NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

So perusing through my feeds in NNW this morning reading Kotaku, I came across this article about the North American and European versions of Metal Gear Solid 4 not featuring the Japanese voice track. This also applies to the Japanese version not having an English voice track as well. …FAIL!

Even worse? No English subtitles in the Japanese version either! That sucks even more than “The Suck“. As to the claims there’s not enough space on the Blu-Ray disc, I’m wondering whether or not they’re using a BD25 or a BD50 disc. There were early rumors that MGS4 might ship on a BD50 disc due to comments by Hideo Kojima saying he’d like to make use of one, which makes me wonder if they actually are or not. I haven’t listened to the latest KPR yet, so I’ll have to give it a good listen on the way to work the grill Ryan later…

R-Type!!!

Reading Gamasutra this morning, and this put a nice big smile on my face! I wanted to get this awhile back in it’s original form (known as R-Type Tactics), alas nobody seemed to have in stock at the time. Since then I’d forgotten about it, but this was a total wake up call. Talk about a happy reminder!

Musical game commentary

Sure wish I could’ve been at DICE last week considering who’s speaking at it. For those who don’t know (which probably means all of you), I’m a huge fan of both Tetsuya Mizuguchi and Masaya Matsuura (my other two favs being Fumito Ueda and Suda51).

But Matsuura, who used his own original compositions for PaRappa, expressed concern about the Guitar Hero model, in which music gamemakers license hit songs, then build their games around them.

I think this is already much better than it currently is with most non-music games where the music is largely tacked on at the end. Also I think this model, while perhaps not ideal for innovation in the musical game genre; provides like well needed stimulus to the music industry in general (although the health of the “music industry” is a topic for another discussion entirely)…

This comment however:

Matsuura suggested that Harmonix allow players to “make their own game course with their own track, and share it with each other, or sell it to each other.”

I found a wee bit on the odd side since Harmonix’ earlier titles like Frequency and Amplitude did a far better job of that. Granted both used licensed music, they both still offered modes where you could still generate your own music from gameplay as well. I also found Mizuguchi’s take on this intersting as well:

Mizuguchi, creator of acclaimed music games Rez and Lumines, said that there are pros and cons to using licensed music. By writing original music for a game, he said, “we can make the sound and music fit the game design. But nobody knows this original music.”

With Lumines 2, Mizuguchi licensed tracks from groups like the Black Eyed Peas and Fatboy Slim, which helped draw in gamers who wanted to play his game with familiar musical tracks.

Personally while Lumines II I think was the better game in terms of mechanics and gameplay options, I found the music of the original far more interesting, unique and memorable. In fact with some of the levels basically being like a live music video in the backround, I found it rather distracting compared to the more subtle graphics of the original.

Ok, this head tracking shit is getting out of hand. Now I’m not specifically talking about guys playing around with the idea and hacking existing hardware into an implementation. I’m more referring to fanboi’s who have been circle jerking all over themselves ever since Johnny Chung Lee’s experimental projects with the Wiimote exploded all over the web (in particular the head tracking demo posted on Youtube last month).

I’ve even commented on a few sites that this really isn’t that new or innovative since folks over at Natural Point who make the TrackIR products have essentially been selling products (that are already supported in games) for a few years now that allow this sort of functionality. The thing is, the principle is really quite simple, and I even pointed out that it could probably be done with the PS Eye or any other webcam (the PS Eye would probably be most suited due to it’s higher spec sensor and the fact that it relies on the host for image processing instead of internal image processing prevalent on most webcams).

Lo’ and behold, some PS3 developer goes ahead and does just that!

The really neat aspect of this and Johnny’s work isn’t so much the tracking aspect as the explorative use of existing devices for tasks other than their explicitly designed purpose (granted the PS Eye and Eye Toy were designed just for this sort of thing, the only real difference is using the visible light spectrum vs. infrared spectrum). He even credits Johnny for inspiring him to do this demo as a response to Johnny’s. The only sad part is that again the TrackIR folks don’t seem to get any credit for their years of hard work trying to make it this space. However, leave it to silly people to spout nonsense like this:

This is why I love Nintendo. Had Nintendo not innovated this generation, developers and competitors would not be looking at this technology as anything more than a passing fad. But now it’s serious – it’s real.
If Nintendo would have given us a straight Gamecube successor, there is no way we’d be watching clips like this today – there would just be no precedent for technology like this to be useful in gaming. But now the landscape of gaming has changed completely – I can’t wait for the next wave of games to start implementing this sort of thing.
Thanks for innovating, Nintendo. As usual, another company is doing it better – until you innovate once again.

Sorry fella, but Nintendo didn’t innovate this. This sort of thing has been going on long before Nintendo started showing off the Wii (or even talking about the “Revolution”). Hell, anybody who ever used to go hang in Kentia Hall during E3 would see a flood of devices by companies trying to break into the industry. Granted many of them were silly gimmicks, but it illustrates that the landscape was hardly barren before Nintendo stepped foot into it.

If you wanted to talk about an innovative videogame company, then you should be bowing to Sega not Nintendo. Even then, there are so many companies and individuals that have contributed innovation in videogames that there really is no one company that one should bow to. What you could give credit to Nintendo for though, is bringing such projects to a wider audience and making it more acceptable. Still, I’d like to see the folks behind TrackIR get a little more recognition rather than this being something more of a fruit of Nintendo’s labors.