Fullscreen Bossfight

Five Days with the 3DS

2012-02-09T04:13:00.001-06:00

"I want to get a 3DS for Ocarina of time " She says, as she smiled at me. My current girlfriend is a hardcore Zelda fan. That's just one of the things that has impressed me about her. It was only later on that i realized that she had been playing Ocarina hardcore for years and had scoured all of hyrule and it's outer provinces for every single secret, but I'm getting ahead of myself. This is about her interest in getting a 3DS, and how it ultimately brought me back out of my gaming slump.

So our story starts about two weeks before Christmas. I had been completely stumped about what to get her for christmas, and to be honest I really wanted to know what in the world she was getting me, because according to what i heard form other people and how she vaguely described it, it sounded like she was giving me the holy grail. I on the other hand wanted to play the thoughtful route; Get her a scanner like she had always wanted, so she could post her artwork online like she has always wanted. However, after talking to other females about that, I realized that might be considered too practical and not really something to get someone for Christmas (really it's the thought that counts, but still). We had both promised that we were going to keep our gifts simple and below fifty dollars, but once she stated that her goal was to get a 3DS to play Ocarina and Kingdom Hearts, and a nook tablet for her bibliophile needs, I knew that I should get her either. Granted, I took the cheap route and got her a 3DS used from Gamers (That way I could keep the cost low enough so she wouldn't yell at me ).

I took the 3DS home, and began my long task of configuring it to her liking. I knew about all the Zelda anniversary swag, and downloaded the free Four Sword Adventures game,as well as Pokedex 3D if she were to ever get Black or White. It took a bit more time Creating her default Mii (which i seem to be really good at), updated her system to the latest update, and set up her internet. After spending so much time fiddling around with the darn thing, I quickly began to realize that I wanted one for myself as well.

Christmas Eve came, and I finally revealed my present ( played it smartly). I got her a sailor moon tee from hot topic and placed a copy of samurai warrior chronicles - a series she's also very much into - underneath it (I like to refer to this as the "triple bait and switch"). she was happy because she wanted the shirt, but was disappointed that i got her the 3DS game, because she had no handheld to play it on. "well" I told her, as I slipped behind her. "I guess, you could always play it on this.." I slipped the shiny blue handheld out of my pocket and handed it to her. She smiled and said "ah you got a DS?" as i chuckled to myself a bit. A quick lean and whisper into her ear did the trick. "babe" I said, "it's yours". She squealed in delight as i showed her everything i downloaded, which came in digitized wrapped packages. one of Nintendo's brilliant ideas that worked clearly to my advantage. In the days that followed, she bought Ocarina of time 3D, Kingdom hearts, Recoded, and Lego Batman. I on the other hand took the money my family gave me for Christmas, and decided that I wanted to get one of my own so we can play together. So technically I told you that story to tell you this one.

The following is a recount of how my first week went.

DAY ONE

The day before my birthday I realized that I was going to get a 3DS, so I had cashed the money order I received from my folks, and headed into the electronics department with girlfriend and roomate in tow. My Roomate, Rye who had wanted to get a DS himself, decided that now was as good a time as any to get one. He wound up getting a red one, while i got a cobalt black one. We spent at least an hour in the parking lot of our apartment complex fiddling around with the settings and adjusting them to our liking. Used the camera option to create my mi, and it looks nothing like me. I decided to keep it as my default, anyway. S&Gs i guess.

Afterwards, I spent a half hour on the phone with my gf, trying to walk her through internet connection to her router. I went through the browser, bookmarking my local haunts. GoNintendo, Digg, and all the places where i search for news to usually blog about. This is a nifty little device. Downloaded Four Swords while I played a little skyward Sword to pass the time. Took out the AR cards and fiddled with them for a bit, and while the games were entertaining. I didn't really see much interest in it. In the end, the cards have been sitting on my bedroom television ever since.

Later that night I took it to work with me and was building the pedometer so i can stockpile coins and possibly street pass a few people, hopefully some customers in the store so i can build up my plaza.

DAY TWO

Spent my birthday with good friends, and a certain loved one. We spotpassed eachother and played a bit of find mii, which i actually enjoy playing. Once she found my NES, SNES and 64 it was all over. Woke up later and found that i got some video updates on the 3DS video service channel (Really sucks that there seems to be no flash on the handheld so Youtube vids are out, but I figure that's to keep security up and keep the Mario flash games away). Had two more friend over that night and showed them the handheld's capabilities. One of my friends pointed out that they couldn't handle the 3D for too long. It's a similar conversation I had with one of he clerks at gamers, and pretty much settled on the notion that turning the slider down will fix that. I was aware of the 3D being jarring after a while, and that was just one of the many draws to the system so i usually keep the slider at varying degrees depending on how much i want. It's actually really good that this was included at the discretion of the consumer.

DAY THREE

Taking up another late night, i decided to try the connectivity feature between the Wii and the 3DS using the download play feature. I played the Rhythm Heaven, and Sonic Color demos, and actually enjoyed playing both. I spent a few days looking over games that i might be interested in like Rhythm Thief and the Emperor's treasure, and of course Kid Icarus. I really needed to get a copy of Starfox 64 as well.

Had to go to the next town over to help Rye move the rest of his things ino the apartment. By the end of all, we wound up stopping at McDonalds for a mocha frap, and i had wound up trying out the Nintendo zone feature. Downloaded a few 3D images and checked out the trivia feature for Mario Kart 7.

Later that night I came across the Neo Gaf list of QR codes for Miis and found a crapton of awesome.

DAY FOUR

Now that he's finally moved in I had a chance to check out some of the DS games that i missed out on. I played a bit of Professor Layton and the Curious Villiage, and liked it despite some of the puzzles being completely out of my league at my current level of experience. between that and playing Lost magic, which I thought was just a lession on pain and suffering, I had now tasted what it was like to play DS games, and I definitely wanted more.

DAY FIVE

I find myself now spending a lot more time in Electronics looking over DS games that I would potentially play. Interested in Dragon QUest IX, Thor, and a couple titles in the e shop. made my first pass through Find Mii, and got the regal crown. I rather be wearing samus' helmet, though.

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It's been approximately three weeks since and I've been busy. Bought the latest issue of Nintendo Power and found all sorts of DSiware and Virtual Console games to play. I bought a points card and have since bought two VC games - Mario Land 2: Six golden coins, Link's Awakening DX, and the Castlevania-ish Soul of Darkness. Will review them at a later time. I also managed to register my 3DS and a few games with club Nintendo and got Majora's Mask for Wii and The first Kirby's Adventure from the eshop. Just this last week I've bought the Legend of Starfy, which is a bit simple for a platformer, but pretty entertaining. By the time of this post I also purchased Disgaea and Legend of Kage 2, Kage 2 is awesome, and very much an entertaining platformer. I'm eagerly awaiting starting Disgaea since this will be the first time i've ever laid hands on the series.

To be honest, I knew that purchasing the system right off the bat was going to be a bad idea, Mostly, because of the lack of games at the start. Though, I really wanted BlazBlue and Street Fighter, I knew the games everyone else wanted were Nintendo's main series. As things are right now with the holiday season now ending, there are a metric tonne of things that I'm interested in getting. A lot of those things are just in the DSiware store alone. At this point I know that I have a lot of games to catch up on, and I want to just jump into this thing with both feet.

Merry Christmas

2012-01-02T21:30:00.001-06:00

like her, i am serious about my shawpins

No, I know what day it is. It's been an entire week since the day of Christ's supposed birth, however I am referring to the real Christmas which happens to be the first week of January. This is the best time of year to be a gamer. You're probably reading this and saying to yourself "what the hell is he talking about?" Well let's think about it; The sheer amount of discounted games that are just sitting in bins, and on shelves are mind-numbing!! Games fresh off of the holiday season, are just waiting to be bought and played.

Let me tell you a few of the wonderful finds I've acquired.

So it all started the day before my birthday last week. I was sifting through Wal-Mart's discount bins for some cheap game finds, and I came across the most lucky find ever; A copy of Sin and Punishment : Star Successor sitting in the bin on it's reduced Black Friday price of $10.00 ( well hot damn!! )!! After running it through the price scanner to make sure the price was correct, I hopped on that like Donkey Kong on a unsuspecting Pauline. That was probably one of the best deals of 2011, considering we still sell the game at about $49.00.


my god this game is good

A few days later I came across another good find - surprisingly, a DS copy of Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the starry skies - for about $15.00. Nothing short of awesome, and a great used game price for a brand new game. Still the best find of 2011, had to be the copy of Trauma Team, i found in June/July. I had been circling the game for a few weeks as it sat on the shelf at around $19.99, and was sifting the same bins, just to find a new copy of the game for about $5.00. That was a beast find, to say the least.

This + Ocarina 3D = Game Widower

On the console end, I managed to score a used 3DS for my girlfriend for about ten dollars cheaper at the local gamers store. I'll discuss that more in depth later, but I thought that was pretty awesome, and she has been enjoying it, and continually telling me how much she loves it, which is equally awesome.

So not to turn this into an advertisement for Wally world, or Gamers for that matter, I just wanted to show off the awesome finds I've made within the last few days.

FNF : Samurai Shodown

2011-12-23T14:41:00.003-06:00


i am a sexy beast

Samurai Shodown / Samurai Spirits
Platform: Neo Geo / Arc
Publisher: SNK

Year: 1993

A Samurai fears not death

struggles to triumph over evil

and lives for one purpose...

to destroy all enemies!!

*slash slash* i make everything cut in half an slide down in epic slo motionnnnn... oh.. sorry.

It's no secret that Street Fighter II had brought the fighting game into the mainstream spotlight from it's humble
beginnings, and though it's not the first fighting game, it became the template for many other fighters from 1991
on. After a while of seeing various clones companies began to switch the formula up to bring interest into their
take on the modern fighting game. SNK to me, has always been one of the companies on the forefront of innovation, due to their constant tinkering with ideas in their various fighters. So imagine my surprise when i walked into 7-11 after a rough day of freshman year of highschool and came across the Neo Geo AVS cabinet that housed Samurai fighting glory. Since then i've been hacking and slashing away digital limbs for years with each sequel. Hell, I spent more time playing SS4 then actually attending classes in college, which is why I'm probably not working for some distinguished (??) video game website.. I'm digressing again.. let's move on, shall we?

The Devil in the Details:

As I have said before, SNK has a knack for refining and innovating fighting game titles, and this game was clearly nothing different. To start, SNK brought in the camera zoom feature made popular through it's Art of Fighting series of games, and made good use in refining the camera to add a sense of scale to the battles. This also seems to have an effect of creating a feeling of adding cinematography to battles. Framing the action up close, or showing the tense nature of regrouping just adds something to the fight, to where it's not just your static battle such as in Street Fighter or it's subsequent clones. With it being a weapons fighter, and thanks to the advent of games like Mortal Kombat, and lesser interesting outings such as the 1994 3DO flop, Way of the Warrior, The battle of blades is chock full of blood and gore. Using button combinations like A+B will cause heavy slashes that can take half a lifebar, and well timed slashes end in big finishes! These range form opponents being impaled and covering the victor in arterial spray (it's okay. Video game characters can't contract HIV), or flying away in twain dropping coins everywhere as a hefty reward.As your characters recieve damage they start to get madder, and change in color, while the bar at the bottom of the screen begins to fill. That bar is the "Rage Gage", a feature that allows your character to increase the amount of damage given for a limited period of time.


hmm.. for some reason I'm thinking about Golden Corral's Wonderfall....sad

Additionally, certain blows dealt cause a slowed effect to emphasize massive damage. Samsho also features a referee who throws corresponding flags to help the audience determine who dealt what blow, and a "delivery man" who disrupts combat by dropping healing and damaging items that changed the course of the fight drastically.

The graphics are pretty basic here (hey it's 1993), with some serious inconsistencies in sprite height,and anatomy. Though, I'm not going to sit here and nitpick what is otherwise a fantastic game. All together, these factors make for a popular series that carried on well into today's fighting game circles.

Who Wants some:

Samurai Shodown's roster features warriors from different parts of the globe, some hardly worthy of the title of "Samurai", but nothing to scoff at by any means.

Haohmaru - the main hero; a ronin who travels to sharpen his swordsmanship and his sense of bushido. His moveset is basic shoto, complete with "dragon punch" and "hadouken"

Nakoruru - an Ainu miko who fights to protect Mother Natur. Her moves are offensive and quick with her bird Mamahaha being used for secondary support. She's a charge character, and should be treated as such.

Ukyo Tachibana - an ailing swordsman who searches for the perfect flower for his loved one, Ke. Ukyo is played for trapping and tricking the opponent into making unnecessary movements for larger damage.

Wan-fu - a power general from the Qing dynasty seeking to recruit powerful warriors for the unification of Chin. (Originally based on the "Ten braves of Sanada" legend which also influences other series such as Naruto, Samurai Deeper Kyo, and Sengouku Basara )Wan Fu's moves are mainly high damage incurring, and often result in the user being damaged as well. High risk / High reward seems to be the name of the game, here.

Tam Tam - renowned hero from the fictional city Greenhell; he fights to retrieve the sacred artifact, the Palenke Stone. Tam is the tallest sprite in the game and has a near fullscreen reach. He also has great anti-air and projectile capabilities as well as multi hit moves.

Charlotte Christine Colde - a noblewoman fencer from Versailles who fights to save her country from Amakusa. Like Chun Li, and Tam Tam, she also has attacks that hit for multiple damage, as well as a strong projectile and anti-air. Her jumping slash is menacing!!

Galford D. Weiler - American ~~surfer~~ sailor turned ninja who fights in the name of justice. Like Hanzo, Galford is played for deception, speed and trapping. Unlike Hanzo, he has a secondary helper character in his husky, Poppy.

Kyoshiro Senryo - famed kabuki performer who wishes to strengthen his dances through swordplay. Kyoshiro plays for long range to mid distance attacks. he also seems to have a flair for the theatrical, dancing as he flays.

Earthquake - American ninja flunkie turned bandit, he wants to steal all the world's treasure. True to his name, he dominates the screen as the largest sprite in the game. He uses grapple attacks as well as deception and full body based onslaughts to pressure opponents. For some reason he reminds me of Chris Farley in Beverly Hills Ninja.

Hanzo Hattori - ninja serving Ieyasu Tokugawa. In this fictional account, he fights to save his son, Shinzo.Hanzo, as stated above, uses a similar moveset to Galford, however his attacks are a mix of grapple with ground fireballs and deception. He tends to play defensively until an opening is made.

Jubei Yagyu - similar to other fictional accounts, he is a ronin hired by the Shogonate to execute a demon. Jubei is a counter-beast, with a high priority anti-air, and projectiles. He is meant to be played by zoners who know how to pressure an opponent to bend to his will.

Genan Shiranui - an eccentric member of the Shiranui clan, he strives to make himself more evil. Gen An has incredible reach as well as Blanka's spinning full body projectile move, deadly kicks and grapples and a poison projectile that temporarily disables opponents.

Bosses

Shiro Tokisada Amakusa - last boss and villain of the game; in this fictional account, he is resurrected years after his death by the demon, Ambrosia. Due to a pact made with the demon, he wants to revive Ambrosia thus destroying the world.

Unlockable characters (GB port only)

Kuroko - exclusive playable character in the Game Boy port. He is the background referee who
acknowledge the winner of the match, in the GB game he wield two flag blades as his weapon. He did not get a console debut until Samurai Shodown II which he imitate moves of all the other fighters. The Game Boy port is the only game where he had his own original moves and weapons unlike his console counterpart.

Hikyaku - exclusive playable character in the Game Boy port. He is the delivery man running in the background of stages who is forced to disrupt fights by Amakusa.

I'm not fat!! I am large boned....

Any Surprises:

Since i'm playing the arcade version of the game there really aren't any extras to speak about. The Gameboy version features some unlockable characters, but as far as the MVS version what you see is pretty much what you get. With that being said you still get a pretty solid gaming experience.

Player Result:

Despite the fact that the later games in the series do Samurai Shodown a much better service (Samsho II is noted as the best game in the series to some ), i implore you to play this game. It is insanely fun in multiplayer, though it can be quite frustrating in the later stages of the single player. Though If it's a solid fighter you're craving, then this game is for you.

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Thanks for putting up with my updating issues, guys. Next month I'll be making some tweaking to the overall model, and hopefully we can see some well needed improvements to this format. Stay tuned and have a Merry Christmas and a safe and happy New Year.

Sony's only weakness is.....

2011-12-22T00:12:00.002-06:00

Source(s): BBC News , Guardian.co.uk

Superman has Kryptonite, Green Lantern has the color yellow, Martian Manhunter has fire. Sony apparently has themselves as their main weakness. Let's look at the news footage, shall we? I'll be commenting as we go...

The PlayStation Vita went on sale in Japan at the weekend. Owners have described unresponsive touchscreens, crashes and freezes.

Glitches in new consoles are not unusual, but experts have been surprised by the number of related postings sent to Twitter and YouTube.

Local reports suggest over 300,000 devices were sold over two days.
The console boasts a gyroscope, accelerometer and electronic compass beneath its 5in (12.7cm) OLED touchscreen as well as front and rear mounted cameras.

XXSP: Gat damn! {/sarcasm}

However, complaints of technical issues have threatened to take the shine off the launch, prompting the company to issue a statement on its PlayStation site.

"Currently, our information centre regarding PlayStation Vita as well as our usual customer service centre are receiving many enquiries. We apologise if your phone isn't connected straight away," it said.

"Some issues regarding PlayStation Vita can be addressed by simple procedures at home," it added, going on to provide a list of questions and answers to tackle problems including the console refusing to start-up.

XXSP: I'm sure there were in depth questions like " did...you...check...the.. battery?"

In addition the firm has released a firmware update that users must install if they wish to be able to continue going online with the device.

Experts said that other manufacturers had bounced back after facing similar early setbacks.

"One of the biggest problems Microsoft faced with its early Xbox 360 consoles were 'Red Ring of Death' failures - but the company overcame them and the system is now one of the best-selling in the world," said Christopher Dring from MCV, a video games industry magazine.Sales survey

XXSP: Keep in mind that that was over a period of years, not overnight.

Japanese publisher Enterbrain suggests 321,400 devices were sold over the handheld's first two days on sale. Sony has yet to release official figures.

The PlayStation Vita will miss the festive shopping season in the US and Europe
If the estimate proves accurate it would fall short of Nintendo's 371,000 3DS tally during its launch weekend in February.

However, analysts noted that Sony had to contend with cold weather conditions which may have put off some shoppers.

XXSP: I seriously wish you could see my "bullshit" face right now.

They also highlighted the fact that Nintendo's sales had slumped a few weeks after the 3DS went on sale.

XXSP: Nintendo also had an earthquake to blame....little harsher than cold weather..

Sony hopes to avoid that fate by releasing its device alongside a strong line-up of 24 titles. These include the latest addition to the Uncharted series and a new version of LittleBigPlanet.

A spokesman for Sony said there would be 33 games by the time it puts the two models of the device on sale in the UK in February. One will connect to the internet via 3G and wi-fi, the other just through wi-fi.

"We are incredibly pleased with the success of the Japanese launch of PlayStation Vita in which all pre-orders were immediately sold out and that enthusiasm has continued since launch with sales well on track," said David Wilson, head of PR, UK at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.

XXSP: PR damage control, check.

"We are confident we will continue to accelerate the momentum as we approach the European launch on February 22nd."

The handhelds will be released in the US, Canada and Latin America at the same point. Although they will miss out on this year's Christmas shopping season, experts said Sony might benefit from the staggered roll-out.

"I don't think Sony would like to describe Japan as a test-run, but it does give them an opportunity to fix problems with the consoles," said Mr Dring.

"That should be reassuring to people in the UK and Europe thinking of buying the devices."

----------
This is just unreal. I don't even know what to say concerning this that hasn't been said before. Sure, Sony could play this out by saying that Microsoft and Nintendo have gone through similar issues, though they grew because of them, but let's face it. MS is literally made of money, and Nintendo's issues were more to do with a natural disaster, and people having issues with price. If this is the glitch that is supposedly bricking Vitas..

an example of screen staining issues on the launch Vitas

then that is just unacceptable. The PS3 launch, the PSP launch, the PSP GO launch, and now this. Each one has had large flaws which make people question the level of intelligence that the higher-ups there are working with. It doesn't really make a lick of sense that Sony can consistently botch every launch they've had post PS2, and regardless of whether the points made were valid or not, This still makes the company look bad in hindsight. The real question is, if this is exactly the desired result of these reports?.

Let's look at this article from the guardian, and i'll post the quotes that i'm going to cover.

While it acknowledges that a few new PS Vita owners may have experienced isolated malfunctions, it is adamant that users are experiencing no more problems than would be expected given that 325,000 units of the handheld console were sold during its launch weekend in Japan.

David Wilson, head of UK PR at Sony Computer Entertainment, said: "The PS Vita has had a terrific launch and sold in large numbers. We're annoyed with these stories, because we can't find any evidence of widespread glitches.

"The stories even said that Sony has issued an apology for PS Vita glitches, which simply isn't true – there's an apology on our Japanese website for people who are having trouble getting through to our technical help line, but that's it.

"And there's a page showing standard procedures for powering the PS Vita on and off, which has been on our site since before the launch, which has been presented in some news stories as a means of solving the alleged glitches."

Sony appears to have been a victim of internet Chinese whispers, combined with an element of its Japanese website getting lost in translation.

It has issued a firmware update, but that is only to be expected with a new and complex handheld console such as the PS Vita. There is also a YouTube video showing a PS Vita with a frozen screen , which has been replicated in various places on the web, but that hardly constitutes a welter of malfunctions.

One wonders whether the Sony-haters who hacked the PlayStationNetwork earlier in the year and aimed a barrage of bile at the company (including threats to senior executives) are up to their old tricks again.

Despite the negative reports, the PS Vita's future would still appear to be bright: the 325,000 units sold in its opening weekend represents a solid if unspectacular start.

Now, there is a strong possibility that this could be really what's going on. If this is an attempt from other companies or just a group of disgruntled fans to use F.U.D (Fear Uncertainty Doubt) to deter people from purchasing Vitas, then it's a damn good ploy. Using Sony's track record of botched launches, and the network shutdown fiasco of last summer to construct a tale of widespread broken handhelds is damn sinister.. If that's really what's going on, that is.

But then again this makes me wonder about another scenario; what if (and this is just an idea, not a fact) Sony is purposely allowing these statements to generate their own buzz about their product? 325,000 units is hardly anything to gush about, considering. It isn't holding a candle to the 3DS' albeit, so-so launch period, either, so how do we get people talking about the Vita? make a few little incidents and hit the forums. Fake or not it would still get people talking for sure. If you've read or watched "Thank you for not smoking" you could see how people can possibly spin things to a company's advantage or disadvantage.

Either way this goes, it's going to be a fairly interesting thing to keep eyes on come February, and once again we're learning that it never really pays to be an early adapter of anything technological...

Game on.

Site update

2011-12-16T21:05:00.001-06:00

No FNF this week, I'm moving this month's up a week in order to make some alterations and checking for consistency in information. I have to do some extensive playing of this month's game in order to ensure that I know what the hell i'm talking about when I do the guide portions.

God forbid I pull a Gaming Bolt and post that Rival Schools is developed by Namco , or some other dumb statement caused by lack of research (and/or caring about anything other than wish-listing for some game that may not ever see the light of day).

Two - I've been fighting with the whole writing thing lately, and to be honest, I was all sorts of stuck on what to write about. the holidays are kicking my arse right now, but I think I got some things to write about now, and I'm cooking up some interesting things.

Three - I'm thinking of making some adjustments to the blog format. Nothing too major, just some additional things to cover besides games, and bgms. working through ideas will have more info on that after the new year.

That's it. I'll be posting up new content soon. bear with me, peeps..

Game On.

So about last month......

2011-12-02T01:08:00.005-06:00

da da da daaaaaaaaaa

I'm sure multiple people were wondering what was going on with the state of this blog. I figured i would give you a somewhat detailed account of what i've been doing in the span of last month.

Skyrim and the Deathly Hallows..

So the big deal a few weeks back was the last release of Deathly Hallows pt 2. The event was huge, and we had tons of customers coming into the store looking to get their copies of the movie. In between moving freight to the floor, and sorting out my area, I had to entertain a particular customer who waited since about eight that evening. So while our managers and vendor were putting together the display for Deathly Hallows, we have customers waiting for another title; A little known game called Skyrim. Yes, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. You know, the game that people across the street at Gamestop were lined up around the store for?

I really hope you're worth all the trouble, Potter....

So I had started to head through Electronics to get to the break room, and i notice a crowd of people and various associates running around frantically. As it turns out, we couldn't find the copies of Skyrim, and the customers were getting restless. So I and another associate had to tear apart the backroom looking for the games, only to find out the boxes with the games were moved behind the counter since they were on the same cart and display as the potter DVDs.

Running around like chickens with our heads cut off for no reason....

God damn it.

ZELDAA!!!!!!

Okay so I had waited patiently for the release of Skyward Sword, like a good little boy....okay so I waited patiently for Skyward Sword (shut up). On the night of the release I had planned to work up until first break, which was midnight, and then make my way to the electronics department to claim my prize. I knew I had to be there before everyone else, because I know how Walmart usually does their releases (For the most part, it's a hundred copies of the standard releases and two to five of the special edition packages - retarded, I know).

When i actually got to the counter, my buddy, Ryan, who has been trying to get me trained and working electronics for months now (I've worked three days in electronics total ) had been cornered by customers about cell phones, His apprentice, had been working stationary, and My girlfriend was helping with the other new releases. So it's Spiracy to the rescue, jumping over the counter and opening the boxes of Skyward Sword games to find..... Only the standard releases?

What.. the.. eff?

Yes, there were only the standard releases, which were the game with just the soundtrack available, and some of the regular and special edition strategy guides. None of the special edition boxes with the gold Wii Remotes to be found. One of the customers came decked out in full on Zelda gear, like hat, hoodie, t-shirt. decked out. it was awesome (in hindsight I wish I would have gotten some pictures of him). We talked games for a bit. he dished about FPSes he wanted to get, and the state of Nintendo's current situation. It was a fun talk, and we concluded that we'd probably be best to run to the other stores to possibly look for special editions there.

GLORIOUSSSSS

So flash forward to that morning, I wound up actually going across the street to Target to get my copy, and low and behold who we run into, but Zelda guy, which was awesome. we got our games, and I had to grab some other things for a friend's birthday party I was attending later.

obligatory unboxing shot.

Took it home, did the unboxing thing, and I actually enjoyed playing the game for the amount of time I stayed up to play it. (I was exhausted!!) Throughout the last week and a half I've really enjoyed what I've played so far. I'm completely blown away by the visual style, and the music used in the game. The enemies parry and dodge your attacks, and having to attack at multiple angles really does deepen the combat. If you're a fan of the Zelda series, or just want a really awesome Wii game to close out the year, then this is definitely for you. I may review it after I've beaten the game.

I have this growing irritation with whomever is in charge of ordering the electronics freight at our store. I think it's either someone who has little interest in doing so, or absolutely no idea about what sells. I've heard stories about how we didn't even have the WOW cataclysm collector edition sets, but we had a crap-ton of MW3 singles that sat out for days because we overestimated the amount of people who were interested in a niche shooter... (if you listen carefully you can hear my eyes rolling into the backs of their ocular cavities).

Friday Bloody Black Friday....

So after staying up to watch the Macy's day parade (of which i have paragraphs of twitter posts about, apparently) , I stayed up and cooked a non traditional thanksgiving dinner (we're rescheduling thanksgiving for this weekend), and got ready for a night of pain.

So instead of last year, I had to work the registers for this Black Friday, which meant that I got to see all the deals and price matching that people wound up getting. I could have gotten the same deals, but you can't really purchase anything while on the clock, so I got hosed. The most notable thing was that the Kinect bundles were 199 this year, which lead to a lot of people coming to the store for them. the amount of bundles we had were already sold before the sale even started. Yes, you heard correct; We had 40 Kinect bundles , which customers were lined up to get by 4am Thanksgiving day, meaning all of those bundles were already gone. Oddly enough our movies which were priced at 1.99 were thoroughly sacked, and yet we still had movies to get rid of days later. The general idea is that perhaps since every major media item has Netflix, maybe that cuts the amount of physical copies of movies being purchased recently? If that's the case then I wonder if streaming is actually becoming the "new normal"?

One interesting register story I can tell you guys, was that there was a couple trying to use an ad from a competing store to get buy two get one free offers on 360 games. The only problem with that was that the games featured in the add had to be priced at $13.99. They wanted the new Spider-Man game which was at 60 bucks. Serious no no. That's kind of what you would expect on BF, though; people trying to get over on others to get the best deals possible. I literally sat at the register about an hour with these customers who were price matching DVDs, toys and games. Almost thirty minutes over my lunch break just to get that sorted out. You say dedication, I say masochistic tendencies.

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But that was my November. Add in massive changes in my schedule, and other minor annoyances, and you pretty much have my life to a tee. I'm back, though and I'll try to get back to a regular schedule, but working retail during the holidays makes that incredibly difficult.

Well, At least I can wind down from the craziness with some good games.

Quickies: Reality show about restoring arcade games?

2011-12-01T21:37:00.001-06:00

Quickies: Reality show about restoring arcade games?
Source(s): Vimeo

So I just received an email from a member of Gamesindustry.biz about a new reality show. Yeah, I know the first thing you think is "oh god, not another one of those". After keeping up with the Kardashians, and watching the cast of Jersey Shore make drunken asses of themselves, who could blame you? However, There are some pretty decent reality shows out there; I personally love watching American Pickers, and American Restoration. The show I am about to hip you onto is pretty much like the latter of the two.

So this show is called "High Score" and I just watched the sizzle trailer for it. I have to say it strikes a cord with me for two reasons: One, I love arcades and arcade gaming, and this not only shows a team of people restoring cabinets to their former glory, it also gives tidbits of information about various arcade games from yesteryear. According to the press release, below they're courting this around to various channels to see if anyone will pick it up. I'm actually hoping that History will, or at the least G4 (I know that Tech TV in it's former state would have, G4 probably wouldn't because there are no half naked chicks trollin' for news hits)

High Score Sizzle Reel from High Score on Vimeo.

If this show gets picked up, I would definitely check it out, though I hope they get enough budget to bump up a few things, like the arcade knowledge snippits (Love the dual screen shots, not too fond of the fonts) Check it out, and also check out the press release.

Philadelphia, PA – December 1, 2011 – Todd Tuckey of TNT Amusements has teamed up with a local production company PBR Productions to produce a reality TV show called High Score (tentative title).

High Score is the “American Restoration” of the video and pinball game world. Todd Tuckey of TNT Amusements and the crew hunt all over to find the much loved amusement machines of the past and restore them to their original working beauty. As you watch the acquisition and restoration of your favorite quarter munchers we mix in enough antics and crazy capers to keep the channel from changing. Not only will their adventures keep you guessing, but some of Todd’s long list of celebrity clients might be popping in from time to time to make an appearance.
“It’s wonderful to see a once lost part of the american childhood alive and well. I think this show will rekindle the fond memories of so many peoples youth and hope fully spark a whole new arcade revolution.” said Corey Armideo, Producer, Pioneers Beyond Reality. “This show will help all the collecting world I think as it will get people re-interested in pinball machines and arcade video games! It's a win win for all” said Todd Tuckey of TNT Amuesments.
Todd’s not a stranger to the big screen, for two decades now Todd’s infomercials have made him a highly recognized local celebrity. And with High Score we bring that same fun style from out of the Philadelphia market and share with the rest of the nation. The crew at TNT is a lovable cast of motley characters that walk you through the restorations from start to finish. His success in the industry has led him to speaking engagements, his own 30-minute television special, and being featured on the reality TV show “Kendra”.

High Score is currently courting cable networks and other reality television distribution partners. A 22 minute pilot episode has been created and a sample 5 minute sizzle reel of the television program has been released to public on High Score’s vimeo page. To view the sizzle reel go tohttp://vimeo.com/32819765 The series is produced and created by Nate Hall and Corey Armideo of Pioneers Beyond Reality.
About TNT Amuesments

TNT Amuesments is the worlds largest used game show room with over 120 pieces on display in a 4,000 square foot area. Todd Tuckey is a true example of the American dream. He began a Video Game route in 1979, installing games in stores in the Philadelphia area. But, by 1984, the Arcade Video boom was over, and we had dozens of games with nowhere to sell or place them. Todd placed games outside his home in Northeast Philadelphia in late August, 1984 with big “For Sale” signs on them — and dozens of customers came! With almost 500 games sold from his driveway, Todd realized there was a big demand for commercial quality games for home use. Todd started running the business full-time in January 1985 from his garage, and then he rented his first showroom in October of that same year and is still going strong today.
About PBR PRODUCTIONS

Pioneers Beyond Reality is a Philadelphia based production company. While still in its early years they bring together a combined almost 40 years of experience. With personal projects ranging from broadcast productions, independent films, documentaries, and much more. Our producers have worked on projects for such companies as ESPN, ABC,GSN, QVC, ESPN, Ziff Davis, and Disney.

Game On,

Friday Night FIghts: Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

2011-11-18T10:53:00.107-06:00

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure
Publisher: Capcom
Platform: PS2 / DC / Arc

Year 1998

There's a good reason why you lost..... you pissed me off!!

I only have but a few favorites when it comes to manga, and one of them happens to be Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. Now I discovered the series through friends, and loved it and eventually on a mall run we wound up stumbling upon a copy of the capcom fighter. I enjoyed the game so much that I wound up searching through Ebay years later for a copy of my own. Jojo's is a little different from most fighters because instead of being the standard brawler or weapons fighter the characters use spiritual based avatars called "Stands" to defend and attack in addition to punches and kicks. but let's not get ahead of ourselves....

The Devil in the details....

Despite being a Capcom title, the controls are entirely different than the standard street fighter configuration. The attacks are basically low mid and heavy attacks on the square, triangle, or Circle buttons, with X being reserved for Stand summoning. Once the stands are out, they can be utilized for any of the bizzarre attacks and maneuvers that are associated with specific characters. The Stands aren't invunerable, though. They have their own bars underneath the character lifebars and can be disabled once the bars are depleted. This is something kind of like a guard crush that can used to quickly turn the tide and buy you some time to gain the upper hand.

Here's the breakdown of stand use in battle
(NOTE: this is from the actual game manual)

Normal Mode

- you can control your character while youre character's stand is performing a special move

- All characters can perform a backlash move.

- You can allow your stand gague to recover (switch to normal mode when your stand gague gets low in stand mode, below.)

Stand Mode

- You can perform a chain combo by pressing light, medium, and Heavy attac buttons in order.

-Your attacks do more damage
(XXSP: Jotaro, Dio, Chaca, Kan, and Avdol/Abdul are beasts in stand mode)

- You can use your character's special ability such as Double Jumping

- Only Joseph can perform a backlash move
(XXSP: since his stand isn't an entity so much as a weapon assist)

- As you block or get attacked your Stand Gauge runs out, your stand will disappear and your block will be broken. switch to Normal Mode to allow your stand gague to recover (XXSP: told ya)

The left shoulders are used for safe falls and combination med and heavy attacks, while the R1 button is used for dash / evade moves as well as the advancing block which is a block move that pushes your opponent away from you (A similar technique is used by Dan in Alpha 3). You can also block attacks in the air, which helps alot considering there are a lot of arial based attacks in this game. In addition to defense you can perform a backlash attack by pressing all three attack buttons. Throws in this game are pretty Capcom standard. you just press towards or away when you're in close and use the heavy attack button. Guard Cancels are also possible in the game by making a quarter circle motion and hitting attack once a move is blocked.

Tandem attacks are basically custom combos that take up one level of your super gage stock in order to use. Once activated you have a limited period of time to program various attacks into your program attack which will proceed to chain various moves. The Speed of the character increases once this is done, but I wouldn't reccomending using this in the middle of a battle unless you've gained some proper understanding of how the mode works.

Some of the coolest aspects of the engine are based on the actual manga itself like the ora ora battles, which take place when two stands collide using a similar multi hit attack. the result is a clash sequence where you have to continue tapping the punch button in order to overpower your opponent. A few characters are capible of pulling it off, so it's best to try it out with everyone to fiugre out what works and what doesn't. Another mode added for it's dramaticism and is very much from the manga is the "World battle" which is only available to two characters. In the manga, Dio has this ability that the other characters are trying to figure out before they confront him. (SPOILER ALERT!!!!!) The ability itself is to stop time, and eventually it's discovered that Jotaro's Star Platinum has a similar ability due to it's incredible speed and accuracy. (/SPOILER ALERT) Much like the manga and anime you can utilize the same ability these characters have in order to re-enact the final battle with impressive results.

of course there are major differences between the Playstation and Dreamcast versions; the latter being a direct arcade port, while the former sports a couple of interesting features: A Super Story mode that recaps the exciting moments from the Manga, mini games, and unlockable characters, as well as a Taro reading mode that features Avdol telling the player's future. This is one of the things I rather enjoyed about the Playstation; Their version despite the horrible load times got tons of special features over other versions and that increased their overall value. But i'm digressing..

Who Wants some?

Jojo's has an impressive roster of friends and foes for you to beat up on. Sixteen in total with Two special characters, and two unlockable characters Here's the breakdown as follows

Heroes

- Jotaro / Star Platinum - Standard shoto moveset, but un-shoto like moves. QCF is Ora ora, which is a staple of good Jotaro players, and the dragon punch move is set to star finger, which pulls your opponent in close to set up an ora ora, Jotaro hits hard and Star Platinum hits harder and faster!!

- Joseph / Hermit purple - Uses a purple vine-like stand for long distance attacks and grabs. He also uses Harmon energy (The Ripple for you old school Jojo fans) for counters, which he learned previous to this story arc.

- Noriyki Kakyoin / Heirophant Green - His Stand is fast and utilizes traps to snare sleepy opponents. Other than that he seems to be the suave character that bleeds cool. kind of a pretty boy.

- Jean Paul Polanereff / Silver Chariot - Silver Chariot can move freely and use arial and projectile based attacks. He's fast and a good Polanareff player can zone any opponent using his varied attacks

(XXSP: quick side note ; Polanereff seems to be the template for the design of KOF favorite Benimaru Nikaido. Additionally Benimaru's moveset is based off of another manga and anime fave, Hurricane Polymar. In addition to that He, Kyo Kusanagi and Goro Daimon are based off on the three main characters from Getter Robo .. yes , now you know, and knowing is half the battle.)

- Mohammmed Avdol (Abdul) / Magician's Red - Another shoto bsed moveset, but this is closer to Ryu and Ken proper. Magician can use fireballs and a shoryuken move to counter and zone jump-happy players with ease.

- Iggy / The Fool - The Fool rules the skies with a strange glider based attack while Iggy being a dog is immune to upper and some midrange attacks. (For some reason the phrase "From the waist down, you're mine!!" just popped into my head)

Villains

- Petshop / Horus - This falcon is a effing monster. He uses ice based attacks and his overall speed in order to dominate the screen.

- Maharahia / Bast - Be very careful dealing with her she has a beautiful setup; leaving what looks to be electrical outlets floating around the stage to magnetize her foes so she can throw various metalic objects at them.

- Hol Horse / Emperor - A gun toting cowboy who has bullets that can travel wherever he wants. He teams up with the hanged man to perform some creepy capture supers as well.

- Chaka / Anubis - A crazy swordsman with a posessed sword that controls him. His moves are beastly, and he has counter abilties. Deadly combination!!

- Alessy / Sethan - He likes to use his stand to revert people into children then he proceeds to beat them up. John Walsh and Chris Hansen would definitely have something to say to this creeper.

- Midler / High Priestess - Her stand has a hard defense, and her supers can juggle the fudge out of you, if you're not careful.

- D'bo (Devo) / Ebony Devil - One of the creepiest characters to grace fighters. his intro has him sliding out of a mini fridge and he keeps a knife wielding ventriloquist's dummy as a host for his stand. Pred status!! His specialty is attacks from behind (why am i not surprised?)

- Iced (Vanilla Ice) / Cream - One suspects that Capcom feared lawsuit from mr Temper tantrum, himself.) Mid Boss character. Warp abilities, and the only character that can merge with his stand by being devoured by it.

- Dio Brando / The World(o)!! (WRYYYYYYYYYY!!) - Fast like Jotaro, high damage supers and Boss priority fullscreen moves. Deadly if you don't stay on him.

Special Characters

- Jojo (young Joseph) - Due to Alessy's inability to revert him to childhood Joseph Jostar reverts to his seventeen year old self and utilizes some of the awesome powers he had in the second Jojo arc.

- Black Polenareff - Accidentally grabbing the Anubis sword Polanereff can now use sword based attacks along side Silver Chariot which makes him twice as dangerous.

- Shadow Dio - This is the version of Dio that the characters encounter previous to the showdown in Cairo. His stand is a mystery, and his attacks are very stealthy, and the world cannot be summoned directly.

Unlockable Characters

- Hol Horse and Voing (Boingo) - Hol Horse tries one more time to take out the Jostars and their friends using the surviving half of the brothers, Oing and Voing (Oingo Boingo) to even the odds.

- Kan / Anubis - The second Anubis wielder. Not as wild as Chaka, but he is pretty formidable.

- Rubber Soul / Yellow Temperance - This character pretends to be Kakoyin to confuse and ambush Jotaro. his moveset is limited to Kakoyin's.

- New Kakoyin / Heirphant Green - Hey it's Kakoyin with shades on. He wears his sunglasses at night so he can, so he can....look cool? I don't know. In the Manga his eyes were severly damaged by Empress, and he had to spend time recouperating. He shows up just in time (as cool as ever)

How Bizarre...

The game's visuals are pretty stylized due to their comic origins. The backgrounds are incredibly dynamic, being done in panoramic fashion with some being in a slight fish eye lens perspective. All the locales are intact from the manga, and are in full color glory. You can tell that this game was made within the point of Capcom's fighter heyday, due to the quality and amount of effort that was poured into it. The characters are animated beautifully, the feel of the game ties into the strangeness and mystique of the manga. Some of the supers are just mindblowingly awesome, like Hol Horse's destroying the glass of our televisions with his gunfire to create reflective surfaces for the hanged man to travel through, or Chaka cutting the background in half along with the characters. In addition to the supers, if you defeat any character with a super combo, you're treated to this awesome background shot of their battered faces writhing in agony across the screen, which is a really nice touch to add to the impact of seeng your opponent get beaten within an inch of his or her life.

Any Surprises?

In the Playstation version of the game characters and additional modes can be unlocked by filling the jojo ability gague in the menu. In order to do that you have to finish super story mode with most if not all of your story seqences at C grade or higher (A's and S's usually do the trick). To do this you have to complete the segments as close to how they went in the manga as possible. This may require you to read the actual Manga,or at the very least consult sites like gamefaqs.com for information. Either way you'll get a crash course in the manga and you might just become a fan.

Player Result...

I would suggest you play the Dreamcast and Playstation versions of the game respectufully, but I'll warn you the DC version is arcade level hard even at it's normal difficulty. You can tell the game was meant to be a quarter eater and a crucible to forge you into a mean machine. The Playstation version though is meant for fans of the series, and those who want to know more about Jojo but can't get their hands on the full series. Araki puts his name on the credits so you know it's a game that's very close to the source material. Unfortunately, this is within the tail end of the Capcom arcade fighter era, and it's not likely that we're going to see many fighters like this again. But as long as we have the really awesome games of the past like this their legends will never die!

Next Month: A tale of swords and swordiness.....

Quickies: The best Easter egg ever....

2011-11-04T09:31:00.003-05:00

Quickies: The best Easter egg ever...
Source(s): Google

Step1: Go to google
Step 2: Type "Do a Barrel Roll"
Step 3: ????
Step 4: Lulz Profit!!

NOTE: this also works with typing " Z or R twice"

that is so win.

My personal reason for Skyward Sword media blackout.

2011-11-02T11:49:00.000-05:00

Between the funny commercials, the Zelda anniversary swag, and the things i've seen about SS, I've already decided in my head that I want to get it at launch. The game looks fantastic, the story enticing, and that gold Wii remote is downright irresistible. With that being said, I am actually glad that i'm in the position that i am in for the moment; That is, not having internet and sort of facing info blackout situation. I generally dislike spoilers (Ask my writing partner about that, she'll tell you the same with utmost certainty), and I want to kind of be within the perspective of the audience for this game. I have this ideal that perhaps being in the shoes of a "journalist" of gaming ruins perception and forces you to rush through the game just to throw out your two cents. If the occasional Zelda game is a five course meal, I want to savor every morsel of it, and that means not knowing what to expect and just taking it one minute at a time.

In the past I would jump headlong into as much media coverage for a game as possible, because that's what I felt was the thing to do. However, In this case. LoZ games are few and far between, and despite it's flaws, I really enjoyed Twilight Princess, for it's immersion and the interesting take on it's version of Hyrule. I had very little information preceding my playthrough of TP (granted, this was way before i decided to try my hand at being a video games blogger), and perhaps that is the reason why I enjoyed the game so much. So it would most likely be advantageous for me to apply the same reasoning towards this game. This also makes me wonder if my recent lack of internet is for the best, at least in this situation?

Horror Review: Doom 3

2011-10-28T11:59:00.052-05:00

Doom 3

System: PC / Xbox

The year is 2145 - The setting: An outpost station on Mars ran by the Union Aerospace Conglomerate - The largest corporation in human history. Experiments are taking place here in biological, and weapons research, as well as a highly experimental experiment regarding teleportation. As with most corporations it's location on Mars means UAC can perform these experiments without the legal limitations of earth's government. Things are tense on the station, as people are showing signs of being paranoid, and doing incredibly strange things... and then it happens.. The power goes out, and all Hell breaks loose..literally!

Third verse, same as the first....

Doom 3 is for all intensive purposes a remake of the first Doom game, and yet with current technology and new advancements it's an awesome experience that sets it very much apart of the source material. If we were to have a reference point for the game's inspirations, we could use movies like say Event Horizon, or Clive Barker's Hellraiser films. The graphics are ultra realistic for their time, despite being somewhat dated due to the limitations of the Unreal 3 Engine. However, This is another instance of uncanny Valley being beneficial in establishing a particular mood and atmosphere. Doom 3 is a largely dark game as most of the station's power grid is down save for critical functions like oxygen, so you'll have to use a flashlight to progress. Unfortunately one of the game's flaws happens to be that you can't hold a flashlight and a weapon at the same time, which forces you to alternate between the two. This might be considered a flaw, but let's consider the implications of this; You're forced to use something that renders you temporarily helpless in order to better see your surroundings. Once you're confronted, you'll find yourself startled and trying to gain enough ground to quickly switch over to weapons, which is only a button press away. The Flashlight also runs out of energy due to frequent use, so you have to give it ample time to recharge inbetween uses.

Corridors, Closets and Paths, Oh my!

Like many FPS, The game is very linear and takes place almost always through some sort of corridor in order to continue on. Occasionally, there are open spaced areas to do combat in, and yet those tend to be the most challenging, as you're constantly being swarmed by the more difficult enemies, and boy do they get difficult, but the challenge is oh-so-rewarding once you progress further. Luckily you can save at any point in the game, which is incredibly beneficial if you want to just jump back into the game where you left off. The game's story is shown through recovered data from the PDAs of UAC employees, and through the survivors and characters you encounter. As stated before doing this gives you complete control over your character, and the cutscenes are actually not that intrusive or plentiful compared to later FPS games. The downside is that some of the events and storylines contradict others, creating some sort of strange paradoxical nature. There are also references to previous games in the series, which serve as nods to long time fans of the series.

shocking surprises around ever corner...yes yes bad pun, I know.

Hell sounds kinda like NIN...

It was rumored in the development process that Trent Reznor would be providing the music and sound effects for Doom 3, due to him being a fan of the series. However, due to budgetary constraints and other issues (Wikipedia calls it "time, money and bad management" ) This was not to be. The good news was that former NIN drummer, Chris Vrenna provided the music for the main theme. The audio is pure perfection, and almost vital for surround sound or headphones to get the best scares. You're constantly on edge the entire time due to the things you hear, and even go so far as to be taunted by the game's enemies towards the end of the game. Some of the most scariest moments is hearing the game's villain cackling or talking smack about you while you fight off his minions. It can be a bit unnerving and still it makes the experiences just oh-so-right.

But I just want a hug!!

We have such sights to show you......

Personally, if you're interested in looking for this game, I suggest you get the expansion version "Resurrection of Evil" which includes Doom 2 and Ultimate Doom as unlockables, as well as a few other extras (The flashlight can be taped to weapons in this version as well ), but if you find a copy of Doom 3, in any incarnation and haven't played the Xbox or the PC version, I advise you to do yourself a favor and check it out. It's one of those games that will have you looking over your shoulder both in game and in your living room.

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Thanks for reading this week's horror review reprints. I hope you liked the small touches i've added to throw a bit more insight into the games you love. Once again, I would like to wish everyone a very happy and safe Halloween, and next year expect to see five all new reviews of horror games for your reading pleasure.

Game On!

Horror Review: Silent Hill 2

2011-10-27T11:37:00.002-05:00

Silent Hill 2
Platform: PS2, PC, Xbox

James sits in a dilapidated rest stop bathroom, as he contemplates the events that transpired. His beautiful wife Mary sent him a letter stating that she's waiting for him in Silent Hill, a town they had vacationed to in the past. She's waiting for him, in their favorite place... But that's the problem. Mary died some time ago... So who sent James this letter? The answers can only be found in one place, The same place where Harry Mason had once been wandering around looking for his daughter Cheryl.... Once again we're lead back to the ominous Silent Hill.

Not your mother's Silent Hill......

If you've played the first Silent Hill and expect the sequel to be along the same lines, you're surely mistaken, however this isn't a bad thing at all. Silent Hill 2 is an engaging experience that places you in a nightmare / mystery that has you traveling around the titular foggy little town to discover the whereabouts of your dead spouse. If I could relate this to any horror movie it would probably be something done by Dario Argento like Suspiria, which places sight and sound slightly ahead of conventional storytelling. This is actually interesting, because the game's visuals are very 'uncanny valley' in terms of character modeling, and yet this strangely only helps fuel the creepy atmosphere of the game itself. The first five minutes of the game gives me flashbacks of watching the 1966 horror drama, Dark Shadows, which intrigues me every time I watch a cutscene.

The use of "Uncanny Valley" makes the game even more creepy ..

Sights and Sounds from beyond......

The town is deserted but their maintenance is top notch!!!

The enemy models are nothing short of high octane nightmare fuel. From the vinyl zombies that scurry like cockroaches when you beat them down, to the scary nurses, to the hulking juggernaut, Pyramid Head, who seems to show his affection for his fellow monsters in rather disturbing ways.

The audio is incredible. You can hear just about every little thing creeping up on you, from the extra set of footsteps shadowing your own that seem to stop when you do, or the groaning creatures, or the pitched down groans coming from above or below you in the dark other-world. Surround sound only compliments this disturbing experience. I found myself genuinely creeped out a bunch of times, and because of this I tend to look around a lot during days of heavy fog to ensure that i'm not being stalked by monsters.

A hands on supernatural experience...

The Gameplay is very responsive, giving you a choice between the standard controls from the previous game or a newly refined 2D control scheme that takes away some of the clunkiness. You can also adjust the level of difficulty in the game right down to the difficulty of puzzles you have to face. Personally, I love this level of customization as it takes away the barrier of entry for people who might be interested, but have a hard time getting through the more difficult puzzles to fully enjoy this experience. The Map system has been refined as well, adding more markings to the map in a means of ensuring that you have a easier time getting around the town. Like the first game SH2 has multiple endings that are determined by your actions throughout the main game.

Foggy with a chance of what the hell is that!!!

Come to me, James...

If you're into horror that doesn't just stop at monsters, and goes into the depths of the human psyche, then this is your kind of game. It's audio and visual presentation and new options and creatures streamline the experience of Silent Hill into nothing short of a survival horror masterpiece. Those who dare to venture into the depths of this sleepy little town will enjoy every minute of their experience, but please try to stay alive long enough to reach it's conclusion...

Next Time: We have such sights to show you....

Horror Review: Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem

2011-10-26T11:19:00.009-05:00

Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
Platform: GCN

"What might seem normal to some, would appear, to most, to be acts of total insanity,
Those who are, to you, so far detached from, what you consider to be, `normal realms of reality', Wandering from, what you believe to be, the path of common sense and morality."

- Peter Russell

It's the middle of the night. A rather attractive blonde woman is in the middle of a rather disturbing dream where she must stop a group of rotting corpses from making a meal out of her. Before she wakes up she's greeted by the spectral figure of her grandfather. She awakes and then suddenly recieves some bad news. Her grandfather has been murdered. She hops the next redeye to Rhode Island and begins to look for any clues as to what exactly he was into that would lead to his untimely demise. Of course, this only eads her to a strange leather-bound book which claims to know the truth of the matter.. and as we all know The truth is stranger than fiction.

The Darkness comes..

The game begins with Alex Roivas, the last of the Roivas family line, and as the story progresses you control 11 other characters from Roman Centurion, Pious Agustus, to a firefighter in the persian gulf during Operation Desert Storm. As Agustus, we learn about the game's combat system - An interesting mechanic where you target specific areas of the enemy's body in order to disable and defeat them. This is just one of the many things you'll learn as more information is presented to you in small doses to create a more natural playthrough that isn't tied down by long tutorial sessions. The game's Magickal system is presented in the same fashion, being slowly built up over each chapter to slowly groom you into a capible adventurer to face against the coming darkness.

Gambling with Sanity

On first play you'll notice Eternal Darkness isn't your average survival horror game. Sure, like Resident Evil, you have your undead, your monsters and your sinister figures, but this leans more towards H.P. Lovecraft. For anyone who isn't in the know on Lovecraft here's a short wikipedia blurb.

Lovecraft's guiding literary principle was what he termed "cosmicism" or "cosmic horror", the idea that life is incomprehensible to human minds and that the universe is fundamentally alien. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity.

And in this game gambling with sanity is exactly what the characters do as they find themselves coming to terms with the fact that the world they live it is not quite what it seems. In fact, the centerpiece of the game is it's sanity meter which depletes when confronted by unnatural things. If the sanity meter gets too low you'll start hallucinating an instead of playing the game the game will start playing with you! How? well I don't want to give too much away, but nothing...NOTHING is what it seems when your sanity is at it's lowest. There are two ways of rebuilding sanity, one way is through the eventual learning of rune manipulation (magick), the other is by finishing off these creatures one-by-one. Depending on the conditions you choose at the beginning of the game you could lose Vitality, Magickal ability or Sanity more rapidly through the course of a particular chapter (If you want to find out the true ending of the game you have to play through all three circumstances in any order).

Sensory overload..

Going into Eternal Darkness you tend to notice how crisp the graphics are, and how much detail there is it's period based backdrops, paintings and such. You can easily tell that Silicon Knights have spent an impressive amount of time on the game's visual elements (actually the game was in development during the 64 era but was put on hold by suggestion of Nintendo until the release of the GC). Of course due to the limitations of the time the cutscenes can look a little dated, but the in-game footage bests a lot of the current generation efforts shown on the Wii. This revelation is nothing short of amazing for this and many other Gamecube games, and sad for the state of third party companies, currently.

The music is very much compelling and very atmospheric, but the icing on the cake is the strange noises that you'll hear as you're travelling through the mansion. You'll find yourself going back to look for certain things because you'll hear something, or think something is going on where it isn't, and it's merely another instance of the game playing it's own tricks on you.

You will come to understand fear as I have...

If you've enjoyed playing Clock Tower, and the tricks that game plays with you, then you'll love Eternal Darkness, which could clearly be called a worthy successor to the genre of "mind fuckery" established by the former. The game is both cerebral and intelligent for the subject matter and story, and yet never resorts to mere cheapness to accomplish it's goal of disturbing or scaring the crap out of whomever plays it. Additionally This game is even more polished in terms of using story and character development than recent survival horror games. I don't even have to mention that this game also features multiple female leads who aren't belittled or objectified for the sake of it's audience. This only proves that true horror can be achieved in games without having to shoehorn explosions, guns and half-naked women in to snare in players. The only question I have for you, reader is this? do you have what it takes to fend off the coming darkness?

Next Time: James Sunderland is a bad husband.....

Horror Review: Splatterhouse 2

2011-10-25T10:59:00.003-05:00

Splatterhouse 2
Platform: Genesis / Virtual Console

It's been three months since Rick's escape from West Mansion...

Rick has been tormented by nightmares of Jennifer's screams and the infernal temptations of the Terror Mask, the Very mask he used to gain the power he needed to fight his way out of the monsterous residence. Despite his escape he wasn't able to save Jennifer and now he finds himself reliving the events of the original Splatterhouse in his dreams. But something else is calling out to him and telling him to return to where it all started, and that he can save Jennifer if he only comes back.. that something is of course the Terror mask itself!!!

Splatterhouse 2 is the obligatory continuation of the original Turbo Grafx and arcade game, which is a side scrolling brawler that takes you through eight stages and from here to the hearafter to save your beloved girlfriend from the clutches of the dead and deader. The game has obvious influences from movies like Friday the 13th, but it also takes a lot from movies like Evil dead (lol vomiting deer heads) and Alien (the screaming Mimis ) and even Chud (Basicaly, they're zombies, but you fight them in the sewer in one stage and they look closer to chuds than anything) to create an interesting styled experience all it's own.

Now you're playing with Power!!

Rick can basically punch, kick, jumpkick, and slide his way through the game, while using other helpful items like lead pipes, Shotguns, wooden Oars, Chainsaws, and Chud heads to beat the deadites to a (bloodier) pulp. The controls are fairly responsive, but Rick has all the speed and grace of a molasses covered rinoceros, then again you tend to forget that you're basically controlling a hero version of Jason Voorhees, so I guess it's par for the corpse (ha). To be fair, Rick controls about the same as he did in the TG16 and Arcade versions of Splatterhouse, so at least the game gets an A for consistency.

is that enough gore for ya?

The graphics are well... splattery. The game plays heavily on Gore, so watching the monsters go splat all over the walls and floor can be pretty entertaining. The game is well designed for it's time, right down to the heavily detailed monsters in some stages. One boss' eyes literally explode out of their sockets upon defeat, while another falls over into a splashy puddle of fleshy goodness. If you're used to watching movies like Saw or Hostel you're probably not going to flinch at all, but that's ok. Back in the 90s we loved Splatterhouse for this kind of stuff.

The sound of fear...

I might sound a little biased, but I think the music is fantastic! Out of the things I admire the Genny for, one is definitely it's sound chip, which didn't do as well for voices as it did for aiding in the atmospheric nature of many of it's games. Splat 2 was no exception here, as it provides some very creepy music to keep you going through all eight stages. The most chilling use of this is on the 'ritual' stage where you have a combination of eerie music and some sort of strange chanting. Back in the day, I kept having to turn down the sound for fear of something being summoned within my bedroom to get me as I slept. Other tracks that get special mention are the intro which you'll probably find yourself replaying again and again on each playthrough just to set the tone of the adventure. Additional favorites are stage 3's rotten river and all of the boss music.

Tough, but not impossible..

The game has adjustable difficulty, and each time you complete a stage the game gives you back two hearts as a reward (a throwback to the original). There are times where you find yourself having to memorize patterns to continue on (which was a staple of games back then, and a test of skill and timing). As you progress things get a little more difficult and If you lose all your lives you have to go back to the beginning of the stage. This may put off some of the new-schoolers, but a lot of the older gamers know the drill.

Splatterhouse 2 is old school gaming all the way, and could be called 'dated' by most, but it's a really good entry in the series. It brings a lot more to the table to further improve a rather solid formula established by the first game. If you liked the first game, or are looking for a good VC game to play on a dark and stormy night, then you should definitely give this one a run-through.

Next Time: You will come to understand fear as i have....

Horror Review: Clock Tower

2011-10-24T10:23:00.031-05:00

Clock Tower (The first fear)
Platform: SNES, PS1

It was the start of a new life for four girls from Granite orphanage. Jennifer, Lotte, Ann, and Laura were to be the newest addition to Mary and Simon Barrows' family. Little do the girls know, that the happiness.....will soon .....turn...to.... TERROR *cue music*

No it's not the plot of any horror film you've seen within the past two decades, it's actually the plot for a video game. Well more like THE videogame that has been noted by many people as one of the scariest games ever. Yes, I'm talking about Clock Tower.

Only Human..
Clock Tower is a point-and-click based survival horror game developed by Human Entertainment for use on the Super Famicom. The game plays similar to the point and click adventures of the time, yet the controls are adjusted for use with the SNES gamepad (although, if you own the mouse accessory which came with Mario Paint, you could use that as well). Human Entertainment has been developing games for years, and you may be familiar with their previous games like Kabuki Quantum Fighter, Monster Party, Vasteel2, Fire pro Wrestling and Vanguard Bandits.

Of course the company folded in 1999 and while properties like Clock Tower were bought up by Capcom (and developed by Sunsoft), Human ent's employees have gone on to form other studios like NudeMaker (infinite Space/ Steel Batallion), Spike (Crimson Tears / DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 3) and a little known company called Grasshopper Manufacture (Killer 7/Flower sun and rain / No More Heroes). One more little tidbit before I get right into the review; Clock Tower is loosely based on the 1985 Dario Argento film, Phenomena starring Jennifer Conolly (Jennifer, the main character looks just like Conolly it's no wonder why she has her name as well) and the late Donald Pleasence. Now that we have the background information out of the way let's dive into the review.

Come play with me...
Clock Tower plays out like your standard slasher film, as you start out in the parlor of Mansion making small talk with your friends. Naturally you start to wonder what's taking Ms. Mary so long and follow her, only to find that your friends are gone. You have this eerie feeling that someone is watching your every move. As you start walking towards the foyer you get a chill up your spine and get a sinking feeling in your stomach as the eerie music box -like theme begins to play. From here on out you'll encounter 'Scissorman' a delightful little boy who wields enormous hedge clippers and wants to play a game of hide-and-seek with you. If you win, he'll flee only to pop out when you least expect it, but if you lose the game you lose your life!

Somewhere between being hiding and running for your life, you'll have the chance to find clues as to where exactly your friends are and who this strange child is, and the connection between him and the elusive Ms. Mary. As the clues come you find that you may be into something far more sinister than you ever imagined.

The game itself doesn't exactly allow you to control Jennifer as much as the game lets you guide her using the cursor. You can lead her to various clues that pop up, as well as to a suitable hiding spot to elude your would-be murderer long enough to get to the bottom of things. As you guide Jennifer through the mansion. This only adds to the sense of helplessness she has against seemingly overwhelming odds.

There will be various scares and things that will make your blood run cold. If this happens Jennifer's mental state will weaken and if it weakens too much she will react accordingly. She may run in the opposite direction, she may trip while running away from something or someone, or she might be so weak that her next move may be her last. You can tell what mental state she's in by looking at the color surrounding her portrait (the colors range from blue which is good to red which is bad). When her portrait background flashes red and blue this means she's in 'panic mode' and you have to press the B button to help her fight her way out of the situation.

Clock Tower doesn't really have bosses, more like special events that play out
through your use of the panic button to overcome them providing that you're mentally capable enough to handle it. Luckily, she can calm herself down by using the X button to stop her in her tracks then just stand/sit in place
to calm down.

Jenn isn't completely helpless, either. She can use the items she finds around the mansion. She will find rocks, rope, Pesticides, and other things to avoid the traps that await her. survive long enough and she will eventually uncover the secrets of the Barrows' Mansion and reach the conclusion of her harrowing tale.

There are eight endings in total, and Since the game is basically open-ended you can find the clues in any order you want. However, only certain events lead to the clues you'll need to unlock the special ending, that is if you can keep yourself or your friends alive long enough to see a happy ending.

An audio visual masterpiece to die for...
The first thing you'll notice about Clock Tower is it's stunning visuals. The graphics are actually very well done, and the intro sequences and some of the cutscenes give you the impression that they could just be touched up photographs or an elaborate set of digital paintings. Of course this actually adds more

to the game itself than if they were to stick to a more anime or cartoonish design. Likewise the character faces are fantastically done as well. Every character has their own portrait with moving mouth, blinking eyes and expressions which change to suit the situation. Jennifer, who you will actually take control of throughout the course of the game has different expressions showing her constant mental anguish as she tries to survive the night in the mansion.

Jennifer as well as the other characters are animated very well. Characters seem to have a personality about them through their movements, like Lotte's run or the limped walk of 'Scissorman' as he inches towards you.

The Music is very atmospheric and creepy, and it pulls you in at all the right moments. In addition to the music, there are noises for each room you visit that are designed to either creep you out or play havoc with your nerves. This game never lets you rest, or think that you're out of the woods, as each thing you do could very well be the end of you.

Dead End?
Clock Tower is one of those games that attacks you on both senses, and forces you to keep your guard up at all times I've played through the game four times now, and I'm still never sure how the game will end every time I play it. Seriously there are times when I feel that it's the game that's really playing me, not the other way around, and for that I enjoy the experience even more for this. There's something else I've noticed as well when playing this game; Clock Tower tends to be the closest I've ever seen to a game being able to mimic that horror film experience without sacrificing the game's uniqueness to be more 'cinematic'. It follows the beats of a horror film fairly well, and keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time, while you wonder what you have to do next, and the story is simple enough to follow, yet the game retains an open-ended feel that lets you contribute to the story in any order you want. Sure you're going through the motions to get an ending, but you feel like you have some say in the way the story unfolds, and that's really nice considering the current 'story over gameplay' trend going through gaming right now.

If you ever manage to find the PSX version of this game (Clock Tower- The first fear) or just manage to find an emulator and a translated rom of the game, I suggest you give it a try. The game is fairly short, but has enough to where you'd enjoy it on multiple playthroughs. Just remember to breathe deeply and tell yourself it's only a game...

Next Time: the Jennifers are different but the peril stays the same...

Friday Night Fights : Double Dragon Neo Geo

2011-10-14T11:17:00.003-05:00

Somehow, the "you win the prize" caption seems suitable here.....

Note: Friday Night Fights is a fighting game review and guide segment that is posted every third friday of the month.. Be sure to check back for more exciting fighting games from yesteryear and beyond.

So I'm throwing out some new segments, just to test the waters and decided that it's high time i should cover my obsession with a bit more depth. Yes, that's right. Fighting Games. With the changing times we're often hit with so many games that we're often overlooking alot. this segment is aimed at covering fighting games that people might want to check out or just flew under the radar...Hell, even the ones that flat out were avoided due to whatever. Hopefully you, the reader will seek them out and give them a playthrough if you're in need of something to get you through a dry spell.

I have lots to cover, and plenty of time to cover them at the moment. so here we go...

Double Dragon (Movie)
Publisher: Technos
System: Neo Geo / Arc

Year: 1995

When the Double Dragon movie was announced as being in planing, people were excited. Back then it was a different time, and people expected that video game movies would of been awesome. Now we're a little more cynical and smarter about it, thanks to Uwe Boll. However, one of the good things that came out of that horrible train wreck of a film was the arcade tie-in fighting game.Okay, so the game was no Super Street Fighter or KOF 95 at the time, but it had it's own sense of charm, and an interesing system. Let's get more into that...

Shuko: "I went from T-1000 to this? FML"

Devil in the details..

The first and most important thing you need to know is that The controls are quite unconventional from your standard fighter. Where the punches and kicks are tethered to invidudal buttons, this game actually allows you to have punches and kicks on the same button depending on the joystick. If you want light attacks use the A button, Mid-range attacks are B and C and D is for Hard (yet slower) attacks.

Much like later games like Guilty Gear, you can double jump to avoid certain attacks. This comes in handy when dealing with characters like Rebecca, Amon or Dulton who seem to be projectile happy. Additionally, you can block while in mid-air which makes it easier to defend against 'dragon punch- ish' moves. This saves your rear, but it also lowers the possibility of countering jump-in attacks. You can dash left or right by double tapping the diretion you want to move in,A feature Which has became a staple in 2D fighters since the glory days.

Billy and Marian - solving lover's quarrels through domestic violence since 1995

The engine seems to be fairly solid from what I'm noticing on the playthrough. Super bars are charged in a "tug-of-war" like fashion. The super bar is overlayed on top of the player and enemy lifebars, and the person who gives out the most damage slowly gains more of the super bar until the character names are replaced by a flashing "charge" graphic. Once that starts going you can either perform super combos, and if you're playing as the Lee twins you can morph into your "Dragon" forms (by pressing all four buttons at once) which amp up your special moves (kind of a longer version of Sol Badguy's Dragon Install).

Large amounts of damage can dizzy your opponent and leave them either standing in place or on the ground in a daze. if they're on the ground you can attack for additional damage by holding the joystick down and towards your opponent and hitting an attack button. this is also another staple which has been featured in other SNK fighters like the Samural Spirits (shodown) series. From what i've seen it's easy to get a good dizzy in if you plant a couple three or four hit combos. kicking them when they're down is kind of like putting the dot on the exclamation point if you catch my drift. If you find yourself dizzied just wiggle the joystick left to right and tap one of the four buttons repeatedly to shake yourself out of it.

Well placed counters can net you some pretty big damage, as well as a generous amount of points. Points aren't really that important in fighters unless you're trying to net yourself the top ten ranking spot, but it's something interesting of note.

Amon: Eff you and your valley girl gang signs

Who wants some?

There are ten fighters total, Most of the characters are from the series proper. Billy, Jimmy and Marion, and Abobo are all there, albeit with thier slightly altered movie makovers intact (for good reason. unlike Scott Wolf and Mark Dacascos these Lee Twins actually look like they could be related and Abobo only gets 'roided out when he powers up for his super). Other characters range from returning series characters like Burnov (who was the first boss from Double Dragon II: The Revenge), and subboss Duke (Super Double Dragon's final boss) While other characters like Eddie, Dulton, Rebecca and Amon (who if wikipedia is to be believed is based on Double Dragon III boss/Ally, Yagyu Ranzou's design) seem to be there to round out the roster.

The character types go as followed

Playable

- Billy and Jimmy Lee = Standard shotoclone moveset, fairly balanced attacks (Jimmy has slightly different animations).

- Marion = Speed based character closer to Chun Li than anything. she has an array of kicks and air grabs.

- Eddie = Boxer type with some deadly counters. High priority.

- Burnov = mid-range grappler with projectiles.

- Abobo = Grappler with high powered attacks but low speed. Similar to Zangief.

- Amon = Ninja character with upper range speed and arial attacks. Similar to Samsho's Hattori Hanzo

- Rebecca = Fire based projectiles and decent anti air and basic attacks

- Dulton = Brawler character. projectile user with high emphasis on power

- Cheng fu = Drunken Kung fu master. Unconventional attacks similar to Chen from King Of Fighters.

Boss characters

- Duke = Sub Boss. Cheap as hell. Uses heavy cornering techniques to gain advantage. special happy.

- Koga Shuko = Boss. Boss syndrome may apply here. Projectile happy, teleport happy, ect.

She runs good but how does she look?

The graphics are pretty standard for late 90s fighters. I don't mind them that much, personally, but to most they are very dated. Each character has their own introduction animation which shows something getting broken or blown up.The characters themselves are pretty stiff in terms of animation as well, but this is long before the high quality visuals of Guilty Gear, Third Strike or MOTW. Amon's super seems to be the most interesting of the characters, where he stands on your head and calls out varying jutsus before causing his victim to explode.

Hogwarts has an important message for Marian

That's as awesome as the stage you fight him on, which is on the wings of a bi-plane flying through what looks to be the grand canyon (The winner is treated to an animation of the loser flying off into the background as he screams in fail ridden terror). Other stages like Marion's resistance hideout mimic the movie set, maintaining arcade games, destructable amusement rides, and A large screen that shows stills from the film itself. The other stages range from the burning wastelands, a submerged hollywood, (California suffered from a catostrophic earthquake in the film which serves for it's post apocolyptic backdrop ) Chinatown, The sewers of San Francisco, and other interesting (but not really that interesting) locales.

Any surprises?

As far as i know there really aren't any hidden characters. With most arcade games you could play as the boss characters if you fiddled around with the dipswitches, but I don't really think shadow boss was that much worth playing.

Update: Actually the Neo Geo version has Duke and Shuko playable, but they are still not even worth playing considering their high priority and unbelievable cheapness.

Player Result...

If you're in the middle of a lazy saturday or sunday afternoon and need a quick fighting game fix, Double Dragon will suffice. It's not a top tier fighter by any means, but it serves it's purpose and can be very entertaining. As i said before, this is probably one of the only good things to come out of that trainwreck of a film, and if you've seen the film in question, you know that's saying a great deal of a lot.

Next Month: We'll be dealing with something a little bizarre...

The influence lives on A Yuzo Koshiro Music Spotlight - Pt Final

2011-10-11T10:54:00.037-05:00

This post is the continuation of the series "The Influence lives on: A Yuzo Koshiro Music spotlight" for parts 1, 2-1, 2-2, 3-1 and 3-2 click on the links provided

I had been running music at random while I was surfing the internet a few weeks ago, and had nodded off at the table (This surely has much to do with me trying to retain some sense of a social life on my weekends away from work). As I woke up I heard a particular track from the Streets of Rage 3 soundtrack and it got stuck in my head. I had this song on repeat for the better half of an hour just marveling at the way it played around with a few melodies. The name of the track is Cycle II, and started off a four song set of awesome towards the end of that soundtrack. It's funny how things work out that way.

Since I started this series, I've been trying to show any and all of the things that make Yuzo Koshiro's music so awesome and how it inspires fans and musicians alike. There are very few composers that dabble in as many different genres of music as he does, and to see the influence from such games spread as far as into.

It's been over a course of weeks into months that I have been trying to formulate a proper finale to this. It's been both nerve-wracking, and irritating, yet how do you end something that still goes on and on? That's the kicker. THe title is in fact true to it's basic meaning. The influence lives on and on. Music at it's very core is spread on it's influence. Someone hears a song that resonates with them so strongly that they too want to make music and the cycle continues.

The obvious answer to the question proposed, is to not end it - but to just express the love and interest in such influence and to keep the influence going. I grew up on music,and Video games, which is why i have such a fierce love for both, and to find someone who was willing to take the interesting music of the 80s and 90s and actually echo those sounds into gaming culture made me feel that Video game music can be a valid form of music. Hell In the UK people were bumping SOR music in clubs, so what's to say that Video game music can't be played on mainstream media? Years later here we are listening to mainstream music hits with slight chiptune flair, and Dubstep which is both fantastic and thoroughly intoxicating, is only growing into mainstream acceptance. The things that guys like Skrillex are doing are just evolutionary steps from dub's humble underground beginnings overseas, but you can tell that the different styles take influence from everything including VGM. Much like a person takes food from a buffet; Picking and choosing at random to create a more solid 'meal' for the ears. It's completely fantastic, and yet throughly facinating.

If this, and the things Franck Rivore / Danger is doing is just a precursor to what the future of music is like, and VGM has much to do with it, then I'm effing ready for the future!! I have nothing else but to thank Yuzo and other fantastic composers for pushing artists to produce some fantastic pieces of ear candy. I'll be covering more of those composers popular and lesser known just to ensure that you, the reader know that awesomeness exists in the most little known places, and so yes, that the influence can live on... forever.

Game On!!

Quickies: Hands on with Vita brings worry

2011-10-10T10:59:00.002-05:00

Quickies: Hands on with Vita brings worry
source(s): 1up.com

I've been spending my morning reading through the Playstation Vita hands on through 1up, and I kind of find myself slightly worried about Sony's habit of one-upping themselves into obscurity. Here's a link to the article in question. The biggest things I'm noticing so far is the amount of "clutter" going on in some of the games. What i'm getting at is that in some games there will be options for additional buttons on the screen which can be used for various tasks. This seems like Sony is trying to push for games that feature the same level of features that Ios and Android games have, while proving some sort of superiority of buttons. This isn't necessarily bad, but it leaves a danger of over-complicating the controls; a move that would not bother the core demographic as much as alienate the expanded market, which Sony was supposedly vying for. I guess if Nintendo is courting the Core demographic then Sony is just going to go one better in that aspect.

Another issue I'm reading about here, is the fact that the ability to switch between front and back touchpads seem unnatural (Something I noticed when I first saw the handheld) There are a few other issues with the design that might not prove good for everyone like the small buttons and the tiny analog nubs. These might be things that could change within the course of a hardware revision down the line, though.

The final thing I'm presenting is the huge push for DLC that was mentioned on the last page of the article. One would hope that this won't hinder the amount of content featured in games, but that's something that's yet to be seen. The up-side is that there are going to be more launch games than ever before featured on the Vita, but then again for every good game there might be a bunch of duds lingering.

While I'm not really that excited about the Vita, I do want to give it a proper hands on, myself in order to throw my own two cents into the fray. At the least, maybe we'll get a demo kiosk at the store.

Like A Boss

2011-10-05T10:51:00.000-05:00

There is a natural order to fighting games that has been established over the years. Usually it goes like this; Fight a set number of opponents which range from 'braindead easy' to moderate to challenging, and then you face the boss which is a mixture of the moderate to challenging difficulty mixed with a bit of cheapness for good measure (No such thing as fighing dirty in a street fight, am i right? ). While other companies follow this to the letter, SNK has turned the formula on it's ear for decades now with their brand of boss-isms. Fans of games like KOF, Art of Fighting, or any of the other SNK fighthers know what I'm talking about as well - The bosses can be cruel, vicious and downright insidious when they want to be. Throwing out massive damage with ease, and making you feel like after your playthrough you should go file a police report and have a doctor run a kit on you, because yeah...

After much time spent playing SVC Chaos, KOF XI, and other fighters over an extended period of time, it's believed that the reason SNK has been doing this for decades, but it isn't done deliberately to crush the spirits of would be Kings and Queens of fighters, actually quite the opposite.

The symptoms of Boss Syndrome.

First of all let's look at the symptoms of Boss Syndrome in order to better understand what it is. SNK wiki has the info.

The syndrome manifests by an overall weakness that is made up for by unfair advantages. There are several recognizable traits that can be linked to a small number of core symptoms typically stemming from poor programming.
Arbitrary advantages over playable characters in the game
attacks with unreasonable damage, priority, speed, range or recovery
greater defense than average
immunity to chip damage
unavoidable moves that hit the player regardless of their position, and can only be blocked
Disregard for established gameplay rules
no dizzy state when featured in the game
infinite or costless super special moves
unblockable moves
Absence of reaction time, command input and "human error"
ability to read the inputs of a human player and/or appropriately reacting to the player's inputs at the same time as (or even before) the player's own character does
inhuman consistency in achieving maneuvers that require precise timing or difficult commands
never falling for a command counter unless initiated during the start up of the boss's attack
ability to follow up every hit with a combo on reaction regardless of the frame window of the first hit
ability to execute special and super special moves without inputting a command
ability to do so on reaction
ability to counter a fast attack with a faster super move on reaction

This syndrome is often looked down upon as a lazy way of adding difficulty, by putting unfair disadvantages in the way of the player instead of taking the time to design a genuinely challenging AI. SNK bosses typically suffer from various programming flaws as well, leading to exploits and patterns that are most often the easiest way to defeat a boss.
Although named after SNK, the syndrome can be found in many other fighting games, and is not exclusive to bosses; higher difficulty settings are likely to have the AI engage in some degree of this behavior.

Now that we have that understanding underneath our collective belts, we can discuss the cons of the issue. The biggest one being that Boss Syndrome makes the games so difficult to finish that the average gamer will easily be deterred from the game. This is very prevalent in games like Savage Reign; where Kage Shishioh, aka King Lion had a weakened state which was difficult and a powered up state (Shin Shishioh) that seems near impossible to beat. There are plenty of other examples as well; such as Neo Geo Battle Coliseum's Goodman, who throws spectral animal auras on unsuspecting players with the greatest of ease (Perhaps he's a metaphysical zookeeper on his off hours?). The more recent offenders have been in the currently concluded KOF storyline "Those from the past" which featured Ash Crimson as the main character. There, the bosses ranged from ridiculous to "oh effing come on!!" levels of difficult. All of them with fullscreen supers and heavy priority, every one of them incredibly cheap to the point of having to resort to poking or low sweeps in order to overcome them.

Above: Magaki and his purple pred clouds...

This is a far cry from the early days of KOF where at least you felt like you stood some sort of chance against guys like Rugal or Goenitz (who was the first boss who you learn is succeptible to low sweeps inbetween his fullscreen whirlwind attacks). In any case, gamers can liken SNK's brand of bossery to crossing the tracks from Capcom's nice neighborhoods, whith moderate challenge to a vicious neighborhood that the abulance visits at least once a week (twice on a good saturday). It's there Murder happens often, and hopes and dreams are crushed into some sort of delicious jam that Rugal, Shishioh, Magiki, Samural Showdown's Amakusa, the demon Minazuki Zankuro, Rashojin Mizuki and the other bosses devour on toast while sipping tea and talking about their most recent plunderings.

However, there is a theory in the middle of all this despair; What if this is the whole entire point? Or better yet, what if the adversity is needed in order to force you, the player to dilligently succeed? Let's look at the bright side of this folly in greater detail.

What doesn't kill you......

We've all seen this - You're in a dire situation with no clear resolution in sight. the odds are deathly stacked aainst you, and you're feeling like your only option is to give up. Pretty bad, right? But what happens when you eventually overcome the odds and defeat the obstacle in your way? You feel this rush of exhiliration and an overwhelming sense of accomplsihment right? This is exactly the same feeling that occurs after defeating a difficult boss. After playing SVC chaos for a month it was discovered that yes, Serious Mr Karate was horribly overpowered, with his triple Haoh Shokokens and three phase - seventeen hit shoryukens (okay so that's a bit of exaggeration on the author's part), but in the end you feel like a much more capable fighter once you observe and understand his patterns and gain the upper hand in defeating him. The same can be said for Orochi Iori, who in the same game, as in other games can be a bit of a pain in the rear.

This is expected of SNK's bosses. Shin Gouki and Violent Ken can be problematic, but nowhere on the level that the SNK bosses are, but naturally you can say that has much more to do with the 'hometeam advantage' (Read: bias) given by the programmers. With all that being said, it still makes sense that the programmers stack the deck against you in order to force you to become that much more stronger as a gamer and this teaches you to observe certain patterns and respond with logical rebuttles - a skill that comes in handy when dealing with human opponents.

In turn making the game challenging also makes the game more replayable. Players get too far in the game to turn back, and want to see the game's ending, or just have bragging rights for defeating an incredibly difficult game. This was the mentality that was used back in the 8-bit era of gaming (Remember when 'Nintendo hard' actually meant some soul-crushingly difficult games?). The more humiliating the defeat, the more you kept coming back with token after token, or with a stack of quarters, ready to take on that overpowered thug that cheaply made quick work of you in the second or third round. It's essentially arcade mentality only spread out into the console age, and damn it if it doesn't work!!

So what is the point - the moral of the story if you will? SNK had been teaching us life lessons all this time? When life gives us brutal beatings we make (grape) lemonade? or pretty much punch and kick those lemons into submission and apply the ass kicking to our friends who dare step to us in KOF or any other fighter for that matter? Possibly. On a more serious note, Essentially it falls back on the proverb that Nietzsche instilled in us all; "That which does not kill us makes us stronger" (I love how the link ends with "kill stronger" lol)- which means that it's more an issue of overcoming adversity to become a stronger individual, or in this case become a much more capable fighting game player.

Wow, That's pretty effing philosophical for a discussion about games that feature beating the crap out of people as their main draw.

Game On!

Quickies: A closer look at Nintendo stock problems

2011-09-19T07:07:00.002-05:00

Quickies: A closer look at Nintendo stock problems
Source(s): Gamesindustry.biz

The media and various people have been painting Nintendo in the picture of being in a dire position, and having to accomplish the equivalent of the "Twelve trials of Heracles" by gamer and journalist standards in order to avoid facing 'utter ruin'. So it's pretty refreshing to see a journalist shedding some light onto Nintendo's stock situation. Rob Fahey, of Gamesindustry.biz has posted an editorial about the real reason for Nintendo's stock decline. I'll post it after the jump for those of you who aren't subscribers to GI.biz

It's a very interesting, if not eye opening read, and actually makes sense in the fact that the events that have dropped stock in the company were completely out of the company's control. - On an unrelated note I'm still working on the interwebz situation and I'll be posting more frequently in time.

Game On!

In the wake of Nintendo's conference last week in Tokyo, it was widely reported that the company's stock fell by around 5% in trading after the announcement of the firm's new games for the 3DS. It's a stinging reaction for a company which only a couple of years ago was valued (ridiculously) as Japan's second most valuable, after the world's top car manufacturer, Toyota - but to understand what that kind of swing means, it's important to look more closely at the stock and its recent history.

First of all, let's look at the context to the movement - specifically, the performance of Nintendo's shares over the past year. It's tempting to look further back and consider the dizzy heights of 2007's ridiculously over-enthusiastic valuation, but while that would give us an extremely steep graph to cluck about, it's not actually all that helpful or informative. Suffice it to say that if you were an investor so swept away in the excitement of the Wii and DS' market dominance three years ago that you actually bought Nintendo shares at their peak, they've now lost 80% of their value and you've probably been fired (and rightly so).

The reason that isn't really a helpful graph is because several very important things happened in the years since Nintendo's valuation peaked, and neither of them had anything to do with Nintendo itself. The first was the credit crunch - often called the "Lehman Shock" in Japan - which was responsible for the vast bulk of that loss of value. After the Lehman Shock, Nintendo's stock had dropped 60% of its peak value - so events since then only account for the last 20% of the decline.

Dismiss as nonsense any claim that the enormous decline in share value since 2007/08 is a sign that the markets think Nintendo is on a road to utter disaster.

Moreover, "events since then" also encompass the Great Touhoku Earthquake six months ago, which understandably impacted on share prices in Japan, and the historically strong Yen, which has been extremely damaging to export-led industries (including Nintendo), and has also depressed Japanese stock prices. None of that has anything to do with Nintendo's business model or product line-up, so our first order of business is to dismiss as nonsense any claim that the enormous decline in share value since 2007/08 is a sign that the markets think Nintendo is on a road to utter disaster.

The markets, let's not forget, still value Nintendo at over 1.5 trillion Yen - a far cry from their extraordinary valuation in 2007, but still the world's most valuable games company. That valuation racks up to some £12.4 billion plus spare change at the present exchange rate, which makes Nintendo almost 50% more valuable than Activision Blizzard.

What we need to look at instead, then, is share performance over the past year - an indication of how the markets think Nintendo is doing right now, free of the rapid, aggressive value correction which came about after the Lehman Shock woke everyone up to the overvaluation not just of Nintendo, but of countless other stocks as well. Here we go:

This is Nintendo's one-year chart. The overall trend is easy to see - while the first few months are bumpy, there's as much optimism as there is pessimism in the pricing, but then around mid-February, the prices start a steady decline which brings us pretty much right up to the present point in time.

Two things happened in February/March which are worth considering when looking at this graph. The first, of course, is the earthquake on March 11 - and you can see the influence of that easily, in the form of the very steep price drop in early March, which then seems to be mostly corrected out over the course of the next few weeks. The other thing, of course, is the launch of the 3DS - and at first glance, it certainly looks like Nintendo's fortunes on the stock market have been on a downward trend from exactly the point when the 3DS hit store shelves.

It's also worth pointing out that E3, which took place this year at the end of the first week of June, caused a further price slide - that's in the wake of the Wii U announcement. In fact, the slide that we saw after Nintendo's pre-Tokyo Game Show conference isn't actually particularly pronounced compared to various other precipitous falls in the company's stock value this year.

Before we look in any more detail at this chart, though, it's worth coming back to the questions of the Great Touhoku Earthquake and the incredibly strong Yen - both of which have had a major impact on Japan's economy this year. If you truly want to see what market sentiment regarding Nintendo is like, you need to correct for those factors somehow. Take a look at the next graph:

The green line in that graph is the Nikkei 225, an index which tracks the performance of most of Japan's top publicly quoted companies. By an odd quirk, Nintendo isn't actually on this index despite its size - this is because Japan actually has two stock exchanges, one in Tokyo and one in Osaka, with the Nikkei 225 being based on firms listed on the Tokyo exchange. Nintendo, a company which has been headquartered for over a century about half an hour outside Osaka in the suburbs of Kyoto, is listed on the Osaka exchange.

Despite this, however, the Nikkei 225 is a solid way to see the influence of macro-economic factors on Japanese share prices - so divergence between a company's performance and the NI225's performance is a fair measure of success or failure. On that front, this graph is extremely telling. Nintendo's shares tracked the Nikkei fairly closely up until mid-February (as you'd expect from a comparison of a single stock to a large index, the ups and downs are a bit more pronounced, but there's nothing dramatic there). Then a steady decline begins which drags Nintendo's valuation further and further south of the movements in the NI225 - with the earthquake again visible on the graph, but even more clearly a temporary rather than lasting effect.

What this means, in essence, is that even once you account for macro-economic factors, the markets aren't happy with Nintendo. There's a steady price decline visible, and worse, the points when that decline are reversed are little to do with Nintendo's own strategies. A peak in early July is matched on the Nikkei 225 index, because it's related to currency fluctuations rather than anything Nintendo itself did.

In August, Nintendo dropped to a five-year low after announcing very weak financials (by its own high standards, I should point out - the company is in absolutely no financial trouble at this point), but then started to rise again sharply. Some of this is down to the market correcting for an over-reaction, but some commentators also implied that investors were reassured by the aggressive nature of Nintendo's 3DS U-turn. The truth of that rise is rather more prosaic. The Tokyo Stock Exchange is presently in talks to take over the Osaka Stock Exchange, which would mean that Nintendo could well be listed on the NI225 index - a move which would force institutional investors to buy Nintendo stock as part of their NI225 portfolio. The potential for that change drove Nintendo's stock higher (along with several other companies on the Osaka exchange), not investor excitement around the 3DS' new price point.

In the more immediate term, it's also worth noting that Nintendo's 5% fall in the wake of their TGS conference seriously underperformed the NI225 on that day, so yes, it's fair to say that it was a direct market reaction to the conference. However, when looking at all of those things, it's important to understand what markets actually react to - because it's not the same stuff that consumers or industry insiders react to.

There are complexities to day to day behaviour, but in the long run, stock markets reward only one thing - growth potential. It's tempting to assume that a company which continues to be profitable in a steady manner will maintain a steady share price, but that's not how the markets work. If you make $100 million this year, that's great, but unless investors can see a path towards making $110 or $120 million next year, they'll desert you in droves. Investors in the stock market are looking for strong growth - if they wanted low-risk and low-yield, they'd be investing elsewhere (government bonds, for example). Nintendo's immense share price a few years ago was down to the fact that it was growing its market at a rapid pace - its decline now isn't necessarily reflective of a huge decline in market share, but rather of the fact that investors have lost confidence in the company's ability to keep growing.

The markets aren't punishing Nintendo because they think it won't be profitable in future - they're punishing it because they think it can't return to the stellar growth of the Wii era.

Specifics, oddly, don't matter that much. Industry insiders and commentators can look at deals like the one which is bringing Monster Hunter to the 3DS and understand that this is an important release that will do great things for the console's uptake in certain markets, but on the whole, the markets don't care about that. Sentiment around Nintendo is negative at the moment, because investors see the company's last console release as a failure and worry about its market being eaten up by mobile phones (both reasonable positions to take). That sentiment overpowers any detail within the picture - until Nintendo can come up with something that incredibly clearly demonstrates its ability to triumph over devices like the iPod Touch, the markets are going to keep avoiding it.

Does that mean, as some people have suggested, that the markets want Nintendo to abandon hardware manufacture and focus instead on developing games for mobile devices? Absolutely not - and those who argue in favour of that are largely just confirming their own biases with market data, rather than considering the wider picture.

Nintendo makes a huge amount of money from hardware sales; even if the new price point for 3DS means that it's selling at a small loss right now, economies of scale will soon fix that. To begin publishing on mobile devices would effectively mean debasing its own hardware platforms - it would still have to support its own hardware for some time (or risk losing massive amounts of goodwill from its consumers) but would be doing so expensively, in the face of diminishing sales. Meanwhile decommissioning the hardware business and transitioning the company to mobile would also cost vast amounts of cash - and at the end of this painful, expensive process, there's no guarantee that third party mobile publishing could ever match Nintendo's former revenues from hardware and software.

What the markets hate most of all is uncertainty (note that after Steve Jobs' resignation, Apple's stock price actually rose, because it ended the speculation and uncertainty over the company's future administration), and that path is filled with absolutely nothing but uncertainty. That isn't to say that from a business perspective, it isn't the right thing to do - but while a smarter, leaner Nintendo focusing on titles for other publishers' platforms makes sense to those of us following the industry closely, it's a massive stretch to suggest that the markets are "calling" for Nintendo to do that. On the contrary - it would make such a transition at risk of completely destroying the value of its own shares, at least in the short to medium term.

Are the markets happy with Nintendo right now? No. Is the company's stock price likely to improve in the short term? No, not really. It's likely to continue a gentle decline before finding a fairly sensible base price that reflects the company's true prospects. Is this, however, a sign that Nintendo is "doomed"? Absolutely not. The firm faces huge challenges, but its cash position is fantastic and it's still got enormous sales and market share. The markets aren't punishing Nintendo because they think it won't be profitable in future - they're punishing it because they think it can't return to the stellar growth of the Wii era. On that front, they're almost certainly correct.

To close, one more graph of stock performance over the past 12 months. A disclaimer; this is an entirely unfair comparison of two companies with very different business strategies and product line-ups - but by accident or design, they're the two companies who are the chief cheerleaders for the traditional packaged goods and the app store distribution models respectively. Whether they like it or not, these two giants are going to spend the coming years at each other's throats - and it's fairly clear which of them is winning in the first round.

IGN strikes out again...

2011-09-12T15:39:00.004-05:00

IGN for the record seems to not get anything when it comes to anything Nintendo related. This is completely prevalent in the editors and their approach to anything Nintendo related. Case-in-point; This article posted about how Nintendo has to force an entire relaunch of the 3DS based on the simple lack of an analog nub.

As to not give this person any more steam than he has, I'll be posting this up on the blog.you guys know the drill. Instead of posting the article first I'm just going to post with commentary included. I'm going in for the kill, i'm doing it for a thrill.... i'm hoping you'll understand...

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While Nintendo has established a long history of releasing new versions, designs and models of its hardware, it's now entering dangerous territory with the Nintendo 3DS. Inside a year of its release, the system is seeing a peripheral that can and will fundamentally change the way companies approach game development.

XXSP: I don't see how one analog nub fundamentally changes things, but whatever. DS owners have got along well without the second nub for years now. It's not like you couldn't make adjustments with the touch screen or anything... I mean it is a DS after all....

The market for the Nintendo 3DS will soon be fractured, split in a way that the GBA SP, Game Boy Color and DS Lite never were. This peripheral is, of course, the circle pad expansion. A second circle pad was certainly necessary for the 3DS, but now Nintendo is faced with a critical choice – relaunch its system or fail to truly keep the peripheral viable in the long term.

XXSP: Fractured..... The DS has had constant revisions and iterations as have the GBA, as the Gameboy and it's not like the revisions really did anything to split the fanbase ( More like provide more options to suit different gamer's needs ). A device that adds a second analog is not going to break a fanbase. If you want it you want it if not you don't have to go out and get it...

Additionally, This isn't a critical enough choice to force a relaunch. The 360's issues were critical in Microsoft implementing a change in the design. No Wifi, bad circuitry and inadequate heat sinks are a big deal. a lack of an analog nub is debatable at best.

Nintendo's lack of foresight in packaging the 3DS with a second circle pad is a critical failure on the part of the company. Virtually all modern games require a second analog input, and movement and touch-based solutions are inadequate replacements. Moreover, the PlayStation Vita features two sticks and is more powerful. Although it's (now) more expensive than the 3DS, it could still potentially prove more alluring than the 3DS if Nintendo doesn't fix its error. That the publisher is attempting to do this now is certainly reassuring, but the fact that Nintendo has to do it speaks volumes about how it approached this system in the first place.

XXSP: I can't even begin to take this paragraph any seriously. No that's not a critical failure. It's a slight oversight. Not all games require a second analog input. It's vital to some polygonal 3D games, but there are suitable work-arounds. 2D games don't obviously need them. Music games don't. Puzzle games don't. So why is this critical failure, again?

The Vita features two sticks, and that's fine. The DS and the GBA and the GB did not, and that was fine. If developers find the Vita more attractive they'll do it for the features it provides not just because of one feature in particular. The PSP had analogs and the DS didn't and the DS was still successful regardless.. so I'm not seeing any sense in this logic.

A number of poor choices have plagued the 3DS since its launch, and in some respects the system's first year will be remembered as one of Nintendo's roughest ever. The question now is what to do about it. A price drop, expanded content and a functioning eShop go a long way, and certainly have had an impact, but the circle pad is a fundamental product feature unlike any of the other "upgrades" Nintendo has provided. It changes how games are made. Now the company faces a tough choice – support the add-on full force and accept the consequences, or watch it fade into oblivion, giving its competitors a significant advantage in accepting ports and remakes of modern titles.

If Nintendo wants developers to support this extra circle pad, the first model of the Nintendo 3DS must be replaced immediately. It cannot remain on store shelves, because its continued presence furthers a splitting of Nintendo's marketplace. Developers will be forced to either support a platform of millions with only one circle pad or a platform of few with two.

That's the biggest problem the company faces – convincing developers to start over. The current system is just now gaining steam, selling over 200,000 units in August after its price drop. For Nintendo to introduce a seismic change to its system's control interface could potentially undo all of its progress thus far. For all intents and purposes, the 3DS would be starting over, barring some sort of massive recall or free distribution of the expansion device. Quite obviously, both of those would have huge financial implications.

XXSP: Let's disregard the thousands of handhelds out of the market... That's not really a logical solution. The best Nintendo can do at this point is support the console and make it affordable, while emphasizing what the benefits of the 3DS is. This is one more instance that 'journalists' (Especially those at IGN) aren't good businessmen.

Recalls cost money - not just a couple thousand dollars. like whole profit losses and a damaged reputation for the company. The moment IGN-Tendo decided to do that, not only would they be struggling to get out of the red financially, but they would be constantly ridiculed and hounded by both investors and angry consumers. In imagination-land this might fly, but in reality this is a really bad move.

Of course this is to say nothing of consumers. Millions have already invested in Nintendo's 3D world, many at the system's original $250 price point. This is, of course, the danger of even suggesting a relaunch or uttering the words "3DS Lite." No doubt many gamers were holding out for a revision to the system's hardware, particularly considering the portable's rather anemic battery life, but many were willing to be early adopters. Now the other shoe drops. Not owning a new 3DS model could potentially cut existing 3DS owners out of a whole range of titles. Attempting to keep the existing version results in an awkward attachment that at best resembles a prototype still in development.

The choices before Nintendo are not easy, and are damaging regardless of the path selected. Heavily and entirely supporting two circle pads might sway some developers, but Nintendo's most loyal fans will certainly feel burned. Plus more casual gamers will likely be confused by the messaging. Didn't they just buy Nintendo's new system? Now they have to buy another one?

XXSP: Look at the history. The 3DS lite and other revisions are inevitable. It's the same story with all devices; Once the technology drops in price, the devices get smaller and gain more in functionality. This isn't a brand new idea. So it's expected that the early adpoters will be the most likely to be 'screwed'. Even in the face of the price drop, though they still were being treated to added value in having a boat load of free games. Nintendo has been pretty gracious in providing that to their customers (whom they still hold in high regard, naturally ).

The last paragraph is more confusing than the situation being presented. Expanded market gamers were quite fine with the handheld revisions because each one provided something unique and interesting for them. The DSi had internet functionality, the XL had a larger screen for older gamers and people who had issues with seeing graphics on smaller screens. The premise of this revision only benefits maybe a vocal fraction of total users and does almost nothing for the expanded market. Also loyal fans of the company wouldn't really care either way, as they haven't really cared. It was suggested by some users, but in the end the problem could be solved by utilizing innovative thinking.

The alternative is, of course, going the route of Wii Motion Plus, which is to say watch a necessary add-on dwindle in support and consumer interest. Who wants to support or require the use of something that only some can play? Why not make a product for everyone? It will truly be interesting to see how The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword sells, particularly considering it can only be played using only Motion Plus, and only the limited edition actually supplies that necessary hardware.

XXSP: Someone is forgetting that all Wiis purchased after November of last year have remote plus included, and the motion plus dongles are cheap to purchase (especially on the second-hand market). Secondly, the bold statement could apply to this particular argument of rehashing the 3DS for something only some of the people will use.

A less-than-optimal scenario is to attempt to straddle both paths. Release the circle pad expansion alongside a major game like Monster Hunter, but commit only to that game – for the time being. Then add in the feature to a new version of the 3DS, and market the system as if the success and feedback from the debut of Monster Hunter caused this change. That still begs the question of influencing developmental efforts, and that's something Nintendo will likely have to fund itself with cold hard cash and marketing support.

XXSP: Actually, this kind of makes sense, and it does remind me of the classic controller pro bundle of the Monster Hunter Tri release. I still refuse to believe that one game will warrant a hardware revision this soon out of the gate. Maybe 2013 or 14 but not right now.

Systems take time to develop and it's a bit stunning that Nintendo didn't have the foresight to include a second circle pad with the 3DS. The proximity of the two products makes it almost impossible to believe the publisher wasn't aware that its system was missing a critical feature. Consoles have featured two analog sticks for a decade. The notion that a portable powerful enough to support ports of these 10-year-old games wouldn't feature an equivalent control scheme is a bit astonishing. Truly, if Nintendo rushed the 3DS out the door without pausing to consider the repercussions of its choices, it is potentially about to pay the price in perception and possibly developmental support. In some ways it already has.

XXSP:. I hold this into the "theory of good enough" which states that if a product meets the needs of it's audience then it's good enough (going beyond the needs of the customer may often backfire in some cases). Think back to the PSP. One analog nub did enough for that during all it's iterations, despite a hardcore bemoaning of it's inadequacies, then again the PSP's major flaw was always the games.

As far as ports go, OOT's camera was influenced by both behind the back views which I prefer, and Z targeting, which i also thought was innovative and still holds true, today. Starfox's camera controls are gyroscopic which I'm not sure is a benefit or a hazard (haven't played it yet), but followed similar guidelines. So i don't see how they're going to cause backlash for looking beyond the lack of one thing. Also, let's also consider that the 64 controllers only had the one analog nub to begin with, and they were the ones who brought Analog controls back to consoles for the sake of improving controls in 3 dimensional space. So in saying this it's not really that much of an issue in releasing the games on the 3DS as they're continuing to use the same controls albeit in a different configuration. Again, this reasoning confuses me.

It's not that the Nintendo 3DS is necessarily doomed without a second analog stick. Had Nintendo never mentioned the idea, it could have likely made do. Some games developers would have probably passed the system by in favor of the Vita, but even Monster Hunter survived without two analog inputs – look at the PSP versions. But Nintendo decided to open that door. It has now openly suggested its launch hardware design is flawed. It's introducing an awkward patch to a portable design that is clearly inadequate in its own eyes.

XXSP: Or perhaps they're just giving people more options, much like the multiple control schemes they have provided with the Wii?

Whether the company even wanted to launch a 3DS Lite in 2012, it almost certainly must now, if for no other reason than to get the 3DS looking like a polished product that isn't being cobbled together bit by bit. Let's just hope that if a timetable is being accelerated, no other important features are left on the drawing room table.

XXSP: Yes, because clearly no other company has ever released peripherals to improve functionality with hardware..

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Now to an extent I understand the gravity of having a second analog as consoles from the PS on have shown that they can be very beneficial to FPS games and other 3D based games (In fact the analog has saved my thumbs from certain doom on a number of occasions when playing quite a few RPGs). However, with the functionality that's already there, I cannot say that there couldn't be other ways to provide adequate camera control or anything of the other benefits. You logically don't just don't scrap things when you've already invested so much money in something. It's certainly not like knocking down a lego structure that you built in about ten minutes, only to rebuild it again differently. This is a business, and this second analog solution definitely helps to placate the fraction of irritated users demanding this feature.

The other part of this is that we're declaring the Vita a superior product and it hasn't even be released yet. It's going to take an awful lot of time before we even know if the Vita is both worth it's salt, and worth the automatically lofty pricetag it's toting. Meanwhile we've tested and proven that the 3DS had potential, and Nintendo is very much willing to give players what they want, but in a way that doesn't financially sabotage themselves in the process.

I'm not surprised that IGN editors fail on a basic level when it comes to providing thought provoking content while being mindful of the things Nintendo does understand and get right. This is almost expected, but this also makes them less credible with each passing article. It's no wonder why Rupert Murdoch bought them up.. They're basically the Fox News of games.

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Note: So I decided to put up at least one article to keep some sort of a momentum going during my short hiatus, but I will return with more content.

Game On!

update and some bad news

2011-09-12T00:42:00.001-05:00

I didn't want to leave you guys hanging, but I'm still in the process of moving into my new place. The good news is that i'm in my place but the bad news is that i miscalculated the amount of funds i had to establish internet and the wifi signal the rental property has isn't allowing me access so it'll be a bit before any updates happen. Don't fret, though. I'll have lots more updates available once i get back on.

As Barbra Billingsley said in Airplane "Jus' hang loose, blood. She gonna catch ya up on da' rebound on da' med side"

Understanding the Dreamcast pt 2

2011-08-23T13:08:00.000-05:00

Journalists would have you to believe that Nintendo is in the exact point where Sega was with the dreamcast, but in order to paint a better picture of what Sega dealt with, I wanted to talk a bit about the history of Sega during the Saturn and Dreamcast era. In our last post we discussed the Saturn's perfect storm that lead to it's untimely demise. This week I want to discuss the story of the Dreamcast and the things that lead to it's end, and the end of Sega as a hardware developer.

Let's get back to the show, shall we?

Sega has a dream...

Instead of throwing out a huge exposition this time around I want to bring to your attention, this video on the DC's history from an old G4 episode of Icons.

Like the Saturn, the Dreamcast was a big push for a console that provided games featuring the arcade gaming values that Sega was still into at the time. This is one of the advantages that Sega had over the PSX. That and wealth of popular titles (Not as many as Nintendo had under their belt, but a decent amount with strong supportive fanbases).

As stated in the video the Dreamcast was a means to fix all the problems that the Saturn had. Programming was easier, the design of the controllers were (arguably) better ( Personally I loved the setup of the conroller, but hated the hand cramps that came from playing games like Marvel vs Capcom 2, Capcom Vs SNK 2 and Street Fighter 3 for hours on end), The Marketing for the Dreamcast was amazing, and generated tons of hype for the console. Even the pricing was better this time around as Stolar fought to keep the price point of the DC to a low $199, despite SoJ wanting a $249 price for immediate profits. Despite a successful US launch, Stolar due to continual clashing with SoJ higher ups was let go from the company, then things began to slowly fall apart again for Sega...

The second part of this video is the most depressing. You tend to realize that the PS2's two biggest things going for it at the time was it's massive software library (due to Sony's practices of courting developers with trails of money to their camp), and an having an affordable DVD player in a time when it was a necessity to have a DVD player. This was a serious one-two punch to Sega's system, but I wouldn't say that the lack of a DVD player was their downfall. After doing some digging I came across an interview with Stolar where he explains a bit more about the situation from an insider standpoint. Here's what's said in that via Bitmob's site.

Bitmob: If we could send you back in time, with the benefit of hindsight, what would you do to make the Dreamcast survive and thrive?

Bernie Stolar: It’s called money. And a commitment from the company.
When [former Sega President Hayao] Nakayama was pushed out of the company, the company really changed.

Bitmob: How so?

BS: The heart and soul of Sega came from him, and he really believed that software drove hardware -- which is true. He also believed that if you’re going to be a major competitor in the gaming world, you needed to own the hardware platform.

Bitmob: So what did Sega do wrong after you guys left?

BS: When Nakayama was pushed out and when I was pushed out, I think what took place was, Mr. [Isao] Okawa, who then became the chairman of the company -- he was an investment banker from CSK [Holdings Corporation].... I don’t believe he was committed to the hardware. He just believed it should be a software company.

Bitmob: And that was ultimately the Dreamcast’s downfall....

BS: Yeah, the company didn’t put the money into it. The company basically abandoned the system.

At that time, it was the largest launch in the history of the industry! The consumer judged that it was the right hardware and the right software. Look at the software that was on that system. Look at the sporting titles that Visual Concepts built for the system -- after I bought Visual Concepts for Sega...those titles outsold EA’s titles. That tells you something about the software and the look, feel of the platform.

I fought to have a modem on the platform. Maybe it was early -- who knows. But I fought for a modem in the beginning because I wanted to have massively multiplayer online games on that system.

Regardless of whether it was too early or not, the modem was the start of an innovative push for online console gaming. It's not original, because it's been done before both by the SNES in the mid 90s with Satellaview, and PC gaming was doing well before even then, but it was something that immediately began to change the way we played console games thanks to competitors taking the idea and running with it full tilt.

You could tell that by the end of the DC era, Sega had put little to no effort into the console. The Dreamcast obviously had the potential, to the point of were developers were still putting out games for the DC long after it's death (the last DC game was released in 2007). However the company mentality seemed to be that there was no possible way of keeping up with the demands made by the parent company, and the SoJ president, as well as SoA president at the time Peter Moore, had already had it decided that going third party was the way to go.

Bitmob: Could you see the Dreamcast struggles coming before you left Sega?

BS: No. When I was pushed out, I assumed that the company would continue [supporting the Dreamcast]. Mr. Okawa was very close friends with [Masayoshi] Son-san, who was the chairman of [tech investment firm] Softbank. They indicated to Mr. Okawa that if we have a modem put into the system -- we spend the extra money to put the modem in -- that we should just meld the hardware online and not go through retail...that we should just abandon retail.

So do I believe there could’ve been a turning point where they would abandon this? The answer is yes.

To this day, you still can’t abandon retail. Retail may have shrunk -- there may not be as many storefronts -- but retail’s the whole point. Look at what Best Buy’s doing. Look at what Wal-Mart’s doing. Look at what GameStop’s doing.I agree with this. Retail is still a strong part of revenue. Even now with the heavy shrinkage of brick and mortar outlets compared to the convenience of online shopping, there's still a need for both. I, myself do most of my shopping at retail and purchase the things I can't find online. Then again, I do work in a retail setting so I'm always around something I want to purchase. Even then, I still find that many others do the same, as the weekends seem to be where retail is at it's busiest.

Bitmob: Does it surprise you that Dreamcast’s online capabilities didn’t catch on better at the time?

BS: It doesn’t surprise me, because there wasn’t software tied into it. They were not building and going after software to start that.

I mean, I was looking for developers and content providers to start doing that. Sega did not do that after I left. They just abandoned it.

Bitmob: A lot of gamers swore off Sega hardware after the days of the Sega CD, the 32X, and to a lesser extent, a poorly supported Saturn. Do you think this backlash affected the Dreamcast?

BS: I don’t think there was a backlash at all. The Dreamcast was very well accepted. The consumer was thrilled that Sega was back with a great hardware system.

Bitmob: What are the biggest cultural differences between working at Sega and working at Sony? [Ed. note: Before taking over Sega of America, Stolar was the excutive vice president at Sony Computer Entertainment America.]

BS: [Long pause] That’s a question I’d rather not answer.

Bitmob: Were there a lot of differences in hardware-launch philosophies between Sega and Sony?

BS: I think both companies are very market-driven. Both their philosophies were, “Go big or go home.”

Bitmob: What do you think about where Sega is now, being a third-party publisher?

BS: I think they’re going through some really difficult times. I don’t believe they have the content, developers, and producers there that they had at one time. I don’t know their financial position, but they’re probably not spending the type of money they should be spending. You tell me the last time you saw a great Sonic game.

This is exactly the same fate that Nintendo could possibly meet if they decided to go third party. Oh sure, you'll get games across a wide variety of different platforms, and some fans would love to see that happen, but who's to say those games will still hold up over time. I still haven't seen one Sonic game that has held up to the original Genesis games. Golden Axe has gone to crap with Beast Rider. The best Streets of Rage game I've played was made by Bomber Games, and Sega issued a cease and desist order after they produced a completed version. I'm sure Nintendo's people know this, and they know that Sega is a shell of it's former self since it's hardware development days.

Bitmob: How do you see Sony?

BS: I’ll tell you the other difference between --
I’ll answer the question of the differences between Sony and Sega. Sony is a very corporate structure. It’s a real corporate company. Sega was really run by entrepreneurs. It was more of an entrepreneurial company. That’s the difference.

Bitmob: So how do you see Sony now? Do you still feel that way?

BS: It’s a very corporate culture. The team that’s there right now -- I hired a number of those individuals -- they’re terrific people. They’re really trying to make this work.

Bitmob: The big thing I think people would like to hear in your own words is, why were you let go from Sega right before Dreamcast’s launch? Why right then?

BS: As I said before, Mr. Okawa...he wanted to release this strictly on the Internet and I refused! He and I just went through major differences.

One of the problems also -- I had just bought Visual Concepts for $10 million. When we were signing up third-party publishers, Larry Probst came to me, and at the time, he was CEO of EA -- and also a good friend of mine.

Larry said, “Look, we’ll come on your platform, but this is the royalty rate we want to pay.” I asked what is it. He said, “We want to be the only sports franchise on Dreamcast.”
I said, “I’ll agree to that, but you’ll be the only third-party publisher that will have sports. But you’re going to have to compete with us because I just bought Visual Concepts.” And he said, “No, no, no, no...then you should not do the deal with Visual Concepts.”

I said, “No it’s too late.” [Laughs] “We’ve already signed the documentation. We’ve already taken the steps.” So because of that, he did not go onto the platform.

And now EA has a major monopoly over much of the sports games being produced. That's equally sad considering competition is what makes for better products. Likewise if Sega would of sealed an exclusivity deal with EA they probably could have hung on for a little longer.

Compare and contrast...

So Now that we know what we know about Sega during that point in time do we see Nintendo anywhere near that? Nintendo just came off of a very successful handheld and console cycle. The DS and the Wii were phenomenal moneymakers, selling well in the face of most if not all of the factors that hurt the Dreamcast (Lack of third party developers, consoles with additional format features, Lack of particular games). Even the 3DS situation isn't that much of a setback, considering the company is already working towards rectifying some of the problems that plagued the handheld at launch. The results are already generating interest as people are talking about purchasing 3DSs and the price drop has effectively caused disinterest in the Vita, with pressure now on Sony to either perform or suffer to sell at an even greater loss than it started with.

Sega's last three hardware cycles were plagued with a series of good ideas, and bad execution starting with the 32X and ending with the Dreamcast's willful abandonment by Sega brass. There was no game changing turnabout, no consoles that printed money, and despite having a motion control device in the Activator, None of the things that happened in 2006 for Nintendo ever happened for Sega during their twilight years as a hardware developer. So how is it possible that we're to say that Nintendo now is in the same situation that Sega was in during the declining years of the Dreamcast?

Internet journalists tend to work within a sort of revisionist history when establishing points. The facts seem to be twisted into whatever seems suitable to push an agenda. Here, the writer took something he had little to no understanding of in order to say that Nintendo is doomed. Nothing new. The problem is that when we're just blatantly disregarding things such as facts and relevancy in order to just state our own opinions does that make us any better journalists?

I don't post these things for my own well being or health. I do because I believe that you, the reader have to fully understand the past in order to understand the present or future. It is then that you, the reader can take the information and make your own judgement based on this.

Game On!

Understanding the Dreamcast Part 1

2011-08-15T05:13:00.003-05:00

Feast your eyes on this little blurb i read on intomobile. Once again it's another incredibly uninformed article by another writer with an agenda.

BTW - I'm posting this here so to not give this writer any more hits than they already have.

Anyone remember the significance of 9.9.99? That was the day Sega launched their last hardware console in America, the Dreamcast. Despite featuring an extraordinary amount of brilliant titles, graphics that were never before seen on a dedicated gaming device, and an onboard modem so you could actually use the thing to connect to the internet, most people didn’t buy it and it nearly killed one of the most loved gaming companies on the planet. How did Sega fix their problems? Simple, they owned the brands people adored, namely Sonic, Super Monkey Ball, and Virtua Fighter, so they brought said brands over to every console on the market. It may not seem odd to you now to see a blue hedgehog running and jumping around on a Nintendo console, but it was for many of us the first time it happened.

Now Nintendo today is in the same boat as Sega in the 90s. Their recently launched 3DS isn’t selling as well as they’d hoped, and for obvious reasons. The 3D feature is a gimmick, and most people do their mobile gaming on smartphones. Nintendo, being the stubborn bastards that they are, keep on repeatedly saying that their franchisees will never, ever, come to non-Nintendo hardware. That’s soon due for a change with “Pokémon Say Tap?“, a new title headed for iOS and Android, but it’s nothing like the Pokémon games you’re used to. Still, we hope that some day Nintendo would ditch their arrogant attitude and all of their bring their beloved characters to new platforms. There’s a reason Rovio is kicking ass with Angry Birds, they make sure it runs on everything under the sun. And while the Angry Birds brand is hot, Rovio sells various knick knacks such as toys and t-shirts to their most loyal fans.

It’s Brand Whoring 101, a class that Nintendo obviously skipped so they could get high under the bleachers and dream up the Mario universe.

Journalistic integrity for you.

Not only is this writer wrong in their understanding of Nintendo and how a business works (but seems to have a rigid understanding of trolling an audience for hits), they are incredibly and sadly wrong about the Dreamcast and it's history.

In order to fully understand the Dreamcast's fate, we have to understand it's origins and the factors involved. Furthermore we should start with the catalyst for the Dreamcast's creation. The Sega Saturn's demise.

30 Seconds to Saturn....

The Saturn was doomed from the start of it's North American campaign. The system was stated for release on September 2nd of 1995 (Saturday or "Saturnday" as it was called), and was surprise released on May 11th of that same year to be sold at select retailers like Toys R Us, Babbages, Software Ect, and Electronic's Boutique (Of course due to this move retailers like KB Toys shunned Sega products altogether out of spite) Not only was the price astronomically high ($399) compared to the Playstation's price which was a hundred dollars less, The lack of information regarding the surprise launch left the developers in the dark, and only six games were available at launch time. Teamed with the development issues that were already had with using hardware and graphical engines that deviated from conventional practices at the time (Quadralateral 3D pixels instead of the norm of trangular 3D based pixels, and processors that only allowed partial access of the console's total RAM ) It looked as if third parties would have a better time developing their games to the Playstation, and of course the rest was history.

Another issue with the death of the Saturn was the strange mindset of the time of SOA. Bernie Stolar, former president of SCEA, and head of Atari's home console department (Lynx). Stolar had many successes during his time at SCEA, but the most notable thing he was remembered for, was his stance on RPGs and 2D games. Wikipedia has more on this.

Before the U.S. release of the PlayStation home console, Sony made Stolar the first executive vice president of SCEA where he was in charge of business development and all content on the PlayStation platform. Stolar is remembered for his controversial policies on what games would be permitted release in America, most notably banning RPGs and 2D games, which he felt were "too nerdy" to represent the fledgling console's public image, and didn't properly demonstrate the Playstation's processing power.

The PlayStation sold well during its first holiday season in the U.S., and Bernie, after leaving Sony, accepted an opportunity to helm Sega of America as president and COO.[1] Stolar instituted several of the same policies that he used at Sony while working for Sega, including denying North American release of Grandia [2]. After the Saturn's failure in North America, Bernie pressed Sega of Japan for a new console, one which would eventually become the Dreamcast.

Depending on whom you talk to, Stolar can be considered a great help to Sega, and a huge reason for it's problems. Two years after the Saturn's release, Stolar stated on stage during the Sega conference that the Saturn is not the company's future. This was pretty much a declaration of defeat, and proclamation that the company was going back to the drawing board to compete against it's competitors with something deemed "more worthy". Stolar had also stated that Namco will not be releasing any of the Tekken games on the Saturn as a jab to Sony. Considering the popularity of Tekken at the time, This just added to the number of games lacking out of the NA library of Saturn games, and another nail in the coffin.

Despite the Saturn being a "commercial failure" It was still the home of many fantastic arcade titles and awesome games (Too bad it's strongest games were those you had to import, especially it's spectacular fighting game catalogue). On the NA end the Saturn had quite a few impressive offerings, and thanks to companies like Working Designs the Saturn was a fairly popular console in it's day. However against the Playstation it was hardly going to be the 'must have' it was intended to be. This did nothing but create a ton of pressure for Sega to come up with something that would blow anything both Sony and Nintendo had out of the water before they were even released. Enter "Project Katana"

Next week I'll be discussing more about Sega's role in the rise and fall of the Dreamcast, and somehow I'll figure out the point I was trying to make here (I'm kidding, there is an actual point to this ).

Game On.

Investor logic versus actual logic.

2011-08-12T09:13:00.014-05:00

We will eff your ish up!!

It amazes me the things I've been reading lately about what Nintendo should and shouldn't do. The most interesting thing I've read so far is that Nintendo should stop being stubborn and release games onto iOS and Android devices, And for that statement I have a few choice words...

Let's begin by discussing the origins of these statements. I had been getting ready for work and read this article on venturebeat. To which my reply was both irritation and vocal disappointment. Let's look at some snippets from these articles.

"Nintendo investors are extremely unhappy with the company’s nearly 30-year old strategy of making games only for its own consoles and have started demanding the company make games for smartphones as well, according to a Bloomberg report.
Nintendo did not immediately respond with official comment.

Investors should rightfully be dissatisfied. The new 3DS handheld has had poor sales, with less than a million units sold in the U.S. in its first months. This prompted an unprecedented,desperate 32 percent price cut in the U.S. and a 40 percent price cut in Japan. The biggest problem with 3DS sales, Nintendo said a few weeks ago, is that it doesn’t have enough high-profile games. It hopes to correct that later this year with the release of Super Mario 3D Land, Star Fox 3D, Mario Kart 7, and Kid Icarus: Uprising.
Then there’s the underwhelming Wii U, which looks more like a small upgrade to the Wii rather than an entirely new console. While the Wii was extremely successful in selling units on its motion control scheme, it wasn’t nearly as strong in game sales. Sony’s PS3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 both look poised to keep churning out good game experiences for the next few years, while Nintendo’s next offering hardly increases power and only adds in a gimmicky touch-screen controller.

However, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata has said in the past the Japan-based company will only make games for its own devices as long as he’s in charge, showing a frustrating inflexibility to realize the challenges of the next few years. Nintendo has sold 4.3 million 3DS units worldwide so far, but Apple alone last quarter sold 20.3 million iPhones, 7.54 million iPods, and 9.25 million iPads. Think of how many more potential customers there are to sell games to.

“For many consumers, the phone or tablet is now the mobile game console of choice without the need to carry cartridges or disks and a much lower average price per game,” Gartner mobile analyst Michael Gartenberg told VentureBeat. “Given Nintendo’s strong intellectual gaming properties, it’s certainly something they need to consider and how their software business can grow relative to their hardware business."

I agree that Nintendo should still invest time and money creating unique game experiences for 3DS. Since Nintendo has already invested itself in this hardware, it should create premium games that make it a must-have system for hardcore gamers. Heck, it should reserve its very best handheld titles for the system to justify the $30 to $40 price tag on those games.

But the company needs to sell on the iPhone and Android too. For example, it could easily resell some of its most popular classic games on the iPhone and Android. I know plenty of iPhone owners who would shell out $5 to $10 to replay well-made versions of Super Mario Bros. 3 or The Legend of Zelda on their phones. Nintendo could also make original touch games starring lesser-known characters like Wario and Bowser. WarioWare for iPhone, anyone?

Gaming heavyweights Electronic Arts and Square Enix have already released several titles for smartphones, with the understanding that they need games for every possible platform. EA’s Sims titles are great fun on the iPhone and Android, while Square Enix has released remade versions of older Final Fantasy titles for iOS. Nintendo could take a similar approach.

I fully expect the 3DS to be the last handheld that Nintendo makes. As smartphones and tablets get more powerful, they will become even better gaming units, and they provide much more outside of gaming than a 3DS can. Nintendo needs to wake up, and soon, if it doesn’t want to become the next Sega. Of course, Sega went downhill after it canceled its Dreamcast console and gave up on hardware. The company took Sonic and its own games across all platforms, but not in an effective way.

Do you want to see Nintendo release new and classic games on the iPhone and Android platforms?"

Do you really want to hear my answer, Sean Ludwig? ~~No!~~ Hell No!

First of all let's break this down into digestible segments.

"Nintendo investors are extremely unhappy with the company’s nearly 30-year old strategy of making games only for its own consoles and have started demanding the company make games for smartphones as well, according to a Bloomberg report.
Nintendo did not immediately respond with official comment.

Let's take into fact that the company's 30 year strategy of being a hardware developer with an in-house first party development staff is what kept the company alive for all this time (and extended it's 125 year lifespan). The 3DS will be, in fact, the first piece of hardware that is being sold at a loss since the Virtual Boy, with its' massive (though, reasonable) price cut. So given the fact that Nintendo has bounced back from many an incident unscathed and has had two major pieces of hardware that printed money for them last console generation, why are we now starting to default back to 2006 reasoning from one setback? If I were Iwata I'd be holding my comments back as well, however it would only be because I would pretty much tell these guys where to get off.

Investors should rightfully be dissatisfied. The new 3DS handheld has had poor sales, with less than a million units sold in the U.S. in its first months. This prompted an unprecedented,desperate 32 percent price cut in the U.S. and a 40 percent price cut in Japan. The biggest problem with 3DS sales, Nintendo said a few weeks ago, is that it doesn’t have enough high-profile games. It hopes to correct that later this year with the release of Super Mario 3D Land, Star Fox 3D, Mario Kart 7, and Kid Icarus: Uprising.

Emphasis mine, for reasons you probably already understand. Yes, there are fewer high profile games, and less new or fresh uses of IP. The new crop of games could fix this. We have yet to see...

Then there’s the underwhelming Wii U, which looks more like a small upgrade to the Wii rather than an entirely new console. While the Wii was extremely successful in selling units on its motion control scheme, it wasn’t nearly as strong in game sales. Sony’s PS3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 both look poised to keep churning out good game experiences for the next few years, while Nintendo’s next offering hardly increases power and only adds in a gimmicky touch-screen controller.

Emphasis mine. I will now bring to your attention, the updated list of Nintendo's current million seller games. This is in addition to the 79 titles that have achieved this status in the Wii's Library that were announced back in May of 2010. So let me ask the writer is it no strong game sales, or no time to actually do research? hmm.

The other part of this paragraph is also suspect in the fact that we're assuming Sony and MS have an actual game plan. Currently, I just noticed that iOS and Android favorite, Fruit Ninja has been released for Kinect. That doesn't really give me any more hope than i already had for the future of HD motion gaming. Also, Opinions never count as facts....ever.

However, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata has said in the past the Japan-based company will only make games for its own devices as long as he’s in charge, showing a frustrating inflexibility to realize the challenges of the next few years. Nintendo has sold 4.3 million 3DS units worldwide so far, but Apple alone last quarter sold 20.3 million iPhones, 7.54 million iPods, and 9.25 million iPads. Think of how many more potential customers there are to sell games to.

Ahh, the "crystal ball" defense. "By refusing to put your games on other people's consoles you're not understanding the challenges of the next few years".

Understand this; Sega decided to go third party after the Dreamcast failed to perform against the PS2. What was the result of that, you may be asking? Well after a series of failed mergers, and barely keeping afloat, they're now resorting to "best of" compilations, phone ports and publishing duties. The first party games they do have, are being thrown out at an increased rate, and in some cases are hardly even as good as what they used to be.

That's not just an example, that's a cautionary tale. The second thing to note is that we're banking on mobile gaming like it's going to be secure well into the next couple of years, which we don't even know for sure. A common fallacy is that customers today mean customers tomorrow. If that's the case then why didn't the PS2's audience migrate fully into the PS3's audience? Additionally why didn't the PSP's audience migrate to the PSP go's audience? For the latter I think we all know the answer....

“For many consumers, the phone or tablet is now the mobile game console of choice without the need to carry cartridges or disks and a much lower average price per game,” Gartner mobile analyst Michael Gartenberg told VentureBeat. “Given Nintendo’s strong intellectual gaming properties, it’s certainly something they need to consider and how their software business can grow relative to their hardware business."

Now we're ignoring the fact that the DS and 3DS has downloadable games, through it's E shop/DSware service and through the Virtual Console service. This comparison is also only being used against physical media which the price point also provides added content and replayability as incentive of purchase. Again, no research is being done, and the facts are being fudged to make one device look better.

I agree that Nintendo should still invest time and money creating unique game experiences for 3DS. Since Nintendo has already invested itself in this hardware, it should create premium games that make it a must-have system for hardcore gamers. Heck, it should reserve its very best handheld titles for the system to justify the $30 to $40 price tag on those games.

So in order to properly do this they should send only their lower quality titles to the phone services, and keep their top tier products to themselves? I can seriously only roll my eyes so far into my ocular cavities. You're trying to make me test my limits, aren't you?

But the company needs to sell on the iPhone and Android too. For example, it could easily resell some of its most popular classic games on the iPhone and Android. I know plenty of iPhone owners who would shell out $5 to $10 to replay well-made versions of Super Mario Bros. 3 or The Legend of Zelda on their phones. Nintendo could also make original touch games starring lesser-known characters like Wario and Bowser. WarioWare for iPhone, anyone?

Or they could continue to do this using the hardware they already have. Hilariously, those same users mentioned, likely already own a DS or a Wii for those titles (Which are sold for the same prices). In addition, It's also likely to say that those same people already have emulators which play NES or SNES games on their devices as well. This means that even on the off chance that this does happen the way they want it, They would be still playing the crap out of the emu games and not buying up the ports (whamp whamp).

Gaming heavyweights Electronic Arts and Square Enix have already released several titles for smartphones, with the understanding that they need games for every possible platform. EA’s Sims titles are great fun on the iPhone and Android, while Square Enix has released remade versions of older Final Fantasy titles for iOS. Nintendo could take a similar approach.

Electronics Arts and Squeenix are third party companies to begin with. They have no hardware development arms, they have nothing else to bring in revenue other than games. Of course they need to put out as many games as possible on every platform available. This is why they're cutting down on the number of exclusives, however, if you remember - Both had the opportunity to put their titles on the console with the highest market share. One did to an extent, and the other decided to give the Wii strange side titles and offer up their best efforts to the HD titles (Techncally, both did, but still ).

I fully expect the 3DS to be the last handheld that Nintendo makes. As smartphones and tablets get more powerful, they will become even better gaming units, and they provide much more outside of gaming than a 3DS can. Nintendo needs to wake up, and soon, if it doesn’t want to become the next Sega. Of course, Sega went downhill after it canceled its Dreamcast console and gave up on hardware. The company took Sonic and its own games across all platforms, but not in an effective way.

Like I discussed in the 3DS post - If the nay-sayers had their way, the Gamecube would have been the last major console release, and Nintendo was expected to bow out of first party development altogether. So to hear people say such a thing now is incredibly facetious and preposterous. If this were a horse race, the writer would have taken the snapshot as the horses were right out of the gate, and declared the winner from there. Logically, we can't do that, so we won't. It's just best to sit back and see how things play out.

Smart phones and tablets will become better gaming units.. when they shed their additional features and become dedicated gaming devices. Until then, they will continue to be the one stop entertainment center for the waiting room, bathroom and break room. Handhelds and consoles will still be there for larger scale entertainment, as well as PCs for the PC gamer and so on. It amazes me that these writers seem to live in some sort of fantasy world while in the real world people are just playing phone games as a means of passing time between tasks.

The Sega comment rears it's head finally, but this is only done in a sense to scare Iwata and Nintendo into doing what the writer and the investors want. Ultimatums seem to only work as a means of getting people to do what that person wants. An over protective parent forces their child to choose between someone they're dating or them, or a jealous lover uses this as a means to manipulate someone into choosing them over someone else. In most cases ultimatums never work, and the person either chooses opposite of what that person who established the ultimatum wants, or neither out of spite and a show of both independence and defiance. Nintendo will not become the next Sega, because Iwata knows that porting out their games to the competition is the wrong answer. The answer is to provide good games with compelling content in order to bring in the fans, while utilizing the features of both the 3DS and the Wii U to instill a sense of value and interest.

-------------------

As you're reading this you probably think that i'm downing investors. Well yes. Investors aren't always right, and what seems to be a logical solution ( Forcing Nintendo to port games to the App store for an unprecedented number of potential dollars) could easily spell disaster for those who spent years building the company into the financial empire it has become. Of course, one doesn't bother to see this once their eyes are clouded with dollar signs. All they see are potential gains. Of course if the mobile gaming trend switches directions what are these guys going to say? "Sorry, Nintendo. My bad" Isn't going to recoup massive losses any more than what they're having to do with the 3DS relaunch campaign.

Forbes has an interesting article that discusses how seemingly logical thinking can easily backfire on investors. Apparently, what appears to be logical thinking in the case of forcing a company into a third party situation should be set aside and perhaps we should allow the company in question a means of figuring out what's best for them. Nintendo has been doing well under Iwata's run for quite a while, now. One setback isn't going to spell disaster this early in the game.

Likewise, the "doom and gloom" scenarios should be completely disregarded until otherwise proven, because that's really what's prompting the Investors into seeking some sort of action. This is a likely FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) ploy by viral marketers and mobile gaming zealots to get rid of Nintendo as a competitor. In fact, my suspicious mind would believe that iOS and Android games are in desperate need of something along the lines of a "Mario" or a flagship title to even begin to be on the level of the heavy hitters, so instead of trying to use their first party powers to do so, they would rather just attempt a forced "buyout" situation to intimidate Nintendo into bending to their will. That's how I would imagine that would go down. It's an interesting theory, and I wouldn't put it past Apple, the same company who tried to disrupt E3 with it's own conference, to do something along these lines.

The Moral

The moral of the story is that we shouldn't let others use fear to goad us into doing what they want. Or else we'll wind up like Charlie the Unicorn, and you know how he turned out.....

Candy Mountain, Indeed.

Quickies: Iwata has heart...

2011-08-03T09:33:00.003-05:00

Quickies: Iwata has heart..
Source(s): Nintendo Everything

You have to hand it to Iwata, if there's any company president who cares enough for the consumer it has to be him. I mean he's sending a letter to every 3DS owner who bought handhelds at launch. Here's what the letter says.

To Those Customers Who Bought A Nintendo 3DS Before The Price ChangeGreetings, everyone. This is Satoru Iwata from Nintendo.

Thank you very much for purchasing a Nintendo 3DS.We have just announced a price drop for the Nintendo 3DS system effective on August 11 [August 12 in North America].

In the past, there have been price drops for video game systems some time after their release in order to broaden the user base further. However, never before has Nintendo chosen to issue such a dramatic price drop less than 6 months after a system release.We are all too keenly aware that those of you who supported us by purchasing the 3DS in the beginning may feel betrayed and criticize this decision.

This unprecedented timing for a price cut is because the situation has changed greatly since we originally launched the 3DS. We decided it was necessary to take this drastic step in order to ensure that large numbers of users will continue to enjoy the 3DS in the future.If the software creators and those on the retail side are not confident that the Nintendo 3DS is a worthy successor to the DS and will achieve a similarly broad (user) base, it will be impossible for the 3DS to gain popularity, acquire a wide range of software, and eventually create the product cycle necessary for everyone to be satisfied with the system.

Those customers who purchased the 3DS at the very beginning are extremely important to us. We know that there is nothing we can do to completely make up for the feeling that you are being punished for buying the system early. Still, we would like to offer the following as a sign of our appreciation to you.[3DS Ambassador program details]

We feel a strong responsibility to develop the 3DS as a platform — to ensure that, in the end, everyone is satisfied; we will make every effort to do so.Additionally, we know everyone is waiting for Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7.

They are scheduled for release in November and December, respectively, so we ask for your patience until then.

Thank you again, and we look forward to your continued support.

Take note that most companies don't even have to do things of this nature. Sony could of easily did the same for their users during the whole PSN blackout incident, but chose to address gamers during E3. That's not a bad thing, but letters seem to be less intrusive (Especially in a venue where people wanted to know what was coming out next). With the things that early adapters are getting as a reward for their loyalty, I almost wish that I would of sprang for the handheld earlier. eh. A purchase is a purchase.

Game On.

Not necessarily the end of handhelds as we know it

2011-08-01T17:02:00.000-05:00

As I find myself sitting around reading this morning's news I came across an interesting article by Rob Fahey of Gamesindustry.biz and want to express a few words over his interesting musings. Since Gamesindustry doesn't allow views of the article without an account I'll repost for the sake of the audience.

There have been so many false, unfounded predictions of a huge Nintendo failure over the past few years - mostly involving massively biased fanboy commentators confidently anticipating the death of the Wii - that when the failure actually came, the event was so tempered with a sense of deja vu that it was hard to tell whether it actually felt surprising or not.

Yet there's absolutely no question that what has happened to the 3DS is, indeed, a huge failure for Nintendo. I'm being careful to say "for Nintendo" here, because it's important to retain some perspective; the 3DS has shipped close to 4.5 million units worldwide, which would be considered pretty good by many consumer device companies.

The 3DS is faring a hell of a sight better than, for example, tablet devices based on Android, or phones using Windows Phone 7 - and as others have been swift to point out, the figures aren't actually that far away from those achieved by the original Nintendo DS after its launch.

But that doesn't change the fact that, for Nintendo, this is a failure. Android on tablets and Windows Phone 7 are pitched against hugely dominant incumbents in their respective markets, where 3DS is the successor to a hugely dominant incumbent. Similar logic applies to comparisons with the original DS; that was Nintendo's first truly successful console in almost a decade, and when it arrived few people understood the appeal of the dual screen, touch-sensitive layout. 3DS, as its successor, should have enjoyed much more immediate success.

Nintendo, to its credit, isn't beating around the bush - it accepts the failure and has indicated a willingness to act aggressively to turn the situation around. Moves in that regard range from the symbolic (Satoru Iwata's 50% pay cut) to the practical (the massive price drop for the system and the likelihood of a marketing relaunch), and the company is also keen to be seen as learning from past mistakes - the failure to cut the price of the GameCube after disappointing early sales, in particular, was mentioned at the Tokyo press conference on Friday.

The reasons for the 3DS' disappointing performance don't really need a lot of explanation - anyone following the industry knows what the problems have been with the console. The price was much too high, comparable with a PlayStation 3 and far above the cost of the existing DS or an iPod Touch. Nintendo seems to have hoped that the 3DS would appeal to a core audience initially, with the DS staying on shelves for the mainstream audience. The low sales figures suggest that the company's core audience has also stayed away.
That might be down to the second major factor - the lack of software, or at least, the perceived lack of software. 3DS owners and publishers working on the console might raise their eyebrows when the platform is accused of lacking games - in my own view, at least, it's got one of the strongest early line-ups I've ever seen on a console - but the meme is more important than the reality. Again, Nintendo's abandonment by core fans doesn't help - and while titles like Starfox and Ocarina of Time are excellent, the console could have done with original games rather than remakes at this point in its lifespan.

Another area where perception is more important than reality is marketing, and this has been a complete and miserable failure for Nintendo on almost every count. The public simply isn't aware of the strengths of the 3DS, thanks to a marketing campaign which has tried to strongly emphasise the ties to the DS brand while also talking up the 3D capabilities of the system. As a consequence, many consumers are still under the impression that the 3DS is simply a DS with a 3D screen - these people aren't stupid or uninformed, they believe this because that's exactly what Nintendo has been telling them.

It doesn't help, of course, that 3D is presently in the doghouse as far as most consumers are concerned, thanks to movie studios completely wrecking any enthusiasm for the burgeoning technology with a slew of badly adapted, low-quality 3D releases - the situation is so dire that most ordinary cinema-goers I know will go to a more inconvenient showtime just to see the 2D version of a new film. Thus, the 3DS ends up with its only heavily promoted USP being a technology that consumers don't want, and which many actively resent.

In theory, all of those things could be fixed. You can cut the price - Nintendo already has, making the 3DS into probably the first console it has ever made on which it's taking a loss on hardware sales. You can bolster your software line-up, and Nintendo's already on the way to that. Even if you can't change the ill-conceived name, you can at least formulate a marketing campaign that promotes the console's other positives and downplays the 3D factor a little.

What you can't do, however, is make smartphones and tablets go away. I think the factors outlined above are probably the core reason for the failure of the 3DS to achieve the strong launch Nintendo had hoped for, but in the medium to long term, it's smartphones and tablets that will have the largest impact. Multifunction devices may not play games quite as well as dedicated devices (yet), but they play them well enough for most consumers - and have led many consumers to see handheld games as something that should be free or very inexpensive, casting huge doubt on the market for £30 software.
Given those factors, two major questions arise from Nintendo's humiliating about-face on the 3DS' price.

Firstly, has the company done enough to save the 3DS?
The answer, I think, is probably "yes - for now". At a much lower price point and with the software catalogue growing rapidly, with a better marketing campaign behind it and hopefully with the leeway for some good software bundles as we approach key sales periods this winter, I believe that the 3DS should have pretty decent sales in the vital fourth calendar quarter.

For most consumers, hardware purchases follow a simple equation - you balance up the number of games in which the consumer is interested on one side, and weigh that against the price on the other side. The fall in price makes it much easier for consumers to justify the purchase as the software library grows - and while for some consumers the rapid price cut will diminish confidence in the device, it should encourage others to come off the fence and buy into the console.

In the longer term, however, I believe that it's simply impossible for the 3DS to replicate the success of the DS. The audience that Nintendo won for itself with the DS hasn't stopped gaming, but they've discovered - as many other gamers have - that there's a lot of high quality entertainment to be had for much lower prices. Iwata may rail against the dangers - as he perceives them - of low-cost software on iOS style platforms, but the reality is that billions of dollars are being spent on iOS Apps, many of them games, and that clever companies are finding ways to fund even the development of pretty large-scale, high quality projects using new business models provided by smartphone platforms.
Which leads us to the second question - what does the difficulty faced by the 3DS mean for the wider console market, particularly the handheld market? Where does this leave PlayStation Vita?

Some commentators have opined that Vita was actually a seriously negative factor for the 3DS, and I think there's some truth to that - the fact that Sony was going to launch a technologically superior handheld, without the divisive, unpopular 3D tech, at the same price point as the 3DS, definitely dampened sales. However, it's easy to put too much weight on that idea - the reality is that most consumers who chose not to buy a 3DS did so not because of Vita on the horizon, but rather because of being perfectly happy with something that already exists, like an iPod Touch or a DSi.

If anything, I think Sony will be seriously worried by the early failures of the 3DS. For a start, it puts them in the uncomfortable position of launching a much more expensive product than their rival - and as has been proven time and time again in recent years, for most consumers, the argument that it's more powerful so it's worth the money just doesn't wash, especially with a handheld platform. It also creates a market expectation of failure for dedicated handheld devices, so Vita's launch will probably be dampened by consumers holding off a purchase in case it, too, ends up being heavily discounted a few months later.

More importantly, though, the blow Nintendo has taken with the 3DS is an illustration of the real strength and influence of iOS devices in the gaming space. That traditional handhelds would suffer from the rise of iOS, not just due to the incredible sales of Apple's devices but also due to the resulting sea-changes in business models and consumer expectations, has been long theorised. Now we have proof, and it's solid enough proof to have wiped a fifth off Nintendo's formerly soaring stock value.

Sony, at least, understands the outline of this problem, even if I'm not convinced that it's grasped the full scale of it just yet. The PlayStation Suite framework for Android is designed to give the company a leg-up in the mobile gaming space, and it's shown vastly more commitment to delivering low-cost, high-quality content on PSN than Nintendo has on services like the 3DS eShop or its predecessors, which are much more focused on squeezing value out of retro titles than on providing a marketplace for original content.

Yet the reality still remains the same - PlayStation Vita is going to launch at the same price point which sank the 3DS, and even if some of the factors around it look more positive (not least that the early adopter market still likes Sony, but regards Nintendo as having blotted its copybook badly in the past generation), it's still going to be competing with iOS devices sporting a huge game catalogue at vastly lower prices. That's a tough nut to crack, and I'm not sure Sony has really worked out how to crack it.
The long-term diagnosis is tricky. It's easy to look at home consoles and core gaming on PC and confidently predict that it's here for the long-haul; even if the pace of the graphics arms race slows down (as it must), the simple reality of tens of millions of core consumers will ensure that the market remains fairly healthy regardless of how popular casual and social gaming gets.

Handhelds are a trickier proposition. The reality is that they're not quite so hardcore a market - some core titles break through, such as the extraordinary Monster Hunter (which, I recently discovered, actually commonly features in personal ads on dating sites in Japan, such is its ubiquity), but where few Xbox or PS3 owners are going to be satisfied with a complete move to an iPad or a bunch of Facebook games and free-to-play MMOs, a pretty large proportion of DS and PSP owners would probably be perfectly happy playing on iPhones or Droids.

That transition is no longer hypothetical - the money being pumped through the iOS revenue system, contrasted with the failure of the 3DS to ring the tills at retail, is proof positive that it's already happening on a large scale. The only question is how big this factor is going to be. 3DS and PS Vita will, quite simply, never scale the heights of the previous generation of handhelds - but if Nintendo and Sony are fast, and clever, and more than a bit lucky, there's a good chance that they can carve out a viable, if smaller, market.

One thing is certain - dedicated handheld gaming devices are now in rapid decline, and barring an extraordinary technological advance, they're not going to come back. Birthed with the Game & Watch, this sector is going to end with the 3DS and Vita. All that remains to be seen is whether it ends with a whimper, or a bang.

Keep in mind that this isn't an article about bashing an opinion, this is just me chiming in with my own thoughts on the subject. I'm kind of impressed with Rob's article as it is, but for the sake of discussion I want to make a few points known while adding onto what's already there.

Perception is a tricky thing when it comes to selling consoles. As far as the consumer is concerned, you want to make sure you have a product that does the job you want it to do, while bringing things to the table that make this product stand out from the others. The 3DS plays games, so we know that much, but what else does it do? The first thing I would expect to hear if I asked you all that question is that it plays games in 3D. Well of course the average consumer sitting on his or her couch knew that from the commercial because that's all they saw.

The 3D feature stands out in terms of other handhelds, but since that's the main draw Nintendo went with to establish the handheld, that's all people think that the 3DS has going for it. The reality is there are lots of things the 3DS has going for it, but of course all we see is that this is a DS with "no glasses 3D" tacked on. Well there's that and the price, which of course was suitable to some and pricey to everyone else. To fix this, Nintendo is going to have to start from the ground up explaining the biggest draws of the system. Things like the E-shop, Online gaming functionality, Browser functionality, as well as the bigger draws; the 3DSware and Virtual Console features. These should have been equally important in establishing why this isn't a "gimmicky handheld" and would be a must buy compared to the competition.

The Library of games needs to be established as well. Nintendo has already dealt with severe game famines on the Wii, and it's pretty safe to bet that they expected the third party developers to cover their bases on launch. This was established early on that the 3DS was a means of trying to lure the core demographic in to cover both sides of the gaming fanbase. That's not a negative thing, however, banking on niche games like Street Fighter 4, or BlazBlue wasn't going to bring everyone on board. The majority of people who purchase Nintendo consoles clearly do so for the first party experiences. And at 3DS' launch there was a grand total of....well.... Three. Not bad games, mind you, but the heavy hitters weren't there. The other issue is that Steel Diver was the only new IP being released, while the other two games (as well as future Nintendo titles to be released) are sequels. While some sequels would be nice to have (FZero, or even a new Battleclash / Metal Combat game that took advantage of customizing and battling other STs online), we also have to keep in mind that sequels do wane in popularity with each passing game, so it would be a good idea to get some new blood out there.

Given those factors, two major questions arise from Nintendo's humiliating about-face on the 3DS' price. Firstly, has the company done enough to save the 3DS?

The answer, I think, is probably "yes - for now". At a much lower price point and with the software catalogue growing rapidly, with a better marketing campaign behind it and hopefully with the leeway for some good software bundles as we approach key sales periods this winter, I believe that the 3DS should have pretty decent sales in the vital fourth calendar quarter.

For most consumers, hardware purchases follow a simple equation - you balance up the number of games in which the consumer is interested on one side, and weigh that against the price on the other side. The fall in price makes it much easier for consumers to justify the purchase as the software library grows - and while for some consumers the rapid price cut will diminish confidence in the device, it should encourage others to come off the fence and buy into the console.

In the longer term, however, I believe that it's simply impossible for the 3DS to replicate the success of the DS. The audience that Nintendo won for itself with the DS hasn't stopped gaming, but they've discovered - as many other gamers have - that there's a lot of high quality entertainment to be had for much lower prices. Iwata may rail against the dangers - as he perceives them - of low-cost software on iOS style platforms, but the reality is that billions of dollars are being spent on iOS Apps, many of them games, and that clever companies are finding ways to fund even the development of pretty large-scale, high quality projects using new business models provided by smartphone platforms.

I'm leery of the term "high quality entertainment" when referring to iOS games. While many developers are throwing ports of games into the iOS marketplace, There's still the logical issue that plagues a lot of these ports; Controls do make a difference. Virtual analog does not make for a good gaming experience, and games like Resident Evil 4 and Duke Nukem 3D prove that. What works for point-and-click based games doesn't necessarily work for everything. The second issue is that these games for the most part are short-term entertainment options, and due to the limitations of the hardware (battery life and competition with other applications and functions of mobile devices) the gameplay experience is considerably hindered. Granted, these games are making tons of profit, but it's more about the quantity at which they're being purchased at their low price points, rather than quality.

I feel that the steps taken now will ensure that the 3DS will gain some momentum if at least short-term. Price cuts don't ensure increased long terms sales, that's the job of compelling software.The big thing right now is to make sure that the library is padded with good compelling games, while refocusing on accentuating the positives of the handheld. Addressing 3D as a feature, but not the main draw of the handheld, ect. If Nintendo can keep that up, then there's a good chance of the 3DS doing better than it has been. I can't say if it'll be as successful as the DS, but increased sales certainly wouldn't hurt at this point.

Which leads us to the second question - what does the difficulty faced by the 3DS mean for the wider console market, particularly the handheld market? Where does this leave PlayStation Vita?

Considering the Vita really doesn't look that promising to begin with (IMHO) It probably leaves Sony even more screwed than it was in the beginning. This is probably the other side of Iwata's decision to slash the price of the 3DS. By creating a gap in price this is going to make the 3DS incredibly more attractive by comparison. This is purely speculation on my part, but I just see this is a good move to increase interest, while hurting the competition's chances of gaining a foothold.

Some commentators have opined that Vita was actually a seriously negative factor for the 3DS, and I think there's some truth to that - the fact that Sony was going to launch a technologically superior handheld, without the divisive, unpopular 3D tech, at the same price point as the 3DS, definitely dampened sales. However, it's easy to put too much weight on that idea - the reality is that most consumers who chose not to buy a 3DS did so not because of Vita on the horizon, but rather because of being perfectly happy with something that already exists, like an iPod Touch or a DSi.

Again, "Technological superiority" only goes so far. Too many gadgets aren't going to do the Vita any good if they're just there for the sake of the technophile, and not for the sake of bringing anything to the gameplay experience. I'm still rather confused about how the back touch-pad will do anything beneficial.

If anything, I think Sony will be seriously worried by the early failures of the 3DS. For a start, it puts them in the uncomfortable position of launching a much more expensive product than their rival - and as has been proven time and time again in recent years, for most consumers, the argument that it's more powerful so it's worth the money just doesn't wash, especially with a handheld platform. It also creates a market expectation of failure for dedicated handheld devices, so Vita's launch will probably be dampened by consumers holding off a purchase in case it, too, ends up being heavily discounted a few months later.

Yet the reality still remains the same - PlayStation Vita is going to launch at the same price point which sank the 3DS, and even if some of the factors around it look more positive (not least that the early adopter market still likes Sony, but regards Nintendo as having blotted its copybook badly in the past generation), it's still going to be competing with iOS devices sporting a huge game catalogue at vastly lower prices. That's a tough nut to crack, and I'm not sure Sony has really worked out how to crack it.

If Nintendo did this as a means of hurting Sony's launch, then I have to tip my hat. That's a well played move. Taking a short term loss in order to price out the Vita is downright sinister.

Handhelds are a trickier proposition. The reality is that they're not quite so hardcore a market - some core titles break through, such as the extraordinary Monster Hunter (which, I recently discovered, actually commonly features in personal ads on dating sites in Japan, such is its ubiquity), but where few Xbox or PS3 owners are going to be satisfied with a complete move to an iPad or a bunch of Facebook games and free-to-play MMOs, a pretty large proportion of DS and PSP owners would probably be perfectly happy playing on iPhones or Droids.

Hmm.... I'm doubting that's even the case. I don't believe that people completely abandon dedicated gaming hardware for mobile or browser based gaming. Both types of games are usually played by these types of gamers, and it's a matter of which one is played predominately. If I were to venture a guess, I'd have to say that people still play dedicated games often with the mobile games being played on the side.

That transition is no longer hypothetical - the money being pumped through the iOS revenue system, contrasted with the failure of the 3DS to ring the tills at retail, is proof positive that it's already happening on a large scale. The only question is how big this factor is going to be. 3DS and PS Vita will, quite simply, never scale the heights of the previous generation of handhelds - but if Nintendo and Sony are fast, and clever, and more than a bit lucky, there's a good chance that they can carve out a viable, if smaller, market.

One thing is certain - dedicated handheld gaming devices are now in rapid decline, and barring an extraordinary technological advance, they're not going to come back. Birthed with the Game & Watch, this sector is going to end with the 3DS and Vita. All that remains to be seen is whether it ends with a whimper, or a bang.

Never say never. Last generation was supposedly the last console generation for Nintendo as a first party hardware developer. So, stating that this is the final generation of handheld hardware is a bit short sighted at best. If anything this should present another question of what is going to be the draw of the next set of portable consoles. Nintendo is the main company that seems to be constantly wracking it's employee's brains for extraordinary technological advances, so it's pretty obvious that they're going to be the first ones on the scene with anything that will innovate handheld gaming. As history tells, it'll be Sony bringing in the rear with something to counter.

So while I did enjoy the article for the interesting points, I kind of thought the other points were so so. The true competition is going to be the initial fight between the 3DS and the Vita, and so far I'm hoping the 3DS will take the lead. Vita for what it's worth seems only interesting in it's games rather than what the handheld can do. On the other hand the 3DS is lacking games, yet has interesting features. In terms of general interest I would rather purchase a 3DS, but I've been wanting one since it's E3 reveal. Logically, now that the price will be dropped to $169.99 , It would be nothing short of advantageous to purchase one, but I'm sure there will be some interesting holiday bundles planned in the near future.

Nintendo has a long road ahead of them at this point. They could possibly take this opportunity to salvage the 3DS and turn it into a success story, and they could very well do that. I am also hoping that they take this to heart, and use this as a learning experience when dealing with how to market the Wii u, much like they used the DS as the testing ground for the Wii's release. If things turn around as planned then we're going to be in for a rather interesting holiday season.

Game On.

Gaming for a greater purpose....

2011-07-28T21:18:00.001-05:00

Of course I spend an ample amount of time pretty much hanging out on here talking about gaming, and it's problems. I fan out when I like something and I get incredibly sarcastic and cynical when I don't. It's all in fun, and I rather enjoy what I do here. Offline I have my fair share of human problems, which for the most part are fairly easy to manage. Some of my friends, however don't have such luxury.

One of my friends in general is going through some serious medical conditions, and is in danger of possibly losing her house which she's only had for a fairly short period of time. While I've only known her for a year, I can't let her or her daughter be put out on the streets, and I feel like I must do something about it. Now those of you who know me, outside of the interwebz, know that I tend to go into "hero mode" whenever someone is in need of help. That's kind of the person I am, and it can be both a blessing and a curse, but I feel like if I have talents that can be utilized to help others either, through helping people understand, and discover new and interesting things in gaming and art, then by god, I'm going to do it!!

So what am I planning specifically? Well the idea came to me while I was working the other night; I'm a gamer, I run a fairly popular blog. Why not do a gaming marathon? I can get an HD webcam and stream my gaming exploits through classic gaming history with my usual commentary while raising money to help someone catch up on their medical bills and mortgage. Sounds good right? Well I also had this idea to basically also contact one of my favorite local video game stores, Gamers , and see if they'll let me do a marathon at one of their locations from "open to close" while livestreaming the event for internet donation and such. It's an interesting endeavor. Definitely for a good cause, and it's just the right thing to do.

So for the time being, this is what I'm planing on doing; I'll be working out the details in a series of days and try to see if I can make these ideas come to fruition. I'll let you guys know how things are coming along through additional posts.

Thanks and Game On!

Quickies: Zelda to be an "Upgradable experience"

2011-07-27T21:35:00.002-05:00

Quickies: Zelda to be an "Upgradable experience"
Source(s):Joystick Division

So Comicon brings us some interesting Zelda news. One - Skyward Sword being a prequel to the Triforce storyline - Means that there will be no Ganon. This being one of the gripes of the series, you would think that this is an interesting development and a good means of inviting some new villains into the series. The villain in question is a sorcerer named Ghirahim who does kind of remind me of Naruto villain, Orochimaru. He even does the best Gene Simmons impression ever.

While showing off the game, Bill Trinen gives some more insight into the mechanics, one of them being an actual upgrade system for weapons and shields. This isn't exactly something new for Zelda, since the original games did offer upgrades for the master sword (A Link to the past comes to mind), however I really like that Nintendo has been busy working on something that provides a larger sense of development. The combat shown in the video above is pretty interesting, and Trinen says that there are multiple ways to approach combat in bossfights, which I really like.

I'm excited about this, and I think I might have to preorder the game when I get the chance.

Game On!

Quickies: I hate repeating myself.....

2011-07-20T12:32:00.002-05:00

So.. A Shotoken Karate guy a Ninja and a Demon walk into a bar.....

Quickies: I hate repeating myself.....
Source(s): Capcom Unity Blog

If there's one thing I hate, it's sounding like a broken record, or sounding like I'm trying to drill one thing into someone's head multiple times. It gets old, and people tend to get annoyed at it. I dislike it with other people's blogs, I'm sure you guys dislike it as well, however.... Let's just show the blurb.

SAN DIEGO, Calif. — July 20, 2011 — Capcom®, a leading worldwide developer and publisher of video games, and Marvel Entertainment today announced that Ultimate Marvel® vs. Capcom® 3 is in development for the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft®. Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 will take the epic battle to all new heights with new iconic characters from the Marvel and Capcom universes, a refined fighting system, eight new stages and new modes when it releases this November for the low MSRP of $39.99.
The highly acclaimed fighting game adds 12 new legends to the robust Marvel vs. Capcom 3 roster, bringing the total overall roster of characters up to 50. The first new characters revealed for Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 include much-requested Capcom character Strider who slashes his way into the fray along with Ghost ‘n Goblins™ villain Firebrand. On the Marvel side, Ghost Rider will finally exercise his vengeance and Hawkeye will pick apart foes. More characters will be revealed in the coming months.
In addition to characters, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 features a host of enhancements and new features to improve the game’s balance and online functionality. One of the biggest additions to Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is the fan-requested Spectator Mode, which allows fighters to watch live online matches together. With multiple improvements and 12 new characters, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 brings home the ultimate fighting experience for newcomers and pros alike.

Ultimate MVC3? you mean like MVC3 but with more stuff crammed into it, and additional system and online tweaking? You mean like here's the game you guys bought with a whole bunch more stuff added to make you want to buy this version as well? Like you guys just did with SF4 part deux: Street Harder? really?

Okay, I totally understand that people are getting four new characters out of it (Shuma-Gorath, Ghost Rider, Strider Hiryu, and Hawkeye), but somehow this kind of seems like this is a ploy to take it beyond DLC by tweaking the engine and online. To be honest I even half-expected it. Who really wanted to believe that Capcom would of actually announced a brand new fighting game that would get people excited?
...........

....
...
*slowly raises hand*

Dagnabit!!

Secondly, the name is hilariously unfitting for the game. Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3? I half-ass expect Scorpion and Sub Zero to be involved. Even Ed Boon made a joke about it on his twitter.

NOOBDE: RT @CEOJebailey Can you guys Sue for Acronym Likeness? UMVC3 Noobde: Oh yea? Our next game is Super Mortal Kombat Arcade Edition!

Even the followers are joining in with funny responses like "Super Mortal Kombat 3 plus Alpha for matching service". If you're planning to get the game, and I know a lot of people are, that's fine I guess, but I just find it irritating that once again we're getting the bait and switch, with the "this isn't the real version of _______, this is" excuse to boot. And once again we're not even getting any of the games in series that have been long neglected...

Capcom, George Takei has this to say to you.....

Quickies: Megaman Legends has heart

2011-07-18T14:36:00.002-05:00

Quickies: Megaman Legends has heart

Blog article: Halcyon Days: Megaman Legends and the lost art of sincerity

Source(s): 1up.com

I have very few heroes, but if you asked me who is one of my favorite gaming journalist types I would easily point you in the direction of Jeremy Parish. He's clearly one of the best the go-to guys for old school gaming and has an uncanny knack for breaking things down to their core and analyzing them properly. Which is why it was really good to see him do a blog post on Megaman Legends, and how it was truly a game with heart.

I really don't understand a lot of the hate the game seemed to get. It's clear that half the fanbase at the time dogged it for being so unlike the previous games in the series, while others hated the fact that it was a third person 3D shooter with vague RPG mechanics, but really it wasn't so bad a game. I remember beating it in a weekend, and eventually wanting to play it's sequel. Sadly enough the only other game in the series I played was The Misadventures of Tron Bonne, which wasn't a bad game, either (little too puzzly at times and often super challenging ).Do yourselves a favor and check out the article. it brings up a lot of points that people have glossed over. Meanwhile, I guess I'll be hitting up my local Gamers for a copy of Megaman Legends 2.

Game On!

Quickies: Dragon's Crown - bringing sexy back

2011-07-15T17:01:00.002-05:00

Quickies: Dragon's Crown - bringing sexy back
Source(s): Youtube

Well more like bringing sexy back to the old school Side-scrolling Hack and Slashers. Vanillaware, makers of Odin Sphere, and the fantastic but somewhat ignored, Muramasa: The Demon Blade are planning to bring this graphically gorgeous throwback to games like Golden Axe to PS3 and Vita.

Watching the trailer actually reminds me of another old school side slasher; The D&D games Shadow over Mystara and Tower of Doom. The character types are about the same for both games, and I'm sure the devs over at Vanillaware would probably note this as an inspiration as well.

The only difference is that there are no stacked sorceresses and amazon characters bouncing out of their tops. While I can only laugh at the absurdity of that, and not let it ruin what's otherwise an interesting looking game, I'm sure people will make jokes and Rule 34 the crap out of it. That's fine. The only thing I care about is that people give this game a chance. Vanillaware should be way more popular than they are, considering the incredible effort put into the presentation of their games, and the fact that they're putting out the types of games that I wish the bigger companies (like Capcom) still were. However, this is definitely a game I want to try out when I get the opportunity to. This also reminds me that I need to find a copy of Muramasa, stat.

COD: Black Ops. the review

2011-07-14T12:42:00.003-05:00

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Console: Wii
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Treyarch
Progress: Single player campaign completed / two hours logged into Zombie survival mode.
Difficulty: Standard

I'm no stranger to Call of Duty. I've played COD 2, though I have yet to finish it. (I believe i'm somewhere past the panzerschreck tank fight) I've played through and beaten COD 3, which was a damned fantastic game that left me kind of misty eyed at the retelling of some of the things the polish officers had to go through when fighting the German troops. Modern Warfare Reflex, though left a bad taste in my mouth and no matter how much the game had going for it, I just couldn't bring myself to play through it. So of course I was kind of hesitant to play Black Ops. Not because Treyarch isn't a capable developer - on the contrary i love what they have done in the past - just because of the fact that MWR in my opinion was a meh game. Of course when I had the chance to play Black Ops via Redbox's rental service I discovered something incredibly interesting...

The Rundown -

The Spiracy Scale is back!!!

From Wikipedia.

Call of Duty: Black Ops takes place during the Cold War, in the 1960s. The story focuses on the CIA-backed clandestine black operationscarried out behind enemy lines. These missions take place in various locations around the globe such as the Ural Mountains in central Russia,Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam. The single-player campaign revolves around an experimental chemical weapon codenamed "Nova-6".

The player mainly controls SAD/SOG special forces operative Alex Mason and occasionally CIA agent Jason Hudson, as well as other characters. Mason often works with Frank Woods and Joseph Bowman, while Hudson teams up with Grigori Weaver, a Russian-born field operative. Viktor Reznov, a key character from the Soviet campaign in World at War returns. Its Russian protagonist Dimitri Petrenko also makes an appearance. Black Ops features several historical figures: Mason meets John F. Kennedy, Robert McNamara, and Fidel Castro.

Graphics: Awesome

The first thing that grabbed me about Black Ops was it's presentation. The graphics are fantastic on the Wii, yes they are scaled down from the HD and PC versions, however, that doesn't really take away from the game at all. The game seems to have a linear setup that has you jumping from Cuba during the Bay of Pigs Invasion, to Vietnam to flashbacks and then to find and assassinate would-be terrorist Nikita Dragovich. The interrogation segments are a bit much as you're being tortured via electrocution while recollecting these events that you find yourself playing through, but I have to admit this really added to the overall feel of the game's covert nature.

The other thing that blew me away about the game's graphics were the lush settings. Usually you look at Wii games and the backgrounds are anywhere between okay to . "Jeez , you really weren't even trying were you?", but I just turn to look at the clouds or skyline and there's some serious effort going on here. The snow fields in russia, the villages, the lush jungles of Vietnam, Laos, the sunset skies. This is what I expect from capable developers, and I want other developers to take note. This is where I need the bar to be set for graphics in Wii games, as this is kind of the level of quality that Factor 5 had shown with the Rogue Leader games.

Gameplay: Good

The controls are pretty much the same as MW:Reflex, and The Conduit / Conduit 2. Customizable, which is a definite gold standard for Wii shooters.Since I was still playing through Conduit 2 at the time I set the controls for the setup i was using in that game as to not confuse myself silly. The play itself is fast paced, and I like the AI. The only gripe I have with the game was that I noticed some lag in some of the stages. I would have a headshot perfectly lined up and there was a delay between the time i pressed the B trigger and firing. I don't know if that's due to frame drop or whatever.

The Alli AI was alright. COD games differ from the usual shooters because you can't just go in like Rambo and expect things to turn out alright, The massive amounts of enemies make it necessary to have backup, and for the most part, your people come in handy. always calling out where to go next, taking down enemies you might have missed. Solid stuff aside from the occasional disorientation of not knowing if those are your guys ahead of you or the enemy. though once you hover over them with the pointer it's pretty straightforward. maybe it's just been a while since I've played a shooter of this caliber.

The bullet-time segments were alright. It took a second to figure out where my targets where and trying to get them all in one go before time sped up again. One addition that I liked, but didn't really have time to fiddle with, was the grenade toss option. If at any time an enemy threw a grenade at you you can retrieve the grenade and toss it back at them by shaking the nunchuck. Now I didn't figure this part out until the very end of the game, but it was fun once i got the hang of it.

Difficulty: Sweet

Black Ops can be at times engaging, and then sometimes downright difficult. I found myself stuck in a couple of spots, but I didn't find myself as frustrated as I was with Reflex. Granted Kowloon was kind of irritating with it's multiple snipers and tricky jumps, and fighting through waves of Viet Kong in Khe Sanh I have to say i felt like i had been thoroughly challenged. Rebirth Island was awesome as was the last stage, because damn if you didn't have to get your strategy together in order to win. For those of you who get stuck, you can always switch out your difficulty in order to progress further with little problems. Of course I was way too stubborn to do that.

Music: Good

It's a war shooter so of course you're going to expect some guitar solos, and some big time epic themes. The music was good, not really that memorable, but I spent more time focusing on the gameplay than anything.

The Verdict: Play it!

While I didn't get a chance to check out the online multiplayer option, and I only spent a little time on the zombies game. I liked what I saw and definitely wanted to play more of it. I was wrong to avoid the game based on the assumption that since it's an Activision title it wasn't worth touching, and for that I wholeheartedly take back my "i'll play no more activision games" policy in order to purchase and play more of this game. Treyarch seems to be really good at delivering solid shooters in the COD series. It's been that way since the PS2 days and why would it be any different now?

For those of you who are wondering what's the better game between this and Conduit 2; I don't think it's fair to compare the two. One is a war shooter, the other is a Sci Fi FPS made by different companies on different levels of expertise and skill. HVS could stand to look to Black Ops in terms of adding another level of polish onto what they have, and obviously Treyarch utilized the customization option thanks to HVS' efforts. I like what each game brings to the table equally.

With that being said give Black Ops a chance, if you like a good FPS for Wii, but Reflex left a bad taste in your mouth. You'll enjoy this.

Okay, that was awesome!!

2011-07-12T06:01:00.003-05:00

Saw this on twitter a bit ago and thought it was cool, but the inclusion of a certain portly plumber made this all the more sweeter, and acceptable to post on my humble little gaming blog.

It also really helped that I had

playing on loop while this video was going, because Contra Hard Corps makes everything better. You know now that I think about it that would be one of the most epic boss fights ever!! Get on it, Developers!!

Diary of a weird thirty-something gamer..

2011-07-12T05:12:00.006-05:00

***
Cue applause
***

Welcome back to Fullscreen Bossfight. I am your host, Spiracy. And today we will be talking about a subject that is near and dear to my heart. Gamers over Thirty.

With me will be my special guest commentator The baddest man in gaming, and a personal friend of mine.

Please put your hands together for Bishop Don, LeWayne Silk.

**Cue Applause**

BDLS: Whadup nephew? it's good to be back in the house, witcha. I rememba when we used to play battletoads together. remembah dat?

Bu chu bu chu bu chu chu chu.

Spiracy: did you just do the pause music?

BDLS: Ya damn right I did, playa!!

Spiracy: (Laughs)

Spiracy: So let's get right down to it, shall we? This comes from Game Set Watch. Apparently there was a segment about gamers in their thirties and over on the Today show, and the response....well let's take a look at that.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Spiracy: Soo is it just me, or did that just seem like a completely dismissive comment?

BDLS: What da hell was that?

Spiracy: And who's this Donny Deutsch character? Man's man? are you serious?

BDLS: The only reason why hesa man's man is because he's probably da first mutha****** on earth and God put him in charge of namin da animals.

Spiracy: Bishop, please. Language.

BDLS: Sorry, Spicy, but he prolly wrote the guide to being a man on two stone tablets and got the information from a talkin brush fire. Fake ass Leslie Nielson looking mutha..

Spiracy: Surely you're not serious, Bishop?

BDLS: Yes, Mutha***** I am, and Don't call me shirley!

Spiracy: (raises his eyebrow and looks curiously into the camera) All points on that aside, I don't think he even cared to be bothered with that question at all, and to be honest isn't the average gamer age 30 and up? I mean seriously. Have we seem to forgotten when gaming actually started? Not to mention that There are a lot of gamers out there that are well adjusted human beings with Jobs and normal day-to-day lives.

BDLS: Church!

Spiracy: I just feel like no matter what their age if you enjoy playing video games you should play them. People enjoy playing pool or darts, or sitting in front of the television veging out or reading blogs (cough) And there's no age limits on those activities.

BDLS: Well, Spicy. Heckle and Jeckle both agreed that as long as you playing vidya games with kids that's normal ish.

Spiracy: And it's good to play video games with kids. I've played Mario Kart Wii with my nieces and relatives all the time. However I also have played Halo 2 with friends when they're over. I just was out last night playing Just Dance and Wii Sports with friends while drinking. That was a blast! You can't just lump in one instance of playing video games and say that's okay, because then that implies that gaming is a negative stigma. And seriously who's to say what's socially acceptable or not?

BDLS: Not Kathie Lee "dry martinis at 9 in da mutha******* morning, God, Regis why don't you like me anymore" Gifford, that's fa damn sure.

Spiracy: (Laughs)

BDLS: pssht

Spiracy: Let's get back to the point, Bishop. We have 30-50 and above year olds who play video games and aren't the "stinky basement dwellers" people make them out to be. Now i'm not saying there aren't those types of gamers out there because if you've gone to any convention you've probably seen a few suspect cases, but seriously that's a small group. This console generation alone proved that there were all sorts of gamers out there older than the standard 15-25 range who liked playing video games.

BDLS: Da real fact is this... Kathy Lee shouldn't be playin video games in her mental state, anyway.. I mean look at this s*** , Spicy.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

BDLS: First of all they get da name wrong, second of all what..da....hell. Josie my ass. dats Slowsie and the mushy cats!! Raise dat Guitar, Kathie!! that's the only starpower you got dese days!!

Spiracy: Embarrassing, but not surprising.

BDLS: dey got about as much rhythm as Steve Martin in the Jerk. Look at the girl on the drums. that chick ain't even playin, and she throwing the stick like she somethin. THERE'S ONLY TWO HUDS THERE, baby!! HIT DA START BUTTON OR SOMETHIN!!

Spiracy: Sad (Laughs) Video games don't have age limits, but they should probably be played in moderation... which is something I can't apparently do considering this is technically my second job.

BDSL: church!

Spiracy: I think that's all the time we have. Thank you Bishop for coming onto the show.

BDSL: Thank ya, brotha Spicy.

Spiracy: And goodnight everyone.

**cue applause **

The scene changes into a man in a straight jacket in a padded room mumbling to himself. As two large orderlies come in

Nurse: There you are, Spiracy. you're talking to yourself again? We have just the medicine for you.

Spiracy: That's the show ladies and gentlemen. muhahahahahahahahhah *frothing*

Nurse: He thinks he has a moderately popular blog on the internet. and he also thinks he's two different people. Some pimp named Bishop Le magic wayne or something.... I don't know.

Spiracy: Church (laughs) muhahahhahahahahahah

Nurse B: That poor man.... I guess it makes sense him being a thirty two year old gamer.. how weird.

*she turns to wink at the camera as Spiracy is dragged off*

Spiracy: GAME ONNNNNNN

_________________________________________________
dramatization may not have happened

Quickies: Wow, Cliff, wow.

2011-07-11T12:41:00.001-05:00

Quickies: Wow, Cliff, wow.
Source(s): Industry Gamers

Cliffy B seems to have had enough with the negativity surrounding the Wii U. Here's the latest blurb on that.

Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski is never one to hold back his opinion.IndustryGamers asked the Epic design director back at E3 about the Wii U, and he talked about the evolution of technology but in the end admitted that it doesn't matter because it's from Nintendo and people will buy it no matter what.

He commented, "From what I’ve seen, it looks pretty cool. It seems like you can stream your game from your television directly to your [tablet] controller, so if you have irritable bowel syndrome, or a small bladder, you can still play it in the toilet. That’s great. But, you know, from what people are saying online, they’re like, 'Oh, it’s just a DreamCast, whatever.' But it’s like, 'Dude, what’s old is new sometimes.'

"The Power Glove [back on NES] led to the Wii, right? The Virtual Boy led to the 3DS, right? A lot of these older technologies that you forget about are [the technological predecessors]. The Kinect is a sophisticated webcam, right? So I’m just dying to see it. It’s Nintendo. I’ll buy it. I know I’ll buy it. They’ll talk sh*t but they’ll buy it," he added, referring to the skeptical gamers on message boards.

Epic Games has yet to officially commit to the Wii U, but the developer and Unreal Engine middleware provider has always said it'll support Nintendo when the hardware comes up to the level necessary for Unreal. Odds are we'll be seeing some Unreal-powered games or even titles directly from Epic on Wii U at some point down the line.

Despite commentary from Epic's higher ups, Cliff has been pretty solid in his support of Nintendo consoles, so it's nothing new to see him in support of the Wii U. We haven't seen a price, we have various ideas of specs but nothing certain, and we've had plenty of negativity surrounding it's initial reveal. Then again some people already had their mind set that the new console was going to fail, which is also nothing new.

I'm rather intrigued by the Wii U, and see the same amount of possibilities surrounding it as I did the Wii back in 2006 after the initial shock. I will most likely be buying it for the games, and for the new things it will add for motion control gaming. As for whether it fails or not, That has yet to be seen. With the growing complaints over this and the rage over NOA's refusal to release games like Last Story and Xenoblade. It's no wonder that Nintendo is being the target of forum rage. But seriously ask yourselves this; How much does the internet count for the total amount of users that own Wii consoles? The answer is likely a fraction of total users. The real test for the success for any console will be how the total population reacts to it, and if demand is there for it then it'll do well.

I find it hilarious that we can diss Pachula for attempting to predict the future with dire results, yet turn around and do the same thing like we're just as credible. Me? I'm just going to sit back and watch how things play out. That's the logical thing to do.

Game On.

Redbox Games - First impressions pt 2

2011-07-05T21:21:00.002-05:00

So i stopped over at my local grocery story and finally went sifting through the redbox machine's game selection, and of course.. There were only two Wii games available; Just Dance 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops. Naturally i picked the more socially acceptable title for a young man of my age (*cough*) to play.

The Price

The price is right, actually; Only a dollar more than what it would cost to purchase a movie. With tax that came to about $2.14. With each additional night being another two dollar purchase. This is where they could stand to make a killing considering the average player and the time it takes for them to make it through a particular campaign. I'm kind of old school so of course I made it through Black Ops at the normal setting in about two days (I'll discuss the game in greater detail when I provide the review, later)

The Selection

As it stands, if Redbox can gain a solid amount of games in it's library it could possibly make a sizable chunk in services like Blockbuster (who has a decent library of games, but only allows rentals by mail of newer games after a certain period of time for it's lowest option), or Gamefly (who has the best deal going for them, but the price is kind of steep for my tastes...yes, I'm a cheapskate). While i was waiting for Black Ops to eject, I was notified that Sonic Colors will be available a week from today, so that's cool. The PS3 and 360 games are more in number, but not really by much, but I think we just need to give the service time to grow to see how things turn out.

The Verdict

Bloggers really need a good service for rentals considering it's not like we get games from the publishers like the big guys. That's why I'm not really on top of the newer releases like I probably should be. With this at least I'll be able to cover the newer games in a timely fashion while still delivering the same content I usually provide. Right now Redbox Games might not be where it needs to be, but with newer selections on the way I'd have to tell you guys that this is a definitely worth giving a try if you want to play some decent games, but don't like making 50-60 dollar purchases.

At the least give it a try, you might actually like it.

Game On!

Happy 4th of july

2011-07-04T08:55:00.000-05:00

It's going to be a while on the Redbox impressions. I'm going to check again to see if there are any copies of games I want for rent this afternoon. I have some good news. I found copies of Trauma Team in the bargain bins at Walmart for about 5 dollars a piece. Play that game!! Trauma Team is really good. Now the Forensic portions and the Diagnosis portions are a bit much, but I enjoyed them just the same. I'll do a review on it later this week.

May your burgers be delicious, your gaming plentiful, and your fireworks be awesome.

Game On!

Quickies: NOA loves the taste of fanboy tears...

2011-06-30T05:40:00.000-05:00

Quickies: NOA loves the taste of fanboy tears!!

Source(s): GoNintendo

Fans everywhere are in an uproar over this whole statement about NOA not bringing Xenoblade and The Last story to the states. Which i feel is completely understandable. Nintendo is approaching the notion of bringing in the core demographic via the Wii U. The core demographic would eat up the idea of playing two really big JRPGs right now, especially considering SquareEnix completely dropped the ball on Final Fantasy XIII and XIV. With that being said I could easily see that the plan for them might be to halt the move of these games to the US until maybe they've had a chance to get the Wii U established - Maybe even sitting on the games long enough to release them during the new console's launch window. A system aimed moreso at the hearts of the core demographic would benefit from having a good library of core games, and Seeing Last Story, Xenoblade and Pandora Tower be those games would certainly get their hearts a-fluttering.

The other scenario i'm thinking up is that there would be a chance that the whole WRPG vs JRPG situation could be a factor in why we won't be seeing these games on the Wii in the near future. As it stands JRPGs aren't really in that big a demand here, and maybe it's another case of NOA playing it safe? Personally, I think it's the first option and in time we may see these games on the Wii u, but it's hard to say.

On another note - it's business as usual back at FSBF. Sorry for giving you guys grief about my personal bullcrap. I needed to vent. Don't worry reader, the quality won't drop here it's all about the games!

Sorry

2011-06-28T10:21:00.002-05:00

Breakups are the most painful things you can ever go through.

You spend the majority of your time enjoying the time you have with that special someone, and when it goes south you tend to find yourself feeling like you're at a stopping point in your life. Finding songs that she sent you playing on the radio at work, thinking about whether she's moving on with her life or in just as bad a position as you are right now. You feel like you lost both your best friend and part of yourself in the process.

I won't go into the details of my current experience, because that's unfair to her. It wasn't anyone's fault in particular; more like things were moving way too fast in one perspective, while the other party knew what they wanted and knew the amount of time (years from now) that would be required to get to that future. If I could do it all over again I would do things differently, but that's what people often say when they deal in matters of the broken heart. Why am i telling you guys this? well it's my blog, so I have to have some sort of creative outlet to use as a means of getting over this. People break up all the time, and while I hope that we could get back together when we're properly healed and a little wiser, It makes more sense to just take the experience for what it is and move on.

Gamers, this for you out there; If you have someone you love, go over to her or him and hug them and tell them how you feel. Communicate as much as possible, and don't be afraid to talk things out. Most of all, love with all of your heart. To those of you dealing with my situation - live your lives. things will heal and get better. and eventually you will find your princess.

Game (And Love) On.

Tears of a PC gamer....

2011-06-26T19:28:00.003-05:00

I've played a lot of FPSs, and I can admit that these issues are the main reason why I limit my online play and mainly stick to local multiplayer. However, I have to say that I have never ever physically cried over it.

To each their own i guess.

Redbox games - First Impressions

2011-06-21T21:11:00.005-05:00

I got the email letting us know that Redbox now has games for rental, and currently I don't see anything interesting that I want on the Wii side... Well I could probably rent Just Dance without receiving huge amounts of ridicule from my peers (you should hear the jokes when I talk about wanting to play FFX-2). I could use this as an opportunity to finally play Black Ops. Couple interesting games on the PS360 end; Infamous 2, LA Noire, Mortal Kombat, Red Faction.

On clicking the "coming soon" button the only thing that comes up is "The Smurfs: Dance party" .... yeah. Hopefully, we see more games soon. As it stands, Gamefly or even Blockbuster is the better option, in terms of selection, but I'm hoping that this will prove to be an interesting third alternative. Then again, if this is keeping in tune with the pricing of video rentals another problem will most likely come into play; Availability. This may be a good or bad thing, considering.

I'll continue this when i rent a game later from work. I think I'm going to give Black Ops a shot.

Game On!

Quickies: Third Strike Online = Do know know if want..

2011-06-21T11:55:00.002-05:00

Quickies: Third Strike Online = Do not know if want
Source(s): 1up

As it stands, It seems that Capcom has re-released most of their top fighters, and now comes Third Strike with online functionality and all the bells a whistles. I do miss playing SF3: TS in arcades with people, and the online is enticing, but do I really want another copy of this game? I understand that the graphics have been enhanced, and it's Third Strike - One of my favorite fighting games of all time - But that's not really getting me that motivated in buying games to fund a company that continues to mine their back catalog to re-release arcade hits with subtle improvements.

Where the hell is our new Darkstalkers game? Or Project Justice/ Rival Schools? or Techromancer? or Power Stone? Don't get me wrong I'm still excited for Tekken X Street Fighter, but that's probably the only new fighter i've heard of since SF4 was released.

Maybe it's just that I feel that good games are what put the company on the map, great fighters are what blew them into the stratosphere.

Quickies: Return of the King

2011-06-20T12:09:00.001-05:00

Quickies: Return of the King
Source(s): SNK Playmore

Okay so I'm a little late on this one (So is SNK Playmore if you ask me). Of all the E3 news that broke a few weeks ago, I don't even know how I missed that Atlus will be releasing KOF XIII to PS3 and 360 this holiday season. Here's the post on that from SNK Playmore's blog.

Los Angeles, CA – June 7th, 2011 - SNK PLAYMORE USA CORPORATION, the U.S. publishing arm of SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION, today announced that ATLUS has partnered with SNK PLAYMORE to release the latest entry in the legendary fighting franchise, for PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system (PS3™) and Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft.

With the triumphant return of fan favorite characters like K’, Mai, and Vice, extensive refinement of the core fighting engine based on community feedback, and vastly improved network functionality, THE KING OF FIGHTERS XIII represents the HD entry in the series that fans have been waiting for. Painstaking effort has been made to address every last concern following the last entry: fights play faster; the addition of over a half dozen play modes offers variety and replayability; the game’s beautifully rendered and animated character sprites are better distinguished from the backgrounds—which happen to be richer and more detailed; the camera perspective is less restricted; fighters have more moves, including new supers and the all-new NEOMAX supers; and much, much more!

“We are excited to work with ATLUS to bring THE KING OF FIGHTERS XIII to North America,” stated Ryo Mizufune, Company President at SNK PLAYMORE. “Fans have waited patiently for an HD iteration in the series that could live up to the proud tradition of classics like KOF ‘98 and 2002. We view KOF XIII as an opportunity to deliver a high definition KOF game that meets and exceeds fan expectations. We have worked very hard to listen to all of their concerns and suggestions, to incorporate all of their feedback and ideas, and we hope that XIII becomes one of their favorite games in the series.”

THE KING OF FIGHTERS XIII is scheduled to release on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 systems during the 2011 Holiday Season. For more info, visit http://www.atlus.com/kofxiii

I was looking around for information on KOF XIV, since they should be overdue for a news blurb on that, and stumbled upon this. I'm excited, but slightly miffed that we had to wait for so long.

Kojima's soiled reputation revisited.

2011-06-20T03:50:00.001-05:00

It's very often that we receive information in so few pieces that we tend to misconstrue what it being relayed. In the case of game journalism we tend to find ourselves taking the scraps we're given and running with it full tilt, Sometimes making our own conclusions without even considering the possibility of delving any further into what's being said to fully comprehend the reality of it. Let's look at this excerpt from Hideo Kojima about the NES version of Metal Gear.

But the most noteworthy conversation is one that many might not aware of. In each issue of Nintendo Power, they interview a noted game personality, usually about an upcoming title for some Nintendo platform that the person is involved with. Questions about the past are also often posed, and for whatever reasons, the responses in return are often surprisingly candid. Again, Kojima does not disappoint; when asked about the NES version of Metal Gear, which he not only had zero involvement in, but is apparently quite unhappy with...

"Furthermore, being Metal Gear, it goes without saying that Metal Gear should make an appearance at the end. However, from what I've heard, due to the technically difficulties in displaying the sprite on the screen, they swapped Metal Gear out for a gigantic monitor. That made me see that whoever created the game had no sliver of appreciation for the players. However, even thought it was an abomination, it was during the bubble economy and it sold millions overseas. That title has only soiled my reputation."

Nintendo Power goes on to ask about his opinions about Snake's Revenge. Any guess as to how that goes? To read the rest, simply check out the June 2011 issue, on newsstands now.

"I had absolutely no participation in the development of the NES version. The NES version was a pitiful title developed cheaply and simply by a small team in Tokyo. That was during the bubble economy where anything and everything that was released would sell. I came across the game in a bargain bin and tried play it, but the game design is pretty bad. There is some gameplay that includes infiltrating a base that didn't exist in the original. However, even I, the developer of the original game, was unable to infiltrate the base even once."

Pretty harsh words. And it seems that in retaliation, popular blogger, Sean Malstrom had some words of his own about this, but I'm going to offer things in a slightly different perspective. I don't think this has anything to do with developer worship at all. In fact in order to hit the heart of the matter we have to travel back in time.

Sherman, set the wayback machine to 1987..

In the early 80s the MSX was designed by Kazuhiko Nishi; who at the time was a Vice-President at Microsoft of Japan,and Director at ASCII corporation. Wikipedia says that the MSX was Microsoft's way to create a unified standard of home computers. Despite the push for a standard, the computers were more popular in countries like Japan, Brazil, Europe and the Middle East. Konami, Hudson, and other companies have created games for the MSX which still have eventually released on the Famicom and NES to greater popularity. Below is a list of those games provided by the MSX wiki.

Aleste and Zanac (the latter developed and released alongside the original FDS version)
Bomberman
Penguin Adventure
Eggerland
Metal Gear
Parodius
Puyo Puyo

Others got various installments on the MSX, including some titles unique to the system or largely reworked versions of games on other formats:

In 1987 Konami debuted Metal Gear, A action game that introduced the concept of sneaking past enemies in order to get further within the game. Kojima's storyline was based on the Cold War relations between USSR and the United States, and the hysteria surrounding constant threat of Nuclear War looming on the horizon. As with many games that were released between differing types of tech, Metal Gear was split into two different versions; The MSX version being the complete game, and the NES being heavily modified (due to the limitations of 8bit graphics at the time) into it's own version. Let's look at the MSX version, first.

And now let's take a look at the NES version.

The similarities are there, but you can easily see that the introductions are quite different and later on some of the core themes that were being presented could be misconstrued due to translation issues and other things. Also, as i've stated before in the Bare Knuckle/ Streets of Rage 3 post, developers also raise and lower the difficulty while localizing games for whatever reason. The major difference between the two versions is that Metal Gear never really makes an appearance in the final game. This is the reason for the Supercomputer fight before the confrontation with Big Boss.

To further clairfy, let's look at an interview between Kojima and Gamer's Today presented by the internet archive wayback machine.

Gamers Today: When you started out, your first games were for the MSX computer?

Hideo Kojima: Yes. When I joined Konami in 1986, I started with the MSX division.

GT: Was Metal Gear your first game?

HK: Metal Gear was the first game that was released. There was this other game that I developed that never made it to the market--Lost World. The title was world but with war like a cross between war and world. It was a Mario-esque action game with a story.

GT: Was there much difference between Metal Gear for MSX and Metal Gear for Famicom?

HK: When my MSX Metal Gear came out, it was very well received. Then it was ported to the Famicom, but I had nothing to do with the actual porting.

GT: Were they pretty much the same game, though?

HK: I really don't like saying this, but it really wasn't up to my standards. The care that I put in the original wasn't there. It [the Famicom version] was a more difficult game. In the very beginning, when you go from the entrance into the fortress, for example, there are dogs there. In the Famicom version, the dogs just come after you and you get killed. It was too difficult to get into the fortress. The fun stealth element was not there, and the actual Metal Gear, the robot, doesn't appear in the game.

GT: I never made it to the end of Metal Gear. Where did you get the idea for the game?

HK: A lot of factors have sort of resulted in Metal Gear. One big influence was the movie The Great Escape.

I wanted to create a game [that played] like the movie, with the character running away· escaping without a fight and trying to avoid being seen by the enemy. I wanted to do that, but I couldn't get approval on that concept alone. I had to add more features.

After my first game, Lost Warld, was given a "no" by the company, I was told to create another war game. Creating a war game for MSX was a little difficult because of the limitation on the sprites. When you get four enemies or even four bullets on the screen at once, the screen starts blinking and it just doesn't work.

I tackled that problem by taking a different approach--hiding from enemies and not fighting them. That way I could limit the number of enemies and bullets showing on the screen at once.

GT: Were you satisfied with the MSX version of the game?

HK: It was my first game that made it to release, so I have a lot of memories. It's my cute boy in that sense. (A Japanese way of saying "my first child.") At the same time, I wasn't 100% satisfied with what I was able to create. I was only a rookie in the industry back then, and the programmers and sound designer were more experienced than I was. I'm not sure that I was able to utilize them to the fullest extent.

GT: If you could make any changes to the game, what changes would you have made to that original one back then?

HK: There were so many things I wanted to do to create in that first game. There were so many things I wanted to throw in, and I had no idea how long each process would take. You just couldn't fit it all in one game. I guess what I couldn't do back then. I did in my Playstation Metal Gear.

This statement leads us to believe that the issue is Hideo wanted the elements retained in order to make the experience more complete for Famicom/NES gamers. Of course that didn't happen, and despite the success of the game it still haunts him that he couldn't have had the game released as it was intended until way later. Somehow, that doesn't sound like "Game God" mentality, to me.

Let's jump ahead about four years..

On Snake's Revenge and Metal Gear II

Of course Metal Gear was a big seller for Konami, and talks of a sequel were inevitable. Konami proceeded working on the sequel, "Snake's Revenge" which would be again released through their subsidiary company, Ultra (Ultra Games was a means of Konami getting around Nintendo's licensing policy which only allowed for five games to be produced per year). Kojima had no say in the release of Snake's Revenge, just like he had no say in the release of the NES version of Metal Gear. Here's the second part of that interview discussing that.

GT: Was Snake's Revenge your next game?

HK: I had nothing to do with that game.

GT: Not with MSX or Famicom?

HK: I made Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, an MSX game.

GT: And the Famicom game, Snake's Revenge?

HK: No, that's completely different. When I was in this MSX division, this one guy in the Famicom division developed Snake's Revenge without talking to me or anybody else. One day this guy and I hopped on a train (the Tokyo transit system) together. We were talking to each other, and he says, "By the way, I'm developing this game called Snake's Revenge, but I know it's not the authentic Snake, so please create a new Snake game of your own." That was when I decided to create Metal Gear 2, Solid Snake.

GT: Interesting. What did you think of Snake's Revenge?

HK: I thought it was very faithful to the Metal Gear concept. I enjoyed it.

Though it was treated as non-canonical, Snakes revenge did retain the core elements of Metal Gear, with a few more additions in order to make the game more engaging for American audiences, and a desire for a continuation of the game lead to the development of Metal Gear II: Solid Snake, which was only released on the MSX format, but was later ported to Japanese Virtual Console, Phone and featured as bonus content in Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence.

I could go on about Solid Snake innovated in the stealth action game, but I'll just let Wikipedia do the talking for me about that. What I can say is that the features that were created in MG:2 were retained and utilized in Metal Gear Solid, which was obviously a phenomenal success. Again, with the interview quotes and the inspiration from the fellow developer to create something to surpass the first game, I don't see any inkling of "Game God" mentality here either. Only a desire to create a better product, and craft an engaging experience for the audience.

On The Bubble economy

In the most recent article, Kojima states that the reason for the NES game's success is due to the bubble economy in the mid 80s, but I think the success has more to do with being a game that wasn't only relevant to it's time, but it introduced a hero that rivaled the current action hero archetypes that were all over the silver screen. Snake could easily be seen as the Japanese answer to Stallone's John Rambo or Schwarzenegger's Dutch (Predator) or Colonel John Matrix (Commando). When you played Metal Gear you had the feeling that you were a one-man-army and you were on a mission to save not only your country, but the entire world.

Now the bubble could be part of the reason; because, yes when the NES and Famicom were released it was an exciting and new time, we were being bombarded with new types of games and new ideas, and kids and adults alike were eating it up like candy. This is a similar feeling to the Wii launch where people were eager to jump in and play games in a new way. That isn't the sole reason for the popularity boom and high level of sales, in fact I equate this to being a smaller element in a series of factors to create a perfect storm.

Personally, I feel that the comment was more as a means of explaining that Kojima believes that if the game managed to remain intact it would of been even more popular. Whether that be the case or not, The past is the past, and we can only go on with the intention of finding ways of presenting those ideas while working within the limitations of what we have. Of course now that's not a problem.

All the Rage....

So did this come off as "wrath of god" type stuff? not really. It's a person basically discussing the things he wanted out of something but didn't get a chance to accomplish due to whatever. People do this all the time. You hear stories about this with movies, with political agendas, what-have-you. Ridley Scott has gone in depth about what he expected out of Blade Runner and Legend before they were cut down due to budgetary and time constraints, or for the sake of the studio. That didn't make the movies any less interesting. Granted, though the directors cuts of both films are just as good (Legend's director's cut is a different film entirely, while Blade Runner's enhances the plot with more exposition and lets you solve the clues with Deckard), but they will always be remembered for the theatrical releases. In the case of Metal Gear, the older gamers remember and enjoyed both the MSX and NES games respectively, and their sequels, while newer gamers enjoy Metal Gear Solid and it's sequels for what they bring to the table.

I don't look at Kojima as a "Game god", and I'm not kneeling to him. However, I do respect him on the level of someone who wants to entertain and keep players actively participating in exciting experiences, while making them think. That's not something i pray for from a Game God. that's something I require from a Good Game.

Game On!

those poor exploited women....

2011-06-15T13:21:00.004-05:00

Take a look at this video. It's probably one of the most horrible things i've ever seen in my life.

In fact this is so horrible that there was an article written about how horrible this horrible horribleness is. Let's take a look at the blurb.

Anyone with even a passing familiarity of the videogames industry knows E3. It’s without a doubt the biggest day of the year for games PR, and if you’ve ever been you know the event has more in common with a circus than an industry event — Appeasing giveaways, flashy press conferences filled with plastic smiles and marketing rhetoric and scantily-clad women with corporate logos printed on their naughty bits are just a few of the reasons I said “no thanks” to a press pass this year, but it’s the last one in particular that really bothers me.

There’s long been this troublesome idea that videogames are a male-dominated industry and that dressing up young ladies as cleavage-toting hussies to hawk whatever tenuously related corporate product is merely capitalizing on a demographic. The problem is, this may have been true of the videogame industry 10 years ago, but in America in the year 2011 it’s just, well, embarrassing.

Even internet comedy troupe Mega64, known for force-injecting their own brand of irreverent low-budget humor into “serious” events like E3, must stare in dumbfounded awe at the sight of grown men getting into a blow-up bouncy castle with a skimpily-dressed female model.
So there you have it, the state of videogames PR in the year 2011: A kid passing around a nudey magazine at a children’s birthday party.

hmm... this seems to be lacking something.. lets inject some Spiracy into it, shall we?

Anyone with even a passing familiarity of the videogames industry knows E3. It’s without a doubt the biggest day of the year for games PR, and if you’ve ever been you know the event has more in common with a circus than an industry event — Appeasing giveaways, flashy press conferences filled with plastic smiles and marketing rhetoric and scantily-clad women with corporate logos printed on their naughty bits are just a few of the reasons I said “no thanks” to a press pass this year, but it’s the last one in particular that really bothers me.

i'm pleased that you could take the moral high ground on that one. I mean, sure it's a media circus frenzy, and to you it's probably a digital Sodom and Gomorrah. Those fake plastic people and their marketing mumbo jumbo. I'm sure you're sitting at home watching the hullabaloo through your video screen and patting yourself on the back for being such a savvy human being, aren't you?

Or you could have probably just went to E3 ignored all the bs and actually enjoyed the event for what it really was for; the games. I'm sorry I refuse to believe that whole first paragraph, and furthermore I feel like this is just something thrown in to make the point of the article that more valid. I can see it now. "Gee spiracy would you like to take a few days off to cover this cool event? " , and I would be like "Hell naw, broski. E3 is just an attempt fo da white man to sell me ish i don't need, and to parade half naked women around me to do it. I'm just gonna sit here and write an anti article about how bad it was just to protest, while listening to Rage Against the Machine, cause that's how i roll". Ironically, I do occasionally listen to Rage. Take that information and do with it what you will.....

There’s long been this troublesome idea that videogames are a male-dominated industry and that dressing up young ladies as cleavage-toting hussies to hawk whatever tenuously related corporate product is merely capitalizing on a demographic. The problem is, this may have been true of the videogame industry 10 years ago, but in America in the year 2011 it’s just, well, embarrassing.

That's so very true. Women are so horribly misused in order to sell to a particular demographic.

I can't possibly think of a reason why anyone would want to exploit women in such a way as to use their bodies in order to capitalize on demographics in order to sell their products.

I mean this is terrible. almost inhumane. It's a travesty, and I will not stand for it.

this is the trope your trope could smell like.

It's the year 2011 and gosh darn it people are people and need to not have their bodies used to sell stuff!!11

....where was I? ... oh yes.

Even internet comedy troupe Mega64, known for force-injecting their own brand of irreverent low-budget humor into “serious” events like E3, must stare in dumbfounded awe at the sight of grown men getting into a blow-up bouncy castle with a skimpily-dressed female model.

So there you have it, the state of videogames PR in the year 2011: A kid passing around a nudey magazine at a children’s birthday party.

um....well it wasn't really dumbfounded staring. It was more like "hey look at those asshats over there jumping around for a big screen tv". Also, if that girl is designated as "skimpy dressed" , then he is sorely mistaken. Compared to Elvira this lady is wearing a nun's habit.

there's two reasons why you're staring at this and they're not "humor" and "relevancy"

The moral is this - the world is the same as it's always been. Sex sells, and people exploit others for..... (hey!! eyes on the final thought, please... thank you) the sake of selling things. Men and women are exploited, and yet they willingly exploit themselves just as much as any corporation or business ever could to get the things they either want or need. I could just as easily take the high road in an article, and bash E3 for the sake of looking like some sainted white knight for womankind to think that i'm so enlightened. However, I refuse to do so. I'm a human being, not a paragon of virtue.

I can probably tell you the state of E3 in fewer words than this guy; "Business as usual"

Game on.

Quick thought before I head out for work..

2011-06-10T21:27:00.002-05:00

I've been reading the GoNintendo comments about the best looking games for E3 this year, and I just realized something, while reading Jet Pilot's semi trolling post

One- Graphics don't matter. If the current generation has been a story this was it's moral. You can get by without bloom lighting and high res textures, as long as you provide a game that's fun and engaging. We know that bad graphics can ruin a game, but Wii games have never really had that bad graphics, anyway. And with the Gamecube post I made a while back you can really tell that developers haven't been bringing their A game and cheap out with PS2 quality graphics in certain instances, while others are still trying to master the engine.

Two - And this is the same thing I've thought about with the 3DS; With the graphics and processing issues being resolved.. There's little to nothing in the way of excuses as to why the games that were ported between the HD twins can't be on the Wii u. Likewise, there is no excuses if those same industry games fail. People can't fall back on the graphics, they can't even fall back on the audience if the core gamers are being pulled in to create a shared space with the expanded market.

Now the gap is narrowing in terms of excuses, and it's time to either put up a solid effort or fade into obscurity.

Game On!

Quickies: Stock and awe over the Wii U

2011-06-08T21:37:00.002-05:00

Quickies: Stock and awe over the Wii U
Source(s): Joystick Division

Yesterday's conference was met with shock amazement and confusion as Nintendo reveals their latest innovation; The Wii U. On the investor end this confusion has lead to negativity and a drop in stock in the company. here's the blurb from Joystick Division

Nintendo's new console, the Wii U, won't be released until 2012, but the stock market didn't wait to give an early review. Nintendo's stock dropped more than 5% to 16,970 yen (or $212.44) per share after the company announced the Wii U at its E3 press conference yesterday, reports the Associated Press. Analysts' primary fear is that the Wii U, whose main selling point is a tablet-style controller with a 6.2" touchscreen, will struggle to compete with smartphones, tablets, and other general interest handheld devices.

It's widely thought that the ubiquity of smartphones and the burgeoning popularity of the iPad and other tablets has already cut significantly into the handheld gaming market, potentially resulting in the softer-than-expected sales of the Nintendo 3DS. The Wii U isn't technically a handheld, but its unusual controller resembles a small iPad with joysticks and facebuttons, and Nintendo's E3 presentation emphasized the controller's portability and cross-device functionality with a TV. Nintendo swears the Wii U isn't a handheld, but you can't fault analysts for assuming consumers might view it as one.

Between that and the lack of hardware specs and other details about the console, it's no surprise that financial analysts would question the Wii U's marketability in a space where other handhelds with a wider selection of applications flourish, and where two aging consoles like the 360 and PlayStation 3 already offer a potentially comparable performance. Without proof of the Wii U's technical superiority over existing consoles or any guarantee that its unique experiences will appeal to consumers as thoroughly as cheap and easy-to-play smartphone and tablet games, the stock market remains bearish on Nintendo.

Analysts are confused as to what the device is (derp it's a controller). And assume that the controller isn't marketable against applications such as ios devices and smartphones. Nintendo decided to basically reveal the technology and show it's variety of potential uses, much like they did with the Wii. back in 2006. As it stands they have about one year to show the specs and the games coming for it before its March 2012 release. Something i'm sure they can pull off in time.

You know the drill, though. it's the games that are going to make the hardware. So we'll see how things play out.

Just to clear up last post.

2011-06-08T10:06:00.000-05:00

I was pretty confused as was much of everyone else, but to anyone who hasn't discovered the details the Wii U and the Wii are two separate consoles. Though the Wii remotes and peripherals are backwards compatible as are all Wii games.

figured I'd add that. I'll have more posts a little later on right now I just got off of work and could use some rest.

Game On!

that was completely unexpected.....

2011-06-07T13:08:00.001-05:00

a new challenger has appeared

So there were tons of speculative ideas for what Nintendo was going to show. a lot of people were bemoaning the idea of Nintendo abandoning the Wii for a newer more "hardcore" gaming platform, while others like yours truly were trying to diffuse the moans and welcome a new console that would be attempting to break down the walls between the expanded and core audiences. What we weren't expecting was that what was shown at the Nokia theater was an entirely different thing altogether.......

This is "project cafe" otherwise known as the new Nintendo Wii U. And it's positively intriguing.

First of all I want to say that I'm very pleased that Nintendo decided to continue utilizing the Wii and not just stiffing it for the remainder of the year. Though there has been little to no Wii software shown at the conference except for Skyward Sword and the future promise of a Smash Bros. game that can be played on both Wii u and 3DS with connectivity of some kind. This certainly raises some possibilities of seeing most of the games being released in japan being brought over to the states. which is good because I want to see Xenoblade and the last story in US stores.

The Wii U, which actually resembles something of more like an add-on than an actual new console provides an complementary feature to your existing console by creating a means of playing deeper experiences (the industry games that have been kept away from the Wii ). These games can be played via the television or wirelessly streamed to the controller itself to allow others to use the television as they like. This isn't just the only feature as it expands Wii games into another level as well. It reminds me of how the DS inspired the Wii's creation, and in a way I suppose you could say that this is a full circle expansion.

Three tech demos were shown that are playable on the floor. One of them being a Mario themed version of hide and seek with the Wii u controller user being "it" and the others chasing that person using the sideways Wii remotes. The second demo was a two-on-one battle game with the Wii U user being a spaceship and the other two Wii remote users playing as Miis in Samus' chozo armor gunning the ship down. The third demo shown was a pirate game that has you moving the controller around the room to catch arrows being thrown at you from all angles. While these demos aren't necessarily driving interest. the games featured from enthusiastic developers is. Expect to see games like Ninja Gaiden 3, Arkham City, Tekken Wii Successor and others on the Wii u very soon.

I probably should also mention that the controller doubles as a lifestyle device as well which features not just video chat, but also internet browsing and the ability to draw using the screen as a touch pad. Very sneaky Nintendo. You guys took an Ipad and a wacom tablet and turned it into a gaming device.

On the 3DS end there were some more information about Kid Icarus Uprising - which features multiplayer battles and AR card features. Star Fox also includes multiplayer battles with the pilot screens being replaced by your own face. Super Mario was shown with more details and an interesting setup featuring the Koopa Kids and the Tanooki suit in it's furry glory. That reminds me. Mario is the only character in video game history that can have a heathy obsession with furry fandom and not be rejected by the general public... odd. His brother will be in his own adventure when Luigi's Mansion 2 makes it's debut. Reggie promoted not just one but several mansions to explore with different aspects. Reggie and Iwata also teased a free pokedex download for 3DS for users of Pokemon Black and White which will allow you to scan and trade pokemon data using saves, spot pass, and AR cards. It's not the Pokemon MMO that people were clamoring for, but we all knew that Nintendo isn't into doing MMOs

And finally if you like Zelda you're in for a few treats. The 3DS VC is featuring Links Awakening as one of the first games available for purchase. A free download of Four Sword adventures, Two Zelda albums, one of which being available to the first people who get a copy of Skyward Sword via the Nintendo points club, and Ocarina of Time 3D will feature not just a mirrored version of master quest, but a boss rush mode as well.

Granted there wasn't that much to show at this year's conference, but the surprises were in abundance, and it was once again the best conference out of the three. As for me I'm keeping tabs on the Wii u, and i can't wait to see what else Nintendo has in store.

The PS3 splitscreen fix in effect...

2011-06-07T10:24:00.003-05:00

I didn't really get into the splitscreen fix that was discussed at Sony's Conference because i didn't catch the full details, but I found a video on youtube from a gamer who actually implemented the idea with Black Ops for PS3. Here's the video below.

Seeing it in action is pretty impressive. Not $700 impressive, but impressive nevertheless.The only problem this presents is that it makes the video games unwatchable to any other spectators, unless they're both wearing glasses and have either eye shut to view a particular screen.

But that... is another issue....

Game On !

Note

2011-06-07T01:39:00.000-05:00

To any 3DS users who read my blog be sure to download your free copy of Excitebike when you update to the latest version of the firmware. The offer expires July 7th, so you want to get it as soon as possible

Thanks to SpeedBrkr for the heads up.

Sony says Viva la Vita..

2011-06-07T01:29:00.001-05:00

yes even i cringed as to how cheesy that sounds

So i decided to do something a little different. Instead of talking about the entire Playstation conference, I decided to focus on the things of note. Everyone else seems to be doing the play by plays so I want to do something diferent and still give you guys the content that you came here to the blog for. So let's talk about Sony's recent moves.

The PSP2/NGP is now called the Playstation Vita... yes. it's a handheld gaming device that sounds like a cellphone. Here's the press jargon from the playstation blog.

Just moments ago during our 2011 E3 press conference we proudly unveiled an incredible 2011 software lineup and amazing new PS3 peripherals, and also shed new light on our highly anticipated handheld gaming device, officially named PlayStation Vita (PS Vita). “Vita,” which means “Life” in Latin, was chosen as the name for our next-generation portable entertainment system because it enables a revolutionary combination of rich gaming and social connectivity within a real world context.
By blurring the lines between interactive entertainment and reality, our goal was to design a device that offered a revolutionary combination of rich gaming capabilities and social connectivity, bringing users closer to each other and closer to their gaming experiences wherever they are. Connectivity was a key objective and our goal was to create experiences and content that would challenge the traditional notions of gaming. It was vital to make a device that was an extension of a user’s entertainment world, no matter where one would go.
Successively launching in the global market for $249 starting the end of this year, PS Vita incorporates a beautiful 5-inch multi-touch organic light emitting diode (OLED) as the front display and a unique multi-touch pad on the rear. Two analog sticks enable a wider range of game genres. Together with the front touch screen and the rear touch pad, PS Vita offers new gameplay, enabling entirely new experiences.
We know you’ve been closely following all of the news since we announced the product in January. With mobile connectivity playing a huge role in PS Vita’s interactive experience, we know many of you have been wondering what carrier will be helping us bring you closer to other users and closer to your gaming experiences on the go. Today, we proudly announced a partnership with AT&T, which powers the nation’s fastest mobile broadband network, who will serve as the exclusive service provider for PS Vita in the United States. By having both Wi-Fi and 3G/Wi-Fi models available, PS Vita will enable infinite possibilities for you to “encounter,” “connect,” “discover,” “share” and “play” with your friends wherever they are.
The excitement doesn’t stop there. We believe that 2011 will be a defining year as we usher in a new era of portable gaming. With the official North American unveiling of PlayStation Vita also comes the introduction of an extensive line-up of software for the platform. PS Vita’s launch lineup is a force to be reckoned with, featuring exciting and attractive new titles from SCE Worldwide Studios, including UNCHARTED: Golden Abyss, LittleBigPlanet, and Ruin (working title), which utilize PS Vita’s groundbreaking technology to make unprecedented immersive, interactive and social game play available on-the-go. In addition, titles such as Little Deviants, Hot Shots Golf, Reality Fighter, Hustle Kings, ModNation Racers, Wipeout, Super Stardust Delta and a broad range of third-party game developers and publishers make use of PS Vita’s unique feature set. We can let all of you know that the biggest and best 1st and 3rd party gaming franchises will be coming to PS Vita.

Further enhancing your entertainment experience are new PS Vita features, such as “LiveArea,” an interactive space for each PS Vita software title that allows you to access the latest game information through PlayStation Network; “near,” a pre-installed application that lets you see what other PS Vita users in the vicinity are playing; “Party,” which lets you voice chat or text chat while playing games or using the Internet browser; and “Welcome Park,” a tutorial application designed specifically to guide you through PS Vita’s new user interface. For more information, be sure to visit http://us.playstation.com/ngp/.

Just think of the things I can create in modnation racers with my junk!!

As we knew Sony is trying to get their handheld in the market and competing with the 3DS right out of the gate. The price is a competitive $249 for the standard wifi version and $299 for the 3G version. The games seem to be plentiful, despite having a port-like feel to them. Modnation racers, Uncharted, Little Big Planet, Tekken vs Capcom (with Cole from Infamous in his first cameo). The Vita's rear touchpad (heh) was used to show how the handheld version of these games will differ in "new and exciting ways". It seems interesting, but not game chanigng.

A new RPG, Ruin proposes cloud based data transfer between the PS3 and the Vita, but little is known on the full details

The most confusing aspect was the use of the Playstation Suite, which seems to be a bit more vague in description than it was before. The use of Playstation titles on non playstation devices like Android phones seems more third party developer-ish than anything, and seems like it's a move that'll ultimately bite the company in the ass at a future date, but everyone seems to be in a race to outdo each other in the changing landscape of technology. I wouldn't be surprised if in a year or two from now Sony bows out of consoles altogether at this rate for browser based entertainment; a move that would be sad as it would indicate the growing sentiment that consoles are antiquated, and the future is in the cloud (insert rolling eyes here).

Everything else seemed to be heavy on the notion of 3D gaming, the death of splitscreen multiplayer, and - much like Microsoft - trying to get the Move to be used in as many things as possible. Again I can't stress enough that we're seeing waves of shooters coming out at an alarming rate.

With day one of the press conferences in the can there seems to be very little in things that i am excited for. this doesn't bode well at all.

The Shooterbox is back

2011-06-06T15:52:00.002-05:00

Microsoft seems to have found it's niche and is settling into it. When it's not pushing the brunt of first and third person shooters, the xbox seems to be forcing it's kinect peripheral on the public. whether you want it or not.

From what i did see of Microsoft's conference (technically i missed the first fifteen minutes because I was watching Ladyhawke... yes I know. I should have kept watching it lol) it went like this. Shooter shooter shooter racing game, shooter shooter Kinect. Kinect shooter, Kinect game on rails, another kinect game on rails, shooter shooter Halo 4. I can go further in depth and I will, but Gamasutra has already went farther than I care to.

First of all I want to address something. if the world's greatest storytellers are redefining the industry why aren't they working their magic on games other than heavy rain esque dramatizations about Laura Croft's rough childhood? Or telling us stories other than how America isn't letting the terrorists win? .

Secondly - I seriously believe without a shadow of a doubt that Microsoft has no bloody idea what they're doing with the Kinect brand. First it's meant to draw in the expanded audience from Nintendo and Sony's offerings. Now we're seeing Mass Effect 3 and Tom Clancy games supporting it (and Yves Guillemot stating that all future iterations of Clancy games supporting Kinect), then we're watching kids swaying and body waggling to Disney theme park games. Then we're seeing it being used as the go-between program for Microsoft's entertainment package which uses Bing, because everybody uses bing... I didn't even start on the kinect labs deal which is basically Kudo Tsunoda capitalizing on the kinect hacks that people were doing (which may or may not have been viral marketing ploys). Facial recognition to make avatars... hmm never saw that before...

I have a PHD in douchebaggery..

I noticed that a few people were disappointed about Minecraft becoming an exclusive (lol the use of "exclusive" makes me chuckle because if it's sheer irony) title. I'm not really that disappointed. Yes, a multi-port release would of been better in the way of more money and bigger fanbase. Yes we all know that Microsoft courts developers to make games only for them and the story usually ends badly with diminishing returns and jilted developers. It happens. No "exclusive" is really that exclusive anymore.

The best comment I've heard in the IRC was that Microsoft wasn't showing Halo 4 they were showing 4 Halos. Sure we knew about the HD remake of Halo: CE in the works, but I guess the rumors of the 4th Halo didn't prepair us for the news that this game is the start of a trilogy of Halo games.. which is basically Microsoft beating the dead horse that is Bungie.

So what have we learned so far? It's easy to push the big sequels rather than to see more than two new IPs? That Kinect is really meant to be played by everybody, except for the fact that not everyone wants to play it? I don't even know what this conference is teaching us. Gamasutra says this was a powerful showing of titles. I feel like the conference was boring as hell, and the only entertaining aspect was watching kids pretend to be excited about a game that has you free-falling through disney themed areas on rails

If there's any redeeming quality about this year's conference it's that I'm looking forward to both the animated gifs and the memes.

fiiiist bump.