FORT90

Real quick, here’s a few other video gaming related odd and ends:

- The latest line of Famicom Minis were just announced in Japan (which are old Famicom games released for the GBA, better known on these shores as the NES Classic Series) and it includes Palthena’s Mirror, a.k.a., Kid Icarus (YES!). Also of note is the original Castlevania, which increases the chances of seeing Gradius later down the road (and Life Force if there really is a God). I certainly hope Capcom decides to jump on the Origin Of Our TV Games bandwagon with releases of Mega Man 1, 2, and 3 (hey, they’ll release any game any ridiculous amount of times if they think it’ll make money).

There’s also Super Mario Bros. 2, though that’s more than likely the Japanese version (see here in Super Mario All Stars as Lost Levels) and not the one we got in America, which was originally Doki Doki Panic (and later re-released in Japan as Super Mario USA). Though I certainly hope Nintendo doesn’t forget what helped get the GBA on the map: releasing old Super Nintendo Mario games. I’m still waiting for my All Star edition of SMB1 dammit.

Plus there’s the original Metroid, which I technically already have via Metroid Zero Mission, but I may pick it up just for the awesome box alone. Yes, I am a sucker…

- Speaking of Metroid, someone has made a patch that gives Metroid 2 for the original Game Boy a full color face lift, bringing it up to the visual level of Super Mario Bros. DX and Legend of Zelda DX (surpassing it in my opnion).

This is awesome news cuz I had Metroid 2 and simply could not get anywhere due to the monochrome game’s very similar looking, and therefore very confusing, levels. Unfortunately, one needs a PC to apply the patch (I’m on a Mac) to turn the regular Metroid 2 ROM into “Metroid 2 DX”, but I’m sure I can figure something out. Found this news via Insert Credit.

- And via Game Critics comes a look into the minds of the booth babes of E3. Best response regarding how it feels to pose for so many sweaty (and horny) fan boys was easily:

“It’s weird when they put their arms around me,” she replies…”but then I feel them shaking and I’m like, whatever, if it’s so important to you . . . it’s funny when guys come up to me and tell me that it’s their first time touching a girl.”.

For the most part, the women find the guys, who for the most part are very much not used to girls, “cute” which is nice to hear I guess, that these women don’t mind objectifying themselves to make a lonely geek’s day. Though does it still excuse the objectification of women. Of course not. So on that note, here’s a pic of my favorite booth babe, some girl playing the role of Resident Evil, Jill Valentine.

NOTE: Okay, for the record, anyone who really knows me is well aware of my genuine disdain for the very existence of booth babes and such, but c’mon….. look at her! She’s soooo cute! Not like the wannabe porn stars that normally make up the lot.

And for those who really knows me is well aware of how ga-ga I get over girls who engage in Resident Evil cosplay, especially every year at Icon, at least ever since that ultra cute Claire Redfield started showing up. But I digress….

- Apparently Sega is going to start selling their USB Saturn pads, which are for PCs and Macs (in Japan, of course). Before, it was only available as a pre-order bonus if you got Puyo Pop Fever for OS X (in Japan, of course). I came pretty close to forking over around $58 to Nation Console Support for the game just for the controller, so this is great news.

Even better is how the new pad is all white (the original USB pad had the same color scheme of the original Japanese Saturn, which was grey with blue buttons) so it should match my eMac quite nicely. Plus now I won’t have to go through the trouble of actually making my own.

- Apparently, a novel based upon the PlayStation 2 game Ico just came out in Japan, and I hear it’s doing rather well (it’s in the top ten bestsellers list I believe). Sadly, there’s still no word if a sequel is indeed in the production, despite all signs showing that the team was working on a game called “Nico”. Plus I’m still trying to get a copy of the PowerPoint presentation from this past year’s game Developers Conference in which the creator spoke and used production assets from the PSone version.

- Also found from Insert Credit that a Dreamcast emulation magazine might be on its way, and that there would even be a demo disk included! It’s amazing how thriving the DC emu scene is. Turn out that having Windows CE in the machine was not such a bad move afterall, the disappointing port of Sega Rally 2 not withstanding.

- Staying on the Dreamcast racing tip, here’s a site that has pics, and even movies, from a demo of Scud Race/Super GT running off Dreamcast hardware! It’s actually running off an early build of the developmental kit, which was about 40% of the capabilities of the final DC system.

Considering that the demo was created in a matter of weeks, and on hardware which was already inferior to the arcade architecture in which the original came from, and which would later become more powerful, just imagine if AM2 actually went ahead with the game? All these pics simply makes me wonder even more so why Sega never bothered to port more of their Model 3 arcade games to the home system, like Daytona 2, Emergency Call Ambulance, and Star Wars Trilogy. Guess AM2 themselves were too busy with Shenmue, hence the decision to give Virtua Fighter 3 to Genki, which was a bad move (VF3 should have been a priority for AM2). Hell, what about Jambo! Safari, Planet Harriers, Star Wars Arcade Racer, or Virtual On Force?

These shots (which I’ve posted below since the site is extremely slow and often down) and are almost liking seeing those very early pics of Daytona 1 running on Saturn way back in the days. Weren’t they at 40% as well? The game I mean, not the hardware, which at that point was finalized I believe. But the difference here is that the home version of Scud Race was extremely close to it’s arcade counterpart, whereas Saturn Daytona simply could not compare to the majestic arcade iteration. Of course, at least Saturn Daytona had an excuse; it’s a Model 2 game. Can’t say the same for Saturn Virtua Racing, which was a Model 1 game….

Special thanks to GigaDrive from the Gaming Age Forum for the info!

- And finally, starting tomorrow, and until Thursday, the Computer Art Department at SVA will play host to Nintendo. One of my lab assistants is a member of the Nintendo Street Crew and they need to “borrow” our facilities for some unspecified reason. Even though I love Nintendo, and have always have nothing but great dealing with them professionally, I still have a bad feeling about this…

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Here’s an article which talks about a specially hacked version of Super Mario Bros. that was created for a Canadian art exhibit a few months ago. The game features no enemies, power ups, pits, or stuff to climb over, and there’s just one level that simply loops. But Mario can still do everything he normally can, expect with no obstacles or objectives to deal with, all the player can really do is simply keeping running till the clock runs out.

The article examines how game players reacted in such an environment. Some kept running till they died, some simply walked, some just stood there, and others moved about in ways to keep themselves occupied until it was all over. Basically, the game gave these people a very specific amount of time to live, and how they chose to spend it reflected their personalities. Also interesting was how there was one single treasure block presented in the level early on, but in the ground, and totally inaccessible, and how some reacted to that as well.

In addition to discussing how people found ways to entertain themselves in the face of certain death, the article touched upon players who enjoy games without any set goals or criteria, which then led to a mention of people will often exploit bugs and glitches to go where they couldn’t or shouldn’t.

This of course led me to recallr all those rooms in Super Mario 64 that are nothing but empty, black space, specifically the thrill of finally reaching one, and the genuine sense of eeriness of exploring the negative space, until you could go no further and the game simply crashed.

Plus there’s all those “extra” rooms in the original Metroid which one can access by jumping through the top of doors.

The article also led me to remember another artsy video game event, the Tekken Torture Tournament, which was held in New York City last fall. Two people face off against each other in Tekken 3 while hooked up to electrodes. Whenever a hit is delivered, the recipient also gets an electric shock. It was pretty wild to watch, especially near the end, when the electricity level were pretty high. I really wanted to participate, but there was just too many people ahead of me. Plus you had to sign a waver, and I do have sort of a iffy heart, so perhaps it was for the best I didn’t participate.

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