To make matters worse, Ubisoft announced last week that comedian Joel McHale of E!’s The Soup fame would be hosting their E3 press conference. My mind has been atwitter with anticipation ever since. What celebrities will be unfairly mocked in association with what games? The only problem is we still don’t know much about what Ubisoft will be showing this year. Assassin’s Creed 2, for sure. Rabbids Go Home, definitely. Red Steel 2, most likely. No More Heroes 2, possibly? Um… Petz? Shaun White World Tour? Ah, damn you Ubisoft for giving me so little fodder for Soup-style celebrity ridicule.

As long as I’m imagining it all anyway, let’s pretend McHale is hosting EA’s press conference, okay? Much better. Here’s what I think the Soup star would have to say about some of EA’s big properties, given the opportunity:

Dante’s Inferno - Battle demons inside Lindsay Lohan’s vagina. Dante’s Inferno was actually their second choice for a title, but “Firecrotch” is a registered trademark of TMZ.com.

SSX - McHale does his best David Caruso impression, slides on his sunglasses and cranks up The Who for the announcement of SSX Miami. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Half-Life 3: Hard to believe, but this is not a Wayans brothers’ project about a trio of midgets in prison.

Need For Speed: Branching out the brand even further, the newest iteration focuses on the secret rivalry between Lenny Bruce and Hunter S. Thompson.

What, too old-school?

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It’s a bit odd that my final post for 61 FPS is a game review rather than my farewell post, but I had already committed myself to doing this review and I’ll be dipped if I’m going to let it slide.

Rune Factory Frontier is the third installment in the Rune Factory series, which itself is a spin-off of the Harvest Moon series. Don’t let that skew your impression of what these games offer though. The Rune Factory titles each have decently robust action adventure elements to them along with the usual farming, crafting, and courting. However, where Rune Factory 1 and 2 feel like games with lots of unrelated stuff to do in them, Frontier ties all of those elements together into a very satisfying cohesive whole.

Rune Factory Frontier is a massive game packed to the gills with content. It’s a game that will keep you busy every moment you play while also setting up long term goals and big payoffs. It is a game that wears many hats: dungeon exploring action adventure, time and resource management, climbing social ladders, but ties every last bit together. This is an adventure game where the hero must truly be self sufficient. Think you can just waltz into the Adventurer’s Store and buy some magic potions, anti-dragon armor and a sword of troll slaying? Or go out and kill a few goblins and wolves for the money they drop to pay your way? Not so here.

The hero of this tale begins penniless and actually has to earn his money in a realistic fashion: by working for it. The options are numerous. Farming provides crops to sell, mining produces ores. Monsters do drop items but they are relatively realistic and not worth much in their raw form. Got a fur pelt? Use it to craft something more valuable. Want a better sword? Forge it yourself. Don’t have a forge? Sell stuff to pay the local architect to build it for you. Running out of energy fighting off monsters? Learn to cook so you can replenish your strength with a quick bite to eat.

There are no wasted skills, even monster taming provides you with goods like eggs and wool, cheap farm labor, quick transportation, and fighting companions. With a little effort, your home farm can pretty much run itself which is a good thing because the adventure element in Frontier is really the bulk of this game.

Past Rune Factories seemed to tread lightly with the dungeon crawling aspect of this “fantasy Harvest Moon” experiment but Frontier goes full bore with massive multi tiered ruins that are challenging to explore and loaded with monsters that can and will hand you your butt on a platter. As you dig deeper into dungeons you’ll run up against ever fiercer opponents which force you to retreat, only to come back with new gear you forged yourself and a good supply of food and potions you prepared yourself. A bit of fighting, some levels earned, and the progress you make is utterly satisfying since you really do have a hand in every component of your success. Outside of the ruins you have numerous domestic tasks to perform, villagers to socialize with, and even little bug-like spirits to manipulate to your advantage.

Most of your non adventuring time will likely be spent on various tasks like farming, cooking, crafting, fishing, and forging. While farming involves multiple simple actions like using axes to clear stumps, a hoe to till the soil and the planting of seeds, most of the other tasks are managed by a skill level based timing game. A little slider bar with a target zone pops up and, if you have good reflexes, you can time your button press to gain a high end result, be it a record size salmon or an extra powerful sword. This system is much less tedious and more engaging than what was done in previous Rune Factories, making the different creation processes painless.

One of the quirkier tasks in Frontier that hasn’t been seen in the earlier games is managing the local nature spirits. These little glowbug-like beings, called Runies, are also one of Frontier’s more annoying features. They are incredibly useful, playing a part in monster breeding and weapon forging. They’re used to alter the weather and are practically necessary for quickly growing crops. Unfortunately, they’re also a bit of a pain to deal with. Runies populate all of the non-dungeon areas and exist in a sort of ecosystem, with one type of Runey eating another type. It’s not a balanced ecosystem, however, and thus requires maintenance from you to keep it healthy. Unfortunately, this maintenance feels like busy work and the process of collecting, relocating, and releasing Runies is slow. I won’t say the addition of Runies to Rune Factory is a bad one, but if it sees a return in future games it really needs to be streamlined in some way to make it less tedious.

The other major time sink in this game concerns socializing with the other villagers, a large number of which are eligible for marriage. The characters are generally interesting with realistic dialog, but it could have been a lot better. If there is one area this series really could improve in, it’s the writing. I realize that coming up with a large cast of distinct characters can be challenging, but considering this is a major focus of these games it’s sad to see a continued reliance on two dimensional stereotypes.

Most characters have one distinguishing personality quirk and they run with it. There’s the spoiled rich girl, the depressed emo guy, the perky mail carrier, the jovially drunken tavern owner; and they never really develop beyond these personality gimmicks. Most of the characters do have interesting back stories and learning about them is fun, but once that surface has been scratched, there’s nothing more. Also, once again, I have to complain about the female characters. They have a greater variety of personalities this time around but would it be too much to ask for just one of them to have a spine? For just one to be something other than a variation on the “princess waiting for her white knight” theme? Better yet, how about giving us the option of a female lead, or hell, a gay male option. I spent most of my time hanging around the emo guy anyway. What? He had awesome theme music!

Speaking of which, the sounds and sights of Rune Factory Frontier make it a lushly gorgeous game. You won’t be wowed by fancy graphic effects, rather, the visual strength of this game is good old fashion art design. Taking the motif of a whimsical fantasy adventure, Frontier’s world is fleshed out in a storybook illustration style, filled with color and fine detail. A soundscape of chirping birds accompanies your first steps into a forest and singing frogs herald the coming of night. As time passes, four seasons alter the landscape’s character, changing the color scheme, what flowers bloom, and the musical theme. The music throughout the game is wonderfully composed and fitting for the environments and action at hand, whether your exploring a floating whale-shaped island or fighting a giant chicken-gryphon.

Minor spoiler: shows first boss of the game

Rune Factory Frontier is a finely crafted game. It’s main story sees you saving a village rather than the world, but it’s no less epic for the scale while the individual stories of the villagers themselves give the adventure a much more personal touch than what is found in your typical RPG. Frontier is an action adventure game where the hero must be self sufficient and has a full life outside of the dungeons. It takes the tasks of daily life and distills them down into engaging video game goals. The Runey system still needs some work, and the daily chores can become tedious if you sit and play for a long period of time, though the sheer number of tasks help break up the action. Finally, the writing and basic editing needs improvement. Some of the dialog is odd or nonsensical and was surely lost in translation, while other errors include sloppy spelling mistakes and missing letters and punctuation. Still, rough patches aside, Rune Factory Frontier is an excellent game with generally high production values. It offers addictive game play involving various levels of tactics, strategy, and good reflexes. One of the most robust game experiences to be found on the Wii, it is not to be missed. I rate it a solid A.

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So, I’ve learned to roll with bad news. I heave to my swollen feet, put on my hat, gather my tattered overcoat around me, and shuffle off into the snowy night to find someone else to fill my tin plate with bread and baked beans. No regrets, no hard feelings. The fact that I know an ancient curse that afflicts editors’ virgin daughters with pig lice is entirely coincidental.

But in all honesty—and I am being honest—the news about 61 FPS’ shutdown hit me hard, and I’m still feeling pangs of sadness. I’m very fond of the team: Constantine is an A-1 editor who has never failed to provide support, suggestions and manly advice.

What happens next? You’ll see me skulking around the Internet, singing for my supper. Mackey and I both contribute to 1UP’s features section and the Retronauts blog, and I imagine that will continue to be so.

I’m also thinking of pulling back a little and letting more variety into my life through animal writing. I wrote a lot of pet-related columns in the past, and I enjoyed it. See, I totally have mastery over animals, as is evident through the tortoiseshell cat on my lap who is ignoring every order to get down.

Constantine already lay down threats of 61 FPS sticking around in some capacity. Take that to bed with you, and sweet dreams. For now, I won’t say goodbye. Let’s just say:

Thank you for playing! !

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By now, you’ve probably all heard the news that 61FPS is no more. If not, I’m sorry you had to hear it from me–I’m no good with these kinds of things. But for now, we have to move on and face facts: this blog is yet another Internet casualty.

When I first started writing for 61FPS back in August of 2008, I had no idea how I was going to post twice a day and manage to keep up with the rest of my writing/schooling/living duties. Then I discovered the solution to this problem: rip off news relentlessly from Kotaku. Of course, I kid–I did most of my ripping off from Joystiq. But, given the small audience and limited powers of 61FPS, we were never about up-to-the-minute news, hard-hitting exclusives, or the black, soul-destroying magic that somehow makes websites profitable. 61FPS was just a bunch of crazy kids who really loved video games, and I’m sincerely going to miss being a part of it.

What I enjoyed most about 61FPS was its place as a writing sandbox for video game fanatics. From the beginning, bossman John Constantine didn’t ever set any limits or try to rein us in; he trusted us to write good material, and as a freelancer who has to go through arduous pitching processes for nearly everything I do, I really appreciated his faith. Every morning, when I woke up and opened the Nerve CMS, it was an actual challenge to mine my gaming life for blogging material; but, more often than not, the results were well worth the effort. 61FPS gave me the chance to flex my writing muscles in ways that wouldn’t necessarily fly elsewhere, and I’m really grateful for that.

It’s heartbreaking that 61FPS is shutting down now, of all times. I think we’ve recently hit a high note for blog content; the work of my 61FPS peers has always impressed me, but in the last few months it felt like something “clicked” and we suddenly became a well-oiled blogging machine. You can probably chalk this up to our WordPress upgrade, which made all of our jobs 100 times easier–with the last CMS, we had to manually input the HTML code for paragraph breaks. The new look, new backend, and general new feel of the revamped 61FPS made us all a lot happier, which is why it’s such a bummer to see it die so quickly.

While it’s traditional to go out with dignity, I’m honestly in need of more writing work and this place is as good as any to send out a distress call to anyone with a paying gig out there. So send me an e-mail if you can help; but if you can’t, feel free to e-stalk me through my Twitter and/or personal blog, though be warned that my skin would make a lousy suit. And if you enjoy my writing, I still have regular gigs at GameSpite, Something Awful, and 1UP’s Retro Gaming Blog.

Thanks for reading my writing over the past ten months; I’m really going to miss being part of such a unique group of people.

- Bob Mackey

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It was around the middle of last month that we writers were notified that the blog’s days were numbered. For me this was quite a blow since this was my first professional blog writing gig. I remember last year when I was invited aboard. It was a real thrill. It was tough sometimes, putting together enough material to have regular posts since my day job can demand long hours. I didn’t always write as much as I wanted to, but I loved every minute of my time here and enjoyed the contributions of my fellow bloggers. My favorite part, though, was reading comments left by all of you, the readership. However, before I say my final farewell to 61 FPS, I have some unfinished business.

Last month, I asked for your votes to determine what game my next retrospective would cover. Voting took place both in the comments section of that post and at the N-Sider message boards. I have tallied the votes counting only first choices (though I did count multiple picks if a first choice was not indicated). It was a close run between Yoshi, Star Fox, and Metroid, but 2-D Metroid came out on top by one vote. When my second retrospective is finished I plan to post it at both the N-Sider message boards and the NeoGAF message boards, both of which were the original homes of my Metroid Prime Trilogy retrospective.

Finally, I have one post yet to go up here at 61 FPS, my rather delayed Rune Factory Frontier review. I’m determined to finish this thing for this blog. Please expect it this weekend.

Thank you everyone, readers and staffers alike. I had a fantastic time writing for all of you.

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As of June 1st, regular posting will cease on 61FPS. Our parent magazine Nerve is relaunching next week for the first time in ten years. Nerve began as a magazine about love, sex, and culture and that editorial mandate is staying the same, but it’s becoming a more focused publication. As such, entertainment and cultural coverage is being shifted away from Nerve’s blogs like 61FPS, The Remote Island, and Screengrab, and reintegrated into the site. The blog archives will remain live online.

This isn’t the end of 61 Frames Per Second though. Most importantly, our readers will still be able to follow the work of Bob Mackey and Nadia Oxford in GameSpite, 1UP.com, and What They Play amongst others. Cole Stryker, our resident curmudgeon and games journalism police force, isn’t writing about games at the moment, but there’s no way he’ll be able to stay away for long. Joe Keiser has had a prolific career as a games journalist and you can bet your life that you’ll see his work well into the future. 61FPS has been Amber Ahlborn’s first job as a professional writer and she has been a remarkable success. I expect great things from her. As for me and Derrick Sanskrit, stay tuned. Don’t delete your RSS feed just yet. You haven’t heard the last from us, dear reader.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for writing. Thank you for listening.

See you soon.

-John

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Regular readers may remember back in April when I posted the mashup of Memphis Black’s “Like That” with Mega Man 4’s Skullman theme off of Tae K’s impressive Mega Man mixtape. Well less than a month later Tae K came back with a new mixtape using samples from Mega Man 9 and the results were more often than not fantastic.

I had a hard time trying to figure out which track to feature here; the opening theme with Lupe Fiasco, Hornetman with Eminem, Splashwoman with Q-Tip, or Jewelman with Kanye? Hitting an impass with this decision, I’ve decided to post the whole damn mixtape instead. Enjoy!

Seriously, this mash-up is the most I’ve enjoyed Eminem since the Marshal Mathers LP. Of course, I wholeheartedly recommend you download Tae K’s Mega Man 9 mixtape right here and check out the other fun stuff on his blog.

Related Mega Man love:
New Mega Man 2.5D Trailer: This Thing Better Be Real
Licensing Tragedies: The Brazilian Mega Man Comic
Licensing Tragedies: The Mega Man Comic

Related Mash-Ups:
Mega Man vs. Memphis Bleek
Super Mario vs. M.I.A.
The Mother Mash-Up

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Yesterday, Sjöstrand made it clear that he’s not done torturing the Mega Man fanbase by releasing yet another 2.5D video that’s much cooler than his first one; this update sees Mega Man fighting Dr. Wily’s massive dragon (from Mega Man 2), and teaming up with Proto Man for some co-op fun–all in glorious 2.5D.

If you don’t watch the video after the cut, you are a horrible monster.

I’m seconds away from starting an Internet fund-raiser to send Sjöstrand to Digipen.

Thanks to 1UP’s Retro Blog for the news tip.

Related Links:

Licensing Tragedies: The Brazilian Mega Man Comic
Licensing Tragedies: The Mega Man Comic

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But that wasn’t Mega Man’s only foray into a non-Japanese comic. Brazil published a Mega Man comic as well. The Brazilian Mega Man comic was, as the kids say, batshit insane.

I’ve never met any of the staff at Capcom’s licensing department, but I have a mental picture of how this particular proposal went down. Some key member was sprawled on the couch like Homer Simpson, heavy-lidded in front of the television, gut dusted with chip crumbs. A hopeful Brazilian artist timidly approached the bloated figure and asked, “Capcom, can I–” and Capcom dismissively mumbled “Yeah, yeah.”

It’s likely Capcom still scrambles to hide ”That comic” from Keiji Inafune—unless someone on staff thought up a good defence for Roll’s origin in the comic, which involved a child sex slave ring.

The “Novas Aventuras De Mega Man” had all the traits of a fan project gone completely mad, but it was technically as official as the Dreamwave comic, the Ruby-Spears cartoon (from which the Novas Aventuras De Mega Man drew liberally), and the wonderful Megamix manga put together by Hitoshi Ariga. The series’ large stable of writers and artists had no qualms about stripping Roll naked at the drop of a hat, or breaking the fourth wall in order to make excuses whenever their work became indisputably half-assed. They even brought in a female character, “Princess,” to look the “gringos” in the eye and tell them that the golden age of Brazilian comics had finally begun (uh, well, “Cybersix” was a pretty cool start if you ask me). But all that was downright normal next to certain story events.

For instance, the Mega Man and Mega Man X timelines crossed over, a favoured plot device for twelve-year-olds digesting a pound of cotton candy. But even fanboys usually have the sense to use the names Inafune gave his characters. Sure, there’s a lot of squalling over whether or not Wily’s robot should be “Bass” or “Forte,” but no one decides to change Bass’ name to “Slasher” just because it sounds cooler. No one except for the Novas Aventuras De Mega Man, of course.

The comic even featured its own line of Reploid precursors, which was named “Neo-Mavericks.” Chronologically, this line was created long before Sigma’s development and descent into the cuckoo’s nest, but the comic’s creators just thought the term “Maverick” sounded really cool, and to hell with its definition. Imagine building and naming a line of robots called “Mavericks.” I know humans are good at unconsciously asking for trouble, but dang.

The mostly-unexplained timeline crossover meant Mega Man and Roll often fought alongside X and Zero. X had a thing for Roll. No, he really, really wanted to bang her and was not shy with the “plug and play” metaphors. We’re not even going to start up about whether or not robots can have sex; the thought of X committing acts of incest with his (way) older sister is plenty to make me slit my eyes in disapproval.

Maybe poor X just couldn’t deny his darker urges because Roll’s clothes seemed incapable of staying on for more than one panel at a time. My comic history is a little spotty, but I can’t think of another instance of a female character whose nakedness is rampant enough to make a newborn baby blush. Going back to robots and sex (because I know you totally want to go there), the first issue of the Novas Aventuras De Mega Man contained an author’s note that hints Roll has the technology, so to speak, to get pregnant—and Mega Man has the goods to do the deed.

I’m not doing the comic justice by just jawing about it, so I cordially invite you to check out every issue, scanned and summarised in English for your…enjoyment. Come one, come all, and see what happens when oversexed writers and artists are allowed to apply every one of their fantasies to a property meant for children.

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The user who uploaded the video wrote, “You can obviously tell which kid is Bale.” Hint: there are also two girls and a black boy. Try to pick out Bale. It’s tricky!

I have to admit something to the world. I loved the Pac-Man cereal. In the ’80s, breakfast cereals made no attempt whatsoever to be healthy, but instead concentrated all of their powers into deliciousness. Everything was corn, sugar, and marshmallows. The second milk touched our morning bowl of golden crispiness, everything melted down into a corn syrupy sludge. The Soggies that plagued Captain Crunch weren’t just an over-exaggerated cartoon goonie drawn up by some imaginative artist: every ’80s child had made their goopy acquaintance every morning.

And then we got fat.

Except for Christian Bale, obviously. He’s waiting to tell you all about new Ms Pac-Man marshmallows after the jump.

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