Ask 411 Games 03.22.10: Adult Pit, Arcade Horse Racing and A Complete* History Of Gaming!

Posted by Mathew Sforcina on 03.22.2010

Will we get a Modern Kid Icarus? Where's G1 Jockey 2010? And what was the first (insert genre) game ever? All these, plus enough videos to please the most avid historian, only inside!

Hello all, and welcome to Ask 411 Games for yet another week. As of last week I finally purchased my first PS3 game, well first 2 really, in the God Of War Super Mega Wonder Edition With Cream Pies and Chocolate Frosting Ultra Pack. So I'll have a PS3 account just as soon as the sign up process decides it wants to work. But hey, get what you pay for, right?

And thus, having pissed off the fanboys and thus assured hits, Banner!



411 on Twitter!

http://www.twitter.com/411mania
http://www.twitter.com/411wrestling
http://www.twitter.com/411moviestv
http://www.twitter.com/411music
http://www.twitter.com/411games
http://www.twitter.com/411mma

If you don't sign up, then the next DOA game… Uh… is made by Pop Cap. So there…

Remember, questions can go in the comment section, or, better yet, to [e-mail].

And go read 4 Player Co-Op and see me disappoint Randle with practically every question. I should have a Fact or Fiction up soonish too…

Well, looks like it's time for a new feature… Memos!

Memo to Ty: Glad you found the game. Next time though, maybe don't include a specific platform if you're not sure? Thanks.

Memo to T-Bone: Well, my apologies. Clearly someone had hijacked the Wiki page when I saw it, it clearly said male when I checked it, my apologies.

Memo To RavenTazECW: Yes, with MMOs, expansions count.

Memo To Bob: Well, OK, yes, if you want to count that as a game, fine. It has a sequel though, so me missing it didn't actually matter, did it?

Memo To Everyone with ideas for Mascots: Again, you could count them, by all means. A lot of the times though, they aren't so much official mascots as they are the most well known and most populous characters.

Memo to Kerry B: Goldeneye: Rogue Agent is not a sequel. It's tangentially related to the Goldeneye 007 game, but it's in no way a real sequel. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Memo to G-Walla: This Video. Specifically the Mario Jump sequence at the end, where he jumps on Goombas/over a barrel in a reverse historical sequence. If you've seen my Wrestling Ask 411, I have the self-proclaimed best banner on the site with a similar sort of historical progression gif. I want a gif of that jump sequence for the banner.

Oh, and no funny video this week, for reasons that become obvious at the end.

Anyway, let's get this party started with Barry.

Love the column, one of the highlights of both Games and Wrestling.

Do you know if we will see another instalment of G1 Jockey anytime soon?

Thanks.

Well, let's review. The G1 Jockey series was a series of games that began in 1999 on the Playstation. It's a arcade style horse racing simulator, and in an extremely limited field, it's pretty much the best of the lot. The last release of the game was in late 2008, with the release of G1 Jockey 4 2008 on the PS2/3 and Wii. Koei released GIJ4 2007 prior to that, and just plain old GI Jockey 4 in 05/06. But this isn't a new thing, the game series has been big in Japan for quite a while, and most of the previous editions had multiple versions, ala Madden.

Now, is there going to be another G1 Jockey game? Well, so far, none have been announced, so if you're after the pure arcade experience, you're somewhat out of luck. One possible reason for there being no more G1 Jockey games is the Winning Post World series, which began with the simple Winning Post on the 3DO in 1994, although the Saturn port and the various sequels are more well known. The Winning Post series is a much more in-depth game, in that whereas G1 is pure arcade horse racing goodness, WP has always been about racing, breeding AND training. Which for some people is better, others not so much.

Regardless, the WP series does have a new one on the horizon, Winning Post World 2010, due in April, on practically everything with a screen. Here's the promo video for it, in Japanese since there's no English one.



So, in conclusion, a G1 Jockey game isn't out of the question, since they are still making Horse Racing games, but not in the immediate future, at the moment they seem intent on making more in-depth games, not the more arcadey version.

James is up next with another "Where's My Game?" question.

What are the chances of a bad ass reboot of Kid Icarus?

Ah, Kid Icarus, a game that was seen as just a cheap rehash of Metroid until people played it and found out that it, you know, rocked. It's interesting that there has been so much attention and fandom based on TWO games. The original NES classic from 86/97,



and the little known Kid Icarus "Of Myths And Monsters" Game Boy game of 91/92.



Now, of course, having said that, there is the Super Smash Bros Brawl game in which Pit (he's not Kid Icarus, that's a reference to his ability to fly) was a playable character, ranked at the top of the C Tier, according to the fan community (or at least those of the community to support and believe in tiers.)



So, with such a loyal fanbase and with much more obscure and less well liked games getting remakes and updates, and with the little boy becoming a young adult/Manga Hero looking guy in SSBB, a modern Kid Icarus game would be well in the pipeline, you'd wager. You could wave the Wii remote to flap the wings, and shoot the arrow with the pointer, and have some minigames involving cups and balls and…

Maybe not.

But even if you do take the optimistic approach, there has been some work done, with this image, among others, getting leaked in 2008.



But see, this release was from Factor 5, who were merely pitching on the idea, after their work on a Pilotwings game for the Gamecube then Wii was put in the can and Nintendo chose not to publish it. So this was part of a pitch for Kid Icarus to, well… Become a God Of War/Prince of Persia rip off, to be blunt. The plot was for Pit to have committed some crime, and now that he's grown up he's a Fallen Angel, and he has to fight to gain acceptance back and be all broody and gritty and… Yeah.

Now, of course, that's the Bad Ass Reboot that you were referring to. So, will it happen?

Probably not. Apart from the fact that Nintendo aren't working on any Kid Icarus projects, one major stumbling block is in your way.



Yoshio Sakamoto, creator of Kid Icarus and Metroid, would pretty much have final say over Pit's future. And sure, while Metroid is somewhat darker than she once was, she did somewhat begin there. And Sakamoto is big on making games that are unique, like Nintendo's old school games. Turning Icarus into a GOW rip off doesn't seem like his cup of tea.

That said, like the G1 Jockey, it's not impossible, but I'd wager that any future Kid Icarus game would have more in common with Young Link than it would with Kratos.

Denton56 asks what a lot of people wanted to discuss.

Would The World is Not Enough not technically count as a Goldeneye sequel? Same gameplay mechanics, same system, just a different developer (I think).

Well… Not really. EA made TWINE after they tried to make a different game with Tomorrow Never Dies, which was a third person shooter and which failed. TWINE was a totally different publisher and developer. Tomorrow Never Dies was the first Bond game AFTER Goldeneye, so it has to the one with the nearest claim to a sequel. But it's not the same game, it's a totally different game.

Likewise with it's ‘spiritual successor', Perfect Dark. Sure, the two share a lot of similar game play mechanics, but so do a lot of games. Going up the column a bit, would you call Kid Icarus a sequel to Metroid? Of course not, they are totally different games. But they use the same engine.

I stand by Goldeneye 007 on the basis that it didn't have multiple versions (Nintendogs has had versions come out later on [Dalmatians came much later after the earlier ones], so it counts as a sequel, and anyway, I tend to DQ games with multiple versions anyway), nor a direct follow up, there was no ‘Goldeneye 007 2: uWo take over'.

Super Mario 64, while there is no Super Mario 64 2, there is Super Mario Sunshine. I'll admit that it's a fine line, saying that that counts as a sequel while Tomorrow Never Dies doesn't, but again, Sunshine was clearly a follow up, just with a new gimmick. But if you want to count that, then by all means, you can.

G-Walla also had a follow up question about Vendetta.

And in Def Jam Vendetta, didn't you have only 4 characters you could play story mode with? All the others were for like multiplayer and stuff, so you couldn't play through the game with the chick, the same as you couldn't play through it with, say, Ghostface Killah.

Correct, there were 4 premade guys, Briggs, a dishonorably discharged soldier; Proof, an ex-superbike racer; Tank, a massive Japanese fighter and the Disc Jockey Spider. All the stories were exactly the same, just your stats changed. Fight For NY had the improved Create A Guy mode.

And then finally we get to HTGJONES, who gets his first set done now, second set done next week. And, just to really pad out this edition to further the cause of education, video proof for all, if I can find it…

What were the 1st games to be classified as the following

FPS

Technically, given that it was first person and you shot people, Maze War in 1973.



However, the game that defined the genre and is considered the true father of it, is Wolfenstein 3D, 1992, PC.



3rd person shooter

Well, technically, Tomb Raider, PC, 1994, in that it was the first major 3rd person view game where at times you had to kill things.



Although Fade To Black came out a year earlier in 1995 on the PC and Playstation and you can make a case for it.



RPG

Well… If you include Dungeon Crawling games as RPGs, then pedit5, one of the very first video games EVER, fits the bill, in 1974. Since it's a text game, video is a bit silly, so here's how you can gain access and play a bit of gaming's history.



The first RPG game that was actually sold as a game and not just past from Universty Network to University Network was Akalabeth: World of Doom (1979), made by that insane gent, Richard "Lord/General/God British" Garriott.



MMORPG

MUD1. Multi User Dungeon. 1978 and still going, albeit with several reboots and rewrites between then and now. Given that it's text based, a link is all you get.

First commercial MMORPG was Island of Kesmai in 1985.



Racing

Gran Trak 10, an Atari arcade game of 1974. Sadly, no video, but this has pictures of it.

Sports

Well, that would be the second video game EVER, Tennis For Two! 1958.



Although legally, apparently, it's not a video game, this has come up in the courts. Atari Football in 1978 is the first sports game that actually had a somewhat realistic simulation of a game for your Arcade.



Simulation

Simulation? Simulation of what? I've always hated that catch all, it's like "PS3 Games" or "Games With Female Characters", it's so bloody vague that you can't really define it. I mean, Tennis for Two is a simulation game.

But to give you some answer… Hamurabi/The Sumer Game, 1969.

Puzzle

It is, surprisingly, not Tetris, even though Tetris wins for being the first major Puzzle game and one of the most influential and wide reaching games ever, programmed in 1985.



There are several Arcade and ‘Educational' games that you could argue are puzzle games, The Amazing Maze Game being one of the earliest ones, but depending on your definition of Puzzle, it's either Qix from 1981…



Or Loco-Motion, 1982, the first proper, unquestionably puzzle game, says I. Both arcades.



Beat em up

Easy, Kung-Fu Master, 1984. Arcade, obviously.



Platformer

Well, there are two games that might have a claim, Frogs in 78 and Space Panic in 1980.



However, the first true Platformer, with jumping and everything, is our old favourite, Donkey Kong! 1981. All arcade, obviously.



RTS

Stonkers for the ZX Spectrum is one of the earliest games that could be called a RTS, as it was released in 1983.



But the ‘official' first RTS game was The Ancient Art Of War for anything PC with a screen at the time, the time being 1984.



Although the term Real Time Strategy wasn't coined until 1992, with Dune II, which was the first game which was called a RTS.



Movie tie in

Well, beating out ET by a month, I'm not 100% sure of this one, but I'm betting on Raiders Of The Lost Ark for the Atari, November 1982.



Multiplayer

Tennis for two, above.

Online Multiplayer

Thanks again.

Maze War or MUD1, depending on your definition.

Remember, questions can go in the comment section, or, better yet, to [e-mail]. And now I have to shut down the computer, since I've burnt all my bandwidth…