DANCING EYES

Dancing Eyes? Aww, that sounds nice, right? WRONG. Oh, to be as young and innocent as you are. I'm not young and innocent though, and that's because I've played Dancing Eyes.

Bear with me as I go off on a tangent. This is Qix:

You might well have played Qix, but if not, the basic concept is that you control a little cursor who moves around, drawing a line behind him. If you make a rectangle with your line, the rectangle gets filled in. Fill in a certain percentage of the play area and you win, let your line get touched by an enemy and you die. A simple concept that you're probably familiar with from one game or another. The reason I mention it is that Dancing Eyes is a lot like Qix, in that you have to draw a line to make rectangles that then disappear.
It's not that simple, though. Over in Glorious Japan, someone took a look at the Qix formula and decided, in their infinite wisdom, that something was missing. That something was creepy, voyeuristic sex appeal.

Any game that prompts you to select a girl at the beginning should worry you. I guess "You have the power, like a depraved and lustful god, to undress these girls and leer at their badly-animated polygonal forms from your unassailable throne in a dingy arcade. Select a girl to be your target!" was too long to fit on the screen.
Okay, here we go, girl selected.

For some unfathomable reason, she's a military officer standing in a car park full of tanks. I'm going to called her Corporal Susan. Corporal Susan here has some problems. One is that her uniform has been marked with a grid pattern, something which will surely incur the wrath of her superiors should they see it. Secondly, and most worrying, she has a tiny monkey crawling all over her.
The monkey is you: you can see said monkey in the bottom left of the screenshot above. As this lecherous monkey, your goal is to make this poor soldier's clothes fall off by drawing a line around the rectangles marked on said clothes. Surround a panel with your monkey trail, and that panel falls away, revealing the tender flesh beneath.

Get down from there, monkey! Once you've removed all the panels, the girls is left in her skivvies, shamed and tormented by a monkey with no reason to exist other than to humiliate army officers. Then you're "treated" to a "show time" mode, where you can move the camera around and zoom in on the girl. You know, if you're into that sort of thing.

I know what you're thinking: she looks like she belongs in an early Playstation game. That's because Dancing Eyes runs on Namco's System 11 hardware, which is based on the Playstation and also brought to life such (significantly less rubbish) titles as Tekken and Soul Blade. The more you know, and all that. So, Dancing Eyes is was made by Namco. That's Namco who are now Namco Bandai, makers of toys for such innocent fare as Teen Titans and Ben 10. It's a bit like finding out Tomy once made novelty sex toys.

"No Touch", huh? Seems appropriate. And that's all there is to Dancing Eyes, really: fill in all the squares and move on to the next stage. It's not quite that simple, as there are enemies and power-ups to complicate matters, but really it's just you and a whole bunch of targets to pick from. There are three choices in each stage and about twelve stages, and you can get knotted if you think I'm going through all those. Instead, here's a selection of the most interesting one, and don't worry - it's not all lechery and a hollow feeling of shame.

Here's a rocker-type girl. Most importantly of all, she's wearing a Soul Edge/Blade shirt. Soul Blade was released in the same year as Dancing Eyes (1996). I would unironically like to own that t-shirt. Well, not that exact one, it's had a monkey ripping holes in it. In that shot, you can also see some of the enemies that will kill you if they touch you. One the left there's a white rabbit, the natural predator of monkeys in the wild. Up on the top right is a small green mouse. Screw you, mouse.

Ignore the girl, the background is much more interesting here. It's a poster with a picture what I assume is the development team above the phrase "The Innocent Darkside", which is a nickname for schizophrenic knight Siegfried from the Soul Blade series. Above that is what looks like Greek but is actually the word "PHELIOS" written in the Symbol font (here's an article about a secret message in Silent Hill 2 that uses the same system). Phelios is the name of an arcade shooter developed by, you guessed it, Namco. A sad fact but a true one: the backgrounds in Dancing Eyes are more interesting that the actual game.

Stage three, and what the hell is that?

"Get me the fuck out of here, you clown!"

Oh, Alice in Wonderland was trapped in a pile of leaves. Well, that makes sense. As you can see, not every stage in the game is a flimsy excuse to see a girl in their pants, and it's these slightly more bizarre stages that save Dancing Eyes from being a complete bust. And speaking of bizarre...

MILK POWER. It's an abbreviation, the full sentence reads "You just drank some MILK laced with POWERful hallucinogens."

Here is a mermaid who seems pretty relaxed about being eaten by a giant fish. She's made her peace with the world.

Just look at that snake's face. He's so pleased about eating a barbarian he just can't contain himself. He's imagining the looks on the faces of his freinds down at the snake pub when he tells them about the size of the barbarian he just ate. Barry Adder is going to be so jealous!

One for the ladies as the barbarian breaks free of his serpentine prison and, judging by his facial expression, stubs his toe on a rock.

Creepy twins trapped in a tree stump. What is it with blonde kids getting trapped in foliage in this game?

What the hell is that thing?

Oh no, it's seen us!

OH JESUS FUCK.

AARRRGGHHHHH.

Another one for the ladies, although his waistline might cause some envy. Look at that hourglass figure! Dita von Teese would be proud of that. And then you look closer and realise he's wearing a nappy.

Sure, it's a girl in her underwear, but look in the background: there's a picture of Taki from Soul Edge. Note to games developers: don't put things in the background of your game that makes people wish they were playing a different game.

Now we find the nest of the lesser-known Wasp Woman. Her life cycle is curious - she grows to maturity in a a hollow shell shaped like a wasp larva until she is ready to hatch, when a tiiiiiny monkey sneaks into the nest and slowly eats away at the shell.

The monkey's reward for performing this task? Not being stung to death by a giant Wasp Lady and a ten-pound Waterstones gift voucher.

Sticking with the creepy-crawly theme, a sexy slug girl. I sure hope the internet doesn't find out about this... what? They already have? Oh. Oh dear.

And here's what I can only describe as hardcore alien-on-human sex. Well. Honestly, I'm stumped. What can you say about this situation except what the fuck, man?

At least she seems to be enjoying herself. Of course, these aliens probably have acess to sophisticated mind-control devices, so I wouldn't put too much store in her facial expressions.

Here's another alien. That's not his head: that's his helmet that lets him breathe Earth's atmosphere. Your task is to remove said helmet, exposing him to conditions that prove fatal to members of his race.

Explosive decompression has never been so portrayed so disturbingly. You're one sick little monkey bastard.

The final stage is a man with a pineapple for a head, which just about sums everything up nicely.
And that's Dancing Eyes, or at least as much of it as I can bring myself to play through and discuss. Gameplay-wise, it's on the poor side of average; the mechnics of the game have been done better before, but if you try and avoid the "undress a girl" stages in favour of the weirder ones, it's just about tolerable.

The thing that baffles me about Dancing Eyes is the purpose of the "sexy" elements. As you can clearly see, the graphics fall a long way short of erotic. They're not even the slightest bit titillating, so why would you include them? Dancing Eyes would be a perfectly respectable game without the creepyness, so why not just stick with the wacky stages? Maybe I'm overestimating the kind of person who would choose to sit down in an arcade and put money into this machine, all for a brief glimpse of some badly-rendered polygons that may or may not represent breasts. As an arcade owner, why would you even have pornographic games in your arcade? Surely the sight (however uncommon it may be) of a salaryman furiously abusing himself while hunched over a Strip Mahjong or Pocket Gal machine would put you off forever.
Look, what I'm saying is Dancing Eyes is horrible. Don't play it. Even without the pointless nudity, it'd still be rubbish. Go and play Qix instead, or, I dunno, go and get some fresh air or something. I've suffered through this so you don't have to, and the least you could do is go and have a walk in the park or something.

FIGHTERS OF THE WORLD: BRAZIL

When I think of Brazil, I think of football, Pelé and the less terrifying kind of carnivals, the ones with the girls and the feathered headdresses and less clowns. When videogame developers of the nineties thought of Brazil, they apparently thought of a race of feral, jungle-dwelling beastmen. Yes, it's time for Fighters of the World: Brazil!

Okay, so maybe that's a little unfair: as we will see, Brazilian fighters seem to be split into two categories, only one of which is "feral, jungle-dwelling beastmen". So, why Brazil? Because a far higher proportion of beat-em-up characters than you might think hail from Brazil. In fact, I'm fairly certain there're more Brazilian fighters than fighters from the rest of South America put together. I reckon there are three main reasons for this: one, Brazil has certain attributes that are more easily recognised than those of other South American countries; things like the rainforests and carnivals that seem to be associated much more with Brazil than with, say, Argentina. Secondly, they have their own specifically Brazilian martial art in capoiera, which is always a selling point in a videogame about clobbering people. Thirdly, there's a long (and interesting, if you're into that kind of thing) history of immigration between Japan and Brazil, which must have left an impression on the developers of the almost-exclusively Japanese game shown here. Sorry, Venuzuela, but you just don't have that kind of clout.
Let's begin with Brazilian gaming's most famous son...

Blanka, Street Fighter II

Well, he's Blanka, isn't he? What more can you say? Possibly the most famous Brazilian who isn't a world-class footballer, Blanka sets the standard for Brazilian fighters, as well as being the main inspiration for all the subsequent beastman-type characters from the Amazon basin. Sure, he's a wild man from out of the rainforest, but he wasn't always that way: he was once a young man called Jimmy whose plane crashed into the jungle. Now, we all know Blanka has the power of electricity, but how did he gain this power?
Well, one explanation given is that the electrical storm that caused his plane to crash also gave him the power of a thousand Duracells. YAWN. This is an incredibly dull explanation, something you might expect to see in any given Hollywood blockbuster about some guy who gets electrocuted and gains super powers. Like Short Circuit, but with a lingering smell of burning hair. BORING. No, you should all stick to the story as it is given in the Street Fighter II instruction manual: after crashing in the jungle, Blanka was raised by electric eels. As a child, he received parental care from a creature that shows no signs of affection, could not possibly provide food or shelter and lives underwater. Blanka not only survived all that but also somehow learned how to shoot electricity from his skin. I don't know what he's doing entering the World Warrior tournament in the first place: he's already shown that he's is the most colossal of badasses. What do you have left to prove, Blanka? Nothing, that's what.
In the end, it all works out nicely for Blanka, as his SFII ending shows him reunited with his mother:

Aww. His mother recognises him by the anklet she gave him as a child, which he's still wearing to this day. That shows some real foresight from Momma Blanka, buying her son an anklet that will still fit him when he's a fully-grown, mutated beastman. And they all lived happily ever after, with Blanka even becoming good friends with Dan Hibiki and turning out to be the best character in Super Street Fighter IV (prove me wrong!). God speed you, you big green freak.

Liza, Kaiser Knuckle

No, not Minelli, but another jungle warrior. This one's from Taito's 1994 fighter Kaiser Knuckle, and true to her jungle heritage she has a monkey and a parrot. A parrot wearing a feathered headdress, which seems a little redundant. Well, I say her jungle heritage, but maybe not:

She's looking rather masculine there, I must say, but living in the jungle probably affords you very little opportunity for self-beautification. It's hard to find time to exfoliate when you're being chased by a jaguar.

It doesn't matter what gender Liza is, though, because she can throw a parrot or a monkey at you as a special attack. I can't think of many things worse than an enraged parrot being thrown into my face, apart from an enraged monkey being thrown into my groin.

Not a problem you've ever had, huh Liza?

Rila, Breakers

From Visco's surprisingly good 1996 fighter Breakers, Rila is another wild woman with terrible rending claws and the hair of glam metal guitarist. As with several Brazilian characters, she's like a disturbing "sexy" version of Blanka:


Creepy. Actually, she plays a lot differently than Blanka, and is probably my favourite characters in Breakers. Breakers also contains a French pirate who attacks by throwing roses, so being my favourite in that line-up is high praise indeed, Rila.

It's true: I tried living in the forest once. Drinking your own piss isn't nearly as easy as Bear Grylls makes it look.

Golrio, Fight Fever

Up next is Golrio from Viccom's terrible 1994 offering Fight Fever (my recommendation would be to take two aspirins and lie down in a darkened room). He looks like he's from one of Brazil's indigenous tribes, albeit a tribe that founded its society on a brief glimpse of someone playing Street Fighter II. In the vast morass of one-on-one fighters that appeared trying to ape SFII's success, Fight Fever is both one of the worst, gameplay-wise, and one of the ones that ripped SFII off the most. How much did it rip off from Capcom's magnum opus? Well, here's Blanka's jumping medium kick:

And here's Golrio's.

I rest my case. Other than that, the odd thing about Golrio is that he fights like a sumo wrestler. I guess to try and save time the just crammed E. Honda and Blanka into the same rip-off character. Golrio, you suck and I hate you.

Claudia Silva, Knuckle Heads

In that situation - you know, standing in a ceaseless, raging inferno - that kind of costume seems appropriate for the first time ever.
I'm sure you can see a pattern forming here: she's a bit of a wild woman, fighting with claws to protect the rainforest she calls home. She looks a little like a Fist of the North Star character, but the way her sprite is standing makes her look more like a T-Rex that needs its fingernails cutting.

Claudia's goal is to win the Knuckle Heads tournament and claim the prize money. But what can she spend her vast fortune on?

She buys the entire Amazon rainforest. That must have been some cash prize: the logging rights alone must run into billions of dollars! Oh, I get it now; you're going to hang onto the rainforest until the rest of the Earth's natural resources have been depleted and then sell it off for a vastly increased sum. You're a crafty one Claudia.
Oh, I've just noticed the pun in her name. Claudia. Clawdia. Claws. Well played, Namco, well played.

Eddie Gordo, Tekken

At the start of the article I said that there are two types of fighter from Brazil. Well, I've covered the beastman types, and they're by far the most interesting fighters. I find it's hard to remain uninterested when an angry green man is trying to electrocute me.
The other set of fighters from Brazil are the capoeria masters. The most famous capoeira fighter in videogames is probably (sigh) Eddie goddamn Gordo.
What can I say about this button-masher's dream that hasn't been said already. I hate you, Eddie, I hate your tumbling, cartwheeling bullshit. I know what you're thinking, if you can't beat a button-mashing Eddie player, then you're just shit at Tekken. Well, you got me. I am shit at Tekken. There! I admit it. My brain just can't handle the extra dimension, and I hate juggling, but most of all I hate you, Eddie, you festering pustule of a man. I was happy when you got replaced by Christie! HAPPY!

Richard Meyer, Fatal Fury

Here's a capoeira fighter who's much better than Eddie: Richard Meyer from Fatal Fury. Richard has the distinction of being the first character in a fighting game to use capoeira, although a fat lot of good it did him as after Fatal Fury he had to wait until KoF Maximum Impact 2 for another playable role.

My favourite thing about Meyer is that he received a name change in the Portuguese version, from Richard Meyer to Ricardo Maia. I'd like to have been at the meeting for that one. "So this guy's Brazilian? And they called him... Richard Meyer? He sounds like an English bank manager. Tell you what, we'll just change it to Ricardo Maia". Honestly though, I think it's a nice solution.

Khushnood Butt / Marco Rodriguez, Garou: Mark of the Wolves.

Yes yes, his name is Butt. That's only because it was changed from the more normal-sounding (and much more Brazilian-sounding) Marco Rodriguez, apparently to avoid confusion with mixed martial artist Ricco Rodriguez.
Khushnood is the odd-one-out in this list: neither a beastman nor a capoeira fighter, he practices Kyokugenryu Karate, most famously used by Ryo and Robert from Fatal Fury. So congratulations to Butt for breaking out of the Brazilian stereotype and overcoming his deepy unfortunate name. I just wish I was as cool as this guy.

So, Brazil, then. Feral, jungle-dwelling beastmen? Sure, there are plenty of those, along with capoeira fighters and the occasional karate badass. Frankly, it's a more diverse bunch than the previous countries I've looked at, so congratulations to Brazil for being less easily pigeonholed than France and Russia. Now I'm off to create my own Brazilian character based on British stereotypes of Brazil. She's going to be a passionate, thong-wearing, beach volleyball-playing supermodel, and her game will sell millions.

Previously in the Fighters of the World Series:
Russia!
France!