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• Donkey Kong II’s Revisionist History Rights Old Wrongs

  Am I the only person on the internet who didn’t know this existed? Jeff Kulczycki, proprietor of Jeff’s Romhack, made a full on sequel to Donkey Kong entitled Donkey Kong II: Jumpman Returns. The game has a little something for everybody. For the folks out there who just love the original Donkey Kong and don’t love Donkey Kong ’94, Jeff’s made four brand new levels for you to play. For the people who still consider Donkey Kong Jr’s vilification of Mario to be a grave injustice, here’s your chance to engage in soothing revisionist history. If you want to get try out Donkey Kong II, you can head over to the infamous Funspot Arcade in New Hampshire to try and earn a killscreen of your very own. If you actually happen to own a Donkey Kong cabinet, you can actually purchase a ROM upgrade and soup that baby up. If you’re merely curious, here’s a full playthrough. Read More... Posted Apr 02 2009, 05:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, nintendo, donkey kong, shigeru miyamoto, indie dev moment, arcade, donkey kong ii, jeff kulczycki

• The Capcom Cartoon Crossover You Never Knew About

  I don't have any useful skills to offer society, but I'm pretty good at finding small glimpses of merit in awful things. That's why I'm pretty forgiving towards bad cartoon adaptations of popular video game series. For instance, I kind of liked the Street Fighter cartoon series. Parts of it were just foul, but there were small examples of effort. The 1995 movie did shameful things to the Street Fighter story continuity, which the cartoon struggled to repair with some success. Guile's failed marriage haunted him (interestingly, not a theme you found often in '90s era cash-in cartoons), Ken was a rich boy who didn't get along with his father, Dhalsim returned to mysticism and meditation, and Cammy defected to Bison and did strange things with him when the lights went out. But even my patience wears thin sometimes. I will gladly hand out gold stars to game cartoons that try, but I'll turn my back on an episode when it's obvious the writers said, “Hey guys, let's just come up with any crazy shit and go to a hockey game.” I had always figured the Street Fighter cartoon episode “The Warrior King” was such an example of writer apathy/drunkenness/depression. The episode involved a king from another planet who pops by Earth to pick up an orb that grants powers to its user. Bison gets a hold of the orb, and uses it to blackmail world leaders. Chun-Li falls in love with King Axl Rose, who must eventually return home to his regret and hers, etc. For years, the episode left me irritated. Street Fighter has sumo wrestlers, green mutants, ninjas, crazy haircuts. If you need to supplement the story by bringing in characters from Dimension X, you're not a very good writer. But I discovered recently that my irritation was misplaced. “The Warrior King” was not an instance of a junior writer using Street Fighter as an outlet for his Heavy Metal fanfiction. It was a Capcom crossover. Read More... Posted Mar 10 2009, 11:12 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: street fighter, capcom, retro, arcade, nadia oxford, game cartoons, the warrior king

• Dad of the Year Builds Custom Arcade Cabinet for Daughter

  One of the most remarkable things about this generation of gaming is that we're breeding. Yes, it's remarkable that we're finding mates with which to reproduce even after spending the Friday nights of our high school years with Final Fantasy IV, but that's not just it. We grew up with a strong appreciation for game culture, and we're passing that on to our kids. Oh sure, my father played Pong while high, but once he had children and the fun was over, his gaming hobby fell over dead, and he didn't take much away from the experience. Today, we still game and talk about games even while our kids wipe their runny noses on our skirts and pants. That's because our generation is more interesting than our parents' generation, obviously. Really, though, I think that because we grew up with narrative-heavy games (in comparison to our parents), we formed attachments to characters that are not easily dissolved. And that's why we get awesome fathers like “James,” who introduce their daughter to gaming by building a customised game cabinet that's small enough to fit in a (very pink) bedroom. Read More... Posted Mar 04 2009, 07:58 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: arcade, nadia oxford, pong, dads, bella's arcade, girls and gaming

• The Five Characters You Won’t See in Street Fighter IV

  Written by Cyriaque Lamar On February 17th, a numerical Street Fighter sequel will come out in America for the first time in ten years. In an act of unprecedented video game democracy, the good folks at Capcom allowed fans to vote for the characters that would appear in the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions. Their shortlist included such perennial favorites as the panties-flashing Sakura and the leotard-clad M16 agent Cammy. As in the 2008 presidential election, sex appeal commanded the polls. But what about those fighters who didn’t make the cut? Join me as I take a look at Street Fighter’s lesser-known pugilists and postulate why these lovable losers didn’t earn a silky-smooth 3D sheen. Rolento Who? Rolento debuted as a boss in the 1989 arcade beat-em-up Final Fight. As a boss character, he was entitled to certain amenities players were not, such as a baton, incendiaries, and a subscription to the Ginsu-Of-The-Month Club. When he turned up in 1996’s Street Fighter Alpha 2, he returned with all of his thwacking, exploding, and stabbing habits intact. Why He Should Have Been in SFIV Rolento is an absolute hoot to play. For a game full of high-flying karate-men, it’s surprising that the most agile character is the guy with grenades strapped to his pectorals. Rolento’s moves include a wide array of flips, rolls, and the ability to use his baton as a pogo stick. Playing him is like playing a paramilitary spider monkey. Furthermore, his backstory is hilariously bad even by Street Fighter standards. As he puts it, Rolento aims to create a militaristic new world order free of “panty-waist politicking”. Revolutionary rhetoric. Why He Isn’t We suspect his absence has something to do with all those unfair knives, grenades, and super moves involving trip wires and impaling opponents with crane hooks. The moment you bring a goddamn crane to fisticuffs is the moment you’ve left the realm of “street fighting” and gone headlong into “demolition derby” territory. Read More... Posted Feb 06 2009, 05:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: playstation 3, street fighter, xbox 360, capcom, final fight, street fighter ii, street fighter iv, arcade, street fighter iii, cyriaque lamar, street fighter alpha

• Fandom Unplugged: '80s Arcades and Hero Worship

  Arcades were once a key component of video game fandom. Before online gaming, and even before home consoles made gaming more of a solitary activity for a time, the fandom was a simpler affair: if you wanted to game, you had to gather in a hut and slap buttons. Here, there was a tribe. Here, hierarchies formed among faceless, nameless regulars who gradually became known. Arcades weren't living entities. They were simply buildings (often ramshackle) that kept the rain off Asteroids and Donkey Kong. Nevertheless, they quickly gained a scummy reputation as hideaways for truant males who were still young enough to be grimacing at the taste of their ill-bought beer. Arcades did attract some unsavoury types, as will any kind of social club. But for the most part, arcades were simply a place to prove yourself—and to have others admire you as you forced your will upon those machines. We laugh now at fan drama and scoff at little girls' arguments about whether or not Cloud is more emotionally tortured than Squall. Realistically, is that more insignificant than a fight over a high score in Donkey Kong? Read More... Posted Feb 05 2009, 10:34 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with no comments Filed under: donkey kong, king of kong, arcade, nadia oxford, arcades, fandom unplugged, asteroids

• Super Street Fighter HD Turbo HD Remix C-C-Combo Makers

  Super Street Fighter II holds a place near and dear to my heart. Somewhere near the left ventricle, I'd wager. I'm very fond of Street Fighter in general. I spent two summers honing my Hadokens. The first summer, I'd had surgery and spent a lot of time bumming around indoors. The second summer, I worked in an amusement park with several arcades and let's just say those big shady boxes of joyful noise were a great place to hide during the hottest part of the day. I'm kind of skeptical about how well Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix will work out for the average Street Fighter fan--by the way, this is a good time to stop and assure you that I'm a competent player but I still get annihilated in the arcades and would burn to a cinder if I went within twenty feet of a tournament--but I'm really looking forward to it. The endings, at least, should be fun. Let's all watch Guile crawl back to his wife from his failed gay military relationship in glorious HD. Here's a video of insane combos performed in Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (I'm getting tired of typing all that, God have mercy on the reviewers). The video also offers some glimpses of the redone backgrounds. I always dug the dragons in Fei Long's stage, and now I can see the whites of their reptilian eyes. Eeeek. Read More... Posted Nov 07 2008, 10:09 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: snes, super street fighter II turbo hd remix, retro, arcade, nadia oxford, super street fighter ii

• You’re Doing Great, Sega: Space Harrier Returns

  Space Harrier, unlike a lot of Sega’s other arcade games in the mid-80s, was a little light on challenging play. Your little blonde dude and his huge gun flew across the seemingly endless surface of The Fantasy Zone, shooting all kinds of dragons and cycloptic wooly mammoths, but it never quite felt like anything you did had a physical impact on the world. Things exploded when you shot near them but it didn’t ever feel like you were actually causing it to happen. But Yu Suzuki’s debut game stands out in history because it was, and is, staggeringly beautiful. Its scaling sprite graphics were an important landmark on the road to making lush three-dimensional – not true 3D mind you, but close – game worlds. Harrier’s Fantasy Zone is as bizarre and unique a visual space as anything else that came out of Sega (arguably even stranger and more fully realized than Opa Opa’s Fantasy Zone.) It also had some of the most hilarious voiceovers in a game. One of my earliest gaming memories is of a Space Harrier machine repeatedly yelling, “You’re doing great!” in the corner of a Pizza-Hut. It made me laugh so hard, Pepsi came out my nose, and everyone knows that the true test of comedy is whether or not it can make you leak fluid. It’s strange then, considering Sega’s recent penchant for resurrecting their iconic franchises, that Space Harrier has remained untouched for twenty years. The only sign of the series since 1988 was Sega’s arcade shooter Planet Harrier in 2001, an obvious spiritual successor but still not a proper Space Harrier 3. If Tez Okana has his way, Space Harrier won’t stay unloved for long. Read More... Posted Nov 05 2008, 06:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, platinum games, wii, sega, sonic the hedgehog, space harrier, arcade, house of the dead, asttro boy, tez okana, thunder force vi

• The Videogame Ages, part 2

  In part one of The Videogame Ages, I discussed the inadequacy of “generation” language in gaming, and laid out The Golden Age of gaming. In part two, I look at the Silver and Bronze ages before taking a look at the modern era and the future. The Silver Age – 1983 to 1996 8-Bit, 16-Bit, Early Handheld, Early 3D, Advanced PC and Arcade The silver age of games is defined by expansion, in not just playability but breadth of experience. When home computers became affordable and home consoles began diversifying, games started transforming from immediate, single-mechanic experiences into more lasting forms. Silver age games were still about escalating challenge, but high scores ceased being the goal, replaced by definitive endings. Games started becoming more explicitly narrative-driven, as aesthetic justification on consoles and as the focus of many PC games (see the entire adventure game genre.) Portable gaming also started to rise to prominence during this period, early single-screen LCD games replaced by multi-game consoles like the Game Boy and Atari Lynx. Arcade and PC game technology pulled far away from home consoles, but all games were shifted from the rough visual abstraction of golden age games, into more aesthetically recognizable presentations – albeit still cartoonish impressionistic rather than realistic. The rise of polygonal 3D graphics, both real-time full 3D (Yu Suzuki’s Virtua series) and pre-rendered (Myst, etc.), at the end of the silver age marks the transition to bronze. In 1996, with the release of Mario 64, Tomb Raider, and Quake, the silver age comes to a close. Read More... Posted Oct 27 2008, 06:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, boom blox, little big planet, game boy, halo 3, nes, PC, half-life, mac, mario 64, atari, Playstation, super mario bros, nolan bushnell, spore, tomb raider, 8-bit, 16-bit, quake, mmo, arcade, famicom, littlebigplanet, spacewar!, bob dvorak, golden age, 128-bit, Magnavox odyssey, myst, bronze age, silver age, pong, 32-bit, tennis for two

• The Videogame Ages, part 1

  This past Friday, I tried to slip a little piece of language into a discussion about game emulation that I was wary about using at all. At this point, the go-to boundaries for discussing videogames’ admittedly small history is console-technology generations. We say 8-Bit or 16-Bit because these are easy identifiers based on competing, contemporary technologies. But the language “The 8-Bit Generation” doesn’t account for arcade technology, PC games, or portable gaming. Now that Bob Dvorak’s Tennis for Two is officially fifty years-old, I think we can finally start applying broader terms to gaming’s evolutionary eras. Obviously history is fluid, and chances are these classifications won’t hold true in 2050, but for now they work. The Hesiodic ages, as laid out here, consider games on every platform; the rigid parameters of home consoles, the advanced nature of PC and Mac gaming throughout the 1980s and ‘90s, the fast strides made by arcade technology throughout that same period, and the predominantly inferior technology available in handheld gaming. Unlike Hesiod’s Ages of Man, however, the videogame ages are (mostly) a positive progression. Please note: these are not strict definitions. This is a discussion, and I want everyone to make their opinions heard in the comments section. Now then, onward to the Golden Age. Read More... Posted Oct 27 2008, 05:30 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, boom blox, little big planet, game boy, halo 3, nes, PC, half-life, mac, mario 64, atari, Playstation, super mario bros, nolan bushnell, spore, tomb raider, 8-bit, 16-bit, quake, mmo, arcade, famicom, littlebigplanet, spacewar!, bob dvorak, golden age, 128-bit, Magnavox odyssey, myst, bronze age, silver age, pong, 32-bit, tennis for two

• Where Did You Begin?

  61 Frames Per Second has been chugging along for a few months now, collecting readers and writers alike. Whatever differences those who come here may have, we all share an interest in video games and thus, I've become curious. When did you first play a video game? Read More... Posted Sep 12 2008, 10:00 AM by Amber Ahlborn with | with 10 comment(s) Filed under: amber ahlborn, atari 2600, arcade, retro game

• A Perfectly Cromulent Beat-Em-Up

  Were you aware that newly-released XBox Live Arcade game Castle Crashers is a revival of the old arcade genre known as the beat-em-up (or brawler) that flourished in a roughly five-year period?  Of course you are.  You're reading a gaming blog, for Christ's sake. But you might not be aware of this absolute fact: The Simpsons, Konami's take on the genre--seemingly perfected a few years earlier with their own Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles--is the best damned beat-em-up to ever exist.  Here's a brief reminder: Capcom would eventually move things to the next level with their Dungeons and Dragons arcade games, but no beat-em-up was more fun than The Simpsons. Read More... Posted Aug 27 2008, 10:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 7 comment(s) Filed under: simpsons, arcade, bob mackey, brawlers, beat-em-ups

• Street Fighter IV in NYC and We've Got Proof This Time

  John may have had a premature prophetic dream about Street Fighter IV at the Chinatown Fair arcade last month, but it's sure as shoryuken there now. How do I know? Because we just so happened to be in the arcade at the precise moment that the Street Fighter IV cabinets were brought out of the closet and into the game room. Check out some hastily captured cell phone camera evidence after the jump. Read More... Posted Aug 22 2008, 11:00 AM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, derrick sanskrit, street fighter 4, arcade, chinatown

• True Tales of Pinball Wizardry

  It should be impossible for anyone under 30 to be sentimental over pinball, so my affinity for the medium really doesn't make a lick of sense.  But if we're looking for pivotal moments that inspired this passion, we simply have to set the sepia-toned time filter to 1992, when my local arcade (still a possibility in 1992) got their own The Addams Family pinball machine.  This was the first time a  ever demanded more than a quarter at a time from me, but--even as a frugal, jobless ten year-old--it was undeniably awesome, despite the steep price of 50 cents per play.  And if you believe Wikipedia, The Addams Family is the most popular pinball machine of all time. Read More... Posted Aug 19 2008, 06:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: arcade, pinball

• Alternate Soundtrack: Altered Beast vs. Natalie Portman's Shaved Head

  Altered Beast tells the story of a Centurian raised from the dead to rescue Athena from blahblahblah whatever. Altered Beast was an arcade beat 'em up from Sega in the 1980's, back when stories in video games existed but really served no purpose. Why did Donkey Kong kidnap Mario's girlfriend? Who cares? Climb to the top of the tower! And since when are Sega games known for their stories? Sonic the Hedgehog has a story, but all you care about is running real fast. NiGHTS has a story, but all you care about is flying around in circles. Crazy Taxi probably has a story, but it's even less important than the one in Sonic. In Altered Beast, you are a dude in a tunic who beats up zombie monsters. You collect power-ups which first transform you into an oiled-up beefcake of homoerotic manliness and then into one of several powerful man-beasts. Read More... Posted Aug 05 2008, 10:30 AM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: alternate soundtrack, derrick sanskrit, sega, genesis, arcade, altered beast