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Strange Trend
Added by MaSuTa on July 26, 2009
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Multiplayer games seem to be an escalating form of competition, and fighting games can be some of the most intense multiplayer games, seeing as it's direct 1 on 1 conflict. Also, for the most part, the companies that are known as fighting game companies have revamped their games to an incredible degree, making them minimalist affairs in the face of their predecessors. That return to ease of use is what's causing the fighting game resurgence.

On the other hand, there's UFC Undisputed (currently my GotY) which is not only competative and has the air of sports, but it has a violence to it that is captured very well by how the game works. It's an excellent recreation of UFC in a video game, even if it is a little obtuse control-wise.

At the same time, I cannot help but feel that the return of markets for these older genres (fighting games, adventure games) has a lot to do with people getting burned out over usual console fare; the endless stream of racing, shooting, and sports games. Eventually, there has to be something else to do. So it's good that fighting games are back to fill that hole.
Related to: What do you think about the relatively recent resurgence of fighting games?

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An ICO review that was written for somewhere else.
Added by MaSuTa on June 15, 2009
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(Backstory: At one point this year, I was going to start a website. A few of you knew, a few of you were asked to work on it, et cetera. Well, that collapsed. This was the first review that was going to go up on the website.)

Life is full and wonderful. There are things of all kinds; materials, distractions, ideas, people, animals, energy, light, shadows, and tools. Of course, the development of tools is a hallmark of the development of the bizarre happening that is humanity. It’s easy to take the amazing variety of everything for granted. To consider the scope of all that currently exists would probably take up a large amount of time, likely taken from other, comforting tasks. I’ve personally lost myself in the things that surround me many times, taking almost bizarre fascination in the number of objects that currently occupy my own room. Hours spent inspecting doorknobs, wheels, pencil lead, and anything else that I see as being interesting on that day.

It would be strange to say, on my first review for a website, that I used to take video games for granted. They were pastimes, hobbies, and many other things, but they had never really taken the time to show me they could be anything else. Although I invested time in the pursuit of the independent scene, they either served as good ideas, or good distractions. In all this time of searching, I never really had found a game that would take me into itself as books did in my youth, and music in my adolescence. It seemed almost impossible for the medium to grab me by the throat and pull me along instead of just gently pushing me where it intended me to go.

In November of 2008, I jokingly suggested to Jeremy that we should do the game “Shadow of the Colossus” in review form for our not-very-old podcast, the Broken Lampcast. Our previous experiences with it were less than ideal. He was frustrated by mechanics, and I by the barrenness of the terrain, even if it was supposed to prove a point. The point it was trying to prove didn’t prevent me from feeling as if I was wasting my time traversing between admittedly exhilarating gameplay.
I got it stuck in my head that, maybe, possibly, in order to understand “Shadow of the Colossus”, which is widely seen as the better game from Team ICO, I should play the prior, inferior title they made. Even my writing heroes at Action Button Dot Net have made this claim, including “Shadow of the Colossus” as their game from the Team ICO ‘series.’ My expectations were low, and I was ready to just play another video game.

It wasn’t.

It refused to be.

I’m not about to claim that ICO is transcendent of video games, because I do not believe the days of transcendent video games have yet arrived while they remain trapped in this loop of sequels, big budgets, and ‘awesome’ mindedness. But, whatever game ends up being the one to transcend what being a video game means, it will have taken a majority of its cues from ICO. Everything that is video game-like in ICO doesn’t come off as such. In fact, it takes extraordinary efforts to not remind you it is a video game.

I was trying to get perspective and I ended up with revelation. The more I played, the more I wanted to play. The more I saw, the more I wanted to see. Every single moment of this game consumed me, and at points left me wistful.

For the people who have never seen this game, the “goal” of the game is to escape this massive, gorgeously unsettling castle, and helping the single other person you’ve found in this desolate structure also make it out alive. The player controls a young boy who acts entirely how you play, and the girl is how storybooks make damsels in distress out to be.
The difference is both of these characters are genuinely pitiable. The boy is taken to this castle, left to be devoured because of circumstances he had no control over. It is by sheer luck that he is able to escape his tomb, and he is left to himself, and to his own devices, in this enormous maze, this building that was never meant to be something to escape from. The girl looks thin and wispy likely because she is malnourished and unfit; when the boy finds her, she is trapped inside of a cage. There’s no way for anyone to know just how long she has spent inside this chamber, or why she was there- at least, not at the beginning of the game.

The interaction between the two is entirely how the player chooses to make it. I felt a twinge of guilt every single time I ran too fast and ended up pulling her along as she ran as fast as she could. Every time I had to leave her alone, I felt dread about leaving her out of my sight, over not being able to make it back in time in case something happened. There were even points when, urging her along, I spoke to her; softly, but urgently. This didn’t seem weird to me until Jeremy pointed it out as such. And in that brief moment, I was drawn out of what spell ICO had cast.

Until that one moment, I was in that world. I was holding a sword I had found, that I had gone to great efforts to retrieve. Slowly but surely, the girl and I had worked towards escape, through obstacle after obstacle. When the nature of her imprisonment was revealed, I was left indignant and determined, but I knew I didn’t have a plan. She probably knew too. So, instead of discussing, we merely went looking for another way out.

Then I was back on the couch. I was gripping the controller, looking over at the world I was actually in, and the people in it. For a moment, my mind rejected it, pulling me back towards the screen. But instead, I took a break to take it all in. I still have to stop and take it all in, even months since I had last played. It has colored every single other experience I’ve had with video games, and it’s completely changed what I know video games to be. It renewed my love in video games, and my utter fascination with what they can be and what they are becoming.
Related to: Shadow of the Colossus, Team Ico, ICO

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21st Birthday Playlist
Added by MaSuTa on May 29, 2009
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Track#: "Song", band, album
#1: "Stardust Fanfare," Katamari Damacy Soundtrack
#2: "Race for the Prize," The Flaming Lips, The Soft Bulletin
#3: "He Doesn't Know Why," Fleet Foxes, self titled
#4: "Van Helsing Boombox," Man Man, Six Demon Bag
#5: "Welfare Bread," King Khan & The Shrines
#6: "Smiley Faces," Gnarls Barkley, St. Elsewhere
#7: "Time To Get Away," LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver
#8: "Humor Me," Pere Ubu, The Modern Dance
#9: "The Book I Read," Talking Heads, The Name of This Band is Talking Heads
#10: "Orange County Lumber Truck," Frank Zappa, Weasels Ripped My Flesh
#11: "Great Day Today," Madvillain, Madvillainy
#12: "Duchess & The Proverbial Mindspread," Primus, The Brown Album
#13: "Let's Not Wrestle Mt. Heart Attack," Liars, Drum's Not Dead
#14: "Arcarsenal," At The Drive-In, Relationship of Command
#15: "Reckoner," Radiohead, Live bootleg from Milano, Italy
#16: "Run To Your Grave," The Mae Shi, HLLLYH
#17: "Oh No," Gogol Bordello, Gypsy Punks Underdog World Strike
#18: "Academy Fight Song," Mission of Burma, Signals, Calls & Marches
#19: "Nighttime Anytime (It's Alright)," The Constantines, Shine A Light
#20: "Breadcrumb Trail," Slint, Spiderland
#21: "Two Sisters," Tom Waits, Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards

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Why isn't music dangerous any more?
Added by MaSuTa on March 31, 2009
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I've heard all these great stories about music and it's effects on people, of the urgency to make music, and the people who got attached to that music. The visceral, spiritual power that music had. I've listened to people like Henry Rollins telling stories about how the first time he saw The Ramones, how it changed the entire direction of his life, and how he and his friend Ian MacKaye, were in bands later that year. I've gotten a chance, thanks to the new existence of an External Intellect in Wikipedia- as if it intellect was a hard drive to begin with- to research all these groups and albums and all this music from a bygone era.

And now there are people that make music because they like making sounds and not because it's all they have left. Happy people who let on that they're into having fun and getting out in the world, "living life to the fullest." The kids who thought they were the lowest of the low because they weren't popular in high school got instruments, and vowed revenge through music, through something that promised some kind of fame and legacy past being able to run fast or catch a ball. Then they'll see! They'll all see!

Don't get me wrong, there are some benefits to music not sounding dangerous. There's room for tonal expansion and explorations; now more than ever, there are more musicians plying their craft with their own unique aesthetics and sounds, and those bands are making it. Kanye West can make Graduation and still be a superstar. Radiohead released Kid A and grew their fan base at the same time. And progressive music has swollen to a degree that musical talent can actually pay for itself instead of needing the ability to play a political game.

But I want it all to burn. Most of this great music that's enriched my life and informed me, and expanded? I would trade it for more music that felt dangerous, that felt like it was something other than sounds that I thought made me happy. I don't want to hear about some crazy other world where hypersexualized warrior kings slaughter their foes, be it set in fantasy or on the streets.

So, here's my conclusion; this next decade is going to have the sound the world needs. Because we're inducing conditions that are going to drive desperation out into the open, because otherwise they would choke on it. Every big shift in music from the last century was born from terrible despair and desperation, and boy, there's an atmosphere of it. There are fields of discontent being sewn; the Iranian students, the internet generation in China, the return of the Iron Curtain, the destruction of Iraq, and many more situations. The political polarization of the USA doesn't even place.

The Blues needs no explanation, nor does Jazz; this wasn't music made by happy people, people who are content with life and live comfortable, people who have another way out. Soul music branches from the tradition of blistering hymnals and singing established from the days of slaves; music to make the work easier. Chuck Berry travels to gigs by car, and only takes his guitar and the clothes he wears; that didn't used to be by choice. The hippies didn't really have anywhere else to go and no one would accept how they saw the world, so they made music. The most recent example also needs no introduction; rap. 

People were raised in despair, smartened up too soon, and left to be who they were; unlucky. Some people handle that anger and disappointment differently; those who have hit rock bottom and made it back use a variety of things, but the most common seem to be family and creativity.
 I don't know what this necessary movement is going to sound like; I think it's too late for any of us to know what it'll be (and besides, if anyone really knew, they'd be making it instead of being on the internet screaming at no one) before it's already here. But it's not going to come from times of plenty.

I don't have a big finish for this. I was going to say something about Joy Division, but I lost it.


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60 Games I Like In No Order
Added by MaSuTa on March 24, 2009
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  1. Sonic The Hedgehog 3

  2. King of Fighters 2003

  3. Street Fighter 2

  4. Gunstar Heroes

  5. Dynamite Headdy

  6. General Chaos

  7. Super Metroid

  8. Super Castlevania IV

  9. Phantasy Star IV

  10. Half-Life 2

  11. Portal

  12. Cave Story

  13. ICO

  14. Mark of Kri

  15. Time Crisis 2

  16. Pac Man: Championship Edition

  17. Audiosurf

  18. Rock Band

  19. Call of Duty 4

  20. Quake 2

  21. Braid

  22. Streets of Rage 2

  23. Final Fire Pro Wrestling

  24. WWF Wrestlefest

  25. NBA Jam

  26. NFL Blitz 2000

  27. Daytona USA

  28. Burnout Paradise

  29. Virtual Pro Wrestling 2

  30. Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution

  31. Grand Theft Auto 4

  32. Mega Man 9

  33. Alien Hominid

  34. Katamari Damacy

  35. Dawn of War: Dark Crusade

  36. Gears of War 2

  37. Soulcalibur

  38. Super Mario World

  39. Max Payne

  40. Chronicles of Riddick

  41. Peggle

  42. Passage

  43. Starsiege: Tribes

  44. Mutant League Football

  45. SSX Tricky

  46. Astro Boy: Omega Factor

  47. Everyday Shooter

  48. Mother 3

  49. The Secret of Monkey Island

  50. Team Fortress 2

  51. Guardian Heroes

  52. Garou: Mark of the Wolves

  53. Final Fantasy XII

  54. Killer7

  55. Tetris

  56. Mars Matrix

  57. Strider

  58. Forgotten Worlds

  59. Metal Slug

  60. Kuru Kuru Kururin


    This is going to be thinned out to 30 in order soon. Or maybe 25. I dunno.


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Date Joined: July 21, 2008
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Tylea002 42 minutes ago
I've completed Modern Warfare 2, so...er...I'll probably blog about storytelling in games if I ever do this coursework....But yeah, MW2....
dankempster 8 hours, 32 minutes ago
dankempster hates the "right, the latest one's just hit shelves, let's talk about when the next one's coming out" trend that has pervaded the world of video games
Hamz 9 hours, 1 minute ago
Completed MW2 on regular last night, from a gameplay perspective it is pretty great but the story telling and plot itself was a let down.
Pepsiman 14 hours, 31 minutes ago
Pepsiman finally got around to playing that copy of Kirby 64 she bought in Tokyo. It is most certainly Kirby 64 as she remembers it.
ThomasP 18 hours ago
Playing NSMBWii.
Sweep 18 hours, 49 minutes ago
is loving the sexy new giantbomb frontpage :D
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RT: @big_ben_clock: BONG BONG BONG BONG
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