A NEW LOOK AT DS SPACE OPERA INFINITE LINE
Though there’s a lot to be said for the cheeky sexuality of Bayonetta and the slapstick ultra-violence of Mad World, of all the games Japan based collective Platinum Games announced earlier this year, DS space epic Infinite Line had me at hello.
It wasn’t just the promise of vast, free space exploration shrunk down to palm size, or the fact that you could decorate your warships with lipstick kisses (though both helped), it was designer’s Hifumi Kouno’s assertion that “in playing through the story, across vast space, the player will discover what it means to be human in this vast emptiness.”
While we wait for more detail on quite how Kouno can affirm our essential humanity, thanks to Tiny Cartridge we have the first English version of Infinite Line’s happily perplexing anime intro short.
Infinite Space DS short fansub (DATS) [YouTube, via Tiny Cartridge]
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THE OFFWORLD LAUNCH WEEK UNICORN CHASER
We’re wrapping up the first week here at Offworld, and I should thank everyone that’s commented, written, and left overwhelmingly positive notes about the launch here, and say that if you need me, you’ll know where to find me, as again captured via BBtv. It’s just how I do, you know?
(BBtv) Unicorn Chaser, Friday Review: Offworld.com Dirty Dancing Death Dwarf
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CERN SCIENTISTS DIVERT NIHILANTH THREAT
We owe a great debt of gratitude to the Reddit community for supplying scientists at the Large Hadron Collider with their very own crowbar to hold down Earth’s fort — so far as we can tell, that interdimensional rift hasn’t yet been torn open so wide that we’ve been affected on this side of the ocean. From the photo series sent over from CERN labs, though, that’s only due to the heroic effort of CERN’s very own Swiss Gordon Freeman.
the crowbar arrived at CERN, Freeman received it, world saved [Reddit]
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THE BIKE HERO THAT WASN’T
By now you’ve probably seen the viral Bike Hero video recently linked via our gadget loving bretheren, and by now you’ve probably sussed out that it was indeed a highly staged hoax, from the same agency behind Marc Ecko’s alleged Air Force graffiti-bomb, and that might have left you feeling a bit cold.
Friend of Offworld, interesting-web-thing-maker, and keen link-smith Tom Armitage at Infovore sums up the disappointment nicely:
Why don’t marketers and advertisers understand that, sometimes, the target audience for this kind of thing will like it just as much if it’s honest about being advertising? It’s a lovely piece of footage, and it ties into the garage-band, DIY ethos well; it’s a good fit for the Guitar Hero brand. As it is, I’m disappointed because I now know this wasn’t the product of hard-working fans, wanting to promote a product they love; it was the product of a lot of time/effort from people with money to spend on time/effort.
As a long-time appreciator and equal-part promoter of smart — but transparent — advertising, I couldn’t agree more.
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OBAMA’S NEW TAURAN SHAMAN OF STAFF
Over at the Mother Boing, Xeni notes that Obama’s just-appointed FCC transition team co-chair Kevin Werbach has been recognized as verifiable “virtual worlds nut” and World of Warcraft Level 70 Tauren Shaman Supernovan Jenkins, along with a breakdown of just what that affiliation means:
What does this tell us about him, as a person, as a gamer, as a government official? I will attempt to translate all the dorkese.
1. – CULTURAL RELATIVISM
Every player in WoW belongs to one of two warring factions, Alliance or Horde. Werbach is Horde. Children often choose to be Alliance because they perceive them as “the good guys”, but students of history (both ours and Azeroth’s) recognize that Alliance culture is based on medieval European culture and Horde culture is based on the indigenous cultures that were supplanted by the West.
Werbach is a Tauren (a minotaur), which basically makes him a Native Kalimdorian. The Tauren revere nature, living in wigwams near giant totem poles. As a Shaman (see below), he could also have chosen a troll (blue-skinned Jamaican-like monster) or an orc (green-skinned Klingon-like monster), so there must be something about the cow-man that appeals to his liberal guilt.
Warcraft Identity of Obama’s FCC Transition Team Co-Chair Revealed, Analyzed
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INTO THE MIND OF THE MEIJIN
Takahashi Meijin is one of those gaming figures who you might have heard of on the periphery but never fully wrapped your mind around — he was semi recognizably the face of Hudson’s Adventure Island series, and indeed has served as the company’s spokesman for the past two decades. More amazingly, though, he was the star of Game King, Japan’s rough equivalent to 80’s NES advermovie The Wizard.
As you can see in this montage, which is self-parodying to the point of near postmodern, the program saw Meijin training for a national Star Soldier championship by honing his famous ’16 shot’ skills — the ability to press a NES controller button 16 times a second — by vibrating tabletops to bring tea-sets closer and, amazingly, exploding a watermelon with just a structure-weakening flick of his hummingbird-flutter fingertip.
All that is prelude to a hat tip toward 1up’s Ray Barnholt, who has landed the most extensive English language interview with Takahashi we’ll see in some time. In it, he explains how he came to Hudson, his thoughts on the East/West hardcore/casual divide, and confirms that he essentially invented the Turbo-Grafx 16’s sliding turbo switches, but, delightfully, kept them limited to 8- and 15-shots a second so no one could steal his crown.
Master Higgins Speaks [1up.com]
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BRINGING GAMMA HOME TO YOU
As you can see from Infinite Ammo’s video above, Kokoromi’s Gamma3D looks to have gone off without a hitch, with a reported 400 some odd people in attendence, and, as promised, the collective have posted all of the games to their website for your approval — including Offworld’s previously mentioned super HYPERCUBE, and Paper Moon, the excellent planar-platformer from Infinite Ammo themselves (whose lead designer previously worked with Bit Blot on the recently noted Aquaria).
Gamma3D Game Downloads [Kokoromi Collective]
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WIGI SHOWS OFF CELEBRITY AUCTION WARES
Via some fortuitous Facebook linking we note that tomorrow marks the kick off Women In Games International’s celebrity auction, which will run through Sunday the 29th. The list of items up for bid, which you can preview on Bonnie Ruberg’s Flickr set, includes items like two legitimately wicked Shepard Fairey designed Civilization Revolution posters signed by Sid Meier, a Bioshock guide signed by Ken Levine, more Witcher, Mass Effect, Gears of War and Halo merch than you’ve ever seen in one place, and, our favorite: an Electronic Arts watch and keyring so vintage they still use its old ‘EOA’ square-circle-triangle logo.
The Writers Cabal Blog has more info on finding the appropriate eBay link.
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THE CASE FOR USED GAMES
This one passed us by earlier in the week but is still worthy of note: as a number of publishers trend toward curbing used game sales by offering one-time-use download codes for certain value adds (see: the extra 20 songs included in Rock Band 2 for new purchases), Civilization and Spore designer Soren Johnson makes an equally strong case for used sales. Some salient points:
Used game sales are the primary method by which the retail games market is segmented. For quite a few gamers, especially younger ones, used games are their only option for buying games instead of renting them. Keeping these price-sensitive consumers – who will often be tomorrow’s full-price customers – in the retail system and away from piracy is a good thing all around.
[…]
Many factors come into play when a consumer decides if a specific game purchase is worth the money, and one of those factors is the perceived value from selling it back as a used game. In other words, people will pay more for a new game because they know they can get some of that money back when they trade it in at the local Gamestop. Importantly, this perceived value exists whether the consumer actually sells the game or keeps it. Wizards of the Coast has long admitted that the existence of the secondary market for Magic cards has long helped buoy the primary market because buyers perceive that the cards have monetary value.
His caveat, though, is that in order to maintain that perceived value of traditional retail games, digital download services (which it would seem we’re all growing much more comfortable with) have to lower their own prices in turn. Hit the link below for the full argument and following lengthy conversation in the comments.
DESIGNER NOTES » Blog Archive » The Case for Used Games
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THE ORIGIN OF BIOFORGE PLUS
Feeling a certain affinity having just relocated to Austin, and because I’ve gone a week without going too terribly retro, I feel inclined to note that former Origin Systems director Jeff Morris has captured and uploaded the original intro cinema (featuring what sounds to be a fantastic Mike ‘MST3K’ Nelson impersonator) for the long-since-canceled Bioforge Plus add-on.
Morris’ YouTube channel is actually a treasure trove of Origin material, with various Wing Commander, Bioforge, and Ultima series ephemera, including an in-costume interview with Lord British himself in full regalia.
As friends-of-Offworld RockPaperShotgun previously mentioned, a terabyte of Origin material landed in the offices of EA Mythic this past summer and was quickly cataloged by ardent fans, quite possibly including the Bioforge Plus source itself. The Artful Gamer blog has more on what’s been unearthed so far.
Games That Weren’t » Bioforge Plus intro on YouTube [via GameSetWatch]
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