Here Comes the Sun: The Three Es

I’m getting on a plane at 7:30am on Sunday morning and flying to Los Angeles for the first time in my life. To be honest, I’m a little nervous. I used to travel quite a bit when I was younger but haven’t in some time. Life in New York tends to work in one of two ways. Either you’re a jet setter, one of those people that have some kind of crazy glamorous job that sends them all over the world for business and pleasure or you’re city bound. Make no mistake, it’s hard to get out of this place even just for a day. My favorite joke is that even if you walk over one of the bridges or through the tunnels, there’s going to be some gruff civil servant demanding two dollars to cross the border beyond the city limits. It gets comfortable though. Sometimes the city is a big enough world on its own. I don’t know what to expect from LA other than for it to be hot as hell, for the food to be expensive, and for the people to be a whole lot blonder.

Then there’s E3.

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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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Is the Wii Stagnating Next to the DS?

When I was young, I received a curious dual-screen Game and Watch knockoff for Christmas. It was a vertical platforming game set on a pirate ship. Conditions for victory involved the finding and collecting of treasure: if the player slipped up and the pirate fell into the water, sharks would strip off the scurvy dog’s clothes. This particular death animation included a glimpse of the dead pirate’s cartoon testicles, bristling with stubble.

When Nintendo first revealed the DS, all I could think about was a naked pirate being eaten by sharks. I was not enthusiastic about the future of handheld gaming.

History proved me wrong. Once developers stopped feeling obligated to turn every game into Pointless Adventures in Stylus Scribbling (thanks for raising my blood pressure forever, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow), we received our Elite Beat Agents and our Hotel Dusk and other gems that went above and beyond the call of Fun thanks to clever implementation of the Nintendo DS’ stylus.

When Nintendo announced the DSi, people scoffed at the built-in camera. It looks like the DSi’s little cyclops eye might already have a place in gameplay, though: A Different Game in Sweden has begun an “augmented” version of Ghostwire, an acclaimed cellphone game that lets players use their built-in cameras to find and talk to “ghosts.” By communicating with the dead and solving their riddles, you can bring them peace.

This could be the first of many original games to make use of the DSi’s hardware. It’s an exciting prospect, but it’s also made me wonder why the DS and DSi have successfully inspired developers, while innovation on the Wii remains stagnant.

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PiCTOBiTS: The First Must-Have DSiWare

I have to admit, since I bought my new DSi, I’ve been a bit underwhelmed by Nintendo’s weekly downloadable software offerings for their new-ish portable system. Using the 1000 points they’d generously given me, I could only find a single game I wanted from the DSi Store: Bird and Beans, which was mildly distracting and well worth its two dollar price tag. Still, to justify me dropping an extra $40 on an upgraded DS, Nintendo would have to do a lot more than repurpose portions of six year-old Wario Ware games. Shovelware alone wasn’t going to cut it; I wanted to see something… interesting.

Thankfully, this week’s release of PiCTOBiTS fits that adjective to a T.

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Super Team Fortress Brawl?

If it wasn’t for Garry’s Mod, our lives would be a lot emptier–meaning we’d have far fewer pictures of Half Life’s G-Man making stupid faces. But sometimes, people dare to dream of doing the unexpected with Garry’s Mod; people like YouTube user AyesDyef, who may officially be the coolest dude on the Internet today. This plucky Team Fortress 2 fan combined his Valve fanboyism with his love of the original Super Smash Bros. to produce a version of the N64 fighter’s intro that features all of the lovable, well-armed characters shown above. The results are pretty stunning.

Video(s) after the cut.

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WTFriday: The Punch-Out Rap

There’s nothing like an early start to a Friday. The Wii remake of Punch-Out!! will be making its long-awaited debut (return?) next week, and I figured a fan rap might help ease you into the mood. Or scare you off entirely.

Personally, I am looking very forward to the game, rap or no rap. It just seems like a lot of familiar, goofy fun, and I’m always up for familiar, goofy fun. I spent an entire summer working on the original Punch-Out!!, though I never did reach Mike Tyson. I thought, “I guess I’m just not good enough,” but I realise now that I was just too scared to meet him. I’m doing okay considering how few members of the human race have winked at me and flexed their biceps, and I think I will endure without seeing Mike Tyson’s failure taunt.

Video after the jump.

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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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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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Punch-Out Commercial Takes Little Mac Into Reality

I may have my doubts about Nintendo’s newest take on Punch-Out, but one thing I can’t deny is how well this newest installment of the franchise taps into my treasured old-school Nintendo memories. Being ancient enough to have thoroughly enjoyed the last game 20 years ago means that anything remotely Punch-Out-related instantly appeals to my nostalgia-addled brain; so, obviously, when I saw Nintendo’s real-life reimagining of Little Mac and Doc Louis in their newest commercial for the game, I couldn’t stop laughing like a jackass.

Video after the cut.

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Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver: Take Me Back to Johto

I’m not yet sure how I feel about the re-release of Pokemon Silver and Gold for the DS. I mean, I’ll be totally honest with you, here—I want a Lugia. And I don’t think I’ll have any moral objections about kneecapping kids to be first in line.

At first, I was kind of grossed out that Nintendo would be re-releasing the games “so soon,” even though both are getting significant revamps. Then I read that “HeartGold” and “SoulSilver” will also serve as tributes to the ten-year-old games. My God. My God. Just how old am I?

In my heart(Gold), I know all my angst and denial is moot. Pokemon Gold and Silver are two games that are more than worthy of modern updates. Their depth is astounding, for Game Boy games. I remember being blown away by the very concept of time-based gameplay, which let you search for and capture nocturnal Pokemon.

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