Pathfinder

I've stopped following GameSpite.net's publishing efforts a few months ago. I had planned on buying a new issue only after I finished the current one, but never having finished Issue 2, I never had the need to visit their site again. Which is why I missed the news that Issue 3 had shipped at the end of '09, and Issue 4 just this month. One reason I stopped reading the mooks is that they weren't teaching me anything new, so I wasn't planning on buying any new issues any time soon. However, I just got through two of the articles posted online from Issue 4, and while they still aren't, I'm willing to buy the physical product, if only to preserve the words contained within. I was greatly impressed by the analysis of the state of RPG's today, compared to what they looked at their outset. The article (written by a Hardcore Gaming 101 contributor?) is notable mostly for its eloquence in conveying the obvious to the greater masses, who may not have experienced the decay of the genre firsthand, or are, in fact, the problem; The gamers who the new trends are designed to appeal to. Returning to the genre's roots is something I wholeheartedly support.

Make it jump

After what seemed like a tornado of good stuff, I get to catch a break. Maybe actually play some of those games I bought over the past few weeks. The only thing sort of interesting this time around is Dead Or Alive Paradise. The PSP port of 2006's DOA Xtreme 2 looks very impressive on the PS1.5, but looks like it omits some of the key components of DOAx2 that made that game bearable. The volleyball part of x2 was pretty broken, which meant that one had to rely on other beach activities as means of earning money. The casino was boring, so I never bothered, but the Jet Ski races were fun, and looks mighty fine to boot. Jet Ski's are sadly not found in Paradise. Another critical component of the Xbox versions was the ability to control your partner with the right analog stick, which sometimes, maybe, helped the brain-dead AI save a point, or set up a spike. I shudder to think how the volleyball game plays now that there is no second analog stick. I hope they completely overhauled it, otherwise it would be unplayable, and take up a huge chunk of the disc. I, for one, wouldn't mind seeing a DOA Xtreme 3 without a volleyball segment. Thankfully, butt bumping has been preserved in all its digital glory. *pulls out credit card*

Other than that, we have a couple of stragglers, also from the year 2006. Samurai Shodown Sen I already have, and it wasn't worth the money I paid the first time, not going for seconds. Sakura Wars is too little to late. This was the game the Valkyria Chronicles team worked on before putting together Valkyria. Not very interested in regressing, but considering the direction Valkria Chronicles 2 is taking, I might consider picking this up as a more tolerable replacement. Hope the Wii port is good.

Double K.O.

I don't really care about this in particular, but I've complained about it in the past, so I felt I should follow up. It seems MSY/MadCatz have taken advantage of Hori's apathy towards the 360 platform, and have scored the rights to release officially licensed Super Street Fighter IV sticks in Japan. This holds true only for the 360, and Hori will no doubt handle the official PS3 peripherals. It's not very encouraging to see Hori let the rights slip away rather than beef up their own offering, but it is nice to see a new challenger take up the task. The MadCatz hardware has been getting universal praise from both sides of the Pacific, and their rising popularity has forced Hori's hand in not only redesigning their existing product lines, but also introducing new products aimed at stealing MadCatz's thunder. I love my Real Arcade Pro's, and am not looking to replace them any time soon. I do have the MadCatz Tatsunoko VS Capcom Wii stick, though, and I am quite impressed with it. It's especially nice after swapping the knock-off parts with some Seimitsu and Sanwa components. Those are the real players in this space. Least we forget.

Infinite wait

I tried this one for like 20 minutes, so my impressions shouldn't be considered too seriously. I did get a very Homeworld vibe from this almost immediately. For a game that set out to instill a sense of nostalgia for Sci-fi of old, mission accomplished. Prior to trying it out, I've heard that the game could be accused of being slow and boring. I can definitely see why. The whole thing takes place in pseudo real time. During a battle one must move, and wait for their ship(s) to get close enough for the enemies to come into weapons range, fire the desired weapon(s) (by tapping the screen), and watch the (optional) attack cutscene. During a fleet-on-fleet battle, this can get pretty long. The attack sequences can be skipped, if one so desires. Likewise, travelling from planet to planet also takes time as you watch the stars fly by. It's all very RTS-like in that regard. The graphics look decent enough, but maybe the DS wasn't the best choice for this. The ships look cool enough in 3D while whole, but the attack effects, and the wrecked, burning hull of a defeated enemy is cringe-worthy. The biggest gripe I have is forced touchscreen controls. There's no reason for it. Maybe the designers felt that the real-time aspect warranted it, but I don't buy that. Action games give the players multitudes of moves and techniques that must be handled effectively and under much less forgiving conditions. That's why controllers have multiple buttons. The voices are dubbed, and there is probably music in there, but I had the volume too low to hear any of it. Also, MobiClip can go to hell. There original Japanese release was accompanied by animated web episodes found on the official website. I don't know is the US version got the same treatment, but it looks like they went and stuck a montage of some key scenes for use as an intro. It feels a little wonky, but old school anime always was, so this too fits with the games purpose.

The king isn't dead yet

It would seem SNK is in fact getting better. Following last year's lukewarm King Of Fighters XII, they're back in 2010 with KOF XIII. More characters, more stages, new game systems. In case you kids don't know, this is standard SNK operating procedure. This latest installment promises to be the conclusion to the Ash saga started in KOF 2003. In addition to a storyline, fan favorite Mai Shiranui was prominently featured at the event, promoting her triumphant return to the fray. And she's bringing some friends. The original Women's Team return in KOF XIII. Joining Mai are Art Of Fighting's Yuri Sakazaki, and King. I demand the return of destructible clothes to HD!

End for eternity

I haven't been inside a video game store in something like five years. I refuse to shop at GameStop, because they're cunts. I don't like buying games at big-box stores either, since I know I'm getting ripped off, and mom-and-pop places are usually weeks behind schedule, unless a gamer is doing the purchasing. There was one small, regional chain store that I used to not mind stopping by every once in a while, so when I found a spare $70 bill in my couch cushions, I decided to pick up Resonance Of Fate on my way home. Now, my psychology is one of the 80's, when games were the basest forms of entertainment, and gamers were all parent's basement dwelling trolls. As such, I don't openly divulge that I play games to people I meet. It's a sort of dark secret that people who I befriend must learn to deal with if they want to continue being my friends. Because of this, I don't have many face to face conversations about video games with other humans, or out loud. Let's keep that sort of thing in cyberspace, shall we? So it felt damned awkward to walk into a place, and out loud ask: "Can I have Resonance Of Fate on PS3?" You know what? This is going to be the last video game I buy for myself in a store. Video games are for kids, and it's pretty embarrassing to be that "old guy" that I always saw hanging around in FuncoLand.

I was fairly drunk by the point in the evening when I finally popped ROF into the PS3. But I did notice, rather quickly, that like many recent games, Resonance Of Fate is half a game. To be more specific, most modern RPG's are made up entirely of battle systems, and either completely omit the overworld/town/dungeon exploration part, or tack on a bare-bones hack job and call it a day. I understand it's hard work to build a modern video game, but you know what? That's your god damned job people! This is something that gamers must not accept from developers and publishers if we ever want "video games" to stop being a dirty word. Strength in numbers means nothing if the games we play are laughable.

As for ROF, I barely made it past the prologue, got stuck for a minute, until I realized that no one told me where I should go next, but there was a big-ass red indicator on the map anyway, played through the demo dungeon, got killed a few times, beat the boss, died on my way back to the world map, and lost all my progress. Resonance Of Fate, so far, has not impressed me. The battle demo at least was a more competent experience, since they didn't bother making excuses about what you were getting. And the price was right. Truth be told, I'd rather be playing Fragile.

The adorable apocalypse

(I've become increasingly annoyed at my inability to take pictures that don't look like shit, so I tried a little GIMP-fu on this one. Results are varied. What's the point of millions of pixels, if all they pick up is the lack of detail?)

I gave this a short spin on Sunday. It sure is a pretty game. Tri-Crecendo knocked this one out of the park. It also sounds very nice. Music isn't by Sakuraba, but it's fitting. Thanks to XSeed's caring hand, both English and Japanese are present here. I'm sure glad I picked Japanese. Houko Kuwashima as the protagonist having cute little conversations with a computer girl voice is a little too hot for the subject matter. Which brings me to the main "problem." This is one hell of a depressing game. The protagonist is one of a handful of "survivors" of some sort of natural disaster/cataclysm that pretty much eradicated humankind. His whole reason for taking up the quest is to find other survivors. This is like a serious Disaster Report/Zettai Zetsumei Toshi, combined with a Studio Ghilbi movie. Everything is so vibrant, colorful, destroyed, and depressing. I almost don't want to play this game anymore. Thankfully, it's very easy to pick up and play. Run around, whack jellyfish with your stick. That's it. No turns, no menus, not even a lock-on. The character gains experience points for defeating enemies, which allows him to level up, and increases his HP and attack strength. The bare necessities that make combat fun. I barely got past the initial hand-holding segment, so I'll at least give it another shot to see if the game opens up more. Truth be told, I'd rather be playing Resonance Of Fate.

I'm already dead

I should just put up a list here. The next couple of weeks will be a good exercise in self-control. Which shit can I force myself to NOT impulsively buy? Red Steel 2 I want, but will probably not have any time for, so I'm better off holding off on that one. Hokutou Musou I also want to try, but its asking price is actually a pretty good deterrent. I guess I'll have to wait for the "budget" version, which itself will only bring it down into the realm of a regular retail release. Fuck you Koei. It's a good thing Quantum Theory got delayed then. In the shit-I-don't-care-about-but-should-mention-anyway category are Shin Megami Tensei Strange Journey on DS getting its American localization, and Chaos;Head Chu, which is an original 360 sequel to the PC port original. A new, true Shin Megami Tensei game is a great idea. Putting in on the DS is not. Pass. Chaos;Head started off with a lot of potential, but blew it all up a few episodes into the TV series. Not interested anymore. Maybe if FES puts out a new album or some shit.

Next week, for some reason, Dead Or Alive Paradise is hitting North America, along with Samurai Shodown Sen, and Sakura Wars So Long My Love. Sakura Wars is notable only for being a PS2 game in 2010, as well as a localization of a five-year-old game. I should support this sort of self-destructive business decisions, but I just can't bring myself to do it. Sorry, whoever it was that thought this would be a good idea. In the mean time, Japan gets DOA Paradise and Ikkitousen Xross Impact. I've recently started playing Eloquent Fist again, so I'm very interested in checking out the Xross Impact. It looks like the exact same game, only more "dynamic." Now this is the sort of innovation the video game industry needs.

Couldn't be further from the truth

Operation Darkness is hitting Games On Demand on March 23rd. I'll bet you 2,000 MSP it'll be IP blocked. I really wish getting the G.O.D. treatment meant that retail prices would fall to match the download price. Or at least for import websites to put it on sale. Shooting Love 200X, Guilty Gear 2 Overture, and Operation Darkness are not games one should be paying $70 for.

Warriors on the storm

"Storm Riders 2" on Blu-ray. That's pretty much all you need to know about this movie. It takes the surviving cast of characters from the original, throws in some miscellaneous new guys, a cookie-cutter bad guy, skips the back story, and just throws them all into a new adventure. This is pretty much the perfect comic book movie.

The characters are even less developed than the first movie, despite having twice as many lines of dialog. An impressive feat, for the wrong reasons. Not only are the returning characters left as flat, two-dimensional caricatures, but so are the few new characters introduced in this "chapter." The bad guy is probably the worst off of all of them. His reason for being in this movie is that he's an evil (Japanese) warlord invading China, because that's what evil warlords do, mwahahaha!! The character with the most potential, his son, is knocked of screen in the latter half of the movie, never to be seen again. He sure looks cool in the CG montage sequence though. That is sort of the schtick of this movie, it's a special effects orgasm, story can go to hell.

At least to this end, it goes all out. This is probably the perfect super hero movie. Recent films like Spiderman or X-Men have got the technical super hero look down, but still felt awkward, as did the actors, flailing about on wires and in front of green screens. Maybe because The Storm Riders crew did it so long ago, or maybe because of the Chinese habit of martial arts training, the actors in Storm Warriors look and act the part of super heroes more convincingly then anyone I've ever seen. I've never watched the shit-tacular live-action Dragonball movie, but I'm willing to bet that Storm Warriors is a better Dragonball movie than Dragonball. The Blu-ray transfer looks superb, and really emphasizes the point of HD media. You can count each strand of hair, each sparkle effect, and each pebble after the force wave hits.

I've called the original Storm Riders "the best animated movie that wasn't animated," and the same holds true for the sequel. Aesthetically it reminds me the most of the Shadow Skill TV series. Characters make up moves as they go along, smash immovable objects with unstoppable force, and the whole thing takes place in assorted sandy/rocky locales. It also reminds me of Shadow Skill due to the directors over-reliance on "comic book-like" shots. Some of the more complex scenes in the Shadow Skill TV series weren't even animated, but were only still frames with sound effects underneath. Storm Warriors isn't quite as bad, but it's noticeably shooting for that style. The closest Western parallel would be Zack Snyder's 300. On the one hand, this looks great, and is a wonderful homage to the series comic book roots. On the other hand, if I'm a fan, who has read the comic numerous times, I'd rather see things from a different angle, literally, and figuratively. If you want to honor the comic, but still keep it original, ask the writer/artist to come up with some alternate view story boards. Authenticity is preserved, the fans are happy, movie looks damn cool, casual movie goers are happy. Everybody wins.

Unfortunately, as the saying goes, Storm Warriors is all style, and no substance. All the guys look cool and swing around big swords, while the girls look on anxiously. This wouldn't be a problem, if it wasn't a downgrade for the surviving cast members. The biggest hack-job was committed on the hero's love-interest, who was a loud, obnoxious, brat in the prequel, but was turned into a wet rag who literally does nothing but call out his name through out every scene she's in. She carries a sword, but never unsheathes it, and maybe kicks one guy off to the side at some point, that's the extent of her usefulness in this picture. Personally, I love to see girls swinging swords. It's fine if they get knocked down and have to be rescued by the "hero," as long as they give it a try. The girls in Storm Warriors are pure set decorations. Not very cool. I expect this sort of shit from Thailand, but from a country with a rich history of action movie heroines like China, I expected more.

One of the reasons for the shift in characterization could be attributed to the cast reshuffling. Other than the two principal roles, everyone else was recast. Despite the constant action/special effect sequences, the two dimensional cast, razor-thin plot, and pushover villain all add up to a mediocre experience. This would have never happened with Sonny Chiba on the set. Musically, the movie also does not impress. Almost every single scene is accompanied by a choral/symphonic piece. This combined with the over use of slow motion during the shots gives off the impression that Storm Warriors is treating itself way more seriously than is required. It's a disappointment to see a movie that showed everyone how it's done, become an imitator of it's own style. Storm Warriors is technically brilliant, but vapid.

Resonance of cash

2010 has been pretty good so far. Three months in, and a handful of worthwhile games have dropped already. Now comes the other handful, within a single week, all for America. Resonance Of Fate is the most interesting to me. This has to be the most low profile "hardcore" game I've ever seen, even in japan. Other than upskirt screen caps of the sole female party member, I've never seen or heard anything about this game, good, bad, or indifferent. Therefore, I have no choice but to buy it and make up my own damn mind. Then the game that wasn't going to ever come over, was announced for localization with an ambiguous release date, which just happened to get finalized as the same day as ROF. God damn it, Xseed. Not only is your company name stupid, but do you realize how expensive video games are these days? Between your Fragile Into Dreams (or whatever the fuck the name wound up being) and ROF, I'm shelling out over $100. Not to be out done in the bonehead decision department, SEGA decided this Tuesday would be a great time to "release" Infinite Space, also known as Infinite Line (I knew I wasn't crazy). The word "release" is in quotes because unlike a regular game release backed up with press releases, reviews and advertising, the recent trend seems to be to just ship boxes of the things to amazon.com and hope that they get impulsively thrown into the cart during checkout. I'd be shocked if this one sells over 500 copies. Japan is also playing catchup, with Konami's Darksiders ～審判の時～ across both PS3 and 360, while the J-360 finally, maybe gets that Moe-moe 2-ji Taisen(ryaku) Ultra Deluxe.

Next week I have Red Steel 2 with Motion +, which I actually have a use for now, and Hokuto Musou, which costs like $90 for no fucking good reason. The video game industry is out to get me.

Upgrade path

I broke the bank on a MyTouch 3G and all the bells and whistles one needs to take full advantage of it, and this is the thanks I get? A real arcade game gets ported over, and I can only look at YouTube clips of it. THIS is exactly why cellphone gaming always sucked. Nice to see some things never change? Oh well, back to Climbing Hippy for me.

Think tank

My favorite game related event is taking place out in dreary San Francisco this week, Game Developer's Conference. I appreciate the fact that it can encompass incredibly technical presentations on 3D camera systems used in modern games, or a talk about how audio can be used to elicit an emotional response from the payer, by Akira Yamaoka, complete with a live demonstration. Bonus points for Metroid co-creator Yoshio Sakamoto's talk about story telling, where he name drops Dario Argento's Deep Red, and Luc Beson's Leon. I'm not worried about Metroid Other M's story component anymore.

Ruh-roh: Now I'm worried about the music.

Foxy white

I got this yesterday, but wanted to try to scan some of the images before making a post. My scanner sucks balls, though, so no high-res Yuzuruha assets for you. We all loose :(

In all seriousness, this is much more than a simple art collectible. After playing through the game, and having "examined" this foldout in "detail," it feels more like a design document. Muramasa is a very simple game, comprised of pretty much only the art pieces found on this scroll. I'm very glad I could get my hands on it, and am surprised that it was originally given away as a free gift. I don't mind having paid money for this.

ELMM

A company called PMOA (Pro Mold Office A?) just put out a bunch of figures and models, which they call PLUM's (Petty Lovely Unique Mechanism). One of those is the SA-77 Silpheed from the Mega CD game of the same name. Silpheed is awesome. By extension, PMOA is now awesome too. They also have plans to put out the Silver Hawk from Darius. I hope this means they'll commit to modeling shooting game ships, with the detail and scale they deserve. To date, other than one-off models, the only shooting line has been a series of gachapon toys. This needs to change. Bookmarked.

Three's a crowd

The original Reviera ~The Promised Land~ on Wonderswan was notable primarily for looking damn fine on the anemic hardware. Unfortunately, the game was technically similarly underdeveloped, a sort of RPG-lite. The follow-up, Yggdra Union ~We'll Never Fight Alone~ on GameBoy Advance was a much more interesting affair. The game was still pretty much just a battle engine, and not much else. Thankfully, it was an awesome battle engine. The third in the "series," the DS' Knights In the Nightmare was even less of a game, and sadly not very entertaining in the end, but by far the most aesthetically impressive. Here's to hoping for a second dose of that Yggdra magic on PSP. The PSP ports of past Dept. Heaven games have been a little dodgy, though. Hopefully Blaze Union ~Story To Reach the Future~, being a PSP game from the start, will shine technically in a similar way to its predecessors.

Upgrades?

I've named this blog and myself after one of their songs, for crying out loud, so I regret to admit that I didn't find out about Fear Factory's latest album until last week. In my defense, they've been sort of coasting for the last five years. And the last few times they were in the news it was over some bullshit drama. Thankfully, their latest was only released in early February, so I almost got it right. When I learned the album was out, I was in fact checking up on whether there was any progress on plans to release it. The drama the band was previously involved in centered around kicking two founding members out, and letting previously ousted member back into the fold. Thankfully, the tinkering behind the scenes paid off. Mechanize is a return to form for the band, and that form is both familiar yet new.

Some of the best (and worst, frankly) songs Fear Factory ever put out were composed by the team of vocalist Burton C. Bell, and guitarist Dino Cezares (the two original founding members). Cezares was unceremoniously dismissed from his duties around 2003, and the band hit the skids. They put out a few albums since then, but they never could match the brilliance of their 90's efforts. Mechanize marks the return of Cezares to the FF fold, and we're all better off for it. He could never be accused of being the most creative guitar player, but his unique and simple riffing style is one of the hallmarks of FF. He actually joked that he should sue his "replacement" (long-time FF bassist, Christian Olde Wolbers, who moved over to guitar duty following Cezares' departure) after their 2004 album, Archetype, regurgitated his old riffs he'd written for FF's previous albums. It's nice to see this old dog hasn't learned any new tricks. The guitars on Mechanize are simple, fast, and brutal. Fear Factory's schtick had always been incorporating mechanical themes, and designs, into their music and lyrics, and Dino's technical guitar sound is an important part of that formula. Another pillar of Fear Factory is vocalist Burton Bell's voice and range. He was a pioneer of the growl/choir voice dual vocal style that seems to be the staple of every band since then. The biggest letdown of the past few FF albums has been his tendency to move towards a more uniform singing style. There were still screams, but they weren't guttural anymore. Mechanize is a return to form for Bell as well.

Stand out tracks include the nihilistic 'Powershift,' and 'Oxidizer.' Fear Factory's magnum opus, 1999's Obsolete, was a post-techno-apocalyptic concept album, focusing around the rebel, Edgecrusher, and it's nice to hear those themes return. (But I may be biased.) With lines like "always question authority," Bell is channeling the part of ourselves that is always sixteen. Another fun part of this album, specifically the Limited Edition, is the inclusion of demo versions of some FF classics. 'Crash Test,' 'Big God,' and 'Self Immolation' are actually better than the sterile versions found on the band's debut, Soul Of A New Machine. But 'Soul Wound' is a discordant mess compared the the final version, 'Soulwounds,' that itself was eventually included as an extra track on Obsolete.

The album is an intricate blend of old and new Fear Factory sounds. Thanks to the return of the fifth, unofficial member, long-time producer Rhys Fulber. Mechanize feels not like a lost album that was meant to have been released instead of 2001's disastrous Digimortal, but a natural evolution of the Fear Factory organism, an allegory the band themselves often make. In the end, however, it would seem that Fear Factory is just the sum of it's parts, and those parts were clearly defined at the outset. Any deviation, produces anomalies.

Tried and true

This was something else I did over the weekend. Paid $68 for this. Worth every penny. I had actually forgotten that I picked this up in spite of the fact that it was produced by the same jokers who did Samurai Princess. Thankfully, this one is a much more competent and entertaining experience. Probably 'cause it's based on someone else's work. And that someone has talent.

Vampire Girl VS Frankenstein Girl is a stupidly entertaining move, almost from the instant it begins. Fountains of blood, faces getting ripped off, chicks with... erm, swords. It sort of begins like a standard high school drama, but gets to the point rather quickly, and doesn't really beat around the bush. The plot centers around the titular Vampire Girl (Monami, played by Yukie Kawamura) , who attends a local high school. She gives a guy she likes a chocolate that's intended to turn him into a vampire too, that way they can be together forever (high school girl logic). She states this pretty plainly to the guy in their second scene together. And we're off. The conflict arises, in typical high school drama fashion, from the fact that the guy already has a girlfriend (Reika, played by Eri Otoguro). When said girlfriend winds up dead after falling off of a roof, her mad scientist father turns her into the titular Frankenstein Girl. Hilarity, quite literally ensues, between Monami dancing under a shower of blood, Reika using her legs as a helicopter rotor to fly to the top of Tokyo Tower, or the creepy old grounds keeper named Igor, this movie doesn't even pretend to take itself seriously.

If the main feature wasn't bad enough, the two disc set includes a short that sort of vaguely retells the story. Except in the end Vampire Girl and Frankenstein Girl fuse into some sort of macabre defender of peace and love. Take that Osama bin Laden. Vempire Girl will get yo' ass.*

*May, or may not have happened. I was pretty drunk.

I sort of vaguely recall that the reason I picked this up was because Eri Otoguro was in it. While she certainly is, the show is completely stolen by Yukie Kawamura. She has a lot of fun being Vampire Girl the highschooler, and Vampire Girl the monster. And is mesmerizingly beautiful in either role, an important characteristic of any vampire. I was bummed I didn't have any prior works to base my newfound fandom on, or so I though. Turns out Yukie is a pioneer in another area of entertainment I can appreciate. I love it when a plan comes together.

Click, click, boom

This fell of the back of a donkey cart over the weekend. It's a remix album for WayForward's necrophiliac Contra 4. I never played that game, so I can't judge how faithful, or appropriate the metal reinterpretations found here are, but I do like me some fuckin' rock, and I feel qualified to make a comment. This stuff fuckin' rocks!

The closest video game comparison one can make is Daisuke Ishiwatari's Guilty Gear XX soundtrack. Something I was never a fan of. The difference between the works presented here, and the GGXX tracks, is that Contra 4 Rocked 'n' Loaded is concise, unlike the all-over-the-place nature of the GGXX OST. Every track is made up of everything it needs, blazing fast guitar riffs, groovy base lines, keyboard flourishes, and a drum machine. This is a testament not only the skill of the producers and players, but also to the ability of the original composer, who was involved with this project since day one. This can therefore be considered an official remix album, even though it's not, you know, official.

Rocked 'n' Loaded is definitely video game music for people who don't like video game music. By that I mean this is real rock music. It commands attention just for being itself, and isn't there to be in the background. The closest real world musical comparison I have is Children Of Bodom. The keyboards on the first two tracks do sound almost identical, but change their tone for the latter half. In 10 minutes R'n'L already managed to evolve further than COB managed in 10 years. Just in case anyone had any doubts, track 10 comes full circle and throws in chiptune melody along side the riffing. This combined with a certain voice clip, from a tangentally related medium, combine into exactly what the producers set out to achieve, a celebration of Contra, video games, and rock-and-roll. I give Contra 4 Rocked 'n' Loaded 29 spent shell casings out of a 30 round clip. Let's hope they won't get sued.

There goes that idea

The plan for 2010 was to get my rampant game buying under control. Fuck that. This week the US sees Final Fantasy XIII, Resident Evil 5 Gold Edition, and Yakuza 3. Hong Kong gets Red Seeds Profile, and so am I. Japan gets a bunch of budget re-releases, one of which is Dream Club. Next week is a lot harder thanks to Fragile, Infinite Space, and Resonance Of Fate all on the same day, and in the same region. Japan gets Darksiders Shinpan no Toki, just for kicks. If all that wasn't enough, NCSX just got a bunch of those Oboro Muramasa fold-out thingies that were used as pre-order bonuses. The artwork for Oboro Muramasa is worth money, no questions asked.

Get to da choppa

Something is seriously wrong with a game's design if the downloadable extra chapter starring two minor characters, and taking place outside of the main narrative can be more entertaining than the game it's attached to. Desperate Escape is stupid fun! I couldn't play Resident Evil 5 up to the point in the story where this episode picks up, but that didn't detract from the enjoyment one bit. The episode takes place in some sort of randomly industrial/military complex full of angry townsfolk. Why are there artillery stations in a factory? Why so you can blow open the huge metal gates that block your path. Don't ask stupid questions. Unlike the first, Lost In Nightmares, episode, here the player is given control of Jill right from the start, and can unlock the ability to play as Josh after completing the chapter, if one is into that sort of thing. You can tell this will be a very different experience from LIN almost immediately, since Jill starts out with a sub-machine gun instead of a pistol (Josh is still rolling old-school, and doesn't seem to realize that I also just handed him a god damned machine gun so he can keep these jerks off of me while I heal us), and enemies appear almost immediately. The only down side is that they are all the old types found throughout RE5. I was hoping the anchor dude would make a cameo, but I guess his slow movement wouldn't fit in with the fast action of DE. This is a very straightforward episode: Run, shoot, repeat. There biggest "puzzle" one will encounter is "which one of these chainsaw guys has that damn key so I can kill him first and run through the door?" The episode ends on the roof of the facility as Josh and Jill have to hold off the horde's onslaught while waiting for some random guy in the chopper to fly his ass on over. We've seen all this before, but it doesn't make it any less cool. Desperate Escape is like watching Die Hard again fro the nth time. You know that guy is going to end up falling off of the building, but it' still fun to watch.

On a much sadder note, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix is the worst game I have ever played. It manages to achieve what I assumed was impossible, and that is to fail to deliver the fun of Street Fighter II while being Street Fighter II. Not even the Revival game on GameBoy Advance managed that. (That one was in fact quite fun.) First, and most egregiously, the game offers no way to turn off the "HD Remix" graphics, despite claiming so on the official website. The only graphical option present is the ability to toggle the character sprite art between the HD art, and hideously filtered original sprites. The backdrops will always remain the vapid and soulless "Flash" art. This actually manages to look worse then the default "reinterpretations" of the classic character designs. Another hugely important aspect of Street Fighter is its music. This one gets similarly mangled by defaulting to nonsensical remixes of the original themes. With similar disregard, the original music tracks are available, but have been distorted for some reason, and in fact are completely useless at rekindling any sort of nostalgia. Perhaps this is the game's biggest failing. It was put together by people who had no personal attachment to the original CPS1/2 arcade versions. After all the wrongs that have been committed, one would expect the gameplay of a timeless classic to shine through and attribute some level of dignity to this wreck of a game. Sadly, this too is not the case. The redrawn sprites are posed in a similar manner as the original frames of animation, but differ just enough that the attacks don't hit in the same way as they do in the original. On top of which, certain "adjustments" were made to the characters movesets. As soon as Chun-Li did her Spinning Bird Kick in mid air, it was time to turn this shit off. In the end, Backbone entertainment have fallen into the same trap as Incredible Technologies, who, while making the game based off of the live action movie, let themselves to be misled* into thinking that they were in fact creating the next true Street Fighter experience. This version is an insult, not a celebration, to everything that made Street Fighter II great. I paid half the asking price, which itself was under the $20 cut-off for feeling ripped off, and I want my money back.

Just to confirm my findings, I dusted off the old Dreamcast and loaded up some Super Street Fighter II X For Matching Service. Yup, I wasn't imagining things. That game is still magic. My next goal in life is to get the 3DO version running.

*Page 4 of the linked PDF article.

Moe~

I haven't checked up on Queen's Blade in a long time. The last time I did they just started that Rebellion spin-off series. Looks' like they're running with it for the time being, since they have like eight of those books out already. I can't say I'm impressed with any of those character designs. They all look like scrapped designs for other projects. Is Queen's Blade content with becoming a dumping ground for trash art?

Since QB proper is going down the tubes, it looks like the licensed character series, Queen's Gate, is picking up steam. Last time I mentioned them, Dizzy was the newest addition. Looks like they really love Samurai Shodown over there at QB HQ, cause Mina Nakajima and Cham-cham now join Mai Shiranui and Iroha with their own books. In addition, Kasumi from Dead Or Alive is in the mix too. They should give every single DOA gal her own book, immediately! And every SNK gal too, while we're at it, those are some fine character designs. Now here comes word that Tekken's Lili is up next. I didn't see that coming.

Way of the wino

Those crazy bastards went and did it. When they announced some silly Ryu Ga Gotoku promotional campaign last year, I quipped that they should sell RgG brand sake. Glad to see SEGA's marketing team earning their paychecks. Anyone know a place that imports booze?

Always bet on Black

(I admit that's a terrible thumbnail to use, especially since I won't even be talking about the adapter pictured. You can sort of make out the two games on either side.)

Ever wonder why Cave applies the “Black Label” label to some of its home ports and not others? It turns out it's because the vanilla game is usually not worth talking about, and the Black Label is where the the meat is found. Such is the case with ESPGaluda II Black Label. At first, the main game mechanics seem needlessly convoluted and unintuitive. Where's my bomb at? ESPGaluda is no Mushihimesama. Where the latter is a very straight forward shooting game, the former has more in common with a “puzzle” game like Treasure's Ikaruga. The key to scoring and surviving is switching the character's genders (all the characters are magical, psychic fairies, don't ask), taking the place of the traditional bomb, which has the effect of slowing down bullets, and granting the player temporary invincibility. It's a little more complicated, but not much more than the average shooter. The fun starts when you load up one of the other modes. The vanilla Black Label mixes things up by introducing a “life” bar, letting the player touch a bullet for a few milliseconds before dying. Arrange mode takes things a little further by introducing two colors of bullets, and the ability to destroy them using either the rapid shot, or charged shot. Sound familiar? The Omake mode, which gets unlocked after clearing arcade mode, throws all that and the kitchen sink into a blender and purées that shit. Bullets change color the closer they get to the player, if one touches the player an energy shield pops up, which absorbs other bullets, and builds up energy for a powerful blast. I admit that at that point in the evening I wasn't in any condition to notice little details or bullets anymore, but I still managed to get all the way to the last level on my first try. Each mode of ESPGaluda II Black Label is essentially fundamentally different from one another, making this collection three games in one, and unlike anything that anyone's tried before. Never let anyone tell you shooting games are the same thing over and over.

I wish I could be as enthusiastic about Zangeki no REGINLEIV. Where ESPGaluda is unapologetically straight forward in execution (press start, shoot some guys, die, repeat), Zangeki is an action game that tries its damnedest to be anything but. Just starting the game is a god damned chore, having to go through three menu screens before finally getting to the playing field. (And why is the “tutorial” menu the first in the list?) Once there, the action is pretty fast and loose, but once the level's over, it's back to menu city. What the fuck? I play games to kill some ogres, not navigate god damned spreadsheets. This, I'm afraid, is what happens when you try to take a simple action game concept, and try to wrap it into a mini-game-collection-like presentation, in order to help your newly expanded audience digest it easier. This is exactly why “expanding the audience” can fuck right off. If it starts having a negative effect on tried and true genre conventions, or leads to fixing things that were never broken, maybe it's time for fans to reevaluate just how committed a developer or publisher may still be to them. Or maybe time to jump bandwagons. The choice is yours, choose wisely.

As for the white, plasticky thing in the picture, that's one of those Wii Classic Controller-to-USB adapters. It's meant to be used with a PC and Classic Controller, but I got it to try with the PS3 and the Wii Fighting Stick. At the time it seemed like no one on the entire internet had that same idea. In the time it took this package to reach me, someone did try it, and reported that it sort of worked, but I don't exactly trust the source, so I'm going to see for myself. His explanation seemed credible, though, but I still have a few tricks up the ol' sleeve. I didn't have the balls to try it yesterday out of fear my PS3 was going to eat itself. Is it safe for me to play some video games on my video game machine yet?

Error code 000020

The first thing I thought of, when I head the news about SNK commemorating the Neo Geo's 20th, was "if it's so important, why did you kill off the repair service a few years ago?" Looks like someone on the inside caught on to the blatant hypocrisy, and repair service is once again being offered, likely for a limited time. Also, only the home Neo cart systems are being serviced. MVS and CD owners are still SOL.

Everything bought is paid for again

All's quiet this week. The most important thing I see is the second round of Resident Evil 5 DLC, Desperate Escape featuring Super Jill and that other guy, with Rebecca Chambers. Opening act, Heavy Metal Chris and OL Sheva. If the producers knew how to make an awesome game all along, why did they waste all that time and money on what became RE5, and tacked on this stuff at the end? I don't think anyone would be complaining if they just kept remaking the original Resident Evil over and over on each new hardware generation. I'll also be "picking up" Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, for half price this week. The older I get, and the more games I play, the more I realize that Street Fighter II is my favorite fighting game. (It was my first fighter.) It is the bar I measure all other fighting games by, and Super Turbo is its most complete revision. I have the Dreamcast (and 3DO) disc, but I don't feel like pulling out the blasted thing every time I want to beat up a few guys. Also, I need something else to use my RAP on. Street Fighter IV is cool and all, but I don't know if it can be trusted to test a persons skill. It was, after all, a means of getting non-hardcore fighting fans back into the game.

Next week is huge for games that have already been released. Probably the biggest thing for the kids will be the US release of Final Fantasy XIII. After years of waiting and hype, this one falls pretty short of the mark. I guess that's why FFXIV was announced and demonstrated even before XIII was even out. They're sweeping this one under the rug as quickly as possible. Next week is also the Asian release of Red Seeds Profile. I picked up the US 360 disc, only to get smacked in the face by regional lockouts. I think I'll be revoking Ignition's Pub. Of The Year honor for that. I played a bit of this one at a friend's house, and it is a fantastic game. The $20 price point made it a must-have, but it's well worth the $45 for the import. I wouldn't go as far as recommending the $80 Japanese version, though. I don't think any game can justify that price. Which is why most games get budget reprints in Japan. After the suckers have had their fill, the rest of us can pick up BlazBlue, Dream Club, and Otomedius G on Thursday.