Sega announces Monster World IV is getting an English release!

Posted Friday, 13th May 2011 under New old games
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Read this over at Silicon Era – Sega have announced they’re going back and translating Monster World IV, previously only available in Japanese (though a fan translation exists that can be patched to the Japanese version), and are releasing it on Wii, PSN and possibly XBLA.

This is phenomenal news given the age of the game and the perceived lack of mainstream interest. This is is the stuff of fanboy dreams and legends, and it is amazing to see Sega leading the way.

From here, my only hope is that they get M2 to develop the emulator for the PS3/XB360, as previous emulators have been absolutely terrible on the machine in comparison to M2’s work on Nintendo’s Virtual Console and the Sega Ages collections on the PS2.

You can check out the full release over at the Sega Europe blog.

Is Sega on the right track with Sonic Generations?

Posted Wednesday, 20th April 2011 under New old games
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Over on the Madboards, gaming discussion has turned to the upcoming and recently announced Sonic Generations, Sonic Team’s latest Sonic game for Xbox 360 and PS3.

The initial trailer certainly had my interest piqued, but after checking out an update at Eurogamer, and a subsequent hands-on and new trailer at IGN, my interest is a little bit more than piqued – I might actually be getting excited 🙂

The premise seems to be you have the ability to fire through each and every level as “classic” Sonic and “modern” Sonic. It’s all very post-modern really. The catch is that playing as classic Sonic sets the game to play as a 2.5D platformer with a physics engine theoretically similar in feel to 16-bit Sonic titles, whereas playing through the level as modern Sonic looks like its bringing back a hybrid 3D/2.5D playing field, not unlike the good bits out of Sonic Unleashed or (apparently, because I haven’t played it yet) Sonic Colours.

It’s still early days, with the game slated for a late-2011 release. Sonic Unleashed showed promise (though the werehog disaster will haunt us for years to come), Sonic 4 was fun, Sonic Colours apparently isn’t terrible – could we be seeing a return to form for the series? Mind, considering that Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 2006 were incredibly rubbish, the only way is up, right?

If this turns out well, I think Sega should give Rieko Kodama a team of genius programmers and talented artists and bring back Phantasy Star for another whirl. Then they can give us a fun Streets of Rage brawler and a proper strategy RPG in the Shining Force series using the same engine they developed for the sublime Valkryia Chronicles.

A fanboy can dream, right?

Thanks to CG from the Madboards for posting the original link!

An ode to Valkyria Chronicles

Posted Monday, 4th April 2011 under Retrospective game reviews
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I realise most current-gen gaming writing on here are for retro-themed games, but I had to break the rule. Valkyria Chronicles is such a good game it deserves it.

Why am I posting this now? After all, the game came out three years ago, but since I’m a bit slow, I’ve only just gotten around to finishing it, and while I know I get carried away with hyperbole at times, I want to mark it up as one of the greatest, if not *the* greatest, gaming experience of this generation.

I should probably justify this, because in many respects, it isn’t exactly ground-breaking given it’s an evolution of so many strat (J)RPGs that have accumulated over the years. But it’s a great mid-point behind pure strategy and some hands-on, meaning there’s a bit more flexibility if you’re a bit retarded when it comes to strat games (like me :P). Even though I relied on YouTube videos towards the end of the game owing to my rubbish skills, the game remained accessible to someone like me who has never been that good at turn-based strategy or RTS games. Thank you Sega 🙂

So, what else? The scenario’s an alternative-universe Europe during WW2, with all sorts of tips of the hat to actual history, and plenty of silliness to expand it further into the realms of atypically Japanese storytelling. Some found the fantastical nature of some of it rage-inducing, but I found it charming. But I like my anime, so that explains my weakness in this regard. The character interaction was strong, even though it could probably be criticised for playing to stereotypes.

Much of the game reminds me in spirit of the Sakura Taisen games, which I adored on the Saturn and Dreamcast, so I think this also adds to my love of the game. There’s also the handy option to play the game with the original Japanese dubbing, which was a welcomed and crowd-pleasing choice, even though the dubbing was actually really good for the game. In itself, such good localisation of the voicework is unusual given it’s a Sega title, but I’m probably still stuck in the 32-bit era where there were some dreadful dubs, and the DC wasn’t much better to be honest (thankfully, Skies of Arcadia didn’t have too many spoken lines!).

But beyond all these is the atmosphere of the game. I’ve waxed lyrical on this intangible feeling a game can have on the player in other places – I had the same feeling playing Mirror’s Edge and it’s EU-centric vibe reminiscent of EU development in the early 90s. Valkyria Chronicles stirs the kind of empathy and vibe I haven’t felt in a while – it was classical old-school Sega, with dashes of the original Sakura Taisen, Phantasy Star 2 and 4, Panzer Dragoon Saga and Skies of Arcadia.

It was also great to see a game using a military subject matter without dipping into vats of testosterone and inserting expletives all over the place. Yes there’s a place for all of that, I’m just saying it was nice that it didn’t feel it needed to go there. As such, it was a pleasant counter-point to the typical Western approach. It would also explain why the game never reached critical mass with its market, as it lacked the “action movie” factor that colours a lot of other successful games.

Technologically, the CANVAS engine is, in my irrational mind, the most impressive game engine, visually, of this generation. I’m aware there are some gorgeous and flexible engines out there at the moment, but what they achieved with this one was stunning. The frame-rate very rarely dips, it allows for stunning in-game visuals and cut-scenes, the animation is clean and there’s only the occasional bit of screen-tearing, one of my pet-hates of the current generation of gaming. The game deviated from shades of grey and gave amazingly colourful vistas despite its subject matter, but the engine was flexible enough to go with the shades of grey and dirt-brown when the situation called for it.

And critical to a game’s success, the ending brought closure, a feeling of accomplishment and felt incredibly satisfying.

So that’s my call – you’re welcome to disagree of course, but there it is. Now I have to work out which game to sink my teeth into next 🙂

Afterburner Climax – Game of the Year 2010

Posted Monday, 14th June 2010 under Retrospective game reviews
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See that blurry picture taken with my camera phone? That’s me purchasing Afterburner Climax on the the 23rd of April. Unfortunately, I’ve been too busy playing it to get around to posting my thoughts on it. Because it truly is that awesome.

But is this just hyperbolic dribble from a Sega fanboy, making the bold statement that this game should qualify as for GotY? Probably. But there’s a method to my madness.

You see, for me there’s a special place in my heart for the classic Sega approach to making a score-attack title. The original two Afterburner games are a double-dose of amazement foe example, and I’ve put more hours than I can count into OutRun. Then you can look at some of spiritual (or actual) sequels to these games that I’ve sunk even more time and money to continue with the classic fix they brought – Galaxy Force, Panzer Dragoon, Gunblade; Outrunners, Power Drift, Daytona, Sega Rally, OutRun 2/2006/Live Arcade (you could even throw Initial D in there as well). Amazing lineup of games that have quantified the definitive arcade experience over the years, and in this sense Afterburner Climax is a completely nonsensical throwback to pickup-and-play mechanics, score attack, increasingly steeper difficulty (arguably unforgiving at times), blue, blue skies and more than a casual nod at Sega’s arcade lineage.

What’s particularly commendable is that the game managed to survive the transition to a home format – I first came across the Afterburner Climax DX cab in… 2008 when checking out one of the few remaining arcades still around the place. The experience was absolutely amazing – having cut my teeth on the Afterburner hydraulic cab back in the day, it was a perfect re-imagining of the original concept but on a modern platform with more current technology.

Despite the lack of the fancy-pants cabinet, it’s still a blast to play – hyper-fast, an orgy of destruction and plenty of hat-tipping to the original games, especially the option to swap between the original YM2151 X Board hardware audio and the new soundtrack put together for Climax. There are plenty of unlockables that can alter the difficulty of the in-game experience too, which is handy if you’re rubbish at the game like yours truly and adds extra incentive for playing through the game over and over again.

And even though it’s not difficult to fire through the game in 10 minutes, I constantly find myself coming back to it every time I put the PS3 on. There’s something immediately refreshing about the no-bullshit attitude the game has – this is an arcade experience, and if you don’t like it, bugger off. No stupid tutorials to explain complicated controls, no unnecessary backstory to slow things down (there is a backstory mind, but it never gets in the way of blowing stuff up), barely any frame-drops or tearing, just pure, high-quality Japanese arcade performance gaming.

Welcome back Sega – what took you so long?

What would Virtua Fighter look like if it it went in the same direction as Street Fighter?

Posted Friday, 2nd April 2010 under Soapbox rants
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You know what? This is funny (and a joke – read up more from the source), but you know what? It looks awesome 😀

Thanks Kotaku!

Now, Sega – where’s the announcement for the PS3 port of VF5:FS? With my nerd powers, I have the console ports of all the VF games (well, only VF4:E instead of vanilla VF4 on the PS2), as well as PCBs of VF2 and VF3, give me extra nerd love in the form of a port of this one, please!! Online play would also be nice since you added it to the XB360 port of VF5 standard 😀

Either that or give some attention to possibly making a new Fighters Megamix game 😀