RRR: Index of squibs

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?
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Randorama
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Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 10:25 pm

Re: RRR: Index of squibs

Post by Randorama »

Absolutely. I re-read the series a few years ago and it felt like Chaykin was writing this while travelling back and forth through time, or something. Ironically, though, the Mall has become a central concept in a certain type of "Western-style society", but online shopping has inexorably eroded this centrality. Anyway, I am relatively sure that someone wrote a book or a quite detailed chapter in a book about Chaykin's amazingly accurate "vision of the future". I will sooner or later find the reference, promised :wink:

Personally, I also somehow believe that Data East creators had some access to the series, as some of their 1990s games have ideas reminiscent of AF! (Nitro Ball above else). I will squib about these topics in the future, so stay tuned and spread the love :wink:
"The only desire the Culture could not satisfy from within itself was one common to both the descendants of its original human stock and the machines [...]: the urge not to feel useless."

I.M. Banks, "Consider Phlebas" (1988: 43).
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it290
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Joined: Thu Mar 17, 2005 1:00 am
Location: polar malortex, illinois

Re: RRR: Index of squibs

Post by it290 »

I'd say Nitro Ball takes its cues more from the likes of Rollerball and The Running Man, no? Unless you're thinking about something specific...
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We here shall not rest until we have made a drawing-room of your shaft, and if you do not all finally go down to your doom in patent-leather shoes, then you shall not go at all.
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Randorama
Posts: 3927
Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 10:25 pm

Double Dragon II (Technos, 1988)

Post by Randorama »

Well, Rollerball is about a dystopian future in which the sport is sort of a placebo for wars, and one top player decides to go against the system. The Running Man is about a future US dictatorship (or something like that?), with the show as a means to control the masses. Dystopian? Well, of course.

Nitro Ball, on the other hand, features a TV show in which an ex-cop (player 1?) and an ex-Navy Seal (player 2?) have to kill/dunk goons and collect as many items for money as they can. The game's atmosphere is deeply humorous and hedonistic, down to the brilliant OST, and the endings for both players are definitely positive (hint: they get the money and something else :wink:). I remember that AF! has a similar show, in-universe, that has the same "we're in for the money and the funny ultra-violence, and now please smile for the camera!" tone. Dystopian? AF! probably, but with a laugh. Nitro Ball...well, not if you 1-CC it :wink:

This Sunday we are going to discuss a classic shmup, however, so we will leave the ironic commentary on hold for a bit. I need to reshuffle plans a bit, but hopefully I can release Nitro Ball by the year. Aside the pinball-free scrolling shmup hybrid form, it features lots of scoring opportunities and the extend/suicide mechanic as a rank/score control mechanism. But all in due time, of course :wink:
"The only desire the Culture could not satisfy from within itself was one common to both the descendants of its original human stock and the machines [...]: the urge not to feel useless."

I.M. Banks, "Consider Phlebas" (1988: 43).
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