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Beyond Beeps: Michael Jackson's Moonwalker

The online gaming community has zeroed in on Michael Jackson's gaming career in the past day as fans of the King of Pop remember his musical legacy when it comes to video games.  The 1990 Sega Genesis title Michael Jackson's Moonwalker has been name-checked quite a bit during these discussions, but nobody seems to mention the game's soundtrack.  It's loaded with some of Jackson's most memorable songs of the era converted into 16-bit chiptune equivalents.  I can't let this event pass without highlighting the game's surprisingly memorable soundtrack, so let us dive right into this special edition of Beyond Beeps and explore the music of Moonwalker.  You probably know all of the songs featured, but have you heard them rendered by a Z80 processor and YM2612 FM processor before?

"Another Part of Me"

"Billie Jean"

"Beat It"

"Smooth Criminal"

"Bad"

But wait a minute!  What about "Thriller"?  Surely "Thriller" has to be in the game, right?  Well, some versions of the game include it as a secret song, while others do not.  This YouTube video attempts to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Beyond Beeps: Uncle Fester's Quest

They may be creepy and kooky, but they're also a bit out of place as the peculiar Addams Family sends Uncle Fester out to stop the alien invasion in the 1989 Nintendo Entertainment System adventure Uncle Fester's Quest. Here we have a game produced by Sunsoft about two years too soon, as the game is based on the 1960s Addams Family television show's portrayal of Fester by Jackie Coogan and predates the 1991 revival of the property that cast Raul Julia as Gomez and Christopher Lloyd as the bald lightbulb-sucker himself. Exactly why this game (and its horrid box art) exists is left to another day. Today we're here to enjoy the quirky music that serves as Fester's companion as he explores both city overworld and sewer underworld in search of the alien mothership. Let's start things off with the most kick-ass, rousing rendition of the classic Addams Family theme that you've ever heard produced by 8-bit beeps and bleeps. Everyone sing along now!

Fester begins his quest in the middle of a city street cast in a most Legend of Zelda-like perspective. He'll have to collect weapon power-ups and items while dealing with low-level alien agents such as the frog boss from Sunsoft's Blaster Master making an uncredited cameo here as a series of increasingly strong basic foes. Fester's march through the overworld is accompanied by this theme, a rousing march of a song that practically shouts "Let's go!" even when players are blocked by a frustrating dead-end or unpassable barricade.

If Fester could lurch his way directly across the overworld to the alien UFO then this would be a very short game. Fortunately for those who like inexplicable barriers, the overworld is loaded with blockades that prevent Fester from taking the direct route. He'll have to venture through the maze of sewers (which are, like the overworld, broken up into chunks with well-placed walls) which are loaded with rats, bugs, slimy aliens that steal power-ups, and Langolier-type beasts that can cheat the maze by chewing through walls. Sewers lack any kind of natural light, so provided Fester has some lightbulbs in his inventory, he can stick one in his mouth to light up the area (the game lacks the technical capabilities to animate that trick, but it's implied).  The grueling sewer theme highlights Fester's journey.

Breaking up the over/underworld dynamic are sections of 3D mazes that are navigated a screen at a time without the benefit of animation to indicate where Fester is and where he needs to go next. I spent too much time wandering around in circles and inadvertently backtracking my way through these mazes as a kid, and this strangely tuned theme played in the background the entire time.  It's not often that I get lost in a maze-like gray-walled building, but when it happens, I still hear this music in my head while I'm searching for the exit (and I usually do backtrack around to the entrance by accident).

The end of the 3D mazes give way to a boss encounter where Fester needs to find a safe spot and shoot and/or whip repeatedly until the monster in question dies in a sequence cribbed right out of Blaster Master. The game's basic structure is as follows: overworld → underworld → overworld → 3D maze → boss attack → repeat. Here's a little boss battle riff for your enjoyment.

Eventually Fester will stumble across the UFO and venture inside for one last sewer-type underworld level packed with just about every minor foe encountered in the game thus far. Destroy the alien hivemind to win the game and activate this strangely melancholy victory theme. We won! Shouldn't this be a cause to celebrate? Those Addams folks always were a bit on the strange side.  At least the townsfolk appreciate what has been done for them.  Burning the creepy family at the stake can wait for another day, I guess.

We've come to the end of Fester's jaunt through Beyond Beeps, so that's Game Over until next time.

Beyond Beeps: A Boy And His Blob

Today's installment of Beyond Beeps is from one of the most disappointing yet most intriguing games from the Nintendo Entertainment System library.  Absolute Entertainment unleashed A Boy and His Blob back in 1989 and somehow managed to score heavy coverage in Nintendo Power, leading me to believe it was a fantastic game eventually resulting in my paying $49.95 of my saved allowance for it.  The concept is interesting enough: boy meets blob, boy feeds blob jellybeans, blob turns into useful tools depending on which kind of jellybean he eats, boy uses tools to help overthrow despot on blob's home planet, The End.  The game sports only four pieces of background music and, lucky you, you're about to hear them all.  Oh, and this may be a good time to remind you that game music doesn't necessarily have to be good in order to fit on my list of favorites.  Now then, let's start with the title screen theme.

Pressing Start at this point takes us into the game itself which is basically divided into two parts.

First of all, get used to this theme because if you play A Boy and His Blob, you'll be hearing it a lot.  An awful lot.  For the entire first half of the game, actually.  The Boy (that's you) must fulfill his destiny and travel to The Blob's planet.  Before departing, however, it's best to explore the subways and underground caverns of Earth to collect diamonds and additional jellybeans.  Following a long, frustrating slog through the underworld, The Boy eventually surfaces back to the street, cashes in his collected treasures in exchange for vitamins which can be fired from the Vitablaster gun, and (with the aid of The Blob's root beer rocket form) blasts off for Planet Blobolonia.  This takes us into the second half of the game with its own theme...

... which sounds a hell of a lot like the other main game theme.  A two'fer!  Note the up-tempo swing midway through the song, as if the game is trying to say "Ho now, I'm rocking!"

Now The Boy must journey past screen after screen of murderous marshmallows, bloodthirsty cherry bombs, killer Hershey's kisses, and other such deadly delights.  At the end of it all is a locked door that can only be opened with the aid of the lime jellybean (which can only be found in Earth's underground, so if you came straight to Blobolonia without exploring the caverns, then you'll be stuck at this point and forced to backtrack all the way home).  Open the door and solve the game's final jellybean-related puzzle to win the game and hear the ending theme...

... which is just the main title theme again.  So why have I directed you to such a short and unremarkable game?  Considering the lack of musical variety to be found in A Boy And His Blob, it shouldn't come as a surprise that if you spend a decent amount of time with it, the two main themes will loop again and again until they become seared into that part of your brain that retains game music.  The songs will slide right into place between Snake Man's theme from Mega Man 3 and the daytime town music from Castlevania II: Simon's Quest.  They'll stay rooted in place for years until you manage to expose someone else to them.  Now that I'm free of the boy and his blob by passing them on to you, it's time to wrap things up with the "lost a life" music.  Next time I'll have actual good gaming tunes for you.  I promise.

Oh, and those vitamins?  Yeah, it turns out you don't actually need those for any particular reason after all.  So what was the point of collecting treasures in order to buy them?  Some questions just don't have answers.

(Images via MobyGames)      

Beyond Beeps: Rockin' Kats

Here's an amazing-but-true fact for you: not everybody was trying to copy Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. at the close of the Nintendo Entertainment System era.  Some publishers were trying to copy Capcom's Bionic Commando.  That brings us to the next installment of Beyond Beeps in which I guide you through some of my favorite video gaming soundtracks that deserve some time in the spotlight.  Today we'll be listening to clips from Atlus's Rockin' Kats, a fun little NES platformer that took the classic cats versus dogs rivalry and applied a little bionic arm action to the mix.  A little title screen music if you please!

Rockin' Kats is presented as a multi-episode television series in which each episode has the same basic plot: feline Willy is searching for his girlfriend Jill who has been kidnapped by the local criminal kingpin, Mugsy the bulldog.  This little tune plays on the level selection screen.

Each episode takes Willy to a different TV-inspired level.  One channel is set against an amusement park, for example, while another takes place in the old west.  Below we have the level tunes for the first channel: a snippet from the city streets overworld followed by the rockin' subway theme.

Willy is a typical action platformer hero in that he must walk and jump his way through these different worlds, although the twist comes with Willy's weapon of choice.  Our hero cannot jump onto enemies to defeat them, but instead makes uses of the traditional cartoon sping-loaded boxing glove to get the job done.  Enemies can either be punched directly or (and here's the Bionic Commando angle) Willy can latch onto ledges with the glove and spin 360 degrees around the attach point, whacking enemies who wander into radius of the swing.  The punchglove is also used to swing and flip Willy over and across all manner of obstacles.  Most levels move in a left-to-right fashion with an emphasis on pounding enemies, but there are several large underground vertical segments that rely on Willy's punchglove flipping abilities.  Below we hear the murky sewer theme.

At the end of each level Willy comes up against one of Mugsy's criminal accomplicies such as the maniacally musical Bull Band or Mugsy's own pet eagle.  Each boss encounter begins with a brief conversation between Willy, Jill, and Mugsy that sets up the battle.  Here we have the music that plays during these conversations and the battle itself.

After clearing the game's first four worlds a special final fifth level becomes available: "I Love New York", a massive series of levels that borrows elements from previous worlds including rematches with each boss, both mini- and major.  Enjoy the music of the end of the Big Apple channel as Willy approaches Mugsy's hideout.

Eventually the whole thing comes to an end with a one-on-one encounter with Mugsy himself.  Take a listen to his theme.

Willy and Jill are reunited in the end and Mugsy is blasted into orbit and to the moon, leading to this tender victory theme.  Hang around after the credits for Mugsy's inevitable return in a special challenge level that relies heavily on mastery of the punchglove.

Even the best Bionic Commando clones have to end sometime, meaning that we've reached the end of this installment of Beyond Beeps.

 

(Screenshots courtesy MobyGames)

Beyond Beeps: Aero The Acrobat

When publisher Sunsoft unleashed Aero the Acrobat in 1993 the idea was that the little bat who performed amazing stunts under the big top of a traveling circus would become the company's mascot.  As you'll recall, the successful launch of Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog ushered in the age of the cute gaming mascot wars in which just about every publisher sought to create the same brand identity: cool animal with attitude.  Aero is one of the many characters produced during this era, but the soundtrack to his debut game for the Super NES and Sega Genesis (and later, the Game Boy Advance) stands apart from the me-too efforts of, say, Rocky Rodent and James Pond. 

Aero the Acrobat begins with ex-clown-turned-evil-industrialist Edgar Ektor returned to the circus that once humiliated him.  He sabotages the performance and takes the entire cast of the show hostage with the exception of a single bat by the name of, yes, Aero the Acrobat.  Aero must travel from the circus through the theme park into the woods and to Ektor's twisted museum where the clown and his henchman, Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel, await.

Considering that the game is set around the circus, the soundtrack takes a lot of the traditional sounds of the show.  Synth organ plays heavily along with cranked-up electric guitar and a dash of hard percussion.   Let us step through and sample some highlights from the soundtrack, shall we?

Aero the Acrobat's title screen theme starts things off, pulling players into the madcap world of a circus run amok.  This theme also extends into the first act of the game, reappearing now and then as the game progresses.

Before each level this song is heard while Aero's objective is clarified.  The recording here actually plays more of the song than you'll hear while playing the game, as the assignment screen fades out into the actual level before the tune can finish and repeat.

The game's second act contains a bonus ball item.  Collect it to play a bonus act in which Aero dives into a small pool from off the very high diving board.  During descent he can fall through floating rings for extra points.  Comparisons to Pilotwings's skydiving levels are unavoidable here, although dare I say that Aero's take on the matter features a better background tune.

While in the woods Aero must navigate his way down a waterslide made of hollow logs while dodging spikes and other nasties.  His wet journey takes place during this tune.  A similar song exists elsewhere in the game during a comparative challenge.

Boss Acts conclude most major sections of the game and this crazy tune accompanies the action when Aero takes on lesser bosses.  Intense!

Major boss battles (such as against Ektor's squirrel sidekick) are set against this variation of the previous song.

After a long battle our hero comes to the twisted museum of Edgar Ektor himself.  These three songs make up the score for the museum's trap-filled levels.

Ektor's reign of terror comes to end as the credits roll during this exuberant song.  You can't really expect Sunsoft to kill off their new mascot's arch-rival so soon, however, as Ektor returns in both Aero the Acrobat 2 and the spin-off title Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel.

Alas, all good things must come to an end.  I'm afraid that's Game Over for this installment of Beyond Beeps.

Beyond Beeps

Sure, you can hum the overworld theme from Super Mario Bros. on command and can hear the Legend of Zelda underworld dungeon music in your head whenever you go downstairs into the forboding basement, but there's really so much more to gaming music than that.  We all love the music from games such as Castlevania and Mega Man, but there are so many other fantastic gaming soundtracks out there that deserve a little attention at long last.  Beyond Beeps is a new section here at Press The Buttons that aims to do just that.  I'll be sharing some of my more esoteric soundtrack favorites and providing a little commentary as you expand your game music horizons.  Sit back, crank up the volume, and let the music overwhelm you.  Synth has never sounded so good.