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Bit.Trip VOID started off my least favorite in the series, but now it's my most favorite. Same thing happened when I first played CORE; at first it felt too different, but after getting used to it, I couldn't put it down. Who knows how long VOID's first place showing in my mind will last, but for right now, I'm totally in love with the game.

Unlike the other game's in the series, Bit.Trip VOID always allows for individual choice and multiple ways to solve a problem. I love the first two Bit.Trip games, but like most rhythm/action games, they are pretty linear. Other than a few spots in CORE where you can take out the beats in a couple of different ways, there is always one "right way" to survive the game, and multiple "wrong ways" to completely screw up.

VOID allows for you to play your [ownn way. You can play it safe and constantly keep yourself small, or you can push your luck and keep yourself greedy and huge. Like in any good shmup, it's up to you to find the safest way to get through the bullet patters safely. Even if you think you've got it all figured out, there's probably a better way you still haven't seen yet.

And that's just it, out of all the Bit.Trip games, VOID is the first one to fully take on the form of shmup. VOID is Ikagura in no bullet mode, except with a bad metabolism and even more beautiful bullet patterns. Level 1 is a little tame, but once you hit level 2, you're mind will be blown by the way the beats fill the screen.

Any fears that I had about the game being too easy were also unnecessary. It took me nine attempts to beat the first level alone. Sure, some of that was because on three of those attempts I was playing with someone who was way worse than me at the game, but that doesn't mean that much. I'm still no where near being able to beat level 2.

The music is also totally awesome.

So yeah, fans of the previous games will really like Bit.Trip VOID, and so will anyone who likes a good shmup. In that way, VOID has the most crossover appeal out of any game in the series. Sadly, I don't think a lot of shmup fans are going to find that out. So spread the word, everybody.



About that post about No Moore Heroes: Hero's Paradise I did earlier in the week, I don't feel totally done with it. In the post, I spent a whole lot of time talking about punk rock games, or punkgames, or gamepunk, or whatever you want to call it. Some people even thought that I had made up the term.

As far as I know, Suda 51 was the first started talking about games in that way. He's been calling his games "punk" for as long they've been published in the US (which hasn't been that long, actually). In fact, that's the first time I heard about the guy was in an interview with Nintendo Power about Killer 7, where he talked about being "a punk game developer". At least, that's how I remember it.

So yeah, just wanted to clear that up.

There was also some confusion about the difference between art games and punk games. To me, punk means upstart, arrogant, rough, unself-conscious, accident-friendly, and confident. Despite the fact that they're bucking the mainstream, despite the fact that they are ugly, despite the fact that they are technically unskilled or unfunded, a punk is still sure that they're going to gain acceptance. They're willing to compete right along side the mainstream in the same market for the same consumers. This differs from those making art games/music/comics/etc, as they usually don't care about being successful, are no fan of accidents, and tend to be extremely self-aware.

I've talked to a lot of artgame developers over the past few years, and they tend to be extremely meticulous, and prioritize their own specific vision over all else, especially accidents. I was also lucky enough to work on an art game not that long ago. The game's creator was definitely excited about the potential for different interpretations of his work, but in terms of the game's actual content, it had to be done exactly as he planned. Everything had an intended meaning, and no accidental messages were to be sent.

OK, I could keep rambling about the topic for God knows how long, so I'm going to cut myself off now. Just remember, when some people see Blanka in Street Fighter 2, they see him yellow. Others are sure that he's green. There is no way to convince anyone to see things the other way. You see what you see, you tell people about it, and that's it. That's all you can do.

Speaking of Street Fighter...



Who's that in the upper right hand corner? That's right, it's Andore, or Hugo, or whatever you want to call him. He's wearing a hardhat, which implies that he's "gone straight".

Bummer, as it would have been great for him to be a playable character in SSF4. With no one in Mad Gear for Guy and Cody to fight, I feel like the Final Fight-ness of SSF4 feels a little lopsided...

Ok., so it has happened. My first try on CBlog.

Bad game movies – are they bad because they are badly done, or it’s just that they can’t be done in good way? That’s a good question. Let’s talk about that for a second, or two.
First let’s start with few examples of good game movies – in my opinion that is.

Super Mario Bros (1993) – Me thinks that is the first movie based on a game that was famous.

Is it good? No. Is it bad? … Erm, not entirely. It is one of those movies so bad that they are actually quite good.

First we have story: This is, like, total bullpiss, not connected to SMB in any way. It’s just some random things thrown in. Another dimension, with raptors being more evolved than humans. Mario try’s to save the princess from Koopa, there are some mushrooms (that’s my fav part), we have some nifty references like walking bombs, Yoshi, and bullets with faces.

Then we have actors: now this is like sw33t. Great names starting from Hoskins and ending with Hooper.
So how was the film compared to the game: You can clearly see that the script was strongly based on original game, but changed to make it easier to make. There are a LOT of references, some gags, and funny shit. If you played Mario you will enjoy the movie. Why? Coz someone had a good idea. Make it different but for most of the movie make it very, very similar. That’s why I like it, and many other gamers too.

Tomb Rider (2001) – that is for me the first successful and great game adaptation. You don’t agree? Why?

First we have quite a good Tomb Rider style script. Then we have good looking girl with guns. Angelina, ouuu yhe Jolie. She does in the movie things that Lara does in the game, but in a compacted and fun to watch on a screen version. Some people argue that Jolie is there just to show off her chest in tight shirts – but as my answer: so is Lara Croft! You sick bastards. Those who didn’t fap to Lara raise your hand. Only 13 year old boys.. yhee. So I thought.
Audio visual in this movie was great. Scenery - just like in TR games - exotic and epic.

And now to come back I time.

Mortal Kombat (1996) A fighting game movie that was… well… it was ok. Why? Why is it better then Street Fighter, DoA or the new King of God don’t let me watch this Fighters!

It didn’t try to be anything other, then the game is! In MK we just got our hands on some fighters and kicked ass with some flashy gore. In the movie… the story. I don’t really remember the story. I remember that there was a lot of quite fun to watch fights. Good, for those times, special effects, and quite a solid humor. Now I repeat – the movie didn’t try to be anything else then a fighting movie, what SF, DoA and KoF try right now.

SF was supposed to be antiwar, and antiterrorism flick. DoA was all about boobs.. wait a moment. So was the original game… never mind that. KoF tries to be… I don’t even want to know what it tries to be but it FAILS.

Now as I stated this, let’s go back to SMB and TR.

SMB is a platform game with some funny enemies, no dialog what so ever (except for the princess being in another castle ;( ), and surreal word that you try to conquer (not literally, but in a metaphor). The movie? Funny enemies, no dialog what so ever, surreal world. Yep it matches.
The movie doesn’t bring any more then the game does. The director, and script writer didn’t try to push in some deep thoughts how Koopa symbolizes some subculture or anything. It’s just fun to watch as the game is fun to play.

And for the TR. The game is action shooter with puzzles and great scenery and with big boobs for guys to wank. The movie? Action shooter with small puzzles and great scenery and with big boobs for guys to wank.

Once again the movie does not try to be anything else than a game is.

This is how to make a great movie based on a game. Don’t try an think too much about the script or the motivation of heroes, just do it.

So yhe since we got that covered. Lets quickly talk about one more last thing.

Even if you make a movie that is nothing more than the game is, there is always the director – if he’s bad the movie will be bad just like any movie made by:

Uwe Bowl.

Are more comments necessary? … And how come he made a sequels to two worst movies in a history of cinematography? HOW?!

(And I do hope my engalish can be read - I'm a better speaker then a writer ;p )

I mean, holy shit. These are goddamn amazing. I'm reading the backs of the boxes now, and god damn. And the DVDs actually work in my PC. I'm watching Mortal Kombat as we speak.

Thanks, a thousand times thanks.

(taken from Anthony Burch's article on playing a spy)

Today I am here to talk about evil. The evil of Valve's spy in Team Fortress two.

Being a semi new player, I am often frustrated by the evil doing of a clever spy (yes, they're clever. i'm sure as hell not as good as them). I enjoy playing as a good pyro, sniper, scout, or medic. The Pyro as anyone who has played can tell you, has minimal trouble with a spy, the other three classes is where the destruction ensues.

The Sniper: A good spy will sneak up right behind you and just like that it's over. Of course no one has your back (until you find the razorback) so a revenge kill is not even made. I found the razorback recently though. tired of getting backstabbed while zoomed in or pulling back the bow, i equipped it. What does valve do to "Balance" this? they give the spy the Ambassador, it does less damage, but grants critical headshots. I'm zoomed it waiting on my prey, safe with the razorback, then, headshot, on me, point blank, from a spy. Needless to say anyone within a 1 mile radius hears me scream WTF, and no, it isn't the acronym.

The scout:... you know in retrospect, not much trouble with spys as a scout.

The Medic: The medic is essential, especially in those no respawn overtime moments, but being a medic means watching someone elses (i.e. Heavy, demo, soldier, pyro) back, and no one to watch yours. I've never healed an enemy spy (to my knowledge) but i'm always healing only to be backstabbed. It gets a bit ridiculous.

Refute: Of course i can be caught playing as a spy on some occasions. when i get tired of being shot by a sniper, i'll pull out my handy knife and cloak and get ready to go stabby stab upon their backs. and i must tell you. As much as i despise the spy for all his evil. all his brilliant, tactical evil. I envy him. Not only does he wear a nice suit to battle, a ski mask, and carry a revolver (like james bond). He also destroys things, pretends to work for the enemy (sometimes like bond) and carries a badass one hit kill knife (if done correctly... unlike james bond). I'll tell you... when you get that payback kill and go for the double only to be lit on fire. Its pure bliss, pure evil bliss. The spy goes out backstabbing the enemy in a blaze of glory due to a spy check.

Do the wrong thing, and play spy, humor your dark side, and in the meantime. i'll play pyro.

I'm going to tell you why each new fighter in this trailer is fighting the other character. It's all connected son.



First up, Cody.



Chun Li's coming after him because she's interpol, she's doing her yob. And Cody is basically saying fuck da police. What a baller.


Guy fighting Rose. A little trickier.



Rab says Guy's shoes seem to be a clue, they have an "S" on them instead of the nike logo(Capcom sure loves to dodge liscences), a Shadoloo S. Could guy be working for them? Ninja's are for hire, usually.

Or could it be Rose is looking for Guy to beat Bison just like she was looking for Ryu in SF4(If you played her in singleplayer, you'd see it in her rival match.) Guy is sorta the Ryu equivalent of the Final Fight series, i.e. the most well rounded/ well known(but Mike Haggar apparently has more fame on the internets).




Then there's Adon and Sagat.The singleplayer story for Sagat has the intro cutscene with him beating Adon's ass before entering Seth's tourney. Adon's quote in the trailer is "I'll show you just how strong I am!" He's got some revenege to dish out.




T. Hawk smashing El Fuerte. Obviously helping El Fuerte kill himself for being such a shitty character in comparison. And I guess them both being Mexican has something to do with it.




Juri/Bison. Juri is Seth's bitch. She would want to kill the guy Seth wants dead.

Speculation is fun.

At any rate, it seems the story in SSF4 is gonna be better. But I'm sure it's not gonna be at the level SNK puts in their fightans, a lot of those games that I've briefly played have almost RPG level shit in their story. Noice stuff.

And did everyone else notice this is first time we're gonna have characters from every iteration of the series (1, 2, Alpha series, 3[pending confirmation], IV) in one game?

Replayability that always come with fighters, improved netcode(the team is working on making sure everyone sees the matches in real time while spectating. Link here), team battle, lobbies(should've been in SF4-IM-JUST-SAYIN') as well as bonus stages, new stages, new music and two(1 unconfirmed, but very likely) new characters.

ANNNNND all at a reduced price point?

Son, what we have here is a winner.

I know, it's the same one from the front page, but I don't have Photoshop where I'm at, so I can't put Gabe Newell's head on Scrooge McDuck like I would want to. I'll get to it later.

Is Valve building a digital distribution monopoly? Josh Tolentino asked that question in his write up on how Steam has roughly 70 percent of the market share today. But it's a flawed question because it supposes that Valve doesn't yet have a monopoly on digital downloads for the PC gamer.

It does.

Or rather, I should say, it has an incredibly strong de facto monopoly that has arisen for two major reasons, each of which I'll go into a little detail below to explain why Steam is king, and no one's stealing the throne anytime soon.

Lack of strong options: By strong options, I mean programs comparable to Steam. Who else right now offers not only digital downloads, but chat, friends list, achievement and stat tracking, server lists, anti-cheat support, pre-loading and cross-computer settings for games? There are others in the video game industry that do, but they're all on consoles. Nothing else on PC even really comes close to the kind of package Steam offers its users. Yes, it does limit when you can play your games because of the online connection thing, and there are complaints about prices and region locking and resale of titles, but for most gamers (including yours truly), they are really negligible when compared to all the advantages. It's a bit like how when Windows started to become popular, everyone flocked to it because ... well, Mac OS really couldn't hold a candle to it (remember, for some time, Apple was worse than they are now ... even if you think they're bad at the moment) and nothing else could provide a strong option against Microsoft's product. That's how they nearly conquered the entire operating system world and why Linux, Chrome and Co. are going to be chipping away at their huge numbers for years to come.

Steam/Valve have most of the popular PC titles out there already: When you've got all the big games coming out on the PC, it's hard not to have a monopoly on the market. Simply put, Steam gets the big games, and thus, gets the people who want those games. So let's take a look at just how that's worked out:

Recently, there have been two big PC-related game releases: Borderlands (Steam had it), Modern Warfare 2 (Steam-exclusive) and Left 4 Dead 2 (Valve made it). Other popular PC titles include Team Fortress 2 (Valve), Dragon Age: Origins (Steam), Champions Online (Steam), Torchlight (Steam), Aion (Steam), Counter-Strike: Source (Valve) and about the only games not Steam or Valve-related on this list: MapleStory, Sins of a Solar Empire the ever-popular World of Warcraft.

Yes, MapleStory is still apparently popular. I don't know why. But the point is to look at the list of games above and notice the trend: almost all the games came out on Steam.

In this sense, Steam's a bit like Wal-Mart: they've got everything, so why bother going to seventeen different stores when you can go to one place AND have everything easily manageable? There are trade-offs, that's for sure, like offline play, but for games like Champions Online that don't have offline modes, like TF2 that only have LAN as an offline option of any sort, and games like Left 4 Dead 2 that have one basic offline option (hi, single-player campaign!), it doesn't matter. You're going to be online to play those games anyways. And like Wal-Mart, Valve loves cutting Steam prices to give users deals and bundles games together in affordable packages you'd have to be stupid to not buy. The whole "low prices" thing does work (as evidenced by Wal-Mart's explosive growth) because they keep people coming back to see what your next deal is going to be. Impulse has weekly deals, too, but they don't get noticed very much because often, the titles getting mark downs aren't as sought after. And because, as we've been told before, Steam pays the little guys better than the other platforms do and they get exposure to Steam's large installed userbase, they're more likely to come back.

Can anyone stop Steam? The only company that can break them at this moment would be their Washington state buddies, Microsoft. They have the money and resources to build a comparable service with Games for Windows Live, but considering how focused they are on the Xbox 360 at the moment, I would doubt they'll be working on plans for this quite yet. So, at least for now, Steam has their little monopoly. One day, yes, there will be challengers, as most de facto monopolies tend to draw in competition trying to take them down, but until those challengers arrive, we'll be fattening Gabe's wallets for quite some time to come.

One day I got a wild hair up my ass to create a webcomic and this beautifully illustrated, well written masterpiece is the result. So ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I bring you Sonic The Angry Drunken Hedgehog!!




























Thanks for reading.

_ As a bite-size postmortem to my Way of the Samurai 3 obsession-gasm, I haven't played that game in earnest since that glorious weekend of release. With plenty of great new things coming out, and tons of games I've started and haven't finished (Gay Tony, Dragon Age, Lost Winds 2...), I haven't hunkered down for serious playtime in Samurai-land. The experienced happened, and I'm not diving right back in right away. While it goes against the basic idea of a game that you think is great, its a gam I've consumed and I'm fine with that.

I think that speaks to he ability of a game, for a gamer, to have a quick consumption and still exist as a thing you come back to. I don't watch Crimson Tide with any level of regularity, but I always come back to it and declare it my favorite movie of all time. True story. Perhaps the greatness of a media thing isn't how many hours you log with it, but how satisfying a thing it is.

Lookin' at you, Activision PR.

_ As it happens today, I think I've found my new, season long obsession today, and its name is Tropico 3, coming to 360 in February.

Shut up, I don't have a PC.

I downloaded that demo today, and as demos go, its freaking ACE! Everything's unlocked, build functionality wise (I gather) and they give you two missions to sink into. No saving, obviously, and you can't continue an island once you've met the goals. But until then, the game's all yours! Instead of putting the nail into Dragon Age, I spent about 4 hours playing this demo.

So far as I can tell, its going down the detailed road that SimCity has generally turned away from since SimCity 4. I'm not laying down an electrical grid or mapping out evolving city zones. However, I can zoom down to street level and get a detailed report on every citizen that I have under my dictatorship. Within minutes of doing the tutorial, I was glazing over with the joy of excessive city management detail. And to boot, it looks excellent! I reckon this is roughly what SimsVille would have been, but couldn't have, without a sinister hook like the tropical ruler setting.



_ I'd really like an X-Com "reskinning" of Dragon Age. Marinate on how awesome *THAT* would be! Chances are, this new 2K shooter is some FPS-ification of that franchise. But what I really want is tactical gameplay with great character interactions and a commitment to "Aggressive Grey" in the same vein as BioWare's latest.

_ Have you played Echochrome? Better still, have you heard its soundtrack? Echochrome is just amazing. I bought it on a whim, and proceeded to fall loopy for its amazing string quartet soundtrack. I'm going to have to score that score on CD at somepoint. And, seriously, the game is super slick.

_ Oh yeah, I started playing Uncharted 2. Its really good, I guess. Whatever....

... I dunno. Does it bother anyone else that everyone's hailing this is as this great game experience, and a real step forward for games as a medium, and all its doing it making the best playable action movie thats ever been done? Say what you will about the voiceless protagonists in Fable II or Dragon Age, but I'm more invested in those characters that I'm allowed to forge than in these well crafted avatars for me to guide through a cinematic destiny.

Not to say its not well done/nigh flawless execution, and very fun. But if you're going down that games-as-art road, Uncharted 2 shouldn't hang out very deep into that conversation. The best example of storytelling using music shouldn't be an audiobook with a soundtrack behind it.