Heroes Of Vidya Games, Part 2

Okay, picking up from last time, we jump into the CD-ROM era...


Leisure Suit Larry

The only raunchy video game protagonist I can think of.
Huh huh, cool.
Yeah, Atari had a series of porno games back in the day, but...they were pathetic 8-bit sprites.

Anyway, this fella has always been well known in PC geek circles, but, what busts him through, is Artie Lang recorded a voice for the newest one that's in development limbo, and the Stern gang all knew Leisure Suit Larry right off the bat, so, if he's been on Stern, the public knows him.

So...apparently, the deal is Larry is always trying to get laid, and never quite accomplishes it.
But, we the player, get to see cartoon tit, and cartoon thatch.
(Sarcasm) yipee.

Aaanyhoo, Larry is/was put out by Sierra, who also did the "King's Quest", series of games, and, I'll use those as the gateway to fill in another tech evolution gap...

From here...

King's Quest 6.

Okay, this came out a year before I got my first computer, and then it took another year for me to add on my first CD-ROM drive, and this came with it.

I really dug this game.
It was the first talking game (after Gauntlet) I ever played, and it was cool that every little thing you clicked in the whole entire game had some narration to it.
And everything was click-able.
Fun quest. Just the right balance of exploring, and item finding, and puzzle solving.
Story moves a good clip, lots of fun surprises, plenty of humor, just an all around neat little game.
And not too shabby for a free present to come with one's CD drive.

This, and video CDs, is when I knew for sure where computers were going, and I was excited.
This blew consoles away, and it was a world that seemingly only a few other geeks even knew about.
I was seeing a world of progress through electronics unfolding, and I wanted more of it.
And I still do.
The growing world of computers gave me something to look forward to.
This, more than anything, kept me sane in the 90's.
The world outside was full of slacker assholes, terrible music, empty nihilism, and mediocrity all the way up to politics.
Especially politics.
But, the people at Microsoft, Intel, Apple, and the various software companies didn't seem to get the memos.
They were stubbornly plowing ahead, and making the world.
And the game CDs were their secret postcards.
I loved them for it.
It was an exciting time.
A frontier time.
But, as you may know from my rants about cable, Atari, VHS,...the frontier times are always magical.


Duke Nukem

Started out as an obscure cheesey (but funny) 2-D PC platformer, exploded onto the scene with his 3-D entry, and hasn't looked back.

From here...

Duke Nukem 3-D

Before this, there was Wolfenstein 3-D, then I think DOOM, then this one hit it out of the park.
The First Person Shooter had truly risen.
Yeah, Duke steals a lot from Ash, and Snake Plisskin, and even the guy from "They Live", but, it's a loving tribute, and it's a fun as hell game.
Unlimited mods out there on the internet.
Could probably play it forever.
One wonders how new games get sold with play value like this.
I hear the next sequel to this is out.
Or..on the way...I dunno, I don't stay on top of the game scene anymore.

Yes,  "Duke Nukem Forever", is indeed out, and Megadeth did the theme song.

Also, see "Escape From New York", for further Duke reference.


Liu Kang

The hero of "Mortal kombat".

From here...

Mortal Kombat

Overrated phenomenon.
Was to game violence what Madonna's book was to sex.
Get over it, move on, evolve, you morons.

Well, yeah, but it was "concerned parents", that were all up in arms over it, and created the hype.

Now, it (the original) looks pretty fucking tame, and the crybabies stand revealed as a joke.
Well, the joke I always knew they were.

The new one out is so gory, it offends ME...and that's just great.
As it should be. ;)

Anyway, at the peak of the "phenomenon", MK has had two live-action movies that were actual proper game adaptations, in that they represented the property.

And, the MK gang has since met up with Freddy Krueger, and the DC Superheroes.

So, like Ken & Ryu, Lui-ie gets around timespace his own self.


James Bond

That's right, James Bond, muthafuckas.
His coolness can't be contained in one medium, it bleeds over into everything.
Don't be surprised if at this moment, he's composing a rock opera.
No, jazz, Bond is a jazz guy...

Anyway, James totally pwned the N64 with "Goldeneye".

From here..

Nintendo 64

Heh, heh, like I said above "Goldeneye Entertainment System".
But that ain't fair.
There was also "Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time", and "Legend Of Zelda: Majora's Mask".
Those were pretty big.

"Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon", was a laugh riot of Japanese weirdness.

The Castlevania games blew donkeys though.
They don't count.
Count, get it? Heh heh.

And of course, like NES, and SNES, it started off with a Mario game, that being "Mario 64".
It was pretty fun.
And of course, there was Goldeneye.
That's being re-released with upgraded tweaks for Wii I hear.
But...like I said before, there wasn't much of a lineup.
NES had hundreds, SNES had a couple hundred, N64 had...I dunno a little over 100, and only a handful were any good.
I never had N64, but I played some of the games.
An okay little system, but it always felt like a middle-state in evolution to me...
Turns out I was right.
Also, the cartridge had to go.
Playstation 1 was clunky, but it showed the way as far as media went.
Sony would be the winner in the long run.
Well, at least through a good chunk of the 00's.

James also had big hits with "Nightfire", "Everything or Nothing", and "From Russia With Love", across various platforms.


Jin Kazama

From "Tekken".

"Play Tekken, Johnny!!".

Yes, Johnny, play Tekken, play Tekken for your life!!

Thanks to Capcom crossovers, Jin has gone toe to toe with Ken/Ryu.
How'd he do, players?


Cloud Strife

Finding a face for the Final Fantasy series was...tricky, but not hard.

FF7 is the undisputed peak of the series, and Cloud is the clear protagonist.

To my personal tastes, everything that makes FF what it is, was perfected in 6, but, eh, the kids went apeshit over 7, so, who am I to dispute?

FF7 spawned a movie, a Robot Chicken skit, and it's the one "Kingdm Hearts", chooses to cross-over with, so, obviously, this is the one people think of.

So, screw it, I'll use this spot to talk about the whole series.
Or, as much as I personally recall....

From here...

Final Fantasy 4

Now see, this is the opposite (from Metroid leaving behind its sequels with dead consoles), this came out on SNES, and got re-ported to PlayStation.
So, you can still play it.

Those in the USA may know it as Final Fantasy II.

This is IMHO, the greatest RPG ever.
They never topped it.
A lot of folks have fonder memories of 7, but..I never played it, and friends have said 7 wasn't as good as 4 & 6, so...
And I haven't heard hardly anything good about the post-7 games, indeed, I've seen brutal parody reviews.

So, yeah, 4 is the best of the FF series, which is the best series of RPGs bar none.

So, 4 is the best RPG ever.

Great everything.
Characters, story, items, spells, it's just literally ultimate.

You even get your own friggin' starship.
Best. Fucking. Game. Ever.

And...

Final Fantasy 6.

A.K.A Final Fantasy III.

It wasn't Final Fantasy 4, but it had some nice new tweaks, a pretty sweet airship, and one of the best villains ever, Kefka.
Kind of a homicidal Ziggy Stardust.
Yeah, it's a good one, but again, I prefer 4.
4 and 6 together are the Final Fantasy series to me.

And...

Final Fantasy: Pray

I think I bought this in '95-96-97.
Sometime around there.
Could be as late as '99, but I don't think so.
I'm gonna go with '97, cuz I sampled the MP3s off the 'net, and my second computer was up to it, not my first, so, that would make it post-Wal-Mart.
Anyway, it was music from Final Fantasy 1-6 orchestrally jazzed up, and sung vocally by this Japanese chick.
The songs were sung in various languages, including English, Japanese, and French.
And IMHO, they were beautiful.
It was a small clique of geeks that even knew about this at the time.
It was pretty underground.
I think they've re-released it since, so awareness may have increased.
But, yeah, anime/game stuff like this sustained me musically.
It was out of the mainstream, and different, and didn't have the American passive-agressive selfish stupid nastiness to it that most of the culture was tainted with at the time.
It was just sincere, and well constructed, no bullshit.
It really mellowed me out.
Fond memories.

Here's a couple tracks..

Promised land.

Voyage.

Pray.


And...

Final Fantasy: Love Will Grow

The companion/sequel to FF:Pray.
Bought it at the exact same time as Pray.
Ditto what I said about Pray for this one.
Hmm, yeah, probably was '97 when I got these.
FF7 was out at the same time, I know that.
Yeah, 97.

Here, more clips.

Long distance.

Valse Des Amoureux.

Prelude.

And for Final Fantasy 7, see here again...


Lara Croft

So, Tomb Raider...was the Halo of its day, what with geeks camping out on the release days, and such.

And...from the very start, I've labored under the very rational assumption that hard-up guys wanted to fuck this character.

Hey, whatever.

Anyhoo, this game series spawned two dreadful films, and the fact that Angelina Jolie played this electronic vixen I'm sure shouldn't be read in a titillating fashion whatsoever.

No, this whole phenomenon has been as innocent and pure as the Snuggle bear, and it's all been my sick evil mind in operation.
Yep, all me.
I'm to blame.

Move along, nothing to see here.
Let's just keep walking, and denying.


Claude, Tommy Vercetti, 
Carl "CJ" Johnson, and Niko Bellic

Hmm, yeaahh...they're rotating characters, but, each game hung on a good long while, so each guy got to become "a Mario", in his own right.

They're more in the anti-hero league for damned sure.
But...if I could throw as dark a thing as "Sin City", in as a flick....*shrug*

From here...

A Flock of Seagulls' "I Ran (So Far Away)"

The Vice City song.
I worship Vice City.
But I send my prayers to Joe Pesci.

And...

Scarface

The inspiration for Vice City.
Did I mention I worship Vice City?

And...

Miami Vice

The other inspiration for Vice City.
Did I mention I worship Vice City?

And from here...

PlayStation

Which led to Playstation 2, which led to Vice City.
I worship Vice City.
But, I mentioned this, yes?

And from here...

7th Guest

*Snip*
Nice game, full of memories, gave me funky dreams, one of those ones where you feel like you've actually been to the place, and if you go back, it's like a literal memory lane.
Vice City does that to me too.
*Snip*

And...

DVD

I remember reading the storage specs on these in a science mag before they even came out, and being excited.
I already knew from CD-ROM what was possible, this was the next jump.
I thought they'd be a side thing, like Laserdisc.
Not for once, did I imagine them replacing VHS.
Which was slow of me, cuz I'd convereted over to CD by then, and knew how that jump went.
I was a really late adopter.
At first, it was because the players cost a fortune, of course.
Then, my excuse was how snobby the video-philes were, and didn't want to be a part of their scene.
Then...it really came down to I stubbornly didn't want to, because I'd invested over a couple grand in my VHS collection, and it'd be a bitch to pull a u-turn with a cruise ship, y'know?
But, meh, it wasn't that bad, looking back.
I got frugal about what movies I really love, and after 10 years, I have a decent sized collection, even with the crap eliminated.
Now, it's all about Blue-Ray, and on my last visit to Best Buy, they're phasing DVD out!
DVD was one stinking aisle!
Shit...
Wonder how long they're going to keep backward-compatibility around...
Anyway, my first DVD player was Playstation 2.
And I got that solely for Vice City at first.
Yeah, DVD was leaps better, no doubt.
And it's stunning how quickly it wiped VHS out.
From DVD to Blue-Ray seems to be going head-spinningly faster than that.

And from here...

Playstation 2

So, this is when this finally came out.
The dream machine.
And to my mind, it still is.
Video games, DVDs, CDs, back-compatible to Playstation 1 games, you can't beat that with a stick!
And by now, all the puzzle pieces of the evolutionary steps I laid out in the last 90's one came together.
Voice actors, cinema scenes, real music soundtracks, the whole shmeal.
Games have been like this since, just with leaps in graphics, and size of the worlds due to storage space.
Took me 'til '02 to finally cave in, and get one though.
Glad I did, mine's still running, and a dependable old girl.
I find a use for it just about every day.
*Pats it lovingly*
Y'know, if it ever burns out...I think I'll just get another PS2.
One of those slim models maybe.

And....

Grand Theft Auto III

Okay, this is when I officially started salivating to get a PS2.
3-D action, full interactivity with everything, and freedom to roam, which would later become known as the "sandbox", genre.
And 80's music!!
Sweet game, but little did I know the improvements that were coming in "Vice City".
That pushed me over the edge into getting PS2.

And...

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Ah, at last!!
Yep, this is when I HAD to give in, get a PS2, and as a side-effect, join the DVD age.

Tommy Vercetti is my favorite game character.
He should've come back for a trilogy at least, but no...Rockstar had to stubbornly go with the multi-generational formula.

Well, GTA3 had some 80's music on the oldies radio station, but this was ALL 80's, set in the 80's with a "Miami Vice", meets "Scarface", look, a zoom-able city map, every car and weapon from the period, you could do virtually anything.
As impossible as it would have seemed in '01, it made GTA3 look like shadow puppets in comparison.
Full immersion in an 80's flashback, this was the game I NEEDED.
Healing medicine this game was.
Well, as I said through the other decade rants, I worship it.

And...

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

This was the first and only game that I stood in line on the release date to get.
Holy shit, I'll never fucking do that again.
Ugh...
Well...it's a massive upgrade from Vice City in size, scope, and level of things you could do.
And you can fucking do everything.
Every weapon, every vehicle, customizable everything, you can play pool, arcade games, it's a whole friggin' world.
...and yet...it doesn't satisfy like Vice City did.
I dunno...maybe it's the whole LA gangs thing..can't get with that vibe...I try to cancel it out by listening to the 80's nostalgia tracks on the radios,...and eh...I just like Vice City better.
Can't help it.
Well, like I liked Final Fantasy 4 better than 6.
Anyway, I still haven't beaten San Andreas all the way through.
I gotta steal someone's quest sometime so I can go to the Vegas level.

Grand Theft Auto IV?
Haven't played it.
Gotta upgrade platforms for that one, and...well, as you can see, I don't wanna.
Also, GTA 5 is days away as of this writing.

And, all of that fills the tech gap in rather nicely...


Max Payne

From "Max Payne"!
Rockstar's other hit franchise besides "Grand Theft Auto".

Although, they've since slipped a couple new ones under their belt..."Red Dead Redemption", comes to mind...

Anyway, as so often happens, this spawned a shitty movie.
People still look forward to the games though.
One is upcoming pretty soon, I think.


Dante

From "Devil May Cry".

From here...

Devil May Cry

Fucking sweet.
The sequel sucks, the threequil apologizes for it.
Gorgeous graphics, eye popping crispness to the colors, just beautiful to look at.
And the rapid fire killing is tension releasing, and surprisingly easy to learn, and intuitive.

This nudged me closer to the cliff for getting PS2...I might have gotten it for this, but "Vice City", really sealed the deal.

I gotta get part 3.
I mean, it's got a magic electric guitar for a weapon, how do you fucking top that?

Hmm, and yeah, I'd put Dante up there with Pacman, Mario, Link, Samus, MegaMan, Simon, Alucard, Master Chief, etc.

Hey, wow, it's almost like I predicted these reviews...

Anyway, see also "The Power Of Music", for Dante's guitar.

And, oh, right, Dante has also popped up in the newer sequels in the "Marvel vs. Capcom", series of games, so, he's actually tested his mettle against the classic heroes.
Like I inquired about Jin, how did he do, players?


Kratos

Star of "God of War", and a "Robot Chicken", sketch.

Also, he's joined in on the crossover melee via "Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny", and the new "Mortal Kombat".

That's...about all I know.
But, apparently, his games are hits.


Master Chief

From "Halo".

Apparently, people love this fucking game.
And, that's me employing understatement for comic effect there, kiddies.

The releases for it are...well, like that bit in "Red Dwarf", in the episode "Better Than Life", where the reporter says police had to deploy rubber nuclear weapons to disperse the crowd.
No, really.

Anyway, it spawned an actual half decent film...

From here...

Halo Legends

The third anthology in the vein of "The Animatrix", and "Batman: Gotham Knight".

Now, I couldn't give two shits about the Halo games, I'll never play 'em, but, I flat out hate "The Matrix", and "Animatrix", payed off, so I took a gamble.
And, damned if this ain't a nifty little anime.
I hope they keep churning these babies out, I don't care what universe they're for.


Ezio Auditore da Firenze

From "Assassin's Creed".

Also, soon to pop up in the aforementioned crossover melee via the upcoming (as of this writing) "Soul Calibur V".

If you're in a "Soul Calibur", a "Capcom Vs____", or a "Smash Brothers", you've pretty much made it into the club.


Sackboy

Awwww!!!!
Boodige-oodgie oobie-boo!!

Ahem, from "Little Big Planet".

Also, a Taco Bell commercial.

Man, look at the rendering on him, he looks like a real yarn doll.
That's...impressive.
So, there ya go, graphically, we can do anything now.
The barriers are gone.
They're just goddamned gone.

We've come a looong fucking way from Pacman, folks.

All that's left is for the A.I. to get so good, our game characters become Silico-Sapians.
I predict 15 years, tops.


The Angry Birds

So, now we leave behind physical media, and get into the Facebook/Twitter/wireless era.

And...oddly, we come full circle back to games that are GAMES.

So....apparently, this is the most addictive game yet invented by man, like, a hundred times crack-ier than Tetris.

The Oxycontin of games.

Um...like heroin dealers, I just say "no".
Facebook bugs me, I tune it out.
I don't need that fucking monkey on my back.
I got enough shit going on.

Future archaeologists, if you''re reading this, this is what destroyed our civilization.
Everyone started playing this, and stopped eating, and fucking, and working, and everything just winded down, until there was no more electricity to recharge all the I-Pads, and everyone went into withdrawal comas, and no one was able to feed them.

The rest of us became Morlocks.


Robot Unicorn

From "Robot Unicorn Attack", "Robot Unicorn Attack: Heavy Metal", and "Robot Unicorn Attack: Christmas".

So, yeah, everything I said about "Angry Birds", ditto.
If that one doesn't do us in, this will.


Aaand, that brings us pretty well up to date.

Up next, Comic Book Superheroes in Vidya Games.