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Translations: Original Content or Pop Culture References?

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I’ve been playing a lot of Phoenix Wright: Justice for All lately, and I’ve been finding quite a few references to TV shows. They have one from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air series, as well as one from a current soap opera, which will remain nameless to conceal the fact that I know a thing or two about a soap opera.

Now, I know some of you readers out there are hardcore RPG fans, and will probably get rubbed the wrong way from references like these. Something tells me that you would rather see more original jokes instead of some quote from a TV show. I personally have found no problem with this, but was wondering how everyone else felt on the subject.

It’s cool to see a game like Phoenix Wright talk about a TV show I grew up watching (not the soap opera), but on the other hand, it seems a little cheap to throw in some quick quote from a show, possibly crossing the border of funny to mainstream pop-culture that we all seem to hate. →  Tony Hawk’s Pro Reader 3

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 2.2.07

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Sony contemplates PS3 price cuts
A little more than a week ago, Sony’s Jack Tretton said there would not be a price cut to the PS3 any time soon.

Soon after Takao Yuhara announced, “We may look at the price as part of our strategy to expand the market when the timing is right.” Most sites are running with the idea that Sony has changed their stance on price. It doesn’t seem clear that Yuhara means Sony will change pricing any time soon, nor does he mention any specific territory.

Sony claims that they took a hit from the PS3 price reduction in Japan, so it seems counterintuitive for them to talk about more cuts. They are likely doing damage control since about every gaming website not owned by Sony has chalked up the phenomenon of PS3s sitting on shelves to its exorbitant price. This seems like the appropriate time to report that the PS3’s price was recently raised by retailers in Canada. →  Actraiser Readnaissance

Nintendo Says “Huh?” to N64 Memory Pak on VC

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I think the Big N missed the memo that was sent around the office (or rather, world) on what their fans want. Nintendo apparently forgot to include any code in their emulation software to simulate the N64 Memory Pak peripheral. This means that any game that utilized it will have to forgo it completely. As of now, only Mario Kart 64 uses it for saving time trial ghosts, but there are games out there that use it far more extensively.

Games like WinBack, Shadowman, and Extreme-G all used the memory pak for single-player game saves. The peripheral, which would connect to the expansion bay on the N64 controller, was integral to the enjoyment of these otherwise great games of yesteryear. So what does Nintendo have to say for themselves? Apparently that we shouldn’t have even asked in the first place. In regards to the Mario Kart problem:

“Due to unavoidable technical reasons unfortunately it is not possible to save ghost data from Mario Kart 64’s Time Trials in the Virtual Console version of the game,” reads the statement issued to Pro-G. →  Did I do that?

A manifesto on Manifesto Games with a review of The Shivah for added value

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Greg Costikyan’s name comes up a lot when it comes to indie game development. Apparently, the man has worked on a few games and written some fiction in his life, and somehow he has become a major voice on independent games. He seems to believe that indie games can and will crush largescale publishers and end their greedy and bullying practices. To help do this, he has created Manifesto Games, a place where indie developers and fans can join together to buy, discuss and promote the best in indie gaming.

I have a lot of respect for Costikyan’s ideal, but every time I read anything written by him, I can’t help but feel that he’s batshit insane. Maybe that is too strong of a phrase, but he certainly reminds me of college students who worship indie anything like a religion and still think that communism can actually work (after all, his site is called Manifesto, and its splashed all over with red). →  The happiest post on Earth.

The Circle is Now Complete: Wii News Channel Released

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After being MIA since launch, Nintendo finally released the News Channel for the Wii last Friday. Using the Associated Press as its information provider, the Wii News Channel lets you read regional, national and even international news stories, all at the click of your Wii-mote.

Nintendo, in all their wisdom, even included the Globe feature from the recently released Forecast Channel. If users want, they can rotate a realistic-looking 3D globe (complete with topographical data from NASA), looking for news stories from any region on Earth, as well as brush up on their geography. It still amazes me that the Sahara Desert is really that big. The damn thing covers almost half of the African continent.

Anyway, after using the News Channel for almost a week now, I’ve gone from not caring about any news to feverishly wanting to fire up the channel every night after work. It’s a great interface, making the act of handling a newspaper feel like you’re disabled or something. →  The happiest post on Earth.

Never Say Never: Next-Gen N-Gage in the Works

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In a startling revelation, PocketGamer is reporting that Nokia is set to unveil a next-gen version of their ill-fated N-Gage hybrid cellphone/handheld gaming system in the next coming months. A conference was recently held in Santa Monica that had attendees from Disney, Sega of America, Sony Online Entertainment, Universal, Square Enix, Capcom, THQ Wireless, Glu Mobile, Digital Chocolate, EA Mobile, Tecmo, Namco and Vivendi Game checking out the capabilities of the new system.

No, April Fools didn’t come early this year. Nokia has said in the past that the N-Gage platform was never going away, that it was always going to be integrated into a broad range of their handheld devices. They even had games at their E3 booth last year.

I’m guessing that the N-Gage as we know it is merely going to be a suite of services that many of their phones will provide, which may help it gain a larger install base compared to the original’s weak showing. →  Beyond Read & Evil

Too Human Will Be Too Great

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I’ve had just about enough of this Too Human bashing on the Internet. Everywhere I go, I read the same thing: because of last year’s horrid E3 showing, the game is going to flop harder than Granny’s flap jacks.

Need I remind you who is making Too Human? The ever-powerful and intelligent-sounding Silicon Knights. Yes, the same Silicon Knights that brought you the gift to gamers Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, my favorite GameCube game of all time.

Trying to figure out why these “journalists” say such harsh things is taking all my energy. Yes, the camera angles were weird, the frame-rate was all over the place, and the load times were long. But that was in May of 2006. The game isn’t due to be released until July of 2007. That’s more than a year to get everything in shape.

I’ve seen the same write-offs for the game on so many sites it’s hard for me to list them all. Dennis Dyack even released a single photo last week to prove that Too Human has changed for the better, but I still say that he should just forget those losers. →  Destroy All Articles! 2

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 1.26.07

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Wii games channel coming…some time
Nintendo has confirmed that they will offer new games for download on the Wii, no doubt inspired by Microsoft’s Live Arcade. Since the Wii is already being positioned as the console to develop for if you have a small budget, it should be interesting to see what kind of games are distributed through the games channel (not the official name). Will it be home to crappy Flash games or is this the beginning of the 2D renaissance on home systems? I’m hoping for the latter but won’t be surprised if it’s the former.

Gears of War sells well in Japan
Well enough to break the top 10 list, in fact. Now American developers know breaking into the Japanese market is possible; all they have to do is make one of the best games of the year.

Silicon Knights President blogs about Too Human’s cold E3 reception
Denis Dyack describes how last E3 felt with a story from his college days. →  Zone of the Readers: The 2nd Reader

Where Have All the Villains Gone?

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Is it me, or is there a huge lack of crazy and demented villains running amok in our games? I mean, where have all the Sephiroths gone? Is the world filled with shiny, happy people now or something?

Seriously, there are no more fiendishly awesome villains anymore. Most villains nowadays only show up as bosses at the end of the game. A villain to me is someone that continually ravages the game’s universe throughout the entire adventure. He/she also has to be evil in every sense of the word. Some would even say that they are eeeeeevil. And you have to be scared of what they will do next. That’s where the real fear comes from. Sephiroth was completely insane. He was on a rampage for most of that game.

In my mind, there’s really only a few villains that fit that bill. You have Liquid Snake from Metal Gear Solid 1, Sepiroth from FFVII, Kefka from FFVI, Nemesis from Resident Evil 3, Pyramid Head from Silent Hill 2, and I would probably say von Karma from the first Phoenix Wright. →  [do not click]

The results of a gaming experiment

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Before the holiday season, I made a blog post about a little experiment I planned on undertaking over the break. I was going to be very choosy about which games I played, and the rules were something like this:

1. Nothing with too much story or too many cutscenes
2. Nothing with too much unlocking hell
3. Challenging is okay
4. Skill based is preferred

Essentially, I wanted a holiday break where the gaming was filled with old skool sensibility. It was quite a learning experience too, both about gaming in general and my own tastes.

Here are some of the titles I ended up playing, and what I thought about each.

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Twilight Princess: Zelda is the only game I pardoned from the first rule, not because it was the only story heavy game I was playing before the experiment, but because it was the only one I wanted to continue playing. This adventure accompanied me in the very beginning and end of the break, and I’m sad I didn’t get to play it more between. →  Readlevania