The Shipping Report continues - albeit, a day or so late. There are various reasons for this, but they’re not really worth going into. Anyway, after last week’s mammoth début, I’m probably going to keep it to a more manageable level for future columns, though it really depends on what’s actually been happening. This week? Well, not much, really, though there’s a few interesting comic releases, and the finale of Kaizo Mario to touch on, plus a few other Mario hack goodies.

The site is behaving better now, which means that you can leave comments and so forth. I’m not hating the big chunk of text look, to be honest, so we might continue with that for a little while, or at least until someone tells me not to do it anymore. Why did it start working again? I don’t know. What can I do to make sure that doesn’t happen again? I don’t know. Why does technology hate me? God knows.

On with things and such.

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Seeing as how this is meant to be a workblog of sorts, I though it might be a laugh if we started by actually talking briefly about something that I’ve been working on. The Game Developer Top 20 Publishers 2007 report is over 120 pages and almost 20,000 words of in depth analysis of this year’s most successful games publishers. Graphs, tables, peer response - we got it all. And more!

More?! Yes, more! We’ve got responses from people who have worked with these companies, as well as analysis of the companies that didn’t even make the top 20. Plus, there’s financial information up the wazoo. It’s “an unprecedented level of data into how major game companies are currently faring”.

To be serious for a second, it is a pretty interesting piece of work, if I do say so myself. I owe a big thanks to the people who worked on collating and gathering the information for it. I don’t want to say anything about what’s actually in there, because Gamasutra and GameSetWatch have talked about it in detail and it’s not really my place, but I’m proud of it, which is a nice feeling. There was even a thread on NeoGAF about it, which made me go all shy and not say anything. Anyways, buy a copy for the low low price of just US$2,995.00 and help keep me in a job.

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Let’s then move onto where we left off last time around with Kaizo Mario - the first half of the final level had just been posted, and we were waiting on the final half. Well, it’s finally here, and despite not being as outrageously flashy as some people might have expected, it’s a really solid effort, and once again shows exactly how much thought has been put into all this. For the most part, this video focuses on the end boss battle, which is really brilliantly timed.

YouTube is, as always, really annoying to get good screen grabs from, and I’m not about to try and make my way through this level just to take a screen myself, but I think you can probably make out what’s happening here. The Reznor (which are the dinosaurs on the spinning platforms) are surrounded by a series of those snapping flowers, and Mario is boxed in by the plunging spikes, and the rising lava. It’s immensely claustrophobic, and clearly a real struggle to even manage not to get hit by the Reznor’s fireballs.

In order to actually pass the level, you’d need to get over to the other side of the boxed out area and hit a P-block, then collect the coins that the snapping flowers turn into to give you space and the chance to actually hit the Reznor. The final moment, where the timing needs to be absolutely perfect is brilliant. Because the Reznor spin, the last one is over the other side of the area when the spikes are up the top and the lava is right down the bottom - the actual attack is so split-second as to actually be a bit nerve wracking. It’s a fittingly nail-biting end to a great series of videos.

It seems that there is also a series of videos of someone doing a tool-assisted speedrun of the first set of Kaizo Mario levels. It’s interesting to see someone move through the levels with confidence, but it ultimately misses the point of the whole thing: it’s appealing because the levels are so hard, and the player isn’t perfect. They could easily have just shown the successful run that the player makes through the levels, but that wouldn’t have illustrated the genius of the design anywhere near as well. You really need to see how easy it is to fail to see the kind of accuracy in timing and jumping ability you need to be able to play through it properly. The speedrun is, for that reason, actually really boring.

I ended up spending a little while checking out some more Super Mario World hacks, in the end. There’s some pretty interesting stuff floating around on YouTube, so I’ll try to get through the most interesting videos over the coming weeks. I thought I’d start with some pretty simple stuff this week though - instead of looking at full on game changing hacks, I wanted to focus on the hacks that add just one or two levels to the existing map, and then make claims about finding “new secrets”, or something of that sort. I can kind of understand why people do this, to be honest, or at least why people are interested in watching it, and questioning whether or not it might be true. I mean, obviously it’s not true, but it’s similar to the obsession people have with Zelda: Ocarina of Time’s non-existent Triforce - it’s the question of whether or not we know absolutely everything there is to know about our favourite things, or whether we might still be able to squeeze one last moment of amazement out of it.

I remember years ago finding out that there’s a secret track before the first track (in the pre-gap, if you want to be technical about it) on UNKLE’s Psyence Fiction. It really surprised me that there could have been something extra in this CD that I knew so well. Hell, I had the exact same feeling literally just then when I found out that there’s something in the pre-gap of Jimmy Smith’s Root Down album - I couldn’t even count how many times I’ve listened to that without knowing about it. It’s not very interesting (just Smith introducing the track Sag Shootin’ His Arrow), but it’s something.

For that same reason, wouldn’t it be amazing if there was an extra level in Mario World? Just knowing that’s there is something new to experience in something you really love, no matter how small that extra moment is?

One of the focus points for a lot of people seems to be the island just above the Top Secret Area. That’s not really surprising, seeing as how it is in an obvious location, without anything actually happening there - sort of like the island in the first level of GoldenEye, though that actually did have an importance, before its related mission goals were cut. As far as I know, the island in question in Mario World is just there to fill out the map, and always has been. Of course, that doesn’t stop people from wanting to find a way to get from the Top Secret Area to the island, and creating their own ways to do so - some of which are more interesting than others.

This effort is one of the better ones. The level is reasonably well designed, especially in regards to the need to carry the key almost all the way back to the beginning of the level. It’s not easy - if you’re small, at least - but it seems achievable. I assume that’s the goal, actually: to make it challenging, but possible to do on your first run through. It could have done without the glitched grey Spineys, though. That’s not a good look.

This level uses the same ideas - a hidden pipe in the Top Secret Area - but adds an extra power-up in the new level, which is an interesting idea, but doesn’t really turn out so great. The “Laser Suit” is seemingly just an altered feather, but it looks lame, and the lasers it shoots are at kind of a weird height. They look like they should be coming from lower on Mario’s body. I’m guessing that’s just a sign that they’re using part of the code from a fire flower, maybe? It’s actually kind of weird that more people haven’t tried messing with the power-ups in the game, now that I think about it.

There’s one that just expands on the Top Secret Area, but it’s pretty badly done. It’s got all the hallmarks of an average hack - too many bonuses, and too much linearity in the design. It looks incredibly boring, and doesn’t seem to take any effort whatsoever to get through.

Finally, I think this one is my favourite, simply due to its utter disregard for anything even approaching proper level design and believable secrets. The hidden level is, apparently, on the moon in Star Road, and is accessible through Star World 1 - a level that already has a secret exit, but nevermind. On top of that, the exit is accessed by falling through the floor, which seems a little out of sync with the design in Mario World.

It’s the level itself which is the real selling point, though. As well as being completely without challenge, as with the previous level discussed, it’s glitched in an utterly pointless fashion. Enemies are rendered unrecognisable, and the world’s building blocks are scattered around with disregard for their proper placement. For some reason, though, I think the best bit is the five seconds of emptiness before the player crosses the finish-line. It’s really quite awesomely surreal, in a way. Just look out for the horrible music dubbed over the video - it’s that really awful Bloodhound Gang song that I can’t remember the name of.

Finally, glitching in a much more interesting and inventive manner are the two Super Mario Bros. hack videos put up by fellow CMP writer Matt “Fort90″ Hawkins a few months back - I must have missed them, but I’m glad I stumbled onto them, because they’re absolutely amazing. God knows where Matt got the videos. There’s no doubt that they’re tool assisted, incidentally. The player uses too many glitches to get through (wall jumps, walking through walls, other weird stuff I don’t even understand) for it to be done straight.

The first of the videos, or what I think must be the first, is called Hard Relay Mario. SMB is a game that has been utterly dissected by numerous people, and this takes advantage of all of that knowledge - all the glitches mentioned above are used constantly. I’ve circled Mario in the picture above. He’s currently in the middle of glitching through a wall.

There’s a lot of stuff going on with the end of level flagpole that I really can’t get my head around as well. A good deal of the time, the player will have to jump around it, over it, or even through it, before actually finishing the level. But unlike the Kaizo Mario tool-assisted run, the sheer effortlessness of this run is what really makes it so amazing. I’m not sure if it’s actually a speedrun, but the player is moving quickly enough, and with enough idea of exactly what to do next that it may as well be. It’s just that feeling of looking at someone doing that and thinking, ‘That is something I could never ever contemplate doing’.

The finale - sort of - is pretty interesting too, not because it exploits the game in the same way that the rest of Hard Relay does, but because it just looks so broken and bizarre. It’s far enough removed from what we understand to be SMB that it does kind of have that feeling of bringing something new to something we love, though not in the sense that it’s something you might actually want to try, mind you. Because, you know, you’ve never actually had to deal with avoiding spikes while travelling on platforms while attempting to kill a floating Bowser. Because that would be really actually rather hard.

There are a couple more levels afterwards, one of which brings the whole wall jumping mechanism to a ridiculous extreme. That one’s worth a look. The very final moment just reprises the Bowser battle, for some reason.

But while it relies on glitches to complete, the game is actually fairly normal looking, on the whole. Not so for the secod video, Falling Mario, which just breaks open the game, and abuses everything within it, from purposely creating buggy graphics, to replacing the Hammer Bros. sprite with Princess Toadstool. It’s almost some kind of bizarre philosophical statement, with Mario dying at the end of every world by jumping into a bottomless pit after hitting the flag, noting:

“OH GOD! I WONDER HOW MANY TIMES I HAVE FALLEN!”

No doubt there’s something in that (does Mario have an innate knowledge of everyone of his own deaths?) but maybe it’s not the point, so I probably should avoid putting words into the designer’s mouth. Instead, let’s just look at this picture - again with Mario circled - and marvel at how utterly and stupidly broken it looks. Then watch the video, and realise that it’s all put together with the utmost care; there’s one very linear path in there, and it’s designed down to the merest detail. And then feel a bit confused about the very odd ending, which I won’t spoil other than to say that it’s like some kind of crazy fan fiction. Or something.

My favourite thing about Falling Mario is the music. Some of the notes seem to have been replaced with minor scale equivalents, which gives the whole thing this strange melancholic feel. It’s pretty cool. If I could find the hack anywhere - I’ve tried, and I can’t - I’d rip some of the audio and post it here. For now, I guess you’ll just have to watch the video.

Incidentally, I’m guessing these are designed by the same person who did the slightly more well known Super Mario Air. It’s reasonably easy to get a hold of, and there’s a tool assisted speedrun of it on YouTube, but I wouldn’t recommend hunting down a copy of the ROM unless you understand a whole lot about Super Mario Bros. Like the two videos above, it breaks the game in enough ways that you really have to have an intimate knowledge of how to do that yourself to even get through the first level. Weird stuff.

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I’m not really going to talk about what I’ve been playing this week, mostly because I talked about Atelier Iris 3 last time, and aside from a little bit of Project Gotham 3, that’s all I’ve been doing this week. I’m heading into dB Magazine to pick up Blazing Angels 2 for 360 tomorrow, though, so I should be able to talk about that a little over the weekend. I’m also considering buying Puzzle Quest on Xbox Live Arcade, but that might have to wait until I get my TV back, because playing 360 on a tiny SD TV is really weird for me now. I feel like such an elitist saying that, but it’s obvious that the console really is designed for HDTVs once you’ve seen it on one.

As long as I have it back by the time Orange Box comes out in Australia on the 18th, I’ll be happy. With all the talk of Phong shading in Team Fortress 2, and added HDR lighting and updated textures in Half-Life 2, I don’t really want to have to squint to make sense of it.

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Music-wise it’s been much the same as last week too, though there has also much Elliott Smith listening, again, for reasons that don’t really need to be touched upon. It is worth mentioning, however, that I missed The Brels CD launch for that same reason, and feel like a bit of a jerk for doing so. Sorry guys!

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It must have been Steve Gerber Revisionist Week at Marvel. Or, depending on your feelings on the matter, Screw Over Steve Gerber Week. The two books that I picked up are both new writers’ takes on Gerber characters from the ’70s, Howard the Duck and Omega the Unknown. There’s a big issue with character ownership that surrounds these titles, and, above all that, a fairly simple issue of courtesy: should Marvel have approached Gerber to write the books rather than handing them off to new people?

The two books both bring slightly different problems to the board in regards to that question. Omega, written by Fortress of Solitude author Jonathan Lethem, was given the green light after Lethem approached Marvel with the idea. He’s a self-confessed fan of Gerber’s original 1976 10 issue (unfinished) series, and wanted to bring it to a new audience. So should Marvel have optioned the series to Gerber before giving Lethem the go-ahead? I’m not sure there’s an easy answer there.

Howard the Duck is written by Ty Templeton this time around. Gerber wrote this series the last time it was revived, in 2001. Should he have been offered this latest series, rather than Templeton? Templeton’s got the pedigree to be working on something like this: he’s a huge fan of the character, and his work has certainly shown the kind of absurdity required for the project. But I think this is much clearer than the Omega issue - Gerber definitely should have had first say on this.

Obviously, there are a lot of people who feel very strongly about all this. Gerber is one of the most beloved writers in comics, both for his work in the past, and the excellent work that he continues to put out. Mark Andrew over at the very wonderful Comics Should Be Good blog is talking about things in the most level headed way I’ve read so far, although I really must disagree with his decision to boycott the two books. I think, as important as it is to support creators like Gerber win the recognition they deserve - because, really, a little header that credits him at the start of the book is a pretty token gesture - the implications of not supporting the work of people like Lethem and penciller Farel Dalrymple on Omega is also something that shouldn’t be ignored. This book is so out of the ordinary in terms of art and writing for Marvel that people should be putting their hands up and supporting it so that we can foster new and interesting talent in the mainstream.

And, hell, I like the book. Visually, it’s absolutely stunning. Dalrymple is great; really expressive, really stylised, delightfully understated, and his action isn’t half bad either. There is one page where I thought his shading for shadows came off as a little overbearing, but that’s one page out of 22, and the rest is gorgeous. I found Paul Hornschemeier’s colours to be a little too bland in some of the shots set inside the hospital. For the most part though - especially in the outdoors settings - they work really well with the art.

I think the story is going to work better in a graphic novel format, however. The first issue doesn’t really give a lot of clues as to where Lethem is going to take the story, and even though you’d assume he’s going to follow the original series pretty closely, there’s still a feeling that maybe a little more should have been given to the readers. I’m fine with that, and I’ll be picking up the whole series if it continues at this level, but I can see some readers tuning out at a perceived lack of actual action.

But other than that I can’t fault it. I freely admit that I wanted to like this right from the beginning, but it’s nice not to be disappointed all the same. Lethem’s scripting is terrific - natural when it needs to be, and unnerving when that’s required too - and I’d really like to see more of him in comics after this is all wrapped up.

Oddly enough, Howard the Duck’s biggest problems are in this department. It’s not so much Templeton’s dialogue, which is actually crisp and well timed and features the kind of effortless characterisation he does so well, but with the overall pacing of the book. The second half feels like five pages stretched out to 11, and by the end of it, there’s just a feeling that it was all a bit messy. That’s not a good sign for a four issue series.

Juan Bobillo’s pencils are nice, however. They’re a bit uneven at times with some of the human characters, but the world-weariness in the design and expressions for Howard are fantastic. It’s a pity, then, that Marcelo Sosa’s inking is so heavy handed. While it works on Howard, the more detailed scenes are really oppressive, which contrasts horribly with Bobillo’s cartoony style.

I’ll pick up the next issue, but I’m really not feeling it. I want to love it, because I love Templeton’s work, and I love what Howard brings to Marvel’s portfolio, but it just comes across as too unrefined, and occasionally a little tired, too.

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Hmm, so again, I’ve actually written about ten times what I intended to, but nevermind. I wanted to talk about the frustratingly stupid new translation for Chrono Trigger, but time is getting away from me. I’ll get the hang of this eventually. Just know that pedantic wooden literalism does not equal better. Sheesh.

Next week’s will be on time, guaranteed, or your money back. There might even be a very special shock surprise celebrity photo to go along with it. But more on that next time!