Son of a Pitch: Street Fighter 4 M.U.G.E.N. edition

Wat Stwengt! Bot Dun Fohgut dea many guyslike ew oll over dewowld.

You know, I've always wanted to make a fighting game. You have no idea. And when I first learned of M.U.G.E.N more than 10 years ago, I thought I'd finally be able to. Well, turns out it was a lot more complicated than I'd thought.



Still, I 've always had M.U.G.E.N. in my mind one way or another. It's been kept alive by a community that is as vibrant as it is overzealous, and even the makers of M.U.G.E.N going into Odinsleep couldn't kill the dream. Some truly amazing games and characters have been made by the community. But I think there's been a huge oversight.





Street Fighter IV. I don't think anyone has made stages, or chars of Street Fighter IV. But why? It's got cool characters and It wouldn't be any more work than any other M.U.G.E.N sprite ripped character. Hell, it's be even less, with the small amount of moves and frames the game has. It's just a Nes game for crying out loud!

Wait, you thought I meant THE Street Fighter IV made by Capcom in 2009? Silly me! I should have been more specific. I meant Gouder Co,'s 1993 Bootleg Street Fighter 4 for the NES.

They put the name on the character select screen just to fuck with you.

Mr Gouder must have known that making a fighting game for the NES was a bad idea. The system didn't have the input speed or graphic capabilities for something as complex as a fighting game. However, he must have liked money and facing legal charges for copyright infringement, because he chose to name his game Street Fighter IV, despite Street Fighter III not existing until several years later. I can just imagine being a kid in 1993 that has spent hours with Ryu, Ken and the rest of the gang from Street Fighter 2, suddenly being faced with a game that promises to skip over a whole sequel. However, the game is, unlike the Kart Fighter Nes Bootleg, only barely related to Street Fighter. This Bootleg went all the way, forging new ground into derivative plagiarism.

Shameku...Shoddyuken!

The cast consists of Shoto ripoff Goho Li, and his identical twin Cliff, Playboy Kitty Tracy and her doppleganger Bunny, Buddhist monk Moon and his smirking duplicate Chunfo, Twin Shotos Rober and Pasta, and tough army guys Ranboo and Stanlong.

They ruled out "Cobro", "Racky" and "Stepormamomwilshootyu" early on.

So what am I asking of the M.U.G.E.N. community? To remake a Nes game that had 4 Ryus and a Erin ripoff? Somewhat. I mean, I know you guys like frankenspriting and shotos. Well, how about if instead of making yet another version of Ryu, we frankensprite a new Street Fighter IV? We could figure all new ways to make Pasta different from Rober. I mean, honestly, there's less Shotos in Bootleg SFIV than there where in actual SFIV, and you guys still can't live without that Akuma.

It is dan all over again...

I, as I said, am no good at M.U.G.E.N. At any part of it. And what I learnt is that what the community most needs is coders. Which is part of what I'm terrible at. But maybe, if more than one of us gets their shit together, we can finally bring Tracy back. Who's with me?

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Son of a Pitch: A Mild Mannered Super Hero Game

Super-Sock em!

As I played that awful Batman Game y'all where talking about, a thought started to grow on me: Superheroes videogames still have room to grow.

Sure, we've outgrown summer movie license superhero games universally sucking. We're even past the time a videogame based on Batman just HAD to be terrible. But there's  still aspects of Superheroes that aren't being covered. This is a bit of a general pitch, but it could apply to any number of franchises out there. Or a new one.

First up: why aren't secret identities ever a factor in this games? Hardly ever does a new Superhero story begin in a new comic or a new movie already decked up his or her supersuit. This applies as equally to Batman Begins and Sailor Moon. And you know why? Because even the worst of super hero stories still need to be stories. With identifiable characters. And conflicts that aren't always physical.

But I guess videogames, that have been battling cancer stricken critics for the self imposed and illusory title of "art", can't be stories. They need to be actionous, right? Here, Spider-Man, go punch the Skulls gang so you can learn a lesson about responsibility.

Now, you may balk. What  kind of gameplay would being Peter Parker, or Bruce Wayne or Barry Allen entail? Well, the answer is already among us.

You could have like an adventure game, where you have to figure out how to manage to keep a "real" life while still having to kick the crap out of robots. The Secret Identity parts could be anything, from quick timer events to minigames, to pretty much an RPG type of thing.  The important part is that, instead of throwing players into a sequence of action events, you could get the player involved in the story, with supporting characters and love interests all playing a significantly higher role than expositionary NPCs.

No follow-through, there, web-head.

Picture a huge open city, where on one end is that date with Mary Jane, and on the other, and attack by Mysterio. It'd be like the Sims and  Shenmue all rolled up into one. Only you have to change out of view.

Speaking of which: as long as we're expanding the story, why not give the titular hero a choice of love interests? I mean, most of the known Superhero franchises have at least more than one, and romantic tension is one of those elements of Superheroing that is missing from all this games. You got your Gwen Stacy or your Mary Jane, your Lois or your Lana, your Catwoman or your Talia, your Steve Trevor or...mumblemumblemumbble.

Of course, it doesn't have to be all dates. You could investigate while on civilian mode, so  you can be more prepared to fight the threats. You could engineer better crimefighting tech, if it's Batman or Ironman.  You could maybe try and work as a typical newspaper.

Another avenue that isn't often explored is  choice. But I guess in Superhero games it's kind of hard to put in that "light side", dark side" bar you think I mean by "choice". No, what I mean is that, several of this characters have been through enough phases that you could easily assign them a type of reaction. Let's take Batman, trying to defeat a warehouse full of goons. You could have the "Ninja master of the night" approach. You could have the "drop out of a skylight"  and announce yourself approach. You could even have the "gun them down" approach.  Maybe each type of approach could earn you points towards being more Silver Age, or more current age or more Issue 1 Batman. This eventually morphing the  character or the world more to reflect that. Sort of like the original, crazy promises of Fable. 

I don't want all this to be misconstrued as saying I don't like  action superhero games. I do. But at the same time, with the focus on story that games like L.A. Noire and Heavy Rain have proven can actually move units, why can't we have something like that on other games? The superhero fantasy is more that just punching and huge chins and brass heavy orchestra. Surely such a project would take a lot to get right and on time and to sell. But if done right, it could be the greatest superhero game in history and up the bar.

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Son of a Pitch: Star Wars (2014)

It's on Green screen, 'course I can.

Well, it seems several of the changes for that newfangled Home Hexilogy Star Wars rerelease are out and...it's pretty disconcerting. To me, this one right here stands out.

Yes, that is Obi Wan imitating a dragon to scare away the Sand people. When my neighbor gets home drunk, he has to scare Sandpeople all the time, I guess.

You see, (puts on old man glasses) It used to be you released a movie, and it was done. However, we all know many ideas and concepts and scenes don't make it into the final product. The advent of Home Video formats allowed the existence of "The Director's Cut",  the idea of adding scenes that where cut to presumably approach the film more to the director's vision. Even if that vision is a little stupid, I get that.

However, George Lucas isn't a normal director. Despite having some great, classic movies that he could just send into the Blue Ray Making machine and watch the money fly, he just can't help himself going back and reworking this films.

Imagine if Brian De Palma came back after a couple of decades and decided he was gonna add a cg cat for Tony and re-dub his death scene to have him go "I regret nothing!" as he fell into the pool. You could say he CAN, but you could say also that it's fuckin' stupid. This things are additions in the technical sense of the word only, and do not actually upgrade the experience for the audience. 

"I mean, he's missing that "Dr Claw" edge to him..."

This isn't a matter if the changes are good or bad for the film. It's a question of who this changes are for. I mean, Star Wars was pretty popular before he put CG in it in the 90s. I don't think it's just about money, because I don't think there are enough fans of blinking to justify putting eyelids on 40 year old film's dudes in fursuits.  You could release licensed Star Wars Turdburgers and people would buy. It's clearly a personal thing for old George.

So here's my pitch to the thick necked one himself: Why not redo the whole thing over again? Why not restart the whole franchise? That's right, I'm calling for a Star Wars REMAKE.

Clearly.

George Lucas gets to do whatever he wants with this, from turning Chew Bacca and Han Solo into a Lemur and a Reptile, as per his original vision, to making  EVERYTHING in CG from scratch. George get full control of the franchise from frame 1.  He can start with Star Wars: A New Hope, and move through all 6 movies. It's not like he's not changing the Prequels, in spite him being in full control of those, too. He can make pack every single granule of the screen with zipping, swooping, bouncing, jumping computer effects. With super panamorphic 3D reberwatshit and shit.

Panaamorphic!

He can put Jonah Hill as Luke and have an extended, unnecessary fight with Greedo in the original film instead of just a tense scene! He can have Jabba be 3 stories high and terrorize Seattle! He can establish how germs rule they universe and control destiny and cause prophesies from the start, now!

And invariable, when a movie is remade, the original goes out on Disc, so maybe we can get the regular old Star Wars movies on home video formats? Hmm?

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