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- Missing Mascots: Gaming Personalities that Slipped Off the Radar
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| Missing Mascots: Gaming Personalities that Slipped Off the Radar Posted: 01 Oct 2011 05:19 AM PDT Once upon a time, they were important. They were more than just video-game characters scrambling to be the next Pac-Man or Mario. They were the symbols of game companies, seen in logos and commercials and as many cameo appearances as possible. Then they dropped out of the spotlight, thrown aside by a game industry that just didn’t have a place for a bald cave-child or a cross-eyed pink dinosaur. They’re the fallen mascots of game generations past. Some were too bland to survive. Some hit a streak of lousy games. Some were just hitched to the wrong company. But all of them were mascots in the true sense. They served as the public faces of developers and publishers, and that makes the difference between a Bonk and a Battletoad. Here’s a chronicle of the once-proud mascots worth remembering today.  As icons of the game industry go, Alex Kidd was just too darned nice. The same can be said for the Sega Master System, which only shrugged while Nintendo’s NES conquered the game industry and the youth of the world in the 1980s. Alex Kidd was there through it all, a vaguely apelike action hero who punched things with his expandable fists. In testament to Sega’s wishy-washy approach to the Master System, Alex was the console’s mascot just because no one could think of a better one. Not that Alex Kidd was lacking in material. His first game, Alex Kidd in Miracle World, mixed the stylings of a side-scroller with motorbike racing, helicopter flights, and rock-paper-scissors mini-games. Yet it was nothing that kids couldn’t get on the NES, and the same went for Alex’s subsequent games: The Lost Stars, BMX Trial, High-Tech World, and Shinobi World. Even the arrival of the Sega Genesis didn’t give him an edge. The 16-bit Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle was still a banal side-scroller, and Alex was still a big-eared boy who never stood up to Mario and Nintendo. Alex Kidd in Shinobi World originally featured a big-nosed, mustachioed boss named “Mari-Oh,” but this was changed for the final game. Alex wasn’t very good at confrontations. Sega needed a more aggressive mascot to accompany the Genesis and its more combative advertising, and they found it in Sonic the Hedgehog. Alex Kidd was swiftly relegated to the world of cameos, showing up as a vending-machine prize in Shenmue and, in a heartbreaking turn, a depressed store clerk in the parody RPG Segagaga. Last Known Whereabouts:  The TurboGrafx-16 was marked by false starts, especially in its search for a mascot. NEC’s console launched in North America with Keith Courage in Alpha Zones, which was Hudson’s Mashin Eiyuden Wataru game renamed and packed with a superhero comic. This made no impression on TurboGrafx owners, and the system’s real hero soon emerged from Bonk’s Adventure, a side-scroller about a cave-child who bashes enemies with his giant hairless noggin. It was Bonk who appeared in TurboGrafx ads and fliers. It was Bonk who stood against Sonic and Mario. And it was Bonk who should’ve been bundled with every TurboGrafx from the get-go. Bonk’s three main side-scrollers are solid stuff, with bright, simple graphics that recall The Flintstones as much as they do children’s anime. Unfortunately, Bonk himself lacked a gimmick. It was amusing to watch him beat back foes with his head or gnaw his way up a cliff, but nothing he did really influenced gameplay (and advertising) quite as effectively as Sonic’s speed. Still, he beat Keith Courage by miles. Bonk was remodeled in 1992 for Air Zonk, a shooter that starred a futuristic cyborg version of the caveman hero. It arrived just in time to make Zonk the mascot for NEC’s TurboDuo, despite the briefly disastrous introduction of a comic-book spokesman called Johnny Turbo. Fortunately, the Bonk of the Future won out as the TurboDuo’s poster boy until the system’s demise. As with most things on the TurboGrafx, Bonk knew greater success in Japan. Under the name PC Genjin (a play on the TurboGrafx’s Japanese incarnation, the PC Engine), Bonk saw a mini-game collection and many ports of his original game released there. He didn’t quite make it into the next generation of consoles, however, as a Nintendo 64 version of Bonk was scuttled and turned into Bomberman 64. Last Known Whereabouts:  Asmik’s contributions to video games are minor. Though they published dozens of titles for various Nintendo systems, their best finds were curious mediocrities like Xardion and Wurm: Journey to the Center of the Earth. During the height of Nintendo’s early-1990s popularity, however, Asmik was an up-and-coming publisher with ambition, an American branch, and a pink dinosaur for a mascot. At first, Asmik didn’t have a name for the creature. He was “Asmik-Kun” in Japan, but that didn’t have the proper ring for North America. After a small contest, Asmik dubbed him “Boomer” (though Nintendo Power originally misidentified him as “Bronty”) and rolled out his first game: Boomer’s Adventure in Asmik World. It was a simple maze-walker for the Game Boy, and it failed to land Boomer any merchandising deals or Saturday morning TV contracts. In fact, this was Boomer’s only game released in North America. He endured as Asmik’s mascot, however, and the company’s NES and Game Boy releases show him on the packaging and title screens. By the time Asmik moved on to the Super NES, Boomer was gone. Boomer’s Japanese species lasted a little longer, appearing in a second Game Boy puzzle-action game as well as a Famicom side-scroller titled Asmik-Kun Land. A low-effort entry, Asmik-Kun Land is notable mostly for Boomer’s oddly animated tail attack, which makes him look like he’s farting on enemies. Last Known Whereabouts:  Captain Commando’s origins are curious. He was created not for a video game but for the packaging of Capcom’s early NES releases, dubbed the Captain Commando Challenge Series. Extrapolating his name from Capcom’s (which itself came from “Capsule Computer” arcade units), the Captain appeared on game boxes and in manuals, clad in the height of disco-superhero finery. Capcom’s American branch even fiddled with Section Z’s backstory to make Captain Commando the main character, though the in-game sprite was never edited to include his medallions and amazing Technicolor space-coat. Perhaps he wasn’t out of place on packaging that also turned Mega Man into an glowing, hunched abomination. Capcom updated Captain Commando’s look for the next round of NES games, and so titles like Mega Man 2 and Strider bore a square-jawed, astronaut-pilot hero worthy of a B-movie Star Wars rip-off. The Captain Commando Challenge Series continued with this new icon and his unnamed blue space-monkey sidekick, though this new look lasted no longer than the first. The Captain was redesigned again in 1991, when Capcom granted him his own game. A brawler much in the style of Final Fight, Captain Commando fashioned its title character into an anime superhero with his own crimefighting cadre, consisting of a Mummy Commando, a Ninja Commando, and a Baby Commando who pilots an adult-sized robot. While built with the same solid foundation as Capcom’s other beat-’em-ups of the day, Captain Commando is a rather routine journey with a violent detail or two (Mummy Commando’s attack dissolve enemies, and a promotional comic shows the game’s villains graphically murdering civilians). But this was the version of Captain Commando that would stick, and he looked much the same when he showed up in Marvel vs. Capcom and its sequel. He was no longer Capcom’s mascot, however. That role belongs to Mega Man–or at least it did until Capcom canceled his last two titles. Last Known Whereabouts: Posted by: admin in Gaming News Thank you for Visiting Gameforumer.com, Hope you enjoyed the stay with us. |
| Game of Thrones RPG Slated for an Early 2012 Release Posted: 01 Oct 2011 05:18 AM PDT The Paris, France-based Cyanide obtained the rights to produce multiple games based on the series back in 2009. It’s had a listing for a Game of Thrones RPG on its website for some time now, but beyond the two screenshots seen in this story and platforms listed as PC and consoles, there wasn’t much to go on. Kotaku today spoke with studio director Yves Bordeleau who revealed some of the first details about the project which, like Genesis, is coming much sooner than you might expect. The game is described as being a Mass Effect-style RPG set during the time of the first book, A Game of Thrones. Its story follows two different characters who don’t come from the book or TV show, though you will have the chance to run into some established characters. Combat uses an “active pause system” similar to that of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The game was compared with KotOR and the first Mass Effect; it features “less action than Mass Effect 2” and is instead “all about the storyline,” which can be affected by your decisions. A publisher has yet to be revealed, yet Cyanide plans to have the game out early next year. That’ll come as a surprise to fans who haven’t heard anything about it before now, much in the same way that Cyanide didn’t know about the TV series far in advance. Fortunately, unspecified characters and locations from the TV series are being used in the game, and some of the actors will reprise their roles as voice actors for the game. “We entered the agreement [with HBO] late in the game, unfortunately, but we managed to have a lot of characters and locations modeled [after the series],” Bordeleau said. Given how terrific he was as Tyrion Lannister, it would be especially disappointing if Peter Dinklage wasn’t among those to appear in the game, and ditto for Sean Bean as Ned Stark and Iain Glen as Jorah Mormont. Of course, we don’t know for sure that any of these characters will even be in the game, so it might be a moot point anyway. Early 2012 can be interpreted in quite a few ways, but presumably that means it’s only about six to seven months away. In that case, we should find out a great deal more as we approach the new year. Posted by: admin in Gaming News Thank you for Visiting Gameforumer.com, Hope you enjoyed the stay with us. |
| Posted: 01 Oct 2011 05:18 AM PDT
日本のオンラインゲームファンの皆様、こんにちは。 Below are some awesome screenshots taken from the Closed Beta phases of Blade Soul Korea. For more videos and game footage, visit my YouTube Blade Soul collection here (link). Posted by: admin in Gaming News Thank you for Visiting Gameforumer.com, Hope you enjoyed the stay with us. |
| Posted: 01 Oct 2011 05:18 AM PDT
日本のオンラインゲームファンの皆様、こんにちは。 Below are some awesome screenshots taken from the Closed Beta phases of Blade Soul Korea. For more videos and game footage, visit my YouTube Blade Soul collection here (link). Posted by: admin in Gaming News Thank you for Visiting Gameforumer.com, Hope you enjoyed the stay with us. |
| Weekend Deals: The Witcher II, Game of Thrones, and Blood Bowl Posted: 30 Sep 2011 05:16 PM PDT The Witcher II is being offered on the cheap at a number of places, though Amazon seems to have the best price at $23.99. Steam, GamersGate, and Good Old Games all have it for $29.99. Steam is offering 80% off the Legendary Edition of Blood Bowl this weekend, bringing its price down to just $8.00 from $39.99. Also of note is Good Old Games giving away Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templar until tomorrow morning, so be sure to jump on that deal as quickly as possible. Read on for a look at this week’s deals. Amazon
Direct2Drive
GamersGate
GameStop
Good Old Games
Impulse
Steam
Posted by: admin in Gaming News Thank you for Visiting Gameforumer.com, Hope you enjoyed the stay with us. |
| Posted: 30 Sep 2011 11:14 AM PDT
Can we safely declare the title to be a 3D action scroller? Under development with Toei being kept in loop since 2009, more information will be released soon. Posted by: admin in Gaming News Thank you for Visiting Gameforumer.com, Hope you enjoyed the stay with us. |
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