Thursday 26 July 2007 at 9:10 pm
Nintendo hate takes many forms.
As a Nintendo shareholder it always makes me giggle whenever I hear someone say that Nintendo will go out of business, become a software-only company, etc. Because that's just Nintendo hate.
As of right now,
Nintendo is the fifth largest company in all of Japan.
They passed up Sony last month, Puzzle League Planet is a great game and my stock has quintupled. Viva!
Monday 23 July 2007 at 9:16 pm
I'm going to try and avoid a common hip-hop cliche - 'Can't nobody do it like XXXX does', because I've been trying to be more analytical in my thinking lately and I can't talk in absolutes like that. Maybe somebody CAN do it like Mixmaster does - and people just haven't noticed yet. What I will say is, nobody
seems to do it like
Kenta Cho does. And by 'it', I mean design great games. To add to the list of ABA Game's fantastic (and free!) titles is Titanion, a static screen shmup in the style of Glaxian and Galaga.
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Wednesday 18 July 2007 at 10:03 pm
Need extra quick, extra cheap game relief? How's '3 minutes' and 'free' - quick and cheap enough for ya? If so, look no further than
Super Kingu Lato.
You play a fantastically low-bit cracked out Kirby who sparks/emits stars when he jumps. You can use your questionable powers to slaughter hordes of equally low-bit baddies as you tear through 4 levels of mayhem. Originally designed for a 3 minute game competition, Super Kingu Lato will take you no longer than 3 minutes... because that's how long the timer lasts. If you're really good, you can possibly finish the entire game in under 2. The gameplay is interesting with clever environments and clean, although barebones, graphics. The designer
Crostar manages to pack a good amount of fun in a short window of time. An excellent game to fill in 5-10 minutes with. Anything longer than that and you'll probably get bored.
Tuesday 17 July 2007 at 10:44 pm
I'm really pleased with my MP3 player. I bought it for $14 and then bought a 2GB SD Card for $12 on sale. That's a $26 MP3 player with only 1 major weakness (more on that later).
The place I bought it from is now selling a newer version of it for the same price.
Strapya World carries all kinds of cool toys, phone straps and little gadgets. Over the past few months I've purchased from them four times and it's never, ever, ever taken more than 4 days for the goods to go from Japan to Pittsburgh. Their service is so good, it makes me pissed off at all other import stores that take weeks with the same shipping charges. I once got a package from them in 2 days. At any rate, the MP3 player...
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Monday 16 July 2007 at 11:00 pm
Ahhh. Somethings are just good. If you like the anime, even just a little, you should do yourself a favor and check out
Dai Mahou Touge (Free Registration Required). It's an awesome spoof of the "Magical Girl" genre - where there's some magical princess who arrives at a school and turns it on it's head. Kinda like Sailor Moon. What makes Dai Mahou so funny is this princess is really evil. But just occasionally and when it's really inappropriate. She loves submission wrestling and has a habit of making vegetables come to life and then turn them into soup.
Been a favorite of mine for some time now. Big thumbs up.
Saturday 14 July 2007 at 12:35 am
Smoking is a dicey subject, but I'd rather you learn it from me than out on the streets.
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Friday 13 July 2007 at 7:50 pm
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Friday 13 July 2007 at 7:49 pm
The first in a planned series of tutorials that take no longer than 2 minutes to run through. Called, cleverly, Twotorials. This episode finds us learning the quick and dirty way to get quick and dirty in Illustrator.
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Thursday 12 July 2007 at 10:14 pm
"Game Theory" as it pertains to economics and global thermonuclear war doesn't always offer a lot to game design. But there are quite a few interesting examples anyways that illustrate points that can be used while designing a game. One example is "The Truel". Picture a wild west town. Three men all want to kill each other, but in the most civilized way possible - they decide to have a 3-man duel. A Truel, if you will. Mister White, Mister Black and Mister Red. You're Mister White and you're the worst shot in town. How are you supposed to survive?
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Wednesday 11 July 2007 at 10:26 pm
I hate the internet. Sure it has its good points but it does tend to ruin other things. Take for instance, Video Games. It used to be that I'd find a game in a store - the cover would look cool or there'd be a sweet ass screenshot and I'd think "Hey, This could be fun". Buying it and bringing it home, whatever happened happened. It was good, it was crap, it was whatever it was. If it was a good game, I was psyched. It if was a bad game, I was pissed. But I was never broken hearted. Cut to the age of information, where pretty much day-one of production we can hear rumblings about a game. Concept art and screenshots follow. Then interviews with the developers. Then gameplay footage emerges. And so begins the analysis amongst fans. Everyone is chirping and chiming on what they think is right and wrong with pretty much anything you can think of. Graphics, character design, even the name of game.
All of this occurs so very very long before the game actually comes out. We're given such an opportunity to form opinions and attachments. This is how I'm ruining
No More Heroes.
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Tuesday 10 July 2007 at 9:55 pm
In my daily life I have stashes of stress. Everyone does, right? It's hard to imagine someone out there who lacks the occasional teeth grinding moment. Biggie Smalls was rich and he was bitching about his mo' problems! So no small part of surviving life is finding those calm little places to crawl into and decompress. Nintendo's SoundVoyager just might help you unwind through the power of your GBA or DS. Can you dig it?
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Tuesday 10 July 2007 at 12:22 am
Aletonomikon (derived from the greek words 'to game/gamble' and 'the study of') is an open ended article devoted to the design and theory of games in the grand tradition of
The Art of Computer Game Design by Chris Crawford. While "Game Theory" as it applies to economics and global warfare is a well developed field, very few documents attempt to classify and quantify what the layperson would call a 'game'. As I personally learn by dissection, I decided to give it a whirl and truly breaking down what exactly goes into making a game. This work is by no means definitive or even guaranteed to be right.
I welcome all review and criticism of the work and would be thrilled to fix any mistakes or flaws in my theories.World 1-1 begins, like so many things, with luck.
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Thursday 05 July 2007 at 7:54 pm
Vivarium.
Not a cache name for the gaming public. It's a bit like GameFreak, it's a company you know - you just don't know you know them. GameFreak is responsible for the ubiquitous Pokemon franchise. Vivarium you know from the "highly" unique game Seaman ("highly" is in quotation marks for two reasons. One, 'unique' requires no adjectives as it can only be used to describe one of something. Secondly because I'm sure whoever thought of the game was stoned).
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Wednesday 04 July 2007 at 11:24 pm
As best I can tell, this is the only footage of Hopper's Vol. 2: Snake vs. Zombie floating around right now. It's from the video magazine Famitsu Wave. The video quality is good, but I never could find a translator for it (it's all Japanese all the time) and my encoding quality is a little lack luster (a few audio twearks). But... considering most people won't understand what they're saying anyways, I figure I can always try better next time.
Video after the jump...
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Wednesday 04 July 2007 at 9:37 pm
(This Review is from 2002, it's been unedited or updated. Merely brought into the new site format).
Mahjong is very popular game in Japan. Almost every videogame system ever to pass through has has at least one Mahjong game and most of the time it's some sort of 'Strip Mahjong' variant. There are several different ways to play Mahjong, but the one you'll encounter in most video games, this one included, is played with over 100 tiles with each player holding 14 in their hand, played similar to Poker with different types of 'hands'. Capcom vs. Psikyo is more or less standard mahjong with a few subtle additions that make the game a little more interesting. Capcom vs. Psikyo All-Stars Net Gimmick Mahjong is actually a pretty cool game. It stars over 60 character from both company's more famous titles. Most of the fun and gameplay comes from the heart of the game, which is basic Mahjong, but the addition of a progressive art gallery is a very nice touch if you're a fan of either company.
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Wednesday 04 July 2007 at 9:31 pm
(This Review is from 2002, it's been unedited or updated. Merely brought into the new site format).
Welcome to Cosmic Smash. Do you ever sit there and wonder what designers are thinking when they make a game? Do they know they're making a bad game? Does the game just become bad at the last minute and then they can see what bunk they made? Or do you think they just never know until people point out how bad it sucks. I know I have, but until I played Cosmic Smash...I never thought the reverse. Did Sega Rosso know they were making an awesome game or did it even surprise them? Enough questions.
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Wednesday 04 July 2007 at 9:25 pm
Wii-mail is upon you!
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Wednesday 04 July 2007 at 9:23 pm
It's astounding as time goes on that popular products, such as the XRGB line, become harder and harder to find. Even older versions. People are wising up to the beautiful picture one can get with a fine upscaling device. The days of the universal composite to VGA converter are happily coming to an end as more and more devices are transcoding component into three colors and some syncs. The question remains, though, pound for pound and dollar for dollar - what's your best investment?
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Wednesday 04 July 2007 at 1:34 pm
Waiting for more news on Capcom's comeback to the 2D fighting scene? What about this, in the meantime? Arcana Heart is finally announced for a home system. On October 11th Yuki's (now "Examu") recent arcade game will have a PS2 version published by AQ Interactive, as the picture on the left reveals (full version here). More on this soon.
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Wednesday 04 July 2007 at 12:49 pm
You wondering what I'll do?
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Wednesday 04 July 2007 at 01:26 am
Video System is famous for its Aero Fighters games on the Neo Geo, but that portion of the company went on to become Psikyo (after the first game?), leaving the company a shadow of its former self. See a bit about them here. They went bankrupt in 2001, but while browsing around yesterday, I came upon this upcoming game from publisher Compile Heart - and if you look at the copyrights, it's owned by Hamster, who's developing it, and Video System, presumably just the licensor. This game, Inufuku 2, is the sequel to a 1998 quiz game from Video System called Quiz and Variety Suku Suku Inufuku. Why they would want to revive this quiz game instead of making a new one is beyond me, unless whatever remains of Video System came to them with the idea...
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