d-pad

Sonic Joins the Fray

thisisdpad@gmail.com (Kevin/Ian/Mina) — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 00:42:00 -0700

It happened. I was hoping that Mega Man or Zero would be next but I don't think they'll ever make it into Brawl. They're too much like other characters anyways.

I do agree that Sonic is wicked awesome though. Who am I agreeing with?

God of course.

In other news, Halo 3's Forge and Theater make for a mean combo. We flew Elephants.

Thanks to the dojo for this one and those are my own goddamn screenshots, right god?

Damn right.

-Ian P.

The Dojo

THe Unfortunate Side of College

thisisdpad@gmail.com (Kevin/Ian/Mina) — Mon, 8 Oct 2007 01:04:00 -0700

Is that I cannot post very regulary at all, for I am lazy.

There, I said it. But trust me, I will continue to post about information that I find interesting, reveleant and mysteriously erotic all at the same time.

You turned on yet? well are you?

-Ian P.

Super Smash Bros?!

thisisdpad@gmail.com (Kevin/Ian/Mina) — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 16:09:00 -0700

Snake's page has finally uploaded to The Smash Dojo. Needless to say, it is awesome.

Keep Rumblin', Rumblin', Rumblin'

thisisdpad@gmail.com (Kevin/Ian/Mina) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 14:29:00 -0700

From IGN.com:

In fact, the controller we were using to play the demo looked exactly like a standard Sixaxis, except that it had a sticker on the bottom that said "RUMBLE." It also felt notably heavier than the standard Sixaxis.

We presume this is a prototype of the PlayStation 3's new rumble controller, whatever it's going to be called.

The rumble itself felt around the level of PlayStation 2 rumble. We're not sure just yet if Sony is using any of that next generation technology Immersion has been talking about for the past few months.

A formal announcement is expected tomorrow at Kaz Hirai's keynote address.

By the by, I tainted my hard drive by downloading the Limp Bizkit "Rollin" video just so you could have a photo gag, folks. TAINT.

-K

Late edit: Sony's keynote made it official. The Dual Shock 3 is arriving in November for Japan, and in Spring 2008 for the rest of the world.

SMASH ONLINE!

thisisdpad@gmail.com (Kevin/Ian/Mina) — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 21:16:00 -0700

SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!

They actually did make the game online compatible.

Just go to the website, obviously it's the Smash Dojo.

-Ian P.

WOAH WOAH WOAH Rumble WOAH WOAH WOAH

thisisdpad@gmail.com (Kevin/Ian/Mina) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 14:37:00 -0700

So, I kind of missed this rumor while listening to the 1Up podcast:

According to them, Sony may unveil Dual Shock 3 or SHOXOHS (shocks-osh) or whatever they plan on calling this thing at their TGS keynote.

And just remember: TouchSense might just kick your ass.

The link's in the post below.

-K

Team ICO, AKA Our New Overlords, Bless Us With TGS News

thisisdpad@gmail.com (Kevin/Ian/Mina) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 13:02:00 -0700

Anyone remember that weird game, Patapon, that got posted a little while back?

No?

Well, it's a weird looking game that Sony showed at I believe both Gamer's Day and e3.

Now, for some new news on it: the game is being developed both by people that worked on Loco Roco (makes sense)... AND members of Team ICO.

Not only that, but Team ICO is indeed working on two games: maybe one PSP game and one PS3 game. Maybe two PS3 games. Maybe they're being archaic and are making a PS1 game that'll be available to play on the PSN, which would cover both PS3 and PSP. Maybe it's a fucking Sony-branded board game. Who cares. We might get news of it at the Tokyo Game Show this year.

Oh, and if you've lived under a rock for the past seven years, Team ICO are the people behind ICO (duh) and Shadow Of The Colossus. Two of the most imaginative, besutiful games in existence.

This news comes from the 1up podcast, available here.

-K

Infinite Undiscovery?

thisisdpad@gmail.com (Kevin/Ian/Mina) — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 19:57:00 -0700

First I would like to poit out the fact that the title is very...well...

Interesting?

Who wants to play a game about UN-discovering stuff?

Secondly...

The trailer..kind of.

I don't know about you but this just doesn't get me pumped to go un-discovering things.

I would love to undiscover some things; Go to goolge and look up meat spin and click on the first thing; Undiscovering things just doesn't happen, unfortunately. Well see how this game is...

Oh yea, or just go here http://a.photos.cx/meatspin-10e.gif

-Ian P.

2K Games: Retarded, Wants Bioshock Sequels

thisisdpad@gmail.com (Kevin/Ian/Mina) — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 12:47:00 -0700

So, good news first. Bioshock's a success, to the tune of 1.5 million copies sold worldwide. Sure, this doesn't break off the view of the Xbox 360 being an FPS-only machine at all, but at least for once, it's a damn good game getting some attention before the megaton blast of Halo 3.

Now, the bad news: 2K imagines that they could have sequels to this. On an every-other-year basis. Um, no. Sorry. That shouldn't happen. This wasn't a story that really ended with a setup for sequels. After all, after [spoiler] [spoiler]s, and you [spoiler] the [spoiler] out of [spoiler] with your [spoiler], the whole thing [spoiler] with hands and thankfully, [spoiler] was not a peacock. What I'm trying to say is, where the hell would they go with this? Nowhere. Irrational (fuck calling them 2K Boston or 2K Australia) sort of made a very self-enclosed game, and it took more than two years for them to make it as quality as it was. I don't care if GTA did the same thing - GTA is satire, and there's a lot more things to satirize than there is to actually engage you in a world nowadays.

Just, no, 2K. No. Bad 2K. Sorry you have a load of other shitty games on your docket, and your more interesting titles besides Bioshock are in 2008 and 2009. But don't shoot yourselves in the foot. Give Irrational some time, let them make a new IP, and make sure it's sequel ready this time.

In random spirit, here's the Zero Punctuation review of Bioshock, as done by funny person Yahtzee:

-K

Joystiq: BioShock ships 1.5m units; LA Noire pushed to 2009

Ian's Top Ten RPG's: Part 1, #10

thisisdpad@gmail.com (Kevin/Ian/Mina) — Sun, 9 Sep 2007 21:18:00 -0700

It's been a while since the first Final Fantasy came out, well, the FIRST TIME IT CAME OUT.* And I've been getting nostalgic recently. The Mystic Quests...and FF6's and 7's. (watching Gametrailers's Final Fantasy Retrospective, didn't help either.) So I've decided to do a 10 part post about all the other RPG's that I love way more than Final Fantasy and alsmost all of it's renditions.

You see, I started playing Final Fantasy too late into the series to truly appreciate it. My first encounter with a Final Fantasy game was actually not even a true rendition of the series, it was Mystic Quest: Final-Fantasy-Dulled-Down-So-Stupid-Americans-Can-Understand-It. I hated that game. Well not hate, but I didn't like it. Then my next encounter was Final Fantasy 8. Still my favorite of the series to this day. (I probably have some people shouting and throwing things at me by now.) Well, I apologise, I like conviluted... rushed plotlines and tediously-hard gameplay. Thats just me, thats why I liked Chrono Cross so much, (I'll get to that game later.) Then I came across Final Fantasy 10. I'll talk about that later too. Tidus can eat a dick. My last thre...two encounters were FF11, and 12. (FF10-2 does not exist to me and never will even though the gameplay is actually pretty fun.)

Keeping this explanation of My history with the most famous RPG series in history in mind, I bring to you #10 in my list of top ten RPG's. I've thought these over for at least 6 minutes.

Ian's #10 choice in top ten RPG's is:

Chrono Cross

Man did this game have flaws; but you know what; I liked it. So there. The Battle system was frustrating, the graphics and animations for the characters were blocky, and the element system got a tad bit rediculous towards the end, but the conviluted plotline and direct fantasy/sci-fi crossover kept me a fan.

I remember discovering this game on a commercial and prompting my dad to buy it for me. I then beat it in a week cause i was 9 or something and didn't stop playing it. I loved those days. Anyways, now that I've mentioned what I didn't like about the game, I'll move onto what was great.

You had 44 characters, (including Kid), to choose from and each had their own backstory, special recruiting method, (sometimes these methods were extremely difficult,) and cool weapon. Better yet, you could combine certain characters to perform combos in battle, just like in Chrono Trigger. Sometimes these moves required all three players to have a certain element level so their "tech" elements were available. I liked this system for what it was and it gavce me a challenge but held it's authenticity throughout.

Also, this was just awesome.

Cause what is more awesome than walking into an ENTIRE OCEAN FROZEN IN TIME.

Aside from that the game had beautiful landscapes, lush settings and all that, and a soundtrack written by Yasonori Mitsuda which couldn't have been written better.

*spoilers*

The plotline was akin to an MC Escher painting. Doors and stairs at weird angles and nothing you could really predict. Example: Kid is a clone of Princess Schala created by Belthasar

Sent to the future to help Serge who'se father is a demi-human lynx created by a system called FATE which is a computer designed to control everyone on the Ill Nido archapeligo which was actually terraformed by Chronopolis and is inhabited by the brainwashed staff members of Chronopolis which is a city from the future that underwent a drastic time experiment failure and was sent back in time, also drawing back Dinopolis which was inhabited by dragons. They fought Chronopilis won and split their ultimate weapon the Dragon God into six dragons and took the frozen flame to continue their research on time control eventually leading to the magnetic storm when Princess Schala (remember her?) fell into a time rip and fused with LAVOS and is slowly eating time. This magnetic storm shut down Chronopolis long enough for; A poisoned Serge and father to enter Chronopolis and Serge was healed by the frozen flame and his dad went nuts and was transformed later by the people at Chronopolis into Lynx to try to kill you so that FATE could resume working with the frozen flame which dubbed you the arbiter since you touched it. Bad? I remember this all. So pay attention. Now, Belthasar saw this all and knew that time would be destroyed if he didnt create that clone to get you to go to the frozen flame and do whatever or something and eventually create the element chrono cross and free Schala from Lavos and saaaaaave the wooorld. And oh yea, Harlequinn was the seventh Dragon created in that magnetic storm to try to lure you back to Chronopolis and shut it down, (which you kill FATE the one thing imprisoning the dragons,) because they're still pissed that humans won. Then some creepy children tell you about all this at the end of the game before the final boss battle. I think one of them is Chrono.

Yep.

Thats my number ten choice, becuse despite that plotline, it's visuals, battle system, and replayability still draw me in. I mean you can replay with all of your past levels...hahahha...

-Ian P.

The Un-Magical Bug-fest.

thisisdpad@gmail.com (Kevin/Ian/Mina) — Fri, 7 Sep 2007 18:05:00 -0700

Since there isn't much news to report, I'll report on what has happened to d-pad in the last 2 weeks. We moved, quite sudenly. Now we're all good...but man did that suck.

As far as the title of this post? Just watch. I havent figured out if it's a joke or what, but apparently people like to take games that made no sense to begin with and fuck them up even more.

This is...the bug-fest.

What the hell was happening anyways? How are you supposed to know how to do all that? Or maybe you arent and that guy was just glitching it, I dunno whatever. All I know is there are apparently tougher hacks even still. I prefer the Automatic Mario.

-Ian P.

The Most Magical ROM Hack

thisisdpad@gmail.com (Kevin/Ian/Mina) — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 20:45:00 -0700

-K

I Hope This Doesn't Spore You...

thisisdpad@gmail.com (Kevin/Ian/Mina) — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 16:06:00 -0700

...

...no one?

Ok that was terrible. I apologise.

But this video isn't and I think it more than makes up for any waiting period... or bad, sticky, slimy, nasty...

...pun.

*wipes self off*

Here.

I hate you Will Wright. I don't even like sim-games and I want this.

Hate Beams...

-Ian P.

Took this from Gametrailers, obviously.

I Was Right: Wii Is Now Best-Selling System This Gen

thisisdpad@gmail.com (Kevin/Ian/Mina) — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 21:04:00 -0700

I predicted back in the first podcast that the Wii would overtake the 360 in sales around the August-September period - and, as you can see above, from VGChartz.com, it's done just that.

However, I'm sure the 360 is leading, far and away, on attachments.

-K

VGChartz.com: Wii Is Market Leader In Home Console Sales

Ten Songs! Added To Rock Band! WOOOOO!

thisisdpad@gmail.com (Kevin/Ian/Mina) — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 20:50:00 -0700

Here they are.

Rolling Stones, "Gimme Shelter"
Deep Purple, "Highway Star"
The Clash, "Should I Stay or Should I Go"
Faith No More, "Epic"
Smashing Pumpkins, "Cherub Rock"
Radiohead, "Creep"
Beastie Boys, "Sabotage"
Jet, "Are You Gonna Be My Girl"
OK Go, "Here It Goes Again"
Nine Inch Nails, "The Hand That Feeds"

I was thinking the other day that they should have The Clash. And Harmonix listened. And then upped it with some Faith No More! Truly they are the Kings of... Kingses? Kings's?

-K

SUPER DIMENSION STEALING BROS. AWESOME

thisisdpad@gmail.com (Kevin/Ian/Mina) — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 20:23:00 -0700

So...apparently the Subspace Emissary mode is all about this pissed off minister who wants to steal our dimension and put it in the subspace dimension.

The Pissed off Minister of...Dimension stealing?

This is all about land you see. You can never make new land, so he will steal it. That's my take at least.

Awesome.

This is done by using giant bombs which splice out sections of our dimension. I won't even mention what the things on either side of the bomb are. If you don't know what they are then you don't deserve to call yourself a Nintendo fan.

Poof it's gone.

Thoughts? New story mode is cool, as long as you have to put over 6700 hours into it to complete it, and there are 1400 characters and pointless troph...stickers you earn.

Oh wait, fuck that.

Let's hope the minister doesnt find Superman's land making crystals. Or talk to Lex Luthor.

-Ian P.

Thanks to The Dojo! once again.

Avalanche of Ratchet And Clank Future Movies Kills 12, Injures Hundreds

thisisdpad@gmail.com (Kevin/Ian/Mina) — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 13:50:00 -0700

GameTrailers has uploaded a LOT of Ratchet And Clank Future: Tools of Destruction movies. I swear, if this game doesn't win an award for something, I will honestly be shocked.

I mean, I know it won't win "Game of The Year" stuff - Bungie's pulling aside the over-given Halo 2 awards to make room for Halo 3's upcoming ones (although I really do feel that Bioshock will be the best FPS this year, bar none) - but goddamn if this is not one of the prettiest and most personality-filled games I've seen. Watch the Ice Pirate Dance Off, catch the two pirates making snow angels. Look at the bug-squashing gameplay, and look at how natural the world seems.

By the way, the game's hitting October 23rd, 2007. Do a dance of joy.

And, yeah, I know: I posted to the game's page on GameTrailers and didn't embed the videos here, like other sites. It's easier this way, and you can watch stuff in HD as well. Who doesn't want that?!

-K

Holy Crap! Devil World? Stickers? Smash Brawl Gets Weirder

thisisdpad@gmail.com (Kevin/Ian/Mina) — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 11:47:00 -0700

Over at Smash Bros. DOJO!!, they've done a lot of wacky updating. For one, there's a new Assist Trophy - which is the top image. It's Devil, from Devil World. Yeah, I haven't heard of it, either, but that's because it never made it over here.

The other thing? Stickers! These things will appear randomly as you go through the game - think of them as an equivalent to coins, just not as common, but far easier to get than Trophies.

Weird stuff, but then again, the series story is technically that the toys come to life... AND FIGHT. And the final boss for Melee was the kid's HANDS, which you destroy. Yeah.

-K

Gran Turismo 5: Yet Another Menu Better-Looking Than the PS Store

thisisdpad@gmail.com (Kevin/Ian/Mina) — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 14:22:00 -0700

Glad to see every Sony studio besides the one that makes the Store can make a good-looking, sextacular, puurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrdy menu.

Anyway: IGN.com recently set up a Gran Turismo 5 article with everything known up to now. Check it out.

-K

Angry Internet... Yells at Madden

thisisdpad@gmail.com (Kevin/Ian/Mina) — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 14:27:00 -0700

Gotta love Youtube, poorly debugged games, a year-long development cycle, and a short temper.

-K

New Guitar Hero II Downloads, Yay!

thisisdpad@gmail.com (Kevin/Ian/Mina) — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 22:53:00 -0700

Three tracks off of My Chemical Romance's album, The Black Parade, are now available for download on the Xbox Live Marketplace. Whee!

On the downside there was no drop in price on the songs.

Oh well, we will flock anyways.

-Ian P.

Thanks to The PRP.

Old News, New Ideas

thisisdpad@gmail.com (Kevin/Ian/Mina) — Thu, 9 Aug 2007 21:46:00 -0700

Ecochrome, the strange game previewed at E3 this year during Sony's Press Conference apparently has people so riled up that they would go out and develop their own level editor before the game even comes out. Sweet Deal.

It's not the highest definition game but that's ok, it's free! Check that out here Weird OLE Coordinate System?

I figured it out in about 5 minutes. The only part of this system that i couldn't figure out was the hyper dimensional stuff that they were doing in the preview, like jumping from the back to the front of the level by lining it up right. I'll get it damnit! Shut up Kevin!

-Ian P.

Thanks to Gamespot, Digista Lab, and The Dudes who found this on the Crysis forums, and the guy who I found it from.

Hot Lombax

thisisdpad@gmail.com (Kevin/Ian/Mina) — Sun, 5 Aug 2007 04:49:00 -0700

Kevin = Whore For Insomniac Games.

But what can I say? I'm a platformer guy.

-K

The Dojo strikes again!

thisisdpad@gmail.com (Kevin/Ian/Mina) — Fri, 3 Aug 2007 22:02:00 -0700

Mmn, Smash Bros.

The single player mode looks like it's getting a more thorough lookover this time around. I can dig that.

Run Fox it's a...um...one of those and they're dangerous!

The interesting twist is that this Smash has a story mode. Looks kind of like a beefed up adventure mode, but cool none the less.

Oh no! Mario is attacked by Heartless!

I just hope they dont forget the mission mode; Because the thing that drew me into Melee time and time again were the 51 off-the-charts-frustrating missions that you could complete to earn characters and other shwag.

Now remember, each time you've ever played Melee and seen Mewtwo, that means the game was played for 20 hours total, or 700 vs. matches were completed. Damn.

So the "Sub-Space Emissary" mode is cool, but...
Not as cool as If they put in 3,000 unbalanced missions! Then I could go shoot myself.

-Ian P.

Thanks again Super Smash Bros. Dojo

Katamari...Sort of.

thisisdpad@gmail.com (Kevin/Ian/Mina) — Fri, 3 Aug 2007 21:56:00 -0700

This is my experience with OXM's new demo disk.

"WOOO! KATAMARI!" Says Me

Says the 360 back.

Sweet demo.

-Ian P.