$20 Video Game Tester Job‎

Its been quite a while since Ive written about a Japanese PC Engine game, and even longer since Ive added anything new to my collection.  So this week Im finally going to sit down with one thats been gathering dust for a while -- the digital comic CAL II, which I picked up on the cheap a few years back.  It was created by Birdy Soft, and published as a Super CD-ROM title in 1993 (and likely ported) by NEC Avenue, which brought a lot of titles from other platforms over to the PC Engine.  The game opens with credits, accompanied by a bouncy CD-audio tune and a gallery of big-eyed anime girls, before we get to the simple title screen:



CAL seems to be an acronym.  I dont know for sure that there ever was a CAL I -- only CAL II and CAL III made it to the PC Engine, at any rate, so while there was almost certainly a predecessor, my best guess is it was on the MSX or another Japanese home computer platform.  And unlike most of the PCE digital comics I have written about here, its not based on any anime property with which Western gamers are likely to be familiar.  So were just going to have to take this one at face value.

Like so many manga tales, this one begins with a young lad sitting down to do some homework, we presume, in a conference room at school, where he is distracted by a note:


Then his female friend apologizes for her lateness, and talks, like, forEVer -- we can speed up the printed text, but when theres dialogue, we have to listen to the whole thing before we can move forward:


After she pins a rose on our more-or-less faceless hero, she is taken away by some sort of warrior queen:



Before he is suddenly drawn into another dimension by a blonde goddess who, we may assume, represents the forces of good, what with her crystal temple and all.  Interactivity is limited, but at least our heros non-spoken lines can be skipped over:


Now our hero is free to navigate the overhead map to a lively ragtime tune -- well, not free, really, he has to deal with this catgirl first before he has any other options:


The catgirl says Nyao a lot and sings a brief song, but like a department store Santa Claus, her characteristic features look fake up close:



Past this point, our hero encounters stereotypes of all nations, like this vaguely Middle Eastern village:



And, of course, at the heart of the experience are a number of comely young ladies in slightly risque states of dress, most of whom we get to see from several different angles as the scene progresses.  Theres no real nudity, but plenty of suggestive posing -- at least if you think unhappy-looking girls are sexy:



There arent very many choices to make between the lengthy dialogue sequences -- sometimes only one.  And some of the responses have no real bearing on the story, such as a sequence in which our hero is quizzed about his blood type.  But my real problem here is that, given my extremely limited Japanese language skills, for me the interactive bits become yet another exercise in selecting options at random until something breaks through and allows some progress.  I assume our heros ultimate goal is to get back home, but with little clue about the storys development, the quest grows tiresome before the end is in sight.

And this game makes one really awful design decision, at least in the eyes of the clueless Western gamer for whom this title was never meant -- it lets the hero go to sleep, while we are expected to keep playing:



The production values of CAL II arent bad -- the artwork is colorful and detailed, using one of the PC Engines higher-resolution graphics modes, and sometimes theres a little bit of incidental animation to liven up the still images.  All of the lengthy cutscenes and some of the interactive dialogue sequences are voiced, though CD-ROM space was limited and thus every spoken line suffers from the scratchiness common to digitized audio on the PCE.  Background music is played using the PCE sound chip, sacrificing something in quality for the sake of continuity during frequent disc access.

And, in an unusual twist for a digital comic, it is possible to make the wrong decisions and end up with a true end-of-game situation:


At this point I wasnt motivated to revisit the story and try to make better choices, so thats about all I have to say about CAL II.  I will probably tackle CAL III sometime soon, just to get it out of my queue... but Ill forewarn you that its pretty much more of the same.

A boring world...

The tactical combat system, the most enjoyable part of the game.

Terrible combat...

The hexagons system, the biggest improvement in the game!

Pew pew!

Even more pew pew!

To be continued...



Nodrim

Were doing a brief cover-to-cover review of the 1982 Imagic game catalog; weve perused the Intellivision offerings, and now were flipping the fold-out brochure over to take a look at the Atari 2600 lineup.

First, theres the rest of the promo for the Numb Thumb Club, the reverse side of the mail-in flyer we looked at last week, showing off some more of Imagics unique photo/painted box art:


This side provides a few more details about the Numb Thumb News, which appears to be the typical house-organ sort of publication, intended to thank fans of the companys products and encourage them to buy more.  The clubs slogan definitely has a vintage video gaming ring about it:  "Where sore thumbs are a way of life."  The Atari 2600 joystick was notable for putting odd pressures on the firing digit, and I for one am grateful for advances in controller design over these past thirty years.

Then we get into the Atari 2600 games, with a number of classics:


Rob Fulops Demon Attack really put Imagic on the map; it was fast-paced, colorful, and intense at a time when Space Invaders was still the high-water mark on the 2600.  Atari would later release an official Phoenix game, but Imagics simple action game still impresses with its graphical variety and carefully ramped-up challenge.  After Imagic went under, Activision bought the rights and has continued to market Demon Attack, on cartridge during the Atari 7800 years, and in the recent Activision anthologies for newer platforms.

Star Voyager was the also-ran in the lets-put-Star Raiders-on-the-2600 sweepstakes -- Ataris official adaptation and Activisions Star Master sold more copies and are better-remembered today.  But this version of the Atari 400/800 classic is also impressively executed, another example of talented programmers squeezing incredible results out of the venerable 2600s simple but highly flexible design.

Page 10 (as Ive chosen to number these unlabeled pages) features a few more obscure Imagic titles:


Trick Shot was another Imagic launch game, a pool adaptation thats visually slick and manages a reasonable approximation of billiard ball physics on the 2600, no mean feat in and of itself.  Video game pool has never done much for me personally, but in the days when Checkers and 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe sold for $30, Im sure this cartridge found an audience.

Riddle of the Sphinx is a "graphic adventure" in the only fashion the 2600 could accommodate -- the player wanders through vast and similar screens, fighting off enemies, accessing status screens by flipping switches on the console itself, and looking for special items and cryptic clues that might possibly add up to some sort of solution when the right treasure is randomly accepted at the right location.  The Atari Swordquest series would follow a similar pattern later on, with more graphical and gameplay variety, but Imagics offering focuses on strategic depth and a degree of action.  And digging.  Lots and lots of digging.

Next time, we wrap up our look at this brief brochure.