The rise of schadenfreude

30 June 09 | 10:20 | Posted by:

I've been reading reviews of the new Transformers movie with surprising cheer. Now, certainly I'm sad that something which by all accounts is so utterly despicable has earned 4/5 of the total take of genuinely good fare such as Star Trek and Up in the course of a weekend, but there's no sense in fretting about the vox populi -- the vast masses have different priorities in how they spend their free time and free money than I do, and I won't judge simply because I'm baffled. So it goes. But no, I'm happy that the new Transformers is (by every reliable account) utterly unwatchable trash... simply because it means the new G.I. Joe flick surprisingly won't be the worst movie of the summer.

That doesn't mean I harbor delusions about G.I. Joe possessing any particular merits; it's gonna be so, so bad. But early word is that unlike Transformers it actually has a plot -- a plot that more or less makes sense! Not only that, it actually seems to be about the familiar cast of characters that I grew up with rather than relegating them to second fiddle behind America's least charismatic young star. And I doubt there'll be much in the way of insensitive, racist humor, since the casting went out of its way to turn guys who were decidedly WASPish in plastic form into real-life blacks, or Egyptians, or even Canadians (that most repressed of minorities).

They even got the look right, for the most part. Look at the Baroness! That is pretty much a perfect physical incarnation of the cartoon woman that instilled a strange attraction to Eurotrash in a generation of young Americans. Plus, who can complain about a movie that casts Christopher Eccleston as the main villain? Only a heartless monster, I think.

I was always more of a G.I. Joe fan growing up than I was Transformers -- I lost interest in the latter once they started phasing out die-cast metal and phasing in stupid things like the Sharkticons or whatever they were called, while I actually bought the Joe comic right up to the end (albeit entirely out of inertia those last few years) -- so it brings me a tiny, meaningless bit of satisfaction to see that it'll come out ahead on celluloid. Even if it's all in relative terms defined in degrees of "less horrible than."

Of course, I'm sure Transformers will smoke it in terms of box office take, but that's to be expected. You people got no taste at all, you know that?

category: film | forums | 41 comments | §

GameSpite Quarterly #1, part 7

29 June 09 | 06:25 | Posted by:

With this week's update to the online version of GameSpite Quarterly #1, we're about halfway through the issue's content. I'm still a little bit amazed by just how much material we produced for this book. The reality of it all hits me every Sunday afternoon right around 5, as I find myself faced with formatting and producing the material.

Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters
One of these days, I intend to play more than a few minutes of this Kid Icarus sequel/remake/whatever without getting weirded out by the addition of multi-scrolling. In the meantime, we have David to set the record straight for us.

Ninja Gaiden Shadow
I also hope, someday, to track down the people responsible for this strange iteration of Ninja Gaiden and get the true story behind its creation and how it came to be an NG game rather than a Shadow of the Ninja sequel. Despite its heritage, it's still a better attempt at Ninja Gaiden than anything we've seen since.

Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins
Hey, it's Mario! But not really. As I discovered earlier this year, Super Mario Land 2 is actually just Mario interloping in what really should have been a Wario Land game. The result is novel and fun, but feels a little off -- although Bob's article here indirectly refutes my observations, and does a pretty good job of it, too.

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

Coming next

28 June 09 | 16:24 | Posted by:

After about five or six weeks of sales for GameSpite Quarterly #1, the plucky little magazine/journal/mini-book/whatever has sold about 300 copies. That's hardly enough for me to quit and make it my full-time job, but still hardly too shabby for a fairly pricey niche-oriented publication with outrageously high shipping fees. Especially since I haven't actually promoted it outside of this site.

We're about a week from deadline for article text submissions for issue 2, and the results are really great so far! So, I figure it's time to begin talking about the next book. I'd do the viral thing, but I don't have time to really come up with something interesting. You'll have to settle for the indelicate presentation of the teaser image from the back of the first issue, I'm afraid.


However, I can assure you it is relevant in every way to the theme of the next book. I can also assure you that the lemon cake in this photo was delicious.

category: gamespite | forums | 17 comments | §

Meanwhile, in a parallel universe

27 June 09 | 11:04 | Posted by:

I don't really do the cross-promotion thing between GameSpite and 1UP so much these days, but I'm unexpectedly satisfied with this piece I wrote about Michael Jackson for Retronauts and figure it's worth linking to. It's not really about Jackson, though; what it's really about is the bygone days of arcades and the fact that his death is a reminder of things forever lost. I guess ultimately it's about me, to be honest. Man, now I'm kind of ashamed of it. "Some guy died, please listen to me whine about missing my childhood." Sorry 'bout that, everyone.

The post did come from a sincere place, though. I don't know anyone who didn't think Jackson was amazing back when I was in elementary school. Thriller was so, so huge, and we all used to listen to it over and over. I haven't heard the album in decades, but I could still recite the stupid byplay between Jackson and Paul McCartney from "The Girl is Mine" if you really pressed me. And that was the lousiest song on the album! That cover made white suits and baby tigers were the coolest thing ever. We all figured we'd dress like that an have exotic pets when we grew up. And we all made fun of Jackson's flaky personality and effeminate mannerisms, but damn if we didn't try to moonwalk in our ragged size 4 Pumas.

Anyway, I have a follow-up post to that entry in mind, but it will have to wait for when I'm not wearing a monkey suit and listening to a din of Vietnamese at my future cousin-in-law's engagement party. The further joys of adulthood!

category: blog | forums | three comments | §

Back in civilization

26 June 09 | 10:58 | Posted by:

Hi, kids. I'm back, and I survived my Oregon trip. Sadly, it seems a bunch of celebrities didn't, which put a bit of a damper on conversation.



I spent most of yesterday offline and in the shadow of Mt. Shasta. That wasn't a deliberate decision, it's just that the mountain looms over the landscape as an inescapable presence for several hours of travel time. Up close it's kind of ominous, too -- despite yesterday being a clear, sunny day, Shasta's peak was permanently enrobed by a wreath of clouds. I can only imagine what fell monstrosities lurk within that shroud, likely waiting to recover the One Ring and enslave humanity. Again.

category: blog | forums | nine comments | §

Out, brief particle

24 June 09 | 18:06 | Posted by:

Oh, hey, so I'm in Oregon at the moment. It's kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing; my lady has been up here shooting various locations across the state for the past two weeks and makes the long drive back to San Francisco tomorrow, so I thought I'd tag along and accompany her home. She's being sent off to the Midwest next week, so after Monday I won't see her again until August. I figured sharing a road trip together was worth the price of a one-way ticket, because there is a secret streak of romanticism in my soul. Shh, don't tell anyone. If would help maintain your image of me as a soulless mechaniloid, please know I am also using this time away from the office to complete an epic amount of planning and organization for work as well. There is no such thing as "free time" in my universe.



Oregon's interesting, though. We'd been to Portland and, of course, the Goondocks a few years back, and thus I had a view of the state as a lush, forested, wonderland. Having cut diagonally across Oregon from Portland to its southeast corner yesterday, I see this is not really the case -- it's quite diverse, and for the moment I keep looking out the window and thinking I'm in the foothills of New Mexico. They have summer here, for one thing. Living this coddled existence in San Francisco for so long, I'd forgotten all about your earth "seasons."

The one moment of the trip that's most stuck with me happened last night after the sky had fallen dark and we were cruising along a black stretch of forested highway an hour outside of Bend. The stars were clear and bright in the cloudless night above us, and for a brief while all other traffic faded away to let our eyes adjust to the darkness. I looked up into the sky and in that moment a vivid falling star plummeted toward the road in the distance, a brilliant streak of light marking a line perpendicular to the horizon directly ahead. We both saw it, and both gasped in surprise at the same moment, and already it was gone. In an age where everyone carries a camera in their pocket and nothing is too mundane or trivial to be tweeted, it was nice to share this simple yet profound moment -- witnessing a piece of space rock that travelled untold millions of miles so that it could burn up in a flash of light too spontaneous and fleeting to be captured except by our wandering eyes. Something about it truly moved me.

Of course, I was doped up on cold medicine at the time, so take that as you will.

category: blog | forums | 17 comments | §

A fine how-do-you-do

23 June 09 | 05:12 | Posted by:

Wow, no one told me they were working on a live-action rendition of Final Fantasy VI. Johnny Depp as Kefka, though? That's some inspired casting.

Ann Hathaway as Mog looks a little weird, though.

I bet the purists are on pins and needles about whether they'll go with Tina/Mash or Terra/Sabin!

category: film, games | forums | 29 comments | §

GameSpite Quarterly #1, part 6

21 June 09 | 22:48 | Posted by:

Battletoads
I still wonder why I forced myself to play Battletoads to completion back on NES. I mean, sure, it was because I was a kid who had to make the most of the few games I could buy with my limited funds, but these days I believe in drawing the line. Which means I will never, ever play the Game Boy version, because it somehow looks even worse!

Gradius: The Interstellar Assault
Kishi continues along his lifelong mission to write about every single game Konami has ever published. I worry about him. Sure, it all seems well and good when it's about great stuff like this, but one of these days he's gonna get to Hellboy and Winx Club and Saw, and it ain't gonna be pretty.

Final Fantasy Adventure
You might notice all the art I'm using for Final Fantasy Adventure is taken from its mediocre GBA remake, Sword of Mana. Hey! Guess what game is pretty much impossible to find art for? That's right, the original Final Fantasy Adventure. So stop hassling me and go read this article, chump.

Final Fantasy Legend II
And finally, this week's update wraps with a second Final Fantasy game that actually isn't: this time the pinnacle of the Game Boy SaGa titles, Final Fantasy Legend II. (Some people prefer III, but whatevs!) Man, I'm gonna be so cheesed if the remake doesn't make its way over here. (We should be OK, though. I asked Kawazu if he'd see to it.)

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

Fearful symmetry

20 June 09 | 21:12 | Posted by:

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

I expect a prompt answer

18 June 09 | 10:13 | Posted by:

Has graffiti become this nerdy everywhere, or is it just a San Francisco thing? After snapping this, I caught the train and passed a tree that someone had vandalized to look like an OM NOM NOM NOM photo. I swear, this city....

category: blog | forums | 19 comments | §

Next in the queue

17 June 09 | 11:52 | Posted by:

It's running a couple of weeks late, but I'm finally putting together the quarterly semi-annual bonus whatsit for everyone who's been supporting the site with the "remunerated subscription" button that, um, seems to have disappeared from the right sidebar. When on earth did I do that, I wonder? And how did I never notice until now? Well, anyway, the last mailing was at the end of 2008 and, to be honest, it kind of sucked. I'm making up for it this time with something that I think will be much better:



Yeah, I'm actually putting together a small run of books via Blurb. These will compile black-and-white renditions of a ton of the comics that have run on the site in the past, oh, ten years or so. I was going through the ones from 2005-2006 last night and was startled to discover how almost good they were. All I remember about the comics I published round then is that they were all disappointing because none of them turned out the way I had intended, and after half a dozen false starts I pretty much just gave up. In retrospect, maybe that was a bit rash... I was nearly doing pretty respectable work, and with a little more time and dedication maybe I could have pushed through that last barrier between "ambition" and "accomplishment." Oh well! It's probably too late now, but at the very least it should make for a nice little mini-book. I'll throw maybe a dozen newly-created comics in there for laughs, though whether said laughs come from actual humor value or simply from the amusing nature of how badly my drawing skills have decayed in the past three years remains to be seen.

Anyway, please look forward to it, dedicated supporters. You keep this site alive, because servers are expensive.

category: blog, comic | forums | twelve comments | §

Add to Queue 91: Are you the keymaster?

16 June 09 | 20:40 | Posted by: vsrobot

Hey, guys -- movies shot on film have grain. Watching movies on BD you've previously only seen on VHS or DVD can be a shock when you realize how much grain is actually present. Some BD transfers choose to soften the image to try and eliminate the appearance of grain, but to me this results in a much uglier transfer than just leaving the grain in.

The Ghostbusters transfer is sure to be controversial, as the early reviews have all mentioned that the transfer has a lot of film grain. Some people are going to react negatively to this, but unfortunately a movie shot on film in the 1980s isn't going to look as good as a movie shot digitally today. There is a reason that Pixar movies look so amazing on BD -- they're digital from start to finish.

Of course, no one would care about the transfer on the Ghostbusters BD if it weren't a beloved comedy that has become a cultural touchstone. I'm a huge Bill Murray fan, and this movie is pure '80s Murray, when he mostly played riffs on the same persona throughout various movies. I think I prefer the more recent Murray, the guy who was in Rushmore, Lost in Translation and Broken Flowers -- still playing variations on a theme, but it is a theme I find more personally relevant and interesting.

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category: film | forums | four comments | §

Not your daddy's bounty hunter

16 June 09 | 09:12 | Posted by: Azar

Growing up a diehard Star Wars fan enamored with the grave and thoroughly cool Boba Fett, the glamorous profession of the bounty hunter wasn’t to be taken lightly. It’s not a job for the likes of Duane “Dog” Chapman -- it’s serious, alien-scum-catching business, where no job is too tough when there are credits to be had. Maybe that’s why I’ve always approached Metroid with a degree of skepticism. For all the similarities they share -- armor, slotted visor, deadly gadgets, an air of mystery, and a propensity for conversational brevity -- Boba Fett and Samus Aran don’t quite line up. Where Fett intimidates with that gravelly voice and charges astronomical fees to exact harsh justice, Samus…saves the galaxy?

The E3 announcement of Team Ninja-developed Metroid: Other M coupled with my recent completion of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption has resulted in a lot of Samus on the brain. The more I think about Samus, the harder it is to consider her a bounty hunter -- but maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Under Nintendo’s direction, the Metroid franchise sported a paper-thin storyline, with hardly a scrap of background information given to flesh out the wholly original galaxy Samus traverses. Retro Studios, on the other hand, has pushed Metroid in a cinematic direction, introducing more cutscenes to the series and using the scan visor to provide a wealth of knowledge on the species and history created for their games. Metroid Prime 3 employed voice acting in the series for the first time -- but more importantly, it gave life to the Galactic Federation, with soldiers, battleships, fighters, and plenty of reading material about their history and technology.

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category: games | forums | sixteen comments | §

GameSpite Quarterly #1, part 5

15 June 09 | 06:18 | Posted by:

Wow, part five of the Quarterly. That's a bunch of parts, guys. I was actually thinking about skipping this week's update since last week's comic was linked to hell and back and the server is still experiencing aftershocks and probably deserves a day off. But no, there's too much good stuff this week and I couldn't wait any longer to post it. (I wrote some stuff this week as well, but it's definitely not the highlight here.)

Coming of Age: Game Boy Takes the Lead
Another of the chapter break articles, Coming of Age demonstrates a touch of continuity within the book. Don't worry, though. It's not like comic book continuity, where you need to remember what happened to some lame character in an obscure issue in the '70s. I just mean it builds off the Lynx discussion in the previous chapter, that's all.

Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge
In the first of two totally stellar Konami-centric write-ups by Mr. Nomali, we discover not only that the second Game Boy Castlevania was miles beyond the first (which we knew already), we also learn why. Spoiler: it's not Christopher Belmont's breezy short-shorts.

Operation C
Orbiting the Castlevania II write-up like one half of a binary pair is an equally passionate hagiography of what has been described (by this article, in fact) as the only truly great portable Contra game until Contra 4. Yes, Operation C is Contra. This was in the awkward phase where Konami was deeply terrified of the political ramifications of videogame titles.

Metroid II: Return of Samus
And finally, we round off this update with my own look back at Metroid II. It's a lot more forgiving than the rather cranky review I wrote for 1UP a few years back. Maybe I'm mellowing with my old age... or maybe I'm just coming to better appreciate Nintendo R&D1's occasionally sideways approach to game design.

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

P$P Go

14 June 09 | 09:30 | Posted by: vsrobot

A common refrain I've been hearing on video game podcasts and reading in internet gaming forums is the question, "Why is the PSP Go, Sony's new handheld gaming device, so expensive?"

On the surface, the decision to price the device at $249.99 -- $80 dollars more than the previous iteration of the hardware -- is inscrutable. After all, the PSP Go arguably has less functionality than the current PSP on the market. The PSP you can buy now can play games downloaded from the PlayStation network (something that the Go focuses on to the exclusion of all else), yet it can also play all the games and movies released on UMD since the PSP's 2005 launch. The Go has a smaller screen; it doesn't have a UMD drive assembly; it has a smaller battery; and it's based around the same technology that Sony's been mass-manufacturing since 2005. The only significant additions are the 16 gigabytes of internal flash memory and support for Bluetooth connectivy, additions that shouldn't significantly increase the manufacturing costs.

Compare this to the recent hardware iteration from Nintendo in their flagship portable device. Unlike the Go, which is best described by relaying what it can't do -- namely, play discs -- the conversation around the DSi is all the new things it can do. And on top of that, it isn't nearly a hundred dollars more expensive than the previous version of the hardware.

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category: games | forums | 49 comments | §

Bridging the great divide

13 June 09 | 08:31 | Posted by:

By a happy coincidence, everyone who writes for 1UP has his or her own beat, so to speak -- that is, particular types of games they know well and tend to cover at events. Considering we're down to a skeleton crew (thanks, housing bubble!), that works out pretty well for us. You've probably noticed that (when I'm not just writing about old stuff) my beat tends to center around Nintendo and Square Enix, which is why I spent 90% of my E3 time either in those companies' booths or talking to their people. And why that infectious New Super Mario Bros. Wii theme was stuck in my head for a week.

Being so immersed in those specifics, I was only able to take a cursory glance at what everyone else had on display for the show. I saw just enough to assure me that I needn't feel as disenfranchised by the medium as I have for the past year, because even amidst all the massively hyped, adolescent pandering of the industry's God of War IIIs and Bayonettas are tons of interesting, creative, inventive, appealing works. You have the obvious selections like critical darling Scribblenauts, but also a sequel to the merely-pretty-good New Super Mario Bros. that somehow looks a lot more fun than the sequel to the sublime Super Mario Galaxy, a Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles game I'm actually looking forward to playing, and the first-ever survival horror game I can't wait to experience.

Most gratifying, though, was the realization that Nintendo deserves a "Most Improved" ribbon for their showing this year. The company's releases tend to be pretty divisive of late, with long-time fans feeling abandoned amidst shouts of "non-games" and "casual nonsense" and other such epithets. There's a real us-or-them mindset about Nintendo, at least from fans, but at E3 I feel the company proved that those distinctions are arbitrary at best, completely erroneous at worst. Listening to executives and designers speak made it clear that they recognize the different needs of different groups, but don't necessarily find them mutually exclusive. NSMB Wii is the embodiment of this concept, taking a game (Super Mario Bros.) that everyone knows and everyone loves, regardless of demographic, and creating an expression of that series that can be played, simultaneously, by the full array of its fans. They tried for something like that with Mario Kart Wii, I think, but that was a frigging mess. NSMB Wii, on the other hand, totally nails it.



Wii Sports Resort nails it, too. You know, I've never even played Wii Sports -- nothing about it interested me, and for some inexplicable reason people are willing to pay $40 for a free pack-in title on eBay, so I sold my copy last year. But the sequel looks excellent, from what little I've played: the archery event is phenomenal, and the kendo portions are great. (The 100-man standoff, which I'm calling "O-Mii-Chanbara," looks like the realization of something Bushido Blade attempted but did poorly.) Sure, I can't help but wish I were doing the archery in a Zelda game -- which will happen in due time -- but even here, in the context of standalone athletic events, it's incredibly addictive.

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category: games | forums | 46 comments | §

I miss E3. Wait, what?

12 June 09 | 20:59 | Posted by:

You know, before E3 kicked off -- was it really just last week!? -- I was dreading the whole thing, and all I could think about was how great it would be to be back home once the show was finished. But then the stupid event had to go and prove me wrong by being really excellent; lots of interesting things were shown, lots of interesting people sat to let me interview them, I met tons of fellow writers from the trenches of the gaming press. Heck, the show floor itself was even great, with larger, more spacious booths and fewer roving nerds to jostle with. Since booth babes and swag were in short supply, you didn't even have to maneuver around sweat-soaked losers toting multiple bags of free crap, posing for pictures with courteous but clearly uncomfortable seminude women. I can't imagine a better show.

Conversely, this week has been awful. I had intended to jump right back into the swing of things by getting back up to speed blogging here, but obviously that didn't happen. I was briefly distracted by the human suffering inflicted by Black Sigil and the befuddlement cast by Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, and then all hell broke loose as I had to make a bunch of deposits on venues and such for my wedding, which wrecked my bank account, which left my finacée traveling to Las Vegas on business with hardly any cash to speak of. (It didn't help that a greedy cabbie ripped her off for about $50 as soon as she landed.) I'd say the low point came the other day when she called me in a panic because she had gotten in a cab to the airport without realizing that it wouldn't take a credit card and that she didn't have the cash to pay for her ride, leading to a dispatcher attempting to have her arrested. While I was trying to sort that out, I learned my grandmother was in the hospital, which stressed me out even more given that my grandfather passed away the week after E3 2006, and part of what I hate about E3 is that I already associate it with that. So, yeah. It's been a pretty bad week.

There was also the part about Loki's great Game Boy history comic getting hit hard by Reddit and StumbleUpon, a traffic boost which is still wreaking havoc on the forums' stability. Internet goons have been decrying the comic because it has too many words and not enough funny; knowing Reddit's collective tastes, this means it lacks math nerd stalker creepiness masquerading as romanticism and adolescent screeds about how God is, like, this way fake idea. I've gotta say, I'm not a big fan of link aggregator sites like Digg, since the people they send have no interest in developing a long-term relationship with the sites they hammer en masse; the only benefit that a link from such places offers comes from the boost your banner ad impressions receive. Needless to say, this does you no damn good if your site doesn't have banner ads. Then it's just a lot of people racking up bandwidth charges so they can vomit a half-formed complaint and hyperactively flutter to the next shiny link that catches their attention.

God, I'm the Internet equivalent of a cranky old person yelling at kids to get off his lawn. "In my day, we had webrings! And link banners! And we had to hand-code our own HTML for our E/N websites! And we liked it that way!"

Anyway, they're mostly gone now, Cat wasn't arrested, and news on the hospital front seems positive, too. And to top it off, I decided not to force myself to play any more Black Sigil, because they don't pay me enough to hurt myself like that.



The one good thing about being away from E3 -- well, besides not being in LA -- is that the music from New Super Mario Bros. Wii is finally dislodged from my skull, replaced with "Ahead on Our Way" from Final Fantasy V. About bloody time.

Anyway, sorry to vent. But GameSpite is technically still my blog; I get to do that occasionally. Tomorrow: something topical. And I don't mean ointments, baby.

category: blog | forums | 18 comments | §

Sick day

11 June 09 | 07:42 | Posted by: vsrobot

I feel pretty confident in saying that most of the people who are among the niche enthusiasts who read this site have all had a similar experience growing up: too sick to go to school, spending the whole day curled up in a blanket in front of the TV playing Nintendo. As an adult, with a job and responsibilities, the opportunity to spend a day like that is pretty rare. Still, I can remember with fondness spending something like 14 hours fighting giants in the first Final Fantasy, grinding for levels long before that phrase had ever entered my vocabulary.

I spent the day yesterday too dizzy and light-headed to concentrate on a movie or a book, and just the thought of trying to stare at a blank screen and fill it with words was enough to make my brain feel as though some Lovecraftian creature had laid eggs of non-Euclidean geometry in my skull. Video games to the rescue!

These days, my "comfort game" of choice is Burnout Paradise. I spent five consecutive hours in Paradise City yesterday, which is more time than I sometimes get with a controller in a week, much less a day. I am even more convinced now than I was when I wrote this piece arguing for its consideration for game-of-the-year that Paradise is not only one of the best games of the year in which it was produced, but one of the best games of its entire generation. The variety of things to do in the world is amazing, and the post-launch support has been nothing short of phenomenal, with an optimal mix of free and paid DLC.

Here we have a game, released in the US in January of 2008, that has a substantial downloadable expansion being released. The new modes of play in Big Surf Island, as well the more vertically dense world, are ideas that could have easily supported a sequel set in a new city. Instead of a $60 retail product, though, it's a $12.99 download. I can't help but compare this to the news of the Left 4 Dead sequel coming out this year. When the first Left 4 Dead was released, complaints that I and others had about the length of the game were pooh-poohed by defenders who were quick to point out Valve's historic post-launch support of their games. After just one pack of DLC, though, and only a year later, there's another $60 full retail release on its way. While each consumer ultimately has to make up his or her mind as to whether or not that amounts a good value, I think splitting the audience on a game where an active online community is a prerequisite for enjoyment is, frankly, wretched, and it only reinforces my stance that spending money on a game where I have to rely on other people in order to make it worthwhile is a waste of money.

Besides, if Twitter has proven anything to me, interacting with people while suffering from flu-like symptoms is a really bad idea. Jokes that seem really funny while sick are just embarrassing in the harsh light of day. I suppose this is what it must be like to wake up after a night of drunken bacchanalia, but as I have never been drunk I haven't had that pleasure. I can only imagine what kinds of things I might have said on XBL or PSN had I chosen online games as the way to make it through my sick day.

category: games | forums | six comments | §

Good news, anyone!

10 June 09 | 11:55 | Posted by: calorie_mate

Looks like Futurama has officially been picked up for a new season, courtesy of Comedy Central. This is good news! It looks like the money I dropped on the mixed bag the movies ended up being might've been worth it!

...so why did I spend the next half hour after I read the announcement arguing with people about why it's a good thing?

The Futurama movies certainly had something to do with it. Sure, there were decent (and occasionally great) jokes thrown in, but now that they're over and done with two major problems seem to stick out. The first is length – the movies all tended to drag at one point or another, or got too caught up in the plot to remember to be funny. The second, of course, was the insistence on cramming in appearances by all the beloved Futurama characters. It's tough to blame them, but the movies did suffer from focusing too much on why you should look back fondly on the series, rather than the new material in front of you.

Thankfully, both of my concerns will, in theory, be addressed by the return to an episodic format. The apparent return of the show means they won't need to trot out every great character all at once, and the shorter run time will presumably lend itself to the tighter, one-great-joke-after-another stride the series did so well, assuming they haven't lost their touch. And I guess that is the biggest concern. People look at Family Guy and say that it wasn't nearly as strong after coming back from the dead (I can't really comment, since it was never my cup of tea), and The Simpsons has been going for so long that most people (myself included) wonder if there's only so much you can do with a given cast of characters. (To put it another way, there's only so much fun you can have with a moldy corpse. Trust me.)

So yes, there are some legitimate concerns, but there's no reason to condemn the new season already. I'm fully able to compartmentalize good portions of a series from bad in my mind (hi there, Metal Gear), so worse comes to worse I'll always have the original season to look back on fondly. Let's give this season the benefit of the doubt before doing that, though. I know you can find a way to not be cynical about this, Internet. I believe in you.

category: media | forums | 18 comments | §

Blowing up the sandbox, Guerrilla style

09 June 09 | 12:17 | Posted by: Azar

Remember Mission to Mars and Red Planet, the two films Hollywood cranked out in 2000 that coincidentally starred imperiled astronauts on desperate trips to our closest galactic neighbor? If not, I can't blame you -- despite solid casts, both movies managed to be utterly blase. That's what I was expecting when one of my friends showed up with Red Faction: Guerrilla last week. I'd hardly even been aware that the game existed. Maybe I'd skimmed over a demo on Xbox Live, but I quickly assumed Red Faction: Guerrilla was just another third-person shooter, an average action game with nothing but the setting of the rocky Martian surface separating it from its contemporaries.

Boy, was I wrong.

The open-world, third-person action game genre remains as flooded as ever; this year may be even more jammed than the last, with Infamous, Prototype, and Red Faction: Guerrilla all competing for sales in the month of June alone. Compared to the anticipation I'd seen on the web for Sucker Punch's first Playstation 3 outing and the ultraviolent screenshots of Prototype, Red Faction hardly garned a bit of hype. But after a couple hours of playing Guerrilla -- followed by a couple days of playing Guerrilla -- I realized this sandbox action game is much more Total Recall than it is Mission to Mars. Totally ridiculous, but in such a good, good way.

The game begins with our hero, Alec Mason, arriving on Mars, and quickly establishes that the EDF, or Earth Defense Force, rules the planet with an unnecessarily strict iron fist. Once the oppressive regime crosses Mason -- which takes about five minutes -- he joins the planet's rebels in an attempt to liberate all of Mars. Mason's character design sadly represents Red Faction's biggest problem -- as a bulky guy with a crew cut and a single scar as an identifying mark, he's as close to generic space marine territory you can get without a suit of armor. Even worse, one cutscene a few hours in depicts two bald, uniformed EDF officers yelling at one another over a giant viewscreen, but it's virtually impossible to tell them apart. The characters play boring roles in a generic rebellion story. Still, the plot simply needs to deliver an excuse to get to what Red Faction is all about: blowing up everything.

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category: games | forums | eleven comments | §

GameSpite Quarterly #1, part 4

08 June 09 | 06:30 | Posted by:

This week's quadruple dose of writin' and spitin' brings us to the conclusion of Game Boy's infancy and to the cusp of the turning point at which the system's lineup went from "rough but promising" to "holy crap." Don't fret, though! Even those these articles chronicle the system at something short of its peak, we did not scrimp on the quality of writing.

Gargoyle's Quest
I keep name-dropping Gargoyle's Quest in my numerous mentions of great original Game Boy titles, specifically because it was the first such creation. But Rene here has demonstrated the perspicacity I lack by actually explaining why it was a good game. (For the most part, that is.)

Rockman's World: Mega Man on Game Boy
Although GameSpite has covered the Game Boy Mega Man titles in exhaustive detail, there's always room for a general survey to complement the in-depth obsessiveness. Or at least that's what I keep telling myself to assuage my guilt for being so gosh-darned breezy with this piece.

Heiankyo Alien
You know, for a system that was ostensibly geared toward young kids, the Game Boy sure did have a lot of games with seriously obtuse titles. Heiankyo Alien's name actually does make sense, if you know what "heian-kyo" means, but it's still no easier on English-speaking ears than, say, "Daedalian Opus."

Cart B. Ridge in: The Game Boy!
I'm not sure what a cartoonist as talented as Mr. Armstrong here is doing slumming around the likes of GameSpite, but believe me when I say that I intend to exploit this natural resource with all available ruthlessness for as long as I can. We begin with a general comic overview of the Game Boy's curriculum vitae.

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

Everything must go

07 June 09 | 14:43 | Posted by:

Back when I published GameSpite Year One, Vol. 1, I kept about half a dozen extra copies of the hardcover book on-hand in case I ever needed to promote it, give gifts, or whatever. Now that all the paid-for copies have been mailed out and appear to have reached their destinations properly, I realize I don't have much use or room for a stack of duplicate books. Also, weddings are expensive. So I'm offering these last six copies up for sale to anyone who's interested, same price as before ($60 inscribed and shipped for U.S. destinations, $65 to the Americas, $70 world). Aside from my own personal library copy, these are the last six remaining hardcover editions of the book, and no others will ever be printed. Drop me a line at toastyfrog@gmail.com if you're interested -- first come, first serve.

In other news, Blurb's bookmaking software just received a serious upgrade. I haven't had a chance yet to kick its tires, but I expect future publications from this here website will be significantly improved as a result of the new app.

Edit: All copies tentatively spoken for. And that's all, folks!

category: gamespite | forums | | §

Retail grim reaper

07 June 09 | 10:06 | Posted by: vsrobot

"I have become death."

One of my earliest jobs was at an independent used records store. You know, like the one you have in your town? The place where all the kids hang out to talk about music, trade tapes, and whisper rumors about possible reunions and side projects? Oh, wait...

A few vestigial record stores are still lumbering around out there, but the halcyon days I remember from my youth are gone forever. Websites such as Myspace, Twitter, Pandora, and Last.FM do a much better job of introducing people to new music than any single record store clerk ever could, and the record labels pray every night that people will go back to trading home-made tapes with their small circle of friends instead of the current method, which involves entire albums being widely disseminated over Internet file sharing services -- often in advance of the "official" release.

I also spent five years managing a chain video rental store. I witnessed firsthand the surprisingly rapid format change from VHS to DVD. I was on the front lines, educating consumers about progressive vs. interlaced video, widescreen vs. fullscreen, pan and scan vs. open matte, and so on. I also witnessed more and more customers abandoning their weekly video store habit in favor of online rental services like Netflix. The glacially slow response of the video stores to competition represented by Netflix was embarrassing to me as a retailer in the industry. (Trivia: Blockbuster Video was given an opportunity to buy Netflix prior to its explosion in popularity; they passed.) Now both major players in the video rental space are on deathwatch, and barring a miracle it'll be grocery stores, self-service kiosks, video-on-demand through cable and satellite providers, and various Internet delivery methods that'll be dividing up the home video pie.

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category: media | forums | ten comments | §

The post-E3 apocalypse

06 June 09 | 11:52 | Posted by:

I'm back from E3, and I've more or less recovered from the manic pace of the whole thing. It was a strange year for me; normally I hit the booths hard and write up a few dozen previews in no time flat, but this year I feel like I barely wrote anything. Part of that, I fear, stems from my getting old. Once I made it back to the hotel each night, I was pretty much dead after writing up a piece or two. And when I'm tired I'm tired and can't concentrate on writing at all. A bigger part of it, though, is simply that I had too many appointments: I covered five different press conferences and sat in a bunch of interviews, all spread throughout each day with just enough time between each to leave me about ten minutes of space once I'd rushed to the proper location. (Then all my appointments ended up starting late anyway, leaving me in grim meeting limbo.) So, I decided to make the best of it by trying to write more good articles (as opposed to the usual "bang 'em out in a hurry" event coverage articles the Internet subsists on). 1UP is so understaffed compared to the competition that there's no point in trying to be faster or more comprehensive, so a least we can strive for a higher level of quality. I think my New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Metroid Other M previews did a fine job of that, even if the latter was mostly just an interview, and the Final Fantasy XIII and XIV pieces I filed aren't too bad, either. I have a bunch of other write-ups for next week that don't even have to use that terrible structured breakdown format since they're so late. Everyone wins!

Despite the stress of it all, though, it was a stunningly good E3. I went into it dreading the whole thing, due in part to a growing sensation that my tastes and what the industry wants us to buy have diverged irreparably and in equal measure because the past few E3s have been so, so terrible. But no! This year's was pretty great: it was bigger, but not quite as over-the-top as in years past; publisher booths were more spacious and offered more hands-on opportunities with games; booth babes and swag were rare sights, so the show wasn't full of sweaty creeps pausing for a photo/grope opportunity while toting three bags full of free crap; and while there were plenty of games on display that are more or less the antithesis of anything I would ever want to play, far more interesting and appealing games were displayed in their midst. All in all, it reminded me that, hey, my job is pretty OK sometimes.

And now, for an episode of "too short for a blog post, too long for Twitter."

• I gained a frightening insight into life working for Square Enix: two different SE employees asked me at different times, "Hey, you've lost weight, haven't you?" Their immediate follow-up wasn't congratulatory but rather a concerned, "Have you been sick? Are you working too much?" I had to convince them that weight loss is a good thing. Once means nothing, but twice is a trend. And this is why I hope never to work for a Japanese corporation.
  
• Final Fantasy II/SaGa creator Akitoshi Kawazu is one of the warmest, most likable developers I've ever interviewed. You'd never know it from playing his games, which seem designed to inflict grim suffering on players.
  
• During a brief moment of downtime during the show, I overheard a couple of developers boasting to one another about how awesome their torrent upload ratios have been since getting "fat pipe" laid into their respective homes. I really don't even know what to think about that.
  
• Four days after playing New Super Mario Bros. Wii, I couldn't get the game's accursed music out of my head. (It's the same theme as in the previous game, with dancing Goombas and everything.) I finally just gave up and decided to play a bit of the DS game last night. It's fun, but it feels even more derivative and uninspired after having seen its incredible sequel, which was definitely the surprise of the show for me -- not so much that it exists, but that it's so absolutely fantastic.
  
• To my surprise, Yoshinori Kitase claims that the glaring similarities between the demos for FFXIII and Final Fantasy VII were completely unintentional. An alabaster-skinned, sword-wielding warrior riding a train into the heart of a high-tech city, fighting side-by-side with a slightly comical black companion against waves of soldiers, ultimately facing off against a giant robotic scorpion: totally a coincidence, apparently. I can't decide if that speaks to recurring themes in the series or a complete lack of originality. As a fan, I'm reaaaaally hoping it's not the latter.

OK, I think I'm done now.

category: games | forums | 19 comments | §

More Marios than you can shake a fireflower at [E3 2009]

05 June 09 | 12:05 | Posted by: calorie_mate

One of the best surprises at this year's E3 was the announcement of two new Mario games. All three platform makers had great showings, and there were certainly some interesting surprises (a Team Ninja Metroid!?), but for me none of that compares to the revelation that I’ll be getting a double dose of that pure, return-to-my-childhood fun that only an Italian plumber can provide. I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a Mario fanboy, per se -- I geek out over certain other franchises far more than this one -- but there’s something about a full-fledged Mario game that makes my brain shut off save for the part shooting endorphins all over the place.

The only dilemma now is trying to figure out which one I’m more excited about. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is the first time we’ve seen two true Mario entries on a single console since, what, the NES? (Yoshi’s Island, while probably the best platformer ever, doesn’t really count, despite being billed as Super Mario World 2.) And speaking of Yoshi, he’s back in a big way -- and if the trailer was any indication, he’ll be far more useful than he was in Super Mario Sunshine. Galaxy put a big dopey grin on my face the whole way through, and the prospect of getting that again is incredibly tempting.

On the other hand, New Super Mario Bros. Wii was particularly surprising, since I -- along with most of the free world -- was expecting New Super Mario Bros. 2 on DS. Instead, we get a four-player console game. I’m equally excited about yet another high-profile 2D (ish) side scrolling console release and at having another multiplayer platformer besides LittleBigPlanet to play with friends (and, let’s be honest, we'll have more fun with Mario's more elegant physics). Heck, even the Vs. Mode in the first NSMB was pretty good, if a bit limited, so to see an expansion of that concept would be great. The game even has 80 or so levels, so it looks to be quite a full package. Of course, the real reason I’m excited is the apparent return of the Koopa Kids. Can’t say I’ll miss you, Bowser Jr.

Thankfully (or is that “unfortunately”?), I won’t have to choose: the absence of a release date almost certainly pushes Galaxy 2 to next year. [Miyamoto said as much at his Q&A, actually; it's nearly ready to go, but they'll be polishing it into next year. -- JP] I considered making a bigger point about the significance of so many Marios on one system, of how this is Nintendo essentially patting itself on the back at this point for the Wii’s success, but I’m too busy smiling to get serious. I won’t ruin a happy moment with dour thoughts, nor will I turn this into Serious Video Gaming Business. As I said, there’s something special about the kind of smile Mario brings to my face, and that’s enough for me.

Maybe (well, almost certainly) somewhere out on the vast Internet someone isn’t happy about this. [Just check the comments to the preview you linked! -- JP] I’ve been told there are people who don’t love Mario, who don’t have the same reaction I do, but I refuse to believe it. It would make me sad to think someone out there can’t be as happy as I am right now. No, I’d much rather cling to this child-like sense of awe and turn a blind eye to any evidence to the contrary. I know games aren’t for kids anymore, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still indulge in a little unabashed excitement from time to time. In theory, fun is what this medium is all about.

category: games | forums | 18 comments | §

The light of day [E3 2009]

04 June 09 | 07:48 | Posted by: Azar

Alan Wake has clearly been a troubled project. Remedy Entertainment last released a game in 2003 with the crime drama The Fall of Max Payne. Six years is a long, long time between projects, and Alan Wake has been on the horizon of upcoming Xbox 360 games for half that time. Sadly, those three years have come and gone with fewer and fewer public appearances from the mysterious game; every E3 has brought with it another Microsoft press conference making no mention of Wake. But now, at long last, the game has resurfaced with a (hopefully final) release window of next spring, and Wake still looks to offer something original despite how long it's been since the project's inception.

This year's gameplay demonstration gave me hope for a genuinely unique take on the survival horror genre. Remedy are doing their best to blur the line between thriller novels and the scary sector of video games: Wake stars a writer whose tales of the macabre come to life, and it seems to feature a chapter-esque episodic structure. It may essentially work out to be little more than a traditional mission system, but the twist is interesting nonetheless.

Remedy's gameplay demonstration showed off a visually striking level with creepy atmospheric lighting and realistic physics. While we're probably not going to see mass environmental carnage a la The Force Unleashed or Red Faction, all the objects in the world are obviously going to play a big role in the encounters. The Remedy playthrough finds Alan contending with supernatural forces using the real world against him, flinging environmental hazards like cars in his direction. In some cases, those enemies won't be defeated with bullets -- they'll be defeated by light.

With the advent of HDR lighting and better graphics, more and more games are starting to use lighting as a key facet of gameplay. It looks like Remedy's going to do a better job than, say, Epic did with the obnoxious Kryll segment in Gears of War, but it remains to be seen whether the gameplay involves running from one powerful light source to another, or if the developer takes a more inventive approach. Staring off with a flashlight that can be used in tandem with other weaponry gives me hope that Wake will succeed where games like Doom 3 failed... and the flare gun looks like the perfect combination of beauty and deadly force to take down the light-shy enemies.

I was disappointed not to see any of Wake's weather effects in action. The tornado in the official trailer caused a terrifying degree of carnage, and if the game's engine is up to producing dynamic, powerful weather that affects the environment, the light/dark demonstration will be a mere shadow of what Remedy has in store. We already know they can deliver on great bullet time and gunplay -- with half a decade of development, hopefully they can back up those basics with some genuinely fresh ideas that push the psychological/horror genre forward.

category: games | forums | seven comments | §

Sequels! [E3 2009]

02 June 09 | 21:12 | Posted by: vsrobot

Gamers may profess to want innovation in message board posts and blog posts, but they apparently aren't voting with their wallet. Witness the rise of Activision on the strength of annualizing their franchises, and the decline of EA when the risks they took in bringing new IPs such as Mirror's Edge and Dead Space weren't rewarded in the marketplace.

These lessons seemed well learned by the major publishers and platform holders, as I've noticed a decided emphasis in this years E3 in the hype about sequels. Of course, this has likely always been the case, and perhaps I am just more sensitive to it this year because I work on the retail side of games and spent much of last holiday season watching people pass over the aforementioned EA games in order to pick up Call of Duty 5 and Guitar Hero 4 and all manner of Wii shovelware, sadly included among the crap was the rare misstep from legendary Nintendo game designer Miyamoto, Wii Music.

I am not writing this as a castigation of the industry for focusing on sequels, because this year I am definitely part of the problem. New Metal Gear starring Raiden? Sure! Another helping of Modern Warfare? Don't mind if I do! More Metroid and TWO new Super Mario games? The Gods love me! The happiest I got during the Microsoft press event was the official announcement of Crackdown 2, and I'm very excited to see what that turns into in the wake of games such as inFamous and Prototype, which seem to have borrowed a lot from the original Crackdown. Can they surpass their descendants? I hope so!

Heck, I'm even excited for the upcoming EA Sports Active expansion, as I am currently in the middle of the game's 30 Day Challenge, and Wii Fit Plus looks to be a significant improvement.

Some sequels even surprised me: despite the lack of interest I have for Splinter Cell and my flat-out antipathy for Assassin's Creed, the footage shown has me interested in trying out those games as soon as I can.

Still, no game has supplanted the upcoming Uncharted 2 on my internal hype-meter. I love (love love) the first game and the sequel seems to be shaping up nicely. As I write this, the multiplayer beta is downloading to my PS3, and despite my misgivings (the first game was fine without multiplayer) I'll probably be logging quite a few hours into the beta while it's available.

I am a little disappointed that so-far no new IPs have caught my eye. It seems as if the major publishers and platform holders are playing it safe, and "new" games like Dante's Inferno and EA Sports MMA appear to similar to existing games that they might as well be sequels. It is possible I have been blinded by all the hype surrounding the sequels shown and announced, and that there was new and interesting stuff shown that I didn't notice because of it. I'm sure you guys will point it out if that is the case.

category: games | forums | 17 comments | §

GameSpite Quarterly #1, part 3

01 June 09 | 06:41 | Posted by:

I hear tell that the first few copies of the magazine (are we still calling it that?) have made their way to readers, and that is fine news indeed! But here in the land of imaginary words that can vanish with the slightest hiccup of a web server, we press on in the face of the void with another four articles for our online edition.

Edit: By popular (two people) demand, "journal" it is.

Baseball & Tennis
We begin today with a tiny, bite-sized appetizer for the rest of the content. It's like videogame tapas or something. But less fattening. How did we manage to squeeze so much information about two games into so few words? Sheer abuse, my friends.

Nemesis
Gradius was one of many big NES series to make their way to Game Boy, although for some reason Konami decided to disguise the Vic Viper's debut under the name "Nemesis," which had previously been the arbitrary U.K. moniker for the series. Thank goodness this was a one-time anomaly, or else we'd be reading about "Gryzor" next week.

Final Fantasy Legend
This article only appears in the hardcover edition of the quarterly, but we're printing it here for all to see because, well, that's kind of the point. As time goes by, I find myself more and more fascinated with the SaGa series, which began here. If I don't get to interview Kawazu before the inevitable day on which I'm kicked out of the industry, I'll be a sad, sad man.

Daedalian Opus
I was always fascinated by this game as a kid, and all because of its amazing, fantastic, wonderful, incredible name. Admittedly, I was never moved enough to actually play it -- but Mr. Nomali's insightful article, I think, is more than sufficient to inspire me to seek out this impressively-titled puzzler.

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