Darkwing Duck There was a tremendous run of quality licensed Disney games done by Capcom for the NES and the SNES. I mean really good titles like Duck Tales and Aladdin that were way better than they had any right to be. Darkwing Duck was one of the best, but when they tried to do it on the Turbografx-16, everything went to hell. Bad enemy animation, sluggish controls, and the 16-bit graphics did not noticeably improve on the 8-bit NES.
There was one new wrinkle, though. If you stand still long enough in the game, Darkwing will look at you and tap his foot. Eventually he will start looking skyward with an increasingly worried expression. Finally, with a glare of bitter resignation at you, he gets crushed by a safe, costing you a life.
It's rumored that this also happens in the NES tie-in game for 1991 Bruce Willis film Hudson Hawk, substituting a piano for a safe. I have confirmed through two different emulators that this is not true.
Ulitsa Dimitrova When it comes to ice levels, showing your characters being cold and shivering is pretty common. It happens all the time in Zelda games as a nice break up from normal idle animations. In the Homestar Runner Mega Man homage, Stinkoman 20X6, standing still in Level 7: Ice 2 Meet U will even cause you to freeze and lose a block of heath.
Nothing compares to the short indie game Ulitsa Dimitrova though. In it, you play a Russian homeless boy named Pjotre. He spends his days cheerfully smashing windows to steal items to trade people, like glue for the huffer who will give him cigarettes to support his chain-smoking habit in return. You can also steal vodka for your alcoholic prostitute mother. And you live in a Dumpster.
Very soon in the game you will run out of things to do. No more deals, no more stealing and no more begging for money in the street. So you just stand there until Pjotre gets tired. Ah, he's going to go to sleep like Mario does when you don't touch the controller. Wait, is that snow? Get up, Pjotre, you're going to freeze to death. GET UP! Oh God, no...
So now we know what happened to Fyodor Dostoyevsky after he died...he started haunting game programmers.
Jef has a new story, a tale about mad robot nurses and a man of miracles called "Sleepers, Wake!" available now. You can also connect with him on Facebook.
