The History of the Universe As Described By Video Games: An Overly Ambitious LiveBlog

TheConductor

He was insanely popular in the 80s and because cartoons and comics come out regularly compared to games, it means I end up with massive blocks of them to look at all at once haha. 

TheConductor

Hey! I'm back! I finished watching bloody Pac-Man! And I got a delivary of games in.

So my next few posts are going to be on; Bomberman, Pac & Pal, Pac-Man Jr, Mario Bros, Donkey Kong 3 and Ultima III: Exodus.

And the game I'd like to talk about first is Bomberman. Oh Bomberman, Bomberman, you're part of my childhood and I bloody love you.

So, in the manual we're told that Bomberman is a robot who makes bombs, why does he make bombs? I dunno, construction or something.

One day, he is bought by an evil force who set him to work deep in an underground base. Deciding that he'd rather not, he starts to make his way out so he can have his freedom, but is attacked on the way by monsters!

So, a fairly bare bones plot but that's typical of the era it's from.

But where and when does it take place? Weeeeeeeeeeell...according to Wikipedia, he's from a place called the Bomber Nebula, on a planet named Bomber. These people clearly love bombs.

The next problem, is when it takes place. Now this is an incredibly silly and petty reason but...I'm going to put it in the Earth era, in 2001. Because the game reminds me of MegaMan and all of it's 200X nonsense.

TheConductor

The next game we'll look at is arcade game Pac & Pal, in this game Pac-Man is teamed up with a female, green ghost named Miru (or, in some versions, with his dog from the cartoon) also, he can shoot ghosts in this one. But other than that...it's Pac-Man.

Icalasari

Hey, where would you place Minecraft into this time line?

TheConductor

I don't know as I have never played Minecraft but maybe near the beginning of time, as a kind of metaphor for the creation of the Universe? 

Icalasari

Well Minecraft has skeletons, zombies, spiders, and suicide bombers called Creepers. It has a hell dimension and a dimension called The End where a boss (it is hard to kill and the only mob with a unique death animation) called the Enderdragon lives. Any blocks the Enderdragon touches explodes

There are other "people" around, but they look nothing like Steve (the name of the guy you play as). Default texture is 16x and everything is blocky

TheConductor

^ Hmmm, I dunno then. Where would you put it?!

Okay, next post, Pac-Man Jr. it is Pac-Man but he is Junior, also, the maze is now extra wide to make for scrolling and it has prettier graphics. Not much else to say really.

Icalasari

^ Well, seeing as how it has magic and could be seen as post apocalyptic... And with how Testificates are horribly mutated... And with their being zombie pigmen

I'd assume Testificates would be an early stage of humans gradually chaging into anthropomorphic creatures, and zombie pigmen are a later stage that didn't do so well (they ended up in an analogue of hell where giant explosives-spitting squid float around, and the pigmen became zombies. So yeah, not very successful at all) so late earth/early mobius would be my placement

TheConductor

Well, there is an apocalypse between the end of Earth and the start of Mobius, so I suppose Minecraft could be the very beginning of Mobian society.

Any way, now it's time to get our thinking caps on for Mario Bros!

I don't think this game needs any explanation, you play as Mario (and your friend plays as Luigi), you are in the sewers and you must rid the screen of turtles and crabs.

The 'plot' as much as there is one does cause some problems. You see, we've already spoken about Mario and Donkey Kong's conflicts, and that included a fight with the son of Donkey Kong, DK Jr.

Now the Donkey Kong Country games on the SNES and GameBoy imply that the ape you play as in these games is actually the grown up DK Jr, on top of that, one of the Yoshi Island games has Baby Mario and Baby Donkey Kong together.

So I'd like to suggest that Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr take place in the late 60s and that Jumpman and Pauline are Mario and Luigi's parents, placing Mario Bros. in the 80s. 

TheConductor

Two posts in one day? YAY! Donkey Kong 3, in this game, Donkey Kong attacks a greenhouse to get some fruit but is driven out by Stanley the Bugman, a pest control...er. 

TheConductor

Hello my non-existent readers. I'd like to announce a change in schedule. From now on, I'll be posting once a day, but covering one months worth of releases. So today we're going to look at games that came out in August, 1983.

There was only one, Ultima III: Exodus. 

In Ultima 3, the Stranger is summoned back to Britainia to deal with Exodus, the robotic "son" of Minax and Mondain.

TheConductor

For the month of September, 1983

We saw the return of Pac-Man, and the launch of a cartoon based on Donkey Kong.

Where Pac-Man was The Flintstones but with Pac-Man, Donkey Kong is Tom & Jerry, but with Mario and Donkey Kong. 

In terms of placement, obviously Donkey Kong will be set in the sixties, the same decade I placed the game.

TheConductor

I'm back guys. The reason for no updates for this long is because I was watching Pac-Man and stuff and had nothing I wanted to say about it. But now, let's kick into 1984 with three video games. Truth be told, I have no clue if these games came out in January, to be honest, I doubt it. But all I could find on their release dates was 1984 so January it is.

The games are; Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, Dragonslayer and Frogger 2.

Beyond Castle Wolfenstein is a fun little action adventure game that sort of drops the stealth elements from the previous game in favour of a more action-y approach. It hasn't aged well and it's primitive compared to games of the now, but it's something I know I'll go back to, give it a go if you get a shot. I haven't heard many people speak about it, so to me it really is a forgotten wee gem.

As for the placement, well according to Wikipedia the storyline is reminiscent of the 20 July Plot to assassinate Hitler, so I'ma go with it.

Next is DragonSlayer, an RPG much like Akalabeth or Final Fantasy I except I have no fucking clue what is happening! So...a man slays a dragon I suppose is the plot for this.

Finally, Frogger II: Threedeep, which is exactly the same as Frogger but each level has three screens rather than one for more challenge.

Icalasari

I fully expect a remake of Frogger II: Threedeep for the 3DS called "Frogger ThreeDeepS"

TheConductor

-Blog on hold for Christmas season-