Hardcoregaming101.net Presents: The Guide to Classic Graphic Adventures is now available at Amazon. For right now it's only on the US store, although I'm told it'll feed over to the UK one "eventually". This happened much quicker than I expected, so hooray! The Kindle version, I'm still working on - it requires a bit more reformatting to look right, plus it needs lots of linking for the table of contents to show up. And since there are easily over 350 different things to link...
I can't update the main pages until later today, but I'll be putting up some more adventure game related content shortly, so please keep your eyes open.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Japan's Top 700 Video Game Music of All Time
Fairly recently, various sources (2ch and Nico Nico Douga, I presume) polled gamers on the All Time Best Video Game Music - 700 songs in total! - and put the results up for everyone to hear. Intrepid Youtube user Gestriden has ripped them all and uploaded them into one big Youtube Playlist
I've no idea what the full list is, since they bunched together all of the songs except for the Top 50. It's an eclectic list, to be certain, I've broken out the top 50 per below, although I'm not entirely clear on all of the games or track names.
50 - Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver
49 - Cleopatra Fortune - Shinin Queen
48 - Ys 7 - Vacanat Interference
47 - Romancing SaGa 3 - Four Demons Noble Battle
46 - Mamatoto - Running to the Straight
45 - Sora no Kiseki - Light Feud
44 - Xenoblade - Gaul
43 - Wild Arms - To the End Of Wilderness
42 - Hello Goodbye - Shousha
41 - Nier - Song of Ancients
40 - Trauma Team - Bloody Rose
39 - Ys vs Sora no Kiseki - Get Over the Barrier - Roaring Version
38 - Battle Theme Part I - Last Armageddon
37 - Romancing Saga - Final Decisive Battle
36 - Ys Oath in Felghana - Valestein Castle
35 - Wild Arms (??) Blazer Battle
34 - Lost Odyssey - Departed Souls
33 - Ys VI - Mighty Obstacle
32 - Xenosaga - Final Battle
31 - Hello Goodbye - Encounter
30 - Tales of Legendia - Chasing Shirley
29 - Monster Hunter Tri - Bonus Song
28 - Ys Origin: Tension
27 - Tales of Vesperia - Cutting off the Amibition
26 - Shadow Hearts Covenant
25 - Dragon Slayer - Stopper
24 - Legend of Heroes - Silver Will
23 - Mana Khemia
22 - Baten Kaitos Origins - The Valedictory Elegy
21 - God Eater - Merciless Lord
20 - Tekken 6
19 - Darius Burst - The World of Spirit
18 - Ace Combat X2 - Fire Youngman
17 - Donkey Kong Country 2 - Stickerbrush Symphony
16 - Mamoru-kun wa Norowarate Shimatta! - Yokai Disco
15 - Ys Origin (Super Arrange??)
14 - Persona 3 - Battle for All People's Souls
13 - Space Invaders Extreme 2
12 - Sengoku Rance - Battle on Edge
11 - Ys II Chronicles - To Make an End to Battle
10 - Venus and Braves - Waltz for Aria
9 - Legend of Heroes - JDK Band album (??)
8 - Xenoblade - Mechanical Rhythm
7 - Ninja Warriors - Daddy Mulk (Mega CD)
6 - Halo 3 - Finish the Fight
5 - Pokemon Mysterious Dungeon
4 - Ace Combat Zero
3 - Ys Seven - Legend of Dragons
2 - Ys Seven - Final Boss
1 - Okami
As with any list polled from a wider variety of sources, this is sort of questionable. I mean, there's some good stuff on there - great stuff, even - but I'm at a loss to explain Japan's love affair with the semi-obnoxious theme song from Ninja Warriors. I do approce of the many Ys songs, at least. There's a good chunk that I'm either not familiar with (God Eater) or have simply never heard of (Hello, Goodbye?) The only ones I'd stick on my list is the Ys II Chronicles To Make An End to Battle, Persona 3 - Battle for All People's Souls, Ys VI - Mighty Obstacle, Ys 7 - Vacanat Interference, and maybe Wild Arms - To the End Of Wilderness.
It does almost make me want to run a similar poll for non-Japanese gamers, if I could figure out a way to manage such a gigantic project. I might not really hear ear-to-ear on the final results, but it's cool to see what the fan culture as a whole has to say. What say you all - would such a task be worth undertaking?
Dyna Marisa 3D
Maybe you'd like Earth Defense Force more if it had Touhou. Happily, Twilight Frontier is here to provide.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Now Available to Order: Hardcoregaming 101.net Presents: The Guide To Classic Graphic Adventures
After two and a half years, it's finally done - Hardcoregaming 101.net Presents: The Guide To Classic Graphic Adventures is now ready to order!
As of current, the book is only available through the Createspace Store, and should be showing up on Amazon within a week or two, since it takes a little bit of time for them to register with the database. Since one of the reasons I wanted to use Amazon was due to its cheaper shipping, I've enabled a coupon code - use DN84NDUU for a $3.59 credit, which will cover the cheapest shipping to the US. It will ship internationally, and the prices aren't too bad - it looks to be about $7 to Europe or so, before the discount. I'll update to links to Amazon when they become available. The Kindle version isn't yet available, since the whole book requires drastic reformatting for it to look proper - it uses tables for the "info boxes" with the box cover, which unfortunately the Kindle seems to hate! But it will be available soon!
At any rate, I'm extremely excited to offer this book to you guys. It's taken a whole ton of work, but the book's absolutely massive (772 pages, over 390,000 words) with hundreds of screenshots, reviews of over 300 games - ranging from quick capsules reviews to fairly in-depth analyses - and is essential reading to anyone who grew up on LucasArts, Sierra, or other similar games and wants to learn more about them. I hope you enjoy it, and hopefully you will be seeing more books from HG101 in the future!
Profile of British developer M4
In my recent Resident Evil Gaiden article for Retro Gamer (hi-res scans in this Biohaze forum topic) I profiled the developers behind the game, but due to dwindling space these weren’t able to used in the article itself. So they won’t go to waste, I’m posting them here. The above photo is from their office during better times.Here's a web archive of their old website.
M4 was a British developer formed in 1995 by Tim Hull. Primarily known for handheld titles, it was comprised of several former BITS development staff. Although they formed to create new titles, paying the bills necessitated working with licences. Three of their biggest titles, Bounty Hunter (PC), Stuntpigs (Next Gen) and Space Cadets (GBA) never made it to market. Though Space Cadets was actually completed.
As Tim Hull explained in the RG article: “Sadly no original M4 titles made it to the shelves. Bounty Hunter, Space Cadets and Stuntpigs were all games we really wanted to bring to market. The later two are still held by us in Stuntpigs Ltd a dormant company. Who knows maybe one day they will rise.”
With backups of everything still with Tim, there is a chance that in the future we’ll see one of these unreleased M4 games.
The question then is: WHERE ARE THE DISBANDED TEAM NOW?
Elliot CurtisCreative Producer
Making Fun Games
Elliot now runs an indie development company called Making Fun Games. They produce browser games for PC and are currently expanding their most popular games onto other platforms, including mobile and X360.
www.makingfungames.com
[Sketcz’s note: I’ve checked out the website and it’s got a nice selection of totally free browser games! I tend to dismiss them, because most browser games I see people playing are terribly uninteresting – but I had a go on Outbreak 2012 on the MFG website, and it’s actually pretty damn awesome. It’s a 2D side-scrolling survival horror with an interesting mouse-based combat system and some great atmosphere. Definitely worth checking out! There’s also a diverse range of other games on there.][Elliot in RG article: Bounty Hunter was in production when I joined M4 and it really was stunning. As for Stuntpigs - the best game never made. I think it was just ahead of its time... Space Cadets though, that was actually completed and it was a really good game. It was different though and it really worked best multi-player. It’s typical - generally publishers don’t like to risk money on original stuff, especially when there’s cartridges to pay for.]
Stefan BarnettArtist / Game Designer
Rice Media
Is in Birmingham where he’s working as an Artist/Game Designer on iPhone games.
[FROM RG ARTICLE: I worked as a traditional model-maker on Pepperami adverts, In the theatre with sets, and props and also in Childrens books. I was thrown in right in at the deep end with Resident Evil: Gaiden being my first project]
James CoxHead of Development
PlayStation Home
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe
Tim HullGames Explorer
Globaltimoto
One man on a motorcycle around the world in a quest for gameplay.
Kieron WheelerI’m not entirely sure what Kieron is doing, to be honest. I liaised with Tim and I don’t recall being told where he moved on to. Perhaps some form of top secret project?
As I've always said, it's important to know who makes your games, never mix up the publisher with the developer, and if you like a game, take a look at the credits to see who made it, since they seldom get the attention they deserve (unless they're someone like Kojima or Molyneux), and they've probably made other great games you might not know about.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Retro Gamer 88 and 89
Guess which ground breaking, vanguard pushing, demon-general-in-training journalist has written earth-shatteringly incredible articles for an award-winning magazine this month. Yes readers, that’s right, it’s me – your very own Lord Humongous. Articles for Retro Gamer magazine, which means complimentary issues. And guess who is placing scans from this magazine online – right again, it’s ME. And for those who recently posted in comments, arguing I came across as arrogant and pretentious, TOO BAD. You are tuned to radio Sketcz and there is nothing that can change the dial. I hope you’ll stay awhile and enjoy the scans anyway.
Included are full size scans of the 6 page article with shmup developer Cave – it’s so good I thought everyone should see it.
Now, let me explain what we have here, and we can all get along in peace. I'm just here for the magazaline.
Contents to issue 88, hopefully large enough after you click on it to read what's in the issue. My favourite issue in a while, mainly because of the epic Cave article. You don't often get interviews with Japanese developers in games mags, and RG seems to be getting a lot recently.
Minority report is a new series of articles looking at obscure games on obscure systems. Pretty good this one, with lots of niche shmups. There's another in issue 89, which I didn't scan, and it's good, but some of the choices are pretty known in my opinion (Baku Baku is pretty common, right?)
Another in RG's ongoing obscura machina series. This alternates with their collector's guide series, so we get one really obscure piece of hardware and then an in-depth guide on something common like the N64 or C64. This is a good idea, since it's not always easy to recover systems already looked at. My only gripe is this particular article must have mentioned shooters for the system 2 or 3 times, and what games do they showcase? Cards, a recent homebrew Pacman game, and noughts and bloody crosses! The Pacman game is OK, but I'm sure the Fairchild had more interesting games that the other two.It doesn't mention it, but the creator of the system died recently. Now that was in April according to Wires, so it happened after the magazine came out. Sadly ironic the timing of things.
Good feature by Stuart Campbell. Looks at early 1980s clones of well known games from that time. It's a simple idea, simply executed, but I had a lot of enjoyment seeing just how many crappy Donkey Kong clones they made around the time. Heck, that along could have made a feature - 101 Donkey Kong clones over the decades. Fun read.
Missile Command making of. 6 pages. Apparently been in the works by Darran for years now.
Don't read my words, golden and fantastic as they may be, click the images and read this article for yourself. Full of great trivia, good flow, nicely written prose, plus an interview with the guys at Cave. Top design too. The perfect article.
Contents from issue 89.
The collector's guide for the C64. I like it because it covers a lot of niche stuff about the system, and I'm all about the weird and unusual. Good photos of some rarities too. It doesn't credit the author, but I have a feeling freelancer Matt wrote the piece, in which case he interviewed himself on the last page. Maybe not thought.
Has it really been 20 years? Seems like yesterday I was visiting my mate Paul and a group of us were having mini tournaments. Jeez, I'm turning into old man. :(
Ridge Racer making of. They seem to have gotten answers from Namco staff, so quite a coup. 6 pages.FUN TRIVIA: I don't like Ridge Racer. In fact I dislike it immensely. I also dislike Virtua Racer and Sega Rally immensely. How many tracks and cars do each of these have? 3 or 4 cars and as many tracks. Now, take Mario Kart or F-Zero and count how many cars and tracks they have. Back in the day I never understood why people paid money for the home version of something which had so little content. I still don't today. I don't even find them fun to play. It's not like you can shoot a turtle shell out of the bonnet of a rally car, now can you?
Oddly enough, I really like the original Gran Tourismo. Lots of content there. Hours and hours of stuff to tinker with and do. How many tracks? Thousands probably.
Broderbund! Big feature. Haven't read it yet.
My article! Fantastic! Somebody give this man the Nobel Peace Prize.If you want hi-res scans visit the Biohaze forum.In the article I speak with 4 members from the dev team and document some very interesting things about the game. My only concern is that the Biohaze forum has commented on the game being of poor quality - and the implication of their posts is that my claims of it being a gem were somehow spurious. Due to all the developer info I had, there was very little space to explain why the game is great. I managed to compare it to Die Hard and that was it.
I want to emphasise this: I didn't make claims of the game's excellence in order to facilitate the interview. I tried the game, and loved it so much that I was determined, absolutely determined, to document it. Every time I read someone criticise it I feel myself lost for words because I utterly cannot understand why. It's a lengthy adventure, it's got challenge, creepiness, and interesting story, absolutely beautiful visuals, and it works so well as a handheld title. I sincerely loved it from start to finish.It holds equal place with MGS Ghost Babel on GBC for me. I'm not making this up. Gaiden is golden.
Interview with Raff. I've only ever played one game of his (Last Samurai on SNES), so this didn't interest me much.
Daz old boy appears to be getting into old PC games and especially DOS. The original Half Life (Windows obviously), Jill of the Jungle, Diehard (the PC game), plus Jetpack here. This is great, because there is an incredible world of overlooked gems for DOS. The ease of publishing on PC compared to consoles resulted in a lot of cool stuff. Hope this coverage continues (hinthint: do the English DOS version of Princess Maker 2 next).Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Down From the Top of Its Game: The Story of Infocom - Book Review
It's a great, but with a few fundamental issues. Mostly, much like GET LAMP, it does a fantastic job illustrating the history of the business and (to a lesser extent), why the genre is so fascinating...but it largely glosses over the games themsevles. It talks about the creation of feelies for Deadline and a bit of about Floyd in Planetfall...but bairly mentions any of the rest of their titles, other than that they exist? I know this was initially a history paper and such criticism would have originally been beyond the scope...but the result is that the book is just way too short, considering it's only 50 pages worth of content and sold for $10. I haven't done thorough word count comparisons, but I think the Zork article in the upcoming HG101 adventure game book is longer than this entire production. Indeed, I've got at least a half a dozen ideas for a follow up book, one of which is one focusing on interactive fiction, including a comprehensive look at Infocom titles. It's been a long time since I've been into them personally - I played through Leather Goddesses of Phobos and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for the book, but haven't touched others since I was in high school. (I actually wrote some UHS hint files for the likes of Trinity, Bureaucracy and Infidel some fifteen years ago.) Indeed, if you've got any interest in the subject and would like to contribute, please drop me a line and we can hash out some details.
But, oh, right, this book? The gist of it - great read, you should support the press and the authors by buying it, but it really is way too short.
Japan News for May 10th 2011
A scan has surfaced for what is probably a sequel to 7th Dragon for the PSP. The linked website is blocked at the moment. Supposedly coming Fall this year.
On the fan review site PSPmk2. Saigo Yakusoku Monogatari (Last Promise Story) from imagepoch is maintaining a really low E rating.
In continuing the saga of re-releasing games forever, Dragon Quest I・II・III is coming to Wii. Interesting that they've upgraded to including III now. famitsu
As previously reported the Growlanser 4 Overload site has updated.
There's still time to vote in Nihon Falcom and Dengeki's poll for favorite Falcom Heroine.
And in stuff the west will never get: Rockman phonestraps.
On the fan review site PSPmk2. Saigo Yakusoku Monogatari (Last Promise Story) from imagepoch is maintaining a really low E rating.
In continuing the saga of re-releasing games forever, Dragon Quest I・II・III is coming to Wii. Interesting that they've upgraded to including III now. famitsu
As previously reported the Growlanser 4 Overload site has updated.
There's still time to vote in Nihon Falcom and Dengeki's poll for favorite Falcom Heroine.
And in stuff the west will never get: Rockman phonestraps.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Early 1990s Japanese Game Expo Photos (2/2)
Here's the second batch of photos, from 1993 and 1994:
AM Show 1993
The guy in the middle is supposedly Jaleco's Jun Saito. Not that I could recognize him...
I think this is some kind of fortune teller machineSpace World 1993
AOU 1993
CSG 1994
AOU 1994
Only one tiny image for this one, unfortunately.
Tokyo Toy Show 1994
This is the oldest photo where I've ever seen the classic bathing suits on a video game event.Super Famicom Earth World 1994
Earth World used to be the counterpart of Nintendo's Space World, not open for the public but only intended for the press and industry.
Lord British was there, too, probably to promote some Ultima SNES port.
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