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ShawnS

Another unexpected 2021 thing: getting WAY back into original Xbox

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Are "Scary Games" the new Japanese Export?

By ShawnS 5 Comments

 

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 Here’s a spooky coincidence that involves some equally spooky games. Watching the news pour in during the recently concluded Tokyo Game Show I couldn’t help but notice how many new titles revolved around dark, ghostly or otherworldly themes. I dug up a list of every game that had a presence at the show and although these “scary games” only represent a very tiny minority I was still surprised by how many made the headlines.

Minority or not, these were some of the biggest reveals from the show, produced and developed by some of the biggest names in Japan. Konami, Shinji Mikami, Capcom, Sega, Suda51, Namco Bandai, even PaRappa creator Masaya Matsuura. And that’s without calling out Western-devved sequels to Japanese games like DMC, Castlevania and Splatterhouse. I’ll go ahead ask ‘what’s up with that?‘ but warn that it’s only a rhetorical question. I don’t have the connections or the insight to do anything but throw out hypotheticals.

Is this how the Japanese try to appeal to Western audiences after the middling attempts so far? Is this one of those Volcano/Dante’s Peak moments where everyone hit upon the same inspiration at the same time? Can you go even deeper and attribute it to a shift in the perceptions of Japanese creators and producers? I wish I knew but all I can do is point it out and wait to see how things develop. If we wind up calling ‘scary games‘ the new ‘cover-based shooter‘ in three years you’ll know I was onto something today.

5 Comments

OH sNOw!

By ShawnS 1 Comments

So this 'White Powder, Blue Earth' Quest was kinda crummy. My picks were: 
 

  • Jonny Moseley Mad Trix
  • SSX 3
  • Shaun White Snowbarding
  • Cool Boarders
  • Alpine Surfer
 
 But only two or three of them were tagged for the Quest! C'mon, you can't ask me to name snow-based extreme sports games out of all the video games ever made and then only tap a dozen of the most recent ones to count. Even the gang's "beloved" Stoked wasn't included. What gives? 
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The New Xbox 36w0es

By ShawnS 1 Comments


      Wow, that title didn't go so well but neither is this latest round of title transfers, Gamertag recovery and Download History spelunking. Yup, we got the new slim 360 or "New Xbox 360" as I guess it's called and nothing but the barest of hard drive content has made the leap from old to new without a problem. Microsoft's title transfer page directs to a wonderful "Page requested not available" dead end and I apparently forgot that full game installs don't transfer over. Hours now we've spent refreshing pages, redownloading content and trying to get everything in one place.  It's a good thing that new Xbox is super quiet because it's gonna be on for a quite a while longer. Woe is progress, but at least we're Kinect ready now!
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Them thar gun-slanngers

By ShawnS 1 Comments

Yeah! That's the guy!
Yeah! That's the guy!
Maybe a little confusing by the subject line but I doubt anyone will read this anyways. Riding around the newly-unlocked Great Plains in Red Dead Redemption I stopped by a remote campsite to listen to a random guy tell a tale of the west. Lo and behold he mentioned a name or two that immediately sounded familiar including Red Harlow, the very same Red from, you guessed it, Red Dead Revolver. The story was something about the craziest gunslingers he ever did see and I know he said one more fellar by name as well as a location from Revolver but I was so abuzz at the mention of Red's name that I forgot the rest. Very nice little, easy-to-miss reference. Surely it's not the only one in the game but it's the only one that struck me so far. And here I was thinking John Marston's son was going to be Red somehow, but his name's Jack... and Redemption is set waaaay later than Revolver.
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Come and Experience 'Videogame: The Video Game'!

By ShawnS 1 Comments

PlayStation 2 Box Art
PlayStation 2 Box Art
I had only ever seen Asterix & Obelix in passing while poring over the International News pages of EGM and GameFan when I was growing up but the odd visage of the vikings always stuck with me. Over a decade later I saw the duo again in a quarter-page preview for XXL2 in PLAY magazine and was blown away by what looked like F.L.U.D.D.-equipped Marios and limbless Rayman legionnaires. The screenshots were tiny and the details sparse and, like usual, my desire to know more was soon washed away by the next big budget game that was much easier to find out about and get ahold of. 
 
Six years later I happened to see the peculiar box art for Alice in Wonderland on the DS and after a GameFAQs search I was at developer Etranges Libellules homepage, in French, once again staring at XXL2. Almost with no conscious effort, it seems, I have been led back to Asterix & Obelix, and this game in particular, time and again for over ten years. Explaining this happenstance to a 50-year-old co-worker revealed his extensive and pristine collection of Asterix & Obelix comics that he was very nearly ready to pawn off. I've always been into oddball, overlooked stuff but nothing this transcendental has ever steered me for so long towards one game.  
 
The search was finally on but as I continued checking eBay and Google I started reading my co-workers' comics and realized that the pair aren't Vikings but Gauls. I had first seen them alongside Blizzard's Lost Vikings when I was an inexperienced child so I'm sure you can appreciate my jump to conclusion. Even the inscrutable designers that consider every detail at Epcot's World Showcase were fooled; I spotted a commemorative volume in Norway's gift shop last time I was there. The comics were immensely popular all across Europe and were definitely translated into Norwegian but the series is as French as Eiffel. First serialized in 1959, each installment saw the indomitable clan of Gauls holding out against the invading forces of Julius Caesar and his crackpot schemes for world domination. It'd be like if we took the Pilgrims, made them superhuman and had them constantly belittling and deflating the English. National pride through puns, one-liners and physical humor. Sounds like the heart of Americana to me. 
 
So now that I've played the game and come to appreciate it and the comics' origins the only thing I can think to do is share it; spread the word to as many people who have no clue who these guys are or how insane this game is as I can! I'm working on editing the Wiki page to fully detail the game, how it plays, and all the stuff it references but the most entertaining part will be the images. I've documented everything that looked even vaguely referential in over 100 screen captures but there's plenty of stuff I can't pinpoint or can't remember. Comment like crazy and help fill in the blanks. I hope at least a few of you find the same kind of awe and fascination in this stuff as I do!
1 Comments

Revisionist Demise!!!

By ShawnS 1 Comments

BAH! How could there be no page for the TurboDUO on Giant Bomb!?! Yes, I'm reacting instantaneously without doing a whole ton  of searching but isn't that the point of a search engine? To do that work for me and just tell me if it's in here!?! Ok, I'm not really that passionate about it, I just don't see it anywhere on the site (all CD games point to the TGCD) and it deserves to be here, even as an alias. I thought for sure it was one of the 'Flash in the Pan' quest targets.

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