This is the archive, folks. The current stuff is on the
main page.
Fwom the gwave
30 September 06 | 22:49
I almost went all of September without writing a single Retronauts or Metroidvania entry. And that would have been
crazy lame. Fortunately I've squeezed one in with about an hour to spare. Sadly, the topic is about two months past its freshness date... but I guess when you're writing about 15-year-old stuff a month or two margin of error is OK. And thanks to the magic of hypertext, you can click this image to read it. Zounds!
posted by: | category: games | forums |
21 comments |
§
Dear Japan: miss you, plz write soon. Love, me.
29 September 06 | 10:42
My trip to TGS was of a very different tenor than my first journey to Japan lo those many years ago, for many reasons. Not least of which being the fact that it was a five-day trip for work rather than a 10-day vacation. I was, you know,
working. Even the trip to Akihabara was ultimately for work purposes. (Which is a shame, because I would have spent a lot less money if I'd been going just to browse.)
In other words, we did very little that wasn't TGS-related. We didn't even have time for sushi, always in a rush and forced to wolf down quick food (curry, ramen, tonkatsu). Still, a little awesomeness found its way into our lives:
- Ladylike Desserts: Apparently men are not allowed to eat anything sweet in Japan, which I guess is why Men's Pocky exists. "It's cool," Glico is saying. "You're still rugged and masculine even if you enjoy this frosted cracker stick." So I already knew that part, but what I didn't realize is that some Japanese restaurants are more or less intended for men only, or women only. Skeevy ticket-redemption noodle joints cater to haggard salarymen; and it was sort of a surprise to grab a quick to-go sandwich from a place below our hotel only to discover that the shop's entire clientele was female. Except the one guy sitting patiently with his girlfriend. "It's a sight you're unlikely to see anywhere else on the planet," in the words of Mr. Belew. Gender roles are pretty set in stone in the U.S., sure, but generally it involves clothes and the toys you get to play with as a kid, not food. Even Working Girls Café down the block from my office happily proclaims "Boys welcome" on the sign.
- Props from the Top: When I mentioned to Lunar Knights' director that I enjoy the Boktai series enough to have imported and played the Japan-only Boktai 3, he actually leaned across the table and shook my hand in gratitude. Bonus: Suck on that, Bettenhausen.
- Glorious Ramen: Sam took us to a ramen joint that I can only describe as the restaurant equivalent of a glory hole. Seriously: it was a weirdly anonymous experience. You walk down a seedy-looking set of stairs into a basement where you enter the restaurant, pay for your choice of food (ramen or nothing, basically) at the ticket machine and wait for the light board to indicate an empty seat. Then you step inside the eating area to discover the place consists of two narrow aisles with about ten seats per side, a kitchen dividing the rows. You sit alone in a booth, fill out a piece of paper that describes how you want your ramen, and press a button to let the kitchen know you're ready to complete your order. You face the kitchen as you sit, but you never actually see the people inside because there's only about a foot-high opening that allows them to take your ticket and order slip and deliver your noodles a few minutes later. Once the noodles arrive, they close a little shutter across the opening. When you finish your noodles, you quietly leave and the shutter opens, allowing a disembodied hand to snake through and wipe down your booth before indicating your seat is empty via the light board. Possibly the weirdest eating experience of my life, but damn if the noodles weren't amazing. Clearly everyone in Tokyo agrees, because when we left, the line to get inside ran out the door, along the entrance way, up the stairs and onto the sidewalk.
- Hitoshi Sakimoto: We interviewed the composer of FF Tactics, Vagrant Story and FFXII in his studio, which is also his house. That in itself was pretty rad, but the fact that he lives in one of the city's crowded residential areas -- individual houses situated in a dense grid of alleyways -- made it even better. The cab took us through a labyrinth of concrete walls, and it's a wonder that we actually made it through intact since there were a few spots in which I'm fairly positive the alleyway was actually narrower than the car. Bonus: Sakimoto dropped a few hints about secret upcoming projects which sound 100% fabulous.
- Eat fresh: Did I mention that I love (LOVE) Tokyo's mass transit? Yeah, fine, it's crowded and standing-room-only at certain hours, but where isn't? I've ridden metro lines all over the world (including San Francisco, NYC, London, Berlin, Prague, Osaka) and Tokyo is 100% the best -- cleanest, fastest, most efficient. And pretty inexpensive, too. I think I need to kidnap the people who run SF MUNI and take them to Tokyo and force them to ride the trains until they begin weeping in shame and promise to make our comparatively modest and tiny system even half as effective as Tokyo's. Bonus: I totally get the Japanese obsession with train simulators now! (Densha de awesome.)
posted by: | category: blog | forums |
17 comments |
§
Varnishing America
28 September 06 | 15:52
Good evening, Oceania!Yeah, I'm back from Japan now. I keep meaning to write some more about the trip, but I've been caught up in some rush work that's kept me from the task (and sleep), and now my memories have all faded. Heartbreaking, isn't it? That's what senility will do for you, kids.
Unfortunately, I guess any potential sympathy is negated by the fact that my
emergency was being handed a reviewable of Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin on the flight back to the States. Which is good! But I was given only two days to finish the game -- two very jetlagged days in which I also had to catch up with the week's worth of work I'd missed due to TGS. Which is bad! Nothing enhances the joy of playing a sexy hot new game like the panicked HURRYHURRYOMG rush of trying to blow through it on a tight deadline while balancing the rest of your existence in the other hand.
I know, poor me. Someone commented in an earlier post that if you begin a blog entry with the phrase "I spent all day walking around Akihabara," you're not allowed to complain about anything for two weeks. So I guess I'm a jerk. Feel free to tell me how much I suck.
Better yet, express your contempt with violence. I bought my first XBLA game today, namely Doom. And I need to write a review of it. So if you'd like an easy multiplayer win please look me up on Live. I will be the jackass with a zero kill count.
It'll be especially easy since I'm still not entirely de-Japan-ified; I'm pretty much in a constant jetlagged stupor. And I keep wanting to wake up about two hours later than usual and drifting to the left side of the sidewalk or stairs. Also, I keep expecting people to be polite. Boy, was getting back onto the Internet a
rude awakening zany adventure!
posted by: | category: blog | forums |
22 comments |
§
The plot thickens, like corn starch
24 September 06 | 16:17
You guys remember
Norton I, right? First Emperor of America, Protector of Mexico, paved the way for the trans-SF/Oakland Bay Bridge, recently returned from the dead to begin blogging? Right. I didn't realize I was getting myself into something strange when I offhandedly linked to the zombie blog a few weeks ago, and I didn't pay much heed to the occasional cryptic comments that were posted here as a result. But Saturday I received an email telling me that there was a communication waiting for me at Kaihim Makuhari station, right next to the Makuhari Messe where TGS transpires. I guess maybe I've watched too much Alias, but when I start getting dead drops while travelling abroad it's hard to ignore.
I was informed that the documents were waiting under the baseball shrub beneath the astroturf at the foot of a pink duck. Since I was between interviews and didn't feel like slogging through the thick Saturday crowds to try and do any hands-on previews, I decided to check it out. Despite not having the slightest idea what a "baseball shrub" is.
Oh, right. Turns out Kaihim Makuhari is also the stop for the Chiba Lotte Marines baseball team. Yesterday they were playing the Nippon Ham Fighters, which is the best name for a sports team this side of the Rainbow Warriors. I'm pretty sure Ham Fighters was a 16-bit TMNT knock-off by Natsume. I'll be sure to watch for it next time I'm in Akihabara.
I guess this would be the pink duck. I'm not sure why they chose the pink one over the one in pinstripes. Maybe so they could lay in wait and take pictures of me bending over and appearing to look like I'm peeping up the skirts of a plastic duck.
Yes, thumbs up to you, too, all dressed for the sock hop. And yeah, it turns out there was a small square of astroturf beneath its feet, held down by the statue's weight but not secured around the edges.
Clearly, someone thinks they're very clever.
If only I were clever enough to figure out what this is supposed to mean. The inmates are running the asylum, perhaps?
posted by: | category: blog | forums |
35 comments |
§
I hurt
21 September 06 | 06:51
I spent all day walking around Akihabara, and now both my body and my wallet are in agony. Nah, actually the wallet's in pretty good shape -- I came hoping to buy a Sega Saturn, which turned out to be about fifty bucks cheaper than anticipated. So I picked up Dracula X too. Visual degradation not present in the PlayStation version ahoy! Maybe Igarashi and I can make fun of it when we chat Saturday.
Last night also contributed to my general state of exhaustion; the 1UP and Gamevideos homeboys attended the unofficial official party of TGS courtesy of Tokyopia, and I was once again reminded of what a lifetime of near-total abstinence will do to your ability to metabolize alcohol. Namely, destroy it.
Despite the fact that a single small glass of liquor trashed my equilibrium, the party was pretty great. I met the top dogs at iNis, aka the awesome people who created Ouendan/Elite Beat Agents, and got to enjoy hero-of-the-day status in their eyes thanks to the completely excellent
feature we published on the company last week. (If you haven't read it, please do -- I can say without reservations or hyperbole it's one of the best features 1UP has ever presented; it's rare to get such an intimate glimpse of the inner workings of a Japanese developer.) I also met Alex O. Smith of Vagrant Story/FFXII localization fame, which was nice since his work was what really opened my eyes to the potential and importance of a well-crafted localization. Sadly, the only reason that jerk Kohler introduced us was for the sight gag, since Smith was hands-down the tallest man in the room and I was one of the shorter ones. Even with a large Japanese presence, yeah. Ha ha.
Equally entertaining was meeting a real-life NeoGAF mod, who visibly
cringed as he introduced himself to me. I think he was surprised that I didn't punch him or something, but of course a moderator can't be held accountable for the Internet jackasses in his care. Besides, a general rule of thumb is that anyone who runs a message board eventually comes to detest their site's patrons. And for good reason! The secret is to kill all message boards; I did it, and now I can love you all again.
Anyway, my body is completely broken after all the walking, standing and lugging I did today so I guess I'm going to collapse in a heap now and possibly die. The good news is if I survive the night, the Akihabara episode of Retronauts will be damn
fresh.
posted by: | category: blog | forums |
27 comments |
§
Tokyo rosey
19 September 06 | 05:40
I'm in Japan now, and courtesy of far too little sleep I've begun
blogging incoherently about it. I'll probably regret the whole sordid thing in the morning, but right now I'm too tired to care. Hoorah for apathy!
posted by: | category: blog | forums |
nine comments |
§
Ignorant White Guy Redux: T-minus 12 hours
17 September 06 | 23:47
Tremendously important nuggets of wisdom I can chew on in lieu of the Styrofoam-like filth the airlines call "food":
- The breed of geek which eagerly leaps onto the latest bit of technology and desperately embraces the obsolescence of all that has come before are, curiously, incredibly offended by the notion of being obsolete. I had assumed that panning Ultimate Ghosts 'N Goblins was going to engender the greatest amount of hatred I'll ever seen in my game writing career, but that was before I had suggested that hardcore gaming types are largely immaterial in Nintendo's vision of the future. And for mentioning the fact that American consumers aren't Nintendo's top priority. Given the reactions these comments prompted, you'd think I'd told people their mothers no longer loved them. It's true, though. Your mom doesn't love you. Get off the computer for once and send her some flowers.
According to Square Enix's list of TGS titles, the Mana series is officially being referred to as a Final Fantasy side story again. Which means that barring a SaGa resurrection, there's nothing coming from the Square side of the company that isn't in some way linked to the FF series. And come to think of it, SaGa is basically what became of Final Fantasy II. Remember when Square was totally great and Final Fantasy actually had some brand integrity? Man, last year seems like it was so long ago.
- For those who have asked, the new iPod nano is almost painfully swell. (This is different than painfully swelling.) It's actually somehow even smaller than the original, although the aluminum construction feels winningly durable. The battery life is completely insane, too -- after two days of constant use, it was still only about 2/3 of the way empty. I ended up running the battery down by letting it play into empty air for six or seven hours. Given that its storage capacity is eight times that of the Shuffle, which was introduced a year and a half ago, you can probably start counting down the days until the 1TB nano arrives. It will be inserted into your sinus cavity and stream HD video directly into your brain, presumably through the very same Matrix-like brain hookup Kutaragi promised for the PS2. (It's coming any day now, honest.)
Actually, I don't think those nuggets are going to be very filling. Guess I'll have to resort to cannibalism instead.
posted by: | category: blog | forums |
36 comments |
§
Ignorant White Guy Redux: T-minus 23 hours
17 September 06 | 10:51
Less than a day until I board the plane, crammed in between other people of unknown hygiene and courtesy, and spend 10 hours in the air flying to Narita. Long-time readers will recall that this is not my first flight to Japan, although the chronicle of my travels and travails have been lost to the ether quite deliberately since my previous trip overseas was part and parcel of an ex-relationship. It is always very awkward to dwell in the past in such situations. Unless, of course, your name is Jeffrey Brown. According to the site's copyright indicia, mine is not.
For the record, I don't think this trip will be quite as entertaining to write about as the last. It's basically going to be me and a bunch of other white nerds in very controlled environments rather than, say, an actual vacation. Although if my travel companions insist on eschewing actual Japanese food in favor of McDonald's and Denny's for every meal (as they're rumored to do), my murderous rampage might make the headlines. Stay tuned!
By the way, I forgot to mention that my newly-acquired personal electronic device is
not white:
So you can drop that particular running joke. Thanks to the helpful wisdom of Dezro, I did eventually buy a mic for my new nano, and it works surprisingly well. I'm sure I'll look like a complete twit using an iPod in lieu of an actual tape recorder at interviews, but it's not like I have a choice in the matter since the curious Ziff Davis epidemic which causes people to borrow your belongings and never return them laid claim to my recorder ages ago. We had a great run, little guy. I'll miss you.
posted by: | category: blog | forums |
20 comments |
§
I like to be there when I can. Or... not.
15 September 06 | 18:24
Ladies and gentlemen,
behold my roots.
Needless to say, I'm
really looking forward to TGS, if only because it's so very far away from where I grew up. It will be nice to spend time in a city where civic fortunes are determined not by City Hall-approved destruction of the barrier between church and state but rather by giant lizards who rampage in order to provide a vital allegory for the arrogance of man. Or something.
Anyway, I'm just about ready for next week's trip -- although I still need to get some travellers cheques, and freaking LensCrafters is crafting a tragicomedy of errors with my new glasses.
This is actually a post in itself. The right lens had a small defect; upon repairing the right lens, they managed to screw up the left lens; the process of repairing the left lens damaged the right lens again; while re-correcting
that screw-up, their grinder broke and shattered the lens. And now they're out of blank lenses. AWESOME GUYS. On the plus side, they offered me 50% off my next pair of glasses out of sheer embarrassment, so next time I can be deeply inconvenienced -- glasses in about a week! -- for half the price.
Blind though I may be, I've nevertheless gathered up the essentials:
- My Play-Yan is loaded up with Game Center CX episodes courtesy of Ray. That's right, I'll be watching videos of some dude playing videogames on my DS. No, shut up, it's awesome.
- I went ahead and grabbed one of the new iPod nanos, having sworn ages ago that the iPod mini's aluminum construction was approx. infinitely nicer than the standard crappy plastic-and-chrome style of standard iPods. And my Shuffle was starting to get old and cranky due to daily use. Unfortunate frustration: my brilliant plan to use my new nano as a voice recorded during TGS interviews was thwarted once I discovered that microphones compatible with the new models have yet to be released. So I guess I'll just have to make due with lots of music.
- My Game Boy Camera is loaded up with fresh batteries. For what should be obvious reasons.
- Fake moustache and glasses. Because I just know Brandon Sheffield is going to try to track me down and force me to join him as he shops for sleazy softcore anime porn games in Akihabara.
Then again, it's not like I need to venture away from my current home of San Francisco to find exotic adventure. Not now that the esteemed
Norton I -- Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico -- has returned from the dead and begun
blogging his imperial decrees.
posted by: | category: blog | forums |
fifteen comments |
§
Yasumi Matsuno: Not dead yet
14 September 06 | 11:32
OK, blah blah Wii price, launch date, release schedule -- who cares? The big news to come out of the global Nintendo conferences going down today (besides the fact that extra controllers are gonna set you back a preposterous $60 apiece) is that Ogre Battle/FF Tactics/Vagrant Story/FFXII creator and genius-at-large Yasumi Matsuno is
still alive. And he loves Wii.
OK, so maybe that's a
slight exaggeration; I don't suppose anyone thought he was actually dead. But there has been substantial doubt as to whether or not he would continue working in videogames after his much-rumored breakdown and departure from FFXII; besides some suggestions that he's hooked up with
other FF refugees over at Mistwalker, there's been no indication that he had any intention of picking up the reins of near-perfect game design again. Certainly Square Enix hasn't said a thing besides "He's on indefinite leave." (That's one step removed from "No comment" in that crazy little world we like to call PR speak.)
Apparently they didn't say who Matsuno
is working for now, just that he's all mushy and affectionate about Wii. Which makes perfect sense -- if he really did flip the hell out under the pressure of making FFXII about five times more awesome than the PS2 can theoretically handle, a development environment in which it's technically impossible to ride the bleeding edge would probably be much easier on his sanity and nerves and so forth than, say, PS3, whose development environment reportedly makes the infamously complicated Saturn look like a stroll through BASIC. Of course, this means the short list of worthwhile creative minds at Square Enix keeps getting shorter; I hear tell that the new Final Fantasy XII spin-off is under the supervision of one Tetsuya "Zippers!" Nomura, which I guess would explain why Panelo now looks seriously underaged and sleazy instead of slightly underaged and modest.
I realized the other day (while debating the merits of FFXII with Tycho in the wake of the hilarious but deeply offensive
Super Mario Bros. XII comic) that much of why I love FFXII has to do with the fact that it is the final game to have been conceived by the "old" Square -- that is, before Square became Enix's Final Fantasy-flagellating subsidiary. Matsuno's departure sort of seals that, and I certainly do hope he drags Akihiko Yoshida along with him for art duties. Because Matsuno minus Yoshida just seems wrong, somehow.
Anyway, I gues this means at some point he'll direct a new game and we can have a Retronauts video session to gush about his glory. Yes, I think about everything in terms of what it means for my self-indulgence.
In other news, our dear Nich has gone over to the dark side with a foray into New Games Journalism: a
review of Cooking Mama's manual. Brilliant, seriously brilliant. Today's must-read!
Special bonus: two-player cooperative Gergoth-killin' confirmed for Portrait of Ruin. Truly, Konami understands what friendship is all about.
posted by: | category: blog | forums |
38 comments |
§
One-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind
13 September 06 | 12:47
Guys, my eyes suck
so bad. To the point that last time I got glasses the opthomologist decided to stop even
trying to correct my left eye because it's a futile endeavor. Anyway, I've updated my specs prior to my Tokyo trip (working under the logic that it would be nice to see this other country that I will be visiting) and decided to try correcting for the left eye again. This turned out to be quite a mistake! After having gone for so long with my left eye functioning primarily as a lump of useless meat flopping around in my skull, suddenly seeing through both eyes created a curious condition known as "double vision" as my brain was unexpectedly forced to reconcile two images -- one clear and one still slightly out-of-focus -- where there used to be only one. This is not the good kind of double vision, which involves Foreigner, but rather the bad kind, which involves my brain attempting to explode. Guess I'll be switching back to the "useless meat" model of vision correction.
The moral here? Please do not ask me to look at a stereogram or I will totally hit you.
My real
Mega Man ZX review (the one in which I critique the game objectively, not the gushing ridiculousness I posted and quickly retracted a few months back) is now online. As always with niche-appeal games, enjoy poking around the Internet to see reactions to this and other mainstream reviews (all of which have been as fair and positive as mine). The shrill hysterics of brain-damaged fantards continue to be... well, I wouldn't say hilarious, or entertaining, because they're not. They're more sad than anything else. I guess "fascinating" is as good as word as any other. Of course, I could save you the trouble of wallowing through the mouthy morass and just summarize:
HOLY MOTHER OF GOD HIS REVIEW SCORE CALLS THIS "DYNAMITE" WHAT AN IDIOT BIAS HATE HURGHLEBLRGH NEVER READING 1UP AGAIN
Rock on, my fanatical little morons. Your frothy zealotry remains, as always, a vital lubricant in the tubes of this so-called Internet.
posted by: | category: blog | forums |
27 comments |
§
More songs about buildings and games
07 September 06 | 18:21
Hey, Internet! The latest issue of EGM is making the rounds, and seeing as I'm extremely eager to get the unsavoriness of that last entry off the main page, I guess I'll do that thing again where I comment on my contributions for the magazine. Even though I don't really have much to say this time.
See, unlike
last month, I doubt the current batch of reviews will cause quite so much heartburn among the frothier corners of the gaming web, as this was one of those rare occasions where everything I was assigned was startlingly good.
Of course, that could be giving the Internet too much credit. After all, it's full of the same people who were convinced that I was being unfairly pre-judgmental of Ultimate Ghosts N' Goblins before I'd played it -- despite the fact that said "pre-judgment" was made in the course of commenting on my
already-published EGM review. The lesson here, I guess, is that it's very easy to overestimate the collective reasoning capabilities of the Internet.
Contact: It's too bad everyone seems to have latched onto to the notion that this is Earthbound's lovechild, because actually it's not, and the mere mention of Earthbound has caused a lot of people to jump to the conclusion that it's going to be the best game ever, sight-unseen. And there will likely be some backlash about this, which is unfortunate, because Contact doesn't deserve shrill nerd-hate. I realize I have played my own small role in this collective fallacy, and for that I apologize. But just to be perfectly clear: Contact is not Earthbound redux. It is, however, a very good game. Just maybe not for the reasons a lot of people are assuming it is.
Mega Man ZX: ZX makes me all swoony, but I also realize that the qualities that make me all weak in the knees are not objectively excellent characteristics. A damn fine Mega Man game, but that qualifier at the end -- "Mega Man game" -- means it's undeniably niche-y. It's king of the tidal pool, but drop it in the ocean and it's a little fish indeed.
Rocket Slime: I was worried that maybe I was overrating Rocket Slime a little bit, because while it's unbelievably fun and purehearted and wonderful it's also stupidly easy. Plus it's a TOSE game, and you know what
that means. But then it turned out to be the magazine's Game of the Month, so clearly I wasn't alone.
Confidential to Square Enix: please try making your Final Fantasy spin-offs as good as your Dragon Quest spin-offs and the world will have much higher regard for you. Honest.
posted by: | category: blog | forums |
43 comments |
§
Way too far
05 September 06 | 11:13
OK, nerds, we need to have a talk. No, no, not you normal harmless nerds; you're fine, and you fuel our economy with your inability to save money when confronted by useless baubles and trinkets. America
needs you. And by "you" I mean "us."
No, I'm talking about the really scary obsessive otaku-types. You guys have been on uneasy terms with the rest of the world for a while, and rightly so. But this time, guys, you've gone too far. I'm talking, of course, about
this:
I've been willing to put up with your creepy, distasteful antics so far. Sure, I don't necessarily feel
comfortable with your antics, especially not the man-sized
body pillows printed with silkscreened images of nude 12-year-old girls or the mousepads with gel wrist supporters in the
shape of breasts or the game character figurines with
removable clothing. (Uh, don't click those links.) They leave an unpleasant taste in the mouth, yeah, but they're all harmless niche products purchased furtively and secured in your secret lairs (MOM AND DAD I TOLD YOU NOT TO COME DOWN HERE WITHOUT KNOCKING FIRST), leaving the rest of the world safe from your developmentally arrested obsessions.
But Transformers, guys,
Transformers. This is childhood. And I don't just mean
your childhood, to which you cling with increasing desperation by buying every Transformers variant you can find and then going online to gripe about the every minor change made to the plastic toys you could never emotionally bear to let go of. No, I mean
kids, those tiny gnome-like creatures for whom Transformers are actually created and marketed, even today. Yes, you think it's clever to call them "crotch droppings" and rage about how you'll
never bring more disgusting "carpet rats" into the world -- as if you'd ever have the chance -- but like it or not they're who the toymakers are after. Not you. It's fine to indulge yourself by picking up the occasional fondly-remembered recreation of a favorite character or whatever; that's what nostalgia is about. But demanding the manufacturers supplicate to your whims -- you, a tiny niche of consumerism, far outside the profitability of the mainstream? That's always a little embarrassing to watch.
But now you've spoiled even that; clearly, you exist in such numbers now that Takara has created a Transformers line just for you, supported by
tentacle manga and featuring packaging with underaged girls showing off their underwear. You'd probably think, from the box art, that the little girl is a major component of this toy, but if you actually look at the
package interior she's only a tiny little piece of plastic. Like a Headmaster, but redolent of fetishes best left unspoken... especially with the downright unnerving premise that being kissed by young girls "energizes" the robots. Basically she's just the final proof that you spoil everything you touch and that you're horrible monsters. Please stop now before you kill again.
At least I have the satisfaction of knowing that
this version of Optimus Prime turns into a pick-up truck rather than the classic semi cab. That little deviation from "canonical purity" is going to drive you completely
nuts.
posted by: | category: media | forums |
70 comments |
§
Thank the maker
02 September 06 | 10:27
So it appears that Wil Wright, or at least a poorly-drawn caricature of him, will be working in an advisory role for players in Sim City 3000 for DS. Or as Kohler puts it, he'll be playing the part of Dr. Kawashima.
Videogame industry, this is an
amazing idea. I would like to see more creators putting forth the effort to interface with players, to add the personal touch (and sense that games are a creative medium) that is so often missing. Like the director's commentary on a DVD. Here are some recommendations:
