Policenauts
Policebauts is a graphic adventure game by Konami, written and directed by Hideo Kojima. It initially saw a release for the PC-9821 in 1994, but I played the Playstation port that came out in Japan in 1996. The PlayStation version featured full-motion cell animated cutscenes, but most fans agree that this game’s original classic pixel look is the best overall.
Policenauts plot is futuristic Lethal Weapon. It stars LA police officer Johnathan Ingram who was chosen to be one of five “Policenauts,” specially selected law enforcers worldwide to train and protect the Beyond Cost, Eath’s first space colony. However, Jonathan gets into a horrible accident when testing a new spacesuit and is presumed dead after falling into space’s blackness. Twenty-five years later, they recover his safety pod, where a cryogenic survival system kept Johathan alive.
The story picks up those 25 years later, in 2040, when Johnathan is working as a Private Detective in Old LA.
This game saw two other ports, an interesting one for the 3D0 in 1995 and eventually on Sega Saturn in 1996. Though an English release of Policenauts for the Sega Saturn was announced, the project never saw daylight. Until 2002, a team of fans got inspired and set off to do their own translation. You can grab a copy of the Policenauts fan translation patch here for the Playstation version.
I would love to do a playthrough of the original Policenauts for PC-9821, but since the game is all CD audio, English text would have to be subtitled into the game itself. Not only that, emulating Policenauts can be tricky where problems occur with the lip-sync or crashes. As my interests in more obscure games grow, I set up new challenges to overcome my current gaming setup.
I finished my playthrough of Policenauts this past Sunday and have uploaded the entire collection of videos to my Youtube. You can check out the videos here:
I’m trying to become better at archiving the Twitch videos, so if you miss watching them live, or if Twitch deletes them, at least there’s a back-up on YouTube.
It will be fun revisiting this game in the future now that I have played thru it once, but for now, I want to focus on looking at other games and explore more Dank fun on the MSX. I do want to go back and look at a few of my favourites on the system, such as Penguin Adventure, so stay tuned for more Dank Streams.
Back Issues
The last three issues of my Dank Zine are in my Dank Shop for those who have been asking. There are only limited copies of each one, so if you miss one in your collection, get your orders in soon. Once I sell out of a zine’s run, it’s challenging to reprint them on demand, so order them fast before they are gone. I’ve also updated things such as mugs and T-shirts if you want to grab those and help support the Dankness.
Dank Art
I’m using my time to get caught up (store update should have been a giveaway) as I have been quite sick over the last few months. Much of my time has been eaten up with doctor appointments and work, so it’s been a bit of a struggle to get started on the massive backlog of updating all my sites with my work as I refuse to quit doing art when I am sick.
Check out the streams: LordBBH, Aquas, Zallard1, RetrogradeTom, Macaw45, Omnigamer, PJ, DukeDonuts, Tondagossa, Goati, SQPat, Chuboh and CapnClever.
Dank Health Announcement
I have made a few hints to my current health status on my streams and in my Discord. After months of visiting doctors and specialists, I now have a clear answer to what is going on with me. If you have been watching my streams, you might have noticed that I have lost an insane amount of weight and I have been a bit more absent from a lot of events, meetups and social activities. I have been struggling with Graves Disease since I was diagnosed in 2010, an autoimmune disease that causes the Thyroid gland to be hyperactive. Though I have undergone medical treatment in the past and had everything under control, things started to become unstable again beginning in March. I’ve lost an astounding amount of weight and had significant problems with my blood pressure, which resulted in a few hospital visits.
Medical stuff is tricky. You don’t always get an overnight answer to this stuff, and often you are left waiting and wondering what’s going on between visits. It’s not like you can check into a hospital and someone says, “yeah, you got this and were going to use this quick fix,” and then forget about it. You get put into the system, and you wait your turn like everyone else. When I started to notice things were wrong, I focused on what made me happy, and that was making art for my friends and the people I follow to keep my passion going for the Zine. It was the grounding force that kept me sane for those months, so I need to thank the communities I am apart of for being there. Some of the best comments I get are “Your art makes me smile” and “Your work adds to the experience of this stream.” I believe in healthy communities, so I am glad I can give back to those who make me happy.
Now that I have an official answer to what is going on, I’m starting my treatment and getting control over it to get back to 100% again. Thank you for being there and understanding.
Stay tuned for more art, more Dank Streams and continued adventures in retro games!