I had contacted Anders Gustafsson, creator of Gateway II, and he gave me a preview of the first chapter of his latest game — The Dream Machine by Cockroach Inc.

I had played the demo before and while it was presented well, I didn’t know what to think of it. It was so short that it felt like it was over before it ever began. But after playing through the first chapter, I can now rest my worries. I can’t wait to play the rest!

First off the game is well written. While Gateway had some dialogue, its story was mostly told visually through the animation of the characters. In The Dream Machine, the characters have some great dialogue, which I find believable. The game start with your character, Victor, just moving into an apartment with his girlfriend. You get a good feel for their relationship through their talking. The game has dialogue branches which allow you to respond in a more serious or joking manner if you wish. It helped me to believe in the characters — okay, Game Creator, you’ve got my attention.

A Turnaround from their ‘Character Generation’ blog post

The game’s unique art style kept me guessing. Is this clay? Or 3d? Or photographs? The visuals in the game are great. From their blog posts, it seems they are a mixture of figure, 3d, and composite images. So I guess I was right with all guesses, haha. I dig that the art has a handmade feel to it, a good change from most things being super clean, super digital.

It hit me maybe about an hour in. The sound is friggin incredible. And I think that’s when you know when it’s good. When it creeps in on you, and before you know it, you’re under its grasp. You really just don’t get sound at this quality very often with web games. The sound adds to the eeriness of the experience, reminds me of a Resident Evil game. How you always have that feeling that something’s… not… quite… right…

Oh yeah, I forgot about the gameplay! The game seems to be along the lines of your standard adventure game. Chapter 1 is mostly finding items and finding where they go, scavenger hunt style, with a logic puzzle or two to break things up. It didn’t really have those environmental “move here then move there” puzzles of the Gateway games. I felt that Chapter 1 was mostly an introduction to the characters and their world.

I don’t think the gameplay is innovative, and that’s probably a good thing. I think there’s a lot of pressure to be innovative and break rules and conventions but often the result is something broken and not enjoyable. Or something that’s claiming to be innovative while just replicating features some game made 10 or 20 years ago. If innovation is something that drives you to play a game, I’d say innovation is something that comes from the heart. In games like these where you can feel the love put into it.

I’ve been inspired by what I’ve seen of the game. And look forward to seeing more of it. The guys at Cockroach Inc. are still hard at work at it so the results may vary, haha.

Links:

• Play The Dream Machine
• The Dream Machine development blog
• The Dream Machine Facebook group

I recently finished Kavalmaja by Tonypa. It’s an puzzle-adventure game that I first played about a year and a half ago. I had probably spent 30 minutes with the game, getting deeply involved with it. Something interrupted me and got sidetracked and never went back to it. It was bugging me that I never finished it — so I did. And it was worth it.

The game of Kavalmaja is a well thought out dungeon. The goal is to collect all of the “gold pieces” in the dungeon, acquiring abilities along the way to progress further along in your journey. The game is presented in an abstract fashion, requiring you to move around and touch stuff to see how it reacts. As you interact with the world you learn what its symbols and colors mean. So an area you passed through earlier will have a different meaning later on. It ends up playing similar to a Zelda game but there’s something special about its abstract nature. In a Zelda game it’s clear that if there’s a cracked wall you need a bomb to get through it, the world of Kavalmaja the connections aren’t that obvious.

It requires trial and error. I liked that about it, but felt it can be a problem sometimes. There’s a couple parts that require you to “die” to collect your gold pieces. I think that’s just one of the laws of game design, to never require the player to die. This kind of bugs me but it’s not as bad as preventing you from progressing through the game — you can’t get stuck. And given all the situations where you could possibly get stuck, it’s an amazing feat that Tonypa managed to make it work out as smoothly as it is. He said it took a long time to test all the possible positions and conditions. And I believe it.

I’m iffy about Flash game adertisement and the ads in this game really got to me. You see an ad every time you die, and that can be frequently when you get stuck somewhere. As frustrated as I got, seeing that Mucinex commercial over and over again, I was compelled to keep playing the game. I needed to solve the puzzle. So if a lame commercial can help support developers like this in making well-made games, maybe they aren’t so bad.

I had to resort to searching the jayisgames, walk-through thread for a solution to one of the puzzles in the game — the one with the teleporting rooms. I felt dumb that I didn’t figure out, but I also believed that he could’ve made a clue to make it a bit more obvious. I missed the one detail that would’ve help me figure it out. It might not be too bad to have a puzzle this difficult in the game given how easily one can find solutions on the net. It’s good to be stumped every now and then.

I’m just writing this because I think it’s a great and solid game. Even though it’s a Flash game from last year, it’s definitely one of the best games I’ve played this year. It’s inspired me to do an action-adventure puzzle game. And to think outside the box, maybe even a bit abstract.

• Play Kavalmaja
• Kavalmaja walkthrough (spoilers, duh!)
• Kavalmaja map (spoilers)

I Wish I Were the Moon by Daniel Benmergui

I didn’t get the opportunity to see everything but the favorite thing that I played was Moon Stories by Daniel Benmergui of Argentina. This is a series a 3 games, which are more like interactive stories. I could spend a paragraph trying to explain it or you can just play the damn thing. I liked that I could just jump in an play around and that the game didn’t expect anything from me. I had fun messing around just to see what would happen. This is really how game stories need to be told more often.

Nanobots

I also got a chance to see Nanobots from Erin Robinson, which is a LucasArts style adventure game with pixelly visuals. I had no patience to sit down and play such a game but I’m glad Chris was interested, so I watched him play through it (with Erin over the shoulder giving hints). It’s a cleverly designed game with a good sense of humor. You can download it on her site Lively Ivy.

ClassicNight

I thought this game ClassicNight looked amazing. Apparently the soundtrack made it even more awesome. I didn’t see enough of the game to understand what it was completely about aside from collecting light, but the visuals are fantastic. From design to effects, I really dug the style.

Another game that I didn’t play but was very interesting to me is one that I have absolutely no idea what it’s called. Haha. I think it actually won the big award too! I’m not finding it in the Indiecade program book but it’s one that had 4 monitors, side to side like a box. I didn’t pay much attention to what it was about but I seeing a buncha kids run around from display to display made me smile. They were having a blast, and really that’s what it’s all about.

Inspiring show, to say the least. Me and Chris actually went to a nearby coffee shop and put some time into our projects. Imagine that! After that we went to the after-Indicade drinking event and I briefly chatted with Greg of Intuition Games. Good stuff. And by deduction I realized I met Tyler Glaiel, who’s all over the Flash biz these days. Inspiring to see him putting out so many games!

Time to make some more games!

• Platforms: Xbox360 and PlayStation3
• Developer: Rockstar North
• Publisher: Rockstar Games
• Release: April 29th, 2008

Grand Theft Auto IV is a game about living the American dream. You work hard to make money to get the things you want. You meet people and exchange favors for favors in pursuit of a better life for yourself and those you care for. Hard work will eventually payoff and you can fight your way to the top in this country. Eating your enemies along the way. The difference from the traditional interpretation of the American dream is that in GTA IV you’ve decided on a life of crime to make it all happen. Which is against the norm and deemed a bad thing in most cultures. I suppose it may be unfortunate that it makes such an unbelievably awesome experience.

This game is unbelievable to me not only because of the violence or deviancy — for if that were all there was to it then the series would’ve been long forgotten about. What’s unbelievable is the grand scale of it. And not only that but the level of polish that every element has. It’s really amazing! Earlier in the series there were a lot of obvious flaws to complain about, like the sucky control or the subpar graphics. It seems that having a solid foundation of gameplay, an incredibly talented team, great management, and a shitload of cash can result in a masterpiece like GTA IV. I almost didn’t think it was possible to have a big-budget game this good anymore after the disappointment of Halo 3 and the absolute tragedy that was Assassin’s Creed.

Visuals

The visuals are astounding but one thing that bugged me almost immediately was the shadows in the game cast by the sun, the edges tend to artifact pretty nasty like. That’s so unfortunate because you’ll notice that from beginning to end. Besides that the game is consistently pseudo-photo-realistic. You’re not going to mistake it for real life but game is simply gorgeous. How do they stream so much data??

I have to say a few things subtle things I’ve noticed about the animation. I like the way they handled running up and down stairs. Nico takes each step individually, shifting his hips a bit so doesn’t fall. Knock someone down onto the stairs and they fall procedurally down the steps thanks to Euphoria physics. Yeah, that’s pretty “next-gen” to me. There’s also an incredible amount of cinema animation by the fine folks at Image Metrics — them and their fancy motion capture technology.

Story

The writing for this series has always impressed me. Not that it’s Oscar-caliber (give me a break) but it’s more creative than you generally see in games. The first GTA I played was part 3 and I appreciated the satirical take on American culture. I can’t think of any other mainstream game that has any opinion about real-world issues. Characters are flat but interesting. There’s a good balance of characters that you’ll like and those that you’ll hate. The scenarios you wind up in are fun and support the gameplay although the excuses are almost always ridiculous (You want me to take out everyone at a construction site just to end a labor dispute??). It’s fun but often it’s very stupid, which is acceptable for a video game.

Something that disappoints me is that the main character lacks development. He acts cooler than everybody else in the story, and generally does what you would expect the hero to do, so that by default makes him likable. Even then, he’s still pretty flat character. He’s a “soldier with a mysterious past” which is used as an excuse to say little about him which feels to me like a lame cop out. He starts the game with this “I don’t take shit” persona and I knew from the beginning of the game that he’s going to end the game being the exact same person. Solving any possible problem in his life with a gun. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m a good deal into the game and so far it’s living up to my prediction.

In addition to the main plot, the game is filled with an amazing amount of content that fleshes out the world. If you’ve played any of the GTA games before you’d be familiar with its radio stations. Not only do they play music but there are skits interspersed throughout them in the form of radio shows and commercials. The skits make fun of a lot of the ridiculous things going on in American culture, such as parodies of how ridiculous pharmaceuticals are getting. In addition to the radio, they’ve added television and the internet with this game. Television has a handful of shows which are animated shorts that are actually pretty funny. There’s one that parodies those stupid professional poker TV shows (It’s a 3!!! It’s a 3!!! Whoa, didn’t see that one coming. Who would have guessed??). There’s also a ton of content on the internet. You can check e-mail, read news, use a dating website, download ringtones, etc. A cool thing that they’ve added to help immerse you in the world is that after you commit some ridiculous crime news, stories that describe the event will pop up on the radio and on the internet. An awesome bit of detail.

Design

This game keeps you wanting more and keeps surprising you along the way. I’m 25 hours into it and I still feel iffy about writing too much about this game because it’s still introducing cool stuff. I just finished the bank robbery scenario and not only it was a cool dramatic sequence that pumped me up, it finally made me appreciate the improvements to the gunplay in the game by dropping me into this huge battle with the police. It’s still no Gears of War as far as intuitiveness goes, but the improvements to the aiming system are much appreciated.

Sound Design

I was tripping out when I heard the echo of gunshots in a warehouse gunfight. I’ve been to shooting ranges before and that’s exactly what a gun sounds like in an enclosed area like that! There’s so much attention to detail that I can’t believe it. At times when you get a call while you’re driving, the car’s radio will get all staticky before the phone rings. So awesome. Another notable thing is when you’ve got a wanted level and the police are pursuing you, they’ll give a description of your car over the radio. Sometimes they’ll start very vague (A red sedan) and eventually use the actual car name.

Music

The music selection is brilliant, as usual. They hand-picked a fine selection of music from all over the place. The soundtracks is worth listening to as a stand-alone album. It’s good that they’ve continued to put together a fine soundtrack even though game consoles allows you to listen to whatever you want while playing nowadays.

Final Words

$60 games are quite the investment. Especially when you’re like most gamers I know who have stacks of games they haven’t beaten. This is one of the first games of this generation that I’ve been telling everyone “you’ve gotta play this game!”. It doesn’t matter if you like racing games, RPGs, FPS’, or whatever — you’ve gotta play this game! It’s something very different and it feels like a step forward with gaming. And it’s not a short game either, with the length you definitely get your money’s worth. The online mode’s pretty fun as well, although I’ve had some problems connecting to friends. It’s not a perfect game, there’s plenty of room for improvement, which leaves Rockstar something to add for the expansions and spin-offs that will inevitably follow this release.

I feel sorry for the publishers/developers that feel that they have create a $100 million title to compete directly with this game. It’s the solid foundation of the GTA series that allowed them to scale out a game like this and know that the gameplay was going to work. I was disappointed with what I’ve played of Assassin’s Creed but I believe the designers had the problem of not knowing what was going to make a fun game. It’s really unfortunate because the game had so many wonderful things going for it, it just should’ve been scaled down to a reasonable level and polished to perfection. While I’m all for independent games and experimental gameplay — I can’t get enough of these types of games that really push the technical power of hardware in a creative way.

Dino Run: I found this beauty c/o the blog over at indiegames.com and I was very impressed with PixelJam‘s work. I’d label it under the Sonic the Hedgehog genre of games, one I’d like to play more of. It’s a full game with a lot to play with. The look and feel is nice, some of the physics are a tad weak, but they do the job and beat the norm. I love the tension, the atmosphere of fleeing. It would be excellent setting for a simple story because the nature of a chase is that it is linear. Not to say that stories must be linear, but game-stories tend to be (due to laziness). Unfortunately, the game is lacking in the story department, but it’s alright because it does well everywhere else. GO PLAY IT.

Warlords: I was linked to this piece from Ben Olding after playing Dino Run and was really surprised by such a simple design adds up to strategy on multiple levels. It’s not only about unit selection, but timing, and tactics as well. Again, the game has tons built into it: multiple races and unit types, unlockable races and unit types, leveling-up, a filled out campaign mode and the unit purchasing/upgrading system really gives players a place to craft a style of play. It’s all very simple, but the game is much more than the sum of its parts. PLAY THIS ONE TOO.

As a bonus, each of these games has a form of multiplayer. Dino Run is actual online play and Warlords allows 2 people to play on the same keyboard. Both options are pretty cool if you ask me.

Man, it’s nice to find good games.

-Christopher J. Rock

While you were too busy playing GTAIV, Nintendo launched the “Nintendo Channel” for the Wii. As per usual Wii owners can download the new channel for free from the online shop. With it, you can stream videos of game previews or (as is the case for WiiFit) interviews with developers. You can also download game demos for your Nintendo DS and of course Nintendo has given us the power to volunteer market information.

The video content is nothing special, especially without exclusives, but the Nintendo channel will not only be used by Nintendo. 3rd party companies can have their content available on the channel, which may help publicize games that may otherwise remain obscure. It’s also a smart way for Nintendo to court 3rd party developers. As it stands there are plenty of videos up.

I tried out a Demo of a Ninja Gaiden game by taking advantage of the miraculously wireless connection between the DS and the Wii. The functionality was awesome, though the game itself was kinda lame. I was surprised to see a good list of demos available so quickly, but I’m sure their efforts will pay off. I for one spotted a number of games I’ve been interested in, but definitely would not buy without getting to test them out. Must return to those later.

It’s nice to see Nintendo taking steps toward an online presence akin to XBNA, baby-steps as they may be. Hopefully they’ve learned some lessons from Microsoft and can make improvements. It appears clear that Nintendo will have higher standards for Wiiware than Microsoft has had for its XBNA titles, and obviously they’re playing with this online demo concept, each of which point to a better online environment for players and developers alike. It’s just too bad that Wiis will be limited by their built-in memory capacities (unlike X-Boxes with their giant hard drives). I’m about ready to pop-in an SD card so I can keep downloading games.

The power to download games straight to the DS made me wonder about the indie possibilities. For now, the downloaded game is only saved to the DS’ ram so it’s lost as soon as you stop playing, but what if that was changed? Imagine being able to download games to blank card in the SD slot, or even a cartridge in the GBA slot. Nintendo can potentially open up the two most popular consoles of our time to a totally indie market just by allowing the small developers already preparing for the Wiiware venue to take advantage of the DS. And of course there is the orphan world of flash.

Nintendo still hasn’t made good on its promise to give the Wii full flash compatibility. They said they were giving it to us, but it was busted and now flash can’t use any Wii functions unless you go through an overly complicated connection to Java with constant server check-ups (ala Wiicade). Hand over button functionality, hand over accelerometer data, and open up the Wii to a boundless new world of free content. Then, if dreams can come true, extend that compatibility to the DS and allow for each console to download and save games permanently.

Maybe that won’t ever happen. It might be too great a risk for a conservative company like Nintendo to take, but I’m hoping they’re forward thinking enough to try it. If you ask me, indie development for the X-Box or PS3 isn’t anything special. You can’t do much on those consoles that you can’t already do on a computer with the old keyboard and mouse. The Wii and DS however would allow for an explosion in innovative development and maybe even give someone other than Miyamoto the chance to master those playgrounds.

For now the Wii is still Nintendo’s turf, but slowly they’re breaking down the iron curtain.

Oh, and lest I forget, Nintendo is also using this channel to shamelessly collect market data. Not that I mind. In fact I somewhat enjoy looking over the list of my games they’ve compiled and telling them the age and gender of the person that plays them the most. Then there’s rating the game to the sound of a drum roll; now that’s excitement! And my favorite part is seeing the data. Taking a lesson from the Everybody Votes Channel, Nintendo makes market analysis fun! Therefore, we all participate for free. Quite a brilliant plan, really. And I only mean this to sound half-way sarcastic; I’m serious about enjoying it.

Apparently Nintendo will be sending me messages regarding new content and will analyze my habits to determine which content I’m most likely to enjoy. This is potentially cool, but most likely annoying. Fortunately you can turn this off at any time, so I’ll let it run and see how badly it spams my message board.

I just hope the Viagra guys don’t find their way in. . . .

-Christopher J. Rock

Needless to say, I’ve played the game and it’s great . . . but I have my complaints.

Catching Up

If you aren’t familiar with the Contra series, you should be. At least look it up on youtube or somethin. Contra III is the one that gets all the love, so give it a try when you can. The games can be best compared to 80′s action movies. I’m talking Rambo, Commando, Predator, the fewer questions, the more bullets, the better. That’s Contra. Let’s move on.

Presentation

Contra 4 looks and feels like any of the old Contras, in all the best ways, and with plenty of homages. The DS enforces a 16 bit look similar to that of Contra III, but with more vibrant colors and some smoother animation work. The setting is a match for the early games, with the first level based on the rambo-esque jungle theme and the boss of that stage an updated version of the original “gun-wall” design. Having emphasized my approval for the game’s aesthetic, I’d like to move on to some complaints.

Just after having bought Contra IV, I eagerly read through its manual, anticipating what may lay ahead for a new sequel to this old genre-defining franchise. It was the manual what first betrayed me.

“Luckily, your mission is simple: Blaze a path of destruction to his front door and invade his guts! Freakin’ yeah!”

The entire booklet is infested with this kind of cliched, sarcastic bro-humor.

“To coddle your fragile ego, the game can be played in three flavors: EASY, NORMAL and HARD.”

Shut up.

“The game will temporarily save your position if Mommy calls you to dinner . . .”

You have a penis, I get it.

I know Contra isn’t exactly appealing to an intellectual audience, but I also prefer not to be slapped in the face and called a moron by the games I play. That’s exactly what some oh-so clever American writer did when he wrote this garbage, slap me in the face. Alright, so the damn book is bogus, but who reads a book to play Contra? Just pop the game in for the real thing. . . . The results left me conflicted.

The opening sequence is polished, but not right. The art is bright, soft anime and the writing is horrible and unnecessary. You might be thinking “Who cares about the intro? IT’S CONTRA.” If so, I must remind you of Contra III’s opening:

SHOT 1: A city. A tempest brews and the screen goes white. When the city returns, it has been destroyed. A crazy space noise is heard and a giant, alien face appears in the sky.

SHOT 2: Giant letters fly across the screen, big enough that you can only read one word at a time: “The Alien Wars Begin!”

SHOT 3: Cut to the Contra guys loading weapons. One of them says “It’s time for revenge” and the second agrees, “We must attack aggressively.”

That is Contra. No foolin around, just plain and simple logic: BAM, ALIENS ATTACK. BAM, WE GOTTA KILL EM. BAM, HERE I AM WITH A GUN AND THERE ARE SOME ALIENS. Simple as that.

And notice the writing. You can just tell it was already stiff and unemotional in Japanese and then a super literal translation to English was the final profound touch. Perfection. Quite the opposite of Contra IV’s opening.

The real problem is that in returning to a famously classic series, the developers became too self-conscious. They weren’t just making a new Contra, they were making a new Contra. They studied the old storylines and characters and really worked hard to bring back that classic feel. They took this project seriously–so seriously they destroyed that classic feel–a feeling that became classic thanks to developers without any worry over how storylines fit together or the series was represented to fans.

The booklet, the intro, the “Museum” feature that shows images and info from older games, and Duke Nukem style voice effects that make your character’s say things like “Come get some,” “Take ‘em out,” “Locked and loaded,” or “Let’s party,” are all distracting slips in what was a very straight faced series. Contra was silly, but took itself seriously and that’s what made it great. Now Contra has acknowledged its coolness and silliness, and therefore it has neither.

Still, all of this came from good intentions. I’m sure producing a new Contra comes with a lot of pressure and these additions seemed like a good way to respect and build off of the series. Unfortunately, they weren’t.

What’s New

In order of appearance:

• Museum: From the main menu you can visit the museum, which contains images and information on every part of the Contra franchise and as you play you can unlock new stuff. Yes, the museum does make the game seem like Konami’s givin a little self-head, but it’s pretty cool to be able to scroll back through the history and then pretend later that I’m an expert. Because that’s gotten me a lot of dates, seriously. I bring up Contra trivia and every girl in the club is in love with me, almost as much as Konami is with themselves. It’s fantastic.
• Character Select: Before starting your game, you can select which of the Contra guys you want to play as. I was always more about the Red guy (the booklet claims he has a name, but I don’t buy it), but aside from the standard blue and red, they included the green and purple minority characters. It doesn’t change the game, but I guess it’s a nice touch.
• Duke Nukemesque Phrases: Yeah, they’re really stupid. Fortunately you can turn them off in the options menu. I’m grateful.
• Grappling Hook: If you don’t use the dual screens it ain’t exactly a DS, is it? Press a button and a cable fires up out of your character until it snags a ceiling or rail or something. You suddenly fly upward and hang from whatever point was grabbed. The grappling hook was a really good idea. I do wish that they treated it as a tool like the guns, something you could modify or upgrade with items. Either that or if it was a bit more interactive; for example instead of just flying upward, you climb up and can swing back and forth, etc. Anyway, I see where they’re coming from and it works nicely in the game so congrats. There are some levels that demand you get pretty quick with the grappling hook, so players will either get good at it or be very frustrated.
• R-Button: Now when you press the R-button, you can aim your gun without running in the direction you’re aiming! This was an excellent touch. It has been an issue since the beginning of Contra and finally there is a remedy that works wonderfully. Put those extra buttons to use guys! Kudos!
• Switch Weapon Retained, Dual Weapons Gone: These aren’t new features, but they’re worth pointing out. The ability to hold 2 weapons at the same time (as introduced in Contra III) remains in Contra IV. Awesome. Unfortunately, you can no longer hold out both weapons simultaneously and fire in all directions. . . . Okay, so that was pretty much useless, but it was cool anyway. I’d have liked to see another form of the dual fire (especially if it was combined with the R-Button function), but alas it is gone.
• Leveling-Up Weapons: Now you have a reason to grab the same weapon more than once. When you grab the same weapon multiple times, it levels up to a more powerful form. I must say I was extremely disappointed to find out that if you have a weapon (weapon A) and you switch to another (weapon B), then pick up a 2nd copy of weapon A while using weapon B, the new weapon A will overwrite your weapon B. You end up with 2 copies of weapon A filling both of your weapon slots. Why didn’t they program it to automatically level-up the other weapon instead of overwriting your current one? Because that would be far too convenient. Apparently this function comes from the arcade version of Super C.
• Drop Weapon Button: Does anyone ever use this function? I guess you can drop one weapon to experiment with another, but you’re pretty much never going to do that. On the contrary, I’ve cursed this button more than a few times after having accidentally bumped it.
• Bombs: The epilepsy bombs of Contra III are gone. That was disappointing. There are some
• Rebalanced Weapons: Maybe this is just an illusion, but the Spreads aren’t exactly the best weapon anymore. You really have to switch back and forth between guns to maintain an ideal. The spread is less powerful and less dense at level 1. It’s much better at level 2, but still noticeably weaker than other weapons like the focused ray of the machine gun or the mighty concussion grenades. I consider this rebalancing an improvement, but to be honest, I end up sticking to a Machine Gun/Spreads Combo anyway. Heat-seekers are much more rare than they used to be as well. On the one hand, I miss using them all the time, but on the other hand, they become a treat to play with when you can.
• Original Flamethrower: You remember that really awesome flamethrower that showed up in Contra III? Yeah, they scrapped that. It was too much like a real flamethrower which is powerful and effective. Now this weapon fires a circling little fireball more like the flamethrower in the classic Contra games. And just like the original version, it really sucks. Level 2 flamethrower isn’t much better. Thanks, I appreciate that they’re staying true to the series–really it’s fantastic.
• Save Game: Now you can quit the game at any time and begin later from the start of the same level. It costs 1 continue, but at least its possible. I get that they wanted to hold on to some of the old school Contra challenge, but I’d have liked to see a real save feature that didn’t cost you anything, especially on a hand-held system that I usually can’t play without regular interruptions.

Overall Game

I’m very happy with it. It’s not perfect, and if you ask me, it’s not quite as good as Contra III, but it also blazes its own path with features that aren’t in the previous games. It’s tough which means I won’t expect to be done with it any time soon, but it’s also not the ideal hand-held. I wouldn’t bother playing this on the bus and I wouldn’t bother starting a game that I couldn’t sit through to the end. Still, if you have a DS, Contra IV would be a great investment.

I’m glad that systems like the DS have created a safe haven for 2D. It’s a terrible tragedy that 3D dominates the game market like it does because most games simply shouldn’t have a 3rd dimension. It took a long time for Contra IV to come out and the only reason for that was the Nintendo 64 (and each console after it). If 3D hurt the platforming genre, it murdered the shooter (as it was known at the time). Things changed, 3D shooters took over, but that extra D means it’s a completely different genre.

Work like Contra IV reminds us that nothing has changed. We didn’t play those old games because we didn’t have the next generation to replace it yet. We played them because they were good on their own, they still are and they always will be. The graphics and the dimensions we explore will never change the fact that our old ones worked just fine.

-Christopher J. Rock

Books are the most rich source of information and inspiration that game players don’t use. If you’re looking for some new resources, you may be interested in a short list that I’ve compiled. Each one is worth its own review and maybe someday I’ll do just that.

These books are guaranteed to give players a greater appreciation of their games and help developers make better ones.

Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin: A look at animal behavior, psychology, and emotion. Taking apart the fundamentals of animals indirectly reveals the hardwired and conditioned qualities of humans. Games prey on the subconscious levels of the human mind which are in many ways identical to their equivalents in less intelligent animals. Grandin’s language and presentation is simple enough that anyone can understand it and in depth enough that she leaves few questions unanswered. Temple Grandin is widely known in the areas of animal psychology (especially cattle and other herd animals) and autism (as a diagnosed autistic herself).

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The Art of War by Sun Tzu: A classic for warriors and wanna-be warriors alike, it presents warfare as a game of adaptation and design. It’s about understanding your resources, your environment, and your opponent and exploiting them to your end. This relationship exists between a game designer and a player. Each one attempts exactly that kind of exploitation. Don’t assume it to be a book about killing. In war, as in anything else, there is an unlimited variety to objectives, many of which cannot be satisfied with brute force. As a result, it is very pragmatic and generally adheres to peaceful means.

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Film Form by Sergei Eisenstein: Eisenstein is among the most important film theorists of all time and a favorite of mine. He treats art and science as one in the same and eloquently draws relationships between artistic mediums that would otherwise appear extraordinarily distant. His teachings are still the best foundation for artistic theory in the 20th century, and if you tend toward formalism you’ll love him. His most famous work is in regards to the concept of “montage” (often translated as “editing”). Eisenstein defines montage as the colliding of ideas (via images, words, etc), their destruction and the subsequent generation of new ideas. He applies it to film, literature, music and pretty much everything else. It’s just too bad he couldn’t live to see games.

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Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card: A pivotal sci-fi novel centered around the military training of a boy named Ender. His story is a series of war games which serve as an excellent introduction to the kind of analytical mindset required for playing and designing (I hear it’s recommended reading for Naval officers for the same reason). Besides its relevance to game design, it’s just a good book too (and I’m sure the movie will be much worse).

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The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship or The Art of Winning Games Without Actually Cheating by Stephen Potter: Gamesmanship is a kind of meta-gaming. Gamesmen don’t bother to get good at the games they play, but they dedicate hours of practice and preparation to a psychological assault meant to undo the opponent’s advantages. This book is not nearly as meaningful as the others, but it still represents something to me. It was published in 1947 as a compilation of slimy gaming tactics developed by a clique of British aristocrats. What makes it special is its recognition of the powerful subtleties in a game; the impact of social forces, confidence, and rhythm. It also has what I consider to be a more “real” approach to games. Gamesmen exploit the “unspoken rules” of a game, separating themselves from sportsman which aim to follow those rules. In a remarkably ironic demonstration of British manners, Potter also introduces some of his own rules to discourage what is “bad gamesmanship” or simply not in good taste. Those tips defy the book’s apparent embrace of a game’s actual nature, but also reveal how difficult it is for a mind, no matter how unscrupulous to accept a world without rules and fair play. Gamesmanship very much reminded me of fighting player exploits in Battledawn.

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Catch-22 by Joseph Heller: This is widely recognized as one of the best American novels ever written and it is definitely one of my favorite books. Catch-22 may only relate to games in its philosophical content, in that it questions the rules of society, the military and human logic as a whole. In fact, it utterly humiliates them and does so hilariously. However, the recent argument over the importance of writing in games and the differing natures of the two mediums convinced me to suggest this book. It proves the power of writing and its versatility (most importantly, that it can be very non-linear) and with a humor and language that many can appreciate. By the way, the movie is good, but not half as good as the book.

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You may have noticed that I didn’t include any books about games. You don’t need to read any.

-Christopher J. Rock

Faxanadu might be one of the best games you’ll never play.

• Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
• Developer: Falcom
• Publisher: Nintendo
• Release: November 16th, 1989

“I’ve been on a long journey. I came back to my home town to
find it is almost deserted. The gate is closed, people are gone, and
the walls are crumbling. I wonder what happened?”

You’re a worn warrior returning to your home of Eolis, a village just outside of the World Tree. You have nothing but the ragged clothes on your back. You discover that the home you return to is not how you remember it. The lakes have dried up and it has become a monster-infested wasteland.

Sounds like the beginning of a grand adventure to me.

Faxanadu is a side-scrolling adventure game similar to Zelda 2: Link’s Adventure and Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest (both for NES). You have 2 action buttons, jump and attack. You’re given a fairly elaborate stat menu where you can equip your weapon, armor, shield, magic, and items.

Faxanadu’s Stat Screen

The game flow consists of killing monsters to get gold. Using gold to buy equipment and keys in town. Then going to a dungeon, defeating the boss or acquiring an item. Then repeat.

Gameplay’s rather straightforward. Kill the monsters and explore till you find what you’re looking for. You won’t find the puzzles or elaborate dungeon design of a Zelda game, but you’ll find a challenge. What’s notable about the game is the large continuous overworld, what people like to refer to as “Metroidvania-style” nowadays. You can travel back and forth between any points of the game, screen by screen. No such thing as a ‘warp’ here. Unfortunately there aren’t any alternate paths but it’s already amazing how much they packed into the NES cart.

A dungeon

I find much of the appeal of this game to be the world it takes place in. Faxanadu takes place in a dark and hopeless world. It’s often criticized for its drab color palette but it helps to create a feeling that you rarely get in an NES game. A problem with many NES games is that they often looked alike, using the same colors and styles. Each area of the game has a unique color scheme so you get a feeling of progression as you move through the world.

The music of this game is amazing. Composed by Jun Chikuma. I read somewhere that the soundtrack was haunting. I can’t think of a better word to describe it. Listen to Faxanadu’s Overworld Theme. If you like that, you can download the entire soundtrack here.

One thing that separates this game from a lot of games from that era on the NES is its translation. Faxanadu’s translation actually gets across a good idea what the story is about, unlike Zelda 2 and Castlevania 2. You can piece together the story of the game through the various NPCs that you find in villages throughout the game. I this way of presenting the story is interesting because it’s completely optional. If you feel uncomfortable not understanding why you’re risking your life to kill all these monsters, you can search for a proper justification to relieve your guilty conscience.

An important feature that was dropped for domestic release was the ability to save! Instead of a save, you’re required to input a 20+ character password anytime you want to continue your game. Upper and lowercase letters and punctuation as well (? and ,). As you may imagine, this kind of password can easily result in typos. The password factors into the difficulty of the game since I estimate you’ll lose 25% of your saves as the result of typos, forcing you to return to an earlier point in the game. That is unless you spend 5 minutes with each password proofreading it, running it through spell check.

Towards the end of the game you may feel unstoppable

One of the best things about this game for me was the feeling of awesomeness you have when you get to the end of the game. You start off the game wearing beat-up clothes and no shoes and no weapon. The first weapon you can buy is a dagger — a weak weapon with short reach that you can’t even attack enemies below your waist with. What’s cool about this game is that when you equip a weapon or armor in the game, you can see your character using it. So when you equip that dagger, you’re holding it. When you equip that shield, you’re holding it. Armor, you’re wearing it. So over the course of the game you transform from this hobo-looking Chuck Norris character to an armored dragon-slaying warrior.

The control is kind of clunky — incredibly clunky compared to the smoothness of Zelda 2. The battle system consists of mashing the attack and hitting the jump button every now and then. The enemy AI is pretty good, there’s a good variety of movement patterns. Most enemies have a trick to them to beat them without taking any or little damage but you’ll find yourself taking a lot of damage because a lot is just plain difficult to avoid because of the control. This is balanced by there being certain enemies that drop health that are placed strategically throughout the game. Otherwise you have to use potions or return to a town to replenish health. Jumping is a big problem with the control. There are parts in the game were you have to make precise jumps and these are always a headache, especially the sections where you have to go back a few screens if you fall. Even by the end of the game I find myself missing a large percentage of jumps.

This was one of the first games I got for Nintendo when I was a kid. I wanted it because it looked like Zelda 2 and I was a huge Zelda fan. I thought it was a hard game and I never progressed further than the second town for months. This game taught me the concept of a password, I was spoiled by battery-backup saves, and I don’t think that helped my progression much. When I started playing it with my friends and we would all sit around and start to figure things out, listening to what the people in the towns have to say and following their clues, I finally got a feel for the game and was able to get even farther. Eventually I got really into it and actually played it the whole way through. I’d never beat a Zelda game before. Yeah, I’m really nostalgic about this one! But I believe it’s still a game worth checking out because inspiration comes from everywhere. We’ve progressed far but at the same time we haven’t. One thing that I believe that all the *NEW* Castlevania’s are missing is the ability to leave Dracula’s castle and visit villages like in this game. Heck, even Castlevania 2 had that ability.

Here’s a video of the entire game of Faxanadu, beaten in less than 12 minutes (with a password). Check it out!

More Screens:

You may notice, I went for a more classical approach. He is based on the original Mario, with small pixel eyes and an open mouth.

I assumed everyone was going to make Marios that looked the same, and so I made one that was more individualistic. I was only half right. While voting, I saw hundreds of Marios that generally looked nothing like Mario or were strange spins on him. The top 50 winners though were basically identical, which is somewhat disappointing. My Mario was in the “7th level.” I’m not quite sure what that means, but I was shown an animation of Mario running up a Fuji-esque mountain and he stopped near the snowcapped top, so I’m happy with that.

For those of you that haven’t heard, this channel allows online Wii owners to upload their miis for public viewing and judgment. You can view public miis with a random “grab bag,” by popularity, or by searching for a specific type of or individual mii. That’s pretty cool, but the real fun is in the contests.

Nintendo is hosting contests on this channel that ask players to design miis to a given theme. The first worldwide contest asked for “Mario without his hat.” After that we saw “A Pilgrim from the first Thanksgiving,” “The Tooth Fairy,” and “Cleopatra” as national contests in the US. I understand that in Europe, instead of the pilgrim contest, players were asked to produce “King Arthur.”

Since I first heard of the “Check Mii Out Channel” I was excited to get going, especially because I take great pride in my mii making abilities! I’ve probably spent as much time in the Mii Channel as I have playing actual games on the Wii. Finally looking through it, uploading my Miis and judging others; I’ve been very pleased. I’m having hours of fun with software that Nintendo has provided free of charge, and investing just a bit of time into a contest has proven to be a very rewarding experience.

Of course, as with all things, I have my complaints.

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List O’ Flaws

-After uploading your mii, it is not saved in a “Your Miis” library or anything. You have to write down the mii’s lengthy ID number and look it up individually (which means typing out each digit because there is not even a shortcut or copy/paste function of any kind). Once you’ve looked up your mii, you can click “I like it” to save it in your “Favorites” area, but that groups it in with all your favorited miis from other people. I was surprised to see such an obvious and simple design flaw on what is otherwise an astoundingly smooth system.

-The voting process is also extremely biased toward making miis that are already popular even more popular. I assume that the “grab bag” area functions off of an algorithm that evenly spreads out attention somehow, so even obscure miis get looked at by someone. However, you are limited to 20 pages of grab bag miis per day and the only other ways to see new miis are through the “Popular” and “Top 50″ areas (which obviously cater to those that are already popular) and the search function.

-The search function would probably be my favorite tool if it really worked. Unfortunately, it’s almost useless. You can’t search for Mii names because on the “Check Mii Out Channel,” names are limited to 2 initials (a necessary evil to prevent vulgarities). That being said, you can’t search for initials. You can only search for a single mii by its ID number (which is too specific) or by a mii’s gender and “skill” category (which is too generic). For example, you can search for male miis in the category of “Fighting.” Does that show you all fighting males? No, it shows you some of them and if you search again, you’ll get the same ones until you wait a day or so. Ideally, you could whip up a simple mii face and search for miis that resemble it (a mii search that functions like a word search), but this option is not present. Thankfully, when viewing a mii, you can click “Call Friends” to see a lot of similar miis (allowing you to make an educated vote), but to use this function as a means of searching for a specific mii, you would have to go through a lot of bothersome steps before seeing any results. Even so, the number of “friends” that show up is severely limited as well.

-As mentioned above, the grab bag is limited to 20 pages of miis and the search and “Call Friends” options are limited to a single group. This is clearly not a technical limitation, so I assume it is a moral one. Nintendo has been known to discourage “hardcore gaming” for fear that it may be unhealthy (even including in some games polite suggestions to take a break and go outside). The fact that they imbue their games with that belief is something I respect (it sometimes comes off as a nice human touch). However, I also think the limitations are crap and don’t like the idea of a machine I paid for tellin me what to do. It’s one thing to suggest it and another completely to enforce it. I’LL STOP PLAYING WHEN I DAMN WELL FEEL LIKE IT, NINTENDO. GET OFF MY BACK.

-Finally, I must echo everyone else on every messageboard or blog talking about this channel in saying that it sucks that I can’t get my souvenir photo directly to the internet. The Wii is capable of e-mailing people, why can’t I e-mail myself a low res image? Maybe Nintendo didn’t want to deal with all the traffic that would come from images being constantly distributed online, but that’s kinda weak (after all, current traffic must be minimal. Nobody’s replaced e-mail with their wii.). It’s more likely they just didn’t want to deal with ironing out some of the bugs. The cost is losing out on customer satisfaction and tons of free advertising.

All that being said, the “Check Mii Out Channel” is a great and innovative addition to the Wii. This is the first time that a game console has provided its users with a medium and forum for creative expression. Even better, it is a medium that just about anyone can enjoy practicing.

Hopefully, the future will show some of these ideas put to use by someone with a greater “Freedom of Speech” sentimentality. Perhaps flash is a good place to look, where the system is more likely to be devised by an “Internet Libertarian” type. Someone with a love for “freedom of information” and a hatred for restrictions that is greater than their desire to appeal to the younger audience.

With programs like “Check Mii Out” and “Everybody Votes,” Nintendo is challenging the assumed limitations of the game; whether there must be conflict, a winner, a loser, an objective, etc. It will take a more independent source to challenge their moral and entrepreneurial limitations.

-Christopher J. Rock