Celebrate by complaining about how Adventure CS is still not released yet
Mostly of the video kind.
Yeah, beat’n groovy. Apparently it is Pop’n, kind of. I won’t say that it is the “Button Revolution” that I joke around about every time somebody says Pop’n should come to the US, since it still has judgments, Konami Originals, and a lack of Terry Bogard lookalikes. However, it is far from perfect. Really, really far.
Microsoft: A+
Some people said it was boring. Honestly, it did a lot for me. Loved the choice of games, even if most of them were sequels, and the interface is quite good looking. That, and I want to see how they do 1 vs. 100 Live.
+: Nice interface, nice Avatars (obvious joke here), focuses on games, superb presentation.
-: Bad THX-ish sound when they unveiled the new Xbox interface.
Nintendo: D
I’ve already made my post on it, and I feel that it does my main comment very well. But I guess I should list them again. Granted, they had some good announcements outside of the conference, such as a US release of Rhythm Tengoku.
+: Voicechat peripheral, Wii Sports sequel looks kind of fun.
-: Focuses far, far too much on the casual crowd, nothing about WiiWare/Virtual Console, NO HARD DRIVE, lame “smile” thing they stole from, of all people, McDonald’s, no trailer for GTA DS (something tells me there’s a good reason), mainly just dragged on with us thinking they’re just holding off on a big announcement that just didn’t happen, and finally, the Mario theme being murdered on stage.
Sony: B
+: Focuses on games and games only, nice showing of financial data with LittleBigPlanet, nice presentation, didn’t remind me of Sony 2006.
-: Nothing really special to me other than LittleBigPlanet.
Capcom: F
E3. A gaming convention. Something about games. Capcom. Famous gaming studio. Makers of Megaman 9, Street Fighter IV, and other things. When you mash these together…we managed to get a half-hour long talk about a Lost Planet movie.
Yeah.
+: It’s short.
-: It started late, they talked about video game movies like they were anything above mediocre at best (especially the Street Fighter movie), and they didn’t even talk about video games.
Konami: F
“Hey, how you guys feeling tonight?”
Chirp chirp.
“Aw, you a bunch of LAMERS.”
Seriously, the press conference should have just stopped when they were finished with Silent Hill Homecoming. Honestly, it’s painful enough to see Castlevania as a fight…er, 3D Action game.
+: At least they talked about games. Three of them, but that’s three more than Capcom. Silent Hill Homecoming doesn’t look that bad, but I never played a Silent Hill game.
-: At least talks about a video game movie are not as terrible as going through not one, but two bad renditions of The Ramones’ “Blitzkreig Bop”.
After E3: To be honest, E3 wasn’t that good, but it wasn’t completely painful. I have heard EA had the best one, and seeing how they have shown off both Spore and Mirror’s Edge, I can see why.
Not a Remote update that really should have been done internally on day one.
Not an awful preformance of the Mario theme.
Not a ton of sales numbers.
Not a most likely bad DS port of GTA. (It would be nice to see at least a trailer for it, though.)
Not an awful preformance of the Mario theme.
All I ask is for is a hard drive. That could have been just the one thing, they could have said it really fast at the end, “harddrivecomingsoon”, and this conference would be anything more than a waste of time.
Unlike the Microsoft confrence, which made me proud to have a 360, Nintendo has done just the opposite.
At least Sony, in 2006, gave us things to laugh at.
Here’s the newest ones.
Schizoid - Schizoid personality disorder is the interest of staying solitary, which this game relies you not to have. Two ships have to run into enemies of the same color. Primarily a co-op game, but it can also become a masochistically hard single player game where you control both ships. There is online play and a single player mode where one ship is controlled by the computer, but I bet it won’t be the same.
Golf: Tee It Up! - Hooray, golf. It’s golf. Golf. Seriously, golf. It’s more of a cutesy type than EA’s golf games, but, it’s golf. Nothing inherently wrong with this one from what I can see, but nothing that’s really interesting compared to games like Hot Shots or Mario Golf.
There’s only one new game, and it just so happens to be a port of THE BEST FIGHTER EVER MADE according to GameRankings.
Soul Calibur - To get you ready for Star Wars: The Fighting Game, well, it’s Soul Calibur. I don’t need a demo to know how good this game is (well, okay, I only played the sequels on PS2). The demo gives you one selectable character (Xianghua) and three battles against a really easy computer. (Would I pay 10 bucks for it? Well, I don’t have the original, so maybe.)
These are just my opinions on the demos. While, yes, judging games based on the demos are not a good idea, a demo’s job is to make me want to spend my Microsoft points on it.
Ticket To Ride - Well, it’s based on the board game, and it happens to be a board game. Yeah. Demo contains a tutorial and the US board, which you could play the whole game against an easy AI. I was surprised that it didn’t stop halfway.
Happy Tree Friends: False Alarm - I really can’t see how you can make a good game based on the Happy Tree Friends, teddy bears that accidently kill themselves and each other to the joy of Hot Topic shoppers. This seems to be like a bad version of Lemmings, get your teddy bears to the other side with your power over the elements without them dying. Basically, the equivalent of a Gallagher game where you have to stop him from smashing a watermelon. But wait, there’s a cartoon to unlock piece by piece, because everyone is anxious to know what happens at the end of a Happy Tree Friends cartoon. I’d rather just watch the cartoons on the web, but I already watched the best one back when they were free Flash entertainment. Comes with a tutorial and a full level.
Elements of Destruction - It is the Anti-SimCity, instead of building buildings, silos, and pumpjacks and protecting them from natural disasters, you destroy them with said natural disasters. It was quite fun destroying everything, and it is worth checking out.
Sealife Safari - You take pictures of cartoon fish armed with a camera, and an infinite supply of Pester Balls, er, Gizmos. If you like Pokemon Snap, or want a game about that particular subject matter, this is right up your alley. I still would rather have Jambo Safari.
It has Journey. (Edit: Or, at least, we thought it had.)
Courtesy Bemanistyle, again, here’s the license list. There are far more master tracks than there are covers. We’ll start with the American Appeal (TM). There isn’t as much of it as V4. It’s probably why Europe is getting V4 instead of this.
A Blast Beat (by Dune)
Almost Easy (by Avenged Sevenfold)
Hocus Pocus (made famous by Focus)
The Sound of Truth (by As I Lay Dying)
And now the J-Rock. I must note that Zetsubou Billy is a “Long Version”, meaning you can play the whole song instead of a trunicated one.
Afterdark/アフターダーク (made famous by ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION)
Crawl (by VELTPUNCH)
Discommunication (by 99 Parabellum Bullet)
Don’t Stop Believing (made famous by ZIGGY, not the one by Journey)
Genesis of Aquarion/創聖のアクエリオン (made famous by Akino)
Going My Way!/ゴーイング マイ ウェイ! (by Tatsumi Megumi/達見恵 featured by Sano Hiroaki/佐野宏晃)
Shangri-la/アフターダーク (made famous by Chatmonchy/シャングリラ)
starline stereo (by winnie)
White Sketchbook (by Reiji Sakurai/桜井零士)
the WORLD (by Nightmare/ナイトメア)
Zetsubou Billy (by Maximum The Hormone/マキシマムザホルモン)
Finally, the half-KO half-license:
鏡花水月楼（GFDM EDITION） (by TЁЯRA x 宇宙戦隊NOIZ)
For the Konami Originals, here’s the original article.
EDIT: Looks like we’ve been Vertigo’d again, it sure as hell isn’t Journey.
Frogger 2 - It is published by the company that would have almost all of their games delisted from Xbox Live, including the original Frogger. Which is a very sad thing because, while I’ve never played the original Xbox Live Frogger game, it’s a port of the arcade classic. Even if they replaced the music with random note music*, it would certainly be a lot better than this. Graphics that actually look worse than the original, horrid music, bad level design**, bad collision detection, and it’s almost nothing like the original arcade game aside from the lily pads. Avoid at all costs.
Commando 3 - Of course, I bet most people will buy it because of the Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Extravaganza Another Crazy Beta, but even without that, it is a great game for anyone who likes fast arcade action. And who doesn’t? My only real problem about this game is that if you go anywhere near a vehicle, you go into it, which especially gets annoying when you reach the point where you have to get off. Otherwise, it’s definitely a better sequel than probably any of the Frogger 2s.
* This actually happened with the port of Frogger on the Konami Arcade Classics TV Game.
** For example, there’s a part in the beginning of the first level that is impossible to pass unless you find another, seemingly hidden (read: one without a checkered flag on it) path on the right side of the screen.
This is actually kind of boring, but I had to type it out.
TL;DR: Don’t get too excited about trademark drama and wild theories.
Though all I played was Earthbound. Not that it was a bad thing.
By the way, Beat’n Groovy was rated by OFLC. Finally, trademark drama becoming real? What these bloggers came up with: It is either a Xbox Live Arcade title or a WiiWare title (most likely Xbox Live Arcade), since Atari publishes physical Konami games in Australia. Neither of which supplies peripherals. The chance of it being a localization of Pop’n is pretty much nil. Oh, and it’s made by some new company named Voltex. Well, I guess Pop’n is safe from bad renaming, but it’s also safe from localization. (Note: Or becoming Button Revolution.)
Voltex is apparently also going to make Frogger 2. Fun fact: now there’s three different games that call themselves “Frogger 2″. Frogger 2: Threeedeep, Frogger 2: Swampy’s Revenge, and now this. I would say “Hopefully this would be the best one, making the others non-canon”, but I know the only Frogger game I’ll ever care about is the original. Screw Dumbass Bipedal Frogger, I want my Parodius Returns.
Oh yeah, Guitar Hero IV. The only thing really intresting is the whole “Create A Song”, which would probably be used for recreations and uberdeathholyshitlulz songs. That idea almost makes me want to buy another drum peripheral. Almost. I hope it’s good enough so people like me can make “Midnight Sun“.
I’ve heard that DDR Disney Channel Edition requires you to get at least one Full Marvelous Combo on each difficulty to unlock the last three songs. I’m not kidding.
Moment 40 / Moshic - Also on Ultramix 3, which is on a completely different console than the other two (the original Xbox). Sadly, it’s also really good. The song, that is.
SAKURA / RevenG - Also on Extreme 2. Yes, it’s everyone’s favorite fake 10. Or, at least it used to be, but I guess humanity will never find out (or care) if this was rerated in Disney Channel Edition like it was in SuperNOVA 2.
exotic ethnic / RevenG - Also in MAX, which is the best US version of any Bemani ever.
Yes, I have given in, about three months ago, actually, to the ever so wonderful game rental service known as Gamefly. I’d talk about it, but people would think I’m a shill, so “ever so wonderful game rental service” is enough.
Here’s one of them. The first one, actually.
Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80’s - It does not just look like Guitar Hero II, it is Guitar Hero II. There are more differences between DDR games than there are differences between Guitar Hero II and this. That’s why it is more important to think of it as an expansion, and as an expansion, it is good.
There are some great songs, like Holy Diver, Play With Me, and Because It’s Midnite, the latter being so good that I forgive it for actually being made in the 00s by some internet cartoon thing. However, inbetween these songs are some good songs that I’d rather not play in Guitar Hero. As much as I like I Ran, especially the real I Ran, it does not make for a fun chart at all. Plus, some may dislike that it focuses on the 80s that would be considered cheesy, and not on 80s that would be considered metal.
I’d recommend buying this if you are either a slightly-less-than-diehard Guitar Hero fan, a fan of 80s music, or both. Otherwise, well, rent it. You’ll still have fun, and it’s still a good party game (especially an 80s-themed party!).
Yeah, so I’m using this blog as a place to practice critique. At least I’m using it for something.
I played Guitar Freaks and Drummania V4 for the first time. An imported Japanese one, of course. Betson.
1. I wouldn’t be surprised if this used to be called “Guitar Revolution & Drum Revolution”.
2. From what I’ve played, Jake In The Box is song of the version, even though it wasn’t exactly made for V4. Honorable mention goes to the cover of Fat Lip, it’s just so bad it’s good.
3. Select A Music.
I also played SuperNOVA 2. This one was actually the US version. The one that doesn’t have any unlocks. Betson.
1. It’s better than SN1. Not saying much.
2. Two Months Off has a surprisingly fun Double Expert chart.
3. Faint is probably the worst cover ever made, it’s just so bad it’s horrible. The fact that it isn’t in US CS is proof that Konami has some care for the US.
4. That’s really all I can say. With just the default songlist, this game is more like an update to SuperNOVA than a new game in the series, even by DDR standards.
First, there was House Of The Dead, a game that allows you to shoot up zombies…with a light gun. The combination of the thrill of shooting up zombies and the unintentional hilarity of the great voice acting made for a great arcade experience that was hardly matched by any other at the time.
Then, there was Typing Of The Dead, a game that allows you to shoot up zombies…with typing. Forget it, there’s no other game like this title, and that’s why it’s amazing. Easily the best typing tutor ever made, even if my only experience with it was a Japanese arcade version where all the words were in Romaji.
And now…a game that allows you to shoot up zombies…with English skills. Yup, another English tutor for the Japanese. Like Typing Of The Dead, it’s based on House Of The Dead 2, but unlike Typing Of The Dead, it’s on the DS. It seems that you either write each letter down or choose from a list. It’s ridiculous, but then again, so was Typing of the Dead, and it didn’t stop that game from being awesome.
We may not ever get this game as it is in Japan, but this will definitely open up to a new franchise of [insert language here] of the Dead. Like Spanish…of the Dead. Heck, how about Cooking of the Dead. Put in the right recipe to make a zombie-killing omelet! Or Dancing of the Dead. Featuring songs like Master Of Puppets, Murmaider, and Magical Sound Shower! Seriously, Sega should make nothing but “…of the Dead” spinoffs, as long as we don’t get Shadow of the Dead. Ugh.
The only rule with this, is that bundle version or non-bundle version, I choose whichever is higher.
1. Rock Band Special Edition (Xbox 360)
#7 on the overall video game best sellers list. Just so you know, Halo 3 is #9. And if Nintendo products were disallowed from the list, it would be #2. Well, Activision is probably proud that one of their products is beating Rock Band. Granted, it’s Call Of Duty 4. Speaking of Activision…
2. Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock (PS2)
#16 and #17, bundle and non-bundle, respectively. Yup, right next to each other.
3. Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party (Wii)
Wait, what? DDR has managed to get on this list? I thought most people stopped caring about it! That’s what I get for trusting Kotaku! #22, by the way. Just goes to show you that Konami can still say that they make the #1 rhythm game…on the Wii, at least.
4. Rock Band Special Edition (PS3)
#31. If you’re going to pay 600 dollars for your console, you might as well buy a 170 dollar game.
5. Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock (Wii)
#39.
6. Guitar Hero II (PS2)
#47.
7. Rock Band Special Edition (PS2)
#48. Online play matters. Unless it’s Guitar Hero. Or DDR.
8. Hanna Montana: Music Jam (DS)
#49. Hey, it definately counts.
9. Hanna Montana: Spotlight Music Tour (Wii)
#55. I’ve never heard of this, but according to Amazon it’s definately a music game.
10. Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock (360)
#74. Wha wha wha wha whaaaaaaaaaaa.
Also, the top selling fighting game on the PS2 is King Of Fighters XI, at #160.
EDIT: And because I just feel like it, here’s Konami’s Top 10.
1. DDR Hottest Party (#22)
2. DDR SuperNOVA 2 (#329)
3. DDR Extreme 2 (#394)
4. That Stupid Ass DDR DVD Game (#408)
5. DDR SuperNOVA (#444)
6. DDRMAX2 (#468)
7. DDR Universe 2 (#490)
8. Karaoke Revolution: American Idol (#492)
9. DDR Universe 1 (#498)
10. CMT Presents: Karaoke Revolution: Country (#1415)
(Source: Bemanistyle, who sourced it to 2ch. Voiddd.com)
Guitar Hero and Rock Band are all the rage now, but do you remember Guitar Freaks? Or Drummania? No? Yes? Who gives a crap? Well, whatever you think, this article here is about an arcade game called Guitar Freaks and Drummania V4.
The game will be the first GFDM game since Guitar Freaks 1st Mix to be released worldwide. At least, that’s what the rumors say. The game has recently been released, and it’s very different from the last Vs. I’ll just say, if those rumors of globalization are true, I really would not be surprised.
Licenses:
“魔法のコトバ” (made famous by スピッツ)
“September” (made famous by Earth Wind and Fire)
“Rock And Roll All Nite” (made famous by KISS)
“Strike Party!!!” (by BeForU) (Yeah, they’re licensed now)
“ガラナ” (made famous by スキマスイッチ)
“If The Kids Are United” (made famous by Sham 69)
“Paranoid” (made famous by Black Sabbath) (Wow, there’s a cover of this in all three of these games)
“Long Live Rock ‘N’ Roll” (made famous by Rainbow)
“Idle Gossip” (made famous by Toy Dolls)
“ツヨクツヨ” (made famous by mihimaru GT)
“チャンピオーネ” (made famous by Orange Range)
“Fat Lip” (made famous by Sum 41)
“遠雷～遠くにある明かり～” (made famous by High and Mighty Color)
“タリホー” (made famous by ザ・クロマニヨンズ)
“Nemesis” (by Arch Enemy)
“invitation” (made famous by 柴咲コウ)
“Black Night” (made famous by Deep Purple)
“Leaving All Behind” (by Cellador)
“Immortal Bind” (by Anthem)
“BAD MUSIC FREAKS” (by 宇宙戦隊NOIZ)
“Still Of The Night” (made famous by Whitesnake)
“Move Over” (made famous by Janis Joplin)
The rest of the leaked list can be seen here.
UPDATED:
1. Vertigo isn’t the song by U2, but another Konami Original. Also, thankfully, in my opinion, “The Messenger (not decorated)” is definately not the Turisas song.
2. Undefined may not be in the game.
3. IIDX DJ Troopers is the next IIDX’s title.
4. No Blink 182 either. While there’s much rejoicing over having one pop punk song instead of two, I’ll just say don’t get too excited if a song called “God Knows” appears on a leaked songlist from V5. There’s a still a lot more American Appeal(TM) in this songlist than there was in V3.
5. I might as well put in the songs from 3rd Mix that were revived here. Because Still Of The Night is that awesome.