As a gamer, I’m often puzzled by decisions game designers make. This most often occurs with MMOs, where the eternal question of “poor decision or lack of resources?” seems to apply, but many console games come to mind, like the Gears of War magic chainsaw. Of course, as a gaming consumer, I am simply the target of disdain, condescension, and of course greed of the gaming industry. I sat pondering my frustration with the lack of two-way communication about design decisions in an era where second guessing the experts is the norm: we can go on WebMD and diagnose ourselves, yet I can’t get a straight answer out of a game designer. I’ve often wondered what it’d be like to sit down with a game designer and get the real scoop on why they did something in their game that makes absolutely no sense. → READ3R
Review – Sands of Destruction
How is it that nobody can make a good JRPG for the DS? Some remakes have been all right, and a strategy RPG or two have been good. But every original RPG for the system seems somehow tainted by the platform. Black Sigil, Nostalgia, Beyond the Yellow Brick Road – hell, even a Suikoden spin-off was barely up to par on the system. Sands of Destruction is sadly no exception.
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This isn’t to say it’s a bad game. Sands of Destruction’s problem isn’t that it’s actually bad – it’s just that it’s never good. It manages to be almost entirely middle-of-the-road throughout, with no particularly exciting moments and only a few terribly boring ones. Its plot has an interesting premise, but gets dragged down by bland characters and predictable twists. → Think outside the post.
Review – Torchlight
Torchlight should be branded with a warning. The game is pornographic, it’s number porn and clicking porn with a Tolkienesque fantasy fetish thrown into the mix. After loading the game there is a brief introduction to set the scene, and immediately the player begins clicking madly on everything moving.
With each click the characters moan, scream, and produce other sounds juicy with stimulation. Of course it’s not the meaning of the sound they make, it’s the fact that each of these noises is calculated to be so brief and repetitious, fading in and out instantly and producing a peak at just the right tone. It elicits pleasure in the player’s brain, and without thinking he or she understands that another such buzz is only a click away. → Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 5: Golden Post
Valve Be Trippin’
I think of Valve as both the most interesting and depressing developer we have. Interesting because they are a shining example of what can happen when you give time, money, and freedom to developers. Depressing because they are an increasingly obvious outlier. If armchair analysis of the industry were a fighting game, Valve would be the character banned from tournament play. It just wouldn’t be fair.
That being said, we can still admire their most recent bout of antics. Earlier this week, the company released a series of parody images that inserted Valve characters into classic Apple advertisements. That might not sound entirely clever, but this is Valve we’re talking about. They always have tricks up their sleeve. Each of the fake ads was sent to just one news site, and the one that has actual text in it is an incredible homage to the rambling copy Apple used in the 80’s (90’s too?). → Ba da bam ba baa I’m readin’ it.
Ragin’ Again
The God of War 3 demo is out. Let’s discuss!
– Dear Sony – screw you. I understand that you wanted to put a demo out right before the game is released. Everyone does it (or at least they should do it). But you’ve got a lot of guts to then go ahead and tell the world that yes, this is the same thing you showed at E3 2009. I might be reading too much into this one, but I think this is quite a daring bit of marketing psychology. Sony knows that “core” gamers would kill to be able to attend E3 and feel like they’re actually a part of the industry. Putting this label on the demo is a great way to convince this audience that, through their benevolence, Sony is giving them an opportunity to be part of the Secret Fraternity of Real Games Journalists, if only for a few minutes. → Illiterates hate her! Click to read this one weird trick.
SNK A-OK
If you’ve ever read any of my reviews of SNK games, you will know that I had an absurd fascination with the firm’s US branch. For the most part, they were a complete and utter mystery. The quality and frequency of their releases fluctuated constantly, and since they barely talked to the press, any and all rumors about their status were allowed to fly around. I finally stopped trying to keep score sometime last year, when suddenly every SNK game was being released by other publishers. Ignition handled the localization of Metal Slug 7 and King of Fighters 12, and Atlus just released Metal Slug XX this week. I figured that the US branch was finally done for, and that the folks in Japan were now just cutting deals themselves with interested publishers. → Read Danger!
Review – Vandal Hearts: Flame of Judgment
Watching a beloved series re-emerge after years of lying dormant is always disconcerting. On the one hand, it’s nice to see developers expand on a world already well-fleshed out and attempt to recapture something that was thought lost forever. On the other hand, it may be worse to have a crappy sequel than to have no sequel at all. Worst of all would be a sequel that’s good enough to look promising and manages to recreate many of the best elements of the series, but ends up being mediocre and only dulls the series in the fans’ eyes. The last, unfortunately, is the case with Vandal Hearts: Flame of Judgment, a western-developed entry in Konami’s strategy RPG series.
It’s not that the game doesn’t have good elements. → I’ll read you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!
Resident Evil 4 Revisited
Recently, a brand spanking new copy of Resident Evil 4 for the Wii caught my eye. Reduced to clear and put in the shop window of a generic electronics shop in London’s laughable ‘electronics mile’, I couldn’t face the heart break over the thought of that particular copy of that gem of a game slowly yellowing and fading in the shop window, destined to be ignored by the people looking to buy new headphones or a replacement ipod nano charger.
So now I have two copies of Resident Evil 4. One for the PS2. One for the Wii. I should buy the Gamecube version to complete the shelf. Feeling slightly embarrassed in my hideous capitalist material ways with the realisation that there are people in this very world who struggle to have potable water or enough food to survive and here I am, Cunzy “two copies of Resident Evil 4” they call me now. → We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we play.
NISA, no sir
I haven’t played any games localized by NISA, save for the 15 minutes I’ve spent with Disgaea on PSP. Yet I find myself fascinated with the company, thanks to the many stories of I hear of the mind boggling mistakes and blunders they have suffered over time. Here are a few that I have heard of, complete with links to disappointed gamers discussing them (warning – links may contain dangerous doses of weeaboo).
– Ar Tornelico 2 features poor translation, loss of vocal work, and a crash bug for one of the last bosses.
– DLC for Disgaea 2 on PSP pulled, then returned after being buggy.
– Disgaea visual novel officially announced with a typo ridden, horribly awkward sounding comic. → I’m so excited, my braces are tingling!
Review – Children of the Nile / Alexandria
Children of the Nile is a continuation, and possibly the final installment of the fairly successful Pharaoh series, taking advantage of the excellent setting of ancient Egypt as a basis for a robust city builder. The people of ancient Egypt are civilized enough to be needy bastards– a prerequisite for any builder, and in an era filled with war and great deeds, we’re off to the races of conquest and glory.
COTN’s greatest strength, without a doubt, is the ecosystem of its city. Your people have multiple “tiers” of social standing, with each level having its own behavior and needs. Your job, of course, is to keep those needs satisfied so their efforts can be directed towards doing useful things for you: killing your enemies and building great works in your name. → And so it games…