61 Frames Per Second : strider

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”

Game Compilations: The Good, the Bad, and the Fugly

John Constantine — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 22:00:00 GMT

Time was, I thought game compilations, museum, and anniversary collections, and anything else you’d want to call them were the cat’s meow. Greatest thing since sliced bread. The *ahem* tits. Then The Mega Man Anniversary Collection for Gamecube came out back in 2004. Fifty simoleons for all eight console Mega Man games plus an opportunity to finally play Mega Man: The Power Battle and Power Fighters? Sounds like a dream come true. Then I found out that instead of the A button making the little blue fella shoot and the B button making him jump, the buttons were reversed for the compilation. There is no way to change this control scheme. It turns playing Mega Man 1 through 6 into a personalized hell, the place where cheat code users go when they die. Compilations are dangerous business because, more often than not, the publisher puts no effort whatsoever into them and people buy them anyway. That’s how you end up with Mega Man’s jumping and shooting getting reversed, how Sega releases not one, but two Sonic the Hedgehog collections with fantastic unlockables that are almost impossible to unlock, and how Namco can release the same damn Galaga/Dig Dug/Pac-man collection nine-hundred times.

Of course, they really can be a treat. Despite all the load times and inaccessible unlockables, the Sonic Mega Collection is still a great way to play Sonic at his best. Occasionally, budget numbers like the Capcom Classics Mini Mix, a no-frills GBA collection with Bionic Commando NES, Strider NES, and Mighty Final Fight, can come along and introduce you to games you’ve never ever heard of. (Seriously, Mighty Final Fight? When did that happen? It’s got mini Haggar!) They are a more palatable alternative to Virtual Console-style downloads too, as far as price is concerned. Sega’s just-announced Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection for PS3 and Xbox 360 comes with forty games, and for thirty bucks you get what Nintendo would charge $120 for on Wii. Plus, they wouldn’t even all fit on the Wii’s memory! But again, the production values are highly questionable. As Jeremy Parish pointed out with the screen Sega released of Shinobi III, the emulation work on this new collection isn’t exactly screaming HD-console-quality visuals. Look at this:

That's a game that Backbone Entertainment has already put on Xbox Live Arcade! It didn't look half that muddy. See?

So, what’s the problem? Why can’t Sega, and every other publisher with a mind to, release well-considered, value-laden collections like the Capcom Classics Collection (which has radical Street Fighter tutorials?)

(Link: Joystiq)

Editor's Note: Pictured at the top is Sega's own Fantasy Zone Complete collection. It is awesome.

Related links:

What I'm Playing This Weekend: Mega Man Anniversary Collection
Sega "Gets" the Wii
Infinite Mega Man 9: Composer Ippo Yamada Talks Living Up to a Serious Musical Pedigree
Where I Draw the Line With Retro
Growl, Snarl, Bark: Screw Attack's Top 10 Genesis Games

Growl, Snarl, Bark: Screw Attack's Top 10 Genesis Games

Nadia Oxford — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 20:30:00 GMT

Nothing instigates Holy Forum Wars like Top Ten Lists. I've seen them all; I've smelled the blood as it flowed across the text. Top Ten Toothpicks. Top Ten Clothes Pin Brands. Top Ten Dog Breeds (From one to ten: German Shepherd, Newfoundland, Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Pharaoh Hound, Corgi, American bulldog, Redbone Coon Hound, Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Scottish Terrier, thine Mother, Ha ha ha).

Video game-related Top Tens generate the most fun through flaming bitchslaps and the subsequent weeping. Screw Attack, a site that normally never seeks cheap attention through tits and swears has put together a video collection of the Top Ten Genesis Games with the aid of tits and swears.

The list seems straightforward enough, though some boneheaded things are undoubtedly said. I never played Strider on the NES or Genesis, but I remember it being near and dear to the hearts of those I love. Did the NES version really, er, suck? That really wasn't the impression I got.

I also question Screw Attack's choice of Sonic game. I was blown away by the first Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic 2 perfected near-perfection. Sonic 3 made me aware that the formula was getting a bit old. And I've never, ever been a fan of Sonic 3's music. I know that Michael Jackson contributed to it. I'm not even going to go for the cheap child-diddling joke here. Heck, I grew up in an era (the '80s, far better than your era) where every kid worshiped Michael and wanted to be just like him. Wow, did we ever dodge a bullet. Still, Michael was going through, um, a transition by the mid-'90s and it didn't translate into any kind of video game music I enjoyed. When I listen to the digital equivalent of raindrops hitting an empty tin of beans, I demand the best.

There. I thought I was above Top Ten controversy and I went ahead and got myself sucked into a round of "Sonic 2 was better than Sonic 3, a-bloo-bloo-bloo." I can't wait for Screw Attack's next big project: The Top Ten Game Music Pieces. Ever.

Related Links:

Bionic Commando Is Love: The Bionic Commando Headquarters Top Ten Bionic Arm Uses
Top Ten Favorite Bosses part 1
The Ten Greatest Fire Levels in Gaming History

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

The Ten Greatest Opening Levels in Gaming History, Part 1

John Constantine — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 01:15:00 GMT

First impressions are important, in videogames as they are in life. The first moments you spend with any art can define your experience of it. They compel you to dig deeper, to more carefully consider the work or the hand that crafted it. Other times, they can be so startling that everything that follows is diminished. This week, 61 Frames Per Second looks at the ten greatest opening levels in gaming history. Stick with us past the first one though. They’re all great. — John Constantine

Prince of Persia 2 - Rooftop Chase

The original Prince of Persia was a unique and wonderful game, but it wasn't much for setting. Half the game takes place in a monochromatic dungeon, and the other in a monochromatic palace. 2 quickly makes up for it; about to be executed by the Vizier's goons, the Prince leaps through a window, and from there it's up to you to guide him across the palace rooftops, into the marketplace below, down a long pier, finally leaping into the hold of a departing merchant ship — all with those guards on your tail. The stage is a real nail-biter, and all the more memorable because the rest of the game is comparatively subdued. — Peter Smith

Strider – Saint Petersburg

I won’t lie. There was a time that I watched that glider fly low over terrible Slavic church spires to a brief fanfare of synthetic horns and I believed, for a moment, that I would never leave Eurasia alive. Then I realized that Strider Hiryu’s sword was practically the length of the screen and it could literally make people explode. Strider, as a game, has not aged well in the past twenty years; the control is wonky, you can’t really tell when you’re even hitting something, and there are times when stuff in its stages blows up for seemingly no reason. But that first level remains an incredible spectacle, coated in color and character, a place where robot tigers will scale towers and entire Russian parliaments will turn into hammer-and-sickle wielding robot dragons. Fighting robot apes and hordes of half-naked amazons a few levels later just seems pedestrian after that. — John Constantine

Final Fantasy VII - Assault on Mako Reactor #1

Presumably your retinas have just detached as a result of your vigorous eye-rolling. Re-attach those suckers and hear me out here: no matter how bloated, overrated and over-fanboyed Final Fantasy VII might be in retrospect, its opening is masterful. Up until that game, RPGs never started fast. You loaded up your neophyte warriors with whatever cloth armor and rusty dinner knives you could afford on your starting wage of ten gold pieces, and then you sent them out to the local forest to get their asses handed to them by killer squirrels until they could upgrade to some new silverware. Final Fantasy VI was a step in the right direction, with its haunting approach to a frozen, gloomy northern town. But VII's opening is still a dramatic highlight of the series, segueing from a lyrical vision of a flower girl in the streets, to a full view of a vast futuristic city, to a tense assault on a huge power reactor, all to the strains of the Blade Runner-esque suite that is Nobuo Uematsu's immortal "Opening/Bombing Mission." Put that jackass with the Sephiroth tattoo out of your mind, and take a minute to appreciate the scope and excitement of this sequence. — PS

Click here for Part 2
Click here for Part 3