Damage Control

Halo Legends: The Babysitter Impressions

2009-11-10T04:54:07Z

First off, I hope that anyone who wanted their first glimpse at next year's release of Halo Legends saw the incredibly limited premier of The Babysitter, animated by Studio 4°C, on Xbox Live via Halo Waypoint Saturday. It was free for only that day! If you missed it, I'm sure you'll be able to see it somehow in the future.

Ambivalent expectations are abound for how Halo Legends will turn out. The Animatrix was a mostly pretty good rendition of the Matrix world in anime form, and the series' premise made the transition perfectly considering aspects of it were inspired by Ghost in the Shell. We, logically, expected similar results with Batman: Gotham Knight, but it turned out to be mostly wasted potential. Judging the package solely by the quality of The Babysitter would be silly, but I was surprised at how good it turned out to be.

The Babysitter details the story of three Orbital Shock Drop Troopers (aka ODST; possibly in relation to some game) soldiers tasked with the mission of assassinating a Prophet. The mission isn't that big of a deal, if the soldiers' mannerisms are to be believed. But the real problem here is that they're being assisted by a Spartan, soldiers seen as the elite of the group -- but not the Elites, don't you know. Can the soldiers and the Spartan possibly work together? This is the question The Babysitter seeks to answer. And it does! But it's not like I'm going to answer that question here.

It only had 20 minutes to tell its tale, but The Babysitter did that fine. Note the use of the word "fine," as things admittedly played out rather expectantly. Still though, it did its job of being entertaining, which is, you know, fine.

Due credit should be given to the animation, which looks absolutely spectacular in high definition. At times, you'll wish the short took a little longer to pan around the environments so you could take them in entirely. The music is also great, even if they're mainly remixes of existing music from all of the Halo games. It's been said that the franchise's musical score is on par with a number of theatrical films, so it all feels right in place here.

I really hope The Babysitter is, at least, a sign of things to come for the entirety of the Halo Legends package. If you want to see any of the future installments, make sure you look at the official Halo website to see when they're on. Don't miss them! Well, unless you're planning on buying the whole package on DVD or Blu-Ray in February.

Cover Art Chronicles: Atlus and the Wanderer

2009-11-09T04:01:32Z

You'd be hard-pressed to find a lot of gamers who know what Shiren the Wanderer is, even among a subset of them who happen to like RPGs. Shiren has both the fortunate and unfortunate reality of belonging to the roguelike genre, a set of games whose itinerary it is to be very challenging, and force the player to think about every decision they make lest they suffer the consequences. It's not a popular genre due to how nail-bitingly hardcore it is, but gamers with a masochistic streak would like them.

(Note: This excludes the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games.)

Considering that, it's probably not a surprise to see that Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer for DS -- a remake of the original SNES game -- sold pretty poorly in both America and Europe. Sega admittedly took a chance on publishing it, though they could have given it a better cover in the process. One of the best aspects of the recent Shiren titles is the great artwork, so who knows why Sega decided on a 16-bit era throwback for release outside of Japan. Covers usually don't affect a game's sales too much in most cases, but this one was so bad that it definitely hurt it. It's one of the worst Japanese-to-American cover transitions in recent memory.

Fortunately, the franchise is getting another chance, this time from Atlus with Shiren 3 -- though it's understandably being called Shiren the Wanderer in America, likely because no one knows the previous game existed! It's going to be tough, but they have a good chance of making this game a cult hit when they release it in Spring 2010. This is a company that knows how to market a game towards niche audiences to an almost frightening degree, so I think a new audience could gravitate towards it. Even if it is on a console whose third-party sales are sadly mediocre; though some niche games still manage to sell well on it -- see Muramasa: The Demon Blade. They're starting on the right foot, at least:

Nice to see the cover uses the Japanese art this time to a tee. There's no word on if Atlus is localizing the recently announced PSP port, due for a Japanese release on January 28. They localized both the PS2 and Wii versions of Baroque back in 2008, so there's a chance. A pity it's not enough of a frequent occurrence to guess whether they'll actually release both. Details say the PSP version is being made more accessible to players new to the franchise, so releasing this one would be a better idea than the Wii version.

Speaking of Shiren's art, it's a shame to see that they're changing the art style for the Japanese release of Shiren the Wanderer 4 for DS. It looks as if the franchise's developer, Chunsoft, wants to aim the game towards a wider audience. That's perfectly fine and all, but...ouch. Another interesting tidbit about the game is that Spike is publishing it in Japan, not Sega. Spike is also publishing the aforementioned PSP port of Shiren 3. Apparently, something happened between Chunsoft and Sega's relationship.

Logic would follow that if Shiren 3 does well enough in America, hopefully on both consoles if applicable, Shiren the Wanderer DS 2 (a remake of the GBC game, not Shiren the Wanderer 2 the N64 game) and Shiren 4 would be localized. Atlus has been able to get roguelikes to sell well before with the Izuna titles, but Shiren's much more of a beast in terms of its difficulty level. Wish them luck, because they're going to need it.

Geek News Roundup for 11/01/09 - Why Can't I Own A Canadian?

2009-11-09T02:17:15Z

It used to be thought that health care reform in the United States would happen when pigs flew. Well, this is the sound of one ham flapping. The United States still has a long way to go before they have the level of health care that I have as a Canadian, but it's a start. The bill itself is long, very long, and apparently getting longer (mentioned at about 4:12 into part 1 of the episode). If the biggest complaint you have is that it's big, then that must mean that War and Peace, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the Bible are the worst books ever. Kinda kills your enthusiasm for NaNoWriMo, doesn't it, when an entire party can enter and already be over 1900 pages ahead of you? I'm only at 13054 words for the month. Stupid Democrats, showing off.

This week has been a week of milestones. Sesame Street has celebrated its 40th anniversary, and at the same time, Wallace and Gromit has been around for 20 years. In fact, if you go to the official Telltale Games web page, you can download a Wallace and Gromit PC game for free! Hope you hurry, though, because the special offer ends very, very soon. Within hours of this post, in fact. Also, speaking of special days, November 5th was Flux Capacitor Day.

There is some good news for injured or crippled pets: they no longer have to fear for their future. Just ask Andre the dog. All it takes is one person (or team of people) to decide that something's possible, and something like this can happen.

Flash was never, in anyone's wildest imaginations, the best thing to happen to computers and the Internet. And when Windows Vista came along, it really showed how awful such an idea was. Well, welcome to the future. If such an idea catches on, I hope one day that Flash will go to the same technological graveyard as the Geocities school of web design and the Zip disk.

COFEE has apparently leaked all over the Internet and despite one site's efforts to keep the mess from spreading, by now it's available for pretty much anyone to download. What this means, of course, is that a piece of software that can break passwords and check your on-line activity has not only been given to regular users such as you and me, but it has also been in the hands of police for quite a while now. I hope the police haven't abused the power of the software, because I'm sure the rest of the world certainly will. But it's not like you have to be a rocket scientist to break passwords these days. A lot of people don't bother changing the generic password they're given when they start using a service or a piece of software. Take iPhone users, for instance. If they jailbreak their iPhones, many of them make themselves vulnerable to attack. iLaugh.

It's never too early to learn, as a baby's cry can tell you. Apparently, you can cry in French and German, depending on where you were born. I imagine this means you can cry in other languages as well. (And no, I'm not kidding, despite the presence of this on the Internet.) Myself, I remember recently hearing the cry of a young kid who couldn't get their way, and it sounded a lot like an ambulance. I'm still not kidding. But even after leaving the womb, a child doesn't stop learning. Apparently, this is because of the presence of comic books in their lives. I believe it. I used to read Tintin and Asterix a lot and look at how I turned out. But, and this is the important thing, you can't own me. I'm sorry, but it's true. And don't bother asking Google this, because I don't think they know either. (Bonus material: read this.)

Sony finds itself in a lot of legal hot water, lately. First of all, blind gamers want to enjoy games, too. And although "visually impared" can mean a lot of things, it makes me think of all those people with no eyesight who can't enjoy games in the first place. Unfortunately, visual media doesn't come in braille or large print editions, and this means that it's very hard for the visually impared to enjoy a game. And increasing font size on the screen will do nothing more than overcrowd an already overcrowded menu system on most modern games. I know I have a hard time seeing the font on some games, but that's because I'm stubborn: you can't really use a 20-year-old television to play a game like Final Fantasy Tactics without being directly in front, squinting at the horrible translation so that I can read it.

Second of all, Sony was finally sued over their firmware updates, and I have to say, it's about time. An interesting thing to note is that one of the things they're being sued over is the fact that they require certain firmware updates to be present in order to play games you've purchased for your system. It used to be that you could buy a game and it would run automatically, no extra stuff needed. Not now. For those of you who still haven't purchased a current system, here's how it works: when you purchase a PS3 or PSP game, if your system doesn't have the most up-to-date firmware, you might be prompted to update before you're allowed to play the game. Also, you're not allowed to access certain functions of your system once the new firmware is available, which forces you to download and install it if you still want to use your system the way it was designed to be used. It's possible, as has been demonstrated, that a system update will brick your machine. It's worse when it's a required update and it feels like your console is being held hostage until you install it.

I'd better get back to my NaNovel before the day's completely done, but before I go, I wanted to mention that the Large Hadron Collider is still not going to destroy us. This time, it's because a bird dropped some bread on it.

Screen shot provided by my friend Foxie

Too. Much. Megaten.

2009-11-07T04:59:10Z

I don't know if you've been keeping up with the Shin Megami Tensei franchise (aka Megaten, for short), but there have been a lot of games released in the franchise for the last half-decade. There's been enough that it's almost tough to keep up with all of them, especially when it's a niche franchise from a niche company, which pretty much demands that you have to buy their games right away lest they go out of print quickly. It's almost bad enough that you don't want them to announce another one!

Now, keep in mind that when I refer to "Shin Megami Tensei," I'm referring to all of the games released in America with that name. Most of them weren't released in Japan with that name, actually. Devil Survivor was released as part of the "Megami Ibunroku" sub-franchise, which was also a branding given to the first Persona game (but just the first). They were all released with the SMT name because of its marketing possibilities, since Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne -- the only game released in America that's actually part of the direct Megaten franchise -- was such a sales success. Sure, it's ticked off some dedicated fans, but I think marketing to achieve higher sales is a tad more important than that kind of frivolity.

And guess what? They've just announced another Megaten game for an American release: Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey. It was pretty inevitable, given the franchise's pedigree, that it would be announced soon; but man are these games piling up. I envy the person who has enough time to play through all of these games, along with others on the side, because these games can get pretty long. Thus far, I've purchased almost every Megaten game released since Nocturne (I believe Angela has me beat as far as a collection of those), but the number of them I've actually played is pretty distressing. Still, I can rest easy when I consider how much some of these games are worth. I could sell the first Devil Summoner for three times the price I paid for it presently, for instance.

(Not saying I would, though.)

Strange Journey is similar to Nocturne in that it's a real Megaten title. Anyone who read the paraphrased version of a blog post on the developer's Japanese blog saw that the game was made to appeal to a worldwide audience, and therein lied Atlus' grand intentions with the project. It's already getting positive reviews from importers, so worrying about its quality is fruitless at this point. But what about people who have too many of these games to go through? And what if they spoil it to add extra incentive to purchase it? Uh oh!

We may have a lot of Megaten now, and we'll undoubtedly have more on the way when Persona 3 Portable is inevitably announced. I'm sure they wouldn't pass on localizing a portable version of their best-selling game, right? Good luck finding the time to play all of these!

The PSPgo and Digital Distribution's Perils

2009-11-06T04:18:01Z

Though I don't own, or plan to own, a PSPgo, I always like to check and see what's updated to the Playstation Store every week. In case you haven't noticed -- and if you haven't, that's perfectly OK -- Sony's been updating the store recently with a plethora of PSP games for either current or potential go owners, or people with PSP's already that want to download their games digitally. The most distressing aspect of the updates themselves thus far is that even though plenty of games have made their way to the store, there are still plenty of games missing.

Well, unless you're Japanese of course, since its store has just about every retail game available on the store already. On the opposite end, you have a store like Europe's that's reeling for more games. Many of us here have already shared some thoughts on why we think the PSPgo is a bad deal, but another one of the problems is the limited lineup you're forced to stick with if you own one. Take Dissidia: Final Fantasy, for instance, a game that released at retail on August 25th. Well, it just released digitally today for $39.99, the same price it's going for at retail. That's the same price most, if not all, new games go for on the store, even though a retailer like Amazon is selling a game like Dissidia for a much cheaper price.

The worst thing here is that's the only Square Enix game previously released at retail available on the store. Games like the Star Ocean titles, Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth, and even Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII are still MIA, not to mention most of Namco Bandai and Konami's games.

But the most popular game still conspicuous by its absence is still Lumines, one of the best, if not the best puzzle games on PSP. Portable systems always need a good puzzle game that can be played in either short bursts or long sessions, and Lumines would be the definitive choice to fill that role.

Unfortunately, it's not coming anytime soon. While developer Q Entertainment would have no problem uploading the game to the store, there are a few hindrances on the publishing side that will ensure that it won't be uploaded for a few months, if ever. They explained that they have no problem working with Namco Bandai to get the game up, but they've unfortunately lost the rights to two songs used in the first game. The situation pertaining to whether Namco Bandai is interested in reacquiring said songs and having it uploaded is another question.

I don't know about you, but I'd hate to be robbed of playing certain games because of either rights issues or possible corporate laziness. A lot of this has made me rethink my stance on digital distribution, something that I was all for under six months ago. It's a little difficult to gain a little perspective on the situation until you see it happening before you, and realizing how much power publishers have over the consumer is honestly pretty frightening.

Team 17 director Martyn Brown described digital distribution as being a "win-win" situation for both the developer and publisher, but at this point, I'm having trouble agreeing with him. Sure, we do have programs like Steam and GOG.com that constantly offer deals and minimal DRM stipulations, but the console arena will likely never be like that because of it being a more closed source. Unless publishers and console manufacturers are willing to be more open about how games are distributed, the future of digital content on consoles looks pretty distressing.

PSPgo: Preparing for Failure

2009-11-05T04:19:48Z

The PSPgo released in Japan this past Sunday, one month after releasing in America and Europe, and mostly anyone who was ever curious about Sony's new all-digital product was looking to see whether it would actually succeed or be a massive bomb. It's had a rather middling start everywhere else, and as you can see from the image above, the thing is quite a popular attraction. Just look at that crowd!

Yeah, sure it is. Famitsu's early numbers reported that the go only sold a mere 28,000 units on its launch Sunday, placing it right between the Wonder Swan Color and the Neo Geo Pocket. That's not very good! But really, it seems like Sony knew beforehand that this thing was going to bomb by proceeding with a why-the-hell-not price drop of the 3000 a month before the go even launched, to 16,800 yen (around $185). That makes the price gap between the two incredibly steep. Not even the added portability is enough of an incentive to pay the go's 26,800 yen price (that's $294). Yikes.

And now they're trying to give potential consumers even more incentive to avoid the go. Sony of Japan announced earlier today that they will be releasing new Value Packs for the 3000 in Japan. In addition to the usual Piano Black, you can also choose from Pearl White, Radiant Red, and Vibrant Blue. The Pack includes a 4GB Memory Stick Pro Duo, a cleaning cloth to keep the screen clean, and a very stylish little pouch. They're very similar to the Value Packs released at the launch of the 1000, and the fact that these are coming out in December in Japan, when the PSP celebrates its 5th anniversary, definitely isn't a coincidence. There will also be a special bundle for the "Best" version of Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G (aka Monster Hunter Freedom Unite). The Value Packs will release on December 3 and retail for 19,800 yen ($218), the price of the 3000 pre-price drop; the Monster Hunter bundle will be 18,500 yen ($203), and releases on December 10.

Of course, my question is: Why don't we get things like this? Whatever, Sony. At least give us the pouch.

It's almost pretty clear that the go is going to go nowhere (a hyuk!), with its release being an even worse scenario than the Game Boy Micro Nintendo released in late 2005; though at least that still played your old games! The thing is, that was only a test for Nintendo to see how a more, uh, "hip" audience would receive a more stylish device, an audience that didn't know they liked video games until the DS and Wii came along. Nintendo even said it was a limited edition device, so they didn't take too much of a loss on it. Unfortunately, the go is (was?) aiming for quite a bit more than that, so for the market to reject this is going to be pretty bad for Sony. I'm still hoping the PSP itself manages to stick around, though, because its current and upcoming lineup are pretty spectacular.

PSP Recommendations: Mega Man Maverick Hunter X

2009-11-03T04:40:07Z

Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X is a remake of a game born in a time where games weren't judged on the length of their respective adventures. It was a game among games that challenged you to find the best way through them, a strategy detailing how to find everything that made the game's challenge a bit easier to bear. Mega Man games are known for their secrets and their replay value, but they're also known for their bitter, nail-biting challenge; and therein lies the force that drives you to strive for the former two appealing factors.

Maverick Hunter X does its best to recapture the appeal of the original SNES classic Mega Man X. And it succeeds! Well, mostly. There are times where remakes of older titles don't quite capture the spirit of the original in every way, but the good thing is that Maverick Hunter X captures most of what it had. It doesn't do it on quite the same level that a game like Bionic Commando Rearmed does, and it's definitely not on the same "better than the original" level that Metroid: Zero Mission does, but it does a good enough job that almost anyone who has or hasn't enjoyed the original will like and replay it.

The remake has many of the same levels that the original had, all of which are mostly preserved in their original form. Anyone who's played through the original multiple times will find incredibly familiar territory here, as the level layouts, and even some of their exploitable glitches, are still mostly intact. But it's important to say that they're "mostly" intact, as veterans will find a curve ball thrown at them. Many of us played the original so much that we knew where each power up was located, and by the end of the game we had X powered up to his final, fully armored form. For this one, Capcom took it upon themselves to shuffle the locations of most of the power ups, so anyone expecting them to be in the same place is in for a surprise. They're not really harder to find, though.

For the most dedicated fans how care about the world and characters of the Mega Man franchise - and you'd have to be incredibly dedicated to actually be concerned about it, because even they'll admit that it's far from the most riveting material - there's much more exposition for it this time. Most of the conversations between characters play out differently, and all of them contain full voice acting. And fortunately, it's pretty good, unlike what the atrocities the franchise was previously known for. Also, all of the additional story material is done with anime cut scenes, which look very nice on the PSP's screen.

The game itself also looks quite nice, much better than any kind of screen shot can show. But anyone who thinks the game doesn't quite look like the original is...well, they're actually right. As nice as some of the 3D polygonal models and backgrounds look, they don't have quite the same amount of aesthetic appeal of the original's 2D sprite work.

The transition from 2D to 3D - or 2.5D, if you want to be really specific - has also created some gameplay setbacks. During this process, it's difficult to make everything feel as perfect as the pixellated version, namely the platforming. The transition for jumping across platforms wasn't perfect, and it's actually made leaping over platforms a little harder than it was in the original game. It's nothing that can't be adjusted to, however.

There have also been numerous balance changes made to the game, which make the game both easier and harder. Many of these affect the end game, whose final level in the original required you to make it through it in one sitting; this was one very long section that required you to face all eight bosses (known as "Mavericks" here, because, you know, you're a "Maverick Hunter") and a few other boss characters, along with some of the toughest platforming in the game. All of that challenge hasn't been removed from the main game itself, but it's nice that what was one long level has been split into four parts, which allow you to save in the interim between them. You can also save right before the final boss! Though, to compensate for that, they're harder than they were in the original.

Just as you'd expect, all of the music has been remixed, and your old and favorite tunes have been redone very well for the remake. They may lack some of the appeal the original had, due to its music being so good while utilizing lower quality technology, but their catchiness is still completely intact. It won't replace the original's soundtrack on your iPod's playlist, but it'll wedge itself right next to it to complement it.

(What, you don't have video game soundtracks on your iPod's playlist.)

And a complementary piece is also what Maverick Hunter X serves as. The quality of the overall product isn't quite up to the experience of the original, but that would be impossible given how this isn't an original product. Its itinerary is to tinge your senses of nostalgia that you either have for the original, or games like it.

And I sincerely wish that I could be saying the same thing for the rest of the games. Series creator Keiji Inafune once expressed that he wanted to remake Mega Man X1-X6, which would've happened if this game hadn't bombed horribly (especially in Japan). That's a shame, because I sure would've loved to see if they could make Mega Man X6 into a tolerable experience. Bummer.

Edit: Thanks to Drew for reminding me that I totally forgot to mention a mode where you get to play as fan-favorite villain Vile, which gives an entire new dynamic to its gameplay style (he's very different from X). What were you expecting, a playable Zero with his MMX4 moveset? Pfft.

PSP Recommendations: Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower

2009-11-01T02:36:02Z

My, what a fitting time for a Darkstalkers post!

But actually, this entry mainly exists because Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower was just released on Playstation Network for PSP in America this past week, and since a new audience, however minimal, are going to be playing this game for the first time, they'd probably want to know how good it is. It's very good, actually, and one of the best 2D fighting games on the system. It's also an excellent port of a game that ties with Last Blade, in that it's one of the most horribly underrated fighting game franchises in existence.

Actually, The Chaos Tower is a bit more than a port of any of the older games - though it is a port of the Japan-only Dreamcast title Darkstalkers Chronicle: For Matching Service. It includes most of the elements from all of the previous games, similar to what Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition did for the Street Fighter II series. There weren't too many significant differences between each installment of the franchise, and not all of them were given home console releases either, especially outside of Japan.

For anyone who's never heard of the franchise and likes fighting games, this is now the time to give it a try. It actually inspired the gameplay systems of quite a few games in the genre, and most people probably don't even know it. The gameplay you see in the Capcom-developed Marvel games and Arc System Works' most venerable fighting franchises (Guilty Gear, Blazblue) takes cues from this game. The latter titles also take another cue from this game, as its characters and setting are incredibly bizarre.

Indeed, Darkstalkers has an incredibly colorful cast of characters, and they're all unique in their peculiarity. Your usual fighting game will only have a few off-hand characters for the sake of balance, just to make sure that not all of its characters are "normal." That actually describes Darkstalkers entire cast, as not even its normal-looking characters are exempt of craziness.

Someone like Donovan, for instance, looks like your average guy at first glance, until your realize that (a) he's half-vampire, (b) his sword is actually a living being, and (c) he travels around with a strange-though-intriguing young, emotionless female companion (Anita). And Baby Bonnie (B.B.) Hood is even worse! A young girl who resembles Little Red Riding Hood to a tee; well until she whips out her Uzi. They're all weird, sure, but that's part of what makes them appealing. Capcom designed them to be bizarre but not repugnant, and you'll definitely find one character that you'll want to stick with.

( Oh, and B.B. Hood the best character in the history of the genre. Fact.)

The good thing about a 2D game is that most of them will always look great in the future, especially if they're preserved well. Darkstalkers is no exception to that, as each character is given various animations to make them look as exaggerated as possible. It was a game that, at the time of its original release (way back in 1994), used the anime-style fighting game graphic design in the best way. Yet another way in which it inspired Guilty Gear, whose unique style relies on the same technique.

Darkstalkers is also the game that made chain-combos popular. Chain combos are executed by pressing one button after the other in order to string together a quick-though-easy combo. A beginner's example would be light punch, medium punch, and then hard punch, with minimal timing required. The characters whose learning curves are low will all be able to perform that combo, but anyone who requires some practice may have other bread-and-butter combos. As you practice and get creative, you'll be able to perform larger and more complicated chains. Overall, they're much easier to deal with than Street Fighter II and IV's link combos, which themselves require incredibly strict timing and rhythm to perform. Street Fighter Alpha would later incorporate the chain combo system found here.

Darkstalkers characters also have movesets similar to what you'd find in the average 2D fighter, with some characters requiring either circular motions to perform special techiniques, while others require charging. That's perfectly OK, unless you're using a PSP-1000, whose directional pad and wonky square button couldn't be more unfriendly for this game. You'll want to use these techniques to finish off chain combos to maximize damage.

This game, The Chaos Tower, also sports a new mode called...uh, The Chaos Tower. It's similar to the World Tour mode in Street Fighter Alpha 3, where you'll have to fight various opponents while surviving with three chosen characters. It's not as tough as surviving the mission mode of a Guilty Gear game, but things will naturally become more difficult the higher you go up. It's nothing that will replace the main experience, but it's a fun diversion.

Unfortunately, there are a few problems with the port. Anyone who likes to preserve the original aspect ratio of their games may find a problem here initially, as the widescreen view is achieved by stretching the game's previous 4:3 ratio to fill the screen. Fortunately, you can turn this off, but it's a shame that Capcom didn't put enough care into the game to make a true widescreen image. Perhaps too much effort for what was essentially a low-cost port job.

If you've ever wanted to play a Darkstalkers game, this is definitely your best option. It's a shame we couldn't have had all of the games individually like the Darkstalkers Collection that was released for PS2 in Japan back in 2005. Unfortunately, these days Capcom doesn't see the franchise as a profitable venture, so it's unlikely that we'll ever see another game in the series ever again. Though given how Arc System Works still makes games similar to this one very well, maybe they could have them develop a new one. A game with Street Fighter IV's graphical style wouldn't be so bad either.

Geek News Roundup for 10/25/09 - (Mostly) Death and Misery on Halloween

2009-11-01T01:38:45Z

Facebook has announced that they're going to preserve the inactive accounts of dead members and protect against further changes and updates. In an Internet where inactivity is generally regarded as an excuse for deleting someone's stuff (Geocities, I'm looking at you), Facebook clued in that if someone's dead, there isn't anything the person can do anymore to maintain their space, and their passwords have most likely died with them. They also finally acknowledged that if someone's dead, they shouldn't be able to post any more updates. This comes a couple weeks after a girl in Nova Scotia brought the issue to media attention. A spammer had cracked into her dead mother's page, posted some spam, and Facebook did next to nothing about it. Until now.

But speaking of them, the biggest news of the week was probably the death of Geocities. To anyone who remembers when the news broke back in April, this doesn't come as a surprise. Its death was imminent, and it was only a matter of time before the site that was originally "free, forever" was shut down. Forever. Even xkcd did something special to commemorate the event (which is no longer available on the website, but is mirrored here). But after Monday, everyone stopped caring. It's kind of like the final game of a season for a losing team. Once it's over, you don't have to pay attention to it anymore.

Instead, why don't we look ahead to the future? It's almost NaNoWriMo time again! Participants in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia have already started, and it's close to starting time for North and South Americans. The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write a novel of at least 50,000 words within 30 days, local time. The key words there are "local" and "time". Those who live in an area still affected by Daylight Saving Time (those who haven't already changed back to Standard) get an extra hour advantage over those who don't, since clocks in the affected regions get set back an hour at 2am on November 1st. So if you're participating in NaNoWriMo like I am, don't let anyone else in your house set the clocks back until well after the event starts.

Just make sure you don't leave your P2P software open, or if you do, make sure to save your novel to a folder that the software doesn't share from. Admittedly, it isn't really earth shattering if your first draft of NaNo Novel '09 is broadcast to the world, but it would probably be just as embarrassing for you as it was for the person who accidentally shared a confidential government report over a P2P network and then got fired for it. He probably did it while downloading music or video games or something. It goes to show you just how many people do that these days.

He probably wasn't pirating games for the N-Gage, though, which by the way has been given its own death date, a vague 2010 prediction. Just like Geocities, few people have even bothered to mention this or even care about it. Nintendo never seemed to view Nokia as much of a threat in the handheld gaming industry, but the presence of Sony's PSP must make them feel somewhat nervous, since they've suddenly redesigned their brand new DSi just shy of a year after its debut on the market and are pushing it out onto store shelves in time for the holidays. The DSi LL/XL is the fourth version of the DS to be released since 2004, which is ridiculous if you ask me. It makes you think twice before buying any more of the system, since you just know Nintendo will announce another version in 2010.

Hulu staff apparently stay up and cry all night at the thought of international users (like me and all the other damn dirty Canadians out there) accessing their site. There are ways around their US only restrictions, but now Hulu's managed to block another way to access their content. I hope this helps them sleep better, but everyone'll just use other methods to view their site. Sorry, Hulu, but you fail. Unless you take all your toys and go home, you can't keep others from playing with your content. It doesn't help that American television is a lot better than Canadian television, but at least we have shows like Canada's Worst Driver, which are interesting to watch. It's just too bad that bad driving may not be entirely the fault of the driver, according to a recent study. Of course, what this means for drivers is that they can now claim the gene as an excuse for getting pulled over for speeding ten times in a month. It's bad enough that we have a lot of bad drivers where I live. If you ever receive news that I've committed suicide, it's not suicide. I've most likely been struck and killed by a bad driver on the corner of 1st and Connaught.

Apparently, the United States needs fewer science students, not more. That's bad news for geeks everywhere, because this means we'll need to actually develop muscles to do other, more physical pursuits. And finally, if you think your laptop takes too long to boot up, you're probably right.

Games You Won't Be Playing This Halloween: Capcom Edition

2009-10-31T03:25:27Z

More accurate title: Resident Evil Edition.

This entry here is going to be a little more boring, since Capcom seemingly revels in missing this time of the year every year for some reason. And it's not like Resident Evil scares anyone anymore these days, though you could viably make the argument that it never did. But! That doesn't mean that they shouldn't try, at least. That's a shame.

I'd say we're far beyond the stage where developers need to test the Wii's market to see how receptive it will be towards a "mature" game. We're three years in, and the console is still getting games that aren't quite main games in the series though aren't quite phoned it. But that's not to say that a game like Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles will be bad at all, but at this point, it would be nice if Wii fans received a nice, new main game in the franchise. Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition proved that the controls would definitely be best with the console's Remote and Nunchuck, so what gives?

Blame conservatism. While Nintendo will tout how many third-party titles have been sold at their press conferences, some of the best ones go unloved, even when they're backed by a serious advertising campaign (like Madworld). You almost couldn't blame them for not with them having a current business strategy that they find profitable. So, uh, the point of this is that you should give The Darkside Chronicles a try if you're a fan of on rail shooters. It's one of the better ones. Well, if you're not too busy with Modern Warfare 2 and New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

(Boy, that went off on a wild tangent.)

And, wouldn't you believe it, here's one of those phoned-in games I was indirectly referring to. Like the remake of the first Resident Evil before it, Resident Evil Zero is also getting a re-release for Wii, complete with a revamped control style. Zero, originally released on Gamecube in November 2002, was the last "old-style" RE game in the franchise. It's also the worst received game in the franchise. Capcom USA is actually going back on their word a little on this one, claiming upon its Japanese announcement (a year-and-a-half ago) that the game wouldn't released outside of Japan. Yet here it is, and they just announced that it would release in America on December 1.

Speaking of older Resident Evil games, I figured that Capcom and Sony were holding the long-time-in-coming PSOne Classics versions of Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, and Dino Crisis until this week. Guess not, since the store didn't update with them yesterday, or any PSOne Classics. Saying this is a missed opportunity is an understatement.

Even though the franchise can hardly be described as "frightening" anymore, especially its later iterations, I think there's something unsettling in every Resident Evil game enough to qualify here. So if you have any of the older games in the series, now's probably a good time to revisit them! Well, if you haven't started already.

P.S. To be honest, I didn't know this would be all about Resident Evil games before I started this post. Funny how that happened.

Games You Won't Be Playing This Halloween: Konami Edition

2009-10-30T03:22:09Z

We're now in the advent of Halloween, a time where people will be watching movies, reading books, and playing video games based with some theme of fear and horror in them. The day of Halloween itself is, around most parts, usually seen as an excuse for kids to dress up and get sugar high because of all the candy they'll consume. (Though there may be a hindrance this year.) Somehow it also became a consummation time for adults also, in that they'll engage in some kind of entertainment medium that will horrify them.

But way too many sites around the internet are giving recommendations on what to watch, read, and play. So here's a mini-feature about the games you definitely won't be playing at this time of the year, either because of delays due to the frightening (ha ha) duo of Halo 3: ODST and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 or plain bad timing.

When Silent Hill: Shattered Memories was revealed earlier this year, its developers promised that it would be a return to form for a franchise whose installments since Silent Hill 3 have been a pretty questionable (excusing Origins, of course). Shattered Memories is a retelling of the first game in the franchise that seeks to differ itself from the creepy immersion factor previous games in the franchise strove for. That's not to say it won't intend to be horrifying, but that its new features plan on making it more horrifying. The game is built from the ground up to use the Wii's motion controls to semi-realistically control protagonist Harry Mason's actions. Of course, the PSP and PS2 versions will miss out on that feature, not to mention they're being handled by a different developer.

But it's been delayed quite a few times now. Its original date was earlier this month, until it was silently moved back until early-November. But it's not that anymore either, with it having a date of early-December. Apparently Konami felt it needed a little more time in the oven, which probably isn't a bad thing. Who knows if it will be delayed again.

Though it's not liable give you any scares, there's something harrowing about venturing through Dracula's Castle while blood is dripping from crevices in the background. It's the feeling that Castlevania: The Adventure Rebirth intends to recapture: the classic feeling of journeying through a bizarrely designed iteration of a castle whose platforming is as frightening as its enemies. Actually, this game being here is kind of a lie, because it's actually available on WiiWare right now. Well, in Japan at least. It's due for a release in America and Europe any week now, though a good week would have been this very one.

Not that the fact that it didn't release this week is a surprise, since Konami hasn't even announced the game outside of Japan. Though given current release standards, it'll release in Europe tomorrow, and in America next Monday. If that doesn't happen, then that means Cave Story comes Monday, right?

(Yeah, sure.)

If I owned a Wii, I'd sure be disappointed if I didn't have that new Castlevania game for Halloween! Though it's likely there's at least one you haven't given a shot yet. If there is, just make sure you stay the hell away from any of the 3D ones -- a trend that hopefully Lords of Shadow will buck next year. Also, I'd definitely like Shattered Memories to be good, as I think the franchise deserves some success after suffering a minor hindrance in the last, oh, five years (again, excusing Origins). That's all for Konami, but I'll have some from Capcom tomorrow.

Geek News Roundup for 10/18/09 -- Fashionably Late, and a Big OS Update

2009-10-28T03:29:56Z

So hey! I'm doing the News Roundup this week. And I didn't even know it! Funny how things work.

It's possible that you may have known that Microsoft released Windows 7 released last week, unless you haven't been paying attention. Though if you haven't, you may use some other OS and ignore whatever Microsoft does. Which is fine! You probably do, though, if Amazon claimed it was bigger than Harry Potter. Fortunately, for Windows users, 7's reviews have been incredibly favorable, a release that's nearly the exact opposite of the much-lambasted Vista launch around two years ago. And speaking of OS', some rival company called Apple launched a televised counterattack. The adds were full of a similar amount of both truth and dramatization, though time will tell if they have an affect. They certainly have in the past, comparing their market share.

Speaking of Apple, they also announced a series of new iMacs and a new Macbook. If you were the kind of person who was waiting for a lower priced line, these are not the computers you were waiting for. The Macbook, though, is more reasonably priced, though it's still more expensive than a plethora of Windows-equipped computers that have similar -- and in some cases, more -- features.

Speaking of Apple, they also have a new mouse, and it looks pretty...well, weird. This thing doesn't have any buttons. The interface is similar to their iPhone/iPod Touch, in that it registers your commands based on your own gestures. All of the aforementioned iMacs will come packed with this. Certainly an intriguing device on the surface, though reviews so far are pretty mixed. Most companies take a few revisions to make a product the majority find appealing, so give them -- and the other companies that will probably make one in the future -- some time.

The Hollywoodified adaptation of the late Osamu Tezuka's classic manga/anime Astroy Boy released in theaters last Friday. Ostensibly, it appears as a beautiful-looking venture that tries to capture the charm that made Tezuka's work such a classic, but various critics are saying that it's the exact opposite. That's a pity, though if you're the type to enjoy classic manga, you may be interested in that Astro Boy and other assorted Tezuka works are coming to US iPhones free. This is following the transition of his works to online archives last year.

Apparently a lot of Americans sure like using Twitter; one-fifth of you, to be precise. I haven't used it personally, but apparently there's an inherently addictive quality to letting others know what's going on in your life in 140 characters. Don't be surprised if that number happens to jump in the future. Soon we will all be twits.

During an interview about Microsoft's upcoming Natal console (or something), Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told Gizmodo that Blu-Ray was coming to Xbox 360 as an add-on, similar to their now-defunct HD-DVD add-on. Apparently something was lost in translation, as Microsoft later denied the existence of the add-on. A pity for 360 owners that don't own a Playstation 3 or Blu-Ray player, sure, though this really isn't surprising given that he's done it before. Guess he's a little excitable, huh?

I hadn't intended for this update to be such a war between Apple and Microsoft. Honest! I'm not a fanboy of either, by the way.

Image courtesy of Monsters & Critics.

Apparently I'm Already Dead

2009-10-27T02:16:15Z

Because I totally forgot to talk about Hokuto Musou/Fist of the North Star Musou, announced three weeks back in Japan's Famitsu magazine.

Hokuto Musou is exactly what its name suggests: a melee beat 'em up based on the Hokuto no Ken/Fist of the North Star manga -- not the anime, which they professed rather emphatically. It was later shown two days later in a special press event held by Tecmo Koei, which assuaged fears as to how it could turn out. Will it be as over-the-top violent as the manga//anime? Will the apparent focus be Kenshiro punching people to see them explode messily? Well yeah.

Quite a few fans of the show around the internet are expressing ambivalence at the fact that it's a Musou title -- a la Dynasty Warriors, Dynasty Warriors: Gundam, etc. I'm not sure I see why, though, because I think the genre is perfect for representing the franchise. Both the manga and anime are about Kenshiro punching the crap out of brainless numskulls who have no chance of defeating him. And that's precisely what the Musou games involve to nearly a tee. It's definitely a better fit than Gundam was.

So now, the main question is: will it be released outside of Japan? There's no confirmation yet, but Koei's American division is already doing promotion for the game, including sending out a press release detailing the aforementioned press event, and providing info and screen shots on their official Facebook (which isn't there anymore. Uh...). Hopefully they can work out any anime/manga licensing issues that could be a potential hindrance.

Speaking of the anime, I also had no idea Discotek Media announced plans to release the original 80s anime on DVD in America sometime next year (Warning: Some of the banners on the site are NSFW). Yes, that's all 152 episodes they're releasing on four DVD collections, and not just the 36 episodes Manga Entertainment released a few years ago. I also didn't know that the entire series is available via streaming on various sites. So here's hoping Discotek, and whoever the other sub-licensees are, allow for a game to release next to it. I think it has a pretty good chance.

The Lost Street Fighter Feature: Portmania

2009-10-25T20:53:26Z

While I was looking through the list I made of ideas for Street Fighter articles, it occurs to me that one of them unfortunately didn't make the cut. This happened either because (1) I planned for each entry to only have one feature a day, and this one unfortunately didn't make that, or (2) I was too damn lazy to write it. I'm pretty sure it was the latter, though. Whoops.

So anyway, that brings us to this entry now, just a little late. The Street Fighter franchise's arcade entries have had numerous ports to home consoles, some perfect, and some slightly less than perfect. But there's a subset of them that usually aren't mentioned too often: intentionally imperfect ports. These were the ports that no one in their right mind expected to be anywhere near perfect, but the developers intended for them to be something we could make do with on lower-end platforms. However, they were still perfectly playable and enjoyable, despite their compromises.

On the surface, you'd think the team of people who thought porting Street Fighter II to the Game Boy were crazy. A fighting game that relies on six buttons for input on a system with two? It seriously sounds bizarre, but Capcom was able to make it a pretty solid, but not spectacular, diversion from its big brother. Place extra emphasis on diversion, because there's definitely not enough here for it to replace the original. The monochrome iteration didn't leave much potential for anyone to show off the dazzling combos they could do on the console versions; especially if your favorite character was either Dhalsim, E. Honda, or Vega, since they were cut from this version.

Due to the Game Boy's incredibly limited memory, the backgrounds also weren't as vibrant as the console version, though you could get a partial picture of the color background if you played it through the Super Game Boy; though that's a little redundant if you're playing it on a system that has three great Street Fighter II titles. Don't expect any of the franchise's token voice samples here either, though the nearly 8-bit music samples actually turned out pretty well. This was something you played to keep yourself occupied outside of the house, or merely played for novelty's sake.

It was 1996, and the Playstation, Saturn, and Nintendo 64 (and those other systems that died a quick death) were now on the market. But some of us were still stuck in last-gen with our Super Nintendo's and Genesis', unable to plead to our parents that those new consoles were well worth the asking price. While the Street Fighter franchise had moved on to having a home on the Playstation and Saturn, Capcom thankfully looked out for anyone who hadn't upgraded yet, and made a version of Street Fighter Alpha 2 for SNES. A shame they decided to pass on releasing it outside of Japan for some reason, but Nintendo decided to publish it in America and Europe. The port was expectedly not as good as the PSX and Saturn versions -- which also weren't arcade perfect, by the way -- but it was an incredibly good replica.

SFA2 was one of the few SNES games to have loading times, a testament to how much data was needed to fit into the cartridge. Every character from the game made it into this version (except for a few admittedly silly alternate versions), and unlike SFII for GB, it was a very good alternative to the other versions. Most of the sound effects made it in, and the SNES had six buttons, enough for a player to use every combo they used in the other versions. Though it was a little tough to perform techniques that required pressing all three punches/kicks, but there were arcade sticks made for the SNES. There's no way music on a cartridge could match CD-quality material the other ports had, but the replica the SNES game has is pretty good. It was well worth your time if you still hadn't decided which system to purchase yet.

For the three of you who wanted to know how the original Street Fighter Alpha: Warrior's Dreams would look on an NES, Capcom answered your pleas with a port of the game to Nintendo's short-lived Game Boy Color. In a way, it's kind of similar to the Game Boy version of SFII, in that you're hindered by only having two buttons (you won't be showing off your fancy chain combos here), most of the sound effects and music are left out, and it really only works as a diversion. However, it's not similar in that this game is two-times better than SFII for GB.

The best thing about the port is that it feels fluid, like your moves actually have an impact on your opponent. The main problem with SFII for GB was that it felt like your moves didn't have enough "oomph," but you can actually perform combos here. Also, every character from the original version made it into this game with most of their techniques. Even Dan! All of the stages made it in too, though the original didn't have many to begin with.

Really, the only crippling flaw is that it doesn't allow for link cable battles. It's single-player only. I don't even...what?

Next, we have Super Street Fighter II Turbo Revival for Game Boy Advance, the first really stellar portable port of a Street Fighter game. Actually, calling this merely a port is doing it a disservice a little, as it goes slightly beyond that. Capcom added quite a bit to this version, including new special effects (the super-triggering effect is ripped right from the Alpha games), alternate stages for 1/3 of the cast (Chun-li has her Alpha 2 stage, Ken has his SFIII: 2nd Impact stage, etc.), and the character portraits have all been completely redrawn - a sample of which is included in the banner. The fan-favorite bonus stages were also re-added to this version, which were absent from the original. The gameplay is just as balanced as the original, and this time you're only hindered by having four buttons instead of two.

But there always has to be a problem, and the issue here is that ST Revival comes jam-packed with so many glitches that you'll wonder if this game had any QA. In the original game, you had to fulfill specific conditions in order to face Akuma as the final boss instead of M. Bison. That's included here, but instead of fighting him, you're greeted with the game freezing while the background music plays Akuma's theme. There are also other bizarre instances, but the aforementioned one is pretty inexucsable.

That still doesn't stop ST Revival from being a great port of the original, though. It's the best version of the game available on a portable system.

The last portable compromised port we have is Street Fighter Alpha 3 for Game Boy Advance, which is even more of a faithful port than ST Revival. Somehow, Capcom was able to jam most of the console version's features into a GBA cartridge. That includes all 32 characters from the console version; heck, they even added a few - Maki from Final Fight 2, Eagle from the original Street Fighter, and Yun from Street Fighter III. Most of the voice samples didn't make it in, though that's not surprising considering the plethora of sound effects the console version has.

That didn't stop this from being a great version, though, with the game's flow being precisely similar to the console version. Anyone with experience with previous Street Fighter games could easily jump right in with minimal problems (excusing the fact that the GBA only has four buttons). It was the best portable version of SFA3 until the PSP version would come along a little more than three years later.

Anyone who knows Capcom well knows that they're definitely no strangers to porting all of their games everywhere, and Street Fighter was nowhere near an exception here. The good thing is that they did a great job with most of their ports, which shows how much they were concerned with quality and money; pretty different from too many other companies that just love to cash in with haphazard ports that don't work to a specific console's advantages and disadvantages, and that's, sadly, too many companies to name.

By the way, I'll try not to post anything Street Fighter related here for a while. OK? OK.

Horror Showcase -- Condemned: Criminal Origins

2009-10-24T02:15:30Z

Nearly four years after its release on the 360's launch, it turns out Condemned: Criminal Origins is still a pretty scary game.

No, this isn't some clever way to lead into talking about how badly the game's character models have become with age, like some sites around the internet. They have, sure, but it's precisely what you'd expect from a game released in the earliest time of the console generation. But what matters with the game is how engrossing a game that prides itself in being the first current generation horror game stands up to the test of time. Playing it now, Condemned is still an enjoyable game; unless you're that fastidious about said models.

Actually, that unintentionally adds to the mood it presents. Here's a game whose itinerary is to be anything but pretty, and the majority of the character models you see are of enemies that are either trying to beat you to death with any inanimate object lying around or shoot you. The character models are horrifying, but seeing them run after you incredibly quickly is enough to have your blood pumping enough to fend them off efficiently. In other words, you're now experiencing the game in a way that's better than what the developers intended.

Condemned weaves together the tale of a man named Ethan Thomas, a SCU agent on the trail of a mysterious criminal known as the Match Maker. He's initially acute enough to make it far into the building - with your help, of course -- where another murder of the Match Maker's has taken place, but it's a pity that he slips up and loses his gun to a criminal. Said criminal shoots and kills two of his partners with a weapon that has his fingerprints on them. This leads to Ethan, though some spurious leap of logic, being branded a traitor and a fugitive of the law. No one ever said video game narratives had to be works of art, and Condemned is pretty average in that department. That doesn't stop it from being entertaining, however.

Thankfully, the focus on the story itself is a tertiary concern compared to the act of venturing though a moody, harrowing atmosphere. Condemned may be a first-person game, but it differs from a lot of titles in the genre by placing a primary focus on survival. Guns are pretty effective, but they're rather sparse and stocked with little ammo. You'll occasionally stumble upon them as you travel though numerous dreary locations; they're the most effective weapons in the game, which you can especially tell when you're being shot by them. You'll mostly be relying on melee combat to fend off enemies, which requires mastering how to block and counter effectively. You can tell Monolith wanted to keep things realistic while maintaining the identity of a video game: sometimes you can die quickly, but it'll rarely happen in a way where it felt unfair.

In the event that you find yourself suffering from your injuries, health kits are spread around to help mend your wounds. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to jump headfirst into this expecting your wounds to automatically regenerate after taking a few hits. It's a pretty old-school kind of way to do it, but it doesn't do much to ravage its achievement of verisimilitude. Though, like a game, it frequently takes liberties with reality, which is perfectly fine.

Your enemies aren't completely brainless, though. Sometimes they know the way around how to attack you, and they'll get smarter as you get further in the game. But it's not all roses for them either, as you'll occasionally see them fighting upon themselves. You can feel free to wait for them to finish each other off...well, unless one of them has a gun you want.

Ethan is regarded as being especially acute when it comes to investigating clues, and you can use this sensibility to keep track of enemies though each level. Your findings are sent right to the forensics department of the SCU, as one of the investigators, Rosa, decides to stick with you. There's actually quite a bit of variety in the evidence analysis you'll be doing throughout the game, and some levels are even built around it. It also never feels like it breaks into the action and is forced down your throat.

Condemned is frightening in a purely psychological way, not in the Resident Evil SURPRISE style that wore out its welcome about three games in. The game tries to psyche you out with numerous ambient sound effects that will make you question whether it's actually safe to go on, because it constantly isn't. Admittedly, it's much more frightening when you haven't gotten a grip on how combat works just yet, but the game does a good job of easing you in to learn the ropes for combat, and learning not to get too trigger-happy whenever you happen upon a gun.

Unlike many launch titles from any period, Condemned was one of the few games that didn't need launch goggles in late November. Anyone who purchased the game knew they had something that was quality, which is why is one of the only games mentioned with minimal criticism these days (the other game being Call of Duty 2). It's still worth playing too, and you can still find it around for a very cheap price.