The Negative Edge News Report 04.04.07
Posted by Tommy Coloma on 04.04.2007
Staying up-to-date, a cruel April Fools' Day joke, yet another new (but this time noteworthy) MMO, and more!
After almost 10 years of using the same 15-inch CRT monitors (in dual or tripple screen setup for programming), I finally decided to upgrade and get myself one large widescreen LCD monitor. The difference when playing games is amazing! I see colors I never saw before. Everything is nice and crisp. Dark objects are dark and bright objects are bright. I don't know why it took me so long to get with the times. Of course, this upgrade got me to start thinking - could it be that it's time for me to get with the times with respect to video games as well? Even though I get new games all the time, I find that I spend more time playing the older ones. Maybe I should finally break down and buy/rent all those top-rated games that I find one reason or another to avoid. They're liked for a reason. It's time for me to find out why...
The news as I see it
The cruelest April Fools' Day joke ever
Well... maybe just for anime and/or fighting game fans...
Looks like French Bread was having a little fun on their site over the weekend when they announced the impending release (set for April 1, 2014) of their new Fate/Stay Night fighting game. The announcement came with some very slick screenshots like the following -
For those of you that don't know, Fate/Stay Night is one of the most popular visual novels ever over in Japan. It also spawned a 24 episode anime last year. I liked that show along with Tsukihime and the Melty Blood fighting game so after seeing those screenshots I found myself looking forward to the ability to play a fighting game set in the Fate/Stay Night universe. Unfortunately, it only took a simple Google translation to dash all those thoughts away. Some of the BS that I found are as follows -
Fighting ? already in item of 2013 decision schedule!
* Hardware requirement
Object OS Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit edition exclusive use
CPU Core2Quadx2 (physical 8 core) about 4GHz recommendation
Recommendation above memory 8GB
Graphics GeFORCE 8800 GTX Quad SLI (main point VRAM512MB) recommendation
Voodoo13 (above main point VRAM 1GB) recommendation
Display triple display recommendation (it lines up into side, the same of size mono. Recommendation use of [daraiasu] frame)
Media 2 layer BD-ROM 9 uniting & installation necessary capacity approximately 450GB
In addition recommending the use of the game pad x2 which 12 buttons from here is restless
As usual steering wheel controller correspondence and foot pedal correspondence
Wii remote control + [nunchiyaku] necessity
SKYPE correspondence
* Operation method
1 levers +10 button. Formality arrangement becomes like below.
uso = lie, fake
Yeah. Its pretty clear how close to reality this one is...
There's always hope though. According to posters at SRK, Melty Blood was originally announced as an April Fools' Day joke. That in and of itself gives me some hope. Also, take a good look at the sprites up above (click on the small pictures to see them in their original size). Notice anything? Like how well made they are? That is way more work than most people would put into something that is just an April Fools' Day joke. My guess is that French Bread put this stuff out to see how much interest there would be in such a game. Or maybe they're just doing this to stir interest in the real (non fighting) PS2 game that's coming out later this month. Oh well...
My time is precious to me. Are you going to make me walk to a volcano?
Between April 6 and April 24, gamers will be able to participate in the open beta for The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar for free. I believe that there will be a limit to how many people can sign up so you should sign up as soon as possible if you're interested. They didn't take in any personal info if I remember correctly. They just need an email address to send your activation number to. You can sign up here. The client is almost 4 gigs so if you want to start on the 6th you should sign up and start downloading now. It only took a few hours on torrent but I'm lucky enough to have a fast connection.
I think that name recognition alone will set this one apart from all the other MMOs that seem to be cropping up everywhere. But even if the game sucked, I've found that I have the most fun in these types of games when they are new - when everyone is learning the ropes. It's nice to be able to ask some questions and get straight responses instead of being called a noob. New online games are also great if you're the type of person that likes to be evil. Just check out this conversation I had with a friend of mine who was able to get into the beta early (he apparently knows people) -
[18:31] friend: its raining with thunder and lightning in lord of the rings, that's pretty kewl, weather changes. and it goes from day and night
[18:32] me: is it the same everywhere? are games instanced like in gw?
[18:53] friend: wut u mean same everywhere?
[18:54] friend: it's continuous like pirate king...no loading into different zones and stuff
[18:54] friend: that's why u can see other ppl doing quests outside of town
[18:54] friend: and steal their items..
[18:57] me: nice
[18:57] me: isn't that coolio?
[18:57] friend: yes
[18:58] me: what if people are doing the same quests?
[18:59] friend: quest items respawn pretty quickly like i said but for some quests u have to take out enemy guarding it but i just go up and grab while others are busy fighting
[19:02] me: can' u just do that all the time then?
[19:02] me: how will anything get done legitimately?
[19:24] friend: well someone has to do the fighting
[19:24] friend: only need to pick up item once to complete quest
[19:25] friend: not like u can do a quest over and over
[19:25] me: but don't people want the goods?
[19:25] friend: wut goods?
[19:25] me: like that shield
[19:25] friend: was quest item, u don't keep it, recover shield for somebody
[19:26] friend: then u return to that guy and he gets shield and u get reward for completing quest
[19:26] me: oh. so you helped them to complete their mission?
[19:26] friend: these are those stupid quests given out by the npcs
[19:27] me: so these are individual quests?
[19:27] friend: yes
[19:27] friend: but u see other ppl doing it too
[19:27] me: people are being bastardous already?
[19:28] friend: well, since he was fighting it, wut u expect me to do? wait til it dies and respawn so i kill it?
[19:28] friend: or i cudda helped him kill it, be he was fine
[19:31] friend: interface not that good tho...like when u want to talk to somebody and click on him...it'll say player is too far away.
[19:31] friend: u have to manually walk up there, no auto walk when u click
[19:32] friend: and when u fighting an enemy and not facing him. it'll say u need to face target to fight...no auto turn
[19:32] me: complain. that's what betas are for
[19:32] friend: but those are so obvious
[19:58] me: sometimes they just don't know
So you get to play for free for almost a month and you get the new MMO experience. Free is good. Take advantage of it while you can!
The week in releases
TMNT (Wii VC)
This was one of my favorites from back in the day but apparently, not everyone has fond memories of it -
Grindhouse (movie)
Going on the trailer alone, this movie looks like a total cheese-fest. That isn't necessarily a bad thing as this is one of the first times in a long time that I'm going into a movie expecting to be entertained.
I wanted a God of War pic that didn't make me look like a devil worshiper to those that don't play video games. Does this deliver?
I'm calling you out
I still haven't given up on this section so this week I'll throw something out that a lot of people have their own opinion about -
Final Fantasy X-2 is a great sequel
You can tell that a sequel is great if it makes you not want to play its predecessor. What I mean is that if you were given the choice to play the original or the sequel, if the sequel was great you would without hesitation choose to play it instead of the original.
Agree? Disagree? Let's hear what you have to say!
I'm done for the week. I see a button that says "do not press." If have enough willpower to listen to that warning, I'll be back next week.
