A few weeks ago IGDA Japan head Kiyoshi Shin posted an article on Nikkei's IT Plus site, covering events at E3. Nothing massively noteworthy of that I suppose, except his coverage was refreshingly insightful.

His main point was that a lot of games are opting for visual proficiency over functional development. He mentioned the demo of Assassin's Creed 2 as being aesthetically sumptuous but functionally very simplistic, in the sense that whilst you have Venice recreated in stunning detail you can't do much within it bar kill people. Now, he hasn't played the game but I can see where he's coming from in regards to how the first game played (as it was a beautiful looking piece of technology but functionally quite monotonous).

The problem with this approach of course is that you end up with ever increasing budgets and an increasingly massive workforce, whilst the games remain functionally quite limited and standardised. He also makes a pretty cutting appraisal on the narrowness of genres available now and the depressingly propensity for turning games into franchises, as this is obviously a cost saving endeavour in the face of spiralling finances on the graphical end of the spectrum.

What really struck me about all this was that this was a Japanese piece published on a very mainstream online publication that stated a very important issue that the Western gaming press, in their orgy of banal Tweets, managed to conveniently miss; that these massive graphically focused budgets are forcing a functional restriction and an unnatural standardisation on gaming. Admittedly, we've had lots of coverage about the rising cost of games development but no-one has really mentioned the veritable elephant-in-the-room - that games aren't functionally going anywhere as a result of all of this.

The recent Kenji Kamiyama anime series "Higashi no Eden" finished a few weeks ago in Japan, with two theatrical releases on the way, I thought it worth mentioning the rather interesting narrative and how closely it ties into ARGs.

The series follows a protagonist by the name of Akira Takizawa who has lost his memories but retains a tricked out mobile phone pumped with 8 billion yen of electronic money. It turns out that Akira is a member of the Seleção; a group of 12 individuals tasked with the objective of "saving" the nation of Japan. The interesting part is how the whole setup is essentially a game, where the Seleção are pitted against one another to improve the nation via their new-found bank balances. Those who fail or misuse the money for selfish deeds are summarily terminated.

For those unaware, Kamiyama directed the recent Ghost in the Shell TV series and this admittedly more contemporary work is still as involved. The approach is an interesting one though, especially if your interested in ARG (like me) and the corollary that politics is ultimately comprised of various gaming rule sets.

As yet, there is no word on an international release.

Most people in the games industry have pretty colourful work desks, even mine is pretty busy, but it's nice to know that this practice is a cross cultural one. For instance, the orange bespectacled Hideki Kamiya at Platinum Games boasts a similar array of toys neatly arranged across his workspace. My only gripe, and it's a properly nerdy one, is that his taste in mecha is rather singular. Most of the mecha on his desk are Zeonic suits from the first Gundam series, notably that of Doms and Zakus. I'd expect a bit more variety from a chap like this but props on the use of a shelf though.

The official Oratan 5.66 blog announced a few days ago that the official twinstick peripheral that fans have been waiting for may come into existence later this year. Specifically, Hori are going to release a pair of sticks sometime in November for the eye watering price of 30,000 yen. Considering that both the Saturn and Dreamcast sticks cost 5,800 yen on their respective releases only shows how out of whack this new price point truly is.

That said, if Hori were to use the Sanwa JLJ-PL2-8V's in the stick's construction that could help to explain the price tag (as they cost a cool 8,500 yen each). After all, Hori utilise a fair amount of Sanwa parts in their other sticks and using this hardware (instead of fashioning their own) would aid in the creation of the peripheral considering the November deadline.

There are a few very large catches to all this though; the sticks will only be available via pre-order and will only go into production once a secret number of pre-orders have been met. In addition, Sega have also been quick to explain that this deal with Hori is still being worked out. Final specifics on the sticks and the pre-order program will be made via a formal announcement at the June 13th "Virtual On Night" Xbox Live Park online event.

Square Enix are funding a new Front Mission game and Double Helix appear to be developing it. Despite the fact that action orientated Front Mission games tank horribly (Gun Hazard and Online did after all), I'm not entirely convinced of this setup.

Thankfully the mecha design is pretty faithful and the wanzers still retain their rollers it seems but on the whole mecha handling isn't done very well in the West (as many developers treat them as functional allegories to human protagonists). With any luck someone at Square Enix has played Yuke's latest Armored Trooper VOTOMS game, as that nails this type of mecha combat (and the AT's are about the same scale as the wanzers too!).

No word on when this will be out though, but it is being released cross platform at least. More screenshots are here.

It seems we'll be graced with yet another Super Robot Wars game by the end of this year. Though this entry is slightly different from the main branch of the series, specifically the new Super Robot Gakuen (or Super Robot School) won't be a turnbased strategy game. Instead it's action orientated, more like an adventure game with robot battling within it. Something like a mix between the Super Robot Wars Link Battler and Super Robot Wars XO's online multiplayer mode.

The slightly bizarre aspect of all this is the roster of mecha contained within the game. In short, it's vast but obviously a re-using of the assets generated for J, W and K (though there are a few new units, the full list is here). The game will be out at the end of this year on the Nintendo DS, no word on price as yet though. Famitsu online has some nice screenshots in case you're curious.

A few days ago, the official site for the XBLA port of Oratan 5.66 came clean about the quick-step issue. Saying the timing is indeed awkward but that the "fix" (for the time being) is to get some practice with said stringent timing in the Training mode of the game. Thanks Sega!

In the column there are comments about potential fixes on the way for various bugs, they're listed below:

• Replay save bug in player matches.
• Adjusting how disconnects are handled (they will reconsider if it counts as a loss), and fixing a possible bug that causes losses to increment even without a disconnect.
• Fixing the inability to rotate while walking with the "Standard" control scheme.
• Adding ability to use the d-pad for movement with "Standard" control scheme.

Over at Halcyon Realms, the enthusiastic Vong yonghow has displayed the wonders of the Street Fighter Artworks book for all to see. As he says...

As part of the game’s 20th anniversary celebration, Capcom has published the artbook “Street Fighter Artworks“, a culmination of more than 2 decades of character design work, concept art and illustrations that made Street Fighter the brand that it is today. At a whopping 320 pages spanning over 1500 illustrations (easily twice the thickness of The Art of Dark Stalkers artbook ), this is the most comprehensive collection of Street Fighter artwork ever published.

For those anxious to pick this up, it's easily available on Amazon.co.jp.

RPGamer, which some may still remember as The UnOfficial Square Soft Homepage, recently posted an interview with Ken Berry of XSEED. The primary focus is on Little King's Story, which sounds more like Harvest Moon and Sim City had a baby than an RPG, but who am I to judge?

Unfortunately, the interview also contained the following news from Berry: "Retro Game Challenge started off well but still hasn't gotten to the point where we can justify bringing over the sequel."

XSEED, which imported the first Game Center CX game under the name Retro Game Challenge (which you should buy), is currently in a rough financial situation, as one would more or less expect from a small import publisher best known for the most recent Wild Arms games and the KORG DS10 synthesizer software. Losing Muramasa: The Demon Blade has apparently hurt them rather badly, and while Retro Game Challenge did decently well, the sequel is not exactly screaming "This Will Save the Company!"

The first game's fan base has been extremely vocal, but positive emails don't make up for weak sales. As good as the first Game Center CX was, the second game is leaps and bounds ahead, and a good deal larger. If you have any sense of fondness or nostalgia for classic gaming, and you do not buy this game ($27 at Amazon, you have $27) you are a garbage person.

Update: It seems worth noting that this simply means XSEED is unlikely to be the company responsible for bringing the game over. The possibility remains that another company entirely could pick up the series, though, again, mediocre sales on the first game are an impediment.

Virtual On Oratorio Tangram M.S.B.S. 5.66 was released today on Xbox LIVE Arcade and the rumours of a possible problem (bar the pad controls) have turned out to be true. The functionality for initiating a quick step in close combat range is very difficult to use now due to very stringent timing. Originally, any kind of lateral move in close combat range combined with a turbo button press would produce a quick step. Using this with a weapon trigger would allow the player to use circle slashes, a basic and fundamental part of how close combat worked in the game. Now, the timing for a lateral move has to be almost exactly in sync with the turbo button press. So just pulling off a quick step is much more difficult, rendering the additional aspect of circle slashes unwieldy.

It's worth clarifying that you can pull of quick steps if you get the timing just right but it's made a previously basic feature much more exclusive (something that 5.66 in the arcades went to great lengths to make more accessible over 5.45 on the Dreamcast).

Here's hoping a fix is on the way.

Update: After further testing with a pair of modded Dreamcast sticks, it's clear that the quick stepping issue is down to the deadzone on the analogue sticks. As the game responds to digital inputs so the player has to gauge where the deadzone ends and the input begins. This is why finding the timing is so awkward to nail a quick step, as you're having to guess where the motion starts in order to link that with a turbo button press. The sticks do negate this issue entirely but that's down to the leverage of the stick itself coupled with the purely digital inputs, though this hardly helps many people as the bulk of players will be forced to used the pad anyway. With practice you can pull a quick step off on the pad but not very consistently and that's where the problems start against human players. As it leaves you wide open for traditional dash attacks at close range (amongst many other things). At present, this issue will just alienate newer players as it makes a large section of the game unwieldy.

Bandai Namco announced a new Wii game today called Tabemon and it's a platformer of sorts where the player has to eat their way through the level (the name comes from the Japanese verb "taberu" which means to eat). The fact it's under their Namco wing is telling as this is very much "inspired" by games like Katamari Damashii and Pacman. It also visually apes Pokemon maybe a little too much but it looks fun at least (the name could also be a play on words as it could be an abbreviation of "eating monster", maybe). There are selection of videos and screenshots going the rounds.

Semi-local, semi-famous Golfland in Sunnyvale, CA has developed a cult audience over the decades, which is now described like a grand mythos by would-be game industry insider types looking to add an air of credibility to their “freelance journalist” personas (I refuse to believe the acronym “SVGL” has been used by any real person). It’s always been a notable arcade, but basically a typical one that provided miniature golf as an easy ploy to convince your parents to take you there for the purpose of playing videogames instead. Later in life, the steady supply of location tests, large, rare, or otherwise obscure machines kept Sunnyvale Golfland in business long after the other Silicon Valley arcades closed. So there are some fond memories there.

Too bad Golfland hates gay people. In November of last year, the writers of this blog (about “two married Jewish gay dads, their six children, and life on the town”) discovered through the database of California Proposition 8 supporters that the family ownership of Golfland Family Fun Centers donated a combined $35,000+ to foist homophobia into the state constitution. The Guy Dads provide a breakdown of donations by family member, location, and title of employment, exposing a bit of nepotism in Golfland hiring practices, too, I guess.

I wasn’t particularly surprised to learn this, but I am surprised it was only reported on activist blogs and not on any videogame related ones. There is a website called gaygamer.net. They run banner ads for gourmet food and Subaru cars (literally, I’m not stereotyping), but they didn’t report this. I guess I don’t understand the purpose of a gay videogame site then. As for the idea of a boycott, I went to “SVGL” last Friday for a Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 3 tournament. I was sad to see the storied rows of cabinets have largely been replaced by redemption machines, occupying maybe 60% of the floor space. And crappy ones, not even ski ball. So, that takes care of that.

The game is set for release (in Japan) on April 29th. The XBLA version amounts to around 230MB and will cost 1200 MS points. Still no follow up on the release of a twinstick peripheral but there will be a selection of gamer icons and a premium theme on the way in the interim. The official site is also hosting an online questionnaire to gauge the size of the current fanbase and what they may want in future games.

OK, maybe I can't get off my butt to post news on insert credit anymore, but when I do, I try to read about my subject, find correct information, and represent it in a way that is interesting and informative to readers. That's journalism, right? It's an attempt anyway. Witness the opposite. The author of this Joystiq post, one of the most influential game blogs, is almost relishing the fact that he can't understand some Gamestop financials - and that *is* the entirety of the story.

In case it changes, here it is: ""GameStop is reaffirming its first quarter comparable store sales guidance of flat to +2% and earnings per share guidance of $0.40 to $0.42. Full year comparable store sales guidance remains +4% to +6% and full year earnings guidance is still expected to increase between +18% and +22%." That's the release, but we have absolutely no idea what that means. We see some pluses, that's what you want, right? We mean ... they're better than minuses."

This is the kind of representation of game journalism that gives us all a bad name, and gives others legitimate cause to put quotes around the term. For my part, I've sent author Justin McElroy a stern email, like the petulant old man that I am. I only post this publicly that we may all push together for a higher standard.

In the recent issue of Famitsu, From Software announced a PSP port of the PlayStation 2 game Armored Core 3. The game will have some new parts and various other obligatory trinkets but none of this is all that noteworthy. What is interesting is the fact that this is an obvious means to keep the series ticking over until the next real game surfaces.

Don't get me wrong, Armored Core 3 was probably one of the best entries into the series and having that portable is brilliant but it's a cheaper cost than creating another current gen (PS3/360) release. Bear in mind that an Armored Core game has pretty much been released yearly since 1997, so whilst this fits the same release window it belies the obvious fact that another game is being made in the wings (as this is just a port).

After the Layzner-esque shift of Armored Core 4 and For Answer, the release of a more traditional game also indicates a possible return to the slower and less twitchy ground pounder gameplay that made the original series such a success.

That said, in the current economic climate, this could be a last desperate act to drum up cash before the company goes under. Though this outcome is rather unlikely as the sales of their games whilst not huge are hardly crap either, plus they've done something like this before with the series (with Formula Front, as that was a port of sorts for Nexus).

In the latest column over at the official Oratan 5.66 site it's been reported that the game has passed submission at Microsoft. This is the final approval stage for the game before it can go to market, so a release should be imminent. That said, there are worrying reports over on 2ch and other Japanese blogs that some of the close combat functionality has changed from the arcade original. Specifically the way in which quick steps function and how they're initiated. Normally, once in close combat range you press one of the turbo buttons and pull a direction. Doing this will have your VR do a semi-circular hop around your target. Combining this with a weapon trigger will produce a circle slash. This is core to how close combat works in Oratan and reports are that the timing for pulling a quick step off are much much tighter now, making it more difficult to use. This could be just one, of many, problems the game now has due to the lack of sticks (as the leverage of the stick would have made the timing more manageable). Though SEGA have said they're at least "looking into" releasing a twinstick peripheral. My robot fingers are firmly crossed.