61 Frames Per Second : tron

Rockman's Anti-PETA Rampage

Nadia Oxford — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 04:06:00 GMT

A lot of people love Mega Man Legends on the Playstation, but they have no idea how easy it is to abuse animals in the original Japanese title, Rockman Dash.

Seriously, Rockman can really kick the shit out of God's creatures.

For starters, there's a scene early in the game where Tron is treed by Paprika the rat dog. In the American version of the game, Mega Man negotiates with the furry terrorist. In the Japanese version, you can make Rockman's foot negotiate with the dog's ass. Paprika squeals and books it across the city. It's pretty hilarious.

Less hilarious is Rockman's ability to shoot down birds. When Samus shoots birds in Metroid Prime, it's funny because they explode with a perturbed “Caw!” When Rockman indulges in duck season, the birds just float to the ground silently and lay there, broken, before flashing and fading away.

Flashback city to overzealous air rifle mishaps.

Worse, Rockman can kick around the adorable white-socked black cats who tend to hang around the game's ruins. This is especially heartbreaking when you consider that you can beat up on the one cat you're allowed to take aboard the Flutter—the same cat who quickly gives birth to kittens thereafter.

I know this has you intrigued, because you are a bad person. All instances of animal abuse in Rockman Dash have been neatly chronicled in a YouTube video that follows after the jump.

As fans well know by now, Mega Man Legends 2 actually lets Mega Man dominate the animal kingdom with his boot. There are consequences, though: his armour turns black (so does his skin, distressingly), and he's marked as a thug. Townspeople lose their trust for him, and Roll becomes upset.

If things get bad enough, Roll confronts Mega Man and confides that she's worried about losing him. Mega Man has two options at this point. He can promise Roll that he'll clean up his act, or he can tell her, quote, “Leave me alone, you old busybody!”

Just another point in Mega Man Legends' long, long list of Win.

(Special thanks to Protodude's Rockman Corner.)

Related Links:

Underrated: Mega Man Legends Series
Sonic the Hedgehog: I'm Just Not That Into You
The Reason Why Mother 3 Never Came to America

Returning to the Return of the Castle Wolfenstein Returned: This Time It’s Just Plain Ol’ Wolfenstein

John Constantine — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 02:30:00 GMT

Guest contributor Adam Rosenberg covers games from his secret lair in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, typing, reading and playing the days away as his dog Loki looks on in bewilderment. In addition to the noble pursuit of video games, Adam enjoys spending time with fine film, finer food and his fine fiancée Bekah.

There must be a considerable amount of tension around Raven Software’s offices as they prepare Wolfenstein, the latest sequel to the id Software’s grand-pappy of all first-person shooters. After all, the once-cool practice of gunning down Nazis with a beefy chain gun isn’t the uncommon gaming experience it once was. Then there’s Raven, whose talent is eclipsed not only by their recent history of releasing numerous interchangeable genre titles, but also living in the shadow of id themselves. That isn’t necessarily bad news for Wolfenstein, but it does have the effect of keeping expectations firmly in check. Seeing it at Activision’s New York City preview party certainly didn’t raise those expectations. A few minutes of watching Wolfenstein gave a bad impression: another generic World War II shooter with less-than-stellar graphics and straightforward action.

It’s when I stuck around for a few more minutes that things started to get odd. For example, there were suddenly Nazis flying through the air in slow motion. Turned out to be anti-gravity. That’s kind of weird. Then there was B.J. Blazkowicz using a magical amulet to “see” Nazis on the other side of a wall. And then shoot them. Not so conventional anymore. And that’s when the Veil descended. Apparently, B.J.’s fancy new amulet — picked up early in the game — allows BJ to slip into an “otherworld” at will, a place/state-of-being called the Veil. The makeup of the world remains roughly the same within the Veil, though everything is cast in aqua-green hues and spectral bee-like insects fly around lazily, gathering energy. The Veil is ethereal. Other. (Think Tron.) When inside the Veil, weak points are highlighted on enemies, an essential feature when dealing with larger, armored soldiers. The single heavy I saw during the demo was a sort Brotherhood of Steel/Imperial Stormtrooper amalgam armed with a weapon shooting blasts of the green energy blanketing the Veil. BJ will also need to slip into the Veil to access the amulet’s magical abilities; a time-slowing power was shown, but the on-screen amulet’s four slots suggest more Nazi-killin’ powers.

Put aside BJ’s supernatural powers and you’re still left with rote Nazi-killin’, right? Wrong. Wolfenstein is set in the city of Eisenstadt, an open environment situated around a central hub, with new areas opening as the game progresses. What’s more, there are three non-Nazi factions populating the city: Nazi resistance fighters, scholars who harbor an interest in the amulet and a shadowy black market. Players will be able to pick up optional missions to earn money, which can then be spent on the black market to upgrade or buy weapons. But the open world and non-linear play is not enough to justify the game’s existence. There needs to be an immersive experience attached to it, one that leaves room for player-tailoring to co-exist with a scripted storyline. This is what made Far Cry 2 stand-out from the over-crowded FPS field. It is, however, encouraging to see Raven stepping away from the generic corridor shooter towards the faux-RPG trappings of their Jedi Knight series. Time – and additional previews and hands-on sessions – will tell, but first impressions at least point to a new direction for the Wolfenstein series. That’s saying something for a series that created its genre.

Related links:

Bringing Sexy Back: John Carmack
Whatcha Playing: Far Cry 2
John’s Games of 2008: Year of the Open World

Trailer Review: Edge

Derrick Sanskrit — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:30:00 GMT

Take a gander at this trailer for Edge, the new iPhone/iPod Touch game released today by mobile phone game developer mobigame and feel the waves of nostalgia for a game you've never even played.

In its presentation, Edge is equal parts Marble Madness, Q*Bert, and Tron, but it clearly has potential to be ever so much more.

Beautiful isometric geometry, subtle use of color, a soundtrack halfway between 80's new wave and contemporary chiptune, Edge may very well be the stylish iPod counterpart to artsy downloadable console titles like Eden, Everyday Shooter, echochrome, Orbient and Cubello.

As I mentioned above, Edge was just released on the App Store today. As I've been on a serious gaming binge on my iPod Touch lately, I'll be sure to check this one out, but damn is that trailer stylish!

Related articles:
Overworld: Marble Madness
iPhone Owners Are Gamers, Idiots
The Original Adventure - Now Portable
Ports That Need To Be Made: iTouchRez

Ender’s Games: Where Are the Fictional Games?

John Constantine — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:30:00 GMT

Spoiler warning.

After the past two weeks, it’s a wonder that the entire internet didn’t up and die from media poisoning. The combined onslaught of E3 and the San Diego Comic Con have flooded the digital world with write-ups, trailers, screenshots, tie-ins, celebrity voice actors, and a billion other pieces of useless but tantalizing information. Both events were admittedly short on surprises but they both demonstrated that the future is a veritable smorgasbord of interactive entertainment. Strange then that a comic book adaptation of a novel was what got me thinking about the possibilities for videogames more than actual games.

Orson Scott Card was at Comic Con to discuss the graphic adaptation of his novel Ender’s Game. If you’re curious about the plot, I recommend reading the book. Why Ender’s Game got me thinking about videogames as a medium is that it’s one of a number of fictional works that prominently feature imaginary videogames as a central part of their narrative. There are actually two, a spaceship battle simulator – it’s ultimately revealed that the game isn’t a simulator at all, but a digital interface for war – and a second that is more amorphous, a sort of digital storybook that reflects the user’s subconscious. The characters in Ender’s Game play another game, though this one is a physical sport called the Battle Room. Chair Entertainment is currently working on a videogame adaptation of the Battle Room for Xbox Live Arcade. But no one is making real life videogames of the fictional videogames from Ender’s Game.

Why don’t we see more adaptations of fictional videogames? If Orson Scott Card actually helped create actual versions of these digital games, would they enhance the story that spawned them? Why don’t developers find inspiration from fictional videogames? Ron Mallet would have never developed his time machine project if hadn’t read a comic book adaptation H.G. Well’s Time Machine. How many great games are out there that need only to be coded?

Points to the first reader to name one besides the Tron games.

Related links:

The Three Stigmata of the Halcyon Company: Philip K. Dick Comes to Games