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.