Category Archives: Video Games

June 9, 2013

Console Gaming in 2013 and Beyond: The End?

By Joe
Xbox One: the next best thing or bringer of doom?

Xbox One: the next best thing or bringer of doom?

Video game technology has come a long way since I first picked up a Nintendo controller.  In a way, it kind of blows my mind that kids today get to experience Skyrim or Red Dead Redemption as their introduction to gaming.  I often wonder if these kids can even go back and play Super Mario Bros. 3 or Duck Tales and find any enjoyment there.  And really, the leaps in technology have come quickly.  When measured strictly in terms of visual quality, it expanded slow in the 80’s before exploding in the 90’s as we experienced the move from the 16 bit era to the 32/64 bit era.  That was probably the biggest jump in terms of visual quality though going from the Playstation to the Playstation 2 was also a pretty big deal.  It would seem such advances are now behind us.  While it is undoubted that the current, and soon to be expiring, consoles look better than what came before, it’s a little more subtle.  What has been shown so far for the upcoming Playstation 4 and Xbox One has certainly looked good, but I can’t imagine there are several gamers plugged into these big reveal conferences wetting themselves over what the next generation of console games will look like.

As time moves on, console developers have needed to separate the past from the future with something other than graphics.  These developers have sought to advance gaming in other ways, such as through new controller configurations or a better online experience.  Other advances have sought to integrate the console into the living room better with Blu Ray drives and television viewing features.  This is all well and good as, for the most part, if gamers wanted to ignore these tack-on features they could, but all that may be changing.

I refuse to believe there are people out there who don't enjoy controlling a bouncy Scrooge McDuck.

I refuse to believe there are people out there who don’t enjoy controlling a bouncy Scrooge McDuck.

Microsoft has seemingly never been afraid to push something onto consumers even if they don’t want it.  They first stirred the pot by including a hard drive on the first Xbox paving the way for mandatory game installs.  No longer could playing a game be as simple as inserting the disc into the system and picking up a controller.  There was also the broadband only requirement for Xbox Live, and the charge for a Live account, that got many gamers all upset, but not upset enough to boycott the console.  The Xbox 360 has been a best-seller outside of Japan, so if Microsoft temporarily irked its audience it apparently wasn’t enough to turn them away.  This is marketing in the internet age.  Just about every news outlet allows its readers to sound off in comments at the conclusion of an article and it seems like 90% of these comments are always negative, but rarely do they seem to carry any weight.

Microsoft (and possibly Sony) appear ready to test the gaming community once more with the recently announced Xbox One, which is set to go on sale later this year.  After a confusing debut, Microsoft has recently clarified a few things about its console that currently has the internet up in arms.  Gaming is about to get more complicated and Microsoft has positioned itself, for now, as the villain in this regard.  While the Xbox One will certainly include things that will no doubt advance the quality of gaming, it’s presently overshadowed by all of the things that figure to drag the gaming experience down.

Lets first start with the always online thing.  Always online games, which require a dedicated internet connection in order to play, are fast becoming one of the more hated games of this era.  The always online thing used to apply only to online-only games like EverQuest and World of Warcraft, but has recently snuck into single-player games as well.  Blizzard included this feature in Diablo III, and EA recently did the same for the latest edition of Sim City.  Disaster ensued when the servers couldn’t handle the volume of gamers rendering these games unplayable at times.  Sim City was a particular disaster and if we’re lucky it has soured publishers from forcing this upon the gaming community for the time being.  I don’t think it’s gone though, and the Xbox One promises to make it possible for future games to include this by requiring the console to go online once every 24 hours.  What happens if your Xbox One is unable to connect to the internet after 24 hours?  Simply put, it ceases to function as a game console even though that’s its primary function!  This figures to have the greatest impact on soldiers serving overseas and on the younger crowd.  I know as a kid I’d make trips to Grandma’s with my trusty console in tow.  If I was subjected to that now I’d be shit outta luck if Grandma didn’t have a broadband connection.  Microsoft says its console needs to go online once a day because a big part of how the console functions requires access to a cloud network.  That may be true, but it’s more likely they just want to better manage what is being played on the console, which brings us to the next subject that’s really ticking people off.

Used games, or sharing games, figures to be a thing of the past.  Or at least, a less convenient way to play games.  The new cloud function will allow gamers to install games on their Xbox and then play them from any other Xbox One in the world provided they are able to log into the network.  That’s pretty cool, but it’s also a security feature and an attack on consumer rights.  This feature will also prevent games from being installed on more than one Xbox One at a time.  Since apparently the actual disc won’t be required to play the game, it does make sense that a security feature needed to be added to prevent people from buying one copy and then installing it on several machines.  The easiest way to combat that though, and one PC Gaming has been making use of since CDs became the accepted form of game distribution, was to require the CD also be inserted into the device to play the game.  No one was asking for this to change, but Microsoft decided to do it for probably a multitude of reasons.  By slowly fading out the disc-based gaming experience, it could help push the industry to a digital only distribution model which would be a cost-saver for publishers.  It also all but ends the used gaming market.

Remember FuncoLand? Not the place to go for a good deal. Just like GameStop!

Remember FuncoLand? Not the place to go for a good deal. Just like GameStop!

The war on used games is something unique to the video game industry.  Second-hand items have always been readily available ranging from small items like CDs or books to big-ticket items like cars and even homes.  It has been established since the birth of our economy that once a consumer buys something they own it and are free to give it away, loan it, or sell it.  If I sell my car today to my neighbor, the manufacturer of that car gets nothing.  If I sell my home the builder who originally built it gets no cut of the sale proceeds.  It’s a model that’s been around forever and few industries complain about it, except game publishers.  It’s a relatively new complaint as well, as games have been getting passed around and re-sold for as long as they’ve been around.  Commercially, it was limited to pawn shops and small electronics dealers before becoming an accepted business model for larger retailers.  I remember Toys R’ Us launching a buy-back program in the 90’s followed by the expansion of FuncoLand which sold only used merchandise.  That store was eventually purchased by GameStop, along with Electronics Boutique, and the used game market was suddenly huge.  Now publishers are getting a real look at how much money is in the used games market, and not in their pockets.  The creation of online achievements for these games also gives them a quick snapshot of how many unique individuals have played their games allowing them to cross-check that number with the number of new copies sold.  Add in auction sites like eBay and now gamers have potential buyers readily available around the globe.

The fallacy in all of this though is that game publishers and developers choose to look at used game sales as lost revenue, when in actuality it was revenue that was probably never available to them in the first place.  A used game at GameStop is often times only a few bucks cheaper than a new copy.  While I’m sure there are people who will choose to save an extra dollar in any given situation, the vast majority will just get a new copy.  Most used game purchases, mine included, are of older titles no longer available in new condition or of games that the consumer would have never purchased anyways for one reason or another.  I do not buy many used games, but the last one I did purchase was Heavy Rain.  I only purchased it because it was cheap and I was really on the fence about whether or not I would like it.  I wasn’t willing to risk 60 dollars when it came out to find out, but at 20 I was.  I ended up enjoying the game a lot and the creators will actually benefit from that when I purchase their next game.  I wouldn’t have done so had I never experienced Heavy Rain though.

Instead of choosing to combat the used games market in a proactive way, it would seem Microsoft is just looking to restrict it as much as possible.  There are still terms to be worked out, but according to Microsoft’s Phil Harrison, simply borrowing a game from a friend and inserting it into your Xbox One will cost you the full MSRP to play it.  They’ve backed off on that slightly by suggesting you’ll be able to loan a game once, but that’s still absurd.  Microsoft has also decided to put the possibility of a used games charge onto the publishers as they try to wash their hands clean of the whole mess.  My expectation is that publishers will negotiate with GameStop, and possibly other big retailers like Amazon, a kick-back for all of their used games sales.  How much is anyone’s guess and what this does to the private market is also up in the air.  The always online thing also raises the question of how many of these games will even be playable in 10-15 years.  I have almost all of my old consoles still hooked up in my house and enjoy going back to them from time to time.  That may not be possible for nostalgic Xbox One owners in the future.

It's all about the money, baby!

It’s all about the money, baby!

What irritates me most about this new attack on used games is just how lazy it is.  It used to be that games came in a cardboard box with a fully-illustrated, full-color manual along with some posters and stuff.  Now they often come with no inserts, unless it’s an ad for a new game, in a generic case.  Back in the 90’s, when buying a used game often times it was just the game which affected the decision of whether or not to go used or go new.  Cost-cutting measures have made used games practically identical to new ones.  Publishers should be focused on enhancing the experience of buying a game new, not trying to restrict people from buying it used.  EA got a lot of backlash for it, but I have never had a problem with giving consumers who chose to buy a game new additional content, as long as the used version was still playable.  This meant EA would charge a fee for enabling the online component of some of their games for those who bought them new.  As long as the online portion wasn’t necessary for completing the game, I was fine with this.  They’ve actually done away with the practice siting consumer response, but now I’m wondering if they stopped because they were aware of how used games would function on consoles going forward.

I should point out, this post has focused on Microsoft’s new machine and made them out to be the bad guy, but it’s entirely possible (if not likely) that Sony’s Playstation 4 will be the same.  While the whole cloud integration thing, or lack there of, may give Sony’s machine more freedom I fully expect publishers to more or less force Sony to adopt Microsoft’s business model for used games.  As someone who rarely buys or sells used games, I shouldn’t really be concerned.  As a consumer though, I’m outraged and I wonder if this is where I jump off the video game bandwagon.  Both consoles figure to include features I could not care less about such as gesture and voice commands, but if my game-playing experience is compromised in any way then that’s a big concern.  It remains to be seen how second-hand gaming changes, but one thing is for sure, and that’s the future of gaming is more uncertain now than it has been since the crash of the 1980’s.  As consumers, as gamers, we’ll be forced to make a difficult decision on how far we go to support our hobby and an industry we’ve all benefited from.  It won’t be easy, but if these terms being dished out for the upcoming consoles are something you’re not comfortable with then the only way to fight back is with your wallet.  I’m already ruling out a purchase of an Xbox One, an admittedly easy decision for me as I never even owned a 360.  The ball is now in Sony’s court, and next week’s E3 figures to be a real game-changer.  Will Sony step up and do the right thing and maintain the status quo as it concerns consumer rights, or take the easy way out and follow the Microsoft model?

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June 2, 2013

Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade’s Revenge

By Joe
Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge (1992)

Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade’s Revenge (1992)

Expectations influence just about everything we come in contact with.  Expectations can help lead to a more fulfilling experience when those expectations are met.  Other times, they can help make the bad seem worse when something fails to meet though expectations.  When I was a kid and I heard there was going to be a video game featuring a team-up between Spider-Man, possibly the most popular character ever created by Marvel Comics, and the X-Men, easily the hottest comic at the time, I was giddy with anticipation.  This seemed like a no lose situation and Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade’s Revenge vaulted to the top of my list of must own Super Nintendo games along with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV:  Turtles in Time.  One of those games would turn out well and provide me with hours of entertainment, that game was not Spider-Man and the X-Men.

What went wrong?  Well, let’s backtrack a bit first and see how this all came together and if my expectations were even justified.  At the time of the game’s release, Spider-Man had already been enjoying a run on the Sega Genesis and Game Boy as a platform star.  Perhaps star is a bit strong as his games weren’t really great, but they also weren’t particularly awful.  The best was definitely The Amazing Spider-Man vs The Kingpin for the Genesis.  The game was pretty difficult, at times frustratingly so, but it did a great job of making use of the Spider-Man license.  It was also quite popular and one of the best-selling titles at the time.  The X-Men, on the other hand, really only had the one NES game titled The Uncanny X-Men.  It was horrible and it tricked many uninformed gamers into renting or buying it with it’s X-Men branding.  Arguably, the best games for both franchises were the arcade beat-em-ups Spider-Man:  The Video Game and X-Men.  The Spider-Man game came first in 1991 and for some reason it isn’t as well loved and remembered as the X-Men game that followed in ’92.  It was a typical brawler allowing up to four players to join in and included playable characters Spider-Man, Black Cat, Hawkeye, and Sub-Mariner.  It’s selling feature was a more platform inspired design where the camera would zoom out allowing the players to take on gigantic enemies including a super-sized Venom at the end of the first stage.  The X-Men game was similar, but it’s defining characteristic (aside from the comical mistranslations) was the double-monitor cabinet allowing up to six players at once.  Both games were hard as they were designed to suck quarters out of its audience but they were a lot of fun, especially with a group of friends.

I hate these stupid clowns and their stupid stage.

I hate these stupid clowns and their stupid stage.

It would seem to me that a track record was in place that at least suggested a console game featuring these two franchises could be great.  If I had been a little wiser as a kid and more aware I would have taken note of the LJN logo on the box and realized right away the game was going to be a giant turd, but sadly I just wasn’t.  Before I get into what the game did wrong I suppose I should point out what it did right.  First of, Spider-Man is represented fairly well given that he is able to stick to walls, shoot webs, and even make use of his spider-sense in the game.  The roster for the X-Men side is pretty solid as well as it features the obvious choice of Wolverine along with Cyclops, Storm, and Gambit.  Wolverine has an interesting dynamic to him as he retains his mutant healing power but it only works when his claws are retracted.  The game is packed with villains too like Apocalypse, Shocker, Juggernaut, and Carnage.  Arcade is kind of a weird choice for the main villain, but at least his Murderworld offers a lot of possibilities for level-design.

That’s basically it as far as what Spider-Man and the X-Men gets right, and unfortunately it’s a pretty small list.  So what makes this game suck so hard?  Well, lets first start with the presentation.  I’m usually not one to have much of an opinion on the audio within a game.  I expect it to do its job and often times I have to make it a point to touch upon it when doing these reviews because I tend to overlook it.  Here it’s easy to not overlook because the sound is so bad.  The score is okay at times, though certain levels (Wolverine’s) feature an annoying soundtrack.  It’s the FX that really bug me though as they just sound like, for lack of a better word, shit.  A lot of the characters, good and bad, let out a scream when they die that sounds fuzzy and distorted.  The machine sounds are just as bad and Spidey’s web blasts sound like they could be grenades.  The graphics are also piss-poor.  The characters are really small, except Storm but I’ll get to her later, and lacking in any sort of detail.  Wolverine even looks like he only has two claws on each hand while Gambit doesn’t have a face.  Some of the villains are almost unrecognizable, especially Apocalypse who looks like a blue bug or something.

Hey Gambit, where's your face?

Hey Gambit, where’s your face?

Perhaps what bugged me more than anything as a kid was just how un-super these super heroes felt.  Spider-Man and the X-Men is a pretty hard game made so mostly because these characters can’t seem to take a punch.  They die so easily and it’s a frustrating experience.  I get that it’s hard to make a super hero game because on one hand the super heroes need to be super powerful, but the game also needs some challenge.  That’s why we have super villains though, and Wolverine shouldn’t be getting annihilated by a jack-in-the-box with a tommy gun.  The X-Men games that would follow on the Genesis were hard, but at least those X-Men felt like powerful super heroes (well, for the most part), these ones are push-overs.  The level designs are also fairly lacking.  Spider-Man’s are just weird looking and kind of confusing as they’re intended to be maze-like.  The player is supposed to use his spider-sense to navigate but it just gets tiresome.  Cyclops’ stages feature an annoying mine cart premise where touching the tracks means death.  Gambit has to outrun a giant deathball and might be the best levels, which isn’t saying much.  Wolverine is in a circus and there’s nothing noteworthy about the first stage while the second stage he has to outrun the Juggernaut.  It’s basically the same concept as the Gambit stages, though at least LJN incorporated something from the comics to make it feel relevant.  Storm’s stages are quite different and probably everyone’s most hated as she has to navigate a flooded laboratory.  They’re swimming levels, but unfortunately Storm’s mutant powers over the weather don’t let her breath underwater.  Just about everyone hates the underwater Sonic the Hedgehog levels for the same reason, this is worse times ten.

The red guy is Carnage. That gray blob? He's Rhino. I think.

The red guy is Carnage. That gray blob? He’s Rhino. I think.

If the player manages to actually beat all of the levels then they get to take on Arcade as Spider-Man.  You kind of have to be a glutton for punishment to even make it that far as the game is both really hard and really bad.  That’s the worst combination.  As a kid, I never had much success and never made it past any character’s second stage so making it all the way to Arcade wasn’t in the cards.  Playing this game was a depressing endeavor as a game featuring a team-up between these two should have been awesome.  I remember a few years after I got it Toys R Us started their first trade-in program where people could trade in games they no longer wanted for store credit.  I grabbed my copy of Spider-Man and the X-Men and, thinking I’d get maybe 15 or 20 bucks, was offered only four.  I elected not to trade it in but in hindsight I should have taken the four Jeffry Dollars.  I could have used it for some Fruit Stripe gum or something.

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May 12, 2013

Crisis of the Wii U

By Joe

images-104It seemed like it happened overnight, the toppling of the Nintendo era of dominance.  I don’t even know when it happened.  The NES obviously dominated the 80’s and the SNES basically dominated everywhere except the US where it was neck and neck with Sega’s Genesis.  Actually, the turning point may have come during that era when a little game called Mortal Kombat was released to home consoles in 1993.  Mortal Kombat, as most are likely aware, was a fantastically bloody affair and something Nintendo didn’t want on its machine.  Sega, on the other hand, was willing to accept the title and all its gore so long as it was blocked by a password (the incredibly easy to administer A, B, A, C, A, B, B).  I know, for me, it was that game that made we want a Genesis, and after I got one, I never bought another SNES game.

It seems like ever since Nintendo has been up and down.  While Sega would vanish from the console business, new competitors Sony and Microsoft were next to challenge the Nintendo empire and have been very successful at doing so.  Nintendo’s next two consoles failed to lead the market, but with the release of the Wii the company came storming back.  Underpowered but also underpriced when compared to its competitors, the Wii was able to gain a large market share with it’s unique motion-based controls.  The party nature of the console helped it surge to a huge lead and the head of the market.  Because of the hardware within, it didn’t take long for the limitations of the console to show itself and it became clear that Nintendo would have to be aggressive in releasing its next console if it wanted to maintain its share of the market.  Enter the Wii U, the similarly named successor boasting a new gamepad.  With a modest price point and familiar interface, it seemed Nintendo was poised to hold onto its Wii consumer base for a while longer.  Not so fast.

No decapitations for you, Nintendo fans.

No decapitations for you, Nintendo fans.

The first stumbling block for the Wii U relied in the marketing.  Which is to say, there wasn’t a whole lot.  The labeling of the console, and perhaps even the look, have lead to consumer confusion as some people weren’t clear on if the Wii U was a new console or just an add-on for the outdated Wii.  When a big portion of a console’s consumer base is described as casual, this is the kind of thing that happens.  The next obstacle is what’s under the hood.  The Wii U is a boost over the Wii but it’s not clear if the machine is more powerful than existing consoles from Microsoft and Sony.  This has lead to a feeling that the Wii U isn’t really a “next generation” machine and the hardcore gaming crowd hasn’t been convinced that this is a must own console.

Perhaps the biggest contributor to the Wii U’s lukewarm reception has been the inability of Nintendo to convey how innovative the gamepad is.  The jury is largely still out on if it’s a worthwhile addition to home gaming.  The Wii U launch lineup was actually pretty solid, especially when compared to the lackluster launches of other recent consoles.  The Wii U even had a Mario title at launch, the first Nintendo console to have such since the N64.  The problem with it though is that it treats the gamepad as an afterthought.  If Nintendo wanted to set the world on fire it needed to launch the system alongside a game that truly made good use of the gamepad.  Nintendoland just wasn’t enough.  And even though the Wii wasn’t blessed with an abundance of third party support, at least there were a few out there that seemed excited by the movement based controls.  With the Wii U, a big company like EA already looks to have abandoned it and that, regardless of how you feel about EA and its games, is not a good sign.

Another, perhaps unforeseen, hurdle is the proliferation of casual gaming on tablets and cell phones.  Nintendo was able to tap into this growing audience with the original Wii, but is it possible this group has already moved on to other things?  The gamepad is quite similar to a tablet, or it is at least easy to perceive why someone would have that impression, and these gamers may wonder why they would ever need a Nintendo tablet.  And with no major showings of games on the horizon, the more hardcore gaming community has been given little incentive to get a Wii U beyond some empty promises and HD remakes of old games.

If you’re a regular reader here, then you may know that I have been an early adopter of the Wii U.  Since buying the deluxe version on launch day I’ve added one game to my collection, Scribblenauts Unlimited, a solid title but one that is also available on the 3DS.  I currently have no idea what my next Wii U game will be because nothing has been announced or shown that is even remotely interesting.  And with Nintendo announcing that they will not be holding a press event at E3 this year it makes me nervous that there’s very little to show.  I worry that Nintendo really needed to make a splash with the Wii U, and by failing to do so, have doomed the console already.

It's coming...

It’s coming…

I have been an early adopter for three recent consoles with the 3DS and Playstation Vita being the others.  The 3DS struggled early before rebounding while the Vita is still a source of concern for Sony.  Even so, I never regretted my 3DS purchase and I have yet to regret my Vita one but I pretty much already am regretting my Wii U purchase.  I know that eventually Nintendo will get some first party software onto the Wii U that will be worthwhile, but how many such games can Nintendo reasonably release?  And will any third party developers step up and release anything of note for the Wii U?  Right now, those developers can still release current-gen ports to the Wii U, but once the more powerful PS4 and next Xbox arrive that may be out of the question.  The console is unique enough that developers basically need to cater to it, but if sales are lagging as bad as they currently are then no developer will be willing to take that risk.  Will the Wii U be the console that takes Nintendo out of the hardware business?  My heart says no, but my brain is at least willing to entertain the notion.

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April 14, 2013

Roger Ebert and the Great Debate: Video Games as Art

By Joe

super-mario-mushroom-artNearly three years ago a blog entry popped up on famed film critic Roger Ebert’s site that ignited a response from the gaming community in a way usually only reserved for the likes of pro-censorship groups and individuals.  The title of this blog, Video Games Can Never Be Art, was a bold statement that seemed to cut to the core of many gamers and industry types.  It has attracted nearly 5,000 responses and spawned numerous rebuttals of various kinds.  Ebert, who passed away recently, never showed much desire to revisit the topic over the years preferring to let those words just hang in the air.

I do wish Ebert had chosen another title for his post as the absolute tone it takes seems foolhardy to me for someone so well learned.  The title is actually a quote and one he had given earlier intended as more of a throw-away line in a much larger discussion.  Ebert chose to return to it because it received more attention than he anticipated and elected not to change it, but did acknowledge its weakness.  Her clarified his opinion to something more along on the lines of that video games are not art presently, and no one currently alive will live to see them regarded as such.  That is definitely a much better argument as it’s impossible to predict where tastes are heading.

However the argument is to be phrased, gamers around the globe seemed to take it personally that their chosen recreation could be perceived as something other than art.  Most of this stems from the fact that many who elected to respond to the piece apparently did not get past the title.  Again, Ebert is partially blamed for that but it is important to understand where he is coming from before forming a proper rebuttal.  Ebert’s opinion resides on the game itself.  Components of a game are considered forms of art.  Still images, music, animation – these are all considered artwork.  I don’t know if it was asked of him, but Ebert would probably consider the directors of some games as artists of some kind.  He also expressed a sense of surprise in how his statement was received, noting that the likes of Michael Jordan and Bobby Fischer never seemed to take it personally that their games are not considered art.

DownloadedFile-15

It’s this lack of understanding of where Ebert is coming from that makes a great many of the responses to his opinion ill-conceived.  So many want to focus on the parts of a game that Ebert would consider a form of art and fail to understand that it’s the game that Ebert is declaring as non-art.   Another thing hampering Ebert’s argument is the fact that he openly declares he does not play modern games and had no desire to do such, thus we’re left to assume what first comes to mind for Ebert when the topic is brought up is Pong as opposed to Bioshock.  That’s not entirely relevant though, as is playing a game of virtual tennis any more or less artistic than shooting bad guys in high definition?  Neither is art, but modern gamers would immediately point to the story contained in a title like Bioshock, to which Ebert would point out that it ceases to be a game and is a representation of another form of art.  In other words, if your argument for games as art is that it’s an interactive story then Ebert considers it a representation of a novel or film and not really a game.  He does not, however, go on to say such games are forms of artwork so if there was hope for a compromise between the two camps it seems that door was shut.

On that level, I tend to side with Ebert on this one.  I love video games.  There have been times in my life where games have been my primary source for entertainment and it’s possible I’ll enter another phase later on where they will be again.  Video games will probably be a part of my life for its duration which certainly separates me from Ebert and is perhaps something he forgot.  When Ebert was born television was still fairly new and the only way to see a film was to go to a theater.  Video games were never a part of his life save for maybe on the periphery at times.  And even tough they have been a large part of my life, there still is no singular game that can stack up as art when compared with works from other accepted classes of art such as music, film, and poetry.

In order for a game to transcend into art it needs to incorporate the game itself into its argument.  Okami is a delightful game to look at, but physically playing it is not a remarkable experience when ignoring the visual style and plot.  Heavy Rain is an example of film-quality story-telling and a game I enjoyed very much, but it too falls into that representation of a film category Ebert mentioned.  In that game, the actual game components are fairly minimal and oftentimes are the biggest hindrance to enjoying the game as simply controlling the characters is awkward and, at times, a chore.  Many of the other games often cited by gamers in the comments section are too preoccupied with the game’s narrative and their emotional response to it.  Separate that narrative though and could it exist on its own and still instill such a response?  Or strip away the player control and just watch the “game,” how much does the emotional response change?  While I’m sure it would be affected in some way, probably not as much as some people would like to think.

Ico (2001)

Ico (2001)

In searching my brain I could only come up with one game I’m even tempted to make an argument for as one that toes the line between game and art:  Ico.  Ico, at its core, is not remarkable in a sense that it should be considered art.  It’s a fairly basic three-dimensional platform game.  The player controls the main character and has to negotiate jumps, push blocks, and fight enemies with a stick or sword all while attempting to defeat an ultimate bad guy and escape the castle.  Where it hits on a different level is through the non-player character Yorda.  Yorda is a helpless girl that needs to be lead through the castle and protected by Ico.  It’s the interactions with her that make this game different.  In order to progress, the player must take Yorda’s hand and guide her through certain scenarios.  This simple gameplay convention is remarkable in that it adds a semi-tangible element to a non-tangible experience.  When interacting with a game, we as gamers can only interact by ingesting the story being fed to us and with a controller in our hands.  This act of reaching out and grasping Yorda by the hand is an extension of that controller and it’s a simple mechanic that imparts so much.  We’re now a caretaker and this girl is entrusting us with her life.  She speaks a different language so there is no other way to communicate with her.  The game’s setup of giving us control of a character marked for death, has already made this an us against the world type of game, but in Yorda we have another purpose.  She isn’t so much an ally as a goal.  As a player, how much do we actually care for the main character?  And yet, I know when the evil shadow monsters are dragging Yorda down to a dark demise because I failed to protect her it’s not the same as when Ico misses a jump and falls to his death.

Ultimately, I do not know if I would go so far as to proclaim Ico a work of art, but I do know it’s one game (perhaps the only) where the act of playing it caused me to experience something I may not have while engaging other forms of art.  It is a remarkable experience and one I recommend others try.  I’ve played other games that borrow heavily from Ico, most recently Dokuro on the Playstation Vita, but none are able to resonate the way Ico does (not to say that Dokuro is a bad game, it’s quite the opposite, if you have a Vita you should absolutely have a copy).  In the end, I guess I side with Ebert on this one.  I recognize that many aspects of a game are forms of art, or collaborative art.  I think someone like Hideo Kojima is an artist of some renown even if his chosen work is not on par with other forms of art.  Where I differ with Ebert is that I do entertain the notion that in my lifetime games may take on a higher purpose.  They’ll never be as highly regarded as film or sculpture, but there is a movement towards games as art that probably can’t be stopped.  As long as they continue to become a larger part of society appreciation for them will continue to grow.  In the meantime, whether a video game is considered an important work of art or not is irrelevant to me.  If it’s a good game, taking into account there are many ways for a game to be good, I’ll enjoy it no matter what it’s place in the great debate may be.

As a postscript to this entry, I did want to offer my thoughts on Roger Ebert’s recent passing.  Ebert was a part of my youth through his television show with fellow critic Gene Siskel.  As a kid, I gravitated more towards Siskel when it came to criticism but as I got older I sided with Ebert more and more.  His website was a weekly ritual for me as I checked out his thoughts each Thursday on the latest releases.  He was always eager to champion the cause of animation, notably the works of Studio Ghibli, and it’s something about him I really appreciated.  Even though I didn’t agree with all of his reviews, I like to think we had similar tastes when it came to film and regardless of how he scored the film I could often tell if I would like it or not simply by reading his review.  There were even times where I felt like he was speaking for me instead of to me.  His review of Batman Begins so well captured my response to the movie and phrased it in a way I could never hope to.  He was a brilliant writer, and his blog was oftentimes more entertaining than his film criticism.  Since he lost the ability to speak, that blog became his outlet and he was not shy about putting his innermost thoughts on the internet for all to consume.  As a result, myself and many readers felt connected to Ebert in a way different from other mainstream writers, be they reporters or other critics.  I felt like I knew him without ever meeting him and was extremely sad to hear about his passing.  I will miss him.

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April 7, 2013

The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3

By Joe
The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990)

The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990)

It seems to me that video game cartoons are much less popular today than they were when I was young.  Then again, I don’t have any kids so I’m not often watching children’s programming so I could be mistaken.  I’m sure Pokemon is still kicking around some network and Sonic may be running in syndication, but that’s all I can come up with off the top of my head.  When I was young there were several video game adaptations for the small screen.  Just going off the top of my head I can come up with Dragon Lair, Super Mario, Zelda, Captain N (not a strict adaptation of a game, but comprised almost entirely of characters from popular games), Sonic, Battletoads, Mega Man, Street Fighter, and Mortal Kombat.  I’m almost positive I’m forgetting some but that’s still a pretty solid sample for comparison.  Maybe it’s because so many popular games these days seem to be of the M and T rated variety that we don’t see many cartoon adaptations.  Or maybe it’s because companies like Nintendo are still shell-shocked from less than stellar cartoons based on their properties.  If that is the case, then we can lay a lot of the blame on The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3.

The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 was, naturally, based on the video game Super Mario Bros. 3.  It was also the sequel of sorts to the more popular Super Maro Bros. Super Show which featured Mario cartoons that took place in a world based off of Super Mario Bros. 2 (the American version).  That show is mostly remembered for the live-action Mario and Luigi and the songs the welcomed viewers and saw them off (Do the Mario!).  The Super Mario Bros. 3 adaptation contained no live actors and no such songs.  The opening is simply a narrator talking over an animated sequence that sets up the series.  There’s no continuity from one episode to the next and each one runs a little over 10 minutes with 26 total episodes.  The retail release is three discs worth of content and I would be surprised if any of the discs is filled to near capacity.  Mario and Luigi had their voice actors recast to Walker Boone and Tony Rosato but the rest of the cast remains intact.  The animation style is also slightly different, most notably Mario is a little trimmer and the Koopa Troopa design from the previous show was scrapped.

The Koopa Kids are probably the best thing going in this show.

The Koopa Kids are probably the best thing going in this show.

The biggest changes from the previous show to this one occurred with the villains and the location.  Location wise, this is a more faithful depiction of the Mushroom Kingdom from the game complete with numerous warp pipes and floating blocks.  For the villains, King Koopa is still the antagonist but now he’s accompanied by his seven Koopa Kids.  The Koopalings resemble their video game counterparts in design but all have different names.  Allegedly, this was due to the series being developed before Nintendo had provided the names.  The characters, for the most part, have pretty stupid and unimaginative names.  Morton Koopa Jr. is now just called Big Mouth, because he has a (you guessed it) big mouth.  There’s a Bully Koopa, Cheatsy, and Wendy is now Kootie Pie.  It’s not very important what their names are but I’ll give credit to the writers for mostly giving each of the seven a distinct personality (with the exception of the twins Hip and Hop, who are basically the same).  The ones that end up standing out include Cheatsy, who’s cunning seems to surpass his father’s as he is often able to manipulate him (usually with flattery).  Cookie is the evil genius of the kids and is definitely the most insane.  And Kootie Pie, being Koopa’s only daughter, is not surprisingly a spoiled brat and her father is a slave to her whims.

Apparently the eyes are fully-functioning on the frog suit. Does that mean Mario can see out of them? I must know!

Apparently the eyes are fully-functioning on the frog suit. Does that mean Mario can see out of them? I must know!

The Koopa Kids are perhaps the only bright spot of this program.  Well, that and the power-ups.  Super Mario Bros. 3 is famous for its numerous power-ups and they’re all represented here, for the most part.  For some reason I get a giddy thrill from seeing them used in the show from the common raccoon tail to the absurd frog suit.  Even Koopa gets in on the action in the series finale which is certainly noteworthy.  The rest of the show though is comprised of tired writing and simple plots.  Not much has changed from the previous show and the majority of the episodes follow the same formula of the Mario Bros. having to foil one of Koopa’s attempts at taking over the Mushroom Kingdom.  There’s usually a chase sequence or montage set to a parody of a licensed song which had to be removed from the DVD release.  There is one exception in the episode “Recycled Koopa” which contains a song called “Trash City USA” (2:05 mark in video link).  It sounds suspiciously like the Glenn Danzig song “Spook City USA” and I wonder if it was intended by someone as a parody of that.  Since the song is so obscure it wouldn’t surprise me if it snuck past the legal team (at the time the episode was produced, the song only existed as a B side to the single “Who Killed Marlyn?” which was not exactly a wide release).  There’s also the requisite episode where things get turned around and Mario and Luigi have to be saved by the Princess and Toad.  There’s also a celebrity appearance by Milli Vanilli in one episode, “Kootie Pie Rocks.”  This may be the most hilarious episode in hindsight.

Koopa is backed, armed with an assortment of magic wands this time around.

Koopa is backed, armed with an assortment of magic wands this time around.

This series also establishes the existence of the home world of the Mario brothers as The Real World.  This means several episodes take place on earth and in places like New York and Venice.  There’s even one episode where each koopaling takes over a continent.  This labeling of this world as The Real World bugs the crap out of me.  This show isn’t like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with characters often breaking the fourth wall, instead that’s how the characters view this supposed real world.  What does that make the Mushroom Kingdom then?  The fake world?  I’m surprised the princess would stand for that!

Because of the short run-time, plots are often resolved quickly and haphazardly.  It’s clear the writers had little respect for children as the show is fairly thoughtless.  The animation isn’t anything to get excited over either.  For the most part, it’s fairly typical of its era but there are other shortcuts that bother me.  Most notably, whenever a character morphs into another form there’s no transition animation, it just happens, which is utter laziness.  Unfortunately, the transfers by Shout! Factory for the DVD release are atrocious.  Some episodes are okay while others drop out and look worse than what can be found on the internet.  Supposedly the master tapes for the series no longer exist, so I don’t know what the source was for the DVD, but clearly it sucked and no attempt was made for the episodes that are really bad.  The last two episodes on the set are especially bad and should have never been released in such a state.

I bought this set when I found it on sale and did so only for nostalgic purposes.  I liked the show enough when I was a kid but my memory of it wasn’t strong.  It didn’t last long as it was quickly replaced by a Super Mario World themed cartoon.  Even though the set was relatively cheap, it still wasn’t worth the purchase.  Don’t make the same mistake I did, just let this one pass, as your memories of the show are likely much better than the actual product.

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April 6, 2013

The Legend of Zelda – Ocarina of Time

By Joe
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998)

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998)

I never set out to make an entry on all of these Zelda titles, it just sort of happened.  It’s basically the end result of me not having any new titles to play on my portable gaming devices so I’ve revisited some classics.  I’ve already made entries on the first two Zelda titles, so naturally I should make one for the third game in the series:  A Link to the Past.  But wait!  This isn’t an entry on A Link to the Past, but the next game in the series (for home consoles):  Ocarina of Time.  That’s because I can’t play A Link to the Past on my 3DS (though I could have dusted off the old Gameboy Advance, I suppose) and never played the 3DS version of the Ocarina of Time:  Master Quest.  I played thru the normal quest on the 3DS version when it was released in 2011, and I have played the Nintendo 64 version (on a Gamecube) of the Master Quest as well, so this was far from a new experience.  And since the original version and the 3DS remake are largely the same, this can be considered an entry on both.

Ocarina of Time is considered by many to be the best in the series.  It’s usually a debate between that and A Link to the Past with the sides mostly split on age lines.  People who were introduced to the Zelda franchise during its formative years will mostly lean towards A Link to the Past, while those introduced to the franchise via Ocarina of Time naturally are slanted towards that.  And even though the two may not look all that similar, the core experience is very much the same between the two.  The player controls Link who must battle thru various dungeons collecting useful tools and items along the way.  There’s lots of wandering, conversing with non-player characters, and general adventure along the way.  The player also isn’t expected to just hack and slash their way to the end as there are lots of puzzles to challenge and frustrate as well.  Regardless of what position you may take on which game is superior, know that both are excellent and enjoyable games that should be experienced by all serious gamers.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (2011)

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (2011)

Ocarina of Time is regarded as a near perfect gaming experience, so if you’re expecting this to be a contrarian take, look elsewhere.  And while it does earn its reputation, it also has its share of flaws.  This game is nearly 15 years old, which blows my mind.  There are many games of that age that are still considered an excellent experience today, but naturally some things age less gracefully than others.  Ocarina of Time is perhaps most notable for being Link’s first foray into the world of 3D.  Transitioning from 2D to 3D is a challenge and it’s one that has stymied other famous franchises of the same era.  While Mario was able to adapt, gaming’s other titan of the 16-bit era, Sonic, still struggles with it to this day.  Both of those characters were transitioning from side-scrollers to the 3D platform genre, while Link had the benefit of moving from that top-down perspective of the first and third Zelda titles which is actually a much easier transition.  Both Mario and Sonic were expected to jump and navigate various platforms in their games, while Link didn’t have that expectation.  Because of that, Nintendo didn’t even see fit to provide a jump button in Ocarina of Time; Link just does it automatically when he needs to.  Instead of the camera being positioned directly above Link, it’s moved behind him but still retains a high angle in many sections of the game.  Where age starts to rear its ugly head is with this camera.

The camera is often the make or break portion of any game from the late 90’s.  It still can be problematic in modern games but it seems to happen far less.  For Ocarina of Time, Nintendo opted to not give the player total control of the camera as some games do.  The players has one camera button at his or her disposal which automatically centers the camera behind Link in most cases.  There’s also the Z-Targeting lock-on button that fixes the camera on an enemy and puts Link into a sort of battle mode.  This works fine in open spaces, but some of the dungeons in the game can get cramped and in those areas the player is often left to battle the camera.  There’s one section in the game that has Link in a maze trying to avoid sentries like one Solid Snake.  This moment is brief in the grand scheme of things, but it’s still an utter failure of game design that feels shoe-horned into the experience.  The camera is very limited and almost stuck to Link’s back.  Trying to peer around a corner is cumbersome and, if you’re like me, you’ll probably just say “screw it” and plow ahead.  The automatic jump can also be a problem at times.  I do appreciate that Nintendo did not want to turn Link into Mario and have him bounce all over the place, but not giving the player control over that aspect of the character does create a disconnect of sorts.  I can’t think of any other way to describe it other than it just feels weird.  It also creates the problem of Link jumping to his death on occasion by accident (usually brought on by shoddy camera work).  In many games where jumping is relegated to a button press, simply running off a ledge causes the character to fall and grab onto the ledge.  When approaching a ledge very slowly and carefully in Ocarina of Time, the same is true, but give Link any kind of speed and he takes a leap of faith no matter what lies below.

A nice comparison shot of the two versions.

A nice comparison shot of the two versions.

Another flaw, I suppose, resides with the lock-on system and enemy AI.  When Link is locked onto an enemy all other enemies around him will back off making the game a series of one-on-one contests.  This is obviously something that was implemented deliberately by Nintendo, but it’s still kind of odd.  Though I suppose it’s no less odd than turn-based battles in role-playing games.  A lot of the dungeons are also fairly clever.  They make it obvious to the player where to go, but leave it up to the player to figure out how to get there.  There are moments though where I felt cheated and the only way to progress is to strike an object that 99% of the time has no function.  This forces the player to resort to smacking everything and anything with Link’s sword at times.  There are also a few boss encounters that rely on magic power or a specific disposable item, and if you run out, you’re out of luck and either have to reset or let the enemy kill you.  And then there’s Navi.  Oh, how I despise Navi.  Navi is this little fairy that accompanies Link and is supposed to give him advice when needed.  She’s also a targeting reticule and a means of selecting which enemy to combat.  She’s also incredibly annoying.  I hate her existence.  She’s insulting as her primary function is to state the obvious, as if Nintendo didn’t think we were capable of getting thru this game on our own.  If you try to run off and do side quests, expect to be interrupted by Navi every ten minutes or so to remind you to head to the game’s next dungeon.  And each time she does you get to hear this annoying, high-pitched voice shout “Hey!”  In the 3DS version she’s even worse as she’ll pop in to tell you to take a break if you’ve been playing for long stretches.  She doesn’t seem to recognize when the system goes into sleep mode so you may actually have only been playing for a few minutes before she starts barking.  Nintendo, all too often, pulls crap like this with its games and it drives me nuts that features like Navi can’t be toggled on and off.

Young Link in the 3DS version.

Young Link in the 3DS version.

Those are my main sources of irritation when it comes to Ocarina of Time, the rest of the game is pretty awesome, to put it simply.  Yes, there’s still some age-related items in terms of the game’s presentation and mechanics.  Link certainly doesn’t handle as smoothly as more modern titles.  He can feel a bit stiff, and combat is mostly a hack and slash affair, but it gets the job done and is easily forgiven.  The visuals on the Nintendo 64 version have not aged gracefully, but are not horrid either.  The 3DS is a noticeable improvement here as it ups the visual quality to something akin to an early generation Gamecube title.  It won’t knock your socks off, and Hyrule still seems woefully underpopulated, but it’s far better than the original.  A lot of the enemies Link will encounter are lifted from the older games and it’s fun to see them presented here.  The iron knuckles are most intimating now, and the poes possess a lot of character.  The stalfos, one of the easier enemies in prior games, are far more challenging this time around and more menacing too.

A lot of the fun experienced in a Zelda game comes from the items and power-ups Link acquires over the course of his adventure.  Many make their return in Ocarina of Time and are engaging in this new 3D world.  Link can now toss bombs and even lock onto enemies when doing so.  The hookshot doesn’t just allow him to get over gaps in the area but turns him into an elven Spider-Man of sorts!  The hammer also takes on new meaning as it’s basically a giant cavalry hammer, though I feel like it’s underutilized in Ocarina of Time.  Some of the items are only usable by child Link, and others by adult Link. The boomerang is one such item, but there’s always an item that levels the playing field.  In this case, the hookshot used by adult Link can stun enemies and retrieve certain items just like the boomerang.  The ocarina is, naturally, an important item in the game and it allows Link to play songs.  A majority of these songs function as a quick travel feature and transport Link to another area.  Others are used for puzzles.  The mechanic worked so well that it’s basically been included in some form in all of the games to follow.

Ocarina of Time marked the debut of Epona, Link's trusty stead.

Ocarina of Time marked the debut of Epona, Link’s trusty stead.

As was the case with the previous titles, the game is somewhat light on plot.  It’s fairly straight-forward but there is a story present with the best portion of it devoted to giving the antagonist, Ganondorf, a backstory.  The inclusion of time travel is kind of neat but not really fully utilized as the game basically exists in two parts, the young Link portion and the adult Link portion.  There’s only one dungeon that requires the player to tackle it with both Links and only a few instances of Link doing something in the past to affect something in the future.  Link’s method of time travel is a bit cumbersome, so I suppose it’s a good thing the game doesn’t require the player to constantly travel back and forth, but I do feel like it could have been exploited further.  Boss battles are usually rewarding, but not often challenging.  There’s often a specific way to defeat each boss, and once the player figures it out, it becomes easy.  I’d be hard-pressed to pick out the most challenging boss as few stand out in that regard, though the most interesting boss encounter may belong to Phantom Ganon of the Forest Temple.

Even though the boss fights aren’t all that challenging, the game does present a challenge elsewhere.  The traditional quest is fairly painless, but the Master Quest ups the ante by making enemies much stronger.  This kind of slants the game a little as it becomes much harder early on when Link only has a small amount of hearts.  Once that’s built up it basically normalizes.  The only other changes with the Master Quest involve the dungeons being mirrored which does kind of throw you off but is easy to adapt to.  The gold skultulas are also harder to find but the heart pieces remain in the same locations.  The 3DS version takes the mirroring concept one step further and turns the whole game into a mirror-mode of the original quest.  I actually found that harder to adapt to than the dungeons as Hyrule Field is now flipped over so what was once east is now west.  Link’s handedness even changes from being a southpaw to a righty in the Master Quest.

Link and Sheik enjoying a jam session.

Link and Sheik enjoying a jam session.

Aside from the Master Quest and visual upgrade, the 3DS version does present some other modifications to the original game.  Most notable is the use of the touch screen for items.  Items can be mapped to the face buttons as well as two additional touch “buttons” which prove useful for certain types of items.  This also reduces the clutter on the top screen as Link’s health and magic is kept on the bottom screen.  There some drawbacks to the 3DS version though, such as the cramped space.  Z-Targeting is now L-Targeting and it can get awkward due to the dimensions of the 3DS.  Tight quarters also tend to feel even more claustrophobic on the 3DS screen and the gyro-controls for first-person view and aiming is just a so-so addition to the game.  The ending credits do have an updated song that’s fully orchestrated (something the N64 was incapable of capturing) which was a nice surprise upon completion.  All in all, if you’re looking to play this game for the first time there’s no obviously better version.  I would probably just go with whatever is easier to obtain, or if you know you want to play this primarily in front of your television, the original is more than sufficient.  You could also look up gameplay on a video sharing sight to decide if the visuals are a big enough reason to select one over the other.  And I guess if you love the whole 3D thing, that’s a factor too (I played the game in its entirety with the 3D feature turned off).

Ocarina of Time, no matter how or when you choose to experience it, is an excellent gameplay experience.  It holds up remarkably well, not just when age is considered, but just in how easy it is to come back to.  I’m mostly a one and done kind of gamer, meaning I beat a game once and that’s enough for me.  With Ocarina of Time, I’ve played thru and beaten it multiple times and each time the journey is an enjoyable one.  My only real concern with the game is for people who have never played it.  They may approach it thinking it’s a perfect game, but it’s not.  The game had some flaws when it was released in 1998 and some other flaws have been exposed due to age.  No one should approach any game expecting perfection though as there is no such game, just as there is no perfect movie or perfect book.  Our opinions and tastes are too broad as a people to ever declare any one game perfect.  We can only apply such absolutes in the broadest of strokes and at the highest categorical level:  Food is great.  Oxygen is excellent.  Zelda is fantastic.  Yeah, that sounds about right.

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March 4, 2013

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

By Joe
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1987)

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1987)

What?  Three Zelda entries in a row?!  I guess I’m on a roll.  This one should come as no surprise though, since I mentioned I just finished up playing the original Legend of Zelda on my 3DS, and what’s a more logical next step?  Why, Zelda II of course!  I received a free copy of Zelda II along with the original (and several others) as part of the 3DS Ambassador program that was launched by Nintendo in 2011.  I mostly have kept myself busy during my daily commute to and from work with retail 3DS games.  I’ve also spent time with my Vita (what’s that?) so I haven’t had much reason to play those free games Nintendo bestowed upon me.  I currently don’t have any unfinished 3DS games though so it made sense to finally start digging thru these titles, especially since Nintendo has updated them since they were released to include that ever so lovely save state feature made famous by illegal emulators in the late 1990’s.

The Legend of Zelda is an unquestioned classic.  It is beloved.  People today who pick it up having never experienced it might not quite get it, but anyone willing to invest the time will be able to at least appreciate the game for what it is and what it means to the franchise as a whole.  Zelda II, on the other hand, is often regarded as the worst entry in the series (developed by Nintendo) and is sometimes the target of much hate from the Zelda faithful.  It’s the black sheep of the franchise, the Jan Brady of Zelda games, because it’s so different from other games in the series and no one loves it.  That’s somewhat of an embellishment as the game does have its share of fans (or as some like to call them, apologists) but you would be hard pressed to find someone willing to argue it’s among the elite.

In theory, there actually isn’t a whole lot different about Zelda II when compared with its predecessor.  The player still controls the hero Link as he journeys across Hyrule collecting items to help him in his quest to recover the Triforce of Courage.  The music still kicks ass.  Link will encounter some familiar enemies like keese, stalfos, and moblins as they seek to avenge the defeat of their master Ganon, whom Link bested in the original game.  Where things change though, is in how the player interacts with Hyrule this time around.

No longer do gamers have to stare down at the top of Link's head.

No longer do gamers have to stare down at the top of Link’s head.

In the original Legend of Zelda, Link was viewed from a top-down perspective; kind of like over-looking a chess board.  For a Nintendo game the map was pretty large and the enemies would come onto the screen and Link could run up and stab them or take them down from a distance either with his sword or other means.  In Zelda II, the player controls Link from a more traditional side-scrolling perspective.  He plays more like a Belmont than a Mario, but he’s a pretty solid jumper considering this is his first go-around at platform action.  He still attacks with his sword and can block certain attacks with his shield.  When his health is full he can shoot little beams out of his sword which can damage some enemies.  It’s kind of surprising that fans seemed to be so put off by this change in perspective given that this was only the second game in the series.  It’s not as if it was much of an established property at this point.

Switching to a side-scrolling style of gameplay was just the beginning.  The RPG was just starting to gain momentum in the gaming world and Nintendo saw Zelda II as an opportunity to introduce some RPG elements into one of their games.  Link no longer travels the world in search of heart containers to increase his health (though there are still a few) or relies on getting a better sword to increase his damage output.  Instead he gains experience points for defeating enemies and at certain intervals he’s able to level-up one of three attributes:  Life, Magic, and Attack.  Life should be thought of more as defense as it doesn’t increase Link’s health meter, just reduces how much damage he takes.  Magic more clearly is tied to actual magic points, but upgrading the stat doesn’t visually impact the magic meter.  Attack is rather self-explanatory and increases how much damage Link can inflict with a single sword swipe.  There are a limited amount of magic containers and health containers that permanently increase each attribute respectively, but there’s no master sword for Link to find.  There’s also a world map which is similar to one from a Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy game.  When Link is roaming the world map enemies can appear on screen and attack him, which bring the player to a side-scrolling area to face off with some monsters, or run away.

Link can converse with the townsfolk, some of whom will help him out by refilling his life or magic.

Link can converse with the townsfolk, some of whom will help him out by refilling his life or magic.

The magic itself is also something that’s new.  Link is able to travel to towns now and interact with the locals, most of which have nothing of interest to share with the hero.  Hidden in each one though is a wizardly looking character who can teach Link a magic spell.  Link will come to rely on these throughout the game, some more than others.  Some examples are a shield spell that reduces the damage Link receives from enemies, and a jump spell that lets him jump higher.  All spells, except for the life spell which restores some of Link’s health, last for one screen.  The more powerful spells, naturally, consume more magic than others.  Interestingly, enemies no longer drop rupees or hearts (there’s no need for currency in this Hyrule) but will drop magic potions from time to time making magic one of the few ways Link can restore his health.  The game also has an extra life system, like most games, which perhaps makes up for the lack of restorative items.  There is still the occasional fairy hiding in a dungeon or roaming the world map that can fully restore Link’s health, but that’s it.

This approach is one reason why Zelda II is often regarded as the hardest game in the series.  That’s just one contributing factor to the difficulty though.  The main contributor early on is simply in how the game plays.  It takes some getting used to because Link is armed with perhaps the world’s worst sword.  The thing is tiny and Link’s attack range, simply put, blows.  In order to attack, Link needs to get in pretty close.  Having full health and the beam attack can be useful, but the beam doesn’t travel very far and most of the enemies in the game are immune to it anyways.  Most gamers will adapt though and eventually the game becomes easier.  Link even learns some additional moves, the downward thrust and upward thrust, which help to open things up.  Just when you’re starting to feel like you have this game figured out though it takes it to another level.  The first couple of dungeons (palaces, actually) are pretty straight-forward.  The game gets much harder around palace 3 or so.  Older enemies get stronger, and new, more powerful ones are introduced.  Most will come to loathe the blue knucklehead, an armored knight who throws knives and has a tendency to want to back away from Link making it hard to get in close.  And just when you’re getting used to taking them out, a bigger lizard like one will take it’s place or a jumping bird one that’s truly a pain in the ass.  Link also suffers from that same affliction that has killed many a Belmont in that he gets pushed backwards if struck by an enemy.  The game exploits this by filling the air with flying skulls and flaming eyeballs to get in Link’s face while he’s trying to jump across some laval pools.  The game will utilize pretty much every cheap trick in the book to try and kill you.  The player can continue as many times as he or she likes but doing so brings Link back to the beginning of the game and takes away his current experience points, which is really annoying if you’re deep into a palace or nearing a level-up.  The only aspect of the game that isn’t very challenging are the boss encounters.  It’s actually strange for that to be but most of the bosses in this game just aren’t any harder than the regular enemies.  I’d be hard-pressed to even name which one was the hardest since none of them are all that difficult to conquer, so long as you know what you’re doing.

Some of the boss fights are pretty lame.

Some of the boss fights are pretty lame.

The game plays differently, and is definitely harder than the first game in the series, but there are other areas where the game seems to invite criticism.  Just like the original Zelda, Zelda II has the hero traversing dungeons and finding new items that help Link to advance further in the game.  In the original Legend of Zelda, many of these items had multiple uses like the bow or the boomerang.  In Zelda II, many end up being single use items that have no impact on the gameplay.  There were some duds in the fist game like the raft and ladder, but just about every item in Zelda II is like the raft (which makes a return!) and essentially does nothing.  The magic spells kind of make up for this, but most of them are kind of dull too.  The game is also pretty lazy in the dungeon layouts.  The original game was too, but Zelda II is an even bigger offender with some palaces having the same room repeat upwards of three times!  And there’s “puzzles” like the thirsty woman in town with a water fountain right next to her house.  It’s not exactly thought-provoking.  And just to add one more kind of oddity with the game is the absence of Ganon.  He only appears if the player receives a game over, otherwise he doesn’t show his pig face.  Other games in the series do not feature Ganon too, but most of the main ones do, though I can’t say it bothers me to have a different antagonist this go-around (not that there’s much of an in game storyline).

Zelda II:  The Adventure of Link is certainly a memorable title, though some would say for the wrong reasons.  It’s legacy is defined by the fact that it was such a change from the first game in the series and for its punishing difficulty.  If not for the save state feature on my 3DS version of the game, I likely wouldn’t have had the patience to make it all the way thru this one. It’s not really in the running for hardest game on the NES, but it’s definitely in the top 20, maybe top 10.  As a video game, it’s actually a pretty solid title.  For all of the things people didn’t like, there are some good ideas that would be carried over into future Zelda titles.  It wouldn’t bother me in the least to even see Nintendo revisit some of the RPG mechanics of this game for a future Zelda title, or even to attempt a brand new side-scroller.  I think there’s a better game to be found than what’s here.  As a Zelda game, this one definitely is lacking but not because it’s different.  It’s just missing something, that special ingredient, that makes a Zelda game truly special.  Zelda fans certainly owe it to themselves to experience the title, just don’t expect to find a new favorite.

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March 3, 2013

The Legend of Zelda (The Animated Series)

By Joe
Title screen from the Zelda cartoon (1989).

Title screen from the Zelda cartoon (1989).

Back in the 1980’s you could not get away from Nintendo.  The Nintendo Entertainment System was flying off store shelves and Super Mario was turned into a household name.  It only made sense that Mario and other Nintendo properties would have a lot of marketing power.  There were toys, pencils, lunch boxes, cereal, soda and so on.  It was Mario Mania!  Not surprisingly, Nintendo licensed the stomper of koopas for television and it wasn’t long before kids were sitting down in front of the tube to watch the Super Mario Bros. Super Show.  Hosted by former WWF personality Captain Lou Albano, as Mario, and Danny Wells (Luigi), the Super Mario Bros. Super Show began with two in a live-action setting before leading into a cartoon.  The live-action segments are probably the best remembered parts of the show because they’re quite absurd by any standard, especially for people who didn’t live through it.  The theme song was also pretty memorable, “The Plumber’s Rap,” and the ending theme “Do the Mario!” has enjoyed a second life on youtube.

The show only ran from September 1989 to December of the same year but since it aired every weekday afternoon it spawned 65 episodes worth of content.  It would be replaced with new Mario cartoons that didn’t feature the live-action segments and were based on later games in the Super Mario Bros. series.  They would be featured with another Nintendo cartoon, Captain N:  The Game Master, as part of the Nintendo Power Hour on Saturday mornings.  Before that though, Mario was on five times a week in live-action form, and four times in cartoon form.  The cartoon was mostly based on the American version of Super Mario Bros. 2 but with some differences.  The creators wisely left out the whole vegetable tossing angle in favor of fire flowers and the antagonist of the series was King Bowser Koopa instead of Wart.  It was basically an adventure type of show where Mario, Luigi, Toad, and the Princess Toadstool would travel to different parts of the Mushroom Kingdom while foiling the schemes of Koopa.  There would often be a musical number and many episodes were parodies of popular movies and stories.  It was a very gimmicky show, like a lot of cartoons from that era, and it’s one that really hasn’t aged that well.

Remember these guys?

Remember these guys?

Now the show aired five days a week, but the Super Mario Bros. cartoon only aired four days a week.  That’s because every Friday Mario took a day off and made room for another hero:  Link.  Link, of course, is the hero of the Legend of Zelda games who was also pretty popular at that time.  The Zelda cartoon was different in tone from the Mario one.  Yes, it was still geared towards kids but it shunned a lot of the tired chase sequences and movie parodies that were commonplace in the Mario cartoon.  The show revolves around Link, the hero of Hyrule, as he defends the castle and its coveted Triforce of Wisdom from the forces of the evil sorcerer Ganon.  The show is based off of the first Zelda game with some references made to its sequel as well.  Link is pretty clearly modeled after the character illustrations from those booklets and wields the same dinky little sword he has in Zelda II.  Ganon, on the other hand, looks to be more of a concept.  In both games, he’s pictured as a big green/blue pig who does have some magical powers.  In the show, he has more of a wizardly look with an ugly pig-like face.  He’s actually more menacing looking this way, but he’s not going to get in there and mix things up with Link.  He’d rather stand back and let his minions do the fighting, who are not surprisingly incompetent.  He’s in possession of the Triforce of Power (the show makes no mention of the Triforce of Courage) and has an endless supply of Moblins and Stalfos.

Other characters include a fairy named Spryte, who is likely modeled after the generic fairies from the Zelda games.  She is kind of the Tinker Bell to Link’s Pan in that she likes Link, but he only has eyes for the princess Zelda.  Zelda appears in each episode and is portrayed in a way that probably surprised viewers at the time.  Zelda shuns the traditional princess attire and instead sports trousers and tunic much like Link.  She’s not the typical damsel in distress and seems pretty capable of taking care of herself.  She does have a snotty side, and because she’s the target of many of Ganon’s schemes, she does often require saving from her “hero.”

Zelda is not afraid to get her hands dirty.

Zelda is not afraid to get her hands dirty.

The portrayal of Link in this series is what many fans dislike about the show most.  Link, in the games, really had no personality.  Even in the modern games, he doesn’t have much of a personality so I don’t know what fans were expecting from the character, it just wasn’t this.  Link is a brash, cocky, and kind of lazy character.  He views his title of “hero” as a job and one that just gets in the way of his pursuit of Zelda.  Not an episode goes by where Link doesn’t beg the princess for a kiss, and because viewers need a reason to tune in, he never gets one.  He’s also been given a catch phrase, “Excuuuuuse me, princess!”  Some day I would like to watch the entire series and count how many times Link says that line (according to Wikipedia, it was 29 times).  The show only produced 13 15-minute Zelda cartoons, but I’m willing to bet that Link easily averaged more than two occurrences of that catch phrase an episode.  Sometimes the line makes sense, and sometimes it’s just shoe-horned into the script.  It even occurs during the opening credits.  Link may have said that stupid line more often than Michelangelo said “Cowabunga” on the TMNT cartoon, on a per episode basis.

Ganon and the two things he covets most.

Ganon and the two things he covets most.

Anyways, that aside, the show is of a better quality than the Mario cartoons, though that isn’t saying much.  In general, each episode features Ganon executing a new plan to capture the Triforce.  Some of these are more clever and entertaining than others.  There’s one where Ganon goes Robin Hood and to sneak into a magic contest, there’s another where a Zelda clone infiltrates Hyrule, and there’s even a frog prince story-line where Link finds himself the victim of a magic spell (and if you’re wondering, no, Zelda doesn’t break the curse with a kiss).  That said, there isn’t anything in the writing to this show that’s going to impress.  It’s pretty standard fare for the period.  One thing I can appreciate though is the attempt of the writers to explain a few loose ends from the video game.  Namely, how can Link carry so much crap around with him?  Apparently, he has a magic pouch that causes items to shrink down to micro size to fit in.  Throughout the series he and Zelda will often pull out items from the games like the boomerang, bow, and bombs.  Other enemies make appearances too like the octoroks and just about every boss character from the original game.  If you’re watching it to spot items from the game, you’ll have some fun with the show.

Animation wise, the show is mostly crap.  It’s not awful to look at but this is a DiC produced show and DiC liked to put out lots of licensed cartoons on the cheap.  They would get a large amount of cartoons made in a short amount of time so that the shows could go direct to syndication and exist for a few years and bounce around several channels.  I think, on average, the animation here is better than what’s in the Mario cartoons but that’s not saying a whole lot.  The audio is okay though and the Zelda theme is used throughout, which doesn’t hurt it.  Link’s voice, when he’s not saying that regrettable line, is all right.  Ganon is voiced by Len Carlson who should be familiar to fans of 80’s and early 90’s cartoons as he got around.  He uses a shrill voice for Ganon that works for this portrayal of the character.  Zelda is voiced by Cynthia Preston and I always enjoyed her voice.  I don’t really know why but I was drawn to it as a kid.  Maybe because Link sexualized her and I wasn’t accustomed to seeing that in other kid shows of the time.

She's such a tease.

She’s such a tease.

The Legend of Zelda cartoon is not something that is remembered because it’s a wonderful companion piece to the video games, it’s remembered for nostalgic purposes only and is a kind of humorous reminder of how games were marketed back in the day.  A lot of fans prefer the Zelda themed episodes of Captain N to this show because Link was more of a hero type in that show than he is here.  That show really isn’t any better on the whole as it was just another marketing tool (and all of these old cartoons are basically shunned by Nintendo today) to move video games.  This isn’t a show that most adults can turn on and digest over an hour as it’s pretty damn bad.  It’s kind of funny to laugh at, and I can say I do enjoy it more than the Mario cartoons, but if I didn’t watch it as a kid there’s no way I’m making it thru more than one episode.  The complete series was released by Shout a few years ago and can probably be had on the cheap for those looking to experience it.  Those that have never seen it would probably be better off just watching some clips on the internet as opposed to spending real money on the series.

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February 24, 2013

The Legend of Zelda

By Joe
The Legend of Zelda (1986)

The Legend of Zelda (1986)

It likely comes as no surprise that the author of a blog titled The Nostalgia Spot enjoys playing old games.  I love having old consoles laying around the house, either hooked up to a television set or even just sitting in a closet waiting for a rainy day.  It’s almost a sort of nostalgic high to snap a cartridge into a Sega Genesis or hear that familiar spring when pushing a cart into place on a Nintendo Entertainment System.  Because so many of these systems are existing in a closet or attic, it can be a bit of a chore to relive the old days but thankfully digital distribution is here to make things easier.  Sure, nothing is better than the original experience.  Often times if there’s an old game I feel like I missed out on I’m more apt to find a used copy on the internet than download it.  The one exception is in the portable realm.  Nintendo is one such company that has released a lot of its old titles for download onto portable gaming systems.  I’d actually argue the company hasn’t released enough.  It has a tendency to focus on old portable games when selecting new ones to release and not enough on old NES or SNES games.  A lot of the classics are available though, and that’s why I’ve been spending a lot of quality time with an old favorite recently:  The Legend of Zelda.

I’ve actually had a copy of The Legend of Zelda on my 3DS for awhile now.  I bought the system at launch only for Nintendo to drop the price dramatically not long after due to lackluster sales.  To avoid ticking off the early adopters Nintendo released 20 free games to these “Ambassadors,” as they called them.  They were ten NES games and 10 Gameboy Advance games.  Among those ten was The Legend of Zelda.  Initially these releases were bare-bones lacking some of the features of the typical downloadable games.  As the games were released to the public though, Ambassadors were able to re-download them for free with the save state feature.  The feature is certainly a nice one to have, especially for a game like The Legend of Zelda which popularized the save feature in console games.  The feature was rather crude by today’s standards, but the re-release fixes that and allows the user to save whenever he or she wishes, which is a necessity for gaming on the go.

The boss of the first (and 8th) dungeon is a cake-walk.

The boss of the first (and 8th) dungeon is a cake-walk.

For the most part, I don’t blog about the all-time classic titles, there’s just enough of that stuff all over the web.  Sometimes a game becomes so old though that people tend to forget about just how good it is.  No one I know would say The Legend of Zelda is a bad game, bust most would the caveat that it’s “good for its era.”  That is just not true.  This is a title that does not need to get by on reputation.  Before playing it I had spent a few weeks playing a recent RPG released for the 3DS:  Paper Mario Sticker Star.  The Paper Mario series is a pretty good one, but Sticker Star is not a very good game.  It’s far from awful, but it’s so tedious and needlessly gimmicky that I just found it tiresome.  I saw it thru to the end but really wanted to wash the stink away.  I didn’t have a new game lined up, so I dug into those ambassador titles and settled on The Legend of Zelda.  Now, I’d be lying if I said it was easy to jump right into.  There’s always a bit of a culture shock when going back nearly 30 years with an old game.  That’s when one realizes just how used to today’s comforts they’ve become.  With The Legend of Zelda we’re talking about an early generation NES game.  It’s not even considered good looking for an NES game.  The backgrounds are pretty sparse, all of the dungeons look the same (save for the color), and Link (the protagonist, for those unaware) doesn’t have much personality.  Pretty much the entire plot to the game was contained in the booklet that came with it, so don’t expect much in the presentation department.  This is just a really simple looking game.

Pretty much everyone is familiar with the gold NES cart, but fewer are aware that in Japan the game was originally released for the Famicom Disk attachment. This was never released in other parts of the world, which is what necessitated the inclusion of a battery for saving in the American cart.

Pretty much everyone is familiar with the gold NES cart, but fewer are aware that in Japan the game was originally released for the Famicom Disk attachment. This was never released in other parts of the world, which is what necessitated the inclusion of a battery for saving in the American cart.

Despite that though, it really didn’t take me long to get sucked in.  It actually didn’t take me as long as I would have guessed.  Once I got my feet wet and found that first dungeon I was off and running.  Things started coming back to me, I started getting used to how to approach each enemy again, and I started to have fun.  Lots of fun.  This game has no business being this good still.  It’s also crazy how similar it is to every game in the franchise.  It’s easy to forget where the series started when chasing down Ganondorf or watching Link turn into a wolf, but the same basic game design has remained the same since 1986.  It’s funny to me, and a bit misguided, how Nintendo has tried to give gamers a new experience by adding some silly gimmick to recent Zelda titles but has never really attempted to change the experience.  Majora’s Mask is probably the lone exception on console games, while the portable titles have mixed things up to some degree while maintaining a familiar interface.  Though even there, Nintendo has still muddled things with gimmicks like touch controls or trains.  Nintendo consistently fails to realize that it often implements change, like touch controls or the waggle controls on the Wii edition of Twilight Princess, for the sake of doing so and rarely addresses the actual gameplay experience.  Whether gamers are pressing a button or flicking their wrist, they’re still making Link swing a sword.

Tangent aside, it’s actually a great deal of fun to be reminded of where the series started.  I always liked this title back on the NES, and the sequel only reinforced that, so I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that I still like it.  The game probably would be less fun for someone who has never played it.  There are so many little things one has to do to make it thru to the end that the game just doesn’t even clue you in on.  Throughout the game there are these old hermits living in caves that offer advice.  Some of it is cryptic but does have value.  Some of it seems like nonsense, a mistranslation perhaps.  Then there are other secrets that just have no indication whatsoever.  The entrance to Level 8 is one such thing where Link has to burn a random bush on the overworld map.  Most bushes aren’t affected by the candle item Link has to use to burn this one particular bush down, but the player is still expected to figure it out somehow.  I suppose this bush isn’t completely inconspicuous, but others are.  There are a few hidden stores or caves that a player isn’t going to find without help.  And that may have been the idea as there were numerous tip hotlines and the like for games back in the 1980’s.  Nintendo would get in on the action with Nintendo Power though this game arrived before that.  And Zelda games weren’t the only offender, but it’s something that really isn’t heard of in modern games.  We’d consider it poor design.  In other words, if this is your first time playing this game, expect to be in need of a walkthrough at some point.

The ones in blue are a pain to deal with.

The ones in blue are a pain to deal with.

Aside from some confusing moments, the game actually isn’t too difficult provided you know what you’re doing.  If one never upgraded the sword or Link’s armor then the game would get really hard.  I actually got the magic sword one dungeon later than I could have and that last dungeon with the mid-level sword was a bastard.  The game takes some getting used to in order to figure out just how close Link needs to get in order to defeat enemies.  Early on I found myself taking unnecessary hits but once I found my bearings I was okay.  Most of the enemies move faster than Link, and since this was before the invention of his spin attack, it can be challenging to keep them at bay.  The boomerang becomes Link’s best friend and remains so for most of the game as it freezes enemies on contact.  Keeping Link’s health maxed out is also a tremendous asset as that lets him shoot beams out of his sword.  Some enemies though are just plain hard to defeat without taking damage.  The wizrobes are probably the most challenging as they take 3 hits with the magical sword to defeat.  Striking them also doesn’t interrupt their movement or attack, and they can teleport all over the screen.  Needless to say, getting out of a room full of them without taking any damage is a true challenge.  The boss encounters, on the other hand, are all pretty easy as long as you know what you’re doing.  The final boss, Ganon naturally, can only be killed with a silver arrow and it’s entirely possible to reach him without ever finding said arrows making survival an impossibility.

Ultimately, I’m making this entry because I’ve been surprised with how much enjoyment I’ve been able to squeeze out of this title recently.  If you’re a younger gamer who never played the original Legend of Zelda then I suggest you do.  There are many options for playing it in this day and age as it’s been re-released more times than I can remember.  The easiest way to get it is via download from Nintendo and I think it only costs five bucks, but I’m not certain.  This is one title that has withstood the test of time, Zelda II on the other hand…

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February 3, 2013

Catching up with ESPN NFL 2K5

By Joe

images-72It used to be that the world of sports video games was a free-for-all.  While various movie, television, and comic book licenses were sold off to developers, seemingly anyone could produce a football, baseball, basketball, or hockey title and pony up the dough to get a professional league’s endorsement of their product.  Before that happened though, publishers had to first find out there was value in that.  It used to be that most sports games were just about the sport.  Most of the games on the NES and before were just called Baseball or Football while other publishers would get a little more creative and gives gamers a title like Blades of Steel.  Eventually publishers saw the value of marketing with star power, but before they went the route of acquiring full league licenses they tried the marque player route that put Larry Bird on our 2600.  I don’t know what the first game to get a full league license was, but I do know that the first one I played was World Series Baseball on the Sega Genesis.  All of the teams I was familiar with were now present as were the different players.  Licensing agreements between leagues and their respective player’s unions made this possible (even though some mega stars liked to opt-out of these agreements and annoy gamers throughout the country; I’m looking at you, Michael Jordon) and sports games became more authentic as a result.  This was the status quo for a long time and for some leagues it still is.  For football though, that’s no longer the case and hasn’t been for a long time.

This was basically the cover of every sports game pre 1994, just swap out the athlete with another.

This was basically the cover of every sports game pre 1994, just swap out the athlete with another.

EA Sports has been the king of the virtual football world for a long time now.  Originally Tecmo held that honor with its popular line of Tecmo Bowl games but when those failed to evolve EA, partnered with John Madden, stepped in.  EA’s games thrived during the 16 bit era, especially on the Genesis which performed exceptionally well in the United States.  There were other competitors, most notably Acclaim and eventually Sony’s 989 Studios, but Madden was generally regarded as the best.  When EA announced that it would not support Sega’s new Dreamcast console it was a mighty blow to the doomed machine.  Sega had more or less won the 16 bit wars with sports titles but now found itself without its star general.  Sega did what only Sega could do:  develop its own NFL game.

Visual Concepts and Take-Two Interactive led the way with the inaugural NFL 2K in the late summer of 1999.  Sega showed off an impressive demo at E3 earlier that year that had caught the eye of many gridiron gamers but few really expected Sega to deliver a game in its inaugural year that was worthy of challenging Madden.  Sega had put out a few football titles on the Genesis but making a football game in the 3D era was totally different. The naysayers were proven wrong as NFL 2K was a critical and commercial success for the fledgling Dreamcast, and even though it wouldn’t be enough to save the console, it proved worthy of hanging around.  It’s timing was perfect too as Acclaim’s Quarterback Club was growing stale, and 989’s NFL Gameday had completely fallen off.  Madden was left to run unopposed for the most part, and needed a worthy adversary to prevent it from sharing the same fate as its vanquished foes.

Though it may be hard to imagine today, Madden was mostly geared towards casual players back then.  The game was at its best, and most fun, when dropping back to launch a deep ball down the sideline to Moss.  No longer confined to the world of two-dimensional sprites, Madden was fully realized in 3D but the oddly proportioned and stiff animating player models left something to be desired.  NFL 2K was the shiny new muscle car parked next to the Madden station wagon.  It was faster, leaner, and more explosive.  Running the deep post with Moss was now even more fun than it was before, and things like running the ball and rushing the passer no longer felt like chores between pass plays.  Madden wanted you to have fun, NFL 2K wanted you to experience NFL football.

Go ahead, try and stop him.

Go ahead, try and stop him.

The debut game was not perfect, and a lot of the front end needed some polish, but the presentation shined in other areas.  Commentary from the fictitious duo of Dan Stevens (Terry McGovern) and Peter O’Keefe (Jay Styne) felt vibrant and alive even without the name recognition.  A sports ticker scrolled by to update the player on other games and replays were used judiciously.  When dropping back to pass, the player no longer had to call up the button assignments for receivers, they were already present.

Visually, the game was a tour de force when compared with Madden.  Madden did a good job with player faces, but 2K topped them everywhere else.  They were better proportioned, but mostly they just plain moved better.  Madden was always stiff and steering a running back thru the defense felt like steering a boat.  In 2K, players were quick and cutting left and right.  When the gap between blockers was minimal they turned their bodies to squeeze thru the tiny hole.  When the ball was in the air receivers would leap over defenders if they had to in order to pull it down while a tiny scat-back would get blown up if trying to truck a stout middle linebacker.

Playing the game was also fast and just generally more entertaining.  Passing the ball was a true blast as so many weapons were made available to the player.  Quarterbacks were not restricted to the play called as far as how the ball would travel thru the air.  If the player wanted to lob it, he could.  If he wanted to put a little extra mustard on the throw to zip it into tight coverage, he could.  Maximum Passing meant players could intentionally under or over throw targets with a flick of the analog stick.  Have an agile receiver running outside with a corner over him?  Under throw him so only he has a play on the ball.  Have a tall receiver streaking towards the back corner of the end zone?  Take advantage of his height and toss it up.  He may not come down with it, but neither will the defender.  Knowing how to pass the ball to each receiver is a must for continued success.  If your stone-handed blocking fullback is open in the flat it’s best to lob him a softy than toss him a bullet that will probably bounce of his face-mask.  Knowing your personnel is equally important in the running game as scat-backs like Warrick Dunn are not likely to find much success between the tackles.  Get those guys in space where they can spin and juke their way to pay-dirt and leave the stiff arms and truck maneuvers for the likes of Mike Alstott.  NFL 2K also proved that defense could be fun.  Playing the line and rushing the passer was a game of cat and mouse.  You may find initial success with a certain technique but offensive lines will adapt and double you if necessary.  Playing in the secondary and trying to stick to a receiver was extremely difficult and only for the true pros, but hanging back and making plays on the ball with a safety was both rewarding and fun.

NFL 2K was here to stay, and though Madden routinely topped it in sales, EA wasn’t pleased to have legitimate competition.  EA was especially perturbed when 2K5 (now dubbed ESPN NFL football) was released for only 20 bucks.  This was the last straw and soon EA locked up the NFL license (along with the NCAA, Arena League, and others) and basically put an end to Sega’s annual football game.  This was especially unfortunate as 2K5 was a godsend for football fans.

The addition of the ESPN license meant full animated game intros hosted by a virtual Chris Berman.

The addition of the ESPN license meant full animated game intros hosted by a virtual Chris Berman.

Earlier games in the series had their own issues.  Not all would be solved but by the time 2K5 came around a lot of them would be.  Earlier games featured an over-powered run game.  Perhaps VC and Sega really wanted to make running the ball as fun as passing, but by making it so effective they messed up the balance.  Changing the blocking patterns and playing up to the difference in backs (power vs finesse) helped to solve this.  The dreaded suction-blocking was also less of a problem come 2K5.  Suction-blocking is a fan-coined term that described the game’s programmed blocking animation that forces a defender to engage.  Even when controlling a defender manually, it was something the game forced upon those who played.  Madden was plagued by it too and would be for some time longer but 2K found a way to nearly eliminate it come 2K5 (though it was still hard to disengage from a blocker).  Earlier games were light on options and Madden seemed to always trump 2K in this department, but 2K5’s franchise mode was quite robust and a series of challenges in the ESPN 25th Anniversary section kept gamers busy.  Other additions, like the virtual Crib and first-person football, were there for those who wanted it but were mostly duds.

ESPN NFL 2K5 is kind of like the NFL equivalent to WWF No Mercy.  A lot of football fans to this day still feel it’s the best of the best.  I was a 2K guy and before the series went multi-platform I rarely played a football game.  Madden never felt right to me, and the most fun I had with a football game was NFL Blitz.  NFL 2K2 was my first taste of the series and I was hooked.  To this day, I’ve only owned two versions of Madden with all coming after the exclusivity agreement.  Neither entertained me as much as 2K5 did, though the inaugural Madden on the Wii did entertain me for quite a while.

Visually, the game is no longer a tour de force but is far from ugly.

Visually, the game is no longer a tour de force but is far from ugly.

With the NFL season winding down, I’ve been going back to 2K5 recently to see how it holds up.  A lot of the flaws I remember still jump out at me.  Lead blockers can be annoyingly dumb.  Perhaps it’s because of the whole suction-blocking thing getting blown up, but a lot of the times a blocking fullback will run right by a blitzing linebacker or defensive end and head straight for the next level.  This does my running back no good since he doesn’t have a chance to get into the secondary when a guy is already all over him at the line scrimmage.  Receivers tend to be too stone-handed with 3 or 4 drops a game from my receiving corps being a common sight.  I know guys are going to, on occasion, drop an easy one but it seems to happen too often.  Defensive backs are also really good in man coverage.  While receivers are not omniscient, they don’t know the ball has been thrown in their direction if they haven’t actually turned to look, corners seem to know exactly when to break off their assignment whether they’re watching the QB or trailing a receiver.  It makes it hard to find the “gimme” completions and even check-downs can be an adventure (why do so many check-downs to backs in the flat or receivers running out patterns result in incompletions?!?).  There’s also the matter of the near game-breaking QB evasion moves initiated by flicking the right stick.  Even statues like Drew Bledsoe can shrug off what looked like a sure sack and as a result I rarely use it because it feels cheap.

Not everything VC brought to the table proved to be a good idea.

Not everything VC brought to the table proved to be a good idea.

A lot of this stuff would be rectified by now as most are AI problems.  And at least it goes both ways.  The CPU will miss out on some easy completions because of receivers that can’t make a clean catch.  And your team will also have some pretty sticky cover guys of its own to roll out.  Since the 2k series was shelved, Madden has adopted a lot of what made the series great including guided passes and placing more emphasis on animations.  2K is still fast though, even compared with the current games, and still a blast to play.  I love approaching the line, checking the coverage, and adjusting the play on the fly.  I wish there were more robust audible options, but the hot routes make the majority of plays incredibly customizable.  If a defender is playing way off the line I’m happy to check into a short pattern and if I notice a corner has no safety help on a speedy receiver I’ll audible to a fly or slant pattern.  The adaptive AI reduces the presence of money plays which dogged older football games.  Sure, most will still have a few go-to plays for certain situations but good gamers will experience the full playbook as opposed to a handful of the same plays.  Few things are as rewarding in gaming as executing a perfect stop-and-go with an expertly timed pump-fake followed by a deep lob over the top.

My head tells me that the recent versions of Madden have likely trumped ESPN NFL 2K5 at this point.  The game came out over 8 years ago so surely it’s been improved upon by now.  My heart though won’t allow me to admit it.  When I play Madden I enjoy it but it doesn’t pull me in.  When I turn on 2K5 for a game I can’t stop at just one.  Not even the dated rosters can dim my enjoyment of this one though it does sadden me that the series was cut down in its prime.  There is hope though as EA’s license agreement with the NFL will expire at the end of this year and it was announced that Take-Two will revive its long-dormant NFL franchise in 2014.  It seems hard to believe that the developers could come in and create an exceptional football game after 10 years without the NFL license, but that just puts Take-Two and Visual Concepts in the same position they were in back in 1999 and we all know how that turned out.

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