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Sequels to classic games

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Let’s talk about game sequels, specifically two sequels to two high profile games. The first is Fallout 3, which has been the subject of quite a few official announcements as of late to go along with all of the speculation. The second is the possible, but not confirmed Starcraft sequel, which may be an MMORPG. These two franchises have a lot in common: they’re both considered the pinnacle of their genres on the PC, they both get played constantly despite their increasing age, and they both have diehard fans that know exactly what they want in a sequel and will kill you if their demands aren’t met.

On one hand, Starcraft and Fallout fans can be a little more than annoying. For every good idea there is the equivalent of a Japanese Dragon Quest fan who wants nothing to change. →  Read the rest

Miyamoto could make Halo, but doesn’t wanna

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In a pretty enlightening interview on EW.com, Shigeru Miyamoto openly says that he could design a game like Halo for the American market, but that it’s just not what he wants to do.

Miyamoto says he tries to bring something new to the end-user experience, something that fans didn’t even know they wanted. That may sound a bit egotistical, but it makes perfect sense. Most people want a game that they’ve played before because they know it was fun, like someone saying they want a sci-fi FPS. But if developers always followed what the consumer wants, we would never get something like Katamari Damacy or the Wii.

That’s what Miyamoto was trying to say. It’s not like he thinks Halo is a simple game that anyone can design. It’s just not his style to do something like that. →  Read the rest

Doctor, I can’t find a (WipEout) Pulse!

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If there’s anyone out there that had a bad day today, I’ve got something to bring that smile back to your face. It’s a Eurogamer interview with Clark Davies, the designer on WipEout Pulse, the sequel to Sony Liverpool’s uber-awesome PSP launch hit, WipEout Pure.

I’ve talked about my chronic love for all things WipEout in a previous blog post, but my heart went through the roof this morning after hearing all the new things they’ve managed to fit in the sequel. Better get some Vicodin for this one, it may knock you into a joy-induced coma.

First off, we have a funky new gameplay element called “Mag-Strips” that keeps your ship grounded to the track. This opens up things like loop-de-loops and other such crazy track formations, but Davies promises it will be utilized for more than “the obvious corkscrew or roller-coaster ideas.” →  Read the rest

Nintendo – Honest designers or Japanese super ninja thieves?

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Today I stumbled upon my bag of E3 2005 crap. I hadn’t remembered it was under the bed right next to the box of Chick Tracts (kids love them!) A quick look through the pamphlets and goodies made me recall how much of a bloated orgy E3 was. Just how many more Sony key chains, FFVII Before Crisis monitor wipers, paper Sly Cooper 3D glasses, and Phoenix Wright branded cans of coffee did they expect to give out before the whole thing collapsed under the weight of hastily thrown together demos, rabid consumerism (yes, I fought someone for that can of coffee, and no, coffee should not be in cans), thudding bass and barely dressed women?

The answer was “one years worth.” E3 as we knew it is over and the industry is better off, but this is all irrelevant. →  Read the rest

Wii is Just a TG16. With a wand. And a bunch of other crap.

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Wii GC

Look, I get that you’ve read it all over the place, myriad times, and by sometimes reputable people. I have too. Your friends have said it, which may be why you say it and perhaps, conversely, your saying of it has influenced those friends of yours that had not yet begun to say it.

It has become a meme impeditive of the correct progress of our gaming culture. It has inspired at once plagues of ire and embarrassing fanboy uprisings. It has become a badge pinned to the lapels of those who want to sound as though they have their finger on the pulse of an industry and has become a point of derision among those who feel an inbuilt brand loyalty virgin to the realities of a very real historical penchant for near-failure. →  Read the rest

Game Over: Not That Funny

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Game Over, Man.

Like any good ‘lamer, I troll this here series of tubes with an eagle eye on gaming news and other related goodies. Whilst doing so last week I was besieged by persistent incestuous linking and goings on about the above video. I watched the video. When it was over I watched it again to make sure I hadn’t missed some hidden genius or arcane humor delivery initiative I had not had the mettle to have noticed on the first go-round

The whole week this went on. My RSS reader was brimming with links to this video and almost all of the comments seemed to be near sickeningly positive. A writer for a popular gaming editorial website, I was faced with a challenge:

Do I hold my tongue and starve this beast the select few who might come to it by my mention of it, having somehow missed the near ridiculous barrage of geek-love it has received in the last seven days? →  Read the rest

System Shock 2 OST Impressions: SHODAN scares me

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I recently got a chance to listen to the official soundtrack of Irrational’s cult-classic, System Shock 2, which was released for PC’s back in 1999. I’ve never play the game before, but after going through the entire soundtrack multiple times, I’m dying to experience all that is Von Braun.

The game is an RPG/FPS hybrid that takes place on an experimental space ship, the Von Braun, the very first space ship that is capable of traveling faster than the speed of light. But of course, with something this amazing in terms of technology, something has to go wrong. And it does. I won’t spoil the rest though, as it’s possibly the coolest plot-line I’ve heard in quite awhile.

As for the OST, it’s filled with a lot of ambient and moody tracks. →  Read the rest

Xbox to make its first dollar in 2008

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Yeah, seven years after the original Xbox was released. If this was the plan all along, there would’ve been no way in Hell that the Xbox project would have been green-lit had it been anyone but Microsoft. It has cost the company billions already, which isn’t a very favorable position when dealing with shareholders.

From eWeek via Next-Gen.biz, Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division, states that through peripherals, software sales (1st and 3rd party titles), and Xbox Live, the Xbox platform will finally see a profit next year. Welcome, Microsoft, to the club that Nintendo has been a part of since, well, forever.

This fact just goes to show you how much money Microsoft can afford to waste on something like a gaming console. They’ve lost billions of dollars in the last seven years, but are still going into the console market with all guns blazing. →  Read the rest

Wear Your SHMUP. Wear it Proud.

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ThunderForce222There are those of us to whom all your base are belong. Those of us whose love for all things SHMUP is insurmountable but for the clawing beckon for sustenance and expulsion. Those of us, even, who might be sated by a hailstorm of rapid-fire alone.

We are the bullet eaters. We are like you in many ways. We are unlike you in that 1080p means little to us. We can be sustained by as little as 16 mighty bits, and even those bits can be split between two processors as long as one is dedicated to calculating hit-box geometry.

We walk among you. We slip through the crowds; our collision detection tight and our eyes peeled for a volley of hellfire. Though you do not suspect it, we are near. →  Read the rest

New Wii games will not make current Wii games less terrible

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As you may have read, Nintendo recently announced the first party games they plan on releasing in Japan in 2007. Here’s the list:

-Donkey Kong Taru Jet Race (renamed DK Jet or DK Bongo Blast for the US)
-Wii Health Pack
-Disaster: Day of Crisis
-Mario Party 8
-Project H.A.M.M.E.R.
-Wii Music
-Super Mario Galaxy
-Super Smash Bros. Brawl
-Battalion Wars II
-Forever Blue
-Mario Strikers Charged
-Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
-Mario and Sonic at the Olympics

It’s about time, Nintendo, because there are a lot of terrible Wii games out right now. The Wii’s ratio of playable games to shit is nearly as bad as the Virtual Boys. Far Cry, Rapala Tournament Fishing, Wing Island, World Series of Poker, Rampage, and Wii Play are horrendous. Then there’s the licensed garbage like Happy Feet, The Ant Bully, Avatar, Open Season and SpongeBob. →  Read the rest

Dragon Quest IX: The more things change, the more they stay the same

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Back when it was first announced for the DS, Dragon Quest IX looked like it would be completely different from its predecessors. Not only would the game be on a portable system, it looked like it would be multiplayer and in a real-time, if not an action-RPG, system. After Dragon Quest VIII’s revelations (huge graphical upgrades and a rename in the US to follow the Japanese series name), it looked like the ninth entry would bring even more changes to a series that is notorious for having old school gameplay and feel. Was Square Enix finally going to change the main system of the grandfather of RPGs?
The cover for the original Dragon Quest.

More recently, the news has trickled in that, yes, the game would be multiplayer, but it would have the same turn-based battle system. →  Read the rest

Kutaragi is Kutarazy

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Ken Kutaragi recently made it known that he has design ideas for the PS4. And the PS5. And the PS6. Based on Phil Harrison’s declaration that the PS3 is future proof, the PS4 should hit the market between about 84 thousand years from now and never. But even if you’re one of those cynics who don’t believe everything PR people say, you’ve got to figure the PS4 will launch around 2012. With five years each generation, that gives us the PS6 in 2022, a full 15 years from now.

Maybe Kutaragi has a knack for correctly interpreting Nostradamus, but he is probably just delusional. How could he possibly be planning anything beyond the color of the PS6 casing? Technology advances in fits and starts and is difficult to predict even without any unforeseen break throughs (cars, radio, TV, internet, The Clapper). →  Read the rest

Creative writing, descriptive language and curse words do not automatically make a review good

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I apologize for linking to an old review of Twilight Princess. I only recently read it and feel compelled to comment. My first instinct was to write the entire review off as a cry for attention. While it may be, writing it off is the easy way out and allows the author the satisfaction of being dismissed, as opposed to critically assessed. So let’s discuss the merits of her positions.

Whether games are all ultimately very similar and it is only the façade of graphics, sound, and plot that differentiate them or whether the façade doesn’t matter because games are ultimately the game mechanics underneath is not a debate I am equipped to settle. I tend to come down on the side that the façade usually doesn’t matter and the mechanics are really what a game “is” at least 95% of the time (for example, Fumito Ueda titles may be in the remaining 5%). →  Read the rest

What is it that makes a good (bad) man turn neutral?

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I’ve been playing Ogre Battle 64 recently. I wasn’t a particularly big fan of the original (Ogre Battle SNES/PSX) in some ways, mostly because of the way town liberation works. You pretty much need to have a high alignment unit liberate towns as I recall. Most good alignment units were pretty worthless, too. OB64 does it in a bit more complex way, where you have to liberate towns by matching up the town’s alignment with the unit’s alignment.

Anyway, I was happily playing the game, going around liberating all the towns so I can try to get the best ending, when I started to notice a problem: far from having problems with units being too chaotic, I was having problems with all my units going lawful. They were getting too good on me too fast, so I couldn’t liberate the low alignment cities anymore. →  Read the rest

Wii VC Sales in Decline, But Not by Much

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Nintendo of Japan recently held a press conference where they detailed a whole mess of… crap. One of the bigger chunks of news to come out of the conference was the sales figures for the Wii’s Virtual Console service.

In the first two months of the service’s life, 1.5 million games were downloaded. In the last three, only 1.8 million were downloaded. If we extrapolate this info, we can see that the VC’s sales are starting to decline. It’s not by a huge amount, but it is enough to warrant a dissection on the situation.

So why did it start to decline? Well, we have a few reasons why. First, the lucky gamers that had a Wii in the first two months were most likely hardcore gamers, and would gladly pay for a Nintendo game that they had already purchased nine times before, including myself. →  Read the rest

Goat of War

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In a shockingly candid interview with videolamer, Phil Harrison has granted us some insight into the often confusing world of Sony PR. The recent goat incident, in which a decapitated goat was refitted with the head of a Bigfoot costume, is just a spark in the upcoming storm of marketing blitz Sony will be unleashing this summer, says Harrison.

“The next God of War installment is coming soon, and we have ads that will make the white PSP advert look tame.”

In addition to unrolling a host of new printed ads, including an image of Kratos circumcising Zeus, Harrison promises Sony events to further get us in the warring mood.

“The standard headless goat stunt we used for God of War 2 simply won’t impress any longer. I can’t give too much away, but I can mention that we have constructed a flesh and bones minotaur. →  Read the rest

In the rain or in the snow

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The decade old Parappa the Rapper, which heralded the start of the rhythm game genre according to some accounts, will be ported to the PSP this July. This is good news for PSP owners because the beats are fly, the rhymes fresh, and the gameplay ill.

The downside is it’s still just a port, not a sequel. Particularly clever netizens have noticed the trend of publishers porting their old titles to the PSP and reworked the spelling of the handheld — Playstation PORTable. Get it? When you capitalize certain letters and not others, hilarity ensues.

After researching the catalogues of the PSP and the DS I’ve come to the conclusion that the DS has a decent number of ports on it as well (which reminds me, I want Theme Park). →  Read the rest

Pokemon Sells a Lot. Noooooo, Really?

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In the most unsurprising bit of news to come along in some time, Nintendo has announced that their flagship DS titles, Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, have accumulated over 1 million units sold in little less than a week’s time. Seriously, was there ever a doubt that this wouldn’t happen? Pokemon is the crack for gaming: everyone knows it isn’t good for you, but it’s so hard to quit.
Aww jeez, we doin’ this Pokemon thing again?

Not to say the games suck (the original GameBoy one was uber-good), but I’m not sure how many times Nintendo/Game Freak have to make the exact same game over and over before fans finally realize that the series needs a revamp. Personally, I’m still holding out for the console MMO that everyone seems to wish for. →  Read the rest

ZOMG! Moment – Nintendo Acquires Monolith Soft

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In a stunning move, Nintendo has purchased Xenosaga developer, Monolith Soft, from its previous majority shareholders, Namco Bandai. Nintendo, now the majority shareholder, owns 80% of the company’s stock, while Namco Bandai still owns 16% of their previous 96% shareholdings.
Holy snap. Wii gets itself some RPG pron.

For Nintendo fans, this is a moment for much rejoicing. Previous Nintendo consoles (N64-era and up) have had very little RPG support, with many RPG fans jumping ship to Nintendo’s rival, the Playstation. By bringing on-board one of the premier Japanese RPG developers, Nintendo is poised to take back the RPG crown that it lost after the SNES days. Monolith Soft is currently working on Disaster: Day of Crisis for the Wii, but one has to think (and hope) that they will revisit their RPG-powerhouses, the Xenosaga or Baten Kaitos series at some point. →  Read the rest

Looking forward to a good Brawl

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Nintendo still hasn’t announced anything solid on Brawl, and the closest thing we have to release date is still “Later this year”. Regardless of the release date being pushed back, however, I’m still eagerly anticipating it.

Super Smash Bros Melee certainly isn’t my favorite game single-player, but in multi-player it is an experience to be reckoned with. It’s not perfectly balanced, but the game’s major hallmarks are being easy to pick up but difficult to master. Advanced techniques such as L-canceling and some engine side-effects such as wave-dashing lend the game more depth than most other fighting games, which is why SSBM is the only fighting game I still enjoy years after playing it for the first time.

If only narcolepsy were really this powerful.

Three years ago, there was a Gamecube in my college dorm’s lobby. →  Read the rest