GERARDAMO: Game of the Week 6

Alright, I'm back after my lazy week off. If this seems like a half-assed post, it's because I'm writing it in the hour I have until I go out for the night and I still feel lazy, but you'll be assured that I'm doing it right.

My game this week is once again a music game. This one comes from Sega. It's Space Channel 5 for the Sega Dreamcast. This half DDR, half Simon Says game is actually quite unique, not for it's gameplay, but in the style that it's presented. Set in the near future, Space Channel 5 is filled with plenty of 70's retro-chique throwbacks, from main character Ulala's tank-top and mini skirt outfit, completed with go-go boots, right down to the groovy dialogue. I was going to try to add some of this quirky dialogue to the post, but if you couldn't tell from that first one, it would sound awful.

Space Channel 5 puts you in control of Ulala, news reporter for "Ulala's Swinging Report Show!" The plot of the game is quite silly, and the game really just seems to laugh at itself the whole time. Aliens are invading the earth, forcing everyone on the planet to dance, with hopes of... Well... Maybe annoying them? Or starving them to death or something. It's never really made clear why. Somehow, they'll take over TV and the planet that way. Only you, Ulala, can save them by dancing back! Gameplay is simple, aliens (Called Morolians) will jump out and shoot directions in an attempt to attack you! You need to remember these directions and shout them back, because that apparently will stop them. You don't just remember the directions, though. It's all set to music, and you have to remember the rhythm pattern they followed, because what's a dancer without rhythm? You'll also need to shoot the Morolians and rescue the dance-crazed civilians by shouting "Chu!" (Shoot) or "Hey!" That's really all there is to the gameplay.

As I mentioned, Space Channel 5 is a rhythm game, and it easily has my favorite soundtrack. (I hope I didn't say that last week about IIDX as well, because I like this better.) It's very future-jazz-ish, and totally sets the mood for the game. It's one of the few games I have the soundtrack to and can listen to without playing the game. It's hard to describe without actually listening to it, so make sure you turn up the music when you watch the video at the end!

Easily, the most memorable thing about the game is the greatest cameo apperance of all time. Michael Jackson lends his voice to the game as Space Michael, and you need to rescue him, and he doesn't really say anything except for, "Thanks, Ulala!" However, in Space Channel 5: Part 2, he has his own entire level, and it's fantastic, because everyone dances around in an epic dance battle doing Michael Jackson moves (And yes, they do the Thriller.) and then he takes out a singing robot by... More singing. It's got to be the best level in either game. (There's only a Space Channel 5 and a Space Channel 5: Part Two. Well, there was also Space Channel 5: Ulala's Cosmic Revenge for the GBA, but let's forget that that ever happened.)

Space Channel 5 is still rather easy to find. It was re-released on the PS2 as Space Channel 5: Special Edition and comes with both parts, each on their own seperate disc. It's practically identical to the Dreamcast version as well. No unnecessary changes to be seen here. I bought a new copy of it on eBay for 10 dollars, so it's really cheap if you're interested in playing it, and with a price like that, I highly reccomend that you do, if nothing else just for the humor in the game.

The video below is of the first level of Part 1. If it looks easy, that's why, but it does get plenty trickier. The song playing in it is my favorite song out of any game, and that's why I chose this video.

Video by VirtuaPlayer

GERARDAMO: Game of the Week 5

In a choice that will surprise not only my co-authors who I have been talking with about my choice for this week, but myself as well, I have chosen an arcade game as my game of the week this week. It's suprising not because it's an arcade game, but because it's a series that's not dead yet. It's Beatmania IIDX (Insert any style here) for the arcade/PS2.

Beatmania IIDX (Known from here-on only as IIDX, pronounced TOO-DEE-ECKS) is probably my second favorite game series, only to Dance Dance Revolution because I'm exponentially better at that than I am at IIDX, and I started playing it first. Also, it has better music. (Arguments to start... Never, because I doubt anybody capable of starting such an argument reads this.) So, why not DDR instead of IIDX? Uh... Because if you don't know what DDR is, welcome from your coma. It's the year 2009, and somehow you've stumbled upon this wonderful thing known as teh internets. IIDX is a DJ Simulator of sorts, in the same way that DDR is a dance simulator... It isn't. (Oh, you should know that DDR and IIDX were both created by Bemani, a branch of Konami that solely creates music games that use awesome controllers.) Those parenthesis bring me to my first point. Holy freaking crap the IIDX controller is the coolest damn contoller you will ever lay your pathetic little eyes on.

(That's the Japanese console controller.)

7 keys and a turntable. (It was orginally 5 keys in Beatmania and Beatmania III, which is strange considering III came out after IIDX) Dual-colored, flat rectangle notes fall from the sky, and all you have to do is press the corresponding button and spin a little plastic record.  Each key also makes a sound when you press it, but they all change over the course of the song, so you aren't just limited to one key going "THUMP, THUMP, THUMP" to the bass and the other six just playing synth and the turntable doing the crash cymbal. (Actually, on higher difficulties, that's pretty much all it does). However, unlike our crappy American music games, instead of your guitar just making a foul noise... Er... Instead of not making any sound when you press a key when you aren't supposed to, you can still play the sound that each key is assigned to, so you can, in a sense, remix the song as you go. It tends to sound quite terrible. 

But, it's not just as simple as hitting the right button at the right time and keeping your "Groove Gauge" from emptying. Well, actually, it is, however, just finishing with some points left in your Groove Gauge is not enough. It has to be filled AT LEAST 80% of the way or you fail. You could have full comboed a chart up until the very end and still fail just because you missed a few notes in a row, despite having gotten a new high score. You don't fail when your Groove Gauge reaches 0 either. You could actually just sit and wait through half of a song and then decide to start playing and still pass, despite having ignored most of the song. I can honestly say that I have done both of these (But mostly the first) MANY times. It makes the game quite frustrating.

The music, as you would expect in a DJing game, consists mainly of thumping trance, techno, and house music, but there is definitely a variety in the genres available. Whether you like eurobeat, hip-hop, or cheesy in-house covers of Toxic (Yes, the Britney Spears song), it's safe to say that there will be at least ONE song you find yourself enjoying as you play. Unlike most music games, though, you won't have a clue as to whether or not you'll actually like a song until you actually play it, because there's no song preview. Instead of a little 10-second clip of the song or something, you get to listen to the same loop over and over and over until you finally pick a song, or until the timer runs out, then you're just screwed into playing something considered Library Rock. That's actually another one of the game's charms. Every song is assigned to its own genre. While, as I already mentioned, most songs are assigned to the standard Epic Trance, Hardcore Techno, or Gabba, as the Japanese like to call it (You probably know it as Gabber... Or don't know it at all.), some songs have totally bizarre genres... Like Education, Cuddlecore, Lovely Trans Pop, or Tri Euro Fantasia (Though that is apparently a very good genre, judging by the whole one song I've ever heard of being placed in it.)

So, sounds like a party, doesn't it? No, not really. Don't get me wrong, I've brought my turntable and several Styles (Each new version of the game becomes the xth numbered Style, though every style after 10th ditched the "th Style" at the end each has its own unique subtitle. IIDX RED, Happy Sky, DistorteD, GOLD, DJ Troopers, and Empress, respectively. If you can't count, we are currently at 16 styles) to friend's houses, and we've had a great time with it... Well... I'VE had a great time with it, and they thought the concept was neat, but you'll need to devote more than just a couple of hours to the game just to start passing songs. This learning curve is STEEP like a... Well, I can't think of a comparison, but this game is hard like a- Oh... No. Even on the easiest setting, you'll probably spend your first few attempts struggling to make anything that remotely sounds the way it's supposed to. Plus, there's a distinct lack of familiar songs, so nobody is really going to go too crazy to play a song called Bitter Chocolate Striker. Don't get me wrong, I've yet to met someone who didn't at least slightly enjoy playing this game, but you're not going to have the party of the century with this game unless you happen to be a Bemani nerd and so do all of your friends.

Video by ST0iiC

For someone playing on Normal, he wasn't that bad. I was hoping to find someone who might have messed up more, just so people could see what it looks like, but it was suprisingly hard to find a high quality video of someone who sucked at it. Just for giggles, this next video is the hardest song I've ever passed (I'm still learning how to play and I've been playing for about 2 years now. It's ranked a 9 out of a maximum of 12 for difficulty) It's one of my favorite songs in terms of music as well, and you can see how awesome the music videos are. Well, okay, you can't really see the video too well in this video, but believe me, for a PS2 game, the graphics that accompany songs are awesome!

Video by Xythar

Now, if you promise to be good until the end of the review, I'll show you two more videos of what used to be the hardest difficulty, and the now hardest difficulty. Trust me, they'll make your head spin and your eyes explode.

IIDX is a pretty difficult game to find outside of Japan. If you have the proper connections and practice in sketchy activities that are frowned upon by copyright laws that I will not confirm I involve myself in, then it might actually be pretty easy to find. However, for the good people, you're gonna have to pay a whole bunch o' money and some import charges on top of the cost of a turntable controller, which'll run you from $30-$60 depending on where you look just to be able to play, unless you're one of the really lucky people who have access to an arcade version of IIDX, in which case I hate you. It should be noted that as with all console versions of their arcade counterparts from Bemani, console versions of IIDX have all of the new songs from the Style they are based on, along with a healthy portion of older songs. Each mix contains about 85-95 songs that clock in at about 2 minutes each, so you can practically get the arcade experience in your own home, just like it says on the box!

In 2006, Bemani finally listened to their North American fans and released a US version of IIDX, simply called Beatmania, as it featured both 5-key and 7-key gameplay. This mediocre attempt to throw fans a bone was... Well... Mediocre. There were only 58 songs available in this mix, despite that it was released after 9th style and really just a collection of songs, sort of a Best Hits (More like, "HEY GUYS! Remember DDR? Lookee! DDR songs!" But we'll save that nerdy rant for... Never, really.) It wasn't even a matter of cost since IIDX has never really used many licensed songs ever, though this was the mix that the cover of Toxic premeired in, which actually got a quite enjoyable Another chart in IIDX RED (I feel like I should mention that the three difficulties of IIDX are Normal (Formerly Light7), Hyper (Formerly 7-key), and Another (Which has always been known as Another). There's also a Beginner mode which lets you play on Beginner difficulty, wimps. The one good thing that we got from this half-assed mix was an improved turntable controller. This one actually has spring under the buttons so they don't get stuck, a problem faced by several Japanese players. (Ha ha) It was the first version of IIDX I played, and as a newbie, it was quite fun. If you see it anywhere, definitely pick it up. You can get the bundle for teh cheap now, and it's totally worth it, even if the mix itself sucks. (Be warned: Do NOT expect to get passed anything harder than a difficulty of 5, or maybe Colors Normal. The biggest gripe for this game was that there was no good set of transition songs to help get players from newbies to near decent players. Believe me, a good year and 9 months of my playing of this game was consisted of me struggling to follow anything rated 7 or higher because there were no good transition songs. It wasn't until recently that I started playing Japanese versions, and it wasn't until then that I could start passing 8's and 9's consistently. Yeah, still not very good at this game, and I tend to be pretty damn alright at most music games. It's hard.)

So there you have it. The Beatmania IIDX series by Bemani. It's definitely one of the most fun, creative, original, and frustrating games you'll ever play.

As promised, here is a video of the Another difficulty. (This is one of my favorite songs from IIDX and it's bound to get stuck in your head. Hello, 20cc)

Video by BeRevoPLAYER

And here is the newest difficulty, introduced in IIDX 15 DJ Troopers, some Japanese character that I can't type, or Black Another. (It's also a great example of how someone can have a Groove gauge of 0 percent at one point and still manage to clear a song.)

Video by djkc2dx

GERARDAMO: Game of the Week 4

Alright, in honor of Groundhog's Day, I've picked Clock Tower, for the SNES/PC, as my game of the week this week. Okay... Groundhog's Day has nothing to do with Clock Tower at all. Clock Tower is a pointin-n-clickin, survival horror, good time. I haven't played many survival horror games that aren't Silent Hill 3, but Clock Tower is easily the most terrifying game I have ever played... Period. (Maybe it's just because most games on the SNES seemed to scare me, nothing against the SNES, it's just the way the graphics are.) 

You play as Jennifer, a poor orphan girl who nobody seems to love. You and your other girly friends are adopted by Mr. Barrows, who you never really meet. Kinda sketchy isn't it? You get sent away to his appropriately named Clock Tower. So, yeah, it's a point-and-click adventure. You click around to move, find clues, and not die. However, EVERYTHING in this game kills you. Not kidding. Walk up to a mirror, a hand pops out of it and strangles you. Oo! Pretty bird in a cage, walk  up to it, and it flies out if its cage and pecks you to death. So, the genre of this game pretty much defines the story. No, not point-and-click... Survival horror. Just, don't die. You'll come across a few antagonists who all want to kill you. The one you'll encounter most often is the Scissorman. He's a small, midgit looking man who you later learn is just a nine-year-old. He chases you around with a giant pair of scissors, and, you guessed it, he tries to kill you! Everyone tries to kill you!  Not much else to say about this game, but the video has commentary. I realize that it's kinda boring to watch because, well, there's nothing happening. But, this is the scariest I've played, because when you're the person playing, you have no idea what the hell is going to pop out and kill you. There were... 3 sequels, I think. The American versions have really different titles than the Japanese versions, so I'm still confused. There's also rumors that there will be a movie adaptation of this game, and I highly support any such thing, provided that it's actually a horror movie and not some torture porno. It definitely is one of the few games that could make good movies. (That and Indigo Prophecy)

Video by Couldagonemad88

I realize that these classic games aren't probably the most entertaining thing to read, but they aren't really meant to be informative reviews on what's good and bad about the game. Obviously, the games I choose are all going to be games that I enjoyed, and I'm not going to actually write a review about a 14-year-old game. Think of them more as reccomendations for games that I'd rather you people get your own opinions about since you may have missed them instead of me telling you that I really like them.

GERARDAMO: Game of the Week 3

Alright, this is kind of late. Actually, I'm not even posting this in the right week anymore. (But I actually editted the date I posted this so I could write my next game without looking like I did a double post) I was just going to skip this week entirely, but it's 10:30 in the morning, and society has broken the rule that is "Don't wake the Gerard before noon" by having the asshole next-door start revving up his truck, only to realize that his penis is still the same size anyway. So I write this from bed as I'm still trying to wake up.

I had trouble thinking of a game this week, mostly because instead of playing any old games this week, I clocked in about... 30 hours of IIDX (Google it, YouTube it, whatever. It's FUN, but also too new for me to use as a game of the week.) Do you know what it is now? Good. So I was in a techno-y, trance kind of mood this week, so I've decided to highlight Rez by Tetsuya Mizuguchi. Rez was originally released on the Dreamcast. It's the strange combination between arcade shooter and music game. The entire game is made up of vector graphics (Again, if you don't know what I'm talking about, Wikipedia can also be your friend.) and it looks freaking awesome. Rez doesn't have much of a story, but none of my favorite classic games do, for that matter. Apparently, there's some big computer virus that... I don't know... Threatens to make everyone stop using PC's and ruin the world of computers as we know it or something... It's REALLY not important at all. 5 levels later you find out that the virus just wants to be loved, and I'm pretty sure there's some innuendo for sex in there somewhere.

Anyway, the actual gameplay in this is nothing short of an experience that I truly believe everyone needs to, well, experience. It moves like a typical rail-shooter, you know, move your camera around and shoot, that simple. However, you can lock on to up to 8 viruses and shoot them. Every level starts in an empty, black abyss with a bass drum quietly pulsing in the background. A few viruses fly by, and make for easy combos, and then some tiny box flies by. Shoot that box 8 times. The level will then start to develop. Nothing too much, maybe some cubes will appear in the environment, and a synthesizer will start humming something. You'll start to see more complex patterns of enemies. And you keep going on with this. Enemies fly by, shoot them. Box flies by, shoot it a lot. The level starts to become more detailed until you see vectorized architecture everywhere, and the background music transforms into an absorbing, thumping trance track. This game just sucks you in.

Of course, what would any rail shooter be without things shooting back at you? Most of the viruses do, and since you're not invincible, it will do damage. If you get hit, you level down. You'll go from an almost human looking thing to a less looking human thing to a less looking human thing etc. to a sphere, and then you die. But there is hope! You can level up, too. Viruses drop powerups, and if you collect enough of them, you can level up back to your human form, until your human-type thing reaches a state of enlightenment and becomes a pulsing amoeba of trancely awesome.

That's it really. The game is stupid simple. You don't play Rez for the challenge, you play it for the experience. Interesting note of trivia. When Rez was released for the PS2 in Japan, it came with a USB device called a Trance Vibrator. It was an oval-y shaped piece of plastic that, as the name suggests, vibrated. It had stronger vibrations than the DualShock2 did, and it was designed so it could be held on to, put in your pocket, or my favorite (In terms of where this trivia is going!), sat on. Yes, they advertised that you could sit on it. So, once you had your Trance Vibrator wherever you wanted it, it would pulse along to the music, pulling you into the game even more. However, vibration feels good, and you don't think I would have said Vibrator that many times just because it tickles my lips to say it, do you? Yes, as you would have expected, there were several reports of Trance Vibrators being used as... Well... You know... OTHER vibrators.

Rez is available on the Dreamcast and the PS2. In 2008, it was re-released on XBLA as Rez HD, with super shiny awesome new HD graphics! It still remains my favorite and most played Live Arcade game to this day (That's right SoulCalibur, maybe you should have given your XBLA port a better widescreen, instead of a Windows 3.1 wallpaper border!), and I HIGHLY reccomend, no, DEMAND that you stay on your couch and make the best 10 dollar purchase you can ever make, or at least just get the demo. You have no excuses anymore as to why you can't play this game.

This video is from Rez HD. Video by cktg

GERARDAMO: Game of the Week 2

My game of the week this week is probably one of the most addictive games I've ever played. It's No One Can Stop Mr. Domino for the PlayStation. The game's protagonist is (GASP!) Mr. Domino... Or Ms. Domino, or a small variety of other dominos. The point of the game is to... Well... Lay dominoes. You run around on a two-and-a-half D plane laying down a trail of dominoes in order to trigger switches, that will activate somewhere else on the stage, and they can keep your chain going if you set it up right. The switches start out as little things, like making a stack of dice fall down or just raising up a little tiny slope, to bigger things, like triggering a roller coaster or summoning a tank. It's not as easy as it sounds though. You have a limited number of dominoes, so you can't just lay them down wherever you feel. You have to use them sparingly if you want to set up a chain ranging across the level. You do get your dominoes back, though, after you knock some over. (You knock them over in some hot domino-on-domino action. Well... Mr. Domino just runs into your dominoes and knocks them over.) You have a time limit as well. Overtime, your domino gradually fades to black and slows down. (You'd think turning black would make him run faster, wouldn't you?) This game has very simple gameplay that's easy to learn and difficult to master. The balance between action and puzzling is absolutely perfect, but hard for me to explain, so I'll have YouTube do it instead. As with most of my favorite games, this game has a very strong Japanese personality that doesn't appear to have been translated... At all. (The menus have been translated, but this game is obviously VERY Japanese.) 

Video by WTFOMGMyNameDoesntFi

This game has great music too. I would have put up another video that came with the music, but this was the only one I could find.

GERARDAMO's Game of the Week 1

Alright, as this is my first post here, I've realized that I should do a short introduction first. I'm not terribly fond of the third dimension. It tends to be a problem when it comes to playing new games, so I don't play many. Don't get me wrong, I'll happily play new games, like 3rd-person platformers or something, but when I can't see my character because the camera is in the first-person, I can't actually find out what I'm doing. But, the most enjoyment I get out of games are from games in the 2nd dimension, so I tend to favor games from 1996 as opposed to 2006 (Actually, 2006 isn't really relevant anymore, is it?), which leads me to this. Once a week (hopefully), I'll be providing you with a mentioning/review of a game from before the 6th generation (PS2, Gamecube, Xbox) of gaming for you to check out either on the actual console it was for, or the lazy way with an emulator. (I would highly recommend you get Fusion 3.6 if you plan on trying out most of the games I recommend. It's the Sega Master System/Genesis/32x/CD Emulator. It's pretty fantastic.) 

That being said, my first review is for a Sega Genesis game that's slightly more popular than most of the other games I'll be recommending. It's Toe Jam & Earl. Toe Jam & Earl is a very bizarre game to say the least. You play as two aliens (Toe Jam and Earl, shocking.) who crashed their rocket ship on earth, and they must journey across, well actually, I don't even know how many levels trying to find the 10 pieces of their rocket ship, which have pretty awesome names. I can't actually remember any of the names of the parts, but come on... They had a friggin boom box built into their ship. That brings me to my next point. The game has a terrific sense of humor. Toe Jam and Earl are the two funkiest aliens Sega ever created. Seriously, Toe Jam wears a huge gold medallion with his name on it. 

There's also a slight RPG element to it. There are 9 levels your character can reach, and each one will give you more health, and sometimes an extra life. The titles range from things like  Wiener and Dufus to Homey and Funklord. 

Almost all of the other characters you encounter are "earthlings." Some of them help you, like the Wise Carrot (It's an old guy in a carrot suit), or Santa Claus. Most of them are out to kill you, though. They range from an angry lady pushing around a shopping cart and a guy pushing around a lawn mower, to some rather unearthly things like a giant hamster in a ball and a possessed, evil mailbox. (My favorite is the Phantom Ice Cream Truck.) 

My very favorite thing about this game is the items. They all come in the form of presents, and since they're presents, you don't know what they are until you use them (After you've used it once, you'll know what it is... Until you open a Randomizer, which messes up your collection, and you have to identify them all over again.) Some presents are good, like Super High-Tops, which let you run really fast, or wings, which obviously lets you fly. Some presents are bad, like books. They make you fall asleep, and you need to start shouting "Wake up" until your character wakes up. Or sometimes your present will make it start raining tomatoes, or you'll open a Total Bummer, which kills you. 

There have been two sequels to this, Panic on Funkotron and Toe Jam & Earl III: Mission to Earth, available on the Sega Genesis and Xbox, respectively. Panic on Funkotron isn't actually a sequel at heart though. It just borrowed the title, and replaced the platforming/treasure hunting on a 2D plane with an action 2D side-scroller. I haven't played the third version, but I believe it is more similar to the first. 

This game shouldn't be that hard to find, actually, if you're interested in playing it. It's available on the Wii's virtual console, and most stores I've gone to that sell used Genesis games almost always have a copy of this game lying around somewhere.