When Chemists Attack

As a kid, I missed part of the evolution of video games. When my Atari 2600 was knocked out by a power surge, I moved on to the Commodore 64 for my gaming fix. And from there, I moved to the Commodore Amiga (a computer that it took Microsoft and Apple a decade to equal). I didn’t get another console until well into the lifespan of the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo.

So I missed out, by and large, on console games for the original Nintendo NES and Sega’s Master System. I’ve since purchased a NES, but I never did buy a Master System. That’s changed a little bit with my latest find in the Target clearance bin.

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[Break Time! is a series of posts about video games that Rick has spent entirely too much time with over the years.]

Due to my busy summer at work, I haven’t been very good about keeping this blog updated over the past couple of weeks. But … it’s time to squeeze in another “break”!

Another one of the Imagic titles in my closet of games is Cosmic Ark.

At first glance, Cosmic Ark appears to be an Atari 2600 knock-off of Midway’s Space Zap^***. Your “Ark” is stuck in the center of the screen, and you fire at asteroids by moving the joystick in whatever direction you want to fire.

First, the asteroids come right at you. Later, they weave and dodge your shots^****. As is usual for this sort of game, the asteroids come at you faster the farther you progress.

Sounds a little … dull, though. Wouldn’t it be more interesting if – instead of sitting in one place waiting for asteroids to destroy it – your Ark actually went somewhere and did something useful?

It turns out that the your Ark’s real mission is to do more than serve as a large target for asteroids. It’s supposed to collect animal specimens from different planets. After each wave of asteroids passes, your Ark visits a planet surface to collect these specimens. You fly out of the Ark in a landing craft and use its tractor beam to pick up your targets.

Your targets, though, are understandably wary of being abducted by alien spacecraft. They’ll dodge your tractor beam. Once you’ve locked on to them, though, you can bring them up into your landing craft without further trouble.

After you pick up all your targets, you fly your landing craft back up into the Ark and depart. Most of the time, there will be an asteroid you must blast (with the Ark) first.

On later planets, your targets become a little more sophisticated. They put up planetary defense lasers that move up and down and blast across the screen. If your landing craft gets zapped, your captured creatures go back down to the planet surface and you have to hunt them down again.

The lasers, combined with the fact that the creatures you want to grab move faster with each wave, make your job much more difficult. Even so, you can’t loiter around the planet too long. If you do, an asteroid will show up and destroy your Ark.

You can fly back into the Ark and blast the asteroid – even if you haven’t caught all your targets. But, there’s a price. You’ll have to fight off another wave of asteroids and then come back to the same planet again to finish collecting your creatures.

Cosmic Ark is another Atari 2600 game that’s still worth popping into your system today. You can pick up the actual cartridge cheaply on Ebay – it’s not a “rare” title. It’s fast-paced, simple, and fun. Plus, it’s a good example of the kind of variety a developer could cram into such a small package.

^***…but I didn’t know that back in 1982. Space Zap wasn’t in our local arcades.

^****Wait a minute! Asteroids weaving and dodging?

[Break Time! is a series of posts about video games that Rick has spent entirely too much time with over the years.]

If you’ve glanced at this series before, you’ll know that I’m a game collector, and have a decent library of Atari 2600 titles to choose from. Most of them aren’t worth pulling out in 2007, but there are still a few that still manage to be fun.

Demon Attack, by Imagic, is one of the fun ones.

Demon Attack’s attract mode^***

The premise of Demon Attack is pretty simple. You control a ship at the bottom of the screen, and your mission is to shoot wave after wave of flying “demons”. The demons? Well, their mission is to destroy you by any means possible.

Part of the fun of Demon Attack is that the game is very simple to play – yet there’s a bit of variety. As is the case in almost all of these games, the aliens get faster as the game progresses. Demon Attack also varies the aliens and their tactics a bit.

First, the aliens change their appearance and how they shoot at you – varying between beams and small clusters of bullets (the small clusters seem a little easier to dodge).

Another variety of aliens

The first few waves of aliens simply die when you blast them. Later on, each alien will split into two smaller ones.

Still more aliens. These aliens split into pairs of smaller ones when you shoot them!

These smaller aliens are not just hard to hit. They have an entirely new tactic. If you shoot one member of the pair, the other member dives at your ship. In later waves, dodging these little guys becomes extremely difficult.

If you shoot one of the pair, the other one tries to dive into your ship!

Like Dark Cavern, Demon Attack is surprisingly intense – and a nice test of your reflexes. It is simple, fast, and fun – well worth looking at if you have an old Atari 2600 or an emulator around.

^***An arcade-like attract mode is somewhat uncommon for Atari 2600 games. Often, game coders didn’t bother with them on the machine, or would show a nearly static screen with cycling colors!

[Break Time! is a series of posts about video games that Rick has spent entirely too much time with over the years.]

I’m a game collector. It’s not rare for me to have multiple copies of the same game in my collection, since I often buy games in large lots along with other games. It is rare for me to buy two copies of a new game, though. Star Ocean 2: The Second Story is the only game I have ever bought twice – while it was still a new game.

Why did I buy the game twice? The short answer is that my copy got damaged to the point that it wouldn’t play anymore. Here’s the long answer.

Star Ocean: The Second Story (which I’ll call SO2 from now on) is a Japanese-style role playing game for the original Playstation.

Title screen

SO2 boasts some unique gameplay elements (for its time). First, there’s the combat system.

In the twentieth century, most Japanese-style role playing games had what I’ll call a “whack-a-mole” combat system.^*** Your party would stand on one side of a battlefield, while your enemy would line up on the other. You and the enemy would take turns attacking each other. Sometimes, the only actions you could take would be to choose what enemy to attack, or use an item or magic spell. Some of these combat systems made your position on the field important, and some didn’t. But these systems, by and large, had one thing in common – extremely tedious combat. There’s only so many times you can mindlessly select “attack” from a menu before you want to throw the controller down onto the floor and stomp on it. Add to this the fact that battles could occur randomly and frequently, and these games could get rather frustrating.

SO2, though, features a real-time combat system. You control one of your four combatants, while the computer controls the other three. You’re free to run around the battlefield and attack enemies. You can evade many attacks by … moving out of the way. You can surround an enemy and beat him to a pulp. (But they can do the same to you, so you have to be careful!)

Combat

Combat is fast and furious. Characters have many special moves, which you use much like the moves in a fighting game. Battles are usually fairly short, and there’s always something going on.

Combat

If your characters are strong enough, you can sometimes sit back and watch the computer kick enemy butt. (This is good for random battles with weak enemies.)

In short, combat in SO2 is actually entertaining, which means that the battles necessary to progress through the game’s storyline don’t seem like a chore.

Speaking of the story, that’s another area where SO2 tries some new things. For one, there are two main characters. You choose your main character at the beginning of the game, and the story is told from that character’s perspective. The events in the story are often similar for both characters, since the two meet each other within the first hour of play. Your choice of main character, though, dictates how you’ll see the story unfold. Some events will only be seen by one of the characters, and some secondary characters will join you only if you’re playing the right main character.

You will see many of the usual Japanese-style RPG cliches. There’s a young girl with a mysterious past and strange powers, a world to save, etc. – but SO2 keeps it entertaining.

You can also influence the outcome of the story. SO2 has about eighty or so different endings (you get more than one “ending” per game – each of your party members gets one) – which depend on your actions in the game. Most Japanese-style RPGs have a single ending. You either get “the ending” at the end of the game, or you die in battle somewhere and get a “game over” screen. But SO2 allows you to interact with your party members. What you say to them (or do to them) influences how much they like you, and will change their fate at the end of the game. You can even pair characters up at the end of the game if you like. How? Mainly through something called “Private actions”:

Private actions

When you enter a town, you usually have the option for your party members to enter either as a group or individually. Entering the town individually starts a “private action”, and you can go find your characters in the town and talk to them.

Private actions

Your choices in these conversations – or your actions in the little quests they may want you to go on – cause characters to like you more or less. There are even characters that may join your party (or not) as a result of these private actions. This adds a lot of variety to the game.

There are mini games (a bunny race, a combat arena, an “Iron Chef” cooking competition) and side quests to keep you entertained as well. You can build custom weapons and armor using items you find or buy. You can customize your characters by buying all sorts of “skills”. You can write novels to earn money or influence how much characters like each other. You can even make your character into a pickpocket who can steal items from the people you meet in your travels. Just don’t steal in front of (or from) your other characters, or they’ll start to dislike you! There’s also a huge bonus dungeon for those who want even more challenge. You won’t be hurting for something to do in this game!

The game isn’t quite flawless, though. The English translation leaves a little to be desired. There are random battles, so it’s sometimes difficult to explore areas without getting disoriented by combat. Plus, the game crashes occasionally in the last dungeon (so make sure to save your game!)

Even with those flaws, Star Ocean: The Second Story is an excellent game. And it’s one I’ve probably spent far too much time on over the years.

^***Sadly, this trend of boring, annoying combat systems has continued into the twenty-first century. I’m looking at you, Xenosaga!