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It’s a bit ironic I’m spending time writing about my love for “Target: Terror,” a game with a Metacritic score of just 34, during a week where Stephen Totilo is examining reviews.
I tracked down Eugene Jarvis, the head of Raw Thrills, who created the arcade version of “Target: Terror.” This is the man responsible for “Defender” and “Robotron” — true classics!
I had no idea our interview would end up evoking 9/11.
If you haven’t seen last year’s documentary “The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters” (or read Stephen Totilo’s series of stories from last year), turn off the computer and track down a copy (it’s on DVD) right now. You’re missing out.
For folks already keenly aware of the ongoing score battle between “Donkey Kong” rivals Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell, and rooting for the game’s “good guy,” I have some bad news.
Twin Galaxies, the organization that keeps record of video game high scores, monitored a match between the two in Las Vegas last week. Despite Wiebe’s multiple attempts to topple Mitchell’s oh-so-close high score, he couldn’t.
Wiebe wasn’t under the scrutiny of a documentary lens this time, but it was still, you know, Vegas. “Possibly the biggest challenges Steve had to overcome were the loud nightclub music, the chaotic environment and the late hours,” said Twin Galaxies’ referee Walter Day on the Guinness World Records website.
First there was “Boxing” on the 2600. Then came “Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!,” followed by “Super Punch-Out!!” on the NES and SNES respectively. The “Ready 2 Rumble” games followed on the PS1, Dreamcast and PS2. And finally, the “next-generation” of consoles have their own arcade-style boxing game. EA’s recently announced “FaceBreaker” is the next game to step in the ring.
I never really consciously made the choice to like boxing games. Sports games in general have never really been near the top of my list of games that I feel I need to play. But for some reason there is a special place in this gamer’s heart for boxing games — particularly the arcadey ones. That’s why, when I had the opportunity to sit down and check out a pre-Alpha demo for the game last night at an EA press event, I was more than a little more excited.
After being shown a quick trailer for the game I got to jump in and actually see some action in the ring. The demo was running on an Xbox 360 development kit. The two boxers from the trailer, the bald Russian Molotov and the flamboyant Spaniard Romeo, were duking it out in a standard-looking gym. Their fighting styles were distinct: Molotov was a big bruiser, while Romeo was quick and on his toes. As you might expect, they each had their own special attacks that emphasized their strengths. For example, Molotov would come at you with both fists, and throw you in the corner, and have his way with you. The character animation looked smooth and fluid, even thought it was an early build of the game.
Some of you may remember when Multiplayer pondered the question of who should make “Halo 4″. We’re pondering a new hypothetical today.
With the news that EA and Marvel have parted ways after the closing of the EA’s Chicago studio, it means that the license for Marvel inspired fighting games is now up for grabs.
That leaves the question that is near and dear to my heart … who will step up to make the next fighting game worthy of starring Marvel’s super heroes?
Once held by the 2-D fighting kings, Capcom, the license is not only a lucrative, but one that has spawned some of the greatest fighting games of all time. While the perfection that is “Marvel vs. Capcom 2” may never again be achieved, there are a variety of other publishers that could do the license justice.
I consider the top candidates — and some longshots — below.
Peter Molyneux stole money from his grandmother. Chris Taylor made his hands stink of dirty quarters. I blithely played a “Donkey Kong” rip-off called “Pickaxe Pete” — and liked it.
These are the essential components of our very first video game memories. Late last week I asked a group of people in and around the video game industry to share with me — and with you — their very first, hazy memories of playing a video game. Molyneux, Taylor and a dozen others — including the Multiplayer team — offer their first recollections below.
Read on to see how lifelong obsessions with video games begin. Then tell me, what’s your first memory of playing a video game?
Brian Allgeier, Creative Director, “Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction”
First Gaming Memory: I was about nine years old and my family was vacationing in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. We were at a hotel and my brother had just run full speed into a sliding glass door (Darn invisible collision walls). While my mother tended to his wounds, my Dad entered the room giddy with excitement. He wanted to show me some new amazing thing he had just found. We rushed outside and into a nearby pool hall. In the center of the smoke filled room was a shiny “Pac-Man” arcade cabinet. We played a few quarters and I remember being mesmerized by that yellow pixilated critter gobbling up dots in a neon blue maze. Oddly enough, that was probably the first and last time I ever saw my Dad get excited about a videogame.
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Jonathan Blow, Game Designer, “Braid”
First Gaming Memory: “Combat” on the Atari 2600. I was unbeatable on the Tank-Pong levels (bouncing bullets!) I liked “Air-Sea Battle” better, but “Combat” was the canonical 2600 game, and being the pack-in, probably the first game anyone would boot up.
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The “Mario Kart” series is undisputedly my second favorite Nintendo franchise (”Smash Bros.” wins the top spot), and when I see the opportunity to play the newest game in the series I seize it.
Unfortunately, the newest entry I had an opportunity to seize last night wasn’t the much anticipated “Mario Kart Wii.” It was a version that most people will never actually get to bring home: “Mario Kart Arcade GP 2.”
Haven’t heard of it? It is the second in a series of Namco produced full-on, sit-down style “Mario Kart” arcade cabinets. When I heard about the original “Mario Kart Arcade GP,” I was convinced that a “Mario Kart” arcade game would never make it stateside. However, on Wednesday, upon wandering into my local Dave & Busters in Times Square, there it was, like a Japanese beacon from the gods, calling out to me to come and play. My time had come for me to spend my hard earned money on some arcade style “Mario Kart”ing. Having never even seen the first in it’s full electronic glory, I was pretty shocked to find this fairly rare machine, and I was already to go.
I only had time for a handful of races, but it was long enough to see that the game was simply amazing, and I can only hope that the forth coming Wii version takes note of some of this version’s nuances and ends up at least as enjoyable.
Lately, I’ve been investigating the origins of Achievements — from some of the toughest (”Call of Duty 4” and “Gears of War“) to the absolute easiest (”Avatar: The Last Airbender — The Burning Earth“).
But the one game that got me thinking about how Achievements are chosen in the first place was “Double Dragon.” Earlier this year, the classic, quarter-eating brawler made its way onto Xbox 360 consoles. While many a gamer has no doubt conquered the title countless times, could they get all 12 Achievements in the XBLA version?
I’m guessing — no. There was one in particular that got my attention: “Untouched: Complete mission 1 in a single player game without being hit.” It’s worth 20 points. And some of the other ones are nothing to sneeze at either. “Hero” requires you to play the entire game without using a continue.
So I decided to ask Razorworks, the U.K.-based developer who ported the game, about how they picked the Achievements.
Last week, two programmers from the company answered my questions via e-mail (and declined to be named for unspecified reasons).
They did tell me that only 8% of people who’ve bought “Double Dragon” have gotten the “Untouched” Achievement.
Read on for the rest.
It’s time to write again about the highly acclaimed “Donkey Kong” rivalry documentary “King of Kong,” my favorite topic of the year.
The occasion? MTV Movies editor/reporter/nice-man Josh Horowitz was hanging out with actor Greg Kinnear for some non-gaming-reason and asked him about the “King of Kong” filmmakers’ desire to have Kinnear play a lead role in a dramatic remake of the documentary.
Had he heard that they think he’d play a great Steve Wiebe, the soft-spoken up-start schoolteacher who makes a run at the “Donkey Kong” world record held by arcade hero (but “King of Kong” villain) Billy Mitchell?
Kinnear told Josh: “No, but I saw that documentary. I loved it. I thought it was a very cool documentary. If they make that into a movie…I wouldn’t want to play Kong. So that guy [Wiebe] would be better.”
I trust Josh will follow through and badger Johnny Depp next about playing Mitchell. Don’t let me down, Josh!
On Friday, November 2, I joined MTV News’ Tim Kash in a face-off of video arguments against Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal and author Heather Chaplin.
We played “The Metagame,” a game show created by game designers Eric Zimmerman, co-founder of Gamelab, and Frank Lantz, co-founder of Area/Code.
The game lasted 70 minutes and was among the most fun things I’ve done on the beat all year. We’ve presented 20 minutes of highlights on video here.
This post lists every argument we had to make in the game. Any time an opinion was challenged, the audience had to decide the winner.
Here are three samples. Read on for the rest… and you decide where justice was served and where my team (Team MTV) or Chaplin/Croal (Team Brooklyn) were robbed.
Opinion: “Tetris” has more randomness than “Resident Evil”
Argument: Team MTV said it does. Team Brooklyn challenged.
Verdict: Overruled — The audience agreed with Team Brooklyn.
Opinion: “Virtua Fighter” is sexier than “Super Mario 64″
Argument: Team Brooklyn said it was. Team MTV said it wasn’t.
Verdict: Upheld — The audience sided with Team Brooklyn.
Opinion: “Adventure” for the Atari 2600 makes better use of writing than “Street Fighter II”
Argument: Team MTV said it did.
Verdict: Uncontested — Team Brooklyn sided with team MTV.
Sure, you could go and spend hundreds of dollars on your awesome gaming keyboard, and mouse, but why would you spend more than $13.37 on your mousepad?
While there are much more expensive mousepads in the world, there are very few that are as nostalgic or awesome as the official Pac-Man Mousepads, yours for only $9.99 each (not including shipping and handling).
Namco Bandai’s official merchandise store, Club Namco, offers you the option of having either Pac-Man or Ms. Pac-Man protect your desk surface. Both pads feature a classic screenshot from each respective game on an 8” x 7.5” vynex pad, all for a very reasonable price.
So far, reactions have been mixed over Jeff Minter’s newest opus Space Giraffe, most likely because the game has some flaws that the average gamer might not be able to overlook. You play the game as a giraffe, in space, shooting your way through levels in a manner not entirely unlike Minter’s most famous game, even though the first line in the tutorial clearly states, “This is not Tempest.” While it isn’t exactly the same, it is pretty similar.
Once. Twice. Three Times. Now Four. I just love writing about the “King of Kong” documentary and the rivalry it chronicles between “Donkey Kong” masters Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe.
The film finally comes out this weekend.
On Friday, to celebrate the occasion, I wrote my fourth article about it. This one has me catching up with the filmmakers and finding out who they want to cast in the dramatization of the doc (Johnny Depp and Greg Kinnear, ideally). The filmmakers also tease me with the amazing possibilities of a “King of Kong” all about “Arkanoid.“From my article:
…they admit there’s a great “Arkanoid” story for them to tackle someday. The top two players in that classic arcade game include a man who’s in prison and a Minor League Baseball reporter who claims to have caught more foul balls than anyone else in the world — and wrote a book about it. “It makes sense that a person who understands how to break all those bricks [in 'Arkanoid'] is thinking about angles,” ["KoK" director Seth] Gordon said.
So hit the link above to read article #4. And then there’s my earlier articles on the film…
(SPOILER NOTE: I strongly recommending seeing the film before reading these stories. I’ve tried to keep spoilers to a minimum but it’s not too hard to figure out who comes out on top in the movie once you start reading my stories)
My other coverage includes a two-parter about the controversy surrounding what’s in the film and whether the documentary; the second part includes Billy Mitchell’s first interview about the film. My third piece is more recent, and covers a major “DK” high-score event that happened after the documentary’s conclusion.
