Wish You Were Here... part 4

Scrambling around Hyrule in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild made me think again of vacationing in game worlds, so I thought I’d revisit the topic...

Several years on, it’s interesting to reread my thoughts on the direction of Zelda and the open world genre. I’ve visited some fantastic places in the interim and Breath of the Wild’s Hyrule is one hell of a playground. In part 3 I speculated how incredible it would be to blow away the fog of the Ocarina overworld map and explore the connective tissue – Breath of the Wild does exactly that, and does so with a spectacular level of polish. The trademark jank of open worlds has been buffed out entirely. Of course, it’s a video game and certain actions and objects are necessarily abstracted and streamlined (the rattling 1-2-3-POW! of the cooking animation, for example, is pure cartoon, and who knows where my glider goes when I’m not airborne) but it absolutely nails that exploratory feeling you get in a real natural landscape. It’s not perfect but every design decision forces you to interact with its incredible toybox in an environment tailored towards fun, exploration and experimentation. There are no corridors between civilisations – Hyrule Field is the game now and that buzz you felt the first time you left Kokiri Forest in Ocarina of Time now lasts for a hundred hours or more. The gating is gone, replaced by a natural geography crafted so impeccably that the design feels invisible. But it’s there, in every hill, every nook, cave, pond, puddle, tree, dune, bay and vista. It’s tough to find a spot that hasn’t been meticulously positioned and aligned for maximum effect, yet each place feels perfectly natural. Those tidy compartmentalised zones from previous iterations – the areas that used to be locked until you retrieved the Phantom Doohickey from the preceding area dungeon – now push into one another organically and you are tasked with the adventure of exploring that connective tissue, much as I wished in those old articles. One measure of the game’s success is the number of times I’ve been outdoors in the past few months and gone to grab my scope to scout the best jumping point or realised where I was standing would be the perfect place to glide across the valley and sprint up to an outcrop the other side. I spy obvious Korok hiding places in real hills. The game world seeps into real life.

While it has refined the sandbox experience to the Nth degree, BOTW wears many influences. Beyond its debt to Bethesda, it also draws on its own history. The original Legend of Zelda is a noted touchstone, but the weather system from The Wind Waker is felt here too. The elements in this world fluctuate constantly. That feeling I mentioned in part 1 of the tempestuous seas stirring your spirit is found here too as you gallop across windswept meadows, escape the shadow of a cloud or scramble up a slippery rock face as raindrops start falling. The majesty of the setting also reiterates another remark I made, this time regarding the music. Breath of the Wild features a restrained, delicate score lacking the bombast of previous games because, crucially, it is not needed. Indeed, a rousing overworld theme would soon pall in a game where 95% of the (long) game is the overworld. It’s huge, and you can see it all. There are no compartments and the epic fanfare previously employed to augment them becomes redundant. The world speaks for itself.

Other worlds Breath of the Wild brings to mind include Thatgamecompany’s Flower (all that flowing grass and fauna, and now out on iOS!) and the previously mentioned Shadow of the Colossus (another huge, contiguous world.) As well as polish, it’s the detail in BotW that imbues character and gives the game its unique flavour. Little things like:
- the simple, stark black and white loading screen with its Divine Beasts bomping beside the tooltip.

- the way the UI box fade-bounces onscreen.

- the way Link gorges food, one hand after another as you pummel the A button to regain health.

- his red cheeks and visible breath in the freezing mountains.

- the idle animations of the monster masks that mirror their respective enemies.

- the way Link stubs his toe while opening a chest if he’s not wearing boots.

- the death scream that accompanies those little red Xs that appear where you died as you replay and retrace your steps in Hero’s Path mode.

There are countless flourishes like these that work to cohere the game into a unique whole. There’s no real defining moment here, it’s just 100+ hours of exploration. It’s not without flaws. With all the obvious care that has gone into fashioning this kingdom, it is disappointing to run up against invisible barriers on some edges of the map. The text ‘You can’t go any further’ begs the response “Er… why?” And, as always, beating Ganon returns your save file to the point just before the battle so, again, you are denied the pleasure of enjoying your success. A couple of years back I finally played Earthbound on Virtual Console and was overjoyed when I found that it DOES let you explore the world post-victory. All the characters have different dialogue. Earthbound is well over 20 years old!! Why is this not the norm yet?!

My holiday in Portugal, not Hyrule.

Overall, smart choices vastly outweigh the negatives. As with previous games, the map is withheld until you’ve had the chance to explore yourself. But even when you manage to scale the area tower, you’re not then deluged with waypoints and objectives. You must explore to find them, and such is the design of the terrain that you’ll find yourself waylaid en-route to your destination by an intriguing cluster of trees or enemy camp just begging to be investigated. It has been noted how this contradicts the Ubisoft open world approach, which opts instead for the laundry list of objective markers to be drudgingly ticked off. I played Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag to completion a couple of years ago and it gave a thrilling rendition of Wind Waker’s sailing. Having never played a Ubi-verse game, I was content to sail the ocean, ticking off those treasure chests on my map while my crew sang shanties. Man, those blue skies and sunsets! The actual assassinating got old pretty quickly, but the world was (and still is) undeniably appealing. But will I ever go back? After Breath of the Wild, it’s hard to imagine. What I can imagine is hundreds of employees at Ubisoft Montreal/Singapore/Saturn sat with their Switches, furiously updating a group Google doc, analysing every square metre of the world. Bethesda's Skyrim also came to Switch at the end of 2017 (I’ve played little else except Nintendo’s latest console this past year) but, as convenient as it would be to have on-the-go, I think BotW has probably spoiled me for it. I’ll just have to wait until the next Zelda, whatever that will be. My money’s on open world again, but with a Dark World version to travel to. Ooooo!

Assassin's Creed: Black Flag. Like Wind Waker plus shanties, minus the Octo-Monsters.

Moving on from Hyrule, Yoshi’s Woolly World had me diving again into the textile world of Epic Yarn, this time in HD. I still prefer Kirby’s game, but Woolly World was a thoroughly lovely, patchwork place to go. Playtonic did a great job recapturing the spirit of Banjo-Kazooie in Yooka-Laylee, and I’m savouring my playthrough on Switch. The levels are beautiful, if a little overwrought and less easily-readable when compared to Banjo. For example, Tribalstack Tropics’ walls are constructed from stone blocks. With care, I am able to scale many of them. They seem to lead nowhere and exist purely to provide visual detail in an HD environment. Which is fine, but it confuses the player as to the objectives and the possibilities in the space, and invariably leads to disappointment. ‘Can I climb that wall? Ah, yes, if I’m careful! But am I supposed to climb it? Well, maybe, but there’s nothing here, so I guess not?’ Questions like these create stress and tension as opposed to, say, Breath of the Wild where the questions regarding the environment go like this: ‘Is there something special about that artfully positioned group of trees over there?’ Answer: ‘Yes.’ In fact, the answer to almost every question in BotW is ‘Yes.’ Can I glide over to tha… Yes. What about using fire arr… Yes. And if the… Yes. The thing is, ‘No’ isn’t necessarily a bad answer, but the answer should be clear. Right now, the answer to too many of the questions in Yooka is ‘Er, maybe? Not sure.’ Still, Y-L has buckets of charm and is made by a small team that I’ve got buckets of time for. And it’s got the Grant Kirkhope tunes!

Looks nice from here. No quills to collect, though. Not sure I should be here, but I managed it so... well done me?

Last year Sonic Mania had me revisiting various zones from the classic games, plus some great new ones, all crisp and lovely. It was fantastic to see Sega finally give Sonic to the right team (or teams: in this case, Christian Whitehead, PagodaWest Games and Headcannon.) Lizardcube’s remake/remaster of Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap on Master System also showcased the possibilities when ports/updates are handled by people who not only give a shit, but also know their shit. At the touch of a button you are able to paint over the original visuals (presented authentically with various optional filters, though in 16:9) with some truly beautiful hand-drawn animation. Another button toggles between the original soundtrack and a new orchestral arrangement. I spent so much time swiping between the old and new, examining the various choices and admiring the art, and I was very glad to have the opportunity to explore a world I would almost certainly never have gotten to otherwise.

Multiple amazing-looking games have passed me by over the past few years, many of which are now getting ports to Switch (though I’m still hoping for Firewatch and The Witness.) I managed to catch PS3 swansong The Last of Us which presented some stunningly detailed post-apocalyptic locales from Boston to Salt Lake City. The sheer amount of stuff in that game is incredible. The number of unique assets in those buildings (and Naughty Dog’s other games, so I hear) is huge… though it’s all a bit dull. I know, I know – I shouldn’t discriminate against games that don’t have blue skies – but I’m left marvelling at the technical spectacle and scope without any desire whatsoever to return. I may give the sequel a whirl – it’ll come to Switch, right? 😉 I also tried Red Dead Redemption but couldn't get past the clumsy GTA IV controls. Looked nice, though. Maybe this year's sequel will convert me. Another sure-thing for Switch (Hey, if DOOM and Wolfenstein 2 can make it, anything can!)

The absolute antidote to all that brown-and-greyness is Super Mario Odyssey, a game which throws the kitchen sink at the paintbox and produces a crazy, crazy video game. It goes like this: Mario goes on holiday (well, a working holiday.) Bowser’s plot to kidnap and marry Peach provides the loosest of motivations for Mario to journey across an Earth-like planet chasing maniacal wedding planners as they steal the nuptial essentials (flowers from the greenhouse level, dinner from the food kingdom, bridal dress from the… erm, water world?) Each separate environment is presented in a travel brochure style on the pause screen, with Mario cast as the tourist studying the map and ticking off the local highlights before he departs on the giant hat ship belonging to his new mate, Cappy. Who’s a hat.

I mean, yes. Fine. As previously noted, we don’t play Mario for the narrative, but rather where it takes us, and this narrative takes us to places both wonderful and strange. Of course, Mario has gone travelling before. Super Mario Sunshine saw him visit the beautiful Isle Delfino and a seaside aesthetic permeated that bright, colourful game. Odyssey is certainly colourful, too. And monochrome. And bright. And dark. In fact, it’s everything, often at the same time. Odyssey mashes cultures, styles and environments on a whim. The art design is all over the place. Tin-can comedy cog-robots? Check. Vaguely PS3-level realistic humans from a swinging NY-esque city governed by Pauline, Mario’s original damsel-in-distress from Donkey Kong? Check. Roly-poly snow bears? Sure. Anthropomorphic talking cutlery? Obviously. Realistic T-Rex with a moustache? Done. Yoshi? Natch.

It goes on. And upon completion, all these haphazard characters meet-up in each other’s kingdoms and just party and hang out. There is something glorious about the abandon of it; the anything-goes variety; the inclusion of any good idea. But read that carefully – any good idea. The only way this works is by the mechanical mastery on show – quality makes it coherent. The ability to capture any character (and the occasional object) that isn’t wearing a hat – and the watertight application of that mechanic – makes the crazy world a joy to leap around in. And that’s on top of the trusty Mario moveset we’ve been using since 1995. People gave Rare a hard time when they threw googley eyes on any old thing and called it character design, but damnit, at least those eyes were consistent! The only consistency here is quality. And it’s enough. Whether clambering up a volcano to cook a stew, or facing off against a Dark Souls-worthy dragon while dressed in a clown suit, or… well, you get the idea. I cannot think of another developer with the audacity and the chops to throw all these mismatching elements at the wall, showcase every disparate feature with a mock travelogue presentation… and make it all gel seamlessly. 97 on Metacritic. I haven’t even mentioned the showtune homage to Mario’s very beginnings in New Donk City. You’ve heard the song already, but the moment itself brings a tear to the eye. I’d recommend making the trip. And dat Steam Gardens music!

God knows where Mario goes next. I wrote before that the ‘final frontier’ was his last refuge in the Galaxy games – he had no more worlds left to conquer. But that was when he was resident of the Mushroom Kingdom and its adjoining territories. I underestimated him; it now seems he can skip through the multiverse at will – anything, anybody, anywhere is fair game. Variety is the spice of life, they say. It’s certainly a hell of a journey. One might even say an ‘odyss-’…

TAXI!

It was 20 years ago... Looking back at N64 Magazine Issue 8

It's time to look back on the olden days with Worldy BlokeTM ...

Seven months in, it's evident that Nintendo have scored a hit with Switch. Consolidating their software teams onto one platform, coupled with their experience from the Wii U-era, seems to be paying off. The standard post-launch drought was alleviated somewhat by Breath of the Wild’s open-form gameplay, and a slow but steady flow of first-party titles has appeared every month since. Now we’ve reached a point where each week brings a deluge of indie hits and quality ports, and with Super Mario Odyssey ready for release at the end of the month, manufacturing enough units to meet demand over the holiday season seems to be the company’s biggest challenge. A nice problem to have.

One-score and zero years ago in Euroland, Nintendo was seven months into another console – the N64. And I was starting to read the best video game magazine ever printed – the imaginatively titled N64 Magazine. I actually started with issue 12, but ordered issue 8 from the back of the mag. Having recently been reunited with my collection after 15 years in my parents' loft, I realised the two decade anniversary and decided to chronicle it here as an excuse to reread some old issues. And it holds up! It’s fascinating to look back and see the adverts, the expectations and how the writers negotiated the drought of software that arguably characterised the console. Lacking the digital distribution that now allows smaller studios to put out software, the expense of cartridges versus the cheap CD alternatives offered on PlayStation widened the lead Sony had built by launching over a year earlier. The N64 offered quality to its dedicated fans, but couldn’t compete against the sheer wealth of software put out on PlayStation (under 400 titles compared to Sony’s 2,500-odd.)

We also see a pre-Trump use of the adverb ‘bigly’.

Looking back on issue 8, Lylat Wars (Starfox 64's EU guise) is the cover star. It also features in the accompanying Gentleman Space Adventurer Quarterly poster magazine, featuring a Lylat system map and tips delivered in the style of a WW2-era, spiffing, tea-sipping gentleman Brit (splendid show, old chap – let’s get back to base for broth and medals). The headline review showcases what was special about the magazine. It’s impeccably laid out with plenty of screenshots and a variety of typefaces and colours. There is info in sidebars, breakout boxes, captions and tiny asterisked gags. While it’s obvious the writers were contending with a lack of software (something which made their focus on import games all the more intriguing to UK readers), they squeezed every last drop of content (*shudder*) from the games they had and presented it in an entertaining, non-patronising way. They make reference to the dire state of PAL conversions at the time (see 'THEY HATE YOU' sidebar) and bemoan the ‘teeth-grinding’ name change from Starfox 64 ("How would you feel if, without your permission, someone changed your name by deed pole to Millicent? Or Adolf? Or Earwax?"), which had its own import review in issue 3.

Elsewhere, the PAL version of Multi Racing Championship faces off against US version of Top Gear Rally (Top Gear wins, 86% - 71%) and…that’s it for PAL reviews! The post-launch lull pushed the team to be ever more inventive with their features. The Import Arena section helps flesh out the magazine, so we get reviews of Baku Bomberman ("Briefly diverting, but a genuine disappointment for Bomberman’s most devoted fans." – 50%), J-League Dynamite Soccer ("To start with this is about as much fun as a pulled hamstring. But after a while you’ll plod through it and maybe even enjoy it. A bit." – 66%), Konami’s Jikkyou World Soccer 3 ("Slightly inferior to PAL ISS 64 but still a breathtaking football game." – 91%) and the US version of Mischief Makers ("The banality of this [game’s] sagacity, when juxtaposed with the outright bonkersness of the game in general, serves only to heighten the lighthearted surrealism that abounds (Eh? – Ed), which, in our book, is a Very Good Thing." – 90%). There’s a massive tips section featuring Mario Kart 64 and Blast Corps. The Future Look section details San Francisco Rush, Nagano Winter Olympics and Earthworm Jim 3D, while the less screenshot intensive Coming Soon section jokes about the tardiness of upcoming 3D platformers and also looks at Zelda 64 ("Rumours abound that the Pointy-Eared One literally ‘grows up’ during the course of the game.")

In the news, Planet 64 reports Nintendo’s profits are soaring on the back of Pocket Monsters and cheaper games are coming thanks to a modest reduction in the cost of manufacturing N64 carts ($6). Elsewhere in the mag there’s Reader Tips, and the I’m The Best section pits readers against each other, competing for time/score supremacy in various games. Club 64 is the letters section and also contains the So Tell Me This… questions section – example: "My friend thinks the N64 can play SNES games. Could you tell him this is total rubbish so he can see it with his own eyes? – Robert’s friend: you’re a clot. Of course the N64 can’t play SNES games. Blimey." Topics run the gamut, from release dates and import tech queries to cooking tips. Sue Overton, ‘N64 Magazine’s culinary advisor’ (and presumably significant-other to Art Editor, Wil Overton) provides jam tart advice ("Pre-baking the pastry by five minutes before adding the jam is a useful tip if you’ve got the time.")

The letters section showcased the back-and-forth banter that gave the magazine that member-of-the-club feel. Even if your whole letter didn’t make it in, you still might crop up in the Bonus Letters section and get a badge.

A directory of every reviewed game has two sections: UK and Import games. After seven months, the UK section had just 15 titles. The Import section contained a further 21, but it illustrates that Nintendo had form with software supply long before the Wii U’s drip-feed scheduling. Of those 15 PAL games, Super Mario 64 (predictably) takes the highest score with 96%, with Turok, Mario Kart 64, Wave Race 64, ISS 64, Blast Corps and Pilotwings 64 all joining the Star Game club (85%+). The only absolute turkeys are FIFA 64 and Mortal Kombat Trilogy, coming in at 39% and 34% respectively.

The text in the Directory explanation box in no way offers commentary
on working conditions at Future Publishing in the late ‘90s.

The whole magazine is dense and colourful and beautifully presented. It takes its cues from Super Play, the magazine from which it evolved when the N64 launched, which itself looked to Japanese publications for inspiration. It’s still a pleasure to read through, to see the care and attention which went into these 100 pages and to recall poring over every last detail before 24/7 internet coverage arrived.

It's easy to forget that dodgy PAL conversions were still an issue in the fifth console generation.

*****

I'll be looking back at other issues over the coming months whenever I see a particularly juicy 20th anniversary or awesome cover. Can't wait to get to @Kosmikat's great work on those Double Game Guides. Top drawer.

A Place Both Wonderful and Strange

With the new season of Twin Peaks premiering a few weeks back, I sent fellow fan @jonkristinsson a Lego Digital Designer model I made last year of the 'Red Room' after seeing some amazing Lego renders he had produced.

Everyone enjoy your #TwinPeaks tonight. #LEGO #octanerender @peaksrewatch

(awesome model built by @dartmonkey!) pic.twitter.com/EEwVsLsVsF

— Jón Kristinsson (@jonkristinsson) May 21, 2017

It made me realise there would never be a better time to polish the model and submit it to Lego Ideas, the online peer-approval process that has resulted in the official Lego Ghostbusters and Back to the Future sets. So I went about refining it and actually ordering the pieces to build it. I also downloaded some software allowing me to render some better images myself - nothing as good as Jón's, but better than a screengrab from LDD.

So, after many hours of rendering a few images (my CPU is OLD) and writing a brief summary of the set, I submitted my proposal...

And today I received an email saying it wasn't approved :(

As detailed in their comments, "unfortunately...the brand or licensed property your project refers to contains content or themes that we find inappropriate for a potential LEGO product." I suppose that's reasonable - there's plenty of sex, drugs, murder and violence in Twin Peaks - but it's still disappointing.

So rather than completely waste all those hours of rendering, I thought I'd put them and the photos up here along with the text from the proposal:

Intro

My proposal is the 'Red Room' from the TV series Twin Peaks. It is a surreal, purgatorial waiting area where FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper finds himself trapped for 25 years.

It will be recognisable to fans and newbies alike -  the room has become iconic since it was first seen 27 years ago. It's visually striking and has been referenced and parodied in all sorts of media, from The Simpsons to Scooby Doo.

Model Info

I built this model first using LEGO Digital Designer (LDD) before ordering the bricks to test it. The set uses 536 bricks with a 32x32 stud base (although in an unusual 'diamond' formation due to the zig-zag floor pattern.) I've tried to make it as small and affordable as possible while keeping a good balance of detail and scale. It uses mostly common bricks and provides a fun and varied challenge for builders of all ages/skill levels. The furniture is attached to studded tiles.

Note: The real-life model in the photos shows some variations from the rendered images - I am waiting for more parts to arrive! I'll update the page when it's finished.

Minifigs

The set includes four minifigures: the coffee-loving Special Agent Dale Cooper, the Man From Another Place, Laura Palmer and the Venus de Medici statue. All of the characters (except the statue) would have reversible heads with white-eyed angry faces representing their malevolent doppelgangers.

I have used easily available parts but these could be exchanged for more detailed versions - I couldn't find a torso with dress detailing for Laura and The Man From Another Place should really be wearing a red shirt and black shoes!

Possible Alterations

• The brick count might be reduced by redesigning the red curtains with fewer pieces (however, the non-uniformity of the curtain is intended to replicate how the real fabric hangs.)
• The six plates used as the centre of the base could be replaced with one 16x16 plate (I couldn't source one for my prototype model) which would reduce the brick count and also improve structural integrity.
• Other minifigures could be included or substituted - Mike (the One-Armed Man) or the Giant might be good. Additional decorative flourishes are possible (for example, adding other elements associated with Twin Peaks such as a cherry pie, a fine coffee mug, an owl, Cooper's dictophone, a Douglas fir tree, a log, etc) but I have included only the essential pieces relevant to this room.

I hope you like it! Thanks for your consideration and support :)

*****

*Sigh*

On the bright side, I'm very happy with the model, and the new season of the series is cracking. Utterly impenetrable, I'd imagine, if you haven't seen the original two seasons and the film Fire Walk With Me, but delightful for longtime fans who have been waiting so long. Every episode is something to chew on and savour.

*thumbs up*

Bringing back the B-tier

NB. Originally posted on Monday 28th November 2016.

As the Wii U gathers its precious few belongings in a bindle and wanders into the sunset with a resigned ‘so long, folks’, the retrospectives are rolling in as fast as Switch rumours. Everyone’s racing to explain the console’s quiet demise. Surpassing its predecessor would always be a challenge but Nintendo’s confused messaging and utter failure to make a compelling case for the Gamepad’s existence (until, perhaps, Mario Maker) are the fundamental reasons production was halted just earlier this month. Even now, the average consumer assumes it’s a Wii accessory. And after failing to escape the shadow of its forebear, Switch looks set to rob Wii U of what legacy it had. The real jewels in its crown – Mario Maker, Splatoon, Mario Kart 8 and (hopefully) the upcoming Zelda: Breath of the Wild – are to be updated with new deluxe Switch editions. Smash Bros, too, if that’s your bag. Even third parties are retooling previously exclusive titles. Unless you transferred your original Wii digital library to your Wii U, chances are it’ll be packed away in the loft come springtime. So long, folks.

Lego City Undercover, previously an exclusive,
is now coming to Switch, and everything else.
ZombiSwitch announcement imminent.

Commentators and critics crow about the lack of games, but one particularly underserved area was what I call the ‘precision arcade racer’. These are stylishly presented games that very quickly demonstrate real depth with precise controls that take time to master, but reward persistence. Nintendo’s got several of them, none of which received a Wii U entry – 1080° Snowboarding, Wave Race, Excitebike and F-Zero all fall into this category. While none could be labeled ‘simulations’, each has a realism and delicacy about its controls and physics that set it apart from more standard arcade fare and they have a real core following of players. Sure, you can blunder in and have a laugh, but dedication and finesse are required to get beyond the  first few courses. They’ve never been tentpole releases, but have plugged gaps in otherwise barren release schedules and kept invested players occupied for many months. Scanning the list of racers released on Wii U, Need for Speed: Most Wanted U and Fast Racing Neo stand alone as the only examples of this sub-genre. The former, while excellent, had previously been released on other consoles and the latter, great as I’ve heard it is, was never given the marketing push to rival a first party release.

My impression is Nintendo were reluctant to just knock out decent HD versions of these series without implementing some new mechanic/gimmick. Shigeru Miyamoto stated that a new F-Zero would need a different control scheme in order to justify a new entry. Yet Pikmin got a Wii U iteration that added very little to the tried-and-tested formula. And I would argue that the small, precise adjustments offered by gyro controls, as evidenced by the (optional) aiming assists in Splatoon, would be suited to F-Zero. Every console gets a Mario Kart with only incremental improvements! Then again, MK's sequelisation is justified by the revenue that the series generates. The ‘precision arcade racers’ listed above may have their dedicated following, but they’re not system sellers.

B TIER (b tier), B TIER (b tier), no-one wants to be defeated...

But they have been missed on Wii U. We’ve seen the originals crop up on Virtual Console. Excitebike 64, for example, was a terrific entry in the series, coming late in the N64’s lifecycle and many years after the NES original. It married the pitch-angle-landing gameplay mechanic with the subtle analogue control from 1080°. Excitetruck for the Wii wonderfully tailored the series for simple motion controls, leaning more towards the arcade feel. But Excitetruck came out ten years ago.

A game that really belongs on

those ‘underrated gems’ listicles.

And that was the last time we saw these franchises (Excitebots: Trick Racing for Wii never saw release outside North America and Japanese Club Nintendo). 1080°, Wave Race, and F-Zero all had their last outings on GameCube. No, they’re not marquee titles but their importance in their respective consoles’ libraries has been overlooked, possibly masked by the Wii’s runaway success. That void has been exposed by Wii U’s disappointing performance, despite having some truly excellent games to its name. Switch needs to bring these games back. Being able to take them on-the-go should provide enough of a ‘hook’ to motivate Nintendo to dust them off for a new installment. HD rejuvenated Mario and Pikmin years after the competition upgraded from 480p; who wouldn´t jump at the prospect of Wave Race’s beautiful water in high-def? Or the back wheel of a bike spraying mud up the trunk of a pine? Or the Blue Falcon beansing it through Mute City – in HD!?! Mario Kart 8’s DLC, and even Nintendoland, hinted at the possibilities but they failed to materialise. 2017 is definitely the year to bring them back.

1080° in 1080p?! Get in

Bring back the B-tier! And a new Rogue Squadron.
A Poe-gue Squadron, if you will. Ahem. Guys?...

NB. Originally posted on Monday 28th November 2016.

Idolising the Pixel

Over the past decade or so the pixel has gone mainstream. High-definition televisions and media formats put the number ‘ten-eighty’ in the mouths of anybody upgrading their bulky cathode ray tube TV, and inevitably the layman question “a thousand-and-eighty what?” had to be answered. The seventh generation of video game consoles (specifically PS3 and Xbox 360) arrived to showcase that High-Definition. That very few games rendered 1080 horizontal lines of pixels natively was immaterial - HD had landed! And with our hi-res obsession came a new appreciation for the humble pixel itself; after all, those individual blocks made up all our jaggy games of old. But as the novelty of anti-aliased polygons wore off, players and developers began looking back and embracing the 2D pixel aesthetic from the earliest video games. And that aesthetic spread into fashion, furniture and art. Pixels even got an eponymous movie last year (about which we shall never again speak.) ‘80s retrogame-chic pops up everywhere these days – Famicom phone cases, Tetris t-shirts, Atari manbags - they are cultural callbacks to the dawn of our digital age and are displayed as badges of lo-fi credibility – we were there at the beginning when the now-Disneyfied plumber was just a 16x12 collection of squares.

Box and manual art for early home console games were designed not only to really pop on store shelves,

but also to give the players an idea what those rudimentary, pixelated blobs actually represented.

Nintendo embraced their sprites and advertised them
prominently on their boxes in the West from the beginning.

But they were muddy, blurry squares. Modern remasters and emulators outputting 1080p via upscale trickery make us forget the colourful gloop most of us saw as we sat in the glow of our curved screens thirty years ago. We forget that those games were never designed to be viewed in HD. We forget that while some companies embraced the pixel in their advertising, most attempted to hide their ‘ugly’ cuboid characters behind hyper realistic or extravagant covers that bore little relation to the sprite but, instead, communicated what players were ‘supposed’ to be seeing. Beyond that, players had to impose their own imagination on the impressionist canvas of the flickering CRT. Our current pin-sharp pixel worship doesn’t celebrate a return to the purity of some past experience, but highlights that this modern fixation actually echoes far older artistic preoccupations.

Some examples of the work
of street artist Invader. 

Alexander the Great? Hardly. Not even 720.

We've been creating and idolising lo-fi interpretations of the real world for centuries. Art history constantly demonstrates the deconstruction of complex forms into simpler blocks for rebuilding and reconfiguration. Greco-Roman mosaic tiles offer an ancient analogue to the pixel, although they allow the viewer to appreciate the image’s complexity in a way an animated sprite couldn’t until we were able to screen-grab and fetishise each frame. Unlike mosaics or textiles where intricacy is easily considered and appreciated in the final product, animated art usually prevents similar analysis without disrupting the final form. The detail in a sprite is difficult to parse in motion and, when taken in isolation, ironically it’s often the economy of pixel art rather than the detail that is better appreciated in a field governed by strict technical limitations. How have they done so much with so little? The implication of a single pixel on a character can read differently to every player. I was always convinced that Sonic the Hedgehog had no visible mouth. Looking closely at the sprite blown up on a monitor, one could argue that some of the darker pixels under his nose imply a mouth but I always perceived a defiant, determined frown, not the shit-eating grin he wore in all accompanying media that fed into his ‘hog with ‘tude persona. The sprite was open to individual interpretation.

“Enemy GAUDIZARD attacked!”

In the 19^th Century photo-realism (as we would now call it) in painting and portraiture lost relevance somewhat following the invention of the photographic camera. The Impressionists began exploring the effects of light and the eye’s perception of a scene, and more abstract takes and movements followed.

Pointillism is a painting technique involving thousands of coloured ‘points’ painted to create the scene, much as sub-pixels use RGB to represent the whole colour spectrum. It’s perhaps most famously exemplified by George Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, 1884. Try zooming in on those sub-pixels!

Intricately beautiful, but a ‘mare to animate. [Source]

This move towards the abstract is echoed in video game history – the constant drive towards 3D, sandbox play experiences and photo-realism created an offshoot of games exploring a more ‘abstract’ aesthetic. This occurred even before games entered the third dimension. While Rareware went for incredible 3D-looking sprites in 1994’s Donkey Kong Country (very impressive at the time, created by taking renders of a high-detail 3D model and down-sampling those individual shots into sprites), Shigeru Miyamoto resisted calls from within Nintendo to replicate that style in Yoshi’s Island and instead raided the crayon box, producing a look that still stands up today. The ‘Celda’ controversy surrounding Wind Waker was the result of developers maturing artistically and being chastised by a playerbase excited by the Spaceworld 2000 tech teaser and locked into the mindset of MORE REALISTIC = BETTER. Wind Waker’s timeless art style endures in a way its follow-up, Twilight Princess: Fan Appeasement, simply doesn’t. Nintendo, as with all large companies, is somewhat hamstrung by their audience, but the ‘indie’ studios that sprung up in the late ‘00s were free to make bold artistic choices which happily dovetailed with their limited resources and growing retro nostalgia. Minecraft’s voxels offer a new way to interact with our beloved pixels. Mario Maker allows the player to swap palettes, taking us from pixel to polygon at the touch of a button. Super Mario Bros plays and looks just as you remember it. As you REMEMBER it, not how it was, but ignorance is bliss. It was always 16:9, no? It was always HD!

We should remember that although the number of pixels in the vertical line was still the measure of resolution before HD ruled, CRTs had the ability to support multiple resolutions. They would rapidly scan across the screen projecting one line at a time (‘skipping’ every other one if the input resolution was sufficiently low, resulting in that delicious banding effect.) CRTs would take the input resolution and, regardless of horizontal pixel number, alter the beam sweep rate to fill the width of the 4:3 screen. They project the image and, consequently, the pixels would ‘stretch’ and become rectangular. The NES (see the Super Mario Bros illustration) output 256x240 pixels, which is not 4:3 (320x240), but the CRT 'stretched' them by about 20%. Modern TVs have a fixed number of square pixels built in to the screen (‘Full HD’ - 1080p - gives us 1920 pixels across with the standard 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio.) They are not projected and cannot be ‘stretched’. Therefore, displaying NES games in 1:1 pixel mode on modern screens results in a thinner than expected screen. This can be remedied but it involves some algorithmic trickery that necessarily blurs the x-axis pixel info to fudge that extra 20%. We get our 4:3, though it doesn’t look as sharp due to a fundamental limitation that the older tech didn’t have. Add a scanline filter and you’re getting close.

Shocking textures. And where’s my 4xMSAA?? #lazydevs

But I remember the static of CRTs: being so close I could discern the bright red/blue/green of each sub-pixel; turning the TV off and touching the screen, watching it glow white under my fingertips; hearing the static discharge and smelling the burning dust rising out of the back vents of the hulking Trinitron. Replicating all that is much more difficult than getting the sharpest, cleanest signal from the source and faking the scanlines. It’s that atmosphere which is hard to recreate. Because, if we’re honest, many of the games themselves don’t hold up after 30 years. They often need a spit-polish to bring out the fun again in a modern context (not only visually, but also in feature set – things like online multiplayer or leaderboard/achievement support).

And that’s really the ultimate goal here – creating the circumstances that give us the feeling that we’re playing just as we did. For some this involves replicating the exact set-up, but for most others, spoiled by years of pin-sharp definition and digital convenience (or lacking the space to accommodate the bulky old tech), it actually means embracing the upscaling, emulation, remasters and remixes. Ultimately the delivery method, be it clone console, emulator, virtual console or the genuine painstakingly sourced article, isn’t important so long as these games are played and enjoyed. The advertising for Nintendo’s upcoming NES Mini plays on early ‘90s VHS nostalgia with tape warping effects and curved screens before a burst of light heralds the arrival of 16:9 and they showcase the HDMI output and various display options in HD. The catalogue of 30 included games are advertised to run at 60HZ – something most PAL gamers never knew they were missing back in the day. And, of course, some fans want a 50 HZ option because ‘they’re not the games I played’ without it. They’ll be faster and/or smoother, yes, but not identical. This demonstrates the tightrope developers walk when revamping their back catalogue. The unoptimised Sonic the Hedgehog we European gamers played would be a syrupy nightmare to US/Japanese players, but that was all we knew. No wonder I never thought ‘speed’ was Sonic’s defining characteristic. For me it was all about maintaining the flow through those beautifully designed levels. Hearing the music at 60HZ for the first time made me anxious. ‘No, no, slow down! Calm down!’ I’ve taken mp3s into Audacity before and slowed them down 20%-ish to match my memories and appreciate all those notes! But after playing the games on several other platforms since then (it surely tops the Game Ported To Most Platforms Ever list), returning to the original hardware is TOUGH (‘how did I ever play this chuggy mess?!’) and not how I want to remember the game. We think we want technological authenticity, but the human mind is a treacherous bastard. Grezzo’s Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask 3DS remasters are masterclasses in how to update aged classics while respecting not only the original intent and direction, but also players’ memories.

How you remember (top) versus how it was (bottom).

Going back to the source is jarring after years of 30-60fps.

Standardisation across regions means NTSC/PAL discrepancies are a thing of the past, though our preoccupation with resolution and frames-per-second is far from over. Sony and Microsoft are both diving into the 4K quagmire and once again arguments about upscaling versus native rendering abound. ‘4K’ itself is something of a misnomer – the actual vertical resolution is only doubled from 1080 pixels (to 2160), but 2K doesn’t sound as impressive, I guess. So convention was broken and the name was taken from the horizontal pixel count instead. Which at the standard 16:9 ratio is actually only 3840 pixels, NOT 4000. That’s right, tin-foilers, we’re being screwed out of 160 pixels. I’m sure there’s a lawsuit in there somewhere. Of course, things are further complicated by the film industry which uses a marginally different standard of 4096x2160…

Regardless, 1080p60 isn’t bleeding edge anymore. But is native 4K30 better? How about upscaled 4K45-ish? Post-processing? HDR? Downsampling? Filters?...

It all boils down to a pixel, whether crisp and clean or smeared by its nearest neighbour. Play and let play…except, of course, if you use that unholy Super Eagle filter. That is obviously and objectively wrong and you should be punished/reeducated. [/sarcasm]