Dark of Darkness

 

Indiana Jones and the...

I'm not much of an Indiana Jones fan, but I have to admit the franchise has an extensive portfolio; five major motion pictures, a TV mini-series, a couple of comic book runs, novels and a bunch of video games.  Since this blog is mostly about that last category that's what I'll be focusing on...and more specifically one game in particular.  Before that though, lets look at the franchise conceptually for a bit.

When it comes to video game adaptations of everyone's favorite archeological adventurer, there have been a few.  I'm of course referring to Lara Croft...no, wait...I mean Nathan Drake...just kidding!  Jokes aside, what makes Indiana Jones special is the time period in which he thrived.  Unlike more contemporary characters like Croft or Drake, Dr. Jones is a man of the interwar years.  Honestly, I feel like the setting makes the character since he is archetypal and very much a product of that era.  The original trilogy did an excellent job of cementing the format and serial nature of his adventures.  A quick rundown might look something like this:

• The bad guys are Nazis, cultists or criminals of some kind
• Indiana Jones has allies and acquittances who help him (including a love interest)
• There are a bunch of action scenes including fist-fights, shootouts and chases
• He gets captured at least once
• There's a McGuffin artifact that has some sort of real world tie-in with supernatural qualities

What makes each individual story special is the creative ideas woven into it all.  Overall, the tone is pretty light though it can have some dark or grewsome bits to juxtapose with the comical stuff.  Sometimes it's slapstick and sometimes it's almost a mini-history lesson.  Indiana Jones himself is generally an honorable man, but can fight dirty when the preverbal chips are down.  This back-and-forth is part of what gives the IP its roller-coaster vibe.  So, now with all that out of the way lets focus in on that one game I mentioned back at the beginning.

I've embedded images of box art from several original stories found within the franchise.  The thing is, the overwhelming majority of Indiana Jones video games are action-driven experiences which (paradoxical as it might sound) aren't the best fit for the source material.  Oddly enough, the one original title that fits the Indiana Jones formula is a point-and-click adventure game - The Fate of Atlantis.  It's actually a direct sequel to the movie tie-in game The Last Crusade, and about three times as long.  It was Lucas Arts first "talkie", the studio's first video game to feature a fully voiced cast (for the CD-ROM version).  Developed using the SCUMM interface, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis has beautiful pixel art similar to Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island and The Dig.  What really makes the game standout though is the three different paths players can take; "team", "wits" or "fists".  Each path features events that may or may not happen in a different path, which (in turn) provides a degree of replayability typically lacking in these kinds of games.  Regardless of the player's chosen path, the story adheres closely to the formula.  It features a love interest (Sophia Upgood), bad guys (Nazis again), various action sequences, and our titular hero getting captured at least once.  The McGuffin is (as implied by the title) a location - the lost city of Atlantis.  Rumored to have been a treasure trove of extraordinarily advanced technology, the Nazis obviously want to obtain its secrets for their own nefarious ends.  In particular, Orichalcum beads thought to have come from Atlantis seem to hold vast amounts of non-radioactive energy.  While not explored in detail, the backstory for Atlantean technology is the byproduct of a visit by ancient aliens.  The various devices powered by these beads are bronze-age knock-offs of the alien's tech, making the people of Atlantis a long-vanished cargo cult of sorts.  Funny how a lot of these ideas got recycled in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (along with a few more from an unmade video game-turned-comic-book, Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix).

On top of checking all the boxes typical associated with an Indiana Jones adventure, Fate of Atlantis also has a couple of callbacks.  The golden idol from the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark can be seen in Indy's office at one point.  Looking at a statue of a falcon in the college museum will prompt Indy to say "it's the stuff dreams are made of," which is a reference to the 1941 film The Maltese Falcon.  Similarly, looking at some scribbles on the the stone walls of Atlantis will lead Indy to comment "Atlantean Graffiti."  Younger me thought this was an attempt at verisimilitude specific to real archeological discoveries made at the ancient ruins of Pompeii, but it's far more likely a world play joke referencing the George Lucas' film "American Graffiti".  Another similar example is a street in the Monte Carlo section of the game named "Rue des Guerres des Étoiles", a rough French to English translation being "Star Wars Road".  One last language related joke comes from some of the controls for a German U-boat.  Three, in particular, are labeled "Ausgeschnitzel", "Flugeldufel" and "Krauskefarben".  These words have no meaning which I suppose is a good way to keep it from being too easy for people fluent in German (or those who happen to have a German-to-English dictionary on hand).

Of course, it's not a perfect game.  The keystone puzzles are somewhat tedious and were part of the copy protection for the original disk-based version.  The music is also a bit bland though the Indiana Jones theme does come through at the appropriate moments.  Obviously, Harrison Ford would have been prohibitively expensive so they had to hire someone with a different, albeit, appropriate sounding delivery.  Some of the other characters drift a little bit more toward Saturday morning cartoons in terms of delivery, but overall the cast ranges from good to competent.  

I sometimes wonder what it would have been like had we gotten a live-action version of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.  Considering the lackluster reception Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Dial of Destiny got, I doubt it could have faired worse.  Sadly, we'll never know, but at least we have the video game to enjoy.  

Remake Request

There is a novelization of the game though it differs
somewhat in terms of scope and plot

These days I find myself a bit weary of all the remasters, remakes, and reimaginings that dominate big budget media.  Even so, if someone were to ask me what video game I'd like to see get this special kind of treatment there is one title I can think of.  It's an old PS2 title called ICO.

I used to think the correct pronunciation was "eye-ko" or "ai-ko", but based on the original Japanese spelling it appears to be "ee-ko".  Anyway, it's the first in a spiritual trilogy of sorts.  The second entry is Shadow of the Colossus, a game that has been remade three times (on PS3, PS4 and PS5), while the final entry is a PS4 exclusive called The Last Guardian.  ICO, on the other hand, came out not long after the PS2 launched.  It also has some truly abysmal box art for the North American version.  As for the game itself, ICO is a 3D puzzle platformer with some light combat sprinkled in.  What makes it stand out from games made in the same vein is the attention paid to movement and animation.

The game director for the entire trilogy, Fumito Ueda, has (in his own words) had a life-long fascination with kinesthetics.  As such, the protagonist (a boy with a pair of horns sprouting out of his head) moves in an unusually realistic manner.  He will throw up his hands to stop himself from slamming in to walls.  He'll slide and stumble if he suddenly tries to change his direction of movement.  Even pushing, pulling, lifting and falling has a weightiness that the boy clumsily exudes in a believably adolescent way.  Of course, all this has been done in other titles such as Prince of Persia, but what really makes it special in ICO is the addition of a second major character.

As the fairytale-like story goes, all horned boys born in the region are taken as prisoners under escort to a massive mist-shrouded castle on an ocean coastline.  Here they are transported by a small boat to a sea cave entrance and brought up through tunnels to a sacrificial vault.  Fifty-four stone sarcophagus-like containers line the sides of the chamber.  The boy is placed in one, but not long after being sealed away an earthquake sets him free.  His captors have already made a hasty exit so he's presumably all by himself in the castle.  However, after doing some exploring he happens upon a taller (and probably older) girl locked up in a metal cage.  After freeing her, he finds that she seems to be only half-aware of what's happening...like she is being held partially in a magical trance or daze (more on that later).

The Queen claims that Yorda is her daughter, but it is
unclear if this literal or metaphorical

If led by the hand she will follow, but she can also be drawn to the boy by beckoning and the call of his voice.  The difference in movement is interesting to contrast.  The boy often skitters about almost haphazardly, while the girl moves in a much slower and more deliberate manner.  When the two hold hands there's almost a tug-o-war between the characters that must have been a real challenge for the animators to get right.  Naturally, these two want to escape their imprisonment together - each having abilities the other lacks.  However, as it turns out, they aren't alone in the castle.  Worse still, these other inhabitants aren't friendly either.

At first these foes only appear small in size and few in number.  They are shadows of dark vapor given form, each with a pair of pale glowing eyes.  The horned boy only has a stick, or (or later on) a somewhat more formidable sword with which to fend them off.  Blows from weapons don't seem to hurt them so much as dissipate their physical presence until they vanish, eyes and all.  Their appearance is always heralded by the opening of one or more dark portals in the floor which they seek to drag the girl through.  The boy, to them, is only ever a mild annoyance, avoided or swatted aside (by the larger shadow monsters that come later).  As their numbers increase so does their size, and some begin to have bat-like wings, tails or even horns of their own.  Later in the game it is reveled that these creatures are the spirits of previously sacrificed horned boys.  They have been enthralled by the ruler of the castle, a sorceress-queen.  She too lacks a physical form.  Nonetheless, there's some interesting implications regarding her appearance.

The ending of ICO is fairly ambigious to the point that
Fumito Ueda doesn't consider his interpretation
strictly canon 

For simplicity's sake, I'm going to mention that our boy/girl duo are named "Ico" and "Yorda" respectively.  Neither can speak the other's language, though the queen seems to be fluent in both.  Yorda is very pale from head to toe and so is the face of the queen.  However, atop her head and below the neckline she has a shadowy form similar to the monsters that serve her.  It also seems that her power is tied to stone.  The castle has some rather impossible looking architecture which (understandably) collapses once the queen suffers an untimely demise.  During her climatic boss battle she emits waves of energy that can turn the boy to stone.  Incidentally, this magical petrification happens if Yorda is ever dragged through one of the dark portals by a shadow creature.  The implication here seems to be that Yorda is providing a degree of magical protection to Ico.  Between the two, I'd say Yorda is the more powerful which is why the queen is focused on keeping her in an inhibited state.  Conversely, Ico is an amusement to the sorceress or at worst a mild nuisance.  This underestimation is of course the big mistake that proves to be her downfall.

So, after spending all that time reminiscing on ICO we finally come to the question of a remake.  The game was given a slight upgrade on the PS3 with higher resolution, a steadier framerate and some improvements to the AI.  A few puzzles were also modified.  Obviously, all that is well and good, but what benefit would a full-on remake bring?  Simply put, the environments could receive a massive visual upgrade both in terms of textures and set dressing.  The castle could also be shown more fully and explored seamlessly, rather than having to be somewhat divided into self-secluded mini-areas.  One thing I hope any would-be designer leaves well alone is the stone sofas.  They act as save points, but can only be used if both Ico and Yorda sit side-by-side on one of them.  The music accompanying the save menu is also quite nice and, in a way that is hard for me to describe, embodies the overall vibe of the game.  Hilariously, loading in a saved game from the main menu shows that these two have been taking a nap (presumably in the player's absence).  Personally, I have a hard time imagining a couch made of stone being comfortable enough for sleeping, but I suppose if you are tired enough just about anything will suffice.

16-bit Mazes and Monsters

Oddly enough the Japanese name of the game is
"Shining and the Darkness"

Before Shining Force there was Shining in the Darkness - a dungeon crawler in the traditional sense.  By that I mean no automapping, random encounters galore, and a fair amount of grinding.  It's not a bad game, but playing it has reminded me of why I like the SRPG spin-offs that followed a lot better.  You see...every battle in the Shining Force series is a set piece encounter.  This originator of the franchise has room for a small amount of tactical thinking, but for the most part it's about navigating a multi-level maze filled with hazards in the form of monsters and traps.  There's treasure to be had too, although much of it is of little importance.  The goal of the game (as laid out in the opening) is to rescue the princess Jessa who has been kidnapped by the sorcerer "Dark Sol".  It's about as generic a plot as you can get.  Even so, it's presented well.  

The art style for the early entries in the the Shining IP are distinct in that they subtly blend 1980s Disney with a bit of an anime aesthetic.  In terms of setting it's more Narnia than Middle-earth when it comes to demi-humans.  To this day, I must admit centaur knights (complete with armor and lance) look pretty dang cool and are something you don't see a whole lot of in fantasy settings these days.  Unlike some dungeon crawlers, players only go it alone during the early stages of the game.  After defeating a giant crab (and mini-boss of sorts) the hero of the story gains two companions (Milo and Pyra) who can help him on his quest.  At first glance this team of three seems like a fairly standard warrior-healer-mage combo, but in truth the lines between them are a bit blurrier than say...Dungeons and Dragons.  While it's true that the meat-shield warrior protagonist never gains the innate ability to casts spells, his pious looking companion (Milo) hits pretty hard and has magic that overlaps a bit with Pyra the mage.  Meanwhile, she can deal out decent damage while still having a repertoire of AoE and utility spells.  She's also the fastest of the three when it comes to turn order.  Monsters vary quite a bit - ranging from the simple (bats, wasps, slimes, and slugs) to the standard (goblins, ape-men, skeletons, and minotaurs); all the way up to slightly weird foes like ax-beaked ostriches and "clodhoppers" (hat-wearing puppet-like enemies that consist of a head with a pair of legs sprouting from underneath).

The variety is much appreciated, but it isn't enough hold my interest.  As far as old-school dungeon crawlers go, Shining in the Darkness is very well made example of its genre.  It's just not the kind of game I can really get into.  Still, there are plenty of worse ways to spend your time, and if you are the kind of person that enjoys titles like the Bard's Tale Trilogy or the original Wizardry then this Sega classic might be right up your alley...or maybe I should say up you subterranean corridor?  Actually, never mind...that sounds kind of gross.           

Inspirational Failure

Trespasser is one of many games in the Jurassic Park franchise.  Released in 1998, it was a commercial failure and winner of Gamespot's worst-game-of-the-year award.  Disappointing to see considering that it spent three years in development with a very talented team of designers.  Just to stress that last point, Austin Grossman (the writer for Deus Ex and Dishonored) along with Seamus Blackley (father of the Xbox) both worked on this game.  So, what happened?  In a word - "overscoping".

As is all too common in game development, the team behind Trespasser bit off way more than they could chew.  There were a lot of ambitious "firsts" such as large open outdoor environments, a diegetic interface, a physics engine, and a complex AI to give the dinosaurs life.  That last point is especially noteworthy because all of the half-dozen or so dinosaurs species (as well as sub-types) found in the game move and act in strange ways due to them literally being puppets on strings.  It's kid of surreal to see in action and hasn't been emulated since (the one exception being the creatures found in Rain World).  

The physics engine also ties into this due to how players interact with the environment.  Much like the mannequin dinos controlled by the AI, the main character has a single working arm that they use to pick up, manipulate and throw objects with via the mouse.  Again, it's kind of weird and not a game mechanic you really see outside of quirky indie titles like Octodad and Surgeon Simulator.  Nonetheless, Gabe Newell cited the physics engine in Trespasser as an influence on a similar system Valve used in Half-Life 2.

Not having any kind of HUD was hardly a new concept in 1998, but doing so in an action-oriented FPS was courting disaster.  To work around the lack of a health meter the protagonist has a visible heart tattoo that indicates their status based on how full it is.  Ammunition for guns is tracked by the player character vocalizing how many shots they have left after each pull of the trigger.  Weird as these ideas are, they eventually popped-up in games much later on.  Dead Space for example has a life bar on the back of Issac's suit.  Meanwhile Alyx (from Half-Life: Alyx) sometimes comments on her ammo supplies.  The official game for "Peter Jackson's King Kong" movie features a particular button that (when pushed) causes the player character to exclaim how many bullets they have left.  In truth, it kind of makes sense in that game since King Kong features a lot of teamwork.  Maybe you'd want to let your allies know how you're doing ammo-wise from time to time...?

Lastly is the outdoor areas which were quite expansive for the time.  For the most part, FPS games released around that era were of the corridor shooter variety.  Obviously, Trespasser was brutally difficult to run on 1990s hardware because of the sheer amount of geometry on-screen at any given moment.  Even so, the idea of wide open environments was a direction that game development would expand toward; Halo: Combat Evolved and the original Far Cry being two big steps the industry took that way later on.

While it certainly deserves to be called a very flawed game, Trespasser ultimately attracted a cult following of sorts in the form of mod makers and bug fixers.  These individuals actually poured in a considerable amount of effort in order to make the game run with fewer issues and even significant improvements.  In some ways the fan updated (i.e. current) version of the game feels like a VR title.  Incidentally, someone is working on a mod for that.  There's also an unofficial pseudo-remake of sorts in the works, but it's anyone's guess if the DNA of the original can be revived or if it will simply live on as little bits and pieces in games that have come since.   

Old Japanese PC gaming Box Art

"I'm going to bust you up, Dragon!"

Not actually a Takarazuka Revue production

Today's whether is partly cloudy with a chance of sorcery

Big pointy double pauldrons is...a choice

This group of adventurers need a better armor smith

War on the Moon

Begun, this cheese war has...

Nectaris (also known as Military Madness) is a long-running series of turn-based strategy games set on Earth's moon, Luna.  As you can probably guess it's sci-fi and also hex-based.  Gameplay is similar to Advanced Wars, but less cartoonish.  Nectaris first released on the TubroGrafx-16 way back in 1989.  Ten additional entries in the franchise eventually followed on platforms such as DOS, Windows, Game Boy, PSX, XBLA, PSN and smart phones.  It's interesting to note that the game never got a proper sequel, but rather revised ports that made small incremental improvements and iterations on the basic concept.  

The idea of fighting a conventional war on the moon presents some unique factors that could make for an intriguing strategy game.  For one thing, Luna's gravity is only 16.6 percent that of Earth's.  This means a M1 Abrams tank only weights about as much as a fully-loaded F-16 fighter jet.  Additionally, the diameter of the moon is only about a quarter that of Earth so the horizon is roughly twice as near assuming you are standing on a flat plain.  The lack of an atmosphere means providing adequate cooling/heating for vehicles is tricky and would almost certainly involve highly vulnerable radiators (A.K.A. glowing weak points).  Guided munitions would require some alterations to implement effectively as well though, oddly enough, more conventional weaponry like guns and rockets would work mostly the same.  Perhaps because of that last factor, Nectaris (despite being a game about Lunar warfare) has a fairly bog-standard lineup of combat units.  There are two types of armed moon buggy, two anti-aircraft vehicle configurations (flak and missile), three types of infantry (light, heavy, and motorbike), seven kinds of tank (running the gamut from light to heavy with the biggest able to engage flying targets), two types of unarmed transport (one flying and the other ground-based), three dedicated aircraft (fighter, bomber, and a hybrid of both) and two types of mobile artillery (rocket and gun).  Other than that the only other units are mines and fixed gun emplacements.  Mines are a bit out-of-the-ordinary in that they only serve to block enemy movement until cleared away by concentrated weapons fire. Tanks lack scoops on their treads which seems strange considering how silty Lunar soil is.  That's a minor quibble though compared to the aircraft which (aerodynamic appearance and all) look out of place to me.  Considering the aforementioned battlefield conditions, the line between moving on the ground and through the sky should be much blurrier.  There's no reason why infantry or even certain vehicles couldn't be outfitted with jump jets to hop or skip across the surface, though using them too liberally could entail certain risks such as being out of cover and more easily detected by radar.  On the plus side, popping up could provide units with better line-of-sight given the short horizon...not to mention a temporary height advantage. 

"Robbie" infantry in the foreground
engage "Bison" tanks in the background 

All the versions of the game have a main campaign that is divided up into 23 combat scenarios in the original, but expanded to 32 in the PSX update.  Newer versions also come with a editor that lets players make their own scenarios.  Objectives usually consist of wiping out all enemy units while capturing factories.  Like Advanced Wars, these buildings can only be taken over by infantry units, but (in a twist on convention) can only repair and provide storage for existing units rather than produce entirely new ones.  There are also sometimes prison camps which act like home bases in that they must be defended or captured.  Units can only engage foes in adjacent hexes, the exception being the missile-equipped anti-air unit and the two types of artillery which can hit farther out.  These long-range units come with the familiar caveat of they can only move or shoot, but not both in a single turn.  Unit experience along with terrain, flanking and supporting bonuses all apply to combat resolution whenever two units engage each other.  In particular, the PSX port of the game has the option to switch from the universal top-down tactical view to dynamic combat cutscenes rather than being limited to a fixed-camera split-screen isometric view found in other versions.  The moon, with it's high-contrast landscapes, has the potential to produce some impressive visuals under these sorts of circumstances.  Sadly, the explosions don't seem to account for low gravity conditions and for some reason every battle is oddly similar in terms of flat lighting.  There's also a surprising scarcity of craters...oh and there's sound on the moon which isn't right.  I wouldn't mind if they fudged it a bit though (watch the Lunar combat scene from the 2019 film "Ad Astra" for an example of how it could be done well). 

I know it seems like I'm being unfairly down on Nectaris, but it's because there are a lot of squandered opportunities that could have helped make it standout.  I think the lack of creativity and unwillingness to apply real science kept this IP from achieving much in the form of distinction from mechanically similar Japanese strategy games out at the time like Hybrid Front and the Daisenryaku series.  Hopefully, someone will come along and tackle the premise with a bit more gusto in the future.  As for the Nectaris IP, it's held by Konami so don't expect them to do much with it anytime soon.  

"Nectaris" is Latin for "Nectar", but the name comes from the
"Mare Nectaris" region of the moon in which the game takes place

Simultaneous Turn-Based Strategy Games

Beaten to the Punch (Part 2 of 2)

Cover-based shooters were all the rage during the late 2000s and early 2010s.  The mechanic was popularized with the release of Gears of War in 2006, but had existed at least as far back as 1995 in the form of the arcade machine Time Crisis.  Granted, that was a light-gun game.  However, even if we were to limit the genre to third-person cover-based shooters there was kill.switch in 2003 and WinBack: Covert Operations in 1999.  Both of these titles have largely been forgotten to time compared to Gears of War, which has since gone on to become one of Microsoft's tentpole franchises (with four mainline sequels and several spinoff titles).  If I had to hazard a guess as to why, I'd say it has something to do with WinBack and kill.switch being more techno-thrillers and less Warhammer 40k adjacent.  I guess people really love guns that have their bayonet attachments replaced by chainsaws.

Angbad is one of those venerable ASCII roguelikes whose lineage can be traced back through Dungeons of Moria to the original Rogue.  As one might guess based on its name (and the name of its immediate predecessor), Angbad is heavily inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth setting.  The player begins the game in a small town consisting of some shops and a few NPCs.  Bellow is a hundred floors of procedurally generated dungeons filled with monsters, traps and treasure.  At the bottom level is Morgoth, who must be defeated in order to win the game.  In other words, Angbad is basically Diablo without music, sound or graphics.  It even has the randomized loot drops and a color coating system that is practically the standard for games of these types.  It's also free-to-play, obviously, for copyright reasons.  Despite not having much in the way of monetization potential, Angbad has been in active development for over three decades with a surprisingly active mod making community.  Even so, it has been completely eclipsed by the Blizzard franchise that was inspired by it.

Saving the most unusual for last, we have Herzog Zwei.  German for "Duke Two", this Sega Genesis exclusive was the inspiration for not one, but two whole genres of video games - the RTS and the MOBA.  As the title is perhaps trying to imply, the game can be played either versus the CPU or via split screen.  Players only directly control a single transformable air/ground vehicle, but are able to build a number of other units to assist them in capturing key locations on the map.  These subservient units can be given simple orders, but generally require a lot of micromanagement to be effective.  Because the game is real-time this can lead to feelings of being overwhelmed.  It's a problem that prevented the game from achieving wide-spread appeal.  Regardless of that, Herzog Zwei is the grandfather of Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander, not to mention Dune II: Battle for Arrakis and Warcraft as well as the Command and Conquer series.  It even got a spiritual successor in the form of the free-to-play online-only game AirMech.  Despite recieveing this polished up re-imagining the original concept has never really attracted a large playerbase.

There are more games I could cover.  Meridian 59 (the first MMORPG to feature three-dimension environments) comes to mind, but I think I have written enough for now about humble trend setters.  It's also worth mentioning that one can always dig deeper.  Back at the beginning I mentioned Sweet Home being the starting point for the survival horror genre.  In truth though one could go back further to Project Firestart in 1989 or even Haunted House way back in 1982 (for the Atari 2600) and claim that either of them is where it all really got started.  Of course that can lead to very reductive statements like "all games are based on the first distributed game ever - Space War!"  Tempting to declare, I'm sure, but the fact of the matter is game designers are influenced by things outside the realm of video games too.  The same holds true for other kinds of media as well.  One could claim that the 1982 film TRON was inspired by electronic entertainment, but if you sit down and watch the movie you'll gradually realize that it was based on Frisbee, handball, tennis and motorcycle racing as much as Pacman or Pong.      

Beaten to the Punch (Part 1 of 2)

On February 5th, 2023 the United States military deployed an F-22 jet fighter to shoot down a high altitude spy balloon that had been launched by China.  Some might think this was a first for aerial combat, but it was actually something that happened surprisingly often during World War 1.  Specifically, hot air balloons were used regularly to gain a vantage point in which one could observe enemy positions while being safely out of artillery range behind friendly lines.  As such, missions to shoot down enemy balloons were a fairly common assignment for pilots of that era.  Unsurprisingly, older-than-you-think is very much an ever present aspect of game mechanics and design as well.  Sometimes the games that started a trend, or even a whole (sub-)genre, are celebrated to this day.  However, in many cases they are mostly forgotten.  Lets go over seven such examples.

Sweet Home is an NES title that was never ported and, as such, failed to receive much recognition outside of Japan.  Nevertheless, it is often thought to be the origin of the survival horror genre.  While some claim the roots go back even further, there is no denying that this game along with the original Alone in the Dark were the primary inspirations for Resident Evil.  RagnarRox, of Youtube fame, goes into extensive detail about the Sweet Home and how the original Resident Evil was going to have a very similar story.  Some of the details remain in the final product; in particular, thematic elements such as a mansion and multiple playable characters, each with their own unique abilities.  Ultimately, part way into development the story was modified to include the idea of a zombie/monster creating virus and the elite crime-fighting unit (S.T.A.R.S.) that we all know and love.  Unlike Alone in the Dark, which spawned several sequels and a soon-to-be-release remake (as of the time this blog entry), Sweet Home is largely unknown outside of collectors and gaming historians. 

Next is Daisenryaku.  Translated to English the title means something like "Great Strategy" and features gameplay that would seem strangely familiar to fans of the Advanced Wars series.  Originally it began on PC, but saw ports as well as exclusive titles on a variety of consoles and operating systems.  All told it has been on over 22 different devices with something like 70 titles in the series.  However, the vast majority of these games were never released outside of Japan.  As such the IP has never really gained traction the way its more cartoonish predecessor has.  Kind of crazy to think, considering it was the first game to feature the split screen combat scenes which are a hallmark of numerous Japanese strategy war games that followed.  If I had to wager a guess, I'd say that Daisenryaku might have scared a lot of potential players off due to its use of a hex grid map.  As stupid as it sounds making the zones squares might have made it more palatable to a wider audience.

Speaking of games like Advanced Wars, there are a few fantasy-themed equivalents that have come out over the years.  Wargroove is one of the most recent and is based on the much older Warsong (also known as Langrisser: The Decendants of Light).  Even older still is a prequel of of sorts to that series called Elthlead.  The ur-example when it comes to SRPGs, it was only released for the Japanese PC market.  That, along with the previously mentioned aversion many gamers had toward hex grids at the time, might have kept it from gaining wider acclaim.  Elthlead also lacked the large cast of distinct hero characters that has since become a pillar of the genre.  Overall, the game feels closer to a table-top wargame than those titles which followed.  Nonetheless, far more widely recognized games such Final Fantasy: Tactics, Shinning Force and the Fire Emblem series have roots stretching back to this obscure game from 1987.   

People will often point to the original Legend of Zelda (or The Hyrule Fantasy: Zelda no Densetsu in Japan) as the starting point for the classic hero's action/adventure genre.  What they don't know is another game came out two years before it by the name of Hydlide.  Released in 1984 for PC only, it was ported to the NES two years later.  Then, three year after that, it was finally localized for the western market.  By that time though Zelda had a gained a considerable lead in popularity.  As such, Hydlide never really caught up despite trying to innovate in its own ways.  An awkwardly named sequel, Hydlide: Shine of Darkness, was released exclusively for the Japanese market.  In addition to that, plans for a Sega Genesis (Mega Drive) port of the original under the name "Hydlide Special" were made, but this was abandoned in lieu of an all new entry in the series entitled Super Hydlide (or in Japan Hydlide 3: The Space Memories) followed by Virtual Hydlide for the Sega Saturn...honestly, I think the naming conventions for this series leave something to be desired.  "Link the Adventurer" might not sound like the most inspiring name for a protagonist, but it's still better than Hydlide's "Jim the Knight".

Since we still have three more examples to go, I'm splitting this blogpost entry into two parts.  In the next and final installment, we'll go over three more games; starting with something more contemporary and ending with a game that inspired not one, but two whole genres.  Stay tuned until then!

Bad VO

Doing good voice-overs is a much harder challenge than one might initially think.  Acting itself requires a particular set of skills that don't always come naturally, and to get good at it (in a broad sense) one must hone their craft.  Voice acting is no exception to this and, in fact, comes with its own specific challenges.  On one hand the actor doesn't need to worry about things like makeup and wardrobe, but on the other they often have to create a performance essentially through imagination alone.  Even other actors are unlikely to be present, forcing the person whose voice is being recorded to essentially do it all solo.  

There are many great examples of people who have risen to this particular challenge; both in animated films and shows, as well as video games.  I'm sure anyone reading this can think of a few, and if not a cursory internet search will provide some thoughtful lists.  Instead of that though, I want to touch on the bad...but not just in general.  I want to break it down into three categories of bad; each with their own example.  

Phoning-it-in:

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Super Wing Commander was (surprisingly, given the title) not a SNES port of the original Wing Commander.  The Nintendo version kept the exact same title and visual assets as the original aside from a slight fidelity downgrade.  The "Super" version of this game was made for the 3DO and Mac.  It featured all new portraits for the characters as well as redesigns of all the spacecraft.  Content from expansion packs were seamlessly integrated into the campaign and even a few unique bonus missions were included to better tie the original to its sequel.  What it didn't receive was improvements to the voice acting.  The SegaCD version had competently done VO, but for some strange reason Super Wing Commander had it's own separate recordings done with different actors that were shockingly flat and dull.  One character in particular, "Iceman", has such a lifeless way of delivering lines I couldn't help but chuckle...overall, it seems like the cast were in large part made up of people who happened to be doing other jobs in the studio offices since most have very few, if any other, acting credits to their names.  

Nails-on-a-chalkboard:

Shadow of the Comet (later repackaged as one of two Call of Cthulhu point-and-click adventure games) was an early adopter of the CD-ROM format.  As such, voice acting was used to improve the game's marketability as well as justify all that extra storage space.  For the calmer parts of the game, it isn't bad.  In fact, some of it could even be considered decent for the standards of the time.  However, there are a number of scenes in which things become "heated".  In these instances the actors rightfully intensified their performances to match what is occurring on-screen.  Sadly, their enthusiasm for the material didn't translate to the final product.  As RagnarRox of Youtube fame puts it, "I highly recommend playing this game text only.  It makes it much more easy to take the game seriously and you avoid both the cringey voice acting and syncing problems with the subtitles." In addition to that, I would like to add you are less likely to suffer ear/speaker damage due to people blowing their mics out during audio recording sessions.      

So-bad-it-is-actually-good:

Tenchu: Stealth Assassins reminds me a lot of that goofy comedy film "Kung Pow! Enter the Fist" in that it pokes fun not at the culture from which the media came, but rather the shoddy job in which it was localized.  Roles such as the narrator and Rikimaru are played straight, but most of the supporting cast are incredibly over the top in terms of delivery.  Some especially egregious examples include the corrupt merchants Bizenya and Echigoya.  The latter of which has a bodyguard who sports an outrageous Japanese accent. "Rooks rike you picked the wong pah-tee to clash."  It doesn't stop there though the Manji cult leader is on a whole other level of cheese.  Combine that with Ayane's deadpan snark, a pirate captain that only speaks Spanish and whatever the heck Onikage (plus his boss "Lord Mei-oh") are trying to channel, and you have a recipe for comedy gold. 

There are, of course, many more examples I could bring up.  Famous (or should I say infamous?) examples such as the original Resident Evil are easy to cite.  Then there are equally obscure examples such as Phase Paradox, a game that I can only describe as "bizarre" in terms of line delivery.  I think that I've made my point though - just because it is bad doesn't mean I can't be interesting.   

Starting with a BANG!

Introductory English writing classes (whether it be essays or creative writing) often encourage students to use a popular technique commonly referred to as a "narrative hook" at the start.  Basically the idea is to grab the readers attention with a bold question or statement.  In film an TV, it's similarly conceived of as a "cold open," but what about video games?  

They have their own variations on the technique which I'm not going to try to explain in abstract detail.  Instead, I want to take this line of thought in a slightly different direction by selecting a standout game from each console platform that really tries to sink it's proverbial claws into the player before they even engage with the game's mechanics.  Here's the list I came up with:

For the NES, there aren't a whole lot of choices.  In fact during the 8-bit era the concept of a strong narrative arch hadn't developed much yet.  That said, Ninja Gaiden has one heck of an opening with the classic sword duel in a moonlit field.  That, along with some brief snippets of accompanying text do an excellent job of setting up the stakes and story that follow.

For SNES, I would have to go with Super Metriod.  There's so much to like about this game even before you push the start button; tight panning shots of a lab in disarray, plus a zoom out to the title card demonstrate excellent use of the consoles mode 7 graphics capability, but it's the haunting musical cue (filled with apprehension and dread) that really sells the introductory scene.

For the Sega Genesis (Mega Drive), I initially wanted to go with Phantasy Star 2 with it's mysterious yet strangely upbeat music playing over the setting intro (which in itself is an interesting blend of science fiction and fantasy).  However, I ultimately decided on Castle of Illusion because of its fairytale-style intro combined with a slick use of letterbox formatting to introduce the title card, hero and titular castle all in one framing shot.

For N64 Conker's Bad Fur Day takes the prize.  The goofy 4th-wall-breaking intro wherein everyone's favorite red squirrel chainsaws the N64 logo in half only to replace it with the Rareware logo contrasts so sharply with the game's incredibly downer "how did I get here?" beginning-at-the-end has got to be a first for console gaming (not to mention a bold move from a design and presentation perspective).

For PS1 the choice is obvious - Metal Gear Solid.  The amount of techno-thriller gobbledygook this game throws at the screen in the first couple of minutes is kind of insane, but it also sets a new standard in that the original MGS showed games could introduce a fairly complex plotline right off the bat.  Your mileage may vary (obviously), but it opened the floodgates in terms of the future of storytelling in video games.

I could keep going, but I think these examples from the 3rd, 4th and 5th generations of console hardware have served my purposes.  As the saying goes in life "put your best foot forward"...and since games often imitate life the same holds true for them as well.   

The (Official) Art of Rastan

 

Keep fighting that lizard!

Tom Clancy's Tom Clancy

I generally don't consider it a good sign when the name of an author is in a bigger font than the title of the book.  To me it implies a degree of arrogance on the publisher's part.  As if they are trying to say "the specifics of the story are irrelevant because the writer can do no wrong."  While I'm sure there are fans out there that will claim their favorite novelist is perfect, in my own experience even the best authors have written some stinkers.  In Tom Clancy's case, it's a little bit weird.  Of the thirty-six novels written by him, half were published after his death.  In fact, only about a dozen Tom Clancy books were actually written by none-other-than Tom Clancy himself.  The rest were co-authored or ghostwritten by other people with Clancy sometimes providing little more than a plot outline or tacit approval.  Obviously, after his death in 2013 any creative input he provided came to an end...and yet the "Tom Clancy" brand continues.  Before becoming a novelist, Tom Clancy was an insurance salesman...and it shows.  The kind of "insurance" buyers are getting in this case though is a perceived guarantee that they will receive an espionage-thriller with the technical aspects researched in detail.  As always, this is a blog about video games so let me cover that too.

As far as I can tell, Tom Clancy's contributions to the world of video games really began with Tom Clancy's SSN.  Released in 1996 as a (then) modern day sub-sim, players control a Los Angeles-class attack submarine across 15 missions in a limited war between the USA and China.  The game featured quite a bit of FMV, but the actual sim aspect of the game was fairly simple.  A tie-in novel of the same name was also published, but suffers from perfunctory prose...possibly because it was co-written by Martin H. Greenburg.  This sort of thing begs the question, "what (if any) contributions did Tom Clancy make to his games?"  

About the same time SSN came out Clancy co-founded Red Storm Entertainment (which later became a subsidiary of Ubisoft).  In the years since then more than forty games have be released with the "Tom Clancy" label.  The single most famous one is probably Rainbow Six, but it only marked the beginning of one franchise.  There are more; such as Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell and most recently The Division.  Going back to Rainbow Six for a moment, the series starter was an adaptation of a novel bearing the same name.  Some of the scenarios in the game are taken from the book.  Even so, the game fleshes out the content quite a bit by adding more variety (as well as a slightly different ending).  True to the Clancy spirt of meticulous detail, the game allows for precise planning and execution right down to the assigned equipment and actions for each individual agent.  In a time when FPS games mostly consisted of run-and-gun DOOM clones this was innovative stuff and marked the emergence of tactical shooters into the mainstream market.  While this might sound like Clancy made major contributions to the game, it's important to note that the concept of a black ops FPS had been in the works at Red Storm Entertainment before he began writing the Rainbow Six novel.  This leads me to believe that his label was more akin to "Tony Hawk" or "John Madden" than "Sid Meier."

In truth, I think Tom Clancy struggled to find proper antagonists for his stories once the U.S.S.R. collapsed and the Cold War ended.  He would return to that time period in some of his works, but for his stories set in the present day he had America doing battle against terrorists, drug lords and Japan...yes, you read that third one correctly.  To say Clancy jumped the shark with his novel "Debt of Honor" would be an understatement...particularly with Jack Ryan turning into a Gary Stu by not only becoming the President, but the best one in United States history.  Personally, I can't quite figure out why anyone would read "Hunt for the Red October" when they could just read "Blind Man's Bluff" and get the real story with better characterization to boot.   If you want a sci-fi version of Tom Clancy there are those too...John Lumpkin being the first example that comes to mind.  Most of all though why read "Rainbow Six" when you can play the far more entertaining game?