The headline quote comes from the above video (found at eegra) when discussing the inclusion of space chicks in Kenichi (ex Skip) Nishi’s newest game/diversion - Newtonica.
It’s a fun little game for the iPhone that harkens back to the high-score era of gaming. All you do is rotate a sphere so the incoming pink or blue blocks hit in the same color quadrant. The gameplay is as simple as it gets, but the main thing it has going for it is the very cool music and visuals. Kenji Eno’s soundtrack complements the game’s minimalist attitude beautifully.
Newtonica is best appreciated more as a piece of interactive art than a game as such, although in saying that, I had a lot of fun playing it.
What is Earthbound? Otherwise known as Mother 2 in Japan, it’s only one of the most beloved RPGs of all time. Never played it? You probably don’t live in Japan or Seppoland. It never saw the light of day in other regions and that, my friends, is a tragedy.
Unlike almost any other RPG, Earthbound has a contemporary setting. No swords or lasers, just slingshots, baseball bats and yo-yos. It also has a real irreverence about itself and while constantly poking fun at itself and genre cliches, it still manages to tell an epic and engrossing story of one boy’s struggle against the Earth invading Giygas across continents and dimensions.
So why all this Eartbound love in a post that has been months coming? Reports from America are stating that the ESRB has rated Earthbound as E (for everyone). Which usually means the game is coming to the Virtual Console on Wii. The only fly in the ointment is the possiblity of it not being released in PAL territories, where it has never been sold. We can only cross our fingers and hope it shows up in a not to distant Hanabi Festival release.
This could also be good news for the unreleased and un-translated GBA game Mother 3. If Earthbound sells as well as it should on the VC, maybe Nintendo might reconsider their cock-blocking of the game for western audiences.
And I back away hesitantly. This isn’t the Street Fighter I know and love. These character models look like they were torn screaming from God Of War or something and stood sobbing while a dirty old Capcom man dressed them in Ken and Ryu’s clothes and shoved them onto a pantomine stage with and autistic child’s interpretation on Chun-Li’s famous background smeared onto cardboard with their own faeces and snot.
Okay, so it doesn’t look that bad, but my expectations are now severley lowered. The anouncement trailer (embedded after the break) showed a lot of promise with it’s ultra stylised ink-blot look, but these first leaked screenshots look like they’re american. You know, competant and not-ugly, but completely lacking in style or finesse. I hope Capcom hasn’t handballed any duties accross the atlantic - because westeners making a new canon Street Fighter game would signal the end of days.
Oh yeah - 2.5D, Chun-Li and Dhalsim returning, set between SF2 and SF3, no parry system but ‘revenges’ and ‘ultras’ and there’s also a crazy rumour of one Sheng Long appearing (last time I belived that one was an April many, many years ago).
After Q2 2008. That’s when Nintendo will throw their Aus/Euro Wii owning Brawl fans a bone. A bone that has already been gnawed on for at least five months by the rest of the world. And this news comes only days after Nintendo are quoted as saying they are trying to bring the release dates for the rest of the world more into line with NA/Japan.
This just cannot stand much longer. I know there are things like inventory management, localisation and local classifications for the monkeys in suits to guide their steam powered paddle boats of ineptitude around, but Sony and Microsoft don’t seem to have such a difficult time releasing their software at similar times around the world.
Rant over. On a different (but much less facinating) subject, I will be endevouring to make more posts in the coming months. My work situation seems to have settled and I should have a bit more free time. Cheers to anyone still reading. (Ha!)
The awesome power of science and nature are combined into two enormous Tesla coils synced together to perform an amazing feat of wonder and awe - play the Super Mario Bros theme tune.
Yes - you’ve heard it on your TV, you’ve heard it as a ringtone and even heard it performed by a symphony orchestra. Now hear it in all it’s glory emanating from the true geek’s favorite power tool - the Tesla Coil.
Science never fails to amaze me. Hit the jump for more Tesla video game music madness… Continue reading »
Does anyone else look at this and think the 2D section looks a helluva lot better than the 3D? Why did they bother with 3D? It’s a 2D comic, 2D characters and now a 3D game. A terrible looking 3D game at that. I wonder how may capital Ds I can write in one paragraph? One more. D.
Well, it seems this little industry revolving around the playing of games on a TV screen has turned forty! Forty! Who would’ve thunk that two engineers playing ‘fill the bucket’ could evolve into the multi-million dollar bohemuth that envelopes us today?
