The Arcade's 11th Frame

Here is one of the handful of arcade pieces I did on Blogcritics in 2006 that proved to be quite popular at the time:

It’s the 10th frame and I have eight pins down with two still standing – staring me in the face and laughing. As I palm my ball from the ball return I envision the destruction of the ivories at the end of the lane.

I line up my approach, cup the ball against my wrist and let the ball fly down the lane with a slight spin to the left. With not enough spin, I clip one of the pins on the right side and it flops to the back, leaving the other pin upright. With a sigh of disappointment, I leave the lane, leave the balls in the ball return, don’t return my shoes and put more tokens into the ball return for 10 more frames.

Ah, the convenience of arcade bowling.

I like to bowl. I’m not superbly amazing at the sport, but I really enjoy it. I love arcades. They may be close to dead in the U.S., but growing up in an era where arcade machines could do what consoles couldn’t, arcades have a special place in my heart. Not surprisingly, when the two are combined, I have fun.

U.S. arcades are pretty much in an era where if there’s no gimmick attached, you won’t find it. The simplicity of having a joystick and a button or two is lost among the lineup of deluxe cabinets sporting light guns, steering wheels and instruments. The name of the arcade these days is interaction – in most games in arcades now, you are the controller. But, so far, nothing I’ve encountered so far has matched the real thing pound for pound than the recent addition of arcade “candlestick” bowling to arcades.

While the concept is about two years in age, the actual product is starting to make its way into arcades on a more available basis. As the product is becoming more available, it is also becoming more popular, with a number of locations now operating leagues based on the machines.

The arcade machines are welcome for bowling as it offers a cheap, quick and easy alternative to renting a lane. For casual bowlers there’s no shoe rentals, you don’t have to spend five minutes picking out a ball and a full game costs about two dollars less than at most allies. As a bonus, good play is rewarded in some locations with redemption tickets. If I can score more than 100, that means Tootsie Rolls for everyone.

Most machines are also in bar locations, which mean the beer frame doesn’t disappear. With most machines supporting up to four players, the social aspect of bowling is still present.

Will the arcade machines replace bowling as we know it? No. But the fact that bowling could possibly be found at the arcades I love to frequent? That’s awesome.

Roll a Six to Hadoken

Ever since the World Warriors’ first console outing on the Super Nintendo in 1992’s Street Fighter II, something always bugged me and, perhaps, it should also bother me that such a trivial matter has stuck to my brain for the past 17 years. In the game’s arcade mode, everything is innocent enough for the player, which chooses one of eight characters and then battles through seven other competitors to tackle four boss characters to clear the game. Since Street Fighter II is a tournament, though, obviously the other characters can’t be sitting around waiting for a single fighter to compete with everyone – they have to fight against someone to progress through the tournament to meet the player at his or her current standing in the brackets. In a perfect world, if only eight fighters were invited to the tournament, the winning fighter would only have to fight twice (with each fight accompanied by Joe Esposito’s, “You’re the Best,” of course) before moving on to the Shadoloo goons. So the million dollar question is, who are the remainder of the Street Fighter cast fighting to advance to the same bracket of the tournament?

Thankfully, I think I finally found my answer this past weekend while scoping out my favorite used bookstore (The Dawn Treader Book Shop in Ann Arbor, Mich., if you must know) – sandwiched in among the tombs of Dungeons & Dragons manuals and homeless video game strategy guides, my good friend pointed out this highly amusing publication: White Wolf’s Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game. It’s no secret – I love Street Fighter. Going beyond the games, I own a number of comics, manga, figures, key chains, posters and the like. Seriously, if Capcom slapped the Street Fighter name on a do-it-yourself home colonoscopy kit, I would probably buy it, so purchasing nearly 200 pages of content based on one of my favorite series for seven bucks was a no-brainer. When my friend handed me the book, I was subjected to a cover featuring what appeared to be a 50-year-old Cammy arm barring a grizzly Blanka while what appeared to be Kamen Rider in a trench coat and Charles Bronson in a bandanna and army vest cheered on. From that moment, I knew these seven dollars were going to be among the best I had ever spent.

Packed with original art by a number of artists, the scenarios presented in the guide explain everything. While Ken was going fist to fist with Dhalsim in the first round, Ryu was fighting a half-naked Viking in the arctic north, T. Hawk was fending off a cybernetic lizard man and Cammy was engaged in combat to the death with a seedy fishmonger with crab claws instead of hands. Why are these characters not in the games? In fact, every game should have a seedy fishmonger with crab claws. I’m not sure why, but one of the pieces features Chun Li on a wharf, apparently breaking wind. I apologize if I’ve now ruined your Chun Li fantasies.

A very interesting tidbit found in the book is the fact each of the World Warriors featured has an official win-loss total. How many fights has Ryu seen exactly? How many fools has Fei Long knocked out? Take a look at the official standings as of the book’s printing in 1994:

Blanka – 58 wins/54 by KO, 3 losses, 1 draw
Dhalsim – 195 wins/80 by KO, 18 losses, 2 draws
Fei Long – 72 wins/45 by KO, 6 losses, 1 draw
T. Hawk – 54 wins/50 by KO, 4 losses, no draws
Zangief – 155 wins/103 by KO, 6 losses, 2 draws
Ken – 105 wins/91 by KO, 1 loss, no draws
Ryu – 102 wins/88 by KO, no losses, 1 draw
Guile – 92 wins/83 by KO, 2 losses, 2 draws
Cammy – 80 wins/65 by KO, 4 losses, no draws
E. Honda – 160 wins/105 by KO, 13 losses, 2 draws
Dee Jay – 80 wins/45 by KO, 3 losses, 1 draw
Chun Li – 74 wins/67 by KO, 3 losses, 1 draw

While most sane people would wonder who could have taken Ryu to a draw, immediately, my first question is whether or not bears are included in Zangief’s win total.

Being a fantasy game, however, Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game is all about creating your very own character, the results of which fill in the aforementioned holes in the roster. Players get points to assign to physical, social, mental, abilities, skills, knowledge and renown and are able to learn disciplines such as capoeira, kabaddi, kung fu, sambo, shotokan and more. Sure it takes a while, but anyone who takes any RPG character creation seriously knows the process isn’t a five-minute ordeal. I’d never played a pen-and-paper RPG before, so the Street Fighter motif was finally enough to round up someone and give it a go.

Seeing as I didn’t want to take a huge amount of time creating a character, I entered Garou: Mark of the Wolves character Khushnood Butt into the Street Fighter mix, a semi-reasonable fit for the shotokan discipline. Things didn’t go too well and I found out how fickle of a mistress RPG life could be when the very beginning of the story resulted in me waking up and getting electrocuted in the tub because of a nearby radio. I had five D-10s and not a damn one of them rolled a six or higher. Rest in peace Butt. I hope you find your billboard up there in heaven … or wherever the storyteller makes you go.

Ultimately the game allows players do just about anything and even institutes rules for using firearms and animal companions and as seen in the above example, the storytelling route extends to events outside of fighting tournaments as well. For the most part, as long as a player can roll six or higher and avoid ones (which result in extremely unfavorable events and cancel out successful rolls), everything will go their way and they can punch people in the face, stop drug cartels or succeed in asking people out on dates. My RPG career may have been a short one, but, hopefully someone out there has stories on how they gave Ryu a wedgie as, seriously, anything is fair game in Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game.

For now, though, I’m quite content surfing through the art and content of this book. There’s nothing like seeing T. Hawk hoisting a lizard up for a Titan-like (remember Saturday Night Slam Masters?) torture rack when I’m having a bad day and seeing M. Bison engage in a psycho staring contest with a warlock sporting a fu man chu just brings a number of questions to mind. When it comes to actually duking it out, I think I’ll just rely on my trusty quarter circle plus punch for a hadouken as opposed to praying that a dice lets me pull off the move without it sending me back in time or something. As for those unseen characters that test your opponents in the earlier rounds of the tournament, I salute you – yes, even you, really fat luchadore. With this book finally comes the solace of knowing my next opponent is fighting to keep their place in the tournament instead of watching reruns of Seinfeld while they wait for me to fly all the way to their home country.

The 10 Most Memorable LIVE Experiences on Xbox

Over at Diehard GameFAN, as part of my weekly Xbox LIVE Wrap-Up, I got together with some of staff to list some of the best Xbox titles to play on Xbox LIVE. In recognition of Microsoft pulling the plug on Xbox support for LIVE (I'm talking Xbox here, not Xbox 360, don't freak out), I compiled what I thought were the 10 games on the Xbox format that best utilized LIVE:

Halo 2
There’s no way this title couldn’t have been on the list. In fact, it was Halo 2’s free trail card to Xbox LIVE that got me launched on to the service and it could be argued that Halo 2 is what catapulted online gaming to where it is right now. Sure, maybe that means Halo 2 is where getting called obscene names by a 10-year-old originated from as well. However, Halo 2 still remains as the Xbox’s most-played game as people still seem to be popping this disc into their Xbox 360. While PC gamers had been experiencing the online battles for some time, Halo 2 definitely set the stage for console gamers to get in on the action and stands as our most influential Xbox LIVE title on the list.

Phantasy Star Online
If there was one thing you could say about the Xbox, it was definitely void of many RPG experiences. Although a handful of MMO titles were planned, nearly all of them ended with the crushing news of being cancelled, including the much-anticipated True Fantasy Live. Although it found its way over from the SEGA Dreamcast, some of our staff still had some fondness in store for Phantasy Star Online Episodes I & II on Xbox LIVE. It was a foreign concept to me – I pay for Internet service, then I pay to be on Xbox LIVE and now I have to pay to play this online game. I loved Phantasy Star Online so much that it was a price I was willing to pay. Even though PSO isn’t massive in its multiplayer online gameplay, the Xbox handled the OG of online console RPGs well, and fighting through Boomas was just as fun as always.

Crimson Skies
Crimson Skies was packed in with initial Xbox LIVE packages giving players a game, a headset, and Xbox LIVE service, just like we still have today. However, I can’t say any game pack-ins have caught my attention much like Crimson Skies. The arcade-style dogfighting was a welcome change of pace during the time of its release, but when you loaded a full multplayer room and cut everyone loose, the true shining nature of Crimson Skies really breaks through. With lots of options, expansive maps, and explosive combat, Crimson Skies was a match made in heaven for the Xbox LIVE service and still holds up very well to this day. I’m sure fans have been holding their breath for a sequel, but, unfortunately, so far there has been no dice on that front.

Star Wars: Battlefront
With two games in the series under its belt on the Xbox, much like Halo 2, this series of Star Wars titles still sees its fair share of online gameplay. The Battlefront series combines two things many people like – Star Wars and the Battlefield series. The result is an epic, large-scale war that intensifies as you add in more players. While Battlefield has moved on to larger audiences and the Battlefront series has slid downhill, the first two entries were easily entertaining, especially for Star Wars fans that got to mow down Storm Troopers. The online playability might not match what we have today with Battlefield, but Battlefront definitely held its own on the Xbox and doesn’t disappoint fans of large-scale battles.

Counterstrike
Surely PC fans scoffed at the thought of playing Counterstrike on the Xbox, but given the number of console gamers that surged through the past few generations of consoles, the system’s online gameplay made the Xbox a sure bet for the title. Being crafted to the Xbox controller and services, Counterstrike didn’t disappoint those willing to overlook the absence of a mouse and keyboard and still ranks among the most-played Xbox games over Xbox LIVE. Even though the format changed, the essence of Counterstrike was still embedded in the Xbox version and it made a lot of trigger-happy FPS gamers happy.

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
Although Sam Fisher didn’t exactly stay Xbox exclusive for long, the Xbox LIVE service made his third entry a big deal. Not only could two people team up to take on campaign missions with co-op moves, but players could also enter versus matches that incorporated the same tactics found in the single-player mode. Chaos Theory is, again, another title still seeing frequent play and for good reason. When you are able to take the stealth genre and inject some solid multplayer features into it, you’re bound to have a formula for success on Xbox LIVE.

Steel Battalion: Line of Contact
I can’t say Capcom’s Steel Battalion was played heavily by gamers, but you just can’t ignore that massive control panel that the game was sold with. Although Microsoft had MechAssault, Steel Battalion actually put gamers into the seat of a mech with an intimidating array of switches, panels and buttons. Once players learned the ropes, though, the experience was massively satisfying and the use of Xbox LIVE further perpetuated the experience. Perhaps the only thing that could pull you even further into the game are the interactive mech motion arcade cabinets. SEGA tried to recapture the spirit of Steel Battalion with ChromeHounds, however, it just isn’t the same.

Dead or Alive Ultimate
Dead or Alive wasn’t the only fighting game in town, but given how most of them played while being online, the general fighting game on Xbox LIVE was pretty much unplayable. Although Dead or Alive wasn’t perfect when fighting online, with the backing of Microsoft and the game’s exclusivity, these remakes were probably as good as it got for most fighting game fans. With a further bump up in graphics and content from previous versions, Dead or Alive Ultimate gave fans a new look at Dead or Alive 2 along with the original arcade title. With Microsoft’s heavy marketing, it wasn’t hard to notice the Dead or Alive franchise on the system, which is probably why the title was one of the most popular for its time on the service.

Conker Live & Reloaded
Showing up at the end of the Nintendo 64’s life, a lot of gamers did miss out on Conker’s Bad Fur Day the first time around. During the span of the Xbox and Gamecube, Microsoft notoriously snatched up Rare as Nintendo began to struggle pretty hard in the market and put them to uses that had gamers baffled. One result of the development studio was a re-imagining of Conker that infused Xbox LIVE gameplay for those that couldn’t get enough of the multiplayer battles. I never liked the multiplayer battles in Conker Live & Reloaded, but a lot of people did, making it, once again, another title that still climbs the Xbox charts to this day. Maybe it’s the vulgar content and maybe people just like playing the game. All I know is I won’t step in the way of gamers having a good time.

DanceDanceRevolution Ultramix
In the final spot on our list, I’m going bold and throwing this one in. Not only did the Konami team based out of Hawaii pump out some quality titles that actually changed the interface and stale conventions of the DDR series with Ultramix and inject relevant U.S. dance music into the series, but it launched what could be considered some of the very first digital expansion content in console gaming. Sure, you could play the game online, but these digital transactions helped shape what we current see with Rock Band – Ultramix’s purchased content even flowed into other Ultramix titles. There was a time early in the century where DDR was the untouchable king of music gaming. I don’t know what the hell happened to make these series nose dive into the dirt, but, yes, there was a time where DDR was arguably one of the most innovative titles in gaming history and we saw this even on Xbox LIVE.

Collecting Color Craziness

Oddly enough, here is another salvagable bit from Rithum.com. This bit from 2007 details Nintendo's push for new colored Nintendo DS systems and multicolored systems in general:

When I think of a product becoming available in a range of colors, I for some reason imagine the console in the game play format of Color a Dinosaur. Nintendo of Europe has revealed a new silver color of DS Lite being made available Oct. 12 and it makes me wonder what colors or designs I would like to see on my DS Lite.

As the DS Lite continues on, one would be suspect that Nintendo will release even more versions of its handheld system and while the U.S. keeps getting different colors, it would be nice to start seeing different designs made available in the U.S. akin to what Japan has been getting with both the DS and PSP. Just check out this sleek, white Final Fantasy VII PSP design going on for the limited edition of Crisis Core. Square-Enix has always been good about getting Final Fantasy consoles made, which includes the Final Fantasy III Nintendo DS Lite and the Final Fantasy Wonderswan Color and if we’re really going to go all out with new system appearances, what could we kick out stateside?

Retro has been a big thing for Nintendo, so another Famicom or NES design seems very likely down the road, with designs based after the Nintendo 64 being not too big of a stretch due to the processing nature of the Nintendo DS. And wouldn’t it be cute if there was a DS design made that hinged two Game Boy Advances together? Nintendo has a long-running franchise of retro material and million-selling IPs, so why don’t we see more limited edition action from them in both their systems and games? More realistically, I would love to have a frost/icy blue color to my Nintendo DS Lite (why not, Japan has one) but I really give Nintendo the thumbs up on its recent Brain Age 2 design that provides a sexy-looking red and black combination.

Given that I hardly ever play my PSP anymore, I’m completely content with my standard issue black because let’s face it - it’s black, shiny and looks damn sexy. It sure beats the white colored systems that have surfaced while the PSP has been on the market, but as a very nice digital media device, the PSP could match the iPod in terms of customization and choices. So, it’s no wonder Sony keeps adding on to the system as opposed to changing it because it is actually working just fine from the front of media. At the $199.99 price tag, the PSP is a disputable choice over an iPod with the expansions being made in memory sticks. However, the outside rarely changes. It makes me wonder what a red or blue PSP would look like straight from the factory but if given the same finish as the black PSP, it could rival in terms of shiny sexiness.

Yeah, I’m pretty random today and if you couldn’t guess, blue is my favorite color. However, that does not mean I am advocating Happy Happyism.

Paul Bellezza Discusses P.B. Winterbottom

The path from independent to retail is a long and selective journey, but given the resources available to aspiring developers today, we are seeing a resurgence in original ideas akin to when computer games could be written by a couple of programmers on a computer in a garage. While the advance in technology has made the “garage studio” model extremely difficult, it certainly isn’t impossible, and today’s up-and-coming developers are finding ways to battle the hardships involved in the process. Tomorrow, gamers will be able to get their hands on the results of the newest rise of the independent game, The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom.

P.B. Winterbottom comes from the minds of graduates of the University of Southern California’s Interactive Media MFA program. In 2008, the Odd Gentlemen started off as an independent studio founded by Matt Korba and Paul Bellezza. Now in 2010, they are setting out to expand their mission of making experimental games. The first of these titles is a re-imagining of P.B. Winterbottom, set to be expanded and improved upon thanks to the Xbox 360 hardware and published courtesy of 2K Play. The publisher has taken a recent effort to expand on its portfolio with key downloadable titles on the Xbox LIVE Arcade format and so far, P.B. Winterbottom is looking like a perfect, and surely an original, addition to the service.

Hot off the heels of the development of The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom, The Odd Gentlemen co-founder Paul Bellezza took some time out of his schedule to answer some questions in regard to the game and its development, The Odd Gentlemen, what it was like to develop games independently, what the future holds for the company and more. We figured someone whose initials were P.B. would give us the best insight on The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom (although we had to lock up all of our pies), so please continue reading as we examine the past, present and future with Paul Bellezza:

DHGF: To set the stage for those not in the know, can you introduce The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom to our readers and describe what makes the title a unique experience?

Paul Bellezza: The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is a 2-D side scrolling puzzle platformer starting the nefarious P.B. Winterbottom – pie thief extraordinaire. The game takes place in a macabre silent film inspired universe and involves Winterbottom’s quest to chase the elusive Chronoberry Pie, which has caused P.B. to become unstuck in time. Because of this, Winterbottom receives the ability to record any of his actions and spawn time clones that repeat his previous actions. With the help of these time clones, Winterbottom can stand on his own head to get to higher places, smack himself or his clones with his umbrella, which is a launching mechanism, and can be in multiple places at once. All of these tricks are good for one thing: Nabbing delicious pie.

DHGF: P.B. Winterbottom’s noir motif definitely gives the title a unique identity. What are your concerns in regard to current gamers being “spoiled” on today’s visuals? What kind of challenges did producing the title in this art form produce?

P.B.: In this current generation of consoles, the march over the uncanny valley is expensive, draining and consists of mostly green and brown color palettes. We don’t care about creating visuals that are photo real. We feel we get enough of that in the real world. We’d much rather create stylized worlds that are bent, twisted and fantastical as these are the types of places we dreamed of as children. These are the worlds that suit the games we want to make.

In terms of Winterbottom’s development, we were able to create our aesthetic by modeling all of our assets in 3-D with global illumination, exporting them to 2-D and then painting them over. While we were able to create a one-of-a-kind look, it’s the most inefficient art pipeline ever. In essence, each puzzle scenario has as much detail as a movie set. It was a balancing act trying to keep the bar of high quality up during production. Stylized art is hard work but it tends to age better in the long run. Games from the PlayStation One 3-D era were cutting edge at one point but, by today’s standards, they are unsightly.

Now that’s not to say we don’t appreciate the glitz and glamour of today’s modern games. Uncharted 2 is one of our favorites. We just don’t have an interest in making worlds that utilize that style.

DHGF: Can you expand on the game’s silent movie inspiration? Were there any silent films or actors from the time period that directly inspired P.B. Winterbottom?

P.B.: We’re fans of Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton. There are several segments in the game that are heavily inspired by Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last and Buster Keaton’s Sherlock Jr. A Trip to the Moon, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Metropolis inspired us as well.

DHGF: The original development page for the title shows a number of concepts for the P.B. Winterbottom character. Can you reflect on the evolution and creation of the character? How did you know when you finally had exactly what you wanted in the character?

Paul: Our creative director, Matt Korba, modeled and animated the first version of Winterbottom, which we used in the student version of the game. Even in the student project, Winterbottom went through a few transitions. We knew we wanted him to creep around in a gremlin-like manner while keeping an air of dignity around him. When we started the commercial version of Winterbottom, we set out to revamp the character for HD. With the help of our concept artist, Vincent Perea, we began rethinking him. We added more details to his face and attire and got him re-modeled and running in the game world. Several months later, Matt Clausen, along with Korba, decided we wanted to revamp him a third time. In this final pass, we gave him a new color treatment and added extra details like black shadows around his eyes, while reshaping his head to make for a better platform. We almost didn’t have enough time to get the final version in the game but once we got a set of test frames into the game itself, we knew he was where we wanted him to be.

DHGF: So far, the title seems like a pretty big victory for The Odd Gentlemen. What was your initial reaction to a publisher such as 2K Play being interested in your title? What kind of a process was involved in going from an independent effort to a spotlighted retail release?

P.B.: The whole journey has been an amazing but surreal journey for us. We never had any inclination that this would turn into a full-fledged downloadable console title. As students, we were only interested in making the best game that we could make. The real turning point for us was when the game earned entrance into the Independent Games Festival at GDC 2008. Demoing the game on the show floor at GDC opened up a ton of doors for us. We met every major publisher in the industry and garnered attention from the gaming press. 2K Play was one of the first publishers we spoke with and from the get-go they made it clear that they would support our creative vision for the game. After signing with 2K, they provided us with tools and resources to get our studio up and running. It has been very collaborative, as they’ve worked with us to develop a schedule that would best suit the development of the project. All in all, it’s been a smooth working relationship.

DHGF: Do you think P.B. Winterbottom would have had the same appeal if it would have been built in the suggested Ogre 3D, as a postmortem for the USC thesis build indicated? What is it about the differences between 2-D and 3-D that you feel defines a game and how it is approached and developed?

P.B.:To be frank, we couldn’t have pulled off the look we have achieved with The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom for XBLA if we used Ogre 3D. The type of shading and lighting used to make our models just wouldn’t have been possible to do “live.” Furthermore, we were interested in making a puzzle platformer and a 2-D plane was the way we envisioned the game happening. As a puzzle game, we wanted the player to be able to see the problem they were facing in one shot. Were it in 3-D, the puzzles would have required a different type of design that wouldn’t necessarily work the same way. So the decision to design the game for a 2-D perspective was a deliberate design choice.

DHGF: What aspects of the game were made possible through Xbox development as opposed to the Adobe Flash format utilized originally?

P.B.: Developing the game on the Xbox gave us more raw power than what was available to us in Flash. Therefore, we got more clones on the screen, higher-resolution assets and less slowdown.

DHGF: With the original product, were there any instances or comments that still stick out in your mind when the game was showcased at the Independent Games Festival 2008?

P.B.: The critical response was overwhelming. I don’t think anything else will compare … well, maybe upgrading my 1999 Chevy Prism to a non-broken, smelly car will … but nothing else.

DHGF: What does it mean to you as an independent developer to have the awards and press you’ve been receiving thus far?

Paul: I felt honored by the warm reception we received from the gaming press and industry. When we were at E3 2008 with Indiecade, we received several E3 award nominations. We were flabbergasted that our little student Flash game were uttered in the same sentence as titles such as Mirror’s Edge, Prince of Persia, and Spore. The awards and press help with morale, but we never lose sight of the fact that attention is only as good as the game you are making. We pour our energy into making the best games we can and everything else is just gravy.

DHGF: What is next for The Odd Gentlemen? Would the team rather move on to bigger, disc-based games? What is the ideal genre the team would like to work on and why? How is the company mission statement of being the buffest development team in the world working for you?

P.B.: We have another game baking in the oven right now and it’s just as crazy as Winterbottom is … and it’s in COLOR. As for disc-based games, it’s not out of the question for us in the future but we’re not in a rush to go big. The size of the game we make will be determined by the game design and direction we’re chasing, so if an idea warrants a large scope, then perhaps we’ll end up making a disc-title.

It’s no fun working in genres… we want to shatter them.

Well, we definitely have a lot of muscle under our post-crunch love handles. So in that regard, I’d say it’s going quite well. Making a game about delicious pie was not good for our goal.

DHGF: What are your thoughts on the overall landscape of the independent video game development scene? Is there any advice you would give to someone with aspirations for getting into independent video game development?

P.B.: The indie game scene has a lot of interesting games. Developers take big and very exciting risks. As long as people are passionate about making games their way, then the indie scene will continue to yield more great games. Every year the number of submissions to the IGF and Indiecade increases and this is testament to a new generation of self-guided game developers rising up. It’s awesome!

Advice for anyone passionate enough to going into independent game development, the best tenet we recommend is to make sure the game you’re making is personal to you. When a game is personal to the creator, it shows in the design and is more effective.

2K Marin, Digital Extremes Dish Out Bioshock 2 Details

Fresh off finishing work on the much-anticipated BioShock 2, the teams at 2K Marin and Digital Extremes have surfaced from the depths of Rapture for a quick breath of air. Thankfully, during this time, Jordan Thomas, Zak McClendon and Hoagy De La Plante from 2K Marin and Mat Tremblay and Jesse Attard of Digital Extremes were onhand to field a mob of press questions on Friday in recognition of the finished product, which will be hitting store shelves on Tuesday. After the roaring success of BioShock, these team members have had some pretty big shoes to fill in this sequel, in which the single-player portion of the title takes place following the events of the first. However, after much work on the title, both companies came out confident, spilling a load of details and insight on next week’s big release.

Right off the bat, 2K Marin foresaw its biggest challenge: Creating a new experience that surpassed the original without stepping on the toes of the original release or the BioShock’s rabid fan base. While the members of 2K Marin and Digital Extremes agreed the biggest challenge was implementing multiplayer in a game built as a single-player experience, the developers of the single-player campaign noted pulling off the sequel effectively was still no easy chore. With a small core of members having a hand in the original title, creative director Jordan Thomas stated a team was built from scratch.

On the subject of the pressures of matching the success of the original title, Thomas stated the fact the original was so well received was perhaps the biggest pressure of producing the sequel. It was noted members of the Friday panel did have experience on previous games with titles such as Deus Ex, Deus Ex 2, Thief III and Project Snowblind being mentioned, but instead of focusing purely on the past, the two teams had a lot of work and expectations on their shoulders. “We built a team from scratch and it was mentally challenging because we were going against the weight of our own expectiations,” he noted. “Everyone was a fan of the first game and the pressure led to a lot of second-guessing and aiming to please everyone.”

Before moving on to all of the new additions to be pumped into the title, the teams had to take a step back and see what worked in the original title. Two of the biggest premises to return included the mystery-driven story along with the moral choices. “We wanted to keep the player’s choices … while growing the ecology of the world,” said McClendon, the lead designer of the project. “We wanted to expand upon the idea of the world being self-sufficent and keep everything acceptable and friendly to a wide audience. We wanted to respect anything the player decided on in the original game.”

It was stated that neither ending, based on the ethical choices of the player in the first game, was considered as “canon” for the story. Instead, the hope is that players will carry their morality from the first game over to the second. However the teams still treated the path of events very seriously and the game’s lineage unfolds in a manner that does the first entry justice.

“BioShock had an extremely full mythos,” stated Thomas. “Adding new history into that canon was a huge challenge. It was something we took very seriously. The writing team had to become painfully familiar with the first game in order to prevent contradictions.”

The goal in the sequel was painted out be surpsing to the player without removing what happened in the original entry, which is what the team would have referred to as a “simple-minded reboot.” Once again, the Little Sisters are running rampant in Rapture and moral decisions lie in your relationships with these ADAM-infused entities. “We wanted to focus on choice,” noted Jordan. “The player is granted freedom and can make a number of ethical decisions that shape the plot and how the story unfolds.” One of the main goals of story progression this time around, however, was in shaping the game well before the end, as it was carried out in the original title.

Not everything is new with the mythos, though, as De La Plante did indicate a small handful of characters and themes will be returning to the sequel, including Dr. Brigid Tenenbaum, along with the very obvious inclusions of the Big Daddies and Little Sisters. The one certainty De La Plante did spell out was the fact Andrew Ryan is dead.

“Through Rapture, you can see Ryan’s legacy and see his messages and ideals around the game.” he noted. “In this way, Rapture is a character of its own. (Ryan’s) story ended in a satisfying way. The player ended the game with conquest or redemption and we needed to allow the story to conclude and not interfere with that.”

After Jack Ryan leaves the “utopia,” the opening of the massive tower vacuum has allowed Rapture to evolve and feature the story elements introduced in the sequel. Fast forwarding to 1970, Rapture is now under the guidance of Sofia Lamb, who operates under the reverse philosophies of Andrew Ryan. Instead of focusing on the individual, Lamb stresses collectiveness in society, implementing vibes of Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill into the game’s philosophical tones, which still reflects writings such as those seen by George Orwell and Peter Watts. While a lot has essentially remained the same in BioShock 2’s premise and themes, though, the gameplay has been retooled to take the sequel beyond the original.

The most dramatic departure is obviously in the shift of the player’s role. Instead of Jack Ryan, players are placed directly under the mask of a prototype Big Daddy, a mechanic that 2K Marin admitted was one of the very first items decided upon for the sequel.

“Making this game was challenging and we felt changing the protagonist was the best focus,” said Thomas. “It provided a fresh perspective and it was hugely requested by fans. Most importantly, though, he has a purpose: He’s out in search of his original Little Sister.”

As a prototype, this Big Daddy does differ from those seen in the original entry. “In the original single player game, the Big Daddy was powerful, but slow,” recalled Thomas. “We just couldn’t do a game at such a slow, trudging pace – (the prototype) is more agile than the classic daddies and he can utilize the plasmids. He also has free will. The encounters with Big Daddies are still as rewarding as they were before, though. The ‘rumbler’ is a new type and the Big Sister is more challenging. The game’s situations are not always meant to be an even battle.”

Big Sisters, implemented as a new face of terror in the sequel, are Little Sisters that have matured physically based on an overabundance of ADAM. They embody an awkward transition into adolescence and feature a softer edge (detailed by items such as ribbons on their baskets or innocent drawings), but still carry quite the mean streak. However, this doesn’t mean the Little Sisters have been pushed out of the title. In fact, they are crucial element to BioShock 2. When a player encounters a Little Sister, not only can they be harvested for personal ADAM, but the player can adopt them in their search for more dead bodies full of the material. If the player allows the Little Sister to harvest from a body, it will be up to the player to defend her from incoming dangers. If players really sink low into morality, they can adopt, allow a Little Sister to absorb ADAM and then harvest a double dose of the precious entity. Such decisions are what really shapes the game, according to McClendon.

“It really undermines the moral value to force players into a specific morality choice,” he commented. “(BioShock 2) makes the choices around them a little more gray. It can be a little more rewarding to harvest in BioShock 2. You can be starved for ADAM if you do not adopt and you will have tons if you adopt then harvest. We’re hoping the choices are a little more reflective of the choices that go on in your head with such complex moral choices.”

Outside of the big baddies, the 2K Marin also noted even the general enemies have received a boost in performance thanks to reworked AI and players will be encountering these battles with more frequency. It was noted players will see some ambushes and the enemies are just a lot smarter overall, using cover, throwing grenades and effectively traversing ledges. Diversity also allows the enemies to be more threatening against your Big Daddy, with brute splicers throwing large blocks of concrete and being able to go toe-to-toe with you and other splicers that can climb walls and ceilings. The team even admitted the final boss from BioShock was something the original didn’t do very well so BioShock 2, without throwing out any spoilers, is “taking a different approach.”

However, thanks to being a Big Daddy, players will find they have more tools at their disposal to counter these threats. A lot more character growth has been implemented into the sequel with three upgrade levels to every single weapon, the ability to “dual-wield” plasmids and weapons and, of course, the trademark Big Daddy drill. The dual-wielding was admitted to being one of the very first mechanics the team implemented when doing early work with the BioShock toolset and the final results have the teams pleased.

“The Big Daddy really worked to our advantage.” noted Thomas. “Jack could go down quickly and by people’s expectations, (it) would be more durable, so there is more survivability. There are fewer stumbling block to your tools and with varying difficulty levels and internal play testing, we have made sure the levels are balanced. Everyone asked for the drill and that was something we put in, but it needed to be robust. We worked on upgrades and it became a core tool that was rewarding and visceral to use. With the way tools combine in defensive scenarios, we’re pretty happy with the end results.”

As mentioned, every weapon has three upgradable levels, which gives players something to work for and each changes up the game style a little bit. For example, reaching level three with the drill adds a magnetic coil, which can be used to reflect projectiles. Also, new plasmids have been worked into the experience for both the single-player and multiplayer modes with new single-player skills including a scout ability to leave your body and explore ahead for a short time. It was noted the single-player plasmids are meant for the players to use to have fun at the expense of punishing the AI while multiplayer plasmids need to be, “fun to use on others as well as fun to have them used on yourself.” Jesse Attard lead multiplayer programmer for the project at Digital Extremes stated the mode will feature a plasmid that allows players to move at extremely fast speeds and tackle enemies, one that allows players to become invisible and another that will freeze enemies into blocks that can be thrown around for more damage.

The combinations of attacks between plasmids and weapons is the goal of the teams involved, creating tactical and defensive gameplay. Other small tweaks to the gameplay include a simpler hacking system integrated into the core gameplay, forcing players to balance combat and hacking as simultaneous actions. Also, the research camera has been changed into a video camera that not only records subjects, but also judges how the player combats it and rewards the player accordingly. The vita chamber issue from the first game has been looked at as well, giving players the option to turn them off and while combating a Big Daddy, if the player dies, the enemy’s Little Sister will heal them to eliminate the cheap tactic of respawning to whittle down the Big Daddy’s health bit by bit.

Perhaps the biggest departure from the original title is in the fact players will get to explore a little more of Rapture by being able to traverse more of its outside environments. All of the environments are brand new, presented with improvements to shading and rendering and implementing areas the team imagined “players didn’t see the first time around.” 2K Marin did toy with possibilities such as implementing a flooded Port Frolic, but the team didn’t feel it worked out; however, the multiplayer mode will feature some familiar environments exclusive to that mode.

“(BioShock 2) is the same style in art with new environments and more art,” said De La Plante. “We created new manifestations of that style as reinvention was contrary to our goal. We played on an environment that was already strong and tooled with them a little bit. The setting of Rapture will never be new, but changing that wouldn’t work.”

Seeing Rapture from the outside will also allow players to not feel confined as the team noted the enclosed areas of the original made the title never feel safe so, perhaps, players couldn’t fully explore the beauty of the surroundings. The player will also encounter characters that are normal human inhabitants and these characters help progress the narrative.

The multplayer portion of the game was developed externally by Digital Extremes and actually takes place in a civil war storyline preceding the original title. The civil war explains the transition from utopia to dystopia and Attard felt utilizing the story in multiplayer as opposed to creating a full-fledged prequel was a perfect fit for the series.

“An honest prequel would be a very different game.” he explained. “We felt it didn’t speak directly to the values of the first game. The civil war and going from utopia to dystopia, translating those events into multiplayer was extremely honest and the competition over ADAM was compelling to us.”

The multiplayer aspect will feature modes such as the “civil war” team deathmatch, “capture the Sister” (similar to capture the flag) and a free-for-all “survival of the fittest.” Some of the modes will allow the player to become a Big Daddy, which comes with its additional strengths (a rivet gun, stomps and proximity mines) and weaknesses (doesn’t regenerate health, bigger and slower target). Unfortunately, there is no support for system link or LAN, but online, the game will accommodate for up to ten players. Taking place prior to the events of either game, the multiplayer mode will feature unique characters and players can learn more about them by unlocking diaries.

Obviously, taking the foundations of a single-player title and crafting a multiplayer experience from that was quite a task for Digital Extremes. Attard noted the team not only had to contend with a proper networking code and making sure the game was accessible, all the while not sacrificing the feel of the game’s universe. For example, he felt it would be out of place if an announcer called out a headshot; instead, a headshot may do something such as shooting a player’s mask off their face. Balance was another concern and Digital Extremes has noted many focus groups and interview have helped them identify areas to improve the mode and make it more fun. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the mode for fans, though, is in the familiar Rapture environments that have yet to be ravaged by the civil war and the events of the two single-player games.

“Rapture is rich with narrative elements,” said Temblay, the art director of multiplayer at Digital Extremes. “With the experience of the single player, there is so much to look at and experience and that’s what made Rapture. Rapture is pristine and new before the fall and the single-player mode freed us up to go back with multiplayer while the other mode drove the story of Rapture forward.

Looking at the sequel, 2K Marin did comment on the direction the team had to take in developing for all three platforms – Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC – simultaneously. The original title landed on the PS3 much later than the other formats and the teams shared the goal of compromising with the strengths and weaknesses of each format.

“We had a goal to make each format an identical experience,” said McClendon. “We don’t want to reward or punish someone based on their system.”

Commenting on the delay into 2010 for the title, both companies stated the extra time allowed for more balance and polish and Digital Extremes noted the delay allowed it to place in four more multiplayer modes that weren’t originally going to make it in the original 2009 release. Giving the title more time allowed 2K Marin to take a long look at the early moments of the game in order to bring forward the best impression for new and veteran BioShock players.

As a wrap-up to the panel, on an aside, even though Thomas did not jump on board the development of BioShock during its planning stages, he shared one of the proposed premises of the original title focused on World War II, with Nazis having a secret lab underwater for use in inhumane experiments. Also, 2K Marin commented on the collector’s edition, stating the pressed soundtrack vinyl was felt to be a more meaningful collector’s item and better sets the tone of the game.

Gaming B.I.: It's So Real

It's been a while since I've been able to tap into my Gaming B.I. (Before Internet) series, but I struck a little bit of pay dirt recently when my local import shop had a small stack of gaming publications for me to sink my teeth into. Most of this stack was filled with old strategy guides (hey, old strategy guides make for great toilet reading material) but the first book out of the bunch I dove into was Random House's Official SEGA Genesis & Game Gear Strategies, more specifically, the 1994 edition by Corey Sandler and Tom Badgett.

This publication is decent enough and it falls within the same perimeters I've talked about with vague descriptions of each game and such great pointers as not having Pac-Man eat power pellets when he doesn't need to, but this book is one of the more solid entries I've read recently, devoting a lot of space to passwords, cheats and Game Genie codes, which would have been a godsend before the Internet made all of this commonly-accessible knowledge. What blew me away, though, was this comment, made in regard to the Electronic Arts' SEGA Genesis title Mutant League Football and I quote it word for word:

"Looks like the real thing to us."

Now I won't pretend to know what the authors are thinking here and they may just be referring to the football itself and the passing and running plays contained within, but I can think of numerous other comments that would be far more suitable to describe Mutant League Football. In fact, that is perhaps the worst comment you could make in reflection to the game's target demographic. The reason I still pick up the game every now and again is because it wasn't just some cookie cutter football game. Sure, it hasn't aged well at all, but it can be mindless fun for about fifteen minutes until you decide to move on to something like Streets of Rage 2.

Do you remember during Super Bowl XLIV when the Indianapolis Colts bribed the referee and the New Orleans Saints had to kill him so he would stop calling five-yard penalties for nose picking? Or how about in Super Bowl XIX where Joe Montana lobbed a horrible pass, but in reality, it was actually a live explosive that he purposely threw at a Miami Dolphin defender? Evidently, we're supposed to believe the events of this game are rooted in reality. Perhaps in the future, we will be playing football on distant planets with aliens and skeletons, but to claim Mutant League Football has any resemblance of reality is a bit of a stretch, especially considering the obvious cartoon artwork used in the game.

It's been at least 15 years since I've been asked the awkward question of "how many bits would be real life?" as if reality was governed by something out of I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream or The Matrix, but it appears the answer is 16. Watching Mutant League Football is identical to turning on a television on Sunday afternoon during football season according to this statement, but I will ease off of this soap box for now as, of course, this publication is far from the first to ever call reality into play in regard to video gaming. Even though advertising tried to lead me to believe 8-bit graphics were realistic, I knew better, especially since arcade games would be running at double to triple the power. People can believe what they want about what is and isn't reality, but being based on reality doesn't necessitate a claim something is, in fact, realistic. Even as technology progresses to this day, there is a strive to be "real," but, I have to ask, how real can video games become before they are not even games anymore and, more importantly, they aren't fun?

I always seem to be on that opposing end of the spectrum where I want my games to be fantasy, an escape from what I live through from 8-6 p.m. The never-ending push for realism has cut away a little bit of this creativity, but, thankfully, it still exists. We're definitely catching up to realistic looks, which is a far cry from the sprites and jagged polygons we used to be fed as real. As a matter of fact, the title of this Gaming B.I. comes from this legendary gem of an advertisement:

You can still be rooted in reality and present a fantasy as well; take Madden for example. The aspect of football is a reality, however, for a majority of people, assuming the role of their favorite player/team, playing in the big leagues, being in front of a roaring crowd, being in full control of the league and more are fantasy elements. There becomes a point where reality is no longer video game material: Do you want a game where you have to spend half the year not even playing during the offseason? Do you want to do full-scale workouts, training and deal with personal matters on a real-time daily schedule?

Of course, this is all subjective in nature. The boundaries of reality are going to differ from person to person and their tolerance for it will be dynamic as well. How far are you willing to go with realism in video games? What is the point where you feel realism would ruin the video gaming experience?

This morning wasn’t the most splendid way to start off the work week, but, at least I’m still alive and earning a paycheck. Just shy of 8 a.m., I was using an apple corer and slicer and I would have to imagine this particular one was of the cheap Wal-Mart variety. Upon using my amazing strength to push down on the apple, the plastic completely broke from the blades and the downward force sent my hands crashing down to the table. The blades, of course, stuck in the apple, sticking out and giving me small gashes on the outside of both of my hands as physics took over and brushed my hands across them. It’s a trivial, mostly annoying injury for sure, but it got me thinking today, how it could have been worse and how I would cope with not having opposable digits. Obviously, not having thumbs would be the bane of any console gamer’s existence, so would you be inclined to agree the gift of thumbs is something we tend to take for granted?

Perhaps the only thing I’ve ever experienced in being “disabled,” was fracturing my arm, very near the growth plate in my right shoulder. Since it was high on my arm, my mobility in my wrist and such was never in any jeopardy. Still, I remember looking pretty goofy going to arcades in a coat in colder weather with my forearm protruding out through the gaps of my coat’s buttons. I received a few questions about my setup while playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but it was understandable – I wasn’t going to let a crack in my bone stop me from enjoying video games.

However, given where video games are heading, are thumbs still going to play a part in our hobby? I could obviously get by using a joystick and button setup without a pair of thumbs, but you really aren’t going to need them, it seems, with items such as Project Natal. Given the evolution of controllers and gaming, I’ve also noticed you really don’t see as many mentions of “numb thumb” or hand calamities that saw the release of specialized accessories and even gloves that aimed to relieve these ailments. I’m sure there are some people who don’t know when to quit and waggle their appendages down to the bone (I’m pretty sure we took a look at one such instance on the forum here one time), but you just don’t see magazine print ads selling such items anymore. Although, I do wish I had a pair of those gloves for the original Mario Party on the Nintendo 64 – winding up the toy Shy Guy burned a friction hole in a few members of my childhood gaming group and remains as one of my most crippling gaming injuries.

Obviously, I’ll survive, but, perhaps the injury leads me to take another look at the many things in gaming we have taken for granted over our time. What would gaming controllers look like if we didn’t have thumbs? It would have been quite the interesting evolution and, who knows, maybe we would have still arrived at the same point as Project Natal. Thumbless gaming just seems foreign to me as even the wagglacious Nintendo Wii still banks on people having thumbs for the most part and the Playstation 3 motion wand would be a whole new ball game if we didn’t have thumbs. I have nearly 30 years of gaming experience in these two bad boys and I know I’ve got many more in me – hopefully thumb-based gaming won’t go the way of the dodo, but that would be hard to believe for this generation. As it is, I’m amused at the premise of today’s children not knowing what cassette and VHS tapes are, but I suppose I better start thinking of ways to explain a time where video games didn’t synchronize directly with your brain.

I was surfing through my old computer yesterday and I came across a bunch of files for articles I had previously written for other gaming sites. Among them were a group of articles I did after attending the East Coast Gaming Expo in 2006 and amid that batch of articles was a piece based on one of the few 1990 Nintendo World Championship carts in existence being present at the show. It's owner: None other than Ed Fleming, founder of VGXPO, which will be taking place this year from Oct. 9-11 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. The event is recognizing its fifth anniversary, which is definitely commendable. VGXPO has had its share of ups and downs it seems, stemming from articles I tend to read about it online, but my only personal experience with anything regard the show stems from the following article I printed three years ago:

Many gamers have heard of it, but only a select few can claim ownership of the highly coveted Nintendo World Championship 1990 competition cartridge. One such gamer, Ed Fleming, was on hand at the East Coast Video Game Expo to proudly display what is commonly known as the “Holy Grail of NES collecting.”

Fleming prominently displays the cartridge while promoting America’s Video Game Expo, which he founded. However, what may be the best part of the display for gamers is the chance to actually play the cart.

Used only in the Nintendo World Championship tour in 1990, the cartridge is a special challenge combination of Super Mario Bros., Rad Racer and Tetris. When a judge starts the competition with the second controller, gamers are then cued to get ready and prepare for about five minutes (depending on the dip switch setting) of high-pressure gaming.

While anyone can just play the games as intended, the addition of scoring as high as you possibly can in just a few minutes in multiple games adds quite an edge for gamers looking to test their mettle. Challenge one requires players to tally 50 coins as fast as they can in Super Mario Bros., then challenge two pits them against stage two of Rad Racer. Once the exhaust settles from Rad Racer, the competitor uses any time left over to score as high as they can in standard type-A Tetris.

Once the time is up, the game tallies your total score, which was used as the competition scores during the time of the 1990 tour. A total of 116 cartridges were printed during the tour – 90 were given away to the NWC finalists and 26 special gold-version cartridges were awarded as Nintendo Power prizes. Given the extremely limited print run, it’s no surprise the cart sells for thousands of dollars.

“On Ebay it currently goes for about $9,000,” said Fleming. “I’ve even been offered $9,000 today (at the East Coast Gaming Expo). It’s said in about 15 years the value will rise to about $100,000. It’s like the Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle rookie card for (video game) collectors.”

Fortunately for Fleming, his price tag was a lot lower – free.

“I received it from a friend who worked at Tengen at the time,” he said. “He was a finalist in the competition.”

Fleming told him about another competition in China which he could not attend and his friend gave him the cart. Even though Fleming keeps an eye on what value the game carries, money is no object to him.

“I always get offers,” he said, “but I just can’t sell it. I love this stuff. We go out (to events) and try to evangelize it and just let people know that it does exist. I hope when kids see this they get interested in collecting as well and it lets them know that someday they too could have something like this. It’s a great initiative to grow the industry.”

Honestly, I kind of dig the crazy Ben Franklin promotion thing he had going on for 2006 ...

Thinking back, it was kind of amusing because the whole time I talked to Mr. Fleming, he wanted nothing more than to promote his show and, in complete, 100 percent honesty, at that time I was infinitely more interested in checking out the NWC cart. That cart is the lore of legends and it is pretty much presumed you will never be able to see, let alone, play an NWC competition cartridge. Thus, the game embraced me with its legacy, luring me over like a siren leads a sailor into the abyss, and when you pile on the fact Ed graciously let me play the cart, for the next 15 or so minutes, nothing else in the world existed in my mind. Not only that, I had just driven eight hours and spent hundreds of dollars attending the East Coast Gaming Expo - turning around in just one month and adding 16 more driving hours and spending even more money wasn't a logical thought in my mind at the time.

Three years have passed and I still haven't attended a VGXPO event. Hopefully, this year will be a little different as long as the planets align and luck is with me - Philadelphia isn't exactly a jog around the block for me and freelance journalism hasn't been the kindest to my wallet the past couple of years. However, the people involved and the retro show sound too good to pass up. Maybe this year I'll be able to pay more attention to VGXPO instead of ogling off past Mr. Fleming and salivating over what is the publicly declared the most valuable video game in the world.

My Gaming Story

Surprisingly, through a MySpace contact, I was approached by a friend addition, that asked me if I would be willing to take the time to submit a short story to their site, based on my gaming story. I obliged and now Nintendo Guy & Mrs. Peach have my story posted on their site. You know, it's always bugged me that I have no memory of what my very first video game was, but in retrospect, my fifth birthday is my clearest memory of anything I had ever done up to that point in my life (sans maybe the dream I mention in the story). It's always interesting when I think back to the simpler times and the fact that I have stuck with gaming for almost 24 years now is a badge I wear proudly. Even more interesting is the fact that very few people have ever asked me how I got into gaming and after all of those years my own parents haven't even, to my knowledge, questioned how I got into the hobby. Well, if anyone is still curious, here is my gaming story:

My gaming story originates while my memories are fuzzy, thanks to the inevitable reality of infantile amnesia, but even though I couldn't tell you exactly what my first video game was at the age of four, I was birthed into the world during the very awkward transition to the NES, amid the famed video game crash. Before the NES hit the market in the United States, while my parents weren't huge into video gaming, my father loved simulation games, especially those that simulated World War II flight, and my mother had a real heart for Space Invaders, thus, I know I started playing on the Commadore 64 or the VCS, even though I couldn't even tell you what my first game was.

My first real memories of gaming, however, come from an arcade we had at a local mall, where the location had a prominently-featured Versus cabinet that housed Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt in a side-jointed stand-up cabinet. While having Super Mario Bros. being the game that launched my interest in video gaming might be a cliche for someone my age, I was able to experience it in its true arcade form. The game was so much different than ones I had previously played - the sprite work and arcade graphics made the game seem like more of a cartoon in my child mind, the screen scrolled with expansive and varying environments with plenty of secrets to make the game seem like an adventure compared to the static screens of Space Invaders and other arcade titles of the time and the simple concept of jumping was easy for me to grasp even at age four. Even though at that age, I could never foil that damn Lakitu in stage 4-1, I still pumped plenty of my parents' hard-earned quarters into the machine through the year. Super Mario Bros. most certainly made an impression on me as it is probably the only thing I remember from my earliest years aside from this dream I had where I could fly and I flew down a flight of stairs to the basement and my father freaked out, but that's probably more than you needed to know about me.

We never traveled to that mall with any real frequency, so I maybe only got to play in the arcade a handful of times through the year. You could imagine my surprise when one of my earliest childhood friends introduced me to something called the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1986. To my surprise, the unit could play Super Mario Bros. right in your very home. Needless to say, I spent a few months vying for any excuse I could come up with to go over to his house and play Nintendo, but my fifth birthday party serves as my clearest memory of my first five years, where my parents invested in the NES Action Set as my present. My father helped me deck out my gaming setup, pipping the video through our Commadore 64 monitor so I didn't tie up the television and he even bought two small, portable speakers that spliced the audio so I could enjoy better sound. Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt served me for many months, but as the NES gained traction, my mother, who worked as a high-end manager for a regional rental chain, soon pointed out I could rent other games for the system. In all honesty, I can probably barely tell you what I did yesterday, but without hesitation, I can tell you the first game I ever bought was The Legend of Zelda and the first game I ever rented was Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! Funny enough, at first I didn't understand the concept of rental as my mom took care of everything after I picked out the game, so I freaked when my mom went to take the game and return it to the store. After many rentals, I came to be known as the go-to kid for NES problems and information as the store often let me take carts home for a day that people returned as defective so I could test the validity of the claims and when the chain had a newsletter that featured a strip of gaming news, I submitted a few tips and tricks that were printed in the publication.

From that time, everything has been a wondrous blur, jumping from one system to the next as time progressed. I would say nearly every friendship I treasure today originally stemmed from some facet of gaming. I even shared a "Kunkel-Katz relationship" with some of my childhood friends with myself usually siding with Nintendo and others siding with SEGA - we would just visit each other to play the other system and keep up with what was going on in gaming (and thinking back, it always annoyed me that my SEGA friends would just yank the carts out of my SNES instead of using the eject button). To this day, I own nearly every mainstream U.S. system that has released since the NES along with a myriad of games and novelties and in 2000 I decided to attempt to take gaming up as a career. I've only had mild success, but the thing about gaming is, even through the ups and downs, the hobby is flat-out fun and the industry is fascinating. Even though video game journalism has arguably turned for the worse, I can always fall back on the games themselves to forget about what ails the world and video gaming has given me so many memories, opportunities and friendships, I would even admit they have shaped who I am as a person.