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Mike Tyson's Punch-Out | |
February 23rd, 2020 | |
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Years ago there was a series of videos on youtube that outlined | |
the deep, deep secrets and strategies of Mike Tyson's Punch-Out in | |
exquisite detail. The series was quite long, if memory serves. | |
Perhaps 10 or 12 videos in all. I remember it from the late 2000s | |
but it seems to have vanished from the internet completely. | |
In the first of the videos the author explained some of the | |
fundamentals. These are things we take for granted about the game | |
that are so basic they set up the mind for later revelations. The | |
first can be demonstrated by a very basic question: which punch | |
does more damage, left or right? Do you know? Do you think you | |
have an answer? Or did you, like most people, just punch whichever | |
was convenient and then alternate away? Would you be surprised to | |
learn that there is an actual benefit for choosing one over the | |
other. There is indeed, and it depends upon which direction your | |
opponent attacked from last. | |
The sequence of punching, whether to stay on left or right for | |
a series or to alternate, also changes depending on a number of | |
cues that are all right there in the game. There's so much at | |
work, such rich programming and strategy, that it's unfathomable | |
that it's escaped notice for so long. | |
What else can I tell you about? The various techniques to gain | |
stars, the methods of using those stars that results in opponent | |
reactions you've never even seen. Seriously, there's like 10 | |
videos worth of gold that was out there! | |
But now it's gone. Poof. I've looked a bunch of times without any | |
luck. The author pulled the videos down and vanished long ago and | |
no manner of sleuthing has uncovered a crumb. | |
It's contrary to the idea we're normally presented with that once | |
something is on the internet it's there forever. We gopher | |
dwellers know the truth, though. This is all vapour and fleeting. | |
How much of the web was purely in Flash and completely | |
inaccessible now? How much was never archived in the wayback, or | |
was behind a login? My own earliest websites are gone. And that's | |
just the web! How much of gopherspace is lost to us? These | |
protocols, around in force since the mid 90s only, 25-30 years of | |
content that seems at once like everything that has ever been, and | |
also a flash in the pan. How long until the next technological | |
upheaval closes another door to our past? How long until all of | |
this is fleeting memory? | |
We are better at archiving than many here in our burrows. It's | |
mostly plain text, after all, and easily stored. But it's also | |
difficult to index, and links vanish without a clue as to where | |
those backup treasure troves might be. If we lose a few | |
cornerstones like Cameron's Floodgap, or SDF, how much goes with | |
it? | |
Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is... have any of you seen the | |
Punch-Out videos? I really want to watch them again. |