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• The 1UP Show is Dead, Long Live CO-OP

  With the tragic news of the massive layoffs at 1UP and shutdown of EGM came not concern for game coverage but concern for the people and the original content that they produced. 1UP had the humor and the hubris to put their own writers and editors behind the mic and in front of the camera to become the stars of their own game commentary programs and the strangest thing happened: the audience started to connect with the crew of 1UP. Seeing them at play, being privy to their (somewhat) casual conversation, the staff of 1UP/EGM transformed from bylines to personalities. Fans of the 1UP Yours podcast have already rebounded with Rebel FM, and now the 1UP Show has also been reborn with this, the premiere episode of CO-OP. It is, fittingly, their Best Of 2008 episode (part 1). Holy crap, are there a lot of people in that one apartment! Also worthy of note, their new production company is Area 5, so named after the legendarily awesome final stage of REZ. Enjoy the first episode below, and welcome back, kids: Read More... Posted Jan 21 2009, 05:00 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with no comments Filed under: derrick sanskrit, 1up, rez, egm, 2008, best of 2008, rebelfm, area 5, co-op

• John’s Games of 2008: Year of the Character

  Next time you start telling somebody about a game you were playing — not a puzzle game or anything equally abstract — pay attention to how you refer to what you were doing in the game. Are you saying, “Then I jumped on the goomba!” or are you saying, “Then my guy jumped on the goomba!” Is it you finding the boomerang or is it Link? Are you driving the car, making the basket, managing the farm? Or is it your proxy, that little character walking about when you push a button to the right, that window meant to be a human being’s field of vision? As much as I thought about open worlds in 2008, I spent just as much time wondering what role character plays in great game design. A great game character doesn’t need to be one specific thing. It can be you, a literal representation of how you see yourself physically and even spiritually. It can also be a suit for you to put on, a fiction that you can inhabit, a doorway into story that isn’t just different from your daily life, but quite literally impossible. There was no shortage of astounding games in 2008, but there were a handful that, for me, were wholly defined by how they let you inhabit their characters, and characters made both for and by the player. In my first look back at ’08, I mentioned how it was character that ultimately kept me from getting the most out of Grand Theft Auto IV. There was just too much dissonance in how Niko Bellic was represented. There were three Nikos. There was the Niko you see speaking in cutscenes, a haunted, practical man of honor, making a new life for himself in a new country by hunting down the demons of his past. There was the Niko you guided through the game’s structured missions, a ruthless, opportunistic murderer who would destroy anything and anyone for a buck. And, finally, the Niko that you played, the blank slate who could do anything in Liberty City, whether it was enjoying a nice walk on the beach or assaulting an international airport with nothing more than a motorcycle and a baseball bat. At no point in GTAIV did these three Nikos meld into a single character, and the constant contradictions between them made it impossible for me to enjoy the game after a certain point. Metal Gear Solid 4 and Yakuza 2 (my absolute favorite game of 2008) were two of last year’s greatest achievements precisely because they didn’t fall prey to GTAIV’s representational failures. Read More... Posted Jan 07 2009, 06:45 PM by John Constantine with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, the world ends with you, grand theft auto iv, playstation 3, nintendo ds, xbox 360, top ten, gta, playstation 2, mario, soul calibur, peter molyneux, yakuza, yakuza 2, best of 2008, soulcalibur iv, fable ii, kazuma kiriyu, old snake, goomba, solid snake

• Top Ten: The Very Best of 61FPS in 2008

  Now, just before everyone in the Western world hunkers down for some much needed holiday relaxing, it’s time for our most important list: the self-aggrandizing top ten! It’s hard for me to believe that it was only a scant seven months ago that 61 Frames Per Second went from being a glint in Nerve’s eye to the ever-flowing stream of commentary, madness, and love that it is today. When I first started planning the blog, my one goal was to ensure that anyone who stumbled into our colorful corner of the internet would find videogame discussion that was more thoughtful, playful, and free than what they could find elsewhere. These ten articles are the ones that I feel best realize that ambition. In 2009, Joe, Nadia, Derrick, Amber, Cole, Bob, Peter and I will continue doing every thing in our power to make you think about games. Thank you to everyone reading for helping make 2008 the best year of my life. – John Constantine Read More... Posted Dec 19 2008, 04:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, peter smith, derrick sanskrit, top ten, amber ahlborn, cole stryker, bob mackey, nadia oxford, joe keiser, best of 2008

• John’s Games of 2008: Year of the Open World

  The strange thing about the way we delineate time is that repetition — twelve hours, seven days, twelve months, rinse, wash, repeat — tends to make everything feel cyclical. Come January, we stare forward, looking at the flow of hours to weeks like a one-way street full of fresh landmarks, memories, and conversations. But when we end up back at December, there’s a collective and pervasive sense of déjà vu, an overwhelming feeling that we’re suddenly back in the exact same shoes we were the last time it was December, and we take stock of everything we saw upon that fresh stretch of road as though we’ve come back to the start. We weigh the fruits of time’s passage and immediately compare them to what came before. Maybe that’s why those of us so obsessed with pop culture, who worship at the altar of creation and consumption, gravitate towards retrospective lists; we just can’t seem to help looking back right before we look forward again. I’ve had a lot of trouble figuring out just how to quantify the videogames of 2008, wrestling back and forth with just what to say. There are games that, by the end of my time with them, I downright loathed, that I never wanted to play again, but that I couldn’t shake out of my brain thanks to one aspect of their design. I never managed to finish Grand Theft Auto IV because I was so repulsed by its schizophrenic depiction of character when it put so much emphasis on story (and more on that later.) GTAIV’s Liberty City, though, is something I still think about on an almost daily basis. It is one of the most beautiful and strange creations I’ve ever seen, something more than a photograph, sculpture or film thanks to the way you are allowed to inhabit it. The game’s goals are frustrating to achieve, its characters more personality than people, and its story is at odds with its interactivity. But its world is astounding, just real enough to be familiar, and just other enough to warrant exploring it when its real world inspiration is right outside your door. I hated Grand Theft Auto IV by the time I stopped playing it, but I have to bring it up here because 2008 was the year of the Open World for me. Read More... Posted Dec 16 2008, 07:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, grand theft auto iv, no more heroes, burnout paradise, far cry 2, crackdown, top ten of 2008, mercenaries, elder scrolls, best of 2008

• Overworld: Yakuza

  Overworld examines how one game or series establishes a unique sense of place. I’ve never been to Japan. But having played the Yakuza franchise, I can say that…I still have no semblance of what it’s like to be in Japan. But I do have a strong sense of a picture of an urban Japan, of what the leaders at Amusement Vision feel the cities must be like for a haunted, violent criminal. It’s an affecting place, one the hangs an ever-present melancholy over the game. It’s not so much a visual thing, though the graphics do combine technology-limited photorealism with broad splashes of the anime aesthetic for a look that is recognizably Japanese. It’s also not just about the meaningless street violence, of which there is plenty—that exists more for the sake of story progression, though it naturally colors the experience of the environment as well. But it’s more about the little things, what Yakuza will and will not let you do as you interact with the world, that gives its urban Japan its lonely, oppressive feel. Let’s look at what you can do: you can eat, partially to heal up, but mostly for the experience of eating while facing an empty chair. You can drink, for seemingly no reason, again with experience (and a chatty bartender) being the sole incentive. You can play video games, in an arcade, alone. You can watch videos, some of them dirty, in a small room alone. You can pay a young lady to be your friend. You can be paid to be somebody else’s friend. Now let’s look at what you pointedly can’t do: talk to most of the people on the streets. Of the ones that will talk to you, most will fight you; there’s no avoiding this, other than to avoid these people entirely. Read More... Posted Dec 02 2008, 02:00 PM by Joe Keiser with | with no comments Filed under: overworld, japan, yakuza 2, joe keiser, best of 2008

• Crossing the Uncanny Valley: Part 5

  In this day and the foreseeable future video games will continue to push the envelope of photo realism and, no doubt, continue to send the occasional victim down into the Uncanny Valley by accident. Of course, as technology and associated animation techniques advance, the game industry's ability to fool us will get better. I say, more power to them, but... Read More... Posted Nov 21 2008, 10:00 AM by Amber Ahlborn with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: uncanny valley, amber ahlborn, art style, best of 2008

• Crossing the Uncanny Valley: Part 4

  In my previous post in this series, I talked about the pitfalls associated with animating faces, specifically pointing out how incredibly hard it is to photo realistically animate a human face due to the array of subtle yet complex interactions of muscles and skin. Now we move on to the broader animation of the body. You can divide animation techniques into two broad categories: by hand, which means the animation was achieved manually by an artist; and assisted animation, where most or all of the animation has been created through mechanical means for the purpose of capturing greater realism in movement. The two mechanical techniques I'll be talking about in this post are rotoscoping and motion capture. Naturally, since this series is about the Uncanny Valley, I'll be focusing on how these assisted animation techniques can go horribly wrong... Read More... Posted Nov 20 2008, 11:00 AM by Amber Ahlborn with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: uncanny valley, amber ahlborn, art design, best of 2008

• Crossing the Uncanny Valley: Part 3

  So close and yet so far... (scene from Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within animated movie) There are over 50 muscles in the human face. Those muscles that control expression make the face an incredibly mobile part of human anatomy, capable of both extreme and subtle displays of emotion. The skin that lies over those muscles is highly elastic. It stretches and creases, wrinkles, bulges, and puckers. While catching every last subtle motion of the face isn't impossible, it's certainly a herculean task to ask of an animator, much more likely to end in failure than success. Even Squaresoft, who spent nearly enough time, money, and talent to bankrupt itself on an incredibly ambitious movie failed to perfectly cast the illusion of true human expression. Video game budgets are much tighter on all resources, thus, when photorealism is the goal, the end result typically ends up squarely in the Uncanny Valley the moment the camera focuses on a face. Read More... Posted Nov 19 2008, 10:00 AM by Amber Ahlborn with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: uncanny valley, amber ahlborn, art style, best of 2008

• Crossing the Uncanny Valley: Part 2

  Welcome back, dear readers, to my Uncanny Valley Special. For part two we're actually going to take a side trip out of the Valley and look at a related artist's dilemma: that of familiarity. Part of the reason we are repulsed by characters that are a fraction off of being truly human is our familiarity with what healthy humans should look like. This familiarity also extends to nonhuman animals and some critters can give an artist trouble if she or he isn't familiar with the anatomy. The hilarious results can be painful to look at. Read More... Posted Nov 18 2008, 10:00 AM by Amber Ahlborn with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: uncanny valley, amber ahlborn, art style, best of 2008

• Ceci N'Est Pas Une 1-Up: The Surrealist Future of Postpunk Gaming

  While reading Rip It Up and Start Again, Simon Reynolds’ sharp history of postpunk, I started thinking about videogames. I’m nothing if not predictable, I know. There’s a slight corollary between the gaming zeitgeist and punk rock. Not politically, of course. Videogames are, at least popularly, more conservative today than they’ve ever been. Just look at Bobby Kotick’s reasoning for dropping Brutal Legend and Ghostbusters from Activision’s release schedule: "[Those games] don't have the potential to be exploited every year on every platform with clear sequel potential and have the potential to become $100 million dollar franchises.” I realize that Activision is in the business of making money and not artifacts to inspire the human soul, but publicly stating that your publishing ethos is assembly-line-production makes it difficult to assess the creative merits of Guitar Hero: Buy This One Too, Just ‘Cause. No, videogames in 2008 are, like punk rock in 1974, taking a medium that’s become marked by excess and stripping it back to its most basic. Even beyond Capcom’s retro efforts and traditional two-dimensional, genre exercises (Braid, Castle Crashers) on Xbox Live, designers like DICE are trying to keep games simple and raw. Mirror’s Edge, for all of its visual polish, uses only three buttons for the bulk of its action and the game’s goals are uncomplicated (run to, run away.) Games are also trying to put the power of creation back into the audience’s hands. Halo 3’s Forge, LittleBigPlanet, and Maxis’ Spore might not be putting players into the guts of design, but they are inlets for everyone to make their own games. You don’t need to know how to play guitar to rock, and you don’t need to know C++, or draw, or write to make a game. Add these mainstream juggernauts to the booming independent dev scene, the confrontational tedium of games like No More Heroes (as Goichi Suda says, punk’s not dead,) and we may look back on the 2010s as gaming’s punk rock era. But how does punk lead to postpunk, the rebellion of aestheticism through the surreal and the futurist against the simplistic and traditional? What would that game even look like? Read More... Posted Nov 13 2008, 04:30 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, little big planet, dice, no more heroes, halo 3, guitar hero, Ghostbusters, spore, activision, super mario galaxy, spectrum zx, mirror’s edge, goichi suda, bobby kotick, dues ex machine, maxis, simon Reynolds, punk, rip it up and start again, postpunk, brutal legend, best of 2008

• Crossing the Uncanny Valley: Part 1

  Time doesn't seem to be on my side. As my day job devours so much of my time I tend to wait until the weekend to do the majority of my writing which means that sometimes somebody else writes about what I was planning to write about. In this case, it would be the Uncanny Valley; a theory concerning design (mostly visual but it can extend to the other senses as well). The Uncanny Valley is an incredibly important concept for artists in the video game industry to grasp. With today's systems being as powerful as they are, photo realistic graphics are not simply possible but becoming ever more common, and if I had my way, no artist (or director, or producer) would be allowed to work on a game project without having a solid grasp of what the Uncanny Valley is and how it relates to the art assets used in video games. Seriously, somebody has already done the heavy lifting for me in describing what the Uncanny Valley is. Go here. The article even includes an awesome little video that explains the theory in simple, clear, and entertaining terms. Do it, I'll wait... Back already? Okay then, let me add to what we've learned. Read More... Posted Nov 10 2008, 10:00 AM by Amber Ahlborn with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: uncanny valley, amber ahlborn, graphics, game design, best of 2008

• Nobody Puts Bionic Commando in A Corner

  Late last night, I was sitting in my library, enjoying a nice cup of earl grey tea, a pipe, and the day's copy of The Times. It was the first night of autumn cool enough for a fire and I’d brought one to a crackling burn in my home’s blackened hearth. The evening was a picture of utter tranquility, the sort of convalescence one scoffs at in youth and longs for later in life when a day’s labors start to take their toll. But it was around 10pm when this harmony was shattered! My lover, Bionic Commando, burst into the room wailing, tears streaming from its eyes, its heavenly façade twisted and mangled by anguish! “My love, what ever is the matter?” I asked, alarmed. “It’s that awful man from the Sunburnt Country! He called me such terrible things!” “I’m afraid I don’t understand, dearest. Who is this rogue who dared question your honor?” “You know. Benjamin Croshaw. Yahtzee. The videogame critic from the island of convicts who walks about in a Justin Timberlake hat. He makes his trade nattering on about obese fellows being silly for liking terrible entertainments. Like me! Oh!” Bionic Commando swooned, its clawed hand against its forehead. Read More... Posted Sep 25 2008, 02:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, yahtzee, zero punctuation, bionic commando, the escapist, soul caliber, I am slowly going out of my mind, star tropics, best of 2008

• Katamari in the Classroom, Part 2

  If you haven't read part one, I recommend doing that. Are we caught up now? Thank you. Last week, I wrote about the ongoing We Love Katamari experiment I was conducting on my students; this week, I have the results. For this post, I've chosen a few of the more interesting responses from a group of 50 that's composed mostly of non-gamers. Their goal was to explain their experience with the game using the concept of "probing" (essentially, the scientific method) from Steven Johnson's book, Everything Bad is Good for You; basically, I wanted an account of an attempt to figure out the We Love Katamari. As I said before, things like this are always an interesting read to see how the "other side" reacts to our beloved hobby--especially when it's as outlandish as Katamari. Read More... Posted Sep 16 2008, 02:30 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: katamari damacy, bob mackey, teaching, best of 2008

• For Love of the Game: Quest for Glory II

  Lori and Corey Cole's Quest for Glory was always one of my favorite franchises. It set unusually logical puzzle-solving (by adventure-game standards — no “THROW BRIDLE AT SNAKE” here) in culturally distinct worlds that went beyond the usual D&D boilerplate. Even in Quest for Glory I, which eased players into the series with a traditional medieval setting, the sense of place was richer than usual. (My favorite detail: a frost giant from north of the Germanic game-world speaks in the alliterative verse of Beowulf.) But Quest for Glory II must've blindsided fans of the first game. Expanding the small-scale campaign of QfGI into a world-saving epic, it also transported the hero from a sleepy European valley to the full-sized Arabian city of Shapeir. In all the hype about GTAIV earlier this year, I couldn't help thinking that QfGII had done the same thing decades before — not at the same scale, but with as much attention to detail. Read More... Posted Sep 11 2008, 10:00 AM by Peter Smith with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: peter smith, remake, for love of the game, fan project, quest for glory, sierra, lori cole, corey cole, adventure game, agd interactive, quest for glory ii, best of 2008

• Katamari in the Classroom, Part 1

  One of my goals is life is to turn the rest of the world into as big of a nerd as I am because--wait, why do I need to explain myself here?  All I have to say is that my job as a teacher of college writing allows me to force video games on the afraid and unwilling, which is always a good thing.  It's all part of making the world just as nerdy as me. Of course, there's a method to my madness.  The backbone of my course is a nice little book called Everything Bad is Good For You, which states that video games actually give our brains a cognitive workout, because they require a constant use of the scientific method.  And because video games are all about teaching you things within the context of their use, I force my students to write a paper based on a game they choose to play in order to see some of the concepts of our texts embodied in action.  But first, I make them play We Love Katamari. Read More... Posted Sep 10 2008, 06:45 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: katamari damacy, teaching, best of 2008

• Mario Will Not Retire. He Will Outlive Us All.

  Growing up, we all kind of hated the rich kid. Even if he was the sweetest child in the world who only wanted to share his toys and candy and have us come over and play in his hedge maze (remember that episode of Care Bears? If not, silly me, I just made up another euphemism for sex), we'd lapse into an uncomfortable, cringing silence around him, like dogs in the presence of an alpha. When he wasn't around, we'd seethe and hiss in his direction. There are gamers in this world who are similarly intimidated by the existence of our hairy king, Mario. He benevolently brought many of us into this glorious, mind-gelling hobby. He has walked, run and jumped with us since we were children. Thanks to Mushroom Kingdom logic, we have baffled our teachers with adamant declarations about raccoons flying and fireballs bouncing underwater. Just last year, we soared through space with our magic plumber and visited more fantastic planes than the Little Prince. Mario is grand. And that's why the latest Internet fad, in which bloggers call for his retirement, is impotent and sad. I'm still unsure who first decided to make the ill declaration; likely someone desperate to crown himself King Controversy. This time, freelancer Patrick Goss takes the throne and gives us his reasons why Mario should give it all up and open a spaghetti farm. The article is admittedly well-written and free from the venom that usually shoots from the mouths of message board trolls who feel qualified to look down on Shigeru Miyamoto. Still, I feel obligated to counter. Read More... Posted Aug 26 2008, 10:05 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 16 comment(s) Filed under: mario, super mario 64, 8-bit, retro, 16-bit, controversy, nadia oxford, retirement, super mario 2, gamers, super mario, game culture, super mario 3, patrick goss, best of 2008

• Rebuttal Rebuttal – I Stand With Metroid

  So, I recently incited the wrath of seemingly thousands of NeoGAF readers by defaming the good standing of Metroid: Zero Mission. One of them even said he hated me as much as he hated Amy Winehouse, which was so left-field I almost took it personally. Let me further establish that I am totally batshit, tastewise, by giving you my list of favorite games in the Metroid series: Read More... Posted Jul 09 2008, 04:00 PM by Peter Smith with | with 7 comment(s) Filed under: peter smith, metroid, super metroid, metroid fusion, the legend of zelda, amber ahlborn, metroid prime, metroid ii, mega man vi, mega man ii, chozo, alien, metroid prime 3, atheism, return of samus, metroid prime 2, gumpei yokoi, a link to the past, space pirates, zero mission, ice beam, best of 2008

• Rebuttal - Say What About Metroid: Zero Mission?

  Fellow blogger Peter Smith recently posted a list covering video game remakes: five that were great and five that weren't. As with any opinion, not everyone will agree and many of the titles on the “not great” list have caused strong negative reactions in the comments. Indeed, when I saw the proposed list before it went live I warned Mr. Smith that I would have some strong words about one particular game in a post of my own. To quote myself, “I vehemently protest your placing Zero Mission in a worst remakes list where it most definitely does not belong on any objective basis.” Here we go... Read More... Posted Jul 08 2008, 01:00 PM by Amber Ahlborn with | with 11 comment(s) Filed under: metroid, nintendo, metroid zero mission, super metroid, metroid fusion, amber ahlborn, metroid prime, gameboy advance, best of 2008

• The Five Greatest Enhanced Remakes - And Five That Weren't So Great, Part 3

  And now, the bad... Metroid: Zero Mission (Game Boy Advance) Is Metroid: Zero Mission a terrible game? By no means. On its own terms, it's rather good. But as a reconception of one of the greatest, most influential games ever made, it's a disaster, taking everything that made Metroid spooky and replacing it with a thick layer of corn. Metroid was heavily influenced by Alien. Remember the petrified extraterrestrial skeleton in Alien? What if that bastard had gotten up and started bombarding Sigourney Weaver with some hack's idea of ancient wisdom? Wouldn't that have pretty much thrown the movie's chilly austerity out the window? Like so many latter-day games, Zero Mission thinks comic-book jibber-jabber is cooler than eerie silence. This lack of subtlety is echoed in the gameplay itself, which, while it controls a lot better than Metroid, is chock-full of egregious hand-holding and advice-giving — pretty much the exact opposite of the original's sprawling openendedness. Metroid is practically Lovecraftian in the way it makes you feel tiny and alone in a vast and hostile universe. Don't look for that feeling in Zero Mission. Oh, and it also mangles the most immortal climax in videogame history — the truly unsettling slaughter of a shrieking brain in a jar, followed by a hair-raising escape sequence — by tacking on a (sigh) stealth section. — PS Read More... Posted Jul 03 2008, 05:02 PM by Peter Smith with | with 17 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, peter smith, metroid zero mission, resident evil, super mario bros 3, final fantasy, top ten, list, rondo of blood, chrono trigger, final fantasy iv, ninja gaiden trilogy, golden axe, super mario kart, space harrier, castlevania dracula x chronicles, sega ages, tomb raider anniversary, tomb raider legend, super mario advance 4, five greatest enhanced remakes, five bad enhanced remakes, mega man powered up, gunstar heroes, square, mario kart wii, panzer dragoon, outrun, cruis'n usa, best of 2008

• The Five Greatest Enhanced Remakes - And Five That Weren't So Great, Part 2

  Final Fantasy (WonderSwan Color) The first in a vast battalion of Final Fantasy rereleases, the Wonderswan remake actually gets it righter than any that were to come. Sure, the Playstation version has FMV intros (whoo-hoo?), the GBA version has some mostly extraneous new dungeons, and the PSP version has sharper graphics. But the Wonderswan version gave the NES original a beautiful visual makeover that later ports would simply poach, and more importantly, it corrected some of the original game's antiquated design quirks in a totally optional fashion. In the NES game, if two characters attack one enemy and the first one kills it, the second character's attack will be ineffective. This is annoying, but it also forces you to plan; it adds some strategy to the essentially one-dimensional battle system. You could really argue for or against the feature, and the Wonderswan port gives you a choice. The same goes for a number of other idiosyncracies we cranky old-timers like to keep in our enhanced remakes; subsequent rereleases dumbed the game down until you could grind through it with a rubber band around the A button. — PS Read More... Posted Jul 03 2008, 05:01 PM by Peter Smith with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, peter smith, metroid zero mission, resident evil, super mario bros 3, final fantasy, top ten, list, rondo of blood, chrono trigger, final fantasy iv, ninja gaiden trilogy, golden axe, super mario kart, space harrier, castlevania dracula x chronicles, sega ages, tomb raider anniversary, tomb raider legend, super mario advance 4, five greatest enhanced remakes, five bad enhanced remakes, mega man powered up, gunstar heroes, square, mario kart wii, panzer dragoon, outrun, cruis'n usa, best of 2008

• The Five Greatest Enhanced Remakes - And Five That Weren't So Great, Part 1

  Well, having burned through our annual pants-replacement fund on the announcement of Chrono Trigger DS, we here at 61FPS now find ourselves surprisingly ambivalent about this remake (or is it just a rerelease?) of the greatest game Square ever made. Sure, it could be handsome and polished. But it could be sloppy and buggy, too. It could add new gameplay elements, or it could dumb down those that were already there. Chrono Trigger's a delicate thing! Be careful with that priceless art item, you sausage-fingered renovators! And here to guide you on a righteous path are five enhanced remakes that got it right — and five that didn't. — Peter Smith FIVE GREAT REMAKES Tomb Raider Anniversary (PlayStation 2) Most games simply do not need to be remade. As beautiful and ambitious as Square's impending Final Fantasy IV DS is, its voiced dialogue, new script, and three-dimensional overhaul are icing on a cake that was already delicious despite its simplicity. The original Tomb Raider, however, is a once-revolutionary title ravaged by the passage of time and the growth of technology. Forget how Lara's 1996 debut looks. Just think about trying to play a fully-3D game that requires precision platforming using only a d-pad. Crystal Dynamics' full remake of Tomb Raider put the engine from Lara's rebirth, the decent Tomb Raider: Legend, to great use, re-introducing the world to the game and, most importantly, preserving it in a way so people can actually play it in the years to come. Plus, grappling hooks are awesome. — John Constantine Read More... Posted Jul 03 2008, 05:00 PM by Peter Smith with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, peter smith, metroid zero mission, resident evil, super mario bros 3, final fantasy, top ten, list, rondo of blood, chrono trigger, final fantasy iv, ninja gaiden trilogy, golden axe, super mario kart, space harrier, castlevania dracula x chronicles, sega ages, tomb raider anniversary, tomb raider legend, super mario advance 4, five greatest enhanced remakes, five bad enhanced remakes, mega man powered up, gunstar heroes, square, mario kart wii, panzer dragoon, outrun, cruis'n usa, best of 2008

• Counterpoint: Too Many Games?

  Michael Zenke over at the always excellent Game Set Watch thinks that there are just too durned many good games nowadays! Furthermore, he bemoans the culture's lack of canonization (i.e. we don't appreciate our medium's classics like we should). He argues, "what’s good for the industry is not the same thing as what’s good for the gamer." Zenke cites The Paradox of Choice, arguing that an overabundance of choices leaves us feeling depressed about that which we've missed out on. I haven't played The Orange Box yet. Heck, I haven't played Half Life 2 yet. I haven't played Bioshock, COD4, Halo 3 or MGS4. I'm OK with this. I spent the last year introducing my new wife to the joys of Earthbound, playing through Grim Fandango, Homeworld, Planescape: Torment, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, and Deus Ex. Sure, I played some new games, but I don't feel compelled to play every game, or even every excellent game that comes out. Ironically, I'm finally at a point in life where I can afford to buy all the newest hardware and I even get free games for review. What I lack is time. "You couldn’t go into a store and buy Call of Duty 4 without *having* to pick up Super Mario Galaxy. Can’t snag Rock Band without that Burning Crusade box. And - seriously - can you even still be called a gamer if you didn’t play at least one of the offerings from The Orange Box?" If this is the case, I think we need to think about redefining the word "gamer". The music enthusiast shouldn't feel compelled to own every critically acclaimed album, why should gamers agonize over the games they simply must pass over?   Read More... Posted Jul 02 2008, 12:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: cole stryker, earthbound, game set watch, best of 2008

• Alternate Soundtrack - Donkey Kong '94 vs. Les Savy Fav

  Words and video by Derrick Sanskrit The original Donkey Kong is justly considered one of the great landmarks in video game history. It popularized the now all-too familiar concept of platforming and introduced two of the most memorable video game characters of all time: the titular villainous ape and the overalls-clad carpenter named Jumpman, soon rebranded as the lovable plumber known Galaxy-wide as Mario. Even though the game was only four stages long, it demonstrated a clear story - ape abducts pretty lady, climbs up skyscraper, hero gives chase, avoiding obstacles - that resonated in the hearts of millions. After thirteen years, Donkey Kong was starting to feel a bit restricted and, as all teenagers do, decided to branch out to seem more exciting and relevant. The result was 1994's Donkey Kong for the Game Boy. It starts off with the original four stages but then continues for an astounding ninety-seven more that see Mario struggle across cityscapes, jungles, icebergs, valleys, and more outrageous environments. The soundtrack is sparse, with only a few sound effects for your actions and gentle musical clues to make you aware of time constraints. It is so elegantly simple that it induces a zen-like state; it invites a calm focus on the tasks ahead so you can rationally solve the puzzles before you. The only problem with this is that it’s completely unrealistic to be calm and rational when jumping across one-hundred-and-one stages in pursuit of your girlfriend and an enormous ape! Thankfully, this minimal soundtrack allows me to choose my own mood music without having to eliminate those all-important sound effects like I do with other games. Les Savy Fav are a lot like Donkey Kong, and not because their lead singer is a wild, hairy ape who climbs scaffolding (see Coachella 2008). Les Savy Fav are genre pioneers themselves, credited with creating the Brooklyn dance-punk sound that made bands like Liars and The Rapture famous years before their respective breakthroughs. While they are best known for their frenetic live shows and for 2004's Inches, it is 2001's Go Forth that is their best music for alternate soundtracking. Go Forth actually manages to take the innocently bizarre narrative scenario of Donkey Kong '94 and transform it into beautifully desperate drama. Read More... Posted May 27 2008, 10:00 AM by John Constantine with | with 8 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo, alternate soundtrack, derrick sanskrit, mario, donkey kong, les savy fav, best of 2008