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

First Impressions: Me vs Mirror's Edge

I got this game in some Humble Bundle or another

I tried playing Mirror's Edge last night.  It's not good.  Sorry.  I want to like this game.  I really like the concept:  first person running, leaping, climbing!  It looks really cool when the computer is controlling the action.  But it's tough, and I don't think it's tough for the right reasons.  It's tough to do much of anything.

The first level is a training level.  Well, thats' good, because this game is tough, and the controls aren't terribly intuitive. They even acknowledge in-game that is a training course. But the training level, itself, is really tough.  Also, for some reason the training course is at the top of a series of tall buildings, rather than in a sand-pit obstacle course somewhere. Every time I fuck up, I get to watch myself fall thirty flights of stairs.  Doesn't do much for my immersion into whatever world they're trying to create for me.  Or sometimes, if I stray off course, I am forcibly teleported back to my starting position, where I get to watch the computer example again.  This is annoying and happens a lot, because as I mentioned, the controls aren't really very intuitive.

I tried using a joypad and I tried using the keyboard an mouse.  The keyboard and mouse was slightly easier.  Mostly, I think, because the ability to customize the controls on the joypad is severely limited.  I just want to use the control pad and not the control stick.  Can I?  please?  And, maybe, just maybe I want to use the shoulder buttons for doing quick turns.  No?  Boy this game is tough, and not in a good way.

I got sick of the training level, and moved right on to the first actual stage.  I managed to muddle my way through it, though not without annoying my in-game companion, who started berating me sarcastically for not moving fast enough.  I guess this delightfully one-sided banter is supposed to increase immersion, but instead it just makes the experience suck more.  And I can tell I'm muddling by the sheer number of times I fall thirty feet to my doom, and then bounce right back.  A big part of why this isn't fun is that it seems clear that the point of the game is to perform sequences of moves, not just to spam the high jump over and over until it stops working, and then spam the duck button, or whatever.

And here is where I want to draw a comparison to a great game.  Also a first person game that is not a shooter, not exactly:  Portal.  Portal is a fantastic game.  And, wouldn't you know it, it does a great job teaching the player how to play.  The first ten stages or so are baby steps to how to use the portals and switches and general solve small puzzles.  Then, after getting your sea legs, as it were, the game throws some very complicated puzzles using every technique you've learned up to that point.  It works marvelously.

All I've gotten from Mirrors Edge is that I can go back to the training stage again, and practice each move, one by one, in sequence.  I can't just jump to that one move that's giving me trouble, I've got to work my way to it.  And when I pass that sequence (by sheer luck) I'm on to the next move, even though I really don't have the previous method down.  I going to keep muddling through the levels for a bit longer to see if I can get the hang of it.  

Bottom line:  The makers of Mirrors Edge should have played through Portal and taken notes.  Then maybe I would enjoy playing the game, which has an interesting concept at its core.  

-D