Ambivalence time!

29 November 06 | 19:34 | Posted by:

Yesterday I installed forums for this site. They became very popular very quickly. That's good. But they became so popular that they caused the server to melt down, and when it returned the database had been erased. That's bad. But I intend to restore the forums. That's good. But my current webhost is being uncharacteristically unresponsive about this whole affair and I suspect I won't be getting much support. That's bad. But I've decided to have the site hosted elsewhere, which should result in (much) higher bandwidth and more options for me to improve the site. That's good. But even though my monthly costs will be much lower, I had to pay for a few years' service up front. That's bad. So I'm going to be selling crap on eBay to subsidize the move. eBay's kind of a hassle, though, so I'm posting up a listing here first (again). Please have a look and see if there's anything you're interested in, and if so, make me an offer. It's for the collective good! I don't like carrying credit card balances.

Also, I've discovered that the Mii Parade is not limited to 100 participants -- mine's up to 130 now. That's good. Unfortunately, this good/bad gimmick has worn out its welcome and I don't have anything else of substance to say. That's bad. There's nothing more to see here, but maybe you could read 1UP's new weekly retrogaming column? I hear it's pretty great! It's mostly focused around new Virtual Console-type releases, but also touches on various other classic gaming-related news.

And that? That's awesome.

category: blog | forums | 25 comments | §

Talking time!

28 November 06 | 20:03 | Posted by:

I went and did something today that I may regret, but... here it is anyway: TALKING TIME.

This site's history with hosting forums has been spotty at best, checkered at worst, but discussion in comment threads has been pretty lively lately and I hate to see good conversations scroll off the main page where they're battened down to prevent link spammer infestations. So now there's a place for conversations that are worth preserving... and blog comments for more superficial chatter. Anyway, please use but don't abuse and we'll all be happy. Feel free to start up some fresh conversations, too. This forum is for you. Mostly.

Edit: Uh, apparently we managed to explode my server. So much for that. Well, it was fun while it lasted (a day).

category: blog | forums | 47 comments | §

Too much of Mii

27 November 06 | 21:15 | Posted by:

Well, it looks like there's a limit to the total number of Miis you can have on a given system: one hundred. I learned this the hard way when I hit the ceiling this morning and a bunch of Miis that had been sent overnight refused to arrive. I've had to make some judicious deletes -- mostly to some of my own Miis, or various duplicates people have sent. Apparently everyone really likes making Michael Jackson and Jesus.

Anyway, at this point I need to ask that everyone be more selective in what they send my way. For instance, I recently received about eight characters from a single person, apparently that guy's entire family, and that's maybe a little too many. I'm sure your mom is nice but I don't know that I need her hanging out with Clint Eastwood and Mr. Saturn.

Actually, it's not quite true that you can only have 100 Miis on a system; the Mii Parade can presumably host another hundred. Mine is currently up to 82, so I should find out soon. The parade was sort of dopey when there were only two people trudging along, but I have to say that it's much more impressive in its present form.

Anyway! I decided to do the FFXII thing this weekend rather than the Lunar Knights thing. I'm now 50 hours into the quest and... hmm. Looks like about halfway through the actual story... and I haven't even hunted down a third of the Marks yet. Normally when a game stretches this far along with no end in sight I start to get a sense of "OH GOD WHEN WILL IT END," but the more I play of FFXII the more the fires of my addiction are stoked. The last game that had this effect on me was FF Tactics. I sense a trend!


I should probably be a lot further into the main story of the game, but a few days ago I headed to the Henne Mines only to discover that I was slightly underleveled; after spending an hour fending off constant bat ambushes my party was starting to wear down and I beat a retreat to a save point so I could regroup and do a little powering up. But then I happened to talk to some random guy in Rabanastre who ended up leading me into a seemingly insignificant subquest which ended with me battling a boss (only the sixth battle so far to have the BOSS energy meter at the top of the screen) which in turn opened up a path to massive areas of Ivalice which had previously been inaccessible. Which in turn set me to exploring new territory, finding new gear and completing various subquests, at which point I realized I was probably strong enough to go after a few of the currently-available Elite Marks. And before I knew it I'd spent 12 hours distracted from the main storyline... and still have plenty of other things to do before all that's left is to tackle the mines again.

And that is why FFXII is awesome: it offers the openness of an MMO or American RPG with the streamlined interface and visual beauty of a Japanese RPG. And a solid story with good characters. And occasional mockery of the FF Tactics script. Oh, FFXII, is there anything you can't do? Besides my work, I mean.

category: games | forums | 54 comments | §

Escape from the turkey coma

25 November 06 | 11:51 | Posted by:

Hey Internet, I managed to live through Thanksgiving. That was no small feat, since this is the first time I've ever played host to an actual gathering (as opposed to a tiny handful of others) and I wasn't sure if my dormant culinary skills were up to the task of prepping a turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and rolls all from scratch. But I put on the La Cucine costume given to me by a friendly (and naked, for some reason) chef and went out and killed random monster spawn until my Cooking skill leveled up, and all turned out well.



Except the fact that the turkey took three hours longer to cook than expected, but I blame the turkey for that one.

Shamefully, the bulk of my break has been spent making Miis. In fact, that's pretty much all that happened Thursday (that and watching the Spanish-language version of Chuck Norris' "Missing in Action," a truly profound celebration of American freedom if ever there was one); we crafted some frightfully impressive versions of the cast of Earthbound, a decent enough Wind Waker Link and some abominations best forgotten. Half the fun of booting up my Wii is seeing what new Miis have arrived in the mail -- this morning it was Scott Pilgrim and Adolf Hitler. Good efforts all, though nothing -- nothing! -- will top my Golgo 13.

I've lost track of who I have and haven't sent Miis to, though. If I'm on your list and you don't have a guy named Dr.Toasty wandering around your Mii Plaza, send me a message via the Wii's mail service and I'll rectify the situation posthaste.

Now to deal with the really difficult questions that a vacation poses. Like, do I play FFXII all day, or Boktai DS?

category: blog | forums | 36 comments | §

More Sony lies

22 November 06 | 11:12 | Posted by:

Phil Harrison lied to us. For once, though, I'm happy about a disingenuous Sony company line.

Ever since joining the high-definition world and discovering that a 720p LCD television looks nice but is a terrible idea for anyone interested in ever playing a pre-HD system again, I've been mildly obsessed with the black science of getting retro content to look good in this grim world of the future. So the one question I've had about PlayStation 3 -- one which, to the best of my game blog RSS-watching and obsessive googling, no one has seen fit to answer -- is simply this: does PS3's backwards compatibility allow PS1 and PS2 games to output in HD-friendly resolutions?

Phil Harrison told us no. But Phil Harrison was horribly mistaken, because PS3 does. Both PlayStation and PlayStation 2 games run in progressive scan if you're using a high-quality connection.

And that, my friends, is awesome. I nearly returned my TV when I first tested out Symphony of the Night on PS2 and found that even running under component video it was a smeary, blurry mess; on PS3, though, it's crisp and sharp and every bit as lovely as you remember. Vagrant Story looks colorful and detailed, although I never realized before that it's so... dithered. Yeah, so you don't get the PS2's BC texture filtering, but it's no big loss to have such clear, crisp images. I guess I could be wrong and this is just the miracle of HDMI, but I don't think that's the case -- the difference in quality is comparable to the improvement my progressive scan DVD player offers. In any case, PS3 makes old games look HOT.

So I guess I need a PS3 after all. Frigging Sony. But don't think you've won this round by any means! I'm going to hold out for a while, and here's why: Your first batch of hardware always sucks. Let me explain.

1. PlayStation: I bought my PS1 a year and a half after launch, but still ended up with the first hardware revision. This is good, because apparently the original PS with the separate audio-out jacks has a reputation for being pretty much the best CD audio player ever. But it's bad, because the CD read apparatus was a piece of crap and within two years I had to flip the system on its side to keep it from stuttering its way through FMVs.
2. PlayStation 2: This I bought at launch, and initially the only problems I had were with the disc manufacturing (like the copy of Ridge Racer V that took five minutes to load each track). But about two years later, the system choked on my copy of Xenosaga. Not that I can blame it, but not being able to eject one of the worst games I've ever played was a tiny nugget of hell that cost me $50 to have sorted out at a point where I couldn't really afford to blow that much money on defective craftsmanship.
3. PlayStation Portable: Bought a Japanese launch unit. Square button decided to stop working within half a year.

I'm not bitter, though, just smart. Sony's not tricking me into spending 600 bucks twice.

Well, anyway. Enough carping. If you're interested in a tiny dose of positivity, check out our Virtual Console Roundup, which praises with one hand and slap-fights with the other. On the whole I'm very impressed -- the quality easily exceeds my expectations, even if the selection is crazy anemic.

category: games | forums | 29 comments | §

Living the dream?

21 November 06 | 15:20 | Posted by:

OMG WII-SIXTY

Peter Moore, I hope you're looking down from heaven and smiling with the satisfaction of knowing that your dream of Wii60 has been made real. Your legacy lives on!

Huh? He's not dead? Well never mind then.

P.S., my Wii is 7467 8098 7429 2532. Now show me yours. (You can email it to me if you're too shy to expose it in public.)

category: games | forums | 75 comments | §

Wii Terror

19 November 06 | 13:45 | Posted by:

So what was the most unsettling part of last night's midnight Wii launch? Let's recollect and see!

Was it being approached by a total stranger who recognized me by sight and wanted to comment on my Zelda review? (Sorry, AMN dude, I didn't get your name.) No, not really; he was quite cordial and complimentary. Now if I had been Jeff Gerstmann, or he had been an Ultimate Ghosts 'N Goblins fan (I hear they number about two dozen, and they're all brimming with hate), it might have taken a turn for the ugly. As it was, though, it was simply a reminder that I really need to stick to my principles and show up on the 1UP Show much less frequently so I can't be spotted as easily. Or maybe wear a fake mustache in public.

Was it my girlfriend's odd decision that since we were headed up to Fisherman's Wharf she should take a classmate along to work on a photo shoot? Fortunately, no; although two women out on their own in the dark of San Francisco at 1 a.m. are practically courting trouble, the only freaky junkie type they encountered was actually quite sedate and mostly seemed baffled at what they were doing. Bullet dodged.

Was it sitting in an In 'N Out Burger for an hour and a half with a bag filled with $400 of high-demand electronics, surrounded by rowdy drunkards out for the late-night alcohol sponge that only fast food can provide, waiting for the photo shoot to wrap up after running way over schedule? No, but very close! I especially enjoyed all the people who swaggered up to me and wanted to know what was in the bag. Each encounter was like a tiny trip to the precipice of Danger.

No, I think the prize goes to the guy at the next table, who wanted to know if I had just bought a PS3. "No, a Wii," I said.

"Oh," he replied. "How many graphics does that have?"

It was a fate worse than being mugged: I had no earthly idea how to respond to that question.

Runner-up: Knowing that I wasted a bunch of money on crappy Virtual Console games after volunteering to do write-ups for work. At the very least, I hope I can expense Altered Beast -- that game was a waste of cash back when it was a free pack-in with the Genesis, and at eight bucks it's a steal. But not in a good way.



Apologies. That image is uncharacteristically meme-ish.

category: games | forums | 66 comments | §

Ten five things I hate about Wii

18 November 06 | 17:42 | Posted by:

So in just a few hours, the first of you lowly Internet peoples will finally be getting your very own Wii. Me, too, actually, since I'm not a freelancer -- Nintendo sends the freebies to 1UP, and we are required to share. But there's no way I'm establishing a Virtual Console account on someone else's machine, so it's off to wallow in midnight idiocy with my fellow frothing idiots. Oh, geek genes, the lengths you force me to go through to keep you satisfied.

Wii is a fine little system, and Zelda is a gosh-darned fine game to get with it, but my week with Wii has already introduced me to a handful of things that really hork me off about it. So please allow me to harsh your pre-launch buzz by enumerating my grievances:

1. No component cables: No, I haven't griped about this enough yet. The fact that Wii only includes composite video cables isn't just dumb, it's one of the most boneheaded things Nintendo has ever done. The company is taking a big chance by refusing to play the horsepower game and try to outmuscle the PS3 and 360, but this isn't going to do the system any favors. Sure, Wii can't output high-definition video, but it does run in extended definition -- and looks really good. But you need the component cables for that, and those are an extra thirty bucks. Including them in the package would have done a great deal to advance the system's cause for HD owners (and everyone else who knows anything about signal quality, even on standard definition sets) since it would have meant graphics that look good right out of the box. And it's not like it would have hurt the bottom line; Wii was reportedly going to retail for $200 until retailers pressured Nintendo to bump up the price to create the perception of value. This is known as "a crock."
2. Wiimote button layout: The Wii remote is a really great idea for a controller, and it works shockingly well for traditional games like Zelda... mostly. But anytime you have to make frequent use of the "+" or "-" or "1" or "2" buttons, you're going to hate how inconveniently they're placed. Also, the B trigger on the underside is perhaps a little too sensitive -- I've lost track of the number of times I've paused the game and placed the controller on the couch for a break... only to find myself suddenly under attack because I had brushed B when I set down the remote, exiting out of the pause screen.
3. Hungry hungry Wiimote: Something you don't see in previews is mention of the fact that the Wii remote guzzles batteries. No joke -- I started into Zelda with a fresh pair and had to change them out twice. Roughly every 20 hours, in other words. This is known as "another crock" -- the WaveBird, the 360 controller, even the third-party wireless job I'm using for PS2 can go for months without a charge. (I've had the same pair of double-As in my PS2 controller for nearly three years.) I get that the motion-sensitive stuff is more demanding than your standard analog controller, but damn. As much as the controllers cost, you'd think they'd have a high-capacity NiMH inside, but no. Add rechargeable batteries to your "hidden costs" list. Otherwise you can expect each playthrough of Zelda to cost you about five bucks.
4. Virtual Console stupidity: Kohler says yes (maybe?) to Virtual Console output in 480p... but no to Virtual Console having enough sense not to auto-stretch your NES games to fit your widescreen display. Barf. Hello future system update.
5. No Mario Galaxy at launch: Seriously, guys, not awesome. Zelda isn't enough! I'm spoiled and demand Mario Galaxy, too. Don't listen to the detractors -- the E3 demo was brilliant.

category: games | forums | 25 comments | §

The twilight of Twilight

16 November 06 | 13:48 | Posted by:

Welp, I'm done with Zelda. Review tomorrow.

Exclusive preview of the review: I liked it.

More to the point, I found myself enjoying the game more the longer I played -- considering the marathon sessions I put in, that's no small feat. Especially since a fair number of other games in the series have dragged in the second half. Nice to see a game that isn't a few hours of substance followed by tons of padding prior to the finale.

Incidentally, I don't know if you've been following this week's 1UP Cover Story, but I wrote almost all the text for it. It's sort of weird to read articles that are just now being published, since they were written by a Jeremy Parish who had much less experience with the game and are very incomplete. Not that I'm out to spoil things for anyone. I just hate being a purveyor of partial information.

Holy crap, that must be some kind of turnaround record -- I finished the game five hours ago, and already the review has been written, top edited, copy edited and posted. See? I said I liked it.

category: games | forums | 33 comments | §

Life during Zelda time

15 November 06 | 07:57 | Posted by:

Man, Nintendo wasn't just blowing hot air about Twilight Princess being 70 hours long. I'm 32 hours in... and about halfway through the adventure, as far as I can tell. The sheer enormity of this game is difficult to vocalize... although fortunately we have non-disclosure agreements to keep my lips sealed until the Wii launch, thus sparing me the trouble of making the effort.

The Gamevideos.com dudes took away my component cables for a while yesterday so they could do some high-quality video capture, which suddenly made it clear why people were talking about how ugly this game is. No exaggeration: playing this on an HD set with composite video makes it look like an N64 game with a slightly improved poly count. Not only do you lose the widescreen functionality, but there's all kinds of smeariness and ghosting and general unpleasantness. Not just in the snooty HD snob sense, but in the "this looks so bad and details are so hard to make out that I now have a screaming headache." The "p" in all those different HD resolutions (480p/720p/1080p) makes more of a difference than the numbers, I've learned.


Since Wii's output resolution is determed at the system level, I'm assuming this means that the Virtual Console will be outputting games at 480p, which in turn means that it is so, so worth it. Well, sort of. It's annoying that old games are nigh-unusable on HD sets, but at least there's a workaround for NIntendo stuff... even if you have to pay for it. I've heard that PS3 doesn't output PS1/PS2 games at HD resolutions, which makes my tiny heart break from the sheer predictability of it all. Sony, why you gotta suck so bad? For 600 bucks, the PS3 shouldn't just make Chrono Cross look good on the same TV you want me to use to get the most out of Resistance -- it should write its own Harle X Orlha slash fiction. Honestly.

category: games | forums | 48 comments | §

Ze-ru-da

13 November 06 | 09:06 | Posted by:

In a comedy of errors that could only be described as "worst timing ever," Nintendo decided to finally get around to sending out reviewable Wii/Zelda units to us Friday afternoon... and I had long ago made plans to be out of town over the weekend. So this morning I've embarked on a mind-boggling journey to beat the game in four days, write a two reviews and hopefully not develop bedsores from having my ass planted to my couch for a week.

The good new: Five days of sitting at home doing nothing but playing Zelda. For this I draw a bi-weekly paycheck?

The bad news: Five days of sitting at home doing nothing but playing Zelda. I'm not really much for marathon play sessions, and I find being a game-obsessed shut-in depressing. (I've tried it a few times and always end up wanting to disavow all knowledge of video games by the time I'm done.)

Happily, Nintendo sent us one of their rare and precious Wii component cables, which was sent home with me. Worried that Wii games are going to look like crap on HD sets? Fear not. Zelda looks amazing on my LCD set, and this is not a television that is kind to non-HD content. Even those rare creatures known as widescreen PS2 games in 480p look like garbage next to this. I'm not sure what foul magic Nintendo used to get Wii to look so good at non-HD resolutions, but I will not complain.

category: games | forums | 32 comments | §

No Island paradise

09 November 06 | 14:53 | Posted by:

It's my favorite time of the month -- the day the someone on the Internet gets ahold of an early copy of the newest EGM, dumps the scores to every forum within arm's reach and watches as hundreds of people commence frothing. At this point, no one actually need read the resulting message threads to know what they'll say, as they all boil down to one basic theme month in and month out: These decontextualized numbers I have just seen are not suitably compatible with my preconceptions (which I absolutely believe will prove to be founded just as soon as I actually play the game in question). How dare they!

I imagine there will be some crankiness over my Yoshi's Island DS score in particular, but such is life. I practically exploded in glee when the game was first revealed at E3, so giving it anything less than a great score caused me some crankiness. But the sad fact is that it's absolutely not up to Nintendo's first-party standards; my guess is that it slipped through the QA cracks because the company's attention is wholly focused on more important things, like making sure the Wii launch actually happens and that Zelda is suitably amazing.



There are definitely some nice parts in Yoshi's Island DS, but generally they're the parts that were lifted straight from the original. It's a very strange and uneven game; the first two worlds are almost soporifically similar to the SNES game, the third world demonstrates some actual originality, and the last two worlds go off on wild tangents that rarely work out as well as I suspect Artoon intended. Throughout the entire game, I kept coming to points where I would stop and shake my head and think, "An actual Nintendo-made game would never do this."

It is, in effect, the ultimate doujin game. But oh well. There are certainly enough other totally great portable games out this fall to make the bitter aftertaste of Yoshi's Island DS easier to mouthwash away -- two of them, Final Fantasy V Advance and Elite Beat Agents, landed just this week, in fact. As in... today. Go on, run out and grab copies for yourself. They're portable, which means they're cheap, and you deserve them just on principle. Because gosh darn it, you're totally swell.

That's all for now. I'm up to 11,000+ words of Zelda previews and I'm pretty much out of words. I need to let my brain recharge, I think. I can tell my brain needs a rest, because the FFXII discussion that's been going on lately has made me contemplate the possibility of resurrecting the Pit of Flames/Forums O' Terror, and no good could come from that. Gotta rest before I do something we all regret.

Speaking of, my second Twilight Princess preview is now online. I had a harder time centrifuging the spoilers from the dry details, but I still did my best. Please to enjoy.

category: games | forums | 83 comments | §

'Tis of thee

07 November 06 | 15:10 | Posted by:

I don't normally talk about politics, but I think this is some truly hard-hitting election coverage that everyone needs to read.

Or maybe not. All I know is that my polling location is in some garage about a block from my apartment, which is both weird and guilt-inducing. If I don't hit the polls today it's because I'm a lazy creep who hates democracy. Not unlike our current government! My only real ambition today is to vote against everyone who approved the Military Commissions Act. I figure the minimum requirement for anyone leading the country should be to understand the basic principle upon which the country was founded.

Well, enough of that. In far more important news, I've discovered a new and exciting method to increase my work output: for every article I write, I reward myself with two hours of FFXII play time. I put this into effect over the weekend and managed to crank out five reviews, columns and things about ZEEEEELLLLDAAAAAA. That's ten hours, right there!

I can't wait until I have time to cash in my reward.

My fragmented FFXII gameplay sessions have had a strange result: less time for exploration and wandering, meaning being underleveled compared to my import playthrough. It was bad news when one of Ghis' guardsmen -- not Ghis himself! -- took down my tank in a single two-hit combo. Fortunately, I managed to survive the battle and voyage onward to the desert, where I am committed to transforming Vaan into a monk before I go any further, by golly. It's probably just too much Tactics speaking, but I feel that anyone wearing a vest over no shirt in a Matsuno game was destined to become a fist-fighting warrior. That means unlocking the licenses for Barehanded and the Amber Amulet, and maybe some HP+ since at the moment Basch has twice as many hit points as he does. This is my mission. It is important.

Spoiler: FFXII NERD ALERT AHEAD! I'm still trying to perfect the auto-stealing thing. Has anyone gotten stealing to work so your thief doesn't try to swipe goodies from the same enemy over and over again, even after a successful pilfer? I'm thinking maybe setting your leader's first two Gambits to [ENEMY: PARTY LEADER'S TARGET, ATTACK] followed by [ENEMY: HP=100%, STEAL] might work. Since he/she would only attack an enemy targeted by him/herself, a first encounter with an enemy would skip Gambit 1 and jump to Steal, at which point the enemy would be targeted, which would cause the Attack Gambit to kick in. Or is that crazy talk? Anyone?

category: blog | forums | 74 comments | §

The Amazing Bungie Venture

05 November 06 | 08:00 | Posted by:

Huh. Thanks for all the comments about FFXII. That's... a lot of reading. And all very well thought-out and generally civil despite many disagreements, at that. What are you people doing on the Internet? Clearly you have real-world skills and shouldn't be skulking around this vile nest of festering social retardation.

I think I may start doing this sort of thing more often -- since I'm in the business of telling people my opinion about games, I spend a lot of time trying to get a feel for perspectives on the other side of the Great Publications Divide. But since those opinions are usually filtered through the lens of message boards and user feedback, the results tend to be a little unsavory (and frequently presented in a way that leaves the writer's intelligence in question). But if I can use you guys as my control group, great! Of course, that does mean it's a statistically invalid sampling if the general lack of raw idiocy on display in the FFXII comments is any indication, but I'm OK with that.

And now for something completely different:



I need contributors for tomorrow's Retronauts podcast. Turns out that of everyone at ZD, only Sharkey and myself have any real experience with the Marathon games. SO! If you have strong (and informed) opinions about Marathon/retro-Bungie in general and will be free tomorrow at 5 p.m. Pacific, please contact me. (Not in the comments -- use email or 1UP private messages, please.) Extra bonus points if you live in the Bay Area and can actually come to our offices to record. The Skype thing, it's not so good.

category: games | forums | 22 comments | §

LOVE SONG

03 November 06 | 17:14 | Posted by:

OK! Enough hating on Japanophiles. Their lot in life is hard enough; they think an entire culture can be boiled down to softcore T&A anime, after all. Instead, let's talk above love. And by "love" I mean "Final Fantasy XII."



I've been going on for more than half a year about how completely great FFXII is, and now that the game has been out for a few days I assume most people have been able to work past the kinda pokey bits at the outset of the adventure and into the much more enjoyable experience that begins to take shape around the 10-hour mark. So! It's reader feedback time. I want to hear your opinions about the game. Love it? Hate it? Spill.



I'm hoping most people share my POV, i.e. that it's absolutely great. I can understand, intellectually, why some people might hate the game. But emotionally, and strictly in terms of taste, I think it might just be the finest RPG ever to grace a console.

P.S. I wrote an awful lot about Twilight Princess. That's pretty much been my whole week, so please be kind and read it. At least the non-spoiler bits, anyway.

category: games | forums | 88 comments | §

We got the beat

01 November 06 | 08:06 | Posted by:

Until I bought a copy and looked at the actual box, I didn't realize that Elite Beat Agents had been branded as a Touch Generations title. (You know, Nintendo's "Hey kids, give this to grandma" label.) But it's totally fitting and, more importantly, absolutely vindicates my insightful punditry, i.e. making fun of the people who've freaked out about the changes from the Japanese version.

Of course, it's always great fun to mock the easily-offended sensibilities of super-hardcore Pocky-munching DDR-stepping yaoi-drawing faux-Japanophiles. (You know, the ones who are only interested in foreign culture to the extent that it intersects anime and whose frequently-employed Japanese vocabulary consists of "kawaii," "sugoi" and "baka.") But the freaked-out backlash against Elite Beat Agents has been a particularly savory chestnut to roast thanks entirely to its utter, preposterous stupidity.

Their logic, such as it is, goes like this: Ossu! Tatakae! Ouendan! was an amazing game, but its appeal was predicated solely upon all the licensed J-pop music. The humor, the gameplay, the clever comic-style scenarios were, to hear them tell it, totally immaterial. Therefore its English version -- Elite Beat Agents -- is going to be awful due to the fact that the Japanese music has been discarded in favor of songs accessible and familiar to Americans.


(To the tune of Madonna's "Material Girl")
Never mind that it's really an entirely new game, with all new scenarios to match the new tunes. Never mind that the game could never have come to the U.S. with its original music intact, because what publisher would pay to license music that only the tiniest slice of American gamers would recognize? Maybe therein lies the problem -- gamers have a terrible time dealing with the notion that their clique, clan or cult isn't the first consideration in their favorite company's every business decision. The cliquier and clannier they are, the harder it is for them to accept this reality. And licensing Chicago and Cher for EBA sends a very clear message to the J-tards: you are not our core audience.

And good thing, too. EBA may just be the most accessible game on the DS, which is really saying something. The gameplay is simple, the scenarios are genuinely funny, and the music works well. Yeah, all of it. The clever thing about licensing familiar U.S.-charting pop is that your mom/dad/sister/grandma is going to hear David Bowie or the Village People blasting from your DS and be curious about it. And then he/she will try it. And be hooked. And suddenly, BAM, new gaming fan. Well, maybe it won't be quite so simple as that, but EBA has more potential to turn people onto gaming than just about anything else I can think of, and the fact that Nintendo recognizes this bodes well for their future, I think.

So anyway, buy EBA when it ships next week. If I'm not mistaken, it's the highest-scoring title I've reviewed all year. (Not that numbers mean anything, but you get the idea.) And you haters can go choke on a Pocky. Hopefully one of the almond-encrusted ones -- they look really painful.

category: games | forums | 59 comments | §