As a kid, I was a HUGE fan of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). I got mine way later than most (in 1988). My first video game purchase was Bubble Bobble. As a whole, my game purchases were dependent on two things: Nintendo Power game reviews and how much I loved the Box design. Back then, I'd buy most of my games at Fedco and Adray's Electronics. In both places, the game boxes were prominently displayed in a locked glass case (kind of like jewelry). If you were really interested in buying a game, you could ask a sales representative to unlock the glass case, pull out the game you were interested in... and you could STUDY the box so that you could decide if you were going to plop down the cash necessary to buy the game. Of the many games I bought and/or rented these are, hands down, my favorite NES box designs. All images were found on the wonderful cover archive at Moby Games.

GRADIUS (1986): Most of Konami's game had a sophisticated look to them. Gradius is the best example of this. The artwork stands up with the best in Science Fiction art of the time and it just screamed with menace and cool.

NINJA GAIDEN (1989): I LOVE how the flames complemented the flames surrounding Ryu Hyabusa. It's also an effective contrast to have the yellow and red flames surround the blue costume of Ryu. One of my favorite depictions of a ninja, ever!

BIONIC COMMANDO (1988): This is one of the rare NES game covers that tells a story. That was the main reason I rented the game. Too bad the game was so freaking hard. It was also very jarring to see the game graphics are way more red and green than blue.

GOLGO 13 (1988): As a kid raised on James Bond films, I loved this cover. The box was printed with silver ink and really stood out on the shelves. Seeing the hot looking girls in the game screenshots on the back and rumors of a sex scene convinced me this was a must buy!

CASTLEVANIA (1986): Another beautiful Konami cover. I just realized that the layout is very similar to Gradius. Great name for a game, awesome logo design, and just spooky enough to peak a kid's interest.

METALSTORM (1991): I loved robots. Metalstorm had the coolest looking robot I'd seen on any NES cover (Metal Gear was a close second). It helped that you got to play as the robot... but I was mad the robot in the actual game was a boring brown color.

Yasushi Suzuki balances his artistic duties between doing development work for Treasure (a game developer) and doing his own comics and illustrations. I immediately noticed his character design and environments on the Nintendo 64 'Sin & Punishment' game. There was a sophisticated sense of style and cool that I found refreshing and exciting. For me, his game art hit its' peak on Treasures shoot-em-up 'Ikaruga'. It's a brilliant game made even better with the polish that Suzuki-san's art gave the game's black & white aesthetic. I'm happy to hear that he's back doing the design work for the Wii's 'Sin & Punishment 2' (out in the US end of June 2010). His art seems to have lost something in his attempts to do something more fashionable and realistic but, overall, I still am excited by what I've seen of the game. So much so that I'll probably hold off on buying Mario Galaxy 2 and save up to purchase 'Sin & Punishment 2'. Below is a collection of some of his various art on the three games and video clips of the S&P trailer and a gnarly level play through of the beautifully difficult Ikaruga.

S&P 2 Trailer:

Ikaruga Play Through:

MOLE MANIA is one of the lesser known games Shigeru Miyamoto (creator of Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros., Legend of Zelda, and Wii Sports) developed for the original Game Boy console during the last few years of the Game Boy's existence. It's a clever game with charming sprite graphics and incredibly intuitive game play mechanics. Even though I have yet to beat the game, it's one of my favorite Game Boy games as it delivers a unique and promising gaming experience.

In the game you play as Muddy Mole, a mole who needs to push an iron ball into a concrete barrier to proceed to the next level. On the surface it plays a lot like the old puzzle-platforming games like 'Adventures of Lolo' where you must find a key to open the door to the next level. But, MOLE MANIA changes the game concept by allowing you to move around in both the regular world (above ground) and by digging holes into an underground level (since you are a mole) that may give you access to items and/or pathways that may help you through the obstacles that exist above ground. To get through levels you have to familiarize yourself and master both what happens above ground and underground. About 2/3 into the game it gets frustratingly challenging (hence why I haven't beat the darn game)... but the characters, levels, and game play are so effectively implemented that I still enjoy playing it.

I LOVE this short film: PIXELS by Patrick Jean. A old tube-TV accident leads to a bunch of old school video game characters destroying a city. Everything is beautifully executed from the Donkey Kong/King Kong scene, to the Tetris destruction, to the Frogger street crossing. A beautiful homage to video game's clunkier aesthetic of yesterday that finds a seamless coexistence of realistic cityscape footage and 3D polygon interpretations of pixel art. The 3D pixel polygon designs remind me a lot of PS3's upcoming 3D DOT HEROES games but gets extra points for recreating popular characters from yesteryear.

It's tough, but I'm trying to scale back on my game purchases until I play through the ones I have. I have tons of great games that I really enjoyed playing... but with so many new games out there (and so little time), it's been very difficult to buckle down and enjoy playing the ones I already have.

These days, I've gone back to playing MADWORLD on the Nintendo Wii. MADWORLD is a bloody comedy beat-em-up from Platinum Games (the same guys that made Bayonetta) done in a SIN CITY-like black, white and red style. Using a combination of traditional and motion controls you control Jack Cayman as he brutally punches, chainsaws, and skewers opponents in a lethal Game Show of survival.

I love the multiple ways this game has attempted to push both the Wii system and games in general. It's the first black and white polygon game. It tries to do comedic violence. And it has some very clever characters and level themes. The motion controls work incredibly well. And it's got a decent amount of difficulty.

Despite all of that it was a huge failure sales wise. In roughly a year's time less than 500,000 copies sold. Even though it was initially released at an MSRP of $49.99 it is now selling at Amazon for $7.69.

What went wrong? I by no means have the answer, but I assume the game was trying to do to many new things for the average Nintendo Wii gamer. The Wii gamers didn't want a black & white game, an explicit violent comedy, or beat-em-up.

Now that I'm playing the game again, I'm starting to understand why I got distracted and stopped playing it in the first place. As much as I love the characters and general gameplay, the point-based means of progression is a bit of a hindrance. When playing a beat-em-up I like having the sense that you're moving forward and actually accomplishing something. But in this game, the progression design is more like that of an arena. You're in an enclosed arena and you have to accumulate a bunch of points to access subsequent items/mini-games/bosses in the level. Once you beat the final boss you can move onto the next arena-like level.

This set up is a bit frustrating because you've got to do a bunch of things to progress. First off, you have a time limit to complete the level. Then you've got to figure out how to cleverly kill the enemies to get the maximum number of points... and in order to do that you've got to familiarize yourself with the level to figure out where in the various areas are the best items and environments to make complex kills. Throw in the excruciatingly slow gameplay tutorial in the first level and you've got enough factors to scare away gamers from an overall fun gaming experience. Ironically, the one place where I would have appreciated a bit more of a tutorial to play (in Black Baron's mini-game challenges) I'm left to figure out how to complete the ambiguous objective to accumulate points (same goes for the end-boss battles).

As much as I enjoy the cleverness of stabbing some guy in the head with a signpost or launching him with a catapult... it's at odds with the adrenaline-fueled desire to beat the crap out of somebody. These violent gags can get too pre-meditated to give you that satisfying rush of whupping somebody's digital behind. That's kind of where NO MORE HEROES got it right. In that game you just swing your laser blade to make guys explode. In MADWORLD you feel more like those black and white spies in SPY VS. SPY. You have to think through your kill... but it ends up feeling way more like setting up some chain-reaction dominoes, something that feels at odds with the game's over-the-top violence.

It's weird and frustrating because somewhere inside MADWORLD there's an excellent game. It's just too bad that the polish wasn't applied properly to make this a diamond rather than a decent looking stone.

Below are a collection of some of the great characters of Madworld. I also really enjoy the Madworld blog entries on the Platinum Game website. It's a very illuminating perspective on game design. Click to see my favorite articles below:

Drawing In Black & White

The Challenge of Madworld

Madworld Vs. Wii Remote

What Madworld Still Lacked

A Different Sense of Humor

If you haven't heard, now you will: Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World movie trailer is out. I love it and can't wait to see the film. Bryan Lee O' Malley, Scott Pilgrim's creator is one of the good guys. He's done some great comics for many, many years. I loved his Lost At Sea comic and have also enjoyed the heck out of his Scott Pilgrim books. Many, many years ago I even paid him something super cheap (I think it was $25) to do a beautiful watercolor painting of the main character from Lost At Sea for my girlfriend at the time (she later became my wife). I have no clue why O'Malley decided to be so generous to his fans at the time... but I continue to cherish the gorgeous painting he did for us.

It's wacky and exciting to see that Scott Pilgrim is now months away from becoming a live action film. The director (Edgar Wright) has proven his uber-sense of awesome (with his Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz films). About the only thing I'm not too jazzed about is the casting of Michael Cena as Scott Pilgrim (way too dorky for Mr. Pilgrim, if you ask me), but I'm sure it'll make for a great time.  

What brings the buzz-factor on this project from awesome to unchartably-super-curse-words levels of excitement is the reveal that sprite-art-master Paul Robertson is handling character art duties for the beat-em-up video game based on the movie/comic. Gobi introduced me to the genius of Paul Robertson's art (you can even read Gobi gushing directly to Paul Roberston HERE). He's the PERFECT guy to handle the zany insanity that is Scott Pilgrim.