Previews
A long-forgotten mascot returns in a faithful update to Konami's 16-bit trilogy.
It used to be that you couldn't swing a dead hedgehog in your local game shop without hitting a dozen smirking rodents who desperately longed to be gaming superstars. Time and technology have weeded out most of these Sonic-come-latelys: Gex, Bubsy, and Earthworm Jim botched their transitions to 3D, while others like Kao Kangaroo, James Pond, and Jazz Jackrabbit seem content to linger on through the occasional regurgitation of their old adventures. Grim men in body armor have replaced the marsupial mascot in modern games; say what you will about the change, but at least there are a lot fewer smarmy grins on shelves these days. Yet one mascot has been conspicuous in his absence through the years: Sparkster, Konami's Rocket Knight. Sure, he appeared fleetingly in a Contra ending, and he raced alongside other unlikelies such as Pyramid Head in last year's
New International Track & Field, but outside of these brief cameos Sparkster has been completely missing in action for 15 years. It's a strange fate for a character clearly designed to be a corporate spokescreature; in the latter half of the 16-bit era, Sparkster appeared in no less than three games and on the back of Konami's instruction manuals, too. Yet once the 32-bit era arrived, he vanished without a trace, even though his creator -- Konami veteran Nobuya Nakazato -- continued to work on the Contra series through 2004's
Neo Contra.
In a way, this vanishing act has worked to Sparkster's advantage. "The funny thing about Rocket Knight is that when you look for information on the Internet --
if you can find it -- you never see anything bad about him," says Konami producer Tomm Hulett. "The people who played the games and remember Sparkster really love him."
Hulett counts himself among those fans; one of his first efforts when he began work at Konami was to draft a pitch for a Rocket Knight revival. Finally, two years and four revised pitches later, Sparkster is finally returning in a proper adventure: A 2.5D platformer for XBLA, PSN, and Steam, programmed by Climax, with Hulett at the helm. "It was really a matter of reworking the concept -- making the right pitch at the right time," he says. With the success of modern retro recreations like
Bionic Commando Rearmed, the proper format for Sparkster's return became obvious, and the game -- tentatively titled
Rocket Knight -- is slated for release in early 2010. [Check out
1UP's Cover Story for more!]
Unlike Rearmed, this isn't simply a tarted-up remake of an old game; Rocket Knight is a sequel, set 15 years after the last game in the series, 1994's
Sparkster for Genesis. "The idea is that there haven't been any games these past 15 years simply because Sparkster hasn't had any adventures," says Hulett. In a Nakazato homage, the new game's backstory is fairly dense: Sparkster saved the opossum kingdom of Zephyros (and its princesses) back in the day, but found himself disenchanted when the villainous pigs he battled in the first game were allowed to take up residence in Zephyros. He moved away with his family -- and notably
didn't marry the princess -- and lived in quiet and peace until he looked up one day and noticed a war raging in the sky over Zephyros. To his surprise, though, his former enemies (the pigs) were fighting on the side of the opossums against an army of wolves; even stranger, his former nemesis, the nefarious Axel Gears, had become the kingdom's rocket knight in his absence. And so Sparkster puts on his gear and launches into the fray.
Despite the complexity of the plot line, don't expect to have the action broken up by endless, chatty cut-scenes; Rocket Knight is an old-school game in every sense of the word. The plot plays out in-game through simple pantomime sequences, just like in the 16-bit titles. When you reaches the end of the first stage, Sparkster faces off against Axel with a look of determination -- which quickly changes to cartoon panic as a massive robot bursts through the wall.
Hulett says this expressiveness was a major factor in Konami's decision to work with Climax on the revival. "We have a good relationship with Climax, and they do great work," says Hulett, who has also worked with different teams at the developer on
Silent Hill: Origins and the upcoming
Shattered Memories, "but this wasn't just a case of us saying, 'Hey, we've got a game for you.' We talked to a lot of developers before going with Climax. In the end, they were simply the best fit." That comes down in part to the developer's facial animation technology, which allows Sparkster to change his expression dynamically according to the situation. The original games earned great renown for their lush animation and sprite art, which in classic Konami style pushed the Genesis to its limits; despite the move to polygons, Sparkster's personality still comes through nicely.
That's no small feat considering how small the character is on-screen: Where Sparkster was a fairly large sprite back in the day, the new Rocket Knight pulls the camera back away from the action for the sake of playability. "Something that struck me, looking back on the old titles, is that after the first stage of each game you were sort of discouraged from using Sparkster's jetpack, which is his coolest feature," says Hulett. "The rocket pack was dangerous."
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