Explicitly vague

Just got an email product alert from Play-Asia. The English language version of Magna Carta 2 will ship sometime in October. The game looks nice, and it actually might be decent after the ~80% review scores it got recently. There's a demo on Xbox Live, but I'm not in the mood to download it now. I hear it's an overly convoluted tutorial, of the overly convoluted battle system. The RPG hype has been deflated lately (The Last Remnant killed it), so I'll wait for this one. I hope we hear about some hot new things at TGS, because the future of the console is looking mighty grim. Unless you like Idea Factory, then you're golden.

gPhone

Got myself one of those shiny new HTC Android handsets. It sure is slick. Android is very impressive as an operating system in terms of both, functionality and performance, especially on this particular phone. It looks to be just as functional as Apple's iPhone OS, but feels much more responsive then the iPhone when running apps and switching tasks. The G1 has been out for less then a year, and the myTouch even less, but there already is a glut of crap software on the Android Marketplace. Most of it is simple little apps that perform a unimportant task that some dude just wrote as a test of his C# skills (or whatever language they use here). Therefore it's impossible to find anything by browsing. I had to explicitly search for "Hudson" to find Hudsonsoft's games. At least the search is powered by Google, so I actually got topical results. Still, not groovy. I downloaded a handful of the games I've mentioned before, and played a little bit (or tried to) of each, just enough to get a feel for performance. Here's what I got so far:

• Arkanoid (Square Enix/Taito) - It's a straight port of Doh It Again originally released for the SNES. Before you get too excited, that means that the 4:3 original plays in a postage stamp sized window on the phones 10:16 LCD. It can be rotated to landscape mode, for a few more pixels of resolution. Lazy job, but game is still fun. I'll be keeping it. [$5.99]
• Bust-A-Move (Square Enix/Taito) - This is that original game I mentioned before. It's old school Puzzle Bobble, so that's cool. But the game runs very awkwardly, like it's skipping frames or something. The phone's trackball is very loose, and doesn't provide the razor sharp control a game like this needs. Still, it's Puzzle Bobble, I'll be keeping this one around too. [$6.99]
• Charlene's Beachside Blackjack (Hudson) - Blackjack is the only card game I know how to play. I want to support Hudson. I like girls. Those are my reasons for downloading this. Game runs similarly to Bust-A-Move, choppy, and the girl is not-so-hot. The price was right, though. [Free]
• Keitai Shoujo Solitare (G-Mode) - I was surprised to see this crap in the list. I'm glad to see that Android is an international platform. This is the demo version of the full Keitai Shoujo game. I only got it for the lolz, and I don't plan on getting the full version. [Free]
  
• Magical Drop Touch (G-Mode) - This one looks very similar to Puzzle Bobble, with original graphics drawn for this port. I runs fairly decently, but the imprecise touchscreen controls make it harder then it is. On top of that I suck at Magical Drop, so I couldn't even get past the first guy. [$3.00]
• Military Madness (Hudson) - How the fuck am I supposed to control this? I haven't made it past the first map since I can't figure out how to issue commands to my guys. This is why I hate button-less gaming. I'll come back to it after I read a manual or something. [$4.99]
• Noiz2 (Kenta Cho/Alistair Rutherford) - This is neat to see. KC always releases the source to his games, so guys can port them to odd environments. AR decided he'd port it to Android, and not charge for it. Good show, man. [Free]
• Bomberman Dojo (Hudson) - Not old school Bomberman. Uninstalled for a refund. [$4.99]
  

That's it for now. After a whirlwind tour through cellphone gaming, I don't think I'll be too involved in this. The properties may be the same, hell they may in fact be emulated classics, but the performance isn't there in most cases. I'll keep an eye out, since I'm a member of the club now, but I don't see Android gaming getting much better. Not with the current marketshare anyway. But what can we look forward to if Android ever overtakes Apple? All the crap from the iTunes App store ported over? More shit I don't need.

Keeping it old school

At first glance this may seem like an odd pairing, and it was made quite randomly. However, the common theme turns out to be that both are comic book movies. The Watchmen being based on an old DC graphic novel, and Female Prisoner Scorpion (Johsuu Sasori) being based on an even older manga. Hooray for synergy.

Jailhouse 41 is the second in the Female Prisoner Scorpion series. The first, third and fourth movies were previously released separately, and as part of a box set, by Media Blasters/Tokyo Shock (I'm using their translation here, and for future reference). I picked them up on a whim, mainly because I was drawn in by the great cover art for Grudge Song (the third in the series). I'm very glad I did, because I was greatly surprised by their competence as visual art pieces, the lovely Enka theme song, and the stoically beautiful Meiko Kaji as the titular Scorpion. She, frankly, carries the movies single-handedly, being the main actress, as well as theme song performer. Saying vary little, the song does the talking for her, making it an ingenious, and likely accidental, juxtaposition. The plot lines of the movies are debatable, though, and definitely transition from more subdued to "let's just throw tits and blood all over the screen." All the while Maiko Kaji maintains her dignity throughout the proceedings, adding another layer for interpretation by the viewers. Pretty young actress VS shady director, incarcerated woman VS the system, subtext between the lines.

There were a total of six movies in the series, only the first four featuring Meiko. This I learned from the liner notes presented in this package. The Media Blasters releases had nothing, or adverts for other Media Blasters crap stuck in the box. Thanks American Cinematheque, for being entertaining and educational. I wonder what I can learn from The Watchmen? What Dr. Manhattan's ass looks like?

I paid more then I would have liked for this package, but the justification is that the box contains the Director's Cut of the movie (so, longer?), and the game tie-in. I'd like to see this more often in the future. Maybe with something like Transformers 2. Take two mildly interesting parts of the same property and bundle them together for more (perceived) value. If both are turds, then it'll still adds up to nothing. The Watchmen game was boring, but may provide some entertainment over an extended period of time (only played the demo). I hear the same about the movie. We'll see.

This is SNN

Did you ever wonder what would KOF look like if it wasn't a front for some crazy-ass scheme? KOF XII is that answer. What a great game, thanks SNK. Naysayers must be those dirty scumbags that liked KOF XI. This old school KOF. Pick three guys, fight five opposing teams, enter your initials on the high score screen (or best time, in this case). Anyone complaining about the lack of content, please play some KOF '98 (Neo Geo mode in Ultimate Match). No stupid story, no nonsense, nothing but ass kicking. The only thing one might successfully argue is the lack of characters. Well to that I say would you have preferred to wait another one to two years while they added a few more guys? If you said yes, your not a KOF fan. This game has been 10 years in the making. We wanted it in 2003.

The graphics are spectacular, we've already known that. The music is surprisingly cool too. This has been a KOF weak spot since pretty much the very beginning. XII sounds like it picked up some of the left over Guilty Gear riffs from the alley behind Arc System Works HQ. That's not bad, by any means. It rocks quite appropriately. The audioscape, the fighter's grunting, special move sound effects, the ambient crowd noise all add up to a huge wall of sound that matches the frenetic action. See, KOF '97, this is how you do it.

I can see a few doofuses bitching about their favorite fighters being gimped. To that I say, "good, you cheap little shit." They took away most of the cheap stuff I used to breeze through the game by spamming them. The biggest change, by far, has been Iori. Who has had the same moveset (not to mention outfit) since KOF '95. About fucking time. I can take a break from the guy, or learn new techniques. Oh no, it's back to school time. Pick Kyo, he's back to being newbie-friendly '95 version.

The entire game feels very much like Street Fighter III. From the graphical upgrade over previous versions, to the character roster and game system changes. Guys even slump to the floor in a similar fashion when finished off with a low weak kick. If you need an SNK frame of reference, Samurai Shodown III is probably the closest, again, for similar reasons. This is KOF III after all, it all fits together. What do you think Jin-san?

Could not find patch.exe

After installing The Witcher for about 30 minutes, downloading the 1.5 GB Enhanced Edition patch for 45, updating the game for close to an hour, downloading another 800 MB patch, and applying it for another 20 minutes, the game executable crashes when launching the game. Now I remember why I quit PC gaming. I never honestly expected to run this game on this system I'm using anyway, but an unceremonious crash just annoys me. At least give me an error dialog that says "Your PC is to shitty to run this game. Have a nice day." Preferably BEFORE the installer even starts. In a potentially related development, I've found out that my processor doesn't contain any SSE extensions (1, forget 2 or 3). This I believe is the reason DirectX fails to update, and why the more modern games fail to start. If it's a requirement, wouldn't it make sense to put it on the "requirements" list on the packaging? Hmm, devs?

KOTOR 2 installed and runs flawlessly, albeit at the lowest settings. After wasting an evening installing TWEE I didn't even get any time into it. That's one more for the backlog I've already amassed. Hell, my original PC games, Homeworld and the Cataclysm expansion pack are still in there, never finished the former, never started the latter.

Two more for Winter '09

Last week's Famitsu revealed two more from Sting. First is Yggdra Unison, a cellphone port to the DS. I was a little disappointed with Knights In the Nightmare, so I'm looking forward to this one to keep the Yggdra greatness going. The formula has been changed slightly, as the game looks more like one of those shitty RTS/hybrids (FFXII Revanant WIngs) then the SRPG brilliance it once was. I wonder if it's an official Dept.Heaven entry, or if they've already ditched that scheme. Then we have something new from the Sting/Atlus partnership. Hexyz Force. What a stupid name, hopefully it changes when the game comes over. None of Stings non-Dept.Heaven games have been very good, so let's hope Atlus can help 'em out a little here. With enough money, any piece of crap can end up shining, so I'm interested to see what happens with this one.

Neverwinter fights

Finally, new games coming out. Or "game," singular. It's pretty much KOF week, with XII going on sale this Tuesday in America. Since some places started selling it last Friday, this one is actually happening. Japan gets theirs on Thursday. Other than that, I might grab the Nevewinter Nights Diamond Edition. Pretty much obligated to do so at $9.99. Then another dry spell until Melty Blood hits on August 20th. What the hell!?

Easily impressed

Played a couple of hours of Mata Hari (no, I didn't print my own manual, FU Viva Media). It's a cool game. It looks very nice, and runs surprisingly well on my shitty box (Athlon + Radeon 9550 = old school). The scenes are 2D but have a good deal of little details and animation, like moving clouds or curtains swaying in the breeze. The characters are 3D models. They're realistic styled, and fairly detailed and well animated. They're not mind blowing, but they're convincing enough for the story. The puzzles seem very n00b friendly. If you wander around the room pestering the characters, the heroine will actually say "I don't know what to do," and someone will drop a not-so-vague hint ("Get me a drink, from the BAR.") They stop just short of putting a giant red arrow over the objective. A nice touch, since more then a few puzzles in other games of this genre over the years have been known for notoriously obscure solutions. I guess Mata Hari will try its damnedest to stay out of that club. One silly thing I didn't expect is the dancing minigame. Mata Hari is a dancer by trade, which she uses as a tool of her actual role in the story, that of a spy. So if there's a guy in the audience that has something she wants, she'll need to impress him with her talents. Which are, for better or worse, your skills at reflexive mouse clicking. Little notes start to fly about the screen and you're supposed to click them when they hit a target, while a meter indicating your progress fills up. I failed the first time, it was late and the alcohol wasn't helping me any in this situation, so I called it a night. I was impressed enough to want to come back again, so the game is doing something right. One of the things it definitely does right is the voice acting. Mata has a lovely accent, and every other character reads their lines well, and play their roles with dedication (the snobby lady, the suave businessman, the French cop). Actual "voice acting," where it's not just a synonym for "voice-over." $20 well spent, and it came with two free coasters (Why is Sherlock Holmes on CD's?)

Bring your own and save

Man, PC gaming is on the skids. By "gaming" I mean shit that isn't the latest bald space marine FPS. I got the Mata Hari/Sherlock Holmes twofer, and was happy to see two separate boxes. I was afraid of something like what Microsoft tried to pull with the Jet Set Radio Future/Sega GT 2002 Xbox pack-in, a great game, and some crap forced to share a single disc. None of that here. Probably 'cause it would have cost these clowns money. Instead they decided to duct tape the two games together, literally. Both boxes were taped to each other. Yo, dumbass distributor, tape and cardboard don't fucking mix. The shitty stickers peeled off smoothly, but only because I had the patience to sit there and slowly remove them. After I liberated the games from their self-adhesive prison, I discovered the dirty little secret of why the game was delayed at launch. Viva Media ran out of ink in the printer. First, the Mata Hari game disc is contained in a simple DVD case. Without any insert. You know, what's commonly referred to as "the cover." None of that shit here. Was that supposed to be some sort of "nudity" gag, 'cause I ain't laughing. Then the icing on the shit pile, inside of the case was a single piece of paper that had installation instructions printer on it. One of the first things that they recommend the payer does after inserting the disc is to "print your own manual." Yep, the manual for the game is stored as a PDF file on the disc, and they publisher actually expects you to print it out yourself. Why did I even bother picking up the retail disc? If I wanted to read a PDF file, I'd have bootlegged the game. This is too stupid to even be funny. Are they trying to attract all those nasty software pirates back to retail by giving them the same treatment? The logic, it fails on so many levels. Thankfully, the game actually ran on my system. I think something went awry during my OS install, because I can't seem to get any DirectX updates to install, and games like A Vampyre Story and Sherlock Holmes fail to start. MH works great, though, so I don't care. I'll replace this aged box with something much more shinny come October when Windows 7 hits.

Further reading: I picked up a couple more PC games during Newegg's clearance sale today, to kick-start my anemic PC game collection, Knights Of The Old Republic II and The Witcher. I'll probably pick up the Neverwinter Nights Diamond Edition, too. I played through the original KOTOR one the PC and loved it, but it could never get the same feeling from the Xbox version. I think I'll make an effort to treat PC gaming more seriously from now on. It won't be so hard with console gaming sucking as bad as it has been, and I don't see it getting any better any time soon. Shin Megami Tensei Strange Journey on DS? For fuck's sake, check please.

Pandora's box

Got one of these for my original PSX back in the day. SCPH-1001 represent. Decided to get one for the newer model I've been using that I got from my brother for some reason (7001). Everything went smoothly, and fit together fairly well, to my surprise. But after I plugged it back in and turned it on I was greeted with an error message asking me to place a Plystation CD-ROM in the drive. Oops. I opened it back up and found that one of the wires from the mod chip came loose. Unfortunately I can't tell where it was supposed to be attached, and the dude who did the mod wired it up all screwy, so I can't even use the online installation guides to figure it out. I'll have to take the whole thing out and re-wire it. Way too much work to be putting into a PSX these days. I wanted to play some Horned Owl so I pulled my old "broken" PSX out, and discovered that it in fact worked fine. Why did I mothball it again?

Are you Brant?

Taito must have only now realized that they have games other then Space Invaders in their back catalog. So they decided to port the 16-year-old classic Lufia (Estoplois) to cellphones. Since Square Enix owns your asses now, how about a Lufia The After Years? Although going by the last few Lufia games I don't know if this a good idea anymore. Just put Lufia II on Virtual Console, that's the safest bet. (Also, new artwork sucks.)

I'm not e

Do you want to see how dead it is? I'm buying PSX (that's PSone for you kids) accessories for fuck's sake. What you see here is the only available photo of the Pelican mouse on the entire internet. For use with Cyberia, which is as legitimate as it'll get around here. Then we have a $6, six-button pad. I don't really have a use for it, but more arcade-style controllers are welcome. I was thinking I could use it with Street Fighter EX 2, but I forgot about that damn anti-modchip lockout crap they loved back in 1999/2000. It can be bypassed using a cheat device, like a Gameshark, but that's way too much work to put into SFEX2 frankly. Also, the device I have is bundled into a VCD player add-on, which is a big piece of plastic that plugs into the back of the PSX, so I don't really feel like pulling the thing out and wiring everything up just to play one shitty game. So I'm looking to buy a stand-alone Gameshark. To top it all off, after setting up the Plastation, I realized how ugly the thing looks, so I picked up one of those clear plastic shells to replace the old, yellowing, melted, gray plastic. Damn you publishers! Why have you forsaken me?

See you in hell: For some odd reason, using a mouse to control Cyberia makes the game harder. Go figure. Also, Devlyn sucks in Japanese, everyone else is cool. They left the great Headspace soundtracks to the shooting stages alone, so it's all good. The Pad is also a nice surprise. The buttons are supported by a flimsy rubber membrane that barely offers any resistance. The Start and Select buttons? Spring-loaded. Despite that, I played some Street Fighter and only whiffed one move. Not bad for $6. Got a cheepo keychain for my troubles, too.

Cyberia e yokoso

Picked up the Japanse PSX version of Cyberia, just for laughs. Boy did I get 'em. I was a little skeptical after playing part two for a while and getting accustomed to the superior mouse controls during the shooting stages. To my surprise, the Japanese PSX version actually does support the PS mouse, something the US version did not do. (At least it wasn't documented.) Another good one, this version is 100% Japanese dubbed. For someone who practically memorized all the lines in the game, this is a great surprise. It's like a whole new game. The only drawback is that the dub is of a lower quality then the original audio track, thanks to the lower bitrate of the voice recording, a lot of the ambiance has been lost. For a game scored by Thomas Dolby, this is an unwelcome surprise. Also, it may be my TV, but the game looks much worse then I remember it, again thanks to the lowering of the color bitrate. It looks like a Saturn game.

Korea, serious business

A company called Joytron dropped an official KOF XII licensed joystick onto the market today. The stick offers PS2, PS3, and Windows compatibility (comes with a driver CD). That's already way more the the Exar stick that Japan gets. On top of all that, it's only $50. Korea FTW. I hope they get their version of the game in a timely fashion too, other wise the uniqueness of this product would be diminished somewhat. (Still a little annoyed at no official 360 peripherals. Maybe Madcatz will step up to the plate.)

Backup plan

Just in case KOF XII ships, and is delivered on time, it looks like I have a new incident to rant about. I placed an order for Mata Hari this Monday, a day before it was to be "released." No indication whatsoever of anything amiss. Tuesday, the status changed to "temporarily out of stock." Today I get the old "ships in one two three weeks." And you wonder why I hate US game distribution. To add injury to insult, there's some dude on Amazon Marketplace that's selling a copy of the game for $25. Gives me plenty of time to whip my old Windows box into shape. If it can't get it to run A Vampyre Story, I guess I'm in trouble.

BOOM! Headshot!

Yay more Valkyria Chronicles. On PSP. Bleh. Can't say I'm shocked. After the amount of buzz the accidental listing of VC1 as a PSP title caused, Sega would have been silly not to put at least some thing there. This is where a spinoff would fit perfectly, though, not a full fledged sequel. Sega pulling a Sega, no surprises here.

Insert disc

Hey, this is something nobody expected. PC Engine games available through PSN. I wonder if this has anything to do with the sketchy prospects of compact disc images being stored on the Wii's internal flash memory. Thanks to the PS3's HDD, those issues are irrelevant. This can also open up the way for emulation of some other NEC's add-on's to their console, like the Arcade Card, or even the SuperGrafx. At present, the handful of games available isn't going to get me to fork over my yen, but if they take this thing and run with it, I'm going to support them then.

Press Run Button: The official PCE Archive page over at hudson.co.jp lists XBLA along side PSN, and Virtual Console. Nice to see Hudson getting serious about this digital distribution business. Also, ¥600 for Bomberman '94 is the cheapest you're ever going to find it, I think I might bite. PCE games on PSN, plus PSP, it's like the Turbo Express I always wanted.

Tentative post

I may move this post into next week, depending on how I feel. Anyway, our vacation continues so there ain't nothing interesting happening until the week after next. This week I'll try to pick up Mata Hari for PC and see what happens, I might not even be able to run the damn thing. Next week is devoid of anything of substance. The only entries are a tentative date for US KOF XII, and something called the Retro Gen from some company called Innex. It's a portable Genesis clone, not like I have anything better to pick up. I don't see it coming out as scheduled either. (As a matter of fact, I haven't been able to find anything about it other then the original announcement circa E3. Which itself came from a sketchy source.) As for KOF, I guess these "tentative" dates can work retroactively too. If a store gets the game this week, that meant that the company actually "released" it last week, so you see, if KOF is in stores on the 28th, it actually launched on the 21st, brilliant. (I highly doubt it will be in stock on any of those dates. I might pick up the import just to spite the incompetent American distribution system.)

Anime Android now

Now there are three games on Android. Magical Drop Touch, Puzzle Bobble, and now some anime Solitaire game. Its release corresponds with the launch of NTTDoCoMo's HT-03A handset, which looks to be the same model (HTC Magic) T-Mobile will release in early August as the "myTouch." Stupid name, exorbitant pricing, and no confirmation if I'll actually have access to these games makes me hesitant to jump aboard the Android bandwagon. I like that Android will be more widely available in Japan, so we can get more real games on the service, not unlike Square Enix's iPhone support. (Can I haz FC4?) All we need now is for someone other then HTC to make the damn phones, (someone other then G-Mode to make the damn games,) and the prices to become sane. $499? Even Sony realized that one's a stupid idea.

That's better

KOF XII is officially coming on July 30th in Japan. Play-Asia lists the Asia PS3 version on the same day, but not the 360. (Likely blind guessing on their part.) Korea is still up in the air, and will probably hit alongside the US version sometime in August. Too bad, I'm curious too see that one. SNK always mixed things up for the Korean market, like dubbing over Korean characters voice clips (while leaving everyone else speaking Japanese), or changing titles. We'll see where everything settles soon. The plan is as always to get the earliest version available, so if Japan gets me a three day head start over America, that's the one I'm getting.

Thursday: I just checked Amazon.com, and there appears to be a new date of July 28th.

Move along

Nothing to see here. It's so slow this week, that the only thing I have noted in my calendar is the beginning of T-Mobile's pre-order campaign for the myTouch, their second generation Android handset. Since the original G1 was monumentally ugly, and the Openmoko Freerunner was a spectacular failure, I'm jumping on board with this one. Coming up, my review of Magical Drop. Other then that, if you haven't gotten bored of it yet, you can pick up the PC version of Street Fighter IV. It's somewhat notable even if you did, since the LE comes bundled with an official USB pad, which would work on the PS3. However, after having recently held an actual MadCatz Saturn controller, I have serious doubts as to the usability of these official pads. I'll wait for Hori or Ascii to drop one. Maybe for SFV.

(Man, is it difficult to find anything about games on Android. Other then Magical Drop, there apparently is a Puzzle Bobble on there too. I guess I'll actually have to log on using the damn thing before I can browse the store.)

Time slip

First some hearsay. NCSX sent out an email this morning mentioning that KOFXII was pushed back all the way to the end of August 20th, in Japan, and just plain old August in the US. No official word from SNK yet, and most places still have a July date. I assume, after hearing complaints about the "net code" in their recent XBLA titles, Garou and KOF98UM, they're scrambling to polish up the online experience, which frankly gets on my nerves. If it wasn't working properly in the first place, they're not going to get it running smoothly after only a few weeks. Secondly, I don't give a shit about online. The arcade didn't have any online modes, why should the home port?

In less serious news, Mata Hari also looked like it was delayed, since the online store listing it as coming on July 1st, now has the date as August 1st. That's what I get for trusting Europeans. Amazon lists the release date as July 14th (and a T rating), and will be bundled with some Sherlock Holmes thing. If it's two-for-the-price-of-one, can I get just the game I want for $9?

Existence, justified

This is why we need the internet. Thanks to all those involved.