Category Archives: Gaming

Flagship Studios

According to Joystiq, all of Flagship Studios’ staff has been fired, and their IPs have been sold. Hopefully Hellgate: London servers will stay up.
I know the game had its problems, but I’m a bit sad by this. The Hellgate: London universe was cool even if the game was flawed.

E3 Regurgitation

Allow me to regurgitate some information from Joystiq!
I really wasn’t expecting much from Microsoft or EA. My 360 is great, but it’s hard to really froth for the games when the legacy games all belong to Nintendo. I mean, Nintendo already has me excited for Wario Land: Shake It! and Mega Man 9, but I was still wondering if we’d hear about some other old franchises like Star Fox, Pilot Wings, or Animal Crossing. However, Microsoft surprised me today.

 

  • Netflix is now partnering to offer streaming content over the 360 to subscribers.
  • NBC and Universal are offering movies on XBL.
  • Geometry Wars 2 comes out next week.
  • The original Banjo-Kazooie will be on XBLA for this holiday season
  • The 360 will have exclusive Fallout 3 DLC
  • Final Fantasy XIII is now multi-platform
  • Avatars
  • “Party” system for group chatting
  • New UI featuring XBL Primetime, a sort of interactive TV channel in which there will be network-wide game shows with real prizes

And the best news?
Portal: Still Alive, sequel to the greatest game to ever be created, will be a 2008 exclusive to XBLA. I’m assuming “2008 exclusive” means timed exclusive. That kind of sucks because I’ll have to play a console version before the most likely superior PC version, but it’s not like I’m willing to wait to play another Portal game!
As for EA?
They’re still releasing Spore.
I didn’t really hear anything else of interest from them.

Completing Games

This year I’ve completed 1.15 games per week. Sadly, I’ve only completed 0.679 games in my catalog for each game I add to it.
Number of games completed this year through June not counting different versions, different modes, or remakes: 30
Number of weeks this year through June: 26
Games completed per week: 1.15

Number of games completed this year through June that are in my catalog, including each physical version: 19
Number of games added to my catalog: 32
Number of games added to my catalog not counting two free games or two games solely for my girlfriend: 28
Number of games completed in my catalog per game added to my catalog: 0.633
Number of games completed in my catalog per game willingly added to my catalog for my own playing: 0.679

Anime Expo 2008

I just got back from Anime Expo in Los Angeles, and it was great! This year I went to the opening ceremony, the AMV contest, AX Idol, a signing by NIS character designers, a NIS America panel, Last Comic Standing, a David Hayter panel, a David Hayter signing, Whose Line Is It Anime?, and the closing ceremony. And I spent less than $50 on merchandise!
We stayed at the Omni hotel, which was only a few minutes away from the convention center via shuttle. Shuttles were free for us. The hotel was very nice, especially at 60 degrees the whole time, but I lost my extra battery for my camera. I’m pretty sure it was dead (broken dead) so it wasn’t a big loss. Antonio said he may have lost boxers and jeans. Duncan, who was in a different room, lost a pair of glasses. Justin, also in the other room, lost a pair of boxers as well. That doesn’t just seem like coincidence. Are the cleaning people stealing things? Together with the fact that there was a used tampon in between the mattress and box-spring of Justin’s bed (they got a free upgrade for that), I’m not sure I’d want to stay there again despite it seeming very nice.
This was the first year that I went to the opening ceremony. It was fun, but not too terribly exciting. I did mingle quite a bit with The World Ends With You, although it took me days to realize that the reason why I couldn’t see other players was because I was using the PAL version.
The AMV contest was quite long, but a lot of fun. There are definitely some AMVs I’d like to look up and watch some more, and they made me more interested in a few anime series. None of my choices won, but oh well.
AX Idol was really awesome. Last year I thought it was really boring, but this year, almost every contestant had a lot of talent. Half of the people were competing in voice acting, and the other half were singing. It was really amazing. One guy, who had his head shaved except for a short triangle-shaped mohawk, sang Rain, from Cowboy Bebop. I have a nice picture of him courtesy of “JUB” via Pictochat!
photo.jpg
Last Comic Standing is a stand-up competition. It was funny and very enjoyable, but some of the “comedians” were quite bad. A lot of them told jokes like “I’m a minority…it’s hard to like anime when you’re Black and/or Hispanic, food stamps, Home Depot etc.” I’m glad these people can joke around with their own culture’s negative stereotypes, but seriously, enough. The two finalists were also pretty bad >_>. I guess the audience was stupid because they’re the ones were judging. There were judges there to comment, but they didn’t choose the winners. Do you know who the coolest judge was? Man-Faye! It was awesome seeing him! Whose Line Is It Anime? is an improv show in which everything is anime themed. Terribly bad. It did make me miss Live Nude People that much more though.
We hung out at the NIS booth a bit, and I got my picture taken with a giant Prinny! Phoenix was funny as always too. I bought a Disgaea picture and got autographs from two different character designers that work at NIS. I also went to a NIS panel where they talked about Disgaea 3 and A Witch’s Tale, their new upcoming games.
I also went to a David Hayter panel. He was the voice of Lupin in Lupin the Third, the voice of Snake in the MGS series, and the screenplay writer of X-Men. It was really entertaining. I tried getting his autograph at multiple sessions but kept not making them. Finally on the last day, I managed to get his autograph.
I also went to the closing ceremony, and it was pretty boring. We did go to Little Tokyo to eat though, where the food was delicious!
I can’t wait for next year!

3DO


I stubbed my toe
on a 3DO
I think it may be broken;
The machine’s confused
from being misused
it wants me to insert a token!

– Mikey, Select Button

Diablo III

frothfrothfroth
I was worried it was going to be a Wrath of the Lich King announcement or something, but I had been thinking it would most likely be Diablo.
Blizzard, you didn’t fail me. Thank you so much.

Pyro Fortress

Pyro Fortress came out last week! In other words, the Pyro update for Team Fortress 2. With its release, players were obligated to play only as pyros with epic, flaming battles!
The Pyro’s achievements were much more easily attainable than the Medic’s, and they were actually things you might want to do as Pyro as opposed to the Medic’s achievements that required you to do things a Medic shouldn’t do. The three new weapons are the backburner, the flare gun, and the axtinguisher. The backburner replaces the flamethrower, adding health and always scoring crits from behind. However, it doesn’t have the airblast that the flamethrower now has, which can repel enemy rockets and grenades. The flare gun can light enemies on fire from a distance. Lastly, the axtinguisher is a melee weapon that scores crits always on enemies that are on fire. You also no longer need to get all the achievements to unlock all weapons. It was a lot of fun, but I unlocked all the weapons in about two days.

Mega Man 9

Mega Man 9 to come out on WiiWare!
After 11 years, Capcom is releasing a sequel to the Mega Man series!
More information can be found at RockmanPM and Select Button!
The game will apparently be in the style of the old 8-bit games, which is even more retro than the later entries in the original Mega Man series. It looks like an NES game, which could be pretty cool if they make the game correctly. The fact that it’s in that style but not actually an NES game means they’re able to break any boundaries the NES had while still making a game in that style.
Too bad I’ll have to play through 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 to get ready for this!