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Sony follows the lonely path

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The new PS3 commercial shows a handful of games set to what sounds like a clip from a Gladiator or Braveheart type movie. A warrior with a middle ages accent (ye olde accent) rallies his comrades before a glorious battle. To Sony this console business is a battle, and a bloody $3 billion one so far.

Only declaring war openly and drawing lines in the sand is not what Sony needs to do now. The call for brotherhood in the commercial clearly creates an us-versus-them image but it is this exclusive mentality (remember, the PS3 is like a fine dining experience) that put Sony in third place this generation. Launching at $600 and offering the bleeding edge of movie playing capabilities did not make the PS3 a very accessible machine and these advertisements only reinforce the idea that if I am not hardcore, if I am not willing to join Sony is a vicious battle against its enemies, then the PS3 is not for me. →  Article Kombat

It’s the DLC, stupid!

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Recently details came out about Guitar Hero: World Tour. It will have a fancy drum kit with faux cymbals. It will allow for music composition (sweet on paper). It may or may not be backwards compatible with DLC to date (depends on what article you read). It will feature approximately 85 master track songs, and will have a stronger downloadable content stream. It will also feature improved peripherals. Pricing will be “competitive” with Rock Band.

Rock Band 2 was just announced. It will feature improved peripherals, as well as support for third party peripherals. This is a great idea, because the equipment business sucks, and if Harmonix can find someone else to make better equipment, they can focus on their core competency: the music (we’ll get into that later). DLC songs will not only be forwards compatible, they will be backwards compatible: even if you choose not to upgrade to Rock Band 2, you will be able to continue to purchase new DLC and use it. →  Shining Post: Legacy of Great intention

Tales From Behind the Counter – The Walking Dead

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I love zombies. I love zombies so much that I would be lying if I said there weren’t nights that I have gone to bed hoping to wake up the following morning in a full-blown zombacalypse. In many ways this column and my video game store are in a state of zombie purgatory, not quite dead but not completely living either. Let me explain:

About two or three weeks ago a series of events transpired that granted me the magical power of telepathy. In the subsequent moments of enlightenment, I learned that the people who own my video game store were running into some serious financial issues in terms of the stores and keeping them running. We are not talking a missed phone bill payment, we are discussing a shambling, fetid, corpse of over $10k debt. Mind you, this money is owed to only one of our vendors.

Since I began working at my store, I knew that the math was not adding up in a lot of areas and it was abundantly clear that the stores were no where near profitable. →  SaGa 3: Shadow or Write

Review – The World Ends with You

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Set in present-day Shibuya, a Tokyo ward is famous for its fashion, The World Ends with You (TWEWY) is an RPG that follows the story of Neku Sakuraba as he wakes up in a busy intersection with no memories. A text message informs him that for the next week he will be a participant in the Reaper’s Game; failure to participate risks erasure. Players follow Neku’s journey of self-discovery (turning from emo-punk to… less of an emo-punk) as he meets other players of the Reaper’s Game and tries to discover the stakes of the game, why he’s playing, and how to win.

Now, I may be a bit biased since I can sing along to an unfortunate amount of Utada Hikaru and Rachel Yamagata tunes, but the aesthetic of TWEWY is delicious and expertly executed. The game’s soundtrack revolves around a combination of trance and j-pop style music with heavy hooks that make you feel like you’ve slipped into a mall with your friends. →  Do the math.

Review – Persona 3 FES

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Atlus used to be rather stingy about bringing games over. We received the first Persona, sure, but it was missing a large sidequest and the story was changed to make it take place in the US. We didn’t receive the first half of Persona 2, although the second half came introduced us to Atlus par: a good translation, but a small release that could not match demand. They are finally making up for their earlier slacking with Persona 3: FES.

FES contains the original Persona 3 (called “The Journey” here) with tweaks and improvements as well as an epilogue in the form of “The Answer.” Between them, we get about 100 hours of solid, story-heavy JRPG, all for the wonderful price of $30.

For those who weren’t reading the first time around, Persona 3 is about a group of highschoolers who find themselves wielding a power, called Persona, that they don’t fully understand. This power allows them to fight against the malevolent beings known as Shadows that appear during the Dark Hour – a “gap” in time between midnight and the following day that few know about. →  Michigan: Article from Hell

Tales From Behind The Counter – A Time of Loathing

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When working in retail there is one time of year you dread above all others: the holidays. It means angry customers with no time and no money, pissed off that they have to brave ice covered roads and bumper car parking lots instead of being gleeful and warm in the comfort of their own homes. In video game retail land, there is one other time that I have come to regard in the same way I would a diagnosis of colon cancer: EA Sports Game Release season. Also called, the Unholidays, with a long e sound on that i.

During this time, Electronic Arts decides to rain shit from the sky in the form of a new NCAA everything, new Madden, new baseball whatever, and [shudder] Nascar 09. I would rather play most of these sports over having to deal with the people who come in to buy these games and that, my friends, should tell you something. The day my chubby ass wills itself to throw a football or (God forbid) run bases over doing something video game related is tantamount to Jesus Christ donning a pair of rabbit ears and chilling in Hugh Heffner’s vagina-shaped hot tub for an evening. →  Look upon my works, ye mighty, and read!

Review – Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles My Life as a King of the Jews

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Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King is a simulation game. When I first saw the name, I thought it would be another delightfully (?) simple RPG. Instead, here we have a delightfully simple sim; in fact, MLAK is hands-off nearly to the point of annoyance.

In MLAK, you build your city structure by structure and converse with your citizens (when they are willing to talk to you, that is). That is just about it. The city is composed of empty green glowing spaces that mark where you can place buildings when you have the resources needed for their construction. These buildings range from houses to various shops for your citizens and adventurers. You commission these adventurers to explore the surrounding wilderness to get more resources and advance the plot, and occasionally they will actually do so.

This should feel familiar to anyone who played Microprose’s old PC RTS Majesty. You hire some heroes, give them some nice shops, and then they would immediately run off and die, start stealing from your kingdom, or hide from the scary trolls in their rooms. →  Garou: Mark of the Posts

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 12.21.07

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PSP sales explode in Japan
Sony’s handheld has been selling very well lately, this last boost thanks to a new red model. If Sony simply releases a new model and/or colored PSP every other month they may be able to seriously compete with Nintendo. At least on the hardware front.

Games simply don’t appear to sell on the PSP. The leading theories as to why this is are:
If you cut yourself while playing you won’t even notice.

1. The PSP is a successful multimedia machine. A significant percentage of purchasers are using it to listen to music and watch movies. Reports of people not particularly interested in games buying the system are common, and even dedicated gamers (see Christian of this website) are very interested in all the multimedia aspects of the PSP. The argument against this position is that everyone on earth owns at least four iPods and that UMD movies suck (and will continue to do so until the hilarious yet poignant “I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry” comes out in the format). →  The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Read

Rock Band – The rant

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Ever since it was released, some folks have had it in their minds that Rock Band would destroy Guitar Hero. Their logic ranged from “It isn’t being made with greedy Activision at the helm” to “four instruments are better than two, amirite?” These wonderfully spun arguments failed to recognize important things, such as the fact that Rock Band was being published by greedy EA and that Harmonix is owned by greedy MTV. Nevermind the fact that the game would be a massive undertaking and was completed in less than a year. These warnings were not heeded by many. Caution was thrown to the wind. It was Rock Band or bust.

Congratulations; you just paid to beta test an unfinished and rushed game. Sadly, most people are doing it with a smile.

Rock Band centers around the idea of making you and your friends the center of the show. This isn’t about goofy avatars that we may not even like; now we can put ourselves directly into a game. →  Sounds amazing, I must read it now!

Review update – Mount&Blade

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It’s been over a year since my first article here on videolamer, in which I reviewed the PC Action/Strategy/RPG hybrid Mount & Blade. I didn’t mention it in the original review, but good old M&B is still under development. The version I reviewed was somewhere about 0.75; the current version, released just a few days ago, is 0.901.

And what changes have come! In .890, there was a major combat overhaul, the addition of three new factions in “vanilla” (the regular, un-modded game), as well as a troop tree for each faction. The game plays better than it ever has before; combat is quick without feeling unnatural, trading remains profitable, and veteran mercenaries are available early on.

For those who didn’t read my original review, a quick overview: Mount & Blade is a medieval FPS RPG. It looks like Morrowind (or Oblivion) but rest assured; it plays far more like an FPS. You’ve got troops and companions with you, so the battles play out in largish sides and you have control over yours. →  Phoenix Write: Just Posts for All