Press The Buttons

PTB Celebrates 4,000 Entries

Here's a fun fact: if you were to start reading the Press The Buttons archive from the very beginning, you would have four thousand articles spanning nearly seven years worth of content to explore.  As is custom at each major article milestone, it's time to look back on my personal favorite selections from the previous five hundred articles.  There's plenty of interesting pieces to enjoy here spanning Power Button podcasts to reviews to lost game levels to intriguing hacks to nostalgic looks back on games you missed back in the day and beyond.  There's also some material in there from last year's E3, too.  Sit back, make yourself comfortable, and let's review some of the best of that PTB had to offer in the past eleven months.

• Power Button - Episode 47: A Combination Of Anger, Disappointment, And Disgust and Power Button - Episode 48: One Week Later (Brad Hilderbrand and I cope with the PlayStation Network hack attack of 2011)

• E3 2011: Sega Has A Sonic The Hedgehog Museum (Sega collected a bunch of memorabilia)

• Power Button at E3 2011 (I team up with the Games Are Evil team for a week of podcasts from Los Angeles)

  • Episode 1: Crazy Predictions Run Wild! (Excitement!)

  • Episode 2: Press Conference Cavalcade (Information!)

  • Episode 3: A Brief Tour Of West And South Halls (Impressions!)

  • Episode 4: So Very Tired (Exhaustion!)

  • Episode 5: Final Wrap-Up (Reflection!)

• Mega Man Games Hacked To Allow On-The-Go Weapon Changes (The classic Nintendo Entertainment System titles gain a new feature)

• These Games Suck (Let's visit the bargain bin of the damned)

• The Song Remains The Same With Operation Rainfall and The Song Remains The Same With Operation Rainfall (You can't always get what you want (unless, of course, you can))

• You Can't Go To Disney's Myst Island (Walt Disney World once planned on a theme park island experience based on the classic game)

• All Your Base Are Dramatically Overwritten (I really wanted to like this book)

• Power Button - Episode 58: Kombo Reunion (The old band gets back together for one night only)

• OverClocked Remix Battles The Robot Masters (Enjoy some sweet Mega Man remixes)

• Duke Nukem Loves Modern Warfare 3 (Still one of the more unusual repurposed promotional items I've seen)

• Let's Visit A Sad Arcade (Searching for the great American video game arcade led here)

• Secret Origins: Super Mario 64 (The waiting was the hardest part, as was the intense sickness)

• Mini-Review: The Legend Of Zelda: Four Swords Anniversary Edition (Glad to see this game back again)

• Mini-Review: NBA 2K12 and Mini-Review: NBA 2K12 Legends Showcase (Brad Hilderbrand steps in to review this sports title)

• Gone Mad From The Revelation (Actually starting a new game takes more work than ever these days)

• Power Button - Episode 69: Heated Discussions Regarding Uncharted 3 And Super Mario 3D Land (Loud, angry arguments!)

• PTB 2011 Video Gaming Holiday Gift Guide (Is it too late to start you holiday shopping for 2011?)

• Mini-Review: Dante's Inferno (One of my favorite reviews from the old days)

• Power Button - Episode 72: The Best That 2011 Had To Offer and Power Button - Episode 73: Big Games For 2012 (Last year brought us some great games, but this year looks great as well)

• Secret e-Reader Levels In Mario vs Donkey Kong Revealed (I still wish this lost content would have resurfaced for the 3DS re-release)

• Mini-Review: Just Cause 2 (Years later and I'm still trying to achieve 100% completion of this game) 

• Let's Get Dangerous: Darkwing Duck's Gaming Adventures (A look back at the masked mallard's video game career)

• Beyond Beeps: New Ghostbusters II (This old Nintendo Entertainment System title was hiding film soundtrack renditions in plain sight)

• Hello, Mr. Spencer!: In Defense of Bionic Commando and Mini-Review: Bionic Commando (A Bionic Commando blowout)

• Mini-Review: Sonic Classic Collection (A look at this DS compilation from a technical perspective)

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Previous Milestone Celebrations

• 500 Entries
• 1,000 Entries
• 1,500 Entries
• 2,000 Entries
• 2,500 Entries
• 3,000 Entries
• 3,500 Entries

Power Button Presents Kombo Breaker - Episode 25: Controlled Response

This week's classic episode of Kombo Breaker dates back to April 24, 2009 and features a clearing of the air as Dan Johnson, Joey Davidson, Brad Hilderbrand, and I settle a few issues that had been building up over the previous weeks.  The heart of the first segment revolves around a debate on control stick placement on video game controllers, but there's also time for Brad to share in the pain of Lux-Pain as I shake my head in disappointment at Sonic Unleashed's extra downloadable content challenges. Peggle addiction shows itself once again and Joey revisits Outrun and explores Killzone 2, too.  Oh, and I also brag about getting tickets to see the then-upcoming The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien while in Los Angeles for E3 that year.  After the break we come back to discuss Stephen Totilo's jump from MTV Multiplayer to Kotaku that was big news in the game journalism business that week. Will that work out well for him?  Yes, I think it will.  Then before all is said and done we beg Harmonix to add a keyboard to Rock Band.  That also worked out well in the end.  Join us for eighty minutes of flashback fun.  Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, or subscribe via iTunes, and be sure to catch up on past episodes if you're joining us late. Remember that you can reach all three of us via , you can leave a message on the Power Button hotline by calling (720) 722-2781, and you can even follow all of us on Twitter at @PressTheButtons, @aubradley84, and @JoeyDavidson or for just podcast updates, @ThePowerButton.

Power Button Presents Kombo Breaker - Episode 25: Controlled Response

Search For These Lost Gaming Gems

Retro gaming is all the rage in this era of digital distribution, but while famous games such as Super Mario Bros., Mega Man 2, and Sonic the Hedgehog have popped up in several places in different forms once again, there are some video games that are doomed to remain in the vault for complicated copyright or licensing issues.  GamesRadar offers up a list of ten games worth your time that are hard to find and explains why you'll probably never see fun titles such as Uniracers ever again.

Before Rockstar North was known primarily for the Grand Theft Auto series, it went by another name: DMA Design. It was already making awesome games, though. Uniracers, for example, is by far the best side-scrolling racing and stunt game featuring unicycles ever to be released for the Super Nintendo.  The game already feels pretty fast, but doing tricks in midair gives you a speed boost if you land them, so you’re constantly encouraged to flip like a madman (or madunicycle). This can get really tricky when the tracks are throwing you crazy loops and constantly changing which direction you’re supposed to be going. You could play split-screen with a second player or even set up an eight-player tournament, making it a fast and fun party game.

So why aren’t we still playing Uniracers every day? Because back in 1987, Pixar released a four-minute-long short film called Red’s Dream, which starred an autonomous, computer-generated unicycle. Apparently this gave Pixar the idea that any later appearance of a rider-less CG unicycle was stealing its concept, and it sued DMA Design shortly after Uniracers was released. Unfortunately, the court sided with Pixar, forcing Nintendo to stop production on copies of the game and ensuring we’ll never see it again. So next time you’re thanking John Lasseter for directing Toy Story, take a moment to curse him for indirectly taking Uniracers out of the world.

Other games of interest on the list include perennial fan favorites such as Mega Man Legends and EarthBound.  The stunning thing about all of this is that most of the games in the spotlight here have been rereleased in Japan where apparently copyright laws are weaker, lawyers are smarter, or sales expectations are more realistic.  Mega Man Legends and EarthBound have both been brought back there in recent years (for the Sony PlayStation Portable and Game Boy Advance respectively), as has NiGHTS: Into Dreams (as a PlayStation 2 port).  None of those saw the light of day elsewhere.  If that's not a shameable offense, then it really should be.

Fans Finance Next Double Fine Adventure Game

Are you a fan of The Secret of Monkey Island?  How about Maniac Mansion?  Day of the Tentacle?  Would you like to see a new adventure game crafted in the same style as those classics by the same top talent who created them all in the first place?  Fans of Tim Schafer should take note, as the duo are working on a new PC game in the familar point-and-click style at Double Fine Productions.  The intriguing part (if you aren't intrigued already) is that the team is using crowd-sourced financing hub Kickstarter to fund the project.  What we have here is a game from a famous major developer funded by fans. 

Big games cost big money. Even something as "simple" as an Xbox LIVE Arcade title can cost upwards of two or three million dollars. For disc-based games, it can be over ten times that amount. To finance the production, promotion, and distribution of these massive undertakings, companies like Double Fine have to rely on external sources like publishers, investment firms, or loans. And while they fulfill an important role in the process, their involvement also comes with significant strings attached that can pull the game in the wrong directions or even cancel its production altogether. Thankfully, viable alternatives have emerged and gained momentum in recent years.

Crowd-sourced fundraising sites like Kickstarter have been an incredible boon to the independent development community. They democratize the process by allowing consumers to support the games they want to see developed and give the developers the freedom to experiment, take risks, and design without anyone else compromising their vision. It's the kind of creative luxury that most major, established studios simply can't afford. At least, not until now.

There are tiers of rewards for different donations ($15 gets you a copy of the game on Steam when it releases in October, for instance).  Double Fine needs to raise $400,000 over the next thirty-three days in order for the game to start development, so you'd better hurry if you want to... oh, wait, sorry; after less than a day of collecting donations, the goal has already been met.  From here on, any additional donations will go towards making the game even better and porting it to other platforms.  I think this is a fascinating project and I'd love to see other developers follow with this model.  Fans have offered to kick in money to fund highly demanded sequels before (the sad tale of Mega Man Legends 3 comes to mind), but I can understand why the old guard of development and publishing may shy away from pursuing the Kickstarter model.  Allowing fans to preorder a game early enough in the process to actively fund development changes so much about the traditional way today's games are made.  Hopefully we see more of this in the future.  I know I'd kick in money to see Aero the Acro-Bat 3, Mega Man X9, or Plok 2 happen if the development teams' hearts were in the project.

Weeky Poll: The Real Ottsel

The majority of you are happy with Capcom's decision to include the bad box art version of Mega Man in the upcoming Street Fighter X Tekken.  After some thought, I've come to the conclusion that I'm alright with it as well.  The traditional classic Mega Man does not fit the Street Fighter style, and while he appeared alongside Ryu, Chun-Li, and other World Warriors in the Marvel vs Capcom titles, appearing in a solid Street Fighter brand title just wouldn't fit.  If we have to have Mega Man in a Street Fighter game, then this is probably the best way for him to join the crowd.  Sony's guest star Cole MacGrath from inFamous is a perfect match and needs no additional redesigns or tweaks.  As for Namco's inclusion of Pac-Man as a playable character... well, that's a topic for another day.

Moving on, word came from Naughty Dog this week that the company was considering a realistic reboot of its Jak and Daxter property before settling on The Last of Us.  Would you have any interest in versions of Jak and Daxter that lived in a realistic world and played things relatively straight?  Or is it a good thing that the company left well enough alone and allowed the characters to go on with their animated adventures?  Let's hear your thoughts.

Game Boy Glaucoma And Other Problems

There's nothing like a well-built video game system, but even the most beloved and famous pieces of hardware are subject to weaknesses.  Some are more glaring than others.  Pins were out, screens lose their pixels, joysticks snap off, and lasers lose their ability to lase.  Over at Topless Robot, Shaun Clayton has a list of ten of the most common hardware failures of video game consoles and handhelds both past and present.  For instance, consider Nintendo's original Game Boy and how, over time, its screen degrades:

The Game Boy came onto the scene in the late 1980s, and essentially established the firm pylons of portable gaming that Nintendo clings to this day. Still, it had one slight problem - over time, the screen edges would start losing pixels, or having garbled pixels, and eventually the view space grew narrower and narrower, like a digital glaucoma. Apparently one of the cables would just start wearing out and begin losing the connection. It wasn't a huge problem for Nintendo as they had released successive Game Boy models by the time massive failures started to arrive; still, a Game Boy with a good screen after three years is a small miracle.

I can vouch for that one.  I still have my original Game Boy from 1989, but it's not like I can see anything on its screen anymore.  The darkness began to close in in 1995 and steadily grew worse over time until, eventually, only the middle third of the screen had enough active pixels to show what was happening.  As it turns out, it's very difficult to play Donkey Kong Land when one cannot see what's coming up ahead.  The solution was to buy a used Game Boy Advance SP that will play my old Game Boy cartridges with a clarity not thought possible by my eight-year-old self.  I still hang on to the increasingly faceless Game Boy though.  There's a lot of memories and a lot of miles in that little plastic brick.

And The Mortal Kombat Winner Is...

Remember Mortal Kombat?  I'm not referring to the many Mortal Kombat games, but the actual Mortal Kombat tournaments within the games.  I'm sure you remember the lore; every fifty years Outworld challenges the Earthrealm to the Mortal Kombat tournament as part of a bid to invade and conquer our tranquil planet.  Earth's best combatants fight for the honor and glory of our realm against horrible monsters and beasts.  If Outworld wins the tournament ten times in a row, its emperor Shao Khan can launch his invasion.  So, with all of these Mortal Kombat tournaments happening in the various Mortal Kombat games, who actually wins each one?  In terms of the overall arcing storyline, who is the triumphant Mortal Kombatant?  Dan Ryckert over at Game Informer has braved sequels worth of continuity lockout to determine the winners.

At the outset of the first Mortal Kombat title, Goro was standing as the reigning Mortal Kombat champion for 500 straight years (after defeating the Great Kung Lao). Shang Tsung was basically the Bobby "The Brain" Heenan to Goro's Andre the Giant, and was using the big guy to create enough chaos on Earthrealm for Outworld to conquer it. The Shaolin monk Liu Kang recognized this threat, and entered the tournament in an effort to thwart Shang's plan. Kang successfully defeated the four-armed beast, and went on to take down Shang Tsung himself. Afterwards, he rode off into the sunset to hang out back at the Shaolin temples, presumably to never again worry about having his spine ripped out of his body.

Surprisingly enough, Liu's attempt at a peaceful retirement didn't go as planned. You see, Outworld's emperor Shao Kahn was none too pleased with Shang Tsung's failed takeover of Earthrealm, and sentenced him to death. In desperation, Tsung begged Kahn to let him lure Earthrealm's warriors to Outworld for the next Mortal Kombat tournament. The emperor accepted, and restored Shang Tsung's youth. The Thunder God Raiden is informed of the next tournament, and he gathers the kombatants in preparation for the tournament in Outworld. Despite his wishes for peace, Liu Kang finds his Shaolin brothers slain by a horde of Tarkatan (the spiky-toothed race that Baraka belongs to). Now on a quest for revenge, Liu Kang convinces his fellow monk Kung Lao and actor buddy Johnny Cage to travel to Outworld with Raiden and the rest. There, Kang wins his second consecutive tournament by defeating Shao Kahn and his Shokan bodyguard Kintaro.

It gets a little murky after that as new characters pass in and out of the overall Mortal Kombat storyline and the backstories of key characters are rewritten to suit new plot events.  Personally, I lost track of who was doing what after Mortal Kombat 3.  A year or so ago I read up on Wikipedia to see what had happened in later games such as Mortal Kombat 4, Mortal Kombat: Deception, and Mortal Kombat: Armageddon and found that even with footnotes, I had no earthly idea what the hell was going on in the world of Mortal Kombat.  I would say that this is what happens when one steps away from a franchise for a decade, but considering that the most recent Mortal Kombat title for the Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360 purposefully reset and rebooted the saga with time travel, I'd say that the creative time behind it all knew just how convoluted and confusing things had become and decided to cut bait and start fresh with the familiar and well-known elements in place. 

THQ Facing Mass Layoffs, Nasdaq Delisting

THQ's troubles continue to build as reports of layoffs have surfaced today along with news that the publisher is facing removal from the Nasdaq listings if it can't get its act together and raise its share price.  Eurogamer discusses the layoff report:

A troubled THQ will imminently announce 170 layoffs, according to a new report.  Independent industry suit Kevin Dent claimed to have been sitting on the news "for a week or so". His Twitter conversation with THQ's vice president of technology Mark DeLoura suggests this is for real.

"This is probably going to break in the morning, I have sat on it for a week or so. The culling at THQ was 170+ souls including Mark DeLoura," broadcast Kevin Dent, directing the message at DeLoura.  "A smart journalist would send THQ's VP of Tech Mark DeLoura an email and see what the auto reply says," Dent later wrote.

"Hey, that's cheating," DeLoura replied, smiley in tow.

MCV sums up the stock situation:

Troubled publisher THQ has been warned that it faces a possible de-listing from the Nasdaq stock exchange.  The threat comes because the company’s shares have failed to top the $1 range for 30 consecutive days. That’s the minimum level required for a continued listing.  THQ has been given 180 days (until July 23rd) to address the issue and boost its share price. It must maintain a $1+ level for ten consecutive business days.  The company has failed to trade above $1 since the beginning of December.

There's no word on who the other people being let go are, and while nobody wants to see a layoff, one would hope that it's people from the businesses that THQ has previously announced that it's departing rather than employees from divisions that are cranking out content that is actually selling (e.g. Volition).  Without a focus on childrens' software or uDraw, the company doesn't need studios cranking out more Spongebob titles.  While in better economic times it's probable that those employees would be relocated or reassigned, considering how badly THQ needs to stop its money hemorrhage situation, cutting some people loose now may be the only viable option.  For more on THQ's troubles, be sure to listen to Episode 75 of the Power Button podcast.

You Also Can't Own These Gaming Collectibles

Platypus Comix has put out another edition of its ongoing list of video game collectibles that are most likely way out of your price range.  There's some interesting and rare items here such as the box for the Sega Dreamcast version of Half-Life that was never released, an invitation to a party thrown by Accolade to celebrate the 1993 release of Bubsy for the Super NES and Sega Genesis (it's printed on a sandal), the Tiger handheld version of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and the special North American version of Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Master System.  What makes it so special, you ask?

The Master System was a failure in the US, and Sega wanted to use Sonic as the main selling point of the Genesis. However, there might have been some stubborn people who wanted the game on SMS, so they put together an inferior port for their older console.

The Master System was still going strong in Europe, and they had plenty of Sonic copies to go around. Sega just took the European version and pasted a new UPC sticker on the box. The European version is nearly worthless. But guess how much that one little sticker makes the same package worth in the US?

eBay Price: $981.33

Stickers are serious business!  There are also a few video games graded by the Video Game Authority on the list.  These are games that have been judged to a set of standards regarding the actual physical condition of the game in question and assigned a numerical score correlating with its supposed worth.  The game is then sealed in a hard acrylic so it can never be disturbed or devalued.  While I'm all for keeping one's games in great condition, the idea of essentially trapping them in amber rubs me the wrong way.  I take great care of my games, but I do play them.  Sealing them up changes them from games to things that I have to lug through life that are only worth as much as some external authority grades them to be.  I'm sorry, I don't care how good a condition it's in, but nobody is going to realistically pay $700 for a copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga for the Sega Saturn that can only be examined through a protective shell and not actually enjoyed.  At least, I hope not.

(image via Price Charting)

Weekly Poll: Blue Bombed

Nintendo's New Super Mario Bros. Wii is the overwhelming favorite when it comes to four-player cooperative platform titles in recent memory.  I certainly enjoyed it as a single-player excursion, and it's great fun when I played it with my girlfriend.  We also tackled Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One which had its moments, but went on a bit too long and became frustrating near the end of the game as interesting level designs and challenges were replaced with wave after wave of identical enemies all attacking at once.  I wound up finishing that one by myself just to get the gold PlayStation trophy for finishing the story (and since I killed the final boss at the same time that it killed me, I was awarded the trophy, but not the actual ending sequence, nor did the game itself give me credit for completing it).  LittleBigPlanet's physics are too floaty for it to be all that much fun in groups.  I'm still trying to get a copy of Rayman: Origins from GameFly, but the service did send out Kirby's Return To Dreamland which we have yet to start.  I love the idea of the co-op platformer, but the subgenre is still a bit rough around the edges.  Like other genres though, I'm sure it'll grow and evolve over time.

Moving on, last week Capcom set the Mega Man fan community on fire once again by announcing that the bizarre off-model version of Mega Man as seen on the box of the original Nintendo Entertainment System title would appear in the upcoming Street Fighter X Tekken fighting game as a playable character.  How do you feel about this version of the blue bomber taking the spotlight over the more familiar face that usually represents the properly?  Do you question if Mega Man should even be in the game in the first place?  Let's hear your thoughts.