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Trailer Review: Muramasa – The Demon Blade

What can I say that hasn’t been said about Vanillaware’s two-dimensional skills. Undoubtedly, they can pay the bills. They are gorgeous. They are vivid. They are blinding in the extent of their flowing beauty, a realization of hand drawn gaming’s promise, a vision of the most fantastic landscapes while still evocative of the world’s natural beauty. Adjectives, adjectives, adjectives. Muramasa: The Demon Blade is good looking, god damn it. See what I mean?

Posted Mar 12 2009, 10:00 AM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s)

Filed under: john constantine, nintendo, trailer review, wii, odin sphere, xseed, princess crown, Vanillaware, Muramasa

The 61FPS Review: Retro Game Challenge

I have a confession: every night, the part of my soul that is all id and desire has taken a spirit journey to Japan, where it developed Retro Game Challenge.

Of course that’s not actually true. But with an excellently executed premise that is laser-focused on the childhood dreams of the 20-something game player, it certainly feels true. It’s probably impossible to even review the game properly, as RGC is specifically designed to take the sort of person that would review a game and completely disarm them. I will try, but I wanted you to know going in that in this case, I don’t have any arms.

Posted Feb 13 2009, 10:15 AM by Joe Keiser with | with 3 comment(s)

Filed under: review, nintendo ds, 61fps review, xseed, Retro game challenge, joe keiser

New Year’s Resolutions For a Few Of Our Favorite Publishers

Now, to close out the first full week of 2009, we will do for videogame publishers what we did for console makers: we will tell them how to live their sordid, godforsaken lives! You’d think developers would make the list, but no. No, I tend to trust them, so they will be left to their own devices, free from the crushing logic of advice from 61 Frames Per Second.

Posted Jan 09 2009, 07:30 PM by John Constantine with | with 3 comment(s)

Filed under: john constantine, ea, capcom, konami, ubisoft, Ghostbusters, dark void, sega, atari, activision, retro game master, atlus, koei, tecmo, namco, neversoft, xseed, midway, bioshock 2, square enix, street fighter iii, take two, beyond good & evil 2, the world end with you

Populous: Text Based Tutorials Need to Die In A Fire

Like every other Peter Molyneux game outside of Fable and its sequel, Populous escaped my attention the first time around. I remember sitting in my buddy Mike McBride’s house in the early ‘90s watching his brother play the game for hours and thinking, “I have absolutely no freaking idea what is going on! Why is nothing jumping or shooting?” XSEED, being the swell cats they are, sent us a copy of the new DS version of Molyneux’s classic, so I’m finally spending some time with the man’s much loved debut.

I have absolutely no freaking idea what is going on.

This is because Populous DS is frontloaded with that most dreaded of barriers between player and actual play: the text-based tutorial.

Posted Nov 25 2008, 07:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s)

Filed under: john constantine, nintendo ds, fable 2, peter molyneux, fable, xseed, populous

Trailer Review: Retro Game Master

You know, not to be glib, but this is some meta shit right here. Follow me down the rabbit hole of abstraction, won’t you? Game Center CX is a show about a comedian pretending to be Japanese middle-manager who plays NES games in marathon sessions, with typically hilarious results. The show’s Americanized name is Retro Game Master, though the show currently has no distribution in the United States. XSEED games, a fairly new US game publisher that specializes in Japanese quirk, is publishing Retro Game Challenge, an English localization of GameCenter CX: Arino no Chōsenjō, a videogame made up of pretend NES games based on a show about a pretend man who plays real NES games. It boggles the mind!

Posted Sep 29 2008, 07:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 2 comment(s)

Filed under: john constantine, trailer review, game center cx, xseed, Retro game challenge

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.