Tekken: The Motion Picture

  

Since the beginning of history, people have fought in the name of god. Bending to the invented demands of their fickle deity, and screaming for righteousness, they wantonly spilled the blood of their enemies, as well as their own. The purpose behind this bloodshed, however, goes beyond simple explanations of religion, or notions of "justice".  The truth is buried deep within those who rage the wars.

Since the birth of this planet, a memory has been engraved deep in the genes of all living things. A memory of aggression, as a means of survival. A memory of fighting.

Humans seek to defend their actions in the name of truth. The act of fighting is itself a true act. Without this truth, the fighter will perish. To learn the way, ask your own flesh and blood. Because one's flesh is the door to the truth. To master the way, ask your own ken, or fist. Because complete knowledge of one's flesh, blood, and fist, is what creates one's Tekken.


And Tekken... is the key to life.



Go watch this ridiculous movie. Now.

Castlevania: Curse of Darkness

Castlevania: Curse of Darkness is an action-RPG published and developed by Konami. It's dissimilar from its predecessors in nearly every way imaginable, but still manages to maintain a consistently dark atmosphere. New to the series from this entry is rather surrealistic humor and a crazy-weird storyline.

The game stars Hector, a Devil Summoner and former servant to Dracula. He betrayed his master and set out to live a normal life with his love, Rosaly. Unfortunately, even after Dracula's defeat, his dark curse is still held over the entire populace, spreading disease and violence. To make matters worse, Rosaly is indirectly murdered by Hector's former partner: Isaac.

This is where most Castlevania games would drop off and leave the plot to fly straight as an arrow, but a time-bending British gent named Saint Germain and a rather disturbing priest named Zead both vie for Hector's attention every step of the way.

They contrast rather well.

The game's control scheme and basic battle mechanics are a mimic of those found in Dynasty Warriors/Samurai Warriors and the like, but with a bit more flavor. Even with a large variety of characters, attacks in other hack n' slash games tend to feel samey. The folks at Konami, perhaps because this game was more focused on its RPG elements, made every genre of weapon feel entirely different.

At any given time, you can equip Swords, Knuckles, Spears, Axes, or special items. Each of them plays wildly differently, and even then, there are several variations inside each genre of weapon. A claymore is vastly different from say, a rapier.

The move lists for these weapons are also pretty remarkable, with up to fifteen different attacks each, depending on the specific item. Pressing triangle after the fourth punch in a chain with knuckles would send a flurry of quick jabs, while doing the same a button earlier would send a blast of wind from Hector's fist. It's simple, but it keeps hack n' slashing through an assortment of ancient Transylvania architecture interesting.

Better still is that Curse of Darkness features a simplistic crafting system. Being a Devil Summoner, Hector is able to use alchemy to fuse items together. Unlike other Japanese action-RPGs, however, obtaining a new crafting metal doesn't just aid you in creating one genre of weapon, it unlocks an entire tier for all of the weapons.

Obtaining Red Steel, for instance, will allow you options to forge a new sword, axe, armor, and knuckles. As supplies are limited, you end up having to make choices as to what you forge and what you equip. It adds another layer to what could've been pretty simple hack n' slash gameplay. It may sound a little too complex at first, but it's all very easily navigated and performed, keeping things streamlined and action oriented.

Going even deeper into the trench of customization through equipment, accessories in the game offer the standard RPG buffs: resistance to fire, wind, ice, etc. A few creative ones can be found in hidden little corners of the map, and net you more useful abilities. In example, the "Sixth Sense" accessory lets you know when an enemy off-screen is about to strike at Hector. You barely notice it during gameplay, but it does make things easier in the long run.

A lot of little things work to make the stabbing fun.

Last, but certainly not the least of the mechanics, are the Innocent Devils. An honestly innovative feature of the game, the Innocent Devils are creatures that Hector can summon, and are the central pillar of his magical powers. They come in several different classes: Battle, Fairy, Magical, Flying, and just flat out Devil.

Each class has an evolutionary chain. They evolve and gain more special attacks based on what Evo Crystals the enemies drop. Subsequently, what Evo Crystals enemies drop depends on the type of weapon you carry. There are a lot of evolutions for any given class. Far more than it's possible to see in just one playthrough.

When equipped, depending on the class of ID and their evolution, they can carry out various attacks. The battle Devils have a variety of moves all based on offense. They do everything from rain swords down to transforming into a flying Mercury Meltdown blob. Other classes, like the magician, can even stop time briefly.

Like most of the RPG elements, Innocent Devils seem complex, but they work themselves directly into the main gameplay. All of the RPG elements rely on Hector slashing through his devilish assortment of enemies. It's brilliant in its design.

It's pretty involved.

As for the environments, Curse of Darkness went the honorable path of making all of their hallways look interesting. Despite any flair on the surface, it's a straight up action-RPG at heart, and the stages are just hallways filled with enemies for you to slash at. Most of the environments are enormous, and when they aren't, they still manage to feel it. This can be both a blessing and a curse.

Most of the game's locations, like the mechanical Eneomaos Tower, look haunting, dark, and moody, while still offering neat visual touches. There are gears beneath the floor under metal casing, and if you pay close enough attention, only the connected ones will spin. Even in that single location, the environment gets changed pretty rapidly, from an outdoor garden to a series of circular rooms to a gloomy balcony to the tippy top of the clock-tower. It shows that Konami was absolutely dedicated to their design.

The excellent atmosphere and art direction are complimented by an appropriate score that takes a page directly from the Book of Ys. It's fast paced and fierce, but it still manages to hold a good mood for each stage's personality. To help matters further, the hammy voice-acting -the robotic actor for Julia aside- hits the mark perfectly, solidifying the overall feel of the game and Hector's place in it. Bottom line is: CoD has created a damn good world.

While we talk art direction, Curse of Darkness has a pretty odd gag or two that acknowledges how ridiculous and surreal the time traveling British fellow in a top-hat is. While he's taken dead serious by the few characters who interact with him in the story, as to them he's just an incredibly outlandish sorcerer, the game tips its hat to us and our understanding of his time-bending tomfoolery.

There's a bizarre building late in the game, where upon entering, you're greeted with a modern desk, complete with a laptop, half a bathroom, containing only slippers and toilet paper, and an odd little collection of chairs from your adventure so far. While the idea of a floating garden island with impossibly advanced future technology would appear to be some sort of magic to Hector, it looks absolutely absurd to the player.

A few other instances of odd little visual gags are a modern park bench with little characters wearing top-hats plastered on it, an office chair sitting in the middle of nowhere, and a little Rube Goldberg puzzle sequence. It's cute, clever, and absolutely did not need to be there, which is all the reason it's so wonderful.

An abundance of environments wouldn't be any fun without the proper pacing, and this is something CoD is thankfully aware of. The game has a very, very slow pace, but because of that, it's always consistent. The treks through individual stages of the game seem like a complete journey by themselves. The game clocks in at the standard 8-10 hour length in the end, assuming you only complete one run, but it winds up feeling much longer than that.

This pacing isn't lost on the gameplay, either.  The bosses gradually grow from a cakewalk to unbelievably tense and challenging, as the game does so itself. By the end of the game, it's almost awesome how far you've come and what you're capable of.

There are so many things I could never praise properly, regardless of how long I talked. The massive variety in enemies, the precision based theft system, the hidden bosses, and the effects of raising different generations of Innocent Devils, to name a few. Curse of Darkness is a brilliant game made by a brilliant dev team. It nearly surpasses greatness. If any speck of thought you've ever had has made you wonder about this game, you need to play it right now. You will not be disappointed.

Not too satisfied with my Dark Void and Fracture posts.

I like picking games apart and seeing how they work. Looking at what makes what click together, or why certain pieces matter how they do. I didn't do that with Dark Void, because I couldn't. I couldn't understand why the jet-pack worked the way it did, or how vertical cover impacted the gameplay as meaningfully as it had, or even why the game managed to be so idiosyncratic in general. I just wound up forcing words out so I could say I had written something.

Same goes for Fracture. There were things I really enjoyed and wanted to share about both, as they left really unique tastes in my mind, but my words couldn't do it. So I apologize for the dip in quality with the last two posts. They're removed now, and hopefully I'll have better writing up in the future.

Driv3r

The most important thing to remember when looking at Driver 3 is that it is absolutely not trying to be Grand Theft Auto, The Getaway, True Crime, or any such game. Driver 3 is about power sliding, traffic swerving, high speed escapes through a Hollywood film sized city. And it can be pretty polarizing.

Jumping right into Driv3r, it's easy to get lost as to what you're meant to gleam from the game. There's a “take a ride” mode, which lets you freely drive around the city, a story mode, and several small driving minigames. Anyone who bought into the game on the assumption that it was a GTA-wannabe probably felt disappointed by any of the options, regardless.

Starting with “Take a Ride” is what's recommended, because it lets you get a good feel for the controls and individual handling of the cars. And that's when I learned that something -no matter what anyone else may say about it- that Driv3r can always claim, is that it has damn good driving mechanics. Every emergency brake, slide, swerve, reverse, throttle, and jump feels absolutely beautiful. Adding to the wow factor is an absolutely MASSIVE selection of cars, all with varied handling, and amazingly detailed damage models, at least for the time. There's nothing that feels quite as good as weaving through traffic in a crowded city with cops on your tail.

You'll end up at Take a Ride one way or the other.

Unfortunately, Take a Ride mode is also where the game takes time to introduce you to its flaws. The cities are an absolute obstacle course to navigate. Everything from trees to bushes to light-posts is indestructible, and smashing into them is sure to halt your high-speed chase to a teeth-grinding stop. I understand that one can argue large poles would withstand being rammed, but I doubt too many people could agree that knee high shrubs should be made of adamantium.

The reason these items are solid is to give the player some way to escape from the cops in less than speedy vehicles, and truthfully, when you are able to dodge every pole in your path and leave the cops behind you in a big wreck, it feels pretty good. It's not anywhere near comparable to the oh-so brief feelings of flying through Miami, smashing through fences and jumping across entire roads with tail right behind you, though.

Other than taking a joy-ride and getting a grasp of the mechanics, as its name implies, there's not really too much Take a Ride mode has to offer. There are goons scattered throughout the three cities for shooting, which unlocks extra challenges, but they're only bound to entertain for ten or so minutes.

There's ten of these guys to take down in each stage.

The main game (Undercover mode) is decently long, but it's not until the later half of the first city -Miami- that the game gets into the good stuff, and many people probably gave up by then. Why? On-foot missions. Back from Driver 2, Reflections Interactive decided to give on-foot levels another go, but this time with guns and an embarrassingly difficult control scheme.

No matter how forgiving and open you are to games, the first time you try moving around and shooting with Tanner, you are going to be appalled. There is absolutely no reason for the controls to work the way they do. Tanner's legs move entirely separately from the rest of his body on the left stick, and his torso, controlled with the right stick, moves far too slowly for you to get a good aim on whatever it is you're trying to shoot.

The first mission is an exercise in frustration. You have to confront a group of enemies after a brief drive, and you're more than likely to just stand in front of them and smash the shoot button, which is what they'll be doing too. It looks horrible, and it feels horrible.

Pew pew.

The first shootout in the game gives you the absolute worst possible impression of the main mode. Even after you shoot through a few baddies, the rest of the stage is a very ho-hum chase after a criminal. Most people would probably put the game down for good at this point.

If you have the patience to get to stage five, the game suddenly decides it wants to live up to its namesake, and you'll drive around a lot, smashing through walls, jumping over buildings, and sliding through alleys.

Hello there fun. Where've you been?

If you continue further into the game still, past another hideous on-foot section, you make it to the definitive "this is a Driver game" stage, where you escape through a mall flooding with cops, burst out the exit, and drive all the way back to your base with the police on your tail.

There's even a mission halfway through the second city in which the car will explode if you drop below 50 MPH, Speed style, and there's never a dull moment after that. Even the shooting sections become tolerable when you remind yourself what the reward is. 

From then on, Undercover mode has its faults, but they pale in comparison to the thrills. There really aren't any other driving games out there like the Driver series, and Driv3r makes sure you have its name etched into your brain by the climax.

For all its faults, the game is ultimately a thrill to play, and it boasts some nearly flawless handling and diversity for its roster of cars and missions. Far from perfect, and far from great, it still certainly has enough of that delicious uniqueness only Reflections can offer, given you feel like digging for it.

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! Hard to believe we're so close to the year's end already. There are literally no Thanksgiving videogames, so here's a picture of a Turkey in South Park 64.

This is really scraping the bottom of the barrel in regards to post content, isn't it?

Captain America and The Avengers

For anyone interested, I found an old Screenshot Playthrough I did of Captain America.

You can find it here.

CyberPlanet Interactive

It's time to look at weird games on the Internet again. This time, we're looking at a developer of ShovelWare games: CyberPlanet Interactive. They've made everything from preschool learning games to cooking mama ripoffs.

There's no way they got permission to use Ultraman.

There is currently no available footage available on the webs of Ultraman HappyStudy, and aside from that, CyberPlanet has stayed mostly on the same, safe path of other shovelware developers: making rip-offs of other games. There are a few notable exceptions, which is why this is even being written in the first place.

The first exception is Army Rescue, which looks like a new kind of terrible the world isn't ready for. I can barely tell what's going on from the video, but the game has Princess Peach in it, and you have to move boats.

According to the CPIgames site's description:

- Help parachute soldiers jumping from the plane into the boats by cutting the ropes and destroying obstacles.
- Collect money to upgrade boats, aiecrafts and various weapons.
- 2 Single-player mode - Story mode and Survival mode; and a multi-player mode - Battle mode.

That sounds delightful. And no, aiecrafts is not my typo. It seems like Army Rescue is a horrifying hybrid of several iPhone games, but now available for 20 dollars on your Wii.

Another exception would be Iron Chef, which may sound ambiguously legal. In fact, the game wasn't legally released in the US, much like some really old Bible-inspired NES games that everyone is familiar with.

Unlike the real Iron Chef, the game is an action platformer, and looks like a really bad idea from every angle. Unfortunately, like Ultraman HappyStudy, I doubt I'll ever be able to see it in motion.

There are a lot of other things to poke fun at, but I've already linked you their website twice now, so we'll just move onto the only sort-of not horrible game they've managed to create.

JaJa's adventure was, believe it or not, a big project. It was supposed to be the game everyone went and got for their tiny itty bitty children, and it was entrusted to CPIgames by the people who created the Smart Kids Series for the DS.

As this trailer puts it:  THE NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED AND AWARD WINNING SERIES IS COMING TO THE NINTENDO Wii.

I'm not sure that being "nationally recognized" is all that important, given anyone who saw the games anywhere in the US gave them recognition. To its credit, JaJa's adventure honestly doesn't look all that bad. The graphics are clean, the worlds are rotating constantly and vomit inducing, and the minigames look pretty okay for the age group.

It's also multiplayer.

I'm definitely going to be playing this one at some point, or maybe forcing someone who's really really patient with me to play it for me. Pretty please.

Condemned: Zombie Origins

I have yet to get hold of a WiiU, but the launch lineup is far more impressive than I thought it would be. New Super Mario Bros U looks like it finally bridges the gap between more casual players and die-hard platforming fans, with minimal sacrifice.

ZombiU isn't the game I thought it was, but instead something more like Condemned with elements from Demon's Souls. A game that demands immersion and involvement, in place of more complex game mechanics. A risky but appreciable game.

NintendoLand looks like it does what Wii Sports didn't, and shows off the capabilities of the tablet (of which there are surprisingly many), but doesn't sacrifice game quality. Some of the minigames are very surprising in their depth and length, especially the Legend of Zelda attraction. Certainly one of the best pack-in games.

Lastly, Scribblenauts Unlimited is Scribblenauts, but unlimited. It appears to be the absolute definitive version of the original concept, and that is certainly worth celebrating.

Other titles, like Chasing Aurora, I haven't even looked at, but it seems like the WiiU has a lot of quality lined up for it so far.

Chuck E Cheese Party Games: In-Depth Review

This time we have a special guest writer. His name has been changed to Chinkyf to protect his identity. His words have been edited where necessary to improve coherency.


 I found that Chuck E Cheese party game mega collection thing

Not only did I find it, but because I looked so hard for it, I went ahead and downloaded it, and played it.
And there are some things I've learned about this game that I feel those Game Grumps peoples could have ran with, but since they didn't, I will.

Starting with this: I am utterly disappointed that I couldn't choose Ming, and have my profile name be "Chinkyface" because "Chinkyface" takes up too many letter spaces. So I was immortalized as "Chinkyf".

So, the intro doesn't differ at all from kid to kid, as Chinkyf's intro was the same as the one in the video. Got the first 3 tokens, played the first three games, and realized that the Wii has its own anti piracy feature: motion controls. A 2D mouse doesn't translate too well into 3D controls.

It took me 10 minutes to get through one game of skeeball, becuase I couldn't figure out the magical combination of rightclick + middleclick + release one of the two and hope the magic happens.

Still though, another thing I learned, perhaps I was on the emulator, but that some games are near unplayable. Also though, because of emulator, I may have been able to play some games with a higher degree of accuracy because no twitchy cursor hand.


Also, I accidentially broke the Lucky Wheel, figuring out the main mechanic behind it, allowing me to rig the result with an approximate 80% success rate.

All one has to do is just hit the "stop" button when the icon you want to land on is on the opposite side of the actual stop cursor thingy. Due to the speed at which it moves, I wasn't 100% successful with this method, but it worked most of the time.

But I digress, the Game Grumps could have absolutely ran with the prizes. They didn't seem to do anything with them, but if they did, they would find out the true nature of this game:
Ticket Buffs, Token Buffs, and Ticket Grinding.

I shit you not, most of the prizes act as ticket buffs. Like, some add +X tickets to the Arcade games, some more add +X% tickets to the Arcade games, +X% to the token winnings from the pizza games, stuff and things and I have a list of all the effects.




That's the list I had compiled.
All prizes and buffs and prices and stuff.
A thing to note though, on the Shirts and the Dolls, they are all the same price, but their effects change as you buy them, so you don't really have to buy them in any order, just buying them will make all of the others have the next effect.
if that makes sense at all.


The game with the ticket buffs became 100% ridiculous very quickly. After a few buffs, I could play air hockey, lose and still get 100someodd tickets.

Chuck E Cheese RPG is exactly how it felt.
I'd get tickets, spend tickets on buffs to get more tickets to spend on stronger buffs, get even more tickets to spend on higher level games to get more tickets and tokens, all with an endgame goal: get the ULTIMATE PRIZE.

You start the game wanting to get some extra spending money, but fuck that, there's the ULTIMATE PRIZE

It's in all caps in the game too, so it's a direct quote.

Remeber though, the Game Grumps got 5 tickets for each game they won in the arcade, but I realized there's actually tiers to the games.

 Some games give a baseline win ticket amount of 5, but there are two others that give around 7 or 10 depending upon difficulty or length.
With buffs,  by endgame, I could get 197 tickets out of one token.


But anyway, the one game where I could get just around 200 tickets per token was this really really bad rhythm game. You know how rhythm games are supposed to follow a beat to a tune or what not? this was about random mass guessing.

 Usually, the time keeping would be like 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4
 The song was true to standard tempo keeping thingies.
 The buttons you press weren't at all.

I just took off the headphones and I was able to clear the hardest it could throw, even if it wasn't that hard at all.

I managed to beat the game multiple times. Again, you start the game looking for a summer job or some shit, you end it by dicking around in a chuck e cheese until you can blow 30,000 tickets on the best prize, which while is a mystery before you buy it, after you do, it always has something to do with the kid's hobby.


After a cheesy ending sequence and an unskippable credit roll, you're allowed to choose another kid and transfer all leftover tickets and all the buffs and unlocks purchased to them. The carpet, clock, lamp and the ULTIMATE PRIZE re-lock, however.


Because of the buffs, I was able to see every single kid's ULTIMATE PRIZE.
 The ending sequence doesn't change at all, and mothers apparently don't exist.

I wanted to see if there was any differences. That and there was this dumbass trophy thing for beating the game with every kid.


There's a trophy room thing filled with achievements of sorts that are 110% impossible to do without having some sort of hellish obsession with the game. There's a trophy for each arcade game, and one trophy each for each pizza game. Some of the arcade trophies are just stupid hard. Just, so so stupidly hard. 

There's one game that's essentially a dot to dot game, but played off as constellations, and the trophy for it is "Complete 1,000 Stars" which doesn't sound so bad, thinking that each constellation in the game has anywhere from 10 to 40 stars in it, depending upon difficulty, but it's not meaning individual stars, but actual full constellations.


So in short, that's about 10,000 to 40,000 stars to have to be connected, or around 100 some odd games of it by my very loose calculation.
 The others are just as bad.

"Catch 3,000 Cows" "Find 5,000 Differences" "Shoot 3,000 Balls into the basket" "Win 100 Air Hokey Games" (which doesn't sound bad, but for one token, I can't even win more than once) "Reach 100,000 m."


The pizza game ones are just as bad too, with "Make 1,000 Pizzas" and "Serve Chuck E. 500 Times" 


 The biggest trophy is for "Complete All Ultimate Prizes", which is that one dumbass trophy I was referencing.


And let me see this before you put it up on the blog.

Sega Wow

I've always been a pretty consistent fan of Sega's games. But when I was little, I had no way of knowing that a specific studio of the company was responsible for most of the awesome games I'd been enjoying. Let's pay them a little tribute.

First, a bit of history. Sega WoW has gone through quite a few name changes. Originally, they were called Sega AM1, and under that label, developed titles like Altered Beast, Golden Axe, House of the Dead, and OutRunners.

I demand that you worship these people.

That list may sound familiar, as it's pretty much every non-Sonic game people have come to associate with Sega. After that, they would then make a few racing games, and fade into obscurity.

Wait, no. It turns out they were so badass, they got to merge with the other badassest Sega studio. They united with "Team Shinobi", also known as "AM7", who had developed all of the Shinobi games, the entire Streets of Rage series, Alex Kidd, and all four Phantasy Star games.

I know this is the remake shh.

The amount of solid titles Sega WoW contributed in its early years is staggering, to say the least. Sadly, most game companies of that era had the tendency to fade out around the sixth gen. But, although Sega WoW got quieter, they certainly didn't die.


They went on to develop Skies of Arcadia, Shinobi Remake, Nightshade, Blood Will Tell, and Project Altered Beast. The first four were well received. Altered Beast, not so much. I'll take the time to talk about those games on their own at some point, but each of them is good in their own way.

Most recently, Sega WoW has created Valkyria Chronicles: a game that picked up where Future Tactics left off, and so much more.

All of these titles were developed by just two studios under Sega, and regardless of their relevancy today, they were some damn good games.

Taking a break.

Way too many games to play. Gonna just play Mario for a while and maybe Endless Ocean. Although those are great games, they probably aren't the most fun to read about. See you soon.

Haunted Mansion

Let's take a little time to talk about licensed games. Now, in most conversation, unless you happen to be a kid, talk about licensed games boils down to "fuck that, it's garbage." Why the hostile attitude? Well, for obvious reasons, our jaded minds embrace the harsh reality that no one else will. Licensed Games = void of creativity.

This is unfair for a number of reasons. Some of the greatest works made have been remixed versions of someone else's. Most of Disney's early movies, for example, wouldn't have existed without someone creating those tales and characters prior. Taking a licensed show/movie and translating it into a game has a lot of potential, as you're translating fairly linear storytelling into a playable experience, which sometimes, but admittedly not often, outdoes the original, or at least captures its spirit.

There's no better example of this than Disney's Haunted Mansion game.

It was released around the same time as the Eddy Murphy movie, but thankfully not an adaptation of it. The game itself is an action/adventure title, with some light shooting elements, and heavy puzzle solving.

Surely that's all it is? Cut and paste a genre into a licensed skin. Well, that couldn't be further from the truth. To start with, the premise, look, and atmosphere of Haunted Mansion are all dead on with the ride. The spooky yet comical atmosphere remains intact, and the story is absolutely nothing to snort at.

Alright, alright. That's it though. An awesome atmosphere and story that nails the ride, but still, standard gameplay?

Hell no. Haunted Mansion does things not only impressive for a licensed game, but impressive on the scale of the entire medium. The mind-bending, pathway twisting puzzles, no matter what you think you know, will be more than you bargained for.

Unfortunately, literally no videos I could find do the game proper justice. You'll just have to trust me when I tell you there are elements in this game that are still groundbreaking for the medium, simply because no other game has done as much with them since. (That I've seen as of yet)

Video Game Heaven

This is the home page for a videogame store, probably long deceased. Apparently the site has been visited a whopping 26,000 times, which is more than a little surprising, unless Video Game Heaven was once incredibly popular, which seems doubtful.

When one clicks enter and visits the website itself, it's pretty bland, and barely functional. There are listings for PSX, PS2, Dreamcast, and N64 products, with another section labeled imports that exists entirely for Japanese Dragon Ball fighting games.

The very last game listed on the site is X-Squad, a pretty fun -if not exactly outstanding- shooter. The site promises more games are coming soon, but unless they've gotten lost in a time loop, it seems that the site died down in 2000. 12 years later, sadly, there's not a whole lot to the website.

Although I did learn quite a few things about games from their site indirectly, using their listings. I had no idea there existed a videogame simply called "One", or that a bizarrely surreal horror game called "Sentinel Returns" existed, with a musical score by John Carpenter.

Really, what is this?

Among the weird stuff, there were some genuinely good looking games that I can't believe I hadn't heard of, like Rival Schools, Grandstream Saga and two games in the Rampage series.

I'll TAKE TWO. Get it?

If I hadn't stumbled upon Video Game Heaven's site, I probably wouldn't have ever known about these games. So props to them for listing so many weird-ass products on their site, and props to Vysethedetermined for talking about VGH in his Santa Claus Junior video, and by extension, Neon Studios for making Legend of Kay so I could look up that they also made Santa Claus Junior.

Could I have lived my life without knowing "Roscoe McQueen: Firefighter Extreme" existed? Probably, but I can't say this hasn't been interesting.

I need this.

Open World Driving Games and The Case of The Low Blow

For those who don't know, both the Driver series and Grand Theft Auto are open world driving games. Both started out on the PSX/PC, and eventually graduated to the PS2, where their open world aspects got more fleshed out.

GTA III was the first to test the new waters, and to put it simply, it changed gaming. That's not what we're here to talk about though, so I'll leave it at that. In GTA III, there's a mission where the player is tasked to kill "Two-Face Tanner", an undercover cop.

Tanner is the name of the Driver series's protagonist, and also an undercover cop. Cute little reference? Things get a little bit (hilariously) more hurtful during the mission description.

"Our source in the police has informed us that one of our drivers is a strangely animated undercover cop! He's more or less useless out of his car, so we've tagged it with a tracer. Make him bleed!" - dialogue from GTA III

They are referencing Tanner's almost complete lack of ability to do anything useful outside of his car in Driver 2. They even gave him a female running animation to mock the strange way he moves. Ouch.

Driver didn't get its PS2 installment until well after Rockstar released GTA: Vice City. When Driver 3 (spelled Driv3r officially) finally did get out of the gate, apparently the developers, Reflections Interactive, couldn't let go of a grudge.

This good fellow right here is named Timmy Vermicelli. He may look a little bit like Vice City's protagonist, Tommy Vercetti. A little bit. Reflections Interactive is no more mature than Rockstar, and as you can see, placed water wings on Timmy to mock the fact that Vice City does not allow the player to swim.

Adding even further insult to injury, Tanner is able to swim in Driver 3.

Both games have since branched off into almost entirely distinguishable series, but apparently there was a time when the town just wasn't big enough for the two of them.

Demos

Lately i've been lost in a sea of demos. Double Dragon Neon has convinced me to give the Playstation Store a harder look, so I did. I've downloaded demos for everything from Blade Kitten to Rochard, and most of what's been sampled is impressive. It's become almost an addiction.

It probably seems kind of cheap to write about demos instead of full games, but I'm still working on playing those six or so I mentioned earlier, and this is what I've been doing otherwise.

If there were two games that stuck out, they'd have to be Rochard, and Sideway: New York.

In Rochard, you're a space trucker and miner who's gone four years without hitting anything worth digging. Eventually, you find a pretty strange structure underground, and all sorts of hell starts breaking lose.

The game is a puzzle/platformer, and the puzzles, at least in the demo, are fun as hell. The main mechanic in the game is a gravity gun, used for some pretty nifty tricks and treats. It works well, and if the game keeps up where it's going, Rochard could easily be something really special.

Sideway: New York is a platformer where you play as living graffiti, and platform inside and around walls and rooftops to save the girl. The game has some really nice visuals, and the controls feel fluid and just plain good. The demo didn't show too much, but I was impressed with what was there.

Others, like Blade Kitten or Rush N' Attack, were fun enough, but they don't grab attention as easily. BK is a platformer in the vein of Run Saber and Strider, while RNA is a stealth/action game focused on dark visuals and, well, stealth.

Either way, demos have proved to be an entertaining, and free, pastime.

The Wonderful End of the World: Perhaps This?

"You can't save the whole world. It's going to be eaten by a mythological demon with the head of a fish. But as a puppet that absorbs all it touches, you can try to rescue as much of Earth's greatness as you can before the end arrives. In the beginning, you roam the Earth, capable of absorbing only the tiniest of objects."

I'm sold. Where do I sign up?

TWEotW is a Katamari inspired game with the above premise. You gotta suck up everything beautiful and right in the world for preservation. It's an amazing idea, and I'm in love with it.

But, Katamari also had unique audio, and a unique and quirky visual style. I wasn't too certain those were things  TWEotW could mimic. Well, I was wrong to a decent extent. The visuals in this game look damn fine.

They're nothing absolutely stunning, but they get the job done, and look good.

 It may be hard to tell from the promotional screenshots, but in the game, you control a giant marionette. The marionette has similar properties to a Katamari. Still sound great? It should. Let's look at a first impression of the audio.

This right here is pretty damn cool.

It's the kind of focused audio direction the game needs to give itself a specific style and feeling. Everything so far sound great? Good.

I'm sorry to say it just doesn't all add up right in the final product.

To be perfectly clear:  TWEotW is by no means a bad game. In fact, I recommend you go and download the demo right now, as it's worth seeing the game yourself. That being said, it's still not nearly what it could be.

TWEotW has some pretty big flaws in some very key areas that serve to bring down the production by quite a large notch. The audio only lasts as long as the title screen before falling apart, and what at first I thought to be vocal (or at least reasonably emotional) tracks turned out to be some of the oddest, out of place audio I could find anywhere.

This music is pretty much entirely pointless, for example. It doesn't serve to make the player feel anything about the stage, or about the game in general. It's just there.

That's not the main issue, though, as the gameplay itself falls short of expectations, too. The game tries really hard to emulate Katamari Damacy, but put simply, the levels and overall atmosphere of the game feel hollow in comparison. It doesn't help that, instead of trying to do something new or different with Katamari's absorption mechanic, the game attempts to copy it almost completely.

That's enough about the bad, though. I don't like making a habit of talking smack about games, and truthfully, as rough as this game can be at times, it isn't horrible by any stretch of imagination.

What I'm here to do is try and show you what  TWEotW could've been. I think the easiest place to start would be the core gameplay. Now, as I've said many times, TWEotW  tries to emulate Katamari. No secret there, and the developer will openly admit to it if you ask, I'm sure. The problem was that it was uninteresting and empty by comparison to its inspiration. How do we fix this?

Simple. Do something different.

 Katamari is known for being a happy, quirky, and relatively easy-going game. You remember when I said TWEotW's star was a human shaped marionette?


Take a look at this.

Now, apply that range of movement to the marionette in TWEotW, and we've already got something to talk about. Add that range of movement to the premise, and we have a game where I could be dashing around Paris, careening through an outdoor eatery, sucking up customers and tables, before jumping into an art fair to collect and preserve priceless paintings.

A game where the stages take place in some of the most notable cities in the world, as you dash around on rooftops and through crowded streets, slurping up everything in your path? That already has a lot more going for it.

To further separate TWEotW from Katamari and give the game its own feel, quick-paced, objective based gameplay could be implemented. Not so quick as to make the player feel rushed, but quick enough to remind them that the world is going to be eaten by a mythological demon with the head of a fish.

You could even add in a stylish announcer, like Viewtiful Joe, or a feelgood bonus area that just has a whole ton of small, sparkly objects to run around and collect. If you're imagining the same thing I'm trying to make you imagine, it should be reasonably awesome as hell, and I think it would do this game's premise, and the idea of other game's with Katamari mechanics, a lot more justice.

Bit.Trip Runner

Bit.Trip Runner is a platforming game in the Bit.Trip series, notable for its unique gameplay and music. The title is a very unusual kind of platformer, and focuses more on quick reflexes than actual skill of some kind. This can result in a lot of trial and error, but if you're playing it right, that really shouldn't matter.

BTRunner's controls and overall feel are similar more to a rhythm game than a platformer, in that your actions create notes of music, and you have to perform them nearly flawlessly, or ruin the rhythm. I found myself completely captivated by the game's soft and surreal look, as well as the perfected controls and focus on trance-like repetition. I mess up often, but I never have any qualms about trying again, because playing the game just makes me feel happy.

It's the kind of game that expects perfection, but it also expects you to be either entirely zoned out or entirely captivated while you play. I can sit still for hours in a trance playing Bit.Trip Runner, and be thoroughly entertained.

Everyone deserves to feel the feels I have felt from this game. They are the best feels, I assure you.

Free Writing: Language of Games

A while back, I read about someone talking about the "language of games". She was referring to the unique way that games can portray events to its players. Technology and game development have evolved a lot from the time it was first conceived, and now more people are playing games than ever. This means the opportunity to create and show people something amazing with the medium is within reach.

The issue she brought up was, while technology and game development had evolved, the "language" of games hadn't. She said that games were still speaking to players in means of movies or simple entertainment, with basic goals or cinematic construction. While I believe there's nothing at all wrong with any given kind of game, I believe what she was trying to say has a lot of importance to the medium.

Games are unlike any other media before it, and it has the potential to do things that haven't quite been grasped yet. Games can create virtual worlds for players to not just interact with, but be a part of. You can see hints of this everywhere, from Skyrim to Bioshock 2, although in different flavors and different genres. Immersion is a huge factor in the impact a game has on a player. Getting wrapped up inside a story is great, but getting wrapped up inside a world is amazing.

We're getting more and more games that introduce and invest players in a world, to the point the events and characters, and especially the gameplay, carry emotional and mental impact.

Games allow people to interact and become a part of worlds, not just view them in a linear and static fashion. This is a language that games have created, and one that can't ever be perfected, so long as people always try to create and improve.

There are some games coming up/recently released that I feel, at least, can be potentially big for the medium as a whole. Dishonored, for example, seems to put interaction with the game world as much inside the player's hands as possible, to ensure freedom. I haven't played it yet myself, but IGN reviewer Cam Shea went so far as to say, "It picks up where games like Deus Ex and BioShock left off, and puts choice back in the hands of the player.", which can only be a good thing.

Last of Us, a yet to be released shooter by Naughty Dog, seems to strive for telling a linear story through immersion and atmosphere. In the trailers and promotional items this far, it seems to build up its world and story through scenery and gameplay. Needless to say, a lot of games have tried to take this route before, but so far, Last of Us pulls it off in the most spectacular fashion.

Please check out the promotional gameplay footage, and see for yourself.

Even if these games and others like it do not succeed in all of their goals, they will certainly populate the medium with more of the kind of games it deserves, (although the games we have already are by no means a joke) and maybe it can take a few big steps forward in developing its language.

Kirby's Dream Land

Kirby’s Dream Land, originally in development as Twinkle Popo, is the first game in the Kirby series. It was created when Masahiro Sakurai and fellow developers grew attached to Kirby, a character who was originally used as a dummy in place of more advanced and detailed characters.

Ironically, Kirby’s gameplay wound up being something pretty unique at the time, and helped his game stand apart from other platformers. Like other games in the series, Kirby can inhale enemies. Unlike other games in the series, he cannot copy their powers. The game relied entirely on the inhale and spit mechanic to combat foes and solve (admittedly few) environmental puzzles. This probably sounds a little off-putting to fans of the other games, and I was skeptical of how well it would hold up, too. Fortunately, thanks to some clever bosses and presentation, it works just fine.

Although seemingly far removed from its sequels, Dream Land has everything that makes people think of Kirby as Kirby. From bubbly music, Waddle Dees and Waddle Doos, and a friendly and cute atmosphere, it’s all here, just a little less colorful and complex.

Swallowing and spitting enemies feels precise and satisfying, and the stages, while re-made in later Kirby games to satisfactory ends, were clearly made for traversal by a hero without copy abilities. The game is built around using his inhalation attack in as many ways as it can. Admittedly, it could get old, had the game been longer, but five short stages and some creative (and classic) bosses keep the game interesting long enough for the final showdown against DeDeDe.

There aren’t really too many downsides to Kirby’s original outing, except maybe in the slightly unrealized world itself, but considering the Game Boy’s graphical limitations, that’s easily forgivable.

Every Game Ever

The lack of writing this past week is due to my playing a few too many games at once.

Fracture: a third person shooter with pretty neat terrain deformation mechanics.

Kirby's Dream Collection: Happiness in a box.

Batman, Rise of Sin Tzu: A shiny and fun beat em up with great music, but standard mechanics.

Resident Evil 5: One of the best co-operative games I've played, and one of the most intense.

Squeak Squad: Happiness in a Kirby Kirby Kirby.

and Stuntman: Probably one of the most unique driving games out there period.

So pretty much every game ever.

I want to say I'll have posts about them soon, but I'll probably play most of them a second time, so I can more easily recall and sum up the experience.

Double Dragon Neon

"all my enemies gunna get rocked"

I'm going to be frank here. Double Dragon Neon is easily one of the greatest games created as of this date. It is the most perfected and finely tuned example of its genre, and it creates such a satisfying and empowering experience that it nearly leaves one with exhaustion.

DDNeon is a game developed by WayForward, who have quite a big reputation dealing with old school titles. From Contra 4 to Risky’s Revenge, they’ve managed to deliver top quality entertainment on a number of old brands, and this is no exception. Nearly everything about Neon screams dedication and soul, from the flawlessly executed style to the satisfying and meaty combat.

The game starts the same as the traditional Double Dragon. Marian is punched and taken away, so you and preferably a friend set off to rescue her. It only takes a few seconds before you fight a few cartwheeling goons with hair picks and gorgeously styled hair. The first taste of combat can seem a bit slow at first, but by the end of the first stage, the mechanics reveal themselves for what they are, and you understand exactly the kind of game Neon is.

Neon presents its mechanics in the favored form of Final Fight, but with some much needed tuning and personality. You have a punch and kick, simply enough. You can punch infinitely, but kicking in the middle of a combo unleashes a spin kick, inflicting multiple hits of damage, stunning enemies, and giving you a brief invincibility frame. You’re going to become best friends with that move, because it’s easily the one you’ll use most.

You can also quickly duck and roll to dodge. Doing so perfectly gives you “gleam” which causes Billy or Jimmy to light up red and doubles their attack strength. Alongside these basic mechanics, you can dash and jump kick, as well as use a heavy assortment of weapons, ranging from a comb to a boomerang.

These may sound like ordinary mechanics, and that’s because they are, but they way they are put to use has to be felt for oneself. The powerful, meaty feel and style to the combat cannot be overstated. There are as many enemy types as weapons, and each of them feels entirely different to engage. They knocked the ball into goddamn outer space. I've never seen a battle system work and feel this well since God Hand.

Aside from basic attacks, we have probably the most definitive feature of the game: the ability to equip songs on cassettes that grant you special abilities or status upgrades. Not only does each song offer a distinct ability, but a distinct song, complete with lyrics.

I can’t really describe in words how great it is to point my cursor over the “Bomb Toss” tape and hear a deep voice man sing a song about love explosions, or to equip the “Balanced” tape and hear harmonized chanting of the classic Double Dragon theme.

The abilities granted by these songs are nothing to laugh at either. “Training Wheels”, a delightful song about a cheerful girl who finally graduated from her training wheels, will appropriately give the player a large health boost.

There are a large handful of status upgrade songs to choose from. One may increase your magic meter, allowing you to perform more specials, and another may allow you to regenerate health with each blow you strike. It works beautifully, and especially in co-operative play, allows players to click together nicely, combining preferred combat styles in the best way possible.

While we're on the subject of co-op, Double Dragon Neon is probably the most perfect co-operative experience available. I mean that. It's that damn good.

With a friend, the game almost entirely changes. Things that were fun in single player become so ridiculously and wonderfully enjoyable that it feels like you are going to snap the controller in two.

You can split your life with a partner using high fives, give them a boost in power, juggle enemies back and forth, and revive them upon their defeat. The game goes out of its way to encourage that you work and form a bond with your partner. It never feels like you're just zoning out with a buddy, because the game always keeps you involved.

I can't spoil too much, but the game is such a masterpiece from beginning to end that I almost don't know what else to praise. The game culminates into such an unbelievably fantastic crescendo that it's impossible to describe in words.

Just, goddamn.