Konami’s Fall: The <i>Seppuku</i> of the Last Gaming Samurai
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/17/15 at 02:42 PM CT
During the Golden Age of gaming, the entire foundation of the industry was made from Japanese stonework. Nintendo, Sega, and Sony built the machines to run the games, while Nintendo, Sega, Squaresoft, Enix, Capcom, and Konami built the games that not only salvaged the industry from Atari’s (delenda est) chronic mismanagement, but built it up into something wonderful in its own right.
Over the course of the last two generations, things in Japan have started to go horribly awry. I have been lamenting the shift in Japan’s pop culture for years already. However, instead of doing anything to correct the course these former titans of the industry have found themselves on, they seem content to fall off the face of the Earth.
Sega was the first victim. When they decided to drop out of the hardware arena to focus solely on games after the Dreamcast failed, at first it seemed like a good idea. Unfortunately, it proved to be a disastrous move, with the company now hanging onto parent …
Amiibos: The Physical DLC Gimmick
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/10/15 at 04:12 PM CT
At this point in the 8th Generation, it has become quite obvious that Nintendo, once a paragon of the old console traditions and the last holdout in the face of updates and DLC, has given up and joined the rest of the console makers in adopting less-than-beloved modern business practices. With “Mario Kart 8,” “Super Smash Bros. U,” “Hyrule Warriors,” and the brand new “Splatoon” all featuring significant amounts of cut content later surfacing as an additional purchase, Nintendo looks right at home among the other DLC adopters, and will likely soon start with the microtransactions, once their partnership with DeNA bears fruit.
However, Nintendo as a company never seems satisfied to do something in exactly the same way as every other company. Thus instead of keeping DLC strictly in the digital realm, Nintendo has found a way to make it physical. Unfortunately this method of creating physical DLC has nothing to do with pressing updated game discs that include the DLC …
Backlog: The Embiggening - May, 2015
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/03/15 at 06:08 PM CT
April Showers bring May Flowers, as the old children’s song goes. But what happens when the only precipitation in April took the form of ports and remasters? More of the same!
May will be bringing “Final Fantasy 4: The After Years” (the 7th Gen’s only good ‘Final Fantasy’ game) to Steam… but not the same version that graced WiiWare or the PlayStation Portable. Instead, it will be a new 3D-ified version that looks and plays like the unnecessary DS port of “Final Fantasy 4.” In other ‘Final Fantasy’ news, the PS4 is getting a remaster (unsurprising) compilation of “Final Fantasy 10” and “Final Fantasy 10-2.” The PS4 is also getting a port of “Arcania” (a.k.a., “Gothic 4”). Finally, as if as part of a concerted effort to prove that modern non-Nintendo consoles are just really lame gaming PCs, “Farming Simulator 15” is making the leap from PC exclusivity to PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and XBONE.
In multi-platform releases, the PS4, XBONE, and PC …
The Arcade is Dead, Long Live the Arcade!
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/26/15 at 02:58 PM CT
Gamers who grew up during the late ‘70s, the ‘80s, or the early ‘90s no doubt remember at least something about the precursors to home game consoles. Arcade machines stood as location-based gaming attractions that required repeated, small payments in order to partake in the experience.
When PCs started to become more common in the home and when the home videogame console market took off in the 3rd Generation with Nintendo’s NES, the arcade began to suffer. It seemed that more people who were interested in playing videogames would rather plunk down a larger sum of money for ownership of a game machine and discreet pieces of software than travel to a destination and continually feed coins to a number of arcade boxes.
Unfortunately, even with the waning popularity of arcades and the booming popularity of in-the-home videogame entertainment, the game developers themselves had a very hard time shaking an ‘Arcade Mentality’ when designing their games. The reason so many …
Vaguely Related Review: Ansell Touchscreen Gloves
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/19/15 at 02:29 PM CT
Do you live where it gets cold during certain times of the year? Maybe you live in the desert where it gets bitterly cold every night? Maybe you just live in the Midwest where the weather can’t make up its mind whether to be Summer or Winter?
Presumably, no matter where you live, you own a touchscreen device of some sort (unless you’re Amish). Bitter cold temperatures and the bare fingers typically required to operate our modern smartphones and tablet computers don’t go well together. Fumbling with a touchscreen device with Winter gloves or mittens is a recipe for disaster via cold glass shattering on the frozen ground after inevitably dropping the thing, whereas foregoing hand protection is an invitation for frostbite at the worst, generalized discomfort and misery at the best.
Worry not, touchscreen owners living in cold environs! Ansell has you covered with their line of touchscreen-treated gloves. I received a pair for Christmas, and have finally had ample time to …
PC Gaming: Old Arguments vs. New Truths
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/12/15 at 03:51 PM CT
It wasn’t too long ago that I was fervently anti-PC when it came to gaming. I had a plethora of reasons for hating the PC format when compared side-by-side with the console format that had stood, unassailable since the 1990s. Sure, I would occasionally acquiesce in order to play a really great D&D game that was PC-only, but for the most part I wanted nothing to do with PC gaming.
Then the 7th Generation happened. Consoles started becoming more PC-like and PC started becoming more console-like to the point where I find the two formats to be the same thing. And out of the five competing gaming platforms of the 8th Generation (PS4, XBONE, WiiU, Android Microconsoles, and PC), the only one that hasn’t left be with a feeling of complete disgust and disdain is PC.
Yet somehow, among the masses who have purchased an 8th Gen console and actually seem to enjoy it, the same old, tired, obsolete arguments against PC gaming are still making the rounds. Why does such misinformation …
Backlog: The Embiggening - April, 2015
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/04/15 at 01:12 PM CT
The Fools are out in full-force this April, buying up every remastered game they can get their paws on. Unfortunately for the rest of us, the Fools and their habits have resulted in a month that is completely dominated by remasters and ports. The only upside is that we are, once again, spared the sting of licensed shovelware.
Jumping right into the ports and remasters, the PS4 and XBONE are each getting one PC game: “Tropico 5” for Sony and “State of Decay” for Microsoft. Both 8th Gen copycats are also getting “The Golf Club,” in case their owners were pining for some last-gen download-only ball-beating. PC is getting the formerly console-exclusive release of “Grand Theft Auto 5” (which has no hype anymore, at least), as well as an ‘Omega Edition’ of a mobile phone game, “Out There.” The 3DS is getting a port of last-gen’s most acclaimed RPG, “Xenoblade Chronicles,” while almost everyone is getting a complete edition rehash of “Dark Souls …
“Bloodborne:” The Abomination Beloved by Meta-Critic and the Cult of From
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/29/15 at 05:57 PM CT
This week the PlayStation 4 was taken by storm by From Software releasing the same game they’ve been releasing over and over and over since 1995. The insufferable Masocore fanbase has been hyping it and praising it since the first screens leaked, despite the fact that “Bloodborne” is nothing more than an 8th Gen rehash of “King’s Field,” one of the very first PlayStation 1 games ever developed. “King’s Field” also happens to be the first PlayStation game I ever played at a demo station at Game Guy in Manhattan, Kansas… and it was the game that had me backing the Nintendo 64 until Squaresoft announced that ‘Final Fantasy’ was moving to PlayStation.
What is truly baffling about the love for From Software’s ever-turning wheel of awful action/“RPGs” is that “King’s Field” and its sequels were never a big deal back when they were released. Interestingly, it seems that there has been some sort of concerted effort amongst new-gen From Software fanboys …
Nintendo + DeNA: What Might the Future Hold?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/22/15 at 03:22 PM CT
Earlier this week, Nintendo President, Satoru Iwata, gave an hour-long press conference in Japan announcing three major changes for the struggling Japanese game-maker.
1. Nintendo will partner with DeNA – one of Japans biggest and most popular mobile portal and e-commerce operators – for its online services. This partnership will result in a new membership service to replace the recently-discontinued Club Nintendo.
2. Through this partnership with DeNA, Nintendo will begin developing games for mobile phone (a.k.a., smart device) platforms. These mobile games will leverage Nintendo IPs, but will never be direct ports or emulations, since Nintendo understands the massive control scheme difference between controllers and touchscreens.
3. Nintendo is creating a hardware successor for the WiiU, codenamed “NX.”
These announcements come at a time when Nintendo is clearly running last in the console wars and has been struggling to remain relevant in the minds of most …
Nintendo and Checklist Gameplay: A Dangerous Affair
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/15/15 at 02:20 PM CT
There has been a disturbing trend in the games appearing on Nintendo’s struggling WiiU console. Where, in many cases, there were once cohesive story/campaign modes, engaging single-player content has now been replaced with a large number of disjointed little tasks. I like to call this newer style of game design “Checklist” gameplay because the games that employ it amount to little more than presenting the player with a list of discreet tasks and giving them a star/medal/badge/whatever for completing each task.
Checklist Gameplay also closely resembles one of the more insidious and banal trends of the 7th Generation: Achievements. It is surprising that Nintendo, despite expressing no interest in an overarching and all-inclusive Achievement/Trophy system like those employed by Live, Steam, and PSN, has decided to transform so many of its first-party franchises into little more than Achievement hunts.
Recently, I have been sorely disappointed with “Super Smash Bros. for …
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