The Newest Oldies Round-Up: January '10
This monthly article used to be the "Virtual Console Round-Up." But you and I both know that old games are being directly ported to all kinds of current-gen platforms. The Wii doesn't exclusively hold all the good stuff. PSN, XBL, even iPhone / iPod touch has "new" releases of old stuff, including HD remakes of classic games. The point of this whole monthly article was to help you, dear reader, re-live some excellent oldschool gaming experiences. That, or, discover something excellent for the first time.
So that's what we're doing from now on. In the immortal words of Five Iron Frenzy, we hope you hate it.
Jurassic Radio #37: No, Eagles Suck
Woah.
*looks around*
Anybody here?
That's a joke at my own expense, obvi. Not since the earliest weeks of Gameosaurus.com have we had an empty week with back-to-back podcast posts.
I mean, there's MASS EFFECT 2, TATSUNOKU VS. CAPCOM and NO MORE HEROES 2: DESPERATE STRUGGLE to chew on this week. But that won't keep us from throwing up a couple first impressions posts and whatnot before the next podcast.
And to make up for our relative invisibility, this week's show is extra, extra-long. Like two hours and 17 minutes long.
This week, Pat finishes talking about games that came out 13 years ago, Pete R. and I compare notes on different versions of CRITTER CRUNCH, and I spend a few brief moments explaining the situation with the iPhone version of GRAND THEFT AUTO: CHINATOWN WARS.
We also take a close look at "Big Fan," the 2009 Patton Oswalt vehicle about a lumpy dude who's dangerously preoccupied with the New York Giants. Spoiler: it's awesome.
With music from Relient K, Reel Big Fish and Faces.
PODCAST
(right-click to save, use player below, or get the show on iTunes here)
Jurassic Radio #37: No, Eagles Suck
00:00 - 47:34 -- Thomas, Centralia and what we've been playing
ACT BREAK -- Relient K, "Hello McFly"
48:26 - 1:28:28 -- Media Roundtable: "Big Fan"
ACT BREAK -- Reel Big Fish, "Brand New Hero"
1:28:52 - 2:16:58 -- The news, what's coming out
OUTRO -- Faces, "Ooh La La"
Jurassic Radio #36: Potty Training
Like an idiot, I promise at the top of this week's show that we'll be in and out in under an hour. Pfft. The show weighs in at about 100 minutes, owing largely to our collective groans about NO MORE HEROES.
Don't get me wrong. The game is novel and deserves to exist, but its mechanics are so outrageously poor so often that it's hard to find nice things to say about it.
But it is our Winning Time game this week and well into the next few months, so we're stuck with it. It's like that time I started reading "The Stand," which I didn't want to finish but ... hey, didn't finish that one. But I did see the gillion-part TV miniseries starring Laura San Giacomo.
We say who, we say when, we say how much. FREE CYLON ACTION FIGURE TO WHOMEVER GETS THE REFERENCE.
So, we'll see how this goes.
With music from Mark Mothersbaugh, Nobuo Uematsu, Air and Save Ferris.
PODCAST
(right-click to save, use player below, or get the show on iTunes here)
Jurassic Radio #36: Potty Training
00:00 - 41:33 -- What we've been playing
ACT BREAK -- Nobuo Uematsu, "FFIV Main Title" (Celtic Moon arrangement)
42:12 - 1:07:32 -- Winning Time: NO MORE HEROES
ACT BREAK -- Air, "Femme D'Argent"
1:08:01 - 1:38:05 -- The news, what's coming out
OUTRO -- Save Ferris, "S.Y.L.S.B."
My "Imaginary Sequels" Wishlist
Okay, so I haven't played any games this week, sans more FINAL FANTASY VII and some NO MORE HEROES (in preparation for Jurassic Radio's next "Winning Time" segment). So I have no reviews whatsoever.
Instead, I'd like to share with you, dearest reader, a wishlist I've kept in my mind for years.
It's the "imaginary sequels" wishlist.
You know? Games that are so awesome that they deserve a sequel, but will never get them? I want sequels, or continuations to series that have for all intents and purposes died.
Before sharing the list with you, I know the cautionary tale, so I'll recount it here so you don't have to. There have been plenty of great games/franchises that have died due to sequel-milking that ruined the quality of the title. Examples? I'd argue that one need look no further than the Game Arts franchises Lunar and Grandia. GRANDIA III was, in my opinion, a bust. And that DS game, LUNAR DRAGON SONG, was a bust by every known standard.
But there is still that part of me that hopes beyond hope that a company will randomly decide to resurrect a game franchise and maintain the quality of the original. Here we go!
Jurassic Radio #35: Puck You, Sir
So there's a sequence in the second half of BAYONETTA in which the eponymous gun-toting giantess starts a motorcycle with a glowing middle finger. I just thought everybody should know about that.
This week's show is all about the aforementioned femme-brawler on the Xbox 360 and PS3, as well as DARKSIDERS, which reportedly is better on the PS3. Talking about flipping the multi-platform script!
No, I'm serious. Talk about it.
The Gameodactyl touches on UMJAMMER LAMMY and FINAL FANTASY VII (yep, 7) , and after weeks and weeks of piecemeal viewings and forcing Rambo to skip a few episodes, we round up "Summer Heights High."
With music from Mark Mothersbaugh, Frightened Rabbit, Gogol Bordello and Goldfinger.
PODCAST
(right-click to save, use player below, or get the show on iTunes here)
Jurassic Radio #35: Puck You, Sir
00:00 - 39:25 -- What we've been playing
ACT BREAK -- Frightened Rabbit, "I Feel Better"
40:02 - 1:07:47 -- "Summer Heights High"
ACT BREAK -- Gogol Bordello, "Sally (Live from Axis Mundi)"
1:08:47 - 1:44:33 -- The news, what's coming out
OUTRO -- Goldfinger, "Carry On"
Christian Ambivalence Regarding Games (and Me) – Two Articles For the Price of One!
The title of this article should be interpreted as "Christian ambivalence regarding games, and Christian ambivalence regarding Patrick 'Gameodactyl' Gann." Because apparently, I'm not cool enough for the other Jesus-worshiping folks.
Some background: I went to a "Christian" college. I worked at a "Christian" summer camp. I had assumed, for a good long part of my formative years, that I would work in one capacity or another with a "Christian" organization as a career for the rest of my life. This was a bad assumption. Maybe I'm just not clean-cut enough, or the competition is really tough -- or maybe, just maybe, the "Christian" world is just as cut-throat and full of bullshit as the rest of the world. The oft-proclaimed grace of Jesus Christ doesn't seem to pervade the occupational affairs of "Christian" organizations. The critique of Gandhi and Nietzche about the religion, that idolizing the life and work of Jesus Christ doesn't seem to make Christians better people by any stretch of the imagination, certainly holds true based on my experiences.
I have applied to work many, many places in the last three years. Christian schools, Christian colleges, churches, youth groups, missions groups, and yes, Christian publications. I have had more, and felt more, rejection from these places than anywhere else. And these rejections are most often the ones that suck the most: either they completely ignore you, or they give you some bullshit excuse as to why they won't hire you. Now, if you're the one giving them money, that's one thing. But if they're to give you money, so you can, you know, raise a good family, well you better have some inside connections and look like an absolute saint, otherwise you have no chance.
The pain of rejection came most recently, and most painfully, from a particular Christian publication.
Let's talk about Comcast
There's been a glut of introspective, tangentially gamey moping around the site lately. Allow me to pile on!
Borrowed from failblog.org
As a newspaperman, I'm not destined for great wealth, but because I have no dependents, my salary is enough to cover a few luxuries. A paper snapped me up straight out of college, and for a while, I made enough to live and buy anything I needed from Pennsylvania. Which is to say, movies and videogames and books.
I quit that job to move to California in 2007 and soon found a similar position in Palo Alto, but fortune compelled me to quit that job, too. I was homesick, plain and simple, though I keep telling people that I ran out of money. I've told that lie so many times that I almost believe it, and I'll probably tell it again and again, but that's another issue.
Long story short — in March 2008, I was jobless and flat broke. I picked up a couple freelance gigs, which brought in enough to live for a few months, but videogames and cable and whatnot were out of the question.
Then the paper here mercifully hired me back, this time as a reporter, and I had disposable income again. For lack of a better metaphor, it was like taking a gigantically deep breath after spending a year underwater.
I say all of that by way of preamble to make sure you understand how important it was for me to become a cable subscriber. I’m a freak about TV who develops a serious backlog in the fall and winter months, and an HD lineup with a TiVo-like solution was precisely what I “needed” at the moment.
I signed up for a monthly package with Comcast that included digital cable, “high-speed” Internet (also known as "plain old fucking Internet, people"), a handful of HD channels, a DVR box for myself and a standard cable box for my roommate. That totaled to $105 a month — a little steep for cable and Internet, I thought, but something I could swing with the help of a roommate.
Well, that lasted a year. My monthly bill jumped in August 2009 from $105 to $170 because my “specials” expired, and the actual rate would climb to nearly $200 in a few more weeks.
I balked at my local Comcast office, hoping the right mix of determination and incredulity might persuade the customer service rep to a) take pity, b) shit his/her pants about not hitting his/her September quota or c) both.
The outcome: none of the above.
Gameodactyl Invades MAGFest 8
I've been to my fair share of conventions. Three E3s, an FFXI FanFest, and some quick visits to Otakon have taught me what to expect over the years. Though there are plenty of "holy grail" events I've not yet reached -- GDC and TGS among them -- I think I have a good feel for how conventions go.
And that's exactly why my experience at MAGFest (Music And Games Fest) 8 was bittersweet.
Let's start with the bitter.
Jurassic Radio #34: Colored Blocks
Oops! Missed a day. The episode itself went live this morning, but it took me until Wednesday night to get the summary posted. Allow me to direct your fury to the totally solid adventure/beat-'em-up DARKSIDERS and the basically incredible BAYONETTA, which have sapped my free time since Tuesday.
Because this week's show comes on the tail of an especially quiet holiday break, we spend the time counting down the three videogame settings we'd most like to inhabit (a surprisingly lively discussion, by the way), putting words to our universally appealing time with MIGHT & MAGIC: CLASH OF HEROES and, well, looking forward to more exciting weeks in gaming. Like this one.
With music from Mark Mothersbaugh (this week's intro comes from the "Rushmore" soundtrack), Neon Indian and NOFX.
PODCAST
(right-click to save, use player below, or get the show on iTunes here)
Jurassic Radio #34: Colored Blocks
00:00 - 17:27 -- Top 3 videogame settings we'd like to inhabit
17:28 - 1:01:46 -- What we've been playing
ACT BREAK -- Neon Indian, "6999 (I Don't Know If You Know)"
1:02:19 - 1:12:22 -- The news, what's coming out
OUTRO -- NOFX, "The Separation of Church and Skate"