Welcome to the inaugural edition of ↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A (Start). Yup, I've escaped the "No-no Bad Box" Review Crew Bullpen, and to due to my hostage-taking demands blackmail photos overwhelming positive response, I'm here with a column to help kick off your weekend. ↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A (Start) will be a weekly feature, so make sure to make your calendars, clear your appointment books, clean your cache and get ready to settle in for a dose of video-game news from all over the web. The main 411 Mania Games is your one-stop source for news you can use about all the the big-ticket news, so ↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A (Start) will cover video-game and game related news from parts of the road less traveled amongst the gaming scene this past week.
EA Replay Compilation for PSP Confirmed
(via Gamasutra)
Yes, folks, there is more to Sony's PSP than just GTA: Liberty City Stories, Loco Roco or Look, It Makes A Stylish Paperweight -- Electronic Arts recently confirmed the release and titles in its EA Replay compilation. From the article:
EA noted that the collection will include a total of 14 games from a number of the company's fondly remembered franchises, such as the Strike series, Road Rash, and Wing Commander. Specifically, EA Replay will include Syndicate, Ultima VII: The Black Gate, Road Rash I-III, Wing Commander, and Wing Commander: The Secret Missions.
Other titles confirmed include B.O.B., Budokan, Desert Strike, Jungle Strike, Haunting Starring Polterguy, Virtual Pinball, and Mutant League Football. In addition, some titles in compilation will include a number of newly introduced features, such as head-to-head multiplayer, unlockable original game art, and the ability to save the game at any point.
Oh lordy, this sounds like a dream come true. I played the Ultima series incessantly on school and friends' PCs. And Mutant League Football was one of the best reasons to get a Genesis. It wasn't some object d'art or anything; It was a football game with aliens and mutants and giggly humor and buckets of pixilated blood. Oh, and calling an audible was great-- you could do things like stuff dynamite in the ball (giving new meaning to the term "long bomb"), use a rocket pack, confuse the other team, or kill the referee (incurring a penalty of 10 yards). Plus, it featured this way to win a game:
Yeah, the XFL only WISHES it was this awesome.
Gamer Re-creates Frank Lloyd Wright's "Falling Water" house in Half Life 2 (via Digital Urban)
Here's a YouTube walk-through of an incredibly detailed model of Frank Lloyd Wright's legendary Kaufmann/Falling Water house built in Half Life 2. Kasperg, the creator of the map and the man behind the project, is a gamer with an interest in using game engines for architectural visualization, and has published his Half Life 2 maps for the community at large to interact with.
I love seeing people repurpose existing technology to do something completely different with it, and this map is very well done. Even better than the Cartwright Hall map done in Unreal Tournament, I think.
Presidential candidate gives speech in Second Life ( via NWNBlog)
Mark Warner, a 2008 Presidential hopeful nominee for the Democratic Party, visited the online virtual-sandbox/gaming/3Dchat world, Second Life last week. Mark Warner appeared as the Mark Warner avatar as shown to the right to speak to a number of other Second Life players that were attending the virtual town hall meeting. A full transcript of the event can be found here. It's also notable in that this appearance is the first known use of an online virtual world game by a political figure.
This is a really novel use of the virtual world to gather and address an audience, and I'm sure it's a bit cheaper than touring in meatspace. There is talk of Mark Warner making additional appearances in Second Life over the course of his campaign. It should be interesting to see how this appearances pan out during the course of his campaign.
RESIDENT EVIL/BIOHAZARD 10th Anniversary Celebrated With Postage Stamps (via Kotaku)
Capcom and Visions Inc. are teaming up with the Japanese postal service to release a set of ten 80 yen stamps to commemorate a decade of zombies, STAR agents, and masters of unlocking. They'll be available for purchase for two months for a fee of 3150 yen (roughly 32 USD) which not only gets you the aforementioned stamps and tons of brownie points with the RE fan in your life, but you also get a specially made booklet in which to store them.
That is incredibly cool. I love collecting the odder RE memorabilia-- I still have my "anti-virus" thermos that was the giveaway for RE 3 preorders.
The Interactive Dead Rising Map (via Cybermike)
Speaking of zombies, navigating in Dead Rising for the Xbox 360 can be a bit confusing, so one enterprising gamer crafted an interactive map for Dead Rising's mall. It's done in the style of your typical local mall's "You Are Here" kiosks and signs, with each shop carefully labeled and a hovering word balloon describing what you can find there. You can find the Interactive Dead Rising Map via that hyper link I just made. Over there. To the left. No, not YOUR left, you nut. I meant the text. Geez.
OBJECTION! (thanks, freakservo)
Phoenix Wright meets Willy Wonka. This little bit of fan-flashery is a whismical mash-up of two of my fave things: Phoenix Wright for the DS and the first Willy Wonka movie. Two great tastes that DO go great together. How? Well, check out the link and see!
Pinball really CAN rock. GameSetWatch's Danny Cowan reached back into the 32-bit era to find at least one pinball game for a game console that didn't suck—and actually found two. Bah, I'm sure our very own Steve McHugh can find more, right?
...and YOU
Of course, while 411 Mania Games is a mighty media portal, with our fingers in lots of pixel pies, and my association with such a collection of hard-working staffers makes me, by association, AWESOME... even I can't be everywhere at once. So, I'm looking to you, the dozens (....and! DOZENS!) of loyal Struckomaniacs-- have you come across some gem of a newspost, online feature, video-game movie, video clip, or bit of gaming minutiae that you feel deserves a wider audience? Well then, send an email to shawnstruck@gmail.com with a link and how you wish to be credited (real name, email, 411Forum handle, etc).
And have you ever wanted to have a chance to share your opinion with a game reviewer (or fire back at a game THEY hated but you liked)? Well, now you can, with me. I've been getting a trickle of feedback from my reviews and previews, and so I'm offering y'all some eyeball real estate. Send me feedback, see your name in print. What are the guidelines? Glad you asked (tip of the keyboard to Erin Mehlos )!
Q: What do I have to do to get my feedback printed?
A: At the very least, make it look like you read the following submission guidelines:
Length: There is no explicit word limit, but if at all possible, keep it under 500 words. occasional wiggle room not withstanding-- I'm a sucker for a well-written letter, length be damned.
Language: I will make no bones about my love for obscenity -- it's a much-maligned art form, and one I have no reservations about practicing
under the benevolent gaze of Ashish and Newbs. Bear in mind, I said art-form, and when I say "art," I don't mean Jackson Pollack -- I'm not fond of vulgarity strewn around willy-nilly. Obscenity should instead be like an Escher line drawing, wrought with control and precision.
Signed names: I don't especially care if you sign your name or not, but for the most part, without names -- or pseudonyms, at least -- it's difficult to maintain a person, reader-to communistcolumnist atmosphere.
Sigs: I don't print contributors' e-mail addresses for various reasons, so if you tack it on to the end of your letter, don't expect me to pass it along. I may print homepage addresses if similarly appended, so make sure if you've written in to flame the living hell out of, say, the Fire Wrestling Pro fans, that your e-mail address is nowhere to be found on the site linked to unless you want to field the subsequent backlash. Sig quotes and other such nonsense makes little difference to your letter being printed, either way.
Praise and other feedback: Nothing says luvin' like sending me an e-mail asking if you could please bear my children because you're smitten with my verbal mad skillz, but nevertheless, if you must, send it separately from your contributions to the discussion at hand. Same goes for constructive criticism, which is equally appreciated.
Q: Your opinion of Game X sucks! So do you! And your site! And your pets! BLOO HOO EMO POSTING BAD NAMES ABOUT YOU IN DBZ FORUM NOW.
A: I'm sorry -- would you like your money back?
So go ahead, and help this weekend column be the best it can be, just like you've helped the site be the best it can be.. if you SMELLELELELELELELELL! What Shawn STRUCK... is cooking. (PROTIP: Pancakes.)
But... but... PLUGS!
Chris McCarver reviews the highly anticipated Enchanted Arms for the Xbox 360. I kept getting this confused with Thousand Arms in my mind, even though they're nothing alike. Then I though of Wild Arms. Then that reminded me of the move "Wild, Wild, West". Y'know, what else you find out West? Ranches. Ranches, Ranch sauce, special sauce! That goes on burgers! So does bacon, which brings to mind Kevin Bacon! WOW. You can connect him to ANYTHING. Um.. where was I again?
Uh, erm... in Fact or Fiction, we take two writers for 411 Mania Games, put 'em in a pickle jar, shake it up, and see if they'll fight. This time it's SeanMcCabe and StevenMcHugh.
Madden NFL 07: Now in three flavors; Xbox 360, Nintendo Gamecube and Playstation 2 .
Vincent Chuichi gives a preview of the latest Sonic The Hedgehog game, with some pretty sweet screen shots, too!
Loco Roco es un um.. awesome-o game-o, so says Joel Beggs. Minus the broken Spanish.
McCaver's thuggin' and buggin' with his Saints Row review.
Will Scott weighs in with part three of his Game Rant on the death of PC Gaming. See, PC games are dying, some say, and there's a search for the culprit. Was it Annika the Taurn with the Mace in the Molten Core that did it?
Joel Beggs also has a new Hardcore Gamer column, this time featuring feedback! How hardcore is Joel? He has the only known working ROM of Bio Force Ape!
D. W. checks in with a review of the only game where you can go bowling for zombies, Dead Rising.
And thus the first edition of draws to a close. Although I have completed the column, the soul still burns. I guess I'll have to drown out the sorrow with some Katamari Damancy and Kareoke Revolution sessions with my wife. Until next week, be excellent to each other, and read my stuff.
