Author Archives: Steven

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About Steven

Editor-In-Chief of The Wired Fish since 2010. Suggestions, praise, and hate mail can be sent to steven@thewiredfishnetwork.com

Xenoblade Confirmed… For Australia

Usually at the butt of every joke in the videogame community and sometimes more screwed over than gamers in Germany,  Australia can celebrate as its getting Xenoblade (under the EU name of Xenoblade Chronicles). At first, the game getting classified by the OFLC sparked rumors that Xenoblade would come out in Australia, But now it has been confirmed. No release date yet, but it pains us NA gamers to see other Nintendo branches become cooler than ours. Ours is run by a Suit in gamer’s clothing.

Xenoblade Chronicles Confirmed for Australia [Nintendo World Report]

Operation Rainfall

Is Capcom, and The Game Industry, Backing Itself Into a Catch 22 Situation?

Super Version. Hyper Turbo. Ultimate. Game of the Year Edition. In the gaming community, these are identifiers of a game that has been updated. Super, back then, was really just something that was getting released on Super Nintendo. But now, Super is synonymous with an update that was unexpected after promises were made beforehand.  You can probably see which game I’m indirectly referencing and probably understand where I’m coming from. Before the situation we’re facing now in the gaming industry, Capcom led the charge in making updates to their games. However, back then they had good reason to.

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New and Old Characters Revealed for Soul Calibur V

Namco has shown off six new characters for its upcoming Soul Calibur V. SCV takes place 17 years after the events of the lackluster SCIV. The new main character for this entry is Sophitia’s son, Patroklos. Pyrrha, Sophitia’s daughter (thus Patroklos sister) has been shown as well. As expected, they don the sword & shield like their mother. Ivy seems to have not aged at all for the past 17 years. But I think she realized a lot of people were looking at her assets last time and decided to cover up. That ninja girl, now revealed to be Taki’s disciple, is Natsu. Will she be replacing Taki in the fighting arena is yet to be seen. Mitsurugi. Older. Badass. Siegfried is back, sporting some stubble and, if the story of Soul Calibur is anything to go by, probably too powerful for his own good. And we have Zwei, a new fighter that just screams Maxi wannabe. But, he doesn’t use nun-chucks. He appears to be using a tonfa-like sword (which would make one believe he’s had some interaction with Talim), but his weapon is much bigger than Talim’s tonfas, and he only has one. Lots of mystery surrounding this guy. Gallery after the jump.

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Grasshopper Announces Lollipop Chainsaw

Image from Famitsu

Fresh off releasing Shadows of the Damned, Grasshopper has revealed their latest game, Lollipop Chainsaw. According to Famitsu batch of screenshots (which I’ll send you to in a minute), it looks like this might be a third-person game. Not necessarily of the TPS-like variety, if some of the game art means anything. The main star, Juliet, is a cheerleader that is also a Zombie Hunter. She can also use some cheerleader moves to dispatch her foes (and even use pompoms!).

The story goes that she’s from a lineage of zombie hunters. One day, zombies start to terrorize her school, San Romero Highschool (hehe I see what you did there). She whips out her chainsaw, and gets to work. Does it make sense? Not much. But it looks like Suda 51 is involved in this, so it’s automatically awesome and completely bananas. It’s slated to release on PS3 and Xbox360. The game currently has no release date.

『LOLLIPOP CHAINSAW(ロリポップチェーンソー)』須田剛一氏が贈る猛毒ゾンビ青春アクション! [via Andriasang]

Megaman Legends 3 Has Been Cancelled

Megaman Death Sound

You hear that sound when Megaman dies. That’s not Megaman dying. That’s Capcom, becoming a former shadow of itself, becoming a company different than what I grew up with. That sound is the many visions of my childhood, growing up with Capcom, vanishing. This is not the same Capcom anymore. That company that made all those games back then… Megaman, Megaman X, Ghosts n Goblins, DuckTales, Resident Evil, Dino Crisis, Street Fighter, Darkstalkers, Zelda: Oracle of Ages and Seasons, Zelda: The Minish Cap, Marvel vs. Capcom, Devil May Cry… and Megaman Legends, one of the games that defined my childhood… This is not the same company.

This is not Capcom. This is Capcom Co., Ltd., a corporation with an air of arrogance and a belief that it knows better than thou. A company reaping the benefits of cheap, western outsourcing, only two fighting games in the market, and rip-off after rip-off (on-disc) dlc. There is no more Unity, as they proclaim. We are not fans to them. We are just customers now. We are not defined by our heads, our arms, our thumbs, our legs… no. We are defined by our wallets, like massive breasts in an office. That is all they want now. Well Capcom, enjoy this new world you made for yourself, this gray, dreary world. I’ll stay on this side, where I can still enjoy the old games you made.

I could do my usual journalistic breakdown of what happened and the reasons behind. But I’ll let Destructoid handle it. To me, this goes far deeper into what makes me a gamer.

Mega Man Legends 3 officially cancelled [Destructoid]

Nintendo of America Trademarks The Last Story, Cease Holding of Breath

This… is not news. At least to me it’s not. Last Tuesday, on July 12th, Nintendo of America was issued a notice of allowance for The Last Story, one of the three games targeted in fan group/movement Operation Rainfall. What does this mean? Well, it means that no other property in the U.S. has a trademark on the name “The Last Story,” and thus it is safe to release here. Think Star Fox for the SNES, and Star Fox for the Atari 2600. Same name, two completely different games. Why is it not news? The deal here, as many have pointed out, is that companies tend to trademark their properties in many different territories as a safety net to ensure that no backwater little company takes the name and sits on it (or exploits it). Plus, trademark filings never really guarantee that anything will come out to begin with. Remember Chrono Break? Yeah, that was a ride.

Now if something does come out of this trademark, then this article means nothing and you can commence throwing eggs at my face.

Trademarkia [via Joystiq]

It Happened Again. Someone’s Boxart Got Censored

I’m getting really tired of someone worrying that little Timmy is going to see a set of knockers. Listen, at some point in his life, he’s gonna see a pair of jugs. As you can see, Europe has already matured into seeing humdingers. It’s part of everyday life. But in the good ol’ Puritan US of A, oh no, the mams are still that mystical body part that is only awesome in your mind and should only be seen by your arranged husband. But don’t worry America, we’ll mature to the point where lady lumps will no longer be feared as this morality monster of mischief. The puppies will finally breathe and be appreciated.

…Boobs.

Oh Look, Another Fanbase Mad At Another New Game Coming Out

Oh this is getting hilarious. So, what’s the fanbase raising a big shit now? Well, it’s the Zelda fanbase. In all honesty, this fanbase raises a big shit over every Zelda game, the most infamous being The Wind Waker. But now, they’re going apeshit over Skyward Sword. A quick glance over at Kotaku, and you’ll see that editor Stephen Totilo had to practically defend himself from the vats of fan bile that was thrown his way when he demoed the game. For crying out loud, the game isn’t even out yet, and people are already writing off the game like they bought that shit last year. But I bet you’re thinking, “hey, crazy fish guy, you guys talked shit about Twilight Princess in that podcast you did.” Here’s the thing, it’s already out. We played it. We beat it. We have an opinion about it, a rational one at that. Here, Skyward Sword is still in development. While we addressed concerns about Skyward Sword, we also talked good things about the game too, unlike those fools that talked shit about it on Kotaku.

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RUMOR: Xenoblade NA Localization Done, Last Story Up Next

Oh god you have no idea how much I want to believe this. But alas, it is only a rumor. According to Operation Rainfall, an anonymous source within Nintendo is stating that the localization of Xenoblade is complete and that The Last Story is up next for localization. No word yet on Pandora’s Tower. However, it seems even Operation Rainfall is suspicious about the news. It does beg the question though. Say it really did get localized. Are they using the British accent localization, or a more American English sounding localizing? You can read more about this on Operation Rainfall’s blog.

Source: NTSC Xenoblade Done, The Last Story In Progress [Operation Rainfall]

5-Year-Old Boy Dead After Breaking TV with Wiimote

In another case of “What the hell man!?”, On June 17, a Bronx mother’s son was found dead. Reports say that the mother hit her boy after he broke the TV while playing the Wii (assuming, with the Wiimote). When police came over, they found the boy unresponsive and declared dead due to internal bleeding.

Now, in all honesty, I really didn’t want to post an article like this since these articles tend to pop up quite often on other gaming sites and the responses are always the same. But why then? What drives someone apeshit to the point of abuse when it comes to gaming stuff? Seeing as how it may have been the TV that broke (others are sying that the Wii itself broke), there’s a good change the kid wasn’t wearing the wrist strap. Assuming this was the case, and being that the kid was 5 years old, he probably didn’t know any better to wear the wrist-strap. In this case, the mom was supposed to be there to put the thing on her kid and tell him how important it is to put the damn thing on. If he disobeys, don’t let him play the game. Parenting 1-0-fucking-1 people.

And another thing. The other reason why I don’t really post articles like these is because merely posting this fans the flames of the “Gamers are bad” idea that most religious pundits and politicians love to use when they get bored and want an easy target to use as Moral Panic punching bags. It becomes unfair to us level-minded gamers when the action of one is assumed to be done by many. Not all of us are like this. When something breaks, either by us or someone else, we fix it, send it in for repairs, or just get a new one. Nothing to kill someone over. From the looks of it, she is not a gamer (or at least, not by our definition). While we can hope this won’t be used as another bullet-point for anti-game lobbyists, you know someone *coughFOXcough* is gonna spin this into something against the gaming community.

Source: Gothamist

The Breakdown – Dissidia Duodecim: Final Fantasy

Marvel vs. Capcom, Super Smash Bros., King of Fighters, Fighters Megamix, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe… what that do all these games have in common? Well my friend, they’re all fighting games! Obvious. But what separates games like these from your typical ilk of fighters is that these are the crossover ones. The fighting games that pair up characters from different properties to (sometimes team up and) beat the crap out of each other in the name of pleasing the fans. So it comes as no surprise that Final Fantasy would jump into the fray of crossover fighters. They’ve done it before. But this time around, it all about the Final Fantasy characters, and it’s not your typical Left Side/Right Side kind of fighter. Two years ago, Square released Dissidia: Final Fantasy, a fighting game that was one part Virtual On, one part Kingdom Hearts. You were free to move everywhere, and you customized your character as they leveled up. In the end, it only appealed to the Final Fantasy crowd, and critics panned the game for its limited fighting system. So how does this prequel, Dissidia Duodecim fix the issues of the old? Hit the jump to read on.

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Could Nintendo Team Up With Capcom for Next Smash Bros?

“I can’t say that it’s entirely out of the realm of possibility, ” says project director Masahiro Sakurai and an interview with IGN. He goes on to state that while there is a chance that Capcom characters could be included in the next Smash Bros, they would have to fit in with the universe that is forged by Nintendo characters. To be honest, it doesn’t make too much sense since that didn’t stop Snake from being included, and he arguably the most out of place character in the game (but still awesome though). But, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Iwata revealed during the E3 press conference that the next Smash Bros. we be made for both the 3DS and Wii U and that the two versions will work together in some way. So far, development hasn’t started yet, but Sakurai and Project Sora are looking for people and developers to help in making the game. No release has been set (obviously)

1 Wii U + 1 Wii U Controller = Not Much of a Problem

Well, to me anyway. In case you’ve been living under a rock (or looking at the Sorceress’ boobs all day), Nintendo just unveiled a new console called the Wii U. Now, I’m holding off on giving a full thought on the console since I want to get one of the other guys in on this. But one question that’s been popping quite a bit is how many of those tablet controllers the Wii U will recognize. An article from ZDNet confirms that there will only be one tablet controller per console. Meaning no local multiplayer with multiple tablet controllers. Now at first this may seem like a problem for local multiplayer enthusiasts. But for online gaming, it’s actually no problem at all. Looking at the games most “hardcore” tend to play, they’ll be going online and there’s really only one controller needed. It’s a bummer if you want to bring a local guest in as they won’t have the controller you have, but they can still use a multitude of controller options (among them being classic, Wiimote, Wiimote & Nunchuck, and Wiimote +). But you can still do local multiplayer with the other controllers.

Also, this confirmation also answers another question many gamers were asking in terms of how much the controller would cost. Nintendo says that the controllers will not be sold separately and that the controller you get with the console is the one you get. Thus, no need to worry about howm much the controller costs, for now. So when you get the console, you better treat your controller good and be nice to it! Otherwise, it’s gonna power down and not deal with yo’ shit anymore!

Dragon’s Crown Screens and Art [UPDATE]

In case the huge knockers didn’t give you a hint earlier, Vanillaware has revealed a new game for the PS3/PSV called Dragon’s Crown. Before giving ya’ll the goods, some details on the game has surfaced. The game is going to be a 4 player co-op game and can be played online, with an option for solo single-player. Kinda sounds similar to their efforts with Grand Knights History. It also seems to be taking a more character building route, with treasure and loot to be had. You can play as 6 characters: Wizard, Sorceress, Fighter, Elf, Dwarf, and Amazon.

Update: Vanillaware’s Dragon’s Crown Facebook page has made available super high-res versions of the Sorceress and Amazon.

Hit the jump for the screenshots and artwork.

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A Taste of Skullgirls Music + DIY Interview with Michiru Yamane

This past Sunday, DIY games interviewed Skullgirls game composer Michiru Yamane (of Castlvania and Suikoden fame). In the interview, Yamane explains that since becoming freelance after leaving Konami back in 2008, she has more freedom to work with any company she wants, whether it’d be Eastern or Western. She reveals that she came into contact with Reverge Labs after 8-4, who deals with game translations, invited her to a company party. They asked her if she wanted to work with an American company, and she agreed. You can read the full interview on DIYgamer’s site.

Ex-Konami Composer Yamane Michiru Works on Skullgirls [Interview]