Dr. Maybe

It's 3 am. Do you know where your giant fighting robot is?

Awake and listening to a cat attempt in vain to get into the basement. Not quite sure why she wants down there, other than I am up and my function in life is opening doors.

Watched the Red Sox win the World Series this evening, which was pretty cool. Totally missed the lunar eclipse, alas.

Somehow, watching the animation of characters in Phantom Brave reminded me of one of the first games I can remember where the character had an idle animation.

Captain Goodnight and the Islands of Fear involved playing as the super-spy Captain Goodnight, battling the forces of your evil arch-nemesis, Dr. Maybe. It was a side-scrolling bunch of goodness, though hard as hell. You'd die a lot. And since there was a time-limit in the game, dying was a bad thing indeed.

There's a lot to recommend the game--the pack-in material and manual were well done and hilarious, as good or better than most of the Infocom games--but one of the things that still sticks with me is that if you left him alone long enough, Goodnight would whip out a yo-yo and start playing with it. Idle animations are commonplace now (Samus fiddling with her beam weapon in Metroid, the various and sundry idles for Crash Bandicoot, Jak and Daxter goofing around, etc.), but in 1985 that was pretty damn cool. He felt more alive than some of his pixelated brethren.

The Underdogs review also mentions Drol, which was another fun platformer, involving rescuing children while ducking objects the game threw at you. This was everything but the kitchen sink. Come to think of it, it may have involved the kitchen sink, too. It's been a while since I've played it.