Koji Igarashi just painted my HD screen with pixels

30 July 10 | 20:56 | Posted by:

And I think I like it!

I don't like the fact that I have to get this reviewed by Monday, though. I was kind of wanting to finish the first draft of the magazine this weekend, but it looks like this is another setback, eh. So much for being ahead of the curve.

category: games | forums | five comments | §

If this doesn't come to America, I will break someone's face

29 July 10 | 10:21 | Posted by:

With every new bit of information that slips out about Solatorobo, I find myself more and more annoyed that no U.S. release has been announced yet. The box art, excerpted above, was the final straw for me. They got Nobuteru Yuuki to do the art, which means this is definitively a sequel (or at least successor) to long-forgotten PlayStation gem Tail Concerto. Tail Concerto, of course, was an Atlus-published game that was pretty much the closest anyone ever came to capturing the essence of Mega Man Legends (and to an even bigger degree, The Misadventures of Tron Bonne).

By the Transitive Property of Totally Sweet Niche Games, this means Solatorobo is the closest we're going to see to a new Legends game until Keiji Inafune commits to actually making the real thing rather than offering up empty promises and insincere platitudes. Obviously, this means it needs to come to America. Post-haste.

So, I'm thinking about taking out a business loan to license and localize and publish this game in the U.S. A couple thousand dollars should do the trick, right?

category: games | forums | 31 comments | §

GSQ4: Riddickulous

26 July 10 | 10:16 | Posted by:

The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from License Butchery
So here's an interesting discovery: When you have a render of virtual Vin Diesel about to cut someone with a shiv and you shrink it down really small, it suddenly looks like virtual Vin Diesel is threatening to pick his victim's nose. I'm really very sorry about that, because this is a very good article about an Xbox cult favorite and deserves better than that.

category: games, gamespite | forums | six comments | §

One milestone down

24 July 10 | 15:37 | Posted by:

As of a short while ago, I now have all text for GameSpite Quarterly 5 placed on-page, and 90% laid out. Once I tidy things up, it's really just a matter of placing images (which, it has to be said, is way more time-consuming than it has any right to be). This issue will be the single longest Quarterly ever, the full 440 pages Blurb allows. That's a lot! Maybe too many, actually, since it's going to make the paperback version quite a bit more expensive than I ever intended -- a $20 book really blows my intended scheme of making these things available for $12-14. Granted, this issue is more than twice as thick as I ever expected a quarterly publication to be, but that's NES fandom for ya.

So, I put the question to you: Should I publish the paperback edition with the full contents of the hardcover and hope people don't flinch at the price, or do I trim everything that isn't a full article and knock five bucks off the price? Publishing two separate editions of the paperback version (one complete, one not) isn't a viable compromise; I learned from issue three that no one wants a so-called budget edition. Well, that's not quite true; one person bought the budget edition. Hi there, whoever you were. Thanks for making sure the time I took to trim down that edition to budget size wasn't a complete waste.

Big and pricey, or slim and affordable? This is the question I need answered. And now I commence adding images, which will probably wrap next weekend. I could probably get it done tomorrow, but I signed up for a press screening of Scott Pilgrim and will apparently be traveling to L.A. tomorrow. That's rad and all, but does somewhat complicate the magazine production process. This thing is slated for September 1 publication, though, so even with my last-minute travel plans we're still waaaay ahead of schedule. For once. It's kind of weird, but in a sexy way.

category: blog | forums | 25 comments | §

GSQ4: High colonists

23 July 10 | 08:17 | Posted by:

Age of Empires III
Articles like this make me long to try the game in question, because Mr. Littleton makes Age of Empires sound so engrossing and compelling! The problem is that I hate managing the different assets and resources you juggle in strategy sims like this. I don't even like having people report to me at work; being responsible for an entire civilization would have me sobbing in a corner. Such a pity.

category: games, gamespite | forums | five comments | §

Yiazmat triumphant

22 July 10 | 10:17 | Posted by:

You know me. I love RPGs. I love portable games. I love classic games. And man, do I love me some Yasumi Matsuno. So I suppose I'm just being predictable when I say that I am incredibly excited for the comprehensive remake of Tactics Ogre that's just been announced for PSP. Starring none other than Yasumi Matsuno and the usual accomplices (Yoshida, Minagawa, Sakimoto, Iwata, etc. etc.)! It's very slightly less awesome than if they were making a new game altogether -- say, another title in the Vagrant Story mold -- but the prospect of a portable, fully 3D, and above all properly balanced rendition of Tactics Ogre is hardly anything to sneeze at. Maybe I'll finally be able to see the outcome of the story rather than getting stuck in those multi-battle missions where your party's health isn't restored between fights! And by "outcome" I mean "outcomes." I'm gonna play this sucker through every story iteration, you'd better believe it.

category: games | forums | 17 comments | §

No dragon your heels

20 July 10 | 20:39 | Posted by:

Last week, a friend posed a difficult question to me: What exactly is it that makes Dragon Quest (and specifically DQIX) different from Final Fantasy? It kind of threw me for a loop, and I spent some time thinking about it before responding. I don't remember my exact answer, but it was probably overthought and needlessly convoluted and generally not much help. Something about the difference between a Hollywood action "blockbuster" versus a heartfelt Pixar film. Whatever.



Tonight, playing back through the opening chapters of the game (yes, a third time through the game, shut up) I realized the real difference is perfectly summed up within the first two hours of DQIX. The premise of the game, as you really should know by now, is that the player controls a fallen angel -- Celestrian, I mean -- whose goal is to find a way back to the Heaven-esque Observatory and help reunite his/her people with the estranged Almighty. I could easily see this essential premise being translated into a Final Fantasy game (albeit with some tweaks to give the Celstrians strappy vinyl outfits and heavily teased hair, and a sci-fi facelift for the Observatory), but its presentation would be totally different.

I'm not talking about the cinematic aspect of it, which of course would be radically different in a Final Fantasy game. I'm talking about the structure of the story. In a Final Fantasy game -- or, really, any RPG -- the player's basic nature would be the game's big twist. Your hero would be an amnesiac, gifted with special powers but not quite fully empowered the way a proper Celestrian would be, and it would all be a big mystery to be revealed in a heart-stopping plot event 30 hours later. There would be much angst, maybe a tantrum or crisis of faith that would remove the hero from the party, temporarily, until the power of friendship could return his moral compass to its proper orientation.

DQIX is refreshing in its directness. It skips all of that angst and contrived mystery by kicking off the entire quest with tour through a day in the hero's life. You see the accident that robs him of his powers and his unfortunate fall from the Observatory, and there's no hand-wringing about it. The story picks up shortly thereafter and you simply get about the business of trying to return to the heavens, which you accomplish by doing nice things for people and generally making the world a better place. It's earnest, and it's pleasantly free of pretense. The story has its twists, but the straightforward presentation of the tale gives real purpose to the hero's actions -- a reason to do good deeds -- and makes the ultimate resolution to the story (which involves the hero's nature) much more potent.

Hmm, come to think of it, this answer isn't much better. Dragon Quest: It's ineffably good! Yeah.

category: games | forums | 39 comments | §