| June 29,
2004... The Latest
Advance |
Check this out... I've actually
written something for the site! Hard to believe, I know,
but you'll find three short reviews in Advance Theory.
When you're done reading those, head on over to the On-File web site... you'll be blown away by the snazzy new
look. Er, how about pleasantly surprised, instead?
I'll settle for pleasantly surprised.
| June 28,
2004... Before They Were Stars: Guardian
Legend |
I'm continually amazed at how
much of video game history dates back to the MSX. This
budget priced computer didn't do much business here in the
United States, but it was really popular in Japan. So
popular, in fact, that it helped influential game designers
like Hudson Soft and Compile establish themselves in the
industry. Compile in particular made a lot of games for
the MSX, including the premiere of the Zanac series and the
prequel to Guardian Legend. Yeah, that great NES game
only you seemed to notice was actually part of a series called
Guardic. The first Guardic doesn't fuse action and
adventure together as well as its spin-off on the NES... it's
a simplistic shooter that's constantly interrupted by journeys
through empty corridors and prompts for power-up
selections. Still, it's always fun to discover the roots
of one of your favorite games. Too bad Guardian Legend
never inspired any sequels of its own...
| June 25,
2004... Ain't Gmail
Grand? |
We're changing E-mails,
folks. From now on, you'll be able to reach The Gameroom
Blitz from a brand new address... a Gmail address.
I just opened a handful of Gmail accounts, and I'm itching to
try them out, so from now on, if you have questions or
comments about the site, you'll want to send them here. I'm sure some of you out there aren't going to
like this, but if you've got privacy issues with Gmail,
you do have alternatives. You can either send your
comments to the previously listed E-mail address
(now reserved for personal correspondence), or you can post
'em on the forum... where everyone will see your comments
anyway. Hey, at least you've got
alternatives.
| June 22,
2004... Livin' in the (Outside)
Projects |
I know, I've been neglecting
this site lately, but right now, I've got higher
priorities. The first of these is the redesign of
On-File... I've
been spending the lion's share of my free time
changing the layout, scanning cover artwork, and typing in
articles from classic gaming fanzines like, well,
Fantazine. I'm really proud of its new look, and I think
you'll agree that it's a big improvement over On-File's
original design.
I'll also need the rest of the
week to write an instruction manual for Eduardo Mello's next
ColecoVision release, a translation of Konami's computer game
Magical Tree. He'll need me to finish this project as
soon as possible, and I'd rather not have the Blitz get in the
way of this important work.
Finally, there's a rental copy
of Eternal Darkness which I've barely touched... it's due back
at the store in another day and I want to squeeze the most out
of the game before I return it. I rented the game for a
week, and I've only played it for a couple of hours tops...
how sad is that?
Anyway, all of this means that
I'll be putting The Gameroom Blitz on hold for a while.
I'll tell you what, though... since you've been so patient and
understanding, I'll let you have this as a
reward. It's the review
of Joysticks that I had
written as a premium for paying readers and contributors, but
it's so old now that I may as well let everyone see
it.
| June 16,
2004... Ben's
Game |
On a recent installment of G4's
news show Pulse, there was a feature on a game currently in
development at LucasArts. That's really nothing out of the
ordinary, until you consider that it WASN'T designed to
promote the Star Wars films. On top of that, the game in
question- Ben's Game, named after the child who inspired it- was
commissioned by the Make-A-Wish Foundation to help make cancer
a less bitter pill to swallow for terminally ill
children.
It's tough for me to criticize a
game made with such good intentions, but the truth
is that Ben's Game could stand to be improved. The stark
Tron-inspired graphics are pretty slick, and the play
mechanics (which combine Robotron's swarms of
enemies with the constant momentum of Tony Hawk's Pro
Skater) do hold promise, but there are a handful of flaws
that keep the game from being as engaging as it could
be.
First of all, the camera is
positioned a little too close to the main character, reducing
visibility and forcing the player to manually adjust their
view to track down the clusters of cancerous blood
cells. Frankly, a shooter like this would work best
in two dimensions, but since it's highly unlikely that
we'll ever see another 2D game from LucasArts again, I'd
settle for a zoomed out, bird's eye view of the action,
allowing players to see more of the playfield.
Secondly, Ben's
Game just doesn't have much impact. The hero talks
in high-pitched squeaks, the cancerous cells simply vanish
after they've been shot, and the bosses shrink into
nothingness after being blasted just a few times. There
are three difficulty settings, but the hard setting just seems
to make the cells more resistant to damage, making each stage
much longer and more tedious. The player never feels
like they're in any immediate danger. This is due in
part to the insistance by Ben Duskin's mother that the main
character never dies, and I can certainly understand her point
of view. Nevertheless, the game should instill some
sort of urgency in the player... they need to fight hard for
their victories, just like a real cancer patient would, and
those victories should leave them with the same sense of
relief and accomplishment.
I don't know... maybe I'm just
overanalyzing a coping mechanism for kids suffering from a
disease that's too cruel for many adults to handle.
Still, when I play Ben's Game, I can't help but think that it
could evolve past a mere novelty and blossom into
something which holds great significance to everyone,
rather than just to cancer patients and their
families.
| June 14,
2004... Windy
City |
Dagnabbit, I completely forgot
what I was going to review for the featured game this
week! I've been playing so much Zelda: Wind Waker that I
haven't had much time for anything else. That game is
just too engrossing for its, and MY, own good.
I did manage to find just enough
time to put this together, however. It's an early outline
for an episode of Icons about SNK, one of the few companies they haven't
yet covered on the show. I still dream about becoming a
video game journalist... other hobbyist writers like Chris
Kohler and Jeremy Parish have been able to make the leap to
professional writing, and I feel I deserve that same
opportunity. Since video game magazines have
historically kept me at arm's length, I might as well forget
about them entirely and break into the
brave new world of televised game
reporting.
| June 9,
2004... Face the
Music |
Ah, Tommy Tallarico, we meet
again. It was ten years ago when we first clashed,
over an interview in the fanzine In Between The
Lines. You were rude, conceited, and obnoxious, and I
called you on it in a critical assessment of the
interview, published in my own fanzine Project:
Ignition. Then you called ME on the phone to complain,
and I nearly shit my pants.
Now you're back, and you've gone
nationwide. A decade ago, a small handful of gaming
enthusiasts were exposed to your crass behavior, but
now, you're seen by millions on a widely distributed cable
network. And somehow, you've found a way to become even
more irritating than you were in that interview. You use
your penis as a yardstick to measure the quality of video
games, rating them on such important factors as the
number of times you can look up the dresses of the
characters. You bash games for the unforgivable crime of
having (gasp!) 2D graphics. And you do
whatever you can to steal the spotlight from more reasonable
game reviewers.
The battle has begun anew.
And this time, I've packed a fresh pair of
underwear.
| June 7,
2004... Meeting of the
Minds |
My computer's back up, and
it's working better than ever. Special thanks go out to
Portnoyd of the Retrogaming Roundtable for supplying me with a video card to
replace my worn out old one, and to Chris Larson of Fatman Games for
all his support while my system was out of
commission.
That reminds me... Chris, his
wife, and myself went down to Ann Arbor to attend a fun
gathering coordinated by members of both Digital Press and rival site Atari Age.
It was great to get out of the house for a while and meet
some fellow old-school gamers. After hanging out at the
arcade (where I dazzled the crowd with my mad Dan Hibiki
skillz!), we visited the local Japanese food store... where I
embarassed myself with my less impressive Ramune bottle
opening skillz. Hey, don't laugh! That stupid
little marble that acts as the drink's bottlecap puts
up one hell of a fight.
After that, we stopped for a
meal (Chris and I went to Panchero's, while nearly everyone
else had pizza at a place down the street), then headed down
to the basement of a parking garage to trade some games.
There was a lot of spiffy merchandise available, including a
huge box of NES games, some oddball computer peripherals, and
a complete ColecoVision system which Chris took home for
himself. Let me tell you, that thing was in fantastic
shape... you couldn't have gotten a ColecoVision in better
condition if you somehow went back in time twenty years and
bought one from a Toys 'R Us.
At this point, it was getting
late, so we loaded ourselves and our newly acquired booty into
Chris' car and went back home. Chris gave me a copy of
his old newsletter Codename: Megazine, and I let him leaf
through all my back issues of The Gameroom Blitz (I would have
given him copies, but I didn't have any on hand).
I'd like to thank Chris Larson
again for letting me tag along with him to Ann Arbor... the
trip was just what I needed to help me deal with the stress
resulting from months of servicing stubborn
computers.
| May 18,
2004... Like Moths to the
Flame |
Well, the Electronic
Entertainment Expo is over for another year. Since I
wasn't able to attend, I've only seen a little of what was
available at the show. However, two things really
surprised me about this year's E3. The first is that I
was actually (dare I say it?) impressed with what
Midway had to offer... Mortal Kombat VI looks a lot more
exciting than Deadly Alliance, with faster gameplay,
tounge-in-cheek mini-games, and levels that are nearly as
dangerous as your opponents. After watching footage
of the characters being thrown through glass ceilings and into
crushing stone presses, I've got to say that this
is the first time in a long time I've been excited,
rather than bored, by over the top video game
violence. As for Midway Arcade Treasures 2, what can you
say about a collection of excellent games that could have
been- and were!- released on their own as early as a decade
ago? I'd say "bring it on, baby!"
The other shocker was the number
of handheld game systems that were announced at the show...
all by companies which should really know better. One E3
attendee compared the half-dozen handhelds introduced at the
show to a swarm of cicadas, and I think the analogy is a
perfect fit. It seems like these consoles pour out of
the woodwork every five years, only to meet certain death at
the jaws of a hungry predator. That predator is
Nintendo, and there's not enough Gizmondos, N-Gages, and Eves
in the world to satisfy its appetite.
| May 14,
2004... The Upper Hand (Nintendo DS
and PSP news) |
The Electronic Entertainment
Expo is currently underway, and this year, it's all about
the shorties. I'm talking specifically about the
handheld systems currently in development at Nintendo and
Sony.
First, there's the Nintendo
DS. This unusual handheld received more than
its share of criticism when it was first announced,
but now that they've seen it firsthand, gamers are
viewing the twin screens of the Nintendo DS in a whole
new light. What's changing peoples' minds about the
system? Well, first of all, it looks really cool,
perhaps even more so than the previously released Game Boy
Advance SP. Just check out this picture! It's like
the system was intended as an homage to the company's
first handheld, the Game & Watch... and we all remember
how cool that was.
Wait, it gets better. The
system isn't just a rehashed Game Boy Advance with twice the
screens. The Nintendo DS is packed with even more power
than the Nintendo 64, resulting in the kind of impressive 3D
that its predecessor just couldn't handle. If you're
still longing for the good old days, you'll be relieved
to know that the Nintendo DS is backwards compatible with the
Game Boy Advance.
There's one other thing the DS
has up its sleeve. Remember the game.com? Er, no,
you probably don't, do you? Well, uh, my point was that
the Nintendo DS's bottom screen is touch sensitive, giving you
more precise and intuitive control than a directional pad
alone. Tiger had the right idea when they added this
feature to the game.com, but I'm certain that Nintendo will
put it to better use.
Competing with the Nintendo DS
is... eh, some other crap. All right, all right, you
beat it out of me. It's Sony's first handheld system,
the PSP. The second P stands for "portable", but that's
being generous when you consider the system's
limitations. First of all, the battery life is
appallingly low, clocking in at about three hours. That
may have been acceptable for color portables in the early
90's, but dude, this is the 21st century. Three hours
just doesn't cut it, especially when you've got handhelds out
there that can run for forty hours on a pair of ordinary AA
batteries.
Poor battery life isn't the
PSP's only inconvenience. It's also larger than other
recently released handhelds, and uses a proprietary DVD format
which raises its price through the roof and makes both the
games and the base unit easily damaged. I'll give Sony
credit for planning some great launch titles for the PSP,
but even that may not be enough to justify its high
price and flawed design. Call me biased (that's
fine, because it's true), but this may prove to
be Sony's first failure in the video game
industry.
Well, now you know what's
new at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. What's new
on The Gameroom Blitz? I've whipped up an
improved Saturn reference guide with a little help from my
friends... fellow Digital Press contributor Greg Wilcox and
Chris Millar, the editor of MillarTime.com
(the name may make you thirsty, but it has nothing to do with
beer). I think you'll like it... it looks sharper than
the first guide, and the information is more complete, with
fewer rating omissions. If you're still collecting
Japanese games for your Saturn, this guide is sure to come in
handy.
| May 12,
2004... Goodwill Hunting (no Ben Affleck,
though) |
While visiting a nearby Goodwill
store over the weekend, I happened across a handful of
computer games and peripherals. Oddly, many of the games
I found were adventure titles, in the same vein of the
recently cancelled sequel to Sam and Max. Since I was
(as usual) dreadfully low on cash, I could only afford
two games, so I picked the ones I felt I would enjoy the
most... Sierra's King's Quest VII and LucasArts' Grim
Fandango.
I can't say I was happy with
King's Quest VII, mostly because the game refused to work on
my system. That strikes me as a little odd, as my
computer not only meets the minimum requirements stated on the
package, but exceeds them... ten times over.
That was a minor letdown, but
Grim Fandango easily made up for it. After playing
this, I can understand why people were so angry about the Sam
and Max cancellation. It's like the waiting room
scene from Beetlejuice (complete with all the humor!), with a
little Latin culture thrown in for spice. I'm amazed
that LucasArts didn't release this one for the Playstation...
Grim Fandango's simple polygonal characters and colorful
rendered backgrounds make it look like it was MADE for that
system.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot!
I picked up NEC's Multiport adapter as well.
It's the personal computer's
answer to the multi-tap, a peripheral which is fast
approaching obsolecence thanks to the increasing popularity of
online gameplay and consoles with multiple
controller ports. I'm not sure when this device was
designed... there wasn't a copyright date printed on it, but
I did notice that the peripheral had
some really unexpected features.
The first peculiarity is that
the MultiPort has support for two controller types. You
can plug two standard PC joypads into the right side of
the device, but the right offers support for up to four
D-shell controllers... you know, like an Atari 2600 joystick,
or a Sega Genesis gamepad.
Stranger still is that the
MultiPort has its own controller, the GrIP-Pad, which plugs
into the left hand side of the unit. This raises a
lot of questions... would the GrIP-Pad work on an Atari
2600? Could you just as easily replace it with something
more responsive, like the six button arcade pad designed
for the Sega Genesis? And why the heck does it look
almost exactly like one of the later model Saturn
controllers?
Most unusual of all is that
the MultiPort was created in part by NEC, the same folks who
tortured us some time back with those ridiculous Johnny
Turbo comics. Was this the company's timid first step
back into the world of interactive entertainment?
Maybe... I'm just glad that the flabby superhero wasn't
invited back to the company to help promote their
comeback.
| May 6,
2004... Listen Closely. SEGA WILL NEVER
MAKE HARDWARE AGAIN. |
Sega claims that it's got
something big planned for this year's Electronic Entertainment
Expo. Some especially hopeful fans of the company have
already convinced themselves that Sega will jump back into the
system wars with a brand new console. They've made a lot
of dumb business decisions in the past, but I can't
imagine even Sega being so naive as to think that they'd be
welcome as a console manufacturer. They've already
burned their bridges with the 32X... then threw the remaining
pieces of the bridge into a wood chipper with the
Saturn. Then dropped the chipper into the ocean with the
Dreamcast. (How about that for an extended
analogy?)
It's a lot more likely that Sega
will join forces with another big industry player, like...
Capcom? No, not bloody likely. Electronic
Arts? Nope, that ain't happening, either. I was
thinking maybe Nintendo, or perhaps Microsoft. Sega
won't go as far merging with either of these companies, but I
suspect that they'll will sign some kind of exclusivity
deal, or perhaps whip up a crossover game. After years
of rumors and annoying hoaxes, it's about time Mario and Sonic
teamed up... this time for real.
The 150cc races in Super Mario
Kart. M. Bison in Street Fighter 2 Turbo. Shao Kahn
in Mortal Kombat 3. As frustrating and unfair as
they may be, they pale in comparison to the disgusting
cheapness of the computer opponents in the Saturn version
of Culdcept. I'm ready to strangle that little brat
Sebastion and the stupid furry sidekick that he stole
from The Black Cauldron after losing to them in
CLEARLY slanted matches for the past three hours. It
makes me long for the days when I was addicted to the
exceptional Card Fighter's Clash. Maybe I'm looking back
at this game with rose-colored glasses, but I'm pretty sure it
never conveniently pulled incredibly powerful cards out of its
ass just when it needed them most. I know for
a fact that it didn't handicap you with constant lousy
dice rolls... mostly because there WEREN'T any dice in Card
Fighter's Clash, but also because the game never
resorted to cheating like a miserable, scumsucking son of a
bitch.
People may complain about cheat
devices like the Action Replay and Game Shark, but it's games
like Culdcept that make me grateful for their existance.
Let's face it, people. Some games just don't fight
fair. Anyone who's ever been humiliated by Gill in
Street Fighter III: Third Strike will attest to this.
I'm glad there are peripherals which help level the playfield,
and I have no qualms about using them when I feel it's
necessary. Frankly, I can't think of a time when it's
been MORE necessary than when I'm playing Culdcept.
Let's see you stomp all over me when I've got infinite manna,
you little
prick!
| April 29, 2004... Olson
Twin Powers,
Activate! |
Here's something you haven't
seen on The Gameroom Blitz for a while... a Zoo Logic
comic! You might want to go through the archives at
Toastyfrog before
you read this strip... otherwise, it's going to make
absolutely no sense.
So, what's been going on in the
world of video games? Well, it looks like Acclaim's made
even more enemies... this time, it's the Olsen
Twins, that grating, self-absorbed pair of
orangutangs who first appeared in the miserable sitcom Full
House. It seems that Mary-Kate and Ashley have built up
quite a fortune since leaving that show, and they're convinced
that the video game division of their media empire isn't
pulling its weight. The million dollar babies are
demanding lost royalties from Acclaim, claiming that the
company hasn't done all it could with the Mary-Kate and Ashley
license.
Hey, I hate Acclaim as much as
the next guy, but the simple fact is that there's really not
much it CAN do with the bratty baboons. Mary-Kate
and Ashley just isn't a license that lends itself well to
video games (not that this has ever stopped Acclaim before,
but I digress). The simple fact is that Olsen Twins
games aren't going to sell well, regardless of who's making
them.
| April 26, 2004... Write
or Wrong |
Recently, someone on a forum I
occasionally visit made an unsavory accusation about The
Gameroom Blitz, claiming that I'd stolen one of my Mega
Man X7 rants from a random LiveJournal. He never
bothered to offer an address for this LiveJournal, or tell me
when this journal entry was posted... I guess he thought it
would be a lot more fun to call my journalistic integrity into
question without offering a shred of evidence to back up his
claims.
Why would anyone think that I'd
resort to stealing content from random LiveJournals when I
could just as easily write it myself? I'm not sure, but
I don't take accusations of plagarism lightly, and I intend to
do whatever is necessary to get to the bottom of this
one.
| April 20, 2004... At
Least SOMEONE Is Supporting the
E-Reader |
After putting up with over a
year of poor support, fans of Nintendo's e-card reader have
discovered a way to print their own cards for the
peripheral. It's not just for piracy,
either... one hobbyist has even written his own game, a
clone of Microsoft's famous time-waster Minesweeper, for
the e-reader. I'm hoping that it won't be the
last.
Anyway, it's a little late, but
I've finally written the Full Spectrum content for this
month. Last month was a look at all the games in
Hudson's Bloody Roar series. This month? Well,
you'll have to divy up the dough to find out. Regular
contributors get to check out the column for free, but, uh...
what happened to my contributors, anyway? If you're out
there, gang, I'd really appreciate your support.
| April 15,
2004... C-c-c-counter
Breaker! |
Several days ago on my
LiveJournal, I contemplated putting The Gameroom Blitz into
retirement. I just haven't been having much fun
editing the site lately, and my interest in video games (or
more accurately, the video game industry in its current state)
has greatly diminished. This has changed updating the
Blitz from a fun diversion to an annoying chore, and the
articles on this site have become increasingly bitter as a
result.
This led me to consider
ending the eight year run of this site. However, after
discussing the situation with an online friend, I've come to
the realization that there's nothing wrong with The Gameroom
Blitz... it's my priorities that are seriously out of
whack. I spent so much time desperately trying to draw
in readers that I've lost touch with why I started
publishing the site in the first place.
That's why I've removed the hit
counter from the site's navigation bar. For far too
long, I've worried about finding the elusive formula for
Internet success. The Gameroom Blitz has been online for
nearly a decade now, and the daily hit count has never risen
above a hundred, except in the rare instances when
much more popular sites have directed their traffic
here.
The simple fact is the the Blitz
will never be as widely recognized as Homestar
Runner or Ain't It Cool News. That's not its destiny,
but at the same time, that isn't its purpose. The
Gameroom Blitz isn't fueled by the number of people who visit
it, but by the quality and diversity of its content. If
just one person visits The Gameroom Blitz and
discovers important information about a game that they
couldn't find anywhere else, then it has proven its
worth.
All that remains is for me to
better understand why I started editing the site in the first
place. Out of the thousands of hobbies I could have
adopted, why video games? What is it that I found
so fascinating about them? What drove me to write about
them, and why did I enjoy it so much? When I discover
the answer to these questions, The Gameroom Blitz will once
again be a whole lot of fun for both my readers and
myself.
Until then, updates will be
small, infrequent, and devoted largely to site
maintenance. There's eight years' worth of content on
the site... that should be more than enough to keep you
entertained while I'm out dotting the t's and crossing the i's
in each of the articles. Or was that the other way
around? Well, you get the picture.
| April 12, 2004... This
Really Must Have Been Worth the
Wait... |
Sorry about the lack of recent
updates... I needed a week off from the site.
| April 2, 2004... April
Fool's Reflections |
I came down pretty hard on April
Fool's jokes in my last update, but I have to admit that the
one on the Digital Press message board was absolute
brilliance. Moderator Joe Santulli rolled back the clock
over twenty years, starting dozens of
discussions set in 1983. Of course, if it actually
WERE 1983, nobody could read any of his posts, but despite
this logical flaw, the idea worked beautifully. I swear,
I haven't had so much fun on the Internet in a long, long
time.
By the way, in case you were
wondering, I considered doing an April Fool's joke of my
own. First, I was going to make a Cho Aniki tribute
page, but decided against it as the flamboyant alter ego I
planned to adopt would probably have been considered
homophobic. Frankly, I get enough hate mail as it is
without tweaking the gay community in the nose.
My next idea was to create a page of Zoo Logic outtakes.
This plan never came to fruition because, well... all right, I
have no excuses. I was feeling lazy and didn't want
to spent five hours on a page full of comics that probably
would have ended up looking like crap anyway. Such is
the life of a self-doubting artist.
Ultimately, I went with the
pictures from the Saturn game Keio Yugekitai, because I wanted
to find a place to use them SOMEWHERE. It's a complete
bitch trying to unlock all the artwork in the game, so I
figured I'd save my readers the trouble and just post it all
on the site. Since it was too late to do anything else
for April Fool's Day, I just uploaded the pictures to the site
and left it at that. By the way, in case you're
interested, you can still access these pictures from this
page.
After all is said and done,
perhaps the more humble April Fool's update was for the
best. I did some surfing around and noticed that there
were a lot of folks on the Internet who refused to
participate, and who expressed a strong resentment toward the
holiday. One person even referred to April Fool's Day as
"National Worthless Internet Day", since the sites he visited
most replaced their content with dumb jokes about losing their
domain names or going out of business. So my April
Fool's Day update may have been a cop-out, but at the
very least, I offered my readers something useful, rather
than yet another predictable
prank. |
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