Geek on Stun

Mario 64 x 64

Over at EmuTalk, specifically in the 1964 forums, a fascinating new emulator plug-in is making the rounds. It allows one to replace the default textures, at up to four times the normal size, and breathe new life into those horrific looking Nintendo 64 titles. Sorry, we meant to type "dated", not horrific. Apologies.

Image gracefully swiped from forum member cloudchaser.

Again, a cloudchaser creation that looks better man-sized.

You can read the whole story, including the original "Hey, wouldn't it be cool..." post in this thread. Bravo, gentlemen.

Pac-Pix Promo Pseudo Pencil

We're really not that excited about Namco's upcoming Nintendo DS game, Pac-Pix. The game is dripping with style (our Achilles heel), featuring watercolor and ink inspired artwork and hot hot hot character design, but it looks to be another DS title we might play and think "You sons of bitches tricked us into buying another fucking thirty dollar mini-game!".

Those lucky Japanese have at least one reason to pick up a copy of Pac-Pix at launch: that beautiful Pac Man promotional stylus right over there. It's, of course, a limited edition. The collector in our brain is tapping us annoyingly on the shoulder, telling us to import immediately.

We hate our lack of willpower.

Hello Gentlemen

Make your time with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. product description:

Become a stalker, a guy who earns money from shoveling embers out of infernal oven of Chernobyl Zone. Returning from the radioactivity-blazing Zone, he will sell anomalous formations to underground dealers and scientists in research camps on the Zone border.

We get features of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:

The whole world living its own life:

• Man-made calamity, corrupt nature, psychological and physical threats, anomalies, odd deadly phenomena, mutated creatures, stalkers, military cordons, scientific camps.
• Vast territory of the Zone.
• Dynamic day-night switching system
• Generation of events, tasks, artifacts
• Anomalous energy blowouts, peaks of anomalous activity, migrating anomalies.
• Anomalous areas

Unique creatures and characters:

• Unique abilities of creatures as group intellect, telepathy, telekinesis etc.
• Characters and creatures move around under control of global intellect.
• Behaviour and life simulation for creatures and characters.
• Impressive script.
• Several endings of the game.
• Events happening regardless of the player's actions.
• Game time system

What you say? Thank Larzon for great justice.

Katamari Damacy: The Video Game

We've been inspired recently by the outpouring of fandom associated with the video game we honored as "Most Innovative Title" of 2004, Katamari Damacy. Folks have been going gaga over Katamari Damacy in such manifestations as Play-Doh recreations, cosplay, live action roleplay, knitwear and song.

We absolutely loved the game, too, and we want to contribute to the community with a very special project. Here's what we've been working on.

Katamari Damacy: The Video Game
A painstakingly accurate recreation of the events, sights, and sounds of Namco's surprise hit of the year for the Playstation 2 now on the Playstation 2. Development work has been going on for a few weeks now and we feel we've made tremendous progress.

Here are some early screenshots:

We've accurately remodeled the house and every single object in the game with real polygonal meshes

We're pretty pleased so far! This is our first Playstation 2 development project, after all. Here's another shot:

Remember this great moment? We've adapted every single level from the original Playstation 2 game in Katamari Damacy: The Video Game!

We've been working on the box art as well and think we'll be going in this direction.

As you can see, we're serious about a quality product. Our homage to our second favorite game of 2004 will play exactly like the source material, so you can recreate the Katamari Damacy experience in the comfort of your own home on your Playstation 2!

We expect development to finish within the month and we're currently taking pre-orders. Pricing is set at $49.99 for North America. The package will include the video game, box, cover art, and instruction manual. The first ten thousand pre-orders will also come shrink-wrapped and include a special "warranty card" replica.

If you have any questions about your pre-order, don't be afraid to ask.

Mission 6: Make Bitmap Fonts

We just tried out BitFontMaker, a handy Web based True Type font creation tool. It was a labor of love, because we had to play Shinobi for 10 minutes until we got the high score (fyi, we're awesome at Shinobi). Then we made this:

We realize it's not as refined as Act Select's suite of Sega fonts, but you can download it here if you're so inclined.

Now we work on our E-SWAT bitmap font!

Shoot Fighting

Four things we love:

1. The Sega Dreamcast - Miss you, brother!
2. Fighting Games - We used to play the fuck out of some Hippodrome.
3. Shoot-em Ups - We wiped school from our brains with 1943, Thunder Force, Raiden and R-Type.
4. Genre Blending - Our most anticipated game of 2005? Yoot's Saito's Odama, the real time strategy/pinball hybrid.

Now we can love all four things at the same time! Wait! We thought of the fifth thing we love!

5. Cute cartoon girls piloting giant robots!

We did a little dance in our chair when we went Click-Stick the other day, who were kind enough to turn us onto G.rev's upcoming Naomi-based arcade game Senko no Ronde. We were just looking for info on what was happening at the AOU (somehow short for All Nippon Amusement Machine Operators Union) expo going on this weekend and we came upon this, which we must say without hyperbole will be the best arcade game ever.

On this side you have the shooting, and over here you have the fighting.

A competitive 2D plane locked shooting game with tasty fighting elements? Brilliant! Yeah, we hear you shouting "That's merely Virtual On with two dimensional gameplay!" Fuck off, 'cause it's not. Watch this sweetheart of a game in motion at Click-Stick's Senko no Ronde video section. Notice all those shmup conventions like screen filling pattern shots and bullet dodging slowdown? Virtual On what, now?

Of course, if you're not ready to join us in the future where all the good video games are, you can play QBowling, the bowling/pool hybrid.

Have fun with your stupid game, stupid!

It's Like Soul, Man

Today is Thursday. That means it's time for Namco to be awesome again and dangle more Katamari Damacy goodness in front of our faces. You know the routine; new Katamari Damacy merch is released, Pavlovian response kicks in, your face is sopping with geek drool.

There are three Prince of Cosmos hand puppets and cell phone straps up for grabs, which means you'll never ever get one in a bazillion years.

Like they need an excuse to do this, but the reason Namco's offering up this plushy manna from heaven is the Playstation.com 5th Anniversary competition. Now just hold on there, dear reader. Before you go clicking on that link and signing up for hella sweet Sony authorized gear, think about this. They don't offer this kind of shit anywhere but Japan, right? Right!

Therefore, our advice to you is: move to Japan, eat a hamburger with a fried egg on it, then enter yourself in the contest. And pick us up a copy of Yoshinoya while you're there.

Gelatin Mounds

At first blush, this Kasumi mouse pad seems fairly innocuous.

Then you read the product description.

Prepare to rest your wrist in-between the bosom of your favorite gal, Kasumi. Not only is she fun to look at, she also provides the ultimate in wrist support and comfort! These mouse pads are a must have for the DOA fan who's stuck behind a computer all day!

Please. What Dead or Alive fan isn't behind a computer all day?

Then you visit Chest Rest, the presumed manufacturer of said pad, and you get this sinking feeling. Go to the Tecmo store, pre-order yourself one, then write off talking to real women forever.

VD

We know you probably hate the crass commercialism of Valentine's Day like we do, but we also realize that some things simply must be done in the name of preserving one's relationship. If you've failed to pick up a card your significant other, we're here to help you out.

This will definitely get you some tonight. Trust us.

Oh, and, you're welcome.

Congratulations!

Konami of Europe has announced the winner of their "Game Designer For A Day" contest. The winning entry was submitted by 14 year old Bristol, England native Johnathan Kenney. Johnathan's game idea beat out over a thousand qualifying entries from all over Europe garnering him a new Xbox game console and a copy of the best selling soccer simulation, Pro Evolution Soccer 4.

Johnathan with his dad at the Konami UK Office, prize in hand. A few of John's Year 9 classmates also joined him at the office and can be seen trying out the newest Konami titles before anyone else!

Johnathan's game was titled "Crime Life: Gang Wars" and was described by the aspiring designer and game enthusiast as "a free roaming crime based beat em up". Johnathan loves "Hip Hop" which he described to us as "popular urban youth culture, closely associated with rap music and with the style and fashions of Afro-American inner-city residents". Sounds neat, Johnathan! Here are some highlights from his entry.

Welcome to the cruel streets of Grand Central City, an urban jungle, steeped in violence. Where ruthless gangs vie for power, and the police struggle to contain them. The Outlawz, led by 'Big Dog' used to rule this city but were overrun in a power struggle by Justiss and the Headhunterz during the famous Gang Wars that occured some years earlier.

Outlawz? Justiss? How cute! It's a bit dark for our tastes, but this is from the next generation of gamers and they seem to like this whole violent street culture thing.

Next we'll take a look at Johnathan's protagonist; an edgy, anti-hero character named "Tre".

A young Outlaw, driven with an ambition to become somebody, to be respected by the street. A journey that will find him protecting his community from the other gangs as they battle for street supremacy and building up his reputation because in this city, reputation is everything. For Tre to survive he must establish himself as the toughest fighter and to do that, he needs to face the Kingpin of Grand Central, Justiss...

Johnathan seems to have a predilection for run-on sentences (he's just a kid, really), but that can be forgiven. Let's take a look at some of the other characters from Johnathan's entry.

The Outlawz are a gang with street morals. But that doesn't mean they'll be nice to someone who is frontin', after all they used to own Grand Central -- that was until Justiss and his army of Headhunterz fancied their chances. The ensuing battles weakened the Outlawz, who now just spend most of their time chillin' out in their crib, regrouping, waiting...

It's a bit forced, yes, but let's not forget that we're talking about one young boys fantastic gang mythology, so some cliche and clearly overcompensating language can be forgiven. Still, this is exciting stuff! Here's more.

The Head Hunterz are a rival gang who have no morals (see the distinction? -ed.). They are very aggressive and will do whatever it takes to make money and rule the streets of Grand Central City! Better watch out, coz' these boys are dangerous, word up!

He's so clever! "Word up"? Is that what the gangland kids are saying these days? We're fascinated.

More information about the contest and Johnathan's winning design are available in Konami's press release and at the official contest site which features "screenz" [sic] and even a very professional looking movie trailer!

It's too bad that Crime Life: Gang Wars is nothing more than the flights of fancy of a little boy across the pond, because we sure haven't had our fill of gritty, urban beat downs, harsh language and hip-hop flavored soundtracks. We hope that Konami will seriously consider turning Crime Life into a real game soon (and keep Johnathan on staff when he's finished with his schooling!).

Feeling Genki

Japanese cell phone colossus KDDI held a press conference today regarding the companys new EZ Game Street service. EZ Game Street is like the Japanese iTunes for cell phone games.

We don't really care so much about the service because we use clay tablets to make our phone calls. Our mobile service provider won't offer the shitty equivalent of EZ Game Street for another ten years or so.

What we do care about are Chocobos groping Genki Software spokesmodels.

Picture most regrettably swiped from the honorable Impress Game Watch. We feel horrible about that. :(

Additional mind blowing mascot photos are available at Impress Game Watch.

Please, Stay In Vegas

And we're back. During our scheduled downtime (we were reading other Web sites! - ed.), Capcom held a "Gamers Day", which seem to be very fashionable these days. We'd like to write a bit about that, but first we want to get a few things out of the way quickly. How will we do that? Stan's Soapbox style update!

Item: We're not gloating, but you should know we are the proud new owners of a Sony PSP [pre-order slip]! We were talked down to quite a bit by our local EB boy as we expressed our interest in securing a PlayStation Portable at launch, but we refrained from letting the employee on staff know that our gaming knowledge is all encompassing. Further, we did not hint even once how refined our taste in Japanese gaming software has become over the years.

While we waited for the milquetoasty pale clerk to finish ringing up a husky ashen gentleman so we could place said pre-order, we overheard the following semi-paraphrased exchange.

Husky Ashen Gentleman: [Manager] fired me last week.
Milquetoasty Pale Clerk: He deleted you from the system just like a pre-order.
Heretofore Unmentioned Stout Customer: Damn, that sucks. You're like a patch that never made it into final code.

And... scene.

Item: We love our Nintendo DS for many reasons. But, the one we can think of right now is that it will provide us with the opportunity to play Nintendogs and put a poodle in a cowboy hat.

Look! He's thinks he's people!

One word of caution regarding Nintendogs: Nintendo of America may do something moronic and rename this title Puppy Times. Make sure you tell them this would be gay.

Item: We recently discovered MUGEN, thanks to Matthew Hawkins post regarding this amazing piece of software. We won't go into the dirty details of MUGEN (or WinMUGEN) because we know you'll just spoil it for us like you did with MAME.dk.

Item: Speaking of fighters, Capcom has had the wisdom to add another chapter to the fascinating mythology of Anakaris, cursed pharoah mummy of Darkstalkers fame. Surprisingly, this new episode does not involve his royal deadness squaring off against succubi, but features his highness as the title character in a colorful cell phone puzzle game, Puzzle Anakaris: The Chaos Pyramid. We're itching to get our baby-soft hands on it, but we'll just fall in line with the rest of the drones and fire up our billionth game of Bejeweled.

Item: We'd like these Konami mecha toys please. Then we'd like someone to explain exactly what the fuck is going on there. We'd also like this Tyris Flare gashapon. And we like for you to stop laughing at us for collecting girl toys.

Item: Finally, we approach the Capcom Gamers Day situation. We should mention that we are very excited about the prospect of Gyakutan Saiban, the lawyer adventure game being reworked for the Nintendo DS. We must also mention that we are very excited about two other announced titles: the Mega Man X Collection and Capcom Classics Collection (please please please give us Forgotten Worlds). We'll cap off that excitement with total apathy toward every other game previewed at this event.

Capcom, picture us with a very serious, extremely concerned look on our face when we tell you this. You're boring us. This has to be the most exceedingly dull line-up we've seen since the EA 2005 release list from a few weeks back.

Where the fuck was Okami? We know that Clover's Viewtiful Joe 2 didn't sell very well, but this is no reason to hide the most important release of the year!

Some of us were really looking forward to hardcore wolf-nature-god adventuring, and you give us... Without Warning? This looks as dry as they come. We had almost completely tuned out by the time we read "this unique third-person action game", but we soldiered on. It wasn't until we reached the words "covert operations" that we had decided to write it off forever.

Please, look at how beautiful Okami is. Let us have more screenshots, wallpapers and movies. Then finish it. Then sell it to us for fifty dollars. Seriously, what's the problem? Do we really have to tell you how to run a business?

Thanks for visiting. We'll see you tomorrow for a very special pre-Valentine's Day entry.

Original Paper Crafterz

Apparently, paper craft models are all the rage with the kids. Now that paper crafting is hot, the vultures are out there picking at the scraps of every two-bit Prince of Cosmos and Out Run paper model they can get their grimy claws on. The whole "scene" just smacks of hangers-on.

It should be noted that we've been totally into the whole paper craft scene since, like, last summer. Not only are we OPC (Original Paper Crafterz), we're elitist about our crafting. See?

Click for man-size images.

Those, dear reader, are original SegaGaga Dreamcast paper craft models. It's vintage 2001 stuff and impossible to find, but we're serious collectors. We even have the self-extracting ZIP files, with the original bitmap output and the ultra-rare variant Mac Stuff It files. But we want you to have them, so enjoy.

If They Mated

We were briefly giddy when we started to read Gamespot associate editor Justin Calvert's recent journal entry entitled "Games That Should Have Babies". Then we got past the title of the entry and realized his choices were kind of boring (soccer + soccer + soccer = still soccer!). They were like the video game equivalent of two J. Crew models screwing. While it might be fun to watch, it would result in just another damned beautiful baby and we're all up to our necks in damned beatiful babies, thanks.

We're more interested in seeing the offspring of, say, Manute Bol and a sexy Heavy Metal magazine robot. That would be neat.

The thing is, we'd really like some genres get a kick in the figurative ass, because they're getting pretty damn boring. Sometimes, we think the only way to do this is to borrow the best another genre has to offer and shove it ever so gently into another genre.

No, we're not talking about teenage wet dream fodder like "Wouldn't it be sick if Dante from Devil May Cry were in GTA and he could hijack cars and shoot missiles from his eyes and fight Master Chief and it would rox0r?!!". We're talking about controlled breeding to create totally new hybrids of super-games.

That said, here are our choices for games we'd love to catch in the sack.

Konami's DDR/Beatmania series and Capcom's Street Fighter series
We've had this fantasy for a few years of a dancy, rhythmic fighting game, where tap dancing, capoeira, break dancing and clowning are the fighting methods of choice.

We want a fighting game that looks less like a match up between two epileptics and more like a hella sweet fight scene from Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo or anything remotely resembling an actual kung fu movie. Our fantasy dance-fighting game features a meaty breakbeat soundtrack that sets the pace for the fight. There's less emphasis on stringing combos together, absolutely no pandas or kangaroos, a sharp decline in homoerotic character design, and a huge opportunity for the Korean kids in your town to settle on a single game for once.

Music games and fighters have been the two genres that have kept the arcade industry from giving up the ghost, so it's time they got together and made a cute little drooling baby.

Konami's Gradius series and Sega's Phantasy Star (Online) series
Vagrant Story aside, it's been a challenge for us to find any sort of enjoyment in RPG's for years. We think it's due to the often dull, menu driven gameplay, trite storytelling and bloated "production values". We'd love to see a side-scrolling space shooter RPG, and would even settle for an online multiplayer Diablo rip-off a la Phantasy Star Online.

We love Phantasy Star II so much that we bought the game four times and spent an unfortunate amount of cash to have a Nei gashapon right here in the office. We also love Gradius and Life Force. It's time they got it on.

We didn't just choose Phantasy Star because of its nostalgiac warmth, but for its candy-colored art direction and combination of laser guns and ceramic swords. It could be mogical!

The Miz's Rez and Valve's Half-Life series
These are two of our favorite games of all time. And although they couldn't be more different in style and execution, we think they make a cute couple.

See, we want a decent Tron-esque first person action-adventure RPG, one that isn't Tron 2.0. Not unlike Half-Life 2, it would be set in a gritty, immersive near-future and would feature a healthy portion of shooting hordes of drones and blowing shit up. Then we want someone to combine that with a sexy, cyber world, a la Rez.

It's pretty simple. Real-world gunplay meets neon digital avatar role-playing. We also know it sounds kind of familiar.

We loved the concept of The Matrix, we just hated the execution (and the game). We want to enjoy both worlds. If someone manages to do this well, we'll gladly hand over fifty American dollars.

That's it. We'll stop at three. If you have any suggestions for other game offspring or want to pay us loads of cash to come up with genius ideas like the aforementioned, don't be afraid to let us know.