First off, my new regular feature over at GameSetWatch finally begins today.
Once again it’s called Cinema Pixeldiso, and I’ll be reviewing movies either based upon or dealing with video games. The primary focus will be stuff that’s either relatively obscure or unfairly labeled as bad. That means no Silent Hill article, since I understand that movie was pretty decent, which sounds pretty boring to me.
I don’t have an official page for my column, but I’m sure it’ll be set up as soon as Simon‘s back from Japan (he’s there for the Tokyo Game Show). I’m also not sure if Thursdays will be the permanent day for it (I was sorta thinking either Mondays or Fridays since those days don’t have as many regular features), or if it’ll even be weekly or not (if so, I’m probably going to run out of stuff after a couple of weeks). But in the end, Mr. Carless is the one who calls the shots.
Speaking of the Tokyo Game Show, the damn thing finally kicks off tonight (since its already tomorrow in Japan right now). As previously mentioned, it promises to be a big one since it’s the last big showing for all the major players before the long awaited next-gen showdown goes down (and in less than two months). Actually, Sony is giving their keynote speech as I type this (Microsoft had theirs yesterday), but I’ll simply wait till tomorrow or Monday before going into all that. First let me just get through a few odds and ends from the past week….
- Though I have to mention this now, since I still can’t believe how fucking insane it is: Sony’s going to release two versions of Gran Turismo for the PlayStation 3 in the near future, Premium & Classic. Neither is a “true” sequel; GT 5 comes out in 2008 or something.
Premium will be a GT5 prologue, which will come with two courses and 30 cars (there was a GT4 prologue for the PS2 as well, which was also a sneak peak at the finalized game, with some behind the scenes stuff as well) and Classic, which is meant to be a mostly online experience, will have no cars or course. But the game will have up to 750 cars and 50 tracks for purchase. Each car will apparently cost between 50-100 yen, which is about 43 to 85 cents, while courses will be 200-500 yen, or approximately $1.71-$4.26. Cars cannot be earned by winning races in the game, like in previous Gran Turismos, you HAVE to buy and download them. That is absolutely ridiculous. So basically, for the same amount of money you spent for Gran Turismo 4, which gave you a bunch of cars and tracks, though you had to unlock most of it by, you know, playing the damn game, now you’ll simply be getting 1/36th as much.
Or to put it in simpler terms, to match the same amount of content of the previous PS2, you you’ll literally have to spend over $500-845 (figures provided by IGN), which is almost or even over the price of the console, which again is already $600. Once more, ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS AND FUCKING INSANE. Also, hooray for microtransactions! And thank you Oblivion horse armor.
Plus, as ShaperMC also pointed out to me: “I don’t know if you are aware of the tedium that would come with selecting, purchasing, agreeing to pay for, queueing up, then repeating all that for the content the size of GT4. It was pretty irritating to do it for the 20 or so cars in RR6, and they were free.” If anyone ever needed to flat out hate Sony, this here is it.
- Want to know once more why I don’t play games online? Because I play video games to forget about the assholes I have to deal with in real life, so the last thing I want is to play with them. Case in point, check out this interview with a guy who cheats at games, and is fucking proud of it. It’s chock full of all sorts of wonderful stuff…
Aeropause: “Besides Halo 2 are there any other games at which you cheat?”
Schmuck5000: “I play BF2 and some Counter Strike. I cheat at both but it?s hard to get away with in Counter Strike. People who play CS are such babies about that stuff. The other players are just jealous p***ys who wish they had the ability to cheat.”
Aeropause: “Do you have a girlfriend?”
Schmuck5000: “What kind of freaking question is that for this kind of interview? How does me having a girlfriend relate to cheating?”
- And speaking of angry gamers, many are well aware that Capcom’s zombie beat ‘em up, Dead Rising, which for the time being is the reason to own a Xbox 360, is almost impossible to play on standard definition television sets due to the in-game text being rendered for HD set. At first Capcom said they were going to release a patch but they said they weren’t. Also not helping is how the game’s director in a recent interview with EGM was asked about this problem, and his response was basically: “LOL get a HD television set.”
Well here’s a 1UP article that touches upon the problem, but scroll down and check out the comments from the members of the 1UP community, which includes: “people without hi-def TVs have no business playing 360 games anyway”.
Also, check out some of the comments for 1UP’s clarification on Wii’s region encoding (btw, the system is apparently not going to be region free as previously stated… I’m still confused by the whole thing really): “only import geeks love importing, if they love it so much, move to Japan and get the heck out of US”
Hence why I do not speak to anyone in any game store I got to, let along make eye contact.
- One additional 1UP story, and proof that sometimes big game companies do listen to the consumers (though the two previous items sure makes it seem not the case these days). It would seem that the possibility of Same & Max coming to the Wii is not at all an impossibility.
- According to a recent issue of Play magazine a sequel to Radiant Silvergun/Ikaruga is on the way (this site here also mentions it). Dave Halverson, the man behind Play. has behind some countless crazy and outlandish rumors in the past (he was also behind the much beloved hardcore gaming tome, Gamefan magazine), and even though his track-record has been less than stellar over the year (okay, its been downright shitty), he is pretty close with Treasure (Gamefan was indeed the first American publication to give Gunstar Heroes and all their subsequent games tons of attention), so maybe he might right about this.
Play also states that Radiant Silvergun was always supposed to be a trilogy, which is news to me, but I could honestly care less… another original shooter from Treasure would be something to totally kill for. I would imagine that it would be yet another amazing take on the shooter genre, but if it was to go back to the original and be a true next-generation successor to RS… you don’t even want to know what I would do to get my hands on such a thing.
- Speaking of shmups, someone over at the Insert Credit forums passed along this: Shoot the Core, a shmup blog. Very nice! This particular entry is about Ether Vapor which the author describes as a cross between Einhander and Thunder Force V, which really REALLY makes me wish I had a MacBook right now so I can play it and all the other awesome doujin shooters I’m missing out on.
- Here’s the latest trailer for Dead or Alive Xtreme 2. And it’s… pretty to the point. Plus it totally validates Mike (O’Connor)‘s whole “Japan = soul cancer” theory. Plus the thing’s gonna cost $80 f’n dollars in Japan! But hey, what else are pervs gonna spend their money on?
- Time for a bunch of game related YouTube vids, including…
… a Hard Gay refernece/in-joke from the new Tingle RPG.
… all the very best parts of that old crappy Legend of Zleda cartoon.
… and anyone who knows me is well aware for my love for fatalities in fighting games. The shittier and more obscure the game, the better. Here’s a nice compilation clip for Blood Storm.
- And here’s some “wacky” game related Photoshops, courtesy of the Gaming Age Forums. It was recently revealed what the boxes for Wii games are supposed to look like, so a bunch of people came up with ideas for their own games, and here are a few of my personal faves…
Plus here’s a small-ish one, but still pretty neat nonetheless…
- Elsewhere at NeoGAF, check out this one guy’s attempt at making his black DS Lite less shiny by using a nail file and other tools to buff the system.
Before:
After:
The thread is worth checking out simply for people’s reactions. A few become legitimately upset and uneasy by the sight. And I gotta admit, the in-between pics are pretty crazy.
- Finally, for the two of you out there on planet earth who hasn’t seen it yet, here’s pics of a Super Mario Bros themed wedding cake that was all the rage this past week. I had about 11 different friends send me the same link since Monday, and for good reason: it’s hella cool.
