Finished: God of Wars

Like many of the best of the PS2 era, God of War I & II are games that I’m embarrassed not to have played until now.

Upon completion, my first response was to be dismissive, to disparage the titles. I wanted to call them simply a violent Zelda with tits, the video game versions of a 1980s R-rated action flick, gratuitous strip club scene included. These games not only go over the edge of gore and T&A, they revel in it.

Then I realized, that’s the beauty of the series. God of War (here I’m referring to the series as a whole) takes the greatness and exaggeration of the mythology on which it’s based and goes nuts. Everything is big: the battles, the bosses, the characters, the swords, and the breasts. Nothing is subtle here, even the majority of Krato’s speaking parts are yelled out, and when not hampered down by camera issues and suspension-breaking platformer challenges, it all works.

When I play a game, the most evil you’ll see me ever take a character is maybe somewhere just shy of ne’er-do-well. I’ve admittedly got some sort of over-empathy thing going on, as just playing the role of an evil person makes me feel bad, and I find it unenjoyable. Now while Kratos isn’t evil, per say, he does have some serious issues, and there were a few points here and there that were just not fun to play (the man in the cage, for example).

Hmm, the whole game morality issue is a discussion in itself, so for now I’m just putting it out there that I found some of the situations off-putting.

The sequel, expanding on the bigger and badder of the series, takes the Kratos is a dick thing even further, although I’ll admit that battling mythological heroes was a blast. The Perseus fight, with its Harry Hamlin plucked straight out of Titans, was one of the highlights of the game.

Plus/Minus, God of War:
+ Holy crap this feels epic.
+ He’s a dick, but Kratos does seem legitimately badass.
+ Character designs and level architecture are a lot of fun.
+ Gives the player a bit more life each time a checkpoint is reattempted. Nice.

- Camera is maddening, flip-flopping at the worst times and creating difficult angles of control.
- Platformer puzzles without the platformer control. Ugh.
- Overly complex controls, could’ve done more with less.
- Quicktime events: not a fan.

Final grade: B-

Plus/Minus, God of War II:
+ The good points from above. More epic!
+ Colossus battle: hell of a way to start the game!
+ Controls felt much better in the platforming bits.
+ Impressive ending cinematic has me excited for the sequel.

- Fodder battles became tedious.
- Quicktime events: still not a fan.

Final grade: B

link love 12-28-08

New retro-indie-coinop blog Just One More Game is off to a great start. Check out his first month of great content, and add ‘em to your rss reader.

Capping off the holiday season: the fascinating and sordid history of bubble lights.

Lastly, ya can’t end a year without lists. Eurogamer’s Top 50 of the 2008 and GameTrailers Game of the Year Awards are a couple worth checking out.

Child’s Play Charity - Support UMC

Las Vegas’ own UMC Children’s Center was added to the Child’s Play Charity roster last year, and thanks to the generous giving of the gamer community, they were happily inundated with gifts that allowed the young temporary residents of the children’s hospital to have at least a slightly less unenjoyable stay. Being sick sucks, and as many of us know, a good video game can be a hell of a way to take your mind off the things that ail you for a bit.

While tonight is Christmas Eve, the toy drive continues until the end of the year. If you’ve yet to donate, please take a moment and browse the UMC Amazon wishlist, or visit Child’s Play and find your own local hospital to support. Buying games is fun (even if it’s not for yourself), you’ll be doing a great deed for a sick kid, and who knows, that copy of Dragon’s Quest IV for the DS just might be the catalyst that creates a new gamer for life.

Merry Christmas, all.

link love 12-10-08

It’s the sorry for the lack up updates but I’m still settling into an actual working schedule edition.

A Very Special Shutdown Notice.

For the locals, Alternate Reality Comics is having a MEGA holiday sale, with 25% off all graphic novels, trade paperbacks, hardcovers, and manga. Also, check out the new Epsteins!

Apple Computer: The (Very) Early Years [via Slashdot]

Finally, a collection of Nixie Clocks.

Refreshing the Tron lower plastic.

One thing that most original Tron cabinets all have in common, aside from beat up side art, are faded plastics. After years of abuse from the blacklights, the ink desaturates and the distinct colors are lost. While there are high quality acrylic reproductions available, they are costly, and I wanted to see what I could do with materials (mostly) on hand. Thanks to Jeff Rothe, I found myself with a spare lower plastic, and it was time to experiment.

Here’s the before shot. Both lower pieces were in roughly the same condition; the original colors could be seen, but were extremely washed out when backlit. Of the highlighter colors I tested, only orange and yellow fluoresced vividly.

The tools. Rustoleum satin black (model paint was too thin), a tiny paint brush, and a new package of Bic brite liners.

My first step was to repaint all the areas where the light wasn’t supposed to shine through. This was the part that took the most time and care, as screwing up a line would be very obvious when the whole thing was backlit.

Once that was done, I let the plastics dry for several hours while Tina and I hit the gym and ate dinner. Who knew that Thanksgiving leftovers could be turned into a delicious Vietnamese meal (it’s true!).

This would be a good place for an in-progress photo, but I forgot to take one. Sorry.

The next step was pretty much like coloring in a boring coloring book. Aside from the center area, where the design gets a bit complicated, the lines were simply a matter of laying down the right color. I used the orange highlighter for the ah, orange/red parts, yellow over the green, and the not-so-fluorescent blue over the very faded blue areas.

After installed the painted plastic and swapping out the white blacklight for a regular ol’ blacklight (increasing the highlighter fluorescence), here is the final result:

Comparison photo!
Also note the fancy new GroovyGameGear reproduction handle.

link love 11-27-08

Getting a post in before everyone comes over edition.

The ever-erudite Insomnia reviews SpaceWar!, an early multiplayer PDP-1 game, and one of the first true video games.

Black Friday sales games that you should really consider purchasing:

• Rez HD is on sale in the Xbox Live Markeplace for 500 Moon Points. A must buy.
• Pixeljunk Eden, $4.99 on the PlayStation Store.
• Amazon’s Deal of the Day is Shadow of the Colossus. Ten bucks!

Happy Thanksgiving, all.

Polishing balls.

My latest project cabinet is a Missile Command upright, and my plan is to get it looking and working as close to new as I can. Step one: strip it down and get that big black ball rolling smoothly again.

The upright version of Missile Command was one of the few games (along with the first Atari sports releases) to use a massive four and a half inch Atari Trak-Ball. As these things take up a fair chunk of control panel real estate, most cabinets were designed with a smaller 2.25 or 3 inch trackball. Personally, I like the big ones.

PRO TIP: A 4.5 inch trackball is exactly the same size as a candlepin bowling ball, with similar construction. Feel free to swap out your beat up Trak-Ball for a candlepin ball with a skull embedded in it and save yourself a couple hours of polishing time.

PRO TIP: I didn’t even know candlepin bowling existed until last week.

Full story, after the jump »

link love 11-15-08

Once Upon Atari part four and part five are online.

Chasing Ghosts, that other movie about breaking arcade high score records, is finally going to see a release, with several airings on Showtime in December.

Also from Peter Hirschberg, an iPhone version of Adventure!

Check out this beautiful home remodel and arcade.

Couple food blog additions to the local RSS folder: Kristi’s Vegas Musings, and Eating Las Vegas by John Curtas.

Dear residents of Tenpenny Tower,

I guess sorry doesn’t really cut it right about now.

[minor spoilers follow, and I don't wanna get yelled at]
Full story, after the jump »

2009 Arcade Restoration Agenda.

I, Robot - Ground up restoration. Un-Choplifter this thing and bring it back to its former glory. So far I’ve found non-working pcbs, the pcb cage, and a hall effect stick. Still need a harness, marquee and bezel art, and ideally a new control panel.

Interstellar Laser Fantasy - Cabinet is in fairly nice shape, should only require some touch up work here and there once the control panel is rebuilt. No player or disc, so the current plan is to make it into a dedicated Daphne machine (anyone need Interstellar boards?).

Xevious - Cabinet is in solid shape, and with the spare cp, this one might end up being one I play with and turn into a MAME or multi-game. Also, I’m toying with the idea of mounting the upper artwork (directly below the marquee) to plexi with a soft backlight.

Missile Command - Ground-up restoration. Gonna be a lot of work, but at least the cabinet itself is in solid shape.

Omega Race - Ground-up restoration. Front art is all in great shape, side art needs replacing (awaiting thisoldgame.com repros), back of the cabinet looks like it was dragged down a gravel road, will need a bit of bondo work. Hoping the boards are good, still needs a G05 chassis and a few other bits.

The wife is right, I do not need any more machines right now. I’ve got enough cabinet projects to last me a full year, so unless someone wants to donate an upright Discs of Tron, I doubt I’ll be picking up anything new. It’s still fun to scan craigslist in the morning with coffee, though.

So, with the recent spate of arcade project posts, have I managed to convince any of you out there to take up this life leeching incredibly fulfilling hobby? Got a 2009 restoration (or collection) agenda?