32 Bits is a series where I revisit the most popular games of the recent past; from the launch of the original Playstation to the last days of the Xbox 360. Why?
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To chart the evolution of games.
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To destroy people’s nostalgic feelings by playing the “classics” they all know…alongside the detritus everyone played at the time, but no one remembers.
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To rediscover games unjustly forgotten by history.
The time is August 1996: eight months into the Playstation’s first full year. The Nintendo 64 is three months away; while Sega’s Saturn system is fading fast.
A full list of 32 Bits articles from the current season (1996) can be found here; further explanations of the “greatest hits” series and what games I’ll include can be found here.
Saturn Review #34:
Casper
Developed by FunCom, published by Interplay
Released: August 31st, 1996
Best-Seller in: North America (Greatest Hits)
Also available on the Saturn & 3DO
One of my goals for this series is that by playing games popular in their day instead of what we remember now, I’m looking at the detritus everyone forgot playing, the kind of mediocre-to-awful flotsam that everyone played but no remembers when boasting about how gaming was at its peak when they were eight years old. And if there’s one type of game that’s almost always forgettable detritus, it’s movie-based games.jus
No one boasting about how games were just so much better when they were eight years old remembers the dreary Alien shooters or Wrestlemania-themed Mortal Kombat knockoffs. This is a universal constant: even today movie games are infamously bad, disappointing even the people who made the films adapted. But these games sold well, so people were swayed by the property into buying subpar games- even if they rarely admit it.
Well, I’ll admit it. As I’ve said before, my first console was a Playstation but I only had it for about a year before moving on to the Playstation 2, making the 32-bit era something of a great unknown to me and also minimizing nostalgia. Among the handful of games I owned: the usual Final Fantasy, Crash Bandicoot and Spyro. And games based on Toy Story and A Bug’s Life. The former is a capable enough action/adventure that improves the less like the movie it is. The latter is just awful. But I bought both – or had my family buy them for me – because, hey, I liked the movies and that was enough for nine-year-old me.
Casper is the first time I’ve played a game created as merchandise for a new movie. I had no idea that there was a Casper movie in 1995. But it was a massive success and the eighth highest grossing movie of the year in the United States (number 1 was Die Hard with a Vengeance, and I’ll be playing that movie’s game later).
I’ve never seen Casper but it’s not necessary. Games based off movies often turn their inspiration’s stories into a montage of clips representing the most basic plot points – or worse, their approach to the source material is incomprehensible and fragmentary. Casper follows the first method: it skips the majority of the movie, turning it into just four scenes. The final boss doesn’t make her debut until the fight begins despite being the villain of the film.
I was prepared to scorn Casper, but it turned out to be a strange little game. Most movie-games are horrendously uncreative – they follow the leader and copy whatever’s popular. I was expecting the usual generic 3D action game or a 2D platformer. Instead I found a 2D adventure game that’s based all around exploration.
Fleeing a boss in Casper.
There are no enemies, only bosses. There’s no combat, as boss fights play out more like puzzles. The game focuses on puzzle solving. The puzzles revolve around switches, keys and doors. It’s all the keycard-finding excitement of Doom, with none of that boring demon-fighting!
I sound like I’m scorning Casper but I actually enjoy this unusual style of game. And it’s easy to see why they made it this way. Presumably there was a directive to make the game non-violent, as its target demographic was children.
Then again, this game isn’t exactly perfect for kids. Why?
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It’ll confuse them. The door and switch filled rooms all blend together after a while. The game helpfully suggests you draw your own map.
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Progress can be unintuitive. The 2D perspective lets the developers hide passages and objects behind the foreground wall – you have to either methodically explore every last corner or just know where the secrets are.
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Jump scares. Mild stuff for adults, but imagine a kid’s reaction when a ghost pops out of that chest they’ve just opened and attacks them, or when laughter echoes out from parts unknown.
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Also the only characterization-based scene the developers bothered to include is Casper discussing his death.
So Casper will confuse, baffle and scare children, and remind them of their mortality.
But despite this, it is an easy-going, relaxing game. You glide around, solving puzzles, exploring, not worrying about threats or killing legions of enemies. Even boss fights are usually just puzzles to solve.
A catchy score and convincing environments lend a well-realized atmosphere to the decaying mansion in Casper.
Casper adopts the “carrot dangling” style of game design so prevalent during this time. You can explore anywhere, but you’re always running into areas blocked off due to you lacking the right objects and abilities. Since you saw these impediments earlier, it feels like you’re really making progress when you do earn the right ability to pass.
As always with these games, the early abilities are indispensable and the last ones practically worthless. The first “morph” lets Casper turn into mist and pass through vents, which appear at every stage of the game. But the last abilities may be used just once, right after you find them.
Those who enjoy exploring would enjoy the many secrets of Casper, which include at least one terribly obscure puzzle. Solving a bonus puzzle gives you the “Casperman” morph; use it near a certain chair in the attic to reach a secret area. Then use the bonus “spring” morph on the spiral in the mansion’s lobby to enter a room with three walls of switches and gold spelling out 52-2-20.
The solution? All I’ll say is it involves binary. I neither found or solved this puzzle myself, and only learned of it on Youtube.
Casper can be repetitive due to the endless banks of switches and doors and keys, but it’s an unusually accomplished movie-based game. In 1996, this game was bought by parents for their kids. But in 2013 we can see how FunCom innovated within a usually uncreative, bandwagon-hopping genre. 
Saturn Review #35:
Bogey: Dead 6
Developed by Pegasus Japan, published by Sony Computer Entertainment America
Released: August 6th 1996
Best-Seller in: Japan (the Best)
There are a few interesting things about Bogey Dead 6.
It was one of the first games to support the Playstation’s analog joystick. First I mistook this for the analog controller, which is still sadly a year away. But this peripheral was a joystick for serious flight game fans. I didn’t have it so I felt the game’s control was frustratingly imprecise.
In its native Japan Bogey Dead 6 is known as Sidewinder. In Europe, it is named Raging Skies. The Playstation the Best rerelease renamed the game again to Sidewinder USA.
Personally, I know it as “second-rate Ace Combat that’s just too unremarkable to have strong opinions on, so it made me write the most half-assed review thus far”. 
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- Sunday February 9th: Namco Museum, Volumes 1 and 2
- Sunday February 16th: Tekken 2 & King of Fighters 95
- Sunday February 23rd: Nights Into Dreams
- Sunday March 2nd: Crash Bandicoot
- Saturday March 8th: Legends of Oasis, World Heroes Perfect, Virtua Fighter Kids, Discworld, Lemmings 3D
- Sunday March 9th: Mortal Kombat Trilogy & Die Hard Trilogy
- Saturday March 15th: Adidas Power Soccer, VR Soccer 96, Worldwide Soccer ’97, NBA Action
- Sunday March 16th: Myst & True Pinball
- Sunday March 23rd: Tokyo Highway Battle & Formula 1
- Sunday March 30th: Ridge Racer Revolution & Wipeout XL
- Saturday-Sunday April 5th-6th: Saturn round-up, lineup to be determined
- Sunday April 13th: Super Mario 64
Cultural Fragments 
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