Q1 2007 8 Table of The Punch Line Contents

4 On the Grand Master’s Stage 34 Visits the Line   Strider – ARC An Illustrated Campout for the Wii 6 Goading ‘n Gouging  42 Christmas Morning at the Ghouls ‘n Goblins series Leukemia Ward  Game Show 2006 12 That Spiky-Haired Lawyer is All Talk  : – NDS 50 A Retrospective Survival Guide to  14  and the Lost Art of With Extra-Special Blue Dragon Game Design  Preview - PS1; P.N. 03, - NGC; God Hand - PS2 54 You’ve Won a Prize! Deplayability 18 Secrets and Save Points  Secret of – SNES 56 Knee-Deep in Legend Doom – PC 22 Giving Up the Ghost  Metroid II: Return of Samus – NGB 58 Killing Dad and Getting it Right Shadow Hearts – PS2 25 I Came Wearing a Full Suit of Armour But I Left Wearing 60 The Sound of Horns and Motors Only My Pants Fallout series Comic 64 The Punch Line 26 Militia II is  Rule of Rose - PS2 Militia II – AVI 68 Untold Tales of the Arcade 30 Mega Microcosms Killing Dragons Has Never  Warioware series Been So Much Fun! 76 Why Game?  Reason #7: Why Not!?

Table Of Contents 1 From the Editor’s Desk Staff

Keep On Keeping On As a trusted friend said to me, “As long By Matthew Williamson as you keep writing and creating, that’s Editor In Chief: Staff Artists: Matthew “ShaperMC” Williamson Mariel “Kinuko” Cartwright all I care about.” And that’s what I’ll do, [email protected] [email protected] It’s been a little while since our last and what I’ll help others to do as well. Associate Editor: Jonathan “Persona-Sama” Kim issue came out; I hope you enjoyed the But don’t worry about The Gamer’s Ancil “dessgeega” Anthropy [email protected] anticipation. Time is something strange, Quarter; we have big plans. We will be [email protected] Benjamin “Lestrade” Rivers though. Has it really been over two shifting from a strict quarterly sched- Assistant Editor: [email protected] years now? It goes so fast. ule to something more free-form, still M. “dhex” O’Connor Contributing Artists: [email protected] In the past twenty nine months, I aiming to publish four issues a year. Troy Boyle have attempted many things with this We are working to develop our website, Managing Editor: Matthew Collier magazine and have always aimed at and soon we hope to see some of our “Super” Wes Ehrlichman Chris Harback giving the reader the highest quality earlier articles finally in print. [email protected] James Harvey Missus Raroo product. In doing this, I sacrificed much The magazine has been a gigantic Copy Chief: of my free time—time with my wife, undertaking, and there have been many Tony “Tablesaw” Delgado Cover Art: [email protected] Benjamin “Lestrade” Rivers time with my pets, time with my family, people at my side for these past years [email protected] and even time with my games. I don’t who I would like to thank. Not just the regret a second of it. All the fights, all spectacular writers and editors, but Editorial Staff: the sleepless nights (and mornings), their family and friends who I know Heather “Faithless” Campbell Contributing Writers: [email protected] Justin Boley even all the microwaved coffee. have been put to the side once or twice Jonathan Kim But it’s almost time to move on. The for the sake of TGQ. Your sacrifice J. R. “Mr. Mechanical” Freeman [email protected] Brendan Lee magazine will continue, but I personally means more to me and this magazine Rudie Overton am at a point in my life where I have than you may ever know. Amandeep “ajutla” Jutla Mister Raroo [email protected] less and less time to dedicate to it. And I would also like to thank the readers. Steven Schkolne  Jonathan Simpson soon, I’m going to be making a large Many of you, from all over the world, Tim “Swimmy” McGowan [email protected] change in my life: I’m going back to have been with us since our first issue. school. The support you have shown, in your Jeremy “ApM” Penner Art Director: [email protected] Unfortunately, the criticism of games mail and on our forums, is outstanding. Benjamin “Lestrade” Rivers hasn’t really progressed much since It means a lot, not only to me but to Sergei “Seryogin” Servianov Page Layout & Design: issue one, even though the ranks of the rest of the Gamer’s Quarter team. [email protected] Ancil “dessgeega” Anthropy Matthew “ShaperMC” Williamson those critical of games have grown. Without you we wouldn’t be where we Andrew “Mister” Toups So, I’ll be studying Film and English in- are now. [email protected] Website Design & Layout: “Super” Wes Ehrlichman stead. Hopefully, in time, I can return to Keep reading, and we’ll keep writing Francesco-Alessio “Randorama” Ursini the game scene more fully and help ex- and creating. [email protected]   pand the perception of games further. All content © The Gamer’s Quarter 2007. All images and characters are retained by original company holding.

 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Staff  that robot glider wings its way back into the night, Hiryu confronts a doped-up Russian strongman, battles a swarm of mosquito-like robots on the roof of the capital, dodges reflecting lasers in a tiny onion dome, and fights an enormous hammer-and-sickle-wield- On the Grand ing centipede. In later stages he’ll leap between helicopters, dodge bombs from above, battle the mechanical heart Master’s Stage of an airship in zero gravity, and ride dinosaurs along the floor of an Amazo- Strider—ARC (C64, NES, SMS, falters and is consumed by fear. A Cold nian . GEN, T16, PS1) War tone pervades, reminding us that The discourse of game design bor- By Ancil Anthropy this is a 1989 game set in Russia. When rows yet another term from the theater Art By Chris Harback Strider Hiryu, in stage 2, climbs out of to describe these exquisitely choreo- a booby-trapped warehouse into the graphed dramatic moments: set pieces. ’s Strider opens with a figure bright light of a Siberian mountainside, Strider has many such moments and sailing on a robotic hang-glider through a victorious fanfare rings but is almost strings them together so seamlessly a night lit by searchlights. A lattice of immediately swallowed by doubt as that they do not feel staged at all. At city lights twinkles in the distance; in a mechanized bounty hunter swoops one point, Hiryu fights a robotic gorilla, the foreground , gold, onion-domed down from the sky. which explodes when defeated, setting towers loom, their narrow windows The stages contain just as much fire to the floor, forcing Hiryu to climb glowing red. “Kazakhstan CCP,” reads detail. The first stage, Kazakhstan—a up a vent in the ceiling leading to a a stylized Cyrillic subtitle, “2048.” The once-proud Soviet republic that has mountaintop, where the mechanized figure dismounts onto a rooftop, and since become little more than the seat bounty hunter Solo waits. At his death, the glider continues into the night from which Grand Master Meio rules his Solo detonates a series of explosives alone. empire—contains the recurring image on the mountainside, forcing Hiryu to Strider is theater. of a red star missing one of its points. sprint down the slope and leap to the A great deal of detail and care They are emblazoned on the Roman- next peak, where he finds a towering has been paid to every element of columned State buildings that Hiryu electrical grid to explore. the game. The characters—a weary passes in his battles with green-uni- The fires, the ambushes, the explo- Russian minister, a troupe of triplet formed Russian soldiers who, through sions are the translucent hand of the acrobats, a battleship captain who the course of the stage, are increasingly developers directing you--who, indeed, dresses in near pirate regalia (as if to replaced by mechanical automatons. At are merely playing out a part--to the add romance to his role as little more the stage’s end, Hiryu confronts the Po- next scene in the script. It is a perfor- than a lapdog for an invader from the litburo that has failed its people, retain- mance. And each time you play the stars)—have detail etched into their ing power only as a dead husk in the game, you better learn your part. In the sprites. In the between-stage dialogue, pocket of an extraterrestrial conqueror. theater of the game, it is the audience each speaks his or her own language— Its apparatchiks attack Hiryu with a who has the lead role. Russian, Japanese, English. Their weary resignation. Strider is a beautiful play. It is rife threats of “The Master’s” strength carry These things give the game a sense with tension, passion, danger and dra- an almost pleading tone, one which of depth and a feeling of history—but ma. And it is all the more real because it hints at experience. “You can’t go up they’re incidental, a painted backdrop. does not take place in a cutscene mov- against The Master. He’s too strong. He A play requires a player, and the drama ie, a paragraph of scripted dialogue, or controls everything.” is what unfolds upon the stages. The any element lifted from a non-partica- The music is also strong, setting a narrative, as opposed to the story, is patory medium. The drama that occurs mood both proud and wary; it is by that which the player herself enacts. on Strider’s stages has the player at the turns heroic and brash, dark and brood- Those stages bristle with life. After heart of it. ing. There is a chiming futurism which

 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 On the Grand Master’s Stage  wearing a suit of armor; if he gets hit to wait to play the game. When I finally once, the armor shatters and disap- did, I hated it. pears, and suddenly he’s running If I had to pinpoint what I thought around in his boxers again. But there’s was wrong with it then, I’d say it was nothing funny about the boxer-clad that Super Ghouls ’n Ghosts introduced Arthur taking a blind leap into an enemy a double-jump. Even though many or a bottomless pit and accidentally dy- platform games have double-jumping, ing. That shit is just frustrating; though I and the mechanic feels pretty ridiculous suppose the oddness of the juxtaposi- in most of them, it reaches a kind of Goading ‘n Gouging tion was compelling enough to keep me zenith of unforeseen absurdity with this playing, even though the game brutally game. The double-jump allows Arthur crushed me time and time again. to adjust himself, or correct himself in Ghosts ’n Goblins, Ghouls ’n Ghosts, have difficulty playing these games. This is because, while Ghosts midair, using a strange animation that Super Ghouls ’n Ghosts, Ultimate They get frustrated. They curse and ’n Goblins is painful, maybe even features Arthur pumping his legs and Ghosts ’n Goblins—ARC, NES, GEN, throw controllers at walls. They think exquisitely so, after a while the burn pitching himself slightly more in the SNES, PSP (C64, AMI, ZXS, X68, that Ghosts ’n Goblins hates them. But begins to feel kind of good. I mean, I direction of your choice. At the time, I SWN, GBC, GBA, PS1, PS2, SAT, in this, they are dead wrong. still haven’t properly finished the NES supposed that this double-jump went AST, CPC, PC) The first Ghosts ’n Goblins game that version. There are two levels that I well with the silly juxtaposition of the By Matthew Williamson I played was the version released for cannot get past without a password. game, and slowly it grew on me. Art By Benjamin Rivers the NES—I had managed, miraculously, Hell, I can’t properly complete any of I still had other problems with the to get the last copy at Toys “R” Us. the games. “Properly” completing a game. For one, it seemed more difficult: The Ghosts ’n Goblins games do not With that near-miss behind me, I was Ghosts ’n Goblins game requires you to I couldn’t say whether it was because compromise. They are stark, bold con- prepared to relax as I turned the game not only finish the game once, but to go of the mechanics or the level design, structions, rigidly focused in intent and on for the first time. back through the entire thing again, at a but Capcom was clearly out to frustrate in design, and they don’t mess around. Ghosts ’n Goblins tells the tale of Sir higher difficulty level. again after the marginally easier second They don’t let you mess around either; Arthur. The love of his life, the princess Ghouls ’n Ghosts, the second game game in the series. To be honest, all of if you do, you will make a mistake, and Prin-Prin, was stolen from him while in the series, was one I had never been these things compounded to the point if you make a mistake, you will die. they were having a picnic, he wearing able to finish without cheating until where I never really gave Super Ghosts Perhaps because of this, the Ghosts nothing but his boxers. Arthur, like a bi- very recently. It took a huge amount of ’n Ghouls a fair shot. ’n Goblins series does not quite have zarre videogame Orpheus, must journey near-masochistic focus on my part: the I decided, for this article, to revisit the international name recognition of, into the Ghoul Realm to save her. game trained me, over and over again, it, and I borrowed the newer Game say, Shigeru Miyamoto’s Super This story is, of course, entirely ri- in how it wanted to be played. Every Boy Advance port. It’s a fairly satisfac- games: there is a difference in attitude. diculous. Mostly because of the boxers action, every motion, every twitch of the tory version of the game, although the Miyamoto is very interested in making at the picnic. I still can’t get that image controller burned itself into my muscle screen is cropped and the sound is less his games accessible—he is interested out of my mind. The overwhelming memory. When I picked it up again to crisp. The port also has an interesting to the point of making his productions silliness of that scene made me expect write this article, I was surprised at how “Arrange Mode,” which features levels increasingly cute and cuddly, holding an equally light-hearted, insubstantial intimate and familiar the game felt to from the first and second game that the player’s hand more and more. The game, and I met with quite a surprise. me—the attack patterns of the enemies you can play through using Arthur’s Ghosts ’n Goblins series, on the other Ghosts ’n Goblins is frustrating on and the jerky movements of Arthur had new double jump. Unfortunately, to see hand, conceived by Tokuro Fujiwara, multiple levels. Arthur’s movements almost become a part of me. most of these levels, you need to be has fundamentally different aims. and skills are extremely limited—jumps Super Ghouls ’n Ghosts came out very, very, very skilled at the game, so Ghosts ’n Goblins has been around are stiff and feel like commitments, three years after Ghouls ’n Ghosts, they have remained mostly out of my for over twenty years and has clearly because once you hit the button to and it was available for the Super NES, reach. achieved a tremendous level of success jump you can’t change direction in and the Super NES only—unlike the When I first started playing this Game in its own right, but its success is pri- mid-air at all. Many of the stronger en- first two games, it did not have arcade Boy Advance Super Ghouls ’n Ghosts, marily among people who already play emies require multiple hits with Arthur’s origins, nor was it ported to any other I spent over sixty lives attempting videogames and understand them, and weapon, often at ranges that are too home computer systems. At the time to complete the very first half of the who can appreciate the Ghosts ’n Gob- close to kill them in time. of Super Ghouls ’n Ghosts’ release, I introductory level. Seriously. I started lins school of discipline. Normal people Arthur runs through the Ghoul Realm did not have a Super NES, and I had out playing by myself, my wife read-

 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Goading ’n Gouging  ing in the same room, but eventually onto and off of a moving platform over we began to trade off after each set of a pit of instant death. In level 1 of the lives. Death after death ensued. I swore second, there is a point where you vulgarly, and my wife insisted that the must use your up-attack on a tree of game was just stupid. Yet I kept pick- buzzards or else the birds will kill you ing up the controller each time she’d as walk past it. And Super Ghouls ’n had three deaths, and she did like- Ghosts requires precise double jumps wise. It made me realize that, despite to reach the second half of its first everything these games have put me level. through, I still keep playing them. And I I died over sixty times in the first part still enjoy them. of Super because I hadn’t improved I keep playing the Ghosts ’n Goblins my skills enough. I was not ready to games because they give me a sense go on—I wouldn’t have been able to of mastery. Every time I finish a level, or handle the difficulty that awaited me even just a smaller subsection, I know later on. In some games, when you it’s because I have learned that level; die, it is because of something cheap I know it in and out; I am the master and arbitrary—it is the game’s fault. of it. Now, I’m not the kind of person In Ghosts ’n Goblins, when you die, it who tries to always go for a high score is because of something you couldn’t or who tries to record himself making handle—it is your fault. a super-play, and my wife isn’t that Ghosts ’n Goblins does not hate great at games that require a lot of skill. the player at all. In fact, as you play it, But we still both kept playing that first it gives you respect—it just demands loop over and over again because we some as well. No situations in Ghosts ’n wanted to master it. Even though the Goblins are insurmountable or impos- odds were all against us, even though sible: once properly trained, anyone can we kept dying, the game kept spurring overcome them. The Ghosts ’n Goblins us on. Every time you die and respawn, games are, above all, fair and just. main creative force behind the the game shows you both how far you first two games. which, despite its ridiculous name, had have made it and how far you are from After that, he took the producer’s role a very serious mission: to “create high- the end of the map. Once a section throughout the Super era, quality games based on creative sense, is over, you feel as though you have The first game in the Ghosts ’n Gob- but found time away from overseeing experience, and close calculation.” The put it behind you because of skill, not lins lineage was released in 1985 for the Mega Man-related projects to create first game to come from the new ven- because you got lucky. Mastery feels arcade. The series progressed through , , Strider, ture was Tomba!, which Fujiwara says good. the years, but seemed to stop abruptly and Resident Evil, which have all been was his “biggest challenge,” but also Tokuro Fujiwara, the Ghosts ’n with Super Ghouls ’n Ghosts, the Super enormously successful in their own his “greatest personal achievement.” Goblins mastermind, states that the Nintendo incarnation. Most considered right. Resident Evil, especially, has seen Fujiwara went on to say of Tomba! games require “experience and making this the last game in the series, but multiple sequels, reprints, rereleases, that “the character and the gameplay decisions on the fly which will inevi- in 2006, the unexpected happened: and even films. While sometimes have the ability to attract and challenge tably help players improve their skills Ultimate Ghosts ’n Goblins, the first Fujiwara was only on a producer, his 1 gamers of every age and skill level … over time.” This is exactly what every new title in fifteen years, was released influence could be felt all over them, Nothing satisfies me more than imag- game in the series requires, and also for the PSP. When Ultimate was from their control schemes to their dif- ing parents playing with their children what they encourage. The levels are announced, my curiosity was piqued: ficulty levels. as well as challenging those hardcore designed to train you, and many have what had happened in those interven- In 1996, Fujiwara left Capcom and gamers who want to experience a points that are impossible to proceed ing fifteen years? What had Tokuro created the company Whoopee Camp, whimsical world with extraordi- past without having demonstrated a Fujiwara done in the meantime? clear understanding of some important I found that, having created Ghosts game skill. In the first level of the first ’n Goblins, Fujiwara went on to cre- 1 James Howell, “Previews: Ghosts ’n Goblins PSP,” 1up.com, August 8, 2006, http://  game, you must make a precise jump ate Mega Man, and was in fact the www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3152792

 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Goading ’n Gouging  until late August of 2005, when Ultimate in older 2-D platformer series, such as Ghosts ’n Goblins was announced, that Yoshi’s Island 2, : Portrait Fujiwara returned to Capcom. of Ruin, , The Revenge of GBA, and even New Super Mario Bros., frequently fall short in level design and gameplay. Ultimate never Expectations for Ultimate Ghosts has this problem. ’n Goblins were high. After all, there In fact, the only real problem the were rumors that the game would have game has is its audience. Few retro branching paths, and that Arthur would gamers or fans of 2-D platformers now come back to life right where he consider the Playstation Portable their died. The went wild imagining console of choice, even though those some sort of Metroid-style exploration who look can find many great games, game. such as Mega Man Powered Up, Exit, It turned out that these rumors were and Extra. As it stands, partly unfounded—the game does not though, these games sell poorly and feature branching paths, it just allows are largely unknown to the people who you to jump to starting points in the would enjoy them best. Even some levels. You do respawn at the point of PSP owners who would enjoy games death—mostly, you just respawn closer like Ghouls ’n Ghosts and Mega Man to the point of death, which removes wouldn’t be able to play them anyway, some of the headache but which is because they haven’t updated their just as difficult. This is still Ghosts ’n so they can continue playing Goblins. games and .4 Ultimate’s level design, too, is This all may point to a shift in the forward-thinking, but still completely demands of the gamer. Sales of 2-D suited to the Ghosts ’n Ghouls series. In platformers are low, and many people the old and tired genre of 2-D platform- who are interested in them propagate ers, Fujiwara is a master of challenging misconceptions about their shortcom- nary gameplay. Tomba! will capture the level design, one of the few remaining ings to avoid buying a new console. hearts of everyone.”2 dinosaurs from the old school of game Maybe this is the reason that compa- tional. Deep Space made It did just that. The first time I heard design. “I think that game trends are nies like Whoopee Camp no longer Hungry Ghosts and later listed about Tomba! was from an ex-girlfriend like fashion trends. What people want exist: their markets seem to wither or Whoopee Camp in the Special Thanks who wasn’t even really a gamer, just changes with the hardware and envi- disappear because the videogame section of the credits for Extermination. someone who liked good entertain- ronment in each generation, … [but] the business shifts. However, Fujiwara was That was the last official mention ment. Years later, I introduced my then desire for playing 2D platformer games right in saying that somewhere, in what- of Whoopee Camp. In early 2002, fiancée to the game, and she instantly will still remain. Perhaps there aren’t ever form and with whatever prejudices, Whoopee Camp and Deep Space were fell in love with it. In between, the game as many game creators who can really there will always be gamers, like me, combined into , and had captured my heart as well. pull off a good 2D game anymore.”3 who appreciate a well-put-together 2D the original companies disappeared. In 2000, Tomba! 2 came out for This could well be true. Recent entries platformer. Access Games released Spy Fiction in the Playstation. A Tomba! 3 was an- 2003, and then fell silent. nounced for the PS2 in 2001, but short- Where was Fujiwara? Perhaps he ly thereafter, Whoopee Camp fell off the 2 Sony Computer Entertainment of America, “Tomba! Brings Pink Hair and Pigs to the Playsta- was sitting around at Access Games tion Game Console,” press release, archived in Internet Archive, http://web.archive.org/ face of the earth. In 1998, Fujiwara had developing a sequel, but I can’t say web/20020608160926/http://www.scea.com/news/press_example.asp?ReleaseID=9499. been appointed as executive producer for sure. Mega Man Powered Up, the at the company Deep Space, a joint re-envisioned remake of Mega Man, 3 Howell, “Previews.” venture between Whoopee Camp and lacked a credit for his name. It wasn’t Sony Computer Entertainment Interna- 4 See “In a Sea of Intellectual Property, Pirates Arise” in TGQ #3

10 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Goading ’n Gouging 11 aimless wandering, and introduces an lessly into the plot of the game, and, engaging interrogation mechanic similar secondly, have solutions that are obvi- to the courtroom system. ously correct once you them. When the game is at its best, every Unlike many adventure games, the new piece of evidence and testimony Phoenix Wright series never falters with from the prosecution forces you to the former. It’s difficult to imagine a subtly reevaluate your mental model of puzzle that would fail in that respect, That Spiky-Haired what really happened. You scrutinize when your only real verb is “talk.” every piece of witness testimony and Unfortunately, the first game is much Lawyer is All Talk evidence under a microscope, deter- better at the latter than Justice for All. mined to find the subtle flaw that will (Case 4 pretty much redeems the rest bring the case to its knees. And the of the game, but it’s difficult to talk Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney—NDS charming, and it’s never long before a “Aha!” moment when you finally track it about it without giving too much away.) By Jeremy Penner ludicrous twist turns the case upside- down is extremely satisfying. In Justice for All, the correct next move Art By Mariel Cartwright down in a way you never saw coming. When the game is at its worst, you is frequently unclear; the game relies But even with the game mechanics throw up your hands, save your game, on cryptic hints to nudge the player in The most useful verb in traditional as simple as they are, this is mislead- and start guessing, reloading when your the “right” direction, rather than solid adventure games, at least since Sierra ing. The core trick that the game uses “life bar” gets too low. When you finally evidence and logical contradiction. As a abandoned the text parser for an icon- to involve the player is this: when you find the evidence the game wanted you result, the game suffers. based system, is “use.” “Use” interacts have clear goals as to what you want to present by sheer dumb luck, you The more the game herds you in the directly with the environment: pushing to accomplish, you are penalized (with wonder how you were ever supposed direction it wants you to go (through buttons, picking locks, building con- a hit to your “life bar”) for getting the to have come up with the explanation well-designed puzzles), the more in- traptions, fetching things. question wrong. coming out of Phoenix’s mouth on your control you feel. But Phoenix Wright Phoenix Wright does not have this The design of these goals is a critical own. is striking in how skillfully it uses its verb. The only verb worth anything in component of what makes the game The game’s strength, therefore, lies minimal game mechanics to create the Phoenix Wright games is “talk.” work. The meat of the game takes in its ability to present the player with compelling gameplay. Thus, we have There are variations, of course. place inside the courtroom: the pros- puzzles that, firstly, integrate seam- no objection. Sometimes, you dramatically shout, ecution calls witnesses, and you cross- “Objection!” Sometimes, it’s “Hold it!” examine them. The introductory case When you’re really on a roll, you’ll say tells you what to do: present evidence “Take that!” Most of the time, you are that shows a flaw in the witness’s testi- showing things to people, but some- mony. (In the world of Phoenix Wright, times you’re pressing people for more your client is always innocent and the information on what they said. prosecution’s witnesses are always To call the game a glorified dia- lying.) You go into each day in court logue tree might be overstating things. with only a vague idea of what actually There’s not even any branching—if a transpired when the crime was com- character has new things to say in a mitted, and it’s through this process single conversation, it’s presented as a of catching people in lies that the truth new topic. Finishing one conversation comes out. unlocks new ones with new characters, The less interactive evidence-gather- moving the story forward. In short, ing portions of the first game are similar Phoenix Wright is an entirely linear to a traditional . You wander game in which you never actually do around, clicking through conversations anything. until you unlock the next one. Even It’s also tremendously involving, and though these portions are technically a marvelous use of the medium. as linear as the in-courtroom sections, I don’t need to mention the gameplay they feel less involving. The sequel to explain why the game is involving: (Justice for All) eliminates much of the the writing is funny, the characters

12 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 That Spiky-Haired Lawyer is All Talk 13 shooters; the viewpoint is static, and all enemies are clearly visible. P.N.03 recreates that environment in 3-D by placing the camera in a fixed position Shinji Mikami and behind Vanessa—the game’s protago- nist—and by keeping enemies in clear view in front of you. Occasionally you the Lost Art of can become surrounded by enemies, but like in 2-D shooters, enemies in Game Design P.N.03 are entirely pattern-based. They never try to flank you, and if you get swarmed, it’s almost always the result Resident Evil—PS1; P.N. 03—NGC; viewpoint. In Resident Evil, the camera of your actions, when chasing a combo Resident Evil 4—NGC, PS2; God was placed differently in each area; the for instance. Hand—PS2 player could only see what the design- P.N.03’s is essentially Resident Evil By Jonathan Simpson ers wanted him to see. The designers with dodging. Left and Right still rotate Art By Jonathan Kim and Mariel Cartwright were like movie directors choosing the you instead of moving you, but because best shot for each scene. of the fixed camera, it is less confusing Capcom understands game design Perhaps as a consequence of the than in Resident Evil. You can press Z better than any developer today. Over camera system, the control system to execute a quick 180° turn, and the the years, it has produced a staggering became the most criticized compo- games ever made, depended on Shinji trigger buttons let you gracefully cart- number of quality titles, and many avid nent. In Resident Evil, you always Mikami ignoring them on this. wheel left or right. You can jump, and gamers feel that Capcom is currently in move as though you’re playing from a Mikami took P.N.03’s camera and if you are running, you’ll perform a nice the midst of a renaissance in design. It first-person perspective, regardless of controls, removed all the fancy dodg- acrobatic flip. produces excellent skill-based games the viewpoint. Up on the direction pad ing, and replaced them with an aiming P.N.03 definitely takes some getting at a time when many studios are con- moves you forward, and Down moves mode. The camera slides in to sit used to, and I can’t think of a game tent to churn out simplistic stories drib- you backward. Right and Left rotate tight over Leon’s right shoulder while which plays quite like it. Vanessa bling out as a of multimedia you, tank-like, clockwise and counter- you aim your weapon with the analog dances with measured precision and scenes to reward a player’s Pavlovian clockwise. This can be counter intuitive, stick. Once again, you are unable to although her individual movements are responses. Capcom has created be- to say the least. move and shoot simultaneously, but also exceptionally graceful, it takes loved franchises like Mega Man, Street Resident Evil spawned numerous in a survival- such as RE4 a skilled player to move her fluidly Fighter, Resident Evil, and countless sequels and offshoots, some of which where tension is key, it makes more through them. But once you have the classic arcade games in the early ’90s. Mikami produced, but the gameplay sense. When you’re forced to stop skill, controlling Vanessa becomes sec- And its renaissance of game design can elements of the series changed very while hordes of enemies plod towards ond nature. P.N.03 is not a game where be traced to the contributions of one little until Mikami directed Resident you will obviously build anxiety. Beyond you feel cheated if you fail. man, Shinji Mikami. Evil 4. But the renewal of Resident Evil that, we know that Leon is a former cop The real importance of P.N.03 is that Resident Evil (Biohazard in Japan), actually began with an earlier Mikami and that, in the real world, cops are it demonstrated that tank controls work released in 1996, was a defining game game, the mysteriously titled P.N.03. trained to plant their feet and grip their in third-person action games given the for the Sony Playstation and for the Developed rapidly and with a relatively weapon with both hands. The focus right camera system. Shinji Mikami genre of . Resident Evil small budget, P.N.03 was designed to of the controls shifts from the grace- reused P.N.03’s system as a basis for took advantage of the Playstation’s be a 3-D homage to old-school 2-D ful dodging of P.N.03 to tension-filled Resident Evil 4 when it was decided increased storage to provide a more shooters. shooting. Other than that, the controls that the survival-horror series needed cinematic experience, with prerendered The most important aspect of P.N.03 are pretty much the same. a more action oriented overhaul. A 2-D backgrounds and full-motion- is its control system, an action-oriented The most obvious homage to P.N.03 bold move considering that the critics’ sequences. This cinematic philosophy evolution of Resident Evil’s system. The is RE4’s Mercenaries , which dislike for P.N.03. Chief among their carried over to the game mechanics as reason the system works so well, and is unlocked after completing the story. complaints was that Vanessa couldn’t well. Most games with a third person the fundamental difference between it Mercenaries is a score/time-attack move and shoot at the same time. Resi- perspective used either a dynamic and Resident Evil, is the camera. The mode with four stages and five playable dent Evil 4, widely considered by critics camera system or a static isometric camera is seldom a problem in scrolling characters. The goal is to rack up as and players alike to be one of many kills as possible within a limited

14 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Shinji Mikami and the Lost Art of Game Design 15 the proving ground for ideas that would later find acceptance in RE4. Instead of analyzing the design of these games, the critics merely complained that they didn’t play the same as the games they superficially resembled. What Shinji Mikami does perhaps better than any other game designer is tailor the design of his games to their concept. In architecture, they say form follows function; the equivalent maxim for games should be “design follows concept.” Perhaps part of the problem today is that there are so few designers who are willing to begin with a novel concept. Sure, there are established genres in electronic gaming, but when time, with a scoring and bonus system God Hand’s camera is much more of most games within a genre have almost inherited from P.N.03. Many players a problem than in P.N.03’s, however, identical mechanics, there is stagna- spent more time with Mercenaries than because it is much easier to become tion. God Hand was surely not the first they did the main game, a testament to surrounded. There is a radar to help 3-D beat-’em-up, but it was one of the both the soundness of RE4’s funda- you deal with unexpected enemies, few that truly rethought the mechan- mental mechanics and the staying but ultimately it is the ability to dodge ics of its two-dimensional forebears. power of “simpler” arcade-like experi- repeatedly, coupled with aural cues Likewise, P.N.03 was a fantastic 3-D ences. signaling incoming attacks, that make reimagining of the 2-D shooter. God Hand, Mikami’s most recent it manageable for the dedicated player. I don’t expect to see too many de- game, is the third game in the P.N.03 God Hand’s camera also received signers take inspiration from P.N.03 or family tree. This time Mikami applied criticism for a design decision which God Hand, but RE4 is already showing the P.N.03 template to the beat-’em- was perceived by many as a bug. its influence. Recent action games like up. The familiar behind-the-back Every camera does its best to keep the Epic’s and Capcom’s own camera remains, but there have been environment from obscuring your view. : Extreme Condition feature some changes to suit the genre. The Most games try complex manipulations RE4-styled over-the-shoulder cameras. are a number of built-in moves which to keep a clear line of sight, but God Cliff Blezinski, lead designer of Gears of are hard-coded to certain combina- Hand simply makes the intervening War, has often cited RE4 as an inspira- tions, such as Back + Triangle for a objects invisible. Although it can be tion for Gears of War. juggle, but otherwise each face button unsightly when walls suddenly blink out Of course, the aspects of RE4 that is mapped to one of 114 different tech- of existence, this is a simpler and more have impressed developers most are niques. There is no block button in God reliable solution. The designers con- the pacing, atmosphere, stage design, Hand, but four different dodges may be sciously chose to maximize gameplay boss design, and general polish. But performed with the right , over aesthetics. copying those things will only bring which is traditionally used to adjust the Of the three most recent Mikami them halfway to Mikami’s level. To camera in third-person action games. action games, only RE4 received broad climb the rest of the way, they must The combat system implemented in critical acceptance; in fact, it was many learn to evaluate every mechanic in the God Hand is very deep, implementing critics’ choice for game of the year. context of the game’s concept. Mikami all the familiar buzzwords: counters, Only RE4 had the budget and develop- isn’t alone in reaching this level, but as juggles, guard breaks, evade cancels, ment time necessary to impress the the last generation comes to a close, etc. And of course, the game is well critics; the more experimental P.N.03 only Mikami has consistently been there known for its painful looking and often and God Hand were panned. This was through it all. humorous special moves. especially tragic for P.N.03, since it was

16 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Shinji Mikami and the Lost Art of Game Design 17 We didn’t. the wilderness, we’d save the game, But we did play to- and I’d try to keep coming up with gether. And I’ll never forgive him for it. things to talk about until curfew. Secret of Mana is the only SNES The boyfriend and I cut our way game I have. I can’t let it go. It sits atop through the world of Mana over the of my SNES, dusty and threatening. I course of the fall, and my compli- know it’s an incredible game, but I can’t cated disgust-obsession manifested Secrets and play it. I’ve tried to reset my memories as violent comics drawn about the of it, bringing it out for other lovers to characters. I’d toss Lump on a Save Points history together. But I’ve never and stretch Bitch out over open flames. gotten through the game after I did it Since Asshole was only played by my with him. It’s anchored in my past, like boyfriend, he received the worst of it. Secret of Mana—SNES supposed to feel good; I just needed to the sword set in stone at the beginning Deep down, I loved the characters; By Heather Campbell overcome my inhibitions. Sure, I knew of the game. I wanted to draw them, to think about Art By Troy Boyle most girls didn’t sweat when the school You know, it’s almost too much that them. But the tension I had with Mana bell rang at the end of the day, most the damn game is called Secret of meant hours of torturing their cheerful I have a lot of trouble letting go of girls didn’t cry when their boyfriends Mana. I mean, the intimacy metaphors outlines. things. I tend to fixate on memories felt up their shirts, didn’t drive home are sophomoric. Secret of Mana? I Worse, my boyfriend and I didn’t so until they become cold, unmoving, dry-heaving. This wasn’t just pubescent might as well have hang-ups about a much enjoy the game as we did break temporal fetishes. Handled in my mind pressure. It was a constant chorus of game called “We’ll Keep This Between it. When we realized that there could so often, they set like coal. So, I use sexual anxiety. The only time I’ve ever You and Me, Don’t Tell Anyone of only be three enemies on screen at them as fuel, throwing them into the fire been pulled over by the police was after Mana.” once, we cheated through harder sec- of my drive over and over again. Coal leaving his house. I blew through a stop I love the music but it gives me mo- tions by keeping weak villains alive. We is an ugly energy. And these memories sign. I couldn’t get away fast enough. tion sickness. I adore the gameplay, the leveled up for days on howlers in the spew forth so much smoke and ash I don’t want to get graphic, but I charming fights and swordplay, but the Ice Forest, so that the following sec- that the way ahead becomes clouded. want to convey some sense of the charge-up sounds are like shrill alarms, tions were just speed-runs. We skipped I lose sight of my path in the filth, and nausea. He actually said, “You would reminders of a miserable youth. It’s the large portions of dialogue, and any time find myself churning forward along if you loved me,” once when trying to one game I possess but can’t own, the I started to drift into the world, my boy- obfuscated tracks. My memories fuck unbutton my reticence. Another time it one game whose sweet achievements friend would yell something inappropri- up my future. was, “Are you gay or something?” More are mockeries of the way I feel playing ate at the screen. Or at me. I need to learn to forgive. To move often than not, it was, “Please, I need it. It’s a saccharine antagonist. I want it Maybe if I’d just acquiesced, it would on. To erase my save points and start this,” like the dude was reading a script to be mine, but it will always be ours. have been easier. Why didn’t I like over. prepared by Seventeen. I was never It wasn’t just the atmosphere of the making out with him? For one, the guy I dated a guy in high school for date-raped, but I was constantly dodg- relationship that ruined Mana for me; was a jerk. Another easy answer is, “I’m almost two years, and it was the ing. I don’t know why he didn’t leave it was the way he played the game. gay!” But the truth is more muddy. See, worst two years of my entire life. me. Maybe the only thing left for him Secret of Mana features three heroes, I’m dating a boy again, for the fourth More shameful than the loneliness of was the conquest. all rendered in candy colors and large time in my life. This current boyfriend Amsterdam, sicker than the doubts of Finally, he clutched my hair and spites. In defiance of the fantastic set- plays , and I enjoy kissing him. Los Angeles. Two years I spent stuck forced an insignificant finish. I went to ting of the game, my boyfriend decided So, there’s a part of me that wonders to his side, bound by my own insecuri- the bathroom and threw up. to name the hero “Asshole.” The girl how much of my sexual identity was in ties, naïve and traumatized. I spent When he wasn’t shoving his clumsy was “Bitch.” And the cheerful sprite response to these two terrible years. Every Single Afternoon defending my tongue down my throat, he was talking was called “Lump.” Yeah, sure, when I sleep, I dream of innocence, deflecting his advances, about his ex-girlfriend, whom he simply My adventure was foul-mouthed, as girls … but how much is attraction, and gasping for air as he pinned me with referred to as “The Bitch.” They’d done every townsperson would call out Bitch how much is reaction? Did I stop dating kisses I didn’t want. it together. She had a major pregnancy when asking for my attention. When I boys because of him? Did I stop play- I should have left him. But I didn’t scare and dropped out of school. Now, couldn’t handle the silent humiliation, ing SNES because of Secret of Mana? know any better. All of my friends had they hated each other with adolescent I’d switch to Lump … and be de- No game in my life is more obviously boyfriends, and most had long ago intensity. He loved her. He hated her. meaned in a way less human. After an incredible, and yet no experience has lost their virginities. Making out was He loved me. Let’s have sex. hour guiding Asshole and Bitch through been more joyless. Mana is poisoned,

18 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Secrets and Save Points 19 and no further attempts to free the gorgeous as ever, and is smiling wide game from my past have met with in every frame. Sure, it’s a little late to Break time! success. I’ve tried playing it with girl- introduce a new character here, but friends, boyfriends, by myself. I’ve tried for clarity’s sake, I wanted to make it confronting it with alcohol, or studying known that he wasn’t the only reason I it with sharp sobriety. I’ve emulated it didn’t go back to Chicago this summer. with extended dialogue; I’ve shoved it He was just most of it. into my tobacco-stained SNES more I wonder if I had gone back, could I times than I can count. I’ve sold it off, play? only to repurchase it at a greater cost. I There are other Mana games now, can’t let go of Mana until I can play it for but it’s sadly obvious that they don’t itself, by itself, in an emotional vacuum compare with the quality of the SNES that is filled with new save points. original. The balance is wrong, the This year was my ten-year high music is dull, the focus is on childish school . I didn’t go back to characters over bright visuals. Mana Chicago for two reasons. One was this wasn’t just well-composed, it was guy. The other was my best friend, gigantic—prepared as a launch title for who was constantly flirting with him, the SNES CD, the game was scaled with me, with everything around her. back when the peripheral was aban- They may or may not have hooked doned. It’s long, original, engrossing, up; it doesn’t matter. They were both beautiful … hideous, sad, and awful. abusive. God, I can see an amazing game on As a bit of an epilogue, I keep casual the other side of this river, but crossing MySpace contact with a girl from this it seems impossible. It may be time to school, and she showed me pictures of just let go. the two of them at a sports bar in Wrig- Seems the sword is stuck in stone, leyville. He’s heavy, balding, pedestrian. though. And drawing it out will take a I think he sells something. She’s as hero greater than myself.

20 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Secrets and Save Points 21 that the game was quite entertaining, You get surprised when you real- but partly it was that I had been using ize what it is that you relate to most, videogames as something to escape and then perhaps frightened at what it into when I felt cut off from the rest of implies. For me videogames have never the world. Being in a strange place can really been much more than pure es- do that to you, even if you want to be in capism, but I never realized the depths Giving Up that strange place to see things you’ve to which I escaped until I had beaten never seen before. Metroid II and took another family trip. the Ghost I guess videogames have an effect The last time we had traveled I had on me—strange places, discovery, and successfully eradicated the metroid the wandering traveler—that perhaps problem on SR-388, exterminating Metroid II: Return of Samus—NGB others get from books or movies or every living metroid I came across By J. R. Freeman their favorite music. Whenever we were and slaying the queen. Satisfied with Art By Benjamin Rivers in Vegas and my parents were hitting myself, I turned the SP off and didn’t I was on vacation with my family in the casinos and I was still too young to think much about it other than it was SR-388 is a lonely place. When you go Washington D.C. this past summer gamble, I would sit in the hotel room a fun ride. A few months ago, I was in there, it is only you and the harsh en- when I realized that I always travel with and guide Samus through her trials Washington D.C. on vacation again and vironment harboring the creatures that my Advance SP and a bag in between flipping through the local during an odd moment at the hotel I have inhabited it for who knows how of games. One of those games is an old channels on the hotel . Her popped out the SP and fired up  long. There are the cryptic remains of a copy of Metroid II: Return of Samus for struggle in some way mirrored my own. Metroid II. long-dead civilization; your only contact the original Game Boy that I once bor- A stranger in a strange land, lost and I couldn’t play it for more than five with them is the strange artifacts they rowed from someone and never gave slightly confused, wondering if we’ll minutes. left behind—left behind for a wandering back. I realized that in the past five ever make it out alive and see home I was a bit confused at first, figuring explorer to find. years of taking yearly vacations with my again. Being a teenager is like that I’d get lost in the game like I always You leave your trusty spaceship top- family across the United States I always sometimes. did, but something was different this side, all the stars in the universe above had Metroid II in tow, and it was Samus it. Cold, daunting, staring down at you that kept me company in those odd from however many millions of years moments when we weren’t out sight- in the past, however long it took their seeing or doing something together. light to reach you at that exact moment. During those long car trips, lush Gazing up into millennia past for a brief green Midwestern states flying by moment, before trudging down into the outside the window, there was Samus. belly of the whale like Jonah. At night, lying awake in some strange You’ve got a job to do, your steely bed in some alien hotel in some state determination your only true weapon far away from home, there was Samus. against the dangers that await you in During those moments in New Mexico the deep, dank, dark. And when it is all when the summer sun would call to over and the job is done, all that is left mind memories of nuclear tests and the are the remains of that long-dead civi- fallout radiation that surely still lingered lization, their artifacts thoroughly plun- in the air, there was Samus. Always dered, their statues and their shrines silent, always moving, and always left to stare alone into the depths. Their carrying out her mission of exterminat- story untold, the only thing remaining a ing every last Metroid from the interior faint echo of a voice that once shrieked caverns of SR-388. out into the darkness and then slowly There was something comforting in faded away… knowing that Samus was always at my SR-388 is a lonely place. side when I needed her there. I don’t —Excerpt from an untitled, unpub- know why I now place such importance lished manuscript, circa 2004. on a mere videogame. Partly it was 22 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Giving Up the Ghost 23 Break time!

time. I had beaten the game, uncovered me like there was for Samus at the end the mysteries of SR-388, and defeated of Metroid II. Nothing from the game all the metroids. For some reason I leaped out and followed me wherever couldn’t quite bring myself to do it all I went, demanding my attention and over again. The game was like a book care. The game simply stopped speak- you only read once in your life but never ing to me, and became as silent as the forget. Samus had completed her mis- caverns of SR-388. sion. She had moved on, and I wasn’t No resolution to the story. It is a book ready to move on with her. that stops three-fourths of the way By James Harvey This sort of thing happens, I sup- through and then becomes nothing but pose. Sometimes things move on from blank pages. I guess in writing this I’m you without you even realizing it, and moving on from Metroid II and giving up there was no baby metroid to stay with the ghost.

24 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Giving Up the Ghost 25 tell an external story; it tells the internal with machinima as the end of the term story of the Counter-Strike player and grows near. documents that world. Frome has But having discovered a secret captured the psychological space of machinima masterpiece, I assigned my the CS gamer and laid it on top of the class to watch it for homework. When game space itself. they wrote in to the class discussion If you have seen Militia II and think list, it was clear that absolutely no one Militia II is I’m crazy, I’m not surprised. The ma- saw what I saw in Militia II; their mes- chinima community barely registered sages had nothing but criticism and Machinima it, merely giving it an award for sound disdain for this, the greatest machinima at the Machinima Film Festival in 2002. work of our time: Since its release, the community has Militia II—AVI goal: rescue the hostages. not realigned machinima-making to • “This is fan-fiction, nothing more.” By Steven Schkolne The universe of Militia II does not incorporate the vision of Frome. They • “it’s that type of aesthetic that really Art By Jonathan Kim extend beyond the bounds of the map. instead follow the lead of machinimists makes my spine shiver” The characters are not “costumed” with like BloodSpell director Hugh Hancock: • “There was little to no explanation Machinima has gotten a lot of press new skins, and the map has only slight “So are we competing with Hollywood? in this film” lately, trumpeting the glorious potential modifications applied to it. The actors Fucking right we are2.”It is that failed • “the person and I watching it were of machinima as a voice for the down- do not engage in brilliant repartee. At attempt at being generic that leaves more interested in my shoe laces trodden, putting film back in the hands one point late in the film, the protago- the members of my class disappointed than the video” of the people, the way cheap recording nist, C.T. Russ, converses with Brad, gear put music back in the hands of the terrorist leader, as if they had been the people in the ’70s to birth punk & eating lunch together in a suburban hip-hop. U.S. high-school cafeteria just a few But I’ve been teaching a course hours before. The story plods along, called “Machinima and Videogame The- delicately unfolding the predictable ory,” which requires watching a lot of dramatic arc that CS fans enjoy every machinima, and from most of what I’ve time they sit down for another session seen, you wouldn’t believe it. Fans duti- of “Hostage Rescue.” fully recreate their favorite Hollywood Each shot, however, is perfect. It was plots with game characters. The result this combination of lush boredom and is footage that is, at best, not quite perfect cinematography that, about good enough to be played very late at five minutes in, first forced my mind night on TV. They are certainly to compare this machinima with other not the museum-quality masterpieces grand attention-span opuses, Matthew that students at prestigious art schools Barney’s The Cremaster Cycle and pay $40k a year to ponder1. Kubrick’s 2001. Much like these works, Within this puddle, amongst this once the mind settles in and takes the unbroken field of mediocrity, a brilliant boredom for granted, Militia II filters in, light appeared on my flat-panel: Militia and an amazing presence takes hold. II, twenty-five minute Counter-Strike Narrative machinima fails because it masterpiece by David Frome, a.k.a. The is a new medium attempting to be the Family God. Before you get too excited, old medium, like photographs in 1860s let me set some things straight. Milita II composed as if they were oil paintings, 1 There are a few notable exceptions—Koulamata’s The French Democracy and Rachel Bray’s has no innovations in plot or story. The like films in the 1920s recorded as if Jean-Charles de Menezes. setting is the “cs_militia” map, and in they were on a stage. Militia II, though 2 Hugh Hancock, “BloodSpell and Hollywood,” BloodSpell Development Updates,  the film, a group of counter-terrorists cinematic, does not aim to provide a http://community.livejournal.com/bloodspell/78381.html. invade a base where terrorists are hold- complete cinematic universe; it pres- ing pale men in lab coats hostage. The ents a game universe. Militia II does not 3 Although there are some aspects of it in the recent South Park episode “Make Love Not War- craft.”

26 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Militia II is Machinima 27 values is applied to a work of art. In this is not how well it mimics the conven- historical sense, the aesthetic of a work tions of Hollywood blockbusters or is the values that it represents. Adult Swim. The value of machinima Masterpiece artworks are important is the extent to which it embodies the because they mark a shift in values. psychological dimension of gameplay. When Warhol painted Campbell’s Soup The only precedent is the speed run, Can, it was noteworthy because it which embodies the physical aspects of pronounced a shift in intent. Instead of gameplay. an art that valued the human condition, Sadly Frome, unlike Warhol, is unlike- Warhol’s art placed value on the com- ly to inspire imitators. In the four years mercial condition. In the years since since Militia II’s release, there have he painted his cans, more and more been no grand renderings of classic cultural practitioners have investigated games in this vein. How I would love to the role of consumerism with no direct see the enhanced dimensions of Grand reference to human experience. These Theft Auto, , or even World of works are cultural markers; they help Warcraft! Alas, these machinima follow- us understand the shifting values and ers-on have yet to appear3. Frome and priorities in our society. his collaborators are boldly claiming a Militia II makes a similar pronounce- unique vision for machinima. And no ment. Militia II does not value the Hol- one listens. lywood reality. The value of machinima

And, of course, many creative uses see the game more purely. The charac- of “bullshit.” ters are bland and unexciting, but they Not that this changed my opinion are precisely as bland and unexciting of Militia II—these complaints were as the strangers you meet in an MMO exactly the reason that I fell in love or a LAN party. with it in the first place, the reason I’m This film is not machinima trying to writing this article. Militia II unabashedly be cinema. It is something else entirely; flaunts its origin in the gamer culture. it is exactly what machinima must add, Its constraints, its pure limiting to the if it is to live on as its own form instead space of the game, rocket machinima of as cut-rate movies. to new heights. The word ‘aesthetic’ is now popularly We can make an inverse compari- used as a synonym for style. This use son with Hollywood’s adaptations of of aesthetic makes the small, art-snob games—they are supposed to rep- homunculus I have embedded within resent a game, but instead we get my brain cringe. It treats taste as a game-ish Hollywood lives. The game triviality, based on color choices or set becomes a backdrop, a device to justify of cultural reference. This ‘aesthetic’ more familiar devices—a few scattered is having a favorite color that is blue, live-action renditions of gameplay in instead of grean, which diminishes the service of a cheap Hollywood plot. notion of taste, and doesn’t recognize In Militia II, there is no attempt to go the great power of values within soci- beyond the most basic of game stories: ety. The history of aesthetic theory has the game itself is exactly what unfolds. a deeper sense of the word ‘aesthetic.’ The plot is boring—because it is exactly Aesthetic, in the Kantian tradition, is the game’s plot—but within it we can judgment, a process in which a set of

28 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Militia II is Machinima 29 within a span of seconds is no easy Warioware understands that abstrac- task; to accomplish it, the microgames tion is the basis of communication borrow context—often from mundane, between the game and the player, if everyday activities like cutting hair, not all communication. Videogames are washing dishes, ironing clothes. composed of abstractions in the same As an example, one of the micro- way that books are composed of tiny games in the series’ third episode (third symbols that once were drawings of developed, fourth released in the US), oxen but are now just stick atoms that Warioware Twisted, presents you with mean nothing without context. Mega Microcosms an image of a cake with three candles Warioware lifts context from other and an instruction: “Blow out!” You turn sources than barbery and birthdays. the head of the birthday boy, directing Sports-themed microgames prolifer- Warioware—GBA, GCN, NDS, WII unusable audio. Our apologies, dear his lips toward the candles, and his ate within Warioware, having their own By Ancil Anthropy reader—our third podcast ended in breath puts out the flames. The party rules and goals that most players will Art By Troy Boyle failure. guests clap at your success. already be familiar with. And there's Which means it’s left to me, in a The next time the game is encoun- another, even more readily-acces- We tried, between our last issue and single short essay, to explain the Wari- tered, the boy is a man, and there are sible source of pre-existing rules and this one, to record a podcast about oware series and What It All Means. more candles in the cake. It's harder abstractions: videogames. Nintendo's Warioware (Made in ) This is not an easy task. The Warioware to put them all out within the time limit. Warioware becomes videogames' series. games are rife with . They The third time round, the man is old Aleph by containing those games within It was to be thorough and informa- are difficult to describe, and yet fairly and white, and his cake bristles with itself, transposing their rules and goals tive, a summation of the entire series simple to relate to a new player: candles. Each iteration of the game into its own structure. A microgame (and Rhythm Tengoku). It was to be “A game pops up, and you have five obeys the same rules and has the same might show Mario, in his 8-bit skin, clever and insightful, it would articulate seconds to complete it.” goal, same mechanics, and same time standing in a landscape over which the Relevancy of the series, explain That is the simple, entirely true defini- limit; but difficulty rises from an in- a few goombas crawl. "Stomp!" the What It All Meant. We had high ideals. tion. The more complex, equally true creased complexity, which follows from game commands. And you recognize, And so it was that we—Wes Ehrli- definition is: “Warioware is all video- a natural and immediately understood as readily as with the birthday cake, chmann, J.R. Freeman, M. O’Connor, games, it is the entire history of the observation about the nature of time the laws and absctractions to which Jeremy Penner and I—logged on one medium from the Famicom through the and aging. Mario dances. Left and right moves, A October evening to , the podcast Wii, it is Nintendo’s most inwards-look- What's important to note is that, button jumps. Touching a goomba from tool of the penniless, a free internet ing and most outwards-looking release, despite its depiction of a scenario its side means death—to touch it from voice-chat client we were twisting to it is—in the postmodern sense—the based in reality, the game remains above means victory. It is completely 1 our own purposes. Skype, we found Aleph .” deeply abstract. Taking a deep breath, arbitrary, but immediately understood. out, is chronically unreliable with more Warioware is simultaneously the holding it in the lungs, and blowing it Needless to say, the original than two people. most backwards-looking game Ninten- out again isn't handled by a complex Warioware was a revelatory release. In Hours later, after disconnects, unex- do has published in twenty years and physical model, or even implemented aesthetics, gameplay, and content, the pected boots in the middle of conver- the most progressive. Nintendo’s Bit at all. The boy is always blowing, a gust game is complete. But completeness 2 sations, and—to judge from the audio Generations series is often described of air forever painted on the tips of his does not lend much ground for follow- quality—alien invasions, we had come as “backwards-looking,” but they only lips, and you interact merely by rotating ups—as Nintendo likely learned with around at last to “What Warioware peek back long enough to crib some the boy's head. The party guests who the release of Warioware: Mega Party microgame would you design?” “How notes which will let Nintendo market applaud when you succeed are just the Games, a multiplayer-oriented Game- about one where you restart your com- them as retro. Warioware looks back same two-frame animation of disem- cube title that spends most of its time puter, unplug your headset, plug your and comprehends. bodied clapping hands copied and asking players to replay games from the headset back in, turn up the volume Warioware is indeed a game where a pasted four times on the screen. original Warioware. on your mic, stand on your head, take player completes shorter games—the five deep breaths and say a prayer, and documentation calls them “micro- Skype still crashes?” I suggested. “That games”—in five-second time limits. 1 The Aleph is an invention of Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges: a point that overlaps every point can be the boss stage,” said Wes. Creating a game that a player can in the universe, a tiny speck into which one can look and see Everything. We ended up with two hours of encounter, understand, and complete 2 See “Dark Oddysey,” TGQ #7.

30 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Mega Microcosms 31 Internally perfect, Warioware turned Most rhythm games feature col- its gaze outward—toward the player ored icons that move across a screen, and the means through which a player activated by the player when they reach interacts with the game. So began the a certain point. This may seem too series’ marriage to unusual input de- abstract, a context- and meaning-free vices. First a gyroscope, which detects activity, but the rhythm genre got hold when you turn the machine, then a sty- of the input trick a long time ago—so lus and touch screen, then the Wii’s 3D that what you’re actually physically mouse. The microgames remain largely doing to activate those icons is dancing the same, only instead of using the on a mat or pretending to play a guitar. D-pad to help the athlete do chin-ups, The Rhythm Tengoku team, devel- you’re tilting your Gameboy left and oping for a handheld with two face right, moving the stylus up and down, buttons and a D-pad, did not have this or lifting the controller over your head. option. So they did something different: Each method does feel new, they gave the rhythm context. What though—in much the same way that you’re actually doing is pushing the A there are only seven stories in all of button in time to beats in the song, but literature and it is merely the telling onscreen is you’re helping a martial of them which makes them new. We artist punch stones out of the air, or have been playing the same games for plucking hairs from an onion who needs twenty years, and this is rarely clearer a shave, or bouncing a marble along a than when we make Mario hop on platform. goombas in Warioware. Rhythm Tengoku displays an under- Having completed their masterpiece, standing of the intermingling of abstrac- the Warioware team has been spinning tion and context that is at the heart of their wheels, repeatedly remaking their the Warioware series. That is ultimately perfect game. A year or so ago, Nin- why we play Warioware, and why we tendo finally gave them leave to develop play any games: abstract gameplay a game outside of the Wario franchise plus meaningful context creates com- (which Nintendo wedded to the original pelling experience. And I think my peers for fear that the untested game model at the magazine would agree. might not sell). The team collaborated This has been your Gamer’s Quarter with the J.P. Room recording studio podcast. Good night. to produce 2006’s Rhythm Tengoku, a for the Gameboy Advance.

32 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Mega Microcosms 33 Persona Visits the Wii Line By Jonathan Kim

The Punch Line

34 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Persona Visits the Wii Line 35 36 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Persona Visits the Wii Line 37 38 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Persona Visits the Wii Line 39 Break time!

40 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Persona Visits the Wii Line 41 dai-Namco’s soon-to-be-seminal The I saw a meadow. It was the Next Idol M@ster. This touchscreen gal sim Generation, a 1080p meadow with (arcade and 360) combines all the luscious textures, lens flares, and ab- finest aspects of a supermarket cash solutely breathtaking counts, machine, a Newgrounds Flash widget, held steady at 45 frames-per-second. Christmas Morning a fresh doujin-CG rip, and a cosplayer’s There was a woman there, dressed in Flickr page. It is the electronic-enter- white. For the briefest of moments I tainment version of slow-melting an was in love, and somewhere in the dark at the Leukemia Ward Akihabara maid café into an ornately recesses of my mind I started to hum filigreed spoon and then injecting the familiar tune that had lulled me to Tokyo Game Show 2006 Media keyboard-floggers to expense it straight into your spinal column. this tiny island in the first place. By Brendan Lee Ziff-Davis for an out-of-town handjob Although I knew that TIM would be Then she was falling. dropped from two to one. making an appearance at TGS 2006, it I couldn’t really see what happened, Small, depressing amounts of this piece Although I staggered around in seemed like a fairly weak reason to haul but somehow she wasn’t on the firm appeared on Largeprimenumbers.com a tipsy and disheveled funk at last myself all the way out to Chiba. One solid ground anymore, and the wind in a wildly different format. year’s TGS, this was the first time I can only spend so much time around was whipping through her hair, and her actually had any credentials or cover- TIM before chewing one’s lip and curs- dress was streaking out behind her, By the time you read this, the 2006 age responsibility. I got my pass in an ing one’s name. and her perfect mouth was locked in Tokyo Game Show will be a distant incestuous internet situation where Still, you’ve got to do something to sudden terror. memory. someone knows a guy who knows a girl stave off the boredom, and this year’s She was turning and screaming, and One of the true benefits—perhaps who knows a guy who collects dinosaur Tokyo Game Show had somethings in the ground was rushing up, faster and the only benefit—of adhering to a quar- erasers who managed to fill out the industrial-grade supply. The Makuhari faster, and my stomach sunk with the terly publishing schedule is the sense it press relations section of the Tokyo Messe convention center in Chiba is inevitability—but just as the end was gives of 20/20 hindsight. Where other Game Show website. Sadly, there where they put the big bastards. Fifty- supposed to come, it didn’t. magazines (we’re looking at you, EGM!) exists a sacred (if legally non-binding) four thousand square meters, accord- Suddenly, she was flying, a foot and are obsessed with outdated notions trust known informally as the Lanyard ing to the splattered press kit I found a half above the ground, the trees blur- such as “up-to-the-minute news” and Accord: if you’ve got a badge from a on the floor of my bathroom. They’d ring behind her. “relevancy,” the quarterly publication publication, you owe that publication at filled it completely with videogames and She turned, and her eyes caught takes a far different and more refined least fifteen hundred words. According the cut-rate bottom-feeders that live the face of her savior full on. Her face tack. If you’re reading this issue of The to Microsft Word’s count function (one off their scraps. The last time I’d been shone with a perfect mixture of wonder- Gamer’s Quarter, you are one of the that can even count very tiny words there was for Electraglide, one of the ment and relief and joy, in a place free few that truly get it. such as “if,” “a,” “or,” “no,” “we,” “be,” largest indoor techno events in Tokyo, from worry where she would be safe. One of the very, very few. “on,” and “in” (even if those words lie and I saw Underworld belt out “Born She closed her eyes and nestled buried within a nested parenthesis) due Slippy” at fourteen thousand slack- down comfortably into the gentle, to clever programming techniques), jawed Japanese high on 3000-yen-a- protecting arms … of Sonic the Fucking we’re up to 3171. pop ecstasy and Shinjuku street acid. Hedgehog. Every year, roughly 50,000 game Anyway, videogames! Mass delusion was the stock in trade It’s the kind of dark horror that makes journalists tuck their mom-laundered You, gentle reader, cannot hear me, then, but TGS 2006 gave it a hell of a people run screaming for a priest. Yar’s Revenge T-shirts into stone but I am making a sort of muffled gag- run for its money. washed denim shorts and trek to the ging noise in the back of my throat. It Tokyo Game Show, causing a sud- sounds as if I am trying to dislodge a den and immediate drop in Japan’s gummi bear, and indicates displeasure strategic Fabreeze reserves. This year, and contempt. I moved to Tokyo for the stakes were higher than usual: due two reasons, two reasons only: the 1 318! to the recent cancellation of the Elec- moé2, and the horrible crushing feeling tronics Entertainment Expo (), the of isolation. Thus far, those two reasons 2 キモイ! number of annual opportunities for New have only gelled in one game: Ban- 3 Possibly Berry’s shoes.

42 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Christmas Morning at the Leukemia Ward 43 all day, and those calls from Stockholm you’ll feel this warm, faint prickling of cost about two-hundred fucking euros nostalgia that will make you finish the a minute! Tell Kevin to put the bong entire thing. That is what it is to be down! Where did he even get that stuff, buying video games in your 20s. Or the entire country’s a damned floaty 30s. I mean, XIII is looking island!” pretty hot.” But nobody seemed to care, save for We flipped some business cards a small cluster of Chinese correspon- around and drained our ramen detritus dents who gave each other sidelong into a sludge bucket. glances and moved their notebook I slouched waist-deep into the mer- computers a little closer together. chandise area. Eventually, I collapsed with a Moun- tain Dew around a dented coffee can filled with water and cigarette butts in the ramen area. I helped a jet-lagged I started to feel desperate. Viacom splinter group order some I started to feel heroic. nori ramen from a cheery old woman. There had to be someone worth sav- They were good at the chopsticks, ing in the place, I figured; some way to the Viacommers; they remembered to strain the signal from the noise. Were II tried to deal with the main floor, BB: I won’t do that. rub them together first to sand off the they clustered near the corners right so help me God I did. I picked up a splinters. I had a sudden clear vision of now, banging on the pipes with a shoe, camouflage-skinned PSP and jammed TGQ: PLEASE DO IT. ROTTEN-FOOD- them eating some of the finest Califor- hoping the fire department would lower down on the square button in some FACE. SMILE IS NO! I AM FROM nia rolls known to man. a few Nutri-Grain bars? half-assed retread; I AMERICA. ROTTEN-FOOD-FACE IS Someone asked what kind of video- I thought for a bit. scanned a stack of cards into a copy MORE BETTER. TRULY! games I was into. I mulled. of ’s Love and Berry, changing “I despise these things,” I said, and I flipped out my DS and started up Love’s shoes from formal to semi-for- Eventually I just took to wandering for a second I thought, you know, that Pictochat. mal and back again3. I found a pro- the back halls of the press area and I was just being all clever and hard- It was the first time I’d ever seen motional glowstick on the ground and flashing my badge at nobody in particu- boiled and grouchy and awesome. But it being used for anything useful; the waved it around; then I stopped. lar until the novelty wore off. This was it had a certain weight once I said it, first chat room was actually full of 10 I started going up to booth babes at almost impossible amounts of fun at a certain truth. I rolled it around in my people or so. In between wi-fi drop- random, making ridiculous and insistent first, and then almost no fun at all. The mouth and said it again. outs, people were having something demands for very specific photographs press room had free drinks, though, One of the Viacoms looked at me in a like a conversation—a blur of kanji in broken Japanese: and I whiled away a few minutes on way that said he understood; he asked and roughly-sketched noma-nekos. I sweet tea and screaming into my why anyway, just to be polite. felt one of those Stirring Feelings of The Gamer’s Quarter: I TAKE YOUR phone at nobody: I sighed. “Videogames—or the scene Innovation, like I did watching mid ’90s PICTURE, IS IT GOOOOD? “Well, Kevin’s a drug addict and a or whatever—are just a bunch of … AT&T commercials, where vacationing bum! Tell him to bring the big lens! No, well, do you want to know what it’s -climbers in Peru call their BB: Okay! [smile] not that one, the enormous fucker! This like? Go to McDonald’s, and order a geosynchronous orbiting grandmothers trailer is going to be broadcast in 1080- Happy Meal. Cheeseburger, ketchup on their 22-inch widescreen holo- TGQ: YES. BUT! YOUR FACE, ROT- fucking-p! We don’t have one-last-fuck- only, or however you used to order it watches. TEN-FOOD-FACE PICTURE I WANT. ing-dance-with-Mary-fucking-Jane time back when you were seven years old. I wiped a few bits of fluff off the DS here! This is a fucking CAPCOM trailer! Sit down with it, and play with the toy and started to sketch in my best romaji- BB: Huh? They are going to show it once, and first. Take out a french fry. Dip one end based pseudo-Japanese: then it’s going to be an hour-and-a-half of it in ketchup, and then pretend that “HEY EVERYBODY! LET’S DRINK TGQ: OKAY. I AM YOU! I EAT THE of nonsense and casual gamer market it’s a cigarette, and you’re smoking SOMETHING TOGETHER! FREE ROTTEN FOOD. MY FACE IS ROTTEN- analysis! We need to get this fucker it. Take maybe three bites of cheese- DRINKS! FOOD-FACE! YOUR FACE, MAKE! locked down, dammit! I’ve had the fuck- burger. You will feel stupid, and you “2:30!! OKAY!? SMILE IS NO! ing Swedes breathing down my neck will feel greasy and ridiculous, but “PUYO PUYO! THE SEGA BOOTH”

44 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Christmas Morning at the Leukemia Ward 45 I was shocked—the effect was Past the lies. almost immediate; a sudden of Past the truth. people leaving the chat. I glanced at my A quick dodge around the clusterfuck watch. It was 2:26. of people taking furtive, sweaty pictures Four minutes, and a wind sprint was of the 4 screens that all out of the question. The leering masses say, “No Photo,” so that you’ll take pic- were packed tight and angry, and they tures of them and post them on 2chan. moved with an uncomfortable shiftiness A shortcut through one of the near- that was difficult to predict. I glanced empty booths sponsored by a telecom- right—a solid impassive wall of carpet- munications company that nobody moisteners was trying to purchase au- invited but who showed up anyway. thentic vials of Aeris’s tears from a man Faster. with a golden tooth. I glanced left—a A precarious one-footed hairpin terrible person in a Hawaiian shirt was twist in front of a stinking gaggle of pimping bed-length Dead Or Alive Ex- jet-lagged Caucasianoids, their bod- treme 2 body pillows to a gaggle of the ies mashed tight against a 6-foot-tall damned. I flipped a business card with Bomberman, their faces wild and bright ward bowing, awkward handshakes, nese and told them to help themselves. a fake e-mail address at him. It stuck and ecstatic, looking for all the world awkward photography), and then got They took some tea and a couple of in his back, just below the shoulder like they’re participating in a poorly- straight into business: tentative half-sips, but I could see that blades, leaving me an opening. conceptualized orgy with the Dalai their hearts weren’t really in it. They 2:27. Lama … TGQ: LET’S DRINK TOGETHER. kept looking around in rapid, worried I blurred past the PuppyOn and 2:28. twitches, sure that sooner or later some FishOn tables, with their incomplete Past the bespectacled, cat-eared Them: [nervously] Hm. Drink what? angry beast of a man would catch them builds and horrible texture maps and man with his head in his hands, crying in a place where they Clearly Didn’t Be- creepy out-of-proportion furry-themed softly and well out of the way of foot TGQ: OKAY! OKAY. I AM PRESS. long, and it would be off to the gallows booth art. traffic—a considerate soul, certainly. OKAY. WE GO TO PRESS ROOM. WE or worse. And in that moment, I realized Weaving faster now, past the enor- Like a failing dentist who shoots himself ARE FREE DRINKS, GET! that the Hero Angle had been crucially mous inflatable cube advertising an in- in the head, but makes sure there flawed from the get-go. Anyone that credible new dating simulation where all are lots of paper towels and Windex Them: [nervously] Uh…hm. Really? came to this place knew, for better or the girls are in a high school band and nearby. for worse, exactly what it was they were you’re the band leader and something 2:29. TGQ: OH YES. YES. THE TRUTH, IS. getting into. strange and erotic happens to them in Past French WonderSwan enthusi- LET’S GO TO PRESS ROOM AND They didn’t need saving. Or, at the the xylophone storage room, again and asts, a sickening group. FREE DRINKS GET. very least, they didn’t want saving. again and again and again and again 2:30. I gave them a wan smile and a busi- and again. Touchdown, throttle back. Them: [nervously] Well…okay. ness card, and I let them go. Past the maids shoving official I reached the Puyo Puyo table and They went, like all the others. Bumpy Trot 2 tissue packs into ta- looked around. There were one or two We sauntered to the doorway of the koyaki-stained hands. people that I thought were possible press-relations center; I flashed my Past the man splayed out on the matches. They seemed shiftier than the badge and a half-grin. ground, limbs twisted in a bad angle— others; slouching around, not playing “It’s okay,” I said, poking a thumb In a certain frame of mind, and with he’d probably be fine if someone would Puyo, but also not not playing Puyo4. into my badge. “I’m with the press. the right type of blinding headache, you just flip him over, but there’s no time to I opened my DS and started waving it These people are with me.” can see the future. help him. frantically. I had to say it a few times before any- Pinch the bridge of your nose as hard Past the lesbians. “Here!” I shouted. “Koko desu!KOKO one noticed. as you can, and squeeze your eyes Past the mom/Tifa wiping snot DESU YO!!!” They had a little drink bar of sorts set tight until the white-hot sparks begin to off the kid/Cloud she overperfectly A couple appeared. up; I passed paper cups to the Japa- fry themselves along the backs of your dressed up that morning. Trying not to Japanese, in their mid 20s, smil- think about the therapy he’ll need later ing, clutching their DSes. We got the and never get. preliminaries out of the way (awk- 4 If you catch my drift.

46 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Christmas Morning at the Leukemia Ward 47 eyelids. Do it long and hard enough to directly in the middle and explode in give you a horrible blinding bastard of a a terrible, gray wave of triteness and migraine—the kind that makes you hate ennui. your own name. You’ll scream for your mother, the That’s it. You’re there. one that you hate and never call. You’ll It’s a horrible, Technicolor, HDMI- scream for a peanut butter sandwich enabled lung, rendered in a brand new with the corners cut off, and make do lossless codec that will make you go with gin. You’ll scream a black fucking blind unless you’ve paid a Hebrew liv- streak for a plastic sippy cup of apple ing in New Jersey one tenth of a cent. juice, and then call an ex-girlfriend and It’s hot, and moist, and the lights never beg her for sex. shut off completely. In the end, it isn’t a question of The hemispheres inside your head whether or not you’ll go down. will scream at each other in a terrible It’s a question of how long you can dark unison. One will demand New and circle the drain. Exciting, and the other will demand Old and Familiar, and they’ll both meet

48 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Christmas Morning at the Leukemia Ward 49 of these startling innovations, what’s left seems like basic RPG fare; you run along a false-walled forest only to hit a set of enemies and watch as the screen A Retrospective breaks and comes up into battle mode. Unfortunately, this knowledge is all based on what I witnessed from those Survival Guide to in front of me, for I was still in line. I looked around to see if I recog- Tokyo Game Show nized any famous people—famous by internet standards anyways. And I did! There was that one guy who did that With Extra-Special Blue Dragon Being away from the internet, all I had one thing. Wasn’t that the guy who Preview been able to do was catch a glimpse writes for EGM? There was the dude By Rudie Overton of Devil May Cry 4 from far away and who orders European-Blend Mocha browse the Sega booth. A look at my Kocha Lattes, who knows a guy that When you decide to evaluate your watch told me that devoting myself you know you know. He isn’t really in Tokyo Game Show coverage, make to the Blue Dragon line left me with a line for a Japanese RPG, is he? I heard sure you do it under the right circum- snowball’s chance in hell of playing him saying something about a missing stances and with the right equipment. anything else today. guy, and as his worry became my worry For example, I do not recommend, in The line was two hours long and was I thought about distracting myself by the middle of day one, giving your Sony held within a sweaty box/cavern that calling out to the people milling around. CyberShot DSC-P73 digital camera to was only open for eight hours total. The I distracted myself long enough that it a man who has only dealt with elec- first day of TGS holds only two types of was finally my turn to play Blue Dragon. tronics from a fruit-themed computer people: a group that reports themselves I may have no knowledge of the company. When I did so, I discovered as press to the women at the front of , but I could still that, although I got to make a “Macs the building, and a group paid to en- successfully communicate with the don’t crash” joke, hours of lost data left tertain and pretend to worship the very booth babes designated to tell you how me little to evaluate as I queued to try ground the first group walks upon. This to play Blue Dragon. Being hardcore, I Blue Dragon, an RPG by the second set of people secretly spends learned how to RPG on the cold sub- creators of Final Fantasy. the day trying to see which of the oth- urban streets. The ladies manning the I cupped my camera in my hands ers will end up with the title of “Most booths pointed at controller diagrams and realized that it was all gone—hours Likely to Fail at Life.” and spoke in a slow, unintelligible of photos and video casually deleted The Blue Dragon demo is a bit like language. I can only assume that they by one of the pseudo-hip legions who the entertainers—it looks pretty but were telling me all about the revolu- 15. I shouldn’t be upset that the pack- keep Steve in a Job. I wanted to cry or doesn’t show any indication that it tionary new game that features menus age misstates the contents. I should kick something, but decided that it was understands videogames. The demo ripped straight from Final Fantasy. As be happy that I might end up walking best not to get upset. Several minutes sees your characters dropped into an the lady’s finger pointed to the A button away with a very nice looking toy action of almost funny footage had been empty field, and you are then sent to over and over again, I nodded politely. figure of the main character, rather than deleted, but it wasn’t like anyone was kill monsters. It becomes obvious that Perhaps because I knew Blue Dragon the cheap-looking side-character robot really going to care. The internet has the demo’s characters are beyond relies on the gameplay system of a toy that a few people got. already turned its jittery attention span overpowered for the tiny, lens-flare-in- popular game that I was already sure I Getting back to Blue Dragon. While toward grainy YouTube Sean Connery/ fested den they populate; every enemy didn’t like, I felt I deserved to be there. slamming buttons around randomly in Thundercats techno dance parties. goes down in under two hits. In a fit of Or maybe I just wanted the bragging the hopes that one of the thirty menu By the time I got to the front of the mind-blowing graphical innovation, the rights that were my present for waiting options might show something cool, I line, the net-savvy gamers of today game’s motion-blur is nearly enough to 120 minutes to play a game for only glanced over to see that the guy next to would have already pored over all of the distract from the realization that your games, news, and previews of TGS and party itself outnumbers every group made YTMND pages in their honor.1 of enemies you come across. Outside 1 For example, http://worththe600.ytmnd.com.

50 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 A Retrospective Survival Guide to Tokyo Game Show 51 me, who chose the other menu option, At least now I can say that I was able is shooting baddies from a cockpit to make it through TGS 2006 day one. ripped from . A few minutes If I had gone back for day two, I would Break time! later he was talking to some people in have had to deal with the Japanese town. I’m not sure why I watched his public, and the lines and crowds would screen for so long, but back on my have been even larger. Cosplayers screen I was able to defeat a tiger and would have been present, and I could discover—through a misfocused virtual have taken tons of pictures to show just camera—that one of my over-leveled how fanatical the Japanese are about party members has once again leveled video games, but that’s not even worth up! I was able to fake enthusiasm just it. I’m fairly certain that by actually enough to convince the booth babe to being at the show I had access to far hand me my toy. Yep. I got the crappy less information than the people surfing robot. And now my fifteen minutes the web at home. After all, most news spent staring at the next generation of sources wrote their Tokyo Game Show RPGs was up. coverage ahead of time based on the While being pushed out of the tent preview builds they’d been playing for I noticed another set of booth babes weeks; they were just waiting for the trying to hand out free Xbox Live points. show floor to open before they could Like nearly every other gamer in Japan, post it. I don’t own a 360, but I took some Now, safe at home, with the prepack- points anyway just to be polite. The aged online coverage in front of me, girls seemed ecstatic, as if no one had I am prepared to evaluate my Tokyo taken the points all day. Game Show coverage. If I were a real Not five feet from the Xbox Live journalist sitting down to points ladies I found myself at the Sonic write my Tokyo Game Show report, the Hedgehog demo. I didn’t think I’d I’d have to think hard. What were the have time to play another game, but the wacky Japanese doing? Why was mak- Sonic line was strangely empty. This ing the Dead or Alive girls do tricks on would be the second pre-release game jetskis and crash into rocks the most I got to play! I thought to myself that fun I had the whole show? Was it the this must be what being a real video- incredibly realistic breast physics? Was game journalist feels like. Staring at the it because it gave me fond memories of cutscenes, I realized that it only meant Wave Race 64? Was it because Devil I would get to scream about a ter- May Cry 4 only made me want to play rible video game months before other Devil May Cry 3? Once again, I’m not people. a real game journalist, so I can just tell If I were I true game journalist, I could you that I had a terrible time the whole pretend that the game might magically show. get better in the two months before its But I find my eyes often wandering to release and write an article stressing the Blue Dragon “main character” figu- that this was a pre-release build and rine, and I have had an epiphany. My Sega promises everything will be fixed. lack of the distinctive Akira Toriyama Journalists need to use all sorts of young man was just a ruse. My badly tricks like these if they hope to make it proportioned Mardi Gras robot will be, into the brand-new, ultra-exclusive E3 must be, the true hero of Blue Dragon. 2007. I’m sure they will sell an expansion that I’m not a real game journalist, so I lets it cast the dragon shadow. Game can just tell you that it sucks. companies are like that.

52 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 A Retrospective Survival Guide to Tokyo Game Show 53 a burdensome task. In this case, you dominates modern game design must beat the game three times, each philosophy. But it doesn’t have to be play-through increasing in difficulty. that way. This game, however, fares far better What if 4 compensated than Silent Hill 4. The reason is obvi- the player for being extra-attentive? ous: Devil May Cry is about only one What if the game presented a run thing—fighting—and to beat its hardest through another character’s perspec- setting you must get very good at that tive upon completion? What if it offered one thing. It’s rewarding being good a minigame in which you had to work You’ve Won a Prize! at a game with a solid combat engine. your way through a twisted version of The power you’re granted afterward is Candy Land? Perhaps a few players neat, but you don’t need it. You’ve just wouldn’t feel challenged enough. But Deplayability the hardest difficulty setting, kill 150 become a master of the game, after all. that’s a far better outcome than frus- By Tim McGowan enemies, collect every single note, and Everything else is just candy. trating the rest of us. beat the game in less than two hours Now contrast it with , The truth is that punishment is often Silent Hill 4 is a cerebral game. You, the without saving or dying, you unlock a which offers a prize for completing its own reward, because it bestows a player, are stuck in an apartment. You mode in which you can play through the a task similar to the one found in its sense of accomplishment. Without it, can leave only through a hole in your game with only one weapon, chosen series sequel. That is, if you play the the prize at the end of the tunnel feels bathroom. This hole leads to various at the very beginning. If you manage game quickly and brutally, ignoring the empty. The entire point is to reward us locations which are connected to the the exact same feat in this mode, you fun-to-read messages and exploration, with a unique and hopefully enjoyable memory of another. Back and forth unlock yet another mode in which you you will unlock a powerful weapon. This experience, not to make us grit our you must go, to discover why you are can use all weapons from the very be- weapon, however, can potentially kill teeth at design flaws which keep us trapped in your room, why the hole ginning. Furthermore, you have access the player as well. On top of that, the from fulfilling arbitrary goals so we can leads where it does, and how you can to an infinite number of health drinks game can be played in an easy mode become invincible and finally thumb our get out. and ammo. In other words, you are nigh with almost no monsters anyway. The nose at all that. The story unfolds in multiple forms. invincible. secret weapon is there as an after- If the player can’t feel talented for With enough poking there are clues to Yet, this is a terrible task. Silent Hill 4 thought, to reward those who want to jumping through the designer’s hoops, find around the apartment. Often these is a broken game. To earn this reward play Silent Hill 2 like a videogame. But perhaps it would be better to turn to take the form of notes passed to the you must delve into the most broken it’s surely no invincibility. sheer creativity, even absurdity. The player through various slots or crev- parts of it: the glitches, the frustrating Years ago, when developers wanted potential size of videogame worlds is so ices from an unknown entity. There are combat, the nonsensical maps, etc. to give the player some stupid, game- enormous it’s hard not to wonder why clues to find in the stages. Combined, You have to entirely ignore the thought- breaking power, they’d simply throw so much has been left untapped. After the game tells a surprisingly coherent ful parts of the game. If you want to be in a well-hidden cheat code. Now they all, once the game is over, what’s left to story. And though most of its environ- rewarded with game-breaking invinci- would rather the player perform some hide? Why not go all out, ignore what’s ments and enemies are not innately bility, you have to put up with a lot of mind-blowingly difficult task, even if been established—or better yet, have frightening, the game becomes more crap. that task doesn’t suit itself to the game fun with it? threatening as it progresses. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe the in question. In , there is a Give me Silent Hill Candy Land. I To appreciate this takes investment. designers just don’t want you to get frustrating pot-breaking minigame. In deserve a prize. The gameplay is often frustrating, the that reward. But I can’t imagine why; Shadow of the Colossus there are time interface unintuitive, the story some- a videogame is an experience, and trials, in which each boss has a time what forced, the graphics a far step if recent generations have taught us limit. In Resident Evil 4, there is the down from the previous game in the anything, it’s that game makers usually “Mercenaries” minigame, where you series, and so on. But if one grants it want you to experience every last part are rewarded for killing lots and lots of some leniency, there’s a good amount of their game—sometimes they even enemies with every single character of detail to appreciate in this game. So make it mandatory. on multiple stages. The end result is it puzzles me that the developers chose Let’s consider another example: Devil always game-breaking. Whether it’s a to reward the player for doing the exact May Cry. The principle is similar; if you speed run on hard mode or an idiotic opposite. want to be rewarded with game-break- minigame that grants you a superpow- If you play through the game on ing invincibility, you must slog through er, the punishment-and-reward system

54 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 You’ve Won a Prize! 55 Doom brought people together in a way that videogames simply hadn’t before. They connected with each other over the internet to play death- match games and swap levels they had designed. They built an online commu- nity that is still going strong. Now that Knee-Deep in Doom is downloadable on the Xbox 360, new players are being introduced Legend to the joy of co-op over Xbox Live. When created Doom release, and again at the end when Eric 3 a few years ago, they turned Doom Doom—PC (JAG, 32X, PS1, SAT, and mobile phones. Right now, people Harris and Dylan Klebold took guns and into something it clearly was not. The SNES, 3DO, N64, GBA, PDA, SDC, are playing Doom on iPods. pipe bombs to school and started kill- original game was never about cheap NDS, PSP, GP2X, MOB, POD) When I was in junior high, I would ing . Eric Harris’s Doom WADs can still scares and heebie-jeebies. It was about By J. R. Freeman hang out with my friends in the alleyway be downloaded and played to this day. finding the biggest gun out there and Art By Jonathan Kim space between the two main buildings, If you’ve never played Doom—and finding the exit to the level. The original Etta Dale and Lucas Hall. After lunch I find it very hard to believe that you Doom was about quick, easy-to-pick- Doom is legend. It is timeless, a game we’d stand around and shoot the shit haven’t—here is the premise: Hell has up, unadulterated, childish, dumb, that will never age or be forgotten as until it was time to go back to class. I broken free, and you’re the last surviv- violent fun. It was upfront and to the long as there is hardware to play it on, remember suggesting how cool it would ing marine who can stop it. You take point, and without Doom we wouldn’t a game from which an entire genre be to have a portable Doom, like on whatever weapons you can find and have games like Half-Life or System spawned. Game Boy, and everyone said, “Yeah, blast anything that gets in front of you, Shock, games that rewrote all the rules Doom is the kid who introduced you that would be neat, wouldn’t it?” and simple as that. The main character, on what can and should be a first-per- to pornography—the monsters, blood, then change the subject. Only a couple affectionately known as the “Doomguy” son shooter. and the guns were the stash hidden years later, my dream came true, Doom among fans, was the perfect video- The only things that Doom and Doom under the bed in an old, beat-up card- came to the then-brand-new Game Boy game because he mirrored 3 really have in common are the fact board box. Doom is the kid you got into Advance. I could carry Doom with me the player so well; silent, impulsive, that they both started as tech demos. your first fistfight with, ending childish wherever I went. and focused solely on the task at But time has shown that the original days and ushering in an adulthood that Doom is the quintessential game hand—shooting many, many, many evil Doom stands on its oen. It always has you weren’t ready for. Doom is the first of the 1990s—fast, hard, brutal, fun bad guys. and it always will, as long as there an girl you ever had sex with. like an is fun. It has just Doom didn’t have puzzles or traps electronic device even remotely ca- Doom was a defining moment of my enough depth to keep you coming or anything to slow you down in your pable of playing it. childhood. I still clearly recall playing back for more abuse at the hands of “mass murdering” other than the setup Doom is legend. it on a 486, back when it was a top- angry cyberdemons. It is literally a of the level. Early levels were small and of-the-line computer, impressing my game about all hell breaking loose, and simple, introducing you to the idea of father and older brother by clearing the that’s exactly what happened when it getting the right key, so that when you first stage with 100% kills when I was came out, and when the media caught reached the later, massively sprawling merely five or six years old. wind of it. Lt. Col. Dave Grossman of levels, you knew what to do. Find the Doom is one of the most ported the Killology Research Group dubbed key to open to the door, kill what’s on videogames in history. It can be played Doom a “mass-murder simulator.” while the other side. officially on the Atari Jaguar, Sega 32X, religious groups protested the Satanic Doom wasn’t about the things other Sony Playstaion, , Super imagery. games were about. There were no coins Nintendo, 3DO, , Game Doom was the game that scared to collect, no crates to stack on top of Boy Advance, , Micro- the overly sensitive into believing that each other,no stupid jumping puzzles. soft Xbox, and Xbox 360. Unofficially, videogames could be used as training Doom was about lining up the bad guys fans have invested their own time and simulators for would-be serial killers. with your barrel and pressing fire, or effort to port the source code to the The controversy was there at the begin- clearing out a room full of hundreds of , the DS, the PSP, the GP2X, ning of the decade with the game’s enemies with a Big Fucking Gun.

56 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Knee-Deep In Legend 57 In and his father, see how more sequel later, in a flailing, panicked far they have strayed from the social flight even further away from manhood boundaries set for them as men. The and Japan, Yuri was replaced by a pre- constant threat of in Yuri’s adolescent American boy with a giant father is a symbol of the fear that cowlick. This should come as no sur- drive otaku to live their lives in games prise to anyone familiar with Japanese and porn and message boards—the RPGs. These games are antennas that Killing Dad and unshakable belief that, even within the pick up the fears of Japanese otaku, comforting environment of an RPG, garbled by the constant radioactive Getting it Right they’d have no hope of emotional bombardment of media signals from survival if the next random encounter across the Pacific. The subconscious of was their dad. In a genre which is, even a boy too scared to leave his room is a Shadow Hearts—PS2 empires establish the necessary feeling more than others, about a feeling of frightened, muddled mess even without By Justin Boley of conflict with mainstream society. empowerment, the fact that the hero all that distance and interference. It still Demonized priests and gods satisfy the can be killed dead by his father at comes as a surprise, though, how, for A friend asked me a while back what need for a villainous father figure, lead- any point, regardless of how much he just a brief moment in one game, we you do in Japanese console role-play- ing up to the now thoroughly clichéd levels up or how good his equipment is, got a crystal-clear signal of a boy look- ing games. My reply was: “You kill god battle in which the main character, filled speaks to how debilitating and frighten- ing the symbol of all his fears straight in and sometimes your dad!” It was funny, with a sort of generalized chronic angst, ing the father figure is. the eye, and dreaming of winning. but it’s not completely true. You also kills god, and sometimes his dad. What But hidden in the subtext, and in a fight monsters and collect treasure. makes Shadow Hearts stand out in a long, convoluted sidequest, is the hope Then you explore new places and kill huge herd of similar games is the amaz- for reconciliation. Yuri can confront new monsters and collect new treasure. ing cultural specificity with which it his father, and by defeating him, gain Sometimes you fight a boss, and some- repeats that last cliché. his approval. This sequence is accom- times there’s a scripted cutscene. Yuri, Shadow Hearts’s protagonist, panied by every type of catharsis the But mostly you participate in the is scared of his father. Gameplay-wise writers could get their hands on. By great database tendency of nerds this is because his father’s ghost will conquering his father, Yuri saves his everywhere—reducing a colorful world show up and beat the tar out of him if girlfriend, recovers his sanity, escapes of scary places to a set of variables that he doesn’t play right; character-wise, from his curse, and becomes almost can be controlled with a memory exer- it’s because his dad represents every- unstoppable. Although the climax of the cise and a menu choice. Monsters are thing he can’t live up to. Yuri’s father game deals out the usual RPG themes simply a matter of identifying the most is a stern, silent figure, who fights with of self-affirmation and approval from efficient response and retrieving it from karate to protect his family and honor others, it’s there. Concealed behind the memory. Stories are a matter of identi- the directives of his military superiors. main story, where no one without ac- fying what event flags are triggered by Even though Yuri is archetypal, he’s cess to a walkthrough, determination, conversation choices. not the Japanese male lead of the and boundless free time to complete The core mechanics that have past – he’s moody and unstable, he’s the sidequests will see it—that is, remained relatively unchanged since awkward around women, he’s rough concealed even further in the depths of the genre’s inception aren’t especially around the edges where his father is otaku cultural ritual—the frightened and important to RPG gamers. Role-playing block print. And despite being Japa- desperate whom Yuri represents can games have become one of the most nese, he has no connection to his cul- finally beat the strongest. treasured forms of media to Japanese ture. This isn’t anything unusual—RPG One sequel later, the resolution otaku, and as such, their economic heroes are brooding, culturally neutral between Yuri and his father became viability has come to depend less on pretty-boys almost as a rule—but by an “alternate ending” that never hap- mechanics and more on their ability to juxtaposing him against a father figure pened according to game canon. Thus respond to the psychological needs of who embodies so many of the ide- the danger of depicting a hero who’s their entrenched, dedicated fanbase. als of Japanese masculinity, Shadow already at peace with himself was Most games accomplish this with a Hearts throws the differences between evaded, and players could relive the ca- careful mixture of deliberately vague yesterday’s male ideal and today’s tharsis again, or for the first time. One and blindingly obvious analogies. Evil otaku everyman into horrifying relief. 58 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Killing Dad and Getting it Right 59 to be recreated from the ground up. of paranoia for everyone. There is warfare, drug abuse, rape, and But the bit works well enough to slavery; life is cheap, in every sense of draw folks in, partly by laughing at such the word. The end of the world is your obvious propaganda attempts, and playground. partly because the notion that some The winking nostalgia in the art and kind of apocalypse is drawing near (or design is similar to that very strange will, eventually) has never left us. The The Sound of Horns Americana one finds in a ProperNoun- Fallout series shows a world in which all igan’s restaurant. They vaguely reek of the goofy lies about scampering under and Motors the beginning of the 20th century. The desks to avoid nuclear annihilation was décor is a smattering of small-town worthless; none of the Cold Warriors -football booster club para- foresaw giant scorpions (occasionally Fallout and Fallout 2—DOS, Terror; revolutionary political groups; phernalia, daubed with other displays intellectually and spiritually beautiful) WIN, MAC and the works of European traditional- of Teddy Roosevelt–esque manliness as a future trend to watch out for. All By M. O’Connor ist writers like Julius Evola, Oswald and adventure. Yet the customers in the science, all the decades of politi- Spengler, and Jacques Barzun. They these establishments are generally not cal grandstanding, all the proxy wars The end of the world—the finale for all are also common in the social criticisms old enough to actually recognize these were hopelessly trying to stave off the that is, was, and shall be—is a universal of gay marriage, materialism, corpora- cultural artifacts, much less have an inevitable. human theme. It shows up in religious tions, consumerism, and immigration; emotional response based on direct Fallout and its sequel Fallout 2 (for and secular cultures and appears in fears and worries are loaded into terms experience. the sake of brevity, we shall pretend an array of materialistic and mystical like “the gay agenda” or “the religious Fallout players are in a similar boat, that these two constitute the entire guises. Decay, death and destruction right.” feeling a connection with motifs they series) illustrate the problem of creating are the hallmarks of any eschaton, There’s also the “2012” mythol- 1 never actually encountered. Not many coherent game worlds within any kind regardless of the culture. This ultimate ogy, popular in a rather wide variety folks under forty remember bomb- of vaguely human setting. “Historical” destiny of all things is generally nega- of people expecting a new Age of shelter drills; very few under fifty would or not, there is only so far a designer tive, though it is often followed by a Aquarius or a technological singularity have seen genuine Cold War duck-and- can go and still have a game, rather beautiful age of unending peace and or perhaps even the “self-transforming cover action. But the feelings are there. than a series of tragedies disguised as goodness, typically in a spiritual or oth- machine elves” of Terrence McKenna, The bulk of Fallout’s audience grew up error messages. The next time you’re erwise noncorporeal state—the fragile who along with his brother helped in the late ’70s and early ’80s, a period rolling a new character in a “medieval” body left behind in the fallen world of hatch this particularly robust meme. that saw the resurgence of classic fantasy world, consider the high infant flesh and pain. It’s piggybacked on a loop point in the megastate antagonism and had plenty mortality rates in pre-industrial cultures, One obvious interpretation of this incredibly detailed “long count” Mayan theme is that everything living eventual- calendar that will happen on December ly dies; a slight variation is the idea that 21st, 2012. The McKenna brothers es- 1 Eschaton is derived from the Greek word for “last” and from eschatology, the study of the end of cultures can, in some sense, foresee sentially picked this date after trying out the world. their own demise. Their apocalypse is a other combinations, since the actual mythical telling of the end of their way 2 Savitri Devi Mukherji, a French convert to Hinduism and an important thinker (so to speak) in “long count” doesn’t loop until about neo-Nazi literature and what some writers have called “esoteric Hitlerism”—a continuation of the of life and of their sense of a “people” 2700 years from now.3 cult of personality rituals which had sprung up in Germany during World War II. She envisioned (as of a nation or tribe or religious com- We continue to exist despite these Hitler as the final Avatar of Vishnu in the Kali Yuga, the “Age of Darkness,” or the final age of the munity). Taking them literally seems obsessions and manias. Persistence world before the coming Satya Yuga. Vishnu will arrive as a great destroyer, named Kalki, who to be a mistake—Ragnarok didn’t is all. will cleanse the earth of evil. Supposedly Hitler was this great cleansing force, and for neo-Nazis claim the Vikings, and the Jehovah’s The end in Interplay’s Fallout comes signals the beginning of a new Aryan age.  Depending on whose divine mathematics you think is more reliable, the Kali Yuga has either Witnesses have been wrong a few with a bang, a classic theme lifted in times now—but this shouldn’t be taken ended or not yet begun, and may last 2,400 years, 32,000 years or 432,000 years (the traditional equal parts from the 1950s and 1980s figuring of the length of each of the four ages of existence, which endlessly repeat following the as evidence that belief in an end to American understandings of what end of the Kali Yuga and the start of the Satya Yuga, a great paradise where gods and men work material existence is solely a religious nuclear power meant to the world: giant in harmony, righteousness reigns and everything is totally rawkin’. delusion.2 mushroom clouds. The bastards really Modern eschatological themes exist went through with it in this particular 3 For more information, please consult A Forest of Kings by Linda Schele and David Freidel, which in the public “discussions” of disparate universe—and human cultural life had contains handy illustrations and an in-depth account of how the various Mayan calendars and topics: global warming; the War on almanacs were constructed and consulted.

60 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 The Sound of Horns and Motors 61 real or imagined assaults. You can also done by the work of your character, sell your allies into slavery if they get a presumably unsuspecting messiah. too pushy.) To some extent all RPG player char- Both games are about cults, literal or acters are saviors of some world order figurative, with their own plans for the and destroyers of others, otherwise end of the world and the beginning of people wouldn’t bother putting up the next. Both are undone with a com- with cumbersome play mechanics and bination of violence and trickery. The turn-based mania. And both villains are, first Fallout has a better setup, in that despite their bloodlust, not entirely un- many of the clues about “the Master” reasonable. The Master lacks some im- are appropriately delivered by fawn- portant data, but is driven by compas- ing cultists who have no idea of the sion of a kind. The Enclave has plenty scope of the coming apocalypse. The of information and utterly no remorse, Unity is a typical collectivist nightmare but is compelled for something that can crafted by a mutant blob that figures be construed as a greater good. Politics and be thankful you don’t have to deal if you can’t beat ’em, mutate ’em (and at the end of the world is certainly no ian divisions still matter? Perhaps the with game-over messages popping up consume ’em when ’em don’t turn out time for saints or Boy Scouts, anymore religious impulse as we know it would minutes later to say, “You have died of right). The plan is to use the Forced than our own time. die out simply from being trapped in smallpox at the age of three. Please roll Evolutionary Virus (FEV) to create an In some ways it is disappointing that a self-contained marvel of science again.” army of miniature Incredible Hulks and no apparent strands of any of the major with a small group of jumpsuit-attired Playing Fallout as it falls, accepting bring about world peace. Of course, the world religions survive into the Fallout busybodies, and some other means the constant barrage of cruel fate, is player, in the guise of the Vault Dweller, era (outside of a thinly veiled burlesque of providing meaning – and control- thematically appropriate to a degree, puts an end to these happy utopian of Scientology4) because, as the series ling population growth through rituals but at some point you might actually dreams of sameness squared. shows, there’s a lot of fun to be had and rules concerning sexual relations want to see how things turn out sans Fallout 2 twists the theme a bit—you playing “what if?” with bits of human – would be implemented.6 disasters. Death is a run-of-the-mill can tell the end was rushed by the culture. What happens to Christian- In Fallout 2 the legend of the Vault occurrence, even as you approach the time you get there—into a conspiracy ity (and Judaism and Islam) when the Dweller has swelled from rumor and end of each game with sharpened abili- thriller that’s really another exercise of end comes and those who are left fantasy and events from the first ties and big guns. Your companions die religious fanaticism. The remnants of must endure the pressure cooker of a game that may or may not have been with depressing regularity (don’t trust the US shadow government have be- decades in isolation?5 Would we find experienced by the player. Despite any of them with a burst-fire weapon, come a kooky military order known as resurgent messianic spirits battling the , suffering, and despotism by the way). If you play the game the Enclave, which figures you cannot each other upon their release from the (despite even a lively slave trade), some without spamming the save button and make the novus ordo seclorum without vaults, or would the framework turn still have a yearning for messiahs to reloading at every misfortune, there’s breaking some eggs (i.e., all life on deeply individualistic from the lack of save and destroy the world. a good chance you’ll wind up with no earth). So the FEV gets a 2.0 revision a larger community? Would sectar- allies. using a combination of cold science, That’s the kind of experience one live slave labor, and tasty, tasty racism. would expect in a horrible place and 4 And Scientology can burlesque itself quite well without any outside help, thank you very much. After the mass slaughter of everyone a terrible time. It’s especially anxious else, the Enclave will repopulate the 5 Supposedly this theme was going to be central to the planned version of Fallout 3, before Inter- when dealing with the long turn-based earth with their non-contaminated play met its own apocalyptic end. What Bethesda will do with the franchise remains to be seen. combat sequences, as you have no genes. Depending on how far you dig direct control over anyone but your into the backstory surrounding the 6 Though the Malthusian current that’s so popular today (Short version: too many people / we’re own character. But coincidental real- all going to die) has been shown to be dead wrong when so broadly applied, in a closed system Fallout universe (or simply dig around ism is cold comfort when you’re being like an underground vault there’s a very simple lack of square footage to consider. Obviously a in Fallout 2), it appears likely the Vaults accidentally shot in the back by one whole mess of pre-and-post-natal infanticide underpinned vault life, unless the birth control was project was entirely engineered by a of your trusty friends. (It turns into real primo stuff. This is avoiding the larger question of sexual politics in the vault, though it seems gang of “political realists” (read sadists) likely that autocratic elitism a la Vault 13 was the rule, rather than the exception. They didn’t call warm hilarity, however, when those for their own Strangelove-related sexual them “overseer” for nothing. Furthermore, there’s an argument to be made that these folks were friends—or random children—get a shenanigans. in on the grand experiment that was the true purpose behind the Vaults. Visit http://falloutvault. taste themselves, as punishment for Yet all these grand plans are un- com for more information on the subject—and all others related to the Fallout universe—than you could possibly hope for. 62 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 The Sound of Horns and Motors 63 to the next clue, clumsily evading any enemies who may appear or, when she is forced to, clumsily fighting them. The clues eventually lead Jennifer to the beautiful butterfly or rabbit, and she takes it back to the Aristocrats. They tell her it’s not good enough, berate her for completing her task too slowly, ascribe her victory to someone else, or The Punch Line blame her for something she didn’t do. Then they punish her. And then a new chapter starts. Rule of Rose—PS2 only person she can rely on is her dog. The game is an exercise in tedium. By Ancil Anthropy She becomes completely dependent on The first few hours are spent groping; Art By Mariel Cartwright him. And then, at the game’s climax,” you mash the X button, hoping to find he pauses on the word “climax” and a door you can’t see in the darkness. Shuji Ishikawa walks into Yuya Takaya- leans over the chair, his face sweaty Once you find Brown, the game be- ma’s office. “I have an amazing idea and his eyes shining, “we kill the dog.” comes vapidly straightforward, asking for a survival-horror game. You should For the longest time, Takayama just you only to squint at the screen, sit publish it.” sits in silence. Finally, he manages, through the long load times, and oc- Yuya Takayama says, “Sorry, I don’t “That’s a hell of a game. What do you casionally fight rejects from Silent Hill. publish survival-horror games. They’re a call it?” Combat is not only intentionally crip- little too cliche.” And grinning, Ishikawa says, “The pled but also shamelessly buggy—en- Ishikawa says, bowing, “Sir, if you Aristocrats!” emies will hit you when you’re nowhere just hear my idea, I know you would near them, and you’ll die because the want to publish it.” game is miserly with healing items. Takayama says, “Okay, okay. Then, because the game is even stin- Tell me.” The game, developed by Ishikawa’s gier with its save points, you’ll repeat Ishikawa swings over a chair and aptly named Punchline studio, is actu- the whole past hour of the game, sitting mounts it backwards, leaning over it ally called Rule of Rose. The descrip- again through the long load times and as he talks. “Picture this,” he says. “A tion may not be entirely accurate; unskippable dialogue. young girl is captured by a band of after playing through the game and You’re given no reward for doing this, sadistic orphans. They give her books, reading through the script, I still have other than a lurid cutscene and more of hand-drawn books, full of pictures of no idea what the game’s plot is. But the same. You keep playing because goats being slaughtered and mermaids the children who torment the game’s you get satisfaction out of withstand- being hooked. They make her act them protagonist—who is named Jennifer, ing everything the game subjects you out. We give her a dog, see, and the but who the game’s narrator calls “the to—“Thank you Ma’am, may I please dog helps her find things, so she can’t unlucky girl”—do call themselves “The have another?” You play because the do anything by herself. She finds the Red Crayon Aristocrats.” They have a game is cruel and you like it. things the orphans tell her, and then hierarchy, you see, and Jennifer is at The game demands something rather they spit on her, they beat her and tie the bottom of it. Therefore she must do personal from you—it asks you to sub- her up, they hold dead rats to her face their bidding. mit. At the opening of the first chapter, and cover her in insects. They make her Their bidding is fetch quests (and Jennifer is told she’s been a “bad girl.” fight shrivelled monster children with appropriately, Jennifer enlists a dog to “And bad girls need to be punished, pigs’ heads and giant scissors. She can help). “Find a beautiful butterfly.” “My don’t they?” You are prompted to re- barely fight, of course. And there’s a rabbit ran away. Bring him back.” The spond by selecting “yes” or “no.” headmaster who canes her and a man characters, usually off-handedly, toss The scene will carry on regardless who keeps children locked in his base- Jennifer a clue, and she shows it to her of your pick; the game will tell you, “I’ll ment. The girl comes to accept that the dog, Brown. Then she follows Brown be the one giving the orders around

64 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 The Punch Line 65 here, okay?” Jennifer has already made As a game, Rule of Rose is a mess; her choice, must eternally submit—to as a Top, it learned all its meager tricks the Aristocrats’ demands and pejora- from bad ’80s pulp flicks—it doesn’t tives and punishments—with scarcely think to ask your limits, doesn’t check a protest. Whether you, the player, to make sure the rope isn’t cutting off choose to submit—to the game’s tasks your blood flow, doesn’t keep a box and objectives and constant cruelties— of emergency supplies on hand, really won’t be decided by answering “no.” doesn’t think of you at all. It’s the kind When you press that button, you’re just of Top experienced players stay away playing along with the scene, giving the from. game the okay to continue. The one thing it does is respect Rule of Rose brilliantly illuminates the the safeword. The buttons on your roles of “Top” and “bottom” inherent controller, both “yes” and “no,” will in all gaming and the choices we make never change the scene or the game. to enter those roles. Though it is most But there’s another button with another obvious here, with the cruel children response—it glows green on your spitting on Jennifer as she obeys their console, always within reach. If there’s demands, the Top/bottom dynamic is one thing you can learn from a Top—or intrinsic to all demanding games. game—like this, it’s that the choice to I enjoy playing shooters, some of keep playing is wholly yours. Maybe the most brutal, punishing games in that’s the punch line. existence. But when I escape a situa- tion that had hitherto seemed impos- sible, there is a sense that the game is proud of me—for enduring, for learning, for rising to meet its demands and im- proving myself. Even if the game says nothing, if my only hint is the twinkle in its eye, I feel the respect. And then the wicked grin as it lays another, more difficult scene upon me. I may struggle, I may surmount, but we—the game and myself—will push my limits further.

66 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 The Punch Line 67 crystals will trigger a metamorphosis, nightmares. The only deviation from the which is based on the combination of classic Lovecraft Mythos is that Elta is two elements (blue for water, red for not a poor man driven to madness by fire, and green for air).3 Aside from the horror, but a powerful warlock bent to ability to transform into a ninja or a defeat gods and bring peace back to samurai, Elta can also roam around the his land. worlds and beat up magic creatures While I was playing , Untold Tales while discovering new rooms. In short, I was reading classic tales from the the gameplay is quite straightforward, Mythos, and I often imagined what of the Arcade and actually a bit stiff, with a number those stories would be like if, instead of cheap aspects like Elta himself (who of the whiny, reactionary alter egos of can be pretty annoying to control), hits Lovecraft, the main characters were Killing Dragons Has Never Let’s make haste to the final part of that come from nowhere, and unbal- the arcane, shape-shifting magician. I Been So Much Fun! our quest! anced enemies and bosses. thought of Elta as some sort of Outer By Francesco-Alessio Ursini But the sense of “otherness” was Ones priest—his goals only super- the strongest element in the game’s ficially linked to the usual “get rid of I have played a lot of great games in Elta and the Magic charm. All bosses are gothic creatures the demons”—secretly fighting for a my life, and a chunk have been set in Wars—The Lord of All of doom, some of them perfectly in line much higher cause (like inner enlighten- fabulous imaginary worlds of might and with the Great Old Ones’ descriptions. ment, Nodens’s triumph, or other zany magic. Demons, wizards, and creatures Magicians Magician Lord is one of the first games The seventh boss is a perfect rendition things). Today, I can only frown or laugh of light and darkness were the victims that appeared on the Neo-Geo in 1990. of Nyarlathotep, the god with a tentacle a bit at my silliness of yesteryear, but I of my arcade violence; I spent count- The Neo-Geo hardware became the in place of his face, the herald of Chaos am still fascinated by the laconic charm less hours destroying every single target of -obsessed during and the Great Old Ones’ agent.4 Other of Magician Lord. supernatural creature that dared show the ’90s, thanks to the insane prices creatures haunt the incredible worlds of I don’t remember completing the up on my quest to save the princess. of the carts. Its initial nature, though, clouds to which Elta is transported to game on one credit, but I had a couple Sometimes I needed to quest around to was more arcade-oriented. I doubt that banish evil and regenerate Earth, and all of friends who could do it. I was frus- save a kingdom, while other times I had all early Neo-Geo titles were meant of them share a design made of impos- trated after trying many times to reach to fight with the poor, discriminated- for the arcade market,1 but games like sible shapes and labyrinthine routes. the later stages, something rather against magical beings, who wanted Magician Lord provided a great arcade One peculiar aspect of this game difficult to do without learning all the nothing more than a peaceful life of experience. that has always fascinated me is its cheap tricks to avoid getting hit and destruction and rampage. It is the quest of the warlock Elta and close resemblance to Lovecraft’s losing power levels. The advantage of I have played many arcade games his perils against the lord of the under- Dreamlands. I was a fond player of Call my disenchantment is that I spent part set in fantasy worlds, most of them world.2 All his adventures take place of Cthulhu, and I honestly adored the of my time watching these two friends sporting cheesy and delightful plots in evocative settings and are blessed Dreamland settings. Actually, I remem- playing, and I could appreciate the aes- and fascinating settings. In the third by entrancing music, creating a sense ber thinking that most enemies in this thetics of the game without having to and final installment of this “Untold of wonder and arcane mystery. When game were inspired by Lovecraft’s punch the cab because of the peculiar Tales” miniseries, I’ll cover more exotic I was a kid, this game bewitched me quests. I have enjoyed the incredible with its environments; I remember be- pilgrimages and magic wars of Elta, ing enthralled by the big moons in the 1 Some of them are too long or too “expensive” to be played in this way, like Crossed Swords or helping him to become the Magician background of stage 2 and the Love- Riding Hero. Lord; I have roamed at length in the rich craftian ambience of stages 6 and 8 and intriguing world of Dungeon Magic; that summoned the bizarre landscapes 2 A warlock is a conjurer or even a demon summoner. Elta is a good guy who uses shape-shifting and I have fought countless dragons in powers, so he’s “witchy” and ambiguous in his appearance and methods, definitely part of his of Kadath and R’lyeh. This, however, is the two D&D titles set in the classical charm. just one aspect of the game’s appeal. world of . All these adventures Magician Lord is basically a plat- are narrated here again, with the glori- 3 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������No earth: Elta doesn’t like heavy things! Besides that, I’m not sure that the gems actually are as- forming/. Elta can sociated to the classic Aristotelian elements. ous purpose of reminiscing about the jump, shoot magic beams, and pick up past of the arcade experience. shape-shifting crystals. Collecting two 4 �����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������Actually, Nyarlathothep has three legs and it is described as gigantic in its monstrous form. I doubt that a gigantic boss could have been a good choice for the game, though (he wouldn’t have fit the screen).

68 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Untold Tales of the Arcade 69 The fighting system is also pretty the fantasy books I was reading at that good, as characters can do interesting time. In this specific case, I couldn’t combos, charge attacks, and spells. avoid associating Dungeon Magic’s All four dungeons are pretty big, and mood and style to the Elric of Melni- it takes some time and many plays to boné saga and its melancholic mood. discover all of their intricate details. The Dungeon Magic lacks the depressing routes through them are by no means ending of Elric’s saga, but it shares easy to dissect—each of the three or the light sadness, peril, and difficult four possible routes grants enough choices. After all, killing an innocent benefits and handicaps for future who was transformed into a giant, stages to be considered an acceptable loathsome spider is something that choice. Unlike many similar games, could have happened in the Michael the possibilities are really open-ended. Moorcock novels. All that matters is devising the right Dungeon Magic became, then, strategy. a sort of natural progression of the Aside from the intricate gameplay, Rastan series.7 Not only because they Dungeon Magic has a number of shared the same glorious producer, interesting features. The plot hides an but also because both represented an gameplay. The fascinating aspects, ing game. First, it uses an isometric intriguing anticlimactic ending (which often-ignored aspect of fantasy: the thanks to this more passive attitude, perspective. Second, the dungeons are I won’t reveal) and a lot of narrative sense of oppressive fate, the struggle quickly took precedence. Every play pretty elaborate, and each level offers twists based on the structure of the against predestination, the inevitable was a journey into the infinite wonders many different choices of possible game. It has a delicate and elegant impossibility of a happy ending when a of Gal Ageise, the netherworld in which paths to reach the boss. Some paths orchestral score, something very rare group of heroes fights against ominous the saturnine boss awaits his final de- are better than others as they lead to in arcade videogames. The animation creatures. feat at the hands of Elta. more special items or rewarding events. is rich, with bosses like the giant snake After all these years, Dungeon Years have passed and I can only At the same time, they’re also more moving around the screen in superb Magic still strikes me as an original recover the sense of Magician Lord’s difficult, so there is a balance between detail. There are a variety of enemies, and melancholic title. Original be- wonder with the almighty power of advantages and handicaps. Levels are all offering a nice challenge, and many cause it introduced many intricacies MAME, unless I want to fork out a for- big and complex, with a lot of different possible options for fighting. to an otherwise drab sub-genre while tune to buy a Neo-Geo plus a Magician enemies, all based on the traditional I remember that my friends and I remaining arcadey enough to attract Lord cart. I prefer to be a filthy pirate D&D milieu. Bosses are tough, and the spent a lot of time trying each combina- me. Melancholic because it has so and revisit the worlds of my youth key to each is learning how to destroy tion and path in Dungeon Magic. We many subtle elements that avoided the without spending a penny. I am still fas- them in the quickest way possible. shared our knowledge via diaries and clichés of crappy fantasy plots in favor cinated with the perils of the young ma- At first glance, it seems like a rather notes; we even started to organize our of a darker, and somehow more human, gician Elta, even though trying to deal straightforward action/beat-’em-up lives to spend more time on the game. narrative. No fearless knights in shiny with odd jumps via a keyboard game, with the perspective its only Long before MMORPGs, giant cam- armor, no sappy endings, no miracu- causes me stress. The gigantic moons intriguing aspect. And when we remem- paigns, and other campy ideas became lous feats that save all the innocent and the endless cloud worlds are still as ber that the first game to do fantasy trendy, we spent our time in a giant people. Unless we want to buy into evocative as they were years ago, and I in an isometric perspective was Dark campaign for the conquest of this world childish black-and-white settings, no fall quickly into Otherness. Seal,5 any possible claim of innovation Much like Elta’s adventures, this one can conquer everything. and originality goes out of the window. game had a weird synchronicity with A Tale of Isometric But the charm of Dungeon Magic lies in the overall mix of ingredients; Taito 5 See “Untold Tales of the Arcade” in TGQ #7, the second installment of the trilogy. Quests—The Magic of decided to put together a number of Dungeons elements already present in many other 6 The reader wondering if I’m a bit of a Taito partisan is, as always, right. titles and refine them to a new level of Dungeon Magic (or Lightbringer, its 7 Which I talked about in both of the previous installments of this trilogy: “Untold Tales of the 6 Japanese name), is a rather interest- class, in perfect Taito style. Arcade” in TGQ #6 and #7.

70 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Untold Tales of the Arcade 71 Kicking Undead of demi-humans becomes unavoidable. Of course, the mastermind behind all Creatures and Red these attacks would have to be an un- Dragons Around—The dead creature, namely the lich Deimos (named after the Greek god of terror). In D&D Videogames short, the plot is the usual D&D adven- I think that everyone that can be labeled ture that every one of us has played at as a nerd has, at least once, played least a dozen times. Dungeons & Dragons. But D&D and its What makes the game great is bigger brother, Advanced Dungeons & its D&D setting. Back in 1994, I was Dragons, never attracted me a lot. As already tired of D&D; my RPG of choice tabletop role-playing games, they were was the much darker Stormbringer, Master to cheat on his dice roll, you can But my uncle could beat it without too cheesy, even in a medium that, by which had just been revised as Elric! mangle kobolds in no time! Add parry- getting hit once. Of course, the nerdy definition, was cheese at its cheesiest. However, I cheered at the sight of a ing, and you pretty much have a com- kids were all awestruck by his skills. But the two arcade titles inspired by videogame set entirely in the lands of pletely different game—one that points And when you remember that my this series remove a good amount of Mystara, one of the first fantasy set- out the problems of older hack-and- uncle usually swore like a sailor and cheese, leaving a good mix of side- tings I had the pleasure to explore in slash RPGs. Part of Tower’s charm was became overly aggressive when having scrolling beat-’em-up gameplay, follow- an RPG. Even if the renditions of most how it removed all the boring elements hardcore playing sessions in front of ing the example of their predecessor, of the characters and monsters were of fighting and made it actually enjoy- the zit-faced nerds attracted to coin-op Dungeon Magic. Of course, Taito’s not so accurate (every enemy except able, even if dashing at a lich trying to renditions of their basement pastimes,11 game was published only a couple of for the red dragon looked different from kill you with its wand is a bit zany. you can only feel sad at the missed oc- months earlier, so I’m exaggerating my mental images9), the overall D&D Like Dungeon Magic, Tower of Doom casion for a great show. to say that Dungeon Magic inspired feeling—cheesy generic fantasy—was generated enthusiasm, and the people Tower of Doom caused many arcade Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom perfectly translated. who didn’t much like the isometric view accidents and occasions for laughter, (the first Capcom’s two D&D games). At the same time, I liked the game- and over-complicated dungeons of but Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow But both games do share the same play, especially with the and cleric. Dungeon Magic found Tower refresh- over Mystara generated mass hysteria. basic idea: different paths, each with Both had a cool ability to launch spells ingly linear. My uncle, for instance, Capcom decided that the sober Tower advantages and penalties, plus a good and use weapons together, and clearly and definitely preferred the of Doom was not the real deal and roster of characters. comboing magic missiles with four- game: enough to clear it on all possible turned to another one of their great (but Tower of Doom is not as deep as hit sword slashes always made me paths with all four characters, discov- completely unrelated) beat-’em-ups Dungeon Magic, but is nonetheless a smile. It’s a shame that the tabletop ering every secret and optional path. for inspiration, Alien vs. Predator. The great game. Stages are simple: choose game was so boring and linear: Gary People of all ages rejoiced in seeing result is that Shadow over Mystara has a path, find secret doors and magical Gygax, the author of D&D, should him defeat the red dragon alive. If you one of the coolest fighting systems items, fool around trying to find out how have designed something more like wonder why, you should really get the around, but it doesn’t really evoke to open those damn doors on the last a side-scrolling beat-’em-up, or at game (it’s in MAME or Saturn), reach tabletop sword fights. The problem lies stage, discover the cheapest tricks to least he should have used a less static stage 6, choose the shortest route, and within the core fighting system: all of beat the bosses (including the insanely approach to fighting!10 Aside from the send me an e-mail in which you cry that the characters have rather long com- difficult red dragon on stage 6). All the campy idea of elves comboing trolls, the Red Dragon has beaten you silly, bos, as in Alien vs. Predator, resulting in clichés one would expect to find in an the core engine was fairly serious in destroyed your Zelda collection and some rather odd-looking events, such RPG, all within the classic setting of faithfully reproducing the “hack enemy, roasted your cat. as the elf doing somersault kicks, triple D&D—specifically, the principality of find treasure, proceed to next section” Glantri, a world that harbored my first dynamic of D&D. experiments as a . Of course, an arcade videogame 8 Mercenaries, actually. Tower has a traditional plot: mon- doesn’t play like a turn-based RPG. 9 Which are obviously the most accurate. sters start attacking humans en masse Consequently, beating the shit out of and cool heroes full of noble intentions ogres is a more pleasurable and faster 10 Stormbringer, on the other hand, allows you to do a lot of things in a single round.  8 and altruistic tendencies beat the shit experience, especially when you can Just letting you know. out of those poor, innocent monsters. jump, charge, land stunning hits, and Cruelty ensues, and a mass slaughter whatnot. No waiting for the Dungeon 11 Not me at the time, and hopefully not you as well!

72 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Untold Tales of the Arcade 73 Wait, there’s something worse. or the princess or sometimes both) Personally, I haven’t been a huge fan of and have fun with well-designed titles. this title. To be honest, I mostly played In retrospect, these games attracted it for the absurd atmosphere surround- me for their otherworldly settings, ing it—the young kids talking in wan- the bizarre and exotic creatures that nabe “magic speak,” the older people populated their worlds, and the sense trying to reminisce about the early ’80s of wonder that permeated them. Later, (in the mid ’90s, yuck!), and my uncle I would grow to be interested in rather menacing everyone else. My main con- different sorts of things, namely sci- cern was its gameplay, after all. I never ence, but nonetheless, magic, as it liked the idea of a hybrid between Alien appears in these games, still  vs. Predator and the first D&D game. fascinates me. There is something too silly about an Giant laser cannons and the farthest ascending slashes, and other Hong- any time of the day, consistently high. elf doing triple somersaults and jug- stars are cool, but so is the ability to Kong action-movie attacks. Some heated sessions involved  gling kobolds around the screen. Add summon a meteor strike to beat up If that were not enough, the inventory things like: in downright stupid bosses of the “find stupid trolls and undead creatures. system is much more complicated than the cheap trick and they’re harmless” With magic, I have visited submerged Tower; you have to handle spells and • Brawls, the real thing, people variety and fairly useless magic items continents, floating islands in the sky, items while at the same time juggling punching each other over which and you’re set with a rather disappoint- netherworlds full of monsters, and around the screen. In short: press zone to choose to get secret items ing formula. paradises ripe with divine creatures. My C, move the inventory items with the • Acts of vandalism to the cabinets There were other cheesy elements, trilogy on fantasy games ends here, but joystick (your character will also move (two of them inspired by rage too. The plot is the usual “red dragon there are other titles made of sword and around the screen), change inventory toward Tel’arin, the ninja-esque masked as human tries to overcome sorcery that I will surely cover in future types (from items to spells for instance) shadow elf) the human world.” In addition, the installments of this column. with B, then press the jump button to • Ultra-nerds studying all imperfec- red dragon is trying to summon back See you in the arcade… use your item. Puzzled? Yeah, we all tions and divergences from the into the world of Mystara some kind were, frankly. original descriptions in the D&D of Cthulhu-esque demon, and lame- Aside from the initial disorientation handbook (some of whom received ness triumphs supreme. But the most resulting from the much more hard- physical punishment because of fascinating aspect of D&D is indeed its core fighting system, the game quickly their obnoxious über-nerdism)12 absolute silliness, even by fantasy stan- became the object of mass abuse by • Random craziness, including some dards. In a way, the charm of the game the usual posse of players. It’s full of weird bugs (shame I don’t remem- (aside from the absolutely crazy context secrets (the inventory of items you’ve ber them) in which I happened to play it) lies in its found, at the high-score screen, is good many pointless aspects, like the game- proof); people spent hours trying to find The game was, in many aspects, the play balance of the two female thieves. everything. And since the game is actu- pinnacle of arcade ghetto culture. At no Their only good elements were a useful ally pretty big, this operation demanded point in my life can I remember a more juggling move and very hot sprites. I careful planning, written guides, lots of pure and untouched nerdiness drifting could comment on the erotic aspects of swearing, and many headaches. The through my old beloved arcade. Kids the stabbing action performed by these best part for me was my uncle playing it my age weren’t even the worst ones; thieves, but I’d rather not subject you to in every single moment of his freedom, the older generations, who some scary thoughts. cursing all possible divine entities in were teenagers when the D&D trend the world and menacing any kids who started, spent the most time on this dared to ask for change while he was title. There’s nothing more horrible than busy playing. thirty-year-olds monopolizing a cab I have played a lot of great games in Not counting my uncle’s insan- because they need to get revenge, in my life, and many times, the prize was ity, many lives were destroyed by the some sort of horrible, perverse way, for twofold: save something (the kingdom appearance of this game. The number all the humiliations they had to suffer of players orbiting the cab was, at from their dungeon masters. 12 Sadly, I was one of them.

74 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Untold Tales of the Arcade 75 small sum. And just like books, mov- ies, and practically any other form of entertainment, there is a large stable of readily available and inexpensive “classics” that everyone should play, so digging through used game bins will warrant plenty of gems. But even with the newer, top-of-the-line game systems, a little patience will result in Why Game? access to plenty of high-quality, bud- Now, you might say that’s all fine and get-priced titles. To top it all off, you can even just rent games for a fraction Reason #7: Why Not!? dandy, but you can’t deal with the crazy of the price it’d cost you to buy them By Mister Raroo controllers. You’re not getting off that easy, friends! Yes, becoming accus- outright. Gaming is a hobby that can be Art By Missus Raroo tomed to using joysticks and control tailored to fit any budget. Dear Non-Gamers of the World, pads might have a bit of a learning Greetings! It’s come to my atten- curve, but I have faith that you can do tion that you’re still a little iffy on the it! If Missus Raroo’s eighty-three-year- notion of videogames as legitimate old grandma can be taught how to entertainment. While I can understand navigate around a computer and fire off that you have your reasons for not e-mails, there’s no reason you can’t fig- playing games, I’m hoping that maybe ure out how to use an analog stick and you’ll rethink your stance on the matter. press buttons on a controller. It might No doubt, you most likely have some take you some time to get comfortable hang-ups about videogames that have with it, but with practice everything will prevented you from enjoying them, but be second nature before you know it. don’t worry, because I’m here to help! Even if you absolutely refuse to allow yourself to learn the ins and outs of using game controllers, you can play Videogames cover such a broad games through dance pads, light guns, spectrum of styles and genres that styluses, cameras, and even your own anyone can find something that suits voice. Heck, I wonder if many of you are them. Furthermore, despite what you actually gamers and don’t even real- may have heard on television or read ize it. If you’re the type of person that in the newspaper, there is much more sneaks in a few sessions of computer to videogames than graphic violence. solitaire at work when your boss isn’t Whether you’re a history buff, a painter, looking or enjoys a quick fix of Bejew- a bug collector, or a doctor, there is eled on your cell phone during your surely some game out there that’ll commute to work, then you are already Perhaps you think videogames are match your interests. There are musical a gamer! Chances are, you’ll love other strictly a children’s hobby. That’s a games, dating games, trivia games, types of videogames as well. Gaming is very common misconception, and it Don’t let the hype about the high scary games, fishing games, funny a hobby that has something to offer just most likely stems from the fact that price of videogames throw you off, games, driving games, pet-raising about anybody, and you’d be surprised videogames are still a relatively young either. There are plenty of inexpensive games, and, yes, should violence really at how entertaining and rewarding it is. category of entertainment. But the alternatives to paying full price for be your cup of tea, violent games. In games and systems. With a huge back Give videogames a chance! fact of the matter is many adults who other words, people of all ages, tastes, grew up playing videogames still play catalog of titles to explore, someone and backgrounds can enjoy video- Your pal, videogames, and in many ways, games new to videogames can jump right into games. Mister Raroo themselves have grown up right along the hobby by picking up some used with us. games and systems for a reasonably

76 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8 Why Game? 77 The year is 2007.

A series of disasters have transformed the once-vibrant field of games journalism into a wasteland. Months passed with no sign of salvation, and  it seemed as though all hope was lost. 

Hold it!! The Gamer’s Quarter, the youngest magazine ever to achieve The Punch Line the rank of A-class Strider, has been assigned the incredible task of liberating this stagnating field from its captors and stopping their sinister plans!

Lance in hand, The Gamer’s Quarter sets off on a perilous quest through eerie lands of decay and devestation to rescue the soul of games journalism! The power of love burns fiercely in their hearts. Is there any force that can defeat them?

Objection!!

78 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #8