My Imaginary Childhood: A Review of Retro Game Challenge for Nintendo DS

I know, I know. I just promised updates every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and here we are, Saturday, with no Friday update. Well, there's a very good reason for this. I was finishing Retro Game Challenge so I could write this entry.

First things first, reviews found on this blog will not contain any score of any kind. If you're looking for reviews that attempt to encapsulate things into an arbitrary metric, there are plenty of places here in the tubes where you can find them. If you want to know what I think about a piece of media, you'll have to actually read what I write.

Now that that's out of the way, onto the task at hand.

Retro Game Challenge, for those who don't know, is a collection of eight NES games that never existed for your Nintendo DS. In Japan, the game is based off of Game Center CX, a popular TV show which sees comedian Shinya Arino (a.k.a. The Kacho) try to beat various old videogames. The tragedy here is that he's not very good at videogames. It regularly takes him hours, if not days, to finish the games, and we, the audience, laugh at his misfortune as he fails again and again.

Well, in Retro Game Challenge, he has his revenge. He turns you into your childhood self to go back to the '80s and hang out with his childhood self and help him with eight games. Of course, simply beating the games would be too easy, so he subjects you to a series of challenges in each game. They typically include things like beating certain stages, or using certain techniques. By doing this, the game avoids the pitfall of "play a game for two minutes and move on to the next one" that often befalls collections titles.

Now, as I said, these games are all fake. They never existed, but they certainly could have. Six of the eight titles are unique experiences (the other two are a sequel and a "special edition" of an earlier game that feature the same basic gameplay) and they all play wonderfully. They all draw on many influences, and represent a snapshot of a given genre that harkens back to the 8-bit days. Truly, the folks at Namco-Bandai took great care in creating each game, and it shows.

Each game is a might-have-been classic, but with modern design sensabilities. Cosmic Gate is like Galaga, but includes things like score multipliers. Star Prince features much less slowdown than an actual NES shooter would've had. Guadia Quest allows you to save anywhere, which, as anyone who played NES RPGs could tell you, would've been welcome back in the day.

But the games are only part of what makes this title so great. They are great homages to a bygone era, but they are not where said homage ends. No, because you see, when you play these games, you are given a virtual instruction book (which you should read before playing each game), as well as a shelf full of relevant gaming magazines. You also carry on conversations with young Arino (and, occasionally, his mom) about the games coming out.

These elements really make this game what it is. If you lived through the NES days, this game will trigger a nostalgia for those days. In the parallel universe of Retro Game Challenge's 1980s, all the things that happened to you as a kid will happen again, only slightly differently. Gamefan magazine will tell you all about the new releases. The kids on the playground will start rumors, which young Arino will tell you about while you play. You will begin to actually anticipate the release of games that aren't real. Retro Game Challenge is a totally immersive experience for those of us who lived through that time. The team at XSeed that localized this game should really pat themselves on the back, they did a tremendous job.

That isn't to say that the game is without shortcomings. First of all, it includes eight games, as I've said, but Rally King SP and Robot Ninja Haggleman 2 are both extremely similar to their predecessors. Moreover, if you don't much care for '80s style RPGs, Guadia Quest will test your patience with required level grinding and tons of random battles. Finally, Robot Ninja Haggleman 3 could've dealt with at least a basic map system.

My biggest gripe, however, is that most of the games simply aren't long enough. The only exceptions to this are Cosmic Gate, which is 64 stages of not-quite-Galaga action. Star Prince is only four stages, Robot Ninja Haggleman 3 is only three and so on. Most of the non-Guadia Quest games require you to play through a second time with a higher difficulty, but that doesn't change the stages themselves, just adds more enemies. Even Guadia Quest itself is only a 6-12 hour RPG, which isn't much, when it comes to RPGs.

These are minor points though. I mean, after all, if they sated us in the first game, why would we buy the sequel? Yes, there is a sequel. It comes out in Japan this week, and we can only hope it will make its way here soon. The simple bottom line on Retro Game Challenge is this; if you lived and gamed in the '80s, you should own it. If you didn't? You should still give it a try, the games have a slightly primative feel, but they're still rock solid games.

Jumping on the Bandwagon with Street Fighter Nostalgia

1Up's Retronauts blog spent all of last week reminiscing about Street Fighter. Many other sites/blogs/what have yous have been doing the same. Street Fighter was a big part of my youth, so I figured I'd just go ahead and jump on the bandwagon.

I don't remember the first time I played Street Fighter. I do remember where I was, though. I was at a small malt shoppe in my hometown. I must've been about six years old, which would've made it 1989, and, at the time, the aforementioned malt shoppe was about two blocks from my house. We lived in a safe community, so my mom let me ride my bike or walk down there by myself. This was good, because it required me to get a little bit of exercise before playing videogames.

The videogame I played most often at that little malt shoppe? Street Fighter. Not Street Fighter II. Street Fighter. Two playable characters, Ryu and Ken, Sagat (sans scar) as the final boss, not a female character in sight. Street. Fighter. No numeral.

Street Fighter blew my six year old mind. The characters were so big, so detailed. There were secret moves. Urban Champion was the closest thing to this I'd ever witnessed, and, lemme tell you, that was pretty damn far away from Street Fighter. You couldn't even kick in Urban Champion, let alone throw magic fire. Perish the thought of having a garbled voice tell you "You've got a lot to learn before you beat me. Try again, kiddo! HAHAHAHA!"

There was a fair amount of vs. play, but mostly I seem to remember all the kids who played trying to come up with strategies to beat Adon. Man, we hated Adon. Adon was a bastard. It was enough that we had to figure out that the best (and to us, only) way to beat Mike was just to fireball him once, then turtle in the corner (no one called it "turtling" in those days, but still) until the time ran out, but Adon? Most of us figured Adon was the final boss, because, man... was he tough.

Eventually, one of us (it might have been me, as I did eventually beat Adon once or twice, but it probably wasn't) beat Adon and found out that, no, sorry, there's one more guy. And that guy made Adon look like a complete wuss by comparison. Sagat. Sagat was huge. Even huge-er than Birdie. And tough. And he could throw fireballs, too. And they hurt. Suffice it to say, none of us ever beat Sagat. I did eventually beat Street Fighter almost two decades later on Capcom Classics Collection, Vol. 2, but it seemed a hollow victory. Also, the game has aged terribly.

It was some years later that I first encountered the sequel. Now, the first time I played Street Fighter II is as fresh in my memory as what I had for lunch yesterday (Culver's, it was delicious). My dad used to bowl in a Friday night league. He sponsored the team, as well as bowling on it, and some Fridays, he'd take me with him. "Why," you may be asking, "would your dad take you to the bowling alley?" Well, because he loved me, and he knew that I, in turn, loved videogames, so he'd give me a roll of quarters (This was shortly after he'd aquired his own business, and suddenly had more money than he'd ever had before. We weren't rich by conventional standards, but by our previous standards, we were wealthy, and my dad was generous with me.) to play in the massive arcade housed within the bowling alley.

Now, this was back in the days when bowling alleys housed some of the best arcades around. In fact, this bowling alley, Olympic Lanes on 27th Street, had an arcade that, quite frankly, shamed the local mall arcade (sadly, though the bowling alley still stands, the arcade is a shadow of its former self at best). It was HUGE. And it was there, on one fateful day in 1991, that I saw it. Street Fighter II. It was opposite a Street Smart cabinet, which made Street Smart look even worse than it does on its own.

A kid had just finished a game. No one else was playing (in retrospect, this must've been very close to the release of the game, because I don't remember seeing no one playing a Street Fighter II cabinet again for some years). I had to play. I dropped two quarters into the slot and continued. I naturally assumed I'd be Ryu. Imagine my surprise when the character select screen appeared. Again, my eight year old mind was blown. Now, as an eight year old, I'll give you one guess who I chose in my first ever game of Street Fighter II. If you think like an eight year old boy, the answer can only be Blanka. He was a monster! I was playing as a freakin' monster!

Now, as I said, I continued from another kid's game, so imagine my further surprise when I get completely mollywopped right out of the gate. I mean, I'd had two solid years of Street Fighter experience by this point, and even though I still couldn't beat Sagat, I figured I couldn't suck this badly. Naturally, I couldn't give up. I put another fifty cents into the machine, and I quickly realized that the character who'd just mollywopped me wasn't selectable. I didn't really know what to make of it, but I'd wanted to try him out for two reasons. One, he'd just handed me my ass on a platter, and, two... it sure looked cool when he threw his cape off at the beginning of the first round.

That's right, the kid abandoned his game at Bison (probably because what had just happened to me had happened to him enough times that he was out of quarters). I had no idea he was the final boss! I thought they'd just totally jacked up the difficulty! Well, I got beat by Bison a few more times, and then started over from the beginning. I tried a few other characters, beat some guys, and got beat, but eventually I ran out of quarters and my dad finished bowling and we went home, but I was hooked.

And I still am.

Gaming's Citizen Kane

Let me begin this post by promising you, my readers (all three of you) that I'm going to begin posting at least three times a week, once each Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I've decided that if I ever want more than three readers, I need to post consistently.

Ok, now that that's out of the way, onto today's post.

There seems to be a question that comes up every so often amongst people in gaming culture. "When are we going to see gaming's Citizen Kane?" is how it seems to be phrased most of the time, but the title of the film varies.

The question implies that games haven't matured. They haven't fulfilled their potential. They haven't matured as a medium.

The question is stupid.

Really, the question seems to be guided at the quality of writing in games. Why aren't the stories better? Why isn't the dialogue more realistic? The answer to these questions, and all the Citizen Kane question implies, is simply because videogames, ultimately, are not a story driven medium. Videogame stories, even the "robust" ones in RPGs, are window dressing. The only possible exception to this rule is adventure games, and those are the ones that are always held up as just that when it comes to the quality of writing.

Games are interactive, and the thing that drives them is their playability. People enjoy games that are fun to play, case closed (yes, there is always the "kusoge" phenomenon, but that's another article altogether). The story, ultimately, doesn't matter. I don't care why my spaceship/space marine/plumber has to shoot/chainsaw/stomp the whatever it is that has threatened the galaxy/tried to exterminate humanity/kidnapped the princess. I just care that it's fun to save the galaxy/humanity/princess.

Take Street Fighter for example. Street Fighter IV ships to retail tomorrow here in the US. No one cares about the stories told in that game. All people care about is throwing fireballs at their friends. Street Fighter II defined the arcade experience in the '90s, and gave what was, at the time, a flagging arcade industry new life. And no one cared about the story. The fourth entry in the series (by which I mean the sixteenth entry in the series, but who's counting?) probably will not accomplish anything on that level, but it will sell truckloads of copies. And no one will care about the story.

Now, if, on the other hand, one was to argue that the Citizen Kane question is meant to address the singular work that comes along and changes the entire paradigm upon which people create new pieces of media, well... we already have that. It came out almost a quarter century ago, and it was called Super Mario Bros. Super Mario Bros. did for videogames exactly what Citizen Kane did for film. It changed the rules. It required those who created the media to do more than was previously expected. It represented a gigantic leap forward in technique.

Super Mario Bros. was not the first platformer. Citizen Kane was not the first film to not be lit like a stage play. What both have in common is that they did what they did to such a degree that there was no turning back. With the way Mario jumped and camera angles in Citizen Kane, they raised the bar for their respective medium. The sharpness of Mario's controls and the use of lighting in Citizen Kane both showed audiences something they'd never been privy to before. They both accomplished the same thing for what they were.

And, really, that's the bottom line here. Games aren't movies, so just like during the silent film era, nobody was wont to ponder "When will film get its Odyssey?" no one in this era should be pondering "When will gaming get its Citizen Kane?"

Wednesday: Jumping on the bandwagon with Street Fighter nostalgia!

Punk Rock

I was raised on punk rock. My dad & uncle were two of the OG punk rockers, and, since I was born when my dad was only 20, I was pretty much raised on the Ramones, the Clash, the Sex Pistols and Elvis Costello. My dad, like most of his generation, eventually got bored with 3 chords, and got into post-punk like the Smiths, the Cure and the like. Quite naturally, this meant that I got into post-punk. I hate the term "post-punk," and here's why.

I was speaking with a co-worker who, admittedly, knows very little about punk yesterday, and he started talking about what was and wasn't "punk." This was interesting to me, because he fell pretty well on the same lines as people who claim to know very much about punk. Less Than Jake isn't punk because they have horns, Devo isn't punk because they use keytars instead of guitars, and My Chemical Romance isn't punk because they're music is boring and they're on a major label. I agree with MCR being boring, but other than that, I disagree with all those things.

I understood early on that being "punk" meant doing what you want to do, regardless of people's expectations of you. Later on, I found out that "punk" actually meant doing what you want to do as long as all the other punks are doing it too. It was somewhere around this time that I ceased referring to myself as a punk.

People with mohawks, patches all over their pants and upside down American flags on their walls will tell you that punk is a very specific thing. Misfits, Ramones, U.K. Subs, etc., basically bands that only know 3 chords and play very fast. Now, I like all of those bands, and do objectively realize that the Ramones are the greatest band of all time, but they're not my favorite band. In fact, they're not even on my All Time, Desert Island, Top Five of All Time list. They're not even in the Top Ten.

Why? Because three chords only go so far, and the Cure managed to do much more interesting things over the years, all while keeping a punk ethos. Robert Smith does what he wants, when he wants to do it. So does Elvis Costello. So does Mark Mothersbaugh. So does Blake Schwarzenbach. Unfortunately, some closed minded idiots who call themselves "punk" think that their music is not punk (hence the term "post-punk"). But it is.

A recent spin of Devo's Q: Are We Not Men? A: We are Devo! revealed that Devo is more "punk" than most any band the punks would consider punk today. The songs run the gamut from goofy ("Uncontrollable Urge") to serious satire ("Jocko Homo") to a cover of a "classic" rock song that fans of the original would find blasphemous ("Satisfaction"), and that's only on side one. The music is extremely different from most anything else that was going on at the time (kind of like no-wave, but with an actual melody, and kind of like synth-pop, but less vapid). The songs are intellegent and well written and critical of society. Devo is punk rock, in every way except sticking to a boring, tired three chord structure.

If you're going to say "do what you want, be an individual," don't cry poseur when someone isn't the same individual as you. Ultimately, Blake Schwarzenbach said it best; "'You're not punk, and I'm telling everyone.' Save your breath, I never was one."

EGM

I'm sure everyone's heard by now, but Electronic Gaming Monthly, heretofore the last best multi-platform gaming magazine, is no more. I wish I could say that the news was shocking, but really, it's not. It is, however, very sad.

EGM was the first multiplatform gaming magazine I was aware of, as a young man. I read it on and off for the entire time it was published, though I only subscribed to it for the last three or so years. It was always a treat to read, though, in both the Sendai and Ziff-Davis eras, with a cavalcade of insightful features and insider news, rivaled only by Next Generation, which I also subscribed to in its waining days.

As much as I loved many magazines of days gone by (I loved Game Players/Ultra Game Players, as well as the aforementioned Next Gen, and I even read the occasional issue of Diehard Gamefan), there was always something... different about EGM. I think it might've been the fact that, during the Sendai era, the churned out massive tomes on a monthly basis, which could take an entire month to absorb (the largest issue came in somewhere around 400 pages). Whatever it was, there was always something different about EGM that no other mag before or since (and considering the state of print media, will likely ever) captured for me.

In the summer of 2007, I had a chance to see "Trickman" Terry and the most tenured Sushi-X, Ken Williams, talk about their time at EGM. It was amazing for me to actually meet THE Sushi-X. Yeah, he was a kind of chubby white dude, but even after all those years, even at 24, meeting Sushi-X was a big deal to me, not to mention the Trickman, who, unbeknownst to him, helped me and frustrated me to no end (all James Bonds, indeed, Trickman). I mean... they were celebrities to me, even though they just wrote for a magazine.

Now I interact with some (now former) EGM staffers online, and while they don't have the same aura as Sushi-X and Trickman Terry, they're guys who wrote for EGM, the world's foremost multiplatform gaming magazine! I mean, how cool is that?

Ok, this is rambling a bit, basically what I'm saying is that EGM, and print magazines in general, are generational touchstones in a way that, no matter how good they are, 1Up, GameLife and Giant Bomb will never be, and it's sad to see it go. I already miss looking forward to the next big feature, or cover story, or whatever it may be. I can't really think of a good way to end this, so I'm just going to say that I went to my parents' house and dug my old EGMs out of the attic, and I encourage everyone else who has any to do the same. There's a lot of fun to be had looking back through the legacy of the last best gaming magazine.

Visual Storytelling in Wrestling

I hate the JBL/HBK storyline that's going on on Raw right now, but probably not for the reasons you might think. Yes, I'll concede that it's stupid for us, as viewers, to be expected to believe that Shawn Michaels is so broke that his multi-million dollar salary can't sustain him and his family. Yes, it's stupid for us to be expected to believe that JBL is that rich that he can afford to pay Shawn so much more than his already multi-million dollar salary as to make it worth it to him to compromise his principles.

But that's not why I hate the angle.

I hate the angle because aside from two in ring occurences (HBK slaps JBL, thereby getting Rey Mysterio DQ'd from his Fatal Fourway qualifying match, and HBK takes the Clothesline from Hell without defending himself, allowing JBL to win the aforementioned Fatal Fourway), the entire story has been furthered by talking. JBL talks to the crowd, Todd Grisham talks to HBK, HBK talks to the crowd, HHH talks to HBK, Jericho & Orton talk to JBL, JBL talks to HBK, HBK talks to Cena... STOP TALKING!

Much like in my "Visual Storytelling in Videogames" essay, I want to clarify that I do not hate promos and backstage vignettes. Promos have a function, and have since pro-wrestling began, even moreso since pro-wrestling began on TV (which is not long after anything began on TV), but until the late '90s, they were used much more sparingly. The late '90s were the heyday of the promo, featuring editions of both Raw and Nitro that did not have so much as an arm drag until 45 minutes in. Thankfully, those days are over, but there's still some holdover.

Holdover like the HBK/JBL storyline. Now, HBK and JBL are two of the best "stick men" (i.e. guys who cut good promos) in wrestling today. In fact, I would argue that JBL's at his very best when he's cutting a promo, and he could make a great manager when he decides to leave the ring for good, but that doesn't change the fact that having a storyline play out almost exclusively in the realm of the promo is just lazy storytelling.

It was even revealed that HBK was in JBL's employ in a promo. Can you think of a bigger waste? He could've screwed Rey by slapping JBL before anyone knew he was working for him, then explained in a brief promo that he did it to save JBL's title chances because "blah, blah, blah, I'm a broke millionaire."

He could've saved JBL from a beatdown. He could've done something as simple as putting JBL's foot on the rope when he was being pinned during a match, any match, really. What did WWE's brilliant writing staff come up with instead? "Shawn Michaels works for me now."

Wow. That's some riveting television, that is. Nothing like a goof in a cowboy hat telling me he hired another goof in a cowboy hat. Puts me right on the edge of my seat, that does. How come these guys didn't win any Golden Globes tonight?

On the flip side, let's look at the Jake "The Snake" Roberts/"Ravishing" Rick Rude feud of 1988. It starts with a promo, but one with a good hook. Rude hits on a pretty girl, she turns out to be Mrs. "The Snake." Simple, short, to the point, right? Right. Roberts runs out, punches Rude (Action! How novel of a concept!), a bunch of "enhancement talent" runs out and pulls them apart.

Following that incident, Rude gets some tights with Mrs. Snake's face on them, Roberts warns in a very brief promo that he shouldn't do it again, Rude does, Roberts comes to the ring and pulls them off in front of a live audience following a match. The two have a match at Saturday Night's Main Event in October, Roberts wins, starts a feud with Andre the Giant.

Now, of course, that's a simplification of the events of that feud, but a simplification of this one would read "JBL and HBK talk about HBK working for JBL. HBK slaps JBL, then takes a dive to him in a Fatal Fourway for a title match at the Royal Rumble."

The point is that visual storytelling is not the difficult, especially in a media that are so given to it in the first place. Aural storytelling is not effective in wrestling, it never has been, and it never will be. The crowds are too big and putting lapel mics on the wrestlers would be impossible unless they all dressed like Rick Martel (yes, he is a model).

Wrestling is pure visual storytelling. A great match will always be a great match, regardless of context, because the two (or four or six or sometimes ten) guys in the ring will tell it. A great promo, though? Well, no matter how great it is, without context, you won't know what the guy is talking about, even if he sounds good doing it.

God Hand, et al

All gamers have what is known in the current vernacular as a "Pile of Shame." It's a stack of games, typically ones you own, that you have not yet played to completion, despite critical and/or audience acclaim. For the past two years, one game stood shining atop my Pile of Shame: God Hand.

Clover Studios' saved their best for last with their swan song, God Hand. God Hand puts you in the shoes of Gene, a drifter who, following an attack by some thugs, loses his right arm and awakens to find it replaced with the legendary God Hand. Trust me, it sounds a lot more serious than it actually is. The game is rife with slapstick humor, and this humor only serves to make the game that much better.

Having finally completed it, I can say that it is arguably the best beat-'em-up ever. This is because it's a beat-'em-up that manages to avoid the thing that made the genre stale in the first place. God Hand is not a button masher. In fact, button mashing in God Hand is the best way to get killed. Gene can't block, and as a result, using all the techniques at your disposal (of which there are far more than any other beat-'em-up I can think of), along with your dodge ability, is a requirement to survive past the first boss.

However, there's something about this game that's elusive... It's similar to No More Heroes (which I felt was easily the best Wii game of '08), and, I suspect the forthcoming Mad World, but in ways that're difficult to describe. They're action games, sure, but there's something about them that makes them different from Devil May Cry or Gears of War (which are quite different from each other). God Hand and its ilk seem to take delight in simply being videogames. They are straightforward, with little story, and a massive emphasis on fun vis-a-vis the satisfaction of defeating your enemies.

To wit; killing enemies in God Hand is as satisfying as it is in any game I've ever played. Compare it to, say, Contra, one of the kings of 2D action. In Contra, killing is the main action, but is it satisfying? Not unless it's a boss fight, and even then, the act of killing isn't so much satisfying as the idea that you've survived another stage. God Hand, on the other hand, makes every adversary, from the lowest peon to the final boss, a delight to dispatch.

The fun in these games is not a function of progressing the story, admiring the graphics, or exploring the world. No, the fun in these games is in defeating your foes in the most over-the-top, painful, brutal fashion possible. A secondary enjoyment comes from upgrading your character, but that's only because it serves to make the aforementioned killing that much more enjoyable.

This article is not meant to point out how underrated these games are, because I don't think they are. I understand why God Hand has a 73 aggregate at Metacritic. The graphics don't impress, the controls could certainly be a stumbling block for many, and the game is hard. God Hand, et al appeal to a very particular audience. The same audience that loves bad kung-fu movies. The same audience that loves The Dead Milkmen's music. That is the audience for God Hand. And I am a proud member of that audience. I can only hope that Mad World is half as good as God Hand.