New home for The Jurassic Hour
Y'ALL.
One more technical update today, but first, check out this BRAIN-KICKING LOGO I MADE IN PAINT.
Done looking? Is that even possible? Okay, onward.
While I've developed some very modest Internet skills over the last few weeks, bad things still happen, and I will continue to ascribe them to circumstances beyond my control.
Case in point: a casualty.
The Jurassic Radio RSS feed didn't survive the server switch, and no amount of elementary hackery is going to bring it back. I tried .htaccess 301 fixes. I tried XML-level redirects. I brought the feed completely up to standards-compliance, which, given how sloppy I was with it over the last year, was no small feat.
But it was for naught. So I tried the nuclear option.
We have a new podcast feed for The Jurassic Hour! It's here. Spelled out, that's http://www.gameosaurus.com/hour/feed.xml. And we're up and running on iTunes already. You can check that out here.
If you click, you'll notice that the feed includes only the first three episodes of The Jurassic Hour. That's by design. The Jurassic Radio episodes will endure, but you'll have to click here to get to them. Spelled out, that's http://www.gameosaurus.com/podcasts/feed.xml.
I've got 150 GB of server space, and the 40-odd Jurassic Radio episodes we recorded comprise only about 4 GB, so they'll live on in perpetuity. If you ever want to leaf through them and can't find them, drop me a line. It's very basic, occasionally dull stuff, but it represents roughly a year of enthusiasm and fairly hard work. And there definitely were some good moments along the way — our New Year's show comes to mind, as does our October chip-sampling expo at Alex's house — so I'm preserving all of it.
Now get subscribed, and if you love me, go comment on iTunes!
The Internet’s all … different!
By now, you might have noticed that things look a little weird around here.
Good eye! After relying for a year on Alex and Amanda Gann's server help and design chops, I decided I had learned enough to host the site on my own server and build or modify every piece of code by myself.
What you're seeing now is the result of that, and I'll leave it to you to decide whether I've been successful.
But first, have a look around. Navigation has changed quite a bit, as has the layout of certain items. Our Twitter feeds, for example, have been consolidated into a *list* (ooh!) that displays only on the main portal page, which also is where you'll find the most relevant pieces of content on the site at any given moment.
Okay, let's be real. In almost every case, "relevant" will mean the three most recently published posts. We're not exactly an authoring powerhouse.
And if we're doing our jobs correctly, you'll never have to leave the portal to navigate. But just in case you do, know these things:
- Our "About Us" page, which you should investigate if you have not, is tucked away at the bottom of this page and every other.
- Same goes for the rest of the navigation tools. If you want to get back to the portal and don't know how to use your browser's BACK FEATURE, check the link in the lower-left.
- For organization's sake, categories aren't listed outright. If you want to see other posts in a given category, click on the link in that post. Otherwise, you'll have to go fishing, though we don't expect you'll need to be (or have any interest in) doing same.
Now, for the rough edges:
- Our old gallery and all corresponding picture links are permanently dead and gone. If you see a suspicious white rectangle in any given post, you're seeing what once was a big, beautiful image full of possibility and promise. I didn't export the photos in time from the old server, so they're dead.
- I did get all the back episodes of the podcast, but I'm sending them to the server now, and it's slow going. If you're trying to get to any episode of the show and aren't having any luck, give us a day. We're on it.
- I'm more-or-less content with the way things have shaken out, but there's always room for improvement. If there's a "feature" that you miss from the old site (unlikely), let us know in the comments on this or any other post. I feel relatively comfortable with PHP, but where improvement is concerned, I'm leaning on your imaginations. For I have none.
Thanks for sticking with us so far, and here's to many thousands of words and minutes of creative energy better spent elsewhere.
(For contributors: The new column width is 500 pixels. Your logins and passwords should have carried over; let me know if you need new ones. The admin link is at the bottom of the page with the navigation tools. My recommendation: bookmark it!)
Pardon our dust!
I'm in the middle of moving us to our new look. This is one component of it, but it's definitely not the only one. Refresh occasionally this weekend if you want to watch me stumble and fail with PHP.
First hour: Monster Hunter Tri
(It goes without saying, or it should, but the video embedded above comes courtesy of the fabulous Giant Bomb. The text below comes from me.)
As promised, my revealing and contrition-inducing first hour of MONSTER HUNTER TRI for the Nintendo Wii.
0:00 Never have I felt sillier about booting up a new purchase. The whole franchise conjures nothing but disgust in my brainmeat, but several reviews have compared this to Dreamcast-era "Phantasy Star Online." If that's even remotely the case, I'm onboard.
0:01 Well-animated and surprisingly brutal opening sequence, wherein monster gets eaten by monster gets eaten by monster, a la that miserable Looney Tunes underwater sequence from "The Phantom Menace." But cooler.
0:05 The character customization options are pretty great, and it must be said: MONSTER HUNTER TRI has some of the best hair presets of any game I've played since SAINT'S ROW 2.
0:07 So I'm in the single-player game, and the main hub (Moga Village) is pleasant and populated enough, but seriously, the first order of business: pants. If you're a dude, you start the game in hot pants.
0:08 With chainmail leggings and a giant bone hammer suspended from my dude's back, my masculinity is secure.
0:10 So the character dialogue is rife with really intentionally bad puns, and there's a twirp in the middle of the village named "Future Alpha Male." I may be smitten. It's clear that somebody at Capcom gets how people like me feel about Monster Hunter.
0:12 I'm out in the field, and moving about feels pretty good. So does whacking things, which really surprises me. And while you can tell this is a Wii game -- there ain't even the faintest whiff of high definition, or definition of any kind -- it's pretty nonetheless. The design of this first zone is beautiful, and there are some nice environmental effects.
0:14 Load times suck though. And they come pretty quickly and furiously.
0:16 The game just ordered me to kill this harmless herbivorish dinosaur-lookin' thing. Savage. But I skinned the carcass for raw meat! The village chief's son will be so pleased!
0:18 The translation is thick on kitsch, but I continue to dig it. "Me plus BBQ equals BFF."
0:23 I just ate a haddock filet. In real life. Omega-3-alicious. 'kay, back to the game.
0:30 The game just introduced me to most of its basic features -- upgrading weapons, picking up quests, where to find crafting items, what to do with raw meat, etc. Take notes, SquareEnix! I'm not overwhelmed! I can learn to do multiple things all at once!
0:35 I believe I'm on my first real quest! The village folks have dispatched me to collect "resource points" so that I might restore our base camp. That means clobbering these harmless deer things — harmless, that is, until you bludgeon one of their friends to death. Then they harass you until half of your health and all of your pride are gone.
0:40 Just cleared my first room of what I'd actually call monsters, and it felt damn good. Nasty, dilophosaur-looking things. I BLUDGEONED AND SKINNED THEM.
0:48 Back to the village. Murdered another one of those pacifist monsters on the way, but hey, I needed the meat. Cooked a burnt steak and a rare steak; burnt food reduces your stamina, properly cooked food raises it. Duh.
0:52 Turned in my first quest! Got ... loot? Pittance fang? Funky pheromones? I suspect that stuff is for crafting, but for now, it's burning a hole in my item pouch.
1:00 Okay, feeling the groove now, official-like. Unearthing iron ore with my mega pickaxe, beating the brains out of Jaggis, checking in with the village chief ... I've got the bug.
Drawing (Or Confirming) One’s Morality Via Gaming
Building and maintaining a moral compass for life is a continual, and continually daunting, task. Common sense dictates that these things come from long-standing cultural tradition, parental guidance, and for some, religion.
As we get older, add to that the abilities of deductive and inductive reasoning. Some people are able to put together the basic "golden rule" without ever having it told to them. "Oh, I don't like getting punched in the face. I probably shouldn't punch people in the face then."
But how about getting a morality lesson, or at least a morality refresher, from pop culture and media? How about videogames, specifically? Two months ago, we Gameosaurs read a book called "Everything Bad Is Good For You." I lamented both in the podcast and in a text article that I wanted the book to be something it wasn't. The book argued that gaming, TV, and the Internet make us smarter and more capable thinkers in very specific ways. The premise of the book had nothing to do with morality or ethics. Which is fine, of course, and I learned a lot from that book. But I guess to answer my own questions, I'll need to work from personal experience. That's the point of today's very bloggy post.
I'll be taking some recent, and not-so-recent, examples of bits of morality I've either gleaned or been reminded of throughout my extensive gaming experiences. Ready, go!
The Jurassic Hour #3: No, really, let's talk about FFXIII
Okay, gotta be honest. I talk shit about MONSTER HUNTER TRI in this episode, and I'll be walking it back very shortly. Keep watching the site.
But more about the actual show. This week, we make noise about X-COM: UFO DEFENSE, Boss Baddie's WAKE, FINAL FANTASY XIII, SPLINTER CELL CONVICTION and CRYSIS.
Also, challenges! At stake was a kickass shirt emblazoned with Toon Link exclaiming "I'm on a boat!" Because he's on a boat. Shirt created by Dave Lister, the man behind Paradox Lost and some other cool stuff.
- TRIVIA: Rare's first-person shooters (three questions, one point each)
- GAME: PERFECT DARK on XBLA (three points to the victor)
- PHYSICAL: Swallowing a half-teaspoon of cinnamon. (four points to the victor)
Hint: I don't win.
With music from LCD Soundsystem, The Lion King and Okkervil River.
PODCAST
(right-click to save, use player below, or get the show on iTunes here)
Jurassic Hour #3: No, really, let's talk about FFXIII
00:00 - 46:33 -- Trivia challenge, what we've been playing
ACT BREAK -- LCD Soundsystem, "Drunk Girls"
47:12 - 1:00:14 -- Watching other people play games
ACT BREAK -- The Lion King, "Be Prepared"
1:00:49 - 1:15:12 -- The news, what's coming out
OUTRO -- Okkervil River, "A Hand to Take Hold of the Scene"
Some Thoughts On God Of War III's … Music?
We're typically not a game music-centric kind of site here at the olde G-Saur. Yet, I, Patrick "The Gameodactyl" Gann have devoted many long hours studying the music written for videogames. VGM is my bread and butter, and the number of games I've bothered playing because I first enjoyed their soundtrack would likely surprise you. Heck, it might even surprise me.
Now I've planned from day one to play GOD OF WAR III. I just got a little sidetracked with SHIREN THE WANDERER, SAKURA WARS: SO LONG, MY LOVE, FINAL FANTASY XIII, and other games. So, to psych myself up for and motivate myself to play GoW3, I thought "hey, why not digest the soundtrack first?" That might just be the medicine the doctor ordered to get me in the mood to finish out the trilogy!
Now, people who bought some insane collector's edition got a "God of War Trilogy" soundtrack. I didn't spend the money on that, though I'm sure it's well worth the money, because all three games have great music. No, what I have in front of me is the specific God of War III Original Soundtrack, published by Sumthing Else Music (catalog # SE-2080-2). Let's dig in, shall we?
The OST has 24 tracks on it and runs slightly under 60 minutes. Composers include Gerard Marino (the "main" composer of the GoW series), Jeffa Rona, Ron Fish, Mike Reagan, and one of my personal favorite Western composers, Cris Velasco. Marino handles most of the big, epic, "main" themes (including some re-working of older material), while the rest of the team handles the "day-to-day" music. That is, if you can consider any events in GoW3 as being "day-to-day" or "normal."
Despite having five composers, there is a very strong cohesision found on this soundtrack. Where does that come from? I would argue it comes from working with the same pallette: that is, the same engineers, the same musicians, etc. For this project, everyone worked with Skywalker Session Orchestra at Skywalker Sound in California. Some additional work came from the Czech National Symphony Chorus, but for the most part, it was the same group of musicians in California. This album is 100% recorded music, streamed (as compared to "sequenced") in the context of the game. It uses all the same tools and in many ways feels the same as a film score. When you have a big-budget game, I guess there's no reason *not* to go all out with large orchestras and the assuredly-pricy Skywalker Sound studios.
I'd like to provide a couple examples of tracks that I think stand out on the soundtrack. One of them, the longest track on the disc, is "Tides of Chaos" (track 12). This is a Marino track, and it makes excellent use of all the same instruments we hear throughout the soundtrack. Various forms of "click-clack" and "boom-boom" percussion (I don't feel like getting technical), the Czech choir, the tense whining of strings, and the ever-powerful high and low brass. I'd say this is the most representative sample track of the lot.
After this definitive track, there's a trio of Cris Velasco pieces. Among them, my favorite is "The Muse's Song" (track 14). The female solo vocalist adds a lot of power and depth to the recording. The Near-East instrumentation, including the recorders used by snake charmers and string instruments that are in the same family as the sitar, all add authenticity to the sound. But it can't be good if the melody isn't good. That's always been my stance. And I think there is certainly a charming melody during the melodic sections of this short (2 minute) piece.
Without question, this music is bound to impress the listener more in the context of the game's visuals and story arc. Nonetheless, as a stand-alone, it has the same power as many film scores out there. It doesn't have a lot of emotional resonance, but considering the nature of the game, I don't think I was ever expecting that. If you're into high quality orchestral scores with a flair of ethnic/world tastes, I submit to you that you may want to check out this album. It's a perfect companion piece to fans of the game. Now I just need to go and find out if I'll be a fan of the game myself (considering my track record with the previous titles in the series, it seems bloody likely!).
The Newest Oldies Round-Up: March '10
After months of writing about painfully bad lineups on the "Virtual Console Round-Up," the revamped monthly article "The Newest Oldies" has demonstrated that there are still plenty of good titles on the way for the Virtual Console. Meanwhile, PSOne Classics lags behind, and XBLA gives us the occasional gem.
The Fatal Fury (Garou Densetsu) series makes me feel simultaneously more and less masculine compared to its cast of characters.
Let's start with Virtual Console. On March 1st, SNK's FATAL FURY SPECIAL hit the VC store. This Neo Geo originally costs 900 Wii Points, for reasons unknown to me. This is an enhanced/updated version of FATAL FURY 2. You can play as the "boss" characters, plus they brought on some cast from the first game. Known as GAROU DENSETSU in Japan, this series of 2D fighters never really grabbed my attention. If I want to rock some SNK action, it's usually via KING OF FIGHTERS. Nonetheless, it's quite the rarity, and fighter-fans might want to check it out.
So the good news here is that Fatal Fury Special is the least interesting of March 2010's four VC releases. Next up, we have FINAL FANTASY II on SNES, released on March 8th. That's the one that's really FINAL FANTASY IV "Easy Type" in Japan. So, do you want to play the inferior version with whole sections of script cut, abilities and items "dummied out," etc? Well, if you are like me and you played the game in 1992, maybe the nostalgic experience will make it worthwhile. But it is a solid $8 to download; and as I said in my review of the DS version, the DS version is a great way to experience the game. And you can probably find that used for $20. Your call. Super-old 2D original or thrice-remade 3D DS version. Or any of the other remakes in-between.
CASTLEVANIA: RONDO OF BLOOD for the TurboGrafx is the game that paved the way for Symphony of the Night (which in turn started the Metroidvania craze). The game is a lot like SUPER CASTLEVANIA IV, but with a rudimentary inventory system, but lacking 8-directional whipping. Whipping straight-forward only? "That's no good!" Much like FFIV, this game is available in all kinds of random places, most prominently on DRACULA X CHRONICLES for PSP. The game itself is a 3D upgraded version of Rondo of Blood, but the original game (as well as the complete version of Symphony of the Night) can be unlocked while playing the game. For 900 Wii Points? Eh... I guess I'd say it's worth it. It's a fun game to be sure. This one was released on March 15th.
"Only for Nintendo 64" ... until now!
Finally, and most importantly, Square Enix very recently (March 29th, to be exact) published the old Quest-developed Strategy RPG OGRE BATTLE 64: PERSON OF LORDLY CALIBER. I saw a dude at Anime Boston this past weekend selling a used, but boxed, copy of the N64 cartridge for like $80 or something. This is one rare frickin' game. And, apparently, it's also a great game. I'm behind on my "Ogre" goodness, but the general verdict from RPG fans is that this game is a rare treat, one of a fistful of worthwhile RPGs for the N64 console. So yeah, for only $10 (1000 Wii Points), this is pretty much the best thing ever. I'm probably going to buy this and play it.
One "PSOne Classic" hit the docket in March. I actually played this one to completion as a kid, and I tentatively recommend it to people who remember the game and say to themselves "hey, was this a good game?" The game is ONE. It has no relation to the Metallica song. Instead, you play some sort of military enhanced-soldier guy with a gun-arm and a barcode on your neck. Right from the start, you're being chased down by hostile police forces and stuff. This 3rd-person, 3D run-and-gun platformer/shooter spans six levels, forces you to conserve ammo, and pits you against some mighty intriguing bosses. Very hard, but if I recall, pretty cool concept as well. It's also from some (in my mind) no-name companies: developer is Visual Concepts, publisher is ASC Games. The PSOne Classics version hit the store on March 18th.
In the land of Xbox Live Arcade, developer 4J Studios did a visually upgraded remake of Rare's N64 classic PERFECT DARK. Improvements outside the graphic realm include online multiplayer and added voice acting. We already mentioned this one on The Jurassic Hour, but I thought I'd plug it here too. I'd much prefer they take this same approach to the game's engine-based predecessor, GOLDENEYE. I'll mess all you Odd Job players up. You can't karate-chop my ankle when I'm rockin' prox mines.
Joanna, do you play mind games? I play "mine" games. GOGO REMOTE MINES!
Finally, and this is slightly outside the scope of this series of articles, MEGA MAN 10 is out. That's not to be confused with MEGA MAN X. And it's out on like, every current-gen platform. It was a "timed exclusive" from one week to the next, with Wii getting the first shot. But yeah, this is just a direct follow-up to MEGA MAN 9, which was what brought the "intentionally retro development" scheme into the forefront of chic gaming. I haven't really sunk much time into this one yet, but I loved 9, so I will almost undoubtedly love 10 as well.
In other news, FINAL FANTASY IX is on its way to the Japanese PS1 archives. We're waiting anxiously for its North American (re)debut.
The Jurassic Hour #2: What Enforcers Do
The Gameodactyl and Nobuo Uematsu are captured at a Boston Thai restaurant by the same picture box. FANBOYS ARE MEETING THEIR HEROES. WORLDS ARE COLLIDING.
The second episode of the Jurassic Hour is proof that God exists.
Okay, not exactly. But I do think we're carrying off the two-week format pretty well, as we're positively brimming with news and developed thoughts here.
First up, Benji and Rambo with their perspectives as enforcers at last month's PAX East in Boston. Then Pat, who traveled north a week later for Anime Boston, gushes about his hour of drinking and dining with the legend himself, Nobuo Uematsu.
We also squeeze in all manner of games we've been playing, including SAKURA WARS: SO LONG MY LOVE, JUST CAUSE 2, ACE ATTORNEY INVESTIGATIONS: MILES EDGEWORTH, DIVINITY II and my rekindled love for BORDERLANDS.
With music from She & Him, The Local Natives and Frightened Rabbit.
PODCAST
(right-click to save, use player below, or get the show on iTunes here)
Jurassic Hour #2: What Enforcers Do
00:00 - 22:50 -- PAX East Enforcers tell all
22:50 - 50:40 -- Anime Boston, trivia challenge
ACT BREAK -- She & Him, "This Is Not a Test"
59:48 - 1:45:46 -- What we've been playing
ACT BREAK -- Local Natives, "Sun Hands"
1:46:20 - 2:04:06 -- The news, what's coming out
OUTRO -- The Frightened Rabbits, "Swim Until You Can't See Land"