Misplaced Nostalgia: Arcades

This week’s blog is going to be a little different. Normally I try to pick a specific video game and then dive into it and talk about what I like and don’t like about it. However, this week I want to branch off from that a little. You see I experience something called misplaced nostalgia. One of my favorite gaming podcasts (that is not my own of course) Retronauts did an episode a while back about the topic and I still think about it a lot. Not necessarily their specific points in the episode but more along the lines of the topic as a whole.

Misplaced nostalgia is the idea that you experience nostalgic feelings and emotions for things you never personally experienced. For example I never grew up with an NES however if you ask me about it would seem like it was the world to me as a kid (that was actually the N64 for me). Part of this idea also leads me into my “gaming sins”. Meaning games that I know I should like but for some reason I just can’t get into. Some of these gaming sins also line up with my misplaced nostalgia. The Mario Kart series has never been something I was that into. But if you were to talk to me about it I would end up feeling super nostalgic for it. I honestly can’t explain why. So for the rest of this week’s blog I wanted to talk about other games I’m super nostalgic for but don’t really have any experience with.

One of the major things I never really had experience with was arcades. The whole concept of the arcade just somehow feels magical to me. I know they still exist and you can go find some. Hell there are some retro arcades near me that I could go an experience some classic arcade gaming. But every time I go an play a game in an arcade. It’s always underwhelming. The reality of an arcade just never lives up to the image in my head. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen one too many movies about arcades (Tron anyone?) but it just doesn’t feel quite right.

I’ve listened to a ton of podcasts all about developer’s arcade histories as well. I am beyond fascinated with it. Seeing the progression of technology and game design is just amazing. It may be a little geeky but I like learning about the tech put into the old cabinets, even if I don’t understand it all fully. I also like seeing how developers learned from each other and competed off of each other. So maybe my nostalgia for it is less about the experience and more about wishing I could have experienced it when it would have had an impact on me.

The advent of home consoles always made me question why anyone would want to pay more money to play games in the arcade. I mean I can just go home and pop on a game I want and play it as much as I want. I don’t have to pay again when I lose. That was my thought process when I was a kid. I remember being on a field trip to an amusement park and all my friends spent the entire time in the arcade and I just went on rides with other people. I never understood the appeal then. But I guess I do now. I sincerely hope there is some way for arcades to attract my attention again. I would love to get hooked and make it like a weekly thing that I would go to and hang out at and just play video games.

What is something you have misplaced nostalgia for? Arcades are just one of mine. I plan on doing one post a month about something I have misplaced nostalgia for. Well until I run out of misplaced nostalgia of course. But I would love to hear from any of you on what yours is!

Red Dead Redemption: Part 2

It’s actually been a full week since I beat Red Dead Redemption on my PS3. And now that the dust has settled and I’ve had some time with my thoughts on the game I can definitively say. Holy shit what a good game. I’m not gonna lie, the game doesn’t quite live up the the hype or the expectation I had set based off of everyone’s opinions but damn was it still good. So once again. Before I go on. Spoilers out the wazoo on this one. So many spoilers… So here we go

My complaints with the controls in the first post never really went away. The controls are still not great. Not totally unplayable but still not great. There was one portion of the game that took me so many tries to beat because I was fighting the controls so much. It was the last horse wrangling mission. It was fucking impossible to lasso the horses, get off your horse and then tame it. You lasso the horse, the horse freaks out and then when you climb off your horse it magically gets away. But that aside, the controls are acceptable. But don’t expect precision movement or anything of the sort because the game does not give you that.

Ok…. I’m done whining about the controls. I’m good! I got it out of my system. Lets move on to the portion of the game that stands out, the story. I loved the story of this game. The voice acting left a lot to be desired but it didn’t hurt the story. In a nutshell the story of the game is about an ex criminal, John Marston, and his fight to get his family back from the US government. To do so he must hunt down the members of his former outlaw gang and turn them into the government. That’s the plot of the game really. There isn’t too many plot twists to it. You know the US agents are dicks so the “twist” at the end doesn’t come as much of a surprise. But in regards to the end of the game lets talk about it.

After you get the job done. You’ve done their dirty work. Your wife and child are let go and you allowed to go back to your farm. This was the moment when I was like “Is this game done yet? I beat the story…” And the game really makes wonder what is going to happen next due to the length of just nothing missions you’re required to complete. However, after a few missions those US agents come back and they are there for you. You fight your way out of your house leading you wife and son to the barn. You get them on horses and have them run. You then walk out the front of the barn, knowing who is out there for you. You are given one last chance to take out as many of them as you can. I spent that moment trying to find the SOB US Marshalls who betrayed me. Sadly I don’t think they are really there. The game ends with you playing as John’s son 3 years later. The “secret” ending of the game is finding the one last side mission and hunting down the the man who killed John. The man who killed his father.

This game took me places. A lot of people I spoke too didn’t see the death of John coming. I saw it coming a little so it didn’t hit me quite as hard. However, I don’t know if I would have been able to predict the ending 9 years ago when it came out. A lot has changed in the gaming landscape in the last 9 years. Storytelling has evolved a lot since then. Back in 2010 it was probably less common to have the finale of the game being your main character getting blown away by a bunch of US agents. But even with all that I found it effective.

I highly encourage anyone who hasn’t played this game yet to give it a try. Now that I think about it though I just spoiled the shit out of it for you. But if you don’t mind that I highly suggest trying it haha. The controls may have been bad but the game was still fun and the controls didn’t ruin the experiences. I’m looking forward to digging into Red Dead 2. Hopefully very soon.

Red Dead Redemption

Crazy as it sounds but I have never played a full Rockstar game. GTA, Red Dead, Manhunt, Bully, you name it I haven’t beaten it. The one I have played the most is GTA IV but I got stuck on a mission and rage quit. But with the release of Red Dead 2 out I felt it was about damn time for me to actually try my hand at the original. So this week’s blog is going to be dedicated to my playthrough of the game so far. Next weeks? Well hopefully I will have beaten it by then. But if not you will get another update!

Red Dead Redemption was Rockstar answering a question no one knew they wanted to ask. What if you made GTA into an old western? I vaguely remember the hype for this game before it came out and that a lot of the games press was skeptical of the idea. But once it was released it was smash hit and became both a critical and financial success for them. It was released on May 18th 2010. Anddd at the time of writing this it is just hitting me that the game is almost 9 years old… Well that was my daily dose of feeling old. Anyway let’s dive into my first week of gameplay.

I started playing Red Dead 1 almost exactly 1 week from the date this blog is being released, this past Saturday. First impression. This game still freakin holds up. The controls are probably the most dated aspect of the game and from what I’ve heard they haven’t really changed too much in Red Dead 2 either. I really do not like how you have hold or mash the “X” button (“A” button on XB360? Im playing it on my PS3) to run. I also don’t like how the characters move. You don’t feel 100% in control of your movement. There is an awkward turn radius for everything you control, whether it’s the main character, a horse etc. Probably the worst thing to control and maneuver with is any cart or wagon. It’s so easy to over commit to a turn and cause you to drive off the road and fuck up whatever mission you’re on. But other than the controls the game still plays well!

Probably the most striking aspect of the game that still holds up are the graphics! The character models and the building textures aren’t too great. However, the lighting and environment just looks stunning still. Obviously not as good as the new game but I was still pleasantly surprised!

WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD!? So I don’t know if this really needs a spoiler warning for a game that is almost 10 years old now but none the less I wanted to throw that out there since this last bit of the today’s post I wanted to talk about the story I’ve played so far! As of me writing this (literally the night before being posted) I have just made it into Mexico and it appears that I have completed the Landon Ricketts quest line. I’m really enjoying the story so far. Marsden is a great main character. The way Rockstar has written him makes him a little ambiguous in terms of is her a good or bad guy? This allows the player to decide what type of character he is going to be. I almost always plays the goody two shoes type of guy so I like how he can be an outlaw with a heart of gold. I’m not entirely sure who is keeping his wife and daughter captive? Maybe I’m missing something but he seems to be intentionally vague on that. It could be the government? Or possibly remnants of his old gang?

In any case. So far I am enjoying this game and I look forward to keeping you all posted with my progress!

Nintendo Labo - First Impressions

It has finally happened. I turned 30! No that’s not what I’m here to talk about. However, me turning 30 does allow me to discuss this topic! You see my wife got me a Nintendo Labo for my birthday. And now I just sit back wait for the vitriolic response about how Nintendo is just selling us cardboard.

No but in all seriousness I was really pleasantly surprised by how much I have enjoyed my experience so far with the Labo. First thing to note is I have only built 2 of the parts so far, the “RC Car” and the Motorcycle, so I can only comment on those 2 things specifically right now. I do plan on coming back for another post on this topic as I get more experience with it and I would have wanted to tinker with it more but I was busy playing Super Mario Galaxy 2 this week. With all that said lets take a look at the Nintendo Labo.

The first piece I built was the “RC Car”. And I used quotations for that because while it does function kind of as an RC Car it really doesn’t look like one. But that isn’t the important part of this. The important part is that it freaking works. It’s like cardboard physics sorcery and it’s amazing. The game teaches you how to build each of the pieces with an easy to rewind and fast forward video tutorial that is honestly perfect and will definitely help kids with building the toys. Or adults like me who need a step by step breakdown of how to build it cause otherwise they become paranoid they are building it wrong. Thankfully that never happened to me because the instructions we seriously so clear and well done.

The RC car itself is very simple looking.

The openings on the side of the RC Car that you see above are for the Joy Con controllers. You slide them into those spaces until they lock in. Well as much as they can lock into cardboard. You then take the Switch system and use the buttons on the touch screen to control the car! One button vibrates one joy con and the other vibrates the other one. The way it works is when you hit both buttons at the same time it will cause both joy cons to vibrate and steadily push the car forward! To turn you just hit one or the other and the care will turn left or right. It’s a remarkably simple idea but it’s pretty effective! It’s not something you would really expect to work either but physics are a weird thing man.

While I do think the RC Car was cool it’s not something I would really want to play with frequently. The other toy I built, the motor cycle is much more fun to play.

The motorcycle toy is incredibly fun to play. It isn’t the most intuitive at first because you have to hold it up against your stomach/chest to play. It is not meant to sit on a table or anything else. You hold it to your chest and use the handle bars to steer you motor cycle on the screen. You can see there is a nice placeholder for the Nintendo Switch screen in the center while the joy cons fit inside of each handle bar. In the right handle bar there is a rubber band hidden in the main console that allows you to “rev” the engine and it feels pretty good to twist the handle.

So far my experience with the Labo has been a ton of fun. And while I can understand why it got some hate online it still surprises me just HOW MUCH there was. I mean the games tied with the toys are fun so far and the cardboard is a lot sturdier than you would think it would be. But at the same time I understand it is cardboard. But I guess my argument would be that the toys are pretty elaborate and can take up to 3 hours to build depending on the toy so calling it “just cardboard” is a vast over simplification. The board Nintendo provides have a lot of detail in them and can take a while to punch out all the stuff you need. Just trying to imagine how long it would take me to create these pieces without the precut or perforated portions gives me a head ache.

Surprisingly enough I recommend at least trying the Labo. I have had a ton of fun with what I have built so far and I seriously cannot wait till I have some more free time to build that damn piano.

NAMCO Museum

A big thing I want to do with this blog is talk about games that I have little interest in. Okay, that may not be the best lead in for this but hear me out. I want to talk about specific games or specific gaming topics that I find interesting or have respect for but don't really enjoy playing or engaging in. Today's topic is a perfect example of this. NAMCO is one of those storied developers. They have pretty much been around since the birth of the video game industry. And while I respect what they have done for this industry I just don't enjoy playing their games all that much and that just.. feels.. wrong. Those who follow the podcast know I love video game history so it surprises me even more that I don't enjoy their games. But with all that said, the NAMCO Museum games are surprisingly fun and totally worth a visit. Especially for you video game history fans out there.

I want the next couple posts that I write to cover the various volumes of the NAMCO Museum series. However, I am honestly not 100% sure there is enough to talk about in each volume that can fill a blog post for each volume but dammit I am going to try. So for today we are going to begin with NAMCO Museum Volume 1.

The first volume of the Museum series consists of 7 different classic NAMCO games. Pac-Man, Bosconian, Galaga, Pole Position, Rally-X, New Rally-X and Toy Pop. Like I said I'm not the biggest fan of NAMCO's classic titles and if this series was just a compilation of those titles I wouldn't be all too impressed with it. Besides since some of these games are so iconic I will probably do episodes of the podcast on them and dive further into their history. But what makes the NAMCO Museum series stick out is the literal museum aspect of it. In this compilation series you can either chose to play the games or you can chose to “visit” the NAMCO Museum. If you select the museum option from the menu the game will let you explore the museum in first person. You wander around looking at all the exhibits it has to offer. Not surprisingly there is an exhibit for each game on the collection and as boring as this sounds the museum was the most interesting part about the entire game for me.

Before I dive into the museum in full you can see a full video of the museum tour for NAMCO Museum Volume 1 HERE.

In each exhibit you will find scans of promotional material, instruction cards, sprite libraries and more for each of the games in the collection. At the end of each exhibit they have a 3D rendering of what the arcade cabinet for each game. You can then walk up the cabinet and play the game there! It's a crude representation of an arcade but it is still pretty cool they would add something like that. In the video linked the player starts out in the exhibit for the game Toy Pop.

Prior to researching this I had honestly never heard of this arcade game before. It was released in 1986, which was 3 years before I was born so it was out of arcades by the time I really got to experience it. On a side note I also did not really go to arcades at all as a kid which probably contributed to me never seeing this game, so that's two strikes against me. The first thing you are able to view in this exhibit is a sales promotion pamphlet from 1986. You can then select a larger version of the scan and zoom into various points and take a good look at it. Sadly since this is a PS1 title the scans are NOT really the highest quality. The player then progresses and views Toy Pop stationary, a POP card (which was a card placed on the side of the arcade cabinet), an instruction card, finally a tip book that offers tips on how to get better at the game and finally a picture scan of the actual arcade board that was inside the cabinets.

Each game's exhibit has different things like these on display. And while I find this interesting I don't want to bore all of you. I mean where is the fun in mean just describing what's in a video when I already provided a link to watch it. After writing all of this I'm really starting to realize that there isn't much insight I could provide for the other games in this series. But if this type of thing would interest you reach out to me! I would be happy to write more posts about this series. You can see all my social media links at the bottom of this web page or contact me via the contact page on this site.

It is honestly amazing to me how much detail they put into these museum segments. The first volume was released in 1995 and as someone who likes video game history a great deal I can't help but love that NAMCO took to the time to document and archive all of this. Unfortunately not every game developer takes the time to do this and a lot of video game history is lost. But thankfully NAMCO preserved it and I am looking forward to diving more into their museum series personally. Whether it be for the blog or just for fun!