Ex Games: The Ongoing Plastic Guitar Wars Saga

At first I had zero interest in any of the Guitar Hero games. They reminded me uncomfortably of that Dave Chappelle sketch that showed the effects of guitar music on white people. But then I learned to embrace my inner suburban white boy and actually got into them. The influence of these games is undeniable and there is no doubt that they have been a significant boost to the flagging recording industry as well as repopularizing the genres of classic rock, hard rock and heavy metal.

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I picked up Guitar Hero III, which was the first really blockbuster game of the genre. It turns out the people who produced Guitar Heroes I & II split off before part three and formed their own company, Harmonix, which went on to release the competing Rock Band game which came out shortly after. The confusion began which was compounded by the interchangeable guitars.

Rock Band took the basic gameplay of Guitar Hero and expanded it to include vocals, drums and bass. Game over, right? Not so fast Hudson, when Guitar Hero IV came out it included the full band set up, as well as the ability to customize your own tracks. Rock Band 2 then came out, and didn't offer too much new but it did let you import almost all of your Rick Band 1 tracks as well as an impressive library of downloadable songs. You could literally have hundreds of songs to choose from.



Then things got more complicated. It seemed there was a new Guitar Hero game every few months, most focusing on bands of middling importance like Aerosmith, Metallica, and Van Halen (WTF!). That's on top of the trio of hand held Guitar Hero games from the Nintendo DS, which are guaranteed to give you carpal tunnel syndrome.

The Rock Band series has taken the slow and steady approach, perhaps realizing that the music game craze could easily become a fad in a market that Activision is over saturating with their Guitar Hero games. They have recently released their third entry to the series: Beatles Rock Band, which is a stylish and lovingly produced game that focuses solely on the Fab Four. If you are going to make a game devoted to one band, then you can't go wrong basing it on what is arguably the greatest rock/pop band in history. The Beatles are easily worth ten Aerosmiths, Metallicas, Van Halens, Oasises, and whoever else they are thinking about making a game around.

Very well done, Harmonix! Of course, having said that they have a game coming out called Lego Rock Band. Meh.


Well, now I have seen everything.

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And that's not to ignore the recent release of Activision's DJ Hero, which takes the music game into a whole new direction and explores a totally different genre of music than the guitar rock that these games have been focusing on.

Here's what I'd like to see in the inevitable slew of music games that are on their way out:

*Someone needs to make a game based on The Rolling Stones. I will buy it. And love it.

*Lets open this up to more genres: How bout an R&B track pack, or Latin Rock? I am willing to smoke lots of cigarettes and get kicked in the throat to sound like Alejandro Sanz.

*Artists, you need to stop being uptight about these games. They allow a whole new generation of people to get into your music. I'm looking at you Prince, U2 and Led Zepplin.

*Salsa Hero? Anyone?

Ex Games: My Lifelong Quest For The Perfect Star Wars Game

It was 1983. My downstairs neighbor had an Atari 2600 and I experienced my first Star Wars console video game: The Empire Strikes Back, which was based solely on The Battle of Hoth sequence from the movie of the same name. You got to control a little five pixel Snowspeeder in which you had to shoot a small flashing spot on the back of an ATAT until (47 shots later) it exploded. And then you got to do that again until you got bored. Hey, it was better than that E.T. game.

How we rolled in the '80's.

The video game market crashed shortly after that. And Star Wars didn't make another home video game appearance until the Nintendo Entertainment System. I missed it on the NES but in the early '90's, I got into Super Star Wars and it's sequels on the Super Nintendo. These games were a much more fully realized Star Wars experience. Like many SNES games, the Super Star Wars games had incredible stereo sound. Who can forget the first time hearing the opening Star Wars theme blaring out at your from a frakkin' video game.


The games were fun, although fiendishly difficult. And being video games, they stray from the plots of the movies to make them more action-packed. Who knew a giant lava monster lived inside the Jawa Sandcrawler?

From Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

In the mid 1990's Star Wars was gearing up for a major comeback with the re-release of the movies and the eventual start of the new trilogy. All of that began, however, with a major multimedia project called Shadows of the Empire, an interquel that took place between Empire and Return of the Jedi. While there was no Shadows of the Empire movie, there were action figures, a sound track, comics, a novel and a video game on Nintendo's snazzy new console, the Nintendo 64. Shadows promised the most immersive Star Wars video game experience to date, and it was the full reason I bought a Nintendo 64 console. And it was the first 3D video game that did not make me want to puke.

First Level of Shadow of the Empire.

Shadows of the Empire was primarily a 3rd person shooter that allowed you to run around and play in several famous Star Wars environments, such as Hoth's Echo Base. Dash Rendar? Is that your boy? No? Okay

You even had run ins with several infamous characters such as Boba Fett and IG-88, as well as Luke, Leia and Lando. The game also ,featured aerial and space battles that paved the way for games like the Rogue Squadron series and ultimately, the Battlefront games. In the late 90's and 2000's, Star Wars video games diversified into every imaginable genre: first-person shooters, role playing games, racing games, real time strategy games. There was even this thing:




But one thing was sorely missing: Jedi.

As much fun as it was to shoot Stormtroopers and fly around in ships and endlessly replay the Battle of Hoth in different games, the Holy Grail of the Star Wars gaming is to play as a Jedi. With the release of Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace and its emphasis on the Jedi characters, more and more games tried to serve up an authentic Jedi experience. But most of these weren't very good. Jedi Power Battles for the Playstation was a fun adaptation of The Phantom Manace but it was very much a throwback to the side scrolling arcade-style games of the '80's.

Jedi Power Battles. Fun two-person co-op.

Star Wars: Obi Wan for the Xbox was a noble effort and let you swing your lightsaber around and use some force powers but ultimately was not a very good game. The really goofy Ewan MacGregor impression did not help either. See video below.



The Dark Forces I and Jedi Knight games evolved from the PC and made their way toe the Xbox and Nintendo Gamecube in 2001 in the form of Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, arguably one of the greatest Star Wars games ever released. It has a great story, and gameplay that lets you use a whole suite of force powers as well as your trusty lightsaber. There is very little in this world that is more fun than force-pushing Stormtroopers off a ledge. It was followed by Jedi Academy which had a less satisfying single player game but robust multiplayer that allowed customization and play on Xbox Live.

Kyle Katarn in Jedi Outcast. I was happy to be able to play a character named Kyle in a game.

The ultimate Star Wars video game experience was released last year in the form of The Force Unleashed, which featured an amazing original Star Wars story set between the trilogies, fantastic graphics and fun gameplay. The protagonist, Starkiller, uses wildly over-the-top force powers in secret service to his master, Darth Vader.




The game is set to be rereleased on November 3rd, with bonus content such as a few continuity defying missions set in a Vader-less Star Wars and Empire timeframe.

Starkiller, fryin some suckas up in The Force Unleashed.

Ex Games: Alien 3

As a teenager, I was ready to get back into video games after having been a big Nintendo fan as a kid. I had the choice between getting a Super Nintendo or a Sega Genesis. My friend Ian had convinced me that the Sega Genesis was cooler, better. Sonic the Hedgehog had some levels that were in 3D. Three D!! And then there were all these intriguing add-ons like the 32X and Sega CD drive. It could play actual CDs! I had never even used a CD before. But the clincher for me was Alien 3.

Alien 3 was a game that was very loosely adapted from the movie of the same name. It was more like the video game version of Aliens that we never got on the home consoles with lots of guns and violence and little of the existentialism of the David Fincher movie. According to my video game magazines at the time, it was going to be bad ass. And it was coming out for both systems. But it was coming out on the Genesis first. Sold!

So, I got my Genesis, I got my copy of Alien 3 and it was…okay. It was a little repetitive but the worst part was that there was no Queen at the end. Surely this had to have been some mistake. There was even a reference to the queen in the instruction manual. What the hell!

Later, I rented a Super Nintendo and a copy of Alien 3 for that system and I realized the great cost of my impatience. While the game play is very similar, comparing the two games, it is almost hard to believe that they are in the same software generation. The SNES version has vivid, eye-popping graphics and gorgeous stereo sound. How could I have been so stupid?

Years later, I bought a copy of some SNES games on eBay to use with my roommate’s old Super Nintendo. I bought Alien 3 and, surprisingly, it had not aged badly at all. I had some fun with it for a few hours, but not long enough to forget my ill-advised fling with the Sega Genesis.My copy of Alien 3 for the Super Nintendo is sitting in a drawer right now with a copy of Super Mario All Stars and an old Xbox controller.

For the Genesis:

For the SNES:

Ex Games: Turok Dinosaur Hunter

When a man meets that special video game, there is a certain magical spark that occurs. There has to be a special kind of chemistry that will let him know, This is the right game for me. After all, how often have you been recommended a video game, read a glowing review in a magazine only to find when you have taken it home-gotten it out of its packaging, fooled around with its tutorial level-this is not a game with which you can spend hours and hours. This is awkward and uncomfortable for all involved.

However, with certain games you know you can commit right away. It's cool. You know this is a game that you will play often and worthy of your collection. But, sadly, nothing lasts forever and there is no real monogamy in video games.

These are my ex games.

In 1996 I bought a Nintendo 64, upon learning about the upcoming Star Wars game, Shadows of the Empire (a long and sad story for another time involving the quest for the perfect Star Wars game). After some nauseating hours playing Super Mario 64, I finally got used to the idea of 3D gaming and soon discovered the joy of the classic first-person shooter Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (in my mind it will always be Turok, The Dinosaur Hunter). I spent hours and hours in my little studio apartment in Rogers Park completely immersed in this (at the time) amazing world of killer dinosaurs, attempting to locate all of the pieces of the Chronoscepter. Turok was loaded with some absolutely insane weapons and featured a uniquely open and expansive world for its time when corridor shooters like Doom were the norm.

Personally, I was knocked out by the design aspects of the game, particularly its locations which had a real world, Pre-Colombian historical aesthetic. Many of the building were based on Mayan or Incan structures which really captured my imagination at the time. In some strange way, this game was a stepping stone towards some of the things in which I would be interested later in life and some of the traveling that I would do. When I finally made it to my first Inca ruin, high in the Andes of Peru, I couldn't help thinking of Turok.

I will always regret that I never finished this game. I'm not sure how it all ended. Shame. Boredom. Negligence. A furtive transaction at Funcoland. You spend weeks and weeks together and this is what happens. It makes it hard to keep playing video games. Maybe one day I will see Turok on the Wii Virtual Console and I will take it out for a spin. Or maybe it will never be the same.

Maybe I should leave well enough alone.