posts by jay
jay

Sony follows the lonely path

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The new PS3 commercial shows a handful of games set to what sounds like a clip from a Gladiator or Braveheart type movie. A warrior with a middle ages accent (ye olde accent) rallies his comrades before a glorious battle. To Sony this console business is a battle, and a bloody $3 billion one so far.

Only declaring war openly and drawing lines in the sand is not what Sony needs to do now. The call for brotherhood in the commercial clearly creates an us-versus-them image but it is this exclusive mentality (remember, the PS3 is like a fine dining experience) that put Sony in third place this generation. Launching at $600 and offering the bleeding edge of movie playing capabilities did not make the PS3 a very accessible machine and these advertisements only reinforce the idea that if I am not hardcore, if I am not willing to join Sony is a vicious battle against its enemies, then the PS3 is not for me. →  Read, I am your father!

My Life as a Hermitic King

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Around day 100 or so it starts to become painfully clear that playing My Life as a King consists of little more than assigning spreadsheet characters to spreadsheet dungeons. As this understanding of the game mechanics slowly dawned on me, I began to go to bed earlier each day (virtual king me, not real me).

Calling Chime in every morning to put me back to sleep after I had finished running to the sign post and assigning every adventurer to the open behest I was met with the question, “Are you tired already, sire?” At first I felt like an emperor who had come down with mononucleosis.

This gave way to my recitation of the few lines of Macbeth’s soliloquy I still recall. →  Xenosaga 2: Jenseits von Gut und Pöst

Playing catch up – River City Ransom

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In my attempt to rectify my mostly Nintendo-less childhood I have been purchasing Virtual Console games at an unhealthy rate. Chrono Trigger and Super Mario World both lived up to their legendary reputations so I was excited to finally try River City Ransom (ignore that it’s slightly less popular and on a different console from the other two).

River City Ransom’s similarities to Double Dragon are obvious and I am proud to say it took about a second for me to figure out how to jump kick. (A and B at the same time for all you losers who haven’t played the exact same games as I have). The move set does seem somewhat pared down, though – is it actually possible to headbutt or elbow in River City Ransom? →  What is word? Baby don’t read me.

Translate your damn sites

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Ever been to your favorite developer’s website only to find out you can’t read it (assuming your favorite developers are exactly the same as mine), not because of the onset of Sudden Illiteracy Syndrome (SIS) but because it’s in an entirely incomprehensible-scribble-based language?

Head over to Camelot’s official site and be in awe of how much cool content they have – little bios on each of the Takahashi brothers, a map to their office (or perhaps buried treasure), in-depth pages on the entire Shining series. Now realize it’s all in accursed Japanese and you will never, ever be able to read it (EVER). Staff interviews, questions and answers, and Golden Sun pages are all hidden behind abstruse kanji and katakana, hiding their secrets from us like a ninja with a secret…and a sword! →  Holy crap, show me more!

News We Care About Wrapup – 5.30.08

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Beyond good and sequels
Beyond Good and Evil 2 was recently released much to the joy of gaming forums everywhere. Sequels are exciting because it means more of something good. That we long for sequels seems to stem from a few things but most of them point to problems in the industry. It means we expect crap and usually get crap and when a game that’s worth playing actually comes out we want more because the other option is crap. We want sequels because we do not trust developers to make good games. If Ancel is given full reign over his next project and allowed to do what he wants, then let the man create something new. Shadow of the Colossus is the perfect example – a great game by the same designer as a game you love is even better than a sequel. →  You lost me.

News We Care About Wrap Up – 5.23.08

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Too early to declare a console victor
Ignore that Microsoft recently declared that history has shown us that the first system to 10 million historically wins the race, thus heavily implying their console is the winner as it’s sold a little over 10 million in the states. Their new PR line is that declaring a winner between the PS3, Wii and 360 will be impossible until one of them reaches 100 million in sales. By this logic the only systems to have ever “won” a generation are the PS1 (barely) and the PS2, and they did it after many years on the market, long after it became apparent to everyone who doesn’t work for Microsoft that Sony had won those generations. →  50 Cent: Readproof

I’m so sick of Noble Deaths, I could sacrifice myself for the good of others! — Part Trois

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The only thing that frightens people as much as life without meaning is death without meaning. For some odd reason, we find it difficult to cope with the loss of a loved one to an open manhole. The fact that random, absurd turns of events can end life does not sit well with people because we do not want to think we are ultimately irrelevant. Our desire for purpose in death has pervaded art and culture as a whole.

Movies, books, and games – really any narrative-heavy medium – have fought this feeling of irrelevance by pitting heroes against their mortal enemies, giving the lowliest peasant a worthy cause to die for, and offering everyone in between the comfort of knowing the creator of the universe himself decides their fate (and unless they have some loser god, it just so happens that their fate is endless life). →  Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty article.

Review – LostWinds

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As I searched for the final area of LostWinds my entire family died in a flaming plane crash. I mean the game crashed as I was going from one area to another. The controller stopped responding and I was once again forced into physical activity by the Wii. I made my way to the system and shut it off, annoyed that I had stumbled upon one of the LostWinds glitches I’d read about but still psyched because I knew I’d finish the game in the next half hour. So I rebooted the console and loaded up the game again. All the save files were gone. Crashing and being turned off during the hang up removed all the progress I had made. →  How many games must a gamer play before you call him a gamer?

Ubisoft publishes crap on Wii, crap doesn’t sell, Ubisoft confused

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North American Ubisoft president Laurent Detoc recently showed concern over his company’s Wii titles. According to a recent Gamasutra article –

“He acknowledged the Wii in particular has been difficult for Ubisoft to find success with. Pointing to the console’s generous sales, he noted that games published for the Wii made up only 10 percent of Ubisoft’s sales last year, and added that the company will need to work harder to create games that will ‘sell as well as Nintendo’s own Wii titles.'”

Let us run through the list of games Ubisoft has published for the Wii as it may elucidate the company’s problems.

No More Heroes – A great game, by far Ubisoft’s best reviewed Wii title, also made by a talented developer (so obviously not Ubisoft). →  Keep it warm.

Quick Impressions – The World Ends with You

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I’ve put around five hours into The World Ends with You and besides the “I cut myself to see if I can still feel pain” emo moniker I am very pleased. The battle system makes use of both DS screens simultaneously and though movement of your character via stylus is sort of spotty, everything ultimately works together nicely. The music is absurd Japanese pop that’s both infectious and terrible and the graphics are very stylized – this is one of the few DS games that has a AAA presentation and Squeenix deserves praise for actually trying. Of course the game flopped in Japan and will likely follow suit worldwide, so their effort will be entirely unrewarded and they will realize what a huge mistake taking a chance was. →  Speak softly and carry a big post.