Geek on Stun

Feel the Goods

Like we said earlier, we weren't huge fans of Feel the Magic/Kime No Tame Nara Shineru, but we gotta hand out what-the-kids-call "propers" for the best coffee mug ever.

It's one of the Sega Direct "goods". Normal mug graphics are to the left, hot liquid filled graphics are to the right. Brilliant!

Foolishly double-click up in here for more, including a swell beach towel, watch and Nintendo DS case.

Nuts & Milk & More

Hey, remember Nuts & Milk? The NES era puzzle/action/platformer by Hudson Soft? Remember? Me, neither.

Regardless, the title has made for one of the best video game inspired t-shirts of the year (Konami's Metal Gear Solid 3 promotional shirt falls just short due to the unnecessary brand placement).

See, Bandai's Lalabit Market is normally reserved for really dorky Gundam luggage and motorcycle helmets, but they've been carrying some mind-blowing shit by the amazing Mars 16 design house, including this sweet Nuts & Milk historical shirt. Mars 16 has been putting out clothing branded with various Taito, Sega and Hudson Soft properties for years now, with a design sense that shows they just get it.

These guys even made gold out of garbage with horrible properties like the new Shinobi with this super-slick hoodie [front | back] and tapped into some beautiful history with this Ninja Warriors (!!!) t-shirt [front | back].

Isn't there anyone else out there in the States that eats this stuff up like I do?

Chistmas With Mizuguchi

If you happen to be in the greater Tokyo area on Christmas day, why not hang with Mr. Mizuguchi, Shinichi Okawa and Mondo Grosso at Air and celebrate the release of Lumines? I know if I weren't in Black Canyon City, Arizona, that's where I'd be. It'll set you back close to thirty bones, but as Mizuguchi said, "girls are waiting for you while having PSP".

Air is located in Shibuya (just down the street from Daikanyama Address) and festivities should start some time after 10 PM. Have fun!

The Geek On Stun 2004 Video Game Awards

Welcome to the first annual Geek On Stun 2004 Video Game Awards! It may not feature the C-grade celebrities and awful Electronic Arts endorsed hip-hop flavor of other awards, but we've mentally slaved away for a few minutes in the shower coming up with categories and deserving winners. The editor(s) here have even gone to the effort of looking up release dates for most titles to ensure that they were, indeed, released this calendar year!

Please note that all references to "we" are in the royal sense and all titles must have been played for at least fifteen minutes before judgment was passed.

Best Sound

Katamari Damacy
Yeah! Check it up! Funk it up! Katamari Damacy had an amazingly scored soundtrack, filled with a wide variety of songs about picking up stuff that ranged from tolerable J-Pop to jazzy crooners to ambient guitar soundscapes (pick it up here). In addition to the aforementioned zany musical fun, Katamari Damacy also features a pretty swell suite of sound effects: satisfying bubbly pops and squirts, hilarious death screams, bleating horns of ocean liners, etc. It's so wonderful candy for your ears!

Best Graphics

Half-Life 2
It was more than polygon count, universal lighting models, bump-mapping and draw distances, it was the total package. Can we all just admit that Doom 3 looked like a Martian invasion by Satan's action figures, people? Valve didn't go for some easy spaceship bullshit, they went European ghetto! Beautiful animation and immersive environments nestled within the best damn art direction ever known to man made Half-Life 2 the best thing to look at all year long that wasn't a member of Sugar.

Most Innovative Title

Katamari Damacy
Often described as "wacky", "quirky" and "Japanese", this unique puzzle-collection-action game was a beautifully packaged, cleverly designed and all around fun title that kept the editor(s) here engrossed well until the game ended. Hell, even after that, we went back and made some bigger stars and picked up some more royal presents. In a time when we relish the end of game more often than playing it, Katamari Damacy stands out as one of the best titles of 2004.

Best Exploding Barrels

Half-Life 2
The invasion of earth wouldn't have been complete without the placement of hundreds (maybe thousands!) of clearly marked exploding orange barrels. These potential health hazards made Half-Life 2 approximately 8-billion percent more enjoyable. They took only two pistol shots to ignite, and sent Civil Protection units flying through the air! Wheeee! Either someone in the Combine was really fucking stupid to place instant-death barrels next to each sentry station or exploding barrels are the genius overlords of Earth's occupation and require protection from the resistance. We'll find out in Half-Life 3, I'm sure.

Best Chopsticks Wrappers Based On A Video Game

Katamari Damacy
Featuring the best downloads section of any Web site ever, the Katamari Damacy team was good enough to generate over thirty wallpapers, a paper cat model, screensavers, bookmarks, Flash games, and more. It's all going to be gone very soon, so if you appreciate the finer things in life head there now and download your fool head off.

Best Tutorial

Half-Life 2
"Citizen, pick up that can". That was the finest tutorial of the year, dear reader. You are asked to pick up an empty soda can and throw it in the trash. It was more than a tutorial. It was realistic, implied humiliation. It was brief interaction with the physics engine. It was a moment in time dedicated to studying the artistry of modeling a soda can. It was sublime poetry.

Best Budget Title

Katamari Damacy
Namco generated a decent buzz when they announced that not only would one of the hottest import titles of the year was coming to North America, it would ship at the low price of $19.99. The mini-hype and practical price also created a bit of a supply problem for Namco, when initial shipments sold out quickly due to smaller than normal orders by retailers. The editor(s) here even considered picking up multiple copies, but figured no one else would appreciate the aesthetics and unique gameplay. We were right. :(

Best Game of 2003 That We Didn't Play Until 2004

Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Did anyone notice that this game is funnier than God? Seriously, this is the best RPG ever. Butt-slamming your way through a syrupy sweet, good natured adventure is best done with two mute plumbers and the Nintendo of America localization team gets big ups for making it so damn enjoyable. If you hate random battles, effeminate protagonists and wizards like I do, you'll probably love Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. It's a must have!

Game of the Year

Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2 really had it all. It featured a mature, compelling story that didn't spoon-feed the player. It featured the best visuals of any game ever. It featured some satisfyingly unique physics puzzles. The game was damn near perfect! Even the names of the enemies are pure gold; I mean, manhacks?! Who else comes up with treasures like that? Answer: no-fucking-body.

I could have done without the lengthy vehicle driving sequences and a bit more of the stuff shown in the demo, but it was a piece of beautiful artwork, it was. RESPECT!

See you next year!

Sunaeku!!!

Right on, Konami. You can't just tell us you're going to have an Alligator Cap Party and not go all out. We give! We'll buy Metal Gear Solid 3 to show our support for models in alligator hats.

Pity the Japanese toddler boys who happened to see this quartet sporting plastic alligator heads and go-go boots. This is going to be a difficult fetish to tap in thirty years.

Katamari Damacy 2

First screenshots of the sequel to the best "sticky collection" game of 2004 have been released by Namco. The game is scheduled for release in Japan in the spring, with no solid North American date. The first game was better than almost everything you bought for your PS2 this year, so don't forget to reserve your copy.

Oh, and if you haven't sent your Christmas cards out, someone at Namco has thrown you a delicious bone in the form of KD X-Mas cards! Don't forget your Acrobat.

That Was A Perfect Pass

If you're keeping up, you know that the NFL and EA are totally BFF's. Right before EA suits lit their cigars with the Madden 2006-2010 development roadmap, they signed an agreement with the NFL and the NFL Players Association to be the exclusive license holder of all NFL team properties, stadiums and player likenesses. That means no more Sega NFL 2K games, no more NFL Blitz from Midway and no more NFL Fever.

To say that this is a bummer would be an understatement. The only football games we ever purchased were Sega NFL 2K games, in-part due to ingrained Sega brand loyalty and the simulation-to-arcade ratio. Plus, those bastards at Tiburon wouldn't pay more than eight bucks an hour to play video game football 40-plus hours a week.

Fuckin' EA.

Wait. It's not animosity that we have toward EA; it's apathy. A wave of boredom washes over us every time we're assaulted by that little boy whispering the fuck out of the corporate tag line. The only things remotely interesting to come out of EA lately are Burnout 3 and this FIFA Total Football 2 promotional event:

Wanted: More of this kind of spokesmodel

It's pretty apparent that there are very few people excited about the prospect of one NFL approved football game being released over the next five years. The competition between Tiburon and Visual Concepts on the development side was good for consumers, as was the price war that Sega and Take Two (the ESPN/2K distributor) waged against EA. The last few releases saw some interesting innovations in the form of Madden cards, a (playable) first person quarterback mode, the pack-rat "Cribs" mode and deeper (read: painfully boring) franchise modes. Will EA continue to innovate in the way of gameplay and features? Will next-generation platform development and a $300 million licensing price tag get in the way?

Video game football just got more interesting.

More Mizuguchi Madness

Cool motherfucker Tetsuya Mizuguchi tells everyone why he's so awesome, but unfortunately says it all in Japanese (or Nihon-go!). Google Japanese-to-English translation is now in beta, so if you feel like translating the translation, have at it. But, if the phrase "game chestnut thornback tar" gives you an eyeball-headache, just skip all that text and check out the copious amount of lovely screenshots. Did I mention Wi-Fi multiplayer?

Must have Lumines now!

Lumines Is Coming!

Tetsuya Mizuguchi is a video game god. Look! Wi-fi multiplayer mode!

*sniff*

Beautiful poetry. Thank you, Mizuguchi-dono.

Ain't No Party Like A Kime No Tame Nara Shineru Promotional Party

Even though Feel the Magic (nee Project Rub, a.k.a. Kime No Tame Nara Shineru) isn't actually that good, they sure know how to market this thing in Japan. Sega held a live performance at Shinjuku station this past weekend and the images pretty much speak for themselves.

The Rub Rabbits and members of Sonic Team are having too much fun to think about racial insensitivity.

Uh oh! Looks like someone might've had a full glass of beer. We punch dudes for this kind of behavior, buddy.

This guys had enough. After having that Rub Rabbits jingle blasted at him all night, he's going to politely score the soundtrack and one of those sweet goldfish t-shirts. OMFG! A cute bear!!!

And did you see Sega going all out for the Tokyo Joypolis Christmas 2004 super event? Dream Flying Live 2004!!! We went to Joypolis and it kind of sucked 'cause all we got to do was play some F-Zero GX and score some super deformed Gundam capsule toys. We hate Gundam. Anyway, Sega brought the lovely ladies of Sugar in and put them in adorable precious corporate blue-and-white Christmas dresses.

Couldn't you just die from the cuteness?! We kind of discounted Sugar before as just another horrible J-Pop group, but now know they're a horrible J-Pop group with the most obscenely cute, doe-eyed member ever, Hyoomee. Time to work on our creepy stalker page...

(all images blatantly swiped from your good friends Impress Game Watch who are really swell at not watermarking anything)

Gettin' Shiggy

Thank you, Thigh Master.