Sony

It’s Dreamcast Mania!

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Ladies and gentlemen, we here at videolamer pride ourselves on our knowledge and coverage of both current gaming trends and the very best in classic gaming. However, everyone makes mistakes sometimes, and one piece of gaming history has gone unnoticed by us for far too long. Of course I am talking about the Sega Dreamcast.

Almost a decade after its release, the Dreamcast still astounds new comers and old fans alike with its incredible library and fresh ideas. While the three console race of Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft is now ingrained in our minds and memories, we must never forget just how much the Dreamcast brought to the table, as well as how much more it could have done given a little more time. →  Rule of Read

Multiplayer Worlds of Ass aka Why Tyson Does Not Play MMORPGs

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The list of MMORPGs I have played reads like a high school kid’s job resume; lots of wasted time in short month long bursts. Historically, there have been only two MMORPGs that I have played for a period longer than one month, City of Heroes and Everquest. Even with those two games, I stopped playing after about four or five months. I just can’t stay interested or even begin to get interested in most MMORPGs. I do not think this is my problem though, the fault lies at the feet of online role-playing game creators and the inherent issues that come with the games themselves.

South Park really summed up most MMORPGs when it spoofed the amazingly popular yet spectacularly idiotic World of Warcraft. →  Lame is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 7.27.07

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Microsoft sort of wants you to buy an HD DVD add on
$20 off is not a good deal for something that costs $200, but that’s the amazing deal Microsoft is giving us on their 360 HD DVD add on. The move feels like a last ditch effort to make it appear that they still have a chance at beating the Blu Ray format. What is it with these companies that are desperate but not willing to allow this desperation to save me a lot of money? The PS3 should cost $300 and the 360 HD DVD doohickey should retail for $19.95.

Then there’s the prevalence of bundle deals. In addition to the twenty big ones you’d save buying the HD DVD drive, you’d also get five free movies. →  All the lonely gamers, where do they all belong?

Nintendo to the future, “Emulate this!”

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This morning while showering I thought about the usual – video games. Specifically, I thought about the article we did on DS games and how some people reacted by saying the PSP is backwards compatible with every old console someone wrote an emulator for. After mulling over the pros and cons of that argument, I spent some time pondering the future of emulation and something struck me. Unless motion control and touch control become ubiquitous, the DS and Wii will not be emulatable by anyone not willing to put in huge amounts of effort.

Nintendo has always had a particularly strong fear of piracy. Primarily because CDs are so easily duplicated, Nintendo gave the N64 a cart slot. For the same reason, they burned Gamecube games onto mini-DVDs. →  Garou: Mark of the Posts

Gaming Meccas of Japan Pt. 1 — Den Den Town, Osaka, Japan

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Being a geek and living in Japan is kind of like mixing Ecstasy with LSD – it’s one hell of a trip. There are four places in Japan that should be on the must-see list for anyone who calls himself a nerd. The big one is Akihabara in Tokyo and I will be covering that in September along with The Tokyo Game Show. The third spot goes to Nintendo’s world headquarters in Kyoto but there isn’t much to see there because no one is allowed into the facility and tours are never provided. The fourth spot and topic of today’s installment is Den Den Town in Osaka.

Den Den Town can best be described as the poor man’s Akihabara. It is smaller in size, about four or five square blocks instead of an entire section of Tokyo. →  Secread of Evermore

Sony at E3 – slightly less terrible than the competition?

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Max has been kind enough to fill in for Jay on covering the Sony press conference. When not reading videolamer, he runs the excellent website GameLemon.

I’ve already bitched elsewhere on this fine site about Sony’s presentation skills, but that little rant was small and only mildly satisfying, so I am going to say it again: Sony, please, for chrissakes, hire some presenters that are at least remotely cool and entertaining, and forbid your executives from ever appearing in public. I am sure they are all fine people and very important to the business, but they couldn’t excite a crowd worth a crap even if their bonus depended it.

Next, fire the idiots who wrote the script for the presentation. →  Read Dead Redemption

PSP 1.1 – Worst. Update. Ever.

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If there was one thing that I wanted to see at this year’s E3, it was the new PSP. I was dying to see what Sony had up their sleeves. I was especially looking forward to the much-requested hard-drive that was rumored to be included. But what did Sony do? Crushed my frail little dreams, that’s what. And they didn’t even apologize! Totally inconsiderate.

So, instead of an 8GB hard-drive, we get a faster UMD drive, a more efficient battery, a thinner and lighter casing, and a video-out connection. Yup, that’s it. And even worse, the damn thing looks exactly the same!

Now, I will say the ability to display the feed on a TV is a pretty cool feature, but when compared to how insignificant everything else is, having a video-out option isn’t a good enough reason to upgrade from the old PSP. →  Lame is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.

matt’s E3 Predictions

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I’m sure you’re probably bored to death of reading the blogosphere’s predictions for the cleverly-named “Min-E3” event that’s going to take place next week, but I haven’t stated mine yet, so you’re gonna sit there and listen, whether you like it or not. I’ll try to make it short, so you only have to use 3% of your brain power. Fucking babies.

Microsoft

-Gears of War for PC. Why? Because it’s already true.

-No portable (Jesus people, forget about it).

-$50 price drop for each 360 SKU (Core, Premium, Elite).

-No MGS4. It will happen eventually, but it’s not going to be for awhile.

-Zune will be integrated more with the Fall Update. Songs and video bought off Marketplace, then transfered to your Zune. →  Read more, before it’s too late!

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 6.29.07

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Capcom not merging with another company
Sega and Sammy did it, Square and Enix did it, so why not Capcom? Imagine the awesomeness of Capnomi — crossovers like Phoenix Wright Solid, Gradius May Cry, and Silent Resident Evil Hill would delight fans worldwide.

Unfortunately (or fortunately if you live in the real world), Capcom won’t be merging with another company any time soon. They did announce they would go the Sega route of buying a bunch of crappy Western developers, at least. We can only hope Capcom nonchalantly hands over enormous franchises for their new developers to systematically destroy.

Dragon’s Lair DS
This game gets a bad rap just because it’s basically not interactive in any way. It’s true that if Dragon’s Lair came out today on the PS3 and looked amazing but offered little to no gameplay, my throat would be sore from all the screaming about how shitty it is. →  SNK Article Classics Vol. 1

Nintendo confirms WiiWare: Indie Gaming on Wii

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This week Nintendo sent the word out that they are indeed working on a Wii channel where users can download original games, titled WiiWare. This is basically Nintendo’s version of Xbox Live Arcade.

Nintendo is working on getting indie devs to take advantage of the WiiWare channel, but it’s still unknown how developers can actually make a game on the system without open source API’s for the Wii’s architecture. It seems that indie devs may need to pony up the cash for a real dev kit. Thankfully, Wii dev kits are pretty damn cheap right now, estimated at a paltry $2000.

Now I’m sure most of you are thinking, “Yeah, Nintendo said this when they first announced the Wii and it’s online services.” →  Disaster Readport