In Case You Missed It (Because I Sure Did!): Dragon Quest IX release date is official

...as per neoGAF, portable old-school role-playing heads stateside July 11.

Interesting to note that Nintendo, not Square-Enix, is the publisher this time around. The ESRB rating is E10+ (DQ VIII on the ps2 was rated "T for Teen," as have most other mainline entries in the Dragon Quest series). Hopefully Nintendo doesn't bungle the transliterations - I'm all for family-friendly games, but this is a game series where the dialogue contributes a great deal to the overall enjoyment of the game, and I'd hate to see a diluted translation of an excellent script just to maintain more accessibility amongst the younger gaming set.

Nintendo's got a pretty impressive teaser up on their official website, FWIW:

http://dragonquest.nintendo.com./

Revising for exams

I haven't been posting as I have been wrapped up in exams and revision for them. Still getting a bit of gaming in though. I'm working through the old Zelda II for the NES (unfinished business from when I was very young ;) ) and also FFX. I'm sure I'll have posts on both soon enough. I'm not sure why I had never got round to playing FFX in the past but am glad that I am now, I think I am pretty close to the end and am working out exactly where the game stands in terms of complementing or detracting from a Catholic worldview. Purely in terms of graphics/ gameplay/ sound/ battle it rates very highly- the battle system in particular, as with thought and tactics fights can be brushed aside quickly. Obviously, in terms of gameplay, things are too linear for my liking... that seems to be the way of a lot of RPGs. There has to be balance because too much freedom normally seems to devalue the story and characterisation.

Ridin' the Alan Wake Hype Train

Alan Wake is a self-described "psychological thriller" (read: survival horror) game first announced over five years ago. It is finally set for release on May 18.

Despite my general proclivity towards role-playing games and my aversion to "blood n'guts" (that I managed to play through Resident Evil 5 without vomiting is, to quote Ben Franklin's aphorism, "proof that God loves me and wants me to happy") that such "survival horror" games tend to possess in spades, Alan Wake's emphasis on narrative development and puzzle-solving gameplay is certainly palpable to a role-playing gamer like me, and the "T for teen" rating would seem to indicate that the carnage will be kept to a minimum.

Many in the gaming community are already extolling Alan Wake as a "game-of-the-year" contender. There's even an online webisode series prequel to promote the game before its release in the coming weeks.

The metacritic average is in the 80th percentile, which would seem to indicate its not quite the foretaste of heaven some gamers apparently think it is. Still, if I ever manage to finish FFXIII and Pokemon Heartgold, I'm convinced Alan Wake can give me a good jolt of summer fun.

U.S. Supreme Court to hear case on Violent Video Games

h/t Sr. Helena at the Hell Burns blog.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-court-videos-20100427-39,0,5997035.story

Prayers!

Hey all,

Yours truly is undergoing something of a dark night right now and could use some spiritual backup.

St. John of the cross, ora pro nobis!

Console games on a Laptop screen

I don't really want to have a television in my seminary room and I couldn't afford the TV licence either, so I use a little device called EasyCap (and there are tonnes of clone devices with different names) all on ebay for around £10. The device converts the three colour wires that would normally go into a scart lead into a USB head. The USB goes into your PC/Laptop and then you use a video capture program to capture the video coming out of the USB. A decent free program is VirtualDub, a better premium one is AMCap.

Anyway, all this means I can play PS2 games or XBOX 360 on my Laptop screen. There is a tiny lag time between input and display and small sound sync delay but for playing RPGs it is more than sufficient. The device is useful to record the stuff happening in the game and so my brother wants to borrow it to continue his boss walkthroughs for games beyond 5th generation consoles.

The return of 2D platformers

I think it is fantastic that in the last 2 years game developers have started to create some new 2D platform games- there has been Little Big planet, the phenomenally successful New Super Mario Bros and the upcoming Sonic 4. I have never been a fan of the 3D platformers which I think either tend towards becoming adventure games, lame RPGs or simply a continued quest to get a good camera angle. So, lets hear it for neo-retro 2D platformers that get back to the jumping, running, dodging, waiting, timing, falling into lava/spikes, getting crushed, using little springs and squashing enemies that we remember and love.