Vyse of Arcadia

Noriyuki Iwadare - The Sandy Beach of Ganbo

Well, no one is advocating "Lifetime Games." But I think the main point of the video was that we shouldn't be developing games (or movies or anything for that matter) for "target audiences." Games should not target specific audiences, that's part of the problem. Games should just try to be great games and find their own audiences. It's inevitable that sometimes those audiences will be predominantly male or predominantly female. (Case in point: Harvest Moon. In the US, at least, Harvest Moon fans seem to be mostly female, but I'm fairly certain the developers of the series weren't targeting farmers or women. It just happened that way.) What we have now is mainstream game targeting male audiences, a small subsection of games targeting female audiences ("Cooking Mama" or "Barbie Horse Adventures"), and lots of male gamers whining because their significant others don't want to play mainstream games. What we need is more games that target no one in particular so that these artificial gender lines will go away and maybe more girls will play Halo and more guys will play Cooking Mama. Well, let me take that back, I don't think Halo was targeted at male audiences any more than Braveheart was targeted at male audiences. But they were certainly marketed to male audiences. The result of which being that many women who would have been naturally interested in Halo and Braveheart were turned off because marketers decided to slap a "NO GIRLS ALLOWED" sticker on them. Why? Because they're the sorts of media that traditionally attract men, and marketers thought it would be better to try and attract a specific audience than to target a general audience. Long rambling post concluded with, down with marketers!

I've a female friend who plays a lot of RPGs. Whenever a sluttier character rears her..um, goods, my friend just says "Oh, come on!" and proceeds to ignore it. And she also does that with movies and comics and anime... Video games aren't the only entertainment medium that sells directly to the male sex drive. Any "blockbuster" movie does, for example. It certainly does seem a lot more...overt in video games, though. At least in most movies they find reasons (however flimsy) for women to be scantily-clad. I think the best point of the video was that there are always going to be games that appeal more to men and games that appeal more to women, but designing games to appeal to one or the other is doing more harm than good. Design great games, get your female characters to wear a little more clothing, and stop drawing artificial gender lines, developers. And if publishers don't want to take the risk, well, that's what indie and self-published games are for.

Led Zeppelin - Kashmir

Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

Beautiful stuff. Reminds me of the Dragon Quest String Quartet album.

Pictures for Sad Children is great. I didn't realize he had a previous webcomic. Reading now!

I absolutely loved the first one. The second is sitting on my shelf. Still haven't played it for some reason. And BlazBlue looks...awesome.

I love your job too. Where do you work with such fantastic deals? Also, I'm buying a PS3 within a month or so. I plan on picking up Valkyria Chronicles and Little Big Planet (which should give you a good idea of my gaming preferences.) Any recommendations for other games?

Great video! I'm now going back and watching the rest of them!

Pro Audio - And Then I Was a Cat

I haven't the foggiest. But it's Dragon*Con, I'm sure we'll find something! Or maybe just stand around and talk about video games and music like the video game and music dorks we are.

Bump bump bumpity bump.

I don't have a fancy handheld, but I do a good bit of open source gaming on my laptop. Namely, Nethack, Slashem, Supertux, Wesnoth, FreeCiv, the Bubs Brothers(networked multiplayer Bubble Bobble!), Alien Arena, and so on and so forth. Good fun.

Hey, guys! A couple of us were talking on IRC about how awesome it would be to have a meetup at this year's Dragon*Con. For those of you who are too lazy to click links, Dragon*Con is a large(spans 3 hotels) sci-fi/fantasy/general nerdery convention held in downtown Atlanta, Georgia every Labor Day weekend (September 4 - September 7 this year.) I'm not exactly the most active member of the community, but I'm more than willing to organize a meetup at Dragon*Con, not that I imagine it takes terribly much organization. Who's interested?

Weren't bits of the Super Mario RPG soundtrack taken from some classical works? I think "Still the Road is Full of Dangers" was, maybe?

Huh. Wish I could say that I cared. But around the time I let my subscription lapse (1-2 years ago), the magazine had gotten so...inane. Particularly the reviews. I much prefer Game Informer these days, because they review PC games as well, and the magazine just seems to be less...juvenile than EGM.

Yasunori Mitsuda - Creid Xenogears Creid was a fantastic album, and the title track is quite lovely too.

Dancing Calcobrena off Final Fantasy IV - Celtic Moon

How? I don't think there's any correlation between population growth and health of the society. After all, just look at China or India. YES.

Psh. I'm far too lazy to post cover art. The Decemberists - Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect

I picked it up over the weekend. I guess I'm about three, maybe four hours in? Gameplay is pretty decent. The battle system is very Lunar meets CT. The encounter rate is a bit high, though. And no battle transitions? Wha? Story's interesting. Characters haven't really grabbed me yet, but they're using a plot device from SaGa Frontier II that I enjoyed. Music is a bit...meh, though. Very generic sounding. I've heard maybe one song that grabbed my attention.

Whoa. This is the first I've heard of these. Where have I been? Every Pokemon game has seemed like it's one step forward, two steps back since Gold and Silver. I'm definitely looking forward to these.

"This just in! Socially awkward men stay at home, eat vegetables, hang out on the internet!" How is this news? Yeah, the whole "shunning women" thing is a bit weird, but I doubt most of them go out of their way to avoid sex with women. I bet most of them are just people without social skills who find this phenomenon relieving because it gives them a good excuse for their inability to get a date. ..then again, I'd probably be considered a grass eater because I tend to keep to myself.

No, see, my problem is I can't afford it, then I realize I can't afford it, then I go looking for an open-source alternative instead of trying to find a way to afford it.