At the 2010 Game Developer’s Conference, a plucky developer named Seven45 Studios unveiled what they thought would change the world of music gaming forever. Power Gig: Rise of the Six String burst on to the scene, throwing down the proverbial gauntlet at its competitors in the rhythm industry. The challenge was simple – anything they can do, we can do better. With great fanfare, Seven45 declared Power Gig the superior rhythm game thanks to its sole defining feature: a six stringed guitar controller.

What’s that, you say? Playing the game with a real guitar?  Such things had never been heard of on a console before, even though MIDI and aural guitar learning tools existed on PCs for years. Advertising for Power Gig implied that the game was like playing a real guitar. Trouble is, it was anything but.

I think that early on in development the game really wanted to be a “play a real guitar” game, but the developers either ran out of money or development resources to achieve that goal, and the developers went with what they had. While on the one hand the game was marketed as more realistic experience than Guitar Hero or Rock Band 2, it was never specifically referred to as a guitar teaching tool – this last point was deliberate, yet minimized. The devs tried to have their cake and eat it too. The level of smugness grew, too, with such bizarre PR stunts as dropping a bunch of plastic guitar controllers into a volcano from a helicopter.

Until E3 2010 rolled around, very few actual hands had gotten a hold of Power Gig to play it first hand. Up until that point, only a few demos had been given to the press, which received it with indifference until E3. The game was mostly on the sidelines, throwing potshots at its competitors and making smug statements about their awesomeness. I was heartily dismayed at the fact that big acts that I admired – respectable musicians like Eric Clapton – were lured into licensing their music for this game because it had the promise of a real guitar.

When E3 2010 rolled around, Power Gig was available for all to see, and it didn’t look good. In fact, it looked downright disgusting. The guitar was a cheap plastic and plywood job that could only be called a “real guitar” by the absolute skin of its teeth. Since Seven45 worked with notoriously low quality instrument vendor First Act instead of a real guitar company like Fender or Gibson, this much was to be expected. The gameplay was a bizarre rip of the usual gems on a highway style – except now you had six! After all, it’s one more than the others, that makes it better! The malformed power chords mode gave you very limited chords that barely matched up with the music – or many times not at all.

All of this could have been dealt with and Seven45 could have gone on with their Real Guitar™ schtick in some capacity, save for one slight problem they didn’t foresee. At E3 2010, Harmonix revealed the next big feature of the, at the time, upcoming Rock Band 3 - Pro Guitar mode. Pro Guitar mode used a real guitar (of much higher quality than the one in Power Gig) to allow you to play the actual notes of the song. With Rock Band 3′s Pro Mode, you really were playing the song – as opposed to Power Gig’s braindead string on color approach.

This announcement rendered Power Gig dead on arrival. In one fell swoop the entire business case for Power Gig vanished. Instead of investing in an alternative platform, players could stick with a market leader in Harmonix. There was no time to adjust, either, and Seven45 had to stay the course for release.

The real losers in this whole scenario were the players. Thanks to contracts, some artists that appeared in Power Gig won’t appear in other rhythm games, or soured them on the genre again. It put even more instruments and games on the shelves that didn’t sell, making it tougher for the legitimate music games to expand. This is all beside the fact that the Power Gig gameplay experience itself has few to no redeeming qualities on its own.

I experienced Power Gig only once, as a curiosity at a gaming get-together. My chum, who hosted the party, acquired a copy as a gag in a clearance sale at our local Gamestop. The reward for getting good at this game was a wonderful one – the privilege of smashing the “real” guitar controller like Pete Townshend. Alas, I did not win the contest, so I was deprived the pleasure of obliterating a guitar, but it was all the experience I needed with Power Gig. I could see a glimpse of what they wanted it to be, but they did not execute anywhere in their game development. The game played terribly, it looked awful, and the guitar didn’t even fall apart convincingly when my buddy bashed it against the wall.

Lessons can be learned from this of course – the main one being that if you’re going to go up against the juggernauts, you have to bring one hundred and ten percent. Half-baking a clone will not catapult a game ahead of the competition, no matter what your gimmick is. Bringing a genuinely new and refreshing concept will get buyers – and Seven45 could not achieve that due to either short-sightedness or lack of resources. Ironically, the best example of how to do this properly is the original Rock Band itself. The reason it worked wasn’t because Harmonix brought out another hit based on its old Guitar Hero tech. It worked because it took the rhythm genre to the next level with full-band gameplay, giving you a compelling reason to buy it. Power Gig is a cautionary tale, best heeded by all who wish to develop a concept.

It’s been fifteen days. Fifteen days spent in this grim hell. I’m starting to feel the true horror of the situation kick in. My mind is cracking, my reactions dulling, my senses going numb, I fear that soon I may be beyond saving. I thought this would be easy, thought I could last through this pain and suffering, but as each day passes the light at the end of the tunnel is getting dimmer and dimmer. How long must this last? More importantly, can I survive? The chances of getting through this fall somewhere between ‘slim’ and none’. I fear I may not be long for this world. Therefore, I hope this message reaches somebody and that this story is told, not only so that I may be remembered, but also to warn others of this fate so that perhaps they can be more prepared than I was.

I’ll start by mentioning that this isn’t my first battlefield. In fact, I’ve been a soldier since 2007, serving my faction proudly and without hesitance. I’ve found myself fighting in this particular war of attrition at least three times before, though none of them have been this bad. I’ve always had some kind of hope, be it in the form of backup, or a temporary restationing. Of course, I was always eager to return to my original post. It was like home to me, not to mention I could never abandon all the comrades that served with me over the years. And I always did return, without fail.

Like all soldiers I started out rather green, but over time I became a veteran, known the world over for my exploits and daring service against all odds. I met many experienced soldiers both friend and foe, a lot of whom I still associate with to this day. I never once thought of retiring- I always knew that I’d fight this battle ’til the end, and I never once questioned that. I still don’t question that, even faced with the situation I’m in now. Like many of my companions, I even went so far as to get a tattoo to commemorate my everlasting loyalty. And though I may have wound up doing mild mercenary work for rivals just to stay afloat, I always remained loyal to my allegiance and never once dared to raise up arms against that which mattered most to me in this war, for they were my family. And you NEVER attack family.

My exploits were…memorable, to say the least. If I recall my original commanding officer went by the name of Moore, though he’s no longer with our unit anymore. Assisting in revolutions, infiltrating shadowy complexes, helping to enforce crackdowns, you name it and I’ve most likely been a part of it. And though at some point it felt like the gears of war never stopped turning, I didn’t mind. I always accomplished my goals to massively effective results, and though to the outside world it may have seemed like I was in bad company, I never felt more at home in my life. As I mentioned before, they were my family.

But then I found myself fighting the battle I’m currently engaged in now, pinned down by Squad E74. Never before in all my years of service have I felt this tension, this dread, this fear. Whenever I can sleep I’m plagued by nightmares, all I see when I close my eyes are those damn flashing lights. The enemy has never been this brutally uncompromising or indomitable. One by one my resources have failed, and it only got worse from there. Over time it became incredibly clear that this was to be a one-man battle for survival- there would be no backup. No reinforcements, no pulling out, no emergency retreat to ensure my continued ability to do battle. At one point I had a faint glimmer of hope appear in the form of news that an emergency resupply was to arrive, but to date fifteen days have passed by with no sign of my unwitting saviors. It appears the higher-ups had forgotten me this time. Perhaps maybe even the ‘family’ that I held so dear had forgotten too.

But I will not end this fight in a cowardly fashion. I will march on diligently, knowing full well the risks involved. My weapons have all been rendered useless and my options for continued survival grow slim. The situation is unfathomably bleak as the aforementioned backup continues to never arrive. I will not lose hope, I will not falter in my loyalty. I will hold out as long as I can. And though this may be my final hour, I will make it my finest. I’d rather go out with a bang than a whimper.

And so I must end this letter here, for there is no quiet time left on this battlefield for me to continue writing. I pray this message does not fall on deaf ears, that somebody hears my words and remembers them well. I’m no hero, and I don’t expect to be regarded as such should this message find its way to somebody. The only thing I hope is that, should you find yourself in the same predicament as I, you’re more adequately prepared than I. If this becomes my final message, I have one final request- please tell my girlfriend and my dog that I love them dearly.

…Also, if I do wind up not making it, tell that stupid UPS guy it was all his fault. He shoulda had my Xbox delivered to me a week ago dammit.

Sincerely,
Robert Russell
1st Battalion, Xbox Division

Don’t Take it Personally Babe, It’s Just Not Your Tradeshow

It would be insane to write this short roundup without at least mentioning E3, the event which has most enthusiasts salivating for weeks before it even begins over various pre-show leaks and rumours. It would appear that the weeks preceeding E3 generate greater buzz for games than the event itself; in marketing terms it is the gift that keeps on giving; all that’s required is one mention of a potential reveal on one news post on one blog and soon the entirety of the enthusiast press is alive with the cacophony of a thousand journalists scrambling for the scoop.

Not that my comments should be taken in any way as a snide swipe at my contemporaries in the field. Far from it; it’s nice on occasion to hear that a game you think really ought to be made might be in production after all. But I like to think of Pixel Fist as a kind of haven for readers – like a country retreat for those who wish to escape the hustle and bustle of the city.

And what have we been discussing in this quiet little Eden of ours? Stay a while and listen, and I’ll tell you:

Kristian Shin gave his treatise on the often unconsidered importance of interactivity in the video games experience in Games Are Meant to Be Played. A great first article from a young writer and a good indication of things to come.

Dan Vincent returned to tell us about the significance of Maniac Mansion – a game that redefined the adventure game genre overnight – in his detailed analytical piece For a Good Time, Call Edna.

Sam Hicks gave us the first article in his Foreign Treasures series, looking at the F-Zero X Expansion Kit for the 64DD, telling of the history of a device that had big dreams but little realised potential.

Richard Davies wrote up another retrospective, this time looking at the history of Zelda clones and shows us some rather esoteric games that, whilst maybe not being entirely original, took the concept of one of the most famous and revered games ever made and added their own flavour to it.

Sam returned, giving us a look at Sutte Hakkun, a unique puzzle game that is sadly missing from American shelves.

New writer Andrew Wernette discussed the impact, practicality and future of motion control in his debut article It Moves You, an interesting look at the traditional versus motion controller debate that argues that developers will have to be more inventive and clever if this new form of control is to surpass its sour reputation with core gamers.

And finally, Andrew Glasscock looked back 12 months and examined the word currently on everybody’s lips in What I Expected, What I Got: Looking Back to Last Year’s E3.

Here’s hoping you have a lovely week ahead of you, and that your wallet doesn’t try up too quickly from all those pre-orders!

As we thought back to all the good times, we also remembered some of the less-than-good times. Promises that went unanswered, expectations that were never met, and games that looked like they had it all…until gamers actually got their hands on them.

As we get ready for another year of hyped-up excitement, rampant speculation and bombshell announcements, we’re taking a brief look back at last year’s E3, and how some of the biggest names on the show floor fared as they transitioned from reveal to retail. 

Fable 3

Lionhead teased gamers with an incredible experience. Fable III was supposed to be more engrossing, more intuitive, and more expansive than Fable II overall. Lionhead may have sold themselves too much, though, because Fable III fell short of the lofty goals they originally set out to achieve. Both Fable II and Fable III were wonderful games in their own right, but many problems players addressed in Fable II went unnoticed in III, or in some cases, were further exaggerated. Traveling was a chore, technical problems were common, and ironically, the game almost seemed too expansive for most.

APB: All Points Bulletin

We were promised with this one a vast, detailed urban MMORPG third-person shooter experience. Expectations were high, and the development team had an impressive pedigree behind them. The game was an interesting take on the open world MMO “Grand Theft World of Warcraft” idea, but mere months after it was released, the developer hit financial troubles and had to shut the game down. It was sold to a Free-To-Play publisher for almost $2.5M and has since been put back up online in beta as a free-to-play title supported by microtransactions.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1

Sonic 4 confused players when it first came out. Was it a reboot of the classic Sonic formula? Was it a continuation of the newer Sonic games? No one was particularly sure, but it looked pretty and promised to be a cheap and easy downloadable title that brought the charm of the classic Sonic games into the modern spotlight. It fell short of this, and clunky controls prevented it from coming close to its classic counterparts. Few fans truly enjoyed the new, edgier redesign for Sonic as well. It seems Sega has listened, as recently-announced Sonic Generations aims to rectify all these problems, right down to including a 3D version of the original, more rounded, friendlier Sonic. It’s unknown whether Sega plans on revisiting Sonic 4 with Generations on the way: after all, it is episodic.

Microsoft Kinect

Kinect was met with a great deal of skepticism when it was first announced, and on launch, did not come anywhere close to satisfying the grocery list of innovations Microsoft had planned for the device. The hardware is impressive, and the potential for incredible applications is most certainly there. Microsoft realizes this, and continue to bank on the Kinect’s potential despite not having truly met it yet. Last year, at its introduction, we were treated to a presentation where trying on clothes virtually was possible, interacting with virtual children and animals was possible, and scanning real objects into virtual space was possible, along with a vast assortment of other concepts. Kinectimals rather clumsily realized the interaction with animals, and we have yet to see or hear anything about Milo, even a year after the presentation. (Lionhead is notorious for developing tech demos that are never implemented into real games.) Just this year we were finally told we would be object scanning soon in a new upcoming release. Despite all these novelties though, few high-quality games have truly harnessed Kinect’s potential yet. To be perfectly honest, the homebrew development community has been more interesting than the official software built for the Kinect — that says enough in and of itself.

Brink

Brink showed us a gripping new world with stunning visuals, a deep character customization system, a unique movement mechanic, and action that they asserted would “change shooters forever.” As we’ve mentioned in our review, however, Brink fell short of that, and ended up being a shooter more focused on objectives than kills. In that sense, the game has succeeded in bringing accessible and attractive objective-based shooters to a wider console audience, but in the process, they may have alienated their core PC gaming audience by dumbing elements down. Even after launching just months ago, the verdict is still out on Brink, as patches and updates to make the game more fundamentally playable are still on the way.

Metroid: Other M

Other M’s visuals and presentation wowed gamers when it was originally announced. Although the trailer for the game was slightly overexaggerated, with a serious teenager taking cover behind his couch and weaving all over his living room, the departure from the Prime series gave gamers something to look forward to. When it launched, however, no one was quite ready for the dramatic departure from a storyline that has been developed over entire decades. Samus became darker, more emotionally troubled, and flimsier — a direct contradiction to the Samus we’ve all grown to expect. Whether it was the Metroid brand or the new, unorthodox game mechanics that sold this game, it still sold despite being a departure from the norm, and its success is mostly dependent on who you talk to about it.

Little Big Planet 2

LBP2 — a cherished and beloved game on my shelf — was one of the more successful stories out of last year’s E3. LittleBigPlanet was an absolute windfall to an industry that was constantly approaching user-created content, but never adequately provided a platform for it. LittleBigPlanet was the entire platform, and with relative ease, users could create levels identical to, and more complex than, the levels constructed by its developers. LittleBigPlanet 2 improved upon that formula but retained that base mechanic of “DIY everything,” and even took inspiration from functional glitches from LBP and turned these features into new tools in LBP2. LBP2 generated a lot of buzz leading up to its release, but its reception was somewhat quiet. It lived up to its promises, but didn’t manage to fill the shoes its original iteration did — as if any game after LBP could ever replace it.

Marvel vs Capcom

Marvel vs Capcom 3 was Capcom’s love letter to their fans. After nearly a decade of Marvel vs Capcom 2, MvC3 brought in new mechanics that borrowed from previous titles like Tatsunoko Vs Capcom and others, but still sought to retain the core gameplay features from the first two MvC games. The fighting game community lost their collective mind leading up to the release, and the game was quickly co-opted into tournaments worldwide. Although the game does many things right, there were constant balance complaints from day one, and the “one-hit kill” nature of many extended combos quickly polarized the community between the good, the bad, and the veteran. Balance updates were quickly and haphazardly pushed out to the game, and the community remained unsatisfied. Competitive play made it very clear that this game required skills and reflexes a normal controller couldn’t provide, and that the features that excited players the most before release were actually not as useful in actual practice. Today it’s regarded as that game you play with friends — nothing serious, but a fun and quick title for the older generation of fighting game veterans as well as the younger, less experienced gaming community.

• Soul Calibur V‘s E3 teaser trailer was released last night!

  Patroklos and a few familiar faces were featured, as well as a few dynamic super moves. The plot may be brand-new, but it’s shaping up to be more of the same Soul Calibur we know and love, but better and more modern. I’m okay with that.

• Konami’s Pre-E3 press site went live last night

  …with a special live broadcast of their pre-show…show. Major announcements included three HD re-release packages, one with Metal Gear Solid 2, 3, and Peace Walker(!), another with the first two Zone of Enders games(!!), and a third collection of Silent Hill titles; and a new Contra teaser(?).

• Skullgirls revealed some screenshots just in time for E3,

  …all centered around the third character we haven’t seen or heard much about aside from official art. Peacock joins Filia and Cerebella in this classic cartoon-styled fighter developed by fighting game champs and — also recently announced — published by Konami.

• Street Fighter X Tekken teased another character in the upcoming game’s roster: Hworang.

  Last week, Julia Chang was revealed. Is this two week pattern going to continue for future reveals? Will we see new characters playable, or at least demoed, at E3?

• The 3DS eShop launches June 6th, and with it, a free Pokédex 3D App.

  This will be the first official Pokémon game on the 3DS, and one of the more inventive ways Pokémon will be tying all of their games and products together.

• A few scant images of Ninja Gaiden 3 have surfaced just days before E3.

  What’s available now doesn’t tell us much, other than that Ryu’s arm is a focal point of the plot somehow. It’s also kind of gross-looking. Here’s to hoping E3 will shed some new light on what’s bound to be one of the most difficult new titles coming our way.

• Early in the week, a surprise Starcraft II: Heart Of The Swarm teaser trailer Zerg Rushed the Internet.

  Start up the speculation engines! Lots of unanswered questions in this trailer.

• Minecraft saw a cool little mod released just in time for the latest Beta update.

  Soul Survivor, a Survival Mod for Minecraft adds highly adjustable resource meters and a few items to keep you energized and well-rested. What I like most about this is that it doesn’t fundamentally change the game itself, it just adds more to it.

• Speaking of Minecraft, and recently-released PC hit Terarria, here’s another game in the same vein: The Sword In The Stone: King Arthur’s Gold.

  2D fort-building, resource-mining, arrow-shooting, friend-slaying madness. What’s not to love?

• Castlevania: Harmony Of Despair is headed to Playstation Network!

  We took a look into the hit 360 downloadable title a couple of weeks ago. We’ll vouch for this game and give it a definite buy, especially if you have friends on PSN that will play with you!

• id’s shed some more light on another faction in their upcoming title Rage: The Authority.

  Basically space desert special ops? Hmm. All I know is that Rage looks a lot like Borderlands, and I like me some Borderlands.

• Finally, here’s a Portable Dreamcast for you.

  Try not to squeal in unexpected delight too loudly, it’s not an official product and only available in Japan. But hey! It exists.

This week’s news round-up may look a little thin, but that’s because we’re gearing up for an E3 special next week. I know I’m not the only one looking forward to the show. Until then!

I told him that motion controls are nothing more than an superfluous form of control system that never work as well as a classic, handheld device.  Immersion into a game is an important part of enjoying the experience; anybody who has ever yelled at a video game and then continued on playing knows what I’m talking about.  You’re drawn into that world of pixels and polygons and get lost in virtual reality. Motion controls have always been a major hindrance for me when it comes to immersing myself in any game, largely due to a lack of physical feedback.  In theory, I suppose doing the actions that are portrayed on screen should be more enthralling, but it just comes across as an outside activity that creates unnecessary complexity and distance, spoiling any verisimilitude that might be going on.  Pressing the X button will always be better than having to get up and jump, because there’s far less room for human error in the press of a button than there is in perfectly replicating someone actually jumping. The fact that you probably can’t leap over walls twice your height shouldn’t mean Mario can’t either.

My friend’s explanation was that motion control games haven’t really been hitting their mark, he argued, because we are treating the new pieces of technology in the same way as we have treated all other new accessories: as controllers.  What if the problem with the Kinect isn’t in the device itself, but simply in how we use it?  We’ve been ingrained for 30-plus years to think that video games only work in the way we have been designing them so far, and this has created a stereotype as to what we consider a video game.

To approach this idea, one must break down a game to its simplest constructs.  A game, in the most basic sense, is the quest to achieve a goal despite some impediment.  The goal is clearly defined, or is intrinsic to the game itself, and there is some form of rules.  In sports, it’s the other team; in Tetris, it’s the ever quickening pace of the falling blocks.  Pacman has ghosts, Elmo’s Letter Adventure has a bad control scheme.  All games, no exceptions, follow this formula.  And, yes, that excludes things like The Sims or Minecraft from being considered games. Sorry.

One example that was put forward as being a strong case for motion controls is Dance Central.  The catch with this game is that it is the outward activity of controlling the game, not necessarily the game itself, which drives all the fun.  But many gamers will turn their noses to such games, because they break that set stereotype.  Nobody ever just muses around with their controllers for fun (okay, most people don’t), but does it cease to be a game once the full enjoyment of it comes from the controlling aspect, and not the gameplay or story?  There are multiple other game possibilities out there, though they have yet to be fully explored, that can only be accomplished by means of motion control.  That’s only one facet of the whole picture though, and a flawed one, because it doesn’t fare to well to make people cough up $60 regularly for new dance movies.  On top of that, we’re still treating it as a translated interface system.

This is the key word here: translated interface; my actions have a direct impact on the little man in the screen’s actions.  The million dollar question here is whether or not a game can be made that doesn’t follow this.  We’ve never truly done it before, so is it possible?  Because this would be a rather short discussion if I said no, let’s explore some of the aspects of how the industry might crack the case.

First off, the technology will be a huge player in deciding the outcome.  In today’s market we simply don’t have a feasible way to create these hypothetical games.  First off, motion sensors need to be on a 1:1 basis.  That means that there is no lag or differentiation between my actions and the consequential reaction.  Also, it needs to be able to measure movement in a 3D space.  Sure, that technology does exist, but it needs to be commercially viable (that means cheap).  So, to save us from having to take out a second mortgage, perhaps a compromise can be made between the classic controller and the camera.  I imagine something like the setup for the Power Glove, with sensors on the television itself.

Secondly, because this is such an out there problem to be tackling, one has to wonder how developers will ever manage to win this battle.  Things were simpler in the olden days, when people working in their garages could accomplish technological breakthroughs, but science has come so far that only by means of a good deal of time and money could this other world of gaming be reached.  There are two ways it will ever get done.

The first is something I’ll call “hermitization.”  This involves a crack team working for years and years away from the influences of modern gaming culture until they have a eureka moment.  As you can imagine this would cost a great deal of money, and has no definite chance of success.  In other words: it’ll never happen.

The second pathway is a bit more realistic.  It follows the natural order of evolution.  Once gamers grow tired of buying shovelware minigame packs for their Moves, developers will either have to try something new or abandon ship.  So, slowly but surely, one can assume that eventually all other possibilities for the technology would be exhausted and the breakthrough would have to occur.  That, or we all realize how silly motion controls are, dropping the whole thing.

There are some promising ventures out there that seem to be moving in the right direction.  Take The Milo tech demo for the Kinect.  As creepy as that kid was (which is a lot), it showcased a lot of interesting things you can do with motion control technology that simply hasn’t been tried before.  Remember when they held up a picture they had drawn to the camera and Milo took it and looked at it, where’s my game incorporating that?

But then again, maybe this is all a fruitless debate.  There is no proof that video games can exist without the translated interface system, and if something better hasn’t come along by now, who’s to say it ever will?  I know I can’t think of one.  Though humankind once never dreamed it wasn’t the center of the universe, or that people could fly.  It was never even considered that that all information would be stored electronically, and money would be replaced by plastic cards.  Innovation is a scary thing, especially when we’ve all gotten comfortable in our ivory towers.  But I say it’s time to test the water for something new and take the plunge, even if the pool may be empty.

The first version of Sutte Hakkun launched as a downloadable game for Nintendo’s “Satellaview”, an add-on for the Super Famicom which never received an English Super Nintendo counterpart.  Soon after, Sutte Hakkun 2 and Sutte Hakkun 98 were released, and they were basically the same game with a different set of puzzles.  The games were successful enough for Nintendo to compile the three games into one for a standard cartridge release, simply titled Sutte Hakkun.  This was well into the Nintendo 64′s lifetime, which meant that the game was doomed to stay in Japan.  Unfortunately, there have been no sequels or remakes aside from a Virtual Console release for Japanese Wii owners, making it appear unlikely that English-speaking gamers will be able to enjoy this gem without importing it.

The game’s tutorial is crucial for new players to get a grasp of all the game’s mechanics, because the puzzles you have to solve are various gameplay elements intricately woven together. Thankfully, every bit of the tutorial involves visual demonstrations which prevent the language barrier from posing a problem.  In addition to tutorials on the game’s mechanics, there are also sections of the tutorial which teach gameplay techniques and then provide a practice stage to assure that you understand them.  It’s a simple, easy, and effective tutorial that will prevent a few head scratches once you get into the meat of the game.

Once you’re done with the tutorial, you’ll get to pick which stage you want to tackle first. Most levels are a bit larger than the size of the screen, and the goal in each one is to collect the rainbow shard(s). The objects you’ll be using to reach them most often are transparent blocks. Hakkun can suck them up and place them wherever he can reach, including inside a wall. Creatures called “makkuns” inhabit most of the stages, and they can also be sucked up and placed.  Although makkuns look transparent, Hakkun cannot pass through them, and they cannot occupy the same space as walls and obstacles.

Nearly all of this game’s puzzles involve the use of ink. When injected with ink, blocks and makkuns will move or behave in a certain way depending on which color ink is inside of them. Hakkun can usually obtain ink from a limitless supply lying in a bottle somewhere on the stage, the color of which can sometimes be changed by hitting a certain switch.  If no ink bottles are present in the level, there will usually be a block or a makkun with ink already inside of it. Hakkun can only hold one glob of ink inside of him at any given time, making “ink management” a crucial part of the game’s puzzles. Red blocks move up and then down, blue blocks move left to right and back or vice-versa, and yellow blocks move diagonally. Red makkuns act as a spring for Hakkun, blue makkuns will walk back and forth on whatever platform they are on, and yellow makkuns will squat in place to hit ink switches on the floor.

Hakkun can influence the direction in which blocks travel depending on where he injects the ink.  For example, injecting a block with red ink from its left side will make it travel from left to right and back, while injecting it from the right side will make it travel from right to left and back. Here’s an example of a simple Sutte Hakkun puzzle:

This red block moves up and down, and this picture shows its peak position, but it’s not high enough for Hakkun to reach the top!

If Hakkun removes the ink at this position and then re-injects it…

…the block will rise from that position, allowing Hakkun to reach greater heights!

There are a few other things that Hakkun will have to deal with.  ”One-ways” are a huge part of the game.  They are sections of a wall or floor on which an arrow points in a certain direction.  Hakkun can only pass through the wall or floor in the direction the arrow points.  Another creature that Hakkun can suck up is the “Rockkun”.  Their only purpose is to be dropped on and break things such as glass floors, which cannot be disposed of otherwise.  Hakkun cannot pass a Rockkun, so it can be an obstacle if it’s in the way and there’s no obvious place to put it.  Sometimes Hakkun will come across fake paint bottles and blocks which cannot be sucked up or passed through, but can be pushed.

The best part of this game is the challenge it presents!  You won’t have much trouble in the first world, but as you progress, you’ll be pushing the limits of your thinking ability more and more.  The game offers hints to each puzzle, but looking at one will permanently halve any score you earn on that puzzle.  On top of that, there will always be an “X” next to each stage where you used a hint, almost as if the game is trying to rub it in your face.

Sutte Hakkun is a rare game.  If you want to acquire it legally but don’t want to break the bank, you might want to wait for a loose copy to show up on eBay so you can acquire it for around $50.  In order to play it on a North American SNES, you’ll need to use a pair of pliers to get rid of the plastic tabs which block the cartridge, which isn’t too hard or time-consuming.  Whether or not you’ve imported games in the past, I highly recommend giving this one a look.

Brink

• We said Brink would get better, and so far, Splash Damage is making good on that presumption. Today they announced that an update to the console versions of the game should fix any problems users have with excess lag.
• They also detailed their upcoming Brink “Agents of Change” DLC set to release in June. Along with an interactive website that maps out in-game stats, Brink will be receiving an increased level cap, two new maps and a shipping container full of new guns, accessories, and abilities.

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations

• Ubisoft was generous enough to show us a trailer for it’s recently announced Assassin’s Creed: Revelations.  It doesn’t show too much but it hints to some pretty interesting developments at least.  Altair and a much older Ezio working together?

Hideo Kojima

• Kojima made enough headlines this week to warrant his very own section on our snazzy little news piece, thanks to both good and bad news.  The good news is Kojima recently did a very special segment on his Kojima Productions podcast, answering a variety of questions asked to him in a strict yes/no format. Not many juicy details were revealed, but we did learn that MGS 3D will be released this year, and that ”something special” is planned for Metal Gear’s 25th anniversary next year.
• On a more depressing note, it seems that Kojima’s been feeling really sad lately, possibly due to a mysterious title he was working on being cancelled.  Details are sketchy at best, but recent Twitter posts from the Metal Gear creator such as “What I have prepared minutely spending a year has been meaningless.” have led credence to the theory that a title he was really excited for got the axe.  It’s known that he was working on an adventure game with developer 5pb as well as a mysterious second title, but there’s no real way of knowing what this now-dead game was.  All I know is, I really hope it wasn’t a possible Zone of the Enders 3.

Keiji Inafune

• In a slightly out of left field move, it appears former prolific Capcom developer Keiji Inafune is planning to release a social game this year.  And while that’s rather interesting in itself, it’s the comments he made about his departure that make this even more interesting. “In this industry, it’s often the creators who have the eye for potential hits,” he said, “but they’re not the ones deciding what gets published.  We’ll see many more clashes as creator- management divides widen.”

Sony

• Sony confirmed that we’ll still be seeing the NGP this year in an earnings call earlier this week.  Not really new news, but it does show that Sony’s recent troubles with the PSN outage hasn’t slowed development of their new handheld down any.
• Speaking of PSN, Sony’s still on track for a full restoration of all services by the end of this month.

Miscellaneous News

• Looks like Minecraft‘s finally gearing up for a release on portables…sort of.  It’s heading to the Xperia Play as a timed exclusive. You can expect to see it on other Android phones and iOS platforms some time afterwards. The 1.6 Beta update of Mojang’s flagship PC title also launched this week, introducing a couple of new useful items and expanded Multiplayer functionality. It’s starting to look like a real game!
• Platinum Games revealed another character for its upcoming title Anarchy Reigns.  His name’s Leo, and like all the other revealed characters, he’s positively badass.
• Also on the game reveal front, Capcom let out a teaser trailer for a new character in Street Fighter X Tekken, this time being Tekken’s Julia Chang.
• Half-Minute Hero is getting a sequel!  Cleverly titled Hero 30 Second, it’s expected to hit Japanese PSPs in August.  In the meantime keep an eye out for the XBLA release of the first title, complete with revamped visuals, new quests and online support.
• It looks like we might be hearing the name Sol Badguy again sooner than we thought.  Arc System Works have reclaimed full rights to the Guilty Gear franchise from Sega, who acquired the franchise during the acquisition of Sammy.
• Go bet on some wacky animals in Japan World Cup V2‘s website. I don’t even know what this is but you can place your bets on who would win between an elongated horse, a panda bear, a giraffe, and a few other ridiculous animals. Thanks Japan!

And that’s all for this week!  Anything we missed?  Any questions you wanna ask?  Hit us up on the official @Pixel_Fist Twitter page, or leave us a comment.  See ya all next Friday!

Neutopia (PCE)

This game hit the PC Engine in November 1989, courtesy of Hudson Soft (and as a side note, the composer for this game, Tomotsune Maeno, also worked on the cult classic NES game Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom), also gaining a release on the American Turbografx-16 at around the same time. From the second you start to play, it’s highly evident where this game drew its inspiration from. Consider this – after the opening sequence in which a shadowy figure appears to steal a princess from a temple, the first playable section of Neutopia has an elderly woman explaining about the “terrible tragedy” that has befallen the nation. She tells the hero that he must recover 8 medallions containing their ancestor’s “wisdom, power and virtue”, which the villain has sealed away in labyrinths, and then rescue the princess from the bad guy’s lair. I wonder how they came up with that plot?

Neutopia does away with forced exploration.

Anyway, you step out of this lady’s shrine and venture out onto the world map, and… well, it’s Zelda. You can only walk in 4 directions, and a small table across the top of the screen displays which items you have assigned to the two action buttons, along with the player’s current amounts of gold, bombs, and “life”, respectively. The enemies in this starting area are slimes and scorpions, with very slow and basic movement. The main character, “Jazeta”, will actually jump backwards if he gets hit, which is a nice touch that we didn’t see in The Legend of Zelda. If you go slightly West and enter the first cave there, you get some “boom bombs” (no prizes for guessing where to use those) and “medicine of life” (ugh), which Jazeta will hold above his head upon obtaining, in a very familiar pose. After that, there are many choices of destination, but this game does something that the first Zelda really ought to have done – it has a compass on the menu screen that will point out the location of the next dungeon, thus eliminating the annoyance of aimless wandering. You still have the option of exploration if you wish, and can find plenty of bonus goodies by doing so, but the use of the compass alone was how Neutopia raised the stakes against Nintendo.

StarTropics (NES)

Well, at least this one was actually made by Nintendo. StarTropics was produced, directed and written by Genyo Takeda, the same person that created Nintendo’s first video game (EVR Race) and invented the battery back-up, which was first used in – yes – The Legend of Zelda! The first thing we notice about StarTropics after the title screen is the same irksome, fiddly “name registration” screen from The Legend of Zelda. Upon starting the game, you’re presented with a world map screen. The only accessible place is a nearby town, so you’ll inevitably venture there, and probably wonder how this is supposed to resemble Zelda, since it seems to be like any 8-bit RPG. It all becomes clear once the village elder has bestowed a weapon upon you, and you go down a set of steps and suddenly it’s like you’re playing a different game! You can still only move in 4 directions, but the graphics are totally different for these sections, and instead of the scrolling centering on the main character, you now have to touch the edge of the screen to switch the focus over to the next room. It’s obvious what you have to do at this point – kill all of the monsters (which are what you might expect – bats, slimes, etc) in a room to unlock doors to progress. Some screens have other rules, such as having you hit a switch to make the door open… obviously.

Bats are never very friendly, are they?

StarTropics isn’t really a bad game. It has some catchy music, and the difficulty level makes the game challenging without being too unreasonable, but there’s not much here that fans of a certain elf boy won’t have seen before, save for maybe some puzzles that involve hopping around on blocks to trigger invisible switches. Despite never being released in Japan, StarTropics did get a sequel called Zoda’s Revenge towards the end of the NES’ lifespan.

Golden Axe Warrior (SMS)

One of the most unmitigated rip-offs of Nintendo’s masterpiece actually turned out to be one of the best, and some would argue that its quality even surpasses The Legend of Zelda’s. Golden Axe Warrior hit stores in 1991, a time when programmers had tapped the Master System’s full potential, and the Mega Drive/Genesis was picking up steam. A far cry from the side-scrolling brawler series it came from, in this game the hero must light a menorah (a type of candleholder used during the Jewish holiday of Hannukah), with each dungeon cleared illuminating a new candle. Graphically, it looks a lot like Nintendo’s game, albeit slightly better. There are pig men with pitchforks, fish that momentarily poke their heads out of the water to shoot fireballs at you, and I swear that one of the forest screens in this game is identical to one in Zelda.

Does this look familiar to you?

In terms of gameplay, Golden Axe Warrior is sound. Sega did away with the arduousness of labyrinth-hunting by placing small villages around the world which contained NPCs that would provide hints to the player about where to head next, effectively streamlining the game without removing the aspect of exploration that many people loved in The Legend of Zelda. The fighting is exactly the same as in the title on which this is so obviously based, but there are plenty of save points and inns for those who aren’t very good at it. This was a great effort, but perhaps it’s a good thing that this game never got much recognition because it really is a “clone”. Sega pushed some legal boundaries with this one, I think.

Final Fantasy Adventure AKA Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden AKA Mystic Quest (GB)

Final Fantasy (Famicom) was suggested by Squaresoft’s PR department to tide over Japanese fans that were anticipating this title when its release was delayed from 1987 to 1991, and development shifted from the Famicom Disk System to the Game Boy (more information here). While the reasons for the cancellation of the original project weren’t announced to the public, it enabled the finished version of Seiken Densetsu to feature the popular chocobo and moogle mascots that debuted in Final Fantasies II and III respectively.

Seiken Densetsu had a relatively dark storyline for handheld gaming the time, about a slave’s uprising against his oppressors that forced him and his friends to fight wild animals for their sick entertainment. Seiken Densetsu always seemed to be targeted towards an older audience than Zelda did, by being much more story-driven (even covering the topic of euthanasia at one point) and having a large amount of menus to manage. This actually led to some game-breaking glitches; for example there is a switch late in the game which requires the player to equip a certain item (which only appears one time) while they stand on it. The item in question can be sold to an NPC – it should have been a key item – rendering the game unfinishable. Luckily for some, this mistake was corrected in the butchered GBA remake of the game known as Sword of Mana.

There is also an infamous puzzle in Seiken Densetsu, where the only hint you get is “Palm trees and eight”. The obtuse solution to this is to track down a screen with two palm trees on it, then walk around the two trees in a horizontal figure of eight until the entrance to the next dungeon appears. Bear in mind that this was back in the pre-Internet days, meaning most players were forced to temporarily quit and wait for a magazine to cover this section of the game.

Palm trees and eight... (source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGiHHxsZxkQ)

Overall, Seiken Densetsu was an excellent game, and remains one of the best the Game Boy has to offer. The music, as seems to be a running theme with these Zelda clones, is outstanding and worthy of a special mention.

Neutopia II (PCE)

OK, what happened here? The graphics were improved over the first game and the main character can now walk in 8 directions as opposed to just 4, but everything else in this sequel pales in comparison to Neutopia. Everything is slow, so slow that you’d be forgiven for thinking the land is covered in 3 feet of treacle; one of the NPCs at the start of the game says “What a great sequel!” as if trying extra hard to convince you that this game is actually above average, and the music isn’t very catchy or memorable at all. The worst offence, though, is that the compass that made the first Neutopia so good now just spins around aimlessly unless you’re in one of the labyrinths! The monsters also now include pitchfork-wielding pigs that are the spitting image of Zelda’s Moblins! For shame, Hudson, for shame.

It’s difficult to write about this game, because it’s just so unabashedly average. While it doesn’t do anything particularly well, and has a number of flaws stretching beyond what was just mentioned, it’s also by no means terrible. I can say this, however – Neutopia II is not a patch on the original game.

So there we have it. Love them or loathe them, The Legend of Zelda had its fair share of imitators. There are many that I haven’t mentioned here because I feel they managed to distance themselves from Nintendo’s title, so if you’re wondering where Crystalis, Crusader of Centy, Alundra and others are, there’s your explanation. It’s always been a fact of the entertainment industry that when a production is a smash hit, many mimics will follow and attempt to capitalise on its success. While the original is the one that takes a place in history as a classic, the emulators are often doomed to obscurity. Occasionally, they develop on their individual features and blossom into a respected franchise in their own right. While it can be vexing to see a deluge of titles that appear to be trying to sponge off one company’s recent prosperity without putting any effort of their own into it, don’t let the notion of something being an imitation stop you from enjoying what might be a great game.

As you might guess from the name, the F-Zero X Expansion Kit isn’t a standalone game.  You can’t play it without having a Japanese copy of F-Zero X sitting in the regular cartridge slot of the N64.  Think of it as offline DLC.  Buying the original game may sound like an unnecessary hassle put upon us by Nintendo, but because of this, the developers were able to use all the space on the 64DD disk for the new content.

There are five major additions introduced in this expansion.  For players who love time trial mode, ghost memory is greatly expanded in the Expansion Kit.  The original F-Zero X allowed you to save 2 time trial ghosts on the cartridge.  With the Expansion Kit, you can save three ghosts per track.  Secondly, two new cups are available which introduce a total of twelve new tracks.  These tracks are more challenging than those in the previous grand prix cups, and are very well-designed.  Thirdly, new music has been added to the game, including several new songs which play on the new DD tracks.  There’s also a remix of the Rainbow Road theme from Mario Kart 64.  Remember how F-Zero X had a Rainbow Road track?  Now it has the music it should have had in the first place!  Also, the tunes for Red Canyon and White Land were lengthened slightly, but it’s not all that noticeable.

Contrary to what you may think, F-Zero GX was not the first game in the series to have a vehicle creator.  The Expansion Kit introduced a similar, more simplistic feature.  In this machine-maker, everything’s available from the start, and there aren’t as many options to customize your vehicle as there are in GX.  After creating one, you can save it and choose one of the existing 30 vehicles to replace it with.  The computer will use your custom vehicles, so you could make 29 lousy machines and see if you could lap some of them in a grand prix race!  There are 3 new optional alternate vehicles for Captain Falcon, Samurai Goroh, and Jody Summer which are accessible from the machine creator: the “Super Falcon”, “Super Stingray”, and “Super Cat”.  They have excellent stats, and they are definitely better than the normal vehicles in the game.  The machine creator isn’t spectacular, but it is a nice little addition.

Without a doubt, the most noteworthy addition to the game is the course editor.  This game doesn’t follow the traditional formula of giving you a bunch of pre-created pieces to drag & drop as you please.  To make your own course, you can set up to 64 “points” on which the track will follow.  The points are on a three-dimensional plane, so in addition to placing or moving them wherever you want to, you can also raise them up so your track won’t be flat.  At any given point on your course, you can do whatever you want to the part of the track around that point.  You can widen it, shrink it, and twist it to your liking.  Also at your disposal are hazards, boost points, and pit (recovery) areas to place on your track.  Basically, you can do anything with your track that the developers did with the tracks that are already in the game, and more!

Once you’ve designed the track you want, you can change the “theme” of the track to make it look like Mute City, Fire Field, or whichever style you like.  No matter which theme is chosen, you can pick any background music present in the game for your course.  Various buildings and props can be added outside the track just for show.  Once you’re finished with it, you can enter it and up to five other custom courses into the “Edit Cup” and use them in any mode.  Even if you swap out any of your six tracks entered into the Edit Cup, your best times and ghost data on each one will still be preserved for when you enter them back in again.  Up to 100 custom tracks can be saved, and if you know someone in real life who has the game, you can copy any of them onto their disk.

Another nifty feature of the course editor is the ability to load any of the pre-made courses to use as a starting template!  This can be used simply to save a little time, or you can tweak some tracks that you think could be a little more fun or challenging.  Also, if your six favorite pre-made courses are scattered across a few different cups, you can save all six of them to the Edit Cup to make your ideal grand prix!

This game’s course editor is the best I’ve ever seen in a racing game, but it’s not beyond my criticism.  While the possibilities it creates are close to limitless, I feel that they could have been even moreso.  For example, you can only place up to 8 mine patches on any given track.  You can’t alter the size of boost panels; their size is directly related to the width of the track on which they lie.  Another complain I have lies with the limitations of the AI.  If you have jumps, hazards, and areas without walls which are close to a turn, the chances are very high that all 29 of your computer opponents will not be able to survive three laps on your track in Grand Prix Mode.  That’s a shame, because I feel that those types of tracks are the most challenging and fun.  Lastly, an expected downside to the course editor is the fact that it’s very time-consuming if you want to get the best out of it.  Making a quality track is harder than it sounds, and it requires a lot of little adjustments.  For example, turns cannot be too sharp, or else the game will not be able to generate the track.  Making a track full of twists and turns takes a lot of patience because of this issue.

The saddest part about the F-Zero X Expansion Kit is the fact that it’s still a 64DD exclusive.  Are you interested in buying it?  I hope you have a deep wallet, because if you’re patient, you’ll be lucky to get everything needed to run it for $400.  It’s hard to believe that Nintendo has gone 11 years without porting this expansion onto another platform.  It’s also surprising to me that F-Zero GX didn’t have a track editor at all.  Nintendo, it’s about time you brought back F-Zero!  Either re-release the F-Zero X Expansion Kit somehow, or make us an all new game with online play and some new features!  North American gamers have been deprived of a fresh F-Zero experience for long enough.