7/30/04

Wait, why was this a bad thing again?

7/27/04

The shock of seeing Sega's games on Nintendo's systems may have worn off by now, but it's hard not to be surprised when you see all three major console manufacturers from the 90's mentioned in the same game.  These screens are from the recently released US version of Astro Boy: The Omega Factor.  Although they're referring specifically to the film studio and not SCEA, I still can't help but laugh when I see Sony's name prominently displayed in a Game Boy Advance game.  Perhaps we'll be seeing a lot more of this in the future, after the PSP goes down in flames and Sony's forced to turn to Nintendo to publish portable versions of their most popular games.

7/21/04

Not content with merely neglecting older gamers, video game companies like Midway have taken things one step further and started to antagonize them.  In an article on the "thugification of gaming", written for the 1UP web site by Jeremy Parish, Midway marketing analyst Mark Allison makes it abundantly clear that his company has no interest in satisfying the needs of gamers who've fallen out of the 18-34 age demographic.  He goes on to characterize them as loud-mouthed nerds obsessed with fantasy games, as if everyone who hits the age of 35 magically transforms into the Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons.

I shouldn't be surprised by these comments, nor should I resent Midway as much as I do for making them.  After all, I'm still five years away from slipping out of the age group the company thinks is so important.  Still, their completely writing off customers who want games that AREN'T stupid and phat and poppin' fresh doesn't sit well with me.  Sure, marketing exclusively to casual gamers may bring in the noise, bring in the bucks at first.  However, when you ignore or even mock the concerns of the industry's core audience, who will continue to play video games even after it stops being cool to do so, you're setting yourself up for a lot of misery (and bankruptcy) in the future.

I seriously thought about purchasing Midway Arcade Treasures, but after reading this article, I think I'll just rent it, or buy it used.  Since I'm one of those gamers who likes fairies and dragons, my money's no good at Midway anyway, right?

7/19/04

I normally use this site to air my grievances about video games, buuut since I've been in a better mood than usual lately (more hours and pay will do that to a guy), and you've probably grown tired of my bitching about everything under the sun, I'm going to try something different and discuss everything I LIKE about video games.

I LIKE... the Nintendo GameCube.  I wasn't sure what to think of this system when it was released three years ago, but after buying a GameCube for a ridiculously low price, I just don't know what I'd do without it.  It's cheap, it's fun, and it's got a bunch of must-have games you just can't have on any other system.  The GameCube is also better supported by third party developers than its predecessor, the Nintendo 64.  Some big-name games aren't released on all three systems (lousy Rockstar...), but the ones that are look better than they do on the Playstation 2 and can be found for fifteen dollars or less.

I LIKE... Tony Hawk.  Not the man, but his games.  I kept my distance from them at first, but I eventually fell prey to the Hawk after picking up the second game for the Dreamcast.  Once you understand the play mechanics and learn to deal with the frustration of wiping out, you'll have a lot of fun stringing together huge combos and catching more air than an industrial-strength fan.  The more recent Tony Hawk's Underground is enjoyable too, although sometimes I wonder if the designers packed TOO much into that game.  There are so many new tricks that it's impossible for anyone but a Tony Hawk expert to keep track of them all.  The Caveman is pretty slick, though... merely getting off your skateboard in the middle of a combo is considered a trick of its own.  Using this, I was able to rack up the kind of insane six figure scores that were once limited to the Tony Hawk elite.  Thanks, Neversoft!

I LIKE... the GameBoy Player.  Snap this adapter onto your GameCube and you'll be able to play all your favorite Game Boy Advance games with a full-sized screen and joystick.  Sure, you could do the same thing with your computer, but where are you gonna find a PC for $150 that can pull off something as complex as Game Boy Advance emulation?  Besides, the GameBoy Player has some exclusive features, like a wide variety of colorful frames and a user interface that syncs up nicely with the frontend built into the standard GameCube.

I LIKE... the NES.  So much so that I'm spending a hundred clams on the Game Boy Advance SP Classic, which looks like a pocket NES.  Do I need another Game Boy Advance?  Hell no... even if I lost my original system and my computer blew a fuse, I could still play the games on my GameBoy Player.  Still, how could anyone resist one of their favorite systems, shaped like one of their OTHER favorite systems?

Speaking of the NES, you're probably wondering why its games have been the subject of so many mini-reviews here on the Blitz.  Well, here's the scoop... I'm working on a project with a few friends of mine, and the reviews you've been seeing were originally intended to be included in it.  The reviews were a little too verbose, however, which is why I've decided to publish them here.  I can't tell you much else about the project, except that we should have it finished in time for the twentieth anniversary of the best game console ever made.

7/15/04

You've got to love those wacky monopolists at Microsoft.  After losing profit on the XBox for three straight years, they're STILL convinced that they can dominate the video game industry by continuing to throw money at it.  Company CEO Steve Ballmer has made the lofty claim that Microsoft will knock Sony out of the console wars after the next generation of game systems have been released.  You've got to admire his boundless optimism, but let's look at the facts here.  Microsoft has yet to make a penny on the XBox, despite investing billions of dollars in both the unit itself and its XBox Live online service.  Moreover, the versatility that's made the XBox famous among hackers may not be a feature in Microsoft's next system.  There's already talk that the NextBox will use different hardware, will not include a hard drive, and will not offer backward compatibility with the original XBox.  This is clearly an attempt to keep computer geeks from modifying the system to run Linux, but this move could ultimately prove Microsoft's undoing.  Ironically, Linux is why their console has sold so well in the first place.  Take out that functionality and you've got just another game system, with nothing to distinguish it from its competitors.

While Microsoft and Sony fight over the majority of the market share, Nintendo will continue to thrive by catering to the audiences that the other companies neglect.  And mouth breathing XBox and Playstation fanboys will continue to predict doom and gloom for Nintendo, even while the company makes millions of dollars from families, children, and old-school gamers who have nowhere else to go for their gaming enjoyment.  In their quest for market domination, Microsoft has forgotten that it's better to make a small profit than a HUGE loss.

7/12/04

The only thing better than adding a bunch of new games to your collection is finding them for absurdly low prices.  Circuit City recently unloaded many of their older console and Game Boy Advance titles for a shocking five dollars apiece, and even Midwestern retail outlet Meijer has gotten into the act, offering select games for ten dollars.  They made the deal even sweeter with a special one day offer, slashing the price of every second game you purchased in half!  Even this didn't make Meijer's offer quite as generous as Circuit City's, but it was more than enough to convince me to pick up four games.

The original plan was to get as many GameCube titles as I could afford, but as always, money was tight, and I didn't find enough dirt-cheap Cube games that I really wanted to justify picking up more than two of them.  I gave Spawn: Armageddon and Rayman 3 some consideration, but I've been burned on too many Spawn games to take a risk with this one, and I hated Rayman's new, more extreme character design.  I decided instead to pick up Namco Museum and Legends of Wrestling II, and see what the store had in the way of bargain basement Playstation 2 titles.

The first thing I noticed is that although there were twice as many PS2 games available, not nearly as many of them were marked at clearance prices.  I did manage to find a few, though... like Lupin the Third: Treasure of the Sorcerer King.  This was perched on the top shelf, hidden from most gamers and nearly out of my reach.  Maybe they wouldn't have had to cut the price if they actually bothered to make it, you know, visible.  Er, anyway, I had the money for one more game, so I picked up Black and Bruised, a comical boxing title often compared to Mike Tyson's Punch Out!!

So, how were the games?  Well, half of 'em weren't too shabby.  I didn't care for Legends of Wrestling II at first... the loud, obnoxious rock music and wrestler designs that strike an awkward balance between realism and cartoony exaggeration left me cold.  However, things warmed up pretty quickly when I started the career mode.  You start off wrestling in small arenas with a few dozen people watching your fights, but as you progress, the stadiums get bigger and the crowds become more enthusiastic.  When you graduate from anonymous jobbers to classic wrestling heroes like Hacksaw Jim Duggan, the battles get a lot more intense, and it's not just because the fights are tougher.  It just feels like there's a lot more at stake when you're surrounded by thousands of cheering fans, capturing you on film with every bright flash of their cameras.

I liked Lupin the Third as well... but then again, I'm a little biased, since I'm such a fan of the cartoon that inspired it.  There have been many Lupin games released in the past twenty years, but this is the first one that goes to great lengths to be faithful to the license, rather than shoehorning the crafty crook and his band of thieves into a Rolling Thunder or Tomb Raider clone.  Treasure of the Sorcerer King is a stealth action game, although I wouldn't compare it to Metal Gear Solid... this is more linear, and as you might expect, a lot less serious.  Lupin strikes silly poses behind statues to keep from getting discovered by police officers, and can wallop the cops with a frying pan if he's backed into a corner.  Eventually, you're given the chance to play as Lupin's partners in crime, and there are even unlockable bonuses like mini-games that you can lift from the pockets of your unsuspecting victims.  From what I've seen so far, Treasure of the Sorcerer King seems largely dependant on the player's interest in all things Lupin.  If you can't stand the show, don't even bother with the game, but if you love the wacky antics of that skirt-chasing scoundrel and his friends, you might want to add this to your collection.

However, I wouldn't suggest purchasing either of the last two games under any circumstances.  Namco Museum is yet another in a long line of phoned-in classic game collections by Namco.  If you thought Todd Frye's conversion of Pac-Man was a travesty, just wait until you see what Namco and Mass Media have done to the game on a system many times more powerful than the 2600!  You'd think that a perfect translation of a twenty year old arcade game would be a slamdunk for a powerhouse like the GameCube, but sadly, the graphics still look just as compromised as they did on the Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, and every other system that's been plagued with this collection.  The "arrangements", greatly enhanced sequels to games like Dig Dug and Galaga, could have saved Namco Museum, but they too suffer from compressed graphics and ugly borders that gobble up nearly half the screen.  There are no "tate" (vertical screen) modes, no added features aside from two lackluster hidden games, and frankly, no valid reasons to buy this disc if you've already downloaded MAME on your computer.

Black and Bruised demonstrates much more effort on the parts of the designers, but it isn't much more entertaining.  The only thing it really borrows from Punch Out!! is its selection of stereotyped characters, this time ranging from a hot-tempered Irish lush to Dolly Parton in her younger days.  The gameplay is vastly different, however... it would be a lot more accurate to compare it to that other quickly forgotten boxing game, Ready 2 Rumble.  You're given full run of the ring and can pummel your foes with a large variety of combos.  Unfortunately, most of them are too complicated to memorize, and your foe's weaknesses are too ambiguous to exploit.  These flaws leave you with a frustrating button masher where Latino milquetoasts and demure environmentalists somehow beat muscular drill sargeants and massive prison inmates to a bloody pulp.

Was my spending spree worth the disappointment and the empty wallet?  Yeah, I'd have to say so.  It's been a long time since I've picked up some new games, and even longer since I've used my Playstation 2 for something other than a cheap DVD player.  Also, I can't say that I regret buying either Lupin the Third or Legends of Wrestling II... I'm sure that both games will have a lot to offer if I'm willing to stick with them.

7/7/04