Stage Level Start - Battletoads (NES) - Stage 3 - Speeder Level

To get in the right frame of mind for this post, I've provided this convenient animated gif.  Then please refer to the MIDI Week Singles post for the accompanying music. 

The speeder level is everybody's (least) favorite, or at the very least, most memorable Battletoads level.  That's just how it is.  For one thing - it's really, really hard.  But for another:  it's really, really fun.  It's that rare combination of impossibly, frustratingly, hair-pulling-ly difficult and yet a ton of fun and I just want to do it again.

I beat it a couple times.  I used Nintendo Power, I followed the maps to see what was ahead of me.   I even figured out that you can jump a full-sized wall, if you time it just right.

But... oh man, the first time I got to that final run, when the speed doubles;   It's like the naked at school dream.  Suddenly, the bottom drops out.  Wha?  They actually expect me to do this?  This has to be some sort of joke.

But it's not a joke.  And you can do it.  I did do it.  More than once.  All that careful timing from before boils down to rhythm.  Up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up down.  Keep it consistent, if you are a fraction of a second late, you will die.  It's a rush!

Battletoads was a product of its time.  Apart from being a blatant TMNT ripoff, it suffered from some classically-shitty NES design features.  For example, at the beginning of stage 3, before you get to the speeders, you can just sort of fall to your doom executing a very simple jump.  It is maddening, because you need to save your lives for the nigh-impossible feat ahead of you.  But no, some sort of weird collision detection issue will send you into the bouncing balls of death. 

Despite these sorts of design flaws, it was a lot of fun, and very ambitious.  Who doesn't like the idea of racing an anthropomorphic frog through some sort of brain/intestine tunnel at breakneck speeds?

Emulator Hour: Snake Rattle n Roll (NES)

You know,  I generally consider my favorite video game console to be the Super Nintendo. But lately I'm noticing more and more that a lot of my very favorite video game memories and nostalgia come from the NES.  I think this can be very simply explained by the fact that I was younger when I was playing NES, the memories are fuzzier, and somehow warmer.  My sense of wonder was strongest at that time of my life, and perhaps my sense of security as well.  

Snake Rattle n Roll is a strange and silly game.  It is also a good example of an NES game that was special to me.  I saw this game in Nintendo Power and I was mesmerized.  I really don't know why, but  I had.to.have.it.  I think it was the isometric view, with the checkerboard patterns on the ground--  It just looked like fun!  Before I got a hold of it (took a while), I used to pore over the pictures in Nintendo Power and imagine what it was going to play like.

It ended up being a pretty fun game.  And strange.  You eat colorful balls called 'Nibblie Pibblies" and your enemies included moving toilet seats and a big disembodied foot.  And one more thing:  You destroy your enemies by licking them.  A toilet seat and a foot.  By licking them.  This is just the sort of potty humor that kids love.  (of course the pun was intended)

There was something about the level design that, to me,  indicated secrets.  I always thought: how can I get up to that platform?  What's up there?  Is there a secret area?  Isometric platforming can take a bit of getting used to, but there were some cool jumps and heights  I could manage.  And some limitations as well; you could fall to your doom without actually falling, if you tried to jump to a lower platform, and fell a certain distance before reaching it.   Occasionally I did get to a hard to reach platform, and was rewarded only with my own satisfaction at having accomplished my goal.  Which is still pretty cool. Like climbing a fence or getting onto the roof of my house.  Just glad to have done it.

I got a similar sensation when I first played Mario 64.  Especially outside the castle, I just wanted to climb and go and discover what was hiding behind the mountains, around the castle.  It was Yoshi.  And you needed a canon to get there, and then you didn't even get to ride Yoshi.  Not so much fun.

I've seen modern versions of this exploration for exploration's sake, like ulillillia getting really high in Bubsy 3d levels.  Also people scaling mountains in Skyrim.  It occurs to me that that is somethign I want in a game like Proteus:  climbing.  There really isn't that in Proteus.

Discovery, where is that sense of discovery in games?

That will have to be a topic I return to at a future date.  I was talking about Snake Rattle and Roll.  A co-op game, I remember playing a lot with my younger sister.  I got pretty good at the game, but it was TOUGH.  I don't think I ever beat it.  I may have gotten to the final level once or twice, but I'm not sure if I cheated to do so.  I do know that the levels got progressively harder, and the last couple levels were skin-of-your teeth, hanging by your fingernails- TOUGH.  Like a good NES game should be.

-D

P.S. Plumbing the internet for happy nostalgia is usually a productive enterprise.  It's led me to cool stuff like a monster map of the original Dragon Warrior.  With Snake Rattle n Roll a particularly awesome bit of fan art came up:  A sewing together of the different level maps (see below) and a speed run overlaid on said map!  I really couldn't ask for a better tribute.  Bravo!

And then it turns out that the game was actually designed as a giant mountain which you scale until you get to the top and then launch to the moon and fight an ice-foot.  Of course!  Check out the image below.

http://lurkmore.to/Snake_Rattle_'n'_Roll

here is the source page for the above image

Video Game Maps

I've been thinking about maps lately.  Fictional maps, specifically.  Great fantasy authors like  J RR Tolkein, L Frank Baum, George RR Martin and a newcomer named Ian Silva -- have grasped the power of maps to draw a viewer in and to lend a new dimension to a fictional world.   I'd like to draw special attention to Ian Silva's Maps as they are the only one of this small collection that are of a Modern design, but they also contain a history of a fictional society, and 100 years of baseball records.  

In the case of video games, maps come in different forms.  Overworld maps in RPG games are the most prevalent, where players will navigate the continental structures of the given video game world.   The navigation of an overworld is often aided by a sub-map which displays the entire planet, highlighting the players current position in a 'you are here' style.  

There are also Dungeon maps, made popular in the first Legend of Zelda.  And there is another style of map which you can find on a website I just found, called VGMaps.com - The Video Game Atlas.  This website uses screen captures to map out entire games, from the NES, SNES and even Nintendo 64, among others.  The database is extensive, and if you were a former Nintendo Power subscriber, you might lose some time wandering through their library.

VGMaps is an old site, it just celebrated its Tenth Anniversary.   It reminds me of the old internet, when commercial interests hadn't moved in, and everything you could find was put there by dedicated people, doing it out of love.  I miss that internet, but I don't think it's ever coming back.  Still, there are sites like VGMaps, more like outposts in deep space, or oases in the desert.  Or something.

Anyhow, go have a look, have fun.  They're doing a Map of the Month thing, and the one for December is from a Japanese Sequel to Paladin's Quest that I never heard of.  Enjoy

-D

Last issue of Nintendo Power

Hey there everyone.  We've both written here of our relationship with Nintendo Power.  And I just saw that it finally happened:  the cover art for the final issue of Nintendo Power has been released.  I felt that it was appropriate to mark the occasion here with a little post.  We should all go out and buy this issue when it comes out next month. 

-D

The Eternal Dilemma: To Buy Used or New?

This is a topic that will get people fired up on both sides.  Side A hates the idea of buying used games because it takes money away from the developers and puts it into the hands of Middleman Stores.  Side B loves buying used games because of their reduced price.  I like to consider myself as part of Side D.  We'll skip Side C for the moment, as they're probably on their lunch break.

Side D.  I want to purchase games as new products.  I like having a way of telling a game company that I like the products they're putting out and the stories they're telling.  Sadly, this isn't always feasible as games cost money.  And not just any money, typically $30-$40, at least for DS and PSP games.  PC games can average $40-$50 for a new game.  Being an adult with financial responsibilities (gas, car insurance, rent, food, phone, electricity, car maintenance), there always isn't a lot left from my paycheck to go out and buy a $40 game.  For this reason, I wait.  I'll wait for the game to drop in price or to think, "You know what self, I will go buy that game!"

Here's the second problem, after the whole spending money part.  Waiting.  I like to wait at least six months before buying a game, although, honestly, it usually ends up being at least a year.  For some games, the wait is even longer for any number of reasons.  Such was the case with SEGA's Infinite Space.  I first read about this game in issue #248 of Nintendo Power and thought it looked and sounded pretty awesome.  One of my roommates, Vortlynx, had very much been into EVE Online and a space building/exploration game for the DS sounded pretty awesome.  Even with the comment about the game having a "steep learning curve" wasn't a deterrent.  With Infinite Space, though, I apparently waited too long.  The games sales didn't do very well, but was received well by critics.  It then became hard to find at Gamestops and I never saw it at a Target.   Eventually, I checked Amazon and have had prices set pretty consistently at $74 for new and $23 for a used copy.  Buying from eBay is the same as buying used and at that point I was still somewhat hoping to find a place that had a new copy for under $30.  Gamestop's website has a new game for $34, but it's not available online and their "Pick up @ store" function is unavailable.  Which is why, last month, I settled for a used copy from Gamestop, as I was able to find one that was within 100 miles.

Another example, is that I currently want to purchase Castlevania 64: Legacy of Darkness.  Now, there's not going to be any new copy of that game that Konami's going to see any profits from.  Any new (shrink wrapped) game is going to be priced out the ass by some collector who's more interested in making money than actually caring about games being played.

It basically breaks down to, I'll buy new if I can at the time I want to buy the game.  If a new copy of the game is unavailable, I'll try to hunt it down in a way that the company still sees that I like their products.  If I still cannot locate a new copy, I'll try to find a used copy.  So, until the day that game companies start sending Dr. Potts and/or myself games to review, we'll both have to settle for purchasing games from any one of multiple stores (online/physical).

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Go Ahead And Toss My Name Around

P.S.  Side C got back from their lunch and their response to this topic is, "Meh."

Nintendo Power: The End of an Era

I found out this morning that Nintendo Power announced yesterday (on Tuesday August 21st, 2012), that they would not be renewing their contract with their current publishers (Future Publishing) and the final issue's release date will be December 2012.  As of this writing, there's still not a whole lot of information out there regarding the final days of Nintendo Power, but this guy will definitely be sad to see them go.

My subscription to Nintendo Power began with the September/October 1989 issue, although "how" that subscription came about, I am not entirely sure.  I can guess though that one of those flyers came with either the system that my sisters and I got for Christmas or in a subsequent game that was purchased.  My neighbor across the street was actually a member of the Nintendo Fun Club and had those issues as well as the massive tome that predated what we now know as strategy guides.  Dr. Potts was also a subscriber for many a year.  My subscription ended though with the July 2011 issue as I had just moved up to Portland, was jobless and couldn't justify renewing when I had no income and quickly dwindling funds.

But wow.  I was a subscriber for nearly 22 years.  71 percent of my life was spent in wait for the beginning of the month when the mailman would bring me my copy of Nintendo Power.  I would read those things from cover-to-cover.  I would even bring them to school, up until I lost an issue sometime in 3rd grade when I lent issue #22, the Metal Storm cover issue to a kid in class and he never returned it.  I even managed to hold onto most of my issues until I moved and knew that I was just holding onto magazines that I hadn't looked at in about a decade.  I did keep a few issues that had some kind of sentimental attachment to or if they had something to do with Mario Paint that I knew I could use for cross stitching.

Nintendo Power was such a large part of my early childhood.  Keep in mind, my childhood consisted of the late 1980s through the mid 1990s.  The internet wasn't accessible let alone known about by the public at large until the later half of the 1990s.  GameFAQs didn't exist until 1995 and even then it was incredibly small compared to what it grown into.  The only source of gaming information and questions pertaining to "how to kill that stupid boss enemy" were answered for me by Nintendo Power.  I relished that information and would have to occasionally fight with my older sister over who got to read the newest issue first.

Even into my 20's and the year and-a-half I was a subscriber into my 30's, I always got that familiar feeling whenever I picked up my new issue.  Granted the intensity of that feeling may have been less and less as I got older, but it was always there.  It was like receiving a bound together package of nostalgia that was also full of current gaming information.  Even after the magazine was taken over by Future Publishing and the style of writing and articles changed a bit to cater towards older audiences (as articles were now being written by people who had grown up with the magazine as I had), articles, interviews fun to read despite the fact that it was a printed publications with some information which may have been "breaking" during publication but "old hat" by the time issues were delivered.

I don't know how many times I wrote to Nintendo Power's Counselor's Corner department asking questions about how to pass certain areas or for their opinions on games that were never reviewed by Nintendo Power staff, (this was done for Enix's Paladin's Quest among others).  Only once did I have to call the hotline for Zelda II: The Adventure of Link because I couldn't locate the new town of Kasuto.  I think I paid back my parents the $5 (which was their money to begin with since I earned that doing chores), which went to my grandparent's as it was their phone that I used.  I still never was able to kill Shadow Link on my own and ended up becoming so frustrated that I had to use Game Genie.

So now I say farewell, Nintendo Power.  Your strategy guides were well coveted and worn out by the end of games.  You served us all well.  You will be missed, but not forgotten.

Classified Information (manila colored pages)
Counselor's Corner
Pak Watch
Player's Pulse
Howard & Nester Comics
Nester Awards
Fold Out Posters & Maps
Power Players Challenge / The Arena
Player's Poll
Epic Center
Pokécenter



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Yes, I Just Wrote A Eulogy For A Gaming Magazine.


P

Game Scores: Willow (NES)

Willow, on the NES was a game that I bought for a couple of reasons.

1. I loved the movie.
2. It was by Capcom, and they made Mega Man, so it must be awesome.
3. There was a box label that said it was $10 off (but only after you bought one or two additional Capcom titles).

I hadn't heard much about the game aside from what I read in the November/December 1989 issue of Nintendo Power.  So I bought the game (sadly found out that I didn't immediately get the the $10 discount) and played it.  I was introduced to the game with this awesome intro movie sequence and amazing score.

(For those of you who never played Willow, it was like a combination of The Legend of Zelda, but you gained experience and could equip various swords, shields, armors and spells).

Now back to the music.

The composer/programmer for Willow was Haruji Fujita who also composed the music for Ghosts 'n Goblins, Gargyole's Quest, Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, and others.  Basically, she knows her shit.  Sadly, there isn't a whole lot of information about Haruji Fujita's compositions for Willow, so we'll just have to admire the music as is without any sub-context, which is perfectly fine as the music is awesome and stylistically varied.

The overworld music, which is probably the piece that's heard most often, is a great "We're going on an adventure!" theme:

The theme for Nockmaar Castle starts out as this beautiful medley then moves into a harpsichord/Baroque-esque that doesn't sound quite right, as if the music were trying to show you the glory that Nockmaar Castle once held before it fell into ruin and overrun by evil.  And, for me at least, the music makes me a little uncomfortable, which is great because it's the last area of the game before you defeat General Kail and Bavmorda:

So that's my brief go around with some of the music from Capcom's 1990 NES release of Willow, which I would recommend playing, both for the music and because it's a really fun game.  If you have a functioning NES, pick it up,otherwise download for an emulator.  There's plenty of music (well, 15 additional tracks) that I didn't list here that are all equally as beautiful as what was written for the game and again, highly recommended.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Peck, Peck, Peckpeckpeckpeckpeck!

Nintendo Power and Me

So, earlier today, I asked Jack what his first issue of Nintendo Power was. In response, he sent me this picture. Using the picture, he was able to determine which issue was his first, and I think I got a bead on my first one, which was Maniac Mansion. Looking at the picture of all of those Nintendo Power covers next to each other really go me going, and I started typing an extended email, which I decided I should just turn into a post. The results are shown below:

Metal Storm, a gravity shifting shooter.  Different from VVVVVV

Totally Rad. I remember a lot of these. Actually, what's really got me thrown is that the Super Nintendo was released so early on in the progression of Nintendo Power. I had this idea in my head that it took a while longer. But another thing I notice is that you can see both Castlevania II and Castlevania IV in this set of pictures.

I wish I had them too. The nostalgia is pretty strong here, I remember these issues, and I can almost remember what's inside them. I definitely used the game reviews very heavily. Metal Storm, I remember that one, there was lot of that 'model' art in the issue. I remember the power blade cover for some reason even though I never gave a crap about that game. Battletoads, definitely. And so on, and so forth. 

...omg, I just googled Nintendo Power and the first link that came up said "for 24 years our magazine has..." and I was like, holy shit. 24 years. I remember almost all of that. First issue was July/August 1988. So, if I started with Maniac Mansion, I think that puts me at about January 1990. Must have been my birthday. My 9th birthday. 

So, this will definitely become a post. This picture basically says it all. I don't really care to see any of the issues past 50 to tell you the truth. 1-50 pretty much covers it. 51-100 is probably pretty good too, but 1-50 gets the job done. Anyhow, I think it's interesting. When I got older, people gave me shit for Nintendo Power being "pretty much an advertisement for Nintendo." And yeah, sure, fine, whatever. The thing is: Nintendo had awesome products. They were a rad company. Nintendo Power was a great magazine. 

And I think it got me thinking critically about games for the first time. Maybe not so much about the Gaming Industry, which was a veritable Utopia for Nintendo fans from 1988-199X. But games themselves. Seeing level maps, and reading guides gave me a critical eye. It helped to teach me what to watch for. Also, it was like a form of readers digest, after a fashion. I had the source on games that were coming out, if they looked interesting, I could rent them. 

-----

The email ends here. Well, just after I talk about how this email would be a good post, but how I have to do laundry, so I'll post it later. But, then I decided "Some things are more important than laundry!" Well, that's not true. Nothing is more important that laundry. That's not true either, I just decided that I really don't want to go to the laundromat today, and I can still hold out and do it tomorrow or the next day. So, without further ado, back to the topic at hand:

-----

I love Nintendo Power. It was the first magazine I ever got. Well, we also had a subscription to MAD magazine that I used read, but it was for everyone. Nintendo Power was for *me*. I would get the mail every fucking day, for a least a week before the arrival date, just in case it had come early. I'd read it cover to cover, and then be insatiable for a weekend game rental or for the next issue to come out in 28 days. I hung up the posters, lined up the mags on a bookshelf.

I also wrote to the editors at Nintendo Power. I wrote dozens of letters. Most often telling them about my ideas for video games. It got to a point when they started sending me applications to Digi Pen Applied Computer Graphics School, which opened up when I was a teenager. Expensive Private School. In fact, I remember, at one point, they didn't even bother writing a letter, but would just send me the application packet. Like "shut up, you annoying kid, go design video games!"

And that is something that I'm going to ressurect here, my different, cocamamie ideas for video games. By studying video game design at home, by reading Nintendo Power and playing video games, I came up with bunches of ideas about how games could be. And I used to just send these, willy-nilly to the Nintendo Power Counselors (I think they called them counselors, go fig). Anyhow, I think I will post some of these ideas to the blog, A sort of "Message in a Bottle" to the internet, so that maybe someone out there with the resources and time will make a game similar to my little brainchildren. Sort of like a dandylion I am blowing out into cyberspace. 

I really liked that part in the article Jack links to about "being too old for games" -where the writer says: "They're just making the games I asked them to make ten years ago!" Or something like that. That really resonated with me, because I was asking the industry to make games. I had many ideas, general and specific that I wanted to see. And, in truth, a lot of it has come true, which is a truly wonderful thing! 

I am seeing much more customization and much more non-linearity. True, there's also plenty of junk still, but I'll trade it out for VVVVVV, Braid, Minecraft, Portal and all the others. And there's still so much I don't know, because I have given up competing for the latest, greatest games. If the game is that good, I'll find out about it eventually, and maybe even have a chance to play it. 

But Is It Really Cheating?

Dr. Potts brought up a nice point, his first in fact, about LIMBO in his post on Tuesday.  His first sentence was, "I cheated twice."

In our current world of near internet connectivity through laptops, netbooks, game consoles, e-readers, smartphones and desktops, the way that we seek and take in information has changed dramatically, especially since I started playing video games in the mid 1980s.  The way this affects gaming and how we game is what I wanted to talk about.

I can remember,  not the exact year, sitting outside on a set of bleachers waiting for my swimming lesson to start (so let's say somewhere around 1988-89) talking with one of my friends about how to beat The Legend of Zelda.  I was at the battle with Ganon and didn't have an idea as to how to slay the Prince of Darkness.  I obviously knew enough about the game's mechanics to know how the game worked to know what I was doing for the most part.  This friend told me that he had heard and possibly implemented as well, the tactic of using the meat/bait that worked for lesser enemies and that it would draw Ganon out and then you could kill him with the Silver Arrow.  My tactic of firing frantically with the Silver Arrow wasn't working too well and Nintendo Power only gave so much information, but not how to defeat the final boss.  Talking with friends about being stuck in areas in video games was the earliest form of Gamefaqs.  I do not consider this cheating.

Enter Game Genie.  Yes, the desire to cheat in games was very great, especially with a device whose sole purpose was to subvert the pre-existing game program to allow special allowances such as allowing Mario to perform multiple jumps in mid air, make Mega Man's special weapon meter never go down or even giving General Leo's "Shock" attack to Terra in Final Fantasy III/VI.  For me, I would never (okay, maybe not "never" but very rarely) use Game Genie on a game that I hadn't beaten...... Okay, with the exception of Mega Man II, although that was to see what bosses and weapons were like and I never beat a game with Game Genie.  Either way, I've never been a fan of cheating.

If I remember correctly, in Goldeneye 007, whenever you enabled a "Cheat," it would not progress the game beyond the level you were currently playing.  Even if was something inane as "Paintball Mode" you could not progress the story line.  I thought this was a brilliant idea in a few ways.  First, you had to "earn" the cheat and not just punch in a certain code or button combination.  You could almost say that this was a form of functional achievements as I know Dr. Potts and I would frequently ask if we'd gotten a specific cheat yet.  (Dr. Potts is also the only person I've known who was able to earn the Invincibility cheat by beating "Facility" in 2:05 on 00 Agent).  Speaking of which, I watched a similar video that Nintendo put out  way back when, showing how to go through the level to get the cheat.  To this day, it's still the only cheat I don't have in that game.

So with that, what do I consider "cheating?"

1.  Looking up or seeking information about how to beat/pass a particular area/puzzle/boss/enemy in a game without having tried it before.

2.  Using codes, exploiting bugs/glitches or otherwise manipulating the game that was not intended during regular gameplay.

     -Examples: 150 item cheat in Pokemon Red/Blue; The Konami Code; Typing "Red Alert" or "On Screen" (among others) in Warcraft II.

3.  Completing a level for someone.

     -While I won't beat a level for someone if they ask me to, I do have a "policy" of sorts that I will show them how to beat a level, but then make them do it themselves.  I don't see this being any different than someone looking up a video on youtube.
4.  Using maps for areas or dungeons that you have not previously tried to explore on your own.

With that, I do not consider Dr. Potts to have cheated on LIMBO.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Little Gage Says "No Fair!"

Baptized in 8 Bit Music

At this moment, I'm listening to "Scene V: ~Prelude~ FFI - Main Theme / Kao's Shrine / Chaos' Temple" from Symphonic Suite: Final Fantasy, which you could say inspired me to write this.

My love of video game music came about sometime in 1991 while playing Final Fantasy on the NES.  I just came to the part where the King of Coneria builds a bridge to the adjacent continent and your characters cross.  That's when the screen flashes and you're greeted with a text-story moment and this music.  I must've sat there and listened to it until either the screen force-ably changed or I pressed "A" and progressed the game myself.  

I'd played quite a few games whose music I really liked by that point (Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Castlevania, Mega Man II), but something about the "Theme" music from Final Fantasy did something for me that the music from video games had never done before.  Maybe it was that I recognized it as something that just wasn't being played in the background, but something that I could sit and listen to for hours on end.

The problem though at the time was that video game soundtracks were practically unheard of in the United States, or as far as I knew at the time, didn't exist at all.  The internet wasn't readily available, especially so on the Apple IIe computer that our family was using, and modems were things that regular households just didn't have; so finding import CD's was pretty much out of the question.  (I don't even think the Apple IIe was modem compatible, although I did convince my older sister that I'd hacked into the DMV and changed test answers on the drivers test).  Once I started going to Star Trek conventions (1992 or 93 I think), I began seeing anime soundtracks from Japan, albeit for anywhere between $25 - $70 a piece, which for a new teenager, was very much out of the question.  So at least I knew that music from Japanese products were out there.

When Final Fantasy II came out on the SNES (or more likely after I bought it), and there was the revamped "Final Fantasy Theme," and I knew what I had to do.  I took my sister's duel cassette tape deck (which had better recording capabilities than mine), propped it up on the two doors of our family's entertainment center and hit "Record" every time a new song came up.  I let the songs play through  2-3 times, depending on the length of the song.  I then did the same thing for The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.  I now had playable video game soundtracks, still unaware that legit soundtracks had already been released in Japan since 1986.  

In 1995, I bought Final Fantasy III for the SNES and it came with a brochure for various items you could buy from Squaresoft.  There was a Mog keychain, an FFIII shirt and the soundtracks to Final Fantasy III (Titled "Kefka's Domain") and The Secret of Mana.  My parents said that for my 9th grade graduation (Woodland still had Jr. High schools so moving to the actual "High School" seemed like a big deal) asked what I wanted.  Looking at this brochure, I knew that I really liked the music from both games, but Kefka's Domain came with 3 CD's.  Three whole CD's of music from a game that I loved.  I told my parent's that that was what I wanted, and bless them, without scoffing or questioning my request, that's what they bought me for my graduation present.

That's what started it all.  Soon after I bought the DK Jamz (Donkey Kong Country) CD from Nintendo Power and the Symphonic Suite: Final Fantasy CD, which had orchestrated video game music, something that I thought would never exist.  I won't list all the game soundtracks that I've acquired over the years, but recently I've been downloading "soundtracks" from NES games that never had official released soundtracks such as Jackal, Ikari Warriors, and Crystalis.  It's been a rebirth of being excited about NES music again even though I don't have the console hooked up.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Que the Orchestra

Okay then, Introductions:

Four switches, I wonder what they do?

Hi, I'm David.  I've got nicknames too, like Dave.  And Doctor Potts and Potts Ivy.  And DAMP, I guess (stands for Dave-a-ma-Potts).  And everyone in my family got "Pots and Pans" at some point or another.  I'd like to requisition a drawing of me decked out in armor made entirely of pots and pans.  Anyone?

The earliest games I can remember playing were on the Atari 2600, with wood paneling.  That wood paneling was such an absurd aesthetic choice that it has stayed with me forever.  Atari gets a thumbs up for being so silly and memorable.  The 2600 also had some fun switches, one was a reset button which would bounce back into place when you moved it, and one was an on/off switch that would stay in place, I think.  Here's a picture!  (Doncha just love the internet?).  Sometimes I would get distracted by playing with the buttons when the games wouldn't work- they often had trouble working.

Check out Ian Bogost for some modern Atari programs and video game theory stuff.

I was, like Jack, active during the Nintendo/Sega console wars.  I learned to appreciate and also despise advertising campaigns during that time.  I distinctly remember Sega using a lot of aggressive and negative attitudes in their commercials, as well as made-up industry terms (blast processing anyone?).  I consoled myself by saying that they were just jealous that the SNES had much better games and was, overall, the superior console.  I was probably a bit biased- an avid reader of Nintendo Power- but hey, I was making this up on my own.  And I learned a little humility over the following years, as I watched my sad Sega friends lose their favorite hardware maker.  I will definitely want to write more about the console wars.

I've also been a big fan of RPGs.  In fact, the first non-Nintendo console I bought was a Sony Playstation, just to play Final Fantasy VII.  I agonized about this decision.  I had been following the hype leading up the FFVII, the disappointing news that it would never be released for the Nintendo 64, and, as a matter of fact, Square was breaking their Nintendo-exclusive relationship that had done a lot to make the Super Nintendo such a fantastic system.  But yes, I bought a Playstation and Final Fantasy VII (with Bushido Blade Demo) and shortly thereafter got it modded so I could play burned games.  Oh, technology, changing the way we make our consumer choices.

This is what it has come to:  Sonic on the cover of Nintendo Power

A couple of years ago, I bought a Nintendo DS, again, to mod the thing, and play emulated NES and SNES games.  That's the last name-brand gaming hardware I bought.  I have dropped out of the console world, and now play almost exclusively on the PC.  I think it was the expense that drove me away from consoles.  And also, roommates.  I always had a roommate or good friend with all the latest hardware, so I would get my fix there.  I weaned myself away from all the latest stuff, and now I find myself with no TV, but a decent enough PC.   And not nearly as much time as I had way back when.  The world of Steam, and $0-$10 Indie games is my gaming world now.  I like it.  I've played some great games:  Super Meat Boy, Bit.Trip.Runner, Braid, Cave Story, Everyday Shooter and more.  Sometimes I miss the fancy AAA titles, but not most times.  Mostly I miss the time, all that time that I had to play 40 hour RPGs, all those weekends burnt.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to make breakfast.

#Console Wars, #Atari, #Introduction