As I mentioned during the first Blast Processed Life post, one of the deciding factors behind my acquisition of a Genesis in the June of 1990 was Sega’s limited-time offer of a free Power Base Converter peripheral and choice of launch title with the purchase of their 16-bit console.
The Power Base Converter, a clunky pass-though device which allowed one to play Master System games on the Genesis (though the actual backwards compatibility was built into the Genesis system’s chipset), was the real draw, as I had a huge library of SMS games and an increasingly unreliable console on which to play them.
I was a bit less enthusiastic about the choice of free games Sega offered though the promotion, consisting as they did of so-so (Space Harrier II) to terrible (Super Thunder Blade) versions of older arcade titles with a few sports games and forgettable original efforts thrown into the mix. I eventually decided — by default — upon Last Battle…
…a side-scrolling beat ‘em up set in a harsh post-apocalyptic world where burly dudes in high fashion bikerware wage high-stakes martial arts battles over the Earth’s scarce remaining resources.
If that sounds a lot like the premise to Fist of the North Star (a.k.a. Hokuto No Ken), that’s because Last Battle was a license-scrubbed and sanitized localization of a Japanese game based on the ultra-violent anime and manga franchise. (Nor was it the first time Sega pulled this trick, either.)
Instead of whipping up a brand new storyline and cast of characters, the folks in charge of bringing the game to the North American market went the copy and replace route, retaining the source material’s confusing backstory of dynastic betrayal but with new and laughable character names. For example, the taciturn, organ-detonating protagonist Kenshiro…
…was stuck with the Eye of Argon-esque handle “Aarzak” (short for “Aaron Zachary Throckmorton III”).
In addition, Last Battle dropped the (tame) gore effects associated with the Hokuto No Ken franchise…
…and indulged in a little pallete -swapping to make the bosses (destined for grisly demises) a little less “human” in appearance…because making someone pop open and explode like an oversized zit is wrong unless said person has turquoise skin.
Weird localization decisions aside, Last Battle is a perfect example of how an innovative and potentially greatgood entertaining game can get hamstrung by a number of fatal flaws.
The game’s visuals and sounds (in that Phillip-Glass-meets-Mike-Oldfield-meets-Pink-Lady way common to early Genesis titles) are great, and the punch/kick/jump configuration made possible by the Genesis’s three-button controller represented a paradgim shift in how one played console beat ‘em ups.
Last Battle also took a page from Bionic Commando, Super Mario Brothers 3, and Clash at Demonhead in terms of level design that incorporated branching paths laid out on a boardgame-styled world map…
…with diverse locations ranging from typical punch-and-run levels to obstacle-filled “dungeons” to boss-fight arenas. Finishing an area usually results in a short and nonsensical encounter with a supporting character who grants Aarzak some form of power-up.
In theory, Last Battle could have been a 16-bit, single player successor to the much-loved NES RPG/beat ‘em up, River City Ransom. In practice, however, the game as a whole falls way short of the sum of its parts.
Despite the Last Battle‘s nominally branching pathways, there is a very strict linear route which must be followed to complete Aarzak’s travels, and it happens to be the most punishing and repetitive one. Even worse, the game is of the old fashioned “finish in one sitting” school of design, having neither a save nor password system…
…which wouldn’t be an insurmountable issue if Last Battle didn’t rely so heavily on a slow process of attrition to make up the game’s challenge. While this may have been intended to make sidetrips for a needed strength or health boost a strategic decision, it too often results in a completely disproportionate cost-to-gain ratio exacerbated by the game’s fondness for bleeding Aarzak out with frustrating juggle hits from both enemies and the environment.
As much as my brother and I (Fist of the North Star fans, the both us) tried to enjoy Last Battle, the game’s irritating flaws ended up being too much to bear.
In fact, the only vivid memory I have of the game comes from a few years after the cartridge was consigned to the back shelf of our entertainment center and during one of the rougher patches in our fraternal relationship. For some reason I dropped the “All is not well with the world” line from the game’s title crawl into a conversation we were having. My brother wracked his brain to remember where it came from, and assumed it was from some lofty work of literature.
I popped Last Battle into the console and squatted down in front of the TV, revealing the source of the quote while I mocked him for being pretentious. Not realizing how pissed off he was, I gave him a back-handed shove…which he responded to by tackling me and pummeling my head with his fists. I came out of it with some bruises on my face and a temporary loss of hearing in my left ear.
It was the last of our kiddie-crap physical confrontations. He thinks it’s because he finally whomped me. I think it’s because we finally grew the fuck up. Whatever the case, it was certainly more entertaining and memorable than Last Battle ever was.
Welcome to another happening episode of “Are You Prepared?” The stakes have gotten higher this time out, as our three competing cities must now contend with the advent of thermonuclear devices which make the old atomic models seem positively kittenish in comparison.
The fate of millions is on the line, people. How will our trio of perky metropolitan areas hold up under the overpressure! Let’s check with our judges’ absolutely final rulings and find out.
San Francisco: Pretty much fucked.
Spokane: A noble (and presumptuous) effort, but still pretty much fucked.
Pittsburgh: Also fucked, but for reasons other than a mere nuclear attack.
Well, folks, it looks like another winnerless week! Will the streak ever be broken? Tune in next time as we ask another set of dense urban areas to out-think the unthinkable on the show that asks (somewhat rhetorically) “Are you prepared?”
(images taken from the April 12, 1954 issue of Life Magazine)
Though the federal government balked at creating a comprehensive system of public fallout shelters, it was more than happy to encourage survival-minded individuals to construct their own little bulwarks against nuclear armageddon. These backyard bunkers may have offered little to no realistic protection against the massive overkill made possible by the advent of thermonuclear warheads and ICBMs, but their true purpose was psychological in nature.
By placing the onus of responsibilty for survival on the individual, the government found a mechanism by which to sidestep uncomfortable truths regarding the arms race and the actual effects of a nuclear exchange. Existential dread — or worse, public reaction against Cold War brinksmanship — by the public was forestalled by convincing Joe and Jane Public that they could take active steps for their survival with a stack of cinderblocks, a piss bucket, and a little elbow grease.
(People were certainly gullible back then, right? By the way, how are you fixed for duct tape and plastic sheeting?)
The commodification of civil defense spurred a whole slew of entrepreneurs seeking to profit from the public’s atomic anxiety. Everything from camping gear to canned goods to board games (nothing like some Scrabble to pass the time until the beta particles decay to safe levels) was rebranded as shelter essentials, and the fine folks in the construction trade were more than happy to flog both materials and “expert” guidance to the suburban bunker builder…
…even if the promised results seemed to fly in the face of even the most basic knowledge about the effects of a nuclear blast.
I believe the correct term for a plywood bomb shelter is either “coffin” or “kindling,” depending on its distance from ground zero and the effective radius of the thermal pulse.
If I was going to be vaporized during a pissing match between two global economic hegemonies disguised as a lofty ideological crusade, I ‘d want a good view, too.
Recommended listening: The Hates – Nuclear Age (from Panacea, 1982)
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Let the final barbecue commence with this lean and tasty cut of Texan punk, served with a garnish of apocalyptic dread and your choice of radiological side effects.
(images taken from the January 1961 and January 1962 issues of Popular Mechanics)
I used some of my birthday money to pick up a Marvel Super Hero Squad Deathlok figure, which means that I can now re-enact my favorite kid-friendly (ages 3 and up) adventures of everyone’s favorite post-nuclear cyborg supersoldier!
(lifted from Astonishing Tales #33, in case you were wondering)
How does one go about confronting the terrible prospect of a world scourged by atomic fire and poisoned by radioactive fallout? The editors of the August 10, 1959 issue of LIFE Magazine decided to blunt the sharp edge of armageddon with a light-hearted photo-essay about a ghoulish promotional stunt…
I thought white folks sheltered themselves in gated subdivisions and afflulent suburban enclaves.
“Dear diary, I thought my murdering days were behind me, but Melvin’s inability to close the lid of the portable toilet has rekindled my old thirst for blood.”
“Think of it, honey… Everyone we used to know, all the places we used to visit have been blasted into — GIN! I win!”
The expression on Maria’s face suggests there’s a part of her that will never emerge from the bunker.
I’m not sure what to make of the fact that the two best non-performance “punk rock” movies of the 1980s — Repo Man and The Return of the Living Dead — were genre films that premiered as the scene had begun to wane.
They’re both great films (with exceptional soundtracks), but while I’ve never had any problems with making time for Repo Man, my viewings of The Return of the Living Dead were limited to once every five years or so. It’s easy to digest apocalyptic themes when wrapped in absurdity, less so when they’re in service to a comedy of miscalculations blacker than a coal miner’s lung.
As such, The Return of the Living Dead is the most effective portrayal of doomsday in an era filled with (largely bombastic and self-important) apocalyptic scenarios. Once that first gear slips, that initial fuck-up occurs, neither good intentions nor bold action can halt the downward spiral. In fact, they only make things worse.
That’s where the true terror of the film lies, not in the fairly honky-tonk and low-budget visual scares, but in the realization that the final kiss-off has been determined by circumstances beyond anyone’s control.
This is how the world ends. Not with a bang, but a nervous giggle…and a pretty incredible punk soundtrack.
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I try to avoid using tracks that have been featured in previous Halloween Countdowns, but:
- It’s a fantastic song by fantastic band.
- The Cramps and 45 Grave have already been spotlighted this month.
- While it amuses me to no end that Stacey Q (as a member of SSQ) has two contributions on the soundtrack, I’m not cruel enough to inflict either of them upon you.
Shocks and frights may cause sleepless nights, but more subtle horrors linger.
With that in mind, I’d like to present the following passage from one of my favorite novels, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. Having gotten past the author’s socialist allegory about the horrible consequences of class division, the novel’s protagonist uses his invention to journey into the far future, where a cold, dying earth exists in perpetual twilight beneath a swollen red sun.
‘The darkness grew apace; a cold wind began to blow in freshening gusts from the east, and the showering white flakes in the air increased in number. From the edge of the sea came a ripple and whisper. Beyond these lifeless sounds the world was silent. Silent? It would be hard to convey the stillness of it. All the sounds of man, the bleating of sheep, the cries of birds, the hum of insects, the stir that makes the background of our lives—all that was over. As the darkness thickened, the eddying flakes grew more abundant, dancing before my eyes; and the cold of the air more intense. At last, one by one, swiftly, one after the other, the white peaks of the distant hills vanished into blackness. The breeze rose to a moaning wind. I saw the black central shadow of the eclipse sweeping towards me. In another moment the pale stars alone were visible. All else was rayless obscurity. The sky was absolutely black.
‘A horror of this great darkness came on me. The cold, that smote to my marrow, and the pain I felt in breathing, overcame me. I shivered, and a deadly nausea seized me. Then like a red-hot bow in the sky appeared the edge of the sun. I got off the machine to recover myself. I felt giddy and incapable of facing the return journey. As I stood sick and confused I saw again the moving thing upon the shoal—there was no mistake now that it was a moving thing—against the red water of the sea. It was a round thing, the size of a football perhaps, or, it may be, bigger, and tentacles trailed down from it; it seemed black against the weltering blood-red water, and it was hopping fitfully about. Then I felt I was fainting. But a terrible dread of lying helpless in that remote and awful twilight sustained me while I clambered upon the saddle.
I’ve read, watched, and listened to a good deal of spooky fare over the years, and responded with the appropriate level of shivers, laughter, or disgust. While more transitory frights have come and gone, Wells’s description of that desolate world-to-come never fails to elicit the existential terror I felt upon first reading the passage some twenty-five odd years ago.
Recommended listening: Nick Ingman – Death of a Landscape (from KPM 1206: Cause for Concern, 1976)
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Another vintage environmental nightmare, from a collection of library music pieces with a cautionary slant and an era where ecological snuff porn was an integral part of every schoolchild’s curriculum.
Today’s gamer with a hankering for superhero-themed material is relatively spoiled for choice. Granted, the lion’s share of such titles consists of unplayable drek cranked out to piggyback on the anticipated success of some CGI-heavy blockbuster, but even so there are a respectable number of options that meet or exceed the minimum “enjoyable trash” threshold.
The same could not be said for the Atari Age. Despite the various game publishers’ willingness to license the most baffling properties for their wares and the fact that it was a time where kids actually read comics on a regular basis, the superhero genre was represented on the 2600 by a whopping two titles.
Neither game was particularly inspired, though Superman is by far the worse of the pair, mainly because it’s a first-party effort from 1979 with pretensions of being an “adventure” game.
I say “pretensions” because for all the half-assed efforts at world building and rudimentary puzzle solving done by Atari’s stable of deliberately uncredited programming proles, the game amounts to a vaguely Superman-like conglomeration of pixels muddling around a minimalist cityscape plucked from Frank Gehry’s fever dreams.
In a bold move for a game which promised the opportunity to take the role of the most powerful being on the planet, Superman’s vast roster and well-documented roster of superpowers was limited to flight and the ability to use “telescopic vision” to take a peek at whatever uninteresting sight awaits the player on the next screen. Then again, neither heat vision nor super-strength were required for the apparently random series of tasks (drop crooks off in the world’s least secure jail, find parts to rebuild a bridge) posing as an overarching plot.
Spider-Man, released in 1982 by Parker Brothers, dispensed with the confusing abstractions in favor of shamelessly cribbing from Crazy Climber, a successful arcade game from a few years prior, but with the dual-stick action swapped out for webswinging and the condor replaced by the Green Goblin.
Players are tasked with guiding Spidey up the face of progressively larger skyscrapers in order to defuse (in the 2600 simplified symbolic logic, “touch”) doomsday devices planted at the top by his nemesis.
It’s not a terrible game, and the webswinging parts are pretty well done — particularly Spidey’s ability to save himself from a fatal plunge by zipping off a webline — but I’ve never been able to reconcile the theme of the Spider-Man comic stories with the pessimistic old school gameplay.
As Bruce Sterling once pointed out, classic videogames had an extremely bleak outlook rooted in coin-op economics but reflective of a time when nuclear annhilation and other catastrophic events loomed large in the public’s consciousness. No matter how many Galaxians one shot down, missiles one intercepted, or power pellets one ate, all roads inevitably led to a GAME OVER screen. Given that Spider-Man has been traditionally portrayed as the hard luck, everyman hero capable of struggling past all obstacles, there’s something disconcerting in knowing that his in-game counterpart is fated to meet his end with a digitized thud after pancaking himself on the pavement while evil triumphs.
Of course, that could also be a lasting effect of reading the original “Days of Future Past” X-Men story around the same time my brother got the Spider-Man game.
Parker Brothers intended to follow up Spider-Man with a game featuring the Incredible Hulk, though the Crash of ’83 killed those plans (along with Parker’s Brothers’ videogame division as a whole). Judging from the game’s listing in the company’s final videogame catalogue…
…I don’t think the world was any poorer for that turn of events.
While talking with friends a few weeks back, I likened Jimmy Fallon’s opening monologues for Late Night with the North Korean atomic weapons program. Though the connection between Fallon’s utter lack of charisma and a rogue state’s penchant for nuclear brinksmanship is both obvious and intuitive, these so-called “friends” of mine saw it as an opportunity to mock what they claim is an apocalyptic obsessiveness on my part.
Okay, so I might tend to gravitate towards certain subjects — like the sense of existential dread which has lingered from a childhood spent in the shadow of the Bomb — but there are other, less armageddo-centric, aspects of my inner life…
…like my interest in creating sustainable paradise worlds in the SNES port of SimEarth.
Behold fair Andrewlusia!
It’s an environmentally temperate planet, and at the initial moment of random creation hosts a remarkable level of biodiversity and some scattered outposts of advanced civilization.
To make sure the planet’s citizens get off on the right track, their developmental priorities have been established thusly:
As a result, the Andrewlusian people are moral, technically-progressive, and quite prolific. Their aesthetic tastes may be strictly middle-of-the-road, but syndicated episodes of According to Jim are a sacrifice they are willing to make for an ecologically sustainable society.
Soon enough, the virtual residents of the planet have spread out to all corners of the globe. Although instructed to exploit only green sources of energy, industrial pollution becomes an endemic problem with grave environmental consequences.
Despite the desertification of the equatorial regions and sharp decline in biodiversity (down to a handful of avian species and whatever sea life has managed to escape the gill nets of the Andrewlusian fish stick cartels), civilization quickly reaches the Atomic Age.
The Andrewlusians, having chafed so long against the unreasonable and anti-business programs of progressive technocratic elites, decide that a change in priorities is in order.
Morality is deemphasized in favor of rational self-interest, scientific development is restricted to finding more and better ways to deep fry foodstuffs, and it is decided that to put all the energy infrastructure eggs into one fissile basket. Artistic output is limited to eight hour blocks of Rock of Love and Two and a Half Men.
The reliance on the “invisible hand” over bleeding heart, namby-pamby, foo-foo idealism does spark a massive spike in the global population and development. Unfortunately, while fissile materials may provide incredible bang for the buck, they are also a non-renewable resource and one that is depleted in a matter of years.
No worries, though, as the iron law of supply and demand will ensure a mutually acceptable solution for the parties involved. Trust in the power of rational self-interest and everything will work out in the end.
Sort of.
Still, once it becomes clear what horrible forces have been loosed upon world, the Andrewlusian populace will come to its senses and cease such suicidal folly.
Oh, well. Time to generate another virtual world and hope that the seventy-third time’s the charm.
Recommended listening: The Anti-Nowhere League – World War III (from We Are…The League, 1982)
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I would also like to say that the rumors that I have a large directory of atomic war-themed music — such as this cheery track from the ANL’s marvelous debut album — on my desktop are libelously false.
Even as bluenosed crusaders fought to label basic information about family planning as smut most foul, acolytes of the P.T. Barnum school pimped far more lurid wares under the plausible deniabilty of “educational purposes.”
It’s an old dodge, applied through the ages to such things as roadshow “birth of a baby” two-reelers, Mondo Cane, dubious “marriage manuals,” and sideshow attractions.
Comic books, too, were occasionally marketed in such a manner. Pre-Code crime titles often plead a higher intent in defense of their more questionably tasteful content (“Let this graphic depiction of a scantily-clad woman getting a syringe in her eye show that CRIME DOES NOT PAY, kids!”) , but even Atomic War got into the act with an essay contest, complete with cash prizes:
It was quite noble of Ace Magazines to take such a moral stand at the height of Cold War anxieties, and the stories in the comic do indeed depict the dangers, horror, and utter futility….
…of the Godless Reds’ attempt to challenge the rightful supremacy of the Greatest Nation on Earth.
Recommended listening: Sonny Russell – Fifty Megatons (from a 1963 single)
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Sporting a yield of fifty megatons, the Soviet RDS-202 hydrogen bomb was the most destructive device ever created by mankind. The weapon was too unwieldy (requiring a customized bomber for delivery and a parachute to ensure the vehicle could escape the blast radius in time) and overpowered for practical use. (Because we wouldn’t want to go overboard when it comes to global thermonuclear armageddon, right?) This did not prevent hawkish American think-tanks from citing the RDS-202′s yield in order to spur increased spending on nuclear armaments.
The sole test firing of the weapon was done at an Arctic Sea island test site on October 30, 1961, as part of the high-stakes dick-waving contest between Washington and the Kremlin. Though detonated as an airburst, the RDS-202′s five mile blast radius meant the initial fireball was able to make ground contact, and the resulting mushroom cloud from the explosion reached a height of forty miles.
Sources are unclear whether or not space alligators did indeed manifest at the RDS-202 test site following the event, as claimed by Mr. Russell.
My name is Andrew Weiss. I am happily married to The Queen of Animals, and we live in a house on the hillside filled with pets and a shared collection of popcult ephemera.
I am an obsessive retrologist and hopeless dilettante. I also have a complicated relationship with my home town of Woburn and the Bay State in general.
I can be reached at bitter DOT andrew AT gmail DOT com.
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The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy. - Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus
The saddest day of your life isn't when you decide to sell out. The saddest day of your life is when you decide to sell out and nobody wants to buy. - Norman Spinrad, Bug Jack Barron
The tragedy of your time, my young friends, is that you may get exactly what you want. - Inspector Shrink, Head
It was incredibly stupid, yet we danced to it. - Maura, Queen of Animals
Your tears are sweet sweet nectar to bitterandrew. - Dave Lartigue
Sometimes you are literally the grossest person I know. - Chris Sims
, 1985)
by H.G. Wells. Having gotten past the author’s socialist allegory about the horrible consequences of class division, the novel’s protagonist uses his invention to journey into the far future, where a cold, dying earth exists in perpetual twilight beneath a swollen red sun.
or 
the minimum “enjoyable trash” threshold.
, 1982)
