Nostalgia. Yummy.

Nostalgia has suddenly become a huge part of the entertainment industry. Remakes, or unnecessary sequels to old movies are showing up everywhere, old TV shows are returning (90210, for example), new versions of old songs are hitting the radio, and High-Definition remakes of classic video games – with updated graphics – are appearing on the Wii, PS3, and XBOX 360 (TMNT, Secret of Monkey Island, etc).  While many of these games are surely welcome (and SOME of the movies, like the new Ghostbusters), nothing beats playing an original game on original hardware (no emulator involved) holding the official controller, and here is my little theory as to why.

Listening to the radio, often people will say something like “I always loved this song – it brings me right back to being a teenager!” or a similar statement based on watching a film such as Grease for the 400th time.

With retro-gaming, the actual feeling of being a child or teenager can sometimes be MUCH stronger, based on a few things. For one, it’s a double-whammy. You are automatically getting smacked in the head with two senses – the outdated visuals of the technology itself – and the sound – the little tunes that we always hold so dearly in our hearts (especially if they are from the 70’s or 80’s sound chip era). And yes, the sound effects too.

Yet that’s only the beginning. Listening to an old song, although a wonderful thing in itself, is one minded in many ways. You are simply listening to it. Watching an old movie, well, the experience itself doesn’t change. It’s always the exact same movie (a game experience is always going to be slightly different each time) and usually you are sprawled out on the couch – possibly enjoying some popcorn – and brainlessly staring at the TV screen.

Of course, my theory only works unless you have already PLAYED this ancient game of yours – and have previous memories to back it all up. Suddenly you might recall exactly who you were with while you were playing it together, or how pissed off you got when you FINALLY beat that impossible level and then the electricity went out for a few seconds, resetting your machine.  But overall, I think it’s the fact that you don’t interact with a movie or a song very much. With a game, you are using your brain. You are CONTROLLING it. Some days you may have gotten through the entire thing on one life, when other days you might have gotten killed 7 times in a row by the second boss (thank god for the Game Genie during those ‘tough’ times). You were actually doing something physical – taking action. So when you do it all again, it magically stirs up feelings of re-living moments of your past. And that is a superb, powerful thing. I wonder if any scientific studies have actually been done on this type of thing.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge fan of music and the explosion of emotions that can be achieved by listening to it. After all, I am a professional musician. I am also a giant fan of film, and watching movies like The Wizard over and over again. But when I shut off all the lights and pop in a classic cartridge like Megaman 2 on the NES using an official 8-bit Nintendo console, and hold that wonderful rectangle-of-a-controller in hand, I sometimes actually forget my current age and sense of time. I BECOME a child again. And it can feel quite amazing. Although this was difficult to explain, I just had to ramble about it for a moment. What do you think?

If any of you agree, disagree, or have a great childhood gaming memory to share – feel free. I’m sure we’d all love to reflect on our gaming past. After all, isn’t nostalgia the hottest thing since sliced bread these days?

JUMPING FLASH! 4

How High Can I Go?

It’s fairly amazing to think that just five years after playing loads of 8-bit Nintendo titles, we were suddenly using  CD-based consoles, with full 3-D graphics, an analog controller in our hand, and hearing full stereo redbook audio game music. In this particular case, enter the Sony Playstation and one of my favorite game series of all time, Jumping Flash!

First off, I know what you might be thinking. Um, when was there a Jumping Flash! 3? Although I actually own the third and lesser-known Japanese import, I sadly could never actually start the game properly, because the menu is nearly impossible to figure out in Japanese. But enough about that.

If you’ve never played a Jumping Flash! game, you are totally missing out. Basically, you are a robotic rabbit that can jump – even double and triple jump – REALLY HIGH in the air. You can consider it a platform game, but the entire thing is in the first-person view. So you are facing forward while walking, shooting enemies and such (in a Halo-type way), but once you start jumping, the view switches to be looking straight down towards the ground. The views are incredible and the sensation of being really high up is still there when I play today. If you are afraid of heights, this is not the game for you! The object is simple – find and collect a few carrots hidden around and get to the end platform before time runs out. Each level is full of color and different music, and there is a boss to fight on the third level of each world. There are special items to collect, fun bonus stages, underground cave levels and even roller-coaster levels. But how dare I skim past talking about the music. It is OUTSTANDING. Total “video game music” but extremely high quality. This is how video game soundtracks in platform games should still be like today. Full of melody.  It remains one of my favorite game soundtracks ever, and I blast it on my iPod in my car to this day. Do you whistle along in your head (or even remember) a song from Rachet & Clank for the PS3? I doubt it. Good game, but what happened to true video game music? It used to be its own ‘genre’, and now all we often hear is boring and forgettable ‘film scores’ and mood music, or get stuck listening to bullshit bands that we could care less about (hello EA TRAX). Thank god RPG’s still have great original game music (and games like Katamari). Okay, okay, I’m getting off track here.

One good sign is the fact that you can actually download the original Jumping Flash! game on the PS3’s Playstation Network, or for use on your PSP (which makes the game look much less dated due to the nice small screen). If you haven’t played it, I highly recommend it (and help us pray that they add the 2nd game as well). Yet still, there are no signs of a potential rebirth of this totally awesome game. Why Sony, why? I waited over 10 years for a PS2 sequel, but it never happened. Now, we have this insanely powerful Playstation 3 hardware going to waste. This is the PERFECT opportunity to showcase what your beast can do. The original game showed off the PSX, didn’t it?

What should the sequel be like? Well how I see it, is that you’d now be able to jump, say, 6 times instead of just 2 or 3 – reaching INSANE heights. Therefore, the worlds would be much bigger now, because the hardware can handle it just fine without any graphical pop-in issues. The music would simply HAVE to be done by composer Takeo Miratsu, of course. And to add replay value, the carrots should now be randomized. So no matter how many times you play, it is never the same, and you might find them all really quick one day, but run out of time the next because you just couldn’t find the last one hiding all the way up in the clouds somewhere.

The first 2 games in the series were beloved, and praised in many video game magazine reviews. Sony can really use as many exclusive titles as they can these days in order to compete with Microsoft. I don’t care if it’s a 20-dollar download or a fully-featured $59.99 title for the Playstation 3 (or even the PSP for that matter – if you must).

Sony, we want a new Jumping Flash!, and we want it NOW. You make, we pay. Sound like a deal?

LITTLE NEMO: THE DREAM MASTER 2

Happy Dreams.

We all know how much we love Capcom, especially during the beloved NES days. The infamous golden Nintendo ‘Seal-of-Quality’ logo on their cardboard game boxes usually deserved to be there. This title was not an exception.

Way back in September of 1990, Capcom released this colorful gem of a 2-D side-scrolling platformer – full of memorable original music – and wonderful level design. Perhaps the best part of the game was the concept itself: you were a little boy named Nemo, running through your dreams, collecting and finding keys to move on to the next dream. Each level was different — the dream could consist of a fantasy land full of toys and trains, or even a scary and evil nightmare.

What was cool, especially at the time, was the fact that you could collect candy as well. When you came across an animal (like a gorilla, or a frog), you could feed it, and eventually convince it to let you ride it. Of course, each animal had its own abilities like climbing trees,  or swimming really fast in water, which would help you find some of these hidden keys that you needed to get to the next level.

Scary Dreams.

The reason why I believe a sequel is in order (aside from the fact that it was a beloved game to begin with) is that with the technology we now have, I could just imagine really slick dreamy, foggy effects throughout each level. Or a level based on a really, really bad trip. And how fun it would be to have new animals to ride – like a snake slithering through the grass – and then maybe a giant dinosaur. Maybe you could feed a bird, and then take off and fly through the sky during sunset. The possibilities are endless, because the levels are all based on dreams. So be it a land of chocolate, an amusement park, a fire-pit full of demons, a world of ‘blue’, or even the transformation into a girl who is running around in her fantasy doll house –  it would simple to come up with new dreamy ideas, and just be plain awesome to participate in them.

Although a switch to 3-D would be welcome while riding the animals in a big budget CD or DVD-based game, I’d probably prefer a beautiful looking 2-D sequel – even if it was simply a 40 minute, 10-15 dollar game on XBOX Live or the PSN.  We’ve learned many times (ahem, Castlevania) not to mess with what works. Give us a zillion layers of parallax scrolling, and we’ll be happy as hell.

Note that there was also an arcade game simply titled ‘Nemo‘ released by Capcom in Japan around the same time. Although it was also a side-scrolling platformer, it was much shorter and a completely different (but just as pretty) game. It’s still fun to play, but I will state that the NES game was much better overall, and more challenging as well. And the tunes – don’t even get me started – were totally kickass.

Of course, doing a sequel would probably require a license, since Little Nemo is actually based on a 1989 Japanese animated film (which itself was based on a comic strip that began WAY back in 1871). Interestingly, the video game(s) were released in the US prior to the 1992 American film release of this Japanese film, and most people at the time believed that Nemo started as a game first which was later turned into a movie. In fact, some people still think that Capcom invented the character themselves. Confused? You should be.

In the end, none of this matters. We just want a true sequel to Little Nemo: The Dream Master. Hey Capcom – you listening?

Let's Sharpen This Up, Baby!

I’ve always been a complete audio/visual quality hog, especially when it comes to gaming. I almost refuse to play a console if it isn’t being displayed in the best way possible — even if I’m retrogaming. The thought of playing a PS3 or 360 using composite cables makes me sick, for example.

I’ve mentioned before that the SNES is one of the greatest consoles of all time. There are tons of great games, and they all look and sound even better than the glorious 8-bit NES console many of us love and grew up with. It’s the last great 2-D cartridge-based sprite-producing machine before the early polygon era began (which I mostly disliked – even then) full of CD-ROM games and 3-D games that aged terribly because we (as an industry) jumped into it to soon (leaving 2-D in the dust for basically many years to come). Thankfully we’ve finally come to realize that people still enjoy the solid gameplay of 2-D with the current popularity of casual games online, cell phone games, and slick downloadable content by newer Indie developers on our current consoles (Ahem.. Braid.. cough.. Pixeljunk Racers).

Still, sometimes we need to hook up our awesome SNES machines and blow into a few carts. What many people still haven’t figured out, is that an S-Video cable for the Nintendo Gamecube (and N64) will actually work with a SNES as well! If only we had these cables when we first got our SNES for Christmas in 1991…

I can tell you from personal experience that it really brightens up the colors and sharpens the text. It’s truly a noticable improvement. Especially playing something like Final Fantasy III with all that reading involved.

But do note that some modern LCD TV’s actually make the system look WORSE this way. If that is the case, use the standard RCA cables. However, for best results, you should really be using a standard tube television anyway when retrogaming. I know, I know. They are huge and heavy.

It has also been said, that many crappy, cheap 3rd party S-Video cables (sometimes even Monster Cables) aren’t doing the SNES justice. So that said, I recommend the purchase of an official Nintendo brand S-Video cable for the Gamecube. This is the best S-Video cable you can use with your classic SNES. It will also work with your N64, so you can use it for basically three different systems if you’d like.

Now, you can technically go even further in prestine visual quality by downloading a SNES game on your Nintendo Wii – and playing it using component cables on your new flat LCD with the ‘classic controller’. Or use an emulator on your original XBOX with component cables, or a PC emulator on a nice computer monitor for crisp, beautiful gaming (of course you own the original cartridge, right?).

But in the end, I find it just isn’t the same experience. I’ve had various emulators running on just about everything. In fact, I’m surprised I never got Super Mario Brothers running on my Microwave. But seriously - having the option to save at any moment, or simply swap games in 2 seconds by hitting a button takes away the appeal of retrogaming (crap, I died again. Screw this game!).

Enough rambling. Anyway, if you want the best visual output from your original SNES, this is the best way to do it. Enjoy. I’m off to play some Pilotwings.

Aah. Crystal Clear Mode-7 Bliss.