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This past Sunday was spent almost entirely playing Symphony of the Night on my PSP.  It is rare these days for a game to grip me so much that I not only desire to spend my gaming time with it, but put aside other duties in order to make more gaming time.  Symphony was one of those experiences, and while I cannot afford to have them all of the time, it is nice to know they still exist.

That being said, I was surprised to see myself become so engaged with the game. On one hand, this statement is silly.   SOTN is one of the few modern classics where the gaming community’s opinion hasn’t greatly diminished after years of constant play and retrospective.  People still enjoy it a hell of a lot.  →  I can has post?

For various reasons, many social, others masochistic, Defense of the Ancients (DOTA), the Warcraft 3 custom map, remains something I play frequently. All is not well in DOTA land, however, and I’m not talking about the fact that my friend Jimmy who I play with is a KSing coward. No, the bigger issue is that half of the DOTA managing community (functionally one guy) has split from the other half (another guy who does most of the programming) over a new game called League of Legends. I don’t really care about their breakup but it made for a catchy introduction to my League of Legends first thoughts.

League of Legends is the latest attempt by a stale gaming industry to build upon someone else’s idea, rather than come up with their own. →  Nobody puts article in a corner.

Being from the largest city in Idaho, I have had a lot of experience with gangs. Most of this experience comes from playing GTA: San Andreas and living vicariously through the O.G.s from Wyoming that ride through Boise throwing up signs and representing the “Equality State”. Man, I wish my 2005 Toyota Matrix was half the ride that the 1979 Ford F250 is, but I digress. Other than gangs, my passion of the month has been EVE Online. Strangely, EVE and gangbanging have several things in common and knowing about how my bros in Cali do their “thang“ has actually helped me weather the steep learning curve that EVE presents to newcomers.

When a young blood starts out on the streets of L.A…or Cheyenne, he sees po po and 5-O everywhere. →  It was the best of games, it was the worst of games

After owning it for two months, I finally started playing Okami in earnest. After six or so hours, I still feel the urge to continue, but I feel as if I already know the game all too well, and if I keep going it will only mean me abandoning the game later down the line. I always wondered why a game billed as a “Zelda clone” would end up being Clover’s most talked about release, but now it makes quite a bit of sense. I’ve got this one’s number.

First, Okami is easy. Now some may argue this point, especially if the game gets harder later on (I have heard that it does). But between dodging, blocking, recovery items and stat upgrades, I have all the tools I need to stay alive in battle, especially considering how small in scope the battles are. →  Shining Post: Legacy of Great intention

In the small world of my mind there are essentially three things that put my imagination into overdrive. First and foremost, any kind of holocaust involving zombies or nukes. Second, any kind of holocaust involving me winning stupid amounts of money. And third, video game conventions/trade shows. Twice a year I get to dream of what wondrous gaming splendors await me when E3 and TGS roll around and twice a year I get to be disappointed by 95% of what gets announced. I have already concluded that this year will be no different but I can still dream of what would make me extremely happy if it were announced.

1. EA Announces That The 2010 Series of Sports Games Will Be The Last and Any Future Updates Will Come in the Form of Downloadable Content

Like most people reading this, I am not the biggest sports fan in the world. →  It’s not you, it’s me.

Video Games. What ideas or images flashed into your head when you read that phrase? Were they memories of yourself spending quarters at an arcade machine? Or maybe spending hours behind of a Guitar Hero drum set. Maybe you’re a typical parent who thinks of an evil device that erodes your children’s brains and turns them into head-shooting Nintendo-worshiping zombies. Or maybe you are one of those zombies and that phrase brought back all the great times you spent killing virtual people.

Okay let’s get serious, video games deserve the same respect any other entertainment medium has. They may have not had their Citizen Kane yet, but we’re all sure that point is not too far away, maybe in the year 2016 or so. If video games are one of mankind’s greatest creative and technological achievements, why does their very name carry so much negative baggage? →  Go ahead, read my day.

Books. They are good at stories right? But books are cheating because the imagination does half the work. The written word allows for a great number of freedoms that other media have yet to gain (parenthetical comments only work in writing). Films? Not so hot. In fact quite rubbish. Even the greatest films are totally inept at dealing with the big issues or telling good stories without the overuse of coincidence or predictability (take for example the new ‘Crash’, ohhhh I didd no dat racism was so complex them shits is deep).

Books and movies are over. Done. A new form of storytelling is here and it is a game. Not games in general, you understand, because games couldn’t tell a story if the whole industry depended on it. RPGs get over this by telling stories that are so long that your mind condenses all the bullshit bits – like talking to dogs or statues or boring cutscenes – into a story that seems to make sense. →  They’re reading her… and then they’re going to read me!

Consoles have come and gone, hardware market leaders have become laughing stocks and whole game series have gone from groundbreaking innovation to tired old rehash. Yet one thing has always remained constant in modern gaming: Capcom will remake the original Resident Evil. However, today no reports have come from Capcom on any kind of planned remake causing some to speculate that there won’t be one for up to quite a while.

In 1996 Resident Evil was released on the Sony PlayStation to widespread acclaim and simultaneously gave birth to the survival horror genre (paradoxically, before the earlier released Alone In the Dark). The game then went from strength to strength: with a director’s cut for the PS and a port to the Saturn and the PC in 1997. The game then saw a remake on the Gamecube in 2002, which, at the time many gamers and industry top dogs saw as a risky move. →  Ring of Read

An open letter to Nintendo:

Dear Nintendo (umm Pokémon division?)

My friend and I are Pokémon fans, Pokéfans if you will. Adult Pokémon fans. Is there a sadder thing? Probably. People who are into team sports. All those people who invested their money in property instead of your series of children’s videogames (at least I still have my Marshstomp hah!). But we’re not going to make any excuses for our sad sorry selves. Not to you. Of course we could argue that the whole series should be championed by gamers for it’s visionary approach to RPGs and the ability to take your favourite characters into games that span a number of console generations. For fellow RPG fans how nice would it be to be able to keep transferring your favourite characters from one game to the next without having to start over from scratch? →  Ask not what this post can do for you - ask what you can do for this post.

So Eidos and Square Enix are now in cahoots. Considering both these guys are huge players in the industry, this merger is considerably underwhelming. It was actually made even more underwhelming when it was announced that Squeenix were not going to change the way was Eidos was working (at least in the first year). Personally, I was hoping for a radical name change along the lines of “Squeidos-X” or “Eidarenix”, but no…

When I originally heard of the buy-over, I originally thought, “Nice! Maybe we can have some cool Squeenix/Eidos crossover titles.” However, when I started to think about the possible franchises I was underwhelmed yet again! I mean seriously what do Eidos have to offer in the way of franchises?

Well there is one big one, Tomb Raider, but all the recent ones have been bug-ridden, Lara-raping, soulless ca$h-ins. →  Read Read Revolution: Disney Channel Edition

Today a number of video games started to quarantine characters in fear of the spread of Swine Flu. Here is the latest news our surviving reporters could get:

Sea islands off the coast of the Kingdom of Hyrule have been hit with devastating losses so far. One eye witness account illustrates the horror in the cel-shaded kingdom: “The pigs were going fucking mental man. Snorting, squealing and grunting all over the place. There was blood everywhere. Fortunately, Link was there. He was trying to save them with some kind of pork injection but it wasn’t working. They just kept dying. Oh man the blood.” On going to press, weird rumours report popular pederast, Tingle, has dressed as a pig and is looking for Link. More when we get it.

Meanwhile, in Beyond Good and Evil, shallow stereotype depicting all men as pigs, Pey’J is totally fine. →  Holy crap, show me more!

Oh my holy mother of all that is pure and good!!

Marvel vs Capcom 2 on XBLA!!

For those of you who don’t know what Marvel vs. Capcom is, it is a 2D fighter where characters from the Marvel and Capcom universes* can battle one another. The Marvel characters range from the heroes such as Spiderman and the Xmen, to the villains such as Venom and Magneto (even the sentinels).

The Capcom side, of course, has the 2D fighters from the Streetfighter and Darkstalkers games, but it also includes some other characters from the Capcom universe including the likes of Megaman, Strider and our, infrequent-if-you-can-convince-you-partner-to-dress-up-as-her-but-realise-that-taking-off-the-clothes-will-ruin-it-so-you-just-go-for-some-oral-favours-but-after-you-dump-your-plasma-and-a-little-bit-gets-on-the-pristinely-stitched-beret-you-feel-ashamed-that-you-have-defaced-and-humiliated-the-one-and-only-image-that-you-should-have-kept-on-a-pedestal-and-make-a-note-that-next-time-you-should-try-for-Ada-as-we-all-know-she’s-filthy-and-if-you-go-for-Resident-Evil-4-Ada-you-can-get-access-under-her-dress, favourite character: Jill Valentine.

The game has 3v3 combat which allows for tagging and assists. And this one is gonna come in a super smooth, velvety, just lubed enough, spank and it dribbles, honeydew glistening, moist, sweet, pleasant, HD version. →  Eh, I’ve got nothing better to do.

It’s official. Lego themed games are slowly killing the entire Lego Systems franchise.

Lego Rock Band can be expected this “Holiday 2009” on the Wii, XBox 360, PS3, and supposedly the Nintendo DS (although I cannot say for sure if that includes the Nintendo DSi, which lacks the GBA slot presumably needed for a strumming widget), as announced this week by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Traveller’s Tales Games, Harmonix, MTV Games, and I think your mom is involved with the project too. Seriously, I feel like some sort of “stacked like legos” jab is in order in respect to the collaboration efforts of this motley crew, but you know what? I can’t even muster that much effort.

Let me get right to the point. Beyond my cynicism, I can see some value in this game. →  Katamari Damaread

Target has decided that it is time to face the competition head on and get into the business of game preorders. However, as is common with Target, they have decided to put their own spin on the process. To reserve a game with them you pay one dollar for a fancy “collector’s” reservation card. When you bring the card to pay for the game, you get a new kind a card – a five dollar gift card, that is. Here is a link to all the facts at VerticalWire, as well as the Kotaku coverage of the story, which actually contains some interesting comments.  Questions include “Will this actually guarantee me a copy?” and “How does $1 down and five free bucks in merch help on a product with an already tiny profit margin?” →  I only ask one thing. Don’t read in my way.

Your good buddy Spyder has done it again. I wouldn’t really say that I have once more fallen off of the wagon into a drug-induced stupor of epic proportions. I’d instead say that I kicked open a door, jumped a fence and flipped off my rehab counselor as I ran headlong back into the sweet arms of my smack habit.

While tripping balls in someone’s living room (do I even know anyone in Elko, Nevada?) I have decided to do a list post of really sweet NPCs. List posts are easy and take very little time, and since the wireless server I have connected to in this strange house is entitled “ByGunNutz4GunNutz” I should probably send this in and then keep moving. Also, I’m out of the sweet stuff I need to truly live, so I’m gonna have to run soon to get a fix. →  I’m gonna take you for a read.

Last week I asked Jay if I could write for videolamer. After a long and painful interview process, he said “Sure, I guess.” I have, since then, been forced to go on “creative hiatus” due to overwhelming stress and a debilitating drug habit.

While on creative hiatus (I am recovering well, thank you), I have had some time to check out a little title for the Playstation 3 and potentially the PC named DC Universe* Online.

The DC Universe* is a place where people in tights protect large cities from dumb people who dream big and fail big. It is populated by such well-known fictional characters as Creeper, Spy Smasher, and Hank Henshaw. While you will not be able to play as any of these titanic literary characters, you can fight awkwardly beside them in missions, I guess. →  Knock knock. Who’s there? This article.

In the dawn of a new Era of Eve, as the Apocrypha Expansion delivers what can only be described as a fantastic experience, those of us grizzled Eve veterans can’t help but wonder: what about the old stuff? CCP, Eve’s developer, has long trumpeted their free expansions as one of the strongest points of Eve. And they should.

Despite Eve’s incredible learning curve, the game’s population has grown substantially over the past two years. When I first started playing Eve, the server typically had a population peak of around 30,000 concurrent users; this weekend, it was over 52,000. Eve, unlike other MMOs, is a single server, a single universe, which makes this all the more relevant: it’s clear that Eve is continues to control a niche in the MMO market.

Having played for so long I’ve noticed, as has CCP, that the biggest membership growths come on the heels of a new expansion. →  Go ahead, read my day.

Yesterday was one of those days that started on an off note and ended unexpectedly well. I made a small road trip to visit a cousin and some friends in Portland, Oregon and to just escape Idaho for a day or two. What was expected to be a weekend voyage has now stretched into the middle of the week thanks to a clutch that was out for vengeance in the pristine Oregon wilderness. I knew the clutch in my Toyota was slipping a bit and would soon need replacing but I expected to be able to limp back into Idaho without too much trouble and get it fixed later in the week. I was wrong and what had started as a fine morning had turned into a ride in a tow truck by lunchtime. →  Lose belly fat now!

Looking through the list of recently released and upcoming March titles makes me think about sacrifice. Which games will I skip, which developers do I want to support with full price upfront, and on which days of the week will I eat Ramen? This isn’t a consumer product site like say IGN, who I recently notice house an inordinate number of game previews and features all obviously in an attempt at hyping and selling games, so I rarely discuss upcoming releases. Speaking to a few friends, however, I realized many of the games I am excited about are pretty low profile.

I thought of Pat’s old article on whose responsibility it was that we have heard of a game and then realized that quite frequently, within my small group of friends, it’s my responsibility. →  Read Band 2