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Cammy in Street Fighter IV [Jan. 22nd, 2009|06:30 pm]

mister_neil
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Ah, Cammy. Bout time they put her back in a regular Street Fighter game. Yeah, I know she was in the Alpha series, but I can only take so much of evil fifteen-year-old Cammy in a thong. The Delta Red version doesn't leave me feeling quite so dirty.


You know, I'm glad Street Fighter resisted 3-D as long as it did. Part of what made Street Fighter fun was the quality of the in-game art. Having PS1-quality polygons would never have done it justice.

Oh, and if you haven't guessed, this is actually reason number 2 that it's time for Neil to finally get an X-Box 360.
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That's it! Time for Neil to get an X-Box 360 [Jan. 10th, 2009|12:45 pm]

mister_neil
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For those of you who haven't heard, I never get a console at launch. The last console I got at launch was N64, and that's only because I won it. And before that was the SNES, and that was because my parents bought it for Christmas.

I'll wait around forever to get a new console, and I think this is the year to get it. You know why, boys and girls? This is why...



Yep, It's Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection. And while the title may sound stupid, the collection is not. Finally...FINALLY...Sega compiled the Genesis collection that everyone wanted. They basically merged Sonic Mega Collection on Gamecube with Sega Genesis Collection on PS2. That, in itself, is grand, but then they went all hog wild crazy! The started adding stuff like the Shining Force series and Streets of Rage. FINALLY, Streets of Rage! I've gotten so tired of getting the shaft on that. Two times, it was supposed to be included in one of these collections, and both times, Sega pussied out.

Also, they removed some of the games that nobody fucking wanted. Sword Of Vermilion; more like Sword of FUCKING GONE! Ecco Jr., also fucking gone. Virtua Fighter Genesis got it's 2D ass knocked out! And finally, they got rid of that Shadow Dancer, which I... Oh, wait a minute. Why did they get rid of Shadow Dancer? God damn it, Sega!

So, here's a rundown of the entire catalog.

GamesMy Thoughts
Shining In The DarknessYes!
Shining ForceYES!
Shining Force IIYESSSS!!!!
Phantasy Star IIFIST PUMP!!!!
Phantasy Star IIIFor completion's sake...I guess
Phantasy Star IVFuck yeah!
Sonic The HedgehogAWESOME!
Sonic The Hedgehog 2AWESOMER!
Sonic The Hedgehog 3Hell YEAH!
Sonic & KnucklesIf it does lock-on with the other games, then awwright!
Sonic 3D Blastsigh... Okay, I guess.
Sonic SpinballSucks.
RistarYES!
FlickyNot yes.
Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean MachinePuyo Pop released in the US, back when Sega tried to de-Japanify everything. Decent.
ColumnsBest. Tetris clone. Ever.
Golden AxeMeh...
Golden Axe IIFile under: Never gonna play it.
Golden Axe IIIFile under: SUCKS.
Streets Of RageKind of like an urban Golden Axe... except AWESOME!
Streets Of Rage 2Best. Final Fight clone. Ever.
Streets Of Rage 3Eh, it's worth having it along for the ride.
Ecco the DolphinMeh...
Ecco and the Tides of TimeBleh...
Shinobi IIIBitchin'!
Comix ZoneKick ass!
Altered BeastReturn to your grave.
Alex Kidd and the Enchanted CastleA Sega Genesis game that looks like a Master System game, but isn't even as good as the Alex Kidd games that are actually on Master System. No thanks.
Kid ChameleonDecent.
Dynamite HeaddyNever played it.
Decap AttackIs okay.
Bonanza Bros.Mildly amusing.
Gain GroundWhatever.
Super Thunder Bladeyawn
VectormanI must be the only person alive who doesn't like this game.
Vectorman 2Couldn't care less.
Alien StormNever played it.
E-SWAT: City Under SiegeNever played it.
Fatal LabyrinthNever played it.


And that's not even the complete list, because there are locked games on the disc. Now, I'm hoping that they're not like the lame bonus games that were on the original Sega Genesis Collection. I have no desire to ever play Zaxxon or Zector, and I certainly don't need to ever play the arcade version of Altered Beast ever again.

Instead, (I know it's too late to start making demands) I hope that Sega has considered the following for this upcoming collection...

Sonic CD
One of the best Sonic games of the entire series. I know it's a Sega CD game, but it's part of the Genesis family anyway, dammit! And it's already been ported before, so it can be done again.

Revenge Of Shinobi
Come on, Sega! Stop short-changing us on this game! Why do you keep skipping over this classic? What, because it has Spider-Man in it?! Sprite-hack the damn thing, like you used to do! I remember back when it was Godzilla and Batman, and you changed those characters. Why can't you just alter the graphics again and release the damn game, already?!

This is almost as stupid as not including Shadow Dancer.

Phantasy Star 1
Yes, it's a Master System game, but I don't fucking care! There was a one-thousand copy production of Phantasy Star for Mega Drive in Japan. That's justification enough for me. Put it on the collection. I don't think there will be any objections from the peanut gallery. And if they do, they can die in a fire.

Out Run, Afterburner, and Space Harrier
Why not? There were arcade games on that last Sega Genesis Collection, but unlike the ones on the previous collection, these are actually cool and worth playing. You listening, Sega?

Virtua Fighter 1 and 2
Wouldn't that be a kick in the ass! Even though neither of these games had anything to do with the Sega Genesis, it would be totally awesome if they were on this disc as bonus games. Bonus points if it's the 32X version of Virtua Fighter.

Contra: Hard Corps and Castlevania Bloodlines
Yes, I know they're Konami games, but seeing as they're pretty much exclusive to the console, I think an exception can be made.

Any other Alex Kidd game
As long as we're mining Master System, you might as well throw some Alex Kidd goodness in there.

No Sub-Menus for Bonus Games
You know what sucks? Having to go to another menu just to play the fucking bonus games. Don't make me hunt for the bonus content. Put it right there on the games list, with everything else.

NO MORE FUCKING GAME GEAR GAMES!!!
I don't ever need to play Sonic Drift again. Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!



Editorial Note: By the way, I noticed about an hour after I posted this that the title screen for Beyond Oasis is on the cover of this collection. I've never played that game, either, but it looks as though that's on the collection.
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Pier Solar box art! [Jan. 1st, 2009|09:00 pm]

mister_neil
[Tags|]

So, people who ordered Pier Solar got a special email today. The packaging is well into production, and the gang over at Watermelon are showing it off! I like that the guys over at Super Fighter Team work their asses off to give Sega Genesis fans the authentic Genesis experience, with the clam shell case and all, but I think the Watermelon team just did them one better. Check out the glossiness!



I suspect that this means that it's a cardboard case, but I can't really tell. It looks like it's an open-up case like the clam-shell. Maybe it's one of those collector's edition boxes, like the ones that Working Designs use to make.

Or better yet, maybe it's secretly a Gaijin Works production, and any day now, project leader Tulio Adriano will pull his rubber mask off to reveal that he's really Vic Ireland!

And Vic will be like, "Nah-ha! I'm back! Tremble in terror as I insert pop culture references into a fantasy setting! All the songs in the game shall be sung by Jenny Stigile! Nay-ha-ha!"

Oh, come on. That would be awesome, and you know it! Don't listen to those 1-Up Network guys. They love pop culture references in their RPGs, especially ones like the Ebonics joke in Albert Odyssey. You know that Nick Sutner and Jeremy Parish secretly listen to their Lunar soundtrack CDs to get their Stigile fix.

And besides, I just needed to digress long enough to Google-bait Jenny Stigile. She's posted on my blog before, and even though I make jokes about her, she's a really good sport. To be honest, I'd love to have another game with her in it, especially if we could have yet another outtake reel of her doing nothing but fart jokes.

Come back to video games, Jenny. It's been a dull and dreary world without you. ...Okay, enough off-topic gushing.

I'm really digging this new support that Sega Genesis has in these small-time game enthusiasts. Even though Beggar Prince was kind of a glitchy game, it was pretty good. I could have done without the instant death traps, but those are forgivable. I've not yet had a chance to order Legend Of Wu-Kong, but it looks fairly decent. Not as graphically pleasing as Beggar Prince. (Whoever did the cut scenes should be flogged.)

Despite its delay, I still think that Pier Solar is the most exciting indie project to come out for the Genesis, largely because the game is entirely homebrew, and because it's made in loving tribute to games like Lunar, Chrono Trigger, and Final Fantasy VI. And I think the delay has kind of stolen Super Fighter's thunder, because if they hadn't delayed the game, then The Legend Of Wu-Kong would have had the distinction of being "the last Genesis game". Pier Solar has swiped that distinction back by simple pushing the release date back a few months.

Actually, it kinda is the last game, regardless of what comes out in its wake. Of the software that's been available for Sega Genesis in the last two years, Pier Solar is the only game that's entirely new, and it's probably going to be quite some time before we get another project like this to come along.

I actually hadn't been to the Pier Solar website in a while, so I haven't seen anything of the game since the original demo. I'm pleased to see that they replaced all of the terrible character artwork in the game with quality images. They also tidied up the text boxes so that they have their own unique feel. they were a bit generic-looking in the demo.

Of course, I'm dying to play this game so that I can experience it with the CD audio. The audio in the demo uses the Genesis FM synthesizer, which is kind of bland by today's standard.

The game will work on any model Sega Genesis from any region. It has enhanced audio for Sega CD, which when booted with the cartridge, will enable enhanced music and sound effects. This is only Genesis game ever that uses by the cartridge slot and the CD drive simultaneously, which is something that Sega never tried, oddly enough.

Water Melon is still taking pre-orders, so rush on over there and buy yourself a copy!

http://www.piersolar.com/
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What the hell does Intelligent Systems have against grinding?! [Dec. 29th, 2008|11:30 am]

mister_neil
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Well, with my newly acquired free time, I've been able to afford to set aside about and hour or two a night to play some video games. My newest pick: Fire Emblem: Path Of Radiance. Why? Well, because it's been on my shelf for ages, and I've never played a Fire Emblem game before. And besides, I had to reassert my status as the world's last Gamecube fan.

Fire Emblem is a tactical RPG, so if you've ever played Dark Wizard, Final Fantasy Tactics, or Shining Force, you know what you're in for. Enemies are dispersed onto a grid, and you have to plan a strategy of approach. Charging in like gang busters will easily get you surrounded by enemies, and then it'll it's game over. The defensive fighter is rewarded, although sometimes you lose item pick-ups to thieves and looters. in later battles, you'll even have enemy units coming at you from the rear, prodding you along.

So, the first thing I noticed about this game is that the characters can be a bit unbalanced. Ike's a wuss early on in the game, and so I had to rely on Titania to keep him from dying. After the first couple of battles, though, Ike begins turning into a certified badass, and eventually he becomes so strong that hardly anyone can touch him. I've had a couple chapters now where all I've had to do is simply park Ike in a doorway and just let people initiate their own demise by running into him.

Incidentally, there happens to a be a FAQ floating around the internet that basically demonstrates that you can do that for pretty much the entire game. It's called the "Ike Solo".

The only problem is that very quickly, it became so that Ike was the ONLY character who could dispense with villainy without dying (other than Titania, that is). And so, I have all of these other characters who now have no hope of ever leveling up. This isn't like Final Fantasy, where if your character dies, you can just revive them between battles. No, once someone dies in Fire Emblem, they're gone forever. Actually, this is par for the course when it comes to tactical RPGs, but I thought I'd make that clear.

So, the natural thing to do would be the grind to get those weak characters up. But nope, you can't do that!

See, this sort of reminds of Paper Mario, another Intelligent Systems game, in which grinding is pretty much nonexistent. Okay, sure, Paper Mario had the Crazee Dayzees, but you had to really know how to fuck around with those badges to even stand a chance of taking those damn things down.

But the point is that there's no grinding to be had in Fire Emblem. You want to power up wusses like Mist and Rhys? Simple! Stop killing so many people with Titania and Ike. God damn it! And it wouldn't be such an issue if not for the fact that Ike tops out at level 20, so if you're still killing people with him after that, that's wasted experience that nobody will ever have.

Maybe I've been spoiled by Final Fantasy Tactics. I've come to expect the ability to go out randomly onto the playing field and initiate a conflict for which I'm not even required to use my main character. "Hey, we got a new guy! Let's go flog some imps!" Nope! None of that here!

Actually, it's not a bad game. It's kept me suitably entertained. It can be a little frustrating when there are characters I want to keep alive, and so I have to reset whenever someone dies. It can be a little annoying when I'm forced to babysit characters like Mist, who seem to have no talent on the battlefield except to die. I find more often than not that I pretty much use the unstoppable chracters (i.e., Lethe, Ike, Titania, etc.) and just use everyone else as sword caddies. Sometimes I'll let characters like Mia get a free hit if Ike only left two or three hit points on a baddie.

The one thing I HATE about this game is all the text chatter that goes on. On and on! Nobody shuts up, and it's all TEXT! What the fuck, Nintendo?! And what's worse is that the Japanese version had recorded dialogue over most of these conversations. The US release has none of that. God damn it!

I've taken to doing a lot of skimming, and this has contributed to my inability to completely follow the plot. Something about the unknown princess of a defunct kingdom traveling around with a bunch of mercenaries. There are anthropomorphized animal tribes, most of which distrust humans, but some don't. There are three or four warring nations, and it's hard to keep track of who's on whose side or what the motivations are. Granted, it's not as confusing as Final Fantasy Tactics, a game in which I was actually TRYING to follow the story.

I'd give it a mild recommendation to anyone who has a Gamecube or Wii. Actually, there's added incentive to get it if you have Wii. There's a sequel called Radiant Dawn, which, if you have your old Gamecube save state, you can transfer from it into the new game. I love games that do that, and I keep meaning to make a post about my love for games like Arc The Lad, Golden Sun, and Shining Force CD, which enable one to transfer data from one completed game to the next.

This is far from being my favorite RPG, although I can kind of understand now why Fire Emblem has such a devoted following, even if it is kind of a niche series.
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The Making of an Awful Video Game [Nov. 27th, 2008|12:00 pm]

mister_neil
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Hey, you ever wonder goes on behind the scenes of a bad video game? No? Well, how about if the game happens to be a sour chapter in an otherwise grand video game franchise? Yep, we're talking about Street Fighter The Movie: The Game! And if you ever wanted to know about the behind-the-scenes of this dung heap, then you'll find this forum thread interesting.

http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=125411

Alan Noon, who also played the lame cyborg characters in the game, discusses his experiences during production and interaction with the cast. The thread itself is a couple years old, but it's still an interesting read. Find out why the game didn't come out very good, despite the best efforts of some of those working on the project. You'll also find out why the Sega Saturn version was completely retooled, why the characters don't say the right names of the moves, what did and did not make it into the game, what they did wrong, what they did right, and what the hell was up with that Sawada guy.

Working with Jean Claude Van Damme is described as "interesting", which is a nod and wink for "difficult". Because he was such a big star, he had the shortest digitization session of all the actors. Apparently, Jean Claude's sessions were so abbreviated that they never got him in the sound studio to record voice samples.

And they almost didn't get Kylie Minogue. There had originally been a problem with scheduling Kylie, so they had gone ahead with video-capturing another actress. When Kylie's schedule cleared up, they put the skimpy leotard on Kylie and did another session of Cammy poses. Or maybe they just did that on purpose. (I would!)

I guess they were thinking about using the extra set of Cammy sprites to create a "new" character, but they weren't pleased with the fact that they were basically identical. Oddly enough, it would only be a few games later that Capcom had fake Cammys all over the place.

Oh, and for those curious, yes, they did oil up Kylie Minogue when doing the video capture. I don't think it was explained why, but I'm not exactly demanding an answer. Instead, we should be thanking Noon and his cohorts for opting NOT to go with that awful blue fatigue and khaki combo from the movie!

Here's the money shot that everyone wants to see, by the way...



Now I wonder how long it's going to take for Stefan99 to swipe this picture.


ADDED NOTE: Those of you who actually own Street Fighter The Movie may want to head over to DVDPodblast and download their commentary of the film to sync up with your DVD. It's highly amusing.
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