Finished: Beyond Good and Evil

“The war has arrived at the gates of Hillys!”

Prior to finally completing it last month, I’d attempted and then abandoned Beyond Good & Evil at least three or four times.

While the game is a bit slow to start (after the spectacular introductory sequence), the lack of a full playthrough was simply the result of my falling prey to a constant barrage of newer and shinier things. I’m not particularly known for my discipline.

But this time, this time, bolstered by both age and a sense of duty, I finally beat the damn thing.

Visually, Beyond Good and Evil holds up very well, particularly when played in progressive mode on a PS2 or PS3, and Christophe Heral’s score (he’ll be returning for the upcoming sequel) is considered to be among the best of the previous generation.

The game plays a bit like a stealth Zelda, with a hub-like overworld and a smattering of dungeon crawls, physical puzzles, and platforming segments. The photography and reporting aspects were my favorite part of the game, and I hope they lean heavily on those elements for the sequel.

Things seemed to wrap up a bit too quickly at the end, but I did enjoy the story, and found myself genuinely caring for the primary characters and their crusade.

With the second installment on its way, pick up and play BG&E if you haven’t. It’s available on Windows and all three of the last gen platforms, and can easily be had for less than ten bucks.

Plus/Minus:
+ Game starts off with a bang, throwing me immediately into a boss fight.
+ The button displays in the top left corner show relevant commands and are shaped and positioned like the buttons on the controller (varying per system). Yeah, everyone is into minimal UI these days, but this was really helpful.
+ The circular repeat-scrolling number/letter entry system is great! Much better than an onscreen keypad when using an analog device. I’m so stealing this.
+ After dying, the game sends you immediately back into play at the last (invisible) checkpoint. No loading saves, etc.
+ In-game hints from supporting characters were a nice touch. I rarely felt directionless or unable to progress.

- Being forced to select the language every single time I booted the game.
- The camera! The camera in interior spaces! Argh don’t do that!

? The final boss. I’m undecided, was it genius or really annoying? I was frustrated until I realized that holding the controller backwards was the secret, and then I felt brilliant for figuring it out. Still, how many players will just quit during the feeling frustrated part?

Final grade: A-

link love 09-28-08

This one is everywhere, but just in case: inside a North Korean arcade. For a bit of contrast, see inside a South Korean arcade.

FEIST, a Mac OS X platformer by Florian Faller and Adrian Stutz. More (including beta download info) at IndieGames.

Parallel Kingdom is probably the one upcoming title I’m most looking forward to on the iPhone. touchArcade has a brief overview.

Michael Moore’s new film, Slacker Uprising, has been released as a free download.

Arcade Trailer Raid, Day 2.

It begins.

Here’s where the bulk of the games were located. The facility is one of those places on the edge of town where they rent out shipping containers and trailers; the containers were stacked everywhere, with trailers lined up behind them. Looked like a level out of Rainbow Six or something. Every now and then, F-15s and F-16s from Nellis would scream right over us, close enough to read the numbers.

I wasn’t forward-thinking enough to bring sunscreen, but thankfully the worst of the summer heat had already passed; the temperature was a comparably balmy mid-90 degrees or so.

Okay, pictures!

Thank God for the forklift.

Ray takes a ride while the seller drives. Loose gravel added excitement to the day, as every now and then the forklift would spin out or get stuck, scaring the hell out of whoever was stabilizing the load.

There was a nice selection of laser disc games, all in decent shape. M.A.C.H. 3, an upright and cockpit Interstellar Laser Fantasy, and an Astron Belt cockpit. Additionally, we pulled out an upright and cockpit Firefox, both of which the seller unfortunately kept.

Two Star Trek cockpits. One went to Pete, one back home with Ray. Behind em to the left is the Firefox cockpit.

Here’s the upright Interstellar, and the only cabinet I personally claimed from the day.

Mappys! Adam Isgreen is now the proud owner of the one on the right.

Two Turket Shoots. What a strange collection of games in this trailer.

Ray poses with the loot.

And finally…

That’s not a farmer’s tan, that’s dirt.

Okay you can stop checking out my feet now. Here’s the final tally:

Games I’m keeping
I, Robot (Choplifter converted)
Interstellar Laser Fantasy
Xevious
Neo Geo MVS-2-13 cabaret & a 6slot mobo

Games I’m cleaning up to sell
Zombie Raid
Paperboy
Super Monaco GP
Nintendo VS Dualsystem upright (Super Mario & Dr. Mario)

Arcade Trailer Raid, Day 1.

This year I decided to focus most of my game-playing time on classics, great games of previous generations that for one reason or another I’d missed.

Last weekend I took that to its extreme.

There are two things every arcade game nerd should do: attend an auction, and participate in a warehouse raid, the finding of an old stash of arcade cabinets, usually belonging to a former operator, and the retrieval adventure that follows. Visiting an auction is something one can plan, but warehouse raids requires luck, timing, and persistence. Fortunately, I stumbled across someone who had all three, and I got to ride along.

It begins.

The cabinets were split up between two places, which made for a bit of a logistics puzzle. The smaller lot was a group of about a 10-15 cabinets in storage units, so we took care of those during the evening and night of the first day.

Out of this group, Ray (the one who got this whole thing rolling) took home a Star Wars cockpit, Q-bert, Ms Pac-Man, Mappy, Track n Field cocktail, Make Trax, the Pole Position cockpit, and a handful of others. There was also a Road Riot 2-player cockpit that a former coworker came by to pick up the next day.

I took home a Xevious, the Neo MVS-2-13, and a Choplifter-in-an-I, Robot (missing the hall effect stick and boards, unfortunately). A Zombie Raid, Paperboy, Nintendo VS (Super Mario and Dr Mario), and Super Monaco GP are also in my garage waiting to be cleaned up and sold.

After a bit of cleaning and rebuilding the guns, this Zombie Raid turned out to be in beautiful shape. A few cosmetic blemishes, but the guns work great and the monitor is bright and clear:

I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned it, but I am a very tall person.

Day two tomorrow.

Liberty Belle in Las Vegas

The Liberty Belle B-17 bomber is at the North Las Vegas Airport this weekend:

There’s no need for a time machine this weekend - just make your way to the North Las Vegas Airport and you’ll set yourself back about 60 years.

The B-17 Bomber, named “Liberty Bell,” is visiting Las Vegas for the weekend and giving valley residents a unique opportunity to physically touch and see an airplane once used for combat during World War II.

There were originally 12,000 of these airplanes, but now only 14 remain.

Tour flights will be held this weekend - however, they will cost you $438 for a 30-minute flight.

The flights are pricey, so the crew does allow spectators to walk inside the grounded airplane before the first and after the last flight of the day for free of charge.

Saw her sitting on the runway this morning as we drove out towards Nellis to load up the arcade cabinets. Beautiful airplane, hopefully I’ll have time to go by before they fly out.

link love 09-17-08

This is from last month, but just in case you missed it like I did (hey, I’ve got a lot of feeds to keep up with), RPS put up a three part interview with Ragnar Tørnquist, mostly covering storytelling.

THE XBOX 360 “LIFESTYLE” EXPOSED

NFGcontrols, a new site about video game controllers.

Dubai retailers have unearthed 100 factory-sealed Virtual Boys. Poor souls.

Barack Obama in Las Vegas

From the campaign email:

Please join us Wednesday, September 17th, for a rally with Barack Obama in Las Vegas:

Change We Need Rally
with Barack Obama

The Baseball Stadium at Cashman Center
850 Las Vegas Blvd. North

Wednesday, September 17th
Doors Open: 2:30 p.m.
Program Begins: 5:00 p.m.

The event is free and open to the public; tickets are not required but an RSVP is encouraged. Space is available on a first come, first served basis. Please RSVP using the form to the right.

For security reasons, do not bring bags and please limit personal items. No signs or banners permitted.

You can RSVP on the official site. Also, the first of four debates (three presidential, one VP), takes place September 26th. Those are gonna be fun.

Cyberball Schematics & Documentation

This is an archival post.

A fellow Cyberball cabinet owner did me a huge favor recently and scanned his copy of the Cyberball Schematics Package, a document that’s been notoriously difficult to get ahold of. I spent some time and cleaned up the individual scans, and packed it back into delicious pdf:

Cyberball Schematics Package

For some reason, dissemination of the Cyberball and Tournament Cyberball docs has been very limited, in stark contrast to most other popular arcade cabinets for which the various manuals are freely available. To help alleviate that, here’s the rest of what I’ve acquired over the years:

Cyberball Operators Manual
Tournament Cyberball 2072 Upgrade Kit Instructions
Cyberball Pinouts
Cyberball Nintendo VS DualSystem Install Instructions
Cyberball Universal Kit (JAMMA) Instructions

Cyberball Tournament Sheets [page 1, page 2, page 3]

Atari Mechanical Assemblies Guide

If you have Cyberball arcade documents or artwork to contribute (I know I’m missing the playbooks, for example), let me know and I’ll add it to the list.

Arcade warehouse buy.

This one is mostly for the locals. Want to buy a video game?

I’ll be helping to load up an arcade operator buyout next week. The plan is to sell off as many cabinets as possible locally, and then the buyer will take the rest of the lot home in a rental truck. As a result, I’m sure anyone looking to pick up one of the larger games (yeah you, TX-1) will find themselves with a particularly good deal. We won’t see the machines until next week, so pricing is totally up in the air, but expect hobbyist-friendly numbers.

If you are interested in one or more of the games, let me know, and plan to be free the morning of September 19th.

A few of these are already spoken for, but here’s the list, as provided by the current owner:

01. Turkey Shoot
02. Turkey Shoot-minor gun adjustment needed (they used an optic type plastic on this game)
03. Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom
04. Mappy
05. Tempest (needs flyback)
06. Mach 3 Laser Game (have good player-if you are familiar with these, they need calibrated to the individual disc player-this is a nice one)
07. Rampage
08. Top Choice crane-works
09. Pac Land (conv. Game-not dedicated-in Journey cabinet)
010. Paperboy
011. Power Drift Mini Sid Down
012. Star Trek S/D Non working
013. Star Trek S/D Non working
014. Endro Racer ride on-restored nice-worked ok to my memory
015. TX1-did work-unknown now-rare
016. VS Cocktail-Super Mario Bros & Ladies Golf
017. Astron Belt Laser Game Deluxe Sit Down-Nice-No player-ultra rare-I almost certainly will have a player and disc for this game-but not sure.
018. Xevious
019. Hang on u/r
020. Interstellar U/R Very Rare
021. Neo Geo 2 slot 25″ monitor dedicated
022. Track-n-field Cocktail
023. VS Dual Super Mario Bros & Dr. Mario
024. Zombie Raid-minor gun problem
025. Xevious
026. TX1-I would say this is good for parts for the other one-used to work, but was parted out in the coin door area
027. Pole Position II S/D
028. Road Riot 2 player dedicated S/D
029. Pac Land Dedicated
030. Super Monaco GP u/r-minor paddle shifter problem, if I remember correctly
031. Q*Bert-Nice
032. Ms. Pac Man 19″ dedicated
033. Capcom Bowling
034. Kangaroo dedicated-nice
035. Strange Science Pinball-Nice-Works
036. Make Trax-needs small controls board on monitor-was robbed to fix another game

link love 09-09-08

Let’s start things off with another great racketboy guide: Playing Neo-Geo on your DS.

The fine folks at TV-Nihon have been subtitling and releasing episodes of the wonderful Japanese television show GameCenter CX. At this point, all the challenges from the first season are available, alongside a few special episodes and the first few of season two.

Preach on, brotha.

Someone is auctioning a prototype wireless Atari 2700.

Video game sheet music for violin is difficult to find. Thankfully, InfinityEX has been busy transcribing, and is offering up a bunch of em on his site. Of the songs I’ve downloaded, the only one I have any hope of being able to play at this stage is Final Fantasy X’s “To Zanarkand.”

The Complete History of Nintendo [via slashdot]