Lost Vikings

The Vikings, They Are Lost. And Badass

So I have a project. This is the first in a series of reviews where there’s no outside internet access, no research. I can’t tell you that ICO is really just a really good remake of Casper or anything like that. This time it’s going to be oldschool, the way we used to play them in our frigid dens with our big gulps and Ruffles. No internet, no manual, this is a rental off the shelf.

The Lost Vikings is perfect. From concept through to execution, every step of the design just works. It’s semiotically intuitive; save for one or two power-ups, everything pretty much does what it says on the tin. Food heals, enemies hurt, terrain kills. The objective is simple, get from the beginning of the level to the end. Each viking has a set of abilities. Olaf (the fat one) has a shield that blocks near everything and can float slowly down with it. Erik, the one that looks like Asterix, can run really fast, jump, and ram obstacles with his helmet. The other guy (whose name I forget and is less stereotypically viking) hits guys. Here’s a level, solve the puzzle, rinse, repeat. You get into a groove of using one character to scout the surroundings and finish the puzzle, and thrown off when a new gameplay element enters.

BY THE MILK OF FRIGGA!

In this way, the game is performative. You are a lost viking on a fucked up spaceship taken away from your family after a seemingly uneventful hunting trip. Every part of the game starts foreign to you with little introduction and the second you get a handle on your surroundings, the setting changes completely, everything you’ve worked out shifts. The puzzles work because they keep you puzzled, because everything is easy to understand but difficult to assemble into an overall whole.

Just by splitting the player’s capabilities between three actors the game does something innovative, forcing the player to use the different vikings in conjunction with each other. And come on, it’s fun. Vikings were, my understanding is, badass. They were warriors with long hair (which was definitely not the style at the time), and despite their contemporaries calling them ‘braids’ and ‘longie longhair’ and a series of other nonsensical but hair-related epithets, they raped and pillaged their way into our hearts. If there was some sort of historical badass hall of fame they would likely be in it. Also, they maybe discovered Newfoundland?

17 years after its creation, The Lost Vikings remains ridiculously original, an interesting and inspiring addition to a platform that was choked with a glut of terrible platformers and franchise titles.

That, my friends, is an effing funeral.

Lemmings

So I was going to go to this leadership course for the “something forum”, I forget what it is now, because my life coach told me that it would help me attract more success into my life but I decided to formulate my own curriculum instead based on playing Lemmings for as long as I could reasonably stand to. I’ve learned a number of lessons about leadership though, and I will share them with you now.

just dig!

1. People are roughly equivalent. They’re mindless servants just waiting for someone to pick up the cursor and assign them a roll. You have to take charge and assign blockers and diggers judiciously for the good of the whole because alone these poor beleagered creatures, set about on all sides by distractions, will waltz off a cliff, ending their existence (metaphorically of course). Sometimes you won’t select the one you intended to select and somebody else will get turned into a human bomb, and that’s basically okay because everyone is equal here. We just have to build a team that’s ready to jump when we say jump or explode on command etc.

2. If you’re gonna make an omelette, you have to kill a few people. Those blockers left over at the end of the level or team building exercise or whatever? Cut them loose. They’ve served well but it’s cruel to leave them in a role for longer than is required. They may stay there forever for all you know.

3. Sometimes everybody has to die. Sometimes the mission is a wash, it’s not worth watching everyone get lost or dying in agony. Just end it.

I’m really stoked for the conference next week. They’re going to notice my new and dynamic insights for sure. Cathy’s office birthday party will effing rule.

Sometimes everybody has to die.

Jeopardy!

Angus ran yet another coat of hairspray through his impressive coiffure, making sure it was just right for the big night. He had dreamt of it since junior high, after making it through to the final round of the Canadian national geography challenge. Their team had gone all the way to the end, only to lose to a George Washington High from Anchorage or something. But Alex had been there, and that was all that mattered.
His between-round dad jokes and slightly off-colour banter with contestants. His unflappable Canadian good cheer, even when it seemed apparent that he was doing a favor for someone, somewhere, and would much rather be at home recording his own voice and listening to it again, and the moustache. The moustache. A beautiful streak of gray with a clear strength that put Freddy Mercury’s comparable soup-strainer to shame, framing full lips and lending a fatherly authority to what might otherwise (we would find out later for certain) a weak, round face. All the trivia kids only had room for one person, it was either for themselves or for Alex. His face was up in many a locker, his name whispered airily at Reach For the Top meetings.
Here was the chance, all he had to do was be impressive. Angus would not be alone in vying for Alex’s affection that night though, oh no. Though Liz seemed interested mainly in the shiny studio lights, it was clear: that jackass Mike was shooting for the prize too. Stupid prep-school know-it-all with his good looks. Angus got the first topic pick and went straight for weapons; he knew weapons the way only a man with his extensive collection would. He had an entire living room full of knives and swords, there was know way this could go wrong.

Shit, shit, shit. He froze. Mike picked up the answer easily, grinning his smug grin. Angus vowed that he would pay for it, and so he did. Angus answered question after question with unerring precision. The hours and hours spent in the library would finally pay off. Abraham Lincoln, The Cotton Gin, Louis XVI, Baklava, Trifle, Jacob. He had them all, it came down to final Jeopardy and he took it in a sweep, more than doubling his opponents’ feeble answers. London was the biggest city in the world in the 19th century. Obviously.

Angus was triumphant, and he thought Alex liked what he saw.

Hagane

IN THE TIME OF BREAKFAST THE PATH TO TOAST OPENS!

Ninja Gaiden was a pretty good game. It was self explanatory, made good use of two buttons, and on top of that was really hard. I beat it awhile ago in an effort to prove my dominance over a long past younger me that was unable to cope with Ninja Gaiden’s unforgiving and often frustrating difficulty. Despite being difficult, Ninja Gaiden was simple.

Go towards the right

Watch out for your enemies

Use your sub-weapons

Don’t even think about being the individual that rails on me for not using seasonal themes or a juxtaposition of two events. I will cut you. In the spring. The point stands that Ninja Gaiden’s entire instruction set fits comfortably in haiku form. It’s simple and fits well within its limitations, making it a pretty entertaining bit of 8-bit expression.

Hagane is not Ninja Gaiden, though it certainly aspires to be. There is a ninja, and there are enemies, and you still need to walk right. The simplicity that made Ninja Gaiden a good game is conspicuously absent here, the designers seeming drunk on the possibility of having 8 whole extra bits to play with. The design is maximalist, with a tendency toward the addition of features for the sake of features. One sub-weapon? Let’s not make the player choose. Let’s include 6 sub-weapons, all of which drop in abundance and most of which are not much more useful than no subweapons at all. A spare button? Why not a screet clearing attack or a series of flips that function as questionably useful dodges?

The X button will hereafter be referred to as "action button" pursuant to section B of paragraph 4.

Go right.

There are enemies.

Use subweapons*

Use L and R to dodge**

Use A for a screen-clearing attack.

If hit 3 times, you die.

Hardly poetry.

^{*Of which there are 4 or more, all of which are dropped frequently and must be switched between using the Y button. Sub-weapon is somewhat of a misnomer as the sub-weapon selected replaces the generic attack.}

^{**This dodge is no faster than movement but it IS a cool ninja flip. Press the attack button while flipping forward to execute the DRAGON RUSH technique, wherein Hagane will dash forward, attack, and return to his original position. Yeah I don’t know why either}.

Goof Troop

TAKE THIS, IT’S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE.

February 21st, 1986, Shigeru Miyamoto’s Legend of Zelda is released. It would, after Super Mario brothers, be considered one of the first modern classics and indeed would solidify an entire genre of game whilst also giving us iconic characters. This was before game creation had been fully industrialized, and it was not a foregone conclusion that the Zelda IP would be exploited for maximum shareholder profit. We didn’t know then whether there might be a repetition of this delectable formula combining exploration, combat, adventure, and dressing like a blocky Peter Pan.

July 11, 1993: Goof Troop.

Yeah, I was going to run through this entire review pretending that Goof Troop was the sequel to The Legend of Zelda because they play very similarly and it’s easy to rag on franchise games, but reading the Wikipedia page, which admittedly had some laughs (for example:)

editorial biath, the talk page will be hearing abouth thith

also revealed that this game was designed by Shinji Mikami.

I’m not sure I’m alone in wanting to believe that sometimes in the dank puppy mills that are franchise game factories there are at times visionaries laboring away, cutting their teeth on grunt work material before being given their shot and moving on to contribute to games as a whole.

WELL GUESS WHAT? Here is one such guy. Shinji Mikami worked on no less than three Disney franchise projects (while his contemporaries were working away on some iteration of Street Fighter II) mind, pretty much tirelessly taking what he has to work with and short deadlines and probably very little in the way of production budget and making a game that, while I in no way want to play it, isn’t really horrible either. Given the constraints it’s probably pretty good.

Then what does this guy do? After having played a little game called Sweet Home on his NES and digging on George  Romero films (long before Zombies were the household film geek name they are today), this man goes ahead and creates a little game called Biohazard aka Resident Evil. Say what you will about the series, Mr. Mikami worked his way through three possibly excruciating game design gigs and then went on to, if not spawn, certainly solidify the conventions of an entirely new genre.

Oh yeah, after Resident Evil 4 pretty much knocked it out of the park, he quit and went to Clover to oversee God Hand.

Frank Thomas’ Big Hurt Baseball

If Frank Thomas has one big hurt, it’s baseball. Were you, dear reader, to take the chance and sit down beside him in the dive bar he haunts night (he’s especially fond of Wing night and Ladies’ night, for which he dresses in a floral skirt and pink bob wig, giving his fellow regulars enough of a laugh that he’s managed to score all you can drink access to the tequila trough. From time to time he will implore strangers and tourists to suck cuervo from his large distended navel to bellows of SUCK IT DOWN, SUCK IT ALL DOWN), you’ll find that Baseball really sticks in his craw. It’s the reason his occaisionally skirt-bearing ass sits ever so delicately on a barstool hemerrhoid doughnut and the reason that on three separate occaisions bud-colored and nacho textured vomit have been painstakingly mopped from the 60″ plasma that is Sal’s pride and joy. The most recent of these occaisions was just last week, during the Bud Light Lime marketing blitz that led to tens of free bottles of the stuff being consumed gratis in said drinking establishment, and why the men’s room continues to smell disturbingly of Fruit Loops and Frank’s Red Hot Sauce.

Frank Thomas, pictured here without telltale beer gut or rosacea stained features.

Frank Thomas will bellow on to near anyone who’ll listen about pitching systems, about how grip and speed are distinct from each other and the Fastball is actually more of a technique and grip rather than any sort of descriptor of the speed of the ball. It is, Frank will tell you, breath reeking of chew and corn beer, possible to throw a slow fastball and have you ever heard the like? He’ll often go on about nomenclature, dropping obscure terms like bock and Cracker Jack until the uninitiated leaves the establishment feeling as though they may be a few short moments away from being offered a glass pipe and a lifetime of lip burns and subverted risk/reward mechanisms.

See first you gotta consider direction, where ya want the ball to go.

Then ya gotta choose a pitch, it's all in grip and spin and all kinsa technical mumbo-jumbo

Hey, you wanna shot of cuervo, it's on me for humorin' an old man. SAL, JOSE, LADIES NIGHT

COME ON DON'T BE A PANSY DRINK UP. YOU'RE HERE BEFORE GOD AND MAN AND ALL THESE FELLAS CAME TO SEE YOU DRINK THIS SHOT OF JOSE

Before you black out you glimpse the 60 in the corner showing a summer shot of the jumbo-tron. You empathize with the stranded blinking light people, and then nothing.

Final Fight 3

Look, sistah, you said you wanted to join the Angels of the Exalted Second Flood, and you knew the stakes coming in. You’re baptized, it’s done and gone, now it’s tahm t’ show the sodomites and filth that there is no place for ‘em in The Lord’s light.

Now ah know you don’t like t’ be dressed like a Jezebel Slattern, but ya must be a sheep amongst wolves, child.

Now you need to git on the next train to Metro City if you’re to do your part in the Reckonin’, child. Go, GO!

But Satan Never Rests

Mah Stars ah never thought people could even live lahk this, men layin’ with other men, people dressed all kind of unseemly and violence everywhere, like the Good Lord hasn’t touched any of their lahves. If they’ve forsaken our Lord and Savior there’s nothing to be done but wahp their filth from the face of the Lord’s earth just like Genesis. The sins of Eve an’ Kain have touched each and every one of their hearts and they must repent or be swept under the waters Hallelujah!

Officer these men are causin' me all sorts of distress, oh mah Lord you're one of the Sodomites too!

As the angel Gabriel cast down his flaming sword to drive the Original Sinners from the garden forever, so shall ah. Hee-yah!

Ah cast you out, you are not fit to be our Lords children!

No, I cannot fail, let me be! I have a mission, we’re to be your salvation! You don’t understand!

Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thah name, thah kingdom come and will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven, give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgiv-

Fatal Fury Special

Jem JEM goddamnit get your father another beer I’m like to dry up and expire right here in my chair you wouldn’t want that whose pension is gonna put your goddamn cocoapuffs on the table when I’m dead and gone and paramedics are haulin my ass out this lazyboy and you’re sittin there crying over my body like some kind of pansy there’s too much of your mother in ya I always said ah thanks my son that’ll really PSSSSSSHHHTT hit the spot.

Was a time son when your dear old dad was somone t’ tussle with a real fighter Uncle Sam had me takin a slope name and going in fighting all manner of freaks and weirdos russkies boxers the whole nine. Said we’d end this goddamn cold war if we could just show em who’s boss power percieved is power archieved my son don’t matter if we ever put a goddamn American on the moon only matters that the reds think we did.

Yeah youda thought that fat man and little boy woulda been enough to keep 'em japs in line but they kept sendin' these old withered men to try an reclaim their honor and dignity and whatever the hell

Japan 1967 my son sent me to beat up this old withered fighter Jubei some student of goddamn Ken-Po Karate or some damn thing he was a pretty good fighter but couldn’t take a hit worth a damn time was your old man could channel chi with a punch, put any pansy ya might name right through the wall, dropped him to the floor inside a minute got a medal and shook hands with goddamn Tricky Dick hisself your mother took the photo in the divorce said she wanted to remember me for lying goddamn scum in good company what does that old biddy know no Jem you’re right I shouldn’t be calling your mother names while shes dead in the ground god rest her soul.

time was Uncle Sam was gettin a bit nervous about the dagos boy I'll tell you they got fire in their blood some of the only real fighters left time was you could run into a good tussle anywhere you went in Spain so long as it wasn't during Siesta

Goddamnit son turn on the AC getting drier than a cheerleader in chess club there ya go get me another Pabst while you’re up your old man has a thirst tonight. Alright where was I oh they had this Russki oh oh lord son goddamn it hurts call the ambulance do it right goddamn now aght augahhshsh nnnffffff.

He's not responding pass me that oxygen bottle clear WHUMP

Earthworm Jim 2

Pig In a Fishbowl

Earthworm Jim is a game I remember being pretty fun. It was a pretty solid platformer with shooting and absurdity and all the rest. I never did get to play the second one until now and don’t really know what to think. It’s hard to write anything dissimilar from what Travis already did, and I echo many of his sentiments quite a bit. I do think that this is an example of a situation where more is almost certainly not more. Earthworm Jim 2 sees the addition of a few things that are helpful, including your backpack mounted companion, Snott.

He can turn into a parachute which is pretty great for dealing with falling deaths until you realize that if anything hits you you go plummeting to your death Castlevania style. Also he can be used as a different kind of grappling hook than your worm whip, a decision I find perplexing. In a game where one of the most frustrating part was bits where you had to grapple around, what kind of monster would give you a second grappling hook, thus doubling the number of puzzles it uses?

Still, it’s clever in its way, and pretty fun for the time, having a couple of things that strike me as anti-platform elements. Powerups that, more interestingly than being weak or suboptimal, are in fact completely useless. The bubble gun is one. A boss fight is set up at the beginning of the first level that’s completely anticlimactic, you defeat him by pulling him from his fishbowl and eating him. A WORM EATING A FISH? HOW DELIGHTFULLY ABSURD.

After this level of madness and irreverent, you’re given the opportunity to relax by making a cow say groovy a whole bunch of times. How sweet is that?! Then there’s a level where you have to rearrange it by shooting the dirt, changing the shape of the level and digging tunnels and things, also pretty sweet.

Then my emulator legally purchased copy locked up so I didn’t get to see more.

Groovy

Groovy

Groovy

Groo-groo-groo-grooo-groo-grgrgr-groo-groo-grgrgrgrgrg-oooovy.

E.V.O: The Search For Eden

Okay, so this is the first time that I’ve actually pulled a game that is worth talking about on its own merit rather than two paragraphs of whatever followed by two sentences about the game. So here goes.

E.V.O: The Search For Eden, was a pretty innovative RPG for its time. It took RPG genre conventions in a pretty interesting direction and offered character customization that was rarely seen in consoles of this generation. The premise is this: Gaia, a personification of the spirit of Earth (man do JRPGs love their gaiaism), wants you to find Eden, but I guess she wants you to work for it so you have to run a darwinian gauntlet of no-holds barred eat-or-be-eaten paleolithic combat.

You start out as a pretty lame looking weak-ass fish.

One of the things that the retro-goggles of my childhood concealed from me was the sheer amount of grind in this game. The levels are small and there are really no puzzles to speak of, just combat to get points to upgrade your fish into a way cooler fish. I had no time for this, so did what any hardworking games journalist would: I cheated.

Old and Busted

Okay, so that was a little closer. But we can do better.

New Hotness

Yeahhhh!

So this exposes what I suppose is the only flaw of the game: that it has one but only one good idea. The game consists of getting EVO Points, getting sweet new body parts, and continuing. After awhile you have to fight a big shark who turns into some giant pieces of sushi, and then turn into a pretty stupid looking walking fish.

Hideous. Evolutionary dead end.

Oh, it gets worse, dear reader.

BEHOLD:

Ugh. Just. Why are you this way?

But mere seconds later I am a sweet dragonsaur, so it’s not all bad.

Yeahhhhhhh

So this game is still pretty fun, but if you have any fond memories of it just look at these pictures and go on about your day with a smile on your face as you remember eating other, smaller creatures for kicks.

You’re welcome.