Smaaaaaaaaaash the Virtual Console
by alzabo
Posted on Thursday, January 31, 2008“I want to drag whoever came up with Smash Bros. into the street and shit into their heart.”
The yearly slump
by alzabo
Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008The winter lapse in game releases is here. Both Hollywood and the Games industry launch their AAA products in the fall and winter, giving us a fall and holiday season with so much new media to devour that we can’t possibly enjoy it.
People who are really concerned about missing out on something “important” spend January and February playing catch-up with the releases of the Fall. Of course the machines never stop, and games keep coming out after the holiday season, it is during the cold month’s of winter that game releases slow to a trickle of what could be kindly referred to as shit. This year is no different with lots of forgettable titles and a few dark horses that are either flawed (Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law) or so niche that they’ll be glossed over and forgotten by almost everyone (No More Heroes).
It was my hope that into this dark place, a savior would come in the form of Downloadable Games. We’ve been promised Rez and Ikaruga by Microsoft, but Nintendo has been playing their cards so close to their vest I fear that their asshole is going to get a paper cut. So far this year, Nintendo’s Virtual Console releases have been limited to two games per week instead of the usual three. Their offerings have been pretty crummy as well, the best games we’ve received were StarTropics and The King of Fighters ’94.
StarTropics is an ok game, but it’s not enough. I received $40 worth of VC point this year from various people as gifts and there are no interesting games to buy. Where the hell is Earthbound? Where is Metal Storm? Fuck you Nintendo, between this and the quickly evaporating 3rd party support this system is turning out exactly like the Gamecube. Everyone is all pumped up for Smash Bros, but that’s just MvC2 for people in diapers who can’t understand the concepts more complicated than “UP+C."
At least I have the new Phoenix Wright game and Professor Layton to look forward to in February on my DS. I think those’ll be the last Nintendo games I buy for a very long time.
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Confession Time
by Zen
Posted onOh god, my wrist.
by alzabo
Posted on Sunday, January 6, 2008The Vertical Shooter genre and”SHMUPs” in general have evolved over the years in a way that is similar to evolution of vs. fighting games. Early games in the genre are simple and complexity grows over time as those who enjoyed the games as players become developers and build complexity into new games that requires players to have a deep comprehension of the game morphology relating to that specific genre. In both vs. fighting and SHMUPs this has led to an incredible level of specialization.
When it comes to vs. fighters there are many dedicated developers still at work: ARC System Works (Guilty Gear), Examu (Arcana Heart & Samurai Shodown V) and SNK (The King of Fighters, Last Blade). They produce fighting games that appeal mainly to long time genre fans of vs games. There are fewer developers dedicated to SHMUPs: Alfa Systems (Shikigami no Shiro II & III), G.rev (Border Down & Under Defeat) and Cave (Ketsui & Mushihime-Sama).
I consider myself an avid gamer, but I’ve always been quite poor at SHMUPs, but playing the intricately crafted games produced by Cave turned me on the SHMUPs in a big way. Cave’s shooters are a masterwork of 2D animation, A ballet of bullets fills the screen, blotting out all the terrain scrolling beneath the play area. Cave’s games require so much precision that they have created a new sub-genre within SHMUPS, the “bullet hell” shooter. Over the summer, I became obsessed with Cave’s games and resolved to own one for home play. Being a (somewhat) sensible man, I promised myself that I would not buy one of these games unless I was properly committed to the genre. To prove to myself that I would be able enjoy a Cave game PCB I would not buy one until I 1 credit completed the Neo Geo scrolling shooter Blazing Star.
The rules for beating the game were simple, Beat the game on one credit. I believe that whoever said “The devil is in the details” was actually talking about 1 crediting SHMUPs, the level of commitment and repetition is mind-numbing for all but the most obsessive players. To make a long story short, I managed to 1 credit complete the game after roughly 12 hours of practice on arcade difficulty (MVS difficulty) and I hurt my wrist because the game lacks auto-fire. While I am proud of my accomplishment, I know that Blazing Star is not that difficult and I have resigned myself to merely viewing videos of expert players 1 credit completing Cave games. I can afford the steep price of entry required to buy a Cave game and have immense interest, respect and enthusiasm for the SHMUP genre. However, I am simply not dedicated (or crazy enough) to play them correctly, so I’ll just stick to console ports and emulators.
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