Posts Filed Under: wtf

The word “extreme” has forever been tainted in my mind.  Instead of the excitement marketing departments hope to conjure up by its usage, I prepare myself for an experience devoid of any subtlety.

While not actually using the term “extreme” yet, Dragon Age: Origins might as well.  BioWare is definitely aiming its sites firmly on the “Xtreme” crowd.   But at the same time, they are trying to call it the ‘spiritual successor’ to the Baldur’s Gate series.  That’s hard to swallow.  I’ve played Baldur’s Gate, and Baldur’s Gate II, and have just finished Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the the Betrayer.  That’s days of game play right there.  All excellent.  Never once did I hear anything remotely Marilyn Mason-like in any of the sound tracks.  Nor was I exposed to the extreme levels of gore I witnessed in the trailer or on the dragonage.bioware.com website.

But, alas, this is the new shit!  Prepare for tribal tattoos and plate mail-clad warriors with corn rows!   From the trailer, it’s looking like Dragon Age is more a spiritual successor to Doom 3 than anything else.  But instead of everyone’s favorite puffy space marines, you get outcasts from The Witcher.  And like The Witcher, its been revealed this week that DA:O is working the titillation angle as well.  Yay.

I want subtlety reintroduced into game development, especially in D&D style games.  I want to fumble with lock-picking and learning cantrips.  I want to feel like I stepped into carefully crafted sets like those of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  I want there to be a visual difference between a first level spell and a ninth.  And I want care in the story telling and character development like NWN2:MotB did with Kaelyn the Dove, or Oblivion did with the Dark Brotherhood line of quests.  Then we can start passing around the title of spiritual successor.  Until then, hold the Marilyn Manson and the Extreme Chilli Heatwave flavoring.  I’m feeling a little sick.

We have seen some blatant rip-offs in our time (like when Sony Bravia pilfered directly from our friends Kozy-n-Dan), but this is right up there.  It appears Nine West and New Balance have teamed up to shamelessly steal from one of our favorite Japanese artists, Takashi Murakami.  Not only do they pluck his signature eyeball, there’s a sub-par animation explaining the birth of their new mascot, NWBI.

But it gets better, Nine West and New Balance even go so far as to create a video of the “designers” thinking up the concept, and then name the shoe the same name as one of Murakami’s most famous characters, Kiki!

Oh, the shame.  But Murakami is still untouchable.  There is nothing that could water down his art.  Seeing this piece up close at the MOCA was a sight I won’t soon forget.

It’s “super cuts” like Street Fighter Stupidity HD Remix that make me so pleased that I wasn’t emotionally invested in Street Fighter II and knew that USA was running a cartoon based on the series. I’d watched (and loved) some loathsome half-hour toy commercial cartoons in the eighties (MASK, Silverhawks, C.O.P.S., G.I. Joe, etc.) but I’d also watched a lot of Robotech, making me a young animation snob. In hindsight, most of what I liked was pretty rotten stuff.

But this…

Today Oxygen Games released a rather disturbing press release, announcing their new game for the Wii, DS, and personal computer entitled Hysteria Hospital: Emergency Ward.

In addition to it’s “Endless Mode” as seen above, the warning went on to explain, “Hysteria Hospital may cause your blood pressure to shoot sky high” and “may cause you to become over excited and turn you into a bundle of nerves!”

Luckily they make a cream for that.

With the holiday travel obligations behind me, it’s nice to be back at Home.

The random default avatar I was furnished with for the PS3 Home beta was a cute female with brown hair and freckles, and bore an uncanny resemblance to my wife, so I stuck with it. Oh, the hilarity that choice has brought me! This YouTube clip about sums up every time I log in (but with a twist):

Sony has got some things right with Home. I think it’s pretty sharp looking, and could be community-building platform Sony has been hoping for. But it also has done some things horribly wrong. Waiting in virtual lines for bowling or while in the arcade? Seriously?

At least its virtual denizens will be protected from flying phallus attacks. May we be so lucky in RL.

Wait, what?

Is there seriously a game named SPACE DEADBEEF?  The answer is yes, and it’s excellent.  It is created by Yuji Yasuhara.  Yuji worked with the folks over at Polyphony Digital on a sleeper hit called Gran Tursimo.  But according to an 2006 interview with GameAxis, “Yuji Yasuhara’s favorite genre is not driving games, but shooters.”

So what do we have here?  An amazing little side-scrolling shooter for the iPhone, reminiscent of R-Type, U.N. Squadron, or Darius.  And you can’t beat the price.  For exactly zero dollars, you can download and be playing this gem of a game.  More exciting than that is its refreshing control scheme.  You target and maneuver the ship by touch.  Missiles will lock on to the hostile target of your choice, and fire upon release of your finger.  What results is a beautiful volley of contrails raining destruction.  But what goes around, comes around.  One hit, and you are toast.

This game has a modern, clean aesthetic fitting to its Gran Tursimo lineage.  I imagine SPACE DEADBEEF also steals a page from the GT playbook in it being a prologue to a future, more robust game, hopefully with tilt control and power-ups.