2009 Round-Up: Part two

The grand 2009 video game universe round-up continues with:


My ex-girlfriend took the Nintendo Wii with her when we broke up towards the end of 2008. Which meant that 2009 was the first year since 1993 where I didn't own the current Nintendo home system.

(Yes, despite my claims of complete Sega loyalty, I owned a SNES Back in't day and I bought both my N64 and Gamecube on launch day.
I REGRET NOTHING.)

So, how many must-have Wii games have been released in the past 12 months that I should feel pained about missing out on?
*fires up metacritics best of 2009 list*

Jesus Christ.
New Super Mario Bros and maybe Punch out?
Is that it?

D-
Must try harder.
See me after class young Nintendo.


In the interests of being somewhat fair and balanced, I should point out that the DS did fair quite a bit better.

Love Plus and Scribblenauts in particular showed us all a fascinating glimpse of just how fucking strange the future of gaming might become. And Phantasy Star Zero is such a perfect spiritual successor my beloved Phantasy Star Online that I've been avoiding playing it for weeks it as I don't want it to ever end.

Yes I know. I am a huge wuss.

2009 Round-Up: Part One

As the last days of 2009 drift away like drunken butterflies,
virtually every website in the world is throwing their own take on the end of year round-up into the ether...

And I'm not about to stand up and be different.
No sireebob.
So here's the first part of my round-up of important Video Game related things from 2009



Being an English gamer in the 90s, I was spoiled for choice when it came to gaming magazines.
(There's a post on this very subject coming soon-ish)
But despite the onslaught of (now classic) local reading matter available, I still kept one filthy yankee magazine on monthly subscription at GT News:

EGmotherfuckenM.
It was so thick compared to the English magazines of the day...
Nigh oozing with screenshots of games that the UK rags were still whispering about.
It was a window into a wonderful world that I felt wasn't entirely meant for me, but that just added to the appeal.

And the covers. Oh the covers. Featuring games that were my little 13 year old world:
Mortal Kombat! Street Fighter 2! Mortal Kombat again! Street Fighter 2 again!

Halcyon days indeed..

Cut to a decade later,
I stumbled upon 1up.com and somehow, that same spirit lived on.
Whenever I listened to the 1upYours podcast I felt like I was sneaking a glimpse of a secret world all over again.
(Especially in the early days, when NDAs were often forgotten in the heat of discussion).

1upYours, CGW/GFW radio and the EGM podcast became hugely influencial on the way I thought about video games as an industry and an art form. And they did this while being really fucking funny.


Special mention must go out to the CGW/GFW radio podcast, which managed to cover subjects as disparate as the decline in modern comic books, the wonders of griefing Furrys in Second life*, the dangers of Meth addiction, the horrors of the Sonic the Hedgehog fandom, the difficulty in being a balanced games journalist and the wonders of french hip hop.

Often all in a single episode.


All of these podcasts all ended with the purchase of 1up.com by UGO from the long struggling Ziff Davis in January (or just before, in the case of the CGW/GFW magazine/podcast)

And while 1up.com is still a damn fine website
and 4guys1up is a great podcast with the best name in the business.
(And often features Jeremy Parish, who's opinions I always enjoy listening to/reading despite disagreeing with about 90% of them)
For me, much of the magic left along with a large percentage of the staff.

Fortunately, that magical-ness wasn't lost to us forever like dust in the wind (dude)
Instead, we gained a pleasingly large number of new websites and podcasts in the weeks and months following the buyout.

Here's a rundown of my favourites for your convenience:


A life well wasted
I've raved about this jewel of a podcast from Ex-CGW radio man Robert Ashley before.
It is to be savoured like the finest of wines.

Bitmob.
Again, I've spaffed over this site and podcast before, but it's worth mentioning here. Their involvement makes the recently announced re-launch of EGM genuinely exciting.

Out of the Game.
A semi-regular, Skyped-in podcast Featuring Ex-CGWers Jeff Green, Shawn Elliot and Robert Ashley alongside ex-1up yours, current Bungie employee/heavy breather Luke Smith and ex-1up yours guest/newsweek writer N'Gai Croal (another man whose opinions I enjoy listening to/reading despite disagreeing with 95% of them)

EA.com
Alright, it's not quite the same as the other sites I've listed here,
but Jeff Green is my favourite person on the Internet
and now that he finally has a position of power as EIC and Head Podcasting Man of EA.com the world feels just a little more right.


Part two of my 2009 round-up will be with you shortly...


*My BFF Hetro Life Partner and I have similar Second Life stories that would make your hair curl. I may share some of these in the future if I'm feeling especially filthy.

*Tumbleweed*

A slightly delayed heads-up that things may be a little quiet on here for a couple of weeks as I'm working on a bunch of stuff for the lovely chaps at Hi-score.co.uk

Stuff that that includes a brand new weekly comic that I'll be sure to whore out on here each week.

In the mean time, If you're looking for something vidya game related to read, I heartily recommend the recently launched bitmob.com.
Other than the wonderful podcast featuring a satisfyingly large number of EGM/GFW/1-up alumni, the main draw is the mobfeed, an interesting experiment in user generated editorials, The best of which are mixed in with more traditional professionally created content on the front page.

This could be a glimpse at the future of community involvment in major websites, or it could be an easy way of generating some damn fine site content without having to pay anyone.

But I'll save that sort of cynicism for when a IGN or Gamespot rolls out their own version of this, because as it stands now, It's exciting stuff.

A quick public service announcement

I drew this comic a couple of years ago now, but yesterdays news about the changes coming to video game ratings in the UK brought it to mind once again, so here it is for you all..

I kinda miss doing video game comics.. yes I know I'm lame.

The finest of pedigrees.

Some movie adaptations capture the spirit of the source material so well that the world is never quite the same once you've experienced their wonder and light.

These titles still resonate throughout the subconscious of mankind.

Street Fighter: the movie.
DOA: dead or alive.
Double Dragon.
Mortal Kombat:annihilation.

And from this first shot, it's obvious that we'll soon have another stellar title to add to this illustrious list.

The King of Fighters

Uncanny.

There's also a whole series of on-set videos to watch, (assuming your mind is still contained within your skull and not blown across your room from the amazingness of the photo)

Here's one of them for your viewing pleasure.




Wow.
Via Sankaku complex (site nsfw)




There is some genuine fighting movie talent involved in this film, but I'd still bet my dreamcast on it being teeeeeeerrrible.

Sympathy for the PR man

I'm a fan of many things on Facebook.
Things such as toast, the tv show Daria, clunge, not being on fire and Mr T. And adding Sega to that list made sense at the time.. But [insert dramatic music here] little did I know that it would inflict a realm of gibbering fandom upon me that I've done my best to ignore for the better part of a decade...

The Sega fan.


I adored Sega during my youth and most of my fondest gaming memories are from my time with my Saturn and Dreamcast. But those days are long past. Today I generally view Sega in much the same way an aging 80s rock superstar regards groupies and drugs; they're nowhere near as fun or as attractive as they used to be and any attempt to immerse oneself in that world again will only end in pain, awkwardness and a crippling sense of embarrassment.

Unfortunately, instead of grieving and moving on, a surprising number of people on this Facebook group are still deeply in denial about the death of the Sega of old and the express their necrophiliac love by spamming the hell out of every press release some poor PR goon pastes into their fanpage.


And this would be as easy to ignore as the average IQ-sapping youtube comment if it wasn't for the fact that someone at Sega responds to far more of these keyboard dribblings than any sane person should.

Here are a few choice examples...

In response to a post about (the fun looking) Bayonetta winning an E3 award from 1up:

• Chris at 13:36 on 11 June:

People don't expect mass produced, low depth games from Sega.
They expect art from Sega. Leave all that shallow garbage to Sony and Nintendo.
There are a myriad of games you could be renewing, such as the Ecco series. A new gen Ecco the dolphin would be a visual feast.

Wow.
What do people expect from sega these days? Many more Sonic Tie-ins? The occasional surprise gem like Yakuza or Virtua fighter 5? A fuck-ton of heart-breakingly disappointing sequels to classic games (NiGHTS, PSO, Shining Force, Sega Rally, Golden Axe and so on and so forth) perhaps...

But I think "art" is pretty low down on the list for most.
If you want art in your games I fully endorse LittleBigPlanet, Noby Noby Boy or the upcoming The Last Guardian.... All brought to you by those purveyors of "shallow garbage", Sony.
(Hoho, I'm the lord of irony.)

Unlike my bitchy and confused ramblings, Sega's response was clear, calm, warns against looking only into the past and even points out that Sony and Nintendo happen to make some damn fine games occasionally. *Wipes away a tear* Beautiful. Next comment:

• A different Chris at 14:27 on 11 June

needs moar streets if rage

Okay, even the nice man at Sega chose to ignore this one.
But I felt it had to be immortalised here because "Streets if rage" sounds like the title of a gritty avaunt garde french movie rather than a mindless brawler with an awesome soundtrack .


The champions at sega HQ even take on the most difficult job in gaming; defending the recent sonic games from cutting attacks such as this:

• Not a Chris at all at 14:14 on 11 June

WHy can't you just, y'no, invest moar resources into making a Sonic game that is not so muc based on gimmicks, and side things like asofrecent, but more on a long level, that is primarily based on speed and finnese in how you go about things in a 3 dimensional environment. that would bring up Sonic again, not sporty spinoffs like this and the racing game.


It's hard to tell if I agree with this guy or not. He could be dyslexic (in which case I'll feel rather guilty) or he could just be that passionate about the future of Sonic the hedgehog that he has no goddamn time for spell checking.

Whatever he may've said, Sega understands and responds:

• Sega at 14:35 on 11 June

Well clearly, there's a large fanbase who wants new Sonic games to be like the old, but we're also looking for ways to innovate the character with new platforms so it satisfies established fans and new audiences alike. It's not always easy to keep both happy!


Someone get this PR/community person to the middle east stat,
with this sort of diplomatic flair, the conflict will be over in hours.


My recommendation for people wanting a fresh take on the classic Sonic games is to play through the GBA and DS games, they're pretty much all great (although I must warn you that the newest one, Sonic Rush: adventure strays dangerously close to the talky talky world map bullshit that's cursed all other sonic games in the 21st century)

and to those of you wondering why (what's left of) Sonic Team can't just take the classic gameplay style from the DS games and give it a HD sheen?

It's obvious.
It's the same reason we haven't seen new, high definition, side-scrolling versions of Megaman or Castlevania... Japanese developers clearly hate you and your filthy western money.


But Sega's PR don't hate you, they love you and understand you and will look after you for ever and ever and ever and ever and ever.

I'm not mocking the current campaigns to bring Virtua Fight 5:R and yakuza 3 to western homes because I really want those games too, Yes I'm a hypocrite fuck you.

I hope you like fun... and robots.

Are you reading this post from a PC or Mac with flash enabled?
Do you have five-ten minutes going spare that you wish to fill with joy?

If that's a "yes" on both counts,
Click here and play this charming, beautiful and free little flash game.


Are you still here? Go, click now!


A more substantial/rambling post is coming tomorrow.

Feel good hit of the summer

It struck me tonight that I've been rather negative about virtually everything I've posted about (other than boobs...) and while this may reflect my general outlook on life rather accurately, I wouldn't want this site to become quite as dark and twisted as my world view just yet.

So, to balance things out,
allow me to draw your attention to this little nugget of joy.


Eduardo the samurai toaster (Wiiware, 800 points).
Say it with me; Eduardo the mother fucking samurai toaster.

This game could well be utterly terrible,
(and the screen shots on the site do have the air of an also-ran Commodore Amiga platformer) but I'm not going to to dwell on that because it is a game called Eduardo the goddamn samurai toaster...

and that grants the game a free pass and a half.

This release, along with last weeks news about Ejector the evil Decepticon toaster (part of the toy-line for the inevitably terrible second Transformers movie,) clearly show that it's going to be a tremendous summer for adventurous toasters.

This could be an indicator of a wider societal trend, but I'll be buggered before I can guess what it might be.





So many terrible terrble toast related puns.. must... fight... urge...

New Gaming Proletariat.

I'm not a healthy boy.
In fact, most of my teenage years were spent in the sort of sickly, bed-bound state that would normally be associated with the adolescence of an 18th century poet - One who, by the time he'd reached my age, would've married his 14 year old cousin contracted syphilis and died from injuries sustained from a duel with Earl of Wentworth over an argument about the correct way to clean a teapot.

But I was born in the 1980s, so instead of venting my frustrated imagination into vaguely sexual poems about rolling hills, I played on my Sega Megadrive and Super Nintendo.

And so this continued into my adult life.
When I need to recover from a particularly strenuous activity (such as standing up a bit too fast, thinking about leaving the house or putting my socks on) I while away way the hours from my bed fiddling with my various gaming systems.

And because of my particular (but not unusual) gaming habits, at least 90% of what Nintendo had to offer from their E3 presentation left me cold.
Other than Ninja Gaiden: Metroid
and Super Mario Galaxy 1.5
(both of which would've made fine Gamecube games),
Every single game and piece of clip-on plastic tat was aimed squarely at the "oh look Phillip, it's one of those fat training thingies" money-crapping new gaming proletariat


Of course, this sort of gaming has it's place outside of the 7 year old child/overweight housewife/pensioner demographic.. and that is at drunken house parties (something I fully endorse) but other than during these blurry events, Nintendo of 2009 is as dead and gone from my home gaming life as Sega or ye olde Atari.

And that would be sad enough, but watching Sony (eyetoy magic wand thingy), Microsoft (super future Eyetoy 360: turbo), Activision (Tony Hawk's wii fit board) and Electronic Arts (the surprisingly professional looking fitness game, EA Sports Active) at this years E3 all screaming "ME TOO!" while announcing plastic tat of their own aimed at this same demographic makes me at least a tiny bit worried about the future of my relaxed (but epic and engrossing) gaming sessions...

I'm probably being over-dramatic and paranoid,
(All joking aside, Project Natal in particular has potential to subtly augment traditional games in some very exciting ways)
But all I know for sure is this: The day I have to hold out my arms and shout HADOKEN to activate my fireball on street fighter 5 or 6 will be the best of times and the worst of times.



A tale of souls & Wii-motes, eternally retold

E3 09: Fuck yeah Microsoft.

Welp, I have watched the live pre-E3 Press conference, in which Microsoft revealed a bunch of games with numbers in them, even more games with Colons in the title and a handful of mostly pointless internet features I've been able to access anywhere from my mobile phone for the last 8 years,

(Facebook and Twitter? really?
If they'd had this feature when the 360 launched, it would've been a myspace channel,
and I'm struggling to imagine anything more depressing than that.

Wait, no, I've got it,
Picture for a second that you boot up your dreamcast and see your old faceparty page with a picture of your 16 year old self staring back at you with cold dead teenage eyes.)

But instead of Halo: raiden, Metal gear solid: Beatles* or Tony Hawks: more plastic shite for your living room, Microsoft dedicated the climax of the conference to the eyetoy 360: the next generation.


Which, despite Peter Moluneux's entirely out of character** hyperbolic mega-promises, shows that the only must have gaming peripheral of the future will be vokda.
Lots of vodka.
Does anyone really want to flail around like that in their living room while stone cold sober?
I thought not.


I've always wondered what kind of social change would be required to cause the whole population to consume the enormous variety of future-drugs that one finds in virtually every near-future science fiction story.

Oppressive government control?
Attempts to numb the horror of a post-apocalyptic world?

Of course not. Suddenly it's all so clear.
Everyone in the world will need to be high as the moon on soma/spice/nukes/deathsticks just to get over the embarrassment of playing the video game system they just spend 300 future-bucks on.




*A Raiden spin off? Really? Surely MGS2 was enough. I could almost hear the belly laughs from the ps3 fanboys.
**this is sarcasm... a metric fuck-ton of sarcasm.

My top ten video game boobs and why my choices are better than Gamespots. Fuck you gamespot.

Does Gamespot have a top ten boobs list?
I don't know and I don't care.
I'm not about to spend five minutes googling to find out,
that would be dangerously close to actual research and us modern, hip & happening video game journalists don't have time for that old fashioned shit.

Fuck yeah casual sexism.


10: Kasumi's left boob - dead or alive



That left one is perfect. One can see the care and attention that a small army of japanese boob artisans placed into this fine collection of pixels.

The right one looks like a bit of a rush job though. I can picture them crossing out "finish Kasumi's right boob" from a whiteboard during the last hours of crunch-time.

The darkest software development secrets are unveiled right here folks.


9 & 8: Candy/Honey - Fighting Vipers



This girl holds a special place in my libido.
For much of my youth, I mercilessly resold and exchanged my games,
always eager to acquire the newest wondergame.
But I kept my copy of Fighting Vipers on the Sega Saturn for far longer than most of it's (far superior) contemporaries just because Honey's ending was the hottest thing my poor, innocent, pre-internet-abuse eyes had ever seen.



This ending was the closest I came to a secret porn stash as a teen.
Yes I'm a nerd. Fuck you.


7 & 6: Mai Shiranui - fatal fury/the king of fighters.



The first bouncing boobs in video game history? I'm no game historian (like Prof. T. Frog) but I'm going to say; of course, duh.
Discovering the code to "unlock" the bouncing animation in the bizarrely censored PAL version of KOF 94 was a watershed moment in my teenage years.

And umpteen years later, I still maintain that her victory cry sounds much more like "me bouncy/pointy" than "Nippon ichi!"

SNK are clearly telling FILTHY LINGUISTIC LIES to cover their thinly veiled perversions.




5 &4: Taki - soul calibur



Sophitia may have panty flashing down to a finely honed Grecian art
and Ivy's ever increasing bust size has gone from a running joke into something rapidly approaching the grotesque
(by soul calibur 6, they will be a fighting arena unto themselves)

But Taki is a ninja
and everyone knows that female ninjas are the sluttiest of all mammals.

Proof:



VISIBLE IN-GAME NINJA-NIPPLES!.




3 & 2: Lulu - final fantasy x



This pouting goth MILF never once left my team during the 100+ hours I sank into this game,
this was partially because she was armed with a Cactor of INSTANT DEATH
(something that never once stopped being awesome for a single nano-second)

but mainly it was because of this win pose:



[edit] what the fuck internet?
not one screen shot of the most revealing pose in all of final fantasy?
I...I don't know what to think...
I'm confused and afraid.

All I could find was a selection of slightly dodgy cosplayers emulating said pose.
I chose the best of these to illustrate my point.


*Sigh* It's just not the same.


1: Lara Crofts great big super boob.




Ah, the boobs that built a franchise...
A franchise built upon the solid foundation of a truly great first game and the lust of millions of teenage boys aimed at Lara's mighty uniboob.


Subsequent advances in video game boobology added a second breast, curved boob surfaces and surprisingly restrained & subtle bouncing effects.
But my heart (and gargantuan throbbing boner) will always point towards that wonderful initial game and that razor-sharp polygonal chest



Look at it.... LOOK AT IT!.





That's enough of this soul draining link baiting trash.,
I have revealed too much of my deepest inner workings.
Goodnight!



coming next week, the top ten video game testicles!

Cheap-ass games*.

You may've noticed that things have been rather quiet around here this month.This is due to a powerful combination of travelling around many corners of the country and some seeeeeerious gaming to catch up on my months long xbox 360 down-time.


Not that I'm complaining, because in many ways the timing of my consoles red ring was quite fortuitous, as it meant that my flaky wonder console was returned to me just as the huge pile of "November madness" games that I had missed out on over Christmas were hitting the bargain buckets.

and not only that, but the knock on effect meant that older games were being pushed even further down the price scale (Random loose ends like Eternal Sonata, Marvel ultimate alliance and beautiful katamari all recently joined my collection thanks to this)


All told, it's a really good time to be a gamer with a thirst for (slightly) older games.


Then I checked my beloved Xbox live arcade for the first time in months,
credit card in one hand, a lengthy shopping list of XBLA titles and download content that I'd missed out on in the other.

I quickly put my credit card back down.

I just could not bring myself to spend 1200 points on castle crashers
or 1600 pts on the lost and the damned
or 800 pts on Operation: Anchorage
and so it went, down my shopping list of oh-so-eagerly awaited DownLoadable Content.

In the end, I bought the Hollywood cars pack for Burnout paradise
(because I needed etco-1 and the delorian, not because it was cheap)
and a few assorted songs for guitar hero: world tour.
(ZZ Top? hell yes.)

and that's it.
I could not justify spending as much as I'd just spent on full-length mega-budget A-list titles on fun little disposable live arcade games, or small mission & map packs.

How can the world of DLC replace retail (as everyone outside of gamestop expects it to) if the prices are going to remain so painfully stagnant.
there's absolutely zero incentive to go back through the archives and check out something you may've missed.

To date, Microsofts attempts at sales have been ...weak, usually offering much too little, much too late. (giving gold members better offers is definitely a step in the right direction, but it's not enough to either make the older content seem more appealing or to make me feel better about the £4.99 a month I'm paying for something that ps3 users still get for free)



Yet again it falls to Valve's Steam service to show how DLC should be done
with regular and unmissable offers on bundles and individual games.

Would it be too much to ask for the consoles to follow suit

...just a little?

...please?





*Not cheap ass-games, as that would be a very different blog post.

Boy ,I am so out of practice at writing, sorry guys.

Almost as bad as the street fighter IV intros/endings

Almost.



Also:



From IGN,
(home of the awesome Game Scoop podcast and perhaps some other things)

Call off the search.

A few years back, certain sections of the online video game press became completely obsessed with the search for examples of "new games journalism" and week after week people on podcasts would talk themselves into circles asking where the Lester Bangs of video game was...


I'm not going to be the one to say it,
but I will say that Robert Ashley's new "internet radio show" really really is something very special.


Following on from his regular appearances on the GFW podcast (which was easily my favourite podcast while it lasted) A life well wasted is something completely different.... To everything. I don't think I've ever heard such a well-crafted podcast before.

You can feel the love in this thing.
and next months show can't come soon enough.

Intermission

I have three different half written blog posts staring at me from my desktop crying out to be finished and they will be up on here soon, promise.

But 'til then, have this comic that I drew for 1up over a year ago.



I had a whole series of these sketched out, but the staff members that I planned to use as "characters" left the company faster than I could finish comics about them.

I clearly remember thinking to myself at the time
"I'll come back to this idea once the staff turnover levels out a bit"


With that kind of forward thinking, I should get a job on wall street.
(ooh current affairs zing! oh no I didn't, oh yes I did.)

Street Fighter IVgot to get my 360 fixed in time.

I found myself wandering into my local Gamestation this afternoon only to be confronted with signs and empty game boxes screaming about tomorrows Street Fighter IV launch.

Street Fighter is one of my all time favourite franchises.

My xbox red ringed last month and it's going to be with Microsoft for another week at least.

Which means I have no game system to play it on.

So I bought some SFIV action figures instead...

...and you know, squinting at these overpriced, super-poseable lumps of plastic through the tears in my eyes, It's not so very different from the real thing.

I guess.


*sigh*

Land of the setting sun

This story did the rounds the other week but didn't attract too much comment on the sites that I lurk on:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/japanese-videogames-market-in-decline

My first thought is that it would be very interesting to see what those figures would look like in a Wii-less alternate universe. My guess is that they would be downright apocalyptic.

But if my pesonal experience is anything to go by, I'm surprised the figures aren't worse in this universe.

Here's some random numbers generated by my game shelf.

Sega saturn collection: 85% Japanese developed games.
Playstation one collection: 70% Japanese developed games
Sega Dreamcast collection: 91% Japanese developed games.
Playstation 2 collection: 93% Japanese developed games.
Xbox 360 collection: 15% Japanese developed games.

I don't own a ps3, (as I'm not one of the seven richest Kings of Europe) but judging by the games that interest me, the figures would be in line with the 360 figures.

(I'm ignoring nintendo's home systems at the moment, because when you really get down to it, the only games really worth playing on those are made or published by nintendo...

...and that goes double for the Wii)

So what gives?

I'll come back to this later,
where I'll try and share the blame between Japanese developers, Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft and the japanese otaku.

But not me.
I'm blameless and innocent.