PAUSE SCREEN

Pretty much exactly like this.

So, we're currently stalled on this project. Samchez is on the other side of the country for another few weeks, so we have no real opportunities to get our game on. That being said, we will try to do what we can until then to get this blog into a more presentable status.

Game 9: Exed Exes (1985)

Exed Exes, also released under the name of Savage Bees, is the first of many Shoot 'Em Ups we'll be playing over the course of this project, and man does it leave a lot to be desired. The game is extremely rudimentary, and almost crude in it's simpleness. It's not just the graphics; Exed Exes is missing what I have come to consider as basic concept: things like like bullet and enemy patterns, sweet power ups, bombs and massive bosses with glowing weak spots, etc.That being said, this game has some of these elements, just without any of the later sophisiciation and refinement. As a result, it's barely recognizable. For what it's worth, I am in love with Mars Matrix, and generally prefer "bullet hell" over other genres, but grew up playing plenty of Gradius and having exposure to Treasure games and various other classics. We're looking forward to getting to these games, and this served more to whet our appetite than to satiate our hunger.

Something is happening that is not happening.

The gameplay and graphics reminded me a lot of Xevious, albeit without the ground targeting, and with more variation in gameplay. I mean this in the sense that there were discrete levels, and the backgrounds and graphics had a generic kind of "future/sci-fi kind of feel." There are a lot of elements that we'll see in later games, but we still are lacking things like "endings." After reading through various pieces online, I found out you can "end" the game by getting 10 million points. We got nowhere near that, and I really don't find this game enjoyable enough to want to plug away at if for that long.

Projectiles, power-ups, and explosions. We have a SHMUP here, boys.

The setting for this game was exciting: after the first four games we played, this felt the most like a modern game. There are discrete and separate terrains, and you get to scroll over them and encounter a variety of enemies. The enemies have a general "insectoid" theme, and that's great. It is more logical and consistent than the crabs and flies of Mario Bros, and less abstract than the knights of Joust. Graphically, the game isn't stunning, but it's not offensive, and shows significant effort. The insectoid theme is echoed in both the enemy designs, and the terrain and background art. This would also explain why this game was released in the US under the name of Savage Bees, a vastly more appropriate name.

So much geometry.

All of this being said, this game really didn't do it for us. All of the basics of what we crave in Shoot 'Em Ups is there, but the rudimentary feel of the game combined with a lack of real goal or feeling of progression made this game grow tiresome. The basics of cooperative gameplay were there, like many other Shoot 'Em Ups in the future, but we mostly spent the time playing this talking about all the games we'll be playing down the road.

My favorite kind of area.

To be completely honest, I would have never played this game if not for this project. I have not learned anything significant about the growth of the genre or cooperative gameplay. The best I can say about it is that is not offensive and stands as a base to compare later games to. We're still in the category of games before we were born (1985 for me, 1990 for Samchez), and it's frankly a little weird to be in such unfamiliar territory. Looking ahead, we're going to be covering quite a few unfamiliar arcade games, but will soon move into familiar NES territory.

Game 8: Battle City (1985)

This game was a complete unknown to us and we had not heard of it until browsing through the list on Wikipedia. That being said, it was by far the most surprising of the first few games we played, coming off as an updated version of the Atari 2600 game Combat. While I never owned Combat, or an Atari, I still played it a few times at neighbor's houses, and it was one of the best games anyone I knew owned for the Atari, mostly due to having enjoyable two player action. The basic gameplay in Combat and Battle City is simple: you kill other tanks and avoid getting blown up in the process.

Pew pew pew, shooting through the terrain is pretty neat.

Battle City adds the twist (at the cost of alternate vehicles) of being able to destroy terrain, making the levels more flexible and reactive. It also comes with plenty of different levels, ranging from the simple to the slightly less simple. In addition, there is a rudimentary level editor, which is pretty interesting in its own right. This is the the first level editor we've seen, and the earliest one that I am personally aware of. I was not able to find a history of level editors with quick Google search, but I'd love to hear about earlier ones.

Varied terrain and obstacles, and explosions falling off the screen.

The graphics in this game are rudimentary at best. There is nothing horrible about them, and they are quite adequate in all things considered, but they are blocky and nothing looks that nice. There is no real animation to speak of. The sound is similar. Once again though, we were more surprised by the level editor and the general strangeness of this game. Like Ice Climbers, there is no goal, despite the plethora of discrete stages to conquer. You can play the levels in any order you like, and there is no objective beyond "EXTERMINATE." This isn't surprising, but I am looking forward to a day when we can actually "beat" the games we play.

I am always excited for level editors, and then I realize I have no plans.

All of this being said, I'd like to stress how unexpected and surprising the level editor was for us. It is not something I remember from console gaming until the fifth generation of consoles, almost a decade after this release. While it's clear that there were earlier games that had a level editing capabilities on the console, the first that I remember is Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2. I was aware of level editors for PC games, especially FPS and RTS ones, but as we grew up in a Macintosh household, most of this was unavailable for us. What I do remember about the THPS2 editor was the disappointment I felt when using it.

We started to write Power-ups and Bickering, but ran out of space on "w."

It's not that the editor was too hard to use, or too complicated, or anything like that. It was the simple fact that I had no idea what I wanted my level to be. To add to that, no ideas came pouring out of me, like I had hoped they would. I was sure that I was going to design an AWESOME TOTALLY RAD MONDO COOL level to skate around in and show off to my friends, but nothing happened. I felt the same absence of creativity when playing with the Battle City editor. Our relative newness to the game, combined with our lack of a plan, resulted in us having no idea what to do with the editor, besides screw around and take the above screen shots. That being said, there is still interest in this game. I present to you, Binary City:

Game 7: Ice Climbers (1984)

OK, I'm going to be blunt. I only vaguely remember this game from childhood, and didn't think about it until the Ice Climbers were added to SSBM. I didn't really enjoy this game that much, and we barely played it for the minimum 30 minutes before moving on. There is nothing inherently boring about the game: it is a straight forward arcade style platformer, but it just didn't click for me. The graphics are charming and clean, there is some nice little music and sound, but something is still missing.

It also helps you learn how to count.

To start with, it's boring. You climb up. The title is quite literal in that sense. You are on the inside of a mountain, I guess, and slowly making your way upwards. You can knock out the blocks above you and move up to other platforms, and attack enemies with a mallet. When you reach the top of the stage, you have the chance to get more points in a bonus round in blizzard like conditions. This is significantly harder, but it is the main way to get points in the game. Due to the strict level based structure of the game, there appears to be no use for points, unlike Joust and Mario Bros., where points were used to earn extra lives and get further in the game.

Action shot.

Technically, I can't complain: this game looks great, has the most complex sound we've heard yet, only slightly awkward jumping, and a multitude of levels to choose from. The graphics are honestly fantastic: while there is a certain existential feel (am I between mountains? Are the mountains stacked? what are these numbers?) inherent in mostly older games, the sprites are cute, clean, well animated, and everything else. This game has the best music of anything else we've played. The controls feel right, although the jump parabola isn't ideal and feels clumsy, but nothing serious.The problem is, I just couldn't summon any enthusiasm to play this game. You are able to select which level you want to play when you start, and there are 32 in total, with varying levels of difficulty. I couldn't tell you the difference between them though, even if you held a gun to my head.

This is as boring as it looks.

I understand that this is a classic Nintendo property, but there is nothing here that makes me want to play it again. Maybe there is something magic here that I'm missing, I'd like to hear from someone who truly enjoys this game. Samchez enjoyed it significantly more than me, will hopefully be able to post his thoughts later. This also marks the beginning of a lot of repetitive games that we are going to slog through, on our quest for the shoot 'em up and beat 'em up gems we started this project for.


Maybe some of my ennui comes from the lack of goal in this game. At least in Joust and Mario Bros., while the games are endless and only get harder, you get rewarded with additional lives. I know that, within a few years and not too many more games, we'll start to see things like endings and continues. For now though, we are going to be in the weird abstract pre-narrative era of games.

Wha' Happen?

As all zero of you may have noticed, we disappeared for the last month. Nothing serious was happening besides the usual business of life, such as moving and having guests around. Samchez is currently on the other side of the country visiting friends, and I'll try to fill out the next few games in his absence.

Game 6: Mario Bros. (1983)

The second game we played, Mario Bros., was by far the most enjoyable game of the first five that we've played. We still haven't hit the era where games are beatable, but just the fact that we do not instantly kill each other is a nice step up from Joust. While I look forward to being able to actually beat a game and be "done" with it, this was still fantastic to play. There are still a lot of weird little things in this game that will change in games over the next few years. For example, there is still no continuing. There is no boss, and you can not change your momentum while in the air. While the inertia in jumping is "realistic," it feels bizarre compared to later control schemes

JUMPUP!!

This game takes place in a Bizarro World version of Mario, where Mario and Luigi have not yet learned how to effectively jump on top of enemies. There are also no mushrooms, flowers, stars, toads, princesses or goombas. Just endless streams of proto-Koopas, flies, and crabs. I am not aware of any explanation of this, nor do I expect one to be forthcoming.

Nothing too bad.

But seriously, this game isn't that hard. Compared to Joust it is a walk in the park, in the sense that we did not needlessly kill each other. There is some awesome teamwork to be had here, in the sense you can bounce an enemy down to your partner and dispatch your foes easily. You can also bounce on each other, although that often comes off as an annoyance more than an asset. There is also competition for getting points, especially during the bonus levels. Points lead to extra lives, and this level competition is fun. The modern age of achievements and multiple game round stat tracking has dulled some of the fun of this; if I do better this round than the last it doesn't reflect anything outside of a development of my own skills.

So many points.

I wish I could say that I don't care about achievements, but this would be a blatant lie. I love to track my stats from round to round of something like Team Fortress 2, for example. It is an addiction, doubtlessly rooted in my love of baseball statistics growing up. The instant gratification that comes from obsessive stat tracking and watching bars fill up is far too rewarding to want to give up. While I appreciate classic games because of their depth of gameplay derived from simple rules, I do feel a lack of the reward treadmill and ending.

Do the Mario!

The sheer weirdness of this game is fun though. I like to imagine how this can be fit into the overall Mario "mythos." I like the idea that this is some kind of endless Karmic purgatory. Maybe this is the true final adventure of Mario: there is no end, there is no princess to kiss. Mario has been sent here for a lifetime of killing and destroying countless Koopa and Goomba lives. This is a sisyphean task set before the Mario Bros. by the gods of the underworld. There is no ending in sight, and the task only grows more difficult as Mario fulfills it. If he doesn't fulfill it fast enough, fireballs come out to attack him, until he finishes the current task, only to start once again on a similar, but slightly harder task. Incidentally, this theory explains 90%+ of the games from this era, where things like "endings" or "goals" were non-existent.

Wrap around hell.

This could also be a chronicle of Mario's death. One day, a plumber goes into the sewers to deal with a nascent turtle infestation, and eventually takes a wrong turn and gets lost. As he goes deeper and deeper into the serpentine corridors, the pungent odors start to affect his thinking, and the turtles appear to be the roughly the same size as him. His eyes, deprived of natural light, begin to see red and green fireballs, and the creatures around him take on unnatural hues. As he delves deeper into the pipes, he begins to see oceanic crabs and flies bigger than he is. Eventually, as he stumbles and slides through the labyrinthine passages, he begins to imagine his locomotive difficulties are caused by rapidly forming ice patches. He begins to hallucinate that he has an identical twin, who dresses and moves the same as he does and occasionally gets in his way. There is only one way out of this: death. Death is a sweet release, and leads to the idea that Super Mario Bros. is the reward. Mario, now in some sort of afterlife, is still entranced with dreams of plumbing, but now dreams in bold colors and creates a narrative to structure his life. His hallucinatory twin no longer is seen at the same time, but still exists to follow Mario's footsteps. I would like to think that the rest of the Mario Universe is the plumber's dying dream, a long hallucination after a treacherous and slow death at the hands of hallucinatory fireballs and flies.

Kick off ALL the pests?

Either way, this game, while featuring Mario and having some basic elements of Mario gameplay (jumping, turtles, enough inertia to slide), is also pretty weird and has a lot of things that won't be seen in a Mario game for years (flies, color coded "mad" enemies, crabs). It is the best game that we've played so far, which isn't saying much, but I would gladly play it again without a second thought.