46 posts from 2008 (page 2)

I bought - nay - pre-ordered Eternal Sonata after I enjoyed the demo on Xbox Live to little itty bitty bits. Then, I never completed the game.

It seems like Tri-Crescendo has learned their lessons.

What I really detested about the 360 version:

1. The game makes me play through the exact same preachy storyline TWICE to get everything. That means going through some crazy long dungeons, again. Fighting the same repetitive sets of enemies. Again. Watching the cut scenes which looked marvelous the first time, but now drag on and irritate you the second time. I'd gladly play through again knowing there's multiple endings that depend on my choices.
   
2. Repetitive battles. Great battle system squandered on total lack of variety of enemies.
   
3. Brutal linearity. If you pass up doing something when you're supposed to do it right then and there you don't have chances to go back. I hope for a bit more freedom, especially when it comes to the side quests.
4. Characters aren't too well developed. They've got personality built through their choices of voice actor/actress as well as attacks, but for a game where story is a big deal, not knowing so much about everyone is a disappointment.

A lot of RPGs that interest me are headed towards the Xbox 360 pretty soon, but I really don't know if they're going to be exclusives for long. A lot of them are Japanese made, but I seeing how a lot of people outside of Japan disdain their taste in RPGs, keeping them on a console not doing so well in Japan is madness. Star Ocean 4 started as a PS3 exclusive according to Kotaku. Tales of Vesperia for PS3 is camping out on a "Coming Soon!" page at Namco without a date.

Anyways, moving on from the Xbox360 Crash Test Dummy phase of RPGs, the Wall Street Journal of all places had an article on Monster Hunter. Playing with other people, face to face? I know some people that play various online games meet up in the real world, but I doubt this "same space" gaming would work too well in the US. If anything, I find it a bit comforting that I'm not near some of the people I've played online games with. Especially children I've encountered over Xbox Live. I don't know what I'd do if I was in the same room as Chocolate Milk Boy(Warning: NOT WORKPLACE SAFE! Video contains heavy duty profanity.) Monster Hunter Frontier-Capcom's PC based online game has potential to succeed in the US but the PSP version...not so much.

and slay virtual foes. Is this a real money trading scam?

Nope, it's a very cute toy designed to encourage children to save coinage.

Grabber: Put some adventure in your studies!

Platform: PC, Nintendo DS, iPhone

Selling Points: Interaction makes language learning more meaningful. I've studied memory and encoding on a neurological basis in school and the more types of encoding you have while you process information, the more ways you can trigger it. When I studied languages, I found myself speaking aloud as I wrote.

Game Play: Standard text adventure format. I'd use a UI and format similar to Phoenix Wright or Monkey Island, whichever focus tests as being more usable.

Their words would appear on the touch screen. If you thought you knew the word, you could try and translate it. If you are right, you'd start seeing the word in English. That way, you'd be focusing on the words you're having trouble with.

I'd add a crutch like you could always ask "how do you say [word] in [language?]" and possibly an image-based dictionary. Point to an object, see the word as long as you're touching/mouse overing it.

Fun Factor: Add some meaningful context to your language! Ever get to a game and you needed a bit of info to get to the next level? That type of motivation is amazing and effective. 

With the 10 million Nintendo Wii systems out there, I was incredibly shocked when Boom Blox only moved 60,000 units since release. It looks like it's doing better internationally, but even then, it isn't the big smash hit that I'm sure a lot of people were expecting it to be.

Boom Blox has some things going for it that would help it sell in the casual market:

1. It's a fun game! I tried it briefly and it is very friendly. The time from putting the disk in to having fun is almost instantaneous!
   
2. Steven Spielberg branding.

Well, I hate to say it, but that's about it. And the list of what I think went wrong is pretty long.

1. The packaging design is a disaster. For starters, Steven Spielberg's name is barely legible.
2. The image on the package itself looks cheap, it doesn't really tell anything about the game. I'm going to blow up boxy animals? Cruelty to boxy animals?
   
3. Where were they advertising? Brain Age advertised in Time Magazine. I heard a Brain Age ad on KGO Radio when it was released ages go. Had I been in charge of where advertising dollars go, I certainly would have put some money aside for radio and national newspaper ads.
4. Name of the Game? Blocks are a kid's toy, and the packaging doesn't help.
   
5. Price Point is a possibility; $50 is hardly an "impulse buy" compared to other games.
   

So, a friend of mine messages me that May NPD numbers are out. I do a web search and the top result ends up being May 2007. Oops...Well, compare that to May 2008 and it's easy to be confused.

1. Pokemon Diamond—DS—Nintendo
   
2. Mario Party 8—Wii—Nintendo
   
3. Spider-Man 3—PS2—Activision
   
4. Pokemon Pearl—DS—Nintendo
   
5. Wii Play w/remote—Wii—Nintendo
   
6. Forza Motorsport 2—Xbox 360—Microsoft
   
7. Guitar Hero II w/guitar—Xbox 360—Activision
   
8. Spider-Man 3—Xbox 360—Activision
   
9. Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars—Xbox 360—Electronic Arts
   
10. Guitar Hero II w/guitar—PS2—Activision

1. 360 GRAND THEFT AUTO IV TAKE 2 INTERACTIVE (CORP) APR 2008 1 871.3K
2. WII MARIO KART W/ WHEEL NINTENDO OF AMERICA APR 2008 2 787.4K
3. WII FIT W/ BALANCE BOARD NINTENDO OF AMERICA MAY 2008 3 687.7K
4. PS3 GRAND THEFT AUTO IV TAKE 2 INTERACTIVE (CORP) APR 2008 4 442.9K
5. WII PLAY W/ REMOTE NINTENDO OF AMERICA FEB 2007 5 294.6K
6. WII SUPER SMASH BROS: BRAWL NINTENDO OF AMERICA MAR 2008 6 171.1K
7. PS2 IRON MAN SEGA OF AMERICA APR 2008 7 130.6K
8. WII GUITAR HERO III: LEGENDS OF ROCK W/ WIREACTIVISION (CORP) OCT 2007 8 116.8K
9. NDS POKEMON MYSTERY DUNGEON: EXPLORERS OF DARKNESS NOA APR 2008 9 107K
10. NDS POKEMON MYSTERY DUNGEON: EXPLORERS OF TIME NOA APR 2008 10 102K

Guess which is which....

Been futzing around with some doujin game demos lately.

Tearkiss -Princess Shade- is a hybrid action RPG with a few Shmup elements thrown in. It's shareware and I'm hoping that one of many doujin game dealers that ships to the US will have it.

The Ruins Of The Lost Kingdom is a freeware 3D action RPG that looks really well done. There's an offline version full of storyline sequences and an online version that lets you run around and whack enemies with a friend. Seriously, it's amazing that it's absolutely free of charge.

Future Pinball. Pinball video games can never quite capture all the clacks and physical entertainment that a real table has, but for those who can't afford the 3000 dollars for the real thing.

I've been using Sketch Up to help redecorate. I scanned an architectural layout of my room but didn't quite get it scaled properly according to Sketch Up's dimensions. Now I'm working with a version of my room that has 45' walls. WAY beyond what I actually have! Not being able to just drag and drop my furniture pieces around is a bit annoying too. A friend of mine gave me Unreal Tournament 2004 special edition with a bunch of tutorials on creating levels with Unreal. The nice thing about Unreal is I can make a version of my room with physics! EARTH QUAKE!!! *Imagines everything falling all over the place.*

Time to redo this in Unreal!

And now for a random post!

Nepotism and Shoddy Voiceovers go Hand & Hand. I understand cost cutting needs. You could probably get some insane anime fans at a community college who dream of being voice actors to do the job for a beer or something.

Game Stop has been liquidating some of their floor sample copies of games for 50% off or so. These games were opened and placed on shelves for players to peruse.

Given the success of Age of Conan, I'm curious to see if Capcom will localize Monster Hunter Frontier to English. It simplifies the number of attacks you can use which I like. The use of timing, positioning and attack choice looks rich, which I also like. Oh MAN it's bloody too! Blood isn't a huge turn off to me, but I don't seem to go seeking out the bloodiest games I can find anymore.

I'm being cautiously optimistic about a job I recently interviewed for. I had 2 good prospects; one was a long shot for a senior position. The company liked my potential, but in the end they really did want someone with at least twice my experience. I knew it was a long shot, I'm glad that I made it as far as I did. So I'm down to 1 really super prospect that fits my experience and will help me overcome a lot of my present shortcomings. I so don't want to jinx myself for this position.

It's a week until Etrian Odyssey 2 comes out, I entered a contest for it. If by some random chance, I both win and have to buy a copy, no worries, Etrian 1 is fetching prices over MSRP on the gray market. Atlus has conservative print runs; buy early.

I'm enjoying Kotaku's review of Ninja Gaiden II. This is really what I'd like to see. No numeric score or letter grade, since they really don't make sense to me. How is a 98 game better than a 97, especially when they're usually entirely different kinds of games. Tell us what's going on, what works and why(yes, that is an opinion...) and make the reader feel ready to decide for themselves whether or not they want to buy, rent or skip the game. 

This is a pretty neat tool for prototyping or even making a fast, 2D game. It's called GameMaker and it's an amazing tool that can help with rapid prototyping. Check it out!

Microsoft continues to utterly confuse me with their treatment of Xbox Live Arcade.

De-listing "poor performing" titles. Making the de-listing criteria based on Media Critic.com scores combined with sales. The Product Management Director for XBLA and the Xbox360 makes an analogy to Amazon.com:
"Think about a book on Amazon. It’s not always going to be featured on the front page of the store."

Sir, do you know how products get to the front page of Amazon.com?
When I'm logged into Amazon.com - and I would be logged into Xbox Live if I'm browsing from my Xbox360 - there are a handful of promoted items, but the majority of items on the front page are shown to me based off of my purchasing and browsing habits. What exactly shows up? Not whatever just came out. Not whatever the #1 best seller overall is. What shows up on the front page of Amazon.com for me will be unique to me and what I personally am most likely to buy based off purchasing patterns of all users. Unless someone out there has the same purchasing habits as I do.

I find the Amazon.com analogy especially ironic because Amazon.com rose to the top by carrying those obscure, under performing books that conventional retailers were removing from their shelves. Publishers loved Amazon for connecting them to customers who wanted books they stopped shipping to stores. Customers loved Amazon for helping them find books they thought they'd never be able to find.

I find it really sad that Microsoft doesn't even have a search page on their Xbox Live Arcade website. I see "Find A Game" and a scroll bar to peruse through the monstrous list of titles. There are absolutely no filters or search abilities whatsoever. The retail disk games catalog which has many more games and genres in it has a standard set of search functionality that I'd like to see done for XBLA. I should also remind Microsoft that Xbox 360s can handle USB keyboards so not having a search by title within the console interface is really inexcusable.

What makes a game "quality" and "fun" is entirely up to the players. With the right interfaces in place, good games will rise to the top while the crud sinks to the bottom.

Bah. Here's a like to an article that explains this issue really nicely.

I looked at Gamasutra's list of their top 20 influential women and I was disappointed. The list was mostly of female executives; while I am happy to see that these women are climbing to high positions such as "executive VP of global marketing" and all, I was hoping for a list of amazing women who worked like crazy in the development trenches creating and innovating awesome games. The women were instrumental in the creation of original IP and exciting experiences. Here it is, in order of me coming up with their names.

1. Reiko Kodama. She was one of the co-creators of the Phantasy Star series of role playing games for the Sega Master System and producer for Skies of Arcadia. It seems like she does everything from design games, create pixel art to managing the production of a game. Considering how much I loved Phantasy Star as a kid, I consider her to be an idol of sorts. I dream to meet her some day.
   
2. Mieko Ishikawa. A composer and now producer at Nihon Falcom. She was one of the original composers for Ys, an action RPG franchise known for having some of the greatest music ever in a video game. Mieko continues to take part in shaping Falcom's products. Falcom is a special company for sure, making a good deal of money on live concerts of their music(I'm pretty sure arrangements of Mieko's original pieces still persist) and arrangements of their music that weren't in their games.
   
3. Minae Matsukawa. Producer of the Phoenix Wright series. She's worked office jobs, a security guard job and just wanted to get into games. She did so with great success and I admire her for it.
   
4. Rika Suzuki did game design for Hotel Dusk: Room 215, Trace Memory and the first 3 Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior games.
   
5. Kim Swift. Right from graduate to Game of the Year winning pro is a leap many envy. She was one of the members of a group of students that made a project that became Portal, one of the greatest gaming phenomenon of recent times. Props to her and the other members of the student team that Valve snapped up in a jiffy.
   
6. Amy Hennig. Directed Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver. I enjoyed this game on the Sega Dreamcast, and thought is was pretty darn groovy that a woman directed it. Props to her!
7. Rhianna Pratchett. Writer and story designer for Overlord, that amusing game of causing mayhem through a combo of action and real time strategy. Thank you for making lines worth reading.

That's it for now, if I think of any more, I will add them to the list.