Retro Weekends – Killer Instinct

Welcome to Fighting February! This month, we’ll be covering four retro fighting games. As they say, what’s love without pain. So sit back, relax, grab a loved one, and promptly break up because you’re being a cheap-ass with the hadoukens. Trust us, it’ll make us feel less lonely

The year is 1994. The fighting game craze is in full swing with Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat, King of Fighters, and many others are duking it out for the most quarters and carts at home. While the more niche enthusiasts of fighting games had a plethora to choose from, the mainstream crowd sided with either Street Fighter II or Mortal Kombat. Nintendo, and by extension Rareware, saw this as an opportunity to jump into the fray. With a new console on the horizon and some sick-ass hardware to work with now, Rare was ready to level the playing field and offer a viable third option for players looking for that Killer Instinct.

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New Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 2 info surfaces, will feature online multiplayer

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A listing for Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 2 has cropped up on the Xbox Live Marketplace with new info and screens of the game, which can be seen after the jump. The game, according to the listing, will feature four new zones, a new special stage, an updated physics engine, and both offline and online multiplayer with Tails.

This may have been an oversight, as Sega may have had other plans on how to reveal more info on the game, but my attention shifted elsewhere the moment I heard “multiplayer” and “Tails”. I have fond memories of playing the genesis era Sonic games with my cousin. Of course, he’d be stuck as Tails, but that’s another story. I’m pretty sure that many Sonic fans have nostalgic memories of Sonic 2 and 3‘s multiplayer, so what I’m really excited about is the online component. Allowing both players to have their own screens gives Sega the potential to really improve on the original formula. Rather than having Tails go on autopilot whenever he’s left behind or runs too far ahead, the person controlling Tails may be able to split up from Sonic and explore different parts of the level. Or if the two players want to focus on working together, it should be easier now since one wouldn’t have to worry about keeping the exact same pace as the other. All in all, if Sega takes advantage of that, I think it would be an update many Sonic fans could appreciate. That, and I think a lot more people would be volunteering to play as Tails.

Via: Joystiq
Souce: Xbox Live Marketplace

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Robot Unicorn Attack Evolution – Play As More Than Just The Unicorn

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About two weeks ago, Robotpencil alerted his watchers on DeviantART that Robot Unicorn Attack Evolution was released. You’ll probably recognize his work from several months back , which is the splash screen for the game’s title screen. Now about the game. It sports clean, updated graphics and the ability to play as a Panda, a Wolf, a Gorilla, and a Dragon. You unlock them as you destroy stars. So now the game feels like it has a goal (which is to get to the Dragon). You can also unlock abilities like an extra jump, gliding, and a steadier pace. For now you can only play Robot Unicorn Attack Evolution on Facebook. No word yet if Adult Swim will have it playable on their site.

Retro Weekends – Mortal Kombat

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Welcome to Fighting February! This month, we’ll be covering four retro fighting games. As they say, what’s love without pain. So sit back, relax, grab a loved one, and promptly break up because you’re being a cheap-ass with the hadoukens. Trust us, it’ll make us feel less lonely

Since the beginning, videogames have been a relatively bloodless affair. There were some excursions in shameless debauchery, one major unchecked headshot, and a journey through a pulsating heart. But overall even the most down to earth games saw no blood spilling on the pavement. Even Street Fighter II, a game about beating the living shit outta your opponent, relegated the blood to the losing fighter’s portraits. But then one company thought that maybe that blood should come to the forefront of battle. And before you knew it, everyone’s hands were soaked in digital blood. After the break, Fighting February continues with the original Mortal Kombat.

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It’s February, Where’s Grand Knights History?

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Late last year, XSEED Games said that they would be bringing over PSP game Grand Knights History and planned to release it some time around Winter. Normally, as the season draws closer, we’d get a more precise date and, in this case (niche game and all), a small marketing push. Well it’s February, and absolutely noting has come out from XSEED about Grand Knights History, a title developed by the Vanillaware. Siliconera did some investigating on XSEED’s Facebook page and saw that fans were also wondering about the game. They came to the conclusion that XSEED themselves have no idea when they’ll be releasing the game.

Grand Knights History has already been released in Japan to good reviews and sales. Vanillaware is still developing Dragon’s Crown, but even the fate of that game’s Western release is in question. And now that the world’s looking toward the future with the Playstation Vita, interest in this game will plummet, and XSEED might either have to bring the game to Vita, keep it on PSP and expect very low sales, or drop the game altogether.

Xseed Games’ Release of “Grand Knights History” is Stuck in Limbo [Crunchyroll, via Siliconera]

A Brief History of the Playstation’s Confirm And Cancel Buttons

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Editor’s Note: Since Kotaku’s Richard Eisenbeis published an article relating to this topic, I figured I’d go ahead and finish this one off. I wrote this back in September, with the last revision being on Sep. 29. It was all written, but I lost interest in wanting to publish it. But now the topic’s flared up again, and I got back the motivation to publish it. Consider this an expansion of that article.

Some of you may already be aware of the fact that Japan and The West press different buttons to confirm or cancel when using a Playstation controller. So to those people, you probably don’t need to read this, but stick around for the end. As for everyone else, I’ll provide you with an explanation as to why the X and Circle buttons serve different purposes in Japan and The West. For the purpose of this article, X is “X“, and Circle is “O“. Now I know there are many gamers out there that play import games from Japan. Some of them are new to it and are still having trouble adapting to pressing circle for nearly everything menu based. Some of you probably don’t play import games, but encountered the Japanese Button Configuration in games that forgot to change it (like Xenosaga). Some could probably just brush it off as just something weird that Japan does (which is nothing new). But there is a deeper explanation as to why the X and O buttons are configured that way in Japan and why it’s different The West, and we may have Nintendo to thank for that.

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Video Game Music w/ the James Episode 9 : Simple NES Music

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This article came out a little over a week ago (probably two by the time of publication), and I both loved and hated it so much, I knew I wanted to use it as the inspiration for some of my musical discussion.

The author tells a familiar tale of how video game music just isn’t what it used to be and takes a stab at explaining one reason why : limitation. The underlying principle, one that I somewhat agree with is that some of the greatest game music came out of composers doing the best that they could do with the sound resources they had available; in the early days of gaming, this amount was very little.

While I agree with the principle, it’s no excuse for the direction game music is taking. Gregory admits that there are exceptions to the rule especially in the realm of Japanese gaming, but why is that? The soundtrack for Super Mario Galaxy 2 uses an orchestra as big as many other modern games for instance, and yet its music falls far from the “disposable” category.

I started thinking a lot about the state of game music, what happened to change the nature of such music, and what we can do as composers and/or listeners to keep video game music relevant even today.

And thus I decided to go on a journey exploring different generations of game music. Who knows, maybe there’s something to learn from all of this.

Part 1 : Simple NES/Gameboy Music

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Megaman X Confirmed for UMvC3! …As A Costume

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Imagine the look on my face when I saw none other than Megaman X in a thumbnail on Facebook, linking to Capcom’s Unity page. It was of joy and glee… which soon turned to pessimism. It’s no secret that much of us on TWF haven’t been liking Capcom lately, what with UMvC3, Megaman Legends 3 getting cancelled, RE: The Mercenaries 3D having that stupid DRM, and putting that… thing on Street Fighter X Tekken. But this, this takes the whole damn cake son! Many have clamored, emailed, and begged for some kind of Megaman to be put in this game. We would get over the fact that we’d be ripped off anyway. But make no mistake: This is not Megaman X. It is a costume for Zero! So you mean to tell me that Capcom was able to put the damn model in the game but notmake him en entirely new character? *woosa*

Well, al least we know they still have some form of care for the blue bomber. And there’s some other costumes for Trish, Hawkeye, and Taskmaster if you’re interested in those. But come the hell on!?

Ultimate MvC3 costume blog: Weapon Expert pack [Capcom Unity]

The Breakdown – Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance

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System: GBA/Publisher: Konami/Developer: Konami/Players: 1/Released/Sep. 16, 2002

While the world enjoys the new Harmony that descended on the downloadable game scene, I took the time to go out and buy an old Harmony on the GBA. Released after Circle of the Moon, Harmony of Dissonance released during a sort of renaissance period for the series as Castlevania was once again a force to be reckoned with in the gaming scene after the release of SoTN. However, this entry was seen as a bit lackluster, and to this day is seen as the black sheep of the post-SoTN games. Were the initial critiques spot on? Has the game aged better as time went on. Or should it have been a forgotten note? After the break, I breakdown Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance.

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Retro Weekends – Street Fighter II

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Welcome to Fighting February! This month, we’ll be covering four retro fighting games. As they say, what’s love without pain. So sit back, relax, grab a loved one, and promptly break up because you’re being a cheap-ass with the hadoukens. Trust us, it’ll make us feel less lonely 🙂

In 2008-09, fighting games became cool again. Street Fighter IV, BlazBlue, King of Fighters, they all made big splashes on the videogame scene. They were there to tell the industry that fighting games were back after nearly a decade. Of Course there were fighting games in that span of time, like Soul Calibur II, Tekken 4, Dead of Alive 4 and Virtua Fighter 5. But it had all fallen into a niche, and only the most devoted of fighting fans were really appreciative of these games. Coming into 2012, this fighting game boom shows no signs of letting up, with Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Street Fighter X Tekken, and Skullgirls keeping that fire going. But before we do, let’s take a moment to look back at the game that started the initial boom in the 90s: Street Fighter II.

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Disney Acquires UTV, Fate Of Ignition Entertainment Unknown

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Uh-oh. Disney’s hungry, and it want to nibble on a bit of India. UTV is known for making TV shows and films in India. But to us, they’re the guys that own Ignition Entertainment, the publishers of Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Dragon’s Crown, and Deadly Premonition as well as the developers of El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron. BBC reports that Disney saw the opportunity to increase their presence in India when they noticed that UTV had shares that they didn’t own, and seized a controlling portion of UTV. Once the acquisition is finished, Disney will delist UTV from the Bombay Stock Exchange. So far a brand name change is unknown. As for Ignition, this could be wither good or bad. Good because Disney could finance them after a rough 2011. Bad because Disney might either let them go to fend for themselves, or just shut them down, leaving the fate of PSV/PS3 game Dragon’s Crown‘s western release up in the air.

Walt Disney acquires controlling stake in India’s UTV [BBC, via Destructoid]

The Last Story English Trailer

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And finally there’s a trailer for Mistwalker’s The Last Story with English voices. Since the primary market for the PAL release is European (obviously), the voices here are British, just like Xenoblade. Of course I have no problem with it, at all. And they seem to fit even more too, especially for the Lowell character (uh, no offense), even though we don’t hear his voice. Regardless, The Last Story is scheduled for release in Europe on February 24, with Australia getting it a day before. And remember, Xenoblade graces our shores on April 6th.

THQ Makes 170 People’s Jobs Go Poof

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It just hasn’t been THQ’s week. First there’s the report that because of the poor sales of their equally poor uDraw tablet, THQ would be shuttering their kids division, thus nixing development on E-rated titles (and pretty much developing on the Wii). This after such a huge marketing push of the uDraw, and noticing that their more mature titles were selling higher than the stuff they were pumping out for kids. Soon after that, they closed out the day at 70 cents a share on the stock market. Ouch. Nasdaq then threatened to de-list them from the stock exchange. And now comes news that THQ will be handing pink slips to over 170 employees. So far no one knows if those 170 people are from the Kids Division of THQ or the part of the company that makes Saints Row and Metro.

While we hope this won’t be the case, an entire closure of THQ feels imminent. If not, then expect a major reshuffling of the company (if an ex-employee of THQ spilling the beans is anything to go by) and more safer-to-sell games coming out of THQ.

Report: THQ REALLY in Trouble, Sacking 170+ People [Kotaku]

New 2D Sidescroller Mario In The Works, Might Have DLC Stages

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During an investor meeting, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata mentioned that a new Super Mario games was in development, this time being in 2D like the DS and Wii New Super Mario Bros. He also touched upon the possibility of Super Mario being a good place to add DLC stages. Obviously pricing hasn’t been talked about yet, nor how many stages would be available per pop. Hopefully these’ll be new stages and not stuff already on the cart. Iwata hopes to release the game in the next fiscal year.

Here’s hoping for some asshole-level difficult stages. One of the primary reasons why I liked NSMBWii, Mario Galaxy 2, and Donkey Kong Country Returns. Bring it on Nintendo!

Nintendo President Mentions Downloadable Stages For Future Mario Games [Siliconera]

Introducing The New Streams Page!

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Realizing that the only one player is used for all streams, I figured it’d make sense to make it its own page rather than keep making new articles with the same embed over and over and over (thus having the same stream). So, go ahead and click that Stream tab up there (or click here) to see what Daikuma and lslick are up to. Tonight, they play ~~Pokemon Puzzle League~~ Nevermind that! Something sad has happened. The N64… has passed away. A moment of silence please….

……………………………………………………………………………………………..okay that’s it.

Onward to Pokemon Puzzle Challenge!

Trust me when I say that it’s some funny stuff to watch. The chats are just as funny. Enjoy!

(they’re currently having technical difficulties, but they’ll be up again shortly)