I been designing a T-shirt. vote on it, …

I been designing a T-shirt. vote on it, bitches! http://www.threadless.com/submission/161837/Pirate_Ducky

I been playing Atlus’ ROndo of Swords o …

I been playing Atlus’ ROndo of Swords on the DS. Some good shit there, definite throwback to 2D strategy RPGs which I always loved.

I want me some GTA IV. I was so tempted to buy an HDTV, a 360 and just sit down and play that sumbitch. Maybe after the game’s done. We’ll see.

I got GTA yesterday. Don’t even have to …

I got GTA yesterday. Don’t even have to say which, you already know.

Thursday is my longest day of the week at school, so i wasn’t in prime condition to play it. This was the first circumstance which kept me from getting giddy with it. The second was that you start in Brooklyn. Although Brooklyn is nicely rendered, and i was just at Coney Island the other week, i can’t wait to get to fuckin’ Manhattan (has to be unlocked). This time, they MUST have my house. At least my street, since on the included map they have the fictionalized version of my neighborhood’s name.

Wait, there was a third thing — the game overwhelms. There is just so much to it. For instance, i drove off some cliff in Brighton Beach by mistake. When i swam back up to land, i was in the backyard of some neo-yuppie types sitting there looking uncomfortable in a forced social situation (just like they do in real life!) and i thought to myself, “look at this guy with his Weezer glasses, Chandler Bing hair and messenger bag. Lemme start some shit.” So i punched him, they scattered, i chased em, we ran for blocks, i caught one and beat his ass, but he fought back, so i had to put my back into it, then i stole a car and drove off cause i had my fill.

This game is really the ultimate. Makes me glad to be one of the few born and raised who still live here. The social commentary and, i guess politics of it all really hit close to home, even though i distance myself from all of that.

Rockstar is on top of the world.

So i gave Baten Kaitos a second go and i …

So i gave Baten Kaitos a second go and i’m into it. It’s engaging. The battle system is really where it’s at, because the voice chat certainly is not. I’m contemplating turning the voice clips off. The animations are really sketchy as well. There could be a speed up button, too, for fights and lengthy dialog. Also, there’s not as much cutscenes as i thought there’d be, the only one so far being the longwinded intro before the main menu. Seems like they put all the talent to that cause even the intro’s voice acting is better than in the actual game. The voices are really problematic, only one of them being bearable so far. Lots of characters speak way slower than the text displays, which is never fun cause when you cut a guy off mid-sentence so that you can read the next line, you hear only part of what he said before and what he says next. This can be confusing since i tend to recall what i heard more than what i read.

The battles salvage this game so far, and the magnus system is very absorbing. It keeps me playing. Safe to say that this is the game’s crux. Without it, i wouldn’t be playing. But they make most fetch/side quests tempting because every reward in the game’s world is a magnus card. Also, i have to say that i like leveling up at the church. It might grow tedious once you’re in a dungeon somewhere and enemies and troublesome, but i like that you have to initiate level ups. It makes you focus on battling right and mixing up your magnus cards right, rather than grinding for levels. Classes, it seems, are more important anyway.

So, this is turning into an ongoing review. Live with it. I’m tempted to get GTA IV, getting more tempted by the day, but my principles won’t let me get it. I must finish BK. I hate leaving a game for another because i know i will never go back to it. In this case, GTA will still be fresh in a month or two, whereas most of Kaitos got outpaced by its genre compatriots probably in the same year. Time is not kind to it.

Any of you got GTA IV? Thoughts?

I got Baten Kaitos, 5 years late. I’m a …

I got Baten Kaitos, 5 years late. I’m a little regretful that i didn’t get it before, because the $15 price doesn’t offset how unkind time has been to it.

The voice acting sounds like everybody recorded their part through a cup, the characters slide when they walk, and that “Quite possibly the most beautiful GCN game ever made” quote on the back needs to be surgically removed. I will say, though, the cutscenes have surprisingly little compression for a GameCube game. I stopped right after the first save point, so i can’t say much else.

I’m sure it’s great once you zen into it, but console games are impossible for me these days. Hope remains, however: Monolith Soft, basically the Xenogears team, made it. FAIL-SAFE.

Hey friz, why don’t you do some of thos …

Hey friz, why don’t you do some of those posts with the extra bit of relevant info on the side? I loved those. You’re half-man, half-trivia. I dig it.

Out of the 19 days of April so far, we’ …

Out of the 19 days of April so far, we’ve published content on 15 of them. Not too much, not too little. I appreciate the hand from Frisby, as well. Very hot summer-in-spring day here in Manhattan. Arm’s too sore for tennis. Feel like a videogame– but what?

I saw Baten Kaitos at the GameStop not long ago. Maybe i can spring for that.

The Casual Games Manifesto [Business]

The Casual Games Manifesto [Business]: “

Daniel Cook of Lost Garden has another thought provoking article up on Gamasutra, this one on the casual games market. Targeted more at developers, it’s still an interesting look at the promises and pitfalls of the current distribution models:

In the new world of high profit margins, limited middlemen and free green lighting for all, innovation would inevitably flourish. And for the most part, once you account for Sturgeon’s inevitable law that 90% of everything is crap, this is exactly what happened. More game developers poured into the market and some truly wonderful games were born.

Middlemen, however, were not eliminated. They merely evolved.

It’s lengthy, but provides some new insights on the possible evolutionary paths this particular part of the industry could take.
The Casual Games Manifesto [Gamasutra]

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(Via Kotaku.)

“Every Other Effin’ Black Video Game Character” [Gears Of War]

“Every Other Effin’ Black Video Game Character” [Gears Of War]: “

Ah, the Cole Train. Not exactly the deepest of characters. Says Morgan Gray, Senior Producer at Crystal Dynamics:

Here’s the thing: Cole Train on his own, no harm no foul. But what is Cole Train? Cole Train is basically like every other effin’ black character in a video game. Like here comes the urban stereotype. Where is this 1990’s — not even 2000 — black slang, where does this fit in this futuristic world that doesn’t even take place on Earth? They go really far to do a lot of fictional justifications for this culture that they’ve built, and they go right back to this urban stereotype for the black character.

I’m not knocking Epic; the game was fun and gorgeous. But it’s just a lack of thought, right? All it does is reinforce dumb stereotypes and it sort of reinforces casual racism.

The man has a point. A very, very valid one.
Black Professionals in Games [MTV via Joystiq]

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(Via Kotaku.)

Super Mario Bros. In 14 Kilobytes Of Javascript [Nintendo]

Super Mario Bros. In 14 Kilobytes Of Javascript [Nintendo]: “

It may be lacking in Koopas, power ups and an underworld—not to mention the dreaded embedded MIDI soundtrack—but this Super Mario Bros. clone packed into 14 KB of Javascript is still damn impressive. Using no graphics, rendered entirely in compressed script, the exercise is definitely worth a few minutes of your time, even if the collision detection leaves a bit to be desired. It’s only World 1-1, so you won’t have to invest much time to get the gist, but a fantastic accomplishment regardless.

Super Mario in 14kB Javascript [nihilogic]

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(Via Kotaku.)