Goodbye, From All of Me to All of You

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.

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New Mega Man 2.5D Trailer: This Thing Better Be Real

A few months ago, graphic designer Peter Sjöstrand uploaded a creation to YouTube that threw the familiar world of Mega Man into a crazy, plane-switching, 2.5D experiment. Gamers gasped, gaped, and drooled, but this little project was nothing more than a non-interactive animation, and a tantalizing look at what some elite programming skills could bring to the world of The Blue Bomber.

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.

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Video Games: Keeping My Neck Unbroken Since 1982

As part of GameFly’s new “surprise you by sending the ninth game in your queue” business plan, I’ve been playing a lot of EA’s skate. I’ve never really liked skateboarding games in the past, and even the venerable Tony Hawk series managed to slip past me. But there’s just something about skate’s physics and seemingly unorthodox controls that make it so damned satisfying to pull off a complicated trick; it really feels like you–and not the controller–are the one who’s doing all the work. Despite its casual content, skate has a strange zen-like quality that’s hard to find in a video game.

Of course, if I even attempted anything from skate in real life, I’d be eating through a tube for the rest of my life–so I’m grateful that Electronic Arts has provided a way to live out my skateboarding fantasies without so much as a fractured tibia on my part. For as much as people like to complain that video games keep kids fat and inside, they also allow the uncoordinated–and even the disabled–to do things that would end up getting them smeared across the asphalt in real life.

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Summer Backlog Gaming

If you’re a college boy like me–though I hope to God you haven’t been a college boy as long as I have–then you know summer is the time when you go out and get a dehumanizing job and forget all of the information you paid thousands of dollars to learn during the previous months. Since the world has made it clear by this point that it doesn’t want me to have a job (mostly through silence), I’ve decided to spend the entirety of the next three months inside my apartment with the money and games I’ve been hoarding throughout the year, only emerging at night to feed on the living. That last thing is mainly for when I get bored.

So allow me to give you a tour of what’s on my agenda for the Summer of 2009. Be aware that you will be asked to share your own backlogs, and that there will also be a brief intermission with free orange drink, time permitting.

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GameSpite Quarterly: Keeping Print on Life Support

Print’s had a rough couple of years–at least the [games journalism/enthusiast press/whatever the hell you want to call it] side of print. Since EGM capsized in January, there hasn’t been much light at the end of the tunnel, especially for folks who grew up with gaming magazines and planned on writing about video games for a living one day. Even on the online side of things, positions are drying up, wages are going down, and soon bloggers like me will have no choice but to be paid with promotional DVDs and key chains. And until grocery stores start taking such items in exchange for food products, giving up on the games writing gig is starting to sound more and more sensible.

But if there is hope, it lies with GameSpite Quarterly.

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The 61FPS Review: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time

Echoes of Time, Square-Enix’s latest entry into their Crystal Chronicles franchise, continues the unique multiplayer route pioneered by the 2004 GameCube game; but this time around, the focus is on a wireless cross-platform experience between the Wii and the DS instead of multiple Game Boy Advances tethered to a console by link cables. 61FPS bloggers Amber Ahlborn and Bob Mackey took a stab at playing this action RPG online together for the purposes of this review, and found that the Wii’s online capabilities (or lack thereof) hampered what would have been an otherwise great experience.

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Read the Secret History of The Curse of Monkey Island

While Grim Fandago was a fantastic game, I consider The Curse of Monkey Island to be the point-and-click PC adventure genre’s swan song–possibly due to all of the pointing and clicking the game makes you do. With this third installment in the Monkey Island series, everything LucasArts was famous for (in those days) came together in one amazing package; Curse was absolutely loaded with the amazing art, music, voice acting, characters and jokes that made the developer so beloved, but in a new, high-fidelity presentation.

Unfortunately, after The Curse of Monkey Island, 2D had become passé–if you don’t remember, these were the days when 50% of any 400-page PC Gamer issue were devoted to ads for video cards that would become obsolete by the next issue. LucasArts made the best of a bad situation with the geometrically simplistic art style of Grim Fandango, but they’d never again achieve the level of 2D splendor on display in Curse.

It’s been a good 13 years since The Curse of Monkey Island hit store shelves, and it’s just as entertaining now as it was back in the mid-90s. And what better way to celebrate the artistic achievements of this awesome game than with an equally awesome retropective from the folks over at the International House of Mojo? They might have outdone themselves this time around.

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Drunk Japanese Man Plays Super Mario Land, Millions Entertained

I have to thank my friends over at the GameSpite forums for pointing me in the direction of the following video. Until a few minutes ago, my day has been boring, errand-filled, and–like every minute of my life–clouded with hatred of Super Mario Land. Then, I watched an exuberant and possibly drunk Japanese man narrate his attempts at the game in delightfully broken English, and I can say my life is now a little brighter. I’m not sure what kind of substances have to be ingested or inhaled to bust out a “Woo!” or “Oh yeah!” every ten seconds while playing this primitive platformer, but I’m thinking about scouring my local dark alleys tonight for a supplier.

Video after the cut.

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Upcoming Weezer Chiptune Tribute Will Be Awesome

If you grew up in the 90s, then it’s likely that you’re fond of Weezer: their music was by nerds and for nerds–and odds are, you were a pretty big nerd. (Don’t worry, we all were.) So, what with Weezer’s anthems of teenage awkwardness, it’s only natural for their music to have another layer of dorkiness gently poured over it like warm maple syrup. This is where Weezer: The 8-Bit Album comes in. Don’t act like you didn’t see it coming.

This upcoming album features some of the chiptune scene’s brightest stars taking on Weezer’s best tunes–and a few from their 2000s albums. Straight from the project’s blog, here’s the album’s final track listing, along with the songs’ respective remixers:

1. Island In The Sun (Belmont’s Revisal) - videogame orchestra
2. Holiday - Anamanaguchi
3. El Scorcho - Tugboat
4. The World Has Turned And Left Me Here - Bit Shifter
5. You Won’t Get With Me Tonight - PDF Format
6. Hash Pipe - seal of quality
7. In The Garage - OxygenStar
8. You Gave Your Love To Me Softly - : (
9. We Are All On Drugs - Rabato
10. Jamie - Unicorn Dream Attack
11. Come To My Pod - Mahamajama
12. Why Bother? - I Fight Dragons
13. Buddy Holly - nordloef
14. I Do - arcadecoma.

Check out a song preview from Weezer: The 8-Bit Album after the cut.

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Watch the Evolution of Little Mac’s Foes

Now that Punch-Out’s been available for a few days,  most of you have already spent hours upon hours [Please add your own joke about beating up ethnic stereotypes here. I think all of them have been made.]. And if you’re old enough, it’s likely you’re currently suffering from pangs of late 80’s nostalgia and the desire to put on a day-glo t-shirt and acid wash jeans; after all, Punch-Out’s main goal is to uppercut you right in the childhood (which is far less dirty than it sounds).

But how accurate are your crusty, old memories? Could this new installment in Nintendo’s boxing game possibly be less faithful as everyone claims? If you have such questions, I recommend you turn to the following video, created by 1UP user doublespy, which features side-by-side video comparisons of Little Mac’s pug-ugly opponents. Super Macho Man is holding up pretty good for someone who must be in his late 90s.

Video after the cut.

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