IT Magazines, Video Games, and Shinobi

Since the middle of the 80’s I have been buying a lot of magazines concerning all the aspects of computer science and video games (I got interested in the other aspects of IT a little later). At that time, I bought for example Soft & Micro, Hebdogiciel, and the unavoidable Tilt. Later, I read Décision Micro & Réseaux a lot, and Tilt, unfortunately stopped being published. But thanks to Alain Huyghues Lacour (AHL), the console spirit of Tilt could be found in Consoles +. And fortunately, Consoles + still exists. AHL is not its editor in chief anymore, but I am still a subscriber and therefore, I read this magazine every month.

In the March issue, I found a rapid test of the Sega Megadrive Ultimate Collection on PS3. I had already checked the list of all the games included in this compilation, and having all the games in their original version in other compilations I had not found anything of real interest in it for me. Except that… Among the illustrations of this test there was a screenshot of Shinobi with this caption: "Finish the first level of Shinobi III in one credit to open Shinobi Arcade."

Shinobi was at first a platform game by Sega released as an arcade game in 1987 on the excellent platform System 16. The game is not based on a particularly original idea and it was not a revolution for this type of games but it ranks among my preferred games beside Tetris, Bubble Bobble, Puzzle Bobble, Final Match Tennis, the Marios, etc. I spent a lot of time on it in arcade rooms and I still play it at home on my own arcade cabinet. I can end the game, play again and again, experiencing the same thrill. I think that Shinobi’s gameplay is just incredibly deep. The player finds a great pleasure in gaining playing fluency through the precision of the game. Shinobi represents for me a real achievement in terms of video games conception, just like Flower, nowadays on PS3.

Unfortunately, none of the versions on consoles and computers has been able to convey the extremely rich gameplay of Shinobi. It seems to me that the least catastrophic version is the one on PC Engine. And it is incredible to note that the game had not yet been published in a compilation based on the emulation technique to reproduce its functions identically. For a long time I have been hoping that Shinobi would come back in its original version and be accessible to all. It is now done even though it is a bit confidential.

In this compilation on PS3, the emulation of the arcade version is excellent and the bonus is that you can save a game to play it again later. But there is a recurring problem concerning emulation: The standard joystick doesn’t offer the same control as the control of an arcade cabinet and the image on a flat screen is quite different from that produced by a cathode ray tube screen (on this subject, see my project of a second book on video games). Moreover, There is no option to make it possible for the player to get near it, and when you plug the PS3 on a cathode ray tube TV the result is rather a catastrophe. Despite all this, the great pleasure linked to gameplay is there to be enjoyed.

Thanks to Consoles + for the info about this version!

My Second Book About Video Games

Since the publication of my first book on video games (Émulation et jeux vidéo, 2001, Micro Application), I have been working on a second book on the subject : Video Game Screenshots: Cartridge Quintessence. This book, written in three different languages with Lilian Piluso, will present a selection of about 250 video games sold in cartridges on the following systems (between brackets, some precisions, particularly the names of the games in different parts of the world) :

• Atari 2600,
  
• Atari 8-bit (particularly Atari XE Sytem),
  
• Nec PC Engine (Nec Turbo Grafx 16),
  
• Nintendo Entertainment System (Nintendo Famicom),
  
• Nintendo Super NES (Nintendo Super Famicom),
  
• Nintendo 64,
• Sega Master System (Sega Mark III),
  
• Sega Mega Drive (Sega Genesis),
  
• SNK Neo Geo.

At the start I worked on a much greater number of systems (including arcade), but I had to select only a few otherwise the book would have had far too many pages. My talks with Winnie Forster from GAMEplan allowed me to define the editorial line more precisely. It is therefore a selection of cartridge video games, not including portable consoles. This basis anchors the selection in time and in the market of video game consoles. A part of the book explains this approach and another presents the selection. For each game there is on one page :

• the title,
  
• the year of publication,
  
• the picture of the console,
  
• supplementary information (alternative title, name of the console, publisher, developer, name of the series and information on the arcade version if there is one),
  
• a presentation text (thanks to Lilian Piluso for writing it) in three languages (German, English and French),
  
• a photo of the title screen (1/8 of the page),
  
• a photo of the first level (half of the page).
  

The particularity of this book is to propose high quality screenshots. Not just screenshots made from emulators but real photographs taken on a cathode ray tube TV set showing the signal coming from the original consoles. The idea is to reproduce in a high resolution medium (a book), a visual impression of the games identical to what the players saw. The ambition is therefore linked to the conservation of this very particular visual impression (with horizontal lines being clearly visible).

This approach is complex :

1. It is necessary to make a selection by associating simple criteria. I have spent a great number of hours playing, but I am not an expert in all the genres and most of all on all the consoles. So I have proposed provisional versions of my selections to friends and contacts and more generally on specialised forums such as those of the site Gros Pixels.
   
2. It is necessary to gather varied information on the games. I found help in some big data bases, for example Moby Games.
   
3. It is necessary to possess all the games and consoles in question. This took me several years. Fortunately some of my contacts in Japan and the US have been able to help me.
   
4. It is necessary to make photographs which is difficult for many reasons, particularly because you must avoid the too dark or too bright bands on the picture and the watered effect (as well as a visible twinkling on the photo). After having tested different professional video equipment I finally found a really satisfying solution.
   
5. It is necessary to write presentation texts. In that, I was lucky to meet Lilian Piluso who wrote them all.
   

Another very important point: I have to find a publisher.