PasokonDeacon
More like Bromance of the Twink Kingdoms, amirite Backlo—shot
While I was away from Backloggd (long story), I got so far removed from my Japanese PC game schedule that I somehow drifted back around to it via Koei. The company's extensive library of sim/strategy classics has always taunted me from the gallery, begging me to try and parse its magnanimity. So here I am, marching across all of classical China with a growing retinue of generals, politicians, and all-around badasses trying to undo the mess the eunuchs and warlords have made. It ain't easy, but it's an honest living, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms VII was probably the best way I could have started with this franchise now that I've tried more of the PS2-era releases.
In short, this RoTK entry plays mostly like the others: choose a starting scenario from some point in the Three Kingdoms era (end of the Han to rise of the Jin), then try and reunite the land under one power through whatever means necessary. Before VII, this meant taking the role of liege (ruler, aka ye olde Cao Cao and the like) and campaigning against other lords for hegemony, first through obtaining officers and then by conquering each province. RoTK VII was a paradigm shift for the series, then 15 years old, by introducing "officer play". Now you start off as just one individual out of hundreds spanning the huaxia realm, meaning you can play your own custom officer or a vaunted icon of the period in whatever position they initially had. By doing this, RoTK expanded its definition of grand strategy to include more role-playing opportunities, where famous officials can resign to wander the land and other vagabonds could instead rise to significance.
The average game flow in RoTK VII, discounting leaders, has players working their way up from wanderers ("ronin" in Koei's parlage) to vassals (regular officers), prefects (city leaders), and lieges, always with the choice to forgo those positions and/or switch alliances. Contrasting the "dream" system of Romance of the Three Kingdoms VI, which set a lifelong aspiration for each character, this installment now gives you the Fame and Deeds statistics for measuring one's influence across China, arguably the endgame goal for everyone in the game. With both Northern and Southern Mystics periodically evaluating who has the greatest Fame in the land (and rewarding the best with money and a Bless skill), there's many reasons to prioritize hoarding Fame over just reuniting the land in record time to end a playthrough. I had a lot of fun helping out the common people by investigating corruption and banditry, or personally capturing the toughest officers in battle, just to hit the top 10 list of famous officers during my runs.
Every officer has an Action Points total determining how many actions one can take during a turn (one month). The game's very much a matter of managing your action economy, delegating minor tasks to others when possible while reserving important stuff for your own guy. Since many actions cost 50 AP for you and not others, this especially matters when working to develop a city's economy, comprised of agriculture, commerce, safety, and defense stats which mostly falter during warfare and natural disasters. Methodical development of cities is a great way to build fame and one's own stats, albeit at the cost of not visiting other regions, networking with officers and leaders, etc. Every RoTK installment has a challenging balancing act of priorities to manage, whether just for leaders or for all the potential characters to play, and RoTK VII ultimately favors new players a lot more than most of the games. It takes just 10 AP, out of likely above a hundred, to mail an officer and build bond points with them. And since most historical personas have hidden bonuses with others (reflecting their connections from the source novel), playing the likes of Guan Yu, Lu Xun, or the Xiahou brothers can be extra lenient for anyone wanting a smooth introduction to the series.
Winning the game technically only matters insofar as characters will die of old age, with the game moving you to the officer most bonded to your initial one. The open-ended progression and objectives of this RoTK design era makes it engaging just to pursue one's own excellence as much as leading your force to dominance over the country, but only the latter ends the game for good. And believe me, you'll spend a lot of time accomplishing that. There are more devious, "peaceful" means of swaying cities and leaders to your control, whether as liege or an underling, but combat's inevitable and the game's sketchy AI makes it risky to even engage, let alone defend against invasion. Because all movement across China happens rigidly through roads of different quality (ex. plains and waterways vs. mountain and gallery passes), it's smart to turtle up in a promising city, build up its economy and defenses, while developing an army and set of officers ready to march onward. The overworld's design makes it possible and entertaining to start a whole new force at a neglected corner of the map, traveling through other provinces to meet and acquire officers, before finally striking out and holding your own against greater powers via choke points and subterfuge.
Should any mix of induced riots, defections, coups, or annexation fail, there's always the battlefield. Battles in RoTK VII deviate from the hex-grids of old, instead using a Fire Emblem-esque square grid and turn-based systems to dictate combat flow. Battle prep starts with March commands or reacting to another force marching on you (or your allies requesting your reinforcements); this involves selecting officers/troop numbers, choosing weapon types (ex. crossbows, Rattan armor, cavalry et al.), and who leads as commander and tactician. Whether as offense or defense, you always get a briefing screen prior to matches where one can define strategy and ploys/traps. Combat units all move according to their WAR stats and troop counts—no one side moves all at once here—and winning fights sometimes boils down to just capturing the enemy commander or lowering a force's morale to 0. Many of my battles ended via abusing the latter condition to no end, often by squatting on the invaders' captured outposts to cut off their supply lines and thus their morale across turns.
Compared to what I've played of RoTK VIII (which in many ways exceeds this game), combat in RoTK VII plays much faster and distinguishes itself nicely vs. the slower, deliberate pace of the sequel. I had a grand 'ol time surrounding enemy troops with my own to gain massive damage boosts during attacks, or using weak but cunning officers' tactics and ranged attacks to disable and whittle down the game's most powerful units (think Lu Bu or Ma Chao). Battles themselves transition into castle sieges should some enemy units escape capture or retreat early, which results in a fun minigame where you ram down walls and use ploys like Feint or Riot to hurt the enemy without getting touched. Speaking of tactics and ploys, there's a bunch of them, some way better than others and restricted to field or siege modes. Pro tip: Rush, Rumor, and Rally ploys are supreme for getting faster reinforcements, scaring enemies off the map, and keeping your own morale/officer ailments in check. It's a great feeling when you finally get that Doctor skill item and can finally heal all those injured troops without having to camp at outposts for valuable turns on end (of which you only get 30 per battle).
Of all the myriad systems to master in RoTK VII, character skills are maybe the easiest and most personally satisfying. Making custom officers is engaging partly due to the chance to roll for some great starting skills such as Spy (better scouting), Trade (cheaper market prices), Reversal (turn an enemy's failed tactics against them), and it just goes on. RoTK VI had a similar skills framework before, but its successor fills out the roster and makes it easier to learn new skills via random when training (itself augmented by earning your base city's trust). The right combos of skills and stat-buff items can make any officer potentially a total winner! And that's why I think RoTK VII is maybe the easiest way to get into the series today, both because of its relative simplicity and the ease with which one can snowball. Worst case, a game ends quickly and you can move on to the next run, which might go far better. I can certainly see how the series earned its legacy in East Asia thanks to this addictive one-more-turn pace.
When comparing the PS2 and PC versions, I'm happy to say you aren't missing much with the former's lack of Power-Up Kit expansion. Later installments lean much heavier on their PUK to add critical features like child-raising for custom officers, but RoTK VII just predates Koei starting to punish players who don't/can't opt in. On the other hand, this entry's arguably the last which prizes sheer accessibility over all else, so it makes sense that a PUK wouldn't add much beyond a couple hundred extra officers (most of which are minor even by hardcore RoTK standards). Menus are easy to navigate in either version, though I bet the extra HUD elements on PC can help when figuring out strategies from the city screen. And while I ended up playing this much more for its mechanics and game loop, RoTK VII has solid presentation for its genre, with detailed 2D/pseudo-3D graphics (sober vs. Dynasty Warriors, but luscious) and a small but memorable soundtrack ranging from modern Chinese-styled orchestral to wild prog rock during combat. RoTK VII on PC now has an English fan patch for anyone unable to get a rare-ish PS2 copy, thankfully.
It's obviously hard to recommend most Koei strategy games to just anyone, given the lack of Western familiarity with stories like the Romance or Sengoku-era Japan for Nobunaga's Ambition, plus the complex systems at play. But I'm surprised these games aren't more widely played and discussed now in an age of successful grand strategy series from Paradox (ex. Crusader Kings) and Creative Assembly (Total War). Koei pioneered the genre and succeeded with it in ways that Western developers/publishers wouldn't for decades, and I'm unsurprised at how strong this earliest PS2 entry holds up. And it's insulting how Koei has run their oldest series into the ground via exploitative DLC and pricing schemes, making it easier to ignore them than ever. These games deserve much better treatment, that's for certain. While I can't wait to dig into more of their older PC output, RoTK VII might end up as my comfort Romance simulator of choice, just for how fast I can play through a what-if scenario and its more SRPG-esque battle dynamics. These qualities should make it a good starting place for others, too, who balk at the more complicated sequels and wonder how anyone could get onboard with RoTK wargaming.
tl;dr Do, in fact, pursue Lu Bu in this one. He's easy to confuse, can get misled into attacking his own guys, and is fun after the fight because he can tutor your own officer to become China's greatest warrior. Then proceed to curbstomp the countryside with him if one desires, but never forget about your cities' safety because it sucks when the mayors betray you for another ruler. Let the power of Rumor ploys compel you!
While I was away from Backloggd (long story), I got so far removed from my Japanese PC game schedule that I somehow drifted back around to it via Koei. The company's extensive library of sim/strategy classics has always taunted me from the gallery, begging me to try and parse its magnanimity. So here I am, marching across all of classical China with a growing retinue of generals, politicians, and all-around badasses trying to undo the mess the eunuchs and warlords have made. It ain't easy, but it's an honest living, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms VII was probably the best way I could have started with this franchise now that I've tried more of the PS2-era releases.
In short, this RoTK entry plays mostly like the others: choose a starting scenario from some point in the Three Kingdoms era (end of the Han to rise of the Jin), then try and reunite the land under one power through whatever means necessary. Before VII, this meant taking the role of liege (ruler, aka ye olde Cao Cao and the like) and campaigning against other lords for hegemony, first through obtaining officers and then by conquering each province. RoTK VII was a paradigm shift for the series, then 15 years old, by introducing "officer play". Now you start off as just one individual out of hundreds spanning the huaxia realm, meaning you can play your own custom officer or a vaunted icon of the period in whatever position they initially had. By doing this, RoTK expanded its definition of grand strategy to include more role-playing opportunities, where famous officials can resign to wander the land and other vagabonds could instead rise to significance.
The average game flow in RoTK VII, discounting leaders, has players working their way up from wanderers ("ronin" in Koei's parlage) to vassals (regular officers), prefects (city leaders), and lieges, always with the choice to forgo those positions and/or switch alliances. Contrasting the "dream" system of Romance of the Three Kingdoms VI, which set a lifelong aspiration for each character, this installment now gives you the Fame and Deeds statistics for measuring one's influence across China, arguably the endgame goal for everyone in the game. With both Northern and Southern Mystics periodically evaluating who has the greatest Fame in the land (and rewarding the best with money and a Bless skill), there's many reasons to prioritize hoarding Fame over just reuniting the land in record time to end a playthrough. I had a lot of fun helping out the common people by investigating corruption and banditry, or personally capturing the toughest officers in battle, just to hit the top 10 list of famous officers during my runs.
Every officer has an Action Points total determining how many actions one can take during a turn (one month). The game's very much a matter of managing your action economy, delegating minor tasks to others when possible while reserving important stuff for your own guy. Since many actions cost 50 AP for you and not others, this especially matters when working to develop a city's economy, comprised of agriculture, commerce, safety, and defense stats which mostly falter during warfare and natural disasters. Methodical development of cities is a great way to build fame and one's own stats, albeit at the cost of not visiting other regions, networking with officers and leaders, etc. Every RoTK installment has a challenging balancing act of priorities to manage, whether just for leaders or for all the potential characters to play, and RoTK VII ultimately favors new players a lot more than most of the games. It takes just 10 AP, out of likely above a hundred, to mail an officer and build bond points with them. And since most historical personas have hidden bonuses with others (reflecting their connections from the source novel), playing the likes of Guan Yu, Lu Xun, or the Xiahou brothers can be extra lenient for anyone wanting a smooth introduction to the series.
Winning the game technically only matters insofar as characters will die of old age, with the game moving you to the officer most bonded to your initial one. The open-ended progression and objectives of this RoTK design era makes it engaging just to pursue one's own excellence as much as leading your force to dominance over the country, but only the latter ends the game for good. And believe me, you'll spend a lot of time accomplishing that. There are more devious, "peaceful" means of swaying cities and leaders to your control, whether as liege or an underling, but combat's inevitable and the game's sketchy AI makes it risky to even engage, let alone defend against invasion. Because all movement across China happens rigidly through roads of different quality (ex. plains and waterways vs. mountain and gallery passes), it's smart to turtle up in a promising city, build up its economy and defenses, while developing an army and set of officers ready to march onward. The overworld's design makes it possible and entertaining to start a whole new force at a neglected corner of the map, traveling through other provinces to meet and acquire officers, before finally striking out and holding your own against greater powers via choke points and subterfuge.
Should any mix of induced riots, defections, coups, or annexation fail, there's always the battlefield. Battles in RoTK VII deviate from the hex-grids of old, instead using a Fire Emblem-esque square grid and turn-based systems to dictate combat flow. Battle prep starts with March commands or reacting to another force marching on you (or your allies requesting your reinforcements); this involves selecting officers/troop numbers, choosing weapon types (ex. crossbows, Rattan armor, cavalry et al.), and who leads as commander and tactician. Whether as offense or defense, you always get a briefing screen prior to matches where one can define strategy and ploys/traps. Combat units all move according to their WAR stats and troop counts—no one side moves all at once here—and winning fights sometimes boils down to just capturing the enemy commander or lowering a force's morale to 0. Many of my battles ended via abusing the latter condition to no end, often by squatting on the invaders' captured outposts to cut off their supply lines and thus their morale across turns.
Compared to what I've played of RoTK VIII (which in many ways exceeds this game), combat in RoTK VII plays much faster and distinguishes itself nicely vs. the slower, deliberate pace of the sequel. I had a grand 'ol time surrounding enemy troops with my own to gain massive damage boosts during attacks, or using weak but cunning officers' tactics and ranged attacks to disable and whittle down the game's most powerful units (think Lu Bu or Ma Chao). Battles themselves transition into castle sieges should some enemy units escape capture or retreat early, which results in a fun minigame where you ram down walls and use ploys like Feint or Riot to hurt the enemy without getting touched. Speaking of tactics and ploys, there's a bunch of them, some way better than others and restricted to field or siege modes. Pro tip: Rush, Rumor, and Rally ploys are supreme for getting faster reinforcements, scaring enemies off the map, and keeping your own morale/officer ailments in check. It's a great feeling when you finally get that Doctor skill item and can finally heal all those injured troops without having to camp at outposts for valuable turns on end (of which you only get 30 per battle).
Of all the myriad systems to master in RoTK VII, character skills are maybe the easiest and most personally satisfying. Making custom officers is engaging partly due to the chance to roll for some great starting skills such as Spy (better scouting), Trade (cheaper market prices), Reversal (turn an enemy's failed tactics against them), and it just goes on. RoTK VI had a similar skills framework before, but its successor fills out the roster and makes it easier to learn new skills via random when training (itself augmented by earning your base city's trust). The right combos of skills and stat-buff items can make any officer potentially a total winner! And that's why I think RoTK VII is maybe the easiest way to get into the series today, both because of its relative simplicity and the ease with which one can snowball. Worst case, a game ends quickly and you can move on to the next run, which might go far better. I can certainly see how the series earned its legacy in East Asia thanks to this addictive one-more-turn pace.
When comparing the PS2 and PC versions, I'm happy to say you aren't missing much with the former's lack of Power-Up Kit expansion. Later installments lean much heavier on their PUK to add critical features like child-raising for custom officers, but RoTK VII just predates Koei starting to punish players who don't/can't opt in. On the other hand, this entry's arguably the last which prizes sheer accessibility over all else, so it makes sense that a PUK wouldn't add much beyond a couple hundred extra officers (most of which are minor even by hardcore RoTK standards). Menus are easy to navigate in either version, though I bet the extra HUD elements on PC can help when figuring out strategies from the city screen. And while I ended up playing this much more for its mechanics and game loop, RoTK VII has solid presentation for its genre, with detailed 2D/pseudo-3D graphics (sober vs. Dynasty Warriors, but luscious) and a small but memorable soundtrack ranging from modern Chinese-styled orchestral to wild prog rock during combat. RoTK VII on PC now has an English fan patch for anyone unable to get a rare-ish PS2 copy, thankfully.
It's obviously hard to recommend most Koei strategy games to just anyone, given the lack of Western familiarity with stories like the Romance or Sengoku-era Japan for Nobunaga's Ambition, plus the complex systems at play. But I'm surprised these games aren't more widely played and discussed now in an age of successful grand strategy series from Paradox (ex. Crusader Kings) and Creative Assembly (Total War). Koei pioneered the genre and succeeded with it in ways that Western developers/publishers wouldn't for decades, and I'm unsurprised at how strong this earliest PS2 entry holds up. And it's insulting how Koei has run their oldest series into the ground via exploitative DLC and pricing schemes, making it easier to ignore them than ever. These games deserve much better treatment, that's for certain. While I can't wait to dig into more of their older PC output, RoTK VII might end up as my comfort Romance simulator of choice, just for how fast I can play through a what-if scenario and its more SRPG-esque battle dynamics. These qualities should make it a good starting place for others, too, who balk at the more complicated sequels and wonder how anyone could get onboard with RoTK wargaming.
tl;dr Do, in fact, pursue Lu Bu in this one. He's easy to confuse, can get misled into attacking his own guys, and is fun after the fight because he can tutor your own officer to become China's greatest warrior. Then proceed to curbstomp the countryside with him if one desires, but never forget about your cities' safety because it sucks when the mayors betray you for another ruler. Let the power of Rumor ploys compel you!
lol, uh, I'm concerned that anyone might actually think the Speccy games this "homage" references were ever this bad
It's not horrible for a 5-10 minute romp through hastily-made, gorily garish mazes until you find the somewhat hidden secret room that ends it. The music choices remind me of the earlier Space Funeral in a good way, and its commitment to just being a little fucked-up guy of a game, only loved by its creator, is admirable. Sadly, Fucker Gamer Scum Get Fucked almost entirely misunderstands the source material it's deriving from. Both of John George Jones' splatterpunk classics for the ZX Spectrum, Go to Hell and Soft & Cuddly, are both more playable than this and offer an ironically meaningful kind of Thatcher-era nihilism. They were emblematic "video nasties" taken to the computer's known limits, while FGSGS would barely escape the Newgrounds blam-hammer with how much it tries my patience.
From the start, you're bombarded with Speccy-like colors-on-black aesthetics, albeit balking that platform's infamous graphical restrictions (ex. sprite color clash). None of this looks as cohesive as I think the creator intended. More detailed sprites and objects stand out in an uncanny but uninteresting way, like an overworked collage canvas. We're supposed to be floating a bizarre nightmare maze of sorts, the kind of Grand Guignol show turned gore film that Go to Hell did so well. But I wasn't even a bit spooked or put-off by the imagery, just bored. At least this doesn't fall into the same traps as fashionable mascot horror one-offs these days, but the baneful bits of J.G. Jones' duo have lasting power this doesn't. Used syringes, nondescript projectiles, and a cheap glut of bloody surfaces does not a fun horror show make. Gimme me the conjoined babies, flying guillotines, walls made of Hell's victims spanning all its rings, distorted scrimblo faces to make Otto from Berzerk proud...all that you'll get in the actual '80s games.
Now, you won't catch me saying there's any trenchant narrative or commentary in something like Soft & Cuddly. Transgression was by far the most important goal for Jones, using the Sinclair PC's inimitable visual strengths to transform horror cliches into something more compelling. But his creations weren't lumped into the more literary splatterpunk movement without good reason. There's a distinct air of anti-Tory, pro-creators ethos felt throughout either adventure, from the mercurial hells you explore to cute humor like the game over screen punchlines. All the grim, strange sights on offer, plus shrill soundscapes, evokes the evolving, never-ending drudgery of living through miners' strikes, predatory capitalism, and Mary Whitehouse screeds against non-conservative art in general. Jones made these shambling but nonetheless enjoyable scare houses for himself and friends, something the punks and outsiders could share in common.
I'm not sure who the audience for this modern retread is. Parts of FGSGS look too polished, too modern game engine-based to fit a visual style made under technical constraints. Go to Hell wasn't much more than a decent if tedious maze adventure, but this has barely any progression at all. You quickly jet your way through not nearly enough screens to feel as complete as its inspiration, all while seemingly anything kills you without logic. The life-draining walls and enemies in Go to Hell are very punitive, but possible to work around and feel some accomplishment for reaching each cross. FGSGS just has nothing like that. It's a big nothingburger of an attempted mid-2000s Flash game in its current state. Less like an amateur's earnest riff on Clive Barker, Alan Moore, Tanith Lee, or any other icons of '80s UK pulp fiction—more like My First VVVVVV Fangame v0.3.
But worst of all, this just doesn't get the kind of socio-economic nihilism that makes Jones' games so interesting today. I couldn't come across any weird level design, enemy type, or wacky set-piece here suggesting that vibe of "we're stuck in a hellish war-torn ghost town world with nowhere to go, hounded by those above us". Go to Hell has you playing a very simple but recognizably Manic Miner-like character, traveling through corridors adorned with commodified villains, symbols, and unfortunates like yourself. The crosses you seek are themselves distorted, flashing neon facsimiles of the real thing, lighting up a night of meticulous wandering. Jones' hell feels surprisingly barren despite its content overload, a telling contrast. Reaching each cross and finally Alice Cooper's digitized mug may not mean much, but there's something to feel accomplished about. FGSGS really just throws everything and the kitchen sink at you, hoping something sticks.
IDK, there's not much more to say for this one. Throw it on if you love watching your PC monitor forcibly switch to 640x480 resolution, or want a quick laugh. I get more enjoyment from Livesey Walk animations, let alone a quality YouTube Poop with the same runtime. Normally I'd just give this kind of game a 2-star rating and move on, but it's hurt a bit by having such a dismissive attitude towards Jones' games and the "ZX Spectrum aesthetic" in general. (Not that I fault anyone for disliking how Speccy games almost always look, but developers have crafted very artistically interesting works on it for a long time.) The most praise I'll give to Fucker Game Scrum Get Stabbed is that I finally played Go to Hell because of it—now that's what I call Entertainment.
Completed for the Backloggd Discord server’s Game of the Week club, Feb. 28 – Mar. 6, 2023
It's not horrible for a 5-10 minute romp through hastily-made, gorily garish mazes until you find the somewhat hidden secret room that ends it. The music choices remind me of the earlier Space Funeral in a good way, and its commitment to just being a little fucked-up guy of a game, only loved by its creator, is admirable. Sadly, Fucker Gamer Scum Get Fucked almost entirely misunderstands the source material it's deriving from. Both of John George Jones' splatterpunk classics for the ZX Spectrum, Go to Hell and Soft & Cuddly, are both more playable than this and offer an ironically meaningful kind of Thatcher-era nihilism. They were emblematic "video nasties" taken to the computer's known limits, while FGSGS would barely escape the Newgrounds blam-hammer with how much it tries my patience.
From the start, you're bombarded with Speccy-like colors-on-black aesthetics, albeit balking that platform's infamous graphical restrictions (ex. sprite color clash). None of this looks as cohesive as I think the creator intended. More detailed sprites and objects stand out in an uncanny but uninteresting way, like an overworked collage canvas. We're supposed to be floating a bizarre nightmare maze of sorts, the kind of Grand Guignol show turned gore film that Go to Hell did so well. But I wasn't even a bit spooked or put-off by the imagery, just bored. At least this doesn't fall into the same traps as fashionable mascot horror one-offs these days, but the baneful bits of J.G. Jones' duo have lasting power this doesn't. Used syringes, nondescript projectiles, and a cheap glut of bloody surfaces does not a fun horror show make. Gimme me the conjoined babies, flying guillotines, walls made of Hell's victims spanning all its rings, distorted scrimblo faces to make Otto from Berzerk proud...all that you'll get in the actual '80s games.
Now, you won't catch me saying there's any trenchant narrative or commentary in something like Soft & Cuddly. Transgression was by far the most important goal for Jones, using the Sinclair PC's inimitable visual strengths to transform horror cliches into something more compelling. But his creations weren't lumped into the more literary splatterpunk movement without good reason. There's a distinct air of anti-Tory, pro-creators ethos felt throughout either adventure, from the mercurial hells you explore to cute humor like the game over screen punchlines. All the grim, strange sights on offer, plus shrill soundscapes, evokes the evolving, never-ending drudgery of living through miners' strikes, predatory capitalism, and Mary Whitehouse screeds against non-conservative art in general. Jones made these shambling but nonetheless enjoyable scare houses for himself and friends, something the punks and outsiders could share in common.
I'm not sure who the audience for this modern retread is. Parts of FGSGS look too polished, too modern game engine-based to fit a visual style made under technical constraints. Go to Hell wasn't much more than a decent if tedious maze adventure, but this has barely any progression at all. You quickly jet your way through not nearly enough screens to feel as complete as its inspiration, all while seemingly anything kills you without logic. The life-draining walls and enemies in Go to Hell are very punitive, but possible to work around and feel some accomplishment for reaching each cross. FGSGS just has nothing like that. It's a big nothingburger of an attempted mid-2000s Flash game in its current state. Less like an amateur's earnest riff on Clive Barker, Alan Moore, Tanith Lee, or any other icons of '80s UK pulp fiction—more like My First VVVVVV Fangame v0.3.
But worst of all, this just doesn't get the kind of socio-economic nihilism that makes Jones' games so interesting today. I couldn't come across any weird level design, enemy type, or wacky set-piece here suggesting that vibe of "we're stuck in a hellish war-torn ghost town world with nowhere to go, hounded by those above us". Go to Hell has you playing a very simple but recognizably Manic Miner-like character, traveling through corridors adorned with commodified villains, symbols, and unfortunates like yourself. The crosses you seek are themselves distorted, flashing neon facsimiles of the real thing, lighting up a night of meticulous wandering. Jones' hell feels surprisingly barren despite its content overload, a telling contrast. Reaching each cross and finally Alice Cooper's digitized mug may not mean much, but there's something to feel accomplished about. FGSGS really just throws everything and the kitchen sink at you, hoping something sticks.
IDK, there's not much more to say for this one. Throw it on if you love watching your PC monitor forcibly switch to 640x480 resolution, or want a quick laugh. I get more enjoyment from Livesey Walk animations, let alone a quality YouTube Poop with the same runtime. Normally I'd just give this kind of game a 2-star rating and move on, but it's hurt a bit by having such a dismissive attitude towards Jones' games and the "ZX Spectrum aesthetic" in general. (Not that I fault anyone for disliking how Speccy games almost always look, but developers have crafted very artistically interesting works on it for a long time.) The most praise I'll give to Fucker Game Scrum Get Stabbed is that I finally played Go to Hell because of it—now that's what I call Entertainment.
Completed for the Backloggd Discord server’s Game of the Week club, Feb. 28 – Mar. 6, 2023
1994
Inclement weather on the horizon: bullet rain, blood runoff in the streets, industrial parks desecrated by their own designs. No glorious anthems play in the background, just stings of death, the musique concrete of battle. A Wellsian steam-plane leads the charge, swerving and shooting past all that approach it. The pilot smirks, then grins in morbid delight. "Let 'em wail, like any of them can stop me!", he cries. Like a flying shark, the well-dressed dilletante in his top hat and goggles then gores the seas, cities, and alien motherships of his time. It's just the flight man's burden.
"Earth, 1999. But the Earth [is] of a different timeline. There are no microwave ovens and TV is still in black and white." Banshee's manual tells a simple premise: as Sven Svardensvart, steampunk viking he is, you must defeat the imposing Styx Empire, first by liberating a thinly-disguised United States from the aliens before hijacking their technology to escape Earth and face the Styxians on their own planet. It's a humans vs. invaders plot in a vertical arcade shooter, what more does one need? In the peanut gallery, I hear five words: "Anything but an Amiga shmup!" And make no mistake, I did a lot of research before settling on my first Western STG from the microcomputer glory days. There's a wide range in quality between, say, Tyrian and Xenon 2: Megablast (it's okay, Bitmap Brothers, you made up with The Chaos Engine later). American and European PC shooters tend to suffer in key ways which reflect either (a) developers' crippling isolation from Japanese arcades and fan communities around which major innovations could foment, and/or (b) a focus on presentation and pushing technology at the expense of fun, skillful play, and optimized controls. Extra negative points if the game in question targets a genuinely obscure or difficult-to-obtain platform like the 3DO or, in this case, the ill-fated Amiga CD32. With so many CD32-first games bombing commercially and critically, how well could this one hope to do?!
I'm happy to say that Banshee mostly avoids those pitfalls. This ended up less like a poor Scandinavian take on Toaplan, Capcom, and Konami STGs than I feared; at times I felt like I was instead playing the best parts of Flying Shark or 1943, now without the fuss or bumps in difficulty (at least until the end). Though hardly without flaws, or any ambition beyond a polished take on WWII-adjacent STGs, I was impressed by the first impression this title gave me, and those new expectations held up for the most part.
| Fly with me and the daring Swedes |
Banshee wouldn't exist without the rakish vision of Søren "Hannibal" Hansen and Jacob Anderson, who brought their game to Core Design and got the publishing greenlight for a cross-Europe release. To their credit, Core also provided Martin Iveson, their veteran in-house musician, to help score the small but groovy EDM soundtrack introducing and ending each playthrough. But beyond manufacturing, distributing, and paying royalty checks, Core left this program to its contract creators. There aren't any differences between the Amiga 1200 (floppy) and CD32 (uh, CD) versions, apart from loading times for the latter. Emulating the latter was actually more consistent on my end when playing in WinUAE, but I'll chalk that up to misconfiguration.
Right away the game launches into stage 1, a vast expanse of ocean spanning multiple screens' worth of playfield. Enemies only respawn within the player's view frustum, as is typical, and astute players will quickly notice the health-bar on left. Banshee only commits one of the supposed cardinal sins of Euro-shooters by letting your plane take multiple hits before meeting its violent end. Here, though, the developers have very good reason to give players some leeway: this game has no continues. Yep, you just read that. It's 1994 and some devs somewhere still had the courage to prevent quarter-feeding entirely. Just learning the first stage, then, becomes a priority simply to gain ground and attune to Hansen & Jacobsen's rhythm of design.
Of the more classic influences here, 1942 and Twinbee stick out the most, with loop-de-loop attacks and shootable power-ups in play. The former allows you to temporarily escape fire, damaging anything under your path in the process, while the latter gives players the chance to switch power-up types so long as they can keep the item on-screen. That 'ol juggling act's back, in steampunk form, with a need to both defend against enemy waves, evade tricky patterns, and keep the ship in tip-top shape for what's to come. I found myself using loops as infrequently as expected, while I took my time on each run flipping pickups until I got just what I needed. Need to wreck some large but ponderous aircraft? Cycle to the missiles and get ready to dodge more fire than normal. Scared of incessant UFOs and boulders on the horizon? Like most shooters, there's a perfectly usable spread-shot ability worth nabbing. Best of all is the "build-up" system. Upon collecting three of the eponymous upgrades, your best weapon status gets saved for your next life. This reduces the frustration of accidentally dying to a boss and only having a pea-shooter upon revival, or when forgetting to pick up shield upgrades partway through a level. Overall, there's solid meat-and-potatoes STG design happening here—nothing revelatory, but more considerate than its Amiga peers by and large.
| "Blardax Maldrear, uglier than a Phreenian Foot-toad" |
Making one's way to Planet Veenix, the throne-world of this story's antagonist, won't be easy even with the aforementioned abilities and lifelines. Banshee's true sin is not pacing itself better, featuring four very long levels which, while diverse in environs, tend to drag like in weaker Compile STGs. Couple this format with no way to continue and we've got ourselves an often frustrating adventure. Hitting 1-up thresholds and keeping the build-up meter at max becomes its own game, one you'd be foolish not to master. Hannibal & Jacobsen are perfectly happy to take their time, slowly iterating on enemy groups and shot patterns with breathing room to spare. This feels great when the run's going according to plan (or, in the learning stages, at least feels manageable), but one bad turn and the urge to restart grows. This urge comes upon me something fierce in stricter genre examples, like Raiden or Hishousame, so to sense it here saps some of my enjoyment. Many patterns and mini-bosses felt a bit underbaked, too, though not enough to ruin the experience. While this program could stand to run at a faster framerate, it's decently smooth as is, and the keyboards controls are as intuitive as the glossy brass UI.
Something this game never falters with is its B-movie sense of humor, both in visuals and sound design. I've seen a couple reviewers compare the art-style in Banshee to a mix of Cannon Fodder and Metal Slug (maybe some Boogie Wings as well), with deep earthy colors and attention to detail in the unlikeliest places. Pseudo-World War vehicles and soldiers all scramble to swat you down from the skies, yet their own deaths range from grisly to gallows humor. Burnt lackeys wither to bone and dust; city-goers mind their own business while a 1 vs. 1000 war rages across avenues; lighthouses, factories, and hulking ships all go up in brilliant flame and debris once the titular craft has its way. I'm not sure what's more sad, the fate of these brainwashed Gis or the thought of having one less unexpectedly hilarious STG to play. Canned PCM-audio cries of agony and constructs shredding into chaos make great use of the Amiga's Paula sound chip. And let's not sleep on Iveson's moody electronica during loading screens, a helpful reminder of just how '90s this game is.
The latter half of Banshee takes off the kid gloves, moving us from seaside bases and an Edwardian metropolis to icy, arid wastes before taking a climactic journey into the stars that'll make Metal Slug 3 blush. It's here where the no-continues, no-checkpoints structure can either heighten tension for the better or spoil a good run. The key factor which Hansen & Jacobsen nailed was balance; rarely did I ever feel unfairly outgunned or juked by the game. It's honestly designed from start to finish, even in the final half-hour's worth of intertwining projectiles and kamikaze attacks. Don't go in expecting a swerve towards danmaku leanings, or any overabundance of stage hazards (though some sequences dabble in them to great effect). Think Jamestown but with a more conventional arcade-y template and a comparatively refined minute-to-minute game loop. For lack of a true Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow shoot-em-up, this can fill in the blank for the foreseeable future.
| Stir in an Alternative Dimension |
Core Design had a talent in the early '90s for featuring the best works of just anyone they could find off the proverbial Amiga street. Sure, most of their releases were self-developed projects, but they had a frequent collaborator in The 8th Day (Heimdall [2], Premiere) and adopted other outside teams' works a few times, always to great results. I think it's telling that something like Banshee arrived in time to herald the CD32's push for games that could directly compete with better offerings on NEC, Nintendo, and SEGA platforms. Don't get me wrong—these efforts weren't successful, and the CD32 was stillborn despite the occasional bright spot like this game. But there's a fascinating "what if?" to consider where Core, Team17, Psygnosis, Rainbow Arts, Ubi-Soft, Cryo, etc. put their all into accessible yet unique games that could have buoyed the ailing Amiga marketplace.
Banshee in particular feels like the kind of throwback arcade shooter which rarely happens today. Its level of sincerity, genre awareness, and muted presentation is a hard sell to those browsing digital stores now, expecting more "bang for your buck" features and runtime. But back in 1994, this could still pass for a full-price release; some groans about just four levels aside, there's plenty to engage with here when playing for score. I haven't yet tried Hard difficulty yet, but Normal feels, well, the way a normal and engaging STG of the time should. Press outlets all had loads of praise for the title, with many proclaiming it the new standard in Amiga shooters against a slate of competing games. Most of those accolades are hard to take for granted, given the dearth of strong original STGs on any Western PC by then, but reviewers and fan letters were on to something, however quaint their opinions have become.
The transition to 3D and multimedia-driven consoles, along with dwindling outlooks on the arcade industry and its game design trends, meant there'd be little room for something like Banshee to take root and thrive. If Japanese shooters were starting to have trouble staying relevant to all but a niche audience, then what more could those dubious Euroshooters hope for? Banshee could handily showcase some of the finest AGA-accelerated Amiga graphics around, but the pursuit of 2D excellence largely became the task of versus fighters and xRPGs. Hansen & Jacobsen must have seen these changes coming, soon joining Scavenger Inc. to work on their technically-outstanding games A.M.O.K. and Scorcher for PC and Sega Saturn. The coder eventually worked his way up into Shiny Entertainment and then Microsoft, while the artist found footing later at IO and now Unity. I hope this game, among other formative Amiga-era works, hasn't just become a footnote to overlook, but a case study in how to nail design fundamentals and make something more than the sum of its parts.
All my waffling aside, Banshee is worth one's time when looking for a solid mid-'90s PC shooter. Worst case, you could even play through this for the "I beat a Euroshmup!" credo without feeling robbed of that hypothetical better game. It's a bit janky in spots, but only noticeably so due to the game otherwise working as well as it does. There's enemy variety for days, a lonely but fitting soundscape, and four rounds of generally well-paced action to dig into. I doubt it sold any CD32 units back in the day, but that's no longer a concern when WinUAE makes this easy to boot up and enjoy with a controller of one's choice. Now, if only *I* could get my hands on an impossibly well-equipped biplane for my own battles…
"Earth, 1999. But the Earth [is] of a different timeline. There are no microwave ovens and TV is still in black and white." Banshee's manual tells a simple premise: as Sven Svardensvart, steampunk viking he is, you must defeat the imposing Styx Empire, first by liberating a thinly-disguised United States from the aliens before hijacking their technology to escape Earth and face the Styxians on their own planet. It's a humans vs. invaders plot in a vertical arcade shooter, what more does one need? In the peanut gallery, I hear five words: "Anything but an Amiga shmup!" And make no mistake, I did a lot of research before settling on my first Western STG from the microcomputer glory days. There's a wide range in quality between, say, Tyrian and Xenon 2: Megablast (it's okay, Bitmap Brothers, you made up with The Chaos Engine later). American and European PC shooters tend to suffer in key ways which reflect either (a) developers' crippling isolation from Japanese arcades and fan communities around which major innovations could foment, and/or (b) a focus on presentation and pushing technology at the expense of fun, skillful play, and optimized controls. Extra negative points if the game in question targets a genuinely obscure or difficult-to-obtain platform like the 3DO or, in this case, the ill-fated Amiga CD32. With so many CD32-first games bombing commercially and critically, how well could this one hope to do?!
I'm happy to say that Banshee mostly avoids those pitfalls. This ended up less like a poor Scandinavian take on Toaplan, Capcom, and Konami STGs than I feared; at times I felt like I was instead playing the best parts of Flying Shark or 1943, now without the fuss or bumps in difficulty (at least until the end). Though hardly without flaws, or any ambition beyond a polished take on WWII-adjacent STGs, I was impressed by the first impression this title gave me, and those new expectations held up for the most part.
| Fly with me and the daring Swedes |
Banshee wouldn't exist without the rakish vision of Søren "Hannibal" Hansen and Jacob Anderson, who brought their game to Core Design and got the publishing greenlight for a cross-Europe release. To their credit, Core also provided Martin Iveson, their veteran in-house musician, to help score the small but groovy EDM soundtrack introducing and ending each playthrough. But beyond manufacturing, distributing, and paying royalty checks, Core left this program to its contract creators. There aren't any differences between the Amiga 1200 (floppy) and CD32 (uh, CD) versions, apart from loading times for the latter. Emulating the latter was actually more consistent on my end when playing in WinUAE, but I'll chalk that up to misconfiguration.
Right away the game launches into stage 1, a vast expanse of ocean spanning multiple screens' worth of playfield. Enemies only respawn within the player's view frustum, as is typical, and astute players will quickly notice the health-bar on left. Banshee only commits one of the supposed cardinal sins of Euro-shooters by letting your plane take multiple hits before meeting its violent end. Here, though, the developers have very good reason to give players some leeway: this game has no continues. Yep, you just read that. It's 1994 and some devs somewhere still had the courage to prevent quarter-feeding entirely. Just learning the first stage, then, becomes a priority simply to gain ground and attune to Hansen & Jacobsen's rhythm of design.
Of the more classic influences here, 1942 and Twinbee stick out the most, with loop-de-loop attacks and shootable power-ups in play. The former allows you to temporarily escape fire, damaging anything under your path in the process, while the latter gives players the chance to switch power-up types so long as they can keep the item on-screen. That 'ol juggling act's back, in steampunk form, with a need to both defend against enemy waves, evade tricky patterns, and keep the ship in tip-top shape for what's to come. I found myself using loops as infrequently as expected, while I took my time on each run flipping pickups until I got just what I needed. Need to wreck some large but ponderous aircraft? Cycle to the missiles and get ready to dodge more fire than normal. Scared of incessant UFOs and boulders on the horizon? Like most shooters, there's a perfectly usable spread-shot ability worth nabbing. Best of all is the "build-up" system. Upon collecting three of the eponymous upgrades, your best weapon status gets saved for your next life. This reduces the frustration of accidentally dying to a boss and only having a pea-shooter upon revival, or when forgetting to pick up shield upgrades partway through a level. Overall, there's solid meat-and-potatoes STG design happening here—nothing revelatory, but more considerate than its Amiga peers by and large.
| "Blardax Maldrear, uglier than a Phreenian Foot-toad" |
Making one's way to Planet Veenix, the throne-world of this story's antagonist, won't be easy even with the aforementioned abilities and lifelines. Banshee's true sin is not pacing itself better, featuring four very long levels which, while diverse in environs, tend to drag like in weaker Compile STGs. Couple this format with no way to continue and we've got ourselves an often frustrating adventure. Hitting 1-up thresholds and keeping the build-up meter at max becomes its own game, one you'd be foolish not to master. Hannibal & Jacobsen are perfectly happy to take their time, slowly iterating on enemy groups and shot patterns with breathing room to spare. This feels great when the run's going according to plan (or, in the learning stages, at least feels manageable), but one bad turn and the urge to restart grows. This urge comes upon me something fierce in stricter genre examples, like Raiden or Hishousame, so to sense it here saps some of my enjoyment. Many patterns and mini-bosses felt a bit underbaked, too, though not enough to ruin the experience. While this program could stand to run at a faster framerate, it's decently smooth as is, and the keyboards controls are as intuitive as the glossy brass UI.
Something this game never falters with is its B-movie sense of humor, both in visuals and sound design. I've seen a couple reviewers compare the art-style in Banshee to a mix of Cannon Fodder and Metal Slug (maybe some Boogie Wings as well), with deep earthy colors and attention to detail in the unlikeliest places. Pseudo-World War vehicles and soldiers all scramble to swat you down from the skies, yet their own deaths range from grisly to gallows humor. Burnt lackeys wither to bone and dust; city-goers mind their own business while a 1 vs. 1000 war rages across avenues; lighthouses, factories, and hulking ships all go up in brilliant flame and debris once the titular craft has its way. I'm not sure what's more sad, the fate of these brainwashed Gis or the thought of having one less unexpectedly hilarious STG to play. Canned PCM-audio cries of agony and constructs shredding into chaos make great use of the Amiga's Paula sound chip. And let's not sleep on Iveson's moody electronica during loading screens, a helpful reminder of just how '90s this game is.
The latter half of Banshee takes off the kid gloves, moving us from seaside bases and an Edwardian metropolis to icy, arid wastes before taking a climactic journey into the stars that'll make Metal Slug 3 blush. It's here where the no-continues, no-checkpoints structure can either heighten tension for the better or spoil a good run. The key factor which Hansen & Jacobsen nailed was balance; rarely did I ever feel unfairly outgunned or juked by the game. It's honestly designed from start to finish, even in the final half-hour's worth of intertwining projectiles and kamikaze attacks. Don't go in expecting a swerve towards danmaku leanings, or any overabundance of stage hazards (though some sequences dabble in them to great effect). Think Jamestown but with a more conventional arcade-y template and a comparatively refined minute-to-minute game loop. For lack of a true Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow shoot-em-up, this can fill in the blank for the foreseeable future.
| Stir in an Alternative Dimension |
Core Design had a talent in the early '90s for featuring the best works of just anyone they could find off the proverbial Amiga street. Sure, most of their releases were self-developed projects, but they had a frequent collaborator in The 8th Day (Heimdall [2], Premiere) and adopted other outside teams' works a few times, always to great results. I think it's telling that something like Banshee arrived in time to herald the CD32's push for games that could directly compete with better offerings on NEC, Nintendo, and SEGA platforms. Don't get me wrong—these efforts weren't successful, and the CD32 was stillborn despite the occasional bright spot like this game. But there's a fascinating "what if?" to consider where Core, Team17, Psygnosis, Rainbow Arts, Ubi-Soft, Cryo, etc. put their all into accessible yet unique games that could have buoyed the ailing Amiga marketplace.
Banshee in particular feels like the kind of throwback arcade shooter which rarely happens today. Its level of sincerity, genre awareness, and muted presentation is a hard sell to those browsing digital stores now, expecting more "bang for your buck" features and runtime. But back in 1994, this could still pass for a full-price release; some groans about just four levels aside, there's plenty to engage with here when playing for score. I haven't yet tried Hard difficulty yet, but Normal feels, well, the way a normal and engaging STG of the time should. Press outlets all had loads of praise for the title, with many proclaiming it the new standard in Amiga shooters against a slate of competing games. Most of those accolades are hard to take for granted, given the dearth of strong original STGs on any Western PC by then, but reviewers and fan letters were on to something, however quaint their opinions have become.
The transition to 3D and multimedia-driven consoles, along with dwindling outlooks on the arcade industry and its game design trends, meant there'd be little room for something like Banshee to take root and thrive. If Japanese shooters were starting to have trouble staying relevant to all but a niche audience, then what more could those dubious Euroshooters hope for? Banshee could handily showcase some of the finest AGA-accelerated Amiga graphics around, but the pursuit of 2D excellence largely became the task of versus fighters and xRPGs. Hansen & Jacobsen must have seen these changes coming, soon joining Scavenger Inc. to work on their technically-outstanding games A.M.O.K. and Scorcher for PC and Sega Saturn. The coder eventually worked his way up into Shiny Entertainment and then Microsoft, while the artist found footing later at IO and now Unity. I hope this game, among other formative Amiga-era works, hasn't just become a footnote to overlook, but a case study in how to nail design fundamentals and make something more than the sum of its parts.
All my waffling aside, Banshee is worth one's time when looking for a solid mid-'90s PC shooter. Worst case, you could even play through this for the "I beat a Euroshmup!" credo without feeling robbed of that hypothetical better game. It's a bit janky in spots, but only noticeably so due to the game otherwise working as well as it does. There's enemy variety for days, a lonely but fitting soundscape, and four rounds of generally well-paced action to dig into. I doubt it sold any CD32 units back in the day, but that's no longer a concern when WinUAE makes this easy to boot up and enjoy with a controller of one's choice. Now, if only *I* could get my hands on an impossibly well-equipped biplane for my own battles…
Being an early 3DS adopter sucked. I didn't really feel it back then, and I'd end up having a better time with the system than with its predecessor for some reason. But it's no surprise that a low-scale free eShop release like 3D Classics: Excitebike would have, um, excited launch players desperate for some variety. The promise of no-bullshit stereoscopic 3D on the go, plus improved hardware and online functionality, should have had more of an initial offering. For what it's worth, Arika's first experiment with a full-3D remake of an NES icon went well, albeit conspicuously lacking in new content or multiplayer options. It's nonetheless among the 3DS' best pick-up-and-play software, a natural outcome when the source material's strong to begin with.
The original game needs some context. Excitebike introduced many Famicom gamers to fast, relatively detailed side-scrolling action on their TVs. Its motocross theme stood out in a throng of otherwise predictable racing titles, either from the VCS/Intellivision/ColecoVision era or SEGA's recent SG-1000 lineup. Most importantly, this was one of Shigeru Miyamoto's baby steps towards the game engine needed to make Super Mario Bros. a reality. Only a month after Namco's own Pac-Land showed the arcade-going populace what a side-scrolling athletic adventure could be, here's a similarly ambitious cartridge toying with what was previously a choppy, taxing graphical experiment on home machines. (Let's not forget all the fairly smooth scrolling titles coming out on MSX or Sharp X1 during this time, though!)
Miyamoto's team could easily have settled for a low-risk, multi-lane derby racer with a motorbiking skin. What they instead made was one of the earliest innovations in this genre, a hybrid incorporating the developers' platformer concepts. I think it's best to approach Excitebike today as a physics experiment in disguise, with either game mode asking players to balance dexterity with urgency. You've got just as many awkward jumps to land at awkward angles as you do opponents to dodge and overtake. And the swift pace of play ensures there's always some thrilling combo of track pieces and drivers in clumps to manage. Getting used to the controls and ideal riding positions for each scenario takes practice, but I always feel rewarded for nailing each course. The low amount of content wouldn't have stung in 1984, either, since this still dwarfed almost every other Famicom cart in replayability.
Combined with a nifty track editor which Japanese players could use to save creations on the Data Recorder add-on, this was yet another system seller for Nintendo's soon dominant platform. How fitting, then, to use it again as freeware on a rather underequipped new console decades later! Sadly this was one of the most notable games one could try prior to staples like Pushmo, Etrian Odyssey IV, Bravely Default, Kid Icarus: Uprising, etc. And that meant extra scrutiny and emphasis for 3D Classics: Excitebike which it couldn't possibly live up to. Of course, I was having too much fun with Pilotwings Resort and the surprise Ambassador freebies, but I don't envy anyone making this at Arika as news of middling pre-orders and launch attention trickled in.
This remake doesn't try to reinvent the two-wheels, for the better. All the Famicom game's pros and cons remain, now magnified by the dev team's mix of polygonal models, flat shading, and glasses-free 3D. Going from the active 3DS operating system to the static eShop didn't sell me on these 3D capabilities, but games like this sure did. There's still something special about the bizarre diorama effect these 3D Classics provide, a kind of immersion which M2 carried forward into their own series. In terms of aiding the game loop, the 3D implementation doesn't do a whole lot; I'm just glad it's as unobtrusive and flattering to the visual style as Excitebike deserves. Increased view distance thanks to widescreen's easily the biggest win here, making the game easier and more satisfying for all but the most masochistic players.
Where 3D Classics: Excitebike fails to deliver is its multiplayer feature set. That is, if there was any. I'm baffled that Nintendo and Arika skipped out on letting players share track editor courses with each other. No online leaderboards flies in the face of score play, dis-incentivizing players from learning every quirk of the engine to attain impressive results. And no versus mode, or any pro-oriented extras like mirrored stages, further reduces this remake's value. Whether these were oversights and rushing or conscious omissions to save on time and resources, I come away disappointed with what could have been. It doesn't really get in the way of what's already great here, but it stings for anyone buying this now before the eShop closes. Make this free again, Big N!
Even more regrettable was the demise of Nintendo & Arika's 3D Classics to come. Who in hell asked for a redux of Urban Champions?! At least they got around to highlights like Kid Icarus and especially Kirby's Adventure, both of which shine in stereoscopy even without the polygonal/voxel treatment. But then this line just stopped dead, either because of poor sales or their priorities going elsewhere. This didn't happen with SEGA & M2, thankfully, yet they weren't ever going to try the more liberal approach Arika took with 3D Classics: Excitebike's presentation. The voxel-esque look, bolstered controls and visibility, and having multiple save slots for usermade courses makes it the definitive way to play this '84 NES notable today. Citra runs this perfectly, too, but the ideal experience for an early 3DS tech demo requires the system itself. Get this now before it's pulled alongside the rest of the eShop—I'm not paying extra for 3D glasses my PC monitor would vibe with.
The original game needs some context. Excitebike introduced many Famicom gamers to fast, relatively detailed side-scrolling action on their TVs. Its motocross theme stood out in a throng of otherwise predictable racing titles, either from the VCS/Intellivision/ColecoVision era or SEGA's recent SG-1000 lineup. Most importantly, this was one of Shigeru Miyamoto's baby steps towards the game engine needed to make Super Mario Bros. a reality. Only a month after Namco's own Pac-Land showed the arcade-going populace what a side-scrolling athletic adventure could be, here's a similarly ambitious cartridge toying with what was previously a choppy, taxing graphical experiment on home machines. (Let's not forget all the fairly smooth scrolling titles coming out on MSX or Sharp X1 during this time, though!)
Miyamoto's team could easily have settled for a low-risk, multi-lane derby racer with a motorbiking skin. What they instead made was one of the earliest innovations in this genre, a hybrid incorporating the developers' platformer concepts. I think it's best to approach Excitebike today as a physics experiment in disguise, with either game mode asking players to balance dexterity with urgency. You've got just as many awkward jumps to land at awkward angles as you do opponents to dodge and overtake. And the swift pace of play ensures there's always some thrilling combo of track pieces and drivers in clumps to manage. Getting used to the controls and ideal riding positions for each scenario takes practice, but I always feel rewarded for nailing each course. The low amount of content wouldn't have stung in 1984, either, since this still dwarfed almost every other Famicom cart in replayability.
Combined with a nifty track editor which Japanese players could use to save creations on the Data Recorder add-on, this was yet another system seller for Nintendo's soon dominant platform. How fitting, then, to use it again as freeware on a rather underequipped new console decades later! Sadly this was one of the most notable games one could try prior to staples like Pushmo, Etrian Odyssey IV, Bravely Default, Kid Icarus: Uprising, etc. And that meant extra scrutiny and emphasis for 3D Classics: Excitebike which it couldn't possibly live up to. Of course, I was having too much fun with Pilotwings Resort and the surprise Ambassador freebies, but I don't envy anyone making this at Arika as news of middling pre-orders and launch attention trickled in.
This remake doesn't try to reinvent the two-wheels, for the better. All the Famicom game's pros and cons remain, now magnified by the dev team's mix of polygonal models, flat shading, and glasses-free 3D. Going from the active 3DS operating system to the static eShop didn't sell me on these 3D capabilities, but games like this sure did. There's still something special about the bizarre diorama effect these 3D Classics provide, a kind of immersion which M2 carried forward into their own series. In terms of aiding the game loop, the 3D implementation doesn't do a whole lot; I'm just glad it's as unobtrusive and flattering to the visual style as Excitebike deserves. Increased view distance thanks to widescreen's easily the biggest win here, making the game easier and more satisfying for all but the most masochistic players.
Where 3D Classics: Excitebike fails to deliver is its multiplayer feature set. That is, if there was any. I'm baffled that Nintendo and Arika skipped out on letting players share track editor courses with each other. No online leaderboards flies in the face of score play, dis-incentivizing players from learning every quirk of the engine to attain impressive results. And no versus mode, or any pro-oriented extras like mirrored stages, further reduces this remake's value. Whether these were oversights and rushing or conscious omissions to save on time and resources, I come away disappointed with what could have been. It doesn't really get in the way of what's already great here, but it stings for anyone buying this now before the eShop closes. Make this free again, Big N!
Even more regrettable was the demise of Nintendo & Arika's 3D Classics to come. Who in hell asked for a redux of Urban Champions?! At least they got around to highlights like Kid Icarus and especially Kirby's Adventure, both of which shine in stereoscopy even without the polygonal/voxel treatment. But then this line just stopped dead, either because of poor sales or their priorities going elsewhere. This didn't happen with SEGA & M2, thankfully, yet they weren't ever going to try the more liberal approach Arika took with 3D Classics: Excitebike's presentation. The voxel-esque look, bolstered controls and visibility, and having multiple save slots for usermade courses makes it the definitive way to play this '84 NES notable today. Citra runs this perfectly, too, but the ideal experience for an early 3DS tech demo requires the system itself. Get this now before it's pulled alongside the rest of the eShop—I'm not paying extra for 3D glasses my PC monitor would vibe with.
1981
SCP-JUMPBUG-LOGGD — Herbie Hopperheap
Object Class: Safe
Standard Containment Procedures: SCP-JUMPBUG-LOGGD is to be contained within a regular MAME installation or period-appropriate arcade video game cabinet and PCB board. This housing must always be enclosed in a small human-sized room, with all surveillance from beyond one-way mirrors to prevent radiation of vibes onto observers. All personnel must interact with and stimulate the entity via a digital-to-physical interface such as a keyboard, joystick, console controller, etc. Familiarity with similar arcade-based media from the 1970s and early 1980s is advisable. Please use remote robot arm to insert coins and otherwise tamper with specimen. As ever, we enforce these rules to protect you from dangerous hazards—even those cloaked behind the façade of an appealing interactive media apparatus like this.
[NOTICE FROM THE FOUNDATION RECORDS AND INFORMATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION: ALL NEURO-LUDOLOGICAL EXPOSURE TO THE VEHICULAR CREATURE RISKS PERMANENT MENTAL TRANSFORMATION WITH SYMPTOMS INCLUDING ADDICTION, EYE STRAIN, KINNING, MANUFACTURED NOSTALGIA, ETC. — REFRAIN FROM EXCESSIVE DURATION OF TESTING, OR "HOPPING" DURING SESSIONS, UNLESS PROPER O5 COUNCIL CLEARANCE AND SUPERVISION GRANTED]
Temporary "lives" structure of play can be bypassed for purposes of experimentation via preserving machine states in memory, but is advised against following past anomalies and accidents. Researchers and security must wear quote-unquote "Cool '80s VR Shades" when in presence of SCP-JUMPBUG-LOGGD at any time to prevent sensory damage. Using on-site equipment ensures safety of multiple tests upon subject without damage or evidence tampering for personnel. Bear in mind that these measures are not fool-proof and remain subject to review and risk evaluation as we continue to study the subject. A prior outbreak, SCP-4163 [Not unlike the fabled "Tetris Effect", but worse — Ed.], and its transmission of sub-anomalies to similar interfaces sets precedent here, hence the supervision of all control devices and, if needed, isolation and disintegration of them.
Description: Sales sheet refers to initial development contractor, Hoei Sangyo. Creator attribution is yet unknown, but the subject was born from multiple minicomputer environments operated by Alpha Denshi Corporation on behalf of Hoei Sangyo and distributor SEGA Enterprises. This electronic printed circuit board (PCB), plus accompanying means of human interaction and presentation, was first sold to game centers, movie theaters, and other recreational venues sometime in 1981, starting in Japan. Ever since, dwindling units of "Jump Bug" have appeared in the hands of collectors, or idling and decaying within landfills or warehouses. Wherever found, the entity's reported to occasionally entice, entrance, haunt, and finally consume its players' faculties through processes still undetermined.
Upon receiving power, subject board device activates and transmits binary-encoded signals to cabinet housing and attached monitor, displaying series of vibrant, colorful animated worlds on black background. Inserting coinage of proper weight (ex. Standard U.S. quarter) into designated slot one or more times to prepare subject for testing. So far, all our tests conclude with a "Game Over" prompt on-screen, after which one can feed the thing more cupronickel currency or proceed to power it down. Successful adherence to procedures and methodology have so far spared our rotating teams from falling into purported existential traps laid out by the software and its means of conveyance.
Addendum [author's subtitle: THE ACTUAL DAMN REVIEW] The following journal from Dr. [REDACTED] is a useful summary of knowledge gained from "1CC"-ing the provided experience:
"March 26, 2023, 1732 hours: I've finished a few so-called "loops" of this odd video game, a demon in disguise if I may conjecture. The side-scrolling progression mostly resembles Konami's Scramble from earlier that year, at least until one reaches the dungeon section which doesn't auto-scroll. Because the eponymous Herbie-like vehicle can't stop bounding, the driver has to control its air velocity and direction, all while shooting down various monsters and collecting money bags for score and extra chances. In short, it's got a devilish game loop, hooking me whenever I let down my guard and haven't any TPS reports or other busywork to distract me.”
"…Wait a minute, this thing's what's been distracting me! Excuse my irreverence towards Foundation duties, but that's just one side-effect the subject can displace upon its witnesses. Other phenomena this machine expresses, like its psychedelic graphical changes demarcating new sections of the game world, threatens to overcome me with delight, a microprocessor prescribing desertion of my daily worries. Come to think of it, I don't understand why the Council keeps putting me on this project every time I politely back out and work elsewhere. Do they want me to let my guard down and become a true victim of something this fun, replayable, and unique among all those innocuous arcade pastimes?"
"Never mind that I can truly see the appeal here. It's a deft fusion of Donkey Kong and Scramble which could attain a cult-classic reputation where it re-released to market at the level of those games. This was Alpha Denshi's most notable early product, which I can both respect and disfavor given its tantalizing qualities. Reigning in this spirited VW Beetle across cityscapes, wastelands, castles, and seas takes a lot of dexterity and memorization, but gives players much reward as they uncover hidden tricks and strategies for skillful play. There's an anarchy here which dares you to get as high on life as it does, albeit a seductive, ultimately slight and repetitive reality limited by ROM storage."
"In their later ADK years, Alpha Denshi would remake a couple vintage hits like Crush Roller, but not this for some reason. Damn shame, really. The DNA of something as formative as Pac-Land or even Super Mario Bros. goes back to clever genre hybrids like this, a known quantity and charting arcade release in its era. Jump Bug is also more transparent with its challenge and means of mastery than almost all of its competitors in '81, with the bags-for-1ups system and ability to brake and reposition mid-air making this very fair for the era. Anyone prone to deeming these Golden Age cabinets as "coin-munchers" ought to give this a try and see if that generalization holds up. Well, only if they take all necessary preventative measures—I'm not suggesting one should expose their minds to this subject with such fervor as I've contemplated."
A couple days later, Dr. [REDACTED] was nowhere to be found on the containment facility premises. Our preliminary search-and-rescue operation turned up no trace of his body, belongings, or other data. CCTV facility at the site was also corrupt and unreadable, and a forensic autopsy of the entity revealed its contents had been copied to external storage. Until further notice, we are taking even stricter precautions regarding access to and use of SCP-JUMPBUG-LOGGD, so as to prevent losses of human resources. In the subject site manager's words: "That darn Herbie Hopperheap whatchamacallit really bugged him out, 's all I can gather."
Object Class: Safe
Standard Containment Procedures: SCP-JUMPBUG-LOGGD is to be contained within a regular MAME installation or period-appropriate arcade video game cabinet and PCB board. This housing must always be enclosed in a small human-sized room, with all surveillance from beyond one-way mirrors to prevent radiation of vibes onto observers. All personnel must interact with and stimulate the entity via a digital-to-physical interface such as a keyboard, joystick, console controller, etc. Familiarity with similar arcade-based media from the 1970s and early 1980s is advisable. Please use remote robot arm to insert coins and otherwise tamper with specimen. As ever, we enforce these rules to protect you from dangerous hazards—even those cloaked behind the façade of an appealing interactive media apparatus like this.
[NOTICE FROM THE FOUNDATION RECORDS AND INFORMATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION: ALL NEURO-LUDOLOGICAL EXPOSURE TO THE VEHICULAR CREATURE RISKS PERMANENT MENTAL TRANSFORMATION WITH SYMPTOMS INCLUDING ADDICTION, EYE STRAIN, KINNING, MANUFACTURED NOSTALGIA, ETC. — REFRAIN FROM EXCESSIVE DURATION OF TESTING, OR "HOPPING" DURING SESSIONS, UNLESS PROPER O5 COUNCIL CLEARANCE AND SUPERVISION GRANTED]
Temporary "lives" structure of play can be bypassed for purposes of experimentation via preserving machine states in memory, but is advised against following past anomalies and accidents. Researchers and security must wear quote-unquote "Cool '80s VR Shades" when in presence of SCP-JUMPBUG-LOGGD at any time to prevent sensory damage. Using on-site equipment ensures safety of multiple tests upon subject without damage or evidence tampering for personnel. Bear in mind that these measures are not fool-proof and remain subject to review and risk evaluation as we continue to study the subject. A prior outbreak, SCP-4163 [Not unlike the fabled "Tetris Effect", but worse — Ed.], and its transmission of sub-anomalies to similar interfaces sets precedent here, hence the supervision of all control devices and, if needed, isolation and disintegration of them.
Description: Sales sheet refers to initial development contractor, Hoei Sangyo. Creator attribution is yet unknown, but the subject was born from multiple minicomputer environments operated by Alpha Denshi Corporation on behalf of Hoei Sangyo and distributor SEGA Enterprises. This electronic printed circuit board (PCB), plus accompanying means of human interaction and presentation, was first sold to game centers, movie theaters, and other recreational venues sometime in 1981, starting in Japan. Ever since, dwindling units of "Jump Bug" have appeared in the hands of collectors, or idling and decaying within landfills or warehouses. Wherever found, the entity's reported to occasionally entice, entrance, haunt, and finally consume its players' faculties through processes still undetermined.
Upon receiving power, subject board device activates and transmits binary-encoded signals to cabinet housing and attached monitor, displaying series of vibrant, colorful animated worlds on black background. Inserting coinage of proper weight (ex. Standard U.S. quarter) into designated slot one or more times to prepare subject for testing. So far, all our tests conclude with a "Game Over" prompt on-screen, after which one can feed the thing more cupronickel currency or proceed to power it down. Successful adherence to procedures and methodology have so far spared our rotating teams from falling into purported existential traps laid out by the software and its means of conveyance.
Addendum [author's subtitle: THE ACTUAL DAMN REVIEW] The following journal from Dr. [REDACTED] is a useful summary of knowledge gained from "1CC"-ing the provided experience:
"March 26, 2023, 1732 hours: I've finished a few so-called "loops" of this odd video game, a demon in disguise if I may conjecture. The side-scrolling progression mostly resembles Konami's Scramble from earlier that year, at least until one reaches the dungeon section which doesn't auto-scroll. Because the eponymous Herbie-like vehicle can't stop bounding, the driver has to control its air velocity and direction, all while shooting down various monsters and collecting money bags for score and extra chances. In short, it's got a devilish game loop, hooking me whenever I let down my guard and haven't any TPS reports or other busywork to distract me.”
"…Wait a minute, this thing's what's been distracting me! Excuse my irreverence towards Foundation duties, but that's just one side-effect the subject can displace upon its witnesses. Other phenomena this machine expresses, like its psychedelic graphical changes demarcating new sections of the game world, threatens to overcome me with delight, a microprocessor prescribing desertion of my daily worries. Come to think of it, I don't understand why the Council keeps putting me on this project every time I politely back out and work elsewhere. Do they want me to let my guard down and become a true victim of something this fun, replayable, and unique among all those innocuous arcade pastimes?"
"Never mind that I can truly see the appeal here. It's a deft fusion of Donkey Kong and Scramble which could attain a cult-classic reputation where it re-released to market at the level of those games. This was Alpha Denshi's most notable early product, which I can both respect and disfavor given its tantalizing qualities. Reigning in this spirited VW Beetle across cityscapes, wastelands, castles, and seas takes a lot of dexterity and memorization, but gives players much reward as they uncover hidden tricks and strategies for skillful play. There's an anarchy here which dares you to get as high on life as it does, albeit a seductive, ultimately slight and repetitive reality limited by ROM storage."
"In their later ADK years, Alpha Denshi would remake a couple vintage hits like Crush Roller, but not this for some reason. Damn shame, really. The DNA of something as formative as Pac-Land or even Super Mario Bros. goes back to clever genre hybrids like this, a known quantity and charting arcade release in its era. Jump Bug is also more transparent with its challenge and means of mastery than almost all of its competitors in '81, with the bags-for-1ups system and ability to brake and reposition mid-air making this very fair for the era. Anyone prone to deeming these Golden Age cabinets as "coin-munchers" ought to give this a try and see if that generalization holds up. Well, only if they take all necessary preventative measures—I'm not suggesting one should expose their minds to this subject with such fervor as I've contemplated."
A couple days later, Dr. [REDACTED] was nowhere to be found on the containment facility premises. Our preliminary search-and-rescue operation turned up no trace of his body, belongings, or other data. CCTV facility at the site was also corrupt and unreadable, and a forensic autopsy of the entity revealed its contents had been copied to external storage. Until further notice, we are taking even stricter precautions regarding access to and use of SCP-JUMPBUG-LOGGD, so as to prevent losses of human resources. In the subject site manager's words: "That darn Herbie Hopperheap whatchamacallit really bugged him out, 's all I can gather."
1982
It's the laborer's code, an allegiance to classist logic hiding behind the veneer of a machine. Who's to say you can't pull these blocks other than the rules of the game? These walls and obstacles entrap you, make you feel the claustrophobia that comes with poverty and exploitation. Surrounding these microscopic tasks are naught but void—just the fraught acceptance of capitalism's encompassing reality. Here's a gallery of A-to-Z state machines one yearns to find freedom from, yet masks the possibilities of other, better worlds beyond the transactional paradigm. A purgatory wrapped in darkness, and the only clear way forward is toiling under this system for eternity.
Even then, the original Sokoban is more than it seems. One of the final puzzles tasks you with moving blocks in a seemingly impossible way. That is, until you accidentally push through a wall, destroying a piece of it which lets you finally manipulate the block stack without failure. All future official versions of the 1982 classic would ditch this element. After all, it sounds frustrating to need to discover or know this completely un-telegraphed mechanic, doesn't it? Kind of like how your boss refuses to explain the finer details of your job, or even how to complete a seemingly simple yet elusive task? I can only imagine how the warehouse keeper must feel, hopelessly exhausting every possibility except the most absurd, contradictory one that never worked before. And it doesn't feel like an accomplishment, or a stroke of genius. You either know because someone finally told you, or you accidentally fell into success instead.
Hiroyuki Imabayashi was a retail clerk at the time he got his first computer, a Sharp MZ borrowed from a friend. The games he subsequently played on his later PC-8001 and PC-88 units, as well as an imported Apple II, inspired him to make a little game of his own, reflecting what he saw in his environment. What possessed a well-read, movie-loving record store salesman to make one of the great early pro-labor digital puzzlers? I'd like to ask him myself, though I suspect he'll answer with something like "I never thought about it that deeply". We're all so ingrained in this system of the world that we can feel its pressure and imposition as we grow ("coming of age" indeed), even if we can't always articulate that sensation. Sokoban, with all its elementary yet convoluted mind-twisters, inspires what must have seemed like a revolution in video games as introspection.
It's no surprise to me that Imabayashi soon spent way more time writing and designing graphic text adventures, most often the kinds of pulpy mysteries he grew up with. He still relies on the perennial success of Sokoban's design concept for his livelihood, but in doing so has found time and space in life to just be. What he'd created from a working man's understanding of his favorite childhood card games had forever altered game design for a post-modern era. How does one surpass that? So he moved laterally, handing the reigns of commercial ambition to others at the studio he started in Takarazuka. And Thinking Rabbit certainly did experiment, yet the founder and his co-workers now work for Falcon Co., having sold their company and IPs to a former contractor following the Japan's economic and investment stagnation in the '90s. What keeps them going is, of course, a certain block-pushing Ship of Theseus most often starring some wide-eyed young man trying to buy a car or woo his love, among other bootstraps window dressing.
While Imabayashi's adventure games gained a notable following for years to come, his debut game has long since evolved beyond what he'd been able to match. Why work to reinvent that which will forever morph to other designers' wills, or just slot into myriads of other frameworks as shown by creations like Baba is You? Yet for all the appreciation Imabayashi's earned for his post-Sokoban legacy, the software which freed him has ironically trapped his image in amber. Block puzzles in video games are just too useful and universal—so the death of the author continues. I can go on my mobile app storefront of choice and find a seemingly endless number of Sokoban clones, many from first-time developers learning to code games. There's a whole cottage industry of bedroom coders building off what this once fanciful PC-8801 experiment started. And he knows all too well what it's done for him and shackled him to in the process.
I suppose this florid look at a generally self-explanatory media artifact isn't helping much. Then again, my lack of Japanese language skills makes it hard to dig into Thinking Rabbit's adventures without duress. Sokoban has become a staple of gaming across the world, spanning ages before and after its origins. We're as familiar with its principles, iterations, and insinuations as we are with backgammon or chess! And just as those pastimes silently teach lessons and etiquette pertaining to the social-economic structures birthing them, Sokoban too reflects its environment. This game ran on everything, in even more forms than Doom. It arguably had a predecessor in Nob Yoshigahara's Rush Hour puzzle, and even the lowliest of early digital handhelds like Epoch's Game Pocket Computer featured the block pusher. Ubiquity both made and destroyed Sokoban as an essential distillation of logic challenges previously fragmented across many arcade, computer, and board games the world over.
Takurazuka's greatest software creation gave players the illusion of control over time-space puzzles previously meant to eat quarters in game centers. It transferred the traditions of puzzle boxes and transfixing toys into binary. And from this black box of restrictions, revelations, and repetition comes the final realization: Sokoban invokes a wager of faith for or against capitalist reality. Those who succeed in unraveling or merely memorizing these menial tasks can feel at least a little vindicated. Those who fail will quickly realize the futility and fruitlessness of labor you give but can never keep, even if they eventually succeed under the circumstances. Everyone who's ever complained about "unfun" box pushing in a Zelda game could relate to this. All those who criticized and/or continue to lambast the likes of Papers, Please should consider the power of games as simple as this to provoke praxis in this festering world.
Maybe the most actionable thoughts Sokoban leads to now are playing a different, more fun and accessible game. We're so accustomed to what this PC-88 classic offers, and binds us to, that it's nothing worth investing time in. In this sense, Imabayashi's folly has become the kind of effortless un-game or anti-game others try too hard to sell us on. There's nothing glamorous, fantastic, or conventionally laudable about pure, unadorned Sokoban. It's too good at what it does, meaning its spiritual successors must imagine more creative, more engrossing variations on its themes. Hell, the whole idea of Baba is You can basically boil down to "what if we challenged the player to make a new Sokoban game in every single level?". Sokoban transcended its mere game-ness long ago; today it's both a platform and a bad example to follow. More than most "classic" games, this one has morphed into an idol of ludological dreams, nightmares, and ambitions subservient to the possible. Sisyphus would be proud.
For all the ramblings and minutiae I could go on about, I think you should try the original Sokoban and come to your own conclusions. The PC-88 game and its ports certainly show their age, but also how timeless they remain. Without factoring all of what Sokoban was, is, and will be into any discussion of Japanese PC software and beyond, any history of puzzle genres and tropes will be incomplete. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Even then, the original Sokoban is more than it seems. One of the final puzzles tasks you with moving blocks in a seemingly impossible way. That is, until you accidentally push through a wall, destroying a piece of it which lets you finally manipulate the block stack without failure. All future official versions of the 1982 classic would ditch this element. After all, it sounds frustrating to need to discover or know this completely un-telegraphed mechanic, doesn't it? Kind of like how your boss refuses to explain the finer details of your job, or even how to complete a seemingly simple yet elusive task? I can only imagine how the warehouse keeper must feel, hopelessly exhausting every possibility except the most absurd, contradictory one that never worked before. And it doesn't feel like an accomplishment, or a stroke of genius. You either know because someone finally told you, or you accidentally fell into success instead.
Hiroyuki Imabayashi was a retail clerk at the time he got his first computer, a Sharp MZ borrowed from a friend. The games he subsequently played on his later PC-8001 and PC-88 units, as well as an imported Apple II, inspired him to make a little game of his own, reflecting what he saw in his environment. What possessed a well-read, movie-loving record store salesman to make one of the great early pro-labor digital puzzlers? I'd like to ask him myself, though I suspect he'll answer with something like "I never thought about it that deeply". We're all so ingrained in this system of the world that we can feel its pressure and imposition as we grow ("coming of age" indeed), even if we can't always articulate that sensation. Sokoban, with all its elementary yet convoluted mind-twisters, inspires what must have seemed like a revolution in video games as introspection.
It's no surprise to me that Imabayashi soon spent way more time writing and designing graphic text adventures, most often the kinds of pulpy mysteries he grew up with. He still relies on the perennial success of Sokoban's design concept for his livelihood, but in doing so has found time and space in life to just be. What he'd created from a working man's understanding of his favorite childhood card games had forever altered game design for a post-modern era. How does one surpass that? So he moved laterally, handing the reigns of commercial ambition to others at the studio he started in Takarazuka. And Thinking Rabbit certainly did experiment, yet the founder and his co-workers now work for Falcon Co., having sold their company and IPs to a former contractor following the Japan's economic and investment stagnation in the '90s. What keeps them going is, of course, a certain block-pushing Ship of Theseus most often starring some wide-eyed young man trying to buy a car or woo his love, among other bootstraps window dressing.
While Imabayashi's adventure games gained a notable following for years to come, his debut game has long since evolved beyond what he'd been able to match. Why work to reinvent that which will forever morph to other designers' wills, or just slot into myriads of other frameworks as shown by creations like Baba is You? Yet for all the appreciation Imabayashi's earned for his post-Sokoban legacy, the software which freed him has ironically trapped his image in amber. Block puzzles in video games are just too useful and universal—so the death of the author continues. I can go on my mobile app storefront of choice and find a seemingly endless number of Sokoban clones, many from first-time developers learning to code games. There's a whole cottage industry of bedroom coders building off what this once fanciful PC-8801 experiment started. And he knows all too well what it's done for him and shackled him to in the process.
I suppose this florid look at a generally self-explanatory media artifact isn't helping much. Then again, my lack of Japanese language skills makes it hard to dig into Thinking Rabbit's adventures without duress. Sokoban has become a staple of gaming across the world, spanning ages before and after its origins. We're as familiar with its principles, iterations, and insinuations as we are with backgammon or chess! And just as those pastimes silently teach lessons and etiquette pertaining to the social-economic structures birthing them, Sokoban too reflects its environment. This game ran on everything, in even more forms than Doom. It arguably had a predecessor in Nob Yoshigahara's Rush Hour puzzle, and even the lowliest of early digital handhelds like Epoch's Game Pocket Computer featured the block pusher. Ubiquity both made and destroyed Sokoban as an essential distillation of logic challenges previously fragmented across many arcade, computer, and board games the world over.
Takurazuka's greatest software creation gave players the illusion of control over time-space puzzles previously meant to eat quarters in game centers. It transferred the traditions of puzzle boxes and transfixing toys into binary. And from this black box of restrictions, revelations, and repetition comes the final realization: Sokoban invokes a wager of faith for or against capitalist reality. Those who succeed in unraveling or merely memorizing these menial tasks can feel at least a little vindicated. Those who fail will quickly realize the futility and fruitlessness of labor you give but can never keep, even if they eventually succeed under the circumstances. Everyone who's ever complained about "unfun" box pushing in a Zelda game could relate to this. All those who criticized and/or continue to lambast the likes of Papers, Please should consider the power of games as simple as this to provoke praxis in this festering world.
Maybe the most actionable thoughts Sokoban leads to now are playing a different, more fun and accessible game. We're so accustomed to what this PC-88 classic offers, and binds us to, that it's nothing worth investing time in. In this sense, Imabayashi's folly has become the kind of effortless un-game or anti-game others try too hard to sell us on. There's nothing glamorous, fantastic, or conventionally laudable about pure, unadorned Sokoban. It's too good at what it does, meaning its spiritual successors must imagine more creative, more engrossing variations on its themes. Hell, the whole idea of Baba is You can basically boil down to "what if we challenged the player to make a new Sokoban game in every single level?". Sokoban transcended its mere game-ness long ago; today it's both a platform and a bad example to follow. More than most "classic" games, this one has morphed into an idol of ludological dreams, nightmares, and ambitions subservient to the possible. Sisyphus would be proud.
For all the ramblings and minutiae I could go on about, I think you should try the original Sokoban and come to your own conclusions. The PC-88 game and its ports certainly show their age, but also how timeless they remain. Without factoring all of what Sokoban was, is, and will be into any discussion of Japanese PC software and beyond, any history of puzzle genres and tropes will be incomplete. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
2000
Oh how I love to squid around, showing Ironhead who's the boss of this swim. It's not much larger than a single part of Cave Story, but this little game has an identity beyond just demoing Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya's future works. (Let's also deem this a doujin classic, just like its successor which is so often only called an indie game.) Our unlikely hero has no grim backstory or workmanlike mentality, just the earnestness and intuition to do what's right for this troubled underseas enclave. Jetting around caverns, helping out the residents, and eventually rescuing them from certain doom makes for one exciting hour-long adventure. It's like if Lunar Lander had a story, boss fights, cute characters, and an inimitable style that set Pixel apart from his peers. Squidlander, if you will! Just don't waste your time on the 3DS port, let alone the money Nicalis doesn't deserve.
I'll spare you any more puns and set the scene. The turn of the millennium saw rapid flux in Japan's doujin game community. Widespread adoption of Windows and the Internet meant the old BBS days were fading. Anyone could hop onto Vector.jp, Enterbrain, or another host site to spread their work, get feedback, and maybe get a booth at Comiket or some other big event. All but the most prominent circles were moving on from the PC-98's strict limits in pursuit of new technologies, online multiplayer, and even more niche stories to tell. The conventionality of prior years, a need to design your game for easy transmittal across pricey phone minutes, gave way to the World Wide Web's promises of creative freedom. Only later did programmers, artists, musicians, and designers the world over realize how little had changed. This brief period of Y2K WWW optimism hadn't yet given way to paywalls, community siloing, or the reality distortion fields emanating from social media today. Coteries talked, created, and shared with each other like there was no tomorrow.
Within this primordial soup of an always-online doujin world came Ikachan, hatched out of Pixel's early efforts to make what would become Cave Story. By his own recollection, that better known title started from one of his roommates teaching the future indie legend some game development basics, sometime in 1999. The existence of even earlier micro-games like JiL JiL from 1997 puts this story in question, but it's true that Pixel's earliest software was much smaller in scope and ambition. Pixel's aims of making a multi-hour, consummate experience wouldn't show until this plucky underwater kid graced the Japanese web, using a bespoke engine and music format to massively compress its filesize for distribution. He's mentioned in multiple interviews how keeping these games small, accessible, and ideal for replays has always been the priority, something I think Ikachan exemplifies better than its spiritual successor.
Fittingly, your squid-ling journey begins in an isolated nadir of a small cave system, accompanied only by a smaller starfish fellow trapped behind sponge. This section introduces you to the game's conceit: you can only float and propel left, right, or up, with gravity in effect at all times. Cave Story starts out very similarly, forcing you to learn the base mechanics or face a swift and humiliating demise. I shuddered at the sight of spikes this early on, knowing how fatal they are at the start of the 2004 game, but Pixel's too kind here, letting you survive just one puncture. It's not even a couple minutes or so before you reach the first of many cute urchin friends, each sharing small tidbits about the setting and player goals. And the story tension's made clear right here as you learn about dangerous earthquakes threatening to collapse the whole place. Time's running out to stop the tremors or simply escape, and the player's only just wormed their way out of a craggy prison cell!
Ikachan doesn't deal with time limits, though, nor is it ever what I'd call challenging. Maybe that's because I'm used to the classic gravity platformers that inspired this one, but it's only a matter of patience to navigate these tunnels and bop enemies with your soon acquired mantle. Attacking is never that easy, even once you acquire the jet propulsion ability. Enemies have simple but somewhat jarring movement patterns one must track in order to time floats or boosts, and side attacks simply aren't possible until you get the Capacitor after the first of two bosses. The item & ability progression here is quite satisfying due to said simplicity, at least until after you defeat Ironhead. More than just bopping one or two starfish at a time with easy ways to dodge them, the iconic head honcho requires timing to reliably hit his underside and avoid those charges. Being such a short, restrained design exercise of a project, Ikachan kind of just ends after the big fight, with no new abilities or areas to test your skills. It's a bit of a letdown since the escape sequence could have benefited from even a light 3-to-5 minute timer, just to put more pressure on players.
Pixel compensates for these scant few mini-dungeons and set-pieces with a quality-over-quantity approach. Every critter you meet is memorable, either through appearance or interactions. Neither the PC freeware or 3DS commercial translations feel all that polished like Aeon Genesis' work on Cave Story, but they succeed at conveying the blasé dialogues and economic storytelling you'd expect from this creator. What small areas you dive through, and the mini obstacles you must overcome feel good to surpass. For all I've nitpicked about the game's ending, it's fun to do a kind of victory lap around this netherworld, rescuing each NPC before rocketing off into space, wondering where the hell they're going to end up. And Ikachan has a bit of worldbuilding mystery, too; why were the protagonist and Ben trapped down in the depths to begin with? Were either of them originally from the above world? What kind of bony-finned dumbass would request you deliver them raw blowfish, knowing it'd be poisoned?!
Of course, we can't forget how sumptuous the game looks and sounds even today. This was the debut work featuring Pixel's, uh, highly pixelated and textured artwork, and his catchy PC Engine-like chiptunes in turn. At no point was I ever confused about where to go, a function of a highly readable tileset and use of negative space in these environments. Wise coloring and immediately recognizable character silhouettes gave Ikachan the identity it needed to stand out amidst other, more detailed doujin games of the time. I've always considered this and Cave Story more than just retro throwbacks in both style and substance. They're two of the best examples of minimalist 2D dot visuals I know, and just as impressively coded for efficiency. Performance isn't super smooth due to the 50 FPS limit, but frames never drop and the controls always feel as low-latency as they should. So, despite its rough origins, the game's engine and presentation has more than survived the perils of Windows' evolution.
I wish I could be as glowing and partial to the 3DS version, though, which I acquired through Totally Legal Means and used for a quick replay. Nicalis has a history of making changes and additions to Pixel's work both welcome and dubious. In this case, I'm torn on the level design alterations, which range from adding more rooms to house new enemy types (none of which are much different from the originals) to straight-up padding out runtime. A couple of the routes players take to upgrades are now a bit too long for comfort, but there's a cool change to the Pinky rescue area where you now have to navigate a partially-hidden rock maze. Some nice new details like the shiny claws on crabs help too, yet I can't help but feel all of these changes are either too slight to matter or too irritating to ignore.
Worse still is the new localization, which interferes with the more humble themes and characterization of the original. See, Ikachan was never that much of a hero, nor destined to save the village from destruction. We start from the bottom and then, through our actions and honesty, do the right thing. But the revised character lines point to Nicalis' interpretation of the story, where Pinky becomes a Lisa Simpson type upon and Ironhead's no longer as hostile as he ought to be. The original English translation presents more fitting voices for each NPC and distributes the plot details better across the playthrough. Here it's more haphazardly presented, with Pinky's dad being much more mean to you for no good reason, or the upper tunnels sentry no longer being a pathetic bully like the pearl carrier back below. And there's still no added, meaningful new bits of plot or development here that would justify these liberal rewrites.
The 3DS port is otherwise very faithful, perhaps too much to justify the $5 pricetag. But that's a problem Nicalis faces with Cave Story, too, except they very likely brought ikachan to the eShop as a quick cash grab most of all. No extra sections, bosses, or challenge modes sends a clear sign of "we think you're dumb enough to buy this freeware". Enough's been said about Tyrone Rodriguez's downfall into exploiting Pixel's games and prestige for his benefit, and I hope everyone else who worked on this release got paid properly (or are eventually compensated despite the company president's asshole actions). I still hope this romp gets a proper custom engine or decompilation in the near-future. A level editor exists, and I presume there's gotta be at least one mod out there, but so much oxygen goes to a certain later title that everyone's kind of slept on this one's potential. Well, be the change you want to see in this world, I suppose. This wouldn't be my first time modding a fan favorite game just for my own pleasure.
Until then, Ikachan is a fun, unassuming Metroidvania channeling the better parts of the genre and its legacy. So many doujin and indie works have long since achieved much greater things, yet this would have been my favorite Flash-/Shockwave-ish PC game if I'd stumbled upon it in my childhood. Most importantly, this was something of a missing link between the quaint J-PC doujin period and the increasingly cross-regional, indie-adjacent paradigm that circles and creators now work in. Without this and especially Pixel's next game, so much pomp and circumstance around the revival of the bedroom coder dream may not have worked out as strongly. That's enough reason to try this ditty! It's definitely a case of untapped potential, justifiably viewed as a taste of Pixel's games to come, yet I can boot this up anytime and come away with a smile.
I'll spare you any more puns and set the scene. The turn of the millennium saw rapid flux in Japan's doujin game community. Widespread adoption of Windows and the Internet meant the old BBS days were fading. Anyone could hop onto Vector.jp, Enterbrain, or another host site to spread their work, get feedback, and maybe get a booth at Comiket or some other big event. All but the most prominent circles were moving on from the PC-98's strict limits in pursuit of new technologies, online multiplayer, and even more niche stories to tell. The conventionality of prior years, a need to design your game for easy transmittal across pricey phone minutes, gave way to the World Wide Web's promises of creative freedom. Only later did programmers, artists, musicians, and designers the world over realize how little had changed. This brief period of Y2K WWW optimism hadn't yet given way to paywalls, community siloing, or the reality distortion fields emanating from social media today. Coteries talked, created, and shared with each other like there was no tomorrow.
Within this primordial soup of an always-online doujin world came Ikachan, hatched out of Pixel's early efforts to make what would become Cave Story. By his own recollection, that better known title started from one of his roommates teaching the future indie legend some game development basics, sometime in 1999. The existence of even earlier micro-games like JiL JiL from 1997 puts this story in question, but it's true that Pixel's earliest software was much smaller in scope and ambition. Pixel's aims of making a multi-hour, consummate experience wouldn't show until this plucky underwater kid graced the Japanese web, using a bespoke engine and music format to massively compress its filesize for distribution. He's mentioned in multiple interviews how keeping these games small, accessible, and ideal for replays has always been the priority, something I think Ikachan exemplifies better than its spiritual successor.
Fittingly, your squid-ling journey begins in an isolated nadir of a small cave system, accompanied only by a smaller starfish fellow trapped behind sponge. This section introduces you to the game's conceit: you can only float and propel left, right, or up, with gravity in effect at all times. Cave Story starts out very similarly, forcing you to learn the base mechanics or face a swift and humiliating demise. I shuddered at the sight of spikes this early on, knowing how fatal they are at the start of the 2004 game, but Pixel's too kind here, letting you survive just one puncture. It's not even a couple minutes or so before you reach the first of many cute urchin friends, each sharing small tidbits about the setting and player goals. And the story tension's made clear right here as you learn about dangerous earthquakes threatening to collapse the whole place. Time's running out to stop the tremors or simply escape, and the player's only just wormed their way out of a craggy prison cell!
Ikachan doesn't deal with time limits, though, nor is it ever what I'd call challenging. Maybe that's because I'm used to the classic gravity platformers that inspired this one, but it's only a matter of patience to navigate these tunnels and bop enemies with your soon acquired mantle. Attacking is never that easy, even once you acquire the jet propulsion ability. Enemies have simple but somewhat jarring movement patterns one must track in order to time floats or boosts, and side attacks simply aren't possible until you get the Capacitor after the first of two bosses. The item & ability progression here is quite satisfying due to said simplicity, at least until after you defeat Ironhead. More than just bopping one or two starfish at a time with easy ways to dodge them, the iconic head honcho requires timing to reliably hit his underside and avoid those charges. Being such a short, restrained design exercise of a project, Ikachan kind of just ends after the big fight, with no new abilities or areas to test your skills. It's a bit of a letdown since the escape sequence could have benefited from even a light 3-to-5 minute timer, just to put more pressure on players.
Pixel compensates for these scant few mini-dungeons and set-pieces with a quality-over-quantity approach. Every critter you meet is memorable, either through appearance or interactions. Neither the PC freeware or 3DS commercial translations feel all that polished like Aeon Genesis' work on Cave Story, but they succeed at conveying the blasé dialogues and economic storytelling you'd expect from this creator. What small areas you dive through, and the mini obstacles you must overcome feel good to surpass. For all I've nitpicked about the game's ending, it's fun to do a kind of victory lap around this netherworld, rescuing each NPC before rocketing off into space, wondering where the hell they're going to end up. And Ikachan has a bit of worldbuilding mystery, too; why were the protagonist and Ben trapped down in the depths to begin with? Were either of them originally from the above world? What kind of bony-finned dumbass would request you deliver them raw blowfish, knowing it'd be poisoned?!
Of course, we can't forget how sumptuous the game looks and sounds even today. This was the debut work featuring Pixel's, uh, highly pixelated and textured artwork, and his catchy PC Engine-like chiptunes in turn. At no point was I ever confused about where to go, a function of a highly readable tileset and use of negative space in these environments. Wise coloring and immediately recognizable character silhouettes gave Ikachan the identity it needed to stand out amidst other, more detailed doujin games of the time. I've always considered this and Cave Story more than just retro throwbacks in both style and substance. They're two of the best examples of minimalist 2D dot visuals I know, and just as impressively coded for efficiency. Performance isn't super smooth due to the 50 FPS limit, but frames never drop and the controls always feel as low-latency as they should. So, despite its rough origins, the game's engine and presentation has more than survived the perils of Windows' evolution.
I wish I could be as glowing and partial to the 3DS version, though, which I acquired through Totally Legal Means and used for a quick replay. Nicalis has a history of making changes and additions to Pixel's work both welcome and dubious. In this case, I'm torn on the level design alterations, which range from adding more rooms to house new enemy types (none of which are much different from the originals) to straight-up padding out runtime. A couple of the routes players take to upgrades are now a bit too long for comfort, but there's a cool change to the Pinky rescue area where you now have to navigate a partially-hidden rock maze. Some nice new details like the shiny claws on crabs help too, yet I can't help but feel all of these changes are either too slight to matter or too irritating to ignore.
Worse still is the new localization, which interferes with the more humble themes and characterization of the original. See, Ikachan was never that much of a hero, nor destined to save the village from destruction. We start from the bottom and then, through our actions and honesty, do the right thing. But the revised character lines point to Nicalis' interpretation of the story, where Pinky becomes a Lisa Simpson type upon and Ironhead's no longer as hostile as he ought to be. The original English translation presents more fitting voices for each NPC and distributes the plot details better across the playthrough. Here it's more haphazardly presented, with Pinky's dad being much more mean to you for no good reason, or the upper tunnels sentry no longer being a pathetic bully like the pearl carrier back below. And there's still no added, meaningful new bits of plot or development here that would justify these liberal rewrites.
The 3DS port is otherwise very faithful, perhaps too much to justify the $5 pricetag. But that's a problem Nicalis faces with Cave Story, too, except they very likely brought ikachan to the eShop as a quick cash grab most of all. No extra sections, bosses, or challenge modes sends a clear sign of "we think you're dumb enough to buy this freeware". Enough's been said about Tyrone Rodriguez's downfall into exploiting Pixel's games and prestige for his benefit, and I hope everyone else who worked on this release got paid properly (or are eventually compensated despite the company president's asshole actions). I still hope this romp gets a proper custom engine or decompilation in the near-future. A level editor exists, and I presume there's gotta be at least one mod out there, but so much oxygen goes to a certain later title that everyone's kind of slept on this one's potential. Well, be the change you want to see in this world, I suppose. This wouldn't be my first time modding a fan favorite game just for my own pleasure.
Until then, Ikachan is a fun, unassuming Metroidvania channeling the better parts of the genre and its legacy. So many doujin and indie works have long since achieved much greater things, yet this would have been my favorite Flash-/Shockwave-ish PC game if I'd stumbled upon it in my childhood. Most importantly, this was something of a missing link between the quaint J-PC doujin period and the increasingly cross-regional, indie-adjacent paradigm that circles and creators now work in. Without this and especially Pixel's next game, so much pomp and circumstance around the revival of the bedroom coder dream may not have worked out as strongly. That's enough reason to try this ditty! It's definitely a case of untapped potential, justifiably viewed as a taste of Pixel's games to come, yet I can boot this up anytime and come away with a smile.
1999
It was only several months after the release of Half-Life in Fall 1998 that its first major fan mod went viral. As much as that was possible in a pre-social media age, of course, but USS Darkstar became the model for "breakout success" in the early days of GoldSrc. The mod first met the public at the original Half-Life Mod Expo that July, and would release a month later via publisher PC Gamer's magazine. Following in the footsteps of seminal Doom and Quake campaigns like Aliens TC and Beyond Belief, this 1-hour adventure by Neil Manke and friends showed off the potential of Valve's then new 3D engine for amateur creators. It's also a cracking good remix of HL1's tropes and encounters, styled after a certain Xenomorph-ic style of sci-fi cinema and echoing aspects that appeared in System Shock 2 that same year.
The story hasn't much concern for following canon, as we awaken as Gordon Freeman aboard the eponymous spaceship to observe and conduct experiments yet again. However, players are firmly absolved of any culpability this time, as a planetary away team returns with alien invaders in tow, including a chest-burster! There's no grand lore or plot included with USS Darkstar so much as of an Alien(s) mashup using mostly base-game assets, but it was a compelling shift in setting at the time.
Manke's level and puzzle designs also aren't sophisticated as any from the Valve team, but they're more than perfunctory. Early chapters have you procuring weapons and power-ups as expected, retaining the '98 original's survival horror bent. USS Darkstar sticks to the mold of HL1's less action-packed first half, content to work you through vents, elevator puzzles, and other kinds of industrial monkeying around. It excels most when dialing up the uneasy ennui of these degrading environments, much like what transpires on the Von Braun in SS2. There's some fun bursts of adrenaline when protecting scientists from an unexpected Xen soldier, or using low-gravity chambers to bounce around Controller crossfire like I'm playing Ziggurat Vertigo from Quake.
More conspicuous are the added voice lines, mainly to delineate level progression or add some humor where appropriate. Einstein moaning to Gordon about trying to run a PC Gamer freeware game, oblivious to the chaos and doom around them, always brings a chuckle. Sadly the voice direction and mixing are as mediocre as you'd expect from this era of mods, but it's all easy to ignore as you traverse the spider's web of corridors, lab rooms, and infrastructure comprising the Darkstar. I really enjoyed the later labs sequences, involving multiple new routes through limited real estate. And who could forget the awesome Honey I Shrunk the Kids sequence, with a miniaturized Gordon hopping across now giant office cubicles and infiltrating a microscopic computer board to disable ship security? Combined with standard Half-Life combat and mechanics, there's a lot of variety here for such a short runtime.
For as close as this gets to surpassing something like Blue Shift, it's not quite there yet. The opening minutes have you wandering a somewhat arduous maze of Xen zoos and science rooms before the plot actually begins, followed by a retread of these areas. And I don't know if any bugs or scripting errors were simply the result of Half-Life on Steam not being that compatible with old releases, but some later doors and events didn't seem to work that well. One definitely feels the lack of Valve's smooth, unobtrusive conveyance to players. For better or worse, there's more vertical platforming and puzzling here which felt curtailed for most of Black Mesa—a couple sections reminded me of the Interloper chapter, though much more palatable and interesting. I can forgive the jank, though, knowing there's a snappy battle around the corner or excellent attention to detail.
USS Darkstar starts and ends on strong footing despite some mundane or drawn out sequences in-between. It's definitely not that polished or exciting compared to modern GoldSrc projects, but the high level of ambition, design goals, and atmosphere shown here has me excited to try Black Widow's following HL1 release They Hunger. The team's model of producing cover-disc mods for PC Gamer and other outlets was only feasible from the Quake era to before Half-Life 2, but it led to cool experiences like this. It's my first go-around with a single-player HL1 fan work of such caliber, and hopefully not the last. The PS2 port of HL1's scrapped mod-loading feature really must have stung for creators like Manke in retrospect.
The story hasn't much concern for following canon, as we awaken as Gordon Freeman aboard the eponymous spaceship to observe and conduct experiments yet again. However, players are firmly absolved of any culpability this time, as a planetary away team returns with alien invaders in tow, including a chest-burster! There's no grand lore or plot included with USS Darkstar so much as of an Alien(s) mashup using mostly base-game assets, but it was a compelling shift in setting at the time.
Manke's level and puzzle designs also aren't sophisticated as any from the Valve team, but they're more than perfunctory. Early chapters have you procuring weapons and power-ups as expected, retaining the '98 original's survival horror bent. USS Darkstar sticks to the mold of HL1's less action-packed first half, content to work you through vents, elevator puzzles, and other kinds of industrial monkeying around. It excels most when dialing up the uneasy ennui of these degrading environments, much like what transpires on the Von Braun in SS2. There's some fun bursts of adrenaline when protecting scientists from an unexpected Xen soldier, or using low-gravity chambers to bounce around Controller crossfire like I'm playing Ziggurat Vertigo from Quake.
More conspicuous are the added voice lines, mainly to delineate level progression or add some humor where appropriate. Einstein moaning to Gordon about trying to run a PC Gamer freeware game, oblivious to the chaos and doom around them, always brings a chuckle. Sadly the voice direction and mixing are as mediocre as you'd expect from this era of mods, but it's all easy to ignore as you traverse the spider's web of corridors, lab rooms, and infrastructure comprising the Darkstar. I really enjoyed the later labs sequences, involving multiple new routes through limited real estate. And who could forget the awesome Honey I Shrunk the Kids sequence, with a miniaturized Gordon hopping across now giant office cubicles and infiltrating a microscopic computer board to disable ship security? Combined with standard Half-Life combat and mechanics, there's a lot of variety here for such a short runtime.
For as close as this gets to surpassing something like Blue Shift, it's not quite there yet. The opening minutes have you wandering a somewhat arduous maze of Xen zoos and science rooms before the plot actually begins, followed by a retread of these areas. And I don't know if any bugs or scripting errors were simply the result of Half-Life on Steam not being that compatible with old releases, but some later doors and events didn't seem to work that well. One definitely feels the lack of Valve's smooth, unobtrusive conveyance to players. For better or worse, there's more vertical platforming and puzzling here which felt curtailed for most of Black Mesa—a couple sections reminded me of the Interloper chapter, though much more palatable and interesting. I can forgive the jank, though, knowing there's a snappy battle around the corner or excellent attention to detail.
USS Darkstar starts and ends on strong footing despite some mundane or drawn out sequences in-between. It's definitely not that polished or exciting compared to modern GoldSrc projects, but the high level of ambition, design goals, and atmosphere shown here has me excited to try Black Widow's following HL1 release They Hunger. The team's model of producing cover-disc mods for PC Gamer and other outlets was only feasible from the Quake era to before Half-Life 2, but it led to cool experiences like this. It's my first go-around with a single-player HL1 fan work of such caliber, and hopefully not the last. The PS2 port of HL1's scrapped mod-loading feature really must have stung for creators like Manke in retrospect.
1978
Nishikado's foundational arcade shoot-em-up continues to vex and perplex. For instance, we still don't know for sure if the game's popularity in Japan's "invader houses" did or didn't precipitate a 100-yen coin shortage. Only word of mouth (aka community legend) suggests the famous 5-rows-1-straggler technique, an early in-game secret, came from the Nagoya area. The designer-programmer himself has openly talked about the game's development over time, but internal documents from Taito may never surface, leaving out part of the picture. Compare this fragmented history to that of Pong, whose creation, proliferation, and sustained legacy is well-recorded in so many ways. For the Western gaming world, Space Invaders might as well be that Unidentified Foreign Object of desire. It drones, it transforms, and it dislocates your imagination.
I've played a comical number of Invaders clones over the past few days, all part of playing through the quote-unquote Golden Age arcade gaming pantheon. There's a lot of clunkers, but some impressive iterations too. None of them, aside from standouts like Galaga or Moon Cresta, match the elegance and entrancing rhythm the original achieved. I also can't think of any with a scoring strategy as risky yet rewarding as the Nagoya Shot, which proved this early that 1 coin's all you need to play forever—or die trying.
For all its simplicity, how did Space Invaders manage to trounce its increasingly complex, flashier competitors? Nishikado himself has his answers. He saw this work as a necessary answer to Breakout, a game where "you couldn’t advance to the next stage until you’d destroyed every block," whereas "previous games didn’t have that “all clear” concept". To make said blocks more than a passive threat, they needed their own projectiles, their own player-like identity you could immediately sense. What we see as barebones today was a major jump in difficulty and complexity then, so much that Taito sidelined the game as long as they could until it went viral. Let's also consider Nishikado's involvement in his high school magic club, or how overqualified he was at Taito in the first place, doing mechanical and electrical engineering (then computer science) at a level none could match.
All of this tells me Space Invaders had a sheer presence of genius behind it from Day 1. The clones, successors, and paradigm shifters building from it would have their day in the sun, but the Invaders Boom lasted much longer than anyone could have anticipated. As said with Pong, it's like talking about air—you can't breathe without it. Between the game's primal hide-and-seek appeal, the Nagoya & Rainbow strategies, and urban myths about it persisting through today, playing it now still feels like an experience, not just a digital toy. Everything came together at the right time & place, using the right microprocessor technology, all within the era of Star Wars and pulp science-fantasy going through a popular revival.
Playing on an original North American or Japanese cabinet today is only going to become more difficult. I can make do with MAME, and we've all played some form of this game through cultural osmosis at the least. But there's more to it than nostalgia. The people's history of Space Invaders, from garish Flynn's Arcade near the bar, to smoky late-night hours on cocktail cabs in Tokyo—and all other variations—has never stopped, never reached a fabled end. It lives on at barcades, gaming conventions, online streams, and awards shows. The alien specter looms over everyone in some welcoming way, as if to say video games are here to stay. Galaxian might give me more to sink my teeth into, but it'll struggle to fascinate the way Nishikado's game can.
I'm not going to pretend my 4-star rating isn't a little biased, especially for a game I talk about more than I play. But it'd be weird to knock it down a peg just because other developers made better works off its foundation over time. Fact is, the game held its own for nearly three years, only dethroned internationally the likes of Scramble, Xevious, Star Force, and Gradius. And all their creators cited Invaders as the one to beat, of course. If Pong & Breakout proved that video games could work in an era of electromechanical hegemony, then Invaders showed what videos games could evoke beyond mere amusement. Its level of challenge, economy of action, and framing of conflict shattered so many expectations across the industry. Whole clubs, fanzines, and publications sprouted up around it like the beginnings of a religion. The game's reality distortion field is strong to this day, enough to surpass its own design qualities. What else can I say?
I've played a comical number of Invaders clones over the past few days, all part of playing through the quote-unquote Golden Age arcade gaming pantheon. There's a lot of clunkers, but some impressive iterations too. None of them, aside from standouts like Galaga or Moon Cresta, match the elegance and entrancing rhythm the original achieved. I also can't think of any with a scoring strategy as risky yet rewarding as the Nagoya Shot, which proved this early that 1 coin's all you need to play forever—or die trying.
For all its simplicity, how did Space Invaders manage to trounce its increasingly complex, flashier competitors? Nishikado himself has his answers. He saw this work as a necessary answer to Breakout, a game where "you couldn’t advance to the next stage until you’d destroyed every block," whereas "previous games didn’t have that “all clear” concept". To make said blocks more than a passive threat, they needed their own projectiles, their own player-like identity you could immediately sense. What we see as barebones today was a major jump in difficulty and complexity then, so much that Taito sidelined the game as long as they could until it went viral. Let's also consider Nishikado's involvement in his high school magic club, or how overqualified he was at Taito in the first place, doing mechanical and electrical engineering (then computer science) at a level none could match.
All of this tells me Space Invaders had a sheer presence of genius behind it from Day 1. The clones, successors, and paradigm shifters building from it would have their day in the sun, but the Invaders Boom lasted much longer than anyone could have anticipated. As said with Pong, it's like talking about air—you can't breathe without it. Between the game's primal hide-and-seek appeal, the Nagoya & Rainbow strategies, and urban myths about it persisting through today, playing it now still feels like an experience, not just a digital toy. Everything came together at the right time & place, using the right microprocessor technology, all within the era of Star Wars and pulp science-fantasy going through a popular revival.
Playing on an original North American or Japanese cabinet today is only going to become more difficult. I can make do with MAME, and we've all played some form of this game through cultural osmosis at the least. But there's more to it than nostalgia. The people's history of Space Invaders, from garish Flynn's Arcade near the bar, to smoky late-night hours on cocktail cabs in Tokyo—and all other variations—has never stopped, never reached a fabled end. It lives on at barcades, gaming conventions, online streams, and awards shows. The alien specter looms over everyone in some welcoming way, as if to say video games are here to stay. Galaxian might give me more to sink my teeth into, but it'll struggle to fascinate the way Nishikado's game can.
I'm not going to pretend my 4-star rating isn't a little biased, especially for a game I talk about more than I play. But it'd be weird to knock it down a peg just because other developers made better works off its foundation over time. Fact is, the game held its own for nearly three years, only dethroned internationally the likes of Scramble, Xevious, Star Force, and Gradius. And all their creators cited Invaders as the one to beat, of course. If Pong & Breakout proved that video games could work in an era of electromechanical hegemony, then Invaders showed what videos games could evoke beyond mere amusement. Its level of challenge, economy of action, and framing of conflict shattered so many expectations across the industry. Whole clubs, fanzines, and publications sprouted up around it like the beginnings of a religion. The game's reality distortion field is strong to this day, enough to surpass its own design qualities. What else can I say?
1998
Move over 40 Winks Croc: Legend of the Gobbos... Here's the platformer adventure that helped save Apple Computer Inc. from bankruptcy. Every original iMac came bundled with this short but sweet demo, showcasing QuickDraw 3D and giving the kids something fun. And it stars a silly far-future dino blasting through its ancestors to grab some McGuffins. 20 minutes are all you get, and all you need, to have a round with what was possibly the most played GPU-centric game of its day. And it's still worth it today, especially thanks to Iliyas Jorio's source port for modern OSes.
We all love to say 1998 was one of gaming's best years, but rarely does that seem to include the Macintosh. I'm not saying that Apple's once-ailing prosumer home computer line suddenly got anything on the level of Unreal, Metal Gear Solid, or Ocarina of Time, but remember, this was the iMac G3's time to shine. Under interim (and soon permanent) CEO Steve Jobs' direction, the corporation snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, aggressively and effectively marketing a cheap but powerful enough Internet-age Macintosh experience to new users. Tons of schools, businesses, and home users bought into Apple's previously ignored hard and soft ecosystem, even as Windows 95 and its progeny gave Microsoft a near monopoly on the PC space. Beyond a better value product, the iMac was a triumph of design and advertising, this bulbous, umami-like machine benefiting from Mac OS 8's strengths over Windows and previous versions. It also happened to come with a curious pack-in game from this dude out in Austin, TX, stuck in a boring job at Motorola and raring to make another hit shareware game.
Brian Greenstone's the driving force behind Pangea Software and its earlier efforts, mainly Mighty Mike (aka Power Pete) from '95. That earlier release was itself bundled with mid-'90s Performa and Power Macintosh models; Nanosaur logically continued the relationship he'd built with Apple. His early work with Apple's new graphics API, first demoed in '95 and '96, proved important to the iMac's gaming potential, with said line using ATI's baseline Rage II series of accelerator cards. With scarcely more than a month to create a small pack-in title, Greenstone and crew put out what's basically the spiritual successor to Mighty Mike, but set in the Cretaceous.
Nanosaur's premise is simple: you've traveled back in time to 20 minutes before the great meteor mass extinction begins. As part of a civilization of uplifted 'saurs building from humanity's dead remains, you're tasked with collecting five eggs, each from a different species, and returning them to the future. Easier said than done, of course. None of the reptiles are happy to say you invading their land, stealing their young, and blowing up their neighbors. Unluckily for them, our protagonist comes strapped, able to use multiple weapons, power-ups, and a double jump plus jetpack to boot. There's only one level to play over and over again, but it's quite large by '98 standards, and Pangea gives replay incentives like a score table and secret areas.
Actually controlling this raptor is far from smooth going. Croc has the edge on this because it offers strafing, whereas Nanosaur basically uses tank controls. Sense of motion and air control's about as good as in Argonaut Games' platformer, though, and this short thing's more about combat and exploration than pure tests of jumping. No bottomless pits, no required collectibles in the air—none of the frustration I have to grin and bear when trying to save the Gobbos. Turning could have been faster, and I'm pretty sure this control scheme had to account for keyboard-only play, hence the lack of an analog camera. But it's simple, responsive, and offers leeway to less skilled players. Gamepad support's good, too, making it easier to spam shots than just tapping keys. I wish Jorio's port had more options for customizing joy bindings, though.
The game loop itself works very well for something this short. I only wish there was more to actually do here, like a more challenging second level or something. Every cycle of running and jumping across each biome, killing dinos and nabbing eggs to throw into a nearby time portal, feels like a small stage each time. Most enemies just want to ram you for big damage, save the pterodactyls throwing rocks from above. What makes dodging and obliterating them trickier are the environmental hazards, from spore bombs to lava flows, which complicate one's movement and approach. Expect to die a couple times or more when starting out, as there's some traps like the canyon boulders or stegosaurs hiding in shrubs waiting to catch you.
All this comes together to make a thrilling, if very lightweight and predictable fetch-action romp. Granted, it's a miracle Nanosaur plays as well as it does since Greenstone only had three weeks to design and implement the game itself. He'd originally planned this as a QuickDraw 3D demo showing off the tech's potential, as well as his own skin-and-bones animation system inspired by SEGA's recent The Lost World lightgun shooter. To that end, this transformation from pet project to miniaturized Power Pete turned out way better than Greenstone, Apple, or anyone else could have expected. I can beat this in less than 10 minutes, knowing the layout and mechanics quite well now, but so many kids enjoyed trying this over and over again that the runtime hardly matters. There's a quaint joy in optimizing your runs, either for time or score, while jamming out to that funky jungle rock music, traversing the fog for more ammo and health pick-ups to feed your path of destruction.
Pangea had made a relatively small but useful amount of cash over the years, from their Apple IIGS-defining hit Xenocide to the trickle of royalties Greenstone received from MacPlay for Power Pete. But the company's deal with Apple was a boon for everyone, landing him a job on their QuickDraw team and soon leading to more shareware classics for iMac and beyond. As both charityware and a defining pack-in product, Nanosaur marked a maturation of the Mac games market, its success lifting burdens off other beleaguered studios like Bungie and Ambrosia. Greenstone soon leave Apple to give them another hit, the iconic Bugdom a year later, and eventually revisited our plucky chrono-jumping hero with 2004's Nanosaur 2. In the meantime, they put out an expanded paid version of this called Nanosaur Extreme, also included with Jorio's port. All this added was a new high difficulty mode, but having to deal with tens of T-rexes at once definitely gets everything out of the game's design as it deserves. I actually had to stand on geysers and charge up the jetpack when playing this mode, just to keep distance from the hordes cornering me!
I guess the pitch for trying Nanosaur boils down to "cool bipedal boi tears through budget Jurassic Park for great justice". This really isn't something I'd boot up for a revelation or even a great take on the prehistoric action adventure. It's also difficult to appreciate how graphically advanced this was in its time, combining detailed 3D modeling and animation with proto-shaders and a high rendering resolution matching the iMac's hardware. But I'm going out of my way to criticize or downplay a humble, very enjoyable piece of history which stacks up well to modern game jam faire. It takes the best parts of Mighty Mike and competing efforts like Ambrosia's Harry the Handsome Executive, shunting the Mac shareware world into polygonal view just like Avara and Marathon 2 had tried. Weird freeware collect-a-thon platformers would never be the same; given how far this one spread, they could only strive to beat this benchmark.
Completed for the Backloggd Discord server’s Game of the Week club, Mar. 7 - 13, 2023
We all love to say 1998 was one of gaming's best years, but rarely does that seem to include the Macintosh. I'm not saying that Apple's once-ailing prosumer home computer line suddenly got anything on the level of Unreal, Metal Gear Solid, or Ocarina of Time, but remember, this was the iMac G3's time to shine. Under interim (and soon permanent) CEO Steve Jobs' direction, the corporation snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, aggressively and effectively marketing a cheap but powerful enough Internet-age Macintosh experience to new users. Tons of schools, businesses, and home users bought into Apple's previously ignored hard and soft ecosystem, even as Windows 95 and its progeny gave Microsoft a near monopoly on the PC space. Beyond a better value product, the iMac was a triumph of design and advertising, this bulbous, umami-like machine benefiting from Mac OS 8's strengths over Windows and previous versions. It also happened to come with a curious pack-in game from this dude out in Austin, TX, stuck in a boring job at Motorola and raring to make another hit shareware game.
Brian Greenstone's the driving force behind Pangea Software and its earlier efforts, mainly Mighty Mike (aka Power Pete) from '95. That earlier release was itself bundled with mid-'90s Performa and Power Macintosh models; Nanosaur logically continued the relationship he'd built with Apple. His early work with Apple's new graphics API, first demoed in '95 and '96, proved important to the iMac's gaming potential, with said line using ATI's baseline Rage II series of accelerator cards. With scarcely more than a month to create a small pack-in title, Greenstone and crew put out what's basically the spiritual successor to Mighty Mike, but set in the Cretaceous.
Nanosaur's premise is simple: you've traveled back in time to 20 minutes before the great meteor mass extinction begins. As part of a civilization of uplifted 'saurs building from humanity's dead remains, you're tasked with collecting five eggs, each from a different species, and returning them to the future. Easier said than done, of course. None of the reptiles are happy to say you invading their land, stealing their young, and blowing up their neighbors. Unluckily for them, our protagonist comes strapped, able to use multiple weapons, power-ups, and a double jump plus jetpack to boot. There's only one level to play over and over again, but it's quite large by '98 standards, and Pangea gives replay incentives like a score table and secret areas.
Actually controlling this raptor is far from smooth going. Croc has the edge on this because it offers strafing, whereas Nanosaur basically uses tank controls. Sense of motion and air control's about as good as in Argonaut Games' platformer, though, and this short thing's more about combat and exploration than pure tests of jumping. No bottomless pits, no required collectibles in the air—none of the frustration I have to grin and bear when trying to save the Gobbos. Turning could have been faster, and I'm pretty sure this control scheme had to account for keyboard-only play, hence the lack of an analog camera. But it's simple, responsive, and offers leeway to less skilled players. Gamepad support's good, too, making it easier to spam shots than just tapping keys. I wish Jorio's port had more options for customizing joy bindings, though.
The game loop itself works very well for something this short. I only wish there was more to actually do here, like a more challenging second level or something. Every cycle of running and jumping across each biome, killing dinos and nabbing eggs to throw into a nearby time portal, feels like a small stage each time. Most enemies just want to ram you for big damage, save the pterodactyls throwing rocks from above. What makes dodging and obliterating them trickier are the environmental hazards, from spore bombs to lava flows, which complicate one's movement and approach. Expect to die a couple times or more when starting out, as there's some traps like the canyon boulders or stegosaurs hiding in shrubs waiting to catch you.
All this comes together to make a thrilling, if very lightweight and predictable fetch-action romp. Granted, it's a miracle Nanosaur plays as well as it does since Greenstone only had three weeks to design and implement the game itself. He'd originally planned this as a QuickDraw 3D demo showing off the tech's potential, as well as his own skin-and-bones animation system inspired by SEGA's recent The Lost World lightgun shooter. To that end, this transformation from pet project to miniaturized Power Pete turned out way better than Greenstone, Apple, or anyone else could have expected. I can beat this in less than 10 minutes, knowing the layout and mechanics quite well now, but so many kids enjoyed trying this over and over again that the runtime hardly matters. There's a quaint joy in optimizing your runs, either for time or score, while jamming out to that funky jungle rock music, traversing the fog for more ammo and health pick-ups to feed your path of destruction.
Pangea had made a relatively small but useful amount of cash over the years, from their Apple IIGS-defining hit Xenocide to the trickle of royalties Greenstone received from MacPlay for Power Pete. But the company's deal with Apple was a boon for everyone, landing him a job on their QuickDraw team and soon leading to more shareware classics for iMac and beyond. As both charityware and a defining pack-in product, Nanosaur marked a maturation of the Mac games market, its success lifting burdens off other beleaguered studios like Bungie and Ambrosia. Greenstone soon leave Apple to give them another hit, the iconic Bugdom a year later, and eventually revisited our plucky chrono-jumping hero with 2004's Nanosaur 2. In the meantime, they put out an expanded paid version of this called Nanosaur Extreme, also included with Jorio's port. All this added was a new high difficulty mode, but having to deal with tens of T-rexes at once definitely gets everything out of the game's design as it deserves. I actually had to stand on geysers and charge up the jetpack when playing this mode, just to keep distance from the hordes cornering me!
I guess the pitch for trying Nanosaur boils down to "cool bipedal boi tears through budget Jurassic Park for great justice". This really isn't something I'd boot up for a revelation or even a great take on the prehistoric action adventure. It's also difficult to appreciate how graphically advanced this was in its time, combining detailed 3D modeling and animation with proto-shaders and a high rendering resolution matching the iMac's hardware. But I'm going out of my way to criticize or downplay a humble, very enjoyable piece of history which stacks up well to modern game jam faire. It takes the best parts of Mighty Mike and competing efforts like Ambrosia's Harry the Handsome Executive, shunting the Mac shareware world into polygonal view just like Avara and Marathon 2 had tried. Weird freeware collect-a-thon platformers would never be the same; given how far this one spread, they could only strive to beat this benchmark.
Completed for the Backloggd Discord server’s Game of the Week club, Mar. 7 - 13, 2023
Signs Your Man is Gay and Does Crimes: (a) hijacks military-industrial weapons to fight the oppressors, (b) defends the marijuana anarchists of America, (c) must rescue his big '80s-haired goth boyfriend, (d) stars in three Golden Age throwback arcade games reimagining '80s classics as thinly veiled socio-political satire, and (e) was once lost to time like other Macintosh oddities (straight and otherwise), only to get re-discovered decades later
There's a lot to say about Foobar Versus the DEA, a mid-'90s Macintosh vertical shooter outweighed by its messages, subcultural themes, and historic context. Cadensia's review focused on the larger anti-Reaganite/-Clintonite background, while I'm captivated by this game's vision of an alternate history where queer super-heroics could exist in the local pizza parlor, accepted no matter if it fits our definitions of quality. In the words of developers Richard Cross and Tom Cruse: "The game plays like Xevious. We have music, sound, and fun graphics. What is the story behind Foobar? Foobar has been pushed too far. His boyfriend, Ned, has been captured by the DEA." [1] See? It's just like those arcade icons of yesterday, but with something more to say, a reflection of real-world problems that transcends the usual power fantasies. And in this earnestness, I think it mostly succeeds. Moments like grabbing the missile-shaped condom with a US flag, or our hero holding Ned in his arms like ye olde damsels in distress, put a fun, barbed spin on my shoot-'em-up expectations.
In the larger Macintosh software world, this must have felt like a kick in the pants to whoever played it. Let's recall that Apple and Macs in general were limping towards an ignominious demise at the hands of Windows hegemony. All the best shareware releases of the day, like Mighty Mike and Escape Velocity plus big-box legends like the Marathon series could only hold back the inevitable. Foobar Versus the DEA sends an extra potent message as such, a defiant assertion of pride in a dying platform and the voices it emphasized over the status-quo products making waves on most PCs of the era. Sure, I sincerely doubt Ambrosia Software would have published anything as brazen as this—look to their later Mars Rising for an example of the typical Mac retro shooter. But this kind of interactive media found a home on usergroups, newsletters, and early World Wide Web sites evangelizing the Mac experience. [2]
The word "Foobar" derives from hacker culture, a corrupt of military jargon ("FUBAR") and signal terms used at MIT's model train club starting in the late-1950s. [3] And it's fitting, if disappointing, that this game's as DIY and ersatz as the name itself. Nothing here feels good to actually play. I wouldn't call the sluggish ship movement, imprecise hitboxes, molasses scrolling, or generally repetitive game loop bad, but it's a far cry from what else had arrived in the Mac scene. You've got 4 levels of predictable, seemingly interminable waves of missiles, turrets, and weird lil' enemies gunning at you. There's just one weapon power-up, the usual extra life and score "yummies", and it's very easy to accidentally destroy these items via your own shots! Neither the comically short musical loops nor early Flash-game visual designs are distinctive or laudable, either. At least the game's nice to let you save between levels on any difficulty, plus retaining the upgraded shot speed between deaths. It's just frustrating that most of this game feels like a prototype that Cross and Cruse slapped a compelling set of themes atop, rather than something more holistic.
For all that negativity, I still think it's worth giving this a try if the idea of playing a bog standard, forgettable yet memorable Macintosh oldie fascinates you. Foobar Versus the DEA has a neat anarchic, subversive atmosphere whenever the narrative comes back into focus. Fighting supervillains like the corporate sellout scientist Marlboro Man and NSA-like mainframe AI NOSEY matches the comic-book onomatopoeia shouting at players during each level. My Camp-O-Meter hits dangerous readings whenever I look at our hero's lantern-jawed physique, or the completely sincere use of google-eyed smiley faces as enemy artillery. "Irreverent" is the best descriptor here, and I'm glad that the two-man duo behind this romp didn't take themselves too seriously. That seems to have been the goal for two yet undumped sequels—Foobar Versus the FCC & Foobar vs. His Local School Board—which each have their own evil tetrumvirates to defeat in fabulous fashion.
Sadly, this milestone in the Mac community truly almost faded into the annals of obscurity, not helped by Cruse's unfortunate death in a car accident a year after making this series. We now have projects like the LGBTQ Video Game Archive compiling primary info and resources on this, thankfully, but it remains a footnote in daily discussion of pre-Y2K indie gaming. Simply playing this at all, without compromise, takes a bit more work than giving it a glance on Internet Archive, as the game requires you to use the Apple command key, bound to Windows and other OS-specific keys in emulation, which can be a technical hassle. I ended up running the program in Mac OS 8.1 via Basilisk II just to have as pure a 68k-based environment as I can currently use! So I won't blame any of y'all for skipping over this despite its short 15-30 minute runtime (at least on Easy, the default setting).
Foobar Versus the DEA falls into something of an uncanny valley. While it's certainly queer and emblematic of late-night hacker sessions (and other precursors to game jams), there's plenty old-fashioned aspects to it as well. Multiple difficulties and lenient checkpoints clash in style against enemy spam hemming players into the middle, all while they destroy power-ups due to a lack of time and space to collect them. And though it does okay enough in most areas for me to deem it playable, there were already much better, much more impressive genre throwbacks and evolutions leading the freeware and shareware markets on Mac back in '96. Following in the wake of fully confident titles like Caper in the Castro, I just find this game lacking as a countercultural remnant of a pre-Obama milieu. Regardless, we ought not to let this early LGBTQIA+ game disappear into the word-of-mouth ether. Let's do it for Tom Cruse. Do it for Ned.
—Bibliography—
[1] Cross, Richard, and Tom Cruse. “The FOOBAR FAQ.” Foobar FAQ. Richard Cross, October 2, 1999. https://web.archive.org/web/20010823133634/http://www.desy.de/~cross/foobar/FAQ.html. Retrieved from Internet Archive via Wayback Machine, March 31, 2023.
[2] Cross, Richard. “Info-Mac Digest V14 #251.” Info-Mac. Info-Mac, October 30, 1996. https://www.info-mac.org/viewtopic.php?f=213&t=14153&p=16227&hilit=Foobar#p16227.
[3] Eastlike, Donald E., Carl-Unro Manros, and Eric S. Raymond. “Etymology of ‘Foo’ (RFC 3092).” The Internet Society, April 1, 2001, 1–14. https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3092.txt. Internet Requests for Comments (RFC).
There's a lot to say about Foobar Versus the DEA, a mid-'90s Macintosh vertical shooter outweighed by its messages, subcultural themes, and historic context. Cadensia's review focused on the larger anti-Reaganite/-Clintonite background, while I'm captivated by this game's vision of an alternate history where queer super-heroics could exist in the local pizza parlor, accepted no matter if it fits our definitions of quality. In the words of developers Richard Cross and Tom Cruse: "The game plays like Xevious. We have music, sound, and fun graphics. What is the story behind Foobar? Foobar has been pushed too far. His boyfriend, Ned, has been captured by the DEA." [1] See? It's just like those arcade icons of yesterday, but with something more to say, a reflection of real-world problems that transcends the usual power fantasies. And in this earnestness, I think it mostly succeeds. Moments like grabbing the missile-shaped condom with a US flag, or our hero holding Ned in his arms like ye olde damsels in distress, put a fun, barbed spin on my shoot-'em-up expectations.
In the larger Macintosh software world, this must have felt like a kick in the pants to whoever played it. Let's recall that Apple and Macs in general were limping towards an ignominious demise at the hands of Windows hegemony. All the best shareware releases of the day, like Mighty Mike and Escape Velocity plus big-box legends like the Marathon series could only hold back the inevitable. Foobar Versus the DEA sends an extra potent message as such, a defiant assertion of pride in a dying platform and the voices it emphasized over the status-quo products making waves on most PCs of the era. Sure, I sincerely doubt Ambrosia Software would have published anything as brazen as this—look to their later Mars Rising for an example of the typical Mac retro shooter. But this kind of interactive media found a home on usergroups, newsletters, and early World Wide Web sites evangelizing the Mac experience. [2]
The word "Foobar" derives from hacker culture, a corrupt of military jargon ("FUBAR") and signal terms used at MIT's model train club starting in the late-1950s. [3] And it's fitting, if disappointing, that this game's as DIY and ersatz as the name itself. Nothing here feels good to actually play. I wouldn't call the sluggish ship movement, imprecise hitboxes, molasses scrolling, or generally repetitive game loop bad, but it's a far cry from what else had arrived in the Mac scene. You've got 4 levels of predictable, seemingly interminable waves of missiles, turrets, and weird lil' enemies gunning at you. There's just one weapon power-up, the usual extra life and score "yummies", and it's very easy to accidentally destroy these items via your own shots! Neither the comically short musical loops nor early Flash-game visual designs are distinctive or laudable, either. At least the game's nice to let you save between levels on any difficulty, plus retaining the upgraded shot speed between deaths. It's just frustrating that most of this game feels like a prototype that Cross and Cruse slapped a compelling set of themes atop, rather than something more holistic.
For all that negativity, I still think it's worth giving this a try if the idea of playing a bog standard, forgettable yet memorable Macintosh oldie fascinates you. Foobar Versus the DEA has a neat anarchic, subversive atmosphere whenever the narrative comes back into focus. Fighting supervillains like the corporate sellout scientist Marlboro Man and NSA-like mainframe AI NOSEY matches the comic-book onomatopoeia shouting at players during each level. My Camp-O-Meter hits dangerous readings whenever I look at our hero's lantern-jawed physique, or the completely sincere use of google-eyed smiley faces as enemy artillery. "Irreverent" is the best descriptor here, and I'm glad that the two-man duo behind this romp didn't take themselves too seriously. That seems to have been the goal for two yet undumped sequels—Foobar Versus the FCC & Foobar vs. His Local School Board—which each have their own evil tetrumvirates to defeat in fabulous fashion.
Sadly, this milestone in the Mac community truly almost faded into the annals of obscurity, not helped by Cruse's unfortunate death in a car accident a year after making this series. We now have projects like the LGBTQ Video Game Archive compiling primary info and resources on this, thankfully, but it remains a footnote in daily discussion of pre-Y2K indie gaming. Simply playing this at all, without compromise, takes a bit more work than giving it a glance on Internet Archive, as the game requires you to use the Apple command key, bound to Windows and other OS-specific keys in emulation, which can be a technical hassle. I ended up running the program in Mac OS 8.1 via Basilisk II just to have as pure a 68k-based environment as I can currently use! So I won't blame any of y'all for skipping over this despite its short 15-30 minute runtime (at least on Easy, the default setting).
Foobar Versus the DEA falls into something of an uncanny valley. While it's certainly queer and emblematic of late-night hacker sessions (and other precursors to game jams), there's plenty old-fashioned aspects to it as well. Multiple difficulties and lenient checkpoints clash in style against enemy spam hemming players into the middle, all while they destroy power-ups due to a lack of time and space to collect them. And though it does okay enough in most areas for me to deem it playable, there were already much better, much more impressive genre throwbacks and evolutions leading the freeware and shareware markets on Mac back in '96. Following in the wake of fully confident titles like Caper in the Castro, I just find this game lacking as a countercultural remnant of a pre-Obama milieu. Regardless, we ought not to let this early LGBTQIA+ game disappear into the word-of-mouth ether. Let's do it for Tom Cruse. Do it for Ned.
—Bibliography—
[1] Cross, Richard, and Tom Cruse. “The FOOBAR FAQ.” Foobar FAQ. Richard Cross, October 2, 1999. https://web.archive.org/web/20010823133634/http://www.desy.de/~cross/foobar/FAQ.html. Retrieved from Internet Archive via Wayback Machine, March 31, 2023.
[2] Cross, Richard. “Info-Mac Digest V14 #251.” Info-Mac. Info-Mac, October 30, 1996. https://www.info-mac.org/viewtopic.php?f=213&t=14153&p=16227&hilit=Foobar#p16227.
[3] Eastlike, Donald E., Carl-Unro Manros, and Eric S. Raymond. “Etymology of ‘Foo’ (RFC 3092).” The Internet Society, April 1, 2001, 1–14. https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3092.txt. Internet Requests for Comments (RFC).
1997
The Myth of "Consensual" Destruction Racers Canon
Carmageddon & Grand Theft Auto: "I consent!"
Gaming press & media controversy: "I consent!"
Runabout/Felony series: "I don't!"
Isn't there somebody you forgot to ask?!
Ex-Dragon Quest and Landstalker programmer Kan Naito, head of Climax Entertainment as it entered the mid-'90s era, just had to push the 3D tech of the day. He and his co-developers had by now released Dark Savior, their Saturn-exclusive, 360-degrees isometric action-RPG opus which undoubtedly took a toll on the studio. Any project they'd do for PlayStation would be much easier, as he admitted in the May '97 issue of Next Generation magazine. Their previous SEGA works featured detailed, sumptuous 2D art for their platforms, which this new title would contrast with the kind of moldable polygonal brawn Sony's machine could provide. Most of all, Dark Savior was a beast of an adventure, with multiple endings, numerous levels to design, and a relatively low return due to the Saturn's stagnating market share. Whatever this master coder and his crew did on PS1, it had to cost less and gain a lot more.
So they settled on a much quainter idea, both an arcade throwback and a more flexible design concept in turn. The original Runabout may well have been born from Climax's programmers and modelers toying with vehicle deformation, a defining part of the game's identity when it released on May 23, 1997 in Japan. The only thing that won't damage and crunch your car, truck, bus, tank, or whatever into mush are the course walls and barriers. Meanwhile, just about every NPC vehicle or stage prop you see in Felony 11-79 can become a victim of your reckless driving. And with said destruction comes a cash payout, ranging in magnitude from a few hundred bucks to potentially a million! Based on this system, you'd think the game's goals revolve more around traversing open areas, smashing everyone and everything in your path. But Naito's team had a different idea: combine this car-pocalypse with a rally racing structure.
Felony 11-79 has the player driving from point A to point B across three unique tracks, each with secrets, objectives, and a whole lot of hazards. It's as much an evolution of Chase H.Q. and similar racers as it is a looser, more chaotic mashup of SEGA Rally and Destruction Derby. There's not a lot of original ideas here, nor the kind of spit-polish expected for mid-'90s 3D arcade-y faire. Still, it's hard to not have a shit-ton of fun ramming your reinforced pickup truck through a congested coastal Japanese highway, or launching a Formula 1 racecar into a Paris subway only to collide with a train! If you've ever wondered where the sheer hilarious stunt carnage of something like Burnout first graced home consoles, this might be the candidate.
Sadly, though, there isn't anywhere near enough to do here once you complete your first run of the game's tracks. Unless we count the optional test track meant for learning controls and tuning your vehicle, that's all the road you're gonna get, no mirror mode provided. Most of the game's progression instead comes from unlocking hidden rides, from exotic supercars to a mothafuckin' TANK (which can even fire its cannon and destroy all in its wake!). Doing this entails completing optional goals on each course. One example involves drastically outspeeding a police radar benchmark on the highway. Another involves smashing a vending machine to unlock the diminutive RC car. Now you've got some unconventional new toys to play around with in and out of the garage. Just make sure to save all this progress in that separate menu, though, since there's no auto-save or post-race equivalent to speak of.
Climax wants players to enjoy the mere act of piloting these machines, so the controls are simple but responsive. This predates the DualShock, so there's unfortunately no analog controls aside from using a racing wheel, but the handling model's built with D-pad turning in mind. I wish the tire physics and reverse motion was better polish, as it can be a bit too easy to spin out with all those fast but light cars. Still, that's why tinkering in the Settings menu can alleviate, giving you a basic way to set suspension strength, loosen or tighten brakes, and other technical aspects. This can add a lot of playtime if you're gunning for fast times, or if a particular unlockable's giving you trouble. I certainly don't mind the customization, slight as it is, given the content shortage elsewhere.
The main missions themselves are damn fun, though I encountered a few annoying quirks of the engine and developers' design choices. You mainly need to race for the finish while picking up objects in-between, either by hitting checkpoints or hitting things. I learned that, while dueling AI racers isn't a thing here, Felony 11-79 still expects the kind of practice and routing demanded in contemporary circuit or rally games. Your vehicle's damage meter complicates this by enforcing consequences for your collateral; hit too many things and you're done for. So learning which objects yield the highest "felony" rewards matters too, as is weaving between passenger cars and not blowing up entire civilian spaces for meager return vs. damage. All the courses are well-designed, with plenty of cool set-pieces, landmarks, and shortcuts to marvel at and use for your runs. Managing your worsening cornering and spinouts as you get bruised adds some simcade depth to the proceedings, too.
All this works great until you literally get stuck on a vehicle you've just crippled, its hitbox snagging yours while you try to escape. Reversing usually works fine, but the moments when it doesn't got on my nerves. It also doesn't help that the game's draw distance and level-of-detail scaling, though damn good for its time and hardware, isn't really good enough for the game loop. Moving fast on a narrow stretch can lead to disaster if the time limit's bearing down and you hit a random sedan or something. Frustration is an inevitable part of playing most behind-the-wheel media from this era, mostly the arcade-style stuff, but this kind of jank isn't endearing.
What is endearing are all the cheesy, over-the-top flourishes the Runabout series indulges right from the start. Little else in the arcade racer pantheon combines '60s surfer buttrock with vibrant environments, an utter disregard for anyone's well-being, and one-liners that would make Duke Nukem proud. I also have to chuckle at the game's framing story, where your driver's client has requested the forceful recovery of three key parts needed to unlock an Egyptian sarcophagus full of "treasure". Well, it doesn't go so well for this greedy mogul in the end, but we're getting paid to retrieve the McGuffins at all costs, so what does it matter? There's maybe not the same kind or intensity of punk energy here that SEGA's Hitmaker team would realized in Crazy Taxi a couple years later, but Climax sure was on to something.
Felony 11-79 had distant progenitors over in the arcades, but there wasn't much like this available at home, except maybe on predominantly European micro-computers. The PlayStation had a preview of this kind of destruction racer with the latter third of Die Hard Trilogy, as well as Reflection's Destruction Derby defining part of the system's early ranks. It's just that Naito & co. had found a new, straightforward formula to exploit which would echo into the coming decade, from 1999's Driver to the iconic Burnout 3: Takedown among others. This initial series entry may not amount to more than a prototype, but its immediate PS1 sequel and the beefier Super Runabout on Dreamcast deliver on the original's promises. I can't think of a better single-A comedy driving franchise from this period, not even among the ranks of similarly scrappy budget releases from D3 Publishing's Simple lines. These games would do for the arcade racer what Earth Defense Force later accomplished for musou-style action, and I'm itching to try some more.
Carmageddon & Grand Theft Auto: "I consent!"
Gaming press & media controversy: "I consent!"
Runabout/Felony series: "I don't!"
Isn't there somebody you forgot to ask?!
Ex-Dragon Quest and Landstalker programmer Kan Naito, head of Climax Entertainment as it entered the mid-'90s era, just had to push the 3D tech of the day. He and his co-developers had by now released Dark Savior, their Saturn-exclusive, 360-degrees isometric action-RPG opus which undoubtedly took a toll on the studio. Any project they'd do for PlayStation would be much easier, as he admitted in the May '97 issue of Next Generation magazine. Their previous SEGA works featured detailed, sumptuous 2D art for their platforms, which this new title would contrast with the kind of moldable polygonal brawn Sony's machine could provide. Most of all, Dark Savior was a beast of an adventure, with multiple endings, numerous levels to design, and a relatively low return due to the Saturn's stagnating market share. Whatever this master coder and his crew did on PS1, it had to cost less and gain a lot more.
So they settled on a much quainter idea, both an arcade throwback and a more flexible design concept in turn. The original Runabout may well have been born from Climax's programmers and modelers toying with vehicle deformation, a defining part of the game's identity when it released on May 23, 1997 in Japan. The only thing that won't damage and crunch your car, truck, bus, tank, or whatever into mush are the course walls and barriers. Meanwhile, just about every NPC vehicle or stage prop you see in Felony 11-79 can become a victim of your reckless driving. And with said destruction comes a cash payout, ranging in magnitude from a few hundred bucks to potentially a million! Based on this system, you'd think the game's goals revolve more around traversing open areas, smashing everyone and everything in your path. But Naito's team had a different idea: combine this car-pocalypse with a rally racing structure.
Felony 11-79 has the player driving from point A to point B across three unique tracks, each with secrets, objectives, and a whole lot of hazards. It's as much an evolution of Chase H.Q. and similar racers as it is a looser, more chaotic mashup of SEGA Rally and Destruction Derby. There's not a lot of original ideas here, nor the kind of spit-polish expected for mid-'90s 3D arcade-y faire. Still, it's hard to not have a shit-ton of fun ramming your reinforced pickup truck through a congested coastal Japanese highway, or launching a Formula 1 racecar into a Paris subway only to collide with a train! If you've ever wondered where the sheer hilarious stunt carnage of something like Burnout first graced home consoles, this might be the candidate.
Sadly, though, there isn't anywhere near enough to do here once you complete your first run of the game's tracks. Unless we count the optional test track meant for learning controls and tuning your vehicle, that's all the road you're gonna get, no mirror mode provided. Most of the game's progression instead comes from unlocking hidden rides, from exotic supercars to a mothafuckin' TANK (which can even fire its cannon and destroy all in its wake!). Doing this entails completing optional goals on each course. One example involves drastically outspeeding a police radar benchmark on the highway. Another involves smashing a vending machine to unlock the diminutive RC car. Now you've got some unconventional new toys to play around with in and out of the garage. Just make sure to save all this progress in that separate menu, though, since there's no auto-save or post-race equivalent to speak of.
Climax wants players to enjoy the mere act of piloting these machines, so the controls are simple but responsive. This predates the DualShock, so there's unfortunately no analog controls aside from using a racing wheel, but the handling model's built with D-pad turning in mind. I wish the tire physics and reverse motion was better polish, as it can be a bit too easy to spin out with all those fast but light cars. Still, that's why tinkering in the Settings menu can alleviate, giving you a basic way to set suspension strength, loosen or tighten brakes, and other technical aspects. This can add a lot of playtime if you're gunning for fast times, or if a particular unlockable's giving you trouble. I certainly don't mind the customization, slight as it is, given the content shortage elsewhere.
The main missions themselves are damn fun, though I encountered a few annoying quirks of the engine and developers' design choices. You mainly need to race for the finish while picking up objects in-between, either by hitting checkpoints or hitting things. I learned that, while dueling AI racers isn't a thing here, Felony 11-79 still expects the kind of practice and routing demanded in contemporary circuit or rally games. Your vehicle's damage meter complicates this by enforcing consequences for your collateral; hit too many things and you're done for. So learning which objects yield the highest "felony" rewards matters too, as is weaving between passenger cars and not blowing up entire civilian spaces for meager return vs. damage. All the courses are well-designed, with plenty of cool set-pieces, landmarks, and shortcuts to marvel at and use for your runs. Managing your worsening cornering and spinouts as you get bruised adds some simcade depth to the proceedings, too.
All this works great until you literally get stuck on a vehicle you've just crippled, its hitbox snagging yours while you try to escape. Reversing usually works fine, but the moments when it doesn't got on my nerves. It also doesn't help that the game's draw distance and level-of-detail scaling, though damn good for its time and hardware, isn't really good enough for the game loop. Moving fast on a narrow stretch can lead to disaster if the time limit's bearing down and you hit a random sedan or something. Frustration is an inevitable part of playing most behind-the-wheel media from this era, mostly the arcade-style stuff, but this kind of jank isn't endearing.
What is endearing are all the cheesy, over-the-top flourishes the Runabout series indulges right from the start. Little else in the arcade racer pantheon combines '60s surfer buttrock with vibrant environments, an utter disregard for anyone's well-being, and one-liners that would make Duke Nukem proud. I also have to chuckle at the game's framing story, where your driver's client has requested the forceful recovery of three key parts needed to unlock an Egyptian sarcophagus full of "treasure". Well, it doesn't go so well for this greedy mogul in the end, but we're getting paid to retrieve the McGuffins at all costs, so what does it matter? There's maybe not the same kind or intensity of punk energy here that SEGA's Hitmaker team would realized in Crazy Taxi a couple years later, but Climax sure was on to something.
Felony 11-79 had distant progenitors over in the arcades, but there wasn't much like this available at home, except maybe on predominantly European micro-computers. The PlayStation had a preview of this kind of destruction racer with the latter third of Die Hard Trilogy, as well as Reflection's Destruction Derby defining part of the system's early ranks. It's just that Naito & co. had found a new, straightforward formula to exploit which would echo into the coming decade, from 1999's Driver to the iconic Burnout 3: Takedown among others. This initial series entry may not amount to more than a prototype, but its immediate PS1 sequel and the beefier Super Runabout on Dreamcast deliver on the original's promises. I can't think of a better single-A comedy driving franchise from this period, not even among the ranks of similarly scrappy budget releases from D3 Publishing's Simple lines. These games would do for the arcade racer what Earth Defense Force later accomplished for musou-style action, and I'm itching to try some more.
SEGA AGES and Arcade Archives have dominated the Switch eShop's retro re-release scene for too long—now it's Project EGG's turn to share the money fun, bringing '80s/'90s Japanese PC classics back into circulation for today's players. It's a bit questionable, then, that despite all the added quality-of-life features, they've kept Game Arts' Thexder just as comically difficult as ever. I'm going to find it hard to play this without save states now, aren't I. No matter what, anyone keen to try an unforgiving but surprisingly rich action platformer, a computer-bound refraction of Super Mario Bros. that same year, should give this a look-see.
I reviewed Thexder earlier this year while trawling through memories of playing localized and untouched J-PC games back in college, wondering what the hell I'd gotten myself into.Ghosts 'n Goblins hadn't yet reached the PC-88 by 1985, but its sheer level of brutality finds a fellow traveler in this title. Thankfully it's not as outright misanthropic and impenetrable as Capcom's infamous side-scroller, yet I wonder if it's not too far off. A studio like M2 or Hamster would have included some kind of easier mode or options to favor players (that aren't just saves), but not D4 Enterprises. They're confident that this will hold up well in the people's court, and I respect their moxie. Let's not act too surprised to see *Xanadu selling way better, though, whether because of the Falcom bump or how it's just slower and affable from the onset.
| Robo-Dexter's Laboratory |
Even the slowed-down DOS port of the game, released by Sierra in 1987, slices you in two with a proverbial laser beam before reassembling your sad self in not quite the right order. This may not have the design of a Mario kaizo hack, but it's very happy to sucker in players with a challenging but reasonable first stage before laying down the gauntlet. Level 2 asks a simple question: to shield or not to shield? One can choose to barrel through enemies, losing a mere 10 energy to replenish the barrier. Someone more daring may try and avoid as many enemies as possible, ending the level with no shield use and gaining a free 150 energy and raised energy cap as reward. Each following level begins to feel less like a robotic defense installation, more akin to a series of puzzles testing your resource management and ability to juke the droids into sticking on walls or each other.
Routing Thexder involves figuring out which stages are best tanked with shields or are possible to clear while taking minimal damage vs. the no-shield bonus. This becomes easier the further the player gets because designers Hibiki Godai and Satoshi Uesaka decided to recycle level layouts towards the end of the main loop, albeit with changed tilesets and enemies to keep it all fresh (no recolors!). So while it's as tough to learn as any memo-oriented shooter, there's some lenience here and there which retains the game's first impression of Mario meets Major Havoc and Macross. The only notably slow bits are "boss fights", which take the form of multi-object structures containing enemies within. It's fun to pick off each robot in just the right order to avoid releasing them from their prisons to attack you. These sections get a lot more use out of the plane morph than one might expect, all because you need a focused stream of fire instead of the auto-targeting projectile in mech form.
| Preservation, incubation, what's the difference? |
I was apprehensive about whether or not Project EGG's jump from subscription-based Windows emulation to Switch would shake out, and my worries were far from unjustified. As much as I admire Thexder in its historic context, the game's a hard sell today without offering more invasive ways to alleviate its ruthlessness. Save states are limited to just five slots here, along with a few game speed options which let you play slower or faster at the expense of audio design. Button remapping works very well, but the lack of turbo functions spells trouble in the future (or right now in Silpheed's case, though I need to play that port to know for sure). Including the manual is a nice touch, yet it also highlights the lack of other contextual materials like magazine articles, production materials, etc. There's a lot more D4 could have added to round out the package without using excessive time and budget they understandably would want for upcoming releases.
On the other hand, maybe five save slots and a minimalist approach works fine for this era of J-PC game soft, not swinging too hard towards purism nor revisionism. I think players should have the final say in how a game's played, with developers ideally accommodating multiple audiences' needs through options vs. forcing a one-size-fits-all approach. And it's hard to tell if Project EGG currently sees an opening in the retro games fandom to attract newer, younger players or if they'll lay the commercial onus strictly on aging dads and salarypeople from the '60s, '70s, and '80s who are already familiar with the J-PC library. When the software you're trying to sell is interesting yet somewhat inaccessible by design—front-loaded with challenge and gotcha moments meant to prolong playtime while encouraging the game's community through shared secrets—what can a modern digital distributor really do the bridge the gap in player demographic mindsets?
The EGGCONSOLE releases of RELICS and Thexder feel tentative and spare, very much testing the waters of how far these ancient J-PC legends can evolve to meet EGG's market needs. But I also doubt one can really do more with a game this honest and straightforward, not without designing basically a whole new game via difficulty rebalancing. M2's able to go that far because SEGA and other large firms back them up on projects big and small, whereas D4 and Hamster only have so much capital to buoy their teams. The mere threat of drastic changes turning off long-time EGG players might be enough of a problem to outweigh creating a full-on modern remake (ex. Thexder Neo). It's a tough call for the company to make, but I think they should still try to push the envelope more than this. Something as simple as letting players keep the end-of-level energy bonus even when using barriers, for instance, wouldn't deviate too far from Godai & Uesaka's design. It'd just speed up the average player's learning process, letting them chomp at the later levels earlier.
| Moonlight Sonata |
D4's imperative with EGGCONSOLE, ultimately, is to thread the needle on fidelity vs. accessibility while escaping the chokehold that their PC service's subscription model's kept them in for decades. I've rarely been able to convince anyone to pay upfront for an account, and then buy access to the games EGG carries, vs. just directing folks to emulation and the Neo Kobe packs on Internet Archive instead. Not only is this release a way better value for returning players who no longer have to lug a laptop with them to play Thexder (assuming the Steam Deck can't run the EGG Player, which is likely), but it's a cheaper buy-in for anyone encountering this and similar software for the first time. (Granted, you've always been able to play EGG games without an Internet connection and/or active sub, but that doesn't remove the stink it seems.) Make no mistake, there are worse ways of handling this big an emulation library—AntStream says hello from the bleachers.
I hope and expect this move onto Switch will get Project EGG out of the rut it's been stuck in, and that more will at least try to crack Thexder's tough exterior now that save states are available. There's quite a bit more that the company could have done to improve their emulation package here, so I hope any broadly applicable add-ons to later releases get backported here. It's hilarious how much they've improved on the basic Windows-bound emulation of Thexder, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that EGGCONSOLE's grossly outperforming the traditional PC service now as a result. Well, enough musing. I've got a saveless run to figure out when I'm not thinking about ancient Rom—erm, sorry, I meant Bouken Roman and other weirdo platformers confined to PC and arcade obscurity. Thexder's lucky…it's got a sizable legacy, being the game that sold the PC-88 in '85, and that shines on nearly 40 years later thanks to its solid, addictive design. All these titles coming to Switch now, late as it is, just means I get to see more of y'all try and hopefully enjoy these old standards on their own terms.
I reviewed Thexder earlier this year while trawling through memories of playing localized and untouched J-PC games back in college, wondering what the hell I'd gotten myself into.Ghosts 'n Goblins hadn't yet reached the PC-88 by 1985, but its sheer level of brutality finds a fellow traveler in this title. Thankfully it's not as outright misanthropic and impenetrable as Capcom's infamous side-scroller, yet I wonder if it's not too far off. A studio like M2 or Hamster would have included some kind of easier mode or options to favor players (that aren't just saves), but not D4 Enterprises. They're confident that this will hold up well in the people's court, and I respect their moxie. Let's not act too surprised to see *Xanadu selling way better, though, whether because of the Falcom bump or how it's just slower and affable from the onset.
| Robo-Dexter's Laboratory |
Even the slowed-down DOS port of the game, released by Sierra in 1987, slices you in two with a proverbial laser beam before reassembling your sad self in not quite the right order. This may not have the design of a Mario kaizo hack, but it's very happy to sucker in players with a challenging but reasonable first stage before laying down the gauntlet. Level 2 asks a simple question: to shield or not to shield? One can choose to barrel through enemies, losing a mere 10 energy to replenish the barrier. Someone more daring may try and avoid as many enemies as possible, ending the level with no shield use and gaining a free 150 energy and raised energy cap as reward. Each following level begins to feel less like a robotic defense installation, more akin to a series of puzzles testing your resource management and ability to juke the droids into sticking on walls or each other.
Routing Thexder involves figuring out which stages are best tanked with shields or are possible to clear while taking minimal damage vs. the no-shield bonus. This becomes easier the further the player gets because designers Hibiki Godai and Satoshi Uesaka decided to recycle level layouts towards the end of the main loop, albeit with changed tilesets and enemies to keep it all fresh (no recolors!). So while it's as tough to learn as any memo-oriented shooter, there's some lenience here and there which retains the game's first impression of Mario meets Major Havoc and Macross. The only notably slow bits are "boss fights", which take the form of multi-object structures containing enemies within. It's fun to pick off each robot in just the right order to avoid releasing them from their prisons to attack you. These sections get a lot more use out of the plane morph than one might expect, all because you need a focused stream of fire instead of the auto-targeting projectile in mech form.
| Preservation, incubation, what's the difference? |
I was apprehensive about whether or not Project EGG's jump from subscription-based Windows emulation to Switch would shake out, and my worries were far from unjustified. As much as I admire Thexder in its historic context, the game's a hard sell today without offering more invasive ways to alleviate its ruthlessness. Save states are limited to just five slots here, along with a few game speed options which let you play slower or faster at the expense of audio design. Button remapping works very well, but the lack of turbo functions spells trouble in the future (or right now in Silpheed's case, though I need to play that port to know for sure). Including the manual is a nice touch, yet it also highlights the lack of other contextual materials like magazine articles, production materials, etc. There's a lot more D4 could have added to round out the package without using excessive time and budget they understandably would want for upcoming releases.
On the other hand, maybe five save slots and a minimalist approach works fine for this era of J-PC game soft, not swinging too hard towards purism nor revisionism. I think players should have the final say in how a game's played, with developers ideally accommodating multiple audiences' needs through options vs. forcing a one-size-fits-all approach. And it's hard to tell if Project EGG currently sees an opening in the retro games fandom to attract newer, younger players or if they'll lay the commercial onus strictly on aging dads and salarypeople from the '60s, '70s, and '80s who are already familiar with the J-PC library. When the software you're trying to sell is interesting yet somewhat inaccessible by design—front-loaded with challenge and gotcha moments meant to prolong playtime while encouraging the game's community through shared secrets—what can a modern digital distributor really do the bridge the gap in player demographic mindsets?
The EGGCONSOLE releases of RELICS and Thexder feel tentative and spare, very much testing the waters of how far these ancient J-PC legends can evolve to meet EGG's market needs. But I also doubt one can really do more with a game this honest and straightforward, not without designing basically a whole new game via difficulty rebalancing. M2's able to go that far because SEGA and other large firms back them up on projects big and small, whereas D4 and Hamster only have so much capital to buoy their teams. The mere threat of drastic changes turning off long-time EGG players might be enough of a problem to outweigh creating a full-on modern remake (ex. Thexder Neo). It's a tough call for the company to make, but I think they should still try to push the envelope more than this. Something as simple as letting players keep the end-of-level energy bonus even when using barriers, for instance, wouldn't deviate too far from Godai & Uesaka's design. It'd just speed up the average player's learning process, letting them chomp at the later levels earlier.
| Moonlight Sonata |
D4's imperative with EGGCONSOLE, ultimately, is to thread the needle on fidelity vs. accessibility while escaping the chokehold that their PC service's subscription model's kept them in for decades. I've rarely been able to convince anyone to pay upfront for an account, and then buy access to the games EGG carries, vs. just directing folks to emulation and the Neo Kobe packs on Internet Archive instead. Not only is this release a way better value for returning players who no longer have to lug a laptop with them to play Thexder (assuming the Steam Deck can't run the EGG Player, which is likely), but it's a cheaper buy-in for anyone encountering this and similar software for the first time. (Granted, you've always been able to play EGG games without an Internet connection and/or active sub, but that doesn't remove the stink it seems.) Make no mistake, there are worse ways of handling this big an emulation library—AntStream says hello from the bleachers.
I hope and expect this move onto Switch will get Project EGG out of the rut it's been stuck in, and that more will at least try to crack Thexder's tough exterior now that save states are available. There's quite a bit more that the company could have done to improve their emulation package here, so I hope any broadly applicable add-ons to later releases get backported here. It's hilarious how much they've improved on the basic Windows-bound emulation of Thexder, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that EGGCONSOLE's grossly outperforming the traditional PC service now as a result. Well, enough musing. I've got a saveless run to figure out when I'm not thinking about ancient Rom—erm, sorry, I meant Bouken Roman and other weirdo platformers confined to PC and arcade obscurity. Thexder's lucky…it's got a sizable legacy, being the game that sold the PC-88 in '85, and that shines on nearly 40 years later thanks to its solid, addictive design. All these titles coming to Switch now, late as it is, just means I get to see more of y'all try and hopefully enjoy these old standards on their own terms.
hoi peeplz, I'm bak 4rom da ded, hapy eastah ig [proceeds to whack you, me, and everyone else reading with the Biblically Inaccurate God Stick] blessed be thy shit, now go, my angle frens are dragon me to Scotland cuz we gotta piss on maggie thacther too
Once upon a time, Koei made a video game of the greatest story ever told. It wasn't Nobunaga's Ambition; that guy was about as far from sacred and pious as you could imagine (boy did Mitsuhide make him pay for it). And it certainly couldn't have been Do Dutch Wives Dream of Electic Eels?, not unless you worship at the altar of ancient erotic adventures. Rather, the company's non-sim game division in the early-1980s, dubbed Comix, released a very loose adaptation of Christ's struggles towards salvation in '84, utterly unlike the rest of their output. This side-scrolling, arcade-style action thing for the relatively underpowered (but surprisingly capable) PC-6001mkII didn't have much presence in its own market. Koei would soon pour the lion's share of their talent and resources into complex, richly themed grand strategy and military simulations over the coming decades. Somehow, though, I think Chrith: Ai no Tabidachi (or Journey of Love) perfectly represents the studio's origins, which were far from prestigious and instead reflected the anything-goes attitudes of early Japanese PC games.
Jesus ain't living on Earth here, but the alien planet Lourdes, ruled by an evil crown prince and ravaged by famine. Now this guy's still prophesied to become humanity's guiding light, working miracles before all is lost, and so this child of peasants finally gets the gig many years later. His katakana name is actually "kurisu", a nod to how this isn't really Christ but a weird alternate universe version Koei's using to get out of trouble with the few Christians in Japan who'd even care. Players control Christ as he must move west across the land, blessing every lost soul in sight with his holy staff while avoiding snakes, soldiers, and other manifestations of the devil. If this sounds pretty simple, that's because it is. Chrith tends to resemble a reverse-direction MagMax or Seicross, as the play area auto-scrolls from right to left with peasants and pests moving in different lanes. Just move onto each lost soul to save them, ending when you've hit 50 people or have lost all your lives. I guess resurrection's a limited-chance offer on this world.
So we're playing not-Christ on not-Earth and it's totally not got a lot going on. Stages all look the same, with the barest of details like silhouetted mountains and a starry night sky. Check out that sick wireframe ground, though. Someone would peg this as an '80s throwback game if released today just because of the grid! It serves a purpose here, though, since a lack of sprite scaling means the developers had to convey depth perception somehow. Chrith hardly plays that bad in the moment thanks to considerations like this, but the choppy, all-in-software scrolling and lack of any music or audio design means this feels limp from start to finish. It's as shallow and repetitive as many players today think the Golden Age arcade classics must be. All I have to do for high scores is run wild around the track, racking up as many worshipers as possible while avoiding one-hit deaths from baddies. No secrets, no hidden mechanics, no nuthin'. Any potential this had to integrate miracles, sermons, aphorisms, and other New Testament-themed nuances just wasn't on the dev team's to-do list, I suppose.
Chrith: Journey of Love has a certain je-ne-sais-qois, mainly due to how it distorts bubble-era Japanese pop perceptions of Christianity (also influenced by U.S. media exports like Cecil B. DeMille's lavish Hollywood epics). Players will immediately notice and likely laugh at the voice synthesis dialogue during stage intermissions. This was possible on PC-6001 models thanks to an add-on chip which a select number of software used, including games like this and NEC's graphic adventure Colony Odyssey. And what you'll hear sounds worse than the best lines from Evil Otto in Berzerk, let alone the iconic taunts of Sinistar. But this at least adds character and a sense of mystery to the game's aesthetic, where an unidentified light (God? Heaven? Some angels?) briefs our hero on principles and goals before heading back into the moral melee. The spartan color choices, typical for this system and akin to early CGA graphics on DOS PCs, also render this ersatz pilgrimage as uncanny as possible. Sitting down with this disk for even a few minutes gives me the heebie-jeebies, like some creepypasta's about to happen right on screen. Bewildering stuff, I tell ya. Just watch Umbrella Terms' review and play this with her fan translation patch for more strangeness!
While this is the first PC-6000 series game I've covered here on Backloggd, it's definitely an outlier in that library, a dying gasp of Koei's origins as this hobbyist venture Yoichi Erikawa started to supplement his family's chemicals business. You'll never hear this mentioned in any official histories beyond maybe a mention in some timeline graphic. And the next Christianity-themed effort by the corporation came nearly a decade later with Tamashii no Mon - Dante's Odyssey, an Xmas '92 adventure platformer sticking closer to its source material than Chrith ever bothered. I enjoy the contrasts between these reverent but stylistically opposed translations of religious lit into mainstream games. Whereas Dante's Odyssey seamlessly blends its game-y bits in with recognizable moments from the original poem, Chrith salvages the surface-level trappings of a generic Christ biopic or children's book for the sake of camp. Neither approach is that faithful, nor sacrilegious. Syncretism among different Japanese faiths predisposed these products' creators to treat Western-import religions and iconography very similarly. It is entirely seemly for a Japanese micro-computer game riffing on Jesus to take liberties via this inter-cultural mangling. In the author's death, all things appear fair. (Wait, that's the Iliad, not the Bible…)
Koei quickly crafted a veneer of majesty, attention to detail, and historic fidelity throughout the mid-/late-'80s, something which they've let go of recently but can still point to and say "we know what we're doing". Yet Chrith: Journey of Love remains a sobering reminder of when this wasn't the case, a period when the Erikawas and co. just messed around, producing whatever silly idea could work on whichever PC they were targeting. This was the same company behind the very first eroge, after all. If you ask me, I think the C-suite and tastemakers at Koei-Tecmo are cowards to deny their beginnings and heritage. Unless this really was a troubled production or something they need to disavow for legal or sensitivity reasons, I think it'd help them to show a little pride for their first efforts. What would Chrith do? Probably send me to the pearly gates with his superweap—er, uh, I mean holy staff, yes, but the King of Kings would have enough love in his heart for even an homage this mediocre and misguided. This wouldn't even be the last time Kou Shibusawa himself diverged heavily from a known mythology just to make a fun enough game, yet I don't hear Imperial scholars complaining about all the inaccuracies in Kamigami no Daichi's version of Onamuchi's labors in primordial Japan. I dunno, maybe Koei should cut itself some slack.
Once upon a time, Koei made a video game of the greatest story ever told. It wasn't Nobunaga's Ambition; that guy was about as far from sacred and pious as you could imagine (boy did Mitsuhide make him pay for it). And it certainly couldn't have been Do Dutch Wives Dream of Electic Eels?, not unless you worship at the altar of ancient erotic adventures. Rather, the company's non-sim game division in the early-1980s, dubbed Comix, released a very loose adaptation of Christ's struggles towards salvation in '84, utterly unlike the rest of their output. This side-scrolling, arcade-style action thing for the relatively underpowered (but surprisingly capable) PC-6001mkII didn't have much presence in its own market. Koei would soon pour the lion's share of their talent and resources into complex, richly themed grand strategy and military simulations over the coming decades. Somehow, though, I think Chrith: Ai no Tabidachi (or Journey of Love) perfectly represents the studio's origins, which were far from prestigious and instead reflected the anything-goes attitudes of early Japanese PC games.
Jesus ain't living on Earth here, but the alien planet Lourdes, ruled by an evil crown prince and ravaged by famine. Now this guy's still prophesied to become humanity's guiding light, working miracles before all is lost, and so this child of peasants finally gets the gig many years later. His katakana name is actually "kurisu", a nod to how this isn't really Christ but a weird alternate universe version Koei's using to get out of trouble with the few Christians in Japan who'd even care. Players control Christ as he must move west across the land, blessing every lost soul in sight with his holy staff while avoiding snakes, soldiers, and other manifestations of the devil. If this sounds pretty simple, that's because it is. Chrith tends to resemble a reverse-direction MagMax or Seicross, as the play area auto-scrolls from right to left with peasants and pests moving in different lanes. Just move onto each lost soul to save them, ending when you've hit 50 people or have lost all your lives. I guess resurrection's a limited-chance offer on this world.
So we're playing not-Christ on not-Earth and it's totally not got a lot going on. Stages all look the same, with the barest of details like silhouetted mountains and a starry night sky. Check out that sick wireframe ground, though. Someone would peg this as an '80s throwback game if released today just because of the grid! It serves a purpose here, though, since a lack of sprite scaling means the developers had to convey depth perception somehow. Chrith hardly plays that bad in the moment thanks to considerations like this, but the choppy, all-in-software scrolling and lack of any music or audio design means this feels limp from start to finish. It's as shallow and repetitive as many players today think the Golden Age arcade classics must be. All I have to do for high scores is run wild around the track, racking up as many worshipers as possible while avoiding one-hit deaths from baddies. No secrets, no hidden mechanics, no nuthin'. Any potential this had to integrate miracles, sermons, aphorisms, and other New Testament-themed nuances just wasn't on the dev team's to-do list, I suppose.
Chrith: Journey of Love has a certain je-ne-sais-qois, mainly due to how it distorts bubble-era Japanese pop perceptions of Christianity (also influenced by U.S. media exports like Cecil B. DeMille's lavish Hollywood epics). Players will immediately notice and likely laugh at the voice synthesis dialogue during stage intermissions. This was possible on PC-6001 models thanks to an add-on chip which a select number of software used, including games like this and NEC's graphic adventure Colony Odyssey. And what you'll hear sounds worse than the best lines from Evil Otto in Berzerk, let alone the iconic taunts of Sinistar. But this at least adds character and a sense of mystery to the game's aesthetic, where an unidentified light (God? Heaven? Some angels?) briefs our hero on principles and goals before heading back into the moral melee. The spartan color choices, typical for this system and akin to early CGA graphics on DOS PCs, also render this ersatz pilgrimage as uncanny as possible. Sitting down with this disk for even a few minutes gives me the heebie-jeebies, like some creepypasta's about to happen right on screen. Bewildering stuff, I tell ya. Just watch Umbrella Terms' review and play this with her fan translation patch for more strangeness!
While this is the first PC-6000 series game I've covered here on Backloggd, it's definitely an outlier in that library, a dying gasp of Koei's origins as this hobbyist venture Yoichi Erikawa started to supplement his family's chemicals business. You'll never hear this mentioned in any official histories beyond maybe a mention in some timeline graphic. And the next Christianity-themed effort by the corporation came nearly a decade later with Tamashii no Mon - Dante's Odyssey, an Xmas '92 adventure platformer sticking closer to its source material than Chrith ever bothered. I enjoy the contrasts between these reverent but stylistically opposed translations of religious lit into mainstream games. Whereas Dante's Odyssey seamlessly blends its game-y bits in with recognizable moments from the original poem, Chrith salvages the surface-level trappings of a generic Christ biopic or children's book for the sake of camp. Neither approach is that faithful, nor sacrilegious. Syncretism among different Japanese faiths predisposed these products' creators to treat Western-import religions and iconography very similarly. It is entirely seemly for a Japanese micro-computer game riffing on Jesus to take liberties via this inter-cultural mangling. In the author's death, all things appear fair. (Wait, that's the Iliad, not the Bible…)
Koei quickly crafted a veneer of majesty, attention to detail, and historic fidelity throughout the mid-/late-'80s, something which they've let go of recently but can still point to and say "we know what we're doing". Yet Chrith: Journey of Love remains a sobering reminder of when this wasn't the case, a period when the Erikawas and co. just messed around, producing whatever silly idea could work on whichever PC they were targeting. This was the same company behind the very first eroge, after all. If you ask me, I think the C-suite and tastemakers at Koei-Tecmo are cowards to deny their beginnings and heritage. Unless this really was a troubled production or something they need to disavow for legal or sensitivity reasons, I think it'd help them to show a little pride for their first efforts. What would Chrith do? Probably send me to the pearly gates with his superweap—er, uh, I mean holy staff, yes, but the King of Kings would have enough love in his heart for even an homage this mediocre and misguided. This wouldn't even be the last time Kou Shibusawa himself diverged heavily from a known mythology just to make a fun enough game, yet I don't hear Imperial scholars complaining about all the inaccuracies in Kamigami no Daichi's version of Onamuchi's labors in primordial Japan. I dunno, maybe Koei should cut itself some slack.
1999
"Peter, which is better: Antz or A Bug's Life?"
"Doesn't matter, Uncle Ben; Bugdom's better than both!"
If Nanosaur was the standard-bearer for Apple's rescue, then this 1999 pack-in pint-size platformer was their marketplace mascot. Pangea Software had delivered them one impressive playable demo, and it stood to reason they'd ask for another. But this go-around would be different for the developer, with lead coder and designer Brian Greenstone had a choice to make. As Cadensia mentioned in her write-up, either he'd keep his current job helping Apple's QuickDraw 3D team, or he and his contractor co-developers would make a successor to their '98 game as bundled shareware for the next generation iMac. He chose the latter, for the better it turns out. (Considering he'd just about bailed on Mac software publishing entirely prior to Nanosaur, all because of Apple's managerial incompetence and imminent failure, this amount of caution makes sense.) Rollie McFly's quest to save the titular 'dom from King Thorax's red ants and accomplices became another windfall for Apple and Pangea, the kind of game even a picky Steve Jobs could feel proud of. Still, I felt a bit of fatigue and disappointment after finishing my playthrough, wishing it had been more of a leap in polish and consistency.
Today it's a solid romp, more ambitious than its predecessor; it also hits higher highs and lower lows. Playing it now's pretty easy thanks Iliyas Jorio's modern PC/Mac port, too. Compared to Nanosaur's 20-minute single stage, Bugdom puts you through 10 untimed ones, with three of them mainly focusing on boss fights. To account for the longer playthrough, players get three save slots, plus the usual assortment of tweaks and control settings found in other Pangea works. Our goals aren't all that different from those games, either:collect rescue the trapped ladybugs, dodge or destroy the realm's disgruntled inhabitants, and use items like keys or power-ups to reach each level's end. But I think Greenstone's able to recontextualize these fundamental elements appropriately, keeping his earlier games' arcade-style antics while opening up the world you explore through both layout and mechanics.
Players start under a blue sky amidst grasses, fungi, and a healthy forest of dirt and foliage. Bugdom manages to cycle through several types of environments, so it's apt that we learn the controls, game loop, and objects of note in a friendly setting. Rollie's most useful technique, beyond just a basic jump and kick, is his Sonic-like ball roll (pun intended), a move that lets the plucky pill-bug dash across most areas in a flash. Careening into enemies damages them, and I had a lot of fun just zooming off of hills and cliffs to clear gaps or leave clumps of baddies in the dust. It's overly sensitive to analog controls on my gamepad, however, making a case for manipulating him and the camera with keyboard & mouse. Unlike Greenstone & Harper's earlier designs, this game does a much better job of using said peripherals, which now included Apple's infamous Y2K USB mice. Both configurations having such pros and cons is an improvement for sure, as the keys-only approach in Mighty Mike and company was less comfortable. I didn't feel a lot of jank or awkwardness moving Rollie around these environments compared to the raptor or knock-off G.I. Joe in those precursors.
However, it's when you reach the water taxi and dragonfly levels that Bugdom shows off its less than pleasant side, starting with hit-or-miss collision detection. The opening two rounds only required that players get through doors and light sections of water or trenches, with little precision platforming needed. Moving into the mosquito swamp complicates things, as fish leap into the air and can easily one-hit-kill you with all their aquatic speed. Getting a token and riding the silt strider's quite fun, but also noticeably chaotic due to a large hitbox and, sure enough, misleading level geometry you can get caught on. Thankfully it goes both ways, as no enemy's gonna knock you off this ride easily. Same goes for the next map, a twilight flight in a garden where humans trample and caterpillars crawl through bramble. Greenstone wisely gives players an invert toggle for the dragonfly section, which is a nice change of pace from dodging huge feet and kicking spear-toting, rock-throwing ants in the kisser.
Collision issues also crop up with combat and the momentum rolling, which isn't too much of an issue until later in-game. See, many of Bugdom's foes take multiple hits to defeat, a given since Rollie's more about agility than pure offense. Continuing the circle of life in this violent manner often leads to tense close-quarters combat, whether it's dodging flies with boxing gloves amidst a maze of deadly Pikmin-esque slugs, or eventually manipulating Thorax's fire-breathing soldiers into detonating cherry bombs around them. The player could try and just kick the whole time, as reliable as that is, but there's extra risk & reward from headbutting the baddies in ball mode, which even lets you sink them into deadly water, honey, or magma. Hell, the final non-boss level punishes players for not punting troops into the fiery goop, as killing them on land just lets their ghost come back to haunt you! Learning how to deal with aggressors while platforming and exploring each maze keeps the pace up, only devolving into molasses towards the end.
After the game's first half concludes with an initially confusing but thrilling dogfight against bees as you shoot down their hive, Pangea starts to seriously challenge anyone who's hoped for a gauntlet. The hive's insides, now wrecked and abuzz with angry apidae, present a series of tunnels, molten honey caves, and dead ends where you must jump on conveniently placed plungers to bomb your way open. This had some irritating, less than clear moments—namely how landing in the sweet stuff ends your life, but grabbing an invincibility drop lets you wade through for a time—but otherwise I consider this Bugdom's finest 15 minutes. The difficulty's just right, and Greenstone wrings a lot of blood from the level's concept, with hordes of drones kamikaze-ing you in vain while you snoop out both hostages and lucky clovers for extra points.
By this point I'd gotten a couple hours in and could really appreciate the audiovisual splendor, at least for the hardware Pangea had to work with. 2nd-gen iMac desktops and laptops weren't a huge leap in power or functionality over the previous year's models, but Bugdom was built to push ATI's newer Rage Pro and Rage 2 GPUs, as well as increased color depth on these displays. Sure, the vibrant hues and more rounded modeling wasn't all that unexpected from a high-end N64 platformer like those this one measures against, but who am I to complain? Kids saw these memorable critters and a decently realized world at a higher resolution without compromises, stripped from the fuzzy TV signal defining console peers. I can even forgive the short draw distance here, as it's improved over Nanosaur and extends far enough to facilitate fast rolling without bumping into everything. Mostly. There's also generally better music and sound design, from jaunty jigs and polkas at the beginning to moodier marches and electronica as one reaches deeper into the evil king's dominion. I vaguely remember fiddling around with a store demo version back when my old man brought to the local Apple store, immediately taken with how much it resembled and evoked the Dreamcast games I was enjoying.
Sadly this level of quality doesn't quite last through to the adventure's conclusion. I can appreciate the increased steps to completing every threatening area across Thorax's ant hills, with so many bombs to explode and dodge while evading those intimidating cockroaches andFloormasters fireflies. But it's here where Bugdom turns rather mean, not providing enough 1-ups and other pickups to compensate for abrupt first encounters with these puzzles. Nor are there a lot of checkpoints to prevent needless runbacks, something I rarely had a problem with earlier. It feels like Pangea fell into that classic game dev trap of testing earlier content with less experienced players, camouflaging the more unfriendly bits later on as testers had practiced so much they'd fly past said tough spots. Perhaps they went a bit too far in demonstrating Thorax's power, with such recalcitrance manifesting as overstuffed rooms with a few too many things going on.
The penultimate stage really goes off the rails, though. It starts off fine, introducing firefighting puzzles where you must locate and turn valves to quench the deadly embers. But then come the Tarzan leaps over lava, beset by unclear jumping angles and timing. I only had to restart any level once before this after biffing it right at the last anthill above-ground, but I had to end this last stretch early rather than suffer several loops of deaths I felt were unwarranted. Moreover, the player's actually punished for using the level's gimmick without prior experience, since new water pools can prevent you from breaking open nuts lying on the floor and thus getting extra score and power-up items. Having to route the best, least risky path through these miniature Moria is just asking too much on a first run. At least the final boss fight's much better, as Rollie just has to get Thorax all soggy via the broken garden pipes and then headbutt him for victory. Contrast that with level 7, the Queen Bee duel, which quickly becomes an unintuitive slog as you try to spin into her abdomen while staying out of honey globs which slow you down. Bleh…what a messy climax to a once spick-and-span undertaking.
Ending Bugdom on such a sour note means I can't rate it as high as I'd hoped, but I'm hardly at a loss for praise elsewhere. Adapting the appealing parts of Mighty Mike and Nanosaur into a mascot platformer took Greenstone & co. much longer than previous projects, eight months vs. a few at best. And I think these efforts pay off in a sometimes frustrating, but generally satisfying small-sized sojourn. It soon graced the raster fade-in of monitors in bedrooms, computer labs, and trend-chasing venues like museums across North America, sustaining plenty of attention. Pangea made so much profit and mindshare from this classic of Mac gaming that Greenstone could effectively run it full-time, no longer having to make his shareware titles when free time or contracting allowed. The new millennium saw not just Bugdom 2 for Apple's long-awaited modern operating system, but Pangea's next take on the action-platformer adventure with Otto Matic, among other early Mac OS X notables.
In a way, Bugdom was Mac OS' most accessible swan song—far from the esoterica of modding scenes for Marathon and Escape Velocity, the literary depths of Riven and Obsidian, or the now aging but ever present HyperCard scene that early-to-mid-'90s Mac owners subsisted on. Whereas Pangea's earlier dino romp dovetailed with an unexpected revival of the Apple brand, Rollie's handsome have-at-you with the king's unending formicae presents the Cult of Mac's commercially coherent legend, with Jobs returning hope to a land ransacked by corporate hatchet-men and the PC world invading and overriding this ecosystem. I'd like to think of Rollie less as Jobs, though, more so Greenstone taking on the visage of mascot platformer classics to stretch and refine a winning formula. I only wish that he hadn't feel this obligation to remake the same game so much, even if something as "out there" as Xenocide on Apple IIGS could only have worked all those years back, before genre codification mattered to more players.
Completed for the Backloggd Discord server’s Game of the Week club, Mar. 7 - 13, 2023
"Doesn't matter, Uncle Ben; Bugdom's better than both!"
If Nanosaur was the standard-bearer for Apple's rescue, then this 1999 pack-in pint-size platformer was their marketplace mascot. Pangea Software had delivered them one impressive playable demo, and it stood to reason they'd ask for another. But this go-around would be different for the developer, with lead coder and designer Brian Greenstone had a choice to make. As Cadensia mentioned in her write-up, either he'd keep his current job helping Apple's QuickDraw 3D team, or he and his contractor co-developers would make a successor to their '98 game as bundled shareware for the next generation iMac. He chose the latter, for the better it turns out. (Considering he'd just about bailed on Mac software publishing entirely prior to Nanosaur, all because of Apple's managerial incompetence and imminent failure, this amount of caution makes sense.) Rollie McFly's quest to save the titular 'dom from King Thorax's red ants and accomplices became another windfall for Apple and Pangea, the kind of game even a picky Steve Jobs could feel proud of. Still, I felt a bit of fatigue and disappointment after finishing my playthrough, wishing it had been more of a leap in polish and consistency.
Today it's a solid romp, more ambitious than its predecessor; it also hits higher highs and lower lows. Playing it now's pretty easy thanks Iliyas Jorio's modern PC/Mac port, too. Compared to Nanosaur's 20-minute single stage, Bugdom puts you through 10 untimed ones, with three of them mainly focusing on boss fights. To account for the longer playthrough, players get three save slots, plus the usual assortment of tweaks and control settings found in other Pangea works. Our goals aren't all that different from those games, either:
Players start under a blue sky amidst grasses, fungi, and a healthy forest of dirt and foliage. Bugdom manages to cycle through several types of environments, so it's apt that we learn the controls, game loop, and objects of note in a friendly setting. Rollie's most useful technique, beyond just a basic jump and kick, is his Sonic-like ball roll (pun intended), a move that lets the plucky pill-bug dash across most areas in a flash. Careening into enemies damages them, and I had a lot of fun just zooming off of hills and cliffs to clear gaps or leave clumps of baddies in the dust. It's overly sensitive to analog controls on my gamepad, however, making a case for manipulating him and the camera with keyboard & mouse. Unlike Greenstone & Harper's earlier designs, this game does a much better job of using said peripherals, which now included Apple's infamous Y2K USB mice. Both configurations having such pros and cons is an improvement for sure, as the keys-only approach in Mighty Mike and company was less comfortable. I didn't feel a lot of jank or awkwardness moving Rollie around these environments compared to the raptor or knock-off G.I. Joe in those precursors.
However, it's when you reach the water taxi and dragonfly levels that Bugdom shows off its less than pleasant side, starting with hit-or-miss collision detection. The opening two rounds only required that players get through doors and light sections of water or trenches, with little precision platforming needed. Moving into the mosquito swamp complicates things, as fish leap into the air and can easily one-hit-kill you with all their aquatic speed. Getting a token and riding the silt strider's quite fun, but also noticeably chaotic due to a large hitbox and, sure enough, misleading level geometry you can get caught on. Thankfully it goes both ways, as no enemy's gonna knock you off this ride easily. Same goes for the next map, a twilight flight in a garden where humans trample and caterpillars crawl through bramble. Greenstone wisely gives players an invert toggle for the dragonfly section, which is a nice change of pace from dodging huge feet and kicking spear-toting, rock-throwing ants in the kisser.
Collision issues also crop up with combat and the momentum rolling, which isn't too much of an issue until later in-game. See, many of Bugdom's foes take multiple hits to defeat, a given since Rollie's more about agility than pure offense. Continuing the circle of life in this violent manner often leads to tense close-quarters combat, whether it's dodging flies with boxing gloves amidst a maze of deadly Pikmin-esque slugs, or eventually manipulating Thorax's fire-breathing soldiers into detonating cherry bombs around them. The player could try and just kick the whole time, as reliable as that is, but there's extra risk & reward from headbutting the baddies in ball mode, which even lets you sink them into deadly water, honey, or magma. Hell, the final non-boss level punishes players for not punting troops into the fiery goop, as killing them on land just lets their ghost come back to haunt you! Learning how to deal with aggressors while platforming and exploring each maze keeps the pace up, only devolving into molasses towards the end.
After the game's first half concludes with an initially confusing but thrilling dogfight against bees as you shoot down their hive, Pangea starts to seriously challenge anyone who's hoped for a gauntlet. The hive's insides, now wrecked and abuzz with angry apidae, present a series of tunnels, molten honey caves, and dead ends where you must jump on conveniently placed plungers to bomb your way open. This had some irritating, less than clear moments—namely how landing in the sweet stuff ends your life, but grabbing an invincibility drop lets you wade through for a time—but otherwise I consider this Bugdom's finest 15 minutes. The difficulty's just right, and Greenstone wrings a lot of blood from the level's concept, with hordes of drones kamikaze-ing you in vain while you snoop out both hostages and lucky clovers for extra points.
By this point I'd gotten a couple hours in and could really appreciate the audiovisual splendor, at least for the hardware Pangea had to work with. 2nd-gen iMac desktops and laptops weren't a huge leap in power or functionality over the previous year's models, but Bugdom was built to push ATI's newer Rage Pro and Rage 2 GPUs, as well as increased color depth on these displays. Sure, the vibrant hues and more rounded modeling wasn't all that unexpected from a high-end N64 platformer like those this one measures against, but who am I to complain? Kids saw these memorable critters and a decently realized world at a higher resolution without compromises, stripped from the fuzzy TV signal defining console peers. I can even forgive the short draw distance here, as it's improved over Nanosaur and extends far enough to facilitate fast rolling without bumping into everything. Mostly. There's also generally better music and sound design, from jaunty jigs and polkas at the beginning to moodier marches and electronica as one reaches deeper into the evil king's dominion. I vaguely remember fiddling around with a store demo version back when my old man brought to the local Apple store, immediately taken with how much it resembled and evoked the Dreamcast games I was enjoying.
Sadly this level of quality doesn't quite last through to the adventure's conclusion. I can appreciate the increased steps to completing every threatening area across Thorax's ant hills, with so many bombs to explode and dodge while evading those intimidating cockroaches and
The penultimate stage really goes off the rails, though. It starts off fine, introducing firefighting puzzles where you must locate and turn valves to quench the deadly embers. But then come the Tarzan leaps over lava, beset by unclear jumping angles and timing. I only had to restart any level once before this after biffing it right at the last anthill above-ground, but I had to end this last stretch early rather than suffer several loops of deaths I felt were unwarranted. Moreover, the player's actually punished for using the level's gimmick without prior experience, since new water pools can prevent you from breaking open nuts lying on the floor and thus getting extra score and power-up items. Having to route the best, least risky path through these miniature Moria is just asking too much on a first run. At least the final boss fight's much better, as Rollie just has to get Thorax all soggy via the broken garden pipes and then headbutt him for victory. Contrast that with level 7, the Queen Bee duel, which quickly becomes an unintuitive slog as you try to spin into her abdomen while staying out of honey globs which slow you down. Bleh…what a messy climax to a once spick-and-span undertaking.
Ending Bugdom on such a sour note means I can't rate it as high as I'd hoped, but I'm hardly at a loss for praise elsewhere. Adapting the appealing parts of Mighty Mike and Nanosaur into a mascot platformer took Greenstone & co. much longer than previous projects, eight months vs. a few at best. And I think these efforts pay off in a sometimes frustrating, but generally satisfying small-sized sojourn. It soon graced the raster fade-in of monitors in bedrooms, computer labs, and trend-chasing venues like museums across North America, sustaining plenty of attention. Pangea made so much profit and mindshare from this classic of Mac gaming that Greenstone could effectively run it full-time, no longer having to make his shareware titles when free time or contracting allowed. The new millennium saw not just Bugdom 2 for Apple's long-awaited modern operating system, but Pangea's next take on the action-platformer adventure with Otto Matic, among other early Mac OS X notables.
In a way, Bugdom was Mac OS' most accessible swan song—far from the esoterica of modding scenes for Marathon and Escape Velocity, the literary depths of Riven and Obsidian, or the now aging but ever present HyperCard scene that early-to-mid-'90s Mac owners subsisted on. Whereas Pangea's earlier dino romp dovetailed with an unexpected revival of the Apple brand, Rollie's handsome have-at-you with the king's unending formicae presents the Cult of Mac's commercially coherent legend, with Jobs returning hope to a land ransacked by corporate hatchet-men and the PC world invading and overriding this ecosystem. I'd like to think of Rollie less as Jobs, though, more so Greenstone taking on the visage of mascot platformer classics to stretch and refine a winning formula. I only wish that he hadn't feel this obligation to remake the same game so much, even if something as "out there" as Xenocide on Apple IIGS could only have worked all those years back, before genre codification mattered to more players.
Completed for the Backloggd Discord server’s Game of the Week club, Mar. 7 - 13, 2023