Hardcore Gaming 101

9/19

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 00:10:42 -0400

Lots of stuff for this update. A few weeks ago the English fan translation for Policenauts was released, so it's natural that an article would follow suit. The old article for its companion game, Snatcher, has also been tremendously overhauled and expanded. Also up: a look at Night Trap, the controversial (mostly for stupid reasons) FMV shlock fest; Monster Party, Bandai's frighteningly bizarre horror themed NES game; Rogue Galaxy, Level 5's rather gorgeous action-RPG for the PS2; Hydlide, the really old Japanese RPG series that has a "classic" status over in its homeland but is looked upon as garbage over here; and Full Throttle, Lucasart's excellent heavy metal/biker themed adventure game. This comes as a prelude to Brutal Legend, which should be out in a couple weeks, I think. I got a demo code from Gamestop, but apparently some bastard already registered it! Too bad, the intro looks fantastic.

8/31

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 21:12:47 -0400

It's been awhile since a real update, but that's okay! Because this one is pretty big. New articles include The Lone Ranger, the Konami-developed NES game based off the old TV serial, which would be a classic if it weren't so absurdly unforgiving; Beneath a Steel Sky, the predecessor to Broken Sword and a fantastic sci-fi story in its own right; Gensou Senki, a strange doujin beat-em-up featuring a variety of 2ch mascots; an expansive look at Chrono Trigger, largely believed to be one of the best JRPGs ever; Otocky, the Famicom rhythm game/shooter Toshio Iwai, who later went on to develop Elektroplankton; Shadow of Destiny / Memories, Konami's early PS2 adventure game that deals with time travel; and Citizen X, a previously unreleased FMV/action game for the Sega CD. There's also two special articles that deviate a bit from the norm: Localization: Confessions By Industry Legends is an expansive bit on the art of translating games from Japanese, which includes several interviews including some MP3 recordings; and a look at Project Diva, a Sega PSP game based on the Vocalroid phenomenon that's been spreading across Japan over the past few years, involving virtual pop idol Miku Hatsune. The author, Daijoubu, informed me that today is her second birthday, so, happy birthday and all that.

Also, make sure to check out the HG101 Blog, which is updated almost every day and includes write-ups on doujin video game music CDs, lamentations on the state of British video game journalism, an expansive look at Konami's main composers throughout the years, the connection between Suda 51 and Wild Palms, the 1993 TV series, and a lawnmower that looks like a Virtual On cabinet. Please look forward to more of such writings! *bow*

7/27

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:05:41 -0400

So, the site is mostly moved and settling in. Remember, the new URL is http://www.hardcoregaming101.net. Most of the old pages will point hear, at least until they all get deleted at the end of August. Anyway, I wanted to get more done in this update, since I'm leaving for vacation later in the week, but alas, it was not meant to be. Two articles are themed around Konami FDS games: Ai Senshi Nicol, which is a bit like the overhead scenes in Blaster Master, and Meikyuu Jiin Dababa, which is something like Startropics with a Buddhist monk. And finally, a look at Eric the Unready, a funny text adventure by Legend Entertainment, formed by some of the guys from Infocom in hopes to save the genre. They did a damn good job for awhile, until they were bought by Atari and forced to make Unreal 2. But hey, that's the way the industry seems to work.

Some older articles have been updated with reviews of remakes/sequels for Brandish, Klonoa, Choaniki, Punch-Out!!, and (UGH) Leisure Suit Larry. There are more in the works, obviously. The Konami Shoot-em-ups article has also been updated with a bunch of stuff I missed, including an odd early game called The End, a hidden Gyruss mini-game in Contra: Legacy of War, and several gameplay systems from Trigon and Crisis Force.

You'll notice the small menu above has changed a bit. For starters - check out the new Hardcore Gaming 101 Blog, a supplement to this site with musings, lamentations, mini-reviews, and other stuff of the sort. It only got started a few days ago, but already I think there's some pretty good content, including a cool look at some inspirations behind Suda 51. Forum member Derboo also finally got me to get off my ass and figure out a better classification scheme for the articles. The main page is still sorta alphabetically, but now you can see listings by genre, theme and company.

7/10

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:29:44 -0400

So, uh, oops. Sometimes I spend so much time working on individual articles that I forgot how long it is between updates. That being said, we've finally made our move onto Kontek, with our own new URL! I'm still getting the nameservers set up, so right now it's just forwarding traffic, but things will be ironed out shortly.

Anyway, to make up for the lost time, this is an extremely expansive update. This includes The Divide: Enemies Within, a forgotten 3D action-platformer in the vein of Metroid, with an interview with one of the developers; Ikari Warriors, SNK's Rambo inspired overhead shooters, infamous for their terrible NES ports; 90s Sylvester Stallone Special, with reviews of games based on Cliffhanger, Demolition Man and Judge Dredd; Cocoron, a nifty little Famicom action game where you can assemble your own hero; Nikujin, a strange Japanese freeware game featuring naked ninjas; Moon Crystal, another cool Famicom game with gorgeous animation; Broken Sword, Revolution Software's brilliant series of adventure games; Rakuga Kids, a 2D fighting game by Konami featuring Paper Mario-style doodles; and finally, Konami Shooters, an expansive look at all of Konami's shooting games, ranging from early stuff like Scramble and Gyruss, to later masterpieces like XEXEX and Axelay.

Finally, if you're attending Otakon in Baltimore on the weekend of July 17-19th, be sure to check out the Falcom panel, hosted by myself and some of the fine folks over at The Ancient Land of Ys. It's a bit early - currently scheduled at 10:15 AM on Saturday in Panel Room 1 - but we will jive about what makes Falcom awesome (like Ys, Xanadu, Popful Mail, Brandish, Vantage Master, and many others) and probably give away from prizes too. So stop by if you want to see some rad video game stuff or just want to hang for a bit with some awesome video game nerds. My Ode to Shmups music video was also entered into the AMV contest, although it didn't make the nominations, presumably because there is 100% no anime content. But if you hang out in the reject showing room, you might see it!