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  • 8-Bit Love: The Ten Greatest Vintage Game Songs to Have Sex To, part 2

    Cyriaque Lamar is a New York-based writer with a New Jersey-bred weltanschauung. He’s had original work published at Cracked.com and performed at The New York International Fringe Festival. Cyriaque is thrilled to contribute to 61FPS, as it brings him one step closer to his childhood dream of living on the set of Nick Arcade.

    5.) Final Fight CD – “Walk In the Park (Bay Area)”



    System: Sega CD (1993)
    Sounds Like: A sweaty nooner with Don Johnson.
    I always loved the premise of Final Fight. The idea of a city’s mayor stripping down to his underjohns and beating the shit out of unemployed people in order to stimulate job growth was really ahead of its time. Wait? Mike Haggar was actually fighting to save his daughter from an evil street gang? And here I thought the game was some kind of radical Objectivist propaganda. This Bay Area theme is classic whatever console you play Final Fight on, but the Sega CD version pushes it to the limit with gale-force porno guitars. Seriously, these riffs are like an F4 on the Fujita Scale. In my mind’s eye, the person who would get the most out of this track wears a ton of sea foam green and frequents Fort Lauderdale whorehouses. Sometimes, you just gotta be that person. When it comes to the Sega CD, the only thing sleazier is Night Trap.

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  • 8-Bit Love: The Ten Greatest Vintage Game Songs to Have Sex To, part 1

    Cyriaque Lamar is a New York-based writer with a New Jersey-bred weltanschauung. He’s had original work published at Cracked.com and performed at The New York International Fringe Festival. Cyriaque is thrilled to contribute to 61FPS, as it brings him one step closer to his childhood dream of living on the set of Nick Arcade.

    There are three reasons this list exists. First, I felt obliged to highlight 61FPS’s distinction as the gaming apparatchik of an internet sex publication. Second, I wished to showcase the unsung virtuosos of yesteryear who made masterworks using a limited palette of sounds. Finally, I intend to rebut those critics who still dismiss video games as low culture. Using the below examples, I intend to reclaim the carnal legacy of video games by evincing how early console music illustrated the gamut of human sexuality, from atavistic, heteronormative modes of eroticism to polymorphous perversity as delineated by Freud.

    Plus, the thought of people sticking penises into vaginas to Nintendo music is funny.

    10.) Radical Dreamers – “The Girl Who Stole the Stars”



    System: Super Famicom Satellaview (1996)
    Sounds Like: Koyaanisqatsi composed on Mario Paint.
    Since roughly 95% of all human lovemaking involves someone with a XX chromosome pairing, I thought it necessary to seek out my female associates’ thoughts on which game music best applies to amore. The suggestions I received were few yet incisive — responses ranged from “the Kid Icarus theme” to “Who the eff effs to video games?” Ultimately though, I deferred to my own instincts and picked this pan-pipe jam from the Japan-exclusive, text-based sequel to Chrono Trigger. Composed by the legendary Yasunori Mitsuda, “The Girl Who Stole the Stars” is easily the most romantic theme on our list.

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  • Bare Knuckle 3 Translation Puts the Rage Back into Streets of Rage

    While the Streets of Rage series is mostly a forgotten relic these days, Sega's answer to Final Fight is fondly remembered by many as the superior alternative to Capcom's brawler--especially since the home version of Final Fight didn't even have friggin' multiplayer. But it's recently come to my attention that the changes made in the translation from Bare Knuckle (the Japanese name for the series) to Streets of Rage are mostly unknown to the gaming public. So thank heavens we now have Twilight Translation's Bare Knuckle III translation patch in our lives to right Sega's 15 year-old wrong of inexplicably changing the game's story.

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  • 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.

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  • 1UP's Top Ten Videogame Politicians

    In an idea I wish I would've thought up(seriously), 1UP scribe Scott Sharkey has picked out ten popular video game politicians and placed them in an order which may signify their importance.  I thought the entry on Final Fight's Mike Haggar was especially telling:

    The spitting image of future Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura, Mike Haggar was the original trailblazer of former pro-wrestling politicians, beating "The Body" to the punch by nearly a decade. His "personally pound the crap out of everyone" platform has sadly failed to enter the realm of life imitating art.

    As is the case with most political Internet articles that allow comments, some of the best material can be found in the venomous responses filled with inappropriate rage--no offense to Sharkey, of course. Take this comment from a fellow named IronTigerMonkey; I'm not sure if he's being satirical, but you shouldn't really count anything out in these scary days of Web 2.0:

    ... If I am to understand the structure of a top ten list, you guys are basicly saying that you would rather Saddam Hussien (albeit video game version) to be the next president then Abraham Lincoln. Either that or you shouldn't use a headline that makes it sound like top ten worst vid politicians. Way to screw up everything 1up you suck gecko dick diped in coconut sauce. It is people like you 1up that are be puting George Bush in power, quit promoting your hidden adgendas with misleading top ten lists!!!!!

    To all of you faithful commenters on 61 FPS: I love you. Really.

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  • Question of the Day: Why Can’t I Emulate?



    I am a console gamer. It’s not something I’m proud of, not a badge I wear to mark myself or somehow justify the way I view the medium as a whole. It does, however, define what I’m drawn to play, what genres I return to year after year, and just what I’ve had the opportunity to play since I was four years-old. Only playing games on devices that fit in my pocket or plug into a television has, by turns, given me an incredibly imbalanced game-literacy. Deep, respected play experiences bound to personal computers are things I’m familiar with by name only. Space Quest? Fallout? Oh, yeah, sure, I’ve heard of those. Great games, right? Call me a nerd with a seriously warped perspective, but I’m actually embarrassed, that guy sitting in a circle of academics discussing James Joyce and having to admit that the last book I read was Harry Potter. My console crutch hasn’t just kept me away from keyboard-and-mouse-only fare either; there are literal hundreds of classic console games I’ve never played, and will never have the spare cash or access to the actual cartridges or discs, waiting at my fingertips via emulation.

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  • Alternate Soundtrack: Mighty Final Fight vs. Radio 4

    Conceived as a sequel to the original Street Fighter, Capcom's Final Fight was an admitted take-off of Technos' Double Dragon side-scrolling beat 'em ups. Already a hit in the arcades and 16-bit consoles, Capcom took the next logical step with its new gang violence franchise: rebuilding it with super-deformed style anime graphics for the 8-bit and obsolete Nintendo Entertainment System in 1993.

    Comically playing through the story of a city under siege by roving street gangs and the three dudes who fight it (including the burly bodybuilder mayor), Mighty Final Fight plays wonderfully with Radio 4's 2002 sophomore LP, Gotham!, a post-punk opus to a ravaged and dilapidated New York City.

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  • Capcom to Date, By the Numbers



    Late spring is always an interesting time to watch videogame publishers. With the close of the fiscal year, companies sit their investors and the media down to talk about how things have been going, what people are playing, and, most excitingly, what’s on the horizon. They also occasionally drop information that is ripe for trivia. For example, Capcom, the publisher you may remember as the one I have an unhealthy relationship with, released a list of all-time series sales numbers for the company. The usual suspects like Street Fighter and Mega Man are all over the list but, surprisingly, neither of those series take the top spot. Capcom’s best-selling series over the past twenty-five years has been Resident Evil, with over fifty games released world-wide and 34.5 million sold. Mark that down for quiz night.

    Hit the jump for the top ten.

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  • Oh! My Car

    Yes, I realize I'm mixing my references a little here. Enjoy this minute of comedy from the good folks at Mega 64.



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John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Hooksexup, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.


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