Welcome back to the stage of history…in a galaxy far, far away?
Earlier this week, geeks across multiple fandoms picked their jaws from the floor when they learned that the secret selectable characters in the upcoming Soul Caliber IV game would be Darth Vader and Yoda. Vader will be exclusive to PS3 and Yoda to the Xbox 360. The reaction so far seems to be a universal, “Wait, how does that work?”
Similar to my rantings about continuity nerds, fans of both genres are having a tough time accepting that such a cross-over could occur in each series canon. Most of this coming from Star Wars’ court, since gamers seemed to have little problem with the idea of Nintendo’s Hyrulian hero, Link, being a secret character in the Game Cube port of Soul Caliber II. And for Spawn, it was a simple matter of that no one cared. Star Wars, on the other hand, has a much more passionate following, spanning generations of fandom.
Fighting games are a tricky genre in that story isn’t at all necessary for you to enjoy the gameplay. It’s nice to give depth to the characters whose roles you’re assuming, but when you boil it down, it’s one guy out-punching another guy. Capcom has done a fair job maintaining a canon plot for their Street Fighter universe. But if the Versus series has taught us anything, it’s that even die-hard fanboys won’t let much disrupt our suspension of disbelief before enjoying a fun fighting game.
My only complaint in this new event is that with each character exclusive to each console, we’re denied the chance to play a battle between Darth Vader and Yoda. A Star Wars fighting game was attempted years ago and failed in the form of “Teräs Käsi” for the PSone. I think that with all the new Jedi characters introduced in the prequel movies and Expanded Universe, a decent Star Wars fighter is possible. Testing the waters again through Soul Caliber IV may be an inspirational step in that direction.
While the consoles on which Capcom will release Street Fighter IV is still up in the air, we have gotten confirmation that the game will be released in the arcades. My first reaction is that this is awesome! This is where Street Fighter was born and where it’s always intended to be played. This is where the fighting game community was founded. What a delightful nod to the nostalgic era upon which Street Fighter IV’s development was inspired.
Then I realized…there aren’t any arcades! I mean, there are, but they’re all but extinct. The closest one to me that I know of is a good three hour drive! I’d have to pray to God that a local bowling alley or pizzeria decides to carry it. Cuz otherwise, I was expecting my first exposure to the game would be on a console at a gaming center, like Game Frog.
I want to thank Capcom… We appreciate the extra effort for that sentiment, but it doesn’t do most of us any good.
The first new, original character set to debut in Street Fighter IV was revealed today. Her name is Crimson Viper and what’s known about her fighting style is that she uses fire-based attacks.
At first look, I can’t say that I like her. She looks more like a King Of Fighters character than one created by Capcom. The most successful characters that have come from Capcom’s fighters have all had one thing in common: They’re based on archetypes. You have your karate guys, the sumo wrestler, the soldier, the boxer, the brainwashed assassin, the dictator, the school girl, the wrestler, the gypsy… Even the characters from Darkstalkers and Rival Schools are each based off of an archetype. I think that this simple design makes the characters easier to relate to and understand. This may also be why one of Street Fighter III’s biggest weaknesses has been its cast of original characters.
Crimson Viper just looks…too complicated. Her costume, while stylish, makes no sense. She looks like some executive’s bodyguard. Is she, or is the costume just part of her personality? Or is it completely unrelated to the character, but the designers thought it would look cool? Maybe once we learn more about her, I’ll get a more accurate feeling about her. But seeing Crimson Viper does make me curious about what we might see next from the SFIV lineup…
It was reported yesterday what the new status quo will be for the upcoming Spider-Man comics. This is probably both good and bad for a lot of comic book fans out there, but mostly for the continuity nerds. I’ve never been a stickler for continuity when it came to reading comics. If you have a series that regularly changes creative teams, you need to be flexible in order for the stories (which are supposed to be the essence of comics) to be interesting. I see each new creative team arc to be an alternate version of the title character’s world; sharing some elements to maintain familiarity, but not identical.
What makes things hard for companies like Marvel and DC Comics is that they frequently have multi-title crossovers that involve the participation of their entire “universes”. Then once the event is over, some books will stay focused in that continuity while others will go through the creative team shift into a new interpretation. This understandably causes some confusion with many a faithful reader.
For example, one of the big notes in the Spider-Man press release that I totally expected concerned the recent “Civil War” event that Marvel had this past year. One of the key moments of that story was that Spider-Man revealed to the public that he was in fact Peter Parker. But as you can see in the release, Marvel’s explained that way simply as that everyone just kinda forgot and his secret identity is a mystery once more. Or in Simpsons terms, “a wizard did it.”
DC Comics tries to clean up their universe’s continuity by doing a “Crisis” event that basically reboots the DC universe. I don’t think that’s necessary, though. I’ve come to accept that with each new story arc, it’s more comfortable to experience it not so much as “this is Batman”, but more like “this is a Batman story”. Cuz who can really decide what is the definitive “Batman”?
I guess my big problem with all the continuity nerds out there is that they demand the impossible. First of all, it’s mathematically impossible for any comic book (let alone comic book universe) to maintain an accurate continuity. If you’re going for anything accurate, then you have to factor in that comic book characters age. If Cyclops joined the X-Men when he was a teenager in the 1960s, then he’d be in his mid- to late-60s by now! I don’t care what kind of cosmic powers the character has that might be used as an excuse for their slowed aging process, their non-superhuman supporting cast would age normally. Aunt May should be long-dead by now. Possibly even J. Jonah Jameson.
Secondly, with all the years that many books have existed, spanning the involvement of multiple creative teams, and if you include every cross-over or spin-off, who can seriously keep track of all that history? Yes, maybe comic book nerds. But unfortunately, the nerds that are best versed in even a single character’s history are also shitty writers. If you can get one person who can get one person with encyclopedic knowledge of a character who can also write a fulfilling story, then it’s an era of beer and skittles for fanboys the world over.
So in a way, I wish comic book publishers would make announcements like this more often. Instead of taking a great story and then retro-fitting it so that it’s compatible with the supposed continuity in order to satisfy nit-picking dorks, they come out an say, “Hey, here’s your Spider-Man for the this year. We think you’ll like him.” Sure, you risk turning away some of the niche audience, but in the long run you leave the door wide open to welcome in loads of new readership.
As you might have noticed, I’ve added some link buttons to the sidebar of the site. Just some places that I think are cool and deserve some attention. I may add or delete some of them as I go along (especially since Doujinaroni doesn’t really update anymore, though they’re still worth checking out).
Also, I’m no longer the soul author for this site, even though I do own it. I’ve invited Matt “Phantom Harlock” Kraft on board to contribute to the site’s content. Matt’s a buddy of mine that I’ve known since college and he was also my partner for the Alpha Counter radio show. I’m not sure how often he’ll post, but I look forward to when he does. Matt specializes in competitive gaming events, including first-person shooters as well as fighting games like Virtua Fighter. He’s also a fellow disgruntled geek, much like myself.
The Washington Post put up an article the other day mentioning what they call “5 web comics that will make you ditch your newspaper”. Of the five, two of my personal favorite web comics were mentioned, PvP and Perry Bible Fellowship.
PvP is probably the most famous of the group as well, and has been almost synonymous with the term “web comic” for nearly 10 years. I don’t read web comics nearly as much as I used to (and I say that with some shame), but PvP is the only one that I still read faithfully every single day.
Perry Bible Fellowship is a comic strip that’s filled with dark humor that you rarely see in any comic strip. Nicholas Gurewitch doesn’t update the strip very regularly these days, but his work is getting published in more and more sites and magazines.
There’s a few other web comics out there that I enjoy, some I would suggest for if they put together a top 10 list. I may link to them in later posts, but for now I’m just happy to see two of my favorites get this kind of recognition.
I was reading though this article that covered a study that found that 2/3 of college students play video games, consisting of 82% of males, as well as 59% of females. More significantly, the study showed that less than 1/4 of gamers play with members of the opposite sex. Further findings seem to reflect those discovered in the study I discussed in my previous entry, where it was shown that men prefer “challenging” games while women prefer games that are “fun”.
This all makes sense to me. However, I don’t think that it’s from lack of effort on the men’s part. Just about anything that a guy can do with a girl, the guy’s going to be up for. Hell, some may consider it foreplay.
From my experience, it’s usually the women that are hesitant to engage with the men. The women that I’ve spoken with (my girlfriend included) have all given me the same reasons why they don’t like playing games with guys: Guys tend to be overly aggressive. Guys are often condescending. And then there’s the showboating. This makes for far less an entertaining exercise between the sexes.
I think this comes down to attitude. Men usually approach a game intent on achieving an objective. Whether it be completing a level or defeating an opponent. Women typically play a game for the experience. To assume the roles of the characters through a story. Or goof around with their friends in a rhythm game or one of the Wii’s many physical party games. Something mentioned in David Sirlin‘s book: If you bring two people entering the same gaming environment with two different agendas for the experience, then it ceases to be a game. Not only do things fall apart in the game’s environment, but it also forms a wedge between the two people.
So here’s a tip, fellas… If you want to increase your chances of getting laid, learn some DDR.
A couple months ago, I made a post linking to a series of videos nicknamed “Asshole Mario“, which displayed home-made Super Mario World levels designed with incredible difficulty. Well, I’ve recently found another series titled “Syoban Action!”, which is a game styled after Super Mario Bros. and made completely from scratch. This game’s difficulty far surpasses “Asshole Mario” in that not only is thinking outside of the box more critical, but the overall lesson of the game is that you can’t take anything for granted!
I haven’t looked too much into it, but I’d wonder if whomever designed this game also made Jineseiowata no Daibouken, a flash-based game using ASCII characters which is being known as “The Hardest Mega Man Game Ever”. It certainly uses the same premise and dirty tricks.
Below, I’ve posted the video clip for level 2 (of 4), since it’s my favorite. You can find the whole series with links to each level here on GameTrailers.com. Oh, and at the end of each level’s video, there’s outtakes as well!
The comedy group, Those Lil Rabbits just released the third in their series of David Blaine spoof videos. These things are hilarious! I thought instead of posting the new sketch, I’d post the second one, since it’s by far my favorite…
