Music for this episode is taken from only two games: Jet Set Radio and Space Channel 5.

In our next episode we plan to tackle industry bad boy Kenji Eno’s complete works – stay tuned for that. In the meantime, your comments, suggestions and vitriol are welcome on our blog at oldgameplus.wordpress.com

Old Game Plus Episode 10: The Sega Dreamcast

Tune in next time for a celebration of all things Dreamcast!

Old Game Plus Episode 9: Square SNES JRPGs Not Named Final Fantasy

Next “week” we’ll be continuing our SNES retrospective by looking at Squaresoft games without “Final Fantasy” in the title.

Old Game Plus Episode 8: SNES Games with Chips

Musical selections this week are from Bob Rivers, MechWarrior 2, Total Annihilation, Rainbow Six, Grim Fandango, Kohan 2, Tropico and Fury3.

Tune in next “week” for a tribute to man’s greatest triumph: the Super Famicom.

Old Game+ Episode 7: Win9x Games

We also discuss the retro-relevant portions of the Nintendo 3Ds’ launch titles, as well as the new Goldeneye 007. The music in this episode it taken entirely from the excellent Policenauts OST by the Konami Kukeiha Club. Enjoy!

Old Game+ Episode 6b: Policenauts

Audio interludes are courtesy of the Konami Kukeiha Club.

Old Game+ Episode 6: SNATCHER

40/40? Famitsu — long ago guarded against rewarding its highest score to any but the most flawless games — has sold out. As has the entire nation, Hideo Kojima, and Konami.

If you think that games journalism is corrupt and terrible in the states, the situation is worse in Japan. Famitsu is the uniquely most popular gaming mag in Japan and it’s accelerating in dumping out its 40/40 ranking. Not a single Famicom or Super Famicom game won it, and yet 4 were handed out in 2009 alone. Fine, so Japan has a thriving and thrilling games industry. I get it. But does Peace Walker — yet another Metal Gear game! — stand up to Zelda: the Ocarina of Time?

And don’t get me started about Hideo Kojima. I respect this man — he made MGS, Policenauts, and Snatcher, the subject of our upcoming podcast. But placing in-game ads for Doritos, Axe, Mountain Dew, and Famitsu Magazine is just tacky, if not a complete conflict of interest. You should enjoy your deification in Japanese culture, but you have to keep working at it. Abusing your authority like this is shameful.

As for Konami and the citizens of Japan: go for Peace Walker if you want, but see through the hype. Make and play some good games. You can’t will them to be good.

Ebert’s argument is unclear, but the general premise can be stated as follows: are video games art, or are video games entertainment with artistic elements? The critic rightfully points out that video games are principally about winning, and not about experiencing. He also has an certain view of the persona of ‘artist’: “For example, I tend to think of art as usually the creation of one artist. Yet a cathedral is the work of many, and is it not art? One could think of it as countless individual works of art unified by a common purpose.” He insinuates that successful video games, being the products of corporations, could not possibly be motivated to stir the emotions.

There also seems to be a thread that art produces some lasting memory or experience. As if this cannot be captured in a video game. I hope that this site, and the games database, run counter to that argument. Video gaming is young, but it has its golden works. Did Ebert ever play Super Mario 64? That game — that console — that experience — was designed and engineered around an artistic transformation of the platformer to 3D space. It was both beautiful and inspired, by all accounts.

Ebert’s arguments are interesting, but he constructs the argument on the basis of a few questionable examples. He does not properly characterize the medium of video game. The issue is rather complicated, because most video games ARE soulless and derivative. But, the medium of video game has the capacity to express art. I will argue from principles rather than a single canonical example of artful game for this very reason; as in film, advocating any single game would be subjective and open to criticism.

Roleplaying as Acting, Roleplaying as Game

One property of art is that it takes on additional meaning as individuals reflect on it, or project their thoughts upon it. Massively multiplayer online RPGS (MMORPGs) such as World of Warcraft offer this capability by providing the skeletal framework of new worlds. Players mold the world to their own desires and work to transform their characters. Yes, many of the users are crazed addicts. However, the concept of roleplaying in an MMO world is not so different than acting itself; the players express their impulses within the framework of roles imposed on the world. When the design and technical capabilities improve, there will reach a point at which video games can carry the same expressive qualities as the traditional artistic media.

Of course, there’s no reason that a video game must be won — or defeated — either. Consider Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid 2, in which the protagonist Raiden is continually losing (in the figurative sense): he exists in an AI simulation and achieves no closure for his ills.  He ploughs through a training mission only to learn more and more cruel truth (or is it?). By the time he reaches the boss, the player is too worn to want to strike Liquid Snake dead. I’m not telling you to run out and play MGS2, but Ebert’s strict requirement of success — or challenge — in a video game is not true.

If you desire to reflect upon the human condition in your video game, then may I suggest one without a silent protagonist? I believe that the Grand Theft Auto series of games strives to evoke urban strife and struggles in a manner worthy of the big screen. GTA has fallen flat on its face on many occasions due to a number of unfortunate gaffes. However, it — and a whole genre of Adventure games — try to situate themselves in a real world and make fantastical commentary on it. I’m partial to a game like Curse of Monkey Island, which marvelously speaks to US culture and politics in the 1990′s much more than it does about being a swashbuckling pirate.

Roger Ebert is right in one respect: art (as we know it) is not a video game. That is, art in any of its traditional forms would make for a pretty terrible video game. It would come off as overly intellectual and not fun at all. (Has anybody played Xenosaga?) Even in places where we imagine games and art might overlap, there are differences. I wouldn’t want to play Tarantino, or watch Godhand. Let’s keep these two the way they are. But just because video games have certain requirements imposed by the medium (and yes, usually you can win) doesn’t mean they will never ascend to “art”.

And seriously, Roger, if you think art is the work of a single designer then buy a Wii and order Pixel’s Cave Story. Or just download it. Now.

Video games have a long way to come from being simple amusements and there are a great many improvements to come in the storytelling elements. But it will not help to condemn the medium and promote the popular perception that video games cannot be art. If I wanted to be cruel, I could call “Avatar” a derivative piece of filth. But I don’t, and you didn’t either.

SCHILLER! SCHILLER!

Old Game+ Episode 5: Portable Consoles Only Brazil Could Appreciate

Next time, June 6, 1996: A mysterious explosion destroys the Chernoten research facility near Moscow. Lucifer-alpha, the powerful biological weapon under secret development there, is released into the atmosphere, creating a deadly bio-hazard. It’s Snatcher! Close listeners of this podcast will notice a continuity error wherein we claim to steer clear of Kojima, then crash right on it.

The censored word refers to a type of cat, but not an Atari Lynx.

Old Game+ Episode 4: Late Playstation JRPGs

Features of the new domain also include an improved podcast feed http://oldgameplus.com/podcast (optimized for iTunes) and forums.

We will continue to work up this wordpress blog and use it as the main avenue for the podcast. You can now get here in fewer keystrokes: blog.oldgameplus.com.

Old Game+ Episode 3: Games that Defied Their Genre

No?

I’m torn. Or rather, it is very… very true. PSP JRPG titles are every bit as Japanese and quirky as we saw during the Saturn era.  The PSP’s RPG lineup is much a throwback to the early 32-bit era, and not surprisingly, it is a trove for that brand of dungeon-crawling, grinding sort of game. A great time-killer to pass the hours, I’d say. And plus, since these games have somewhat been enlightened by recent developments in JRPG, they are more apt to remove the pesky bits from the PS/Saturn titles they emulate.

When I bought my PSP, there was practically nothing: Valkyrie Profile Lenneth, a modest but pedestrian port. However, as Japanese niche developers gave up the RPG market on the DS, slowly the PSP has come up to speed with some legitimate premium role-playing titles.

Last year brought Crimson Gem Saga (look at me, my old blog), a Lunar-like RPG by Atlus with a very good localization. Since then, Atlus, Xseed, and KOEI have combined to release all sorts of varied and quirky RPGs, just like the Saturn days. Of course, in Japan they are entirely addicted to sensory-overload games like Monster Hunter and Mana Khemia: Student Alliance. Western gamers looking for something a little classier — or more appealing to American audiences — should look no further than Crisis Core, Tactics: The War of the Lions, or Kingdom Hearts. Those especially into the genre should look into the immersive gameplay of a classic like Persona, or even the future adaptation of Persona 3, a long-standing hit on PS2 but which may today be overshadowed by its also-100-hour brother Persona 4.

The Saturn comparison is very apt, and has some potentially dire consequences. For while JRPGs are blitzing the market these days, who knows if any of these titles will last in time. Many are straight-up ports, a little stylized and prettied-up for the 16:9 screen, but otherwise sanitized in RPG elements. It waits to be seen that a truly inspired PSP exclusive will come out of this, as DID happen for the Saturn…

Pretty please?

The ultimate danger, on the PSP: likely you will not know anyone else sharing your joy in a particular game. It’s the same isolation you get with the Saturn. Japanese gamers might not mind this mode of RPG-relationship, but in America the PSP is a tough sell over the DS. Sure, a Phantasy Star game, some Star Ocean remakes, Lunar 1, and Valkyria Chronicles 2 (wha?) sound nice. But then again, DS has FF3, FF4, Chrono Trigger, Pokemon, and its own Shin Megami Tensei title(s) now.

In conclusion, maybe only Kat Bailey and I understand the PSP now. Because surely Sony doesn’t.

UPDATE: Oh yes, and did I forget to mention it plays every PS1 game? There’s a lot of value in the PSP for 32-bit RPG gaming.

In trying to research our next podcast, I was hoping to cite WD’s RPG Critic as a definitive rating for some late PS RPGs. But workingdesigns.com is gone, maybe forever. If anybody can find a cache for http://www.workingdesigns.com/RPG/index.html, it would be great! The only available archive I can find (archive.org) cuts off on the RPG Critic circa October 1999.

We are going to celebrate those games which wound up as an embarrassment to the publishers, developers, and just about everybody involved. These five shameful titles etched a lasting notch into the creators’ legacies. Many offensive mistakes have been forgotten or forgiven, such as Zelda: Wand of Gamelon, but these bit back.

5. Well, yea, that Final Fantasy II (North America, SNES). The editors dropped much of the source material to save space and make for a cheaper Final Fantasy. Plus they managed to muck up whatever was left, making holy spells unholy and ridding the game of references to… death. The translation erred on the side of unintelligible, as if it were written by a spoony bard. I have a feeling that Square wished it had never published this, for the sake of the FF reputation.

4. Spiderman III (Wii), the a-little-too-casual tribute to the movie namesake from 2007. Innovative or not, the controls were just terrible — to the point that it was easy fodder for 1up’s crew. Say no more. Watch (NSFW).

3. Shaq Fu (Genesis, SNES). This game clearly ruined somebody’s Christmas. In the “you are a megastar and people love you so don’t sign off on the video game” category, Shaq teamed up with EA in 1994 to make a cheap fighting game. A kung-fu themed fighting game no less.

A fair tribute

Seriously, no celeb titles from this era faired well at all. Just ask Aerosmith, which has been in on the bad video game circuit since day one — and lived to tell about it?

2. SimCopter (PC), because nobody hates it more than when a respected developer starts shipping junk. That way, we don’t know it until it’s too late. SimCopter: an innovative way to observe the city you’ve created? No. Instead, you repeatedly crash into that city, while it seeps deeper and deeper into mass riot. A disgruntled developer threw in some tasteless, homophobic “himbo” art just for good (bad?) measure. Maxis had thrilled us with its multitude of simulation games, but rarely thrilled as great after SimCopter. Perhaps it was the influence of the aforementioned EA, the publisher and future Maxis owner?

1. The single game that blemished this industry the most?

Daikatana? Now who's a bitch?

If you ever doubted the egos in this industry, then maybe you should have tuned into PC gaming circa 1999. Creator and FPS pusher John Romero boasted that his game Daikatana would redacted do a lot of things, even the above, in a superpopular advertisement printed in PC Gamer. The media bought the trash talk, and Romero’s reputation rode right on the back of the release. However, Daikatana hit the market late, inferior, and outright un-innovative in 2000. The game effectively sidelined Romero’s career for years. More importantly, the incident demanded a review of the rhetoric allowed in the games industry and a cleansing of everybody’s foul, dirty mouth.

What were you expecting? Whipped cream bras? Crudely drawn sex scenes? Homicidal hell games? In each of these cases, the offending game makers got off scot free, or even profited. A particularly bad game just drags us down. But then there’s always Duke Nukem Forever. That’s hilarious.

Give me what I really want — the ability to fight like any other cubicle-inhabiting white guy on a stinkin’ pad and see it projected like I’m a real hero. That was the great idea Sega had with the Activator, an octagonal ring of plastic to enhance your Mortal Kombat experience. Or rather, it would have enhanced it if only it worked. The infrareds used to “detect body movement” apparently were distracted by much more than your loafing body.

An impossible idea, you say? I disagree. I mean, first of all, the quality concerns in the Wikipedia article are citation needed. I want to believe. Because we all know that this is the pinnacle in motiontastic casual gaming.

The Sega Activator was compatible with MK, Eternal Champions, and Comix Zone — if it did at all function. I never owned one, but to this day I still thwack the air imagining myself inside Golden Axe.

This episode includes excellent music from Tempest 2000, Lunar: The Silver Star (Japanese Mega CD Version), and Red Alarm, as well as some stirring voiceovers from the 3DO version of Sewer Shark.

Tune in for next week’s show when we discuss… something else!

Old Game+ Episode 2: The Bottom of the 32-bit Barrel

The following are the ten best moments in Mac gaming. Moments truly in the fact that there wasn’t much to be excited about, and even so, the games really sucked on ice.

10. Nanosaur comes out in 1998. Is it an adventure title? Dino game? Shooter? Nobody knew, but what we did know was that it resided in “Applications” on those new iMacs that came into being that year. Nanosaur spoke to naysayers that this was a serious computer. (Certainly Quake III, the next year, would not fare so well on the Bondi Blue contraption).

9. Gizmos and Gadgets, by the Learning Company, comes out to educate us in physics, electricity and magnetism, even Newtonian mechanics. So long for a real education. With this kind of stuff — and kids crowding around the Mac during recess — books disappeared from the youth consciousness by about 1995.

Crowd favorite

8. Myst puzzles us all in 1993. Rand Miller put out this title and challenged all conceptions of the PC game. Was this the hypercard thriller? The new way we would access and integrate information on computers? No. Rather the gameplay and prerendered graphics got old quickly, and one Jeremy Parish speculates that it identified developing flaws in the adventure game genre. People played it in droves neverthless.

7.Sim City is released by Will Wright’s team in 1989. The Sim games were a good fit for the GUI controls on the Mac. Something about the rich media, sound, and refinement make this classic fun to play or emulate even today. Wright’s success raised up Maxis –  a publisher of awesome simulation games — which would go on to push ants, city 2000s, and towers onto the desktop.

6. In 1995, Pangea merged Zelda, Duke, and GI Joe into one tough but cool dude, Power Pete. Imagine if you will, a top-down SNES Zelda: Link to the Past. But instead of arrows, how about a blaster? And even better — Pete saved bunnies. Yes, if anything could speak to Mac fans’ delusions of grandeur or their warrior-hippie ethic, it would be this Apple-only title.

5. EV: Override. Yes, while the PC folks blew it all on expansion packs for their first person shooters, Mac gaming had a decidedly more shareware flair. Since most of the big corporate titles were disappointing ports, the Mac organically grew a group of good game developers. Ambrosia software took off, especially with this space combat and exploration sim — and they are still very much an independent Mac and iPhone shop.

4. Connectix Virtual Game Station blows away the PSX emu competition in 1998. How Connectix ever came upon console emulation I’ll never know, but indeed they held to the title of most compatible emulator from 1998 to 2000. (Bleem? Hardly.) Even PC users

Which was more badass? The wily American...

were jealous. But CVGS was never meant to be, and the commercial emulator experiment crashed hard under constant threat of suit.

3. Oregon Trail II, 1996. Let’s face it, you played it — you loved it. Really, if you were at all sitting in front of a Mac in 1996 there were very few possible reasons. Either you were typing at school, working at a press outfit, or playing Oregon Trail II. Because what other game let you hunt the American buffalo to extinction, only to let the meat rot in the back of your wagon. This game was pure gold, until you died of dysentery for no reason.

2. Blizzard releases Warcraft III with OS9, OSX and Windows releases on the same disc. Many game creators had come, from time to time, to capitalize on the Mac market. But none was as grateful or proactive as Blizzard. Instead of making Mac users second-class citizens, they now consistently release for both consumer PC platforms — and they deliver quality.

... or the brutish orc?

1. Speaking of cross-platform development, how about when Bungie announced Halo as a PC/MAC landmark title at Macworld 1999? The game was so beautiful and compelling that it was hard to believe. Only for a moment — Microsoft soon bought out an exclusivity agreement for publishing Halo and its sequels, so that Halo would grace the Xbox. Mac gamers have felt slighted ever since, in a way that neither Oni nor the belated Halo release could repay.

Some close competitors for this list would be the Pippin, the Sims, or maybe EA’s Intel support announcement. But to be fair, Mac gamers have never had it good. The Steam service and access to smaller third-parties easily beats all of the above moments.

Just like your sister, our sister podcast Game Debate may be prone to fits of instability and explicit language. So just to let you know, NSFW.