Character Showcase: "Rarity"

Growing up as a young lad, there were "boy shows" and "girl shows". There was a certain code among the boys that girl shows were, and I quote: "icky". They were not tolerated. We were only to watch Manly shows, with Men doing Manly things without any pesky women getting in the way. Because otherwise it would be "gay".

I think if that was the point, we may have had our priorities backwards. Far be it for me to question the wisdom and time-honoured traditions of insecure 1st-graders.

But then, I was mostly raised by my mom and sister. And since life was and continues to be an emotionally crushing hellhole which leaves me "too scared to die and too damned to scream", I was in need of some distractions when the boy shows weren't cutting it. I wasn't above watching the occasional programming for whom I was never the intended audience. And I didn't have friends until the 5th grade anyway, so it's not like I had any reputation to lose by giving Sailor Moon or Hello Kitty a chance.

I think the major thing keeping me away from these Girl Shows and franchises wasn't the fact that they were for a different audience. It's that the majority of them that I tried watching were, quite frankly terrible. Even by 80's/90's kid show standards. It was as if they were made mostly by clueless men who greatly underestimated little girls or something, but LOL THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN, SEXISM AIN'T NOT THANG RITE

I'm glad to see those days may be behind us.

Smash Bros. Brawl Remixes

Super Smash Bros. Brawl has the most soundtrack of anything that's ever needed music. It was a gargantuan project, assembling pretty much every name in eastern video game composition into one project, to remix classic Nintendo songs. Pretty much any song I ever enjoyed from all across this companies franchises were represented, sometimes by composers I've admired and followed over the years.

Oh, and they got my favourite composer, Nobuo Uematsu, to compose the main theme song. Nothing that awesome and nerdy will ever happen again.

Here's my 10 favourite song remixes from Super Smash Bros. Brawl, in no specific order(not including original tracks like Final Destination, or songs that were included but not remixed):

Professor Layton Vs. Phoenix Wright

Nintendo's reluctance to bring Xenoblade, The Last Story or Pandora's Tower to the west told me, in no uncertain terms, that it doesn't want my business anymore. That my money is no good to them. And I can respect their decision.

And by "respect" I mean "face-palm".

I really don't want to give up on this company or its products. Honestly, I'm not trying to boycott this here, but I'm not convinced they haven't given up on me. That said, if they ensure the release of THIS GAME in the States, they will do a lot toward rebuilding some of the goodwill they've lost.

Image courtesy of portablegeneration.com

END OF LINE

~A.H.

5 Ways To Tell You're Irrelevant

John Cheese and David Wong of Cracked.com have in the past said some of the more frightening and honest stuff about the state of modern video games. That their latest article leaves such a sour aftertaste is unfortunate. These two rarely miss the point this badly.

It's called "5 Ways to Tell You're Getting Too Old for Video Games", and it tries to pass off all of today's hideous failings in the industry to us just being a bunch of old coots. They also make the claim that video games today are no different than they were in the Pong era, by virtue of the fact that there were copy-cat games there too, in comparison to our onslaught of brown FPS games.

Oh, and they also insinuate that Final Fantasy VI is on the same level as Call of Duty's zombie mode. Just because kids today are more immersed in that, in a -vaguely similar- way we were enraptured in the world of magicite and espers. See, it's not that games themselves are getting shittier, or that the industry is focusing too much on the racist 8-year old demographic. No, it's our fault because we aren't letting our inner-child roam free, free like the birds and the bees and the cute little bunnies.

Guys... NO. Holy shit, that's just... no.

Final Fantasy X Remake

Yeah. The one with Tidus.

Wait, I thought remaking Final Fantasy VII was "unrealistic"? But this one isn't? So, instead of getting what everyone is asking for, they're going to give us what NOBODY wanted? A game that doesn't need to be remade, because it looks and plays fine as it is compared to today's technology?

Not six? Not the three PSX era titles everyone won't shut up about?

Look, I'm not saying I didn't like FFX. It's one of my favourite games, in fact. But I really have to wonder if Yoichi Wada isn't trolling us at this point.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

Extra Credits: "Cutscenes"

I've said my piece on Cutscenes. I don't like unskippable, badly-acted cutscenes that don't make any sense any more than the next guy. But I do feel that, when done right, they can be one more reward for the player. I don't even mind cutscene-heavy games, as long as I'm entertained. I also think the people who want them banished entirely are people who don't understand video games.

I guess what I'm saying is: I agree with Dan and James on this one, and they managed to get that point across with greater brevity and civility than I am capable of.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

Video Games Suck

So Halo 4's "Creative Director" quit. About a year before the game is due. Early enough in development that no known gameplay footage exists, we know nothing of the single-player storyline, the multiplayer modes, the enemies, the allies, the weapons, the equipment or the setting. And already Ryan Payton's had enough.

The straw that broke the camel's back was apparently Microsoft keeping a short leash on what their new team can do with the franchise. This does not fill me with confidence. It's bad enough they're focusing on that worthless green turd just to satiate the demands of dumb-ass kids too young to be playing an M-rated game in the first place. And "Creative Director" is a pretty vague job title.

But if the people they specifically hired to get creative with their franchise are so restricted from creativity that they start rage-quitting, somehow I doubt they've got a handle on this video game thing. And after this many years, this company really should know better by now.