Gaming News, Reviews, Podcasts, And More
After ditching Andrew twice in the last month, he has decided to get his revenge and forced me to solo the show for the next two weeks. Well, he is on vacation and won’t have internet anyway.
In this episode, I share my impressions of the first 4 episodes of the Castlevania Netflix show.
Then I talk about what I thought of the SNES Classic Edition announcement.
Finally, I have some personal thoughts and feelings about game development.
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If you follow Nintendo hardware rumors in any capacity, it likely won’t come as a surprise to you, but for everyone else, I hope this is great news. Nintendo will be releasing a SNES Classic Edition this fall, September 29. This will be pretty much the same concept as the NES Classic Edition but with a few modifications.
The big changes are that it comes with 2 controllers instead of one, it will only have 21 games instead of 30, and finally it will be priced at $80 instead of $60 plus $10 for a second controller, as was the NES Classic. I personally don’t find these changes as too much of a surprise.
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Among the many classic blunders in this world, the most famous of which is ‘never get involved in a land war in Asia’ and only slightly less well-known ‘Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line’, is the killing off one of your most popular products at the height of its life. Sadly, it seems that Nintendo has fallen victim to the latter blunder (of course Nintendo being a Japanese company may have been involved at one time or another in the first one). In a statement sent to IGN, Nintendo of America has ended production of the NES Classic Edition and after April you will never see them on shelves again, that is if you ever saw them there to begin with. (UPDATE: Japan’s version of the NES Classic Edition, a mini Famicom with a slightly different lineup of games, has ended production as well.)
The NES Classic Edition is the hit holiday product from Nintendo that bundled 30 classic NES games into a cute console with the old NES look. It even came with controllers that resembled the original NES controllers. People loved this thing so much that any units that stores got were quickly snatched up and immediately listed to ebay at double to triple markup. Few people who actually wanted one to play the darn thing got one. In a statement made in January of this year, Nintendo announced that they had sold a cool 1.5million NES Classics. That means that somewhere in the ballpark of 250k people have one to actually play right now, while 1.25million units are sitting languishing on ebay and Craigslist postings.
But what really gets my goat with this latest news is Nintendo’s completely tone deaf reasons for dropping the system.
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I am a big fan of superhero TV shows. I am currently watching every single superhero show on TV right now, except Gotham (seriously that show is garbage). So far nearly all of them have something going for them that is worth the slog through their many terrible episodes.
As a fan of this genre, I was excited when NBC announced their plans for a comedy based on the lives of the every-man living in a world of superheroes and supervillains. Originally rumored to be in the setting of an insurance company specializing in super-collateral damage, it was later confirmed to be a show about a research and development firm owned by Bruce Wayne and specializing in technology used by every day men and women to protect themselves from the damage caused by heroes and villains as they fought.
As screenshots and details of the show emerged, many people conjured up images of a show that was basically Better Off Ted, a delightful and hilarious show with a similar premise minus the supers, set in a world with super powers. After watching the pilot of Powerless, that image has been decisively shattered. While the show hits similar drum beats, the comedy and characters just can’t hold a candle to the shear wit and satire of Better Off Ted.
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One of President Trump’s promises leading up to taking his oath of office was to put “America First”. By this, he means rewarding American companies that keep or bring back manufacturing to the US, by providing tax incentives and other benefits, and punishing non-compliant companies, by imposing heavy tariffs on imported goods. While most of his focus has been on auto manufacturers so far, that won’t be the end of his efforts.
One potential target of Trump’s wrath will be the video game industry. All three of the major console companies manufacture their consoles in Asia, predominantly China. The same is true for most computers and computer components, as well as mobile phones and tablets. Not even your TV and Blu-ray player is safe from these potential tariffs.
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Coming out of the Switch Event from last Thursday night, I have some additional thoughts about the Switch. I shared my first impressions back in October after the switch teaser trailer. My initial impression was that while I liked the system idea in general, I found it hard to think of ways its unique feature set fit into my lifestyle. Now that we have more details on the system and the games, I am still slightly cool on it. Andrew and I talked about the Switch at considerable length on our Molehill Mountain podcast this past Saturday. However, I want to share my own thoughts in a nice bite sized article for you. Let’s break it down to the good, bad, and ugly of the system.
For all of us in the United States, January 1st is just New Year’s day. The day the calendar ticks another year. But for people who live outside the US in Canada, Europe and elsewhere, January 1st means something else entirely. It means today is the day that new works enter the Public Domain. This is the day that more of our culture becomes free to distribute, free to build upon , and free to do whatever we want with. Yet, because of terrible copyright laws in the US, we miss out on all this.
Prior to 1978, copyrights lasted only 28 years, with the option to renew them a single time for an additional 28 years. Then in 1978, Congress, under the guidance of companies such as Disney, extended copyrights to last the life of the author plus 50 years. That is what the rest of the world has today. But in 1998, Congress once again, at the bidding of companies like Disney, extend copyrights to last life plus 70 years for human authors and 95 years for corporate owned copyrights. This pushed the US out of line with much of the world and works in the US won’t start entering the Public Domain until 2019.
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I think I have been negatively conditioned by modern television. I have been watching Star Trek: The Original Series on Netflix lately and nearly every episode, I think to myself, “This episode seems to never end.” Not that the episodes are boring or anything, just that they seem long. I then look at the show’s run time and notice that it is 50 minutes. Modern shows only clock in at 42ish minutes.
It really is tough for me to find the right words to describe how I felt as I played and then finished up Arc The Lad. My first experience with the series was Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits on PS2 and I had a lot fun playing it. I really liked the strategy RPG aspect of the game and the characters and story were great. Because of that experience, I bought the original Arc The Lad to get a better feel for the PS2 game’s roots. Boy do I have mixed feelings about this.
Gameplay wise, I enjoyed the game. The combat mechanisms, while not as deep as Final Fantasy Tactics, were still fun to explore. The game is a strategy RPG, more similar to something like Valkyria Chronicles than to something like Final Fantasy Tactics. During your characters’ turns, you can move them freely around their field of motion and then choose their action, whether to attack, use magic, or use and item. When attacking, you must take into account your own character’s direction as well as that of the enemy to maximize your damage.
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I first played Alundra way back during the actual PS1 era, back when it was just the Playstation. As a fan of top down action adventure games, such as Zelda, Secret of Evermore, among others, I was excited to play this new franchise. I remember enjoying this game immensely. So when I had the opportunity to buy it again as a PS1 classic, I did so without question.
Even though I have played it before, I was pleasantly surprised to still enjoy it. The game is a lot of fun and I highly recommend it for anyone that is a fan of these types of games.
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