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November 2008 - Posts

• Seven Minutes With Mega Man 9's Music

  Posted by Nadia Oxford

  What are you thankful for this year? If your answer isn't "Mega Man 9" and "Bitchin' guitars," I don't want to talk to you anymore. At this point in your life, you've no doubt heard Mega Man 2's "Doctor Wily Stage One" remixed on every instrument from the jew's harp to some dog's armpit. It's high time we start running Mega Man 9's fantastic soundtrack into the ground. Let this Freddie fellow lead the revolution with this lovely seven minute compilation/remix of every tune in the game. Be wary of last boss spoilers if you're like me and haven't bested Wily yet. Ugh, the shame. Related Links: The Mega Man Robot Club Mega Man 9 Bosses Look Like Mega Man Bosses For Love of the Game: Rockman 7 FC + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 27 2008, 01:48 AM with 1 comment(s) Filed under: mega man 2, game music, mega man 9, video, media, nadia oxford, remix

• Licensing Tragedies: Malibu's Street Fighter Comic

  Posted by Nadia Oxford

  This is an adequate time to be a Street Fighter fan. Thanks to the the launch of Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix and Street Fighter IV on the horizon, we have been given a reason to keep breathing throughout the day. Even better, we can go to our local comic retailer and exchange tuppence and a ha'penny for the very competent Street Fighter comic books by Udon. Purists can even help themselves to translated Street Fighter manga, full of bristling hairdos and hoarse oaths. Ah, but life wasn't always so beautiful. There was a time when developers were scared to let US-bound video games and Japanese culture touch each other, so American comic book companies were commissioned to break out their Crayolas and scribble some cash-in magic. Bad things happened, Malibu's Street Fighter comic being among the worst. Fans of The Simpsons might recall Marge Simpson's declaration that everything must be paired up: a woman for every man, a salt shaker for every pepper shaker and a dog for every cat. Malibu noticed that in the Street Fighter games, Chun Li wasn't paired with a man and they decided that must change immediately. So we have golden flashbacks where Ryu and Chun Li recall the love and laughter of their salad days. Of course, the narrative outside of the flashbacks are serious business. Things have changed, harumph harumph. Times are darker. Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 27 2008, 01:04 AM with 1 comment(s) Filed under: street fighter, capcom, comics, nadia oxford, licensing, licensing tragedies, udon, malibu

• Your JRPG Narrative is Bad and You Should Feel Bad

  Posted by Bob Mackey

  I recently gave up on Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World a scant four hours into my experience for one reason alone: the game was literally stabbing me in the brain with its narrative.  It's not that DotNW's story was exceptionally bad; actually, it was delightfully mediocre, which is really all I can ask for from a JRPG these days.  The biggest problem, you see, is that DotNW's stopped to show me its accursed story about every 5 seconds, like an attention-starved child waving a macaroni art project in my face. "Yes, I see. Very nice. Daddy's trying to play his game now." Listen up, JRPG developers: the stories you're trying to tell?  They aren't necessarily worth telling.  In fact, I can really only name two RPGs in the past decade that've had stories which ranked far above "serviceable:"  Final Fantasy XII, and Mother 3--note that the latter of these two was written by an actual writer.  I may come off as kind of snobbish with this post, though I think that just comes with age; there was a point in my life when I thought RPG plots were totally tubular, but that was back when I was in high school.  Turning into a cranky old man has given me the benefit of perspective; through experiencing a number of excellent narratives (across various media), I've obtained standards that I can't quite drop.  (Also, I need some way to justify my expensive BA.) The problem of lousy narrative is a pretty big hurdle for JRPG developers, but I've taken the liberty of coming up with some easy-to-follow and unsolicited solutions. Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 26 2008, 04:00 PM with 6 comment(s) Filed under: chrono trigger, mother 3, namco bandai, jrpg, bob mackey, story, tales of, tales of symponia: dawn of the new world, narrative

• Where are all the Post-Impressionist Videogames?

  Posted by Joe Keiser

  Above is a video of de_vangogh, a custom Counter-Strike level made by famed CS mapmaker Nipper. It’s a rather interesting bit of work—look at the way the under-saturated, oil paint-like textures complement the use of Starry Night as a skybox. Crazy! Don’t misunderstand me; I don’t want to play Counter-Strike in a Van Gogh painting, because that doesn’t make any sense. I’m not even really saying that I want games to approach visual styles more vigorously, because all evidence says that things are getting better and better in that department. But looking at this it occurs to me that there aren’t any games that really look like this, which reminds me that despite all of the jumps in graphical fidelity, we still haven’t seen everything yet. After playing about a half-dozen gritty photo-real games in a row, it’s nice to have reassurances like this, and to then go look the comic book stylings of Super Turbo HD Remix or the sketch anime of Valkyria Chronicles to have it further reinforced. Where are the post-impressionist games? They’re coming, you can count on it. In the meantime, I’m going to sit here and dream one of my favorite dreams—that Square Enix finally gets around to remaking Final Fantasy VI in the painterly style of Yoshitaka Amano's concept art (there's a great example after the jump), with its bleak beauty and hand-drawn artifice the perfect foil to that game’s story of fragility and loss. Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 26 2008, 03:00 PM with 3 comment(s) Filed under: counterstrike, final fantasy vi, joe keiser, vincent van gogh, post impressionism

• True Tales of Thanksgiving Gaming

  Posted by Bob Mackey

  Okay, okay; I know I just wrote a 1500-word feature on this subject, but I wouldn't be an unscrupulous freelance writer if I didn't milk an idea until it was crying, chapped, and swollen.  Please see my 9000 posts about Mother 3 for more on this. So now that my credibility has safely been disposed of, it's time to move onto more important topics: namely, Thanksgiving. For nearly all of us, this holiday signifies a wanted or unwanted family reunion; and with this gathering comes sitting around for extended periods of time while stuffed full of food. Obviously, this situation is perfect for the playing of video games. We are fortunate that the industry is kind enough to schedule their most important releases of the year around this period of maximum immobility. Since the purpose of this post is to share our Thanksgiving-related gaming memories (as if you couldn't tell), I'm going to go ahead and start with my own.  Thanksgiving of 2004 marked two memorable events: the recent release of Metal Gear Solid 3, and also one of my brief flirtations with food poisoning--in this case, it was a post-Thanksgiving Taco Bell menu item.  Yes, I was young and stupid. Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 26 2008, 02:00 PM with 1 comment(s) Filed under: metal gear solid, bob mackey, holiday, thanksgiving, metal gear solid 3, gaming memories

• Sony Gives Thanks Via Charming PSN Deals

  Posted by Derrick Sanskrit

  We here in the United States celebrate our nation's Thanksgiving tomorrow, one of the great national holidays where just about every office is closed as we gather with family and friends to eat, drink, be merry, and prepare ourselves for the brutal holiday shopping season that starts the very next day. Sony, who usually update their Playstation Store on Thursdays, saw fit to treat us to this week's updates a couple of days early to save us the trouble of fighting tryptophan-induced grogginess, and oh the treats they have in store! First, of course, is the weekly free costume for LittleBigPlanet's Sackboy, a turkeyface. Hilarious, yes? No? Hmm, well maybe these next few items will give you something to be thankful for... Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 26 2008, 01:00 PM with 1 comment(s) Filed under: little big planet, playstation 3, derrick sanskrit, sony, super street fighter 2 turbo hd remix, the last guy, eden, echochrome, thanksgiving

• Saving Shenmue With Toys

  Posted by Joe Keiser

  Is it possible to save a beloved franchise with one dollar and an envelope? The Shenmue MySpace Campaign is betting yes. Between Thanksgiving day, which also happens to be the tenth anniversary of the Dreamcast, and December 29th (they claim this is Shenmue’s anniversary, but that’s not how I recall it) they want everyone who fondly reminisces about forklifts and sailors to send Sega a capsule toy and a little prayer. A prayer for Shenmue III. Now this campaign will probably be good for one or two Sega employees who’ve been struggling to complete their collection of little plastic Pokemon. And it’s great to see that people are still really passionate for what was an innovative and influential game—it’s one of my favorite series, too. But it’s highly unlikely there will ever be another one, no matter what the longtime fans do to encourage it. The Shenmue MySpace Campaign is comparing this effort to the one the got Jericho back on television, but there’s a couple of differences between that and this. Jericho did come back as a result of fan campaigning, but only as a seven episode mid-season replacement—it’s not like Sega could take that “toe in the water” approach with a game. Jericho did six million viewers on average, which is considered poor for network television but was probably enough to at least break even on the effort—so the network likely only lost an opportunity cost. Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 26 2008, 12:00 PM with 3 comment(s) Filed under: dreamcast, yu suzuki, shenmue, joe keiser, myspace, letting go

• A Change of Paint For Nintendo

  Posted by Derrick Sanskrit

  Industry leader Nintendo has made a lot of changes recently, many for the better from a financial standpoint. Their current handheld, the Nintendo DS, introduced the radical concept of two screens (DS does stand for Dual-Screen, after all), one of which was touch-sensative. Their current home console, the Wii, did away with excessive cords and buttons in favor of a wireless motion-enabled controller. Both are decidedly less-powerful than their competitors' machines. Both introduced methods of play entirely unseen before in mainstream gaming. Both were initially scoffed at as risky gambles and almost certain failures. Both have ushered in a whole new demographic of casual gamers of all ages. Both have been outselling all competition for a long, long time. And so with all of this innovation and family-friendliness coming from Nintendo and not its rivals, it seems a minor facelift was in order for Nintendo as a corporation. Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 26 2008, 11:00 AM with 4 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo, nintendo ds, wii, mario kart, wii fit, brain age, wii sports, nintendogs

• What's in my MP3 Player: Shadow's Theme

  Posted by Amber Ahlborn

  You know what? I have a lot of Final Fantasy remixes. It seems like the Final Fantasy series and Chrono Trigger have contributed more raw material to the remixing community than any other game or series. Maybe that's not actually true but that's the way it appears just looking at my own collection. Today's MP3 is an oldie but goodie from OCR. In fact, if I were to make a list of my all time favorite tracks at Overclocked Remix, well, that list would be very long but it would definitely include Shadow's Theme by K. Praslowicz. I'm not really sure what to say about this piece of music that isn't already stated in the MP3's write up at OCR. Is badass descriptive enough? However you might break down the musical merits of this track, I simply find that it fits Shadow (my favorite character) from Final Fantasy VI to a T. If you enjoy video game remixes and don't already have this one in your collection, then I really can not recommend it highly enough. Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 26 2008, 10:00 AM with no comments Filed under: final fantasy, amber ahlborn, game music, what's in my mp3 player

• Populous: Text Based Tutorials Need to Die In A Fire

  Posted by John Constantine

  Like every other Peter Molyneux game outside of Fable and its sequel, Populous escaped my attention the first time around. I remember sitting in my buddy Mike McBride’s house in the early ‘90s watching his brother play the game for hours and thinking, “I have absolutely no freaking idea what is going on! Why is nothing jumping or shooting?” XSEED, being the swell cats they are, sent us a copy of the new DS version of Molyneux’s classic, so I’m finally spending some time with the man’s much loved debut. I have absolutely no freaking idea what is going on. This is because Populous DS is frontloaded with that most dreaded of barriers between player and actual play: the text-based tutorial. Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 25 2008, 07:00 PM with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, nintendo ds, fable 2, peter molyneux, fable, xseed, populous

• Where Is the PSP?

  Posted by John Constantine

  I am a superstitious man. I throw salt over my shoulder and knock on wood. I refuse to cross paths with black cats, something that is difficult when you share an apartment with one. When wandering about Manhattan, with its many scaffolding-covered building fronts, I am occasionally paralyzed by an all-consuming fear of the literal hundreds of ladders I pass beneath every day! I also know to not buy videogame consoles on launch day. If I do, I know that I will never play that many games for that device that looked so tempting before I actually had it. It all started with the Dreamcast, a system I adored, but I maybe owned a total of ten games for before its ignoble death (almost all of them published by Sega themselves). Two years out from its release, and it looks like the same is happening with Wii, a system that I turn on to play Gamecube games for more often than actual Wii discs. And then there’s the PSP. Oh, I was excited by that little monster when it came out back in early 2005. So excited, I decided it was a good idea to wake up at 6 AM on release day to pick one up, along with copies of Lumines and Ridge Racer. I played both pretty extensively for a month and then didn’t turn on the machine again until December of 2006. Now I’m not saying there aren’t good games for the PSP. One of the six games I’ve ever purchased, Zoe Mode’s absolutely astounding Crush would make my top fifty games ever made. But it’s hard to deny that the handheld takes up almost zero space in the collective consciousness of gaming broadly. Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 25 2008, 06:00 PM with 5 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, nintendo, wii, psp, where is, sony, sega, parasite eve, dreamcast, crush, kingdom hearts, scea, patapon 2, prinny can I really be the hero, disgaea, birth by sleep, the 3rd birthday, locoroco 2

• Does Games Writing Need To Be More Accessible?

  Posted by Nadia Oxford

  Writer Leigh Alexander put together a great piece for Kotaku reminding us that many of the shelf-scanning customers at GameStop are not like you or I. The average gamer doesn't pay attention to reviews. They don't know a Miyamoto from an Igarashi. And they drink blood, but they're capable of walking in the daylight. It's easy to assume that everyone within the walls of your local game retailer is a kindred spirit who will fire back with "It's-a-me!" as soon as you say, "Mario." Alexander's column reminded me that for every fruitful conversation about games I've had with an EB Games clerk, there have been ten instances of broken eye contact and embarrassed mumblings. "The World Ends With You? N-nah. Not into anime. I like Call of Duty." Alexander talks about game reviewers' tendency to keep the different tiers of gamers distanced from one another. There's not an intentional push to scare newcomers away from game publications and websites, but Alexander likens the typical video game review to a music review in Pitchfork Magazine. Someone who says, "I dig music and I want to read about music" is going to be scared away by Pitchfork's jargon-heavy breakdown of the album of the moment. Similarly, game reviews tend to reference past titles, past developers and use words and terms that a newcomer (and there are more and more of these lately) isn't going to understand. Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 25 2008, 05:10 PM with 7 comment(s) Filed under: kotaku, feature, writing, retail, nadia oxford, gamestop, leigh alexander games journalism, casual gamers, hardcore gamers

• Do You Translate When You Emulate?

  Posted by Joe Keiser

  All of our incessant conversation about Mother 3 (it’s worth every word, believe me—I’ve read essay anthologies about less meaningful, layered work than this game) seems to bring us inexorably back to the pros and cons of emulation. John and Mackey have covered the bases on this pretty well—though I do want to add for the record that hacking an Xbox Classic and getting one of those Street Fighter Anniversary controllers with the awesome d-pad will square you for pitch-perfect couch-based emulation. But let’s talk more about emulation’s wonderful translation scene. Mother 3 is without a doubt the most high profile fan-created ROM translation ever, but it’s not the be all and end all by any means. The translation scene is perhaps the best thing to come out of rampant internet-based ROM sharing, as it has allowed plenty of games to be rendered enjoyable for people that previously would not have been able to play them. And this doesn’t just mean English speakers finally can play the craziest Japanese Famicom RPGs, either—it’s also given South American and European non-English speakers games we’ve been enjoying for decades. You’re probably concerned about the English stuff though, and there’s plenty of it. Romhacking.net, probably the best resource for this kind of thing, records no less than 46 complete translations being made this year. And it’s not all crap, either. There’s no beating Mother 3 for quality and relevance, but unfortunately overshadowed by that mammoth release was a complete translation of Persona 2: Innocent Sin, the precursor to Eternal Punishment that Atlus never felt fit to bring to these shores. Mackey’s told you about it, and after fiddling around with it I have to say it looks like good work. Then there’s Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart, widely considered the best game in the DQM spin-off series. Japan-only SNES classic Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem was also rendered fit for western consumption by crazed fans this year. So was PlayStation Rez precursor Internal Section, and a variety of interesting Langrisser games. Ever been curious about Famicom Wars, the first game in the series that spawned the beloved Advanced Wars titles? Now you can check it out for yourself. Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 25 2008, 03:00 PM with 2 comment(s) Filed under: mother 3, translation, persona 2, emulation, joe keiser

• Japanese Musicocracy: Capcom's Numerous Tributes to Axl Rose

  Posted by Nadia Oxford

  I don't know how many years Axl Rose spent working on his latest album, Chinese Democracy, but I seem to remember still playing with dollies when the project was first announced. I'd say I was about 13 years of age. Don't judge me. Axl's hibernation was long, but he had the courtesy to surface every few years and eat a former band member so we wouldn't forget him. Forget him we did not, though perhaps the Japanese deserve the most credit for keeping Guns N' Roses alive through video games. Capcom in particular was good about reminding us that Axl Rose was more than a scary story parents told their children when they formed an obsession with hair bandanas. GnR's influence flavours the streets of Metro City in Final Fight, haunts X in Mega Man X's Maverick uprisings, and, in Street Fighter III, gives us a glimpse of what Axl might look like if he drank two steroid smoothies every day. You might have missed Axl and Slash in Final Fight; they were mere droplets in the tsunami of thugs that crashed over Cody, Haggar and Guy. It was an unspectacular appearence anyway. Slash didn't try to hit anyone with a concrete Gibson and Axl didn't have an attack involving a heroin syringe. I'm sorry, I'll show myself out the door. Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 25 2008, 02:53 PM with 3 comment(s) Filed under: capcom, music, nostalgia, nadia oxford, guns n roses, mega man x7, street fighter 3, axl rose, mega man x5

• Sonic Unleashed's Silver Lining

  Posted by Bob Mackey

  The reviews for Sonic Unleashed are out, and they ain't pretty.  It seems that the enthusiast press is showing a lot more skepticism about all of the recent hedgehog reboots, too; Sega's claim of "This time we did it, guys!" has been used so many times that I honestly can't see what angle they're going to approach the next Sonic game from.  Really, the only way that they could save face would be to include a formal apology signed by every member of Sonic Team and a crisp, new one-hundred dollar bill inside every copy of Sonic 2: Unleashed Further. But recently, a magical thing happened: something of moderate to good quality related to Sonic the Hedgehog has been released to the public.  Obviously, this is big news.  The item in question, Night of the Werehog, is an animated short which I assume was made to promote Unleashed.  This CGI cartoon may star a character I've grown to hate and a new character I hated immediately, but it's also cute, clever, and, most importantly, tells an interesting story without a single line of dialogue.  We can only hope Sonic Team can learn from this: Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 25 2008, 02:00 PM with 5 comment(s) Filed under: sega, sonic the hedgehog, sonic team, sonic unleashed, bob mackey

• For Indie Games, These are the Salad Days

  Posted by Joe Keiser

  Good news, everyone! MSNBC.com is reporting that somehow, the beautiful, excellent labor of love World of Goo actually made a good amount of money for its innovative creators. This is probably the most heartening story of the long list of heartening stories that have come out about indie games this year. World of Goo managed to make money with a slim marketing budget of approximately $0.00. Other things, like Braid and Castle Crashers, had a minimal marketing push—yet the most accurate predictors we have for this kind of thing (VGChartz might usually be wildly inaccurate, but their XBLA chart is based on information pulled from a massive collection of real GamerTags and is generally considered to be as close as we can get to true XBLA sales numbers) believe these games generated millions of dollars in revenue, each. We are talking games that were made by no more than two men, games that were built on laptops in coffee shops. Could it be possible this era of HD gloss and budgets approaching nine figures could also be indie gaming’s greatest days? Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 25 2008, 01:00 PM with 2 comment(s) Filed under: world of goo, braid, castle crashers, joe keiser, indie

• Boogerman: Too Immature for Children

  Posted by Bob Mackey

  Yesterday's Virtual console release of the Genesis Boogerman was more than a little odd, mainly because everyone knows that the SNES version is the definitive Boogerman experience. No, wait. Yesterday's Virtual Console release of Boogerman was more than a little odd because it's hard to believe that Nintendo would ever admit this game existed--which may be why they chose to give us the Genesis version. I'd be willing to go on with the standard course of Virtual Console bitching--like how we still don't have Yoshi's Island--but Nintendo's holiday Wii offerings are so meager that I imagine they'll have to find some way of entertaining us this Christmas. I hope. But what is there to be said about a game whose very concept should have been buried in the desert along with all of those infamous E.T. cartridges?  I was 12 when Boogerman came out, which put me right in the game's "immature adolescent" demographic.  But seeing the game (unrented) at my local video store usually filled me with a mix of sadness and shame I have since dubbed "boogermania;" and this really had nothing to do with the fact that I've always had the mentality of a 48 year-old curmudgeon.  There was just something about a corporate-sponsored video game capitalizing on the simple joys of toilet humor that really rubbed me the wrong way.  And even at a young age, I could tell when a concept was just trying waaay too hard. Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 25 2008, 11:00 AM with 4 comment(s) Filed under: wii, katamari damacy, interplay, virtual console, grimm, boogerman

• Fandom: Gone to the Movies

  Posted by Amber Ahlborn

  Video game fans are something else. I've been a gamer since forever but despite my long term interest in the industry, I'm simply not at the level of people who create self playing Mario levels or sprite based Flash movies. These are the super fans who have talent (and a lot of time) on their hands and aren't afraid to use their powers for the forces of geekiness. Today I simply must pay homage to the creation of one “Alvin Earthworm” who has brought us Super Mario Bros. Z. Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 25 2008, 10:00 AM with 3 comment(s) Filed under: amber ahlborn, super mario bros, sonic the hedgehog, fandom

• Hey, RPG Hero: Go Home and Be a Family Man

  Posted by Nadia Oxford

  So on Saturday I indulged in my weekly Mother 3 play session-- ("Oh God, she's talking about Mother 3 again, you sneak up behind her with this piano wire while I slip this cyanide into Mackey's coffee.") Please let me live. I don't know when I'm going to be so motivated to pick a game's brain ever again. Mother 3 is unlike any RPG I've ever played--and for the simplest reasons. This, more than anything, is what fascinates me about the game. Shigesato Itoi realises that the easiest way to get people to love your characters is to treat them like human beings. For some reason, woefully few of his fellow RPG designers have picked that up. It's rare to find an RPG cast that everyone can relate to on a human level. Mother 3's world-saving brigade casts ground-shaking magic and racks up experience points and throws giant staples at enemies like any other JRPG (okay, the staples, not so much), but Itoi wants us to feel close to them. So he draws us in by being realstic about the one thing that unites even Superman with the common Earthling: family. Here there be spoilers. (Oh and don't feed Mackey any cyanide. Thank you. His parents appreciate your restraint.) Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 24 2008, 07:35 PM with 5 comment(s) Filed under: rpg, earthbound, mother 3, gba, jrpg, nadia oxford, shigesato itoi, famly

• Periphery: The Coolest Homebrew Project Device Ever

  Posted by John Constantine

  My understanding is that Niagara Falls is something of an awe-inspiring sightseeing opportunity as far as natural formations go and it’s a tacky extravaganza of shoddy, moldering love hotels as a tourist destination. You go to gamble, eat at buffets, and look at some fast water, right? I honestly don’t know. I haven’t been there in eighteen years, and my child’s-memory is fuzzy at best. It’s a cluttered jumble of images and familial inside jokes, things like eating pickle chips and weighing the odds of my survival if I jumped the railing. My clearest memory, though, is the preponderance of freak museums. Every corner boasted its own hall of mismatched curiosities, from replicas of barrels that made the falls’ descent to stuffed polar bears and any number of imaginary anthropological curiosities. I fear going back because I prefer my memory of the city’s institutionalized theater-of-the-absurd. I check the website GameSniped on a weekly basis because, while it is intangible, it is very much a gaming freak museum. Prototype NES carts, complete Master System collections, strange promotional materials from bygone eras. It is a literal island of lost games, the detritus of the medium’s collective subconscious, interesting to collectors and freaks only. And me of course. Today’s spotlight is especially alluring, as both a historical find and as an opportunity. Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 24 2008, 06:00 PM with no comments Filed under: john constantine, periphery, nes, Playstation, Panasonic, 3do, d2, Kenji eno, m2, gamesniped, sega master system

• Trailer Review: Wanted

  Posted by John Constantine

  Being something of an equal opportunity nerd, I don’t limit myself just to videogame geekery. I am also known to enjoy a comic book now and again. Not graphic fiction, nor graphic novels. Comics, funny books, four-color rags. Some of them involve improbably proportioned men and ladies performing impossible acts of vigilantism. One of my favorite scribes of such material is Mark Millar, the Scottish gent best known for his summer event series called Civil War that saw Iron Man and Captain America punching each other. Millar’s also the latest comics writer to start selling damn near all of his properties to Hollywood studios for big screen adaptations, the first of which actually came out this past summer. Wanted the movie didn’t have a whole lot to do with Wanted the comic book outside of some basic premise and tonal elements, but it was still a decent flick to eat popcorn to. It was simply missing the comic’s bite. The videogame adaptation of Wanted, due out in early 2009, is notable for a couple of reasons. First, even in trailer form, it looks significantly better than the vast majority of movie-game tie-ins. It’s also a sequel to the movie as opposed to a direct adaptation, which isn’t unheard of, but it’s still an interesting choice for a game not releasing alongside a theatrical or even DVD release. Most exciting, though, is that the Swedish gunslingers behind Bionic Commando’s rebirth, GRIN, are making it. Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 24 2008, 05:00 PM with no comments Filed under: john constantine, bionic commando, grin, comics, morgan freeman, Angelina jolie, Wanted, mark millar

• I’d Like to Thank the Imaginary Academy: Where Are the Videogame Awards That Matter?

  Posted by John Constantine

  MTV is a wily beast on the international stage. While we associate the one-time purveyor of actual music videos here in the States more with the decade long reign of TRL and reality shows starring wildly libidinous mannequins, Viacom’s behemoth plays host to a much wider and weirder slate of content across the globe. MTV Germany actually holds a special place in my heart. It introduced me to the Army of Lovers way back in 1997 during my international flight from the law. (I’d elaborate further, but this is a videogame blog. Let’s just say that I’ve atoned for my crimes and am no longer a target of Interpol. Sometimes you just have to cut a deal, you know?) I mean, just look at this video: That’s the sort of thing that sticks with you. MTV Germany held the MTV Game Awards last Friday. Yes, Game Awards. Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 24 2008, 04:00 PM with 3 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, hideo kojima, igda, final fantasy xiii, mtv, army of lovers, academy awards, jade raymond

• Whatcha Playing: Spinning GameTap’s Wheel

  Posted by Joe Keiser

  Talking about the greatest games gone by has made me realize something: I am totally over this release season. My two most anticipated games, Fallout 3 and Mirror’s Edge, have come, been played out, and re-shelved, and I have a feeling very little will touch those two titles in terms of uniqueness and ambition. Normally I would turn to my 360 backlog in this situation, but the NXE is actually turning me off to the system (my verdict: they made some cute fluffy characters for the grandma demographic, then put them in front of a sickeningly ad-riddled interface that will look to grandma like the deck of the Enterprise. Yes, the best part is the blade-based guide system, but that used to be the entire dashboard. The whole thing is an exercise in corporate cynicism, flushing a well-meaning and needed update straight down the tubes). So instead I’ll turn to the next best thing, GameTap. I love GameTap because it gives me access to a lot of weird, weird games for a monthly fee that is unreasonably low. It also has this little GottaGettaGame spinner which picks something out at random for you. This is by far the best thing about the service. So let’s give it a spin and see what I have to play today:   Awesome, something I’ve never heard of. Time to do some research! Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 24 2008, 03:00 PM with 1 comment(s) Filed under: japan scares me, sega genesis, joe keiser, air hockey, gametap

• Making Black Friday Work for You

  Posted by Joe Keiser

  Man, have you seen the list of new releases for this week? Don’t even bother: unless you desperately want retro re-releases like Chrono Trigger or Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (and there’s no shame in that) the marquee title is the rubbery werehog opus Sonic Unleashed. Those that have been following Sonic’s downward spiral know this is no cause for joy. Nintendo even released Boogerman on Virtual Console. BOOGERMAN. It’s like everyone suddenly ran out of games to sell. So somehow we have a barren week in November. Unsurprisingly, it’s also Thanksgiving week. The industry is sending a message loud and clear: stop buying games for yourself, and start buying them for other people. And belts are tight this year. But that has also led to retailers turning Black Friday into less of a day and more of a season. You can use that to your advantage, if you figure out where to look: -First of all, go to CheapAssGamer. Every. Day. I didn’t find every single thing in this list there, but naturally, they had them all anyway. They also have the full list of what you can get at those horrible door buster sales, so for those of you that enjoy risking life and life before the sun comes up in the name of sweet capitalism check it out. If you don’t make it back, we will try to get a good deal on your tombstone. Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 24 2008, 02:00 PM with 1 comment(s) Filed under: joe keiser, recession, christmas, armored core, shopping, black friday

• Rock Band: My Anti-Music

  Posted by Bob Mackey

  Last Friday, Joe blogged about the curmudgeonly Nickelback and their outrage over how music games like Guitar Hero are supposedly preventing people from actually picking up real instruments and starting bands. As I said in the comments section of that post, if the world needs anything, it's fewer local bands; the town I come from is so lousy with them, you can't leave your car parked anywhere for more than ten minutes without your entire windshield getting plastered with an inch-thick layer of fliers.  So I don't think we need to worry about rock and roll going anywhere anytime soon--and if anything, Nickelback is only contributing to the death of the genre, what with their general shittyness and all. For me, though, Rock Band is my only real musical outlet. You see, between the ages of 16 and 17, I had about a year-and-a-half of guitar lessons--and while it didn't give me much of a musical foundation, I still picked up some fundamental skills that manifested into a sort of prototype Guitar Hero.  I'd put on a song, try to play along with it to the best of my ability, and think "Damn, this would be pretty sweet as a video game."  Of course, I'm not exactly claiming I had the idea first; everyone knows that GuitarFreaks predated Guitar Hero by a good seven years--I think my imagination was mainly stoked by my obsession with Um Jammer Lammy and the guitar controllers found on the Japan-only arcade release of the game. Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 24 2008, 01:00 PM with 4 comment(s) Filed under: music, guitar hero, rock band, gaming habits, um jammer lammy

• OST: de Blob

  Posted by Derrick Sanskrit

  A few weeks ago I brought a stack of my favorite Wii games to a friend's house to celebrate her new Wii. Boom Blox and WarioWare: Smooth Moves were crowd pleasers. Super Mario Galaxy delighted and disoriented. Smash Bros. Brawl was an all around hit. When de Blob was popped in, I insisted that we turn off the George Clinton on the stereo to properly enjoy the game and was promptly turned down, so I removed the game. I love me some P. Funk, but de Blob's progressive soundtrack is right up at the top of a long list of reasons to love what is quite possibly the best third-party game Nintendo's little white wunderbox has got, and to play it without listening to what it's got to offer is like trying to enjoy a BLT without the tomato, lettuce or bread. Yeah, bacon's still (really) good on its own, but there's so much more you're missing out on! Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 24 2008, 12:00 PM with 3 comment(s) Filed under: derrick sanskrit, wii, ost, de blob

• Devildom String Orchestra: Music, Masks, and Madness

  Posted by Bob Mackey

  The hardcore American video game fan has been known embark on some pretty wild and awesome projects, even if some of them do happen to be complete fakes.  But there's just something about the industriousness of the Japanese hardcore that puts all of us to shame; just take a look at any Japanese-created levels of LittleBigPlanet, and you'll realize their devotion eclipses ours by a pretty large margin.  So what, exactly, am I getting at here?  Well, in researching Friday's post about the music of Mother, I stumbled upon a collection of YouTube videos that were too cool to keep to myself. The Devildom String Orchestra (at least, that's what I think the entire group calls itself) is a collection of Japanese musicians that arrange video game and anime music into real, live instrumentations. And they do all of this while wearing extremely creepy masks.  The most disturbing thing about this group, though, is that their videos really aren't getting the attention that they should.  You can access all of them by going to Tuengxx's YouTube page, but I've highlighted a few of the better ones below for your convenience. A very nice Chrono Trigger medley. More tunes after the cut. Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 24 2008, 11:00 AM with 3 comment(s) Filed under: fan project, music, chrono trigger, fan projects, bob mackey, final fantasy v, fan art, dragon quest iv

• Underrated: Buck Bumble

  Posted by Amber Ahlborn

  Welcome to the inaugural post of what I hope to make a regular Monday feature. Underrated looks at titles that probably flew below the radar of most gamers. Titles that sold poorly or were generally under appreciated for one reason or another. The first game I'll be looking at takes us back, back to an older simpler time when systems were still measured by their bits and Nintendo promoted all 64 of theirs. I'm talking of course about the Nintendo 64 and the title Buck Bumble. You've probably never heard of it. Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 24 2008, 10:00 AM with 4 comment(s) Filed under: amber ahlborn, nintendo 64, underrated, buck bumble, underappreciated

• Mega Man Fan Movie Trailer

  Posted by Nadia Oxford

  Okay, well... So... Um, I really do admire the gentlemen who play Thomas Light and Albert Wily in this upcoming(?) Mega Man fan movie. Imagine asking your dad to roleplay as a dude who hangs out with a giggly female robot all day, or as a power-hungry German man (anyone who speaks German can't be power-hungry). Imagine his reaction. "You want me to do what? While wearing a lab coat?" I'm also digging the designs for the original six robots. Looks like someone spent the extra thirty cents on the fancy brand of tinfoil. I've seen a lot of Mega Man fan movie trailers come and go. I kind of hope this project sees its way to fruition just so I can stop feeling I belong to the most shiftless fandom on the Internet. The Mega Man Robot Club Mega Man 9 Goes Back To Your Roots. Way Back. The Delights of Continuity in Mega Man and Abroad + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 21 2008, 10:25 PM with 3 comment(s) Filed under: mega man, trailer, video, fandom, nadia oxford, movie

• Achievements and Trophies and Unlocking, Oh Meh

  Posted by John Constantine

  Amazing things are going to happen in 2009. In the first third of the year, we’ll be playing a trifecta of raw, unadulterated Capcom goodness in the form of Street Fighter IV, Bionic Commando, and Resident Evil 5, Killzone 2 will finally come out and not look anything like the concept footage shown at E3 2005, we might find out just what the hell Alan Wake is, and maybe, just maybe, it’ll turn out that Final Fantasy XIII is actually a videogame and not just a three minute clip of a chick with nice hair. Home might even come out! Instead of the adorable little freak version of you that putters around your Wii games – or your Xbox 360, which is the exact same little freak but with hands and a selection of shirts from Old Navy – you’ll get to have a version of yourself that is iPod commercial ready, with glossy hair sharp enough to cut a Nomura character. You’ll get to go bowling, wonder why no one’s playing Warhawk and show off all your trophies. And you will have trophies, rest assured. Come ’09, Sony’s making them an obligatory component of any and all PS3 games. I don’t necessarily think achievements and trophies are a bad thing, especially for the type of player who enjoys setting themselves inane goals outside a game’s explicit ones. I just don’t understand why they have to be a necessary feature in every game. Read More... + DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT Posted Nov 21 2008, 03:30 PM with 5 comment(s) Filed under: playstation 3, street fighter, xbox 360, wii, bionic commando, street fighter 4, mega man, gears of war, mega man 9, street fighter iv, mii, final fantasy xiii, resident evil 5, alan wake, achievements, killzone 2, trophies