['Cinema Pixeldiso' is a bi-weekly column by Matt 'Fort90' Hawkins that spotlights movies that are either directly based upon or are related to video games, with an emphasis on the obscure and the misunderstood. This special Halloween edition is the first of a two part look at couple of horror films.]

It's that time of year again, Halloween, which means a couple of things: candy, costumes, and scary movies. And since this column is all about video game movies, how about a look at some scary video game movies? And there's a couple out there, like Silent Hill for example. But what about films that aren't simply scary because of the games they're based upon are also supposed to be? Well, a popular theme in most film dealing with video games that are not based upon one is the concept of video games coming alive, and asking what would happen if pixelated or polygonal character crossed over to the real world. And some filmmakers happen to find this idea "frightening"... two of which we'll be talking about, Stay Alive and How To Build A Monster.

[Click through for more Halloween scariness!]

STAY ALIVE

First let's take look at Stay Alive, which was released earlier this year, and was quickly washed away by the other summer blockbusters of 2006.

The film is your basic big budget Hollywood horror flick, which these days means it's a Ring clone, or at least features a number of its trademarks: lush cinematography, a gaggle of pretty looking, and totally hip young folks (despite the fact that the cast features Frankie Muniz from TV's Malcolm in the Middle, who's running neck and neck with Fred Savage as cutest male kid star that hasn't aged all that well), and even creepy undead little girls with long black hair, albeit in video game form.

The funny thing about video game movies is that when you have folks behind the scenes who are actually gamers (one of Stay Alive's consultants was CliffyB), it still manages to get much of the little things wrong. Take the opening for instance, which features scenes from the made up game Stay Alive, a survival horror action romp; the graphics are so good that they're simply unbelievable. This is inter-cut with the player "on the other side of the screen" who's one gaming stereotype piled on top of another; a hyper, yet sorta cool, nerd that drinks Red Bull. He also utters the first real-life game reference at the 3:44 mark, something about Fatal Frame, to show the audience that the filmmakers "really know what they're talking about!"

So the nerd plays the game for a bit, then dies in it. The whole experience leaves him spooked, so he wanders about the house to investigate the source of some noise, which in this case is his roommates having sex who he casually walks in on, and allowing a whole new batch of stereotypes to enter the picture (you know, promiscuous sex and all, though the inclusion of the guy wearing a pig mask is a curious addition). Soon he starts imagining that the game's bad guys are real and in his house, then next thing you know he's dead, and in the same exact manner as his character died in the game.

Enter Hutch, the film's main character, and friend of the now dead nerd. It's established very early on that this guy is also someone who knows a thing or two about games, via the Silent Hill 4 discussion between himself and his coworker/buddy (it's almost amazing how real life gaming talk can come off as so disingenuous on the silver screen). Immediately he hears of the death and then meets his dead pal's sister or something, aka the token main character's squeeze, who in turn passes along to Hutch the dead nerd's briefcase, which includes a bunch of games. He then meets up with his other friends, a pair of cool kids portrayed by of late twenty-something actors trying to act five years younger and just missing the mark.

One must admit that at this point, the filmmakers have done a wonderful job at introducing a bunch of folks that no one in the audience would mind seeing die gruesomely. It's revealed by the annoying cool kid that dead nerd (their names are seriously not important in this one) was play-testing Stay Alive, a totally hot and awesome game that anyone would kill for the chance to try out, so they all decide to honor the memory of their fallen friend by playing it. And later that evening they all gather, along with Frankie Muniz's character, who turns out to be the spastic and runty nerd that's also sensitive, as well as the coworker/buddy character from before, who joins in on the fun online, from his office.

After each person creates their virtual self in the game, and spout a number of inane lines that is supposed to further build street cred with the gamer audience (such as "Voice activated? That's next generation technology!", or "People who say size doesn't matter never played a first person shooter" which this reviewer still doesn't know what is supposed to mean, or using the Konami code to active a nude cheat), they all go about on their own adventures in the game world. After a few hours, the coworker/buddy character, who's the on edge corporate type, gets killed and everyone else decides to call it a night.

And just as the guy logs off and decides to head for home, he hears a noise... Every horror flick has its unsettling noise, such as Friday the 13th's "kill, kill, kill" whispered chant, or the electronic hum and static from the tape in the Ring. So what does Stay Alive employ? The rattling sound from a vibrating game controller. Yup.... Anyway, what killed him in the game, which is a ghastly looking woman, manifests itself in the real world and does it's thing once again.

As one might guess, that's how the rest of the movie works. The game starts picking off Hutch's friends off in real life one by one. Additional horror movie standards then begin to pop up: Hutch becomes a suspect of the deaths due to him having a relationship with each victim, his friends think he's crazy for suggesting that a video game might be responsible for murder, plus there's flashbacks to his trouble youth, this one involving fire, which you just know is going to rear its head somehow later on.

Plus the really obnoxious friend does the "He's not really dead, he's just passed out because he smokes pot!" shtick, and there's even an investigation montage, which was first popularized in Seven. Eventuall, the jerky buddy is killed, and when the cops show up for this time, one of the investigators play the game for a few minutes and dies shortly thereafter (one might imagine that the intended effect was for someone in the audience to go "lol noob"), though not before he storms a Gamestop-looking store demanding answers, which introduces yet another gaming stereotype, the annoying game store clerk. The death of the cop sends Hutch and company on the run and increases the need to find the story behind the game.

This leads them to the game's designer and they learn that his creation is based on some old Southern tale of a noblewoman known as the Blood Countess (which of course, everyone in the movie's world are already extremely familiar with) and then they consult the token crazy old lady (the film takes place in New Orleans, so the woman has a particularly thick southern accent to drive home the idea that she's been around the block and seen it all, like all crazy old ladies in horror flicks, though this one sounds a lot like Elmer Fudd) for directions on how to kill the crazy evil ghost that's manifesting itself via the video game, which in turn is manifesting itself in the real world.

Yeah, it's kind of complicated and nothing is ever properly explained (perhaps this particular bit of info was but the aforementioned Fudd-speak just made it hard to hear), but basically the Blood Countess's M.O. used to bathe in young people's blood to stay young, and now she's at it again to become flesh once more; as the movie progresses, she starts out as a polygonal computer graphic and then becomes real. And near the end, she even gets naked!

Eventually they discover that the game world and the real world are connected, such as how Malcolm drops a weapon in the game space and it manifests in the flesh. Malcolm is also the subject of another fake out; you think he dies at one point, but not really, though by the time he shows up, the viewer is either totally not going to care in the end, or those that have been trying to following along with undoubtedly be confused by the game/real world logic that apparently even the filmmakers can't get right (the whole idea of dying in the video game means death in the real world, and conversely, staying alive in the game to stay alive in real life, is literally done away with at little over the two-thirds point).

In the end, you have your main hero Hutch saving the girl and overcoming his fear of fire to do away with the countess (who goes all Chris Cunningham at the very end), but there's an avenue for the sequel that will never happen, with a total Body Snatcher-esque ending with the game store clerk placing copies of the PS2 version of Stay Alive on store shelves.

Final Score...

All in all, a fairly abysmal film. It’s not even in the "so bad it's great" category. The fact that the movie is riddled with clichés isn't such a crime, or even how the logic it goes great lengths to set up is practically thrown out the window at a certain point, since that's what one expects from virtually every horror film, even the great ones. It just happens to be so mind-meltingly boring. But the primary problems here is how, for a video game movie, its not very video game-y at all. If you're going to use clichés, be funny about it, or even just load up on them. The Blood Countess in the end was just a scary lady, nothing special.

Pretty shocking considering that, not only was CliffyB involved, but both the co-writer Matthew Peterman and fellow writer/director William Brent Bell have said in numerous interviews that they are passionate gamers and channeled everything they knew about games into the script. You honestly couldn't tell from the movie.

FYI...

The version of the film that was reviewed is the unrated director's cut, which is apparently 15 minutes longer than the theatrical version from earlier this year. Apparently what was added, aside from boobs and the pot smoking, was a character and an entirely new subplot, and its almost impossible to determine who that might be since every single character was completely expendable and insignificant.

Perhaps one important detail to keep in mind is that, despite the fact that film was released by Disney (Stay Alive was used to re-launch the long dormant Hollywood Pictures brand), they only came in after the end and handled the distribution. The film's production was entire Brent Bell and Peterman's, and the entire movie was shot in only 25 days, which is an impressive feat.

BTW...

Meanwhile, How To Make A Monster, which is much like Stay Alive since it also asks what if video game creations crossed over to the other side, and is also an independent feature, couldn't be any different. First off, it’s actually a good movie! But to find out why, as well as more about it, everyone will just have to wait till this upcoming Thursday's regularly scheduled installment of Cinema Pixeldiso. Till then, Happy Halloween!

[Matt Hawkins is a New York-based freelance journalist and Gamasutra contributor. He also designs games, makes comics, and does assorted “other things.” To find out more, check out Fort90.com.]

Posted by at 11:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (25)

So, once upon a time there was an article on GSW sister site Game Career Guide called 'So You Want to Be a Games Journalist', by UK freelancer Aaron McKenna. And it turns out that it hit a bit of a sore spot with a bunch of the more freespirited UK game journos and their international friends - not least due to an extended whinge on the very subject of game journalism that McKenna posted on Tom's Hardware earlier in 2006.

Thus, PC Gamer UK's Tim Edwards and Kieron Gillen, among others, organized a simultaneous blog-gasm of 'So You Want To Be A Games Journalist' - not entirely to have a go at McKenna, I don't think, but more to give an impression of what they think from their own perspectives. It's helpful! Soo... here's Gillen's take on the matter, explaining: "Look at the magazine you love. Realise which bits in it are tedious to do and/or a lot of work. Write something to fill that space and pitch it."

Also good is Richard Cobbett, who explains a bunch of stuff, including the very true note: "Of the hundreds upon thousands of people in the world who think 'Hey, I'd like to do that', the overwhelming majority... won't. Ever." And also Tim Edwards, who comments: "Don’t be a donkey, and you’ll probably do quite well at games journalism. Seriously." And the Triforce are being the Triforce - all gas and gaiters. But overall - good information has resulted.

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

We've previously covered RetroBlast's quest to find the best motivational poster (Successories-stylee) based around a classic video game image - and now we have the glorious winners, huzzah - overall victor ('Imagination'), which wins arcade controllers, gift certificates, and all other kinds of craziness, is pictured.

The original competition post says: "The arcade champions of yesterday are the lawyers, doctors, engineers, tradesmen and women, and business professionsals of today. In this capacity, most of us, at one time or another have seen the very cheesy "inspirational posters" tacked up in offices all over the world that display a supposedly motivational image and message that I suppose is intended to make us feel inspired while working in our little section of the Death Star. Frankly, I can't stand them and I know others feel the same way. These then will be the target format for our video and arcade game parody!"

So, here are all the winners and honorable mentions, then - sure, it's all a bit Photoshop Phriday, or what have you, but some of the honored mock-ups are pretty smart. Also, we like the incredibly complicated judging methods, so there.

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It was just one week ago that IGN redefined games journalism yet again by posting pictures of guys opening boxes and taking pictures of things you don't have in an exclusive pictorial of a PlayStation 3 which they very professionally defined as "hardware porn."

The vague descriptive paragraph they used was missing a few commas which we think is also part of this new journalism trend and so to be ahead of the curve we have decided to ditch commas completely for this entire post.

Similarly we just got a package containing stuff that you probably don't have and in this exclusive pictorial we will very slowly and intricately open this nondescript FedEx package containing the moment you have all been drooling for the arrival of the press kit for LimeLife a company that makes cell phone games just for girls! Unlike IGN we will not be making porn jokes because girls are involved and if you're talking about girls and not hardware it is sexist and wrong and will get me fired. Click through for more!

[Click through for more.]

What womanly mysteries lie behind these gaping flaps? No man can say.

Guys we have confirmed folder. I repeat we have confirmed white folder. By this point we felt a warm glow coming from inside and knew that we were mere moments away from attaining nirvana.

The strange cosmic rays coming from inside of the package mutated GameSetWatch editor simonc and now he can stretch his limbs like Mr. Fantastic! It was at this time that we thought the package may actually be some kind of strange mobile phone Pandora's Box but we continued anyway unthwarted in our efforts to bring you this exclusive scoop. I can think of no better way to die than for the sake of games journalism.

Ladies and gentlemen a world exclusive first look at the insides of the LimeLife press kit. This moment will be remembered for all times just like the time that guy landed on the moon or that other time that a guy got shot in the head.

Game Developer features editor Brandon Sheffield was particularly excited by the personal note inside from Double Forte's Barbara Gibson. To be honest I was too but I did a better job of hiding it.

Using his stretchy powers to keep at a safe distance Simon opened the mysterious envelope marked "game" as we all sat back and drooled on ourselves in anticipation.

Suddenly I remembered that it was my package sent to me and that clearly I should get to open it so I pushed Simon to the floor and reached for it myself. As you can see there is a brilliant and holy glow coming from this phone that has absolutely nothing to do with the camera's flash being reflected off of my awesome rhinestone cowboy hat that I stole from a Backbone party.

My heart soared when I saw that the loaner cell phone LimeLife sent was pink because pink is Aerosmith's favorite color and also signifies that this cell phone contains games just for girls!

We continued rifling through all of the contents of the package, finding such surprises as press releases postcards and even a business card! Simon is not wearing a silly hat in this picture which worries me. I will put it on my Christmas list.

We're not usually this messy but I guess we got too excited. Brandon cried a little.

Now this is more like it! Cleanliness is next to godliness and LimeLife for this one brief moment was our god.

Exclusive closeups of the phone in action. Brandon polishes it with the tender maternal instincts that came out of all of us during this photo shoot.

Boy that sure was fun but I don't know how cell phones work so I can't tell you any more. Stay tuned to GameSetWatch for exclusive updates on things that come in the mail that we open!

Posted by Frank Cifaldi at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Soooo, talking of Game Boy-related audiovisual fun, we got an email from a certain James Kochalka revealing that he has "...put up a new Game Boy song in the mp3 section at AmericanElf.com" - and it's neeto.

Kochalka explains: "It's called My Chemical Sugar High. The music was created entirely on the Nintendo Game Boy using a program called Pocket Music. The song was inspired by the band My Chemical Romance, or at least by their name (and their eye make-up), because I've never actually heard any songs by that band. Anyhow, it's a song about candy and black eyes, and I'm giving away the mp3 for Halloween. Trick or treat!"

Oh, and here's the lyrics:

"My chemical sugar-high
My chemical sugar-high
My chemical sugar-high
Gave me a black eye.

My chemical sugar-high
My chemical sugar-high
My chemical sugar-high
Gave me a black eye.

My sugar depression
My candy obsession
My lollipop, wish I was dead.

My sugar depression
My candy obsession
My lollipop, wish I was dead."

[Picture via DeviantArt - and we've previously covered Mr. Kochalka's 'James Kochalka Superstar video shot on a gameboy camera by James Kochalka and edited by Pistol Stamen', for those wanting to see more Game Boy audio visual overload.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The deadline is passed, so now it's time to find out who won the Japanese Game Boy Camera in box, for all your retro several-shades-of-gray picture hilarity!

After much random finger-pointing, it was Luke Osterritter who won out, answering the question:

"How many pictures can the Game Boy Camera hold in its titanically large 1 megabit SRAM memory?"

...correctly with the following statement:

"The answer is 30; not a lot, which is why I like to keep several around in case the mood strikes. :)"

Thanks to all those who entered, and thanks to a couple of people who didn't quite get it right and made us chuckle a bit (sorry, guys, but '1 megabit' is clearly not the answer, and posting the incorrect number of shots as a comment will also not make you win!)

Anyhow, I'm sure we can think of something else fun to give away again soon, so watch out for the next GameSetCompetition in due course.

Posted by Simon Carless at 2:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over at sister site Gamasutra, we ran a slightly controversial Soapbox from John Andersen last week, named: 'Ripping Off Japan - Japanese Video Game Copyright Protection & Preservation (Or Lack Thereof)'. So we figured GSW was a good place to initially follow up some of the blog feedback.

Firstly, The Inbetween's Mike Nowak had a particularly interesting view on the article, since he was working alongside those who made some CBC Flash web games singled out by Andersen as being 'infringing' in some way (for example: "Sushi Samurai, a clever clone of Burgertime.") Nowak comments, among other things: "Now, I’m not here to argue that those CBC offerings are particularly original. They’re not. But they’re perfectly legal... Spending two thirds of an article attacking some small Flash games, while only giving a half a page mention to the more profitable, lucrative and recent clones by PopCap, hints at the author’s personal bias in the matter."

The 'personal bias' mentioned here is also referenced in some GayGamer.net comments on the same post, in which Raindog comments: "The real shame here isn’t that Flash designers are “ripping off” classic games, but that the classics haven’t become part of the cultural commons yet. Businesses like Andersen’s are really not much better than jackals coming late to the corpse."

Well, I commissioned the article, which we did present as 'Soapbox' rather than cold, hard fact, obviously. Now, I don't read John Andersen as someone who's interested in helping litigate and making scads of money. On the contrary, he comes across (at least to me!) as someone who genuinely cares about IP being respected - he's ended up advising people like G-Mode because he cares about people using their games without asking - and there are some much more egregious examples in the retro arcade game arena that he didn't directly address, I believe.

But one of the things that this controversy is already bringing up is - what really _is_ the law when it comes to IP and game ideas, exactly? For example, why does it feel like (in my mind, at least!) that Breakout is a 'genre' that can be cloned or elaborated on without so much guilt, but Puzzloop isn't? How do we encourage innovation without the innovators being immediately cloned, or is that cloning/deriving just a fact of life that actually helps the medium evolve? [This has come up before on Gamasutra, to much heated discussion.]

Anyhow, I've asked S. Gregory Boyd, who is a _nice_ game IP lawyer, to write a little piece for Gamasutra for later this week on a lawyer's view of how game concepts may or may not be protected - and I think he'll do a fairminded job. In the mean time, I asked Andersen to reply to Nowak's post, which he does after the cut - read on!

[Click through for more.]

Andersen says:

"First of all, I'd like to thank Mike Nowak for giving some constructive criticism regarding my Gamasutra piece, I really liked what he wrote, (despite the personal attacks) he brought up his own defense that I'd like to point out. He reveals the following behind the development of the CBC flash clones:

'When these games were being pitched and developed, I really wanted to create something new and fresh. Unfortunately, as always, time and money restricted that (these games were churned out, concept to live, in about a week) and we had to resort to tried and true formulas. Clones.'

Only a week to develop gaming content for the website of a national TV broadcaster? It was an insult to him and his creative ability, but like he said, the assignment had to be done. If Mr. Nowak and his fellow designers were given more time and some creative breathing room by the CBC, perhaps something new and original could have been developed. This new and original content could have been a hit, and CBC business affairs could have had a valuable property they could license out. Deadlines and pressure are nothing new in this business.

The point of my article is to get people talking, and I hope I've accomplished that. I never insulted or attacked Mr. Nowak personally, but unfortunately Mr. Nowak has attacked me, and I'll now defend myself. I want original and new content just as much as he does. I'm sure a whole room of people could debate for hours and bring up cases like Great Giana Sisters (a computer clone of Super Mario Bros. pulled from the market at the insistence of Nintendo) and pick apart the Data East cases as well.

I would like to bring forward my own reading material in this debate and that is the 1982 case of Atari, Inc. v. North American Philips Consumer Electronics Corp., 672 F.2d 607 (7th Cir. 1982), which states: The court, noting that a game is not protectible by copyright "as such," stated that video games are protectible "at least to a limited extent [insofar as] the particular form in which it is expressed provides something new or additional over the idea." Just take a look at the case and examine its court ruling.

Sushi Samurai came to my attention when a July 27th, 2006 Kotaku gaming blog began publicly exclaiming, "Burgertime with Sushi!" A Google search of Sushi Samurai and Burgertime turned up even further specific comparisons on other websites, all linking to the CBC website. Now we have a problem. G-mode sees that Burgertime, a property it owns and controls, is being devalued in public. I can assume that G-mode, a Japanese company, would like the CBC to respectfully recognize their concerns and take the game offline. This is about respect of ones work, plain and simple.

Why am I targeting flash clones developed four years ago by the CBC? To prove a point:

Mr. Nowak mentions I'm a marketer not a lawyer, he's correct, but I primarily focus on business development, and I prefer healthy business development. I do look out for my colleagues in Japan because they developed and published great games that have inspired us and continue to do so. I leave it to the legal consul of each company to work things out (hopefully to an amicable and peaceful conclusion) when matters like this arise.

From a moral standpoint I am deeply concerned about the corporate and personal animosity this clone activity creates within the industry. Public statements and litigation can ensue, resulting in ruined business development and reputations. If the CBC just happened to have an original gaming IP that was a hit, its business affairs division may encounter difficulty in finding a Japanese licensee because of its questionable clone work – it could happen. When you are not respected in Japan then you are ignored, plain and simple. Businesses can hold grudges against each other for a long time, I don't need to bring up examples or go any further. Just look at Roy Ozaki of Mitchell Corporation and the loss he's incurred with the Puzz Loop clones. That was the point I was trying to make.

In defense of my professional background, I'd like to politely correct Mr. Nowak's points:

I am quite aware of the company histories involving G-mode and Data East.

The cases involving Data East Vs. Epyx and Capcom Vs. Data East occurred around 1986 and 1993 respectively. It's unknown if each side brought forth the ruling of Atari Vs. Phillips case to the courts, but these were fighting games and the 1982 Atari Vs. Phillips decision revolved around Pac-Man versus KC Munchkin. Different genres, different styles in each case - it can all be debated back and forth.

G-mode and Data East are two completely separate business entities. Data East Corporation went bankrupt in 2003. G-mode, a mobile phone content provider established in 2000, only purchased a majority of the Data East gaming IP in 2004, while a small handful of games were acquired by Paon Corporation. I never had any business relationship with Data East and its former employees, nor have I had any business relationship with Taito. There was never a transfer of any employees, creative talent or management from Data East to G-mode. Aside from handling the Data East video game library, G-mode creates its own original game content and also licenses other gaming IP, such as Tetris, for distribution within Japan and select territories for mobile platforms.

G-mode and Taito are not releasing their own portable hardware, each company appears to have only separately licensed their games to Performance Designed Products (PDP) of Los Angeles, California. PDP is manufacturing the hardware, while G-mode and Taito are simply providing the content. I had no involvement in either deal as Mr. Nowak implies.

Finally, do others feel the current U.S. Copyright office stance on games appears vague? It appears its been written for board games rather than video games. Is a revision in order? Let's keep the discussion going. I think it's important to keep examining this issue with real history, facts, and business principles in mind, but let's keep the personal attacks to a minimum shall we?"

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Another of those periodic trawls around eBay has revealed that seller 'pyhod000' is auctioning off probably the largest Metal Gear Solid-related collection we've ever seen, including all kinds of insane rarities.

On the high end, for example, there's Metal Gear Solid wine for $499 ("A promotional item from Japan... It was handed to Konami's business partners only") and even a complete set of regular MGS trading cards from back in 1998 - which are semi-transparent and smart-looking, btw.

There's lots more promo or rare MGS stuff, so much so that we acn't really list it all. How about the MGS2 promo poster starring Gackt eh? Our favorite collectible of all of these is probably the Ape Escape 3 promo poster which spoofs Metal Gear, complete with simian-lile '...Uki?' and apes with villainous moustaches. Yay!

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over at Hally's Vorc.org chiptune music blog points out that the Project EGG digital music store he's involved with has has started distributing a "very rare soundtrack from the unreleased arcade game "Tokeijikake no Aquario"."

He further explains: "Weston, the game company known with "Wonder Boy" series, has developed this game in 1993. It was almost completed, but never released due to the poor result of the location test. Some people say it was not a bad game at all, but 1993 was the worst year for such a "Monster Lair" style scroller as the interest to "Street Fighter II" and [similar titles] were too strong at that time..." Did anyone ever dump this for MAME emulation, I wonder?

The actual album, which is digital-only, is 1890yen ($16), though it does include remixes from popular chiptune artists Shogun, USK, and Blasterhead, which is an awesome idea. However: "Unfortunately the service doesn't accept any orderings from outside Japan. But at least you can listen to previews from all tracks." Hopefully someone will Westernize this service (maybe at slightly cheaper rates?) soon, because it'd be fun/neat to get legal goodness like this.

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The clever folks at Aeropause have spotted a fun YouTube mashup starring MC Chris, also known as MC Pee Pants for those who watch Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and visualizing some audio he ranted spontaneously at the recent GameSpot After Hours event regarding Kingdom Hearts II and Resident Evil 4. And it's pretty funny, we think, bar some IM noises and misspelling. Is his voice just... like that?

"Grab the shotgun! You don't need to load it!" Etc. Anyhow, looks like the aforementioned MC Chris has a new album out, sure to be filled with geek references of all kinds, including video game ones - here's a new interview with him over at Wizard Universe, for those who'd like to geek out.

We also note that Chris' MySpace has some new tracks, including 'Kingdom Farts', which definitely has a bunch of game references in the first verse, and 'Townie', which isn't very game-related, but is really damn funky, and needs some lyric transcriptions, plz.

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Over at SiliconEra, the normally import-friendly site has returned a little closer to home, and has been quizzing Introversion's Chris Delay on the recent debut of 'everybody dies' simulator Defcon.

Delay takes pains to point out the way the title abstract things somewhat shockingly: "Quite a few gamers have commented on the way DEFCON is almost brutal in its bare, understated reporting of the facts behind global warfare. You launch a nuke, it decimates your opponent’s city and all you see is a small pop-up indicating the number of dead in one full sweep. You are entirely removed from the horrific reality of the situation and this is probably not far off from the real-life detachment of nuclear warfare."

He also notes what the company is working on next: "What we now call "The Fourth Game" was actually the game I was developing immediately after Uplink’s launch, and it was being developed side by side with Darwinia at one point. It was then put on hold while Darwinia was finished and released, and it has remained on hold while this little wargame "DEFCON" was finished." Apparently "...cunning observers of Introversion’s past would probably be able to infer roughly what we plan for the fourth game" - but we're not that clever. Anyone?

Posted by Simon Carless at 2:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We noticed a couple of sites have been relinking to the somewhat spectacular Lowdown411 Xbox 360 faceplate index, which leads us to both marvel at it and wonder - how's the market for collecting Xbox 360 faceplates going?

First thing to note is that there's a surprising amount of exclusive faceplates tied to press events - for example, X05 Canada's three different maple-leaf themed faceplates (!), including " X05 Canada - Large Maple Leaf" and "X05 Canada - Small Maple Leaf w/Ring of Light". Can't see any of those listed on eBay right now, though someone is trying to sell a 16-item collection that includes a 'Launch Team' and 'X05' faceplate.

Then there's other game-specific faceplates mentioned on the site, if not eBay-available, such as a Prey-specific faceplate for example: "This was an item made in really low quantities, made solely for Human Head, 3D Realms, & Venom staff. There were some at E3 2006 on the demo units showing Prey on the show floor. They were never meant for sale or distribution." Go chase!

Posted by Simon Carless at 9:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

['@ Play' is a bi-weekly column by John Harris which discusses the history, present and future of the Roguelike dungeon exploring genre.]

The venerable roguelike Nethack, the most popular of them all and possibly the deepest computer game ever made, is filled with a great many ways to die.

A popular spoiler some time ago was a listing of many of those ways, more than sixty of them, in which the game can end.

When a player in Nethack dies, the game prints an ASCII tombstone for him embossed with character name, cash on hand at game end, and the cause of death. This information also goes into the score list to be ranked against other players. One of the joys of playing Nethack on a multi-user system, in fact, is noting some of the unusual deaths experienced by other players and thinking to yourself at least it wasn't me that time.

[Click through for more.]

Now, it is fun to build onto the reputation of a game noted for mercilessness, to tell inverse fish stories about the times you died in an impressive manner. And Nethack indeed is not afraid to kill the player if he does something worth being killed for, or fails to protect himself from that death. The existence of cockatrices in the game is more than enough proof of that. But it can take a good amount of trial, and a whole lot of error, to learn all those situations, and some people regard this as one of the game's flaws.

For example, the first time a player encounters a giant eel may end the game, because they can wrap themselves around him and drag him into the water, killing him in two turns. Eels are an extremely dangerous opponent. But once the player knows about the danger, it turns out there's quite a lot he can do in this situation:

• He can just use a means of taking care of the eel from afar, and since they can't leave the water that's not too difficult.
• Or he might grease his armor, making it difficult for the eel to gain hold.
• Or he might wear an oilskin cloak, which is similarly slippery.
• Or he might wear an amulet of magical breathing, making drowning impossible.
• Or he might polymorph into a monster that doesn't need to breathe.
• Or he might bridge the water with ice using a wand of cold, since eels are harmless out of the water.
• Or he might teleport the eel with a wand, hopefully onto dry land.
• Or he might trap the eel in a small pool by pushing boulders into the spaces around him, creating land.
• Or, if he's levitating, he can stop, surprising the eel and making him lose his grip.
• Or he could just wear an amulet of life saving.

Nethack has many ways of killing players, but it also tends to have as many ways of surviving those deaths. On top of that, many of the "causes" in the game are actually caused by just one thing really: damage. Everything in Nethack that causes damage, even as little as one hit point of it, potentially has its own unique epitaph on the score list.

Because of these things, the game has a bit of a reputation among some players for being unnecessarily cruel to new players, but once you know (finally) everything there is to know they say it's actually somewhat easy. This may, indeed, be true, but keep in mind that most people take years to get to that state, of Knowing It All, and many of them have a lot of fun along the way as well, so long as they don't get too broken up about dying all the time.

Anyway, here are some of the more interesting (or at least entertaining) of the many causes of death in Nethack.

Death by Inches

Player, fell onto a sink.

One of the more back-handedly useful effects in the game is levitation, gained from wearing the appropriate ring or boots, or drinking a certain type of potion. If gained by ring or boots the effect lasts until the item is removed, and if the item in question is cursed then that's an exceptionally bad state to be in. Levitating players cannot pick up anything off the floor or go down stairs, although they can sail over water and many traps.

But there are clever ways out of many problems in Nethack, and involuntary levitation is no different. One of the ways to stop levitating is to move onto the same space as a sink. (Think about it for a second... and yes, there are kitchen sinks in this dungeon. For Nethack, it was only a matter of time.)

Players who attempt to levitate over a sink crash to the floor, and in the process (ah-ha) they take a small amount of damage. If that damage should just happen to put a player's hit points to zero or lower then they die, and the reason for death reported and saved to the score file is "fell onto a sink." Not the most notable way for a player to go, but there are worse ways....

Player, killed by an unrefrigerated sip of juice.

One of the most potent traps in Nethack for early players are the fountains scattered throughout the dungeon. You can tell when a player becomes serious about winning the game when he decides he's had enough of being killed by water demons or water moccasins, having his stuff stolen by water nymphs, dying from system shock from failed polymorphs, or drowning in created pools, and finally determines to himself that he's going to stop drinking from those damn fountains!!!

One of the possible results from drinking from a fountain is tainted water ("Perhaps it is run-off from the nearby slime mold farm?"), and when drunk—you can probably guess where this is going—it does a small amount of damage. Like with sink falls, if that puts a player into a health deficit he dies, the reaper forgoing his customary scythe in favor of that unrefrigerated sip of juice.

Player, killed by an electric chair.

Another source of random effects are thrones, which unlike fountains have enough possible good effects to make them worth the utilization risk. When a player sits on a throne the best possible result is a wish for an object. The worst result is a shock of electricity that does, you guessed it, damage.

Death by Logic

Player, killed by a scroll of genocide.

We're starting to go now from random novelties to genuine sources of peril, but this one's still pretty obscure. Scrolls of genocide eliminate all of one type of monster in the game. Blessed scrolls do the same for one whole class of monster – classes are all those monsters represented by the same character on the display, for example all "h"s. But one of those characters that represent monsters is "@", which of course represents humans and elves, and the player is also an @. Thus reading a blessed scroll and specifying @ is a very quick way to perish yourself.

Ordinarily this is just kind of a joke, as it's pretty easy, you know, to just not type a @ when asked what you want to genocide, but there is one circumstance where it can be very perilous indeed. One of Nethack's many unique features is that some items have different effects in some circumstances, like when they are blessed or cursed for example. It so happens that scrolls, when read while the player is confused, have entirely different effects from when they're read when clear-minded. Sometimes these effects are better than the normal ones (especially scrolls of taming, which become much better), but a few are worse, and worst of them all are scrolls of genocide, which automatically kill the player when read while confused. They are the primary reason it is bad idea to ID scrolls by experimentation while confused.

Player, unwisely ate the body of Pestilence.

Nethack's epitaphs are usually straight-faced. Sometimes they might seem a little pithy (like "killed by elementary physics," which comes from damage taken from throwing objects into the air and not having something hard to wear on your head), but this is the only one that actually passes judgement on the player, at least in a way other than killing him.

On the Astral Plane at the end of the game there are three specific monsters who cannot be permanently slain (at least not normally – as with almost everything, There Are Ways), three of the riders of the apocalypse, Death Pestilence and Famine. You can run them out of hit points, but that will leave their corpse on the ground and it is always just a matter of time before it becomes animate again and resumes its pursuit.

Some players, who might think themselves pretty clever, will off one of these regenerating opponents and realize that he's fought foes like that before. Trolls in Nethack are infamous for resuming the fight over and over again, coming back to life over and over, until some method of disposing of their corpse is found. The method of choice is usually eating the corpse, but doing this against those final opponents will always kill the player, regardless of almost all other circumstances. That'll learn 'em.

Player, petrified by a cockatrice.

Player, petrified by swallowing a cockatrice whole.

Player, petrified by touching a cockatrice corpse.

Player, petrified by trying to tin a cockatrice without gloves.

The lowly cockatrice is perhaps the most dangerous monster in the game. There are plenty of monsters with more hit points, who do more damage, who have special attacks, and are just bigger, but cockatrices instantly kill anyone who touches them with their bare skin, and are thus very likely to kill players unwise in their dealings with them. Even Death up on Astral Plane has to succeed in an attack against a player to deliver an instakill, but a cockatrice can kill by being attacked.

• If the player attempts to fight a cockatrice without a weapon or wearing gloves and hits, he turns to stone.
• If the player hears a cockatrice's hissing, there's a chance he'll begin to turn to stone slowly. There are a few ways to stop that process, but if none of them are used he is petrified that way.
• If he attempts to pick up a dead one with his bare hands, that will also turn him to stone. (It can also be wielded, however. Applications for a wielded cockatrice corpse are left for you to imagine, but I will say that it can be, hm, useful.)
• If he's blinded and steps on the same space as a dead cockatrice without gloves on, then, since the player can only discover what's on a space by feel in that event, he'll become a very confused-looking statue indeed.

Player, killed by a collapsing drawbridge

There aren't really that many drawbridges in the game. There are never any before the Quest (around level 12-15), and sometimes the player won't find one until the Castle, which is quite deep into the dungeon. There's always a drawbridge on the Castle level, but many times there won't be any others.

The problem with drawbridges is that, if you're standing on the space in front of one and it opens you get squished, full stop. If you're standing on one that closes or gets destroyed you'll meet a similar end, even if you can breathe water. There are so few drawbridges in the game that discovering these deaths by trial and error means the end of very good runs, so many Nethack players come to develop an irrational fear of drawbridges, even if the actual deaths themselves are rare.

Deadly Reading

Player, committed suicide.

Sounds pretty prosaic, right? Several things a player can do in Nethack can cause direct death but have their own epitaphs, so what must players do to be considered to have explicitly committed suicide? The cause is fairly obscure.

First, get a cursed scroll of teleport, or read an uncursed one while confused. Teleport scrolls usually transport the player to another spot on the current level, but if they are read while it's cursed or he's confused the player will instead be transported to another dungeon level.

Then, obtain a means of teleport control. There aren't many ways to get this, the least risky way being to find the eponymous ring. Once worn it means, when you teleport, you get to pick where you go instead of getting sent to a random location. And if you get level-teleported, you get to pick, by entering a number, which level you go to.

Yes, you can go very deep into the dungeon instantly with just the ring and one scroll if you like, and almost reach the lowest level with but two scrolls. But consider for a moment: what does it mean to go to some numbered level of a dungeon? If you go to level "1," you are one level beneath the surface. If, on the other hand, you were in the basement of a tower and you took an elevator to the first floor, you'd then be on ground level. The riddle here is: where would be the zeroth floor?

The proper answer is "nowhere," and if, when asked what level to be magically teleported to, you answer "0," the answering prompt should be more than enough warning:

Go to Nowhere. Are you sure? [ynq] (q)

If you say "y," the result is:
You scream in agony as your body begins to warp... You cease to exist. Your possessions land on the floor with a thud.

Why this lurid fate is masked on the score list with "committed suicide" is anyone's guess.

Player, teleported out of the dungeon and fell to his death.

If, to the above prompt, you answered a negative number (that is, some level above the surface):

You are now high above the clouds... Unfortunately, you don't know how to fly. You plummet a few thousand feet to your death.

If you're a monster who can fly the result is different:
You are now high above the clouds... you fly down to the ground.

Your game still ends, mind, but it's by escaping, not death. There is not really a lot of difference between the two results, you just get 10% more points and the comforting knowledge that your character can now roam the earth as a vampire lord or whatever.

Player, went to heaven prematurely.

There's yet another result if you teleport to level -10 or, uh, higher:
You arrive in heaven. "Thou art early, but we'll admit thee."

There are a good number of other neat death causes, including a couple that aren't seen too much these days, "panic," meaning Nethack encountered a seriously faulty internal state and ended the game to avoid a likely crash, and "trickery," which means the game, upon inspecting a save or temporary level file, discovered that it failed its internal consistency checks and assumes the player is cheating by modifying them.

The Most Obscure Death

First, get a means of polymorph (a certain potion will do the trick) and a ring of polymorph control. It doesn’t matter what you turn into, it just has to be something that can read.

You’ll also need a scroll of genocide. The idea is to genocide your own species while polymorphed into another type of monster. This produces the ominous message:

You feel dead inside.

Now, when you change back to normal, your game will end instantly. Of course you could remain a monster indefinitely with an amulet of unchanging. You would, indeed, have to do this to stay in the game.

But what you want to do is not keep playing. You want to quit instead, with Alt-Q, which provides one of the cooler messages in Nethack:

Player, quit while already on Charon’s boat.

Charon is, by some accounts, the boatman that ferries souls to the underworld. He is also a monster who has long been seen in Nethack’s source code but has never been actually included in the game. It seems like he has been doomed forever, along with Cerberus, on the sidelines of the monster definition array, kept away from existence by a mere comment barrier, since the days of 3.1 and before.

There are other ways to get the Charon’s boat epitaph, as noted in Google Groups message from 2003. It seems that it's possible to abort some versions of Nethack in a way that causes it to automatically save, such as ending a telnet session or hitting Ctrl-C at a [more] prompt. If the player has been taken down to zero or lower hit points by his last action, but hasn't gotten the "You die...." message yet, then upon restoring the game the player will die immediately and the Charon's boat message will be given as the cause.

Interesting causes of death are part of what make Nethack, Nethack. Even players who consider that they have no chance of winning can still at least strive for a memorable way to end their life. One of the awards at /dev/null's yearly Nethack tournament is one for most causes of death encountered during the one-month contest period. You can also play the game to win, competing against legendary players like marvin, aka Christian Bressler, who last time won thirteen games in a row to walk away with the Best of 13 trophy.

Even if you don't think you have a chance at that one, you'll still get to compete on the big top score list, and encounter bones files from other players along the way. There's still time to sign up to play at this year's tournament, beginning November 1st, at http://nethack.devnull.net/. Maybe I'll see you, or a ghost that used to be you, there.

Posted by John Harris at 4:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (34)

We note with chagrin that, over at The New Gamer, the final instalment of 'Chi-Style Drunksaling' for 2006 has been posted, showcasing Chicago garage/thrift gamehunting fun.

Of course, half the fun of the column is the ridiculous non-game stuff they dig up, but hey, this time: "At least this weekend bore some fruit: a not-unwelcome non-Greatest Hits copy of Final Fantasy Tactics, and I can now explore the delights of the cockroach world with Bad Mojo. Not pictured was a cheap copy of Deus Ex 1 that I found at the last second. Unlike last year, this copy actually contained the proper discs."

And, at the end, they explain: "And that appears to be the end of the 2006 'drunksaling' season. Several days following snapping these photos Chicago had its first snowfall, which usually marks the period when folks are unwilling to sit outside for hours and let strangers paw through their goods... If by any chance you missed one of our outings, feel free to trawl through the back-issues in the drunksaling archives!" Please do!

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The competition deadline (Monday at noon!) is almost upon us, so time for a reminder on our GameSetCompetition to win a Game Boy Camera in box, for all your retro several-shades-of-gray picture hilarity!

Also, we have to boast that the competition is so hawt this time round that we even got a semi-celebrity cartoonist/rockstar entering (hint: we wrote about his GBCam music videos recently!)

Anyhow, he didn't win just yet (he has the same chance as everyone else, tho!), and as previously mentioned, the question this time round is pretty simple:

"How many pictures can the Game Boy Camera hold in its titanically large 1 megabit SRAM memory?"

Please send your answers to editors@gamesetwatch.com any time before Monday, October 30th at 12 noon PST. There will be one winner randomly picked from the correct answers, the judges' decision is final, and that's that. Have fun!

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

['Game Mag Weaseling' is a weekly column by Kevin Gifford which covers video game magazines from the late '70s all the way up to right now.]

This column is late as all 'eck, but there's a good reason for it. That's because I've spent the last couple hours poring over my computer-magazine collection (numbering over 2500 these days, and I'm proud to say there isn't a single PC World or Wired in it) in order to build something I've meant to create for a few days now -- The Top 10 Silliest Computer Mag Covers in History.

Now, keep in mind that when I say "silly," I don't necessarily mean "crap." I have a deep-seated love for nearly every home-computer mag from the 1970s and 80s, and it always pains me, in a way, to think about how boring the PC industry has become these days. Mag editors had real enthusiasm and ideas about the revolution they were fomenting back then. What they didn't always, however, was the top caliber in cover design. This occasionally leads to covers that, while normal-looking or even eye-catching in their day, look just plain silly in 2006. Hence, this list.

This ranking is based entirely off my own magazine collection, which is heavily geared toward the classic era of computing, so naturally it's not gonna cover every silly mag out there. If you have a magazine you think I'm missing, though, by all means leave a comment (and a picture, hopefully) and I'll cover it later.

[Click through for more.]

#10: BYTE, December 1977

GameSetWatch has discussed Robert Tinney in the past; he drew the covers for BYTE (the first dedicated microcomputer mag) from 1976 to 1987 and came up with all sorts of exotic visual metaphors for the infant technology of the day. This cover, though, reveals one very deep similarity computer nerds of the 70s shared with modern geeks -- they are all massive pop-culture SF nuts. I can't get enough of Sulu trying to poke at a primitive dual-floppy drive system (probable cost at the time: about $1000).

Even better, the cover actually forebodes an article inside: "The Computers of Star Trek" -- a highly entertaining speculative piece written by two engineers who were such total nerds that they actually worked for the US Department of Defense.

#9: Antic, February 1989

Antic (along with A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing) was the most widely-read US magazine devoted to the Atari 8-bit computers. Lesser known is the fact that Antic's editorial office has a magical Atari 800XL that shoots Video Toaster graphics out of the screen at the user.

The female user seems pretty happy about this, too. "Hey, Atari! Nintendo and IBM and Commodore got you down? Chill out, brah -- you've got PROGRAMMING POWER!"

#8: inCider/A+, April 1990

A sad yet common pattern with late-era 8-bit computer mags is covers that get boring due to lack of design funds. A+'s answer: put someone's kid (I think -- I'm actually having trouble discerning this guy's age) on the cover instead. Antic's final year or so also included a disproportionate number of random kids on its covers, too. Hmm. I didn't realize computer-mag editors got married so often, much less had children.

#7: Call A.P.P.L.E., November 1984

"Meet hotline veteran Butch Greathouse," this issue's "On the Cover" text box notes. "Butch is our daytime hotline staffer. If you need technical assistance, don't hesitate to get acquainted with him...who knows, it could be a beautiful relationship."

What the blurb doesn't discuss is why Butch is so shocked to have his Apple give him one of its boards for...Christmas? Who knows? Even the mortarboard atop the computer fails to make this cover photo's link to "Computers and Education" particularly strong.

#6: Kilobaud Microcomputing, August 1980

Wayne Green was one of the most successful early publishers of computer mags, and multiplatform title Kilobaud was his flagship product from 1977 until 1983, when he sold the whole operation to IDG. He was based out of tiny Peterborough, New Hampshire (population: 5883), and that may explain why, despite the mag's sales success (this issue is 242 pages long), the cover art isn't quite top-class.

All right, let's be honest, it's crap. MC68000 woman looks to be about 68 years old, though, so it fits pretty well, actually.

#5: 80 Microcomputing, May 1980

Green's other big early success was this title, a mag devoted to Tandy's TRS-80 line of PCs. This cover, however, quite possibly scared off a large number of younger computer buyers back in the day -- after all, if this was what most TRS-80 users looked like, then maybe this whole computer-revolution thing isn't quite what its cracked up to be.

I'm not going to identify the guy on the cover 'cos he still writes stuff and I'm sure he's a wonderful guy nowadays, but you couldn't personify the word "nerd" as defined in 1980 better than with this photo. Note the enormous horn-rims and the trio of scientific calculators in the background.

#4: Softalk, March 1981

Softalk is one of the most fondly-remembered Apple II mags for its friendly voice, its software sales rankings (the first in the industry), and for its underground mentality. Issues go for tons whenever they appear on eBay, and I'm very proud to own a full set.

This issue's cover, however, would make any red-blooded male run shouting from the computer industry if Super-Nerd from 80 Micro didn't scare him off earlier. Note, once more, the blonde in the background who'd actually be rather fetching if it weren't for those enormous hornrims.

By the way, these ladies all worked for Apple Computer in 1981. The one on the far right is Jean Richardson, who was Apple's marketing manager at the time. She later moved on to Microsoft, became a vice-president, and then appeared in compu-documentary Triumph of the Nerds discussing Bill Gates' poor hygiene.

#3: Boardwatch, April 1993

I could make another complete top-ten list with Boardwatch issues alone. Every issue seems to put one BBS sysop or another on the cover, and BBS sysops (at least those not running pirate BBSes) seemed to invariably be overweight men in their 40s.

I chose this one, tho, 'cos (a) its creative use of title fonts is divine, and (b) it's historically significant. I remember Rusty n Edie's BBS being all over the news in 1993; they were the BBS in Ohio that charged $90 a year for access and were (as the mag puts it) "the worst-kept secret in the industry" when it came to warez and scanned-in porn. But Rusty and Edie look like such nice people in their shopping-mall caricature! They wouldn't hurt a fly!

(By the way, personal request for info -- does anyone know when Boardwatch actually closed publishing? The last issue I have is from 1998 but it seems to have lasted far longer.)

#2: The Color Computer Magazine, August 1983

The Color Computer Magazine (devoted to Tandy's Color Computer series) was another New England-based mag, this one coming from New England Publications in Camden, ME, which also put out a variety of outdoors magazines. I think being a computer hacker in Maine would do this to anybody.

#1: Timex Sinclair User, August 1983

For someone about my age, this pretty much sums up computing in the '80s -- going to computer camp, putting your socks way up high, and wearing a propellor beanie. Nearly every issue of Timex Sinclair User (all seven of them) has an equally silly cover, but I chose this one because it struck a nerve -- I remember looking exactly like this, except I was hunched over a Commodore 64 and weighed about 100 pounds more. Sigh...memories.

Top 10 Runners-up

• 21 years ago, Macs were giving you money. Now they cost a lot of money, and what's more, can't play games. How times change!

• It's somehow gotten difficult for me to believe that Jaws was such a pop-culture event in America at the time, but I guess it was. Seems almost quaint nowadays.

• Commodore 64 rag RUN reveals every office worker's inner dream: To be SuperFloppy. No, wait, that didn't come out right...

• CP/M used to be a pretty popular operating system in America. But do you know who else used CP/M computers? Yep, that's right...

• I love piracy-themed mag covers. The pirates on the cover always look like they're having so much fun, compared to the boring businessmen that usually take up residence there.

• Fortunately for Commodore users, the games market took a noted upturn after this distressing cover was published.

• Edward Gorey drew a computer-magazine cover once. Bet you didn't know that.

• Here's an example of a cover that just gets creepier and creepier the more you stare at it.

• The Rainbow gives us a taste of music in the year 2000. Perhaps.

• Finally, Antic takes an early stab at attracting the financially vital furry geek marketplace. Bonus points are applied for the random flying neon letters -- now that's word processing, baby.
  

[Kevin Gifford breeds ferrets and runs Magweasel, a site for collectors and fans of old video-game and computer magazines. He's also an editor at Newtype USA magazine.]

Posted by Kevin Gifford at 1:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

The newly renamed ARGNet has full details on Perplex City creator Mind Candy's $7 million round of funding for its unique CCG-based alternate reality shenanigans.

Alongside this announcement, it's revealed: "There is more Perplex City on the way! It is official. The second season of the popular game will be driving us mad sometime in early 2007. They also promise that there are loads of new Perplex City products in development including books, video games, and mobile content."

Also: "The UK-based company is also expanding beyond Perplex City and is currently working on a new puzzle brand that will be aimed at a younger demographic." I wonder how mainstream-translatable or even expandable the whole Perplex City thing is, given its elliptic, if fascinating nature, but I guess we'll see!

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some of you may have noticed some new GameSetWatch columns rolling out this week, so I just wanted to thank the new columnists and introduce you to them individually.

- Firstly, Ollie Barder has started up the supremely geeky 'Roboto-chan' column, which "covers videogames that feature robots and the pop-cultural folklore surrounding them." UK native Mr. Barder has written for The UK Guardian and sometimes contributes to co-worker Brandon's Insert Credit, even. Also, he knows more about Super Robot Wars than we will ever - so stay tuned for bi-weekly hilarity!

- Next up, the infamous 3DOKid (who we've blogged about quite a bit thanks to his somewhat obsessive 3DO blog, yay) is writing a bi-weekly column simply called 'Beyond 3DO'. His first one talks about 'why the dreaded 'FMV adventure' is much more pleasant that you might actually guess', and we figure it's all gonna get crazier and more early '90s from there.

- There's also a rather fine new column, 'A Game Collector's Melancholy', from Jeffrey Fleming, which "follows the subtle pleasures and gnawing anxieties of video game collecting." I find it rather finely written, actually, and the first one discusses the Panzer Dragoon franchise, always pretty beloved among hardcore collectors. So, yeah, we cater to obsessives some more, so sue us.

- Finally, we're delighted to get Todd 'Kid Fenris' Ciolek on board to write 'Might Have Been', a neat new concept 'that explores the ways in which promising games, characters, and concepts failed'. I already like this column a lot, and the first one discusses the odd 'Tiny Tank', which I'd never really pegged in any way satirical, therefore didn't look at it further - perhaps one of its problems.

Anyhow, we just wanted to thank all our GameSetWatch columnists again, both the excellent regulars and the smart new guys - a lot of these folks are doing out of the goodness of their own heart (since we're running GSW pretty much as a renegade off-the-radar editor blog, we're crazy like that), so give 'em feedback and love and that type of thing. And we still have at least one more new column starting soon, so watch out for that.

[PS - Whoever it was who wanted to do a black&white Game Boy game review column, ping us again - we mailed you but haven't heard back.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 3:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

[“Might Have Been” is a bi-weekly column by Todd Ciolek that explores the ways in which promising games, characters, and concepts failed. This week’s edition looks at AndNow and Appaloosa Interactive’s Tiny Tank, released in 1999 for the Sony PlayStation.]

This is all your fault, Gex

It’s not clear when the mascot wars started. Some claim that Sonic kicked off everything in 1991, while others will tell you that the push to create marketable, kid-friendly game characters is as old as Pac-Man.

But whenever the trend started, it certainly hadn’t ended by the late ‘90s, when the success of company-defining faces like Parappa and Crash Bandicoot gave rise to a cavalcade of generic crocodiles, skateboarding skunks, clownish street kids, slingshot-wielding Dennis the Menace rip-offs, and even a cuddly version of the Jersey Devil. All were swiftly forgotten. Perhaps that’s what led AndNow and Appaloosa Interactive to mock the whole idea with an action-shooter called Tiny Tank. It was also swiftly forgotten.

Tiny Tank is, at first glance, an appealing game. In a setup that satirizes Cold War propaganda and adorable corporate-made shills, the irascible title tank becomes the mouthpiece for a military-industrial firm that eventually gives rise to an army of world-conquering war machines. The game's fake-commercial cutscenes, which recall the tone of Pixar movie previews more than the typical canned game intro, find Tiny and an off-camera announcer bickering over his public image, complete with bleeped-out swearing and corny ‘50s-style jingles.

And when the game’s first stage kicks in, it’s almost as entertaining to control Tiny. In spite of the aptly tank-like play scheme, he’s able to roll, strafe, jump, hover, and mount five different weapons at once, including smaller (and cuter) customizable mini-tanks. And, in keeping with the game's sense of satire, the soundtrack is interspersed with wryly amusing radio broadcasts from Tiny’s nemesis, Mutank.

Still better than Steel Reign and Shellshock combined

Things don’t begin to fall apart until the second level. From there, it becomes increasingly obvious that the stage designs are standard issue, and that Tiny isn’t well suited to jumping challenges or quick evasion, both of which the game demands. Worse yet, the hardware can’t quite handle everything that AndNow and Appaloosa wanted, and the surroundings frequently explode into a mess of spastic polygons. Nor does it help that Tiny isn’t nearly as funny in the game as he is in the attached fake-ad rehearsals. Without anyone to play off of, he simply spouts a series of one-liners about Nirvana lyrics, that falling-and-not-being-able-to-get-up commercial, and other topics that were embarrassingly dated even back in 1999.

As a final blow against any long-lived popularity, Tiny Tank struggled even to arrive at stores. Though it was originally scheduled for an early 1999 release from MGM Interactive (whose efforts as a PlayStation publisher also brought us the god-awful Machine Hunter), they dropped the game and turned it over to Sony’s American branch, which tossed Tiny Tank out six months later. The game’s advertising was no help.

While the in-game Tiny is chirpy and vaguely upbeat, magazine spots saw an enraged Tiny bursting through a page while exclaiming “Who the %#&@ you callin’ tiny?!” and generally just not caring who he pissed off. Another oddity: the game was promoted with the subtitle "Up Your Arsenal," but the phrase appears nowhere on its actual packaging.

Because tank games sell

In all fairness to some long-disbanded marketing team, Tiny was a hard sell from the start. While he stands out as an amusing reaction to the likes of Rascal and Bubsy, he could only go so far in the gaming industry. Too profane and subtle for children but too simple for older gamers, Tiny really wasn’t noticed by many, beyond the Official PlayStation Magazine critic who threatened to write a review consisting entirely of “SHUT THE &*!@ UP!” after hearing too much of Tiny’s in-game banter.

It’s hard to say how Tiny would’ve fared as a gaming icon, even if his game had been well-designed and consistently funny. Would it have merited a sequel? Would it have amassed a cult of deluded fans to gush about Tiny Tank from every angle and on every message board? Would we see Tiny Tank toys and bedsheets and board games and pencil-top erasers? Probably not, but considering how his first outing went, it’s flattering enough when someone remembers Tiny Tank at all.

[Todd Ciolek is a magazine editor in New York City.]

Posted by Todd Ciolek at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Well, we covered September's edition a few weeks back, but someone clued us in to the fact that we haven't mentioned GameTunnel's October 2006 Indie Game Round-Up yet - so now we are!

As is mentioned: "This month's article looks at eleven indie titles including the much anticipated Defcon, the insane adventure game Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso and the perfectly retro Pizza Panic." Most intriguing, perhaps, is that Defcon doesn't snatch game of the month, with Russ Carroll interesting claiming that it's "an interesting game that looks a lot slicker than it plays."

Thus, it's left to Mr. Smoozles, which we covered a couple of months back, to take the overall top prize from the GameTunnel panelists, and apparently the gameplay on the overhead adventure game from BAFTA-winning game writer Steve Ince includes "...watching a cat running around with a gun trying to kill you as you try to keep the fabric of reality from being completely distorted." In which case, I'm in.

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

UK game journo veteran and Gamasutra columnist Jim Rossignol has updated his personal blog with a pretty astounding regional magazine cover - and we thank him for it!

He explains plaintively: "Game magazine cover of the decade? And yes, this is the actual cover of the current version of PC Gamer on sale in Russia and Ukraine." The cover shows an intensely scary communist skull type thing, with the text 'You Are Empty: Straight Outta Kiev', and then some Cyrillic which we understand not, even though Game Developer magazine has a Russian version, yay.

All we do know is that You Are Empty is the name of a Russian developed FPS title, which includes outlandish claims on its official website like "Realistic physics engine and sophisticated AI system... Distinctive and lively characters", haw - whoa, and bizarre zombie nurses, according to the official gallery. We're scared.

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Sometimes I remember to go and look at video on the web by wandering across to Eurogamer.tv, which has a fairly agreeable, easy to use video system (albeit with ads in front of the videos, heh), and so I spotted some nice footage of Bliss Island for the PSP, a casual mini-game fest published by Codemasters.

Most interesting for geeks such as me is the fact that it's created by Pom Pom, the same folks who made Mutant Storm Reloaded, my favorite XBLA game to date, and are currently working on Mutant Storm Empire for X360 (YouTube video link looks yummy!)

Anyhow, here's the original press release for the PC downloadable version of Bliss Island - which is available for free download, albeit in limited trial version form, at places like AOL Games. Sure, it's not as hardcore as Mutant Storm, but it's still a neat indie-casual melange, and should be fun on PSP.

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[The Gentleman Nerd is a weekly column written by Jason McMaster and is dedicated to the more discerning tastes of the refined dork. Due to Jason's extreme nature, most of his columns will be subtitled 'Why I Love...' or 'Why I Hate...' - in case you were wondering.]

Tile laying. That’s right, I said it. I’ll say it again: tile laying. That’s what I have to say to all of you tough guys out there. I play a game with little wooden guys that are nicknamed “meeples” and I lay tiles on a table to make countryside. And yes, I play the occasional game of patty cake. So what? I’m proud of my Carcassonne habit. You know why? It’s because I’ve seen the face of the meeple gods, my friends, and I laughed. I laughed right in their wooden faces. I’m the one who keeps you safe.

You see, because my friends have such extreme hatred of dice and cards (Brian), or just don’t like complex games, we’ve started bringing friendlier games into the fold. Most of my games are about killing things and cackling with glee. There are a few exceptions, like Robo-Rally, but overall, we’re pretty stabby. Since Puerto Rico and San Juan have been such a hit at the house, I decided we’d give this one a try too. It’s been surprisingly successful and not nearly as peaceful as I’d hoped.

The idea behind Carcassonne is that you build cities and countryside. You do this by drawing tiles and then placing them where you can with the other tiles. These tiles are used to make up cities, roads and farms. Each tile has a place to put your little meeples so that they may make the most of their pathetic, wooden lives. They also get you points. What’s a meeple, you say? I’ll tell you. They are your wooden servants, and you must make them work.

Now, making your little guys work is pretty easy – you just put them on a piece of land, city or road that doesn’t have anyone else attached to it. That stakes your claim. Now, if it ends up connecting to something else that has people on it, then whoever has the most meeples on that feature gets all the points. If you tie, then you both get full points. Easy! Well, mostly easy. You see, there’s a touch of strategy to it, and if there’s even a touch, then that means that Brian and I are going to try to screw each other over. Oh well, there goes that “play nice” thing we had going on.

You see, whenever there’s a large farmland, every completely walled city it touches is four (or sometimes five) points for whoever controls it. This can change the entire game. So, as you can imagine, most of mine and Brian’s time is spent trying to grab that freaking farm land and I usually lose this struggle because of skullduggery.

For instance, last time we played, I was the only one trying to stop the juggernaut that is Brian’s little yellow meeples. They were everywhere, man. I kept blocking him off and using towers to take them prisoner, but it was no use. I kept trying to get everyone to understand that it was only me, and my green meeples that were stopping that evil, yellow cloud from overshadowing the land. They didn’t listen. Everyone started feeling sorry for Brian. The damned fools. Luckily, I sacrificed myself so that he wouldn’t win, even though people were actually trying to HELP him. This made my wife, Sarah, the very surprised victor.

So, basically, thanks to selfless heroes like me, you people can play a nice game of Carcassonne without threat against your freedoms. You want my meeples on that wall. You NEED my meeples on that wall. Who’s your savior now, Jack?

[Jason McMaster is a freelance writer who has written for Gamasutra, GameSpy and several other publications. He’s currently working on a few small projects and updating his blog, Lamethrower, as often as he can.]

Posted by jasonm at 2:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I've known chiptune and video game musician Jake 'Virt' Kaufman for a while now, and have been an admirer of his soundtrack work, which spans all kinds of randomness, from the excellent Shantae for GBC through Legend Of Kay for PS2 and The OC and Lumines for mobile.

Anyhow, he's just set up a new portfolio site, and in typical insane style, has decided to do demo tracks for imaginary games - over 25 songs in total! And both the made-up game descriptions and the actual tracks are ridiculously awesome, too.

Examples: 'Project Alpha Scion - Space Shooter': "It is in 2395. You are last fighter from ADVANCE CARRIER GROUP DELTA. Your comrade have all been defeated by the sinister galaxy invaders Balagar Corp. If you strive to the rebuild society, you make you travel past many worlds and stop this evil fiend his plans! Let's make avengement!!"

Here's the Fire Level music from that imaginary game, and the level music from made-up 'cute puzzler' Glorp, and the title theme for '70s cop thriller Magnum Jenkins, and - heck, you get the idea. Go check it, darnit.

Posted by Simon Carless at 9:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A few months ago, we got a copy of Issue 1 of sumptuous Australian game culture mag (and vague Edge-a-like) JumpButton - and it was really nice, actually. Unfortunately, we never saw another one, and now we've worked out why.

Due to "various reasons - some business model-related and some personal - issue two was extensively developed and planned, but never made it into print", so the editors have been posting the articles on the official JumpButton website - and very good they are, too.

The one that I personally appreciate the most is a passionate defense of Amped 3 for Xbox 360, complete with interviews with the creators, who say things like: "My idea for having all of those different genres and influences in the game was influenced by just how ‘remote control’ we are as people now." Those with long memories may recall I was similarly entranced by the flop title (developer Indie Built later closed down even, aw) after the X360 launch.

But there's plenty of other good stuff which doesn't have anything to do with my own tastes on there, including an I Am 8-Bit curator diary, and I find it astounding I've only really seen this site linked one place (randomly via the semi-dormant GameCritics). Please spread the word!

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

['A Game Collector's Melancholy' is a bi-weekly column by Jeffrey Fleming that follows the subtle pleasures and gnawing anxieties of video game collecting. This week's column looks at the eminent Panzer Dragoon series.]

Panzer Dragoon

The year is 1995 and you are walking through a department store looking for the VCRs. Strolling past a Sega Saturn demo kiosk, you spot Panzer Dragoon out of the corner of your eye. Transfixed for a moment, you watch as a dragon swoops under a strange airship, spitting bolts of energy, tearing off huge chunks of metal which tumble and collide overhead just like that dream of a plane crash you had once. Even though you left all that video game stuff in the past, you couldn’t help but be fascinated. Panzer Dragoon was very different, hinting that games, instead of being relegated to the back closet of childhood, were about to become something really important.

Created by Team Andromeda, one of Sega’s newly-formed internal development groups, Panzer Dragoon was an early release for the Saturn console. A showcase for new 32-bit technology, the game featured gorgeously rendered cinemas, a lush, orchestrated soundtrack, and sweeping, dramatic camera moves afforded by the power of real-time polygon rendering. Although a short and relatively simplistic shooter, Panzer Dragoon seemed to inhabit a living environment that existed beyond the confines of the the TV screen.

Set in a post-apocalyptic future in which the planet has been rendered unrecognizable by genetically-engineered super technologies, Panzer Dragoon was a sophisticated mix of 60’s and 70’s science fiction filtered through the visual sensibilities of the French comic magazine Metal Hurlant. The world of Panzer Dragoon was dense, alien, and endlessly compelling. Acknowledging their creative debt to European illustrators, Team Andromeda commissioned Jean Giraud (Moebius) to provide image art for the Japanese release.

Panzer Dragoon II Zwei

Panzer Dragoon was a commercial success and Team Andromeda followed with Panzer Dragoon II Zwei in 1996. Expanding on the promise of the first game, Zwei was a refinement in every sense. The game engine was enhanced to provide a smoother frame rate. The graphics were an explosion of retina sizzling color and the somber narrative was as memorable as the game play. As a shooter, Zwei was regarded as one of the finest. With elegant control and visual drama, it fully satisfied the pleasures of reflex and spectacle.

At the same time that Zwei was being developed, a smaller group within Team Andromeda began work on different game that would expand the franchise into new territory. As Zwei finished up, the entire team came together to create an unusual RPG called Panzer Dragoon Saga. It seemed strange for an action game to transition into cerebral role playing but the complex setting of Panzer Dragoon provided a rich background around which designers wove an epic tale.

Panzer Dragoon Saga

Panzer Dragoon Saga was a role playing game unlike any other. A work of true creativity, Saga dispensed with most of the standard fantasy tropes that defined RPGs over the years and instead dug deep into its own mythology to create an experience that was challenging and literate. Its game play was amazingly fun, eliminating much of the tedium that is associated with RPGs. The visuals were opalescent, almost fevered in their intensity, redolent of hashish and black light. A pulsing, electronic soundtrack underscored Saga’s oneiric vibe.

Unfortunately, circumstances were not kind to Panzer Dragoon Saga. By the time of its release in 1998, the market had shifted overwhelmingly in favor of Sony’s Playstation and retailers had all but abandoned the Saturn. As a result, Sega of America made little investment in the game’s release and with only 30,000 copies printed, Panzer Dragoon Saga quickly fell by the wayside. As Sega restructured in preparation for the Dreamcast, Team Andromeda dissolved and many of its staff joined new Sega groups including Smilebit, United Game Artists, and Artoon.

Panzer Dragoon Orta

Over the next few years, the torch for Panzer Dragoon was kept burning by fans and Panzer Dragoon Saga achieved cult status as the Greatest Game You’ve Never Played. Responding to the undiminished affection for Panzer Dragoon, Smilebit created a new game in 2003 called Panzer Dragoon Orta for Microsoft’s Xbox. Orta returned to the series roots as a shooter and utilized the new console’s graphic horsepower to push Panzer Dragoon’s hallucinatory imagery to its limits. As a bonus, Orta included a port of the Windows version of the first Panzer Dragoon game.

An Ancient Recording Device

Collecting the Panzer Dragoon series is relatively easy, with the exception of Saga. Panzer Dragoon and Panzer Dragoon II Zwei were both heavily marketed and sold well so copies should not be difficult to find. Panzer Dragoon is worth $20 and Zwei a bit more at $30. On the other hand, Panzer Dragoon Saga is extraordinarily difficult to acquire at a reasonable price. With its limited numbers and lofty reputation, expect to pay around $150 for Saga if you buy online. Be aware that Panzer Dragoon Saga contains four discs in a standard case, one on the spindle and three in cardboard sleeves.

With all Saturn games, the condition of the jewel case is very important as they are not replaceable. Panzer Dragoon Orta is still easily found at any place that sells used games so don’t pay more than $15. A soundtrack CD for Orta was released by Tokyo Pop although it is now out of print so search through used music outlets and expect to pay about $10. Completionists may want to seek out Panzer Dragoon for Windows PCs published by Expert Software, Inc. in 1997. This version is considered inferior and probably not worth more than $6.

I found my copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga at a used game store for $15. I tell you this not to gloat but to encourage everyone to put the legwork in and dig through the shops. Online auctions are not the only answer. Although the chains have long ceased buying used Saturn games, independent game stores can still be a good place to look.

Across the Pacific, a wide range of Panzer Dragoon merchandise was sold including books, soundtrack CDs, and other assorted collectables. A Panzer Dragoon OAV was produced in 1996 which was brought to America by AD Vision. Sega created a children’s Panzer game for the Game Gear called Panzer Dragoon Mini in 1996. For the hardcore, Microsoft produced a limited run of 999 white Xboxes to coincide with Orta’s release in Japan. In a promising development earlier this year, Sega of Japan re-released the original Panzer Dragoon as Vol. 27 of its Sega Ages 2500 Compilation Catalog for the Sony Playstation 2. One can only hope that some day Sega will recognize the importance of the entire Panzer Dragoon series, and give this essential piece of game history the wide exposure that it deserves.

[Jeffrey Fleming is a Bay Area book dealer and writer. More of his writing on video games can be found at Tales of the Future.]

Posted by jfleming at 11:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

RoushiMSX's LiveJournal has cooked up a fun little mini-review of Star Trek: Encounters for PS2, which he describes as "a nice bargain bin surprise" - just out, and only $15 in some places, apparently.

He explains: "It's a pretty straightforward outer space top down 360 degree shooter (Armada, Subspace, Solar Winds, Zone 66, etc) with multisegmented but straightforward missions (fly to this point, defeat these enemies, escort this ship back, destory this minefield, etc) taking place in each of the Star Trek universes, allowing you to play as the major Starfleet ships and crews in each era. Also neat is how each series in the campaign is set up in chronological order, starting with the NX-01 and moving on through the different series."

Even for a vague Star Trek geek like myself, it sounds fun: "I'm midway through Star Trek The Original Series right now and I'm really enjoying blowing the sh*t out of the Klingons. :) I've heard some horror stories of the first Voyager mission though...so...we'll see."

However, Gamerankings reveals some poor reviews from the few who've managed to get hold of it - so maybe it's good if you can see through the murk of oddness? [Via Jiji.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So, we ran a Q&A with Running With Scissors' Vince Desi over on sister site Gamasutra, and when we asked him about Uwe Boll's 'Postal' movie, he revealed: "I just got back from Vancouver, I was on set for 2 weeks. I was most happy to see that the cast and crew were highly motivated."

You may have seen some pictures from the movie set posted on the marvellous Bollfans.de recently, including images of Zack Ward (Scut Farkus from 'A Christmas Story') as the self-same Postal 'hero' - it may be that the movie is a bit of a loose adaptation of the game, we're guessing.

Well, Desi also sent us pics from what appears to be his guest appearance in the film, in which he plays, uhm, a gigantic penis mascot called 'Krotchy' (tagline - 'Only my father and my priest can touch me there'), and wrestles the director himself, Uwe Boll, who is making a cameo in his own movie! [We just called Desi to confirm this, and he seemed very happy about it!]

I fail to see how this can get any sillier, so here's the pics to prove it.

Posted by Simon Carless at 3:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Trawling Google News, I came across a gem of an anti-Second Life column from Darren Garnick of The Nashua Telegraph, clearly the leading Nashua-based newspaper that's based in Nashua, NH.

Garnick rages of the virtual world: "Clearly, I am not a visionary. Because I think Second Life is for losers who cannot achieve anything or pursue meaningful relationships in their first lives. At best, Second Life sounds like a rehab program. At worst, it is the ideal brand name for a satanic cult."

But wait, there's more: "The bizarre aspect of the game is that there is no universal objective. No bad guys to kill. No magic caves to explore. No alien invasion to repel. SL is marketed as real life in cyberspace. You can work hard, get in with the right social circles and become a Second Life mover and shaker. Or, you can dye your hair purple, get a tongue ring and whine about how this virtual society doesn’t understand you, either."

His conclusion? After an explanation of his 4-year-old son's 'virtual world' stories involving a “Kangatai” (a creature with the body of a tiger and the head of a kangaroo) and a “Tigerkang” (body of a kangaroo and the head of a tiger), he expectorates: "My biggest fear is that if I stop paying attention, my boy is going to grow up to become a Second Lifer. God forbid."

Posted by Simon Carless at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

[GameSetWatch is extremely proud to debut this latest exclusive article from veteran game journalist Joseph 'BUZZ' Berkley. 'BUZZ' really has the measure of today's gaming market, and this time, he takes on the obvious - Nintendo's big problem.]

Atari, Or Won't They?

Once upon a time, back when I was molding the fledgling game fandom to my will like a baby made of clay, the business side was simple. Atari was number one, and everyone else only sold consoles in Europe. Back then, the only arguments were about whether or not my reviews were fair, and the debate was settled by me not printing the rebuttals. Then the Japanese had to come in and disrupt everything. Now you've got a company that also makes audio speakers selling me video games, and I have to grope around like a blind man in a simile factory.

Now don't get me wrong, I love the Japanese. Nintendo saved gaming, and kept me in a job. Without them, I'd have gone back to the sign factory. And here I am, all these years later, living the dream. Thank you, all Japanese people.

Wii Won't Rock You

So now we have the Wii, Nintendo's latest foray into GLORIOUS home console gaming, and I couldn't be more excited. It's a shame the system is already doomed to wind up in the closet inside two years. You see, YOU are very stupid. You, and all the rest of us playing video games. Unless you can give yourself the completely superficial thrill of saying "Hey, you see this, doesn't it look awesome?", you'll become bored, and the Wii, which is only interesting in terms of gameplay, and I mean COME ON, will be picked up by the help and moved to the closet, along with your old mobile phones, and pot bellied pig.

As far as we're concerned, innovation that isn't graphical is essentially not innovation at all. And once those systems move into the closet, Nintendo will make consoles no more forever! Because Nintendo is going to learn what any high school kid knows - if you aren't popular, you might as well kill yourself.

Do not confuse these men.

The Short Tail!

Now, I know what some of you are saying. You're saying, in that high pitched, nasal voice of yours, "But BUZZ! Doesn't Nintendo actually make plenty of money, despite having the smallest market share?" A few of you are saying "Buzz, isn't it true that Nintendo is making a concerted effort to broaden the business beyond the usual graphics only steps forward, and focus on a large, untapped market that has been shown to care very little about the graphics race, such as the older women of the booming casual games market?"

Some of the others are saying that "even Microsoft's Peter Moore (who, regardless of what you'll hear on SOME gaming blogs is NOT the devil, despite working in marketing) has admitted that the Wii's innovations will likely bring new, more casual users to gaming." and some of you, the especially obnoxious are saying "In fact, according to financial reports in the last two years, hasn't Nintendo, despite paralleling Sony in launches of handheld and home consoles, and a dramatically smaller market share, actually made more money than Sony?"

[These reports for Nintendo and Sony [make sure to check on the Games section specifically] are fairly straightforward, while Microsoft's still buries the Xbox's actual numbers, but the fact that at no point do they claim a profit on the project is PRETTY TELLING.]

In fact, in 2006, didn't Nintendo bring in $840,842,000, compared to Sony's Games Division's loss of $233,000,000, for a difference of over $1 billion in Nintendo's favor?" To these people I say "You obviously don't know much about business."

These are a serious people.

Mario Love You Long Time

Nintendo's problem isn't money, it's popularity. If Nintendo isn't cool, people will get all embarrassed. Take Spain for example. Nintendo has never been successful in any Spanish speaking country. Do you know why? Because there is no Spanish word for "silly". The closest word is more along the lines of "asinine". So describing Super Mario Brothers as a goofy little game where a man in a silly hat runs around hopping on turtles suddenly becomes an asinine game where a buffoon named Mario acts like a damn fool. This lack of respect is why there in no Nintendo of Mexico, and instead the products are distributed by a far classier company, Motta Internacional. Motta is a name you can trust!

Epic Conclusion, Here

The Wii will probably sell out this Christmas. It's already showing up on many of the Must Have holiday lists, because the games are "innovative" and "fun". But in the long run, people will realize that Xbox and PS3 are able to deliver an image quality that Nintendo can't hope to match, largely because they didn't try.

Nintendo may be comfortable at first, performing only as a financial success, but they may eventually see they can't hang with the big boys any more in the arena that really matters: abstract conceptions of cultural worth and the ability to visually impress aesthetically shallow men aged 16-28. Game over, man, game over!

[Note: It has been asserted that the preceding essay bears a more than passing resemblance in tone and phrase to another article, reported on by GoNintendo, by Robert Summa. Any similarites are either coincidental, the result of Summa's attempts to hack into the GameSetWatch servers and read unpublished draft's of Buzz's work, or some kind of elaborate cosmic joke.]

['Berkley's BUZZ' is a regular column from veteran game journo Joseph Berkley, whose illustrious career extends from the formation of Video Game BUZZ Monthly back in 1982 all the way to the founding of seminal teen game mag 'GameBUZZ - For Kids!' in 1992. More recently, he was a regular columnist for much-loved late '90s game mag Big Important Thing, and the author of self-help manual: 'BUZZ Says - Less Drugs, More Games!' His column appears regularly on GameSetWatch, and is rarely actually true. His birthday is February 29th, 1955. He is 51.]

Posted by jberkley at 7:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (71)

Clover may be gone, but people are still talking intelligently about the company's games - people such as G.Turner at The New Gamer, who contributes a wonderful essay called 'Okami: Gorging on Excess'.

It starts simply: "Okami is a game of excess. From its sumptuous hand-painted look to its litany of collectibles, every aspect of this adventure has been worked over and added to until it's bursting at the seems with originality and enthusiastic energy, but sadly also includes some redundancy and trivialities."

There is plenty more sumptuous, wonderfully considered prose here: "Every single weapon in the game has its own unique non-combat animations: one sword has a simple array of thorns that rotate up and down the blade, while a disc-weapon stunningly & perpetually breaks apart in a dozen pieces and then reforms itself. Okami is loaded, almost bloated, with these sort of extravagances and often is better for it, weaving in character nuances and making the world feel more fleshed out and alive."

He ends: "But when the excess doesn't add to the characters, when it doesn't showcase the story or the world design, when it just causes me to mindlessly increase quantities of items I'll never need, then I can't help but remark that not all of Okami is as rich as it could have been." Deep thinking++, eh?

Posted by Simon Carless at 2:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

[Having gained a mid-week day pass from his 3DO-specific blog, 3DO Kid peers down from his lofty tower and tries to convince you to buy games no sane man would conside. Fee now to explore beyond Hawkins' dream machine, he rambles incomprehensibly on... His first 'Beyond 3DO' column discusses why the dreaded 'FMV adventure' is much more pleasant that you might actually guess.]

What you find when you delve in to the sinister depths of the just-post-SNES, pre-PSX era - the 3DO, the CDi and the CD32, is that in many ways these machines were a Frankenstein’s Laboratory of game development. The results? Well amongst the ports, the Interactive Movies, the half-baked upgrades of the 16bit library and, of cause, the handful of actually decent titles, there is an oddity of a genre that has [crack of thunder] …no name!

I call them “Pre-rendered tat”. And they aren’t any good …to play… but as eye candy, perhaps worth a second glance if and only if, you happen to be a nostalgic graphics whore like me.

[Click through for more.]

How Real Is Too Real?

Like diamonds, I believe they are the fruits of an unnatural pressure. Why so? Well thanks to hindsight, I think I can guess: At around the time these game emerged, the insane power hungry P.R behemoths toiled day-and-night to over-sell the various technologies available. Meanwhile the ray-tracing obsessed masses bayed for photorealism. Even though they probably weren’t quite sure what that was.

The only thing that could happen did. Things turned ugly. Desperate even. Demand was high. Production times slow. The technology new. All the while Sony’s Playstation and Sega’s Saturn rumour mills were whipping everyone else into either a panic-attack or, if you prefer, into terminal Z-axis suicide lust.

The game developers for lesser machines were trapped. Caught then, so it seems, between a rock and hard place. They had to make beautiful 3D games on consoles not capable of running beautiful 3D games. The solution, for some at least, was simple. Pre-render the graphics on their shiny SGI machines, take advantage of the 16bit or 24bit graphics cards in the consoles and glue the whole bally thing to something that once ran badly on a Motorola 68000.

Pretty... Vacant?

After moments of toil and years of combined rendering time, eventually – they succeeded. Focusing on graphics and not on game-play however has a nasty side-effect. They forgot the golden rule; if a game is pretty but rubbish it only amounts to pretty rubbish.

…but I’m not going to dwell on that. You see considering their age, even today, these games have an undeniably beauty. A sort of majesty. The production values and the vision shine through in my opinion. Even if the execution is a little weak. These games have some of the most marvellous pre-rendered sequences the world had ever seen and these sequences in many cases are actually integrated into the game.

Alien landscapes sweep majestically by, the pre-rendered internal organs of a man slip past and the megalopolis of Tokyo spreads out before us. Also don’t forget those times when the first 3D Star Wars walkers stomp on by on-screen. In the right frame of mind, one can almost remember the hysteria surrounding these screen shots and for moment, with a wistful glint, you can be swept along by it again.

You see – an old graphics whore like me can’t let these games simply whither in the darkness. No! Such is my want; I thrust them back into the light for people to reconsider. To enjoy. To watch through once and never play again but at least offer them a second chance. The ones below also encompass the spectre of Interactive Movie, so what you also find is the grandiose graphics are married to equally grandiose yarns…

Our Glorious Examples

Lost Eden. Probably Cryo’s finest moment - only in my opinion, of course. The game engine is borrowed from Dune, a game by the same development team. A game that met with mixed reviews, I hasten to add (screenshot-heavy review link). Free of Herbert's storyline, however, Lost Eden manages to mix an imaginative and creative mythological story, with some uniquely styled graphics and a sound-track to die for. While plagued with load-times that would disrupt a tortoise’s patience, the game does exude a certain charm.

The production values are high and while calling it an interactive movie would be a stretch – calling it an interactive young-adult story book would be fair. But it’s the graphics - they are simply beautiful. The dinosaurs, the citadels, the snowy scenery, the creepy dungeons, they are all magnificent. The hand drawn and dubiously animated characters are OK, but it is the pre-rendered game sequences that make this a nostalgic graphics lover's dream, and this is why it is first on my list.

The next I’d recommend is Creature Shock - a game by Argonaut (gallery link). It was the Doom 3 of its day. Not as smooth and playable, and despite being pre-rendered, graphically inferior but it is atmospheric. Claustrophobic in a good, unnerving way. Let down by an iffy first sequence. A sequence set in space with asteroids. And then to make matters worse, it has lousy controls. Still - the main dish of the game has you roaming caverns, shooting the living hell out of monsters. It is enjoyable! Well, to a point. Repetitive? Yes.

The game-play is trouser hem shallow, but the graphics hint at an Arthur C Clarke '2001' influence, and the story is very good. Junior cryptozoologists will enjoy roaming the maze of tunnels and witnessing Argonaut's wonderfully pre-rendered beasties. It’s worth in my opinion tracking a copy down simply to revel in the imagination – of which it has plenty. It's a game that I believe created by true fans of sci-fi with little interest in video games. Lots of vision, with no ability to execute on that vision. Perhaps given time and money… but hey - that never happened!

Cyberia. A game (gallery link) that puts the chore into sudden death. Die. Repeat. Die. Repeat. Die. Repeat. It really is the Charlie Manson of video games. That aside - those that remember it, may remember that it seems to be a tribute to the film and book Firefox, and has you pinching a top secret aircraft. It is all jolly awful until you get into the air. At this point Interplay, and Xatrix seem to have achieved what no-one else ever did- except for maybe Namco and much later Nintendo.

Heck, it's an on-rails, pre-rendered shooter, that actually seems controllable, achievable and fun. And other verbs you don’t usually associate with the genre. As your craft sweeps over the targets, the pointer moves easily and the shooting is reasonably accurate. Also, when your craft turns at the end of a run you are treated to pre-rendered flyby of a very nice, very well presented, futuristic aircraft. It’s all sown together well and is as cheap as chips on eBay to buy. How could you go wrong?

Again, given a little more execution this could have been the Metal Gear Solid of its day. Instead, today, it is the moist pre-rendered graphics fantasy of 'old man rotten crotch'. That's me.

Falling Over On Quality Street

…but they can’t all have been rubbish – can they? Erm. Well. Yes. Granted – in terms of play enjoyment, the highest level any of these pre-rendered games ever mustered was probably mediocre. Still, some are more mediocre than others. So it’s a great shame that even today on the plethora of bulletin boards and forums dedicated to retro gaming, that interest in this orphaned branch on the evolutionary tree of video games is practically non-existent.

Others of note that galloped from pre-rendered stable? Well, Novastorm. You can watch the splendid alien worlds roll impressively by for a few quid. And the urban (I can't believe I used that word) post apocalyptic graphics. Worth the money? Well – hmmm. There is no game to talk of, but the music isn't bad.

Next, I suppose? Well - you could get a copy of Microcosm and you can sit for 10 minutes and watch the delectable pre-rendered introduction. You shouldn’t trouble yourself with much more than that, though. Although armed with a cheat or FAQ you can be one of the few people on the planet to have actually witnessed the rather splendid end of level bosses Microcosm does have to offer.

An omission that some will whinge about for me not mentioning is obviously D, by Warp. It's a short-lived, cult classic sort-of survival horror - that most decent people will have played anyway. And the game was pre-rendered by a chap that went on to do Shadow of Colossus. Others may mention Hell - a pre-rendered star spangled cyber-interactive movie. That is just too slow going. …and when I say slow….geez.

Conclusion

I could go on and on.

All I'm suggesting is that people track them down. Are they games worth playing? That is debatable. It probably helps if you don’t hope for anything from the game play department. At least then you won’t be disappointed. But are they art? Stories? Experiences? Yes – undeniably. I admire the effort and the fantastic imagination. They are a small part of gaming history worth remembering, in my opinion.

[3DO Kid runs the only active 3DO blog on the internet, with the self made goal of reviewing, in one manner or another, the entire 3DO back catalogue. He's a bit crazy, really.]

Posted by 3dokid at 9:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I believe some Game Developer staffers will be at VGXPO in Philadelphia this weekend (our associates are running a neat Game Career Seminar there), but separately of that, Atari Age has revealed some Atari-related retro goodness going on at the fun-looking consumer game show.

The explain: "Atari, Inc. has teamed up with AtariAge, AtariMuseum.com, and AtariProtos.com to bring an Atari-sponsored classic gaming booth to the VGXPO taking place on October 27-29th at the Valley Forge Convention Center near Philadelphia. At this booth you'll be able to meet and talk with Atari executives, including Chairman and Chief Creative Officer Bruno Bonnell, play and buy the latest Atari homebrew games, examine, play and learn about various prototype games, and learn more about Atari's rich past."

What's more: "Awesome Arcades will also be on hand with several of their new arcade cabinets that you can try firsthand. In addition, you'll be able to sign up to win one of 100 Atari Flashback 2 game consoles being given away! " Nice to see Atari playing nice with Atari Age and the other 'keepers of the flame', here.

Posted by Simon Carless at 3:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another good article on The Escapist from Allen Varney, then - this one is about Red Vs. Blue's machinima triumphs, and the promise of the machinima scene in general, and includes a slightly awkward Cartoon Network vs. Rooster Teeth cost comparison at the start.

But from then on it's pretty much gold, with machinimartist Hugh Hancock noting of the group's significant fan base: "The impact of RvB on comedy machinima has been considerable, and on Halo machinima, huge... no one has really equaled Rooster Teeth's success. They're a medium-sized community on the web themselves, above, beyond and separate from the rest of the machinima scene."

There's a nice conclusion, too: "Often, by the time we hear of fortunes being made in a new way, it's already too late to get in. But in machinima, the barrier to entry remains absurdly low, the need for professionalism desperate. If you're funny or interesting, can voice-act well, and produce reliably over the medium term - and you don't quit - there's absolutely nothing blocking you from success."

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

More important breaking Wii news, as follows: "We, Uncle Monsterface, sock puppet rock and roll extravaganza, are releasing an online album dedicated to Nintendo, set to release in tandem with the Wii... and we thought you might find such a crazy endeavor interesting." Us? Never!

Wait, let's read on: "In addition to being a bizarre sock puppet rock band, Uncle Monsterface are a bunch of Nintendo fanboys. And they're gonna prove it... Featuring the full length songs: I'm Sorry (But Your Princess Is In Another Castle); Bring Back the Eggplant Wizard (song for Gunpei Yokoi); and MIYAMOTODE,the album will also feature short songs dedicated to the land of Hyrule (Zelda) and Samus Aran (Metroid)."

It's explained: "The album will release via snocap.com as a download-only purchase with each track costing under $1." But more importantly, Uncle Monsterface have opened for Harry & The Potters, which makes them about as geek-rock as it's possible to be in this day and age - and the early MP3 sample of 'Miyamotode' indicates that we're dealing with some extremely broken minds. Make of this what you will!

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

['Parallax Memories' is a regular column by Matthew Williamson, profiling classic '16-bit' games from the Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, and other seminal '90s systems. This week's column profiles Capcom and Sega's Brawlers: Final Fight and Streets of Rage!]

I can't, in this column, talk about God Hand (or any other excellent current game), so I figured I may as well discuss its roots. In the early nineties, brawlers (aka beat-'em-ups or fighters) weren't new; they were a heavily copied formula. Of all of them, two stand out as notable because they were major selling points in what was, at that time, a "next-generation" console war. These games were Streets of Rage for the Genesis (titled Bare Knuckle in Japan) and Final Fight for the SNES.

What these games had was the ability to punch, kick, and hit punks, rockers, and ne'er-do-wells in the face, and other body parts. The primal and visceral act of pummeling someone, especially a bad guy, cannot be matched by jumping on their heads or selecting from menus. Even adding a sword as a permanent weapon completely changes the feel of the attack in these games. That instinctive action of clenching your hand into a fist and tenderizing a body part can only be properly evoked by a direct button hit that brings your rage to life on the screen. Doing this to twenty-five baddies in about one minute only increases the sensation.

FIGHT!

Brawlers are instantly classifiable as cheesy. They're entrenched in (debatably) bad machismo action films from the eighties and late seventies, with a just hint of anime influence. No one attempts to justify why the President was captured or whether you are a bad enough dude to get him back. These are just accepted at face value and have gone into videogame (and film) history as what some people like to call "campy" or even "corny." The game puts you into the shoes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jackie Chan, Chuck Norris, and Sonny Chiba. We’re not in high-brow territory here.

And what sets Final Fight and Streets of Rage apart is … well, honestly not that much. But they are of the best in the genre, specifically the best of that era. Both have these absolutely ridiculous stories (only heightened by the full voice acting for the Sega-developed Final Fight CD), each one synthesizing about fifteen action flicks. In Final Fight, the mayor's daughter is kidnapped by the evil gang that Mayor Haggar (who is one of the playable characters, mind you) refused to "play ball" with. Streets of Rage involves a group of vigilantes who want to take back the streets from crime that has gone so far as to corrupt even the local police.

Both games have you finding food in garbage cans, fighting punks with outrageous clothing and hairstyles, and temporarily using improvised weapons to get the job done faster. The games also shared the same amount of releases per system, a trilogy for each. There was obviously some brawler-specific competition going on between Sega and Nintendo, even if Final Fight wasn’t a Nintendo property. As the series progressed, they started to come into their own a little more. FF stayed truer to its original form and remained more closely based in reality for setting and enemies. SoR, on the other hand, grew more and more ridiculous. Though by this time these trilogies and completed, most people had already chosen their console of choice, and it was probably made based on Sonic and Mario more than Haggar and Axel.

Let's Rock!

Slowly, games became more self-aware. They started to make fun of their earlier days, when they were still gaining health from turkeys found in back-alley garbage cans. With the introduction of 3-D, characters became "more realistic," and the Uncanny Valley began separating them further from our empathic desire to feel fist on flesh like we used to. In Final Fight and Streets of Rage, the brawler was at the top of its game; what happen to us gamers to make us stray from it?

It'd be hard to pin down what brawlers did to make people like them less; it's easier to point out what they didn’t do. When most gamers' tastes were changing with in the current and "next" generations, brawlers were short, repetitive, uninspired, clichéd, and corny. Or at least that’s what reviewers were saying they were after their receptive peak. So it's a real shame that when a company decides to bring this kind of game back and fix the genre's problems (well, not the clichéd and corny parts, but those are welcome to stay) with God Hand that many people are going to over look it, too.

[Matthew Williamson is the creator of The Gamer’s Quarter, an independent videogame magazine focusing on first person writing. His work has been featured on MTV.com, 1up.com, Chatterbox Radio, and the Fatpixels Radio Podcast.]

Posted by Matthew Williamson at 11:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

We just posted this up on IGF.com, and it's well worth reposting here:

"Some of you may have spotted the news on Gamasutra that the Game Developers Conference 2007 website is open for business. As part of the new offerings for 2007 is a 'mysterious' new event on the Monday and Tuesday of GDC, called the Independent Games Summit. Well, the description speaks for itself:

'Featuring lectures, postmortems and roundtables from some of the most notable independent game creators around, including many of the Independent Games Festival finalists for this year, the Independent Games Summit seeks to highlight the brightest and the best of indie development, with discussions ranging from indie game distribution methods through game design topics, guerrilla marketing concepts, student indie game discussions, and much more.'

This means that we'll have the Summit on the Monday and Tuesday (March 5th-6th, 2007), and then the Festival Pavilion itself open on the Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of GDC (March 7th-9th), meaning an excellent few days of indie content for all. We'll be rolling out further specifics on the content and inviting people to speak over the next few weeks. If you have content suggestions/ideas, please contact us - we'd love to hear about them!

[There are also two special new GDC passes to help usher this indie era in, with the IGS Expo Pass, which'll get you into the Summit earlier in the week and then the GDC Expo/Festival area later in the week, for a pretty darn affordable $275 before Jan. 31st. The IGS Classic Pass is also available for those who want to attend all the talks at GDC proper, as well as the Summit.]"

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks to UK PR gem Alison Beasley for relaying the VITAL UKR-relevant information!: "TJ Davis to guest at Richard Jacques gig during GameCity '06." The Iain Simons-organized event is looking pretty smart as it is, but now... wow.

It's explained: "As if it weren't enough that games music legend Richard Jacques was performing exclusively at the launch festival in Nottingham - today GameCity is ecstatic to announce a very special guest star at the event. During the candle-lit recital 'SEGA: A RETROSPECTIVE' Richard will be joined by none other than fellow music legend TJ Davis, thereby forming a collective of legends." OF LEGENDS, we tell you.

"Acclaimed vocalist TJ has worked with artists as diverse as Gary Numan, D:ream and Blur - although she is most renowned in the videogames world for her work with Richard on Sonic R and Metropolis Street Racer. TJ commented, 'I'm so excited to be able to perform with Richard at GameCity. Having performed all over the world with some of the greatest artists, it's a dream come true to finally be performing my videogame work in a 14th Century Church.'"

Here's the ridiculously classic TJ-starring 'Super Sonic Racing' [.MP3] from Sonic R (ta Super Sonic Sanctuary) - good lord, and the official R.Jacques concert page says it's only 5 quid to get in, too.

So really, I'm expecting all GSW readers in Europe to turn up and then send us reports. Except you, Zorg, we've intercepted your plans and will be sending Peter Moore in a ski mask to 'deal' with you.

Posted by Simon Carless at 2:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

['MMOG Nation' is a regular bi-weekly column by Michael Zenke about current events in the world of Massively Multiplayer Games. This week's column focuses on a single individual in the MMOG commentary blogosphere, a 'sidebar' column called Citizen Spotlight.]

As an alternative to my usual commentary, this week (and again in the future) I'm going to be highlighting worthy blogs that deal with Massively Multiplayer games. While even folks not overly interested in the genre may have heard of the likes of Scott 'Lum' Jennings and Raph Koster, there is an entire ecosystem of smaller sites out there well worth investigating.

Today I'm going to highlight some of the best posts from the site AFK Gamer. Foton, the anonymous blogger behind the site, is a talented writer, a funny guy, and a very jaded game hag. Read on for links to the best of AFK Gamer, a short interview with the man himself, and a very worthwhile way to waste a Tuesday.

[Click through for more.]

AFK Who?

Foton very kindly agreed to an AIM interview, where we talked about gaming, life, and ... umm ... gaming.

Michael: Hey man, thanks for doing this.
Foton: No problem. I have to patch Burning Crusade again for the 18th time, so no rush.

Michael: What is your day job?
Foton: I'm in charge of a creative team for a design house, CPA by education and training. We do product design, marketing, and advertising. We manage the product from start to finish.
Michael: Are you married?
Foton: I'm not married, but I have been in a long-term relationship for about 10 years.
Michael: Besides writing and gaming, do you have any hobbies?
Foton: Photography. I need to start ebaying to feed that hobby. And sports, too .. I'm originally a Chicago homie. Da Cubs, Da Bears, Da Hawks.

Michael: So, how many Massive games would you say you've seriously played?
Foton: I've played MageStorm, EverQuest, Dark Age of Camelot, Shadowbane, Anarchy Online, Asheron's Call (and a little bit of 2), Star War Galaxies, and World of Warcraft.
Michael: Of them, which would you say has been your 'favorite'?
Foton: Probably WoW, althogh time has fogged my bad memories from EQ, so it's a close 2nd. Each (except Shadowbane, and the Asheron's Call games) are a favorite in their own way.
Michael: Even .... Galaxies? :)
Foton: Yeah. I played SWG before the redo's, the craft and auction system was stellar. I had a great PVP group there, too.

Michael: What got you into ... MageStorm was your first game, right?
Foton: Yeah, it was. I got into it because AOL did some promo when they added games, so I tried it out. I was about 19 at the time, before Everquest came out.
Michael: Besides the promo, what was it about Mage Storm that appealed?
Foton: Well, it was a PVP capture the flag type thing, we had a group of regular players every night (none of who I knew RL) so we had some solid rivalry.

Michael: Gotcha. And when EQ came along, the group went there so you went along?
Foton: Oh yeah. Our leader kinda guy (no guilds in those days, no formal guilds) told us all about EverQuest and how wonderful our lives would be there and what server to start on and bla bla. I remember the most exciting thing to us about EQ was that we could make unique (for its day) looking characters. In MS, there were only 4 to choose from.
Michael: This was the group you stayed with through your whole run of the game?
Foton: We stayed together up until about level 30ish, then some quit, some joined other guilds. A few guys I stuck with to max level 50.

Michael: What is it about the Massive genre that appeals to you? Your 'game hag' stories make it apparent that you find drama annoying (as anyone would) so what makes you keep playing?
Foton: That's true, it is annoying. However, it's also what's so entertaining. As long as it doesn't involve me, I get a big laugh out of it. I guess that's why i prefer multiplayer to single. People watching.

Michael: What made you start the blog?
Foton: I assumed that might be one of your questions, and when I was buying steaks today, I was trying to remember.
Foton: As I recall, the SWG guild was realizing that PVP was not going to be as fun with the impending combat redo and we knew WoW was coming, so there was a month or 2 there where I had no gaming to do. My stupid friend wouldn't let me have access to his Warcraft beta, so I just started writing some of the things I remembered from past games to while away the time until WoW. I had done some game writing prior on guild websites, the Grumpy series in SWG, bla bla, so wasn't completely foreign to me.

Michael: Once things had gotten rolling for you in the game, what made you keep writing?
Foton: I guess because I want to remember some of these things that happen to me. Some times I'll read back through old things i've written and have a chuckle myself. "Oh, I remember that douchebag! Wonder what ever happened to him?" Kinda like an /ignore list, with greater detail. :)

Michael: What would you say is your proudest moment from a Massive game? The one youll be telling the grandkids about.
Foton: Well I'd have to clean up the language for the grandkids. I guess there'd be a bunch of them, all involving game accomplishments that i didn't think we could do or took for-f'ing-ever. The bard epic in EQ took me forever, was my 2nd main. First nefarian kill in WoW, first time other SWG players complained about my pvp guild on the forums. The EQ bard epic was the first time i swore in a good way in EQ. That's probably my favorite. I felt good about that for days. Now of course, I realize it would have been better to cure cancer or write a Pulitzer novel, but hell, it was THE BARD EPIC.

Michael: On the flip side (and I know there are lots to sort from here) what was your absolute worst experience in a Massive game?
Foton: Worst game was hands down, Shadowbane. Worst moment in a game i otherwise liked. Let's see ... I was level 59 in EQ and I had to be dragged away from exp'ing for a guild raid. The F'ing dragon kills me outside Temple of Veeshan (not an uncommon experience), so i lost a lot of experience. A cleric zones out to rezz me so the exp loss isn't so bad and my corpse is bugged. Too bad for me, hours of work down the EQ drain. I petitioned a GM, the whole bit, he goes 'too bad for me' and I was livid. Threw stuff, swore, searched for my EQ CDs so i could crack them in half ... We all had many such moments in Everquest, but that was the worse one for me. I never again raided when I didn't have sufficient overage on XP so i wouldn't lose level.

Michael: Okay .... so WoW is pretty much the favorite. Why is that?
Foton: Well, World of Warcraft is the true EverQuest 2, in my opinion.
Michael: Second verse, same as the first, only better?
Foton: Yeah. A more polished EQ. The same things that bugged the shit out of us in EQ (most of them), same things we loved, nicer looking pixels.
Michael: You play Alliance, right?
Foton: yep
Michael: What race be your rogue?
Foton: Human
Michael: If I recall, you hit 60 with your first character about February of 2005. Sooo...how many 60s do you have on your account now?
Foton: I have 2 accounts, one 60 on each. other characters are various level 40ish, 30ish. The other 60 is a human priest. When we don't have enough healers to raid, I get to haul out the priest to save the day.
Michael: Do you take on a role in raids, generally?
Foton: I've made a concerted effort to avoid a leadership position, I just dont dig it. I'm happier being the comic relief when we wipe, but i do my share of yelling too.
Michael: The word from the Burning Crusade beta has been that the playing feild is going to get leveled by the new loot. Do you approve?
Foton: Yeah! I think it's good. 40 man raids should not be the future. People much prefer, and it's much easier, to raid 5 man, like DM. who doesn't love Dire Maul? 25 man, I can take. Much less admin and overhead.
Michael: You going to do some house cleaning in a few months? I think guilds are going to look pretty different this time next year.
Foton: Many in the guild are getting nervous, which I love. Maybe they'll stop whining and sucking. We're just gonna let them read the writing on the wall. Team A will get into the BC raids, everyone else can sit on the wait list. I think we'll see more guilds raiding end game with smaller numbers, which is good.

Michael: Okay ... I think that's pretty much all I had. Is there anything that you want AFK Gamer readers to know, or say to them?
Foton: Yes, to the Warcraft widows that keep commiserating on my blog in that one thread .... THIS BLOG IS ABOUT OBSESSIVE GAMING, perhaps you should commiserate elsewhere! Jesus, do they not see that irony? :)

Michael: Thanks, man. Enjoy your steaks!
Foton: Take care! Keep up the good fight.

AFK Noob

Honesty is probably one of the watchwords I'd used to describe Foton's writing style. Even though he's a vet of every game between here and UO, he's still a noob like the rest of us on day one. His first day in WoW was as memorable as it was for any of us, but his first day in Guild Wars ... that's just funny.
Foton:"Is it just me or are these maps and the radar worthless? guildanswer: I dunno, but not just you. How do I get back to town? guildanswer: INSTAPORT, click the town on map! Ok, that we know. We have thrown off the shackles of virtual travel and are loving every minute of it! Good thing I have low expectations because I can safely say … this is the most counter-intuitive game since … since AO. Not good. In fact, unless my memory has completely failed me, AO had an edge in intuitive over Guild Wars. Maybe more to follow as I attempt to accomplish something (anything!?). It’s entirely possible that I could arrive at max level in this game and STILL have no idea what I’m doing."

Learn 2 Play

As an end-game raider and a veteran of most of the big Massive titles to have been released, his advice about life as a player is always well seen. At the same time, his genuine affection for the genre never makes him come off as jaded or overly cynical ... except when he obviously is. Where another person would use endless jargon and shout 'Learn2Play' at anyone not hip to the lingo, he has thoughtfully provided tooltip assistance for many of the MMOG-specific terms used on his site. Some of his practical instructive posts include protocols on teamspeak useage, why selling assets on eBay can be disruptive if you're a guild member, and the dangers of loose lips even in Massive Games. He also has tips on how to join a guild, and why you'd want to, some of the sick thinking that can go into guild recruitment, and some of the colourful characters you'll meet once you're in. Foton's not like other teachers though: he'll tell you the truth.
Foton:"This is no time for roleplaying winky dinks. You could quest your way through a tough level, you could raid your way through, you could even roleplay for the crowd. (I thought you wanted to be done?) Just grind it out. Set up in a spawn-rich camp and kill. There is no substitute."

Make the Game Right

As an old gaming hag, of course he's going to have opinions on game mechanics. As he says 'I shouldn't have to write these down', but just the same, he asks developers to play their own game, to make a travel system that works, and to, y'know, have an actual customer service system. Beyond that, of course, as a MMOG player he's honor-bound to bitch about patch notes, and question 'The Vision'.
Foton:"Further proof that World of Warcraft is EverQuest in a shiny wrapper … take a look at a partial list of the items available in the Ahn’Qiraj instances. See the books, codices and tomes? Weee, upgraded spells and skills are buried in an instance! Hurray. Because that was such a fabulous idea in EQ, it’s bound to be just as popular in Warcraft. O_O"

AFK Reporter

Most of his posts aren't so ranty, which is one of the truly enjoyable elements of reading the site. In fact, he's more than willing to share his affection for the genre with folks who can't be on hand for big events or trends. The Gnomish Warrior protest from so long ago had Foton live and in Ironforge for the event. Likewise, he was there to share with us the laggy joy of the opening of AQ on the Medivh server.
Foton: "I listened (read) the zone chat from the natives jawing about ‘ZOMG the lag is unbelievable’, even though Cow Network News has had better ping in Medivh’s Silithus than on our home server in the instances. Whatever, maybe Medivh usually has 50 ping, because I averaged around 100 in Silithus with dozens of cows milling about so Medivh must usually have the best ping on the planet."

Hag Stories

Mostly, his posts aren't ranty or informative so much as freaking hilarious. As he himself has said, the endgame is a gold mine for comedy, and he mines that vein for all it's worth. Some of his earliest posts involved the guild drama he'd seen in his EQ days. Those days weren't pretty, with do-it-yourself porn, lying, cheating, and stealing, and dissolved marriages just some of the low points.
Foton: "Few more days pass, and one of our more industrious guildmates makes a character on our Guild Leader’s home server and does some snooping around with the /who all command. Sure enough, there he be, running around the common gathering area, auctioning off the purloined lewt, which also now includes the entire guild bank. (thanks for stopping!) As our industrious guildie put it so well and so succinctly, “Wow, he really had a lot to sell.”"

Multi-part tales are some of AFK Gamer's strongest posts. After he'd settled into WoW, he became discontent with the way of the world. So, Foton tells the tale of how he and his fellow gamers went from a guild with the consistency of cookie dough to their own outfit carved out of wood.
Foton: "What a difference a year can make. Then, we were an allied little raiding guild, dependent in many ways on our allies and they on us. Now, we are the smallest endgame raiding guild on our server, still just a bunch of scrubs, only mere weeks behind the top dogs. That could change in Naxxlerammahamma — we’ll see."

Even once he was in a solid guild, the drama didn't end. An attempted insurgency led to former guildmates sleeping with the enemy. As you'll quickly learn reading through Foton's archives, that's not the kind of thing he lets stand.
Foton: "We scheduled Ahn’Qiraj 20 for the first off-raid night of the week purposely. The guild alts and recruits needed some of the upgraded books/spells in the zone and also, there’s nothing quite like free loot to shut people up when guildchat has become a bitchfest. To prove we were serious about shutting people up with free loot, the head raidleader volunteered to run the shindig, which is usually beneath him, but this was all about restoring the guild to order."

Of course, Foton himself isn't above some ... possibly questionable in-game moments himself, with money, violence, and bad manners marring his otherwise perfect record. But then, that's to be expected. After all ... absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Foton: "About three or so years ago, I was an EverQuest guide. Hard to believe, I know: how in the world did he get through Sony’s rigorous screening? and, why in the world would he want to get through Sony’s rigorous screening? Short answers. The screening was mostly: can you type and have you printed out the 149-page Guide Manual? As to the why … I was in between hardc0re raiding guilds, I was burned out and I thought it might be interesting ... "

[Michael Zenke is also known as 'Zonk', the current editor of Slashdot Games. He has had the pleasure of writing occasional pieces for sites like Gamasutra and The Escapist. You can read more of Michael's ramblings on Massive games at the MMOG Nation blog. ]

Posted by mzenke at 9:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Aha, it's time for the next GameSetCompetition, and this one is for something I picked up when I was in Japan for Tokyo Game Show - a pristine-ish Game Boy Camera in box, for all your retro several-shades-of-gray picture hilarity!

As you can see if you squint at the above picture (the camera is posed next to my Chinese WoW Coke bottle and various other weird things, yes), Superpotato in Osaka was blowing out Game Boy Cameras for just 200 yen (yep, under $2), so I really couldn't resist picking a couple up. Of course, I have one already (and used to do Game Boy Camera galleries like my life depended on it, until I lost the PC connection cable), so I don't need 'em - so a lucky GSW reader will inherit this one!

The question this time round is pretty simple:

"How many pictures can the Game Boy Camera hold in its titanically large 1 megabit SRAM memory?"

Please send your answers to editors@gamesetwatch.com any time before Monday, October 30th at 12 noon PST. There will be one winner randomly picked from the correct answers, the judges' decision is final, and that's that. Have fun!

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Our buddy Jiji ran out of stuff to post for his 'Compilation Catalog' column, so we're calling it 'A Life In Obscurity', and he'll alternate random D3 musings with compilation round-ups and other odd reviews, semi-regularly. Only on GSW! Because only we're crazy enough!]

It's not often that a Simple 2000 game has recognizable - or even mildly appealing - characters. More often than not, Simple 2000 characters simply represent archetypes or attempt to imitate well-known characters from full-priced games. But when a game in this series has characters that are so appealing that they make one want to ignore the overall quality of the game, it's clear that the developer has done something right. Such is the case with last August's release of Simple 2000 Series Vol. 105: The Maid Uniform and Machine Gun - and, indeed, there's a lot to ignore if one expects to have much fun with the game at all.

[Click through for more.]

D3 Publisher hired Rideon, developers of the anime-based Gunslinger Girl games, to develop this action game. Anime fans will probably recognize this game's setup right away: an android maid is sent back in time by her creator to rescue his young self from a kinky evil android, who's been sent back in time to capture the young master. Yuuki travels through eight levels set in mansions, European cities, and the countryside, fending off various robot foes, from child-sized female 'droids to big worker-bots.

Yuuki is charmingly animated and well-modelled, and it's pleasing to just see her running around doing her thing. She's somewhat clumsy and more than a little ditzy, so she presents a vulnerability that's almost immediately endearing. At the same time, the wide range of moves available makes her fun to watch when her player's on top of his or her game. The enemies nearly all have a very cute, rounded, and some of the larger robots recall the colorful style of the Mega Man Legends (and Tron Bonne) games.

Maid's mechanics ape Devil May Cry most noticeably, though the colorful environments and characters recall 16-bit platformers more than gothic beat-'em-ups. Yuuki carries a samurai sword in addition to the titular machine gun, and the sword can be used to carry out a few different short combo attacks. There's also a sniper rifle for slower, more powerful gun attacks, and a rocket-launcher special attack is activated by mashing L2 and R2 together. On top of that, there's a dodge that's activated with the triangle button. When it's well-timed to an enemy's attack, Yuuki dodges to one side with a flourish, and machine-gun attacks can be chained onto a dodge for a quick counterattack. Finally, there's an almost-inexplicable move called "Maid Style" that's triggered by clicking R3. It does nothing but make Yuuki pull out her broom and start cleaning, right in the middle of battle. There seems to be no purpose for it, other than to allow the player to show off a little and gain a better end-of-level rating.

These ratings give Maid a good deal of its replay value. At the end of a level, the player's performance is rated in categories like damage taken, shots fired, combo count, Maid Style, and so on. High overall ratings are the requirements for most of the game's unlockables, which include new weapons and new outfits.

Unfortunately - and here's where things start to go south - Maid's just not that fun to play at a high level. Most of the depth of gameplay the developers tried to impart is just not well-developed enough to make for a fun game. If you're not trying to conserve ammunition - necessary for a high rating in the 'bullets used' category - it's easiest to just run around a level wasting everything with the machine gun. Nothing but the bosses puts up much of a fight against that approach, and even the bosses are mostly just exercises in tedium. Most enemies only present the barest of challenges. They mostly stand around waiting for the player to attack them, and they give ample warning when they intend to take offensive action. The game's unpredictable collision detection makes matters worse when player relies on the sword, and enemies take so many hits to kill with sword attacks that going for a no-bullets clear is an exercise in tedium.

The level design is about as dull as can be: the player moves from one boxy room to another, exterminating wave after of beat-'em-up-style wave of the same enemies. The fixed, rail-locked camera is about as flaky as such a camera can be. Action sometimes ends up taking place halfway offscreen, and area transitions are often pretty jarring. Between action stages are a few Silent Scope-style sniping missions that involve knocking out enemy cars and robots approaching the young master's mansion. The control in these sections is nothing short of sloppy, and there's not much substance to them at all: just aim (when the game feels like letting you take aim) and fire. Plus, they're easily the ugliest sections of this often-unattractive game. The game is very short; its eight levels can be completed in two hours or so, which makes it an ideal length for replays. This would be a boon to Maid if the game were any fun to play at a high level.

It's a shame that a character as cute as Yuuki has been wasted on a half-developed game like this. The game imparts the impression that the developers cared a lot about their creation and tried to do well with what they had, but weren't quite prepared to bring a game to completion under constraints the Simple 2000 series brings. With this series, there's always the hope that a sequel or upgrade will allow developers to turn a flawed first effort into a finished product. Better luck next time, guys.

[Trevor Wilson is a web developer, freelance game journalist, and amateur game developer who indulges his unhealthy obsession with obscure, strange, and unique video games over at his weblog, namako team.]

Posted by trevorw at 11:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You may remember, back at TGS, we covered the chiptune concert at the D4 Enterprise booth, partly to promote the 1-chip MSX and D4's digital download services.

Well, now the company's European counterpart, Bazix, has announced the launch of a digital download platform named Woomb.net, which offers legal downloads of localized MSX titles, at prices that seem to be around 8-9 euros ($10-$11) per game - it all runs through a custom launcher, though, so I'm not sure you get get ROMs, as such.

The press release explains: "At its start, WOOMB.net already offers several titles licensed from D4 Enterprise, such as Aleste (Power Strike), the Golvellius and Hydlide series, Laydock and Zanac. "Many Japanese software producers like Compile, Microcabin and T&E Soft are enthusiastic about the network and have already joined in", says Bart Schouten of Bazix, "Our goal is to add a large selection of classic games from Europe and the USA to WOOMB.net and Amusement Center as well.""

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

['Roboto-chan!' is a fortnightly column by Ollie Barder which covers videogames that feature robots and the pop-cultural folklore surrounding them. The first column discusses how Japanese video game series Super Robot Wars actually has palpable continuity effects on the classic Japanese robots it features within it.]

We haven’t long to wait until this majestic piece of poseable plastic makes its way into retailers (in Japan). The thing is, the history behind Final Dancouga is a bit complex. Roll back to 1985 and a new super robot anime TV series is in its heyday, by the name of Choujuu Kishin Dancouga it features four mechanical animals that combine to form the eponymous Dancouga itself.

The show was different than most super robot fare, namely it being released in 1985 and not 1975 and the fact that the Dancouga didn’t appear until half way through the series (not to mention that the initial combination was a total disaster and almost resulted in the mecha’s total destruction).

Oh No, Black Wing!

The second and more controversial aspect of Dancouga was its uber upgrade. This was the Black Wing, a large and transformable plane, that ultimately was to hitch up with Dancouga and form the somewhat kickass Final Dancouga. Unfortunately towards the end of the series Alan Igor sacrificed himself and the Black Wing, leaving millions of Japanese children sitting silently aghast in front of their televisions.

As they got older, some of these children eventually went to work for a company called Banpresto and decided that it was their remit to write anime history as it bloody well should have been. Almost every instance that Dancouga has appeared in a Super Robot Wars game has resulted in the upgrade to Final Dancouga along with a menu of uniquely potent attacks, even as recently as Alpha 3 and J. To the point now that a demand for this game only version of an anime heirloom be given toy form.

Licensing is a funny beast in Japan (or in this case five transforming mechanical beasts). Super Robot Wars is a series of games that started in 1991 and was basic anime otaku wish fulfilment; place mecha from disparate series in one turn based strategy game and let them high five their way to victory. Super Robot Wars has since grown and endured off this premise and has matured into a varied and vibrant series of games.

Super Robot Geeks

The secret with this license is that each of the mecha are unique and consequently have specific attributes that can be given gameplay form. Having all the different anime series produces often hundreds of units each with vibrantly diverse attributes. In addition, knowing the anime they come from often adds to strategic planning, for instance the Ideon feeds off the destruction of its compatriots and subsequently unleashes the full horrific wrath of the Ide.

Do you knowingly sacrifice your units to awaken this horrific power or use other means to vanquish the forces of evil (consequently the Dancouga feeds of the destruction of enemy units, which is from the anime as the pilots get angrier so the Dancouga becomes more powerful, so there’s balance at work here).

Super Robot Wars also has fed itself back into the anime fold; both Mazinkaiser and Shin Getter Robo originally appeared in Super Robot Wars games before being graced with their own anime series.

Comebacks Through Robot Wars

Super Robot Wars has also acted as a catalyst for the revival of certain shows. Take Dancouga for example: you play through a game such as Alpha 3 and have the story from that series laid bare in concise chunks over the course of several stages. Follow that on with using the Cougar and laying majestic waste to a veritable robotic army and you crystallise the interest in the host work.

This then has the affect of said players going out and buying (or trying to buy, some aren't readily available these days) the series. They then go back and play the next game and understand more of the narrative references, as well as the now nuanced capabilities of that unit. Alternatively, if you're me, you buy the series and then the Soul of Chogokin toy (obviously for real world re-enactment purposes).

This wouldn't work obviously if there wasn't a palpable passion to re-create something like the Cougar in such a gameplaying context. I mean some of the 2D animation in these games is absolutely astounding and painstakingly accurate in almost all instances (it's one of the main reasons 3D Super Robot Wars games don't work that well, due to the lack of visual accuracy and finesse).

The point I suppose I have is that licensing isn’t all bad, so long as you have insightfully geeky and anime folklore obsessed enthusiasts at the helm (preferably clenched fisted cosplaying enthusiasts with a penchant for striking poses).

To finish up, it's worth pointing out that a new Dancouga series is on the way in 2007; entitled Dancouga Nova. I'm sure it won't be long until the original Cougar and the newer iteration team up in a Super Robot Wars game.

[Ollie Barder is a freelance journalist who's written for The Guardian, appeared on BBC Radio 4 and contributed to Japanese mecha artbooks. He lives at home with an ever growing collection of Japanese die-cast robot toys and a very understanding wife.]

Posted by oliieb at 1:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over at Videoludica, looks like Matteo Bittanti has interviewed German video game artist Aram Bartholl, and it's kinda fun, if a bit overly erudite.

Bartholl explains at one point: "I want to share a story about the project "de_dust" [a large number of various sized stacked crates arranged in a cluster. All the crates are printed with the same imitation wood texture from the computer game Counter-Strike.]"

He goes on: "About a month ago I received an email from Chris Ashton, a game developer of Turtle Rock Studios, who told me that he really liked my work. The funny thing is that he was the artist who created all the textures for the map "de_dust" back in the days when the mod was developed. Isn't that amazing? The guy who digitized and photo-shopped some wood pictures into a game which became a staple for an entire generation contacts me, the person who brought these wood pixels back to the real world. In other words, the circle is now complete." It's so beautiful!

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

[Another guest post, and the first in a raggedy series of 'Alex Handy Sez' missives, in which the former Game Developer editor and current Computer Games Magazine/Massive/otherstuff contributor riffs on something or other - cos we like his crazy hair! This time, he delightedly pokes at Psygnosis' Brataccas for the Atari ST.]

"Long ago, and far away, upon the Atari ST 520 I did play. And upon this merry machine I did play Brataccas.

You are Kyne. You have been accused of a crime you did not commit. On the asteroid mining colony known as Brataccas, you have come to clear your name. You've hidden your face, and assumed a new identity to unravel the strands that conspire against you.

Miners, Cops, and Ne'er-do-wells

The colony is populated with off-duty miners, tyrannical cops, and an organized crime gang, headed by a fat man in green. The asteroid is a living entity--as you play, all of the inhabitants of the colony move freely from place to place. A simple side-view gave you a 3D map of rooms to navigate, one door at a time. And it was those doors drawn lengthwise across the background that presented a real challenge to walk through.

You see, Brataccas was controlled entirely with the 2-button mouse. In those days, (1985), the mouse was still a newcomer to the personal computer, and the Atari ST and the Amiga were equipped with them. To walk left, hold the left mouse button and slide the mouse left. To walk right, hold the left mouse button and slide it right. Simple enough, right?

Well, then you have combat, which is entirely swordplay. Right mouse button, sweeping up with the mouse draws the blade. That same button in concert with sweeps to the left and right were your swings and stabs. Both buttons could force blocks, overhead slices, and defensive ducking. Everyone was armed, and drawing your sword in a room full of otherwise innocuous bystanders could spark a fight with which ever one of them felt toughest.

Exit... Or Kill?

The single hardest manuver to execute. however, was walking away from the player, into the background. The second room in the game offered a direct left exit, and one background exit, through which the rest of the game was located. In order to see all of this, you have to press both mouse buttons and push up while Kyne stood in front of the door. In the days of imprecise mouses, this task was actually quite difficult, since anything less than a straight line up resulted in Kyne drawing his sword and starting all sorts of trouble.

The police left you alone, provided you weren't wandering through their control rooms. Even sword fights in one of Brataccas' many bars were acceptable, as long as you didn't drop anyone worth a damn. The locals were worth a damn, and they were all red. One of them, however, wore a skull mask, and he was not. He was your window into the underworld of Brataccas. As he wandered along with the other locals from bar to bar, chit chatting along the way, you could follow him and study his habits. Eventually, the cartoon speech bubbles would be populated with enticing clues.

Eventually, the skull fellow will address you by your real name, even though you are in disguise. Follow him for longer, and you'll see that this skull fellow has dealings with a lizard-headed green man. Ssssssslash is his name, and crime is his game. Strike up a conversation with Sssssssslash and he'll take you off-base and into the literal underworld of Brataccas, where you can meet his boss. Said boss, however, had no interest in your quest whatsoever. He's a red herring, as is the entire large underworld.

To End Is Simple...

To win Brataccas, you must simply wander into the police headquarters near the start of the game. A few rooms in, the police-boss--who floats around on a Yoda-sized levitating disc sled-- has an office. In there, the papers that prove you were set-up are located. Take those papers back to the starting point transporter, and you win.

Easier said than done. The police attack on sight if you're in their base, killin' all their d00ds.

The initial setting of Brataccas is intentionally confusing. As is the manual. Whenever a plot point is revealed in the manual, a hole is left open. While the manual is nowhere to be found online, an example of these holes is: "Kyne has been framed. To learn what crime he has been accused of, turn to page 27."

Page 27 was always the location of these secrets, and when you finally turned to this mythical missive, "This page intentionally left blank." Rats!

A rare Psygnosis gem."

[Alex Handy can put bricks to sleep just by looking at them. He always votes Silly Party, knows where his towel is, and loves to go to the zoo and watch the monkeys make a'more. When he's sober, he blogs at Gism Dot Net. When he's not sober, he wanders around downtown San Francisco dancing for nickels.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 3:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jason Scott notes in his ASCII blog that he’s managed to get his hands on a 1980 Coleco retailers catalog – yup, that’s pre-Colecovision material, but there’s some pretty interesting stuff in there nonetheless.

Witness, for example, the radness of the 1979 hit TV game system Colortron, which features 4 Pong-like games – tennis, handball, hockey and what is one of only two computerised versions of jai alai. There’s also the “number one selling target game” of 1979, Telstar Marksman. The Marksman features an astonishing 6 games in 1, including skeet, target, tennis, handball, hockey and – you guessed it – the second of only two computerised versions of jai alai.

Personally, despite being non-videogame related, my highlight is GOOD PUPPY™, which the catalog notes “walks, sits, heels then barks for a reward”. As if that wasn’t enough, “when a biscuit is placed in his mouth, the air-actuated GOOD PUPPY™ appears to chew it, but the biscuit drops into a pouch below his chin for repeated use”. That's PS3 beating tech if I ever I heard it.

[edited by alistairw]

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

eToyChest’s Devil’s Advocate column is dealing with the whole Clover fiasco/tragedy this week, and they’re looking at it from a refreshingly logical point of view.

“Capcom were, on the one hand, attempting to nurture originality and creativity in games, and yet on the other invested the kind of money, and expected the kind of returns, that only blockbuster titles are capable of recouping,” writes columnist Luke Plunkett. “As a result, Capcom can blame, as they put it themselves, ‘extraordinary losses’ on the decision to close Clover Studio, but in reality they have nobody to blame but themselves.”

Plunkett goes on to compare Clover to an indie film studio, suggesting that Capcom should have provided them a budget befitting their arthouse style. “Had [Shaun of the Dead] received the budget of King Kong ($200,000,000)…it would have been a colossal failure. Yet this is exactly what happened with Clover when Capcom poured big-budget money and expectations into their games.”

Finally, he suggests that the demise of the studio may well have last implications for the entire industry. “Sadly, the legacy of this failure goes beyond the mere financial implications for Capcom: by confirming other big publisher’s fears about original content, Clover’s demise may have delivered a death-knell to any lingering notions that the likes of EA may start producing some genuinely creative, original games.” Sobering.

[edited by alistairw]

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Those who know me probably realize I'm a bit of a gigantic Matthew Smith fan - in fact, the article I wrote for Gillen and Rossignol's sadly cancelled book dealt with some extremely wacky mods of both Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy.

Anyhow, thus I was pretty damn hyped up with TIGSource explained that there's a completely unofficial Jet Set Willy Online in development - Tim explains it's: "The only online game that I’m mildly excited about right now... [co-author] bob posted a trailer video... to whet your appetite." Absolute genius!

Bob pops up in the comments to explain more: "At the moment we’ve got 4 game types in with a few more to come. We’ve got “race to” games, where its say, first Willy in space or to The Off License. (I’m pushing for “Choirboy”, first person up The Priests Hole, but I don’t think anyone else will oblige me on that one), First to collect amount of objects, Timed games from 5 to 45 minutes and Willy Tag (my personal favourite) where one Willy starts off pink and has to taint the others with his pinkness. The survivor wins."

[Oh, and though the article I wrote for Gillen/Rossignol never came out, Tim Edwards over at PC Gamer UK saw it and asked me to do a couple of pages on my favorite JSW/MM mods, which was duly published in Issue 165 (September 2006) in the following form [PDF link] - reproduced with PCG's permission, thanks!]

Posted by Simon Carless at 1:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

PC-centric 'all you can eat' game download service GameTap just shoved me its latest PR, for its Halloween catalog additions, so figured I would pass it on - esp. since they mention that the 22nd is the last day you can sign up for their 50% off when you sign up for a year deal.

The info explains: "Broadband entertainment just got eerie! This Halloween, Turner Broadcasting’s GameTap gets into the spirit of the holiday by featuring a number of the greatest fright night franchises ever, including “Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams” and the “Konami Collector’s Series: Castlevania & Contra""

These would be: "Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams: As part of this decade’s most indelible survival horror series, “Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams” contains all of the content of the original console version of “Silent Hill 2,” but with the PC extras. This includes the "Born from a Wish" scenario where players take control of Maria prior to her first appearance in the main game. Also included is a sixth ending to the main scenario and a minor feature that allows you to switch to a different film stock presentation."

Also: "Konami Collector’s Series: Castlevania & Contra: If “Silent Hill” is too mature for your taste, check out this E-rated 8 Bit collection of the first three “Castlevania” titles along with two “Contra” classics (“Contra” and “Super C”). These “Castlevania” vampire-slayer classics are filled with icons from horror literature and legends, such as Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, Medusa, and the Grim Reaper." What's more: "Additional Games: Also joining the network on Halloween is “Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Gold” (which includes the “Desert Siege” and “Island Thunder” expansions) and “Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire,” a timely Arcade classic from Capcom."

Obviously, GameTap is getting a bit more noticed for the Sam & Max exclusivity (a great draw!), among other things - and this new offer. For me, I think what would _really_ help them take off is if something like the Apple iTV becomes mega-popular. If they could get their service onto that with a wireless (or wired) controller, so it's super-simple to play from the living room - kaboom! Right now, even I'm drawn to the comfort of my Xbox 360 to play some of this type of content, sadly - though the PC-centric stuff works, obviously.

[Statutory disclaimer: I've been a Beta tester for GameTap for a while, and they've been kind enough to platinum sponsor the Independent Games Festival, which I'm Chairman of, this year, as part of their plan to bolster their indie content. But I post this separately of that whole fun.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

The folks at Gamezebo are very clued-in to the casual game space, and so we get a fascinating editorial named 'Crazy Competition in Casual Games', about the increasing site-exclusivity of many top titles.

Editor Joel Brodie explains: "It's no mystery that Mystery Case Files is no longer on RealArcade... The reason, according to undisclosed sources, is that RealArcade told Big Fish Games a day ago that they will no longer distribute any of their current or future titles... This follows a decision by RealArcade earlier this year not to distribute any titles from Oberon Games. Oberon, likewise, does not distribute any RealArcade titles on its network of distribution partners, including MSN Game Zone and Pogo."

Wow, so some widespread changes happening - but why? Brodie notes: "For the past two years, companies that were bitter competitors on the distribution side were the best of friends as developers. Relating this to the retail world, it would be as if Walmart were selling their branded laundry detergent at Target. It just would not happen."

He concludes of the casual game space: "The Era of Coopetition is over and the Era of Crazy Competition has begun." Press panic button now! Or not, haw.

Posted by Simon Carless at 3:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

['Game Mag Weaseling' is a weekly column by Kevin Gifford which covers video game magazines from the late '70s all the way up to right now.]

This doesn't have much to do with game mags per se, but I thought I'd update you on the status of my collection. Since I got paid for some freelance work I did long ago, I splurged a bit and bought a couple of historically important items I've been lusting after for a while. First up, there's the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics, the issue that introduced the Altair 8800 (the first really useful and successful home computer) to the world. I got this as part of a package that also included a practically mint-condition issue of "Radio & Television News" from 1952, which has enough awesome advertising to be worth a column all to itself. (Both mags were from Ziff Davis Publishing, by the way.)

Second up is Computer Lib/Dream Machines, a seminal, Whole Earth Catalog-style book from 1974 that takes a counterculture approach to the computer industry and successfully predicted such technologies as hypertext, versatile home machines, and a worldwide information network freely accessible by anyone. This printing dates from 1978 (my birth year), and I guess I'm not the only one who thinks the book is kinda neat, because the bidding on eBay went up to a figure I'm a little embarrassed to admit. (You can go search for it if you're really curious. I ain't telling.)

Enough bragging for now, though -- let's take a look at all the game mags that hit US store shelves in the past two weeks. The biggest surprise this month: Apparently nobody's reviewing Bully or GTA: Vice City Stories early. Did Rockstar turn everyone down, or was it the other way around?

[Click here to read further.]

Computer Gaming World November 2006 (Podcast)

Cover: Alan Wake

As discussed at length last week, this issue of CGW is special for several reasons, the chief one being that this is the last issue ever of the longest-running game mag still alive. Snif. Sure, it'll be back next month (as Games for Windows: The Offical Magazine) with the same staff and largely the same content, but it still feels like the end of an era somehow.

CGW's staff obviously realized this, because they took eight pages out of the last issue for a final, ultimate retrospective on the past 25 years of publication. It consists of two parts -- a spread of 18 covers that defined their era (from Ultima IV to The Sims), and four essays from the four past (and current) editors of CGW: Russell Sipe, Johnny Wilson, George Jones and Jeff Green. All four are absolute must-reads if you're interested in CGW's tumultuous history (and yes, it was pretty tumultuous, especially in the pre-Ziff era). It's not until you go through them when you realize that while CGW was a pretty low-key mag for much of its existence, it was still one of the few constants in an industry that changed wildly not just from year to year, but month to month.

Retrospective features are easy to write and fun to read, but it's rare to find one with as much depth as this one.

As for the rest of the magazine: To be honest, I think the Alan Wake cover looks a little busy and lifeless -- it may have been better to stick to a single shot, like the picture in the table-of-contents page with Alan framed by a beautiful sunset. Still, the feature's quite nice, all written in a crazy first-person perspective as "Alan" discovers a car accident, finds himself in Helsinki, and runs into the kind folks at Remedy Entertainment. Interesting features always beat boring features.

News pieces include a bit about the necessity of violence in video games, as well as a feature on Chinese gaming and outsourcing that has possibly the best symbolic insert illustration I've ever seen -- a bald eagle looking somewhat concerned as it presides over a nest with two baby Asian dragons inside.

The letters section: Is a huge treat this month, as some people took the feature two months ago about the Middle East game-development scene the wrong way. "Never before have I been so motivated to express my extreme disappointment with a magazine as I am today," fumes one. "I don't think you know your target audience very well. Either that, or you've officially and openly joined the political left," whines another. This issue is nostalgic enough as is, but all this rage on the letters page also harkens back to another age -- a time 15 years ago when readers would (sometimes literally) curse off CGW about anything and anything that bothered them about the mag.

There is also a letter from a "Jack Kahn" who starts out by claiming "I am not a furry" then spends about 500 words telling CGW to stop picking on the furry community. Mm hmm.

Electronic Gaming Monthly November 2006 (Podcast)

   

Cover: Some army dudes (x2)

This month's EGM is also something of a turning point, as the mag readies a large-scale redesign for the December issue. Kind of a shame, really -- I'm going to miss that really weird curly "T" in the font they use now for coverlines.

The November issue offers a choice of covers depending on which species of Gears of War hominid you'd prefer to see curb-stomped -- human for mamby-pamby environmentalists, or Locust for real American men. The feature inside goes for 14 (!) pages as Shoe visits Epic and gets his arse handed to him by Cliffy. While the screenshots are as gray and dark as you'd imagine, the designers got around this by including a bunch of spiffy time-lapse photo sequences that effectively show off the game's visceral graphics in action.

Other exclusive bits: Include a preview of Sony and Factor 5's Lair and some new info snippets from Heavenly Sword.

That coverline: You know, the one up top that says "How one kid got a videogame job by being good...at videogames". EGM's got a history of occasionally printing offbeat coverlines like this (I still remember the "PEE TO PLAY" cover from 2003), and this one is pimping a spread on Andy Gentile, a designer on the Tony Hawk games who got his job by living out the teenage dream of beating the developers in online THPS3, then getting hired as a beta tester for the summer at age 16.

The back cover: May be a first for EGM, because while it is a game ad, it's for a PC game -- namely, free Korean MMO MapleStory. Nexon didn't put ads for MS in CGW or PC Gamer this month, so you have to wonder why they were so eager to get on the back cover of a mag that'd never ever cover their game in a million years.

Hater of the Month: Jennifer Tsao for her 3.5 (Touch Detective) and two 6.5s (Magical Starsign and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon).

Game Informer November 2006

Cover: Dark Sector

Do you remember Dark Sector? No? Well, does the two-year-old headline "Indie developer announces first game for Xbox 2 and PlayStation 3!" ring any bells? Yes, it's that game -- and developer Digital Extremes has convinced D3 Publisher that they're still all the business, although the game's still not due out until fall 2007.

The 10-page feature is far more interesting than you'd expect because it devotes so much time to the project's history -- everything from the initial 2004 announcement to the shift in visual design that delayed the game to near-oblivion. There's a lot of backstory behind this feature that makes it fun to read, but personally I was most impressed by the hero's weapon, which looks exactly like the Glaive from top '80s fantasy flick Krull. Right on!

GI News: The best news section in game mags kicks off with 12 pages on the Tokyo Game Show (compared to Jack in EGM), covering all the top hits and making liberal use of Cooper Black (my favorite font!) in the headlines for some reason. It continues with a spread on "the top 10 cult classics of the 21st century" (Shenmue #1? Psssht! Please!) and bits on the art behind God of War and THQ's business practices. GI also has a Gears of War spread of its own, this offering only four pics and a whole lotta CliffyB quotes.

PC Gamer December 2006 (Podcast)

Cover: Medieval II: Total War

Merry Christmas, I guess! The "December" issue of PCG is all about Medieval II -- a game I will freely admit to not giving two bits of a sow's ear about, but if you do, you'll probably dig the seven-page review treatment it gets this month.

Review surprises: PCG really loves Just Cause, giving it 93% and calling it "the James Bond action-fest for the PC that we've been craving." It seemed like the console outlets were a lot rougher on the game. Not so lucky is Bad Day LA, which gets 20%. (CGW's review had better quotes, though. Example: "Bad Day's idea of social commentary would elude even the Farrelly brothers."

Strategy surprises: In a suspiciously GamePro-like move, this issue has a six-page except from Prima's official Battlefield 2142 strategy guide, a bet of pseudo-advertorial that seems so out of place in PCG that they don't even mention the section in the table of contents.

Similarly out of place: An interview with Hilary Duff (?!) for The Sims 2: Pets. Jeez, I better check to make sure I'm not reading GamePro by mistake.

Essential reading?: The news piece on Goozex, an online game-trading site that aims to take the place of retailers who no longer buy back used PC games.

Play November 2006

Cover: Lunar Knights (not pictured) or Army dude

Play hasn't shown up on newsstands yet, so I don't have both covers at the moment. I'm definitely going to track down the Lunar Knights issue, though, and not just because I worked on the game's localization -- this title (which only the most hardcore of Nbots seem to care about at the moment) has a ton of neat art behind it, and that's more than enough for Play to make a crackin' good feature out of. The Crackdown feature's a lot more subdued but no less visually interesting. Play has a knack for extracting the most vibrant screenshots out of developers -- I bet they'd manage to make even Gears of War look colorful.

TGS: Play's got arguably the nicest-looking coverage out of all the mags, although the 10-page feature is primarily a screenshot gallery.

Odd pt. 1: An advertorial spread for Final Fantasy V Advance that looks almost exactly like a typical Play spread. You wouldn't notice unless you took a close second look at it.

Do you like posters, son?: This month must be Play's poster issue or something, 'cos there're five of them inside -- one each for GTA:VCS, Medieval II, Xenosaga III, Warhammer: Mark of Chaos and .hack//G.U.

GamePro November 2006

   

Cover: One of three sweaty men or the erudite, charming Tracy McGrady (Level-2 edition)

GamePro is available now on newsstands, but if you think I'm gonna shell out for all three covers of a wrestling game, man, you've got several hundred other thinks comin'. (The other covers are John Cena and Triple H, if you're keeping tabs.)

Features: This issue is list-heavy, to say the least -- top 20 cool missions in GTA:LCS (yes, LCS, not VCS); top 50 memorable game moments (#1 is "Aeris dies"? Psssht! Please!); and top 20 quests in Oblivion. There's also a PS3 buyer's guide that spends a page discussing how much you'll get burned by taxes on the system depending on where you live. Erm, thanks? I dunno, I'm pretty sure most consumers are pretty aware of what the sales tax is where they live, but...

Odd pt. 2: There's a Final Fantasy XII preview when every other mag (including Hardcore Gamer and -- yes -- Newtype USA) is reviewing it this month.

Hardcore Gamer November 2006

Cover: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

Now this is a bit of a surprise. You'd think every other magazine but Hardcore Gamer would be falling over themselves to have a Rockstar title (either VCS or Bully) on the cover this month, but here it is on HCG alone -- and in a special crazy color-embossed printing, too. The feature is actually pretty cool too, coming complete with a "fan" interview with the associate producer where all the questions are posed by (I'm guessing) forum posters.

Odd pt. 3: Hardcore Gamer hardcore hates on FFXII in their review, giving it 4 out of 5, but the strange thing is that nothing really bad is said about the game other than the pedestrian story. Huh.

[Kevin Gifford breeds ferrets and runs Magweasel, a site for collectors and fans of old video-game and computer magazines. He's also an editor at Newtype USA magazine.]

Posted by Kevin Gifford at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The most enjoyable Japanmanship blog, which chronicles a Western game developer hanging out in Japan, and he's posted about the differences between games in the two regions - as he says: "There is a law that states anyone with a blog... must, pro bono publico, write an editorial" on the matter.

I particularly appreciate this: "Often weird little games like Tokyo Bus Driver or Densha de Go appear in Japan and are looked upon as examples of whacky creativity. They’re not, though; they’re simple wish fulfillment games. Becoming a train driver is still regarded as a dream job by many children (and fathers with unfulfilled dreams)."

The conclusion reached? "I’d say that as a developer you can and should put in certain elements to attract other markets but if you plan to make a fully Japanese game it will be difficult, though not impossible." So, yep, a certain amount of mutual exclusivity here.

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I, Mario is the brainchild of Shael Riley, a New York office temp and musician, who has previously contributed tracks to OC ReMix. The “game” is an overtly realistic re-imagining of Super Mario Bros., which Riley originally wrote up on the OC ReMix forums “just for jollies, really”.

The concept proved so popular that it quickly became the most viewed thread on the forums, and a Yahoo! group was formed to facilitate further discussion of ideas. More recently, an I, Mario wiki has been started.

Riley has since left the project to others, though. “There's a Wiki now?” he says when asked about the latest development. “I didn't even know!”

However, he seems flattered that the project is continuing, noting that he feels like he “tapped into a common fantasy, completely incidentally” when he write his initial proposal.

He’s also playing “a big show” with nerdcore favourites MC Frontalot and Optimus Rhyme on Saturday October 21st – that’s tonight - at Crash Mansion in said New York City, for anyone able to get along.

We contacted Riley via email to ask about I, Mario’s beginnings, and his feelings on where it’s going now.

Where did the idea for I, Mario come from?

I'd been playing a lot of Resident Evil: Outbreak in 2003 and 2004, and one day it dawned on me that the primary distinction between a horror game like Resident Evil and an action game like Super Mario Bros. was each game's treatment of violence; that is to say, the more realistic a game's treatment of violence, the more horrific the game is.

While their treatments are diametrically opposed, with Resident Evil: Outbreak allowing your character to become crippled, crawling on the ground and slowly dying while remaining playable, and Super Mario Bros. responding to your character's presumable immolation as he is engulfed by a swinging chain of flames by either shrinking him, while keeping his body otherwise intact, or changing him into a little sort of jumping pretzel who falls comically off the bottom of the screen. Both games place players in an environment in which every encountered creature's intention is to assault and kill the player's character; the thing that makes the games so different, regarding matters of theme and mood, is each game's respective treatment of violence.

To illustrate this, I did an imagery-heavy write-up of a version of Super Mario Bros. that gave violence a realistic treatment.

Why work on something like this?

I never intended, and still do not intend, to ever actually work on developing a game from the write-up, though several enthusiastic parties have taken it upon themselves to do just that, and I'm flattered that they're trying to give my idea form.

How well does a realistic re-imagination of Mario work, do you think?

I think it works very well. We have surreal horror games--Silent Hill, FEAR--set in other-worldly realms, or not-normally-accessible parts of our world that are populated primarily, if not entirely, by nightmarish aliens possessed with a single-minded desire to attack and kill your character. I think that's pretty similar to the mushroom kingdom. Imagine going through world 1-1 in 3D third-person, with Mario and his opponents depicted as realistic creatures that breathe, bleed and scream when harmed?

The consequences of stomping on a turtle change form Mario bouncing triumphantly off the thing's back, while its head and feet disappear sheepishly into its shell, to Mario grunting and he strives to drive his foot through bone and cartilage, while the turtle thrashes and screams, ground underneath the work-booted heel of the weighty plumber.

How would you describe the mood of I, Mario?

Abject, alien terror. The original game establishes a setting that cannot be reasoned with, a place in which the first, last and only recourse of our displaced hero is lethal force, administered by his bare hands, or feet, as the case may be. If the only consequences of that force are a tinkly sound effect and a few thousand points, then that's all well and good, but what happens when violence, and the world's inhabitants, are treated realistically.

Killing becomes no casual course of action, and weighs on the character's--and the player's--conscience. The same goes for being killed; I don't think we want to see Mario slowly lapse into a coma after a hammer brother cracks the back of his skull open.

How could gameplay be different to that of regular Mario games?

I'd want players to feel every blow, so I'd propose a system that allows for specialized ways of attacking each foe. For example, after rising your foot to stomp on a koopa trooper, you might rotate an analog stick while the controller vibrates to grind your foot through the unlucky tortoise's skull. If you don't do it fast enough or with the right amount of force or rhythm, the koopa could shake you off and deliver horrible lacerations to you with its teeth, while you're prone. An emphasis would have to be taken off of jumping, I'm afraid, as a realistic tone should be established; gameplay would reflect that tone.

It seems that the question of how Mario reaches the Mushroom Kingdom is one of the more difficult ones to figure out – what ideas are being suggested?

It's been a long time since I've kept up with the plans of the several development groups who are, or were, planning to make I, Mario into a game, so I really couldn't tell you. In the early game design documents that appeared on the original thread in the OverClocked ReMix forums, I believe Mario was washed down a pipe in the New York City sewer system, while working during a torrential downpour.

What are your favourite elements of the concept so far?

I'm happy to see the enthusiasm that a realistic treatment of Mario evokes in so many people. I think this has to do with our deep-seeded love of Mario, established in our childhoods, clashing with our having become considerably more jaded adults. By coming our adult understanding of the world with our childhood wonder, we're able to experience Mario in a whole new way: as a surreal, if whimsical, masochistically enjoyable nightmare.

What have been your favourite pieces of concept art so far?

There have been so many! I'm sure I haven't seen all of them at this point, but I remember seeing a drawing of Princess Peach Toadstool with her dress torn, her face bruised, and her shoulder raked by a five-pronged claw, after she'd been captured by Bowser. I think that really captures the essence of the concept; a kidnapping, performed by physically overpowering the victim, as is presumably the case in Bowser's kidnapping of the Princess, is a horrifying thing with physical and emotional consequences that long outlast its victims rescue, if a rescue is performed at all.

Posted by alistairw at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

The indie-loving folks at PC online store/community Manifesto Games have announced a fascinating-sounding IRC chat sponsored by them, and taking place next Wednesday.

It's explained: "We all love games, but it hard enough to agree on what makes a good game without bringing art into the discussion. And yet, that's just what Manifesto Games will do this coming Wednesday, October 25 at 6:00 PM PST. The newly launched, maverick independent game site will host and sponsor a panel discussion on video and computer games and their relationship to art."

But who's jawing about it? "Panelists include influential author Henry Jenkins, Danish academic Jesper Juul and game designer Eric Zimmerman, and the chat can be accessed at IRC.freenode.net, at the channel #gamesandart. It's also "...expected to be the first in a series of IRC panels Manifesto Games plans to offer" - looking forward to more!

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For some reason, I was poking around Ragnar Tornquist's blog the other day (he being the creator of notable Funcom games including The Longest Journey and Dreamfall), and spotted a v.fun eBay auction reference.

Believe it or not, Funcom marketing, back in September, were auctioning off Conan's gigantic ceremonial throne, created to promote the company's forthcoming single-player/MMO hybrid Age Of Conan - starting bid just $500, though at 1400 pounds, including crates, it might be a little pricey to ship!

They explain the item: "The official “Age of Conan” throne, created and designed by McFarlane Toys –fashioned after their KING CONAN OF AQUILONIA, deluxe boxed set. The throne made it’s debut at the 2005 E3 convention in Los Angeles and has been on display around the world to promote Funcom’s upcoming game “Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures”.

In any case, the tragedy appears to have been that the auction was finished prematurely with no winner: "The seller ended this listing early because the item was lost or broken." Do you think Funcom lost the throne behind the couch, or did Arnold Schwarzenegger slip in and make them an offer they couldn't refuse?

Posted by Simon Carless at 2:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We just got a note from Wired's games editor Chris Baker, explaining: "Wired just unveiled our presence inside of Second Life: From 4-7 pm PST this Saturday [tomorrow], we'll be hosting an open house at our presence in the game."

What's more, there's musical accompaniment: "Mike Relm, The Kleptones and Planet Boelex will be spinning. Please stop by before you head out for the evening! (If you're east of California, just cancel your plans and sit at home in front of the computer!)" [Full disclosure - Planet Boelex records for my CC-licensed online label Monotonik, and I helped set up this peculiarly virtual gig for him]

Oh, and the article explains: "You will notice that our virtual offices bear a striking resemblance to the innards of a computer. You'll probably wonder whether our brick-and-mortar offices also resemble circuit boards and have gigantic serial ports sticking out the back. In fact, no, our real world habitat is much more quotidian – a cubicle is a cubicle is a cubicle. But when we commissioned the highly inventive virtual architects at Millions of Us to create the Second Life Wired Offices, we figured, why let Newtonian physics get in our way?"

Fun, though I wonder what people will think of this in 10 years - true metaverse predecessor or forgotten backwater?

Posted by Simon Carless at 9:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

['Cinema Pixeldiso' is a bi-weekly column by Matt 'Fort90' Hawkins that spotlights movies that are either directly based upon or are related to video games, with an emphasis on the obscure and the misunderstood. This week looks at two very different approaches toward the same subject matter, Super Mario Brothers.]

Previously Cinema Pixeldiso featured 8 BIT, a documentary that focused on artists who used video games as a source of inspiration, and even tools. One such individual was Cory Arcangel who takes NES cartridges and alters the information printed on them; the one example that most people are familiar with that he's most famous for is Super Mario Clouds in which all the information in a copy of Super Mario Bros was erased with the exception of the clouds, and was also featured in the documentary.

But a similar piece that wasn't highlighted was Super Mario Movie, in which Cory along with several artists hacked a SMB cart to produce a 15-minute movie using just the original assets from the game to tell a story. And what exactly is this tale? Arcangel described it as: "Mario's world [as it's] falling apart. Like Mad Max, but in 8bits."

[Click through for more on molto Marios - including handy screencaps!]

Mario Movie #1: SUPER MARIO MOVIE

The "movie" features Mario traversing his familiar fantastical haunts, but things are indeed falling apart, with all the graphics and even the sounds messed up. Everything is meant to illustrate a video game world that’s deteriorating due to age (and the result is not that different from booting up an old NES game that needs to be removed from the system and blown in). Events are loosely tied together via broken game speak, reminiscent of the good old days or bad translations.

At a certain point, Mario comes across a blue Goomba (btw, it’s worth noting that Mario is actually sporting his brother’s colors at times) and is taken to... a rave. The true highlight of the movie, the rave scene isn't brilliant due to the concept but in its execution; the action is a bit hard to describe, though I will say it's more Pong than Mushroom Kingdom (with a tinge of Yars' Revenge), and Mario being merged with some other game, one that is relatively primitive, is rather fascinating on a historical and metaphysical level, and makes wonder of Mario's place in "the order of things", though its not known if Arcangel and his crew went for such a statement on purpose. The important thing to know is that the piece does an excellent job of playing with and adding some meaning behind one’s conceptions of “messed up” graphics, with the most effective moment behind the long pause in the action at a certain point, which makes wonder if the game had crashed (perhaps it almost did for real).

But is Cory Arcangel the first person to play with the notion of who and what Mario is, and on such an experimental level? No! That honor goes to Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton, the directors of the live action Super Mario Bros movie from 1993.

Mario Movie #2: SUPER MARIO BROS

Hailing from the UK and backgrounds from the music videos (as well as work on the Max Headroom show), both directors sought to create something out of nothing, or at least from something solid from that which seemed too flimsy to be a premise of a live action movie. That being the "story" of a pair of plumbers that stumble across a magical land called the Mushroom Kingdom in which they must rescue a member of its royalty from the clutches of a large dragon-type bad guy. Ultimately, a literal translation might not have been the best course of action; after-all, millions of kids across the world had no problems with the premise as they played the game. But instead Jankel and Morton decided to stick their necks out and attempt something different, something daring. With the end result is one of the biggest embarrassments, as well as the very first, in the hallowed hall of movies based on a video game.

The live action movie starts off with an explanation of how dinosaurs ruled the earth 65 million years ago, until a meteor arrived and seemingly wiped them all out. But in reality the impact created a parallel dimension in which the surviving dinosaurs evolved in a similar fashion as apes did on our earth. It then immediate cuts to a rainy evening in Brooklyn 20 some odd years ago and a woman dropping off a basket at the front steps of the church. Nuns take it inside and they discover an egg enclosed, which immediately begins to hatch, with a human baby emerging in the end. All that in just the first four minutes (and twenty five seconds) of the movie!

We then skip towards present day and are introduced to the Mario Brothers, a pair of down to earth Brooklynite plumbers that are barely scrapping by, primarily due to the shenanigans of the dirty businessman Anthony Scapelli, who also happens to be giving Daisy, a rather young and cute female archeologist a difficult time. It isn't long before one of the Mario Brothers, Luigi, encounters Daisy and is instantly smitten, so they go out on a double date with Luigi's brother Mario and his lady friend Daniella. The evening goes well, so Daisy takes Luigi to the site where she's excavating for a new breed of dinosaur bones when Scapelli's men appear and attempt to ruin the site. Mario is called in, and both and Luigi are able to fix the damaged pipes, but in comes Iggy and Spike, two bumbling hooligans who are obviously out of towners that kidnap Daisy (who also just previously kidnapped Daniella as well). The Mario Brother naturally gives chase, which takes them to a foreign city in the aforementioned alternate dimension populated by people that are evolved from dinosaurs.

It's not long before we discover that the entire place is run by Koopa, who's also the guy that's behind Daisy's kidnapping, since she's apparently a princess; Daisy, who grew up an orphan with no knowledge of her family, is actually the daughter of the former rulers of this land, and she also holds a key or sorts, that being a shard of crystal from the meteorite that caused the splitting of the dimension all those millions of years ago. Besides being the only object Daisy has from her unknown past, if reunited with the meteor, the shard would merge the two dimensions, which Koopa aims to do, along with taking over the mammals' world. And thus the rest of the movie follows the Mario Brother as they try and get Dasiy back as well as deal with the brave new world of dinosaur folk. For the most part they all look like regular, everyday people from our Earth, unless they are "de-evolved" into an earlier, more primitive (as well as more dim-witted) state of being by Koopa, which he uses as a means of crowd control. It's actually how he amasses his army; each soldier is known as a Goomba (so they are not evil mushrooms like in the video game, just big dumb dinos in the movie).

Everything is rather weird, confusing, and sloppy. Yet it's all so oddly compelling and never boring. The re-envisioned Mushroom Kingdom feels just like Mad Max (much like Cory Archangel's stab at fleshing out the Mario-verse), with a bit of Blade Runner and Big Trouble in Little China thrown in. Aside from the rather boring and out of place car chases and disco dance scenes, there's numerous references to the games, along with many creative liberties, some of which are rather cute, even amazing, at least looking back, and some just plain make zero sense.

The strongest part of the entire effort is the cast. Bob Hoskins plays Mario Mario and John Leguizamo plays Luigi Mario (yes, this was the first official attempt to confront the fact that Mario is both a first and last name for the famous brothers, and no, there's no real explanation given), and both do a fairly good job with the material they are given. Hoskins basically reprises his Eddie Valiant character from Who Framed Roger Rabbit as someone who's gruff but lovable, and Leguizamo is more than adequate as a the happy go lucky kid that has a lot of faith and just wants his girlfriend back. But the real star is Dennis Hopper as Koopa, who is also basically doing the same character from a previous movie, which in Hopper's case is Blue Velvet, but more PG-13 than R, along with a dose of bad dinosaur jokes.

Another new to aspect to a familar character is how Koopa is a clean freak and germ-phobic; the entire city is run by mold and fungus (it is the Mushroom Kingdom after-all), which is actually the King of the Mushroom Kingdom, but highly devolved. Later on, he becomes a man again, and is portrayed by... Lance Hendriksen! Mojo Nixon plays the part of Toad, whom Mario players might recall as the tiny little mushroom guy. Here he's a folk guitarist that gets transmogrified into a simpleminded Goomba. And Samantha Mathis is also fairly serviceable as Princess Daisy... again, given the wonkiness of the script, one can't expect too much, though the scene in which she is reunited with her dad in fungus form is rather heartwarming.

But some might be wondering, what's with Princess Daisy? Why not Princess Toadstool/Peach? It is funny how the filmmakers, or scriptwriters, or Nintendo, or whomever decided to go with Daisy (which educated Mario fans know as "the other princess" from Super Mario Land, who's from Sarasaland, not the Mushroom Kingdom) and have her be the love interest for Luigi, especially since only recently has Nintendo made them an item of sorts. There's also a scene in which Mario has to slide down an icy tube, which is also somewhat reminiscent of Mario 64, but again, that could just be another coincidence. But anyway, why also is Mario's girlfriend Daniella, and not, say, Pauline, which was his original girl from Donkey Kong?

And yet there's enough sly in-jokes and references to prove that the filmmakers were familiar with the source material, such as how when Mario and Luigi first try to operate a hijacked car, the screen is exactly what Mac users are used to when booting up a machine that cannot find its system folder, but in this case its a block with a question mark in it. Or how all the bad guys basically shoot fireballs. Or their de-evolution cannons are simply re-painted Super Scopes. Or how the stompers, which are the super powered boots that allow the Mario Brothers to jump great heights and distances use cartridges that look like Bullet Bills. So maybe the filmmakers were indeed just throwing things into a large pot all-random like after-all... though Bob-Ombs do appear in the movie much like they do in the games.

Yet again, there's Yoshi. One primary reason why Super Mario Bros was such a failure is that it was supposed to be a kid's movie, but it really wasn't. Take Yoshi for example: in the video games he's a totally lovable and very cartoony looking dino that you just want to hug. But in the movie he's very realistic looking, and at times scary. The first time you see Daisy together with Yoshi on-screen, you will swear that he was going to bite her hand off at any moment.

Plus there's other little things, such as how when Mario tries to free all the other women who were kidnapped from Mario's dimension, including his girlfriend, one of the girls is seen with a cigarette in her mouth in practically every since shot. Not to mention the whole thing just gets weirder and weirder by the end. Another prime example is near then end when Mario and Koopa are temporarily sent to Brooklyn and Koopa de-evolves Scapelli, which leads to the movie's best line: Hopper saying with happiness: "Monkey!" This is immediately after Koopa's girlfriend, who earlier was almost eaten by Yoshi and retaliated by stabbing him in the neck, is violently electrocuted and killed (and not too long before that, the Mojo Nixon Goomba is set ablaze by his dimwitted brethren). Plus Koopa's HQ, which is supposed to look like the World Trade Center buildings but destroyed, which in this post 9/11 world is rather eerie.

Final Score...

So is the live action Super Mario Bros movie good? The answer is not really, but much like another Cinema Pixeldiso featured film, Resurrection of the Little Match Girl, it's a bad movie that also happens to be pretty interesting, with bits of genius shining through. And just as valid an artistic statement as the hacked Super Mario Movie in a certain sense, just not as understood. Maybe. In the end, the world is just find with two attempts at creating a film from the Marioverse. Though the world also might be in the need for at least one featuring the fantastic world of Dig Dug...

[Matt Hawkins is a New York-based freelance journalist and Gamasutra contributor. He also designs games, makes comics, and does assorted “other things.” To find out more, check out Fort90.com.]

Posted by at 4:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Twin Galaxies is reporting the rather sad news that Doris Self, the 'world's oldest competitive gamer', has passed away at the age of 81 following an auto accident.

According to the obit: "Doris first gained notoriety in 1983 when she achieved a world record score of 1,112,300 points on the classic arcade game Q*Bert during Twin Galaxies' 1983 Video Game Masters Tournament, an event that was conducted for the Guinness Book of World Records. She was 58 years old then, the oldest person up to that time to capture a video game world title"

What's more: "To Doris, Q*Bert was more than just a game; it was therapy. According to Ann Ennis, Doris' sister, Doris would play Q*Bert five nights per week from 1-3:00 AM in the morning as an alternative to taking pills for sleeping. And, on the last night of her life, it was no different. Ann Ennis heard Doris playing for hours, practicing into the night." In her final years, she was chasing the regaining of her Q*Bert world crown, but sadly didn't quite make it, aw - but sounds like she had a real blast trying. [Via RetroBlast.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Semi-via the mercurial Jiji, we ran into the Insomnia.ac Japanese game blog, which is delightfully well-written and geeky (looks like the blogger is a SiliconEra contributor.)

In any case, one particular post, on Japanese arcade IC cards, is particularly informative/fun - it's noted: "Now covering arcade gaming in Japan means IC cards, and lots of 'em. Since Sega demonstrated how useful (and lucrative) they can be with Virtua Fighter 4, the cards have been steadily increasing in popularity among developers, to the point where now roughly half the new games support them."

A big load of cards, for "Ghost Squad, Virtua Fighter 5, Wangan Midnight: Maximum Tune 2, Half-Life 2: Survivor, Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection, Mario Kart Arcade GP and Power Smash 3" are then shown, and it's explained: "The cards may not be revolutionary, but they have now become essential to the arcade industry, because the new games are built from the ground up to take advantage of them. How exactly they go about doing that in large part determines the extent of each game's success or failure." Also check the blog's other entries for some good shmup location tests, etc.

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Another of our favorite niche blogs, The Dreamcast Junkyard, has posted a list of the 10 most infuriating Dreamcast games ever, and it's filled with delectable, succulent frustration of all varieties.

Right up there at #2 is 4 Wheel Thunder from Midway: "As an arcade racer, 4 Wheel Thunder ticks all the right boxes. Awesome visuals, wank rock soundtrack, bouncy controls, nitro boosts, hills, jumps, shortcuts - it's all here; but therein lies the reason behind 4WT's ascent to the penultimate spot in this run down of the most blood-vessel busting Dreamcast software: the reliance on short-cuts and nitro boosts in order to win." Aha!

But the absolute top frustration, and no doubt the source of some 'OMG' type noises from some, is Soul Calibur, and it's explained: "No matter how good you think you are at Soul Calibur, someone who has never even seen a Dreamcast before can shuffle along, pick up a pad...AND KICK YOUR ARSE! AAAAARGH!" You know - I do believe that this man is right. Much love!

Posted by Simon Carless at 1:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The observant among you may have noticed that I was liveblogging the PlayStation 3 Gamer's Day over at Gamasutra earlier, and I've even just posted an opinion piece on Sony's showing there - relatively rare for me, since I prefer not to post thinkpieces unless they're actually, uhh, called for.

Anyhow, I know that you really don't care about the actual events, and want to know some really irrelevant things that happened while I was there, so let's get straight to that:

- Just before the press conference itself started, there was a call over the PA for a Lexus with the numberplate 'Factor5' to be moved by the owner, because it was blocking something and would be towed otherwise. Just because you make neat-looking PS3 dragon games like Lair, it doesn't mean you can flaunt the rules of parking, Julian Eggebrecht. Oh, how we laughed!

- The pre-conference buffet-style lunch, which was at the W Hotel in downtown San Francisco, was notable for having both normal and sugar-free Red Bull (hey, they're detail-oriented!), and some of the most expensive looking bottled water we've ever seen - it's Voss Water, and Wikipedia explains that it's "a brand of artesian water marketed towards hotels, restaurants, and clubs that cater to the upper class." And unwashed game journos!

- There was an amusing security guard on the second floor landing at the PS3 event itself (which was divided up into three separate floors at a screening-type space in SF) who seemed to think it was necessary for him to direct attendees, traffic cop style, despite the fact he was largely blocking the passageway and confusing people who thought he was telling them they couldn't go upstairs. He also accused someone serving drinks of talking to herself, which may or may not have been true.

- We're not doing impressions of games, because everyone else is. (Fl0w pictured, though!)

Oh, also, we left a bit early to go write editorials, but there is indeed a musical guest this evening. Someone said it was Ludacris. Someone else said it was Prince, but that was Chris Kohler and he was just starting a pointless but potentially self-amusing rumor. When someone finds out who it was (we're pretty sure not Jay-Z and Linkin Park, as used in the presentation), I'm sure they will update the post or otherwise go crazy. Maybe it was the landing-blocking security guard and his hair metal band?

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

[The Gentleman Nerd is a weekly column written by Jason McMaster and is dedicated to the more discerning tastes of the refined dork. Due to Jason's extreme nature, most of his columns will be subtitled 'Why I Love...' or 'Why I Hate...' - in case you were wondering.]

There’s a certain level of self-loathing that’s required to start playing a board game based on a MMOG based on a strategy game that borrows heavily from a board game that also borrows heavily from a table top RPG. The kind of loathing required is the kind that a sheltered life… or a serious rum bender… can breed. Luckily, I have plenty of that type of loathing. I enjoyed playing the board game so much, in fact, that I want to play it again. The only problem is finding other players.

In my youth, other than playing football and mailbox-baseball, I was also very obsessed with computer and board games. My step-brother and I spent many hours with our graph paper and a copy of Bard’s Tale. So, when Warcraft came out, I purchased it because it reminded me of Warhammer. Little did I know I’d be purchasing the first step in one of the most successful franchises in video game history, or that I’d be playing a board game based on this game’s story while living in an old, creaky house in the mid-west. Then again, back in those days, I thought I was going to be a famous archaeologist. Shows what I know.

Before I get into the actual game, let me say this first: the World of Warcraft board game takes for-FREAKING-ever to set up. I’ve never seen a game that has this many plastic figurines and specific cards per class. It’s out of control. Each class has two decks of cards - that’s not to mention the items they can win or find, the store and the events. This game is rather card-heavy.

So, once you’ve set up, it’s time to play… or at least try to play. You see, we had one player quit before we started the first turn because the game seemed too hard. Then we had a couple of other players (not me this time, so HAH) get too drunk to really comprehend the rules. Player number four was more interested in making the demon figurines hump each other. Finally, that left me and Brian. We tried valiantly to play, but without the other players, it loses it's charm.

I think the biggest thing that this game has going against it is that it’s very busy. I can accept the cards, and the figs, and the quest cards. I can accept all of that, but man, the dice rolling system is intense. There are dice for every occasion in festive Christmas colors. You roll these dice like you’re trying to win the car on the Price is Right and pray to God that you get enough successes. I know that when I roll those dice, I’m clawed into my chair, wailing “OH LORD JESUS, IF YOU LOVE ME, DON’T LET THIS BASTARD MURLOCK TAKE MY LIFE AWAY!” That’s when it hit me. That’s when I finally realized that I must have my message heard. I must talk in depth about the randomization in WoW.

So, as mentioned before, there are different colors for the dice. There’s red, green and blue. Now, I don’t remember what does what, exactly, but I do remember that one is armor, one is magic and one is melee. So, you roll all these dice against a monster’s target number. Anything higher than the number is a success. Now, you split your successes out to whether it was armor, melee or magic. They then get sorted into different circles. I also think there’s a spot for an animatronics gnome reading Dio lyrics from a dusty tome, but I’m not sure.

Once we’ve got defense, melee and magic put into our circles, we then consider our special abilities and we can then “spot” a certain number to use our extra powers. Spotting a number is, well, you just kind of point at a number and go “THERE’S ONE.” So, the action of looking at a dice can sometimes trigger your character’s special attacks. I just want that to be clear.

Anyway, back to the dice rolling. Once you have calculated your successes, and placed your markers in the appropriate circles, then it’s the enemies’ turn. The enemy then rolls all of their dice and subtracts it from yours. The balance is the damage either taken or given. I honestly think that, with the exception of Arkham Horror, this is the hardest to explain and understand concept in board gaming history. This game makes Twilight Imperium look like Chutes & Ladders.

Needless to say, by the end of the first combat, no one was paying attention. Brian and I played out a few more turns, but what can you do when your bitchin’ Orc Warrior decides to go play Zuma instead. We packed the game up and decided that we’d play again when everyone was sober and wanted to be there.

Still waiting.

[Jason McMaster is a freelance writer who has written for Gamasutra, GameSpy and several other publications. He’s currently working on a few small projects and updating his blog, Lamethrower, as often as he can.]

Posted by jasonm at 3:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Since I'm sure you guys all watch MTV's TRL a lot, you'll be pleased to know that gritty sarf London grime star Lady Sovereign is currently at #1 on the countdown with her debut single for Def Jam, 'Love Me Or Hate Me'.

You can basically think of Sov ('Make way for the S O V' is her clarion call, and don't you forget it!) as a sarcastic, tiny female version of Eminem - or that's how the new video is making her look. But the reason it's mentioned here is that the vid for 'Love Me Or Hate Me' (YouTube link, NSFW-ish swearing) features such a bleeptastic beat, courtesy of NYC producer Dr. Luke, that the video director has dumped Tetris blocks into the bridging parts of the vid. Lady Sov is gradually built up of these self-same Tetris blocks, and then dances around saying cheeky stuff - yay.

[Oh, and bonus terrible Tetris soundtrack-related fun while we're here - while I couldn't find the original music vid, I found a Final Fantasy vs. Dr. Spin fan video on YouTube, and, HANG ON, wait a minute, the BBC has a RealPlayer clip of the terrible novelty techno song (which Andrew Lloyd-Webber executive produced) being performed on Top Of The Pops, complete with dancers in Tetris uniforms. YAY!]

Posted by Simon Carless at 9:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Little bit of a Gamasutra cross-post here, but it's all about neat IGF mods, so you'll let us do that, right? "The organizers of the 2007 Independent Games Festival have revealed record entries into the IGF Modding Competition this year, spanning mods to game titles from Half-Life 2 and Civilization IV through Max Payne and even Heavy Metal: FAKK 2.

The Modding Competition, which became part of the IGF competition last year, was opened up to allow mods from any game this year, and over 35 resulting entries include notable mods such as DungeonDoom for Doom 3, Darkness over Daggerford for Neverwinter Nights, Scourge of The Lich Father for Morrowind, and many more.

The winners in the four initial categories: Best Singleplayer FPS Mod, Best Multiplayer FPS Mod, Best RPG Mod, and Best 'Other' Mod will be announced on December 18th, and will see awards of $500 each. Each will be a finalist for an overall 'Best Mod' award, which will take home a $5000 prize at the Independent Games Festival Awards, held during Game Developers Conference in San Francisco in March 2007." The entries this year have been really interesting, actually.

What's more: "After the main 2007 IGF Competition (created by the CMP Game Group, as is Gamasutra.com) garnered a record 141 entries vying for the $20,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize, the next deadline for prospective entrants is November 10, 2006 at 11:59pm PDT for the IGF Student Competition.

In the Student category, there will be 10 'Student Showcase' winners for the leading games ($500 travel stipend) announced in January 2007, all of whom will exhibit on the IGF Pavilion at GDC. In addition, for the first time this year, an overall 'Best Student Game' ($2,500 cash prize) will be awarded. Those interested further can visit the IGF's submission site for more guidelines and specifics about the competition."

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

That lovable newsgaming rascal Ian Bogost has mailed us to reveal: "My studio Persuasive Games has released Oil God, the latest game in the ongoing Arcade Wire series of newsgames, published by Addicting Games and Shockwave.com."

What's going on here, then? "You are an Oil God! Wreak havoc on the world's oil supplies by unleashing war and disaster. Bend governments and economies to your will to alter trade practices. Your goal? Double consumer gasoline prices in five years using whatever means necessary: start wars, overthrow leaders, spawn natural disasters — even beckon the assistance of extra-terrestrial overlords. The game explores the relationship between gas prices, geopolitics, and oil profits." Fun stuff.

Oh yeah, we should also point out that we've recruited Bogost and his Watercooler Games compatriot Gonzalo Frasca to write columns for our Serious Games Source website. Bogost's most recent column talks about Darfur Is Dying, comparing some of the gameplay to E.T for the Atari 2600 (!), and Frasca just put one up discussing the Zidane headbutt Flash game, and why it shows games can be important even when they're not that fun. Go check 'em.

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wait, an opportunity to use a picture of the crashed Gizmondo Ferrari Enzo again? Excellent! According to ABC 7 News in Los Angeles, the trial of Stefan Eriksson will commence later this week, but the real news is about Dietrich.

You guys remember Dietrich, right? He was the alleged driver of the car which, supercharged on loot from the tragically failed handheld, smashed into a pole on the Pacific Coast Highway at about 8 zillion miles an hour. Well, now, according to ABC News: "[Eriksson] initially told investigators that he was not driving the car, but later admitted that he had been behind the wheel. The two misdemeanor DUI counts stem from that crash."

Wait, so does this mean that Dietrich was in the passenger seat? Or just standing at the side of the road watching? We refuse to believe that he doesn't exist. Maybe Eriksson was talking to Dietrich on the phone and Dietrich was telling him how fast to drive? Must be something like that.

Anyhow, the AP further notes that there's been a trial delay, and the reason was: "A witness from a British lending institution "was in a horrible accident and was unable to travel right now."" Uck, hopefully no conspiracy here, and that's not funny, so we can't make any more Gizmondo jokes related to it.

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over at MTV News, the ever-smart Stephen Totilo has a new feature about audio commentaries in games up, and it has some interesting words from Valve on HL2's commentary goals.

It's explained of Half-Life 2: Episode 1, as 15% of you who've played the game probably know: "Some of the commentary nodes in "Episode One" show off the unique abilities of gaming technology. Activating one balloon whips the camera around to focus on the action being described. Another balloon cues up certain animations that are being discussed."

But there's scoop on upcoming making-of goals: "Johnson said Valve is hoping to improve the commentary system for next year's "Episode Two" with a feature that allows players to view multiple iterations of an in-game object or character as commentary plays, so gamers can see how things literally changed shape during the course of development. They're also hoping to support their commentary system in multiplayer matches of "Episode Two" companion product "Team Fortress 2."

[Also, if you'd like to just read Totilo's MTV News game stories and filter out the GameSpot-syndicated stories and the other randomness, he's set up a new blog that links to his own stories. Which I personally find useful, since it has RSS!]

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Looks like the folks at G4 took a jaunt over to Nolan Bushnell's new uWink restaurant in Woodland Hills, California the other day, catching the 'restaurant of the future' on opening day.

As they explain: "Alissa Bushnell--who is Nolan's daughter, by the way, and one of the first testers of Pong, so as a videogame-head, you should bown down and kiss her feet--assured us her restaurant is not a cyber cafe full of Counter Strike players. "All the games are casual. None takes longer than 2-3 minutes to play.""

We covered this a little bit the other day, but it's good to get some hands-on info: "Probably the application for all this tech that I was most intrigued with was the group trivia. Table-runners light up with different colors, creating teams who then compete in casual games. Very, very cool." Neat idea - sounds like there will be some more of these opening soon in California.

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It's tragic, but people kinda forget to cover arcade game show in the U.S. nowadays. But not RetroBlast!, fortunately, which has a nice write-up of the 2006 AMOA show in Las Vegas up on its site.

There's even some arcade stuff in here we haven't really seen before "Sega had one of the larger booths with some fancy games on display. I had a chance to sit inside the jeep/cockpit of the game ‘Let’s Go Jungle’ which had two machine guns mounted inside and allowed for players to storm their way through the jungle fighting off hoards of bugs and other monsters as the camera panned and swished through the forest." Oo, look, ArcadeFlyers has a flyer scan of it with lots more info.

Also noted: "Before wrapping up at the Sega booth I got a look at the new ‘After Burner’ game. The original ‘After Burner’ sit-down game was one of my favorites as a kid." Haven't seen this in the wild yet, but System16 has some pics of the game, which is called After Burner Climax (something UK Resistance has already made a joke about, we're pretty sure, or we dreamt it.)

Posted by Simon Carless at 2:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You may remember last week's GSW competition to win Capcom's somewhat controversial PSP title Ultimate Ghosts 'N Goblins, a title that I'm still excited to play (when I have a chance!), despite some radically opposing reviews.

Well, Jeremy 'Toastyfrog' Parish gets two thumbs up from us for actually entering the competition, after his 1UP.com review of the game (also for other Ziff outlets) made people actually RIOT ON THE STREETS. His reason for needing a copy of the game?
"Please let me win! I need something I can set fire to." No luck, Parish, the random finger of winningness hasn't picked you, so there will be no UMD bonfire today.

But these lucky fellows did indeed win the game, and have to promise not to burn it: James Dernak (also known as Dernak The Destroyer Of Worlds), Matt Harper (who has a really silly email address), and Chris Lops (does he walk Lops-sided?)

Incidentally, here's the Q and A for the terminally non-geeky:

Q: "What slightly insane, pig and pink hair-inclusive PlayStation platform game series did Tokuro Fujiwara mastermind after leaving Capcom and before returning to captain the latest Ghosts 'N Goblins title?"
A: Tomba (or Tombi in Europe, thanks pedants!)

Posted by Simon Carless at 9:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

[This is a special GSW guest post by John Andersen, who has written some neat arcade-related features for Gamasutra, and passes along this fun tidbit. Ta!]

Have a longing to play Asteroids, Burgertime, Space Invaders or Street Fighter II CE just as you did in your local arcade back in the day? If so, the Chicago Gaming Company has a new consumer product on sale exclusively at Costco in North America, complete with authentic arcade controls (and even a trackball as well!). It's for the classic arcade game enthusiast, and right in time for the holidays. You don't even need any quarters or tokens to demo it either.

Ultimate Arcade 2 (here's a game flyer) has shipped to Costco Wholesale Club locations across the nation. It showcases 100 playable games exclusively licensed from Atari, Capcom, Exidy, G-mode (owners of the Data East library), Irem, and Taito for play on the unit. Although this toy for grown-ups has quite the grown-up price ($1995.00), it's a pretty good bargain considering this is a 300 pound quality constructed cabinet standing 70 inches tall, holding a 23" viewable monitor, with 100 playable arcade game classics, some of which haven't been available for years (Moon Patrol anyone?).

Other UA2 games worth mentioning are Cobra Command from Data East (G-mode), Kung-Fu Master from Irem, Joust from Midway, Bubble Bobble from Taito among many others. Click here to look at the unit and full list of games. Some may mistake UA2 for something that should belong in an arcade, but this machine is intended for homes and commercial use is not allowed since the coin door is permanently deactivated, so make some space in that gameroom of yours.

Ultimate Arcade 2 is a follow-up to the first Costco exclusive Ultimate Arcade product released in the 4th quarter of 2005. Ultimate Arcade 2 will soon be available for order online from Costco.com, however its predecessor is still available for home delivery on the site. A vice-president at Chicago Gaming Company promises there is more to come as new game licenses are being signed up for future arcade products. We'll certainly keep an eye and ear out, meanwhile we'll be heading down to our local Costco for a little Elevator Action and some bulk-buy pizza rolls.

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Hey, we got a note from Hampa, the creator of Toribash: "We have now released version 2.1 with ingame ranking, belt gradings and streak counters. So now you can earn yourself a Black Belt in Toribash :)"

He continues: "We have also put together a multi player promo video named "Freak Fights", a term used on the servers to describe an online match that is extra gory."

As we mentioned, the game is now pay-to-play, but the blockbuster video certainly makes us think about paying - and if we were ragdoll decapitation freaks, we'd have whipped out the plastic already, of course.

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Indie mainstay GameTunnel has just posted a fun interview with Mr. Robot co-creator Nick Tipping, discussing the upcoming "platform hopping, adventure battling, and even RPG alternate-mode-ing" indie title with the co-founder of Starscape developers Moonpod Games.

These guys are some of the sharpest indie development ninjas we've seen, as evidenced by the following: "The great thing about the Mr. Robot back end, is its 'building block' system for creating levels. We use it like a gameplay laboratory; if something comes out of a brainstorming session then we can rapidly test it out and see if it's actually fun. It's a bit like having a playground of lego sets in a game engine environment. As for ideas we've prototyped by their nature they are quite hard to quantify (otherwise we wouldn't need to prototype them)."

Tipping concludes: "But we've tested out various gameplay from physics based puzzles (but where the physics are a completely invented set of rules from another dimension!) to turn based dungeon rpgs (mainly testing a bizarre battle system Mark came up with) and my personal favourite: a game that looks on the surface a bit like gauntlet, but is more akin to games like paradroid and quazzatron and mixes time based puzzles directly into the action." Damn, I guess all these ideas won't make it into the final game, but the title (due out before Xmas on PC) sounds very intriguing.

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The guys at Reflexive Games, who both operate a casual game portal and make neeto titles such as Wik: The Fable Of Souls, have a wacky blog on their site, and I just noticed they've been making up limericks around casual games - which is funny!

For example, for Mystery Case Files: Huntsville, we have: "This room is full of many things, Though the owner is not a king, Each item I find, Helps me solve the crime; If only I could spy the ring." Wait, that's terrible! But it gets even worse, with a song pastiche for Ricochet surely the only Beatles ripoff ode to a Breakout clone we've heard... ever.

Altogether now:

"Ricochet
(to the music of The Beatles' Yesterday)

Ricochet,
I first spied you in the month of May,
Now I think about you everyday,
Oh, I won't leave my Ricochet.

Suddenly,
My ball has gotten away from me,
Flown past my paddle and ceased to be,
Oh, Ricochet come back to me."

A commenter also boasts: "I once did something like this, only it was an ode to the Nintendo 64 to the tune of the Beatles song "When I'm 64"" Ugh, this is all raaaather painful, in a deliciously masochistic way.

Posted by Simon Carless at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The wizards over at NeoGAF have spotted some screenshots and info on PS3 e-distribution titles, apparently released somewhat inadvertently ahead of Sony's PS3 press day in San Francisco this Thursday, and there's some neat XBLA-like stuff on there.

In terms of first-party titles, there's Blast Factor, which "brings together “old school” and “new school” arcade action" in a way not unreminiscent of titles such as Geometry Wars - also profiled is the previously mentioned fl0w, and there are screenshots for Go Sudoku (heh, continuing Sudoku's takeover of the woorld!), Lemmings 2 (yay, classic puzzle suicide action!), and the as yet completely undocumented Swizzleblock.

Also listed for PS3 e-distribution: third-party titles including Gripshift (Sidhe's under-rated PSP title coming to PS3), and the relatively unknown Crash Carnage Chaos and Wheel of Fortune (OK, we can guess what that last one is!) Anyhow, it's nice to finally know what PS3 will initially have for digital downloads.

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The term “third place” refers to a social surrounding other than the home or workplace. The article Where Everybody Knows Your (Screen) Name: Online Games as "Third Places", which stems from a joint study by Constance Steinkuehler, assistant professor in Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Dmitri Williams, assistant professor in the Speech Communication Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign seeks to debunk the myth of videogaming as a wholly anti-social form of entertainment. To most gamers, though, this seemed entirely obvious, and the study was dismissed by many as redundant.

However, the other side of that is that when the article was published in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication in July, it was viewed as revelatory by mainstream media outlets like CNN. “Despite copious amounts of data to support it, the claim that online games are not anti-social but the opposite is apparently novel to many people,” says Steinkuehler.

The bulk of the article is a comparison of the properties of MMOs as compared to the characteristics of third places, as defined by sociologist Ray Oldenburg. This includes frameworks like whether “conversation is a main focus of activity in which playfulness and wit are collectively valued”, that the places are “easy to access and are accommodating to those who frequent them” and that the places can function as a “home away from home”. Seemingly, the only framework that MMOs don’t fit into is that third places must be “characteristically homely and without pretension”. However, the article notes that while “the visual form of MMO environments does not fit Oldenburg's criterion…the social function of those environments does”.

We contacted Steinkuehler via email to ask about the article, the reactions to it from gamers, and the social validity of MMOs as third places.

[Click through for the full interview.]

What were your findings in Where Everybody Knows Your (Screen) Name: Online Games as "Third Places"?

Our general findings were that:

(a) Massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) function as third places for informal sociability, much like classic taverns, etc. do.
(b) They facilitate participants' "bridging social capital" -- the kind of friendships that are more casual than family and friends but that tend to expose a person to diversity.

In other words, MMOs are thoroughly social and have great potential to foster exposure to diversity.

Can you describe the concept of a third place?

Sure! A third place is a place beyond work and home where a person can go for informal social exchange. Think: Cheers, the bar, or European coffee shops.

What were your initial thoughts heading into this research? You make mention of Putnam's theories of "bowling alone" [which “suggests that media are displacing crucial civic and social institutions”] - was this something you considered accurate?

This work was borne out of a paper I originally wrote for a journal in Sweden. In it, I wanted to address how it is that American youth face a very different climate than their European counterparts, and how things like gaming are vilified by a largely-ignorant media & public while, in fact, they can be quite productive. Oldenburg actually states that games are not legitimate social interaction, that "sitting in a room at computer screens playing videogames is not a third place." However, he was utterly unaware of what people were actually doing behind the screen. Once you take a look at what folks are doing in, say, World of Warcraft, you realize that Oldenburg's original statement is actually inaccurate.

On that subject, a lot of gamers seem to have the had the reaction that the results were rather obvious.

Yes, the findings, at least the version presented all over the news, is very obvious -- to anyone with at least a rudimentary understanding of or experience with games, at least. I find it ironic that, out of all the research I've done on MMOs on cognition & literacy, its this piece the media finds such an interest. I think it just points to the incredible disconnect between gamers and a non-gaming but vocal public. For what its worth, the paper was rejected from the first American journal we submitted to, then had massive revisions for the second journal as one of the reviewers felt we were clearly biased and ignoring "all the research" showing how games were bad influences, bred anti-social behavior, what have you.

What was the thought behind the choices of games detailed in the article? Why not study something like World of Warcraft, or Second Life - both of which have bigger user bases than the games in the article?

It takes some time to do research and finally publish the outcomes. When this research was originally done, WoW wasn't even released. And your statement on SL is wrong: Lineage I & II was, until WoW the single best selling title globally with over 4 million people playing it. SL doesn't have those kind of numbers. WoW does, obviously, and that's what I study now. But, at the time of this research, it just wasn't out yet. I don't know what Dmitri picked Asheron's Call, but I picked Lineage because it was the biggest game globally.

What was your methodology for the article?

This is outlined in the paper. We combined findings from two massive studies: My work, which was a 2+ year online cognitive ethnography of Lineage I & II, and Dmitri's work, which was a massive media effects study.

What was the level of collaboration between yourself and Dmitri Williams on the article?

I originally wrote a small invited piece on "MMOGs at third places" for a journal in Sweden. I sent it to my good colleague Dmitri as I had cited some of his work in it. He really liked the theoretical framework I was offering and suggested we collaborate on a piece for a journal here in the states. So, we co-authored from there. He and I have worked together for years, and have gamed together online quite a bit, so it was a natural collaboration.

Do you think there is a risk of MMOs taking over from traditional third places for some gamers? You mention the idea of a third place being a "home away from home", but do you think there is the risk of this being taken too far?

For a very rare handful of folks, there will be problems. But, then, for a handful of folks there are always problems. Look at the workaholics in America and you'll see my point. Research shows that playing such games is not replacing time with family or out socialising with RL friends; it’s mostly replacing television viewing. Dmitri has some great stats on this.

One of the points where your article moved away from the research of Oldenburg was with the idea of a third place being having a "low profile". Did you initially see this as a problem in your research?

Well, the spirit of low profile -- that the context can't be a pretentious one -- still holds, but the requirement that the visual context needs to be plain or homely just doesn't work out as well online, where there are lots of visually fabulous "places" to hang out (like Lineage II towns, for example, or the Barrens in WoW) that are still, well, homely in a certain way, certainly not the equivalent to an opera house IRL or something.

Do you think MMOs are as valid socially as third places as "real life" ones?

Yes, of course. Many of my academic colleagues I only know online. Does that mean they’re somehow "less" colleagues than others? Or less real? Not at all. I think it’s only an older generation that didn't grow up online that worries about such things. Some things you need physical contact for, like contact sports and sex. Other things you don't, like running a 5-man in Stratholme and sharing a good laugh over you spectacular wipe there.

Finally, do you consider yourself a gamer?

God yes.

Posted by alistairw at 3:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Of course, this is way too BREAKING not to post - Wired.com's Game|Life has got the complete Elite Beat Agents DS tracklisting up, and it's pretty darn interesting!

Keiichi Yano told Game|Life of the announcement: "The concept for song selection was this - the roaring songs you would want to hear if you went to a college frat party... I used to play in bands like that, and when the whole crowd is jumping up and down to your tunes...this is the essence of our selections."

I'm not sure I was expecting them to go that way, and there are certainly some cheesy tracks on here - but I like it! Here's the full skinny:

1. Walkie Talkie Man - Steriogram
2. ABC - Jackson Five
3. Sk8er Boi - Avril Lavigne
4. I Was Born to Love You - Queen
5. Rock This Town - Stray Cats
6. Highway Star - Deep Purple
7. Y.M.C.A. - Village People
8. September - Earth, Wind and Fire
9. Canned Heat - Jamiroquai
10. Material Girl - Madonna
11. La La - Ashlee Simpson
12. You're the Inspiration - Chicago
13. Survivor - Destiny's Child
14. Without a Fight - Hoobastank
15. Believe - Cher
16. Let's Dance - David Bowie
17. Jumpin Jack Flash - Rolling Stones
18. Makes No Difference - Sum 41
19. The Anthem - Good Charlotte

Also noted: "Where the hell is "Livin' La Vida Loca"? A fair question. Near as I can figure, the song was dropped from the game." When I spoke to Yano at TGS, he confirmed that the track wasn't in the game any more - maybe Ricky Martin got greedy? We shall never know!

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Unfortunately somewhat reduced in importance from its heights, GameSpy still puts out some useful editorial - and sometimes some plain odd editorial, as evidenced by their latest 'Modify' mods column, talking about mods for Flight Sim 2004.

Witness: "Blu-Sky Mine Productions' latest Saab 2000 passenger plane is one of the sweetest Flight Sim 2004 aircraft add-ons I've seen in a long time. Not all that surprising really; the New Zealand-based development team, headed up by Dan Mitchell, is one of the most respected FlightSim 2004 freeware aircraft builders around."

I just find it fascinating (and even a bit laudable!) to have a mainstream game site covering this type of thing: "Released to great fanfare late last year, version 1.0 of the Saab 2000 (since updated to version 1.1) bleeds craftsmanship... Bonus features include a proper pushback tug for backing out of jetway ramps, animated passenger and cargo doors, passenger airstairs, and even some wheel chocks, flagging tape and cones for extended parking stints (unfortunately, the wheel chocks don't actually work, so you'll still need to apply the parking brake)." Hah.

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Our buddy Jiji ran out of stuff to post for his 'Compilation Catalog' column, so we're calling it 'A Life In Obscurity', and he'll alternate random D3 musings with compilation round-ups and other odd reviews, semi-regularly. Only on GSW! Because only we're crazy enough!]

What makes a successful Simple 2000 Series game? Sometimes it's a collision of original elements that have been refined over several games, often on other publishers' dimes. Sometimes it's a mere port or remake of a game that's previously found success as a full-priced release. The well-executed, original, non-franchise title is a rarity among the rare good games in D3 Publisher's catalog. However, the necessary alignment of heavenly bodies seems to have been just right for the release of developer Vingt-et-un Systems' April release, Simple 2000 Series Vol. 99: The Genshijin, or The Primitive Man.

[Click through for the full article.]

Caveman - Not Ninja!

The Genshijin (to date, released only for the Japanese PS2) can best be described as a combination of Nintendo's real-time-strategy-explorer Pikmin and Artdink's bizarro caveman-sim Tail of the Sun. As the game begins, you control a diminutive monkey living in a small monkey-village. Your monkey is ever-so-slightly bigger than the rest of the monkeys in his tribe, and therefore is able to boss other monkeys around and lead them on sorties into the great wilderness outside. The monkeys in the boss's party follow him in formation and act on the commands he gives. They can pick up food and artifacts, attack wild beasts with their monkey-fists, and work together to surmount obstacles (which are usually great slabs of rock that serve as gates between areas).

There are five levels through which to guide your troops, and each is full of interesting obstacles and set-pieces. You'll only have access to one level at first, of course, but you can return to any level at any time, and each level has initially-inaccessible goodies that you can retrieve if you return with better equipment. There's a nice variety of enemies to be seen (and killed), and while it's clear that each of a few different monster types has been recycled into several different enemies, differences in behavior and sound effects ensure that the creatures stay interesting to fight throughout the game.

Monkey Plus Plus Plus

As the game progresses, you can add more monkeys to your party, and each level's reward is a technological breakthrough that makes previously inaccessible terrain navigable. More monkeys means larger items can be picked up, since most items require more than one monkey to transport. Plus, dangerous animals can be felled more quickly. As you bring back larger and more rare items, the village grows in size, and new types of buildings become available.

There are three types of materials to be collected out in the wilderness - wood, stone, and metal - and each contributes to the construction of certain structures. Among the many available to build, there's an item shop, gyms (charmingly misspelled "Jim" in-game) for training your troops, a workshop where you can combine items to gain rare restoratives, and a cemetery that keeps count of the citizens you've sacrificed to the cause.

Each technological advancement pushes your tribe up the evolutionary ladder, from monkeys to apes to Neanderthals, and eventually to the titular primitive men. As your species becomes smarter, it gains access to weapons of increasing sophistication, like axes, spears, and eventually bows. No matter how advanced your tribe gets, though, each member retains that same charming scowl.

Language Barrier... Critical?

The language barrier is somewhat high here, as all the game's menus are presented in Japanese, and there's a large helping of flavor text included. Thankfully, though, there's nothing necessary to succeed at the game that can't be figured out pretty easily just by playing. Items are all represented by distinct and cute models and artwork, and the iconified, context-sensitive controls are intuitive. The Genshijin may not have inherited Pikmin's layered complexity of mechanics, but does avoid Tail of the Sun's obtuse nature. Here's a tip for the Japanese-illiterate, however: make sure you follow each material's development path to its end before completing the game. Otherwise you'll end up with the game's bad ending (which is not altogether unpleasant, if you've got a dark sense of humor).

The game's control and animation are both smooth and attractive. One could be forgiven for mistaking the game for something other than a Simple 2000 budget release. Enemies are pleasantly rounded and cartoony, and the scowling tribesmen have a funny way of running and an amusing little dance that make it clear that more effort was spent on presentation here than in most Simple 2000 titles.

The constraints of the game's budget make themselves felt most noticeably here in the game's engine - whose poor image quality the game shares with The Zombie vs. Ambulance - and in late-game troop mechanics. The poor cavemen do their best to follow their leader, but when there are fifteen or more party members in formation, it's almost inevitable that a few of them get caught on scenery and left behind. Their pathfinding routines don't seem to be well-developed, either, so keeping that many of them together often involves some babysitting.

Conclusion

The Genshijin will take the average player ten to twelve hours to complete. That's extremely generous for a Simple 2000 title, especially when so little of that time is spent in the repetitive, looped structure that's so common to games in this series. D3's developers often have a hard time balancing their budget between engine development, character animation, and level design, and so they often fill their games with experience to earn and upgrades to buy, leaving the player forever grinding away. The way The Genshijin offers so much playtime while avoiding this pitfall so deftly - and supplying a series of original, interesting challenges instead - is amazing. This is one of those 'lightning in a bottle' examples of a D3 project gone almost completely right.

[Trevor Wilson is a web developer, freelance game journalist, and amateur game developer who indulges his unhealthy obsession with obscure, strange, and unique video games over at his weblog, namako team.]

Posted by trevorw at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Armchair Arcade is ratcheting up the geek to Warp 9 or so with a neat review of DynaMicro's The Dungeons of Daggorath for the Tandy CoCo, circa 1982 - pretty sure we didn't have these in the UK, so it's fun to read about them.

Matt Barton explains: "Essentially, DoD is a game in the tradition of first-person "D&D" games in the vein of Richard Garriot's Akalabeth (1980, Apple II) and Sir-Tech's Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (1981, Apple II)", and continues: "I must say that I'm impressed with the title--and can easily see why the game has managed to retain such a devoted cult following that's lasted nearly a quarter of a century. So, what makes the game so great? What I want to talk about here are three features--the immensity of the game world, the intensity of the action, and the creative use of sound."

The most impressive thing: "As I mentioned at the start of this review, the DoD fan community is still going strong. There's even an official discussion board and Wiki for the game. Folks who don't want to muck about with a CoCo emulator can download an enhanced PC Port, and there has even been an effort to get the game working in a Web Browser (Note: I wasn't able to get the browser version to work)."

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

We've previously reported on the storied heritage of Cryptic Sea's 'Blast Miner' - a physics-based indie puzzle game from some of the folks who created the awesome Gish.

Well, now the official site has added a public demo of the title, complete with a slightly pithy public FAQ ('Q: So this is just a Tetris rip-off, right? A: Play the demo. Q: ? A: Play the demo.), and you can already buy the full game as well - hopefully they get good distribution for the game as well as doing the own-selling thing.

Also, I shall repeat what I said last time: "Check out the demo video - I'm excited to play this, esp. if it ever got on Xbox Live Arcade (please?) - oh, and the weird non-physics-like effects in the vid are when the blocks are being manipulated by the player, btw." [Via IndyGamer.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 3:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

['@ Play' is a bi-weekly column by John Harris which discusses the history, present and future of the Roguelike dungeon exploring genre.]

As a special treat to our readers, this column contains.... screenshots!

Out in the distant reaches of interstellar space lies the appropriately-named planet of Funkotron, a world somewhat allied with the philosophy of George Clinton. One day a teenage Funkotronian, the red, three-legged, besneakered, cap-and-medallion-wearing ToeJam, out on a space jaunt in his Righteous Rapmaster Rocketship, allowed his friend Earl to drive it through the asteroid belt of a certain backwater solar system.

Earl wasn't a very good driver. They crashed.

When everything came to rest they found their ship smashed into ten pieces, scattered throughout 25 regions of the most unfunky planet in the galaxy, with a wide array of alien-hating natives out for their hides. The name of the planet: Earth.

[Click through for the full article.]

This tale sets up one of the finest console games ever produced, Greg Johnson and Mark Voorsanger's ToeJam & Earl for the Sega Genesis. Although I consider it a roguelike (which is why we're covering it here), it's entertaining for other reasons than just that. It has an awesome sense of humor, music fully worthy of the game's premise, wildly imaginative enemies, and terrific graphics considering the platform. And it is the best two-player co-operative game that exists anywhere. It's slated to be one of the early releases for Wii's Virtual Console feature, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

That Evil Dentist Wouldn't Be Laughing If I Had A Sword

The game upsets many of the more commonly-held notions of what a roguelike should be, and I'm not just talking about graphics here. Players are barely capable of attacking the enemies! Without a suitable present at hand there is no way to harm the Earthlings, and even with an offensive item (Tomatoes or Slingshot) most of the opposition is so dangerous to be around that unless the player has a lake or gap to stand behind it's wisest to just run. None of the traditional rewards for defeating an opponent are here either: points and experience levels (or "ranks" in this game) are instead earned through exploration and opening presents.

Aww, You Got Me Rocket Skates For Christmas

Presents are the game's random item class. A present that shares the same wrapping paper as another in the game will always contain the same effect. Many of them have excellent enemy evasion or distraction potential, with some (Super Hi-Tops) easier to use than others (Rosebushes), but again, getting real use out of them requires the player find out what they are first. There are fewer always-bad items in TJ&E than most roguelikes, but those there are are very bad. "Total Bummer!" causes a player to lose one life, regardless of his health, yet it's not the worst of the lot. That distinction goes to the devious Randomizer, which scrambles the identity of all the presents.

The first game of ToeJam & Earl I almost won, on which I got to level 22 (of 25) and had more than enough resources to see me through the end, was ruined by a Randomizer. The implications it holds for the player's game make the tremendous "orchestra hit" noise that plays upon opening a Randomizer among the most dreaded sound effects in video games. The Randomizer even randomizes itself, so it's possible to recover from it, then hit it again, and again. The only way to find out what a Randomizer is ahead of time is to get it identified, or ID the other 25 types of present first and then guess its identity through elimination. This process is made more difficult due to the only source of identification in the game being the infrequently-appearing Carrot Wise Men, who charge a lot for their services.

The Dual Ghandis of Funk

TJ&E is an unusually pacifist game for its class. Avoiding Earthling attack is the key skill of the game, and it's made more difficult due to the alien pair's slow walking speed. The trick to survival lies in realizing that many of the faster Earthlings tend to attack in straight lines, so they can often be avoided through a series of sidesteps. The consequences for failure are harsh though, and it's not uncommon to take multiple hits from a late-game enemy, like Lawnmower Guys, Boogie Men or (worst of all!) Phantom Ice Cream Trucks, and lose a life even if the player was at full health before. But even weak enemies can quickly slaughter the player if he is unwise in his movements near them. Successful ToeJam & Earl players have learned that hostiles should be given as wide a berth as possible.

The most instructive thing about ToeJam & Earl's rogue-likeness, in the end, is the absence of almost all elements that trace back to Dungeons & Dragons. Most roguelikes have D&D accoutrements, equipment, attribute scores, spellcasting, and so forth, sufficiently ingrained in their being that it seems almost nonsensical to think one need not be a roleplaying game at all, yet ToeJam & Earl has none of these things.

Other than money, presents are the only collectable in the game. The best advantages a player can get out of one are an instant promotion or an extra life, useful to be sure, but far from obtaining Greyswandir, or Ringil. There are no items (other than Randomizers) with the power to change the nature of the game. Because players cannot find armor or weapons that provide lasting bonuses, there is not a whole lot a player can do, over time, to improve his state other than collecting more presents and getting them identified, but the game's balance takes that into consideration. It would be just barely survivable with no items at all, so with presents added to the mix the game moves into a mortal realm of challenge.

But Is It A Roguelike?: Point By Point

So with all those differences, what is it that even qualifies ToeJam & Earl as being a roguelike in the first place? The tremendous difficulty, randomized world, permanent death (players may have extra lives, but running out is easy and there is no way to continue so "lives" are more like a special kind of health), plentiful monsters with attacks that can mess up the player in ways other than damage, emphasis on survival in a hostile environment through canny use of limited resources, and above all that process of discovery, those are the things that make TJ&E more like Rogue than many games that define themselves by that quality.

What ToeJam & Earl is is an outlier case, a game that defines what it means to be roguelike, not through all the things it has, but from the things it doesn't:

• It's not turn-based. But: you can always pause the game to think of your next move, and the action isn't all that fast paced, so in this case the action doesn't interfere with game in which some thought is required to progress.
  
• It's not a one-player-only game. But: its two-player co-op mode is so well-integrated with the roguelike play structure that, should someone finally make a true multiplayer roguelike work, they'll probably do it after studying
  TJ&E. Players near each other both get the points and effects (good and bad) from presents, and can share health and lives too, but they can also mess each other up and race to get the good stuff on each level.
  
• It's not a roleplaying game. Players gain points and ranks, but they don't really gain anything that could be called statistics. But: there is little in the way of combat either, and players do gain maximum health, and once in a while an extra life, as they earn promotions.
  
• It does have unknown items and randomly-generated player resources, but it does not, interestingly, have an item that identifies stuff. But: there is a character who identifies things, and he charges enough so that it is a serious decision whether to buy knowledge or risk Bummers and Randomizers to gain it through present-opening.
  
• It's not ASCII. But: neither is Shiren the Wanderer.

The Triumph of Sir Nose*

ToeJam & Earl had two sequels, but neither game is quite the equal of the original, and in both cases it is due to the degree they stray from the roguelike formula. The second game, Panic on Funkotron, has incredibly vivid and imaginative artwork and ingenious platformer gameplay, and if it hadn't been the sequel to such an interesting game it would be remembered as one of the highlights of the Genesis. As for the third game, Mission to Earth for X-box... while it does have some roguelike aspects, they are severely hampered by the fact that the game defaults to fixed worlds, and it starts out with all objects identified: item scrambling only occurs due to the attacks of a certain enemy. (It has a couple of other major flaws too, likely due to publisher meddling, but they are beyond the focus of this column. I'll just say "Poochie" and trust you'll get my point.) Both of these games have the original's sense of humor, but neither works the act of discovery into its gameplay nearly as well as the first did.

Greg Johnson talks about the game, mentioning Rogue in the process, in an interview he did with Sega-16 last year. It's available at http://sega-16.com/Interview-%20Greg%20Johnson.php.

* If you get that "Sir Nose" reference you are probably much cooler than I am.

Posted by John Harris at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Over at sister site Gamasutra, the ever-ready Alistair Wallis has been conducting a bunch of neat interviews with Independent Games Festival entrants for this year [disclaimer: I'm the IGF Chairman, but you knew that anyhow], and I realized I hadn't pointed them out on GSW - so now I am!

Most recently, Alistair has quizzed Jonathan Mak on Everyday Shooter, which is, fascinatingly, something "...like a compilation album, made up of different shooters inspired by anything from games like Warning Forever and Every Extend to the film Porco Rosso".

Before that, lots more innovative indie interviews - Prairie Games on the MMO Minions Of Mirth, Vision Videogames on SpaceStationSim, Stephen Taylor on the swirly Plasma Pong, Klei Entertainment discussing smart puzzler Eets, Pixeljam chatting about Gamma Bros, and Dan Marshall ruminating on Gibbage. Yay.

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It's still sad that The Escapist doesn't get more linkage (from us, too!) for their readable, intelligent journalism, so nice to see that, via Dubious Quality, we spotted a new Allen Varney article called 'My Hindu Shooter', and telling a pretty spectacular story.

Briefly, it's about a "pacifist first-person shooter I designed in 2000-2001 to teach Hindu principles of non-violence using the Unreal Engine", and he explains: "This Hindu non-shooter was conceived and produced entirely by - nobody ever believes this part - recent graduates of the Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa. Yes, really."

Craziness: "In early 2000, a gaggle of upscale white American 20-somethings with fresh MUM animation and graphics degrees thought it would be fun to create a computer game based on Hindu teachings. Funded by the young heir to a chain of furniture stores, who scraped by on a parental allowance of half a million dollars a year, they licensed Epic Games' hotly anticipated Unreal Warfare engine - six months' allowance right there - and set to work." Lots more info if you click through, and a great story.

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

['Game Mag Weaseling' is a weekly column by Kevin Gifford which covers video game magazines from the late '70s all the way up to right now.]

   

A number of enthralling things are happening in the mag business this week. Even better, it's all good news.

First off, get your favorite download manager ready -- you've got a lot of reading ahead of you. To commemorate the final issue of Computer Gaming World before it changes names to Games For Windows: The Official Magazine, Ziff Davis has graciously put up full PDF versions of the first 100 issues of CGW, as well as cover scans of the 168 that followed afterward.

For fans of old game mags, this is like manna from heaven. CGW's first 100 issues (which ran from November 1981 to November 1992) are a treasure trove of history -- each one covers Apple II, Commodore 64, and Atari games with pretty much the same depth as modern CGW, which is amazing when you realize the games they cover are usually no more than 48k in size. The earlier issues also have columns on game design theory from some of the most well-known figures in game history, including Chris Crawford, Richard Garriott, Jon Freeman, Danielle Bunten, and more. All this, of course, written in that classic, dense CGW style that made some call it the "New England Journal of Medicine of video games."

These aren't just any old cheapo scans, either. These PDFs are the result of a project by Stephane Racle over at the Computer Gaming World Museum, and the care that he's given to the files is utterly exemplary. Stephane collated scans (I contributed one issue myself, though I forgot what number), scanned a bunch himself, and OCRed all 7438 pages, producing an index that lets you look of anything you please within the first 100 issues (or, at least, you will be able to once he puts the index up on his site). Every PDF includes bookmarks to each article in the mag, and Stephane even included internal links in the table of contents and on every "Continued on page XX" blurb, which is a godsend in the early issues where articles jumped all over the place.

Tracking down copies of these early CGW issues (most of which were printed only in the four figures) is an enormous challenge for any collector, but Stephane's scanning project -- and Ziff and the CGW staff supporting him -- has provided an enormously helpful resource for anyone interested in the '80s computer scene. I'll be using these scans extensively in future columns here, definitely.

(By the way, that final issue of CGW arrived at my mailbox today. It's superb, but I'll go into more detail on that next week.)

CGW isn't the only Ziff mag undergoing renovations for the December issue. Electronic Gaming Monthly is undergoing a major redesign of their own, the first one since 2002, and it's also set to debut next month. You can see some of the mockup covers EGM's design team has going in the picture above, which was posted on 1UP as part of something related.

Although these mockups are almost certainly not final, it's interesting to note that while the mag's official title won't change, the initials "EGM" may form the most noticeable part of the logo from now on. I can think of two reasons for this: (a) most readers call the magazine "EGM" anyway, and (b) the name "Electronic Gaming Monthly" is incredibly fuddy-duddy. It doesn't tell you very much about the mag's content, it's too long, and it sounds very old-fashioned (like "Popular Mechanics") in an industry that's always about slicing away at the cutting edge. Besides, the term "elecronic games" passed out of common usage twenty years ago.

The only disadvantage to this is that the word "game" wouldn't be as prevalent in the main logo any longer. This is the sort of thing that puts sales and circulation departments into a bit of a funk, because they may fear that consumers will pick up the magazine at the rack, be unable to figure out what the mag is about, and put it back down without a second thought.

If the new EGM logo winds up being like these mockups, then, it'll be Ziff Davis betting that the buzz a radical new look for the cover will offset any confusion that may occur. Now I'm excited to see how the new mag looks from the inside.

Posted by Kevin Gifford at 6:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Via PlanetQuake, we note that John Romero's blog has released the original source files to Quake's maps, due to birthday reasons!

The Rom explains: "Since it's Quake 1's tenth anniversary this year (starting June 22nd) I thought I'd dig up and release all of Quake's original map sources. For all these years the only possible way to glean any information from Quake's internal format was from BSP deconstruction programs - but those had problems with tons of brushes generated from insane BSP splits. So finally, here are the originals with the dust blown off of them, shined-up and zipped up. Have fun, mappers!"

Yay, so everyone can now hack about with the original Quake maps (previously, the source code was released, but the full game has not been). I wonder if Id knows and approves of this new map release - though obviously, you still can't play the full game with it, it's just great for modding hilarity.

Still, The Rom is as The Rom does - and as one of his many fans notes in the comments: "You're my #1 mr Romero! Please make Quake abandonware for an extra kick in the community. (Most ppl already has the original game anyway) hug from Portugal!" I want a kick in the community!

Posted by Simon Carless at 1:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Casual site GameZebo continues to quietly publish some of the most entertaining editorials around, and the latest is named 'The Naked Gamer', and discusses the primal urges behind casual games.

It's explained: "Casual games appeal to those base instincts that all humans share and the stimuli to which all humans gravitate - the instinct to explore and investigate our world. There's more psychology going here than in any other form of digital entertainment. Our curiosity is stimulated by the basic game mechanic; which in the old days we used to call the kernel of gameplay. The kernel of gameplay is the very core of the game experience. The falling jewels in JewelQuest, the chain of shiny rolling spheres of Luxor."

What's more: "This basic action piques our interest and pulls us in, while color, texture, light, sound, elements of jeopardy and perceived danger, systems of rewards and patterns of recognition hold us and compel us to explore further. We're getting very basic here, but the point is that the gamer is won or lost quickly based on some fairly primitive perceptions and drives." Column author Vinny Carrella then references 'The Naked Ape' by Desmond Morris to good effect - it's relevant erudition, and always welcome!

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's worth monitoring the GamesPress feed on GI.biz for some of the choicest, often UK-centric obscuro press releases, and one of these would be Oxygen Interactive's announcement of voiceover talent for its PS2 darts game.

Here's the official website for the PDC World Championship Darts game (probably not to get a U.S. release!), and it's explained: "Scheduled for release at Christmas, Oxygen Interactive is pleased to announce, that the 'Voices of Darts', Sid Waddell and scorer, Russ Bray will provide the game's commentary."

Sid Waddell in particular is the, uhh, Madden of the darts world, if you will, and has an official website which includes some of his famous/witty sayings: " Steve Beaton. He’s not A-donis, he’s THE Donis". Or: "That was like throwing three pickled onions into a thimble." Or, indeed: "He looks about as happy as a penguin in a microwave." Now I want to move back to England and watch darts, darnit!

Posted by Simon Carless at 3:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You know, trawling eBay continues to throw up some pretty amazing stuff, and here's the latest -a mint box of 10 Donkey Kong Game & Watches from 1983, pristine and untouched for almost 25 years - and currently going for about $1,500.

This is pretty scary: "I am offering for sale the Holy Grail if you will of my collection. 10 DONKEY KONG Jr. with serial - numbers matching and still in manufacture box. I bought this box complete in 1983 and have stored it in a sealed foot locker ever since. No moisture, excessive heat or even worse human hands have touched these games in 23 years. I actually almost forgot about this sealed box."

What's more: "I am obsessive about matching serial numbers and made sure any multiples of games were bought in order from Nintendo and not one by one at some Gaming Shop. These 10 Donkey Kong Jr. games are serial numbers 21828697 through 21828706."

While we're on completist and Nintendo (though I think this a bit less exciting), there's a big compilation of rare GBAs for UKP1500, including Donkey Kong, Pikachu, and various other limited editions, and inexplicably coming with a free copy of SNES Super International Cricket. Is that the Holy Grail, or just a lame add-on?

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

[Music De Jeux (literally 'music of games' in mangled French!) is a new column from Henry Cao which looks at the history, present, and future of video game music from a multitude of angles - some of them interesting! Here's his first scribblings.]

Game music has come a long way since the beeps and bloops we first heard on our original Nintendo’s. But outside of the countless Mario, Zelda, and Final Fantasy soundtracks, there doesn’t seem to be any other arranged albums worth listening to. Of course, this isn’t really the case.

As with regular music, you’ll have to wade through a sea of unmemorable albums to find one actually worth listening to - these are the overlooked Japanese soundtracks that take the original game's musical concept and run with it. And what better way to kick off the birth of a new column than to highlight just a few of these? (There probably are better ways, but meh.)

[Click through for full reviews of the neglected, including Langrisser II, King Of Fighters 99, and Arc The Lad arrangement albums .]

Langrisser II Original Game Music
(Details and song excerpts are available at RPGFan Soundtracks)

The history of Langrisser is a long one. This long-running series has never been released Stateside save for the original (which was renamed “Warsong” and released for Genesis). Langrisser II for Genesis has since been translated by fans in the emulation community, and the superior-yet-easier remake for the Super Famicom partially translated. The gameplay can best be described as Fire Emblem meets Advance Wars, and subsequent releases soon followed, as well as compilations (Langrisser I & II and Langrisser IV & V for Playstation), ports (Langrisser III for PS2), and spin-offs (Langrisser Millennium for Dreamcast).

Rumors of more Stateside releases grew when Working Designs announced that it would be releasing Langrisser’s sister series, Growlanser, in the US. After many delays, Growlanser Generations was finally released for PS2, but Working Designs closed down soon after that. With no signs of a domestic release in the near future, fans of the series can only look to their fellow fans in hopes for another English Langrisser title.

It’s especially a shame when the music is so good. Composed by Noriyuki Iwadare of Grandia and Lunar fame, this soundtrack is unsurprisingly outstanding. What is surprising, though, is that this isn’t the original soundtrack despite what the title claims, and is actually an album of well-arranged synth-rock. From the very first track, this album perfectly captures the desperate-but-never-relenting mood of the game’s storyline with its quick and upbeat tempo, and the character theme songs really fit the images of their respective characters, particularly of the villains’. The less stellar tracks can be found near the middle of the album and aren’t too bad – at least not worst than the game’s – but I was disappointed by one or two tracks which actually sounded worse (in terms of composition, not fidelity) than the ones found in the Super Famicom version (I’m looking at you, Leon’s theme).

The cover of the album is illustrated by acclaimed, uh…pinup artist Satoshi Urushihara. The back is even more interesting because it’s a little more risqué and features the tracklist in both English and German, but not Japanese. I guess they came for the pictures.

King of Fighters '99 Arrange Sound Trax
(Information and tracklisting available at Chudah's Corner.)

King of Fighter and Street Fighter fans can argue which series is better until they’re blue in the face, but this album is one of the better ones among both series. The only caveat, of course, is that no two tracks sound alike. King of Fighters ’99 Arrange Sound Trax covers a wide range of genres including electronica, jazz, and hard rock; what’s even more amazing is that most of it doesn’t suck. Just how many albums can say that?

More surprising is the fact that each track stands on its own without feeling disjointed – you don’t even have to like the games to like the music. You don’t need to know the characters, their backgrounds, or the laughably absurd storylines to appreciate the tunes because - like all good music - the tunes will offer a glimmer of insight as to what kind of story the characters tell. Yet, at the same time, this soundtrack easily revokes memories of the KOF universe if you already are familiar with the series.

Take fan-favorite “Esaka [Acid Mix]”, for instance. This rendition will instantly be recognized by the most casual of KOF fans as the theme of Japan Team, specifically of series protagonist Kyo Kusanagi. This track is harder than previous versions and matches Kyo’s rough-around-the-edges demeanor in addition to his new, flashier makeover for this installment of the series. Likewise, “176th Street” captures the personality of the brash and confident Hungry Wolf, Terry Bogard. The track starts off with a few piano notes followed by saxophones going back and forth in a steady and upbeat rhythm, slowing down enough so that both piano and saxophone are playing concurrently (the latter of which holds the melody), and finally ending as quietly as it had started.

The SNK sound team really outdid themselves here, and whether you’re a fan of the series or not, this excellent album should not be missed. Unless you plain just don’t like good music. Then, uh… there’s always radio.

Genso Suikoden Celtic Collection 2
(Information and tracklisting is available at Chudah's Corner.)

Genso Suikoden II is a lot like your typical Final Fantasy, except the graphics suck and the game itself is good. I kid, I kid (or am I?) – the game is good, the music is great (an understatement), this album is whatever’s beyond great, and I’m pretty sure this sentence came just centimeters shy of being run-on (I have no doubt that the grammar and punctuation are a little awkward). Words can’t describe how much I love this album (apparently not as much as parentheses!), but I’ll sure as hell try.

The Celtic Collection reflects Suikoden’s more melancholic moments. It consists of three albums - this one arguably the best. The range of instruments featured in this album read like a who’s who list of instruments no one’s ever taken seriously - the recorder, harp, tin whistle, accordion – but it takes only a short while to dismiss this notion completely. The album opens with “Time of Calmness” – a soft, somber piece that suddenly breaks into full swing two minutes and makes you want to rise up and dance à la Riverdance. The next track “Chant” is nicely done and similar in composition to the first, only it comes alive a minute sooner with violins blasting away, and the recorders answering back. It ends gently with whispering vocal chants and harp plucks. Harmonizing vocals are then again featured prominently on the fifth track, “Mysterious Forest”, and help to provide the calm and ambient mood of the piece.

The most stunning track is “Forgotten Days”, hands down. This piece literally makes me just sit down and retrospect on my own life - I know of very few musical compositions that have the power to do that. It opens with a measure or two of acoustic guitar, and is then shortly accompanied by a lone tin whistle. This continues for about 26 seconds; before you even realize it, the accordion sneaks in with a few long notes and melts in completely. The piece nears to an end with the trio getting softer and softer until the music can no longer be heard, like a memory fading away.

“Touching Theme” follows and, despite the weird name, is one of the more uplifting pieces of the album. This mood is further brought into realization with the next piece, “Ending March”, which resonates a feeling that nothing can ever go wrong with its soothing vocals. I was surprised by the next piece, “Green Gravestone” since its beginning sounded almost as sorrowful as “Forgotten Days”, but halfway through the piece, the accordion is played in such a manner that makes you believe that it’s a living creature – fully embodied, breathing, and talking. “Eternal Empire” concludes the album and features a mixture of vocals, keyboard, harp, and recorder. Similar to “Ending March”, the vocals here play a prominent part in setting the tone, and wraps up the album satisfyingly.

Arc the Lad Piano Album
(Details and song excerpts are avaialble at RPGFan Soundtracks.)

Arc the Lad Piano Album has the distinction of having not only an Engrish-y title and a bland album cover, but more exceptional music than it has any right to have considering that the original soundtrack was fairly lackluster. It’s only once in a blue moon that I find an album I could listen to in its entirety without skipping a track. Clocking in at just under an hour, this album is made up of twelve tracks you can’t miss if you’re a fan of piano music.

The opening piece, “Theme of Arc the Lad”, which has been featured in every Arc the Lad game in one variation or another, translates well enough into piano, but is a little on the short side. The next track, “Arc” reminds me why I love piano music in the first place with its rich variance of dynamics and composition, accented with light staccato notes in the background in the latter half of the piece. “Way to the Earth” is another beautiful piece, albeit, slower and mellower. Most of the piece is played in the traditional manner of containing both a melody and harmony, but at about 3’47”, both hands take turns playing the melody for a few measures, providing for a nice contrast to the rest of the piece.

If I had to choose my least favorite piece of the album, it would be the next one, “Battle with the Four Generals”, because it doesn’t vary much in composition and is even a bit repetitive, and the piece itself has a very different tone when compared to others on the album. “Elk”, however, is a piece that proves that it doesn’t need to be played perfectly to be enjoyable. The pianist sounds a bit stilted at times here. This track is the shortest and most repetitive one on the album, but you won’t mind when the melody is this catchy and addictive.

The last few tracks are the weakest, but all are excellent pieces nonetheless. The last piece, “To Tomorrow”, takes exception and is as good as the ones found in the first half of the track. More delicate and gentler in tone, the track aptly fits its title and gives the sense that a tomorrow is always promised, forevermore. I’m hard-pressed to name a piece more suitable to conclude an album.

Posted by henryc at 5:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Over at GameSpot parent CNet News, Daniel Terdiman continues to do some excellent work on the game biz, especially in the MMO/virtual world space, and a recent piece has him documenting the return of Cyan's Uru Live, the MMO-ish offshot of the Myst series which was defunct, and is now returning via GameTap

Here are some choice excerpts: "That "Uru Live" has life at all is probably surprising to some. The game had a strong fan base before it was shut down during beta on Feb. 9, 2004 due to a lack of financial resources. Left with no official place to play the game, many players stayed together in an unsupported freeware version of the game called "Until Uru" made available by its developer, Cyan Worlds."

Uru gamer Eleri Hamilton (her game name) comments: "I think it's something the gaming industry in general should take note of. Here was this game that was killed by a large publisher (and) that the fans kept the torch burning (for) two years until GameTap picked it up. I think what GameTap is planning, with reaching out to the smaller game companies that don't match up to the big publisher bottom lines, is going to shake up the industry."

An interesting perspective, and I guess we'll see what happens - one thing I _would_ like to point too, though, is Andrew Plotkin's series of articles about Uru, which excellently documented the slightly broken but fascinating genesis of the title.

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our mates at Playthrough.net have spotted a felicitous thing - Turner's Adult Swim division (previous sponsors of the IGF, even!) have announced they're seeking indie game pitches, with a few to having an Adult Swim indie game nexus that isn't just show spinoffs.

The site explains: "Adult Swim will be a home for independent games. We know that there are talented artists and programmers looking for someone to pay them to do what they do best: make fun games. We’re open to pitches for any game you want to show us, but we’re looking for a unique tone and good game play. We’re not here to dictate that tone, but we’ll know if it’s not there."

They continue: "Take chances with atmosphere and character; try new things with interface and game play. We want weird, funny, fast-paced, stupid, thought-provoking, twitchy, epic, ironic or violent — whatever you can think up. The only pitches we don’t want are kiddy and unoriginal. We also do not want show-based pitches. The more unusual the better." What with this and GameTap and stuff like the Cartoon Network MMO, Turner are just kicking all kinds of cool game ass recently.

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Oh my, this is well worth repeating: "High Moon Studios, part of Sierra Entertainment, today announced an upcoming line of high quality costumes based on the hit Vampire-Western video game, Darkwatch."

Lucky us! "Designed and manufactured by California Costume Collections, Inc., the costume line features clothing and accessories recreating the horror themed Western era wardrobe worn by the game’s half-vampire gunslinger hero, Jericho Cross. Darkwatch is the first video game property licensed by California Costume Collections, a maker and distributor of high-end costumes and wardrobe accessories. Darkwatch costumes and accessories are available in adult and child sizes at major party retailers including Party City and Spencer Gifts." Here's a link to the costume in question, heh.

So says the press release (here's an online mirror): “Darkwatch is an original property with a rich universe that, as we have seen, instantly resonates with pop culture savants,” said Chris Ulm, chief design officer, High Moon Studios. “We love the fact that we can now let fans of the game reconnect with that universe by becoming Jericho Cross, as well as introduce a new audience to the unique look and feel that set it apart as a video game property. In a sense, everybody should feel good about the prospect of having thousands of Darkwatch agents roaming the streets on Halloween night.” Do people really care THAT much about Darkwatch? Sorry to ask it, High Moon, I like you!

Posted by Simon Carless at 1:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

[The Gentleman Nerd is a weekly column written by Jason McMaster and is dedicated to the more discerning tastes of the refined dork. Due to Jason's extreme nature, most of his columns will be subtitled 'Why I Love...' or 'Why I Hate...' - in case you were wondering.]

You know all that stuff I usually write about? All that stuff about the drinking and debauchery. I think I found a cure for that. There's this one company that is pretty popular in the board game world - I've talked about them before - called Days of Wonder. They make kid-friendly games that the whole family can enjoy, and I frankly find that disturbing. Memoir '44, one of their games I've mentioned before, is at least about our finest hour, but the one I'm going to discuss today is just too damned happy. I'm referring to Ticket to Ride: Märklin.

I think the first warning sign, other than the fact that the game is about taking trains, is that the player who goes first is chosen by either who is the youngest or who owns the most Märklin trains. I don't know about you guys, but model trains and hard drinking don't usually mix. Then again, who am I to talk?

Even though Ticket to Ride is about trains, building train routes and, well, liking trains, it's a pretty good time. The way the game works is that each player has a set amount of trains in their color and three passengers. These items are used to make lines between cities in, depending on the version, the U.S., Germany or Europe(in Märklin's case it's Germany). Every time you make a line, you are allowed to place a passenger on one of the two cities you connected. This passenger, on one of your turns, can travel the line you've created (or jump on other people's lines via "ticket" cards that you can draw) and pick up cargo for extra points. These passengers can only be used once each, so it’s wise to not go crazy with them right at the beginning.

In Ticket to Ride, you score points by building train routes. The length of your train determines how many points you get when you complete it - the longer the better. At the beginning of the game, every player draws four route cards and has to keep at least two. These routes give you extra points if you complete them, but they're also much more complex than just completing a line between two cities. There are always multiple stops when the route cards are involved.

To place trains on a line in the first place, you need to have cards. The way this works is that every player is dealt four cards from the deck at the beginning of the game and then the next five on top are flipped over face up so you can see them. For the rest of the game, players can choose to draw two cards from the deck, the face up cards, or a combination of the two. The face-up cards are replenished immediately, so there's a little bit of luck and gambling in it. Do you want to draw blind or do you see something you need on the table?

Each line on the board has a color, and these colors correspond to card choices with the exception of gray which is wild card; you can use any color card, as long as you make sure it's all that color, to claim the line. The card part of the game is fairly reminiscent of UNO in that there are wild cards can be used to represent any color, and also wild card +4s out there which act as four cards for the purpose of creating lines.

The game ends when one player gets down to his last trains. After that, everyone else is allowed to take one more turn before calculating points. The points that have been counted up are then added to by people's route completions. Of course, the player with the most points wins. That's how the game goes.

Now, usually this column would be full of me talking about all manner of skullduggery and murder, but I just couldn't manage to muscle it up this time. I really like the game, but it's just so… wholesome. For the most part, I only play games that involve killing, otherworldly beings, dungeons or all three, but it's nice to play something that's not so dour from time to time. Hell, I guess it doesn't hurt to not get drunk and angry every now and then.

This is a game that I plan to play with my kids one day.

I usually like to have three game pictures per column, but I came up a little short this time. Here's a bonus picture of my current collection as of Sunday. My wife saw me looking at this and asked me why I just didn't go stand in front of the shelf and stare at it instead. That's a pretty good question. I guess I'll go stare at my games now.

[Jason McMaster is a freelance writer who has written for Gamasutra, GameSpy and several other publications. He’s currently working on a few small projects and updating his blog, Lamethrower, as often as he can.]

Posted by jasonm at 8:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Well, I finally got around to rearranging the GameSetWatch columns on the sidebar, since quite a few of them have either gone or hiatus, come to an end, or started up again - but all for good, fuzzy, not litigation-related reasons!

For example, Mathew Kumar has stopped wandering around Second Life, for his own sanity of mind - though he may do another column for us sometime. In addition, RedWolf finished up his game ads column, and DannyC has basically put Bastards Of 32-Bit on hiatus while he does a little more work for us on Gamasutra.

We've phased in a few new neat columns, though - including Matt Hawkins' excellent 'Cinema Pixeldiso', on video game-related movies, and Andrew Smale has started 'Keyboard Bashing' to look at classic PC games, which is neeto. In addition, Jason McMaster's 'The Gentleman Nerd' boardgaming column continues apace, as does John Harris' @Play Rogue-like column, and I think we have at least one other column starting soon to run alongside our other regulars (teh Weasel, teh Zenke, teh boys!)

Anyhow, if you'd like to take a hack at writing a GameSetWatch column, then just contact us - we'd like columns on the subject of pretty much anything (even the stuff people just stopped doing!) Also, anyone who's a cartoonist and writes about funny game stuff should also pop their head up, since the lovely Persona is unfortunately stopping doing his thing with us next week, AW. We miss him already.

Cosmic remuneration for any column will be in the form of loving glances and occasional hand holding, because as I've mentioned before, this is more editor blog than commercial enterprise, thanks to our lack of OMG360 posts and resultant mounds of cash. But hey, it's fun, right?

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

On reading TomChick's paean to the newly launched Massive Magazine over at QT3, I thought I should chip in with my own impressions of the mag, which I recently got a copy of - and basically, it's wonderful.

I believe our very own Kevin Gifford has already weighed in on the quarterly publication, which is created by the people behind Computer Games Magazine, which has quite possibly the best quality writing of any U.S. video game print magazine in any case. Although Massive's quarterly schedule means it has to be a little, uhm, 'circumspect' in terms of any timely coverage, it's a great-looking mag with a good quality demo DVD in the first issue.

I also noticed, like Kevin, that the latest issue of CGM has an IGE ad on the back cover and the first issue of Massive Magazine doesn't - odd, huh? :) And I think most of the 'celebrity' editorials in Massive were really readable - particularly Brad McQuaid's and Richard Garriott's (justifying why Tabula Rasa is now 'different') - though Raph Koster's was a little meander-y for my tastes. Also, it was fun to see the WoW design team pick the worst item in the game - apparently 'Shadowstrike' ("It's often dubbed Vendorstrike, because it's sold to a vendor.")

So, overall, one of the most readable magazines around - if anyone has a chance of making a difference in the print space at this stage, it's Massive - so we wish 'em luck! It's just a shame all video game fans hang out online so much, as compared to other demographics who don't, and therefore still buy a lot more magazines (housekeeping, custom cars, etc). No way round that, unless we gank all their PCs?

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some more fun stuff for 'all you can eat' subscription PC gaming/watching service GameTap that we got, in a couple of separate press releases, so here goes. Firstly: "Beginning this Thursday, October 12, episodes of the original “Sam & Max” animated series will be airing exclusively on GameTap."

This is neat (it's ahead of the October 17 debut of the Telltale Sam 'N Max game's first episode, of course): "Originally premiering in 1997 on Fox Kids, the series introduced the six foot dog and his manic rabbity-thing companion, who go about fighting crime, protecting the general public from the forces of evil and causing general mayhem with their unique brand of humor, to national TV audiences. Each week, GameTap will be adding an episode of this timeless cartoon series to GameTap TV, making it “must-stream” broadband TV alongside the more than 400 pieces of original programming currently available as part of the monthly subscription."

Alsooo, this week seems to be RTS/strategy week on GameTap itself, and some pretty neat games have been added, including: "Command & Conquer... Command & Conquer Red Alert.. Age of Sail II: Privateer's Bounty... Sid Meier's Gettysburg!... The Settlers III... Nam - 1975." Well, OK, that last one isn't very strategy-like, but it is a very early Neo Geo title that you can play multiplayer over GameTap, so have at it.

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's just no getting around how adorably old-man-crazy Nolan 'Atari/Chuck E Cheese' Bushnell is, and thus we got a press release that "announces that the first uWink restaurant will open Monday, October 16th, in Woodland Hills, California", featuring his latest spin on the video gaming diner.

As the PR explains: "uWink is an entirely new restaurant concept that combines food, drinks, and media -- inviting guests to eat, drink and engage at the same time, from their tables via touch screens." At one point, I thought there were going to be honest-to-goodness robots all over the place, but seems like this info page on the uWink site explains most of the goodness, as does the press on the uWink blog.

The LA Daily News piece cited there explains it best: "Customers order food and drink on touch-screen computers built into their tables. Diners who want extra cheese on their pizza or a sandwich sans mustard can modify their order via the computer, which also makes cocktail recommendations based on a personality quiz... While waiting for meals, customers can play games on the table computers. The games are not free, but diners earn credits as their tab rises. If folks just want to play games, rates vary between $4 and $8 an hour."

Posted by Simon Carless at 2:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Happening to check out the excellent Game-Science for the first time in a while, I noted they have a informative review of Project Sylpheed for Xbox 360, a Japanese-only (for now?) space shooter which looks very pretty.

As Jonnyram explains: "Square Enix’s first original title on the Xbox 360 is a collaboration between Game Arts, Seta and anima inc. Game Arts originally came up with the Silpheed concept back in the 80s on 8-bit home computers in Japan, Seta joined in development since the Mega CD release, and this time anima inc. has come on board to provide further polish to the game."

Conclusions? "The overall feel of the game is very cinematic, making my original comparison to Ace Combat feel more valid. anima inc. boasts more than one hour of CG animation in the game; rather impressive for a shooter and certainly this contributes to the overall feel of the game. The constant little cutscenes really help the story to blend with the action sequences. The character design, though somewhat generic, is pleasing enough on the eye and the sum of all the parts is a rather positive production." Looking forward to someone (Squenix?) putting this out in the West.

Posted by Simon Carless at 9:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The physics game blog Fun Motion hath returned with a little look at some neat physics toys, including Line Rider, which everyone seems pretty jazzed about recently.

It's explained: "Line Rider is a great Flash-based physics toy by “~lsk”. You paint down lines, which define the collision, and then launch a guy on a sled. People have done some amazing things with it (try a YouTube search for “line rider”)."

What's more: "Line Rider is available for free on deviantart. There are two versions available: the web version, and a download version (better framerate, particularly if you’re running Firefox)." Also listed on the page are MIT Sketching and Working Model 2D - also pretty interesting. Yay physics!

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This is very GSW-relevant as well, so I'm just going to paste from what me and Brandon Boyer wrote on Gamasutra:

"The organizers of the 2007 Independent Games Festival are reminding possible entrants that the final entry deadline for its second IGF Mod Competition is October 13, 2006 at 11:59pm PDT, for mod creators wanting to enter their best mods created in any game - from Thief to Half-Life 2 to Oblivion to The Sims and beyond.

Anyone who has made a major update to their mod in the last year is eligible to enter, and winners in the four initial categories: Best Singleplayer FPS Mod, Best Multiplayer FPS Mod, Best RPG Mod, and Best 'Other' Mod will all see awards of $500 each. Each will be a finalist for an overall 'Best Mod' award, which will take home a $5000 prize at the Independent Games Festival Awards next year.

Initial mod winners will be announced in January 2007, and the winners will be invited to show their games at the IGF Pavilion during Game Developers Conference, held in San Francisco in March 2007, where the final IGF Awards will be announced and the ultimate 'Best Mod' winner revealed.

The main 2007 IGF Competition has once again seen a record 141 entries vying for attention, kudos, and the $20,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize, and a high-quality turn-out is expected for this year's Mod Competition, whose winners last year included Half-Life 2 mod Dystopia, Neverwinter Nights mod Rose Of Eternity: Chapter 1, Unreal Tournament 2004 mod Path Of Vengeance, and Doom 3 mod Last Man Standing.

Those interested in learning further can visit the IGF's submission site for more guidelines and specifics about the competition." Yay.

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

GSW co-editor and Gamasutra editor FrankC is still keepin' on with Lost Levels, exploring games that never were - or at least, never were unleashed on the public, and the mysterious Doctor Zero has caught up with Star Trek V for the NES for the latest iteration.

It's revealed: "The Star Trek V game for the NES is mostly a side scrolling platformer in four parts. The third part is different from the others in that it involves piloting the Enterprise in a space-shooter style game play. Each part is relatively short, and aside from a completely obtuse way to solve opening a door in part 2, the game takes maybe a couple hours to play from start to finish - assuming you don't die repeatedly. This is the biggest problem with this game – there's just not much to it."

How about the climactic ending? "At last we come to the final stage of the game – the confrontation between God and Kirk. This stage returns to the side-scroller game play... The enemies, excitingly enough, consist entirely of rocks. Lots of rocks. Hooray. Also, the level ends in a huge climactic battle between Kirk and a poison warning label. I guess Bandai thought it made some kind of sense that God is a huge flaming skull." I was always convinced God was a huge flaming skull, myself.

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Over at The Hollywood Reporter, the most excellent Paul Hyman has written a feature on the future of the Game Developers Conference - which, yes, is owned by the CMP Game Group, which also runs this site, but we have minds of our own, etc.

Anyhow, Dave Perry, who's on the GDC Advisory Board, has some interesting views on why E3 went bye-bye: "E3 had become a jack of all trades and a master of none," observes GDC's Perry. "The show had been very, very good as a promotional thing because it was the one show where you'd have every magazine in the world attend. But then the exhibitors started filtering out the blog writers and the smaller Web sites and fan sites. Only pre-approved people with appointments got to see, say, 'King Kong,' in a little theater in the back. And you only got to see the Wii controller if you stood on line for three hours. So the promotional aspect of the show sort of died."

I'm also quoted in there talking about the IGF, which I'm not objective about because it's my baby, but hey. Also, there's this: "Still, observes Dan Hsu, editor-in-chief of "Electronic Gaming Monthly," whether GDC will be able to resist becoming another E3 remains to be seen. "The trick will be for the organizers to keep it as low-key and quiet a conference as it's been in the past."" Well, it's sorta a low-key frenzied, actually, but I think those people who sit over the other side of the office can get it right and keep GDC the right side of mahhvellous. We'll see, huh?

Posted by Simon Carless at 2:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over at Playthrough.net, they're raving about the new Indian Xbox 360 commercial, and since we're way behind 'the times', we picked it up there and we dig it, too.

As they explain: "Several weeks ago, Microsoft launched their Xbox 360 console in India and though the price is outrageous in relation to India’s GDP, their marketing campaign is accessible to everyone, even me! Featuring Akshay Kumar and Yuvraj Singh, everything about this commercial is great."

The Playthrough-ers grin: "The cinematography is beautiful, with exaggerated colors to match the exaggerated people running, jumping and er, stretching around the “homeland”. It sure beats the Austrian and German ads, which have to be the dryest, most boring ads I’ve seen." Still, YouTube digs up some pretty bizarre German X360 stuff - oh, Microsoft, you're so cool.

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

['Parallax Memories' is a regular column by Matthew Williamson, profiling classic '16-bit' games from the Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, and other seminal '90s systems. This week's column profiles Capcom’s Ghosts ‘n Goblins series - and was coincidentally submitted at the same time as the GnG-related GameSetCompetition!]

Ghosts ‘n Goblins or Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, it doesn’t really matter what you call the game (if you can even remember which version has which names): GnG seem to hate you so much you will probably respond with curses and thrown controllers. After recently receiving a copy of Ultimate Ghosts ‘n Goblins I figured it would be best to make sure I was still up to snuff on the older versions of the game. In an attempt to kill two birds with one stone I thought I would turn my skill test into something useful here, even if it does include an 8bit game.

The first game in the Ghosts ‘n Goblins lineage was released in 1985 for the arcade. In Japanese the game carried the title of Makaimura which means “Demon Village World.” (All subsequent games carried a modifier to this: “Dai” meaning great, “Chō” meaning ultimate, and “Goku” meaning extreme. Most likely this makes it easier to talk about with your friends and cuts down on confusion in Japan.) The main character is Sir Arthur whose love, the princess Prin-Prin, was stolen from him (which oddly enough happens while having a picnic with her in his boxer-briefs). He now must go into the Ghoul Realm and save her.

Juxtaposition is one of the keys of the game. Light hearted humor mixed with demonic and satanic themes. Strict gameplay mixed with random enemy spawning. Boxers under a coat of armor. The game really sticks it too you with mixed messages, and one of the things I set out to find is why I keep playing these games and enjoy them so.

[Click through for more.]

Ready Go

Ghosts ‘n Goblins is one of the few series which spans over twenty years, and is also one of the few that I still own the first copy I bought of all the games in the series, so this project wasn’t the most complicated of undertakings. Also a recent issue of Play Magazine listed Ghosts ‘n Goblins as the number one 8bit platformer: my renewed interest in the series was ultimately piqued.

The NES version was first on my list, and is easily the hardest of the bunch. Arthur is most limited in his movements and skill set. A jump is a commitment; you hit the button and can no longer change what you wanted to do mid-air. This results in many blind leaps into enemies, underestimated distances over pits of death, and general frustration. Many of the stronger enemies will require multiple hits with your weapon, often at ranges that are too close in which to kill them in time.

Noting that this game predates the first Castlevania by a year, it is interesting to see so many similarities. A lot of them are the more frustrating quirks of the series. Taking a ladder commits you to it, and you can’t get off it at any point in time without fully completing an ascent or, descent which is how stairs are handled in Castlevania. As stated before, once you jump you can’t go back, a characteristic shared between both Simon and Arthur. There are also quite a few enemies in GnG which are similar to the Castlevania series staple, the Medusa head. And yet, while there are so many similarities, the games come across completely differently. Even Tokuro Fujiwara, lead designer for all of the GnG games said; "I'm not really familiar with the Castlevania series as I have not played any of the games. I would have to say there is no connection if you play any of the games I made."

Ghosts ‘n Goblins reminds me of a joke my wife recently told me. It was also a question on her test: “Which is better, dyspareunia, or none at all?” The game is a pretty painful experience, but overall very wonderful, especially after the initial burn. This is probably a good point to mention that I can’t beat the NES version. There are two levels that I have to use the level select password to pass, and I’ll leave it up to your imagination which they are. On top of that, I can’t properly complete any of the games. Fully completing a GnG game requires you not only to finish the game once, but then to get sent back to the beginning at a higher difficulty level, with vague instructions on how to get to the “true end boss.” Being that the game involves a princess telling you this, I get to relate the game to Mario (ok, not really, but Super Mario Bros. was released only one short week after the initial release of GnG. So I’m not saying one stole the idea from the other).

The first game took me two sittings to complete as I haven’t really touched it since I first got the last copy at a Toys ‘R Us way back when. Ghouls ‘n Ghosts is the second game in the series and the one that I have spent the most time with. Up until just the other day I had never actually finished the game without cheating. This time, though, I completed the first round in just under an hour, after not playing it in so long. The GnG games train you over and over again how it wants to be played. While the enemies will randomly spawn at certain locations, the game throws so much at you that every action and distance is burned into your muscle memory, no matter how random. Even more than a decade later the game was still with me in an intimate and familiar way.

What separates Ghouls ‘n Ghosts from Ghosts ‘n Goblins is that you can now throw your weapon up and down. Jumping is still the same commitment, but now the amount of freedom you have is increased allowing for just that many more options in which to deal with situations. The attitude, story, and enemies all return to tell a parallel tale inside of a very similar game. Overall the game was easier, but not easy, and apparently that wasn’t good enough for Capcom.

Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts was released three years after Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, and at the time was only available on the SNES. Unlike the first two games in the series, Super did not start as an arcade game, and wasn’t ported to dozens of smaller or niche computer systems. I did not have a Super NES at the time and had to wait a little while to play the game, as I imagine others did as well. When I finally did get a chance to play it I despised it.

Aimed throwing is now gone from the series only to be replaced with a double jump. For as many platform games that have double jumping, never has it felt so ridiculous. The double jump allows for you to now adjust yourself, or even correct yourself midair. The animation itself even shows Arthur pump his legs and pitch himself slightly more in the direction of your choice. It does go well with the juxtaposition of the game and creates heavy risk and reward situations, but I stil wasn’t looking forward to this part of my research.

The game grew on me. Slowly I got more and more used to it. Super GnG lends itself well to the double jump mechanic, as does Ghouls ‘n Ghosts to the ability to throw up or down. But the game is more difficult. I can’t say if it is because of the mechanic or just the level design, but Capcom decided to bring it back to a more challenging state. To be honest, I never previously gave Super a fair shot, and I am glad that I now have as it is a very rewarding, as well as epic, game.

I also borrowed the Gameboy Advance version of Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts for the occasion. It is a fairly satisfactory port of the game, yet the screen is cropped and the sound also takes a hit. The interesting aspect is the added Arrange Mode where levels from the first and second game have been added for you to play through with the double jumping Arthur. Unfortunately you have to be very, very skilled at the game to see a lot of these levels, leaving me without a good impression of how they work.

Congratulation! The Story is Happy End.

When I started playing Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts I spent over 60 lives attempting to complete level 1-1. Yes, the very first half of the introductory level. I started out playing by myself with my wife reading in the same room. Eventually we started to trade off after each set of lives. Death after death led to cursing of the most vulgar kind by myself, while my wife insisted that the game was just “stupid.” Yet she kept picking up the controller after my three deaths, as did I after hers. This got me thinking about quite a few things related to the series, most of all what had compelled me to keep playing these games, and why do I still enjoyed them.

I keep playing the games because I know that when you beat a level, or just a small section, that you have learned how to do it and are, for a lack of better words, a master of your environment. Now, I don’t compete for scores or record super-plays of myself, and my wife isn’t much good at games that require a lot of skill. Yet we both beat the game (or rather the first loop) because of something which compelled us to proceed when all odds were stacked against us. This is because the game is a giant carrot at the end of a stick. It is constantly, at the beginning of every life, showing you both how far you have made it and how far you are from the end on a map. Because you respawn from the beginning of a level or section you know that when you have completed it, you did the whole section, you didn’t just get lucky. These things are the carrot, and occasionally, if you run fast enough and try hard enough to get a small taste, it tastes good.

Tokuro Fujiwara states that “[The gameplay] requires experience and making decisions on the fly which will inevitably help players improve their skills over time.” This is exactly what every game in the series does, and specifically what the first level of them all trains you to do in preparation for later levels. In the first game, in order to get to the second respawn point you need to defeat a Red Devil which requires you to have experience with combat, and also to make a jump onto and off of a moving platform over a pit of instant death. Ghouls ‘n Ghosts requires you to use your up-attack on a tree of buzzards or you will perish by their multitude after passing under them. Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts requires not only very precise double jumping, but also careful timing of it, to get to the second half of the first level. It was because I hadn’t improved my skills enough, and I wouldn’t be ready for anything more difficult than a well timed jump with no enemies around, that it took me over 60 lives to beat the first part of Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts.

GnG doesn’t hate you at all. In actuality it gives you exactly as much respect as the games expect in return. No situation is insurmountable or impossible; in fact it is always the opposite once you have properly trained. With the recent PSP release of Ultimate Ghosts ‘N Goblins people have wondered if, because you return from the dead on the spot, rather than at a respawn point, the series has perhaps lost its edge, or is no longer respecting the player. The short answer is: no, it hasn’t. But that’s a story for another day in the not-too-distant future at another site.

[Matthew Williamson is the creator of The Gamer’s Quarter (which just had a new issue released!), an independent videogame magazine focusing on first person writing. His work has been featured on MTV.com, 1up.com, Chatterbox Radio, and the Fatpixels Radio Podcast.]

Posted by Matthew Williamson at 7:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Not quite sure where I stumbled upon this, but I'm really enjoying Stargamer.net, a new niche genre site set up specifically "to cover space games" of various kinds - "partly through a shared love of games featuring space ships, but mostly because we had a few spare days with little else to do but bemoan the lack of a decent space gaming portal."

They're reporting on stuff that not many other people are spotting, either - like info on forthcoming Russian space title Tarr Chronicles: Sign of Ghosts - "a first and third-person space combat game in development that tells the story of the Battlestar Talestra (no relation to Galactica), which after guarding some scientists on a routine security patrol, seems to have found itself far from home thanks to a busted hyperdrive."

There's also wackiness describing an EVE Online mod for Homeworld 2 - someone got their RTS in my MMO! Also neat - a surprisingly well-constructed database of space games with screenshots, links, and even info on popular mods stuck in there somewhere - clearly, any site with an entry for Sinistar Unleashed is going places.

Posted by Simon Carless at 2:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another completely random find on eBay - GSW has noticed a Hong Kong seller who is trying to flog 'Parappa the Rapper 2 McDonald Special Edition' for PS2 - which is actually a special fast-food themed demo disc!

There's a bit more info in an old GameSpot article: "Sony and McDonald's have teamed up to release the Happy Disc, a PlayStation 2 demo that contains one-level versions of Ape Escape 2001 and PaRappa the Rapper 2. Ape Escape is already on Japanese shelves, but PaRappa 2 isn't scheduled for release until August 30, so this is the first time we've seen the game in action."

What's more: "The demo level takes place in a McDonald's, with PaRappa and a burger-flipping ghost trading rhymes about cutting lettuce, toasting buns, and the wonderful world of condiments, among other things." The first level in the final Parappa 2 is set in 'Beard Burgers', not in Ronald's wonderful emporium, so I wonder - does this demo have McDonald's logos inserted? Is there anything else different, if so? Perhaps someone could buy it and find out. [UPDATE: A couple of people we know, including the inevitable Kohler, own this, and reckon it's just got McDonald's logos in the first stage of the game with no other lyric or other changes.]

(BONUS: A scary McDonald's Japan commercial on GoogleTube from the same era which advertises Happy Meal-style game toys, including Parappa.)

Posted by Simon Carless at 9:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well, thanks to regular GameSetWatch buddies Capcom (other companies - give stuff away with us too!), it's time for another exciting GameSetCompetition - better late than never!. This time it's involving PSP ulti-cult (!) craziness Ultimate Ghosts 'N Goblins, a title that's seen some intriguingly contrasting reviews of late, hah.

In any case, the official website has plenty more info, as does the Wikipedia page, which notes: "Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins is the first game in the series to employ 3D graphics, while maintaining much of the 2D gameplay mechanics of the earlier games. It also marks the return of the series' project head, Tokuro Fujiwara. The game still follows the classic scenario of a heroic knight battling with demons, but includes a large amount of changes."

Anyhow, we have 3 copies of the game to give away, rawk. Here's the question:

"What slightly insane, pig and pink hair-inclusive PlayStation platform game series did Tokuro Fujiwara mastermind after leaving Capcom and before returning to captain the latest Ghosts 'N Goblins title?"

Please send your answers to editors@gamesetwatch.com any time before Monday, October 16th at 12 noon PST. There will be three winners randomly picked from the correct answers, the judges' decision is final, and that's that. Have fun!

Posted by Simon Carless at 3:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Oops, a little behind the curve on this one, but hey, it's worth running anyhow - the New York Times has a great profile of Will Wright and the construction of 'Spore', and it's written by 'Everything Bad is MARVELLOUS For You' author Steven Johnson, yay.

It's got a cute intro, too: "You can catch glimpses of the long zoom in special-effects sequences, but to understand the connections between those different scales, to understand our place in the universe of the very large and the very small, you have to take another way in. To date, books and documentaries have done the best job of making the long zoom meaningful to mass audiences... but a decade or two from now, when we look back at this period, it is more likely that the work that will fix the long zoom in the popular imagination will be neither a movie nor a book nor anything associated with the cultural products that dominated the 20th century. It will be a computer game."

Step forward the ever-adorable Spore, and there's even some edugaming lust in there somewhere: "It occurred to me as I wandered through the halls of the Spore offices that a troubled school system could probably do far worse than to devote an entire, say, fourth-grade year to playing Spore. The kids would get a valuable perspective on their universe; they would learn technical skills and exercise their imaginations at the same time; they would learn about the responsibility that comes from creating independent life. And no doubt you would have to drag them out of the classrooms at the end of the day." Let's go back to school!

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

['Keyboard Bashing' is a new GameSetWatch column by Tales of a Scorched Earth's Andrew Smale which discusses the history, present and future of PC gaming.]

Before Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, before Unreal, another war was being waged between the future champions of the first person shooter. Both in their infancy, id software and Epic MegaGames were contributing to another burgeoning genre on the PC: the side scrolling platformer. Games largely remembered as trifling attempts at making the hobby accessible, they are no less important in the evolution of PC gaming.

The growing popularity of Super Mario Bros. and the home console saw PC gaming play catch up in the early 1990s. id Software's Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons arrived on the shareware scene in 1990, and was probably my first exposure to that form of software distribution. Publishers would issue the first "chapter" or "episode" on diskette, which would often be shared throughout the BBS scene. It was perfectly legal - the intent was to get the game into the hands of as many people as possible, and if they liked it enough, they could purchase the remaining episodes and see the rest of the game. You could almost call shareware the predecessor to the newly fashionable episodic content and digital distribution.

While Pharaoh's Tomb (1990) slightly predated Commander Keen as an Apogee published title, the disparity between the two platformers was incredible. Incidentally, George Broussard, the current figurehead behind 3D Realms and the Duke Nukem Forever project was the man responsible for that title. With Commander Keen id Software created a revolutionary smooth scrolling engine with only EGA graphics; the former seemed absolutely ancient in comparison.

The game starred a boy who built a spaceship out of old soup cans and spare parts in his garage, only to be marooned on Mars after crash landing to defend himself against the evil Vorticons and save the Earth. Wearing his brother's football helmet and wielding his trademark pogo stick, Commander Keen would find himself in two sequels: Goodbye, Galaxy! and Aliens Ate My Babysitter. It is rumoured that John Carmack's engine for Commander Keen was originally created to port Super Mario Bros. 3 to the PC; after the demo was rejected by Nintendo they created their own character and a series that would be PC platforming's most recognizable. It would also become the springboard for one of PC gaming's most influential developers.

Apogee Software's Crystal Caves would follow one year later, along with the start of another landmark PC gaming franchise: Duke Nukem. While he wasn't the wisecracking character made famous by Duke Nukem 3D (1995), the faster paced shoot 'em up gameplay had more in common with Turrican than Super Mario Bros. It was a big change from the jumping puzzles that were the core of Keen's gameplay.

This was simply the beginning of Apogee's foray into the side-scrolling platformer: numerous titles and their sequels would be making their way to BBS and store shelves, most of the "new" franchises such as Secret Agent (1992) simply being clones of previous efforts that used the same engine. Nevertheless, the PC platforming rush of the early 1990s saw the introduction of conventions of the first person shooter: Secret Agent was the first game I remember having to backtrack with colored keys in order to open their corresponding doors to advance through the level.

Apogee may have been the first to capitalize on this growing genre, but competition wasn't far behind. Epic MegaGames (they would drop the "Mega" in 1999 before the release of Unreal Tournament) released Jill of the Jungle in 1992, which contained its fair share of digs at contemporaries Duke Nukem and Commander Keen in a bit of friendly rivalry. While the game provided moderate recognition for Epic, it didn't achieve the same success as the Commander Keen series. Xargon was released a year later, and though it featured improved visuals over Jill of the Jungle, it suffered the same fate of being overshadowed by Apogee and id Software's established franchises. But this was about to change.

Jazz Jackrabbit (1994) showed some originality within the PC platforming genre at a time when success was often followed with the reuse of engines and similar gameplay. The game's anthropomorphic characters and sense of urgency in the gameplay were evidently influenced by a certain blue hedgehog. The game featured the various planet-spanning adventures of a gun-toting green rabbit, on a quest to save his girlfriend from an evil turtle. If comparisons can be made between id and Epic and their console counterparts, Epic's Jazz Jackrabbit was to Commander Keen what Sonic the Hedgehog was to Mario. The game introduced a much brighter palette, and a level of speed and "edginess" to the character that reinvigorated the PC platforming genre, if only for a short while. An excellent sequel followed in 1998 (and will likely end up in its own column here), but by then Epic had released Unreal, and the battle for 3D engine supremacy had begun in earnest. Jazz Jackrabbit 3, a rumored sequel that was to take the leap into 3D, was subsequently cancelled after poor sales of its predecessor.

So what happened to Apogee Software? In 1994 the prolific publisher of shareware split into 3D Realms and Pinball Wizards for branding purposes, the latter label being used for one pinball title in the late 1990s only to fade into obscurity. It's safe to say that Apogee's only lasting legacy is 3D Realms and the Duke Nukem brand, as id Software and their early titles published by Apogee have clearly become a separate entity in the minds of PC gamers.

Like many gaming classics better served by nostalgia, Commander Keen was brought into console gaming's modern era on the Gameboy Color in 2001. Doing away with the expansive levels and free-roaming gameplay of Goodbye Galaxy!/Aliens Ate My Babysitter, this adventure took a more conventional approach, and simply adapted the Keen character to console gaming's platform conventions. Similarly, Jazz Jackrabbit appeared on the Gameboy Advance in 2002, only to have the character reshaped into some kind of spacefaring mercenary inspired by a well-known science fiction landmark. Both games may have been officially licensed products, but did little to maintain what made the original games so unique: originally inspired by console gaming, but still distinctly a PC gaming experience. In those early days of PC gaming, creating a recognizable and successful franchise was just as easy as copying someone else's. I wish I could say the same for PC gaming today.

Posted by andrews at 5:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

We've previously covered the distinctly quirky arcade machine 'The Act' from Cecropia, and Armchair Arcade has now spotted its public release, and I'd love to hear from any GSW readers who can go check it out in its Boston test locations.

It's explained: "A company called Cecropia has finally come out of stealth/start-up mode and been getting a lot of press lately about their first "experimental" game, "The Act", identified as an interactive comedic film experience. What seems to make this a bit different from the usual indie developer spin on things is that the company was started in conjunction with a bunch of former Disney animators, giving the experience legitimate visual impact, while the gameplay is designed around a simple knob to manipulate the emotions, personality and actions of the player's avatar."

But wait, for Boston-ites, here where you can check it: "The Act is installed at locations including: --Our House West at 1277 Commonwealth Avenue, Allston --TC's Lounge at One Haviland Street, Boston --Boston Bowl at 820 Morrissey Boulevard, Boston --T's Pub at 973 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston --Lanes & Games at 195 Concord Turnpike, Cambridge." Surely we have some Harvard professors who want to go play?

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The ever-vigilant Lum at Broken Toys has pointed to some Star Wars Galaxies-related grumpiness on the official messageboards, and it's fanboy froth all the way.

As is pointed out: "SWG Creative Director Chris Cao unloaded with both barrels on the SWG boards re: the topic of, well, the SWG boards. The money paragraph: 'Roughly 80% of the people who play SWG never read these boards. We know this from our own internal metrics and it poses an interesting question. Are we talking to people who play the game or posters who play the boards?'"

Scott further grins: "The boards predictably exploded in a fury of paradoxes, with players yelling “Hear! Hear! Don’t listen to Those Other Guys!” among the assuredly expected retorts of “I’d play your game if it wasn’t more boring than this message board.”" So what's to be done - no messageboards for tea?

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

There aren't many interviews with game developers that talk honestly about developer downsizing, but GameZebo's 'Hook, Line and Sinking: How Fish Tycoon Became a One Man Show' is one of these very articles.

It's explained: "Much like the hero of their smash game [Fish Tycoon], Last Day of Work's CEO and lead designer Arthur Humphrey soon found himself with too many mouths to feed and not enough to show for it. The result was a mass downsizing of the operation, and a future casual gaming smash placed squarely on one man's shoulders."

So what's for the future? "A sequel to the game is inevitable, Humphrey has already started to consider new features like additional fish customization and how to implement more of a community aspect into further iterations. LDW has begun to grow again too as they've released more titles, but they're more cautious, more business savvy than before."

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

['Game Mag Weaseling' is a weekly column by Kevin Gifford which covers video game magazines from the late '70s all the way up to right now.]

The rush of autumn special issues seems to have abated a bit, so I'd like to start out by showcasing a couple things that caught my eye. First off, Retro Volume 2 may be found at some newsstands right now. A compilation of the Retro sections from the past few years of British magazine gamesTM, this is 260 pages' worth of full-color classic game coverage, from Sonic and Shadow of the Beast to interviews with all sorts of old UK game folks. It costs thirty dollars in the US (!) but is still quite a nice volume to have by the bedside.

Second off, could whoever it is who keeps on sending me issues of Ferrets magazine stop, please? Yes, I know I subscribed to it, but that subscription should have run out 10 months ago. I don't want to dress up Dena in a foppish winter cap, for Chrissakes! Arrgh! Why do my subscriptions to mags I don't like never run out, yet my subscriptions to mags I sincerely want to subscribe to take over half a year to get processed? Someone needs to do a scathing expose' of some sort, I swear...

Regardless, coming right up is coverage of the six US game mags that crossed my desk over the past two weeks. Read on, please. [Click through for more.]

MASSIVE Magazine Issue 1

Cover: What's next for the MMOs of today and tomorrow

MASSIVE is a quarterly title from Strategy Plus, publishers of Computer Games magazine, and as such it can be summed up pretty quickly: It's a mag about MMOs done in the style of CGM. This is absolutely a good thing, especially when compared to the relatively amateurish efforts of Beckett Massive Online Gamer.

A lot of the ground they cover is the same (ooh, here are some new expansions coming up, ah, here are some new MMOs coming up), but the rest of the mag is filled with stuff that'd actually be interesting to read for a genre fan. There are CGM-style editorials by all sorts of well-known MMO folks -- Richard Garriott, Brad McQuaid, Raph Koster (SOE's chief creative officer), Richard A. Bartle (co-creator of the first MUD), and so on. There's the usual features on guild wrangling and the history of MMOs (which I think Beckett did in its first issue as well), but the layout, design, and writing make them less work and more fun to get through. Another feature's on gold farmers, which approaches the subject from a bit more genial perspective than PC Gamer did this month -- one sidebar tells the story of a WOW guild who recruited a Chinese farmer for shits 'n giggles and actually found it a culturally enriching experience (until he got fired). Maybe it's factually informative (so was Beckett), but it's also fun to read, and that's the most important thing in a print magazine.

The other standout: Is a feature giving the play-by-play on a system crash that happened on EverQuest II last year and almost wiped out the entirety of users' character data. I didn't hear about because I'm not an MMO person, but the article is both superbly written and something I'm amazed SOE would allow coverage of.

Speaking of SOE: They have a disc in this issue with trials for five of their games, trailers, and a bunch of other junk. Despite that and the wide page size, the newsstand price is still only $5.99.

Conspicuously missing: An advertisement from king-of-all-gold-farmers IGE.com, which has been resident on Computer Games' back cover for a good couple years now. It may have to do with all the support MASSIVE has received from the game publishers themselves, and it may also have to do with writer Mark Wallace discussing the company fully in the gold-farmer feature: "For some games, so much currency flows through the site that players who don't use it find themselves at a distinct disadvantage, since it's far easier at this point to acquire gold on IGE than by actually playing the games."

Computer Games November 2006

Cover: Lord of the Rings Online

Sometimes I wonder if the folks at Computer Games are too shy to actually let anyone else have a look at their magazine. I didn't realize it until it was too late, but I totally missed the October 2006 issue simply because it did not arrive at any bookstore in Houston. OK, OK, perhaps that's my fault for not having a subscription, but I do have a subscription -- in fact, I paid for it five months ago, and I still haven't seen an issue out of it.

Regardless: I'm glad I found November, because as usual it's full of unique features. Accompanying the eight pages on Turbine's ring-y MMO is four more written by "Tolkien scholar" Daniel Greenberg about why there haven't been very many good Lord of the Rings games, despite many, many attempts. There's a bit on GenCon as it rapidly stops being about board games, as well as two more on online protests and army-themed games which aren't quite as original but still nicely done.

Official PlayStation Magazine November 2006 (Podcast)

Cover: The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion

The OPM podcast has been hinting at the identity of this cover for a little while, but now that it's out, we find that it's the hot-sclusive unveiling of PS3 Oblivion (not to mention a separate, Oblivion-themed PSP dungeon hack). Indeed it looks lovely, and it's nice to see OPM take the high road and not take every opportunity to pick on the Xbox 360 version. Just some of the opportunities.

Interviews: This time around we've got Atsushi Inaba of Clover Studio and Alex Ward of Criterion. Inaba comes off as a laid-back surfer dude stickin' it to the man while making whatever kind of game he wants, while Ward's piece is a lot more interestin' -- while freely admitting that he hates getting interviewed, he still opens up enough to spill out his entire early career in video games, from manning Acclaim UK's phone line to laying out ceiling tiles for a living.

The disc: The highlight this month is probably the Guitar Hero II demo, even though it's hard to imagine enjoying it much if you don't own the controller. Other top hits include demos of Need for Speed Carbon and The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, as well as movies of...well, a bunch of random stuff, mostly, of which .hack//G.U. is probably the most fascinating.

Scarface watch: I can't help but make special note of the Scarface reviews so far because there seems to be no middle ground with this title. Print-mag reviewers have so far either loathed it (OXM, PSM, Play) or loved it (Game Informer). For OPM, Robert Coffey is overall positive, writing that the game's a lot more limited than at first glance but still a ton of fun.