Like, Totally Bogus (Maniac Mansion, Mappy Land, Marble Madness)

Well, that was an experience. Nintendo Project gameplay usually is. I mean, look at what we've got first off. Maniac Mansion. This is sort of an unsung darling of the NES. It's a port of a Lucasarts classic point and click adventure game! The birth of SCUMM, for Christ's sakes! Hell, this game was even on the cover of Nintendo Power! It's important. Pity, then, that I have little to say about it. Old-time adventure games are not exactly my forte. This is my failing and not Maniac Mansion's. This thing was a ride and a half, and we even have a moment of bizarre timing in the here and now as I write. James Rolfe, the Nintendo nerd for a new digital age (and really, he should get a side article on here proper someday) put up a video of him and his friends chilling out and playing Maniac Mansion for NES today. The same day I'm writing about it for Nintendo Project. Coincidence has been cancelled. There are a ton of weird tangents and little asides I can make about Maniac Mansion. The fact that the Trickster Beast ROMHACK, a rarely-seen little imp who delights in twisting the well-known, managed to create a causal link between this game and The Wizard. (Here's a hint; it's New Year's Eve. I'm in Glendora.) At least one thing I want to save for tomorrow. The Howard and Nester comic that makes Razor into a total 80's babe. (Not that she wasn't already.) Hell, where in god's name is "Pitchfork" Pat? He did a whole sprite comic using Maniac Mansion sprites! This game's fragmenting me, like three kids splitting up to explore a spooky mansion and pick up everything not nailed down. It's also creating shards of ideas that may have ramifications for the Project as a whole. Let us just say that it is a perfectly solid humorous adventure game that we should all play, and then I will leave you with Razor's rockin' 8-bit theme and move on to something else.

Mappymappymappymappymappymappymappymappy. Hey, it's Mappy! Mappy Land! This one is weird. I have a lurking bit of nostalgia for Mappy. A half-remembered moment from childhood of renting some game with a mouse. It was either Mappy or a Puss-in-boots game. Either way, I have my doubts that it was Mappy Land. This is a Namco arcade game, and it is okay. Barring level 5 or so, which has platforming without the ability to actually jump. Bounce on trampolines to reach other trampolines. Also the trampolines are moving. Also fuck you. I don't think I can quite file this one under dread beast GREED territory, but it's not my favorite thing in the world. It ain't no Low G Man, though. I really don't have a lot to say about Mappy, beyond the fact that the video I linked just now is the only thing I remember about it. I love that enthusiasm. I only wish I could hold the same for Mappy.

Marble Madness is a scary game. You roll a marble down an obstacle course and the slightest drop shatters it. Drop the thing down a pit and it fucking screams. How horrifying. It's also isometric, which is something that just fills me with dread. The copyright screen says 1984, and that is a year that puzzles me. It's an Unyear for video games, a Year That Never Was existing outside of space and time. 1983 saw the death of gaming in North America, and 1985 saw it come back. 1984 was a nothingness, a blank spot in history. Things happened, of course. Marble Madness. The Temple Of Doom. From a broad standpoint, there was a void. That just fascinates me, really. A marble floating around in the void. Let's zoom out more, why don't we? Let's take this entire silly thing into perspective, and look at the beginning and the end at once. I've got the perfect way to measure it all... though I fear the immense gravity from it.

Let's-a go.