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.

From Nibelheim to Midgar

Isn't technology a wonderful thing? Now that it's been a few years since Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children's release, by the time Square Enix gathers enought momentum to make a remake of Final Fantasy VII, the technology they would need to arrive at a product of the quality of Advent Children would be several times cheaper than when Advent Children was in production.

Talk about profits. I mean, noit that Advent Children wasn't made with technology, that at the time, was already two years old. Given that they've laid down a certain CG-Anime style already, they don't really have to push anything technically. They'll have more time to focus on recreating the gameplay elements and they'll have more time to think about the profits, and the marketing.

Note: Dirge of Cerberus, Last Order, and Advent Children double as extended marketing material, aside from being franchise products in their own rights.

People will gobble it up and throw their savings at the thing, if the remake ever gets done.

Speaking of technology, I found two videos on YouTube that build-up on the effect that the FFVII PS3 Tech Demo did.

You see, Crisis Core, apparently properly ends it's tale with it's hero's death. In the ending, you see Zack and Cloud in that heartwrenching moment near Midgar. Yep, it's that tradgedy where they were short of the safety of the Midgar slums by about a few hundred yards. Here's that moment as it was originally presented to in classic 32bit PS1 FFVII:

Then here's that moment in the ending of Crisis Core with spangly Advent Children graphics.

Also, here's a follow up "secret ending" bonus in Crisis Core where you see Crisis Core cut to FFVII proper. It may look like the tech demo at first, but watch it until the end. Psycho, crazy, I'm-still-messed-up-from-Nibelheim-I-think-I'm-Zack Cloud actually speaks in this.

FMVs like these, along with Advent Children, and that opening in Dirge of Cerberus that looks like Advent Children (the evacuate Midgar from Meteor-fall scene), makes it hard for any geek who's played through the first one to not hope in his heart-of-geeky-hearts that an FFVII remake be made.

Now if only they made ruby slippers for geeks.