12/29/06
Another year, another Dreamcast release. This time, it's the crow-centric shooter Karous, released by Chaos Field developers Milestone. It doesn't look much better than their last title Radilgy (set to be released as "Radio Allergy" on the GameCube in 2007... in case you actually wanted to play it), but hey, it's the thought that counts!
Anyway, there are a handful of new reviews on Silver Dynamic, the Nintendo DS page. Pull up a chair and have a look... I'm sure you'll like what you see.
12/25/06
You know, PSP, you've been lagging behind in the handheld wars lately, but the latest firmware crack definitely helps swing the odds in your favor. This custom firmware by one DarkAlex gives Sony's neglected system the power to play homebrew games, backups, and best of all, original Playstation releases!
I've tried just one Playstation game on my freshly flashed PSP, and I'm already blown away by the quality of the emulation. I've been waiting for years to play Internal Section on the system... and now that I have, I can honestly say that the game looks every bit as stunning as I hoped it would be. You just can't go wrong by combining the cosmic ballet of Galaga with the cyberpunk surrealism of Tron art director Syd Mead!
There's at least a dozen other games I'd like to test next, and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is near the top of that list. I was a little underwhelmed with the latest Castlevania on the Nintendo DS... the boss fights are unbearably frustrating, and the tag-team play mechanics do more to hinder than help the player. I suspect that a shot of Symphony will help me get over that disappointment, and with the Xbox 360 port of the game still over a month away, this will be the best way to get my Metrovania fix.
12/22/06
I've got one more reason to hate Donovan Freberg.
After a random Wikipedia search revealed the location of the long-lost (but obviously not long enough!) encyclopedia guy, I had a strange urge to watch his now fifteen year old commercial. It's funny, because back when it was still on the air, I would have done anything to avoid it!
Anyway, the advertisement on YouTube was everything I remembered it was (you know, smarmy and annoying), but one thing I didn't expect was the reactions by teenagers and young adults. Most of them hated Donovan, as well they should, but others wondered aloud, "Why doesn't this twit just use the computer sitting right next to him?" Still others looked at the set of encyclopedias behind him and asked, "Is this some kind of analog internet?", as if they had stumbled upon a tomb littered with ancient artifacts.
These kids had no idea what life was like before the Internet, and couldn't imagine existing without it. For them, being without the World Wide Web would be as unthinkable as living without electricity and running water. Seeing the world from their point of view has made me realize two things.
The first is that the Information Age has had as profound an impact on society as the Industrial Age of the late 19th century. What I considered just a fun way to talk to my friends in 1996 has become an integral part of our society just a decade later.
The second is that I'm old. Very, very old. "Thanks" again, Donny!
Well, that's it for the week. Merry Christmas, everybody!
12/19/06
Wow, I can't believe it's been this long since I updated the animation page! You'll find five new cartoon reviews and an editorial here. This would have been a lot more controversial before the South Park episode Cartoon Wars, but now it just seems like I'm stating the obvious.
So what's next for the Blitz? Well, I still need to upload the next chapter of Josh Lesnick's Pac-Man retrospective. After that, I'll drop a few new reviews on the Nintendo DS page. After reading Criterion's rather dismissive opinion of Nintendo's consoles, I feel like tearing the horrendous DS conversion of Burnout Legends a new tailpipe. Yeah, they didn't write the game themselves, but that disaster wouldn't have happened at all if it hadn't been for their negligence.
12/16/06
I celebrated winter break by firing up my Xbox 360 after letting it collect dust for over a month. Now that I've spent some quality time with the system, I can't help but wonder why I neglected it for so long. The latest Xbox Live Arcade release is terrific... Assault Heroes is a delightful blend of the greatest military shooters of the late 1980's and early 1990's, made that much better with 21st century visuals. Sadly, Small Arms doesn't fare nearly as well, borrowing liberally from Super Smash Bros. but lacking the close-quarters combat that made each fight in that game a desperate, pulse-pounding struggle for survival.
Still, Microsoft should be applauded for finally putting their all into the Xbox Live Marketplace service. They're not only serving up unique games by indie developers, but a surprisingly diverse assortment of television shows and movies. You'll find buried beneath the reruns of Punk'D and Hogan Knows Best surprisingly highbrow content which proves that Microsoft respects the intelligence of its customers. I mean, wow... THX-1138? And Akira Kurosawa's Dreams? I haven't seen that one since my high school art class!
I've been pretty stingy with my Microsoft points in the past... the last thing I bought from the Marketplace was the Vampire Den expansion pack released for Oblivion eons ago. However, I may have to loosen my pursestrings if the big M keeps cranking out all this great content... and delivers a higher capacity hard drive to go with it.
12/11/06
The crumbling of the once mighty Sony empire continues with this video, featuring the worst game-related rap since Stivi Paskoski took the mike in the short-lived Video Power television series. This embarassing film clip and the web site which spawned it was brought to you by the marketing firm Rigatoni, or Zamboni, or Rice-A-Roni, or... well, you get the idea.Whatever they're called, they didn't cover their tracks especially well. Not long after All I Want For X-Mas Is A PSP debuted, its true origins were revealed, and gamers flocked to the site to ridicule its creators. Of course, they probably would have done that anyway, but the fact that it was a tacky marketing ploy gave them extra incentive to move in for the kill.
Sony should have followed Nintendo's lead and just let its fans do all the marketing for them. They wouldn't have to pay a dime for the publicity, and they'd get much better results.
12/08/06
Sorry it's been so long since I've updated, folks. I've got a lot on my mind at the moment, not the least of which includes final exams and a towering research paper. Things are so rough that I've got to wait a little longer to play Castlevania: Portal of Ruin. I've had it on reserve at GameStop for months, but now that Portal has finally been released, I don't dare distract myself with it. I guess it'll just have to be my Christmas present for the year... and it'll be my ONLY Christmas present if a certain employer who shall remain nameless doesn't hurry up and cut me a check.
All right, enough whining. I was thinking about offering a best of year special similar to the one I wrote last year. The only problem is, I haven't played enough games to really make the feature work! If you want to nominate some games for the 2006 Endies, please post 'em on the forum. I'll make a list of all the categories I want to include in the feature, and you, faithful readers, can nominate those games which you feel deserve to be recognized. If I haven't played a game on your list, I'll try my best to get my hands on it sometime in the next two months. If all goes as planned, the 2006 Endies will appear on the Blitz at the end of February, March tops.
12/02/06
IGN hasn't impressed me for a very long time... which is what makes this review all the more special. Sure, it reads like a petition, but Luke Thomas is right to ask his readers to accept nothing less than the official arcade version of Donkey Kong on the Wii. Yes, it's an ancient game that many players are too young to remember. Yes, it's a whole lot easier to dump a 32K NES rom on the download service than write a new emulator for Donkey Kong's specialized hardware. However, if Nintendo is serious about bringing back the thirty-something gamers who were disillusioned by complicated control schemes and a hostile online environment, they would be wise to give them the reason they start playing video games in the first place, with nothing sacrificed.
This is 2006, Nintendo, and the Wii is the most powerful system you've ever created. The tight memory restrictions that you struggled with in 1985 no longer exist. There's no excuse for you to give us Donkey Kong without the cement factory, or Super Mario Bros. without the more challenging levels, or Excitebike without the bonus rounds, or Duck Hunt without a chance to shoot the dog.