The first, and in my mind most important thing, to happen this episode, we now know how to begin the show. You’re all little monsters. Not Howie Mandel/Fred Savage style, Portal 2 style. This week’s show is fun, talking about how, without any good reason I continue to play Zelda and Max trudges through even more San Andreas. Top 10 list was a doozie, Licensed Games. In a feat of best-friendsmanship we both guess the other’s #1 pick. Then talk of news, mostly just Capcom fighters and Shank‘s imminent arrival. After the break we have Zelda talk and a promise to keep it to a minimum and we go on. Deets and all that after the break.
We Download, you know, directly.
Fine, the cat’s out of the bag. We get physical (by which I mean defensive and catty), in this, our luckiest and highest numbered podcast yet. This week’s lists are below and are almost of a cliche ilk, I hope it doesn’t offend our more modern listeners. Others will find it refreshingly retro (much like the games we play). We also get down and dirty talking franchise fractions with Oddworld, Assassin’s Creed big dreamin’ and a little white lie from Sega. The game this week, Cave classic DoDonPachi, doesn’t click with me and Max takes it personal. It gets ugly, then sad, then happy, then really ugly, now we’re not talking. Next week is a personal fav, The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap. Show notes and contact info after the break.
Download it here, if you dare!
Let’s talk about EA. 5 years ago they were dicks. They were the largest company in existence, carried a big stick and made lots of money. One of there huge money-makers was a series called Madden. Love it or hate it, Madden is a force unlike anything else in gaming. There are people that only play Madden, only own Madden, will only own Madden, bought a next-gen console at launch for Madden. Those are real people. Really. So EA had piles of dough and liked it that way but then NFL2 K showed up. Sega’s entry into the sports sim genre, the 2K series was a hit but, no matter what reviewers or gamers said, Madden always outsold them. Until, like maverick ninja badasses, 2K decided one year to just release a brand new NFL2K game for $20. Yeah, brand new game, competing with Madden, the Madden, and pulling crazy shit like this. And they won, handily. NFL2K smoked Madden that year. It was the beginning of an epic shift in power. Well, not really.
EA just went out and got the NFL to sign a 5 year exclusivity deal so that NFL2K couldn’t use real players anymore… or the first 3/5th of their title. That was the degree of dickishness we’re talking about. Anytime there was a story of developers working 100 hour weeks and churning out games, it was EA. If a studio just got bought and then had half the staff fired, that was EA. Their omnipresent evil, or, to be fair, their blatant corporate mindset ran afoul with the gaming industry’s love of whimsy. Flash ahead to now. EA, under new leadership, has stopped producing mountains of sequels. New IPs are the plan. EA Partners is their newest publishing foray, streamlining the system in such a way as to allow developers to keep a lot of their rights and power during development and beyond. They have great titles that core and casual gamers would enjoy. Rock Band, Skate, Dead Space, Mass Effect, it’s nearly endless the level of quality and sheer volume they are capable of bringing to market.
Space Channel 5 is one of the most difficult games that sounds like a workout record when you’re not sitting in the room. I’ve owned the game for at least three years and have only recently been enjoying it as much as I should have been in 2007. My main incentive for throwing this in as of late besides trying to figure out how Ulala dances as well with those horrendously uncomfortable-looking shoes on, is the knowledge that Michael Jackson makes a cameo in the third act.
After blasting (“Chu!”-ing) a ton of Morolians (the TV screen-faced alien invaders), I notice some guy doing very familiar dance moves, and Ulala yells, “Look, they’ve got Space Michael!”. With fingers poised to “up”, “down”, “Chu-chu-chu” and my fanboy boner standing tall, I defeated the hypnotizing bastards. Michael says something like, “Thank you!” in his velvety voice, aaaaaand… That’s all I got.
Just like everyone else you rescue from the Morolians, Michael joined the throng of followers and copied Ulala’s comparatively weak dance moves. Next scene, he’s gone.
As I watched, fanboy boner long gone, a deep swelling rage began to build up in my chest. But because I don’t throw controllers, I swallowed and politley, yet firmly, shut off the Dreamcast.
I find out while writing this that more MJ Dance Goodness is to be had with Space Channel 5, and so I’m not too frustrated.
But still… What a nerd-cock tease.
The most affordable piece of SNK hardware wizardry.
The Neo Geo Pocket came into my small world of gaming kind of by accident. I happen to work next to a used game store, so I pop in at least three times a week to buy gum or soda for the work day and quickly browse what they have for sale. On one fortunate day I happened to notice a box lying in their ‘to price’ pile behind the counter. It was a Neo Geo Pocket Color.
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Failure - The opposite of a commercial success. A gaming project is deemed a failure for reasons such as: Lack of brand recognition, lack of proper marketing techniques, poor hardware or software support, loss of supply/demand balance, etc. The console goes away mostly unnoticed, and is usually short-lived.
Success - From a business standpoint, a commercial achievement. This console is well recognized by the general public as a good piece of hardware. Third-party developers flock to develop for the platform, and add their intellectual properties to the library of the console. The project, from conception to release, has been well thought out and executed, and the console enjoys a long life.
For many reasons, I believe failure is a good thing for this industry. Generally speaking, a failure is necessary (in a certain capitalistic sense) for another to succeed and then become the standard. Failures also help smart companies to learn from the mistakes of their peers without having to suffer the dire consequences. In gaming, this leads to better and better marketing and R&D decisions as the industry progresses.
But we already know to a huge extent about gaming’s successes.
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My answer? “Who cares?”
I’ll admit it’s not polite to answer a question with a question but with what SEGA seems to be pulling I think formality can be cast aside. Do you remember that little widget that gave out a bunch of equations that all equaled 247? Well today (as promised) it changed color and morphed itself into a link to a brand new little widget thing with new equations all still equaling 247 still with an apple and still with the outline of a big headed & gloved character. It’s essentially the same thing as before only with one line of voice acting (“Seeegaaaa”), and a color background. Oh and lets not forget the typewriter sounds and NiGHTSesque music, everything is a clue. Good job SEGA, teasing a teaser. Have you no shame?
The last image is simply the very engrish phrase “What mean’s 247?”, and a the promise of something on March 12th. See you then!
what they’re saying