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-Travis

P.S. Keep on the look out for a Diablo II play date.

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Podcast 94 - The Early But Still Late Show

094 - The Early But Still Late Show [download]

Impressions:
Brad - World End With You, Oddworld Munch's Oddysee, Castlevania Chronicles
David - Valkyria Chronicles, Sonic Unleashed
Sandra - Kingdom for Keflings, Age of Booty, Persona 4
Nick - Far Cry 2

News: EA Layoffs, Free Radical, Take 2 on Wii, MGS iPhone, Midway Closed
Post of the Week: Achievements vs Trophies
Community Segment:
4Player Minute:

Thanks,
David

Also avaliable on iTunes.

Guess who Namco still owns the rights to!

...my favorite hot bot, KOS-MOS!!! I was worried that Namco didn't own the character anymore, and I'm glad to see they still do. Not only am I excited about this cameo, but I'm keeping hope alive for custom items for the android, Alisa, in Tekken 6. I'd kill for a full on pallete swap though. Oh my god. I'm freaking out just thinking about it. Do it Namco!

Here she is in Tales of Hearts for the Nintendo DS:



BTW... I really want this game now.


Brad

A Thing of Beauty

So Christmas is over. I hope you guys spent time with family and all got good gifts from your loved ones. I'm a little too old for presents from my parents, but that doesn't mean I didn't get anything nice.

I found a crazy deal so I bought myself another Zune 30. So here's a picture of my two daughters, the joys of my life. I could never have been more proud.


I'll be working on my third this summer,
David

Nick's Final Laundry List Update of 2008!

OK so it is Christmas day officially and I am preparing for my journey to California where I will spend time with family and relax as I escape from the stress of school or work. Of course, this is also a prime opportunity for me to catch up on some gaming and prepare myself for the new year which is going to be absolutely crazy for me. My family already opened gifts and I am now the proud owner of a new Cobalt Blue DS Lite! O How I have missed thee! I can finally start playing DS games again and hopefully get sucked back into the joy that is handheld gaming. Anywho, here is my plan for the end of the year:


The majority of my flying will be spent diving head long into Final Fantasy IV for the DS, a game that I also received for Christmas. I hope that it is able to draw me in better than FFIII did because I just couldn't stick with that game. I hear the story and presentation is handled much better in this game so I don't think I have much to worry about. I also have not spent an extended period playing through a hardcore RPG in a very long time so I hope this one holds my attention. Expect me to get a few hours into this and expect my impressions on next week's show.


My PSP will also be joining me so perhaps I will find time to finish this game off as well. I was really getting into it before I got distracted by something else. I should be very close to the ending so hopefully I can tie up this loose end before the new year hits. I hear the ending is great... I hope I can remember what the hell was going on.


As soon as I return on the 29th, I plan to dive right back into Far Cry 2 and hopefully get that finished with as well. I have made the decision to simply press on through the story missions and to ignore the side missions unless they are easily accessible or relevant to my primary mission. I am 58% complete and have about 14 more missions to complete before I kill the Jackal. May not finish this one before the 1st....


Last but not least, I fully intend to plow through "Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath" as soon as the credits start rolling on FC2. Of course, this is in preparation for our first "Game Club [Working Title]" podcast to be recorded in January. We will be discussing the game in detail on the show and we will be responding to viewer comments and questions about the game live on the show. I encourage everyone who owns an Xbox to pick up the game (it's only about $14) and play through it with us. If you would like to leave us a comment or question to be read on the show, please send me an email with your name and your question to:

Nickhenderson@4playerpodcast.com

or visit the thread at our FORUMS and leave a comment in the thread: Official "Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath" Thread

That pretty much sums up my last few days of 2008. Once I knock this stuff out, I will kick off the new year by playing:
Fallout 3
Persona 4
Kingdom Hearts: Re Chain of Memories
Chrono Trigger DS

That's all for now!

-Nick

Christmas Eve and Merry Christmas

Happy Holidays to everyone. I'm about to go into work and who knows when's the next time I'll be able to get to a computer. So in case I don't see you. You know the rest.

For everyone who see's this message, thanks for checking the blog. To reward you, I have an idolm@ster video for you. It's fan made so it has subtitles and uses some creative editing.



You guys stay safe,
David

More terrible news from Capcom: "Okami won't make us rich."

From 1up:

1UP: Regarding the former Clover Studio's properties -- Viewtiful Joe, God Hand, Okami -- what will you do with them?

KI: At this time, we have no plans of making sequels to any of those properties. I can't say we won't, for certain, but it's not very likely or appealing. If we had no other properties to depend on for making new games, we might be desperate enough to create sequels to those titles, but that's not the case. We have a lot of titles that we want to make and other sequels that are waiting to be made. So, there's no interest at the moment.

1UP: But Capcom owns the rights to Clover Studios' intellectual properties, right?

KI: Yes. But, we're just not interested in them.

Source

What the fuck Capcom? I was ok with revivals of old franchises like Street Fighter, Bionic Commando, and Mega Man. The new stuff like Dead Rising and Lost Planet was solid. And I still love the mainstays like Devil May Cry and Resident Evil.

But why in the fuck would you write off some of these great IPs? Do they honestly just hold a grudge against Clover Studios?? Capcom can't say that they are not willing to hand these franchises over to another team, because they have done that with DMC, Resident Evil, and countless other franchises they own.

How can you not be interested in Okami??? In my eyes this WAS the Zelda killer. What the fuck!?!?

This shitty decision from Capcom has to be purely fucking financially driven. The first game did sell poorly. The sad part is, I honestly think that a sequel could have sold really well. A lot of times new IP that is critically acclaimed will sell infinitely better the second time around.

If you don't want Okami, Crapcom. Give it the fuck to Platinum Games. Give them Godhand as well.


Brad

How Japanese Am I?

I've never claimed to be Japanese. I'm in love with the culture. I'm in love with the women. I'm in love with the food. I'm in love with the language. I'm in love with the games. I'm in love with the anime. I'm in love with a lot of things Japanese. But I've never claimed to be Japanese. I am Chinese. My mother was born in China and my father in Taiwan. I speak Mandarin Chinese but can't read or write it. I'm not ashamed of my background. I know where I come from, being born a Chinese-American. I think some may get offended when I so strongly and proudly proclaim my love for a country other than the one I was born and live in.

Recently, I've felt some hostility because I've been playing games with Japanese voice options. That coupled with the Idolm@ster videos I play has some people confused. Why does David act this way? Is he doing this just to be different? I get all sorts of arguments about the things I like and the legitimacy behind them. I won't ever sit here and argue. Because of the Japanese occupation of Taiwan my grandmother speaks Japanese and my father grew up enjoying aspects of Japanese life. I don't know what it's like to live in Japan. Grow up and go to school there. To ride the subway every morning to get to where I need to go. To date a Japanese girl and fall in love with her. I have yet to get married and have a family, so even more I can't understand what kind of feeling that is, here or in Japan. All I've known of my life is what I've experienced. So I'm not going to argue that this is my true self.

When encountered with something different and unknown, it is very easy to dismiss or ridicule it. I've been met with lots of skepticism when people find out about my fascination with Japan. Heck, I used to be that way too. I dismissed my friend with they started listening to Korean music. I didn't understand how they could enjoy it when they didn't speak the language. It wasn't until later when I myself started listening to Korean Artists that I realized the mistakes in my ways.

I want to say that there is no wrong way to like something. That it is enough just to enjoy it. But I'm sure there are exceptions to that statement. Through my experiences, I've just decided that I'm not going to be the person who goes around pointing the finger deciding whether something is real or not. I just prefer to let it be and enjoy what I enjoy.

So in the end, nothing has changed. There will be those understand my side and there will be those who don't. There will never be one correct answer or a clear cut "winner." Brad hates onions and Nick doesn't like chocolate. I'll never understand why, but that's just how it is. I think the best way I look at my love of Japanese is that it's something different. It's not something I can find here. You find something interesting and you just want to learn more about it. I think that I'll end this post by saying that there are things that I do not like about Japan. There are things that annoy me, that I don't agree with, and that I make me sick to my stomach. At those times, it makes me proud that I grew up in America and that I don't have to act or see things in that way. I get to choose the best of the two worlds and incorporate them into my life according to which I see as correct. And that's something everyone can do.

Thanks,
David

I am looking for some good games with Japanese Voice options. Please make suggestions.

Cover Art Comparison: Farewell to a Franchise?

Guess which cover is from the US and which one is from Japan. Uh... I guess both are awesome in their own way.


From Kenji Inafune in a recent interview with 1up:

"There are currently no plans on making a new Breath of Fire game. Apart from that, regarding RPG titles, they are very popular in Japan, but only certain RPG titles sell so Capcom doesn't really need to even consider making these titles as an option. There's a low possibility that we'll be making one in the near future."

I think the current console climate means developers are less willing to put out a traditional series like Breath of Fire. If it isn't a Tales of... or Square Enix game, what's the point these days?

Last console generation all of these Japanese developers had the PS2 to rely on to sale copies of more niche titles in both Japan and the rest of the world. What do you put a game like Breath of Fire out on now? The PS3 and Xbox360 both under perform in Japan. The Wii audience seems more interested in first party casual titles. Honestly, the best place for something like this is sadly on a hand-held. Konami certainly realized this with their latest Suikoden game they just released for the DS in Japan.

The sad thing is, their last Breath of Fire game on the PS2 was ballsy and innovative. Oh well.


Brad

Who the hell is that guy in the middle???

Silent heroes are terrible. Stop please.

Seriously. It's never a good idea. Especially in Japanese RPGs when every other character has an interesting personality and talks their ass off. No one will remember the main character in Persona 4 like they remember the supporting roles.

I can let this slide in some Western RPGs. It would be certainly weird if my character from Oblivion was throwing around snarky comments as I was rolling bears down mountains. But honestly, Mass Effect has proven that a main character can have a voice and a personality while still giving the player complete control over the actions that character takes.

But in most Japanese RPGs, the fate of the characters are usually already planned out. Main characters will interact with their supporting characters the same way every time in most Japanese games. Events in the story will pretty much always play out the same way. In most of these JRPGs with silent heroes, the player is often given dialogue choices as the form of communication. The problem is, most of these dialogue options have no real impact on the story or how the character will turn out in the grand scheme of things. So why not just give this character some lines. After all... they are sort of playing the biggest part.


I'm gonna say it...

Gordon Freeman is a shit character.


Brad