I am seriously considering buying this factory-sealed new boxed game of Hardball! for the Commodore 64 on eBay for $14.99. Maybe a little steep with the $5 shipping thrown on top, but Hardball! is definitely on my classics list and I can state with certainty that it still holds up pretty darn well (for me at least) because I played a game of it versus FG40 just a couple of years ago and it was still great fun. Oh Hank Contos, how I miss you and your "somebody gonna pay" attitude. I'd probably rate hardball as my second favorite baseball video game of all time - and I've played a lot of them. Hardball was released in 1985 on multiple systems and I played the hell out of it on two of them - the Commodore 64 and the Mac 512K - both excellent versions with enough differences to keep it interesting.
But I saw one guy on the Lemon64.com Hardball forum who apparently loved it even more than I did. He played an entire season of 162 games against the computer and kept unbelievably meticulous offline records to support a very impressive statistical evaluation while finishing the season at 141-21. Check out his posts on the effort here. Who was the offensive star in his season? The flamboyant Willie Barnes who hit .457 with 100 home runs and 204 RBIs - that's not a bad year.
In the previous post I talked about a controversial old game by Muse for the Apple II called "Firebug" and today I stumbled across an old magazine ad for the game on the website http://apple2history.org/ so I just had to do a follow-up post. Don't ask me to explain why - my brain wasn't quite ready to let go of Firebug yet and as usual I'm just along for the ride.
So here it is - for the original retail price of $24.95 - Firebug.
I was reading the January 1983 edition of Video Games Magazine (yeah - that's the kind of stuff I do) and saw an article about a controversial game on the Apple II called "Firebug" by Muse Software. In the game you are a "firebug" whose job is to set fire to several different floors of a building using a lit fuse and several gas cans - the more fire damage, the higher your score. Fire officials were outraged by the game and were concerned that it would encourage kids to become arsonists. I then discovered the game was created by Silas Warner, who also made Castle Wolfenstein which was one of my all-time favorites on the C64 - so I decided to give Firebug a go.
When the game begins you get to select the length of your fuse - the shorter the fuse, the higher the difficulty level of the game. Then you (a 3x3 square) start running through a maze of walls on the fifth floor of the building stringing the fuse behind you which eventually lights and burns toward you. Gas cans are scattered throughout the maze and when you run over them you knock them over which creates a spreading puddle of gasoline that the trailing lit fuse quickly ignites. If you run by the can without knocking it over the lit fuse will cause the gas can to explode into a fireball when it reaches it. You can also pick up the gas cans and drop them in other locations in an effort to maximize your fire damage. If the fire touches you it's a gruesome death and game over - remember that kids! Once you've created as much charcoal as possible without igniting yourself you escape down the stairs to the next lower floor and proceed to burn that one down too. Each lower floor brings tighter and more complex mazes until you burn down the first floor and escape out the front door. Here is a brief video of the gameplay:
The game ran on Apple II's Lo-Res graphics mode which only displayed 16 colors with a 40x48 resolution so as you can see the graphics were quite primitive even for 1982. But the colorful display when the fire exploded and burned was pretty cool - I imagine that effect was pretty impressive back then. Actually I think it looks kinda cool now. Also, the game stores high scores with the player's initials - a feature that I have always appreciated.
My only real complaint with the game is that it ends after you escape the first floor so you only get 5 floors of play before the game is over which doesn't take long at all. I would have liked them to have allowed you to run into another building and continue the game. Then again, maybe I'm just missing something because several people on the high score list had higher levels listed by their names and mine just said level 1. Maybe if you burn down 100% of every floor then it lets you continue - I don't know.
So all in all I think it's a decent little game. I can see where the simple gameplay could be addictive and the colorful burning effects would have looked pretty cool back in the day, but without the benefit of Apple II nostalgia I probably won't be coming back to this game much in this day and age, especially due to the apparent 5-floor limitation. Still, I did enjoy it while I was playing it. I would definitely put it in my list of top 10 favorite games of all time for the Apple II. Just don't ask me how many Apple II games I've ever played.
If you'd like to try it for yourself download the AppleWin emulator HERE and a copy of the game HERE from RetroCPU.
Also, now that you've witnessed the horror, here are the pages from the 1983 VGM article if you care to read them - click to expand.
Some guy in Houston is selling a Neo Geo cabinet with a 100 game board installed on Craigslist for $400 and any time I see a real arcade cab going for less than $500 somewhere I always have to think it over. Haven't ever pulled the trigger yet, but always think it over.
But as is often the case, the starting point of my stroll through the gaming forest is not the real subject of my post. I was googling this 100-game multiboard that I'd never heard of and stumbled across this video tribute to the Neo Geo from ScrewAttack's Keith Apicary. I don't know anything about ScrewAttack, but I dig the video - check it out.
I'm still drudging along through Red Dead Redemption, but I think I am nearing the point where I will have to place it in the never-finished pile. I like it much better than its cousin GTA IV, but for me it's still just a mediocre game. As I've been playing I have noticed several glitches - a pile of crates suspended in mid-air, guys running at full speed in the road but not moving an inch, etc. So I jumped online for a quick browse of RDR bugs and what do you know there have been all kinds of crazy things that slipped by Rockstar's game testers. Or maybe they put this stuff in intentionally - I don't know, but it just looks like sloppy/glitchy programming to me. Anyway, I found videos of several of them that I found amusing so...
Not too long ago I discovered a magazine online called Retro Gamer - it is a magazine published in the UK that is, as the name would suggest, dedicated to retro gaming. I wandered around their website (http://www.retrogamer.net/) for a while and they have some interesting stuff on there if you like old-school games like I do. I even found a few of the older issues online in PDF format so I downloaded them and checked them out to see what the magazine proper looked like and I liked it, but I'm the kind of guy that really needs the real magazine or book in my hand to enjoy it.
Well, last weekend I was in Fry's Electronics and as I was approaching the checkout line something caught my eye - a real copy of Retro Gamer Magazine! I was rather excited to see it in the real world so I bought a copy and checked it out. The main feature of this issue was a retrospective of Lara Croft and the Tomb Raider games (and I thought she was hot back in the day on the PS1 - just look at her now!)
It also had tons of retro game reviews, an interesting article on the Atari 7800, a feature on the making of the classic Dreamcast game Shenmue, an interview with Atari legend game developer Ed Logg who created Asteroids, Centipede, Gauntlet, Millipede, etc on the making of the arcade game Xybots (which I hadn't ever even played before but now I see is listed as one of the games at the upcoming Houston Area Arcade Expo). Anyway - I could go on but the bottom line is I think it is a cool magazine that offers unique content you won't see in other gaming magazines. And it is very well made and professionally done. It looks as good or better than any other gaming magazine like Game Informer or Playstation: the Official Magazine.
Being a British publication the magazine is a bit more focused on UK-centric things like the ZX Spectrum and the Amstrad CPC computers - neither of which I know much at all about, but they do plenty of material on the games more familiar to the US too. Plus, I found the new perspective (new to me) interesting. This issue introduced me to a British adventure game company called Magnetic Scrolls - I'd never heard of them but apparently they were quite popular in England and competed with Infocom over there. The universe keeps pulling me into adventure games lately for some reason.
The only drawback to buying it is the reason I probably won't be buying it regularly - the high price. It cost $10. $10! I really enjoyed the magazine but $10 just seems like way too much. Looks like you can buy them from their website for closer to $7.50 but I don't know what they charge for shipping it across the pond.
So check out the website and if you are in a Fry's - or possibly a Barnes and Noble - pick up a copy and give it a once over. You might just like it. I did.
Well the Playstation Move is set to release on September 19 and I stumbled across a couple of Kevin Butler spots for it that I hadn't seen before so I thought I'd toss 'em up here. From what I read about the Move it is more accurate and more responsive than the Wii motion controls even with the MotionPlus addition, but with my existing backlog of games and the steep price tag I'm not planning to get it. At least not right away - maybe a little further down the road. What about you?
As I've mentioned on several occasions, I was a huge fan of Infocom's text adventure games back in the day. Actually, I should say that I AM a huge Infocom fan because even though it has been quite a while since I've played through an entire game of theirs, they still hold quite a fascination for me.
I won't torture you fine folks by prattling on for 10 pages in this post about how cool I think Infocom is (although I could!). No, I reserve the right to that hero-worship post later, but for now I just wanted to let you know about a cool website I stumbed onto this evening - The Gallery of Zork.
You might see scans of the fronts of game boxes at some Infocom tribute sites, but the guys at The Gallery of Zork really kick it up a notch. Yes, they offer high-resolution scans of the boxes (front, back, sides, and inside), but they also offer scans of pretty much every other Infocom item ever produced - the manuals, flyers, advertisements, Invisiclues books, newsletters, and all the the miscellaneous pack-in "feelies" that Infocom was famous for like the scratch n' sniffs from Leather Goddesses of Phobos, the pocket fluff and microscopic space fleet from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and the swizzle stick from Hollywood Hijinx. Where my own copies of those items made off to I have no idea.
But perhaps best of all you can play ALL of the Infocom games online right on their website - and it won't cost you a single zorkmid! I've seen some websites where some of the games are offered for online play, but it really looks like these guys have all of them! The Java box you play them in is somewhat small which is a little distracting, but that aside it seems to work great. I suppose you could even make the box bigger by reducing your monitor resolution while you were playing - I might try that.
If you would like to take a look at all the goodies for a particular game before you launch into playing it, or if you just want to check out all their other cool stuff, then go to their homepage at www.accardi-by-the-sea.org/ and just start wandering around. Lots of great stuff to see there if you are an old school adventurer like me. So don't Z around for more time to pass, head over there and take a L!
If you're a hardcore gamer, you've probably logged a few all-night gaming sessions in your day. This October 16, you can use your gaming for the greater good by taking part in Extra Life.
Founded in 2008 by Jeromy "Doc" Adams of Sarcastic Gamer, Extra Life is a 24-hour gaming marathon that raises money for sick kids. In its first two years, Extra Life raised over $302,000 for Texas Children's Hospital. This year Sarcastic Gamer has partnered with Children's Miracle Network so that participants can keep the money raised in their local children's hospital.
The event works much like walk-a-thons and such where you get people to pledge money per every hour that you play. The goal is for each participant to find at least 4 people who will pledge a minimum of $1 per hour to the cause.
Teams are encouraged (MadPlanet's Gameroom Team anybody?), but you can also sign up or donate individually at http://extralife.sarcasticgamer.com/.
It is still way too early to see the full list of games that will be featured at the upcoming Houston Arcade Expo set to take place October 8-9, but there are already several games of note listed to be there. One of them caused a huge public uproar when it was released back in 1976, becoming the first socially controversial video game and thus cementing its place in early arcade history. I'd seen pictures of this game before but this year I finally get to check it out in person - Death Race.
CONGRATULATIONS, IT'S A GREMLIN!
First, let me tell you about Death Race's father. In 1975, Exidy created the game “Destruction Derby”. In Destruction Derby you drive a car around the screen chasing drone cars and crashing into them to disable them.
Exidy licensed the game to the Chicago Coin Machine Company who had been a major player in the coin-op gaming industry since the 30's, but was running into financial troubles in the 70's. Chicago Coin released the game as “Demolition Derby” and not only sold fewer games than expected but, according to Pete Kauffman, founder of Exidy Games, refused to pay Exidy the required royalties. As a result, Exidy pulled Destruction Derby and made some modifications so they could re-release it as a new game to compete with Demolition Derby (their own game!). They changed the drone cars to stick figures, animated them to show them running while they moved around, and changed the crashed drones into cross grave markers. Reportedly the working title of the new game was “Pedestrian”, but it was released in January 1976 under the name “Death Race”. (The following year Chicago Coin sold all its assets to Stern Electronics.)
HIT AND RUN DRIVING IS NO LONGER A CRIME
The commonly accepted story is that Death Race was based on the cult-classic movie Death Race 2000 that was released the year before.
Check out the movie trailer below:
The only problem with that theory is that Death Race was basically just a reskinned version of Destruction Derby which was already around when the movie was released - so it probably isnt exactly true. However, based on the title, the modifications made to the gameplay, and the timing of its release, it seems likely that the game reboot was at least inspired by the movie.
YOU TOO CAN BE A GREMLIN HUNTER
In the game Death Race you (and another player if there is one) use a steering wheel, gas pedal, and gear shift to maneuver a car around a single screen trying to run over “gremlins” (pedestrians). Once you run over a gremlin they shriek and then turn into a grave marker which blocks your path if you run into it. So eventually the graves of all your hapless victims become significant obstacles to your navigation of the screen. You have up to 99 seconds to run over and kill as many gremlins as possible. The following ratings are then assigned to you depending on how many kills you get:
1-3: Skeleton Chaser
4-10: Bone Cracker
11-20: Gremlin Hunter
21 or over: Expert Driver
If you’re prepared to witness the unprecedented horror that is Death Race then steady yourself and check out the gameplay below: (Updated 11/28/2010 - Death Race was a no-show at the HAAG Arcade Expo, but I did finally get to play it at Funspot in New Hampshire since I first posted this so I replaced the original video I used here with my own):
SICK! MORBID!
According to Exidy, the pedestrians you pursued in the game were monsters (gremlins), not people, but that convenient distinction made little difference to the non-gaming public who were horrified at the gruesome brutality of the game.
Word of this horrific game started to spread. It was vilified in magazines such as the National Enquirer, Newsweek, and Midnight. As a result of all the negative press many arcade owners chose to simply avoid the game altogether and early sales suffered.
The National Safety Council called the game “sick and morbid”. The story then spread to television. News stations were receiving complaints from parents that were worried about the evil influence the game was having on their children. For Christ's sake man! These are our kids we're talking about! The increasing notoriety of the game actually began to have the opposite effect and Exidy sales increased.
Even some people at other gaming companies were offended - such as Atari's Nolan Bushnell:
"We were really unhappy with that game [Death Race]. We had an internal rule that we wouldn't allow violence against people. You could blow up a tank or you could blow up a flying saucer, but you couldn't blow up people. We felt that that was not good form, and we adhered to that all during my tenure."
- Nolan Bushnell
Coverage spilled over onto the Weekend, Today, and Tonight shows on NBC. The controversy eventually culminated in a piece on 60 Minutes that investigated the psychological impact of video games. Anti-Death Race demonstations were held and there were reportedly even cases where protestors pulled the machines out of the arcades and set them on fire (although I'm still looking for documentation of that).
Ultimately, the increased attention to Death Race not only helped Exidy sell more games, but also seemed to help arcade sales in general. In fact, some have attributed the controversy surrounding Death Race with sparking renewed interest in the fledgling arcade industry that had been struggling. Any publicity is good publicity!
AND DEATH RACE BEGAT DEATH RACE
In 1987, Death Race gave birth to a son by the same name - Death Race for the NES:
In 1997, Death Race for the NES was attending a gaming conference in Vice City when he accidentally impregnated a prostitute named Playstation. Their bastard son was named Grand Theft Auto. Look how much litte GTA looks like his daddy:
Their 3D cousin Carmegeddon was also born that same year. A lot of folks say he looks more like his movie grandpa Death Race 2000 than his game grandpa Death Race, but they all still sit at the same dinner table at Thanksgiving:
And the family tree just continues to grow. So what am I saying here? Yes, I'm saying it. Grand Theft Auto IV = Death Race = Destruction Derby. So get over yourself RockStar!
BITS AND PIECES
Death Race has made cameo appearances in the movies Jaws 2 (1978) and Midnight Madness (1980).
Posts
