Hard Drivin’ for the NES: First Screenshots!

While browsing through the Mean Machines Archive today, I stumbled on something pretty unexpected: the first screenshots I’ve ever seen of Hard Drivin’ for the NES, Tengen’s unreleased port of Atari’s driving simulator-turned-arcade racing game!

Hard Drivin’ was an extremely popular arcade title for Atari in 1989, featuring what was then considered realistic driving physics, the first use of 3D polygons in an arcade racing game, and my favorite feature: an actual key you had to turn to start the ignition!

These scans come from Mean Machines #0, a promotional test market predecessor to the short-lived UK console mag. Mean Machines would eventually (more or less) become Nintendo Magazine System, the UK’s official Nintendo mag. Later, the magazine would change its name to Nintendo Official Magazine. Much later still, that magazine would hire me to do game reviews. And very shortly thereafter, that magazine would lose its official Nintendo licensure, its entire staff would get fired, and competing publisher Future would pick up the official Nintendo magazine title. So basically, these images that you’re seeing are from the very first issue of a magazine that I would one day kill.

Shouldn’t have given me that six-page Pokemon cover feature, Dean.

According to the preview, the NES port was being programmed by Mark Morris who, despite this MobyGames entry, I’m convinced is not the same Mark Morris who co-founded Introversion Software and directed Darwinia and Defcon. In fact, I’m also not convinced that he’s the same man as the THQ director currently claiming the majority of that same entry, given that this San Diego Union-Tribune interview accredits that Mark Morris’ first game as 1996’s Men in Black. It would seem that this MobyGames entry actually combines the credits for three different Mark Morrises. Yikes!

The game looked pretty faithful to the arcade original, as you can see in these comparison shots:

According to the magazine’s preview, the game was running smoothly. “Many thought that the original arcade machine’s filled-3D graphics which are used to portray the first person perspective action would be virtually impossible to convert to the Nintendo,” said the short preview blurb, “but programmer Mark Morris has surprised the cynics and come up with a system that runs them smoothly at a very high speed - a first on the Nintendo!”

It seems pretty obvious from the shots that nothing beyond a rudimentary track was implemented; notice that there are no other vehicles, signs, or even scenery! Still, though, this looks like it could have been a pretty impressive technical feat on the NES. Mark Morris, are you out there? Have any insight for us?

Check out a complete *.pdf of Mean Machines #0 here! It also features a rare screenshot of The Legend of Hero Tonma for the NES, another unreleased game.

Good Luck Charlie Brown Footage!

Matt Kain, the gentleman who found a copy of Good Luck Charlie Brown for the Atari 2600 at a flea market which, ten years later, remains the only known copy, has uploaded footage of the game to YouTube. This is the first time Atari’s lost children’s game has ever been seen by the public.

Neat, huh? Obviously, the game is in a very early, unfinished state, lacking sound and additional screens (early previews suggested a second screen involving lawn mowing!), but it’s becoming increasingly likely that this is the only copy of the game to survive, so this is all we’re going to get.

Kain plans to sell the game sometime relatively soon. Interested parties should follow this AtariAge forums thread for details.

Spotlight: Star Trek V

Today on Lost Levels, we examine Star Trek V, a cheesy NES platformer based on a cheesy sci fi movie that did not resemble a cheesy NES platformer at all and probably shouldn’t have been one. And, well, I guess it wasn’t, which is why we’re talking about it.

I’ve never actually seen Star Trek V, but our guest reviewer, DOCTOR ZERO, is a big fatty who has watched it thirty seven times and has an original script signed by the cast. He says that the plot is about finding God, and I’m forced to believe him.

If the game is to believed, God is a horrible looking face on the side of the mountain that William Shatner murders. Maybe I ought to see this movie after all.

Check it out here. And hey, don’t forget our happenin’ forums are open for posting.

On Butt Rock and Butt Rape

Hi boys and girls! Your old pal Lost Levels has two articles to announce for your sensual reading pleasure. Neither of these are about old Nintendo games, nor is Jaleco involved in any way, which might confuse some of our veteran readers. I’m terribly, terribly sorry.

The first, which I actually published a couple months ago and didn’t bother mentioning, is a retrospective on the Thunder Force series of shooters, with an emphasis on the unreleased Thunder Force VI for the Sega Dreamcast. Thunder Force is notable for being “that series with the butt rock music,” and is beloved by people who consider both butts and rock and roll as things that make the world go ’round.

The second, which I wrote myself, is a thorough, groundbreaking review of Colors, an unreleased game for the barely-released Gizmondo handheld console. Colors would have depicted the first instance of male-on-male prison sex in videogames, truly a landmark in videogame history. Thank god Lost Levels is here to show you this segment in all its pixelated glory.

The next update will be about a crappy Nintendo game, I promise you. Stay tuned!

Amazing Grace

What once was lost, now is… being released. Originally sent to limbo by the the bankruptcy of publisher Acclaim, The Red Star is finally scheduled for release. According to consumer video game site Gamespot, the rights for the game have been picked up by XS Games, and a PS2 release is planned for early August. Release of the Xbox version will apparently be decided based on the success of the PS2 version. That said, don’t expect an Xbox version.

Originally a graphic novel, The Red Star is one of the titles that were thought lost when their publisher, Acclaim, collapsed under the weight of nearly 20 years of bad games. Another Acclaim title, Juiced, was picked up by THQ, and released to lackluster reviews.

Spotlight: Pescatore

Our latest awesome and badical Lost Levels Feature Presentation spotlights Pescatore for the Famicom, a lost puzzler from the days when Sunsoft made really great games. Except Pescatore isn’t a really great game. In fact, it’s kind of crap. It’s like Dr. Robotnick’s Mean Bean Machine (aka Akuma no Densetsu Durakura PuyoPuyo Bushido Gaiden) except that instead of featuring monkey robots and fat guys, it has random crashes.

But don’t take my word for it, I have “attachment issues.” Whatever that means. Instead, check out the full feature by our newest contributor, Mike Thompson, by following the convenient http hyperlink I’m about to provide. It’s coming. Wait for it.

Keep waiting.

Almost here.

LINKTASTIC

Penn Jillette on Smoke & Mirrors for Sega CD

Professional magician and comedian, co-creator and executive producer of last year’s The Aristocrats, co-author of ‘How to Cheat Your Friends at Poker; The Wisdom of Dickie Richard,’ and larger half of performance duo Penn & Teller yesterday discussed the unreleased videogame he helped design, Penn & Teller’s Smoke and Mirrors (or Penn & Teller’s S&M, as he prefers to call it), on this daily podcast.

“It was a really mean, groovy game,” said Jillette.

Smoke & Mirrors - recently spotlighted in a Waxy.org post for being bootlegged by some awful hooligan, was developed for the ill-fated Absolute Entertainment at the height of the first CD-ROM multimedia craze. In addition to a main adventure game that involved killing rival magicians and ultimately debunking the ‘magic’ of a Siegfried & Roy parody, the disc was also set to contain a number of magic tricks to pull on your friends, guest appearances by both Lou Reed and Blondie’s Deborah Harry, and a little something called ‘Desert Bus.’

“The best part of that I think was an idea that was not mine, not Teller’s, and not Barry Marx, who designed the game with us. It was an idea by Eddie Gorodetsky, one of the producers on ‘Two and a Half Men,’ really funny guy. I think that Eddie G. is one of the funniest guys in the world.”

“Remember Janet Reno? When she was taking away our rights, instead of the people who are now? Janet Reno was really against violent videogames, so we decided to do this game, Eddie’s original idea, it was called ‘Desert Bus.’”

“‘Desert Bus’ was a game we thought would really appeal to people who didn’t like unrealistic games, and didn’t like violence in their games. It was just like real, loving life.”

The goal of Desert Bus was to, quite simply, drive a bus from Tucson, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada; a very very boring drive, as those of us who have done it know. There were a couple catches, though: in the game, your bus could not go over 45 miles per hour. Also, it veered to the right, just ever so slightly, so you could not simply tape down the accelerator button on your Genesis pad and leave the game alone; you had to man the wheel at all times. Oh, and did we mention the trip takes eight hours, in real time?

“You saw nothing. It was just desert stuff going by,” said Jillette. “And there was a little green tree hanging from the rear-view mirror, one of those things that makes your car smell better? And it would just kind of drift in slowly to one corner of the screen. And you couldn’t take your hands off the controller, and if you did…it didn’t have a spectacular crash, it just slowly went into the sand, and then overheated and stopped, and then the game was you being towed backwards all the way back to Tucson.”

“And when you went from Tucson to Vegas and did the full 8 hours, you had bus stops, and the bus stops…you could stop and open the door, but no one got on. No one’s ever waiting for you. And if you went by them you weren’t punished at all, because nobody was there. It meant nothing. And a bug hit your windshield five times during the eight hours, and that was the only animation. It was just road after road after road. Eight hours of desert bus. And then when you got in - and I love this - when you got into Vegas and pulled in and stopped, the counter - which was five zeros - went to 1. You got 1 point for an eight hour shift, and then a guy came in and said, ‘Do you want to pull a double shift, Mac?’ And then you could drive back to Tucson for another eight hours for another point.”

Jillette then detailed the official Desert Bus contest that Absolute had planned to accompany the game:

“And we were planning on giving a very lavish prize for the person that got the highest score. It was the person who got like, a hundred [points]. So 800 hours of playing this. We were hoping that groups of people, like fraternities and stuff, would play.”

“It was going to be, you got to go on Desert Bus from Tucson to Vegas with showgirls and a live band and just the most partying bus ever. You got to Vegas, we’re going to put you up at the Rio, big thing, and then, you know, big shows.”

“It was a HUGE prize. It was dedicated to Janet Reno.”

“The really sad part of this is that Barry Marx, who was the brains behind it and working with us, and a dear dear friend of mine, he had this massive heart attack out of the blue and died. So I think he would have a website certainly that gave all the instructions and everything, because it was really his baby, and a very funny idea.”

(mirrored from GameSetWatch)