Games of the Abstract: Jazz Jackrabbit (1994)

 

Developer: Epic Games (as Epic MegaGames)

Publisher: Epic Games (as Epic MegaGames)

One Player

MS-Dos

 

In my early youth, I recall the shareware era of PC gaming, as for his job and in his general interest in technology, having PC magazines from the early to mid nineties that I perused in, leaving titles etched in my mind to track down still as an adult, as well as playing versions of games in their "shareware" version. Long before you could play Japanese arcade games legally, there was a line drawn between PC gaming to arcade machines and videogame consoles, shareware a huge part of early PC gaming. Bob Wallace¹ helped innovate this format to become what it did in the nineties, which meant free versions of software being made available for the public. In terms of videogames, before broadband and the internet were a practical concept, it meant free versions of games like Wacky Wheels (1994), one of the games I remember playing, and the first chapter of Jazz Jackrabbit, the subject of this review, being available as incentives for buying the full games from their creators by phone or by post. It is early versions of demos, aside from the fact you could get a substantial amount of content, and that shareware compilations are their own curious creations in comparison to the likes of Playstation One's nostalgic era of magazine demo discs, bundled together in compilations which have leaked onto online and are being picked apart now with fascinating in the modern era. Shareware is a curious world to consider, from the time they ran on what is called MS-Dos, an operating system that was discontinued by the 2000s and games came on floppy discs, where such titles exist like Engineering Jones and the Time Thieves of DSPea (1991), an adventure game by Harris Semiconductor, the American technology company about electronics that is part of PC software's own nebulous galaxy.

Jazz Jackrabbit, from Epic Games, the future creators of the Gears of War and Unreal franchises, is a creation by Arjan Brussee and Cliff Bleszinski which clearly wanted to be MS-Dos' Sonic the Hedgehog. Retelling the Aesop's fable of the Tortoise and the Hare if it had escalated beyond a foot race between hare and tortoise to a gristly science fiction war, you play Jazz Jackrabbit, a green commando bunny who travels the cosmos to defend his planet Carrotus and defeat Devan Shell the Tortoise, who has kidnapped Eva Earlong. Earlong is clearly indebted to Mario games to in how she is dressed like Princess Peach, if with a significantly more buxom and revealing figure. That could be a crass thing to include in a review, but it is worth bringing up as, only really appearing in the animated cut scenes when you complete chapter, it emphasises that when it came to the sexual side of Furry culture, eroticised animal people, we can probably put the influence on creators in various mediums, even if for a family audience, getting bored and designing their female characters to be attractive to them during the eighties and the nineties, which really says something about the heterosexual male libido that is complex and for an entirely different type of review.

This, knowing now Epic Games created this, really shows this is the macho retelling of a cartoon platformer, where the speed of Sonic is there but the main inclusion is that Jazz has a gun with a variety of firepower instead of deadly stomping abilities - standard fire, flame and missiles, and the bouncing blue grenades, which become useful as, with the game mechanics being slowly exposed beyond the first chapter, you will have to drop them down platforms (and try sometimes up) to wisely clear the path. With the difficulty modes having Easy turn Jazz into a baby, Medium onwards becoming more muscle bound and intense, this definitely becomes a parody by pure accident of what happens when the Gears of War creator, Cliff Bleszinski himself going on with Epic Games on Unreal and Gears of War as a designer, made a 2D nineties shooter platformer. It is very early nineties, also skirting a line to not let Jazz become a copyright duplicate of Bucky O'Hare, Larry Hama and Michael Golden's comic book creation, a green humanoid rabbit fighting evil toads in outer space, who got a cartoon series and videogames including a Konami scrolling beat em up. Alongside a boss being a parody of Sonic and Zool, a British platform character from the time, being spliced in a David Cronenberg teleportation machine accident, and Jazz Jackrabbit in what it parodies and how it looks could not be anything but its timeframe even if it did not come as shareware on a floppy plastic disc.  

Jazz Jackrabbit the game itself is solid. The problems are more that, in the collected together Jazz Jackrabbit CD version I can access in the modern, with all the chapters, the Lost Chapters and a Christmas special, what is a solid game I will compliment with a lot of virtues, and fairness, also has a lot of mean and repetitive gaming choices, and does feel stretched in the end. Most of the game is more dodging your opponents on a variety of planets with firepower just a necessary clearing tactic. Two stages per planet, baring a few that fire back, you are more concerned with trying to negotiate around the enemies and even on Medium mode, the closest to Normal, this game has an unfair habit of dropping them on mass (strutting lizards, monkeys etc.) from above, or leaps of fate where you can find your jumping onto a mass of enemies or spikes. The game is strange in that when it is not mean, it is a challenge which yet has a lot of fairness - a look up and down button which shifts the screen ahead, health and power ups in a lot of levels at good times, a checkpoint system and save system which, common to this era of games, means even losing all your lives makes this still fair in that area. It is however a crap shoot that some levels, even if they have these benefits, can be mean for reasons which would have been ironed out in later decade gaming to balance out challenge to not forcing you to be unable to react to hazards appearing out of nowhere.

And the game does spam the same type of levels eventually, which is an issue when the game, when it works, is solid and should have focused on being more creative and expanded on its premise. Even in mind to how the game looks, with enemies at points frankly looking like Microsoft Paint creations, these strange hyper coloured environments by themselves are at least memorable, even when they are clearly cribbing from games like Sonic The Hedgehog and games from video game consoles from the time. The music by Robert A. Allen and Joshua Jensen itself is exceptional and the best thing of this game, going between proto-First Person Shooter dungeon synth, techno, and in the Christmas chapter, metal retelling of Christmas chorals which are as funny as they are memorable. The game itself finds issue for me in that, focusing more on piling on enemies and leaps of fate, it does get repetitive and at times frustrating, to the point that, barring a couple, it is a blessing the boss levels can be broken by camping at the beginning of the stage and shooting the boss without worrying about being damaged. These bosses, frankly unnecessary as a result, prove a relief from some of the difficult levels before which felt based more on risks dropping up and down on platforms abruptly even if you are careful and slow the pace of your movements down.

Barring the bonus levels, which really feel like they are following the second Sonic the Hedgehog game from 1992, running into the screen across a course collecting blue gems, there is not a lot of uniqueness to the levels. Finding secret paths and finding collectables is a really good aspect, as these levels can be searched with a lot of time on the content to provide a fine line between not procrastinating but not to feel rushed, but this does not clear through the repetition. More could have been found, fleshing out Jazz Jackrabbit even if with no idiosyncratic level mechanics beyond those we have, including spring pads from Sonic and figuring out you can jump on some clouds, with its personality, both in its tone and knowing one of his creators worked on Unreal Tournament (1999) we could have just turned this into a shooter platformer with more weapons and stranger enemies.

 It says a great deal that the best levels, the most memorable at least, are the underwater ones, usually a type of level feared by gamers, but here manages to have one up on Mario and Sonic in that Jazz bothers to bringing his scuba gear and does not worry about drowning. One does take a risk in having passages entirely in the dark barring coloured lights, which would be a questionable design decision nowadays for players with limited eyesight, but the underwater levels were actually memorable in how, having to search for switches to raise the water levels up to reach platforms, or just swim across mazes, the game is unique for a moment and has a healthy time limit to be fair, giving the proceedings something memorable. That hoverboard given to the player at points helps to, allowing you to freely move around the screen above and under hazards, in terms of changing the dynamics up.

The original shareware version of this game, which I remember the cut off for, was in itself a simple yet entertaining experience, but it does feel like a game which becomes repetitive to a detriment. Character is provided through the music and some of the locations, suddenly appearing in a Dune-like location only with prancing lizards, or a strange urban area promoting Epic Game's own One Must Fall: 2097 (1994), another shareware game I remember, but it does suggest that tightening up games even if they are shorter was a concept worth bringing up even back in the nineties, let alone in the modern day. Jazz Jackrabbit managed to continue onto another sequel and a Game Boy Advance follow up, the PC sequel I have memories of playing, before disappearing into nostalgia and those like myself buying the games digitally. Jazz Jackrabbit itself in terms of looking back at it without nostalgia is naturally going to lead to a great amount of scrutinisation but the thing is that, not the structure of the game itself or even the aesthetics proves a gripe, but that it does repeat itself with at times frustrating game style proves the detriment to what works. When you can have challenge without some meanness, the music is going with a banger and its own colourfully over-the-top tone fits, this even if a work batting under the weight of more well regarded, usually Japanese titles, of this era, does work and I would recommend it. It does however feel bloated which proves a huge flaw.

 

=========

1) Passing in 2002, Bob Wallace's contributions to computer technology in general are well thought of, as is detailed in his NYTimes online obituary, originally appearing in print on "Sept. 26, 2002, Section B, Page 9 of the National edition". Learning he and Bill Gates used to break into construction sites to drive the bulldozers is certainly the most memorable fact learnt from this review as always happens when I do some research; whilst not professional now, the image of Gates, Microsoft's figurehead, doing this and having a whale of a time in a bulldozer is something I never would have pictured, spoken from Gates' admiration of Bob Wallace as well.

Games of the Abstract: Her Story (2015)

 

Developer: Sam Barlow

Publisher: Sam Barlow

One Player

Windows / Mobile

 

Huge Spoilers (But Indicated When)

Set in the mid-2010s, you play a figure working through an old computer in the police archive, going through old interview footage from 1994. Computer-within-computer, you have a read me document explaining that flooding damaged the archives as well as the issues that arose during the Y2K Millennial bug scare of technology causing further problems for preservation. What you can access, using a word based search engine, is interview footage from multiple sessions of the case of Hannah, whose story you try to piece together, finding the snippets of what begins as the disappearance of her husband Simon, but is obviously a murder from the get-go and elaborates tragically as it continues.

Two roads converged with Her Story. One is the career of its creator Sam Barlow, whose first ever game Aisle (2009) pretty much attest to his unconventional view of games, a game where the first choice leads to an ending, one of countless to go from, stemming from the protagonist looking at gnocchi in a shopping aisle. He is more famous, until Her Story, for his work in the later Western developed Silent Hill sequels. Silent Hill's legacy, and its creator Konami's handling of it, became a bitter one of diminishing success, even lost master code and a notorious remaster of the glory years (Silent Hill HD Collection (2012)). Right before it looked like it was going to rise like a phoenix and terrorise everyone, with the demo P.T. (2014) alone having an impact to be viewed as one of the best games of the 2010s, Konami scrapping the project was scrapped and P.T. unable to be accessed. Sam Barlow, whilst working on Silent Hills: Origins (2007) originally, did leave his mark on one other sequel which has grown in weight for many, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (2009). Alongside being designed to psychologically profile the player, the game used its multiple choice route for retelling the original 1999 Silent Hill game in a distinct way emphasising more drama, psychological horror and that the choice system not only altered the endings and monsters, but even how characters looked and acted.

Then Her Story became the game he is most recognised for, but with Barlow coming to a sub-genre of video games which had lain dormant. Her Story is structured around a fascinating narrative, told in fragments, around Hannah, played by Viva Seifert, who eventually becomes more complex and contradictory as you acquire and see more footage. Presenting this, Barlow reused the notorious old sub genre of the FMV game. "Full Motion Video" is also what cut scenes in games are, but from the eighties onwards, games entirely based on full motion video scenes where the game was interacted with became more common, growing into more live action material in the nineties when growing technological advancements and the CD medium became more common. Too young to play any the games, the FMV games of the nineties became notorious, in-between the point n click games also titles like Night Trap (1992) which were seen as pure cheese. Her Story marks a period on when independent developers started making new FMV games, with real actors and interactive content again, reflecting a general interest in the format as much as fondness being fond for even the cheesiness of Night Trap and such games. Her Story is very simple in its structure, not trying to replicate the cinematic nature of films, like the others of before, but follows one actress, where you need to type words into the search engine to acquire and watch new footage that builds her story. The search engine only allows five clips per search, so each clip is to be skimmed for potential clues of what to type next. Whilst I came to this game with the end narrative revealed and yet found the experience rewarding connecting the material together, spoilers are an issue as to explain any more for some readers may lose some of the experience.

[Major Spoilers]

A huge turn is that Hannah has an identical figure named Eve who is interviewed. It is established she is a twin sister, but it can be as much interpreted as multiple personality disorder. The story never ultimately reveals the truth and leaves on an elusive note, but a potential amount of over the top points or deliberate obfuscation complicates things, between an elaborate back-story of separated twins, Eve being raised by a midwife named Florence near Hannah, and living secretly in the attic. The references to fairy tales by both women emphasises this back story's fairytale-like exaggeration, whilst the possibility it is a mental health issue too, a schism of personalities, tragic as Simon learning of Eve is what leads to his death. Even the murder weapon, a piece of glass from a mirror he made for the women, is fitting this motif and a real tragedy, evoked when in the interviews, at one point, one of the women talks of fairy tales not being real life. The narrative is fascinating even if you know the plot twists, and the ending, whilst a same detail, becomes more salient when you realise you have been playing the daughter of Hannah, which became a gut punch for me, which would still mean something even known just from building the context from the videos.

[Spoilers End]

With video footage between six seconds to a minute plus, the search engine's restrictions is the biggest puzzle, forcing you as I to take in mind names, motifs or objects of note to type into the search engine. The FMV sub genre, whilst it went into light gun games and some other genres, found a niche especially for point n click or game structures, and the structure here, for all the notoriety of the nineties games, can work for a story driven narrative. I have found myself in particular, wanting to get into video games more, facing my hesitancies with genres like point n click in how you could waste hours trying to figure a clue out that few would get. Here, the puzzle mechanic that is simple and great, leaving me clear in the knowledge of what to do at the get-go, with Post-It notes scribbled on in what clues I thought to check in the search engine, such as "dollhouse" and "Eric", crossing through them when they proved of little help. The game play reaches a conclusion, indicated onscreen, when enough is learnt to led you to the ending, but with an icon on the computer you can click to show how far you get, you have at least over a hundred film clips to search for. There is even a bonus game in the recycle bin, even if Columbo himself would have called it out for obvious symbolism.

In considering my thoughts on Her Story, I hesitated on whether this was a great game or not originally, but that was more wanting to see this expanded into a larger scale without compromising the content. FMV games likely hit two walls, one the budget just to put together the filmed footage, in mind you would have to be professional to be taken seriously, and that there is a latent restriction in what you can do with the footage and interact with it unless you are creative. With Her Story, Sam Barlow practically worked around what was a lower budgeted independent project, and managed as a result to create a game which gained considerable acclaim even from the mainstream press. It becomes a game of note, when there was a resurgence of FMV games from indie companies from this time onwards, in how it leaves a mark. Taking around two hours for myself, it managed to pull me in entirely. It does rest a lot of pressure on Viva Seifert as the lead, which is a potential issue for some viewers, but her performance for me worked entirely, especially as the story's ambivalent nature and how the videos are structure make her acting choices deliberately complicated. The only questionable decision is inexplicably when Hannah in one interview has a guitar in the room and has a musical number. It is one of the most distinct moments of the game, split over two videos at least, and is charming in spite of the song being grim in lyrics, but it is strange in context and feels like the one indulgent moment in a game which feels very sincere and serious.

The minimalist style of Her Story, the score by Chris Zabriskie, the fuzzy PC screen with an occasional flash of who is using it as the player, works for what feels like a short story in a different medium, lent a cool and quiet emotional side without distracting from the very basic gaming mechanics. The modern FMV games of now have more readily available technology to make these games, but even with a short game like Her Story taking  a lot of space on a hard drive to download, it emphasises how bringing full motion video into video games brings their own new issues. Still a "game" or interactive work, the wave to cinema and moving images means having to worry about how to present the footage (or not), shooting and planning the footage to get enough, editing it and then structuring said footage into an interactive format which works. What we get in Her Story is admirable in mind to this. Even aware of the plot twists, they meant more as I pieced the content together, emotionally fulfilling as the fact Sam Barlow managed to create a rewarding puzzle simply from a word search engine. Replayability is a potential issue but there is also a sense, once the details faded away, that the puzzle structure even if you remember clues is also part of the weight of the story as much as an obstacle, similar to how re-reading a story the format of reading it is as much of its experience rather than an arbitrary format. That in itself is an admirable achievement to a good game.

Teenage Tupelo (1995)

 

Director: John Michael McCarthy

Screenplay: John Michael McCarthy

Cast: D'Lana Tunnell as D'Lana Fargo / Topsy Turvy; Hugh Brooks as Johnny Tu-Note; Wanda Wilson as Wanda Fargo; Kristen Hobbs as Franky; Dawn Ashcraft as Joey; Sophie Couch as Ruthy; Phillip Tubb as Pookie Fargo; Nancy Taylor as Mildred McCarthy; Edd Hurt as John McCarthy

An Abstract Candidate

 

We have a curious title here - produced by David F. Friedman, the exploitation producer behind many sixties softcore films and Herschell Gordon Lewis movies. Teenage Tupelo does however look like a mid-nineties independent production shot in Memphis, Tennessee, only rather than grunge and flannel, everyone has early sixties hair and our lead is D'Lana Fargo (D'Lana Tunnell), a pregnant teen seduced by a sleazy rockabilly musician Johnny Tu-Note (Hugh Brooks), and then tries to find herself. John Michael McCarthy is an obscure filmmaker, but having seen Superstarlet A.D. (2000), a post-apocalypse film released by Troma Entertainment, John Michael McCarthy is a really idiosyncratic artist. There will be unique voices from the 2000s and the 2010s I will stumble upon as I see more films, but from the eighties and the nineties alone, just from the North American (and Canadian) independent movement, I have tripped over unique figures who are not quite genre directors, cult in the truest terms. Someone like Trent Harris (Plan 10 from Outer Space (1994)) releases his work on his own website, and makes films into the 2010s, but someone like John Michael McCarthy feels more elusive to find to work of.

Teenage Tupelo is definitely a square peg in the round hole of distribution, coming to be during the VHS era of cinema in the mid-nineties, a square peg even for genre cinema as this, among others, is neither a film you can completely sell on a gimmick nor a film of then-current trends. You can, in mind to its producer Friedman, sell it on the erotic element as, slowly on after the initial set-up, there is a considerable bit of nudity based on the older era of sexploitation films, nudie-cutie toplessness and fettered in soft-softcore BDSM edge. Even that in itself is a throwback in mind to pornography existing at the time, despite being less readily accessible, making Teenage Tupelo a curious quirky drama in comparison of a pregnant teen, played by an adult, who looks likes a notorious star of sexploitation films from the same obscure Americana town. Crossing paths with a group of men hating women, some gay, who worship that actor/stripper she looks like called Topsy Turvy, D'Lana's story is less erotica for the sense of titillation, but a pastiche of the old era sexploitation film with its own curious melodrama being parodied. Her mother wishes to give away her baby when she has it, and life is in the doldrums in D'Lana's town of Tupelo anyway, one where the one figure she liked, the musician, is a slime ball who jilts her, even beats her up, and most people occupy themselves in conservative protests against sexploitation films being screened at their cinema.

Teenage Tupelo's aesthetic, realism shot in celluloid but fixated on the past, is a really curious one. This is a director replicating pop culture but completely forming it into his own vision. Shot in black-and-white, the starkness is contrasted by the fantasy sequences. Openly meant to be titillating, with the cast topless and in quasi S&M moments, these heated Sapphic fantasies (and a film of Topsy Turvy's where Castro in Cuba, represented by a woodland, accidentally gets edible panties than the nuke he wanted from signed delivery) have their heated coloured tone too which stand out. Less exploitation, these scenes look more like saturated old time celluloid of avant-garde cinema in mood which adds a curious effect.

As a result, even if Teenage Tupelo has a male gaze whit large, especially in those colour sequences and the matter-of-fact nature of the production it has a distinct aesthetic, contrasted by the costumes and tone, one which can have the hallucinogenic quality of a heterosexual Jack Smith film. It is, regardless of sexual orientation, a narrative equivalent of Flaming Creatures (1963), Jack Smith's simulacra of old cinema (there forties and thirties b-pictures) turned here into a film focusing on early to mid sixties exploitation movies, as interpreted in both cases by having to one's normal environments and what prop clothes could be accessed. Some of Teenage Tupelo is entirely John Michael McCarthy and reminds one this was made in the nineties, such as the homeless tattoo artist, living in a bus, who dresses like an occult monk and takes the art of apply spider tattoos that cover the entire back severely.

And one time, as D'Lana contemplates her future motherhood, John Michael McCarthy splices in monochrome footage of a real birth, drastically shifting the tone from the erotic male gaze to a gynaecological reality whilst evoking older sexual hygiene films, which David F. Friedman would have been aware of too, which contrasted the titillation of getting away with sexual content, under the pretence of education, with some films showing such footage. Teenage Tupelo as a result is an acquired taste which however also has these touches which keep you on your toes, a fascinating film you could only mark as a "cult" film as genre because it has a sense of personality, weird humour and moments which are deliberately strange. By this point, I am fully aware what interests me is usually an acquired taste, the reviews less a recommendation but a sketchpad of figuring out what a work covered feels like to experience. Here what stands out is that, trying to recreate a sixties subgenre, entirely connected to that era, in the grunge era of the nineties becomes a weird cocktail of a low-fi, sexploitation pastiche from John Michael McCarthy. Know the resurgence of interest in old pop culture from years before, including the revival in fifties and sixties cocktail and lounge music, the rockabilly and classic rock n roll created for the film in the soundtrack, alongside the sense of the director-writer's Mississippi upbringing evoking the likes of Elvis in his career really adds a nice spice to the material too.

It is certainly curious, divisive not even for the clear male gaze but that like sexploitation films, it has a plot yet like certain niches of cult movies, they are less about an escalation of plotting in a lot of cases but their mood. This is something I actually prefer, which was one of the huge issues later on in decades many neo-grindhouse films did not work for me in the late 2000s into the 2010s. Melodrama is apt here as, even if a comedy at heart, you have a young woman wanting to find herself. Conformity is square and horrifying, but she is not a gay woman nor a man hater either, finding in the end her solace in Topsy Turvy, her doppelganger played by D'Lana Tunnell too. It is ironic, for a film you could say is full of an irony in its tone, it has a sincerity for all its nudity and kink. That it is about a woman finding a power in cinema as, D'Lana finds her onscreen character (and Topsy Turvy herself, helping her in real life) empowering as people wanting to claim their sexualities and individuality even if you have to put together your belongings in a knapsack and wander the country. Here, between this and Superstar A.D., John Michael McCarthy certainly suits me as a unique director who has interesting characters, worlds and personality.

Abstract Spectrum: Eccentric

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None

All Aboard! The Sleigh Ride (2015)

 

Ephemeral Waves

The origins to The Sleigh Ride and what is called "slow television" is Norway. You can move back further into cinema itself and avant-garde cinema, in mind to Andy Warhol's many extra long moving paintings (Empire (1964) an eight hour film about the Empire State Building, Sleep (1964) which is five plus hours of John Giorno sleeping). Warhol's work in these films was never meant to be binged, to be interacted with whether in cinema and installation alongside with other members of the audience. Slow television can go further back as the recordings of burning Yule log fires broadcasted on television and Night Walk (1986-1993), a Canadian television series where walks across night-time Canadian cities were scored to jazz. The Norwegian trend for slow television, extended programming, became popular in the country, such as experiencing a train ride in real time in Bergensbanen minutt for minutt (2009), a seven plus hour television special from NRK (Norwegian Norsk rikskringkasting AS), Norway's public service broadcaster. A detailed look at the real-time footage from the seven-hour train journey from Bergen to Oslo in Norway, Bergensbanen... is one of many titles which became popular in the country's television, with extensive day long specials that deliberately pull away from the flash and saturation of modern technology.

It's importing to other countries as a trend, as All Aboard! The Sleigh Ride was part of a series of BBC 4 programmes for a season called BBC Four Goes Slow from 2015-16, does raise questions. Slow cinema has become a huge part of art cinema, and is what interested me in slow television, in how Béla Tarr with the seven hour plus Sátántangó (1994), let alone avant-garde cinema, pushes the boundaries of slowing images down and forcing one to contemplate reality. With slow television outside of Norway, you have something that was clearly a cultural trend where people wished to turn television into a form of concentration and slowing down from the bustle of modern life, which became a fad for other countries even if programmes were still being made by the end of the 2010s. There is the cynical nature of this concept being a scapegoat to try to overcome the existential issues of the 21st century. The "hygge" trend, from the Danish and Norwegian cultural habit of living as cosily as possible and rejecting modernism in many ways, became a quickly popular trend in my country of Britain, and it felt more like a quick help concept than a way to question how modern Western civilisation and how it works. The contrast to slow cinema - able to be derivative too but at its best some of the most profound cinema as possible - can be found in many slow television works are meant to be contemplative experiences of train rides, of watching people knit for twelve hours (NRK's Nasjonal strikkekveld special (2013)), but the concept in itself as an alternative to slow cinema, a cleansing visual stimulus that slows you down, is a concept to appreciate and consider with an artistic curiosity. The BBC4 special raises a fascinating idea of contrasting slow cinema and slow television by including a theatrical documentary by Frederick Wiseman, the legendary documentarian who began as far back as the 1960s, with National Gallery (2014), one of the few films of his easily available to see in Britain about the London art gallery, a theatrical screened film among the likes of The Sleigh Ride during the specials.

I liked The Sleigh Ride, but considering I came in for the extreme pace of experimental cinema, it is a contemplative and cosy work instead, a two-hour real-time reindeer sleigh ride with Sami people filmed in Karasjok, Norway. In mind to The White Reindeer (1952), a Finnish folktale film set among the culture of the Sami people that I adore, to see the actual Sami culture onscreen was fascinating. The Sleigh Ride whilst playing to being a long and extensive trip across Karasjok snow covered land, is as much a document to their culture with CGI layered text bubbles and monochrome inserts of old culture. I see this not as a dismissal, but this does leave this closer to a film you see at a museum or cultural institution that just happened to be nearly two hours long, those that you could see with an exhibition of Sami cultural items and clothes behind glass. That in itself does raise a fascinating note of what the moving picture medium, as likewise covering this for an amateur review forces one to rethink what the medium is. I am someone who finds - be it television, film, in-between - the moving picture medium is all from the same source, but that they are distinct in how they altered and changed to serve the notion of depiction the moving recorded images. In this case, I imagine The Sleigh Ride having been actually a hybrid of two different formats, the museum installation and the television work, if by pure accident, if in consideration that even for a television special this would have been fascinating to see in context of a museum setting with a much large screen and the ability for a viewer to wander in and out of the room at certain times. It really does not feel like slow television in the definition I presumed it to be, and if you want to be absurd, a purist would decry the additional aesthetics aspects as completely compromising the point of slowing down a viewer and forcing them to contemplate the passing of time with distractions.

Together though, if you can appreciate this, it is fascinating. The long sleigh ride, with one woman of the Sami culture and her reindeer, is peaceful. Time passes and sunlight turns closer to dusk, though as is established in a text caption, daylight is sometimes sparse at certain times of the year, making this wilderness environment completely remote. The presence of actual human beings here, including the pleasing sight of a man happily participating in the Sami activity of ice fishing, does vastly contrast this timeless environment which this culture still wishes to be of rather than the modern day of the 2010s. Were it not for the compromises/cultural information that provide content, this would be a slow but peaceful experience, and it was at least for me. As a snapshot of the culture, I have no issue with the factual content and appreciated it, even if it turns this less into an artistic statement forcing you to feel another culture, or an event in slow time, but closer to a fond museum/cultural institution presentation which ends with a still contemplation of aurora borealis.

The concept of the slow television medium in itself does not really differ from slow cinema except that, with the longer time available, you can stretch the length of a work further out, and even that is questionable as, even before digital film cameras allowed one to film with less restrictions in physical reels of recording material, directors like Andy Warhol found a way to make lengthy experimental projects. Aside from this however, there really is no difference. Installation art, slow television and experimental films which do push the mainstream trends of actual length and content are not different for me beyond how they are presented and how the audience interacts with them. The later is the more important, returning to what Andy Warhol's work talked of. The Sleigh Ride was enjoyable to experience, but I can however see a work, even if more of an endurance to experience, a Christmas presentation, was clearly meant to be one viewed with an audience who interacted or, if viewed by oneself, a peaceful balm to the chaotic nature of that time of the year or an off-switch to a lot of environmental hecticness in the modern day. This is fascinating to review as, unfortunately, this does raise a great concern of how the moving image reflects the anxieties of their creators and the audience, especially that this reflects a need to find a way to step away from a heavily sensitised and technology heavy world, and if you are a cynic, attempts at band aids in this world rather than address the problem's roots. That can leave a more profound influence on a viewer like me used to this endurance as much as for another viewer. Even on a less serious note, I am the kind of mad man intrigued in watching the entirety of Bergensbanen minutt for minutt, even if split up into pieces, and if anything The Sleigh Ride was a nice taster of a greater field of note. Entirely because, wishing to see the form of moving images in its various forms, these curious tangents in them, and not always written about, they are experiences to appreciate and consider in what their origins and differences are.

The Dead Father (1986)

 

Director: Guy Maddin

Screenplay: Guy Maddin

Cast: D.P. Snidal as The Dead Father, Margaret Anne MacLeod as The Widow; John Harvie as The Son; Angela Heck as The Daughter; Rachel Toles as Little Girl I; Jilian Maddin as Little Girl II; Stephen Snyder as Cesar

Ephemeral Waves

 

A short review for a short film, this is the first work by Guy Maddin and, whilst the presentation would improve over the years and decades, the Canadian auteur began with dealing with neurosis and psychodrama from the start. Told in first person, this is one of the many unfinished books for the protagonist being written of his life, one of which is the compelling title "My Fear of Bushes", which immediately set up Maddin's interest in curious personal behaviours, ticks and obsessions.

What story is told however is The Dead Father, as much a reflection, if accurate to the bio of Maddin in his own My Winnipeg (2007), to the death of his own father, whilst not quite the conventional tale of grief and overcoming the loss of a young one you would normally get either. Most films on grief do not lead to the son eating his father's stomach and contents with a spoon, but despite the late patriarch of the family in this short being dead, he is like a Raúl Ruiz character. When his prone body is not on the family dining table, that late does wake and wander. More uncomfortable for the family than this, which is just accepted as a matter-of-fact occurrences, behaving as he normally did, is that he wanders to a different address, fully alert and awake but preferring someone else's home to his wife and children's.

Early, at the beginning of his career, the aesthetic of Guy Maddin's work is not here. It is crude, knowing that Maddin himself would continue making as many short films and return to the medium over the decades, an era as important to his career (like The Heart of the World (2000)) as it is an area worthy of introspection in itself, his craft being sharpened just by telling his own short stories as it has been with the feature length titles. Saying The Dead Father is crude is not an insult, as this still has the psychodramatic nature of his work that would last into the decades on, only in primordial form. Parents haunting their children, even when still alive, becomes a significant trope of his work which is here, as is the tinges of very twisted sense of humour which can be bleak yet is compelling to see. This does compel, and shooting in black and white, he begins with his desire to work in an unconventional aesthetic. Knowing this as well, Guy Maddin also came from the school of independent budget cinema from the eighties, and the arch of unconventional Canadian cinema from this era. Growing into his later films, The Dead Father is important as a step, one where Guy Maddin would become a truly unique filmmaker, the template found here in pieces.

Games of the Abstract: Harmful Park (1997)

 

Developer: Sky Think Systems

Publisher: Sky Think Systems

Two Player

Playstation One

 

One of the greatest tragedies of the videogame market is that, not yet one with great preservation and archiving, there are countless obscure games, let alone widely released ones, from old consoles which were low print runs and never re-released, which is why for better and for worse emulation is something that exists even if it is a whilst a moral grey area. Harmful Park is a great argument about this issue as, whilst it has had a 2012 re-release digitally for the PlayStation Network in Japan only, Harmful Park is still a game that is obscure, worse as it is seen as a rare title as a result of its limited print run back in the day as a Japanese only title. It is sad as, from an obscure studio called Sky Think Systems, we have a scrolling shoot 'em up whose imagination, a sense of whimsy and weirdness as a "cute-em-up", alongside pushing the original Playstation's technology, is incredible.

The titular park is a theme park hijacked by a mad scientist and his minions, some dough creatures which in the final level you actually see being baked to life as lovingly rendered in a background animation. Stealing a female scientist's diary in the coup, she sends her two daughters, on flying air bikes, to stop him and get the diary back. Over six levels (with a secret hard seventh), you travel various sites of the park, from the horror land to the one devoted to roller coasters, and as with other scrolling shooters, you avoid enemy bullets (and enemies), acquire power-ups to improve your firepower, and gain points as you defeat enemies and bosses. Harmful Park structurally is like many 2D shooters of this ilk, scrolling to one side as a side-scroller (left-to-right), but the style is a thing of surreal, multicoloured beauty. Most shooters do not advertise their PSOne box cover with a pie with the game logo in it. Only the Parodius franchise, Konami's lengthy series of parody shooters, is close to Harmful Park for me for this type of strange and openly inventive scrolling-shooter parody which is still a challange.

Harmful Park starts befittingly with the sight of spinning tea cups, a swinging pirate ship that cries when you shoot at it, and that the first boss is a dinosaur kaiju that is inflated up to fight you. Background animation, even how the enemies you fight, are animated is exceptional, and the eccentric sense of humour the game possesses continues throughout and increases. Probably the best set piece is in Level 2 two as, a giant figure over a small congregation, you witness a groom being jilted at the wedding altar by the bride, with both his tears and the reunited couples' love hearts being actual projectiles to avoid. Gulliver, giant sized and tied to a train, from Jonathan Swift's legendary novel is here just because, not a shootable enemy but one whose arms you have to avoid at a section. There is a Level around a cow train, a whale boss who fires flotsam-and-jetsam at you (including Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC)), a giant Frankenstein powered by a dancing cat, each level usually with sections where something new, delightfully weird and trying to destroy you appears. Only one joke throughout may come off as crass in the modern day in how one of the bosses is a giant young woman at a cinema who, depending on what difficulty you play at, is a kogal (a Japanese schoolgirl who dresses like an American valley girl) who is comically depicted as unattractive in the easier modes, stereotypically beautiful in the harder modes. Aside from this, this is the kind of game which manages to make even an enemy flying at you on floating giant petrol cans, breathing fire at you, cute. You might even feel sorry for some of these critters, as some do not attack, but there is a percentage for getting everything enemy per level too.

The weapon system is itself of note as, giving you all four from the beginning and with the power-ups literally to power them up further up to four stages, they are a curious lot. I openly admit sticking to the "ice cream" beam, an all-purpose lazar cannon which becomes more than one as you increase it. "Potato" is your standard fire. "Jelly beans" are homing sweets of death which, if you power up, increase in rapid fire and could be of great use especially as this is a score based game of combos and hitting every target, which can be sandwiched behind you. "Pie" is annoying as the joke of throwing a curving giant pie that takes many out is funny, but is slow, requiring power-ups to improve. All can be changed by a button click, and if you are lucky, if you lose a life you can save your charged attack of choice if you were on another at the time. All have their own specials with limited number of unless you get collectable increases.

Aside from two player multiplayer games, this is a short game of six levels, whose difficulty crawls slowly up with the final level. Like the best of arcade games, which is an irony I will get into in this paragraph, it escalates to a final level which has multiple sections, meaning even short loading times, where one can contend with the perils a falling elevator with giant fruit boxes, and a final encounter in the villain's lair, a beer garden which looks frankly wholesome if everything was not trying to kill you. It is surprising that this was a Playstation One exclusive than an arcade game, but the bigger concern for me personally is the obscurity of the title. It is, in context to these shooters, a thing of beauty, a playfully silly piece of pure whimsy where nothing is considerably dull. There is no weird touch in the background if you spot it that is not fun or weird (like unexpected UFO cow abductions), and the game does challenge without becoming a bullet hell game. That is not to disparage the later sub-genre which is of admiration, but in the sense that this is meant to be a fun romp whose difficulty options (and the ability to continue after a game over immediately) allows you to improve and have the challenge ready at your fingertips. The specials can mow through bosses depending on the difficulty level, and the point is to improve, score more points and just enjoy the experience. Knowing it had a re-release as late as 2012 does offer hope of this getting preserved, but never was the term "cult" apt. Harmful Park is a little gem I adored and could only wish, even if a Sony exclusive, it was readily available beyond Japan.

Games of the Abstract Ranked

Eventually, these reviews will likely be split up per console/medium, but until then, every game I cover on this blog will get a ranking as such in terms of which I really enjoyed the most, personal with nods to their virtues, alongside a link to all the reviews for comfort of ease.

Introduction

*****

Review List (By Time Line of Video Games)

(Title (Year of First Release) [First Console/Machine Released for that version])

1. Games with ranked numbers as such as highlights of this year ranked.

1986

1. Castlevania (1986) [Nintendo Entertainment System] - The beginning of Konami's legndary franchise about whipping Dracula in the head. 

1988

October 29, 1988 - Sega Mega Drive / Genesis first released in Japan.

1989

April 21, 1989 - Nintendo Game Boy first released in Japan.

Castlevania - The Adventure (1989) [Nintendo Game Boy] - The failed attempt to bring the Castlevania franchise to the legendary handheld, with an emphasis on struggling platforming, rolling giant eyeballs and a pathological fixation on climbing ropes.

1990

November 21, 1990 - Super Famicom/Super Nintendo Entertainment System first released in Japan.

Gals Panic (1990) [Arcade] - An erotic Qix game - draw on the screen to take space, whilst avoiding enemies - if one that is at least made with charm rather than feeling sleazy. Sadly that would arrive in sequels. 

1991

December 3rd 1991 - First release of Philips CD-i.

1. Sonic the Hedgehog (1991) [Sega Mega Drive / Genesis] - The blue hedgehog's legendary debut for Sega, traumatising water level music cues and robot enemies in his way.

2. Super Castlevania IV (1991) [Super Nintendo Entertainment System] - The Castlevania franchise swings into the 16-bit systems with pride.

3. Rockin' Kats (1991) [Nintendo Entertainment System] - Cat in a hat and tie rescuing his girlfriend in a cartoon series platformer pastiche. 

4. 64th Street - A Detective Story (1991) [Arcade] - Depression era USA as reinterpreted as a beat-em-up where detectives eventually fight robots in a blimp.

Castlevania II - Belmont's Revenge (1991) [Nintendo Game Boy] - The successful attempt to improve on the original handheld game, with the fixation of climbing ropes and rolling eyeballs back in a superior platformer. 

1992

1. Boogie Wings (1992) [Arcade] - An awesome period based scrolling shooter, set in classic pulp story Americana, where one dashing hero will even face an evil Santa Claus robot by biplane, on foot or even a pogo stick in this inventive arcade game.

2. Undercover Cops (1992) [Arcade] - The beat-em-up turns its eye to futuristic dystopia cops cleaning the streets of crime and mad scientists turning people into mutants. 

3. B. Rap Boys (1992) [Arcade] - Hip hop, as interpreted by Japanese video game develops, in a beat-em-up where you fight lions at one point.

1993

October 4, 1993 - 3DO Interactive Multiplayer released first in North America.

November 23, 1993 - Atari Jaguar released first in North America.

1. Gunstar Heroes (1993) [Sega Mega Drive/Genesis] - Treasure's legendary debut, a run-and-gun shooter where throwing the kitchen sink in means a seven-stage boss battle and even a scrolling shooter stage among its graphical charms and personality. 

2. Night Slashers (1993) [Arcade] - A morbid horror beat-em-up where kneeing Dracula in the stomach repeatedly is just one of the many things you will get up to.

3. Ninja Baseball Bat Man (1993) [Arcade] - With the power of baseball-jitsu, four baseball ninjas are bad enough to retrieve stolen baseball memorabilia artefacts from across the many states of the USA.

4. Cadillacs and Dinosaurs (1993) [Arcade] - Capcom do no wrong with the beat-em-up, especially when this obscure multi-media franchise, with its own cartoon series, offers this idiosyncratic premise, existing in a post-apocalypse causes dinosaurs to return but Cadillac cars and Mad Max bikers room the wasteland.

Plumbers Don't Wear Ties (1993) [3DO Interactive Multiplayer / Microsoft Windows] - An offensive but morbidly compelling photo slideshow choose-your-own adventure about trying to get a man and a woman together, presided by a narrator occasionally wearing a chicken head.

Strahl (1993) [3DO Interactive Multiplayer / Sega Saturn / Pioneer LaserActive] - A full motion video animated game, where you hit the right button to progress, where a male hero goes through a fantasy gauntlet of challenges to save the world. 

1994

November 21, 1994 - Sega 32X first released in North America.

November 22, 1994 - Sega Saturn first released in Japan.

December 3, 1994 - Sony Playstation first released in Japan.

1. Fantastic Journey a.k.a. Gokujo Parodius (1994)  [Arcade/Sega Saturn] - Expect in this scrolling shooter to fight penguins, giant robot ballerinas, and at least once sequence among flying chickens dressed as people in the middle of rush hour.

2. Castlevania - Bloodlines (1994) [Sega Mega Drive/Genesis] - Konami's horror action franchise about vampire and general monster killers done Sega 16-bit style. 

3. Bubble Symphony (1994) [Arcade] - A lavish sequel to Bubble Bobble, in which kids turned into dragons hop and blow bubbles in enemy files one-screen levels which, in tribute to Taito's older games, even gets into a Space Invaders and Darius level or two.

Battle Pinball (1994) [3DO Multiplayer Interactive] - A Japanese exclusive on the American console where the Grim Reaper, an alien, a gambler and a very hardworking mole man compete in pinball games where two players on separate tables compete together once until one losses all their balls or gets a higher score.

Jazz Jackrabbit (1994) [MS-DOS] - Early Epic Games brought a ridiculous and very nineties tones to this shareware favorite, one jackrabbit against one diabolical tortoise who kidnapped his beau, taking a gun with firepower to blast obstacles across the galaxy in this shooter-platformer.

The Mansion of Lost Souls (1994) [Sega Saturn] - Sequel to a Mega-CD/Sega-CD FMV game, a FMV mystery narrative set in a mansion of souls long deceased investigate why the moon has suddenly turned red and the danger of someone removing them all from existence in the afterlife. 

1995

July 21st 1995 - Nintendo Virtual Boy first released in Japan.

1. Guardians - Denjin Makai II (1995) [Arcade] - One of the unsung beat-em-ups, and proudly one of the weirdest. Fight a menagerie of strange enemies in a future world with the likes of a winged bird woman or a man so buff he needs little clothing on.

2. D (1995) [3DO Interactive Multiplayer] - A roto-escape room puzzle game which has a two hour time limit, in which a woman finds herself sucked into a gothic realm when her doctor father goes on a shooting rampage in a hospital, her cursed lineage faced within an innovator in full motion puzzle gaming.

3. Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon (1995) [Arcade] - The legendary franchise, about high school magical girls saving the world from monsters, enter the beat-em-up genre in one of its few games entirely dominated by female leads. 

4. Tempo (1995) [Sega 32X] - A surreal (and gorgeous looking) platformer about the most violently contested dance competition between a groovy cricket and his girlfriend against the likes of a polygonal-like giant shoe. 

5. Shinobi X (1995) [Sega Saturn] - That strange time the Shinobi franchise, about ninja warriors fighting evil, turned into a game with digitized actors and with cut scenes straight from a straight-to-video action film. It is as ridiculous as that sounds but is damn underrated. 

6. Ristar (1995) [Sega Mega Drive / Genesis] - Sega's obscurer platformer about a sentient star with stretchy arms in gorgeous late 16-bit sci-fi worlds.  

Gals Panic 3 (1995) [Arcade] - When erotic arcade games, and a long running Qix-based franchise, just gets sleazy, difficult to defend for this genre, and weird in a bad way in its garish digitized photo form.

Love Bites (1995) [3DO Multiplayer Interactive] - Vivid Interactive's softcore compilation of footage erotic female vampires.

Panic Bomber (1995) [Nintendo Virtual Boy] - Nintendo's ill-advised attempt at three dimensional gaming least provided us with a Bomberman puzzle spin off, challenging the horror themed but cute denizens of a mysterious island to explosion laded puzzle blocks games for a fabled trophy. 

Phantasmagoria (1995) [ScummVM / Windows / MS-DOS / Sega Saturn] - Roberta Williams, a pioneer as a female video games developer, developed an ambitious and expensive full motion video horror game, a point n click tale of more adult content following a married couple's ill-advised decision to live in the the manor of a famous 19th-century magician, Zoltan "Carno" Carnovasch. 

1996

June 23, 1996 - Nintendo 64 first released in Japan.

1. Keio Flying Squadron 2 (1996) [Sega Saturn] - A mad-cap platformer sequel to a scrolling shooter where a bunny suited female protagonist finds herself in Edo period rollercoaster parks, flying in space and having to walk on Japanese pop cultural terms in her journey to return family heirlooms.

2. Kyuin (1996) [Sony Playstation] - A sadly obscure horizontal cute 'em-up worthy of rediscovery, in which a boy and/or girl with their flying vacuum cleaner save all of fairytales from an evil sorcerer. 

3. Battle Garegga (1996) [Arcade] - The hardest of the hard vertical shooters, of a tiny plane or two up against the odds (and all the bullets and missiles) of an entire world conquering army of war planes and weapons. 

4. Daytona USA – Championship Circuit Edition (1996) [Sega Saturn] - Attempting to resolve the messy conversion of the original Daytona USA Saturn port, Sega end up with this very different remake. With added Mr. Big vocalists.

Gal Panic SS (1996) [Sega Saturn] - Whilst a console spin-off to an adult arcade franchise, this Qix-clone is the non-erotic, cute puzzler of avoiding giant missile firing forms and their grunts to uncover illustrations of anime women. Even in context of its origins, it is surprisingly fun, whilst the pastel look and soundtrack are a nineties sugar rush of twee.

1997

1. Mischief Makers (1997) [Nintendo 64] - Developer Treasure's deeply underappreciated 2D.5 shake 'em up where you get to catch projectiles, ride missiles, and shake enemies and members of the populous alike.

2. Harmful Park (1997) [Sony Playstation] - Tragically rare and expensive PSone "cute-em-up", where only two sisters on airbikes can stop a mad scientist hijacking an amusement park and arming it with cute bullet firing antagonists.

Ninpen Manmaru (1997) [Sega Saturn] - An obscure Saturn only 3D platformer, based on an anime and manga about a ninja penguin. As cute as the protagonist, but with many mean tricks up its sleeve.

Panic Park (1997) [Arcade] - Namco presents, with only a single rigid joystick to maneuver with, the ultimate theme park of death over twenty five bizarre mini-games for you or with another player to jostle controls with. 

Planet Joker (1997) [Sega Saturn] - A notorious and obscure scrolling shooter in which three female pilots must protect Tokyo (and the world) from the forces of Planet Joker; sympathy deserved for trying, and its b-anime aesthetic, but mechanics and visuals are huge flaws.  

Sonic R (1997) [Sega Saturn] - Sonic the Hedgehog and friends compete in foot/vehicle races with a heavy emphasis on platforming, Sega blue skies and Euro-pop music.

Vinnie's Tomb, Chapter One - The Road To Vinnie's Tomb (1997) [Windows] - The strange Canadian produced point n click adventure with invisible badly drawn horses in MS-Paint, Wayne Newton comparisons and a soundtrack like The Residents falling down the stairs. 

1998

November 27th 1998 - Sega Dreamcast first released in Japan.

1. Screaming Mad George's ParanoiaScape (1998)  [Sony PlayStation One] - Enter the world of eyes in the ceiling, intestinal corridors and human cockroaches...by way of pinball.

2. Metal Slug X (1998) [Arcade / Neo Geo] - SNK follow up the first in their beloved run-and-gun franchise with a world tour jaunt, aliens and a lot of humour, served with incredible animation and gameplay quality.

3. MediEvil (1998) [Sony Playstation] - Sir Daniel Fortesque's journey to defeat Zarok struggles with mechanics from the era, but I cannot deny, alongside nostalgia, a lot of moments returning and finishing this game where many virtues were to be found as much as hair pulling moments. 

Pachinko Sexy Reaction (1998) [Arcade] - Not surprisingly, there was an erotic pachinko game made for the arcade, but they decided to make something aesthetically bright and colourful even if you might be embarassed playing it.

1999

1. Pepsiman (1999) [Sony Playstation] - The meme legend, and Japanese mascot for Pepsi cola, a bumbling sentai superhero for refreshing drinks who in an endless runner game must avoid oncoming bikers, construction site pits and even giant rolling cans of Pepsi to help the populous avoid becoming thirsty.

2. Silent Scope (1999) [Arcade Version] [Arcade] - Take the light gun game, where a one man army has to rescue the US president and his family from terrorists, but change the plastic peripheral to a sniper rifle and force them to have to use precision. Still utterly ridiculous, like a straight-to-video action film in tone with an unlimited scope, but changing how this genre plays out in a unique way.  

Captain Tomaday (1999) [Arcade [Neo Geo MVS]] - The scrolling shooter where Earth is saved from aliens being a cute sentient tomato. 

Pachinko Sexy Reaction 2 (1999) [Arcade] - Not surprisingly, there was a sequel to an erotic pachinko game made for the arcade, but they decided to make something aesthetically bright and tried to make it more an overt arcade game even if you might be embarassed playing it.

2000

Police 911 (2000) [Arcade] - Fighting crime as a police officer, entirely having to relay on motion motion cameras and your own body to dodge the bullets fired back. 

2001

September 14, 2001 - Nintendo GameCube first released in Japan.

2002

1. Kowai Shashin - Shinrei Shashin Kitan (2002) [Sony Playstation] - Once dubbed a cursed game by the internet; in truth, the real game is more compelling than this creepy pasta story, a real one-off where a female exorcist is able to devour evil ghosts from spirit photographs in a game that hangs in its own genre of button rhythm mechanics. 

2003

1. Espgaluda (2003) [Arcade] - From Cave, a sombre steampunk fantasy vertical shooter where, alongside a special psychic form which changes the welder's gender, two siblings experimented upon by their fathers to be weapons must stop him for the sake of all.

2. P.N.03 (2003) [Nintendo GameCube] - A deeply maligned GameCube exclusive, in which a female mercenary grooves, dances and shoots her way through killer robots.

2004

2005

The House of the Dead 4 (2005) [Arcade] - The zombie shooting Sega franchise (until the 2010s) goes out with a bang in its plot focused finale.

2006

1. Time Crisis 4 (2006) [Arcade] - Namco's lightgun franchise just embraces being a Michael Bay-like action blockbuster, involving insectoid robot weapons and action set pieces, and it is worth celebrating.

Aliens: Extermination (2006) [Arcade] - Fun lightgun game in concept, completely bland in terms of being a lightgun game and adapting the Alien franchise. 

Let's Go Jungle! - Lost on the Island of Spice (2006) [Arcade] - Two player light gun shooter where an American couple, off in the Pacific/Thailand islands, find themselves unfortunately on the island where giant rampaging insects and frogs are attacking everyone.

2007

1. Super Mario Galaxy (2007) [Nintendo Wii] - Usually sending your franchise into outer space is a sign of decline. Here with the Nintendo mascot Mario, hopping and flying around levels which even distort gravity itself let alone conventional game controls, you instead have a zenith of creativity.

Peggle Deluxe (2007) [Microsoft Windows / Mac OS X / iPod / Windows Mobile] - The ultra-casual, ultra-popular game, on all those formats, where you shoot a ball to hit orange pegs on behest of a guru unicorn and other critters, just in hope for Ode to Joy to suddenly hit with a fireworks display to congratulate you.

2008

Rambo (2008) [Arcade] - Sega's adaptation of the Rambo films to the lightgun genre which strangely rids most of the original context.

Razing Storm (2008) [Arcade / Sony Playstation 3] - Namco's lightgun spectacle of burly futuristic army men against robots couldn't be more browner or more macho even if you added more licensed Five Finger Death Punch songs into it. 

2009

1. Sin & Punishment - Star Successor (2009) [Nintendo Wii] - One young man and an alien girl defend each other from strange enemies and an army of goons, in an on-rail sci-fi fever dream interpretation of Earth.

2. Muramasa: The Demon Blade (2009) [Nintendo Wii] - Vanillaware's period Japanese hack-n-slash game enriched in Japanese culture and mythology, where cooking is an elaborate option alongside forging swords

2010

2011

2012

1. Frog Fractions (2012) [Flash] - A charming edutainment game about learning about fractions...well barring the text adventure segment or the dancing rhythm section. 

Dark Escape 4D (2012) [Arcade] - If William Castle, the legendary film producer and director, ever made horror video games which followed his history of legendary gimmicks, he would have made Dark Escape, which decided to not only have 3D glasses and a heart monitor, but also throw is air blowers and vibrating seats too. 

2013

Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae (2013) [Microsoft Windows] - Low budget area based hack’n’ slash where one young woman with a cursed samurai sword, our heroine, has to stop another with a desire for pure evil.

2014

2015

1. Broforce (2015) [Windows] - Stand-ins to legendary characters from action film history are bro enough to fight Satan and his legions of masked terrorists in this 2D platform shooter where almost everything explodes.

2. Her Story (2015) [Windows/Mobile] - Developer/Publisher Sam Barlow reinterprets the Full Motion Video genre into an interactive puzzle, searching through old interview footage with a woman named Hannah over a crime, and finding the narrative of her titular story becoming more complex and tragic. 

Jurassic Park Arcade (2015) [Arcade] - Rescuing dinosaurs, whilst nonetheless electrocuting and freezing half of them back to extinction, in this lightgun cabinet game. 

Luigi's Mansion Arcade (2015) [Arcade] - The lightgun spin-off to a spin-off, from Capcom with a beloved put-upon sibling, creates a type of game I wish was expanded upon - the vacuum-em-up - here with ghouls and ghosts at the end of the ghostbuster hover bag. 

2016

1. Bot Vice (2016) [Windows] - A nice throwback to classic shooters where a former female cop shoots everything that moves, and is an animal robot person, in a sci-fi action scenario.

2017

Cinderella Escape 2 Revenge (2017) [Windows] - Independently made softcore beat-em-up, in which in a fairy tale world, where punching someone's clothes off reduces their strength, a newly resurrected (but bound) Cinderella must prove her innocence for murder whilst in the midst of a conflict between the human world and artificially made puppet people.

The Walking Dead (2017) [Arcade]  - The long running zombie television franchise gets turned into a crossbow on-rails game, a rare case of a scrolling lightgun game which is bleak as it is still a spectacle cabinet.

2018

2019

1. WHAT THE GOLF? (2019)

[Windows/Apple Arcade]

Golf for those who hate golf...which happens to be faithful to golfing as a video game even when you putt TVs into giant cats.

2020

Super Bernie World (2020) [Microsoft Windows] - Imagine the classic Mario platforming template only with Democratic politician Bernie Sanders having to jump and dash across a mushroom kingdom United States full of Republican turtle creatures, red hated people, and boss fights where the player is able to put Ted Cruz in a cage. Not a game which shied away from its political intentions when made during a campaign year.

2021

Elevator Action Invasion (2021) [Arcade] - The legendary Taito franchise is rebooted...as an okay lightgun shooter, fighting robots and axe welding enemies, where the key gimmick is mechanic elevator doors on the arcade cabinet.  

2022

Spooky Starlets - Movie Monsters (2022) [Windows] - An adult game where, by card deck mechanics, you literally run an adult movie company in the afterlife with living dead girls and werewolf women.