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Archive for January, 2011

GameSpite Quarterly 7 exists, beckons commerce

30 Jan

Humans! Mortals! Friends! Avowed enemies! Please be aware that GameSpite Quarterly 7 is now live in the GameSpite Blurb Store.

I hope that you find this news exciting.

The usual index page for such books has been posted, and from there you may order either a paperback ($12) or hardcover ($36) edition of this issue. This will allow you to hold our articles in the form of a physical object, lending tangibility and heft to the written word. Especially the hardcover version, which has pointy corners and could probably be used, Jason Bourne-style, to kill a man. (Disclaimer: Please use our books only in self-defense.)

The index page will also lead you to the first batch of online postings for this issue’s content, a series of biographies for the following villains of gaming’s 8-bit era:

Also online is the first of this issue’s standard video game critiques, a look back at the sadly underappreciated Super Punch-Out!! by retired GameSpite contributor Bob Mackey. More content to come in the following months! With luck we’ll have everything from this issue, GSQ6, and GS3 online by the time we’re ready to go live with issue 8, which is going to be an issue 5-like monstrosity.

Anyway! Please enjoy! Please tell your friends! Please do not feel obligated to pay money for this content as it will all be posted for free sooner or later! (But please feel free to support us if you’re so inclined.)

Edit: Looks like Blurb has some coupon codes that are valid through the end of the month (which unfortunately is tomorrow): NEWBLURB is good for 20% off (possibly only for U.S. buyers?) and you can get free flat-rate shipping by using SHARE (U.S. dollars), SHAREEU (Euro), SHARECAN (Canadian dollars), SHAREAUD (Australian dollars), and SHAREUK (pounds sterling). Flat-rate shipping is $7, so SHARE is the better deal if you’re spending less than $35 on books (which is to say, buying a paperback or two).

 
14 Comments

Posted in Blog, Games, GameSpite

 

GSQ3: The princesses and the P

29 Jan

I’m making one final pass through GameSpite Quarterly 7 this weekend to look for typos and errors. I’m sure some will make it through the cracks nevertheless, because that is the way of things. However! I’m giving it my best. Effort counts for something, right?

For the time being, however, please to enjoy the following very, very old pieces from GameSpite Quarterly 3. This encompasses all entries beginning with the letter P. Except Percy, ’cause to hell with that stupid jerk.

  • Pac-Man: You know this guy already. Or you should, anyway. 31 years is a long time to be in a coma.
  • Penta: Possibly the only compulsive overeater to star in his own video games. Well, besides Pac-Man.
  • Pit: Also known as Kid Icarus, although the demo for Uprising mentioned the fact that it’s been 24 years since the original, which makes Pit the Kid Rock of video games, i.e., not actually a kid and kind of embarrassing in his flailing attempts to hold on to his fading youth.
  • Pitfall Harry: In our collective personal canon around these parts, there hasn’t been a Pitfall! game made since the 2600 days. Those others were a delusion caused by a blot of mustard or undercooked potato.
  • Pokémon: Can you name them all? (Please do not try.)
  • Prince Duncan: Star of a game I have never played. Huzzah!
  • Prince Meyer: For more on the travails of Prince Meyer, please witness Octopus Prime’s classic (but utterly excruciating) Let’s Play of the game.
  • Princess Gwaelin: Do you want to read this article? [YES/NO] But thou must!
  • Princess Toadstool: Every modern article or comic that attempts to analyze or deconstruct Princess Peach inevitably paints her as an insane, polyamorous whore who dazedly sleeps with both Mario and Bowser (and Luigi, and Toad, etc.) in a hackenyed attempt to be shocking and iconoclastic. This article does not, which ironically enough makes it the most shockingly iconoclastic piece of writing about Mario on the Internet. Rather, it’s wistful, not juvenile and trite. However, it still doesn’t explain the mysterious goiter on display in the princess’ original sprite.
  • Psycho Fox: A man of many names in many games, all of which you’ve probably never played.
 
10 Comments

Posted in Games, GameSpite

 

Project 365 #27: Still clinging (together)

28 Jan

Believe it or not, I’m still holding true to my commitment to play an hour of games every day. I haven’t been able to work on free choice selections, unfortunately, but my job requirements haven’t exactly been onerous. You can check out the latest episode of Active-Time Babble for my thoughts on Atlus’ Radiant Historia. (Spoiler: it’s good!) And then there’s Tactics Ogre….

I’ve hit the point where my character customization choices are starting to have impact. I’ve focused on creating a defensive party with high constitution and a wide spread of evasive skills, and now I’m kind of steamrollering everything in my path. I choose to believe that this isn’t a sign the game’s difficulty has been nerfed, although it has to a certain point; characters no longer level up individually but rather by class, so that once the (for instance) Knight class reaches level 10, all Knights in your party (regardless of tenure) are level 10. No more need to let the game auto-battle through dull training missions between story battles! So, I’m pretty hooked.

I’ve also discovered that there are a handful of story sequences that can only be seen by checking through the Warren Report. It’s so nice to play a game that recognizes my compulsion to poke around in its supplemental bits and reward me for my trouble.

 
13 Comments

Posted in Games, Project 365

 

GSQ3: ¿K pasa?

27 Jan

Look, up in the… well, OK, not up in the sky. Here on the page. It’s etc., etc…. yes, it’s 8-bit heroes whose names and titles begin with the letter K.

  • Kage: Like the song says, it’s kah-geh, not cage.
  • Karnov: Apparently we were wrong about him being a circus strongman all this time and he’s actually an earthly avatar of God Almighty. I can’t decide if that’s more damaging to my understanding of NES games or to my notions of theology.
  • Kicker: Thing what kicks….
  • Kid Dracula: The original theory that Kid Dracula was meant to be about young Alucard has recently been discarded in favor of the idea that the game is actually about the childhood of Christopher Lee.
  • Kid Niki: Still the only video game hero with a rattail. Thankfully.
  • King Graham: This is a really good article and you should read it. I know, it’s long, and words are scary. But seriously, read it.
  • Kirby: A charming hero who should not be any less admired for the fact that he’s inspired an infinite array of deeply lame jokes about sucking.
  • Kuros: Remember that time a bird randomly flew into Kuros’ face during a video shoot? Ah, good times.
 
4 Comments

Posted in Games, GameSpite

 

GSQ6: What can I do for you?

26 Jan

I made pesto and pasta last night and was therefore unable to post this article in a timely fashion. Is there a cooking minigame in Final Fantasy X-2? Let’s pretend there is and that my pesto shenanigans were actually a form of meta-commentary on the game. Yes. That’s what happened.

 
11 Comments

Posted in Games, GameSpite

 

Would be just as sweet?

25 Jan

So, you know, my fiancée’s name is Catherine. That’s Catherine with a C, the proper old-fashioned spelling, as in Catherine the Great. Not Katherine with one of those new-fangled Ks. Sometimes, my work intersects with life in weird ways. Catherine is one of them. To my knowledge, there are two Catherines of note in gaming.

The first: “Catherine” is the Japanese name of Birdo, Mario’s gender-confused egg-spitting dinosaur enemy. Not the most flattering association; why couldn’t Boo have been named Catherine in Japan and lent its Japanese name, Teresa, to Birdo instead? Boos are amusing and iconic. Birdo’s just dopey-looking. No offense to any Teresas out there, but I feel like it would have been a more fitting connection between characters and names than what we got.

The second, of course, is Atlus’ upcoming Catherine, the game about a faithless schmuck named Vincent who (I gather) cheats on his girlfriend Katherine with a woman named Catherine. The latter turns out to be the sex equivalent of the videotape from The Ring and will cause Vincent to die in seven days unless he… escapes from dream goats, by pushing boxes. Or something.

Anyway, it’s steamy. The night Catherine (the game) was first announced, I said to Catherine (the woman), “Oh, hey, they named a video game after you.” I pushed my laptop over to her and we clicked the article link to read about the game.

Then the screens loaded and I realized I reaaaaally should have vetted the link first.The end.

 
16 Comments

Posted in Blog, Games

 

GSQ6: Robot in the skies

24 Jan

Man, 2017 seemed so far away when this game first came out. Now 2017 is barely more than half a decade away! Only six years ’til the bugpocalypse. I’d recommend reading this article to prepare yourself. It’s a brilliant guide to having the right frame of mind for appreciating the terrors of EDF 2017.

 
8 Comments

Posted in Games, GameSpite

 

GSQ3: Can’t you hear me NOQing?

23 Jan

Yes, well, terrible puns and all that. Today’s deluge of backlogged content from GameSpite Quarterly 3 completes all entries beginning with the letters N, O, and Q. I skipped P, though — because there are a ton of those. Not because it’s running down your leg. God, what do you think this is, kindergarten?

  • Ninten: Your brother from another Mother.
  • Nova: I waited too long to post this! Now the joke about Nova resembling California’s governor are moot and dated. Sigh.
  • Onion Kids: Not actually made of onions.
  • Opa-Opa: A manly hero, secure enough in his masculinity not only to cry but to make his weepiness a titular selling point of his sequel!
  • Orpheus: Loosely inspired by actual events involving the underworld, singing, etc.
  • Q*Bert: &^$#@!

Also, hi! I’d like to recruit a couple of new writers for the next issue of GameSpite Quarterly. Difficult level of this assignment: you need to have been an avid PlayStation player, a good writer, and someone skilled in the arts of hitting deadlines. Drop me an email if you’re interested.

 
5 Comments

Posted in Games, GameSpite

 

GSQ3: J is for jogging your memory

22 Jan

So, you know, GameSpite Quarterly 7 is done. We could put it up for sale right now, if we wished. But I think I’m going to see to it that we stick to the quarterly cycle we’ve been using all along and debut it on February 1. Nice and regular and all that. Also, we still have a bunch of content from the very-closely-related GameSpite Quarterly 3 to be posted. It’s about a year overdue at this point, and I think it would be wise to make good on my commitment to post all book content online in a timely fashion before venturing forward.

So! Without further ado, here is the remainder of GSQ3′s entries falling under the letter J:

  • James Burton: The obscure pilot of a vehicle whose name you know well.
  • Jay McCray: The obscure hero of an NES game you may or may not have played.
  • Jetman: The stalwart hero of beloved Spectrum shooters, slumming in the west on NES and Xbox 360.
  • Jim: Just another role-playing warrior.
  • JJ: The main character of an almost-classic action game for Master System.
  • Jumpman: No, the other Jumpman.
 
4 Comments

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GSQ6: Legends of the fall

21 Jan

Hi. Did you miss me? I’m busy discovering that I don’t deal well with sudden jet lag in my old age, and that it’s fun to play 3DS games, all of which has been occupying much of my time of late! But here is an article about why Mega Man Legends 2 is great.

Fun fact: this one won’t get picked up for links on Capcom’s official Twitter or community site, ’cause it basically calls Capcom a bunch of thundering dolts.

Another fun fact: I look about ten years younger than I actually am in the videos embedded in the 1UP article linked above. Crappy little Flip cams are really quite flattering, I guess. Unfortunately, the videos demonstrate quite accurately just how clumsy a gamer I can be when I’m sleepy. Dur hur how you play Zelda??

 
28 Comments

Posted in Games, GameSpite

 
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