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Back to the Future and Demon Souls satisfies Sean and Kevin’s lusts for time travel and fantasy adventure, respectively. We also discuss punching babies in Yakuza 2 and Kevin shares his recent rediscovery of Magic: The Gathering.
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Whenever I rant on about the terrible trend of digital distribution, I risk being stamped a kook. Then events like the recent PlayStation Network outage emerges and I feel vindicated. My rhetoric isn’t of issues that could arise; they’re consequences that are happening.
Ultimately, the outage was Sony’s reaction to hackers breaking into the network and pillaging private user information. I’ll likely expand on this, the true catastrophe of this event, in a later blog post or the podcast since it’s relevant to my religion (of sorts). But for the meantime, I’d like to begin by fortifying my previous points.
My basic position is that consumers are being duped into accepting it’s more favorable to pay admission for access than to trade for property. If digital distribution becomes the standard for media, consumers lose all their power in the market.
One of the bullet points in my case is that consumers will be completely dependent on the distributor to access the products they buy. Third party services like Hulu Plus and Netflix are reportedly included in the outage, which means that their subscribers have paid for services that they now cannot use. Video games that include multiplayer are now reduced to less than half of a full product. And thanks to DRM, some games are now effectively dead.
Villgust highlights all the wonderful elements that made 16-bit-era JRPGs so great. The Super Famicom game of this show’s origin was never released stateside, yet it feels like an old familiar friend. Acquire and view this OVA by any means possible.
Lessons to take from this venture: Boomarangs are dumb melee weapons, catgirls are not furries (regardless of what Kevin insists), and koalas are nature’s cutest sex offenders.
In the Method to Madness podcast, I’m joined with my good friend Kevin “The Business” Gray to discuss great anime and video games that you should be watching as well as ones you should feel ashamed you are watching.
It’s difficult to admit that I have a personal fascination with anthropomorphized characters without invoking the f-word. I’m no more a furry than a panda is a bear…or knows kung-fu while voiced by Jack Black.
I can confidently say that this is different. My preferred flavor of these characters is completely human, à la Lady Amalthea. Or, for the kids reading this, the Pokemon Girls. The familiar traits of their original form can either be anatomical accents or expressed through their costume. Otherwise, they’re indistinguishably human.
This isn’t a sexual attraction…well, at least not initially. Something about it just speaks to me. In the maelstrom of psychic alchemy, the conditions in my mind are such that this by-product can emerge. That is my best explanation.
There’s a review of the game in here; I promise. Bear with me.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:27 — 47.1MB)
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We don’t own any of the video games that we discuss in this podcasts. We possess them, sure. Even purchased most of them…through legit channels, for that matter! But by golly, we’re going to play the shit out of them while we have them.
At least, until The Man takes them all away.
Found in this episode is talk of games like Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Fallout 3, and various morsels of DLC.
In the Method to Madness podcast, I’m joined with my good friend Kevin “The Business” Gray to discuss great anime and video games that you should be watching as well as ones you should feel ashamed you are watching.
X-Men Arcade, based on the popular arcade game (based on the obscure animated pilot) has arrived to PSN and XBLA! Lured by the nostalgia of the 1990s-era arcade scene, I eagerly paid for the download. Was it worth it? In a word: *SNIKT!*
The HD upgrades to the graphics are attractive, but negligible for the most part. Like a crafted gift wrap, it’s the spectacle that captures your eyes, but is quickly cast away for its content. New voice-overs and soundtrack have been recorded, though you might not have noticed had I not just told you. And oh, this great century we live in where my home television can support the epic double-wide 6-player version!
This port is also packed with ROMs of the game from two different regions: USA and Japan. The Japanese version offers random item drops and a much more reasonable means of economically managing mutant powers. That being how you use up your power orbs before using your life energy as reserve.
The USA version does the reverse; removing the strategic aspect and more often resulting in your character’s demise well before they can use their power orbs. I admit it’s as clever as it is sinister… Modifying the game mechanic; thinking “outside the box” by incorporating it with the arcade cabinet’s function as a whole: To rake in profits.
You see, the arcade beat ‘em up, as a genre, was a racket. It’s laughable that coin dispensers were placed in arcades instead of tellers, since any player with hope of seeing a campaign from beginning to end needn’t bother stepping forward with less than a full roll of quarters at the ready. The cabinet’s belly will be filled either by the allowance of a single, overwhelmed player or by the collected admission of multiple players, bearing the onslaught abroad.
Whichever region you choose, the issue is rendered moot by virtue of the game being such a faithful port of its arcade progenitor. By ancient coin-op law, a player’s life expectancy is measured in 25-cent denominations. Continue to pay tribute into the coin chute and you may yet achieve immortality. In honoring this tradition in the port (in lieu of establishing limited lives and continues), a player may be resurrected to rejoin the fray infinitum. The game is essentially broken; hoisted by its own petard.
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So how do you keep an inexhaustible torrent of murder from descending into monotony? By relying on the arcade scene’s other great strength: Community. The human element transforms the game’s stage into a playground. There’s unique magic in the shared reaction to witnessing Nightcrawler pouncing on his sentinel prey, only to be met with a grenade launched point-blank into his teeth.
The multiplayer features of this game are beautifully managed. Online public co-op accurately recreates the arcade experience of meeting fellow gamers off the street, right down to the occasional team-killing, item-stealing trolls. To avoid this, you can create private sessions to host a party of only your trusted friends. Simultaneous local and online multiplayer is possible, though no matter what the setup, using mic headsets will make it complete.
X-Men Arcade is currently priced at ~$10, which is reasonable. But whenever a sale arises in the coming years, jump on it!
Run Time: 13min 37sec
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Here’s an extra holiday bonus… This is a rant that I put together on some topics that have been a popcorn kernel, long wedged in the gum of my molar.
For months, I’d outline rough articles on the harbingers of digital distribution and the abuse of Godwin’s Law against chimerical censorship. Mid-draft, some new report would spring up from the media, putting the SEAN SMASH! on yet another helpless keyboard and leaving the written article in wait.
The pen is mightier than the sword, yet impotent to the power of the microphone.
This month, we face one of the most significant days of the year for the gaming industry. No, not Thanksgiving; the day immediately following: Black Friday. It’s on this day that the holiday shopping rush officially begins!
Consumers will line up around local retail stores at the crack of dark to get first chance at some of the sweetest early bird specials. Whether you’re in said line to score some deals yourself or cursed with facing the plundering hordes from behind the counter, are you ready? If not, here are some helpful tips to get you through the day.
Last week, I took part in the Twitter discussion ignited by a recent Penny Arcade strip. The strip stems from a recent article perpetuating the ongoing, exhausting controversy of used video games. Publishers feel robbed. Consumers are bearing the blame. GameStop is the devil. By now, you know this song by heart.
Below, I revisit points brought up in this conversation…
Run Time: 51min 40sec
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Melty Lancer is like a Japanese version of the Justice League, minus any of the familiar character history. The fact that this OVA is based off of a JRPG on the Sega Saturn doesn’t earn it any favors from us either.
The lead characters rapidly transition from pop culture icons to super-secret black ops to street cops to saviors of the galaxy…all within six episodes. To suggest that this series needed more episodes will earn you a slap in the face… Because we’re not watching any more of this crap!
In the Method to Madness podcast, I’m joined with my good friend Kevin “The Business” Gray to discuss great anime and video games that you should be watching as well as ones you should feel ashamed you are watching.
