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.