Soul Calibur Goes Online

This actually started as a straight forward review of Soul Calibur 4, but as it was developed, discussing the evolution of online play in fighters and how SC4’s online play stacks up therein became such an overbearing focus that the editor suggested I simply make it a feature specifically to that end. Consequently, some paragraphs on SC4’s other features and it’s overall purchasing value got cut.

Also, I must admit that if it had been planned as an essay entirely focused on the evolution of online play in fighters from the start, I would have gone about things differently – mainly I would have detailed and compared the online implementations of all the online fighters mentioned. That being said, just focusing on SC4 already greatly exceeded the typical word count for an Otaku USA feature, so it was for the best that things turned out the way they did.

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UT3 for 360: For once a new game that’s actually good!

Hear ye hear ye, lo and behold a rare occurrence… a new game that I don’t find heavily flawed and substandard!! Here is my review of Unreal Tournament 3 for Xbox 360, posted at Otaku USA, so I actually get paid for this shit. I won’t go into details here, since you’re theoretically about the read them in the review anyway, but the gist is that this is a complete reversal from shoddy past console ports of the series and easily the best shooter on consoles right now.

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6 Ways Super Mario Galaxy Could Have Been Fun

I finally gave Super Mario Galaxy a rental last week after being told that it was considerably more challenging than its predecessors and closer to recreating the classic Super Mario Bros feel than any of the other 3D Super Mario games. Rather than writing a review, which would inevitably just be beating negative aspects of the game like a dead horse, I decided to write an article focusing on specific things that would have made the game more enjoyable.

New BIA3 Release Date (Fucking Finally)

After leaving the public in the dark since the game’s prior tentative release date last November, Brothers in Arms 3: Hell’s Highway has made a reappearance on the gaming radar via a hands-on preview with 1up this week.

The game is now slated for an August 2008 release, which is still a ways off, but at least reassures us that the game hasn’t gone into DNF (Duke Nukem Forever) status. While the delays have caused me to begin doubting whether or not this game will be free of the type of shortcomings which plagued prior titles in the series, I’d still say it has the best chance so far of becoming the first 360 title I’m actually glad to own, and the second game in my entire 360 collection.

Here’s hoping BIA3 trades the cosmetic realism and tactics of the overhyped Call of Duty 4 for actual realism and tactics, and makes for an FPS experience of true quality.

The Return of Domination 101

The site Insomnia somehow recently resurrected the “Domination 101″ series of articles on Street Fighter, which were originally posted by Seth Killian on Shoryuken.com circa 2001. At one time, these articles appeared prominently on the site itself, providing insight from a hardcore Street Fighter competitor into the world of fighting games. Subjects ranged from the game mechanics themselves and what went into making a good fighting game, to the conduct of players (most notably, scrubs) within the competitive community.

Unfortunately, as time went on production of these articles dwindled and as Shoryuken continually revised and restructured itself, these articles fell off the site and ended up relegated to a dark obscure corner of the forums, where they sat unnoticed for many years. At this point, I don’t even know if the Domination 101 area of the Shoryuken forums still exists.

Fortunately, Alex Kierkegaard (gesundheit) from Insomnia has gotten permission to “reprint” the articles on his own site so at least they can be presented properly somewhere where they might be seen and appreciated. Despite being almost a decade old, the articles still hold up, and if you’ve ever been into fighting games, you should check them out.

Domination 101: Why Street Fighter Rules, Part 1

Domination 101: Prelude To a Dis

If I’m not mistaken, there’s at least a few more Domination articles out there, so hopefully Insomnia will continue re-posting them. Until then, if you’re desperate you could go digging around the Shoryuken forums and see what you find.

The Halo Den00bification Project

In recent months as the quality of games and my accompanying interest in them continue to deteriorate, there’s been only one thing that’s kept me going in the gaming world, and that’s my renewed design efforts with Halo 2.

Basically, it’s a mod I’m developing geared towards removing persistent skill-mitigating features and balance issues in the Halo series, making it a more respectable shooter, rather than purely a concession to casual gamers.

This sort of venture has taken on more of an appeal to me lately compared to simply writing gaming opinion, as you’re really putting your money where your mouth is. Rather than ranting about why a game is bad and what it should have done instead, and just relying on people to get the idea from reading your article, you can physically make the game the way it should have been. Then it’s right there for people to play it and see for themselves whether your criticisms are on target and the game is really more enjoyable to play the way the developers didn’t actually do it.

At some point I may write a whole article explaining what I’m doing with it and why I think it’s a better way to play Halo, but for now I’m just going to link you to the most recent public release, the extensive readme doc that comes with the mod, and a bunch of gameplay videos my friend and I recorded in order to give you an idea of how the game plays with these changes.

The Full Explanation
The Gameplay Videos
More Gameplay Videos
The Download (6.7k)

CPMA Competitive Level Design Guide

I was rooting around the Q3 Promode site the other day and stumbled across this article which I’d already read years ago, enjoyed, but then forgot about…

CPMA Competitive Level Design Guide

For those that don’t know, Quake 3 Challenge Pro Mode is a gameplay mod created by Quake 1 and Quake 2 tourney vets who felt that Quake 3 was too n00bified. Considering that by the standards of modern day, mainstream FPS, Quake 3 is widely considered the most hardcore out there, that means that Q3 CPMA is honest to god the hardest of the hardcore you can get in FPS multiplayer action.

These guys spent years fine tuning Quake 3 for the best competitive play possible, willing to make no concessions to the casual gamer. Not only did they revise all the weapons and the game’s movement physics and general mechanics, they created an entire set of solid maps to play the game in, that far outstrips Id Software’s out-of-the-box arenas.

As such, the people behind CPMA know what they’re doing, so if you have any interest in FPS game mechanics at all, this is worth a read. The author goes into not only what makes a good map structure, but the role of different weapons in the game, and how their placement affects the quality of combat. At a time when the supposed golden standard for arcade shooters is Halo, where every map is devoutly symmetrical and the most powerful weapons are always placed on the highest, safest places on the map (two major FPS design no-no’s), the concepts explained in this article are of particular importance.

Coming Clean

As anyone who might have bothered to check back on this blog from time to time may have noticed, it’s completely fallen by the wayside in terms of actually getting updated on a frequent basis. This is a combination of my dwindling interest in gaming, and the fact that with my last major articles, I’ve raised the bar so high for the quality of each post that I can’t possibly meet it… particularly not with my apathetic attitude towards games and their disappointing quality these days. I’ve had a review of Halo 3 sitting in progress in the drafts bank here for months and never finished it, because it’s just become too big a deal to finish…its like that damn Axel Rose album that’s never coming out.

Really the only thing that’s kept me interested in gaming at all lately is my ongoing project modding Halo 2. Fortunately, it’s given me a sort of second wind and given me just enough to keep up with the gaming world from time to time.

So the tentative plan going forward is to continue this blog, albeit with more of a quantity over quality approach. At once time, I wanted to make every post an extensive multi-page article on some subject or other, and there was a period last summer where I was actually able to accomplish this on a regular basis, but that time has gone as I’ve got too much other stuff to do. So, unfortunately, this site will largely have to resort to the more common “tidbit” format, but I think there should still be something in each one that’s worth reading in some capacity to “hardcore” gamers.

If I do actually muster the energy to write something extensive, you’ll see it listed under the Articles/Editorials section in the right side Categories bar. If you’re just looking for lengthy stuff, just click there. In the mean time, I should be pumping out smaller posts touching on various topics on a reasonably frequent basis. We’ll see how it goes.

Final Fantasy IV DS Preview: The Art of Re-design

I first did a preview which touched on Final Fantasy IV DS some time ago, but there were only a paltry few images out there to show for the game. Now more artwork and screenshots are turning up on the internet, and I’m compelled to do a another one… simply because FFIV holds such a special place in my heart, and the new artwork being done for the game looks so awesome.

This new preview shows off the new CGI character renderings for the game, assessing how they compare to Yoshitaka Amano’s original artwork and the original SNES sprites.

The Ghostbusters, they’re coming.

I wasn’t planning on posting again till I had some rather involved reviews and critiques to post up, but I decided to make an exception for this particular game. Yes, it’s true, there is a new Ghostbusters game in the works for 2008, and as it’s receiving very little coverage in the gaming media and very few people seem to know about it, I decided to do a little preview…