#oneaday Day 161: Plans for Tomorrow

Tomorrow I’m going to do some streaming, as I have done the past few weeks. 8pm UK time, twitch.tv/pjedavison. Be there, or… don’t be there, I guess. But it’d be nice if you were.

Rather than grinding through another layer of Mon-Yu, though, I thought it’d be a nice opportunity to play some shoot ’em ups and, assuming his availability lasts, have a bit of a chat with my good friend Chris, who enjoys a good shoot ’em up. We haven’t had the opportunity to record a MoeGamer Podcast for a very long time, and while this isn’t quite the same thing, it’ll be fun to have a good chat. As an American, Chris is quite understandably a bit under the weather about… everything, so hopefully a bit of fun will take his mind off things for a couple of hours.

Anyway! I don’t have overly specific plans other than “play some fun stuff”, but I’m going to keep it limited to the Evercade Toaplan Arcade cartridges, of which there are now four. (Well, technically there will be four by the end of the year, but since I work for Blaze I have the last two already.) These are, for me, personal highlights of the complete Evercade library, and I’m thrilled to have worked on all of them.

The games are fantastic, and we were fortunate enough to have access to former Toaplan staffers such as Masahiro Yuge and Tatsuya Uemura to provide some additional commentary for the manuals. I even managed to get some commentary from Tim Follin for Toaplan Arcade 4, since that features the NES port of Sky Shark, which has a soundtrack by the great man himself — though he doesn’t think it’s his best work!

I’m not sure how well streaming copes with something as frenetic as a shoot ’em up, but it’ll be an interesting experiment regardless. Rationally speaking, if a stream can cope with modern 3D games such as first-person shooters and real-time strategy games, I’m sure it can cope with spaceships going boom.

Like I say, I haven’t decided specifically what I might play on stream as yet; I’ll just take things as they come. I’ll probably give the new collections some love, though, as they have a number of games that I think are particularly interesting and noteworthy. Toaplan Arcade 3, for example, has both Batsugun and Batsugun Special Version, which are spectacularly good games, but I want to give Vimana some love, too, as that’s one very few people have heard of and I really like it.

A word of caution: don’t come to this stream expecting high-level play, or anything other than very basic competence. I love shoot ’em ups, but I’m not super-good at them. This is probably because, like many things, I don’t put enough practice in to get good, which is where I think a stream like this might be fun. I can take some time to practice, chat, talk strategy and just generally shoot the breeze — and hopefully having an additional participant in the mix will present some fun topics of discussion. We’ll try not to rant too much about the state of the modern world.

So yeah. That’s the plan for tomorrow. I’ll be going ahead with the stream regardless of whether Chris is available (but he’s said he should be) so please do stop by for a bit if you feel like it! See you then!

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

2071: Eschatos

The other day, I talked a bit about shoot ’em up Cardinal Sins. Today, I’ve been spending some time with its follow-up (or, more accurately, the follow-up to Judgement Silversword) Eschatos.

Eschatos is very obviously cut from the same cloth as its predecessors, since it plays almost identically. Its main difference is the fact that it’s a considerably more technically advanced game, boasting dynamic camera angles, full 3D polygonal graphics and all manner of other goodies. It’s not the most stunning game you’ll ever see, but it looks good for a game of this type, and it runs gloriously smoothly, which is of vital importance to the genre.

(At least, the original Xbox 360 version of Eschatos runs gloriously smoothly; at the time of writing the newly translated PC version has some framerate issues on nVidia cards, but the devs are working on resolving this.)

Eschatos is a shoot ’em up that understands that shoot ’em ups should be thrilling theme park rides: exciting and surprising at first, predictable after a few goes. That “predictable” part is important: the essence of getting good at a game of this type is learning what the game is going to throw at you and then dealing with it accordingly, which is something you can only do with practice.

Eschatos makes the learning process quite straightforward by splitting each of its stages into areas, and each of its areas into waves. In order to get the best scores, you need to completely clear waves in succession (which increases your score multiplier) as quickly as possible (which nets you a time bonus, multiplied by your multiplier). Even boss encounters are broken down in this way, making it relatively straightforward to learn what to expect, with the challenge then coming from correctly and consistently dealing with it.

It’s particularly nice to note that the scoring system is easy to understand and parse, even on the game’s “Advanced” mode; having largely come to modern shoot ’em ups through Cave games, which tend to have some of the most complicated scoring mechanics known to man, this is a very pleasant surprise indeed, because it makes it easy to understand how to get better at the game: destroy more stuff more quickly, simple as that. (This is where someone chimes in and points out it’s actually much more complicated than that, naturally…)

I’m a fan. I must confess the 360 version had been on my shelf for a while unplayed, but the event release of the Steam version (and the realisation it could do with a patch) inspired me to dig it out again. I’m once again reminded that Japanese devs really are the masters of their craft… and, apparently, of glorious FM synthesis music that sounds like it’s straight out of a Mega Drive game.

Time to go chase some high scores!

1230: In Pursuit of Score

The sole aim in a lot of video games circa the ’80s and early ’90s used to be to attain a high score. But in all but a few genres of gaming, that simple pleasure of watching a number get steadily higher — a number which proved indisputably how much better than your friends you were — has fallen by the wayside. This is kind of a shame because, having been playing a bunch of games recently in which the old-school objective of “score as many points as possible” is their reason for existence, it’s, you know, fun. Lots of fun.

My fondest memories of high-score chasing in recent years came with two different Xbox Live Arcade games: Geometry Wars 2 and Pac-Man Championship Edition DX. Both of these games got their hooks into both me and my friends and saw us eschewing bigger, more exciting, more impressive releases that were around at the time in favour of simply pumping in virtual quarter after virtual quarter. Geometry Wars 2 in particular completely monopolised the gaming time of a number of us for a good several weeks, as each of us vied for dominance of the game’s six different leaderboards. It became a sort of hypnotic ritual — fire up the game, start up (say) Pacifist mode, play, die, immediately restart and repeat. Three hours later, I’d look up and see that, well, three hours had passed, and that my hands had locked into a claw shape only suitable for 1) holding a controller or 2) in a pinch, wanking.

Since those two games, however, there haven’t been that many other titles that have drawn the attention of my friends and I quite so consistently. This is a shame, as I greatly enjoyed that feeling of competition, and relished the opportunity to take a snapshot of my latest high score and rub it in the face of a competitor via some form of social media. (This is where the term “Be A Dick Mode,” often stylised as the hashtag “#beadickmode” on Twitter, originated.)

I’ve been thinking about how and why there hasn’t been a simple score-attack game to get everyone’s teeth into for a long time. And the only plausible reason I can think of is the fact that gaming has grown even more broad and diverse since that time. The rise of mobile phone games in particular has all but eliminated the perceived need for “simple” arcade games with a score attack mechanic, which is somewhat sad.

Bejeweled Blitz remains popular, of course, but I now refuse to play that game because it’s become infested with pay-to-win crap. Leaderboards are utterly meaningless if you sell advantages to players, which is what PopCap’s doing. Unfortunately, I appear to be in a minority thinking this, as the “Blitz” puzzle template is immensely popular — in-app purchases and all — with the latest addition to the formula being a rather sorry addition to the Tetris legacy from EA. I’m just not interested; what’s the point in playing if all it takes to top the leaderboards is being more willing to dip your hand into your pockets than your rivals? Bullshit, I say. Bullshit!

Fortunately, there is a degree of respite, albeit one that I’m yet to convince my friends to engage with. The shmup genre — which people on the Internet don’t quite seem able to agree as to whether it’s flourishing or dying — remains a resolutely score-focused genre, and demands a great deal from its players both in terms of simple manual skills and in the learning of often-complex scoring mechanics. Like a good fighting game demands that you spend time exploring its systems and getting to know how everything fits together, a good shmup demands that you study it, figure things out and then try to put all that knowledge into practice while attempting to avoid fiery laser death.

It’s immensely satisfying when you figure out how a particular game “works”, and the first time you see your score skyrocketing into the high millions or even billions. It’s a genre that brings thrills and excitement with minimal effort expended on storytelling or trying to do anything particularly “artistic”, but at the same time the finished result can be oddly beautiful — hypnotic bullet patterns; the “dance” of the player’s ship navigating through these perilous onslaughts; the sheer, unrelenting energy of most of these games. But these games aren’t trying to say something in the same way that an arty indie platformer is trying to say something; no, instead, all they’re trying to say is “c’mon, one more try and you’ll beat that score” or “c’mon! Bet you can’t clear me in one credit.”

#oneaday Day 940: Insert Coin

When I was young, I loved arcades. There was something magical about going to one of those dingy rooms, inserting your pocket change into a slot and playing games that were far beyond anything home computers and consoles offered. The arcade experience was all the more “special” here in the UK, as traditional game arcades tended to only be found at the seaside. As a resident of a landlocked county growing up, a trip to the seaside was typically a sign that it was “holiday time” — and, consequently, “arcade time.”

I liked the arcade experience so much I regularly tried to recreate it at home. I liked playing games that specifically called the feeling of playing an arcade game to mind — I recall Stratos on the Atari 8-bit being one of the earliest examples, later followed by the (rather poor) Atari ST ports of titles like Turbo OutRun and After Burner. I also loved the original Starfox/Starwing for how much it felt like it could have been an arcade machine — everything about its presentation called to mind a “50p a go” sit-down machine that was actually hooked up to my television. Especially the noise it made when you pressed Start on the title screen. (Seriously. I loved that game almost entirely for how arcadey that noise was.)

For some reason, though, I’ve never owned an arcade stick — the ultimate accessory in making your home gaming systems feel authentically arcadey. I think it’s been partly due to the fact that I’ve never been particularly good at fighting games — the primary reason most people get such a peripheral. But with Persona 4 Arena and Dead or Alive 5 coming soon, I figured it was time to take the plunge and give one a try, particularly as it would also likely prove to be a fun addition to the “bullet hell” shmups I like playing, too.

The stick I eventually settled on — after the whole CeX/PS3 Street Fighter IV stick debacle, now thankfully resolved — was the catchily-named Qanba Q4RAF. I can pretend to know what I’m talking about when I say that this stick has Sanwa components and is dual-modded out of the box to allow compatibility with PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. The latter feature is the primary reason I chose this stick — it’s not the cheapest, but given that I wouldn’t have to buy additional sticks for the other systems if I found myself enjoying the more authentic “arcade” experience, it seemed like a sensible option. I have it on the good authority of the Internet that Sanwa components in an arcade stick are A Good Thing, too, so there’s that.

I spent a bit of time trying it out today. In Street Fighter IV on the PC, it performed admirably, and allowed me to reliably perform a Shoryuken motion without any difficulty whatsoever — something I have always had trouble doing on a pad, and particularly on the Xbox 360’s dreadful D-pad. Just the positioning of the buttons made a lot of moves significantly more comfortable to perform, too. So while I am no expert at virtual fisticuffs as yet, I feel that using the stick will certainly help me to get better.

I also tried it out with Deathsmiles on the 360, one of my favourite shmups. Here, the stick really came into its own, allowing easy shooting in both directions as well as access to the game’s other functions. The digital stick proved a lot more sensitive and accurate than I expected, too, allowing for very precise movement amid the hails of bullets. I’m looking forward to trying it out with titles like DoDonPachi Resurrection, Akai Katana and Gundemonium Recollection.

Finally, I tried it with Scott Pilgrim on the PS3. Again, it worked well, with the chunky controls and clicky stick feeling very much like the way this game was intended to be played. A successful test all round, then — and absolutely no issues in switching between the three different platforms.

I’m a total convert, then — and now very much looking forward to the experience of playing Persona 4 Arena properly arcade-style. Hell, just looking forward to playing Persona 4 Arena. Damn, I miss those characters.