Filed under: The Cult of the Game
For all the Nintendo DS’s worth few games really take advantage of it. Oh sure you can say that a lot of interface improvements have been made but take a title like Phoenix Wright, certainly enhanced by the stylus, and yet in all honesty doesn’t really NEED it explicitly. Noble efforts all around for DS game designers and I do think it’s one of the best systems of all time but I really wish some companies would try to flex the systems touch screen muscle. We’ve had some great shining examples like The World Ends With You, Metroid Prime Hunters and all but we need MORE of that, they definitely seem to be in the minority than the majority.
Rhythm games would seem perfect for the DS. With the touch pad interface you should be able to come up with some nifty mechanics that work well in the genre. The hard part at this point then it to make the game compelling, make it too simple and you might as well be playing Flash Flash Revolution, too convoluted and you’ll end up with a diluted messs like Guitar Hero on Tour. The sort of rhythm game that would work on the DS needs to have the balance of elements, simple design in terms of gameplay but be compelling to be worth the price of admission.
It took Japanese developer iNiS, then known for the great yet brutally difficult Gitaroo Man games, to bring such a game to the Nintendo DS. Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! Released by Nintendo for the DS in the summer of 2005, was as simple a concept for a DS rhythm game as you can get. During the course of the game small numbered circles would appear on the touch screen, as their “beat” came up (indicated by another circle slowly shrinking to the size of the numbered circle) you would need to tap them at the correct time in the correct order. To break up the monotony sliders and spinners get involved. Your object to is to not miss as many beats to prevent a ever draining life bar at the top of the screen from depleting. Perfect beats add more health while missed beats will cause you to lose health. A little hard to explain with words but the below video should more than explain it.
Filed under: The Cult of the Game | Tags: cult of the game, n64, nintendo, sin and punishment, treasure
Importing seems to be dead these days. With the global nature video games have become few gems of games are rarely released exclusively to a single region. While importers in the past would clamor for games like Parodius, Snatcher and fighting games based on the Dragon Ball Z and Ranma licenses nowadays games that may seem too “Japanesecentric” or based off major anime titles get released here with some level of regularity. Much of this is to the Kudos of publishers like Atlus who see the massive cult followings these games have and reward the loyal fanbase by releasing titles like Odin Sphere, Diagaea and Persona for the masses. Even if titles aren’t released on this side of the ocean thanks to the internet it’s easy to e-mail imported games and with most systems having loose legion locking measures it’s often fairly painless to get these games running on your system.
This wasn’t the case during the 90’s, where the video game import scene was starting to build steam. Many people had to find specialty retailers in their area, most of them Asian run shops that would get games for their customers who had brought over systems from Asian territories. Failing that most would have to go through mail order services from the backs of video game magazines. From here many import superstars came to be and one of the biggest import only games for a long time and one of those last superstars was Sin and Punishment for the Nintendo 64.
ROB The Robot
Even Nintendo fanboys, for all the good the company has done for the game industry, must admit that sometimes the Big N does some serious fuck ups. Even early on with the NES Nintendo was forced to make the system more appealing to retailers ROB was created to give the Nintendo a more “toy” like feel after the stigma video games received after the Atari crash. The end result was ROB was released with two piss poor games and really never used again, collecting dust in many a closet.
Filed under: Rock Band DLC Tuesdays
This week plastic guitar noodlers around the world rejoiced as Harmonix finally released the long awaited full album of “Texas Flood” the seminal blues album from guitar guard Stevie Ray Vaughn. It was delayed (HMX PROMISED it’d be released last year) but hey, better late than never. Admittedly, not REALLY a SRV fan, but I enjoyed Pride and Joy well enough so I picked that up along with Testify and the title track but before we go on a look into the gaping hole that is my vagina.
No Doubt – New
A strange omission from the Single full album release, New was probably the only song on Return Of Saturn I enjoyed. Here it’s got a nice disco drum beat that while not overly challenging WILL give your a workout. Guitar is definitely a work out, with a quick not progression that is repeated through the verses. More difficult than most No Doubt songs but guitar and bass may get board due to the repetitiveness. Drum fans this is another track for you to shin though.
Steve Ray Vaughn – Texas Flood
For the the SRV songs you’re getting your mileage mostly out of guitar. The rhythm songs, outside of a few examples, are practically non existent and the vocals (when they’re there, Texas Flood features THREE vocaless tracks) aren’t overly challenging once you get the pitch. Starting out it’s actually a pretty even challenge but once you hit the solo wow, you’re in for a killer but fun bit of guitar work.
Stevie Ray Vaughn – Pride and Joy
You may have played this to death on Guitar Hero III but there are a few compelling reasons to pick this up for RB2. One is the fact that we now have a master and while the GH3 cover is not terrible it’s always welcome to get the original track. Two, HOPO chords. Pride and Joy gets a lot of life breathed into it thanks to the HOPO chords and it truly feels like a new challenge that once again I did fairly poorly on my first crack. Still it’s a helluva of a song and guitar lovers should definitely pick it up.
Stevie Ray Vaughn – Testify
Failed it a minute in…
Filed under: The Cult of the Game | Tags: cult of the game, nes, startropics
It may seem odd but this month is the Cult of Nintendo month. I say odd because in all honesty few companies are as consistent at releasing top selling AAA titles as the big N. From old classics like Zelda, Mario and Metroid, to new franchsies like Pokemon, Animal Crossing and Nintendogs it always seems Nintendo is able to touch anything and turn it into franchise gold destined to sell millions along its many consoles.
However Nintendo is a company about good gameplay first, and as the Cult of the Game shows being good doesn’t always mean you’ll be popular. Odd settings, difficult (at first) game mechanics and lack of availability have caused a number of Nintendo’s first party titles to slip under the Big N’s and consumer’s radar and have created wonderful cult games.
The creation of Startropic was an odd birth. Directed by Genyo Takeda who had originally worked on Punch Out!! Startropics was developed in Japan but never released there. The game was an answer to the growing North American and European markets. While games were becoming hugely popular in both regions many US publishers at he time had a large amount of xenophobia to games from Japan which sometimes were steeped in Japanese ideals and pop culture they felt would turn off gamers. Startropics was an early attempt to design a game with western audiences in mind only and was released only in North America and Europe.
Filed under: Rock Band DLC Tuesdays | Tags: jimmy eat world, neko case, Rock Band DLC Tuesdays, white zombie
White Zombie – More Human Than Human
Since I did TLAD mini review I forgot to put up my thoughts on the one DLC I got last week. More Human Than Human is pretty much as its rating states. Kind of a bore on guitar and vox well once you get the pitch you can mumble your way through it. However drummers rejoice, this is an amazing song for you, being tough but with variety instead of a pushing speed and crazy athletics. Check out the expert drum chart to see what I mean.
Jimmy Eat World – Sweetness
CHORD CITY. I kind of think Sweetness is a little underrated in its guitar rating granted I’m a guy who’s total shit at three note chords and alt strumming so take my opinion with a grain of salt. Drum is surprisingly good for a lower tier song and bass is decidedly boring. Vox has some interesting portions especially the “oohs” in the middle there but really shouldn’t be too difficult once you learn the song.
Jimmy Eat World – Futures
Another neat little song on drums, a lot of variety and enough challenging bits to keep it from being boring. Guitar is kind of like Sweetness on NyQuil, lots of chord progression but a little slower and has some nice single note sections to bring down the chart to sanity. Vox is also very similar to Sweetness, fun to sing when you get into it but not exceedingly difficult.
Jimmy Eat World – Lucky Denver Mint
Considering the weaknesses of my guitar play in Sweetness this chart is absolutely brutal for me. Expert players will find a lot to enjoy from this chart. It’s a fast chord progession based track with a lot of variety, especially in the chorus where you have a alot “index-pinky” shifting. Drums again is not hard but interesting and vocals shares an even easier fate than the last two songs. As with the previous songs, bass is dull.
Neko Case – People Got A Lot of Nerve
I’m always happy to see lesser known or “indie” acts I enjoy make it into rock band and was surprised to see Neko Case show off one of the tracks from her upcoming album on RB2. On guitar it’s a good song for beginners, offering some finger work without absolutely killing them. Drums is also surprisingly interesting with some decent bass pedal work. Can’t really judge on vocals, didn’t try, but I’d probably fall in love with any girl who even attempted this song on vox.
Filed under: The Cult of the Game
If you grew up as a teenager during the early 90’s you know just how big a deal Street Fighter II was. It revolutionized a new genre of gaming; single handily revived the arcade market and helped elevate the SNES as the top 16 bit system. The original Street Fighter II: The World Warrior sold six million copies on the SNES. It is estimated that the gross profits from Street Fighter II coin op machines out paced the box office sales of Jurassic Park.
From Street Fighter II came Street Fighter II: Championship Edition, introducing the four boss characters and the “player vs. player” ability. Street Fighter 2: Turbo would up the speed and give characters new moves and palettes. This continued, Capcom releasing incremental updates on its existing cash cow creating ire among the fanbase. The common joke in game magazine was, does Capcom even know how to count to three?
By 1994 Capcom had released five iterations of its Street Fighter II franchise and while Super Turbo is arguably the best in the series many gamers simply didn’t care at this point.
Ever after Super Turbo Capcom would continue to tinker around with the fighting game format. The Alpha series, which takes place between Street Fighter and Street Fighter II, shows off anime style graphics with combo oriented gameplay. The Street Fighter EX series had Capcom force the series kicking and screaming into the 3D world with less than stellar results. Having had huge success with both X Men: Children of the Atom and Marvel Super Heroes Capcom crossed Marvel with their own Street Fighter characters in X Men vs. Street Fighter
It seemed odd for Capcom to take so long to get to Street Fighter III. By 1997 though it the years of waiting have finally come into fruition as then dubbed Three: A New Generation was unleashed to arcades around the world. Street Fighter III was originally given much buzz but for some reason failed to catch on as well as its predecessor did.
GTAIV: The Lost and Damned
Expansion packs have been common ever since developers realized they can add some content, slap a twenty dollar price tag on it and watch the cash roll in. Suffice it to say gamers love their expansions as they gobble them up en masse for a few new maps and maybe a new wrinkle in the game mechanics.
Some companies (hello BLIZZARD) however feel that an expansion pack should build upon the original, not just add to it. I gushed about it earlier this week but The Lost and Damned is a modern expansion pack done right, offering a new and very different game experience than the original GTAIV while tweaking and improving some flaws of the game, in this case, motorcycle handling. All the efforts in TLAD have made the experience similar but satisfying in the long run.
Filed under: Random
Usually the early months of the year are the video game dead zone. Most people are working on a pent up amount of games from the holiday season and new releases are usually few and far bewteen. There have been notable exceptions, most notable 2005 when Resident Evil 4, Spliter Cell: Chaos Theory and God of War were released within months of each other. 2009 is looking to be like that and then some if the lines for Street Fighter IV at a local EB are a good indication. With last months Fallout 3 DLC and March promising Resident Evil 5 and Madworld it seems this early going for this year is shaping up to be a doozie. Along with all of this however is the highly touted much anticipated DLC “Episode” for last year’s smash hit Grand Theft Auto IV. Titled “The Lost and Damned”, it brings up a parallel story line to that of GTAIV’s featuring minor character Johnny as the protagonist for new series of missions, new story lines and new chances for all out mayhem.
When the rumors were swirling for the two exclusive episodes for the Xbox 360 that Microsoft paid millions for to get a leg up on the PS3 things were as lofty as entirely new sections of the city to all new cities, like our old friend Nico visiting Vice City and San Andreas. While TLAD takes place in the Liberty City we know and loved Rockstar does a lot to mine out new places and new faces in the existing back drop of Liberty City.
Filed under: The Cult of the Game | Tags: The Cult of the Game, planescape torment, rpg
When Baldur’s Gate hit the PC gaming market it was both a renaissance and a revival. During this time the PC gaming market was in a boom period, as online gaming started to become more feasible thanks to free servers, high speed internet and heavy adoption of the TCP/IP protocol. Thanks to 3D accelerator cards PC games, already usually having a leg up on their console cousins, now looked vastly superior.
Despite this boom though it was odd at how stagnant the PC game market was. While there were definitely exceptions the majrority of PC game releases belong to either the Real Time Strategy or First Person Shooter genres. It made a lot of sense for these two formats to thrive on the PC at the time (and still do today.) For both the Mouse and Keyboard control scheme is optimal for them. They’re great games to play online thanks to their “pick up and play”ability, they were also, relatively new genres with a lot of creativity to be mined from. While the PC was constantly being bombarded by FPS’s gamers at the time didn’t care, because usually for better or for worse, it was 8 different takes on the genre.
However this stagnant problem with limited genres started to show it fatigue by the late 90’s, where another group of a new dominat genres began to take over the PC market and carve their niche. Oddly enough these all stemmed from the classic PC staple from the 80’s, the RPG. Blizzard fired the first salvo in 1997 with the addictive action RPG Diablo. In 1999 Sony would create the prototype for all MMORPGs with Everquest (Ultima Online may have came first, but few MMORPGS model their design after it. In 1998 then unknown Bioware went truly back to the roots, to D&D stat based classing top down RPG-ing in Baldur’s Gate.
Baldur’s Gate was your classic PC rpg slicked up with the brand new Infinity Engine to give it a great isometric view. At its heart action occurred in semi real time action, large parties and a back bone of D&D mechanics games like Ultima and Wizardy had cribbed for years. Despite its deep stat system Baldur’s Gate had enough action and a great story to make it a bonafide hit and pushed Bioware into the stratosphere are one of the premiere developers in the gaming industry.
Obviously when a game becomes a massive success as Baldur’s gate was you’d have to expect more me-too efoorts. Baldur’s gate spawned two direct semi spin offs as they too were based on existing worlds in Dungeons and Dragons. The later spinoff was Icewind Dale a very action oriented take on the RPG but one that didn’t fly off the shelves was Planescape: Torment from Black Isle Studios.
Based in the strange oddity of the D&D world of Planescape, Planescape: Torment is a massive sprawling RPG that stars the Nameless One, a man who is forced to live eternal life for the sins he had done. However whenever the Nameless One dies he is resurrected into a new form that has lost all memory of past transgressions, as such the Nameless One is in a constant loop of regret that as he progresses through the game tires to figure out how to end it.
Planescape: Torment is notable for being vastly different from Baldur’s Gate inspite of similar design and game engines. Whearas Baldur’s Gate is your classic journey to save the world Planescape: Torment is ultimately a more personal journey. The game is designed to explore the notions of torment and regret and has less of an emphasis on combat and a greater emphasis on story telling. Truth be told there are really only 4 sequences of combat one must complete in order to finish the game.
