Articles by Game-Boy
Can I get a "Hell yes!" up in this piece? Seemingly out of nowhere, Sunsoft and Gaijinworks have announced that they will be bringing the classic Blaster Master series to WiiWare with a brand new adventure called Blaster Master: Overdrive. The new WiiWare title includes eight mutant bosses, tons of upgrades for the S.O.P.H.I.A. tank, and tons of nasty bad guys to blow up. All the classic action fans know and love gets represented here as "dungeons" will still occur in top down, shooter-focused caverns and players still cover the ground in between using one of the few fictional tanks that jumps.
I don't know about you, but as big of a fan of Metroidvania styled games, the original NES game is the first one that to really click with me and I've been hooked on the quirky subgenre ever since. Watching the video above brings back a flood of memories and the new art style seems to be keep the original title's look and feel really well (unlike some later installments that just looked 'ugs). I can't wait to give this a spin for myself!
Players can jump back into the only real SUV worth driving starting today and will only set you back 1000 Wii Points.
Fridays... Oh, how I love them so much! Don't you? You've got the excitement of the weekend just a few mere hours away. It's like you're right on the cusp of a new adventure with opportunities before you. What's that you say? You don't have any plans for the weekend? And some of you are looking at a torrent of bad weather coming your way? That date with that cute guy from the gym feel through? Your profile for Bear411 was rejected because you're not "fuzzy" enough? Well, that could put a damper on things, couldn't it?
Maybe you should head on over to Steam and check out their weekend sale on Far Cry Complete. For the super low price of $14.99, you'll get the original Far Cry along with Far Cry 2: Fortune Edition (that's the base game with some extra DLC loveliness added). If it's miserable weather outside with unending snow and/or rain maybe poking around the beautifully lush environments featured in these games will help ease you mind. Think of it as a mental vacation with lots of explosions.
While we're on the subject of steam goodness, let me also recommend the PC port of Toki Tori. Originally created for the Game Boy Color, this revamped classic offers players quirky puzzle-platforming brain teasers with simple controls and deliciously colorful artwork. Think of it as the bizarre lovechild of Lemmings and The Lost Vikings... sorta... Anyways, it's super cheap on Steam right now too and it's worth every penny. Give it a try!
[Far Cry Complete] Steam
[Toki Tori] Steam
It's been a while since we've posted a geeky game-related tattoo so I figured I would show off a little leg and give you boys and girls a look at my recent/first tattoo and tell a little story of how it came to be.
When looking into getting a tattoo, the concept of its permanence scared me a little. What if it didn't look exactly right? What if I didn't like it next month, year, or decade? How would a tattoo look on me years down the road? To confront my fears I purchased a book called No regrets: The Best, Worst & Most #$%*ing Ridiculous Tattoos Ever (available here on our handy dandy Amazon store). I figured that if I could look at all of these outrageous tattoos and still wanted one that it was meant to be. Over the years I've had many different ideas of what I wanted, but never settled on something definite. However, while I was perusing the book, I caught the sight of something that spoke deeply to me: an oddly illustrated tattoo of a bikini-glad woman riding a gigantic Game Boy. While I enjoyed it immensely, it was still missing that extra little something to make it special. I soon came to realize that in order to make it more "me," I would have to replace the basically faceless bikini woman with a MuscleBear-ified rendering of spoken word performer, musician, and my parallel universe husband Henry Rollins dressed as a half-naked cowboy. I was fortunate enough to have Richard Livingston, an unbelievably talented concept artist and very patient friend, draw up the image for me. I waited a few more weeks to make sure it was what I really wanted and after finding a skilled tattoo artist around my neck of the woods the rest is history and forever marked on my left leg.
I couldn't be happier with the results and I love that it gets most people to crack a bit of a smile when they see it. The experience got me wondering if any of you dear readers have any gaming tats of your own. Do you have Kratos' flaming chains of pain etched into your forearms or maybe you have a little invincibility star somewhere more, uh... intimate? Let us know and share your story in the comments!
For those wondering, it didn't hurt at all. In fact, it was one of the most smoothing and relaxing experiences of my life.
It's been impressive to see how various communities have responded to the recent disaster in Haiti, but it's been a joy to see various game industry companies lend their support in unique ways. faePuck told us all about a supremely awesome Blanka figure from State of the Art Toys (it's not too late to place a bid), but today we get to highlight a donation program set up by CCP Games, the makers of EVE Online.
From now until February 15th players will be able to use the game's currency to purchase Pilot's License Extensions (PLEX). 100% of the currency gathered from these items will be converted into real world money, which will in turn be sent over to the Red Cross to support the hard work they're doing in Haiti as we speak.
To participate, contract your PLEX to the "CCP PLEX for Haiti" character, and please make sure the character is in the "C C P" corporation and that the name is spelled correctly to avoid scams.
Contracts will be accepted within 24 hours of submission, though usually sooner than that.
CCP regards any scamming attempts surrounding this effort to be morally reprehensible and they will be met with swiftest action.
This is about one community of people helping another in need.
I urge you to use your hard earned ISK (or any of the other various ways which you can acquire a PLEX) to do something greater than it could ever do in New Eden.
I don't think we could have said it any better ourselves. It takes some very caring and thoughtful people to make something like this happen. GayGamer urges all of our EVE playing readers to consider contributing if possible.
[PLEX aid for Haiti] EVEonline.com via Gamasutra
"PUNX NOT DEAD" is how No More Heroes 2 begins, does that mean that it can't mature? That's the question posed to players in Suda 51's latest acid trip of a game that ventures back into the completely insane world of Santa Destroy and puts players into the designer shoes of Travis Touchdown once more. A lot has changed since players had their first run in with our favorite beam katana toting hero... the city of Santa Destroy, the collage of foes in the United Assassins Association, and maybe even Travis himself! With the theme of revenge placed in the forefront and even more asses that beg to be kicked, how does this sequel measure up to the lofty expectations of fans wanting more?
Having just finished up with Bayonetta, fans of Platinum Games (formerly Clover) have been anxiously clamoring for news of their next title. The wait is now over with the release of the teaser trailer of Vanquish. With Shinji Mikami of Resident Evil fame serving as game director on the title, this title (probably for the PS3/360 from the looks of it) promises lots of shooting and explosions without the overt sexual overtones seen in their last title. While the teaser doesn't give us any solid gameplay footage or information, it certainly sets up a unique atmosphere and manages to mix it up with some odd/creepy live action footage. Could Platinum be really ready to set aside silliness for sincerity?
On a side note, is it just me or does the futuristic soldier in the white armor look strikingly familiar for some reason. As much as I hope we'll see the return of Vanessa Z. Schneider I'm not going to hold my breath. This game looks much too serious for rhythmic shooting, but I'm anxious to be proven wrong.
It clocks in at just under a minute, but this video should get the pulses of retro-gamers racing in an instant as it heralds the return of an iconic arcade series. Get ready to fly into the danger zone one more time with After Burner Climax, coming to Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network later this year. Climax is the long-awaited home port of the tragically underplayed 2006 arcade game by Sega. As pretty as the arcade game looked in stills seeing it in motion wass astonishing and it looks like console gamers will be treated to the same level of silky smooth, fast-paced action the original quarter-muncher provided. While the updated music may leave a little to be desired in my nerdy opinion, there's hope that they will include the original After Burner II soundtrack like they did for the rotating arcade cabinet. Seriously, when you have a theme song this awesome you don't have to improve it. Ever!
Delicious Library isn't exactly a game, but depending on how much of a collector you are it can quickly become one. You'll hunt around everywhere you can in an effort to collect every item you can find and spend a little bit of time managing some inventory, but there are no dragons to slay or evil fiends to stop from taking over the world. This handy dandy Mac application lets you create complete catalogs of just about anything with a barcode, but it is mostly geared towards folks with large book, movie, music, and game collections. Those of you that can count all the games you currently own on one or two hands probably won't ever need something like this, but any of you that have collections that number in the hundreds or thousands need to listen up. This app is a one of the greatest pieces of software I've ever had the pleasure of using!
Perhaps you might wonder why someone would even need to catalog stuff like this. It's simple: once you have more than 40 some odd games on a single platform, remembering what you have and what system you have it for becomes a logistical nightmare, especially when you come across a particularly nice deal at a store or temporary online sale. Or if you're anything like my boyfriend and I you might have freakishly large collections of DVDs that occupy multiple rooms. Because of this, there have been more than a few occasions when one of us has inadvertently picked up a duplicate copy of a movie or TV show. As much of a pain this has been with help from Delicious Library, it'll be a thing of the past!
Delicious Library makes inputting titles and entries into the catalog simple. You can either manually type them in, use an iSight to scan barcodes, or purchase this handy dandy Bluetooth barcode scanner. Since our collections were a bit on the hefty side, and I didn't feel like trucking them in one box at a time, we choose to spring for the Bluetooth scanner. As silly as it sounds, simply walking up to a shelf of titles and scanning like a cashier at the super market within seconds was actually kind of fun and helped make the process go extremely quickly.
Since Delicious Library uses Amazon.com as its source for figuring out what the barcodes actually mean (and downloading appropriate artwork and information), occasionally a few items were "mislabeled" and I would have to manually enter them in. So far I've scanned over 2000 items and this hasn't happened more seven or eight times. Considering the obscurity of some of the items that I was scanning in, I can't imagine it getting better than this.
Speaking of obscure games and DVDs, Delicious Library was able to read the overwhelming majority of my import games. It might not sound impressive to hear that it was able to know the difference between recent releases like Osu! Tatakae! Ouedan! and its sequel, but what about being able to read my decades old copy of Metal Storm for the Famicom or knowing that I picked up the special tin case edition of Game Boy Wars Turbo without manually entering it?
So what do you do with all this information once you've got everything in the database? There are plenty of management tools that allow you to keep a list of items that are checked out if you lend a movie or game to a friend. If you want to trim your collection back a bit, you can look at the current resale value of specific titles. You can publish your virtual shelves onto your personal web space, allowing you to browse your library from any internet-ready device (with layouts especially made for iPhones). In the case of something terrible happening (fire/flood/robbery), you're able to print out a list of your collection for insurance companies to get accurate counts and valve of your lost or damaged stuff.
As I stated above, this isn't something that every gamer is going to need but for those that need help keeping track of purchases the $40 entry fee for the program is absolutely worth it. Even after using it for only a short time I cannot imagine going back and not having Delicious Library in my life. Every collector needs this! Head on over to Delicious Library's website to try it out for yourself.
Because I'm not afraid to let the world know that I own things like Glitter and M.D. Giest, feel free to take a look at how the program exports all the data once you've got shelves set up. iPhone version available here.
Want to experience one of the strangest and most well written platforming adventures ever created but you only have $2? Well, dear reader, you're in luck because between now and Thursday you can digitally pick up Double Fine's Psychonauts for the obscenely low price of just one Jefferson on Steam! This incredible title is part of a "Midweek Madness" sale that slashes the normal price down by 80%. I would say that goes beyond madness and right into insane territory, but that's just me.
...And speaking of insane, those who have yet to experience the 2005 classic are in for a real treat. You've got crazy characters written by Tim Schafer and Erik Wolpaw (of Old man Murray / Portal / Team Fortess 2 fame), an absolutely delightful soundtrack composed by Peter McConell (the man behind many of LucasArts best games), and some of the most insane bosses I've ever seen. It should be considered a crime to pass up such an outrageously stupendous offer!
[Psychonauts on Steam] Steam
I don't think it's possible for me to get enough of all things Bayonetta. Even after completing my first run through the game and cranking up the epic 5 disc soundtrack on a loop I'm still hungry for more of the witchy woman. Luckily for fans deluxe figure maker Play Arts hears our calls and is crafting some magically charming figures of Bayonetta herself along with a fantastic rendition Jeanne (the one in the red). The model detail seen pictured here is exquisite, but even more impressive is the amount of articulation each of the figures display. These are two limber ladies, but I didn't imagine that a toy would allow someone to pose the characters in many of the game's more... uh... ah-hem, "mystifying" positions. Fans can get their paws on both figures by preordering them for the low, low price of 3,530 yen (that's 20% the full price) on AmiAmi.
As much as I love the figure of the title character's figure, I can't help but to be struck more by the Jeanne figure. I love her look and they translated her more defining features to the figure rather well if you ask me.
[Play Arts Kai Bayonetta color preview shots could kill on sight] Tomopop
Some of you might recall last year that we got a little RPG game on the Nintendo DS called Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride. As a remake of the still much beloved in Japan Super Famicom title, the DS entry was North America's first chance to get their hands on with one of the best JRPGs ever produced. However, English speaking audiences without DS's or those that prefer to experience their JRPGs in the comfort of their own home on their TV have been out of luck... until now! That's right, DQ Translations have just released their translation patch for the PS2 version of Dragon Quest V.
Many within the Dragon Quest fandom claim that the PS2 version is without a doubt the best version of the game available and site its music and Akira Toriyama designed visuals as the reasons why. Watching videos like this it's easy to understand what the commotion is all about. Any excuse to listen to that triumphant series theme song is a good enough reason to break out my PS2 from the back of my gaming storage space.
Just a little side note: DQ Translations will only provide you with the English patch. You're expected to already own a copy of this easily found game.
[Dragon Quest 5 (PS2) Translation Project] DQ Translations
To say that Grand Theft Auto developer Rockstar is controversial is like calling the sky blue, it's obvious, but it misses the finer details. It seems as though no matter what they do, Rockstar is always ruffling feathers and causing a stir. Their most recent commotion centers on the development team of their upcoming title Red Dead Redemption. According to an anonymous blog entry supposedly drafted by some of the development team's spouses (found here), the "Determined Devoted Wives of Rockstar" got fed up with poor working conditions they observed at the San Diego studio and sent the office an ultimatum demanding immediate changes or else they would take legal action against the company. In the past two weeks we haven't heard an official public statement from Rockstar on the issue aside from a cheeky set of wallpaper graphics that allude to the blog, but that all changed with the most recent entry in the Asked & Answered column on the company's website when worried fans wrote in inquiring for a reaction. This is the response they were given...
...Unfortunately, this is a case of people taking the opinions of a few anonymous posters on message boards as fact. No business is ever perfect, but Rockstar Games is a tight knit team made up of around 900 supremely talented and motivated professionals, many of whom have worked here for a very long time. We're saddened if any former members of any studio did not find their time here enjoyable or creatively fulfilling and wish them well with finding an environment more suitable to their temperaments and needs, but the vast majority of our company are focused solely on delivering cutting edge interactive entertainment. We've always cared passionately about the people working here, and have always tried to maintain a supportive creative environment. There is simply no way Rockstar could continue to produce such large scale, high quality games without this. That being said, making great games is very challenging, which is why we have and will continue to try to keep hold of some of the best talent in the industry and support them in every way we can.
Talk about he-said-she-said! It doesn't sound like we're going to hear the definitive answer on this until either party is willing to disclose more details but at least we're hearing something.
In a post-EA Spouse world, it's a troubling trend that writing anonymous blogs to vilify faceless companies is the only way to get attention. Just as the statement above mentions, many people are taking the manifesto as fact without any kind of proof to back up its claims. Rockstar may or may not be blameless, but we should all be firm believers that people are innocent until proven guilty. Let's just hope that both parties can come to an agreeable compromise in the near future.
Oh, in other Rockstar-related news, we should expect to see something on their mysterious L.A. Noire title next month with a "big cover story." It may not be the media blitz for a Bully sequel I'm hoping for, but I'm still jazzed.
[Asked & Answered - Re: Red Dead Redemption, L.A. Noire, Rockstar San Diego and More] Rockstar.com
And girls who like girls who like rumble packs!
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