Hero (How you feel can …): I think both Nintendo and… Vega (How you feel can …): It might do Nintendo some… Metal Man Master (How you feel can …): You know, I've got over 4… Googleshng (How you feel can …): On the one hand, Steam an… R.R.Bigman (How you feel can …): I had no idea that you co… djSyndrome (How you feel can …): I understand the why - pu… JFink (How you feel can …): "Complain as I might abou… alexb (How you feel can …): This is exactly why I'm n… Nobbyworks (How you feel can …): I get the impression that… Rey (How you feel can …): I think the appropriate s…
This is the archive, folks. The current stuff is on the main page.
Comport yourself with dignity for just one day
31 March 09 | 22:54 | Posted by:
Remember! It is April Fool's Day, but that doesn't mean you have to be a fool. Today, just say no to obvious and not especially funny "pranks." To survive on the Internet, you must first accept that you are not as clever as you think you are.
Meanwhile, over at work, I continue shouting into an empty room by trying to diversify the Retronauts blog beyond just game content. The culture surrounding old games -- music, books, movies, television, toys, whatever -- is inextricably tied to the games themselves, forming the petri dish in which the medium fermented and mutated. With that in mind, I've decided to go full speed ahead with my Something Old, Something Blu column -- a (perhaps somewhat overthought) effort to apply a patina of modern relevance to retro games and retro culture as old movies and film franchises trickle over to Blu-ray. This week: Quantum of Solace. Not exactly an old movie, I realize, but I was struck by the parallelism between Quantum's relationship to Casino Royale and every Bond game since 1998's relationship to GoldenEye 007.
Basically: I am a master of flimsy rationalizations. But it's nice to write about something other than just games at work, so I hope you'll forgive the indulgence.
Media | A2Q Archives | A2Q on Twitter | A2Q #82 | March 31, 2009
Right before I sat down to write this, I Netflix sent me an email notifying me that I'll have to cough up an extra $4 a month to continue watching Blu-ray movies. But with everything I want to see on BD always out of stock, what exactly am I paying extra for? Supposedly, Netflix will be going deeper on their BD orders to justify the rate hike. I guess if all the "Short Wait" and "Long Wait" titles suddenly become available I'll reconsider my outrage, although I won't really know if the better availability is due to better inventory or just a bunch of BD customers canceling their subscriptions.
Speaking of outrage, I recently covered the fantastic Swedish vampire movie Let the Right One In. Turns out the version released on BD and DVD has subtitles that are dumbed down from the theatrical version. The studio claims that future pressings of the title will have the theatrical subtitles and will specifically call that out on the package. I returned my BD copy of the movie unwatched after learning about the two translations, and I'll be keeping my eyes out for the revised disc. Obviously, I strongly recommend not buying the movie in its current state.
Final Fantasy VII: The Voice of the Planet
Let it never be said that I don't brook dissenting opinions. Today Kishi doesn't just offer a clement analysis of his own personal pivotal game experience, Final Fantasy VII, he goes so far as to call out my (admittedly overstated for the sake of flamebait) review. But one thing we can both agree on: Sephiroth is a really stupid villain.
Kirby's Adventure
And then we have Loki's look at Kirby's color debut, which (in the tradition of his Mole Mania review) is pure love and happiness distilled into something like a review...but far more wonderful. You will become a better person for having read it. As always, there's a lively discussion happening on Talking Time.
I'm down to slightly more than a dozen copies of the hardback copies of GameSpite Year One, Vol. 1 to sign and mail. (Plus about 10 that have been inscribed but need to be dropped by the post office. I'd just pop them into the nearest mailbox, but they weigh slightly more than the limit allowed for stamped packages and thus will be detonated by Homeland Security as potential bombs unless I give them to a clerk. Annoying!) Progress was hampered by the incubus that was GDC, and by the fact that the back half of the books are for people who didn't make a request for their inscriptions. I have to come up with pithy little cartoons for each of them, and I've been out of the cartooning game for too long. My videogame funny bone has osteoporosis, I'm afraid. But, I think I can power through the rest of these over the next few days and have them in the mail by the end of next week. (It would be sooner, but I'll be out of town for the first half of next week.)
I was thinking of doing more inscriptions for Year One Vol. 2, but the process of coming up with 30 interesting cartoons from thin air has been so taxing that I think I'll just let you guys order bare-naked hardcovers direct from the publisher. If you want an inscription, I guess you can corner me at PAX or something. (Assuming they send me this year.)
Anyway, I'm looking at a July publish date for the second volume. Before that, I have a few other projects I'm working on that are really quite exciting -- for one, the next bit of subscriber bonus content, which I've just begun working on, and which is already looking fantastic. And there are some other things brewing that you may or may not find interesting, but that are shaping up to be quite satisfying for me -- and, I hope, everyone else who is contributing. And since this site is pretty much a giant Internet vanity plate, my smug sense of satisfaction is all that really matters here, you know? Right.
Anyway, you last few book buyers should have your copies by tax day.
Also: I've reactivated registrations on Talking Time after taking steps to kill spammer nuisances. You have to email me with your username once you've signed up in order to activate your account, though. I'll be purging all non-activated accounts once a week or so, which means you should email me sooner than later.
Last week I was handed a copy of Rhythm Heaven Gold by a friend who had imported it some time ago. While the game comes out stateside next week (simply as Rhythm Heaven), I had heard that playing the Japanese version required little knowledge of the language, so I decided to give it a shot. That advice was absolutely correct, and I'm currently enamored with the game. Created by the WarioWare team, Rhythm Heaven looks and plays much the same as its predecessor, but with less emphasis on lightning-quick challenges, and more emphasis on timing tasks. In fact, the entire game is about these rhythm challenges -- the player keeps the beat in three different ways: holding down and releasing the stylus, tapping the screen, or flicking the screen. You may question the longevity of a game with only three possible inputs, but the varied songs and charming graphics keep things fresh. In fact, I found myself initially surprised by how into it I was. More and more, these "casual" games are what I enjoy most. So does that make me a "casual" gamer? Maybe, but not in the sense that the word has taken on recently.
Fez, I have a confession to make. I’ve been watching you from afar for over a year, peeking over the top of whatever I’m reading to catch an innocuous glance as you pass by. Just an innocent look, really. But I started to feel something. And then, just as quickly as you entered my life, you disappeared. I thought these feelings would go away. I thought the emptiness of the long, long months since I last saw you would temper my emotions. It didn’t. And it got hard, some nights. I’m a little ashamed to admit it -- I mean, I don’t know exactly how to say this -- but sometimes I had to watch videos of you on the internet. I just had to see you again. And now you’re back in my life. This time, I caught only the briefest glimpse. Barely a minute. You’re playing with me, aren’t you? Toying with my heart? Well, it doesn’t matter. You had me from the very start.
As of today, my keychain now has a Franklin Badge attached to it. Like most men, I carry my keys in my front pants pocket. This means that at long last, my naughty bits are safe from lightning-elemental attacks. I can't tell you what a load off my mind that is.
In case you missed it, I covered Iwata's GDC speech yesterday by liveblogging it. This made a great many people angry, mostly Nintendo fans, and has widely been regarded as a bad idea. I had a good time, though, so whatever. A great many angry people can widely cram it.
Media | A2Q Archives | A2Q on Twitter | A2Q #81 | March 25, 2009 Bolt surprised me for several reasons. As a CG-animated Disney film without the Pixar imprimatur, I assumed there was no way it could have been any good. Throw in the leads in the cast -- John Travolta and Miley "Hannah Montana" Cyrus -- and you've got a recipe for disaster. So why on earth did I end liking it so much? My gut tells me that at least some of the credit has to go to John Lasseter. I will admit to being a huge nerd for Pixar, but I think anyone who compares the recent works of both Pixar and Disney animation studios will agree that the former has produced far and away the superior films. So when Lasetter, director of both Toy Story features (among others) was named by Disney as Chief Creative Officer of both animation studios after Disney purchased Pixar in 2006, it lent hope to a lot of long time Disney nerds like myself.
Bolt works on multiple levels: as a tale of friendship between a little girl and the eponymous dog she has to leave behind every weekend lest he realize he is not the super-dog he portrays on their joint weekly television series; as a tale of self-discovery when the sheltered Hollywood dog escapes the studio and ends up in the real world; as the emotional healing of a declawed and abandoned kitten who no longer trusts anyone but herself. There are other subplots running throughout, including a satirical look at the exploitation of child actors by the Hollywood machine and the comedic hi-jinx of an over-enthusiastic hamster who meets his hero, Bolt the super-dog, and wants to go adventuring with him. I was particularly touched by Mittens the cat, trying to fend for herself in the big city without her claws to protect her and wondering what she did wrong to end up being thrown away by the callous humans she thought would love and protect her. Bolt, still under the impression that cats work for the fictional man with the green eye whom he (Bolt) believes kidnapped his human, forcibly enlists her in his search for the girl. I have animals that were thrown away, and even though I knew it had to be coming, I was really rooting for her to get a happy ending.
Whether or not it was Lasseter's Miyazaki-like genius for animated story-telling that made Bolt so enjoyable, or some other confluence of events, the point remains that it is a good movie. It's not quite up there with Wall-E or Finding Nemo, but it's quite a bit better than Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Treasure Planet, Home on the Range, Dinosaur, Chicken Little or Emperor's New Groove. [Bite me, dude -- Emperor's New Groove was great! -- ed.]
I dedicate most of my gaming time these days to shooters for a number of reasons. There’s something incredibly rewarding about the skill-based competitive atmosphere of neck-and-neck multiplayer matches, and I enjoy a good game of free-for-all -- but not nearly as much as I delight in team-based games, where coordination and collaboration are key to victory. Apparently, I’m not alone. Alongside the recent proliferation of first- and third-person shooters, partially spurred by the success of the Xbox and Xbox Live, more and more games have been integrating cooperative modes into their campaigns.
Co-op gameplay seems to be the new buzzword for the shooter genre, and its popularity is spreading to other corners of the medium. Games like Fable II and Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 added two-player components to their campaigns, and Capcom clearly intended Resident Evil 5 to be a cooperative experience. Each of these cases represents a traditionally single-player game series that has been adapted or expanded to support an additional person, and the game industry must have remembered that a lot of the time, playing with a friend is even better than playing alone. But what makes the recent co-op surge so interesting is that, even 16 years ago, those same elements were present in Secret of Mana, and Square’s classic manages to deliver a more rewarding cooperative experience than plenty of games published well over a decade later.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
We continue this issue's theme of exploring personally influential games with not one but two Zelda write-ups. Does this mean we're all a bunch of idiot Nintendo fanboys? Nah, it just means that the Zeldas -- particularly these two -- were pretty much revolutionary masterpieces that defined how games can and should work.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Of course, GameSpite already has an Ocarina of Time retrospective, but the previous entry was a bit more objective, a bit less personal. This is the gonzo version -- except not really, since it wasn't written in the desert under the influence of quaaludes, and any screaming about being attacked by bats isn't hallucinogenic in nature. Bats actually do tend to attack you in Zelda games, you see.
I have a sad confession to make: I was supposed to review Suikoden Tierkreis for work, but...the game defeated me. Not in the sense that the difficulty was unmanageable -- far from it, as the portions of the game I played were so simple and unchallenging that I just let my party autobattle its way through all but one fight. And that one fight was a gimmicky tutorial battle that required a modicum of tactics, i.e. "use magic." I doubt Tierkreis ever becomes unbearably difficult, in fact, as the game is obviously and painfully geared toward children. And that was what beat me in the end. I hate to see the Suikoden name reduced to preteen-friendly tripe like this.
I don't have any particular emotional investment in the Suikoden series; as I've mentioned before, the games made a clumsy and painful transition to 3D, so I haven't spent much time with any of the games since the (completely incredible) Suikoden II. Tierkreis actually goes a ways towards restoring some of the things I liked about the early games, such as the pacing of the battles; they're quick, with little excessive animation, no loading times to speak of, and, even better, lots of overlapping character actions as fights play out. The sluggish tedium that has festered in the series' battles since Suikoden III is almost completely removed. That's good!
But: the quick pacing was only one aspect that made the early games so appealing. I also appreciated the unique feel of the story, and in that sense Tierkreis has nothing to do with Suikoden. I'm not complaining about the parallel world aspect of the story, or the lack of True Runes, or the absence of familiar series touchstones, because I don't have enough interest in the series' lore to care about any of those things. I'm talking about the tone: Suikoden and its sequels have always done a remarkable job of bringing you right into a world fraught with political turmoil and young heroes whose youth doesn't translate into frivolity. Despite the fact that, say, the hero of Suikoden II is a kid in a youth brigade with a ridiculous spaz for a sister, Suikoden II didn't waste any time on zany kid adventures. The game kicked into gear immediately with the betrayal, ambush, and slaughter of the hero's entire company and a harrowing midnight run for freedom. Even the first game, which started out in a happy-happy world where the hero was a pampered son of a war hero living in luxury, didn't dicker around with mindless banter -- it set up its characters and situation quickly and breezily.
I took the time to watch the Blu-ray release of Pinocchio released this week, and, well...to be perfectly honest, I was a little disappointed. That’s not a knock on the film; the disappointment stemmed from a purely superficial reason: I was hoping the movie would look as crisp and gorgeous as Sleeping Beauty’s release did. Alas, it was not meant to be.
A shame, really, because Pinocchio secretly has some of the most beautiful, detailed backgrounds found anywhere in animation, period. This is especially apparent in Geppetto’s workshop, where each shot is full of elaborate hand made toys and clocks with tiny, intricate decorations not even present in half the stuff in the foreground in most other movies. Note that the transfer isn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination -- it looks really good on my HD set! -- but to have it pop out the same way Sleeping Beauty’s backgrounds did was something I was really looking forward to. Ah, well.
Other than that, though, Pinocchio is the same great film about what it means to grow up (including the best allegory for the horrors of puberty ever put on screen) it has always been. I mysef didn’t think I liked it much until I saw it again about five years ago; I now regard it as one of Disney’s best. If you feel the same way and haven’t seen it since you were a kid, definitely give it another shot. You may surprise yourself.
Dear everyone who complains that 1UP has degenerated into nothing but top 10 lists: you are not looking hard enough. Please close your mouth and open your eyes.
Here is how I discovered that Pokémon Platinum has just been released: I can't log in to Serebii or Bulbapedia. It started with long load times and hanging, and now the 404 messages are starting to crop up. The same phenomenon occured two years ago during the Diamond & Pearl launch; the excitement surrounding the release of a new Pokémon game gets players thinking about stat tables and hidden values. I've been spending a lot of time with the 'mons and Platinum seems like a worthy upgrade, but I'm going to pass for the time being. I've gone back to basics -- and back to Hoenn.
Paul’s Big Adventure is a weird game. In fact, it’s hardly even a game at all. This Sega-developed parody of 8-bit platforming is currently only available in Japan, and my guess is that it’s likely to stay there. Now, to be fair, I don’t think it’s bad, necessarily. I played through it to the end and definitely laughed a good deal doing so. However, the comedy is clearly aimed at a Japanese audience to the extent that the game often feels like an experimental performance of manzai, a Japanese 2-person comedy act that consists of a tsukkomi, who is something like a straight man, and a boke, who says absurd or stupid things. However, in this case, the bizarre 8-bit game itself is the boke, while a tsukkomi narrator expresses confusion and exasperation with the game’s absurdity via audio commentary.
While I enjoyed it as comedy, Paul’s Big Adventure is definitely not a great example of 8-bit platforming. It’s created to be incredibly easy, allowing you to quickly complete it and experience all the jokes. For example, there are numerous cheap deaths that parody counterintuitive elements of 8-bit gaming, such as times when you are suddenly killed by what seemed to just be part of the background. However, the game is designed to prioritize humor over challenge, and both check points and extra lives are abundant. One particularly cruel joke is reminiscent of the sadistically difficult original Japanese Super Mario Brothers 2; in the final level you can accidentally warp back to the very start of the game. Luckily, a stage select feature means that you can quit and go back to where you left off. So, while the game is often outright mean spirited in its humor, it is it is rarely difficult.
For players unsatisfied by a game with no difficulty, the game does allow you to play through a more difficult version of the game after defeating the finale in typical 8-bit fashion. However, I honestly can’t imagine why anyone but a masochist would want to struggle through this hard mode. After you’ve already seen the jokes once, playing through Paul’s Big Adventure with added difficulty is essentially an all too accurate recreation of 8-bit kusoge.
Media | A2Q Archives | A2Q on Twitter | A2Q #80| March 17, 2009
First thing's first: Sorry, Twilight fans. While the DVD is coming out this week, the Blu-ray won't be on shelves until May. One the one hand, I'm kind of bothered that a major release isn't coming to BD day-and-date with its DVD counterpart, as I thought we were beyond that at this point in BD's life-cycle. On the other hand, it's Twilight.
If you happen to be a Twilight fan, I am sorry, but might I suggest a vastly superior romantic fantasy that arrives on BD this week? The Princess Bride is the best of the fantasy-themed movies that seemed to be prevalent in the 1980s. Legend, Neverending Story, and Labyrinth are all fine movies, but Princess Bride is a cut above. Even people who don't think they are fans of the movie are probably quoting lines from some of its famous dialog without even realizing it. ("You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.") I won't quote all of my favorite lines from the movie, as we'd be here for a while, so I'll just gently nudge you into rewatching this gem at your earliest opportunity, preferably snuggled up to someone you care about.
Continuing with this issue's theme of pivotal gaming experiences, our eyes turn to parallel works by former rival corporations Square and Enix. Nowadays, of course, they're but a single entity. But it wasn't only boardroom meetings and an exchange of stocks that united these RPG giants. Oh, no -- in our young hearts, they had already merged into a harmonious fusion of RPG genius. Or something like that.
Dragon Warrior
Here's a sight that would warm the heart of Nintendo marketers circa 1989: all their hard work trying to sell American kids on a primitive-looking three-year-old game that attempted to make a PC-based genre palatable on consoles actually paid off. Or at least, it did for author Red Hedgehog, for whom Dragon Warrior was a tiny, menu-driven revelation.
Secret of Mana
Me, on the other hand, I was OK with all those menus and minuscule tiles, but what really grabbed me was a game that managed to combine the substance of something like Dragon Warrior with the visceral immediacy of an action-oriented game like Zelda. Brace yourselves for a New Games Journalism odyssey as I talk about myself...and Secret of Mana, I guess.
I have played Resident Evil 4 to completion no less than 6 times on two different consoles. I consider it one of the bright points of the last generation of consoles, so why haven't I picked up Resident Evil 5 yet? After all, it's been described as "Resident Evil 4.5" across the blogosphere; it should be right up my alley.
I don't promote my 1UP writing here as often as I used to, mainly because I feel like it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that anyone who reads GameSpite already knows what my day job is (since these days more people seem to come here from 1UP rather than the other way 'round, as in the olden days). And I never mention this site on 1UP, just because I enjoy the freeform, non-corporate approach that having my own site allows and worry that if I draw too much attention to it the powers-that-be might decide that I'm no longer allowed to spend my free time on evenings and weekends doing something that vaguely bumps up against my day job. (Never mind that they exist in harmony rather than competition, and I practically never work on my personal projects during work hours; corporate decisions rarely involve common sense or the "spirit of the law" or other such humane considerations.)
That being said, I insist you spend more time reading 1UP's editorial blogs, since, well, it's pretty much anything-goes over there. In other words, I'm basically applying the same "screw what gets traffic and write something we find personally satisfying" philosophy there as I do here. In fact, the most recent thing I posted there -- a new column that uses Blu-ray releases as an excuse to explore the connections between classic films and classic games -- was originally designed as a GameSpite feature, but I decided to take a chance and post it as a Retronauts column despite the fact that it's really too long to fit comfortably in the blog format. Ultimately, I decided it's worth the format clash, because it's a heavily-researched venture that offers a unique spin on a potentially tired topic. So why bury here when I could bury it in 1UP blogs instead?
Yeah. Not surprisingly, I get the impression -- though I don't have any hard numbers to confirm this -- that the blogs are one of the less-trafficked sections of the site. Part of that, I think, is because kids hoping to see a Top Five Largest Breasts in Video Games list are sorely disappointed by people writing in depth about the nuances of RPGs and the history of old games that may never have made their way to the U.S. But another factor is that (for the time being) finding the blogs is a giant pain in the butt to begin with. That'll change next month, but for now you kind of have to know they're there before you can find them, which isn't exactly the key to pulling in a casual browsing audience, ya know?
So let me remind you that they are, in fact, there. Currently I'm overseeing three myself, and we'll be adding a new one in the next few days, too. We'd have several others already, actually, but the section's budget reflects our current economic times... which is to say that the extant blogs are already crimped by financial limitations. Such is the world we live in.
Retronauts: It only took like four years, but my pet classic gaming venture (which actually began here) has finally found a loving home. In a perfect world it would be a magazine, but not even one of the world's biggest and most successful print publishers wants anything to do with gaming magazines these days. I guess that's what GameSpite is for....
The Grind: Our RPG blog, and the first editorial blog I've given over to someone else's control. This is very difficult for me, you see, because I am a complete control freak. But I think it's moving along quite nicely.
The Tilt: This was supposed to be an iPhone gaming review site, but I haven't been very vigilant about keeping my personal obsessions in check, which is why it's more like a mad expression of my more than two decades of love for Macs, with some iPhone commentary as well.
Anyway, if you read this site, you should be reading these blogs, too. Not only will you see some familiar names in action, but the simple fact is that in giving me this section to manage as I see fit, 1UP has basically given me free reign to warp a portion of the site to my own tastes. The blogs have basically become a full-time and topic-specific version of this site -- for better or for worse.
I figure if you're reading this, you probably won't mind. So! Please to bookmark or add to your RSS feed or whatever. It would warm my tiny heart.
I have to admit that this article has allayed many of my BioShock 2 misgivings. If it's true. I still slap my head in dismay about returning to Rapture, and the "Big Sisters" still make me scrunch up my face in dismay, but it does sound like it won't be as much of a rehash as that grim first impression.
Edit: Apparently it's all a lie! Oh well.
In other news, I'm steadily working my way through the stack of hardcover books needing to be mailed yet at a rate of one or two per day, so that last onus is rapidly dwindling. Most people seem to have received their copies now, and the the feedback I've received so far has been wholly positive. I'm surprised and gratified that so many people are interested in reading our musings in paid form, especially when they're already available online for no money, and publishing something tangible definitely scratches the itch that the death of EGM has left behind. I think there will be more news on this front, starting with a new approach to site subscription incentives.
I did some math and realized that for the price of making two crummy photocopied pamphlets and some buttons like the first incentive, I could have a nice squarebound booklet printed up instead. So if it's cool with subscribers, I'd like to change the incentive program to semi-annual instead of quarterly. The upshot is that you'll be receiving something of much, much higher quality. (If it's not cool with you, feel free to send a scathing email my way. I probably deserve it.)
So I’ve finally had a chance to put in some quality time with Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride, and unsurprisingly, I’m enjoying it quite a bit. This is my third DQ game, the others being Dragon Quest VIII (which I loved) and VII (which…well, I didn’t finish because it dragged on too long). Third time’s a charm, as they say, because I think I finally understand a key component of exactly why the series is as loved as it is.
Of course it’s no secret that, if nothing else, DQ’s appeal (particularly in Japan) these days is that of a comfort food; everyone likes it and everyone’s familiar with it, so when you start up a new one you smile, rather than complain that there’s yet another casino. You’re simultaneously looking forward to the new stuff while being gently guided by familiar trappings. Now that I have a few DQ games under my belt, I'm finally seeing that mechanic come into play. But Dragon Quest as a series had to do something right to help it achieve that sort of appeal in the first place, something other series haven't quite gotten the hang of. Without going into spoilers, I’ve already witnessed several genuinely happy plot events, something most RPGs tend to save for the lighthearted beginning or the post-last boss extravaganza. Mulling this fact over was what turned on the light bulb: people love Dragon Quest because it has such a good grip on the concept of positive reinforcement.
You know, if Twitter has any utility outside proactively abetting one's own stalkers, it must be the ease with which links pertinent to shared interests can be propagated. If you enjoy being horrified and disgusted at all times, for instance, I've heard Shawn Elliott's Twitter is right up your alley. Likewise, it was through the Retronauts Twitter that I became immersed in this voluminous interview with one Gerald A. Lawson, which I'm recommending here for the benefit of those of us who do not, ourselves, tweet.
As one of the brains behind the Fairchild Channel F, the first cartridge-based console, Lawson's stature as a pivotal figure in gaming's history is matched only by the extent to which his efforts have gone unsung...until now. In the interview, he relates the span of a decades-long career, from developing a coin-operated video game, Demolition Derby, in his own garage; to his off-the-cuff, first-hand impressions of fellow pioneers such as Steves Jobs and Wozniak; to helping Pong designer Allan Alcorn improve some of the first-ever commercial arcade cabinets.
Of course, his claim to fame, the Channel F, hosted its own set of ordeals -- mostly regarding the then-untested concept of a system with removable cartridges. As the first microprocessor device to be put under the scrutiny of the FCC, every cartridge developed for it had to be analyzed and approved. There was also trepidation within Fairchild that the repeated interaction between software and hardware might, in time, cause explosions.
Maybe it's just my weak-willed susceptibility to multimedia hype speaking here, but the shot of Klingon characters from Cryptic's new Star Trek MMO piqued my interest in the game for the first time ever. I mean, Klingons, OK, fine -- kind of a boring concept for a race. They're angry and violent, blah blah blah. But I'd kind of assumed the MMO would have everyone playing human characters. But maybe not!
If I can be a Horta, I will totally subscribe to this game.
So, uh, apparently people take exception to my taking exception to the existence of BioShock 2's Big Sisters, or so I assume based on the unexpected number of people who revoked their support for the site overnight. Sorry about that. Please allow me a moment to recalibrate my opinion in order to increase the site's populist appeal.
OMG they're like Big Daddies but GIRLS!!
I'm gonna go draw some fan art right now.
In other news, my mother recently dropped me an email to let me know that the barn attached to the house she and my father recently purchased shows signs of an owl infestation. Owls as vermin.
I take this to be another sign that Futurama is in fact a true and prescient vision of the future history of Earth.
Apparently BioShock 2 is going to attempt to answer a question we've long wondered: is it possible to jump the shark while underwater?
I dunno, the game could turn out to be just fine, but this first image of sequel's wild new innovation, "Big Sisters," is not filling my heart with confidence. I'm not sure who decided that the most awesomest thing that could possibly be done with the BioShock concept was to turn Big Daddies into lanky women in fetish gear, but I think we can all agree that this person should never be allowed to look at deviantArt, or make any sort of important decision, ever again.
I feel like someone should fire a warning shot at Japan, too, just for the principle of the thing.
Media | A2Q Archives | A2Q on Twitter | A2Q #79| March 10, 2009
The first time I heard about the Swedish vampire movie Let the Right One In, I ended up with a song stuck in my head. The novel the movie was based on was named after a Morrissey song, and I've probably listened to that song a million times over the course of my lifetime. I was perhaps predisposed to liking the film. When I did finally see the movie, what struck me first was how cold it was -- not only in its icy Swedish setting, but in its contrast-heavy style and the emotional failings of some of its cast.
Calling it a "vampire movie" might give you certain expectations of the film, expectations the film is sure to disappoint. To me, the movie was much more of a coming-of-age story than a genre piece. In it, an adolescent boy named Oskar is bullied and lonely, spending his nights collecting clippings from the newspaper depicting grisly tragedies and pretending to stab his tormentors with the knife he keeps carefully hidden from his mother. One of the tragedies Oskar clips from the paper tells the story of a man who was lured into the woods and drained of his blood. Soon after, he meets his new neighbor, seemingly a pale young girl named Eli who avoids answering any questions Oskar has about her, including her age. Oskar and Eli become friends, with the shy and withdrawn Oskar becoming more and more confident as his friendship with Eli grows -- confidence that leads, perhaps inevitably, to a savage act of violence.
Let the Right One In is a fantastic character piece, using the vampire mythos as a starting point to tell its story. See it now, before the already announced American remake spoils the film by making it into some kind of half-assed Twilight clone.
The Pivotal Moment
Our next issue should kick off all proper-like next week. As a prelude, we've assembled a sort of preview teaser for the entries to come. I've asked everyone to write a brief reminiscence about the one game that most shaped their outlook and tastes in gaming, and the next four (hopefully) weekly updates will delve into several of these entries in greater detail.
Dear new Star Trek movie: please don't suck. Your new trailer shows definite potential! Beneath the standard Hollywood affliction of breaking everything down into spastic one-liner bites for the sake of making your trailer as dumb as possible (god forbid we should overestimate the intelligence of the average moviegoer), I can see the shape and form of a pretty good movie.
Maybe it will even be a movie that will hit all the points that made me such a big ol' Trek nerd 20 years ago! Granted, a big part of my long-ago love for the series had to do with the fact that I was just a dumb junior high kid at that point, but the Trek I liked so much was a very different creature than the beast it is now. It was about one man's goofy utopian vision: a universe in which all the peoples of the planet Earth had learned to live in peace and harmony under a new version of the American flag, only to fly into to the stars and meet stunningly transparent analogs for America's old partners. You had your warlike Russians Klingons with their guttural language, the enigmatic and powerful Chinese Romulans, who existed in an uneasy not-quite-peace with Earth and seemed to have some mysterious link to our good buddies the Japanese Vulcans, with their profound intelligence and aloof love of tradition and ceremony.
It was all very silly, but then, those inane space metaphors weren't the point of the show. Trek in its heyday was about exploration, meeting the unknown, and inevitably outsmarting it when said unknown decided it didn't like frail hu-mans. (Or when that failed, beating the unknown to a bloody/ichor-y pulp. Or occasionally bedding it.) Trek has always been about discovery, looking out into the great unknown and hoping for the best. Well, it used to be. Over the past decade, it's been more about maintaining the status quo and carefully tiptoeing around precedent, even while painfully mangling the things fans cherish. (Good thing I got out when I did.)
Personally, I'm OK with the new movie not particularly adhering to "canon," just as long as it's interesting and doesn't feel like a two-hour episode of the TV series. I just want it to feel like the producers are actually trying for once.
And I guess there's one other thing. I'd like for them to treat the Enterprise like a member of the cast again. That was something I always loved about the original, something that Star Wars did really well with the Millennium Falcon, too (and Firefly with the Serenity). It always grated that the Trek series that was named after the ship lacked that sort of affection for its namesake. I think Enterprise reverence sort of vanished when they blew up the original. Or maybe it was when they let William Shatner direct one of the movies and he decided it would be rollickingly funny to turn the centerpiece of the series into an unreliable space jalopy. Ha, ha.
Oh, Bill. I'm so glad you refused to be in the new movie.
Mark MacDonald was recently in town and delivered a jacket he found in Shibuya. I can't decide if it's amazing or if I should be trying to figure out who to sue:
So, yeah, I ended up not taking Street Fighter IV home, because I just don't have any interest in playing a fighting game -- however good, lovely, and thoughtfully crafted it may be. But I did my fan duty by picking up a Chun-Li Revoltech figure. Does that count for something?
Sorry it's a bit out of focus; iPhones are allergic to macro photography. Also, the robot isn't mine.
Bonus points if you recognize the pose here. (Solution after the jump.)
I'm confused by Halo Wars. One of the most popular console first person shooters has been turned into a real time strategy game, and it's not even made by Bungie? Yes my friend, it's true. But there's so much more to Halo Wars than that. For starters, did you know that Halo was originally announced as an RTS in 1999? It then got worked into the magical FPS we all know and love after a brief stint as a 3rd person shooter. So even though the jump to this genre may seem a bit jarring to the average Halo fan, it's always been part of the game's past.
But therein lies the problem that I see with Halo Wars: the average Halo fan. Painting broad strokes and drawing from stereotypes I've created from the my stint in retail, I can say that the average Halo fan likes Halo games because they are first-person shooters. They're damn good first person shooters, but they're shooters nonetheless. These guys aren't going to give a rat's ass about an RTS. They're the Bros who want to shoot stuff.
That's a horrible way to look at it, though, and I'm slowly coming to grips with that fact. As of January of last year, Halo 3 has sold more than eight million copies, and I'm sure that there are more people who are willing to try new things in that group than I give credit. I mean, the demo was downloaded over two million times in the first five days of its release a few weeks ago, and I'm sure at least some of those people who had never before played an RTS seriously considered the purchase of one. Then there's the pedigree behind the creation of Halo Wars to consider. Ensemble Studios knows how to make a great game; in fact, they've made several of them. They're probably one of the top three studios that could successfully bring an RTS to consoles and make it feel right. Halo Wars was their first project designed specifically for consoles, and it's a helluva first try from what I'm hearing. It's a shame that Microsoft saw fit to shut them down; there's a lot of potential in this audience, as the demo download numbers will tell you.
Time will tell if a console RTS based on an FPS series will be successful. Personally, I think it's going to sell very well due to the Halo name, but I don't think the game's going to hit big with the average Halo fan or the average RTS fan. And that is the only game that is worth talking about this week.
I surprised myself last week when I was given the opportunity to take home a free copy of Street Fighter IV (no, not as a bribe from Capcom, thanks for asking)... and didn't. I thought about it for a few seconds and realized that, great as the game looks and as much affection as I have for the Street Fighter series, I have no real interest in playing it. I like that it exists -- I'm thrilled that it exists, really, because it's another sign that Capcom gets it, probably better than any other major publisher. But it would be pointless for me to own a copy of SFIV, because I doubt I would ever play it. I'll probably drop ¥100 into an arcade unit next time I'm in Japan, just for the quick gratification of playing it with proper controls, but in my own free time? Nah.
I'll admit that I will regret missing out on Chun-Li's freakish hamfists, though. Man, she could palm a watermelon with those things.
Honestly, I'm really happy that I can pass up a game this good and not feel like I'm missing out. There are so many good releases these days, so many games perfectly suited to my tastes, that it's pointless to try and keep up with things that I'm only sort of interested in. I may run a blog about the good ol' days, but I'm really motivated more by an interest in the history and evolution of the medium than some impossible sense of nostalgia. There was a big chunk of the Super NES era where I stopped gaming altogether because it was so hard to find releases that really interested me, and $70 was too much to spend on titles that were only tangentially of interest.
Dang kids these days don't know how good they got it. Mumble grumble.
Media | A2Q Archives | A2Q on Twitter | A2Q #78 | March 3, 2009 Watchmen: Motion Comics hits Blu-ray this week, and is only a very small part of the merchandising juggernaut that is accompanying the release of the comic-adaption Watchmen to theaters. Adrian Veidt would be proud. I have wildly conflicting emotions about the big-screen release: on the one hand, the trailers have been fairly decent and the look of the film appears to be faithful to the book. On the other hand, the extended clips that have been flooding the internet have featured less-than-impressive acting and way too much slow-motion. After all, one mustn't forget that Watchmen is coming from the same director that brought us 300. Style over substance isn't what I want from an adaption of a source material that is overflowing with substance. I guess we'll all know in a few days -- I hope that the film is good, but I'll be going in with lowered expectations.
As far as the motion comic, I checked out the first issue on iTunes when it was initially released. It made me realize how long it had been since I had read the graphic novel, so I dug that out and read it instead of subscribing to the series. I'd suggest you do the same.
For the past couple of months, Futurama has been my constant companion: my daily workout runs for just about the same duration as two episodes of the show, and outside of the rare, occasional, excruciatingly dull episode, the series' rapid-fire pacing and great writing do a good job of distracting me from the pain of forcibly shrinking my body. Sadly, though, last night I finished off Into the Wild Green Yonder, bringing my survey of the series to a close. (Although I must say my timing was pretty great, since the last movie came out just a few days ago -- nearly as impressive as the time my girlfriend and I started watching Alias and caught up to the series at the next-to-last episode.)
This begs the question: now what? How am I supposed to take my mind off my daily self-torture now? Futurama was such a great show that hardly anything can really follow it. Including Futurama, it turns out! The movies were largely a step down from TV series' infinite wit and jest, although it was nice of the writers to get their act together long enough to stop sucking for the big finale.
I noticed Seth McFarlane's name in the credits of Wild Green Yonder, which may explain a lot.
Final Fantasy VII: The Voice of the Planet
Kirby's Adventure
Last week I was handed a copy of Rhythm Heaven Gold by a friend who had imported it some time ago. While the game comes out stateside next week (simply as Rhythm Heaven), I had heard that playing the Japanese version required little knowledge of the language, so I decided to give it a shot. That advice was absolutely correct, and I'm currently enamored with the game. Created by the WarioWare team, Rhythm Heaven looks and plays much the same as its predecessor, but with less emphasis on lightning-quick challenges, and more emphasis on timing tasks. In fact, the entire game is about these rhythm challenges -- the player keeps the beat in three different ways: holding down and releasing the stylus, tapping the screen, or flicking the screen. You may question the longevity of a game with only three possible inputs, but the varied songs and charming graphics keep things fresh. In fact, I found myself initially surprised by how into it I was. More and more, these "casual" games are what I enjoy most. So does that make me a "casual" gamer? Maybe, but not in the sense that the word has taken on recently.
As of today, my keychain 
Co-op gameplay seems to be the new buzzword for the shooter genre, and its popularity is spreading to other corners of the medium. Games like Fable II and Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 added two-player components to their campaigns, and Capcom clearly intended Resident Evil 5 to be a cooperative experience. Each of these cases represents a traditionally single-player game series that has been adapted or expanded to support an additional person, and the game industry must have remembered that a lot of the time, playing with a friend is even better than playing alone. But what makes the recent co-op surge so interesting is that, even 16 years ago, those same elements were present in Secret of Mana, and Square’s classic manages to deliver a more rewarding cooperative experience than plenty of games published well over a decade later.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
I don't have any particular emotional investment in the Suikoden series; as I've mentioned before, the games made a clumsy and painful transition to 3D, so I haven't spent much time with any of the games since the (completely incredible) Suikoden II. Tierkreis actually goes a ways towards restoring some of the things I liked about the early games, such as the pacing of the battles; they're quick, with little excessive animation, no loading times to speak of, and, even better, lots of overlapping character actions as fights play out. The sluggish tedium that has festered in the series' battles since Suikoden III is almost completely removed. That's good!
Dragon Warrior
Secret of Mana
That being said, I insist you spend more time reading 1UP's editorial blogs, since, well, it's pretty much anything-goes over there. In other words, I'm basically applying the same "screw what gets traffic and write something we find personally satisfying" philosophy there as I do here. In fact, the most recent thing I posted there -- 
So I’ve finally had a chance to put in some quality time with Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride, and unsurprisingly, I’m enjoying it quite a bit. This is my third DQ game, the others being Dragon Quest VIII (which I loved) and VII (which…well, I didn’t finish because it dragged on too long). Third time’s a charm, as they say, because I think I finally understand a key component of exactly why the series is as loved as it is.
In other news, my mother recently dropped me an email to let me know that the barn attached to the house she and my father recently purchased shows signs of an owl infestation. Owls as vermin. 
The Pivotal Moment
