In the third episode of the Game-Vector we discuss the newly released Bourne Conspiracy demo, revisit the Wii’s upcoming foray into original downloadable content and reveal the secret of why episode #3 is so bloody short.
Be sure to send any question you’d like us to read and answer on the air to gamevectorpodcast@gmail.com and comment here on the shownotes.
[Download]
Ok… so I’m on vacation and I brought along a slew of games for the DS that I’ve been meaning to get to. Among this multitude is the critically acclaimed The World Ends with you. A J-Pop infused jaunt through the world of an angsty teen and his bubbly female accomplice. Now it’s been a while since I last cracked an RPG, mainly thanks to being fed up with horrible (-ly predictable) plots and voice acting that would offend the ears of even the most die hard soaps addict. When I first heard of this game I pegged it in the aforementioned mind-numbing category but the wide acclaim for this game drove me to pick it up and dust off my DS. I’m only two hours in and while the story isn’t quite as mold breaking as I’d hoped it’s still a great start to what I hope will be a fun gaming experience. That being said… there is one small plot twist that nearly made me throw the game card out the third story balcony of the condo I’m currently inhabiting… We find out that the main character… has amnesia… yes that dreaded condition that seems to afflict over 50% of all central characters in RPGs Japanese and otherwise. Hell… even Link has had to deal with his share of amnesiac fairies. While this hasn’t ruined the game totally for me it just makes me wonder if these writers are incapable of using a storyline that doesn’t involve somebody loosing their memories and having to spend the rest of the god forsaken game trying to figure out just the hell they are. Why don’t they try a new affliction, like say… Micropsia (no I’m not going to tell you what it is, go look it up).
We’re back in episode 2 of the Game-Vector Podcast. This week we discuss the controversial GTA IV and Nintendo’s failings in the online gaming scene.
Make sure to comment here on the show notes and send in your questions for us to read and answer on the air to gamevectorpodcast@gmail.com.
Welcome to the first episode of the Game-Vector podcast. I am joined by my co-host Barry Blair in the first romp through the audio recording world either of us have ever taken (I say this in explanation not excuse). We explore the news of the previous week, riff on the topics, wander off on to long winded explorations of the dark and twisted paths of the gaming world and experience all the perils and frustrations of recording with Skype. Make sure to comment here on the show notes and send in your questions for us to read and answer on the air to gamevectorpodcast@gmail.com.
This first episode isn’t exactly stellar quality but that’s because we haven’t exactly figured out the best way to go about recording this thing. Episode 2 (Already recorded and in the final stages of editing) is only slightly better but for #3 (Recording on Wednesday) we’re going with a radically new method that experimentation has shown to yield a much higher quality podcast. You can actually hear some of it in the closing remarks of this podcast because we had to rerecord the ending due to file corruption.
While perusing the shelves of a local retailer that shall remain unnamed I finally broke down and bought a classic controller for my Wii. I’ve been meaning to since launch day and have just never seemed to get around to it. However, with my purchase of Super Smash Bros. Brawl I’ve become increasingly curious as to the merits of using the classic controler in place of my beloved wavebird. So I get home, fire up SSMBB and play around with the new controller for a bit, during this brief session I unlocked one of the “Masterpiece” games. I vaugely remembered hearing about these virtual console demos that came bundled inside of the game but had never tried any of them out. I decide to try out Star Fox (just for a nostalgia trip), underneath the link to the demo in the Masterpieces menu there’s the numerals “1:30″. “Wow, I get a whole hour and a half with the game, that’s awesome!” I exclaim and joyfully begin a sojourn back into the heady days of my childhood, fond memories of the many hours I’ve spent on this very game coming back as I navigate the intro screen. Then… approximately one minute and thirty seconds into the first level a jolly little messages pops up informing me that my demo is over and promptly boots me back to the masterpiece selection screen… I really wanted this generation to be one where I would proudly stand up for Nintendo but that just hasn’t happened and Nintendo’s apparent inability to grasp the concept of a demo is just another reason for this once devoted fanboy to buy a 360.
With Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Kart Wii being unleashed on the ravening hoard of Nintendo fanboys we’re (yes I include myself in that frothing mass) facing something of a drought for the rest of 2008. Unless Nintendo breaks out something spectacular at E3 ‘08 the outlook is a bleak one of cheap ports and shovelware. There is, however, some ray of hope… while Nintendo has been perfectly content to give us the dubious privilege of downloading old games that we’ve already played countless times before we’re finally getting some original downloadable content via WiiWare and one game in particular has caught the public eye — Lostwinds.
Reminiscent of the Wind Waker in style and somewhat in theme Lostwinds follows the characters Toku, a young boy with an exceptionally large head, and Enril, a wind spirit. In a sort of single player co-op you use Enril’s power over the wind (controlled by pointing the Wiimote) to aid Toku in traversing the cursed land with strategic gusts.The game looks great on the system which can be partially attributed to the art style. Games with a more stylized look definitely work better on the relatively underpowered Wii hardware (just take a look Okami).
The game is scheduled for a tentative co-release with the launch of Nintendo’s WiiWare service on May 12th but suffice to say whenever it comes out I’ll be there gleefully downloading what looks to be one of the better titles for the Wii this year (note: hype subject to change pending possible announcement of a new Zelda game by Shigeru Miyamoto at E3 08. In such a case all endorsement of upcoming Wii games will be forgotten as the fanboy masses collectively squeal like so many Japanese schoolgirls).
In this world of figures such as the infamous Jack Thomson and a myriad of Politicians ready at a moment’s notice to tar and feather any part of the gaming industry they can get their hands on, the incessant mewling of “concerned parents” and certain companies (cough-taketwo-cough) gleefully drawing scandal and controversy into their bosoms the video game industry is under a near constant public scrutiny. With a plethora of pseudo-studies claiming that video games cause mass homicidal psychosis in everyone exposed to them there is no shortage of ammunition that these political mudslingers and ambulance chasers can lob in the direction of anything connected to a joystick.
Thankfully amidst the sludgy haze of the dozens of studies claiming video games are shaped by the devil in the very bowls of hell and shipped directly from central 7th circle onto retailer shelves throughout the world there is some hope. A recent examination of the effects of video games on by Drs. Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl K. Olson (co-founders and directors of the Harvard Medical School Center for Mental Health and Media) entitled Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth about Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do dispels many of the unreasonable fears about that have been fostered by the likes of Jack Thompson and makes some pretty surprising revelations about the effects of games on young children along the way. The following is an interview by Adam Sessler with the two authors who give a brief synopsis of the prevailing message of the book.
I’ve already done my enthusiastic endorsement of Audiosurf so I’ll try to avoid devolving into a raving fanboy again during the remainder of this post.
With a game so dynamic in adaptation as Audiosurf the possibilities of new content are only as limitless as the creative abilities of the musical community. So in that bent Game Vector will be posting a weekly song of the week in which I will highlight a song that I found particularly fun to play. I’ll attempt to limit my selections to the open source Indie community but may stray occasionally into the mainstream. In the case of the former I will provide a link to the download of the song and with the latter a link to the iTunes and/or Amazon mp3 store where you can purchase it if you so wish.
This week’s selection is an omage to one of the greatest zelda titles of all time, Links Awakening. Zircon’s techno remix of Tal Tal Heights is great fun to play even if you’re not an oldschool Zelda fan. The original composision was by the reveared geek god Koji Kondo from who’s mind sprung some of the most memorable video game scores in the history of the industry. It’s Clash at the mountains, listen below and click the link to download.
[Download]
Yes it looks like our friends across the pond are finally getting rock band, albeit in not quite the way they were hoping. Instead of getting a nice full package of game/guitar/mic/drums for the not insignificant price of $169.99 they get to buy them separately… for twice the price… Yes my friends you thought beating you in the American revolution and throwing you unceremoniously back onto your little island would be enough for the founding fathers but no — in the year 1789 they began a secret government project, one that would spend over 200 years in development (nearly as long as Duke Nukum Forever) and culminate in what we now know as rock band. A weapon that would bring the once great empire to it’s knees. And now we see it’s fruition.
Priced at a staggering £49.99 (around $100) for the game disk and £129.99 (nearly $300) for an “instrument pack” (aka the mic/drums/guitar included in the american version) the Rock Band experience will run them the price of a brand new console.
The Brits have had to deal with this kind of thing for a long time; delays that run into the months (or years), gimped prices, the lot and they’ve done it with admireable aplomb — but this might just drive them over the edge. Twice the price for a game that we’ve had for nearly six months? You have my deepest condolances Britton.
My advice is revolt — it worked for us.
[Via Eurogamer]
I haven’t oozed much about this wonderful little game much here on the blog but ask anyone I know personally and they’ll tell you I just won’t shut up about it. I’ve already berated one person into getting a steam account just to play the demo (he loves it by the way) and I’m working furiously on another heathen. I rarely get this insistent about making my friends try out a game but Audiosurf is a one that everyone should play and I’ve pursued this campaign just as neurotically as the great Portal evangelism of a few months back.
Audiosurf is a game that defies explanation. Believe me, I’ve tried and the best one I can come up with it that it’s like what would happen if Tetris and Guitar Hero got really drunk and did something silly in a Ferrari — Audiosurf would be the unexpectedly wonderful offspring that unholy union. Load up any song in your library, whether it be directly from a CD or one of the 50,000+ songs of dubious legal origin you have squirreled away on your hard drive, and Audiosurf transforms it into something magical… pure gaming bliss — a custom track built on the fly for whatever song you want. Using either mouse, keyboard or 360 Game Pad you navigate your rhythm-powered ship through this newly created course; either engaging in Tetris-like color stacking or navigating your Mono Ninja through a maze of grey while snagging glowing blocks from in between the score-decimating monochrome offenders.
What makes this game so addictive is the sheer unbridled replayability. After playing it for a while music begins to take on a whole separate level even when you aren’t actually playing the game. Listening to a frantic violin concerto (or face melting guitar solo, it’s your choice) you can’t help but picture the blazing red decent down a pitch black tunnel.
What is great about Audiosurf is the promise it holds for the budding indie game community. After being released on Steam it hit it’s sales quota for the first year in one week. It’s a bright future for gamers everywhere with Steam heading up the the small developer initiative with steamworks on the PC side and Microsoft actively promoting the XNA Game Studio and the Creators Club for the 360. We’re perched on the cusp (or even arguably in the middle) of a revolution — and if Audiosurf is a sample of the delights that will stem from it I’ll pick up my beret and march against the bastion of the old industry along with the independent army of the gaming nation.
Now my shameless endorsement of this game is done. I’m off to do a mono run through Beethoven’s 9th.
[You can find a free audiosurf demo here]
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