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Haunting Box Art

bryan.eddy@newretrowave.com — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 15:57:43 +0000

In some of the older D&D books from the golden days of TSR (namely “1^st edition” Advanced D&D), The few incredible images rendered by masters like Erol Otus are surrounded on all sides by what can best be described as “almost art.” It’s either strange in tone, off-putting in its composition, or just somehow unwholesome in a way I find difficult to articulate.

Anyway, I won’t put any of it in here, because I’m getting to my actual point: the video game industry has its own share of this lowest-common-denominator ramrod surrealism. Images clearly rendered under deadline while suffering from sleep deprivation, questionable pieces of illustration drawn by people who were likely being paid in subway tokens, and even some visual corruptions that will haunt the industry until its death some 5 billion years hence when we are cooked off of this rock by our sun’s death throes.

I will warn you – nay, I admonish thee, brave wanderer. To step forth may cost you your sanity, or worse. I Offer you a garden of unearthly artistic display… some truly ill shit in illustration form.

Tommy LaSorda Baseball

Sega, 1989

You know that it is daytime – the sun is high and bright, throwing all into stark contrast – but you do not know the day. The blurred lines of a baseball stadium form a primordial, half-shaped, Archean terrain in the background… and yet you cannot look at the background. You cannot look at anything but Tommy fucking LaSorda. OR IS IT?

His eyes, lazy and half-closed, fix on you and do not look away. His teeth, jutting from his mouth in an expression halfway between a smile and a predatory sneer, are perfect. Fuck, they are IMMACULATE, like something unused and unspoiled. Something there just for looks. Tommy’s skin bears a striking resemblance to silicon; like the “flesh” of the god-awful robots our postmodern pervert tinkers craft in the human image, Tommy’s flesh is new. You see now that he is not sweating… but you are sweating.

“Play a little catch?” he tips his head ever so slightly as his mouth releases the tinny sound of words. You cannot run. You feel pressure and then blackness engulfs you.

Why not just use a photo? It’s not like there’s any shortage of photographs wherein LaSorda is at least prominently featured, if not the subject of said photograph. I am chalking this one up as an act of psychological warfare, Sega.

Crack Down

also Sega, 1989

Two very greasy and ruddy men stand proudly before the Prince of Evil himself, Satan. They can barely keep it together… in fact, they’ve decided to just push it to the max. The Guy on the right is pooping; don’t say that he’s doing anything else, I won’t believe you. That man is filling his pants with hot sod while he empties his magazine and his under-slung grenade launcher at the same time. Dude on the left has better self-control when it comes to bathroom action, and has settled for filling the air with rounds from his M60. Satan has seen this shit before, and so has his buddy the mouth-breathing orangutan. Besides, just five minutes ago they polished off a fat bowl in the explosion-castle and it’s kicking in T-minus right fucking now.

What the fuck is even supposed to be in the ripoff Stormtrooper’s hands? What is he brandishing? A road flare? My point is that no one knows what they’re doing and clearly no one’s “cracking down” on jack shit.

Mega Man

Capcom, 1987

I wanted to take another look at this. I mean, how can’t we? Eyes red from crying all night, riding high on the power only a man with a gun can know (and also more cocaine than is reasonable), Rock searches the uptown terraces of Purple City for the bomber whose reign of terror has claimed so many lives.

“I’ll find you!” he howls, cranking his little-kid arms back in teeth-grinding rage. “Goddamn it, why can’t I PULL MY RIGHT LEG OVER BY MY LEFT!” No one hears Rock but the colossal palm trees and the God that made him a boy-sized android.

I fucking WISH Mega Man was like this. Like Blade Runner mixed with 10 to Midnight. Scare my shit right out. Show me what real life is like, for great justice.

This one’s bizarre and completely detached from its parent concept, but I love it and I will probably print it out into a 24×36 to put on the wall.

Third World War

Micronet, 1993

There are so many details about this that are haunting. I’m not even sure where to begin. Wait, yes I am. The first thing I reflexively hate about this is the unbridled look of smug elation on both mens’ unthinkable faces. I’m not trying to make a partisan political statement by declaring my hate for Bill Clinton; this image did the mental legwork for me and even if he spent 24 hours a day every day pouring trash bags full of money into orphanages it wouldn’t un-burn this into me. At least you can’t see the raw menace in Saddam’s eyes. Bill is rendered in such a way that, while this is unmistakably him, it is also clearly not him. It is a spirit from the netherworld given flesh, and it thinks this whole thing is funny.

They are both impossibly huge, looming over the cities of Earth as a… what looks like also Earth somehow keeps a tight orbit. Hussein and Wendigo-Bill are the means of Change, the Makers of the Way, everywhere and everywhen. They have made this moment as they want it to be, and you will envy the dead.

Custer’s Revenge

Mystique, 1982

It says “Swedish Erotica” on it but I refuse to accept that this could happen anywhere but America.

George Armstrong Custer (1839-1876), despite his justifiably controversial legacy, was a well-respected cavalry officer who played a pivotal role for the Union in the Civil War. He died at age 36 at the Battle of Little Bighorn – a violent death fit for a man who lived by the sword.

I’d like to be able to show him this shit right now.

Somewhere in the flats of the Vaporwave Desert, a vector-shaded Native American woman struggles against her bonds. It seems that someone has tied her to a gigantic can of spraypaint. Was it Custer?

It probably was. He clunks up in his oversized boots, like a son wearing his father’s shoes to be cute. Looking like some kind of plucked-chicken goblin, Custer makes sure to strike a pose that shows off how his butt is just two large potatoes flecked with beard stubble. DOES HE SHAVE HIS ASS? WHY?

Better wear your gloves, man. Wouldn’t want to touch anything with your hands. Just your… everything else.

Obviously we can get all social justice on this, and we’d be absolutely right to. Unfortunately, the harm’s already done, and I dragged this back out to re-live it. I can apologize, but will that mend what is riven? God no, and it’s compounded by the fact that Custer is TERRIFYING. Naked dress-up Chucky with a boner.

Okay, we’re done. I will review a nice cutesy Japanese game next month. We will recover. I’m sorry and I love you.

Retro Gaming – Mega Man

Joey Edsall — Mon, 01 Dec 2014 16:00:00 +0000

Old games used to get overly serious and realistic art.

Arcade games and console games are fundamentally different
in a lot of ways. While the hardware, game mechanics, and depth of narrative
might be the most obvious, there is something at the core of the two that keeps
them separated. Before going in depth with my retrospective review on Mega Man (1987), I’d like to
first analyze the intention behind the design of an arcade game and a console
game.

We’ve written about arcades before. The period from
the late 70’s to the mid-80’s is known as the Golden Age of Arcade Video Games. As the popularity of arcade games decreased by the end of the decade,
console games were experiencing a boom thanks in part to the Nintendo
Entertainment System. Because of this shift, many old NES games feel more like
arcade games. The fundamental purpose of
a console game is to provide you with satisfaction to justify your purchase of
the game. Games are usually not very cheap, so designers try to make their
product the most worthwhile for your money (ideally, at least). Arcade games,
on the other hand, are all about taking your money in small sums (quarters),
giving you a brief, enjoyable, and difficult experience, and then encouraging
you to play again to go further and get a higher score.

Mega Man feels
like an arcade game. It is so hard that it feels punishing at times and so
addictive that you can’t stop coming back to it. The amount of trial and error
inherent in the classic platformer makes the experience feel like learning a
song. Through your failures and deaths you wind up developing something
resembling a rhythm. You know which
screen is coming next or which flying penguin is going to dive on you. I wasn’t
able to beat any levels on the first try, but on the attempt where I did beat them, it looked like I was an
absolute professional.

Though the level design was difficult at times, there were
several gems hidden throughout. As an avid player of the Mega Man X series, I knew that each boss gives you a new weapon to
your arsenal. And I also knew that each boss weapon was super effective against
another boss. They usually make sense, barring a few mix-ups (Ice > Fire? I
guess that means… thunder on the ice guy? Okay.) For example, Elecman’s
weakness is the weapon you receive from the truly epic Custman (my only
reasoning is that scissors cut wires?). Elecman’s level is full of these small
platforms with enemies on top that make avoiding them difficult. If you switch
over to the Rolling Cutter weapon, you’ll notice that the odd trajectory of the
attack fits the level design perfectly. The level becomes much easier if you
use the Cutsman’s weapon to get through it. Ideally, by the time you reach the
end of the level you will be pretty comfortable with using it.

I stand by what I said about completing each level being
similar to learning a song. That said, Iceman’s level is like learning a song
and then being expected to flawlessly improvise with someone else who is also
improvising. Everything is typical Mega Man gameplay, and then this happens…

Those platforms shoot sideways. Okay, okay, annoying, but
whatever it’s a challenge. Oh, but they also move in a completely random and
erratic pattern. Well that just doesn’t sound fair. Oh, and one more thing,
we’re going to throw some robot penguins at you for the last half of this part
of the level. But wait, that might be too difficult. Let’s make sure the player
has a platform to rest on halfway through. Good point, but we shouldn’t make it
too easy for them. This is a video
game after all, this is serious business, not Soviet Russia Handout Land. Let’s
cover that platform in ice. Video game
ice. Which science has proven is twice as slippery as regular old boring ice.

Seriously.

The other issue I have with this game is about rationing out
lives. There is a checkpoint immediately before each end of the level boss
fight. Should you die in the boss fight, you will respawn there with full
health and one less life. The game is so difficult that many times I would reach
the boss, look to see if I had an extra life lying around, and just let the
boss kill me so I could tackle him with full health. That is just poor design.
Also, your health replenishes with each respawn, but your ammo does not. This
means a particular difficult stretch of a level will become progressively more
difficult. The general difficulty of this game is also distributed oddly. It is
very difficult in the beginning when you don’t have any special boss weapons,
and especially difficult in the end (cough, Boss Rush). The middle portion of the game
is by far the easiest. This uneven difficulty may be annoying for some players.

You can tell the designers were on to something when you
play Mega Man. It has vibrant colors,
an excellent soundtrack, and surprisingly rich and deep gameplay, with little
secrets here and there. The game is pretty easy to find. I played the PS2 port
from the Anniversary Collection, but you can also find it on the virtual
console. Though Mega Man 2 is widely
considered better than this game, this is the game that has lent its design to
Mega Man’s character in the new Smash
Bros., as well as the fact that one of the bosses from this game appears in
the new Smash Bros.

Final Thoughts:

Favorite Song: Elecman Stage

Favorite Boss: Cutsman, I actually have a shirt with him on
it!

Favorite Weapon: Magnet Beam, of course.

Fun Facts: It’s Mega
Man, not Megaman. I’ve been
making that mistake for over a decade.

– Joey Edsall

(@JoeyEdsall)