Quester Vs Hogan's Alley

(Hogan's Alley, October 1985, Nintendo)

Herein lies the zany little life moments that I live for. Going into this review, I pondered how much backstory a simple little light gun Black Box title could possibly have and wound up walking away from my research happily stunned with an information overload. Today, we take a far look back at a game with more links to the past than your favorite little ambigiously aged elf, Hogan's Alley.

Nice touch with the bullet in the logo.

Let's scarf the history right on down because it's always so damned captivating to me. The original Hogan's Alley was presented back in the 1890's and starred one of the very first American comic strip stars, The Yellow Kid. The strip was written and drawn by the famed Richard F. Oucault and featured in the pages of New York World, owned by publisher Joseph Pulitzer, who is presently more well known for the Pultizer Prize, an award for journalistic excellence. The run-down neighborhood where Yellow Kid and the gang did their hooligan/shenanigans thing was named Hogan's Alley and in time was popular enough to be featured on billboards and a ton of merchandise for the era. As with all hot properties, legal wrangling and hilarity ensued between Pulitzer and another famous publisher, William Randolph Hearst over who properly owned the rights, causing the Kid to quietly fade away.

An early strip featuring the original Hogan's Alley. How many video games do you know with roots dating back to the 1890s?

Fast forward to 1920, two years removed from the World War I, and the FBI learned through a survey conducted throughout all major police departments of the country at the time that marksmanship was fast becoming a lost art. Out of the all cities surveyed with over 25,000 residents, only THIRTEEN had credible marksmanship programs. Obviously, surveys that teach us that blind Stormtroopers could out-shoot our asses are bad, therefore, Hogan's Alley was established at Ohio's Camp Perry by the Army and the NRA. So, the beginning of our association with Hogan's Alley and "let's shoot shit" began over 90 years ago.

Have a nice day indeed!

Beginning in 1924, there were national contests held at the camp for sharpshooters and the like. There was no blank ammunition laying around, so what the hell, they opted to use real, live ammo(!) on cardboard cutouts set up around their virtual city, hence why the game's targets are presented as they are. World War II brought an end to the contest due to ammo shortages, but in 1954, the camp re-opened and in 1987, they took it a step further and went absolutely batshit with the idea, creating an actual, living, breathing, working small town for simulated combat.

No. Fucking. Way.

But, ah yes, there IS a game to discuss isn't there? Fair enough! Hogan's Alley was one of the first Light Gun games (or "Zapper" if you will) to be released and like most Black Boxers, was released to the arcades prior to the NES launch date. There are 3 modes you can get your Eliot Ness on with, which seemed to be par for the course for the Zapper series, but who's going to bitch when they could've easily put out one mode and called it good? I'm looking dead at you, Urban Champion.

Trenchcoat flasher gangsters on what appears to be the surface of Mars. MISS!

Game A is your standard, run of the mill 3 target shooter. This would be one of the rare times I rather enjoyed the lack of a musical track because when you're an FBI agent on the creep trying to concentrate, the last thing you need are bouncy chip-tunes screwing up the ambiance. There are 3 types of townsfolk in the sim you can shoot and 3 you can't or else it registers as a MISS! and your game is over at ten of those. The tricky part is that the professor is colored just like a baddie and the grunt with the shotgun is colored like the stand-alone 'stache sporting policeman, so it does take a bit of skill not to accidentally send Professor Minutes-From-Suicide-Any-Damned-Way to hell.

Seriously, look at the sour puss on that professor. Should we shoot out of mercy or not?

My favorite was always Game B. It takes you right into the mythical Hogan's Alley where the gameplay appears trickier and better paced. Still a lack of music except for a groovy little head nodder in between rounds which is fine by me. If you've ever played this mode, my old faithful standbys "fuuuuuck!" and "shiiiiit!" will enter even the cleanest vernacular after you just accidentally pumped poor Miss Nobody full of lead. Second verse, same as the first, 10 misses and it's c'est la vie!

Game B FTW

The third option is a trick shot skill game where your goal is to shoot flying tin cans at certain angles, bouncing them into a side wall containing point values. Not too easy, but not impossible either. When compared to the other 2 modes, this is the one voted most likely to collect virtual dust. Not that it's bad or anything, just rather ho-hum when compared to the first two modes.

About as fun as it looks. A solid 15 seconds of entertainment.

THE FINAL VERDICT
7/10 A truly great launch title that I've always personally enjoyed more than Duck Hunt. Not the popular opinion I know, but three very distinct modes when DH only throws you an extra duck and some clay pigeons makes Hogan's Alley rise above. The controls seem a bit sharper here as well as there aren't as many cases of the ol' "OH BULLSHIT, I SHOT THAT FOR SURE!" going on. Pile those onto one of the deeper, more fascinating histories you'll ever find, and Hogan's Alley is a title that shouldn't ever be looked over.

Nintendo and FBI mash-up!

For more information about the Yellow Kid and the origins of Hogan's Alley, check out Brian Cronin's INCREDIBLE blog at CBR here:
Comic Book Legends Revealed

And hey, Mr. Cronin returned my original shout-out here!
Comic Book Legends - Hogan's Alley

And for the most surreal site I've seen in awhile here is an actual link to the FBI's real life Hogan's Alley. It exists to this day as a training facility and I'd sell my soul to Zarathos to walk through here one good time:
FBI - Hogan's Alley

So Close, So Far (Happy Birthday)

Happy birthday to you, join me in a few tears
Lock eyes, say hi, show me deep into my worst fears
You don't know me? I sure know who you are
Inside a mirror, you're me, minus the wear and scars
Same last name? Really? How crazy is that news?
You like Iron Man? I missed the phase of Blues Clues?
Ready to start school? Make friends? Read and write?
Love to be at the Christmas plays, but don't think I have an invite
Turns out I'm an enigma, even to my own bloodline
The answers you have now will be different than the answers of mine
When you're ready to ask, don't be one bit scared
Two sides to every story, so be well prepared
It's going to be dark, shocking, and shoot your heart through the roof
But I swear on all I hold dear, you'll get nothing but truth

I love you.

Happy birthday.

Quester Vs Abobo's Big Adventure

(Abobo's Big Adventure, January 2012, I-Mockery/PestoForce/Pox Box)

What better way to spend a lazy afternoon is there than with a labor of love crafted by a team of die hard Nintendo junkies that half the world hasn't played yet and the half that has is still picking up pieces of brain matter off the floor? Without a doubt, the greatest homage ever to grace our computer monitors, this isn't just any game, oh fuck no, THIS is Abobo's Big Adventure.

I would send the cutest kitten ever to grace the planet Earth screaming over the Grand Canyon to have this in my living room.

Abobo's Big Adventure was first developed as far back as 2002 by I-Mockery founder Roger Barr, a true NEShead in every possible sense of the word. Side-projects and other ventures caused production to come to a halt until around 2006 when Barr and friends“Pestoforce” and "Pox" restarted the project from scratch, wishing it to feel like more of an 8-bit game than the previous attempt. The team went through the formidable task of playing through the majority of the NES library and jotting down a mind-staggering amount of characters they felt deserved inclusion in the game from household names like Donkey Kong and Little Mac down to the unsung heroes of the era such as Kid Niki and Clash At Demonhead's Tom Guycott. Debuting the first levels at 2009's San Diego Comi-Con, word of mouth of this insane little game-that-could spread like herpes on steroids. After a few years of lugging a custom-made arcade cabinet around the country to keep the momentum going as well as being friendly, approachable non Phil Fish-like dudes, Abobo's Big Adventure was unleashed upon the world on January 11, 2012 for free download to both PC and Macs. Enough of this chatty shit, let's get to the meaty part of this 8-bit taco shall we?

"You rang?"

Right out of the gate, the title screen clues you in that this is going to be a one-of-a-kind experience starring all our old friends we hold warm places for in our hearts. Hearing the familiar Megaman 2 theme as the screen scrolls up the Statue of Liberty to reveal our hero will cause anyone who lived through the era to wax nostalgic automatically. For the uninitiated, Abobo was the one motherfucker in Double Dragon you did NOT want to run into. There are white, black, and even green varieties of this monstrosity and the only way I could ever figure out how to beat the unholy bastard was by jump kicking him 15 times. Yes, to this day I remember precisely how many boots to his oddball face it took. World 3 of Double Dragon turned many a' boy to man when two of these terrifying stuffed sacks of moustachioed muscle tore through a rock wall and commenced to whoopin' that ass but good.

The precise moment in DD where you realize you're totally fucked.

Upon pressing start, the scenario of the game is presented as only awesome 8-bit storytelling could pull off, a vibrant little cutscene informing us of everything we need to know going in. The offspring of our protagonist, Aboboy has been kidnapped and Abobo is so pissed about it that he annihilates a small kitten before you can even control him. This sets the tone for the copius amounts of blood on top of the dark humor liberally spread throughout this epic journey.

This could be the only mode in the game, and this scene alone would put it near my Games of the Year. I've waited over 20 years to rip this worthless excuse of a fighter to shreds.

Eight levels are present throughout, each a spot-on mock-up of a different retro game filled to the brim with more NES characters than could ever be listed. No matter how obscure and unknown a title, I promise you there is someone from your personal favorite nostalgic little grey cart buried in there somewhere. To mention every single cameo in this game would require a list longer than sports stars that have penetrated Kardashian twat, so suffice it to say, they are here.

If this is surreal enough to make you triple-take it, the ENTIRE game is like this. It's virtually a playable who's who of the 8-bit dynasty.

The graphics perfectly represent the games parodied and even more impressive, the controls are DEAD ON. If you replaced the real Balloon Fighter in his original game with Abobo, it would without question feel exactly the same. It is a testament to the passion the development team had for the source material to have emulated it to this degree. Sound effects are just as incredible and sharp-eared retro fanatics will wear a permanent grin at the little touches they put in ranging from Soda Popinski's laughter to the Excitebiker's revving engines. The part I am having the most difficult to rate is the game's challenge as it all depends on how much you played the originals they were based on. If you are a Punch-Out enthusiast like myself who has easily thrown down hundreds of hours dodging and counter-punching, the final sequence may not prove so taxing, but if you never spent one minute inside Little Mac's shoes back in the day, I can understand why that stage would just destroy a novice with the quickness.

God of War II's Colossus of Rhodes be damned! THIS is the definition of an epic battle! Oh my...the map...

If that wasn't enough to sell anyone reading to download this about ten sentences ago, Abobo's Big Adventure is the funniest game of its kind, bar none. From getting to seperate the Urban Champion's head from his torso Mortal Kombat style, Amazon of Pro Wrestling fame taunting you throughout an entire level in ways that would make Handsome Jack proud, or the greatest ending scene a game has ever sported, the laugh out loud moments are as non-stop and rapid-fire as Team Abobo could've possibly thrown them in. Cut-scenes are hellacious romps through 8-bit memories and it wasn't above the creators to toss a little non-NES humor around as well. They completely owned me with the Johnny 5 is alive line and that's just one of a butt-sack of tremendous gags.

Words escape me for how awesome these non-stop moments become. Even if stricken with Alzheimer's to the point of forgetting my own name, I'm sure I'll be able to recall Abobo vs Donkey Kong.

The crowning achievement of this magnum opus is the replayability. Every new playthrough will produce moments that went unnoticed on previous conquerings. I've beaten this more times than NFL players have been to court this year, but never fail to catch new things, For example when playing the real Contra, I avoid the "L" power-up like Perez Hilton avoids pussy, but picked it up accidentally only to find the fucker fired LEMMINGS across the screen. It's those magic moments that make this the cream of the crop and the measuring stick that retro themed titles that followed only wish they could pull off. Medals are even thrown in the mix for the current gen feel of trophies or achievements and getting them all becomes the most exciting war of attrition between you and your PC controller you'll have for a long time.

No pink hoodie bullshit here, Abobo trains like a MAN.

THE FINAL VERDICT
10/10 Don't rub your eyes or rush to come down off of whatever hallucinogen you may have taken this morning with your coffee, that is the fabled perfect score. As a game, Abobo's Big Adventure gets the full monty. As a love-in for The Big N, it surpasses anything you've ever seen before or since. If you've never taken the time to marvel at this jewel of a game, put down the CoD, Halo, and Destiny for a day and prepare to have your brain blown right through your ass. The bar has been set and it would take a modern day miracle for anyone else to come close. Abobo's Big Adventure deserves to go down as one of the greatest games in any decade, any genre, and on any system.

Short Blast (Pre-Cursor)

If the few weeks have taught us anything, I hope it is an understanding to relish the day for tomorrow is never promised. Some people are very private when it comes to medical issues, so someone you may view as strong and everlasting could be going through things you'll never, ever know about. Treat everyone you love like the time is limited, because it is.

I spend my days and nights missing people who are still very much alive. Such is my penance. Don't become me.

Quester Vs Clu Clu Land

(Clu Clu Land, October 1985, Nintendo)

Today, we will explore one of the stranger titles in the NES library. An oddball of a game that you'll either love unconditionally or find yourself experimenting with the terminal velocity of grey plastic against concrete. Either way, let's dig our questing claws into the quirky Clu Clu Land.

Clu Clu is a rough translation of "Kuru Kuru", a Japanese sound effect for "around and around" in the way Americans use "Woof Woof"

First things first, we need to discuss the curious box art on display. If you were a wide-eyed young'un wishing to rent a new game, what the holiest of holyshits would you think Clu Clu Land is about if you hadn't seen it in the arcades prior? It looks like two Rupees in between a fried egg to the left and to the right, an entry level graphic designer's interpretation of Mr.Krabs holding another egg balanced Rupee. All the while, mentally communicating with Professor Xavier via a 1960's psychic wave-like graphic. In other words, not the first fucking clue what is going on with this box. Ironically enough, this is, in fact, the sprite that was reused for the famous currency forever associated with the Zelda series.

Unlike the NA version, the Famicom box art perfectly illustrates everything you need to know before popping it in.

Campfire, story time, marshmallows, here we go. The hero is a female fish by the name of Bubbles, who is on a mission to recover stolen gold ingots from the Unira, themselves a rag-tag theiving bunch of sea urchin. Without the game manual, I'd have no idea that Bubbles was anything close to aquatic. However, she's fairly badass in her own way because of her handy extendable arms that grab onto poles and turn in the direction of your momentum. Trust me on this, Nintendo didn't make it easy. Quite a few obstacles are present, from evil black holes ready to gobble you up to bouncy walls that will gleefully shoot you noggin first to your demise but your main enemy in this game? The fucking timer. You think World 8-1 of Super Mario Bros. forced you to haul ass through a level? This game's timer is an unforgivable bastard and even if you perish, it refuses to reset, meaning that within seconds of coming back to life, say goodbye to another precious life.

Clu Clu Land will release every "fuck this shit!" emotion you've stored away since birth.

The easiest comparison to make would be Pac-Man but in a curiously reverse sort of sense. Picture Pac-Man's mazes, however instead of grabbing power pellets, you need to pass by to uncover them while incapacitating those pesky Unira. Recover all the coins of a level (normally creating a picture of some sort) and you are rewarded with your next unrelenting phase inside sea urchin hell.

Weeee alllll live in a yellow submarine...

The graphics are the normal bright, vibrant fare present in most of the launch games. However, unlike a few of the debut titles, there is never so much going on that you lose track of Bubbles as well as the Unira never blending in to the background, thankfully cutting down on more cheap Bubbles-death. My personal favorite part of Clu Clu Land has to be the great Akito Nakatsuka's (Excitebike, Devil World, Zelda II) music compositions. The tunes are as bouncy and spirited as anything else he ever did and when you continue to play a game just to hear the music? That is a win, my friends.

Nintendo R&D1 sure did love those red/green multiplayer color schemes didn't they?

Bad news for anyone hoping for two straight perfect scores, the controls can only be described as the drizzling shits. Even after ninety minutes of constant play, a simple left turn could be a total bitch to perform at times. The pacing of the levels is quite wonky as well. Some stages, Bubbles moves at a normal pace and others, Bubbles appears to have been hitting the speedpipe during the bonus score screen. Your only offensive weapon is described in the manual as a "sound wave" that paralyzes the Unira, enabling Bubbles to shove them into the whirlpools. Successfully pulling it off is another matter entirely, as either the controls will burn you, or you won't have enough time to even consider screwing with it. In other frustrating news, Clu Clu becomes impossible around level 12, as it is required to go over the coins twice for the reveal. Never one to shy from the impossible, I stuck with it and was compensated with levels where once the coin was uncovered, Bubbles couldn't touch it again or it flipped over and didn't count. Freaking sadists.

Bubbles would apparently go on to much greater fame as Meatwad of ATHF.

FINAL VERDICT
7/10
Even with the insane learning curve for the controls and a difficulty that is underrated among the legendary early NES titles, there is nothing about Clu Clu beyond the unfair timer to hate. At it's best, Clu Clu Land was pretty addicting and there lies a real sense of pride and accomplishment when the level's picture is revealed. As stated at the start, this is definitely a love it or hate it type of game.

Right round, like a record, baby.

So, where has Bubbles been all these years? She has popped up over the years in various places. The most well-known would be as a trophy in SSBM, but everyone from the Black Box era is represented there so no suprise. Bubble's most prominent role since her debut was as a hidden character in the GBA game Donkey Kong : King Of Swing, in itself a sort of re-working of Clu Clu Land. Along with Ms. Pac-Man, she would be also be one of the earliest female starring roles in gaming which makes me wonder why more people aren't aware of this game? Probably the goddamned box art. Thankfully, Clu Clu Land in all its glory can be found in the recent NES Remix series.

BRING BACK BUBBLES!

Picture credit:
"Rageman", courtesy of Jayson Gaddis

Quester Vs Super Mario Bros

(Super Mario Bros, October 1985, Nintendo)

Perfection. That is perhaps the only proper word created to describe Shigeru Miyamoto, Takashi "Ten Ten" Tezuka, and Koji Kondo's realized vision of a sequel to the original worldwide hit Mario Bros. When it comes to the original "Black Box" titles, none come close to this magical tale that whisked many a young mind far off into a land unlike any we had ever seen before. Super Mario Bros. Perfection.

Hail to the king, baby.

One intresting factoid of note is that SMB (as I will refer to it henceforth) was actually created as kind of a "goodbye" to the original Famicom system to make way for the Famicom Disk System, this huge motherfucker of a contraption that fit in underneath the original Famicom. The Famicom (FAMIly COMputer), for the uninitiated, is the Japanese version of the NES with little differences such as controllers hard-wired into the console and different sized cartidges. Little did they know that this platform/shooter they were working on (yes, a freakin' shooter!) would become the landmark of a generation. Thankfully, we were spared "CoD Mario" as the A button could only be mapped to either jump or shoot. Alas, cooler heads prevailed and a-jumping we all went!

Then again...so...close...

As for the story, when you say it out loud, it sounds like you may have just left the Guggenheim with Tim Leary on enough LSD to actually meet God. At the base level, it's two dudes saving a princess from an evil dragon. That's where the conventional game logic ends and the kick-assery hits full throttle. Those aforementioned "dudes" turn out to be two plumbers who starred in the previous title (Mario Bros, 'natch) who eat magic mushrooms, jump like Lebron on a sugar high and throw fireballs without incinerating their gloves. There were power-ups in games before but one that doubled your size to where it affected gameplay? Another that shot fire out of your hands? How about one that transforms you into an invincible Goomba destroying machine? Never before had anyone seen anything like this and it captivated us all.

"Anyone else think it smells like Burger King in here?"

Each of the 8 worlds is split into 4 stages, with the fourth being a castle controlled by a fake version of Bowser until World 8 when it is go time against the true King of Koopas. The stages are greatly varied with only two of the 32 total stages being re-hashes of previous ones. My personal favorite as a young 'un is what I called "The Void" because it was a creepy greyscale version of 1-3 and was a self-reward for not warping. It was the perfect adventure for young gamers, you ran full speed through grassy plains, battled your way through dark, atmospheric caves, taught yourself how to swim Nintendo-style and tried not to have a heart attack while avoiding flying fish and shit-kicking beetles the whole way.

Enter The Void. Enter 6-3.

Let's not forget the music. Holy mother of all things holy, the music. Everyone, and I mean everyone knows the Mario 1-1 tune (officially named "Ground Theme") created by Mr. Kondo. When you consider the fact that his ringtone royalties for that one theme have him set for life, it is staggering, considering he also did work on an obscure, known-to-very-few project titled The Legend of Zelda. No bullshit and with all seriousness, I've done this and feel free to try yourself, you can walk practically anywhere, start whistling the Mario Theme and someone, somewhere will follow suit. It is akin to a gamer handshake. We only know it for what it is and if you had informed me as a kid "Hey, that's a Calypso beat with steel drums!", you would've received a glare as if you had just hangover puked on my feet while I was wearing flip-flops. Calypso my super-sized, happy ass, that's the Mario Theme, plain and simple.

"'Ey! I made-a my face!"

The controls couldn't be more of a dream. When you die, and you will on your first rodeo, pick your head up little soldier and try, try again, because it was totally your own fault. Stages requiring you to swim have somewhat of a learning curve admittedly, but aren't overly frustrating to pick up on. The truly awe inspiring part of it is that, at the time, this team was creating the mold as they went and did so in ways that would re-define gaming forever. Sure, you had Metroid, Zelda and Contra among others that were just as great in their own regards, but there is just something about Mario that can't be definitively described, but I'll give it the old school try...

FUN FACT: Both development teams over the years have confirmed that Balloon Fight's flight and SMB's swimming controls are exactly the same.

You are CONSTANTLY doing something in Super Mario Bros. Take World 1-1 alone, you meet the Goombas, Koopas, Mushrooms, 1-Up, Fire Flower, Star Man, break blocks for hidden goodies, keep watch on your coin counter, make sure you beat the timer, duck down atop of every pipe in existence with hope and try to figure out how in the sharkshit you just caused fireworks to appear after grabbing the end level flag. THE FIRST FUCKING LEVEL! That doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of unlocking the rest of the secrets and rumors that I tested immediately after school via playground scuttlebutt due to no internet in the early '80s. Most of these hot topics were hogwash, but a few turned out to be fact. Secrets that turned out to be real include the -1 World, an infinite water stage loop that I never thought was real until Nintendo Power proved me wrong. One of the funniest things I've read on the subject was an interview with Mr. Miyamoto about an Infinite 1-Up trick at the end of 3-1. When asked about the glitch, he replied that there wasn't one. It was purposefully inserted and when it started popping up in magazines, he couldn't believe that people had figured it out.

The Hammer Brothers of 8-3 are one of the earlier reasons for my ongoing insanity.

The only negative I can even remotely find with this masterpiece is the way two player is set up. When beginning the game, if you are playing as Luigi, it is required to wait patiently while casting spells in your mind for Mario to die. To put it in a more clear way, if the person playing Mario was good, feel free to go to your favorite store, take a shit, balance your checkbook, develop a written language with your highly evolved Sea Monkeys, make a fully functioning house out of LEGOs and THEN it MIGHT be your turn. In one of those weird "I'd never think anyone else would do this but me" type of deals, I used to boot up 2 player, immediately feed Mario to an eager Goomba, and rock the whole game as Luigi. Recently, I spoke to two other people who admitted to doing the same. Tremendous.

"Fuck waiting"

Super Mario Bros is the definitive benchmark of the early Nintendo titles and still must be conquered by yours truly a few times a year. In an era where acheivements were real trophys on your dresser, noone cared which voice actors were used and "X Box" was more likely to be the name of a seedy porn store on Westheimer, Super Mario Bros was the king. It has been ported and thrown on more Nintendo systems than just about any other game besides Tetris and shows no signs of ever slowing in its popularity among both retro gamers and the new and curious alike.

The first round of many in this legendary rivalry.

FINAL VERDICT
10/10
No other way this one was going. Playing Super Mario Bros is mandatory.

One day, we'll go over Super Mario Bros. 2 Japan, a.k.a. Suicide Watch, a.k.a. Satan's Asshole, a.k.a. Fuck This Shit, I Quit. Strictly for the sadists.

Picture credits:
"Gun Mario", courtesy of Nin-Styles
"Zombie Luigi", courtesy of GameRanx
"Fire Glove", courtesy of magic52.com

Mortality by Michael Wright

Mortality,
As we live towards the abyss,
A sudden sound of car brakes,
Or decades of decaying illness.

There is no order of time.
A millisecond. A hundred great years.
The natural enemy of life.
Ever victorious in erasing your private fears.

Mortality,
Some so afraid of death, they forget how to live it up.
While a mile down the road,
A brain-dead child's parents are scarred, forced to give it up.

A thief's blade in the void,
Wrong place and time of an earthquake.
A pilot's light goes out,
Sudden onset of headaches.

Mortality,
Unhealthy paranoia will never allow.
A hearty soul to flourish.
So, use this time like the clock could stop right now.