Sony, cheer up man, I know people have been mean to you, and Microsoft figured out how to steal your American audience, but stop trying to justify your own existence and just announce your next crappy system already. Then we can get to the part where a good developer can make something interesting on it.
In the 16-bit era, shoot-em-ups were enjoying their new found technological freedom. As technology stepped up, so too did the amount of enemy ships trying to blast you out of the air. Levels lengthened, enemies took on a wide variety, and bullets split the sky in various patterns. I was in heaven.
In the 32-bit era things went decidedly differently. Perhaps this was due to the continued decline of arcades and the inherent arcade nature of shmups. Polygonal hit boxes and the commonly low budgets for shmup developers (things that are still true today) clearly had an impact as well. Most great shoot-em-ups of the 16-bit days either went dormant, or stuck with the tried and true gameplay of their past iterations. New shoot-em-up franchises you say? Maybe in Japan, but even with the PSX being the money maker it was, publishers rarely cared to put in the comparatively minimal effort needed to bring them stateside.
Then Square stepped up to the plate by releasing Einhander in the US in 1998. Perhaps feeling cocky by the release of FFVII they were translating and releasing everything they could develop searching for their next big hit. Even things that were not RPGs were getting developed by Square, practically unheard of today.
Not only did Sony bring shmups into the polygon era, they nailed it on the first swing. Large bosses, huge variety of guns and strategy to using them, great music, amazing graphics. Any criteria you could use to judge whether a shmup is good or not (meaning don’t judge it on the story whatsoever) was impressive. I still go back and play this game when I want to blast hundreds of generic enemy ships into oblivion.
I, as I am wont to assume, believed that this was the beginning of an incredible series, rather than a one off experiment. Evenually other companies dragged shoot-em-ups new and old into today, but Square was so far ahead of the curve it is truly surprising that they didn’t capitalize on it. Square never saw fit to develop a sequel, nor any other shmup game ever since. Even worse, they are too lazy to let me download the originalon PSN, even though it is available on the Japanese PSN!
Oh Square-Enix, finding the dumbest ways to try and take my money while simultaneously finding other ways to keep me from throwing money at them.
Remember the original Xbox controller? Of course not, nobody remembers a thing about the first Xbox!
History lesson! The Xbox controller sucked. The Type S came out, it still had the same wonky button layout, but at least it was more ergonomically designed. Unfortunately Microsoft insisted on that giant meaningless X in the center (which still couldn’t burn the memory of the system in anyone’s mind).
Once the 360 came out, Microsoft *GASP* looked at the miscues of their hideous controllers, then redesigned it into the most form fitting standard controller of this console generation.
Now take Sony. They took the basic SNES design and added more buttons, as was the style at the time. Eventually they added the dual analogs back in 1997. Since then the controller has almost never changed! Fifteen years and three consoles with the same controller!
Worst of all, the tiny changes they did add only made the controller worse than the fifteen year old original!
Take the “triggers” for example. They are going the wrong way! Did Sony’s R&D not know what a trigger looks like?! The trigger is not curved out, its not even curved flat. The trigger curves in. They had to go out of their way to make the triggers less intuitive and more difficult to hold down.
Don’t even get me started about how the shape makes the DS3 perfectly built for one thing. That thing is constantly falling off of all the places I place it on. Slides off my desk, slides off the arm of my sofa. Man, and don’t even attept to place it on top of the PS3. This Dual Shock 3 just can’t stay still. Who’s controlling who?
Then there is the weight of this controller. Where is it? The controller is as delicate as they come. You could kill a person with the heft of a Nintendo or XBox controller, and return to your game with the controller still performing up to code.
I have had two DS3’s die on me in the three years I have had my PS3. I didn’t exactly treat them tenderly, but my other controllers survive heartily under my care. Hell, my PS1 Dual Shock still works. The second DS3 stopped working, because if you grip the right side too tight, the A button triggers.
I went so insane trying to figure that problem out that it could be its own lengthy article.
This is all just my opinion, and I obviously own a PS3, I’m not hating. Nintendo got the message with their Wii U Pro Controller. I just want an Xbox 360 controller on every system I play.
Don’t let all this make you think the Xbox 360 controller is so perfect though…
Basically listening to that YTCracker album I mentioned nonstop. You think I don’t like the music I post. I love this shit. How am I supposed to strut about while being riled up about video games unless I got the proper nerd swagger as the soundtrack?
I am considering adding that disqus comments thing to this, but how do comments even work yo? Nevermind. Did it. It wasn’t even hard or nothing man! Now I am just worried about what a lack of comments will do for my fragile artists psyche. I have a lot of worries.
I don’t honestly expect many, but I wonder if, say, someone did want to comment on something I’ve done, what way would that hypothetical person prefer to do so?
I want to make things reasonable, but I’m not dying to try pulling some SEO BS to accomplish it. Getting caught up in those things is what gets me burnt out. I need to let my writing speak for itself, even if it doesn’t always speak clearly.
Nothing to answer for, or respond to tonight.
“Dude, I broke my weed pipe, this is terrible!”
“Nah, dawg, it’s good luck, you know what they say, ‘mo problems, mo money’ yo”
“I hope you’re right man, I need that money for a new weed pipe.”
I am straight vibin’ on classic Zelda tunes, reading the H out of Hyrule Historia and smoking some bunk ass shit. My soul dies a little every time I hit it.
Let’s talk about some Zelda for a moment. I am an unbelievable believer in all that is the Legend of Zelda. Framed posters on my wall, plush link chilling on my shelf next to my sealed Zelda strategy guides and game cases.
Zelda as a video game, a story, an idea intrigues me on levels too deep to enumerate on. To put it in perspective, I currently have a +4500 word article about Link to the Past, and I haven’t even written about the dark world yet!
I even love Zelda so much that maybe some day I will finish that full article, which will likely reach a ridiculous 10K words when all is said and done and written down.
I finished Adventure Time: Hey Ice King! Why’d You Steal Our Garbage?!! for the 3DS, and have already began rushing my way through the New Game + mode. I did expect the game to be longer than it was, but got the game on sale, so I can’t complain. Definitely fun, with plenty of smarmy dialogue as well.
On to questions and comments of this day in tumblr.
apparently it’s still coming. i guess patience is a virtue….
I should have been patient about buying a PS3 instead of a 360…
In all honesty, tonality is right, of course I can wait. I’m a Nintendo fan for crying out loud. This isn’t my first game delay. It’s not even my longest (Golden Sun) or the most heartbreaking (Mega Man Legends 3).
Seriously!! I hope this damn game finally sees the light of day.
Isn’t that all any of us want? I have been pleasantly surprised by a handful of PS3 exclusives (Heavy Rain shout out!) so I don’t regret the purchase, but most of my PS3 games are multiplatform, and none of my friends have these games for the PS3 platform. That is because none of them own PS3 systems.
I bring this up because, what I am most worried about (besides outright cancellation) is that the team will be so far behind that the game is moved to be released on the PS4 and takes another couple of years to come out. As I mentioned, I don’t regret owning a PS3, but it would hurt to know that the reason I bought one was practically a lie.
Every time I try to play something, anything, it feels like there is a system update, a game update, an update update. Then after the update downloads, it has to install the update. It’s worse than any electronic device I own, and I own plenty of internet connected devices.
The day I came home with my PS3, I plugged it in, turned it on…
System update…
Pop in Little Big Planet…
Game update…
…two hours later, I was playing my PS3 for the first time.
That is not right.
Since I bought the thing, this has happened countless times, especially when I purchase a game that has been out for a few months.
It’s happening right now!
When I put a disc in, I want to play that disc, right now!
Just needed to vent.
PS3 is pretty okay really. You know, when it allows me to play video games on it.
So House of the Dead: Overkill right? Amazing Wii game.
Know what would make it even better. If it was in HD, had some new levels, and maybe added a few more ‘fucks’ for good measure.
Oh also if it was fucking affordable!
To play the HD remake of House of the Dead Overkill I need the game. I need two Playstation Move controllers, and the Playstation Eye Camera.
Based on the cheapest prices I have ever seen these items, this still adds up to 100 bucks! All this just for one game. One I already own on the Nintendo Wii!
I really want HotD for PS3 but that price is just absurd!
Some folks might be thinking, “But the PS Move is an investment, you can play other games too!”
No. It is not an investment because HotD is literally the only game worth having a PS Move controller for! Everything Move compatible works just great with the standard controller. Anything Move specific I already played on the Wii five years ago.
So no HD HotD for me. Unless someone has $100 bucks to give me for this truly ignoble cause.
It’s a slow day, so I am going over the vast VAST amount of unfinished video game thoughts I have written about various titles. If they are in a relatively comprehensible state, I’ll polish them up a little and post them here.
Arcana Heart 3 is here, and with it the Pokemon curse has been lifted. Now, instead of having animals fight, we are having women fight. Oh geez. I, hmm. Ahem.
Okay. I own Arcana Heart 3 now. Grabbed it off of a nice CAG deal. Thanks OP. For the many of you who do not know what Arcana Heart is, from the best I can understand, the creators of Guilty Gear and Blazblue created a game in which Sakura (of Street Fighter) was the main character (I know that is sort of the premise of the fantastic Rival Schools/Project Justice series, but that’s another article). We have the titular ‘Heart’ a young, short haired, incredibly deadly teenage girl, complete with school uniform. She is the Sakura which the game more or less revolves around. The roster is filled out by 22 more characters. All female, and ranging from the surprisingly cool to the incredibly ridiculous.
I began with story mode, and I was quickly lost. I guess that ‘3’ is in the title for a reason. If you have played a fighting game before, you know how unimportant yet absurdly convoluted storylines can be in this genre. For this game specifically, it appears Japan is going to blow up, or sink, or something. It’s up to the twenty-three women (and girls) to either prevent, or allow this to happen, depending on level of evil.
Some of these characters have really interesting character designs, well others, don’t. Rest assured, you are not buying this game for the storyline. The boxart should have told you that. Normally a fighting game wouldn’t lose points for a bad plot, but ARC is behind the mind warping storyline of the BlazBlue universe. Maybe the writers of Arcana should go peek at some of the notes the BlazBlue guys have, it would really kick this game up a notch above generic anime storyline.
The game is fun, I played it a lot. Very addictive, especially with friends of course. There are interesting mechanics, and combos, cool things I would like to see implemented in other fighting games (Homing button holler!). But, admittedly, it’s a little hard to focus on that since there is something else that needs to be addressed.
I received the package in the mail, in a simple cardboard casing. I tore it open, and came face to face with the collectors edition boxart.
Nope, I don’t see any sexism here.
The bonus review category for this game is sexism. So is this game sexist, or not? I honestly don’t know what to think. On one hand, the costumes are not as bad as expected, but what I expected wasn’t much.
As you can tell.
Though by percentage, it seems the worst offenders are no more than the normally male dominated character line ups of other fighting games. So even though the amount of female fighters in this game is larger, the amount of scantily clad ladies is generally the same. So it seems clear that if Arcana Heart 3 is sexist, it is about the average level of sexism in fighting games.
In essence, all the masculine character archetypes from other fighting games are just females now. That does mean that you get a very diverse cast of women in the game. Of course one could also argue that ARC just gave all the male characters breasts as shameless pandering.
The characters do get back story, as I mentioned earlier, and that only complicates matters. One of the characters went to MIT at the age of ten, so go women right? Although this character also dresses as a playboy bunny when she fights inside her giant mech. She’s smarter than I am, who am I to judge what an MIT graduate wears? It’s all very confusing.
For instance, that scantily clad woman, Mei-Fang, in the picture above. She’s actually a robot! Is it sexist to expect a robot to fit a stereotypical gender role if she was built as a specific gender? Then you have to consider she was built by female scientists as well. Are we talking about sexism still, or are we too far into robot country now?
See, it’s as if the creators skirted the issue by filling the game with insane Japanese nonsense. I guess in the end, the sexist connotations in this game aren’t particularly relevant. I think women have bigger things to worry about, like that whole getting paid less than a man for the same amount of work thing. I will state that I believe that every fighter, man or woman, would do best to just wear something practical in battle.
So, for having to make me weigh the arguments for and against this game being sexist and likely making myself look sexist in the process, and for giving me a headache, this game owes me a bottle of aspirin. So this game gets a 4.99 (the price of said aspirin) out of 10.
