Posts Tagged ‘games’
April Fools: Best Video Game Industry Pranks
April Fools Day. This was probably my favorite holiday growing up because you could be truly cruel and no one would call you on it because you were still a young buck. Well, as much as we in the video game industry (this includes fans) try to fight the fact that our hobby is seen as child’s play, there’s no reason to believe we wouldn’t run with it. Here are some of the best (and most cruel) April Fools Day pranks played over the years (and yes, I’m aware they’re all EGM pranks, sue me):
1992 – Sheng Long
It was probably the first or second year that Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) began doing the April Fools Pranks that they introduced the legendary character Sheng Long in Street Fighter II. The way it came about dealt with the English localization of the arcade game, which changed Ryu’s message after a win from “If you cannot overcome the Rising Dragon Punch you cannot win!” to “You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance!” See, Ryu’s Dragon Punch is “sheng long” in Chinese and the translators mistook the converted name of the attack for a person. Since Ryu was supposedly trained by a great karate master, we were to assume that was who Sheng Long was. Capcom even corrected the mistake in the SNES version, changing the phrase from “Sheng Long” to “Dragon Punch” but the instruction manual explained Sheng Long to be the master of Ken and Ryu. After that it was only one quick clever plan and EGM had people believing he could be unlocked! According to the article, you would have to beat all 11 fighters without taking a hit and get 9 draws against M. Bison and you could fight Sheng Long. Let this be a lesson, if it seems impossible, it is. It was even funnier when the April Fools Contest appeared just under the article. Ironically there is speculation that character Akuma was created based on the prank and Capcom has admitted that Gouken from Street Fighter IV is a spiritual version of Sheng Long.
Beat Hazard (Cold Beam Games)
When I think about the combination of music and video games, I can’t help but think Konami and Harmonix. Thanks to the Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) series by Konami – c’mon gamers, everyone tried it at one point – your love for music and games could be realized. Unfortunately the series focused on techno music, many tracks from Japan, and there wasn’t that connection with the songs you really wanted (although there was this awesome DDR on the original Xbox that had a remix of the Neverending Story Theme). Enter Harmonix, a company that made its humble beginnings in similar techno infused video games with titles like Frequency, and its idea to take a big cumbersome plastic guitar and mix it with hard rock tunes. Guitar Hero and the slew of spin-offs that Activision juiced out of it had one painful flaw: you were still limited with the songs that were released. Even today Rock Band has thousands of songs but you aren’t able to pick anything you want/like. That’s where Beat Hazard comes in. A twin-stick shmup that utilizes any music track you provide to create an entire level lasting the length of that track.
Okay, let’s get the setup clear because a “level” will be in a fixed location (Asteroids, Geometry Wars) and not a scrolling level (Gradius, R-Type). Enemies will appear along with certain aspects of the code to generate the various obstacles that will be thrown at you – everything from actual asteroids to large bosses. I don’t think that developer Cold Beam Games has released any info on how the game is able to take your music and create a level, but if I were the developer I’d keep that secret until my game had run its course. Even more impressive is that Cold Beam Games CEO Steve Hunt appears to have created (and possibly developed) the game by himself, although I can’t find concrete evidence of that. In addition, Hunt admits to taking the addictive concept in Geometry Wars and adapting it to taking codes from MP3 files. As time has gone on he has updated the game as well as created a definitive version, Beat Hazard Ultra, which now supports many formats such as iTunes’ AAC format and even streaming formats like those found on Last FM. The original, which can be found on the XNA community channel on Xbox Live, only supports MP3 files as far as I know.
Dropping the Ban Hammer
Have you ever eagerly anticipated the release of a game only to find out it isn’t coming to the United States? Imagine if the reasoning wasn’t due to licensing issues or internal policies by the ESRB and console developers. Aside from Rapelay, a game I can barely give credit as a video game and was never intended to see a release anyway, I’ve never heard of a game that isn’t welcome in the US. It’s one of those great freedoms that we take completely for granted in this country – we don’t have our media banned or censored federally. This isn’t to say content isn’t stripped down, many of us remember Manhunt 2 getting an AO rating that rendered it unable to release on its intended platforms (PS2 and Wii). As a result, developer Rockstar released a “toned down” version that was approved with an M rating and saw retail release. The difference between this situation and the situation in other countries is that the industry self polices and decides what is allowed and what is not. Currently the major console manufacturers refuse to release AO titles, but that doesn’t restrict a developer from releasing on PC or an available platform. In some other countries, you’re given a stringent refusal to release your product after you’ve created it.
Day 1
On the first day of Christmas my memories gave to me…
A Wish List Catalog from JC Penny!
Catalogs are definitely not the rage today. Most likely those still utilizing them are the technologically inept or those that just cannot release their grasp on the past. In the 80s and 90s, however, these little guides were responsible for hours of enjoyment to me and my fellow gamers. If you were a good enough customer of certain departments stores – namely JC Penny, Sears and Montgomery Ward, although I’m certain there were others – a massive 500+ page catalog would adorn your mailbox around the end of November. Within it was a virtual form of pretty much everything available in that specific department store, including video games. I used to love going to department stores and bask in the glory of the video game section. There would always be a line of youngsters like myself, all bundled up and overheating in winter coats, affixed to whatever the demo game was. Unfortunately, being only like eight years old, going to the department store or toy store to peruse the video game aisle was not something my mother would do at my beckoned call. On the other hand, the various department store catalogs were always available and waiting on my family’s desk.
If I haven’t made this clear enough, these catalogs were humongous, heavy books that rivaled War & Peace in size and featured glossy full color pages. Most of them would have a high price tag printed on, like $15 or $20, although I’m certain my family got all of them free because even in the 80s we were no stranger to ordering items remotely. Thanks to their massive size, these catalogs held nothing back even in the video game section, so most games on the market would appear in the catalog. If you were lucky there would be a screenshot and a little paragraph that was nothing but marketing drivel, which I always cherished as gospel, otherwise it was just box art and a price. Before Nintendo Power premiered in 1988 (and even then I didn’t have a subscription until late 1990), these catalogs were the only way to find out what great games were releasing for the holidays. I would come home from school and scour those pages, initially trying to figure out what games I wanted to ask for.
After the first week of browsing had passed and my want list written, the second function of the catalog was to create a list of all the items I would get if I were rich. Since anything and everything was in there I could sit back and imagine I had money for the SNES (about $200 at launch, out of my budget), Turbo Express (around $300) and even distant dreams of a Neo Geo (a whopping $650). Hell, even the games for the Neo Geo sold at ridiculous prices like $120, so there were times that I would list one or two of those titles and imagined I already had the system. There was often a “coming soon” section that featured upcoming titles, some of which would never see the light of day, that allowed me to assess what games were worth saving gift money for. After demand started skyrocketing for video games in the 90s, these catalogs would be excellent places to pre-order consoles and popular games as well as a last effort to grab items sold out in stores.
Catalogs from department stores were my first exposure to video game coverage, albeit a one-sided consumer driven version, but game coverage nonetheless. With parents who were against giving out personal information, even back then, I never got into the Nintendo Club by filling out a registration card. Thanks to an active imagination and a lot of free time, Christmas was celebrated over and over throughout the month of December before the actual gifts arrived.
Go on to the second day of Christmas ->
Gaming History 101 