Its been a while since posting, at least for me. And with an insanely hectic summer giving way to what looks to be an even busier fall, I have a feeling that my updates in general will have to slow down to accommodate.
- Anyway, not much to report really. Just been doing my best to keep up with assorted freelance gigs (and not doing a great job in some instances), as well as spend some time doing follow up on the anthology, as well as Spready Bear. Went out to the Jersey shore again this weekend to soak up the sea-air. New York-Tokyo held another Gamers Nite Groove, this one a King of Fighter-related event, in SoHo which I wanted to check out on Saturday night, but ultimately, skee-ball at the boardwalk in Point Pleasant won out (though I hear this GNG was the very best yet). MK & I managed to impress the rest of our friends with our mad skee-ballin’s skills, which results in a large mass of tickets that was cashed in for a veritable treasure-trove of awesome junk, like plastic cowboys & indians, spinning tops, compass rings, plastic clappy hands, and of course, even more parachute guys and gliders. Plus we had dinner at a shack called Surf Taco which has the best damn fish tacos ever.
- And last night, Brian passed along his collection of World’s End Girlfriend, an ultra eclectic electronic group from Japan that I’ve been interested in ever since I saw The Late Bloomer (they did the soundtrack). So now I have plenty of material for mix tapes/CDs for at least the next seven years; once again, thanks a bunch Brian!
- I’ve also actually been playing games regularly for the past week or so, mostly with Killer 7. I gotta say, I love every single minute of it. Granted, its not a good game by any means… the core game mechanics is clumsy and boring, with poor pacing and the most brain-dead puzzles imaginable. But I just can’t get enough of the game’s characters and overall vibe. After-all, you play an assassin with a multiple personality disorder that goes around doing hits on the behalf of some guy in a wheelchair that’s being cared by a girl who also has a split-personality (she’s either a quiet, demur caretaker in a French maid outfit, or a bitch, abusive college student that dresses like a skank). The main enemies are these weird creatures that explode and bleed like crazy, which you then suck up for health. Along the way you have some s&m freak giving you clues, as well as some guy who has a permanent smile frozen on his face (like the Joker’s murder victims in Batman ’89) and is constantly wearing t-shirts with “wacky” slogans on them. Then there’s the old Korean guy who will give you clues if you give him blood, and when doing so, wears a Kabuki mask and give you the finger. And when you die, your soul is incased in a bloody paper bag that must be collected. Its like a really pretentious and shitty arty-farty student movie: the game.
- As for gaming news, its looks as if the PSP has finally lost all of its luster. First there’s this study that shows that those who own a PSP, at least in Japan, aren’t using it to play movies and that 50% of them haven’t even touched their system in “some time”. Which falls in line with virtually every single person that I’ve spoke to who has one; they bought into the hype and was first in line to get the system, played Lumines and/or Ridge Racers to death, then just put it on a shelf where its been collecting dust for many months now. Some have dabbled with emulation, though not most, and those that have stuck with it have stated that they may not purchases any new games since they will require a firmware upgrade, which would nullify all their homebrew appls. The few that tried using it as a media player gave up on it when it became a too time consuming and complicated. And of the people that bought a UMD movie, all confess it was purely due to a need to get something for their PSP and they all felt really dumb about it afterwards. Almost all are extremely dissatisfied with the system and are entertaining the idea of selling theirs, if they haven’t already (and in some cases, the money is being used towards a DS).
But there are those who are sticking with the system, though they’re all noticeably agitated about it all. Then again, I guess I would be pissed too if I paid $250 for a over-hyped overpriced, movie player with a shitty selection. But perhaps no one is as pissed as Sony themselves, which are becoming increasingly bitchy with public outbursts such as this.
BTW, if you want pure comedy gold, check out some of the comments by those from the 1UP community, including this little nugget:
“Face it. PSP is for straight guys who have a life while DS is for the gay guys who masturbate to gay porn and like to play little kiddie games. Maybe if the people who play DS got a friend or two and found out that pokemon is meant for 5 year olds they wouldn’t like DS so much.”
Personally, I’m grateful that the DS is doing so well and is finding its audience, and that people aren’t completely foolish enough to be just happy with bling bling graphics. Though I don’t doubt that the PSP will eventually become a resounding success, perhaps even overtaking the DS in terms of popularity and profitability. But the chance to become the most significant piece of technology for our times (the next iPod basically) is pretty much completely gone.
- And all that doesn’t mean I don’t want a PSP (remember, I have my eyes on the white one coming soon). There still a few gems out there that don’t rely on being nothing more than just a fancy tech demo. For example, this here is MiniPato PSP, which is based upon some shorts based upon Patlabor, a fairly popular anime series. So thus far there’s been games that look like paper cut-outs, ones that look like crayon drawings… guess its about time there was one that looked like popsicle stick puppets.
- So in China, the government is limiting players of online games to a limit of three hours. This of course hurts those who engage in MMORPGs the most, since those who play them will often grind away at the game for hour on end to level up, and its specifically those types of players, at least the ones who literally play themselves to death, or cause them to ignore their children, leading to their deaths, that the law is intended for. But I have to wonder if there are other reasons…
After-all, its via these MMORPGs that many Chinese are finally getting their first true taste of freedom. Most seem to forget that the Chinese government regulates all forms of information, and quite heavily, including the internet (most still don’t know that the Tiananmen Square incident even happened). And games like Worlds of Warcraft is one of the few outlets for Chinese people to converse with others throughout the world, and in a completely unrestricted, unfiltered manner.
- Sega revealed a new game last week which made everything think of Shenmue, literally. But sorry folks, it is NOT SHENMUE 3. Though it does bear more than a passing resemblance:
Ryu ga Goto Ku
Shenmue 2
With stuff like this being pumped out of the PS2, I too am not necessarily looking towards the next generation. Especially when its gonna cost so ridiculously much. Speaking of…
- Last time I mentioned the insanely expensive bundles that EB was offering. Well Gamestop has their own: a core bundle for $700, the Silver bundle at $800, the Gold bundle at $900, the Ultimate bundle at… get this…. $1,2000, and last but not last, the $2000 Omega Bundle. Yes, that’s two thousand dollars.
Here’s something that many have just noticed: for the full package, the drive door on the system is silver, while for the core package, the drive door is the same color of the rest of the system, which in my opinion, is actually better. Just great Microsoft. If things weren’t needlessly complicated enough.
Though I must admit, the sliver does goes will with any of the of the additional faceplates, which was something I was not interested in until I saw the Console one:
- On a semi-related note, more and more screens are being passed around for the upcoming Soul Calibur 3, and its a game which I really haven’t been too excited for, despite being a big fan of the first two (and Soul Edge). Like I said before, I just find the new character designs to be, among other things, garish. Well I’ve totally changed by tune after seeing these pics:
- And here are some more pics of the upcoming Shadow the Hedgehog, in case anyone had any doubts that this is quite possibly the stupidest thing ever:
- Sticking with Sega, here’s an interesting tidbit from past that was unearthed by the IC forums: Nintendo was not the first to come up with the idea of a portable pet care simulator. Nope, that credit goes to Sega with their Game Gear title Neko Daisuki! And the resemblance is rather uncanny:
- Remember the brain training game for the DS that I’ve mentioned before? Well its seem that Sega’s doing the same thing, but for the PSP.
Seems like a pretty flagrant copy-cat I know, but I guess Sega’s feeling not so self conscious and confident off the stellar success of thier Pokemon but with bugs games for the GBA. Besides, Nintendo didn’t come with that idea originally either.
- One last Sega related item: they just put up a page marking the tenth anniversary of Virtual On. No word on what this is for… perhaps a new game in the series?
On a coincidental note, I tried giving Virtual On Marz a spin last night. The key word here is tried. Translation: the game does indeed suck as bad as everyone said.
- And on an only semi-Sega related note, the possibility of a Street Fighter 4 continues to persist, one that runs off the Atomiswave. And with the annoucement from Capcom earlier today confirming that a new fighting game will be unveiled later this week, the rumors just might be validated, though don’t be too surprised if it turns out to be something else.
- Meanwhile at the GAF, someone posted some info on Sim Tunes.
Some might recall me talking about Toshio Iwai, the man behind Electroplankton and the very first true musical shooter, Otocky. Well the man who’s widely considered to be a real deal genius, due to his highly inventive mixing of music, art, and video game, created a program that allowed people to create art that also created music. But its more than that, and its all so simple, yet I’m not able to fully wrap my brain around the concept… Do yourself a favor and check out the GAF post and see what sounds these pics make:
- Speaking of art, a while ago, an artist who re-creates familiar pixel-based game characters and icons in 3D with some pretty stunning passed along some of his work to me. Guess Insert Credit picked up on the guy since he was recently posted on their front page, but I guess there’s no harm in passing along his site here as well. Some of it is pretty damn fantastic.
- Also on the GAF, some light was shed on yet another GBA shooter/RPG. Its called World Reborn and it looks promising. Granted, I’m not a big fan of the art style, and the password save system is practically a deal breaker, but I have a soft spot of indie developers who can manage to get their products out there. And the funny thing is that there’s apparently a sequel already that’s coming out for the DS and before the original!
- And here’s something I totally random: Namco and Sony have settled over a dispute over a rap song that sampled Pac Man. Guess it was only a matter of time that such things started popping up.
- Back to the subject of Sim something…. a while ago, when I was attending my co-worker Steve’s wedding, I chatted a bit with a friend of his who had a game idea (lots of times when someone finds out I design games, people feel compelled to tell me theirs, and they would tack on at the end “feel free to use it!” Well this time, the idea was pretty damn good: “Sim Prison”. Makes total sense… people love Sim-type games, and people love (well, maybe the right word is “fascinated”) with prisons. After all, OZ is a major hit, no? So it seemed like such a concept was pretty sound and something I wouldn’t mind seriously pursuing. And of course, like all good ideas, someone else has already thought of it. Its called Prison Tycoon. I definitely wanna try this one out.
- Speaking of Steve, I’ve never mentioned this before, but he’s sort of a superstar, at least to those who play Worlds of Warcraft. His guild is the top rated group in the entire world (that’s like out of three and a half million players). I forget the specifics, but it all started when his group managed to complete some super tough quest and he managed to net himself an extremely sought after item. And what precisely is this item you ask? Pants. Mystical pants. It has some fancy name which I forget, but enough players knows about it elicit conversation and even excitement (from elvish women… who are being played by dudes, of course) whenever he’s seen wearing it on quests and the such. He and his group are going to be interviewed by 1UP.com later this week I guess, so I’ll pass it along when that happens.
Also earlier today, while assigning names for PCs, he finally gave me the honor to name a whole classroom. Usually a room goes by a theme, and at this point, almost everything has been used: Star Trek, Transformers, GI Joe, Thundercats. But not shooters! Unfortunately, there’s a cap on names that are longer than 13 characters, so sadly, there is no computer named Radiant Silvergun.
