Fulfillment fulfillment

28 February 09 | 14:56 | Posted by:

I said I'd have all the internationally-bound GameSpite Vol. 1 paperbacks in the mail no later than today, and by golly I meant it. It took five hours of envelope-stuffing, cramped writing on tiny customs forms, three round trips on foot carrying bags of books to the post office half a mile away, and standing in line for much too long, but it is finished. All paperback books are in the mail, including the ones from the remnant batch I put up for grabs recently. I also found a cache of domestic-destination paperbacks that had somehow gotten mixed in with the international books, and those have been mailed as well.

Whew.

I still need to work through a few dozen hardbound copies that must be inscribed before mailing, but the end is in sight. Then I can start thinking about the next book. Actually, I'm already thinking about it. If all goes according to plan, I'll probably have that together in May or thereabouts; I don't think it will be precisely what people expect. And as I've mentioned, the next volume will go much more smoothly for me and for everyone else, since I'll have the books disbursed directly from the publisher instead of serving as some sort of overworked idiot middleman. Give it a try now -- the new button in the right column will let you buy a paperback edition of Vol. 1. (They're $23, but that does not include tax and shipping.)

Now to get to work on sketches and inscriptions...just as soon as my hand uncramps from those customs forms.

category: gamespite | forums | thirteen comments | §

Appealing to the prepubescent BOY in all of us

27 February 09 | 10:51 | Posted by: calorie_mate

Noby Noby Boy, is...well, it’s a bit strange, I won’t lie. With no real goals to speak of and – for the most part – a complete lack of the positive reinforcement I’m used to games feeding me, it’s hard to explain why I’m as fixated on it as I am. But I’ve been playing a lot of it, and damn it, I’m having a blast.

I know perfectly well why I gave it a chance anyway: it’s the next thing to come from Keita Takahashi, and having recently (and very randomly) introduced my girlfriend to Katamari Damacy, it was perfect timing, really. Even more than that, though, I found myself attracted to the idea that everyone playing the game was contributing to GIRL’s progress all at once. The only real point to the game, if it needs one, is to stretch yourself to contribute to this meta goal. It just strikes me as one of those things that will seem quaint after the fact but is a rush to be a part of, y’know? (And speaking of which, you may be interested to know that as of Monday afternoon, four days after we started, Earth’s collective Playstation 3 owners have managed to grow GIRL enough to pass the Moon!)

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category: games | forums | twelve comments | §

High five!?

26 February 09 | 09:18 | Posted by:

Nintendo announced a bunch of releases today, including the not-especially-surprising revelation that Punch-Out!! is due in May. Given that it's pretty much a reskinning of an NES game, I'm really only surprised that it's taking that long. But then they went and threw me for a loop by announcing that The Legendary Starfy would be coming stateside as well. Talk about random.

The Starfy series -- better known as Stafy until this morning's revelation of an official English name -- has been around for nearly a decade, having debuted very early on Game Boy Advance. The series is up to its fifth installment at this point, the most recent two entries being DS titles. I'm going to assume the one being published here is the fifth game, but you never know with Nintendo. I've watched the series' proliferation with some bemusement over the years, because I learned very early on that despite sporting lush 2D visuals and the Nintendo name, Starfy just isn't that good. It's Kirby-easy, but has a slightly adventure-based structure, which means lots of chatty dialogue that breaks up the action. The games aren't terrible, but they're awfully mundane. I can think of more interesting things for Nintendo to localize....

The most interesting thing about Starfy isn't the games themselves, though. It's the developer. Like about half of everything to come from Japan, the series is the work of stealth creator TOSE. The difference, though, is that this is one of the rare instances where TOSE's name isn't hidden deep within the credits and glossed over by a publisher that likes to pretend it does all its own work in-house. Au contraire, mon frère; quite the opposite, in fact: TOSE actually co-owns the Starfy series with Nintendo, making this the first series (to my knowledge) that they loudly proclaim as their own. This is where the wags snidely remark on the connection between TOSE and the humdrum nature of Starfy, but I don't think that's entirely fair. The company's done some fine work, as in Rocket Slime. Like Level-5, I suspect TOSE is one of those companies whose output is only as good as the publisher decides it should be. Dragon Quest overlords Armor Project have a tendency to coax great work from third-party developers, while a lot of other companies seem to take the Ed Wood approach of saying "That's brilliant!" at mediocrity and rushing to market.

Anyway, the point is that the Wii remake of Metroid Prime hasn't been given a U.S. date yet, despite being available in Japan as of last week. Swear to god, if Nintendo tries to position that as their big holiday game there'll be hell to pay.

category: blog | forums | 22 comments | §

Add to Queue 77: Groveling Edition

25 February 09 | 22:20 | Posted by: vsrobot

Media | A2Q Archives | A2Q on Twitter | A2Q #77 | February 24, 2009

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Fans of car chase porn will be very happy this week. Not only do we get both French Connection movies in HD, this Tuesday also sees the release of Ronin and Vanishing Point, two more movies famous for the epic car chases featured within. I'm particularly fond of the first French Connection, and consider it a high-water mark of 1970s cinema.

Anime nuts will say "kakkoii!" at the BD release of Akira. [And I will punch them when they do. -- Parish] I admit that I'm curious to revisit it. My one and only viewing of this movie, which occurred somewhere around 15 years ago, left me scratching my head. In the end, I had no idea what the heck just happened, and at the time I put it down to the fact that I was watching a dubbed copy. I've since learned that even anime fans find the plot of Akira somewhat inscrutable. Also this week, abother anime called Samurai 7 is also hitting the streets, and as a Kurosawa devotee I am a bit uncomfortable with the whole idea of what appears to be a futuristic anime take on Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai. Perhaps if I watched it I might enjoy it. After all, Seven Samurai has been remade multiple times, notably and to great effect in the classic western The Magnificent Seven.

It is fairly heartbreaking that both a new Futurama movie and a new De Niro flick are hitting video, and I can't muster much enthusiasm for either. The De Niro piece in particular is in one of my least favorite movie genres: the navel-gazing Hollywood movie about how wacky Hollywood is. Ugh.

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category: film | forums | thirteen comments | §

GRRR BOOKS

25 February 09 | 10:05 | Posted by:

Quick update on book distrbution: I'm right at the 75%-mailed mark. That's good! The last of the internationally-bound paperbacks (and some hardbacks) will be in the mail no later than Saturday, at which point it's all just down to hardbacks in need of artwork and a handful of stragglers from the orders I took a couple of weeks ago. Believe me when I say that I am way more eager to have these books in your hands than you are.

That being said, the next time I do one of these, the process will be far more painless for everyone involved.

On an unrelated note, I watched the Akira Blu-ray last night and it was kind of impressive! Great sound, and the art is so clear and detailed that any visual softness and flaws come down to problems with the source material that are now clear for all to see. The high-definition transfer here is basically as good as this movie can look, because it reveals the rough edges of hand-drawn animation in startling detail. It's still gorgeous, of course. And I've finally seen it enough times (and read the manga enough) that the whole thing makes perfect sense, too.

In fact, as I was watching last night it slowly dawned on me that Akira (mainly via the Colonel's perspective and comments) is a critique of the boom-era Japan in which the manga and movie were created, a Miyazaki-esque screed against the decadence that had infected the hearts of post-reconstruction Japan (the movie being set about 35 years after World War III's cataclysm neatly parallels the way the manga debuted about 35 years after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki). I was really proud of myself for making this connection until I read the booklet that comes with the Blu-ray and noticed it includes an interview with Katsuhiro Otomo in which he says, "Yeah, this is basically a Miyazaki-esque screed against the decadence that developed over the course of the Showa era."

What a jerk. Great-looking movie, though.

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

Yes, Mark, we're going to play Persona

24 February 09 | 19:55 | Posted by: Nicola Nomali

The Shin Megami Tensei franchise got off to a rocky, late start in here in the States, but with each release since 2003's Nocturne, its cult reputation seems to grow closer to its star status in Japan. That's why so many are overjoyed (if unsurprised, given how good they are about these things) that Atlus USA is definitely localizing the PSP version of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona, which actually marked the beginning of Megaten's bizarre naturalization when it appeared on the PlayStation as Revelations: Persona.

In 1996, Sony's "mature" image made the series' occult imagery passable for the first time in the States, but Atlus was evidently still uncomfortable releasing a game that clearly took place in mysterious, foreign Nippon. (The fact that RPGs were comparatively niche prior to Final Fantasy VII probably helped stay their hand, as well.) You might think a story about a rag-tag group of youths wading through a demonic outbreak would be pretty universal, but they weren't satisfied until nearly every playable character was altered for lighter hair and chalk-white skin, just like Brad and Mary down the block. (Except for the Scrappy-Doo of the gang, who was made black -- which might qualify as a hate crime.) Aside from aesthetics, the so-called "Snow Queen quest," a game-length sequence entirely divergent from the main story, was also hacked out in order to make a deadline.

For the PSP, not only will a new localization recant the original's patronizing xenophobia ("Pay no attention to the singing Japanese man behind the curtain"), but the Snow Queen quest will be accessible to Western players for the first time. The general gameplay seems to be enhanced to make it friendlier by recent RPG standards -- and really, it's all new to the legions of fans who didn't get into Megaten until it really took off (and Revelations was ancient history). So while it's typical to moan that ports and remakes stagnate the industry, the second coming of Persona is a fortunate exception.

category: games | forums | sixteen comments | §

GameSpite Issue 12.4: Hey, remember this? edition

23 February 09 | 08:21 | Posted by:

Uh, hi there. Been a while, huh? I'll get into the groveling apologies for why project GameSpite has been comatose the past couple of months in a different post, but suffice it to say we're back...hopefully.

Final Fantasy II
MIghtyblue looks at the most maligned entry of the Final Fantasy series (well, at least until Final Fantasy X-2 came along). Is Final Fantasy evil, or simply misunderstood? I say, why not both? I think it's perfectly feasible for the game to be wicked and vile in ways we don't yet fully understand.


Jet Set Radio Future
At the other end of the "hella sweet" spectrum (a standard measure that was adopted by a committee of top scientists in Bern just last week), we have bobservo's paean to Sega's underappreciated sequel to Jet Grind Radio. Maybe it's not quite as good as the original, as some claim. Or maybe it's just too good for our feeble minds to comprehend. Bob lays out the case.

category: games | forums | 18 comments | §

Soon to return

21 February 09 | 10:50 | Posted by:

Hey kids, I'm just about back in action. My replacement computer has arrived and I'm currently in the process of getting set up and properly integrated into my workflow. Well, OK, actually I'm currently in the process of playing Mass Effect, but whatever!

This thing is a beast. I've long had a tradition of giving my laptops Servbot names (Servbot 41 replaced Servbot 40, Servbot Salvation was a partition that barely kept me from losing all my personal data in the wake of a hard drive crash, etc.). But this one is so massive, so vast, that I had no choice but to name it for the Servbots' mighty aircraft.

Anyway, expect a GameSpite update Monday. I know, about damn time. Sorry.

category: blog | forums | eight comments | §

Turn-based simulacrum

20 February 09 | 08:43 | Posted by: christopher

It turns out that 7th Dragon has a pretty great official podcast. This took me somewhat by surprise, because the only other official podcast I’ve heard from a Japanese game developer is Hideo Kojima’s Hide-chan Radio, an uninformative and overproduced monstrosity that would make the most cowbell laden early morning radio shock jock program seem subtle by comparison. On the other hand, the 7th Dragon podcast is just Director Nino Kazuya and PR guy Yosuke Uda talking about their game and answering listener submitted questions, with frequent guest appearances by Producer Kodama Rieko, best known for her involvement in creating Phantasy Star. It’s fun to listen to and also an embarrassingly effective marketing tool. At first I downloaded it just to have something to listen to on the bus, but now it’s almost inevitable that I will pick the game up at some point to satisfy my classic RPG craving.

One of the most interesting stories behind this game is its relationship to Dragon Quest IX. Apparently, they originally planned to make a classic turn based RPG as a result of the announcement that Dragon Quest IX would take a more action oriented approach. They saw a niche opening up, and they hoped that 7th Dragon would fill the gap created by Dragon Quests’ new direction. Unfortunately for them, Square-Enix got cold feet and decided that they would continue to occupy the classic RPG niche for themselves by reverting to a more conservative plan for Dragon Quest IX. This put 7th Dragon in the unfortunate position of being strikingly similar to (and scheduled for release in same month as) the newest installment in the series it was created to emulate. However, in a stroke of luck for the 7th Dragon team, Dragon Quest IX has been delayed at the last minute from March until this summer due to major bugs, leaving me and others who had planned to pick up that game next month much more likely to try out 7th Dragon in the meanwhile.

One thing that seems clear to me while listening to this podcast is that they clearly know their audience. One great example of this is that 7th Dragon gives players the option to select between either standard or 8-bit Famicom style music. That kind of option is already pretty fantastic in and of itself, and it only gets even better if you consider that the composer is Yuzo Koshiro. You can listen to both versions of two separate tracks for yourself on their website. As someone who grew up on this kind of music, I am incredibly happy to see a major publishers continuing to make use of 8-bit sound in a new games.

While I feel a little ashamed at falling prey to such a blatant attempt to manipulate my feelings of nostalgia, I also can’t deny that hearing about this more or less instantly convinced me that I would like this game. In reality, the option for 8-bit music will probably have significantly less of an effect on my enjoyment of 7th Dragon than how well implemented the various game systems are, but the presence of 8-bit music is a pretty strong cultural signifier or sorts that this game is being made with lovers of classic RPGs in mind. This should have been obvious beforehand given that Nino Kazuya was also the director of Etrian Odyssey, but learning about the musical options really made it sink in for me. It’s an irrational way of thinking, but I can’t help but have some degree of confidence that a new turn-based RPG with 8-bit music will probably get everything else more or less right.

(Images from Famitsu)

category: games | forums | fourteen comments | §

Realms of retail

18 February 09 | 21:36 | Posted by: Nicola Nomali

Like most discerning gamers, I have a number of very good reasons not to do business with GameStop if I can help it. Aside from their corrupt policies, I've recently found they also have a better chance than not to smell like stale food, cigarettes, and mold. It's as though, after years of diligence, they've finally acquired the quintessence of the seedy, dingy pawn shop.

But they must have the Devil's own luck (which would follow), because circumstances keep drawing me into their squalid grasp -- now twice in one week. The first time was for Retro Game Challenge; as a niche title from a small publisher, anyone could predict it might be in short supply, so I pre-ordered it. But Dragon Quest V? A game bearing a popular brand, from Square Enix? Having seen several copies of Dragon Quest IV still lined up on the shelves at Best Buy, I expected the next installment would be just as simple to find.

I was incredulous, then, when it was a no-show on Tuesday. I gave the title to one of Best Buy's attentive blueshirts, who disappeared into the back of the store. I waited for several minutes, idly eyeing the World of Warcraft expansions and internally shaking my head at the eighty-dollar Rock Band 2 drum sets. Just as I was about to go back and make sure he hadn't been crushed by some large object, he emerged to tell me that, oh, the release date for Dragon Quest V is the nineteenth.

"Sure it is, fella." And I resigned myself to what I was going to have to do.

At GameStop, I didn't ask whether they had the game, knowing the likelihood that the answer would be, "Did you pre-order it?" So I sidestepped the lecture with a question I might ask if I were going to pre-order: I asked the release date. A guy with an accent that seemed to waver between "English" and "surfer" tapped at his keyboard, mumbled some numbers to himself, and, again, excused himself to the back. But he emerged promptly, bearing a large cardboard box; the release date was today, he told me, and they'd only need to crack this shipment open to put the game in my hands.

So maybe I'm not so unlucky, myself, if I can go right into the belly of the beast and return with games rather than sulfurous woe. (I recall there wasn't even an odor that time!) My only regret is that I couldn't take the rest of that box's contents with me -- so many fresh, pristine, shrinkwrapped cases, soon but to be opened and gutted and covered in stickers. It is to weep.

category: games | forums | 29 comments | §

Virtually inconsolable

17 February 09 | 20:15 | Posted by: calorie_mate

Some of you may have heard already, but starmen.net (the lovely folks that are, to put it kindly, notoriously overenthusiastic about these kinds of things) is now saying that Earthbound will never be released on the Virtual Console. The gist of it is that a supposed “inside source” says Nintendo of America’s lawyers don’t want it released without changes, fearing lawsuits stemming from the smattering of American pop culture references. Nintendo of Japan won’t authorize the changes, and so the game will never come out. As a dedicated Earthbound fan, I feel it’s my duty to say, well...actually, I guess there isn’t much to say.

There are three equally possible scenarios. Scenario A is that starmen.net is telling the truth, and no amount of begging and pleading will change it. I’m skeptical –- after all, everyone from Capcom to id has been guilty of flat-out stealing popular music in their older games –- but Nintendo probably isn’t too keen on risking some of their money on something they doubt will sell anyway. (And believe it or not, I think it’s the right call to not alter a highly regarded game from over a decade ago.) Scenario B is that starmen.net made it up, in some sort of attempt to force NoA’s hand and either get them to commit or, at the very least, speak out and give actual insight as to why it still hasn’t shown up.

And, of course, Scenario C is that starmen.net is a victim of its own rampant paranoia and blew the whole thing out of thin air. It’s not like there isn’t a precedent for that line of thinking.

In any case, it doesn’t really matter. Either they made it up or they didn’t; the only hard fact we have is that Earthbound still isn’t available, and we all know no one can sway the bizarre machinations of the Virtual Console. It’s a shame, not just because it’s one of the SNES’ best RPGs, but because I was interested to see just how well it would actually perform. Lord knows this was Earthbound’s best way to prove it could sell a decent amount of units outside of Japan. But alas, ever finding out may just be a pipe dream.

Or not. Who knows.

[Note: I'm willing to give some credit to this rumor, since I speculated the game was being held up for precisely this reason sometime last year on an episode of Retronauts. And I do love being right! -- Parish]

category: games | forums | twelve comments | §

It's a mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad...yeah.

16 February 09 | 22:27 | Posted by:

Looks like Sega figured out the one way they could make me give a crap about MadWorld. Well played, Sega. Well played indeed.

Sorry about the lack of activity here or at my other haunts over the past few days. I decided that since I had a three-day weekend, I should actually take an honest-to-god holiday and actually not work for once in my life. Pretty crazy, I know. Also, I had to give my computer to the girlfriend so she could go off to Canada to train for her new job, so that sort of puts a crimp in my productivity. Happily, a replacement is arriving later this week, so GameSpite should be back up to speed in a few days. I'm sure you can't wait.

category: blog | forums | 22 comments | §

Swan song of the Wind Fish

14 February 09 | 10:28 | Posted by: calorie_mate

I’ve returned from a nice five day jaunt to the Windy City, and everything went off without a hitch. It was a completely relaxing experience, probably thanks largely to flying into Midway – pretty much the mirror opposite of every stop in O'Hare I’ve ever had, not to mention Parish’s recent visit. It was also my first real experience with winter – and while it’s an interesting concept, I can’t say I don’t prefer San Francisco’s wind breaker-optional version better.

The trip came at an inconvenient time, games-wise, because the only thing portable I had to play was Dragon Quest IV, which is entirely too long to start with Retro Game Challenge and Dragon Quest V (the one I’ve been waiting for) right around the corner. Instead, I opted to get acquainted with an old friend: Link’s Awakening. A few very minor quibbles aside (I seem to spend more time in the menu switching items than I remember), it’s everything it was the first time I played it. Considering how old it is now – can you believe it came out fifteen years ago? – I’m astonished. I wasn’t expecting it to be simplistic, necessarily; rather, I had suspected nostalgia to smooth over some rough spots I’d forgiven in the name of portability, in the same way I can still enjoy Mario Land side-by-side with its superior brothers. That it stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the best of the series to this day is ridiculous.

One asset that’s often overlooked about Link’s Awakening is how perfectly it embodies the ideal "portable Zelda". Like every other Zelda on a handheld, I played Link’s Awakening the day it came out by sitting on our couch under a lamp, playing in long sessions until it was complete, and every replay since has been in a similar fashion. This time around, I played it between several distractions on the plane – naps, games of Fluxx – or whenever I had ten minutes to kill in those odd times between events that occur during vacation. To my surprise, finishing a dungeon (assuming I didn’t get stuck) wasn’t an impossible feat within those 15 minutes, and the "start from the last doorway you entered" save system was a great approximation (some might even call it a fun twist) of the "save anywhere" system that should be in every portable game. Couple that with the smart, very condensed world map, and you have a very bite-sized game, perfect for its platform, without compromising a single thing that makes it a proper Zelda game.

I’ll need to consult the other games next time I take a trip, but I don’t remember any being quite as portable-friendly as this game. Certainly Phantom Hourglass (the only other one I’ve played in recent memory) wasn’t; it felt more like the Gameboy Advance port of A Link to the Past, in that it was a full-fledged Zelda adventure and was smooshed onto the DS, only considering the platform as an after thought (kind of ironic, really, since that was Phantom Hourglass’ M.O.). I don’t necessarily mean to pan any other handheld entry; rather, I’m simply expressing how perfect the balance between "portable" and "Zelda" Nintendo’s initial attempt was. If nothing else, this really highlights the fact that Gameboy games need to be made available in an updated format, whether it be Dsiware or Virtual Console or whathaveyou. There’s a reason I still own a system to play these on.

category: games | forums | 26 comments | §

Princes of the universe

13 February 09 | 15:32 | Posted by: Nicola Nomali

It's nearly impossible to actually get stuck in Retro Game Challenge. Yes, you need to fulfill all the challenges for the latest sub-game before you can move on to the next, but as your tasks become more formidable, Arino gets in new issues of GameFan to bail you out. Even Rally King, the black sheep of the ensemble, becomes trivial once you get the codes to make your car invincible, skip to any track, and remove the competing racers.

Why, then, have I still not progressed to the likes of Haggle Man 2 and Guadia Quest? Well, let me amend my original statement: it's nearly impossible to get stuck in RGC because it's too hard. You can easily get stuck on a sub-game in the amorous sense of the phrase: witness my experience with Star Prince.

Star Prince is a shoot'em-up inspired by Hudson's Star Soldier series, which popularized turbo controllers and elevated Toshiyuki Takahashi to man-god status. The games also represent a huge gap in my knowledge of shoot'em-ups, since I've never actually played any of them. But if this is only an imitation, my need to do so has suddenly become much more urgent.

Star Prince is best distinguished by its level design, which is positively saturated with nodes and structures offering near-constant point bonuses for destroying them either en masse or in patterns hinted by their arrangement. Firing on innocuous-looking tiles can also uncover hidden 1-Ups and, in what I can only think of as a Mega Man reference, the letters P-R-I-N-C-E. Helping you lay the terrain bare are a number of power-ups, which, as one of the game's "innovations," are as abundant as they are cool-looking. (In one of the most telling signs that you would never have actually seen this on the NES in 1986, your ship changes form based on its weapon, and viscerally casts off its armor when switching to a different one.)

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category: games | forums | seven comments | §

New Games Plus: Everything old is new again

12 February 09 | 21:07 | Posted by: reibeatall

It appears that the only games worth noticing are the ones we've already played.

Yes, this week is all about retro remakes, re-releases, and something... different. It's been quite the trend in the industry for a few years now to simply remake games you've already played, and no, this isn't a shot at Madden NFL. I don't know when it started -- probably long ago -- but publishers/developers have realized that we, as gamers, are incredible suckers who will buy the same game several times over.

There are two main ways that companies go about feeding us what we've already consumed. Sometimes, they'll go all out and completely remake the game, redrawing sprites, adding and removing certain elements, re-translating it. This week's Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon for the Nintendo DS is one such title. Shadow Dragon is a remake of the original Fire Emblem game, which never actually made it over here. It's got Marth!

The other way that our money is taken from us is in compilations, or in the case of this week's release, Super-Mega-Compilations of Mass Temptation (TM). Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection is probably the greatest gaming deal in existence, if paying money for a bunch of games over a decade old is your idea of a deal. Chances are, if you read this site, that's an affirmative. Seriously, this thing's got more than 40 goddamn games on it. It's got all four Phantasy Star games, all three Streets of Rage games, Shining Force and Shining Force II, and entirely too many more. And it's only thirty bucks! Seriously, if you're going to be suckered into purchasing a bunch of old games, this is the way to do it.

Finally, we have a game that embodies the saying "imitation is the greatest form of flattery." Retro Game Challenge is, I'm sure, pure distilled awesome. In short, it consists of several fake versions of old NES games, from space shooters to a full RPG in the vein of Dragon Quest. Mr. Parish and Mr. Barnholt have been talking about RGC for the past week on 1up's Retro Blog (you are reading it, right?), and Ray has the best episode guide for Game Center CX (the show that inspired RGC) at his site, Crunk Games. These people know their stuff better than I do, so please to be reading their fabulous work.

It looks like releases are finally starting to pick up; the next few weeks look positively wallet-destroying. Has the industry finally figured out that they don't have to release everything during the last three months of the year? Find out next time on Dragon Ball Z -- er, I mean, New Games Plus.

category: games | forums | three comments | §

Those who don't learn from Rally King are doomed to repeat it

12 February 09 | 09:17 | Posted by: Nicola Nomali

Retro Game Challenge is out; have you got your copy yet? (I don't know if you've heard, but it's recommended.) I picked mine up last night, whereupon I took it home, played it a little...and decided I'd rather keep going than sleep at all. And I'm a somewhat responsible member of society, so that's not to be taken lightly; the game really is as good as Parish and Ray have been preaching all this time.

Right from the beginning, RGC delivers beautifully on the promise of recreating a childhood spent in the heyday of the NES and Famicom. Parish has already described how aptly the sub-games resemble products from specific points in the console's lifespan, but just as notable is the framework from which you access them: lounging on a young boy's bedroom floor, probably a little too close to the television, your necks crooked painfully upwards. When you need to look up a strategy or a code, you watch yourself crawl over to pluck the desired magazine from his bookshelf. And while playing in the top screen, you can have the text open to any page on the bottom, as if it were splayed across your lap.

The boy, Arino, speculates on how school life might benefit from warp zones, and asks your opinion on some of the bogus playground rumors going around (some of which turn out to be true after all). He cheers when you play well, cruelly yawns when you repeatedly screw up, and groans alongside you when a game's "ending" turns out to be a brief intermission before the inevitable second loop. His mother will occasionally call from the other room, wondering if you kids aren't spending too much time on that Nintendo.

Sometimes a cartridge won't work right away, and yes, you'll be prompted to blow in it.

One unfounded criticism of the recent tide of retro-styled games has been that they can only appeal to those who have pre-existing nostalgia for their source material. At first glance (and to say nothing of the sub-games themselves), RGC might seems to lend that argument credence. But then again, the qualities of the experience it's meant to depict are emulated so well that it's just as enticing a historical reenactment as it is a lens for retrospect.

category: games | forums | ten comments | §

New Game Plus: Designated downloads for 02/10/09

11 February 09 | 21:15 | Posted by: sarcasmorator

Aside from a good-looking crop of DLC this week, PS3 owners should take note that the full Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Bundle is now available via the PlayStation Store. And by "take note" I mean "purchase," because the game is fantastic.

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category: games | forums | ten comments | §

Add to Queue 76: Disciplinary Edition

10 February 09 | 21:53 | Posted by: vsrobot

Media | A2Q Archives | A2Q on Twitter | A2Q #76 | February 10, 2009

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Lots of quality catalog titles hitting Blu-ray this week. I'm most looking forward to revisiting History of Violence, David Cronenberg's excellent look at the long-term effects of violence on a man's life. Of course, it wouldn't be a Cronenberg without at least a few shots to remind you how frail the human body is. I'm also a fan of Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko, and I'm glad to see that the Blu-ray release will have both the Director's Cut and the far superior Theatrical Cut; it's another example of a film where post-release fiddling lessened both its quality and its impact.

Also threatening to bust my entertainment budget is the Blu-ray release of Raging Bull, one of the movies that made both DeNiro and Scorcese the legends they are today. I'm curious about Chocolate, a martial arts movie in the vein of Ong Bak, whose story is about an autistic woman using her intense fighting skills to collect debts owed her late mother by a criminal organization. Video game fans should not check out Doom and Street Fighter, unless you are looking for camp. Speaking of camp, the cult classic Boondock Saints hits Blu-ray to underwhelm and disappoint a whole new crowd of people who might have heard about it from a friend who swears it's "totally awesome!". That person is not your friend.

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category: film | forums | 24 comments | §

Book 'em

10 February 09 | 15:25 | Posted by:

Last night I packaged and labelled all the remaining, outstanding softbound copies of GameSpite Year One, Vol. 1. They'll be in the mail just as soon as I put together the requisite two or three dozen customs forms necessary to see the internationally-bound copies to their destinations. Ah, hand cramps. Hardbound books are taking longer due to the time involved for customization, but I'm working on them! If you didn't request anything specific for your hardcover customization, this is your last chance to email me and let me know what you want. Otherwise, you'll end up with whatever random whim crosses my mind, which is not guaranteed to be good or interesting.

Also, it looks like the reason I'm losing money on the books is because...I miscounted. Now that I've sorted out my shipments, I have about eight hardcover and ten paperback copies left over. I have no need for them, so I'd like to sell them and make back my expenses. If you're interested in buying a copy, drop me a line. Same prices hold as before -- hardcover copies will be $60 apiece, paperbacks $25 apiece. This time I'm factoring actual shipping costs in there, though; U.S. shipping is included in the price of the books, but to cover international surcharges shipping to Canada and Mexico will be an additional $4, and all other international destinations will be an additional $10. So, Canada and Mexico would be $64/30 hardcover/softcover, world would be $70/35. I know that's pricey, but each book weighs more than a pound, and air mail turns out to be pretty expensive. You can reach me at toastyfrog at gmail dot com if you're interested.

This will be it for hardcovers, but once the paperbacks are gone I will be making them available directly through the publisher. If I can make back my losses on this, I won't be so gunshy about going ahead with the next volume....though I will be much smarter about it.

Edit: Softcovers are tentatively spoken for, and hardcovers are gone as well. I'll update if any orders fall through, and once I've set up my account with the publisher I'll create a link for future paperback orders. Thanks, humans!

category: blog | forums | sixteen comments | §

The secret best RPG of February 2009...

09 February 09 | 21:26 | Posted by:

...is, ironically, the one we're not covering on our RPG blog. That's because we've already talked about it on our retro gaming blog, you see.

I'm nearing the end of my journey through the Guadia Quest portion of Retro Game Challenge, and it's been pretty amazing. If this had been a real RPG back in the NES days, the Guadia series would be a fondly-beloved B-tier RPG series on the level of Breath of Fire or Phantasy Star -- OK, it's not entirely fair to call Phantasy Star B-tier, but I figure when a series hasn't seen an update to its original format in 15 years, it automatically gets demoted. Of course, Guadia Quest wouldn't have been nearly as good as it is if it had been made 20 years ago; a good portion of its success is the result of having two decades and four generations of RPG design to draw upon. Like the rest of the titles in Game Center CX, Guadia Quest is very convincingly 8-bit until you start paying attention to the little details and remember that no console RPG back then let you save anywhere or gave you spells to double your walking speed in dungeons or let you level up so quickly or dispensed most of your equipment for free or....

Anyway, having poured more hours into this game (sub-game?) than was necessarily healthy this weekend, I'm really impressed by Guadia Quest. The creators took Dragon Quest II as an obvious point of inspiration, but aside from the basic similarities -- the three-character party, the fonts, the turn-based battle system in which enemies are grouped together -- the two games aren't actually that much alike. Guadia Quest is almost more of a dungeon crawl, with a very small number of utterly enormous dungeons to expore. They have numerous floors, maze elements, backtracking, hidden secrets, and ultimately boil down to a test of endurance: can you make it to the boss before you run out of difficult-to-replenish magic points? Kinda like Etrian Odyssey, actually.

It also has a graveyard duck, so that's cool.

I compared the monster-taming element to Megami Tensei, but that's not entirely correct. You can only have a single companion at any given time, and they amount to a single powerful but unreliable extra party member that occasionally steps in to contribute to the battle -- though not always the way you want. Still, they're pretty handy. They never go more than four turns without taking an action, so even in those unhappy occasions where your entire party is put to sleep and takes a defenseless pounding your companion monster will eventually turn the tide of battle. This doesn't mean it's impossible to lose, just that you get to tuck an extra weapon into your arsenal.

The sequel in the upcoming Retro Game Challenge 2, Guadia Quest Saga, is apparently supposed to be taken from a Game Boy Color equivalent, which I suppose would make it Dragon Quest Monsters. Apparently it allows multiple monster companions that may be swapped with friends (whether that's real friends or imaginary, I'm not entirely certain). And that is why I need you to buy Retro Game Challenge tomorrow: I need to play this sequel. OK? Don't let me down. I'm counting on you.

category: games | forums | 17 comments | §

Everyone dies if only to justify life

08 February 09 | 21:17 | Posted by:

I didn't actually think the Simon's Quest reference in Retro Game Challenge I posted yesterday was intended to be a genuine connection, just an odd coincidence. But it turns out that the Japanese version of Simon's Quest, according to our pal Kishi, actually does tell you to go hunting for a fowl in a cemetery. So maybe it is a deliberate reference after all! How random. Igarashi once told me the villagers in the Japanese version were full of crap, just like in the U.S. version...I didn't realize that he meant they were every bit as full of crap.

Also, this puts to rest the theory that the Simon's Quest dialogue was supposed to be parsed as "Get a silk bag from the graveyard. Duck to live longer." I guess you grammar hounds can put away your copies of Eats, Shoots and Leaves now.

category: blog | forums | ten comments | §

Guadia Quest has failed me

07 February 09 | 09:19 | Posted by:

One of the greatest mysteries in gaming is the bizarre bit of villager dialogue in Castlevania II: Simon's Quest that exhorts you to find a "graveyard duck" in order to acquire a silk bag. What the heck does it mean? Many have theorized, few have provided concrete answers.

Maybe there really was supposed to be a duck in a cemetery. Or maybe you're supposed to walk around squatting until some random grave disgorges a pouch sown from the finest sow's ear. Or maybe Castlevania II was programmed and translated by confused people who hate us all.

Whatever the case, I've yet to encounter any combination of "graveyard" and "daffy waterfowl" whatsoever in my years of gaming -- until yesterday as I played Guadia Quest, the RPG component of Retro Game Challenge, when I saw this:



Needless to say, I was thrilled! At long last, one of gaming's most naggingly unresolved missions would at last be satisfied. But it was not to be -- no matter how many times I talked to this duck, he never parted with any sort of commodity, let alone the one I was seeking. Unfulfilled, my search continues.

category: games | forums | 24 comments | §

Newtypes gone wild

06 February 09 | 09:40 | Posted by: m_nicolai

It's so hard for game publishers to keep a secret these days. Even without their retail partners spilling the beans with pre-order listings or ESRB ratings slips, a simple trademark search can turn up clues. Such was the case with the upcoming release of Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier (be sure to say the whole title when pre-ordering, it will impress the clerk). It showed up in a trademark search just months after its Japanese release, which is a shame, since Atlus puts so much effort into their press releases. This news probably would have knocked me off my chair otherwise.

Well, I'm still kind of giddy. It's great to see some traction on the Super Robot Taisen franchise in North America. The 2006 release of the Original Generation games came at the ass-end of the Gameboy Advance's lifespan when even first party gems like Rhythm Heaven were denied an international release.

Developed by Monolith Soft, Endless Frontier is a departure from the series' strategy RPG roots, a pseudo rhythm-action/brawler with an icky harem-anime filling. It bears a striking similarity to their 2005 crossover game Namco X Capcom, except the crossover is between the much more obscure Original Generation characters and, uh, Xenosaga, I guess. Unlike the carefully credited and closely guarded hordes of licensed robots that are the bread and butter of the main SRT series, the characters and mechs of Original Generation are fully owned by Namco Bandai. Which means they can do all the horrible things that Japan does to characters that hover near the edge of the cultural abyss.

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category: games | forums | five comments | §

DLC will destroy all that we love

05 February 09 | 16:14 | Posted by:

Are you one of those independently-minded dudes (or dudettes) who went ahead and bought the new Prince of Persia despite my constant lamentations that it looked boringly derivative of Ico? Well, good for you. No one should ever avoid buying a game just because I made some baseless comparison or another after a few minutes of passive observation. But I hope you didn't buy it on PC! Because if you did, well, sorry, you only bought a partial version of the game. Turns out only the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions will be receiving post-script closure for the story via downloadable content.

Of course, you'd have had no way of knowing that before this news was announced a few days ago. It's not like the PC box said, "Not as fully-featured as other versions of the game."

Congratulations and welcome to the new generation of gaming, where development costs, backroom dealing and the folly of "platform-exclusive" content has transformed buying video games into a crap shoot. Once upon a time, all that info came up front. You knew the relative strengths and weaknesses of a given game before ever touching it. But now we have situations like, say, me picking up Fallout 3 for PlayStation 3 out of some misguided sense that I should be using my PS3 for something other than watching Futurama DVDs while I work out, only to discover that all of Fallout 3's extra post-game content designed to shore up the most common complaints about the game is exclusive to PC and Xbox 360. Yeah. Awesome.

And finally, Street Fighter IV will be using DLC as a way to make you pay for all the bonus character costumes that used to be free unlockables in the normal course of completing the game. That's especially annoying, because, uh...

Wait.



One of the alternates is Sakura dressed as Ryu, with the homage extending all the way to a pair of red sneakers redolent of his appearance in the original Street Fighter? Y-you bastards. And Zangief can dress as Mike Haggar?

Fine, take my money. I didn't need to pay rent this month anyway.

category: games | forums | 40 comments | §

I want my life back, Atlus

05 February 09 | 07:54 | Posted by: calorie_mate

I’m still playing Persona 4. I’ve been plugging away at it since the day it came out, but that was two months ago and I’m still not finished. From what I've hear, it’s shorter than Persona 3 by a good 10-20 hours or so; for my sake, I certainly hope so. Not that I’m knocking the game itself -- on the contrary, of all my available options, there isn’t anything else I’d rather be playing. It’s quite good, even! I just have other things to do with my life, you know?

The main problem is that Persona 4 is that it's very clear about when you should be dungeon crawling and when you should, for example, be making time with the high school ladies. Personally, I felt that the jewel in Persona 3’s elegantly designed crown was how much it respected my time; whether I was socializing or battling demons, it was entirely my own choice. And though Persona 4 seems to offer the same choice at first glance, it conspires to force you to do what it wants at every turn. In particular, the entire town in the game seems to shut down on rainy days, meaning your choices are either a) spend the next few hours in a dungeon, or b) waste time and play the game much less efficiently. Combine that with the fact that the only way to restore your HP/MP in the dungeon is to leave -- meaning you also can’t explore to your heart’s content -- and suddenly I feel boxed in.

The funny part is, had I been playing this at the tail end of last summer when Persona 3 came out, this setup probably would have worked out for me just fine. At that time, most of my friends either lived far away or were off traveling, leaving nothing to do but work and play Persona. That’s not the case these days, however, and therefore the game will sit unplayed for a few days at a time, all because I only had 20 minutes to play while the game wanted two hours. That’s not any different from most RPGs if you think about it, but coming as a follow-up to something that was much more considerate of my schedule really highlights the reason portable RPGs are all the rage these days.

I’m almost done, though! With any luck, I should finish it up within the next couple weeks, just in time for...a whole slew of Atlus releases. Great.

category: games | forums | 17 comments | §

New Game Plus: Designated downloads for 02/03/09

03 February 09 | 22:53 | Posted by: sarcasmorator

That's it. I've had it. From now on, the crappy shovelware dumped into the WiiWare hopper each week will get nothing more than a paltry mention and a disdainful sniff from me. I can't think of pithy things to say anymore.

This week we have, what? Snowboard Riot and a digital version of the puzzle game Lonpos. Nnngggeeehhh. And all Virtual Console has to offer is another SMS port of a Genesis game. Sonic Chaos, this time. Where's the good stuff, third parties? Stop hanging onto it like it's some kind of sacred treasure. It's only worth something if you sell it.

Oh, there I go, getting all worked up. Anyway, I'm going to stick with what actually looks interesting. Conveniently enough, the newest XBLA and PSN games fit that bill. Oh, and PSN also has Bejeweled 2 these days.

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category: games | forums | fifteen comments | §

Add to Queue 75: Probationary edition

02 February 09 | 22:48 | Posted by: vsrobot

Media | A2Q Archives | A2Q on Twitter | A2Q #75 | February 3, 2009

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Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and Zack and Miri Make a Porno highlight the first-run theatrical features hitting Blu-ray this week. For some reason, I keep calling the latter film Zack and Wiki Make a Porno, which would be a completely different movie. I'm sure that such a movie already exists in the "magical" land of DeviantArt. For me, the real highlights for Blu-ray this week are the catalog titles. Little Miss Sunshine and Sideways are amazing indie comedies that deserve a spot in your crowded entertainment schedule. The rest of the movies hitting Blu-ray this week are after the jump.

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category: film | forums | six comments | §

Demons on the go

02 February 09 | 09:50 | Posted by: christopher

A long series of train rides last weekend convinced me to pick up Devil Survivor, a tactical RPG for the Nintendo DS in Atlus’ Megami Tensei series. Even before this game was announced, I was hoping that a decent Megami Tensei game would be released on the DS, because the series’ intricate demon fusion and skill transfer systems are a perfect fit for a portable system. As long as I’m inevitably going to pour silly amounts of time into managing my party, I’d rather do it while waiting for the bus than at home. When I learned that Devil Survivor would be a tactical game rather than a traditional RPG, my anticipation grew even further, despite some rather questionable character design choices. With the exception of occasional innovators like last year’s excellent Valkyria Chronicles, tactical RPGs tend to succeed or fail based on their party management and skill systems, and Megami Tensei games are more or less built around excellent party and skill management with their demon fusion system. When I heard about this, it seemed likea tactical RPG game would probably be a great fit for the Megami Tensei series, and about 7 hours in I am definitely not disappointed.

The game takes place in modern day Tokyo, and the central premise is that everyone inside the Yamanote Line is sealed off from the outside world under mysterious circumstances. The main character is able to see the number of days both he and everyone else have left to live, eventually noticing that no one except the members of the Self Defense Force enforcing the barricade to contain everyone inside the Yamanote Line area have more than 7 days left to live. He and the rest of the party receive e-mails with news of various disasters before they occur, and their goal is to use this knowledge of the future to change their fate. Like Persona 3 and its sequel, Devil Survivor’s plot moves through time rather than space, so initializing events consumes game time. The events themselves seem to move a brisk pace, if only because dialogue between 2D character portraits moves faster than dialogue between the jerky, slow moving polygonal actors that seem to be the norm in contemporary RPGs. I am hoping that choices about how to best use the limited 7 days of in-game time directly affect Devil Survivor’s branching paths and multiple endings, but I’m still not far enough in to evaluate this and don’t want to get my hopes up too high just yet.

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category: games | forums | fourteen comments | §

Book update

01 February 09 | 22:02 | Posted by:

A huge batch of GameSpite Year One, Vol. 1 is going in the mail tomorrow, which brings me pretty close to the home stretch. That's very good. Not so good is the fact that once I started shipping international orders I discovered that I had grossly underestimated the cost of international shipping even more than I had underestimated the cost of domestic shipping. Like, by about $8 per book. So my razor-thin break-even margins on the books? Yeah, actually it looks like this venture is costing me about $500. I wouldn't think it possible, but there are the numbers staring me right in the face. And what great timing, too, coming right when I'm already nearly broke and desperately trying to save up for a wedding.

So, enjoy your book when it arrives. It's probably one of a kind! I'd have to file bankruptcy to publish a second volume, which I have to say is not something I particularly aspire to. I suppose it's my own fault for dabbling in the vanity press...although in this case it's more like "hubris press."

Edit: Uh, this wasn't a request for money or sympathy or anything. Just an explanation of why you most likely won't ever see a second GameSpite book.

category: blog | forums | 41 comments | §