Review – Black Sigil

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Black Sigil screamed promise. After being impressed and occasionally a bit burned with indie games, a DS game by a small but dedicated team of RPG fans sounded really good. Graphically inspired by Chrono Trigger, its visuals are both nostalgic and fresh on a system that needs more sprite-based games. Even after the release date was pushed back… and back… and back, I still was somewhat excited upon its release.

I maintained this excitement through the first area. The first section is mostly story, but your initial quest is to walk to an area on the world map. “You walk a little slowly”, I thought, “but that’s okay – surely they’ll eventually give me a boat, hovercraft, flying castle, etc.” And then the random encounters started. And continued. I had at least ten encounters on the way, and each one played out exactly the same way. Attack, attack, attack – SP is too precious to waste – and eventually victory. “This is a little boring”, I thought, “but surely with more party members things will become interesting.” →  May God smite me if I stop reading here!

Review – Steambot Chronicles: Battle Tournament

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The Steambot Chronicles series can’t catch a break. The PS2 original, while rough around the edges, garnered a solid cult following. Eventually, developer Irem teased its fans with footage of a PS3 sequel, and then…nothing. It still looks to be in development, but it is anyone’s guess as to when, or if, we will actually get it. In the meantime, Majesco brought over a Steambot themed puzzle game, only to give it box art that would scare anyone away.

Now comes the Atlus localization of Steambot Chronicles: Battle Tournament, a side story sequel on the PSP. Battle Tournament was largely ignored in Atlus’ email newsletter, one of the best sources of hype and information on their products, and the information that was given was fairly basic. Even worse, the name itself has caused confusion among potential buyers. It would be easy and forgivable to assume that this game was nothing more than a loose string of battles based on the original game’s Coliseum fights. →  Ridge Reader V

Civilization IV: Champion Edition

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Many of the great leaders throughout history were also great warriors. They lead armies, knocked over walls, flags were heavily involved. Playing Civilization IV, this is self evident from the available commanders – Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, Gilgamesh. I considered what would happen if you added the greatest warriors in the world today – the stars of Street Fighter – into the Civilization mix. Why, you’d have the greatest gaming crossover of all time, is what you’d get.

Civilization IV: Champion Edition

Ryu – Japan
Charismatic
Philosophical

Sure, he can afford shoes, but he walks barefoot for comfort. Ryu is a good leader to pick for a beginner, with his balanced mix of traits, starting techs and unique units he gives you a solid base to work from. There are some people who complain when you choose him because “everyone plays as him” or its “dull” or you’re “lame”, but they can all go to hell. He’s also one of the best characters at high levels once you start getting the hang of the more intricate elements in the game (build lots of macemen!) →  Screw Jesus, this article’s the real deal

Review – Gears of War 2

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Gears of War 2 takes place in a grim future where humanity is at war against an unstoppable force of monsters called the Locust. The endless fighting has torn down cities, painted the Earth’s surface a consistent shade of gray and brown, nearly killed off the human race, and made the survivors intolerable douchebags. If the people in Gears of War 2 are the ones who are going to save Earth and restore society, then it honestly might be better if the Locust just win. The game’s writers were apparently content with cookie-cutter characters who are easier to laugh at than sympathize with, at least until a few hours in when their simple personalities simply become annoying. And like too many games of this type, the bad guys are way cooler than than the good guys anyway.

But now on to the actual gameplay, the stuff that’s supposedly the most important part of any videogame. Cliff Bleszinski claims that his goal with Gears 2 was to make the player feel like he’s constantly in the center of a blockbuster action movie. →  Speak softly and carry a big post.

Flaws, Fighters and Fanboys

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Fighting games are, sadly, one of the few areas of gaming where I can still get worked up into a fanboy.  Shameful, I know, but every gamer has their flaws.  My problem is that I am a hopeless, shameful SNK fan.  I buy their games when they treat the fanbase like crap.  I buy the games that are crap.  And every time I see gamers tear them a new one for a legitimate grievance, I can’t get myself to join in.

At the same time, I have never understood the appeal of the suite of fighters made by Arc System Works.  I can tell you about some of the many things the studio does incredibly well, perhaps better than anyone else.  But that is in addition to some of the many bad practices and decisions they make that, rather than being criticized, are praised by fans.  The Guilty Gear series, as well as newcomer Blazblue, have the gaming equivalent of a Reality Distortion Field.  →  Eh, I’ve got nothing better to do.

Giving the Right Idiots Power – The Rock Band Network

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When Activision announced GH:WT would have authoring tools when Rock Band 2 would not, many reviewers and other industry sounding boards thought this was a critical error on the part of Harmonix. My reaction was “so what” – most gamers are idiots. Therefore I was uninterested in downloading their at best mediocre, but more likely putrid attempts to create music. Three hundred real songs (for Rock Band 2, which continues to focus on professional DLC) and 5,000 removed user made remixes of Zelda and Mario music (for GH:WT) later, it appears I was correct. Authoring tools for the common man are useless, particularly when the item authored is as complex as a four instrument track song.

Harmonix announced earlier this week they would be going in a different direction. Instead of catering to the casual gamer, who is likely an idiot, Harmonix is releasing an authoring tool system for small labels and musicians. Although these new targeted demographics are mostly made up of greedy idiots and drugged up idiots, respectively, the target audience has a tremendous amount of self interest working in its favor. →  Professor Layton and the Diabolical Post

Fan Service Inc.

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Is anyone else totally addicted to taking snapshots and spending hours on the diorama mode on Super Smash Brothers Brawl? YES! You too! Great. Here are some of my creations for people to use to add some spice to their fan fictions. I’ve given some title and synopsis hints but feel free to use your own okay? And don’t say I don’t ever give you anything, you disgusting fanfiction people.

Suggested Title: Excite Bike Mountain (yaoi)
Synopsis: Purple Excite Bike Man and Red Excite Bike Man are the best of friends. After Excite Bike School they ride their Excite bikes to all kinds of different places and have adventures. Anal adventures. Find out where Purple Excite Bike Man wants to park his Exciting Bike in Red Excite Bike Man.

Suggested Title: Papa Smurf and Another Smurf run away from T-rex whilst Blue Moon tanks and two frog heads stand their ground
Synopsis: Umm maybe rework the title so it doesn’t give too much away I guess. →  Article Kombat

Review – Rune Factory Frontier

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Farmer’s Diary, Day 1
I have no knowledge of my past. I found myself in a town I had never heard of with only a half-dozen denizens. They told me I could have the farm. How kind of them to take me in for a while.

Now I just need to get some seeds, plow some spaces of earth, and water ’em. No sweat!

Farmer’s Diary, Day 2
Some giant stone whale-shaped island in the sky is blocking the sun. My crops demanded retribution, so I shouldered my hoe and readied my hammer. Climbing a convenient beanstalk, I reached the whale and it spoke to me! It told me to explore it and find out why it’s slowly dying. What the hell am I supposed to do? I don’t know the first thing about whales. Or islands. Especially flying ones.

I fended off some goblins, but then I got tired because I’d spent most of the day watering my crops. And now the crops were unhappy again since the whale hadn’t moved any. →  Tony Hawk’s Pro Reader 3

The Pokemon Drinking Game [Prison rules version]

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Sometime soon, not today, maybe not even this year, but before the end of the world Richie and I are going to liveblog playing the ultimate Pokemon drinking game. Drinking? Pokemon? Game? I hear no-one say. Yes that’s right. Oh you want to play too? Here are the rules:

1) Equitment
You have to pronounce equipment as equitment and skeleton as skellington and vehicle as vericle. It’s all part of playing the drinking game. Anyway, to fully enjoy the Pokemon Drinking Game you need the following:

* Every single episode of Pokemon the animated series, including the films and the Pikachu films (You can illegally download all of these from the internet. I strongly advocate that you do because when 4Kids or Nintendo or whoever finally decide to release all of them in your region there will be 2.5 episodes per DVD and it’ll cost £15 each, and even then they’ll release only half of them).

* A whole week (seven days, preferably eight) with no other commitments. →  Apply directly to the forehead.

Best Game Ever – Dungeon Keeper 2

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One of the critical problems of the gaming industry today is that nearly every game is an adaption of a successfully proven concept. This is probably why there is a lot of hullabaloo (scrabble bonus points) whenever an interesting new concept game comes out, even if the concept and execution are flawed. But at the end of the day 95% of the time we’ve done it all before: whether we’re shooting aliens with force shields that are oddly susceptible to melee attacks (Halo), humans who have developed chainsaws with invulnerability shields (Gears of War), any civilization game, etc–despite minor variations, games are typically incremental improvements of a proven formula.

That is why I gave an exclamation of glee when I recently re-dug up Dungeon Keeper 2 (now classified as Abandonware, woohoo), a game with a refreshing concept that seems so simple yet has never been followed up on. Nearly every fantasy book and genre has tackled the concept of storming a dungeon, Dungeon Keeper 2 (and of course its predecessor) allow you to play as the dungeon master. →  Densha de Read! Shinkansen