I'm still on a hunt. Your assistance is still required.
A week and a half ago, I enlisted the readers of this blog to help me discover some hypothetical treasure -- games with speed bumps, biography games and other things I've never encountered in my years of gaming but thought might exist. These games are my very own versions of the Loch Ness monster. Many of you helped me figure out if they do.
Head back to the original post or check out this blog's "Title Hunt" index to get an update on the old hunts. But first, how about some new ones? Here are four new quests for you to pursue:
- A super-hero costume-change mission. I've watched super-hero TV shows and movies, and this is what I've learned: sometimes Clark Kent runs out on his co-workers claiming he forgot to turn off his stove back home. He's really rushing to the roof so he can change his outfit and pull a grounded oil tanker back out to see. Sometimes Peter Parker has a coughing fit so he can get out of class. Rather than going to the nurse's office, he heads to Time Square to fight Dr. Octopus. Scenes of super-heroes making fools of themselves in their secret identities while trying to ditch their friends and go save the day are staples of the hero genre. So why have I never played anything like it in a super-hero game? You can have your "Superman Returns" Metallo battle. I want a mission where I have to use my super-breath to knock a stack of papers off Perry White's desk and then jump out his window while he's on his knees picking them up.
- An adventure game in which "helpful" people lie -- or are at least misinformed. More specifically, I noticed that in any role-playing game I've ever played the characters who hang out in villages and tell me which cave the dragon lives in or where the old wizard dropped his wizard hat always tell the truth and always know what they're talking about. Isn't anyone ever wrong about anything? Does anyone in a "Final Fantasy" world ever feel like sending the hero in the exact wrong direction? As much as this might make games more frustrating, I just want to know: does this exist? (Pre-emptive note: games built around the concept that people will lie to you -- such as the "Phoenix Wright" court room series -- don't count.)
- A highway landing. You can do it in "Grand Theft Auto" if you choose to, but I want a game that actually scripts a mission around landing a plane on a crowded interstate. Am I asking for too much?
- Pre-kidnapping adventures. Many video games task us with rescuing princesses. Call me callous, but I'd care more about these ladies if I actually experienced some gameplay with them before their abduction. Name me a game in which you start playing your adventure alongside the damsel-in-distress-to-be -- for at least a full level before she's wrenched from you. Usually Princess Peach is gone before I press the jump button a single time. I want to feel the loss, not just have to believe in it because I watched a cut scene. What am I missing?
Those are the four new hunts. Let me know what you all find!
(UPDATED 7/1/07: Readers' findings are noted below. Thanks everyone!)
I'm on a hunt. Your assistance is required.
I'm looking for things that I think might have been in video games. They certainly could have been in video games. But I'm not sure.
I've sampled a large swath of gaming in my years on this not so little big planet. I've played all sorts of games. Games that let you argue with yourself and games that explain the cycle of life. I've even played games about baseball.
But there are other things I need help spotting. Starting today but continuing as long as I can, I'm going to build a list of stuff that's got to be out there. Let me know which games I can find these things in and I'll update this list accordingly -- and give proper credit, of course.
For starters, this is what I'm looking for.
- A game that has speed bumps. I want to be racing down the streets with cops behind me a la "Need for Speed: Most Wanted," but then have to slow down for speed bumps. But I've never run into that.
FOUND Several people had suggestions: "Excitebike," "Paper Boy," and "Town & Country." While those apparently all fit, they just make me wish I wrote the question more clearly. I wanted speed bumps in a game that has car chases, not just a bunch of bumps in old 2D games. My mistake.
- A game that has an homage to "Raiders of the Lost Ark" other than that rolling-boulder scene, which even Nintendo ripped off in "Super Mario 64." Really, has no one at all done a boss battle that takes place under the wing of a plane? Has anyone other than the "Pursuit Force" team come close to replicating that scene of Indy fighting on and under the truck -- a scene that might be the most exciting thing in the movie?
STILL MISSING: Someone mentioned Indy homages in "Sam & Max" and "Monkey Island," but no one has yet cited specifics. I'm skeptical. Where are the waving-torches-at-snakes games? The bad-guy-burns-a-medallion-print-in-his-hand moments?
- A video game biography. I've read biographies, watched biopics, but never played a biogame. And, no, "Eternal Sonata" doesn't count.
FOUND: Reader Josh suggested that the educational "Age of Empires" might be considered biographical. MattG suggested "Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space." Oren offered "Oregon Trail." Anonymous mentioned "Super Columbine Massacre RPG!"But I'm my very own winner on this one, because after publishing this entry I was reminded of Level 5's upcoming PSP Joan of Arc biography game. She fought dragons in real life too, didn't she?
- A role-playing game that features mages who are neither old men nor attractive women?
FOUND: Several readers suggested answers to this one -- "Earthbound/Mother", "World of Warcraft" and even the first "Final Fantasy." Folks, this is what we call a "gimme."
- A game in which bad frame-rate is an art effect the way grainy film and lens-flare sometimes are. I like the old "Space Quest" game that had you time-traveling to different eras and used different levels of graphics technology to show how primitive or advanced each era was. I'm thinking of that kind of creativity. Or would everyone just think it's a bug or an "Earth Defense Force" game?
STILL MISSING: Someone mentioned "Paper Mario," but I don't remember any artistic slowdown and I've played the full series. Reader Fort90 -- that's Matt Hawkins to you -- asked if shmups qualify. Well, of course they do. And I remember plenty of slowdown in "Super R-Type." Matt writes: "a number of them are unplayable without slow-down and ... I tend to think that it's not just a matter of playability but the designer slowing it down and letting you come to grips with the intensity/absurdity of the situation." It's a sound theory, but I need specifics and proof. Someone name me a game where the slowdown definitely happened on purpose -- for gameplay or artistic effect.
Let me know if you know of any game titles that sport these missing features. I think I'll expand this list next week.
