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An E3 for the proletariat

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E3 is fast approaching. I won’t be going this year but two of our senior staff (a position I just made up) will be there. Due to chemical imbalances, I tend to tire of reading about E3 if I’m not going myself. Game sites are completely saturated with E3 info and I get bitter about not being there so I say screw it, I don’t want to know.

With this in mind, we have decided to make this E3 the E3 of the people. If you want to read about a specific game, company, talent, genre or anything else, let us know and we will cover it in as much depth as possible. You may not be able to go to E3, but we can go for you.

If we get no requests we’ll just cover what we want. And make sure to rub in how you didn’t get to go but we did. That’ll teach you.

Here is a random short list of the tons of games that will be there:
And yes, I’ve purposely listed games by the developer and not publisher whenever possible. →  Virtua Poster 4: Evolution

To buy or not to buy?

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The Xbox 360 is now abundantly available at whatever retailer you choose to support.

What I’m saying is, right now, you can walk into your local wherever and purchase a brand new Xbox 360. No eBay, no scalpers, no friend of a friend. Just plain old retail. The question right now, is of course, should you buy an Xbox 360? Is availability enough? Do you climb Mount Everest just because it’s there?

That’s a question you’ll have to answer.

Also, there are a few things you need to consider before you buy your 360.

Look at the games, first of all. Is there anything there that you have to play? Anything there that isn’t already multiplatform. Will you no longer possess the will to live if you cannot play RockStar Games presents Table Tennis? With other platforms, this is a no brainer. I bought a GameCube for Wind Waker, and a PS2 for all the music games that keep managing to make it to this shore. →  Look upon my works, ye mighty, and read!

Best Game Ever – Dynamite Headdy

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Developer: Treasure
Publisher: Sega for the Genesis
Released: 1994

Our hero soon escapes…

A few days ago while looking for a game to force my girlfriend to play I popped in Dynamite Headdy. I knew it would be too hard for her but figured she may appreciate how strange and creative it is. It was and she did, and more importantly I was reminded of how great the game is. That very night while surfing game forums I read of the Treasure Box for the PS2, which was a collection of Gunstar Heroes, Alien Soldier and Dynamite Headdy. Wait, what ever happened to it? I remembered reading about the collection months ago but then forgot about it. Did it come out already and if so why wasn’t it out here? It turns out we got the shaft and only the Japanese are able to enjoy Treasure’s best Genesis games (or as they would incorrectly refer to it, the Mega Drive).

It seemed Dynamite Headdy was everywhere I went. →  Welcome to the Fantasy Zone.

Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 4.28.06

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Nintendo renames the Revolution
Nintendo is the US after September 11th. They built up a great deal of good will, especially after developers revealed they’re making real games for the system. But like Bush II, Nintendo has squandered the world’s interest by pursuing a terrible PR campaign and bombing Iraq. So the analogy isn’t perfect. My point is Nintendo had everyone listening and now they have everyone laughing. Image has long been one of their main problems and they seem to revel in not fixing it.

I will stop being friends with anyone who actually calls it the Wiimote.

With that, I present to you the Nintendo Wii, pronounced “we.” In case the pun wasn’t painful enough, Nintendo has named the Revolution controller the “wiimote.” In order to stress how stupid their marketing people are, Nintendo’s press conference consisted of terrible puns. “Wii will break down that wall that separates video game players from everybody else. Wii will put people more in touch with their games.” →  It’s time to read and chew bubblegum… and I’m all outta gum.

Naming the Revolution

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The Nintendo Revolution still lacks an official name. Nintendo will likely rename the console in May at E3, but chances are they’ll come up with a less than stellar moniker. Luckily, I am here to suggest names that are sure to be winners in the court of public opinion. Of course I’ll expect royalties.

Gamecube 2 – The most obvious and worst choice. Similar to Sony renaming the Blu Ray discs BETA Max 2.

Nintendo 540 – The new Xbox thinks it’s xtreme and in your face, but a 360 is a pretty easy move in most new extreme sports other than freestyle walking. Besides, a 360 leaves you facing the exact same direction you were prior to the move, which explains why the new Xbox is also tanking in Japan. Nintendo can show the kids that it can be more to the max than Microsoft and also hint that they’re taking gaming in a new direction with a catchy name like 540. →  While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not gaming.

A multiplayer world

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Raph may want to think about updating his pic on his website.

The other day I was listening to the Penny Arcade podcast, specifically The Zone of Breakfast. First off, a quick shameless fanboy plug: although our glorious cult leader (may he always provide for us Kool-Aid), Jay, dislikes these guys, I’ve always been a huge PA fan. In particular, I enjoy their new podcasts because I get to listen to a lot of video game news I ordinarily would not. Rather than do research and reading, I can just listen to the voices from the computer, which is more comfortable to me, because I am illiterate and hear voices in my head. Anyhow, they were discussing a comment that Raph Koster, a designer for both Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies made at a E3 several years ago.

It seems that Raph decided to be a bit inflammatory, and stated that single player games were an “aberration”: eventually, history will view the times we played games alone as a “growing up” stage before we had total connectivity and the internet. →  Read like G did.

Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 4.21.06

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It’s not vandalism if it’s illegible.

Getting Up game mediocre enough to inspire Hollywood movie
This makes perfect sense to me. The game wasn’t very good and was style over substance. Why wouldn’t they make a movie out of it and say… seven sequels to the game? When has quality ever been something consumers cared about?


Guitar Hero 2 is coming
Awesome to the max. More songs than the first one and more importantly, new modes. Bass guitar I could take or leave, but two player mode with one doing rhythm and the other doing lead sounds like a lot of fun. Now I wish I’d invested in that cherry red second guitar. It’s a tad keyboard heavy, but I really hope Rainbow in the Dark is in this game.

Scratch that, just give us some Hammerfall.

PS2 price drops, like analysts, and everyone with a pulse, predicted
$130? That’s not much of a price drop. Make it $100 and I’ll buy a second, slimline PS2. →  All you need is read.

Bad Design 3

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It’s been a while since the last entry in this series. Last time, and the time before that, I promised Gladius, Second Sight and Kingdom Hearts, so here they are in all their poorly designed glory.

Blah blah blah blah blah.

Gladius: Irrelevant Plot — We always hurt the ones we love, but I cannot ignore that the setup of this game made any plot unnecessary. I have a friend who believes plot in all strategy RPGs is unnecessary. I disagree, but not in Gladius’ case. There are two major problems with the game’s plot, neither of which is that it’s poorly written. Nearly all of the dialog is based in the history of the regions and of the arenas. Back story in a game can be very enriching, but not when there is hardly any active story. I would be impressed if anyone actually read every single dialog box in the game since I am generally very patient and I still skipped half of them. →  Games are the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.

A rant about fanboys

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He shaves his head because he's mostly bald

Microsoft’s J Allard is paid to be a fanboy. For no extra cost, he is also a tool.

Fanboys remind me of the villain from the Serenity movie. He was sharp and eloquent but also utterly and completely blind. His faith was clearly proven wrong by the reality before his eyes, but rather than rethink his faith, he simply changed his perception of reality. Intelligent people who believe weird or extreme things are very dangerous because they’re able to make their faith sound rational. Thus, a fanboy is a force to be reckoned with. A forum of onlookers is often persuaded by a fanboy’s arguments, much like an intelligent design proponent can easily confuse and place doubt in the heads of smart, rational people.

One of the sure signs you’re speaking to a fanboy is that he refuses to allow reviews to influence him. A healthy adult has a stable set of values, opinions and beliefs and with this comes the ability to interpret other people’s opinions without losing your own. →  I only ask one thing. Don’t read in my way.

Weekly News We care About Wrap Up – 4.14.06

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Video game skills do not usually transfer to real life skills
Man in his 30s attempts to outrun cops in a car because he did it in GTA. Instead of putting age restrictions on games, there should be an IQ test. Is anyone else waiting for the guy who played too much Trauma Center to show up in the news?

photoshopped

Too good to be true?

Two Revolution games announced
Red Steel is coming to the Revolution, and check out the fake screen shots. Maybe they’re not polished, who knows. The game seems to be another attempt by Nintendo to convince gamers that they can appeal to an older crowd. The choice of a FPS is slightly odd, though. They tend to do terribly in Japan and if the Revolution is to stand a chance, my guess is that it’d have to repeat the DS’s and Allied Forces strategy of dominating the homeland.

In addition to Ubisoft’s Red Steel (the sword and gun fighting FPS) another title has been officially announced for the Revolution. →  I’m gonna take you for a read.