Anyway, Sonic games. Yeah yeah, I know. sonic has been REALLY bad lately. And it hurts me deep… but there are good ones. Lemme show yah what ones.

Starting with a newer game:

Sonic and the Black Knight

No, really. I’m not kidding. The concept for this game was HORRIBLE, but the execution is pretty damn good. Sonic is summoned to the land of King Arthur by a cute loli version of Merlin named (surprise!) Merlina and after some delicious chili dog eating, Sonic gets a magic talking sword named “Caliburn”. The action is fast, and the sword allows you to obliterate most enemies without a care in the world. Now, like Secret Rings, there are a few slowdowns. There are points where you have to give villagers rings and there are large enemies that don’t go down in one hit, but everything else in the game is a pretty damn good time. I don’t really recommend it for someone who doesn’t like Sonic, but it’s worth a try even if  you don’t.

Sonic Rush

This is the game where Blaze the Cat was introduced. The story for this game is something like Blaze comes from the negaverse and there are funky Chaos Emerald style gems there as well and Blaze is looking for them… It doesn’t matter much, it’s really not important. This game also introduced something I think all Sonic games need: A boost meter. You can use it to get to speed with a small burst or use it to destroy everything in your path for a short time. It’s filled by rings, doing mid-air tricks or defeating enemies. It’s awesome and EVERY SINGLE SONIC GAME SHOULD HAVE IT FOREVER.

YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE BEST

Sonic CD

Oh god, this is one of the best Sonic games in my opinion. It brings together some of the best parts of the first three Sonic games, but it adds in cool shit like time travel and some of the most fucking amazing music ever. The level design is amazing, the bosses are challenging and the time travel mechanic gives each level a wonderfully fresh feel. The game has good replayability and looks totally amazing. It’s for the Sega CD, PC and is an unlockable in the Sonic Mega Collection.

And, finally…

Sonic 3 & Knuckles

What happens if you take one of the most critically acclaimed Sonic games, then add the functionality to play as FUCKING KNUCKLES? You get one of the coolest things ever. Ever. This is seriously one of the best things that 16 bits has to offer. Climb shit, swim in the water, get around… You can do it all. You can do it with Sonic 2 as well.

That wraps up this stuff. Sorry about being gone so long, personal shit…

Anyway, I hope that soon I will be able to contribute regularly again!

Till next time!

Jumpluff~

While Sony has made several blunders in the current gen console war one of the biggest was allowing Call of Duty 4 to go multi-platform. The game has become such a runaway success that it could have single-handedly changed the face of the war as we know it. Perhaps equally as big was allowing Grand Theft Auto 4 to go multi-platform. Although the game sold about 45/55%  on the PS3 and Xbox 360 respectively, there are rumblings that the next installment in the GTA series may become a Playstation exclusive by default.

Wait, what the hell are you talking about?

As has been documented, Rockstar was notably unhappy with the limitations of the DVD-9 format on the Xbox 360 and how it affected GTA 4. As we’ve all seen though, both versions of the game are practically the same. The rumblings this time around though are seem to be much more boisterous. Early rumours have Rockstar threatening to not release GTA5 on the Xbox, but that begs the question: Why? Why sacrifice all the money you would undoubtedly make by only creating the game for one console?

Although one can never account for backroom dealings and shattered business relationships, there is really only one answer.

They want their game to be good.

Was GTA4 lacking on the Xbox 360? Of course not. It was Game of the Year. It recieved rave reviews across the board. But could it have been better? WOULD it have been better if it had only been released for a single console? Of course. This applies to any game released on any console exclusively though. What makes this time around special is that the GTA developers may in fact be willing to part with the extra revenue in order to better perfect their craft which seems absolutely ludicrous in our current economic standings. It is not to say that Rockstar would be the first group to sacrifice sales for art. It is however to say that doing so now could prove to be an earth shaking event that has an indelible effect on how Video Games are made.

In a world driven by profit, and in an industry not well renowned for being bohemian, this kind of move would be as surprising as it would be dramatic. A triple-A developer openly supporting both their own art and A specific console could sway other third party developers to do the same. It would also give other developers a comfortable “out” to abandon a platform they wouldn’t want to develop on for fear of not returning enough profit. After all, in such hard economic times, it’s surprising that more companies aren’t already doing this and attributing it towards a need for the betterment of the game as opposed to monetary restrictions. Keep in mind as well, if Halo 3, Gears of War and Metal Gear Solid 4 have shown us anything, exclusive games can still sell ridiculously well regardless of being exclusive.

That being said, the whole “pursuing art” argument could simply be an excuse from Rockstar after the fact. Rockstar has a contractual obligation to produce 3 exclusive games for the PS3 as reported by the Hiphopgamer (through an interview with an industry insider) and other sources. We know one of these games is Agent, another one of these games may supposedly be the somewhat forgotten L.A. Noire, a sandbox game set in the 1930’s. GTA 5 would probably be not all that different than 4 regardless of development time and console exclusivity, and if L.A. Noire is factored in, that would mean all of the three promised exclusives would be off the table.

If one wanted to be even more pessimistic, this could be seen as also be seen as a moving away from Microsoft has the prime conduit for producing games. Take-Two openly denied Microsoft’s exclusivity bid for Bioshock 2 while EA is now releasing Dead Rising 2 on the PS3. Capcom has also recently confirmed a concurrent release of Lost Planet 2. Along with a slew of exclusives for the PS3, this could seem very dramatic, but there are still a lot of positives for the Xbox.

Don't worry cousin, beeg American teetee's will probably come to all platforms (minus Wii)

Even though EA has clearly made Dead Rising 2 multi-platform, the status of Mass Effect is still up in the air. Microsoft also has Epic, Bethesda and VALVe onboard as companies who are much more enamored with Microsoft than they are with Sony. And of course, staying with the pessimism, Microsoft has one very, very big asset. A seemingly inexhaustible amount of money. Everyone has their price, and a company as rich as Microsoft can probably name yours.

Microsoft made Rockstar rich. Rockstar took at least 30% of every sale from the GTA4 expansion pack, along with the millions of dollars they recieved from the exclusivity deal itself. Ultimately, beyond all of this industry wheeling and dealing as well as speculation, it just doesn’t seem like anyone can resist the siren song of the greenback. Perhaps that’s why I find it so interesting that the such a bohemian notion can be expressed by Rockstar. Even with evidence showing that it could be legitimate and genuine (undoubtedly in the exclusivity of Agent), I’m still not convinced that such dedication to art can even exist in our modern day industry. If it does come to pass though. it might just spur on the innovation and advancement in the industry that some believe is lacking. And if this kind of innovation can occur when times are tough, imagine how sweet it could be in times of plenty.

My first video review. More to come.

EDIT: Redid the audio, so it’s 10x better now.

• Halo: Reach.  New Halo game (there’s a big surprise)  I’ve already read the Halo books, so I know how this one plays out.  So, on top of ODST, that’s two Halo games coming out.  Maybe Bungie should, I dunno, try something new?  At this rate they’re going to milk that cash cow to death.
• Project Natal.  The 360 is getting motion controls, but with a twist:  You are the controller.  Supposedly provides advanced motion recognition.  Sounds like the Eye Toy to me, so I’m not holding my breath.
• Metal Gear Solid Rising.  Oh look, a 360-exclusive Metal Gear title (starring Raiden).  PS3 owners everywhere weep.
• Gears of Metroidvania.  I don’t remember what the title of this game was, but it’s being produced by Epic for the XBox Live Marketplace.
• Some cart game.  Coming soon to XBox Live Marketplace – A free cart racing game!  You just have to pay for extra levels and cars.
• Alan Wake.  Survival Horror.  Looks promising.  Also looks like Silent Hill.
• Social Media Integration.  Soon you’ll be able to access Facebook and Twitter right from your dashboard.  Whee.
• Better video on demand.  Something about 1080p and coverage in new countries.  Wasn’t really paying attention.
• Milo.  Freakish “electronic companion” native to the uncanny valley being developed by Peter Molyneux.  Supposedly understands you and can talk back.  It’s like you really have a friend!
• Forza thing game.  Racing game.  Allows you to customize your cars.  Supposedly fosters communities among children.  It’s a racing game.
• Left 4 Dead 2.  Very short and vague clip.  I think they’re adding chainsaws.

Other games were shown during the presentation, but that’s all that really stood out for me.

Oh yeah, Steven Speilberg showed up at some point, right about the time I got bored and went to the gym.

They say that variety is the spice of life, but I believe passion can be equally spicy. It’s what drives people to write fanfiction and to petition developers to turn dreams into reality.

Passion can be a double-edged sword, though. Sometimes, all it takes is a single real or perceived disappointment  to turn your feelings against the object of your emotional attachment.

Take the case of a little discussion I had with a friend of mine last night. Being die-hard fans of the Atlus’ Trauma Center series, my friend and I were understandably elated when we heard that Trauma Team would be coming to the Wii in the near future.

Please note that my friend is a BIG Nozomi Kimishima (aka Naomi Weaver) fan. Being the inquisitive student that she is, she immediately Googled around for more info about the game and her favorite character. What she discovered made her emotions do a complete one hundred and eighty degree turn. You see, she unfortunately came upon this little article.

Remember the comment I made in my other article about how some of the new doctors look like younger versions of verteran Trauma Center surgeons? It turns out I was partly right. The lady with silver-blue hair in the roster of Trauma Team specialists is apparently Dr. Kimishima herself, and she has graduated from being a hotshot doctor to being a forensics expert.

My friend immediately flew into a rage at the revelation. She vehemently argued that Dr. Kimishima is a master surgeon, not a CSI agent. This led to a bit of a discussion wherein I tried to calm her down. Perhaps this is an alternate universe Kimishima, I theorized. After all, didn’t producer Kanada-san mention something about Trauma Team being a whole new game and not a sequel?

Despite my best efforts, my friend would have none of it. Seething with righteous indignation, she seems to be dead set on boycotting this new medical sim completely.

On the other hand, I’m feeling a bit more forgiving. Granted, the good doctor may have made a rather…odd career move, and her new portrait makes her look suspiciously younger than she’s supposed to be (plastic surgery, perhaps?), but it’s still nice to see her alive and well after Second Opinion.

Now all Atlus has to do is to announce the existence of a playable obstetrician slash gynecolotist in Trauma Team and my day will be complete.

It really pays to subscribe to newsletters sometimes. You’ll never know what bit of fantastic news might just leap out at you when you least expect it.

I just opened my e-mail inbox recently when I came across an Atlus announcement: a new medical sim (a genre made popular by the Trauma Center series) will be coming to the Nintendo Wii sometime spring of next year. Dubbed Hospital slash Trauma Team, this new game passes the torch to six new doctors ready to continue the legacy of Drs. Styles, Weaver, Vaughn and Blaylock.

Of course, I’m assuming that those three veterans aren’t in the game to begin with. Three of the doctors look like younger and stylishly redrawn versions of the veteran surgeons. A fourth doctor in the series gives us a glimpse of what Dr. Styles may look like sans glasses, darker hair, vampiric bloodlust and an androgynous charm borrowed from a certain Persona 4 sleuth.

The prospect of having six specialists this time around instead of two miracle doctors who do all the work (with a hot nurse nagging them all throughout the process) sounds like an interesting concept. This way, you can have one doctor stitch up all the wounds  while another glues back broken pieces of bone with mystical antibiotic gel. A third surgeon can focus on removing tumors with impunity while the other two are preoccupied.

Of course, we’ll have to wait and see if all of them will actually be working together during the operation itself, or if they’ll be taking turns during the entire process of testing, diagnosis, surgery and post-op. The latter case may be likely, as one of the doctors is supposed to be a diagnostician.

Also, a quick glance at the initial screenshots will tell you that the classic syringe, forceps, gel et al are still in there. Some gameplay elements may also involve timing bits reminiscent of the defibrillator and “massage” scenarios of past games. There’s appears to be a part where you have to hammer some bones into place as well.

It’s most unfortunate that the official website contains very little info as of this time. I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled on this one, though. Anything that gives me a good excuse to probe a woman’s bare midriff is A-okay in my book.

#3 – Robotrek :

Now I’m sure many of you have not played this game, it was one of my favorite RPGs on the SNES (Final Fantasy 2, 7th saga and Super Mario RPG not included because well everything pales in comparison to those) by ENIX. It was this whacky game where you played a boy genius (much akin to Dexter’s Lab) who ends up building these little combat-robots to help fight off a band of evil crooks who are attempting to use science to do criminal things.

The real problem here is it gets a Disney style ending. Everything works out PERFECTLY for everyone. Bad guys are defeated, they manage to escape the exploding core just in time and the reporter gets her ’scoop’, your friends are like “man you are awesome.” the ghosts of your damn ancestors are even like “WTG DOOD.” Seriously.

SCIENCE!

#2 – Actraiser :

Yes much like when I discussed Adventures of Lolo in the last HDE – this is a solid solid game, one that I have wasted countless hours on having an awesome time with it. However it still has an incredibly retarded ending considering how much fun that game was. You were an awesome deity who built cities in a dumbed-down city building game while doing SHUMP-esque combat, then had serious platforming/action levels that were both frustrating and challenging at various points. I know there were a few times I seriously contemplated quitting fighting the last boss of Death Heim and getting destroyed over and over and over. Then? Your reward?

Your little angel cohort shows you all the cities you’ve built and saved over the time with a random little blurb about the citizens of each place, “There was a citizen in fillmore who could tell the future, he totally predicted this.” Wow, awesome, the citizens I’ve had little to no interaction with on an individual basis this whole game suddenly have personalities! Fantastic! Then he gives you a rant about how maybe people are happier when they don’t need “The Master” (you) to guide them and maybe are better off forgetting all about you.

THE END. what

DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA THE SHIT I’VE GONE THRUOGH FOR YOU JERKS?

#1 – Revolution X :

It was a terrible game to begin with, despite having some of the most laughable concepts in a video game, ever. Seriously. You launch CD’s to fight the NEW ORDER establishment which is KEEPING THE ROCKING TO A MINIMUM lead by a giant cyborg gorilla wearing a biker suit with a pair of uzi’s who rides around on a flying rocket chair. Yeah you read that right. So I’m just gonna let you see. This is your ending. You get told (via text, no dialogue, no pictures) that you stopped the new order and will forever be the hero of the revolution.

Then:

Aerosmith – Dude looks like a lady? More like Game looks like a piece of crap.

yeah Aerosmith shows up and rocks out to Dude looks like a lady, in all of it’s 16bit glory. If you managed to get 100% collection, you get to go BACKSTAGE and see them rock out in a sliding montage of credits. Also it’s not even a full video, it’s animated .gifs of them swaying back and forth. C’mon, really?

Alright alright, I’ll stop, deep breath, it’s okay. Phew, glad that’s over.

Next time we’ll stay with the 16bit era and I’ll discuss some genesis endings that you should definitely avoid. Also – I know I’ll probably get some crap about the whole Robotrek thing, because that’s a typical-ish ending that RPG’s like to use in general. If you want to know the full details, e-mail me and I’ll give you the full scoop on why it’s a Highly Disappointing Ending.

Follow me now on twitter – http://twitter.com/TheReverendLei

Keep up to date with games I’m checking out, import or otherwise and learn about whats new.

Nintendo broke away from competition with Sony and, new arrival, Microsoft with what some call the “Blue Ocean” business strategy. The Blue Ocean strategy is the metaphor of leaving a “red ocean” (one dyed by the blood of competition) for unclaimed waters filled with the potential for creating new demand. From a business stand point this brave (or stupid) move has paid off and now Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 are competing for second place.

Nintendo managed to succeed because they did something more than incrementally improve and repurpose old features. Yes, Gentle Reader, I’m talking about the “I” word, innovation. It’s debatable if the Wii controller is a true innovation as some gamers will still belittle it and mock it, but from a business standpoint it’s a successful change that’s brought in tremendous profit. Nintendo is as guilty as everyone else of giving us sequels by the truck load, most games in each series offer something new every one or two games. In truth, sequels are not really a bad thing as long as they are different enough that it stands on its own or adds to the previous experience.

This is the potential folly faced by Microsoft and Sony. If both companies continue to try and outdo the other, this means they have to rely on the other to show them where it is they are going. As mentioned before, it’s a tradition in the game industry to play copy cat with your opponents and then sell what they made for a lower price or with something more appealing attached. The game Sony and Microsoft are playing is the equivalent of trying to race someone you’re following to an unknown finish line.

If the two titans do not exercise some real creative muscle and insight, they run the risk of choking their audiences’ current interest. History has shown that strokes of genius like Katamari Damacy are not that common and while they may be risky or appear too weird, it’s that their quirkiness that aid to its success. The first GTA games offered sandbox gameplay, but GTA 3 took the top down world and made it more accessible by giving the player more dimensions to see everything. This reinvention (or innovation) has made the name Grand Theft Auto globally known.

Rehashed games, or those that don’t provide much of a new gaming experience, can poison a series or genre. If the games they make for the “core” gamer are not more than uninventive sequels the interest will dissolve and the audience will vanish or develop new preferences. The market has become swamped with First Person Shooters and while some may feel that’s not bad, it clearly demonstrates that developers are vying for the attention of a certain niche while alienating possibilities. As mentioned before, even if Nintendo did not stir up this casual boom, the publishers seemed to become more focused on producing games they KNOW will sell then those that can expand the market.

When we consider that the Xbox 360 has introduced its Mii-like “Avatars” and has begun promoting its “family friendly games” and that the Playstation 3 has its “six axis” controller and demonstrated a recent swelling of fresh but casual Playstation Store games their actions foreshadow that the duo are once again trying to outdo the other as they look for the path Nintendo made. Sony and Microsoft could just stick with the audience that has carried them to their current success, but like I proposed in part 1, only a fool (or altruistic gamer) would turn down the easy money casual games bring in.

I’d expect the next Microsoft console to utilize some sort of Wii remote like peripheral and the Playstation 3 to get it’s own version of the Wii remote. If Microsoft wishes to make the most money possible, their Wii remote copy will be a peripheral rather than a brand new system.

You might think “The End is Nigh” if you’re a core gamer that detests those happy, care free casual gamers. In the event that Sony and Microsoft act like a business and chase the money, a core gamer’s won’t be lost in a changing industry if the new audience leans how to discern between crap games and software worth its price tag. If all else fails there’s always indie games.

So as of now, these are the ominous black clouds that loom over the game industry. Nintendo is getting flogged with junk casual games and Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 run the risk of tiring their comparatively small (compared to the number of casuals) core audience with incremental improvements of current software.

During the Great Depression, American movie theaters saw steady business as the consumer hungered for an escape from the troubled economy. In today’s global economic recession, it seems that people still want that escape and video games are the medium that provide it even better than a mere 2 hour movie for 20 some dollars (if you get popcorn and a drink.) The road that lies before the game industry is not likely to disappear, no matter how cluttered it becomes with obstacles. That way ahead may be uncertain, but it is not lost when there are companies that will forge new paths and people that pine for the experience.