Back From Hiatus

Just took some time off to get my shit together following some turmoil in my personal life (truth be told, im still waiting for things to settle down, but life has got to go on), and just in time for the holidays, i'm looking to start updating again, lets see how that goes, eh?

Tokyo 2009!

After a hellacious trip that started with a 4 hour delay in my flight thanks to the typhoon, I finally arrived in Japan a little after 7:00 local time. I thought it would be smooth sailing from there, but that was not to be, the Narita Express train that we were on stopped about a dozen times and then eventually stopped a few stations shy of Shinjuku, leading to a semi-conscious trek through the Shinigawa train station to find something that would get me to my hotel. Ended up checking in at the hotel around 11:pm, and was in bed shortly thereafter. I just realized that rambling incoherently, time to get some lunch!

Sakagura (still not a) Liveblog!

The following is another one of my "liveblogs," wherein I visit a drinking establishment and record my observations as I become less and less coherent!

Tonight i'm at Sakagura, the best izakaya in all of New York, possibly the east coast. My guest to be got screwed at and is stuck at work, so i'm flying solo tonight. Can I has Sakagura Liveblog? You're damn right I can!

I'm trying a new sake called Dassai, it was recommended to me by a writer (though since she works for the brewer that makes Dassai, so she's not exactly impartial) who interviewed me at the Joy of Sake event last week.

Dassai 50, even the bottle looks cool

Fortunately, it seems that this recommendation was warranted, this is some damn good sake. Very smooth, a hint of fruit, and a clean finish. Just in time for my edemame!

I swear the edemame tasts almost buttery here, how the hell do they do that?

It's always a struggle to get seating here, and i've never seen the place anything less then completely packed, tonight is no exception.

Tonight I'm going with the soba and some Jagadango, since i'm not feeling particularly adventurous. I'll save that for my trip to Tokyo, and then only if im really drunk.

Speaking of... Since the Dassai was so good, i think i'll ask the staff here for a suggestion based on it they're usually very good with that.

The bartender/waitress reccomended Eiko Fuji, a Junmai Ginjo

Eiko Fuji, not the highlight of my night

OK, I've made a wondrous discovery... I do not like Eiko Fuji. Not very smooth and way too damn fruity. That's $13 i'm not getting back. Waitress Fail.

My guest finally confirmed that he can't make it, which is good in a way, since about a minute ago, I gave up and ordered my dinner, Soba is on the way!

Now that's some good soba!

Noting my displeasure with Fuji, the waitress just appeared out of nowhere with a glass and another bottle for me to try. This one came in what looks like an oil can, and goes by the name of Narutotai. Coincidentally, local Sake supplier, Sobaya's proprietor recently recommended the very same bottle a few weeks ago. It's not very smooth, however the flavor is quite good. It went very well with my soba. Waitress Redeemed!

Important Note: Jagadango, which is basically mashed potatoes coated in doughnut batter, then deep fried, and also happens to be my favorite dish at Sakagura, does absolutely nothing to make the Eiko Fuji any better.

That about wraps it up, time to pay the bill and hop the train, ciao!

Tokyo Shopping List

Macross Ultimate Frontier: I played the first Macross PSP game relentlessly up until the day my PSP was stolen (with the game inside of it). These days I'm sporting a cast away PSP-1000 that i'm very tempted to replace either here or in Japan. My decision will likely be closely related to the second item on my list



Japanese Xbox 360: There are quite a few games available in Japan that will never see the light of day here in the states, but that may change going forward. Cave, the maker of many of the games I'm interested in, is going to test the waters by making their next game region free. If going forward, Cave's games are region free, much of the reason for this purchase goes right out the window, what to do?

Plastic Crap: it's me, it's Tokyo, I'm going to be leaving with an embarrassing number of capsule toys, vinyl figures, and plastic robots. Contesting this would be like doubting the rising of the sun.

Another JRPG That I Won't Finish

I took a look at some videos from Tri-Ace’s upcoming RPG, End of Eternity, I’m a sucker for games with a more sci-fi-ish ascetic, and EoE looks like it may see my “Sci-Fi” and raise me “Dystopian Future,” which is almost guaranteed to get me interested. The combat looks absolutely bizarre, focusing mainly on people jumping though the air and stylishly firing dual pistols like gravity immune anime characters who just attended a seminar on Equilibrium’s Gun Kata.

Neutered Ninja!

The past few days I’ve been playing the hell out of Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, which should probably be called "Ninja Gaiden 2 for people who don't enjoy getting punched in the dick." Ninja Gaiden is legendary for being uncompromisingly difficult, but success in that game was something you earned and in a sad sort of way, could be proud of. With NGS2, the series has lost its teeth; you can slice though most of the game without really getting that deep understanding of the combat system that you would normally need in order to progress.

That said, in one day, I progressed far further then I ever did during my first Ninja Gaiden 2 experience, where i was set upon and repeatedly mutilated by angry werewolves on the third stage...

Well Shit...

Cave's next J360 Shmup is going to be region free...

Time to rethink my "buy a j360" plan

Tokyo Checklist

In two weeks, i'll be back in Japan, my goals for the trip include the following:

1. Eat at a Yakiniku resturant - Sure, the "cook it yourself" style of Korean BBQ exists in the US, but i'm very interested in having it overseas and seeing for myself what sort of twists are on it.

2. More Shaka Shaka Chicken- Hell Yeah

3. Acquire a Japanese Xbox 360 - for the purpose of playing arcade shooters. this goal also implies the purchase of region specific games for said system.

4. Dine out someplace ill-advisedly expensive - I'm no stranger to fine dining in NYC, but I haven't done it yet in Japan. Since I'll be making this trip with my girlfriend, it seems like a perfect opportunity to correct that omission.

5. Ramen - Interestingly enough, i've only had authentic ramen once, since there are as many ramen shops in Tokyo as there are people in Vermont, this should be an easy task.

6. Hachico - Two trips to Japan already and I still havent seen this damn dog.

7. High Places - Tokyo Tower, Metropolitan Government Building, and Roppongi's Mori Twer. Cheezy tourist destinations, but also awesome views. Why do all of this? In a nutshell, I want to take some pictures.

8. Yodobashi Camera - Yodobashi's a 9 story electronics store in Akihabara that looks like a football stadium from overhead. I've somehow missed out on going here during my previous trips.

More Kryptonite

As I've mentioned in the past, high stress situations really blow away my creativity and ability to sit down to write this hobby blog of mine, I'm hoping that things cool down soon so I can get back to it.

Watch this space...

Maps!

Earlier today I sat down with the lady-friend and made some extensive Izakaya-related additions to Puma's Tokyo Guide. Among them is an izakaya chain called En, which incidentally has a brasserie in New York that I have fond memories of.

In addition, I started compiling Puma's NYC Sake Bar List, a map of izakayas and Sake bars that I've either frequented or have been meaning to frequent. The plan is for each of the entries to eventually have notes regarding my experiences at each location.

Memories

Shamelessly stolen from dannychoo.com:

Anyone who has been to Tokyo can just sit back, listen to this, and let the memories come flooding back.

Podcasts: The Giant Bombcast

Had been really stressed out at for for pretty much all of June, during which time I missed the deadline for a writing submission to get published at Gamers With Jobs and also started a writeup of Magic The Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers, but that also never made it to the "Publish" button. Tonight I'm not going to try and pen some essay about Japanese gaming culture or the story about how i swore off collectable card games when i was 18 years old, this is because i've realized that recovery from being overstressed is a slow road and that I need to use some baby steps.

Tonight i'm going to keep it as irreverant and silly as I can, and thus i'm going to talk about the Giant Bombcast.

The Bombcast is Giant Bomb's weekly podcast, and about the closest thing to an humorous radio show like Opie and Anthony that you're going to find in gaming podcast circles.

Giant Bomb consists of Jeff Gerstmann, Ryan Davis, Brad Shoemaker, and Vinnie Caravella, all ex-Gamespot employees who (with the about-to-become-obvious exception of Jeff) left the site following the controversial firing of Gerstmann. The latter having been axed after giving a negative review to a game that had advertized heavily at the site (aka: Gerstmanngate).

It would seem that the group quickly realized when they started putting that site together, that a small company like theirs can't hope to compete with massive sites like Kotaku and IGN in terms of how much content they provide or how quickly they can provide it. So what they provide is pure personality. Just like every other gaming podcast out there, they talk about the games they play, the news, and new releases, but what sets them apart is that the group is genuinely funny and has chemestry that keeps the conversation flowing.

If that flavor of humor appeals to you, then you'll feel right at home listening to the Bombcast.

Magic: The Addiction

Many years ago, a friend of mine introduced me to a small collectible card game called Magic: The Gathering. I still remember his response when I asked him what it was.
"It's liquid crack, for gamers"

Like the rest of my friends, I fell for Magic hook, line, and sinker. Whatever we used to do as a group was suddenly and radically altered to fit in as much MtG as humanly possible. This trend continued until a friend went out and purhased an entire distribution box of booster packs. It was at that moment that i realized a few things, 1: I could no longer compete with my friend in this game, he got cards out of that box that were utterly ridiculous, the second thing I realized was that the object of the game is actually to purchase more cards. In a rare -oh, SO rare- moment of self control, I completely stopped playing on that day.

Flash forward a few weeks ago and I've downloaded the demo for Magic: The Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers based on some positive buzz coming out of Gamers with Jobs, recommendations by friends with questionable tastes, and my own odd curiosity about a game that I stopped playing years ago.

It turns out that when you remove the massive cost of entry involved with getting a deck, the constant required investment to keep up with the latest cards, and the hours of investment needed to min/max your deck, Magic: The Gathering is actually still a fantastic game.

The Comeback

So, it turns out that intense stress is creative kryptonite, things are starting to calm down a bit, so i hope to be writing again sometime real soon...

You Can't Always Get What You Want...

Via the Examiner:

PS3 owners and Sega fans have been waiting patiently for a Yakuza 3 announcement. With the game currently available in Japan, many gamers hoped Sony would announce a release date or a worldwide release of the title during E3. Sadly, that didn’t come to fruition. However, Sony is giving us all a small piece of advice. That advice is to tell Sega.

Jeff Rubenstein of Sony was asked a question concerning Yakuza 3 being localized. He gave a brief reply: “Talk to SEGA! I’d love the opportunity to play Yakuza 3 in English.”

If you want to see Yakuza 3 get localized in America or Europe you best bet is to email Sega and let them know. Here’s the link to the official Sega site. So email them and let your voice be heard. If that isn’t enough, you could always start a petition.

Unfortunately, there's always a chance that this might happen:

Sega will take it as confirmation that they should go ahead with a samurai-themed Sonic game.

Red Faction? Why yes, I think I will

I've been debating picking up either Prototype or Red Faction Guerilla, but then I read a few comments on Red Faction, first from Bill Harris:

Is there any way, any conceivable way, that Volition could have jammed more awesome into this game? It's like they filled the game with awesome, then pressurized the game and added more awesome until it became supersaturated.

and then Rebel FM's Arthur Gies:

Just when i thought red faction had shown me all of its awesome, it gave me a jetpack.

With reccomendations like these, you don't need to ask which one I bought.

You're Doing It Wrong

So, what was once thought to be a group religious protesters at E3 rallying against EA's upcoming "Dante's Inferno" have ended up being something slightly different...

The protesters railing against EA for the game Dante's Inferno were part of a marketing scheme, reports the Associated Press. A viral marketing agency hired by EA reportedly organized the stunt, and hired about 20 people to picket the game. After it was picked up by the blogs, several began to question whether the protest was legitimate based on an amateurish Web site and anonymous domain registration. EA spokesperson Holly Rockwood confirmed it today.
We would question the wisdom of marketing that associates your company with either religious extremists or the Antichrist, but maybe that's why we don't work in advertising.

Oh EA, don't ever change

The Old Republic Cinematic Trailer Blows Minds.

Bioware showed off a cinematic trailer for The Old Republic at the EA conference. This is the first time I've been excited about Star Wars without feeling the sequel taint in years

Trailer link here

Hyperbole Kills

Friends don't let friends read IGN previews

- The second level of the demo is when my entire face was blown off by maximum awesome.

In case you weren't sure, that's his entire face, not just a small portion. But then, I suppose the awesome would not have been "maximum" if it only took out his eyes and nose.

Note: this preview was about Sega's upcoming Bayonetta, which evidently features Maximum Awesome on the second level.

Too Many Games!

Rebel FM is really making me want to try Gun, it's too bad I'm already playing some lengthy games and am about to have June drop on me.


Maybe there's a demo...

inFAMOUS Demo Impressions

The demo for inFAMOUS dropped a few short hours after I was mentioning it here as part of my summer list and I had a chance to play it a little bit this morning. So far it looks to be exactly what it's been billed as, a lot like Crackdown, but with more of a superhero feel to it. The powers were a lot of fun to use, your character has some great freedom of movement, feeling a bit like Spider-Man with his ability to stick to surfaces on the fly and quickly move in and out of situations.

The controls feel a bit wonky, I'm not sure if this is just a result of my general (and longstanding) discomfort with the Playstation Controller's layout and analog sticks, or if the controls themselves could just use some tightening. I suppose time will tell.

I'm definately looking forward to playing some more.

These People Really Exist?

Girl becomes an atheist at college, family overreacts a little bit:

Dear Margo: Our daughter started college a year ago, and we’ve noticed during her visits home that she’s not the sweet, innocent girl we sent away for higher learning. We raised her with strong Christian beliefs, but lately she’s saying that she’s joined an atheist club on campus and is questioning everything we taught her. Now my husband refuses to let her in the house and is threatening to turn her in to the FBI. I’ve tried to cure our daughter and reconcile with her, but nothing seems to work. I’ve prayed over her at night while she sleeps, enlisted friends in a phone prayer tree and even spoken to my priest about the possibility of an exorcism. I’m at my wits’ end. How can I recover my daughter and keep her from hell? — God-fearing

Dear God: Whoa, dear. While I am sympathetic to anyone’s devotion to their religion, you need to realize that your daughter is a sentient being with the right to reject your religious views if she so chooses. Your husband is pathetically misguided if he thinks he can call the FBI to report the "crime" of your daughter joining an atheists club. Ditto for the exorcism. This young woman is not possessed, demonic or doing weird things; she is merely thinking and questioning the religion she grew up with. I would encourage you to understand that all people, your daughter included, have the right to think for themselves, particularly about something as meaningful as religion. As for hell, well, she appears willing to take her chances. — Margo, contemplatively

Whoa indeed.

Meet the Spy

In honor of the new Team Fortress 2 update released this weekend, I thought I would draw some attention to the really amusing "Meet the Team" videos that Valve's been putting out to promote the game. Their latest video, "Meet the Spy," is arguably the best so far, but they're all highly amusing.

Christmas in June

Looks like the second half of May and on into June are maddeningly full of potentially high-quality titles, I need a game plan.

UFC: I played and really enjoyed the demo for this one, but i'm not sure if a really involved sports game is the best move for me right now, since I already have a few long term games on my plate.

Verdict: Put it off or Rent

Bionic Commando: I keep hearing good things and the game is reviewing pretty well so far, but I'm big on combat, which I hear takes a bit of a back seat to the swinging action.

Verdict: Rental

Infamous: Man... I love Crackdown and I love the decent Spider-man games, everything i've seen about this game has looked like an addicting marriage of both.

Verdict: Must Buy

Prototype: This one looks a hell of a lot like Infamous, I'll have to see how it reviews.

Verdict: Wait and see

Ghostbusters: I've played it, I liked it, It's fucking Ghostbusters, I'm buying this game, period.

Verdict: Day One

Red Faction Guerrilla: RFG came out of nowhere and really shocked me. I remember playing (and quickly casting aside) the original Red Faction, which I felt was a clever gimmick in the form of destructible environments and not much else. The demo for this one showed something that feels a lot more like Grand Theft Get Your Ass to Mars. It looks like there's a lot of game here and tons of open world mars action, but much like UFC, I think this one is going to ask for a lot more time then I have to give right now.

Verdict: Pass, evaluate later.

So that's the plan, let's see how well I actually stick to it when I'm standing in Gamestop.

Podcasts: Out of the Game

I realized recently that I listen lot of Podcasts, so much so that I think I've become either an expert or an addict. To that end I decided to shed a little light on some of the shows that have been occupying so much of my time.

Out of the Game

OttG is a podcast featuring ex-game journalists (enthusiast press or whatever) Jeff Green, former Editor in Chief at Computer Gaming world, who has moved onto development at EA; Luke Smith, formally of 1up, now employed by Bungie; N'Gai Croal, once mainstream media's most prolific gaming voice, now a freelance game design consultant, Robert Ashley freelancer, musician, and creator of the fantastic internet radio show, A Life Well Wasted; and hosted by Shawn Elliot, who now hangs his hat alongside Ken Levine at 2K Boston. For those who have been following the gaming media, this is something of a dream team. With the exception of N'Gai, every one of these guys is a legend in gaming podcast circles.

On would think that getting a group like this together would lead to some sort of mega-gaming podcast, but the kicker of OttG is that they rarely discuss games at all. Instead this show's topics range spans books, movies, the internet, family, and even the occasional game, everything is open to discussion here.

Out of the Game serves to remind listeners that personalities can be far more important then topics.

Weekend Gaming

One of the major changes to my gaming habits since slowing my WoW consumption down has been the incredible variety of games that have been crossing my plate. This weekend is a perfect example.

First order of business was taking Fable II out of its Gamefly sleeve and finally getting around to popping it in. I'm not at all a fan of the original Fable, so I really wasn't expecting very much out of this experience. Much to my surprise though, I found myself mostly engrossed by the charming world Lionhead put together... even more surprising was that I found myself liking the dog... yeah, me. But it's not just the lovable pooch that has me enjoying this game. It's the feeling that even though you're given a relatively straightforward Hero's Journey to fulfill, you're dropped into a living, breathing world that has things going on in it that are completely unrelated to your quest, and they are a wonderful distraction from the guided experience that you are engaged in. From the optional quests, to the jobs, to the social interactions, to the world economy, these are things that you would normaly never see in a game like this, but here they are front and center.

Though no fault of Fable II's, I decided to take a break and dust off the old Hori stick for some Street Fighter 4. The Championship Pack they installed really reinvigorated my interest in the game. It seems that the new tiered structure goes a long way towards separating different levels of players. Now it's not at all unusual for me to face someone who I'm clearly better then in the first round, someone who is nearly an equal in the second, and then someone who, while I have a fighting chance, is still clearly my better in the third and final round. I was no longer finding myself facing insanely high ranked people playing Akuma in every single match, now I only see them in the third round of a typical tournament, it's a definite improvement.

Rounding out my 360 play this weekend was Burnout Paradise, a game I haven't played since I returned it to Gamefly, even though I've since bought it during Circuit City's Going out of Business Sale. In the interim, they went ahead and added even more content and redesigned the interface yet again, sometimes I can't believe what Criterion have done with this game, the platform they've built is just spectacular. Every time I play this game, I'm as stunned by the vastness of the city as I am of the incredible variety of things that there are to do there. In the interest of rewarding them for putting out such a great product with so much free content, I went ahead and bought the Legendary Cars pack, which features just different enough to not be infringing versions of the Back to the Future Delorian, KITT, Ecto-1, and the General Lee. Sure, they are cheesy little gimmicks, but they are damn fun cheesy little gimmicks. Unfortunately, I think this stint in Paradise City is going to come to an early end. You see, unlike its predecessors, Paradise is the kind of game that rewards you for dedication, not unlike a really good RPG. You get to a certain point where you've invested so much that you, without thinking about it, throw everything else into it. With the number of games I've been playing and the massive influx coming in June, I don't see that happening.

Giant Bombing

I have an achievement problem, sure it's not nearly as bad as some other people's achievement problems, but I still do uncharacteristic things like play games that I would rather be done with just so I can add some more achievements.

This is already a problem.

And here comes Giantbomb.com, who added a bizarre and brilliant achievement tracking system to their site. This new system assigns a letter grade for each game based not only on how many points you actually have, but which achievements you get. For example, lets say you and I both have 15 achievements in a given game, the 15 that you have are pretty much the same that most people have, you'll likely get something like a B. Now, lets assume that of my 15, 5 of them are insanely rare and very few people in Giant Bomb's database have them, i'll get a higher grade.

This is a living record, so the more people get my rare points, the less valueable they will become, and the lower my grade in that game will be.

The thing I like most about this is that it fosters competition in a whole new way, since the more the community does, the more you're pressed to do in order to keep up.

I should note that this system also allows for the inclusion of WoW achievements and someday soon, Steam... they are just getting warmed up!

And I thought I was bad

When I visit Japan, I typically buy an impressive array of crap, or at least that's what I thought.

This guy has me beat... by a landslide...



The full tale of woe is here

The Mangod Bringith?

So I've been carefully considering picking up a Japanese Xbox 360 during my next visit to Japan for the sole purpose of getting my hands on the myriad of shmups that have been coming out for that system. Between Otomedius Gorgeous, DoDonPachi, Mushihime-sama Futari, Raiden IV, and Death Smiles, i would have a hell of a lot to play.

Enter Shane Bettenhausen, former game journalist for 1up.com and current executive at Ignition Entertainment, a publisher who's recent trend has been towards localizing japanese games for the American market. Shane was a guest on a recent 1up podcast, where he hinted that Ignition may have some announcements for E3, and that these announcements may be 360 exclusives.

The 360 really doesnt have a whole lot going on in the land of the rising sun, so it's not a big leap to think that these games (if Shane isnt just fucking with everyone) could be from the one genre the console has a lot of, shmups.

Who knows? maybe Ignition got their hands on some awesome Cave or Treasure shooters!

Kenka (not at all)Liveblog!

On Saturday night, i found myself at Kenka, a very unusual Izakaya in the East Village on St. Mark's Place. I had a pen and paper with me and decided to record my thoughts as the night went on and as my glasses of sake became empty. This is not a review, not really, but more of a transcript of a live blog of my experience:

Right now I'm sitting in Kenka, easily the strangest Izakaya I've ever seen. It's aggressively Japanese and purposefully so. It reminds me of the Japanese version of the 50's diners which in trying to hard to be everything 50s, prevent themselves from accurately mirroring the source.

The massive, colorful menu features a variety of flamboyant Japanese movie protagonists from a half dozen movies, while the back page sports the gigantic visage of Gamera alongside the bar's bizarre rule set, which includes gems like "Graffiti must be in Japanese" and "masturbation is forbidden!"

The walls are adorned with vintage movie posters and product ads from that era, the tables are warped slabs of wood and the chairs are barely wicker stools which much like the distorted music blazing out of the speakers, it probably there to accentuate the place's "Japanese-ness"

Fortunately, the place isn't all overwhelming kitch, the aforementioned menu is filled with dishes the likes of which I've never even seen in this country. That said, i didn't come here to eat, I'm here to drink, and that's where this place knocks it out of the park. The first six pages of the menu are devoted entirely to alcohol. There's a page for beer, one for cocktails, then two for shochu and two for sake.

The sake section is impressive features a few of my personal favorites, so I went ahead and ordered a glass of Suishin to start me off, the delicious and often elusive Suigei will be next.

The place smells of cotton candy, I see people outside making it at an adjoining stand, i guess that's a way to keep the people waiting entertained.

The food looks delicious and the crowd keeps ordering up dish after dish, perhaps they know something that i don't. I really wish I were hungry right now.

One "Authentic Japanese" thing here that i can do without is the open air front entrance, it's only 75 degrees tonight and this place is already uncomfortably warm.

The distorted music now playing has been identified as "she wears short shorts," I'm convinced that I'm experiencing some sort of fever dream.

Short Shorts was followed up by "if you're happy and you know it," in Japanese.

There's a group of college-age girls at the table in front of me, they look very confused and when they took a look at the menu, their expressions only got worse.

They ordered french fries, I'm guessing the deep fried whole frog turned them off...

I've come full circle on my opinion of this place, it is a kitchy, over the top 50's diner... just the Japanese variation.

I LoLed

Wired has a hillarious writeup on the lapses in military stragegy present in the new Trek flick.

No one loves the Department of Homeland Security. But just look what happens when DHS isn’t around! Poor Vulcan had no evacuation plans or Code Orange threat warnings.

The Empire Strikes Back?

I've been trying to find the right words to describe how I feel about Sony's recent announcement that they've usurped the publishing rights for the Ghostbusters game in Europe and will be granting their platforms some timed exclusivity (IE: they are delaying the release for 360, Wii, and DS). This is most certainly more in line with the PS1/PS2 era Sony that I remember not at all fondly. The words still escape me, though I think Jerry Holkins over at Penny Arcade found them quite handedly:

Sony publishing Ghostbusters in Europe just strikes me as hilarious. Part of that might be that I'm not really out anything - I don't live there. It's purely a thought exercise unfolding in a theoretical expanse. I seem to recall the official Sony position being that to secure this kind of exclusive was an immoral act of almost bestial desperation, but maybe that's only when other companies do it.

Aces!

Just found out that Raiden Fighters Aces is available in some outlets already. If you don't know what i'm talking about, Raiden Fighters Aces compiles the first three games in the Raiden Fighters series, and retails for like $20, it's a must buy for any schmup fan!

Duke Nuked

Eight years ago, i went to E3 for the first(and only) time in my life. At the time, Duke Nukem Forever's development time (four years as of April, 2001) was already an industry punchline. During this conference, my friends and i made it into the Duke Nukem truck parked in GOD Games fabled Promised Lot and saw the first (and last) full on trailer for the game. We were convinced that this game was A: going to be awesome, and B: was coming REALLY soon.

This morning I learned that after 12 years in development, the developer of Duke Nukem, 3D Realms, would closing its doors, and Duke Nukem Forever will finally be put out of its misery.

Duke.a-13.net has an excellent development history along with a highly entertaining list of historical events that have taken place over the course of the years since this game was announced.

Lastly, if this isn't a sufficient argument against preorders, I don't know what is!

District 9

This looks pretty damn extraordinary, almost like Alien Nation done -dare I say- more realistically.

District 9

Speaking of Blades and God of War Clones...

Instead of finishing my Ninja Blade review for Videolamer.com this weekend, I fully entrenched myself in Raven's new Wolverine game.

In short: The bloodiest depiction of Wolverine in any medium, ever. But when you consider that his "power" is essentially "having a number of foot long unbreakable blades coming out of his knuckles and the ability to heal from any injury," then a gory, visceral affair is exactly what one should expect.

I want to go into this more and possibly fire off a full review at some point, but for now I'll just say that Wolverine is a very competent God of War knockoff that succeeds where many such games -like Ninja Blade and The Force Unleashed- fall short.

Japan Planning

I'm planning a trip back to the Land of the Rising Sun in October, to that end I've been working on a Google Map featuring locations of interest in and around Tokyo. I've combined some very good maps that i found a google, including akadot's awesome Akihabara map and a nice map of the Shibuya crossing area, and combined them with my own notes from research and previous trips to the region, mainly in Shinjuku.

I figured that this would never really be seen by anyone other then my girlfriend and I, so i was shocked to find that in two weeks, my map has already been viewed almost 700 times!

Suddenly I feel as if I should be putting a little more work into this :)

Puma's Guide to Tokyo

Recovery

This past week I got hit with some sort of annoying flu, I seriously doubt that it was pig related.

In the meantime though, I got to play a bit of Dark Sector (im a bit behind). I was originally interested in this game because i thought the glaive would mix things up a bit and prevent this one from being a bit too generic, and to a point it does, but my problem with this game is that while the glaive does feel good and works nicely, everything else in the game feels clumsy and awkward.

That said, it was three play sessions before it went back in the mail to Gamefly.

On Friday I got a chance to play around with the demo for the mildly maligned game based on the highly maligned Wolverine movie. This game really is God of War, starring Wolverine, which runs the risk (like Ninja Blade) of just being a pale immitation of an established game, but Raven keeps things fresh via some incredibly visceral combat and unapologetic gore. I picked the game up today, and am looking forward to quite a few hours of cutting dudes up.

One last thing, I downloaded the new Power Up pack for Street Fighter 4, which adds a sort of open bracket tournament system to the online play. So far, my experience has been vastly superior to the old ranked match system, great job Capcom!

Falling Away From WoW

Lately I've found myself spending less and less time with World of Warcraft, and time I do spend has the feel of being with a girlfriend in the twilight of your relationship. Comforting, but clearly lacking the spark that it once had.

Of Ninjas and their Blades

had a bunch of Best Buy coupons burning a hole in my pocket, a lot of respect for From Software's Otogi team, and an unhealthy affection for Shinjuku, so I picked up their inaugural “Next Gen” effort, Ninja Blade. The idea is straightforward enough, you're some sort of superninja, there are fucked up mutant zombies all over downtown Shinjuku, you have to chop them up into little pieces. The general combat mechanics feel pretty good and the game is pretty enough to get by, but there are just some really questionable design decisions being made here.

It's like the design team played some God of War and decided that massive boss fights featuring tons of quicktime events was the way of the future, and it was time to invest!

Something must have gotten lost in translation somewhere along the line, because it seems the major things they got out of GoW were red orbs that you spend to power up your weapons, and an absolutely insane number of quicktime events... I mean really, I know i mentioned it already, but it's staggering.

Another lovely thing that ive already encountered twice in two levels is the whole, Raiders Run, AKA: “running towards the camera to outrun something that's chasing you while you're navigating obstacles that you can't even see yet” thing, which is on page 2 of the “How to piss off your players as quickly as possible” guidebook.

I know i'm bagging on this game an awful lot, but there's also a lot to like, each stage is essentially an hour long boss encounter, normally featuring massive set pieces and cool minibosses that frequently get in your way as your chasing down (or being chased by) the boss.

That's all for now, more later

Quick Impressions

I've been catching up on not quite new games lately, including:

Sins of a Solar Empire: It's basically Master of Orion in real time, i'm having a blast with it, the only problems are the total lack of a campaign mode and the fact that games take upwards of 3 hours to play.

Prince of Persia: Action platforming in easy mode. The game has a flow to it that i find strangely relaxing.

The World Ends With You: quirky DS RPG with loads of personality, i'll go into this a bit more at a later date.

FEAR 2 Thoughts

I finished up Fear 2 this past weekend and while the action was a blast and i really loved the atmosphere, it did something that left me completely cold.

They pulled a Halo 2.

Allow me to explain. Halo 2's single player narrative was a blast, told a decent story that was very easy to get wrapped up in, and then, just as the game was reaching its climax, just as everything that had transpired was about to pay off...

It stopped.

You've been playing a game for hours, working your way towards a specific goal, and then when you finally get to the point where the big reveal should happen... Credits.

I could make a crude sexual reference to illustrate my point, but I think that by even mentioning it, I no longer have to.

Flawed Gems: Starlancer

It's rare to see a game that in one respect is so far ahead of its time and in another respect, was so left behind, but when I consider Starlancer, that's exactly what I think.

Starlancer was a space combat game in the same vein as classics such as Wing Commander, it was even developed by many of the same people. Unlike many of the space combat games of that era, Starlancer was not about humanity's battle to survive against some seemingly unbeatable enemy in the dark reaches of space, in fact, in this world, Humanity still hasnt discovered faster then light travel and is still shackled to our solar system, the big enemy? Ourselves.

Starlancer eschews the Roddenberrian idea that once you stick humanity in spaceships, the nations of the world will suddenly put aside thousands of years of differences and unite under a common banner. Instead, Starlancer depicts a solar system on the brink of all out war, the battle lines are drawn and the powder keg is about to explode, the combatants arent some bizzare planets that have no meaning to you, they are countries you know, lands you may have even visited. You start the game as a pilot for the US and are there when the first shots are fired that spark humanity's first stellar war.

Storytelling is done almost entirely though the first person, as your character walks through the corridors of the ship he calls home, you stay in this perspective at all times, heading to the flight deck, receiving your mission briefings, or conversing with your crewmates. You're treated like just another pilot, an notable pilot, to be sure, but in no way are you any sort of “chosen one,” you're part of team, a crew of people on a ship who are depending on one another to survive a horrible conflict. You hear about the heroics of other pilots and crews on the news, you feel like you're a small part of a much larger war effort.

As the story goes on, you find yourself fighting alongside crews from other cultures like the UK and Japan, and while you are all on the same side, you can see subtle cultural differences there, the ship designs lend themselves wonderfully to this, giving a distinct feel to each nation.

Unfortunately, the gameplay itself is Starlancer's downfall. As I mentioned earlier, this game was cut from the same cloth as Wing Commander, which often put its lead character in a nigh-godlike position, You're always the only pilot capable of performing any important deed, you easily score nearly every kill, you are the one completing every objective.

Out of combat, the game is like Band of Brothers, in battle, It's Rambo.

For fans of space combat, who have been weened on Wing Commander, a series which literally had the protagonist singlehandedly destroy the enemy's entire planet, this may not have been a problem, but in the time between the height of wing commander's popularity and the release of Starlancer, a little game called Freespace happened.

Freespace was a revolution in a genre that had been largely stagnant for years, it brought with it unrivaled scale, capital ships which were truly to be feared, friendly AI that was truly capable, and mission design that remains unrivaled to this day. If you played Freespace like you played other space combat games, you were in for a rough ride. Trying to take down a capital ship with your little fighter felt like trying to destroy a skyscraper with a handgun. In practice, you were a small part of a very large battle. Its play experience was everything that Starlancer's storytelling told you that it wanted to be.

Been a while

I'm trying to make a resolution to post SOMETHING here at least once a day, after all, I know people who post to three separate blogs more then twice a day, i should be able to do at least one ONCE per day!

I snagged FEAR 2 this week from gamefly since i was in the mood for a shooter and i recall Garnet Lee and Sean Andrich both discussing how much they enjoyed it on their respective podcasts back when this game was actually in the news.

I was not at all a fan of the original FEAR, i gave up within two play sessions due to how unrelentingly generic the whole experience was. I'm only a few hours in, but i'm digging this game so much more then its predecessor.

Why is that?

In a word, "atmosphere"

FEAR tried to have it, but really it only ended up having a game that was rigidly generic 90% of the time, and then once in a while, the room would change colors and the ceiling would bleed... meh. The two experiences that they were trying to meld felt very segregated. This time around, they seem to have unified the combat experience with the "this shit's creepy" experience.

So far, so good