Oh, the decisions

Sooooo...a local game store in Singapore has copies of Chou Aniki: Sei Naru Protein Densetsu (PS2) for sale.

Should I buy it?

Rebelstar Tactical Command

Apparently, the X-Com creators are making a Strategy RPG for the GameBoy Advance. It's not a remake of X-Com but some of the features do sound reminiscent of that venerable, scary franchise. Gunstar Super Heroes is still what I want on my GBA for Christmas, but I'll take an X-Com-like SRPG happily.

From the Serious Games email list

Posted by Daniel Cook on the Serious Games email list:

"One of the common mindsets of folks doing Serious Games seems to be that Serious Games must be comparable to commercial games. Bull. In my experience, you can have a game using 10-year old technology that still makes the customer happy as long as it solves the business problem. If you are saving millions, no one gives a flying hoot about your lack of pixel shaders."

This is after a long, long thread about the value of graphics in serious games, which basically boils down to this: have pretty graphics if you can afford to, just make sure it's not at the expense of gameplay.

Simple enough. There's something about the way how Cook's quote reads that just amuses me, though.

Capcom X Namco SRPG

I could explain the reasons behind my current euphoria, or you could just download the two videos.

In fact, the only thing keeping me from exploding into a million shards of consumerism (all targeted towards the nearest game store) is the fact that this game hasn't been announced for the US or European market yet. A couple of points that may escape your attention: it's a strategy RPG with an isometric view, so I expect they mean something like Disgaea or Final Fantasy Tactics, which is perfect in my book. It's not entirely clear if attacks have any skill element in them.

Bad enough that we don't get Super Robot Taisen in the english-reading world. If this one doesn't get a translation, I blame IGN entirely. "Characters are drawn via sprites...they don't look look as solid during fight scene"?!? What, are they expecting over 200 characters in an SRPG to get 3D animation? Unfortunately, that's probably a good example of how Joe Mainstream Gamer is going to react to screenshots.

Klonoa and Demitri and Megaman and Mitsurugi. The mind boggles.