Penny Arcade

Gabe’s baseline impressions of E3 - Best, Most Surprising, Most Disappointing - are now available.  This will be followed on Wednesday by my own answers to the same questions, with only one overlapping title.

Obviously, since these are his picks, he’s going to have more focused elaborations on them - but until he gets the microphone, I would be happy to share my own thoughts.  Final Fantasy:  Crystal Chronicles is, like Final Fantasy Tactics, a very different expression of that legendary context.  Where Final Fantasy stresses stories and systems - and Tactics stresses being awesome - Crystal Chronicles is like the brawler the RPGamer deep in your heart always wished they would make.  Indescribably beautiful characters doing battle with lavish monsters in scenes of unprecedented beauty.  Sounds pretty good, right?  Add in combination spells and spell building to a game that is chiefly about cooperative fun and you’re starting to get the idea.  I had rage in my heart, unchecked rage when I heard that multiplayer would require people to use GBA’s as their controllers - but it’s plain now that it couldn’t work any other way.  Imagine if, every time one of four people needed to fuck around in their inventory, the game stopped for everybody else.  What’s more, this method allows data to be shared with one player that isn’t shared with others - like a map, or secret information.  It’s going to allow for some interesting ideas, where initially I thought it was just brand-mongering.  It might also be that, understand, but it isn’t just that - not by a long shot.

I will talk about Full Spectrum Warrior on Wednesday.  In fact, I might talk about it rather a lot.

The N-Gage, though - he and I don’t exactly agree on that.  I don’t think it’s going to be a success, and the reasons that have nothing to do with the GameBoy.  However, it does do some neat things, whether or not they’re neat enough I guess we’ll find out.  Obviously, being able to game wireless is a pretty cool feature, as GamePark 32 owners already know.  Gaming across the cell network is also available.  Gaming across the cell network with voice support is, to me, a fairly exciting proposition.  Though the orientation of the screen - taller than it is wide - was not natural to me at first, that sensation went away.  It plays MP3’s, accesses webpages, it does fancy modern phone type stuff.  On the plane back from E3, I was trying to explain to Gabe that our whole group could play a game in the airplane, even across the aisle, which is something we couldn’t pull off with GBA cables suspended across the thoroughfare at waist level.  I felt pretty smart, until he reminded me that it was a cell phone, and couldn’t be on at all.     

Me and like two other guys enjoyed Silent Hill 2, so I won’t talk about that one very much.  However, I will tell you this:  Konami isn’t saying shit about Silent Hill 3’s story, but the video they showed reveals a couple very important things.  First, the music is awesome, as usual.  I have a few tracks from the soundtrack that will be included, and I’ve been very impressed, but the title theme they played was a remarkable piece of ingenuity.  Yes, many tracks have vocals now, and though it shocks me to say it they are a welcome addition.  So, songs.  Yay.  Here’s the meat:  After the video they showed, there can be no doubt that Silent Hill 3 is a continuation of the original Silent Hill.  I mean, there’s Harry, there’s the wheelchair, there’s the baby.  I was dumbstruck.       

(CW)TB out.

what we both feel

Two new maps, two new mechs, Capture The Flag gameplay mode, and assorted improvements including a “Rematch” button are all available for download.

I say this primarily for the benefit of the “Mech King.”

(CW)TB

I’ve figured some things out about this.

You can turn off the part of the device that connects to cell networks, so no biggie there - you can use it just fine in the plane.  My second question was, okay, so now you’ve turned off the cell communications part - does the Bluetooth networking for games still work?  Yes.  Yes it does.

What have we learned?  That I was right, and Gabe was wrong.  About playing on planes, at least.  That’s hardly the only difficulty faced by the machine.

(CW)TB

This may be a long post.

Lots of you have been asking who the other guy in today’s comic strip is. Let me tell you about E3 buddies. Remember when you went on a field trip to the cheese factory in fifth grade and your teacher told you to stick with your buddy? This was in an effort to make sure you didn’t wander off on your own and fall into some kind of giant mechanical cheese grating machine. But it was also because seeing cool stuff is just more fun when your with a buddy. With that in mind we created the E3 buddy system. The last thing I need is for Tycho to wander off by himself and fall into some kind of cheese grating machine. However while Tycho and I are what you might call “best friends” that doesn’t mean that we have the same taste in games or that we like to see E3 in the same way. So at E3 we don’t hang out together. I only saw him once or twice all three days. My E3 buddy was actually Kiko and that’s the guy with me in today’s comic strip. We have very similar taste in games. People would stop me on the floor and ask me to sign a book or something and then ask why I wasn’t with Tycho and where he was. I told them look for the most boring game on the floor, he will be the guy standing next to it asking the developer questions like if their physics engine takes into account the surface of the table when calculating the rolling of a D20 or some shit.

Kiko and I were able to sneak into the show an hour early on the first day by turning our badges around and hiding in the middle of a group of exhibitors as they walked in. We took advantage of our head start to see the Halo 2 trailer and sign up for the Soul Calibur 2 tournament before any lines formed. The SC2 tourney was one of the highlights of the show for me this year. I play a pretty mean Talim and I was anxious to see how I stacked up against the competition there. I made it to the final four and returned the second day for the finals at the Namco booth. There was a huge crowed there and they were displaying the matches up on a giant screen. I felt really confident going into the finals. As it turns out though I was set to play the best Voldo player in the nation, a guy named Aris. I of course did not know this at the time though. I felt like I played a really good game. I won one round against him is all and it just wasn’t enough. He didn’t dominate me, which is something I was worried about. Afterwards people told me that our fight had been the best one to watch out of the entire tournament. We had some really cool deflections and some really flashy combos. At one point we deflected back and forth about five times and I could here the crowed behind me shouting, it was quite and experience. I know we have a good size SC2 community here in Seattle and I am planning on setting up a PA SC2 event for next month. I’ll post the details here once we get them hammered out. Congratulations to everyone in the tourney, especially Aris who went on to win the whole thing. I had a great time playing everyone.

I need to go get something to eat. I’ll be back in a few minutes to talk about the games I saw at the show. Before I go though I was hoping you could all go vote for us to win a Webby. We are losing again in the Humor and Games categories. I don’t think you guys will have any problem fixing that though.

-Gabe out

The thing about E3 booths is that they often shaped in a very strange fashion, so that approaching them from this or that angle will sometimes reveal games you missed, even though you were quite certain that you saw all the stuff.  The density of the stimuli compounds this effect.  In any case, I saw a game called Culdcept in the Capcom booth long after I’d considered it “done” that really aroused my curiosity.

Culdcept has had more than one incarnation before this, including an appearance on the Dreamcast, and I believe that the version we’ll receive as a domestic release is actually called Culdcept II or some variation on that.  Originally published by Sega in Japan, the PR lady at the Capcom booth was actually having a very good time with it and seemed genuinely suprised at the fact.  Culdcept can be described as follows:  Monopoly plus Magic: The Gathering.  It has deck building, boardgame-style gameplay.  She mentioned that it is actually a physical, table-top game in Japan in addition to the electronic versions.  In any case, I was rooted in place as she played monsters of varying ability on the board’s elemental squares, monsters who - like hotels - exact a toll from players as they pass.  You can choose to do battle with a beast drawn from your own deck in lieu of coughing up the cash, playing various ability cards on your creatures to bolster their effectiveness.   

Gabe laughed and laughed at me when I described it to him, but I think it sounds awesome.

(CW)TB

Gabe will be in a better position to tell you about the Sonic games on the floor than I would, as Sonic has been his thing from way back.  Altered Beast was just a video that didn’t really elucidate anything.  Billy Hatcher was inexplicable.  Otogi continues to hone Sega’s edge on visually striking action games.

What a surprise it was to see Worms 3D in the booth, I knew as well as anyone that Sega had taken up the role of publisher on the title but seeing Team 17 and Sega together brought a tear of joy to my eye.  How they did it I have no idea, but this is most certainly Worms.  Fully destructible environments and crisp textures underpinned a strangely lighearted take on the Omaha Beach landing, with the strange weapons you demand from Worms games all making an appearance.  Good for them.  Taking Worms into 3D could have been the sort of joyless procedure for which there are many analogues in gaming history.  It pleases me to inform you that the opposite is true.   

When I expressed excitement at the announcement of Phantasy Star Online 3 for the Cube, I got two types of mail:  Mail from people who thought I was being sarcastic, and wrote in to assure me that they hated it, too.  The other type of mail was understandably sort of distraught at the direction their beloved franchise had just taken.  I don’t have any idea how to answer either party based on what I saw this year.  I would not have shown that game at this time, at least, not without someone there to tell you what in the Jesus, Mary, and Joseph was going on.  I’m not saying this won’t be a good game someday, my faith in its eventual capacity is unshaken.  Maybe somebody else knows what the fuck is going on with that game, I’ll try to dig up some previews.   

(CW)TB

I hadn’t heard this until just now, but apparently Triton Labs - i.e., the Afterburner guys - are cooking up a wireless solution for the GameBoy Advance.  Hot damn, that boy is crafty.

(CW)TB

No Bluetooth on planes, at least not today.  Hm.

(CW)TB

The games

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles

Wow. This game really knocked me out. So just in case you haven’t heard about it yet here is the hook. The world is poisoned so your party has to carry around this magic bucket that creates a protective bubble for you to fight inside of. One person in the group has to carry this bucket around. While carrying the bucket however they cannot attack. This leads to some extremely fun cooperative game play. For example I was entrusted with the bucket the first time I played with Kiko and a couple other guys. It was my responsibility to make sure that everyone was in the bubble and that the bubble was always in the right position for them to attack creatures. This became quite difficult when we encountered the first boss. I had to stay very close to the boss in order to keep the bubble around him but this meant he was beating the shit out of me. They had to keep me healed while fighting the boss. At times I would put the bucket down and attack but a bucket on the ground is dangerous. The Boss will happily kick your bucket and if you’re not ready to move with that bubble you’ll get caught outside and start taking damage. Now it is possible for members of your party to kick the buck small distances to sort of keep it in position.

Each character has a magical attack and these attacks can be combined in various ways to perform more powerful attacks. Other spells like cure can also be combined to juice them up a little. The combination of controlling the bucket and trying to coordinate spells had us all yelling at each other in a matter of minutes. You had to announce when you were in position to cast your spell so that the other players could try and get in position. I had picked up a life spell which meant I could bring people back from the dead. This meant that I should not be allowed to die. So they were all constantly watching my health to make sure I stayed alive. You always had to be aware of the bucket and how it related to the monsters around you. The one player who could see the map on their GBA had to make sure you were all moving in the right direction. I could go on and on. Crystal Chronicles was so good I went back the next day and played it again. It was easily my favorite game of the show.

Full Spectrum Warrior

I’ll let Tycho talk about this one on Wednesday. Needless to say I was really surprised buy how fucking awesome it was. I had never even heard of it going into the show.

The N-Gage

Kiko and I hit this booth early as we were both interested to check out Nokia’s new handheld. Immediately upon picking one up, we each made a face like we tasted bile. It just feels terrible in your hands. The buttons are placed too close together and there are too many of them. I didn’t know which of the hojillion buttons I had to push just to start the game. Once Tony Hawk started I made another face. The screen is super washed out and it’s oriented in a really strange way. We both put them down after only a few minutes and left the booth in a hurry to go wash our hands. That night Pork and Tycho told us they really enjoyed their experience with the handheld so Kiko and I made it a point to go back the next day and give it another try. After our second encounter with the foul beasts we were still unimpressed. As a game system it fails because of its awkward design and poor screen. I mean you have to turn your phone off and remove the battery in order to change the game. That is stupid. The buttons while good for a phone suck for a handheld. They are placed way to close together and you end up hitting multiple buttons far too often. The pad felt cheap and the screen looked really washed out. It fails as a phone because of its odd size and shape. It just isn’t comfortable. When Tycho told me it was going to cost $300 I actually laughed out loud. I almost feel bad for Nokia. The N-Gage is going to fail miserably. They may sell a few to cell phone customers who like the gimmick of playing games on their phone but they will never be able to sell it to actual gamers. They have also taken a page out of Blockbusters book and decided to insult me with their advertising.

Is this supposed to make me want to buy your pile of shit phone? Am I supposed to relate to this jackass? Is that a gamer? What the fuck is wrong with his face? I saw a lot of fucking gamers this week and I’m here to tell you not one of them looked like that.

-Gabe out

I actually got to sit down and talk with the new President of SNK Ben Herman and their V.P. of Sales and Marketing Eric Feiner. I had a lot of questions for them as an SNK fan and they answered all the ones they could. A lot of what they told me ended up being stuff that I can’t talk about on the site just yet. There are a few nuggets thought hat I think I can share.

SNK is planning on launching a new online store. This will be a place to purchase not just SNK games but also merchandise. Things like posters, shirts and toys will be available through the store.  This is good news for SNK fans that have had few choices when it came to getting their games.

A 3D Metal Slug is in the works right now but that isn’t the only popular SNK franchise destined to make it’s make into the 3rd dimension.

A fifth Samurai Shodown game was confirmed although I can’t give you anymore details than that.

There are no plans at this time for a new Mark of the Wolves game.

The thing I took away from the meeting was just how much these guys love SNK and how much they appreciate SNK fans. They are both committed to bringing SNK games to a whole new generation of gamers via today’s consoles.

I also got a chance to see some video footage of SNK vs. Capcom at the booth. Visually the game looks more like King of Fighters than Mark of the Wolves. The animation looked good but Ben stressed that the game was still very early. The Capcom characters I saw looked like the Street Fighter 2 versions of the characters, Ryu and Ken Especially. The plan is to release it for the Neo-Geo first and then follow that up in a month or so with a PS2 version and then possibly other systems. It sounds like they have a very good relationship with Sony as they mentioned ports of older SNK games and even some compilations were scheduled for PS2 release in the future.

SNK is back guys and in my opinion it couldn’t be in better hands.

-Gabe out

Here is a nice Pic of us from E3. Kiko had already left for the day but you can see the rest of the crew. That’s Jake and Fryda from Sony Online there with us. They come every year. Fryda is sporting a Strawberry Shortcake shirt there so I’m sure we will be hearing from the American Greetings lawyers soon.

Oh, and this is just a picture of me and MOTHER FUCKING SHIGERU MIYAMOTO! I was so excited when I met him that I think a little bit of pee came out.

-Gabe out

P.S.

A big thanks to Ryan Harris from Retro Studios for taking the picture for me. I didn’t have a camera but Ryan hooked me up.