Hydorah

Gozilla versus Hydorah, nyerk, nyerk

I know I am seriously late to the party, but Hydorah deserves a mention on every serious gaming blog, so I hope you won't mind. I missed this game when it came out, because I am not that into the shooter genre. However, when reviewing L'Abbaye des Morts I came across Hydorah trailer (embedded below) and decided to give it a try, despite my staggering incompetence when it comes to traditional shoot'em-ups.

And man, what a blast Hydorah is! The graphics, the music, the gameplay, it is all spectacular. This game is the labour of love, reincarnation of the best parts of oldschool shoot'em-ups without their flaws. Okay, maybe there is one flaw - the game is damn hard, far too hard for my aging reflexes. I have not managed to complete it yet, got stuck somewhere around later levels. Despite the difficulty level, Hydorah kept me hooked for far longer than many more advanced games do - the gameplay is extremely addictive, just like the games of old times.

If you have some free time and loved shooting genre as a kid, then you absolutely need to try Hydorah, period.

How I helped with My Little Restaurant game

Tapper 2010

I think I should put My Little Restaurant in the list of My Games above. Although I did not program it, design it or draw it, I had a little bit of input in its creation, as meager as it was. I guess I could call myself a language consultant, but that would be stretching it so badly it might rip apart. So what did I do? How did I meddle in the design process of the game?

Since I used to work and live in Japan, as well as study Japanese, I got asked by my friend to help to provide a few words that a Japanese chef overlooking player in sushi-making minigame would shout out in approval. The friend in question was Marcin, the one that long-time readers might remember from my visit to now defunct OpenOKO game company. He is now leading his own small indie game dev studio in Poland, focusing primarily on iPhone development.


As for the minigame and Japanese words, the idea was that player is making sushi and if they make it well, they hear applause from Sushi-Master. I came up with the list of words, some of them got approved, some of them didn't. So truth be told, my input in My Little Restaurant is minimal - but nevertheless, it was my first contribution to a commercial game title.

You can watch the trailer on Youtube, buy the game on iTunes or read one of the reviews here. It seems that My Little Restaurant is generally well received, so if you have an iPhone and a bit of spare change, now you know where to spend it.

On Capitalism, Marxism and Video Games

The Gaming Marxists' Coalition would be a cool name for a blog (or maybe a political party, too)

Recently, our friend Gnome has written a review of a certain book on games, namely Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games (and speaking of capitalism, you can buy it on Amazon). The book treats the topic from a different angle that most of other books on the market - instead of wallowing in retro nostalgia or providing instruction on technology, it shows the dark underbelly of the industry and formulates a thesis that gaming has become one more mean of controlling the masses.

Picture unrelated, except containing Marx reference

The book has caught my attention - can't say I've seen any others tackle the subject of video games from that perspective. I checked who the author was and he turned out to be Nick Dyer-Witheford, associate dean and professor at The University of Western Ontario in London. The gentleman in question openly admits that he belongs to "Marxist tradition". It did not surprise me that much, since his bitter remarks on some aspects of liberal capitalism sounded quite similar to another Marxist whom I happen to read quite often (for those curious, I mean Polish journalist Wojciech Orliński).

Not that I would dare to call myself a Marxist, but my heart is definitely on the left side and while I'm definitely not the one to be calling for a revolution (coming from a country that has painfully experienced how revolutions turn out in practice), it does not require that much effort to notice that not everything is fine and dandy with aggressive liberal capitalism in this day and age.

Back on topic, which I remind you is Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games book, it definitely constitutes interesting reading. However, if you would like to check what the book is about in more detail than the blurb gives you, go to Dyer-Witheford's profile page, click on the link there, scroll down and download his essay Games of Empire 2009 (in PDF format). It elegantly summarizes topics found in his book - in my case, the essay persuaded me to buy it and to keep an eye on this gentleman's further work. As an added bonus, you can have a look at his previous book, called Cyber-Marx: Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High Technology Capitalism (1999) - it also is an interesting lecture.

Avatar Days

This is how you make video gaming doc!

The movie I'm about to link to in this post has nothing to do with a famous production about the blue aliens. It is, however, an excellent docucumentary short on people playing World of Warcraft by Gavin Kelly. The twist is that as they share with us the stories on their hobby, we can see them strolling rainy Dublin as their in-game avatars. The result is pure awesomeness:

Alternate location on Youtube

I don't know about you, but somehow I find it touching and endearing. One would expect yet another display of moral panic, showcasing absolute no-lifes and their strange addiction. Instead, it is something much more personal, a movie showing people proud of who they are in their other world, perhaps sometimes treated as a refuge, but perhaps just chosen because that's where they wanted to spend their life. There's a hint of sadness in it, a bit of alienation, maybe, but when their avatars face the mirror and viewers can see the smiling faces of their owners, we are sure that they do it because for them it is their pleasure and their way of life.

The outcome is brilliant: I carry Avatar Days with me on my PSP to look at it sometimes when I'm out, to remind myself that it is not only me who occasionally feels like a guest in this reality, traveling from our own digital world on the other side of the screen.

Excellent movie and great documentary, if you're reading this blog for game-related stuff, then go watch it. You just have to.

New Deus Ex trailer

This guy sounds like Batman

The title says it all - the new Deus Ex: Human War gameplay trailer has gone live. It shows quite a bit of how the game will work and it looks damn fine. You can watch it here on the official Deus Ex channel on Youtube and on the game's website.

I must admit I don't get all the comments about future being only gold: for one, there are screenshots showing greenish and bluish tint, so this is obviously the question of the location in which the protagonist finds himself, and secondly, I personally love it, because it reminds me the old amber monitors and their warm golden screens.

Also, in case you have missed it, here's the post in which I am rambling about the story trailer that, incidentally, was also great, and here you can grab the trailer music.

Persona 2

More good stuff from Atlus

After completing absolutely brilliant Persona 3 Portable, I couldn't wait to try another entry in the series. Since Persona 4 required PS2 and TV set (I have neither), I directed my attention to previous parts: sadly, the internet judged Persona remake to be so-so and Persona 2 was not officially published on the platform. However, I have found the unofficial port of the latter and gave it a try.

This didn't turn out too well: the gameplay felt somewhat dated, the story was convoluted, the presentation was meh, but most importantly, the game would have graphical glitches and mid-fight slowdowns. After spending one or two hours with Persona 2, I removed it from my memory stick.

And now I will have opportunity to give the game a second chance, as Atlus decided to remake it for PSP. Color me interested, even despite the fact they seem to jump back and forth between the successive entries in the series (1, 3, 2).

Persona 2 PSP will feature refreshed graphics (check this post for more comparison shots), including revamped character portraits more similar to the presentation style of the next games, as well as remixed soundtrack with the option to switch to the old one on the fly, plus a few extra bonuses, such as mini-map, turn order display, demon mood gauge and so on. There's also a new opening animation available. The game is supposed to arrive this winter.

I am not sure if this will be as wildly popular as Persona 3 Portable (for which I still owe you a review), but I will definitely be willing to have a go at its refreshed version. Perhaps it will nudge Atlus to give us Persona 4 Portable? What I would really love, though, is to see Perona 4 ported to PSP2 and available as part of the launch lineup. That would be just wicked!

[ via Siliconera ]

Ushiro, once more

Internet detectives are on the case

It always feels great when I bring something up here on Barts News and then get feedback. Recently, I wrote about Ushiro - a PSP game that seemingly disappeared off the radar. Some time later I got contacted by one of the readers, Joshua, who kindly drew my attention to some interesting facts concerning the game in question that he dug out in the Japanese parts of the internet. I started sniffing around, too, and here are the results.

One of the first things is this cryptic message from one of Level 5 employees:

PSP2の背面タッチ レベル5開発中断中の「うしろ」わかるな？

that was posted in response to this Tweet. It is a little hard to decipher the meaning, but let's try, shall we?

The first part "PSP2の背面タッチ" refers to PSP2 rear touch surface - see this post on Eurogamer. The following part "レベル5" means Level 5, then we have "開発中断中" meaning development is suspended (Google Translate gives "pending"), then "の「うしろ」" which means "of Ushiro". The final part is something along the lines of "Got it?" While I would be glad to hear opinion of someone better at Japanese than me - I barely made it through JLPT3 - I think this might mean that Ushiro is (or was) being developed for PSP2. Perhaps the original PSP was just too limited a platform to handle Ushiro?

The second piece of information came from this board (translated via Google Translate). Someone claims they have gotten email response from Level-5 confirming that Ushiro was still under development - the post dates from this year, so if it is true, this would probably mean the game is still being worked on. Unfortunately, the information is not 100% verifiable - contrary to the following one.


Another trace of Ushiro that Joshua found goes back to August 2009, when Akihiro Hino briefly brought it up at Level 5 Vision 2009 (incidentally, notice "lebel5" in url). The part of the relation that covers it goes like this:

イベントの最後に日野氏は、昨年の「LEVEL5 VISION 2008」で発表した新作RPG『うしろ』と、『 イナズマイレブン』のシリーズ作品『イナズマイレブン ブレイク！』について触れた。 　日野氏は「これらの2タイトルに関しては、現時点ではまだ開発中で、お話しできる内容も少ないので、今回は発表を見送らせていただきます」とコメント。鋭意制作中とのことなので、今後の動向に注目したい。

which rougly translates to:

At the end of the event, M. Hino was asked about his new RPG in development "Ushiro" which was showed earlier at the Level5 Vision 2008, as well as Inazuma Eleven Break ! from the Inazuma Eleven series. "About those 2 titles, they are now in development, so I can't tell much about those. I'll give you the presentation material for this time." he said. To be followed closely.

This piece of evidence is incontrovertible - in 2009 Ushiro was still in development. It is just later that it disappeared from the gaming world's radar.

...or not. While all the bits and pieces so far were rather positive, this one might be less optimistic, because it suggests that the concept behind Ushiro could have evolved into another game, namely Time Travelers. Not being that interested in Nintendo 3DS, I missed the announcement of this game, however, once I was shown the trailer, I can't deny it bears some resemblance to Ushiro concept-wise: Japanese student girl, young man looking like walking dead. I am not the only one to notice the similarities.


Is Time Travellers what came out of Ushiro? It could be. Remember, in early drafts of Bioshock the action took place on a Nazi island. Early prototypes of many games have seen the concepts evolve far beyond the initial sketches. What about the timeline then? Unfortunately, things don't look too well if you examine the dates. Let's hear it from Joshua:

I did some trademark searching on the Japanese patent and trademark website. It appears that the trademark for うしろ (Ushiro) was filed or applied for in January 2007. While the trademark for タイムトラベラーズ (Time Travelers) was filed for in January 2010. This has me particularly concerned because it means that the trademark for Time Travelers post-dates the Level5 Vision 2009 announcement that Ushiro was not canceled, but at a stage where it could not be shown off.

While it does not necessarily mean that Time Travelers replaced Ushiro, it does make such possibility rather probable.

Whether we will ever see Ushiro in its original shape remains to be seen - there are chances that Level 5 are still working on it, but they are rather slim. Nevertheless, I would really like to play the game some day or at least know what happened with it.

Many thanks to Joshua for the information he sent my way and to ever so helpful Guillaume, who helped me with Japanese translations.

Hot girl(s) of Dragon Age

Yet another cosplay post

As it often happens, I am late to the party, in this case Dragon Age. It often happens that I miss some new hot games due to some reason or other and am catching up months later. Seeing how everyone on the intertubes has already read everything there was to read on Dragon age, I take it that you have seen the pretty ladies from the game that were featured in Maxim (if not, follow this link). However, I wouldn't be my usual depraved self if I didn't find something extra for you, my dear reader. There is one more pretty lady posing as one the girls from Dragon Age, namely sexy Morrigan:


The lady in question is from Poland and hence might have been missed by all you folks from more civilised countries. Her name is Dorota Gardias and if you want to see more of her skin, check the cover of Wysokie Obcasy Extra, a women's magazine, of all things. Another Dragon Age wallpaper featuring her can be downloaded from the game's webpage. Not sure if this qualifies as cosplay, but hey, you can never have too many pretty ladies dressed up as game characters.

Ushiro - a lost PSP title

Omikron: Nomad Soul meets The Ring

Ushiro means behind in Japanese, as in "behind you!" - which is a very fitting title for a horror game if you think about it. The first mention of Ushiro being developed on PSP came out back in 2008 and it got my hopes high up: not only was it being developed by Level-5, which already gives it stamp of quality, but also it oozed atmosphere, ambiance and certain weirdness that is only found in Japanese horror stories. Since then, Ushiro sadly seems to be lost in the development limbo, as there's been no mention about it whatsoever for a long time - however there is still a flicker of hope. And while I mourn the loss of the very promising title, there's always this excellent trailer to watch (seriously, click the damn link, this is great stuff).


More information on the game can be found on RPGamer, based on this scan from Famitsu magazine:

The protagonist in Ushiro is a bit, shall we say... different. The spooky-looking Reiichiro isn't by any means normal. He is, in fact, a shinigami -- a death god or grim reaper -- who likes to get up close and personal, riding behind his "clients" for a while before the final act. His specialty is with suicides, people whose despair and anguish open portals for dark spirits to enter the world. His partner for the duration of this story is Nanako, a mortal teenager who's probably not going to be on the mortal coil much longer. Like Reiichiro, she can see the "lights," the flickers of life within other people, and can tell if a person will die soon. The game operates on two levels, with Nanako handling all interaction in the human world, and Reiichiro duking it out with dark spirits in the death world.

It's a damn shame this got canned, but I still hope we will see it in future, in one form or the other. Maybe 2D world mixed with 3D fighting in order to make it easier on the PSP? Or maybe full 3D on PSP2 or PS2? Any option that would allow us to experience this strange and disturbing vision is better than non-existence.

Shoot'em up + Music = Shmusicup

Schmooziewhat?

It's been almost a month since I wrote anything even vaguely game-related. I was not slacking off in the meantime, though - my writing appeared in one magazine, one newspaper and two webpages. Even so, my apologies to these faithful few that are still coming back to check this blog every now and then.


Today's gaming topic is "schmusicup", a somewhat strange idea marrying shooters with your mp3 collection. Here's what the devs have to say:

Shmusicup is a hybrid of a rhythm/music game and a shoot'em up. It is a vertical scrolling shooter where the enemy bullet patterns are generated by any mp3 chosen from the player's music collection!

Essentially this is something along the lines of bastard child of Audiosurf and Ikaruga. Not much else is known yet, including the platform (but hey, do I hear i-word?), but I have been told that the game is going to be composed of the series of boss battles, similar to Kenta Cho's RRootage, which, incidentally, I played for quite a while on my PSP. Follow this website to get updates on the subject - plus there is an early trailer, should you be interested to see the concept in motion.