Gone for Spring Break

Yes I'm gone for a week. I'll be back next Sunday. In the mean time here's an old ad for Battletoads.

KOF 13: Here We Go Again

King of Fighters XIII was announced a few weeks ago and today SNK released the first of what promise to be tons and tons of screens. They made a point of featuring Mai and her jugs first and foremost too as if to say "look fanboys we know we screwed up but please accept our apologies, in the form of Mai's jugs".

Will the inclusion of Mai make everybody forget that KOF 12 was essentially a very good looking piece of mediocrity? umm probably not but the inclusion of King and Yuri will probably do the trick. Actually no, we'll have to wait until we see actual gameplay and some improvements in both the main arcade/story mode and online gameplay.

Lets face it, SNK, Capcom has all but eaten your lunch when it comes to retro goodness both in terms of profiting from nostalgia and delivering a great gaming experience. You still have your great looking revamped 2D sprites to fall back on but with BlazBlue and Guilty Gear cornering that market its hard to figure out where exactly it is that you belong.

I, of course, want to believe that this will be a return to form for SNK and I'm a sucker for great artwork so I'll give this a try. That is, of course, if the reviews dont bury it before it arrives.

By the way you know what else I appreciate SNK? stuff. How about including some tangible extras in a special edition? hell how about including some extras in the regular edition just as a way of asking for forgiveness. Give us stuff, SNK, and I assure you we will forgive you. Give us a good game and I assure you you'll become relevant once again.

Pricing Schemes

Since I posted that entry about Infinity Ward's upcoming "Stimulus Package" map pack I've had a chance to not only think about the whole thing but actually learn the price that this stimulus will cost us. Turns out the price will be 1200 Microsoft Points which translates into $15 American and about 15,000 Schrute Bucks.

That's a whole lot of Schrute bucks.

Yes this price sucks, yes its double that of the map packages that were available for the first Modern Warfare and yes out of the five included maps two are actually old maps from that first MW title.

In effect what Infinity Ward, or more accurately Activision, is doing is stealing from its rabid base. Fifteen dollars is too much money for any add-on, regardless of how many hours us players and them creators have invested in the game. Fifteen dollars is 25% of the cost of the friggin game despite the fact that you're not getting 25% more game.

The problem is that Activision does in fact hold a monopoly on the add-ons and expansions for this game. As such they, like the East India Company and AT&T before them, have the ability to charge whatever the fuck they want for their product. I'm not saying this is fair, quite the opposite actually, but I'm saying this is a fact. It's an unfortunate side effect of the online stores and the add-ons market as a whole.

I don't have a problem with paying for extra content but I do have a problem with being gouged for extra content and this is exactly what's occurring here. Actually I'm surprised this sort of thing didn't occur earlier. It seems like at some point we all agreed how much a bonus costume, a bonus stage, an actual game should cost and have been living with these costs ever since. Now Activision realizes that we'll pay just about anything and goes ahead and doubles their prices.

This might be the final stand for the Modern Warfare franchise too. Not because its fans will suddenly feel robbed and stop playing the game but because of the entire fiasco that was the firing of Infinity Ward's head developers. The Modern Warfare franchise will live on but will it really if the games are being created by someone else? I know that Call of Duty games have been developed by all sorts of different companies but this is no longer Call of Duty, this is a whole new beast, one that has far surpassed the original and one who's fanbase will only take so many slaps to the face. This pricing scheme was the second one, we'll see how many more they dish out.

Minimum Carnage

I have to admit I thought of that title before even thinking of this entry. Minimum Carnage. Har har.

Maximum Carnage is a game for the SNES that came out in the mid 90's. As such, and like the JLA game we reviewed not too long ago, it offers a foray into the world of superheroes as envisioned in that horrifying decade. Namely big muscles, big explosions, misogyny and Rob Liefeld.

The game is based off the eponymous comic book event Marvel published in 1993 which saw Spider Man teaming up with the quintessential 90's anti-hero: Venom to destroy a much meaner version of Venom, if you will, the red gooey whatsit known as Carnage. I've never actually read this thing but I imagined that what ensued was full of testosterone and machismo.

To say that this game sucks would be unfair. It is, after all, a product of its time and even though its primary objective was to cash in on the successful comic book it does offer yet another version of the 3/4 beat-em-up. And as a member of such a fraternity it is fairly indistinguishable from the Double Dragon's and Turtles in Time's of its day. The graphics are good enough, as one would expect this is a colorful world with characters that take up a good chunk of the screen, and fighting moves that are on par with the fighters and beat em ups of the time.

But the drawbacks are too many to make this game worthwhile. The baddies are as repetitive as you would expect, you basically fight through New York beating up what appear to be old homeless men, punk teenagers and women. Yep Spider Man beats up on women in this one. When you reach the end of a level you fight a boss who is usually someone from Spider Man's rogue gallery. In the end, I assume, you take on Carnage himself.

The game is also unbelievably cheap. The lesser thugs will gang up on you and kick your ass solely because they have a numbers advantage. Yes you can eliminate these guys easily enough but not when you're punching one and another one decides to drop kick you from behind. The odd thing is this is labeled as a Spider Man-Venom game but its not two player, instead you have the ability (in some stages) to use Venom but for the most part its just you and Spidey. Had they made this a two player game the action would be much less frustrating. As it stands there are limited heals, you only get three lives and just one continue.

In later stages you can get some help from other superheroes but their help is limited and you actually have to get to these stages with your three lives and one continue. It's frustrating, its not worth the time and effort and it looks like they tried to sell this thing solely on the basis of its cartridge being red. Yes the cartridge is kickass but the gaming is the equivalent of being stabbed in the eye with a pencil.

Some Randoms

This last week's been pretty bad: sick, work, no access to the SNES. So this has led to a slowing of the updates. There are some news to report:

-Hakan has been officially unveiled for Super Street Fighter IV.
-This weekend was free play for Xbox silver members on Modern Warfare.
-And well actually that's it.

Fortunately I do keep a stash of shit to post for when situations like this come around, namely links to stupid articles that I star on my Google reader. Here are two such articles dealing with video games in real life.

On Buzzfeed.
On Cracked.

Loser of the Week - Photobucket, I like you, I do, you're an integral part of this blog, fuck you're the the fifth Beatle of this blog! but honestly you're not Flickr, you're not Tumblr so please stop trying to be like them. I don't want to catalog and tag my images, at least not with you. So please when I upload something limit yourself to just fucking giving me a link that I can quickly copy and paste. Ok? thanks! bye.

Mapathy

Can we start salivating now? five new maps for Modern Warfare 2 will be released on March 30th. So that's the date I get over my complaining about how Microsoft insulted me eh? well played Microsoft, well played.

And because the internet can't keep secrets here is a video detailing the five maps that are coming out: Storm, Complex, Crash, Overgrown and Compact. Hmm...even if there are only two map packs with five maps each that still takes the grand total to 26 different maps. I'm not saying that the current 16 don't offer great variety but with the addition of ten more it looks like the fun will literally never stop.

Or actually it seems like the fun will stop because of the whole Infinity Ward vs. Activision crap but thats a topic for another day.

Ubisoft's Football Entry

You know in cartoons when someone is frozen or told to stop and does so suddenly and is left sorta teetering in the position they stopped and they look like there is a sort of tension of they stand on the brink of either going off to one end or the other? no? well I can't think of any examples of this to link to but I'm sure you have a vague idea of what I'm talking about.

Anyway that's the feeling I got upon seeing this article on Kotaku today which talked about a possible new FIFA street style arcade game from Ubisoft which promises to deliver the greatness of soccer without the pretentiousness of the actual FIFA's and Pro Evo Soccers. For you see it looks like a great idea, a great concept (like FIFA Street 2) but could also be complete horrible wreck (like FIFA Street 3).

I'm on the fence on this and of course it'll all depend on how the game actually plays. Let us count the ways in which I am now judging this entire game (which might or might not come out) just based on a few screencaps.

-The art style is great, like the Madden games for the Wii or, more appropriately, the FIFA Street games instead of focusing on realistic models they go with uber deformed models whose muscles are exagerated, lankiness is extremized and so on.

-Some licensing! Hey look its Messi! Gatusso! Puyol! Puyol's glorious hair! and they're wearing official Adidas and Puma gear! here's the thing, Pro Evo: if you're ever gonna be taken seriously (by me) you need to have actual players and teams. Its very important. This game has started off on the right foot.

-Whoa Whoa Whoa....is that Alexis Lalas and Coby Jones? what is this game set in the early to mid 1990's when these guys were still relevant? I mean even if you're gonna throw in some legends (like FIFA Street did) are these two actually legends?

-It's five on five. Look I'll be honest, I may be a hardcore badass hooligan but playing a soccer game can get kinda boring. Shit watching a soccer game can get kinda dull too, this should help ease that. Throw in a good soundtrack, maybe some NBA Jam shit and you should have a winner.

But then again can we really judge this thing on five or six screenshots? nah not yet, especially since it might be rushed to cash in on the World Cup, maybe when we get a Youtube video we'll be able to see what's up with this.

Justice League Taskforce

Justice League Task Force is without a doubt a product of its time. You blow on the cartridge, put it into the slot, slide the power button and you're immediately transported back to the mid 90's. Sure it was a great time in general: pre 9/11, economic prosperity, new weekly episodes of both Full House and Family Matters, the apex of the Atlanta Braves dynasty. But for the comic book industry it was actually the dark ages.

The 90's will always be marred by the rise of the uber masculine superhero as first envisioned by Image Comics (google Rob Liefeld) and later adapted by both of the big two. Whereas the 80's signaled a revolution towards the anti hero, towards imperfect, often imbalanced heroes the 90's gave us loads of steroids, bad hair and unparalleled machismo. It wasn't pretty.

Not to say that JLA Taskforce isnt pretty: for a mid 90's game the character design is nice, with colorful, beefy sprites that take up a significant amount of TV real estate, nice background stages and decent music the game could justifiable be found at your local KMart for thirty bucks.

Where it falls apart is in the gameplay department. Like all fighting games of the era it tries to be Street Fighter but the action is too choppy and random to merit such a comparison. The six available characters (and three bosses) all play the same, they all (except one) have a charging attack and projectiles which can all be used with the hadoken command. Boring. Street Fighter tried to give us different fighting styles, JLA Taskforce takes two of those styles and applies them to known superheroes and calls it a game.

And a very difficult game at that! n00bs will soon be changing the difficulty setting when they discover that even the first character in the story is impossible to beat on medium. All of these characters fight cheap: you jump they throw you a projectile, you throw a projectile they jump kick you, before you realize it your life meter is flashing and you're about to die.

But lets get back to the available characters, shit lets break them down one by one:

Superman: the mere thought that anybody can challenge a guy that flies, has laser vision and is stronger then hell is laughable but I guess he's fighting fair here.

Batman: I fucking love Batman.

The Flash: not cool hat Flash but rather spandex muscles 90's Flash. Oh by the way Joe Higashi called he wants his tornado attack back.

Wonder Woman: because you need to have a woman in here. (Cheetah is also in it as a boss).

Aquaman: D'you wanna get high Aquaman???

Green Arrow: Wait Green Arrow is in this? holy fuck talk about your unlikely inclusions! yes I knew he was in it, yes this is the reason why I bought this game. Any more questions?

Like I said the stages are very easy on the eyes, from the Daily Planet globe to Aquaman's underwater Aquatic Justice center, even Batman's Gotham is as dark and pretentious as he is. By the way Green Arrow fights in the forest. Really? the forest? it's like the developers had never heard of Green Arrow but they figured since he looks like Robin Hood then he must be Robin Hood.

Oh shit, how about the story? its pretty easy to follow: Darkseid has declared war on earth (this is literally what it says) and its up to the JLA to fuck him up. Obviously the JLA is up to it and they go about doing it by....fighting against each other? try to figure that one out.

All in all a very interesting game that might be incredibly frustrating but is cool nonetheless. A DC fighting game is by definition kinda fun, especially since it wouldn't happen again until they struck a deal with Mortal Kombat to try to make both franchises relevant again.

Teaser

After all, Red & Black are my favourite colors.

Ah Capitalism

Someone has paid $800,000 dollars on eBay for the NES game you see pictured above. Let me enunciate that: eight hundred thousand dollars. Almost one million dollars for a sealed copy of a very rare game (probably the rarest from what I've read), which only has value because the handful of collectors willing to pay such prices think it has that value.

Its pretty sad that we've gotten to this point. On the one hand sure its a piece of history just like a Picasso or a Warhol painting whose value should be determined by what it means to the person purchasing it and what the consensus is among those who would want such an item. But on the other we're talking about $800k for what is essentially is plastic inside a box wrapped in more plastic.

But this is what capitalism is all about: not only having the freedom to own private property but having the freedom to own whatever private property you want and spending whatever ridiculous amount of money you want for it. That we've reached the point in which a video game is worth that much money probably proves some point that Marx made in Das Kapital or the Brumeire. What that point is evades me right now but I'm sure it would have something to do with not being a fucking moron.

I'm kinda glad for the person who sold it though. A game collector, someone who obviously loves video games, selling it probably because this game has fetched up to $40,000 previously and deciding to cash in. And why not? the way I see it the person who bought it isn't a game collector like you and me but some rich guy who can afford to splurge in stupid stuff like this. Shit, its probably Todd McFarlane. The transfer of wealth from such a person (or casino or hedge fund or whatever) to a regular citizen is great, I'm sure eBay is happy about it too.

I'm also happy since that auction where I bought Killer Instinct, Maximum Carnage and a JLA game for $20 now seems like a steal.

So the moral of the story? simple:

1. find a copy of Stadium Events
2. Put it up for auction on eBay
3. ????
4. Profit.

Two Big Revelations

A clearer and somewhat contradictory picture of new Street Fighter Hakan surfaced today. The Arab fighter is now Turkish and instead of being a white haired, dark skinned version of Abel he now has a mustache. I've always said that we need more mustaches in video games. Sure Mario has a mustache and he's the biggest character in video games but still: you can never have too many mustaches.

The picture is pixely, its blurry, it looks like someone took a cellphone camera to take a pic of a non-HD screen but that's beside the point. From what I can tell he looks badass and a welcome addition to the roster. I might complain a lot about this game but the now six new characters (Abel, Viper, Fuerte, Rufus, Juri and Hakan) all turned out pretty good.

And the second announcement: Power Girl is coming to DCU online. When I think of Power Girl one thing comes to mind: Boob Window. I don't really like the character and thats probably the main reason why, the boob window seems too gratuitous, too unnecessary even in a medium (comics) in which females are typically represented wearing next to nothing. The fact that Power Girl has a rack that can only lead to back problems and a mom haircut doesn't help either.

Honestly, she looks like needs to put some jeans and a polo on and drive Supergirl to soccer practice. Kotaku says that Power Girl is a counterpart to Supergirl but she looks more like her mom, I guess she was created for those nerds who are more into cougars. I don't play DCU online so they the announcement means nothing to me, still thought I'd share.

More Power Girl pics at Kotaku
Full story on Hakan at Hadoken