Looky Touchy

"...Muahahahaha..." When Localization Blows The Mood

2009-01-19T22:29:00.009-05:00

I feel for those tasked with the job of localizing video games. I really do. I know their job is hard. They're afforded a miniscule part of their game's budget and very limited tools, talent and resources. They're saddled with so many limations it's a miracle that their dubs and translations come off as well as they do. It doesn't help that the source material they're working from is frequently trite, overwrought and not all that well told. Thing is, we know their job isn't impossible. The writers and translators behind many Nintendo games excel at writing smart, funny onscreen dialogue. And Capcom's Phoenix Wright games are spectacularly penned, maybe even the best in games. So some folks are getting it more than right -- they're shining.

I'm working on reviews for both Star Ocean II and Valkyria Chronicles this week, both to see print in the near future. I'm not going to name names, but one has a fantastic story. The other is less than hot.

But both games fall prey to the same pitfalls that foul most games imported to our shores from Japan.

Elipsis abuse: I absolutely hate the way JRPGS use "'..." to communicate the fact that a character isn't saying anything. The practice has become so commonplace that its ingrained, nearly impossible to excise from contemporary JRPG story-telling. Even though its usefulness is all but gone. Now characters are rendered in enough detail that we can tell that they're staring wistfully off into space, or looking longingly into their lovers' eyes. Even worse, though, is the excessive use of the elipsis at the ends of sentances. Read a conversation in a JRPG and every other spoken line trails off. Can't these people complete a single thought? Are they actually communicating or just blurting out duelling soliloquies?

The literal spelling of interjections: Grh. Gah. Urg. Muahahahahahahhahha! heh Waugh! When was the last time you read a novel and saw a grunt, laughter or scream described this way? Those who write the onscreen text for video games should look to closed captioning for the ideal way to handle these moments. On television they handle such actions fairly tastefully, with a parenthetcial or italic "cries" or "screams" and allow the viewer to fill in the blanks. One of the two JRPGs I'm playing now undermined severally well-executed dramatic moments with distracting literal spelling of anguished tears. Whatever pathos the storytelling had managed to mine was immedately lost -- a real fumble.
Irregular punctuation: This probably only bothers bothers writers like myself, but I found myself disappointed by irregular application of commas in one of the JRPGs I'm playing. And that's because the game was, for the most part, grammatically correct. The other game was so busy throwing an elipsis between every breath that there was no opportunity to actually use a comma, or God forbid, a boring full-stop period. I harp on this point because we're always going on about how video games are a burgeoning art form. But if we want even a little respect we have to earn it. And a good way to do so would be to adhere to even the most basic rules of punctuation. Besides, I've met more than a couple kids my junior who claim to have learned to read play old Final Fantasy games. We owe it to future gamers to get the basics right.

I'm picking these particular nits here because the two reviews I'm working on will likely gloss over these details. One of the aformentioned games will likely be a rave. It's one of the better written Japanese games I've played in ages -- with interpersonal conflict and storytelling chops that put the turgid self indulgence of Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core to shame. The other falls prey to all of the typical genre vices. One is weakend only slightly by localization, the other further debased. More on both soon.

Chicks Don't Skate?

2009-01-16T07:20:00.004-05:00

Skate 2 lets you create a female avatar, but man does the game make assumptions about who is playing. Your character is a dude by default. And all the game's dialogue skews towards the masculine. So characters will call you "dude" and "man" right to your face. Even your best bud uses "he" and "him" when talking about you.

Interestingly there's in-game lore to back up these irregularites. If you watch the opening for the game you'll see that the player character has just been released from prison (it doesn't appear to be co-ed). When you jump into the game and customize your character you're getting plastic surgery. That's how they solved the problem of character customization in the first game as well. Your body gets smashed in a horrible traffic accident. The Gonz, moonlighting as a surgeon, fixes you up (to the tune of Slayer's "Raining Blood") and thats when the game lets you tweak your own looks.

So, technically, if you chose to play with a female avatar in Skate 2, you're not playing a natural-born woman, so much as a post-operative transsexual. I guess it makes sense, now that I think on it, that the achievement/trophy around switching to female avatars is called "Gender Bender."

Still, I imagine female skaters (there's got to more than 14 notable pros) or female fans of skateboarding games might feel funny about the way all this all plays out -- especially when they get labeled a gender bender for switching to the sex that god gave them.

Pictured: Legendary Z-boy Peggy Oki.

Animal Crossing: The Third Go-Round

2009-01-13T02:25:00.006-05:00

I grabbed a copy of Animal Crossing: City Folk for Alexis over the holidays, figuring she'd pick it up once or twice, realize it was the same damn game we've already played twice and move on. I couldn't have been more wrong. Firstly, she's totally engrossed with the game's core busy work. She's fishing, working to pay off Tom Nook and playing the turnip market. And she's rapidly detecting all the minor differences between this game and the previous incarnations.

For example: there's a shoe shine guy who changes the color of your kicks. Alexis told me tonight before dinner that shoe color was a big sticking point for her before. She could never get outfits to look the way she wanted. Some of the difference are purely cosmetic -- like the way the villagers dance when they're psyched about something. There's a real fluidity to the way they bop their bodies and strut around whistling multi-colored notes into the air.

I've only played once or twice, doing some chores and arranging the meager furnishings in my house. But Alexis has already logged hours upon hours. She's obviously quite pleased with the game. And when the copy I sent to my three-year-old niece finally makes it to the West Coast there will probably be more fun to be had.

The only disappointed one in the formula is me. And I'm starting to think that's because I sit around all day thinking about ways to make Animal Crossing better. What if the city was a persistant, shared space where everybody had to go to work? Tom Nook could be the CEO of a massive corporation. Or maybe that rival that was hinted at in Wide World could be one of the executives that Nook charges you with toppling? What if there were forests outside your village that you could explore? Colonize? What if they brought the island back? And how about Nintendo DS connectivity? The character transfer was alright, but how cheap is it that none of your loot comes with you?

I could go on forever.

What kind of crazy person has two thumbs and would expect Nintendo to ever bother going so overboard when they've already got a game that is so obviously not broke? This sad guy right here.

I'm a Terrible Blogger

2008-09-24T20:10:00.003-04:00

I've allowed this page to go fallow way too long. So here's a link to an interview I did with Will Wright while writing a Complicated Games column for Paste called "Life, The Universe and Everything." I kinda enjoyed the talk, because rather than grilling him solely about games, it's kinda like me and Wright met randomly in the dorm TV room and got embroiled in a discussion on religion, science and whatnot until all hours of the morning.

Wondrous

2008-07-01T13:00:00.002-04:00

Lots of folks are linking to Junot Diaz's examination of Grand Theft Auto IV at The Wall Street Journal. The one thing I'm noticing in among all the bloggers is the distinct lack of praise for Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Read this book, people. Diaz is one of us. He's an unrepentant geek. His book is full of references to science fiction, fantasy and role-playing.

This excerpt from The New Yorker is quite different from the finished work in the novel, but it's good enough to help you get the idea.

So That's How It Happened!

2008-03-03T01:52:00.002-05:00

One of rocks music's tragedies was re-imagined for me while playing Urban Dead the other evening. If you're not playing this free, lo-fi, massively-multiplayer survival sim we probably shouldn't be friends. My zombie Nick Pazuzu is busy wrecking barricades in Rolt Heights. Cameron VonDoom, the power-metal singer turned army grunt, is bunkered down in a South Monroeville warehouse on the special Dawn of the Dead tie-in map. Cheers to great indie games and smart cross marketing. Now where are those zeds?

I Want To Make Games

2008-02-28T02:45:00.002-05:00

There's been lots of post-GDC blogging, but there's one issue I want to touch on stemming from N'Gai Croal's well-attended panel "Up Against the Wall: Game Makers Take On the Press." The panel allowed developers (many anonymous) to take pot-shots and ask serious questions of the gaming press on issues of journalism, review scores and the differences between game critics and game reporters. As ever, the discussion at GDC was a stimulating mix of great ideas, cogent criticism and healthy rants.

But one point (that I've already seen echoed quite a few places) concerned me a little. During the Q&A session one dev stepped up to the mic and expressed disappointment that many game critics/reviewers were crossing over into game development. He said (paraphrased): "This causes me to take every review they've ever written into question."

I guess what concerns me is this church and state idea between writing about games and making them. The analogy I'm making isn't quite right, because nobody really cares if a game designer decides to start writing about games. So long as they don't cross back. They're concerned that, somehow, game reviewers are softballing their criticism in order to get gigs. And I'm not terribly comfortable with this idea that critics must forever remain monkish devotees to fair and balanced review scores.

Here's the thing: I want to make games. I want to write movies, cartoons, comic books. I want to make music and art and anything else that tickles my fancy. I also really, really like thinking and writing about games, movies, cartoons, comic books, music and art. And, honestly, I'm more suspicious of people who don't have these urges than folks who do. So, yeah. Maybe some may think that my writing about games is worthless now, because someday I might actually stop talking about doing all these things and actually do them.

I don't think this ought to be the case.

There's a long tradition of people who think about and critique a medium before moving on to become a part of it. My favorite example (and the one most likely to peg me as some kind of fancy-pants beard-stroker) is François Truffaut. Before he was an influential part of the French New Wave, he was a contributor to Cashier du Cinema -- a revolutionary publication that championed the auteur theory and changed the way people thought about cinema. Many other contributors to the publication, most notably Jean-Luc Goddard, became part of the medium they studied. There may have been a hue and cry back in the '60s among the cinema set when this all went down, too. But I'd say the creative world is richer for it. Criticism may have lost a few perspectives, but the net gain is worth it. This process gave the world new ways of looking at movies and bodies of work from a handful of directors who were obviously enriched by starting their careers as critics. I honestly don't think that the fact that these wannabe filmmakers eventually got jobs makes their writing any less valid.

There are quite a few more notable film critics who have seen their work onscreen. To me the most interesting was the example of Jay Cocks, a former Time writer who Martin Scorsese invited to write Gangs of New York and Age of Innocence. Heck, even the oft referenced Pauline Kael saw one of her second-stringers go on to write Sunday Bloody Sunday. Just a guess, but I'm betting that The New Yorker was more proud to see one of their scribes earn an Ocsar nod than concerned that she may have used her position to get meetings in Hollywood.

Many are familiar with the fact that Roger Ebert dabbled in screenwriting. He is, perhaps, the best known movie critic on the planet and, so far, the fact that he wrote three jiggle pictures for Russ Meyer (duo pictured above) hasn't destroyed his career. Maybe if the guy gave a glowing review to Transformers, then got a gig writing Tranformers 2, we'd be more suspicious.

It's a question of selling out, I suppose. But who would sell out their opinion in exchange for a paycheck? I guess after the whole Gerstmann thing that's becoming a bigger and bigger concern. Honestly, I'm way too in love with my own ideas to rent them out to the highest bidder. Maybe some people aren't and that's something to worry about. But, I'd say they're the exception rather than the rule.

Later this year we'll test just how comfortable gamers are with their taste-makers making games. Penny Arcade have long been a trusted source for honest opinions regarding games. They've been assailed, a little, for their work doing ads and illustrations for game companies, but I don't think the vast majority of folks really call Gabe and Tycho's taste into question. I suppose there's an outside chance that Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness will cause suddenly cause readers to call every pick and pan into question. I kinda doubt it. Here's why:

If you ask any game critic out there why they do what they do they'll say 1) "I love video games" and 2) "I love my soapbox."

A soapbox is kinda pointless when you're shilling somebody else's ideas.

Mini-Rant: The Orange Box

2008-02-11T18:17:00.001-05:00

I try to keep this blog positive, but the issue of The Orange Box has been nagging at me -- especially post awards season, when so many gave the The Orange Box honors for being such a great value. But I'd like to argue that The Orange Box isn't a game. It's marketing. Calling The Orange Box the best game of 2007 is like calling the #1 Combo at In 'N Out the best hamburger. The correct answer is The Double Double. The fact that it comes with fries and Coke should be of no concern to connoisseurs of hamburgers. Something similar happened in cinemas this year when the Weinsteins bundled two movies together and called it Grindhouse. Thing is, the Grindhouse package was meant to be consumed in one sitting. Death Proof and Planet Terror were shortened and cut together with trailers and all kinds of other stuff. I think Grindhouse really can be taken as one experimental movie, while it's really hard to argue that The Orange Box is a single game. Now, just like Grindhouse The Orange Box is being split up into individual parts, but unlike the Grindhouse (which had their missing reels replaced and trailers, sadly, ditched) they'll likely be no different from the games early adopters played. Is Portal, now, only a fraction of a game?

Endless Ocean: Mini-Mixes

2008-01-25T03:39:00.000-05:00

I'm currently reviewing Endless Ocean, Nintendo's new sandbox-style scuba diving game for the Wii. And as much as I love the game's exploration and leisurely pace, I'm a little disappointed that Nintendo didn't take a minute to step back and add a features or two to the game before shipping it to the States -- sorta like they did with Animal Crossing (which was actually the second, enhanced version of Japan's Dōbutsu no Mori).

Anyway, aside from the game's flimsy customization, the biggest oversight is the in-game mp3 player. You can throw songs onto an SD card and listen to them while you're diving or futzing around on The Gabbiano, but the damn thing only seems to repeat the same track over and over. That's why, with the inspiration of the NeoGAF forums (and particularly the great advice about Audacity from user Xristot), I've created a series of Endless Ocean Mini-Mixes, seven bite sized tracks filled with ambient-electronic weirdness and three more upbeat "topside" selections to provide a soundtrack when you're training dolphins or developing film.

If anybody else out there wants to share their Endless Ocean mixes, please post in the comments or jump into NeoGAF's Endless Ocean thread and link 'em up.

Here's the playlist, with links to the source albums.
1. Asea (zShare Link)
Neu! - “Im Glück” from Neu! 1
Tortoise - “Along The Banks of Rivers” from Millions Now Living Will Never Die
Booka Shade - “ Lost High” from Movements
Eluvium - “Under the Water it Glowed” from Indecipherable Text

2. Shimmering (zShare Link)
Kraftwerk - “Heimatklange” from Ralf & Florian
Growing - “Cumulusless” from Color Wheel
The Orb - “Falkenbrück” from Okie Dokie It's The Orb On Kompakt
David Bowie - “Subterraneans” from Low

3. Submerged (zShare Link)
Symbiosis - “Umbra” from Clandestine Electronic Subculture
Massive Attack & Mad Professor - “Moving Dub (Better Things)” from No Protection
Fila Brazillia - “Weasel Out Of The Muck” from Luck Be a Weirdo Tonight
Mr. Scruff - “Fish” from Keep It Unreal

4. Other (zShare Link)
Brian Eno and David Byrne - “Mountain of Needles” from My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
Ghost - “Daggma” from Snuffbox Immanence
Animal Collective - “Throwin the Round Ball” from Danse Manatee
Hu Vibrational - “Friends and Gardens (Corker / Conboy Mix)” from Microsolutions #1

5. Surge (zShare Link)
Steve Reich - “Section 7” from Music For 18 Musicians
Andrew Thomas - “Untitled” from Fearsome Jewel
Apparat - “Not a Number” from Walls
Hu Vibrational - “We Walk” from Beautiful: Boonghee Music 2
The Art of Noise - “Moments in Love” from The Best of The Art of Noise

6. Sonar (zShare Link)
Cornelius - “Wataridori” from Sensuous
Sam Prekop - “Faces and People” from Sam Prekop
Tortoise - “Dear Grandma and Grandpa” from Millions Now Living Will Never Die
Can - “Sing Swan Song” from Ege Bamyasi

7. Siren (zShare Link)
Uli Teichmann - “Piano Tec” from Pop Ambient 2006
Tim Buckley - “Song to the Siren” from Starsailor
Radiohead - “All I Need” from In Rainbows
Labradford - “and Jonathan Morken. Photo provided by ” from E Luxo So

8. Topside Tracks 1 (zShare Link)
Manu Chao - “Me Llaman Calle” from La Radiolina
Joe Strummer - “Filibustero” from Walker Original Soundtrack
Peter King - “Mr. Lonely Wolf” from Shango

9. Topside Tracks 2 (zShare Link)
The Beach Boys - “Don't Go Near the Water” from Surf's Up
Gal Costa - “Que Pena (Ele Já Não Gosta Mais De Mim)” from Gal Costa
Grupo Oba-Ilu - “Shango” from Santeria: Songs for the Orishas

10. Topside Tracks 3 (zShare Link)
The Maytals - “Pressure Drop” from The Harder They Come Original Soundtrack
Sound Dimension - “Solas” from Jamaica Soul Shake Vol.1
Prince Jammy - “Fist of Fury” from Trojan Dub Box Set Vol. 2

Thanks for the interested everybody, I took down the .zip link because I was getting close to my bandwidth limit. Grab the individual tracks at zShare!

Cloverfield: Third-Person Shooter

2008-01-18T05:21:00.000-05:00

Movie critics like to toss around comparisons to video games as a kind of short hand for thin stories, ADD action and CG monster mayhem. The flick Cloverfield may be the first movie where these parallels may really have some weight behind them. I caught the movie earlier this week and was struck by how many moments of video game deja vu I'd felt while watching it. There's a sequence in a helicopter that reminded me of a half dozen different rail shooting levels -- the most recent example I can think of is Blacksite: Area 51. In the Midway game you're in a chopper looking down on giant monsters as they rip through a huge bridge span. The scene's been in a dozens of games. The only thing missing from the similar sequence in Cloverfield was the mounted chain gun and the trigger button.

Minor moments aren't all that ties Cloverfield, I think inextricably, to video game storytelling. There's something inherent to the movie's reality TV gimmick that makes it feel more like a game than any movie I've ever seen. The movie is a series of continuous shots. Most filmmakers save the long shot for special occasions -- scenes that need added immediacy. Cloverfield has only a handful of edits: moments when, for one reason or another, the camera stops shooting. Otherwise, the flick is one long string of extended shots. The camera rolls and rolls as the action happens, rarely pausing for breath, almost never missing a moment.This is how we experience nearly every video game we play. The only difference is how the camera is handled.

The Cloverfield camera is handled by an amateur. He's in the middle of the action. Because of this the camera (and our perspective) gets knocked around quite a bit. That's a far cry from the steady camera work of Lakitu. When I think about the third-person video game camera, I always think back to Super Mario 64 and that moment when Mario walks up to a mirror and we see Lakitu, the bespectacled turtle, floating on a cloud, dangling a movie camera from a fishing pole. In my mind Lakitu is the default cinematographer of all 3rd person video games. Part of me thinks that it was the introduction of Lakitu that made games too complicated for the average player. Because when we're playing Super Mario 64, we're really responsible for two characters. We move Mario around. And we have to keep tabs on Lakitu to make sure he's giving us the shot that we need. These new perspectives complicate things. Are we Mario? Are we Lakitu? Or are we the camera that Lakitu is dangling?

If you're even remotely sensitive to motion sickness it's hard, when watching Cloverfield, not to feel like the oft jostled camera. But we're also meant to relate to the cameraman himself, Hud (either a stealth reference to video game 'heads-up displays' or the Paul Newman movie). Hud's contribution, besides lugging the camera halfway across Manhattan, is to bring a secondary love interest into the picture -- probably my favorite part of the movie. The flick's "A" story is about Rob, the guy whose going-away-party gets interrupted by the monster attack, and his subsequent quest to save his girlfriend. But the more interesting subplot, where Hud crushes on Marlena (played by Mean Girls starlet Lizzy Caplan) reminded me more than a little of Half-Life 2: Episode 2.

There's a sort of pairing off that happens in Cloverfield. And Hud, the camera guy, finds himself matched with Marlena -- a girl he'd been admiring at the party before everything went to crap. These quieter moments feel more first-person, because, even though we're looking through the camera lens and not Hud's eyes, we're practically in Hud's skin when he hits on Marlena. Later when she leaps out of the darkness to save Hud's hide from alien creeps, it's hard not to see the parallels between Marlena and Alyx Vance, the kick-ass love interest/sidekick in Half-Life 2. I can't speak for other people, but I'm pretty sure I formed a crush on Alyx because of 1) proximity, 2) peer pressure (her father and Professor Kleiner practically begged us to propagate the species) and 3) she was the first video game character I didn't need to babysit. Hell, she saved my hide more than a couple times. Cloverfield's Marlena practically wields a crowbar.

No More Heroes vs El Topo

2008-01-09T01:02:00.000-05:00

Suda 51 has mentioned on several occasions that his forthcoming No More Heroes was influenced by Alejandro Jordorowski's cult western El Topo. For the uninitiated, El Topo is a violent, experimental film full of graphic imagery, spiritual undertones and political satire. It's widely considered to be the first midnight movie and claims John Lennon as an early supporter.

Jordorowski stars as the titular El Topo (Spanish for "The Mole"), a man who sets out on a quest to slay four "masters." As I mentioned before, the story of one killer looking to snuff his rivals isn't anything new. It seems Suda 51 is interested in El Topo's motivation to kill his betters. Both Travis Touchdown (the protagonist of No More Heroes) and El Topo are urged to kill by a woman. El Topo's seductress, Mara, eventually proves to be his downfall. The vain woman is likely a symbol of man's selfishness -- El Topo abandons his son to be with her and takes on the task of conquering the masters at her bequest. Eventually El Topo is betrayed, hits rock bottom and goes through a Siddhartha like transformation, eventually paying his karmic debt and becoming enlightened.

No telling if Suda 51 will follow the plot that closely, but the similarities between Mara and No More Heroes character Sylvia Christel (herself a reference to the French starlet of Emmanuelle fame) are worth noting. Sylvia, a member of the assassin's league the UAA, sets up Travis' kills -- calling the shots, so to speak, while Travis does the dirty work. Sylvia also seems to enjoy looking at herself in the mirror -- a fixation shared by Mara.

By a strange bit of synchronicity there's a good chance you'll be able to walk into Target on January 22 and buy both the game and the obscure foreign film it alludes to. El Topo is on Target store shelves as part of an IFC promotion.

El Topo Official Site
No More Heroes Official Site - Japan
No More Heroes Official Site - US

No More Heroes: Influences

2007-12-23T19:42:00.000-05:00

In the weeks to come I plan to blog quite a bit about Suda 51 and his new game No More Heroes. Let's start with some of the game's influences.

Above is the trailer for Pistol Opera -- a surreal action flick by Seijun Suzuki. The Japanese director is best known for his experimental yakuza pictures from the '60s like Branded to Kill and Tokyo Drifter. His stark use of colors and spare sets influenced "The House of Flying Leaves" sword fight at the end of Tartantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1.

Both Pistol Opera and its predecessor Branded to Kill are about hit men trying to climb the ranks by taking out their competitors. Travis Touchdown, the lightsaber-wielding protagonist in No More Heroes is looking to do the same. In the game there's a group, the UAA, who oversees and ranks assassins -- they're kinda like Zagat for killers.

More to come.

Something For the Ladies: 25 Songs With Female Vocals That Should Be in Rock Band

2007-12-19T01:51:00.001-05:00

A couple weeks ago at a Rock Band party my friend's sister was pretty vocal in her disdain for the song selection -- too much testosterone. And I can see where she's coming from. Rock Band's play list is woefully lacking when it comes to songs sung by women. It's also fairly short in tracks with mainstream appeal. There's a reason why pop minded ladies would rather play SingStar. So here are 25 songs with female vocalists and karaoke appeal that would make great Rock Band downloads.

1. Blondie: "One Way or Another"
2. Bow Wow Wow: "I Want Candy"
3. L7: "Pretend We're Dead"
4. Feist: "One, Two, Three, Four"
5. Kate Bush: "Running Up That Hill"
6. Ladytron: "Destroy Everything You Touch"
7. Nancy Sinatra: "These Boots Are Made For Walking"
8. Portishead: "Sour Times"
9: Rainer Maria: "Ears Ring"
10: Bratmobile: "Panik"
11: Concrete Blonde: "Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)"
12: Kim Wilde: "You Keep Me Hangin' On"
13: The Breeders: "Cannonball"
14: Heart: "Magic Man"
15: The Go Gos: "We Got the Beat"
16: Joan Jett and the Blackhearts: "I Love Rock and Roll"
17: Pat Benetar: "Heartbreaker"
18: Nico & The Velvet Underground: "All Tomorrow's Parties"
19. Kim Carnes: "Bette Davis Eyes"
20. Mickey: "Toni Basil"
21. Cyndi Lauper: "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"
22. Eurythmics: "Here Comes the Rain Again"
23: Bikini Kill: "Rebel Girl"
24: Elastica: "Stutter"
25: Cansei Di Ser Sexy: "Fuck Off Is Not The Only Thing You Have To Show"

Go here to hear all the songs in full.

Samples below:

Guys from Walk Hard playing Rock Band

2007-12-18T15:13:00.001-05:00

Also included: sketch comedy, viral marketing, race humor.

Patton Oswalt on the Spike Game Awards: "Godawful"

2007-12-10T20:43:00.000-05:00

The worst thing about this show was the fact that I'm the cheap, money-grubbing asshole who agreed to do it. The producers wanted me to do "a little bit of stand-up" before I presented the award for "Most Addictive Video Game". Oh wait, I forgot -- "The Most Addictive Video Game...Fueled By DEW!" That's because Mountain Dew was "sponsoring" the award. I had to say "Fueled By Dew". I will also be saying it on my deathbed, when I'm begging my relatives to unplug by respirator.

More sell out gold at the comedian's blog. It should be noted that Oswalt seems fully aware that awards shows are shit by their very nature. To expect one to be anything but a kick in the teeth is the textbook definition of insane.

Songs That Need to Be In Rock Band: Part 1 - The '00s

2007-12-06T07:52:00.001-05:00

I've used this space to bag on the lame, new songs that made the cut in Rock Band. So now I'm putting my money where my mouth is. Here's a list of awesome songs, recorded in the last decade, that would make ideal downloadable tracks. Sure, most people haven't heard of half of these bands. But, you know what? It's about time they did.

Call the Lawyers:

1. Art Brut - "Formed a Band" - Duh, right?
2. Spoon - "I Turn My Camera On" - I wish so many of their songs weren't all sparse and piano-y
3. The Black Lips - "Veni Vidi Vici" - I find this song imminently singable
4. LCD Soundsystem - "All My Friends" - There's a single edit that's a little shorter. It was a toss up between this and "New York I Love You"
5. Liars - "Mr. Your On Fire Mr." - Easily their catchiest song. They've been running from it for the past five years
6. Death From Above 1979 - "Blood on Our Hands" - I know, these guys are a trio. Sue me
7. TV on the Radio - "Young Liars" - Rock Band could use some nice, down-tempo tracks
8. My Morning Jacket - "Off the Record" - I always think Joe Jackson when I hear this
9. Wolf Parade - "I'll Believe in Anything"- I like the idea of everybody pitching in to sing this one
10. The Decemberists - "Sons & Daughters" - Jeez. I'm thinking that song about Los Angeles would be pretty hot too.
11. Raconteurs - "Steady as She Goes" - If they wanted they could get those versions of the White Stripes songs with bass parts added in by the guy from Redd Kross
12. Entrance - "Grim Reaper Blues" - Rock Band needs more psyche
13. The Sword - "Winter's Wolves" - I always hoped that Guitar Hero II would help blow this band up
14. Tool - "Schism" - For the prog metal geeks
15. The Mars Volta - "The Widow"- To make the Pitchfork guys scream. I really dig this as a single
16. The Thermals - "Here's Your Future" - For guys who like Fugazi, Bad Religion, etc.
17. The Hold Steady - "Chips Ahoy"- I was tempted to pick something from the older record
18. Arcade Fire - "Wake Up" - What a racket you could make with this one
19. The Rapture - "House of Jealous Lovers" - Dance punk is perfect for Rock Band
20. Wilderness - "End of Freedom" - A little moodier than your typical track
21. The Ponys - "Exile on My Street" - A straight rocker. The vocals reminds me of Faith No More's first singer
22. Klaxons - "Magick" - I could do with their whole album as a download
23. Early Man - "Death is the Answer" - For the guys who can channel Ozzy
24. !!! - "Heart of Hearts" - Another dance punk jam
25. McLusky - "To Hell With Good Intentions" - Only a sample on imeem, but damn does this song rock. Albini.

Here's an imeem playlist with all of the songs:

Next time: Songs That Need to Be In Rock Band: Part II - Something For The Ladies

R. Crumb Draws Pokemon

2007-11-28T18:03:00.001-05:00

I've heard tales about the Fantagraphics offices in Seattle. Most were probably apocryphal tales of interns and lowbies working in squalid conditions. But one detail always seem to ring true -- that the place was full of comics treasures. Jacob Covey from the publisher's blog recently discovered this gem amid the mess, a place mat doodle of Porygon by Robert Crumb.

Front Mission DS: The Lesbian Edition

2007-11-02T03:26:00.000-04:00

So here's what happened. I accidentally misread one of Square Enix's androgynous characters and inadvertently transformed Front Mission DS's story from a trite to utterly fascinating.

Some back story. I have two handles I like to use in games. For male characters I use Flynn, after Jeff Bridges from Tron. For the ladies I use Tura, after the awesomely bad-ass actress from Russ Meyers' Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill! So when Front Mission's story kicks in the only cues I've had re: the sexuality of the lead character, Royd (totally missed hint, right?), was the image you see above, which I read as a kinda butchy girl. So sue her, she likes her hair short. Tura it is. It soon realized I'd misread the character when I realized that he/she was engaged to another Wanzer pilot, Karen, who had gone missing after failed mission.

At this point there was nothing I could do. Tura would be Tura for the rest of the game. Then things started getting interesting. New female pilots joined my gang of mercenaries, the Canyon Crows. And I was starting to detect a hint of jealousy, or unrequited love, for Tura as she led the rag-tag band on a hunt for Karen. The flaxen-haired Natalie seemed to fawn over Tura at every turn. The mysterious Meihua, with her ivory skin and China doll eyes, was obviously infatuated with her de facto leader.

And when a surly veteran in a dive bar called Tura "boy" the implication was crystal clear. The jerk was calling out Tura's sexuality. The dig bore a little extra sting. Tura's mission wasn't simply a quest to re-unite with her love. No, she was going to sing her sexuality to the whole of Huffman. And she'd ram her message home with a F-2 Tonfa is she had to. Dismantling these backwards yahoos one mech at a time suddenly became a lot more fun.

I've never really jived with Square Enix's storytelling style. Their whole world-is-gonna-end-because-of-some-crazy-fascist-Darth-Vader-guy-with-a-crystal motif leaves me a little cold. But I think my inadvertent sex change was exactly what this game needed. It could be that all Final Fantasy games would benefit from selective gender bending. Maybe I'm finally beginning to understand this whole yaoi thing.

The Pixies: Totally Ahead of Their Time

2007-10-29T19:01:00.001-04:00

The final Rock Band song list was just announced via a press release and it has "Wave of Mutilation" by The Pixies listed in the '00s rather than the '80s. The official Rock Band site has the band properly shelved in the correct decade. Because, really, The Killers and Fall Out Boy don't need Frank Black and company looming over them. Who needs that kind of pressure?

The full, erroneous list:

960s
Rolling Stones "Gimme Shelter"

1970s
Aerosmith "Train Kept a Rollin'"*
The Who "Won't Get Fooled Again"
Boston "Foreplay/Long Time"
Mountain "Mississippi Queen"*
The Police "Next to You"
David Bowie "Suffragette City"
Black Sabbath "Paranoid"*
Blue Oyster Cult "Don't Fear the Reaper"
The Ramones "Blitzkrieg Bop"
Deep Purple "Highway Star"
KISS "Detroit Rock City"
Molly Hatchet "Flirtin' With Disaster";
The Outlaws "Green Grass & High Tides"
Sweet "Ballroom Blitz"*

1980s
Rush "Tom Sawyer"*
Bon Jovi "Wanted Dead or Alive"
The Clash "Should I Stay or Should I Go"
Faith No More "Epic"
R.E.M. "Orange Crush"
Iron Maiden "Run to the Hills"*

1990s
Foo Fighters "Learn to Fly"
Metallica "Enter Sandman"
Nirvana "In Bloom"
Stone Temple Pilots "Vasoline"
Weezer "Say It Ain't So"
Smashing Pumpkins "Cherub Rock"
Radiohead "Creep"
Beastie Boys "Sabotage"
Hole "Celebrity Skin"
Garbage "I Think I'm Paranoid"
Soundgarden "Black Hole Sun"

2000s
The Hives "Main Offender"
Queens of the Stone Age "Go With the Flow"
The Strokes "Reptilia"
Jet "Are You Gonna Be My Girl"
OK Go "Here It Goes Again"
Nine Inch Nails "The Hand That Feeds"
Pixies "Wave of Mutilation"
Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Maps"
Red Hot Chili Peppers "Dani California"
Coheed & Cambria "Welcome Home"
Fallout Boy "Dead on Arrival"
The Killers "When You Were Young"
New Pornographers "Electric Version"

Playing the Real Game

2007-09-26T21:33:00.000-04:00

I've been trying to figure out which part of Halo 3 to review. The single-player story, which I blew through in a day, is the traditional answer. But I've never really been all that enamored with the campaigns. Never even finished the second one. But then NeoGAF user Crush posted the above picture in a screen shot thread. An elaboration of a virtual self portrait that I generated in the Halo 3 theater. You can see the original on my Bungie file share. My pose somehow reminded me of Hard Gay when he says, "foooooo!" Crush took the idea and ran. I'm thinking my review of Halo 3 is going to be about the real game -- the one that we can keep playing in endless online matches, face-to-face at Halo parties and now, apparently, even after the 360 has been powered down.

Cross posted from Source Dorks.

Mr. Me Too

2007-07-19T00:15:00.000-04:00

I too bumped into fellow gaming dorks at the Pitchfork show. But guy gamers are a dime a dozen. I, honestly, was more pleased to see Miss Indie Gamer bust out her SP to play some Tetris between sets. This is what they're talking about when they toss around the phrase "casual gaming."

E3 Buzzword Bingo

2007-07-12T05:33:00.000-04:00

There are still two days left to play along. Bring this handy list to the remaining press conferences. Place a bean on your card every time you hear the following words:

leader
innovator
team
category
unparalleled
leverage
drive
platform
leadership
committed
broaden
brands
empowering

What Rockstar Should Do

2007-06-20T15:01:00.001-04:00

A long, long time ago I equated Rockstar Games and EC Comics. Whether the two companies are working on the same level is arguable. I'm not sure if I've yet seen the brilliance of Bernie Krigstein or Wally Wood in the Grand Theft Auto Games, but damn if Bully isn't getting close. I think the bigger connection between the two companies is that they make adult-oriented art in a medium that is widely considered for children. They also happen to profit from that fact that children and adolescents have a rabid desire for that kind of material. But that's another story.

Right now I'm thinking about what Rockstar should do about Manhunt 2's UK ban and AO rating here in the states. This is where the big difference between Rockstar and EC comes into focus. EC was in the hands of William Gaines, son of the company's creator. Rockstar is beholden to Take 2 and a butt-load of stockholders.

I've always posited that Rockstar was one gutsy move from being the Larry Flynt of video games. Larry, some say cynically, turned attempts at censorship into a key component of the Hustler brand. He's coasted on that image ever since, never really creating anything (besides the Flynt Report) that really lived up to his freedom-fighting image.

Rockstar, on the other hand, probably wouldn't coast. They'd continue to make great, beloved and incredibly risque games. Only now they'd have the mandate of the masses behind them. As 1st Amendment poster children there'd be an expectation from customers and stockholders alike that they continue to push limits.

It wouldn't take much effort to repackage Manhunt 2's censoring as a 1st Amendment issue. I can already see the bold sticker slapped across the game packaging: "Banned in the UK!" The game would be in good company too. Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange was once barred from view in England. The Rockstar marketing machine is well-equipped to pull this kind of thing off. But it's very unlikely that Take 2 would ever sign off on this kind of approach.

The company's shameful silence during the Hot Coffee affair is proof of this. Rockstar is hamstrung by a crumbling company and scrambling executives. So we'll probably see Manhunt 2 watered down. Though there's a chance that that no amount of edits will please the ESRB. It could be that Rockstar now has the stink of AO on them, which may be impossible to wash off. Just ask Sam Raimi who struggled for years with the MPAA. His Evil Dead films consistently exceeded the R rating, some say because the ratings board had it out for the director.

My dream is that Nintendo is right now making a phone call to Take 2, telling the company that they'll permit Manhunt 2 to be released for the Wii as is. But I don't believe, either, that Nintendo would risk their current public goodwill on this game. And this is, perhaps, the biggest crime of all. We may never play the definitive version of Manhunt 2 -- the game as experienced with the visceral Wii remote. There's no chance for an uncut DVD here. Manhunt 2 on the Wii is our first and last chance to play the game the way it was intended. It could be that the game is cynical trash or even dangerous when played with move simulating the physicality of murder, but thanks to censors we'll probably never be able to decide for ourselves.

Read my review of the original Manhunt.

The Legend of Zelda Dungeon Theme

2007-06-08T15:12:00.001-04:00

Ray and Blake, friends of my friend Jeremy, are professional orchestral musicians in the Los Angeles area. They're kicking around the idea of starting a string trio to perform video game themes. Here's a video of them working out one of their arrangements as a duet.

Cross posted to Sourcedorks

Dave Carnie Involved With EA's Skate

2007-04-17T20:51:00.000-04:00

I'm not too shy to admit that I keep Dave Carnie's Whalecock blog on my RSS feed.

Carnie was one-time editor of Big Brother, the excellent but now defunct skateboarding magazine created by Jeff Tremaine (Jackass) and published by Larry Flynt (Tips and Tricks, some other magazines).

I think Carnie may have inadvertantly scooped some info regarding the game in this blog post. He mentions that he helped write the game and mentions some of the pro-skaters that are involved: Danny Way, Mark Gonzales, Colin McKay, Chris Haslam, Pat Duffy, Jerry Hsu.

Crossposted from this NeoGAF thread.