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March 2005
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May 2005

April 2005

GameStop To Buy EB; Should Have Preordered

GsebYahoo! is reporting that video game retailer GameStop is set to buy competing retailer Electronics Boutique in a move that would create "the Wal*Mart of video games" (whatever that means).  All of the stock market information is in the linked article if you care to read it, but personally I want to know what this buyout will do to the two stores.  I've shopped at both before and generally don't care for either.  Each store in my area is manned by Xbox and PS2 fanboy know-it-alls who don't give Nintendo products or PC items a fair deal.  They're always pushing games or hardware that aren't out in stores yet or even announced yet as well.  I know that preorders are a big business at these stores, but it's really too soon to put money down on a PlayStation 3 or, I'm being serious here, a "Game Boy Evolution".  There's a joke here somewhere about how GameStop should have preordered Electronics Boutique in order to avoid the rush on release day, I just know it.

Oh, and no word yet on if video game news/review site GameSpot will offer their existing Electronics Boutique discount program through GameStop.  That would just make things even more confusing.


1-Up Looks To The Future

Reggie 1-UP.com has a look at the actual confirmed information regarding the next-generation consoles.  It's worth a read just to get a summary on what's been announced and what hasn't, but moreover it's refreshing to read an article like this that doesn't take Internet-circulated rumors as 100% fact.  There's no fanboyish gushing or bile here.  I stopped reading speculation articles long ago because I'm so tired of weeding through five hundred words of non-info just to get to the one confirmed fact buried in the piece that led to the wild rumors.  This article is actually worth a look.

(via waxy.org)


The History of Mega Man

XandzeroIf you're looking for a little light reading this evening you should take a look at GameSpot's Mega Man retrospective.  Although a little dated now (it only covers titles released through October 2003), it covers just about every iteration of the character from his original form to Mega Man X and beyond.  It's also a painful reminder that Mega Man games used to capture a simple purity in jump-and-shoot gameplay but have now devolved into a convoluted mess.  With the series approaching its one hundredth title, is there still any energy left in Mega Man's tank?


Now You're Playing With Piano

MariopaintmusicSlashdot is featuring an entry today about The Video Game Pianist and his skills at playing classic game music on the piano.  Then earlier in the week a movie file hit the Internet featuring an a cappella choir from Wisconsin performing other classic game music.  I keep hoping that Nintendo will release a book of arranged piano music full of some familiar themes from games such as Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, etc.  The fan-produced scores and performances are nice enough, but they don't always capture the spirit and tone of the original compositions.  There are a few of these books available for RPG titles in Japan, but I'd love to see them arrive in America for all genres of games.  Of course then we'd have every amateur garage band inflict a poorly-performed Castlevania theme on the neighborhood day after day.

Koji Kondo, where are you?


Few People Go Ape For Jungle Beat

KongasIGNCube has Nintendo's March 2005 sales report and last month wasn't kind to Nintendo.  In what has to be a disappointment to the company, the latest Donkey Kong title, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, sold only 39,000 units in its debut month.  Compare that to Super Smash Bros. Melee, a GameCube launch title from several years ago, that outsold the big gorilla in March.  It's understandable why gamers passed on the bongo-controlled game that is Jungle Beat: it's something unusual.  Jungle Beat is part of Nintendo's new direction in gaming.  The company has gone on record as stating that they want to bring innovation back to the video game world and take gaming in general in new directions.  Unfortunately it would seem that the average consumer does not want to be a part of this concept.

Continue reading "Few People Go Ape For Jungle Beat" »


The Names Behind The Games

MiyamotoTime Magazine has a large feature in this week's issue singing the praises of "The Time 100", one hundred of the world's most influential politicians, entertainers, scientists, and visionaries as judged by the magazine.  Mixed in with people such as George W. Bush, Steve Jobs, and Oprah Winfrey are "The Halo Trinity", better known to devoted fans of the Halo series of games as Jason Jones, Marcus Lehto, and Charlie Gough.

The three men are not actually identified by name until the third paragraph of their four paragraph entry.  While it is nice to see Time include people from the world of video games on their list, listing them under the name of the game they and their team created instead of their actual names seems to put them at a lower rung of the list than their Time-listed colleagues.  Steve Jobs is not listed as "The Apple Guy", just as Oprah Winfrey is not "The Talk Show Woman".  Yet it is fine to list Jones, Lehto, and Gough as "The Halo Trinity".  Something's not right here.

Continue reading "The Names Behind The Games" »


Hollywood Poised To Strike

Bond_1While most of us were off exploring Hyrule or the Mushroom Kingdom, our little industry was growing up.  As technology continues to develop gaming heroes and villains are becoming more and more lifelike, especially when it comes to their voices.  Once confined to silence or the occasional "Yahoo!", game characters are speaking their minds more and more these days.  Now the people behind those voices - Hollywood celebrities in the Screen Actor's Guild or American Federation of Television and Radio Artists - are on the verge of a strike in the realm of video game performance.  Boing Boing has the story.

The Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA are in a critical, final stretch of negotiations with a group of major vidgame publishers, all of which have come to rely on union talent for increasingly cinematic -- and lucrative -- vidgames. The last contract covered Electronic Arts, some 70 other big gaming companies agreed to its terms.

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The History Of Sega

Sega_1Here's a little light reading for your day.  Actually, it's a lot of light reading: a six part retrospective detailing the history of Sega's involvement in the world of video games, all the way from the days of the SG-1000 to the company's implosion with the Sega Saturn and Dreamcast including looks at the Master System, Game Gear, Genesis, and the many add-ons and proposed extensions for those architectures.  Go ahead and do the "SE-GA!" chant and/or scream as the articles load.  You know you want to.


Yoshi Explored

YoshiN-Sider has an interesting interview with the director and chief programmer of Nintendo's Yoshi Touch & Go.  It's a basic fluff piece, but something interesting of note is that the game began life as a Nintendo GameCube title.  It wasn't until the game was revealed at last year's E3 as "Balloon Trip" that it was finally bound for the Nintendo DS.

I can't help but wonder how the game would have played on the GameCube.  Obviously all of the touch screen elements would be gone, so would we be left with moving a cursor around the screen with the control stick?  Or would it have been a standard 2D platformer game?  There's nothing more fascinating to me in the world of video games than the games that are never completed.


Coming Soon To An E3 Near You

Newsmb_1You've probably seen the list of games to be featured at this year's E3 that's been floating around the Internet by now.  Most of the list looks rather standard: lots of sequels, plenty of games based on licensed movies or cartoons, and a few titles that everyone seems to be drooling over.  Let's have a look at a few of what could be some of the high points (and low points) of this year's conference.

Continue reading "Coming Soon To An E3 Near You" »