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• Hey, RPG Hero: Go Home and Be a Family Man

  So on Saturday I indulged in my weekly Mother 3 play session-- ("Oh God, she's talking about Mother 3 again, you sneak up behind her with this piano wire while I slip this cyanide into Mackey's coffee.") Please let me live. I don't know when I'm going to be so motivated to pick a game's brain ever again. Mother 3 is unlike any RPG I've ever played--and for the simplest reasons. This, more than anything, is what fascinates me about the game. Shigesato Itoi realises that the easiest way to get people to love your characters is to treat them like human beings. For some reason, woefully few of his fellow RPG designers have picked that up. It's rare to find an RPG cast that everyone can relate to on a human level. Mother 3's world-saving brigade casts ground-shaking magic and racks up experience points and throws giant staples at enemies like any other JRPG (okay, the staples, not so much), but Itoi wants us to feel close to them. So he draws us in by being realstic about the one thing that unites even Superman with the common Earthling: family. Here there be spoilers. (Oh and don't feed Mackey any cyanide. Thank you. His parents appreciate your restraint.) Read More... Posted Nov 24 2008, 07:35 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: rpg, earthbound, mother 3, gba, jrpg, nadia oxford, shigesato itoi, famly

• OST: Mother

  Everyone knows that Earthbound has some godly music, and we've all recently come to discover that Mother 3 is no slouch in this department, either. But what about the first Mother, AKA Earthbound Zero? Sadly, this is the one game in the trilogy that's almost always overlooked; it may be the least fun to play out of all three Mothers, but the soundtrack by Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka helped lay the foundation for some of Earthbound's best tracks. American gamers had no idea back in 1995, but the sleepy, heartwarming music of Ness' house is a direct callback to one of the overworld themes of the first Mother; makes sense, given the connection with childhood homes and nostalgia. The greatest--and at the same time, strangest--thing about the first Mother is without a doubt its Japan-only (duh) soundtrack.  Instead of putting out the simple NES tunes on a CD, the producers went one step further by creating "complete" versions of Suzuki and Tanaka's songs with full instrumentation and lyrics.  I'm not going to lie; most of these lyrics are pure Velveeta straight out of the late 80s--but at least a native English speaker is singing them.  Embarrassing or not, these songs give us a peek into an alternate universe where Mother was a Disney musical instead of a Japanese 8-bit video game. And notably, two of the OST's songs are far more sweeping and epic than any Celine Dion Titanic single could ever be. Read More... Posted Nov 21 2008, 11:00 AM by Bob Mackey with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: ost, earthbound, mother 3, mother 2, bob mackey, mother

• "Have You Heard the News? He's Gay!"

  I'm still not done with Mother 3. You could say I'm savouring it (something Mackey can surely appreciate). I'm coming close to the end though, so I'm in an adequate position to talk about the game on message boards. This is an especially fun way to waste time because Mother's papa, Shigesato Itoi, never struck me as a convential game designer. He's a writer first, something that I think comes out clearly in his games. For instance, I was talking with a dapper gentleman in a tophat about some of Itoi's characters in Earthbound and Mother 3. Both games feature at least one gay character. This is nothing new in Japanese-developed games and anime, where gays and transvestites serve the same function as our own laughtracks. Everyone laugh at the flamboyant man fretting over his shoes and dress! It's funny 'cause men aren't supposed to do that! The difference with Itoi's characters is that the player is not really supposed to laugh at them. They're vital to the plot, but they just so happen to be gay. Read More... Posted Nov 13 2008, 07:19 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 7 comment(s) Filed under: earthbound, mother 3, mother 2, nadia oxford, homosexuality, shigesato itoi, gay characters, gay

• Earthbound in 3D

  With writer Shigesato Itoi calling it quits with the Mother franchise after Mother 3, it won't be long until we start seeing remakes--or maybe that's just wishful thinking. As charming as the original Earthbound (Mother 2) was, those 3D renders of in-games towns Onett and Fourside in Super Smash Bros. Melee were enough to make any EB fan squeal with glee. In my wildest of video game-related daydreams, I've often thought of an Earthbound remake, made completely in 3D, with the characters looking just like their little clay models did in the strategy guide. Some men dream, while others do; like YouTube user cswavely, who has painstakingly rendered a few of Earthbound's town in glorious 3D. Even with that whole new axis, they feel completely authentic to the original game's stubby sprites; but I'll let you judge for yourself: More videos after the cut. Read More... Posted Oct 28 2008, 04:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: earthbound, mother 3, fan projects, mother 2, fan stuff, fandom, remakes, bob mackey, mother, shigesato itoi

• On Renaming Characters

  As part of my generally anal-retentive gaming habits, I never rename characters in RPGs.  In my eyes, anything other than the original, intended names would be sacrilege; even at the age of twelve, you could find me correcting the all-caps names of my characters in Final Fantasy III to a more sensible case setting. For me, it's always been about immersion. As creative as I can be, it just feels so wrong to go against the designers' original choices, even when I'm given the option to change those choices. Maybe watching my stepdad play through Final Fantasy II starring my family warped me somehow--after all, he made me Kain. When I'm given an array of ready-to-be-names blank slates, I typically don't get too wacky. The guys are typically named after me and my friends, while the single girl character (there's usually only one) is reserved for my current girlfriend or possible girlfriend-to-be (god willing). I'll admit that games like Earthbound, with relatively personality-free main characters, also fall into this habit of mine, as do games like Secret of Mana, where I learn that the characters have names years after the fact--and also that these names are very dumb. In the era of voice-acting, renaming characters is no longer the norm. The awkward, off-putting, just-chugged-a-bottle-of-NyQuil conversations of Final Fantasy X were made all the more creepy by the simple fact that the other characters could not say Tidus' name--after all, you might've changed it. Years later, Dragon Quest VIII handled this problem much better; the name you'd chosen for your character still appeared in the written dialogue, but characters would say things like "my boy" and "guv'nah" instead of the offending proper noun. Here, I could name my character "Bob" and not worry about the consequences. So where does everyone else fall on this issue? I can't be the only one who feels compelled to stick to the original names I'm given, no matter how asinine they may be. Read More... Posted Oct 27 2008, 08:30 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 9 comment(s) Filed under: final fantasy vi, earthbound, final fantasy iv, bob mackey, character names

• The Reason Why Mother 3 Never Came to America

  None. There is no good reason why Mother 3 never came to America. Oh, there are a couple of valid reasons why we never officially received Earthbound's follow-up, but they're not necessarily good. The easiest blame can be laid on finances. We are elbow-deep in the era of the Nintendo DS right now and the heyday of the Game Boy Advance is long over. Nintendo might get away with releasing all three Mother games in a DS collection, but that's obviously not going to happen in a grand hurry. By now, the universe knows that the original Earthbound bombed on the Super Nintendo. Nintendo did a beautiful, loving job with the packaging and translation, but dropped the marketing ball hard enough to cannonball clear to China. Earthbound was marketed as a cheesy science fiction game brimming with toilet humour, which it wasn't. Alas, a mass-mailing of scratch-and-sniff stickers made to smell like rancid pizza will do a lot to kill an appetite for game. Besides, after experiencing the majesty of Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger, why would anyone want to fight against giant piles of barf? I sure didn't. Earthbound tanked, Nintendo made up their mind about American tastes and Mother 3 never had a chance at a ticket to America. Since the release of the translation patch, however, more than one person has claimed that maybe Nintendo's fear of another financial disaster wasn't the only thing keeping Mother 3 from the States. There was suddenly talk about in-game content being inappropriate for American audiences: the dark story, the characters (oh, the characters) and whatnot. God knows Japan has thousands of little quirks that only those born under its flag can truly appreciate, but I don't see how Mother 3 is one of them. Read More... Posted Oct 27 2008, 05:35 AM by Nadia Oxford with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: snes, earthbound, mother 3, super nintendo, retail, censorship, game boy advance, nadia oxford, profits

• Mother 3 Makes Me Feel Human Again

  Nadia's recent post got me thinking (and sniffling) about a game I've been playing--and a game I hope you're not sick of hearing about yet--Mother 3. The Japanese advertising campaign for Mother 3 declared the long-awaited sequel to be "strange, funny, and heartrending." While I haven't exactly been shedding tears over Mother 3, I can at least say that it's remarkably sad; and shockingly, scenario writer Shigesato Itoi has made his game "heartrending" in a completely sincere way. Forget about melodramatic depictions of flower girls being impaled; the tiny sprites of Mother 3 have been able to convey more emotion than any other game in recent memory. Spoilers for Chapters 1-3 coming up. This Japanese Mother 3 commercial should provide a nice buffer: Spoilers after the cut... Read More... Posted Oct 22 2008, 01:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: earthbound, mother 3, gba, bob mackey, shigesato itoi, emotions

• The Mother 3 Strategy Guide: Fandom Done Right

  Since I've had the chance to play it all weekend, I can say that I've been completely impressed by the Mother 3 translation project--so much so that the kind people at 61FPS are probably going to have to send people to my house to get me to stop blogging about it (this also happened with Mega Man 9). But until hired goons show up at my door, I'd like to write about the upcoming Mother 3 strategy guide, which shows just as much devotion, hard work, and obsessiveness (the good kind) as the translation itself. In keeping with the theme of the amazing (though mostly unecessary) strategy guide originally bundled with the American release of Earthbound, the fine people at Starmen.net and Fangamer have been working on a Mother 3 strategy guide in a pseudo-travelogue format--though this is no paltry .txt file uploaded hastily to GameFAQs.  We're looking at a full-color, roughly 200 page tome of Mother 3 goodness, fully illustrated (and clay-modeled) by devoted fans, that won't ship until early next year. And if you've got a small amount of disposable income like me, you can head on over to Fangamer's Mother 3 handbook page and give up a mere twenty dollars to make yourself happier in the future.  As a bonus, you'll also get a Franklin Badge keychain that probably won't ward off lightning.  I wouldn't try it, anyway. Read More... Posted Oct 20 2008, 11:00 AM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: earthbound, mother 3, translation, bob mackey, merchandise, strategy guides, fangamer

• What I'm Playing This Weekend: Mother 3. Doi.

  When we log onto the wide, wide Internet and talk about the games we loved as children, it's inevitable that a mean person will say, "That's just nostalgia talking. Game X was actually badly designed/badly written/infected with rabies." Then you break down and cry because you know it's true, at least to a point. But having only experienced Earthbound for the first time a mere few months ago, there is nothing nostalgic about my naked, shameless love for that game. I wholly believe that video games try way too hard to be art, but there are only a rare few titles that I would be comfortable about shooting into space to represent the human species as a whole. Earthbound is one, a lovely story about growing up in the shadow of world-devouring elder gods. I am fortunate because my wait for the Mother 3 translation has been short compared to long-established Earthbound fans'. Even so, it's been a nail-biting few months; I checked the site every day, poured over the trailers, marvelled at Tomato's work. Finally, the wait is over. Read More... Posted Oct 17 2008, 08:57 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 8 comment(s) Filed under: earthbound, mother 3, fan translation, nadia oxford, what i'm playing this weekend

• THE MOTHER 3 TRANSLATION IS OUT

  I have to apologize for posting about the Mother 3 translation project twice in one week, but this post contains actual news, as opposed to just speculation. Today--right now--you can finally grab the Mother 3 translation patch; though how you choose to use it is entirely up to you (Note: it cannot possibly be used for evil). Here's the newest trailer, in case you still need convincing: I can't think of a better way to end this post than with project lead Tomato's comments about this project finally wrapping up: After more than 13 years of waiting, the sequel to EarthBound is now in English! I hope fans of the series, new and old, will find MOTHER 3 to be just as unique and interesting as its predecessors. We tried our very best to make a worthy translation, and I think we came close to hitting that mark. With any luck, the translation will seem just as "strange, funny, and heartrending" as the original Japanese version. MOTHER 3 is filled with secrets and rarities. Characters say new things after even the tiniest of events. Take your time to explore the game's intriguing world - you won't be disappointed! And when you're done, be sure to come back here, because we've prepared many more goodies for fans to check out and enjoy post-game! Enjoy your time in the world of MOTHER 3! Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to waste a significant portion of my Friday. Go and grab the patch HERE if you didn't do so immediately. Read More... Posted Oct 17 2008, 12:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: earthbound, mother 3, translation, gba, bob mackey, rom hacks

• Break On Through The Underside

  Announcements about fan-run game projects have a way of making us all slump our cheeks into our fists with a sigh. This could have something to do with the tendency of fan projects to never get anywhere. Oh sure, people gather and they talk all sorts of great ideas. That's the easy part. Then comes time to translate those big ideas into ones and zeroes. Suddenly, enthusiasm dulls. Everyone's too busy with work, school and peeling their flesh off their arm inch by inch, a far less painless endevour than programming game code. Six months pass since the last update, then a year. The forums because a ghost town. The hit counter starts to roll backwards. Somewhere, a big dog barks. But maybe we need these creative failures; they make us all the more receptive to great ideas that are seen all the way through. For instance, The Underside. Inspired by Cave Story (great!), The Underside features an adorable little cat-character in exploration-based gameplay (great!!) as he tears through his corrupt world with the aid of a chainsaw (YES!!). Read More... Posted Oct 15 2008, 05:31 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: metroid, earthbound, mother 3, cave story, fan projects, nadia oxford, the underside, fan games

• The Mother 3 Translation is Coming (For Real This Time)!

  It may be hard to believe; and yes, I know I've posted about it before. But the Mother 3 (AKA the sequel to Earthbound) translation is actually coming out at the end of this week!  Could this news possibly be correct? After all the heartbreaking delays by the dedicated Mother 3 Translation Project, how do I know that they're just not yanking my chain, as so many Earthbound-based promises have yanked it before? Rest assured that the evidence is stacked in our favor. A simple message, posted yesterday on the translation team's blog, says a lot in just a handful of words: The patch will be out at the end of this week. I can barely contain myself, and you should honestly feel the same way; if you're an Earthbound fan like me, then you've probably been eternally dicked over. Not only did we have to wait eleven years for a true sequel, we also had to suffer the anguish of knowing a game that we wanted to play existed in a language most of us were too lazy to achieve complete fluency in. Now, thanks to the kind folks in the translation scene--the same subculture that wrangled an officially-translated prototype of the first Mother over a decade ago--our dreams will finally come true. All that's left is to wait just a few more agonizing days. I think we can make it. Read More... Posted Oct 14 2008, 11:30 AM by Bob Mackey with | with 13 comment(s) Filed under: earthbound, mother 3, translation, game boy advance, bob mackey, rom hacks

• Earthbound's Other Secret Evil

  The shocking truth! In Japan, Ness actually made his journey through Magicant as naked as the day he was born! Very cheeky, Ness. I'm going to talk about Earthbound again. Mackey started iiiit. Maybe this doesn't qualify as a secret evil (aww), but one thing that intrigues me about Earthbound is some of the themes within. Specifically, Earthbound is from a kid's perspective for two reasons: one, it's appealing to play as a hero who's close to your age, and two, we tend to lose sight of the big picture as we get older and have our first soul-dimming run-ins with bills, responsibility and chronic constipation. Ness' adventure is about the big picture; love and friendship are the best defences we have against the sucky bits of life. It's the truth, but once you reach a certain age you're not allowed to say as much. It brings to mind a quote from one of my favourite authors, Frank McCourt: "You're allowed to say you love God and babies and horses that win, but anything else is a softness in the head." Read More... Posted Oct 03 2008, 01:44 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: earthbound, ness, nadia oxford, themes, authority

• Earthbound's Secret Evil

  Earthbound may be one of the most heartwarming and beloved RPGs out there, but beneath its seemingly innocent surface beats the pitch-black heart of the devil.  Thanks to a friend who pointed me in the direction of this EDGE article, I'll think twice the next time I invite Earthbound into my apartment and/or bedroom. So why, pray tell, is Earthbound so evil? To be fair, the game's dark nature only exposes itself to those who would dare bootleg--and they probably deserve it. Essentially, Earthbound does a series of checks throughout the game to make sure you're playing on a legit cart. But if you've purchased yours on the cheap from a sleazy bootlegger, well--maybe I should let this video explain the rest. Obvious spoilers for anyone who hasn't made it to the end of Earthbound: You've gotta admit, there's no revenge better than that when it comes to video game pirates. It kind of makes me wonder why companies don't secretly "leak" copies of their games to the Internet that would do irreparable harm to the computers of would-be pirates. It could be something as simple as a hard drive wipe, or complex as the polygonal head of Ken Levine levitating around your desktop, screaming at you while exploding icons with his laser eyes. Gentlemen, you can only fight piracy with creativity. Read More... Posted Oct 02 2008, 08:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 8 comment(s) Filed under: snes, earthbound, piracy, bob mackey, drm

• The Contrarion: The Future Brings Hi-Res Emotion

  In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Activision President and CEO Robert Kotick dishes about the future of the games industry. It's an interesting read, but what struck me as way off was tucked away at the end.  We struggle with the emotional connection between the audience and the character and the ability to deliver a story. Part of the limitation is that facial animation and mouth movement is not realistic. It's very hard to deliver a line that you would find compelling or somehow to be able to engage with. I think that with next generation hardware you are going to start to see facial animation and mouth movement that looks like it is real. That's going to open up whole new opportunities for advances in the medium and introducing that story element and character dimension that has not existed yet. Read More... Posted Sep 26 2008, 04:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: uncanny valley, cole stryker, earthbound, the contrarion

• Earthbound Saga Pt. 4

  I check in with the folks at Starmen.net every few weeks in order to check up on the progress of the upcoming Mother 3 fan translation. It's not quite done yet, but the fourth installment of the Earthbound Saga is. This fan-made movie is a live-action slapstick take on the Earthbound story that began production in 1995. A bunch of kids filmed a few adorable scenes, and as children are wont, gave up and moved on to other pursuits. They've all grown up, but their love for Earthbound remains. Here's the original 1985 vignette: Part 4 after the jump: Read More... Posted Sep 11 2008, 11:00 AM by Cole Stryker with | with no comments Filed under: cole stryker, earthbound, mother 3

• The Mother 3 Translation: We're Not Worthy!

  Ever since Nadia Oxford started writing about the Earthbound soundtrack, something keeps popping up in my mind that I've been trying to supress out of sheer impatience: the unofficial translation of Mother 3--for you non-Earthbound fanatics, that's essentially Earthbound 2.  From all of my lurking in Earthbound fandom for over ten years, I can tell you that the translation couldn't be in better hands; it's being guided by a fellow with the hacker alias "Tomato" who--along with a few other folks--basically orgazined the online Earthbound fanhorde just as the Internet started taking off. Back in 2006, I assumed that the translation patch for Earthbound would be out days after the game's release in Japan; but I had no idea how hard Tomato's team (one of a few who took a crack at the game) was working, or about the unhackable quality of Mother 3's code.  If you check out their to-do list, you can see just how far the translation team has come in the last two years--all that's left to do is testing.  Here's a video from Tomato himself showcasing some of the work they've done on the game so far.  Note how faithful it is to the spirit of Earthbound's awesome localization: Read More... Posted Aug 26 2008, 02:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: earthbound, mother 3, translation, gba, bob mackey

• Whatcha Listening To: The Earthbound Soundtrack

  I'm in an Earthbound frame of mind these days, which is a good place to be. With the release of the Mother 3 fan translation inching closer and some very pleasant message board conversations that remind me why I actually sacrificed precious naps to play through Itoi's masterpiece, I've taken to thinking about what makes Earthbound special. I could sit here for hours relaying all the reasons (okay, twenty minutes--I type fast), but one of the main reasons warrants its own entry: the music. Earthbound is probably the most underappreciated title in video gaming's short but passionate history. Everything was overlooked: the expressive graphics, the innovative battle system, the emotional story that perfectly balances bizarre fun with a deep, subtle story about growing up and leaving home...and, of course, the music. Earthbound is not a game that can be appreciated with a glance ("God, what baby graphics. Who made them, Crayola?") or a quick listen ("This music is too cutesy"). You're required to experience it from beginning to end. Admittedly, the music took a while to grow on me, but when it did, it hit me like a Mr Saturn to the face. Read More... Posted Aug 25 2008, 07:01 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: snes, earthbound, game music, super nintendo, 16-bit, nostalgia, nadia oxford, whatcha listening to, soundtrack

• WiiWare: Nintendo, Babe, It Just Isn’t Working Out

  Nintendo has been on my mind over the past few days. Not as a corporation in the business of making video games. More like a singular anthropomorphic entity. This is how Nintendo exists in my head these days, so when I see them making business decisions, my psychosis interprets those decision as being made by an individual. You know, as an affront against me personally. For example, I look at the abject madness that is Skip’s Captain Rainbow and then I remember that it will never come out in the US. Sure, WarioWare comes out, but do we get Mother 3? Tingle’s Rosy Rupee Land, a game that’s actually available in English? Nintendo doesn’t bring their weird games here, so Captain Rainbow, with its legion of obscure, z-list Nintendo characters, will flounder away on an island nation half the world away. Nintendo does things like this to spite me. Like my first experiences with WiiWare this past weekend. Read More... Posted Aug 25 2008, 03:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo, wii, lost winds, wiiware, psn, earthbound, warioware, captain rainbow, strong bad, david braben, wii play, mother, live arcade

• Shonen Love-Ins: Can We Find a New Plot Device Already?

  I recently watched my husband finish Mega Man Star Force for the Nintendo DS because I can't be bothered with it; the series is just to far removed for me to associate it with the franchise. See, Mega Man is a little robot warrior boy, but I am okay with his spinoffs. I'm okay with him being a brooding refugee from Blade Runner. I'm okay with him being the crazed overlord of a dystopian society. I'm more than okay with him being a miner with a sinister past. I'm even okay with him being a dead baby. But Mega Man as a generic energy-form alien gives me a major case of the blahs. Anyway. Watcing husband finish Star Force. I don't know if there's some kind of virus going around Japan that dulls the senses of game developers, manga-ka and anime producers, but I wish someone would take some Dayquil and realise that shonen love-ins, also known as anime love-ins, lost their impact many, many years ago. In fact, when I am Queen of the World, any storyteller from any nation who dares to pen the line "Lend me your power!!" as part of a tale's climax will be drawn and quartered with their own ballpoint. Read More... Posted Aug 12 2008, 05:01 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: earthbound, shonen, mega man star force, sailor moon, dragon ball z, cheap plot devices

• Earthbound and Back Again

  If you've never played Earthbound, known to the pure as Mother 2, I sincerely hope you'll give it a try someday, somehow. Most of America overlooked the title when it was released towards the end of the Super Nintendo's lifespan: the world was awash with Playstation-Saturn-N64 hype and nobody had any time for a (deceptively) primitive-looking Crayola adventure. Having only just recently experienced Earthbound myself, I know that the love and care put into the game's characters, atmosphere and story won't leave me for a long, long time. Seriously, I'll be rocking on the porch of Pine Box Acres and rasping for my grandson, Ness, to bring granny her cigarettes. I'll slowly draw one out and take a large drag after three shaky attempts with the lighter, producing nothing but sparks until I finally put flint to steel. And Ness will watch me patiently with his hands behind his back while I talk about the time his namesake took down three Krakens in the Sea of Eden. And then I'll die and Ness will steal my wallet and never look back. If you're insane like myself, you'll want to check out Earthbound and Back Again. It's a list of the Japanese enemy names used in Mother 2 compared side-by-side with their english translations from Earthbound. The list is compiled by Tomato, the gentleman in charge of the Mother 3 fan translation project. Write to your local Pope and elect him for Sainthood. Read More... Posted Jul 29 2008, 06:08 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: earthbound, mother 3, translation, mother 2, enemies, fan translation, ness, tomato

• 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

• Earthbound 2/Mother 3 Fan Translation Nears Completion

  Shigesato Itoi's brainchild was known in the West as Earthbound, a quirky RPG that eschewed every role playing convention. Like L. Frank Baum and Lewis Carrol before him, Itoi lured ordinary children into a world of bizarre fantasy. Itoi realized the limitations of his technology and the infancy of his medium, opting for a breezy, existentialist humor. Deconstructing the console RPG into its fundamental parts, Itoi was able to bring RPG mechanics outside of Tolkien-esque storyboards and into a world closely resembling modern-day suburbia. Its hero wasn't a muscled he-man nor a femme half-elf, but an ordinary adolescent kid. Ness saved the world with a cracked baseball bat and a t-shirt rather than a broadsword and chain mail. Read More... Posted Jun 12 2008, 10:00 AM by Cole Stryker with | with no comments Filed under: rpg, earthbound, mother 3