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Older, Fatter Mega Man Stars In Street Fighter X Tekken

Capcom certainly has a strange sense of humor.  After cancelling two different Mega Man games last year and excluding the character (any iteration of him) from both versions of Marvel vs Capcom 3, the company has finally resurrected him to star in Street Fighter X Tekken as a playable fighter.  The strange thing about this is that it's the version of Mega Man from the original Nintendo Entertainment System game's box art in which he's a pudgy middle-aged armed with a gun and dressed in a yellow and blue body suit.  Capcom officially announced the inclusion with a new trailer that shows him in action (along with Namco's Pac-Man and the previously announced Cole "inFamous" MacGrath and Sony's own cats, Toro and Kuro).  All of them are Sony version exclusives, by the way, landing only on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita versions of the game.

Mega Man fans are not happy, particularly since this Mega Man's backstory establishes him as some kind of the Mega Man Legends version of the character.  Consider the wound freshly salted.

Known as a Digger, a person who digs up relics from the past for research. He is a hot-tempered man, but has a strong sense of justice and is also very polite. His weak point is that he is easily rattled when backed into a corner. He is always running around in a hurry due to the demands of his partner Roll, and this time he’s been asked to travel to Antarctica to retrieve a mysterious box.

I don't particularly have an issue with this Mega Man appearing in the game.  He's not the version I'd have picked if I were calling the shots at Capcom, but it's kind of a funny gag if you remember that Mega Man fans have been chiding Capcom for decades about the art on the original Mega Man game box and that we were supposed to see this version of Mega Man in Mega Man Universe as a playable character prior to seeing him here had Universe been released.  It's almost as if this is a punchline to a joke that's missing the setup.  I can see how this would cause irritation in the fan community still reeling from the cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3 and Mega Man Universe, but I wouldn't say that the Mega Man legacy is diminished by this design choice.  Mega Man's original creator Keiji Inafune was even in on the development prior to his departure from Capcom according to Street Fighter producer Yoshinori Ono.  That seems about as sanctioned as it gets.  Besides, things could be worse.  It could be this version of Mega Man that appears in the game.

You Need These Street Fighter Tidbits

Capcom's Street Fighter franchise turns twenty-five years old this year, but how much do you really know about the series?  Yes, you know the old Sheng Long story from the Electronic Gaming Monthly days and you know how M. Bison, Vega, and Balrog all had their names shuffled when Street Fighter II left Japan.  However, do you know that at one point in the Street Fighter IV planning process, Abel was a woman?  Or that Chun-Li turns up in the background of a level in Final Fight 2 at a little sidewalk cafe?  Are you aware that Dee Jay's original name was Mantis?  Would you finally like to know that the mode select cursors from the Super NES version of Street Fighter II and Street Fighter II Turbo are taken from Capcom's own Side Arms: Hyper Dyne arcade game?  Learn all of these little factoids and many more over at Street Fighter Miscellany where lots of minor but interesting details about the franchise are cataloged and dissected.  Hurry on over and you can watch the introductory movie from Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix that was cut from the final version of the game.  There's plenty of fascinating minutiae for you to explore in between tournaments.

You'll Never See Final Fantasy VII Again

Fifteen years ago, Square Enix released it's most popular title for the original Sony PlayStation.  Final Fantasy VII has led to a number of sequel/spin-off projects, but rabid fans have yet to see the high definition remake for modern hardware that has been in high demand for years.  What's the delay?  Why hasn't Square Enix driven the big truck around back to load up on the money that fans are ready to dump on them in exchange for a remastered Cloud Strife?  Ryan Winterhalter over at 1UP.com has several reasons why you haven't seen the Final Fantasy VII remake yet and why, in all likelihood, you never will.  It all comes down to timing, cost, and a lack of general development resources.

One could be forgiven for thinking of Square Enix as little more than "the Final Fantasy company" after examining their TGS lineup nine years ago. The company unveiled the first round of titles in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII series: Dirge of Cerberus, Before Crisis, and the capstone project, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. 2003 marks the beginning of Square's Final Fantasy fever. From Crystal Chronicles to Final Fantasy X-2, the company decided that leveraging Final Fantasy would lead to massive profits.

Yet, Square Enix never greenlit a Final Fantasy VII remake during this gold rush. If the market was ever ready, it was then. True, HD consoles wouldn't appear for another two or three years, but remake rumors began to pop up as early as 2000 (where fans pinned the PS2 as the target platform for the remake); yet in those interim two years, all the company managed to put together was a three minute long tech demo.

If Square didn't buy in on remake development while they remained blissfully ignorant of the pitfalls of HD game production and were already milking the franchise for all its worth, they certainly won't do it in the far more dangerous market of today.

The Square Enix of today just isn't the same Square that existed back in 1997.  Company cultures change, markets shift, and what could once have been a slam dunk product several years ago is today an expensive, risky proposition.  If fans really want to see Final Fantasy VII reborn, perhaps they should focus their enthusiasm in another direction.  Why not aim for a remake on a handheld such as the Nintendo 3DS or the PlayStation Vita?  Heck, why not give the game a minor visual touch-up and bring it to Apple's iPhone and iPad?  While a big PS3 or Microsoft Xbox 360 remake isn't going to happen, there must be viable alternatives on which both the company and the fans can agree.  Failing that, perhaps it's best left alone.

New Super Mario Bros. Crossover Coming Soon

Almost two years ago, the team at Exploding Rabbit wowed us all with a freely playable Flash game called Super Mario Bros. Crossover in which characters from other classic Nintendo Entertainment System games jumped into the Mushroom Kingdom for a little Goomba squashing.  In addition to Mario, heroes and heroines such as Mega Man, Link, Samus Aran, and Simon Belmont journeyed from World 1-1 to World 8-4 to rescue the princess.  The game was great fun and wasn't sued out of existence by anyone's legal team, so now a new version is on the way that adds new visual styles, music, and tricks to the action.  New Super NES and Game Boy graphical modes will be available in the next version, as are new characters such as Mario's brother Luigi and Mega Man's counterpart Bass, plus variations on existing characters including Trevor Belmont, Dark Samus, and Proto Man will join the fun.  The new trailer will show you all of this better than I can tell you and is guaranteed to make long-time Nintendo fans smile.  Give it a look and then accept the fact that you'll have to wait a bit before you can play it.  The game is apparently due out sometime before the end of March 2012.  I, for one, can't wait to see it in action.

Beyond Beeps: New Ghostbusters II

Up until 2009's Ghostbusters: The Video Game from Atari and Terminal Reality, a solid Ghostbusters game was hard to find.  Sure, the original Activision title for the Commodore 64 and related systems had some interesting ideas for its time, but other licensed titles fell flat.  Activision's 1989 follow-up adaptation to the second film for the Nintendo Entertainment System was a disappointment all around with simplistic visuals, frustrating level design, and screechy music.  However, HAL Laboratories created their own take on Ghostbusters II that faired much better.  Their effort, New Ghostbusters II, was released for the NES in 1990 across Japan and Europe, while the United States would only see a watered-down Game Boy version.  The NES version sports some peppy music composed in the typical HAL style of the era, but more importantly also contains a few chiptune renditions of songs from the film's soundtrack which we'll explore in this installment of Beyond Beeps.  Yes, the familiar Ray Parker Jr. title theme is included, but so are songs from Bobby Brown and Glenn Frey.  Since I know most of you aren't familiar with the Ghostbusters II film soundtrack (and shame on you if you're not; I still own the CD that I purchased in 1989 from Costco), be sure to check out the original songs in addition to the 8-bit renditions embedded below.

One cannot have a Ghostbusters video game without including some version of the famous theme song from the original 1984 film.  HAL's version is one of the best 8-bit incarnations from the era and includes most of the song's key sections.  The first level's theme includes elements of this song as well.

"Ghostbusters"

Stage 1

In Which A Mario Fan Becomes Bob Hoskins

Plenty of Nintendo fans have taken it upon themselves to throw on some red overalls and a blue t-shirt to become the famous plumber and hero, Mario.  I even did it myself once or twice at Halloween when I was a kid (complete with a large custom-built foam mushroom to carry as a prop).  Some people have a lot of commitment to the bit though and take it upon themselves to go above and beyond in their Mario costume experience and wear the uniform of a specific Mario.  Some choose Dr. Mario, while others add a yellow Super Mario World cape to the ensemble.  I predict that there'll be a resurgence in Raccoon Mario costumes this year now that Nintendo has let official costume ears out into the world.  When it comes to dedication though, you have to give credit to my colleague and pal David Oxford for choosing the model of Mario made famous by Bob Hoskins in 1993's Super Mario Bros. theatrical movie.  Over at SMBmovie.com, David has explained why he chose Hoskins's interpretation to mimic:

Of course, as we all know, the movie did not do well at the box office, to say the least. Over the years, there would be many reactions to it: some hated it for "what it did" to Mario, while others would grow to love it in that "so bad it's good" way. Some would not discover it until much later and enjoy it as a simple novelty, and still others managed to enjoy it for what it was: more of an alternate dimension, darker, more "realistic" (so to speak) take on the Super Mario Bros. mythos.

Me? I've always been in the latter group. I've long seen it as being the thematic Mario equivalent to the Sonic SatAM cartoon, though the hedgehog's version would prove to be more popular and enduring among his fans at the time.  What can I say? I've always been a big fan of Mario, whether he's portrayed by the late Captain Lou Albano, Walker Boone, Charles Martinet, or Bob Hoskins. Each has brought their own unique charm to the character, and together have formed a true legacy.

David put together an impressive costume and people actually did recognize the inspiration for the outfit.  Nintendo would rather bury the film deep in its vault given the chance (and aside from the occasional stray barebones DVD re-release that manages to escape via a third-party distributor, it has), but the movie does have its fans today and lots of us from that era remember the movie fondly even if it wasn't the best production.  Say, Nintendo, any chance we could get this Mario's outfit included as an alternate costume in the next Super Smash Bros. title?  Just a thought.  A pipe dream, if you will.

Let's Get Dangerous: Darkwing Duck's Gaming Adventures

This article was originally published at Kombo.com on August 3, 2010.

Disney characters have popped up in video games for years, particularly in popular franchises such as Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts and Junction Point Studios's Epic Mickey. While these titles have benefited from featuring a hodgepodge of Disney properties, not every worthy character has made the cut for new adventures. It's been a while since we've seen or heard anything from the world of Darkwing Duck, which readers in their late twenties and early thirties may fondly remember from three seasons of animated adventures as part of The Disney Afternoon animated programming block back in 1991. Consider that the star of the property — the eponymous Darkwing Duck himself — is making a bit of a comeback in the form of new comic book stories, it seems only right to take a look back at Darkwing's gaming exploits and speculate on where the masked mallard goes from here when it comes to digital entertainment.

Introducing The Terror That Flaps In The Night

Constructed as a genre parody smash-up of popular superhero and spy properties such as Batman, James Bond, and The Shadow, Darkwing Duck follows the adventures of the purple-and-black clad masked hero as he protects the city of St. Canard from evildoers (while providing his own narration, natch). Assisted by his sidekick (and biggest fan) Launchpad McQuack (imported from The Disney Afternoon's other animated duck series, DuckTales) and his adopted tweenage daughter Gosalyn, Darkwing uses a combination of gadgets and overinflated ego to save the day. His adventures tend to alternate between his freelance activities hunting down the villain of the week and taking on the Fiendish Organization for World Larceny (FOWL) on behalf of the MI6-like SHUSH (an organization so secret that even it does not know what the acronym means).

Zelda: Skyward Sword Compacted For Game Boy

While the recent editions of The Legend of Zelda have been fun, the best incarnation of the series came in the early 1990s.  The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening may well be the high point of the classic Zelda formula, so it's not entirely unnatural to wonder what today's Zelda games would look like if they were made for the original Game Boy instead of the fancy Nintendo DS or Wii.  Tiny Cartridge has a collectionof images created by Constantin Georges that reimagines the new The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword as a classic Game Boy release.  My brain tingles when I see images like these of things that do not exist but really could (and should!), and while I'd buy this in a heartbeat if it were a real product, I'm sure many will hold out for the free version given to Nintendo 3DS Advance ambassadors sometime in 2017.

The Seven Faces Of Last Action Hero

1993 was a big year at the movies as films such as Jurassic Park, The Fugitive, Schindler's List, and Super Mario Bros. lit up screens at cineplexes everywhere.  One movie that seemed like a guaranteed blockbuster on paper that failed to live up to its potential, however, is Arnold Schwarzenegger's Last Action Hero in which an ordinary boy is magically transported into the film world of his favorite action hero, Schwarzenegger's Jack Slater.  While the movie didn't perform as a traditional Schwarzenegger-backed action film, it does hold up as a charming deconstruction of action movie tropes.  As a film, Last Action Hero eventually found a following.  As a video game, however, there's a reason why it's never mentioned on lists of fondly remembered titles.  Seven versions of Last Action Hero were released across a variety of platforms, and Hardcore Gaming 101 chronicles them all.

Now from the very first level, you'll realize something is very wrong. First of all, Arnold is balding and about the same size as a general thug, so that's already a massive let down in the visual department. I can't even begin to understand how you do not represent the most popular and iconic movie star of the era properly in a video game centered around him, but that's the least of its problems. From the very start, Arnold has no weapon. (Well, he doesn't really need a gun I suppose; he killed some dude by ripping his arm off and slapping him with it in Commando so anything goes.) But despite firing a hand gun multiple times in the movie, here he goes into action with only his Jell-O mellow hands. Well, maybe that's not so bad, you might say, then you realize that every enemy in this game carries a weapon.

So what went wrong?  The article goes on to quote one of the developers who explains that Schwarzenegger's efforts to soften his image at the time meant that his in-game likeness could not shoot guns or use other related weaponry.  There was even a struggle with Schwarzenegger's lawyers when it came to allowing the Slater character to punch enemies!  Taking away the protagonist's offensive maneuvers doomed this game from the start.  It's a shame, as imagine what a talented studio could have done at the time if given free rein to deconstruct action video game tropes.  Parodies and self-aware titles are common these days, but in 1993 the idea would have been a breath of fresh digital air.

Here's The Super Mario Theme Performed By Floppy Drives

There isn't much demand for the old fashioned 3.5" floppy disk drive anymore in our world of Wi-Fi, flash drives, and CD-Rs.  1.44 MB won't even hold a single song or high resolution photograph these days.  What can you do with a floppy drive now, let alone eight of them?  If you're sh4dowww90, then you wire them up in such a way as to coordinate their inner workings to grind melodically in order to produce the classic overworld theme from Nintendo's Super Mario Bros.  Have a listen as obsolete hardware gets one more moment in the spotlight.  Up next: a dial-up modem squeals the theme from The Legend of Zelda.

(via Reddit)