Month: August 2007

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 8.31.07

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Nintendo stops whoring out Metroid, or at least Retro stops
Please, let Retro make a game it wants to make. I know you own them and want to assign them to a franchise because franchises make all the bling, but it’s really not in your (my) best interest. You have no “mature” themed franchises left, unless you’re giving them the next console Zelda. An excellent developer like Retro also deserves to be rewarded – let them design a game from the ground up. It could be dark, with nudity and blood everywhere. Perhaps bloody nipples. You know, mature.

You would get what you need out of them – an awesome title for the older gamer who is too insecure to play something cute and candy colored. Retro would get what (I assume) they want – the chance to make a game without being assigned 75% of the design. →  Welcome to the Fantasy Zone.

Dreamcast Mania! – Canceled games: Came out on other consoles

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Finally, the much requested follow up to the canceled Dreamcast games deal I wrote a few weeks ago. For those who missed the first, I am taking a look at games that were slated to be released for Sega’s last system that got the axe for one reason or another (well, probably for the very specific reason that the console was discontinued). Special thanks to Christian for handling a few of these. Even I get tired of making stuff up about games I’ve never heard of.

Super Monkey Ball
What was it?
The first game in the best monkey based Marble Madness clone series.

Would it have been good?
The game didn’t rely on great graphics and the Cube version was indeed fun. It would have been an excellent Dreamcast game. →  God of War: Readnarok

Review – Bioshock

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About halfway through Bioshock, I had concocted three different introductions to use in a review.

Then I lost my saves.

Word to the wise; don’t transfer your offline gamertag onto Xbox Live at 2 in the morning. Bad things will happen. They did to me, and I had to play the entire first half all over again. Doing this was a blessing in disguise, as it showed me a few things about the game that were not evident the first time around. Then the second half taught me even more. Let’s get right to the point; this is a good game. Is it a great game? Some will feel it is not, as there are most certainly a few problems here. Is it a work of art? This is an even tougher question to answer. →  Look upon my works, ye mighty, and read!

Review – Dungeons and Dragons Tactics

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Finally, a Good Original Game for the PSP

The PSP has always befuddled me. Here you have a visually excellent system with pretty decent processing power and storage capabilities, yet one of the biggest electronics companies in the world can only manage to wrangle a handful of good titles for the system. No kidding, I can count the number of PSP games that I enjoy playing for extended periods on one hand. Now I need to add one more finger because Dungeons and Dragons Tactics is a pretty sweet game.

Beware the forbidden forest of split pea soup!

This review is going to be pretty simple: if you like Dungeons and Dragons and you like turn-based tactical strategy games, you will like D&D Tactics. I, for one, am not a fan of D&D but that is due mostly to the people who have played and run the games I have tried to enjoy. →  Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing memory cards.

60…45 Reasons to own a PSP

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PSP Fanboy started a series of articles back in June extolling the wonders of the PSP. The 60 Reasons to Own a PSP series was written (by a reader of the blog) to illuminate how amazing the PSP system is. And amazing it is, with reasons such as “Has buttons” and “Runs on electricity” on the list, there is no denying the PSP is the best system ever

Realizing any reasons beyond “has good games”, “costs less than the PS3” and possibly “not fatal if ingested” were unnecessary, videolamer wrote a parody of the article that simply looked at a bunch of DS games and labeled each game a reason to own the DS. We sent PSP Fanboy the article but have yet to hear back from them. They are too busy writing their 60 reasons, perhaps. →  Hot Shots Post 3

Review – Mario Party 8

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Mario Party 8 is great for those who love board games, but don’t have a properly calibrated floor to play one on. I was so bored playing the required 80 hours of remedial shoots and ladders needed to unlock all of the party games that I started to appreciate Warhol’s “Sleep”. The party games combine the all the fun of watching real estate infomercials with the innovation of watching a marathon of real estate infomercials.

  No disrespect to Tom Vu, however. In his infomercial, this late 80’s real estate mogul turned seminar hawker/ pimp had a waterfall that he built using the leftover chicks from the playboy mansion. And best of all, he would act like he never saw them. He would give the original crib tour and walk by as if he just had a non-woman waterfall built of regular rocks and Waterfall-Mart bought supplies.
 →  Read Read Revolution: Disney Channel Edition

Review – Civilization IV Beyond the Sword

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One of my biggest critiques of the Civilization Warlords Expansion was that I felt Firaxis had produced just enough content to make the game worth buying, and not a smidgen more. Being a Civilization fanatic, I had no choice to buy it, but my hope was that the next expansion, when it came out, would be more satisfying. In the months coming up to the release of Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword, I began to get giddy as a schoolgirl (I even found myself shopping for plaid skirts) that this expansion would deliver. I was not disappointed. And my new skirt fits really well.

I’ll breeze over the stuff you’ve already read elsewhere (or seen in the game): new leaders, new civilizations. There are more of them, an they are in fact delicious. →  Read like G did.

GT5: Prologue adds car damage, finally becomes a real driving simulator

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Reported by Kotaku, Gran Turismo’s father, Kazunori Yamauchi, has stated that a few key features are being implemented into the teaser version of Gran Turismo 5, dubbed Prologue. Things like realistic car damage and a “Professional” physics option are getting added as per fan request, and all I can say is: holy shit, took you long enough!

The Gran Turismo series has always been labeled as the most realistic driving simulator ever created, but that doesn’t say much when you can ram your Sprinter Trueno into a wall head-on at 120 mph and see no damage.

Apparently Polyphony Digital has realized that cars, in fact, do not bounce off of walls, and has added damage to their physics model, much like what Forza Motorsport did on Msoft’s Xbox 360. Also included is the integration of this truly innovative feature in your opponent’s AI, which proves how un-simulator-like all GT’s have been up to this point. →  Look upon my works, ye mighty, and read!

ASCII art game – Shoot ‘Em

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When it comes to Youtube vids made of ASCII art, quality can hit or miss. But this is the first time I’ve seen it used to make a 3d game. The name is Shoot ’em , and the concept is simple – use your ASCII gun and ASCII mines to blow up ASCII shapes so they don’t crash into your ASCII ship. old schooley techno plays in the background. Also, you can run out of ammo. It is 3d and mouse driven, and while not the most thrilling game ever, it is a sight to behold.

In case you are wondering how the game works – it looks to use a custom image conversion layer in OpenGL (thanks to Tringi for pointing this out to me!), which is pretty damn impressive if you ask me. →  I’m gonna take you for a read.

Expansion Packs, Add-ons, Sequels, and Other Crap the World Doesn’t Need

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I love the Sims. I am hopelessly addicted to the nutty little people that live in their own world on my computer. I am so hooked to this virtual crank that each time EA kicks out another goofy expansion pack for it, I bite and grab myself a few new locales or items for my little demented Sims to play with. The Sims is a completely genius game while at the same time, a totally evil one. It is a game that is groundbreaking in a multitude of ways, but for me, one specific trait stands out: The Sims franchise, for better or worse, made expansion packs and add-ons a norm of gaming. Sure, there were games before that did it and had success but no game boasts the breadth of expansion-y goodness that the Sims has on the market. →  In all ages, hypocrites, called producers, have put crowns upon the heads of thieves, called publishers.

Metal Gear Silly 4

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I should begin this blog with a disclaimer – I have played all of the Metal Gear Solid games, and sooner or later I know I will play 4. With that out of the way, I want to say that the hype for MGS4 can get puzzling at best.

Now I’m not saying that the game deserves no hype. Anything MGS is guaranteed to get people talking, and for good reason. It just seems weird. Unless I wasn’t paying attention, it felt like MGS3 had the least amount of hype and talk before its release, and yet it for my money its the best game in the series. Now with MGS4 we get a new trailer ever few months, and from just this we’ve got floods of comments where people are already claiming it to be the best game of this generation. →  NiGHTS into REaDS

The Bioshock Occlusion

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HateComputer

My PC is stout. A 3.2ghz Quad core, 8gb RAM, GeForce 7950 SLI (x2) beast with a raptor managing triple boot, 2tb of SATA storage and a 1000 watt PSU to keep the cheesy blue cathodes and 8 case fans humming wildly in PC mod rapture. I can run any game at any resolution (yes, even with the months old 7950s) at hundreds of FPS. It makes little girls cry, old men shit themselves and, if the moon is just right, can grab hold of the minds of all within a forty block radius and twist them to my devious desires.

So I guess it only makes sense then that I bought Bioshock for the 360.

I was given a choice, you see. The PC version was right there next to the xBox version on the special Bioshock end-cap at my local blue-shirt-crap-shack. →  Welcome to the Fantasy Zone.

Review – Madden 08

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The Madden Curse Comes to the Wii

For years we’ve seen each Madden cover supermodel fall to the “curse” of becoming overpaid, injured and irrelevant. And just as eerily, the infamous curse is plaguing the upper right corner of its cover as well.

I know I’m supposed to unconditionally lower my expectations for the Wii’s substandard graphics and love it because of it’s removable showerhead inspired controller, but this is just lazy. (And by the way, the joy of flailing a little white rod at my TV is neither new nor innovative.) Crowd shots, backgrounds, stadium flybys and even the loading screen still shots rely on heavy, let’s say, “artistic” blurring to compensate for these worse than average Wii graphics. Whereas the animations have finally improved on the other two consoles, the motion capture for the Wii looks like it was recorded in the Madden bus toilet using a breakfast burrito and some pork rinds. →  I’ll get a job later, for now I’m going to read this

Bioshock and Awe

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First of all, let me say that I hope that everyone who can play Bioshock is trying their best to do so. This is a big, important game that we need to discuss campfire style.

Second, I want to tell everyone to please, please, slow the hell down.

Thanks to Bioshock’s art deco style, mesmerizing visuals, and Randian plot and philosophy, there are already people declaring this an instant work of art. By the end of the year you will no longer hear chants of “Ico! Beyond Good and Evil! Shadow of the Colossus!”. Instead the only weapon many gamers will wield will be Bioshock.

ReggieHatesYou

Again, I say to this – slow down. Wait until everyone has played it. Wait until the initial excitement and hype has died down, as this has a huge inflating effect on our opinions of a game. →  It’s not you, it’s me.

What are we Playing?

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I don’t know what you dear readers are playing, but I’ve got myself a tough choice, as demonstrated on the right:

Don’t pity me. I’ll somehow play them while still squeezing in Prime 3 this month.

I promise reviews as quickly as possible. At least for Bioshock.

Retrospectives – Metroid Prime

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I don’t know about you guys, but with all these Metroid videos popping up all over the place, coupled with the release of three Metroid titles in a three week span (Metroid, Super Metroid on the VC, and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption on the Wii), I have developed full-blown Metroid-fever. GameTrailers has an awesome video retrospective on the entire Metroid series, while Nintendo has been so kind as to relay eight preview videos for the soon-to-be Wii masterpiece, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, right to our very own Wiis.

But then I became a little sad. Corruption is going to end the Prime trilogy as we know it. What happens next, no one knows. Would the series return to 2D adventure like SNES’s opus, Super Metroid? Would it continue the First-Person-Adventure legacy? →  Who is that standing behind you?

Square Enix and the Merch

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Man Square Enix, you just live to piss me off, don’t you? Apparently you’ve opened your merchandise store to the west, and rather than being a force of awesome, you’ve filled it with lousy merchandise and worthless jewelry so teenage otaku have something to go with their black nail polish.

Let’s look at the subcategories on the side navigation bar. We’ve got specific links for every Final Fantasy from 7 to 12…. oh wait. FF9 isn’t there. Sorry Zidane; guess you weren’t emo enough pal. The rest of the FF’s, as well as all of Dragon Quest are each lumped into a big series category. Just great.

I guess we can still look at what they have. Hmm. Seems the other FF’s have nothing to offer me but figurines of summons. →  Tony Hawk’s Posting Ground

Super Metroid lands on VC, slaps your face

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…and makes you its bitch. Super Metroid, regarded as one of the best games of all time, has become available for a meager eight dollars through the all-mighty Virtual Console service. EIGHT DOLLARS! If you don’t take the smallest of steps to secure this game on your Wii, then may God herself have mercy on your soul.

But seriously, get Super Metroid. You’ll be surprised how accurate all those crazy fanboys on the net really were. It really is one of the greatest games of all time. I myself would say that it is the best 2D adventure ever made, and any gamer should play it at least once. You owe it to yourself to part with that $8 you stole from ol’ Granny.

Trust me, if she played Super Metroid, she would have done the same thing.

Dreamcast Mania! – Canceled games: PC Ports

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The Dreamcast was home to many excellent games, but due to its early demise, it was also home to many canceled games. These games, though varied, can be broken up into three main categories – ports of PC games, games that made it to other consoles, and games that never came out. Today, we will look at the PC ports and imagine how things would have turned out had the Dreamcast lasted a few more years.

Black and White
What was it?
A very well received god sim by Peter Molyneux.

Would it have been good?
Probably but it would be infuriating without the Dreamcast mouse.

Would it have sold?
Yes but not nearly as well as on the PC. Complex PC games and console games have different audiences.

Would it have actually come out? →  Reading. Reading never changes.

Sony’s Jamie Macdonald lies to Spong

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Digg led me to a hilariously bad review of Bioshock today. The site the review is on is called Sony Defense Force and, luckily, the entire site is hilarious. It may be a parody but it’s hard to tell, especially after the All I Want For Christmas is a PSP debacle.

Browsing the SDF page, I came across this gem of a story: PS2 still outselling Wii in all Major Markets. The bloggers own comments are excellent – “Looks like Wii won’t even be able to catch PS2. Get ready for another Sony dominated generation.” More importantly, the quote from Jamie Macdonald is an obvious lie:

“Jamie Macdonald: Could I just point something out – that PlayStation 2 is still outselling Wii in all the major markets.”

Unless he delivered this interview from last year, he is wrong. →  Guitar Hero III: Legends of Read