3/31/03

Even though it's my week off, I've got a lot of stuff I need to take care of, like hunting for a new job so I'll be prepared when my current one expires, and moving to a new apartment.  So you may not see any substancial updates here for a little while... just teeny little ones like this.

3/29/03

A few weeks ago, I saw an magazine advertisement for Rayman 3, boasting that the character had no arms and legs, but big features.  That would be perfectly fine if it weren't for the fact that he was using a urinal at the time, with a crowd of men staring slack-jawed at his crotch.

Tecmo upped the ante by using sexual innuendo to promote their next game... a horse racing simulation.  Note that I said a horse RACING simulation, not a horse breeding simulation.  I can understand promoting a game with sex when sex is actually present in the game, but is it really necessary to drag men by their groins to the latest cute side-scrolling platformer or gambling sim?  Is the video game industry hurting so badly that they have to appeal to their dumbest and horniest customers for money?  Good grief.

I remember a time when video game ads were wholesome, family-friendly, and most importantly, so freaking weird that there was no way you'd ever forget them, even if the games they promoted weren't particularly interesting.  Just look at this!  Sure, Heiankyo Alien was about as fun as hammering nails into your molars, but there is no way, absolutely no way, you're ever going to get a picture like this out of your head.  It makes me want to run out and buy the game RIGHT NOW... but then I remember that it sucks the big one and stay put.

Oh yeah, that prototype version of Frogger should be on its way to the nearest game dumper pretty soon.  I've written a review of the game for you to read while you wait for the ROM to be released on Vertigo: 2099 and SMS Power.  Sadly, I can't distribute it here on the Blitz... if I did, there's no telling what Pretzel and Green would do to me!

Yeah, yeah, they're just abstractly drawn cartoon characters.  Still, they could poke my eyes out with the ends of their pointy little bodies or something.

3/28/03

What?  There was a Saturn version of Konami's outstanding RPG Suikoden, and NOBODY TOLD ME?!  And to think, all this time I've been playing the game on the Playstation like a sucker...

Something odd is happening to the video game industry right now.  It's pulling in huge profits, yet many companies and developers are either on the edge of bankruptcy or have fallen off completely.  Crawfish was forced out of business after releasing what SHOULD have been their most popular game yet, the impressive Game Boy Advance version of Street Fighter Alpha 3.  Sega was forced to merge with another corporation to stay alive, despite the fact that their games are among the best you can buy on either the Playstation 2 or the X-Box.  Even Acclaim is finally starting to crumble into dust.  They're long overdue for that fate, but nobody else deserves it.  Besides, what's going to happen to the video game industry if all the third party software developers go belly up?  Sony may be making lots of money now, but even they're not going to be able to keep the Playstation 2 alive on their own.

3/26/03

I've heard people say, "What's wrong with 3D, anyway?  Does it really hurt a video game's playability that much?  Does the more realistic perspective make games that much harder to play?" 

That's when I show them Paatank on the 3DO... and that's when they shut up.

Paatank is a pinball game... but not just any pinball game.  This one's in 3D, and it perfectly illustrates why a first person perspective works so poorly in many video games.  You're always left vulnerable because you're not given a full field of vision... you can't see where you are relative to the rest of the entire playfield, and you're at the mercy of enemies hiding in your blind spots.  You'll never know one of the bad guys are creeping up behind you until they've planted a dagger in your back.  However, 2D games have no blind spots, and offer a better sense of direction.  They also give the player a fair shot at defending themselves, because they can see what's about to happen and know to react accordingly.  To put it simply, they work better as games than their three dimensional counterparts.

I'm not saying that every first person game leaves the player completely helpless.  However, this one does.  Paatank gives you little indication of how close you are to the drain hole in the playfield, so you'll often find yourself falling into it.  It's also harder to keep tabs on the playfield targets.  The fact that you can control the ball directly doesn't help as much as you'd think... it takes the skill out of the game and feels really clumsy.

Any game companies out there that are planning to sail through uncharted waters to find the surprise hit of the summer are advised to steer clear of the rocky reefs of 3D pinball.  In fact, I'd tell them to keep their distance from 3D anything if at all possible.

3/25/03

I'd like to extend my retroactive thanks to Chris Kohler for sending me that 3DO controller a few years ago.  I've been waiting to put it to good use, and now that I have my system back, I can do just that.  Better yet, this joypad was designed by a third party rather than Panasonic, so it has a more logical button placement and actually responds to the player's input occasionally.  If you've ever owned a 3DO, you'd understand that this is a major achievement.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've lost one too many rounds of Way of the Warrior, and I'll need a couple of minutes to vent my frustration.  Let's see... there's my spiked baseball bat and brass knuckles.  I wonder if Rob Zombie is home?

3/24/03

People were worried about terrorists invading the Oscars this year.  What they got was even worse... Michael Moore.  After receiving an award for, well, something (my guess is a lifetime achievement award for the most conceited asshole in filmmaking... I bet Kevin Smith and Spike Lee were pissed!), he waddled onto the stage and proceeded to angrily- and sanctimoniously!- denounce the war with Iraq.  Because you know, Saddam Hussein has feelings, too.  Luckily for everyone, Moore's political tantrum was cut short after the show's theme music drowned him out and Jack Valenti threatened to give him the Oscar sideways.  Some members of the audience applauded during Michael Moore's award speech, but just as many people cheered after Steve Martin predicted that the Teamster's Union would be waiting outside to shove Moore into the trunk of their car (as if he'd even fit).

The truly hilarious thing about this is that Moore, and others like him, think that they can rally support for their cause by being disruptive, obnoxious bastards.  Sorry, guys, but it doesn't work like that.  In fact, you're doing more to discourage peoples' support than anything else.  I was on the fence about this war... in fact, I didn't appreciate that Bush had started it without any direct provokation from Iraq.  However, when the anti-war protestors act like rude, arrogant jerks, and nearly all of them do, I become more and more inclined to side with Bush in the Iraqi conflict.  After hearing Moore's speech last night, I'm tempted to fly a jet to the Middle East and fight the damn war myself.

Now for something more relevant.  My aunt flew in from Arizona for a visit, and she brought the rest of my gaming stuff with her.  After four long years, I can finally partake in some 3D-licious 3DO goodness!  All right, it's probably closer to 3DO mediocrity, but in any case, I can play my 3DO again.  I also finally have my copy of the unreleased Game Gear version of Frogger, and plan to get it dumped and distributed across the Internet so EVERYONE can enjoy it.  It just ain't fair for me to keep this dandy of a game to myself, after all.

Finally, my aunt somehow managed to dig up this ancient treasure map.  As you can see, it's a little convoluted, with tons of twisting, turning passageways.  I wonder where it leads...?

3/22/03

Oops... one of my readers pointed out that yes, there is indeed an E-mail address on Jackie Kashian's web site.  The resolution on my work computer is so low that I could only see the yellow E-mail graphic in the navigation bar, not the link directly beneath it.  I expected the graphic itself to have a link to Ms. Kashian's E-mail, and since it didn't, I came to the conclusion that it was removed to spare Jackie further headaches from her geekier fans' dumb inquiries.

Now that I've solved that little mystery, I think I'll work on figuring out why my readership has dropped over the past week.  Does it have something to do with all the recent pinball coverage?  Gee, I didn't realize people found the game so boring.  If it makes you feel any better, I haven't completely neglected video games in this update, adding two new John Roche reviews and more content to the Fallen Angels FAQ.  You don't have to thank me... just don't make a break for the door when Byron comes back, all right?

Who knew my banner graphic would mirror real life so quickly?  I've heard reports that Saddam Hussien was nicked by one of our strikes, just days after the war with Iraq began.  Wow.  I had mixed thoughts about this attack, but if it's going to yield the desired results this quickly, it's hard to complain about it.  Naturally, the anti-war demonstrators are already raising a stink about the bombs dropping in Bahgdad, but they're conveniently forgetting about the citizens of Iraq who welcome the troops as they tear down pictures of Saddam Hussein.  There are two sides to this conflict... some Iraqis will definitely suffer, but others stand to benefit from Saddam's removal.  I wish people would be more willing to see the whole picture, rather than clinging to their own biased distortions of it.  That includes both the cretins who refer to fried potatoes as "freedom fries" and the not-so-peaceful protestors that call anyone with an opposing viewpoint a "murderer".

3/20/03

A few weeks ago, I watched the all-too brief performance of a comedian on Comedy Central.  Normally, this wouldn't be anything out of the ordinary... after all, this is Comedy Central, and that's kind of what you'd expect them to show.  However, this particular stand-up comic really stood out, because she managed to work references to video games- even obscure ones, like the Game Boy ports of Final Fantasy!- into her act.  I've been planning to contact Jackie Kashian for a while now, but by the time I located her web site she'd removed the link to her E-mail address.  Her performance must have resonated with so many other nerds that she quickly became tired of answering their questions.  You know, questions like, "What's your favorite Square game of all time?", "Why won't you go out with me?", and the ever popular "You're not still mad about my giving your cat a mohawk, are you?"

3/18/03

I dare say that next to Sagaia, this is the best Darius game ever made.

Just played around with a half dozen Visual Pinball tables, including a couple players had designed from scratch.  Many of them weren't that great, but this... oh man.  Who knew that Darius would make a better pinball game than a shooter...?

3/17/03

Well, I've made my decision... the furry community now has one less member.  It's really just a symbolic gesture, though, because not much is gonna change around here.  I'll continue to publish Zoo Logic on a weekly basis, I'll still keep in touch with the friends I made while in furry fandom, and I'll still read the comics I enjoy most, regardless of whether or not they star animal characters.  The only real difference is that I'll stop trying to get noticed in a fandom that's went to great lengths to make me feel unwanted.  The jury's still out on the fate of the card game... I'm confident that the concept can still work, but I'm not sure if I'm the right person to head the project.  Someone with more dedication to furry fandom and the same knack for designing solid play mechanics ought to assume control of Fur Fusion.  If you fit that description and would like development of the game to continue, drop me a line and we'll work out the details.

Back to gaming matters.  I skimmed through a copy of Dave Halverson's Play and discovered two things.  The first is that Halverson hasn't changed a bit from when he left Die Hard Game Fan... every page of Play is dripping with just as much forced enthusiasm for lousy games as Dave's last magazine.  Can you think of anyone else in the publishing industry who's shameless enough to lavish praise on State of Emergency after dozens of other magazines and web sites ripped it to shreds?  If you can, please shoot them.

The magazine isn't completely worthless, however.  After all, it DID reveal that Treasure, the prodigal sons of Konami who left the company after being forced to make one too many Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games, have given their former employers a peace offering in the form of a Gradius sequel.  You can definitely tell it's Treasure's game, too... one of the screenshots looks like it was lifted straight out of Radiant Silvergun.  I don't know how well vertically scrolling rounds will work in conjunction with a ship that's permanently facing the right side of the screen, but who ever expected a Treasure game to make sense?  Even Gunstar Heroes was a little off the deep end, and the company's games only got weirder from there.

One last thing... Josh, if you're out there, we need to talk about updating the Incredibly Effing Complete Pac-Man page, because it just ain't as complete as it was two years ago.  In addition to all the new Pac-Man games available, there are also the pinball titles, which can finally be experienced at home thanks to Visual Pinball and VPinMAME.  I'm also thinking about creating a similar list of Space Invaders games... if you'd like to help me write this article, please let me know right away!

3/15/03

So, was Baby Pac-Man supposed to be a girl?  I think that's what she was in the cartoon, but there's no indication of it in the arcade game.  In fact, the youngest member of the Pac-Man clan is so plainly drawn in the video game that she could just as easily pass as her pop.  The pictures on the pinball playfield of Baby Pac riding a skateboard make her seem even more (extreme?  Uh, no) androgynous.  Sure, girls can surf the sidewalk just as well as guys, but there's no denying that the sport is enjoyed by more men than women... for every Elissa Steamer there are at least ten Tony Hawk wannabees.

Speaking of babies, it looks like we'll be getting our mascot back pretty soon.  I skimmed through the archives and realized that Byron left to star in 11 Will Die a year ago... now that's one heck of a long vacation!  Now that he's been written out of Chris Farrington's comic, Byron's free to return to The Gameroom Blitz, and he'll be doing just that shortly.

3/13/03

Here are just a few things you thought you'd never see, but will over the course of the year:

1)  Dance Dance Revolution (or a close approximation of it) on the 2600
2)  2D shooters available for the Playstation 2 in the United States
3)  A truly good version of Donkey Kong on the ColecoVision
4)  People begging for Louie Andersen to return to Family Feud (if you ever saw Richard Karn host the show, you'd understand why)

3/12/03

Just had to do a little routine maintenence on the site.  Someone's guest art wasn't showing up on the Dan Hibiki page... with any luck, it should be there now.

I thought Kubla Khan would have been much more intimidating, given the fact that his grandfather was the legendary Ghengis Khan. Sadly, Kubla didn't spend much time fighting. Even more disappointing is the fact that he looks like the love child of Mr. Miyagi and Wilfred Brimley.

I've been listening to a collection of older hits by the band Rush, and have really took a liking to one of the tracks called Xanadu.  I did some research on the song and as it turns out, most of the lyrics were borrowed from a poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who himself was inspired by a mixture of historical events and, er, heavy drug use.  I should probably mention that Rush's Xanadu, the tale of a wanderer who finds himself tortured by eternal life, has nothing to do with Olivia Newton-John's Xanadu, a campy 80's flick that's both heaven and hell to those who've watched it.  Several reviewers on the Internet Movie Data Base were left so confused by the sweet nostalgia and sour acting in Xanadu that they deemed it "the best worst film ever made".

3/10/03

I just noticed that there's been a three month gap between Nature of the Beast comics.  Yeesh, now I remember why I never got into cartooning as a business...

Anyway, I'm actually pretty happy with the way this one turned out.  Sure, it looks like a child drew it, but that was kind of the point.  You'd be surprised at just how long it took for me to color the first three panels.  About halfway through, I was tempted to hand some crayons to my nephew and have him finish the job for me!

I've got to be honest with you... I'm thinking twice about my participation in furry fandom.  I still enjoy the artwork, but I just don't feel like I have much to contribute to the community.  To top it all off, I only communicate regularly with a few furry artists.  Chris Farrington, Thomas K. Dye, and Scott Ramismoor have all been great to me, but others haven't been as kind, brushing me off and even insulting my work.  I may have been willing to fight for their acceptance at one time, but now, I don't feel it's worth the effort.

I'll have to carefully consider this before I make a decision.  If I do call it quits, I'll still publish Zoo Logic (after all, it's every bit as much a gaming comic as it is a furry comic), and I'll still support everyone who's been there for me in the past.  However, I'll probably cut the card game loose and curtail most of my artistic endeavors, concentrating instead on writing articles and reviews for The Gameroom Blitz.  I'm actually very happy- perhaps even proud- of the recent work I've done for the site.  When I look at the Fallen Angels strategy guide, and consider all the great contributions I've received from fans of The Gameroom Blitz, I can't help but think that I should have resisted the allure of passing fancies like furry fandom and stayed true to my first love, video games.

3/8/03

It might be a while before I'm finished with the next update to the Fallen Angels FAQ.  I planned on adding win quotes for each of the characters, but Psikyo gave each fighter a different comment for every possible opponent.  With ten characters in the game, that's nearly one hundred different phrases, and a hundred matches I'll need to play to get them all.  Luckily, the bosses can't battle each other, and Roche (bless his bloodthirsty heart) doesn't want to say anything to anybody, so that cuts down on the workload a little bit.

I do have new content for you, however.  You'll find a review of Darius R on the Game Boy Advance section of the site.  It took a long time for me to find this game, but after playing it I wonder if I should have just left it lurking 20,000 leagues beneath the sea where it belongs.  I would have been a lot happier if they'd decided to convert Sagaia to the Game Boy Advance instead.  It was a more logically designed and fun to play shooter that took what little was good about Darius and added a lot of necessary improvements, resulting in a fantastic Genesis game and an even better arcade release.  The odd thing is, Sagaia's quality didn't rub off on any of its sequels.  I didn't think much of Darius Twin on the Super NES, and Darius Gaiden on the Saturn came very close to frightening me with its cheesy new wave soundtrack, complete with opera singers that warned you of approaching boss encounters.  Zuntata's music tends to be hit or miss, but the soundtrack in Darius Gaiden was so far off target that I suspect the musicians turned their backs to the bullseye before firing.

All right, just one more thing.  I'm going to put an icon at the end of each update that leads directly to the forum, where you can discuss the topics I've brought up on the front page.  It'll be a little clumsier than what Jeremy's done with the Toastyfrog web site, but it'll nevertheless help promote feedback and keep the conversations on the message board relevant to what's happening on the site.

3/6/03

Just played 1944: The Loop Master today.  It's an excellent game, but it feels less like a true sequel to the original 194x series than it does a fan's interpretation.  It makes sense when you really think about it,  because Raizing/Eighting, the co-creators of the Bloody Roar series, were responsible for the game rather than one of Capcom's own design teams.  While I can't fault the quality of Raizing and Eighting's work, I suspect that Capcom would have known better than to add a cheesy 80's metal soundtrack to a game that takes place just after the second World War.  After a couple rounds, you start feeling like you're locked in the plane with the members of Great White.  Er, the remaining members of Great White, anyway.

3/5/03

What, an update to the Fallen Angels FAQ a day after its premiere?  Yup.  I talked to the guys at Sector: NGP about the strategy guide, and they made some pretty good suggestions, some so good I just had to include them in the FAQ right away.  Instead of confusing abbreviations for all the joystick motions, I've added arrows, which should make the guide a lot easier to read and use.  It'll also make it load more slowly, but hey, since I'm writing this in HTML, I might as well take advantage of the medium, right?

The best part about the arrows is that they'll make it a cinch to write more fighting game FAQs, should I choose to do so.  Depending on the reaction I get from this one, that's not entirely out of the question.

3/4/03

The Fallen Angels strategy guide is finished.  All readers of this site who enjoy fighting games are strongly encouraged to download the Daraku Tenshi/Fallen Angels ROM and put the new FAQ through its paces.  By the way, this was planned as a Gameroom Blitz exclusive, but someone else had other plans, sending his own Fallen Angels strategy guide to GameFAQs over the weekend.  I must admit that his guide is good... but I'm confident that mine is better.  Feel free to compare the two and draw your own conclusions.

I just wanted to mention that the Fire Sale will be closing in a week.  If you haven't gotten in your order, do it now.  If you already have, send me your scratch and I'll mail you your merchandise.  Once the shutters are closed on the sale, it'll take a serious financial emergency to pry them back open... if you want anything, you'd better get your tail in gear and tell me.

Well, I finally downloaded a copy of Visual Pinball and Visual PinMAME, and the two go together beautifully.  Problem is, the only game I've currently got that takes full advantage of this dynamic duo is the miserable Baby Pac-Man.  I knew full well that it sucked even while I was downloading it, but what can I say?  Curiousity got the better of me.  Baby Pac-Man is, after all, the only Pac-Man game I hadn't played extensively.  Due to its difficult to emulate hybrid design and limited production run, I hadn't touched the game in nearly twenty years.  I appreciated the chance to try it again after so long, but that still won't save it from the negative review it so richly deserves.  I might even throw in an equally brutal comic for good measure.