Skies 2 on Wii?
This may be old, but it’s too amazing to not mention. EGM reported a rumor that Skies of Arcadia 2 is in development for the Wii.
An interview with Will Wright
Will Wright may be a genius. His games are all brilliant, despite always leaving me feeling empty and suicidal. When he speaks, people listen. And then complain if he offended their company loyalties.
Will thinks the Wii is the only next gen console. It’s noble of him to defend ingenuity but I think the higher ground is to simply dismiss next gen chest thumping entirely. In my experience, generations are measured in time and progeny, not progress. My father does not consider me to be in his generation simply because I am as slow, weak and annoying as he.
Double Fine to bring us METAL* based game Brutal Legend
Tim Schafer may not be Will Wright talented, but he is Ricky Gervais funny. Still, his new title Brutal Legend makes me apprehensive. I love METAL. I love how it sounds and I love how stupid it is. But any student of the black arts of headbanging can tell you that there are different schools of METAL.
“If you are not into METAL, you are not my friend.”
You know the fat Norwegian guy with corpse paint in Guitar Hero? That’s metal. Poison, Wyld Stallions and Quiet Riot are not true METAL. I hope Schafer spoofs harder edged METAL and doesn’t focus on glam rock (which the mighty Spinal Tap did, but they also predated Master of Puppets, so how were they to know where the mighty road of METAL was to lead?).
Also, Jack Black is annoying. There better be some good church burning satire to make up for his presence.
* As decreed by the Manowar Accord of 1986, METAL, when referring to the type of music that unites us as brothers and not one of the elements that readily loses electrons to form positive ions, must always be spelled out in all capital letters when appearing in text and shouted loudly in speech.
Seaman 2 sells well in Japan
The first Seaman is a pretty bizarre game. I’m not sure I enjoyed it but I know I want the sequel to be localized. There just aren’t enough strange Japanese games in the world, and maybe there never can be.
Developer Yoot Saito is also behind the odd strategy pinball game Odama. Any developer willing to release such likely bombs deserves praise and support, though perhaps not more funding to design games. Maybe I should go buy Odama.
History of the C64
Do yourself a favor, learn about my first gaming experience.
Samba De Wiigo
This is a game that too few people experienced. And have you ever tried finding the official maraca controllers – they’re like $100 a pair! I’d like to echo the idea that the Wii version should allow you to use two remotes as maracas instead of a remote and a nun chuck, but I know it’ll never happen.
To understand why I want two remote maracas, perform the following experiment:
Plug your nun chuck into your remote, grip both controllers at normal distance away from your body. Now violently thrust both arms out to your side while keeping a tight grip on both pieces. If you aren’t a child or midget, brace yourself for the whip back of the newly broken wire coming from the end of the remote towards your face.
I don’t expect Nintendo or Sega to have access to such complicated scientific set-ups, but more importantly, it’d take extra effort and no capitalist is interested in that. Oh well, I’ll still get it. But the game better have as much Super Sonic Racing as the original and significantly less Ricky Martin.
GO TO THE NEXT STAGE!
If for some reason you still have faith in humanity, take a look at the comments this guy received. Mocking people for the sake of comedy is a glorious thing. Calling them untalented, lazy, irrelevant douche bags because they think a console you own is overrated is slightly less glorious than giving blumpkins in the Mens restroom at the neighborhood IHOP.
This Jason Booth guy goes into some detail on why the PS3 isn’t all sunshine and lollipops (apparently the Cell is actually a Sony owned prison block and Blu-Ray is what you’re going to have done to you by the white power gang boss Raymond Killjew). From the few well thought out responses it seems he has some of his facts wrong and is overstating the PS3’s weaknesses (Raymond Killjew is actually quite handsome and charming). His ultimate point about development being a balancing of resources is valid and in fact what I try to explain to everyone who demands every game should look great and play amazingly well.
Even so, as a Wii owner who is tired of half-assed ports, I understand how the PS3 owner may feel. If I argue terrible ports are lazy developers fault and not Nintendo’s, then it seems I must also agree that mediocre PS3 ports are also the fault of developers.
A key difference between the situations is that third parties put no effort whatsoever into Wii games then declare it’s impossible to sell games on the system. Third parties may have trouble selling PS3 games, but that has more to do with how the console is selling than an irrational fear of 1st party competition.
Capcom exec defends Okamwii
Yes! Two terrible Wii game name puns in one news article, I can’t believe I pulled it off. Please, just give me a moment to compose myself. I’m still…wow. OK, first I’d like to thank my parents for always being there and supporting me. God knows I couldn’t have done this without you. I’d also like to thank my dentist, my brother, and Jesus in that order.
You probably heard by now that the Clover Studio created Okami is headed for the Wii. Seeing the current flood of shitty Wii ports and shovelware, gamers were understandably concerned that Capcom wasn’t going to give this port their all (though some concerned people are simply Sony fans pissed off that one of the best PS2 games is going to a Nintendo console).
Okami deserves a sequel. Barring that, it deserves at least a port done with care and preferably added content and awesomeness. Capcom executive Christian Svensson* has heard of our trepidation and responded directly on Capcom’s forum. From his post:
The first screen of Okami for Wii.
“If we wanted a cheap and dirty port, I could have turned around and picked any one of 50 houses and gotten it done for less and perhaps more quickly.”
“Lastly, if this were a quick cash in, let’s face it, there’s TONS of other products that had higher sales on other platforms we could have chosen to port, quickly and cheaply. Okami, as great as it was, wasn’t a huge seller on PS2 such that it’s quick and dirty port would be assured “sales success” on a new platform.”
“Given that the only port we’ve done to date was RE4, which has a 90+ gamerankings score and provided AMAZING value for the platform, has this really been Capcom’s modus operendi such that this allegation should be leveled at us? Zack & Wiki is getting better reviews than just about anything you’ll see this year on Wii, except possibly Galaxy.”
His logic is compelling. Capcom chose Ready at Dawn, a competent developer, Okami, an unpopular game (amongst the human race, not internet nerds), and have only ported one game to the Wii. It happens to be the best version of an already amazing game. I do dislike how he used the word “lastly” in a point that clearly wasn’t his last, though.
How Okami turns out may tell us something about the upcoming Monster Hunter 3. Angry followers of the series have argued that the next entry’s being Wii bound means Capcom was simply unwilling to spend the money and time to make a real sequel. Of course everyone who doesn’t believe the Cell processor can cure cancer (oh…wait) realizes that a true sequel to Monster Hunter is possible on the Wii or PS2.
* Christian Svensson is clearly in the wrong line of work. His name is far too METAL for video games.
Ys 1&2 remakes are coming for the DS
Astute readers may have noticed that my Nintendo fanboyism is actually masked Sega fanboyism. Yes, Skies of Arcadia, Samba De Amigo and Seaman were Dreamcast games and Ys Book 1 came out on the Master System.
This marks the 78th time Ys has been remade but Falcom isn’t doing these. Can some Japanophile tell me if Nihon Falcom still makes games? Fine, I’ll do my own research. Hold on.
Huh, according to the always right Wikipedia they may not have even developed all the original Ys games. Though when you go to a specific games page (say Ark of Napishtim) it does say they developed it. So, can some Japanophile look into this?
Apparently new attack animations will be added for when Adol strikes enemies. They better not make us actually hit a button to attack. Ys has always been a favorite of mine because it was one of the few games I could play while practicing my ventriloquism act. “What’s that Franklin, it ain’t easy being brown?”
Game inspires Korn to suck (though possibly no more than usual) — Haze the song is born
When I first read the headlines on this story I figured they would write some whiny song about how shallow we all are and how appearances mean far too much (Haze is a game only NASA computers can play). Then it dawned on me that wussy bands with college degrees write stuff like that, not wussy bands with GEDs.
I really wish this were a photoshopped picture.
No, this song exists because Davis, Korn’s fat singer, who was either molested too little or too much to save the world from his music, thinks Haze is “the shit.” At least it’s better than Limp Bizkit liking something you made.
okami + additional content would probably make me rebuy and replay okami. although there is already a hell of a lot of content in that game. i spent a ton of time on it and didnt do nearly everything.
Reading the seaman article was an odd experience. It’s now rare enough to see the name “SEGA” up at the top of a sales chart (especially for something that was as weird and quirky as seaman) that I’d kind of forgotten how much I enjoyed that, in my own small, partisan way :)