United States

Politicians aiming to censor games have an uphill battle

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Unless you spent the last year hiding in a cave playing Gears of War and Elebits, you’ve probably noticed that video games continue to be a great way for politicians to score points with the obsessively-worried-with-no-rational-basis constituency (I usually just call them “crotchety old people,” where, since this is a legal article and I’d hate to be vague, old is defined as “belonging to any generation that is unable to recognize the sequence ‘up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start’”).

Of course, what could be wrong with censoring video games? As spokesperson for New York State Senator Leland Yee, the sponsor of the latest video game censorship law, points out, “we prohibit children from smoking…we regulate driver’s licenses. We prohibit alcohol. We prohibit lots of things from children, and we think it’s logical that kids should not be able to purchase these games on their own.”

Assuming you haven’t already lost hope for humanity and slit your wrists, you may take solace in the fact that while the legislative and executive branches of the government are complete tools, they still have to answer to the higher calling of the constitution as interpreted by the judicial branch. →  Do a barrel read!

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 9.21.07

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PSP outsells DS in Japan
Square’s Final Fantasy VII spin off for the PSP, Crisis Core, sold half a million copies last week. It also sold PSPs. Possibly not all of the 95 thousand Sony sold in the week, but likely around 80 thousand, which is how many more units were sold than the previous week. Sony’s business strategy should be clear – simply release a spinoff of one of the most beloved games of all time once a week and the PSP will handily outsell the DS in Japan 1.2 to 1.

Or, to quote someone from a forum I read:
“If DS stopped selling and PSP continued at this rate, it would catch up in 139.7 weeks (May 21, 2010).”

Does anyone else feel nauseous?

Home delayed till Spring
Good for Sony. I’d rather they take the extra time to polish Home than release it early. Nintendo’s Reggie recently mocked Home by saying something glib like, “I think that exists already, it’s called Second Life.” →  Read or Alive 2: Hardcore

Dreamcast Mania! – Great games you can’t get anywhere else

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Videolamer noticed that in our attempts to keep Dreamcast Mania! alive, so very many of our articles were about the things we missed out on, rather than a celebration of what we had. That changes now. Today we will be going over some of the absolute best games the DC (and only the DC) has to offer. These are not only the reasons why we loved it, but while we still do. These are the games that make it a system still worth owning and playing (meaning you won’t find games like Third Strike, which has a superior PS2 port).

Oh, and I only have a paragraph to describe each game. Prepare for distilled glory.

Soul Calibur – As far as I am concerned, the only game in the Soul series that you can argue was better than this one (and have me actually listen to you) is Soul Blade. For my money and time, this is still the pinnacle of the series. →  Sly 3: Honor Among Reads

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 9.7.07

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Molyneux takes a shocking stand – his company is more influential than its competitor
In a recent interview, designer Peter Molyneux said that Microsoft’s Live will be more impactful than the Wii remote. Molyneux was clearly kidding – would anyone use the non-word “impactful” in a serious statement?

Pretend he was serious. Is Live more influential than motion sensing controls? This is not easy to answer, partly because it’s comparing apples to gypsies, partly because the Wii is very young and partly because in some form, both things being compared have already existed for years. At its base level, Live is the internet. Should we thank Al Gore for being more impactful on games than Microsoft? If that’s too far a leap, what about X-Band on the Genesis or SNES? Surely Seganet was impactful as all get out.
OMG Nintendo copied Hasbro!

The motion controlled Star Wars Lightsaber Battle game Hasbro released in 2005 is more fun than most Wii games. →  God of War: Readnarok

The Hardware Honeymoon Is Over, Bring On The Games!

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I just took a quick peek at the Japanese console sales charts and I think it is safe to say that the newness is starting to fade from this generation of consoles. This is by no means a doom and gloom statement, it just means that now some game developers need to step up to the plate and convince people to buy into all of the new hardware floating around.

Microsoft will again be the loser in the Japanese console market. The Xbox 360 just does not have titles that Japanese people are interested in. Halo 3 will most definitely boost sales in the United States and Europe but not many Japanese gamers play Halo. I am positive I will be able to walk into any store here on the day Halo 3 is released and walk out with a copy of the game if I so desired. It is a shame for MS that they can’t find some way to connect with the inhabitants of this little island country because the 360 is a very solid console. →  Apply directly to the forehead.

Dreamcast Mania!: What did we miss? – Headhunter

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What Happened?: Headhunter was supposed to come out at the tail end of the Dreamcast’s life. It still did – in Europe. Its US cancellation was a big enough deal for IGN’s Dreamcast channel to review the import, meaning it was as important to them as Shenmue 2. Eventually Americans got a chance to play it on the PS2.

The Game: Allow me to get bold and assertive for a minute. 1998 was the beginning of a new little period in which a flurry of Important Games were released. They reinvented series, changed genres, and refined 3d game design. It ended with the release of Halo in 2001. It isn’t that innovation or good games ended there, its just that, six years later, we’re still copying Halo’s formula. Where we once only had Metal Gear Solid for stealth and Medal of Honor for WW2 shooters, we now have countless games in each genre. We rebuilt some franchises, and then franchised the fuck out of the rest. →  Sonic the Readhog

Requiem for a Dreamcast

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I used to think I was pretty clever when I told folks that “Nintendo made me a gamer. Ocarina of Time made me hardcore”. I kept thinking this for quite some time, but eventually realized that pre-OOT, I wasn’t really a “gamer”, just a kid whose game experience consisted of little more than a string of Nintendo consoles, a few hours on the Genesis, and a dusty old 486 PC. This was a time when fresh games came to my house twice a year if I was lucky.

After Zelda I truly became a “gamer”, though now I think it had less to with that game in particular and more to do with the fact that around that time I was introduced to a modern day computer, Next Generation Magazine, and a Sony Playstation. I learned of an industry that was much bigger than what Nintendo on its own could show me, and I began to appreciate the things that made a game good. →  The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Read

Matt recommends: Final Fantasy X OST

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In a new column that I just randomly created 7 seconds ago (and one that I’ll probably never return to), I am going to recommend a video game OST that you should listen to, either by purchasing said OST or… you know, “buying it on the Internet,” whatever that means.

So, for my first one evar, I’m going to suggest Squeenix’s Final Fantasy X. Most of you probably had your toes curl the moment you read that last sentence, but hear me out. I know it can’t come close to either Final Fantasy VI or VII’s soundtrack (which is debatable, I might add), but the musical selections that are found in the FFX OST are still some of the best songs you can find in the gaming industry.

The funny thing about FFX’s album is that it may be Nobuo Uematsu’s worst collection, depending on who you talk to. Apparently he was so swamped with FFIX’s music that he needed to bring in two other composers to help him out, Junya Nakano and Masashi Hamauzu. →  Game. James Game.

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. The businesses in Den Den are also a bit lower scale. In Akihabara, you can find anything that takes a power cord or batteries, both new and used. →  Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatarticle

65 reasons to own a DS

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Recently, PSP Fanboy began a series of articles called “60 Reasons to own a PSP.” They may only be up to reason 45 despite the series beginning a month ago, but today we are showing you everything we’ve got. Yes, 65 reasons to own a DS, but here’s the catch — they’re all games.

PSP fans (we have some at this site) and savvy readers may be quick to point out that PSP Fanboy could have taken the same approach. Forget that it’s debatable the PSP has 65 good games because that’s not the point. The PSP crowd may like games, but we believe the PSP Fanboy article shows what is important to that fanbase.

Features, a lot of features. Nubs, wireless, movies, browsers, messengers, waffle irons. Games are number one on their list, but they still get one sixtieth of the list, like free VoIP (in Britain only) and adjustable screen brightness. No more or less priority than features 2% of PSP owners use. →  Keep it warm.

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