Sega still has a u.s. arcade division, which I just recently rediscovered. Naturally a lot of it is UFO machines and whatnot nowadays, but they do have a relatively interesting archive of older content. Each game has screenshots, brochures, and flyers, even for odd stuff like Emergency Call Ambulance. And naturally, since Sammy owns Sega now, Sammy games (and distributed Atomiswave titles like KOF) are also represented. It's a bit out of date, only having House of the Dead 1-3, for instance, eschewing 4 (which is a fine game, by the by). But it does include such obscurities as Magnet Fever, R 360, and Hot Rod. Worth a look.
expose: what is a SKU?
March 29, 2007, 12:34 AM
by tim, via the magic of the internet - [permalink]
If you've been reading the internet these past couple of weeks, you might have come across an acronym you don't understand, and then immediately started using it in whole sentences as soon as you saw other people using it. It's okay. This is something we do, with the internet. We sometimes use acronyms we don't understand completely, or even understand at all. Acronyms are a part of our culture. I kid you not -- I make acronyms out of everything I do, these days. "Gee Tee Tee Bee!" means "Goin' To The Bathroom!" Enough about me, though.
The acronym we're going to talk about today is "SKU". If you read gaming's most beloved tabloids or browse the scummiest videogame forumhives, you'll see this acronym popping up a lot lately. People are using it in complete sentences! With punctuation marks, even! Many of them have a basic idea what it means, though few of them know what it stands for.
In short, it stands for freedom. In long, it stands for Stock Keeping Unit. According to the Wikipedia: "A SKU or Stock Keeping Unit (sometimes pronounced as a word, "skew," or as individual letters, S K U) is an identifier that is used by merchants to permit the systematic tracking of products and services offered to customers."
In other words, a "SKU" is a very strictly, labcoat-wearing-like, retail term. It approaches the idea of sales with tweezers and a microscope. When someone on a forum says, of the new black Xbox 360 Elite, that "multiple SKUs is going to create problems at the retail level", they mean it's going to confuse consumers who are not absolutely certain which box on a shelf contains what they want to buy.
For your reading pleasure, try this article at Kotaku. Use your browser's search command on "SKU"; witness its use in the comments section. Ponder deeply how many of those usages might have been cut out or rewritten entirely to sound less like something a robot or a lecturer in the Chinet ballroom of a three-star hotel by the airport might have said during a seminar.
Also witness the amazing poise of mister Shane Kim, who convinced 75% of the internet that 1080p was "TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE D00DZ" back in 2005, as he somewhat gracefully dodges the accusation that this "elite" Xbox 360 is just Microsoft playing catch-up with Sony. Also witness the rigid, stone-facery of the Sony PR man. (He's the one who talks about SKUs.)
So why has this acronym suddenly popped into the videogame blogosphere? Because we like feeling elite? Maybe, maybe not. Keep in mind that a lot of the guys who get interviewed by videogame blogs are not actual game developers -- they're videogame PR guys, and unlike, say, movie PR guys, who more often than not have at least seen a couple dozen movies in their lives, videogame PR guys tend to come from strict retail backgrounds. Nintendo's Reggie used to manage a Pizza Hut (or something), for God's sake. Spewing "SKU" left and right is these guys' revenge for you guys' talking about mysterious things they don't understand, like "graphics" or "gameplay".
In closing, "SKU" is something you'd hear during your on-the-job training to be a stockroom monkey at a Target store at the start of that magic teenage summer that will indirectly make you a life-long smoker. It really doesn't belong in human conversation, even on the internet. I say this as a man who shuddered and moaned when everyone started talking about "IP"s -- Intellectual Properties -- though maybe that was because I found it hard to believe any videogame had ever been "intellectual". Really, though, you can keep "IP". Use it all you want. Just promise not to say "SKU" anymore, people.
It seems that Microsoft have bent space and time around their stringent guidelines and allowed the 360 version of Armored Core 4 to support the Regulation system from the PS3. The Regulations are, basically, selectable patches that change the balancing of the parts and abilities within the game. The reason why they were selectable on the PS3 version was down to the conflicting (and highly subjective) whinge-o-thons by Armored Core players on the previous games. People, with a highly developed sense of self-denial, weren't able to look into the abyss of their wussy gaming skill and subsequently blamed "unbalanced parts" as a cause of their multiplayer demise. The Regulations allowed various players to choose which type of parts balancing they preferred, thus deftly sidestepping their carefully layered psychoses.
The 360 version will receive all three of the current Regulations (1.10, 1.20 and 1.30) on the 3rd April at about 8pm (Japanese time). Whether these Regulations will get a Western release hasn't been specified (though I am assuming it to be highly likely).
Just a couple of games I want to mention here - I know there's a lot more out there. The first is a lovely game called Everlasting Love. The monochrome palate, the music/rhythm-based gameplay, it's all quite a nice package. The aim is to finish the level using as few jumps as possible. According to my "sources," or more accurately some guys I know, the monkey is from Yoshi's Island, and the rest is from Super Mario Land 2. The song is Everlasting Love from We ♥ Katamari. Action is across both screens of course, but I've just included one for the sake of visual clarity.
The other game is called Touchdown: The Alien Attack, by sweater fish deluxe. Here's a direct link to the zip, and in case his geocities site goes down, a mirror. But click the first link instead, and give him the satisfaction of having his site go down! It's quite a simple game, where the aim is to tap the UFOs and destroy them before they abduct the people. It was done for the neoflash spring 07 coding competition originally. The Home versus Visitors score counter is a nice touch, I think.
Aksys, a publisher formed by ex Atlus employees which thus far has only brought out Eagle Eye Golf for PS2, has just announced Hoshigami Remix for DS. It's a remake of the original Hoshigami for PS2, a tactics RPG from Max Five, itself formed by ex Tactics Ogre developers. Hoshigami Remix, not even out yet in japan, has three difficulty modes, as opposed to the punishing single mode of the original, a new character, new music, and character art. And naturally since it's for the DS, it'll have a new interface. gail salamanca from Aksys had this to say regarding the new difficulty levels, though it's not finalized, so don't take this as gospel.
"I believe on Easy characters are automatically resurrected after battle. Whereas on Normal you start off with a revive coinfeigm but death is permanent. And Hard is exactly as it was on the PS1. Also, I believe hit % / damage ratio / xp received is increased on easy and normal which means a little less grinding." So there you have it. I need a good tactics game on the DS over here!
News: ralph baer shakes cane, says "you damn kids"
Gamasutra has an excellent interview with ralph baer (father of videogames) up now, conducted by benj edwards, who runs Vintage Computing. It's one of the more fun interviews I've read in a while. baer is not planning on retiring anytime soon, maybe ever, and has lots of things to complain about.
He created the path for videogames to become what they are after all, no matter what "his highness" nolan bushnell says. The interview actually begins with details about baer's background, leaving germany as a child and fixing televisions for cash. Let's have some quotes!
GS: I read that you got a Marksman's Medal in the Army...
RB: Yeah, well we all had to fire for record, you know. I started out in Combat Engineers, because I was five-foot six-and-a-half then, and all the other guys are six-footers. They're all Tennesseans, and Georgians, and Alabamans. And here I am...little Jewish boy. But I managed to hit the target just as often as they did with an M1, so I got a Marksman's Medal.
And another! GS: Do you have a favorite video game even though you're not a game player?
RB: I don't play. Recently, one of my grandsons brought an Xbox with him, and we played a race game. Well, I couldn't manage that damn thumb joystick. I was always hitting the walls. I couldn't steer the car worth a damn. After about fifteen minutes, I said "Forget it , I've had enough."
The interview is good all the way through, with actual serious bits in, such as his thought that games were always aimed at adults, the sneaky way he had to operate in the early years in order to even develop games while in a military organization, and the uselesness of the U.S. patent office. For an 85 year old man, he's incredibly sharp - actually, for any man, he's pretty sharp. Oh and the picture above was taken by me at the Gphoria awards show in...maybe 2005? That's william shatner to his right.
Totally passed me by, but Falcom's Gurumin is out in the u.s. now, and has been rated pretty well for a PSP game. I haven't actually played it yet, myself, but I trust Falcom, more or less, given that this is the first game they ported to a console themselves since...maybe Ys IV? Ys V doesn't count as it was a console original. I do know that the music is good, and the voice acting is better than most localized games.
Puzzle Quest is out too, for DS and PSP - the DS version has a few audio pops, but has the advantage of...being on the DS. The PSP one does look much nicer though, and the wide screen makes for a good playing field. And playing with the DS version on the train is hard, since it's all stylus-based. That said, the game is Bejeweled with quests and special attacks and items. That's a formula for success, I say. Note: the character here is the one I'm using. It doesn't actually matter which character you use from a story standpoint, though they have different attributes. I tried to start the quest with several different classes and genders, but the scenario was always the same. "Go see your father Albion" (I think it's Albion, that's from memory). Each time, the same father, same name. That guy sure had a lot of kids!
Breaking News: Videogame collectors polled on menstruation
Digital Press is a site for vintage game collectors, primarily. Many of the people on these forums would likely attend the Classic Gaming Expo and CAEX over E3, and good on them for doing so. Their forum is a hotbed of retro activity, with prototypes being unearthed, and ancient consoles discussed regularly. This forum also has an invite-only section of their forums 'for adults,' and a recent poll gets to the bottom of a very important question, which I know has been on everyone's mind for some time. I was sent this screencap and information by a generous tipster.
The questions is: Will vintage videogame collectors have sex while their partner (or they themselves, as if girls are real) is having their period? Survey says: 57% will. That's certainly the plurality! Nearly 33% think it's gross, and 10% think "lara croft is a whore." So there you have it, conclusive proof of a particular thing. Any videogame census takers out there who want to pay me lots of money for a more extensive study are free to do so.
News: Earth Defense Force 2017 out, robot crotch shooting commences
Earth Defense Force 2017 is out in the u.s., or is supposed to ship today at least. It hasn't been getting great reviews, but when you think about it, what does anybody really know about anything? I say, if you're the kind of person that has $40 to spend on a videogame, and doesn't mind that the game in question is not incredibly deep and mostly consists of shooting stuff and blowing up buildings so that you might get more weapons to better blow up buildings and shoot stuff...well, you might want to get this.
The secondary point of this post is to highlight a bit of something on the back of the box, which you see below (apologies for the poor shot - don't buy a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX01, turns out). Upon first look, I burst out laughing, after a few moments of not really realizing what I was seeing. My mind ever juvenile, I noticed that the EDF soldier is shooting that robot right in his robogenitals, and the robot in turn is beginning to double over in pain. It's a pretty odd thing to have as the giant screenshot on the back of your box, but it's funny, so hey! There was some internal debate as to whether that was a screenshot or a painting (in which case it would've been even more amazing), but D3P PR has confirmed that it is indeed a screenshot. frank can't be convinced that it's anything but a painting though, and thinks that they're wrong about their own box. Anything's possible! Somewhere across the pond, resident insert credit robophiliac ollie barder is wincing in pain...
Odd as it may seem, Digital Leisure has released the laserdisc classic arcade game Dragon's Lair on Blu-ray. This game has been on pretty much every disc-based format by now - Jaguar, 3DO, CD-i, you name it (no Turbo CD or PC-FX version though). They put it out on HD DVD some time ago, but are just now coming around to Blu-ray. It's apparently a BD-J, or Blu-ray Disc Java, which is the way they get interactive content on Blu-ray, but still playable on DVD players. They say it's got lots of 'exciting special features', but I'm not sure what they could be.
The official site doesn't have a site for the BD-J yet, but the game is 'coming soon,' according to the postard they sent out, and in fact simon already got sent a copy, so we might find out more about the features in the near future. I'm guessing it's that long-rumored princess daphne nude code. It must be hard to be a girl and have to be rescued all the time. Proper question to girls: is it hard to be a girl and have to be rescued all the time? (note: the picture to the left is not from the Blu-ray version, which is probably much more awesome-er)
I'll be moderating an IGDA panel about 'what makes a next-gen game' down in san diego next week. You should go if you're around, and in the industry. I think that's a prerequisite. Maybe heckle, or bring rotten fruit to throw. I moderated some stuff at GDC too, so it may go ok... though there were some hecklers there too! It might be fun, or it might not, it all depends on the phases of the moon. dave halverson will be there, and he is crazy as a loon, so expect big things, maybe. To the left is a bonus HOT PIC of me admiring my work after pouring some mustard and coke into a champagne glass at GDC. You're never too old to be in grade school!
What with the release of Armored Core 4 in the US tomorrow and the 360 release in Japan a scant few days away, the American AC community has received an olive branch of sorts.
In an act of refreshing insight on the part of SEGA, the community was asked to come up with questions for the father of Armored Core, that being Toshifumi Nabeshima. Considering that all the questions originated from the fevered lips of Armored Core nerds, which I happily count myself as, the questions are suitably informed on the series. The interview was posted last week and it has some pretty interesting answers (Nabeshima is dead keen on doing an MMO, whether it be Armored Core themed or otherwise).
Finally, GameTrailers has decided to feed the beast of platform bi-partisanship and did a comparison video for the 360 and PS3 versions of AC4. Naturally, the focus is on graphical proportions rather than actually anything, well, meaningful.
For those who don't know Sega Tec Toy, Tec Toy was formed in brazil in 1987 to create electronic toys. They partnered with Sega to bring the Master System and Genesis to brazil, and continued to release games for the SMS well into the 2000s, including a number of brazillian exclusives and impressive ports. The company recently released (in 2006) a version of the Master System with 120 games, some of which are brazil-originals (but no cart slot - see digital press forums for a good discussion of that), so apparently that business is still going strong.
But most people know about Tec Toy's SMS ports - and maybe a few even know about their Mega Drive exclusives, like Duke Nukem 3D. But what grabbed my attention upon browsing their new site, was the Saturn and Dreamcast stuff. While (as far as I know) no brazil-exclusive games were published, it's interesting to see which games they chose to release. Here's the Dreamcast list, and the Saturn list. Mostly early titles, with a smattering of newer stuff, like Burning Rangers and Sonic Adventure 2, respectively. It's also worth noting that they (apparently) released the smoke Saturn in brazil, which is quite hard to get over here. Shame Tec Toy didn't really give the Saturn and Dreamcast a second life as with the SMS, but it's still pretty nostalgaic to watch old videos of Dreamcast games... and the company is currently running the servers for Ragnarok Online in brazil, so it seems like they'll be around for at least a little while longer. Incidentally, if anyone out there speaks portuguese fluently and wants to help me get a little more information, I'd appreciate an email!
Update: Just a few hours later, I've gotten several emails regarding this - thanks everyone! Having an international audience is the best!
simon showed me his new copy of Meteos: Disney Magic, and pointed out that it was developed not by Q but by Platinum Egg and Aspect, which also has an english site. I investigated further because I thought I'd heard of Aspect before...
Platinum Egg has only one other game I can find evidence of, which is Puzzle De Harvest Moon, but Aspect is a bit more interesting, as I'd surmised.
Much like Tose, Aspect develops titles for other developers (though is a much younger company, founded in 1991). According to the company history, Aspect started out developing games for the Game Gear. Mobygames sheds a little light on the situation, though Aspect's links to some games, like Sonic 2 and Fatal Fury Special are a bit hard to dermine. I presume, if they did in fact work on these titles, they did the SMS and Game Gear versions, respectively. Interesting titles from this list include Sonic Blast, Sonic Chaos (Game Gear), Sonic Triple Trouble (Game Gear), and Virtua Fighter Animation, though that particular title was done either in conjunction with, or for the ever-bizarre Sega Tec Toy. Aspect also released one original IP for the Saturn, which they call Gaia Breeder, and Gamefaqs calls Gaia Blade - not sure what the disparity is there. This is why I had heard of them, incidentally.
Apparently, as of 2002, the company had released 100 games. The japanese site mentions that the company has developed super famicom games, but I can't find any titles, unfortunately - and they're still developing arcade titles, it appears. It's worth noting that like Tose, they don't always develop full games - sometimes just graphics, sometimes just sound.
So a large percentage of the company's portfolio will remain a mystery, but there are already some interesting indications in there. Let's finish up with a quote from Aspect's president, kazuyuki oikawa: We hope to provide wonderful value to customers and users by “earnestly considering and seriously creating entertainment which is fun, pleasant and makes people happy,” and we employ the slogan of “Seriously, Entertainment.” In the future, we will take the challenge to improve the value, creation and recognition of our company in various fields. We will meet your expectations.
fort90 was browsing around and found this on Konami's site - the preorder bonus for Lost in Blue 2. It's a twig-shaped stylus that 'lights up while you're making fire' (and probably when you're doing anything else), and a 'tropical-themed' screen wipe.
Some folks who preordered apparently already have theirs, in advance of the game. An odd little bonus, but much better than nothing!
My old pal vander fujisaki from ociojoven (OJgames) sent me an email with an interesting find - YesAsia has an entry for a japanese release of a game called Sailor Moon, from Namco Bandai Games. Working title though it may be, this certainly brings exciting possibilities to light for fans of the series - and the page gives a release date of December 31, 2007, which looks suspiciously like a placeholder. Unfortunately this remains a rumor until we can confirm that it really exists, which may take a bit of time. But I'll try!
In other Sailor Moon game news, vander pointed out Sailor Moon Plus, a five-part game series using the Beats of Rage engine, which follows the story loosely through several episodes and iterations of the original tale, while also adding new elements at times. Three parts are currently available, with more promised. It's generally fashioned after the SNES game (certainly using some of its sprites - the screenshot to the left is from SMP), but seems to be a fair bit better in execution. Seeing as it's the Beats of Rage engine, this means you can play the game on a variety of consoles as well as PC.
In some more catch-up news: while GDC was happening on this side of the ocean, Game Park, who created the GP32 some time back and were in the process of pushing the XGP and derivatives out the door, declared bankruptcy last week. Strangely enough, www.gamepark.com is still active, though now it hocks some attractive athletic shoes rather than portable devices with PSP-level aspirations. Also, please note that Gamepark Holdings (creator of the GP2X) remains in business.
Back in february, says zepy, the eroge developer/ publisher Deal closed down (none of these links very work safe). Deal was reportedly the parent company of three different imprints; Plastic, Raccoon, and Tarte, the last of which, if you read zepy's original post, was apparently doing quite well.
It's very curious that a number of eroge and visual novel game makers are closing down, as the market shifts in japan. That makes Deal, Studio Miris, and more importantly, KID, all in the last four months. Even more curious when visual novels are finally making some headway in the u.s. market, in the form of Hirameki's proper offerings, the Phoenix Wright games, Ubisoft's Sprung, and even Hotel Dusk, and games of that ilk.
Certainly the landscape is changing, but there is such a glut of these game makers that losing a few probably won't harm that particular industry significantly. I don't mean to say that the market is in crisis, and in all likelihood three companies pop up for every one that closes.
Trioncube (or Kimochiyourensa Puzzle Trioncube - 'Feelgood Chaining Puzzle Trioncube') is a relaxing, semi-Lumines-like puzzle game for the DS from Namco Bandai. It came out in the u.s., in fact, which I realized only moments ago. The game itself seems nice enough, but what surprised me more than that were the japanese commercials (navigate on the right, press the pink remote control thing to play). The company put out nine commercials leading up to the game's japanese release (technically two were during/past release day), in order to drive interest. I'm not sure if it worked, but it was a great idea, all done with a budget of about $100, a crappy camera, and some editing software.
The commercials all center around the game's simple mascot demonstrating real-life versions of various elements from the game, such as the basic gameplay, the pleasant music, the versus mode, various backgrounds, and a not entirely bad little song thing. I think it was quite a nice campaign, really - I'm not sure if these aired on TV or were available only on their site, but if it were TV...I think it might've made me buy this. I'm probably buying it anyway, at this stage.
If the game interests you, you can basically try it for free in the japanese site's flash browser, or with different music in the american one. Direction keys move, z and x rotate the pieces. The rules are pretty self-explanatory.
Update: I missed something on the japanese site - little stories in the form of flash movies. They really went all out for this, sort of. I quite like the fireworks one! Bonus!
Popular doujin circle Studio SiestA, who we've covered previously, is best known for their game Airraid, and is currently working on the 'comical shooter' Trouble Witches. This hasn't stopped them from announcing their new game already, in the form of Valstray no kisen (with star fire, no less!). Coming soon they say...thanks to zepy for the news.
One japan-exclusive Xbox 360 title you might have missed is AquaZone: Life Simulator, originally for PC, but now also for mobile and 360, and there's even a downloadable video for your ipod, oddly enough. The game is basically a virtual fishtank, with more fish than Seaman, but a lot less interaction. You can check out a video of the game in action here.
AquaZone's 360 iteration only costs 3,900 yen (released back in september, so probably much cheaper in reality now), as the company planned to make its money back on paid-for items in Xbox Live Marketplace - new fish and environments and whatnot...but I'm not sure anybody bought it. The fish do look very realistic, and I'm sure it looks very nice on an HDTV, but somehow I imagine that TV would more often be put to better use. Still, I can't help being curious to try it out! Plus the maker's name is Frontier Groove, which is hard to argue with. The company seems to be a jack of all trades, with main business in online games, but a hand in console, as we've seen here, and anime production. Pretty impressive (maybe) for a company which as of 2005 had only 13 employees. Here's an order link in case you're feeling adventurous.
Update: substance j brings it to my attention that AquaZone was originally released for the Saturn back in the days. It is my ultimate shame not to have already known this. I'll redeem myself!
As many of you may recall, GDC is the week when gamasutra gets flooded by insert credit folks, with vincent, myself, and eric-jon all writing articles, and ic contributer chris woodard also adding to the mix. You've already seen the best of the articles I wrote there - which weren't that amazing, as my primary function at GDC was to do interviews, which you'll see over the next few months. There were some quite good ones in there. Woodard wrote up the talk from suda51, entitled Punk's Not Dead (incidentally I rewrote that title - it was originally quite a bit more engrish), and vince wrote up shuji utsumi's talk on the busines of Q, and koji kondo's talk (he nintendo music fame).
But really, I think the best writing of GDC was done by eric-jon, who may be a complete loon, but really does write very well. He reported on aonuma's speach, which makes sense given eric-jon's experiences with Wind Waker. He also did an excellent extended writeup on the experimental gameplay sessions, in which alexey pajitnov won, and how could he not? He probably won walking in there. The waugh also wrote up this very nice session, which pretty much embodies what GDC should be about. The intended speaker wasn't able to attend, because he was getting married in korea, and there was a schedule miscommunication. So, game designer dan roy decided to lead the discussion. I spoke with him later, and he said "I couldn't let them leave, all the people in that room were the very people I wanted to talk to about my own game." Apparently he was doing a thesis on mobile MMOs, which was to be the scheduled topic. So they talked, and used the projector to show their works in progress, and ultimately made the best of a bad situation. Good work all around, I say.
yasushi suzuki, as you may recall, is currently working on a manga called Purgatory Kabuki for DrMaster, and did a fair bit of contract work for Treasure, on titles such as Ikaruga, Radiant Silvergun, and Sin & Punishment. DrMaster set up an email interview with him for me, which is going in suzuki's artbook soon. You'll see from the brief text here why I never do email interviews, but it's still interesting nonetheless. The best bit of it, you'll find, is where he says he's quite interested in making a game based on the Purgatory Kabuki property. Check it out here - very brief, but too big to just put up on the main site, I think.
So the Sumo Omni is a bean bag, often marketed at gamers. They advertise on Penny Arcade and suchlike. Some months ago, I was offered the opportunity to review it. I though I might be able to do something fun or gonzo with it, so I agreed. But then the behemoth arrived, and I just couldn't get round to it. I tried playing it with a variety of different games and styles - that was going to be my angle. Is it good for shooters? RPGs? Platformers? I actually have the images of Keiouyuugekitai and Soukyuugurentai and Legend of Heroes III White Witch all ready to go. What stopped me? I just didn't like it at all. Doesn't make for a very interesting story, then.
I'll sum it up for you. The casing feels like the tarps they use to cover street fairs. It's very coarse, very sturdy, to be sure, probably easy to wash stuff off of. But it's not comfortable. It sure looks comfortable in the company pictures, like the one to the left, but it's simply not so. This tarp also makes the 'beans' inside the bag hold form pretty well. This is good if you want to make it a chair, but then...might as well just use a chair. It doesn't feel good at all if you want to lounge. It's simply not comfortable at all to adult folks like you and me. Several of my friends tried it out and came back with the same result. I once tried to flop down on it, as one likes to do with beanbags, and I almost knocked the wind out of myself. It's hard, it doesn't give if you jump on it, and you can poke an eye out on the edges of the thing. My friends suggested that it would be more comfortable if you covered it with a blanket. I'm used to beanbags being squishy and pleasant, so that still didn't strike me as a good solution - and for $130, the thing should really be perfect already. So I was going to let the whole review thing go - I even offered to return it to them (though I didn't tell them the reason was that I didn't like it at all), but they seemed to want the review, so here it is, the honest truth, uninteresting though it may be. I wound up giving it to a friend who has kids - the kids loved it, because they could climb all over it, spill crap on it, and it'd be alright. So if you have kids, and a lot of money, maybe you might want one of these. But I can't say I'd recommend it!
For those of you who like/remember the UK-based Mean Machines magazine, aside from their nice archive, they've put together a site for virtual console games, which splits out the original Mean Machines review, and adds a new review for context. It's well organized, and you can view by publisher, console, title, year, genre, points, etc. You might've seen this already, as they asked me to link them ages ago, but just in case, it's rather useful, especially for those who, like me, want to see what's out, but haven't bothered to hook up their Wii yet.
This has been going the rounds as of late and was broadcast last year in France, via Game One. It's nothing massively earth shattering but it is nice to see televised coverage of gaming, especially shooters, done with such a refined expertise, subdued deference and awe. It also manages to host some interviews from within Konami, Cave, and G.rev. Personally, I'm just glad that they high fived R-Type Delta (a fucking classic). The video file is here (direct link, thanks fontaz, whoever you are) and a nicely done set of English subtitles are here.
Zepy's site Canned Dogs is up and running again. He used to talk about doujin software, but has turned his focus mostly on eroge for the new iteration of the site. In his recent posts, two are particularly interesting. The first post, the contents of which simon alluded to some time ago on Gamesetwatch some time ago, is the top 20 eroge sales for 2006. Zepy adds a bit of context and compares to the top 5 of 2005, which was pretty much the genre's best year in terms of having high-selling titles.
Remember that these games are done by teams of very few people, and sell for just under $100 each, more in limited versions. This is the situation with most PC software in japan, and used to be, as the head of NEC Interchannel america told me before they closed, a license to print money.
The other interesting bit is that Studio Miris (splash page work safe...after that you're on your own) is closing down. The company was best known for its game Tsukikagerou according to zepy. They were adventure game developers by trade, but dabbled in the action and ARPG genres (neither link is worksafe if you navigate away from the main page). Aozora Gakko no Senseikun will be the company's final game.
Anyway, zepy seems to be updating regularly now (though that statement is often the kiss of death), so check it out from time to time if the subject matter interests you. Be aware that most of the time even I, who can recognize a voice by a song they did for a famous h-game (see the update), have little idea what he's talking about.
Here are a few things I missed whilst away at GDC, but which rid picked up at his majoria's news site (where you can also find more news bits of various descriptions).
Gpara has new screens of Final Fantasy Tactics: The Lion War, for PSP. Looks like it's worth purchasing already, so long as they get rid of the judgement system and...port it to DS. Or redesign the PSP to be smaller and not use UMD at least! The 2D/3D style really takes me back to the beloved FFT for PSone though, so I'm highly anticipating.
The Muchi Muchi Pork website has character and story sections now. The girls (pilots) themselves have pig ears, and ride mechanical pigs. Quite odd!
Last but not least, Grim Grimoire has a rather long trailer up on its official site now, with predictable but quite pleasant voice acting. Gameplay starts at about 2:30 in the video. They're basically calling it an RTS, and it seems very PC-like, which makes me wonder why it's coming out on PS2. Still very intriguing though. Nice music, and worth checking out.
No, this is not a hellish sequel to Act Zero but instead a series of Bomberman games on their way this month. We already have Bomberman Land on the Wii gracing Japanese shelves, whilst this does retain the plucky and cute aesthetic style we are all used to the main game modes are much more generic action platformer fare (though thankfully the Battle Mode has stayed intact).
The other two Bomberman games scheduled for release are another Bomberman Land on the PSP, which is ironically the most faithful in terms of gameplay, and Bomberman Story on the DS. The latter has transgressed into action RPG territory, though there is already a proper Bomberman game on the DS. So at least we have that to be thankful for.
These are also from vince's photos, but are ones I thought were particularly notable. On the left, you've got a slide from shuji utsumi's GDC presentation. He's the CEO of Q Entertainment, and the image you see here is his assessment of Rez designer tetsuya mizuguchi's good and bad points. Rather amusing. In the middle, you can see the 'win' screen from Space Giraffe, jeff minter's new game. I'm sure you can pick out the myriad references in there! Lastly, there's an image of 'Konsole Kingz', the only source for 'urban gamerz.' Blue sky in games forever!
Sometime seiyuu/idol singer and fulltime wacky sounding momoi halko has a CD coming out in Japan March 21st: Famison 8BIT. The CD will feature classic anime songs from a decade or so ago (think Dr. Slump and Urusei Yatsura) done in 80s chip tune style, coupled with halko's unique vocal stylings. Check out the sample songs on the recently opened official website and ready your vocal chops to accompany the CD's karaoke versions. You know you want to sing along!
Brandon's note: The sample jukebox (last link of vince's above) has quite an appealing interface and visual style as well, with a little 8-bit character walking toward the end of the screen to reach a bowser-like castle. And interestingly, her real first name is haruko, not halko, but she renamed herself after the HAL 9000 computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey. An odd character, to be sure.
Update: This update isn't important at all, but vince showed me this site while we were at the hotel for GDC, and I thought I recognized the voice. "Has she done any H-games?" I asked? "I don't think so," says vince. "I'm sure it sounds like a voice I've heard in a song from a Frontwing game," I say, in spite of having never played one, only downloaded the music. Turns out I was right, as I researched when I got home. She was in Majou no Ochakai, which has been translated in clean form by Hirameki. She sang the song Bite, which you can get here. That game has no business having any hentai in it, so I really should be ashamed for even recognizing this, but I am who I am, and we all have to accept that. At least I never played it!
While we at insertcredit are currently ramping down on the whole Game Developers Conference hubbub, that doesn't mean that GDC is dead! NO! It lives in our hearts and minds...and EYES! Especially our eyes as you can live the moments of GDC 2007 vicariously through some fun photos of GDC randomness.
brandon's note: you might have seen the one picture of myself and brian crecente of kotaku, but I think this one is more fun!
I was interviewing shane kim at Microsoft today, and finally learned the whereabouts of Panzer Dragoon series director (and the guy who was in charge of Saga) yukio futatsugi. I knew he was at Microsoft Game Studios Japan, but I didn't know what projects he was in charge of. Turns out he's working with sakaguchi on his current projects. Makes me wonder if I'm seeing a little futatsugi in the post apocalyptic landscapes of Lost Odyssey, but that could just be projection. Bit more of that interview here - the full interview is going up later. Kind of wish he were directing something on his own, but I suppose that'll come with time.
As you may have heard, the Behemoth is giving out gold-like statues to the top scorers of Alien Hominid HD on Xbox Live Arcade every...week? Month? I don't remember. Anyway, I saw Behemoth boss john baez at GDC yesterday, and he had the nifty prize with him. So we took pictures, of course! Mine was meant to be a sleazy statue-licking pose, but I couldn't quite figure it out, so it sort of looks like I'm vomiting on it. There we are.
As mentioned yesterday, Studio Nocturne has some neat concepts going on, and vince took a few pictures of some of the other titles. Makeup Diva is quite a nice idea, in which you play as an aspiring makeup artist to the stars - those people behind the main character are brittany spears and chow yun fat lookalikes. When I interviewed their CEO, he said they'd named the latter lookalike 'chew my fat', which isn't half bad! Studio Nocturne wasn't the only company in that booth though, there was also Sanuk Software, also from thailand, who had Barnyard Blast - essentially Castlevania with a pig in a cowboy hat, with a shotgun. Sold me, more or less! This was actually playable on DS, in a very early stage, and frank, vince and myself all had a go - quite fun for an early game. Til we hear more, check out some screens.
Housewife Superstar is a DS game from a new thai game developer by the name of Studio Nocturne, though they haven't put up their site yet. I met them today at GDC because of this entrancing poster you see below. I've got closeups of the bottom bits too, as you'll see. The game, though it's just in concept form now, is basically about being the perfect housewife - learning flower arranging, embroidery, dressing up, and various other things, but all a bit tongue in cheek, not taking it seriously. It looks really fun to play, and the story bits are definitely inspired by Ouendan, which isn't so bad.
This is one title I really hope comes out. They had a number of other very nice looking game concepts on display as well, which we'll handle in a new post entirely. For now, check out Housewife Superstar.
This is always the danger when you show projects from your own laptop. jeff minter did a keynote at the independent game summit at GDC, and talked a bit about Space Giraffe, which looks very very nice by the way, but before that, he was showing the audience his old games. He misplaced the game Gridrunner++ (a nice simple game you can get from the Llamasoft website), so he was searching through his file tree - exposing for a moment on the large screen a folder entitled 'naughty.' That's my greatest fear for presenting, let me tell you! Luckily the folder wasn't opened, and only displayed for a fraction of a second, but look, I've gone and immortalized it. I've just interviewed him, so hopefully he won't hate me after this.
Back to Space Giraffe though, it's very Tempest-like, but with extra bits, where you can attack enemies on the edge of the screen (they usually kill you there), in a frenzied display of particles and points multipliers. It's really very nice looking and I honestly can't wait to play the thing. One level in particular had so much going on that it almost looked impossible to parse. He showed one level, aside from the 'eyes of allard' level I mentioned in the gamasutra piece linked above, which was delightfully ridiculous. It was a cylinder turning into a cube, and it was called "the cube is not for yiffing,' and at the end of it you could just make out a 'sexy' transparent fox woman with a 'do not enter' symbol over her crotch. Pretty funny stuff. The picture I took of it is not that fantastic, but sort of gets the idea across. Sort of...
I did an interview with Deus Ex creator warren spector a bit ago, and it's gone up on gamasutra now. It's one of my favorite interviews in a while, probably because it focuses so heavily on story and narrative - and how nobody's very good at it. There's also some MMO bashing, which I appreciate. Here's an excerpt: "Deus Ex was driven, in part, by the statement of “what happens when you drop James Bond into a world that's shades of gray?” James Bond is a character who knows what's right and wrong. What happens when you drop that character in a world in which it's not clear what's right and wrong? That's one of the lynchpins, and I think that's an issue that people should be thinking about more because so many people think they know what's right and wrong now."
And another: "There's an assumption in what you're saying that deeper simulation and more player control must equate more realism, which isn't the case. You can simulate a fantastic world that has nothing to do with the real world out there. It's important to remember that. We don't have to strive for greater realism, we can strive for more a iconic, stylized or fantastic approach as long as it's internally consistent and the player can reason with the simulation and figure out how to interact with it. My guess is that players will feel more on an emotional level about their characters in Spore than they ever have, or maybe ever will, about a human character in any other game ever. I don't think we have to focus on creating a realistic world, I want to move away from that."
Speaking of Takuyo, they were one of the only japanese developers to really try and adopt the Xbox console from the beginning, with pretty limited results. They released Plus Plum 2, a sequel to a Dreamcast puzzle game (which is also available on PSP now - it's like they want to fail! But anyway...), and Magi Death Fight, which is basically a 4-player top-down 3D action game with nice 2D effects.
Check out more screenshots here. It looks a bit like a doujin PC game, which isn't surprising when you consider that Takuyo is known for its adventure titles, if at all. Just one of those games that will forever be lost in the shuffle, for better or for worse, but it's really interesting to see what became of those companies that did try to support the Xbox, and which ones they were. Small players, all.
Torikago no Mukougawa is a rather unremarkable game from Takuyo with some rather remarkable artwork, I'd say. It's an adventure game with sliding puzzles and girls to woo, but what struck me was the excellent use of color in the illustrations. Check the (worksafe) sample images to see what I mean. It's slightly reminiscent of a more human take on the Elebits style (though this came before). Shame that it was used for this sort of game - I imagine that if you applied this graphical style to an RPG or similar, you might get something more along the lines of Odin Sphere.
If you're curious about the game itself, or want to see a bit more art, there's a movie download (with decent music about halfway in), as well as wallpapers. The illustrations are by satoshi kuramochi, who I believe also did work on Takuyo's cancelled Xbox RPG Master/Slave.
Ollie found this quite a long time ago, but I never got around to posting. It's a fun little flash game in which you have to spot a certain amount of moai heads, as made famous by Gradius and...easter island, in a certain amount of time. You do this just by touching them with your mouse pointer. Nice music, simple and cute. In fact, SKT, the game's creator, has made a number of other moai-themed games, including this excellent one in which you save moai heads from falling off the leaning tower of pisa by tilting it with the mouse, and another game with the same original theme. There are also some non-moai games, but who wants that?
Or at least UK Resistance is, according to their new layout. Personally, I think a war against EA would be much more worthwhile - revenge for the Dreamcast and all. Sony is really just italy to EA's germany.
One-time insertcredit.com contributor and heavy aerosol addict Brendan Lee has written an article about why there isn't a "Citizen Kane" of videogames yet. You can read it if you like.
"It's gone. Nothing feels crispy/clicky enough; the fully-orchestrated soundtracks have a hollowness that dedicated Super Famicom sound chips never did. The more polygons they added, the less substance there is. Something's somehow . . . missing."
There is an enlightening discussion about the terrorism-like nonsense that is modern videogame production and PR going on at the selectbutton.netforums right now, along with a bit of jolly rogering about the back of the new Burnout box. That game, don't you know, is properly titled "Battle Racing Ignited Burnout Dominator". Not making that up.
Just because it bears repeating, here's the entirety of said Burnout game's back-of-box text -- all capitalization is represented precisely as it appears on the box:
"2007 delivers the MOST INTENSE BURNOUT YET
SLAM YOUR RIVALS through barriers to UNLOCK SHORTCUTS.
Experience the thrill of BOOST CHAINING for OUTRAGEOUS RACING SPEED.
Choose your VEHICLE FOR BATTLE, from HOTRODS TO EUROPEAN EXOTICS.
Take risks and REAP THE REWARDS in the ALL-NEW MANIAC MODE.
Go HEAD-TO-HEAD with your friends for some MULTIPLAYER MAYHEM.
DOMINATE ANY SETTING, from the WINDY MOUNTAINS TO THE BEACH."
If this sort of thing morbidly interests you, you'd like to know that Mr. Lee's feature deals with similar themes. Yes -- boost chaining and rival-slamming and OUTRAGEOUS SPEED (emphasis on the "speed"). So check it out and have something to talk to disinterested co-workers about around the water cooler on Monday.
Sega still has a u.s. arcade division, which I just recently rediscovered. Naturally a lot of it is UFO machines and whatnot nowadays, but they do have a relatively interesting 
If you've been reading 
It seems that Microsoft have bent space and time around their stringent guidelines and allowed the 360 version of 
Just a couple of games I want to mention here - I know there's a lot more out there. The first is a lovely game called 
The other game is called Touchdown: The Alien Attack, by sweater fish deluxe. Here's a 
Gamasutra has an excellent 
Totally passed me by, but Falcom's 
Puzzle Quest is out too, for DS and PSP - the DS version has a few audio pops, but has the advantage of...being on the DS. The PSP one does look much nicer though, and the wide screen makes for a good playing field. And playing with the DS version on the train is hard, since it's all stylus-based. That said, the game is Bejeweled with quests and special attacks and items. That's a formula for success, I say. Note: the character here is the one I'm using. It doesn't actually matter which character you use from a story standpoint, though they have different attributes. I tried to start the quest with several different classes and genders, but the scenario was always the same. "Go see your father Albion" (I think it's Albion, that's from memory). Each time, the same father, same name. That guy sure had a lot of kids! 
Just a quick note - Tose/Nintendo's Starfy 2 for GBA is currently the 
Odd as it may seem, 
I'll be moderating an 
What with the release of 
For those who don't know Sega Tec Toy, Tec Toy was formed in brazil in 1987 to create electronic toys. They partnered with Sega to bring the Master System and Genesis to brazil, and continued to release games for the SMS well into the 2000s, including a number of 
But most people know about Tec Toy's SMS ports - and maybe a few even know about their Mega Drive exclusives, like Duke Nukem 3D. But what grabbed my attention upon browsing their 
Apparently, as of 2002, the company had released 100 games. The japanese site 
My old pal vander fujisaki from 
In some more catch-up news: while GDC was happening on this side of the ocean, Game Park, who created the GP32 some time back and were in the process of pushing the XGP and derivatives out the door, 
Back in february, says 
If the game interests you, you can basically 
Popular doujin circle 
One japan-exclusive Xbox 360 title you might have missed is 
As many of you may recall, GDC is the week when gamasutra gets flooded by insert credit folks, with vincent, myself, and eric-jon all writing articles, and ic contributer chris woodard also adding to the mix. You've already seen the best of the articles I wrote there - which weren't that amazing, as my primary function at GDC was to do interviews, which you'll see over the next few months. There were some quite good ones in there. Woodard wrote up the talk from suda51, entitled 
So the 
This has been going the rounds as of late and was broadcast last year in France, via 
Here are a few things I missed whilst away at GDC, but which 
The Muchi Muchi Pork 
No, this is not a hellish sequel to 
Sometime seiyuu/idol singer and fulltime wacky sounding 
Speaking of Takuyo, they were one of the only japanese developers to really try and adopt the Xbox console from the beginning, with pretty limited results. They released 
Ollie found this quite a long time ago, but I never got around to posting. It's a 
Or at least UK Resistance is, according to their 
One-time 