Let's play, let's play

30 April 08 | 21:36

For some reason I keep waking up at 6:30 a.m. every day. Big deal, I'm sure a good half of you are thinking. And yeah, OK, it's not much for me to complain about. But please bear in mind that the average time at which most people roll into work around 1UP is between 10 and 10:30. I guess even my body wants to be an iconoclast these days.

This means, unfortunately, I'm too tired to concentrate on anything right now -- work, writing, blogging, whatever. I should be taking another shot at the first stratum's boss in Etrian Odyssey II, at the very least; the El Spite guild's new members Kayleigh the Gunner and Su Ai the War Magus aren't pulling their weight nearly as well as they should right now and it's very irritating. Of course, it doesn't help that the boss in question is a right bastard. Remember Fenrir? He was a giant sack of wuss next to this guy.



Since I'm too drowsy to write about my own RPG exploits, I'll let the Talking Time crew take charge. A few forumgoers have begun ripping off Something Awful wholesale with "Let's Play"-style threads in which they chronicle their video game experiences step-by-step. In fact, uh, they're even calling it "Let's Play." But the results are actually better than the bulk of original SA threads I've seen, so give 'em a read and be entertained:

• Final Fantasy: The adventures of MIN, MAX, ROB and HEAL.
  
• Dragon Warrior: You don't want to read it? But thou must!

posted by: | category: games, gamespite | forums | sixteen comments | §

Glub

29 April 08 | 19:59

Right, so Final Fantasy IV (you know, the DS one) landed on my desk today. This makes six RPGs for which I am currently working on reviews -- three of which are terribly late! Fortunately, this one's embargoed until the issue of EGM after the one that's in production at the moment, but the whole cumulative enormity of it all is making me start to panic.

So I think I will blow it all off tonight and play GTA IV instead. Yeah.

Still, at least I have made significant progress with one assignment! You can see the fruits of my labor here. And yeah, if you thought FOEs were bad before....

Edit: Sheesh, what did they do to GTA? Everything feels so... sluggish. Is that Havok physics I see? Is it!? I feel like shaking my tiny fist in anger.

posted by: | category: games | forums | 17 comments | §

Everything's a game to you

28 April 08 | 20:49

New Game + | Weekly Game Releases
I've already seen a few puffed-up reviews proclaiming Grand Theft Auto IV as the first work of True Art ever in video game form. Then I look at this week's top DVD pick, a quiet movie about a brilliant mind trapped in a paralyzed body, and am reminded how very far video games have to go before the medium's half as mature as film. But, hey -- carjacking! And jokes about anuses!

Add to Queue | Weekly DVD Releases
Not that film's perfect. The big-name DVD this week is The Golden Compass, which I highly recommend avoiding at all costs. It's probably the most egregious example of Hollywood compression and missing the damn point as you're likely to see, and the excessive, obvious CG makes it all the worse. If I want pretentious religious criticism in video game form, I'll just play Xenogears, thanks.

posted by: | category: film, games | forums | 20 comments | §

Formula for success

28 April 08 | 18:05

We watched the Indiana Jones trilogy over the weekend -- well, sort of. Everyone voted to skip ahead to Last Crusade after about 50 minutes of Temple of Doom. (We watched it long enough to see the movie's one amusing moment -- Indy groping a statue instead of Kate Capshaw -- before deciding we'd be better off pretending that chapter of the series never happened.)

Anyway, in the course of our viewing I finally realized why video games are still a ways behind film as "art." The answer is so simple I can't believe I hadn't figured it already: Video games lack Wilhelm Screams. That classic high-pitched yowl, injected randomly into each and every one of our nation's murder simulators, would go a long way toward legitimizing the medium. This is truth.

posted by: | category: film, games | forums | 18 comments | §

GameSpite Issue 6.4: Oll Komplete

27 April 08 | 12:00

With today's update, GameSpite Issue 6 is complete. Tell your friends! Share some links! This month's contributors are responsible for a collection of some damn fine articles, and the majority of your "keep the site alive" donations are going to them in gratitude. Next month I'll see about coming up with a more concrete approach to making certain everyone is rewarded for their trouble, but for now enjoy the final two articles for April:

The Laputa Effect: Part 1
Thank goodness for contributors; this is an article I've been intending to write for five years, since I first watched Castle in the Sky and realized with a start what a tremendous debt gaming owes to Hayao Miyazaki. And now, alexb has written it for me. What a champ.


Super Robot Taisen Original Generation
And because we just don't give Atlus enough love in these here parts, MNicolai has picked up the slack to lavish affection on one of the company's lesser-known releases. It's almost a review! But not quite. And that is its charm.

No GameSpite update next week, because if all things go as planned I will have much bigger fish to fry. Thus Issue 7 begins May 11. Mark your calendars! Or, you know, just keep checking back from time to time. Whatever.

posted by: | category: games, gamespite | forums | 17 comments | §

Sons of big box

26 April 08 | 10:08

*BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP*

BIG BOSS HERE. I FORGET TO TELL YOU SOMETHING!

LAST WEEK I STOP AT J&L TRADING. DUSTIEST GAME SHOP IN AMERICA! OVER.


I remember the first time I visited J&L Trading in New York's Chinatown. Those of you who have been reading this site for too damn long may recall my failed attempt to establish myself in NYC, seven freakin' years ago. Back then, I was absolutely staggered to see so many games of foreign extraction in a single place. Never mind the ludicrous prices and the pirated Game Boy Color games pretending to be cartridges for the brand-spanking-new Game Boy Advance; the closest we came to an import shop in Abilene, TX was a gloomy computer repair shop where the surly middle-aged owners had set up a couple of shelves for a smattering of expensive Super Famicom and Saturn games, and quite a few more shelves for dreary-looking porn software. But J&L, wow, hundreds of import games. And barely any smut to be seen. Amazing stuff!

Seven years later, the place might actually be more depressing than that Abilene shop. At least the one in Abilene moves around occasionally, and even gives a sense of shifting inventory. J&L barely seems to have changed in all this time. Yeah, current-gen games line the shelves at the front of the store, but they appear to have the exact same Japanese PlayStation and Saturn games collecting dust as were there when I first found the place.


Still, it's a damn sight better than New York's other big import shop, Video Games New York. Last time I was in the city, it was located on St. Marks, but I guess it was chased away by rising real estate costs or gentrification or something. Now it's around the corner, but its new location has a sort of lived-in appearance already -- "lived-in" meaning "apocalyptically trashy" in this case. It has a sort of filthy weariness about it that most shops only acquire after a decade or more of neglect and abandonment. You'd think they could afford a maid, with the prices they're charging -- the image above is the highlight of their "rare games" collection, a handful of shabby, dilapidated Super NES games for which they want $100 or more because they happen to come with worn, abused boxes. (No word of manuals or other pack-ins.)

Really, America? Is this the best we can do for used and import games? I know LA has a couple of decent shops, and Pink Godzilla in Seattle has a good reputation, but even the most run-down and poorly-maintained used game shop in a small Japanese city of your choosing puts them all to shame. I dunno, should we just blame it on GameStop and be done with it? Depressing.

On that cheerful note, I guess I'm done with images from last week's New York trip. I've finally remembered my Yahoo password, so I was able to update my Flickr images to add some titles that are more descriptive than "DSC000412" or whatever. I still need to give names to about five pages worth of Tokyo images, but I'm pretty sure the world isn't going to come crashing to a halt if I don't do that right this instant.

posted by: | category: games | forums | 19 comments | §

An unexpected development

25 April 08 | 09:57

Who would have thought that a Pokémon game of all things would give me warm fuzzy memories of the good ol' days when publishers actually put some thought into their packaging? But here we are with Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Various and Sundry Concepts, packed into a jumbo box that instant recalls bygone days of outsized cardboard boxes and enormous, in-depth game manuals.



Although it lacks the stupid T-shirt of Illusion of Gaia or the head-slapping fart jokes of Earthbound, there's something about this box that warms my icy heart's frigid cockles. Is it the elaborate packaging itself? Or it is simply the fact that it represents the Nintendo of yore, the one that didn't trust its customers to comprehend the nature of role-playing games and gently held their hands by including books stuffed with the most fundamental information imaginable? Perhaps both! In any case, this package made me smile. And lord knows a cranky bastard like me needs all the smiles he can get.

The bad news is that this is one more RPG for my growing (and increasingly belated) review pile. It joins the esteemed company of Etrian Odyssey II, Final Fantasy Tactics A2, Baroque and Rondo of Swords in ensuring that I will never, ever have free time for my own gaming again for the rest of my life.

posted by: | category: games | forums | ten comments | §

Radtacula X

23 April 08 | 21:09

Hey guys, guess what's just arrived on Virtual Console? That's right! Dracula X: Rondo of Blood.



Ohhh, right, sorry. It's only out in Japan. Ha ha, silly you, thinking we'd get something that amazing the same week as River City Ransom. I don't doubt it'll make its way stateside sooner or later, though -- there's just too much pure money to be made off it for Konami not to bother.

And it's worth owning -- especially for eight bucks. Eight bucks! Man, I felt dumb about buying Rondo for PC Engine Duo before; now I feel unbelievably boneheaded. Especially since it appears to be the first Turbo game I've played on Virtual Console that doesn't look like a big smeary pile of crap. I don't know if it's a Japan thing, or if they've actually finally taken the time to make TG16/Duo games output at their true resolution like the rest of the consoles supported on service, but Dracula X is crisp. It looks fantastic, and the full soundtrack is included -- even the German intro, which Shane Bettenhausen can recite in its entirety. (And don't be fooled by his last name, he doesn't know a word of German. He's just memorized it phonetically as a parlor trick to impress Michiru Yamane.) It definitely blows away the PSP port, which was too dark, slightly choppy and suffered from improperly synchronized sound. No, this is the first good-as-the-real-thing rendition of the game, and I will be very cross if you don't download it when it comes to the U.S..



I played it for about 10 minutes this afternoon and was depressed to find myself completely trounced by that stupid water snake at the end of the first level's alternate path. Man, was the Chronicles remake really that much easier than the original? Or is this just further proof of my foundering mental competence?

Don't answer that.

Sadly, I won't have time to mess around with the game again for a few more weeks -- I'm facing the same conundrum at the moment that all RPG fans will be facing in two months. Namely, should I focus more on Final Fantasy Tactics A2, or Etrian Odyssey II? Seriously, this one's gonna keep me up late at night.

posted by: | category: games | forums | 23 comments | §

Spotted in Chinatown, NYC Pt. 2

23 April 08 | 08:18

'TIL ALL ARE ONE! Well, I guess that would only work if they were Unitarian rather than Baptist.

Yes, yes -- reflection, blah blah blah.

posted by: | category: blog | forums | 22 comments | §

Just stars and indigo gas

21 April 08 | 23:26

New Game + | Weekly Games Column
For once, I have to disagree (strongly!) with the game of the week choice. Not that I doubt Persona 3: FES is worth every penny! But it is, ultimately, an upgraded rerelease of a game that wasn't released so long ago; meanwhile, The World Ends With You is something sincerely new and unique. Of course, Persona's likely to be underproduced, so... get both.


Add to Queue | Weekly DVD Column
And while I haven't seen this week's DVD pick -- yeah, I know, shock shock -- I disagree with the contention that Cloverfield's cast is intrinsically hatable. They're idiots, yeah, but they played their role perfectly: They were a group of freaked out kids with just enough disregard for common sense to make the plot possible. Smart, sensible kids woulda made for an awfully short flick.

posted by: | category: film, games | forums | sixteen comments | §

Spotted in Chinatown, NYC

21 April 08 | 07:09

Never have I been more reluctant to touch a door handle.

posted by: | category: blog | forums | nine comments | §

GameSpite Issue 6.3: The clone-punching update

20 April 08 | 09:47

This update's title begs the essential question: are we punching clones, or being punched by them? Such are the ambiguities of the English language. This damnable tongue! I think, however, you will find nothing to curse in these articles -- unless, of course, you are disgusted by ethnic stereotypes and a brazen lack of creative integrity. Which isn't to say the authors in question are guilty of those things! No, the fault lies within the games they've dissected. For shame, 8-bit video gaming. For shame.

Golden Axe Warrior
Here we have the "clone" mentioned above -- I've never actually played Golden Axe Warrior, but I'm happy to know that Sega released interesting (if admittedly derivative) Master System games after the Genesis became thoroughly entrenched; those late NES games like Kirby's Adventure need be lonely no longer.


Punch-Out!!
And here we have the "punching." Heck, it's in the title. I'm not a fan of boxing and this game has never really done much for me. Still and nevertheless, I can't help but respect a family-friendly game that nakedly announces its emphasis on pure, visceral violence right in the title.


Coming next week: That Thumbnail Theatre I owe you guys. I was gonna do it for today, but I haven't exactly been wallowing in free time of late.

posted by: | category: games, gamespite | forums | eleven comments | §

Notes from the edge (of the New Yorker Hotel)

18 April 08 | 19:01

I didn't mention it in my 1UP blog entry today, but the scene above was the best part of NY Comic-Con. Well, second best -- the best was stumbling into a few people I've wanted to meet for years, including former EGM'er Shawn Smith (of Shawnimals fame) and Lindsay Cibos. It seems the latter has forgiven me for saying that Working Designs was acting out of necessity for quashing her softcore Lunar nudie artwork, so that was good. (It was very nice softcore Lunar nudie artwork! But a company is legally obligated to protect its trademarks and copyrights or they lose 'em, is all.) Anyway, both are good humans who are working on things they love (Shawn on whimsical plush toys, Lindsay on manga-style graphic novels), so I envy and fully advocate the support of both.

Still, the section pictured above was pretty great, because I totally abused my press early-entrance rights and picked over the dollar bins before the public arrived. I managed to fill in several gaps in the G.I. Joe comics collection I've been reconstituting from my days of youth over the past few years, all for less than a sawbuck. Bargain bins are a broke-ass writer's friend... especially when you're dealing with issues that usually sell for that much apiece on eBay.

Also at Comic-Con:

I snapped these beanbag chair photos first thing in the day, during the "industry only" hours when no one was using them. I wish I were still in town Sunday when the show closes, because I bet that would make for a particularly telling (and revolting!) comparison.

Actually, that's not entirely fair. I've been rather impressed by the make-up of Comic-Con. I don't usually go to shows like this, so my basis for comparison is, say, E3... and this is a very different audience than E3. More women, for one thing -- which struck me as odd for a show about comics until I remembered half the publisher booths are focused on manga, which (like armor plating) the ladies love. TokyoPop even has a corner of their booth set up with a frilly tea table and porch swing so you can have your picture taken with a pair of gothic lolitas. The result: a much more fragrant show! Maybe the weekend will bring in the sweaty freaks.


Kohler told me about an authentic Japanese curry chain that's opened an American branch just off Times Square. By happy coincidence, it was a mere four blocks from my hotel. And I mean the short NY blocks, the ones along an Avenue. Not the epic treks along a Street. I kinda wish it were the Street-length blocks, though, because I could use the exercise. I ordered a small chicken curry and still felt like I'd eaten a pound of delicious death.

(On, uhhh, a totally unrelated note, I'm probably gonna forego food for a week and use my savings to buy Wii Fit.)

Although I guess it can't be too fattening, since I saw a pair of tiny Korean girls pound down jumbo-sized pork curries in the time it took me to struggle through a small. Right? No? Oh well.


Well, back to business. My second Miyamoto article is online, so bully for that. And hopefully I justified the price of my Comic-Con ticket by writing up Metal Gear Online. (Note: my media pass was free, so I think this is a safe bet.) MGO is pretty great! Monday is gonna be pretty rad, guys. Well, those of you guys in the beta. Also at Konami's booth was New International Track & Field. As you can probably deduce from my preview, I am somewhat bemused by this game. There's not much to it, and it's really ugly... but I still sort of like it.

And finally, in case my assorted blog babble on the subject hasn't done the trick, I hope my review of The World Ends With You convinces you to give the game a shot. It's really good! And you will note that I wrote the review more or less as an appeal to people who, like myself, have the impression that it's a disastrous mess laden with terrible Tetsuya Nomura designs. I mean, it is... but somehow uses those elements to its advantage. It's unique, original and may actually be the first DS game to justify the Square Enix Tax -- it must be a super high capacity cartridge, because it's packed with tons of exceptional music. Seriously, please support games like this instead of Kingdom Hearts, OK? Please?

posted by: | category: blog, games | forums | fourteen comments | §

It's OK if you're not so good at Wii Fit.

17 April 08 | 19:50

Apparently, neither is its creator. Heh.

Anyway, I met and interviewed Shigeru Miyamoto for the first time today. I was uncharacteristically nervous about the interview -- I mean, the man's a legend! But then he put my mind at ease:


So, you know, that was OK.

posted by: | category: blog, games | forums | twelve comments | §

The welcoming committee

16 April 08 | 20:14

So hey, I'm in New York City at the moment. The city greeted me with open arms, which is unfortunate because they were the arms of a cabbie with horrendous body odor. Seriously, I snapped this picture in the Midtown Tunnel. That's not motion blur, it's lens crazing from the physical potency of the stench:



I guess the rising cost of gas precludes certain luxuries for people who make their living by driving. Luxuries like deodorant. But that's OK -- my rising gorge very nearly left him with an exciting new smell to commingle with the foetor of his cab.

posted by: | category: blog | forums | twelve comments | §

Prognostication

16 April 08 | 09:16

Welp, Dragon Quest IX has been confirmed for a Fall 2009 release in Japan. OK, not really, but in essence: Square Enix has finally pinned a date on the remake of Dragon Quest V for DS. It's coming in July of this year, eight months after the Dragon Quest IV remake hit.



So from there we can extrapolate that DQIX won't arrive for another sixteen month after DQV. The company has said that they want to release all the remakes before IX comes out, and given the series' track record -- every single chapter ends up being horribly delayed -- it's reasonable to assume that the remakes are actually being used as filler while the company dickers around with the sequel, spaced out evenly to fill the void before DQIX arrives and line the corporate coffers. And we still have Dragon Quest VI to go, so that's an eight-month pad for DQVI and another eight while they put the wraps on DQIX.

What does this mean for America? Uh, it means... we'll be playing the game before the decade is up, probably. But remember, the decade ends December 31, 2010, so hopefully you weren't in too much of a hurry to play. Yeah, I know, "simultaneous worldwide release" is Square Enix's new motto, but I'm not sure that really means worldwide. I'm pretty sure it means "Japan first; everyone else at the same time... a year or so later."

posted by: | category: games | forums | twelve comments | §

Things we said today

15 April 08 | 20:51

Once upon a time, there was a glorious mecca of video game nerd happiness called E3. Every May, E3 rose from the pumpkin patch to bring children of the world news and previews of hotly-anticipated fall titles at the expense of the health and well-being of a few thousand idiots occasionally mistaken for journalists. Sadly, E3 died last year for your sins, and a foul impostor has sprung up in its absence. You can tell it's fake, though, because it lives in July. Also, it's lame.

But old habits die hard, and game publisher have trouble accepting this filthy fake as legitimate. And so they retain their old patterns of behavior, perhaps in the hopes that the true E3 will rise again and lead us to the promised land of huge mid-May web traffic spikes. Which means all those old pre-E3 events that used to clog April like a blob of matted hair are still stuffed in the proverbial drain of our productivity. To wit: The fruits of labor from last week's Nintendo formerly-a-pre-E3 event follow.

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: My Life As a King
I'm half-inclined to pretend this game doesn't exist. Something about seeing that many subtitles in conjunction is deeply offensive. On the other hand, I kind of respect My Life As a King in a Progress Quest kind of way: It strips away the pretenses of RPGs and reduces the entire thing to the bare-bones spreadsheet that serves as the framework for every entry in the genre.



Sonic Chronicles
I can't believe I have placed an image of a Sonic game on the front page of this site. Without irony! But then, I can still hardly believe BioWare is making a Sonic game. Well, actually, no -- now that I've played it I totally can. It's pure BioWare, which is to say ambitious, talkative, and sort of rough around the edges with a horribly ugly user interface. It's sort of reassuring, honestly.

Space Invaders Extreme
I hate the name, but man this game is fantastic. So good to see that Taito has actually figured out how to make this musty old classic feel interesting again.

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Redux
My favorite part of the presentation for this game was the way Nintendo is bending over backward to downplay the "Mystery Dungeon" part of the game. Rather than talk about all the things that make the series interesting, their spiel revolves entirely around the fact that now you are a pokémon! Honestly, people just don't appreciate the beauty of masochism.

posted by: | category: games | forums | twelve comments | §

Ninja-kick the damn rabbit

14 April 08 | 22:15

Add to Queue | Weekly DVD Releases
As usual, I haven't seen the columnist's pick for movie of the week. As usual, though, he makes it sound incredibly enticing. I have, however, seen Juno, and I found it quite enjoyable. But then, I hung out as the honorary guy in the sarcastic weird girls group -- presumably my shoulder-length hair fooled them -- and (like so many things) Juno made me nostalgic. Uh, teen pregnancy aside.


New Game + | Weekly Game Releases
I like the fact that the longer these weekly columns run, the rantier they become. My innocent young columnists are learning a hard fact of life: The longer you're exposed to the things you love, the more cynical you become due to the grim reality behind it all. Farewell, naivety of youth.

posted by: | category: film, games | forums | eight comments | §

GameSpite Issue 6.2: Action-packed

13 April 08 | 16:00

I felt like being unexpectedly punctual this week and have posted the second chunk of Issue Six a day early. Of course, this is only the second week for our bite-sized postings, so who is to say that Sunday postings aren't really the norm, eh? I guess you'll just have to wait and wonder. In the meantime, please enjoy the following:

Contra Hard Corps
Kishi takes us into a world of madness. A world of Contra... on a system that wasn't Nintendo's. A world where robots fought alien incursions, and not because it was a censored humanoid modified to avoid offending delicate European sensibilities. A world with intricate, spinny explosions. A world called Contra Hard Corps.


Cybernator
The theme of this week's update is frickin' action, man. And the bridge between the two bookend articles is this piece on Cybernator -- somewhere between footsoldiers blowing up everything in sight and a jumping tank blowing up everything in sight is a tank in the shape of a man blowing up everything in sight. See? Harmonious unity.


Metroidvania: Blaster Master
It's been nearly a year and a half since I penned the last entry in the Metroidvania Chronicles. And pilgrim, that's too long. I think I've finally recovered from my Portrait of Ruin burnout, so let us delve once again into this sometimes-exciting sub-genre. Niche obsessions, ho!

posted by: | category: gamespite | forums | 23 comments | §

A real nostalgic hero

12 April 08 | 20:22

This is awesome. Awesome in a stupid, frivolous way, sure. But awesome nevertheless.



It's no secret that I am hopelessly addicted to nostalgia. It's pretty much what I've built my current career on: I wrote about games I played as a kid, and that led to me getting work at 1UP where I took charge of the classic gaming section, which in turn led to me being transplanted from art to editorial, where I promptly set up shop writing (and talking) about old games full-time. I suppose it's just another sign that I'm aging gracelessly, since I'm also a hopeless sucker for other things that tie back into my youth.

I bought some of Hasbro's 25th Anniversary G.I. Joe toys a while back, of course. Tonight I finally got around to opening one of them -- specifically, the original, commando-style Snake-Eyes. (Not to be confused with Snake-Eyes going commando, because yuck.) It seemed appropriate, since the original Snake-Eyes was the first figure I bought from the classic line. (In retrospect, I was sort of lucky, since that was pretty much the only time I ever saw any version of the character at a store until many years later when the entire line had gone down the tubes and he was wearing neon purple and blue.) I always kind of liked the original version better than the wolf-wrangling, ninjutsu-using, Venetian-blind-wearing revision that everyone else seems to crazy about. There's a sort of elegant simplicity in the original figure; the story goes that Hasbro was running over-budget on the initial line-up of toys and decided to produce one character who didn't have any paint detailing. So they mashed together body parts from other characters and cast them in solid black, then shocked the world by going and making such an evil-looking guy a hero. Because, you know, Darth Vader or whatever.

Anyway, I hadn't really given the anniversary figures a close look, but now that I have I'm impressed, and a little embarrassed. Embarrassed because these guys feel really fragile, not like the solid chunks of death plastic they were when I was young. Although I guess it's just trading one form of fragility for another; the old ones were made of a more brittle form of plastic, and nothing was sadder than a hero with a broken thumb. Except, of course, a hero with a broken crotch. My extremity-deficient Joes usually ended up being disassembled and reformed into bizarre amalgams, such as the infamous terror of my playset, a horrifying hybrid of Major Bludd, Sgt. Slaughter and Wild Weasel who sported Zartan's instantly-tanning forearms for extra fun in the sun.

No, these are fragile in a different way: they're meticulously detailed and loaded down with all kinds of gear. It's sort of clever, actually, since apparently a bunch of characters share a common super-minimal body but all manage to look unique thanks to the accessories layered over top. For instance, his web gear is now an accessory rather than molded to his body, and even includes a working holster for his pistol and a working sheathe for his knife. (Disappointingly, not a spike-knuckle trench knife. But a boy can dream.) The rather fussy paint jobs help, too. The old Snake-Eyes was unadorned black plastic, but this new one has lots of subtle, near-black detail that looks fantastic.

But that's why I'm embarrassed: Because clearly, this is no toy for little kids. All those little bits and pieces, the thin webs of plastic, the intricate but extremely delicate jointing -- they all scream, "This is made for manchildren!" And, yeah, they are. They take careful aim and hit me where it hurts -- right in the childhood -- while also managing to make the real fragments of my childhood feel stupid and obsolete. Side-by-side, they make the old ones look ridiculously simple and plain, as you can see.



Of course, Jinx is still a brilliant character, lumpy awkward figure notwithstanding. You have to respect a she-ninja who meticulously does her nails before going into combat. Jinx knows what's up. Just because you're getting paid by the government to kick dudes in the breadbasket while wearing a loose, shapeless robe doesn't mean you can't feel sexy.

posted by: | category: toys | forums | seven comments | §

I slowly go insane

11 April 08 | 21:08

My neighbors are currently having a raucous outdoor party in their backyard, laughing and drinking and blaring music... the music of Richard Marx, to be specific.



I'm pretty sure that counts as doing it wrong. Awesome hair, though.

posted by: | category: blog | forums | nine comments | §

Oh noooooo

11 April 08 | 11:55

Oh, yes, my young apprentice. Thanks again to everyone who helped reach the first Thumbnail Theatre reprise about 29 days faster than I had hoped. Now I guess I gotta watch Episode III again....

posted by: | category: blog | forums | sixteen comments | §

So awful I can only laugh hysterically

10 April 08 | 20:32

So I got home from work and my girlfriend was on the phone being laid off by the company for whom she's done freelance contract work over the past four years. Apparently they're cutting a quarter of their workforce, beginning with contractors.

On the plus side, no one else can fire her now -- that was her last source of possible income. Oh, wait... that's not a plus at all.

Edit: Ah, sorry, not trying to be a downer. It's been a pretty bad week, you know? I can't fully express my gratitude for everyone who has been so generously cruel today. As it happens, I was thinking last night about how I need to write more for the site (since it's my site), so the upshot of all of this is that you'll have more to read in the coming months. The Metroidvania Chronicles have gone far too long without an update, for instance....

Plus, on the personal side of this, part of me does think my girlfriend's rotten employment fortunes are ultimately a good thing. Now she can focus wholly on her portfolio so that when she graduates and starts stumping for work she'll be more awesome to potential employers. Short-term crisis for long-term gain. But man, does the short term suck.

And hey, at least there was a new Retronauts today, right? Be sure to check out Bob "servo" Mackey's too-cleverly-named RetroNotes as well.

posted by: | category: blog | forums | twelve comments | §

What the...

10 April 08 | 14:26

I spend the morning at a Nintendo event and come back to find you've already made it more than halfway to making me post a Thumbnail Theatre. You guys are generous, but you're also total bastards.

(But seriously, I am very happy that I will finally be able to pay GameSpite's writers for their efforts. Thanks!)

Since it worked so well for The GIA, I've come up with a table of inventives, with higher-profit tasks being more odious than the rest. That way I don't feel as guilty for taking your money, because I'll be suffering in the process.

• $1000: Star Wars Episode III Thumbnail Theatre - GOAL!
  
• $2000: Metal Gear Solid Thumbnail Theatre
  
• $3000: Unlimited Saga review
  
• $4000: ToastyFrog comic story 1
  
• $5000: Final Fantasy VII Thumbnail Theatre
  
• $6000: Vagrant Story Thumbnail Theatre
  
• $7000: Dirge of Cerberus review
  
• $8000: ToastyFrog comic story 2
  
• $9000: Smash Bros. Brawl review
  
• $10000: Xenogears Thumbnail Theatre, but one of you has to help sort out my taxes next year, too.

A few people have suggested adding a subscription system, which I might do next month. We shall see! In the meantime, I welcome recommendations for odious content.

posted by: | category: blog | forums | 37 comments | §

Throwing up in my mouth (but for a good cause?)

10 April 08 | 07:43

Ah well, I suppose it was inevitable. We've succumbed at last to something I hoped wouldn't be necessary. But then I saw the true state of my girlfriend's finances and realized I'm going to be paying for rent, bills and food without any help for the next few months. Fortunately she graduates soon and should be able to roll right into a decent job on the strength of her portfolio, but until then... lean times ahead. So! Let's make this site worth my while rather than a drain on my finances. And while we're at it, let's also make it worth the contributors' while, too:

Incentive: For every thousand bucks that accumulates, I'll write and publish a new Thumbnail Theatre. Starting, I suppose, with Star Wars Episode III and Metal Gear Solid 3. All donations will be divided among myself and the site contributors, with a slightly larger amount going to the weekly columnists. I'm not putting a dollar amount on the donations, so if you just want to send a buck, knock yourself out.

posted by: | category: blog | forums | 20 comments | §

Think about needs of notice for human being

09 April 08 | 20:24

Maybe it's just the weather or something, but for some reason this newly-minted Umihara Kawase Portable import hands-on makes me feel terribly melancholy. Not simply because it's a troubled port of a game that deserves better -- although it is! -- but because it's one of those instances where I've written at length about something in which I'm genuinely interested, yet it will vanish into the ether of 1UP never to be promoted. Or read, for that matter. Not that I can blame the folks in charge of the front page for burying it! Putting it in an above-the-fold slot would be a waste, since all of maybe a few dozen readers would actually click on a link entitled "Umihara Kawase Portable."

Still, I feel like there must be some way to make my sincere efforts regarding something like this as valuable as a few thousand rote words about something like Crisis Core. I liked Crisis Core, of course, but my favorite part of writing for 1UP -- the reason I became involved there in the first place -- is that it offers a forum in which I can expound upon things that interest me, things that I think others would enjoy if they took the time to try. Not that most people are bothered to make the effort, of course; that's just human nature. Most people simply don't have an interest in the unfamiliar; if they did, we'd still have a Computer Gaming World. And really, the notion that a skull-bitingly obscure game like this could ever pull in a sizable audience is merely a silly delusion. I've drifted into an awfully futile career, eh?

posted by: | category: games | forums | twelve comments | §

Requiem

09 April 08 | 07:55

Man, yesterday took the wind right out of my sails. As in, I came home and crawled into bed rather than sit around dwelling on matters.

In the time I've been at Ziff, I've sat through entirely too many magazines being shuttered, but this one was the most depressing. GFW was a magazine approaching three decades of continuous publishing under one name or another, the oldest extant gaming publication in America -- maybe the world? -- and it also happened to be the most smartly-written. Despite not being a PC gamer, I still read each and every issue cover-to-cover. And I fondly remember thumbing through the old, glorified-newsletter-style CGWs that my friends had stacked by their computers as they trekked through The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy or Pools of Radiance or whatever. At least the smart writing will still be around, since the GFW crew will simply be focusing its efforts online. What this means is that 1UP's PC coverage will soon crush the rest of the Internet's... in fact, we'll probably have to improve the console content to match.

Certainly I'll need to shape up. This new preview for The World Ends With You feels like it's within spitting distance of being really great, but doesn't quite get there and just comes off scattered and unfocused. And I'm still not happy with Retro Roundup, despite the new format. I need more space and more time so each write-up can focus on the game and really dig into the details; all I can manage currently is a brief, fatuous, cursory glance at each game. And any jackass can do that. Ah well.



That's right: Cry, emo boy.

On the plus side, I did manage to coin the term "Nomuraverse." And better yet, that fishy smell from the crawfish place has finally dissipated from my fingers. Small victories, man. Take 'em where you can.

posted by: | category: games | forums | eleven comments | §

There will be weekly release columns

08 April 08 | 09:09

...right now, as a matter of fact.

New Game + | Weekly Game Releases
Here's a rarity: Not only does Atlus have two games out this week, but they neither one have to compete with some triple-A major league title. I guess they should enjoy it now before Etrian Odyssey II goes up against the twin goliaths of Final Fantasy Tactics A2 and Metal Gear Solid 4 in June. Armed with nothing but a rusty fork.

Add to Queue | Weekly DVD Releases
New movies arrive this week, as every week. Meanwhile, I'm about a billion years behind; this weekend I finally got around to watching No Country For Old Men and Sweeny Todd -- the latter with unwarranted reluctance. I'd heard its soundtrack and hated it, but I failed to account for the redemptive potential of Alan Rickman and Johnny Depp performing half of a barbershop quartet together.

posted by: | category: film, games | forums | fifteen comments | §

GameSpite Issue Six, or something like it

07 April 08 | 09:11

Beginning this month, I'll be taking a different approach to publishing GameSpite issues. I've discovered that spending an entire weekend (and change) editing others' work once a month is basically like being at work one weekend a month, minus the overtime. Oh, wait, we don't get overtime. So it's exactly like spending the weekend at the office, come to think of it. Well, my apartment doesn't smell vaguely like a locker room. I guess that's something.

Anyway, I think a more moderate approach is in order. So, now each "issue" will now comprise a month's worth of content, but it will be doled out two articles at a time, every Monday. Please continue checking the Issue Six link each week for new additions. Actually, don't bother, because I will post them here, too. Still, the Issue Six link to the right will come in handy at the end of the month, when everything is finally available.

I realize this reduces the sheer amount of awesome you get at once, but sometimes doling out awesome into little chunklets of awesome can be just as satisfying. Anyway, this week's edition additions:

---

Sympathy for the Combine
Pleased to meet you, hope you guessed mHKSSSHKSHSS
OUTBREAK OUTBREAK OUTBREAK
Citizen of interest, please surrender immediately to the nearest Civil Patrol unit or by clicking this image link.

The Secret of Monkey Island
In last month's sense-defyingly sensational ish, Magnificent Bob Mackey duked it out with his nemesis to determine the true champion of adventure game justice! His Maniac Mansion megablast was countered by a powerful Space Quest judo chop. Things look bad for our hero! Will insult swordfighting bring him an impossible victory, or merely shame? Read on, true believers!

posted by: | category: games | forums | nine comments | §

Reek havoc

06 April 08 | 10:46

Last night we went to a new-ish crawfish restaurant in the neighborhood. A shop that sells nothing but bags of steamed, New Orleans-style crustaceans is a really strange fit in this Chinese-dominated area -- everyone else along the streets sells Asian cuisine and nothin' but. Yet the girlfriend loves food with a high investment of effort for little reward, and few things fit this definition better than crawfish. Me, I'm obsessively fastidious and hate eating food with my bare hands, so ripping apart what amount to giant, dead, ocean-borne insects to get at the tiny amount of edible flesh inside doesn't have much appeal for me. But I endured, because sometimes being a good companion requires greasy savagery.

Unfortunately, I didn't count on the lingering smell. I have terrible eyesight and lousy hearing, but my nose is a refined and highly-sensitive organ. And the smell of the crawfish and the spicy fluids in which they were boiled to dead won't go away. I feel like Lady Macbeth, scrubbing at my hands until they stop reeking of garlic and the gulf. Unfortunately, there's no sympathy on the home front; the girlfriend is convinced the lingering odors are just in my imagination, and when I complained of being "wreathed in a nimbus of crawfish-stench" her response was to make fun of me for saying "wreathed in a nimbus of crawfish-stench." Yeah, great. Helpful.

I guess the lesson here is: always engage in your feral primality with the aid of a fork, or chopsticks.


Since I've been playing a certain upcoming game recently, I dredged up some old thing I wrote about one of its predecessors and gave it the spit-and-polish GameSpite treatment. Which is to say minor formatting tweaks, but no content adjustments... mainly because my opinion on this topic has matured rather a lot in the past seven years (holy crap seven years) and I'd have to completely rewrite the stupid thing to reflect my current point of view, which involves Super Circuit being awfully tepid. Man, all those first-year GBA games seemed a lot better at the time. (Except Wario Land 4. It's still awesome, in fact.) So, please regard it as a relic of my young, ignorant self... whose writing was filled with far more cleverness than my current, miserable verbal vomit. Seriously, phrases like "head-mounted eggplant" make me miss my former wit and intelligence.

Also, with regard to the last post: Apparently every method of monetizing a site is either unfeasible or unpalatable, but I may try adding a donation button to the site soon -- something which would also allow the site's contributor's to reap some benefits as well. We shall see! Also, I managed to dig up a fairly cheap copy of Dragon Crystal for Master System on eBay, so that is one down. And someone offered up a copy of Time Stalkers, so that is two. I shall save up for the rest, and someday we shall have a grand and glorious roguelikes gallery.

Huh, "roguelikes gallery." That's actually... kind of clever, maybe. Eh, probably just a fluke.

posted by: | category: blog, games | forums | 18 comments | §

Desperately seeking blue dungeon crawler

05 April 08 | 17:33

That title almost rhymes with "Desperately Seeking Susan" while cleverly tying into the content of the post. If only it weren't for that vestigial "geon crawler." That bit really harshed my mellow.



Anyway, I'm currently in the process of tracking down the last few games I need to flesh out my research material for the site's Roguelikes page. I actually own most of these already, at least the ones that have been published, but I was surprised to learn that two of the games I thought I owned are not in fact in my possession. And then there are a handful I've only heard about recently. So! I am looking for the following games: Azure Dreams (both for PlayStation and Game Boy Color), Time Stalkers, Dragon Crystal and Fatal Labyrinth. Also, some people claim the quest mode of Ehrgeiz qualifies as a roguelike, although I have my doubts, but I would like to give it a try.

If anyone would like to donate these games to the cause, please drop me a line. Perhaps we could trade! Or maybe you could claim a tax write-off. I dunno. Normally I would simply eBay these, but the combination of going to Japan and my girlfriend losing her job right before we left for Japan (but after we'd already committed to the trip by giving my credit card number to various hotels and airlines) has had an astringent effect on my wallet. Ever paid rent for a two-bedroom apartment in San Francisco all by your lonesome? It's not something I would recommend to anyone who earns less than, say, $80K a year. As someone who earns considerably less than that, my favorite hobby these days is to load up my bank account info and die a little on the inside each time.

I suppose I should open the floor again to suggestions on ways I could monetize this site and temporarily boost my income until the girlfriend graduates and can track down full-time work. Difficulty: Method must not be soul-crushing. (Google Adsense is tremendously soul-crushing.)

posted by: | category: games | forums | 30 comments | §

Japan postscript: My vacation in Nara, a photo blog

04 April 08 | 19:16

One of the places I visited in Japan but never really mentioned (since my blogging eventually degenerated into me posting pictures of dumb, random things and making dumb, un-funny remarks about them) was Nara, a small city about a mile outside Kyoto. Nara is famous for two things: one, its beautiful forest shrines and temples. And two, the fact that the temple end of the city is overrun with deer which are, if not quite tame, then certainly very fearless where humans are concerned. You can feed them and pet them and they're totally fine with it. I didn't, though, because they're very mangy and probably infested with lyme disease or weeping sores or something. I did, however, take lots of photos of them, which I have preserved very earnestly in the cut after this link.

Post continued after link >>

posted by: | category: blog | forums | 25 comments | §

Supplies!

03 April 08 | 14:33

So, this game really isn't what I expected. That's what I get for not paying attention to the previews.

Buuuut I can't talk about that at the moment. However, I can definitely say that I've decided any game in which Toad speaks can never, ever receive a top score. I have to dock Nintendo at least a fraction of a point every time I'm reminded that they've turned the best and most playable character in the Mario world into a shrieking retard whose voice sounds like it belongs to a chain-smoking five-year-old girl speaking in falsetto.

posted by: | category: games | forums | 20 comments | §

An exciting new tradition

02 April 08 | 11:28

I decided not to post anything yesterday either here or at work save for a slightly late Retro Roundup due to my ongoing revulsion that the entire Internet becomes stupid every year on April 1. I think in future years I will simply not going online at all for the entire day. I wonder if ZD docks pay for being absent due to righteous protest.

I'm very happy with the header I created for this week's roundup, by the way. If I had my way, everything in the world would be designed to look like a Master System package. That Times Roman text over a blue grid on white could well be the pinnacle of human achievement! Or at least charmingly kitschy. I think my generation is incapable of determining the difference.

Speaking of stupid things, the palpable enthusiasm of everyone currently on the Grand Theft Auto IV review, combined with Kohler's "GTA Virgin" thing, has chiseled stress cracks in the wall of my apathy about the game. I kind of figured I'd had enough of the series after San Andreas' gloriously ambitious but infuriatingly flawed experience, and the publisher's consistent efforts to be completely awful to work with haven't done much to change my mind. But... mmm, sandboxes. I was thinking about maybe delving into one of the GTAs I've skipped over the past few years, but then I said, "Eh," and instead slapped some graphics and reformatting on that ancient Diary of a Vigilante... for Justice! feature. So much less wasteful of my time.

posted by: | category: blog | forums | eight comments | §