God bless hackers.

Penn & Teller made an episode of "Bullshit!" about video games. You can watch it here:

http://kotaku.com/5313559/watch-penn--tellers-video-game-bullshit-episode

(Sorry 4 the Kotaku link. It's all I got.)

Zigfried's story of waiting 7 years for a sequel that turned out terrible makes for a gripping read.

Yes, I too was gripped by the tale of a nerd who waited seven years to get resolution to a video game story. Next to "Annet Whatever," "The Godfather Part III" is a trifle. Child's play. What drama can compare to "that part with Annet being interrogated by the Nazi?" Move over, "Schindler's List." You think you're all that, with your prestigious director and somber treatment of life under Nazi tyranny and your academy awards? "Annet Whatsits" is the period drama to end all period dramas. Period. (Sorry.)

Something about the writing here makes me care, even though I normally wouldn't.

Man, I know. When Zigzwag spoke of his heart "aching" over an obscure video game, when he talked about the "cruel destiny" of some karate hooker girl, a single tear crept down my cheek. My two eyes, like my mind, were torn between maintaining composure and being deeply moved by statements like "the gorgeous, RGB screenshots in Gamefan magazine's Annet Again preview made me yearn for a domestic localization that would never happen." It made us all yearn, Ziggy. It made us all yearn.

The false score box also had me going for a moment, too. And I already knew he used a fake ending because people talked about it.

It was the talk of the day, man. For one minute, my local news station had to break up its zillionth story on the Michael Jackson case to talk about The Fake Score. Lingual experts across the country spoke of It. The idea of putting a fake score box to throw the reader off guard is fast becoming a new trend in criticism. Rumor has it that Ebert's going to implement it in his "Harry Potter 6" review.

I can't blame you for mentioning it. Who can overlook such an innovation in writing? It would be like commentators of the early 1900s discussing the Model T without mentioning Ford's assembly line production. Such is the revelation called the Fake Score.

"It can't end like that. It won't end like that!" Some excellent writing, and it convinced me that even though the game wasn't any good, the plot and cinematics made the experience worth it for Zig.

I must confess, I wept when Zig wailed those words. I know we're talking about something that was written not spoken...but the way those words sat on my monitors...they were wailed, dammit!

And prudent of you to point out the lesson in Zig's review, which is that a game doesn't have to succeed as a game to be worthwhile. For what is a crude thing like "gameplay" (ugh) next to a human drama encapsulated by pixellated Sega CD cinemas and compressed voice samples? And if you have to suffer through second-rate beat 'em up action to get those nuggets of narrative...so what? Such a complaint is an old, dated sentiment. Thank you, Zigfried, for liberating us of this notion with your Fake Score and the revelation you sprung upon us afterward.

//space

Take your worst enemy to see "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen." After the movie starts, slip out of the theater and barricade the doors. Sit back with your jumbo-sized popcorn and soda and listen to your enemy's screams of agony. Once you've had enough, sneak into a good movie.

STORY

We are first thrust into a gritty, urban landscape torn straight from the 80s. All manner of man and creature is attacking us, including, of all things, tigers and bats. We inexplicably run into a diner, wherein lurks this big guy with a cleaver. He lumbers towards us, occassionally swinging his weapon, rarely when we are in reach. He is easily dispatched.

Our ninja talks to a lady. Their dialogue consists of canned statements like:

"What is going on?"

"Who are you?"

"There's not enough time."

The woman is a federal agent, the kind who shoots first and talks later. Our ninja is shot. Instead of dying from blood loss, he awakens in a cell. The same woman is there. They say some more canned dialogue.

"*NOW* will you tell me what's going?"

"No time to explain."

"You need to move, quickly!"

"Why am I getting caught up in all this?"

I can't explain why, but our ninja leaves the prison cell to find himself in enemy territory. He is attacked by more things, always without provocation. There is one way to go, and it leads to a big man with a sickle. More dialogue ensues.

"These statues are important."

"Why are they important?"

"They have magic powers."

"You must find the other statue."

"That ninja just took the statue we had."

"Follow him!"

The story is about two statues. It's protagonist is a ninja. The climactic battle between good and evil will be determined by "good" repeatedly jumping up and down and flailing a ninja sword. Evil, despite expressing its intent to triumph, will act in patterns that will be exploited by the forces of good. By the end of the story, the two statues will be irrelevant before the theater of ninja, government and demon.

POWER-UPS

There are lots of them. No, I can't describe each one, because I could never hold on to any of them long enough for them to register. You won't either. Back to jumping and slashing.

MUSIC

BOOPITY-BLOOPITY-BEEP-BEEP-DE-BEEP.

LEGACY

In the illustrious canon of video gaming, "Ninja Gaiden" has earned itself a particular position of prestige. That is to say, a lot of the current people who write about video games played it when they very young and they thought it was super neat. Foolish is the man who would approach the task of writing about such a masterpiece lightly. Even more foolish is he who neglects to address its accomplishments in plot and music. For where would the medium be if "Ninja Gaiden" didn't breach the issues of ninjas on the government payroll? And Tallarico himself would admit to owing an immense debt to Tecmo's incomparable sound team and their stunning compositions. BEEP-BEEP-DE-BEEP indeed, my peers.

CONCLUSION

"Ninja Gaiden", a pivotal work of the "Re-Spawn Period", shouldn't be derogatively referred to as "Ninja Gay-den". First, such a slur would make light of our homosexual brethren, who also game and, second to women, are facing the toughest time finding acceptance in the medium. Second, to dismiss the "Re-Spawn Period" would be like dismissing Cubism. Such ignorance does not advance the cause of video gaming's acceptance into society. It also does nothing dispel skepticism from the Eberts of the world.

Video game criticism isn't a laughing matter. Objectivism and diligence is the name of the game, peers. To allow terms like "Gay-den" into our literary language, to allow one-sided criticisms, would spell the end of our cause.

With that, I say good night...and game on, but never game light.

http://crimsonechoes.com/

Fuck Squeer up the ass. Really, a C&D on a fan hack? Way to go, fuckers. You really stuck it to all those people who only wanted to use your work to lovingly create their own fan-games. Nothing gives off a better corporate image than protecting your IP by attacking other people's creative use of it.

The funny thing is, the various Chrono Trigger ROMs will continue to circulate throughout the internet. The only thing this C&D does is strike fear into all the fans who wanted to do something with these files other than download them and play the game for free.

So you can go to hell, Squeer. You are the worst kind of corporate piece of shit.

I picked this up off some poster in Hardcore Gaming 101, who in turn got it from Lunar-Net:

<<<Studio Alex was a separate company formed by Kazunari Tomi, a former employee of Nihon Falcom. Primarily a consulting firm for other companies, they developed the original 3 Lunar games (2 for Sega CD, 1 for Game Gear), with GameArts as a co-developer/publisher. So they were actually two seperate companies, with Lunar as a co-owned IP (similarly to Nintendo/Camelot's Golden Sun)

However things didn't go so well between the two. Studio Alex filed suit against GameArts for copyright infringement for not paying them proper royalty fees for the Lunar's post-Sega CD (the Saturn/PlayStation remakes, US versions and Windows version) since they were derivative works.

GameArts counter-sued, stating that Studio Alex missed it's deadline for the Saturn game Magic School Lunar, costing them an additional 75 million yen as a result.

Studio Alex lost the initial suit in 1997 and continued until 2003, when they finally went bankrupt, and took a lot of the primary force behind the original Lunar games with them. Now, GameArts is the sole holder of the license, and in 2005 released Lunar DS, a critical and commercial flop that basically killed the series outright.>>>


That explains a lot. I've always preferred the original version of Eternal Blue to the Playstation one (same, to a lesser extent, with the Sega CD version of Lunar 1), and now it turns out the reason could be because they were made by a different studio. It also explains why the Ys and Falcom games give off such a "Lunar"-y vibe for me, as well as why we haven't and never will see a proper Lunar 3. (Seems like that Magic School game Studio Alex did for the Saturn is the closest we'll ever get.)

Way to go, Game Arts! -_-

OMG, IT'S A REAL GNOME!!



SCREAM LIKE A TURKEY.