6/29/04

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.

6/28/04

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...

6/25/04

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.

6/22/04

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.

6/16/04

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.

6/14/04

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. 

6/9/04

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. 

6/7/04

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.