What does one do when they have a whole Friday afternoon at work set aside to do personal projects but forgets all the important stuff at home? Why post stupid stuff about video games of course! I’m finally caught up on all the gaming junk I had to miss out on when work dictated that I stay far away from the time sucking powers of the internet. And here’s the best stuff… much of it isn’t real news, but for that, you probably know where to look. There is non-gaming stuff btw, at the very end….
- So there’s a ton of awesome games coming out this month, which is usually the case for October. You’ve got Super Gunstar Heroes, Phoenix Wright (again, the DS lawyer simulator), Soul Calibur 3 (if you think Lizard Man was wild, wait till you see the Owl Guy), Stubs the Zombie (which I don’t know too much admittedly, but it looks hella cool), Chaos Field (yet another Dreamcast shooter comes stateside), and others that I’m forgetting. But the one I’m most hyped for, without a doubt, is Shadow of the Colossus. As mentioned before, my financial situation is precarious to say the least, but that’s not stopping me from picking up day one. Okay, I might wait a week to take advantage of the Toys R Us 2 for 1 sale at the end of the month.
Anyway, here’s a direct feed of latest trailer from the Tokyo Game Show.
Unfortunately, when it does come our way, us Americans won’t be getting this awesome pre-order bonus: a DVD chock full of behind the scenes and promotion material (it even goes by the game’s original name Nico or “new Ico”). Hopefully a rip of it will pop up online sooner or later.
- Another game I’m dying to get my hands comes from the Simple Series from Japan, the line of super cheap and super popular games with a gimmick, mostly scantily clad girls, which I believe I’ve mentioned before. Well this one features one big bikini girl wrecking havoc in a city, and its been translated into English. Unfortunately, its only for the English; called Demolition Girl, is not slated for a US release anytime soon…
- Back to Dreamcast shooters right quick, some bad news was recently announced regarding Senko no Ronde. Its heading towards the Xbox 360 and not the DC. Some were hoping for that G.Rev’s shooter/fighter hybrid would be the last great game for that system. Oh well… at least its looking better all the time. Here’s some latest pics and a couple of vids via the official site. And speaking of the 360…
- With Microsoft’s X05 event finally over with, there’s at last some media from the upcoming games flowing about (and about fucking time… with the system only two months away, getting pics and videos only now is pretty inexcusable). Again, aside from Ridge Racer 6 (which looks awesome and all, but so did part V which I ultimately could not get into since it doesn’t even come close to R4), Nighty Nine Nights (which again I’m only paying attention to because of Mizuguchi), the two Mistwalker games which no one’s seen yet, and now Senko no Ronde, nothing else does much for me.
But at least Amped 3 is trying to do something different with their Robot Chicken/Action League Now-like transitions. Make sure to choose the X05: Grinding It Up (Off-Screen) video. But hey, I’m a sucker for stop-motion animation. And on a related note, SSX 4 (whatever its called) also has an amazing front-end as well.
- Also available on IGN are videos for Sega Rally 2006, which are shaping up quite nice actually.
- If you’re a Mega Man fan, you might be interested in this interview with Keiji Inafune, the creator of the blue bomber. Some interesting tid-bits are passed along, including how his look in the new PSP Mega Man is what he was supposed to look like originally. Interesting… I’m glad the interviewer made the George Lucas connection.
- And here’s some bits and pieces with an interview from the creator or Sonic the Hedgehog, Yuji Naka (the October 2nd entry), where he talks about stuff that never made it to the finished games, in particular Sonic 2, and why Sonic 3 was split into two different games. Plus if you follow the links, you can get your hands on the Sonic & Knuckles MTV special, “Rock the Rock.” If you consider yourself a Sega fan but have never seen it, nows your chance to get your street cred back.
- A few weeks back 1UP did had a special Team Ninja week. One of the days has Itagaki listing his top 5 games, and even though I’m not the biggest fan of his games, I have to admit that the guy himself is pretty damn entertaining at times. He’s definitely the Kenji Eno of this current generation of gaming.
- Here’s another bizarre little curiosity from the TGS that flew under most people’s radar: a thumb-vibrator. Interesting…
Funny that the piece was written by Jane Pinckard who’s best known for taking a look at another more famous game related vibrator.
- Speaking of girls getting off via video games, here’s a story about Spend the Night, an “erotic” MMO that’s aimed primarily towards women. It’ll be interested to see if this actually takes off, and with the intended audience. Though you’ll have to excuse me if I seem a tad bit skeptical.
- So G4, the cable channel “for gamers by gamers” (yeah, right), is almost dead. They just acquired the Man Show for its line-up (and paid some ridiculous price, like three or four million), to help I believe with the transition towards another guy’s channel. Hope they have better luck than Spike TV which for an all guy’s network has to rely on nerdy television (Star Trek: The Next Generation) to stay afloat. And good riddance to be honest, that whole channel was fucking horror show from beginning to end.
The problem with G4 was obviously their idea of programming. Instead of super models awkwardly spouting game news or top ten lists determined by their six or so viewers, they should have just played stuff like this: Game Master.
- Here’s another blast from the past, from G4′s predecessor, TechTV. Take a looks at the ultimate gaming rig circa 1998.
- Time to check out the latest knock-off gaming hardware from Taiwan. First up is the POPStation. But even better is the NeoDouble. I just love how you have to “change games”.
- Speaking of knock-offs, here’s an awesome Fami-clone that acts as a Windows machine!
- For Yasunori Mitsuda fans out there, good news: the Chrono Cross arrange album is still happening, believe it or not. His arranged albums for Chrono Trigger is still one of my all-time favorite game music CDs.
- Take a look at another vid, this one a kick-ass classic commercial for 2600 version of Pole Position. Too bad all game commercials today are all about being cool and shit.
- I know those who grew up with the games of yesteryears are having a tough time dealing with the games of today. I guess that’s what the Institute for Additional Dimension Adjustment Therapy is there for.
- If you’re a big fan of Wario Ware and speed-runs, like I am, then this is for you: the original Wario Ware being beaten in 49 minutes, but sped up to 3. Its like Madame Chao’s: the game.
- And if you’re a big fan of Legos and the Zone of the Ender, like I am, then this is for you. The Anubis one is particularly hot.
- Another game I’ve recently started playing again is King of Fighers: Maximum Impact. Not a bad game. I’m somewhat looking towards the sequels. And if you are as well, here’s the fairly decent anime intro plus a look at the game itself.
- Yet another sequel that I’m looking to get my hands on is Graffiti Kingdom, the game where you can create your own characters. Here’s some fairly impressive examples. And aside from the concept, I have to get it because Studio Ghibli was involved in the game as well, and I secretly collect any game that they’ve worked on (even though many have not been that hot… Jade Cocoon for the PSone wasn’t bad, just boring).
- Remember yesterday how the brain-trusts behind the 360 claimed that they thought of the Revolution’s control mechanism first? Well its bullshit of course…. but then there’s this. But then again, so did Sony. But if there’s one piece of technology that Sony has played around with that I’d love to see developed, and not just for gaming applications, is their data-tile system. Now we’re finally talking Star Trek (or PlayStation 9).
But back to Microsoft’s new system, the reason why I’m so weary, aside from rather generic looking games (that do will very nice I will admit… but its still generic) is the arrogant attitude of the men behind it. In every single interview they just come off as arrogant pricks. And hey, its one thing to talk shit about the competition, but when you have nothing to back it up, then you’re just talking out of your ass. Today they J Allard defended their lack of a hard drive in every system by stating that it gives people “choices”. Despite the fact that such a move pretty much undercuts all their “Remix Era” bullshit from the GDC.
Then there’s the whole “is Xbox Live on 360 gonna be free or what?” which is a whole another can of confused worms. But anyway…
- One last time, here’s a screenshot from Demolition Girl:
Come on, you know you wanna play it!
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And for those of you are bored to death by video games by now…
- Want to know all the words that the Simpsons has created over the years (such as the “boo-urns” which is already pretty much ingrained in our language today)? Well here ya go.
- Do live action role-players like to rock? I guess the answer is “yes”.
- The more inane or ridiculous the subject matter for the blog, the better I like it. Here’s a particularly angry one about shitty knitting.
- And finally tonight, I’ll be heading to Jersey for the aforementioned clam ‘n jam. That means a trip to the Jersey shore, and that means dinner at Wawa and a night at Morgan’s beach house, which has cable. I hope she has a sports channel, cuz I’ll be looking for this: chess boxing.
