Hybrid Insanity

It's been a week now and still nobody's been able to figure this one out.

What's the CMC of this card!

Effects vs. Gameplay visibility

See? That's why they scaled down on the falling debris...

SF2 HD Remix Bitching

Capcom, I appreciate the new HD sprites and all that, but could you have at least improved the frame rate of both the sprites AND the background animation? The sprites look smooth, but the animation on the sprites feels like it's missing a lot of frames. That and the crowds in the background animate like a two-page flip book.

Also, could you have at the very least cleaned up the hit detection? You could freeze-frame some of the gameplay trailers and see Ryu kicking thin air and Ken being close to the fucking ground and getting "hit" by a flying kick.

Old-school rocks and all that, but you could've cleaned up.

Tip: Look at King of Fighters XII

StarCraft 2: reactions, release dates, and musings

Now that the Zerg's been introduced to the world, them forum folks are once again starting to scream "imbalanced!" and all that. Sigh. Well, it's expected, I guess. I mean, you can't really expect everyone to understand what a demonstration video is meant to do right?

Look people, the video/videos were meant to show off the Zerg and highlight what they're all about. Of course they're going to seem overpowered. That was the point: sell the Zerg's bad-assed-ness.

Oh what the hell. Why care. It's been the same since the release of the Protoss video and the Terran video. "ZOMG the Protoss Mothership is insanezors! Whoa, the Terran nuclear reactor and the Thor are unfair!" Yeah, whatever.

Anyway, because all the races are now revealed, everyone's expecting a summer release.

I say bollocks to that. I'm expecting a December release.

You see, I'm willing to bet that Blizzard's going to take extra time trying to get the balance for the three races decent from the start. They can't really afford to tarnish the "fairness" of their Korean e-sport cash cow. When they release it, they have to get it right, or at least good, the first time. Otherwise, a lot of pro-gamers will be complaining.

Other reasons for my belief in this truthiness include the revealed developmental changes made to the game so far.

Take for example the Protoss Carriers. They were brought back specifically for nostalgia/iconic reasons, when originally they were set to be replaced by a Dark Templar version of the capital ship.

The Mothership's abilities seems to be going through some flux, and Blizzard seems to be a bit worried as to how they're going to balance the Blackhole ability, or if they're really going to allow more than one Mothership in the game at a time. The latest update to the official site seems to indicate that they've allowed the existence of several Motherships at once, per game.

Also, the Protoss Colossus: their weapons used to fire in a smooth straight arc that could wipe out swaths of Zerglings in one go. By the time the Zergling trailer came out their blasts now ressemble the Terran Battlecruiser's Plasma Bursts.

Speaking of the Terran's, the changes that race is experiencing during development are also worth noting. The Raiders used to be spawned automatically, without purchase, from a specialized building. Now it seems that they have to be purchased from your Barracks.

The Terran super-unit, the Thor is also going through some bouts of heavy trial. Folks say that they're testing if it's okay for the Thor to be able to attack both ground AND air units; how tough the armor the that giant mech is going to be; stuff like that. Rumor is that at one time, you had to kill the thing TWICE! Once to disable the thing's legs, and a second kill to finish it off.

My real curiosity though, is how they're going to balance the Ghost's "Snipe" ability. Last we saw it, it was a "stance" that imobilized your Ghosts but allowed them to kill all organic units within range in one shot. The rate of fire is slow though, but still, it's a bit unfair, especially since ALL of the Zerg are organic.

Imagine, you finally managed to develop enough to finally spew out an Ultralisk that can burrow (Stealthy elephants! WOOT!) and then you hear a pop, then your Ultralisk falls dead. That would suck wouldn't it? Worse, imagine a Ghost getting in range of your Drones... now that's a shitty situation if there ever was one.

I could say more issues, but I'll stop here.

If we DO see a summer release for the game, I'd be the first to feel mighty uncomfortable about it. I'm not a pro or anything, but I want this done right too.

Good job Sony! The EyeToy is sweet, sweet tech

Remember the "draw a character and then play with it" concept in Drawn to Life? Well, for weeks now I've been reading about how Sony's Richard Marks expounded on that concept with his EyeToy.

His take on the concept makes a lot of evolutionary sense really, especially since drawing on paper with a pencil is a lot handier than drawing on a touch screen with a stylus. The thing is, I've been guilty of brushing aside Marks' EyeToy as something that's trying too hard, and is way too ahead of it's time.

Boy did Sony prove me wrong.

Check out the video below and I dare the geek in you to tell me it isn't cool tech-wise.

Forget Okami on the DS (although that would be nice), imagine Okami using EyeToy tech! You can, if you wanted to, actually invest some resources into acquiring an old-school Chinese ink brush for maximum effect!

Oh, and before I forget, here's a techy-gamers wet dream for you: imagine combining this with Jeff Han's multi touch screen technology. What do you get? The ultimate RTS!

Thank God Kotaku went to the GDC...

School Rumble 3rd Term goes straight to DVD

I have a feeling this is semi-related to the issue regarding Japanese animation studios voicing their disdain for foreign(western) fan-sub groups. From Darkdiamond.net:

Good news for all School Rumble fans, the never ending school romantic comedy is bound for a 3rd season with all of the original cast and staff. Bad news is it appears this will be a straight to DVD deal.

Kodansha will bundle the DVDs of School Rumble: 3rd Term with volumes 21st and 22nd of the ongoing manga so don’t expect the same quality of previous seasons...

Gah.

Well, I guess either their budget isn't as high as it used to be, or they fear that if they spend to have the third term released on Japanese TV, raws and fan-subs of it will circulate back to Japan thus ending the otaku need to have a permanent re-playable copy of the show. Then they'd kiss bye-bye to extra profits from DVD sales. I guess in this case, DVD sales replaces advertising revenue; DVD sales also doubles as a cheap survey to see how large their loyal (money-spending) fan-base really is.

The box art for Soul Calibur IV

Remember how the previous version of Soul Calibur featured unlockable "secret" characters apt for the console you've got? The Sony version got Heihachi/Yoshimitsu and the Nintendo version managed to sneak in Link.

Well, the guys from Namco Bandai (or Bandai Namco, or however they decide to sequence the names in their now merged company) are at it again. Eyeball this:

Once again, the PS3 is evil/emo.

Starcraft 2: the zerg swarm revealed

Blizzard decided that March 10, 2008 would be the date that they present to those damned lucky Koreans a creepy Zerg Swarm intro video complete with epic Kerrigan narration:



Yes, Koreans are blessed with Blizzard love.

The voice over says the following:

We are Swarm.
We burned a path of annihilation across the stars.
And then -- We vanished.
Four years ago we faded into the shadows.
We thrived.
We, evolved.
Now, the time has come for us to step back ... into ... the light.
Now, worlds will tremble once again.
Empires will fall.
Alliances will shatter.
We are the swarm.
But we are becoming much... much more.
For the final metamorphosis, has only just begun.

That's not all though, after the intro they gave out a unit description session lecture style. Luckily, there's a video out there on them YouTubes that cuts out the boring lecture part, and just compresses all the featured gameplay related with each new Unit.

Behold:



Unit details:

• Corruptor - New Unit - An air-to-air combat unit that instead of destroying it’s opponents, it infests them an turns them into a stationary turret-like unit/building, making them fight their own allies.
• Infester - New Unit - A battle support unit, that does not have any attacks. It can however, move while burrowed. Can cast Dark Swarm, the effect of which seems to be the same as the original ability in SC1. It can also cast Disease, which creates and aura that damages a target unit. Can cast infestation, this time though it can infest any building and create infested marines from them. The marines are slow, but fires similar to regular marines.
• Roach - New Unit - A peskyground unit that can regenerate HP at an incredibly fast rate. It requires powerful and concentrated fire to destroy. It has 90HP.
• Overseer - New Evolutionary Unit - Evolves from the Overlord and has a larger vision range than the Overlord; can detect invisible/burrowed units.
• Overlord - Upgraded - The new Overlord can no longer detect invisible/burrowed units. It can however, destroy or dismantle expandable areas and neutral posts. Can create small temporary zones loaded with creep.
• Baneling - New Evolutionary Unit - Evolves from Zerglings. Snot balls that explode on contact with enemy units or buildings spraying acidic radioactive phlegm on opponents.
• Swarm Guradian - New Evolutionary Unit - Evolves from the Mutalisk. Has an even longer range, and powerful against ground units. Unlike the Mutalisk it has some ground defense as it can create broodlings that attack for a period of time.
• Nydus Worm - New Unit - A unit version of the Nydus Canal. Can create canals anywhere on the map. Think Dune.
• Queen - Upgraded - The Zerg's super-unit. This one's focused on defense. Like the Terran Giant Robot, this one has an alternative creation method: this one's created directly from the Hatchery. Like the Mothership, you can only have 1 Queen at a time. It has many powerful abilities that are good for zerg and it mainly directs the defensive line. It can expand creeps or act as a defensive structure via turning an area of creep "toxic." It also has the ability Deep Tunnel, that allows it to move to any hatchery on the map. Although it seems more fragile compared to other super-units it is said that the Queen can evolve and learn more abilities.
• Ultralisk - Upgraded - It can now burrow, and a swing from it's tusk damages in an arc in front of it. Did I mention that IT CAN NOW BURROW!!!
• Old Units - The Zergling, Hydralisk, Lurker, and Mutalisk are mostly unchanged.

Real-Life Amaterasu

Amaterasu Okami... without the red paint and the glowing weapons of heavenly wrath.

I feel so random today

To all those who are pissed with SFIV's new look, irregardless of Ryu's penis and all that jazz (why penis why!), here's all I have to tell you:

Also, I want the image below as a poster, or a wall scroll, or on an altar/shrine of some sort. My attempts at searching for a larger image size version was complete and utter failure. I blame the universe rolling a 1.

Intertubes time

Image-boards will never cease to amaze me. They are a surefire way to get the lulz you need from the intertubes. Surfin' around, one such site, I found this image:



Cute huh? No, the site I visited wasn't just filled with cutesy animals. It had downright weird stuff. For example, tell me, what does this image imply?

Blame The Chinese

Yep, it's FFVII for the Famicom. Why does it exist you ask? My bet is opportunistic Chinese pirates. The Triads need your monies, and they need it as bad as Edison Chen's hands.

Seriously though, responsible group is Shenzhen Nanjing Technology Co, Ltd, a company responsible for mp3 and mp4 players. Still, my spider-sense tells me that they might have something to do with M.A.SHADE Industries, you know, those guys responsible for all those 16 in 1 DVD packages that we all love.

Click the link I posted for more details. Who knows? You might find the 8-bit Cloud sprite cute and adorable.

Political Correctness in Fighting Games?

I'm starting to get a bit miffed by people complaining on the internet that the fighting-game genre has gone down the drain and has to rely on inserting massive amounts of cheesecake, mammaries, and annorexia into their female character designs in order to continue attracting audiences.

My response to the folks who say that it's all T&A nowadays is this: I present to you Bob. ...This is Bob. Bob has bitch tits.

The universe rolls a 1...

and Gary Gygax dies.

At least, he went away well. I hope he did. Newsfolk say he passed away at his home. It was probably peacefull.

Nevertheless, every he fails(/makes, depending on your perspective) his final saving throw, and everyone else gets +10 sadness.

Rest in peace Dungeon Master.

Belmont vs. Jesus

Thanks to my significant other, I recently became aware of the many lulz to be found at I-Mockery.com. If you're bored and you really need your intertube fix, trust me, this is the place to go.

If the Jesus versus Simon Belmont screenshot up there isn't enough to give you a clue as to why I'm such a fan, I'll let this link to their flash-game version of Castlevania 2 explain why.

You can also go to their games page and enjoy their many other offerings like Kill the Dog from Duck Hunt, or Kill the Old Man in Zelda, or Mario vs. Excitebike. My personal faves is A Warcraft Orc lost in Starcraft. That one's a doozy.

If flash games are too web-based for your old-school bleeding heart. I suggest you surf through their hacked ROM review pages. Each review of each hacked ROM also includes a link to download featured emulation aberration. The insanity includes a "Matrix" style version of NES timewaster Elevator Action, and a pornographic interpretation of Karateka. (sort of...)

You've been advised. Now go, waste your time.

I feel the same way about Dr. Mario

It may sound like a Rockman tribute at the start, and the engrish may be jarring, but keep watching. There's a punchline in there somewhere.

Oh, and if you want something that's a bit more immediate, then here's Rock Man doing the Rocky Star:

GURU GURU MAWARU!

School Rumble: Third Term. Booyah!

When old school fighting meets non-martial art

Not to be outdone by Street Fighter IV's new Okami inspired "paintbrush 3d" look applied to a 2D plane fighter, SNK announced to the world (via Kotaku) that their old school classic, King of Fighters XII, will be purely handrawn.

It's kinda like GGX anime-level sprites, only with a higher resolution, and an insanely higher frame-rate.