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Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 8.18.06

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World Games is another awesome/terrible Epyx title.

Classic Epyx games coming to current consoles
Impossible Mission and California Games remakes coming to the Wii, DS and PSP and they’ll be in 2d. Now I can finally finish Impossible Mission, let’s just hope it doesn’t have a bug in it like the Atari version (the bug made the game unbeatable). California Games should be very interesting because it’s debatable that the original was actually a piece of shit. Through the glasses of nostalgia I remember the game quite fondly but it’s true that the actual gameplay is similar to Wario Wares, only minus the creativity, humor and instead of 105 there are 5 games to play.

“Classic” Electronic Arts compilation coming to the PSP
What’s this, another compilation featuring games from my beloved C64? No. By classic, they mean Genesis era. They also don’t necessarily mean “good,” either. Mutant League Football was fun, and the Haunting was very original, but most of these games just won’t excite anyone. →  Lords of the Read 2

The Power of Music

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Music is the one power that the majority of developers never seem to grasp and implement correctly. Music in a game can enhance every aspect, be it story, setting, mood, or even gameplay, but for some reason, it always takes a back seat to everything else in a game, especially the graphics.

Kondo: the Japanese French Stewart?

Let me give you an example of how music, implemented to its fullest, can be beneficial to a game’s overall feeling. Shadow of the Colossus. How epic and strong did you feel when that music kicked in, when you finally started climbing the back of one of those monstrous Colossi? You felt something, didn’t you? It wasn’t visual feedback that created that feeling, or the fact that you overcame a puzzle. It was the pounding musical score that drove adrenaline through you. You felt like a true hero when that music started blaring, and that was the whole intent of the game.

The character you portray, Wanderer, isn’t the best adventurer we’ve seen in video games. →  To be this lame takes ages.

The Propaganda Project: J Allard

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J Allard — Corporate Vice Presient, Microsoft

Empowerment to the next level, Allard is a PR guy who really loves clichés that push the envelope. Luckily, he seems to be grounded in what makes games good as he has said many times that graphics are a single component and not necessarily important. He also frequently says he wants to expand the market, mirroring Nintendo’s stated goal. Because dirt on Allard was significantly harder to find than on Harrison, some of the quote categories have been left out and I even added a new one: Inspirational.

(For an explanation of what this article is, please read this.)
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Bitchy Comments
Some people say the Xbox 360 looks the same as other systems. That it is just more of the same, just more powerful than the other systems. That it’s just more graphics, more polygons, more, more, more. What will it do that is different?

And if you go too far, and you try to change the category altogether and we give you a wacky controller, or I’m going to give you wacky games that you don’t really understand, and we’re going to market it or price it in a wacky way, I think we would have been very much a failure. →  The King of Articles 2002: Unlimited Match

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 8.11.06

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Handheld gaming devices are now terrorist weapons
Now I’ll need to build a steam powered gaming device for my trip to England. I was really looking forward to playing Al Qaeda’s Touch Terror and the Taliban’s Death to Americhat on my DS, too. Apparently, US Flights are also banning liquids. I think I’ll debate the flight attendant on how glass can be considered a liquid and therefore the windows must be removed until he decides to ignore me.

If most gamers were nerds who got beaten up as kids, wouldn’t they want to play a game where you beat up bullies instead of a game where you are a bully?

Kotaku talks to anti-bullying guy
In the interview, the anti-bully group guy says that some games shouldn’t be made. George Carlin has said that everything is open to humor and I completely agree with him, only I include more than humor. Everything should be open to every kind of creative art. →  You think about everything.

Best Game Ever – Miracle Warriors

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I hope you enjoyed that commercial, now on to the article.

In the last Best Game Ever, Pat covered Suikoden, his first RPG. I grew up watching my brother play games like Ys and Phantasy Star on the Master System and Times of Lore and Moebius (both by Origin) for the C64. Because of this, I never really had a “Eureka!” moment when it came to RPGs; they just always sort of existed. After racking my brain for memories, I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I played Phantasy Star 2 in ’89 and Dragon Quest in ’90 but still neither of them were my firsts. As far as I can tell, the slightly obscure Miracle Warriors for the Sega Master System has that honor.

For its time, Miracle Warriors had quality presentation. Solid enemy graphics and backgrounds that put some 16 bit titles to shame delight you as you battle to an awesome For Whom the Bell Tolls inspired rock MIDI tune. →  Readbot Chronicles

Polarity

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Welcome to the world of tomorrow!

If you ever asked yourself why video games were invented, you probably answered that the original creators just wanted to have fun. And, in fact, you’d be correct. The very first video game was created in 1958 by a scientist named William Higinbotham to let people have a little bit of fun at a science fair in Long Island, NY. The fair was mostly centered on nuclear theories and revelations, but Higinbotham thought it made the exhibit a bit scary for the general public, so he made what is now known to be the very first video game: Tennis for Two.

Suffice to say, it was a hit at the show. People were amazed that they could control something on a screen (which was actually a 3-inch radar screen). After the exhibit ended, however, Higinbotham broke the machine down and never really thought he was onto something special. However, the video game industry that we have today was born out of something completely different: greed. →  Apply directly to the forehead.

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Top 100 best American sellers list analysis

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Next Gen was good enough to make a comprehensive list of the top 100 games of this century by American sales. The list proves supremely useful because they included the average Game Ranking review. Clicking back and forth between the pages and going over what fell where and what didn’t make the list in my mind, I realized that the list could be sorted in every which way. So, I opened Excel, threw some numbers in and it popped out a few graphs.

Some highlights:
1. Ninja Gaiden
2. Bulletproof
3. Virtua Fighter 4
4. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
5. SSX 3
6. Tetris Worlds
7. Soul Calibur 2
8. Burnout 3
9. Yu-Gi-Oh! The Duelists of the Roses
10. God of War
11. Devil May Cry
12. Knights of the old Republic
13. Metroid Prime
14. Jack and Daxter
15. Metal Gear Solid 2
16. Wind Waker
17. Need for Speed Underground
18. Halo

Some observations – Virtua Fighter 4 and Soul Calibur 2 were both outsold by Mortal Kombat despite being better to anyone with taste. →  Eh, I’ve got nothing better to do.

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 7.28.06

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It works.

Victor Ireland starts a new company
The guy behind the now closed Working Designs is back in business. Woo? I’m not really sure. The new company is called GaijinWorks, which is probably not a great name. It’s a little similar to a Japanese company trying to do business in America with the name Ignorant Foreigner Enterprises.

Critics are already saying his new company is doomed to failure unless he has learned from his past mistakes, which include having enough principle to ruin a business. Can’t say I blame him for how he handled WD, but then I can’t say I disagree with his critics, either.

Another criticism Vic is facing is that he is no longer needed because companies like Atlus have filled his shoes. This is a stupid position to take. Some gamers will only be satisfied when all good Japanese games come to our shores. I, on the other hand, will only be satisfied when ALL Japanese games come to our shores. →  It’s not you, it’s me.

Left in Japan: The SNES edition

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So many games never made it to our shores. Every once in a while, the sheer amount of gaming joy we missed out on is enough to choke me up. I’ve compiled a list of some of the more important ones and given a personal account of why it should’ve made it, what we missed out on, or other random crap. All of them are RPGs of some form or another and since today’s theme is untranslated SNES games, well, they’re all SNES games. Wait, shouldn’t that be Super Famicom then?

Zylo, is that you?

FEDA Emblem of Justice
I actually have the remake of this game for the Saturn. Unfortunately, it’s still in Japanese. It plays like Shining Force or Fire Emblem but with the ability to side with good or evil and recruit different characters based on your alliance. Besides being a SRPG, it also has the same character designer as Shining Force, Shining in the Darkness, Landstalker and Alundra (Yoshitaka Tamaki). →  Beyond Read & Evil