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On this week’s episode of Retroquest Erron and I take a trip back to the early ’90s to discuss Sonic the Hedgehog 2, the game that we both feel represents the high water mark of the Sonic series.  Later games would start adding a ridiculously large cast of characters and suffer from blatant money grabs likethe infamous “lock on technology” that was touted as a neat feature for Sonic & Knuckles but in reality summarized everything that was wrong with Sega of America as they barreled towards the Saturn and console oblivion.  But Sonic 2 stands as a pure entry filled with welcome improvements on the first game’s mechanics and the first example of multiplayer in the series.

The podcast is available for your listening pleasure at the bottom of this post (click through if you’re on an RSS reader) or you can subscribe to the Retroquest RSS feed with your favorite podcatching software.  Retroquest is also available through iTunes.

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This week on Retroquest I dive into the original Super Mario Brothers for the NES.  Shigeru Miyamoto’s sidescrolling platformer was the killer app of the late 80s that almost singlehandedly sold the NES as the tie-in game that came with the system.  It’s also, by extension, largely responsible for rescuing the slumping video game market from the lingering effects of the great video game crash of ‘83.  Mario is the title that sold millions, launched thousands of sidescrolling imitators, and dozens of excellent Nintendo tie-in games.

Basically it’s safe to call it one of the most influential video games of all time.

You can check out the Retroquest entry here.  The podcast is available for your listening pleasure at the bottom of this post (click through if you’re on an RSS reader) or you can subscribe to the Retroquest RSS feed with your favorite podcatching software.  Retroquest is also available through iTunes.

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Presented for your listening pleasure is the first episode of the Retroquest podcast where Erron and I discuss the first Commander Keen game: Marooned on Mars. You can listen to or download the podcast directly from this page, or you can subscribe to the Retroquest feed with your podcatching software of choice.

This week’s podcast comes in at a little over twelve minutes.  We’ll be trying to keep all of our podcasts under the fifteen minute mark for future entries to save everyone’s time.  So give it a listen and let us know what you think!

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McVan’s Video Games is the best thing since sliced bread in my humble opinion. They stand as an independent bastion of retro gaming goodness in a secondhand market increasingly dominated by chain stores such as Gamestop and Blockbuster that refuse to deal in anything older than the current generation.

Walking into McVan’s half a decade ago was a revelation. Sure most of the retro stuff they had on display there could easily be found on eBay, but there’s just something about seeing a copy of Ogre Battle 64 and holding the cartridge in your hands that transcends the online browsing experience. Looking at a 3DO for the first time in a decade, looking at a demo of a repaired and fully functional NES, seeing the largest collection of Gamegear games outside of my friend Austin’s playground collection back in 5th grade, it was an experience that bordered on the sublime for a retro gaming nerd.

But wonderful independent game retailers like McVan’s will probably very soon be a thing of the past. The consolidation of major chain retailers in the ’90s allowed them to flex their financial muscle to put most of the smaller stores out of business. Those that survived were able to limp along in larger population centers (thankfully Indy is big enough to support several retro chains, though McVan’s remains the largest in the state) that could support a healthy retro community, but even that is starting to dry up now that digital distribution has put most of the best retro titles a single click away on all of the major consoles. There’s still a healthy trade in newer games, but there’s no reason for the average gamer to go out of his or her way to trade at an independent store versus a Gamestop even considering tha the independent usually give better deals on trade-ins. And eventually digital distribution is going to catch up to newer games as well and render brick and mortar obsolete.

And that’s really a pity, because I think we’ll lose something special when independent retro gaming dealers start to close their doors for good. I like knowing that I can go out and buy my favorite Gameboy games or a copy of the atrocious Lord of the Rings game for Super Nintendo if I really want to. It’s nice knowing that there’s that copy of Ogre Battle 64 hanging on the shelf should I ever be crazy enough to drop the $120 asking price. It will be a pity when that tangible experience closes shop for good and all we’re left with is eBay and digital distribution services.

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I’ve put the finishing touches on the first entry in the Retroquest series.  For those of you who weren’t around the blog when I introduced the series and then didn’t update it for months at a time, the premise is that I go back, play old games, and then talk about them for a little while.  It’s my hope that the series will add to the infamy of acknowledged classics, highlight some forgotten gems that may have been lost to time, and get in a few good jabs at deserving piles of crap.

Today’s entry falls under “forgotten gems.”  Anyone who was a gamer in the mid to late ’90s knows about id Software, John Carmack, and John Romero.  What most of those gamers probably don’t know, however, is that id Software and the dynamic duo got their start creating Commander Keen, the brainchild of game designer Tom Hall who was also a founding member of id.  Commander Keen introduced sidescrolling platforming to the PC thanks to a programming trick Carmack developed and the game went on to be the first big hit for id paving the way to financing for their later genre-defining work.

Unfortunately id has long since dropped all ties to Keen. A planned sequel that was due out in the winter of 1992 never materialized thanks to the success of Wolfenstein 3D that caused id to move their focus to first person shooters and the upcoming DOOM. The final nail in the coffin for most gamers came in a secret level of DOOM II that was a recreation of the final level from the first episode of Wolfenstein 3D.  To finish that level you had to kill four Keen doppelgangers that were tied up over the dimensional portal leading to the next level.  The message was clear: Keen was dead.

Commander Keen did return in a Gameboy Advance game that failed to be either a good game or a good seller.  Other than that the series has been sitting gathering dust on abandonware websites around the web, fondly remembered by the small group of PC gamers lucky enough to have played the series in its heyday but largely ignored by the gaming community at large.

Which is a real pity.  The first Keen trilogy, invasion of the Vorticons, was easily the equal to any sidescrolling platformer on the NES.  The games were a rare shining jewel in a PC shareware market that was overrun with poorly designed games looking to make a quick buck.  And the Goodbye Galaxy series was easily equal to Super Mario World, if not better in some respects.

So go check out the Retroquest entry for the Commander Keen series, and be sure to check out the new entry for Commander Keen Episode I: Marooned on Mars.

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Every game has one and it’s happened to every gamer.  You’re playing your way through a game and everything is going well enough when suddenly it all goes to hell.  An enemy pops up on the screen where you weren’t expecting it.  A fireball flies out of a pit just as you’re committing to a jump.  A bad guy rounds the corner with guns blazing just as you’re reloading.  These are the Oh S*** Moments of gaming, and I’m going to start paying tribute to the best examples here at Insert Credits.

AquaSonic

Platformers in the late 80s and early 90s usually treated an encounter with water in one of two ways: swim or instant death.  Sonic the Hedgehog, however, decided to treat water a little differently.  Getting wet in places like Labyrinth Zone or Aquatic Ruin Zone didn’t kill you, and evidently hedgehogs and foxes can’t swim in Sonic’s world, so instead you were just slowed down slightly and given a marginally improved jump.

Labyrinth Zone, graveyard of a thousand thrown controllers.

Oh, and you died if you didn’t get air from the air bubbles conveniently placed throughout the underwater zones.

Anyone who played through the Sonic games in the early 90s remembers the feeling of panic setting in as the “you’re about to die” music replaced the normal music, accompanied by a countdown helpfully informing players that they only had five seconds to live if they didn’t find air soon.  If other players were anything like me then this was usually followed by an “Oh S***” and a mad scramble forward trying to find any available air source.  The truly insidious thing about underwater breathing panic was that it was more likely to kill a player as they powered through monsters and obstacles heedless of losing rings than by actually completing the countdown and drowning our hedgehog hero.

Other games have copied this underwater breath replenishment mechanic since Sonic, but none have done it with the same degree of panic-inducing flair as the original Sonic Team, making this a genuine “oh s***” moment in gaming.

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Title screen for Marooned on Mars.

I’ve completed the overview page for the Commander Keen series in the Retroquest section.  If you’d like to know a little bit more about the galaxy spanning sidescrolling PC adventure that launched the careers of John Romero and John Carmack then I’d encourage you to give it a read.  id software really is, in many ways, the house that Keen built.

But Commander Keen isn’t just a historical footnote to blockbuster games like Wolfenstein, DOOM, or Quake.  Commander Keen is more than a footnote in the history of gaming development on the PC since it was the first true sidescrolling platformer on the hardware.  Keen is more than a footnote in the history of the shareware revolution of the early 90s where game developers suddenly found themselves making oodles of money for giving away a piece of their product for free.

Commander Keen is also a damned impressive game.

Everything Keen for the DOS platform came out in the space of two short years, but in that time the design team behind the game managed to make a solid game with responsive controls, original level design, and new play mechanics like the raygun and the pogo stick that would have revolutionized the platformer had anyone outside of the small (for the time) PC gaming community taken notice.

The graphics for the first trilogy were on par with anything seen on the late-era NES when companies had learned to squeeze the most out of Nintendo’s little grey box, and the graphics on the second three-set – I hesitate to call it a trilogy since the third game wasn’t connected to the first two by any sort of narrative thread – was easily as good as if not better than anything offered up on the Genesis and the Super Nintendo in the platformer category.

That’s right.  I just threw down the gauntlet and indirectly implied that Commander Keen was as good as Sonic (not hard) and Super Mario World (a taller order).  So read about Commander Keen and maybe go download one of the shareware copies available out there on the ‘net and give it a try.

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I parted with a major chunk of my gaming collection just before Christmas.

The swag for McVan’s, the local retro gaming establishment, included a copy of Chrono Trigger with the original box and all contents therein including a cartridge still in plastic wrap, Secret of Mana, and Super Mario RPG along with a copy of Super Smash Bros. Melee and the original NES Castlevania.  These were all games that I’ve accumulated since my late teenage years when I was able to snap up good games that I missed the first time around due to the severe income shortage that comes with being a kid.

Other games and systems that I’ve collected have met a similar fate in the last year or so.  My original Xbox, Sega Saturn mint in box, copies of Final Fantasies 2 and 3 for the SNES, and other former treasures have all gone to the local retro store.

In the past you could make a case that getting rid of old video games like that was simply a natural offshoot of growing up, moving out, getting married, and all the changes that come along with it.  But the plain truth is that all of that old gaming stuff was just so much clutter taking up closet space and I had no need to hang on to them anymore.

There was a time, starting about ten years ago and extending until about two years ago, when it was impossible to find the greats for the 16-bit consoles through legitimate channels.  Emulators were available at the time, but only if you were willing to spend hours circulating through page after page of advertisements to get to a file that may or may not contain a Trojan or some other computer-devouring virus.  Then there were issues with the emulation not being spot-on, games ending abruptly, or some other bug rendering your favorite 16-bit memories totally unplayable.  Spending $30 on eBay for a copy of Final Fantasy or picking up a used copy of Chrono Trigger for $40 at Gamestop was worth it just to avoid the headaches associated with the emulation scene, to say nothing of the moral underpinnings.

So I snapped up all of the games that I didn’t get to play on release as well as some other games that came highly recommended and ended up accumulating quite a gaming collection.  I regularly checked at the local used game store where they had evidently never heard of eBay to see what old gems were being sold for pennies on the dollar that week.  I even went to a few garage sales trying to find deals on great old games, though that was time consuming and usually didn’t provide much reward.

But now I think that the video game collector is poised to very quickly go the way of the dodo thanks to digital downloads.

Game collecting was a lot like collecting old records once upon a time.  People held onto items because they were rare and good, the recipe for a true collectible.  Scarcity went to work as great games that didn’t get a wide release went into the secondhand market and the prices skyrocketed.  People who wanted to play the sleeper hits of past gaming generations either had to put up the money or go without.  I’m sure there were people out there who collected just because they thought the games were valuable, but for the most part the gaming collector was driven by nostalgia and a desire to play good games.

Which is exactly why I think the secondhand collector’s market is about to collapse.  Every game that I had in my collection is now available on Nintendo’s Virtual Console or in some other re-release or repackaging.  The scarcity that once fueled the market is gone now that companies have realized digital distribution is a veritable cash cow that allows them to use nostalgia to efficiently exploit the long tail of their back catalogs in a way that just wasn’t possible or profitable a few years ago.  And now that I have the option of playing everything conveniently from my Wii, PS2, or PSP without having extra old equipment cluttering up my entertainment center there’s just no need for hanging onto physical copies of the old games.

The effect of digital distribution is already showing on the secondhand market.  Just five short years ago a copy of Chrono Trigger mint in box with all the original accessories would regularly go for $120-$150.  Final Fantasies IV and VI for the SNES as well as classics like Secret of Mana and Super Mario RPG regularly fetched in the range of $30-50 for the cartridge alone.  Paper Mario, a sleeper hit that came at the end of the N64’s lifecycle and was only picked up by a few gamers with fond memories for Mario RPG, could fetch upwards of $60-$70.  The original Final Fantasy Tactics for the Playstation could fetch someone upwards of $70 in the two year period between its initial release and the Greatest Hits line re-release.

Just look at the market rate for these games today, paying special attention to the price sellers are expecting to get for the games versus what they are actually selling for on auctions with bids.  A glance at those auctions shows an interesting trend.  Collectors and resellers haven’t quite figured out that the market just isn’t supporting the same prices that it did a few years ago.  Buyouts on former rare games are still set at the ridiculous prices people paid five years ago, but people just aren’t paying anymore.

Some stores that deal in used gaming are starting to get wise to this fact.  At the local shop I frequent a clerk mentioned that they’re going to be dropping the payout for a lot of old games very soon, particularly games that have seen re-releases in recent years.

Of course this does mean that it’s something of a seller’s market if you have a local store that still takes vintage games.  You can still get a good price for your old games, though nothing that comes close to what they were going for in the mid ’00s, at stores where they haven’t figured out that there’s a fundamental change going on in the vintage used gaming market.  So if you’re like me and you’ve been hoarding all of your old video games deep in your lair until your entire soft underbelly is coated with an armor of old Super NES and Genesis cartridges then it might be time to part with your old treasures while they still retain some value in a world increasingly dominated by digital distribution.

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Colossal Cave Adventure, one of the first text-based dungeon crawlers.

The first time I heard the term “mobs” in an MMO setting was playing Dark Age of Camelot, a game where you had to plow headfirst with a group into large crowds of monsters and stay there until either the monsters were dead or your party was dead.  At the time I naturally assumed that when players referred to mobs they were simply talking about it in the traditional sense of the word, namely a large group of unruly in-game monsters that would like nothing more than to take a bubble’s worth of hard-earned experience and send you on a free trip back to the nearest binding stone.

But it turns out that there’s more to mob as its used in MMOs, and to get at the roots of the word we’ll have to travel back to the early days of computer gaming in the mi-70s to 80s.  At that time the Internet existed mainly as a network of large mainframe computers at a few colleges and military installations across the country.  Students could log in and access shared programs on these mainframe systems, and many of them dedicated an unhealthy portion of their study time to creating games instead of writing programs that would presumably get them a good grade.

Text-based dungeon crawling games were a popular genre, allowing players to move from room to room in a completely imaginary world picking up objects and fighting monsters.  In early dungeon crawlers monsters and NPCs were limited to being triggered when a user entered a room, but eventually as the games grew more sophisticated programmers figured out ways to have monsters wandering the imaginary text-based corridors so that an unsuspecting traveler might be set upon by a grue in any dark corner of the dungeon rather than in a specific room that they’d already mapped out long ago.

In a programmer’s mind anything that gets put into a game is merely an object, a few lines of code designed to behave in a specific way based on user input.  These new monsters programmed to move around were mobile.  Mobile Objects was quickly shortened to mobs, and a term that has been part of the online gaming lexicon ever since was coined.

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I mentioned in a previous post that Just One More Game was running an Internet-wide challenge to get people to catch every reference in the epic Edge Pixel Poster.  Well the results are in from around the Internet and Gabe has posted a follow-up with the results.  Be sure to check it out and see if you can’t contribute to the challenge and catch some games that they’ve missed so far!

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