Doodle 297 - Ducktales

Continuing my Disney cartoons of my childhood, and my obsession with robots, I thought I would draw one of Gyro’s big construction bot/suit things harassing Gizmoduck.  Tomorrow Chip N’ Dale’s Rescue Rangers.

No, not the TV show.  Do you remember the DuckTales video game released on the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)?  In the second of my series on retro games, I’m going to take you on a treasure-collecting journey with Scrooge McDuck around the world (and beyond).  So grab your cane and top hat and hit the link below!

DuckTales, like Adventures in the Magic Kingdom, was produced by Capcom.  It was released in North America in 1989 (with a version on the Game Boy coming in the following year).  The game features many of the characters from the cartoon series, including Scrooge McDuck (the character you control), his nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie, Launchpad McQuack, Magica De Spell, the Beagle Boys, and more. 

Scrooge is on a mission to collect treasure to become the richest duck in the world, a mission that will take him to the Amazon, Transylvania, the African Mines, the Himalayas, and the moon.  Scrooge is equipped with his cane that also functions as a weapon and a pogo stick, allowing you to kill enemies by jumping on them pogo-style.

While you are able to choose what order you would like to play the levels, you may need to find objects in one level to gain access to areas in another level.  For example, you can’t play the African Mines without finding a key in Transylvania (shown in the screenshot above).  Also, don’t be afraid to do some searching for hidden treasures.  You are trying to become the world’s richest duck, after all (and you’ll get a small reward for doing so)!  Keep your eyes peeled for a golden ring and a golden mirror.

I said before that Scrooge’s cane has more uses than serving as a walking stick.  You can swing it to hit and move objects, and use it as a weapon.  To swing your cane, press the B button when up against an object.  To use it as a pogo stick and bounce on enemies (shown above), you have to jump (A button), then press down and the B button.  Sounds complicated, but you get used to it pretty quickly.  You can continuously bounce also, which can help you make a series of jumps or get out of an area crowded with enemies.

If you get hit by enemies, though, be on the lookout for powerups scattered throughout the levels.  Ice cream cones replenish one point in the stamina meter, cake completely refills your stamina, Magic Coins make Scrooge temporarily invincible, Stamina Extenders (these look like stars) give you more stamina, and Scrooge dolls give you an extra life.  You’ll also get a plethora of diamonds, so collect these to increase your dollar value.

When you get to the end of each level, you’ll face a boss that is guarding that level’s treasure (the screenshot above shows you the boss in the Amazon).  You can go back to a level after beating it to find other treasures in that level, adding to the game’s non-linear gameplay.  Once you beat all five bosses, you’ll have one final boss to face in Transylvania.  Beat the final boss and you beat the game, plus you’ll see how much money you’ve accrued on the way.

DuckTales was a decently successful game.  It definitely benefitted from the popularity of the TV show, which made the characters more recognizable to the public.  From the Wikipedia entry on the game:

DuckTales was released to generally good reviews, praised for its gameplay and soundtrack, which was composed by veteran Capcom composer Yoshihiro Sakaguchi (a.k.a. Yuukichan’s Papa). Of particular importance is the "Moon" stage theme, which has since become one of the iconic tunes of the late 8bit era. The graphics were considered above average for the time. The characters were part of a popular Disney franchise and were easily recognizable. The game is considered a classic among many NES enthusiasts.

Also, for some wonderful inside information, head on over to this site featuring quotes from Darlene Waddington, a producer of the game.  These quotes were compiled over a small interview and from Waddington’s posts on a web discussion board.  There are some very interesting tidbits here.

DuckTales was one of my favorite games.  It was one of those that I never tired of.  I’ve gone back and played it since (most recently for this article), and I think it still holds value today.  The gameplay still feels good, it’s still pretty challenging, and I have fun playing it.

I said in the Adventures in the Magic Kingdom post that this series will be like a wish list of games I would like to see appear in Nintendo’s Virtual Console for the Wii.  With Epic Mickey creating publicity and with Capcom already a big presence in the Virtual Console scene, there’s no reason we shouldn’t see DuckTales on the Virtual Console.  So, I’ll say this to Nintendo, Capcom, and Disney: get on it!

Species Name:  Humorlessius Crappyhosticus

Would someone please cut the brake lines in all of Jay Leno’s 700 cars so that he will fly into the Pacific Ocean after losing control on a hairpin turn going down PCH?  I’m looking out for all of us people.  No Jay Leno means no Jay Leno cracking painfully unfunny jokes on your televisions five days a week.  Now, I’m not going to lie, as an aspiring TV writer, I have a bit of a bias here.  Jay Leno’s new show, which is remarkably just like the Tonight Show except it’s now on at 10pm instead of 11:30, has knocked five hours of scripted programming off of NBC’s slate.

Okay, sure, Jay Leno does have writers on his show (not that they’re doing a very good job mind you), but he still doesn’t have the amount of writers that five separate shows would be employing.  And referring back to bias, the writers on Jay Leno’s show are variety show writers, most likely stand up comedians, and a very different breed from narrative writers.

Jay Leno sucks.  Always has, and always will.  The fact that he kills in the ratings is utterly mindboggling to me.  I was so happy when I heard that he would be leaving “The Tonight Show,” but was equally crushed when they announced that he would be getting his new show, “The Tonight Show Redux.”  I hate this show so much, that when the intro to Jay Leno’s show manages to sneak it’s way onto the end of the episode of 30 Rock I recorded on my DVR, I want to punch a hole in my wall!  Motherfucker!  This guy is like a fucking cockroach, and all I want is to never see him ever again…is that so much to ask?  Alas, I have a sneaking suspicion that by 2012, the real end of humanity will not be the Earth’s core crumbling and swallowing us into the center of the Earth, but rather, NBC will be renamed the Jay Leno network, and will air nothing but Jay Leno, 24 hours a fucking day!  Kill me now.

But one has to have dreams right?

Seriously...is Balloon Boy in there?

So much for making it through life without seeing Jay Leno straddle anything in a Canadian tuxedo.

At my university we have a group of students in social sciences who are organizing panel discussions on the Hungarian transition in 1989 every Tuesday till December 8. I’ve been attending the events from the beginning and I have to admit that the one of today was the best so far. We had political researcher, political philosopher, constitutional law expert and historian among the panelists, and also a journalist as moderator.

After the discussion the audience (university students) could ask their questions, and a boy raised the issue of what would they say if our PM, Gordon Bajnai asked them what to do for the society to increase trust towards government and help poor people, for example. First, the panelists denied answering by saying if a PM asks something like that, then he should leave his post fast because a PM must have a conception on what to do. Finally László Lengyel, associate professor and political researcher, stated that actually Bajnai really had asked him a question like this a few weeks ago, and it’s sort of okay, since Bajnai is PM only for one year, for a temporary government. Lengyel declared it would be better to raise the question of what should we (university students) do. “If we were in 1989, Viktor Orbán would have already sent me to my mother in the fifth minute of the discussion.” he said.

By his words the Civil Society Forum came to my mind. There I attended a session with Jiři Pehe and Martin Bútora, both had been advisors to Václav Havel, and much to my astonishment Martin Bútora raised the same question when they were talking about the transitions in Central and Eastern Europe. He turned to the table where some of us from the younger generation were sitting and said: “Your parents did 1989, now it’s the time for you to do something.”

So, now it was the second time I heard from senior experts in politics that they are expecting “something” from the generation born around the transition. But what? In Hungary, for example, young people are not that concerned about politics, indeed they can’t be because they can’t even understand it. After high school, we’re starting the university without arriving to the transition in our History studies. Better teachers try to talk about it but it’s a sensitive topic, and so influenced by actual politics that if one doesn’t want confrontation with parents or other colleagues, then he just leaves this out from the syllabus. And if a pupil wants to know more, he has to learn it by himself, or at private classes, or at extra classes in the afternoon, so from somewhere else, but not from school. The latest historical event, where everyone is about to finish their Hungarian History studies is the Revolution of 1956. (Not that easy field either!)

I can’t imagine what are these people expecting from a generation which was not informed about what happened during the transition, and whose first thing to remember when it comes to politics is related to DuckTales. I also remember (I was 6 years old then) the day when the public TV interrupted its Disney show at 17:20, December 12 in 1993. The announcement of the death of József Antall, the first democratically-elected PM of Hungary, interrupted an episode of DuckTales. According to the oral history of our generation these had been the last broadcasted moments of the cartoon. (Be careful, it’s in Hungarian.)

The Facebook group “Akik nézték a vasárnapi Disney-t, amikor meghalt Antall József!” (“Those who had been watching the Sunday Disney when József Antall died!”) now has 10697 members, so these are who had been in the age of watching cartoons on TV and are registered on FB. Some 11 thousands seem to be a high amount in politics. If I was trying to start up something, I would use them. These are young electors without any remembrance of the USSR, grown up by watching commercial TVs and surfing on the worldwide web. They (we) are thinking totally different than those who lived their lives during the communism.

Of course the declarations I quoted were not addressed to this after-transition generation generally, but to those who feel themselves at least a bit concerned. And it’s very hard to attract the attention of everybody who had been watching TV December 12 in 1993. If I was told to do something, I would set up an NGO. An organization promoting democracy to young Hungarian people: what’s that, how to elect, how to govern, what is the so-called politics for etc. And I would found an NGO for collecting and representing under-30 generations interests, but never a political party. Never.

No, Mickey! You'll unravel the very fabric of the space-time continuum!

Mickey Mania was a neat little game – fluid animation, confident visual presentation, clever little set-pieces – until someone put a goddamn mine cart level in the second stage.  I fucking hate mine cart levels, almost as much as I hate escort missions (maybe more, I can’t decide).  They’re a crime against platforming, and they should be blacked from the game developer’s palette.  Usually you won’t see one until the latter third of the game, when the level designers have run out of ideas (see Taz Mania, Donkey Kong Country); not so with Mickey Mania.  They’re* even clever enough to disguise the mine cart level as a ride through the Mad Doctor’s lab on a Frankensteinian operating table - but a lacquered turd is still a turd.

A mine cart level by any other name...

They’re* still throwing out interesting puzzles well after that, albeit executing them in the most annoying way possible.  Mostly by sending wave after wave of respawned enemies at you while you’re trying to solve them.  The enemies are more trouble than they’re worth.  Take the skeletons for instance: some take one bean-shot to kill, some take three despite no apparent visual difference, all explode in a flurry of bouncing bones that continue to maim you from beyond the grave.  You’re better off just jumping over them so you only have one or two pieces of enemy to contend with (they throw their skulls).

[* 'They' of course refers to game designers Travellers Tales and Sony Imagesoft, which, most interestingly, included the likes of David Jaffe,  the very vocal director of the God of War games.  Later tonight he will post a video blog from his garage rebutting the many valid points of this article.]

It’s at this point I remember this was probably supposed to be a kid’s game.  Why is it that every single Disney game is far too difficult for its target audience?  Ducktales, Land of Illusion, Aladdin, The Lion King – I could go on forever – each one, though pretty enough to check all those graphics/presentation/sound/music boxes for gaming mag reviews, is the gameplay equivalent of torture.  Child torture.  And last time I checked, that’s against the law, people.

You wanna talk about torture?  Torture is having LOAD TIMES on a cartridge game.  It’s just wrong on so many levels.

'Timeless Adventure' alright!

Let’s go back to mine cart levels, why I hate them with a seething, white hot rage, and why this one in particular has raised my ire.  We’ve just become acquainted with with the titular character, his controls, how he handles, only to have that control unceremoniously snatched from us, helplessly hurtling (and hopping) towards all manner of deadly fates.  Passing the level then becomes an exercise in rote memorisation, and of course, abject frustration.  It’s nowhere near as soul-crushing as that most infamous of mine cart levels – the hoverbike-ride through the Wind Tunnels of Battletoads – but after save/load stating my way through the level, I found that the only way I could make the final jump was to purposely run into the final obstacle.  Who in their right mind’s going to think of something like that?  A child?  A ‘hardcore gamer’?  I know, I’ll just run into that thing that was killing me during the first three-quarters of the level!  On purpose!

Oh, and another thing: what’s with Mickey’s bean-shot?  What’s to prevent him from throwing magic beans anywhere other than directly left or right in a straight line?  I’ve seen platformers and side-scrolling shoot-em-ups get it on before, but Mickey Mania is an experience akin to playing Space Invaders sideways with an abacus.  That’s about the closest I can come to illustrating what a royal pain in the arse it is for a gravity-laden Mickey to shoot rogue bats on the y-axis.  He *can* jump on *some* enemies *some*times, but like all non-Sonic, non-Mario platformers, it fails to distinguish just where, when, and how that will succeed.

It’s a pretty enough cartoon to be sure, but controls maketh the videogame, and – I’m sorry to say – Mickey don’t got it.

Now somebody give me a medal for not mentioning Epic Mickey a single time during the course of this write-up.

Oh.

Os mais próximos estão ligados que eu tou com algumas restrições bolsísticas. Água com gás virou luxo. Mas quando eu quero uma coisa (e os próximos sabem disso também) sabem que eu faço qualquer coisa por uma vontade, capricho ou desejo. Então quero apresentar a vocês minha mais nova obsessão:

imagem roubada do Mercado Livre, mas o produto não tava lá

Não, não é a sobrinha da Margarida. Ela é a Patrícia (dã), sobrinha da Patilda do Ducktales. Sério, é a única boneca existente com o meu nome. Essa vale um troco e um beijinho no rosto. Agora… quem tiver a Patricia com a camisetinha rosa escrita PATRICIA (sim, existiu) ganhará 777 virgens no paraíso, a minha eterna amizade, um distintivo do Clube do Mickey, um tênis Montreal e o meu corpinho (que não anda lá essas coisas, viu?). VALENDO!!!!!!

Ah, para animar a turma, aí vai a musiquinha: