Ubisoft Sales

Today Ubisoft released the sales numbers for their best selling games of all time. Surprisingly the Rayman seres captured Ubi's top spot with 22 million sold. The Tom Clancy Branded titles made up most of the other significant spaces but two things stood out to me on the list.

Driver - 14 million units sold

Petz - 13 million units sold

Granted Driver 1 was pretty decent and 2 was okay,but the series has been pretty crappy for a while. Plus 13 million units of Petz! (with a Z) If you are buying these games, then you are part of the problem.

Dodge Ball Update

So I finally got my hands on the game and I have to say I'm a little disappointed. Granted I've only played it for about an hour, but the game seem pretty shallow so far. The game boasts that it has over 100 attacks, but each character can only do about 7 of them. You can: attack with the ball, kick, punch, jump and attack with the ball, run and then attack with the ball, jump and special attack with the ball or just use your special.

I know that sounds like a ton of stuff you can do but basically all the other person has to do is press one button to catch like half of those. This basically turns it into a who can do more special moves contest.
It has an option to create your own team, so maybe I'll get into that later, but as of right now it seems like all the matches are basically the same but with a different backdrop. I can't really say it was worth the $30 price tag right now. But maybe it'll get better as I go on.

The one thing I did really like so far was the back cover of the game. I want to shake the hand of the man who put "100 ball busting special attacks" next to "not the face!" on the back of the box.

Guitar Hero: On Tour

What the fuck is wrong with the Guitar Hero marketing team?

This video is best watched in conjunction with the comments of the fine folks over at Talking Time.

Super Dodgeball Brawlers

Yesterday I went to go get my copy of Super Dodgeball Brawlers, but the local Gamestop hasn't gotten it yet. Anyone else been able to get their hands on it? And if so how are you liking it? I didn't really like the GBA version because they changed the art style and stuff, but I'm hoping this one will be more like the NES original or better yet the Neo Geo version.

*edit* Apparently my copy is in and I'm gonna go get it in about an hour, So I guess I'll post my impressions once I've gotten to play it for a bit. :)

EPISODE EIGHT: "Mississippi Pwning"

Wherein I go against my better judgement and wade into the continuing firestorm over "Resident Evil 5" as a first-step toward getting to a topic we'll probably need to revisit a few more times: Race and ethnic-portrayals in video games.



Had to go back to the sped-up sound a few times this time around, as I've discovered that YouTube doesn't even let DIRECTOR accounts do over ten minutes anymore. Dammit. Also recording sound in a new way, which I don't have exactly where I want it but it DOES allow me to get the material done and uploaded at a MUCH quicker pace. Those issues aside, I think this one came out decently. It's a tough topic, especially since it's not as easy to find appropriate visual aids as it is for, say, "the Boobs episode."

N'Gai Croal, the Newsweek blogger who took a lot of heat - most of it undeserved - from gamers over his negative critique of the trailer, is for the record one of the best game journalists in the mainstream media. I'm thinking of sending him a link to this, which seems courteous since he gets mentioned so often in it, though part of me is a little nervous as to what a professional thinks of my incoherent run-on sentences. Guess we'll see...

Chaos Wars

This game looks awesome and I'd never heard of it until recently. It's called Chaos Wars (PS2) and it looks a lot like Disgaea (one of my all time favorites). I'm a bit of an SRPG nut, so this game looks pretty interesting to me.

It has a ton of characters from other series including:

Shadow Hearts
Growlanser
Blazing Souls
Gakuen Toshi Vara Noir
Spectral Force
Spectral Souls
Hametsu no Mars
Gungrave
Samurai Police/Shinsengumi Gunrouden.


It comes out on June 3rd and is a Gamestop exclusive so go get your pre order on if this looks like something you might like.

Final Fantasy IV

I've been looking forward to Final Fantasy IV on the DS since it was announced. I have never gotten to finish this game, so I'm excited to get another crack at it with all new cut scenes and 3D graphics.
While I enjoyed the remake of Final Fantasy III, I feel that FF IV is a much stronger game to start with, so I think this remake will be much more fun. I hear that the preview builds for the DS version are really hard so I'm kinda hoping they'll tone it down just a bit before release. Either way I'm totally in for this one. It's been a while since I've played a good handheld RPG.

Size Matters

Today I saw a story on IGN's UK site that announced that Microsoft is moving the size limit of XBLA games from 150 MB to 350 MB. While I have the 20gb model 360 and I'm sure it will fill up fast, I am happy to hear that I might get to play games like Castle Crashers, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix and Bionic Commando: Rearmed with all the features that the developers intended for them.

Castle Crashers

For those not in the know, Castle Crashes is a 2D hand drawn Beat-em-up from the guys who made Alien Homanid. This is one of the first games that really looks like it's trying to deliver on the XBLA promise of bringing new arcade style games to the console rather than just new takes on older games.
I've been looking forward to Castle Crashers for a long time (even before I had a 360 in fact) and now after about two years (since it was announced) the developers of the game have finally said that the game is done. I know it'll still be a while because of Microsoft certification and stuff, but it looks like the wait may have paid off. The game has a ton more stuff than I thought it did including 22 different characters you can play as. I'm really looking forward to this one getting a release date. Once it's out I'll have to try out that four player Co-op with some of you guys. :)

White Knuckle Scorin'

Back in 1991 Nintendo released a CD full of Nintendo related songs made by a bunch of random artists. The CD was called White Knuckle Scorin' and the first song on the album was called Ignorance is Bliss (It was by a band I'd never heard of called Jellyfish). In any event time has passed and some kind sole on the internet decided that that song needed a music video. I have decided to pass that video on to you, Enjoy!


The lyrics are on this page if you want to sing along :)

Wiik in the Knees

One thing people have often said about the Wii is that as time goes on the graphics will look worse and worse compared to it's competitors (360, PS3 and PC). I think that this is a valid point, but developers are making that time come much too soon. Many games on the Wii look markedly worse than Gamecube games. I'd even argue that some look about the same as Dreamcast games.
I don't consider myself to be a big graphics whore, but I do think that many Wii games are aging themselves prematurely. As much as i like playing my Wii, it is starting to look a bit dated. So far nothing has really even lived up to the standard set by Resident Evil on the Gamecube.
People used to mock the Wii and say it was nothing more than two Gamecubes strapped together, Well I think they were being generous. I haven't seen anything that would make me think that there's more than one Gamecube in the box.
I love the new control scheme and I love the idea of bringing more people into gaming, but I don't love the idea of developers half assing games on the Wii because “graphics don't matter”. So far Mario Galaxy is the only game I've seen that was really Gamecube+ in any way, and even it looks very similar to Sunshine (graphically).
This whole post was all spurred on by pictures of the new game Lost in Blue for the Wii. I don't know how far along this game is in development but it seriously looks like a bad Dreamcast game. Take a look at it next to the Dreamcast launch title Evolution: The World of Sacred Device.



Lost in Blue on Wii

Evolution on Dreamcast

Creativity Vs. Commerce

Are corporations killing creativity in the games industry? It's an age old question and definitely a tough balance for publishers. In the last few days both Hideo Kojima and Tomonobu Itagaki have expressed the wish to leave behind their most popular franchises in favor of something “new”. Kojima has been very public about wanting to leave Metal Gear for years. At the release of every new game he says that “this will be the last one” but eventually Konami convinces him to do another. (presumably with a dump truck full of money)
Kojima is one of the most talented directors in gaming and it's a shame that he's strapped to one idea, no matter how great. Snatcher, Boktai and ZOE show that he has so much more to offer if given the chance.
With Metal Gear basically at it's 9th Kojima directed iteration and Ninja Gaiden at it's 4th or so iteration under Itagaki, isn't it time to let these guys do something else?
Seems to me that whatever they came up with would probably be just as good or better than another iteration of those games. But maybe that's just me...

EPISODE SEVEN: "The Psychology of Nintendo Fans."

In the world of gaming and game-fandom, there's no insult that gets tossed around the forumscape with more vitriol than "Nintendo Fanboy." The Children of Miyamoto are legendary for the strength of their devotion and infamous for the creepiness of their occasional fanatacism - and both reputations are fairly well deserved. But what exactly makes them tick?

I'm not the first gaming culture-commentator to tackle this one... or the last... or even CLOSE to the best, but we all do our part. Part of what I realized putting this together is that most of us of the age to BE nostalgiac about this are ill-equipped to really get a handle on what it all really means: We're too close to be properly objective no matter how hard we try. EVERYONE knows or at least comprehends that "Nintendo Power" - just to use one example - was market-controlling corporate-propaganda of the first order. Everyone. But it doesn't matter. I remember getting my subscription and first issue as a Christmas present; you'll NEVER fully convince my brain to not hold some measure of fondness for it - any more than you'll convince Brits of certain generations that Golliwog was a cruel racist caricature.



Yeah, so... this one's a little on the sentimental side. More funny-business to come, I promise, but you gotta change it up here and there. I mean, the last installment was like ten solid minutes about BOOBS - I have to find the balance where I can ;)

Mythri : The GBC game that never was....

This is a really interesting look at a game that never made it out for the GBC. It's name was Mythri and it was the project that launched my friend Tomm's gaming career. He has since gone on to work on Contra 4 and some of the Shin Megami Tensei games (as well as many others).

Reguardless of if Tomm became a game designer or not, the story of a canceled game is always interesting and I definitely think you guys should check it out.

Think of it as a True Hollywood Story of game development.

Check it out over at GameSpite.net

Pitfall Wii?

Honestly I don't think that I can think of a single license that's been used more poorly than Pitfall. The first game was great and at the time I guess it was probably pretty ground breaking. but let's go through the many games in the series and see what they came up with.


* Pitfall - Awesome game that was ahead of it's time.

* Pitfall II: Lost Caverns - Fairly well received sequel that stuck to the originals ideas.

* Super Pitfall - Nes game that could best be described as awful.

* Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure - Another bad platformer

* Pitfall 3D: Beyond the Jungle - Most reviewers of the time seemed to think it was decent. I see a lot of 7-ish scores. Never played it myself but looks better than the previous two

* Pitfall: Beyond the Jungle (Gameboy Color) - I've yet to play it but it received terrible scores and was canceled for all other territories after the US release. (which is never a good sign)

* Pitfall: The Lost Expedition - recived 7-8's but looked a little kid focused.

*Pitfall: The Lost Expedition (GBA) - Received similar middle of the road scores.

Which brings us to the present. The new Wii game (titled Pitfall: The Big Adventure) is made by the same people who made the last console version and the graphics look pretty similar.
For a series that had so much promise, how did it go so wrong? I know most of the games are decent, but Pitfall could have evolved into so much more. It could have looked like Uncharted:Drakes Fortune by now, but instead it looks like bargain bin crap.

Obscure Handheld Day

A few weeks ago I got back something that I had been missing. Namely my Neo Geo pocket Color. As someone who plays a lot of handheld games, I have to say that the NGPC is one of my favorite portable systems. It may not have lasted as long as some of the others, but it made up for it by having some really great games. First on my list is Snk Vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash. I know there are a bunch of other great games on the system, but this one's my personal favorite. I'm hoping it'll be the subject of the next VGTO.

In similarly obscure handheld news, I bought a WonderSwan Color the other day and it finally came in the mail. I don't have any games for it yet, but that's step two lol. It's much different than I imagined, but I think it's pretty cool looking. I'm looking forward to playing some games on it. (even if they are all in Japanese). It's pretty small/light and it runs on just one AA battery. I don't know how long that single battery lasts, but it's not backlit so it should be a while. I'll put a pic on here for people that aren't familiar with the obscure Japanese handheld made by the creator of the Gameboy. (click on the pic at the top to make it larger)

Boom Blocks

I've been very skeptical about Boom Blocks since I fist heard about it. It's a game made by Steven Speilberg (and EA), which right away sets off a flag in my mind. Usually when film guys try to make a game it ends up being more film and less game (and usually all crap). Well old Steven threw me a curve ball when they announced that his game would be a puzzle game.
My first thought was "why would Steven Spielberg make a puzzle game? Shouldn't he be working on some big epic?" well I guess Steven knew what he was doing because the game has been getting some pretty good reviews (including an A+ on 1UP) and I bought it yesterday to give it a shot.
So far I've only played multi-Player, but I played it for about 3 hours last night and I have to say that it's a lot of fun. The game is sort of a mix between Jenga and the old carnival game where you throw baseballs at milk jugs. The game has a ton of modes and tons of different levels for each mode. Plus it has a whole stage builder and single player that I have yet to dive into. I think it's definitely worth a look if you have a Wii and a few friends to play with. I had a lot of fun in my 3 hours with it last night and I'm looking forward to playing it more today.

Gears of War 2

I saw on 1up today that they're going to have the first video of Gears of War 2 up this Friday at 10:30pm PST. I was just running through Gears yesterday with a friend who hadn't played it yet and it reminded me just how good that game was. I'm really looking forward to more of the same but with a little more graphical horse power and jiggly meat cubes. I think that that's basically what we'll get. Can't wait to see more tomorrow night.


VGTO should be done tonight. I've had some car trouble lately and I had to spend 4 hours at the local car repair shop yesterday, so I wasn't able to get it done until now. I have nothing to do today, so if it's not done today then I have no one to blame but myself. lol

Gameplay Friday

First off I want to update you guys on the show. I got the intro from Lance today so the episode should be done tomorrow or maybe Monday. It's hard to say because I have a few things I have to do on Sat/Sun. Either way it'll be done soon so that's good.
Now on to the what I've been playing. I've played two games lately that I thought were pretty good. Last night I played Fire Pro Wrestling Returns on the PS2 with a friend of mine. I'm not really a big wrestling fan, in fact I wouldn't consider myself a fan at all, but the friend I was playing with really loves wrestling and I can see how people like it. That being the case, I was pretty surprised to find out that the game was a lot of fun. I think the thing I dislike about wrestling is the predetermined outcome, and in the video game that's not a problem, so it just seems more fun.
Strangely I have played both of the GBA Fire Pro games and I didn't really find either one of them to be all that fun. I hear they are really great from wrestling fans, but I just couldn't get into them. Anyway Fire Pro Returns is only like 20 bucks and if you're into wrestling then I think it's definitely worth a look. It doesn't have any of the licensed wrestlers, but it has a create a wrestler mode that includes all there moves and looks of the pros, so if you have the time you can make your own WWE setup in the game.

The other game I've been playing lately is Advance Wars. This is one of the best games ever made for the GBA and every so often I like to go back and beat it all over again. For some reason the newest DS game in the series just didn't quite strike me the same way as the older one's and I never finished it. I think it was the overly long dialog sequences that ruined it for me. I still plan to go back and finish it but I'm not in any hurry to do it.
I actually think the very first GBA game is my favorite of the series. It had the best learning curve and the best level of strategy. I felt like the first DS game relied too heavily on the CO powers and forcing you to do the missions in the way they where intended rather than giving you freedom to figure out a method that worked for you.
I still love the whole series and I'm sort of a strategy game/SRPG nut, so this game is perfect for me. I'd love to get into Fire Emblem here (and why I don't think it's quite as good as advance wars) but I have to go finish the show so I guess that'll have to wait for another day.

Whatsername