Through a bit of wizardry, I managed to copy the MPO files to my SD card and load them on my 3DS, allowing me to see the 3D effects of these old games on the modern portable. I don’t know what it is, but I felt a headache immediately coming on after looking at them for a few seconds (I don’t have this problem with 3DS games).
With the Virtual Boy’s 15th anniversary for Japan having passed last week and its U.S. birthday coming up, I thought I’d take a moment to correct a long-held misconception about the maligned red and black console.
As if the system doesn’t already receive enough hate from gamers, you’ll find many online sources claiming as fact that the Virtual Boy’s failure compelled Nintendo to force the resignation of its creator, Gunpei Yokoi — also the father of the Game & Watch, the Game Boy, the WonderSwan, and several memorable NES franchises.
According to Nintendo Magic and Yoshihiro Taki, who worked under Yokoi at Nintendo and later served as president and CEO of WonderSwan developer Koto, that wasn’t the case at all:
Virtual Boy demakes of Metroid Prime, The Secret of Monkey Island, Mega Man, and some Aliens game.
Did you know this week marks the 15th anniversary of the Virtual Boy’s Japanese launch? Nintendo’s unappreciated, headache-inducing system launched on July 21, 1995 — and was discontinued less than two years later. A 3D portable system! What were they thinking?
In honor of the Gunpei Yokoi-designed console, Pixel Joint is asking its members to create mock-ups of Virtual Boy-style games for its pixel art challenge this week. My favorite submission so far is the demake for The Secret of Monkey Island, which doesn’t take advantage of the system’s 3D capabilities but still looks great!
“No matter how amazing the image you display on a TV screen, nobody’s going to be surprised. But with sterescopic vision, you can show them something with depth, and they’ll discover something new nearly every day.”
Game Boy creator Gunpei Yokoi dropped this knowledge in the debut issue of Japanese magazine Jugemu in 1995. Obviously, he’s referring to the flawed Virtual Boy here, but this quote seemed appropriate to share on the eve of the Nintendo 3DS’s reveal.
Virtual Boy TV. This Wide Boy-like device, designed by beloved Nintendo second party Intelligent Systems, allowed developers to test games on a television. The regular Virtual Boy is uncomfortable enough for me — I’d rather not have to strap one of these and a television to my face.
How interested are you in seeing Nester’s Funky Bowling super-sized? If it’s $50,000 interested, eBay awaits!
[Via GameSniped; yep, totally had GameSniped-sourced posts two mornings in a row.]
“Adventures of Wizard Davey Crockett Jr.” by Kazimir Strzepak (click for larger, dusty image). Since the Game Over art show is kicking off tonight at Giant Robot San Francisco, I thought I should finally get around to sharing this piece I purchased at last year’s exhibit.
According to legend, this piece and two others — “Black Barrel Roll” and “Facetious Dungeon 3-D” — are based on Virtual Boy titles that were actually in production but eventually cancelled, likely due to the system’s monumental failure. It’s a believable myth, considering the artist that produced these works as a Nintendo tester!
I asked Kaz about it, however, and he says he’s always wanted to design his own game, and so he produced these fantasy titles for the art show. Someone at Nintendo should really pay attention to these ideas; I want someone to make Adventures of Wizard Davey Crockett Jr.!
Even though the piece I have isn’t based on an actual unreleased title, I love the playfulness of it — the robot cat boss, the Wario-like Davey Crockett hero, and the UI elements. It also uses three glass panes inside with different elements painted on each, giving it a very 3D/Virtual Boy effect. It’s one of the few video game related tchotchkes I allow to populate my office.
Kaz is debuting another curious piece at Game Over 3 tonight, a 3D replica of the Ikari Warriors title screen. It has an interactive element, allowing you to twist a knob that will make the figures turn outward and make a ticking noise that simulates the sound of machine gun fire:
NSFW: Another reason why the Virtual Boy was a terrible portable console. In all my years playing with Game Boys, Game Boy Advances, and DSes, I’ve never had a man-butt touch my head while immersed in those devices.
Scan of Doraemon: Nobita no Doki Doki! Obake Land (Doraemon: Nobita’s Thrilling Monster Land), an unreleased Virtual Boy game starring the famous earless robot cat. A larger version of the scan is available at VR32, home of every single Virtual Boy fan. The game, originally due to release in Spring 1996, takes place in an amusement park, and (obviously) includes a Jet Coaster minigame.
In addition to being an interesting piece of Virtual Boy history, this game is the excuse I needed to post this video from Danny Choo:
We’ve posted about Game Over/Continue? — a group art show paying homage to “the massive influence and continuous evolution of video games” — several times already, but now that the exhibit is open and that I’ve seen it with my own appreciative eyes, I’ll remind you again to stop by the gallery at Giant Robot if you’re in town.
In fact, I’ve outlined four things you can look forward to, should you attend the San Francisco show.
1. Classy game art:
The work featured at Game Over/Continue? represents a “wide assortment of styles and genres provided by top artists in the fields of illustration, painting, sewing, and indie comics” — unfortunately, my camera did not do a good job documenting this. The Ico art above is only a fraction of a much larger piece that you really need to see!
2. Playful game art:
My camera corrupted this re-imagined Super Mario Bros. 2 ending, but I’m posting it anyway because the photo still looks cool. Note that the playful and classy pieces aren’t mutually exclusive; I just want to warn potential visitors that you may encounter an image depicting an oral sex situation between Mario and Q*bert.
3. Game art that I bought
This is part of a three-piece collection created by a former Nintendo tester. According to legend, the series depicts several Virtual Boy games that were never released (possibly using forgotten art assets for the work?). Its 3D origins are accentuated in the pieces with a layered presentation emulating the VB’s parallax.
I didn’t purchase this particular one, but it was my only photo from the set that didn’t come out too blurry.
4. Art games
The ARTXGAME portion of the show presented four new video games created jointly by artists and indepedent game developers. The clip above is from Derek Yu and Hellen Jo’s strange brawler, which is titled Hellen & Calvin’s Bogus Journey, according to Electric Ant. ARTXGAME organizer Adam Robezzoli tried to explain the title to me, but I was too busy trying to come up with ways to steal his Attractmo.de shirt.
The only game I tried out myself was Octopounce by Saelee Oh and Sarah Anna “Auntie Pixelante” Anthropy. My wife and I enjoyed it a bunch — I’m hoping to write up a preview for it later once someone posts more photos of the game online, as I didn’t take any decent shots of it.
The show runs until April 15th, so there’s still time for you to head over there! If anything, you should visit Giant Robot just to see all the great shirts, books, and people they have over there.
Huge thanks to Giant Robot owner/publisher Eric Nakamura and Adam Robezzoli for giving my wife and I a personal tour of the exhibit — it was definitely one of the best highlights of our San Francisco trip last week.
