Archive for: October, 2010

I was reminded earlier this week that Namco is releasing a new Pac-Man Championship Edition. I don’t know if you’ve ever played Pac-Man Championship Edition, but it is, without a doubt, one of the Best Games Of All Time. All time! In fact, I just played 10 “one more game” games in a row, just to see if I could crack my high score (I did) and see if I could place better than 15,000th on the Xbox Live Leaderboards.

That said, the number of people on my friends list who do apparently do not have Pac-Man Championship Edition is distressingly low. Out of 30 or so, only four other Xbox friends have it. Shameful! Do not let Pac-Man Championship Edition DX, the sequel, pass you by!

For one thing, it introduces new ghost types. Green ghosts, the sleepiest of ghosts and the ethereal dot eater eater who hates to be woken up with a wakka-wakka, are the new shit. They’re scattered around the playfield and form this massive train of bug-eyed, Pac-Man hating specters, turning Pac-Man CE DX into a modern day Snake. Better still, it has Pac-Mania mode!

Buy Pac-Man Championship Edition DX if you like things that smart people like.

Looks like Blizzard saved the best for last, announcing the class that I’ll be playing when Diablo III ships, sometime in the year 20XX. The Demon Hunter’s ranged attacks look right up my alley, plus she’s called the Demon Hunter. While Monk seems close to what I’m looking for out of a Diablo class, monks should be making beer. There’s no Paladin equivalent, it seems, in D3. Unfortunate, because I’m a sucker for passive spells, but I played the original Diablo as a Rogue, so this seems like a good fit.

Mike Fahey from Kotaku’s hands-on experience with the Demon Hunter only reinforces that opinion. I wish *I* was at BlizzCon playing Diablo III…

Sadly, we’re settling for dramatic trailers and gameplay sneak peeks for now…

Our first Game Night with Giant Robot (and Attract Mode and The UGTL!) was a resounding success, in part thanks to two great video games. Sure the hard work of everyone at GR2, gr/eats, Friends of Meat Bun, Adam Robezzoli, and Eric Nakamura played a huge part in making Game Night 3 a blast, but we have to give it up for two highly addictive, crowd-pleasing games.

Super Meat Boy (Xbox Live Arcade)

Like N+, only less prone to drive players completely insane, Super Meat Boy is pure platforming perfection. Guide the bloody…err, ketchup-leaking Meat Boy through dozens (hundreds?) of levels filled with deadly saw blades, meat-seeking missiles and insta-kill mountains of salt in an effort to save his girlfriend, Bandage Girl, from the evil Dr. Fetus.

Super Meat Boy draws a hardcore crowd, the type that loves watching a cycle of grisly deaths, but roars with delight when someone completes its incredibly challenging levels. Here’s some extended Super Meat Boy gameplay video that better shows off the wall-jumping, bandage-getting action!

Super Meat Boy is out on Xbox Live Arcade on October 20, coming to PC, Mac and WiiWare in November.

The game that drew bigger crowds, however, was a good ten years old.

The Typing of the Dead (Sega Dreamcast)

If you’ve never had the pleasure of playing the most absurd edutational typing game ever, it’s essentially SEGA’s light gun shooter The House of the Dead 2 with typing controls slapped on. Combining intense typing action with the hilariously awful voice acting of THotD2 makes for a real crowd pleaser — mostly because, well, who doesn’t know how to control a keyboard?

While most of the phrases you’ll need to type include seemingly random strings — “Rental underwear,” “Woman diver,” “Enormous hair” — some typing challenges are more intense. You’ll need to answer questions by typing or re-type the deep inner thoughts of someone who worked in SEGA localization in the early 2000s. Everyone should own a copy of The Typing of the Dead. If only SEGA made it a little easier…

To see what you’re missing out on, watch this clip.

Saturday, October 16 at GR2 in Los Angeles, Meat Bun will be co-hosting Game Night 3, an outdoor party filled with video games, music and delicious pork buns, with Giant Robot and Attract Mode. We’ll be playing Super Street Fighter IV, Super Meat Boy and other games with Super in the title on screens large and small, while freshly prepared snacks from the nearby gr/eats are scarfed down for extra health.

We’ll also be offering one of our newest designs, Osu! Giant Robot, with proceeds from the sales of our shirt going to help support Giant Robot. We’ll also have long out of print designs and new stuff for sale at Giant Robot, Meat Bun’s first retail location. Don’t miss it!

Game Night 3 runs from 7 to 10pm on October 16 at:

Giant Robot Los Angeles (GR2)
2062 Sawtelle Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA

OSU!!!

If you want to see a new Darkstalkers game — Which would be Darkstalkers IV? Maybe? The game’s numbering system is so confusing! — you better let Street Fighter producer Yoshinori Ono know right now. The perpetually beaming Ono says that to make his “ultimate dream, Darkstalkers” he’s going to need a million requests for a sequel to the horror fighting game before the Big Boss, Keiji Inafune, will say yes.

How many does he have so far? “We’ve got 5000.”

As Darkstalkers fans, we’re going to have to get behind this. Please join us; it’s been more than a decade since Vampire Savior. The highly abused Morrigan sprite from Darkstalkers needs to be finally, officialy put to rest. Plus, who isn’t at least curious to see how Capcom will pull off Anakaris and Hsien-ko in 3D? So, please, get behind Ono and pledge your support via Twitter!

(Top artwork by the talented Jace “wakkawa” Wallace.)