More like "Sea of Delay".


A Confession - (Or, why it's good that a lot of games have been delayed.)

I'd like to admit here, first, that I have a problem. A serious one. and I need help. It has plagued me for years, pushing away friends, loved ones, and family, and causingme much grief. My problem is - I suck at finishing games, of any genre. And I keep getting more. On my hard drive, and on my shelf, there are games from eras past that I have barely even touched, much less finished. My copy of Suikoden 2 lies unfinished, weeping silent tears on my shelf...that is, until I get around to actually finishing it.

I doubt I'm the only one with this "problem", considering nearly eveyone I know who games always complains that they have "too many games" to play. It's expected. Even the most hardcore of gamers in their 20s has bills to pay, obligations, friends and a job. (This is of course excluding the lucky 20 year old-ish gamers who get to live at home and somehow aren't made to worry about that stuff.) There just isn't as much time to marathon gaming sessions anymore as there was when on summer vacation.

There is also the case of someone, who I shall not reveal the identity of, who only got around to beating Final Fantasy VII just last year. But that's a story for another time...Anyway.

There is a point to this, I'm not just telling you about my gaming habits for shits and giggles. If you've been following the news around the industry this week, you've noticed that all the blogs have been raving about how the 5 month rush to this holiday season is being wracked with delay after delay; Bioshock 2 among the casualties, relegated to a cryptic "Fiscal Year 2010" according to most sites. There has been talk and speculation about what this means for the industry's holiday projections, and even speculation about the future of gaming, claiming that the "casuals" have taken over, with the next logical step being the subjugation and domination of "core" and "enthusiast" gamers, leaving us with nothing but an endless cascade of shovelware and "petz" games. To people such as these, I say "Chill." The delays are actually a good thing, for a multitude of reasons. I'm sure it's no consolation, but, yes, delays can actually cause games to turn out better. Imagine that. Oh, and we still get Brutal Legend on time (knock on wood), so Christmastime will still be merry for non-casuals.

Also, am I the only one who hasn't taken for granted how often game releases happen? As a hardcore RPG fan in my preteen and teenage years, we had ages of waiting to do between releases, and even when the games were released, they were a bitch to find, and went for outrageous prices if you weren't lucky enough to get a copy on day one. Like Suikoden 2, or virtually any SNES RPG cart that now costs a ridiculous amount of money.

So, while this Christmas season may feel a bit sparse, rather than doom and gloom, I'll be taking the bad with the good, and using the time to actually beat some of my unfinished games (Now somewhere around the 70 range), and maybe even second playthroughs of finished ones.

Earthbound, here I come! (Again.)

For those who care, this year's Evo championship series is underway in a little under a day and a half, as of this writing. With tournaments like Street Fighter IV, Super SFII HD, Soul Calibur IV, and Guilty Gear XX Accent Core headlining this year's competition, this should be one to watch.

For those that don't know or don't really know why they should care, Evolution, usually abbreviated 'Evo' is the; foremost competetive fighting game tournament series in North America, if not the world, and is usually the stage for amazing matches at a skill level that the majroity of us can't even dream of reaching. Luckily, for those of us who live too far from Las Vegas to go without bankrupting ourselves, there will be a free, live stream hosted on several sites over the weekend. The weekend will also be packed with non-tournament stuff, including a look at the latest build Tatsunoko vs Capcom, a playable build of Tekken 6, and what I presume to be the release version of MVC 2 for XBLA and PSN making an appearence.

Definitely worth checking out some matches, even if you aren't one for competetive gaming.

Linkage: http://evo2k.com/

(Note: This is my first review at Destructoid. I have chosen to forgo number
scores, and instead will allow you to draw your own conclusions.)

Since the 90s, I've had what you could call a love-hate relationship with fighting
games. I remember the first time I tried one, at about 7 or 8, in some crappy
arcade, the kind that you KNOW had some shady business going on in, in retrospect.
I remember settling down to a worn in cabinet and not being able, for the life of
me, to have Ryu throw a fireball. Since that, fighters were a bit of a novelty for
me; until an old roommate from about two years ago, who taught me about the more
technical side to fighters. Since then, I've basically devoured nearly every 2D
fighter out there, with the exception of Guilty Gear. I've always found it a bit
hard to get into; preferring what I saw as more "balanced" fighters. I assumed
BlazBlue would be no exception. For reasons you will see, I was proved drastically
wrong.

The Good

Diversity: In a game with 12 characters, some people, including myself, were
puzzled. How could any 2D fighter release with just 12 characters, no unlockables,
and still be fun? The answer is diversity. In BlazBlue, there is not one character
that is a "clone" of another. This is largely due to the "drive" attack mechanic,
which is a character specific attack that can do anything from freeze an opponent
to controlling the wind (and giving attacks different properties with wind
assistance.) Everyone has a unique playstyle because of this, and I'm sure there
are strategies that won't be found for a long while. Oh, and the diversity extends
to their designs, as well. If a Gothic lolita vampire, or a hyperactive, hot
blooded ninja with a giant nail on his back aren't diverse, I don't know what is.

Look what I can do!: The problem with modern 2D fighters is that they seem
to require either previous knowledge of how the games play, or a field manual
explaining about all the different concepts in the genre, hitboxes, frames, and so
on. BlazBlue is one of those rare games beginners long for: one that's easy to pick
up and play, but difficult and deep enough to master. All of the characters in the
game can combo with a light, medium and strong attack done in succession, and
specials, the bane of the 2D fighter newcomer, are mapped to four directions on the
right stick by default. This option can even be turned off online, but when on,
ensures that the playing field between novices and advanced players is leveled
slightly, which is a welcome relief when you compare it to a game like Street
Fighter IV.


Keep on rockin': The music is in a word, phenomenal. BlazBlue's soundtrack
consists mostly of hard hitting rock pieces, with a sprinkling of metal and
symphonic elements to boot. There are even character specific battle themes, almost
assuring that you won't be hearing the same song over and over. The soundtrack
doesn't take itself TOO seriously: there are a few odd sounding songs here and
there, like Taokaka's theme (BB's resident catgirl.). The music manages to remain
Guilty Gear-ish enough, while adding elements that set it apart from it's spiritual
predecessor.

Story: Yes, there is a story. Fighters have a tradition of having little to
no plot, and when they do, it's nonsensical and confusing. In BlazBlue, story mode
plays like a Japanese visual novel, and one that is very well written at that.
Without giving away too much, every character's story leaves some unanswered
questions that are wrapped up somewhere - another character's story. If you're used
to story mode being just about unlockables, like I was, this will completely
redefine how you see story in fighting games.


I can post more screens, but they all basically look this awesome, so this gives you a good idea.

The Bad

Intimidation: At the end of the day, it's still somewhat daunting for new
players to make the plunge into. Even the tutorial disk, aimed at new players,
absolutely bombards you with information. Don't get me wrong, this is a very big
step in the right direction to make fighters more accessible and mainstream, but if
you're just not into it, it won't work miracles. I realize this isn't really fair,
considering how accessible the game already is, but I just feel like more could
have been done to make the game more newbie-friendly. Perhaps an in-game tutorial
would have helped.

Player Lobby Blues: At least in the 360 version, the online component is
less than stellar. The player lobbies are great to see after they were not included
in Street Fighter IV, but they have their share of problems. Often, after searching
for a match, and getting a list of lobbies, you will be rejected from connecting to
all of them. Apparently, you can't join any lobbies when a match is in progress.
This, at times, leads to entire pages of games that cannot be joined, even with
open slots. At times, I was unable to join games that were listed as having empty
slots, or unable to see some rooms at all. While ranked matches balance this out
somewhat, at very least a filter to remove games that are currently in progress
would save time between player matches.

Story mode completion: As amazing as the story is, story mode is not without
its flaws. See, in order to get a full clear in someone's story, you need to see
100% of their story mode scenes. Unfortunately, that includes the scenes that play
when they lose to characters as well. Even then, once you lose to everyone, chances
are you'll be sitting at 80% or 90% completion. That's because certain character's
routes require specific conditions. For example, finishing a specific character off
with a super, dubbed "distortion drive" in BlazBlue's terminology. This, for some
is an exercise in frustration, as some of the conditions thus far have been
extremely difficult to pull off.

The Ugly

Arakune. It's not a negative point, but that has to be the strangest fighting game character ever.

Although not without a few minor flaws, BlazBlue is an altogether amazing
experience that breathes new life into the 2D fighter in many, many ways, the least
of which catering to newcomers, a practise that has never really been the case with
other games in the genre. It isn't just a spiritual successor to Guilty Gear, but a
channeling of the GG team's creative energies into something that retains the style
and charm of Guilty Gear, but with enough differences to satisfy fans of the
series, and welcome newcomers to the fold. If you even had a passing interest in
Guilty Gear, or just dig the game's Japanese anime style, you should definitely
give BlazBlue a try at the very least. It's most definitely worth the purchase.

[360 Version. Played for a total of about 30 hours so far. Play included
clearing three characters' story modes, a few arcade playthroughs, network matches,
versus matches, score attack, and browsing the gallery. Played mostly as Tager, but
also as every character at least once.][img][/img][img][/img]

Bit of a shorter update today; I'm completely swamped with games to play since my birthday on the 23rd. Yesterday, I picked up Volition's Red Faction: Guerrilla, which I find to be amazing thus far. Also, my girlfriend was somehow able to secure BlazBlue, which I have been pining over for the past month or so as a belated birthday present. I say somehow because Wednesday was Canada Day, which meant that everything meant to come out this week was sitting somewhere waiting to be shipped, much to my dismay. Having received BlazBlue around 7 PM or so last night, I promptly proceeded to play it for 5 or so hours straight, and that was just the training mode...

However, in a roundabout way, BlazBlue has got me thinking about something that's on the mind of a lot of Japanese gaming fans here in the west; what's the deal with publishers who refuse to give Japanese games a dual language option? When I popped the game in to my 360, and headed to training mode, I was scrambling for the options menu once I heard Bang Shishigami's English voice. Thankfully, there was a dual language option. But, what about the games that don't give us a choice? I think the only rationalization is that it's a condition borne of pure laziness, and more developers need to start adding dual language options (I'm looking at you, Atlus, and your Persona series...)

Watching terribly dubbed anime on TV as a kid, and suffering through terrible voice acting in English localizations of Japanese games throughout my teenage years, I've often wondered why many developers just don't give us the option to choose ALL the time. It wasn't exactly hard to add Japanese language tracks on CDs or DVDs, and now on dual layer or BluRay, it's even more ridiculous to not add a few more MB of audio. I'm afraid I just don't understand why companies can't give fans something that they actually want, or for that matter, why their dubs can't be the same quality as the Japanese. Now, I don't mean to start a subs-versus-dubs debate here, but a lot of dub work we have to put up with is frankly sub-par. Actually, Just the fact that I'm trying to walk on eggshells as to not spark an angry debate about "japanophiles" or whatnot speaks volumes about how we view other cultures, even in this, our beloved gamer subculture.

"But Musai", you say, "People who don't understand Japanese can't hear the difference between a dub or a Japanese track!" Yes in most cases that is true, but that isn't the point. The point is that localizations and dubs as they are now completely rob media of its sociolinguistic context when they don't allow a choice on the consumer's end. Even if one can't understand the language, there are subtleties in accent,intensity and prosodic information that English voice actors fail to capture a lot of the time. This isn't necessarily completely on the heads of the voice actors. I mean, there are bad voice actors out there who don't deliver their lines with enough emotion, but a result of a bigger problem: bad localization. I had assumed that by 2009, that not only would we be in Jetsons-like cars, but that we would be beyond awkward localization attempts. I'm sorry, but having your voice actors, in their best falsetto, run around calling everyone "-san" and "-chan" awkwardly is not my idea of a localization; it's embarassing.

Phoenix Wright did none of this. It somehow retained the humour of the original while relating to an audience that did not necessarily understand the cultural references, or the puns. At a time where the industry is becoming less polarized between Japanese and English developers, can we really afford to force a user to play a game with only dubbing, or a terribly localized game?

Well, it's Monday again (unless you live in a timezone where it is in fact, already Tuesday. In which case, I'm sorry.) Today, I'm going to touch on the subject of gender inequality in videogames. I know, some of you might be rolling your eyes already, but please, hear me out.

Somewhere around the time when the home consoles started popping up like a bad cold, it seems like everyone collectively decided that they were best left on the shelf with things like GI Joes and Tonka trucks, while the girls could continue to make cupcakes with their easybake ovens, and play with Barbies. In fact, pretty muich anything considered "nerdy" throughout the 90s was automatically male. Since gaming, in the eyes of the public tended towards antisocial behavior and girls in their childhood are viewed as the "social" gender by their parents, girls doing boy things, like playing games, was not exactly encouraged by the majority. The one thing my female gamer friends have in common is that they were always seen as the "tomboy" by everyone, directly because of their interests in gaming, and many still carry this label today.

It's no surprise, then, that many girls and women keep the fact they're gamers under wraps because they're often treated like some sort of mythical beasts. Take for example MMORPGS, viewed my many as having a playerbase that's predominantly male. In reality, it's nearly impossible to tell. Many females will simply conceal their gender by playing male characters, and denying that they are male. It just works out to be easier that way, unfortunately.

So, what causes our collective views regarding female gamers, and what causes the attitude that most people have towards them? Marketing, for certain. I think that the way the industry markets to girls and women is fundamentally flawed, no matter the company or the platform. The market is saturated with crappy games, stuffed to the brim with pink, frilly things, and stupid names that somehow see it fit to replace "s" with "z" at the end of words. (Imagine:Petz, anyone?) The fact that anyone plays these is somewhat disturbing, but even more disturbing: this marketing trend actually shapes our attitudes towards female gamers. Given what was said at E3 about "Tween girl gaming" being on the rise, people think that this is what female gamers actually play, and then they grow out of the phase and do "adult" things, or something. Clearly, no one thinks that it's remotely possible that some women enjoy similar gameplay experiences to men. The fact is that male gamers don't help matters. Many guys I know tend to put female gaming up on a pedistal, and will be drawn to women who identify as gamers like moths to a flame. Now, this isn't true of all guys, but it's true of enough for women to just keep quiet about their hobby. So it's possible that we don't even know how many women actually play games. Hopefully, people will stop buying "tween girl" games, and we can put the stereotype to rest. Until then, well, you can expect "Imagine: Self Ezteemz Girl Powa! OMG!" out this fall.

No, not really. At least, I hope not.

This is a bit unconventional, but yes, that's right. Yesterday marked my 24th birthday. I wasn't able to make it to the computer to write, but one day late is fine for a birthday post, I suppose. But it wasn't just my birthday; yesterday marked an occasion that to me is just as important. June 23rd, 2009 marks my 21st year as a gamer. So today, I thought I'd relate to you the story of how I started as a gamer, and talk about what gaming means to me.

For my third birthday, my parents decided they would get their son an NES, released in North America just a year earlier. With it came the first game I remember playing: Super Mario Bros. Now mind you, it wasn't until some years later that I would consider myself a gamer. When I got it, I was apparently playing the hell out of my NES. Looking back now, I don't think I was a gamer yet. It would take someone else to become as much of an enthusiast as I am today. But that aside, let's fast-forward a little bit. Around my second year with the NES, My grandfather was a few years into his retirement. As my mother put it, he was completely bored with the entire affair.For a man who had spent his life in such professions as firefighting, the military, and security for a big company, sitting around doing nothing didn't exactly suit him; nor should it have.

As the story goes, my mother thought letting him try my NES with me while watching me now and then would be a good idea to keep him from becoming completely restless with his new lifestyle. As the story goes, as soon as he touched it, he couldn't put it down. Within a few days, he went out and bought one of his own, along with a copy of Super Mario Bros. He spent the better part of the next year trying to master the game: learning the tricks and secrets, trying to get better scores, even going so far as to videotape his runs through the later castles to try and get the best time possible. And it didn't stop there.

So, in the first couple of years after getting my NES, I was exposed to games like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, The Legend of Zelda, at my grandfather's all played with a meticulous attention to detail; with graphing paper, pencils, rulers in hand. I remember thinking "Whoa, this is really cool." my young mind could never imagine.

That's probably why I'm sitting here, writing about this today. Since my visits playing NES games with my grandfather I've always had an interest in gaming; I never go more than a few days without playing something.

At the beginning of this post, I said I'd discuss what gaming meant to me.

To be honest, I'm not really sure. All I know is it's not for escapisim, or to show off, to compete, or anything along those lines. I think, to me, gaming is a way for me to relive a time, and company of a person I can never forget.

This one's for you, grandpa John.

-Musai