The Coop

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So, I guess this means getting feedback on my Mario WIP for the album project is going to take 2-4 months now?

Crysis 2

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/critical-miss/8792-Critical-Miss-The-Sega-Guide Looks like some folks working for The Escapist took notice too.

Goldremixer- This is a set of your old remixes, Mr. Hudson. All my life, I have been in love with their beat, their brilliance, their divine composition. I welcome any return that will increase my stock. Jared Hudson- That's all well and good but... I can't remix tied to this table, let alone with a giant CD burning laser closing in on my crotch. Goldremixer- The deal is simple. I want you to remix Cheetahmen 2. Jared Hudson- I think you've made your point, Goldremixer. Thank you for the return welcome, but I'll have to pass. Goldremixer- Choose you next remix carefully, Mr. Hudson. It may be your last. **dramatic pause, with neither saying a word** The purpose of this encounter is now very clear to me. I do not intend to be having another. Goodnight, Mr. Hudson. **turns and begins to leave forum** Jared Hudson- **looks worriedly at closing laser** Do you expect me to remix? Goldremixer- NO Mr. Hudson. I expect you to die. There is no other remix you could give me that I don't already have. **walks out of forum** Te Be Continued...

Halo, DoA3, Project Gotham Racing, Oddworld: Munch's Odyssey, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2X (1 and 2 together), NFL Fever 2002... all got solid reviews. Even titles like AirForce Delta Storm and Fusion Frenzy had above average review scores (FF more so than ADS). And that number of titles is noticeably higher in count than the entire SNES launch line up. The DC stands a bit better in terms of game count, regarding games that were worthwhile and above average.

The Dreamcast would like to have a word with you, as would the XBox.

Simple, a touch haunting, and leaves a greater impression than the original.

Watch it be cartridge-based

I hope it's not set up like the first one, with a bunch of very quick, simple levels, and then the last few are the real challenges that take a while. That kind of elongated "training" part is what killed the longevity of the first game. A couple levels to get the hang of it, sure. But over 10?

Not so much a bump, as it is a rear end collision. But... Not too long ago, I "found" a copy of Broken Thunder, the horrendous Thunder Force spiritual sequel. I was excited, as I knew the history of this ill-fated game, knew how fast it was panned and yanked off of store shelves in Japan, and knew it vanished into obscurity. But nonetheless, I found it, and played it. The first four stages are unimaginably easy. The bosses are ridiculously bad in design and "animation" (if you can even call it that), and the only redeeming factor was the music, which was pretty good (done by the man/band who did the music for TFV, Blast Wind and Hyperduel). Then I reached the final stage, fought through the first four bosses again, and met the last boss... and was promptly handed my ass. It starts out simple enough. Some tracer bullets that are fired at where you are, a small spread of pink bullets, and a spread of thin lasers that criss-cross which are easy enough to dodge, despite how well they blend into the background. The next phase ramps up the difficulty by firing a blob of blue bullets at wherever you are, a quick moving spread of blue bullets in random directions, and then three big lasers that cross the screen. After which, it moves to the other side, and repeats the process in the opposite direction. Then it gets really pissed. It begins firing thick spreads of pinks bullets above and below it, with six wide lasers that leave a large opening in the middle, with lots of thin blue lasers that slowly move in your general direction. There's a lot of squeezing into tight spaces here, and if you survive this, the boss blows up... ... and then comes back as just the upper half. This parts first attack is a big web of thick lasers, leaving spaces for you to dodge the small pink tracking shots that came at where you are. Then comes the rapid fire tracking shots that do the same thing. After that, big greenish-yellow orbs that follow you for a while, which are fired in a steady stream. After that, a spray of fast moving rapid fire blue bullets that are shot out continuously. After that, a steady spread of pink bullets while large lasers are fired at wherever you are in rapid succession, which stay on the screen for a time. After that, a blue bullet spread followed by a spray of fast moving thin blue lasers. Then a spread of the thicker lasers, more greenish-yellow orbs that follow you, more fast blue bullets... it just never ends. This isn't a manic fight like DoDonPachi where you make tight weaves in and out of intricate bullet patterns, it's just a mass of shit being thrown at you willy-nilly until you die. And you will die. A lot. It's the kind of final confrontation that just screams of cheap pattern creation that's not designed, but rather thrown sloppily together, and the end result is dying again and again and again, while burning through continues.

It looks like it could be pretty fun, but $50 worth? I don't know. The original was pretty damn short, and it was noticeably cheaper. So unless this game's about twice as long (or longer), I'm going to have a hard time justifying that pricing point to my wallet.

I say go with the 8-bit style. With Megamans 9 and 10, Dark Void Zero and such, it's been shown that there's still a market draw for the NES/Master System visual style. It's simple in terms of color palettes, you can animate it to whatever level you wish, and tiling's quite easy. Plus, it still gives you room to play with its visual design type (realistic proportions, cartoony, etc.), detail level and whatnot.

If you make an FF1 hack or what have you, I'll do up 8-bit versions of the characters, and help with other graphical needs. I don't think I've ever done 8-bit pixel work before.

It's a grave digger sim. You have to see how many graves you can dig before your shovel breaks, using the Wiimote. A bit glitchy, but it works decently from what few reviews there have been of the series. I think they're up to Shovelware VIII now.

That's part of what irks me about the downloadable games. They're really not much cheaper. The $20 new games (Torchlight, Serious Sam HD, etc.) are $20 in the stores. Hell, Serious Sam HD was cheaper in stores that carried it when it was still new. The really cheap ones ($9.99 and under) are the only ones where you might be saving, and really, who can say considering a lot of those don't get a physical copy release? They could be $9.99 in the stores as well as just a DVD case with cover art, no manual, and the disc.

So, this'll be called what... the WiiWii? The Wiiaboo? The Wiiwillwokyu? Wiiwyoverdwahnjoke?

Personally, I think the idea of streaming a game is unimaginably bad. It's bad enough that digital downloads don't give you a physical copy of the game. Yes, you can usually burn a file to a disk (though the EA store doesn't appear to let you, going by my free ME2 copy). But they also often require their own special patches to be made for updates, or have some downloading program always installed to be able to play, and other such niggling little things. It's not all bad, but it's not as nice as having the physical disc, manual and all that, installing it, and playing without the need for those downloaders. I mean hell, you pay $50-$60 either way, and you'll be saving it to disk too, so why not get an actual physical object with some niceties, right? But streaming games? You don't even get... well, anything. With OnLive, you pay anywhere from about $7 to $50 for a "Full PlayPass" for a game. You don't get a game, you just get access to it for as long as they have it available on their service. Let me say that again... for as long as they have it available. That's right, they guarantee they'll keep it for a minimum of three years. After that, at any time, you'll have pissed $50 into the wind and have nothing to show for it. Even the EA Store's better than that, and it's a piss-poor substitute for something like Steam or Impulse. So what happens when streaming servers go down, or services end? The game's gone, the money you forked out's gone, and so's the game. Then to play it, you then have to hope it was also made available elsewhere via DD or a brick and mortar store (i.e. buy it again). Also, don't streaming games require you to be online to play them? And uh, isn't Ubisoft and others getting a load of shit for their "always online to play" stunt? So no online, no game to play? That's not a good thing. And really, what are ISPs going to think about you burning through GBs of data every time you play for a couple of hours? Anyone else think they'll start creating bandwidth caps like some ISPs in the U.S. are already playing with? Now don't get me wrong. I like Steam. It's a good set up. Impulse is... all right, but they don't give you the ability to break up a big file into DVD-sized parts like Steam, or offer parallel downloads to get games quicker (though you can delete the downloader and still play legally, unlike Steam). But to me, there is no upside, at all, to streaming video games. It's bad enough that the physical discs are slowly being phased out, yet prices aren't dropping. I like getting something tangible when I pay out cash, but I can at least accept it being just a file to save and download as many times as I want so I can play on or offline whenever I choose. Not even getting that with streaming is just ridiculous to me. Call me old fashioned, but I like the idea of being able to play the game I paid for 20 years down the road... without having to buy it again.

The first never has theirs remembered, the second's having theirs dumped on by a certain company. Nonetheless...

Yakuza 4

The problem with the idea isn't the idea itself. It's the work needed behind it. Lots of people are all hyped up until they see the amount of coding, editing, fixing, drawing, editing, fixing, scoring, more coding, bug fixing and all those other things that come with the idea. That work wall slams them in the face and that fire in their belly quickly gets put out. Even a one stage demo was simply too much a couple years back if you recall. It's a cool idea, but finding a group of people who are going to have the time and drive to finish it is by far the hardest part.