Saturday, June 11, 2016

Space Ace Ruminations

Ace and Kimmy looking aghast
 Today I decided to take a break from doing Important Grown Up Stuff and spent a few hours playing the Digital Leisure DVD release of Space Ace that I acquired a decade ago while in college.  Space Ace is the lesser known Don Bluth laserdisc arcade game but like Dragon's Lair I & II it combines a beautiful visual landscape with virtually no interactivity.

Don Bluth is my favorite animator and The Secret of NIMH is my favorite animated movie, something I've been meaning to do a YouTube video on for some time.  He's also brought us An American Tail, Land Before Time, All Dogs Go to Heaven, Anastasia and Titan A.E. among others and it was his early success that motivated Disney to inject new life into their animated feature films, a move that brought about what's now known as the "Disney Renaissance" in the late 80's and early 90's (so he's indirectly responsible for The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Beauty & the Beast and The Lion King as well.)

The lovely (and predictably high maintenance) Kimmy. 
So I have a special place in my heart for the Don Bluth arcade games- I can remember feeding my allowance to Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp many a weekend at the Lenox mall arcade (back when it had one) in my youth.  Good- albeit short- times.

But despite my affinity for Don Bluth and everything he's done, those games are among the most maddening experiences ever released in the history of interactive media.  You don't "interact" as such.  You watch for a yellow flash on the screen and move the joystick in that direction or push the "action button" to fire the gun (same deal in Dragon's Lair except its a sword.)  I can understand how this would be captivating in the 1980's (I was there after all) but in modern times it's just a exercise in frustration.

The problem is that these games work against everything that makes games appealing.  It's not just that you enter a sequence of commands when prompted- it's that you formulate a strategy and work out a process to counter what the game is throwing at you.  No such luck with these monstrosities.

To drive the point home, consider this example from an IGN walkthrough for Halo 1:

Continue down the passageway to find a green arrow on the ground. Kill the
various Covenant inside the doorway and head in. Take the first left you see
and assist your marines by killing every Covenant in the area. Continue right
to find another red arrow on the ground and a health pack on the wall. Pick it
up if you need it and head down the path that the red arrow is pointing to.
Ignore any intersections and continue heading straight. Head forward to find
another small skirmish between a few marines and a few Grunts and two Elites.
There is quite a bit of ammo here so pick them up. Continue and you'll find
another Covenant boarding craft with two overshields inside. Continue along
and you'll find a room with something burning in the rear. Crouch and head
under the door blocked by a round crate. Keep going and you'll find another
green arrow on the ground. Enter the opened door and follow the path. You
should reach some stairs and some Covenant on the floor above. I would suggest
taking them out from the first floor and then climb the steps. Continue
through the opening opposite of the opening you entered through on the second
floor.

Now that sounds like fun.  By contrast, here's a walkthrough I made today while playing Space Ace:

Cliffs:
left left right right right right right
Ship:
up left up fire left fire down fire
Station:
up left up up fire left fire up up fire left left
Borf's Ship:
left up right left right up right right
Green Monster Chase:
Up left right fire right left fire left fire left left up
Wasteland:
Fire left up fire fire left fire right fire up
Ship 2:
right up left left fire fire up down up fire up fire up 
Checkered Madness Tunnel:
up right left fire fire left right fire fire fire
Planet Surface:
Fire up fire fire fire left
Rope jump:
left fire left fire right fire left fire down right right up left up
Motorcycle chase:
left right fire fire fire fire right down right fire fire fire right fire left right down fire
Rollerskates & underwater:
left up right fire down right left right up right up right right fire left down left right fire fire fire left left
Tower:
up fire fire right left fire fire right fire fire up down fire right up... 

Borf- your go-to bad guy.
...and that's as far as I got.  I had about five moves left to the end of the game and I discovered that my DVD is apparently defective- none of the five button options worked.  Ah retro gaming.  BTW- sometimes the game tries to vary things up by reversing left and right on the screen.  If you notice that Ace's dominant hand has switched, change left and right from what I have above.

In a way I suppose these "chapter cycling" games paved the way for rhythm games like Guitar Hero and such.  But really what occurs to me is how they encouraged the CD-ROM industry to go blazing full steam ahead, churning out the ill-fated CD-I, 3DO and all those other early disc based console systems. With the exception of the criminally underrated Sega CD, it wouldn't be until the Playstation that a disc-based console got it right.

It makes me wonder what we're jumping the gun on now.  Probably VR.  Earlier today I watched a promo video for that new headset thing Steam is pushing to rival the Occulus.  It's tempting as all hell but I have to think that after the novelty wears off it will go the way of the Wii.

The history of video games is littered with the smoldering wreckage of consoles that tried to out-tech the competition.  The industry just can't seem to shake off the nearly 30 (!!!) years old console war mentality of the 16-bit era.  The Jaguar (now most famous for its flight simulator that drove the Angry Video Game Nerd batty with it's incessant Where did YOU learn how to fly?) is living proof that style will never trump substance in video games despite what cynical marketing strategists might have you believe.  Gamers have always known that it was all about soul: your so-slick-you-can-skate-pennies-off-it graphics card doesn't amount to a hill of startup discs if you don't have the soul that made Super Mario World a beloved classic.

So if you have a chance, get a copy of Dragon's Lair and Space Ace. But make it one of the DVD releases and watch it on automatic playthrough.  Otherwise you'll have nightmares about not being able to move until a yellow flash appears near by.

Kempai,
-Jordan

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)