Posts filed under 'Gaming'
So, this post is entitles, Super Mario Happiness. Well, why is this? Well, I found it fitting on many levels. First, there is the “URMRGAY” amusing coincidence discovered about the letters that appear to have sparkles on them. Second, and by far most importantly, is the fact that, well playing Super Mario games just plain makes me happy, be it Super Mario Bros., Super Mario World, Super Mario 64, and no less, Super Mario Galaxy.
So, needless to say, I love this game. I did in fact play this game almost non-stop for the past two days (since it’s release), and I have in fact “beaten” the game (by which I mean, beaten the game first pass, which refers to the fact that I’ve beaten the game sans 100% completion… on which I’d like to add that I plan on doing it second pass later in the evening tonight.) The thoughts and opinions I am about to share came with much thought and insight, as such.
First of all, I love this game. It’s brilliant and it’s fantastic. So much platforming goodness. It takes me so far back, the feeling is so SM64. It feels so old school. There’s no stress about collecting this or collecting that, completing this objective, not screwing up this side-quest, blah blah blah, or anything like that, it’s all carefree and fun. It’s genuinely fun, at that; not like one of those things where you’re having fun going for a reward and a goal, and collecting the reward is fun despite the path their being riddled with bits of tediousness and the like, no you’re playing it for the pure joy and goal of playing it. It feels like SM64 in that the star is simply a hint at what you could try to do that might be a lot of fun.I love the new mechanics, the new gameplay, the visuals, the music, the powers, the level design, both aesthetically and functionally, the *snicker* voice acting, I love it all, and I love playing it on the Wii and with the Wiimote and Nunchuck. I feel it’s exactly what a Mario game should be. There were moments where I was surprised by what I was playing, where I for a fleeting moment thought that I was getting something below what I expected, but I found that they instead gave me what I wanted knowing more what would please me than I myself knew.
I’ve heard a lot of early critiquing for the game, such as the game being far too easy, well, I disagree with that notion. I think it’s the perfect level of dificulty: it starts out easy, gets more challenging, presents optional challenges for people not up to the task, and especially difficult ones for renown experts. Though, I rarely find a problem with difficulty in a game, or lack thereof… I know I’m pretty good at games, so expecting games created to give me a hard time would, in my opinion, be a game made far too difficult. Also I’d like to add, sure I could be one of the people boasting about only dying a handful of times throughout my entire adventure, but I’d be exaggerating for one, and two, the difficulty in most adventure games today can rarely be quantified by the number of times you were killed.
I’ve also heard some comparisons on the process of shaking the Wiimote to accomplish the spin when a button press could accomplish the same task just as easily. Well, after much thought, I think I prefer the waggling. It truly sends across the meaning of what you are doing in exerting the extra energy on your behalf to get that perfectly times spin and such. If it was just a button press, the action wouldn’t feel as significant, that little bit of energy that you have to yourself exert really truly makes the action feel so much smoother and better. And also, it really moves us into the new generation of timing movements of our body appendages along with movement of our thumbs/fingers/eyes/etc.My only “complaint,” which isn’t really much of a complaint, is that each “galaxy” has the luxury or being like a small level just connected with the launcher stars, so you don’t get to have those well designed large scale levels that you’d see in SM64. I mean, SMG has it’s own unique brilliant level design for sure, and it’s very impressive, and it’s at least as impressive, but I think it’s probably more challenging to do levels like you would see in SM64 than what you mostly see in SMG, which is the only downside to that thought.
Alas, I have not 100%’d this game yet, and believe me I will FOR SURE, but right now where I am with this game I will say this. I love this game, a lot, it is purely brilliant. It has some small flaws here and there that really make me wish for a teeny bit more. But anyway, this game is AMAZING, but it is not as good as SM64. Close, but not quite. Though it is the true sequel to that game in every way shape and form, and it is indeed SM64 reborn. To be honest, it’s almost everything I could hope for.
So, to describe a little bit of what I’m talking about, about doing more: I wish that you had to “earn” powers similar to how you would in SM64, which caused the powers to be unlocked all over the world. By this, new possibilities and areas would be opened in almost every world, giving you all sorts of amusing and interactive experiences. Also, as fun as the comets are, I wish instead that they were, “comet-stars” or something, and you could get one of each type on every level in the games, so like, 4 comet-stars per star basically. Sure, it’d be really hard, but it’d be for the uber-hardcore. And then instead of these stars-from-comets-stages, they had instead put in another 2 challenges on each level for stars, which surely they could have done. Though I must say, I’m glad the 100-yellow-coin challenges are gone. I never liked those.
Anyway, if I were to give this game a score, and though I choose not to do so, I would easily feel no regret about giving it a 10/10, but I feel a 9.5 is the score it deserves (hell, it’d be 9.9 if I believed in going by 0.1 increments)… which really makes me want to re-think the scores I’ve given other games in my mind. Honestly, it breaks my heart that this game has those shortcomings, because it really is so close to the perfect game, and having those extra little bit of tid-bits to make it that 10 really would have been a brilliant game to play, over and over again. Haha, I’ll be playing this one over and over for years to come anyway though. 
November 16th, 2007
by Anuj
Halo. I mean, you gotta be living under some kind of rock to not have heard of Halo. I mean, it really means something special when you as something of a hardcore gamer get messages from friends you haven’t spoken to in ages speaking random cryptic messages about a game that has yet to be released, yet to be played by more than a small finite percentage of the target audience. It’s really something when a game can impact our community in this way while still being positive, creating excitement and hype and happiness in something to look forward to, something of a global phenomena.
[pwning your mom’s face]
I personally enjoy Halo. I think it is a good game, it is fun, and it’s a game that provides a decent story, decent universe, decent characters, and really an amazing sandbox in which to enjoy an FPS. To say it is anything more is in my opinion something of a fallacy. As a game, I feel it is inferior to many that don’t get nearly the praise that it gets, and the praise that it gets is sometimes far greater than it deserves. However, when it comes to Halo, you can’t ignore the meta-game. I mean, there is no other game that really has and will have the player volume that Halo will have… and I don’t just mean good competition, I mean bad competition too. Players of all skill levels and of varying interests, hardcore players, casual players, friends, hell, family.
New Halo 3 "Being Hunted" TV Commerical Believe
01:32
I can’t help but give props to the incredible marketing campaign that has followed Halo since nearly the beginning and honestly I love people of all creative backgrounds being able to get into something that I’m interested in, just as much as me. I’m not one of the ‘haters’ of ‘posers’ or anything of the like. It’s all just a whole lot of negativity that I’m not interested in anymore. I look forward to Halo very much at the moment. Perhaps I may not enjoy it as much as most people out there but I think I will have plenty of fun with it. I saw this video online and it’s simply amazing.
Halo: The Future of Gaming
06:09
As a single-player/co-op game I don’t have high expectations (though I intend to play it co-op and not at all single-player like all of the other Halos) because the story and characters are just something I didn’t get into too much. I enjoy some of the rather static aspects of the characters and can appreciate some of the design for things that may not have been intended or were created in a juvenile mindset to still create something somewhat unique. I’ve heard that the games, when combined with a whole helluva lot of reading yields into quite an interesting story, and so I hope one day to have the interest in reading it, but in the meanwhile, I find then that it’s just such a shame that the games do such a poor job of it. But hey, it’s a game anyway right? Most people don’t even care about the story… it’ll be the ending that matters to anyone.
As a multi-player game, I have the same expectations I’ve always had with Halo. New weapons, new toys, new modes, new blah blah blah, and it’ll be a blast for me and my cohorts I play with for a good solid month probably. Then it’ll be fun off and on here and there for a while, and then I’ll stop and be done playing it for the most part. The dynamic environment of the game will be interesting though, much like Halo 2. When I played Halo 2 around launch-time, I found myself seriously just kicking ass. I would actually own fights and win left and right. About a year later when I played again, oh man, I just got my ass handed to me. There were still times when the game was fun, but no matter where I went really, it was just self-inflicted chaos really. Was it fun at that point… well I was playing with a friend and we were doing random stuff so I was having fun, but on the same note, being just easy prey wasn’t really fun either. But the point is that a game that can give and create an environment in which you can experience something like that in addition to a normal level of content can’t be ignored.
Anyhoo, as I said, I look forward to Halo 3 and I think I will enjoy it. When all is said and done it will probably leave a taste of being just slightly below satisfying I’m betting, because of major flaws here and there, but I think most of those will be caused by losing focus of the bigger scope of the game and really how difficult it is to do some of the things that Halo does so well not wasting time on some of the less significant points of the game that somewhat have become so important when considering the surface-value of the game. Anyway, more thoughts when the game is out and I actually play it. Also, I think the pricing plan of the “game(s)” is bullshit.
September 24th, 2007
by Anuj
What is the meaning of War? It’s rather cliche to begin a piece of writing by asking the definition of the topic for which the piece is being written, but I really cannot think of any better way to begin this piece.
[war-nado]
A look at a dictionary yielded an indredibly long list of definitions, a revelation that is somewhat depressing to think about… a fact that a word so negative can mean so many things and be used in so many contexts. The definition of ‘war’ in the sense I find it most fitting and appropriate, and the meaning which I find true to define any kind of war would be simply, “conflict that leads to struggle.” You won’t find this definition in so many words anywhere, but it is something of an amalgamation of most of the other meanings I found, and it represents best what I have in mind.
What leads me to this somewhat depressing and strangely repetitious chapter of humanity? Well a lot of things that have been going on lately that have led me to many interesting thoughts and I think it was just time I felt like making a post about it. The topic that more specifically led to my study of the semantics involved with said topic was a few of the more heated debates I find on gaming forums and even our very own forum, that being the everlasting console war. The console war is honestly a topic I and few others really care about, but then why does it yet find such a strange place in all of our minds? It’s a topic that I feel most of us believe truly pointless, but then why does it still incessently continue?
Console War. I think it’s aptly named that. As far as I know it hasn’t broken out into actual physical struggle or such, but isn’t that simply the next logical progression? I feel uncomfortable talking about War in general, especially that on a political level because I hardly consider myself as knowledgable on the topic as I feel I would need to be to qualify making claims on the topic, but then it occurs to me that when you consider the fact that it always boils down to conflict that leads to struggle, there really shouldn’t be much that one would need to know in order to speak on it. All war is relatively pointless when you consider it as a struggle that began from conflict. Is it so difficult to resolve a conflict without some kind of struggle? But then, it is the virtue of humanity to be able to have conflict and conflict is unavoidable, nor is a lack of conflict desirable. Conflict is what leads to the betterment of something, an aim to please higher than what is already there, and so we should embrace conflict, but embrace it as means of finding resolve and nothing else.
The console war (like all wars really), is a subject matter somewhat trivial, and certainly not something worth going into physical resolve about, but is it really a fire we should be feeding? Most people are capable of dismissing the conflict, but yet we find such amusement in continuing its discussion as well as creating feeding grounds from which it can spawn more followers and grow ever larger. I speak in part of most of the gaming internet, but more specifically the website that brought this idea to my mind. I was introduced to this site by Penny Arcade when they made a mockery of the site that is clearly a joke. Anyone can go there and see that it’s clearly meant to be condescending and amusing, but at the same time, too many people take it seriously and join forces or forge to fight against it. I think Penny Arcade approaches it well by simply making fun of it since I feel confident to say that that is entirely the purpose the site serves, but conversely, they must be aware they continually feul the fire. Though, I find it thoroughly impossible to not be amused and impressed by some of the things that spawn as a result of the console war.
But on the other hand isn’t that what the competition or the war is there for? And I mean, is acknowledging current preferences biased? And hell, is bias even wrong? I think the answer to both questions is no, the problem though is that far too often people’s actions make them both out to be yes. Anyhoo, like all Wars, I am interested to see how it will all resolve but it is something I wish not to contribute to or feed into. I’m not interested in sales, or numbers or anything, it’s really all about the games and I easily forsee myself needing at least all three consoles to play some of the awesome console exclusives. The real question is where and how I’ll actually manage to find the time/money to play all of these things…
August 19th, 2007
by Anuj
Wow. Just wow. GG everyone, gg indeed. You bet your ass it’s about damn time!
So, when I woke up this morning, or whatever day it was, that morning, when I woke up then, I’ll tell you want I expected. I expected rain, I expected to have to walk quite a bit, I expected to be running a little late, I expected to play some video games, I expected to read a bit, I even expected to maybe drink a little bit. I expected lightning to strike me and I expected aliens to crash land into our planet and thereby begin an intergalactic war of unending proportions. I did not expect news about StarCraft 2.
[gl and hf]
To a majority of people it means one thing, and then to a significantly smaller number of people, it means something else. What is that you ask, well, to the minority it means it’s just another game, meh, maybe kinda fun, something to look forward too, but nothing too significant. Well to the majority, abnormally myself included, I’d say it means, many a sleepless night playing StarCraft, spending hours looking at units and comparing times and build orders to find the best combination. Spending months and months and months spending every moment looking forward to the next time you can play StarCraft… and I mean that literally. You do know what I am talking about don’t you? You know that urge when you have a new game, a new TV show, a new book, a new friend/person in your life, or whatever new entertainment it may be, there is that urge of ‘as soon as you’re done doing whatever it is you are doing becuase you have to do it, you’re gonna go back to doing that thing?’ Most people have that many times in their lives, but rarely does it last more than a week or two, and rarely if it lasts longer than that does it involve doing what is seemingly the same thing over and over again, and even rarely still even after all that, remain to be something you were never ever tired of.
This is what StarCraft was for many of us, and to expect this of them again is hardly inappropriate. The same thing happened with millions with WoW, and pretty much any other game Blizzard has ever made… minus of course Lost Vikings, but Lost Vikings was badass despite not being the things described above. I find it very fitting that I wrote the Smash Bros. article directly before this one, and even more fitting still that it was titled the ‘inevitable’ Smash Bros. article. At the time of the writing, it was undoubtable that Smash Brawl was lightyears beyond any other game in terms of anticipation. It’s only fate that out of nowhere an announcement comes from Blizzard in regards to StarCraft 2. I never expected to wake up today, or any day really, and ever hear about StarCraft 2. As far as I was concerned, it had achieved the pinnacle godly status, and that being that, it was too large to have a sequel. What I mean is, is that it was so good that making a sequel only served to disappoint… but I think that is just the optomist in me; needless to say, I am so damned happy that they are making StarCraft 2.
If any game comes close in my anticipation to that of Smash Bros. it is StarCraft. It is easily my second most played game (behind of course, Smash Bros.) and it means almost as much to me as Smash does. And when I say almost, I do mean it. Smash does mean more to me and I have put in more to Smash and gotten out more from it as well, and that is something that probably shows. What can I say for what I see in StarCraft 2? I say, I see new graphics, tighter controls, being able to run in 1280×1024 resolution, I see awesome graphics and sweet animations, I see a continuation of the reasonably decent storyline, and I see more hijacking of ideas taken from other universes, but implemented so brilliantly that anyone the idea was taken from should be flattered that their creation could be so capably sculpted for the enjoyment of others.
Beyond that, I do not see myself being capable of disappointment from StarCraft 2. People have hundreds and thousands of reservations, and this may be despite the fact that they know they will be getting the game, and then continue to play it to near-death, but honestly I don’t feel most of these reservatsions. Even with Smash I have fear, but I know it is mostly because I know so much more about Smash, but we shouldn’t fear change, we should embrace it. The importance is in the concept that is being developed and having an understanding with the creator, and then having trust in creating something akin to what you fell in love with in the first place.
I can undoubtedly say that StarCraft 2 is my second most anticipated title. but I’ll be honest… although I can play Brood Wars to fend off my hunger for StarCraft 2, it’s much more painful a burden than playing Melee to fend off Brawl; the long long long wait for SC2 will be significantly more gruesome, I believe, than the wait till Smash… but then again, when they annouce a release date for either game, who knows what the hell I’ll be thinking… Haha, it’s amazing that two of my favorite games are each over 5 years old with no patch, sequel, expansion for about the same amount of time. Simply awe-inspiring game development.
June 11th, 2007
by Anuj
SUPER SMASH BROS. … WIIIIIIIIIIIII!!11one
This video is of a very cool animation I saw months ago and still wish to show now.
Btw, much love for Flint from Mother 3. 
Super Smash Bros Brawl Animated Trailer
02:19
Ok, so it was indeed inevitable. I could not go long without talking about Smash Bros. I mean, really it would be a travesty simply if I didn’t. Let me just say here and now that I love Super Smash Bros. and even moreso Super Smash Bros. Melee.
[more more more smash brootheeerrrrrrrrrsssss]
Yes, love, literally, love. It’s easily my favorite multiplayer game, and almost my favoritest game of all time and I will play it forever… yes, even after Brawl is released (much like I still play Smash 64 despite the existence of Melee). But coming upon the topic of Smash is a fearful prospect because it is a topic I have ventured upon many many times, with many many people, in many places… but alas, it would be a wrongdoing to myself to not venture there once more, especially in a time that was so pivotal, with people that I consider to be closest to me, in the place I consider to be my home.
So, Smash Bros., what exactly is Smash Bros. for those of you that might not know? Well, Smash Bros. is a fighting series, more specifically it is Nintendo’s fighting series. Amidst a world of 2D fighter clones, and a world of boring, terrible, 3D fighter clones, came a genius and new 2.5D fighter from Nintendo called Smash Bros., but I digress… for now. In the world of 2D fighters from Capcom in the Street Fighters and Darkstalkers and the half a dozen or so franchise 2D fighting games I’m not thinking of, and the cusp 3D fighting game boom came Smash Bros. for the N64. A game that was clearly a strong evolution of the original Mario Bros. arcade game (yeah, that’s the one with the POW! block in the middle), providing an incredible blend of Mario Bros.-esque platforming, combined with button/direction combos and timing of fighting games, with combat mechanics that had incredibly deep layers of depth.
Before I go into the combat mechanics and fun of the game, I’d like to give a bit of history about it. Super Smash Bros. for the N64 was created in 1999 by Masahiro Sakurai, one of my now-favorite developers. The man is, quite literally, a genius and a god… Anyhoo, the initial depth of the combat mechanic was to add four players to the mix into the then traditional idea of only 2 players (but that was more of a revolutionizing concept of the N64 itself rather than just the game), give everyone full control of the characters including moves, combos, strategy, etc., jarring the concept of life-bars and instead creating a clever blend of level design impacting combat and the ring-out system to earn kills, as well as add tons of fun items and easter eggs into the mix to just further develop the fun of Smash Bros. But this was simply the first step.
In 2001 came Super Smash Bros. Melee, the official sequel to Smash Bros. for the GameCube, released close to the launch of the system itself. While Smash 64 was popular, it’s easy to say that Melee is strongly the reason the game has such a HUGE following now. Developing every idea in Smash 64 from the item depth, to the level designs, to the easter eggs and collectibles, to the unlockables, to the menus, to the insanely developed combat mechanics and development of the psuedo-psyche-level of strategy and precision of the combat and control, Melee was, nay, is fantastic. And when I say ‘is,’ I mean, ‘is.’ People to this day, yes 6 years later, discover new tactics and strategies as well as new means of balancing characters, and in a world of patches and downloadable fixes and such, a game that is offline and has had no such thing, that is no small feat.
It wasn’t as popular for these reasons initially though. I’d say quite easily, I along with almost everyone else that played the game, played for random fun. Sure, we played to win, but it wasn’t competitive and we did all suck. We did stupid stuff, we lost control of what we were doing, we didn’t know what to do, we didn’t have strategy. We didn’t have combos, we didn’t have character play styles, we didn’t know how to kill someone. Well, thankfully, now is a different story. It is interesting though. Smash Bros. created, or creates, such an interesting environment. You’re looking at a game that almost every gamer has played, or at least heard about… a game that most people at least know how to move around in, and, a game that is almost intuitive, unlike most fighting games. And then you look at the deep deep deep levels of competition for this game, and the layers upon layers of skill that players have and the clear gaps that can define these layers of skill. I can say easily that no other game has a network of gamers like Smash Bros.
I can say this because I am in this network; you may have seen our logo for our crew on the right of the page. We call ourselves “Smashers,” and we do so because it is what we do, we play Smash… seriously. I mean, it is fun, and it is for fun, but we take it seriously. We play to get better and we play to win, sure we make lots of friends all over the world along the way and we have a blast doing it, but we will never say that we aren’t in it for the competition as well. It’s funny because, while most of us could walk into any locale and beat 99% of people that play the game, we choose instead to play with the 1% that can beat us, thereby causing us to never ever win despite our high levels of skill, but alas, so is our gift and so is our curse. I have never once regretting being a part of the Smash community and I forever condone myself to be one with it as well.
Being a part of the Smash community has taught me so much, that I feel I must save the writing of that article for another day, and for now I think I should instead go back to my writing about the game itself, and about my anticipation of Brawl… along with everyone else. I suppose I mention the community and my part in it to simply give understanding of my dedication and knowledge of the game, as well as understanding in the fact that there is a community of hundreds of people that feel similarly, and then another million or so people who are looking forward to Brawl about a tenth as much as we are.
So, what is Brawl? Brawl is the sequel to Smash Bros. Melee. It will be out for the Wii, and I hope to GOD, that it will be out this year. To say that this is my most anticipated game is probably an understatement, and to say that this is my most anticipated occurrence is perhaps only a slight overstatement. What can I say about Brawl that hasn’t already been said though? The truth is, nothing. Everything has been said, the kind of new characters people want to see, the new moves, the new depth to the combat, the new levels, the new items, the new stages, the new menus, the new, literally, everything!
And this is what scares me and makes me happy all at the same time. I along with thousands out there, want the game to only evolve, not change. I don’t want something more simplistic and intuitive, I’d be happy with something harder, more skill based. Hell, I’d be harder with more stages more characters, more everything, and then another layer of complexity and that’s it. To be honesty, I don’t want much Wii control at all. And you know what? I think that’s exactly what Nintendo will deliver.
This is what I forsee: Smash Bros. Brawl will be everything I just described but more. They will release a special White GameCube styled controller that plugs into the bottom of the Wiimote (similar to the VC Controller). It will have rumble and everything, and otherwise, be a GameCube Controller. This will allow you to have Wiimote-wireless, as well as Wiimote motion control of menus and such, and perhaps even some crazy items or stages, or camera or whatever that needs to/can be done while not into the thick of the fray. Otherwise, we will see new characters, more moves, more characters, more items, more stages, and less of everything too just to make Melee not outdated. I think there will even be new complexities in combat and such.
In case anyone hasn’t noticed, if you go to smashbros.com you can clearly see that there is (from the time of this posting) 4 days till the launch of the new website. As discussed on the forums, while I don’t think anything monumental in nature will be revealed, the fact that there will be new info is undeniable.
I can’t wait, I know you can’t either. Woo, here’s looking forward to Brawl!
May 17th, 2007
by Anuj
Now, I could be like every other asshole on the internet and just post craploads of videos of Super Paper Mario to depict how excited I am for this game, but I think I will choose not to. You’re not a dumbass… you know where to go when you want to find videos. I mean, ok, so you’re lazy, and it’d just be way easier if all you had to do was click on a big Play button in the middle of this article, but I’d hope you already had an idea about what you were getting into that it would be a somewhat moot point for me to post a video here. Also, I think that the game is so near release (Tuesday, I believe is the release day), that it’d be a travesty to spoil and thusly partialy ruin what you’ll be getting into, hopefully oh-so soon.
[more mario origami action!]
Anyway, so as I’ve already mentioned, I am excited for Super Paper Mario, and I thought I’d write about it here. Outside of the obvious reasons for anticipating this title such as series fandom, Wii goodness, and all around classic franchise fun (more on these soon), I also have many traditional and unorthodox reasons for anticipating this game itself including the look, the redifining and replaying of classic and not-so-classic gameplay, and all around poking fun at the social standard of 2D gaming we’ve all lived and loved and grown up with.
Ok, so first I’ll start with the obvious reasons:
Roots
I love Paper Mario, and I always have. Of course this all started where it may have for many of us, which would be Super Mario RPG. Though the Paper Mario direction was a drastic change in the make of the Mario RPG world, it was a continuation of it in a way, and for that I was happy. Although this created quite a divide in gamers from loving Mario RPG and hating Paper Mario for not being a Mario RPG 2, I personally never found much justification to that logic. Just because it ain’t broke doesn’t mean that you can’t try to fix it. Now, people may have been turned away by other reasons such as non-traditional combat mechanics, or the look (which was definitely ahead of its time), or some other bogus reason I myself can’t put to words, which is at least a little bit understandable because while I may not have agreed with them, at least they were legitimate reasons.
I also deeply enjoy the Mario & Luigi series on the GBA and the DS, but I think by now that those games, despite their Mario and RPG connections to Paper Mario and Mario RPG, the series is an entirely different endevour. The only reason Mario RPG and Paper Mario are at all connected anymore is because of expectations people had from the original Paper Mario… and here’s still hoping for a true Super Mario RPG 2. 
Anyway, so I loved Mario RPG, I loved Paper Mario, and I loved Paper Mario “2“, so I am obviously a fan, and any incarnations of its future, no matter how drastically different, will appeal to me.
The Look
Ok, so I mentioned earlier how the look may have turned some people off, and while the look wasn’t a point of decision for me starting out, as in, I didn’t particularly like or dislike the look, now for me certainly isn’t the case. Though on the N64, this was a clever means of creating a bright colorful vibrant world without fear of overburdening processors or having poor visuals and such, the style flourished incredibly with the release of PM2, a leap I see of significant proportions with SPM as well; while the paper-y look of PM2 was amazing, to say that they concept was used to its full potential would just be …stupid.
The Wii
Ok, now this is a weird reason, but I think most of you might know what I mean. Well, there are two meanings really. One, I enjoy playing games on the Wii; the new control medium and such is something I so truly enjoy and am so desperately hungering for more gaming goodness to pass away the time, especially something with a bit more depth and continuity. Which leads to my second reason, in that, there isn’t actually much else to play. I don’t mean that as a complaint because I think the launch window is doing fantastically as far as games go, but at the same time, while most of the games have that “hey it’s on the Wii and the Wii controls are a lot of fun so this game is at least a little worth playing”-ness to it, at the same time, outside of Zelda and maybe WarioWare, nothing is die-hard must-have until now this.
And now the less obvious reasons:
Apprehensions
So despite everything I just listed, I wasn’t always without my doubts. Though I love Paper Mario, and enjoy the look and such, the game was originally slated as a GameCube title, and the stuff shown at E3 ‘06 was although cool, a little less than impressive. To me at the time, it looked like a 2D with the Paper Mario skin on top. Now though, while I think Nintendo not really initially revealing the “third” dimension was definitely a good thing, at the time, I had no idea what to expect with it. The game still looked like it would be fun, and something I would be willing to be head-strong on and buy without doubts of quality, but I was still worried that it was just a half-assed game. At the time, I would have much rather had a new Paper Mario RPG but I realize now that thoughts like that one and the same as thoughts of Mario RPG versus Paper Mario.
2D vs. 3D
Now this definitely is the bang of this game. While in PM2 they added the simple ability to travel in the depth of the 2D space, in this game, they literally turn that on its side. Har har, that was terrible. Anyway, I saw the first few levels of this game being played, and each and every level not only looked fun and fantastic, it appeared that each level in the game had such unique puzzles and designes and themes, that it appeared to have the level of depth to the level design as New Super Mario Bros. for the DS, except, moved from not only 2D, but to 3D as well. And then, this combined with the fact that I love 2D games in general, I still love them now, and despite my true undying love for the third dimension, the 2D can never end.
Which is where this game comes in. Bridging the gap between 2D and 3D and destroying norms we’ve lived by in game and level design, all while being fully aware of it and making amusing fun of it at the same time is something that should appeal to every gamer… well, at least any gamer that started playing games before it was “cool.” I saw people tire away at puzzles for a few minutes before realizing that they could turn the world to its side and see the solution as clear as day, but in 2D see nothing. Watching the realization of what the game designers and developers intended is something that I was truly happy to be able to appreciate, and I will be even more greatful when I am able to play it.
I think I’m not the only one out there that shares these sentiments and similarly anticipates SPM, and I don’t also believe that I’m the only one that this release kind of snuck up on. While I was always looking forward to it and keeping it in the back of my mind, in the wake of Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Corruption, and SMASH BROS., it’s not hard to see a title like this vanish. Seeing it at GDC was a blessing because when I heard that it would be out only weeks later, I was so relieved. I don’t think I would have been able to easily wait for this one. (Also, I’ve been very busy. :P)
April 8th, 2007
by Anuj
Now, I’m not one to normally fall prank to April Fool’s Jokes but one of them got me pretty good this year. Namely, this year’s STARMAN.NAT (the name I’ve given to the prank pulled by the guys at starmen.net). For those few of you that may not know who starmen.net is, they are a group of individuals who, years ago, started a fan-site for the wonderful game of Earthbound. Starmen.net became the first and largest house of petitions for the release of Earthbound 2 or Earthbound 64 or however it was to be known; essentially, the petition to bring us the sequel to Earthbound.
[more April Fool’s Day goodness]
Over time, their fandom rose to the ranks of being more than just an Earthbound fan-site, but a bastion in which all under-appreciated fans of games could harbor, more specifially, fans of Nintendo games. After this transition, when more fan-sites for other games that were once popularly represented by starmen.net began to rise, I think their focus towards Earthbound and Earthbound related games rose more. At which point there was also a lot more specific Earthbound content to focus on such as Earthbound, Mother 1+2, Mother 3, and Earthbound’s influence on other popular games such as Smash Bros. Now, they are easily one of the biggest unofficial fan-sites out there, period, let alone one of the biggest Video Game fansites, Nintendo fansites, and Earthbound fansites.
So, needless to say, I love starmen.net; I love their independent drive, their humor and their comprehensive collection of information, including works to translate the recently released (and fantastic) Mother 3. So upon seeing this news on the website’s homepage, my thoughts instantly went to a murderous rage! I’m thinking, WTF Nintendo? What is this crap? These fan-sites that fuel undying love and dedication for your company, being killed by the source!? I said to a friend of mine linking me to the event, that this truly would have to be a first, and an incredibly foolish thing to do. We both were outraged by such behavior, and also wondered what the fate would be of other popular Nintendo fan-sites such as one of our favorites, smashboards.com.
It wasn’t till about 15-20 minutes later that it occurred to me what I told myself early this day: April Fool’s Day, making the internet fun again. Of course! It was an April Fool’s Joke! Duh! How could I be so easily fooled! To be honest, I was relieved. A bit embarrassed and such, but regardless, I was relieved that starmen.net would not suffer, and that I wouldn’t have to take upon the burden of having self-conflict relating to the interests of Nintendo versus the interests of myself. Regardless though, having been fooled as I was, I decided that I wanted to write a bit about this occurrence as a means to depict how important starmen.net is not only because of the website itself, but because of what it stands for.
Also, I wanted to take a bit of time to write about some of my favorite Video Game April Fool’s Day jokes… well, maybe not the best jokes, but definitely some of the most memorable ones.
Goldeneye “All Bonds” Cheat
This cheat claimed to unlock models of all of the different Bonds, including Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, in addition to Pierce Brosnan. What was fun about this farce was that it turned out to be true! Rare wasn’t able to put them into the game due to licensing issues, but using a GameShark, they could be “unlocked!”
Conker’s Inappropriate Tales
I was one of the few people looking forward to Conker back before it was Conker’s Bad Fur Day and was instead Twelve Tales of Conker. Now don’t get me wrong, I love the change, CBFD was fantastic and probably better than TToC would have been, but when I saw this news in the EGM, I thought it had to be the April Fool’s Joke for the issue. The reason this was funny and memorable was because it wasn’t! It was true; the joke was that Intellivision was making a comeback!
DOAX Nude Code
Now, I didn’t fall for this one, but if I recall correctly, one of my good friends did. In the April 2003 issue of EGM, there was a rumor about a code in DOAX that would allow the characters in DOAX to be topless. The rumor stated that if one was to complete adventure mode or whatever in less than 13 minutes or something, then the “god hand mode” would be unlocked, which would allow the girls in the game to be topless. This was something my friend proved to be false, haha, which for me, was just incredibly amusing!
Realistic Wind Waker
I heard about this before I knew it stemmed from EGM. A friend of mine messages me and says that they are giving away a realistic Wind Waker for preordering “The new realistic Zelda.” I said it couldn’t be true, it didn’t make any sense. I remember arguing for about 10-15 minutes with my friend before he realized that it was the April issue of EGM.
Sonic and Tails in Smash Bros. Melee
Now this is the one that really got me good. The farce claimed that upon slaying 20 people in Cruel Melee, you would face against Sonic and Tails, two unlockables in Melee! I was glued to Smash (more than I already am) trying to get those 20 Cruel KOs. I managed to get approximately 10 with Jigglypuff when I decided that it was impossible, after which I started finding out that it was a joke. I laughed at myself for spending hours trying to get 20 KOs. I later discovered that it’s actually quite possible to get hundreds and thousands of KOs but I wasn’t going to be the one to do it. What none of you actually know is, that the secret is true. I actually unlocked Sonic and Tails in my copy of Smash Melee. Hehe. >:D
It occurs to me now that all of these are EGM April Fool’s Jokes, including one of my new favorites, the Mushroom Kingdom Hearts one mentioned in the previous article, but alas, kudos EGM on your awesome April Fool’s Jokes.
April 1st, 2007
by Anuj
So, as I was browsing the internet, I came across something rather surprising. The headline read something along the lines of “Kindom Hearts 3 Extended Trailer,” … at first it didn’t hit me; I had to do a double take on what I was seeing. Initially I’d think that something like this I would have already seen, but then, I hadn’t seen anything new for months and I knew it had to be new and amazing cause otherwise it wouldn’t be such a big deal. I figured at first it was a new trailer, but actually it’s what the Japanese players of KH2: Final Mix got to see instead of our lame-ass secret trailer. Well, in any case, we finally have it here now… I found this video on YouTube of both Secret Trailers. Enjoy!
Kingdom Hearts III Extended Trailer
01:26
Awesome! I can’t easily put to words how eager I am for KH3; it is easily one of my most anticipated games for the upcoming generation, and nothing will stop me from playing this game the day it comes out. Come hell or high water, or more likely, myself still not owning a PS3 (despite the fact that will no doubt be years from now), I will play this game right away. Heck, I bet there will be midnight lines for this game, and I’ll be waiting in one of them.
[my thoughts on Kingdom Hearts and things to come]
So, first the story of Kindom Hearts from the beginning. Initially, Kindom Hearts was released and there were two majority schools of thought: one, Fanboy love, beit Square/Final Fantasy or Disney; or two, illogical irrefutable undeniable loathing of the whole thing, beit from system war stuff, hatred of all things cute and somewhat adorable, hatred of all things Square/Final Fantasy/RPG. Of course there were other lesser common schools of thought as well, such as open-mindedness minus any assumptions, having played it and thusly liked/disliked it, etc. I belonged to some of the lesser common schools of thought. Now mind you I say “some” and not “one.” I enjoyed it while I played it very much, but didn’t beat it during my initial playing of it and once I stopped playing it, I started to dislike it more and more.
Anyway, at the time, I didn’t have a PS2 and to play it, or more correctly, watch it be played, I went over to a few of my friends’ houses and would watch them play, as well as sometimes playing it a little bit myself. It wasn’t till months later, when the game went Greatest Hits that I bought it for myself. It was actually coincidence that I bought it then because I was buying it simply because it was a game I wanted, and there was now a readily available PS2 in my home. This is actually when I really started playing the game, with my own save file and my own stacking progrssion of the game, i.e. my first progress towards actually completing it.
Now, I was enjoying the game, this could not be denied, but to say that the game was perfect could not be more of a stretch of the imagination. The game’s directing was good, the cinematics, CG, action sequences, acting, graphics and such were all amazing, but the game suffered on so many other levels. They were all annoying beginner mistakes in game development; poor camera, poor lock-on, shody combat mechanics and combo mechanics, irritating move sets, poor level design, sometimes good sometimes terrible dialogue, complete debauchery of our loved Disney movies, and complete use of cliche FF characters, etc. Regardless of these things however, the game’s characters and story, intertwining of Disney magic and Final Fantasy characters and mood into the new content was well done. The game made you feel emotinally attached and made you feel drawn in; granted this was due largely to the phenomenal musical score of the game, it was a mission accomplished. After you finished it, you felt happy to have played a great game, and look forward oh so much to Kingdom Hearts 2.
So considering all of this, I felt Kingdom Hearts was an okay game. So so so many shortcomings, but still with some great stuff. I went in with this attitude to Kindom Hearts 2. Now, let me take a moment here to talk about a bit of hindsight I have on the series. At the time, I did not know how much to appreciate the amazing director of Kindom Hearts. The man truly is an artistic genius! I’d say he’s not as radically creative or original, as in, he has an idea in his mind of what is cool and will repeatedly do that despite overuse, but it will still be cool. I guess my tastes and his just mesh well. Anyway, this is part of why I appreciated him. The rest of it is because he didn’t try to fool us.
He made this story for the game, somewhat planned out, and told us that we would only get a part of it, and told us that it was “To be continued…” Too many designers and developers today come up with a half-assed story, put half of their ass into putting it into a game, give some shitty even halfer assed enigmatic ending saying that i’ll be in the sequel that’ll also sell so well. This is something that you can just know wasn’t the case with KH. Granted, the story in KH2 probably wasn’t as developed during the final stages of KH as it was nearing completion of KH2, but you know they had an idea to build upon. Or at least, they took the leap in giving us something enigmatic and cryptic that was solid and not just inconclusive. Something that they used as the foundation to build their story on for KH2. I appreciate that.
Then there’s calling it ‘Kingdom Hearts 2.’ Thank you, thank you, for not calling it Kindom Hearts: Stupid Sub-Text, because that’s what it is, Kindom Hearts 2, a continuation of the first one. Ok ok, there’s KH: Chain of Memories, but there is an understanding that it is somewhat of an in-between spin-off, and not exactly mainstream. Now, CoM is actually amazing because of how incredibly it ties the story between KH and KH2, and I can’t easily explain how much I appreciate not just giving us some crappy side-story or something, but at the same time, no one needs to play CoM to get the KH series (though it is nice to see the final few moments in the game and such, and as such is still rewarding for those of us that did play it). CoM still has a lot of the whole port-esque air to it where they just strung together some terrible levels to relive the moments in the first KH, but it gives you plenty of new story stuff with a pretty decent combat system (that had it’s frustrations too mind you).
Which gets us to KH2. Like I said, looking back, my attitude towards KH2 was meh. I knew it’d be the same thing as so far. Decent story development and stuff, complete uncertainty of how it would all tie together, lack of an end in sight, decent directing and stuff, but mild combat mechanics and frustrating gameplay. One thing that I must say, is that when Square and Enix merged, I really didn’t give Enix the credit they deserved. Anyone that has played KH2 knows that the combat in that game is a blast. It of course still has its shortcomings, but regardless, it is a lot of fun to fight enemies in that game, and I believe this to be largely attributed to Enix’s development on the game. So ok, I’ve got that down, great fun combat, like, 100x times better than the first KH, and this is all on top of the otherwise already good directing to the game, good cinematic design, fight choreography, CG, acting, game overall design, etc. Level design was still often meh, and there were plenty of other annoyances to the game, but KH2 I love.
First, I must comment on the story. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined the story in KH2 to be as good as it was, and it makes me laugh how much of the story they give you in KH and CoM that fits in so well with it’s “conclusion” in KH2. The music was still great (though not as good), but the story developement, and direction for the game were both so good, that I was literally blown away. The game somehow managed to be entirely enigmatic to start off, but still make complete sense, give growth of the characters and the story in ways I couldn’t have predicted! It gives me a feeling I don’t want to do the injustice of describing in words when you start playing and you recall super-tall Goofy towering above you from the first game, to being shorter than you in this game.
Anyway, so KH2 is fantastic, with so few shortcomings. It fills out a great story that was left somewhat poorly at the end of KH and CoM, still incorporating well the worlds of Disney and FF (though, both suffer from their original incarnations a bit) It has amazing art direction and development, amazing fight and cinematic choreography, and a wonderful look at humanity with an approach focusing on semantics that I love so much. Looking back, the only real thing that bothers me about the game is the inconclusive ending.
Earlier I mentioned a bit about the tendency for game designers and developers to give you what they got, and then toss on an enigmatic inconclusive ending thing at the end of their games Well, it bothered me when they did that in this game. I was again ready to commend the director for having the gall and determination to actually conclude his game, say that this is it, this is the ending, but alas, he did stick on the all to overused “hey we’re not done yet!” ending. And while I am pleased that they aren’t done, I knew even before that they weren’t done, and they didn’t need this extra bit of an ending to do that. Though the extra secret ending is something I am very happy for. It is very similar to the first extra secret ending to the first game, and, as such, I have no doubts that they will do a good job with it. Yes it’s cool, it’s fun, but at the same time, I was disappointed that I couldn’t have more (but then that’s where this new trailer comes in).
This new trailer fills me with excitememt that I think I should have had in the first place. Sure the stuff they tell us in these trailers is so random and irrelevant that they can do whatever they want with these vague ideas and concepts, but I mean, I have faith in the quality that they will give us. The Kindom Hearts director is truly one of my favorites, and if the leap from KH2 to KH3 is even half of what was in KH to KH2, I will be too happy. Oh, and I’m also thrilled he’s working on FFXIII, I look forward to that game now.
Btw, Sora is still a crappy name and Roxas is an awesome name; Sora’s name should have been Roxas. I love the Keyblade weapon, and I love the idea of the trans-dimentional warrior that they are developing as Sora, the wielder of the Keyblade (well, whatever that used to mean). I think I join us all when I say, *sigh* Mushroom Kingdom Hearts… 
…Good one EGM.
March 28th, 2007
by Anuj
What do we as an audience expect from critics; what do we as critics expect from ourselves, when it comes to the concept of an opinion? I personally believe that too often, too much time is spent writing a long and wordy review for the sake of seeming thorough and complete, covering topics that don’t need to be covered only prolonging the time it takes to truly find out what the critic thought of the game in the first place. But perhaps that is what we want, perhaps that is what is to be expected of a general and unbiased review of any game, despite its history or lack thereof.
[more consumers versus more critics]
It truly does depend on the game the level of attention it should get, perhaps it is a blockbuster title and people just want to know if it is everything that it was built up to be or a disappointment (despite probably buying it anyways). Or perhaps it is something totally new and different and people know little to nothing about it and want to know everything they can about it before considering a purchase. Without any exception, treating a game as it were different from no other, the latter of the two is probably the safer of the two routes, but games are different, and most of the time people are going into a game knowing a lot of what has already been written. I personally believe a lot of that information is better found in some sort of listing found on the website for the game, or by means of a list of specs found somewhere on the developer/publisher’s website. Perhaps the reviewer’s responsibility should contain though, at least a means to get this information.
Reviews should contain impressions and opinions and nothing else if you ask me. But how much credibility can simply ones impressions and opinions hold in a reader’s mind when dealing with only that. To truly appreciate and understand one’s impressions and opinions, you have to first know the person; an odd sense of trust needs to build between the reader and the writer to truly accomplish the desired goal. This trust can be formed through months and months of reading, or through proof of knowledge on subject in question, or even just in an agreeing opinion. Though trust and understanding are a significant leap away from each other, and not even in the same field; I have understood plenty of people that I wouldn’t place an ounce of trust in, and I’ve trusted people who I never really understood, so what makes one critique any more special than any other? Opinion?
Why would the guy who has played every other game ever made have any more say than the guy playing a game for the first time in his life, assuming of course that both are able to appropriately depict their thoughts on the matter. I think anyone would prefer the opinion of the person they can more relate to for a review, which reintroduces the idea of bias in a supposedly unbiased industry of criticism. So my thought is, why pretend to ignore bias, why hide from it, why try to negate it, especially when dealing strictly with opinion anyways? People are opinionated, and they are going to go into it opinionated, and as long as they understand your stance, there isn’t any conflict about the quality of review, or the myth of the unbiased approach. Why not write for the readers? Why write for this strange social standard created by people who aren’t doing the writing or aren’t doing the reading as an audience, but only as a critic of critique?
This is something that I desperately wish I could change, something I desperately wish I could adapt onto the world, but on the same note, who am I to think that such standards would be better? This is something that has been this way since the beginning of the journalism industry when dealing with anything opinion, and it will be this way forever. While the idea of the proper review grows and grows, and more and more adapt to it, I think we get further away from truly reviewing and critiquing media the way we all envisioned it at first. So, while we may not be able to change the rest of the world (not that we really want to anyways), we can at least adopt this philosophy on ourselves. I say this now as a warning, don’t expect objective review standards, expect us to bitch and moan about the stuff that sucks, and rant and rave about the stuff that rocks. That is all.
I suppose this all goes back to the whole, “being able to appropriately depict ones opinions” bit…in the end, it’s all that really matters, but for us at least, that’s a waste of time and thought, because it shouldn’t be an issue.
[image courtesy of Jeff Pidgeon]
March 2nd, 2007
by Anuj
Writing letters is for chumps. From now on, you make music videos parodying currently popular songs.
Watching that video/listening to the song, I don’t know how you could think anything but the fact that the PS3 is really going down the crapper. I went to Target today and I saw 0 Wiis, 3 360s (2 premium, 1 core), and the PS3 shelf was full…
[let’s all kill our brand]
Alas, I think it’s true what they say: “How you killed your brand.” I think it’ll be a story similar to what they said about Nintendo years ago, about how the word ‘Nintendo’ was synonymous with ‘video gaming’ as well as representing the peak of the pillar of it all. Now, undoubledly that lofty title was held by nothing but the word ‘PlayStation.’ How they killed their brand indeed… But hey, perhaps it’s all part of their plan…
Thinking about it all, I think that they would have been better off sticking with their PS2s for another year or so before releasing another console. It’ll be a while before those consoles stop selling, and they definitely had enough of the ignorant + hype machine backing them up for the PS3. Additionally, they could’ve had another small price drop for the PS2 making it sell even better along with the feeling of the necessity to “upgrade” being nonexistant… leaving their brand with the power it has. But now instead, they won’t be able to do a price drop, people won’t want to buy a PS2 so they can instead get a PS3, and they won’t be sure and won’t have the mony for a PS3, causing both consoles to sell poorly… thereby, killing their brand.
There is a chance that they are working on a really cool new redesigned PS3, that’ll give the gamers all what they wanted out of PS3 all along. Something that would, despite completely screwing over their current obsessive fan base that bought PS3s already, would otherwise have a similar rise of victory such as Nintendo, but Sony is not that fiesty or conniving. Nor does Sony have the skill or talent or ingenuity to pull themselves out of a rut such as this. Once your brand is dead, it’s hard to come back from that. I can certainly see the 360 as the PS2 of the next generation. Alas, what the next generation has in store, only time will tell.
February 26th, 2007
by Anuj
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