Maker of Amazing Games Tetsuya Mizuguchi drops a lovely interview, mostly about the new port of Rez. (I've been trying to score a Dreamcast version of Rez for a long time.) At the end, he declares:
If I had a reason to remake Space Channel 5 on the new platforms, I will do that.
SC5 was the first game I bought for my Dreamcast; a month or so later, it was the game that sold DDT on the console. It's the one rhythm game I haven't yet beaten, and believe me when I tell you I'll play it on any platform Sega/Mizuguchi graces.
Kotaku pointed this interview out.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
shmups make Fat insane: an introductory appendix
An oddity I ponder occasionally: the most worthwhile writing on gaming tends to come from the UK.(1) In recent times, the estimable Eurogamer grants its favored titles the label "moreish". This might be the most game-useful label I've yet encountered.
And the most moreish title since, probably, fucking Tetris would have to be my newly-acquired Geometry Wars: Galaxies (DS).
Now, what it means to be moreish in my mind is that when you fail, you still want to play more.(2) It's the arcade sensation par excellance: the game kills you, but you still feel you can beat it, and you shove another quarter down its maw to demonstrate same. I knew GW:G had this quality a couple hours after I bought it, a week ago: I was down the coffee shop, and I fired it up. Two hours later, I hadn't shifted, my thumb was killing me, and my eyes were absolutely fried, since I hadn't been blinking.(3)
GWG plays sorta like Robotron, in that you can shoot in any direction whilst you move in any direction. And it looks a lot like Asteroids, in that the backgrounds are mostly black, and the figures are mostly vectorish. (Single-color lines.) Aesthetically, then, this game is possessed of the rarest quality in the medium: beauty.
Game's simple: you pick a galaxy, then you pick a world, then you fly around. Some worlds are largeish, some tiny, some square, some ellipticalish, and so on. Critters show up, a wide variety, generally en masse, and you shoot at them, killing them afore they touchkill you. You kill them, they blow up. The fragments they leave, you can collect, which helps your score, and helps your gun shoot better. So, better you kill, better your killing-gun gets.
Also you have a little buddy--a "drone"--and before you enter any world, you get to pick what she's gonna do. She can gather up the fragments of felled enemies ("geoms", the currency of the game), shoot enemies, circle around yr craft in circles of varying speeds and sizes, shoot stuff, and so on.(4) Eight options in all.
The critters have a lot of different forms, and every form has a different behavior. Some chase you, some move in patterns unrelated to your craft, some wander toward you while avoiding your fire...some chase you fast and force you to fire on them from odd angles. All of them can kill your sorry ass, and at some point, you will grow to hate each and every one of them.(5)
The game's mostly a score game. Every world has a set of medals, attained at certain score thresholds. At the moment, I crave a gold on every world. I've played 14 worlds, and have 8 golds (6 silvers). I have 43 more worlds to unlock. And conquer!!(6)
And if I hated myself, I could connect my 'loved little grey brick to the 'nets and access some leaderboards to realize and reenforce how shoddy a videogame player I really am. But for the next coupla weeks, I'm just blasting baddies, hoovering geoms, and absolutely loving Geometry Wars.
-Fat
(1) Favorite examples would be:
UK Resistance, the English Wizznutzz, somehow capable of moments of real beauty;
Eurogamer, the only review site whose workers actually like video games;
Affectionate Diary, which realizes many of my ambitions for this here site. (So far as this here site pertains to games.)
(2) I mean, it's not just "I like this and want to keep playing". Moreishness has to do with the response to failure, I think.
(3) My verdict: Instant Classic. This was confirmed later, when I began to explore its multiplayer with Canada. 4 times in the first 5 minutes of play, I heard him mutter "Oh, yeah. I could get obsessed with this."
(4) So far, I've only unlocked half of the drone behaviors. Each has seemed useful in varying worlds--one minor complaint about the high scores list is that no mention is made of the drone (behavior) you choose. This is likely deliberate, but it's still frustrating. If I've only had success on Sureis (my Waterloo) with a Collect drone, I'd like to know it! I don't want to keep using a Sweep drone!! Throw me a fucking drone bone, developers!!
(5) Couple nights ago, batt'ling for living-room supremacy with Canada, I mentioned the rather brilliant comic series. It's sorta a Battlestar Galactica, in which the blue-diamond beasties--Viagrons--are presented as peaceful explorers. They percieve the human crafts as a threat, and mobilize against them, as the humans send out ships that are heavily armed, very fast, and essentially without armor. It's a good series; well worth a look.
(6) If somebody gifted me the Wii game, there'd be another 7 worlds to unlock on my DS cart. This...seems unlikely.
And the most moreish title since, probably, fucking Tetris would have to be my newly-acquired Geometry Wars: Galaxies (DS).
Now, what it means to be moreish in my mind is that when you fail, you still want to play more.(2) It's the arcade sensation par excellance: the game kills you, but you still feel you can beat it, and you shove another quarter down its maw to demonstrate same. I knew GW:G had this quality a couple hours after I bought it, a week ago: I was down the coffee shop, and I fired it up. Two hours later, I hadn't shifted, my thumb was killing me, and my eyes were absolutely fried, since I hadn't been blinking.(3)
GWG plays sorta like Robotron, in that you can shoot in any direction whilst you move in any direction. And it looks a lot like Asteroids, in that the backgrounds are mostly black, and the figures are mostly vectorish. (Single-color lines.) Aesthetically, then, this game is possessed of the rarest quality in the medium: beauty.
Game's simple: you pick a galaxy, then you pick a world, then you fly around. Some worlds are largeish, some tiny, some square, some ellipticalish, and so on. Critters show up, a wide variety, generally en masse, and you shoot at them, killing them afore they touchkill you. You kill them, they blow up. The fragments they leave, you can collect, which helps your score, and helps your gun shoot better. So, better you kill, better your killing-gun gets.
Also you have a little buddy--a "drone"--and before you enter any world, you get to pick what she's gonna do. She can gather up the fragments of felled enemies ("geoms", the currency of the game), shoot enemies, circle around yr craft in circles of varying speeds and sizes, shoot stuff, and so on.(4) Eight options in all.
The critters have a lot of different forms, and every form has a different behavior. Some chase you, some move in patterns unrelated to your craft, some wander toward you while avoiding your fire...some chase you fast and force you to fire on them from odd angles. All of them can kill your sorry ass, and at some point, you will grow to hate each and every one of them.(5)
The game's mostly a score game. Every world has a set of medals, attained at certain score thresholds. At the moment, I crave a gold on every world. I've played 14 worlds, and have 8 golds (6 silvers). I have 43 more worlds to unlock. And conquer!!(6)
And if I hated myself, I could connect my 'loved little grey brick to the 'nets and access some leaderboards to realize and reenforce how shoddy a videogame player I really am. But for the next coupla weeks, I'm just blasting baddies, hoovering geoms, and absolutely loving Geometry Wars.
-Fat
(1) Favorite examples would be:
UK Resistance, the English Wizznutzz, somehow capable of moments of real beauty;
Eurogamer, the only review site whose workers actually like video games;
Affectionate Diary, which realizes many of my ambitions for this here site. (So far as this here site pertains to games.)
(2) I mean, it's not just "I like this and want to keep playing". Moreishness has to do with the response to failure, I think.
(3) My verdict: Instant Classic. This was confirmed later, when I began to explore its multiplayer with Canada. 4 times in the first 5 minutes of play, I heard him mutter "Oh, yeah. I could get obsessed with this."
(4) So far, I've only unlocked half of the drone behaviors. Each has seemed useful in varying worlds--one minor complaint about the high scores list is that no mention is made of the drone (behavior) you choose. This is likely deliberate, but it's still frustrating. If I've only had success on Sureis (my Waterloo) with a Collect drone, I'd like to know it! I don't want to keep using a Sweep drone!! Throw me a fucking drone bone, developers!!
(5) Couple nights ago, batt'ling for living-room supremacy with Canada, I mentioned the rather brilliant comic series. It's sorta a Battlestar Galactica, in which the blue-diamond beasties--Viagrons--are presented as peaceful explorers. They percieve the human crafts as a threat, and mobilize against them, as the humans send out ships that are heavily armed, very fast, and essentially without armor. It's a good series; well worth a look.
(6) If somebody gifted me the Wii game, there'd be another 7 worlds to unlock on my DS cart. This...seems unlikely.
Friday, January 18, 2008
I leveled it !
Wanting to fire up the teal GameBoyColor my little sister had willfully disowned, but only possessing her carts of Ms. Pac-man and (an nonfunctional) Super Mario World DX, I snagged the Dragon Warrior I + II comp for 10 bucks.
As I mentioned in passing last time, Dragon Warrior (I) was 1 of those rented-for-the-weekend NES system and 1-3 games experiences from the early 90s. For reasons I cannot remember I had in my possession a copy of Nintendo Power featuring a walkthru or a map or something for DW, and, thinking myself clever as these "D 'n' D" sort of matters, attempted to fetcheth myself the legendary hero (and blood relative) Erdrick's ("Loto" in this restored GBC version) legendary armor from the ruined village of Haukness.
'Course, as experience w/ Phantasy Star II has now thoroughly schooled me, the challenge of these reptilian RPGs lies exclusively in the LEVELING. Leveling for experience and leveling for cold hard cash.1 To further "challenge" (and frustrate), while the random encounters are somewhat frequent, the rewards tend to be low - enjoy wandering around for 3 hours!2
So... Dragon Warrior handed my ass to me on a platter when I was 14. I would gloat how the tables had turned this time around, but the GBC version's been tweaked so leveling's not quite so much the grind.
The result's that you can beated Dragon Warrior in prob 10-12 hours. There are only 2 dungeons and they too have been easy-fied.3 I even made significant progress with DW regulated to the video-game equilivent of bathroom reading. Next thing I know, I'm all like 'hey I have ALL the items & all the spells', and, with little else to do, I hit up the final dungeon.4
So, yeah, the world of Dragon Warrior is set to right. Despite the easiness, it was still more fun (and more difficult) than Lunar Legend.5
-d.d.
1 See also, Adventure Log, No. 3.
2 I will!
3 As I have learned from playing Phantasy Star II on the original Genesis cart, these old-school RPGs derive their difficulty from
(A) Random encounters that don't net you large EXP rewards in exchange for the time vested to run into these same encounters in the first place. Even moreso w/ Gold. The lack of monetary rewards is so slim and the cost of equipment so high that the acquiring of capital quickly becomes the central herculean task of the game, w/ leveling a convenient positive byproduct of income..In the easy-fied GBC version of DW1, random encounters net you either more exp or gold than usual, so leveling & income collection rewards come at less effort (or with less annoyance, depending on how you look at it).
(B) HUGE dungeons that are not, like more modern RPGs, essentially rudimentary puzzles, but rather infuriating complex mazes akin to those paper placemats you colored on at the family restaurant as a kid. Littered w/ random encounters, the dungeon crawl becomes a death march - a slow calculated-risk slog to see if the party can reach the end of the dungeon w/o running out of healing spells or potions.
4 DW1 has, like, 2 dungeons of any consequence in them. 1 of these is the final dungeon and the other one I sorta stumbled around 'til I found what I was looking for.
5 I Beated It!
Saturday, January 05, 2008
like a airborne primate savior hanging ten
For reasons, I needed a bit of retail to-day. (This naked preacher will play.) Unfortupredictably, I'm broke-broke. This offers, though, a shot at the kind of big game hunting DDT talks about now and again.
So at my Goodwill I surveyed the scene: busy! Like...crowded. Cluttered, a competitive landscape. I've spent my life in public; I pass through clots of people like a ghost, they don't even notice that 200+ pounds of natural man has just brushed on by'm. (Unless my bag o' tricks snags up'm.) (This naked preacher will play.)
Up the front of the cluster at the case, I see the detritus of the gamer's holiday upgrades. Like sherds of cocoon-husk, there lie two XBoxen and another GameCube. (The GCN has doubled in price from the one I scored for DDT t'other week, and this one of course failed to feature the GameBoy Player.) One can fairly imagine the dewy wings of the newly 360-enabled, or the soaring arcs of a lad now possessed of an Wii, these creatures freed from the iron (-age) shackles of outdated leisure technology...
Me? I wallow in those shackles; I'm pretty tied up.
Fat finds two Star Wars games for the GCN: Rogue Squadron 2, prolly good enough; Clone Wars, prolly abysmal. It's moot, tho', cuz some reprobate yoinked the effing disks! But there is a thing, Burnout, racing game with bigtime crashy action for a hamilton's worth o' wing-wangs, so I snap'er up. Idly I crack open the case of the Wind Waker, and befind a memory card!! I swop it into the Burnout case and flee.
Back of the store is the hinterlands of electronics, where unbagged, incomplete product sits, cheek to jowl with all manner of 'lectrical miscellany. PS2, yup. PS, sure. Controllers? Cables? Not so much. Guess this is a wasted rummage thru the provinces--hey, what now!? Boxed Dreamcast Controller?! You BETCHA!
A swoop through the book section nets me a coupla gag gifts:
Able Team book for Collision
Dianetics book for Canada.
Oh! Strategy guide for the (aforementioned) Wind Waker, which I have enjoyed, here and there (it's beautiful and rich with charm, but I'm nigh-immune to the Zelda formula, it seems) but got stuck on the second challenge in the first dungeon, and quit. Since the lovely young lady who rang me up guesstimated the price of the guide at half a wing-wang, I couldn't--didn't--turn it down.
Can't wait to browse that semi-licit ('licious!!) memory card.
So at my Goodwill I surveyed the scene: busy! Like...crowded. Cluttered, a competitive landscape. I've spent my life in public; I pass through clots of people like a ghost, they don't even notice that 200+ pounds of natural man has just brushed on by'm. (Unless my bag o' tricks snags up'm.) (This naked preacher will play.)
Up the front of the cluster at the case, I see the detritus of the gamer's holiday upgrades. Like sherds of cocoon-husk, there lie two XBoxen and another GameCube. (The GCN has doubled in price from the one I scored for DDT t'other week, and this one of course failed to feature the GameBoy Player.) One can fairly imagine the dewy wings of the newly 360-enabled, or the soaring arcs of a lad now possessed of an Wii, these creatures freed from the iron (-age) shackles of outdated leisure technology...
Me? I wallow in those shackles; I'm pretty tied up.
Fat finds two Star Wars games for the GCN: Rogue Squadron 2, prolly good enough; Clone Wars, prolly abysmal. It's moot, tho', cuz some reprobate yoinked the effing disks! But there is a thing, Burnout, racing game with bigtime crashy action for a hamilton's worth o' wing-wangs, so I snap'er up. Idly I crack open the case of the Wind Waker, and befind a memory card!! I swop it into the Burnout case and flee.
Back of the store is the hinterlands of electronics, where unbagged, incomplete product sits, cheek to jowl with all manner of 'lectrical miscellany. PS2, yup. PS, sure. Controllers? Cables? Not so much. Guess this is a wasted rummage thru the provinces--hey, what now!? Boxed Dreamcast Controller?! You BETCHA!
A swoop through the book section nets me a coupla gag gifts:
Able Team book for Collision
Dianetics book for Canada.
Oh! Strategy guide for the (aforementioned) Wind Waker, which I have enjoyed, here and there (it's beautiful and rich with charm, but I'm nigh-immune to the Zelda formula, it seems) but got stuck on the second challenge in the first dungeon, and quit. Since the lovely young lady who rang me up guesstimated the price of the guide at half a wing-wang, I couldn't--didn't--turn it down.
Can't wait to browse that semi-licit ('licious!!) memory card.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
one tragedy
I was just writing a personal email. I was struggling with the content, as the note was to somebody important to me, so I wasn't paying much attention to the form, and I was paying zero attention to my touch-typing little hands. I finished the unsatisfying email, and let it sit there for a while. I played around in my browser's other tabs, grumping to myself over the lousy text I'd just produced.
Then I realized I had something left to say! Quick as a Dreamcast's loading screen, I flashed back to the hotmail tab, and began to type in a Post Script. Only. Did my traitor hands type "P.S."?
They did not. I began that section by typing PS1.
I feel shame.
I go, now, to play outside.
Then I realized I had something left to say! Quick as a Dreamcast's loading screen, I flashed back to the hotmail tab, and began to type in a Post Script. Only. Did my traitor hands type "P.S."?
They did not. I began that section by typing PS1.
I feel shame.
I go, now, to play outside.
Friday, December 14, 2007
I love my dead grey console: Part 3
Readers of the alert persuasion may remember the acquisition of a PSOne (the micro, slim, white one) from the Goodwill by myself (along w/ other things) way back.1 More recently, you would maybe also remember my dusting off of the ol' big gray box PlayStation, aka PSX to fire up the likes of Final Fantasy Tactics and Grandia. The space between those 2 events is filled by, in addition to the acquisition of Dreamcasts + Genesis cartridges, the fact the acquired PSOne had a effed up motor. It would power up, but it could not read game discs. Sadness.
Until the other day!
A trip to the bank & the hardware store provided ample circumnavigation to hit up the Goodwill, where I found jack of all shits except a fuggin' cherry PSone, bagged w/ all necessary cables & a controller, for an easy TWENTY wingwangs!
Now, clearly, I had no true NEED for a PSOne, being possession of a PSX, but at the same time I had a terrible, terrible NEED for a PSOne. So the PSX, the good ol' gal, is now safe once again in her plastic storage tub in the attic3 & tis' the PSOne which resides beneath the telly.
Not satisfied (clearly not satisfied!) w/ merely swapping out identical consoles,4 I get back to some of those Atlus PSX games I researched but never purchased, along w/ some other stuff I'd sniffed out. In short order, games, via the post, were promised onto me.
ATLUS strategic JRPG, Hoshigami? Secured!
A strategic JRPG w/ a Pokemon monster-collecting element? Eternal Eyes, come to poppa!5
Do I have the spare time to play not one but 2 new tactical RPGs, on top of a host of incomplete games?6
No sir, I do not. I do not.7
I have a problem.
-d.d.
1 I love my dead grey console: part 2, October 5, 2006.
2 Grandia, October 1 2007.
3 Along w/ the Intellivision, the back-up Dreamcast, the back-up's back-up Dreamcast, and the SNES I still need to get a functioning controller for.
4 I really can't express the lack of room the PSOne take up. As other "retro" console types know well, the battle for space and organization when maintaining multiple platforms is hard fought. Suddenly having a given console possess a mere half the footprint it used to is a godsend.
5 While I was well aware that the original PlayStation was host to a bevy of RPGs essentially unmatched before or since, I was (vastly) unaware of just how many of them were of tactical nature.
6 Ah geez: Grandia, Final Fantasy Tactics, Phantasy Star II, Shenmue, Jet Grind Radio, Maken X, Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation 2. And those are just the ones I'm truly vested in...
7 Let us not forget mention Dragon Warrior I & II for my Gameboy Color (or GBA, I s'pose) that's in the mail. Or that I've been eyeballing the numerous versions of Harvest Moon lately. Funny story abt the 1st Dragon Warrior: my 1st console was the 1st Sega Genesis, but prior to that I got my kicks off renting a NES for the weekend. Somehow, I got a hold of a copy of Nintendo Power that had the map or the walkthrough or something for DW1 (prolly kifed it from someone). When a NES was rented, I selected DW as my rental title of choice, then, being clever, but having no concept of 'leveling', I attempted to go to some ruined city and get the +30 sword or whatever. I failed spectacularly at this task, 'course, cause yr s'posed to go the easier dungeon or castle or whatever first. Sadly I didn't figure this out and played mario instead or something. So, I will extract a certain, shall we say, REVENGE against DW when it arrives: who's the clever one, now, eh?!?
Thursday, December 13, 2007
PAXpixreminisce
Down the bar tonight, I bought a red/black DS Lite + 5 games off a kid needs to make rent. Told him I'd sell it back to him for the same dough when he's flush again; we'll see.
Sos anyways, couple months ago, Kathy Contradiction's favorite son rolled up north to hit up Pax. DDT loaned me his digimal cam'ron, but failed to print up the radtastic Reviewiera stickers we'd discussed. Thus did I take a half-dozen snaps over three days, and network not at all.
Well, maybe I networked a little bit. In this vasty line, I began a series of 'bservations that'd continue th'ought the 'vent.
Foist, I noticed DS'. How many? Somewhere 'round infinity. Anything you trained yr eyes on that wasn't a DS sorta stood out. Punchline: I didn't see 8 PSPs that weekend. Standing in that 'posterous line, I began idly to finger my micro--not like that!!--simply to remind myself that things other than the DS existed. The kid behind me (looked like the singer dufus from Dagger of the Mind) had his DS in this nerf armor thing: I asked him can I fondle that, caress, and he surrendered the item. After cataloging it digitally, I pumped out the cart, just to see: he blanched as I eyeballed his Harvest Moon cart.
When I returned his lil' brick and 'parently 'barassing cart, he turned to his escort and thoroughly ignored the ol' Fat Man. I started reobserving the line: the shot above does no justice to this congregation. Lotta pasty, doughy flesh, and the novelty tshirt concession at this event would pay off a purchase of Mars.
I began to worry that the DS' would somehow cross-connect (using their built-in WiFi!!) and comprise a wholly new class of entity, along the lines of City Come A-Walkin'. Some new god, glinting dull silver and looming...
Eventually I broke free from the line, and hit the showroom floor. Obviously, my first stop was at the outpost of the greatest retail experience in my three odd decades on your homeworld: Pink Godzilla.
Clockwise from top left:
That's. A. Lot. Of. Games.
That's. A. Lot. Of. Games. From a farther angle, with humans for scale.
Look very closely. The two--of all possible options!!--games on display 'pon monitors: the Japanese version of River City Ransom and a Dreamcast import shmup. (Trizeal or Trigger Heart Excelica; I forget which and am too plowed to research. I love you all.) River City Ransom and a late-era Dreamcast shmup. Pink Godzilla receives the first-ever Reviewiera Gets It award! Henceforth this award shall be known as the Pinkla!!
That fourth shot is a mix of the second and third.
I bought Electroplankton. Made my way 'round the corner, and was smitten by Alien Hominid. So I bebought it.
After all this Gross Consumption, I needed time to wander. I did. I wandered past the Nintendo fiefdom many times. Each time, I watched somebody play Metroid Prime: Corruption. Each time, I was disappointed in the look of the game, and the feel I could feel from 2.5 meters away. Each time I was disappointed for the 10 or so minutes I couldn't stop watching somebody play Metroid Prime: Corruption.
Off in a dusty corner, I saw a kid wearing a bag marked "Bag of Holding".
Every ounce of nondouche I possess went into not knocking him over and turning his bag inside out.
Looky! Coswork!
I couldn't bring myself to take pictures of actual booth babes. So I took a picture of this statue instead. The best booth babe, for the record, was the one for the Conan game.
Oh, this was 'some. Saw her lounging 'round 'pon the 'mazing beanbags established for handheld gaming. Asked JGR's my favorite game can I take yr picture, she says Yah but lemme put back on my boots. Totally above and beyond! Nicely done, Gum!
Right near her were two dudes duded up in Phoenix Wright 'umes, but (a) PW drools and (ii) they weren't cute.
Two of my favorite things on your Earth are Metroid and cute.
At the time, I wasn't aware of the assy 'nets trope "I has one ____"/"Oh noes! I lost my ____!" Thus was I substantially more charmed by this gal's homebrew shirt than perhaps I ought've been. But NO-ONE can front on her Metroid hat!!
I would seriously wear that hat.
Sos anyways, couple months ago, Kathy Contradiction's favorite son rolled up north to hit up Pax. DDT loaned me his digimal cam'ron, but failed to print up the radtastic Reviewiera stickers we'd discussed. Thus did I take a half-dozen snaps over three days, and network not at all.
Well, maybe I networked a little bit. In this vasty line, I began a series of 'bservations that'd continue th'ought the 'vent.
Foist, I noticed DS'. How many? Somewhere 'round infinity. Anything you trained yr eyes on that wasn't a DS sorta stood out. Punchline: I didn't see 8 PSPs that weekend. Standing in that 'posterous line, I began idly to finger my micro--not like that!!--simply to remind myself that things other than the DS existed. The kid behind me (looked like the singer dufus from Dagger of the Mind) had his DS in this nerf armor thing: I asked him can I fondle that, caress, and he surrendered the item. After cataloging it digitally, I pumped out the cart, just to see: he blanched as I eyeballed his Harvest Moon cart.
When I returned his lil' brick and 'parently 'barassing cart, he turned to his escort and thoroughly ignored the ol' Fat Man. I started reobserving the line: the shot above does no justice to this congregation. Lotta pasty, doughy flesh, and the novelty tshirt concession at this event would pay off a purchase of Mars.
I began to worry that the DS' would somehow cross-connect (using their built-in WiFi!!) and comprise a wholly new class of entity, along the lines of City Come A-Walkin'. Some new god, glinting dull silver and looming...
Eventually I broke free from the line, and hit the showroom floor. Obviously, my first stop was at the outpost of the greatest retail experience in my three odd decades on your homeworld: Pink Godzilla.
Clockwise from top left:
That's. A. Lot. Of. Games.
That's. A. Lot. Of. Games. From a farther angle, with humans for scale.
Look very closely. The two--of all possible options!!--games on display 'pon monitors: the Japanese version of River City Ransom and a Dreamcast import shmup. (Trizeal or Trigger Heart Excelica; I forget which and am too plowed to research. I love you all.) River City Ransom and a late-era Dreamcast shmup. Pink Godzilla receives the first-ever Reviewiera Gets It award! Henceforth this award shall be known as the Pinkla!!
That fourth shot is a mix of the second and third.
I bought Electroplankton. Made my way 'round the corner, and was smitten by Alien Hominid. So I bebought it.
After all this Gross Consumption, I needed time to wander. I did. I wandered past the Nintendo fiefdom many times. Each time, I watched somebody play Metroid Prime: Corruption. Each time, I was disappointed in the look of the game, and the feel I could feel from 2.5 meters away. Each time I was disappointed for the 10 or so minutes I couldn't stop watching somebody play Metroid Prime: Corruption.
Off in a dusty corner, I saw a kid wearing a bag marked "Bag of Holding".
Every ounce of nondouche I possess went into not knocking him over and turning his bag inside out.
Looky! Coswork!
I couldn't bring myself to take pictures of actual booth babes. So I took a picture of this statue instead. The best booth babe, for the record, was the one for the Conan game.
Oh, this was 'some. Saw her lounging 'round 'pon the 'mazing beanbags established for handheld gaming. Asked JGR's my favorite game can I take yr picture, she says Yah but lemme put back on my boots. Totally above and beyond! Nicely done, Gum!
Right near her were two dudes duded up in Phoenix Wright 'umes, but (a) PW drools and (ii) they weren't cute.
Two of my favorite things on your Earth are Metroid and cute.
At the time, I wasn't aware of the assy 'nets trope "I has one ____"/"Oh noes! I lost my ____!" Thus was I substantially more charmed by this gal's homebrew shirt than perhaps I ought've been. But NO-ONE can front on her Metroid hat!!
I would seriously wear that hat.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Last and First Men
Fat shot me a txt a while ago that Stephon Marbury was talking w/ Kareem on Steph's FSN show. I hit pause on Grandia & caught the last 20 minutes or so.
I know its been documented elsewhere that Steph is no Mike Wallace, but Steph positing questions to Kareem made me squeamish. This is not a knock against Steph - I find his show endearing & strangely comforting1 - but Steph is about my age, so his personal experience of Kareem's career is probably similar to mine. This is limited to the following:
1. A very, very, very vague memory of Kareem playing in the '88 Finals.The peculiar element of this interview was the way Steph would ask, shall we say, stilted questions to Kareem, & then Kareem would just field the question like a guy who'd been dealing w/ the press since the Mariner 4 probe. Especially interesting was Kareem speaking of the importantance of planning ahead for the inevitable end of yr playing career. Kareem then mentioned something about Steph doing just this, what w/ his shoe company & "this show." That's what really caught my attention. Marybury is executive producer of his own show, which I guess isn't a surprise, but, as Fat pointed out, its suprising for an active player, especially one of Marbury's, uh, [contractural] stature, to be laying post-playing career paving stones.
2. That commercial w/ the towel.
3. Game of Death
4. Airplane!
Combine this w/ the reaction I get when I tell people about the $15 Starburys (overwhelmingly positive for a shoe sponsored by a player that most people don't recognize by name) & I'm left w/ an extremely ambigious & confused attitude about Marbury. I mean, the guy has a reputation (admittedly deserved) as a loser, but he is, after all, 27th all-time in career assists. For comparison, draft-mate Allen Iverson is 72nd, & MJ is 32nd.
I know Maravich is a player that gets trotted out wayyy too much for the cross-purposes of historical comparison, but I can't help but think about a certain Halberstam quote:
Now, in his tenth year of the professional game, one of the two or three highest-paid players in the league, he had a reputation in some quarters of being a loser. Even those sympathetic to him did not really know if he could play team basketball. His career was almost over and no one really knew how good he was.2I guess this is where I'll wear the Marbury apologist hat for a few sentences.3
On 2nd thought, I won't want to go down that road.
But, in short, for the sake of making a point about the inescapable black hole that is historical circumstance, yeah, sure, the Wolves were 1st round exits w/Marbury 2 years in a row, but that kept happening for YEARS after.4 And the Nets? Did Kidd lift them to eastern conf. ascendency or did the East just finally get that effing bad after Steph left? PHX? Coach Frank Johnson? NY? Is it Marbury's fault he was brought to distract from the fact the Knicks were rebuilding-on-the-fly?
I don't know if I actually believe any of these defenses of Marbury. I guess its hard to simply say an NBA player is a victim of circumstance when basketball is highly praised as a sort of ziggaraut of individual & collection-of-individuals accomplishment. This is, after all, the game where Great Men of Stapledonian Proportions make history, & are not shaped by it.5
-d.d.
1 At long as his guest is someone from the NBA. I saw one where an NFL player was on & I had no idea what they were talking about.
2 Covenant of Hype, Covenant of Game January 3, 2007.
3 The Marbury critic need only point at the Wolves, Nets, & Suns all getting markedly better after his departure, usally instantly.
4 Although, in the wake of KG's departure from Minnesota, it appears there were other wheels within wheels at work in that sitch. 20/20.
5 This piece was drafted back in May. I wasn't happy w/ it so it rotted forgotten in my drafts collection. Looking at it now w/ what has transpired at MSG since, Marbury has transcended standard narratives into pure enigma. How does one describe the career of Coney Island's finest? And once you begin assigning motifs, where do you start? Or stop, for that matter? Are his on-court performanaces (or lack thereof) worth more than a footnote at this point? He's like a Rodman w/o the crazy. Or the hardware.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
that's rock in my pocket (I'm NOT glad to see you)
Our reader may remember a projekt I embarked upon 'round a year.5 back. Idea was to create some awesometastic playlists for my then-working iPod shuffle. The projekt fizzled on the launchpad when I managed to linux the little white lozenge into total non-workityness.
And that's the story of how for the past year and a half, I've essentially listened to music in exactly two situations. The first, when at work. The second, however much of a tape I can get through as I lay my head down 'pon my wadded hoody, waiting for the sweet embrace of a vodkasoda and pair of antihistimines. (Fat=Bad At Sleep.) And maybe half a peppy song or two as I struggle toward pants and shoes of a morning.
How did my relationship to music change? And why?
I don't know.
Saturday I betook myself to the Record Shop, where I did shop. Then I betook myself to the Fred's, where I did browse lengthily, with dissatisfaction, and attendant frustration. I contacted Canada, my technical advisor, several times; after onesuch contact, I espied a 'ticularly attractive little deck.
Whyfore so appealing? Lemme back it on up a sec. While back, I scored a Wii. (Thoughts on same: pending.) While after that, I scored an SD card for't. Turns out that SD card ain't worth much in my Wii at the mo'. (Fat's forsworn porn for a while, so what need has he for capacious storage?) Back at Fred's, I do see a walkman...internally but a single gig. But with SD card 'spansion!!
For fifty wing-wangs, irresistable. Anyways, I didn't resist.
Being who I am, I turned the music-filling process into a PROJEKT. The natural dividing line is between the onboard gig, and the pair of gigs of SD card seated so snugly within its characteristic compartment. Still I do crave avoision of the utterly familiar: thus...a rule:
Rule One:
Onboard storage shall allow one (1) album per artist only.
(I made an immediate exception for Neurosis, as Pain of Mind and Given to the Rising--the two records I put on there first--are utterly distinct. More or less two different bands there.)
And so-ly have I spent most of the past three days glaring at my intrepid, plucky laptop, screaming "why must you rip things so slowly!? Why aren't you faster!?" In the comments, I shall limn the current contents, with occasional annotations, on account of it's fun to have music in my life again.
And that's the story of how for the past year and a half, I've essentially listened to music in exactly two situations. The first, when at work. The second, however much of a tape I can get through as I lay my head down 'pon my wadded hoody, waiting for the sweet embrace of a vodkasoda and pair of antihistimines. (Fat=Bad At Sleep.) And maybe half a peppy song or two as I struggle toward pants and shoes of a morning.
How did my relationship to music change? And why?
I don't know.
Saturday I betook myself to the Record Shop, where I did shop. Then I betook myself to the Fred's, where I did browse lengthily, with dissatisfaction, and attendant frustration. I contacted Canada, my technical advisor, several times; after onesuch contact, I espied a 'ticularly attractive little deck.
Whyfore so appealing? Lemme back it on up a sec. While back, I scored a Wii. (Thoughts on same: pending.) While after that, I scored an SD card for't. Turns out that SD card ain't worth much in my Wii at the mo'. (Fat's forsworn porn for a while, so what need has he for capacious storage?) Back at Fred's, I do see a walkman...internally but a single gig. But with SD card 'spansion!!
For fifty wing-wangs, irresistable. Anyways, I didn't resist.
Being who I am, I turned the music-filling process into a PROJEKT. The natural dividing line is between the onboard gig, and the pair of gigs of SD card seated so snugly within its characteristic compartment. Still I do crave avoision of the utterly familiar: thus...a rule:
Rule One:
Onboard storage shall allow one (1) album per artist only.
(I made an immediate exception for Neurosis, as Pain of Mind and Given to the Rising--the two records I put on there first--are utterly distinct. More or less two different bands there.)
And so-ly have I spent most of the past three days glaring at my intrepid, plucky laptop, screaming "why must you rip things so slowly!? Why aren't you faster!?" In the comments, I shall limn the current contents, with occasional annotations, on account of it's fun to have music in my life again.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
tippity-tappiting to the beated it!!
The latest title to fall to my Undeniable Gaming Skills is a new rhythm game from Official Publisher of Reviewiera, Atlus. I am rhythm stylus ninja! Take that, Ontamarama!!
There's a little bit of premise, and a tiny bit of story, but we're talking about a rhythm game here. I care about, in descending order:
music listenability
playing fun/playing challenge
graphics
everything else.
Let's move through these in an unappealing, haphazard order.
The graphics are...exceptionally...meh. You control either Beat, a boy (blue, looks a lot like Mega Man on roller blades) or a girl (pink, I wish she looked like Roxy but no). There are no portraits--nor animations--of them the GBA couldn't handle with detail to spare. Nor of anybody else. Nor any backgrounds of interest. Keyword here would be "bland".
But playing the game is simply tits. It's the first Atlus game I've played where the default difficulty level actually falls into my sweet spot: you have to pay attention, and you have to try, but if this happens, you'll beat the game without that much trouble. At its hardest, the Normal difficulty level is comparable to the hardest Easy levels of Osu! Tatake! Ouendan!. (The inevitable comparison, as a Japanese rhythm game easily accessible in these United States.)
Ontamarama plays like so: atop the bottom screen, notes scroll across a bar, and into a circle. Once the note reaches the circle, you have to hit the D-pad in the direction the note requires. The better the note is centered when you hit its direction, the bigger the score. And the better the song'll sound. Easy-peasy.
Except the notes show up on the bar..."empty". You gotta fill'm. You fill'm by using the stylus to tap lil' critters floating 'round on the bottom screen. These critters? Ontama. Different colors of Ontama correspond to different directions the notes'll require. So sometimes it'll get all hectic and you'll need to plan what Ontama you'll clear. While tapping to the beat with your other hand.
More complexities exist, but those'd be the basics: two hands doing two completely different tasks to the beat. Hard mode gets preposterous, requiring yr stylus hand to abandon the screen to go dick around on the face buttons. And then return to the screen to clear yet more Ontama. I won't be progressing terribly far in this mode.
The songs are all pretty palatable. I mean, I like j-pop, at least the versions of it I get from Ouendan, Jet Grind Radio, and to a lesser extent, Space Channel 5. And Ontamarama's tunes are pretty much along those lines. There's some rocky stuff (with guitars, yo) that I find enjoyable on its own terms, but there's also good pairing of slow melodies with fast beats, and a song or two with truly nifty off-beats.
The presentation is generous: plenty of extras to unlock, stuff you can buy to make the game easier, and all the songs you've cleared can be played at any time. Doing this gets in-game currency that allows unlocking later. (If you want to get good at Hard mode, play through the Normal campaign WITHOUT "easy start" and "guard". Fucking trust me.) Later on you get some sets of songs to play through, which is strangely compelling as well. All of these options are, upon reflection, stolen from Meteos. Good lift, fellows!
The reviews have suggested that Ontamarama is a good starter game, a good introduction to the genre. I'll buy that...on Normal. On Hard? This is a savage challenge and I don't care how good you got at Ouendan or SC5. Even on Normal, score-chasing options abound. Those of us who like pure play experiences with real opportunities for playing with personal style are bound to have a dynamite time.
I am such a player; I indeed had one TNT-based week with the cart, and it's still in my travel roster. I give it one Fat scowling at his DS at the coffee shop out of ten. (But if you want a real--and really long-winded--review, peep Pete Sellers.)
There's a little bit of premise, and a tiny bit of story, but we're talking about a rhythm game here. I care about, in descending order:
music listenability
playing fun/playing challenge
graphics
everything else.
Let's move through these in an unappealing, haphazard order.
The graphics are...exceptionally...meh. You control either Beat, a boy (blue, looks a lot like Mega Man on roller blades) or a girl (pink, I wish she looked like Roxy but no). There are no portraits--nor animations--of them the GBA couldn't handle with detail to spare. Nor of anybody else. Nor any backgrounds of interest. Keyword here would be "bland".
But playing the game is simply tits. It's the first Atlus game I've played where the default difficulty level actually falls into my sweet spot: you have to pay attention, and you have to try, but if this happens, you'll beat the game without that much trouble. At its hardest, the Normal difficulty level is comparable to the hardest Easy levels of Osu! Tatake! Ouendan!. (The inevitable comparison, as a Japanese rhythm game easily accessible in these United States.)
Ontamarama plays like so: atop the bottom screen, notes scroll across a bar, and into a circle. Once the note reaches the circle, you have to hit the D-pad in the direction the note requires. The better the note is centered when you hit its direction, the bigger the score. And the better the song'll sound. Easy-peasy.
Except the notes show up on the bar..."empty". You gotta fill'm. You fill'm by using the stylus to tap lil' critters floating 'round on the bottom screen. These critters? Ontama. Different colors of Ontama correspond to different directions the notes'll require. So sometimes it'll get all hectic and you'll need to plan what Ontama you'll clear. While tapping to the beat with your other hand.
More complexities exist, but those'd be the basics: two hands doing two completely different tasks to the beat. Hard mode gets preposterous, requiring yr stylus hand to abandon the screen to go dick around on the face buttons. And then return to the screen to clear yet more Ontama. I won't be progressing terribly far in this mode.
The songs are all pretty palatable. I mean, I like j-pop, at least the versions of it I get from Ouendan, Jet Grind Radio, and to a lesser extent, Space Channel 5. And Ontamarama's tunes are pretty much along those lines. There's some rocky stuff (with guitars, yo) that I find enjoyable on its own terms, but there's also good pairing of slow melodies with fast beats, and a song or two with truly nifty off-beats.
The presentation is generous: plenty of extras to unlock, stuff you can buy to make the game easier, and all the songs you've cleared can be played at any time. Doing this gets in-game currency that allows unlocking later. (If you want to get good at Hard mode, play through the Normal campaign WITHOUT "easy start" and "guard". Fucking trust me.) Later on you get some sets of songs to play through, which is strangely compelling as well. All of these options are, upon reflection, stolen from Meteos. Good lift, fellows!
The reviews have suggested that Ontamarama is a good starter game, a good introduction to the genre. I'll buy that...on Normal. On Hard? This is a savage challenge and I don't care how good you got at Ouendan or SC5. Even on Normal, score-chasing options abound. Those of us who like pure play experiences with real opportunities for playing with personal style are bound to have a dynamite time.
I am such a player; I indeed had one TNT-based week with the cart, and it's still in my travel roster. I give it one Fat scowling at his DS at the coffee shop out of ten. (But if you want a real--and really long-winded--review, peep Pete Sellers.)
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