Word on the street is that GameSpot (not
to be confused with the chain of used game stores) will
be renovating its review system, replacing the decimal system
with a base unit of .5. All right, so technically that's
a decimal too, but you're not going to see anything more
exotic than a .5 once the redesign is complete. 1UP went
the same route about a year ago, actually making its formerly
fraction-less ratings more precise rather than
less.
However, GameSpot is taking things one
step further by giving medals to each video game based on
their performance in a number of categories. Especially
pretty titles like Oblivion would receive a medal in
outstanding visual achievement, games with tight control would
receive an award for that accomplishment, and so on... you get
the idea. So in honor of this innovation, I would like
to present the editors of GameSpot with a medal of their very
own...
No need to thank me, guys!
You've earned it!
So anyway, the video reviews
on YouTube have been a big success so far. After just
one week, I'm already up to twenty subscribers, and have
received encouragement from experienced reviewers like
SashaNein and UrinatingTree. So it seems my plans to
become the anti-Angry Game Nerd are starting to pay
off. There's been criticism too, and I can't really
disagree with the individuals who've told me that my voice is
too loud and that I'm being too hammy. However, I'm
confident that I can smooth out these
kinks in later reviews. If you'd like
to watch the latest review, you'll find it
right here.
June 18,
2007... Blitz Videos
Debut
I know it's been forever since
I've updated, but I have a perfectly good reason for it,
honest!
I've noticed an unpleasant trend
in video reviews like the ones by James "The Angry Video Game
Nerd" Rolphe. Do a little searching on YouTube, and
you're sure to come up with a lot of hastily thrown
together, senselessly vulgar rants by individuals who
sound like their enthusiasm for video games has left the
building a long, long time ago. I'm hoping to reverse
that trend with reviews that are scripted, carefully edited,
and largely free of the profanity that too many reviewers
use as a substitute for real humor. Come on, people...
production values MATTER! Just because it's on YouTube
doesn't mean it's OK to half-ass it.
Anyway, give the
review a look and let me know what you think of it. If
people like what I'm doing, I'll follow it up with more.
Heck, I might do that even if they DON'T, since Windows Movie
Maker is so much fun to use!
June 10,
2007... Big Robots and Bigger
Appetites
The struggle to shape the
round, squishy ball of clay that is my body continues. I'm
actually starting to notice some muscle tone on my arms and
calves after less than two weeks of workouts, but my thighs,
pecs, and abdominal region are all still in the same sorry
shape. Anybody got some suggestions for trimming down the fat
and bringing out the brawn in those areas of the
body?
Well, enough of that. You've come
here for the gaming coverage, and that's exactly what you're
going to get. I downloaded Pac-Man: Championship Edition from
the Xbox Live Arcade service on Friday, and believe me when I
say that it exceeded all of my expectations. This is no
half-baked remake, but rather a supercharged sequel in the
vein of Tempest 2000. The main differences are that the
designers don't try to blind you with a constant stream of
screen-filling special effects, and that the original
developer (in this case, Toru Iwatani, the man behind the Pac
himself!) was directly involved with its design.
Not one to rest on his laurels,
Iwatani has kicked his creation up a notch with a brilliant
new play mechanic that requires the player to "balance" the
screen. You'll dart to the left side to gobble up dots, then
race to the right to snag a fruit target that dumps more dots
onto the side of the playfield you just cleared. So there
really isn't a goal in this new iteration of Pac-Man, aside
from earning the most points in the brief time you're given.
In that respect, it's actually more old-school than the
original, and a far cry from the games of today which have
divorced themselves from points entirely.
Unsurprisingly, the people who've
been shrieking that the user-friendly Wii will be the downfall
of the industry have had no kind words for Pac-Man:
Championship Edition. They say that it's much too expensive
for ten dollars, that it ends too quickly and doesn't offer
the player enough options. Well, nuts to them, I say! There's
an elegence to the simplicity of Pac-Man Champ... like Tetris
or Galaga, there's not much here, but all the pieces fall into
place perfectly. Besides, after spending a frustrating hour
with Armored Core: Last Raven, it's refreshing to go from
using all the buttons on a modern game controller to none at
all!
Yeah, about Last Raven. I was a
pretty big fan of the Armored Core series back in my youth,
starting with Project Phantasma on the original Playstation.
It was a mech game that dispensed with all the frustrations of
its predecessors, offering a deep but streamlined experience
that holds up well to this day. Nearly ten years after its
release, it's still fun to play Master of Arena on my PSP,
using the Popstation emulator.
However, it seems that in recent
years, the series has hit a backward slide rivaled only by
other 21st century time bombs like Bust-A-Move and Tomb
Raider. It all started with Frame Gride, the Japanese
Dreamcast spin-off with a tighter focus on arena combat. Sure,
the graphics were swell, but it was lacking in complexity and
difficult to play with the Dreamcast controller. Shortly
afterward, Playstation 2 owners were given Armored Cores 2 and
3, which both missed a golden opportunity to fix the awkward
control scheme that was only a necessity before the advent of
the Dual Shock controller. That joypad was a luxury for the
humble Playstation, but standard equipment on the PS2...
equipment that the Armored Core sequels failed to
utilize.
Fast-forward to the summer of
2007 (hey, that's right now!). We've got two recent Armored
Core games, both with crippling issues. Armored Core: Last
Raven was first up to bat, offering the dual stick control
that should have been an option since the year 2000. It gets
credit for that, but loses a lot more for fugly
graphics that aren't up to the Playstation 2's modest
standards and an obsession with using every damn button on the
Dual Shock controller. Yes, even those idiotic ones hidden
under the analog thumbsticks! Just say no to L3 and R3, kids.
More recently, gamers have had to
put up with Chromehounds and Armored Core 4. People didn't
like Chromehounds, but they were willing to overlook From
Software's Xbox 360 blunder because like Frame Gride, it
wasn't really Armored Core. You can imagine their shock when
they fired up Armored Core 4 months later and discovered that
it was the EXACT SAME GAME. All right, that's a slight
exaggeration, but next to that miserable tactical strategy
title on the PSP (now with hastily tacked-on gameplay!), it's
probably the game least deserving of its lofty pedigree. The
stages that were once sprawling and immersive on the ancient
Playstation have now been compressed into tiny rectangles,
leaving you feeling like the dog that humped one too many legs
and is now trapped behind an invisible fence with a shock
collar around its neck. Yeah, this is just what the Armored
Core series needed... a house arrest mode! The final insult is
that the graphics are still crap, even on the mighty Xbox 360.
Sorry, but grey buildings, skies, and mechs in 1080i is still
just a whole lot of grey.
There's still hope for the
series, but not while From Software insists on making it worse
and worse with each passing installment. If you want to keep
this game from turning rotten to the core, guys, here's what
you need to do. First, ditch the dreary hues... we're using
color television sets now, and it's about time you did, too.
Let up on the micro-management and pile on the arcade-style
action we all loved on the Playstation. Finally, no more mime
boxes. Nobody likes to sacrifice their progress because they
stepped out of bounds... it was rarely an issue in the
Playstation games and it shouldn't be one in this modern
age.
You can ignore my advice if
you want, but just keep in mind that you're short on backup
franchises... and that even your core user base in Japan will
start seeing red if you keep giving them nothing but
grey.
June 5,
2007... Thoughts on
Videocasting
Whew.
You know there's a problem when
it's a colossal struggle just to update the Blitz on a weekly
basis. It doesn't seem like that much to ask, but lately just
getting out of bed has been a Herculean feat. I'm hoping that
my recent exercise routine will help me break the blahs and
get back to a more reasonable schedule.
I also need to step away from the
Internet for a while if I hope to make any real progress on
both the Blitz and outside projects like that stupid NES book.
It seems like all work comes to a complete and sudden halt the
moment I approach a Wi-Fi point. It's a Catch-22 situation,
because without Internet access, I can't upload files
to the Lakupo server or do the necessary research to finish up
the guide that's been a work in progress for nearly three
years.
Anyway... back to the site. I've
been thinking of tackling the content on the Blitz from
different angles. I've even purchased a cheap DVR from eBay in
the hopes of dabbling with videocasting. It's the hip new
thing that all the kids are doing, and besides, I've seen some
really effective uses of the medium that manage to transcend
the limitations of video sharing sites like YouTube. After
all, it doesn't really matter if you can't see the video
clearly as long as it's entertaining!
Some videocasters do a better job
of bringing humor to their game reviews than others. I never
understood the appeal of The Angry
Nintendo/Sega/Atari/Whatever Nerd, and now that he's been
absorbed by the writhing corporate mass known as Viacom, he
hasn't really improved per se... just changed, in the way your
yippy chihuahua did after that special trip to the vet's
office. All the mindless profanity and violence has been
replaced by industry observations that are astute, yet too
boring to be called insightful.
On the other hand, there's a guy
named UrinatingTree who's taken the foundation created by The
Angry (fill in the blank) Nerd and built a thing of beauty on
top of it. His Half-Assed Theatre is jam-packed with comedy, and ranks up
there as one of the best things YouTube has seen in its brief
but colorful life. Who knew a hilariously pompous voice and
random pop culture references could bring so much to an
otherwise horrendous NES game like Heroes of the
Lance?
If I do start making video
reviews, I want them to be a lot closer to what UrinatingTree
has done with Half-Assed Theatre than The Angry Video Game
Nerd's show. I want them to be lively, yet meaningful. I want
them to express outrage at the worst this industry has to
offer, but not to be polluted with pointless profanity. I want
them to be loaded with references to obscure games and old
television shows and cringeworthy current events, but I want
all that stuff to be in the proper context. I'm not under the
delusion that my work will be as good as Half-Assed Theatre or
even XPlay at its most relevant, but that's what I'm shooting
for.
May 30,
2007... Rotten to the
Core
I've been struggling for a way to
say this... but since Parish already did it for me with his usual
eloquence, I'll just dispense with the pleasantries and
tell the so-called "hardcore" gamers out there that
they're being dicks. For that matter, so are
the analysts, but I doubt that's news to
anyone.
They're all gnashing their teeth and
rending their garments, lamenting that the Nintendo Wii will
be the end of gaming as they know it. "The hardware
won't be powerful enough to handle the industry's latest
innovations!," they shout, while clinging to their copies
of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Halo 2. "All we're
getting on the Wii are mini-games!," they squeal, while
conveniently forgetting Konami releases like Elebits,
Kororinpa, and the upcoming Dewy's Adventure. And when
all these arguments don't grant them the comfort they
desperately seek, they offer themselves false assurance.
"Oh, the Wii's just a fad anyway... all of MY friends have
stopped playing it!," they boast, ignoring that the system
still outsells the Playstation 3 two to one and that
stores are still having trouble keeping units on
shelves.
Why does the Wii strike so much fear into the
hearts of these individuals? I just told you... because
they're dicks! Specifically, they're selfish
dicks. The "hardcore" gamers who never picked up a
controller in their lives prior to the release of the
Playstation have gotten used to the industry catering to their
every whim... at the expense of everyone else. For the
past twelve years, Sony has actively discouraged
the development of 2D games, opting instead to promote
the latest pop culture trends and the most retread of
sequels.
Thanks to the popularity of the Wii, there's a
possibility that another game company will be in the driver's
seat of the industry... and the "hardcore" gamers are in a
panic, acting as though the apocalypse is upon them. It
doesn't help to remind the Haloites, the Thefties, and the
Madden-men that the companies which have historically
serviced them (in that "oldest profession in the world" sense)
will remain open for business. They'll just throw
themselves on the floor and pound their fists until the entire
industry gives them exactly what they want, when they want it,
regardless of who gets shut out.
Well, since they're so
unwilling to share, maybe it's time the dicks get a taste of
their own medicine. The more experienced gamers, those
of us who've been around since the Atari days, have been
left out in the cold for over a decade thanks to the tunnel
vision of companies like Sony and Microsoft. Nintendo
wants to expand that focus beyond the "hardcore" gamers to
those of us who have been forgotten by the rest of the
industry... and normally, that would be enough to satisfy
me. But since the dicks are so intent on keeping the
hobby exclusively to themselves, that's no longer enough.
I want Nintendo to forget about the "hardcore"
gamers entirely and work harder to win back those of us
who were alienated from the industry. I want more
mini-game collections, more brain-sharpening
exercises, more pet simulations, and dare I say it?
Yes, even more Pokemon sequels. I want Microsoft and
Sony to follow the big N's lead in a desperate attempt
to catch up to their competition. I want the
dicks to watch helplessly as all their favorite
franchises wither and die, just like Sonic and Mega Man and
Street Fighter and all the other classics that suffered an
agonizing demise after the Playstation 2 was
released.
In short, I want it all.
May 26,
2007... Sphere of
Influence
You're going to hear a lot
of alarmist warnings from internet pundits about Odin Sphere
and its importance to the continued development of 2D
games. They'll tell you that this could be the last one
you'll ever see on a home console, and that if you don't
purchase it, developers like Atlus will never take another
chance on a side-scrolling action game again.
It's
tempting to buy into the fear-mongering if you're an
old-school gamer, but don't take the bait. Regardless
of your motivation for doing so, Odin Sphere is NOT the
kind of game you want to blindly purchase. With so many
flaws in its design, it doesn't deserve your forty dollars
simply because it's the last of a dying breed.
Odin
Sphere's first major flaw is that the fighting is slightly
awkward and very limited. By now, we're all tired of
turn-based combat, and Odin Sphere deserves some
credit for distancing itself from those boring battles
with fast-paced, side-scrolling swordplay that borrows heavily
from Capcom classics like Street Fighter II and Strider.
However, you'll start to notice after the first few
fights that you're not given many options while locked in
combat. There's only one attack button, and it's limited
to elaborate, long-winded strikes that do less damage
than expected and leave the player wide open to
retaliation. This isn't a problem when taking on a
single soldier, but it's a lot harder to accept in a battle
royale against a pack of crazed Vikings bent on earning a
one-way trip to Valhalla.
Items and magic do add some
variety to the fights, but both require you to stand still and
pause the action before they can be accessed. You can't
bust out your best moves with a handy controller motion like
you could in Guardian Heroes or Castlevania: Symphony of the
Night... you've got to freeze the action and choose
them from a menu, defeating the purpose of real-time
combat.
Strike two comes from the jaw-droppingly cheap
bosses, which will use every trick in the book and then some
to empty your health bar in the blink of an eye. The
dragon Belial is especially obnoxious, gobbling up a squadron
of your comrades and turning their vacant armor into lethal
projectiles.
As he fills the screen with leg
braces, boots, and chestplates, you'll also have to contend
with wave after wave of hostile reinforcements, taking
potshots from the distant edges of the playfield. Try to
kill the fairies and you'll get clobbered with the rain of
scrap metal. Try to attack the dragon himself and you'll
get swallowed for hefty damage. Throw the disc against
the wall and you're out forty dollars.
That brings us
to the game's last, but perhaps most serious flaw. When
you've got a combat system that's woefully lacking in
depth, what do you do? If you're the developers at
Vanillaware, you put that depth into everything BUT the
fighting that needs it the most! Ordinarily simple
tasks like collecting experience points and buying items
from shopkeepers is turned into needlessly obfuscated
ordeals. Why am I making change to buy things? Why
do I have to grow trees in the middle of a battle to restore
my health? Why am I even playing this when Oblivion
offers dozens of fun things to do that DON'T seem like
pointless busywork?
After playing Princess Crown on the
Sega Saturn (essentially the same game with fewer dumb
gimmicks but even clumsier combat), I should have known better
than to buy Odin Sphere with nostalgia for a past era of
gaming as my sole motivation. However, you've got a
chance to avoid repeating my mistake. Don't give this
one a free ride. Rent Odin Sphere first, THEN purchase
it only if you feel it's earned your money.
May 22,
2007... Geometry Wars Hits the
Wii
I'm breaking the weekly cycle of updates
for this important (and completely puzzling)
announcement...
This isn't without precedent...
back in the 1980's, console manufacturers would develop
software for their competitors. Heck, even Microsoft
has made games for the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS,
but they were all leftover projects from when Rare was a
subsidiary of the big N. However, Microsoft delivering
one of its strongest properties to a rival console is a
pretty big deal. And what's more, we're not talking
about a straight port here... this is a sequel with an
"extensive single player mode," suggesting that Geometry Wars
Galaxies will have more complex level structures and a larger
assortment of enemies.
There's no guarantee that the
game will scratch that itchy trigger finger the way its
predecessor on the Xbox 360 had. There's already word
that it's being handled by a different team of developers, and
that it will be anchored to a new, possibly less effective
motion-sensitive control scheme. Still, even if there
isn't an option to play with the classic controller, I'm
willing to give this a fair shake. I can't fathom why
Microsoft insists on supporting other console manufacturers,
but if it results in mindblowing multi-platform releases like
this, I'm all for it!
May 21,
2007... Etrian
Aneurysm
Lately, it's been
getting harder and harder to force myself to sit down and
write. Just finishing the end of year special was an
epic struggle. Needless to say, that doesn't bode well
for the other features I planned for the site. I've got
to find a way to shake this funk!
Anyway, I just
wanted to warn... tell... er, warn-tell you about Etrian
Odyssey. It's the latest role-playing game by
Atlus, the company that's taken Working Designs' place as the
king of making obscure Japanese titles relevant to an American
audience. However, there's not a lot of text here for
Atlus to cleverly localize. What Etrian offers instead
are fifty layers of underground forest, packed with nasty
monsters.
The game's first-person perspective
and character creation will remind older players of SirTech's
Wizardry series. However, there's a twist inspired
by an even crustier computer game, Hunt The Wumpus.
Ludicrously powerful enemies called F.O.E.s roam each level,
forcing the player to either sneak past them while their backs
are turned or man up and challenge them to make
progress.
Every F.O.E. can (at least in theory)
be defeated, but it's up to you if you want to take that
risk. Victory earns you a huge bounty of experience
points and the satisfaction of bringing down a beast that
would have torn a lesser band of adventurers to shreds.
Defeat costs you any progress you've made since the last time
you saved the game... and with the only available save point
being placed not-so-conveniently at the forest's
entrance, that can be a lot of hard work down the
drain.
So when I tell you to look out for Etrian
Odyssey, you can interpret that in one of two ways. If
you don't have the patience for a game that puts you on a
leash, then yanks it violently whenever you try to
outpace it, then it's in your best interests to treat this
one like cyanide-laced kryptonite. If you're
the easy-going type, and you don't feel threatened by any
game you can't finish in less than a week, then Etrian
Odyssey is worth a shot.
May 16,
2007... The 2006 Endies
Debuts
Boy, that sure took a while. I
hope it was worth the wait! And by "it," I mean
this...
Well, what are you waiting
for? Click on that logo! Click like the
wind!
May 9,
2007... Site Updates (plus, concept art for
The Lost
Rings)
Here comes the next page redesign!
The Waku Waku 7 FAQ has been given a touch up, with new
information about Sunsoft's sleeper hit along with improved
formatting and more intuitive, graphic-based move
lists. What's next on the menu? The year-end
special and an in-depth look at Pelican's Capsule
handheld. The next big change for the Blitz is a little
further down the road, but I'll give you a sneak peek at
what's in store for June...
I've got several contributors
helping me out with this, so it's bound to be one of the best
features this site has seen in years. Stay tuned,
folks!
May 3,
2007... Sayonara,
Semester!
Well,
that just about does it for this semester of college. It
was a rough one, but I got through it with minimal scarring
and emotional trauma. Now I can get back to the one
thing I love most about life... sleep! Well, that
and gaming.
There's a lot of software in my
collection that has gone neglected thanks to my heavy
workload. With all that out of the way, I can catch
up with all those games I left on the shelf for the past
three months. I can also make good on my promise to hand
out the 2006 Endy awards... hey, it's better late than never,
right? Finally, I'm planning to bring back the Saturn
section of the site in full force. Reading Segagaga
Domain makes me remember just how much I love that old game
system... and how much I miss the extensive coverage of it on
my own site.
Finally, I want to touch up the
pages that are already here. Some of them look downright
grody in higher resolutions, and I'd like to bring them into
the 21st century with designs that look great no matter what
computer you use to view them. I've already started
working on this... the features page that had looked awful on
modern-day computers has been touched up to look sharp on
everything from my aging Windows 2000 desktop to the Nintendo
Wii. However, there's plenty more work to do on the
Blitz. At least a couple of the pages date back to the
mid 1990's, and it's up to me to bring them up to
code.
It's going to take a lot of
time and effort getting the site back in shape after three
months of almost total dormancy... but I have a funny
feeling that it's going to be a lot of fun
doing it!
April 29, 2007... Sony,
You Slay Me
April 25,
2007... Gaming on the Cheap (Konami LIVE! and
Pelican Capsule)
First up, I'd like to make a
correction to an earlier post. Blitz reader Ronobo
pointed out that KSS did indeed last long enough to release a
sequel to Anarchy in the Nippon (aka Japanarchy). Here's
the twist... the game was only available on the
Playstation!
Now to the update. I've had a morbid
fascination with plug 'n play game consoles lately. Sure, they
either stiff you on games (five titles for the price of a more
robust classic collection on the Xbox or Playstation 2? Sounds
like a deal to me...) or are packed to overflowing with cheap
Chinese shovelware, but there's a campy, low-rent charm to
these units that you won't find on a traditional game system.
Sometimes, you want to indulge in a high-class,
high-cost beverage like Coke Classic, but on rare
occasions, you just want to bring home a case of Towne Club
cola and gulp down the sugary sewer water until you slip into
a diabetic coma. Right now, I'm on my sixth bottle of Towne
Club, and I'm nadda batta stah bah hubble blarrgh...
(falls over, then picks himself
up from the floor)
The first plug 'n play I'm going
to review is Konami LIVE!. This one's special because instead
of a television set, you connect it to the USB port of your
computer. The unit is designed specifically for use with the
internet... in fact, it's so dependent on an online connection
that you won't be able to play a single game without one! Only
the interface is built into the Konami LIVE! controller...
everything else must be downloaded from Konami's
servers.
Once you've downloaded those five
games, you'll notice that they bear a striking resemblence to
Konami's offerings on Xbox Live Arcade. The enhanced versions
of Time Pilot, Gyruss, and Contra all have the same redrawn
backgrounds and grandiose special effects as their
counterparts on the Xbox 360... only the remastered
soundtracks and XLA perks like achievements are
missing.
With the Konami LIVE! controller
selling for as low as fifteen dollars in some stores (I got
mine at a Goodwill for $3.99), it sounds like a great way to
save money on Microsoft Points. Ah, but there's a catch! All
the titles were originally written for a game system with a
3.2GHz processor. When you port them to a computer with
completely different hardware, the results aren't pretty. The
games are perfectly fine when played in original mode, but
they drop to a third of their normal speed if you dare switch
on the enhancements. Granted, I don't own the world's most
cutting-edge computers, but when even my year old laptop
struggles to keep up with twenty-five year old video games,
there's a serious problem. C'mon, Digital Eclipse... you've
been writing emulators for well over a decade now. You can do
better than this!
If Konami LIVE! was a tragedy,
Pelican's new VG Pocket systems could both be considered
triumphs. The decision to base their design on drug
paraphenelia wasn't the best of ideas... with both a Tablet
and Capsule available, the only thing missing from the line-up
is a Syringe, complete with rubber band tie-off wrist strap!
Questionable marketing aside, the units are a quantum leap
ahead of the last VG Pocket model. The old blue and white unit
had an 8-bit processor and the ugliest color display this side
of the Atari Lynx. The new systems are packed with 16-bit
power and have screens on par with high-priced heavy-hitters
like the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP. The colors are bright and
distinct, the text is easily readable, and the resolution is
stunning, especially in the more luxurious Capsule.
The games are also significantly
improved thanks to more powerful hardware under the medicinal
hood. You get a small handful of licensed titles, along with
dozens of games straight out of Hong Kong. Bust-A-Move, Space
Invaders Part II, and Burgertime round out the licensed
offerings in the Capsule, and they're all fair conversions.
Bust-A-Move looks a whole lot better than it sounds or
plays... maybe I'm spoiled by Bust-A-Move DS and its lightning
quick rubber band, but turning the lever to adjust your aim in
the Capsule version of the game is unbearably slow, especially
after popping a cluster of bubbles. Next comes Space Invaders
Part II... contrary to what the box and main menu will tell
you, this is not the original game released in 1977. Rather,
you're getting the enhanced game with smarter invaders and
that crowd pleasin' "rainbow effect." Burgertime is probably
the biggest disappointment of the three... the visuals are
incredibly faithful to the arcade original but the control is
utterly woeful. If you're even a pixel away from the center of
a ladder when you try to climb it, you're not going anywhere,
and you're probably getting a weiner up your ass. Why is it
that after twenty five years and countless game systems, the
crusty old Intellivision still offers the most playable
version of Burgertime?
The other titles are
"entertaining" in that MST3K sort of way. I want to cover them
more thoroughly in a future article on the Blitz, but I'll
just say for now that the games borrow heavily from existing
ones, not only in concept but audiovisually as well. One game
is a low-rent version of Don't Pull, part of Capcom's Three
Wonders collection, while another is the Super NES version of
Aero Fighters with all the characters removed. Nope, there's
no unnaturally dextrous babies or dolphins to pilot the
planes... you just get the jets themselves. Yet another title
takes the submarines from Nazca's In The Hunt and puts them
into a simple maze navigation challenge. There are a few
titles here with original content... just not that
many.
The games aren't works of art,
and they're sure not unique. However, when it comes right down
to it, I've got to recommend the Capsule. It's the perfect
symbol of the progress the industry has made in the 21st
century... what would have cost hundreds of dollars a decade
ago can be had for chump change in 2007. The future's grand,
ain't it?
April 19, 2007... The
Real Slim Shady (Slimline Playstation 2
review)
I promised a review of the
slimline Playstation 2 on the 15th, and today, that's exactly
what you're going to get!
So, where do I start?
I'm amazed at how well this thing runs... when you pop a game
into the system, no matter what it is, it starts up right
away. That's in sharp contrast to my old PS2, which spent up
to a minute on the BIOS screen before a game would boot. That
screen full of blue translucent cubes was pretty cool back in
2002, but the thrill is gone after seeing it so much in the
past five years. The slimline PS2 dispenses with the flashy
introductions and takes you right into the action, a welcome
improvement over the previous model.
Another point in the slim PS2's
favor is its diminuative size. At nearly half the height of
the already small Nintendo Wii, it's a triumph of
micronization. Sometimes I wish it were larger than it is,
because at its current size it tends to be a little
too inconspicuous for its own good. You can't put the
blasted system inside an entertainment center without it
vanishing from sight!
Unlike the past Playstation 2
units, the slimline console's got a flip-top door for discs.
This bothers some folks who would rather have a front loading
tray or even the disc-gina built into the Wii and Playstation
3, but I don't mind it much myself. After all, if a
flip-top drive door is good enough for the Saturn and
Dreamcast, then it's good enough for me!
What worries me a lot more is the
system's rumored incompatibility with older Playstation 2
games. If the slim PS2 only has difficulty with throwaway
titles like Crash: Twinsanity, I wouldn't make a big fuss
about it, but I'll be a lot less understanding if it won't run
quirky cult classics like Culdcept or Gradius V. I'll
need to test the console more thoroughly to discover any gaps
in its compatibility.
One thing I can say for sure,
however, is that it does a wonderful job of playing original
Playstation games, a skill that my last PS2 has long since
forgotten. After playing PSOne games on everything but the
system that was designed for them, it's a welcome change of
pace to enjoy these titles the way nature (and Kutaragi)
intended.
In classic system news, I finally
landed myself a copy of Anarchy in the Nippon (or as I like to
call it, Japanarchy) for the Sega Saturn. Legend has it that
the game was developed by a bunch of Virtua Fighter fans, and
you can certainly see that influence in the gameplay. However,
rather than the slow, floaty jumps that have become a
trademark of Sega's long-running series, Japanarchy gives
you... no jumps at all. Wait, what?! This puzzling
omission limits the game's technique, giving it a
stripped-down, rudimentary feel.
That's unfortunate, as the game
holds promise in other areas. Fighters with a cast of high
school students were nothing new even a decade ago when this
game hit store shelves, but you've got to give KSS credit for
coming up with characters you won't find anywhere else.
Submitted for your approval are a chunky female judo expert, a
butt-touching shop teacher, Edie McClurg with a black belt in
kung fu, and a guy who looks like the long-haired
stoner from Clerks but fights like Bruce Lee from Enter
the Dragon. Now there's a combination I wouldn't have
expected!
The graphics aren't too shabby, either...
they're not up to the standards of Virtua Fighter 2 or Dead or
Alive, but the bright colors and relatively high polygon
counts make it look at least as good as Virtua Fighter
Remix. The visuals are accompanied by an equally
competent but unremarkable heavy metal soundtrack.
That seems to be an ongoing theme for
Japanarchy... getting the job done but not doing it with the
necessary flair to bring it to the front of the packed
crowd of polygonal fighters on the Sega Saturn. The game
suffers not only from a lack of ambition by its designers, but
by a wealth of competitors with strong identities.
Last Bronx has a gritty urban setting and big-ass
weapons. Fighter's Megamix is packed with characters and
finishing blows so powerful they can demolish walls.
Final Fight Revenge... well, it sucks, but at least it has fun
doing it! Meanwhile, Japanarchy is just...
there. This not only explains why the game never
made it to these shores, but why KSS didn't stick around long
enough to make a sequel.
April 15,
2007... Portable Gaming
Extravaganza!
There's
been an eternal tug of war between the Nintendo DS and the PSP
in my household... one day, the DS will get all of my
undivided attention, while the next, the PSP will
steal the spotlight. It's very rare for me to give both
systems a workout on the same day, but that's exactly what's
happened last night after I discovered the homebrew title Word
Up on DS Fanboy, and a cache of old Playstation titles
elsewhere.
In addition to being a catchy
song by 80's funk group Cameo, Word
Up is a puzzler
that combines the laid back word-building of Bookworm with the
more frantic block stacking of Tetris and its offspring.
Letter tiles drop from the top screen to the bottom, and
you've got to remove them by drawing a line through any words
you find. Straight lines, zig-zags, and loops are all fair
game, but you can't pick up the stylus while drawing your
line, and you can only use each tile once.
As you're building words, more
tiles rain down from the top screen, forcing you to work
quickly to clear the stack. You're offered a reprieve in the
form of tile-obliterating bombs, but those can only be earned
by spelling out especially long words. The pressure put on the
player makes each game of Word Up brief, a sharp contrast to
Bookworm where a single session can go on for an hour or
longer. This is a critical issue in the
game's design. Word-building challenges take more
careful contemplation than Word Up is willing to grant the
player, leaving the game at a disadvantage when compared to
top-shelf DS puzzlers like Bust-A-Move or
Tetris.
To its credit, Word
Up is one of the system's best homebrew
releases. The game looks as sharp as any DS
cartridge stamped with Nintendo's seal of approval, and the
touchscreen control is nearly flawless. The music, an
unwelcome tribute to the dusty old Commodore 64, is a sore
spot, but the high-pitched gurgling is easily forgiven when
you compare it to Zoo Keeper, whose screeching symphonies
would leave even the most faithful Commodork scrambling to
turn down the volume. Word Up is free to anyone with a backup
cartridge, but there's enough here to justify the thirty
dollars a puzzle game on the DS would normally
cost.
Then there's the PSP. I haven't
been spending much time with the system's official releases,
but it really doesn't need them... not when it's compatible
with the lion's share of the original Playstation library,
anyway! It's a major pain to convert the games to a format
that the PSP can recognize, but once you've finally got them
on that memory stick, life is good. I don't think it would be
an exaggeration to say that Playstation emulation boosts the
system's library (and its appeal) exponentially... in fact,
after having played old favorites and newfound Japanese
obscurities, and being dazzled by the graphics in both, I have
to wonder why Sony didn't design the PSP as a portable
Playstation with a higher clock speed. They could have cut the
price in half, doubled the battery life, and still had enough
power left over for the the most gorgeous handheld games on
the market!
Let's have a look at some of
those Playstation games that have been given new life on the
PSP...
FIST OF THE NORTH STAR
2:
Gamers with more eccentric tastes
are going to notice that FOTNS2 looks eerily similar to
Godhand. That's not a coincidence... the outrageous finishing
moves, the post-apocalyptic scenery, and those huge shoulder
pads all had their origins in the profoundly influential Fist
of the North Star animated series.
Ironically, FOTNS2 addresses the
fatal flaws of Godhand, seven years before that game even
existed! The turn-walk-turn control scheme that Shinji Mikami
refuses to leave in the past is nowhere to be found here...
the camera is pulled away from Kenshiro, leaving him free to
nimbly race around the screen as he paints the playfield with
the blood of his foes.
However, the game has its own
Achilles' Heel, in the form of long, unskippable cut scenes.
I'm sure they're a thrill for Fist fans who can make sense of
all those kanji subtitles, but those of us who came to watch
Kenshiro do what he does best- popping heads like balloons-
are just going to be left hammering the Start and X
buttons in frustration. Sorry Bandai, but I'd much rather be
pounding on those goons!
CAPCOM VS. SNK
PRO:
Capcom vs. SNK was one of those
games with a concept that was far more exciting than the
actual product. Fighting game geeks such as myself couldn't
resist the thrill of Zangief planting Kyo Kusanagi into the
dirt with a spinning piledriver, or Mai Shiranui trading blows
with Capcom hotties like Cammy and Chun-Li, even if it was in
a title that didn't stretch the boundaries of the aging
genre.
It didn't use the Dreamcast to
its full potential either, but Capcom vs. SNK was a better fit
on the more humble Playstation. That fit became even more
comfortable when Capcom squeezed two new characters into the
roster. The kings of karate comedy, Dan Hibiki and Joe
Higashi, brought a sense of humor and more variety to a game
that badly needed both.
Not much was done to bring
balance to the stilted ratio system, and the game's migration
to the Playstation brought with it an abundance of load times.
However, without a port of the exceptional Capcom vs. SNK 2,
this is the best way to settle that long-standing grudge
between Ryu and Ryo on the PSP. The graphics look right at
home on the hardware, and the gameplay is as responsive as it
can be with the system's always aggravating separated
cross.
SLAP HAPPY RYHTHM
BUSTERS:
Now that's the way to bust a
move! Slap Happy Ryhthm Busters brings together over a dozen
eccentric DJs for a battle royale that's part Street Fighter
Alpha, part Jet Set Radio, and part Dance Dance Revolution.
Slap Happy was planned for America, only to be scrapped by
T*HQ at the last minute. After you play it, you'll agree that
there's no excuse on Earth that can justify the game's US
cancellation.
Your first reaction to Slap Happy
will likely be "How did they make this look so damn good?" The
developers got a near-Dreamcast level of detail out of the
game by packing the polygons onto the cel-shaded characters,
then dropping them onto flat backgrounds. That means there's
no 3D movement whatsoever; just classic fighting action
inspired by the biggest arcade hits of the 1990's. You'll
fling CDs instead of fireballs, and swing from a wire with
guns blazing instead of performing a boring old dragon punch.
It's all familiar, but it's all good.
The finishers radically transform
the gameplay, and really put the "beat" in beatdown. Just
press the two shoulder buttons together when your rival is low
on energy, and you'll enter a dance challenge where every
correct button press is rewarded with a fist in the helpless
opponent's face. Miss too many dance steps and your foe
escapes with minimal damage, but make all the right moves and
you'll wrap up the attack with a humiliating final
strike!
All right, that's enough outta me. I'll
be back in a few days with an analysis of my recently
acquired slimline Playstation 2. You might
be surprised by what I've got to say about it, so stay
tuned!
April 10,
2007... Wasted
Words
Lately, there's been a lot of talk about a new
web site called Action
Button, from the
creators of Insert
Credit and
Large Prime
Numbers. Like so many other gaming sites,
Action Button offers reviews of the
latest software for consoles like the Xbox 360 and
Playstation 2. However, there's an important
difference. From Zelda: Twilight
Princess to God of War II, each critique on
Action Button is written with the goal of antagonizing the
reader. It's sort of like Something Awful, with the
bold-faced sarcasm replaced with overt criticism of minor
gameplay issues that would generally be squeezed into the end
of other reviews... if they're mentioned at all. Some
have lauded this approach to game criticism as daring,
original, and thought-provoking. I think it's
manipulative, gimmicky, and hollow.
Action Button is
edited by one Tim Rogers. He's made a name for
himself on the Internet with his, uh, distinctive writing
style, packed with long-winded anecdotes about his personal
life and absurd metaphors that swallow his reviews whole,
leaving little room for the games they're supposed to
cover. In many ways, Rogers is everything that I am
not... successful, prolific, and fondly regarded, but also
evasive, indirect, and smugly assured of his own wit. He
doesn't really review games per se...
he writes rambling Livejournal entries with the shredded
scraps of a game review sprinkled on top as a garnish.
Then people who really should know better pay him for
it.
I resent this style of writing. It
demonstrates both the reviewer's love for himself and a
mocking contempt for the reader. If you'll pardon a
metaphor of my own, it's the journalistic equivalent of tying
a dog out in the front yard and dangling a juicy steak in
front of it, regaling the slobbering beast with tales about
the cow it came from, the supermarket where it was purchased,
and the marinade it was left soaking in overnight, until at
long last throwing a small chunk of meat in the dirt, just
within the hunger-crazed hound's reach. Action Button
worsens the situation by slapping the dog around with the
steak before giving it an enema with the sharpened end of the
T-bone. To put it in simpler terms (the kind Rogers
never uses), Action Button is dishonest and
antagonistic, adding more static to an internet
where the signal to noise ratio is already appallingly
low.
There's nothing wrong with giving a wildly popular
game a thumbs down. Heaven knows I've done it plenty of
times myself! However, if you're going to pan a game,
honesty should be the sole motivating factor in that
decision. Manipulating your readers in an effort to
present yourself as avant-garde, or wasting their time with
page after page of irrelevant nonsense, is doing them a
huge disservice.
April 1, 2007... We Are
the NiGHTS Who Say
Wii
Can you believe it? The
Gameroom Blitz is nearly eleven years old. At the rate
things are going, the site will be in publication 'till the
sun goes supernova and all life on Earth is painfully
extinguished! Hopefully the server will have moved to
another planet by then...
Anyway, here's the latest
gaming and tech news. That's why you're here,
right? Somebody might as well be giving you
this information today, since nobody else will! The
latest from Kotaku is that Toys 'R Us will be opening its
floodgates and drowning its customers in a sea of Nintendo
Wiis. Nearly five months after its release, the system
is still as hard to find as prison stripes on Paris
Hilton... hopefully, the sudden generosity of Toys 'R Us
coupled with Nintendo hiring two more factories to produce
consoles will change all that.
But wait, there's
more! Kingdom Hearts Final Mix Plus has been launched in
Japan... and it's brought with it news of another Kingdom
Hearts title; something darker and angrier than the previous
games in the series. Oh crap. If the marriage of
Square and Disney characters wasn't hard ENOUGH to swallow,
now we'll have to deal with a Mickey Mouse who's got a
tortured past and a chip on his shoulder!
What
else? Oh how I wish this was an April Fool's joke, but
apparently it's for real... Ninja Gaiden, the game that
threatened to melt your Xbox into a black puddle of goo with
its life-like visuals, is coming to the Nintendo DS.
Indeed, Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword doesn't look anywhere near
as good as it did on the Xbox, but the editors from IGN were
pretty impressed with the game's control, claiming
that it's just as responsive as the Xbox version despite the
almost exclusive use of the touchscreen.
In
other seemingly unlikely news, NiGHTS is making his (or her?)
comeback after an eleven year absence. Portugal's Maxi
Consola magazine has shown early pictures of the game, and
while it's every bit as vibrant as the Saturn original, it
lacks the polish you'd expect from ten years of
technological advancements. It still has the potential
to be a lot of fun, though... if there were any controller
that I'd want to use to play a sequel to NiGHTS, the Wii
remote would be it.
Just one more thing, folks!
I've updated the Nintendo DS page with five new reviews.
Swing on by and give it a look!
