Video Game News and Miscellany

GasBandit

Staff member
http://penny-arcade.com/report/arti...ine-real-money-auction-house-removed-not-exac

So basically, you want the good version of Diablo 3, you play it on a console.

Good job Blizzard.

And don't get me wrong. I fucking loved Ducktales on the NES. I just have a bad feeling that the controls are not going to be as solid with the move to 3d. It almost never is.
Actually, Bionic Commando Rearmed, which seems a close parallel to this (a near level-by-level remake of the NES Bionic Commando in monoplane 3D), was pretty excellent. Way better than the ACTUAL Bionic Commando reboot game was.
 
That's true, the Rearmed remake was fucking rad. It's Wayforward making it though. I'm not a fan of their output generally. That Double Dragon game played less responsively than the original unresponsive game and their Bloodrayne 2d game was just a step above awful.
 
Let me try to say this without sounding like I'm being a judgmental ass. Are you guys actually excited to watch a 2 hour cutscene from a Kingdom Hearts game?
 
The first game was pretty good I thought as well, a lot of fun when you weren't battling the camera. I loved the Gummi ship in the first game. My Gummi borg cube of annihilation was pride and joy.

The second game began the series' spiral of being so far up it's own ass with nonsensical bullshit. Those opening hours of KH2 are brutal to sit through.
 
The first game was pretty good I thought as well, a lot of fun when you weren't battling the camera. I loved the Gummi ship in the first game. My Gummi borg cube of annihilation was pride and joy.

The second game began the series' spiral of being so far up it's own ass with nonsensical bullshit. Those opening hours of KH2 are brutal to sit through.
I'm excited for 2hr cutscene because previously the only way to see that story was to play a DS version of Kingdom Hearts, since I don't play/own a DS, I'm very excited to get the story through basically a movie.
 
That's true, the Rearmed remake was fucking rad. It's Wayforward making it though. I'm not a fan of their output generally. That Double Dragon game played less responsively than the original unresponsive game and their Bloodrayne 2d game was just a step above awful.
The controls were the ONLY thing wrong with Double Dragon Neon. Everything else was AMAZING.

I'm excited for 2hr cutscene because previously the only way to see that story was to play a DS version of Kingdom Hearts, since I don't play/own a DS, I'm very excited to get the story through basically a movie.
I played 358/2 days on the DS. I honestly wish I hadn't. If it wasn't for the story, I wouldn't give a shit about it at all.
 
In more Capcommy news, a new Mega Man game was announced to be in development during their PAX East stream.

This was later confirmed to be not true.

It only took 50 minutes from announcement to cancellation for Mega Man this time.
 
If the DuckTales remake Moon theme isn't fucking amazing, then I'll be sad.

As for Capcom and Megaman, I've given up. I think they're all pissy because Inafune left, and this is how they take out their anger.
 
Oh I loved the gummi ships. For the first one I had an armada of different ships I made. I even made R2D2. He was the one I rode the most. I also had an X-wing, Tie Bomber, A-wing, pirate ship, a truck that bore a striking resemblance to optimus and a few others that I can't recall.

I wasn't really a fan of the story for the series. The second one didn't really make any sense, plus it didn't get me invested in any of the other characters that weren't a part of 1. Ok so I am fighting these fake guys and am supposed to care about them... why? Even Roxy. You start out as him and it makes you think you are going to play him then nope back to Sora. It's like, What happened? It sounds like he got absorbed back into Sora or something. Ok good. Now I can stop caring about him. Mainly I just liked the different Disney worlds and characters.
 
The second one doesn't make sense without playing the inbetween games. Sadly that's Square's fault for spreading the story between so many consoles. The story is coherant but only if you play the games in order and it's not KH1 then KH2.
 
Anyonelse excited about the PS3 remaster of Kingdom Hearts 1 + 2 + 2hr Cinematic of 356/days?
Whoa, hang on.

Instead of porting 356/2, they're just showing a reel of the cutscenes? You can watch that on Youtube. Derp. Mega derp. Good going, Square-Enix. Again. Those games do not need the second screen at all. I thought they were going to be wise with this, release KH1, CoM, and 356 on one set and then KH2, BBS, and Coded on another (admittedly lesser) set. That's stupid to just release it as a cutscene. What's the point?

Oh I loved the gummi ships. For the first one I had an armada of different ships I made. I even made R2D2. He was the one I rode the most. I also had an X-wing, Tie Bomber, A-wing, pirate ship, a truck that bore a striking resemblance to optimus and a few others that I can't recall.

I wasn't really a fan of the story for the series. The second one didn't really make any sense, plus it didn't get me invested in any of the other characters that weren't a part of 1. Ok so I am fighting these fake guys and am supposed to care about them... why? Even Roxy. You start out as him and it makes you think you are going to play him then nope back to Sora. It's like, What happened? It sounds like he got absorbed back into Sora or something. Ok good. Now I can stop caring about him. Mainly I just liked the different Disney worlds and characters.
The story is kind of fail around the end of the first game where they break the rules to force a sequel. That said, the story gets a lot better after that so long as you do play the games in order or (like me) read a Wiki. The order chronologically is:

Birth By Sleep
Kingdom Hearts
Chain of Memories
356/2 Days
Kingdom Hearts 2
Coded
Dream Drop Distance

I've only really played KH1 and 3D, but I watched cutscenes and Wiki'd much of the rest, and it is a bit confusing, but it makes sense when put all together. The story is really lacking for most of 3D; there's a stupid mystery going on that isn't too hard to figure out if you're not one of the idiot protagonists. However, when it hits the seventh world, I was kind of amazed how good it became. Even the writing, Square-Enix's worst quality of late, got excellent. Good lines, some turns against cliche. Leonard Nimoy is fantastic voicing the true and present incarnation of Xehanort. The gameplay was fine throughout and the story lacking, but both kicked it up at the end. So did the difficulty, unfortunately. The pre-final boss has a technique where you have about 13 seconds to interrupt, or else he rewinds time and thus his health bars.

I was impressed compared to the first game. I'm sometimes surprised Disney let things get so dark in games involving their characters. Sadly Kingdom Hearts is probably the only good thing Square has going for it right now that isn't being made by another company they purchased.
 
The second one doesn't make sense without playing the inbetween games. Sadly that's Square's fault for spreading the story between so many consoles. The story is coherant but only if you play the games in order and it's not KH1 then KH2.
This worries me for Kingdom Hearts 3 or whatever they call the next major console release. How many people have played both Dream Drop Distance AND Birth By Sleep? They were both on different, pricey handhelds. The plot is going to be so fucking hard to follow that I don't see how it could ever make sense.

At least Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix came with Re: Chain of Memories, so people knew what they fuck happened between 1 and 2. Oh wait... you had to buy that separately outside Japan.
 
The closure of 1-Up and subsequent layoffs of most of the staff meant the end of the line of one of my favorite podcasts. In fact, it's the one that hooked me into podcasts in the first place. Retronauts.

You can help them come back with the original host, Jeremy Parish, the last current host, Something Awful's Bob Mackey and oft guest and future host, Ray Barnholt.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2005831476/revive-retronauts-your-favorite-classic-gaming-pod

I like Retronauts.
 
This worries me for Kingdom Hearts 3 or whatever they call the next major console release. How many people have played both Dream Drop Distance AND Birth By Sleep? They were both on different, pricey handhelds. The plot is going to be so fucking hard to follow that I don't see how it could ever make sense.

At least Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix came with Re: Chain of Memories, so people knew what they fuck happened between 1 and 2. Oh wait... you had to buy that separately outside Japan.
Birth By Sleep isn't absolutely necessary, but it goes a good deal towards telling why what's going on with Xehanort and King Mickey matters. If you didn't play it or read a Wiki, you'd have no idea what was going on in the final, final battle of Dream Drop Distance.

I don't see a way for someone to go from KH1 to KH2 to KH3 with it maintaining any semblance of sense. They really should have just numbered each title. People still would've missed entries due to their erratic spread over systems, but at least they'd be aware they missed something if one game was KH1 and the next they saw was KH4. Of course, even that doesn't work because Birth By Sleep and 358/2 were prequels to whatever point of chronology the series was in at their release. I'm not even sure 358/2 is necessary except for Organization XIII fangirls.

But the system stuff is the real killer. Using my above list...

Birth By Sleep (PSP)
Kingdom Hearts (PS2)
Chain of Memories (GBA)
356/2 Days (DS)
Kingdom Hearts 2 (PS2)
Coded (DS)
Dream Drop Distance (3DS)

That's some shit.
 
Birth By Sleep isn't absolutely necessary, but it goes a good deal towards telling why what's going on with Xehanort and King Mickey matters. If you didn't play it or read a Wiki, you'd have no idea what was going on in the final, final battle of Dream Drop Distance.

I don't see a way for someone to go from KH1 to KH2 to KH3 with it maintaining any semblance of sense. They really should have just numbered each title. People still would've missed entries due to their erratic spread over systems, but at least they'd be aware they missed something if one game was KH1 and the next they saw was KH4. Of course, even that doesn't work because Birth By Sleep and 358/2 were prequels to whatever point of chronology the series was in at their release. I'm not even sure 358/2 is necessary except for Organization XIII fangirls.

But the system stuff is the real killer. Using my above list...

Birth By Sleep (PSP)
Kingdom Hearts (PS2)
Chain of Memories (GBA)
356/2 Days (DS)
Kingdom Hearts 2 (PS2)
Coded (DS)
Dream Drop Distance (3DS)

That's some shit.
I skipped Chain of memories and quite frankly, I had no freakin clue what was going on in KH 2 until reading a wiki about it. The one thing I can say with Dream Drop Distance is that they actually include an internal wiki that tells you what you need to know from the other games.
 
If they had kept the entire series on PS2 and then continued it directly on PS3 I think the series would have hit much higher popularity through the long run.
 
The mainline games become immediately impenetrable. I never played any of the games outside 1 and 2 and even by 2 the games are like trying to decipher some crazy man's fever dreams. It makes that whole Roxas opening sequence nigh unbearable.

That's what one would call bad storytelling.
 
It's really just symptomatic of Square Enix's bad management. They kept doing stuff on the PSP because it sold well in Japan, but it was DOA everywhere else in the world. Vita isn't going to sell that well ether since Sony lost Monster Hunter as a franchise to Nintendo, which was the entire reason the PSP sold so well in Japan at all. They continue to make Final Fantasy 13 games when no one cared about that game in the first place. Even worse, they keep trying to do social and phone games without understanding how pricing works on those outside of Japan. It's just been one failure after another...
 
The only person that cares about FF13 is what's his name there, the guy that absolutely adores Lightning. I'm pretty sure he's solely responsible for the continuing insistence on more FF13 shit.
 
The mainline games become immediately impenetrable. I never played any of the games outside 1 and 2 and even by 2 the games are like trying to decipher some crazy man's fever dreams. It makes that whole Roxas opening sequence nigh unbearable.

That's what one would call bad storytelling.
It's been specifically said clearly in this thread, that you can't jump from 1 to 2 because the inbetween games are the set-up that left you confused at the start of KKH2. It's not bad storytelling, it's just bad choices on console release and numbering of titles.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
Total Biscuit's coverage of the demo of Transistor being shown at PAX


The combat system looks pretty interesting.
 
It's been specifically said clearly in this thread, that you can't jump from 1 to 2 because the inbetween games are the set-up that left you confused at the start of KKH2. It's not bad storytelling, it's just bad choices on console release and numbering of titles.
I'd have to say, though that even after playing the bulk of the games, the mythology in the series is denser than most. The whole process of heartless creating nobodies and Ansem/Xeonort and the Kingdom Hearts themselves, the war of the keyblades. I felt like I was doing full on research when catching up in DDD.
 
KH's timeline and list of events is ridiculous for a game that still hasn't gotten it's true 3rd entry.


And yeah Frank, I'm fairly sure it's Motomu Toriyama's fault FF is in the state it's in. FFX was so well-received that for XIII he tried the "Interactive Movie RPG" thing again, and apparently he's now obsessed with Lightning. The linear, cinematic-heavy style of FF right now is his baby.
 
The reviews are in for Bioshock Infinite and they're basically ultra-glowing. Even outlets such as Destructoid and Eurogamer are agreeing. Apparently the story is really well done and doesn't require a GBA card game spinoff in order to grasp what's going or even to begin to care about it.
 
The reviews are in for Bioshock Infinite and they're basically ultra-glowing. Even outlets such as Destructoid and Eurogamer are agreeing. Apparently the story is really well done and doesn't require a GBA card game spinoff in order to grasp what's going or even to begin to care about it.
Ok, I need you to lie and tell me it sucks, because I can't afford it right now.
 
IMA GONNA BUY IT RIGHT NOW.[DOUBLEPOST=1364221712][/DOUBLEPOST]Because I still get that pre-purchase stuff right? I could use X-com.
 
The reviews are in for Bioshock Infinite and they're basically ultra-glowing. Even outlets such as Destructoid and Eurogamer are agreeing. Apparently the story is really well done and doesn't require a GBA card game spinoff in order to grasp what's going or even to begin to care about it.
Yeah you know why I hit disagree.
 
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