Archive for the 'Features' Category
By: Ivan 'Nahu' Lozano - On Friday 20 June 2008 @ 7:09 pm
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If you thought we have it bad with micro transactions, game cash shops and virtual economies in the western world you surely don’t know about the QQ coin. In China, a company called Tencent has a monopoly on virtual currencies, one so massive and shady that state regulators fear it may start to affect China’s own currency.
It all starts looking innocently enough. Tencent runs websites with all sorts of games where either subscriptions or items are bought with the QQ, Tencent’s virtual currency. Much like Second Life you can take your QQ and convert it back to cash, and this is where thing’s start getting shady.
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The Almighty QQ: The Story Of The Worlds Most Powerful Virtual Economy
By: Chris 'Taco' Martinkovic - On Thursday 12 June 2008 @ 11:24 pm
Summer’s rolling on in, and boy is it a hot one! What better of a way to cool yourself down than to take a break inside and watch some of your favorite anime? Take a look at what shows you can expect to cool off to this season; Remakes, second seasons, and fresh new shows promise to bring something for everyone!
By: Quiche - On Tuesday 3 June 2008 @ 12:00 pm
In this column I talk about the upcoming games covered in the industry press in the past week that I’m most and least excited about.
MINUS: Guitar Hero: On Tour
So far the hands-on reports of this game from various gaming news sources have been glowing, but I personally don’t buy it at all. The problem with rhythm games and American audiences is that we’ve been raised on mediocrity for some time now, so much so that the standards have been skewed. While the flank steaks of Guitar Hero and Rock Band might be tasty in their own right, they just can’t compare to the exquisite fillet mignon of titles like Drummania and IIDX. To carry this analogy further, Guitar Hero: World Tour looks to be the equivalent of a White Castle burger; it’s portable and flavorful, but cheap and short-lived (it would probably also be best enjoyed high).
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Hype Report 1: Wherein I Compare Beef to Video Games
By: Abraham 'Velcor' Duarte - On Tuesday 27 May 2008 @ 9:55 pm
Hello again, dear DDN readers. Today I’ll show you one of my favorite racing games: the latest installment of the Wave Race franchise, Blue Storm.
I won’t lie, from the first time I picked up the N64 game from the nearest Toys’R'us I knew I’d love this game to no end, just like the F-zero series (on console, I didn’t like the GBA game). Excellent graphics, water physics, challenging AI, and the classic ride-the-dolphin trick: this racer gave us a lot without asking for anything in return. And that’s just the N64 version!
The Gamecube version included new stages, better soundtrack, more characters, character color and jet-ski handling customization, and an even more difficult AI. Needless to say, the upgrade from anonymous helmeted characters on the N64 to complete personalities and names on the GC title was an excellent feature, giving us greater quality in our Wave Race experience. I completely love how your guide changes depending on your racer. It makes it a more real experience, being in a tournament and all.
The 2 videos below are almost the same, but in the first one I fail miserably because of my lack of practice over these months. . . and the other is the third try. What a difference! Enjoy!
By the way, I’m playing on expert on Souther island on Sunny day.
Here’s the other one. Yay for me!
Liked it? I really had fun recording these! Wait for more some time later!
By: Ben 'FBINinja' Schmidt - On Tuesday 27 May 2008 @ 9:19 pm
The classic JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure has gotten the wrong people angry at them, the Muslim community has gone up in arms on the Internet after someone pointed out that one of the villains was reading that looked like their Holy scripture, the Koran.
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JoJo’s Bizarre Adventures Causes uproar in Muslim communities.
Come and see the best, most remarkable cosplayers who attended ACEN 2008! Finally after days of literary fighting to put this together it’s done: a gallery and slideshow of all of the awesome cosplayers our ACEN team got to meet. There is some great stuff in here: ingenious, comic, sexy and sometimes near naked cosplay for you to enjoy.
Also, catch a few shots of the crew in some of the less compromising positions I could find. Seriously, I had to remove about 20 images of empty alcohol bottles at the hotel room. You can watch the slideshow above and then head over to the full gallery after the jump.
PS: Bonus points if you can name every song in the slideshow!
By: Abraham 'Velcor' Duarte - On Sunday 18 May 2008 @ 12:37 am
Hello again! Hope you didn’t miss me along with this section of DDN! I come with an upgraded version: This time I’m going to capture myself playing the games I like and I want you to know about. How’s that, huh? I’m such a good fellah, I’m sure you’re gonna love it!
I’d like to start this new section with one of my favorite fighting games (and almost the only if not THE only 2d sprite fighting game for the Gamecube): Capcom Vs. SNK 2 EO. For the ones who don’t know about this one, this game features a clash from your favorite fighters from the SNK fighting games (mainly KOF but some others make it to the game) and the other half of the cast from CAPCOM games. A nice touch in this sequel is that you could select among 6 different “grooves” or styles of play (like Advanced or Extra in Kof ‘97 and ‘98 but more specified) so you can choose who you play with but how to do so.
In this quick match I set up I’m the 1P, using Haohmaru, Hibiki and Athena. Difficulty is level 8 and I’m playing a standard Arcade mode. Wait for the surprising finish!
Liked it? Thought so. Expect more of these Velcor-Video-Veracities sometime later! Peace!
By: Random J - On Saturday 17 May 2008 @ 6:36 pm
Super Mario Galaxy’s soundtrack is stunning. Many went crazy over the clip Nintendo put out of them playing a theme from it (me being one of them) and I honestly don’t think the soundtrack gets enough props. It’s without a doubt one of the most grandiose soundtracks Nintendo has ever done and it sticks out because the music went above and beyond what you expected for a Super Mario game.
There are many highlights from the soundtrack, but I decided to go with “Battle rock galaxy”. It sounds like something straight out of a Star Wars movie. It really is just big and grand. The music alone is amazing, but it really is something else when you have the game play and stunning visuals to go along with it. The music also has intricate changes in melody as you play the game: with sections changing as you move from area to area and as you launch from star pads. Unfortunately this isn’t all showcased on the version on the original soundtrack CD - but you can still hear how quality the music is. I tagged the piece “Space peace” at the beginning of “Battle rock galaxy” because it is a completely stripped down version of the same song and it seemed fitting to tie them together. Plus it acts as a nice prelude to the main piece.
Listen: Space peace / Battle rock galaxy
Composed by Mahito Yokota & Koji Kondo
Super Mario Galaxy OST
© 2007 Nintendo
By: tskiller - On Friday 2 May 2008 @ 7:55 am
Suddenly, anime! Thousands of shows! Well maybe not that much, but a new season can make it overwhelming to pick out what to watch. Have no fear, here at DDN we watch all the crap FOR you, and then tell you what is decent! Time for part two of: Spring season first looks! This segment will contain first looks of: Allison to Lillia, Soul Eater, Golgo 13, Kamen no Maid Guy, and Code Geass R2. Click on for the full scoop!
By: tskiller - On Sunday 20 April 2008 @ 2:06 pm
Suddenly, anime! Thousands of shows! Well maybe not that much, but a new season can make it overwhelming to pick out what to watch. Have no fear, here at DDN we watch all the crap FOR you, and then tell you what is decent! Time for part one of: Spring season first looks! This segment will contain first looks of: To Love Ru, Macross Frontier, Kanokon, Blassreiter, and The Tower Of Druaga. Click on for the full scoop!
By: Random J - On Saturday 12 April 2008 @ 8:38 pm
The Parasite eve series was one of the worst kinds of series. You know the ones… Original for the company who developed it at the time, had potential, was decent, but was short lived. Parasite eve was one of Square’s most polished titles on the presentation front at it’s time of release. The graphics were hot (trumping the likes of Final Fantasy), the FMV was stellar and the music was seriously kick arse! For the music, we thank Yoko Shimomura. The lady who would be remembered for the now iconic Street Fighter II soundtrack and then rise in popularity many years later for helming the Kingdom Hearts’ soundtracks. Her work on Parasite Eve was was of the high quality you’d expect from her. Her compositions set the tone of the game perfectly. F**k knows what happened to the soundtrack for Parasite Eve II. I’m not sure if Yoko Shimomura even contributed to it, which would explain alot.
I present to you the battle theme from the first Parasite eve game. It’s hot, it’s funky and I’m partial to working a shoulder to it now and then.
Listen: Arise within you
Composed by Yoko Shimomura
Parasite Eve OST
© 1998 Square Enix
Last Saturday 15th of March Video Games Live gave its first performance in Mexico as well as its first performance with a student orchestra. Our very own Velcor being a music student fought for a spot on the show, read on to find out how it is to be on the inside of the beast as well as my account of the event as just another fan.
Velcor’s Account:
It all started in Ensenada, Baja California, a small city 4 hours away from the city where the concert was to be held, and also the place most of the members from the orchestra and choir were from. It was about 3 weeks ago that I heard from one of my classmates that Video Games Live was recruiting members for the orchestra. Inquisitive as I am, I asked him if there was room for one more voice at the choir (I’ve been a bass voice on various performances before so I was confident I’d do a well job); Yes, he replied, so as soon as class ended, I dashed to talk to the school’s administration and asked them about being a part of the show.
After some mean stares and threats to their physical integrity sweet-talking they didn’t seem to have any objections (smart choice). And so I was in and on my way to being part of this video game music phenomenon.
By: Random J - On Saturday 8 March 2008 @ 3:00 pm
Sonic adventure 2 was an upgrade from Sonic adventure 1, but it was still an iffy game that was far from perfect. Sega never took the hint from the first game that they should not expand the Sonic crew past Tails, Knuckles and Amy, and decided to introduce Shadow. Sonic in black with a bad attitude, a bit of hair on his chest and a gun is bound to be cool right? No. Sonic is annoying enough, a clone of him is overkill. Sega’s butchering of their once beloved franchise aside, Sega always manage to get two things right with their Sonic games: The graphics and the audio. You can trust Sega to deliver a Sonic game for consoles that looks and sounds nice, just as much as you can rely on them to f**k every other aspect of the game up.
Sonic adventure 2 didn’t have the most memorable soundtrack, but one song more than did it’s part: ‘Escape from the city’. The piece that players were graced with on the very first stage. Sure it was cheesy, but it was hot cheesy and captured the essence of Sonic brilliantly. I’m not ashamed in the slightest to say I really like this song and used to play the hell out of it.
Listen: Escape from the city
Performed by Ted Poley & Tony Harnell
Sonic adventure 2 OST
© 2001 Sega
By: Random J - On Saturday 23 February 2008 @ 3:58 pm
In light of me posting an in depth interview with Nobuo Uematsu, it’s only fair that I honor him for today’s Sound test Saturday.
Final Fantasy VIII was a pretty weak soundtrack in my opinion. There were probably only 3 pieces from it that stood out, one of them being “Liberi Fatali”. I would’ve posted that tonight, only Uematsu wasn’t responsible for it and I wanted to honor him this evening.
I’ve decided to post “The legendary beast”. For years I thought this was from Final Fantasy VII and even posted that it was until Dark Diamond regular Link pointed out to me that this piece was indeed from Final Fantasy VIII. So excuse the mishap and my lack of knowledge regarding shit such as which game this piece was from. Even now I cannot remember what you fight when you hear this piece. I just remembering it moving me and thinking to myself “Shit! I cannot f**k up…” The Final Fantasy fans amongst you with better memories than mine: Please enlighten me as to what you had to fight when this played. I cannot remember for shit.
As hot as this piece sounds as it is, I’d love to hear this orchestrated live. That would most definitely rock…
Listen: The legendary beast
Composed by Nobuo Uemtasu
Final Fantasy VIII OST
© 1999 Square Enix
By: Random J - On Saturday 9 February 2008 @ 3:00 pm
I’ve decided that every other Saturday I’ll post a piece of video game music that I dig and feel like sharing; in something I’m going to call Sound test Saturday. (If you can think of a better name, please…share it with me).
Today’s VGM is from Street Fighter EX+ alpha. The EX series may have slumped into suckyville with the second and third titles; but the PlayStation release of the first EX game was pretty solid and the soundtrack was awesome. The music comprised of really funky numbers which featured live instrumentations and gave the sound this really cool edge. It was a nice break from the tinny MIDI’fied numbers that many Capcom and Street Fighter related soundtracks had sported up until the point EX+ alpha came along.
There are many highlights of the EX+ alpha soundtrack, but the one I’m going to share with you this evening is Hokuto’s theme: “Sakura mankai”. This shit sounded like your life was in danger and that you were going to get stabbed underneath a cherry blossom tree at night by some crack head ninja. I loved it! Damn funky, well arranged and mood setting.
Listen: Sakura mankai
Street Fighter EX OST
© 1997 Capcom / Arika
com.JPG "Only the finnest in flash animation for your entertainment")
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