Towards Mecca

On Saturday, my little brother (age 15) and I went to the EB Games near his house. While there I saw an inexpensive second-hand copy of Bioshock and proceeded to the cash register to pay. I was refused.

You read right, the teller behind the cash register refused to sell me the copy because I was with a minor who was not my child. He said I couldn’t prove that I wasn’t buying the game for my brother. If he were my son, then they would explain what the rating system was and let me decide, but since he was just my brother I couldn’t buy anything rated Mature.

Obviously, this ticked me off because I really was buying it for myself. Sure, he was probably going to play it once I was done, but my mother wouldn’t have minded. I know that. Hell, he watches movies with worse content than Bioshock probably has on a weekly basis!

I had stormed out of the store in utter confusion and disbelief, but when I let my rage subside, I realized that this wasn’t such a bad thing after all. Maybe if more stores had this policy the media would give M rated games a break! Well eventually I’m sure they will have to one way or another. Either they’ll be tired of beating the same old dog or their audience will be. Especially since, in a couple of years, most of their audience would have grown-up with video-games and see them for what they truly are: Interactive Entertainment. A co-worker also told me that liquor stores have the same policy for people who walk in with minors so it’s not totally unprecedented.

What this boils down to is that I was initially peeved at being turned down and sent home, but now that I’ve had the time to cool down and collect my thoughts, I see it as a positive move on the part of EB Games and I commend them for making it!

I just found out that Sony is now selling to Canadian in their own currency! So what does that mean? Initially, the Playstation Store’s prices didn’t reflect the newer, much higher, value of the Canadian Dollar. Now, Canadians will no longer overpay for downloadable content (well not more than their American counter-parts at least)! In my opinion this should have been a given from day one, but since the XBox Marketplace has been around much longer and is still using the misleading Microsoft Points currency, I have to hand it to Sony for having made this move.

Now, all that’s left is a decent exclusive title…

A few days ago, yet another new character for Street Fighter 4 was revealed. Rufus … a 500 pound tub of lard with a pony-tail and what looks like eye-liner. I kid you not, someone at Capcom actually thought this guy would bring joy to our hearts and smiles to our faces!

Actually, I think Capcom is too smart to think we’d like this character. I have two theories on way Rufus was made to begin with.

Another Dan

Capcom is notorious for coming out with joke characters. The best example is perhaps Dan from the Street Fighter Akpha series. The problem is, Dan is likeable! He’s a Ken and Ryu clone with a borrowed fighting style from Ryo and Robert’s looks (both from SNK’s Art of Fighting series). Dan was a character I would take against a weaker opponent to even the odds.

Rufus is no Dan by any stretch of the imagination. For starters, I don’t even know him and I dislike him already. With Dan, it was love at first sight. With Rufus, I’m just struggling to keep my lunch down.

A Diversion

I’ll be frank, I don’t like ANY of the new characters that Capcom has introduced in Street Fighter 4. D Viper looks too much like an SNK character, El Fuerte looks straight out of Virtua Fighter, and Abel looks like what my next door neighbor would look like on steroids. Still, as lackluster as those characters are, they’re a pure joy compared to Rufus!

Maybe that was the plan after all! I don’t know how most other people are reacting to the new Street Fighter 4 characters but my entourage seems to be in agreement that they generally suck. Maybe Rufus was thrown in the mix to make us feel better about the other three jokers. Seems to me this might be the most logical reason.

Either way, it seems like he’s here to stay so I’ll stop venting and just put another check mark in the “SF4 is gonna suck” column.

A British news site was asking for stories of how video games turned people to a life of crime.

If this isn’t ridiculous in itself, they are also offering money for these stories!

In response to what has to be one of the dumbest requests I’ve seen online, my co-worker wrote the following:

An X-Box killed my family, so I swore revenge, plunging myself into a dark life of loitering and jay walking.

Every night, I wander the streets, looking for streets to walk across.

That guy standing by the wall? That guy standing by the crosswalk — standing and playing his DS like a lifeless husk of a man who’s fell into the dark abyss? Yeah, that was me.

I’m not proud of it. No one ever is.

I’ve even joined a street gang. The Turtle Stompers. You’ve probably heard of us.

We play Mario Kart and stand in two parking spots at once on the weekends.

We are the lost.

We are the damned.

The road to vengeance is full of hate and tears. It’s lonely road. But it’s the one I walk every day.

Can I have my hundred bucks, now?

-Dan

The guys over at the Exploding Barrel wrote a great article about Console Knock-Offs! I’m embarrassed to admit I was actually surprised that such a thing existed. Why would I be? Everything else is knocked off with cheap ‘Made-in-China’ rips that have a near identical name and look. Why would consoles be any different?

So, are you a Chintendo fan-boy prefering the Vii? Or are you more of a Polystation kind of person?

Anyway, you can check out the whole article here.

Fans of the video game Okami? Or just fans of great video-game artwork? Hell, fans of any kind of artwork at all? Either way, the news that Capcom has just put an online Okami art gallery should put a smile on your face!

Go check it out, you’ll more than likely have a new wallpaper on your desktop before the day is done

Just thought you’d guy would be interested to know that the fine folks behind TFGBlog.com are holding a very easy contest that has Grant Theft Auto 4 as a prize!

See as how the site has only been up for a month, your chances of winning are probably pretty high! All you have to do is subscribe to their RSS Feed and post a comment. Easy as pie…

Finally buckling to years of pressure from fans, Capcom Japan has just announced the ever anticipated Street Fighter vs Care Bears game. Slated for a January 2008 release, this title promises to be the most anticipated VS title since Capcom vs the Muppet Babies. Experts are also expecting Street Fighter vs Care Bears to outsell all previous Capcom titles.

The delay in releasing this oft-requested game was primarily due to difficulties in balancing gameplay. Apparently, it was hard to make a level playing field between the Street Fighter characters and the Care Bear characters. The Care Bears are simply too powerful.

“We believe that the balancing is as good as it can get without us having to weaken the Care Bear characters to an unrealistic level” Said a senior Capcom game designer. Apparently, the biggest challenge came at the game-testing level. Capcom game testers simply refused to choose the Street Fighter characters preferring the loveable Care Bears. In the end, the design leads figure most players would also choose the Bears when the game is finally released.

Surprisingly, the game will not launch Worldwide upon release. Instead, Capcom opted to release the game in its two largest global markets; Iran and Madagascar. The Worldwide release is to follow a short 2 months later. The move has upset many American consumers who are now petitioning the US government to launch a “pre-emptive strike” against the government of Iran with the intention of annexing the country before the launch date.

Bad apples aside, the rest of the world is eagerly anticipating this title and are already sending mass e-mails to Capcom requesting a new Street Fighter vs My Little Pony game.

I’m not telling you which, but I’m working on one of those four games

Gameloft Set to Develop For WiiWare

March 27th, 2008
Gameloft®, a leading developer and publisher of video games for mobile phones, announced today it is developing a strong line-up for WiiWareTM, Nintendo’s new downloadable game service for the Wii systemTM.

With games set to launch in Europe, Unites States and Japan, Gameloft is planning a diverse line-up that consists of Block Breaker Deluxe, Midnight Pool, Midnight Bowling and TV Show King. Each game will either be completely original to WiiWare or vastly enhanced and redone for the platform. In addition, all the games are created to complement the Wii RemoteTM, a motion sensing controller which allows the player to interact with the screen.

“We are delighted to be working with Nintendo on the WiiWare,” said Michel Guillemot, president of Gameloft. “We have great confidence in the games that we are developing, several of which include award winning established brands and original creations specifically for WiiWare.”

Block Breaker Deluxe is the best selling brick-breaking game, over 8 million copies sold, that has been vastly enhanced and improved for WiiWare. The longest, most feature-rich brick-breaker game created, the game is easy to navigate by moving the Wii Remote left and right to shift the pad and connect with the ball.

TV Show King is an original game only available on WiiWare. The game takes on the role of a mock game show testing players general knowledge.

Midnight Pool and Midnight Bowling, are top sellers on the mobile platform, but have been completely redone with new features for WiiWare. For Midnight Pool, the Wii Remote is used as a cue and in Midnight Bowling it substitutes for the bowling motion.

Gameloft is a Nintendo Official Publisher in Europe and the United States .

I’ve already written about how I’ve discovered, and even re-discovered MUGEN but something about playing it on my relatively small 19-inch monitor kept me from finishing my dream MUGEN compilation. Well, all that’s about to change as I have just heard news that MUGEN is alive and well on the X-Box.

Ok, so this is old news to some, but the discovery that this was indeed true, and not a rumor, nearly knocked me off my seat! Well, after fumbling with it for a couple of days, I have to admit I have still not been able to successfully get it to run. Still, with so many people out there on forums complaining that it took them forever to successfully have it running, I am not losing hope. Especially since some people have even got it to boot directly from a DVD!

Before you ask, this version of MUGEN works with the original X-Box and not the X-Box 360. Also, no versions have been made for either the Dreamcast or the PS2/PS3’s. Before the announcement, I was trying to find an older PC with TV out just for MUGEN! I was that consumed with the idea before my wife made it clear to me how ridiculous that would have looked in the middle of our living room I still wanted to do it but I didn’t feel like storming through the inevitable resistance so I gave up on that.

I think the only thing that’s not working for me is the swap file. Once I figure that out, I’ll be on my way to Fighting Game Bliss! If you want to give it a try yourself, you can download an Xmugen full package from the usual places. Anyone out there got it working?