Blaster Master

I remember discovering Blaster Master at a friend’s birthday party. It starts out with a goofy story about a guy whose frog escapes, finds some radioactive material and grows, then disappears into a mysterious cave. The guy follows the frog and discovers this cool-looking vehicle (sort of a tank with wheels.) This stirring music starts up as you blast out of a tunnel in the vehicle, and you encounter some bad guys and ledges and stuff, so you try jumping, and it works! You can even aim straight up. And then I came across a ladder that the vehicle obviously couldn’t use, so I was like, what if I can get out? And sure enough, pressing select has this teeny guy jump out. You climb down the ladder and enter a room, and then the whole thing switches to top view as you explore and search for power-ups. The whole mixed-view thing was pretty novel, as was the idea of a platform game where your character is a vehicle. And the game is full of really good music. It’s still one of my favorite NES games.

The game is also insanely hard. There’s no saving feature, and you have limited continues. Also the controls in the overhead view can be tough, since you have to hold the grenade button to face the same direction while moving, so you can fire at the bosses while waling sideways. Also, most of the overhead areas are useless. So while the game does give you a feel for exploration, there isn’t much of a reward for exploring if you know where the boss room is.

My other complaint is that, while you get permanent upgrades for the vehicle when you beat bosses, some of those upgrades are lame. The first level gives you a stronger weapon, but so does the second, and the second level has stronger enemies. So the advantage of the first upgrade only lasts a very short time. And the level 4 upgrade is just a key to get to level 5.

Oh, and your gun in overhead mode – it starts out with limited range, and although you can power it up, getting hit weakens the gun. So if you get damaged too much in a boss battle, you can find yourself unable to damage it. (You can use grenades, but they detonate a specific distance from you, and it’s hard to get into position while the boss is moving around and firing at you.)

Recently I was thinking of some improvements that could be made to the original game – mainly some additional power-ups that could be stuck into the now-useless cave areas. Here’s what I was thinking:

1. Increase the distance you can fall when outside your tank
2. Increase the minimum level of your gun, so that it always has unlimited range
3. Maybe increase your health or hover meters
4. Maybe add a new type of special weapon, although there’s nothing obviously lacking there.

Well imagine my surprise when I found that they have recently released a new sequel for the WiiWare, called Blaster Master: Overdrive. And against all odds, it looks cool! I say this is against all odds because the Blaster Master series is full of lame sequels:

1. Blaster Master 2 for the Genesis – I’ve heard it’s overly linear and just plan bad.
2. Blaster Master Boy for the Game Boy – no vehicle, just clearing obstacles in overhead mode.
3. Blaster Master: Blasting Again for the PlayStation – a 3D-view game that I’ve also heard was bad.
4. Blaster Master: Enemy Below for the Game Boy Color. I actually got this one, since it seemed to be back to the original theme. The problem was that it had the same graphics, just different maps, and it had the same songs but with inferior quality. So while it was enjoyable enough for the low price I paid, I sold it when I was done.

This new one seems to have delighted most Blaster Master fans that reviewed it. It seems to have some polish issues, but then again it’s only $10. So maybe.

Mega Man 10

Being on parental leave, I got some time to myself to play Mega Man 10. It’s pretty cool. And I ate a Mentos mint while I played it, for some nostalgic value – I first ate Mentos the Christmas I got Mega Man 3, the coolest game ever. The weapons in 10 are pretty creative. It’s not quite as cool as Mega Man 9 – it doesn’t have any really catchy songs, and some of the levels are just hard without being super cool. I actually liked the castle stages though, and the final battles were pretty reasonable. (I checked the Internet for strategies so I wouldn’t have to keep playing the re-fight-all-the-guys level over and over, but it wasn’t too complicated.)

Mega Man games are among the coolest ever, but there’s a lot of variation among them. The chart below shows just how much:

Note that I ranked 5 and 10 about the same. 10 has maybe better weapons (since 5 has a lot of forward-firing ones, and the Water Wave is pretty lame), and a better castle (not to mention a shorter one). Specifically, the boss battles are more interesting. But Mega Man 5 does have more nifty music than 10, and I like its robot masters better. So it evens out.

I also noted a couple of similarities between this game and Mega Man X, which would have been the name on this game’s title screen if they had stuck with Roman numerals. (Note that some of these also apply to Mega Man 6, which was developed concurrently with Mega Man X.)

• The Robot Master intro music (after the Stage Select screen) is the same as the music in Mega Man X (which is slightly different from the tune in Mega Man 2 and 4).
• In the intro screen, the Robot Master starts out as a silhouette before appearing fully in the center of the screen.
• When you beat a Robot Master, the “got weapon” screen demos the use of the weapon.
• The game’s plot (such as it is) involves robots being infected by a virus and turning evil.

(And speaking of plot, as insipid as it is, it’s actually less annoying than the plot in Mega Man 9. I make it a habit of ignoring Mega Man plots to the maximum extent possible.)

Nature

I’m trying to get back into keeping a journal. I was writing about the church callings I’ve had, and an excerpt about the whole Scouting thing seemed relevant here (as much as anything does):

Nature is cool. It’s beautiful. It’s relaxing. It’s fascinating and inspiring to learn about and observe. But it is also subversive. You can enjoy nature for a few hours, but before long you have to eat. You need to find restroom facilities. And eventually you need to sleep and stay warm. If you have to stay in nature as you deal with these issues, a disturbing thing happens to you: you start to become part of nature. It affects what you eat. It affects how you smell. Things like what socks you’re wearing and how long your facial hair is and what you’ve touched since you last encountered hand soap start to demand your attention. In short, you sort of start to resemble an animal. Now, maybe that’s an overstatement. Lots of people like “roughing it.” But I don’t.

Of course, that’s totally unreasonable. Most people in the world’s history have never had the luxury of running water or food options to begin with, so there’s no reason why I should feel like they’re necessities. And of course there is lots of value in Scout activities beyond just being outside. So I’m not trying to use my aversion to lack of running water to get out of or discourage campouts. I’m just saying that I don’t appreciate nature’s tendency to try to assimilate me whenever I start to get close to it. I’ll have to keep my guard up.

Blissful Ignorance

My daughter was watching Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus <shudder>. Barbie’s character makes a comment that is so stupid that it warrants mention here:

Cloud Queen: [A Wand of Light] isn’t found; it’s built.
Annika: How?
Cloud Queen: From a measure of courage, a ring of love, and a gem of ice lit by hope’s eternal flame.
Annika: That’s only three things! We can do it!

In order to visit Saturn, all I need is an unlimited power source, a warp drive system, and shield generator. That’s only three things! I can do it!

Video Game Criteria

I know the world is dying to know how what I value in a video game. So here are the elements that I think contribute to a game’s awesomeness. A game definitely doesn’t have to excel in all areas, but getting one completely wrong can pretty much mess up a game (unless the genre renders the category non-applicable).

Your Character

This isn’t about the character’s backstory; it’s about what the character looks like. Usually, you’ll be looking at your character for the entire game.

Examples of success:

• Vehicles can make neat characters, like in Gradius and Blaster Master.
• Robots and other mechanical armor are always a plus. Samus’s armor is a big contributor to Metroid, and Mega Man is, of course my favorite video game hero.

Notable Exceptions:

• Surprisingly, Mario games are cool in spite of pretty boring-looking characters. In the early games, I always like to play as Luigi because green is a cooler color. And of course Mario 2 is really about Princess Toadstool. The Mario games made up for an uninspiring character by excelling in pretty much every other area.
• The Metroid Prime games have a cool character, but you see her only rarely, since the games are first-person. They did a good job of having enough cut scenes that you don’t forget how cool Samus’s armor looks.

The World

The scenery constitutes most of what you see, and levels’ layout is integral to most of the decisions you make. So it’s essential that the world be interesting. Some elements of a good world include these:

• Variety. If every level is made up of the same kinds of platforms with the same background, you lose motivation to keep exploring.
• Non-linearity. Some games are inherently linear, but if the world presents you with options of where to go, that’s definitely a strength.

Examples of Success:

• Zelda and Metroid games epitomize every aspect of good world design.
• Mario games are mostly linear, and they even have a relatively small number of obstacles, but they present them in such varied way with an appropriate overall increase in difficulty that you end up feeling like you’re exploring a world instead of just traveling down a road.

Enemies

Games are more epic-feeling if there are enemies to defeat. Like the world, your experience with them is pretty constant throughout the game. Helpful traits of a games supporting cast include these:

• Variety. This is closely tied to the variety of the world. If all enemies appear in all areas, the world blurs together. But if certain areas have unique enemies, those areas can feel more “special.”
• Difficulty level. If all enemies are easy or if they’re all hard, that’s monotonous too. And you don’t want defeating them to be strictly a matter of dexterity – certainly not just luck. More on that later.

A final point on this – defeating enemies shouldn’t feel or look violent. Stomping a Goomba or blasting a robotic snake doesn’t cause any pain or death. But when people are entertained by the idea of murder or similar things, the game stops being just entertainment and starts eroding their character. Just saying.

Challenge

There are two general kinds of challenges:

1. The kind that’s difficult the first time, because you don’t know what you have to do. After some trial and error (or maybe just some deep pondering, if you’re not in immediate danger), you get it right. The next time you play that part, it’s much easier.
2. The kind that’s always difficult, no matter how often you do it. It might be that things change on you, but more often the problem is one of things:
   • It requires very precise movement and timing. You might commit the solution to muscle memory for a while, but by the time you come back it will be all up to your reflexes again.
   • It’s up to luck – either because the situation is randomized, or because the game itself isn’t very precise at responding to your input.

That second category is very annoying. A game that relies heavily on that kind of challenge is probably not worth playing.

Goals

Good games present you with a goal (even if it’s not clear at first what it is, plot-wise), and you incrementally progress toward it. I really don’t like games that don’t have an end goal. There are two categories of such games

1. Games where you’re destined to fail, like Tetris. Your only goal is to rack up as many points as you can before you lose. Why even play?
2. Games that will perpetually present you with more goals, no matter how many you accomplish. This is like those crazy online games like World of Doltcraft (which I’ve never played), or Animal Crossing. The problem here is that these games can take up an arbitrarily large amount of your time. Historically (especially before getting married), I’ve tended to play video games kind of obsessively – but only when I first got them (and after reading my scriptures and doing my homework). Then I beat them and went back to my life.

Music

The music in a game can have a huge effect on how cool it is. Music can be good in two ways: catchiness and “aptness”. I prefer catchy music over mood-setting background music, even if the quality of the latter is superior. Music with an actual melody can come to represent everything that happens while it’s playing.

Examples of Success:

• Blaster Master: This game is actually pretty weak in the enemy area (since they’re all gray or red, except for the bosses) and in the challenge area (there’s no save point, and you really wear your fingers out in the boss battles. But the really, really good music (and cool character) help push this game way beyond average on the coolness scale.
• Sonic the Hedgehog: I played this again a while ago (since I had never beaten all the levels in sequence). Really, it’s just a standard action game. But again, it has a lot of cool music. 

Story

In the end, a good video game tells a story. That doesn’t necessarily mean it has elaborate cut scenes or dialog. The real story of a game is the sum of the decisions you’ve made, your perseverance against threatening odds, and the discoveries you’ve made as you’ve progressed through someone’s work of art. (Seriously, it may not be “fine art”, but video games could be called a combination of painting, architecture, music, and even a bit of literature and theater.)

And speaking of plot, in a way I feel like the older games told better stories than a lot of today’s games with lots of dialog and plot devices, because they left room for your own imagination to fill in details that people try to hand you today.

Explaining Extra Lives

Video games are pretty much designed for you to fail, try again, and eventually succeed. (In a sense you might say that’s one of their moral shortcomings, since you can essentially avoid consequences by repetition – which is in total contradiction to the way the real world works. But as long as you treat them as entertainment and not your actual lifestyle, I don’t have a problem with that. But I digress (already).)

The idea of extra lives can create a continuity problem in a game’s story. There are a few ways of explaining what happens when your character loses a life and starts a new one:

1. The straightforward way: Your character actually experiences everything you do. When the character is defeated, he or she is somehow transported back to some checkpoint to try again. The enemies and obstacles behave in essentially the same way each time the character attempts the level (or battle or whatever). The repetitive nature of enemy behavior can cause concerns with plausibility, as can the notion that your character is somehow transported backward.
2. The “ideal path” way: Only successful attempts “count” in the context of the game. In other words, if you take five tries to complete a level, only the last one “really happened.” If you explain the game in this way, your character essentially completes each goal on his or her first try; the other time in game play represents an inaccurate attempt to explain what really happened. Again, this may raise plausibility issues. Worse, though, is the continuity problem that arises if the game allows you to save accomplishments you made before losing. In this case, you can’t disregard the character’s loss of a “life” while still explaining how the character acquired the saved item.

Ultimately it doesn’t really matter, because the real story of the game is about the decisions and progress that you as the player make. (That is, the straightforward explanation is generally acceptable regardless of its weaknesses.) But some games really do offer a reasonable explanation for how extra lives work. At least if you interpret them correctly (meaning if you interpret them as I do). Others aren’t so easy to explain. Here are a few examples:

Mega Man

In Mega Man games, when you run out of energy, Mega Man appears to explode – but really it’s just expanding circles flying outward from his last location. I believe this is actually an emergency teleportation. We know Mega Man can teleport, since this is how he enters each level. I think that he can set a limited number of teleportation beacons. He sets one at the beginning of each level, and an additional one near the middle of most levels, and yet another before most boss battles. When his energy is about to run out, he automatically teleports away to refill, then teleports back to the last beacon. If he has only energy for one more teleportation and his energy runs low, he teleports back to his base instead of the last beacon. (This allows him to refill his health and weapon energy, but any temporary beacons he has set are lost.) That’s what happens when you get a Game Over. (This explanation may also explain why you have to re-fight the Robot Masters in each game near the end – they may also do an emergency teleportation when their energy runs low.)

Metroid

Metroid games have specific save points. If you lose, you lose everything since that save point. I think it’s reasonable to say that everything between a save point and a game over never really happened, and Samus is successful on her first try. (Of course, I mean your real first try. If you replay the game, knowing the most efficient path in advance, the story element makes less sense.)

Zelda

Zelda games are harder to explain. You can save wherever you want, and if you quit you’ll start at some checkpoint – the beginning of the current level or some central Overworld location. The same happens if you get a Game Over. It’s not clear how Link gets back to the continue point, but warping is a common practice in Zelda games as well. I guess you could say that Link “Saves and Quits” right before losing his last heart, and only the “falling on his face” scene is not part of what actually happens.

Types of Gifts

People give a lot of gifts this time of year, with varying motives and effects. For whatever reason I was thinking about the different kinds of gifts, especially the less noble ones. So here is a memory dump on the different types.

Charitable

A charitable gift is when you see a need or want in someone else, and your only motive in giving is to fulfill that need. Ideally this type of gift is given anonymously, so that the recipient is not burdened with the need to repay you, and so that their gratitude can only be directed toward God. (This is obviously the kind of gift mentioned in Matthew 6:2-4.)

Sentimental

It’s a slightly different story when you’re giving a gift to a friend or family member. You generally put “From: Me” on the tag so they know it’s from you. It’s not to force them into gratitude; rather, it’s because this type of gift is motivated less from fulfilling a need as from a desire to express appreciation for a relationship. If this type of gift were sent anonymously, it would actually become less meaningful, since the recipient would not know that you were thinking of him or her.

Transactional

A transactional gift is when you give something with the expectation or hope of getting something in return. An example would be an item in a gift exchange – you bring a gift, but you may feel shafted if you leave with something less cool than what you brought. Another example would be company swag (designed to boost morale and loyalty).

This type of gift has no moral value, positive or negative. It’s essentially a business investment. And that’s fine, as long as that’s what you intend it to be. The problem comes when you give a gift that’s ostensibly charitable, but really you want something in return. For instance, you give a decoration and then get mad if you don’t see it displayed. You were acting like you were giving a sentimental gift, when really you were asking for a favor. (Same story if you give a wedding gift and then get offended when they re-gift it.)

Implied Obligation

This category is more complicated and is sort of orthogonal to the others. The idea here is that you give a gift, and you expect nothing in return, but receiving the gift implies some obligation – not to the giver, but to some third party. And this is always a bad thing.

For instance, if you drop by your neighbors’ house and give them a new puppy (without any hint on their part that they would like one), you may leave feeling like you have given them something, when really you have asked them to spend money to keep the puppy healthy and to feed it every day for the rest of its life. Or else they have to go to the hassle of finding it a new home. The gift you have given is essentially of negative value.

That may seem obvious, but you do see this kind of thing in normal life. I’m trying to come up with a more common example but it escapes me at the moment. But if you catch yourself planning something like this, stop!