But I’ve been busy. And when I get busy, I stop doing things, even things that don’t require that I leave my home or put on pants. Hence, I stopped watching movies, and once I stopped watching them, I stopped writing about them. And now I have not yet begun to write about movies again, mostly because I haven’t actually watched one in, like, three weeks.
So, what have I actually been doing in the spare time I
have? Mostly whittling it away. I developed something of a habit, recently, of
sitting in a chair across from my only television that picks up a digital
signal and playing video games on one of my analog TVs, situated nearby, which now
serves no other purpose. This usually means that I blaze through a few rounds
of Samurai Warriors Xtreme Legends while listening to the local news broadcast
before turning in for the night.
But recently I decided to actually try playing something a
bit different from my usual selection of JRPGs and Koei brawlers –
specifically, I decided to try to reacquaint myself with the scrolling shooter.
Once among the most popular genres in arcades, the seemingly simple scrolling
shooter had fallen out of favor during much of the late nineties and oughts, with
few developers (Treasure comes to mind) bothering to make them, while fans
became so desperate that they would praise even mediocre games – see Dave Halverson’s
gushing over Silpheed: The Lost Planet in Gamer’s Republic for an example. Recently, iOS ports of
Japanese arcade shooters (the genre still enjoys a profitable audience in Japan) helped
rejuvenate the interest in this very noble style of electronic game.
Unfortunately, I don’t have an iPhone. I do own a PSP, so
rather than paying for old games on a new platform, I downloaded a
Turbografx-16 emulator and a Sega Genesis emulator and a few roms so that I
could enjoy old games on relatively old platform, without paying anything at
all.
Of course, I had to choose which games I would try to play –
I say “try,” as I had not actually played a scrolling shoot-em-up since the DOS
days and Raptor: Call of the Shadows – which lead me over to Hardcore Gaming101. I eventually decided on trying out some Compile shooters, since I rather
like Puyo Pop for the Game Boy Advance.
The other thing that I liked about MUSHA was the weapon system.
The player can collect three types of weapons and get two satellite units,
which is more or less conventional. What is unusual is that the player can
actually order the satellites with the press of a button. The two smaller ships
that fly next to the giant robot can home in on enemies, or aim themselves next
to the ship to spread gunfire across the screen. The support units are
vulnerable to enemy fire, though, so it is best for the player not to simply
set them to homing and leave them to get slaughtered by incoming enemies.
It’s a hard game too. I’ve still not managed to get past the
third level, but that’s two levels farther than the first time I played. One of
the things I like about scrolling shooters is that they’re genuinely skill
based, and time spent with them is time spent learning the skills it takes to
play them. Granted, a person with exceptional hand-eye coordination is going to
be better than somebody whose fingers get tangled up when they try to type a
six word sentence, but for being simple games based on a simple concept (shoot
the enemies; don’t get shot), the best games of this type actually have a lot
of depth that the uninitiated will not see.
The other game I’ve been playing recently is a Turbografx-16
title called Blazing Lazers in the West, although in Japan it was released as Gunhed, a
tie-in product for a live-action film based on a manga by Kia Asamiya. I haven’t
seen the film and the manga doesn’t seem to be available in English, so what
relation they have to a more-or-less stereotypical space-shooter, I couldn’t
say. What I can say is that the Blazing Lazers is good simple fun.
It’s another vertically scrolling shooter, and it also has
power ups that the player can collect. There are four types of weapons, spread
shot, waves, a wide electrical current that mows down anything in its path, and
a spinning balls that protect the ship. This is about as conventional as it
gets, except that secondary power ups will change the range and spread of the
weapons. My favorite is “field thunder,” which makes the third power up shoot
out in waves that make patterns around the screen.
I didn’t think Blazing Lazers was as difficult as MUSHA, but
it’s hardly as easy as your average platformer (for me, at least, being rather
new to the genre). The sci-fi theme is not nearly so striking as MUSHA’s – no Noh
theater mask gunships to be found here – but the weapon system is quite to my liking. Comparably simpler, but the sheer number of different
combinations makes up for not being able to customize satellite support.
Compile is one of those interesting Japanese developers
whose games I have read about more often than I’ve played them. They were
extremely active on the Japanese MSX computer scene, releasing disc magazines
and games in all sorts of genres. They’re still around, sort-of, in the form of
Compile Heart, a team made of former Compile employees whose games are
published by Nippon Ichi. Compile Hearts most notable games in the US market are
Record of Agarest War and Hyperdimension Neptunia, which…
Okay, the less said about those games, the better. Still, if
they ever decide to stop pandering to creepy otaku types, there is hope that
the development team formerly known as Compile could still craft games like
MUSHA and Blazing Lazers. I may use them to whittle away my free time because I’m
too tired to do anything else, but the level of craft that went into these
games is both apparent and highly respectable.
And hopefully, I'll get around to watching some movies some time soon.
And hopefully, I'll get around to watching some movies some time soon.
