A plea

Yes, a bit of a plea in this semi-E3 season, which will quickly lead into the pre-holiday hype season. To all internet dwelling gamers and game journalists:

1) Please do not use the term SKU anymore. You aren’t retail managers or inventory workers. Did the words “Model” and “version” go stale or something? Or are you just trying to sound smart about an area of the industry you don’t know?

2) Please stop analyzing teaser trailers of games. You’ll get them in your hands sooner or later. Weren’t you all telling me that GTA was great for its sandbox gameplay? And now you’re analyzing every bit and piece of the new one to find out about the story and characters? Have we all just become bipolar or something?

Stop bothering with this crap. →  Read the rest

I can’t shut up about Guitar Hero

A slew of news about the franchise I can’t get off my mind. Come and get it!

– Rumors of a possible pedal accessory for future installments. A cool idea that could backfire. As Tycho at Penny Arcade mentioned, a peripheral for a peripheral is getting a bit crazy, and who knows if they would actually be a pack in or sold separately. Then there’s the question of whether they would have a direct effect on scoring. I would love to see it, but it would have to be done well for it to become an essential part of the game.

– I discovered that GH2 has a code for “hyper speed”, which is the same as a speed mod in a Bemani game. It basically makes the notes move faster, and thus become more spread out and easier to read (I know that might sound very confusing – it did to me at first. →  Read the rest

Best Game Ever – Suikoden

Growing up I always played games, but only recently would I have ever thought of myself as a “gamer.” I had a Nintendo for several years, then a Genesis, but until Playstation (and High School) I played mostly NBA Jam, and whatever the rest of the kids from school/the neighborhood were playing. This included a lot of games I would now scorn, such as games licensed from movies. I always noticed Genesis games on the shelves that looked as though they might be interesting due to the dragons and medieval knights on the covers, but I was apparently unable to take the plunge at the time.

He’s a goner.

Come high school, I met a bunch of people different from myself (basically I hadn’t met anyone not Irish- or Italian-Catholic) who did different things (other than play baseball and basketball). →  Read the rest