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Last night I finally succeeded in persuading a friend to start Shenmue. It had been a long, drawn out affair. He agreed to play weeks ago but there was always some reason to put it off: my girlfriend was there and would be bored, a Nic Cage movie was on TV, I just got a PS3, I couldn’t find the VGA Dreamcast cable and wasn’t some sort of barbarian who could use S-video, a different Nic Cage movie was on TV, and so on.

As always happens when sharing something close to the heart with a friend, I was very nervous about how he would react. When I explained that at one time it was the best looking game on the market he said, “Yeah, this looks really good for 1991.” →  Fear the old posts.

Niche publisher Atlus USA is known for having a strict policy of printing very limited quantities of their games.  This allows them to keep costs down, and it keeps their fanbase in a rabid state wherein they will scoop up any new releases right away, even if they have to wait a year to find time to play it, or have to give blood to afford it.  But every so often, when the moon is full, Atlus decides to bless us with additional print runs.  The last notable example of this was in 2008, when they did a quiet reissue of three Shin Megami Tensei games on PS2.

But this month saw the publisher jump to action with far greater speed, shipping an emergency second printing of their new PS3 RPG Demon’s Souls just two weeks after its release.  →  Words are the towns and cities of letters.

While the details are scarce, apparently Insomniac Games did some sort of “study” that came to an interesting conclusion about graphics fidelity.  Apparently, if gamers had to choose between great visuals with a choppy framerate, or smooth framerate and simpler visuals, they would choose the former.  Not only that, but they concluded that games that adopt the  former can even gain better review scores.  They go so far as to say that some study respondents claimed that better visuals made the game more fun to play. As a result, Insomniac will no longer strive for 60 frames per second in future releases, which used to be one of their top priorities.

Three thoughts come to mind.  First, I would love to see how they conducted this study (likely with focus groups).  →  Secread of Evermore

Brutal Legend is out this week, and already the praise and reviews are rolling in. That’s great, considering Tim Schafer’s Doublefine Studios has been around for ages with no apparent source of significant revenue, but I am not going to lie – I have no intention of playing it in 2009, and no idea when I might get to it in 2010. To be honest, I am not entirely sure what I am supposed to be getting excited for.

Is it because it is such an awesome parody of Metal? Between the works of Tenacious D, the show Metalocalypse, and even some of the jokes and jabs from Guitar Hero/Rock Band, I feel like this ground has been covered extensively in recent years. Hell, even Homestar Runner has taken a stab at it.  →  Tony Hawk’s Pro Reader 3

The PSP remake of Persona 1 is out and about, and as expected both Chris and I are playing it. Since Chris will most likely review it before I even finish (I have yet to finish an SMT game), I wanted to share some quick observations.

I knew that P1 would be different in many ways to its PS2 sequels, which were my first experiences with anything Megaten related. This didn’t really bother me; while I have few hardcore, 1st person dungeon based RPGs under my belt, I am at the point in my gaming life where I can cope with most foreign genre conventions without feeling confused or overwhelmed.

Sure enough, P1 is a bit confusing at first. There are many parameters involved in any given battle, and the game does little to hold your hand along the way. →  Nobody puts article in a corner.

IGN recently launched a new site called Music Hub. Great idea, music games are popular so why not make a site dedicated to them? Let’s see what games they cover: Guitar Hero 5, Guitar Hero World Tour, Guitar Hero 3, Guitar Hero 2, Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero Aerosmith, Guitar Hero Metallica, Guitar Hero Van Halen, GH Encore: Rocks the 80s, Guitar Hero Smash Hits, Guitar Hero On Tour, GH On Tour: Decades, GH On Tour: Modern Hits, Guitar Hero Mobile Games, DJ Hero, Band Hero, and… and… that seems to be it. That sure is a lot of games, the guys at IGN were very diligent in ensuring that every relevant game is included. Nothing seems to be missing that I can see, nope.

Yes, I’m joking. The “Music Hub” is a joke. →  SaGa 3: Shadow or Write

Despite a great deal of pleading, Jay would not finance a single trip to TGS this year. This is because Jay is a big fat racist. So because we didn’t go we can’t present you with what we saw there. However, because we’ve got nothing else to do besides F5ing the internet we felt like we did go*. We felt like we were there and so here’s the high quality games journalism coverage you would have got, had we been there. Don’t say we don’t give you anything for free vl reader. There’s no point vocalising what we all know.

Videolamers TGS Coverage Issue:

Check out the 4500 photos that Christian took whilst dicking around in Japan. Japanese buildings, Japanese people in the street, signs in Japan in English, Japanese HMVs etc. →  SNK Article Classics Vol. 1

Halo is as popular a game series as there is, yet I have always felt like it has suffered from a case of identity crisis.  First everyone derided the series as being a dumbed down FPS for jocks and kids.  Then a wave of revisionism swept through the land, and now even the snobbiest folks may consider the series a favorite of theirs.

With this week’s launch of Halo 3: ODST, the cycle may start anew.  The scores are pretty solid all around, but folks have found new ways to bring on the hate.  Among critics, there is far from universal love for ODST’s storytelling, both in regards to the hub world/flashback concept, or the Audio/Video logs scattered throughout.  From what I can tell, ODST is the closest Halo has gotten to the old Marathon style of narrative, but for some reviewers that has apparently become a bad thing, as it gets in the way of shooting things. →  Drakenread 2

Writing about the hardcore/casual games divide was the new “Are Games Art” but now “There’s No Such Thing as Hardcore/Casual” is the new “There is a Hardcore/Casual Games and Gamers Divide”. This is a lie told to you by casual gamers. Casual gamers are limp-wristed liberals. HARDCORE gamers get chicks and drive huge cars and WILL FIGHT YOU TO THE DEATH defending the console that their Mom bought them.

But are you HARDCORE? Or are you a casual? Do you have armour piercing spermatozoa/ova or are you firing blanks? This is where the HARDCORE test comes in. If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you are NOT HARDCORE AT ALL. You are a casual homo. Don’t take this test if you don’t want the truth.

Remember, any Yeses, even one and you are disgusting. →  All the lonely gamers, where do they all come from?

I have to give Cryptic Studios some credit: Realizing the current flood of MMOs on the market and the presence of another game that they helped develop in the exact same subgenre would hurt their sales, they created a business model for their newly released Champions Online that can thrive with as few as 10,000 subscribers. By catering to the niche of the niche and trying very hard not to even suggest that their new release is anything like the legendary and fabled World of Warcraft killer that fans have been waiting for for years now, Cryptic was able to explore cheesy silver age comics ideas to their fullest without having to live up to the lofty, unfulfilled expectations that are currently dooming Age of Conan and Warhammer: Age of Reckoning. →  U R Not lamE.