Small Packages

Despite the fact that my dad worked for a Big 3 auto company, I am not a car guy. This is probably best illustrated by the fact that the three cars I've owned in my life (not counting poor Roger -- alas, we hardly knew him and yes, we name our cars) are a 1994 Chrysler Concorde [Medea], a 2003 Dodge Neon [Rivers], and a 2007 Dodge Caliber [Sunny]. You won't find them near the tops of any best of class or fun to drive lists, but they've each served us well so far in their own ways. Unfortunately, Rivers is starting to show the wear and tear that 8 years and 120,000+ miles can inflict on a car, and we're nearing the point where we're going to have to make a decision of whether to get some fairly major engine work done or call it a life and move on to a new car. There's a good chance that we'll just get the repairs, but in the event that we don't the car that I want may be a surprising choice.

Despite my 6'2" frame, for awhile now I've held the staunchly un-American view that my next car should be a small one. I think this stems from my last year of college when I got my PlayStation 2. Back in the day when specific games were still bundled with your console, I got the package that included the Sony/Polyphony classic Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec. It's a racing game in which you start with $18,000 and eventually build up and tune a fleet of cars until you've won every race there is to win. With nearly 200 cars there's a lot of variety as each car looks, sounds, and drives differently. However, not being a car guy, I've never stuck with it for a lengthy career.

Despite the fact that there are so many cars in the game, your starting money is only enough to buy 11 of them. The vast majority of these are Japanese kei cars (subcompact), and being a stingy bastard I opted to start out with the cheapest car possible, the Daihatsu Mira. Thus began my love affair with the company that proudly proclaims to "do it compact".

The modern Mira

They make cute little jellybeans of cars, most of which get upwards of 50 mpg with their tiny engines. Unfortunately, it's not feasible for a lot of reasons (importation fees, crash standards, etc.) to ever hope to drive something like this in the United States. That's why I've turned to the next best thing.

Cinquecento!

Say hello to the Fiat 500. With Fiat soon to own a majority stake in Chrysler, they're practically part of the Big 3, right? These little guys have just started being sold in America in the last couple of months, so there's a good chance that you haven't seen any of them on the road yet in your neck of the woods. With luck though, you'll start to see them become as common as some of the other small boutique cars out there like the Mini Cooper and the Smart cars. I know what you're thinking. Is a car this small really practical?

If I had to tote around car seats and their precious cargo on a regular basis, absolutely not. But as a 2nd car that just gets driven around the city and occasionally to work? I think so. It would certainly make parallel parking easier, and I'd finally get to try out those "compact car only" spots in parking garages. Add in the fact that it gets 34 mpg with the automatic during this time of $4/gallon gas, and it's a win/win situation.

Maybe someday...

Searching For the Beast Within

Our summer vacation officially kicks off today. We had been planning a much advertised 2010 trip to Greece, but for some reason we decided that we'd do something else this year. Instead, we've been busy putting together a whirlwind tour of three central European cities: Prague, Vienna, and Munich. Prague is Meaghan's pick. She taught English (the language, not the high school subject) there for a few months ten years ago and has been wanting to go back and show me the sights ever since I met her. Vienna is our collective pick. Filled with museums, parks, and music galore, it looks to be our kind of place. It also happens to be geographically convenient to the other two cities, which brings us to Munich.


This choice is unabashedly mine, and like most things it seems is inspired by a video game. In this case, the classic adventure game from 1995, Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within. Based in Munich, the game details our hero's investigation into a series of grisly werewolf murders. No, I'm not expecting to find any shape-shifters myself, but like all of the Gabriel Knight games GK2 is set in a real-world location that is portrayed with painstaking detail. As a result, ever since I first played this game back in high school, places like the Marienplatz and Neuschwanstein have been rattling around in my brain waiting for the right time to get out.


On the games front, whilst digging up info for this post I discovered that Jane Jensen (the creator of the Gabriel Knight trilogy) is finally coming out with a new adventure game, "Gray Matter", for Xbox 360 and PC later this year. It might just have to be the first new computer game that I buy in a long time. For those not familiar with the GK games, I highly recommed you give them a try. They rank amongst my favorites of all time and can be downloaded for the low, low price of $6 each from Good Old Games.

Play Old Video Games: Baseball

I'm a fan of old video games. They're both simple to play and fun, which makes them ideal for me when I'm looking for something to pick up and relieve the stress of a long work day. I suppose most "modern" people achieve this same feeling by firing up a cheap downloadable game for their cell phone, iPod, or Facebook account, but I like to go back to the originals. There's a sense of history that I enjoy alongside the games themselves and I marvel at how much was achieved with so little technologically speaking. I grew up an Apple II kid and have a warm spot in my heart for many of the programs I used and games I played as a child, but floppy disks are fragile and slow-loading. I've found that for my money, the best place to play games of that era and style today is on the Nintendo Entertainment System.

The earliest NES games date back to the years before the system even surfaced in New York City back in October 1985. Developed in Japan by the Big N itself in the early 80s, these games are the simplest of the simple and their names reflect that: Pinball, Kung Fu, Robot Block, Tennis. For the most part, they're exactly what they sound like: bare bones computerized versions of their real-world counterparts. The earliest of these is 1983's Baseball.


Looking at it today, Baseball bares little resemblance to a modern sports video game. Although there are six teams to choose from (all represented by a single letter [C = Cardinals, Y = Yankees, etc.] and a unique uniform), there are no rosters to manage or different players to learn the ins and outs of. Heck, there's not even a lot of evidence that the teams are different at all beyond the color of their uniforms. It's the game distilled down to the basics of throw ball, hit ball, field ball. No complicated control schemes to teach your friends, no dithering about who gets to be the Tigers (me, of course), just pop in the game and you're playing within 10 seconds.


It's essentially the simplest a baseball game can be and have it still look like the sport, and in my book that's a good thing. For me it hits that sweet spot of high playability and low complexity that in a lot of ways was the inspiration for the version of baseball that comes on Wii Sports. Yes, the graphics are a little blocky and move a bit slowly, but it's no wonder that the back of the box touts this game's realism no less than three times in its single paragraph of text. When compared to games from the same era on the Intellivision or Atari, the visuals and attention to detail for those who know the sport are second to none.


Just look at the cut-off man ready to keep the runner from going to third. Okay, so you can't actually throw it to the cut-off man, but he's still there, isn't he? At its core, 95% of baseball comes down to the batter/pitcher battle and that's portrayed well here. The advantage here is that you don't need to understand how a pitcher's arsenal works, nor are you restricted by what's humanly possible. You'll find no curveball, slider, changeup mechanic here. Instead, you can completely control the speed and movement of each pitch. There's nothing more satisfying than enticing your friend (or your wife, as the case may be) into swinging at a slow piece of junk that ultimately moves way off the plate.

I'll be writing every once in awhile about some of the old games that I like to play (or don't as the case may be). Whether I'm helping take you on your own trip down memory lane, inspiring you to check something out on your favorite emulator, or just blathering on self-servingly about things I like, I hope you enjoy the trip in some small way.

Want to Know a Secret?

A lot of people have asked me over the past few years how it is that Meaghan and I thought to go to Estonia for our honeymoon. Behold! The truth revealed. In a roundabout way, it all starts with my dad. When my brother and I were younger, we played a lot of computer games. Every once in awhile, my dad would give us a random selection as a present for a birthday or Christmas. Unerringly, this ended up being something high quality which provided us with hours of fun. ex. Drol, 2400 A.D., Out of This World.

One such game was a little franchise-starter by the name of Command & Conquer. In C&C, you take on the role of commander of either the UN's defense forces or the terrorist organization that they're trying to crush, the Brotherhood of Nod. If you choose to play on the side of the government, your first mission is to establish a beachhead in eastern Europe from which you can drive out the terrorist forces. Specifically:


The game goes beyond just naming the country where the action is, it gives you a specific point of conflict. In this case, your hovercrafts storm across the Gulf of Riga in the cinematic opening to land on the beaches of Pärnu, Estonia.


Going there for our honeymoon is perhaps an extreme example, but I often like to take the time to learn more about the world around us through video games. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely not the only reason we went there, but C&C is the spark that even put it on the map in the first place. Without it, we never would've had the experiences that we did like staying in this gorgeous hotel 100 feet from the gulf in Pärnu.


Perhaps in the future I'll share more of the things I learn through gaming, if I ever find the time to play more games. For those of you wondering what the next C&C-inspired vacation might be? Latvia, of course, with a special stop in Jelgava. Be thankful I didn't find inspiration in Nod's campaign of terror. It starts somewhere in lovely, seaside Libya.

Bonus Material: Even if you never get to Estonia yourself, I strongly urge you to check out the story of how it gained its independence from the Soviet Union in The Singing Revolution.

Night Trap!

A couple of weeks ago I discovered the joy of the old Usenet archives in Google Groups. This may not seem cool to you, but to a video game historian like me having the entire rec.games.video hierarchy dating back to 1987 is a pretty nice thing. Now I can search on a particular title to see what people thought about it when it first came out as opposed to reading modern-day reviews of old games that are jaded by advancements in technology.

When I initially stumbled on this treasure trove, I tried to see how far back it went and looked at the first few posts in rec.games.video.misc. They were from late 1993, just as the Atari Jaguar and the 3DO were poised to take over the world (they didn't - that role would be played by Sony's PlayStation) and Doom was about to be unleashed on PC users everywhere. Also happening at this time and being discussed were the Senate hearings on video game violence that eventually resulted in the creation of the ESRB.

A lot of people remember that games like the Mortal Kombat series and Doom had a lot to do with this debate (Fatality!), but few remember the impact that the advent of full motion video games had on the discussion. The thought was that when violence and horror was depicted by real living, breathing actors (albeit not very good ones) it would leave an even greater impression on the minds of helpless little children. We'll ignore the fact that most of these FMV games were so cheesy and bad that no one took them very seriously. (Note: If you happen to be looking for good FMV games, I highly recommend Gabriel Knight 2, the 7th Guest, and Wing Commander 3 & 4)

Enter Night Trap... the #1 scapegoat at the Senate hearings of 1992/1993. Released for the Sega CD in 1992, the game's footage was actually shot back in 1987 for use with Hasbro's Control-Vision. Never heard of the Control-Vision? Well, that's because it never came out. Apparently the world just wasn't ready for a multi-track VHS-based video game system.

Starring Dana Plato of Diff'rent Strokes fame, in Night Trap you had to help five coeds on a weekend getaway escape the clutches of an army of augers (comical half-vampires armed with a long-handled drill/hook thingy) and an evil vampire family. To perform this task, you were supposed to rapidly switch between eight different security cameras in the beach house and trigger various trap doors throughout the house. If you failed to save any of the girls, you were treated to a grisly scene of horror in which the girl was hooked, drilled, and yanked offscreen before losing your game. The most graphic and obscene of these being the infamous nightgown scene:



If you're still with me after all that horror, hopefully you're laughing right about now. I know that our standards of decency have lapsed a bit since the early 90s, but seriously? This is what the Senate got all up in arms about? My sense of decency is more offended by cheesy scenes like this one:



The hullabaloo was bad enough that the game was ultimately pulled from shelves in major stores like Toys R Us and recalled by Sega. It didn't help matters that apparently our well-informed congressmen thought the goal of the game was to help capture and rape the girls in the game, the exact opposite of the real goal. In fact, if you're playing the game the way it was meant to be played you'll hardly have time to watch any of the fantastic B-movie footage.

In the end, it's a good thing that the ESRB was founded to provide game ratings. Without it, a lot of the neat ideas that have flourished under the protection of a Mature rating might not have seen the light of day. Now all we need is for all you parents out there to actually pay attention to them.

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If you want to see more Night Trap, I can help.

Watch a short documentary about the Senate hearings and scandal, complete with hilarious Senate floor footage.

Watch all of the footage from the game, cut into movie form. I guarantee it won't be the worst 45 minutes you ever spend. If you can't handle YouTube quality, you can watch a slightly better version at FMV World.

The Birthday That Keeps On Giving

I mentioned earlier the birthday get together I had back in September at Dos Amigos. Well here's proof for you non-Minnesotans that it really happened. I was ambushed by a sombrero and whipped cream.



Little did I know at the time that I had already missed getting one of my birthday presents. Apparently, my parents had shipped a package to me so that it would arrive on Thursday, the day before my birthday. Despite the fact that we were home at the time, the UPS guy inexplicably opted to leave it out on the back steps of our house instead of delivering it to us. As a result, my birthday present walked off with some not so friendly neighborhood person instead of going inside with me.

After wrangling with UPS for awhile, my mom tried again last week. This time she told them to hold it at their delivery center so I could come pick it up. I finally got it last Thursday, making me the proud new owner of Guitar Hero II for the PS2 (Yes, I do have some game systems that were released in this decade). Don't you just love late gifts? It's like you get a whole month of birthday goodness.

We were out of town over the weekend, so I just got the chance to try it out last night. I'm starting out on Medium difficulty (4 buttons only) which I'm decently good at, but instead of just blasting through the game I'm trying to work up my technique for the Hard (and Expert?) times ahead. I've played 7 songs so far and have 5-starred 4 or 5 of them. For those who don't know what it looks like, here's me playing at the baby shower we went to in Dallas back in August that I never wrote about.

Here's hoping I don't end up too addicted.

BBQ at HarrisWorld

Just wanted to give a quick shout out to the folks over at HarrisWorld for another fabulous Saturday barbeque. Despite the fact that their place was literally swarming with tiny tots, Meaghan, Zelda, and I managed to have a good time.

I rocked it as Moon Knight (who knew that guy existed?) in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance with Mike, Chris, Tony, and Kim's brother, Jay. Think Double Dragon with superheroes, if you're not familiar. Incidentally, I stake my claim now on Amethyst, Princess of Gem World (just check out that winged horse) if a DC version of this ever comes out.

We also broke out our German card game Bohnanza, in which you trade, plant, and sell different kinds of beans. I think a good time was had by most, even though we'd never played with 7 people before and inadvertantly made a mockery of the rules as a result. We'll get them right next time, I swear.

I don't get to see a lot of the people that spent a significant amount of time hanging out in my dorm room very often as they're all spread out so far across the country (it turns out that people don't often want to stay in Iowa), so it was good to see Jay again. I'll have to see if I can dig up some embarrassing photos that prove that I knew him my freshman year at Iowa State.

They Said It Couldn't Be Done

It only took ~16 hours of game play spread over four days, but I managed to beat Ghosts 'n Goblins this afternoon.

For those not in the know, G'n G is renowned as being one of the more difficult games for the NES. Funny that I started playing this because I was finding Gradius to be too difficult. There are six grueling levels, and you have to beat them each twice to rescue the Princess. Apparently the first time through the game is just an illusion created by Satan himself.

The game plays a bit like Castlevania, only you don't have a whip, and instead of a life bar your heroic knight has a mere two hit points to get him through each level. You start with a suit of armor, and if you get hit once you have to finish the rest of it in your skivvies. Luckily there's a replacement suit in at least four of the six levels.

The game truly would be impossible if it weren't for the fact that you have unlimited continues, and let me tell you... I used a bajillion of them. By today, I was getting significantly better at the game, though. It only took me one continue to reach level 5. I won't tell you how many it took to get through level 5.

Anyway, now that the Nintendo portion of my vacation is complete, it's time to move on to other things... like going to the fireworks show tonight in Powderhorn Park.

Don't Fly Too Close to the Sun

I made a special trip to St. Charles after work today. Last night, I "won" (those quotes are for you, Tony) an auction for Kid Icarus for the NES on eBay. It went for pretty cheap compared to the $20-$30 this game typically goes for, plus I didn't have to pay for shipping. I was planning on picking up the manual by itself later since it wasn't mentioned in the auction anywhere, but it came with one anyway. Too bad it looks like it's been partially eaten by a dog and then taped back together. Oh well, I guess that's why it wasn't advertised.

After cleaning it for awhile, I got it to fire up. Turns out I've never played or even seen anyone play this game, but people tell me that it's one of Nintendo's finest. I tried it long enough to discover that you get one life, and when it's gone you get a whopping Metroid-esque password. Looks both fun and hard, the best of both worlds. We'll have to see if I'm able to build up any skill at it.

In the meantime, I've been working on Konami's classic horizontal shooter Gradius for the last week or so. With or without the Konami code (in its first appearance on the NES), I can only make it to level 3. I need to develop a better way of fending off the giant Moai heads and their oh so deadly ion guns. Don't ask me why the ancient statues from Easter Island are an enemy in this game, I have no idea.

89? Good Grief!

There I was, thinking I was well on my way to becoming an advanced member of the Athletic World gym. I'd cruised through the toughest events with scores in the high-80s/low 90s, and I had just one to go: Rafting.

Rafting involves dodging various obstacles as you careen down a river on your trusty whitewater raft. I consider it to be the easiest event as it doesn't require any fast running action, but I teetered back on my heels at just the wrong time catching a board in the face which knocked me clean off into the river. That one mistake saddled me with an 82 for the event.

The NES thought long and hard about what to give me for the full run. After carrying the one and dividing by 17, it decided that my performace was worthy of an 89. I pleaded with it for awhile, but it just laughed at me, played some cheery music, and advanced on to the certificate screen.

Better luck next time!

Feel the Burn

Remember college? I sure do. It was about 5 years and 10-15 pounds ago. Now I'm not about to say I'm fat or horribly out of shape, but I just remember a time when I used to be more active. I had more energy. I didn't need as much sleep. Life was good.

In an effort to regain some of that, I'm installing a new regimen. I'll alternate simple calisthenics with cardio and couple that with rock climbing (Meaghan's vice) twice a week. Since I don't really enjoy running to get my heart rate up and I don't have a gym membership so I can't go swimming, I've decided to try to have some fun with this. That's right. I'm pulling out the good old Nintendo Power Pad. If my friend Brett can use Dance Dance Revolution to stay in shape then I can certainly do this.

The only game I have for it so far is Athletic World although I hope to get more. Attendees of my semi-regular Old School Game Nights probably remember this game with disgust, but I think it'll be a pretty useful tool. If you enter your age and sex the game scales the difficulty of the exercises for you. It also scores you based on how quickly you're able to complete each exercise, so I'll be able to track my progress objectively. There are five different exercises in all and they vary from running and jumping to crouching and hopping on one foot. It can be pretty hard on your quads and calves if you're trying to get a good score.

I'm only a Beginner so far, and my highest score is the 85/100 I achieved earlier tonight. I was pretty stoked as I even 100-pointed the "Dark Tunnel" which involves a lot of rapid running in place to get your character up some steep inclines. My goal is to get at least a 90 on Beginner before switching over to the Advanced level. Wish me luck.

Humiliation Galore

Well it had to happen someday. I finally lost a game in the NHL '99 season I have going with some friends. Not just lost really... destroyed. Matt's tougher, faster Dallas team took down my poor Sharks 6-1, and as much as I can claim that I was reaching for a Circus Peanut during that first goal, the other 5 seemed pretty legit to me.

On the brighter side, it's a good time to be a Detroit ex-pat in the real world. The Tigers are on an 8-game winning streak (take that Twins' fans) and the Red Wings are in the conference finals. Heck, there haven't even been any riots or fires there in quite awhile. At least, not in the city itself.

Dungeons, Dragons, and Dorks

Last night was my weekly get together with friends to play D and D. I'm currently the DM of our little group, despite my tenuous grasp on the rules that make up the game. Not much of note happened. The party continues to spam the heal wand on their trek through Baron Harkyn's castle in their quest to recover the Star of Tochiro. They took down a couple of smallish blue dragons in a smoke-filled lair, but not before their erstwhile goblin companion Grignak (a cookie to the first person to spot the reference) was felled by a killer line of lightning.

Anyway, the real reason I'm talking about this is because we learned two of my friend Mike's lifelong goals: 1) To beat Space Quest II 2) To play any of the Leisure Suit Larry games

As luck would have it, the all-consuming conglomerate Vivendi released some reasonably priced compilations just last year. Keep that in mind come birthday time, friends of Mike! Come to think of it, I would probably even like these. I have great memories of playing the first Space Quest on our trusty old Apple IIc back in the day.