Anthony Suarez: April 2008 Archives

Don’t be fooled be the simplistic black and white vector shapes. Cursor*10 is a very quick unique and challenging puzzle game that can be played in any web browser as long as it has Adobe Flash installed.

Cursor*10 is a flash game made by Yoshio Ishii, who has made numerous games for Nekogames, using a simple point-and-click control scheme and a simple visual style that reminds me of old DOS and Atari games. Even though the website is Japanese, the game is in English and doesn’t require anyone to learn button combinations or advanced tactics. All the player needs is quick reflexes and a basic understanding of the game’s objectives.

The object of every level in Cursor*10 is to click on the staircase that goes to the floor above, eventually reaching the 16th floor. There is no main character to speak of; however your own mouse cursor could be considered a character in this game. When you start a level, there is a timer at the bottom-right corner that starts at 650 and continues to fall down towards 0 increasingly faster as the player tries to move through each floor. When the timer reaches 0, the first cursor explodes, the message “Cursor No. 2 ready” is showed, and the player restarts the entire game from the beginning. However, this time, Cursor No. 1’s movements and clicks are being replayed as Cursor No. 2 continues to move around, and when No. 3 is ready, its predecessors will be replayed and this continues throughout all 10 cursors. This gameplay mechanic is first used where there is a button on the ground that reveals a set of stairs when the button is pressed and disappears when that same button is released. This forces the player to use Cursor No. 1 to hold that button down until it explodes, then Cursor No. 2 repeats those floors, but this time, Cursor No. 1’s movements are being replayed, which includes holding that button down, giving Cursor No. 2 the chance to go up that flight of stairs and get closer to the 16th floor. The multiplicity strategy is used multiple times, such as another situation where a box needs to be clicked 99 times for the next staircase to be shown but there’s not enough time for 1 cursor to do it, so another cursor must sacrifice its life so the next cursor can make it through.

Out of all the games I’ve ever played in my life, I don’t remember a single one that uses this concept of the player dying and as they use replay the game, their previous actions are replayed in real time in such a way that they help themselves out. It’s a very short game that can be finished in less than 15 minutes once you understand what needs to be done to get to the staircase to the next level.

This makes me wonder if this concept of multiplicity can be implemented in future games; there’s been many interesting puzzle games involving changing your visual perspective of objects (e.g. EchoChrome, Crush, Super Paper Mario), matching specific color blocks (e.g. Audiosurf, Lumines, Dr. Mario) and even blending adventure with puzzles (e.g. Zack & Wiki, Professor Layton). Whatever happens, I’m glad that the puzzle genre is no longer limited to jig-saw puzzles, crosswords and Tetris-clones.

Cursor*10 is a short, fun and original flash puzzle game that is easy on the mind and can be easily played from beginning to end once the player remembers where the stairs are and where the buttons are.

Link: Cursor*10

Do you remember the game Battletoads? It is one of the most difficult games I ever played in my life, and like Contra, you need a second player if you want to get through it without cheating or dying excessively.

The reason why I am mentioning it is because there has been a sudden explosion of rumors regarding a new Battletoads game for the Wii. The second I saw the YouTube trailer, I immediately suspected it was false. At first, I noticed that their fake trailer is simply composed of other Wii-related video clips and stolen 3D videos slapped together, with a announcer talking as if he was a monster truck derby. Also, they took clips from a Red Steel trailer, so a player is slashing the Wii remote like a sword, then they show a clip of one of the Battletoads jumping in the air. This makes no sense. They even mentioned that Battletoads would be on Virtual Console soon, which also made it seem more like a scam.

Battletoads was developed by Rare, who has left Nintendo, and is now making games for Microsoft! There was talk of having GoldenEye 007 on Virtual Console some time ago, however there are many legal rights between Microsoft owning Rare, Nintendo owning the game made by Rare, and Activision now owning the James Bond franchise itself. So in order for Nintendo to get GoldenEye 007 on Virtual Console, Microsoft, Rare, Nintendo and Activision must come to an agreement which they must all abide to. This is no different than if it was the Battletoads game, or even Banjo-Kazooie or Perfect Dark. They even made Perfect Dark Zero and currently working on a new Banjo-Kazooie game for Xbox 360 with no legal issues since Rare owns all the characters and they are both new games and not remakes or ports.

On the fake preorder website, there is a phone number that changes randomly every time it is refreshed. Each number is a Church of Scientology in multiple cities. The idea is that the unsuspecting person calls their church, and when they say "Thank you for calling the Church of Scientology", the person would say "Scientology? I thought this is the number for preordering Battletoads" Can Scientology still operate if they get all these calls about Battletoads? Yes they can! Scientology.org survived a wave of Denial of Service attacks and they'll survive this wave of annoying calls.

I decided to write about this because this actually brought back good memories of when I used to play Battletoads & Double Dragon on SNES. I loved the soundtrack and it was cool to have more players to choose in this one. The giant toad fist that finishes off an enemy is always entertaining and never gets boring. The beat-em-up style and weird punk-style characters made the game stand out very well in an already-crowded video game market.

In summary, I don't believe a single word until Nintendo or Rare makes a statement proving otherwise.

I've been playing lots of GameCube games on my Wii, mostly Animal Crossing and Super Smash Bros. Melee in particular. I also managed to get some new GC games such as GUN, Killer7 and Chibi-Robo. I realized that I was running low on space, so I decided to walk to the Wal-Mart near my house and buy a new one, or at least buy one of the third-party memory cards to save a few bucks.

I walked around the Wii area and the small GameCube area and I couldn't find a single memory card, official or unofficial. They still had their PlayStation 2 stuff since it's not actually dead yet. After a few minutes of wandering aimlessly, I decided to ask one of the Wal-Mart employees.

He looked me in the eyes and said, "We don't have them anymore!" I was boggled, they still sell their GameCubes at $70, and their GameCube games, but they have no memory cards or controllers!

When I inserted my memory card into my Wii for the first time, I assumed that it could use its own storage space and having an actual card is optional, but I was wrong. So usually, I leave the card in its side port in case I ever feel like playing a GC game. It was a slap in the face when Wal-Mart stopped selling the GC memory cards and continued selling the consoles and the games themselves.

I even went to Nintendo.com to order one directly, but their store page is gone. So if I really wanted a GC memory card, I'd either have to go to a used-game store or eBay.

It just boggles me though. If a kid buys a GameCube game, they might forget about the controller or the memory card entirely, and they'll feel ripped off after realizing that they can't be easily bought anymore. The only game that actually comes with a memory card is Animal Crossing (low capacity), but I bought a cheap used copy, so I never got that card. It wouldn't have made a difference, because that card is only enough to save one game, Animal Crossing! I understand that the GameCube has been replaced by the Wii, but how can they still sell the GameCube games while discontinuing the sales of controllers and memory cards? My guess is that Nintendo decided to discontinue them and Wal-Mart decided to sell them all away without restocking, which is why they only have only GameCubes and GameCube games left. The controllers sold out as a result of Smash Bros. proclaiming that the "GameCube controller is the best way to play" since the Wii Remote and Nunchuk don't make extensive use of the motion sensors.

So, I guess that's it for GameCube Memory cards. I don't desperately need one now; I just wanted one as a backup. There's also a GameCube SD Card adapter that uses SD Cards like memory cards, so I might get my hands on that if things get desperate.