Vox’s posts tagged video games

Realism in video game world

nobody@vox.com(Talent Zoo) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:12:49 +0000

From time to time Hollywood puts out video games based on movies. They range from Shrek, to GoldenEye to every comic book imaginable. Then, in the past decade or so, primetime television shows (not including cartoons or game shows) decided, “Hey we can do that too!” with the release of brand extension console games for CSI, 24, The Sopranos, and American Idol and an upcoming one based on Dexter from Showtime.

None of the games have ever done really well in comparison with other game series such as Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda or Halo. But a new one is on the horizon that I believe might do a bit better than those previously released. For nearly 3 years.........................

For More Information VISIT: www.digitalpivot.com

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Life-changing nerdiness.

nobody@vox.com(Joie) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:15:55 +0000

I always enjoy telling myself that I'm starting a new "segment" on my blog, so let's go ahead and say this can be a new segment--knowing I will probably never make another post like this again.

Final Fantasy VIII--FFVIII, for us cool kids--came out shortly after I'd gotten my Playstation and fallen in love with Final Fantasy VII. FF7 I loved, but 8... 8 was something else for me. It remains probably my favorite game of all time (perhaps even trumping the classic NES, Sega, and SNES games I love so much!), and although my gaming days are mostly over, I still can't think of FF8 without getting all squishy inside. (For you other gamers, I know, I know--FF7 is apparently infinitely better, but I can't help it. Nothing ever moved me the way 8 did.) My most memorable moment of the game is the scene I'm about to post. Now YouTube has made it convenient for me to watch whenever I want; back in the Day, however, I reserved a precious memory card spot for this video alone so I could watch it whenever I wanted. (And I'll never forget the nice/nerdily cute guy who worked at Electronics Boutique who confessed he had done the same thing.) Aside from the fact that this was just gorgeous animation (especially at the time; I think it still is), I love love loved the music, and the music of Nobuo Uematsu continues to remain that nagging inspiration in me: "Don't score films; score games!" Mmmph.

Final Fantasy VIII - Ballroom Dance Scene

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Day 3 - Kid Care

nobody@vox.com(Anyonebutmeplease) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 03:00:29 +0000

Today was a good day.
Hung out in the morning, Little T played video games while I woke up.
Then we found waffle recipes online and went to my house to make waffles.

Oops. Gotta go, it's 8p. Time for some Tv togetherness time before bed.
Aww, bed... that sounds delicious.

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nuclear war on the dance floor

nobody@vox.com(Lauren) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:29:55 +0000

Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)

Mika

Here is a delicious song because I am craving candy. (Thanks, Kelsea! >:O!) It makes me want to sing falsetto and drink diet Coke. And I hate diet Coke!

Today has been nice for the most part, considering I had Chipotle for lunch and got to see some of the sky as the sun was rising. The dew on the cast-iron lawn chair I was sitting on was simultaneously chilling and refreshing. Last night my tummy was hurting really bad.. Aaron wanted to get some Chinese buffet food and after one plate I was so done. But I ate more anyway because Chuck was paying for me and I didn't want to waste his money. (No, I'm not blaming you!) Either way, later, I had some bad indigestion. But I'm feeling a lot better now! Chipotle heals all!

The past few days have been slightly more interesting than the usual summer fare, which is good. Today I'm planning on playing some Pokemon Red as usual. I rented Super Paper Mario for the Wii, but it's just not catching my fancy. It's not RPG-styled (as far as I can tell) like the other ones and that's what I loved in the first place.

You know, I just noticed that I haven't crossed off any days on my calendar since July 8th. I am very behind.. and I think that's why I've been having such a hard time figuring out what day it is.

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Behold: Overly long E3 entry.

nobody@vox.com(Katie) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 07:00:23 +0000

Soooo I guess I should write something up about E3, given that I'm a huge video game nerd and going to E3 is like near the top of the list as far as things that video game nerds would love to do. I don't really feel like writing all that much though, but knowing me I'll probably write up a ton anyway. [note, after writing up everything: yeah, pretty long. also not spell-checked because i'm too lazy to reread over it. sorry!]

I got in to LA on Monday afternoon, and met up with Ben at the hotel. I hadn't seen him since two Mays ago, in Barcelona, so it was nice seeing him again. We hopped on a bus and went over to the Electronic Arts press conference, where I got my first batch of shwag (including a much-needed 1GB flash drive. Thanks, EA!) and saw such people as Will Wright (SimCity, Sims, Spore, etc), John Carmack (id software), Gabe Newell (Valve) and a bunch of people from media outlets that I follow, such as 1UP and Kotaku. It was so weird! More on that later though.

After the press conference we made our way over to the Los Angeles Convention Center and I got my press pass, which was amazingly un-complicated. There wasn't even a line! I just walked up, gave them my ID and two minutes later had my press pass in hand. After that we went to the "Into the Pixel" art show, where we drank free beer and talked with fellow nerds. This was the first time I really mingled with people from the show, so it was kind of daunting. I'm not the most socially assertive person in the world, so I pretty much spent the entire time smiling and nodding and piping into the conversation whenever it was appropriate. After that we went and got some dinner and just hung out.

Tuesday we woke up bright and early and took the subway (which was depressingly similar to the metro in Barcelona D: I want to go back!) up to Hollywood for the Nintendo press conference at the Kodak Theater. Yes, as in the place where they have the Oscars. It was.....not that exciting, which I'm sure you've already read about, heh. Though I did get to see Shigeru Miyamoto. In person. It was quite amazing (though, as I said above, more on that later). Then they shuttled us over to the Shrine Auditorium for Sony's press conference, which was a bit better than Nintendo's. After that we were shuttled to the Convention Center, and began our first real day on the E3 show floor.

First, an explanation. E3 is a "business summit," and it's set up as such. Each participating company had its own room where it had certain games set up that it would show to the press via appointments and, sometimes, walk-ins. There's also the "showcase pavilion" which is essentially a giant room with lots of little kiosks set up. Most companies had a kiosk or two. They're not the fancy booths of E3s past, but just a triangle of TVs set up. So nothing too fancy, but decent enough if you just want to play the games.

Anyway....I don't remember what happened on specific days, but we visited several companies' rooms and got to play a bunch of games. Some of the ones that stand out are Left 4 Dead (Valve), Fable 2 (Lionhead), Fallout 3 (Bethesda), Street Fighter IV (Capcom), Chrono Trigger DS (Square Enix), Halo Wars (Ensemble), LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule), Dead Space (EA), Mirror's Edge (EA), Flower (not sure...but it's gonna be on PSN) for the games I actually got a chance to play. There were some other games that I didn't actually get to play but that looked awesome nonetheless, like Rock Band 2 and Resistance 2. We also went to the Capcom press conference which was basically just about the Lost Planet movie, and everyone pretty much said nothing but "I'm really honored to be working with so-and-so." Though one of the so-and-sos was David Hayter, also known as the man who voices Solid Snake, so that was pretty much amazing.

Ok, so I guess that means I should talk about how absolutely star-struck I was the entire time. While I didn't personally meet anyone "major" other than Cliff Bleszinski (of Unreal and Gears of War fame) and Alex Navarro (formerly of Gamespot, currently of Harmonix), I got to rub shoulders with guys from Kotaku (which I read daily), Joystiq, Giant Bomb, and other places I'm sure. I also got a one and a half hour tour of Fable 2 from two guys straight from Lionhead (that is to say, no PR bitches. Just guys from the dev team who were there. Sweet? Sweet.) which is pretty much near the top of my list of shit that happened. I also walked by Satoru Iwata in the hallway and did a double-take. It was totally weird to be surrounded by people who I consider to be "celebrities." Not in the sense that, say, Angelina Jolie is a celebrity. If I saw her in real life, I'd probably get all excited and whatever. But it wouldn't really affect me that deeply, because as much as I like Ms Jolie, nothing she's done has really deeply affected my life. Which is why I got so excited seeing Shigeru Miyamoto. My sister and I used to talk about "Mr Miyamoto" (though we pronounced it "my-ah-moto," not "mee-ah-moto") when we were youngins playing our SNES, and I have pretty much had a bizarre nerdcrush on him since then. So that's a long time! So to finally actually see the man, was quite extraordinary. Anyway, in short: seeing all these people was nothing short of amazing.

Aaaanyway. After a couple days in the heart of E3, we went to EA's cocktail party on Wednesday night. We went there, rubbed shoulders with some people (including people from BioWare! omg! They weren't working on Mass Effect 2 though D:) and drank free booze. We met a fellow journalist there named Heidi, and the three of us went down a few blocks to the Orpheum theater for the Rock Band Bash (which was basically a concert. Who was at the concert, you ask? Oh, some nothing band called "The Who." Or something. I don't know, never heard of them. They're not like a hugely amazing and influential band or anything.) She didn't have a ticket so we waited a bit while one of the Harmonix guy got her a ticket. We went in, got more free alcohol, and then sat down for the concert, which was pretty much amazing. The Who, performing all their greatest hits for about 1,000 people. Hell yeah!

Thursday was the last day of E3 so we just caught up on some companies that we hadn't hit yet. This was actually the best day, I think, since we went to Microsoft, Sony, Bethesda and Capcom. At Microsoft's room we played Halo Wars (which was actually....like....really fucking good, especially for a console RTS. I was pleasantly shocked) and Fable 2 (amazing!!! so excited for that game). At Sony, we played LittleBigPlanet and Flower, and got a nice private demo of Resistance 2 by none other than Ted Price (pres and CEO of Insomniac). That night we went out to Santa Monica (by way of an obnoxious cab ride...ew, cabs, how I hate you) for the Joystiq party. It was pretty cool, I got to play Rock Band (and embarrass myself in front of a group of people by having to pause the game to change it to a left handed guitar...not my fault I was built weird, people D:) We also met and talked with Stephen Totilo and the other guys from the MTV Multiplayer blog. It was fun! I got a copy of Final Fantasy II on PSP, as well as a dope Nintendo pin and some other random shit. It was fun, though the 2 hours it took us to get back to LA via bus wasn't, heh.

Friday morning, we went and got breakfast, then Ben had to go down to meet with some game dev guys about their Wii FPS, the Conduit. I would have gone but I didn't have time, since I had to be at the airport soon. So we said our goodbyes, which was kinda sad since I won't see him for at least a year, probably more. Sad! The trip coming home was uneventful, though I've decided that LAX pretty much sucks. My flight was delayed by a couple hours, which apparently was a big deal for my parents, though I wasn't really phased by it at all. Maybe it was all that crazy-ass traveling I did while I was in Barcelona, but nothing really bothers me now in regards to traveling. Oh, I have to wait? Ok. Whatever. No big.

So, yeah, that was my time in LA for E3. Words cannot describe how amazing it was to be amongst like-minded people for several days in a row. 80% of the conversations I overheard were about video games. It was "work," yes, but at the same time, it wasn't. It reinforced my desire to work in the games industry, which I plan on doing sometime next year. God willing!

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Vox Hunt: What? This Old Thing?

nobody@vox.com(Dale) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 13:38:56 +0000

Show us an antique.
Submitted by jacolily.

Excuse the crappy picture...

Game Boy

... this relic from a bygone age is a Game Boy. An actual Game Boy - there is no suffix, whether we're talking Light, Color, Advance, Micro or what have you. No, this is a 1989 original.

Among the many other ways you can tell you were meant to be with someone, their owning an original Game Boy is up there. Jess also owns an original NES. Tru luv!

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rollercoaster

nobody@vox.com(Beefy) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:57:17 +0000

Haven't felt like blogging for the past few days. It's like I've been on a roller coaster for the past two days, but there not much to do here at work so why not blog right?

Couple days ago sucked. Chandra called me up at 8:30 since she had been up for two hours and couldn't get back to sleep. Stopped by Some Bagels to get her breakfast. Dropped it off and hung out for a little bit. Decided to buy Rock Band for the Wii which was a mistake since the Guitar Hero guitar doesn't work with it as we were lead to believe. Went home, played a little, then took a nap.

Ryan later came by. Lacey was in need of some alone time so I told Ryan it was more than ok to crash at my place. I give the kid more shit than anyone, but even my cold heart wouldn't allow me to pick on the poor kid. And being as how Tuna and Nick don't like him, I was kinda protective of him for the rest of the night.

Last night I went to see Hellboy II: The Golden Army last night with a group of people. I gotta say I loved it. It's no Iron Man or Incredible Hulk, but it's a badass and hilarious superhero flick. I don't think I've laughed so much at a superhero movie...well, at least where it was the director's intention for me to laugh. After the movie we hung out outside and made rather distasteful so therefore hilarious comments. Ryan crashed and Chandra stopped by for a little bit. Ryan, Nick, and I started watching Golden Eye for the first time in years, and it's incredible how much I still remember those Golden Eye maps from the N64 and what a good job the developers did turning the movie sets into maps in the first place.

So far I've only beaten the fire and ice bosses on Mega Man X, which are small feats on their own. I think I'll be spending the rest of my day doing that when I get off at three. Maybe run by Al and Lacey's and see how everyone's holding up. I hate that work stole my middle day. Hate them so much. I'm tired, stuff nosed, and I have a soar throat. I feel miserable, but I'm going to try to keep a happy face today. Smiles times baby!

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Nostalgia

nobody@vox.com(MainMor) — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 20:43:58 +0000

I am a gamer... it is a known fact that this drives the Mrs bonkers. She is not so much into video games... however she is cool enough to play co-op games with me and she will also watch me play an RPG as she is interested in the storyline.

I am a kid of the 80s as well and today... I saw this video and I sighed... ahhhh the long gone days of the classic arcade.

I would play Star Wars, Q-bert, Frogger, Space Invaders and then later it was Gauntlet and Contra. /sigh

Video Game Nostalgia

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Do You PSO?

nobody@vox.com(Eien) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 21:56:57 +0000

PSO - Hunewearl med

PSO - Creg med

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Video Game Music Rocks

nobody@vox.com(AzureWolf) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:20:05 +0000

...or how 8-bit composers know their melodies

Video games get such a bad rap this day and age. I don't know how it even started, frankly, because games have always been a pleasure to all five of my senses (I used to lick NES cartridges... CDs taste much better, fyi). Although I don't play games as much as I used to, I still enjoy the music, new and old.

I'm not talking about the iconic gaming tunes like Super Mario Bros. which spurs nostalgia in every 1985er, but musical pieces that can stand on their own. Maybe the composers aren't geniuses either: when all you had was one pitch per second, what else did you need to focus on besides the melody? Whatever the inspiration or gift, there are so many beats that could easily break the charts if stolen properly. Instead, we are stuck with the umpteenth "interpretation" (i.e., musical vomit) of Pachelbel's Canon in D.

Blaster Master's Stage 6 music is one of my favorite, brilliantly-looped songs, but it lieu of that, I will opt for something more recognizable today:

How awesome of a tune is this?! And it's only one of many awesome songs that entertain you throughout the game. MJ's MoonWalker has been "modernized," but hidden gems like these are left unloved, neglected. Instead, the latest iteration of Ninja Gaiden has music worthy of A Clockwork Orange, with boobs and blood taking center stage - which is awesome, but not the point.

"Life is like a beautiful melody, only the lyrics are messed up." ~ Anonymous

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OK I Joined In

nobody@vox.com(Alixito) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 22:12:03 +0000

Nintendo_ds_GH

Found the Nintendo DS Lite Guitar Hero bundle yesterday at Target (which is $20 cheaper than Amazon's price) and bought it along with Animal Crossing game. IT IS SO FUN! I played until 2:30am when I finally made myself turn it off cuz I do have to keep my job (missed the first bus but got to work at 8:30am).

What games do y'all who have a DS Lite recommend?

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The day is done.

nobody@vox.com(Anyonebutmeplease) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:52:45 +0000

I'm fucking exhausted.
Not sure why though.

Had a nice leisurely morning with the Terrorist. Stayed in bed until 10am-ish then he played the video game that I got him for his birthday and I read the book I haven't been able to keep my nose out of. Eventually we both showered and headed out to Hillsboro so he could file for custody of Little T.

Court is tomorrow at 9am. Keep your fingers crossed!!

My plan tonight was to smoke a bowl and go to bed, but I forgot my stash in my car and even though my car is parked directly in front of the house... I'm too lazy to go get it. So I guess I'm just going to go to bed. I'm okay with that. Nate arrives in 10ish hours and I'd like to get up early enough to clean a bit before going to pick him up. Plus I told the T I'd be availble to be a phone witness should he need someone to be a character witness. On the off chance that that happens I don't want to be groggy in the head while on speaker phone to a courtroom full of people.

There are empty cans of Miller High Life around the house. Very weird. I haven't drank that shit since Chris and I first moved to PDX and you could get half pitchers for 2.50 at the Marathon.. it feels like eons ago. Nathan and I need to stop there and get a drink tomorrow.

Nate's on the phone. He's at the airport now. Very exciting.
I'm going to go pluck my eyebrows, talk to him then go to bed.
Nite nite.

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Space Cat, Windows Vista, iPhone Firmware 2.0, and Command & Conquer 3

nobody@vox.com(SimpleNate) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:34:26 +0000

Lots of stuff to talk about today, not the least of which is our new cat Jetson. A friend of one of Lexi's co-workers is moving back to England and can't take him for some reason, so we offered to give him a home. With a name like Jetson, it's only natural that I call him Space Cat. He's huge. Pictures on Flickr soon. Huge pictures.

As far as more techie stuff is concerned, I've been messing around with Vista lately and I have to say, I'm not disappointed. Vista looks very, very nice. I run OSX on the ol' MacBook and Vista still looks nice. I've had a few minor problems, but I didn't exactly spring for the most top-of-the-line PC out there, so the problem likely lies there. I've read about Vista's network connection problems at different places and I have nothing bad to say. Maybe these problems creep in later. I dunno. As for now, I'm happy.

On the Mac side, or more appropriately the iPhone side, I'm resisting the urge to upgrade. It's just not enough of an improvement over the original to justify paying the money. Now, I'll happily jump all over the next version, mind you, and I am quite excited over the 2.0 firmware due out on Friday. With the new firmware comes access to the App Store that will be made available in iTunes 7.7, also due to hit the tubes on Friday. I've seen some third party applications in action and I've been using the Safari based apps for the past year. The iPhone, be it 1st or 2nd gen, will be completely changed on Friday. I'm almost scared to predict anything else about it. A lot of the flaws could very well be fixed by third party developers, for free. Video. Cut and paste (still?!). VOIP. I really think this new firmware is going to change everything, and that goes for all smartphones. Research in Motion (Blackberries) and Palm (...Palms) are going to have to seriously up their game. And Microsoft is going to need to get Windows Moble a better public image. And lets not forget Google's Android. Brave new world, indeed.

One of the first games I picked up shortly after my PC was out of the box was Command & Conquer 3. I've been a rabid fan of the C&C series from the begining. Real time strategy games, when done right, are bliss for me. A lot of people see the RTS genre as an excercize in micro-management, and they may have a point. But there is just something about them that I love. C&C3 is the first game since Red Alert that was worth calling a sequel. It does everything they way the first C&C meant it to, namely cool/cheesey live-action cutscenes. I've been working my way through the campaigns, so I haven't tried the online yet, but I'm really impressed with it.

Also of note:

There are some kick-ass downloadable songs for Rock Band right now. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Muse, and Pixies just to name a few. Hell, I got the whole Doolittle album. Rock!
I picked up a Wii Fit. I'm sure they'll be a substantial paragraph about that at some point.
My PS3 continues to gather dust, even with the 2.41 update. In-game XMB is only cool if there is a game I care enough to play.
I am so going to buy prints of Penny Arcade's Paint the Line 80's ping pong movie parody strips. Yes, you heard correctly.

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Video Games and Gaming

nobody@vox.com(Wavecritter) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:54:13 +0000

Video Games and Gaming

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Show #11 - More Video Games!

nobody@vox.com(geek fm radio) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 02:17:11 +0000

Geek FM Show #11

Original Air Date: July 12, 2008

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Race Driver: Grid

nobody@vox.com(Niels) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 12:07:08 +0000

Grid01

My first thought, when i heard about 'Grid', was that it was yet another racing game. I actually didn't bother to pick it up. I've played every single Need for Speed game, and after being very pleased about 'Need for Speed: Pro Street', It was hard for me to imagine, that the graphics and realism could've been improved since 'Pro Street' was released 7 months before 'Grid'. My holiday arrived, my WoW guild seems dead, not a single raid for 9 days. After another attempt at getting a raid, a guildie of mine logs off with the comment, "I'm off to grid then...".

Me: Wha, what, Grid? Isn't that yet another racing cliche?
Guildie: No dude, it's the first of its kind!

The fact, that he didn't have the time to explain, was enough for me to try the demo. I had only played the demo for 20 minutes before i bought the game.

Okay, let's not overreact. You might think, that the above sounds like a revolution, but remember, this is me. It's not unusual, that i buy a game with such a short notice.

So I got the game, and while I'm a fan of gameplay, I have got to admit, that a strong engine with solid graphical realism and smooth framerate plays a huge role to me, when it comes to racing games. Sure, we havn't reached cinematic gaming, but i have to bow my head towards Codemasters, fucking well done! I played 'Pro Street' 7 months ago on this very machine, with the exact same setup. Sure 'Pro Street' looks awesome on highest graphical detail, but it has never convinced me, that i was actually there.

Grid has jumped slightly in graphic, espeacially the environment. You are finaly convinced, that the car is driving on those roads, because the environment is as well rendered as the cars. The amazing part about it is, that Grid took less performance on my machine, than 'Pro Street' did. For some reason Codemasters got their code right ;)

For the basic features about the game:
-It offers Formula1, Le Mans, drifting, street racing.
-You start as a solo racer, after a bunch of races you start a small team with yourself, buy a few 'cheap' cars. You win money, get sponsers (more money) and you get better cars, and teammates to earn you more money.
-When you screw up you can stop time, rewind, and 'flash-back' about 15 seconds to avoid ruining your car.
-Realistic damage to cars, both graphical and technical. Damage a front wheel and your cars is hard to control, ruin a wheel and your car is impossible to control.

You quickly move the focus away from the idea: 'I need to finish this race at 1st place, otherwise i'm not satisfied'. No, the many first races i was more focused on driving a clean race. The flash-back feature might seem a bit cheesy, but for the long 24 minute (24 hours Le man, 'downgraded') It is absolutely required. The amount of technical realisme makes it impossible for even the best player not to screw up once in a while.

The whole team thing works pretty decent aswell, except you have the chick who guides you at the start. (for some reason that's required in racing games... way to make it even more guys dominated) Apart from the cliche lady to guide you, the team thing actually works. Espeacially your team mates voice acting convinces you, that it is a driver with a certain nationality, you are driving with.

This is getting way too long.. If you enjoy a racing game, give the demo a go, codemasters are being nasty to EA!

Meanwhile, i'm going to drive in to a wall while wondering, if my japanese teammate (Eiji Matzuke) is being an asshole towards me, when he tells me over the radio:

'I see you in the rear mirror, do you see me?'

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the mad hatter present's 8hitbullshit it's like rap's for video games

nobody@vox.com(mikesholler27) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:51:52 +0000

MadHatter - Bullets And Buckshot

MadHatter

MadHatter - Ganon Slayer

MadHatter

MadHatter - AFS

MadHatter - Pipe Dreams

Laid Back - White Horse (MadHatter's 8Bit Nintendo Power Mix)

8bitcover

Rockinpink

this is madhatter he produced all the beat's used

and spat over all of them

all of this is avavalable at

http://www.scrubclubrecords.com/music/8bit.html

follow the link it took 10 miutes to serch for it on google

zen

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pot kettle pot kettle black

nobody@vox.com(Lauren) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 05:40:55 +0000

winston tower

I realized that I haven't posted a meaningful update in forever.. but c'est la vie. Right now, I'm half-watching Aaron play Grand Theft Auto with a bunch of cheat codes on. His character is currently beating the crap out of the police department with a bouquet of flowers.

Summer has been nice, mostly consisting of getting coffee at Krankies and spending late nights watching/playing video games. Also, missing my boyfriend while he does responsible stuff like work and pay attention to his family.

Speaking of family, my dad is leaving this Saturday and spending two consecutive weeks in Dubai and Copenhagen for business marketing. No, partying every night is not on the schedule.. but Aaron and I might hook up my ps2 to my dad's TV and lounge on his extremely squishy foam-mattress bed. We could probably do that while he's home, though, so that's not all that exciting.

Oh, this wasn't a meaningful update, either.

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/Gato gato gato

nobody@vox.com(orcist) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:53:07 +0000

Chrono Trigger Resurrection - Remake Project

In the wake of the veritable internet shitstorm that occured when a "leaked' Weekly Famitsu scan and an official-looking countdown site hinted at a Chrono Trigger DS game, Nathan intoduced me to Chrono Trigger: Resurrection, a fan-made, 3D remake, of sorts. It was never intended to be a fully-fledged game, just ten individual scenes strung together. Square Enix shut it down a few years ago, but I'd never heard of the project before last night.

I'm not quite sure what to make of the project -- it's technically impressive, with production values far higher than I what I imagined a few dudes with no budget would be able to pull off, even if there aren't any textures. However, I'm not sure if I can wrap my mind around the character models or art design, apparently inspired by the Toriyama-designed anime cutscenes from the Final Fantasy Chronicles PSOne collection. Something about it seems off, like Chrono is too bulky and beefy.

That being said, I'm anxious to see how Square will "enhance" CT DS. Don't get me wrong, I love Final Fantasy III DS, another classic remake, but the superdeformed characters didn't always translate very well. This, of course, didn't stop me from sinking several hours into the game, nor will it stop me from enjoying Chrono Trigger, should this rumor pan out. I do, however, think that, when trying to adapt classic games for a modern audience, there's a lot to be said for sprites. See Dragon Quest IX (another Square Enix game), Odin Sphere, and Grim Grimoire for examples of beautiful sprite work.

Chrono Resurrection Playthrough

Anyway, back to Resurrection. It's a nifty little project, and it's a shame that it got cancelled. The animation was fluid and the transition into the first combat (around the 8:14 mark) was absolutely seamless, a design choice I wish more RPG developers would make. The little battle intro transition thing is jarring and adds unnecessary time to already long and sometimes tedious games. It is a convenient way to hide loading times, though. Too bad Resurrection's translation was just as bad as the original. I've never seen someone butcher English the way Frog does.

For comparison, here's some footage of the original Chrono Trigger.

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Game|Life: Episode 20

nobody@vox.com(Bol) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 19:15:04 +0000

Game|Life: Episode 20

In this week's episode of Game|Life, Chris Kohler reviews on-demand video game services from Xbox 360, the Wii, and PlayStation 3.

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