Star Wars - Arcade (1980s)

Vector delights ahoy!

Vector graphics. Not often I get to look back far enough and see a game that utilised this kind of display. Battle Zone, Gravitar, Asteroids and Lunar Lander spring to mind as games that used Vector graphics while others used Raster Display to showcase their games. It had its time and place but now seems demoted to quick and simple images such as clipart. But I'm digressing as usual.

Riding upon the huge success that is the Star Wars franchise, Atari made a game that served little significance than to be able to sit down in a mock-up of a cock pit with a flight stick and allow players to BE Luke Skywalker as he assaults the Death Star from the eponymous film.

Large cockpit and flight controls make it a fun experience

Star Wars takes 3 key approaches to the battle between the player and the Death Star. The first being an outer-space dogfight session against various Tie-Fighters, though while not giving the player full control of the direction of the X-Wing, the ship that they pilot, they do get to control the approach and direction of the firepower of the craft in order to try to take down as many ships as they can before they're whisked away to battle the Death Star in one of two possible ways (Depending on if it's your first level or higher).

Now you too can take part in the trench run!

The second key session is a run along the surface of the Death Star and facing off against multiple turrets and towers that will pump out fireballs (not lasers, you can shoot these at least) in an effort to force your shields down and get you killed. There's some level of control to your direction in that in aiming to the left and right will guide your X-Wing in those directions. Which comes in handy when you're trying to avoid sparkly spiky balls of "We're coming for you, still coming for you, yes we're bending our direction to locate you" homing capacity.

Just imagine it's Jar Jar Binks and you'll bullseye it every time.

The final stint in the Star Wars game is the famous Trench Run along the circumference of the Death Star itself. Personified in this case by an impressively built looking trench that is peppered with turrets and shielding while you're barrelling down the alleyway, in later levels you'll have to navigate around and over obstacles such as pillars and blockades while shooting turrets and fireballs before the final showdown between yourself and the exhaust port, one direct hit will kill the Death Star (as killed as a constructed space station qualifies for) and allow you to escape for a fat point boost and then to play it all over but with a significant difficulty spike.... And some vector explosions.

Later rounds add more and more challenges

For such a game, Star Wars has managed to be able to reproduce digitised speech of key phrases from the film ranging from Alec Guinness with "Use the Force, Luke" to Mark Hamill's "I've lost R2!" (usually before biting the big one) and up to and including James Earl Jones with "The Force is Strong with this one", it adds to the experience though little else really comes from the films, but at least they made a significant effort with the speech to lend it that little extra touch of authenticity and give a little extra in allowing players to relive that moment in the film.

Next, same again but harder!

Overall, it'll ramp up the difficulty quickly if it wants to and you may find that while level 1 is a cakewalk, level 2 will be the wakeup call that your reflexes need and by level 4 you'll be frantically shooting down literal streams of fireballs from all walks of opponents to the point that you'll swear that the fireballs are launching fireballs at you. It's bright and animates well given the machine and vectors and manages to create enough of an atmosphere to leave players thinking they're in the film (for 1983, bear that in mind here).

Christmas Special 2014

This Christmas is brought with a little extra. An animated GIF aren't you all lucky!

Full of festive cheer as always.

Merry Xmas all and keep up the good gaming!

Super Probotector/Contra 3: The Alien Wars

And so it begins, on the SNES!

I do have a rather fond relationship with the Probotector/Contra series of games, to a point. That point being this game in particular in which having played the first and second game in the series, then getting a SNES and seeing "Super Probotector" (an odd thing to name all games "super" just because it's on the Super Nintendo, causes a problem when you already called it Super on the NES... Right? SUPER Mario brothers...) and seeing the 8bit classic, favourite and challenge of a console brought to the 16bit era and sitting back and going "....wow..." having spent the first few minutes of the game running through a war-torn city, jumping into a tank, taking out barricades, tanks, being hit with an airstrike, somersaulting over fireballs and eruptions before fighting a giant mutant tortoise. FOR THE FIRST LEVEL.

The dynamic ways in which you'll have to fight enemies, are numerous.

It runs the same format as the other games before it have. You've yourself and maybe a second player, running from left to right with your guns, killing everything that moves and trying to get to the end where you can kill a boss. (usually... this game does mix it up a little). Accompanying this is your new abilities to climb walls, hang from ceilings and supports and now have the ability to select different weapons or fire both at once in a "web of death" spiralling move. You can also carry bombs that wipe out most enemies and do some damage to bosses too.

Because being stalked into the stratosphere wasn't scary enough, bring the spiked walls.

First thing you'll notice is that the graphics are stunning. There's no two ways about that one and the detail and focus on the 16-bit version here is mind-blowing, especially if you've not seen the games after this point. Destroyed cities look like truly dilapidated remnants of once former glorious locations, industrial landscapes as far as the eye can see, deserts within acres of canyons while riding a hover bike through along a fully maintained single road... Ok lost the plot a little on that one. But every single enemy, from standard alien creature up to giant flying armada space boss, looks stunning. The detail has been lavished on in every regard.

"I felt like such a twat when I turned around and saw what really scared them away..."

The gameplay hasn't suffered either. It's fast, it's fluid, your character runs and jumps as smoothly as the best of them and the added collar/shoulder buttons help with the standing still and shooting in all directions function while the jump and shoot are nicely placed as per muscle memory would accept while the switch and bomb buttons are added on and tend to be less used than the others anyway. (Unless you've an auto fire joypad, then it's double gun time!... yes I did do that back in the early 90's). If you die in this game it's for one of two reasons, either you've faced off against an enemy you've never met before or you didn't react in time. The controls are too solid for that to be the error here.

Once again, the computer can do something more cool than I can.

Musically and sound-effects wise, the game is fairly crisp, making good use of the onboard sound capabilities of the Super Nintendo, giving us heart-pounding beats and music filled with adrenaline to the point it'll be dripping from your ears while the shouts, screams, explosions and gunfire is almost constant but never quite enough to overpower the musical ensemble. Though some of the compositions rely on bridges that are dependent upon the character reaching a certain point in the level and it's not quite so smooth in such a transition.

Post-Air-Strike stance.

The multiplayer still holds the same issues that the first games did. If one person tries to make a huge jump that's beyond what you can manage if the screen doesn't scroll, and the other player doesn't jump... Then it's a quick trip to fuck-you town, population YOU.

First boss, suffering from Ectopia cordis (go look it up)

The game will overwhelm you at first, there's just SO much going on in each level, even the top-down levels where your view changes to a birds-eye-view of the battle, the shoulder buttons used to turn left and right and the d-pad to run around, jumping now makes you duck under bullets and some of the weapons take on different properties, the laser in particular is now a short range constant stream rather than the high powered beam weapon it was in the previous level.

Mode 7 used wonderfully here to show level 2. Though you really need to see it in action.

Your power ups range from the mundane but useful machinegun (of which you have anyway), crush gun that's short range but explodes powerfully, the flamethrower that acts like an actual flame thrower, homing bullets that do exactly what you'd expect; builds a house. No. The spread/scatter gun making it's almost trademark appearance and the laser. Bombs that will stop most bullets and small enemies and will also damage larger ones and the occasional Barrier that will give you a colour-coded shield that lets you know when it'll run out.

Level 1 and I get a tank, sadly not much else later on.

Throw in 3 difficulties of varying toughness, including the Hard Mode being the ONLY way to get the True Final Boss (a brain in an armoured suit that chases you up a pit while you're helicoptering out). Some obstacles also become invincible, some bosses speed up or hit in different movements, some enemies will now attack rather than sit in the background. There's a BIG jump from Normal to Hard mode that you will not see from Easy to Normal. In fact, with the Easy mode, you'll wonder why you even bothered, especially when most bosses are rather idle during the fights, the last boss has the 4 easiest options when fighting and you can likely outrun bullets. While conversely for hard mode, you'll be shot faster than you can say "what bulle...?", the last boss hammers you with every option and tends to favour even the grey snake special (you'll dread it when you see it) and then suits up for a final fight afterwards, and the giant turtle on level is invincible save for the heart (you can't break other bits of it).

The video game equivilient of "I'm a huge TIT", with guns.

It's a good example of how to do a strong, solid, run-n-gunner. Learn from it.

Gripe: Console war arguments

Xbox360 vs PS3, Gamecube vs PS2 vs Xbox vs Dreamcast, N64 vs Playstation vs Saturn, Super Nintendo vs Megadrive/Genesis-megacd-32x (actually just a big mess by sega), Nes vs Master System, Gameboy vs Gamegear, iPhone vs Blackberry, shit vs sugar, and the even more ludicrous XboxOne vs PS4 which at the time of writing this are both unreleased and there is only stats, schematics and plans that have changed on BOTH sides.

Now to try to throw my hat into the ring on this one and rather than take an on the fence approach, a middle of the road view, shit or get off the pot view, I’m just going to blow the whole thing apart and say one thing: It’s all bullshit.

Before the internet gave every man, woman, child, berk, idiot and asshole a voice and the supposed sense of self-entitlement to use that voice, most arguments over which console is better was done on school playgrounds. Invariably between those that owned one console, and those that owned another. Few usually could afford to have both so the arguments were based on the simple premise of “This is what I play, it must be good, so therefore I am right” and both sides using that argument with no progression made by either side. The very few kids that had both, tended to stay out and realise they didn’t quite fit into those cliques.

The further back you go, the older the machines being paired up were. However, thanks to the wonderful invention of the internet, coupled with the invention of emails (yes pre-dating it strictly speaking if we’re talking BBS and such but let’s not lose focus of the point), the world wide web because a hotbed of porn, paedophiles chasing kids, police pretending to be kids and people around the world bitching at each other for having a different opinion and HOW DARE THEY before overreacting like ignorant little savages.

I’ll attack the internet’s growth of trolls another day.

Consoles wars have never really progressed from the simple bouts of “Mine is better than yours” until some people with some actual brains started to relive the playground days, online. That was a mistake for a start, they were in the playground days, LEAVE THEM THERE. You go back to a playground nowadays and you’ll be carted off to Mr Big’s personal cell before you can say “Sorry I really was just visiting, I’m not a paedo”, seriously, leave the kids alone now. Digression and tortured metaphor aside, people started to argue on the internet about the old days of consoles and talk turned to playground fights which then spilled into real fights about the old consoles and the new consoles.

And it all got retarded, FAST.

Whether it’s because people couldn’t believe that the arguments and fights they thought they’d won back when they were kids were flaring up again; that people had the sheer audacity to disagree with them when thanks to age they really should know better by now; because of the supposed anonymity the internet provides us with custom names, gamer tags, handles and pseudonyms; people got aggressive and stupid and sadly, in many an argument, downright nasty.

The companies never helped with that back in the 8bit and 16bit eras. Often the marketing slogans of the time would exacerbate the situation with such slogans “Sega does what Nintedon’t” and “With only 6 reasons for something Super and 100 reasons for something Mega, you know what choice to make” the majority being Sega lashing out at Nintendo with rarities like “Not On Sega” being thrown back. Companies going so far as to make up lies on things like “Blast Processing” and of course, kids lapping it up like greedy, mewling babes suckling at the teat of false information, desperate for ammunition in their pointless arguments.

The lack of information being available save for in magazines and adverts that usually were skewed in favour of one product or another was difficult for most people to sift through and find the truly non biased information and just raw facts. Even then, with specifications finally being released and people able to moan and argue that this statistic was higher on this machine than another, few knew what it actually meant and even less understood whether it was worth actually bragging about.

“Blast Processing” anyone?

Roll forwards a while and you’ve gotten the internet as well as more modern consoles kicking around, the large battle by the companies between where the lines blur as to which consoles are actively partaking in battles between popularity contests and hardware matchups. Namely the big companies Sega (before the drop out from home consoles but not software and games), Nintendo (which can always ride the hand-held market and its biggest cash cow, Pokemon), Sony (always a popular choice and seemingly set to take the mature market share) and Microsoft (carrying a lame leg as it’s Microsoft, leaves me wondering if they’d started an offshoot company and called it something like Dennis, would it have fared better...) were shooting it out with N64/Gamecube, PSX/PS2, Xbox, Saturn/Dreamcast. The battleground shifted so much and so often that I do recall one edition of a magazine labelling their paid-for console as being “not the fastest, or most powerful or the only online console, but the best value for money machine on the market”... Once again The best value for money machine on the market, which basically meant: It’s on the way out and cheap as sin but that’s because nobody wants it. Phrased in a way that never appeal to a younger gaming audience.

“Hey, my console is the best value for money” Has NEVER won a single argument in a playground.

These days, it’s mainly the Xbox 360 and PS3 at the time of writing with a healthy, half laughing, but half respectable nod, to the Wii and WiiU. Handhelds are competing now with Smart Phones and tablets as technology blurs the lines further between the definitions. But we still have the same old bullshit on a much more accessible scale. Forums, Social Media, Chat sites are still rife with the same topics, the same fanboy-ism that there always has been.

Oh and saying “I’m not a fanboy” at the start of argument, will excuse nothing at all in the paper thin attempt to mask the underlying bias.

Some people have 2-3 of the main consoles and can claim that they know better because they have them all, it’s still just an opinion and like any opinion, can be slighted, slanted, biased or ill-informed. More importantly, it can be ignored too. The level of anger and abuse stirred up from such arguments is horrifying in several ways. The nature and just the sheer thought that someone can summon up these suggestions, does not make for a good outlook on society. (Though maybe these people SHOULD remain indoors). The abusive, hateful, misogynistic, racist kind of comments that just disgust your core on so many levels that deserve no place in this day and age, being thrown around in discussion (I use the word lightly there, saying “this is shit” is not really a discussion, it’s a statement of a lack of vocabulary and an urgent need of a dictionary and thesaurus)

It often begs the question, why do some people get so angry about such things? Because they’re loyal to the product? Hardly. The companies involved aren’t going to give a damn unless their bottom dollar is going to be affected severely. Until then, customers will be gobbling down that thick turd sandwich. Because they bought an item and aren’t satisfied with their purchase? More likely. That wonderful adage “The grass is always greener...” probably rings more true with people having only the capacity of one console rather than several. Though this is more the sorrow of the Opportunity Cost being emotional rather than monetary.

Perhaps it’s the insecurity of people that are offended by the nature of these arguments because the console they have isn’t the one they wanted, or they aren’t happy with the purchase because all their friends bought something else and now they’re playing alone, that they get so angry about the comments attacking “their” console not because they like the console, but because it reminds them of what they DON’T have. Reminds them of the mistake they supposedly made perhaps?

Which brings me to the current arguments and future arguments... Such wonderful arguments of “XboxOne is shit” or “PS4 is bollocks”, these are the most shameful. Whether it’s a one line argument or in some, ridiculously trumped up cases, actually bringing in statistical information related to the specifications of 2 unreleased machines, or going on the companies histories as their basis of the argument. Let’s see an example “Xbox4 is shit because microsony released a console some years back that didn’t quite do as well as I wanted it to and didn’t play the games I wanted to but all my mates bought it and I did too because I’m too much of a sheep to go against the flow and my parents never loved me enough wah wah wahh...” Sound too damn familiar? I know it is.

None of it matters. Not a single thing.

I could try and put it in some context for people. There are children dying on streets in foreign countries, living homeless in every country including yours dear Reader. In particular, 3.1million children died of starvation and malnutrition across the planet in 2011, this works out to be just over 8493 children per day, which is over 353 an hour, which breaks down to around 6 children per minute.  People starving across the planet, not just in 3^rd world countries and the most annoying, anger-inducing thing is that someone bad talked an inanimate object?

Before anyone tries, I’m not suggesting that playing the wrong console kills kids.

There’s no point arguing over which console is better; it’s just the trumped up hurt egos of idiots attempting to assert their mistakes over others for a greater attempt at accepting their own short comings. Pick a console, or consoles, play the games you want to play and remember it’s a product from an entertainment industry. If you’re not entertained, take it back and get another one.

And for those arguing on hypothetical products that are either not released or just in the paperwork. Get a life and discuss something meaningful in video gaming, like how big Lara Crofts next bra size might be, it’s just as worthwhile a conversation.

Future attacks coming soon on Backwards Compatibility whiners and letting kids play underage games.