Screen Test: Ni no Kuni: The Another World
Level-5 and Studio Ghibli are making a DS RPG together. This is kind of a big deal.
Level-5 developed the Dark Cloud and Rouge Galaxy games, as well as the past two Dragon Quests, soccer RPG Inazuma Eleven and the beloved Professor Layton series. Studio Ghibli are the animation studio behind anime classics My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle (as well as my personal favorite, Porco Rosso). Their first (of hopefully many) project together is the DS RPG Ni no Kuni: The Another World. Continue reading »
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Tags: anime, dark cloud, derrick sanskrit, dragon quest, howl's moving castle, inazuma eleven, level-5, my neighbor totoro, ni no kuni, nintendo ds, porco rosso, princess mononoke, professor layton, rogue galaxy, rpg, screen test, spirited away, studio ghibli, the another world
The Blatant Sexism of Cooking Mama and Science Papa
When VGCats’ Scott Ramsoomir drew the above strip back in February 2008, I laughed. Imagining Shigeru Miyamoto as a violent misogynist is amusing, what can I say. When Cooking Mama Ltd. announced that they were developing Gardening Mama just half a year later, the strip got a bit less funny. Then when they announced Crafting Mama in March, it got troubling. On April 21st, when Majesco filed a trademark for Babysitting Mama, it all got downright offensive. Given the popularity and growing familiarity of the Mama franchise, why not develop casual minigame collections on the Wii and DS based around activities that aren’t so explicitly gendered?
Now, Activision’s compounding the problem with their announcement of Science Papa, a rip-off of Cooking Mama Ltd’s minigame formula so explicit that it flat out lifts the brand name.
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Tags: activision, babysitting mama, cooking mama, cooking mama ltd, crafting mama, gardening mama, john constantine, lara croft, Majesco, marcus fenix, nintendo, nintendo ds, science papa, taito, vgcats, wii
Where are my M-Rated Handheld Games?
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is among the best handheld games ever made. For one thing, it’s a delight to play, with its incredible driving mechanics and perfectly chosen touch-based minigames. It also doesn’t pull any punches. It’s gory, and it’s loaded with proscribed drugs and dildos.
In other words it’s a GTA, but something about this one feels…naughtier. Playing it on the train I’m always wondering if the person next to me is sitting aghast as I take “that thing that girl from Friends learns with on the TV” and pervert it with gang wars and heroin empires.
I think that’s great, and I want more of it. So I crunched some numbers to see if things were looking good for me. And guess what? They’re not.
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Tags: chinatown wars, esrb, grand theft auto, joe keiser, m-rated, manhunt 2, nintendo ds, psp, rated m for mature
Trailer Review: SaGa 2: Goddess of Destiny
The Nintendo DS can make some fetching three-dimensional games. Even a launch title like the Super Mario 64 remake showed that the double-screened wonder could pump-out polygons better than the Playstation and Nintendo 64. It may not be up to Dreamcast standards, but the system can still make some mighty fine looking games. Square-Enix and their stable of developers, both in-house and freelance, have been particularly good at making gorgeous, elegant three-dimensional DS games. Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker, Final Fantasy III and IV are stunners that put the likes of Nintendo’s own Chibi Robo: Park Patrol to shame. This new DS remake of SaGa 2 is looking like their finest work yet.
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Tags: chibi-robo, dragon quest ix, dragon quest monsters, dragon quest monsters joker, Final Fantasy, final fantasy iii, final fantasy iv, final fantasy legend 2, john constantine, nintendo, nintendo ds, saga 2, Square Enix, super mario 64, trailer review
Whatcha Learning: Francais With My French Coach
Last year, I decided to give Ubisoft’s My French Coach a try. Of course, the second I resolved to buy it, a tempest swept every copy of the Nintendo DS’ French tutor off the store shelves. I was therefore elated to find a used copy at a nearby game store. I don’t even care that I was charged full price for someone else’s gently-used digital dictionary.
My father knows/understands four languages. My father’s father is fluent in seven. I’ve always been a little ashamed of the fact that I’m only semi-coherent in English, even though I did very well in my high school French courses. My grade ten French teacher sucked all the fun out of learning the language. Yes, there was fun to be had—like stuffing the remains of a ham and cheese sandwich in my grade nine French teacher’s coffee thermos. I chickened out, and dropped the language. If I do well with My French Coach, however, I might look into furthering my French superpowers.
Why the sudden resolve to learn the language of love? Last March, I visited Ubisoft in Montreal to write-up a preview of Shaun White’s Snowboarding, and in those brief 24 hours, I felt a lot of my French vocab come flying back to me. I realised that you can never entirely forget a language, but if you’re not immersed in the environment or you don’t otherwise use it, it will lay dormant. Like tuberculosis.
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Tags: my french coach, nadia oxford, nintendo ds, ubisoft
The 61FPS Interview: Victor Ireland of Gaijin Works and Working Designs, part 2
In the second part of our interview, Victor Ireland talks the evolution of the JRPG, writing in videogames, the loss of identity in Japanese videogames, and some of his greatest hits.
As someone who’s been steeped in JRPGs for their whole career, where do you see the genre going? Popular opinion these days is that the entire genre is stagnating, about to die off.
VI: I completely agree that it’s stagnant. The stereotypical JRPG has become the stereotypical JRPG. There are so many clichés, the story and writing are so vanilla that it’s just not fun to play anymore. That’s why personality and character are so important. JRPGs love big twists, they love to stack twists on twists. If you have these cardboard characters that you don’t care about, then when you have the big twist, it doesn’t matter. You need to enjoy the characters, to identify with them. For an American script, that identification has to come one-hundred percent from witty banter, back and forth, character background that isn’t explicit exposition. Care and craft in characters is what’s missing. Technically they’re great, they’re beautiful games. Tales of Vesperia was great. I loved the look of it. The story failed though. I just didn’t care about the characters.
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Tags: 61fps interview, alundra, bill clinton, cosmic fantasy, elder scrolls, growlanser, Hudson, john constantine, jrpg, lunar, lunar 2, Miami law, nintendo ds, oblivion, phantasy star portable, rpg, super mario sunshine, tales of vesperia, victor Ireland
The 61FPS Interview: Victor Ireland of Gaijin Works and Working Designs, part 1
Victor Ireland is a peculiar figure in the grand history of videogames. Throughout the 1990s, he was a virtual Marco Polo, bringing distinctly Eastern artifacts to the West through his publishing house Working Designs. Ireland succeeded where Nintendo, Sega, and so many others failed; he brought the JRPG to America. Since Working Designs dissolved in 2005, the devoted cult of Lunar, Growlanser, and Alundra fans have been waiting with baited breath to hear what Ireland’s new localization house, Gaijinworks, was up to. Their first game, the Hudson-developed crime adventure Miami Law, is out in June. In the first part of 61FPS’ interview with Victor Ireland, we discuss Gaijinworks’ inheritance of the Working Designs legacy and how bringing Japanese software to the west is a whole new game.
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Tags: 61fps interview, alundra, bill clinton, cosmic fantasy, elder scrolls, growlanser, Hudson, john constantine, jrpg, lunar, lunar 2, Miami law, nintendo ds, oblivion, phantasy star portable, rpg, super mario sunshine, tales of vesperia, victor Ireland
Whatcha Playing: Earth Day Edition
April 22nd, the day we all take off from work and gather at our local mosques and synagogues to solemnly pay respects to our mother Earth on the anniversary of her creation… or something. So do your part and take your game time today away from blasting zombies and chainsawing aliens in half, instead playing games all about helping mother Earth. Here are the four games that I’m playing for Earth Day:
Chibi-Robo: Park Patrol for Nintendo DS
Rather than cleaning up a house and helping with domestic troubles, this Chibi-Robo has been tasked with turning a barren field of sand into a lush flourishing public park. Like SimCity, you get to design your own world, laying paths and streams, rocks and hills, even benches, fountains, clock towers, statues, and mini-games to your liking. The nicer your park, the more visitors it gets each day. You also have to befriend local toys (including Molly Mapletree, seen above) to help you build up your park and battle smoglings who aim to pollute all the beautiful nature you’ve brought to the park, but the majority of gameplay is planting flowers. It’s actually a lot more fun than it sounds, thanks to the charm and playfulness found in all Skip-developed Nintendo games. Continue reading »
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Tags: bonsai barber, chibi-robo, derrick sanskrit, earth, eden, flower, nintendo ds, pixeljunk, pixeljunk eden, playstation 3, psn, skip, whatcha playing, wii, wiiware
John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself. 
Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.
Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.
Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines.
Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.
Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.
Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.
