Damage Control

Geek News Roundup for 03/07/10 -- π

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 11:59:19 -0500

Above: Wrong pi. Below: Okay, that's a little better.

Hope everyone had a happy Pi Day!

Pi Day brought yet another of March's big games to store shelves. Just five days after Final Fantasy XIII landed in gamers' laps, Pokémon Heart Gold and Soul Silver arrived for the Nintendo fanboys to go gaga over. Speaking of Final Fantasy XIII, fanboy hate is still at record highs. Also, there's the possibility, not only of a direct sequel to the first FFXIII game, but of more FFXIII games. Finally, screen shots were shown of an early build of the game, when it was still in development for the PS2.

Details of Final Fantasy XIV have been released, and the game's beta is going to be open to fans who have purchased the PS3 version of FFXIII and registered it. And gamers who don't own the PS3 or 360 but own the Wii aren't shut completely out of the Final Fantasy loop this week. Final Fantasy IV, the original version, has been released for the Virtual Console under its original North American name, Final Fantasy II.

Just like Mehitabel, there's life in the old 360 yet. In February, the Xbox 360 came out on top, although the PS3 and Wii were not far behind. Indeed, February was a most balanced month for console sales. Now if the fanboys were toujours gai, the Internet would be a far better place. Fat chance of that, though.

The life of a three year old gamer came to an abrupt end when she mistook a real gun for a Wii accessory and shot herself with it. The gun had been left unsecured on a table... and come to think of it, wasn't there a Gargoyles episode like this? One that Toon Disney refuses to air, despite the fact that it teaches an important lesson about guns that this three year old could've used? I had no idea that Toon Disney advocated gun use.

Harmonix is attempting to kill the music game genre once and for all by making a third Rock Band game. But what has caught my eye is Civilization 5, and the changes made in the series formula. The PlayStation Move has also been officially announced and demoed. And all of this and more are being studied by the University of Washington.

Final Fantasy XIII: Digging Deeper

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 19:33:52 -0500

A little over 20 hours in, and I can finally change my party now! It's pretty liberating, actually.

But yeah, I've put a lot more time into Final Fantasy XIII in these last few days, and during that time, you can usually expect a game, especially an RPG, to have developed quite a bit. And it has! Sure, it's had its slow parts (like Chapter 4, and especially Chapter 5), but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't having a good time. It's not just the game and its inherent gameplay systems that have developed either: Its characters have also had ample time to develop a relationship with both the player and themselves. They've had time to really grow on you, especially Hope and Vanille.

It's the battle system that's really had time to shine. Throughout the lengthy "opening" hours, the game has spent time placing you into arbitrary teams and has forced you to abide by their setups. Part of the reason for that is that the developers had a story they wanted to tell, so they placed the game's specific characters in these situations to let one particular character (or multiple characters) develop with each other. But another reason they've done this is to teach you how to skillfully utilize the game's particular mechanics.

The game may start off as being a mindless cakewalk, but the further it goes, the more it shows its depth. Paradigm Shifting isn't just way to shift to another moveset for the hell of it. No, there will come a time where you'll need to shift to another set of classes for the sake of strategy. The game places you with arbitrary characters in its earlier moments to teach you what each class consists of. Think of it as an extended training session, because you'll need to learn how to analyze enemies and buffing and debuffing on the fly, or you risk the potential for death - even in normal enemy encounters.

As you could expect, the game looks incredibly nice. In the comments section to my last entry, Joseph was talking about how he liked to just look that the environments to absorb them in. It's something you can easily do in this game. Heck, I recommend that you do it, just to see how much detail Square Enix put into this game's graphics. You can actually see the clouds moving in the sky, along with other objects. The cutscenes are also gorgeous.

And so is the Hamauzu soundtrack, which I hope makes more fans for him. This is the first high profile game he's composed the soundtrack to, and you can tell he gave it his all. Some of the songs during specific stages also have lyrics, which will probably blow the minds of some players - though it probably won't if you've played a Megaten game or maybe Tales of Legendia before. I can't stop listening to "Sazh's Theme," personally. It's ingrained in my mind as I type this.

I'm personally glad to see that I'm firmly in the "like" side for this game, but I can understand how quite a few people don't like this game. It's an RPG whose style differs quite a bit from its predecessors, and some of its changes could rub people the wrong way (like the lack of towns, for instance). But again, in spite of that, I think it's a game that everyone should try to see if they like or hate.

Street Fighter Gets Oily

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:31:53 -0500

Super Street Fighter IV took a turn for the hilariously bizarre when Capcom finally revealed Hakan this week, the final character for the update to last year's biggest fighting game. We've known about him and his gimmick for a while (since the Tokyo Game Show in September), but now we're finally able to see him. He actually has a rather appealing and endearing character design, though that's noticeable when we're not laughing at his main gimmick. Or his quotes in and out of battle.

And from the videos released this week, all over the internet from playtests from the Game Developer's Conference, it looks like he could be pretty formidable. Hakan uses oil to allow him to slide across the ground to his opponent, which is also an attack that hits low. It's sure to catch people off guard if they don't know the match up, and definitely has the potential to work incredibly well online. I can see this seriously pissing some people off online, which is great if you like hate mail or hearing people raging through the mic.

He also has the most hilarious Ultra combos in the game, definitely outdoing Dan's - who, might I mention, has a second Ultra that's very much a homage to Ryo and Robert's super from the Art of Fighting/King of Fighters games. You can take a look at both of them on the official Japanese website, or look at the American trailer. This game really needed another grappler character aside from the two we have (Zangief and Abel), and you can never get tired of seeing this guy's particular grapple.

(I still think this game could have used Alex, though.)

With Hakan, all ten characters for SSFIV have been revealed, so the only thing now is to wait until April 27th for the game to release. In the meantime, there are plenty of videos going around of match videos from GDC, and there are extensive walkthroughs (and I mean very extensive) for the Street Fighter III characters - Dudley, Makoto, Ibuki - on GameTrailers from US Champion Justin Wong. I think all the new characters should have lengthy walkthroughs like this. I'm sure Capcom is currently preparing a big trailer that will showcase all ten characters, the new stages, and features to entice anyone who still thinks this could have all just downloadable content. And when it's only $10 more than what Street Fighter IV goes for right now (and not full price, like Capcom's older Street Fighter updates), it should be more enticing than a lot of other semi-sequels.

[unknown artist - unknown title] #4 -- Of Final Fantasy XIII And The Music Contained Therein

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:55:14 -0500

There is a lot of fanboy angst about Final Fantasy XIII. At times, it's worse than Hope's despair in the game, or even Cloud's whining in Final Fantasy VII. If gamers aren't whining about Square-Enix making the game cross-platform, then they're whining about all the ways the game deviates from the Final Fantasy formula. Some gamers even cringed when it was announced that a pop song by Leona Lewis would be used in the North American release.

I was one of those gamers. As I've previously mentioned in this very column, the store I work at tends to have the local radio station on all the time. One of the songs they used to play was "Bleeding Love" by Leona Lewis, and it somehow got played every damn day on the radio (don't the DJs ever listen to the music they play?). Honestly, it's been overplayed so much that you wish poor Ms. Lewis would just exsanguinate and die.

Not much better is "Better In Time", which has Leona singing about a break-up and how she'll get better after a little bit of time, but somehow the song just gets worse every time I hear it. Whether this is because her voice is irritating when she sings the song, I don't know. And honestly, your mileage may vary: I know some people who think that Celine Dion is irritating, yet I happen to enjoy her music. And obviously, a lot of people do like Leona Lewis, so there you go. (I guess some people don't really care what they listen to, but still.)

When it was announced that Leona Lewis's song "My Hands" from her then unreleased second album was chosen for Final Fantasy XIII, it sent ripples of anger through the fandom. I think it was because of two things: one, the oversaturation of a limited amount of Leona's music on the radio, since she'd only had one album released at the time of the announcement, and two, the song was not specifically written for the game, merely lifted from a pop CD.

This isn't the first time this has happened in the Final Fantasy series. The end credits for Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children play while Cloud drives around on his motorcycle, to the tune of a Japanese pop/rock song from the 80's. And after listening to "My Hands", I've concluded that the song's not bad. It's pretty decent for a Leona Lewis song and if it actually gets released as a single, I might not mind listening to it on the radio. It would certainly be a nice change to hear a video game song play for once (and no, Guitar Hero music does not count).

Despite this, I'm still not a fan of hers. It's smart marketing, though: music from Final Fantasy does tend to get on everyone's mp3 players and Angela Aki saw nothing but success from her inclusion in Final Fantasy XII. Leona Lewis must've figured that there's nowhere to go but up.

So I'm going to assume Final Fantasy XIV isn't going to have a theme song. That said, for Final Fantasy XV, I would like Square-Enix to consider Jordin Sparks. "Battlefield" might be a cheesy choice for a fantasy-style video game theme song, but I think it would fit.

Today's Playlist
Masashi Hamauzu - The Sunleth Waterscape
Masashi Hamauzu - Blinded By Light
Masashi Hamauzu - Glory's Fanfare
Masashi Hamauzu - Battle Results
Masashi Hamauzu - A Brief Respite
Chocobo, we just can't catch a break, can we?

Final Fantasy XIII: In the Beginning

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:14:43 -0500

Ah, the beginning hours of an RPG, where ample time is dedicated to teaching you the ropes of its seemingly esoteric new implementations. It's the part where Final Fantasy XIII says to other RPGs: "We are not so different, you and I." Not to say this is bad; just the opposite, actually. Its initial tutorials are brief and informative, finely crafted enough so they don't bore you. And they teach you just about everything.

But I'm willing to bet that this isn't what you wanted to read about. No, I'm assuming you want to hear about how the first bunch of hours are. At this point, I'm nearly six hours in, meaning I'm nowhere near the parts where the game will stop holding your hand. Not that it wasn't to be expected, however, since the idea behind FFXIII is to streamline the RPG experience and remove the fat that's so plagued it for years. I can see how this may (and has) upset quite a few people, but I'm enjoying it quite a bit.

The characters themselves are also endearing, even if some of them feel it's necessary to engage in their more annoying tendencies. Lightning seems pretty distant towards most of the group, and feels the need to instill some tough logic into some of the other party members. Sazh is pretty great, though he's constantly referred to as the old man of the group. Nice afro, too. Snow is the template of the archetypal shonen protagonist (Goku, Naruto, Ichigo, etc.). A more charmingly stupid character, ladies and gentlemen, I haven't seen in an RPG in a while. Meanwhile, Hope is what you'd expect a typical RPG protagonist to be like. And Vanille...oh, Vanille. Definitely the requisite genki girl/popping-crazy-pills character.

Now, I should add that I think I'm one of the five people that actually like Vanille, despite her being the only voice that irritates me a bit. Everyone else's voice is fine. Sazh has yet to utter the words "Aw hell naw!" just yet, but this quest still has a lot of time left, so there's still hope.

Clearly this is a man that is too old for this shit.

So yeah, I'm enjoying it quite a bit. And despite its linearity, which you've undoubtedly heard about a good while ago, I still think that everyone should try to game to determine if they like it or not. I can understand if anyone isn't a fan of its hold-your-hand-the-entire-time design, but its other qualities, like the battle system, may be something you find endearing. It's definitely daring, and everything it attempts probably shouldn't be used as a template for future RPGs (though that kind of ceased with FFXII), but it's a very interesting experiment.

Final Fantasy at Launch

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:24:48 -0500

With much ado Final Fantasy XIII is finally here. Taking advantage of GameStop's midnight national launch party I was able to pick up my copy along with the mini strategy guide at my local retailer just after 11pm last night. While the atmosphere was less than festive quite a few gamers did trickle in to purchase copies of Square Enix's latest game. I was one of the few people who actually got the 360 version of the game. Admittedly, Final Fantasy XIII is the first Final Fantasy on console that I've actually picked up at launch. I didn't actually play Final Fantasy until around 2003, with Final Fantasy VII being my first title in the series and FFIII on the DS being the last game I actually finished. With FFXII on hold for the moment I'm looking forward to sinking my teeth into FFXIII.

In terms of graphics Final Fantasy XIII on the PS3 definitely has the edge. The differences are noticeable when compared side by side but I would hardly call the difference detrimental. When I loaded game up on my HDTV I found myself impressed with the graphics. Despite owning a 360 for nearly a year I haven't dabbled in very many current generation games. Compared to the string of PS2 games I've been recently playing FFXIII on the 360 with compressed graphics is still an awesome looking game. Switching discs on the other hand feels like a throwback to the PS1 era but I'll probably be having too much fun to notice.

Geek News Roundup for 02/28/10 -- Whom Devils Cheat With Anthems Sweet

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:45:17 -0500

If you're wondering what the significance of this is, read on.

We're going to start with a little something from Canada this week on the Geek News Roundup. It seems that the Throne Speech delivered this past Wednesday mentioned the possibility of changing a lyric in our national anthem to make it sound less male dominant. Then, barely two days later, after uproar from both men and women across the country, the proposal was tossed off a bridge wearing concrete shoes.

Anyway, getting back on topic, how would you like to win stuff? Winning stuff is good, right? Do you also like independent developers? Okay, DIY Gamer has started up a forum on their website, and to encourage people to start posting to it, they've come up with the DIY Mega-Ultra-Super-Happy-Fun-Time Forum Contest. What a mouthful. All you need to do is create an account and post meaningful posts in their brand new forum. All I can say from my own personal experience as a forum moderator is, best of luck to them.

A couple follow-ups now. Last week, I mentioned that the ApocalyPS3 was in progress. It's been fixed by now, but not without a loss of data on certain machines. It seems the problem was that the older PS3 models are showing signs of Alzheimer's early: the pre-slim models forgot that we just had a leap year two years ago, and thought that this year was another one. I understand the rules for leap years are confusing (if the year is a multiple of four, it is, unless it's a multiple of a hundred, in which case it isn't, unless it's a multiple of four hundred, in which case it is), but still: they got it right on the PS2, so why not the PS3?

Also, I've criticized Ubisoft's new DRM scheme in the past. Well, a fresh batch of criticism has begun, because as predicted (although sooner than expected), their servers went down on Sunday, which meant that absolutely no one could play the PC version of Assassin's Creed II, among other games. When the servers came back, Ubisoft passed the buck. Apparently a DDoS attack hit their servers, which if you ask me, just highlights another problem with the DRM scheme. If someone decides to flood the servers, they'll go down just as easily as if Ubisoft had issues themselves. At least they've acknowledged this and have issued a patch, despite refusing to commit to any kind of patch a week earlier.

Some more bad news for Ubisoft: a team of crackers have managed to break the DRM after only 24 hours, or so they claim. Thing is, Ubisoft claims that the cracked version of the game is incomplete. Then again, if someone's giving away your product for free, you'd say anything to make sure people keep putting money in your pocket instead.

Let's see, what else is there? Well, Sony's patented something they call "feature erosion", but I call "jabbing people in the eye a few times with a stick after five hours and demanding they buy your game or else they won't stop". Metaphorically speaking. The Portal 2 is not a lie. Another study is showing that violent video games lead to violent youths; I wish they would keep their politics out of so-called scientific studies.

And finally, Activision has been busy peeing in everyone's Frosted Flakes this past week. First, they told Phoenix Online Studios that they're not allowed to do anything with a project they'd been working on for eight years, despite having already gotten permission from Vivendi to pursue said project. Guess who bought Vivendi between then and now?

Then, barely a couple days later, they began a coup the likes of which we'd expect to see in Russian or French royalty. They sent in their hired goons to keep the peace while they ousted two of the lead developers of Infinity Ward, who are known mostly for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 1 & 2. It's claimed that Jason West and Vince Zampella have been very bad boys. West and Zampella fired back with a lawsuit and it began to look like Activision staged the coup so that the company could avoid paying them substantial royalties. Just how much does a new yacht go for these days?

Activision fired back with a statement of their own, no doubt carefully prepared to make West and Zampella sound like the bad guys in this affair. Right now, I don't think enough is known about this situation to judge which side is truly in the wrong. It's probably a knee-jerk reaction to say that Activision are a bunch of greedy fuckers who should crawl under a rock and die, but given their history, it could be the right thing to say, too.

At any rate, until more is known, here's the legal documents that were filed in court.

Darksiders -- War Incarnate

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:57:16 -0500

Have you ever noticed how many reviews mention how much a game takes inspiration from another? It's no coincidence. The more cynical among us have argued that the majority of us have hit a brick wall in terms of ideas, and that we'll make them look like new ideas by making two ostensibly disparate ones and meshing them together. (That also applies to more than just video games.) When they say this, not all of them mean this in a bad way, even though some certainly use it and liken it to the downfall of our society. It's actually an indirect way of making something original, and that's good.

This is precisely what Darksiders represents, though I'm sure its looks have fooled quite a few gamers. When most of them saw the game, they assumed it would be another God of War-alike, given that they're so in-style these days. While it takes a little inspiration from that game, it actually uses another popular series for its main source of inspiration: The Legend of Zelda. This is actually quite good on the surface, since there aren't too many games that use that as inspiration. But once you get into the meat of the game, you'll realize that it goes quite a bit beyond inspiration.

Man, that is a big guy with a big sword!

Darksiders pits you in the rather large, muscular physique of War, the first of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. War is summoned to Earth, which is now in the midst of the chaos it's plunged into as armies of angels and demons have decided to make the planet their battlefield. There, War discovers, upon confronting Abbadon, that he's the only one to have arrived, and the seal hasn't been broken to summon the other Horsemen. The demon Straga then rises from below and kills Abbadon, and nearly kills War. But War is saved, so to speak, by the Charred Council.

The Council accuses War of bringing about the Apocalypse, and he is to be sentenced to death. That's until War demands that he be sent back to Earth to find the one actually responsible for bringing it about. But before he goes, the Council has a being called The Watcher, uh, watch over him every step he goes. The Watcher also has the power to kill War whenever he strays, or whenever he feels he strays, from his predetermined path. The Watcher also serves as a guide to tell you what to do next to advance the game. So he's kind of like this game's Navi, minus the high-pitched voice. It's here that War reawakens to a post-apocalyptic Earth, 100 years later.

Oh, and though you start the game with a plethora of powers, they're all stripped from you when you perish in the beginning. This is admittedly less Zelda and more Metroid.

Does this remind you of anything?

Darksiders, like Zelda, has dungeons you need to explore for a specific purpose. Within these dungeons, you'll find items to help make it through them, and they'll also help in making your way around the game's overworld easier. Yeah, this all sounds pretty familiar. Well, the hearts thing notwithstanding.

There are also power-ups to collect as well, some that will extend you maximum health and wrath. Health is self-explanatory, but Wrath is used to utilize special powers to make fending off enemies a little easier. You'll only start with one, but more of them can be purchased with souls you obtain from enemies. Beating a boss will also net you a health boost, similar to...well, you know.

Yes, Darksiders actually lifts entire aspects of its game from Zelda. Sometimes quite shamelessly! Aside from the above, there are also plenty of parts that play homage to certain events that happened within many of the 3D Zelda games, especially The Ocarina of Time. And sometimes it's very, very blatant about it. Thankfully, this doesn't detract from the game's overall fun factor, and the quest itself is very enjoyable. Just don't be surprised if you constantly use the quote (or a variant of it): "This is just like that part in [whatever Zelda game]. Huh."

That sure isn't Epona.

The game itself looks splendid and colorful, with a mix between cel-shading and CG. It's the perfect look for animating its comic book-inspired storyline. Though the story itself is enjoyable to watch in the well-directed cut scenes, it's rather predictable overall, barring literally a couple of twists. What helps sustain the story is the fantastic voice work. War is provided a voice by fan-favorite Liam O'Brien, while The Watcher features Mark Hamill doing a very close Joker impression. It also features the voice talents of Moon Bloodgood, Troy Baker, and Vernon Wells. Yes, that Vernon Wells.

Something that will bug the average gamer with Darksiders is the bizarre difficulty curve. From playing a lot of games throughout your life, you've probably become adjusted to them progressively becoming more difficult as you either become more powerful or begin to adjust to the mechanics and physics of the internal gaming world more. This game starts of a little tough, especially with the first dungeon and its boss (who, might I add, is an absolute pain), but it really doesn't get that much difficult. By the end of the game, you're too powerful for most and the enemies and all of the bosses. Some of them will actually struggle to get a hit on you, provided you've become attuned to the controls.

Admittedly, this reminded me of Dark Sector.

The world of Darksiders is pretty big, but how much time you spend in it depends on how much you're enjoying the game and how much you're willing to do. Feel free to run through the main quest in around 15 hours or so, but there a plenty of secret areas that you'll be able to access as you obtain more items from dungeons. If you want to find everything and explore everywhere, you can spend around 20 or more hours with the game.

What Darksiders takes its ideas from is precisely what makes it more appealing product. While its world may not be as appealing to some (depending on your perspective), it's a world that's open to much exploration, and rewards you with finding its secrets. It may not be as satisfying as a Zelda game, or even some of its other clones (like Okami, for instance), but it's still well worth your time. A stellar first effort from Vigil Games.

Recommended Soundtracks: Unlimited: SaGa

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 14:53:59 -0500

Final Fantasy XIII is releasing this week! So let's commemorate the occasion of its arrival -- in an admittedly miniscule manner -- by featuring the soundtrack to...one of Square Enix's worst games: Unlimited: SaGa.

What's the point of this? Glad you coercively asked! Featuring this game isn't sending an indirect message that it's what I or anyone here thinks will reflect the quality of FFXIII. No, it's being featured because it features a great-though-unpopular soundtrack by the game's composer: Masashi Hamauzu. People around the 'net still kind of refer to him as an unknown entity among Square Enix Music's prowess (well, formerly among), and Unlimited: SaGa is kind a representation of that trope. Heck, it's probably the biggest representation.

Hamauzu seemed to have a curse looming over him for every soundtrack he was lined up to compose. The unfortunate fact is that the majority of the soundtracks he's composed have been for games that ranged from bad to mediocre. Upon seeing early impressions and numerous reviews, it seems FFXIII is going to be a rather polarizing game for the series' fanbase; perhaps even more than Final Fantasy XII was. But even if you consider that, FFXIII will likely be the best game he's composed the soundtrack for.

(He was also involved in Final Fantasy X's soundtrack as well, but the fact that he was merely "involved" is the reason why that game wasn't mentioned above. There, he and Junya Nakano were only involved as assistance to then-series mainstay composer Nobuo Uematsu.)

Unlimited: SaGa's soundtrack bears many trademarks of Hamauzu's sweeping musical style: gratuitous use of violins (positively gratuitous, mind you), piano, electronic instruments, and a plethora of acoustic material to create an overall feel that's pretty grand. Well, for the first disc, at least. The second disc represents a little of this too, but it's mosly comprised of techno and electronic remixes, with a few jazzy themes thrown in the mix.

Most of it sounds great, but keep in mind that I'll be pulling the samples from the first disc. Sure, it's mostly typical Hamauzu material, but an alarming number of people don't even know what "typical Hamauzu" is, so I felt it best to showcase that here. The tracks are so good that it made this rather difficult to do.

To start things off, this first track here is "The Seven Travelers," which sounds like music that would either go towards a text scroll, menu theme, or character selection -- since this game has seven scenarios; one for each character depicted in the semi-portraits on the cover above (My playtime with the game was very...not extensive. Could you tell?). It's a beautiful track; well representative of Hamauzu composition style:

The second track here is "Battle Theme I," the first of four normal battle themes, if the track naming scheme on the soundtrack isn't deceptive. A pet peeve I have with RPG battle themes is that too many of them aren't good enough for you to hear over and over again throughout the entire (sometimes very lengthy) game. This, however, is not one of them. And there are (again, presumably) four of them! Very impressive:

As previously stated, this game has seven central characters. And wouldn't you know it, every character has a specific theme. This one is "Laura's Theme," who, on the cover above, is the blonde-haired woman on the left. Her specific melody is rather emotional and sad, perhaps (I hope) related to her place in the story:

What you've heard, unless you just skimmed to the bottom, is just a small representation of Unlimited: SaGa's entire soundtrack, which is an incredible soundtrack for a game that's just the opposite. Please give the entire thing a listen. If anything, writing this entry has gotten me in the mood for seeking out more of Hamauzu's music (aside from FFXIII, since I don't like to listen to too much of a soundtrack for a game I intend to play), and if that's happened to you as well, think of it as a positive-though-unintentional after-effect. If you don't like FFXIII, at least you'll like the soundtrack.

I'm Attacking The Darkness!

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 23:18:43 -0500

Fans of tabletop RPGs, specifically Dungeons & Dragons (Maybe Dungeons & Dogs too?) can put away the Mountain Dew, for there is now a soda that is made specifically for pen and paper gamers. Jones Soda has come up with a 6-pack of different flavours inspired by D&D, and by now I'm not surprised. This is a company who released a Turkey & Gravy soda every Thanksgiving for a number of years (and last year released a Tofurkey & Gravy variation). They created sodas for Seattle's sports teams. And as of late summer/early autumn of last year, they've created a limited edition soda for gamers.

This isn't the first gaming-inspired beverage to hit the market. Japan has seen various editions of Potion released to commemorate various Final Fantasy related events, including the release of Final Fantasy XII. But this is, from what I can find out, the first drink for gamers to be released to the North American market. Bawls doesn't count.

The reviews* I've read regarding the Thanksgiving flavours have led me to be incredibly cautious when it comes to whether or not I'd want to try these ones. I'm assuming they're fruit-flavoured, or close to it, but I'm going to stick with their normal, Red Apple flavour for now. Let the true D&D nerds try this one first.

*Blogspot may have decided that Canadians are terrorists, or at least people living in Revelstoke are, and so I seem to not be allowed on their site anymore; it's also possible the problem is on my end. I've been getting 403 Forbidden errors when trying to use their site to research this article. This means I can't even contact them about it if I can't reach their site. Thankfully, the Google cache still works as of this writing, so I'm linking to it for now.

4:08AM ETA: Blogspot's working for me again, don't know what was going on.

SNK Stuff

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 19:24:48 -0500

Though their better days are unfortunately behind them at the moment, SNK is still making ways to stay relevant in a time where 3D has overtaken 2D. But in reality, the problem is how they're trying to stay relevant, and the fact that they're not doing the best job they could. During this time, we've realized that the company's fans are actually pretty tolerant of their mistakes, and have decided to stick with them despite their constant tripping over their own shoe laces.

It seems that Ignition Entertainment is no longer publishing SNK's material. Their most recent games, Metal Slug XX for PSP and Samurai Shodown Sen for Xbox 360, are being handled by Atlus and XSEED, respectively. The former is now available in Japan and America, and though the latter is available in Japan, it will make its way to America and Europe this spring. It seems all the problems with last year's King of Fighters XII netcode debacle really took their toll on Ignition, leaving them uninterested in dealing with SNK any longer.

Metal Slug XX (pronounced "Double X") is a remix of Metal Slug 7, which was released for DS back in 2008. I haven't been following Samurai Shodown Sen (previously known as Samurai Shodown: Edge of Destiny) that closely, but it's a 3D fighter with most of the characters from multiple entries in the series. Oh, and people who've played the game in Japanese arcades warn to stay away from the game at all costs. Sounds like a good time!

Metal Slug XX is also supposed to be making its way to Xbox Live Arcade one of these days as well, along with King of Fighters 2002: Unlimited Match and Neo Geo Battle Coliseum. The last of those is much more than your usual port.

NGBC will have graphics remastered in HD along with some new stages when it hits XBLA sometime in the spring. Though it's not the best fighting game around (despite its plethora of fanservice), the result looks pretty nice so far. Hopefully the online will be competent, which can't be said for their other games.

SNK has also recently announced that King of Fighters XIII will be unveiled in Japan on March 25th. KoFXII had quite a few problems, like the aforementioned bad online, a lack of stages, characters (like, you know, Mai Shiranui), and techniques for specific characters (Terry lacking the Power Dunk, etc.). Those are all problems I hope are remedied with XIII.

That's King of Fighters '94, by the way.

While this hasn't been official announced, the ESRB has rated a bunch of Neo Geo Classics for Playstation Network. You can see the list of all the games at Siliconera. Also noteworthy is that they've been rated for both Playstation 3 and PSP, meaning they'll probably be distributed like PSOne Classics. We still haven't heard anything more about the Tubrografx-16 titles that were supposed to be on their way to America; though knowing SCEA, we'll probably have them by the end of 2012.

All of the games that have been rated thus far were also on the SNK Arcade Classics Vol.1 compilation disc that SNK released back in 2008 on Wii, PS2, and PSP. Unfortunately, the emulation there left much to be desired, especially in the slowdown-plagued PSP version. Hopefully the emulation here will be up to par with the Virtual Console editions. It better be, given how the Neo Geo Classics editions will inevitably be more expensive.

Some of the mistakes SNK has been making this generation are mistakes I'd seriously expect newcomers to make, not decade old veterans. You could excuse them for not being the same SNK that existed for years, but this current team has been around for about eight years. And putting together a good netcode for an online fighter is something the fan community do, so I hope SNK really starts to listen and realize that its fans aren't satisfied with the quality of their current output.

Vanquishing Initial Expectations

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:09:36 -0500

Details are finally beginning to trickle out about Vanquish, a new third-person shooter from Platinum Games, and the fourth and final game within Platinum Games and Sega's publishing contract. It was originally unveiled on Gametrailers TV about a month back in the now-infamous CG teaser form, complete with ominous hints as to precisely what kind of game it actually was, and what factions it involved. That teaser showed a presidential figure that a lot of gamers said resembled Hilary Clinton (which I wouldn't be surprised was intentional), and displayed a soldier fending off a mysterious alien force. Or are they aliens?

Oh, and it didn't tell anyone what console(s) the game was heading for. Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 were the obvious initial guesses, but some also suggested that it could be a Wii title; or even a PSP title. CG teasers can be made for anything - though that teaser was much to elaborate for a DS title -- so all of the guesses were logical.

But that element of surprise is gone, as this week's Famitsu magazine - and now Platinum Games' website - revealed that the game is headed for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 and due for release in winter 2010. It's no surprise to anyone to see those are the systems it's headed for, given how many shooters there are on the system; not to mention how well they sell on those systems. But what's surprising me concerning the formal announcement are comments from gamers who think it will inevitably be generic.

Those are pretty disappointing expectations from people I thought would know better. The developer's pedigree thus far has been anything but generic. Platinum Games contains a lot of the staff that previously worked for Capcom's now-defunct Clover Studios, which gave us great games like Viewtiful Joe, Okami, and God Hand. I don't think a company that has, thus far, made games like MadWorld, Infinite Space, and Bayonetta will make something that's like every other third-person cover-based shooter out there nowadays.

There's also the fact that Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami is at the helm. He was also involved with the aforementioned God Hand, and given his pedigree he's bound to have some interesting ideas to make this stand out from the rest of the pack. On the other side of the spectrum in terms of initial perception, there are quite a few gamers who wouldn't be surprised to see this being a spiritual sequel to Mikami's cult classic: P.N.03.

And it very well could be, given some of the admittedly scant details being dropped. Apparently Mikami wants this game to have some sort or rhythm-based shooting system. And to hint at some potential zaniness, apparently the main character, Sam, has a low visor because he wants to smoke while he battles. The game itself is also much more fast-paced than your average shooter, according to some of the press that saw the demo event in Japan.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, Playstation 3 is the lead console this time around. This should avert another porting disaster like Bayonetta.

I think Vanquish will be a good game to watch, like all of Platinum Games' titles thus far. And maybe this one will actually sell pretty well! Let's just hope Sega doesn't send this one out at a bad time like Infinite Space will inevitably be when it releases later this Month. Keep your eye on this one.

Recommended Soundtracks: Soul Blade(Edge): Khan Super Session

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:48:14 -0500

When I wrote the entry for Soul Blade's Original Soundtrack last week, I expected better results. By that, I mean that I thought it would be something resembling genuine coherence. It wasn't until after I finished the entry that I realized that Soul Blade's soundtrack isn't as good as I remembered. I halted this before when I planned on writing about Stella Deus' soundtrack, which I realized hadn't aged too well despite having the talents of both Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata -- both of which were responsible for the superlative soundtrack to the superlative Final Fantasy Tactics.

But I promise that this isn't the case with the Soul Blade's alternate soundtrack: Khan Super Session. I mentioned it last week, but upon listening to it again, I realized that it's aged perfectly fine. It's better than I remember, in fact! Soul Blade, I believe, is the only fighting game to have two disparate soundtracks, and they both mesh (or "meshed") together well within the game's context. It also helps to give the stages a sense of variety and a different ambient feel upon multiple playthroughs (with either the AI or local friends).

And then there are the tracks themselves, which are beautiful compositions. I was pretty bummed when I played Soul Calibur on Dreamcast and discovered that there was no longer a viable alternative to the arcade tracks, because I liked how different they made the game feel. Soul Calibur may have made Soul Blade feel like an amateurish effort in comparison gameplay wise - Blade feels incredibly sluggish these days, despite it being fine for the time - but the lack of that extra musical option made that particular aspect feel like a step back. Not to say the soundtracks to Blade's progeny were lackluster, far from it, in fact. Well, unless you're talking about Soul Calibur III.

The Khan Super Session was composed by five then-current employees at Namco : Masumi Ito, Benten Maru, Yoshiyuki Ito, Aki Hata, and Taku Iwasaki. Namco, fully aware of how good the soundtrack was and how fans of the game liked it, decided to distribute it separately from the Original Soundtrack.

This first song is "The Edge of Soul," a vocal track used for the CG intro specifically made for the console version. It utilizes a nice combination of rock and traditional Asian instruments for its background tune. It's also in English. And it's actually mostly understandable to boot. Imagine the feeling of hearing this in a console video game back in early '97, because for some of us, it was actually pretty mind-blowing. The closing credits theme, "Our Way Home," is also in English, though it veers into Engrish territory pretty often:

This next song is "A Haunting Wind," the theme to Taki's stage. It uses the same combination of instruments "The Edge of Soul" uses, though there aren't any vocals this time around. The rock aspect doesn't fit with the time period Soul Blade exists in (the Renaissance Era), but it's not like the game itself doesn't take numerous liberties with that. And it doesn't matter when the result is so good:

This last song is "A Mediterranean Call," which goes with Sophitia's stage. The ironic aspect of this track is that despite the original arcade track (which is completely different) featured last week for her stage was called "Heavenly Engage," it's this track that sounds much more heavenly:

It was listening to this soundtrack again that made me miss its inclusion in future games in the series, and it made me realize how much it outclasses the arcade soundtrack. I'd like to hope that Namco (or Namco Bandai these days) realizes how much fans of the series like this soundtrack, and liked having the option to choose which soundtrack they wanted to listen to while they played. But I doubt it. Sure, you could play this soundtrack through the current consoles' Custom Soundtrack features, but the effect doesn't come off as similar. A new Soul Calibur game is an inevitability given how SCIV is the second best selling fighter this generation, and they usually have something (or "things") special for each game. Hopefully this will be one of them.

Though I'm not counting on it.

Adventures of a Canadian Gamer #18 -- Spam! Wonderful Spam!

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 03:58:47 -0500

The last Geek News Roundup I wrote sucked. You might not think so, but I think it did. One of the things I noticed when finding news for the roundup is that Google's news portal is beginning to suck. It's still good for finding news like the stuff that's been happening in Chile, Sony's leap year excuse,* or the short memory of Canadians regarding our current prime minister's cowardly politics. But if I search for just a general term like 'PS3' or 'Wii', I've discovered that some companies have realized that a news portal is another good place for some cheap advertising. As such, I won't link to any of these products or news reports I'm about to mention; I don't want to give them more attention than they've already gotten.

For instance, within the first couple pages of a search for general PS3 news,** I found a link to a supposed news story that was really just an advertisement for a piece of software that supposedly can back-up your video games. How legal is this software? Probably not very: one of the features of the software, according to the so-called news article, is that it can break through all the current copy protection methods, and burn games to a CD or a DVD. Other search results go as far as describing video game piracy, explicitly encouraging people to rip their games, burn them, and then sell off the original discs, even mentioning sites where you can download games for all three consoles.

It doesn't take long to find a similar result when searching for news stories related to the Wii: I found that the eleventh search result described Wii piracy in the same way that it described PS3 piracy. As for Microsoft's console, the exact same site managed to get an advertisement for an Xbox 360 repair guide on the first page of results for 'Xbox 360'.

When the Internet was first opened up to the ordinary citizen, I don't think anyone dreamed that advertisers would swarm it en masse like they have. This is why we can't have nice things. Everything that's developed and released on the Internet will eventually find itself overrun by ads. E-mail used to be a good way to keep in touch of people, until spammers discovered that they could mask their identities, harvest millions of E-mail addresses from websites, and send out advertisements for dubious products, knowing that the only remedy anyone really has is to constantly keep their finger on the delete button, at least until spam filters were invented.*** Even Twitter has been targeted by advertisers. I've barely had my account for a couple months and already I've had to block spam Twitter accounts. A PSP spam account saw my Shadow of Destiny tweets and decided that I was the right target audience for it.

News sites are next, and as I've said above, they're already being targeted. There's nowhere that Internet users can go that spammers can't. Last year when I tried The Chronicles of Spellborn, the game was still in beta and already there were people trying to sell me the game's currency. We've even had to disable certain features of the software running this blog because of spammers.

At least music seems safe. I can just take a CD out of the jewel case and- wait, no, fuck. I suppose it's not too late for me to turn Amish. In the meantime, here's an E-mail address you can use if you want to contact me regarding anything I've written for this blog. Let's see how long it takes to start getting spammed.

*Seriously, Sony? The first PlayStation 3 models thought 2010 is a leap year? How crappy are your programmers that you could get the PS2's calendar right, but fuck up the PS3's calendar? I call bullshit on this, but that's a rant for another time.
**Usually I could find these faux news stories on the first page of results, but the ApocalyPS3 has pretty much taken over the first page or so of PS3 news results today.
***Spam filters aren't perfect. Legitimate E-mail can be filtered out and deleted, and spam always seems to make it through, especially when spammers figure out ways to trick the filter into accepting their messages.

Video of the Week:

I've fallen in love with this lynx recently, but sadly it's the only video of her. She may have died not long after the video was uploaded.

Rest in peace, little Nala.

Currently Playing: Ragnarok DS (DS)

This is like a gateway drug to Ragnarok Online. Seriously, the game is set up to act just like an MMO. At one point, I was told I should go to the next city for some treasure hunting, but when I got to the gate, I was told that the boss was away and I had to track him down for permission to enter through the gates (they were under construction at the time). So I had to go back through two maps of forest to get back to my home city, only to find out that the boss had already left, and was at a lake not far from the gate I wanted to enter through, so I had to go back through the two maps of forest once again and watch a short cut scene before I could finally get to the next city.

The majority of the game is dungeon crawling and level grinding, but at least the music is great and the controls aren't too bad.

Looking Forward To: Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies (DS)

Seriously, what the fuck, Square? Why does Nintendo have to do your job for you? Do you have too much on your plate that you can't release a game like this to North America? Are we not good enough for one of your two flagship franchises? Also, where's the Dragon Quest VI release date announcement?

[unknown artist - unknown title] #3 -- In Which Vanity Is Almost Revealed

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 23:15:06 -0500

I have a hypothesis. Something I can't ever test, but is fun to think about. I like to think that the person who Carly Simon is singing about in "You're So Vain", Alanis Morissette is singing about in "You Oughta Know", and Janet Jackson is singing about in "Son Of A Gun (I Betcha Think This Song Is About You)" is the same person.

I know what you're thinking. The songs are decades apart, so how could it be the same person? Well, if it's a time lord... Seriously, though, it's not impossible if you think about it just a little. Carly and Alanis both refuse to name who their songs are about, although Janet says it's just about men after her fortune. Okay, so why sample a mysterious song like You're So Vain if you don't want to appear a little mysterious yourself?

Meanwhile, Alanis has refused to talk about this song at all, despite Full House star Dave Coulier being so vain that he thinks her song is about him. She has stated in interviews that the song is personal. It's a similar thing with her song "Hands Clean", which talks about a relationship that both she and an unknown guy have agreed not to talk about. She's given a few details about it, but once again she has not named the guy.

Carly Simon has, over the years, partially broken the silence about who her song is about. She's revealed three letters in the man's name (I wonder if I'm allowed to buy a vowel?), and has recently whispered his first name in a re-recording of the song, David. At one point, it's been speculated that the song's about James Taylor (which means that I've now mentioned that name in two of my three music columns). But now the strong front runner is a record executive named David Geffen, who used to be her boss at Elektra records, and who she might've been jealous with over the attention he'd been giving Joni Mitchell's career. This possibility has been denied by Carly and proven wrong, but it seems to make sense as long as you don't take into account the argument she made against it.

First of all, not all songs are what they seem. I remember one romantic Savage Garden song was revealed by lead singer Darren Hayes to actually be about a break-up (and have since forgotten which song it was, nor can I find the interview he revealed this in... damn, if I had known I needed to reference this stuff in a music column, I would've bookmarked it when I found it out years ago; I'm pretty sure it's I Knew I Loved You, but now I'm not so sure). Second of all, when she was contacted by Janet to get permission to use samples of You're So Vain, Carly offered to re-record them. She even stated this in an interview. "I said I would prefer to re-record everything that might otherwise have been sampled. Why get Elektra involved and potentially hold up the process?" Did she have another reason why she wanted to avoid Elektra? Possibly. But by then, David Geffen was no longer at Elektra, so who knows?

It's possible we'll never know who the song is about, even with Carly's hints, but hey: at least we're getting hints. We have no such help with Alanis's song. And although Janet has revealed the song isn't about any one man in particular, I can't help but think that perhaps it just might, and that all three songs could be about the same man. A man named David.

A very decent cover version of the song

Today's Playlist
Mansun - Wide Open Space
Miranda - Lynx
Yoko Shimomura - Primal Eyes
Savage Garden - Two Beds And A Coffee Machine
Psapp - Tiger, My Friend
I hear you went up to Saratoga and your horse naturally won