When I was five, way back when in the heady computing days of 1990, my father dazzled the family by bringing home our first PC – a large, grey, boxy 286 Amstrad with a DOS prompt, a 5 1/4 inch disk drive and a black and green word processor. And I loved it. Yes, even then above par wordiness, asthma and a tendency toward pudginess was gearing me up for a school career as a computer nerd par excellence. But the Amstrad was also notable for introducing me to video games, and in 1990 none captivated me more than Taito’s mighty Arkanoid, a kind of one man Pong that had you bouncing a steadily accelerating ball into a series of coloured bricks in an effort to make all the bricks explode before you dropped the ball. All in stunning 16 colour EGA. I like to think I got quite good at the game, but, truth be told, the trajectories along which you could send the ball worked on a grand total of six angles, meaning that strategy and skill in the game tended to be supplanted by panic and an ability to swing the ship back and forth along the bottom reallllllly fast. The game was also notable for its pretence at plot, which was delivered in one breathless, fully capitalised sentence:
“THE TIME AND ERA OF THIS STORY IS UNKNOWN. AFTER THE MOTHERSHIP “ARKANOID” WAS DESTROYED, A SPACECRAFT “VAUS” SCRAMBLED AWAY FROM IT. BUT ONLY TO BE TRAPPED IN SPACE WARPED BY SOMEONE……..”
WHO COULD IT BE? As you discover, the SOMEONE turns out to be a giant Easter Island head named ‘Doh’. Pre-Simpsons. Amazing.
Then you think: that was less than two decades ago. And it was massive. And while maybe it wasn’t the height of technology, it kicked the shit out of Hungry Hungry Hippos. But most of all, it felt cutting edge. I mean how could anything get better than smashing bricks with a loosely controlled ball in 16 colours?
And, well, here we are:
The game is called The Last Guardian and it revolves around the friendship between a boy and a giant wolf/eagle hybrid named Trico as they kill people and solve puzzles in a crumbling ancient city. And, more impressively, everything in that preview was created using the in-game engine. Jesus.
I mean, fuck, it’s for the PS3, which I don’t have, and truth be told am unlikely to get, but that video almost made me cry off its own bat. And as Penny Arcade points out, the game is obviously going to end with the death of either the boy or the giant wolf/eagle hybrid, so, you know, brace yourself for emotional manipulation. Like the time I made it to the penultimate level of Arkanoid with three lives remaining, only to have them destroyed in quick succession by a sequence of glitchy bounces and random clutter dropping through the ceiling. Taito you bastards! Man, I was inconsolable for hours. It was also 2002 and I was 17… and I pretty much let it go after that.
I wonder if you can still get Arkanoid online…
/Luke
P.S. It’s good to be back. I promise it shant be so long next time.
9 responses so far ↓
1 luke // Jun 29, 2009 at 10:37 pm
and you can!
http://www.arcadenoid.com/arkanoid.html
oh that level opening music sends a shiver down my spine
2 Rich Burke // Jun 30, 2009 at 9:22 am
I know it’s meant to be cartoony, but it’s a little off putting that they can render a wolf/eagle creature more convincingly than the boy…. either way, I gotta get me one of these wolf eagles.
3 Peta // Jun 30, 2009 at 10:49 am
ooooh this looks like so much fun. I’m about to move in with a ps3… Hmmm.
I think it’s so appealing to our generation because I know that I, like many – all wanted our own Falkor back in the day. Luckdragons are awesome.
4 Metrac // Jun 30, 2009 at 12:17 pm
I remember the first time I saw Half-Life I was blown away.
5 luke // Jun 30, 2009 at 1:52 pm
@Peta: and that child is obviously Bastian. i smell a lawsuit!
6 Dean // Jun 30, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Ahhhh good ol’ arcadenoid… happy happy times… the then newly released bananoid really blew my mind…. but you can never outdo the oldschool RPG’s like Excelsior!
7 Will // Jun 30, 2009 at 10:16 pm
holy balls that game looks amazing.
8 Peta // Jul 1, 2009 at 2:58 pm
@luke: I know! it’s so very similar. Hmm, I still want to play it. Maybe they bought the rights or something, it’s not something you’d miss easily.
9 Kia // Jul 3, 2009 at 12:16 pm
OMG! I got my first ‘Puter when I was 3! Anyone else remember california games? And the tantrum the skating chick had when she fell over? Or that one where you have to avoid sharks and it had a tinny sounding Fur Elise as the theme music?
OMG, I have a PS3 and I think I’m buying that game for my other half soon so he stays off my Frankenputer (we added two awesome computers together to make a super computer, capable of running Sims3 twice over with no lag – woot! Now to get a third screen and try play tetris at the same time as two sims simultaneously upping their skill levels…).
But yes, emotional manipulation. Like when you spend forever levelling up Aeris but then Sephiroth kills her and you’re stuck with Tiffa for the rest of the game and she’s like, only level 10 or something. Stupid Sephiroth. Wanted to name my mates cat Sephiroth cause he was silver but his girlfriend wouldn’t let him so he called it Cloud. Ah, Final Fantasy VII – made my husband cry like a bitch when he was 15. Also cried once when he died right at the end of Alex the Kid. Lets all observe a moments silence in respect for the person who invented save points…
Shite, I’ve got like 6 new files to open in the next 45 minutes and I’m procrastinating like a mofo! Soz everyone!
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