Vampires, Weekend

Castlevania (64) wasn't a very good game. I mean it wasn't horrible but it came out at a time (the late 90's) in which the video game industry was going through a transition from sidescrollers to the full on 3D sandbox games that characterize the current generation of platforms. As such Castlevania was a third person linear adventure game set in a world of highly polygonized walls and villains. Hard to believe that at a certain point it retailed for $70.

One of the things that sets this title apart from similar games of its time as well as other Castlevanias is the inclusion of the character of a young blue haired psychic girl that goes by the name of Carrie Fernandez. Now lets set aside the fact that that name is a horrible attempt at diversity and think about what the inclusion of such character meant for the franchise. Castlevania has always been a game in which a sword, whip or axe wielding blonde man with long hair walked through dungeons in search of a dracula. This game included such a character but also this young girl who had no axe, no sword but could throw magic balls of light.

What was the purpose of this? I'm sure they made it fit in to the story but why? was it a relatively early attempt to get female players interested? or was it a vain attempt at getting fanboys even more interested? I've no clue.

As far as character design is concerned Carrie isn't that interesting: typical anime inspired too young girl with big eyes and ambiguous hairstyle. Nothing to get the fanboys too excited, especially considering that far more risque characters existed at the time. She did shoot projectiles which meant she had a longer reach then the other guy but it wasn't so much of an advantage that one would consider her a cheap character.

But getting back to the actual gameplay, yes it was choppy as fuck and yes the camera was worthless but it did have some worthwhile moments, the bosses were pretty freakish and (if I remember correctly) pretty big. I seem to also recall potions and shit but this was ten years ago so most likely I'm thinking of something else.

Whatever happened to Castlevania? I don't know if more games have been released in the new consoles. Not buying a big fan of the series I don't really care to keep track. The only other Castlevania I remember playing is Castlevania Legends for the Game Boy. We're talking about black and white, brick game boy too. That title also had a female protagonist. You know with the whole Twilight and Vampire fad that seems to be running amok these days someone should really think about bringing this series back.

Stages: Sagat

Note: the title should be read as a parody of David Bowie's "Changes" (i.e Staaa aages)

We reach the penultimate of the original 12 Street Fighter 2 characters' stages. Sagat was demoted from being the boss in the first game to the boss's right hand man in the second edition, a demotion that would forever haunt him as Bison became the default final characters while Sagat remained marred as nothing more than Ryu's evil yet respected enemy.

It just so happens that the Thailand stage is my favourite in the entire game. There is something about the giant angled sleeping Buddha statue in the background which conveys a sort of majesty that certainly goes with the character even if it doesn't necessarily go with the country. To a kid playing these games when they came out wasn't about going to Thailand because it was full of sleeping giant statues, it was the mysticism attached to the statue, how that statue defined a particular religion, a religion that was completely different from what we grew up with.

Though curiousity about Eastern philosophy wasn't the reason why this stage was my favourite. It was mainly the aesthetics of it. The way the giant Buddha reigned over the entire screen in its somber sleep at an angle that looked almost 3D in the middle of the 2D gaming world. Besides it's not like you would see a lot of it. It was a pain in the ass to get to Sagat and once you did it you'd beat him in one or two tries and then you wouldn't see it again.

I suppose its safe to assume that Sagat is a Buddhist. All of that way of the warrior junk that he shares with Ryu, how they're both looking for nothing more then a challenge because they're so badass certainly would help the assumption. How such a warrior ended up being Bison's second is certainly beyond my comprehension but he did and now is merely second fiddle. Is this a metaphor for the country of Thailand? no.

So lets get back to the giant statue. A Buddha statue representing a Buddhist country makes sense, while it certainly not the only thing that defines the country but by choosing only one aspect and doing it right they managed to make the stage especially noteworthy. Yes they could have gone with a beach scene but that could be anywhere from Phuket to Acapulco. Yes there are giant Buddha statues in other countries but there is no fighter from Myanmar.

What was Thailand up to in 1989? I'm not gonna pretend that I know but the Buddhism thing is still going on today as it was in 1989 and way before that. By choosing to convey a timeless attribute they've turned a country that is otherwise known for knock off soccer jerseys into an ethereal landscape that will forever remain unchanged. You know just like Sagat's obsession with fighting and shit.

The story as the series progressed is the same with almost every other character. Capcom moved away from individual stages in favor of random locales which could be just about anywhere. At some point the fight was held at the statues feet, though I can't figure out if thats a legit Street Fighter game or some MUGEN stage. It's a shame too because individual stages based on the old ones with today's technology would have been the balls. It might be making a comeback in Super Street Fighter IV but I'm not to happy with how thats turning out to really care. More on that in a future post.

Bad Name, Bad Product?

Today Apple unveiled the horribly named iPad to the waiting arms of the Internet. Now once we move away from the "sounds like a maxi pad" jokes (yes finally, iTampon is a trending topic on twitter) we can begin to see what this new Jesus device will mean to the gaming world as a whole. Both to the game companies, the game developers and, perhaps most importantly, the gamers.

I'm not one to talk about specs because I didn't waste six years of my life getting a political science degree so become an expert on fancy computer words so lets talk about the looks and the possibilities. As was expected its basically a big iPhone, it looks like a big iPhone, it comes with pretty much the same built in features (except no camera on and phone so really its a big iPod Touch) and can run all the apps that are currently available. It can also be catalogued as half a laptop but that's not exactly true.

Because it can run any app it already has a huge library of games before its even launched. More games can, of course, be downloaded at a price that is way cheaper then other handhelds. The drawback? well like its smaller cousin it has to buttons. The iPhone can work its way around that with screen joysticks and other nonsense but the iPad is bigger and will be more clumsy when it comes to playing games in this manner. Games in which you tilt the screen or slide shit across shouldn't be such a big problem, just a matter of getting used to the device's bigger real estate.

The iPad can play games with the screen size the size of an iPhone or the screen can expand to cover the whole iPad screen. How in the hell one plays a joystick game with the small screen centered on the tablet is beyond me. There's also the issue of the games themselves, their small price and indie nature usually mean that graphically they're not the greatest. The iPhone has its limitations game wise and bringing those to a bigger screen will make them, well, bigger. Not to say that indie equals bad, on the contrary indie usually equals innovation, but does the absence of actual legit developers demerit the system? does it demerit the industry? it might. But then again graphical improvements and all that hoopla should be the domain of Microsoft and Sony.

As a handheld console it doesn't pose much of a threat to the DS and PSP. Why? because the iPod touch and iPhone already do that. The tablet will be a sort of middle ground between the handhelds and the home consoles, not quite fitting into either category. Think of it as a Virtual Boy without its doomed limitations. Yes it will eat its share of the market but its not an alternative to any of the handhelds, its a lot more and it appeals to a completely different crowd. This isn't something some dude will get for their nine year old to keep him quiet during car rides, this'll be something that dude will buy for himself for other reasons and use it for gaming only because it has the feature.

What about the device as a substitute for everything else. FUCK! think about reading a book, a magazine, a comic on it. Think about watching TV, a movie, surfing the web. When the iPhone came out it was the greatest thing ever (it still is) because you can do all the above stuff on a device that fits in your pocket. Now take the iPhone and make it bigger and suddenly watching movies and reading your rss feeds dont require you to squint at a small screen anymore. But it also no longer fits in your pocket so dragging it around with you is a real commitment.

So whats the verdict? I have no fucking clue. I havent seen it, I havent used it. I've read great reviews but also feel its not exactly groundbreaking, astounding or necessary. The miracle was the iPhone so this is mainly a beefed up version of the miracle. It also doesn't fix the iPhone's biggest problem: multitasking. This might be its downfall. It's not a motherbox, its not war machine designed to guide missiles into enemy territory (though I'm sure therell be an app for that) what it is is a piece of nerd porn, a status symbol which screams you're either part of the it crowd or you just drank the kool aid. It's a non entity which doesn't belong to any category but doesn't fill any need.

If Video Games Were Named....

College Humor has been surprisingly funny and less fratboy-ish lately. It's surprising actually, I used to have to be a 6 foot tall white guy from a red state to enjoy it but now it regularly features shit that even my sophisticated asocial persona finds appealing.

For example see today's "If videogames were named after the phrases said most while playing them" feature. I have found myself saying that exact phrase when playing Modern Warfare 2 though the one I've said most times (in multiplayer) has to be "oh a grenade launcher? HOW FUCKING ORIGINAL!!!!" and "I'm shooting you in the fucking head! Why WONT YOU DIE!" But I'm sure that's just me.

So go to the link and see a few more. Unfortunately it's literally only a few more, get to work College Humor!

Link

Loser of (Last) Week
-San Diego football fans. Why? WHY!!! do you do this to us every fucking year Chargers? Jesus Christ, so much promise followed up by so much mediocrity. It's sad! the Pats have three SuperBowls, The Colts possibly two, Big Ben has two and we have exactly nothing. Well we have the best team in the league but we have nothing to show for it. I'm almost tempted to refer to our team as the Buffalo Bills of the '00s but the Bills at least went to the SuperBowl.

Guns n' Irony

This is my Tar 21 Assault Rifle. There are many like it but this one is mine. And so on and so forth. Ive grown accustomed to using the Tavor Assault Rifle as my default weapon in Modern Warfare 2's online multiplayer so much so that all of my customized classes use the rifle with differing scopes, attachments, special grenades etc etc.

Of course thats not actually my Tar 21, mine is often times decked in urban, digital or forestry camo. Coming soon: blue and red tiger!. Also mine is contained squarely inside a video game and not, you know, in real life.

Now to the irony! before even getting the rifle I named my classes as follows: Jihadi, Hezbollah, Hamas, Sandinista, Partizan. Great names, all related to different militias and/or revolutionary and/or resistance groups either of the socialist or Arab nationalist persuasion. I'm not just doing for the names, you see, I actually know about these groups, I've studied them, I understand the implications of having them present. I'm not necessarily in favour of any of these groups but I am aware of them. It's not a tribute, its mostly an acknowledgement.

This isn't the ironic part, the irony is that the Tar 21 is an Israeli weapon, used prominently by the Israeli Defense Forces against, among other groups, Hezbollah and Hamas. Ha! Ok maybe its not ha ha funny but it is certainly noteworthy. Obviously there's no political statement being made here. In the eternal struggle between the Israelis and the Palestinians who is right? I don't know. I don't side with either of them really. Certainly nobody is right when blood is being shed for moral or religious reasons but thats neither the scope of this post or of this blog.

And that is that. I haven't written about MW in a while so I thought I'd bring the topic back. I'm getting better at it. Now instead of killing four baddies and being killed 22 times its more like a 12-12 ratio which won't get you an atomic bomb but its good enough for third or fourth place.

Pokemon!

double psyduck ftw

Lets talk about Pokemon today. I dont believe there has ever been anything that went from fad to phenomenon to lame to retro cool in such a small span as Pokemon did. If I remember correctly it came to America roughly ten years ago, it was massive on the Game Boy and it was a merchandising juggernaut. There was Pokemon in everything from school supplies to macaroni to cars because demand was so ridiculous. Of course the crown jewel of the entire thing were the Pokemon cards whose main achievement was to set the stage for Yu Gi Oh and spawn a disturbing number of Wizards of the Coast stores. Ah the late 90's!

I was of course a nerd hooked on the whole thing even in the 7th and 8th grade. Yes I have a shit ton of Pokemon cards (some of my favourites) and yes I went to see the first movie on its release day and yes I left it all behind as soon as I found a girlfriend who would not have any of that shit. I once spent $25 on a Charizard card and guess what? I don't regret it. But it all ended, just like my Power Rangers obsession before it, when they got too cute, when they started getting greedy, specifically when the 150 monster roster ballooned into an unwielding beast which now probably numbers in the 500s.

The main problem is that the first 150 characters seemed to all have distinct personalities and designs, the later designs started getting lazy. Sure there were some standouts but for the most part the basic design session probably consisted of someone either finding a plant or an animal, painting it a weird color and then adding unnecessary zig zags and swatches and spikes and doodads. Not only did it get difficult to keep track of all the new characters but it also became boring. I mean except for Mudkips and this guy every character after Mewtwo is a fucking alien looking ponce.

But it made a comeback! usually for something to become retro cool at least two decades have to pass. Take the 80's: everybody fuckin loves Thundercats, the NES and so on. That retro cool fad hit its apotheosis in the 2000's, two decades later. Pokemon has made a comeback only a decade into its prominence in America. Now its cool to like oldschool Pokemon, its hip, so much so that my artsy girlfriend even wears a Pikachu shirt happily! (well maybe not happily). The franchise has made a remarkable comeback and its still holding strong in its earnest, non-ironic side.

So was Pokemon good? fuck yeah. It brought anime to America in a way that DragonBall and Sailor Moon couldn't. It brought the Japanese tradition of heavy merchandising, it made the religious zealots uneasy, it made nerds to collected them all Gods and those who didn't pussies. It turned boys into men and prevented this guy from getting laid. Pokemon!

Alive Forever

Alive 4 Ever is a game that borrows heavily from the Xbox 360 title Left 4 Dead. From the zombierrific premise to the inclusion of a 4 in the title this iPhone game is basically an over the top (as in the camera is on top) version of the Left 4 Dead without the camaraderie that the Xbox title is able to achieve on its Live multiplayer.

We can go on and on about how much Alive 4 Ever borrows from Left 4 Dead but that wouldn't be any fun. The actual game though: lots of fun! ok maybe not "lots" but it is sorta fun. It's customizable as fuck, four different characters representing at least three ethnicities and at least two genders, hoards of zombies coming at you, loads of weapons, 30 stages. For an iPhone game its huge. It's fun, and I believe its like a dollar so have at it.

But the real reason for the post? I was playing this thing today and as I was scrolling through the available characters I passed by the one pictured above (the girl) and it turns out her name is Anna Lennox. For some strange fucking reason my immediate thought was "Isn't that the singer for the Eurythmics?" now I'm not a fan of the Eurythmics and I seriously doubt that I've ever conscientiously listened to a Eurythmics song but it turns out that yeah, their singer is Annie Lennox. Well played Alive 4 Ever. Your move Eurythmics.

Anyway, not much more to say, I give this game six out of seven stars.

Tetris! in First Person!

Well prepare to get nauseous. Someone has finally taken Tetris and made it into a first person game. Now this doesn't mean you'll be maneuvering a figure composed of four squares through an urban warfare setting armed only with a gun and the knowledge that you can always respawn. No, it means that now its the screen doing the rotating and not the figure.

It's fun, sure, but it also makes you want to throw up. The upside? well its a new spin to Tetris and its free to play. It's not available on a console or iphone (yet) all you have to do is go to the following link. It'll transport you to a magical place in which TV screens were still square, the NES was the balls and Maxell had the recordable VHS market cornered.

First Person Tetris

Power Ups

Alright today we take a look at the new power ups available in Super Mario Bros Wii. We do not spend time on mushrooms, invincibility stars, Yoshi or the kick ass fire flower because those are not exclusive nor new to this game. Sure its very much the case that the fire flower is the greatest power up ever, and it remains so in this game, but for now we take a look at the three new upgrades.

The Ice Flower - Like the fire flower but instead of throwing little fire pellets Mario, Luigi and their unnamed fungi cohorts throw (get ready for it) ice. The ice freezes enemies but it does not eliminate them automatically. Instead the player has the ability to pick up the newly created ice block and hurl it at someone or something. This does come in handy sometimes but I'd rather just have the baddie gone for good. The other upside to the ice is that some baddies that are immune to the fire pellets are frozen by the ice (bones, bullets, thwomps come to mind). I'm happy to report that Boo remains immune to just about everything.

Penguin Suit - Well its tradition that Mario turns into some sort of animal and for this game that animal is a penguin. When dressed as a penguin Mario walks funny, is able to throw ice projectiles like with the ice flower and is able to swim faster and more easily. Underwater it basically serves the same purpose as the frog suit did in Mario 3. Its great for swimming, its as good as the ice flower but it unfortunately does not help with the slippery floors in the ice world. This severely devalues this power up, its sparse availability devalues it even further.

Propeller Suit - The best new power up in the game. It comes in a form of a mushroom that flies up when it pops out of the power block. Once caught Mario dons a red speed suit with a pretty cool helmet (with a propeller at the top of it) that allows Mario to fly up and then float down in a semi controllable fashion. Yes previous games allowed full on directional flight while this only lets you basically jump really long distances but its still really useful in certain situations. This game has an unusually large amount of platforms and shit that moves, if you have a propeller mushroom you can just fly from safe spot to safe spot. Ii you're playing multiplayer you only need one suit to get through. The amount of awesome in this powerup is truly difficult to quantify.

So there it is. We've seen weirder stuff in previous games, flying raccoons, Terminator Mario, Giant Mario, Tiny Mario (which returns in this game) so a flying suit and ice flowers really arent out of the ordinary. Poweups have always added to the individual charm of each Mario game, these new additions represent the Wii version well.

Loser of the Week: The American people in 1998. Turns out Mark McGwire used steroids for the longer part of his career including the Home Run chase of 1998. In other news the Earth is round, the sky is blue. In retrospect we were duped into thinking we were witnessing history, in fact we were witnessing the apex of the steroid era. I don't have an issue with the whole "cheating" thing because technically steroids were legal at the time but it still kinda sucks when we consider that even though Babe Ruth and Roger Maris were doing it in simple times they were also doing it on nothing but beer and hot dogs.

Picture Post 9

Not sure whats going on here? yeah me neither.

Go here for the answer. (nsfw unless you work at a factory that allows, nay celebrates, 8 bit nudity).

Dirty Pirate, Poet

You know you're a video game nerd when someone asks you something about the great Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and you automatically picture his namesake from the Soul Calibur series.

Ok I'll grant you that Miguel de Cervantes is an obscure character to most Americans, especially to those Americans preoccupied with fighting games but I'm not most Americans. I (almost) minored in Spanish in college, I took and mastered AP classes in both Spanish Language and Literature! I'm the cousin of a pretentious poser who every year goes to the Mexican bourgeois booze and book fest known as the "Cervantino". I should know better.

But Cervantes (the character) has a certain charm to him. I remember my first encounter with him and the soul series, playing at a ragtag arcade establishment in Tijuana after school. Of course the original Soul Blade was primitive by today's standards but it looked amazing then. The inclusion of a Spanish named character was something to be amazed about, it didnt matter that he was essentially just a dirty pirate, he was still essentially a badass and in an odd way he represented "my people". It was the beginning of an odd fascination/love for the series which goes on up to today.

NHL 09 on the Cheap

A few months back I wrote an entry detailing how REDACTED was selling NHL 07 for the stupidly amazing price of $30 American despite the fact that the title had been out for more than three years and other retailers, online and otherwise, offered the same title for a lot less. As is customary for myself I made a bunch of quips about how outdated this place is, how they're going out of business and so on.

While this might still be technically true I now feel obligated to share an update on this situation. Turns out that about a month and a half after my post graced the front of the internet I found NHL 09 at the same store for $5.99. I of course had a surrogate buy it for me instantly. Now, while this is truly a noteworthy occurrence, I should also note that NHL 07 remains available for $30.

What does this all mean? well that one of my initial thoughts was accurate: its not that the place still wants that much for a three year old outdated game but rather their pricing system was horribly outdated when it came to software. NHL 07 fell through the cracks and was never marked down. NHL 09, on the other hand, was marked down as soon as NHL 10 came out.

So at least their situation is getting better. REDACTED was (and still is) getting eaten alive by more savvy retailers such as Wal Mart and Target not to mention the online competitors. The biggest problem here, aside from the loss of revenue, is that this situation did not help this place shake off its image as an old, outdated store in which your parents used to shop but you wouldn't be caught dead in. Everybody's parents eventually die and once that happens you've just lost your base.

It's a good sign that they're getting their shit together but by no means does this make REDACTED even relevant as compared to the realities of today's mercantile situation.

Fuck Yeah

Great meme...or the greatest meme?