Articles

Capcom Compilations

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So a trip to my local Gamestop enlightened me to two nice little releases from Capcom. It seems the store is selling exclusive 3 game boxsets for Devil May Cry and Resident Evil. You can get all three DMC games for just $30, while $40 nabs you the three Cube exclusive Resi’s (REmake, Zero and 4, which was at least initially exclusive). Both packages come in rather nice boxes, though there seem to be no other special items along with them.
 

I think this a pretty great idea from Capcom. The prices for both sets are very reasonable, especially for the Resident Evils. Despite the fact that most of these games are quite old, something like this could easily go for $20 more if they wanted to. →  Rayman Reading Rabbids

Laying this generation to rest: PS2

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The PS2 was the clear “winner” of its generation, and with good cause. Despite murdering my precious Dreamcast with mostly unfounded hype, it was home to a very wide range of games from huge and tiny developers alike. The PS2 embodied both the best of Western gaming and Japanese gaming and this balance is what, in my opinion, allowed it to so thoroughly whoop the competition.

Hey there, pretty lady.

Matt —
Ace Combat 4 (Namco/2001) – Flying through the skies never felt so fun. The dog fights were intense, but the presentation was even better. The way the story was played out (with a nice anime look) was genius. I was generally surprised at how much effort Namco put into the story, especially for an arcade flight game. →  We have nothing to lose but our games.

Yet another peculiar top 10 list

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Slightly (extremely) bitter about not having my stories picked up by the big sites, I scour Slashdot, Kotaku, etc for sub par stories that gets attention on a daily basis. Today’s highlight is a top 10 list (where’d they get the idea for this one?) on the “10 lamest game consoles, ever.” Ignore the fiery rage that builds within you when you see misplaced commas and other grammar atrocities. For now, focus on the gross injustice of including the Saturn amongst the Virtual Boy, CDi, 32X and N-Gage.

The guy who proclaimed Prince of Persia: Warrior Within one of the worst games of all time clearly had some input in forming this list. Please name for me the classics for the consoles on this list:

Action Max
N Gage
32X
Gizmondo

In turn, I will name amazing Saturn games: Guardian Heroes, NiGHTS, Panzer Dragoon, Panzer Dragoon Zwei, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Shining Force 3, Dragon Force, and Bomberman. →  Read or die.

Laying this generation to rest: Dreamcast

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To celebrate the new generation of consoles, we will be honoring the last generation by listing our favorite games on each system. These aren’t Best of lists, or games you will die without, rather they are simply the titles we think made these systems special.

The first console of the past generation was the Sega Dreamcast. This proved to be Sega’s final console so while we remember it fondly, keep in mind that emotion partially clouds our view. Teary eyes aside, there is no denying the console had a number of excellent exclusives, most of which were made by Sega themselves. Anyone new to gaming and confused about why Sega exists at all only needs to look to the games they developed for the Dreamcast (and Saturn, and Genesis). →  READ3R

Random PS3-related News:11/13

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Here’s a few things that are going on in the world of Playstation 3 today:

PS3 Backwards Compatibility Less Than Stellar
Reports coming out of Japan are saying that a few PS2 titles are having trouble being played on the super-duper (and extremely rare) PS3. Notable titles are Namco’s Tekken 5, Squenix’s Final Fantasy XI, and the awesomeness that is Guitar Hero.

Yes, you heard right. Guitar Hero’s guitar peripheral is having trouble working on the system, with some buttons being totally ignored. The world has just let out a collective “WTF!” aimed directly at Sony’s crotch.

Tekken 5 has problems running its background music properly, while Final Fantasy XI can’t register the hard-drive that the PS3 has. Sony has already planned to supply a firmware update for the hard-drive issue soon, but no word on when the other issues will be resolved, if at all. →  I can has post?

A brief survey of localiztions

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Ever since the first text-based game came from Japan to American shores, those playing have wondered, “What did the original text say?”

…Well, I have, at least since I was old enough to tell the difference between “A winner is you” and real English. Hearing about and playing odd translations of games is a bit of a hobby of mine.

Thankfully, translations in general are getting much better. Voice acting is much, much better than it has been in the past, although it can still use some work. Let’s look at some localizations past and present as evidence.

Good Localizations

These games leave you with a good feel for spirit of the game. They rarely if ever have grammatical problems, and if there is any voice acting it is well-produced. →  READ3R

PC Gaming dead!? But it’s so young and innocent!

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In a somewhat bizarre turn of events, I’ve actually started reading a book. Yeah, I know. Simply amazing.

My friend at work let me borrow Masters of Doom, the book that details the two men that helped shape the PC gaming industry into what it is today: John Carmack and John Romero of id Software.

A very interesting part in the book was when Carmack, in only one night, recreated the first level to Super Mario Bros. 3 on a PC. For an IBM PC at the time (1990), this was an amazing feat. No PC was powerful enough to simulate the scrolling effect that Nintendo did so easily on their NES system, but Carmack created an algorithm that somehow faked the effect, calling it adaptive tile refresh. →  Sounds mildly entertaining, I guess.

Biggest losers in the world wait for the PS3

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According to Games Are Fun, a line for the PS3 has already formed in front of a Best Buy in Burbank, California. People have been waiting since at least Wednesday for a console that launches next Friday. If these people can afford to miss over a week of work for a PS3, can’t they just get one on eBay for $2000?

As someone who may end up waiting in a line for a Wii despite having no intentions of purchasing one, I may not have much right to insult these stupid people. If it makes a difference, I will be waiting for three hours against my will (stupid friends) and not for 216 hours.

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 11.10.06

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One of the worst Top Ten Worst Games of All Time lists
Top 10, 25, 50, whatever lists are one of my worst enemies. They are vacuous and a cheap excuse for content. Even an unnumbered list is significantly better because from the outset the author wasn’t just trying to fill a number of slots. This link is to one of the dumbest Top 10 lists I’ve seen in a while but since it’s posted on a major site, many big blogs picked it up. Oh, the injustice!

Significantly worse than Postal.

It seems as if the author of this list may not play games. He acknowledges that peoples’ opinions will differ and that it’s hard compiling a list of the worst games ever made, but that caveat doesn’t save him. →  Zone of the Readers: The 2nd Reader

Stop mixing my drinks

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So I was playing Final Fantasy XII for the first time when I noticed the game had a lot of concepts that look like they came from science fiction. Ships looking like they came from Star Wars fly around in the intro, shield-like barriers are being used to protect cities, that kind of stuff.

This wouldn’t really bother me that much, but it seems like regular medieval fantasy has become a lost art. Final Fantasy gradually made the transition from medieval to steampunk-esque to post-apocalyptic to an improbable-looking science fiction. I would have no problem with this transition normally — on the contrary, more science fiction RPGs would be nice too. But the story and atmosphere most of the time remain in the fantasy style. →  PaReader the Reader