Inspired by Ryland Walker Knight’s Convergence series at Vinyl is Heavy.
Dynamite Headdy screenshot courtesy of VGMuseum.
And then there is a game like Soul Blazer (1992), which encapsulates the fragile and tenuous balance between man and universe through roughly translated language that seems hewn from some half-completed philosophic masterwork by an author long forgotten before they could ever be remembered in the first place, illuminating moments of humanity that are probably spun at every minute of every day yet never quite brought to light in such a plain and beautiful way, and makes one wonder if a video game developer can indeed be unashamedly altruistic, wanting nothing more than to use their games as a means to impart simple existential wisdom through lines of code and patterns of colored squares, too small to be counted individually but all equally essential for the glowing tapestry that we can sometimes actually take to heart, if we are willing.
Related Links:
Hardcore Gaming 101 Retrospective on Soul Blazer developer Quintet
Gamespite forum thread on Soul Blazer (EXTENSIVE WALKTHROUGH)
TerraEarth, a site dedicated to Quintet’s “post-Actraiser” titles
I decided a short time ago to “dust off” some video games I remember sniffling through as a kid, partly to satiate my desire to weave some kind of internal magnum opus about my personal gaming history, but also because I’ll use any excuse that I can to revisit an old title and scrutinize whether they hold steadfast today or knock my rose-tinted glasses clean off my face. Unfortunately, most of the time they are the latter, but sometimes you get a nice a surprise. Case in point: Gumshoe (1986) for the NES.
I know that my horrible dime-store Hammett post title indicates that the game isn’t very accessible, and trust me, I certainly don’t like it by any means. Gumshoe is a “zapper” light-gun controlled game that also happens to be a platformer, and that is every bit as oblique and frustrating as it sounds. You actually have to shoot the main character—hard-nosed and scraggly bearded FBI agent turned detective Mr. Stevenson—to make him jump as he automatically moves from left to right through four stages of various locales. Enemies like dive-bombing crows, moths and, uh, liquor bottles impede your path; cars try to furtively sneak up behind you and run you over (too bad their horns seem to be stuck); and there are glowing instant-death boxes EVERYWHERE, complete with skull and crossbones plastered on the outside of them. Considering that you only have a limited supply of ammo (although there is a constant stream of red balloons that replenish bullets and shooting your character does not deplete their number, fortunately) and that the poor sleuth cannot keep his perpetual motion in check, this game can be brutally difficult. There’s just no way to stop Stevenson, unless you run him into a ledge or wall at juuuust the right angle. Even then, that’s a fruitless technique, as all it does is briefly change his direction; as soon as Stevenson hits the ground, he promptly continues his suicide march. Not even the attract mode can save him, since without any light gun input from the player, the first obstacle encountered on-screen will end the demo.
Let’s go back to those death boxes for a minute. When I say they are everywhere, they literally are, peppering the sky and forcing Stevenson to clumsily pick his way through this mine-field, often in mid-air. Imagine my surprise when, in the second level, I accessed a secret area in which there were skyscrapers made up entirely of these boxes…and you could walk on them without taking any damage! Was this some sort of practical joke on Nintendo’s part? Were they trying to frighten you into thinking that you now couldn’t touch ANYTHING for the rest of the game, only to pull the rug out from under you and force you to question what actually qualified as a “death brick” and what wasn’t? Playing through this area in Gumshoe is one of the more surreal moments in a videogame that I’ve ever experienced, as it was a sort of self-referential jab at the very confines of game semiotics: “Death boxes don’t necessarily mean death…but you sure thought they did, didn’t you? Also, this next box will kill you. Think about that.”
So yes, Gumshoe is a maddening game, relentless with its auto-scrolling construct and failing miserably to marry a 2D platformer with twitch shooting, especially since you have to be keeping track of both genre mechanics SIMULTANEOUSLY. That wasn’t the pleasant surprise that I discovered.
The soundtrack, though, is a different story.
What a glorious score this game has! For a 1986 NES title, the music has an amazing amount of depth and verisimilitude. In fact, the game’s dirty jazz tunes (which, admittedly, only make up a fraction of the score) are the only ligature holding the game’s gritty detective narrative together. Without it, it’s just a fever dream hodgepodge of raining boulders, giant armadillos, jumping swordfish, and other mid-80’s videogame idioms designed to kill you as quickly as possible instead of fleshing out the environment. Take, for example, the music at the beginning of the game, when you receive a ransom note detailing how to save Jennifer, Stevenson’s kidnapped daughter. Or the moments when you receive hints via anonymous phone calls at booths placed throughout the game. Even the music that accompanies the death animation has a Henry Mancini big band feel to it, with slippery horns that punctuate Stevenson’s horrific open-mouthed death yawn. Believe it or not, but Gumshoe, at times, successfully draws me into the seedy world of the private eye, and it’s all thanks to the thoroughly engaging chip-tunes. You listen to these sloppy traps and try to tell me otherwise:
Click here to download Ransom Note.mp3
Click here to download Phone Booth.mp3
Click here to download Death Cue.mp3
But, while these gnarly vamps are brilliant in their own way, the rest of the score also rises above standard NES fare. Complex in their harmonies but rhythmically inviting, these pieces make Gumshoe almost worth playing through. Almost. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find much information on who may have composed it, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Hirokazu “Hip” Tanaka had a hand in its creation, as there are definitely some “Tanakisms” present, like the persistent lack of an overarching melody or main theme, the stark minimalism, the incorporation of strange sound effects, even the use of bongos (or “bongo-like” sounds at least), which eventually found its way into the beboppin’ battle music of Earthbound (1995), which Tanaka collaborated on with Keiichi Suzuki.
Click here to download Gumshoe Level 1.mp3
Click here to download Gumshoe Level 2.mp3
Click here to download Gumshoe Level 4.mp3
It’s pretty clear that whomever composed the music for Gumshoe appreciated the nuances of jazz and knew how to create simple yet precise compositions with the NES sound chip, which is why I’ve got my money on Tanaka, but if anyone out there has the knowledge and is willing to share, please do so. In any event, it’s a fantastic score for a wholly unique but flawed 8-bit game, and it deserves your ears’ attention.
*Hard to get into but sounds great. I apologize retroactively.
Gameplay Footage (skip to 5:30 in the second clip to see the hidden “death-skyscraper” section):
Part of a continuing series of images. Click on photo to see full size.
At 8 Mott Street, near the outskirts of New York City’s Chinatown, innocuously folded away between anonymous trinket shops and musty restaurants, a cavalcade of excitement awaits those who savor the thrill of arcade fighting competition. There, I’ve had my ass handed to me at Street Fighter IV and Marvel vs. Capcom 2, gotten a quick orientation/tutorial on Arcana Hearts 2 from someone who was just happy to have a human opponent, witnessed fanatical Puzzle Fighter matches on screens tinted yellow with caked on dust and cigarette smoke, and clapped hands with fellow competitors, not due to any particular victory (those are far and few between for me), but just because a match was well played, an exciting narrative completed. Believe it or not, vieogams are still being played the way that they were 30 years ago: elbow to elbow, with friends and strangers alike, amidst the warm glow of cabinet screens, a movie theater for your hands, a communal experience unlike any other.
I hear that the dancing and tic-tac-toe is excellent too.
I remember acquiring Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990) at a Sears shortly after the game was released. I think I simply stumbled onto its giant display area by chance: I don’t recall being too keyed into what new games were coming out and when, although I did have a subscription to Nintendo Power at the time so I’m sure I knew of the game at least. The best thing about Mario games is that, as a kid, you’re pretty much guaranteed to have your parents buy you one, because EVERYONE knows about Mario and that having his name plastered on a video game means the game is going to be, above all else, familiar and non-threatening (and, not to mention, of a relatively high quality too, third-party licensed garbage aside).
So, home we went, and I had a brand new shrink wrapped Mario Bros. game in my possession. I remember twisting the yellow box in my hot little hands and being VERY EXCITED about the cover. Mario had raccoon ears! And a tail! It was going to be a totally different game than the ones that came before it!
And man oh man, was it ever. The sheer variety of stuff to see and do and have done to you was immense at the time. I dare say that almost every single level in the game is different, and I don’t mean merely in the layout of the levels or “theme” of the world, but significantly different in terms of gameplay, enemy type, and objective. Remember that stage with the Angry Sun following your every move and then actually swooping down in an attempt to sear through Mario’s very flesh? At least, that’s how I remember it, and it frightened the hell out of me. I also remember thinking that riding in Kuribo’s Shoe during certain levels was a nice addition…it was essentially a vehicular control segment, but when translated into the Mario universe of hopping along, jumping and being able to traverse over obstacles—like spikes and Munchers—that would otherwise kill you, it didn’t feel like you were just in a tank-like object ; you were utilizing a tool in a very fleshed out and breathing world, carving your own destiny out among all the other creatures that share the same habitat.
I could go on and on about how great the music is (seriously, using Latin percussion samples was a stroke of genius at the time); how the Koopa Airships and Super Tanks evoke the white knuckle difficulty of Bowser’s castles in the first Super Mario Bros.; how the card and “line the pictures up” mini-games help to break up the otherwise relentless flow of levels, right before the feeling of fatigue and frustration sets in (you cannot save in this game, after all)…but unfortunately, this story isn’t about how I grew to love Mario Bros. 3. It’s about how I lost my copy of it.
There was only one other family on my street that had an NES, and they would come over on a regular basis to borrow games from me (the mother of this particular household did day-care as well, so there were always new “clientele” dropping by). They would want to borrow Mario games mostly, but occasionally they would ask for other titles like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 or Adventure Island or Double Dribble. I could always take a game in trade, but there wasn’t much that they had that I actually wanted to play…maybe Ikari Warriors, but that’s about it. In any event, I was happy to do it—I mean, this is MARIO we’re talking about. I couldn’t imagine a house with a Nintendo system that didn’t also have more than one Mario game. Mario games are the BEST.
One day, I remember going over to their house to get my copy of Mario 3 back, and on the way back home a few other friends rode up on their bikes (baseball cards clothes-pinned to the spokes, naturally) and we chatted about something or another for a while in my driveway. Whatever nine year old boys in 1991 talked about. The Oakland Athletics, I guess?
Later that evening, the family (Mom, Dad, and older brother) piled into our beige Jeep Cherokee to go visit my Grandmother, who lived maybe 45 minutes away from us. As our Jeep turned onto the main road that would feed into the freeway (680 North, for all you Bay Area readers), I heard a pretty prominent scraping sound coming from behind my seat. I turned around and, out the back window, I saw my copy of SMB3 slide off the roof of our car and onto the road. Earlier, while I was talking with my friends in our driveway, I placed the cartridge on the roof of our car, so nobody would make a grab for it (yeah, nine year old boys in 1991 thought like that).
“OHNOMYGAME!” I shouted as the rest of my family looked at me, confused. I furiously tried to explain what happened and my Dad pulled over and jumped out of the car, thinking that maybe he could recover the game before someone else ran it over. He made it about four steps into the road before another car barreled past. No sound. It was still safe!
Another car hurdled by.
KA-FWOP.
My Dad turned on his heels and, without breaking stride, returned to the car, where I was witnessing all of this transpire, horrified. He put the car into drive and, without looking back at me, said (in that matter-of-fact tone that all Dads are able to conjure up when they need to):
“Well, that’s the end of that.”
Say what you will about the sorry state of Virtual Console, digital distribution, and how Nintendo seems to be milking every dollar out of every game that comes out of their pipeline—having Super Mario Bros. 3 available for an eight dollar download is one of the best things that company has ever done. Now I’m able to finally tell my story of childhood heartbreak with a miraculously happy ending. And I can discover the joys of platform gaming all over again.
Have your own Mario 3 memory? Please share in the comments!
Links:
Bob Mackey on Nintendo Power’s SMB3 strategy guide (which contained meticulously hand-drawn maps!!)
The Retronauts‘ podcast on the NES Mario games, in which they share their own fond personal memories/perverted fantasies
The Angry Sun
The Sun
The Sun
Screenshots courtesy of VGMuseum. Thanks also to the Mario Wiki for jogging my memory on the more esoteric enemy names. The amount of detail in that thing is frightening. Seriously, they have separate articles for the Sun as a character, the Sun as an enemy, and the Sun as a cosmic entity in the Mushroom Kingdom. That alone demands respect (?).
Some Banjo-Tooie Picking
Collision Detection
Games/New York
Yorda’s Elbow
Collision Detection
My Summer Conundrum
Pipelines, Spirals, and Betweeness
Collision Detection
Prelude to Pixelation: Norman McLaren and Early Video Games
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