Gamesugar

February 21, 2010

Lazy Sunday – Production I.G To The Rescue

Halo Legends
Last night I took time out to watch Halo Legends, because despite my dickish reputation I am, in earnest, a fountain of eternal optimism. Thematically and structurally Legends is chasing after The Animatrix, no surprises there, and while it misses that mark it is also littered with sequences and ideas that make the work hard to dismiss entirely.

Rather than a focused and stylish effort, Legends is more like a sloppy bomb that leaves just enough shrapnel embedded in the subculture it wants to wrap itself in to find extended life, not unlike the Skeksis. Repeated viewings turn up interesting pieces, but it’s clear from the first run through that Production I.G is in many ways without peers, with The Duel easily standing out from the pack both for its visual challenge and narrative focus.

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February 18, 2010

Review – Fret Nice

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 9:19 pm

Fret Nice
Fret Nice’s invitation to play through familiar territory with a slightly skewed set of controls is as alluring as it is frustrating at first. Short on fancier words, I’ll suggest that there are plenty of moments in this writing about games experiment where I spend days puzzling over what to make of a title, and this is no exception.

The nagging sensation biting at my neck makes it hard to simply brush the game aside as a mediocre platformer with a hook. Even without the guitar, Fret Nice would be an interesting diversion from the everyday, though a little light on content. And so here we are, with me kinda liking the game, but entirely unsure of what to do with it – of course I realize the obvious answer is to be playing it.

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February 14, 2010

Lazy Sunday – Valkyria Chronicles Is Still My Valentine

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: , , , , — Jamie Love @ 10:05 am

Lazy Sunday
So it occurred to me while slurping the necessary amount of coffee to spark my bones to life for another day that I spend quite a bit of my Sunday morning half-mindlessly checking out websites, and that perhaps I could make a thing out of that. Time will tell if this continues or not I suppose.

Anyway, it’s Valentine’s Day, which would be incomplete without some game related cardness in Japanese, so says I, and the girls of Valkyria Chronicles 2 have me covered via Famitsu. Famitsu also has a very sweet page for 100mt, or Patchwork Heroes for those of us in the land of poorly named NA PSP games.

As always the good Rebels at 4cr have the best Valentine’s Day Cards. Though Mitch didn’t have time to do it up right and proper this year, the choice between Snake’s two greatest admirers from MGS is much appreciated – though a third one with Liquid might have been an additionally nice touch.

In other news, and to wrap this up so I can get back to my coffee, I came across yet another comparison between game box art releases in different regions, which is entirely important because I had no idea that the Japanese cover for Batman Returns was so incredibly awesome – so much so that I have to use the word awesome. Near the bottom of that same page you’ll also find Shadowrun, where the Japanese cover definitely feasts on a rich Blade Runner vein to really capture how I thought of the game back when it released.

Happy Valentine’s Day, if only so that I can offer much love from a guy named love.

February 10, 2010

Review – No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle

No More Heroes 2
Margaret waits patiently on the rooftops of Santa Destroy, another female sniper, distinguished by her Gothic Lolita attire and the player’s knowledge that her song is enough to kill. Charging toward her like a bull causes her to fire bullets on cue, which are either blocked at the expense of blade energy or dodged.

When I can get in close enough for the kill, the action is a mash of hack and slash that lands like sloppy kisses to push her back, save for that precise and precious moment where our blades lock and I fall off the edge of the couch from the force of spinning the WiiMote.

During every fight I’ll end up standing on the couch before the end, consistently overcompensating the actions needed as my health drops lower and I run out of pizza slices. I’m earnestly sweating after nearly every encounter as if my life were on the line over this stripped down story of revenge. It doesn’t really matter if the story seems straightforward though, because it’s much more about the player than the adventures of Travis Touchdown this time around.

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February 9, 2010

Gamesugar Mailbag!

Filed under: News Feed — Tags: , , — Jamie Love @ 3:45 pm

Rey-o!
How happy was I to check the mail this morning and find a postcard from one of my favorite Toronto artists? The answer is very!

This awesome postcard, which you can see a larger view of here, was sent my way by Rey Ortega, who has a habit of creating work that makes me wish he was working in games, but maybe glad he isn’t given the industry’s habit of sucking people’s souls out through a straw.

Anyway, this is a great reason to mention that you should check out more of Rey’s work at his site, Rey Ortega Illustration.

Extended thanks to Rey for sending me awesome mail right when I needed it.

February 3, 2010

The Evolution of Fret Nice

Filed under: Features — Tags: , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 2:24 pm

Fret Nice
Pieces Interactive’s Fret Nice arrives on the PlayStation Network tomorrow, with an XBLA date still to be announced. The guitar controlled platformer has had a long road toward a console release, during which time the game’s unique visual aesthetic has evolved quite a bit.

Remembering the game’s first appearance in 2007, I was hoping to find out more about how exactly this evolution took shape during the development process, and to my infinite delight Fret Nice’s Creator/Designer Mårten Brüggemann offered an extremely insightful and detailed response that follows the game from its origins through to the final release available tomorrow.

Catch it all in Mårten’s own words, after the break.

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February 2, 2010

The Comment That Nearly Killed Me…

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 5:20 pm

Metroid
I wouldn’t have thought that a post about a teaser site would get me so fired up, but Nick Rumas’ 4cr post about Other M had the ability to stop me dead in the water, and not because he is more optimistic about changes to the Metroid series – if we all thought the same life would be far too bland to go on living.

Rather it was this particular comment attached to the post that stuck me like a needle –

It reminds me of the Metroid Manga, which was fairly good, This game is conveying emotion, which is a great thing I feel, for this game will bring the series to new places, by mixing a great story in with great action. They are just trying to give this series depth, rather than a regular old sci-fi shooter. when you think about it, your still going to be shooting giant space pirates and collecting new upgrades, but this time around I’ll feel the anger and pain of loss, suffering that they’ve caused, and really get enjoyment from killing space pirates and whatnot

Now it’ll seem like I’m singling this comment out to simply pick on it, but I believe it’s an incredibly important talking point that needs some examination. Neither is it my intention to tell you how you should feel about potential changes to the Metroid series via a game we know very little about.

Rather, the inference of where depth emerges from in this comment touches directly on whether the medium of gaming is one we as gamers actively engage with, because without that level of active engagement we’re merely pressing buttons to watch longer movies.

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