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• Tales of The Focus Group: Peter Moore Takes No Guff

  I get latching onto game designers as personalities. It’s no different than the cult of personality that sprouts up around musicians, writers, and film directors. Gaming’s rich with characters too: from the robot-building eccentrics like Will Wright, frothing madmen like David Jaffe, and mean drunks like Tomonobu Itagaki. What mystifies me is the way gamers latch onto publishing executives and marketers. Seriously, who cares about Reggie Fils-Aime? The guy doesn’t make Nintendo’s games, he just makes sure they’re profitable. Or how about Peter Moore? When that wily Brit was in charge of Microsoft’s games division, there was no end of fanboy chatter about his antics. Oh, Peter Moore got a Grand Theft Auto IV tattoo! Take that, Sony! Once he moved on to EA Sports, the guy disappeared from the limelight, no longer a face for console war jibber-jabber. Well, after today, I am forced to admit that I am interested in Peter Moore. Not because he’s starting some wild new business initiative to ramp up EA’s creative output or anything of the sort. No, I want to know more about Peter Moore because one of his last actions as president of Sega of America was to tell Yuji Naka, creator of Sonic the Hedgehog, to fuck off. Read More... Posted Sep 05 2008, 02:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 7 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, ea, xbox 360, Grand theft auto 4, sega, dreamcast, peter moore, yuji naka

• Pay-Per-Grind: Tales of Vesperia Let’s You Level With Cash

  We’ve been talking a whole hell of a lot about role-playing games around these parts lately. Of course, we’ve also been musing on the amount of time you need to spend playing certain games, RPGs in particular. Cutting the grind out of RPGs is an entire industry when it comes to MMOs. Don’t have two-hundred thirty-nine hours to pour into World of Warcraft? Well, there are a number of fine, trustworthy organizations based out of China and elsewhere that will get you your level-65 character for a few measly sawbucks. When it comes to the single-player, console RPG, though, you have one of two choices for beefing up your characters: you either cheat (in-game exploit or using a Gameshark-style device) or you put in the many, many hours necessary to max out your party. But, like so much in the age of downloadable content, the times are a changin’. Namco’s Tales of Vesperia got its first downloadable content this week and, for just a few hundred Microsoft Points, you can buy your characters ten levels of experience. Call me crazy, but doesn’t this defeat the point of the console RPG? Read More... Posted Aug 22 2008, 04:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, xbox 360, tales of vesperia, namco, dlc

• Whatcha Playing: Cleaning House, Finding Roots

  It has been well over a month since my last Whatcha Playing here at 61 Frames Per Second. The vicious truth of the matter is that I haven’t been playing that much since the beginning of July. The summer will do that to you. When the weather is as nice as its been here in the northeastern United States (mild, sunny as hell, great thunderstorms), its hard to devote eight hours of a Saturday to grinding RPG characters, engaging in manic shoot-outs, or even just taking in some classics (especially if your apartment isn’t air conditioned.) Last Thursday, though, I finally downloaded Bionic Commando Rearmed, a game I may have mentioned anticipating. Those first delicious minutes I spent grappling around the vibrant world GRIN created signaled one undeniable fact: come the weekend, it was time to play some freaking videogames. But first I had to clean house. Read More... Posted Aug 19 2008, 04:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, whatcha playing, playstation 3, metroid, nintendo ds, xbox 360, capcom, bionic commando, grin, gamecube, too human, pixeljunk, pixeljunk eden, braid, lair, ninja five-0

• Everyone Will be Able to Rock

  At the end of June, my concerns for the future of videogames' burgeoning rock star genre were growing by the hour. Activision was waving their new drum kit in EA’s face while Konami tried to get people to like their music games outside of Japan. The big problem? None of those companies appeared to give a damn that they were flooding a market and audience already drowning under a torrent of plastic instruments. Not to mention that none of those instruments were guaranteed to be compatible with games that didn’t come packaged with alongside them. Yeah, Guitar Hero 3 and its electronic axe might be one of the ten best selling games in the history of games but that doesn’t mean the genre bubble can’t burst. Today, another faceless company has helped to allay my fears. And, would you believe it, it’s Sony doing the allaying. The once haughty Japanese giant stated on their Playstation blog that they have reached an agreement with Activision, EA/MTV, and Konami to allow every single publisher’s rock & roll instruments will work with every publisher’s games on the Playstation 3. Bought Rock Revolution but want to get in on Rock Band 2’s killer track list? Go for it. Feel like using that gorgeous new Guitar Hero World Tour drum kit with Konami’s new opus? Fine, have fun. Not only that, but SCEA also said that, though it isn’t happening just yet, they’re working on a fix for the original Rock Band and Guitar Hero 3 as well. This is the first step on the road to peripheral-based music games finally coming into their own. Guitar Hero made them an institution but this agreement will help cement the instrument set as an expandable platform that doesn’t necessitate annual hardware revisions. What else needs to happen to guarantee this glorious, melodious future? Read More... Posted Aug 18 2008, 03:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, nintendo, ea, microsoft, xbox 360, wii, konami, sony, guitar hero, rock band, activision, rock revolution, harmonix, itunes, mtv, apple, scea, neversoft

• Wii MotionPlus a Surprise to Dev's

  Game Informer reports that the new Wii MotionPlus add-on, to be bundled with Wii Sports Resort, is largely news to the third party development community: We asked several third-party Wii developers about the Wii MotionPlus, and the general feeling was one of annoyance and betrayal. None of them said they had any advance notice about the peripheral, and we were told that they were as surprised as everyone else when Nintendo revealed its existence on stage. That lack of prior notice means that, aside from Nintendo’s own roster of games, users won’t likely see any support for the device for at least six to nine months. The developers we spoke to said they hadn’t received any information from Nintendo about how to implement Wii MotionPlus into their upcoming projects, and they also expressed doubt that they would be able to incorporate it into games that are currently deep in development. What gives, Nintendo? Before this announcement, I felt torn between excitement about the possibilities of the new peripheral and annoyance that this wasn't built into the original Wii Remote.  But now I'm going to have to wait six to nine months to experience the new technology outside another Wii Sports title in which I'm not interested? I don't understand the logic behind keeping this one a secret. The reception among the press has been "lol awesome, lightsabers ftw" across the board, but this move isn't going to win Nintendo any friends. Also, if I wanted to upgrade my console hardware every few months, I'd buy an Xbox. Related Links: Wii MotionPlus - Say what, Nintendo? Toys are "Better than Video Games"? Posted Jul 23 2008, 12:00 AM by Cole Stryker with | with no comments Filed under: nintendo, xbox 360, cole stryker, wii motionplus, wii sports resort

• E3 Day 4: No Blades, No Bows. Leave Your Weapons Here.

  Much as I’d like to say things are winding down for E3, they’re really not. You have to wind up before you can wind down, after all. The announcements are over, the plans are in place, and 2008’s heavy hitters have finally been played. There isn’t too much more to say about E3 08’s broad implications for gaming as a medium and today didn’t yield any revelations that would necessitate any further waxing philosophical (though the Wii did finally surpass Xbox 360’s install base in North America. Surprise, surprise, surprise.) That said, while it’s still too early to call it a trend, two of E3’s more intriguing titles share a unique quirk: Ubisoft’s just announced I Am Alive, teased only with a CGI trailer, and EA’s freshly playable Mirror’s Edge are both blockbuster positioned games that de-emphasize violence. Read More... Posted Jul 17 2008, 08:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, nintendo, mirror's edge, ea, xbox 360, wii, ubisoft, e3, i am alive

• Revenge of the Port: Dead Rising Shuffles, Moans on Wii

  The true death of the arcade came at the beginning of this decade. It wasn’t when gamers started opting for the comfort and value of playing at home; it was when home consoles finally started equaling (and surpassing) the technological heft of the arcade cabinets themselves. Sega, one of the only surviving arcade giants, signed the death warrant themselves when developing the Dreamcast and its arcade-motherboard-twin, Naomi. Games at home and games in the arcade, identical for the first time. The move may have had the negative effect of killing off the already declining amusement center population across the Western world, but it also had a significant silver lining: the death of the shoddy arcade port. Approximations of more technologically demanding games have been a staple of gaming in the home since the 1970s, but, with the exception of stray PC-based ports, downgraded game experiences have largely disappeared since 2000. Today, in 2008, the fracturing of the console space seems to be bringing them back in force. Read More... Posted Jul 16 2008, 01:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, nintendo, xbox 360, resident evil, wii, capcom, nes, PC, pokemon, sega, grand theft auto, dreamcast, port, koei, Naomi, dead rising, dynasty warriors

• E3 Day Two: Spin, Malaise, Sony’s New Clothes, and Nintendo’s True Disruption

  Despite their show-ending bombshell announcement, Microsoft’s E3 press conference was something of a non-event. The house of X showed off titles that had already been seen or leaked, announced a handful of downloadable titles that weren’t exactly setting folks’ brains on fire, and revealed an embarrassing attempt to cash-in on the Mii phenomenon with Xbox Live Avatars. It’s embarrassing enough that the Avatars look so similar to Nintendo’s Miis, but it’s even worse that they were designed by Rare, the less-than-profitable appendage Microsoft cut away from Nintendo in the first place. It wouldn’t have been difficult for Sony and Nintendo to one-up Microsoft’s event, but neither of the console makers did, both of them focusing more on sales data and business strategies than on software. Read More... Posted Jul 15 2008, 02:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, playstation 3, nintendo, nintendo ds, microsoft, rare, xbox 360, wii, sony, animal crossing, e3, mii, avatars, satoru iwata, wii music, wii sports, wii motionplus

• Square-Enix's Coup Brings Back Memories

  It was generally accepted that this year's subdued E3 wouldn't have much to offer in comparison to the big shiny blitzes that used to make game journalists hang themselves with laptop power cords. Goes to show what we know: things got exciting right off the bat with Square-Enix's announcement that Final Fantasy XIII will be coming to both the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360. Oh, you youngsters understandably have ants in your pants over Square-Enix's sudden shift, but I've been down this road before. Yes sir, I remember when I was riding high on the thrill of Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger. Nintendo finally claimed supremacy in the sixteen-bit console wars thanks in part to their great RPGs, and we automatically assumed Square would develop for the N64--- Zzzzzz... Zzzzz-- ! Ah! Huh? Oh, sorry. If I sit in the sun for too long, I doze off like an old dog. Read More... Posted Jul 14 2008, 07:56 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: playstation 3, microsoft, xbox 360, sony, square-enix, e3, final fantasy 13, exclusive, final fantasy xiii

• E3 Day One: Microsoft, Sony, Final Fantasy, and For Whom the Bell Tolls

  There was a very brief period of crossover time, between 2002 and 2006, when E3 was still a gargantuan, money-wasting event and high-speed internet access was ubiquitous. During these years, gamers across the English speaking world regularly crashed websites following videocasts and liveblogs of press conferences as the biggest game announcements of the year hit the public. In the wake of the old E3’s dissolution and 2007’s lackluster event, the press cycle for the games industry seemingly changed forever; game announcements, platform holder initiatives, and publisher events have been spread out over the last eighteen months, no longer restricted to only a handful of days in the summer leading up to the usual holiday deluge of high-profile releases. The days of “breaking the internet” appeared to be over. Then Microsoft announced that Final Fantasy XIII would be coming out for the Xbox 360 and it was the good ol’ days all over again. Read More... Posted Jul 14 2008, 07:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, playstation 3, nintendo, microsoft, xbox 360, wii, final fantasy, sony, gran turismo, monster hunter, dragon quest, god of war, e3

• Help Activision Choose Box Art for Spidey

  Activision is letting gamers vote on which cover art they prefer for the Xbox 360's upcoming Spider-Man: Web Of Shadows. The choice will doubtlessly keep you up all night. It's between "generic" and "stupid." The cover art vote is part of Activison's "Seize Control" theme, which I guess is some push to make gamers think they're in control of the content for a big-name license. In addition, anyone who pre-orders (all three dozen of you) gets to choose one of three pre-order bonuses: a T-shirt, a poster or a figurine. Do not choose...poorly. No, really, don't. It's not hard to see that the T-shirt is the way to go, unless Gamestop is planning to pass judgement on people based on what they pick. Sort of like Moses with the gold and hot coals. Read More... Posted Jul 01 2008, 08:33 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: xbox 360, activision, spidey, cover art, contest, venom, vote, spider-man web of shadows, pre-order bonuses, wolverine

• Progress Quest: Playstation 3 Growing Up and The General Beauty of Firmware Updates

  The much discussed 2.40 firmware update for the Playstation 3 was officially announced today. It will be available for download this coming Wednesday, July 2nd. If you’re reading this blog, chances are you know what a firmware update is, but for anyone out there not familiar with the language, it’s no different than updating your computer, iPod, or Blackberry’s operating system. It cleans up any bugs, improves digital security, and adds new features to whatever device you happen to be updating. The PS3’s firmware update brings a host of new stuff to the system that users have been clamoring for since the system’s launch in November 2006. The improved feature list includes access to the cross-media bar, or XMB, while playing a game. The XMB is the system’s handy row-and-column interface, organized into multimedia (stored video or audio), game saves, and community stuff like a friends list, etc. The update also ups the number of friends you can have on the Playstation Network to one-hundred. The other new feature is Trophies, Sony’s answer to Xbox 360’s Achievements. These are preset goals in games that signify play milestones for a user’s profile (Score a million points? Get a trophy.) The 2.40 update is a big moment for the PS3, yet another olive branch from the once haughty corporation to a slowly growing user base; Sony’s saying they’re listening and delivering. Read More... Posted Jun 30 2008, 02:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, playstation 3, xbox 360, nes, sony, firmware

• Ain't No Party Like A Motion-Control Party

  There's a lot of buzz and all-but-confirmed rumors swirling about a motion control remote for the XBox 360 and a break-away motion controller for the PS3. While it is obvious that these are a shameless effort to gain favor with the casual audience that's made the Wii so wildly popular, I am excited for one reason: Steven Spielberg's Boom Blox. Read More... Posted Jun 25 2008, 01:00 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with no comments Filed under: boom blox, steven spielberg, playstation 3, nintendo, derrick sanskrit, microsoft, xbox 360, wii, rayman raving rabbids, sony, carnival games, rumor

• The Ten Videogames That Should Have Been Controversial, Part 3

  Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! We cite Punch-Out!! here not for starring Mike Tyson (a controversial figure, even before his rape conviction), but for the degree to which it epitomizes a trend that would dominate gaming in the late-'80s and early-'90s: the "beat up stereotypes from around the world" gameplay model. Granted, most of Punch-Out!!'s characters are too ludicrous to really offend; it's hard to imagine Pacific Islanders getting all up in arms about King Hippo being kind of a jackass. That said, the sight of cross-eyed Piston Honda babbling "Sushi, Kamikaze, Fujiyama, Nipponichi!" as a mid-match battle cry is a little unsettling. — PS Read More... Posted Jun 20 2008, 01:13 PM by John Constantine with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, peter smith, metroid, nintendo, derrick sanskrit, xbox 360, final fantasy, top ten, call of duty, pokemon, Playstation, tomb raider, punch out, mcdonalds, heavenly sword, fable, mike Tyson, narc, dead or alive, persona

• The Ten Videogames That Should Have Been Controversial, Part 2

  Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Call of Duty 4 is a game obsessed with realism, its depiction of combat situations and the tools of war meticulous to an almost terrifying degree. Early in the game, you are placed in the gunner’s seat of an AC-130 Spectre over a Ukrainian field, the night vision view of an aerial assault looking no different than an Iraq war newscast, the radio confirmation of kills unsettlingly casual; a game so realistic that it mimics a soldier’s detachment from killing. It’s strange then that the game, for all its incessant specificity, sends the player to kill Arab soldiers in “the Middle East”, and not an actual nation. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has sold over seven million copies in a war-weary United States in under a year. Am I the only one who finds this sort of depersonalization unsettling? — JC Read More... Posted Jun 20 2008, 01:12 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, peter smith, metroid, nintendo, derrick sanskrit, xbox 360, final fantasy, top ten, call of duty, pokemon, Playstation, tomb raider, punch out, mcdonalds, heavenly sword, fable, mike Tyson, narc, dead or alive, persona

• The Ten Videogames That Should Have Been Controversial, Part 1

  Games have been raising hackles since their inception. Howell Ivy kick-started gaming and controversy’s relationship when he designed Death Race in 1976, a simple black and white game that was, well, about running people over for points. That was enough to get America riled up, prompting 60 Minutes to run the first of many, many televised news stories about the psychological effects of gaming. But public outrage is unpredictable. Politicians and parent groups have been shocked by d-list titles like Manhunt and Night Trap while more popular, widely played games with far more inflammatory content have passed by unnoted. Today, 61 Frames Per Second presents The Ten Videogames That Should Have Been Controversial. A number of these are games that we are surprised did not cause uproar in a number of communities. The rest are games that we ourselves find seriously questionable in content. How do you feel about these videogames? Indifferent? Appalled? Leave a comment and let us know. — John Constantine NARC I don't know about you, but I have at least a couple of friends who have occasionally sold drugs. They're pretty lucky they grew up in the relatively permissive '90s, and not in the merciless, Reaganite '80s presented in NARC. Sure, NARC gives you bonus points for arresting dealers instead of killing them, but that's because it's almost impossible to do. Far easier is just perforating them on the spot. As my fellow blogger Cole notes, "I guess dismembering hundreds is okay if they're pushin'." In fact, there was some parental outrage over NARC's unprecedented level of gore, but its moral assumptions went pretty much unchallenged. — Peter Smith Read More... Posted Jun 20 2008, 01:11 PM by John Constantine with | with 7 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, peter smith, metroid, nintendo, derrick sanskrit, xbox 360, final fantasy, top ten, call of duty, pokemon, Playstation, tomb raider, punch out, mcdonalds, heavenly sword, fable, mike Tyson, narc, dead or alive, persona

• The Long and Winding Road: Rez’s Journey From Proof-of-Concept to Game

  Tetsuya Mizuguchi was already a respected game designer when the Dreamcast released in 1998, thanks in large part to his expert work on the home conversion of Sega Rally in the mid-90s, but it wasn’t until he began working on Sega’s ill-fated final system that he expressed his true creative voice. Mizuguchi’s reputation is built on his designs blending gameplay and music (as in Derrick’s fav Gunpey). Dreamcast’s Rez, Mizuguchi’s minimalist synesthesia masterpiece, is arguably the purest meeting between traditional play and music generation ever made. Rez wasn’t born whole into the world however. As you can see from this early footage, Rez started out as Project K, and the changes it underwent could not be more dramatic. Read More... Posted Jun 19 2008, 10:00 AM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, xbox 360, dreamcast, rez, long and winding road, tetsuya mizuguchi

• The 61FPS Review: Ninja Gaiden 2 Part 2

  Love the one you’re with! My first few hours with Ninja Gaiden 2 were disappointing, an experience colored by high standards and higher expectations. I got over it and am now content to enjoy kicking the heads off of evil ninjas. As far as my overt criticisms go, well, they’re holding true. Gaiden 2’s camera and level design are abysmal, not to mention the game’s numerous glitches. Are severed ninja arms supposed to float in mid-air? The game’s got problems. Ninja claws, however, are not one of them. Neither is the sickle and chain or the enormous scythe you steal from a bunch of werewolves. As much as the weapons and scenarios from Ninja Gaiden 2 sound like a series of bad internet jokes from 2004, these additions to protagonist Ryu Hayabusa’s arsenal make for good entertainment. They don’t make for necessarily great play though. The first impression Ninja Gaiden 2 gives is that its combat, the literal core of its design, is unchanged from Ninja Gaiden 1, but subtle changes have been made. Specifically, countering enemy attacks is now easier than it was in the original game. It makes combat more fluid, allowing attacks to string together smoothly without risking injury or having to wait for an opening in an opponent’s assault. As a result Ninja Gaiden 2 is more accessible than its predecessor. But if a game’s foundation is based on being inaccessible, requiring the player carefully study its rules and practice play, isn’t its design diluted by decreasing the demands of its rules? Read More... Posted Jun 17 2008, 02:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, xbox 360, 61fps review, ninja gaiden

• 50 Cent: Get Rich or Banned by Parent Groups Trying

  Written by Derrick Sanskrit I am of two minds when it comes to the new action-shooter-brawler 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, which the 61FPS crew were treated to a pre-alpha demo of this week. On the one hand, it looks like a fantastic urban shooter with a ton of fun, though not revolutionary ideas packed into it. On the other hand, I have never seen a game more likely to fuel the violent-games-produce-violent-children argument. Read More... Posted Jun 13 2008, 03:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: playstation 3, derrick sanskrit, xbox 360, 50 cent, unreal, sierra, swordfish studios

• Turning Japanese: Microsoft’s Latest Ditch Effort to Win the East

  Microsoft held a press conference yesterday in Tokyo to show off their upcoming slate of six Xbox 360 role-playing games. Aside from the Japanese edition of 2007’s Mass Effect and a look at Peter Molyneux’s Fable 2, Microsoft showed off four Japanese developed RPGs. Two of which are the latest in entries in Namco and Square-Enix’s long-running Tales and Star Ocean franchises. Microsoft’s also pulled a slight coup with the announcement that Square-Enix’s new IP Last Remnant, developed to appeal to both eastern and western audiences, will now release on Xbox 360 before Playstation 3. Since the Xbox 360’s release in 2005, Microsoft has been trying to woo Japanese audiences with high-profile role-playing games. Namco’s Trusty Bell: Chopin’s Dream and From Software’s Enchant Arms were the first J-RPGS to see release this console cycle. Microsoft also secured the exclusive rights to Mistwalker’s Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, Final Fantasy-creator Hironobu Sakaguchi’s first post-Square-Enix work. But in the past thirty months, both Trusty Bell and Enchant Arms failed to find a significant audience in Japan and have since been ported to the Playstation 3. Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, despite being heavily promoted under Sakaguchi’s name, have also done poorly despite strong debuts. Microsoft’s RPG Premiere Event shows a commitment to a failed tactic. Read More... Posted Jun 10 2008, 02:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: microsoft, xbox 360, last remnant, infinite undiscovery, tales of vesperia, fable 2, peter molyneux, mass effect, star ocean

• The 61FPS Review: Ninja Gaiden 2 Part 1

  When Team Ninja’s Ninja Gaiden finally released, it was mind-altering. No three-dimensional action game played as well, looked as good, or had its raw scope, and no one in the world was expecting it to deliver as it did. After all, the game had been vaporware for half a decade. Remember when Tecmo announced it as a game for Sega’s Project Katana (the development codename for Dreamcast)? How about when it was supposed to be a Playstation 2 launch title? By the time Team Ninja announced that they’d be releasing it as an Xbox title, I was starting to wonder if the game existed at all. When no screens or video of the game materialized for another three years, it was fair to assume that Gaiden was destined to be little more than trivia fodder. But then February 2004 rolled around and there it was. That month will, in my mind, always be a benchmark in the history of action games. Ninja Gaiden has aged well in four years, its multiple revisions and expansions right through the Playstation 3 remake Ninja Gaiden Sigma proving its foundation to be sturdy and engaging. 3D action games broadly, however, have surpassed it. God of War brought bigger, more exciting environments and enemy confrontations while improving accessibility and even Ninja Gaiden’s immediate forebear Devil May Cry added more depth in its third and fourth entries. Even the lackluster Heavenly Sword took away Ninja Gaiden’s crown as the genre’s most visceral visual spectacle. I’ve been lukewarm on Ninja Gaiden II since it was announced last year. I couldn’t tell what was wrong. Something about it just seemed so sterile, so rote in comparison to everything else hitting the new wave of consoles. Dynamic limb removal is the big innovation? Really? This is Ninja Gaiden II! Time to redefine 3D action a second time! I realize that’s an unfair expectation to put on a game but it isn’t unfair to expect a modicum of refinement, some change to the established formula that utilizes both hindsight and the power of new technology. That’s why Ninja Gaiden II is, initially, so disappointing. Read More... Posted Jun 09 2008, 02:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, xbox 360, devil may cry, 61fps review, Playstation, ninja gaiden, dreamcast, god of war

• Games Cost Money: Sony Cans The Getaway and Eight Days

  While the salad days of the Playstation 2 are at an end for Sony, things have been looking up for the entrenched corporate monster in 2008. Little Big Planet continues to wow, Gran Turismo 5: Prologue had a healthy release in April for a game that’s little more than a demo, and the buzz surrounding Metal Gear Solid 4’s impending release is loud enough to even drown out some of that Grand Theft Auto fervor that’s been going on. The stigma surrounding the Playstation 3 – that it’s an expensive, ugly machine without many games to play on it – is slowly starting to fade, and it has everything to do with some truly exciting exclusive software. So it’s disheartening to hear that two games being developed by Sony’s own London Studio have been cancelled. Eight Days, a Michael Bay-tinged action game that fused car chases with shootouts in the American southwest, and The Getaway, a sequel to London Studio’s successful PS2 Brit-crime drama series, have both been given the axe “due to the redistribution of resources and budget.” While I’m the first to exclaim my love for the big-budget blockbuster games coming out on the 360, PS3, and PC these days, the truth is that, for at least the short-term future, they may not be an economically feasible pursuit for most developers. Read More... Posted Jun 05 2008, 11:00 AM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, little big planet, next-gen, xbox 360, metal gear solid, sony, gran turismo, Playstation, halo, the getaway, eight days

• When Good Developers Go Bad: Koji Igarashi

  Koji Igarashi’s a consistent guy. The man-in-black of videogames – he doesn’t really look like Johnny Cash, but he does have a habit of wearing black leather and carrying a whip around in public – Igarashi rose to prominence in 1997 when he released Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for the Playstation. SOTN was a fairly dramatic re-imagining of the Castlevania franchise, expanding on the non-linear style of 1988’s Castlevania 2 and molding it into a circuitous, fluid environment in the vein of Metroid. In the past eleven years, Igarashi has overseen seven more Castlevania titles, four of which are in the exact same style as SOTN. On the two dimensional front, Igrashi’s resume is un-indictable; even when his 2D Castlevanias are a little dry (as is the case with 2002’s Harmony of Dissonance), they’re still well-made games. It’s his work in the third-dimension that’s been the problem. Read More... Posted Jun 04 2008, 12:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, playstation 3, xbox 360, wii, castlevania, koji igarashi, nanobreaker

• Where Is the New Indiana Jones?

  Euphoria, a physics engine created by developer NaturalMotion, has been popping up all over the place lately. To clarify, a physics engine is a piece of software that simulates real-world physics in a game. Euphoria specifically creates realistic animation for game characters on the fly, as opposed to the hand crafted animations traditionally used for computer generated characters. Euphoria is used in Grand Theft Auto 4 - when you see Niko’s body getting thrown about in a sickeningly convincing way, it’s Euphoria at work. The engine is also featured prominently in the much publicized, poorly-titled upcoming Star Wars game, The Force Unleashed. It’s a little distressing, however, that Euphoria’s intended debut has gone AWOL. I’m referring of course to LucasArts’ untitled Indiana Jones project. Read More... Posted Jun 03 2008, 10:00 AM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, playstation 3, star wars, xbox 360, where is, PC, Grand theft auto 4, indiana jones, lucasarts, euphoria

• Halo Multi-player, Spitzer Style

  Not really of course. Game Politics stumbled upon a raw nugget of news joy a few days back over at money.co.uk. The story goes that hard-partying seventh grader Ralph Hardy of Texas snagged his father’s credit card and proceeded to, as the kids say, do it up. Hardy and his pals dropped almost thirty grand and in the process got themselves an Xbox 360, as copy of Halo 3, a swank motel room, and a few top notch ladies of the night. Read More... Posted May 19 2008, 12:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, xbox 360, halo 3, hookers, game politics

• NPD Wrap: The Times Are a Changin’

  April’s come to a close and now, under the cold, hard light of math, three things are becoming clear. First, people freaking love Nintendo games. Sure, we already knew that, but over a million people bought Mario Kart for Wii in less than a week. Second, people freaking love Grand Theft Auto. Nearly two million people bought that in even less time. Third, our access to new videogames is going to change dramatically in the very near future. While these numbers may just look like numbers to us, to the people who publish videogames, the people who control when we get to engage these creations, the math is saying that 2008 is different. Tradition dictates that high profile, big hype games are held in reserve for the holiday push from late September through December and the rest of the year is just a slow trickle of quality goods. The math of March and April 2008 says that people will buy many, many games throughout the year, not just around Christmas. What happens now? Going forward, we’re going to see more games, more often. At least, until digital distribution destroys physical media and the whole issue becomes moot. Come get some hard analysis and delicious numbers after the jump. Read More... Posted May 16 2008, 02:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, playstation 3, nintendo, nintendo ds, ea, microsoft, npd, xbox 360, wii, psp, mario kart, ubisoft, sony, call of duty, pokemon, gran turismo, army of two, super smash bros, guitar hero, rainbow six, Grand theft auto 4

• Clover Returns, Heavy as Platinum

  While the final months of 2006 were exciting times – the Wii and Playstation 3 were released mere days apart while the Xbox 360, DS, and PSP really started to heat up content wise – it was also a time of mourning. Just after the release God Hand and Okami, Clover Studios disbanded. Parent company Capcom absorbed much of the staff while the designer trinity of Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil), Hideki Kamiya (Devil May Cry), and Atsushi Inaba (Viewtiful Joe) went off to form a new independent studio. Clover’s games were true rarities in the industry, each one an artistic ziggurat built on a foundation of violently colorful worlds and idiosyncratic mechanics. Viewtiful Joe’s comicbook world of an empowered movie buff that found the player manipulating the action with VCR commands, Okami’s sumi-e fantasia that allowed the player to literally exert their will on the world through painting; truly special stuff. That’s why it’s so exciting that yesterday’s rumors about their new games turned out to be absolutely true. Read More... Posted May 13 2008, 02:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, playstation 3, nintendo ds, xbox 360, devil may cry, infinite line, no more heroes, shinji mikami, viewtiful joe, platinum games, resident evil, wii, hideki kamiya, psp, clover studios, madworld, capcom, bayonetta, atsushi inaba

• Pre-NPD Tuesday: Michael Pachter Drops It Like It’s Hot

  For the uninitiated, the National Purchase Diary Group is the market research firm that has turned tracking videogame sales into something of a cult spectator sport. For gaming afficianados and journalists from a number of disparate outlets, the NPD’s monthly sales data for the videogame industry is the true frontline of the “console wars”. If you think I’m exaggerating the interest in such things, just check out this thread over at the infamous gaming forum, NeoGAF. That’s a forty-three page discussion about sales data for a single month. Read More... Posted May 13 2008, 01:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, playstation 3, nintendo ds, michael pachter, next-gen, npd, xbox 360, neogaf