The Noises Emanating from Mega Man

I've been playing a bit of Mega Man at this point, mostly due to the fact that over the last year+, Capcom has been releasing each of the Mega Man titles of the NES era (I - VI) and I've been gobbling them up as fast as they are being released.  I do not mean that I have been completing the games mind you, just collecting them in my seemingly growing list of games that I have yet to get to.

I did play a bit of the NES Mega Man (Men?) titles around the time of their original release, but I was never able to beat any of them because of perpetually losing those little slips of paper that contained hours worth of priceless passwords.  Coupled with the fact that I never owned a Mega Man game until I bought Mega Man X from the video store I used to work at before they closed, meant that I had made and subsequently lost a lot of little slips of paper.

So Mega Man, or specifically the sounds that emanate from the game.  Both the sounds that Mega Man himself makes as well as the sounds in the world around him.  I will not cover the music however as that would require additional posts although there is a good chance that they were created by on-in-the-same person.  And, as it turns out the music and sound effects were in fact created by Manami Matsumae.

What I find so fascinating about the sound editing or I guess the foley artist for these games, is how well each individual sound effect works not only in this futuristic world, but how these authenticity of the sound effects are not questioned.  I have never gone through a play session in any of the Mega Man games and thought, "I don't think that's what an ball of propelled energy would sound like when it hits a robot made of who-knows-what-type of alloy.  I simply accept it as fact that that is what an energy blast would sound like when it comes into contact with a metallic robot.

I have fired a couple of firearms in the past, specifically 12 and 20 gauge shotguns and two different types (??) of .22 caliber rifles.  That is it.  I know what those are supposed to sound like both with and without ear plugs.  10 feet and a mile away, I know what a shotgun blast sound like.  If I hear that sound, I know what is making it and I do not question its authenticity.  The same way that when I hear that characteristic "brrzzzp" sound, I know that I am hearing an energy blast from Mega Man's arm cannon hitting its target (most of the time anyway).

Even the other sound effects, such as the sound Mega Man makes when he jumps, that obvious "brdrp" sound whenever he lands.  Without that little sound, the game might run the risk of sounding empty, incomplete.

Finally, the last sound effect that I want to touch on is the "explosion" when you die (enemy fire, pit, spikes).  It's that "Dgewdgewdgewdgew" sound.  No grandiose sounds explosion of flesh, oil, electricity/nuclear fusion (or whatever it is that powers Mega Man) and metal as they shockwave out to the edges of the screen. The sound, like the artistic style of the series, is a very cartoony one, but it is the sound we have come to expect from such a demise.  Even in the SNES era of Mega Man games, the sound is the same albeit updated with a 16 bit sound processor.

Why then this disconnect between the cartoony explosion of Mega Man dying and the "Yeah, I think it would sound like that" when an energy blast hits an enemy?  Maybe it is that we subconsciously are glad about the destruction of the enemy robot horde, but would rather not have our own demise mimic reality.

In the end though, "it's all fun and games until the domesticated robots created to help humanity, turn against us.  Then we'll wait for our blue robotic hero to arise."  That's a real saying, isn't it?

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

He Hears The Silence So Loud

"Yeah, I Just Beat Mega Man!"

Like the title says, today I'm going to be talking about Mega Man.  Capcom's 1987 Nintendo Entertainment System release.  Nearly everything about the "history" of the game you can find over on Wikipedia so I'm not even going to attempt to talk about it on that front.  Like the majority of our posts here, I will talk about my experiences with this little bit from a 26 year old video game.  And now,

There's a song by Totally Radd!! called "Victory Pose."  I read it somewhere that the group (person?) said that it was a song that captured the feeling of legitimately beating the first Mega Man, dropping the controller and standing up with your arms raised to the sound of imagined applause.  I must have read that somewhere on Amazon.com, which is where I first heard a snip-it of the song, so here it is in full:

So yes, I did in fact just beat Mega Man on a port that I purchased from Nintendo's eShop and played on my 3DS.  Some may scoff at not having beaten the game on the original console, but let me reassure any and all nay-sayers, that the game is in fact a "direct" port.  All known glitches and ticks with the original cartridge will play havoc with you on the 3DS port as well.  I should probably also elaborate when I say "3DS port" in that it's not a 3D rendering of the original Mega Man and it's not part of Nintendo's 3D Classics line that includes Excitebike, Kid Icarus and Kirby's Dreamland among others.  It's just an eShop game that I played (and BEAT!) on my 3DS.

And now that that's out of the way, let me just say, that this game is pretty goddamn difficult.  I wrote a post last year that included Mega Man as a game that I would probably never complete due to losing those countless slips of paper containing hastily scribbled down passwords.  It almost makes me want to purchase Ninja Gaiden from the eShop and give that game another go.

But back to Mega Man.  Guts Man stage was a pain in the ass.  Those moving/flipping platforms, y'all know what I'm talkin' about.  The disappearing platforms in Ice Man stage.  Pretty much every stage in Dr. Wily's villainous compound.  The game was just brutal.  I don't know how long I spent just in Dr. Wily's Devilish Compound of Villainy, but I spent a total of seven hours, three minutes on this game.  Compare it to someone who knows what they're doing and the game can be completed in just under half-an-hour.  It really took one of my coworkers saying that he would ask me everyday [starting last Friday (6/14/13)] if I'd beaten Mega Man yet to get me off my lazy ass.  Last night, I hunkered down and completed it.  

Like I previously stated, the four stages in Dr. Wily's Hellhole of Excruciating Evil are what helped to rack in the extra hours of gameplay.  Yes, I will admit that I watched a couple of youtube videos for ideas/hints/tactics on how to get through areas and defeat bosses, but I feel that that's only the lowest form of "cheating," if you were the type of person that would consider that to be cheating.  Even with online guidance, I would still have to play the game myself without any kind of modification, say, a Game Genie.  Jumps still have to be timed right, blasts of evil energy still have to be dodged and special weapons that have to be conserved, like a squirrel burying a precious bone.  

And you know what?  I did it.  I beat Mega Man.  Without Game Genie. A game designed by a then young gaming company who had only developed about eight titles for the NES.  That game was hard.  That game had some great music in it.  That game was fun.  And now, onto Mega Man 3.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Wind Guide You

Gaming Update: May 6th, 2013 Edition

I haven't been playing extensively as I would like and I think it's because I'm an adult living in an adult world. Spending hours playing multiple video games doesn't translate very well.  That being said, since the beginning of the year, I've invested roughly 28 hours playing The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, 14 hours on Mariokart 7, a couple of hours for Papers Please and 3 hours on Mega Man; not including some amount of time spent on Tetris and countless demos from Nintendo's eShop.  I guess I have been playing a bit.

But in the last week, I've been playing a lot of Mega Man on my 3DS.  It's not that I've been playing Mega Man extensively, just the first area of Dr. Wily's compound.  Now, I'm not sure how long I've been at this one particular stage, but I would guess it would have to be at least an hour.  There are currently two things holding me up with the first of x number of stages in Dr. Wily's compound.  First thing though, the first stage is pretty short, which makes having to go through it multiple times trying to beat it that much more bearable when I die, which happens frequently.

The first area that gives me trouble is this:

What makes this area difficult (for me at least), is that the flying/shooting platforms cannot be killed and do not follow a set pattern.  From what I've been able to tell, the platforms base their flying on where you are at the height of your jump.  I think.  There have been times when I've dropped and the platforms are at the right height to where I have to jump to avoid being hit, then the platforms increase in altitude and are now out of reach and are practically bumping against those nasty ceiling spikes.  Now, I know I could just use the Magnet Beam (I'll get to this in a later post) and create platforms across this spike-filled-hell-pit and make it to the other side if I don't get shot off and die, thereby using up the needed energy for the following screen where would I absolutely need it.  

The following section of this stage that vexes me is the boss.  The Yellow Devil.

*SPOILER* Using the Thunder Beam is essential here as it shortens the pain.

That bastard.  Yellow Bastard?  Very close, but less rapey.  So there's that too.

A  couple of other things that I wanted to bring up are Friday's Penny-Arcade comic and posting.  I have that same feeling very frequently and not only with Steam games, but with everything that I have saved in my Amazon shopping cart.  $15 price drop bringing a normally $40 blu-ray down to only $25?  I may have to buy it now. . . after I check my financials.  Which is why I try my damnedest to not visit Amazon or Steam's Store front on a regular basis.

The second bit is from Kotaku, where columnist Chris Person breaks down a Katie Couric exposé about the harmful effects of video games.  I thought about writing my own thoughts about the media's reaction to video games that are violent and how Couric's episode of whatever show she's doing spins the tragic events that occurred by highlighting video games as the cause as opposed to one of many elements that lead up to the tragic events.  After reading the Kotaku article, I knew that Mr. Person was able to state what I would end up rehashing and full of a lot more biased emotion.

So this covers the tail end of last week and the start of this week.  I really need to get off my ass (which is hard when you need to play games in order to review them) and finish some of my half-started reviews that are starting to gather dust; which is funny because most of those games came out more than a decade ago, so the dust is quite thick in some areas.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Over the Fence

[Credit for the Mega Man screen grabs goes to wtcvidman and his walkthrough of Dr. Wily Stage 1.  Also, I've only used the video for screen grabs as opposed to it's purpose as a walkthough.  And super kudos to wtcvidman for not talking through the walkthrough, which I get irritated with when people talk over walkthroughs, but that's a personal issue.  I'll talk about that later.]

Year in Review: Game Soundtracks

When thinking over the last year, since we started this blog, there's a few video game soundtracks this year that have gotten, and sometimes held, my attention.  Some are new, some are old, here are the video game soundtracks I've been listening to:

PPPPPP  (VVVVVV)
Souleye

VVVVVV soundtrack is fantastic.  The music really plays well into this game, helping to enhance the sensation of different atmospheric regions in a game that is very minimal, graphically. Case in point being the first time you leave the ship and go into the more open regions. The song for that region is sort of big and adventure-y. I got a feeling of invitation to explore, like in a zelda or metroid game.

I enjoyed PPPPPP so much that it spent a couple months of regular play on my  mp3 player.  Thank you to the Humble Bundles for including soundtracks as a regular feature of purchase.  What a great business model!

I've checked out some of SoulEye's other work, and unfortunately I haven't enjoyed it as much as PPPPPP.  This may be due to the sounds not having that 'lo-fi' edge, or it may be that the songs don't have an association with a game-environment, which has made the songs of PPPPPP more personal.

Bastion Original Sountrack

Darren Korb


the Bastion soundtrack is a really cool atmospheric blend of acoustic guitar and electronic music. I recommend this one, and I've listened to it a number of times.  The atmospheric blend of acoustic and electronic music works really well when I've got my mp3 player on random.  I feel like the moody grooves of the Bastion soundtrack will have a wide-reaching and long-lasting appeal.

I didn't play much of Bastion because it doesn't run that well on my computer - lots of slowdown.

Proteus Worms Present:  Nodeland Dreams and Memories (Proteus)
David Kanaga

Proteus soundtrack is very involved with the gameplay.  I don't think of it as something I'd want to put on my mp3 player to listen to at work - except, that might actually work.  Ideally, I would want recordings of someone actually playing the game, rather than some sort of generic soundtrack-thing or remix, a-la bit.trip.runner.  I believe Jaconion will be bringing more on that game's soundtrack to you.

This album is just one, ten-minute track, and was free to download with the game purchase at humblebundle.com - I've only just downloaded it, so I can't review it as a stand-alone item until I've given it a few listens.  I enjoy gushing about all things Proteus, so I'll be sure to give due attention to this soundtrack.

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A couple classic soundtracks that have been bouncing around in my mp3 player:

Mega Man I
Manami Matsumae & Yoshihiro Sakaguchi
Mega Man II
Takashi Tateishi, Manami Matsuma & Yoshihiro Sakaguchi
Mega Man III
Yasuaki Fujita

These sountracks are, like the games themselves, classic action game soundtracks.  Mega Man II gets lots of love, and it is well deserved.  Megaman III is nearly as good, but seems to have learned everything it knows from II.  I also has some catchy tunes, particularly Iceman, imo, and is interesting because the mold had not been settled yet on what Mega Man was to be.  (It even had a score)

Many thanks to my esteemed colleague, Jaconian, for turning me on to these and many other 8-bit soundtracks.  Without his hard work and research and others like him, I would have no idea how available video game music can be.  

Secret of Mana
Hiroki Kikuta

I really love the secret of Mana sountrack.  This one returns to rotation again and again.  I can just look at the cover art and listen to the soundtrack and I am brought to a happy place.  What I wouldn't give for an online remake of this game.

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Honorable Mention:  I downloaded the Super Brothers - Sword and Sworcery EP - soundtrack, by Jim Guthrie,  but I haven't actually listened to it.  Just one of those things I haven't gotten around to doing.  This doesn't bode well for the soundtrack - which initially made a good impression on me.  If I do end up listening to, and enjoying these songs, I'll be sure to post about it here.

NES Games I Will Probably Never Complete

All of the games that I will be listing are from my memory.  These are games on the NES that I was never able to beat for one reason or another.  I'd like to think it was because they were crazy difficult and not because of my failure as a gamer.  Are these games passable?  Of course they are, otherwise there would've been a patch...... except not, because back in teh 1980s, 1990s and early 2000's, the final release of a console game was it's "final" release.  No patches.  No DLC.  No way to correct anything that might've gone wrong in the game testing phase.

In short, these games were pretty fucking hard.

Not that you can tell, but this is the second incantation of this list.  The first list I wrote up was made up of games that wouldn't surprise anyone that I hadn't beaten.  Games like "any" Ninja Gaiden on the NES, Blaster Master, Battletoads, Silver Surfer, Ghosts 'n Goblins, and Back to the Future.  Then I figured I would make a list of maybe not quite so well known games that were a bloody pain in the ass.  So here's that list:

Mega Man (1987)

Now that I think about it, I don't know if I've ever beaten any of the mega man games....on the NES that is. In Mega Man I, I could never get through the Guts Man stage.  Now that I think about it, I don't think I was ever able to beat Mega Man II...... or maybe any in the series.  No wait, I'm pretty sure I did beat Mega Man X.  I blame it all on constantly losing (or having my Mom/Dad) throw away those small pieces of paper that had the passwords written down on them.  That was always the problem with password games, keeping track of random pieces of paper, knowing which game they went to and where in the game they were to take you.

Back to the Future (1989)

I played this game for the first time at PAX Prime 2010 and promptly got my ass handed to me.  This game came out when I was 9, and even at the age of 30, there was no luck for me getting passed the Lou's Cafe sequence.

A Boy and His Blob: Trouble in Blobalonia  (1989)

Granted, I didn't know what the hell I was doing when I was first playing this game, I didn't know what to do and what the point of the game was.  The week that I played the game, I immediately went to Blobalonia.  Yup, I didn't know that I was supposed to actually explore the real world in order to collect jellybeans.  I guess I could probably go back (if I could find the game) and actually try to beat the game.

Captain Skyhawk

I briefly went over this already in the previous post.  What the video that I previously posted didn't show you , was that you can change your altitude to help you dodge enemy fire.  The other hard part was docking with the space station, or at least it was really hard for me.  These kinds of "fit the thing into the rotating slot" things, I find that I have a hard time with.  The other nice thing with this game was that it was a one-hit-kill.  No life meter.  Well, just a life meter of one I guess.  And you have four lives.  I now know that I've gotten to the third level.  I don't think that I'd gotten to the end of the third level.

By now nearly everyone knows that games back in the early days of console gaming were required to be difficult because the memory capacity of the game cartridges was fairly limited.  Maybe I didn't have the attention span to sit and complete an entire game (I was able to get to Room 97 or 98 in Gauntlet over the course of an entire summer with my Mom so we'll rule the ADHD theory out), or maybe I didn't have ample amounts  of coordination, but whatever the reason was, these games were really difficult (to say the least) and I have no shame in my admitting this.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

The Sounds of Failure