News and
views from the long-running video game web site with a
retro
focus.
July 28, 2010... Sprung
on the Cat
Must... force... self... to
update! Mustn't... talk... like... William
Shatner! Must... avoid... starring in crappy CBS
sitcoms!
Anyway. Good Deal Games was kind
enough to send me a care package including not only a copy of
my GameBoy Advance release GORF (it's real! It's really,
really real!), but a couple of their other titles for the
system, along with that holy grail of Lynx homebrews,
Zaku. For those of you who missed the memo, Zaku is a
side-scrolling shooter best described as America's answer to
the Turbografx-16 release Air Zonk. As the spawn of
Sonic the Hedgehog and that cranky chihuahua from Ren and
Stimpy, you must defeat a gang of evil penguins and their
minions to recover a game development kit known only as
"Rarity 9."
I had planned to review Zaku on the site
as soon as I received it, but I'm currently experiencing...
technical difficulties. Specifically, the day I got the
game in the mail was the same day my Lynx II decided to flake
out on me, dropping a wall of green pixels in the center of
the screen. I don't know if the problem can be fixed by
reflowing the solder connecting the display to the system's
main board, but I'm certainly willing to try.
Anything to squeeze a few more days of life out of my Lynx and
keep a few more dollars in my bank account, I say!
While I'm poking around in there, I'm
giving serious thought to replacing the backlight; taking out
the large, power-hungry bulbs and replacing them with energy
conservant white LEDs. Don't worry folks, I haven't gone
all hippy on you... this is mostly just to improve
the clarity of the screen. The Lynx's color display may
have been hot shit back in 1989, but now that we're in the
21st century, it's more like cold diahrrea in a Dixie
cup. After the iPod Touch and the DSi and the GameBoy
Micro, it's very hard to go back to the Lynx's milky white
screen, with or without a green stripe running down the
middle.
Speaking of more modern handhelds, the
3DS version of Super Street Fighter IV is estimated by Famitsu
to be 10% complete, with a flood of pictures being posted on
both Joystiq and Destructoid. The low resolution makes
the game seem kind of rough next to its Xbox 360 and PS3
counterparts (and Ken here looks like he wants some of them
fried potaters...), but maybe it'll look better in action and
without the graphics blown up to triple their actual
size. No word yet on if the recently announced Street
Fighter vs. Tekken will be finding its way to the 3DS, but if
the system is a hit it's probably a safe bet. (I'd
still rather have a Match of the Millennium sequel
with Namco and Capcom characters, though!)
Finally, British readers of the
Blitz (provided they exist) should probably be
warned that my ongoing ZX Spectrum series on 1UP.com
is coming to an end. However, it's being wrapped up with
a massive feature called the Spectraspective, including a
detailed history of the popular computer and
interviews with both fans and developers. I just
finished the massive seven page article a couple of days
ago, and it should be posted on the site shortly, after
revisions are made and images are added. I may also
review the BBC television movie Micro Men, provided I can find
all the clips on YouTube or download it from another
(preferably legal) source. Here are a few choice
cuts from the film:
Wow, that Clive guy makes Steve Jobs
look like a saint, and that's quite a feat!
July 26, 2010... Street
Fighter vs. Delayed
Gratification
That Capcom vs. Namco game? Don't
get too excited about it, because it's actually Street Fighter
vs. Tekken, with characters exclusively pulled from those two
franchises. Also, it won't be coming out for two years,
if the report on Destructoid is to be
believed. Don't worry... it's not by Jim Sterling, so
you should be able to believe it.
Also, Joystiq is claiming
that Sony has finally turned a profit with the Playstation 3
after four years. Are you sure about
that? Have they recouped the cost of research and
development, and from dumping systems at a
price lower than their actual cost? If the answer is
"no," they haven't turned a profit. They'll probably be
lucky to break even in this console cycle with all the money
they've spent from 2006 to 2009.
God, I wish I had the talent for digging
up dirt that ECM does. I might be able to update this
site more than once every four days.
July 22, 2010... I KNEW
I Forgot Something Today!
Augh! Gotta update the site before
midnight!
First, the stuff that actually matters
to people. Capcom is on a hot streak with its
fighting game franchises... it's not only releasing Marvel vs.
Capcom 3 in the near future (now with 100%
more god-dogs!), but it's planning a crossover game with
Namco, its second counting the strategy RPG released in
Japan. It'll run on Dimps'
excellent Street Fighter IV engine, while Namco will make
a fighting game of its own using the decidedly less
excellent Tekken 6 as a template. You get three
guesses as to which one I'll buy and the first two don't
count.
The game I'm most desperate to get from
this collaboration (and the one that's least likely to
actually happen) is a cutesy beat 'em up along
the lines of Match of the Millennium or Pocket Fighter.
More of Namco's characters would fit in this context,
especially Dig Dug, Pac-Man, Mappy, Mr. Driller, and Klonoa,
and they would be a lot more fun to use than that blonde Kid
'n Play reject from the Tekken series or Soul
Calibur's Shyamalangargamel. Come on,
Capcom and Namco! Throw us handheld gamers a few
crumbs here!
In "you may care about this if you're
old" news, AtariMax is selling a
multicart for the ColecoVision that'll be the most handy
peripheral since the Sega Saturn's Pro Action Replay.
Not only does it have an SD card slot for easy transfer of
games between your computer and the ColecoVision, but it
features its own onboard processor, 512K of RAM, and two free
games. About the only thing it doesn't do is
fix the system's crappy power switch. You can have all
this for the price of... what the hell, $129.99?! I'd
better start pawning some kidneys. With a price like
that, I'd better start pawning other peoples' kidneys
too!
In "you don't care about this at all but
I'm telling you anyway" news, I've ironed out the problems
with GORF, and the game is set to be sold on the Good Deal
Games web site shortly. They've also been kind enough to
pledge me a copy of Zaku for the Atari Lynx, so expect a
review of that very Air Zonk-ish game on the web site in the
near future. Remember when I reviewed games on this
site? It only seems like yesterday...
July 19, 2010... Tick
Infestation
Sorry I've been gone so long,
folks. I haven't had much to talk about lately, and my
boycott of Kotaku has made it more difficult to find
video game news. Also, I've been a little stressed out
about the whole GORF situation... turns out that the compiler
I used to make the game produced untidy code that refuses to
cooperate with the cartridge Good Deal Games is using to
distribute it. Anybody know of a way to force a software
reset in a GameBoy Advance? At this point I think it's
the only way I'll be able to make the game run properly, short
of a line-by-line revision of the binary code or a complete
rewrite of the game in another language.
Off that subject, I've learned from an
iPhone app developer that Apple itself has been
responsible for the lack of a proper joystick for the
company's line of all-purpose electronic devices. Here's
the scoop from Stuart Ross of New Potato
Technologies, makers of the iPhone slot
machine dock:
Yes the iPhone actually
responds to the pull of the lever the run the wheels.
Pull the handle all the way forward and the dock ejects the
iPhone from the dock. The dock incorporates an internal
microcontroller and Apple authentication chip. It
communicates with the iPhone and the Jackpot Slots application
over the 30 pin connector using the iPhone’s serial
interface.
We have more
“appcessories” on the way. A joystick is a great
application, but unfortunately Apple has a policy wherein they
are not keen on general accessories which would allow for a
sub-ecosystem to develop around. Over time Apple’s
stance has shifted here and there, so there is some hope that
this policy may change in the near future. In which
case, you can expect to see a bunch of cool “general” input
devices.
So what I'm gathering from this is that
the iPhone uses a security chip like the one in
the Xbox 360 to block the use of unlicensed peripherals,
and that Apple is preventing manufacturers from making
accessories that support a wide range of applications.
So a joystick dock is technically possible
on the iPhone series, but good 'ol Steve Jobs won't let you
have one. Sorry Steve, but if you're intent on marketing
your products to gamers, you're going to have to give them the
tools to actually play games. I've said it over
and over again... a smudgy, finger-obscured touchscreen just
isn't enough to get the job done.
Also, DeathSpank was
recently released for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.
It's being described by the press as the marriage of Diablo
and Monkey Island, but I'm just seeing Diablo with a Tick-like
superhero grafted onto it. As appealing as that may
sound to fans of the underappreciated cartoon series, the
voice actor for Tick-spank is just a bit too enthusiastic,
overselling lines like a desperate car salesman and sounding a
little too in on the joke. What made The Tick great is
that the lead hero didn't realize how completely ridiculous he
was... in fact, nobody on the series had a clue with the
possible exception of straight man sidekick Arthur, and even
he never took off his bunny- er, moth costume. When you
play a Tick-like role and sound like you're going to crack up
after every line, the whole thing falls apart.
DeathSpank isn't a bad game, at
least judging from the generous demo. It's just not
very fresh. It's Diablo with strained humor and
artwork that looks like it came from a pop-up
storybook tucked away in the back of Tim Burton's personal
library. I can't imagine paying fifteen dollars for that
when I already have Fable II, a similar action RPG with more
subtlety and a lot more variety.
Also! Rock Band 3 is coming
soon... much sooner than I'd expected, actually. Flex
those fingers, because you'll be tickling the ivories of the
game's keytar controller by the end of October. I'm
really excited for RB3, because it should finally
shut up all the detractors of music games who incessantly
point out that they can't actually teach you to play
instruments. Now what's your complaint?
July 16, 2010... That's
A Wrap
And so ends the three year saga of
The Gameroom Blitz as a YouTube channel. Laughs were
had, tears were cried, and nearly two dozen videos were made,
not counting the ones I took down due to copyright issues or
because they were too stupid even for YouTube. The last
of them, a review of Muramasa: The Demon
Blade, is up and available right now... at
least until the Bores Brigade catches wind of it and informs
their clueless leader, The Third-Rate Gamer, of its
existence. Too late suckahs, I'm already gone! BWA
HA HA HAAAAA!
(And here's an embedded link for added convenience!)
Whatever happens to this video, I'm glad I made
it. Closure feels good; it feels right.
There's nothing worse than when something just disappears
without warning and you have no idea what-
July 14, 2010... Yes,
No, Maybe So?
Work continues to, uh, continue on
the final video review. I've pieced together
three minutes of footage so far... now I just have
to get the other three minutes ready by
the end of the week. It'll be epic, I tell
you! M*A*S*H could only wish for an ending like
this!
(Okay, I'm overselling it now.)
Now for the gaming news. There's talk of a new,
Kinect-friendly user interface coming soon from Microsoft (aw,
I was just getting used to the last one!), along with a
fresh budget model of the Xbox 360 with four gigabytes of
internal flash RAM for game saves and uh, maybe a handful of
Xbox Live Arcade games. It's not going to be the system
of choice for heavy-duty users, but at a projected $200, it'll
get the job done for everyone else. Let's hope Microsoft
has the good sense to put a wi-fi adapter in it too.
On Nintendo's side of the fence, developers are thrilled
about the upcoming-but-not-coming-soon-enough 3DS. The
CEO of T*HQ is all about the Benjamins, claiming that he's
more excited about the system's anti-piracy measures than
its improved hardware, but other captains of the gaming
industry have their heads in the right place (out of their
asses), thinking about how they can take full advantage of the
handheld and its unique features. Atsushi Inaba of
Platinum Games (formerly Clover Studios) believes that the 3DS
will be a "dream" platform for creative developers, while Suda
51 of Grasshopper Manufacture semi-fame thinks that it will be
"The Next Hardware," in search of "The Next Game." Those
are Joystiq's capital
letters, not mine, so I've got to assume "big" is implied in
those two phrases.
Totally off the subject of video games, GameSpite's Jeremy
Parish was kind enough to review the Yes album
Drama for me, because I've been on a Buggles kick lately and
asked him if Trevor Horn was up to snuff as a temporary
replacement for lead singer Jon Anderson. His in-depth
analysis reveals that yes, Horn was as good a substitute as
the band was likely to get on short notice and no, the
half-ton of criticism dumped on Drama by music critics was not
deserved. I'm listening to the album right now courtesy
of a free eMusic trial, and for what it's worth, I think
Parish is right on the money. Drama sounds
just like classic Yes to me, right down to the singer trying
to outrace the lyrics in Tempus Fugit and the wankery guitar
and synthesizer solos in Into the Lens (which sounds worlds
apart from The Buggles' cover of the song, I
Am a Camera). We've got a Yes fan in the forums,
and I'd love to see what he's got to say about the black sheep
of the band's discography. He's not likely to change my
mind at this point, but I've nevertheless curious about his
reaction to it.
* Sorry Toy Headquarters, you get to keep the asterisk
whether you want it or not! It's your badge of shame for
Pit Fighter and a billion other crappy Super NES
games.
July 12,
2010... 3D-No
Sony recently admitted (in a terms of
service agreement discovered by Destructoid) that its 3D
technology may cause some users "discomfort." So,
are we talking discomfort like a mosquito bite,
or something more like this?
I get this feeling that game companies (and the entire
entertainment industry,
really) are a little too desperate to find
the next paradigm shift. High-definition hasn't
even reached its saturation point yet, and you want to push
this 3D nonsense on us, which has barely evolved since
the red and blue cardboard glasses of the 1960s? Maybe
you ought to give the public something legitimately
useful like improved digital distribution, rather than
screwing around with silly toys. Someone will get
3D right eventually, but the technology we've got now (Kim
Jong-Il sunglasses that give the wearer nausea) clearly
isn't up to snuff. When you make a blue and white trash
can that projects a holographic image of Carrie Fisher, and
you can get it under two thousand decicreds, call me and I'll
break out my checkbook.
July 10, 2010... The
Insult That Never Gets
Old
I had high hopes for Destructoid,
but the smug and insufferable Jim Sterling isn't making a
good first impression. Out of curiosity, I entered
his name into Google, and the site quickly offered
"Jim Sterling is a douche" as a search term suggestion... in
fact, the second most popular one, resting just
below his name. Wow, he's nationally
recognized!
Anyway, I just received Sin and Punishment 2 in the mail
today, and it's fantastic, combining the best of both Cabal
and Space Harrier into one package. The reviewers
weren't kidding when they said it's a trippy experience,
though... I took a break from the game shortly after
being soundly thrashed by a pod of ring-firing
dolphins.
Slightly less surreal is the addition of zombies to
Rockstar's wild west action game Red Dead Redemption. I
don't know what possessed them to do this, or how they could
possibly make it work in the context of the game, but they'll
be offering an expansion where the player must fend off the
living dead. Hey, every other game is doing it,
right? (That's part of the problem, really.)
July 9, 2010... Catch
the Wii Fever
Super Mario Galaxy 2 arrived from
GameFly a couple of days ago, and I'm really enjoying the
ride. With its even-more-tacked-on-than-usual storyline
and a flat map replacing the explorable hub from the original,
it's less of a sequel than a mission pack... Super Mario
Galaxy: The Lost Levels if you will. That's not to say
that it's a phone-in on Nintendo's part, though! The
meat of the game is flavorful and satisfying, with the
brilliant level design you'd expect from Shigeru
Miyamoto. The early stages are surprisingly challenging,
and I've just scratched the surface! I can only
imagine how tough the game will be near the end.
I've also got Sin and Punishment 2 coming in the mail, and
judging from the early reviews I'll be in for a rollicking
good time. I've always felt that Sin and Punishment
was made for the Wiimote (albeit six years too early) and I'm
sure the sequel will confirm my suspicions. The only
gripes I've heard so far are that the faces of the two
heroes are nearly identical and that the game is much too
short, which is NOT A VALID COMPLAINT when the typical
video game is thirty hours of tedious level grinding and
scavenger hunts. I'm quite happy with five hours of
gameplay if every minute is packed with excitement. It's
not quantity, folks... it's quality that counts.
One thing I should probably mention before I go, in case
you missed it from my Twitter feed... the script for the final
video review is finished, and it's a beaut. It might
actually get me kicked off YouTube, but what a way to
go!
July 7, 2010... Coming
Home to Roost
Remember when I said I was dropping the
Kotaku thing? I
lied.
What happened to me and a handful of
other posters a couple of weeks ago was only the
beginning. A poster named Kanji08 describes a reader
revolt at Kotaku that broke out after one of its most
popular members, DeanB, was banned from the
site. His account of the incident is so sugarcoated
you could serve it in a bowl of milk as part of your
nutritious breakfast (and his generosity toward the Kotaku
editoral staff seems to have earned him a star, imagine that!)
but it nevertheless illustrates the trouble the blog is having
maintaining its ecosystem of self-indulgent writers and the
obsequious viewers who love them. Formerly loyal
readers, incensed at DeanB's dismissal, have been pasting
Brian Crecente's face on Adolf Hitler (I think my own Bat-cente Photoshop
is a more accurate depiction of the man,
frankly...), and the editors have
responded by banning members en masse. Members
who will be getting their news from Kotaku's
competitors from now on, I suspect.
There's talk on sister site io9
that there could be a major editorial shake-up at Kotaku in
the near future. I believe the pruning of staff is long
overdue, and hope that it will result in improved journalistic
standards (in other words, no more of the shit parodied by Bob
Mackey on Something Awful) and a renewed respect for the
blog's readers. Kotaku has tried to
control user participation with a stringent membership process and the
fastest banhammer in the west, but this incident should make
it clear to parent company Gawker Media that the
readers haven't been the site's
problem.
July 5, 2010... Singin'
the BlazBlues
You know, I used to think the BlazBlue
character designs were pretty cool. A gelatinous grim
reaper? A psychotic cat girl with a pair of red eyes
gleaming behind a cloak? Yeah, I can get behind
that. However, Arc System Works has
started to lose me with the planned characters for the
upcoming sequel... spin-off... thing. It's bad enough
that they're forcing players to pay for an upgrade, then
expecting them to cough up even more change for additional
characters. It's even worse when they start reaching for
the 1990s anime cliches. Seriously, what the hell is
going on with Sailor Moon here?
Yes, that's what this prepubescent girl
needs... more cowbell. I won't even show you what's
going on below the waist... apparently, crotchless schoolgirl
dresses are the in fashion for fighting game characters these
days. Guess Sakura missed the memo!
July 4, 2010... More
Bang for Your Buck
It's the fourth of July, and there's no
better way to celebrate than with a new review on Fighter's Misery...
the first in years! Well, there are probably
lots of better ways to celebrate, but that's what
you're getting from the Blitz. Happy Independence Day,
folks.
July 3, 2010... Third
Eye Blind
Hey, anyone interested in an update to
the Dan
Hibiki page? I know I
am!
In non-Dan news, Joystiq reports that
Sony will be blinding The Eye of Judgment to the internet
after September. I was really excited about Eye and its
augmented reality technology back in 2006, when the game was
first shown at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. I was
absolutely convinced that it would be a huge hit for Sony, but
for whatever reason, it just didn't catch on with
gamers. Was it the prohibitive price of the Playstation
3, the difficulty in finding a table that wasn't already
cluttered with junk, or just a decline in the popularity of
collectible card games? It's anyone's guess, but I'm
nevertheless disappointed that this innovative concept never
found an audience. After all, when gamers
won't support new ideas, that's when companies retreat
back to the old and tired ones.
Also, I haven't forgotten about the
final YouTube review. I'm just stalling, because I'm
lazy like that. I've got some ideas for it... once I put
them down on paper, that should get the ball rolling on the
grand finale.
July 1, 2010... Summer
Slowdown
Dig that new banner, inspired by (and
with 98% of the artwork lifted from) The Last Blade and its
sequel. I couldn't get into this series at first, but
playing the absolutely miserable Samurai Shodown Sen has given
me a whole new appreciation for The Last
Blade's beautiful artwork and accessible gameplay.
Just look at those rivulets of water streaming down that
rock formation! I'll take that over any of the drab
scenery in SNK's latest Xbox 360 disaster.
So summer's officially arrived, and with
it comes a software drought of epic proportions. This in
turn makes it more difficult to find topics of discussion for
the site. Well, topics that don't sound like
they've come from the mind of a self-absorbed teenager,
anyway. There is news from a number of sources
that Sega, already drunk on nostalgia with its recent
Dreamcast revivals, is looking even further back,
planning to resurrect key titles from the Saturn
library. Realistically, there isn't much Sega can do to
restore its reputation after the mess it made of the Yakuza 3
launch, and what it did to Sonic the Hedgehog in his 2006
comeback, and the premature abandonment of all the
consoles it's currently embracing, but I'm willing
to forget about all that (temporarily) if it means
an Xbox 360 port of Radiant Silvergun.
On the Nintendo side of things, Shigeru
Miyamoto has admitted that the company's cast of
characters has gotten a little crusty and that it's time to
bring in some fresh blood. I'm not sure if he was just
whispering sweet nothings in the ears of Nintendo's
shareholders, or if he's already working on a new character
and a franchise to go along with it. If it's the latter,
I would humbly suggest making this new star a girl.
There are an overabundance of distressed,
dimwitted damsels in Nintendo games, and the
company- nay, the entire video game industry- is overdue for a
female hero who's bright, capable, and fully
clothed. After all, it's been nearly a quarter of a
century since the last
one.
June 30, 2010... Sin and
Capital Punishment
DeathSmiles was released recently... and
I couldn't care less. Get yourself a copy of Sin and
Punishment 2 instead, and put the money that's burning a hole
in your pocket to good use.
Hey, has anyone else noticed that video
game deals have been on fire throughout the summer? I've
seen Wiis for $159, Xbox 360s for $129 (!!!), and a wide
variety of releases from this year either dropped below thirty
dollars or were sold with incentives to help grease the
wheels of a purchase. Gamers who bought Super Mario
Galaxy 2 from Amazon were given twenty dollars off their next
video game, and Blur, Activision's "mature" response to Super
Mario Kart, could be had for as little as ten dollars with the
right combination of coupons. Best-sellers from earlier
in the year can be had for less than thirty dollars
without a black belt in coupon-fu, including
Assassin's Creed II and Mass Effect 2. I'm not sure
what's prompting this sudden generosity from game
companies... are they trying to offset a summer lull in sales,
or are these low, low prices the result of a general
industry slump?
Speaking of Super Mario Galaxy 2, why is
the book "Sweet Farts: Rippin' It Old School" included among
the recommendations for people who bought this game on
Amazon? Is this just a joke snuck in by a fan of
one of the other systems, or was there a power-up in the game
I'd missed?
June 28, 2010... Now
That's What I Call A Power
Nap!
(yawn) All right, where was I?
Well, I've got tons 'o footage for the YouTube
finale. Not to give too much away, but I'll be
reviewing Muramasa: The Demon Blade... it only makes
sense, since my first review was its predecessor
Odin Sphere. Muramasa's a much better game, though,
with the same gorgeous hand-painted graphics but a better
combat system and less tedious inventory management.
Sure, you'll be poking around in the option menu from time to
time to forge swords and cook the pheasants that
were dive-bombing you ten minutes before, but it's more
intuitive now that you don't have to select everything from a
blasted ring floating over your head. The Japanese
setting is a better fit, too... I've always been fascinated by
the country's mythology, and it's a thrill to see its
wonderfully weird fauna spring to life.
June 25, 2010... Can't
Stay, Gotta Split
After a month's delay, there's finally a
new review on the Blitz. Give
it a look while I get some
sleep.
June 23,
2010... Decrease the
Grease
One of my readers took me to task for
using the term "grease ball," claiming that it was a racial
slur against Mexicans. Well, he was almost
right... I actually said "grease bomb," and a quick
Google search reveals that "grease ball" is recognized
as insulting to Italians. I do
understand his concern, though. Although I don't like to
censor myself, there's no need for me to sling mud at an
entire ethnicity when I could save all the sludge for the
one person who truly deserves it. I pledge to be more specifically
derogatory from this point forward. I also apologize to
everyone but the guy from Kotaku who took
offense.
I don't want to waste any more time
talking about you know who, though.
Instead, let's discuss the latest Castlevania game,
which tries to reinvent Symphony of the Night as a
fast-paced search and destroy action game. Each player
is set in the corner of a gigantic map, and they must
race to the center where a horrifying monster awaits.
The player to land the most hits on the creature wins, or
something... frankly, I'm not sure how this game is supposed
to work. Frankly, the mind boggles just looking at those
ridiculously huge playfields. I never realized just how
large Metrovanias really were until Harmony of
Despair put things into perspective...
In iPhone news, there are two
new challengers available in the surprisingly strong iPhone
conversion of Street Fighter IV. Capcom had pledged
earlier to give players Cammy, but they've upped the ante by
including Zangief in this totally free, totally
awesome update. Special thanks to Destructoid for
the scoop.
June 22, 2010... A Sea
Monster... Ate... My... ICE
CREEEEAM!
That's my own little way of announcing
that the Disney Afternoon retrospective is back. Relive
those moments of hitting the skies with Baloo, hunting
for treasure with Scrooge McDuck, and changing
the channel when Bonkers comes on here!
Speaking of cartoons, there's a Pac-Man cartoon
coming soon to an unfortunate cable television network near
you. They've somehow managed to give this extremely
abstract game a science-fiction backstory that sounds like a
cross between a Halo spin-off and that religion L. Ron Hubbard
made on a bet. Instead of the established cast of
characters, they've introduced a bunch of annoying,
predictable sidekicks like the nutty (and by "nutty," I
mean "senile") professor and the precocious preteen
brat. Best of all (heh), the whole mess is brought to
you in 3D, which is a really convenient way to give
yourself a migraine headache should you find yourself in need
of one.
Also, it's come to my attention that a
certain craven grease bomb from a certain unreadable
gaming blog erased the conversation I linked to
earlier. Fortunately, I took pictures! I wish I
had taken more of them, but this will give you an
idea of how things are done at Kotaku.
Poorly.
For those wondering, Pheermee and
Accordeon are both former Kotaku posters. Gee,
I can't imagine why!
EDIT: Annnd it's back. Not sure
what happened there, but I'll keep this picture
around for the sake of permanence.
EDIT TO THE EDIT: Couldn't get a
response from LeVar myself, but check out these
tweets:
Does this sound like a man who was "not pleased"
with E3? Heck, it doesn't even sound like something
Geordi LaForge would say, but they're straight from LeVar's
verified Twitter account. I assume he was being ironic
by speaking in ebonics, but the underlying sentiment is
legitimate.
EDIT EDIT EDIT ETC.: Okay, okay, I'll let it go
now.
June 20, 2010... You
Want a Dreamcast Revival?
Try this... take your Dreamcast out of
the closet, blow off the dust, and pop in a copy of Crazy
Taxi. There, I just saved you ten dollars and
a whole lot of disappointment.
Sega is re-re-releasing Crazy
Taxi and Sonic Adventure in the hopes
of riding a wave of nostalgia from fans of the
short-lived and long-suffering Dreamcast. There are just
two problems with this. The first is that former fans of
Sega remember that it was Sega that killed the
Dreamcast in the first place. The second is that these
"faithful remakes" won't be faithful at all. Crazy Taxi
in particular will look and sound much different than you
remembered from the Dreamcast, or even on the GameCube where
it received a wonky conversion courtesy of Acclaim's British
subsidiary. Remember how Acclaim Cheltenham took all the
voices from the original and replaced them with
sound-barely-alikes? It only gets worse from there...
the new version of Crazy Taxi soon to be released on Xbox Live
and PSN will have a completely different soundtrack and most
of its monuments to crass capitalism altered. Don't be
surprised if your first ride demands to be taken to the "Foot
Storage Facility," or "State
Awkwardly Squeezed Between The Midwest and Deep
South Fried Chicken."
As for Sonic Adventure, well, it looks a
lot shinier than I remembered. If a blinding
plastic sheen on all the characters is a
selling point for you, by all means dive in.
June 18,
2010... Ban-tastic!
Today, I was banned from Kotaku by Brian
Crecente. I couldn't be happier, because it conclusively
proves everything I've said about the double standards of
video game blogs, who want all the
benefits of legitimate journalists without any of
the responsibilities. The editors know this is true, and
scramble to silence anyone who dares to point out this
fact.
You don't have to take my word
for it, though! Just take a look at this thread from Kotaku,
in response to a vapid, sensationalist post by Crecente about
LeVar Burton. Rather than discuss video games, as he is
paid quite handsomely to do by Gawker Media, he shoved a
camera in the face of the former Star Trek actor and observed
that he was "grumpy" and "not pleased with E3." Hmm, I
jumped to a completely different conclusion
myself. The blank, slightly bewildered look on his face
suggested to me that he just wasn't thrilled with random,
greasy passersby blinding him with flash bulbs.
Whatever LeVar may have been thinking
("Sure am glad I don't have to wear that damn visor!"),
Crecente's best TMZ impersonation shouldn't have been
featured on a video game blog. I told him
as much, and so did a half-dozen other Kotaku
readers. However, the one person who came to defend
the indefensible, one Indy_AKA_Rex, was quickly given
special posting privileges as a reward for his
buttkissery. I don't know what happened to the rest of
these guys, but when I pushed the issue, demanding something
resembling journalistic credibility from what's fast becoming
the video game equivalent of the Weekly World News, I was
given the bum's rush out the door.
So Gawker, what's it going to
be? Are you going to claim that your
writers are legitimate journalists (as Gizmodo did
to keep its contributor Jason Chen out of
prison during the iPhone heist of 2010) or will you
hide behind the skirt of blogdom, claiming that
everything is fair game, no matter how cheap, tawdry, and
irrelevant? I may not get an answer to that question,
but one day, somebody will. Probably
somebody with a gavel, if the recent iPhone mess is any
indication.
June 17, 2010... Good
News, Everybodies!
First things first... I just signed
a distribution deal with Good Deal
Games, which will be selling my GORF
homebrew on cartridge in the near future. They'll
be sending me a test cartridge and if I approve it, the game
will be available on the site soon afterward. It's
funny... I looked all over the place for someone to put the
game on a cartridge last year, and now, a distributor just
falls into my lap. It's not the greatest timing, but you
can't beat the convenience!
Also, ECM of Waxing Erratic and possibly
Die Hard Game Fan (I never figured out if he was the real Eric
Mylonas or not!) just broke Cliff Bliszinski's thumbs in an editorial best
described as ferocious. He's not wrong about
this, you know... the "hardcore" players who are so
territorial about gaming wanted nothing to do with it
fifteen years ago. Why they persist on claiming
exclusive rights to the hobby after hijacking
it from the rest of us is anyone's guess.
As for Cliffy B. himself, I'll
grudgingly give him credit for pointing Mass Effect 2 in the
right direction... the series was a massive bore until it
adopted the cover shooter play mechanics first popularized
(although not necessarily pioneered) in Gears
of War. Past that, he's a total cockgobbler and I
wouldn't wipe my ass on him if I were out of toilet
paper. Nintendo needed to find a foothold in an industry
dominated by Sony and its cultured and discriminating audience, you
schmuck. Why the hell should you care if the company
found success in the demographics you completely
ignored? You should be on your knees thanking them for
revitalizing an industry that had grown stagnant under your
shortsighted leadership in the last decade. Without
Nintendo's "Blue Ocean" business strategy, those fair-weather
friends you call "hardcore" gamers may have lost interest and
gotten their kicks elsewhere, leaving you with
nothing.
Enough about him, though... let's talk
about what's planned for the launch of the Nintendo 3DS.
The system's got serious support from a variety of big
developers, including Capcom, Konami, and... wow, they
actually got AQ Interactive?! Wait, that's no
good! Yeah, let's go with Namco instead.
Some of the games announced for the 3DS
include Super Street Fighter IV (I'm there already!), Resident
Evil (less there), Professor Layton (my mom's there), and a
game based on professional homemaker and model inmate Martha
Stewart (so not there). Not to be outdone by
its licensees, Nintendo will release a half-dozen games based
on their most popular franchises, along with a new title
called Steel Diver (your guess is as good as mine) and a
completely reimagined sequel to Kid Icarus. This time,
Pit soars through the skies in a rail shooter similar to
Panzer Dragoon, so there shouldn't be any of this falling into
a bottomless pit nonsense that was a constant worry in the
original.
There are a lot of question marks in the
list of upcoming games published on Nintendo's web site.
I don't have the slightest idea what "Cubic Ninja" is
(although I would recommend you avoid the similarly
named adult movie Pubic Ninja) and Harmonix's
planned "music game" could be just about anything. There
is also a handful of shovelware in the list, including
not only Martha Stewart's guide to making divine snack
trays (it's so realistic you can almost taste the watercress!)
but another Kung Fu Panda game (because they weren't giving
the original away with an Xbox 360 purchase or anything) and
Lovely Lisa 3D, which I assume is not going to be anywhere
near as exciting as it sounds.
Still, the starting line-up is looking
pretty strong so far, probably on par with the top-shelf
launch titles for the Gameboy Advance. That makes sense,
since there are so many parallels between the two
systems. They were both released at the start of the
decade, both were a quantum leap ahead of their predecessors
in performance, and both were crucial in helping Nintendo
shake off a bad reputation for publishing anything with a
cartoon license. I don't think software quality is as
much a concern for Nintendo as it was during the
transition from the Gameboy Color to the Gameboy Advance, but
with Sony and its (profoundly irritating) new mascot Marcus
beating the "good kids playing bad games" drum, Nintendo still
needs to keep the mesh of its quality control filter very
tight.
June 15, 2010... Giant
Enemy Crabs II
Here's what Nintendo had to offer
handheld gaming fans in its E3 press conference:
Sony, your response?
Yikes. You know what, just get off
the stage. You don't have a goddamned clue, and you've
been proving it year after year after year by spouting off an
endless stream of soulless marketing buzzwords. When you
say things like "merging consumer trends" in a conference
intended to get gamers excited about your upcoming products,
you bare to the world just how little you think of them, and
how uninterested you are in gaming as a medium. Nintendo
shows the love for its fans, and the profits
follow... you try
to squeeze every last dime out of Playstation owners
using superlative-laden propaganda and good old-fashioned
hucksterism, and you wind up in dead last. Shouldn't
this be telling you something?
Maybe you should drop the arrogant
attitude, the transparent manipulation, and the cynical
marketing and just make some attempt at giving the
gamers what they want. It's not that lame crossover game
starring your increasingly irrelevant mascots, it's not a
knock-off of what Nintendo had done with the Wii four years
ago, and it sure as hell isn't Marcus, the sassy urban youth
with the trapezoidal
mouth.
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