http://selectbutton.net/ en http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=26479 http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=26479 Mon Mar 08, 2010 8:30 pm Texican Rude http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=26479 Has your problem with Virtual On been that you are controlling giant robots and not giant robot little girl hybrids? Thank god the Japanese doujin scene covered that complaint. demo website


demo
website ]]> http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=26403 http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=26403 Tue Mar 02, 2010 9:13 pm Texican Rude http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=26403 A long time ago on insert credit, someone decided to pass around of a copy of D2, because it was thought of as a definitive insert-credit style game. Ideally the game was to be sent to different forum members so they could experience it's insertcreditiness for themselves. That didn't happen. Our current lord and website rights holder Mister Toups, took the game and to my knowledge never finished it. Never finished, it never saw the hands of forum members that still haunt these walls. I never got on that list, and bought my own copy for probably less than 10 bucks. I ended up stuffing it in the drawer and ignoring it for a couple of years. So what is D2? Why was it considered an insert credit game? Just how much infamous tentacle rape is contained within? How can you gain possession of my fine copy? Arranging and paypalling me 9 bucks works. Special Appearance by Bob Marley as a wall texture D2 is a wonderful concept and somewhat disheartening to play. The developers, WARP, decided they would actually advance the JRPG genre. You fight random battles, get experience, and try to trigger the next cutscene! The only thing new levels seem to increase is HP. You find progessively stronger weapons as the 4 discs of hot GD-Rom monster blasting moves along. The random battles are actually fought like a controller-based light gun game. Move the cursor, pull the trigger. Which is nice and quick. It's actually done seemlessly too. Like Skies of Arcadia, you can hear the dreamcast roar right before a battle starts. The camera zooms into the main character's head, and you start blasting. You get the results screen, and end up facing exactly the way you were facing before the random battle. That's pretty important because the Canadian wilderness pretty much all looks the same. You're going to be trudging a lot of it too. Which means you're going to be fighting a lot of random battles. It's nice of WARP to have random Canadian fauna roaming the tundra, waiting for your sniper rifle bullet to enter their skull. You do this to GET MEAT to refill your health. You quite literally get 5 meats for killing a Moose. Bonus you can skip every meandering overtly long bizarre cutscene by double tapping B! And you can pause them! Which is good because some of them are 30 minutes long. I mean, the walkthrough for this game looks like this: 9. Go upstairs and examine the door. (Cut-scene.) 10. Go back downstairs and talk to Kimberly. (Cut-scene.) 11. Go to bed. (Cut-scene.) The last third of the game is running between 3 different points multiple times to trigger more cutscenes. I'm seriously glad I played this with a guide because even with it, it was draining my soul. Maybe the ending made it worth it. Maybe everyone should just play this for the ending. Which fills me with an undefined anger. The last boss pretty heavily references Earthbound. In your trippy psychedelic background you keep shooting this bastard. Then it takes away your sight. Then it takes away your hearing. You just keep pulling the trigger in complete silence for minutes. Then the ending starts. Just realized that those movies leave out the final shot. Which is your Dreamcast's internal clock until you turn the console off. That almost makes up for everything before it. Someone more eloquent than me would need to describe the confused anger that ending caused me.
That didn't happen. Our current lord and website rights holder Mister Toups, took the game and to my knowledge never finished it. Never finished, it never saw the hands of forum members that still haunt these walls. I never got on that list, and bought my own copy for probably less than 10 bucks. I ended up stuffing it in the drawer and ignoring it for a couple of years.

So what is D2? Why was it considered an insert credit game? Just how much infamous tentacle rape is contained within? How can you gain possession of my fine copy?

Arranging and paypalling me 9 bucks works.


Special Appearance by Bob Marley as a wall texture

D2 is a wonderful concept and somewhat disheartening to play. The developers, WARP, decided they would actually advance the JRPG genre. You fight random battles, get experience, and try to trigger the next cutscene! The only thing new levels seem to increase is HP. You find progessively stronger weapons as the 4 discs of hot GD-Rom monster blasting moves along.

The random battles are actually fought like a controller-based light gun game. Move the cursor, pull the trigger. Which is nice and quick. It's actually done seemlessly too. Like Skies of Arcadia, you can hear the dreamcast roar right before a battle starts. The camera zooms into the main character's head, and you start blasting. You get the results screen, and end up facing exactly the way you were facing before the random battle.

That's pretty important because the Canadian wilderness pretty much all looks the same. You're going to be trudging a lot of it too. Which means you're going to be fighting a lot of random battles. It's nice of WARP to have random Canadian fauna roaming the tundra, waiting for your sniper rifle bullet to enter their skull. You do this to GET MEAT to refill your health. You quite literally get 5 meats for killing a Moose.

Bonus you can skip every meandering overtly long bizarre cutscene by double tapping B! And you can pause them! Which is good because some of them are 30 minutes long. I mean, the walkthrough for this game looks like this:

9. Go upstairs and examine the door. (Cut-scene.)
10. Go back downstairs and talk to Kimberly. (Cut-scene.)
11. Go to bed. (Cut-scene.)

The last third of the game is running between 3 different points multiple times to trigger more cutscenes. I'm seriously glad I played this with a guide because even with it, it was draining my soul. Maybe the ending made it worth it.

Maybe everyone should just play this for the ending. Which fills me with an undefined anger. The last boss pretty heavily references Earthbound. In your trippy psychedelic background you keep shooting this bastard. Then it takes away your sight. Then it takes away your hearing. You just keep pulling the trigger in complete silence for minutes. Then the ending starts.





Just realized that those movies leave out the final shot. Which is your Dreamcast's internal clock until you turn the console off. That almost makes up for everything before it. Someone more eloquent than me would need to describe the confused anger that ending caused me. ]]> http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=26333 http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=26333 Fri Feb 26, 2010 1:58 am Dracko http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=26333 some times I think I must have died five days ago and I am still in a coma RECEIVE THE EVOLUTION game opens with main character talking about how Tom and Jerry are in an S&M relationship protip: one of the three central villains from Xenosaga wants to become as powerful as God because, this is true, he was part of an experiment to make direct contact with God, and it fried his soul, and now the only thing he is truly afraid of is the incomprehensible power of God, so he wants to - still true - punch a hole into where God is and go through and become as powerful as God best graphics on the DS a game where everyone is crying KONAMI IS PUSSIES you can fish for soda in this game you can fish for soda in this game you can fish for soda in this game you can fish for soda in this game you can fish for soda in this game VICTIMS OF REVOLUTION a survival horror game with random boss battles released in 1978 pot lady tl;dr - if I or someone else makes a playlist of the Deadly Premonition gameplay videos, would anyone be up for organizing a synchronized IRC watch of them? bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb

some times I think I must have died five days ago and I am still in a coma




RECEIVE THE EVOLUTION





game opens with main character talking about how Tom and Jerry are in an S&M relationship




protip: one of the three central villains from Xenosaga wants to become as powerful as God because, this is true, he was part of an experiment to make direct contact with God, and it fried his soul, and now the only thing he is truly afraid of is the incomprehensible power of God, so he wants to - still true - punch a hole into where God is and go through and become as powerful as God




best graphics on the DS



a game where everyone is crying




KONAMI IS PUSSIES




you can fish for soda in this game

you can fish for soda in this game
you can fish for soda in this game
you can fish for soda in this game


you can fish for soda in this game




VICTIMS OF REVOLUTION





a survival horror game with random boss battles released in 1978





pot lady




tl;dr - if I or someone else makes a playlist of the Deadly Premonition gameplay videos, would anyone be up for organizing a synchronized IRC watch of them?


bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb ]]> http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=26313 http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=26313 Thu Feb 25, 2010 12:39 am L http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=26313 So there's this commercial indie game that someone called Sivak has released just this past month. It's called Battle Kid: Fortress of Peril, and it's an actual NES game programmed in NES assembly language and available on an actual NES game cartridge ("built with all-new parts" boasts its product page). I played the stage 1 demo ROM of it, and... golly, this game has some good level design! As it was programmed in assembly by a sole developer, Battle Kid is understandably not all that flashy from a technical standpoint. When most things break or explode, they don't burst into shards or drop off the screen in manners similar to Super Mario Bros or Mega Man. More importantly, there's no scrolling whatsoever - each screen is self-contained and cuts instantly to the next. However, Battle Kid's screens are designed with just such encapsulation in mind, in much the same way that recent indie games such as Knytt or VVVVVV are designed. Let's look at some of the first stage's screens: The third screen isn't much to write home about, except that it succinctly communicates the standard platformer enemy's behaviour: moving left, falling over edges, and changing direction when walls are encountered. (These meanies are called Kelpies, according to RetroZone's sample photo of the printed instruction booklet.) And, after the foes are removed, it shows the maximum height and width of Battle Kid's jump - two blocks tall and five blocks wide. This screen introduces the Sniper Snail, the jewel of Battle Kid's first level. Everything about its character design communicates its three defining attributes: it is slow, it shoots bullets, and it is armoured, requiring 8 shots to defeat. Unlike the other bullet-firing enemies in the game, Sniper Snails only shoot when Battle Kid enters their line of sight. The snail's bullets move quite swiftly, and just one of them will kill Battle Kid outright. This screen teaches the standard way to engage the snail - seeking cover beneath its line of sight, and periodically hopping into its line of sight and blasting. Or, when the situation permits, and with sufficiently nimble fingers, one can simply jump over the snail and its shots. This screen is interesting. Since all projectiles pass through solid obstacles, the Eye Guy can be dispatched easily. The Sniper Snail, however, seems to require a frantic series of shortened jumps, entering the snail's sight but keeping below the range of its bullets.* There's another way to clear this screen, though, which a seasoned player will most likely take. The snail's bullets are fired in volleys of three, after which is a split-second delay before it fires again. That interval permits the player to bait the snail once, and then run through the gap during the interval, avoiding the snail entirely. This is a particularly clever screen. When you enter from the top, the Kelpies march down this staircase and acumulate at the bottom, and Battle Kid can't quite descend fast enough to shoot them. Once they reach the bottom, the area is inaccessible - Battle Kid has no jump attack, and he cannot shoot downward. To pass this screen, Battle Kid must exit to the left (into a dead end) and then re-enter the screen. The Kelpies' positions are reset, but Battle Kid is now in an advantageous position and can defeat them easily. This is fascinating because the designer is openly acknowledging two counterintuitive (but nonetheless familiar) aspects of the game's design which in other games are normally passed over in silence - that even the weakest enemy is invincible if its outside the range of your attacks, and that re-entering a screen will literally wind back time, resetting all of its enemies and mechanisms. Finally, this screen forces the player to engage the Sniper Snail in a much more risky fashion. Since there's no cover below its firing range, you're forced to repeatedly jump over its triple-bullet volleys, shooting as you land, until the snail falls. Notice that the safe platform Battle Kid stands on in the screenshot can't be returned to from below - once you fall down, you must engage the snail without interruption until it falls or you do. Of course, more daring or impatient players could repeat the technique used to dash through the previous snail encounter here - jump over the snail's first volley and then rush through the gap. That purple ball, however, makes that high-speed feat a bit harder. It moves up and down at constant speed, changing direction at floors or ceilings. The ball's movement must then be taken into account before Battle Kid makes his move. A few other design benefits spring from Battle Kid's technical simplicity. Like its inspiration I Wanna Be The Guy, and unlike I Wanna Be The Guy's inspiration, the Mega Man series, there are no health meters, extra lives, or enemy item drops. The only reason to kill an enemy in this game is to make it disappear - there's no need to grind for health even momentarily, or a possibility of being rewarded or starved by capricious die rolls. Nor does the player possess a complex and fragile state beyond the few permanent powerups - Battle Kid enters most every the room possessing the means to get past it. It is, in conclusion, a quite well-crafted game, and its first level only bodes well for its subsequent levels. (Although, one thing that the demo gives no indication of is how the 'Metroidvania'-style powerups affect the game. This is an aspect that one can only anticipate.) ---- * There seems, however, to be a flaw in the design here. Firstly, owing to a split-second delay in the snail's firing, in conjunction with the rapid speed of its shots, it isn't actually possible to jump into the snail's shots. You can hop on that block all you like, and all of the bullets will stream over Battle Kid's head. Battle Kid: Fortress of Peril, and it's an actual NES game programmed in NES assembly language and available on an actual NES game cartridge ("built with all-new parts" boasts its product page). I played the stage 1 demo ROM of it, and... golly, this game has some good level design!

As it was programmed in assembly by a sole developer, Battle Kid is understandably not all that flashy from a technical standpoint. When most things break or explode, they don't burst into shards or drop off the screen in manners similar to Super Mario Bros or Mega Man. More importantly, there's no scrolling whatsoever - each screen is self-contained and cuts instantly to the next. However, Battle Kid's screens are designed with just such encapsulation in mind, in much the same way that recent indie games such as Knytt or VVVVVV are designed.

Let's look at some of the first stage's screens:



The third screen isn't much to write home about, except that it succinctly communicates the standard platformer enemy's behaviour: moving left, falling over edges, and changing direction when walls are encountered. (These meanies are called Kelpies, according to RetroZone's sample photo of the printed instruction booklet.) And, after the foes are removed, it shows the maximum height and width of Battle Kid's jump - two blocks tall and five blocks wide.



This screen introduces the Sniper Snail, the jewel of Battle Kid's first level. Everything about its character design communicates its three defining attributes: it is slow, it shoots bullets, and it is armoured, requiring 8 shots to defeat.

Unlike the other bullet-firing enemies in the game, Sniper Snails only shoot when Battle Kid enters their line of sight. The snail's bullets move quite swiftly, and just one of them will kill Battle Kid outright. This screen teaches the standard way to engage the snail - seeking cover beneath its line of sight, and periodically hopping into its line of sight and blasting.



Or, when the situation permits, and with sufficiently nimble fingers, one can simply jump over the snail and its shots.



This screen is interesting. Since all projectiles pass through solid obstacles, the Eye Guy can be dispatched easily. The Sniper Snail, however, seems to require a frantic series of shortened jumps, entering the snail's sight but keeping below the range of its bullets.*

There's another way to clear this screen, though, which a seasoned player will most likely take. The snail's bullets are fired in volleys of three, after which is a split-second delay before it fires again. That interval permits the player to bait the snail once, and then run through the gap during the interval, avoiding the snail entirely.



This is a particularly clever screen. When you enter from the top, the Kelpies march down this staircase and acumulate at the bottom, and Battle Kid can't quite descend fast enough to shoot them. Once they reach the bottom, the area is inaccessible - Battle Kid has no jump attack, and he cannot shoot downward.

To pass this screen, Battle Kid must exit to the left (into a dead end) and then re-enter the screen.



The Kelpies' positions are reset, but Battle Kid is now in an advantageous position and can defeat them easily.

This is fascinating because the designer is openly acknowledging two counterintuitive (but nonetheless familiar) aspects of the game's design which in other games are normally passed over in silence - that even the weakest enemy is invincible if its outside the range of your attacks, and that re-entering a screen will literally wind back time, resetting all of its enemies and mechanisms.



Finally, this screen forces the player to engage the Sniper Snail in a much more risky fashion. Since there's no cover below its firing range, you're forced to repeatedly jump over its triple-bullet volleys, shooting as you land, until the snail falls. Notice that the safe platform Battle Kid stands on in the screenshot can't be returned to from below - once you fall down, you must engage the snail without interruption until it falls or you do.

Of course, more daring or impatient players could repeat the technique used to dash through the previous snail encounter here - jump over the snail's first volley and then rush through the gap. That purple ball, however, makes that high-speed feat a bit harder. It moves up and down at constant speed, changing direction at floors or ceilings. The ball's movement must then be taken into account before Battle Kid makes his move.

A few other design benefits spring from Battle Kid's technical simplicity. Like its inspiration I Wanna Be The Guy, and unlike I Wanna Be The Guy's inspiration, the Mega Man series, there are no health meters, extra lives, or enemy item drops. The only reason to kill an enemy in this game is to make it disappear - there's no need to grind for health even momentarily, or a possibility of being rewarded or starved by capricious die rolls. Nor does the player possess a complex and fragile state beyond the few permanent powerups - Battle Kid enters most every the room possessing the means to get past it.

It is, in conclusion, a quite well-crafted game, and its first level only bodes well for its subsequent levels. (Although, one thing that the demo gives no indication of is how the 'Metroidvania'-style powerups affect the game. This is an aspect that one can only anticipate.)

----

* There seems, however, to be a flaw in the design here. Firstly, owing to a split-second delay in the snail's firing, in conjunction with the rapid speed of its shots, it isn't actually possible to jump into the snail's shots. You can hop on that block all you like, and all of the bullets will stream over Battle Kid's head. ]]> http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=26220 http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=26220 Fri Feb 19, 2010 3:10 am B coma http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=26220 We were going to talk about "video games" in Episode 12 but the women of the Denmark Curling Force proved far too alluring. Actually that's a bald-faced lie. The SBDN Podcast Crew spent the entire allotted recording time entranced by Day Break: The Series Starring Taye Digg's Chris Redfieldesque Biceps :D __________________________________________________ Episode #12 Direct Link: Click Here __________________________________________________ The theme for this episode is level design that depicts realistic settings. The panel discuss numerous examples of games that strive to create believable worlds by drawing from life, and in doing so present a strong case as to which aspects of reality developers can successfully draw on when creating realistic stages, as well as singling out common practices that draw the player out of the experience. Special attention is given to how game mechanics and player abilities relate to the level design and enhance immersion. Select Button Podcast 12 ft. CubaLibre, diplo, negativedge, and Takashi If you use iTunes, follow this link to subscribe __________________________________________________ Check out the RSS feed at our libsyn blog at http://selectbutton.libsyn.com/ If you want to inquire about participating in a future show check out the organization thread or feel free to pitch me a private message!


We were going to talk about "video games" in Episode 12 but the women of the Denmark Curling Force proved far too alluring. Actually that's a bald-faced lie. The SBDN Podcast Crew spent the entire allotted recording time entranced by Day Break: The Series Starring Taye Digg's Chris Redfieldesque Biceps :D

__________________________________________________

Episode #12 Direct Link: Click Here

__________________________________________________

The theme for this episode is level design that depicts realistic settings. The panel discuss numerous examples of games that strive to create believable worlds by drawing from life, and in doing so present a strong case as to which aspects of reality developers can successfully draw on when creating realistic stages, as well as singling out common practices that draw the player out of the experience. Special attention is given to how game mechanics and player abilities relate to the level design and enhance immersion.

Select Button Podcast 12 ft. CubaLibre, diplo, negativedge, and Takashi


If you use iTunes, follow this link to subscribe
__________________________________________________

Check out the RSS feed at our libsyn blog at http://selectbutton.libsyn.com/

If you want to inquire about participating in a future show check out the organization thread or feel free to pitch me a private message! ]]> http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=26110 http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=26110 Fri Feb 12, 2010 5:27 am B coma http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=26110 This Week A total lark. The Mega Select Button Dot Net Podcast Team (TMSBDNPT) share their unproduced screenplays for Blaze the Cat: The Feature Film. Eat your heart out, Kubrick's Napoleon. Download it quickly before Sega runs out of money and never makes the Vectorman sequel with FMV that Real Sega fans have been pining for. Select Button Podcast 11 ft. Takashi's Cat, BenoitRen, Decinoge, Persona-sama, Renfrew, Shnozlak, Torumasuta, Takashi, and a Sega Femme Bot. __________________________________________________ Episode #11 Direct Link: Click Here __________________________________________________ If you use iTunes, follow this link to subscribe __________________________________________________ Check out the RSS feed at our libsyn blog at http://selectbutton.libsyn.com/ This thread is where we organize episodes, I think.

This Week

A total lark. The Mega Select Button Dot Net Podcast Team (TMSBDNPT) share their unproduced screenplays for Blaze the Cat: The Feature Film. Eat your heart out, Kubrick's Napoleon.

Download it quickly before Sega runs out of money and never makes the Vectorman sequel with FMV that Real Sega fans have been pining for.

Select Button Podcast 11 ft. Takashi's Cat, BenoitRen, Decinoge, Persona-sama, Renfrew, Shnozlak, Torumasuta, Takashi, and a Sega Femme Bot.

__________________________________________________

Episode #11 Direct Link: Click Here

__________________________________________________

If you use iTunes, follow this link to subscribe
__________________________________________________

Check out the RSS feed at our libsyn blog at http://selectbutton.libsyn.com/

This thread is where we organize episodes, I think. ]]> http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=26056 http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=26056 Tue Feb 09, 2010 8:54 am spinach http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=26056 Metroid – I was eighteen, living over three hundred miles away from my family, and just days before had eaten the first meal I’d provided for myself – it was the best spaghetti I would ever cook, despite having gotten better at cooking spaghetti in the years since, seasoned as it was with the pride of self sufficience. Having learned that I’d never played Super Metroid, my roommate scoured the Internet for a ROM (it didn’t take long) and had me play. It was a good experience, and a good life. I decided, then, to dive right into its precursor: Metroid (“The Original!” its box would loudly proclaim when I’d finally seen it, months later). I found the ROM from some site that probably doesn’t exist anymore. Wiping ephemeral drool from my psyche, I started the game. Seconds in and having a good time, I hit the select button. Nothing happened. I hit the start button, and the whole world simply froze in space – creatures that had been going about their lives before stopped dead in their tracks. The joyful Saturday morning adventure background music gave way to pressing silence. I was terrified, and the game knew to taunt me; to look at me and shrug: “well?” Super Metroid, a game oozing with atmosphere, full of artwork that strikes me as nothing less than Gigeresque (if H. R. Giger drew for Archie Comics); a game released in 1994 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, had a map. After hitting the select button, I could see that map, blocks of color rendering the places I’d been and, if I’d happened to bump the right switch, rendering the places I had yet to go. The game’s caves could be creepy, but I was an explorer, up for the thrill of it, because I had a map. Metroid, an entirely alien game with stark black backgrounds and pixel art that didn’t describe forms so much as suggest them; a game released in 1987 for the Nintendo Entertainment System, had no map. As its world hung in stasis, waiting for me, terror set in, because I, an eighteen year old college student too far from home, working for just over five bucks an hour in January of 2004, for whom the second quarter of an all-too-expensive and ever more questionable art school loomed ever closer (and for whom the first quarter yielded his first ever failing grade); who’d come to realize his hastily made friends were in just as bad a situation as he and could provide little comfort in their company – suddenly, was not exploring. I was lost. I swallowed the fears of my new adulthood, the empty cupboards I could not fill, the groans of my truck’s gas tank, my inability to draw to save my life, and I pressed start. Life on Zebes – the planet on which both games are set – started again. The alien bugs I shot on the game’s opening stage were incidental: something moved, and I shot. A flashing circle appeared, where there probably would’ve been an alien bug corpse if this were real life. I went to it. A number at the top left of the screen – my life points – went up. When I started the game that number was 30. It can go to 99. From the very beginning, the game made apparent that I didn’t come into this excursion fully prepared. In Super Mario Bros., a game released two years earlier than Metroid, for the same system, you started at the left of the screen and moved to the right. Here, in Metroid, you start dead center. Move left and you are awarded the ability to duck and roll – an ability crucial to your excursion. I did this, and found some small comfort, completely undone when I’d gone off to the right, into the game’s labyrinthine tunnels. I closed the emulator that ran the game, and probably played Contra. I joked to my roommate, “the first one’s kind of lame,” and he probably said something like, “yeah, after Super Metroid, the first one sucks.” I didn’t touch the game again for years, but I remembered how it scared me, and I remembered the things I’d thought about while playing. Since then, it’s been there, in my head, at every turning point in my life. When I dropped out of school and lost my apartment, I was Samus Aran, Metroid’s Heroine, moving through caves and tunnels that were really streets, killing alien bugs that were really tasks at two different jobs for flashing circles of energy that were probably taco bell. And, damnedest thing, once I’d gotten to my station in society as an official Washed Out Homeless Dropout, it wasn’t so bad. But I went home anyway, after my father asked. A couple of years later, when I had finally had enough of a soul crushing retail job and went against all the good advice I’d ever been given and every admonition of “you need an income” to quit and strike out on my own, I had Metroid on my mind. When my first company went nowhere and I couldn’t find work to save my life, I just closed my eyes and thought of Zebes, and it wasn’t so bad. It’s been that way, over the last six years. Some guys remember The Catch from that 49ers game. Some guys remember Tony Montana’s climb to the top of the world. I’ve heard guys quote Think & Grow Rich. For years I didn’t touch the game, and then I did. Started the game, killed the alien fauna for sustenance, ran through the game’s tunnels with no clue of where to go and no care in the world. I eventually formed a mental map of the parts of Zebes I’d seen, and would occasionally make progress into new areas. Getting lost and making a way out became the fun of it, and so became the point of the game, nevermind the title screen’s declaration that I am to “Defeat the Metroid of the Planet Zebes and Destroy the Mother Brain The Mechanical Life Vein” (huh?), they’ll be there when I get to them. Nevermind my student loans, they’ll be there when I can pay them. Nevermind I couldn’t draw to save my life when I started art school, I did pretty well by the time I left. A part of me is still careful, still doesn’t like to explore without a map. That part of me handled the planning when, over the course of a year, I set up my move to San Jose. It was really a stop on the way to another school, I just needed to raise money first. I joined up with some people, the work paid low, but there was a scholarship that’d cover a good chunk of my first semester. I found editing work that came with lodging on top of pay, which would last until just about the time the other job was to start. It would pay enough that I could put down a deposit and pay the first month’s rent on a room somewhere close to work, easily. All set, I flew out from San Diego on the afternoon of August 20th. Out into space, with a few of my possessions and gifts given to me by my family in support of my voyage. I landed in San Jose an hour later, gathered my luggage, and sat down outside. I grabbed my phone, and called the man who I was set to work for before my main job started, and who’d told me he’d made arrangements to have me picked up from the airport. “It looks like I’m going to have to say no,” sent me right off to Zebes – lost, alone, and far from prepared. After the conversation ended, I was numb. I swallowed hard and dialed the office of my main job. Within minutes I'd been set up with an apartment full of people willing to take on one more. Weeks later, my main job fell through. Two weeks' pay felt very much like Samus' first shot of life after killing an alien bug. But this time out, I am unafraid. Like Metroid, life has no map, and in both cases, finding my own way is most of the fun.

– I was eighteen, living over three hundred miles away from my family, and just days before had eaten the first meal I’d provided for myself – it was the best spaghetti I would ever cook, despite having gotten better at cooking spaghetti in the years since, seasoned as it was with the pride of self sufficience. Having learned that I’d never played Super Metroid, my roommate scoured the Internet for a ROM (it didn’t take long) and had me play. It was a good experience, and a good life. I decided, then, to dive right into its precursor: Metroid (“The Original!” its box would loudly proclaim when I’d finally seen it, months later). I found the ROM from some site that probably doesn’t exist anymore. Wiping ephemeral drool from my psyche, I started the game.

Seconds in and having a good time, I hit the select button. Nothing happened. I hit the start button, and the whole world simply froze in space – creatures that had been going about their lives before stopped dead in their tracks. The joyful Saturday morning adventure background music gave way to pressing silence.

I was terrified, and the game knew to taunt me; to look at me and shrug: “well?”

Super Metroid, a game oozing with atmosphere, full of artwork that strikes me as nothing less than Gigeresque (if H. R. Giger drew for Archie Comics); a game released in 1994 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, had a map. After hitting the select button, I could see that map, blocks of color rendering the places I’d been and, if I’d happened to bump the right switch, rendering the places I had yet to go. The game’s caves could be creepy, but I was an explorer, up for the thrill of it, because I had a map.

Metroid, an entirely alien game with stark black backgrounds and pixel art that didn’t describe forms so much as suggest them; a game released in 1987 for the Nintendo Entertainment System, had no map. As its world hung in stasis, waiting for me, terror set in, because I, an eighteen year old college student too far from home, working for just over five bucks an hour in January of 2004, for whom the second quarter of an all-too-expensive and ever more questionable art school loomed ever closer (and for whom the first quarter yielded his first ever failing grade); who’d come to realize his hastily made friends were in just as bad a situation as he and could provide little comfort in their company – suddenly, was not exploring. I was lost.

I swallowed the fears of my new adulthood, the empty cupboards I could not fill, the groans of my truck’s gas tank, my inability to draw to save my life, and I pressed start.

Life on Zebes – the planet on which both games are set – started again. The alien bugs I shot on the game’s opening stage were incidental: something moved, and I shot. A flashing circle appeared, where there probably would’ve been an alien bug corpse if this were real life. I went to it. A number at the top left of the screen – my life points – went up. When I started the game that number was 30. It can go to 99. From the very beginning, the game made apparent that I didn’t come into this excursion fully prepared.

In Super Mario Bros., a game released two years earlier than Metroid, for the same system, you started at the left of the screen and moved to the right. Here, in Metroid, you start dead center. Move left and you are awarded the ability to duck and roll – an ability crucial to your excursion. I did this, and found some small comfort, completely undone when I’d gone off to the right, into the game’s labyrinthine tunnels. I closed the emulator that ran the game, and probably played Contra. I joked to my roommate, “the first one’s kind of lame,” and he probably said something like, “yeah, after Super Metroid, the first one sucks.”

I didn’t touch the game again for years, but I remembered how it scared me, and I remembered the things I’d thought about while playing. Since then, it’s been there, in my head, at every turning point in my life. When I dropped out of school and lost my apartment, I was Samus Aran, Metroid’s Heroine, moving through caves and tunnels that were really streets, killing alien bugs that were really tasks at two different jobs for flashing circles of energy that were probably taco bell. And, damnedest thing, once I’d gotten to my station in society as an official Washed Out Homeless Dropout, it wasn’t so bad. But I went home anyway, after my father asked. A couple of years later, when I had finally had enough of a soul crushing retail job and went against all the good advice I’d ever been given and every admonition of “you need an income” to quit and strike out on my own, I had Metroid on my mind. When my first company went nowhere and I couldn’t find work to save my life, I just closed my eyes and thought of Zebes, and it wasn’t so bad.

It’s been that way, over the last six years. Some guys remember The Catch from that 49ers game. Some guys remember Tony Montana’s climb to the top of the world. I’ve heard guys quote Think & Grow Rich.

For years I didn’t touch the game, and then I did. Started the game, killed the alien fauna for sustenance, ran through the game’s tunnels with no clue of where to go and no care in the world. I eventually formed a mental map of the parts of Zebes I’d seen, and would occasionally make progress into new areas. Getting lost and making a way out became the fun of it, and so became the point of the game, nevermind the title screen’s declaration that I am to “Defeat the Metroid of the Planet Zebes and Destroy the Mother Brain The Mechanical Life Vein” (huh?), they’ll be there when I get to them.

Nevermind my student loans, they’ll be there when I can pay them.

Nevermind I couldn’t draw to save my life when I started art school, I did pretty well by the time I left.

A part of me is still careful, still doesn’t like to explore without a map. That part of me handled the planning when, over the course of a year, I set up my move to San Jose. It was really a stop on the way to another school, I just needed to raise money first. I joined up with some people, the work paid low, but there was a scholarship that’d cover a good chunk of my first semester. I found editing work that came with lodging on top of pay, which would last until just about the time the other job was to start. It would pay enough that I could put down a deposit and pay the first month’s rent on a room somewhere close to work, easily.

All set, I flew out from San Diego on the afternoon of August 20th. Out into space, with a few of my possessions and gifts given to me by my family in support of my voyage.

I landed in San Jose an hour later, gathered my luggage, and sat down outside.

I grabbed my phone, and called the man who I was set to work for before my main job started, and who’d told me he’d made arrangements to have me picked up from the airport. “It looks like I’m going to have to say no,” sent me right off to Zebes – lost, alone, and far from prepared. After the conversation ended, I was numb. I swallowed hard and dialed the office of my main job. Within minutes I'd been set up with an apartment full of people willing to take on one more.

Weeks later, my main job fell through. Two weeks' pay felt very much like Samus' first shot of life after killing an alien bug. But this time out, I am unafraid. Like Metroid, life has no map, and in both cases, finding my own way is most of the fun. ]]> http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=25976 http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=25976 Wed Feb 03, 2010 5:41 pm Dracko http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=25976 ]]> http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=25882 http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=25882 Thu Jan 28, 2010 1:24 am B coma http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=25882 They said we would never make to episode ten, and BY GOD! They were very nearly right! The selectbutton.net podcast celebrates its wave of continued 2010 $UCCESS in an expansive episode about the localization of video games. Listen as this episode becomes even more CAN'T MISS: we discuss the challenges of localizing (and naturalizing!) games across cultural, technical, and even nationally imposed barriers. Also, a special segment on the translation of SEGAGAGA by our very own Adeligian! I am the true face of exclamation points!!! Forum member Botagel also crashes the party mere seconds beforehand! Hurry up and listen before I run out of empty bomba Select Button Podcast 10 ft. Adeligian, B coma, Botagel, Deets, Schwere Viper, and Takashi __________________________________________________ Episode #10 Direct Link: Click Here __________________________________________________ If you use iTunes, follow this link to subscribe __________________________________________________ Check out the RSS feed at our libsyn blog at http://selectbutton.libsyn.com/ This thread is where we organize episodes, so organize a goddamn Sega podcast already

They said we would never make to episode ten, and BY GOD!



They were very nearly right!


The selectbutton.net podcast celebrates its wave of continued 2010 $UCCESS in an expansive episode about the localization of video games. Listen as this episode becomes even more CAN'T MISS: we discuss the challenges of localizing (and naturalizing!) games across cultural, technical, and even nationally imposed barriers. Also, a special segment on the translation of SEGAGAGA by our very own Adeligian!

I am the true face of exclamation points!!! Forum member Botagel also crashes the party mere seconds beforehand! Hurry up and listen before I run out of empty bomba


Select Button Podcast 10 ft. Adeligian, B coma, Botagel, Deets, Schwere Viper, and Takashi

__________________________________________________

Episode #10 Direct Link: Click Here

__________________________________________________

If you use iTunes, follow this link to subscribe
__________________________________________________

Check out the RSS feed at our libsyn blog at http://selectbutton.libsyn.com/

This thread is where we organize episodes, so organize a goddamn Sega podcast already ]]> http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=25787 http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=25787 Thu Jan 21, 2010 10:22 pm B coma http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=25787 Right off the hamster wheel and into the treadmill, this week the show launches into an EPIC JOURNEY (of running time) to talk about MMORPG's, and it's a laser focused discussion in a genre that is itself becoming increasingly narrow in design. Listen to find out why the leviathan that is World of Warcraft has not been toppled, and why game developers and publishers are wrongheaded in their swipes for marketshare, as they detract from the true promise of the genre in their attempts. Who the fuck am I kidding, just listen for the Lost Vikings tangent. Select Button Podcast 9 ft. CubaLibre, diplo, negativedge, and robotdell! ____________________________________________ Episode #9 Direct Link: Click Here ____________________________________________ If you use iTunes, follow this link to subscribe ____________________________________________ Check out the RSS feed at our libsyn blog at http://selectbutton.libsyn.com/ This thread is where we organize episodes, so organize a goddamn Sega podcast already.

Right off the hamster wheel and into the treadmill,

this week the show launches into an EPIC JOURNEY (of running time) to talk about MMORPG's, and it's a laser focused discussion in a genre that is itself becoming increasingly narrow in design. Listen to find out why the leviathan that is World of Warcraft has not been toppled, and why game developers and publishers are wrongheaded in their swipes for marketshare, as they detract from the true promise of the genre in their attempts. Who the fuck am I kidding, just listen for the Lost Vikings tangent.

Select Button Podcast 9 ft. CubaLibre, diplo, negativedge, and robotdell!

____________________________________________


Episode #9 Direct Link: Click Here

____________________________________________

If you use iTunes, follow this link to subscribe
____________________________________________

Check out the RSS feed at our libsyn blog at http://selectbutton.libsyn.com/

This thread is where we organize episodes, so organize a goddamn Sega podcast already. ]]>