Waterworld

French intellectual journeyman Roland Barthes identified the essential element of photography as "punctum." Punctum refers to the object or image that jumps out at the viewer within a photograph. It is sharp, and it stabs and wounds; it is a personally touching detail in an image that establishes a direct relationship with the object or person within it. Punctum transcends the "studium" of the photograph—that is, the cultural, linguistic, and political interpretations of its contents. Punctum does not have to be limited to photography and images, as it can apply within or between any composition (or series of compositions) in an oeuvre, whether it be literary or musical or dramatic. Nor does punctum have to be complicated. Punctum means, in Latin, the "point," and that is just what it is: the point of the piece that is, ideally, so profound in its connotations that it conveys something far beyond the limitations of words or gestures or even musical notes, something that almost doesn't need to be (or can't be) explained. By no means does punctum have to be triumphal or "good"; indeed, punctum is often about tragedy and pathos (in the latter context, the film The Room comes to mind).

We can search to find punctum in video games, too. As a visual medium, video games could and should be replete with punctum. Indeed, individual games often thrive on account of unique artistic styles. Moreover, video games can in some sense be said to have transcended words, at least insofar as they are often poorly written. Punctum may be there in abundance, should we take a concerted look for it.

Your correspondent has looked and has found Waterworld for Virtual Boy. The game, based on the 1995 dystopian Kevin Costner film of the same name, was released for multiple platforms, but it is the Virtual Boy version that brims with punctum like no other. The movie Waterworld was a would-be blockbuster about a future in which the polar ice-caps have melted, covering the globe in water. It cost an exorbitant amount to make, but was at best unconvincing throughout its bloated 2.5 hour entirety. Consider: the world, in this particular future, was covered in water, but everything was utterly filthy. In the hindsight 2020 affords us, Waterworld looks prescient now, what with the gaining effects of global warming, but it didn't resonate with audiences in 1995, and failed miserably at the box office. The tie-in video game turned out as bad or even worse than the movie for all platforms upon which it appeared, as it amounted to little more than a shooter of the Gladius type that is set, of course, in water. That being said, the Virtual Boy version is a truly special, nigh transcendent kind of awful. 

Nintendo released the Virtual Boy in 1995 as its "32-Bit" system, though it was markedly unlike any handheld or console system released to that point. Supported by two pronged legs, the system was a headset meant to sit upon a desktop, with the expectation that the player would hunch up their neck and shoulders to look down into the twin lenses. The graphics were red monochrome, meaning that every game was effectively rendered in red and black. Extended periods of play, on account of the neck-scrunching and constant exposure to rubicund graphics they involved, could make for a curious breed of vertigo—an enduring hallmark of the Virtual Boy experience. In view of these health concerns, not to mention a slew of critically-lambasted games, Virtual Boy was a colossal commercial failure. It is still widely considered one of Nintendo's greatest mistakes.

Waterworld for Virtual Boy, then, is truly remarkable among terrible video games. It throws all the flaws of the other versions into stark relief, highlighting especially the slow controls, haphazard collision detection, and repetitive adversaries. There are no backgrounds apart from the sunset. Save for the occasional atoll, the water is an uninterrupted sea of black, the red monochrome stripping Waterworld of the one remotely redeeming feature it might have had—the majestic blue of its aquamarine setting. 

So with Waterworld for Virtual Boy, we are left with one of the worst video games ever made, based on one of the worst mainstream movies ever made, on what may very well be the worst video game system ever made. It encapsulates failure across multiple mediums and domains. No more need be said; perhaps too much has been said already. The phrase "Waterworld for Virtual Boy" and, of course, the game itself, stand in tandem as signifiers for "ill-conceived beyond imagination." This latter clause reads like redundant studium, in fact, beyond the immediate, outcropping signification of the game itself. I submit, simply, that Waterworld for Virtual Boy is pure punctum.

***

Ergo, your correspondent has found the ultimate punctum, the ultimate bad game. And now, in the vertigo that comes after having stared into its rubicund, red-monochrome void, it is time for him to put down the controller, and, with that, to drop the third person "your correspondent" schtick. We've travelled three years together, and we've made it from Chrono Trigger to Waterworld for Virtual Boy. Now I must turn my sights toward the ultimate "must-find", that illusive trio of unity, purpose, and meaning in a world increasingly willing to accept that all of what surrounds us might just be a simulation. And right now, on account of a virus, the simulation is getting really rough. It's all hands on deck, which means any hand that can be pried off a controller can potentially be a helping hand. Staring into a CONTINUE screen with the digit diminishing ever closer to zero, I sign off. But this is not GAME OVER...

Capcom Classics Collection

Compilation discs may evoke skepticism in the shrewd game-buyer, and with good cause. Such retrospectives are a dime a dozen and, in essence, rehashes, advertising a plurality of games from bygone eras, many of which are sheer rubbish. And with the Capcom Classics Collection (the first of two volumes for the PS2) there is indeed dross—top-down shooters like Vulgus, for instance, that have not aged favorably. But with that being said, the first of the Capcom Classics Collections is still eminently purchasable. In this essay, your correspondent will argue as much on account of Final Fight, Forgotten Worlds, and the plurality Street Fighter II iterations appearing on the disc.

We begin with the Street Fighters. Capcom Classics Collection (vol. 1) contains Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (1991) and its updates Street Fighter II: Champion Edition (1992), and Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting (1992). There is, as one would expect with the Street Fighter titles, only a hair's breadth difference between the games, particularly the latter two. And indeed, we’ve seen these versions re-released before. However, on this compilation, the PS2's analog stick is a blessing, ensuring that the games play with high fidelity vis-a-vis their arcade versions, and certainly much better than the SNES and Genesis console versions of the 1990s. This disc's Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, in fact, is a much better translation than the stiff and pixelated port that appears on the SNES Classic, the control of which suffers from the comparably rigid Super Nintendo D-Pad. As a bonus, beating all three Street Fighter II games on Capcom Classics Collection opens up a fourth, of sorts, entitled "Deluxe Versus Mode". This mode allows two human opponents to compete against each other with a sampling of characters from all three installments of Street Fighter II series included on the disc. Essentially, Deluxe Versus Mode allows for matchups of fighting styles and costumes that couldn't otherwise be done on any previous game, which should be enough to warrant a purchase for Street Fighter diehards.

The inclusion of 1989's Final Fight, the famed arcade and multiplatform beat-em-up, renders the Capcom Classics Collection even more buyable. The game is, fundamentally, a side-scrolling Street Fighter, allowing the gamer to choose from a street brawler (Cody), karate guy (Guy) or pro wrestler/civic politician (Haggar) and then embark upon a series of hundreds of mini one-on-one (or one-on-two or one-on-three) showdowns; indeed, the boss battles are more formalized fights in the Capcom style. In fact, the first takes place in a wrestling ring against the unfortunately named Sodom—soon-to-be Street Fighter Alpha Samurai—for a no-holds-barred weapons match. The next takes place in a cage against “Andore”, a none-too-subtle Andre the Giant clone. In short, Final Fight's sensibilities are as much pro-wrestling as they are Street Fighter. You can turn these showdowns into handicap matches by enlisting friends, as Final Fight is of course, in the style of the Double Dragon which it was cloning, best enjoyed as a multiplayer game. Certainly, teaming up with a  friend makes dispatching the waves of antagonists much easier. In terms of difficulty, Capcom was gracious enough to afford the player(s) infinite continues in this version, a luxury one did not have on the arcade and Super NES releases. With this merciful concession, now everyone is able to enjoy the game from start to finish—even the not-so-quick of thumb—and so proceeding through Final Fight becomes akin to watching a movie or playing a vinyl, albeit one with which players can actually interact. And while Final Fight may not have the artistry of even a mediocre movie or album, its conclusion is not altogether non-compelling. After button-mashing your way through six levels of cityscapes and subways infested with hoods, hookers and transgender delinquents, the eponymous finishing battle puts you up against a crime-boss named Belger, who weaves all about the screen in his motorized wheelchair, leggy blond in tow. If there had ever been a Final Fight movie, Belger would have been played by Sid Haig. In that way, among others, beating Final Fight is kind of like playing through a B-movie. And, true to the (mean) spirit of most B-movies, you'll feel a certain satisfaction when you reach the game's climax—kicking the wheelchair-bound villain out of a top-floor window.

The third reason for buying the Capcom Classics Collection is 1988's Forgotten Worlds, a game that, contra the modifier in its title, should not be disremembered. This side-scrolling shooter casts you (or you and a friend) into the role of airborne super-soldier with a punk rock haircut and a massive weapon. The screen scrolls slowly, and you can move anywhere on it, all the while shooting in 360 degrees. This feature was quite revolutionary for the time, and affords the player a sense of freedom not found in the majority of elderly games. Kudos to Capcom for delegating this ability to the right analog stick, making rotational shooting silky smooth. As you proceed through wave after wave of flying lizard men and other idiosyncratic baddies, you can collect "zenny" (Capcom's early in-house currency) to periodically purchase weapon upgrades from a shopkeep named Sylphie (whose name says it all, as the gamin blonde is certainly sylphlike.) What makes Forgotten Worlds so unforgettable is its hard-to-place aesthetic. The titular worlds consigned to oblivion seem to have been drawn with reference to the visual cultures of cyberpunk and orientalism, making for an art style that is a bricolage of sci-fi and fantasy, the latter both apocalyptic and intercultural. With the preponderance of Ancient Egyptian motifs, we might venture to label the visual style as "Scarab punk". The villains include dragons and mechanical arthropods, as well as an Egyptian-themed Galactus clone, and even an icicle man who looks like the original PlayStation mascot (and eventual PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale boss). The player will also face-off with a giant zombie head—not unlike Bub from Day of the Dead—half-submerged at screen's bottom. In short, the aesthetic is eclectic. And sonically speaking, the soundtrack crawls on tarantula legs, technocratic and febrile, tinny and tinctured with downbeat valor. In sum, Forgotten Worlds is an action-packed, incomparably surreal tour through an uncannily memorable fantasy hellscape.

On account of the Street Fighters, Final Fight, and Forgotten Worlds, Capcom Classics Collection is a solid purchase that won't be regretted. If the aforementioned games aren't enough to convince the reader, consider that the disc also contains Ghouls 'n Ghosts and Super Ghouls'n Ghosts, the inclusion of which would most certainly justify a purchase for those masochist fans who like their games ultra-hard. Also, the WWII shooters 1942 and 1943 are on there, too, if that's your mise-en-scene. In sum, if you've felt any inkling for any Capcom game at any point in time, there's probably something on the Capcom Classics Collection disc warranting a purchase.

Evil Dead: Fistful of Boomstick

Ash Williams, the matchless main character of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy, never lacked for what the Spanish call duende. The renowned schlock-trouper Bruce Campbell played him brash and loud and yet blunderous, imbuing the character with a charm and magnetism that proves inexhaustible through repeated screenings of the films.

Could this charisma transfer from the cinema to the home console? What would it be like to take control of Campbell’s bumbling, iron-jawed quipster and maneuver him through the over-the-top gore and pandemonium wreaked so wantonly by the Deadites? Would it make for that peak horror experience—that sublime feeling of appalling delight—which the French call frisson? The developer/publisher combo of Heavy Iron Studios and THQ apparently thought so, releasing Evil Dead: Hail to the King for PlayStation and Dreamcast in the year 2000. Set in and around the archetypal cabin from the first two movies, the game took the survival-horror approach, complete with pre-rendered backdrops as per Resident Evil, and it did not impress.

The venerable Bruce Campbell 

THQ, as indefatigable as Ash himself, took another crack at the Evil Dead license, with VIS Entertainment assuming development duties for this second attempt. Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick, released in 2003, shifted from survival horror to hack-and-slash, a genre hypothetically better-suited for the series' carnage and comedic stylings. Things look and sound promising from the outset. We are greeted by Bruce Campbell's familiar bluster, its cadence somehow both smooth and nervy, overtop some sleek graphics to boot, at least in the cut-scenes. The in-game graphics, however, rely on thick, cartoony character models that seem more befitting of, say, Backyard Wrestling: Don’t Try This At Home. The plot is not unforgivable, as it involves the infamous Necronomicon tape from the movies getting played on the airwaves of long-suffering Dearborn, Michigan, subsequently unleashing the dead upon the town. The enemy horde shambles around like zombies, however, giving said dead a vibe that is less Raimi and more Romero. The gamer may never get a good look at the enemy, however, as the camera is atrocious, swinging wildly about. You'll feel empowered, albeit briefly, by the fact you can fire your eponymous boomstick over your shoulder to get the dead slinking up behind you. Ash's chainsaw is also alluring, but once the enemies converge, you've got limited time and limited maneuvering. Maladroit though he may occasionally be, Ash could still wreak unequivocal havoc with the chainsaw in the movies, and we should expect nothing less, since the chainsaw is actually a part of his body. Be that as it may, the game has no sense of chainsaw, or what the Germans call kettensägen. You will die quickly, and you will die often. As such, A Fistful of Boomstick quickly becomes repetitive, restart after restart returning you to the same old waves of enemies, thereby establishing that the slapstick magnetism of Ash-cum-Campbell is indeed exhaustible, at least in terms of gaming.

All told, A Fistful of Boomstick is more than a little appalling, and not in a delightful way. Not even Ash's endless jests (including intermittent 4th wall-breakers) can save it. Nonetheless, those most dedicated to the series will still feel compelled to buy it and put it on their Halloween playlists, as they are, inexorably, what the English call neckbeards.

Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire

In the spirit of the season, with the release of the now-annual Star Wars film upon us, it is high time we think about some of the superlative video games from the movie franchise that marks the greatest marketing force in the history of commercialism. Perhaps the most acerbically underrated of the Star Wars games is Shadows of the Empire for the N64, long dismissed by critics as mediocre or even one of the worst Star Wars games when it is actually one of the best.

Dash Rendar

Shadows of the Empire puts the gamer in the boots of Dash Rendar, a rugged, stubble-chinned Star Wars version of Roland of Gilead (of Dark Tower fame), something of an interplanetary Clint Eastwood. His mission is to rescue Princess Leia from Prince Xizor, the overlord of what is basically an alien mafia. Rendar's quest begins at the battle of Hoth, in which he takes control of a Snowspeeder and helps fell AT-ATs with his skillful deployment of tow cables. The opening level's overall umwelt is nothing short of marvelous, particularly in terms of sound: from the squalling joints of the pachyderm-esque AT-STs to the mechanized chittering of the imperial drones (which has always sounded to this reviewer like they're muttering "Marilyn seems demure" over and over), the audio is spot-on. This is Hoth; you are in The Empire Strikes Back. The game is by no means just a spacecraft simulator; rather, it is a bounteous grab-bag of game types. For the subsequent stages of the Hoth mission, Shadows of the Empire becomes a third-person shooter—though the player has the option to go first-person, which your correspondent finds far more eminently playable and immersive compared to its over-the-shoulder alternative. After that, Rendar gets behind his ship’s gun turret to take out some TIE Fighters, turning the game into a space shooter—and an absorbing one at that. Then the game becomes an outright platformer when Rendar traverses speeding railcars on Ord Mantell, a level that is the apotheosis of the George Lucas experience, all narrowing paths and hair's breadth escapes. Shadows of the Empire even has racing elements, as the unwieldy, breakneck swoop-bike pursuit on Mos Eisley is essentially a chase to the finish.

All of these vastly diverse gameplay components are handled very competently. Some are almost too competent, and in this way, Shadows of the Empire is a victim of its own outstanding features. So good is the Hoth level, in fact, that some have complained the rest of the game pales in comparison. This had repercussions, as later Star Wars games for Nintendo systems, namely the stellar Rogue Squadron series, focused exclusively on this spacecraft-simulator aspect. Ultimately, Shadows of the Empire leans fairly heavily on the third/first-person running and gunning, and this is, admittedly, not quite as captivating as what happens in the air over Hoth. This is precisely the criticism levied by Allgame's Scott Alan Marriott. In a quote this reviewer admits was lifted directly from Wikipedia, Marriott calls the on-foot levels “rather boring, probably due to the less involving third-person perspective.” In response to Mr. Marriot and anyone else with this particular critique, I would suggest they’re playing Shadows of the Empire the wrong way. Switch to first-person. It is real dread you’ll feel when you swing around to run from the angered Wampas’ ponderous pursuit.

This sort of immersion is the principal strength of Shadows of the Empire. The sound-effects, in concert with John Williams' score, make for a thoroughly cinematic feel, as do the graphics which, while somewhat blocky, still benefit from stirring shading effects and gritty, textured backdrops. When seen and heard in first-person, this all contributes to a far more convincing experience of the Star Wars umwelt than comparable games of the time, such as the PlayStation FPS offering Star Wars: Dark Forces, which feels more like the original Doom or Powerslave than it does a true Star Wars game. And that, your correspondent submits to you, dear reader, is what Star Wars is: a series of familiar sounds and images and feelings that are all at once compelling and comforting. Shadows of the Empire has all these crucial evocations, and not only lets you participate within them, but it lets you do so in so many different ways (shooting, flying, racing, and so forth). How, then, can we deny Shadows of the Empire is one of the best Star Wars video games? There are far too many kinds of quality within it to write it off.