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.

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.

Tiger Woods

Tiger Woods is watching you masturbate play video games. In hindsight everything that Tiger Woods touched now seems inappropriate, ironic, and out of place. I downloaded this theme a long time ago and never actually used it but now there is no way I don't do it.

In related news EA has announced that they will do absolutely nothing regarding the use of Tiger Wood's in their golf game (Tiger Woods PGA Tour or some shit). This will likely be a dealbreaker for any casual fans who just might feel like playing Golf on the Xbox. I'm sure there are a few diehards out there who camp out every year to get the new Tiger Woods who will surely do the same next year but for the normal gamer? just seems like the inclusion of the adulterer would be toxic for the game.

France '98

To celebrate Thierry Henry's magnificent use of his hands to land France a spot in the 2010 World Cup (and make UEFA, FIFA and all sorts of other acronyms very happy) we have a wallpaper from the earliest FIFA titles (the earliest?).

At the time these graphics were fucking killer, the gameplay was amazing and it actually had announcers. This was unprecedented, I remember being amazed at how they could achieve such thing. Not only that but the introduction? it gave you some Chumbawamba.

This was more than 10 years ago, the level of complexity that goes into today's FIFA, from rosters, teams, uniforms, online play, ball physics, stadiums, chants, is unbelievable and cannot even begin to be compared to what was going on then. The question then is what is a soccer game going to look like 10 years from now?

Possibly Inspired

Looks like all that praise I gave the Swedes for their work on Minigore was a waste. I mentioned that one of the things that sets Minigore apart from other iPhone games is the great artwork/character design, from the protagonist to the beasties to the upcoming Bolshevik expansion, every character features the same cube shaped head with impossibly tiny bodies.

Well it turns out that the whole idea of a cubic head was not an original idea of the Swedes. No, they actually stole the head design from retired New England Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi. Of course they couldn't just steal a picture of Bruschi for their game so they took his cubic head, gave it a beard, a Shang Tsung hat and bam! you have John Gore, they also couldn't copy Bruschi's linebacker physique so to avoid lawsuits they went with the exact opposite.

For shame Sweden.

But in all seriousness, Bruschi retired today and not only does he have a great name but he also played some great football, won three Super Bowls and came back from a stroke. Plus he plays the fucking Saxophone! hopefully he wont become a network analyst wonk like so many former players before him. By the way, congratulations Tiki Barber you're the Marian Hossa of the NFL, enjoy your no rings.

Yes a fucking hockey joke.

The Onion: NBA Jam

Great article in today's Onion about Michael Jordan wondering why he isnt in NBA Jam. It was a great 90's quirk that MJ, the biggest athlete in the world in his prime, was never in any NBA games because he was not a part of the NBA players association and anybody that wanted him had to pay him directly for his likeness.

It was weird but then again video games were still for kids and sports figures didn't really care if they were in games, completely different story now of course as Madden's and 2K games have become mainstream icons. Then again the 90's were also a weird time for the NBA, with the pajama uniforms and cartoony logos, maybe Jordan was right in staying the hell away from the whole thing, though I'm sure it was all about money.

A choice quote from the article:

"'Scottie being there makes sense, but Horace Grant? Seriously? And how can Tom Gugliotta be in this game and not me? I could swear they paid me a $100 million licensing fee.'"

NBA Jam, which I nearly bought the other day, was also a quirk of the 90's: a 2 on 2 arcade style basketball game in which certain button combinations allowed one to choose random celebrities, from Will Smith to Bill and Hillary Clinton, some Mortal Kombat characters and probably Spike Lee. Here's the link.

Michael Jordan Wondering Why He Wasnt in NBA Jam - The Onion

Good to see The Onion didn't actually sell off to a Chinese fish salvage consortium.

I Missed You, Comic Con

Its a bittersweet day at eightbitter this sunday. On the one hand Mexico scored five on the U.S to win the Gold Cup (wait, was that Canada?). They hadn't beaten the Americans on U.S soil since 1999, its nice to finally get that out of the way and maybe get the old self esteem up for the coming games and tournaments.

But on the other hand this is the last Sunday in July, the final day of the first Comic Con that I did not attend since 2004. We traditionally go on Sunday because there are fewer people (in theory) and everything is cheaper, this year, as I mentioned in an earlier post, no money means no Comic Con.

Now, I've tried to keep my Comic nerddom separate from the video gamer nerd that writes this blog and I've managed to be successful up until now. I'm about to break that vow so here it goes.

While I've been a Comic Book loser for the better part of my life I stopped reading them for about a six year period from 2001 to roughly 2007. There are many reasons for this, lets not get into it. The comic that brought me back was Runaways which, by the time I got into it, was already on its second volume with a grand total of issues in the neighbourhood of 40+. Not being one to miss out on stuff, and with some money to spare I set out to collect every single back issue and get caught up to the current issues.

Luckily Runaways was in a Joss Whedon phase and that motherfucker took about a year to release a five issue arc (you can really tell who wrote that book cant you?). In that year I managed to get every single issue (from different local comic shops, eBay, Comic Con, you name it) and get caught up. Why didnt I buy the trades you say? well because the hunt was as fun as the stories.

After the Whedon arc two other dudes got the book in what was a promising new volume. While the art was ok at first and the story was not horrible pretty soon it went south and the first 9 or so issues of that volume really are a dark time in Runaways history, starting with book 10, however, a new writing/artist team began work on the title and it has thus far been promising. The problem now is twofold: first my not attending the Con prevented me from buying this kickass print (which I can hopefully later buy online), second the Marvel solicits for October dont show a new Runaways issue which forces one to speculate and fear that the title might have been canceled. There is no official announcement so hopefully it was just an off month.

This obviously has nothing to do with video games, especially not old video games, but I felt like writing it down because the two worlds are vastly intertwined. Superhero games have been around forever and they continue to be made and improved. Though some have been horrible others promise to be outstanding. The very first issue of Runaways, in fact, begins with one of the characters playing a Marvel MMORPG, the series regularly features shout outs to video games, etcetera etcetera.

A Runaways game would also be some kind of nice but that probably wont happen, the series isn't as popular as the standards but there are talks of a movie in the works and that could begin some talk about a game. In the mean time what we are left with are artist interpretations of what could have been had Runaways existed in the glory days.

So, I guess that with some hesitation but a bit of excitement we now inaugurate the Comics tag.

w0ot!

REAL soccer (REAL)

I recently got a great tip about a soccer game for the iPhone that is only $.99 cents and actually plays like a soccer game. See I'm always skeptic about iPhone games because a) I dont want to play games on my phone and 2) most games absolutely sucks. But surprise surprise this game is actually pretty good.

Real Soccer 2009, which normally goes for $9.99 on the app store, features over 100 teams (both national and club) as well as real players (for most teams). The "cover" features Arsenal pretty boy Cesc Fabregas. The gameplay is surprisingly fluid, though I'm not surprised nor upset that the characters are a bit blocky they I am surprised at how agile the fuckers are. Teams and players are substantially different from one another: if you pick Kazakhstan and play against Brazil you will get your ass kicked, in effect this is not merely having a bunch of different teams with palette swaps, the little guy labeled as Kaka is Kaka and hes in your iPhone.

Its easy enough, when you dont have a license, to use the flag of, say, Serbia to represent the Serbian national team and RS09 does so as expected. But how do you get around not being able to use club team crests? well you refer to teams by their city (say Roma) and if that becomes confusing you start using colors (Manchester Red). Now that you've solved that problem what do you do about the crests? well you simply use random little flags to represent particular teams. These fake little icons have a certain charm to them too. Oddly enough the game does have a licensing agreement with La Liga La Liga BBVA so all of its teams crests are the real thing (just in case you really wanted to play as Osasuna).

The game also contains a bunch of playable leagues and cups (again, its an iPhone app) including facsimiles of Champions League, Euro, Copa America and so on. There is no American club competition but there are teams from Argentina, Brazil and the U.S (sadly not Mexico) who all participate in the faux CL. Its genius. The many cups arent easy to get (even on easy) thus the game is pretty challenging.

Lastly the controls, I had no iea how I was going to work around the fact that the phone has no physical buttons but that was fixed with the inclusion of a D-Pad and A-B buttons on the screen. This is done on many games for the phone but I had yet to encounter it. Sure its kind of annoying to have your fingers on the playing screen but the thing is responsive enough that one is able to easily play.

And its only 99 cents.

Flaming Mario

Well I finally figured out why I like the original Mario Bros. 3 graphics as opposed to the revamped SNES version of the same game.

Its because, as you can plainly see, when Mario changes to his fireball suit (as seen above) instead of having the traditional "painter" outfit, in Super Mario Bros. 3 he is wearing a customized Tampa Bay Buccaneers "creamsicle" outfit modeled after what the Bucs use to wear back when they sucked.

Even more obvious is Mario's mustache, sure they were prominent when he was created in the 80's but the fact that Bucco Bruce also had a mustache (albeit a more debonair one) is awfully suspicious.

Pacman, Anarchy

I have to admit that while I dont belong to any political group, I never belonged to any academic organization or mensa or whatnot I do belong to a supporters group (which sounds sooo tame) for the local second division soccer club. Yep, I'm a barrista (not a barista), an hincha, a hooligan if you will. I realize its odd, I mean I'm a college graduate for fuck sakes but can I help it? no, I happen to like that team, its colors and what it represents. Hey, we all need a hobby.

What does that have to do with video games? well plenty. See even though I belong to a barra, which traditionally glorifies chaos, loyalty and ska (its the closest I'll ever come to a gang) I'm still a nerd and when it came time to show love for my team's colours I still had to allow some room for that nerdiness. So I made a flag, on the one side it had a black star on a red circle and on the other it had this.

Not the most intimidating symbol in the world right? hardly anarchist, socialist or metal, but cool nonetheless. Its not like I particularly love Pac-Man, though I would not be adverse to something like this, but its such a recognizable symbol, one with no negative connotations, non-controversial, witty and one with which I could have my nerd side shine through even in such circumstances.

I did take the flag to a bunch of games, it appears in many a photo in the forefront of the barra, nobody gave me any shit: it was fucking original after all. But I did make one mistake: when picking the fabric I chose one that is kinda thick so it only really gets going when theres some real wind, something that doesnt happen that often on sunday afternoons in Tijuana.

So I decided to create a bigger, simpler and lighter flag while retiring the old one. Of course this wasnt an old discarded American flag so I didnt have to burn it in some sort of complicated ritual. Instead I decided to frame it, its a double sided flag so in order to get to frames I moved Blinky onto a black background while the star was framed with the entire flag. The result is a solid win, one that cannot be quantified with an iPhone camera. The star is great but the real accomplishment is that framed Blinky.

Thats art folks.

Pre-FIFA Soccer

Champions World Class Soccer came out, ostensibly, in 1994, the year of the U.S World Cup, the year when soccer finally gained some popularity in the United States. The Super Nintendo was already enjoying popularity so I suppose that a soccer video game was inevitable. This game fills that inevitability with all the technology available at the times (very little) and all the buzzwords they could fill into a title (many as it turns out).

The game itself is uneventful: it features a total of 32 teams ranging from the very good (Brazil) to the very bad (Bolivia) to Wales. I cant find a pattern in these teams, at first I thought these were the participants in the '94 WC but thats not the case. They're also not the best teams in the world, as noted above, so the criteria for selection seems nonsensical.

While on the subject of teams I should note that all available countries are still around today, I was looking forward to a Yugoslav or Soviet team but no dice. The teams on the cover are there either randomly or as selected by where the developers wanted to sell more copies. Shilling to Mexican audiences was not desirable yet.

The gameplay is that which you would expect for a 1994 soccer game. That is to say slow, choppy and random, maybe its because I dont have the manual but I have no idea what the difference is between the buttons: they all seem to be for passing while on offense and for changing between players and tackles while on defense.

Its a shame that graphics weren't advanced enough to permit detailed, accurate depictions of soccer kits because the early 90's were a great time for soccer shirts. Err... on second thought its probably best they weren't able to get the detail. Probably a great idea that detailed players weren't available, nor the MLS inaugural teams. Though now I feel like playing as Colombia and seeing if they bothered with Valderrama's hair.

For what its worth I played as France and was unable to score a goal, I'm not entirely sure if there are celebrations or whatnot. The thing is I've played old soccer games that are mindlessly enjoyable but this one is not one of them, and thats too bad because I vaguely remember playing this when I was a kid and enjoying it.

If I have something positive regarding the game its gotta be that the uniforms are kind of cool. Each team has a basic white and coloured uni, with a few variations in socks, stripes and stuff. Its kind of charming. Sure, nothing compared with the highly detailed unis of todays games but good enough.

Brett Hull (who?) Hockey

Yet another game that came with my system: Brett Hull Hockey. It was one of three games and I already did an entry on one so I have no idea what I'm gonna do after I talk about Aladdin tomorrow. Yes, Aladdin. But we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Today we're talking about Brett Hull.

From what I can gather Brett Hull was a hockey player who, at the time this game came out played for the St. Louis Blues who are, of course, a hockey team. At the time he was probably a star and got his own video game. The brilliant thing about this game, and the time it came out really, is that professional sports leagues wouldnt just give you their license but that was not a problem, you could make your game anyway. Brett Hull Hockey has the NHLPA license but no NHL. Which means no logos and no team names. But the great thing was that they had the next best thing: city names on bicolor bars. To ease the fact that the NHL has two new york teams the Islanders bar says Long Island. This practice was a staple of unlicenced games. I think Madden even did it one year.

So how does the game play in 2009? surprisingly well. The graphics arent choppy at all, they movement is smooth, Bob Fuckin Costas is the announcer and he speaks like a robot. The only things I'm inclined to bitch about is that the Ice is too short (the field of play) and scoring is a bitch. There is fighting however and after each game you are treated to a metrosexual looking picture of Brett Hull giving you some advice.

That last link is for a picture from the '95 version so I'm inclined to believe its a series. Google results show that at least in one edition they had the NHL license. Unfortunately thats not the edition I have so, sadly, I am not able to call the Whalers a bunch of faggots in the comfort of my living room.

Final analysis? yay hockey!