Beyond Mario - In HD

NERD ALERT: Read no further if you wish to be spared unabashed nerdery.


It's not exactly Mario, but I have been having lots of fun playing with my new PS3. For a little background, after I graduated from high school and went off to college I decided to face a hard truth: If I was ever to succeed in college I had to "swear off" video games. For those of you who don't know already (or who haven't drawn the conclusion for yourselves from reading some of my nerdier blog posts), I'm the kind of person who can play video games for 20 hours straight without even realizing it. More than once have I found myself trying to solve a labyrinth in The Legend of Zelda or beat a race in Rock'n'Roll Racing, only to find myself utterly shocked to see the sun rising through a nearby window. You get the point.

I have to say I was quite proud of myself for not buying any new video game system since the Nintendo 64 came out in 1997. I was clean all through college and grad school (with the exception of a few PC games) and I like to think my grades reflected that. So it's been 11 years that I've been off the mainstream video game scene. It's also been 11 years that I've been strengthening the self control that has allowed me to lead a happy, productive life full of variety, experience, and achievement beyond what Mario, Link, Gordon Freeman and the Final Fantasy series can provide.

But let's face it: I still love video games. So when my new Blu-Ray Disc player just happened to also be a High Definition video game console, I was not disappointed. I've downloaded (the PS3 has a wireless internet card that can link directly to the Playstation Network Store and facilitates online games) almost every free demo I can find and have been loving it ever since. Mitzi, on the other hand, is now facing competition for the front room TV which she has been able to more or less dominate for the enjoyment of her equivalent to my video game infatuation: TV on DVD. Mitzi can burn through a season of Grey's Anatomy or Felicity as fast as I can finish The Legend of Zelda or Bionic Commando, and I'm good. Fortunately, Mitzi can still watch her shows while I'm working, the baby's sleeping, and after she completes her self-assigned daily duties. I've also taken pains to only purchase multiplayer games so that I can get the most bang for my buck and so that I can rope Mitzi into the action with me every once in a while. In this regard I've been pretty proud of myself as well because your average PS3 game costs around $60! What a rip! So for the three games I've actually bought since owning the system I would normally be out around $180 - Gag! Fortunately, after reading reviews and shopping around, I have three games for less than $30. Sweet!

The first game I purchased is a high definition update to the classic Asteroids formula that started on the Atari back in 1979. It's simple but frantic and with a very sharp learning curve. Our two player adventures with this title have thus far met with limited success, but it's a blast once you get the hang of it. Mitzi prefers more Mario-esqe games to this type.

A screenshot of the original Asteroids circa 1979

This is the trailer for Super Stardust HD.

The next game I bought is a curious little creation. It holds very little appeal on its face, what with the corny hand-drawn graphics and simplistic gameplay. But sometimes, simple games are the most addictive, like Tetris, Dr. Mario, Minesweeper and the like. This game has much the same appeal. You are some kind of shaman whose job it is to protect this group of children from monsters in the forest. You do so by constructing defensive towers along the monsters' path to dispatch them prior to reaching the children's hut. Different towers effect different types of monsters and some of the level designs are diabolical. We've had the greatest two-player success with this game, though it can be positively infuriating to watch helplessly as those few wounded but still viable monsters move beyond the reach of your final tower to devour your defenseless flock.

This is the Japanese Trailer - I chose it because it better showcases the game than the English Trailer.

Lastly, we have Bionic Commando: Rearmed. Back in 1988, Nintendo released an innovative new game called Bionic Commando. In it, you played a military commando whose job it was to sneak behind enemy lines to rescue a fellow agent who had been captured by a fascist military regime. This game pushed the envelope for a couple of reasons. First, it featured a hero with a bionic limb that allowed him a kind of mobility previously unseen in all of video gaming (however, it also eliminated the player's ability to jump thus making seemingly minor obstacles that would give other protagonists little pause into horrible brain busters for our hero). Second, it also featured an unusually dark plot involving the resurrection of an evil military leader from the dead to lead his fascist faithful to world domination. Third, that evil military leader looked a lot like Hitler. It turns out that the conservative American branch of Nintendo censored the original game which was all about future Nazi followers attempting to resurrect Hitler. They changed all the names, but they let a couple of things slip through the filter. First, the final boss, named "Master-D" looks very obviously like Hitler. Second, when you defeat Hitler by shooting a rocket into his getaway chopper his head explodes in an uncommonly graphic manner for an 8-bit video game. Well, the original makers remade the game with high definition graphics, a new multiplayer capability, and lots of other cool new features. The game is only rated "M" (as you'll see in the trailer) because, true to the original, they kept the exploding Hitler ending in tact. Other than that, it really has kind of an comical, over-the-top, hardboiled tough guy feel, complete with corny one-liners and intentionally ridiculous dialogue.

The original 1988 Nintendo version of Bionic Commando

Anyway, check out the trailer below. It is by far the best video game trailer I've ever seen. It has fabulous musicality (i.e. matching of visual elements with the music). The game's a lot of fun too.

And just for fun, here's another sweet trailer for the next game I'm probably going to get. Actually, I'm looking at getting the sequel that comes out next month because it features 4-player split screen mayhem! I have the demo for this game and it's a whale of a good time, especially when you wreck and the game shows instant replays in slow motion. I've watched myself fly off cliffs in slo-mo at least a dozen times this past week.