aren't they cute?



also, because 1up's database of games is woefully underpopulated, i now host my own games collection. because you can't actually make out any part of my desktop image, i now host my own des(s)ktop image.



i think the moral of this is: 1up's shoddily-implemented and inadequate community/identity features exist only to encourage people to keep looking at 1up's features and, thus, advertisements. feh.

this year's interactive fiction competition has ended. i played every entry, but i didn't finish them all, and i didn't rank them all.



results have been posted, but they're wrong of course. my favorite, by far, was chancellor, which made me gasp for breath. vespers also made me gasp, and i adored a new life. i liked tough beans and distress as well. beyond is good if played as a straight murder mystery.



the established authors (for the most part) kept their distance from the competition this year, giving some new names the chance to shine. entries were also, on the whole, less polished. and there was an unsettling trend of using branching dialogue menus in place of the (formerly) standard - and less contrived - ask/tell model of character interaction.



so! enough about the competition. here are reviews of non-competition if releases of 2005.

a while ago taito released two "taito arcade memories" discs in japan, each containing a bunch of amazing arcade games. i have both of these. more recently, some people called empire put together (and sega released) taito legends in north america and europe. i have this too. why? because this disc has (with a few exceptions) entirely different games than the other two.



in particular, it has return of the invaders.



like a saddening amount of compilations, legends comes with a flimsy eight-page manual that feels like it's going to fall apart in my fingers when i handle it. it also has a very plain interface. so did the arcade memories collections; it is straightforward and not ugly. it does seem to assume that space invaders is the only taito game any westerner has ever played, though.



the developers made a number of other unfortunate assumptions as well. the most immediate is that all games, no matter what the proportions of their original screens, are stretched to fit your television by default. that's easy enough to fix. what takes longer to fix is that each game starts out set to "easy" difficulty. i find it seriously irritating that the gamers' default options are not the arcade default. oh, and if you want to set your own options - like to play a game of new zealand story on "very hard" difficulty but with continues - your score won't be recorded. oh well!



also, the controls aren't re-mappable. these games were not originally designed for a playstation joypad. it is arrogant to assume your controller setup is the best possible setup. especially when it isn't.



as for the presentation of the games, it varies. most games have an arcade flyer that can be examined. a few have a snippet from an interview with the game's director. there's also a brief description of each game and a hints and tips card. return of the invaders's description doesn't mention the developers, UPL, at all (fitting, since neither did taito's original release). and the hints and tips seem cut and paste from space invaders's. one tip says to shoot the "ufo" in the back for points, but neglects to mention the three different power-ups that can be collected this way. there's no explanation of how to access the challenging stage hidden in each normal stage, nor of the rainbow bonus.



the selection of games is pretty robust, though. it includes: colony 7, which is missile command with more infrastructure and entropy; volfied, the underrated sequel to qix; zoo keeper, one of a few american-developed taito releases and very fun; exzisus, a frantic shooter that fills the screen with ridiculous amounts of enemies; the ninja kids, an absurd and wonderful multiplayer brawler; rainbow islands, the sequel to bubble bobble with tighter play mechanics; and the swordfighting games great swordsman and gladiator. it also includes bubble bobble, the new zealand story, and elevator action, which appeared on the earlier taito memories compilations.



snappy conclusion: despite their best efforts, empire couldn't ruin this collection of vivacious taito games.

the online weekly magazine the escapist has put out its seventeenth issue, and this one is focused on "women in games".



and there are a refreshing number of women's voices heard: bonnie ruburg's fantastic piece on gender relations in "survival horror" games, former gamestop employee rachel chai's observations, danielle "sachant" vanderlip's reflections on writing guides for bradygames while raising two children. m. junaid alam mentions the absurd sexism in prince of persia: warrior within.



but shouting above all these voices is the cacophonous ignorance of chris crawford. why the escapist chose to give the title story - as well as more pages than any other piece in the issue - to this man is beyond me. chris drones on for pages and pages about half-understood evolutionary biology as an explanation for cultural differences between men's and women's gaming patterns...to what end? what does chris hope will come of this?



i think part of women's attempt to find our place in gaming is to tell men to shut up more often. chris crawford: shut up. that you miss the point while writing about others "missing the point" is almost pitiable. give the six pages your ridiculous story occupies to a woman writer.

dig dug: digging strike is a sequel long in coming.



the only true sequel the original dig dug ever received was dig dug II: trouble in paradise, which expanded on the gameplay of the original in revelatory ways.



in addition to the harpoon/air pump, dig dug II gives the hero a jackhammer which can dig cracks in the islands that formed the game's stages. the cracks slow enemies down, but more importantly, dividing a piece of the island from the larger island mass causes it to fall into the sea - along with whatever enemies are standing on it, and any player foolish enough to be caught standing on it. (it also provides large amounts of points.)



dig dug: digging strike for the nintendo ds manages to incorporate both the side-view madness of dig dug and the crafty demolition of dig dug II. it does this, of course, through use of both of the ds's screens.



on the upper screen the whole island can be seen. a huge monster (too big to fit beneath the earth) prowls this screen, releasing enemies and making mischief. a multitude of holes in the ground lead to the bottom screen, where side-view shennanigans similiar to the original dig dug take place. a number of large stakes have been bored into the island as a measure against the monster onslaught; drill under them and they'll fall deeper, causing a crack to appear in the earth on the upper screen.



crack a piece of the island off, and it falls into the sea - possibly with you inside it. the goal is to dunk the giant monster; the monster, however, doesn't stay in one place. most of them walk; some of them fly. there are items in the underground that will let you stun the creature for a while, or change the direction of the cracks stakes cause, or play a cute parody of xevious.



the underground is where most of the action takes place. namco developers used to hang out in arcades and watch people play their games. after dig dug came out, they noted "there were two completely separate groups of people. one group enjoyed blowing the enemy up with the pump. the other group enjoyed beating the enemy by dropping rocks on them." i am one of the latter, and the underground areas of digging strike are rigged with all sorts of traps to foist on enemies (many of them lifted from the "arrangement" mode of dig dug which appeared on the namco classics collection volume 2 arcade cabinet).



the game rewards you for destroying as many enemies as possible, for completing a stage as quickly as possible, or for collecting as many items and weapons as possible. the stages are very replayable, and finishing all of them unlocks "hard" stages which are very, very hard. there are also hidden collectables and parts for power-up items for those who enjoy ferreting out those sorts of things.



what's particularly interesting about digging strike is that the dig dug spin-off mr. driller retroactively filled in the details of the original dig dug's background, and this game is set against that background. taizo hori (white-uniformed hero of dig dug) comes out of retirement jealous of his son susumu's (mr. driller) popularity. he marches stubbornly and gruffly from island to island, reluctantly accepting help from susumu, who follows him by helicopter.



the only thing unfortunate about the game is the english translation. the font the translators chose is particularly ugly and inappropriate, and appears blotchy and pixelated. the translation itself doesn't quite pull off the comic nature of the events onscreen.



it's still a wonderful game, and an actual good use of the ds's two screens.