Mario has a posse

31 August 08 | 10:13 | Posted by:

And it strong-armed me into buying a copy of Yoshi's Island for my restored and complete Super Famicom collection.



Sorry, my bad. "Yossy Island."

category: games | forums | 17 comments | §

Apparently people listen to Retronauts

30 August 08 | 09:14 | Posted by:

Who knew? I didn't. I never get to see the numbers, so I always just assume we're piffling along with an audience of a few dozen. Actually, that could very well still be the case, but if so then I appear to have shaken hands here at PAX with everyone who listens to it. I've lost count of how many people have come up to me having recognized me from something or another and immediately segued into, "I like your podcast!" Without fail, actually -- every single person so far. It's happened far more often than at PAX two years ago, actually, which could be accounted for by the fact that the show is probably two or three times larger this year but probably has more to do with the fact that more people use video on the web. And I do occasionally have to show up on The 1UP Show, despite my best efforts to avoid it.

In any case, it's been interesting to see how the audience acts when they meet different people. For me it's an immediate mention of Retronauts. Meanwhile, they seem to be in awe of Garnett Lee, reportedly heckle Shane Bettenhausen (heh), and Shawn Elliott returned to our hotel room with a bag full of imported candy that people brought him because he mentioned something about how the first thing he does when he visits a foreign country is sample their candy. Oh yeah, and people are always giving Garnett booze, as he is rumored to enjoy a little dook dook dook every now and then, I hear. Free stuff is awesome. I need a gimmick, too.

Anyway, if you see me, feel free to give me...stuff. As long as it's not gross stuff.

category: blog | forums | 26 comments | §

Whoa hey what now?

29 August 08 | 07:39 | Posted by:

Secret of Mana is coming to Virtual Console? But I thought Square Enix only put games and series on VC if they didn't see any future in th-- oh. Oh.



So yes, this development is fraught with peril. Like Randi here, we covet the shiny thing -- for him a mysterious sword; for us a totally sweet classic action RPG for eight bucks, a fraction of what it sells for on eBay. Yet we know that if we take it, bad things will happen. For Randi, that means unleashing a plague of monsters and being forced to hang out with an annoying sprite until he killed the Luck Dragon; for us, the fact that it will mark the presumptive death of the Mana series.

Then again, did you guys play Dawn of Mana? Someone grab a shovel. We gotta bury this corpse before it stinks any worse.

category: games | forums | 34 comments | §

Driving home the pathos

28 August 08 | 18:35 | Posted by:

Alas, updates may be sporadic now that I am at Penny Arcade Expo bossing other people around.



But hey! While you're waiting for me to blog again, you can read these perfectly tolerable interviews I've posted with the producers of Exit DS and The Legend of Kage 2.

category: blog | forums | five comments | §

Victory lap

27 August 08 | 14:39 | Posted by:

So I guess my girlfriend is upset that I've decided to adopt without consulting her first. Man, some people! I thought she'd be happy have a prodigy in the house. Especially one past the teething-and-diapers stage of life.

In happier news, I've finally managed to set up that elliptical machine I ordered a month ago. It arrived the day before I left for Japan, actually, but the geniuses at Schwinn neglected to make sure they included all the necessary bolts and washers in the box, so it's been sitting in a half-assembled pile (and occupying the bulk of my bedroom's floor space) for weeks. The parts finally arrived Monday, apparently on a slow boat from China (despite assurances that "you should have them in three to five days," three weeks ago), and I completed construction.

Assembled, this thing is fantastic -- it was painfully expensive, yes, but my perpetual eBay presence (this week it's Mystery Science Theater 3000, Japanese consoles and Game Boy games) has cleared up that particular expense already. It's also ludicrously large and I shudder to imagine how we're going to transport it when we move out, but whatever. Health and a positive self-image are probably about the best reasons to spend money and inconvenience yourself. Plus, it's incalculably nicer to use than the crappy-ass bike I annihilated through overenthusiasm last month. It's high-tech, even, with a programmable interface, personalized workout data memory and a pair of electrical sensor grips to let me know that, yes, in fact, my chest is about to explode because really only hummingbirds should have that sort of heart rate and shouldn't you maybe call an ambulance? Maybe I should have gone for the top-of-the-line model which will call for medical support when you collapse. The optional triage function is particularly commendable, I think.

Now I just have to make up for the month of backsliding I've done while it's been laying in a heap on the floor.

P.S. Goodness! Whatever could this be?


I mean, aside from a damning indictment of the iPhone's lack of macro capabilities.

category: blog | forums | 39 comments | §

Parenthood

26 August 08 | 11:23 | Posted by:

So, I've decided that I'm going to adopt this girl:

category: blog | forums | 28 comments | §

Skulls a-poppin'

25 August 08 | 22:02 | Posted by:

Add To Queue | Weekly DVD Releases
Ah, DVDs. I learned a little while ago that my girlfriend loves The X-Files -- how have we dated for three and a half years without my knowing this? I'm sure the new movie is terrible, but man did I love the first few seasons of that show. Of course, this has nothing to do with this week's DVD releases, but all I'm really good for these days is pointless tangents.

New Game + | Weekly Game Releases
Oh, hey, look, they still publish video games. I was beginning to wonder after the past few weeks, but yes: Summer is drawing to its close, and this week marks the first rush of titles hustling to beat the fall glut to shelves. I would like to say I selected yesterday to publish the Tales of Phantasia retrospective as a tie-in to Tales of Vesperia's release, but that would be a lie. As usual.

category: film, games | forums | ten comments | §

GameSpite Issue 9.3: Lamentations and rending of garments

24 August 08 | 16:04 | Posted by:

The original plan with Issue Nine was to compress the contents into three weeks instead of four, but that's not working out so well with my schedule. So nex week will be an extra-special fourth-part update, and we'll roll right on into Issue Ten after that. Doesn't that sound lovely? (Let me answer for you: Yes.)

---

Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
Today, Merus makes me feel good about skipping Jak. The first time I became aware of the series was during my first trip to Japan, where I was stunned by the generic uniformity of the anime-style games on display. Then I saw a cardboard stand-up of Jak and realized that competent blandness is miles better than utterly hideous character design. Seriously, what were they thinking?

Tales of Phantasia
Mightyblue fulfills our nerd-rage quotient for the issue with a look at Namco's Tales of Phantasia (except it's not really Namco's, as you'll soon see). Our boy's view of the series is not entirely unlike mine: What a great idea, what a breath of fresh air, what a near-miss with greatness, what a promising brand bludgeoned into worthlessness by abysmal corporate mismanagement.

category: games | forums | eleven comments | §

Push the button, Frank

23 August 08 | 17:08 | Posted by:

I have to say that I am seriously looking forward to PAX next weekend. Not just because it's going to be enjoyable (though it will be, no doubt), but because once it's over I have a whole, glorious month free of major events. Nothing doing until Tokyo Game Show in October. That is good! It means I can whip things into shape around here.

My first priority, of course, is to create and mail out gifts for everyone who's signed up for the server fund, now that said fund has rolled into its third month. To the left right is the second button of the set, featuring our friend the Telebunny in front of a background clearly inspired by Super Mario Bros. 3 and World. (The first was decided on some time ago, if you'll recall.) One more to go.

Oh, and for anyone who thinks games journalism is a joke...this weekend marked my inaugural effort as a travel and leisure writer, which consisted of me traveling down the coast to a really nice inn, where I was fed, given a tour, put up in a posh, complimentary room and offered a one-hour massage course so that I could write a fluff piece about what a wonderful place it is. It is a wonderful place, so I won't exactly be straining against my integrity here. Still, I felt like I was doing something sneaky and disreputable the entire time, although of course I was simply going about it the Way These Things Are Done in that particular field of publishing. I decided to pass up the massage just in case. My back may be achey, but the burden upon my body is a load lifted from my soul. Or something like that.

category: blog | forums | twelve comments | §

It's not your birthday, it's not today

22 August 08 | 21:28 | Posted by:

It is, however, Chrono Trigger's birthday, and to celebrate the occasion the Square Enix blog has posted up the box art for the DS port. Sadly, it's much less barren and pathetic than the placeholder from Amazon.com. No, it's pretty much perfect. Now I have to buy it.


Weirdly, the news that it was released thirteen years ago today doesn't make me feel incredibly old, for once. It really does seem like it's been a long time since the game first arrived -- and I think it may actually have been the first game I ever rushed out to buy on its launch day. I swapped a handful of games (including Final Fantasy III) to be able to afford its ridiculous price on my starving college student's budget -- after tax, it would have cost me an unthinkable $90 and change. Instead, I got it for about $20.

As many times as I played it, though, I probably would have gotten my full value from paying Babbage's marked-up retail price. I earned every single last ending for the game, explored every possible nook and cranny, even managed the ridiculous, you're-not-really-supposed-to-do-that feat of besting Lavos in the Ocean Palace without my characters anywhere near their maximum stats. I even called the Nintendo tip line to figure out how I was supposed to save Schala, 'cause clearly that bit about "someone close to one of you needs help" line in the End of Time couldn't possibly mean anything else. (Apparently, though, it did, and I spent a buck-fifty to find that out.) I still remember most of the game's original dialogue word-for-word, too. It's kinda bad. Worse than that is the fact that I actually quit a job so I could play it -- although admittedly I was going to quit a week later to make time for school, and the job was really depressing and awful anyway. But still! You World of Warcraft social pariahs got nothin' on me.

I won't be so presumptuous as to claim Chrono Trigger is the greatest game ever, or anything outlandish like that. But it is one of the most thoroughly enjoyable games ever, and that probably counts for a lot more in the long run.

category: games | forums | 32 comments | §

Legion of super excellence

22 August 08 | 13:49 | Posted by:

This week's Fun Club selection in the forums is Galaga Legions. You should buy it, and play it, and talk about it. And here is why.



Basically, it's brilliant. Of course, you probably won't think so at first glance. What do massive, undulating swarms insects have to do with Galaga, you'll wonder. Whose idea was it to turn a classic arcade shooter into yet another tired twin-stick Geometry Wars clone? That would be fine for Robotron or some nonsense, but Galaga? Heresy!

But let it sink in beyond that first impression. And consider this: Legions isn't really a sequel to Galaga; it's a sequel to its sequel, the forgotten (but exceptional) Gaplus. Maybe you've seen it on one of the PlayStation Namco Museum collections, but I don't think Gaplus has put in many appearances since then -- which is a shame, because it's an underappreciated classic. Gaplus inverted its predecessor's most interesting mechanic, which allowed the enemy craft to capture one of your fighters, by letting you capture them and make them your subordinates. Legions does this from time to time, and it works wonderfully, essentially turning your ship into a nigh-indestructible ball of death.

It also represents a rethinking of many of Galaga's fundamentals. For instance, rather than force you to allow your ship to become captured and reclaim it, it simply starts you out with two indestructible assistant craft. These work somewhere between the Bit from R-Type and the "programmable" Options from Gradius V; while you can leave them by your side for triple fire (and in fact will earn an Achievement for doing so), you can also maneuver them with the right stick, setting them at specific points to fire in a given direction. This is incredibly intuitive -- simply tap the right stick and you'll drop a flanker in your current location, primed to fire in the direction in which you pressed the controller. Alien craft swirl in from all sides, but their paths are tipped in advance with a glowing streamer that defines their attack patterns and locations. Success boils down to learning to read these hints and laying down suppressive fire accordingly. Helpfully, you can move around the entire screen, which gives it a tiny hint of Geometry Wars from time to time -- and occasionally even a whiff of bullet hell as you swerve between bolts of enemy fire and let your flanking craft do your heavy lifting for you.

Yeah, so I like it. I feel like this entry lack sufficient snark to be a blog post, so pretend I just said something rude about your hygiene.

category: games | forums | five comments | §

This week in Retronauts...

21 August 08 | 14:54 | Posted by:

...we put an end to the "25 years of Famicom" retrospective blogs that Ray and I have been posting over at 1UP.



Handily, you can find a link for the episode and a complete roundup of all 50 (!) blog posts in this convenient news entry. I tallied it up, and my Famicom entries clock in at 20,800 words. That is...yeah. That's really a lot of words. I am sad to say they're not all great words, but as with so many things if you can weed through the garbage I'm sure you'll find a few bits that make it all worthwhile. Or at least, I sure hope so.

After this, we'll be resuming our biweekly schedule. And let me just say that if all goes according to plan, our next episode is going to be fantastic.

category: games | forums | 24 comments | §

A small indulgence

20 August 08 | 18:33 | Posted by:

Sure, times are tough, but I managed to put aside a double-sawbuck for something completely useless anyway. Hasbro was kind enough to create it specifically for me, so I figured I owed them the courtesy. I'm speaking, of course, of the G.I. Joe DVD Battle Pack set. Apparently there will be five of these, but this one, The M.A.S.S. Device. This is the one that matters.



Remember when figure sets used to come in compact blister packs or small boxes? Apparently no one buys those, or something, because now toys like this all seem to come in massive display-window boxes. Vehicles seem to be even worse, since they all apparently come completely pre-assembled now, with the stickers applied. That's pretty much half the joy of buying a new toy down the drain, right there. And I feel like these jumbo boxes should be a wash in terms of profitability, since fewer of them can fit on a shelf at once than toys of years past, but what do I know? I'm not some faceless suit using science and spreadsheets to determine the most efficient means of wringing every last cent from America's children, I'm just a dope with an overdeveloped nostalgia gland.

Post continued after link >>

category: toys | forums | 19 comments | §

Miscellaneavania

19 August 08 | 20:13 | Posted by:

Remember when I opened a call for site contributors a few weeks back? Well... much to my surprise, GameSpite is apparently reputable enough now (or something, I dunno) that I received three dozen applicants. That's really quite a lot, and I'm sort of at a loss for how to deal with so much interest. I'm thinking perhaps I should begin thinking outside of the proverbial box, maybe. So if you've submitted an application, please don't be discouraged by the fact that I haven't responded to you! I haven't responded to anyone. I just haven't had a chance yet. It's been a stressful month. Once we're through with Leipzig Games Convention -- I get to wake up at 5 a.m. tomorrow to post news stories, which I will do diligently and without complaint because, hey, crap hours during LGC seems like a fair trade-off for not having to work home base during Tokyo Game Show -- and Penny Arcade Expo, the good times shall roll! It seems September is, in stark contrast to April, the least cruel month. Please stay tuned for further developments.

Also: If you are going to PAX, please check the relevant forum thread to stand and be counted. Apparently people are going to meet up. I might join in if I'm free, although I'll be serving as 1UP Point Man and thus may not be able to extricate myself from my duties. And I've got that protestant work ethic thing going, so I always toil away like a dutiful little worker bee at these things.

Additionally: My girlfriend has started up a blog chronicling her travails as an aspiring photographer. It turns out she's a pretty good blogger! Hopefully she'll give me some pointers.

And finally: My endeavor to sell off my worldly possessions proceeds apace. This week, the bulk of my DS collection is on the auction block. My stacks of things to get rid of are growing smaller, and it's a pretty good feeling! Material possessions are dumb. Well, with a few exceptions, of course.

category: blog | forums | 17 comments | §

It's just another Chelsea Monday

18 August 08 | 21:07 | Posted by:

New Game + | Weekly Games Releases
Ah, summer time. When the major releases are poopy because who would ever want to play interesting new games during summer when they have time off and miserably hot afternoons to kill? Thank goodness for downloadable content! The savior of our miserable summers of suffering.


Add To Queue | Weekly DVD Releases
So, there's like this medium called "film." I hear it's pretty popular! You should read about it to take a break from video games, because really those things are gonna rot your brain and give you carpal tunnel syndrome or something.

category: film, games | forums | eleven comments | §

Book 'em, Joe

18 August 08 | 10:08 | Posted by:

Ninja Five-O
Dev: Hudson | Publisher: Konami | System: GBA | Date: 2003

I remember browsing through a GBA ROM release list back in the summer of 2003, curious to see if there were any ridiculous Japan-only releases I had somehow missed. I figured there had to be something on par with the goofiness of Urban Yeti -- and sure enough, there it was: Ninja Cop. Surely the most laughable game ever, right? The name alone spoke of every lousy early-90s video game cliché imaginable, lumped into a single bundle of stupidity.

Or so I thought! But then I checked out the U.S. release, localized under the even more ridiculous title of Ninja Five-O and -- shock! Awe! (A very relevant and timely expression in the heady they will greet us as liberators days of 2003.) Rather than bundling together the most hackneyed tropes of the '80s and '90s (or at least, in addition to them), it actually collected the best game mechanics of the 8- and 16-bit eras into a glorious, unified whole.


Ninja platforming with an emphasis on rescuing hostages, straight out of Shinobi? Awesome. Level designs straight out of Elevator Action 2? Genius. A simple level-up system and gameplay built around something so archaic as scores? Fantastic. Oh, and the best integration of a Bionic Commando-style action game grappling mechanic seen since, uh... well, since Bionic Commando? Well, kids, that seals the deal, even if grappling wasn't a consistently-used core element.

Ninja Five-O really did capture a long-vanished feel -- its music, its gameplay, its color palette, the very nonsensical bosses. The whole banana, really. If it had been released in, say, 1993 on Genesis, it would be fondly remembered as the best Shinobi rip-off ever created. Having arrived ten years later, it was largely overlooked. Not helping one bit was Konami's utter lack of confidence in the game, which led to them not advertising the game worth a crap and producing maybe about three dozen copies. The stupid name and awful box art (which looked like it had been drawn in someone's notebook during study hall) certainly didn't win any hearts and minds. (As they said back in '03.) As a result, it tends to command a fairly steep price on eBay as people become aware of its quality. This little write-up probably won't help! But once you're done with Rearmed, give Ninja Five-O a look. It has a dumb title, but its action is supoib.


Weirdly enough, there was a Famicom game called Ninja Cop Saizo back in the day, which came over here as Wrath of the Black Manta. Apparently they're not technically related (one having come from Taito and the other from Hudson), even though they share quite a few mechanics in common -- ninja magic, rescuing dudes, policemen on the shinobi beat.

category: games | forums | twelve comments | §

GameSpite 9.2: The subverting subversions episode

17 August 08 | 13:19 | Posted by:

No More Heroes
This is another one of those weeks where I randomly pulled stuff together and the articles selected ended up forming a cohesive theme. This happens much more often than probability says it should. But don't get complacent, assuming this will always be the case -- as chud666's look at No More Heroes explains, life is all about subverted expectations.

FLCL
I've kind of been pushing the site away from non-game stuff, because, after all, it's not called AnimeSpite.net. But I sort of hated FLCL, and I was curious to see if Lumber Baron could work his magic to make me reconsider -- to subvert my criticisms, so to speak. I won't say whether or not he succeeded, but at the very least the result is a fine write-up.

category: games, gamespite, media | forums | eleven comments | §

Yes, Lucca, there is a Santa Claus

16 August 08 | 13:23 | Posted by:

Looks like Chrono Trigger DS has a release date. That is good, although the Square tax is pretty annoying. I mean, seriously, it's not like I can't just go get the Super NES cart for five bucks...oh, wait. Ah, they've got us again, the bastards. But no matter. Let's have a race to see who can get all the endings and a party full of maxed stats by New Year's.

category: games | forums | 25 comments | §

You should've seen the one that got away

15 August 08 | 18:23 | Posted by:

Umihara Kawase
Dev: TNN et al. | Publisher: TNN/Xing/Marvelous | System: SFC/PS1/PSP | Date: 1994

When I've talked about games that keep the spirit of Bionic Commando, what I've really meant by spirit is that very specific, technical element of grappling and swinging. Lots of games have swing mechanics, but very few put any amount of thought into it. Look at Super Metroid -- the grappling beam is essential once or twice in the course of the game, but outside of those specific instances you'll rarely use it. In fact, it's better as a cheat for killing a boss than as a means of getting about Zebeth's labyrinthine corridors. Samus doesn't even have any special animations to indicate momentum or gravity, which makes her look stiff and awkward next to Radd Spencer (who crooks one leg forward as he arcs forward and back).

And nothing, nothing comes close to the technical swinging mechanics of Umihara Kawase.

Originally designed as a Super Famicom game, Umihara looks unassuming enough; a little schoolgirl carrying a fishhook is the protagonist, and she wanders through surreal stages with digitized clip art backgrounds and bizarre man-fish roaming the pathways. But beneath that lighthearted surface lurks a beast of a game, an exercise in precision physics that can break a man's soul. The original version of the game was described on the box as a "rubbering action game," which isn't as naughty as it sounds; basically it means that Umi's fishing line is incredibly elastic. Mastering the game is a matter of learning to manipulate the behavior of the line. Where Bionic Commando has very tightly-defined swinging, Umihara's is much more varied and difficult to master.



Frankly, I kinda suck at it. And you need to not suck by about ten stages into the game if you want a chance of finishing the adventure. In the PlayStation version, the better you are the more interesting routes you can take through the adventure: Secret doors are hidden out of the way in nearly every level, and only true experts of the game can even begin to hope to reach those. It's pretty humbling!

Umihara's never made its way out of Japan, but despite the title it hasn't gotten away entirely: Natsume will be bringing over the PSP port this fall as Yumi's Odd Odyssey. That's good! But the PSP port notoriously suffered from major physics issues, which completely spoils the point of the game. That's bad! Hopefully they'll fix it up before releasing it, because the core game is an interesting, challenge-driven alternate take on the concept of grappling -- and the only game to really give Bionic Commando's swing gimmick a run for its money.

(Images courtesy of HG101)

category: games | forums | thirteen comments | §

Bionic Commando rehashed

15 August 08 | 11:54 | Posted by:

A bunch of people have been asking for the full text of the Bionic Commando FAQfic (I just made up that term! Because I'm awesome) from which I read excerpts on yesterday's Retronauts. Silly humans! It's been here all along. I added better formatting this morning, though. Just for you.

But don't expect full text. I wrote up Area One and the game equipment one day long ago. Then, the next day, I looked at my life and realized how it was being squandered on nonsense and shut down the entire site in despair. Sadly, that moment of clarity was eventually forgotten, which is why you're reading this now, but needless to say I've never quite gotten around to writing up the rest of the game. Still, what's there is interesting to read. Consider it a small window into an alternate reality where life didn't suffocate the joy and ambition out of me and I went on to become a real writer.

Also, courtesy of Siliconera, Mega Man E-tank energy drinks. So. Awesome.


I don't even like energy drinks! But I will be enjoying several of these at TGS, I have no doubt. Well, maybe "enjoying" is the wrong word. "Forcing myself to down them through a grimace of agony out of dutiful nerddom," I guess.

category: blog, games | forums | eleven comments | §

Go go bionic

14 August 08 | 21:55 | Posted by:

Are you sick of Bionic Commando yet? No? Well, listen to the latest Retronauts and maybe you will be! I also, you know, reviewed the remake. Spoiler alert: I liked it.



Chain Dive
Publisher: Sony | System: PS2 | Date: 2003

Whenever the subject of games that borrowed liberally from Bionic Commando comes up, someone always mentions Spider-man 2 for last gen's consoles. Whatever! Yeah, you swung there, but there was no skill involved. Spidey could swing by using thin air as a grappling point, which is just silly. A much better representative of the Bionic Commando swing mechanic is a little-known and incredibly-hard-to-find-info-on PS2 game called Chain Dive.

Chain Dive is probably best described as the boss battle in the Sky Palace of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess transplanted into the futuristic city from Strider 2 and turned into an entire game. The levels are almost entirely aerial, with the hero grappling between tiny points and evading enemies by flinging himself from link to link. It's very exhilarating, and kind of tough. But fun!

Too bad I gave away my copy, because it's stupidly hard to find these days.

category: games | forums | twelve comments | §

Swing out, sister

13 August 08 | 20:53 | Posted by:

I was gonna do this write-up stuff in something like chronological order, but you know what? Chronology can bite me.



Fausseté Amour
Dev/Pub: Naxat | System: PC Engine Duo | Date: 1993

Fausseté Amour is one of those games I longed to play for years, because it was supposedly a crazy, hardcore, candy-colored take on Bionic Commando. So I finally gave in and bought it a few months ago and...well. I think Kurt's write-up pretty much says it all: Fausseté Amour is a fairly mediocre game about lady butts. Oh, and it also involves grappling, sometimes, as an afterthought.

The game's heroine, whose name I didn't bother to remember, is more Arthur than Radd -- she wears a suit of pink armor that explodes and leaves her in her underwear at the slightest contact with a bad guy. Turnabout's fair play, right? But when boxer-clad Arthur died, he collapsed into a pile of bones. When chicky here croaks, she ends up in a naked heap on the floor. And all the bosses she fights have large naked breasts, which is never particularly titillating since the bosses are giant, muscular, furry monsters. Uh, yeah.

This is one of those missed opportunities -- underwear girl has a grappling hook, but the game doesn't really do anything interesting with it. Controls are stiff and mechanical, and you can't really chain together grapples and swings to do any sort of advanced platforming. But I guess that was intentional. I think the designers intended Fausseté Amour to be played to lose, so you can enjoy a three-second glimpse of a dead woman's five-pixel tush. Naxat's still around, apparently, since their name appears as the publisher on occasional Virtual Console releases...but I'm pretty sure we won't be seeing this one during an import week.

category: games | forums | twelve comments | §

We're all heaven's beautiful children living together in paradise

12 August 08 | 17:27 | Posted by:

Man, it sure is annoying how limited 1UP's blogging system is sometimes. I mean that in the sense that if I post multiple articles within a single day, my stupid face clogs up the main page of the site. And no one wants that! So, I guess my Bionic Commando-themed countdown of the most awesomest games about swinging ever will have to show up here instead of there, since over there is occupied with my residual Famicom stuff. Alas.

Pitfall!
Dev: David Crane | Pub: Activision | System: Atari 2600 | Date: 1982



Where would swinging be without Pitfall!, eh? Heck, for that matter, where would gaming be? Why, it was downright essential to the medium's development, for many reasons.

But who cares about all that. The important thing is that Pitfall Harry could swing like a crazy person. He even made a charming little bloopy Tarzan cry when he did it. (Note: Charming when Pitfall Harry did it, frickin' embarrassing when any wookiee does it.) Of course, vine-grappling was hardly the game's core mechanic; it was simply an incidental benefit. This is a game that appeared early enough in the medium's life cycle that the mere act of being able to run freely from screen to screen was liberating and exciting enough to make it a must-buy even as the industry began to crumble around it. The great-for-the-time graphics didn't hurt, either.

Pitfall Harry had a ridiculous amount of fat lewt to collect from the recesses of dozens of procedurally-generated screens, and he had to leap over tons of scorpions and jump on a whole lot of crocodile heads to do it. And, of course, he had to leap onto vines and swing over pits and stuff, too. I was never any good at that back in the day, but it made good practice for Bionic Commando. So that's good! Thanks, Harry. Shame about all the crappy sequels that followed after Pitfall II.

category: games | forums | fourteen comments | §

Your head explod.

11 August 08 | 21:26 | Posted by:

Add to Queue | Weekly DVD Column
Man! Now that Levi's stopped picking a DVD of the week I find myself flailing wildly in an effort to pick an interesting selection for the header and promo art. This week I went with The Doors, mainly because I incoherently mimicked Jim Morrison on today's Retronauts. Yeah, I dunno.

New Game + | Weekly Games Column
I like the fact that this week sees the release of a game based on the web thing that popularized the term "Your head asplode," as well as a remake of the game that became famous for showing Hitler (yeah, Hitler) as his head exploded in gory 8-bit detail. Coincidence? Uh, yeah. But an amusing one, in a small, dumb way.

category: film, games | forums | eight comments | §

Catching the pinkeye to Tokyo

11 August 08 | 13:41 | Posted by:

Not once but twice this year I've experienced a mild case of pink eye. This distresses me, because I've never had it before in my life (at least not since I've been old enough to remember such things), and because I'm seriously grossed out by the disease's most common vector. Say it with me now: Feces. Yum. How embarrassing, too.

It's really rather baffled me. I'm a bit obsessive-compulsive about cleanliness, washing my hands immediately after contact with any door, ATM machine or bus or train handle. I don't actually touch most doors with my hands, using the edge of my sleeve instead. I wash so thoroughly in the bathroom I could probably safely perform surgery afterwards. So how could I possibly end up with a disease most commonly spread by rubbing crap in your eyes? It was a mystery! At least until the girlfriend noted that in both cases the affliction has appeared a few days after a long-distance airline flight.

So that's just great. Not only is air travel expensive and impossibly inconvenient, our airplanes are full of free-floating particulate poop. Awesome. I propose a new motto for United: "Come fly the feculent skies." Of course, I should probably switch to another airline now, but...once I make my trip to PAX I'll totally qualify for their elite flier program, which means free upgrades and stuff.

So I guess I'll just, you know, wear goggles when I travel from now on.

category: blog | forums | 32 comments | §

GameSpite Issue 9.1: The Beating Up Kindergartners Episode

10 August 08 | 10:01 | Posted by:

Finally! Issue 9 is underway, now that I'm past my three-week gauntlet of travel and trade events. Dear everyone in charge of scheduling these shows: I hate you so much. Especially you E3 guys -- seriously, you've dropped the ball so bad. So, so bad. This week's theme appears to be tiny girls and violence.

Nintendo 64: The Wander Years
Technically this Nintendo 64 retrospective doesn't fit the theme, but I'll allow it given that the system had all the stamina of a tiny girl in a boxing match against a heavyweight champ. "Wander Years" is not a typo; it's an acknowledgement that the N64's lifetime was filled not with amazing things (at least not after the first month or so) but with aimless itinerance.

Drill Dozer
I think Drill Dozer might actually win some sort of prize for having the best gameplay relative to the worst character designs. How that freakish little girl Jill came from the people responsible for 490 infinitely adorable Pokémon (and, uh, Mr. Mime) is beyond my ken. However, the action was exceptional, and Kishi duly hagiographizes it. (That is not a real word.)

Super Puyo Puyo Tsuu Remix
Finally, wumpwoast confesses his weird obsession with shouting at tiny girls with rather blue language in this shocking exposé on the Satan-battling wonders of the second Puyo Puyo game. Remember when you could actually keep track of all the versions of Puyo Puyo, except not really because none of them were called Puyo Puyo? Yeah, me neither.

category: games, gamespite | forums | fourteen comments | §

Oh my god, they killed Spoon-chan

08 August 08 | 17:57 | Posted by:

Long-time readers have an eerie ability to remember the most inane inanities about stuff posted here, so no doubt you'll recall that I was disappointed -- nay, devastated -- when I visited Tokyo back in March and discovered that the finest Japanese curry restaurant on earth, Little Spoon, had been closed down and replaced with some lame ramen shop. Well, Wednesday morning as I was killing time between checking out of my hotel and catching a ride to the airport I wandered randomly about Shibuya only to discover the surprising truth: Little Spoon wasn't dead! Merely relocated.

Here is how to find the new location. First, you start at Shibuya Station and exit at the Hachiko Crossing Gate. Easy enough! It is the guidebook-recommended path into Shibuya. You will see the building to the left, the six-story Tsutaya media shop with the Starbucks at its foot. Now, before crossing the street here, instead turn left and head up the street.

I apologize for the terrible images I'm using here. They're all my cellphone would transmit by mail.

You will know you are doing it right if you see the famous Shibuya 109 building dead ahead. But you do not want to go to 109, because Little Spoon is not at all fashionable and therefore has no place in such a trendy, spendy shopping destination. I'm pretty sure that to be a restaurant in the 109 you are required by law to have a selection of tiny, immaculately-crafted desserts that involve French words like "chou" and "marron." Even the cutting-edge Pinkberry knock-off (called, subtly, "Pink Sweet Berry") was forced to set up shop in the much less hip BEAM building several blocks away.

Anyway, you should be across the street from 109, to the left. Stay left. It is key!

You'll know you're on the right track if you pass Dogenzaka's weird Pac-Man arch. This was made very slightly famous in The World Ends With You, so you should recognize it.

You do not go through the Pac-Man arch, though. No, you stay to the left, across the street, and keep on walking right on past. I've never explored beyond the arch but it looks like a bunch of pachinko parlors, love hotels and presumably brothels. So I suppose you could possibly get a little spoon there, but only if your hooker likes to cuddle.

If you have successfully stayed left, you will find the bright orange sign that denotes Little Spoon! It's kind of tricky, though, because it's right next to Yoshinoya, which also has a bright orange sign. In fact, I missed it the first time around; I went to the end of the block and was delighted to discover the capsule hotel, made a mental note, and turned around only to be smacked in the gob with delicious pictures of tonkatsu curry. Curious to know what this tasty-looking establishment was, I looked up and discovered -- Little Spoon. I went immediately inside and gorged.

Ah, but here's the shocking, Twilight Zone-esque ending to this tale: Little Spoon kind of sucks now. I don't know what happened, but it's a pitiful shadow of its former self. The curry doesn't taste the same, the tonkatsu is gristly and small, and worst of all you no longer have a wide array of relative curry heats from which to choose. Sadly, the selections are limited to "mild," "normal" and "hot." No more Spoon-chan the mascot, no more Rockets the dog, no more scary dragon whose curry selection is a tiny blob of burning crimson on a pile of rice. This Tokyo trip was full of ups and downs, but this heartbreaking discovery was the worst.

Fortunately, there is a delicious alternative available in the realm of franchised curry shops: Go Go Curry has opened a Shibuya location across the street from the BEAM building (right next to Tokyu Hands). I had Go Go in NYC a few months ago and thought it was good but not great; in Japan, it's great. Better flavor, better rice, and the tonkatsu was amazing. So, uh, if you ever find yourself lost and hungry in Shibuya, I guess you know where to go, now. Yeah.

This was a waste of a post, wasn't it?

category: blog | forums | fourteen comments | §

International voyeurism

07 August 08 | 14:57 | Posted by:

What timing -- Google Maps is finally offering street views of Tokyo. Now I can check out the sights without dying of heat exhaustion! (Of course, the usual unsavory discoveries apply.) Really, though, I hope I can afford to spend some serious time over there someday. The sheer density and substance of the city fascinates me, and nothing would make me happier than to have about three months to dedicate to simply exploring its width and breadth. Maybe when I'm rich! (i.e. never)

Meanwhile, at stately Wayne Manor...

New Game + | Weekly Game Releases
Writings about video games, vis-a-vis which releases this week (if any!) are worth your precious ducats.


Add to Queue | Weekly DVD Releases
Likewise for this week's DVD and Blu-ray releases. Never mind that these are several days late. My schedule has not been conducive to non-work-related things recently, you see. Please don't hate me.

category: film, games | forums | nine comments | §

Boy are my arms tired

06 August 08 | 20:22 | Posted by:

So, I'm back from Tokyo and in a wonderful place where it's been 60 degrees and misty and cloudy all day. If we could somehow combine the cool, clean bay air of San Francisco with the density, efficiency and food of Tokyo, we would have the best city in the world.

I'm forcing myself not to sleep too much until later tonight to help fight jetlag, so my brain isn't much use until then. I'll climb back on the blogging bandwagon once I've rested and such. I have weekly columns to post! That I haven't! I have failed you all. Also, GameSpite Issue 9 kicks off this weekend, and it's going to be sexy.

Speaking of sexy, I guess, that post about the "Stop! STDs" billboard was somehow voted up on Digg today, while I was on the plane in fact. Of course while I was on the plane. Site-crippling things only happen while I'm physically unable to deal with them. Anyway, the site wasn't really prepared for sextuple traffic levels -- hurr hurr "sex"-tuple, STD, porn star, hrrrr -- but it seems to be running smoothly now. Hooray for too little, too late.

category: blog | forums | eleven comments | §

Exquisite pain

04 August 08 | 20:44 | Posted by:

I just played Street Fighter IV so hard I can barely move my wrist. I realize this is like complaining about having trouble breathing because you're buried under a pile of beautiful women, but still: Ouch.

Edit: "You should take a ten minute break every hour, whether you're laying underneath a pile of beautiful women or beating them up." - LilSpriteX in the comments

I was playing as my main lady Chun-Li, actually. I only had to beat up one girl, Crimson Viper, who has been designated Chun-Li's rival. I would have figured M. Bison would hold that title, what with his having killed her dad and all, but I guess I was overlooking the important fact that all women loathe one another.

category: games | forums | 23 comments | §

Lolita complex!?

04 August 08 | 15:17 | Posted by:

Yeah, OK, I think I'm ready to come home now. My relationship with a place that thinks it's a good idea to turn grizzled, dying old soldiers into cutesy little girls with no pants should definitely be restricted to visiting hours only. When you gaze into the asylum, the asylum gazes also into you.

(Image from Game|Life)

category: blog | forums | 25 comments | §

Why I love Super Potato

03 August 08 | 16:20 | Posted by:

Every time I'm in Japan, I always end up visiting Super Potato, the famous Osaka retro gaming shop with a very popular branch in Akihabara. It's not the best place to hunt for old games by any means -- Liberty and Friends are both cheaper, Mandarake in Nagano has more super-rare stuff at better prices, Mandarake in Shibuya has a better selection of portable titles and soundtracks, etc. And their already fairly high prices get higher if you pay with a credit card. Even so, Super Potato is still a must-visit stop, if only for a few minutes, because of two important factors. First, they allow fat, sweaty Americans like me to traipse about the store taking photos at leisure. Two, they have a retro arcade on the top floor, which I've never actually visited. (I'm saving it for a special occasion.) And finally...uh, did I say two? I meant three. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, retro love is everywhere.



The walls are plastered with hand-made signs, and every time I visit the old ones have been phased out by new ones. This montage is on the ground floor, offering promotion and information about the shop (including a screen shot of a dangerous golden knight looking for the restrooms). Clearly, this is a place run by people who love what they sell. And that makes it awesome.

More pictures after the jump, if you're into that sort of thing.

Post continued after link >>

category: games | forums | 25 comments | §

What new surprises lie in store

02 August 08 | 02:25 | Posted by:

While Jim Davis may churn out a terrible comic strip, he's actually a pretty cool human being, apparently! Then again, Davis is a shrewd businessman above all else. I guess it's possible he appreciates someone's poking holes in his life work in creative ways, but more likely he simply realized that letting someone publish a book that transforms his comic into depressing absurdism is the holiest of grails: A means by which to sell Garfield to people who hate Garfield.

Genius.

Bonus image: This billboard is directly across from my hotel room, so every time I look outside this is what I see:


I think it's supposed to be a public service campaign promoting the use of condoms, but the placement of the exclamation mark really sort of gives it a different subtext. "Stop! This person has a terrible communicable illness!" I feel bad for the lady who lent her face to the campaign; I'm sure she was intending to do a good deed, but now everyone in Shibuya thinks she is diseased.

Last second edit: Actually, just before clicking "post" I decided to look up her name, and apparently she's a Japanese porn star. Sorry, "adult video." So now I really don't know what the ad's subtext is supposed to be.

category: blog | forums | 18 comments | §

Thing to do in Tokyo when you're dead tired

01 August 08 | 17:37 | Posted by:

Oh, jetlag, what baffling powers you have over me. I swear, every time I come to Japan I wake up a little earlier the first day. Five a.m., the 4:30, and today it was 4 a.m. And the event I'm covering doesn't start until 1 p.m.! That's four hours from now, and I'mma try and liveblog it, if they'll let me. I know there some FFXIII and Advent Children-related news in the making, but I'm told they'll have some other announcements. Hopefully they are not talking about that new Snoopy game. Unless it's a Nomura-led leather-and-buckles revision of the Peanuts gang. That would be, uh, super great. Yeah.

And speaking of emo (or, rather, not emo), I had a lot of time to kill this morning. And since I'm here to look at Nomura games and I'm staying in Shibuya, The World Ends With You obviously sprang to mind. So I thought, hey, why not see just how accurately the best game so far this year depicts its subject? And I loaded up my iPhone with screenshots (since it's the old non-3G model, it's not worth much else here) and tried to recreate those screens in real life.

Yeah, it's nerdy, but what else are you gonna do at 6:30 a.m. in Tokyo?

Scene one: The Moai-like head by the bus shelters.

This was easy to find based on in-game orienteering -- it's just around the corner from the statue of Hachiko, beneath a rail bridge. I knew where the buses were, but I'd never noticed the sculpture. Turns out that's because it's hidden in a corner by a bunch of coin lockers and surly, dazed-looking teens smoking cigarettes (I assume they're cigarettes). Already, the game's verisimilitude is staggering!

Unfortunately, the screenshot is impossible to replicate, and not just because I couldn't convince the buses to line up neatly. The problem is that the sculpture faces into the corner. I took this photo while backed into said corner, my back to two walls. And the buses actually stop a bit to the right of here.

Also, no wolves. Still, it's easy to see where the composite imagery came from!

Scene two: The gambling area.

I couldn't find this exact image, but I didn't go too far. Still, there's a huge alley full of casinos, pachinko arcades and naughty massage parlors right by my hotel, and the image on the left captures the gestalt if not the specifics. Meh, close enough.

Scene three: "Outback Cafe" and the giant video screen.

Well, easy enough -- this is the Starbucks at the foot of the Scramble Crossing across from the station's Hachiko exit. Unfortunately, the in-game image is impossible to replicate without a super-expensive high-end camera lens. And I tried taking a shot up the length of the building, but then I realized the second floor of Starbucks has a bar lining its wall so people can sit and look out over the crossing. And there were lots of girls in skirts up there drinking, and I probably looked like some disgusting pervert trying to photograph their underwear. So! I went for the distance shot instead.

You may notice this building does not have a massive video wall. That is actually on the adjacent building across the street to the right. But you get the idea, and that's what counts.

Edit: I just looked out the window and realized the Starbucks building DOES have a video wall, but it's inside, behind the windows. And it's only on during hours when people are actually walking around the streets, i.e. after 10 a.m. So, bump up a point for accuracy.

Scene the fourth: Hachiko looming in front of "Shibuykyu."

"Shibukyu" is actually "Tokyu," which I believe is a company that owns a ridiculous amount of property around here. I'm staying near the Tokyu Mark City, there's a hotel across the way called the Cerulean Tower Tokyu Hotel, and half the stores are Tokyu something (Tokyu Hands, etc., which actually inspired a different location in the game, but I couldn't find a screenshot for it). The logo's about the same, though. It's clear homage.

But, you can't quite reproduce this shot, either. Hachiko, the famous statue of the dog who loyally waited for his master at the station every day (even after his master died), faces the Tokyu building. If you try to shoot it from the angle in the screenshot, you'll get a big load of ugly metro station instead. But as you can see in the photo, the shot is still impossible because of all the advertising that's been built up between Hachiko and the Tokyu building. Poor puppy.

But you know, the great thing is that I'm pretty sure you could navigate your way through Shibuya's landmarks without ever having been here based strictly on the game. It's not unlike navigating NYC based on Grand Theft Auto IV, except that TWEWY doesn't penalize you for not slavishly following the plotline. I'm all in favor of real-world locations in games -- even if they are somewhat idealized.

I'd have shot more, but when I sat down to photograph Hachiko it was 7 a.m. and already I was sweating profusely in the broiling humidity. I figured I should save up my energy for the liveblog, ya know?

category: blog, games | forums | 17 comments | §

The world ends with me

01 August 08 | 05:15 | Posted by:

Funny, the view out my hotel window looks curiously...familiar.


I made it to Tokyo, see, and it's actually not too bad here! The heat isn't as murderous as I expected. The humidity, though...yeah. My hair got all wavy the minute I stepped off the plane. It's terrible. Makes me look like David Letterman or something. I'm also annoyed at myself for having gotten all the good photos the last two times I was here. I'm not really sure what to shoot now.



Tokyo was a close call, though. I was worried for a moment that "Natrita" wasn't just a typo. "Oh, you wanted the Narita flight? Sorry, sir, we're headed to a natrite mine in Zimbabwe where you will live the rest of your brief and miserable life mining crystals in subhuman conditions. Pretzels?"

Yeah, I dunno. I can never sleep on the plane, so I'm going on about 22 hours without any sleep. Add to that the dementia caused by the high sodium levels of the "food" they serve on the plane and it's a wonder these sentences are even complete. Hell, for all I know they're not. I'm sleeping now.

category: blog | forums | seven comments | §