4/28/06
Man, Nintendo just doesn't have a clue. If the name of their newly christened game system doesn't prove this, the oblivious comments made by Nintendo spokesman Perrin Kaplan on IGN almost certainly do. Just... just listen to this.
IGN Wii: Some overzealous readers have created some truly phallic Wii designs. We e-mailed you several of them, as you saw. Any plans to use any of these brilliant materials in your official marketing plans?
Perrin Kaplan: What a nice way of asking that question! We actually have had a day of a lot of smiles around here with a variety of things that fans have created, let me just say that. It shows you that people are big fans of Nintendo.
Big fans? BIG FANS?! Big fans don't take your latest, most prized creation and turn it into the butt of endless dick jokes. THEY'RE MAKING FUN OF YOU, YOU EMPTYHEADED SCHILL!!! Honestly, she can't be that stupid. They've got to be paying her millions to act this stupid.
And to all the "hardcore gamers" out there who say that the name doesn't matter and that true video game fans will buy the Nintendo Wii no matter what... get over yourselves! Marketing is an essential part of this industry... if you can't entice customers to purchase your product, it's going to stay on store shelves, and you're not going to stay in business. Nintendo is crowing that the new name has generated a lot of talk, but then again, so did New Coke, and we all know what happened with THAT little disaster.
When Namco brought Pac-Man to the United States, they had the good sense to shorten the name from Puck-Man to protect it from cheeky vandals and jokesters. Twenty five years later, an industry powerhouse like Nintendo with decades of experience under its belt can't figure out how much damage a name like "Wii" will do to its chances of competing with Sony and Microsoft in the United States.
Of course, as a friend of mine pointed out on his 1UP blog, they might not even care. The Nintendo brand name has lost a lot of its luster in the West, but the company continues to shine brightly in Japan thanks to the explosive success of its DS handheld. More than anywhere else, Nintendo has a shot at claiming victory in the next generation console wars in Japan. Gamers in that country love using the DS stylus to interact with their games, and the Wii wand will bring even more dimension to that interaction. The Xbox 360 is a failure in Japan, with no hope of recovery. The Playstation 3 still doesn't exist, and even when it does, it won't bring any new innovations with it. The name "Wii" has no phallic connotations in Asia. Bring all these ingredients together, and you've got a recipe for market dominance in Japan.
If Nintendo can claim their own country in the next generation system wars, and it seems likely that they will, all other markets could quickly become irrelevant... including our own. In the past decade, Nintendo has shown no interest in placating America's increasingly demanding and hostile gamers, insisting on doing its own thing regardless of the consequences. After all the grief Nintendo has been given by Americans over the past ten years for this stubbornness, the decision to stick with the name "Wii" may be the company's way of saying "screw you guys, I'm going home."
4/27/06Quick, dirty... but entirely necessary.
4/24/06
Before I begin, I'd like to request a moment of silence for a fellow fanzine editor. Sean Pettibone died of unspecified causes last Thursday, just shy of his thirtieth birthday. Sean had a knack for stirring up controversy in his newsletter In Between The Lines, but everyone who wrote a fanzine in the early 1990's will remember him for his writing talent and his sharp sense of humor. Sean Pettibone was a cornerstone of video game fandom, and without his influence, gaming journalism as we know it today would have suffered greatly. Keep fighting the power, Sean, wherever you may be!
I guess there's not much else for me to say, aside from this... we interview Adventure II creator and Atari 5200 devotee Ron Lloyd in the fourth and final installment of The Brews Brothers. Also, we're closing in on the tenth anniversary of The Gameroom Blitz... we'll celebrate the date with the continuation of Systematix 2006, as well as a few other surprises you're sure to enjoy.
4/21/06
Forget about the blues tonight! In this update of The Gameroom Blitz, the PSP takes a backseat (oooo-ooh...) to the Nintendo DS. We'll break out the stylus and get physical with four great games, the ones that you'll want for this totally hot handheld. Enough talk... I've got reviewin' to do!
ADVANCE WARS DUAL STRIKE: I'm not overly fond of turn-based strategy games, but I was instantly won over by this slick Nintendo release when I played it briefly at a local LAN party. After purchasing a copy of my own and spending a little more time with the game, I can understand my almost instant infatuation with it. Advance Wars has the unmistakable flavor of SNK's Metal Slug series, from the hard-hitting soundtrack to the humor that takes some of the edge off the military combat (soldiers fly off the screen when pelted with machine gun fire and stomp any city they capture into the dirt). It plays incredibly well with the touchscreen, too... just pick a unit, tap their destination, and off they go! The only flaw I've noticed so far is the trendy dialogue that smacks ever so slightly of desperation. I've seen enough exclamations of "owned!" on the Internet to last me three lifetimes... I don't need to see that dreck in my video games as well!
PHOENIX WRIGHT: With his stern gaze, threatening poses, and the most gravity-defying hairstyle this side of Conan O'Brien, Phoenix Wright looks more like your next opponent in Rival Schools than a competant attorney. You'd be surprised at just how good he is at his job, however. Phoenix Wright is as much Sherlock Holmes as Perry Mason, piecing together bits of evidence to rescue his clients from certain conviction and put the real killers behind bars. Everything you've heard about this game is true, even the negative stuff. Phoenix Wright is arguably the most linear game on the Nintendo DS, with absolutely no action and very few options for the player to select. However, once you spend some time with the game, you'll understand why it's so very difficult to find on store shelves. The courtroom battles are so dynamic and outrageous they make the OJ Simpson trial look like an episode of Judge Joe Brown... Phoenix slams his desk and uses violent hand gestures to intimidate witnesses, who fall apart on the stand when their latest alibis are torn to ribbons (complete with the sound of a samurai sword slicing through bare flesh).
BUST-A-MOVE DS: I'm sorry I didn't mention this one earlier. I've been a fan of this entertaining puzzler for years, ever since I first discovered it playing on a Neo-Geo arcade machine in the mid 1990's. However, I began to lose interest in Bust-A-Move at the turn of the century, when Taito made the unwise decision to retire the familiar stars of Bubble Bobble and replace them with a parade of increasingly disturbing and poorly drawn heroes. It took an S+M teddy bear and an animated life preserver to make Taito realize just what they'd done to the series, and try with all their might to put Bust-A-Move back on the right track. Bust-A-Move DS is the ideal resurrection of the franchise... I could not have asked for a better sequel. Not only are the audiovisuals faithful to the first two games, but there are a lot of new features that add to the fun without complicating the gameplay. Bubbles are thrown into the playfield by pulling back and releasing a rubber band, the first control scheme in Bust-A-Move history that actually works better than the classic rotating arrow. Add spectacular multiplayer modes and a swap bubble that gives you a way out of impossible situations, and you've got a title that comes oh so close to dethroning Meteos as the best puzzler on the DS.
BRAIN AGE: In the tradition of Animal Crossing and Nintendogs comes another DS title in Nintendo's Obli-gaming series, Brain Age. This game claims to make anyone who plays it smarter, but the flawed handwriting and speech recognition often guarantees that the people who play it will only get angrier. No matter how clearly or plainly you say the word "Blue" during the color-matching Stroop Test, the system will just sit there with a stylus up its butt, flashing an error message. After much frustration and a little experimentation, you discover that the trigger word is in fact "Brew," like in the Canadian beer ad starring a bear and a dozen drunk Japanese businessmen. Way to go, Nintendo... you think maybe you could get the stylus out of your OWN butt and spend more time localizing the next Brain Age title? Despite the quirky interface, Brain Age definitely earns its keep, putting players through the wringer with a variety of fiendish timed challenges. If the rapid-fire calculations or the memorization doesn't keep you mesmerized, the devilishly addictive Sudoku almost certainly will.
By the way, in case you haven't noticed, there's an interview with Chrono Resurrection developer Nathan Lazur on the Brews Brothers page. I'm meeting you dirty Square-lovin' hippies halfway!
4/17/06
Over the past few years, I've noticed that Nintendo is fond of what I like to call "regimen gaming"... basically, video games that require a daily effort from the player. The company first dipped its toe into this genre with Animal Crossing on the Japanese Nintendo 64 and GameCube, then jumped in with both feet when the Nintendo DS was released. Now we've got the virtual pet simulation Nintendogs, and most recently, Brain Age.
The games aren't so much addictive as they are compulsory... they're quite enjoyable at first, but after a couple of weeks, they start to feel like an obligation. This is especially the case with virtual pet sims which grab you by the heartstrings and refuse to let go, no matter how bored you get with taking that puppy out for a walk or feeding a chubby dragonette brightly colored eggplants. Brain Age takes that sense of obligation once step further by calling itself a tool for self-improvement. The player is warned that if they fail to play the game on a regular basis, they're not hurting an adorable digital pet, but themselves.
Personally, I don't see what the big N hopes to accomplish by using emotional blackmail to chain players to their controllers. I remember a time when people kept playing Nintendo games because they wanted to do it, not because their arms were twisted by the bloated head of a Japanese professor. Besides, isn't forcing players to come back to a single game only hurting Nintendo's chances at selling more of them? There's much to be said for lasting replay value, but when you're returning to a video game out of a sense of obligation, your opinion of it is bound to change from admiration to resentment.
4/14/06
I just got back from a college lecture about video games. Can they really be considered a legitimate form of artistic expression, and is there really more to Tetsuya Mizuguchi's Rez than slick graphics and a thumping soundtrack? Any gamer worth his salt already knows the answer to the first question, but it turns out that Rez is far deeper than I realized... as a work of art, at least. I also discovered from the lecture that the game can (and sometimes should!) be played passively; a tribute to the teachings of rotund religious leader Buddha. If only that much thought had been put into the gameplay!
What else? Oh, I guess I should mention that there's a new Tomb Raider game out now. After all the comedy I was able to wring out of Lara Croft's big fake boobies, the least I could do in return is give her latest release some free publicity. So what's up with Tomb Raider Legend? Can it put this once wildly popular series back on its feet after seven years of bad luck?
Personally, I think that the Tomb Raider franchise was damaged beyond repair after three increasingly awful sequels, and that no amount of atonement will ever be enough to make Lara Croft relevant to today's gamers. Still, I've got to applaud Crystal Dynamics for fixing much of what was broken in the previous Tomb Raider games. Lara Croft is no longer chained to a "turn-walk-turn" control scheme; instead, you can move her freely in any direction, and point the camera wherever you like with the right analog stick.
It's a step in the right direction for sure, but the developers still have a long way to go before Lara is as nimble as the stars of Ninja Gaiden or Prince of Persia. The control isn't as tight or precise as it should be, resulting in missed jumps and painful falls. Lara's got the aim of a Stormtrooper, and many of her tools and even basic moves like climbing cliff walls are more difficult to use than necessary.
Why do game developers insist on using EVERY button on the PS2 controller, anyway? The otherwise fantastic God of War had the same problem, forcing the player to key in awkward button combinations for many of Kratos' magic attacks. This wicked excess is even more unwelcome in a game like Tomb Raider, with its many perilous jumps. When you need to scramble up that cliff RIGHT NOW, you don't need to play a guessing game with the Dual Shock controller to find out which button will rescue Lara from certain doom.
Fans of Tomb Raider will be quick to point out the improvements in Legends, but gamers not blinded by brand loyalty will acknowledge that the game is still lagging a few years behind its competitors. At least the Tomb Raider franchise is stuck in 2003 now, rather than 1997!
4/10/06The next installment of the Brews Brothers is just around the corner... but first, how about a few cartoon reviews, courtesy of contributor John Roche and myself?
By the way, RPG fans with reservations about Suikoden V can buy the game with confidence. There's more to this recent Konami release than a once-trusted brand name... it really looks, sounds, and feels like the Suikoden games of old. If only I could say the same thing about Grandia III!
4/6/06
It was a long time coming, but Systematix has been updated with a brand new Jessboard and reviews of nearly twenty different game consoles! Check it out, and see how your favorite system matches up against the rest!
All right, with that out of the way, it's time for that bitter ranting you've come to expect from The Gameroom Blitz. You remember when I heaped all that praise onto True Crime: Streets of L.A.? I stand by every word of it, but none of those words apply to the sequel, New York City. Actually, it's not so much a legitimate sequel as it is a completely shameless and totally awful clone of Grand Theft Auto. I told the designers at Luxoflux as much in an E-mail, but the message mysteriously (heh) bounced.
That's fine, though! I'm going to make darned good and sure SOMEONE reads this, if only to make sure that nobody else makes the same mistake I did and pays good money for this sham of a sequel.
I loved True Crime: Streets of L.A., but this
terrible sequel had absolutely none of its energy or excitement. All the
tongue-in-cheek humor, all the thrilling arcade-style action, all the fun of
tracking down and stopping crime as it erupted throughout the city... it was all
gone. Why? WHY?
Even after reading the negative
reviews in video game magazines and web sites, I gave True Crime: New York City
an honest chance. However, when I got it home and popped it into my Xbox,
I quickly discovered that it wasn't the True Crime I loved so much on the
GameCube. It was just another mind-numbing, soul-sucking, crotch-punching
Grand Theft Auto clone, right down to the awkward jumping and the monotonous
missions.
If I wanted Grand Theft Auto (and I don't), I'd PLAY Grand
Theft Auto. Here's the thing, though... I didn't buy Grand Theft
Auto. I bought a True Crime game, and that was the experience I was
expecting. That's not what I got. I feel like I was cheated out of
the sequel I really wanted. I sincerely hope the changes made to the game
were forced by the management, because I'd hate to think that Luxoflux would
willingly compromise its integrity just to cash in on fleeting industry trends.
When you make a REAL sequel to True Crime, let me know. I sure as
hell won't play another game like New York City, and judging from the
unflattering reviews it's received, I doubt anyone else will.
The latest installment of The Brews Brothers is up and ready for your perusal. Wish I had more to say, but I'm just not in the mood... this will have to do.
4/1/06
Click here for this year's April Fool's joke.
