Six Shooter

I got bored so I made a got a whole bunch of ESO screen caps and came up with this:

Yep, these are all my guys fashioned in a homage to the boxart to The Chaos Engine.

Erm......"Wayshrine Activated"?

Labouring Under Difficulties

Here's something inane I threw together and put up in Steam.

I doubt I'll be the first one to have thought of this - and whether or not anyone will get the joke but you can always try....

The Lost Art of the Box Art (no.3)

And here we go again with this serial, celebrating games with awesome box art.
For today, let's head into the vault and dust off a classic: The Chaos Engine!
I've talked about this game before. Some of you may remember it from the glory days of the 16-bit era with it appearing on the Amiga, SNES and Megadrive and some of you may have encountered it through the recent re-release on Steam.
Whilst this games merits may be questionable (the tough difficulty being one), it takes one look at the box art to see that this game has, to the newcomer, some potential:

Original image located here. Accessed 21st November 2014

One would think, from this artwork that The Chaos Engine is a character-based game. And they are correct: The whole point of the Chaos Engine is to build a party of two mercenaries from a team of six and shoot stuff.
And as the characters are the driving force of the game, it is therefore no surprise that they take center stage: There is no indication what kind of game this is; there's only the vaguest idea of it's steampunk origins; the connection to the title is only left up to imagination and presence of the legendary Bitmap Brothers is used as a selling point.
And somehow it works! Based on their portraits alone, these characters have plenty of personality. True none of them may speak and each of them only have a slither of a background but it is telling that twenty years on and I still remember the names of each of them - Navvie, Thug, Mercenary, Brigand, Gentleman and Preacher. And that says a lot in these times when games are populated with named characters with their own dialogue and story arcs.

Perhaps there is something to be said for characters with adjectives for names?

One common criticism of the Chaos Engine is that there is a compelling setup behind the game that sadly isn't utilized at all. And despite my championing of this game, I feel compelled to agree. I do indeed feel it a complete waste that these characters offer a lot of personality and none of which is capitalized upon. If anything this game may make for a compelling remake in an age where scripts and fully-voiced dialogue are increasingly commonplace.

Still, the game promised six Hard-Nailed Mercenaries and, in a way, it delivered. So I can't argue with that

Fire up the Engine

I've been saying a lot of positive things about the classic Amiga game The Chaos Engine within this blog. Well it would seem that it's making a comeback. Starting next week, a new version of the Chaos Engine will be touching down on Steam and other platforms.
However this is not a complete remake but instead a restoration - it's the original game but with a new coat of paint.

Well I'm happy with this news: I loved the game and it's great to see it get a new lease of life. I just hope that the people may be inspired to check it out with the praises I've been heaping on it. I don;t know if Abstraction Games know if this blog exists but it would be nice to think that they do - for the romantics amongst us at least.

Still I do long for the day that someone does a full-blown remake - seriously the six PCs have enough personality to justify a full-blown script and voice acting, But who knows? A restoration may be a step in the right direction......

Si Amiga

As established previously in this blog I spent much of the nineties being the proud owner of a Commodore Amga 1200. Of course, the word ‘proud’ is indeed an understatement as the mid –to-late nineties were not a kind time to the venerable company known as Commodore.  At the time, everyone had PCs and a wider, and better, selection of games. I had a lot of trouble trying to find something that would work on my machine, let alone something decent, and I was made a laughing stock in amongst my classmates at school. As is often the case with gaming, one need to pick a tribe and hope it isn’t the wrong one because if it is the wrong one you’re going to be up shit creek. And as it so happened, I picked a wrong time to be an Amiga owner – I can only wonder how my brother managed to persuade my father to shell out for an Amiga 1200.

Still I had some good times using my Amiga – I remember blowing an entire summer to complete Soccer Kid and I’ve since regretted nothing. I got into Worms via the Amiga and I even tried my hand at animation with the Amiga. I did try to keep abreast with developments via magazines but much of the time spent there was looking at games that looked ace but being forever out of reach – and settling with demos that didn’t do enough to fill the void. Still, I’ve had a soft spot for the Amiga ever since.
Now I recently received the news that Amiga Games Inc has been bought out along with the rights to over 300 games. The purchaser, the Writers Group Film Corp, now has plans to rerelease these titles to modern platforms.

Well this is good news for me on multiple fronts. It is good news as a former Amiga loyalist that interest in the Amiga is still being maintained. It is good news as an advocate for gaming preservation as the games in question are being preserved and not claimed by the march of time. But it is especially good news as someone who missed out on playing many of these games the first time around. As stated above, I never played many of the games that were available at the time and could only gawk at screenshots in magazines (of course some of the games I wanted to play from that era have now been obtained through Steam and GoG). As such I can list many games I’d like to try my hand at: Ruff N’Tumble, Chaos Engine, Bubble and Squeak, Valhalla, Final Odyssey, Alien Breed, Dragon Stone, Shadow of the Beast, Super Stardust, and Shadow Fighter among others.

Of course, it is unclear at this stage which games will be given the greenlight for release –it is entirely possible that the games released will be the crummy ones instead of the much more worthy titles mentioned above. That being said, don’t mess this up Writers Group Film Corp!

Cooperation makes it happen

Today I want to talk about Co-op gaming.

Having lived through many years of gaming it’s been fascinating to see how co-op gaming has evolved. At first, co-op gaming was a popular idea: during the eighties to early nineties, co-op gaming was essential during the era of the arcade game. Having trouble trying to beat any particular game? Don’t worry, get a friend and the playing field is leveled! You’ve got someone to watch your back and to develop strategies with! This mentality then carried over into the consoles and computers people had at home. Indeed, it was certainly satisfying to struggle with one game – only to have a much easier time once you talked someone else into helping you out.
And better still, if you had two more friends you could form a team and go up against the computer – as the popularity of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade (and it’s successors) proved.
In retrospect the arcade era was co-op gaming at it’s finest.

But alas it couldn’t last forever: Because, according to history, the likes of Quake and Doom dominated the mid-to-late nineties era of gaming. Suddenly everyone can play games against each other over LANs and everyone has their own computer screen.
And it’s funny how the attitude towards co-op gaming not only turned around but so drastically: based on my own experiences, everyone loved playing against each other over LANs – to the point where the mere suggestion of a co-op game would result in being laughed out of the room.
Why is this so? Maybe because, following on from the arcade era, everyone realized arcade games are essentially a money thief and thus obsolete. Or maybe the computer AI wasn’t efficient enough to cater for more than one person. But the most likely reason is that there was a certain satisfaction in blowing away a human opponent – This was, after all, the era that spawned the term deathmatch.
During this era of gaming, I personally both tried co-op and deathmatch gaming. I found the former to be due and the latter to be trampled upon by someone who knew what they were doing (Stadium level of Duke Nukem 3D anyone?).

However in recent years  it seems that co-op gaming is enjoying something of a resurgence. Mostly due to online gaming where many people can come together and work together to achieve a goal. Of course deathmatches are still the sole domain of LAN parties, but it certainly is satisfying to see that people realizing, again, that to beat a game it helps to have someone watching your back. Indeed, it makes for an interest contrast where co-op gaming builds friendships while deathmatches wrecks friendships.

This presents an interesting question: is there a future for co-op gaming? It can be argued that once you beat a game, with or without help, there’s not much left to it. Indeed, with what could well be the king of gaming co-op, World of Warcraft, that has lasted so long through it being well-designed and having a stream of regular updates added to it. It is doubtful that there will ever be an end to co-op gaming in WoW considering the amount of quests available and the time it takes to get to (at time of writing) level 90. But ultimately World of Warcaft is a MMPORG: Which is more or less a complete genre where co-op gaming is a dominating force - much like how deathmatches dominate LAN parties. In a way it seems MMPORG gaming seems much like an evolution from the co-op gaming that was the arcade era.

I’ve seen certain games trying to carry the standard for co-op gaming in a different manner (Resident Evil 5 being one such example) but is there much point? For, as established above, the attention of the gamer can only last so long and the lasting power of a co-op game seems reliant on how much new material can be delivered. Furthermore, a co-op game truly works when the players have to work together and each player can provide something unique that contributes to victory. And to find examples of this, one has to look back to the arcade/early-nineties era. The best example of co-op done right is the Chaos Engine – for the unfamiliar, it was about guiding a two man team against a horde of mutants and really emphasized the co-op nature with each selectable character having unique weapons and abilities and both players being rated on how much they contributed to the objective.

Also noteworthy is the arcade game Crackdown where two players operated separately in laying bombs in a monster-filled maze before time ran out – it works because the two players were working for the same goal and could operate without being joined at the hip (something that should any potential co-op games should consider in their design scheme).

So it would seem co-op games can work – it just requires a lot of thought and some clever design. And as nay gamer will tell you any clever design will win anyone over. Even those who aren’t normally associated with any particular gaming genre.

10 Best Intros of the 4th Generation

It would seem that concocting an introduction to a video game is no easy task: You have to grab the viewer's attention immediately or else they won't give you the time of day. Indeed, with the lack of restriction that modern consoles offer in processing power, many games have bowled people over with a ferocious rush of an intro - and suck enough people in only to realise that less effort went into the game design itself.

Not for me though: The best intros for me came from the 16-bit era: 1990-1995. You know, a time when games knew they were games as opposed to movies. A time when developers embraced their limitations and acted smart in order to get their point across. You may bitch about me being old but for me, intros of the 16-bit era offered more atmosphere, more grabbing of the attention and more establishment of drama than many of their more recent contemporaries.

So for today, I present my list of the 10 best intros of the 16-bit era. These may be old games but they are memorable for a reason: They all worked in some way that they managed to grab my attention and urged me to take up the game controller in hand.

So here we go:

10 - Shining Force 2 (Megadrive)

And the list commences with a burglary that goes horribly wrong.
The key purpose of an introductory sequence in any game is to set up a setting and introduce both important characters and key elements. And Shining Force 2 pulls this off with flair: some key characters are established (not least of which Slade), drama and a sense of quest are both set up and a general mood of spookiness is maintained throughout - in the form of the lightening flashes, the weird music and the eventual appearance of the demonic figure. Indeed, the strongest element at work here is the suspense and the gradual sense of approaching calamity.
In this list, this introduction is the longest - and could very well be the longest introduction ever of the 16-bit era. It may seem nothing special to someone from the current area where ultra-long introductory sequences are commonplace but less has been said in eight minutes. In Shining Force 2, we see something so simple that eventually triggers a massive adventure. Every quest has to start somewhere.....


9 - Darkstalkers (Arcade)

Erm..... Morrigan.....
Seriously though, Attract Modes are integral to Arcade games: You need a decent intro to make yourself stand out from the other arcades alongside and make sure it is the gamer's money going into you - not the others. So what does Darkstalkers do? Offer up a topless chick. Well, as they say, sex does indeed sell: One can only how many people would've been sold over seeing Morrigan's curves.
Other than that, there are some nuggets of interest that maintain attention throughout the intro: I like the title appearing over the thunder effects, the panning shot of the genuine freak-show of fighters, the title's eventual appearance with the descending text, the movements of Morrigan's gaze and, of course, the silhouetted Dimitri.
So in the end, this intro won me over with some rather subtle use of imagery. And Morrigan.


8 - Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (TurboGraphix)

The Castlevania games have a reputation for building a degree of spookiness onto the player - you are, after all, traversing through a haunted castle so anything less simply would not have done at all. And the intro to Rondo of Blood establishes this spookiness right from the word go: We see a bunch of knights sacrificing a maiden which subsequently resurrects Dracula. I downloaded Rondo of Blood for the Virtual Console and I was surprised to see such a macabre intro - I never knew one such existed in the 16-bit era.
Indeed, a sense of unease is established with the toiling bell and the narration making it clear that people are rejecting peace and prosperity in favor of chaos - even to a point of going to an effort to end the peaceful age.
Of course, as made clear in the translated video above, the translation is peculiar and the German narration sounds ridiculous in it's sternness. But in the terms of spookiness, unease, drama and general macabre, you can't go past this.


7 - Chaos Engine (Amiga)

Sometimes, simplicity works best. Through text and minimal imagery, this intro introduces the characters who make up the game: Thus we meet a monster and learn just how big a threat it poses. We also meet six gun-totting mercenaries, all geared up to take on the titular baddie. And...that's pretty much it.
The reason why this intro works is that it establishes the six selectable with a portrait and passage of text. And within the confines of these two elements, the mercenaries certainly show plenty of character - we may not be presented with much more in the way of information about these dudes but what there is, is indeed enough. Perhaps maybe modern game developers should take note? Indeed, I for one would like to see how these six mercenaries would last in a current-generation game where fully-realised scripts and voice acting are the norm....
So yes, I like this intro for the way it introduces it's cast - the accompanying music, provided by the late great Richard Joseph, is a treat too.


6 - Jungle Strike (Megadrive)

Intros need to establish a sense of drama in order to grab the player's attention and to provide them with a sense of purpose for the action ahead. And this is shining example of that principle.
Two dudes blow up an island in the Pacific and immediately afterwards state their intent for revenge on the US: one for his father's death and the other for interference on their drug trading. Thus we meet the bad guys and learn their motivations - who are, of course, pissed off enough to use nuclear weapons upon Uncle Sam. Further drama is established through then cutting to a news broadcast and finally settling on the player character swinging into action. Thus, we see a chain of events which explains everything - all held together with some great music which furthers the sense of urgency. I however like the imagery which are made to resemble that of a comic book. I also like the laid-back attitude of the player character responding to things as they unfold before him.
See? This is how it's done: In a few short minutes we meet the bad guys, we see what they are capable of, we see what has inspired them to do what they are doing, we see the effects and then we meet the player character and see just what type of character he is. No in medias res, no unnecessary padding, no complexity and nothing coming all out at once. See? Simplicity works for a reason!


5 - Alien vs Predator (Arcade)

Again, an arcade game providing an attract sequence that demands attention - and again, provided by Capcom no less. Immediately, the first thing that grabs attention is the music: A theme that suggests the mood of the game without a single image: Impending doom, invasion from an unstoppable foe and unexpected help from what could be the lesser of two evils. Indeed, I remember being a kid and hanging around the cabinet just for the music itself.
The images also work great: I like the changes of perspective going from lunar orbit, to a computer screen before ending to a battlefield. I also like seeing the hordes of Aliens, the sense that the two marines are the only opposition left standing and the sudden arrival of the Predators.
Indeed, what makes this intro work is the drama of encountering an unstoppable foe who outnumbers you a hundred times over and, generally, being part of a battlefield where the main combatants are two intruders to your planet leaving you, the human cyborgs, caught in the middle. In fact the use of the sentence 'A Living Hell' on it's own, says a lot.
And the fact that I was willing to use so much coinage on this game in my teen years suggests the mission of the attract mode, a well and truly successful one.


4 - Super Metroid (SNES)

Whilst the pre-game set up of Super Metroid with Samus' narration is an impressive sequence by itself, the part I will forever remember is the title screen. In such a short space of time, we see three corpses - one clearly being a child - and the Metroid linked up to a machine, being the only light source in an otherwise darkened room. As a result, a sense of drama is established in the most subtle of ways: we the audience are left wondering who are (or were) these people? What happened to them? What is the Metroid doing there? Throw in some extremely creepy music and we have a degree of interest triggered within the player and just what awaits them ahead. Its a triumph of subtlety - and the best bit of all is the pay off: In the first location, Samus encounters the machine but this time, the Metroid is missing.
Super Metroid may be best remembered as a game of subtle moments and a sense of unease - but the most memorable moment of all is when all of these are established masterfully at the very beginning. No wonder many modern game developers keep looking to Super Metroid for inspiration.


3 - Final Fantasy 6 (SNES)

The first five Final Fantasy games (hurrah for alliteration!) had a deceptive undercurrent: It all looked bright and cheerful ate first glance but underneath there lurked some sinister elements: Somber musical pieces, as many sad endings as happy endings and permanent deaths of party characters. Thus, the sixth Final Fantasy immediately announces it's intentions from the start: Through a dramatic organ and a drab colour palette, it becomes clear that the seriousness has come to the front and the colourful back-drops of the past have been placed aside. It is interesting how such a change in mood can be pulled off so well - indeed, one can only wonder the sense of surprise on one who'd been weened on FF4. Indeed, seeing as FF is a game series that provides variations on a theme, when they do something completely different it is worth sitting up and taking notice.
And that's not the only FF convention turned on it's head: In the expository text that follows, we see magic, one of the FF hallmarks, has been discarded and technology has taken it's place. Further drama is established with certain people wanting recover the forgotten art of magic and the potential threat of repeating a previous calamity. No doubt about it, FF6 certainly adds a lot of conflict right off the bat.
However, the most memorable aspect is the credits sequence, where we see a trio of mechs advancing through the snow, accompanied by a haunting rendition of Terra's theme. This is indeed, one of most memorable images of the 16-bit era and, I for one, certainly had it burned into my mind the first time I saw it. I guess it must be one of those videos where everything clicks together to produce a solid whole - I can't really describe why it's so memorable: I guess it's one of those perfect moments that everyone has to see it for themselves.
All in all, the march sequence is truly a shining example of how music and imagery can join forces to produce something that could only be described as unforgettable.


2 - Terranigma (SNES)

Whilst the US got Chrono Trigger, the UK, Europe and Australia had to settle for Terranigma. A forgotten gem yes but what an introductory sequence! In terms of presentation, this one leaps ahead of the rest. It utilizes some stunning graphics and a great choice of music, ranging from the heartbeat at the beginning to the restrained music throughout. Everything is handled in a subtle manner (an alien concept to many JRPGs) and the effort gone into it shows. The text is also compelling describing a planet from birth and the trials and tribulations of the people on it, accompanied by the brilliant use of time passing on a pocket watch. Also of particular interest is the use of Biblical motifs - which of course leads to my favourite moment: The watch ticks to twelve o'clock, the hands fall off and a numbers shift to make way for a Thirteenth hour.
Some say JRPG's are all bombast and lack subtlety but then they decide to do things differently, it succeeds with flying colours.
Terranigma may be disregarded as some to be a poor cousin to Chrono Trigger - but it sure has a lot going for it with it's use of history, it's glorious music and it's ideas. All of these are brought together to bring the finest introduction ever on the SNES.


And my favourite intro of the 16-bit era is....

1 - Moonstone (Amiga)

So what makes a memorable intro? Awesome visuals? Unforgettable music? The establishment of what must be done in the game itself? The setting being built up? Or the creation of unease towards the viewer? How about a combination of all of them?
Ladies and gentlemen we have a winner: May I introduce Moonstone. A game from the Commodore Amiga that never went any further. Maybe it was the blood and gore that predated the sensation caused by Mortal Kombat. Maybe it was made in a place that wasn't the US or Japan. Or maybe the game wasn't that remarkable. Whatever: The intro itself was enough to make the game. Indeed, I remember being twelve years old and thinking this was actually quite a freaky intro - In fact at the time, I never thought it possible that someone was actually doing this type of thing. Moonstone is a game that has a sense of dread lurking throughout and this intro encapsulates it perfectly. Throw in a perfect mix of graphics, unsettling music (again provided by Richard Joseph)and impending doom and you've got a winner.
So many memorable moments, I don't know where to start: the music that comes creeping in, the pan down from the moon to the forest floor, the sudden clash of multiple drums, the druid's chanting, the knight's hand moving with nervousness and the concluding piece of text where the target in spelled in a single, capitalized word. It's amazing to think the developers accomplished so much with such, by today's standards, limited hardware. I don't know how many times I've seen this intro but it still works everytime.
I recall the first time I played Moonstone: I was blown away by the intro but never got any further due to my A1200 frowning upon A500 technology. It was only many years later that I managed to play the game but, with high expectations brought by the intro, I came away disappointed. Still, at least there's always the above video.....

So that's my list of best 16-bit intros - artifacts from an era where people know what they wanted to get across and did it using the tools at their disposal.
So what I do think of modern game intros? Not much I'm afraid: If the serial Unskippable is anything to go by, they just keep growing increasingly ridiculous: It's all about the spectacle, where generating gamer interest is through flashy graphics and creating confusion - interest that ultimately leads to mockery.
Some people got it right the first time - now it's a matter of time before we suddenly remember how it's done properly.

You and me against the world

I've been a regular viewer of Zero Punctuation for quite a while now. I mean who isn't? It's fun to see Yahtzee tear into game and have the balls to say things that seem to escape the view of other game critics. I've also had the pleasure to meet Yahtzee and got him to sign my walkthrough of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

Anyway his latest review, Dead to Rights: Retribution, brought forth an interesting point: The moments when the player is controlling Shadow are far more interesting than when the player is controlling Jack Slate. Now, I won't say that Yahtzee's opinions have that great an influence on my perception towards games in general but what I see is a classic case of squandered potential.



Dead to Rights: Retribution seems to part of a recent clutch of games based on the concept of 'two dudes taking on a whole army' (or in DtRR's case one dude and a dog). Other such games of this caliber include Army of Two and Resident Evil 5. Both games however seemed to have stumbled in executing this concept with dodgy AI no real sense of uniqueness between the characters being controlled.
That being said, there is only one game I have seen to have done this concept the best and that's the Chaos Engine: A game released in 1993 on the Amiga (later ported to the PC, Megadrive and SNES). It works as follows: The player works in team of two with another human or the computer. The player(s) selects a team of two mercenaries from a group of six and they go mow down a bunch of mutants. The thing is, each mercenary has they own unique weapon and set of abilities. Sure there are three sets of stats between the three but they develop in their own unique way. Sure some abilities are shared by characters but that's at different points in the game. The point is, the two player mechanic works because the characters are unique and only by working together can victory be achieved. Even in one player mode, the player still has a degree of control over what abilities are used by the team itself. It also encourages careful thought into what mercenaries are selected, based on what they can do and their rate of reliability in the battlefield.

In short, the two player mechanic can work when the AI is reliable enough and the two characters each have a degree of uniqueness that, when combined, can succeed. As indicated above, it can be done so there's really no excuse.



So what would I have done in Dead to Rights: Retribution? I would've had the player control Shadow and have Jack being controlled by the computer/2nd player. I mean think about it: Here, we have a team of two who have unique approaches to solving a problem. They play completely differently and it may offer an interesting spin on how the story is told: Through the eyes of Shadow.

And hey, there's nothing wrong with controlling a dog: Just look at Okami.