Sunday, June 6, 2010

Update - 6/2 - Jackie Chan, Ketsui, Aquales, Laura Bow, Mission Critical and Games of the Worldd Gam


Did you know there are over fifteen video games starring legendary kung fu action star Jackie Chan? I sure didn't, until I read this article, which is full of lots of curiosities, and at least two Mortal Kombat rip-off games with silly digitized graphics. On another note, I bought myself a Japanese Xbox 360, mostly to play more of the decidedly mediocre Otomedius. Of course, a month or so later and it's apparently being localized, but I decided to try to get my money's worth covering Ketsui, a Cave bullet hell shooter with a near-legendary reputation. Also up is a brief review of Aquales, a mecha side-scroller for the X68000 with some cool swinging mechanics. On the adventure game side, I played through both Laura Bow Mysteries, The Colonel's Bequest and The Dagger of Amon Ra, in addition to its spiritual predecessor, Mystery House, the very first text adventure to use graphics. A few months ago I was also covering some of Legend's games and stopped for a bit - I picked up with Mission Critical, which is part well written sci-fi story and part tedious spaceship repairman sim.< We're playing catch up with updating old articles. There's still a lot of work to be done, but in the meantime, check out review for Ace Attorney Investigations, the new Rocket Knight game, and Elevator Action: Death Parade.

We're also announcing a couple of new stuff outside of the normal articles. First up is a brand new section called Games of the World, which catalogues various articles, both written by HG101 staff and others, about the gaming scene outside of North America, Europe and Japan, places which are already well covered around the English speaking Internet. Do you live in an exotic part of the world and want to talk about games there? Then feel free to contribute! Pictures and videos welcome, of course! Also up is The Life and Times of Jeremy Blaustein, an extensive look at the career of the man who is most known for localized Metal Gear Solid, but also worked on other games like Snatcher, Valkyrie Profile, and Shenmue.

7 comments:

  1. I always knew Jeremy Blaustein was awesome, but I never knew just how awesome! Everything he said in that article, I agree with 100%. Thank you for posting it! If I could send you money somehow I would. :3

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  2. Yey! Sorry I posted comments about this article on the previous one, but this one wasn't up (I'm guessing so people can see the compo better).

    One thing that I wanna ask: the NTSC 360. Arn't alot of 360 games region free? (There's a site with a list of them somewhere). Is it better to buy another 360 to enjoy import games or just use my current one?
    (Ps3 is fully region free I think, with only a few games forcing region locking)

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  3. I don't have any statistics, but my guess would be region free Xbox360 games are still the minority overall. Unless you're a shmup fanatic, there aren't too many reasons to get a Japanese one, though.

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  4. Question: if I want to write about gaming in my country, what do I need to write? Anything I want?

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  5. Well, yes, anything you want others to read. Have a look at what's up there and follow a vaguely similar pattern if you want. Some things to think about:

    How is gaming unique in your country?

    Is it entwined with local culture in some interesting way (for example the Teh Tarak arcade celebrations in Malaysia)?

    Does your area have games which were released nowhere else? Are there local coders creating small titles, perhaps for older machines, which aren't released elsewhere?

    Can you provide photos?

    I want these to show how and why gaming is unique in these areas, while also maybe explaining a little bit about the culture which augments it.

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  6. Ah, cool. I'm going to write about pirated games and the arcade scene in Indonesia with photos in a week or two, then.

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  7. There is an error on page 7 of the Jackie Chan article, in the Inspired Characters section. The pokemon Hitmonchan does NOT evolve into Hitmonlee.

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