No More Local Heroes

One of the biggest differences between gaming then and now is that today the market is seriously global. Of course, not all games get released in all territories, and titles sometimes arrive in censored/amped-up versions targeted to whatever the publisher believes are regional tastes. But when it comes to gaming platforms and hotly anticipated blockbuster titles, North America, Europe and Japan are generally all on the same page. Super Mario Galaxy? Resident Evil 5? Every gamer, everywhere, knows about these titles.

This was definitely NOT the case back in the early 80's. Video and computer games as a concept were everywhere, but the markets were very fragmented and almost completely local.

In the US, Atari, Mattel and Coleco dominated home videogaming, with Magnavox keeping things interesting, and the 8-bit Apple II, Atari 400/800 and Commodore 64 were the home gaming computers of choice. Games were generally expensive, as ROM cartridges were not cheap to physically manufacture and disk-based computer games were ambitious in scope and (relatively speaking) budget, aimed at a still-small hobbyist market.

Meanwhile, in the UK, 8-bit computers dominated, led by the Commodore 64 and Sinclair Spectrum, with the Acorn, BBC, and Amstrad machines also in the mix. Games were distributed primarily on tape, often at cheap mass-market prices, making expensive consoles and cartridges less appealing. Many big UK hits like Head Over Heels, Manic Miner, Elite and Jetpac were virtually unknown in the US.

The rest of Europe tended to follow the UK's lead, but there were unique regional computers like the Finnish Sarola Fellow, and regional preferences -- the Amstrad line did much better in France than elsewhere, for example.

Japan was more arcade-oriented, augmented by a variety of home computers supporting the MSX standard, where series like Konami's Castlevania, Snatcher and Metal Gear first appeared, years before they would be seen in the US. Nintendo's Game & Watch dedicated LCD game series was very popular, establishing the appeal of portable gaming long before it was technically feasible. But console gaming hadn't really taken off yet -- Nintendo's Famicom would pave the way in the East, patterned after the US Colecovision to some degree.

As time went on and technologies changed, the smaller players dropped out and consumer electronics giants moved in. Consolidations and bankruptices hit hardware makers and software publishers hard in the US during the mid-1980's videogame crash, shrinking the pool dramatically. Later, as games outgrew their novelty phase and more players became interested, the industry matured. Today, as game budgets have grown substantially and it's become harder to compete in the hardware race, the market seems to support two or three viable global consoles at any given time, plus the IBM PC standard which waxes and wanes as a gaming platform but never really dies out (but may be replaced by browser-based gaming as time goes on). Modern games are expensive to develop, so they have to have global appeal, and global marketing.

Fortunately, there's still room for small, independent games on the Web and on the downloadable side of the market -- and now that we're all running on the same hardware, we have more opportunities to sample what's been happening across the pond.

The LoadDown - 07/20/2009

Rounding up the downloadables... the day is coming when ALL games will be downloadable, I can feel it in my bones.

WiiWare -- Three titles this week, biggest among them Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Darklord, which is kind of a tower-construction-and-defense dark side counterpart to My Life as a King. I like the look of it, and it appears the gameplay offers more variety and participation than its predecessor, which got old after a while. Also we have the card-rules/matrix-based, Battle Poker, which might be fun if you have several friends handy, as there's no online play, and the spot-the-differences-between-two-similar-photos exercise, 5 Spots Party, in case you miss the Sunday paper.

DSiWare -- Another one-- Art Style: ZENGAGE, a sliding-tile logic puzzle game.

Virtual Console -- Nothing this week. Zip. Zero. Sigh. Might give me a chance to catch up on some other games, though.

XBLA -- Three games this past week, most prominently The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, about which I have already rhapsodized at length. Madballs in Babo: Invasion throws the aging ugly-bouncy-ball character license at the existing Babo series on PC, and Tour de France 2009: The Official Game lets you manage a team of bicycle racers, without really doing any racing yourself.

Also, it's an "open beta," so this is hardly news, but I re-upped for XBLA Gold membership over the weekend and have been enjoying 1 vs. 100 online. There are some server, game over and new game joining issues at present, and I have seen a few questions repeated already, but it's pretty nicely done and should be as rocking as TV-licensed trivia games can get after they get the bugs worked out.

Real World Fake

Over the years, improving technology has enabled a greater degree of realism in videogames, particularly in game settings. Whereas early games were set in generic "golf course," "baseball stadium" or "city" environments, modern games often model real-world locations.

I realized how far this trend has progressed recently when I saw and immediately recognized a painting of the Miami beachfront. I've never been to Miami, and I can't recall seeing any similar images (though I'm sure I've seen the Miami Vice credits sequence once or twice.) But having played Scarface: The World is Yours and GTA III: Vice City, both of which are set in a fictionalized 80's Miami, the setting was familiar -- I had "been there" in a virtual sense, exploring the neighborhood for several hours while harassing the virtual citizens. Other sandbox and racing games have done the same for New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, and London, among others, sometimes with a period flair to boot, as in EA's The Godfather titles.

I'm not suggesting that these games have modeled real-world cities in the way, say, Google Earth does. The layout and landmarks are recognizable, but individual hotels, businesses and homes are not modeled with any degree of accuracy. And the game world is edited for entertainment purposes -- stretches of similar terrain are compressed, false shortcuts introduced, buildings and boundaries established that don't exist in reality. Still, these games give the player a convincing sense of place through art design and map layout, coupled with the power of interactive experience to burn the approximated geography into one's memory. It's an illusion, but it works.

Sports games have come much closer to true realism, as it's easier to model a smaller, well-documented environment than it is to model Los Angeles. These types of games do not generally have a fantasy component, either, so realism is an appropriate and desirable design goal. The Rapala series of fishing tournament games models famous sport fishing lakes, modern baseball games reproduce each team's unique home stadium, and golf games license famous courses, reproducing their slopes, contours, traps and foliage with enough fidelity to feel realistic, at least in game terms.

I don't see this trend ending any time soon -- the investments being made today to model real-world environments will continue to pay off in the future, and as storage space and memory continue to increase, game worlds will improve until they're detailed enough to make further investment unwise. I've blogged before about human characters, and how difficult it is to make them seem real; environments are a different matter, and I look forward to more such armchair travel in the future.

Unsung Heroes: Steve Bjork

The hardcore are more likely than most to recognize the "big names" of the early video and computer gaming era -- people like Rob Fulop, David Crane, Carol Shaw, Dan Gorlin, Eugene Jarvis, Jeff Minter, Scott Adams, Nasir Gabelli, Roberta Williams, Steve Meretzky... the list goes on. These designer-programmer-producers made a splash in the pioneering days, when a lone designer or a small team could think up, program, and even market a game largely on his/her own. Today, they are respected for their innovative ideas, their unique styles, or their ability to squeeze performance and gameplay out of the primitive hardware of the time.

One gentleman that never got much broader recognition is Mr. Steve Bjork, who did a lot of programming for the TRS-80 Color Computer at Datasoft back in the day. I met him once at a RAINBOWFest show in Chicago, and remember him as a portly, affable gentleman who was willing to share his technical insights in person, though he couldn't often be bothered to write them up for publication. He was fairly prolific, too -- I played several of his games myself on the CoCo -- and he later moved on to console programming in the 8- and 16-bit era.

I wouldn't call him an innovative designer -- his output consisted mostly of adaptations and conversions from other platforms -- but he was a talented programmer who worked in a variety of genres. My earliest encounters with his work were the unlicensed Popcorn (a straight take on Atari's Avalanche, which also inspired Activision's Kaboom!) and Clowns & Balloons (Exidy's Circus.) Later I played his conversion of Datasoft's illustrated adventure Sands of Egypt and his official conversion of Sega's Zaxxon, which was very smooth and impressive, blowing Elite Software's unlicensed (and terribly named) Zaksund out of the water. Bjork also handled Color Computer conversions of Activision's Pitfall II, EA's One on One, Midway's Rampage, and many other popular titles, although even then he continued to dabble in "original" games like Ghana Bwana (inspired by Congo Bongo.)

To appreciate Bjork's work, you have to understand that the Color Computer had one thing going for it -- Motorola's spiffy 6809E processor -- and many counts against it, especially when it came to gaming. The joystick had luxurious analog sensitivity but was not self-centering, and the "chiclet" keyboard wasn't very responsive. There was no sprite or music hardware provided to simplify graphics and audio programming, meaning precious CPU cycles had to be consumed to do everything a game required. The graphics capabilities were limited, with a "hidden" 4-color black background mode that Radio Shack never officially supported, as it was unpredictable whether the palette would boot up as black-red-blue-white or black-blue-red-white. Even the speedy microprocessor was a bit of a disadvantage from a publishing perspective, as it made conversion from contemporary 6502-based platforms like the Apple II, Commodore 64 and Atari 400/800 tricky.

So what I appreciated about Mr. Bjork's work is that he made a serious effort to work around the CoCo's hardware limitations, while many other game programmers just accepted the rough edges. He cared about things like aligning his frame updates with the vertical blanking interrupt and spending precious memory on page-flipping, avoiding the rampant flickering common to CoCo games. He found ways to make sound effects work without visibly interrupting the animation, another jarring flaw in too many titles. He made it possible for some fairly sophisticated designs to cross the border into my backwater gaming territory growing up, and I doubt too many other programmers could have managed it, or would have bothered to try.

Steve Bjork never got a lot of press back in the day, and I have no idea what made him so loyal to the platform, but without his dedicated efforts Color Computer users would have missed out on a number of worthwhile games. And he stuck with the CoCo even past the point where it could have been (I imagine) even remotely commercially viable to code for it.

Thanks for the good times, Steve.

Return to Monkey Island

Yesterday, LucasArts did what many hoped for but few expected at this late date -- they have re-released Ron Gilbert's classic graphic adventure, The Secret of Monkey Island, as a Special Edition for downloadable play on the PC and XBox 360. It's a large game for a download -- over 500 MB, entirely CD-worthy -- but LucasArts feels digital distribution is the best channel for reviving the adventure genre, and my instant-gratification-seeking self heartily agrees.

I have played the original game through several times since its release in 1990, and I am thoroughly enjoying yet another pass on the XBox (with achievements!) The new version features HD artwork and full voice acting -- the original game came out just before CD-ROM and sound cards blossomed, and a "talkie" version was never produced back in the day. (A CD version did come out, with updated 256-color VGA graphics, but it only used Redbook audio for music -- without reliable sound card standards, there was no way to fit the game's copious dialogue onto a CD-ROM.)

I'm not in love with the new HD artwork -- the backgrounds are very faithful to the original, with some nice new graphical flourishes, but the character designs are a little odd. I wish they had gotten Steve Purcell to update the original designs, as they have lost some of the appealing cartoonishness they had before. The 16-color 320x200 EGA original was, of course, an approximation of the intended look -- the new game allows revisiting of the old style at will, which is a nice feature for comparison -- but the new, lushly hi-res graphics don't really feel like lost detail has been restored. Instead, the graphics feel painted-over by someone with a visibly different sensibility; Guybrush has an odd high forehead and strange hair, LeChuck is a little too grounded in reality, and Elaine seems slimmer and less capable-looking than she used to. The animation isn't bad, but it's not as expressively rubbery as it used to be, even though in most cases, the new art is a direct overlay on the old. Same limited frame rate, but with less personality, somehow. I loved Purcell's cover painting for the original game, and I am disappointed that the remake didn't bring that style into the game itself.

Fortunately, the new voice acting is solid all around. When I first played the game with a college buddy, we found ourselves voicing all of the characters aloud as we played. The game's dialogue is so funny and well written that it's impossible to resist getting one's pirate on. And for the most part, the new soundtrack works really, really well. New, different inflections have been added where appropriate -- for example, in the game's famous insult swordfighting sequences, Guybrush delivers his responses with verve when correct, and with hopeful insecurity when they are not. So far, I have only been disappointed to hear that "I'm shakin', I'm shakin!'" lacks the Welcome Back, Kotter overtones of my own interpretation. And the soundtrack has been enhanced in other ways -- the music has been freshly re-recorded, sounding even better than the old CD release, and new ambient sound effects keep the world audibly alive.

The game itself? Golly, Cap'n, it's The Secret of Monkey Island! It's a classic point-and-click adventure, funny and smart and silly in the best LucasArts tradition. There's only one way to die, and you have to be deliberate about it (there's an XBLA achievement tied to it, actually) and there are no dead ends -- the design is fair and forgiving and never too obtuse. And it remains one of the funniest games I have ever played. It's a pleasure to be experiencing it again; I plan to finish before TellTale's completely new Tales of Monkey Island episodic series hits the Wii and gives me five more monthly jolts of Threepwood goodness.

The Difficulty of It

There's always talk among hardcore and retro gamers about how games nowadays are much easier than they used to be. And in many ways, that's clearly true -- quick reflexes, learning to perform exactly the way the game wants you to, are a big part of older action games. Today's games are more story-oriented, less twitch-based, and the audience is MUCH, much larger. So design philosophies have changed accordingly, toning down the difficulty so more players can experience more of the game.

But there are also reasons old games were tough that I'm glad to see going by the wayside. Older games usually lacked niceties like save features, meaning that if you want to finish, say, Rygar or Blaster Master on the NES, you'd better be prepared to play all day. The game designs were less forgiving as well -- for instance, most older adventure games allowed plenty of room for the player to screw up irrevocably by picking up, leaving behind, or misusing an item. AI enemy behavior was rudimentary, with a "crank up the firepower/stamina on the bots" approach that proved more frustrating than challenging. And heaven help you if a game was moderately complex and you misplaced the manual.

I think games today take greater pains to entertain, and moreover, not to waste the player's time. It's easier to save before heading into a dangerous situation, or even rely on a handy autosave that kicks in whenever you accomplish something meaningful. Designers have learned how to guide the player through the game world, allowing for a sense of discovery without the frustration of getting lost in a maze of identical passages. AI still struggles to achieve its promise, but online play makes human opponents readily available -- they can be very tough, too, but it's usually a fair fight.

So, yeah, games are easier than they used to be. And I'm definitely older than I used to be. My skills are not what they once were, and I want to experience as many games as possible before I pass on. So every hour spent not retracing my steps is appreciated.

Those who still appreciate a really tough game can find goals that will put up a good fight. For example, there's an XBLA Smash TV achievement calling for the player to finish the game without using a single continue -- for most people, myself included, that's just too crazy to even contemplate. But everyone can finish the game using the generous continue system and see everything it has to offer. That's not a bad thing in my book.

Oddities: Izzy's Quest for the Olympic Rings

Licensed games are usually ephemeral in their appeal -- too often they are slapdash efforts, rushed to market to cash in on the property while it's still hot.

A case can be made for Izzy's Quest for the Olympic Rings as a minor exception to the rule. It was a late 16-bit era entry featuring the cartoon mascot character of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. The Izzy character was originally named Whatizit when debuted at the 1992 Olympics closing ceremonies, but it was renamed "Izzy" and its design rounded and softened before the 1996 games, probably to appeal more to children. The videogame apparently began development shortly after the character was introduced, with later revisions as the character evolved, as the title sequence bears copyright notices from 1992, 1993, AND 1995.




The game is a platformer, a bit of an oddity in itself, as most Olympics-based games tend to feature actual Olympic events. Instead of playing any sort of sport, Izzy makes its way around traditional levels, climbing from the bottom to the top, bouncing on enemies and collecting Olympic-themed items like torches and medals.

The extra development time was not wasted, as Izzy's Quest has a nice, rubbery cartoon personality, with colorful graphics and fluid animation. It's not quite in the league of Earthworm Jim or Aladdin, but it looks very nice and would have been an impressive game had it appeared at the time of the Genesis' launch in 1989. By 1995, of course, the Saturn and Playstation were out, and this title's release on the Genesis and SNES benefited from a lifespan's worth of programming experience and technical insight.



(Is that Shrek over there?)

Unfortunately, the game isn't so great from a design perspective. Levels are loose and open, with lots of places to fall and climb that don't necessarily lead anywhere interesting, and the only objective in most levels is to make it to the end of the level without losing whatever collectibles Izzy has picked up. And the spotted eggs that crop up almost everywhere Izzy jumps are not fun -- sometimes they contain a minor collectible, sometimes they contain an explosion that's large enough to damage Izzy even from what seems like a safe distance.

There are "power-ups" that turn Izzy into other types of characters -- a little helicopter, a baseball player, a swordsman -- but they wear off too quickly in most cases to be much fun. At least there's some variety in the bonus rounds -- here, Izzy is a rocketship and must zoom from the bottom to the top, picking up collecti...



...hmmm? Whazzat? Oh, yeah, and avoiding enemies!

So... not a terrible game, but not a great one either. Like most licensed titles, its lifespan was constrained by the source property. When the 1996 Olympic games were over, it was Game Over for Izzy as well.



Calm down, dude. Goes with the territory.