6/24/07
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.
6/18/07
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!
6/10/07
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.
6/05/07
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.
5/26/07
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.
5/22/07
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!
5/21/07
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.
5/16/07
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!
5/09/07
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!
5/03/07
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!
