The Negative Edge News Report 12.13.06
Posted by Tommy Coloma on 12.13.2006
The Halo 3 trailer, bastardous cops, annoying politicians, how to get a Wii before Christmas, rare downloadable games, and more!
Welcome back to another edition of The Negative Edge News Report. I guess I didn't learn my lesson last time as I just got another job in San Francisco. For the last week or so I've been commuting to and from work via car and train every weekday. It's a two hour (or more) commute (one hour of driving and another hour on the train) both ways so I'm commuting for at least four hours a day. I prefer taking the train as it gives me around two hours to do other things (like write this column). This started as a forty hour contract but it looks like it's been extended until the end of January next year. Yay! Now I can afford to pay scalper prices for a Nintendo Wii (yeah right!). Anyway, because of my new job I finished last week's column late so instead of releasing it late it was decided that I should combine it with this week's column. That took a load off of my shoulders. Alright, lets get to the news -
The news as I see it
Halo 3 trailer
You can check out the trailer at gametrailers.com if you missed it.
I'm not much of a fan of the series (I hate playing first-person shooters with regular controllers) but that didn't stop me from checking out the new Halo 3 trailer. My verdict? It looks cool and it does a good job with showing how much of a badass Master Chief is. C'mon. He jumps in the middle of a bunch of enemies right after getting his helmet knocked off. Awesome stuff.
The intro sequence of the trailer made the children's gender ambiguous so I thought that it was a possibility that Master Chief could be a girl. Thankfully, I took a little trip to wikipedia before I posted this and found that it has already been established that Master Chief is a guy. According to one of the Halo novels his name is/was John. I wrote a two page piece on the train about how significant it would have been had Master Chief been a girl but since he isn't I'll just give a summary - If MC ended up being female, such a revelation could have expand the Xbox 360's market to include people beyond the standard 18-35 male demographic. Would girls/women be more willing to pick up a first person shooter if the main character were female? Maybe. Of course, there is already Samus. Did girls/women flock to the Metroid games because Samus is female? Master Chief is different though. While Samus spends most of her time with small creatures, Metroids, the occasional space pirate, and a boss or two, Master Chief saves the world from hordes of humanoid creatures that actually shoot back. Plus, he doesn't have to solve puzzles, backtrack, and repair broken gear all the time. He just uses whatever's lying around to kick ass. A female Master Chief would have been strong without carrying all of the baggage most female leads in video games have to deal with. That being said, I'd say that the revelation of a female Master Chief would have had a very big impact on the video game industry - probably much more than the original revelation of Samus being female. What do you think?
Bastard cops abused their power to cut in line for PS3s
On Wednesday or Thursday there was a event at the HP Pavilion in San Jose. My train stops in that area so I had to deal with a lot of traffic. At one point I got stuck in a crosswalk so some porker comes up and knocks on my window (there were a few of them directing traffic in the area). From the way he was motioning I thought that he was telling me to move up so I went up as close to the car in front of me as I could. The guy then knocks on my window again (this time a lot harder) so I roll down my window. He then goes on and on about throwing me in jail because I was trying to run away. Hello! There's traffic all around me. Like I'm trying to run away. If there weren't so many people standing around I'm sure he would have pulled me out of my car and beaten me down or done some other assholish thing that you know cops are capable of. I just love the fact that phones can take pictures and record video these days. That fact is probably why I didn't receive the beating of a lifetime at the hands of some nobody traffic director. Anyway, I was hoping to find a reason to go off on the cops in my column this week. Fortunately, cops do bastardous things all the time so it wasn't too hard to find something -
According to the Associated Press (via Next Generation), two cops allowed seven people to cut in front of a line that had formed in front of a Sony store in Rhode Island during the launch of the PS3 in November. One of the cops claimed that he didn't do anything wrong. Yeah right. Those dumbasses clearly abused their powers. Unless cutting in line helps to keep the peace (ha!) or saves lives, there is no way those cops should be able to get away with what they did. I'm surprised that act didn't cause a riot. If I'd been camping out and had lost my chance to get a system because some pig abused his powers, I'd have gone nuts!
Even more bastardous cops kill a possible PS3 thief
"There's nothing more important than assuring the community that officers are there to serve and protect" - UNCW Police Chief David Donaldson
Last week a suspect in a PS3 robbery AND HIS DOG were shot and killed by some cops in North Carolina. Before answering the door, the man had been playing Tiger Woods PGA Tour with a friend. (credit: Star-News) Now, it's possible that the cops could have mistaken the PS3 controller for a gun. But really, shooting the guy five times AND shooting his dog? WTF?!?! Cops are scary! Thankfully, one of the officers that was at the scene was charged with second degree murder. (credit: WECT TV6 via Joystiq) Gee. I wonder if he'll get away with it...
Hillary Clinton and Joseph Lieberman want your votes!
GamePolitics.com reports that both Hillary Clinton and Joseph Lieberman will be joining forces to "promote ratings awareness." In the past, these two often went after the video game industry, usually citing violence and/or sex as their main concerns. It would appear that they finally realize that many gamers these days are also voters. I couldn't vote when Mortal Kombat came out so I couldn't really do anything when politicians kept telling parents all this bullshit about how MK made gamers violent or whatever crap they kept spewing back in the day. I'm sure I wasn't alone in knowing that I would definitely think twice about voting for someone that made it hard to enjoy playing video games. Going after something just because it's an easy target is annoying. Going after something that I actually enjoy? That's enough to really piss me off!
How to get a Wii before Christmas
I tried to get one a few weeks back when all of the stores started to stockpile them for release on a Sunday. I just missed my chance (the last person to get one was five places in front of me) so I thought that I'd relay what I learned from that experience. According to Wii Seeker, Target (and possibly Wal-Mart and Circuit City) is doing the stockpiling thing this Sunday (December 17). It is very likely that this is the last time that you'll realistically have a chance to get one without resorting to eBay. The last time they did this I tried both Target and Circuit City since they're right next to each other in my town. Unbeknownst to me, both places made use of tickets that were handed out before the stores opened. Target happened to give them out at 7 am while Circuit City gave some out the night before and the rest early in the morning. The trick is to know when they are handing them out and then camp a good hour or two before the appointed time. That's really the only way to do it. You have to call and get a supervisor to tell you when they plan on giving tickets away. It doesn't matter if they say that they have fifty and it's at a first-come first-served basis. Even if you're first in line when the store opens, if you don't' have a ticket you're screwed. So do this - call the store(s) that you're going to try the day before, talk to the supervisor (they're usually in between 9 am and 5 pm) or someone that knows what's going on, and find out when the tickets or vouchers are going to be given away. If the person you're talking to doesn't know what you're talking about, ask to talk to his or her supervisor. It doesn't matter if you sound like a dick. They already get a lot of calls asking the same things. It's time to get yours and to get it you must know when to wait in line for a ticket or voucher. Good luck!
The game that I bought to play on the train even though I haven't gotten my paycheck yet
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
I'm still waiting for another console 2D Castlevania game. The last one we got was Symphony of the Night in 1997. What's up with that? Today's systems have the ability to display Guilty Gear X quality 2D graphics but game makers insist on creating 2D platformers only on portable systems. C'mon! Symphony of the Night shows up on people's top favorite lists all the time. Despite what Sony wants people to believe, there is still a market for console 2D platformers. Super Metroid? Symphony of the Night? When is another console 2D platformer going to join their ranks? Until one is created, I guess we're stuck with portable ones. This isn't completely bad though. Playing this game on the train for one or two hours makes the time fly. Thank you Konami for making this awesome game!
I've had a wallscroll of this for a few years but I was never able to get a good scan of it until this week. Thankfully, some person at Minitokyo was able to make a high-resolution copy from Venus Illustrations. This drawing was made by Satoshi Urushihara, a popular anime and manga artist. The site that I got this picture from is really slow and the image that is provided is huge so it might take you a little while to download it. If there is demand I can provide an 800x600 and/or a 1024x768 version in next week's column.
I just found and killed her in Portrait of Ruin. Did I mention that it's a great game? Why aren't you playing it?
What were they thinking?
The severe lack of rare games on every system's download service
The Wii and PS3 have just been released so it is understandable that they're releasing more recognizable games first. However, it would be nice to see some harder to find games from time to time. Like, maybe Rondo of Blood or the Tengen version of Tetris. Digital distribution would be a great way to get rare games into peoples hands and I know people are willing to pay for them. Just look at how well TG-16 games are selling on the Wii Virtual Console. The only other version of Bonk that was released was the old Gameboy one. Obviously, people wanted to play it and/or try it out because they were never able to do so back in the day. I know I would (if I didn't know about something called an emulator). Will someone at these companies please look on eBay and see which old games are selling for large amounts of cash? Their prices are high for a reason - people want them. It's time to give the people what they want while giving money to those that deserve it (ie not eBayers). Nothing would satisfy me more than to see rare games like Rondo of Blood, Disgaea, or any of the other games that sell for a fortune on eBay being released through a download service and then seeing the prices on eBay plummet. Hopefully some day publishers will be smart enough to make it happen.
My pet frog Fred just jumped down a mysterious hole. If I can find him, I'll be back next week.
