Gabe’s had this royal air, this cocksure swagger since that Square/Nintendo info got out - obviously, that’s not something we could pass up as strip fodder. No-one is quite sure what all this means, yet - and while theories abound, in the short run I’m enjoying the mystery. The latest Double Agent (The GIA‘s essential letters column) was flush with prognostication, and I must say, I’ve done a fair bit of imagineering myself. An important thing to note about Square’s dalliance with Nintendo is that the original project they bring to the system must exploit the connectivity between the Cube and the GBA. When I think of what such a union might mean in an RPG context, I nearly black out.
So, let’s invite grievous, fall-related head injury: What kinds of shit could one pull with such a setup?
The most basic thing you could do would be to put a prequel out first on the GBA, and imbue the actions/experience/equipment and relationships with ramifications for the eventual GameCube version. Carrying a character through a series of games used to be commonplace on the PC - I need but invoke the legendary “Gold Box” or “Quest For Glory” series, and a generation of gamers will nod their head in silent agreement that we’ve taken a step back of late. The concept, though - fairly simplistic. Still satisfying.
Like the Dreamcast’s VMU, the GBA could be used to depict information during play. It could behave as though it were some device in game, something the player owns perhaps, and in this role could serve any number of functions. Unlike a VMU, the GameBoy Advance could take a much more active role, being (as it is) a highly specialized controller. It could take center stage in a variety of mini-games, or might allow a friend to interact with the larger game in ways parallel to your own: getting information on enemies, controlling inventory management, plotting waypoints, etc. Those are only the most rudimentary possibilities, and already I’m starting to feel woozy.
Let’s get all the way live. You take your GBA to a friend’s house, and teach his characters special techniques your own party has discovered, swap unique party members, or enact trades of goods. On the GameBoy Advance, you can play the character’s dream selves when saving at an Inn. The GBA can “translate” the languages spoken by the strange denizens you encounter. You don’t even have to come up with these ideas. The ideas come up with themselves.
The relationship between Nintendo’s flagship products is something that I think is unique, something that could potentially shake off the kitsch curse I might have expected from a pairing like this. It could give the term “Next-Generation” something to actually describe.
Strider Kojiro sent this in when I was writing mein newsposten:
“Okay, what the hell’s going on here..? Gamesages was once the best site in
the whole universe to find codes and stuff for games, and now it’s a pay
site. Is there anywhere else I can go to get my fix..? Also, are they going
to turn into another bitch ass pay site just when I need them the most..? I
swear to fucking GOD I just got codes from there like 3 days ago…”
I’m the last person to piss a guy because he provides a service and wants payment in return - but when the service consists of raw data, um, we’re sort of connected to a global network. Click and be soothed, ye code hungry masses. I’m shocked that anyone was unaware of GameFaqs - without them to get me through the stupid parts of otherwise great games, I’d need another hobby altogether.
The new update script is now in full effect, and this fills me with delight - let me thank with all my might Ramius, who toiled to produce the product you see before you. It might seem largely cosmetic, and there is certainly a cosmetic element, but it has two important differences. One, it stores all the posts for a given strip, not just the newspost - our previous Newspro setup wouldn’t do that. The second thing it does is tell you how late I stay up writing these posts. That’s sort of embarrassing, but it probably explains a lot. In my defense, I’ve never really gotten the hang of sleep.
(CW)TB out.
listen here, young lady
Scouring Evil Avatar for tender news, they had a couple links from Planet GameCube that I found highly relevant. There’s an article up that explains some of the history behind the recent Square developments, and another item that claims a port of Final Fantasy Tactics may be on the way for the GBA. Of course, the The Madman has all this and more.
It’s exactly as I submitted on Friday - it’s good for the Cube, sure, but they’re about to make a (perfected) GBA the best console on the market.
(CW)TB
Well, the wonders never cease.
Evil Avatar is also reporting that 3D Realms has taken Prey off the shelf. Apparently, Human Head is going to develop it using the Doom III engine, and Take 2 is going to publish it. Who wants to bet we’ll see Prey before Duke Nukem Forever?
[DM]Safety Monkey out.
Well I said that Batjew and I would deliver a full review of Herdy Gerdy today. It turns out that was a big fucking lie. What we did deliver though is something I think is even better. Really I do. We got together the other night to discuss our feelings about the game over messenger and then figured, why should we do any extra work? Let’s just post the chat log. So that is exactly what we have done. It’s a candid, behind the scenes look at something or other. Be sure and check it out.
To this very day I still get mail asking me the outcome of this VERY special Penny Arcade cartoon. Well, Not only did she say yes but today is our two year anniversary. I guess 25 years is silver and 50 years is gold. It turns out 2 years is rare video game hardware. So I really lucked out there. Thanks to eBay I am now the proud owner of a Neo Geo Hyper 64 mother board brand new in its original box. If you are not familiar with the Hyper 64 I can’t say I blame you. It was supposed to be SNK’s answer to games like Tekken and Virtua Fighter 2. However it too suffered from the SNK curse and floundered for a few years in arcades before being dismissed totally. They only released a hand full of games for it. Two of them happen to be 3D Samurai Showdown games. These are the ones I am desperately hoping to get my hands on. The best site I could find with info about the Hyper 64 is in French. So I hope you guys can read French.
I have good Penny Arcade related news to deliver today. You can all stop mailing me now the Wang Fu t-shirts will be available at GameSkins in all sizes this week. Look for them to go back on sale around Wednesday. New shirt designs are also in the works including the very popular D12 shirt that our dead roommate Jim sported a few months ago as well as Div and the Fruit Fucker 2k.
As you can see Sega is sponsoring the site this month and advertising their Free SegaNet Weekend. I would ask that you all go check it out and register if you can. Tycho, Batjew, Safety Monkey and myself have all registered and will be playing PSO version one all weekend on the 16th and 17th. If you have a DC and PSO register and meet us in there. If you don’t have a DC, what the hell is wrong with you they are like 50 bucks for Christ’s sake. Put PA or PA related stuff in your game name and we’ll be jumping around trying to meet as many of you as we can. Nothing beats blowing an entire weekend building up your mags and killing monsters with a bunch of PA fans. I’m really looking forward to this and I hope to see a lot of you guys there. Check out this page for more information on the Free SegaNet weekend.
Transformers man. Trans-fucking-formers!
-Gabe out
I was extremely pleased with Red Alert 2, as well as the Yuri expansion - they married creative, sometimes bizarre units with a frantic pace that approached arcade intensity.
By now, you’ve probably read Gamespot’s First Hours feature on Command & Conquer: Generals, the latest game to take up that legendary mantle. It’s by the RA2 crew, sports a wildly potent engine, and shakes a lot of shit up for the series. Gamespot has provided us with nine pages worth of new preview, and I’m really liking what I see there.
(CW)TB
I have gotten a lot of mail about our PSO weekend. I want to make sure everyone knows not to purchase a used copy of PSO version 1. This game will only work on the first Dreamcast it is played in. You need to buy a new copy if you do not already have one. You can get it on the cheap right here if you are interested. Also make sure you get version one not version two.
-Gabe out
