Xbox Live Arcade Wednesdays!

Finally, I can justify (sort of) my purchase of a $500 MAME box(I mean Xbox360). Microsoft has announced that it will release a new Xbox Live Arcade title every Wednesday this summer, many of them classic arcade updates. The line up includes Frogger, Galaga, and Pac-Man, among others. I downloaded the demo for Frogger last night and played the one level that they gave away for free. The game play is similar, but the graphics and sound have been updated. I'm not sure if I like that. At least with Joust (which has been available early on), the graphics look authentic. The only really noticeable change is that the designers drew a copy of the original screen overlay on the background. Overall, it is not distracting. However, Frogger's update is a little disappointing, and here's why: it still looks outdated, but not in the charming, 8-bit way. It looks like a re-do of a version for the PS1. Sometimes graphics updates make original game play ideas look hokey because they obscure the constraints under which the original game designers were working. Still, I'm glad that there is interest in these older games.

I will probably still unlock the full version. I am hoping that somewhere in there is an original version to unlock. We'll see...

Sex in video games

One of the things that I am curious about is the apparent chilling effect that licensing control has on the content of video games. Although there are a number of titles with more adult themes and situations in today's generation of games as well as a few hacks and cheat codes, the amount of explicitly sexual video game title seems to have actually dropped since the days of the Atari 2600. I could be wrong on this and would be curious to find out if it is true. A company named Playaround greated a number of adult video games for the 2600s. Surely with no pun intended, many of these were "double ended" cartridges that allowed you to flip them over and play a different game. They also provided a way to switch the gender of the characters to satisfy all sexes and orientations. In a way, it was innovative (although perhaps not as innovative as the Rez vibrator). However, it was also a little safer. Back then, although the rhetoric emphasized realim in 8-bit graphics, in reality, you had to imagine a lot of what was going on, not just in adult games, but in all games. Concepts, themes, and game play itself meant more. Today, in order to produce similar games, you would need to hire actors and actresses and provide a level of realism that would not only restrict the imagination, but game play possibilities as well. Strangely, I haven't played these adult games myself, but thinking about this topic has made me even more nostalgic for the days when a simple, but entertaining concept could make a game fun to play. Today, there are tons of games that are exciting to watch, but no fun to play. I'll take Yar's Revenge over Prey any day.

8bit sounds in contemporary music

I was listening to my favorite Sirius station yesterday, Left of Center, when I heard what sounded like the beginning of Pole Position. As it turns out, it was The Comeback by the Shout Out Louds. I'm not sure if it is a sample, an imitation, or just a coincidence, but it made me wonder about arcade and console sounds in music. I knew about the "Game Over" controversy regarding a song by Lil' Flip that used a Pac-Man sample. Namco and Sony settled, however, that isn't the only song sampling Pac-Man out there. I'm not sure how many more are out there. In some ways, given licensing problems and the ephemeral nature of consumer culture, I would be surprised if they were frequently used.

Both of these examples made me wonder about the currency of classic arcade games in music and in pop culture in general. Tastes in music and fashion seem to cycle such that the styles of the previous 5-10 years are rejected temporarily until they return as retro kitsch. However, video and arcade games do not seem to have undergone the same cycle. People were running clones, emulators, and updates of classic arcade games throughout the history of console gaming. In some cases, cartoons and tie-ins have outlasted the games themselves, i.e. Pitfall. So, I wonder if there is something more permanent about these classic games that surpasses their status as fads or consumer products. Perhaps it is just that these icons make us think of a simpler time... or a time that was no less conflicted, but we were too young to notice. These days, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to find these references at all.