Sunday, December 26, 2010

Hardcoregaming101.net Presents: The Guide to Classic Adventure Games



Awhile back I talked about the adventure game book I was working on. It's still under progress but I figured I'd post a quick update on its status.

First off, the cover image is almost completed, which you can see a version of above. It still needs to be Photoshopped, cleaned up and reoriented, but this is pretty much what it will look like. My initial concept was to feature a whole bunch of homemade replicas of items from various adventure games, designed by a few friends of mine and inspired by the feelies from the Infocom games. They look amazing (they're all from relatively popular games - try to guess what they're all from!) but figured those alone would be a little too obscure. So, I took my computer and surrounded it with a bunch of games from my collection, to display just a bit of the breadth of content covered. The back cover image isn't completed, although it does feature the Roberta Williams framed photo.

Second, the Table of Contents has been updated to reflect a more finalized list of reviews featured. There are still a few more I have planned but just need to sort things out with contributors and so forth. I've also posted a sample in PDF format with approximately 50 pages of snippets from various articles, including a few reviews that aren't yet posted on the main site. Please note that these are still in draft form and the final versions will differ slightly, although the basic format will still be the same.

Third, my old pals at The Armchair Empire conducted an interview with me about the book, so please read up on my goals and why I decided to undertake this project.

And finally, the release date and price is still up in the air. I'm shooting to have it done by April, but I'm always planning on anything possible going wrong, so that may shift. I still want to hit the $25 target price, but that will all depend on the final page count, which is looking to hover around at least 650. More news will be posted as they emerge!
Posted by Discoalucard at 9:20 PM 12 comments
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Santa's Workout - Filled with classic video game references

Merry Post-Christmas everyone! Friend of HG101 Miikka Poikela (MP83) dropped us a line to let us know about the release of Santa's Workout, a game he helped work on. It's a Christmas-themed puzzle platformer where you control Santa Claus (obviously) to get to the exit of each single-screen level. He can't jump, but he can create ice blocks to both fill in holes and climb to higher platforms. Of course, you're limited by the amount of ice blocks you can create, but they can be replenished by grabbing the little bags strewn throughout each level. It's a pleasant little game - it's meant more for families, given there are both "Child" and "Adult" difficulty levels - but the big reason why readers of HG101 might be interested in it is the huge amount of classic game references in many of the levels:



This one, for example, is Darm Tower from the Ys series.



Here's Arkanoid.



Pooyan.



And Quarth.

It's a bit under 4 euros and you can grab it at the Edge Labs web site. More screenshots below the jump - there's quite a bit of MSX games, as Miikka's an expert on the system and is the one who keeps us in line whenever us dolts mix up the MSX and MSX2.



Athletic Land


Bubble Bobble


Eggerland (Adventures of Lolo)


Burger Time


King's Valley


King's Valley II


Blagger (I'll be honest, I don't even know this one)


Bomberman


Penguin Land


Legacy of the Wizard


Lode Runner


Maze of Galious


Archon


Pac-Man


Dig Dug


Super Pipeline
Posted by Discoalucard at 3:27 PM 1 comments

Friday, December 24, 2010

Update 12/24 - Spelunker, Dezeni Land / World , Gun.Smoke, Vasara



Doing a real quick update before I hop out the door for holidays proceedings. Spelunker is a cultural icon in Japan - the incredibly fragile hero is one of the most popular 8-bit characters, to the point where there's even a baseball player nicknamed after him - but it's largely ignored outside of the country, including its home country of the USA, where it originated as an Atari 8-bit game. A remake was recently released on the PSN - well, actually it's been available in Japan for quite awhile, but it's new to North America - and it might seem intentionally terrible at first, but with a bit of history you may understand where it's coming from, at least.

Following that up is a review of Dezeni Land and Dezeni World, two very early text adventures from Hudson. They're both big on parodies, featuring warped versions of Superman, Batman, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, C-3PO, and of course, the Disney theme parks. It's worth checking out the articles just for the silly screens, although fans of Princess Tomato and the Salad Kingdom (wherever they are) will be pleased to know they were developed by the same folk. We also have a look at the Vasara games, two overhead shooters set in feudal Japan developed by Visco, a name not usually known for quality, although these are actually pretty good. Finally, we have a recap of Gun.Smoke, Capcom's Western-themed arcade shooter. We also dug up a computer only sequel, which is terrible, but read about it anyway!

Our featured article this week is Ketsui, which we wrote about six months ago when the Xbox 360 port came out in Japan. However, it recently became playable in MAME (the game is technically eight years old by this point) so I figured it was worth it to take some cleaner screenshots.
Posted by Discoalucard at 10:03 AM 2 comments
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Thursday, December 23, 2010

WAHP 13 - podcast dedicated to Japanese games


The latest episode of Warning! A Huge Podcast. More details after the jump!
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As always it continues to gain EXP, improving with each episode - especially with the recent level-up which yielded a new official website. This episode had an excellent 2-sided 3-way debate regarding Tokyo's new laws on anime/manga and how they might affect games, with each speaker making some good points. They also mention HG101, specifically our Japanese PC and Kenji Eno articles.

The only small criticism I have for WAHP is that there were lots of comments saying "we could dedicate a whole show to that subject". Enough procrastinating gentlemen. You have the knowledge and an audience, it should (in theory) be easy.

This is probably my last entry until new year. Enjoy the holidays everyone!

Stage 013
Main Topic: Tokyo Hates Lolis

Now Playing: Tales of Graces f, Danganronpa, Persona 3 Portable Subtopics: We reminisce about the WAHP Live Event, NIS + Imageepoch sittin` in a tree, Inafune trades one Com for another, USA no longer scared of Japan`s post office, fat & pink Cave shooter goodness will grace Westerners, Final Fantasy XIV got 99 problems but a monthly fee ain`t one, Capcom tricks ghosts into coming to Apple`s iDevices, Ninokuni is a level five bomb, Bandai Namco rethinks game development in the West, Yoshiki Okamto now lives in a van by the river, Final Fantasy IV being remade… again…, we talk tall Tales (of Xillia) and in Binary (Domain), PC Engine and NeoGeo live again, we display Evangelion ona-holes on our bookshelves, Coming Next, Comment of You, and oh… this is final episode of WAHP. Well, of 2010, that is.

So You Don`t Miss It:

Coming Next Japan Game Mentions
Umineko no naku koro ni ~ Majo to Suiri no Rondo, Castlevania Lord of Shadow, Gundam Musou 3, Shining Hearts, Inazuma Eleven 3 Sekai he no Chousen!! The Ogre, Final Fantasy XIII Ultimate Hits International, The Third Birthday, Dennousenki Virtual On Force, Momchan Diet Wii Figurobics by Jeon Da-Yeon, Milestone Shooting Collection 2, Saga 3 Jikuu no Hasha Shadow of Light

Other Game Mentions
Star Ocean, 999, Catherine, Tactics Ogre: Wheel of Fortune, Solatorobo, Persona 4, Deathsmiles, Final Fantasy XI, Phoenix Wright, Enslaved, Clash of the Titans, Splatterhouse, Knights Contract, Genji, Folksouls, Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom, iDOLM@STER, Ryu ga Gotoku
Posted by Sketcz at 3:19 PM 5 comments
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Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Hong Kong PSN



I promised to look at the HK PSN nearly a year ago. I even took the photos. Then, not only did I stop visiting the HK PSN, but I also failed to make the post. Here it is - very late! Mainly for the benefit of the chap who asked about the Kojima video on the HK store, and to clear my blog folder of "TO DO" stuff before the year's end (might as well brush this stuff away while everyone's drunk on brandy infused mince pies). Much like Kojima and the guy in the photo, I dangled something just out of reach. To make up for it, there's photos idol models, as featured on the HK PSN.


The Hong Kong PSN used to be awesome, since they accepted UK credit cards back in 2008. For whatever reason they didn’t check that your fake PSN address matched your credit card address. But then someone changed the rules and it was no longer valid.

Since then I lost interest in the HK store, since it was no longer an easy access point for imports. It does however still have a few interesting things, none of which I can even be sure still exists.

* The 400mb Hideo Kojima video was pretty cool. Here's a Youtube video.
* Street Fighter IV tournament videos. How awesome is this? Apparently they had like a pan-Asian tournament, on SFIV, and the HK store hosted videos of it. This alone is worth starting a HK account for. Why didn’t the US or UK stores have videos of this event? Because they’re run by idiots, that’s why. I don’t care if the show doesn’t have direct relevance to my locality, I want to watch top tier players slug it out.
* Japanese PS1 games with English names a descriptions, which is handy if the Kanji on the Japanese PSN store proves too difficult.
* A few Japanese games, with ENGLISH options. This was my main reason for using the HK store. Before that garbage themed Tetris game came out in the US/UK, it was available first on the Hong Kong store, IN ENGLISH.
* Demos for games not available elsewhere. I don’t know if Pixel Junk Shooter now has a demo on the US/UK store, but for months and months, the only PSN demo for it was on the HK store. Well done Hong Kong!
* Special discounts: they often have special offers, and cool stuff around Chinese New Year.
* Lots of music videos by local singers – some of them really cool, in a weird 1980s kind of way (the Miriam Yeung 2008 AGS song is very 1980s).
* A whole series of idol shows, which I can’t even begin to pretend to understand what’s going on – but it has plenty of video footage of attractive young women, wearing bikinis, in hot tubs and outdoor showers. This appears to be some kind of major phenomenon, with quiz shows and other stuff... which I don’t even know how to describe.

Enjoy the photos, make a HK account, then complain in the comments section that none of this information is relevant any more. When I first got my PS3 in 2008 though, the HK store was seriously awesome stuff - especially since none of my PS3 owning friends/colleagues had anything near this kind of stuff on their HDDs.

Merry Christmas!
Posted by Sketcz at 7:13 AM 3 comments
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Friday, December 17, 2010

11/17 Update - Dunjonquest, Trace Memory, Catrap, Total Conversion: Ys III vs Ys: Felghana



Dunjonquest isn't exactly a well-known name nowadays, but back in the early 80s it rivaled the likes of Ultima and Wizardy in popularity. They're a series of decidedly old school dungeon crawlers, but unfortunately got dropped around 1985 and thus never proliferated likes its peers. This article covers the main Dunjonquest games as well as its spinoffs. I had originally heard of the name from the Atari 400 game Temple of Apshai, which was one of the first RPGs I'd ever played, and what I immediately thought of when I played Diablo years later.

Trace Memory (also known as Another Code in Japan and Europe) is a short series by Cing, who unfortunately went out of business earlier this year. It was one of the first Japanese-style adventure games to hit the DS, and eventually paved way for the likes of Phoenix Wright and Hotel Dusk, the latter also made by Cing. (And also 999: 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors, recently localized by Aksys, and is apparently very good.) Sadly the Wii sequel didn't see release in North America, because we're too impatient to like adventure games, apparently. We also have a review of Catrap, a cute little Gameboy puzzler that sprung from a rather old BASIC computer game called Pitman.

I've also started the first of what I hope to be a series of articles called Total Conversion. Our articles always compare one or two scenes across different versions, but the goal of these articles is to select two drastically different versions, play them to completion, and compare each and every major moment. Here, I've chosen the Genesis version of Ys III and the PSP version of Ys: Oath in Felghana, its remake which was recently released in the US a month or so ago. There's something like at least 70 screenshots from each game, detailing all of the levels, bosses and major story events, so it's pretty exhaustive.

For our Featured Article, we dug up this short piece on Sunsoft Fighter, mostly because the first game featured, Galaxy Fight, was recently released on the PSN courtesy of Monkey Paw Games. It's an alright fighter, nothing terribly special, but it's got a bit of an amusing sense of humor (one of the characters is a Monty Python and the Holy Grail-style killer bunny), and it paved the way for (the superior) Waku Waku 7.
Posted by Discoalucard at 4:34 PM 5 comments
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After Over a Decade - Darkstar: The Interactive Movie



Darkstar: An Interactive Movie (not to be confused with Darkstar One, the outer space flight sim that was recently released on the 360) is very much a blast from the past. It has reportedly been under development for over 10 years. It struck me as a particularly brazen project - who releases an FMV game in this day and age? - but one worth investigating.



Admittedly, a lot of that came from the whole "so bad it's good" vibe, which is practically built in to any FMV game. The main character, Captain John O'Neil, is played by Clive Robertson, who's biggest previous role was on the short-lived soap opera Sunset Beach. Much of the supporting cast is comprised of folks from the original Mystery Science Theater 3000 (and current members of Cinematic Titanic), which practically guarantees that it would be cheesy but enjoyable. The opening cinema has the voice of Peter Graves, speaking from the beyond, rambling off about some kind of vaguely pretentious meanderings as movies of later parts of the game are flashed by. It's all (perhaps unintentionally) remisnicent of Bela Lugosi's role in the Ed Wood films, and we mean that in the best possible way.

And then the game starts and...it's actually kind of good. Not ironically good, but legitimately good.

Well, in a certain mindset, anyway.


The "Interactive Movie" part of the subtitle suggest that Darkstar is something like Dragon's Lair, or at least some kind of Choose Your Own Adventure style game. It isn't. It's actually a point and click adventure game very reminiscent of The Journeyman Project. Enjoyment of this style of game practically requires that you have some level of nostalgia for the mid-to-late 90s multimedia CD-ROM epics, the kind that offered plenty of C-list actors advertised as if they were A-listers, and it presumes you don't mind revisiting such an era. There's a lot about this title that reminds of Ripper, which I coincidentally also recently started playing (and is also pretty enjoyable in its own right.) That being said, there's also a lot more exploration elements than something like Phantasmagoria: Puzzle of Flesh, which was almost completely comprised of "click here to see the next movie" bits.

All of the action takes place from the first person, and you click around the screen to move between various nodes, all accompanied by full motion video transitions. (It's all pre-rendered, so it's more like The 7th Guest rather than the Tex Murphy games.) Each node is technically a panoramic still picture, which lets you look around in full 360 degrees. There's still some issues with it - the hotspots aren't indicated unless you move your mouse over them, and sometimes it's difficult to find the path that brings you to your intended definition - all issues with past games like this too. There's not a whole lot of direction, either, leaving you to wander around aimlessly for a bit until you stumble on something. It's also pretty bad about being forthcoming with information - we understand the elevator is probably locked, but without poking around, you won't understand why you can't open it.

The concept is, you are one of four people in hypersleep aboard a space station that's mysteriously deserted - a common trope. The second is a beautiful woman who's still asleep. The third appears to be have gone missing (Trace Beaulieu's character), and the fourth (TV's Frank!) seems to be dead. (It isn't him, obviously.) The opening segments are unfortunately missing any FMV outside of the shots of Captain O'Neal looking at various instruments.


We have to admit that we've taken towards the strategy guide to figure out where to go, so we can't give much of a definitive opinion of the game until we get farther. But we can comment on the things we do like - namely, the atmosphere. The CG rendering isn't exactly modern, but it would've looked stunning back in the late-90s, and it's got the atmosphere nailed. A lot part of this is due to the unexpectedly excellent soundtrack. One of the composers is from a band called "Ozark Mountain Daredevils", a name which doesn't exactly inspire confidence, but it's appropriately moody, and isn't afraid to take the cheesy buttrock route during some of the action scenes during the trailer. Apparently Rush was attached to the project at some point, although their work is not in the final product.

I have heard of people running into technical issues though. The whole game is pasted together using something called iShell, which has been noted to cause various crashes and so forth. I haven't had any problems outside of some sluggishness on the menus. Also take note that the game comes on two DVD-ROMs (it was initially planned for six) and requires a full 14 GB installation. Naturally, that's almost all video files, most of which are Quicktime movies viewable outside the game.


Anyway, we'll have an actual review of this at some point once we get to spend some proper time with it. It's $30 over at their website, and is also available in downloadable form on the Strategy First site. You can also check out the Adventure Gamers forum thread.




Posted by Discoalucard at 2:30 PM 4 comments
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