Superlative amalgamation

It's like gamepocalypse. I'm going to be "away" for a "while," leave a message after the beep.

(There is no larger version linked yet. I'm working on restoring my FTP account.)

May you find your upper path: This was unfortunate. Both games turned out to be not quite disappointments, but not quite call-in-sick-the-next-day type of good. They're bigger and badder, but not better. NMH2 by far suffers from this more than TVC. Not only do the things they loaded the game up with add nothing, they've also cut fundamental parts out of some misguided effort to appease criticisms, which were based on incorrect assumptions to begin with. NMH wasn't about killing people, it was about waking up, getting dressed, commuting to work, THEN killing people. After which you returned to your room, and could watch some anime. Most of the criticism focused on how boring the everyday routine was. That was the joke, kids. NMH2 unfortunately bows to the pressure, and omits most of the drudgery. Click the "job" icon on the map, earn some money, click the "store" icon, buy some clothes, click the "this is the next story mission, CLICK ME to advance the story" big yellow icon to get the show on the road. It's all terribly mundane, for all the wrong reasons. Travis isn't working, I am. Maybe Suda meant for that to be the joke this time, which unfortunately means that fans of the original get a lesser experience. All this before we even get to the actual content, which itself has been "improved" for the worse. After the first two boss battles, I already don't give a shit about the third. It's like the game is parodying itself, and not particularly well either. This one is the San Andreas to the original GTA III. The only brilliant thing so far have been the retro-styled minigames that take place of side jobs. Again, another thing that wasn't broken about the original gets overhauled. At least this time they added to the experience. Frankly, I could see myself giving up on the main quest, and just killing bugs and shit all day. (After 10 hours, I finally found another redeeming feature.)

TVC is a similar downgrade from the original. Yes, the new characters are cool. The new music is not. Far from it. The greatest part of Cross Generation Of Heroes was fighting against Cashern, knocking him the fuck out, having Ryu jump in and hearing his SFII theme remixed in the background. UAS not only cuts Tatsunoko's themes, but also Capcom's, and does away with dynamic music switching altogether. All stages now have a single theme. Mostly awful techno, that can't decide if it's high fidelity, chiptunes, original, or a remix of a classic track. Shitty music I can live with, but they weren't done yet. Not only did the original themes get the axe, so did all animation sequences. The intro and all endings. How you can cut Tatsunoko animation out of a game made for the purpose of celebrating Tatsunoko animation I'll never figure out. Big minus here. If I didn't have the original TVC, I'd be buying it right now in order to get the real experience. UAS unfortunately has been watered down. Thankfully, the price they're asking is right. Half the original's price, for half the game. That's at least fair. On the plus side, Tekkaman Blade is an awesome character. Totally original, well balanced, and fun to use. Needs more Reason, though.

Fledermaus, die

The most important PC Engine game is getting the Virtual Console treatment. And it will be preserved for future generations in its original form, without any sloppy hacks. Thank you Hudson! This is why I love you. The requisite joke is that if someone was worried the game would be entirely in Japanese, fear not. It was in German to begin with. L-O-L...

Doing it right

Marvelous Entertainment continues to innovate in their official leadership position of the Japanese gaming industry. Games don't sell so good, cut top brass' paychecks. If this keeps up they might just wind up publishing Mona Ibrahim's Bolshevik Revolution game.

NNOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooo~!!!!!

Fuck! Just when I was beginning to enjoy video games as a whole again.

Damage control

Apparently, my FTP server was torpedoed sometime last week. The way I have this blog setup is all words, thumbnails and small items are hosted inside the blogger cloud, and all large images, files and other stuff is hosted externally on my company's FTP server. That server went down last week, and they've been pulling their hair out trying to restore it. Since it went down due to a corrupt database, restoring any backup of the database, in turn, borks any new software installation. Since my stuff wasn't mission critical, I assume it will stay lost. At this point no linked images will load. Apparently, the lightning header was one of the images hosted on the FTP, but since I always had a copy in my browser cache, I never noticed it was gone. I slapped a new one together from things I stole from the internet. I kinda like it, maybe I'll keep it around. Was thinking about sprucing up some stuff around here. Might be a good time to start. Or not.

Continue service

The honeymoon is over. Ignition Entertainment and SNK Playmore seem to have had a spat, and Samurai Spirits Sen is getting published by Xseed in America and Rising Star in the EU. I think this pretty much guarantees that they'll not be receiving 'Publisher Of the Year' honors for a second year in a row. Neither will Xseed for that mater. Your chances can only increase if you pass on Sen. I'm very curious as to what led to this breakup, since Ignition and SNK have been very gung-ho and friendly over the years, and seemed to be on the same page. Maybe Ignition wanted to start making money at some point in the near future? Bah, they obviously lack the SNK spirit. Xseed, on the other hand, is all about teetering on the brink. A match made in heaven.

Bizzare Jerry

True story. I was browsing through a webstore that had a bunch of old school games for systems like the X68000, PC Engine, Famicom, etc. I left off on the PC-FX section, and clicked on another link in my bookmark menu. While there, the first post I noticed was this one about the anime schoolgirl shooting game. So I sez to myself: "Self, that looks like one of those PC-FX games I was just looking at, are they adding PC-FX to the Virtual Console or some shit? Awesome! I'll buy 'em all!" Unfortunately, no, they're not adding the PC-FX to the VC. :sadface: The game in question is only the minigame included in No More Heroes 2. :grin: GOTY 2010, just for the minigame alone. Coming to a store near you this week, in America of all places. Japan has yet to get word that the game is being published over there. It's like an awesome version of bizzaro world, and Suda51 brought it about. Thanks man. Got any more action figures?

Apparently Capcom thought that No More Heroes 2 by itself wasn't awesome enough, so they decided to publish Tatsunoko VS Capcom Ultimate All-Stars this week too. This one hits both sides of the Pacific. Sega, in the mean time took it upon themselves to save Japanese gaming, and decided to publish Tri-ace's End Of Eternity domestically. Something for everyone, unless you like minigame collections, then you're screwed. Serves you right.

I Agree

Gamasutra posted another interesting feature written by the game industry lawyer, Mona Ibrahim. This one focuses on reverse engineering, a pillar of computer science, and by extension an important part of game development. The gist is basically that it was all sunshine and rainbows 'till the DMCA dropped, and since it's written so poorly, no one is really sure of what's what. Thanks Uncle Sam. The original feature on trademark infringement and copyright was a much more cheerful read. In between the two, she seems to have written a review of the WoW EULA, too.

Operation start

I wonder if arcade operators got the same notice we got about KOF Sky Stage's release date. A big box showing up on their doorstep this morning with a note "It's out. -SNKP :)" Now plug that sucker in and let's see if SNK has learned a thing or two about shooters. Or at least poached Alfa System's staff.

Continue?: Looks like the dirty, rotten scoundrels over at shmups forums have discovered that Moss were the code monkeys responsible for this. Interest... fading? Raiden III and IV were OK, but not good enough for me to hope they were the guts for Sky Stage.

2 spicy

About damn time. You know, this was sort of a reason why I bought a PS3. Based on pure speculation, mind you, I expected a Blu-ray disc version to hit then abouts. Well, After Burner Climax is finally coming home. This one's a downloadable title, which just goes to show you how aged the Lindbergh system really is. Hell, back in 2006 it was a low-end PC spec.

Thursday: Actual DL version screens are actually widescreen. Disaster averted.

Commercial suicide

Ever since signing up for eMusic, I've been missing the Road Runner Records back catalog. Sepultura (featuring Max Cavalera), Fear Factory (featuring talent), Life Of Agony (also before they started sucking), Machine Head, Carnivore, Biohazard, etc, etc. Roadrunner used to be home to legendary acts throughout the 80's and 90's, but since they were now owned by Universal, eMusic needed to get corporate-friendly before they would get on board. Unfortunately, eMusic did rejigger their pricing and licensing deals a few months ago, which allowed a lot of big name artists onto the service. I'm not thrilled with the new terms, but if I get Nailbomb's Point Blank out of it, I'm willing to look the other way. 100% DRM-free, thankfully. (But still no Rammstein.)

The wrong horse

I'm seeing the Glory Of Heracles name dropped all over the place. I hope it's because the game is a new Nintendo property. I already have a few DS RPG's I need to polish off before I take another chance at having my faith in games destroyed. It took me until Nostalgia to get over Luminous Arc, and now Sands Of Destruction is helping me along. One step at a time. Other than a game I'll be ignoring until it's $10, I'll be needing to get a pre-paid point card for the US PSN store. For some damn reason, Sony doesn't like my Sony branded Chase Visa card. There might be irony to be found in that, but I'm not about too look for it. I wonder if anyone has US PSN codes available via email. If I have to pay for shipping for a little plastic card with a number on the back, which I will have to manually enter into my networked video game console, that right there will be the pinnacle of irony. The points are needed for Vandal Hearts, which will allegedly be hitting PSN on Friday. Slim pickings this week, but the real show starts next week. Tatsunoko VS Capcom Ultimate All-Stars hits the US and Japan, No More Heroes 2 Desperate Struggle hits the US, and End Fo Eternity hits Japan. 2010 is finally kicking into gear.

Destruct

Another one of those games that is exactly as it sounds. One of the earliest descriptions of it went something like: "Morte is a girl who wants to destroy the world, and wants Kyrie's help." One of my earliest reactions to that was: "huh?" The final product is much the same. Kyrie is a hapless schmuck living in the sticks with some sort of mysterious power. Morte is a delusional psycho. Hilarity ensues. The game is very comical, and that's why the retarded premise gets a pass. It also looks fantastic, and sounds great. It isn't quite as impressive as Mitsuda's work on Soma Bringer, since he's basically ripping off his own Xenogears stuff for this, but I love Xenogears, so this too gets a pass. There is a lot of voice in this game for some reason. It's compressed to all hell, due to storage limitations, and sounds muffled an low, which contrasts with the vibrant music and visuals. Quality is again, good enough. The translation seems like it was done by someone who might not have the tightest grasp on the English language. The battle system seems more complicated then it should really be, but I'm still early in the game, so maybe it'll reveal it's purpose later on. I really don't see why this took over a year to come out, it certainly wasn't getting polished during that time. So far it's not exactly 'Xenogears 2,' despite it's obvious aspirations at the title.

But serisously

I haven't mentioned Dream Club since they introduced that Groping Time minigame before release. It lost much of its flavor then. This one is silly enough to point out, though. D3's plan for the game was to make a killing off of DLC sales, akin to Bandai Namco and Idolm@ster. The latest download pack includes an eye bandage patch accessory, if you're into that sort of thing. So what happens when you put it on the girl that already has an eye patch, on her other eye? I hope they, umm... patch that.

Wall of words

I remember clicking on that article on Wired's Game|Life blog. Couldn't make it past the first paragraph. The author pretty clearly missed the point, or chose to ignore it in order to set us up this bomb and start the shitstorm.

I love Bayonetta, but what do I know? My MP3 player is full of heavy metal.

Also, it's not cool to like The Matrix or Evangelion now? What the fuck is going on here?

Rain of fire

Armored Core 5 got announced a few days ago at an AC tournament. Cool, more AC. Then, Famitsu showed some visual proof, along with an outline of what the new game will entail. A return to a more tactical gameplay style, multiple mission objectives, larger more varied levels, and smaller mechs. That last one is a little eyebrow raising. The mecha designs in AC were always impressive to look at and fun to fly around in and shoot at each other, why that change? The director explained that the development team wanted to bring the player closer into the game world, and sitting in a cockpit 10 meters into the air, one might miss some details on the ground. Fair enough. Then came word that this would put AC5 on roughly the same scale as Metal Wolf Chaos. Well then, that's all the info I need right there. Where do I enter my credit card info?

Making copies

I don't think the pictures are new, but the Dengeki Online blog at least has the right idea. I've come to expect this sort of behaviour from Dengeki.

I'll buy that

I finished Tales Of Vesperia a couple years ago (yes, it's been that long), and out of sight, out of mind. I also never bothered keeping up with the PS3 version, especially since there's still no word of a US localization. But this is just too good to pass up. Vesperia PS3 has been getting paid DLC costumes at a steady rate for the last year or so. And this is the best set yet. It seems so simple, and yet is such a brilliant idea. Dress up the Vesparia cast as other Namco characters. Now, I'm not a huge fan of Pirate Patty, or Mr. Driller, but that combination is just pure awesome. I'd buy it just for that, frankly. A close runner up is Karol as Klonoa. Estelle as Valkyrie (Valkyrie no Densetsu/Legend of Valkyrie) is fantastic, Judith as Kos-Mos (Xenosaga) is oddly not out of place, Rita as an Idolm@ster (I'm sorry, I haven't memorised their names. I'm not nerd enough) IS out of place, but so appropriate given the intended purpose of the costume pack. I actually have a bit of a hard time placing the guy costumes. I'm assuming Yuri is Mitsurigi (Soul Calibur), Raven is Heihachi Mishima (Tekken). Repede as a Power Pro baseball guy, and Flynn as Frederick Chopin from Trusty Bell? I admit that one's a bit of a stretch.

Q4 F09

I don't really know what's going on this week, except that Sands Of Destruction is finally coming to America, one year late. This better be one hell of a localization to justify a delay of 16 months. Other than that, Japan is playing catch up, for a change. Biohazard Darkside Chronicles is being turned into a Big Deal over there, for some reason, and Tekken 6 PSP is also still not out there. Gladiator Begins was supposed to be out last November, but got delayed, so it's coming this Thursday too. I hope that means they'll send the gladiator cosplay chick out to remind people of the game.

Next week looks pretty similar. The most interesting thing in America is the Vandal Harts downloadable thing. It looks atrocious, but the genius of Vandal Hearts is that it can look horrible but still be great, we'll find out soon enough. Japan gets something similar in Valkyria Chronicles 2. Ironically, the same cautionary note applies. Also, I've had something called "Moe Moe Ni-ji Taisen(ryaku) Ultra Deluxe" marked down for the longest time, but I'm not sure what I meant by that. That game has been out for ages, and there is a sequel coming out soon, but it doesn't have a solid date yet. The only thing I can find for January 21st is the Best re-release of MM2-1 for PS2. Could I have meant that? What the hell is wrong with me?

Edited for failure: I totally didn't notice that The Sky Crawlers is coming out in the US tomorrow. (Probably since I though it's been out for years, along with the anime and Japanese version.) Ace Combat 7 doesn't look like it's around the corner, so this might be your best bet, if you're into that sort of thing. Also, Glory Of Heracles is a generic RPG for DS. If you need another brick for that wall, pick it up next week.

Doki doki war

Why is Konami publishing Darksiders in Japan? And why does it have a subtitle now? I guess it's something epic sounding like "Time Of Judgement?" I just can't bring myself to take this game seriously, no matter what anyone says. I guess God Of War is still too recent a memory.

Friday: The game has a date and a price now. March 18th, and ¥7,140 (with tax). The website still sucks. At least it's not 5 MB's of Flash. It also looks like this will be going up against another why-is-Konami's-name-on-this-box project, Ninety-Nine Nights II this "Spring 2010." I wonder if they'll dub it? Might be worth a few laughs.

Planes, trains, and zombies

Microsoft recently released their Xbox Live downloadable numbers for 2009, top demo downloads, top movie downloads, etc. One of the categories they shared was top Games On Demand downloads, which surprisingly included niche titles like Raiden Fighter Aces, and Senko no Ronde in prominent positions. Well here comes another shooter for dudes to blow their hard earned MSP on, Raiden IV is hitting GoD on the 12th. It's in pretty good company too, ArtDink's A-Train HX follows on the 19th, and Idea Factory's Apocalypse Desire Next on the 26th. If you need a game that scored over 30 in Famitsu, Resident Evil 5 hits on February 18th. This Games on Demand thing seems to have found an unlikely audience: Japanese gamers too embarrassed to buy the retail discs. Rather ingenious actually, now if only MS would drop the god damned HDD prices.

Crystal engine

This came in last week, but I have been unable to take a workable picture of the fucking thing anywhere in my house. I suppose this is what I get for living in a cave, but I'm going to blame it on shitty photographic equipment instead. As for the game, it's not bad. The Final Fantasy moniker is entirely unnecessary, as it's a spin-off of a spin-off of the main series by this point. I picked it up out of a sort of pity, since Square Enix seems to have put a lot of effort (and money) into the production. Luckily, it's a very playable game, set in an interesting world, populated by likeable characters, and employing a unique interface for combat and exploration.

At the end of the day it's a pretty basic action RPG, with realtime combat, limited character growth and stat boosting equipment. It also features very limited character interaction, something that I've noticed is becoming (a worrying) trend for SE games. See all those people in that town? Well you can only talk to the three of them with dialog bubbles over their heads. I suppose there's a very good technical reason for this, since it would take a whole year or so just to write and implement the dialog and interactions for the hundreds of NPC's in the world, but at the same time, what the hell am I paying you people for? On the other hand, the game is also a bit of a physics engine tech demo for SE, and almost any object, including all people, can be picked up and thrown by the protagonist. This leads to a lot of silliness, but adds nothing to the game experience, in fact it detracts from it. If I can pick up a guard who was chasing me just a second ago during the cut scene, and toss him over the fence with no consequences, it fractures the game world's believability. Why should I be worried about being seen by these guys if they just stand there like dolts and let me throw barrels and cats at them all day? I know some people love to do shit like that in games, but I don't. If I'm playing a "role playing game," I'm going to play the role. If I'm a knight, I'm going to do knight-ly things, if I'm a drug dealing car jacker, I'm going to shoot hookers in the face, etc. Music is also very good, with an eclectic mix of styles accompanying the varied environments. Rock for the industrial zone, bluegrass for the desert, orchestral for the castle town, etc. The voice acting is also not horrible. It doesn't have the natural flow of a conversation yet, but each of the characters delivers their lines in a believable, and often entertaining way. At this point I'd have to admit that VA is not one of the principal reasons to avoid Square Enix localizations anymore. It's not a selling point either, though. Like the rest of the game, it's good enough.

Technically the game is very impressive, from the physics (despite the engine's misuse), to the graphics. The game world is huge, seamless, and has hardly any loading, with new areas streaming in as you're approaching them. It's very impressive to see the Wii do stuff usually reserved for the big boys. I have a feeling this effort will be rewarded with financial catastrophe, unfortunately. It doesn't help that it's an Akitoshi Kawazu joint. Failure seems to stalk this guy at every turn, something he's realised himself over the years. I suppose that's what one gets for having taste that doesn't conform to the status quo. Don't worry man, I got your back. I just checked, and I have nine of his games, 10 if I count the bootleg of Racing Lagoon. (Two of which I didn't even know he was responsible for.) By comparison, off the top of my head, I have maybe five of Shigeru Miyamoto's games. Four if I don't count the copy of Mario Galaxy, which I was tricked into buying, that seems to have gone missing in the end. I think he earned this.

The war of art

I got nothing this week. Japan gets nothing either, unless you're into Kingdom Hearts, in which case, we need to talk. The US is playing catch-up, as usual, with Baynotta getting the region flag switched to NTSC-U/C=1. The slightly interesting thing is Darksiders. It's based on a comic book, so I'm always interested. Unfortunately it's developed by Westerners, whose ideas of "comic book" don't always line up with reality. Also, the developer has actually dropped Zelda's name when comparing his game to others. On paper this sounds fantastic, a darker Zelda-like comic action game. In practice this can fail horrendously in innumerable ways. There will be no demo for this one, so I'm waiting around for some informed opinions. Unfortunately, I don't know anyone informed enough to give me an honest opinion about this one. :sadface: