immediate thrill through play. It’s remarkable that a first-person shooter’s most memorable level is its first, a level where not a single shot is fired. — JC

Click here for Part 1
Click here for Part 2

Previous Top Tens:
The Ten Most Adventurous Sequels
The Ten Greatest Fire Levels

The Ten Greatest Opening Levels in Gaming History, Part 2

John Constantine — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 01:30:00 GMT

Metal Gear Solid 2 – The U.S.S. Discovery

The opening level of Metal Gear Solid 2 is the finest Metal Gear game ever made in-and-of itself. Forget Hideo Kojima’s cinematic pretensions for just a moment and think about the raw play available in this self-contained prologue scenario. The tools of MGS’ trade may not be available to Snake in their totality here, but every inch of the tanker acts as a playground for the series' most fundamental mechanics. You can sneak through without ever being seen or you can kill every Russian soldier you come across. There is an expertly paced boss fight. There is skin-mag related humor. It’s all here. Now layer Kojima’s cinematic pretensions back on top of all that considering they are at their best (read: most restrained) here and you have a beginning that is, arguably, superior to anything the follows or precedes it in the entire series. — JC

Mega Man X - Awakening Road

This is not your father's Mega Man, says the opening stage of Mega Man X. Or it would, if it had a voice — but instead, it's got a brutal snare roll leading into a heavy rock instrumental. It's got a crumbling highway, complete with fleeing commuters (the latter of which ground the action in a more inhabited world than the NES Mega Man games ever featured.) And it ends with X almost getting scrapped by a mech-riding Boba Fett ripoff. Whatever our love for the classic Mega Man series, it never had this kind of drama. — PS

Einhander – Imperial Capital

Shoot ‘em ups, both vertical and horizontal, are usually gradual experiences. Gradius set the standard: an opening level that acclimates you to both the game’s challenge and its setting, you are the aggressor, going into a place to reach its center where defenses will be strongest. Also, excluding rare exceptions like 1942, shmups are fairly fanciful in scenario. More often than not, you’re fighting aliens, robots, monsters, etc. Einhander doesn’t start slow. Your ship flies into the middle of a bustling metropolis, literally crashing through neon billboards before racing through its ruined foundation. It is a human place and you are fleeing it, your first enemies police in pursuit. There’s a lot about Einhander that’s memorable, from Kenichiro Fukui’s techno soundtrack to its genius weapons system. But nothing sticks with you like the Imperial Capital. — JC

Click here for Part 1
Click here for Part 3