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Teabagging and Halo 3 — An Anthropological Study

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The Muffin Buffalo stalks through the corridors and crevasses of The Narrows map on Halo 3. Quietly he roams, picking his targets and releasing them from their mortal coils. He has done this many times before and is good at his job. Out of nowhere, a fellow warrior named SheepandVelcro69 jabs Muffin Buffalo from behind with the butt of his shotgun. Muffin Buffalo lurches forward and then lifelessly drops to the ground. This has also happened to him many times, business as usual, the cycle of death repeats.

But wait, SheepandVelcro69 is not leaving his corpse; does he feel remorse for the act he has just committed? Is he taking a moment of silent reflection to realize that body could just as easily be him lying on the ground? No, our shotgun equipped friend creeps up to Muffin Buffalo’s head, centers himself above the corpse’s cranium and proceeds to drop his crotch up and down on the motionless clump of pixels . →  Please sir, can I have some more?

Microsoft lets a customer down, gamers let humanity down

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When I first saw the headline of this story – Microsoft Erases Gamers Memories – I figured some kid drew a picture of his favorite My Little Pony on the side of his 360 case and Microsoft erased it. That would be a shame, but less crappy than what actually happened. The more accurate story (minus the ponies) – A guy has a 360 since launch, brings it with him everywhere he goes and accumulates a variety of signatures from Microsoft, Bungie and other companies. There is even a large drawing of Master Chief on the system.

So he calls Microsoft after his system inevitably breaks. They assure him that they will send back the same console he is sending in. Just to be safe, he also sends in a chapter of the Bible with Moses crossed out and his name inserted, and “XBox 360” replacing all references to “God”. →  Read it your way.

Where Gamers go? No…

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There’s this great little electronics shop near me. I used to loathe them, and I still do for some things, but lately they’ve been picking up the pace in the games department. In the stores near my home and my job, I have found fresh copies of No More Heroes and Zak and Wiki. Back in the summer there were multiple copies of Persona 3 (despite its obscurity and its odd box shape). I have seen Every Extend Extra and King of Fighters XI in $10 bargain bins, and if you really want to get crazy, I can grab you a copy of Metropolismania 2. Today I picked up a copy of Patapon on its release date, though if I ordered it online I could have had free shipping (after watching a lovely trailer on their store website). →  Sounds mildly entertaining, I guess.

Assassins Creed – A fifty eight thousandth perspective

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Spoiler Alert!

Contrary to its sweet box depicting a stealthy, medieval assassin decked out in (incongruously clanky) ninja-type gear, this is not a game about a medieval assassin. Instead, it is a game about — buckle up, my friend — some guy in the present day who is kidnapped by a mysterious corporation…and forced to repeatedly hook himself up to a machine…that not only can access the stored ancestral memories that lie dormant in his DNA, but can turn these ancient memories into a virtual reality world…that he can interact with in order to unlock additional memories; in his case, the memories of his awesome assassin predecessor…who apparently carried the same gene for white hoodies that he does. Got that? No? Well, through the magic of the printed word, you can read it again. →  Holy crap, show me more!

PSP Demo Roundup

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Two noteworthy demos have hit the PSP in the last two weeks. Here are some impressions from yours truly:

Patapon: The guys behind locoroco are at it again, this time with their own take on both strategy and music games. Made in a similar, gorgeous 2d style as LocoRoco, Patapon has you lead armies of little Patapons towards victory and freedom. This is done by banging magic, godly drums in order to issue orders to your army. It is a very interesting setup; while the demo only allows you to move and attack, these two commands alone offer quite some depth. Since play alternates between you banging the drums and the Patapon singing and acting in response, you have to time commands while not screwing them up. This is part strategy game after all, so issuing a move command while in attack range is a waste that will cause damage to your units. →  All the lonely gamers, where do they all come from?

Where to get gaming news

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When it comes to my favorite places for gaming news, I seem to go in cycles. I find one or two sites that I use to learn general (and sometimes subtle) info, and then discover the really obscure stuff through favorite forums. It is a good system, so long as I keep refreshing it by ditching sites when they lose their potency (or just bug me) and finding new ones.

Folks, it has come time for some updates, and I’m looking for suggestions. I finally realized just how much I bitch about game blogs like Kotaku and Joystiq, and yet continued to visit them. Today was the breaking point. This morning Joystiq had seven separate posts about Spore. Any responsible news site would take such a media explosion and condense it into some sort of “Spore news section.” →  Videolamer does what IGNotDoes.

Vic Ireland selling off all his games?

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So it would seem. He will even sign them for you but they don’t come cheap. From the eBay auction for Popful Mail:

“Still cleaning out my closets, and I’ve found this brand-new, still sealed copy of Popful Mail for the SEGA CD. As the USA Director/Producer/Writer, I can even autograph it if you wish, making it truly collectible. It’s your choice, with or without the autograph.”

After seeing what a sealed copy of Chrono Trigger fetched on eBay recently, these sealed games may be a good investment. Popful Mail and the Lunar’s are solid titles, but Albert Odyssey, Sega Ages and Shining Wisdom are hard sells, and this is coming from a Sega/Camelot fanatic. Vic must’ve already sold off Vay to pay his electric bill.

This is not a good sign for Gaijin Works, the company he founded after closing niche jRPG house Working Designs. →  NiGHTS into REaDS

School of Shmups: Gradius

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Game: Gradius
Original Release: 1985
Developer: Konami

Platform: Gradius was released on a great number of systems. The most important of its original releases were the arcade version and the NES port, which was technically inferior but was the easiest way for most people to experience it.

How to play it: These days, your best bet for playing Gradius is probably the NES version offered on the Virtual Console. It has some small changes to the level design, and you can only carry two Options, but the rest of the port is very faithful and quite impressive for the NES hardware. If you are purist and need the arcade version, you will have to track down the excellent Gradius Collection on the PSP.

What it is: While not one of the very earliest shmups, Gradius is still something of a pioneer. →  I can has post?

Gametap grows, but is it changing for the worse?

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For the longest time, Gametap was a confident and persistent service that had a vision and, at least content wise, seemed to be making good on their promises. In the last year however, the service has changed considerably. They began supporting original projects, such as the critically loved Sam and Max episodes. They offered a select few games for free every week for anyone to play. Their community site exploded, and now rather than merely offering forums and commentary on their own games, the ‘tap has reviews and commentary about the industry as a whole. Blogs like Joystiq now cover the weekly releases with some semblance of seriousness. Not bad for an idea that no one thought would catch on. As for myself, I have been impressed with Gametap ever since I signed up in the summer of ’06. →  Arc the Post: Twilight of the Spirits

Tales of Tactility

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Remember H.A.L? That evil-genius-space-robot from Clarke/Kubrick’s 2001? It seems like most of the time I hear him mentioned it’s from some miniaturization fetishist from the Church of Jobs (Steve). Something along the lines of “can you believe how big they thought computers would be back in the 60’s?!?!” Nevermind that the ability to create a sentient AI is still far beyond our reach, and that supercomputers still take up entire rooms. Fans of the MacBook Air expect super-intelligent robots to get lost in a container of Tic-Tacs.

But H.A.L’s massiveness underscores a point about machines that gets lost nowadays: that they are composed real objects and are themselves physical as well as intellectual. David Bowman doesn’t defeat H.A.L. by uploading a virus or outrationalizing it until it “cannot compute.” He inserts himself into its innards and takes it apart circuit-board by circuit-board. →  Let’s get read-y.