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• Namco, Your Klonoa Commercial is Dangerously Misleading

  Spoiler Warning. Giant, story-ruining, spoiler warning. Knock, knock. Who’s there? Spoiler Warning. You know what, Namco, I’m getting a little tired of having to have these talks with you. I know you’re tired of it too. If you paid attention, this wouldn’t be happening. You’ve been doing a lot of good lately, and I want you to know I’m proud of you for it. Not only did you decide to remake Klonoa: Door to Phantomile on the game’s tenth anniversary, you brought back much of the Klonoa Works team to make it. Director Hideo Yoshizawa, artist Yoshihiko Arai, and composer Kanako Kakino. Wise, Namco, wise. You even decided against that atrocious redesign of Klonoa you were batting around last year. This commercial, though, Namco. I don’t know if this is a very smart choice. It’s a little… misleading. Read More... Posted Apr 06 2009, 09:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, nintendo, wii, Playstation, klonoa, namco, shuichi sakurazaki, kanako kakino, klonoa door to phantomile, hideo yoshizawa, yoshihiko aria

• Trailer Review: Katamari Damacy Tribute

  Keita Takahashi made the right move in separating himself from Katamari Damacy. More of a good thing isn’t always what the world needs. Game sequels are, in principle, about improving on a solid foundation, molding an imperfect idea into something that is greater than its predecessor. Katamari Damacy was pretty much perfect on the first try and Takahashi knew that trying to bottle that lightning in a follow-up would end in failure. He did end up working on the first sequel, We Love Katamari, but he did it for the fans, not because he thought he could make a better game. Namco went ahead and made two more Takahashi-less Katamari games. They were not what you’d call great. Katamari Damacy Tribute, however, looks very promising. Read More... Posted Mar 31 2009, 06:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, trailer review, katamari damacy, namco, keita takahashi, noby noby boy, we love katamari, katamari damacy tribute

• Namco, Why You Gotta Make Me Hit You: Sonic Co-Creator’s Unnecessary Pac-Man “Comeback”

  Namco has hired Hirokazu Yasuhara to create a new Pac-Man to celebrate the little yellow glutton’s 30th anniversary in 2010. Namco chief of operations Makoto Iwai told Gamasutra that they’re making the game as a comeback vehicle for Pac-Man, to try and make him a relevant icon in today’s game market. When it comes to making great character-based games, you can’t do much better than Yasuhara. Yuji Naka’s gotten most of the glory, but Yasuhara was the real brains behind Sonic the Hedgehog’s glory days. He acted as director for the original Sonic trilogy on Genesis, was lead designer for Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles, and headed up Sonic’s unfinished Saturn debut, Sonic Extreme. After leaving Sega, he joined Naughty Dog and acted as a designer for Jak 2 and 3 as well as Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. That right there is a flawless pedigree, a veritable trail of excellence blazed across a decade and a half. Why in the hell has this man been hired to make Pac-Man relevant again when Pac-Man’s creator already did just that two years ago? Someone please tell me how it makes sense to hire one of the best platformer designers of all time to make a freaking Pac-Man game? History has shown that a Pac-Man platformer is a terrible, terrible idea. Oh, you don't remember? Read More... Posted Mar 06 2009, 07:30 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, pac-man, gamasutra, sega, sonic the hedgehog, genesis, namco, Saturn, sonic 3, sonic 2, sonic & knuckles, Pac-man championship edition, toru iwatani, sonic extreme, hirokazu yasuhara, pac-man world, tycho brahe, pac-land, pac-man 2

• Wii Brings Silent Hill to Climax

  No, wait. Rewind. Switch that. Climax is going to bring Silent Hill to the Wii! The rumor going ‘round the campfire is that those nutty Brits behind Silent Hill: Origins will be remaking the original Silent Hill for both Wii and PSP. 61FPS just spent this past Monday celebrating Silent Hill’s tenth birthday. What better way to celebrate the occasion than by taking a stroll down memory lane, waggling as you go? Read More... Posted Feb 26 2009, 07:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, nintendo, wii, psp, silent hill, konami, silent hill origins, Playstation, klonoa, namco, climax

• WAKA, WAKA: Pac-Man Championship Made Old School-er

  I was a little sad last month when putting together my closing-yet-incomplete thoughts on the games of 2008. During those twelve glorious months, the majority of the games I played to completion were from 2007. (The way 2009’s going at this point, it looks like this year’s going to be just the same.) So when I was thinking of the games that sparked my brain the most last year, some were sadly excluded from mention. My game of the year for 2007 and probably the game I played the most in 2008? Pac-Man Championship Edition. No, seriously. That game is pure. Its rules are perfect. Its challenge increases seamlessly along with your skill. Its presentation is a quiet symphony of graphical polish and dynamic sound that encourages as much focus in a player as it does tension. It’s iconic but it’s also a legitimate sequel, improving on one of videogames’ most fundamental forms of play without relying heavily on nostalgia as a hook. It’s better than Pac-Man and it’s better than Ms. Pac-Man. Crap, I’m tearing up just thinking about it! Siliconera posted up this NES-styled mock up of Pac-Man Championship Edition and it really emphasizes how vital the widescreen format is in making PMCE a sequel that enhances Pac-Man fundamentals. Read More... Posted Feb 03 2009, 07:30 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, pac-man, xbox 360, nes, namco, siliconera, ms pac-man, Pac-man championship edition, toru iwatani

• Fami Star Wars: Just Because It’s In English Doesn’t Mean It Makes Sense

  You ever have that moment when you think about buying a game that you plain know you aren’t going to play that much, but you need to have it sitting on your shelf? You know, when you’re at the flea market and you drop fifteen bucks on a copy of Mega Man Soccer. Because it’s Mega Man Soccer, dag nab it, and that’s reason enough! This is sort of logic that’s been tempting me to spend forty dollars on this bad boy: The cartridge alone is an insane piece of pop art. It wants to sit on a mantle above a fire place, radiating weirdness, cultural otherness, and raw, unadulterated sweetness. Not nearly as much weirdness, otherness, and sweetness as the actual game inside the cartridge, that goes without saying. As I mentioned in a post just a few weeks back, the damn game’s first level ends with Darth Vader transforming into a giant, anime-eyed scorpion. Read More... Posted Feb 02 2009, 06:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, star wars, mega man, namco, bob mackey, nadia oxford, famicom, obi wan Kenobi, han solo, mega man soccer

• Atlus Shows You Love, Localizes Damn Near Everything

  Actually, half of that headline might be a blatant lie. Depending on your point of view, it’s a distinct possibility that Atlus hates you and everyone with a sweet tooth for melodrama, a lust for turn-based battles, and a fetish for watching numbers get higher. They hate you because no one in the world has the time to play everything they’re releasing over the next six months. It’s not like you can put off getting the games either. Atlus’ print runs are so small that it’s a guarantee you’ll be paying three times the release price on Ebay just six months after a game comes out. You are cruel, Atlus. But so, so giving. Read More... Posted Jan 27 2009, 08:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, shin megami tensei, ubisoft, atlus, namco, Knights in the Nightmare, Crimson Gem Saga, Dokapon Journey, astonishia story, Devil Survivor, and Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier

• Up All Night With Jaleco: Never the Best, But Never Forgotten

  Despite the solid gold righteousness of Barack Obama’s inauguration, this day’s still a little sad. As Joe noted, Jaleco Holdings has sold off their game developer/publisher subsidiary Jaleco to Korean MMO house Game Yarou and taken their leave of gaming for good. Ducking out of the videogame business because of "increasing competition (…) in the videogame market" isn’t an especially surprising move for a c-list – close to d-list really – publisher, but it’s still disconcerting to see a member of the old vanguard get shut down. Joe’s timeline of Jaleco is pretty thorough, but I wanted to make special note of a few other games they brought to the world. Let’s be honest: no Jaleco game, whether it was one they just published or one they created, could be considered one of the all time greats. But many of them were a hell of a lot of fun, and others were just plain freaking weird. All four of the following are perfect Up All Night candidates: they may or may not play that well, but they are trashy as all hell. Here’s to you, Jaleco. Tuff E Nuff – SNES Like Totally Rad, Tuff E Nuff is notable for its totally sweet name alone, but it earns extra points for being a decent one on one fighter in an age lousy with Street Fighter II wannabes. Tuff E Nuff is unassuming at first, revealing its merits slowly. The quality music, the solid character design, and the game’s story mode – which actually includes some character and skill leveling – are all charmers. It's story is suitably absurd and awesome. Read More... Posted Jan 20 2009, 03:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, up all night, street fighter ii, namco, ridge racer, joe keiser, carrier, jaleco, speed racer, gundam wing, tuff e nuff, vampire hunter d, cowboy bebop, illbleed

• Ode to the Light Gun or The Only Peripheral You’ll Ever Need

  Peripherals are bothersome. A controller is fine; it’s compact and, with the ubiquity of reliable, long-lasting wireless technology, they’ve become easy to store and maintain. These days, controllers just aren’t enough for developers. Every game has to have its own little thing. Oh, I need plastic guitars and drums to play this? A little plastic wheel to act like I’m steering? A massive twenty-four button console array meant to simulate the cockpit of a gigantic walking tank?! Well, la-di-da, Mr. Game Developer! I don’t live in some kind of mansion, I’ve already spent all my money on your products. I don’t have room to store a billion and one plastic devices used for only a single game. Like every gamer born before 1990, though, there’s one peripheral my gaming home needs: the light gun. Nintendo may be the young family’s best friend these days, providing safe, accessible entertainment for all, but back in 1985, their consoles came with fake firearms. Those of us who grew up in the US and Europe got a grey Laser Tag knock off that was clearly — a toy later re-colored neon orange and grey to appear even more like a toy — but look at the original sumbitch Gunpei Yokoi designed for the system. Read More... Posted Jan 16 2009, 03:30 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: playstation 3, nintendo, wii, nes, rambo, sega, namco, house of the dead, famicom, guncon, light gun, house of the dead 4, time crisis 4, silent hill the arcade, zapper, house of the dead overkill

• Fragile Criticism

  It’s easy to lose perspective when you talk and write about videogames with any regularity. You start to lose sight of the way people who don’t eat, sleep, and breathe games see and understand games. You forget how many times you’ve said the word “Zelda” in the span of a month. You also tend to stop noticing the peculiar language you use. I’m not even talking about genre delineation, I mean just the words we use to describe and discuss videogames. Hands-on is an especially peculiar phrase. You don’t use it anywhere else. When I tell a friend what I had for lunch, I don’t tell them that I went hands-on with some sushi. (Well, except for that one time. That was different.) It just starts to lose meaning after awhile. That is, until you remember, that you don’t really know anything about a game until you actually have the controller in your hands and you’re playing it. All the screenshots, trailers, and press releases in the world won’t tell you what just a few minutes of hands-on time will. Namco’s Fragile is what set me off on this train of thought. I’ve been a fairly vocal supporter of the game since the very first screen shots were shown off. Yes, it’s a Wii exclusive game that appears to be decidedly more traditional, but it’s Fragile’s visuals and trailer music that have really grabbed me. I’m an absolute sucker for both post-apocalyptic loneliness and spooky, desolate exploration. Just the idea of exploring abandoned cities by using the Wii remote as a flashlight has been enough to sell me on the game wholesale. But the truth is that I have absolutely no idea what you do in Fragile outside of guide a character around in third-person and point a flashlight at the corners of rooms. How does it feel to do these things? What else do you do? What’s the point, the goal? Read More... Posted Jan 15 2009, 06:45 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, wii, fragile, namco

• New Year’s Resolutions For a Few Of Our Favorite Publishers

  Now, to close out the first full week of 2009, we will do for videogame publishers what we did for console makers: we will tell them how to live their sordid, godforsaken lives! You’d think developers would make the list, but no. No, I tend to trust them, so they will be left to their own devices, free from the crushing logic of advice from 61 Frames Per Second. Read More... Posted Jan 09 2009, 07:30 PM by John Constantine with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, ea, capcom, konami, ubisoft, Ghostbusters, dark void, sega, atari, activision, retro game master, atlus, koei, tecmo, namco, neversoft, xseed, midway, bioshock 2, square enix, street fighter iii, take two, beyond good & evil 2, the world end with you

• Katamari Christmas - Rediscovering the Cosmos... Twice

  December 23rd, I'm home for the holidays, as are both of my sisters. I am just finishing my self-appointed task of the morning by clearing 100% of the Chroma Dam in de Blob when my elder sister asks what the gameplay is like and if she can learn. I begin to describe and then compare the feeling to that of Katamari Damacy. She is intrigued. I hand her the case to the original Katamari Damacy for Playstation 2. Her eyes light up as she pages through the manual. "Can I play this one?" "Sure." I turn off the Wii and go to make some tea. "Can I play it now?" "Oh, um...yeah, okay!" A bit of background very quickly. My sister is not an avid gamer, but she is also not a n00b. She is at present the typical "casual" gamer. She plays Brain Age, Wii Fit, Guitar Hero and Scrabulous, but to the best of my memory she has not touched a traditional platformer since the original Super Mario Bros. And now here she was, playing a cult-hit Japanese game that required not one analog stick, but two! Read More... Posted Jan 07 2009, 06:30 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: derrick sanskrit, wii, playstation 2, casual, katamari damacy, iphone, namco, christmas

• Klonoa: Careful, Namco. You Tread On My Dreams.

  I’m not a purist. No, really. When it comes to classics being revisited, modernized, or remade, I don’t need every facet of the past perfectly preserved just the way I remember it in order to get a desperate nostalgic thrill. I delight in Mega Man 9 because it’s a great game whose presentation and technological limitations are carefully made design choices, not because it’s a new NES game. I’ll let you in on a secret: I actually like Mega Man 7 and 8. Yeah, that’s right. I think they’re good games. Not as good as their forebears, but all the same. When the new Bionic Commando was announced last year, even before Rearmed was revealed, I didn’t balk at Radd Spencer’s Adam-Duritz-makeover. I think the new look is cool, especially the way his dreads flow behind him like delicate willow branches as he soars through dystopian cityscapes and… oh! Excuse me. What I’m getting at is that not everything from yesterday is sacred. Some things, especially in games, should be changed. Final Fantasy III DS is a good thing. The NES original is just too slow now. Tomb Raider Anniversary preserves a revolutionary game’s best qualities while also making it, you know, playable. In with the new, out with the old may not be an all-encompassing maxim, but it’s more often than not good advice. That said, Namco, if you go through with this, I will hurt you. The Raw Meat Cowboy himself over at GoNintendo received a survey from Namco-Bandai today, the subject of which was their impending Wii remake of Klonoa: Door to Phantomile. RMC has smartly inferred that Namco is testing the waters to see if Klonoa should be localized for North America. One of the questions in the survey asks which of these two character designs is preferable. Read More... Posted Oct 30 2008, 03:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, nintendo, wii, capcom, final fantasy, bionic commando, nes, mega man, tomb raider, klonoa, mega man 9, namco bandai, mega man 7, mega man 8, namco, bionic commando rearmed, final fantasy III, poochie

• Why Am I Playing This: Star Fox Assault

  Star Fox is undoubtedly Nintendo's own Sonic the Hedgehog; it's an increasingly irrelevant series saddled with a creepy furry vibe and plagued with "innovation" instead of being designed with a thoughtful reflection of what made the first two games so great. And because my GameFly queue was so overloaded with in-demand games like Sly 3: Band of Thieves, you get to read about Fox McCloud and his friends. I am a bad person. Star Fox Assault gets a bad rap for a good reason; it starts you off in a level very similar to that of the original Star Fox or Star Fox 64. It's not quite as well-designed as Nintendo's own handiwork, though it's a reasonable facsimile. But when you get to the second level, the fine people at Namco decide to make Star Fox the on-foot shooter it apparently always wanted to be--and the third level's not much different. Just like with Sonic the Hedgehog, you'd think it would be so damn easy to make a Star Fox game; put me on rails with limited range, give me some optional paths, and BAM! You have what may be called Star Fox. But--as the similarly-wonky DS Star Fox proved to us all--there's a time and place for needless creativity, and Star Fox isn't it. Because Nintendo can't seem to get their shit together when it comes to Star Fox, I've compiled a list of tips that just may save the series. I hope they appreciate the minutes of work that went into this. Read More... Posted Oct 15 2008, 10:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo, gamecube, star fox, namco, sonic the hedgehog cartoon, bob mackey, star fox assault, why am i playing this

• Where Will You Go, Tecmo? What Will Happen to Our Love?

  This has been something of a tumultuous year for Tecmo. In the past twelve months, they’ve shipped just four games, three of which are Ninja Gaiden games. The fourth, Fatal Frame IV for Wii, wasn’t even developed in house (it was handled by Suda 51’s Grasshopper Manufacture.) None of these games were actually published by Tecmo, relying on companies as diverse as Eidos, Ubisoft, Microsoft, and Nintendo for distribution. In June, their public face and star designer, the outspoken, boozing womanizer Tomonobu Itagaki, quit the company days after Ninja Gaiden II released to middling reviews. In August, their president resigned and Square-Enix tried to take over the company. Today, Tecmo announced they’ll be the latest Japanese company to find refuge from shrinking domestic business by consolidating. Their new partner will be Koei. Tecmo, I’m worried about you. Times are tough for Japanese developers developing traditional games for home consoles. We’ve had wonderful times together and I’m still looking forward to Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff this fall. Remember all the good times we had with Tecmo Bowl? Yeah. Corporate mergers are a good thing for Japanese developers. Why, just look at previous successes! Read More... Posted Sep 04 2008, 06:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: nintendo, microsoft, final fantasy, ubisoft, sega, square-enix, ninja gaiden, koei, dynasty warriors, tecmo, namco, eidos, tomonobu itagaki, fatal frame, Bandai, sammy, team ninja

• Where is Shuichi Sakurazaki, Creator of Ninja Gaiden?

  While they might not be rock stars quite yet, it’s great that videogame developers are becoming more and more recognizable by name. Many, many people know who Hideo Kojima is and what Kojima Prodcutions makes. Sega didn’t just contract Platinum Games to make a few killer titles for them, they signed them on for the name recognition, for the artists’ cred. Back in the day, it wasn’t the people who created games that got recognized. It was only franchise names and publishers that got the love. In 2008, it’s widely known that Tomonobu Itagaki is the head honcho behind Ninja Gaiden. But who is the brain behind Ninja Gaiden on the NES? After doing a bit of digging, I found that Ninja Gaiden and its first sequel were designed by a fellow named Shuichi Sakurazaki and Tecmo’s Team Strong. The game’s trademark cutscenes, arguably the first of their kind, were penned by Sakurazaki himself. But that’s where the information trail ends, with nary an interview with or a Wikipedia page on the man to be found. I found only two other games credited to Sakurazaki, and surprising ones at that. Read More... Posted Aug 27 2008, 01:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, where is, ninja gaiden, klonoa, tecmo, namco, shuichi sakurazaki, tomonobu itagaki

• Pay-Per-Grind: Tales of Vesperia Let’s You Level With Cash

  We’ve been talking a whole hell of a lot about role-playing games around these parts lately. Of course, we’ve also been musing on the amount of time you need to spend playing certain games, RPGs in particular. Cutting the grind out of RPGs is an entire industry when it comes to MMOs. Don’t have two-hundred thirty-nine hours to pour into World of Warcraft? Well, there are a number of fine, trustworthy organizations based out of China and elsewhere that will get you your level-65 character for a few measly sawbucks. When it comes to the single-player, console RPG, though, you have one of two choices for beefing up your characters: you either cheat (in-game exploit or using a Gameshark-style device) or you put in the many, many hours necessary to max out your party. But, like so much in the age of downloadable content, the times are a changin’. Namco’s Tales of Vesperia got its first downloadable content this week and, for just a few hundred Microsoft Points, you can buy your characters ten levels of experience. Call me crazy, but doesn’t this defeat the point of the console RPG? Read More... Posted Aug 22 2008, 04:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, xbox 360, tales of vesperia, namco, dlc

• It’s Madness!: Evo Championship 2K8 Starts Friday, Baby

  The headline above may or may not mean anything to you. If it does, chances are you’re going to be spending August 8th through the 10th in Las Vegas screaming at arcade cabinets or constantly updating YouTube to check out the latest match footage. However, if everything I’ve just written reads like Sanskrit to you (not Derrick. The dead language.), the annual Evo Championship is the closest thing competition level gaming has ever had to a Super Bowl. Warriors gather from around the world and engage in combat. They don’t actually fight each other or anything. They fight in a selection of two-dimensional and three-dimensional fighting games including a number of Street Fighter titles, Tekken, and Smash Bros. It is an epic event. If this sounds silly to you, well, you clearly haven’t seen this. Read More... Posted Aug 05 2008, 05:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, nintendo, street fighter, capcom, namco, smash bros, tekken tatsunoko vs capcom, evo championship

• Screen Test: Fragile

  I’m as bad as every other slavering fanboy on the internet when it comes to Wii software, ranting about the garbage publishers have vomited onto the system, games that would have been visual embarrassments on the Dreamcast with gameplay that makes Tamagotchis seem like the most sophisticated machines on earth. Instead of a new 2D adventure, Konami makes a Castlevania fighting game. Instead of a brand new Rygar game, Tecmo ports over a six year-old PS2 title. Instead of a fresh Resident Evil, Capcom makes a glorified light gun game. The worst part is that some people are making very promising titles for the Wii, yet no one knows about them. Case in point: Namco’s Fragile. Read More... Posted Jul 22 2008, 02:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, nintendo, wii, capcom, screen test, konami, castlevania, resident evil 2, tri-crescendo, fragile, tecmo, namco