61 Frames Per Second

Browse by Tags

• Chiptune Friday: Spring Is In the Air With Okami

  Two truths. Today is March 13th. It will not be spring for another eight days. Also, the original soundtrack to Okami is not chiptune. At all. In fact, it is fully orchestrated and entrenched in traditional Japanese composition, a far cry from the heavy metal and pop roots of the blissed-out blip songs composed on the NES or similar consoles. Have you gone outside though? It is freaking gorgeous out there. It may rain, it may be cloudy, but the bitter miasma of late winter has lifted, washed away as if by… a celestial brush! Given, it’s likely that the fine weather is a result of the Earth’s natural solar orbit and axial spin, but I like to think that there’s a sun goddess wolf out there making it nice outside. I’m going to find her. We’ll go to the park and play fetch. Beautiful women will be all, “Oh your dog is beautiful!” And I’ll be all, “Check dis.” Then Amaterasu will make a bushel of fragrant botanicals grow at our feet. Here are three selections from the Okami soundtrack. Listen, be in bloom, and grab your DS or PSP. Go play outside today! The Great Goddess Amaterasu’s Revival Hit the jump for more fresh goodness. Read More... Posted Mar 13 2009, 10:00 AM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, nintendo, platinum games, wii, clover studios, capcom, atsushi inaba, sony, playstation 2, chiptune friday, okami

• MadWorld: Actually a Pretty Even-Keeled World

  Unlike Bayonetta, Sega were all too happy to let me try out MadWorld yesterday. After a quick tutorial in the controls, I was thrown, for lack of a better phrase, into the deep end of Varrigan City. I walked away from the game thinking three distinct things: One: Ultra-detailed black and white games are as cool in practice as they are in theory, but I can see why there aren’t too many of them. Two: Platinum Games took Suda 51’s No More Heroes combat model and improved its accuracy and versatility in significant ways. Three: MadWorld’s kind of… boring. Read More... Posted Jan 29 2009, 07:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, no more heroes, viewtiful joe, platinum games, wii, madworld, bayonetta, atsushi inaba, sega, suda 51, god hand

• Independent at a Price: Sega and Platinum Games

  Image courtesy of IGN.com Last week’s reveal that Platinum Games, formerly of Clover fame, was making four entirely new videogames was one of the most exciting moments of the year in gaming. The return of powerful creative voices is always reason to sit up and pay attention. Brendan Sinclair of Gamespot sat down with Sega America VP of marketing Sean Ratcliffe and president Simon Jeffery to discuss Sega and Platinum’s new publishing relationship. Interviews like this tend to not be very revealing about the content or creation of the games being discussed; these aren’t designers talking, they’re marketers, so they market. Buried beneath the glad-handing here, though, is some scary insight into what independent developers without the resources to publish and promote their own work face when getting their games onto the world stage. Take a look at this excerpt: Gamespot: Is this (publishing) deal exclusive, or can Platinum work here and there for other publishers? Simon Jeffrey: It's completely exclusive. Gamespot: Do the intellectual property rights for these brands stay with Sega or Platinum Games? Simon Jeffrey: Sega. No matter what Platinum Games creates under this agreement, they don’t get to own it. Read More... Posted May 22 2008, 02:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, shinji mikami, platinum games, hideki kamiya, madworld, bayonetta, atsushi inaba, sega

• Clover Returns, Heavy as Platinum

  While the final months of 2006 were exciting times – the Wii and Playstation 3 were released mere days apart while the Xbox 360, DS, and PSP really started to heat up content wise – it was also a time of mourning. Just after the release God Hand and Okami, Clover Studios disbanded. Parent company Capcom absorbed much of the staff while the designer trinity of Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil), Hideki Kamiya (Devil May Cry), and Atsushi Inaba (Viewtiful Joe) went off to form a new independent studio. Clover’s games were true rarities in the industry, each one an artistic ziggurat built on a foundation of violently colorful worlds and idiosyncratic mechanics. Viewtiful Joe’s comicbook world of an empowered movie buff that found the player manipulating the action with VCR commands, Okami’s sumi-e fantasia that allowed the player to literally exert their will on the world through painting; truly special stuff. That’s why it’s so exciting that yesterday’s rumors about their new games turned out to be absolutely true. Read More... Posted May 13 2008, 02:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, playstation 3, nintendo ds, xbox 360, devil may cry, infinite line, no more heroes, shinji mikami, viewtiful joe, platinum games, resident evil, wii, hideki kamiya, psp, clover studios, madworld, capcom, bayonetta, atsushi inaba