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There are rare moments in gaming history where a game releases and shows that it is truly possible to learn lessons from a well designed video game and apply them to the real world. For most of us the first lessons that come to mind might be critical thinking skills from having to think abstractly to solve a puzzle, twitch reflexes from high octane action games, or the obvious social benefits of a good online community. [i[Persona 5[/i] is something different, and represents a far more difficult pill and series of lessons for many around the world to swallow. Persona 5 is an important game, not because its the best selling in Atlus' history and could represent a small first step in a larger paradigm shift for turn-based role playing game design, but because it is one of the most down to earth reflections of the corruption that can penetrate and permeate a society from the highest levels down to the lowest. It's the same type of importance one might give to say, the first Deus Ex for calling out many of the problems of society, governance, and the very real world of false flag operations and conspiracy that existed in the late 1990's while that game was being developed and is still continuing to this day.
Continue reading Persona 5
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As the storage size of digital media has increased, so too has the size of the video games that are played. Game worlds used to be quite tiny, and the length of games came from other areas of difficulty meant to make it hard to explore those worlds. Enemies were difficult and frequent; statistical balance was brutal. It would take players hours to get the right equipment, enough money, and high enough stats to be able to properly progress. Games have been expanded in many ways for decades.
The idea of playing through a game twice or more is quite old by now, with the earliest examples coming from some mid-80s hits and classics such as Ghosts 'n Goblins, The Legend of Zelda, and Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei. The rewards for this choice are varied, the true ending for Ghosts 'n Goblins, or an extra challenge in Zelda and Megami Tensei. It was only later when this idea was not only popularized, but received a name that has stuck with gamers for over two decades and counting now. Chrono Trigger rewarded players for multiple trips through its world by offering a variety of different endings that could be achieved by beating the final boss in any number of different ways and almost anywhere during the story.
Continue reading Old Game -
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As video games become an aging hobby, it becomes more difficult to grasp the beginning of its tale, or the history and growth of it in general. This does not just mean its actual history, but also its dominant theories of design. For example, when many gamers talk of role playing games, only two dominant styles are generally brought up: The consolized Japanese designed role playing games, and the historically more mechanically complex and open, Western designed role playing games. Despite the fact that these two schools of design are considered different enough to be easily categorized, they share a common ancestor in tabletop games, specifically Dungeons and Dragons. While Dungeons and Dragons has been around since the 1970's, it has evolved and is almost unrecognizable in comparison to its earliest version, as the company that originally created the game went bankrupt, was bought out, and its creator has passed away.
Continue reading The Great Western RPG Schism?
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Since the beginning of role playing games, many details have been taken into account by everyone from the top tier game designers down to the dungeon or game master building their first campaign. However, few details are thought about as much as the design of the world the players inhabit. For most gamers, it is nothing more than passing scenery made to make you stop and enjoy the beauty before you move two steps forward and completely forget about it.
In modern video gaming, there are a few different kinds of world designs at play. Most Japanese developed RPGs, from the beginning to this day, are the world spanning epics. No stone is left unturned on these worlds as many are developed without the idea of direct sequels in mind. The juggernauts of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest almost always take place in a completely new world with linearity in mind. Dragon Quest I and II are notable exceptions to this, where the world of the first game is revealed to be just one small part of the full world that is revealed to the player in Dragon Quest II. This is the idea that Suikoden takes, as it will likely never will reveal the full world in one game.
Continue reading Summer of Suikoden: A Treatise on World Design
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The previous year, 2016, was one of my greatest when it came to finds I took home from the local thrift stores. While my actual game finds were few, far between, and not too exciting, the various accessories I found to improve the experience of actually playing the games more than made up for it. So, I will walk you through both my luck, my thoughts, and my process when it came to building a better battlestation. First, I will give the highlights of these finds before moving onto set up and other pieces you'll need.
Continue reading Accessorize: Fortify The Ramparts
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RimWorld is an early access game developed by Ludeon Studios that has been available for purchase since 2013. Updates are steady, if a bit slow at times. It is the winner of multiple Indie Game of the Year awards for 2016, despite being in early access alpha, so there has to be something to this unfinished game, right? While I'm sure most by now have long been turned away from the idea of early access, there are still exceptions where games have plenty of content. Whether or not the content is polished or finished is another question. For Rimworld, each implementation of new features with every major update are actually functional, if a bit buggy for a few days post-release. RimWorld is in many ways easier to digest than Dwarf Fortress, and while Dwarf Fortress' simplistic graphics, archaic UI, high learning curve, and incredible depth are bound to turn off most would be players, RimWorld's simplistic art style at least adds flavor and something to look at.
Continue reading RimWorld
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In the overall timeline of video games, it is quite easy to see a long list of games for a handful of settings. While games have a massively different way of being played its the background setting that can pull players in at a much more deeper level. With games many settings which were once limited to a niche genre of pulp fiction are able to become massive ideas and intellectual properties. Being able to visualize your favorite type of setting is powerful for many gamers. They will chase that feeling down. It could go all the way to the extent of enjoying an otherwise mediocre game, and blinding yourself to its flaws.
Continue reading The Allure of Modern Fantasy
Kenichiro Fukui is a composer that few likely know off the top of their head. He began his career as a member of the Konami Kukeiha Club in 1990 under the moniker "Funiki Fukui". The first game he worked on was Sunset Riders in 1991, but he only did the sound effects for the game. His first full composition job was Konami's light gun arcade game Lethal Enforcers. He worked on a few more arcade games at Konami, including 1992's GI Joe with Tsutomi Ogura and 1993's Violent Storm with Seiichi Fukami.
Continue reading Composer Compendium: Kenichiro Fukui
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pic from mitchellhperkins.blogspot.com
Video games have the ability to draw from the full range of emotions and reactions from the human mind, and can still be considered good even while focusing on drawing out such reactions as frustration and annoyance into its core design. It feels good for the mind to overcome a challenge, so the feeling of relief that comes after the period of high challenge feels all the more sweet. There are a variety of ways to accomplish this, whether building the game from the ground up to be in this way, or to give a robust set of free form tools that allow for a unique experience with each new map. Horror games and games designed to be tense, difficult experiences can easily feel like they're drawing from the natural curiosity of humans to see what lies behind the next door.
Continue reading How to Make Failure Fun
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Nintendo is well known as the master of the platformer. Their style and characters have become ubiquitous throughout gaming. The company's own mascot Mario has inspired spinoffs on top of his own core platforming series, and Super Princess Peach is one such example. It was developed for Nintendo's DS by Tose, and feels like a crossover between regular Mario mechanics mixed with those of Yoshi's Island. The game also includes quite a few enemies from the Yoshi's Island spinoff series, which begs the question of how close this game's setting of Vibe Island is to the island that baby Mario and Luigi were dropped on as babies. The game was released in Japan in 2005, with international release the following year.
Continue reading Super Princess Peach
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Dragon Quest V is one of the most important role playing games to ever be released. Despite this, it has been a near unknown outside of Japan. Enix struggled to establish any sort of long term foothold in the North American gaming market. They were a bit more successful in Europe, enough to keep the doors open through the mid-90s. Translating RPGs is a long, expensive process, and Dragon Quest was the company's flagship series. The first four games on NES were all localized and released, but the process likely started too late. Japan got to see the full, natural evolution of these early Famicom RPGs, while the Western games were jumbled. They released a few years after their initial release as well. Japan originally saw the first Final Fantasy releasing two short months before Dragon Quest III. In the timeline of Western releases, Final Fantasy actually beat Dragon Quest II to market. Being a full game behind made Enix's games look that much weaker once they released internationally.
A big promotion with Nintendo Power got a lot of copies of the first Dragon Quest game circulated in North America, but the sales of each subsequent game in the series just fell. The later games in the series were also hurt, since they were released after the Super Nintendo's release. The early games in the series were like building blocks, introducing more core mechanics with each subsequent game. By the time that Dragon Quest V was getting ready for release, all these pieces were in place, and the focus on telling the personal story of the heroes became even more prevalent.
Continue reading Dragon Quest V: The Lost Masterpiece
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I recently took a road trip to the Denver, CO area and spent a good weekend hunting there. We had some choices for arcades to visit, but with one being in Downtown Denver and one right outside it, we made sure to find something closer, and with less traffic. Hyperspace is advertised as the Denver area's largest arcade, and its a good one to go visit if you're wanting to spend some real time surrounded by cabinets and pinball. Its a flat entrance fee for all you can game arcade action.The cost of a day pass is $12 and for $45 you can acquire a monthly pass. Every machine is set to free play and with the push of the start or credit button, you can play until your heart's content.
Continue reading Hyperspace Arcade Review
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Galerians is considered a bit of a hidden game for Sony's first Playstation. The game was released in 1999 in Japan, and the following year in Western markets. It was developed by Polygon Magic, published by ASCII Entertainment, and carries the Crave logo for distribution. It seems to have been hidden as a result of the game's late timing on the system, coming just as the hype for Playstation 2 was in full gear. It's also a game that does little to advance the survival horror design formula, other than giving you a different story and weapons that fit the story.
Continue reading Spooky Plays: Galerians
[img width=412 height=665]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/J-072/ms/J-072-S-10620-A.jpg[/img]
For years, one of Japan's great series of role playing games was almost completely unknown in the West. The Megami Tensei series began on Nintendo's Famicom; the first one was an adaptation of a popular trilogy of horror novels of the time, Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei by Aya Nishitani. A sequel unrelated to the novel was then developed and released. When the Super Famicom released, Atlus was gearing up to develop a new game in the series, but there was no more source material to draw from. Nishitani worked with Atlus on a completely new story in the same universe, and it took on the Shin Megami Tensei moniker. These early games stayed locked up in Japan, due to Nintendo of America's vehement censorship of anything and everything religious. A game where you talk to literal demons from various global mythologies, recruit them, and use them as your party members never had a chance of being released outside of Japan. Western gamers did not even see the Shin Megami Tensei name on a game until the Playstation 2 had been out for a few years. The third game in the main series finally released in 2003 in Japan, and it followed in 2004 in Western markets. Atlus has been toying around in the shadows for decades.
Continue reading Spooky Plays: Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne
[img width=700 height=342]http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/jetsetradio/jsrj.jpg[/img]
In the late 1990s, a great push was made by a formerly beloved underdog of video game hardware manufacturing, after bad decisions across a variety of fronts lead to gaming's greatest collapse since the fabled crash of '83. The only player that lost significant ground was Sega, which had always managed to have a bright market in some part of the globe at different points of its history. The Master System's greatest success was in Europe, with the Brazilian market pulling off a surprise punch as well. The Genesis managed to expand the hold to North America, and really tapped into the consumer mainstream, but both consoles lagged behind in Sega's homeland of Japan. All that flipped with the Saturn, when Japan took the spotlight at the expense of everybody else. The Dreamcast was Sega's last gasp, and despite a critically short life, it managed to grab hold of a chunk of North America once again.
Part of the reason for this collapse was the marketing. Sega was poised to grab a chunk of mainstream gamers after pushing their sports games boldly on cable advertisements. This failure in marketing was that it didn't show the true breadth of titles available for the Dreamcast. The commercials showcased more TV friendly and higher quality renderings of Dreamcast game assets, but only really named individual game titles in their commercials. Gone were the sort of list commercials from the Genesis days that showcased both in-game footage, and the actual title of the game on top of it. A prime example of this advertising misstep was with the main character of Jet Grind Radio, Beat. He was spotted in multiple Dreamcast commercials, even getting a solo shot in one, but not once was the name of the game ever dropped. Everything was spliced on top of live footage, and Jet Grind Radio did not get its own commercial to show off anything beyond the style of one character's design in a most inauthentic way.
Continue reading Jet Set Radio
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