Random Crap

Stuff that doesn’t fit into one of the other categories goes here.

The Big Scene

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Well, I finally understand how Nick Callaway felt when attending a party over at the late, great Jay Gatsby’s house on Long Island. On Friday morning, I traveled down to the Nintendo World Store to attend the Q&A session that a few of the IGN editors were going to have there, but that was just the tip of the iceberg.

I got to the store at around 10:45 a.m., completely exhausted from the anxiousness I had the night before. This would be the first time I’d ever met anyone from the journalism side of the video game industry, and I have to say I was nervous. These people are my celebrities; I’ve read their articles every day for the last 6 years. I know these guys probably think of themselves as regular people, so my enthusiasm may seem a bit unwarranted, but I can’t help it. →  Read the rest

I demand the following Virtual Console games

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Nintendo has announced that 24 publishers will be supporting their Wii Virtual Console. I have taken the initiative of compiling a list of the most of the publishers I recognized (at least one of their names was entirely in Japanese) and then decided on one specific game I hope each makes available. Enjoy.

Konami — Castlevania X: Rondo of Blood: The PC Engine only pinnacle of the series, or so they say, goes for a shitload of money these days.

Atlus — Some old Shin Megami Tensei games would really be appreciated. I’ve wanted to get into the series for a long time but the number of games I’ve missed make me feel a little overwhelmed.

Masaya — Langriser…2 through 5 sounds good.

Capcom — Sweet Home: The sort of prequel to the Resident Evil series that never made it out of Japan. →  Read the rest

Weekend Spotlight

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What will I be playing this weekend, you ask? Why, only the great Indigo Prophecy, of course. I do thank you for asking.

I played the demo on the PC around the time of the game’s release, and simply loved how the game unfolded. I never purchased it, due to constraining circumstances (no money), but a friend at work let me borrow his Xbox edition.

Right from the moment you start the game, you’ll notice that Indigo Prophecy is heavily story-based. Think Metal Gear Solid. Actually, Konami’s spy game actually has more “game” to it than Indigo Prophecy does, if that’s hard to believe. You seriously are just watching this game with a few bits of gameplay thrown in for variety.

But don’t get me wrong, the game is great to play. →  Read the rest

The Propaganda Project: Reggie Fils Aime

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Reggie Fils Aime – President Nintendo of America

Nintendo’s American President does not come from a gaming background. He was hired to compete with the bullshit artists at the other companies. Iwata is too Japanese and not in our faces enough to handle an American audience that seems to enjoy being lied to. Enter Reggie. For each new entry, I seem to invent new categories of quotes. Reggie should be honored to know that in reading transcripts of his I couldn’t help but create the “Marketing vomit” category specifically for him. Although Allard was pretty vomitty, too.

(For an explanation of what this article is, please read this.)
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Bitchy comments
Microsoft has made the comment that people can buy an Xbox 360 and Wii for about the same price as a PlayStation 3. →  Read the rest

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. →  Read the rest

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. →  Read the rest

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. →  Read the rest

The Propaganda Project: Phil Harrison

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Phil Harrison — Executive Vice President, Sony Computer Entertainment

A Brit who comes off worse in writing than person.

(For an explanation of what this article is, please read this.)
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Bitchy comments
“Nintendo knows its target audience, because it has really narrowed that down; and it’s pretty much defined by a boy or girl’s ability to admire Pokemon.”

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“The idea of a handheld rivalry with Nintendo is an irrelevance, those formats don’t appear in our planning. It’s not a fair comparison; not fair on them, I should stress. That sounds arrogant, maybe, but it’s the truth.”

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Something the PS2 was widely criticized for – and which Microsoft in particular has played up very much – is being extremely hard to develop for. How does PS3 compare in that respect? →  Read the rest

The Propaganda Project: Introduction

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This project will seem unnecessary to many. It’s taken for granted that PR people don’t always tell the truth or say intelligent things, and actively worship Satan (probably). I, unfortunately, am still not numb to stupid things. Misleading statements, half truths, and arrogance still piss me off. Perhaps I overreact, but maybe people with six digit salaries would stop saying stupid things if the public called them out more often.

I have compiled a large body of research on each of the key figures in the three competing hardware giants. Not all fill explicitly PR roles. In fact, most of the people profiled have titles that indicate they should be doing something better with their time than insulting their competitors. Most of the sources for my research are interviews these important figures have given with game and business magazines and websites; sources are listed at the end of each profile. →  Read the rest

Street Fighter Alpha 3

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Street Fighter Alpha 3 is considered by the majority to be the pinnacle of the series, and is very often called the best Street Fighter game in existence. It certainly is the most popular, having been ported to four consoles and two handhelds since the days of the Saturn, and is usually the recipient of the highest scores among Capcom fighters.

My own obsessive collecting of 2d fighters over the last five years can be directly attributed to the day a good friend of mine brought it over for an afternoon. It was the first time I had sat down with a 2d fighter since the old days when I rented Super Street Fighter 2 on the SNES once a month. Things had certainly changed since then. The super combos, the beautiful sprites, the multitude of backgrounds… Alpha 3 showed me that the genre still had a lot to offer. →  Read the rest

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Street Fighter Alpha 2

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Much like you can tell that Alpha 1 was a rush job, so too can you see that Alpha 2 is the game that Capcom intended to make all along. The select screen is eerily similar, while the segues and sounds between fights are identical. The same core cast remains, while the few additions to the roster (which is now 18 strong) are careful and deliberate (spunky little Sakura makes her debut here, while classic characters Dhalsim and Zangief make a return). Tweaks and improvements make the combat deeper, faster and less obtuse. Capcom has even gone so far as to declare that the story of Alpha 2 replaces the one in Alpha as official canon in the SF universe.

SFA 2 makes its predecessor just about obsolete, and represents one side of the Alpha coin (the other side being A3 of course). →  Read the rest

Street Fighter Alpha: Warrior’s Dreams

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The first truly new Street Fighter post-SF2, Alpha 1 had quite a legacy to live up to. I remember the commercials for the game, which made it look a hundred times more intense than SF2 with its dazzling array of special effects and super combos. It even had Guy from Final Fight! Unfortunately, the actual product was a huge disappointment for many die hard fans, as it was rushed to release and is obviously an unfinished game. Yet I’ve also seen players reminisce about Alpha’s simple, straightforward gameplay.

So which side is right? I’ll have to agree with the naysayers. Alpha 1 is just too archaic and unpolished to be of much worth these days, especially considering how vastly improved its sequels are. Yet there is one redeeming quality that has, ironically, made me play it more than any other game in the Anthology. →  Read the rest

The next generation of handhelds

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Handheld video games are important to us because they offer profit with minimal development costs. If a console title costs 10 million dollars but two years to make, the seemingly large profits come at a very high cost. Handheld games take a fraction of the development time, a fraction of the development cost and can still sell millions of copies.

The new generation of consoles is currently delighting gamers across the globe, but where are the new handhelds? Through my business contacts, I have been lucky enough to uncover the next generation of handhelds. So read this over and then put your marketing team to work.
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Sony PSP2 — Sony has finally stopped pretending the PSP is for new titles and delivered what consumers really want — a portable PS1. →  Read the rest

Lame E3 pics 3

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Click the pic for an annoying pop up window with a bigger pic.

Welcome to Wii World.

A drum simulation. Wow.

A baseball simulation. Wower.

Finally, something that looks like a real game.

Smashy smashy.

Colorful controllers.

Variety of controllers.

And finally, the system all the fuss is over:

Lame E3 pics 2

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Click a pic to make it bigger.

Did any one else have any idea Enix is pronounced Eh-nicks and not Ee-nicks?

Despite being a Ryu clone, Akira is still the star of the Virtua Fighter series.

His name is “El Blaze”, which translates as “The Blaze.”

If I get this game I’ll have Burning Crusade and burning itch.

Finally, we know where all of Blizzard’s revenue goes to: buying giant dolls.

WoW statue, or Golden Jew? We may never know.

Lame E3 pics 1

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Click on a pic to make it really big.

Inside:

Welcome to E3, a terrorists wet dream.

More hoards of people.

The real inside:

They make it dark so you can’t see the faulty wiring in the ceiling.

Damn it, my wallet’s missing.

Tom Clancy must’ve creeped up behind me in the shadows and stolen it.

The downside of being a liberal is you feel guilty for not allowing everyone to voice their opinions. Thus, I bring you booth babes:

What’s that sword hiding?

Another obligatory booth babe pic.

Silent Hill: The Movie: The Review

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Silent Hill is not your usual horror film. There are no promiscuous teens in peril. There is no lone psychopath that needs to be stopped by said promiscuous teens in the final scene. There is no supernatural/scientific/alien explanation other than bloody revenge and damning the souls of your enemies to a life of everlasting torment and pain. There is no happy ending. Speaking of which, there will be mild spoilers throughout this review so be forewarned.

As a fan of horror movies, I think it’s very well done. Director Christophe Gans (Brotherhood of the Wolf) does a great job setting up the world the movie will be taking place in without getting bogged down in usual horror movie fare. Rose (Radha Mitchell) decides she and her adopted daughter Sharon (Jodelle Ferland) must take a trip to Silent Hill after months (years?) →  Read the rest

A guide to selling extra content

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Microsoft and Oblivion have shown the world that gamers will actually buy discreet bits of additional content for their favorite games. Designing a method that allows a game to create a constant stream of revenue is ingenious, and now that the groundwork has been laid for us all we need to do to take advantage of this lucrative business opportunity is jump on the bandwagon. So then the question is not how do we set up a system that continually milks our fans, but rather what exactly do we use to separate them from their money; what content can we sell and to whom?

Any mildly proactive person can see that things like weapons, armor, and other gear can be sold to players for additional fees. This is exactly what has happened in the game Oblivion. →  Read the rest

The Videolamer Guide to In-Game Advertising

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Video games are an exciting new medium, primarily because of the potential for huge profits. These profits won’t just fall into our laps, though. Video games are unlike other media, and as such we cannot rely on the same tired marketing tactics. An annoying tagline like “can you hear me now?” may work on TV, but that’s because TV viewers are morons. The gamer is slightly more clever and we must treat him as such. Because most marketing is aimed at stupid people, most ad agencies will not have the know how to target a gaming audience. This guide, specifically tailored to the advertising needs of the video game advert, will lead you step by step to your ultimate goal: Take money from the ignorant.

1. Target your demographic

An ad, no matter how clever and well thought out, will not make an impact if it is seen by the wrong audience. →  Read the rest

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Learning from Japanese Synergy

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Synergy is not a word to be recklessly tossed about. It is a seriously proactive relationship between outside of the box marketing and paradigm shifting branding that can result in untold of revenue for your company. The video game market has created new opportunities for the realignment of business models in this post category killer Ted spread. Tracing this synergy to its roots leads us across the Pacific.

The Japanese consumer will buy anything. Despite saving more than Americans, the Japanese are extremely hardcore in their loyalty. People who follow an anime will buy any worthless product tie in, people who like school girls will spend money on used school girl underwear, and people who like a game series will buy food and drinks as long as it has the series logo on it. →  Read the rest