Games and Memories

[tamakun]

Wandering through videogame_tales brought back a lot of memories and nostalgia, and at the same time a desire to search out and play these old games...

I spent some time reading about Ecco the Dolphin about a month ago, courtesy of kjorteo's comments. Apparently I was never privy to the actual storyline as I discovered that there's a story about aliens coming to harvest the Earth for its food, and Ecco has to use an Atlantean Machine to go back in time to save them? Wow, since this was before the internet I guess I never found out. Now I kinda want to play it! But I get this vague feeling that the commercial from back in the day actually had That Alien Head in the video. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's a bit of a spoiler, innit? ^^

There's apparently a whole lot of extra stuff that was left behind in the game that was never accessible and unfinished - a stage after fighting the Alien, called The Stomach. Eww.

There was a first-person adventure game that was rather gory and gruesome (way back in the days before Mortal Kombat) featuring Elvira. I wonder if any of my friends played it? Well, apparently you can wander in a small area of the game, which is apparently part of the actual Horrorsoft website (who are the original developers).

For some reason, when I first started writing this post to myself, I had written down Psycho Fox and Decap Attack. Decap Attack seems to fit with the "gross" end of the spectrum of games, but I have no idea why I wanted to look up Psycho Fox, because I never had a Sega Master System and never played this game before in my life.

While I'm rambling, anyone remember Boogerman? I used to love Interplay games. it's too bad they folded. What are the people from that now-defunct company doing now, I wonder... (an interesting comment on that video states that Naughty Dog made this game before they were Naughty Dog.)

Comments

[kjorteo]

For some reason, "secret" (dummied out) stuff from old retro games is always endlessly fascinating.

For some reason, Ecco games are always endlessly off-putting.

By linking to a secret mystery non-level in Ecco, I suspect you are setting up some sort of alluring yet deadly trap.

Are you a pitcher plant? This is relevant information to consider before I click (or not, since I already did, oops).

[tamakun.livejournal.com]

I'm still kinda curious about Ecco, back in the day I remember it being rather popular and fun. I'm just... a little worried about this strange sci-fi twist the game has.

Despite the fact that The Stomach actually doesn't seem to feature anything stomach-like but does feature abilities from Ecco 2, what did you think? Do you think they were giving a sneak-peek at the sequel, even before the sequel was in production?

[kjorteo]

I actually never was as scared of Ecco as its reputation implies with everyone else (though you should definitely talk to davidn about his... experiences with it) but to me, I never could get into the games because they were just so... bleak. Other NPCs are very rare (it's a very lonely series, really) but when they do appear they tend to be about as helpful as in freaking Simon's Quest ("THE MARKS ON YOUR HEAD LOOK LIKE STARS IN THE SKY" what does that even mean how do I do this level help.) The puzzles are very obscure, frequently on the order of either "sing to this crystal over here, that somehow gives you the power to break the crystal way over there when you sing to it but only for 30 seconds and no one ever told you that" or "there is a crystal you can roll around by singing to it WHERE DOES IT GO AND WHY." The music is relatively infamous for having a... distinctive style ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO7Fvd48By8 , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxV1ya3mvU0 ) that others say enhances the creepiness, but I say it enhances the bleakness.

As for The Stomach... hmm. Clearly it wasn't supposed to be a sneak peek if they removed it, but like the poster said, the fact that they went so far out of their way to actually remove it instead of just dummying it out is, in and of itself, curious. I really don't know!

[tamakun.livejournal.com]

That second one is the opening song for the sequel? Geez, that's ... not the happiest song I've heard, by any means. Definitely more ominous than anything...

[davidn]

And the best part, of course, is that there was a password that led you straight into the heart of the Gigeresque madness that was very easy to put in by accident, when you only knew of the lonely yet calm oceans in the early stages of the game. That was how I found out about the later storyline. It's the greatest example of pure evil compressed into a cartridge.

Also, I need to write more for that community again!

[kjorteo]

I knew there was a storyline in Ecco 2 (if... a somewhat minimalistic one) due to making it as far as the "Good Future" level, where the huge-finned future dolphin shows up and takes me to his time for whatever reason. The good future is awful, though; the future dolphins are just as Simon's Quest-y and unhelpful as the present ones, their home happens to have the cruelest "sing to this crystal to be able to sing to that one" puzzles of the entire portion of the game up to that point, and those water tubes. I never did get past that level. And that's supposed to be the good future? Stupid future dolphins and their stupid future.

Edit: Upon further contemplation, I have decided that if "Stupid future dolphins and their stupid future" isn't the name of a band or song or something by this time next year, I will be very disappointed.

[davidn]

It's pretty much the same feeling as there is in Myst... you can float around and fiddle with things, but there's never much of an indication as to what you're supposed to be doing. You actually got much further in Ecco 2 than I ever did unaided, because I got stuck after the into-screen loop race thing (in which - see above - I'm not sure what I did to pass it) in the area with the ship. I had no clue that I was supposed to vibrate the crystal off its pedestal by rhythmically using the sonar on it - nothing behaved like that in the first game, they would either shake infuriatingly or pass a set of rings on to you. Though what either of those things meant was anybody's guess as well.

[kjorteo]

I actually hit across the idea of dislodging it by making it swing too far away from the center fairly early on--blame my having played Out of This Another World, I guess--but to this day I honestly have no idea what the trick to actually executing that is other than keep singing and eventually it will fall off? Either the logic of "sing when it's moving back already to push it back farther, thus making it swing more" works until it's near the edge of its range and then suddenly and spontaneously replaces itself with God knows what, or the timing just becomes exponentially more strict for the last one or two shots, but... I remember fighting with that thing for a while, with the instant the game finally decided it was good enough and the crystal is dislodged now always seemed somewhat arbitrary.

The shaking and rings, of course, are for the "singing at this one gives you the power to actually destroy one of the ones way over on the other side of the level instead of it just shaking ineffectively, but not only are we not telling you that, but we're also not telling you which crystal it unlocks or the fact that the power only works for X seconds and if you're not quick you'll have to come back to the power-dispensing crystal and try again" puzzles. Have I mentioned how much I hate the good future level?