Spin Cycle

To kick off the long holiday weekend, I spent Thursday afternoon playing kickball with several of my colleagues. Although the play was certainly "idyllic" and "pastoral," as we hoped, it also resulted in some very sore muscles and a wicked allergy attack, so I spent Friday at home, on the couch, with a family-sized box of Kleenex and my shiny new copy of Odin Sphere (one could say that I regressed to my "larval stage" for a day). Kickball notwithstanding, I am an adult, so I also devoted part of my day to doing laundry. That's in the interest of full disclosure.

After playing kickball, on Thursday night, I dropped in on my local Gamestop to see if they had any copies of Odin Sphere in stock. They did, just one (the gutted store copy). The clerk indicated to me that they weren't expecting this title to be a quick seller. However, when Penny Arcade calls something "an absolute must play" it's probably going to get a significant sales boost. For my part, the PA endorsement went a long way but in my household we're big fans of anything localized by Atlus USA (so many [hundreds of] hours sunk into Disgaea and Disgaea 2) so I probably would have picked it up in any case.

Odin Sphere employs a narrative framing device that sets all the action within a series of books being read by little girl in the attic of her home. The story of each of the main characters---Gwendolyn, Cornelius, Mercedes, Oswald, and Velvet---plays out in a separate book, but each story intertwines with all the others to produce the main narrative of Odin Sphere. A character who has tragically died in one book might appear again in another as the events of each book unfold before, during, and after the events of the others.

The sprites and animation are very beautiful and detailed. I think almost everyone knows by now that this is a two-dimensional, side-scrolling beat-em-up/RPG hybrid, but there's a twist. Each stage is a ring, so if you scroll in one direction long enough you'll eventually scroll back around to the starting point. Several of these rings are strung together in a non-linear group to form a level. Clearing the final boss stage clears the level, so you can proceed by a direct path to the boss or you can meander through all of the different stages to max out on experience for your weapon and your hit-point gauge.

The alchemy/gardening system adds several layers of depth and strategy. You can grow fruit and even animals from seeds and eat the proceeds to restore hit points and gain experience toward leveling them up. Later in the game, you can carry food items from the battlefield to the "Pooka village" restaurant to create gourmet dishes that will rapidly upgrade your hit points (if you can stomach the Pooka proprietess' terrible voice acting). You can also combine nearly any item in the game with a "Material" to create potions for healing or buffing yourself, potions to damage or debuff enemies, and other miscellaneous potions (for instance, Juggler magically transforms all of the items on the ground into different items at random---great for potentially turning your inventory trash into treasure).

The only other drawback (that is, other than the few instances of over-the-top acting in an otherwise excellent vocal track) is a ridiculous slowdown in the framerate in a few places. So far I've only noticed this on major boss stages that have a lot of action going on, but when this slowdown happens it's incredibly annoying. I'm thinking of playing through the first book again on my PS2 to determine if the slowdown is endemic or if it's a product of playing a PS2 game on a system it wasn't designed for (the PS3). Additionally, the PS3 occasionally reads the save data as corrupted, but the data is actually fine. Exiting to the XMB and then re-loading the game turns up a perfectly fine save.

Atlus USA is known for pressing limited quantities of their games, so if you plan to get this game (and I highly recommend that you do, if you like this sort of game), get it now before it goes all Valkyrie Profile. (Or "all MvC2," as Killa would say.)

Get Lucky: Part I

Slots of Fun

As I mentioned a few PgDns ago, I've been indulging in Mario Party 7 recently. One minigame from which I experienced higher than average enjoyment was a Single Player Bowser Minigame called Slot-A-Whirl. It is a rather simplistic game; stop the three slot reels to line up three Bowser keys, and you get to keep whatever Bowser threatened to confiscate. Faire Square of Mario Party 6 has a very similar board event, and there are several other instances of slot-based game mechanics in the series.

Slot-A-Whirl caught my attention in part due to its difficulty. It is actually somewhat tricky, unlike the board event from Faire Square that is nigh impossible during the night phase. I fancy myself an afficionado of video game slots primarily due to my extended time with Final Fantasy X-2. After enough playtime, ordinary battles became unneccesary. Only boss battles required actually indulging in combat, and in such cases there are plenty of overpowered tactics to exploit, such as the Catnip Gunner or the Mascot dresspheres.

One of the easiest methods to access, even in one's first playthough, is the Lady Luck dressphere and her Slots ability. The three reels can combine to produce a wide range of effects, running the gamut from beneficial, to ineffectual, to disasteriffic. But once one masters the skill of selecting and executing different effects, one can draw great power from this randomness. (Extensive use of the pause function can aid in the quick adaptation to the system, in case you were wondering.)

The greatest of the offensive results is Dark Matter. A nifty little attack that fires off the old "one shy of ten grand" (i.e. 9999), which for much of the game is enough to Overkill anything that dares block the Gullwing's path. Besides through the Lady Luck loophole, Dark Matter is a rather rare item, and an otherwise valuable commodity in X-2 and other iterations of the Final Fantasy multiverse.

This meditation has stirred my interest in (yet another) FFVII play through, this time with a focus on Cait Sith. His Slot Limit Break is something I have left woefully unexplored. A quick look at the definitive FAQ of FFVII by Kao Megura (may he rest in peace) reveals that the effects of this one-armed bandit can include: a random Summon, a total HP/MP restore, the super Moogle, guaranteed criticals for a time, or instant death for your opponents or your party. Beats the hell out of a Dolphin Blow, no?

(to be continued...)

This Mortal Koil

You would think that, with Square Enix's Final Fantasy 20th Anniversary Party event last weekend and Sony's Gamer's Day 2007 earlier this week, I'd have something more compelling to write about than a port of a fourteen-year-old quarter quaffer, but you would think wrong.

While waiting for my hubby and Killa's Poptart to show up, Killa and I decided to play a few rounds of MK:II on the PS3 for old time's sake. Mortal Kombat II came out in the arcades when we were both preadolescent and we used to play all the time. I mean that seriously. We played on arcade machines at least once per week, for hours. When we went on family vacations, I would seek out MK:II machines in exotic locales and play those. The arcade inside Busch Gardens (Williamsburg) had a couple of MK:II machines with the blood and gore turned off; Disney World didn't have the game on their premises at all. I didn't care for MK:I before it. I didn't care for MK:III after it. As MK:II was phased out of the arcades in favor of its later iterations and the burgeoning lineup of 3D fighters in the mid-1990s, I phased myself out of the arcades in turn.

This is just another example of me and Killa growing up gaming.

Such was the background we brought with us as we commenced our first experience with playing online over PSN. You would think that this foray into the brave new world of the PlayStation Network would be the crux of this article, but, again, you would think wrong. Anyway, we signed in to my PSN account and proceeded to search for a game to join. Finding none, we set ourselves up as a host game and waited. And waited. I excused myself to use the restroom, and when I returned Killa had found a challenger and was going to town. We took turns playing against the first challenger for 20 or 30 minutes until he got fed up and left (presumably dishearted by our m4d ski11z). We were then dumped into single-player arcade mode but we only got through half of a round before a new challenger joined in. Subsequently we trounced a number of other challengers before meeting our match (and then some).

This guy random-selected his character every time and murdered us with every character. Even Johnny Cage! He knew every special move and every finishing move (apparently) with every character. Which brought us around to an overwhelming question: What has this guy been doing these past fourteen years? Is it possible that he's been playing Mortal Kombat II this whole time? Biding his time, always waiting for the second coming of the second coming of Mortal Kombat? That glorious day when he could finally emerge from his dark basement and once again feel the sun on his face? I wish I had his dedication, whoever he is. If I had had fourteen years of practice I'd be that good, too. If only I had known at the time that, fourteen years later, I'd be playing MK:II again. But this guy, he knew. Oh, he knew.

The only hitch I noticed in the online play was when I joined a game being hosted by someone else. There was tremendous lag and latency in the remotely hosted game. I imagine it's just that the host was playing with dial-up; I certainly hope this isn't the case whenever one joins a game that is hosted by someone else. I wasn't able to find any other games to join, so I can't be sure.

I've abandoned all of the other games I've been playing to brush up on my Kombat skills, so that when I meet this guy again I can krush him.

Strife of the Party

No, not Cloud Strife. >.>

Before I begin, let me just say that I know not everyone likes Mario Party. A lot of people think it is a horrid, simple game for stupid little kids.

I recommend these people not Jump the Gun. It is a great game for kids. It is also a varied collection of fun minigames combined with a unique social board game. I like minigames, and I like board games. What's not to like? Oh yeah - the cutesy, family friendly presentation. Meh. Boo riding atop a ravenous Chain Chomp in order to mug Luigi is the epitome of G-rated cool.

The first Wii incarnation of the series, Mario Party 8, is Kart Wheeling its way to retail at the end of the month. Needless to say, Poptart, Keif, and I are Book Squirming with anticipation and have been gearing up for the new installment by playing the daylights out of the Gamecube iterations (4,5,6, and 7) to Rumble Ready ourselves.

Also during a recent move, the memory cards containing saves for the aforementioned installments were somewhat misplaced, so we've made it our mission to go through the various enumerations re-unlocking characters, minigames, and boards. It is an enjoyable, though sometimes tedious exercise, but we assuredly have had the Will Flower to persist.

I was psyced to finally get around to Mario Party 7, which was a game we initially dismissed soon after acquisition. As exuberant Button Mashers, we prefer the two-on-two party mode. Unfortunately, unlike the previous games, 7 forces your Dungeon Duo to move together around the board, which greatly limits the strategies inherent in occupying two spaces. This nerfing originally put us off 7, although I was quite enamored with it due to the addition of Birdo and Dry Bones as playable characters.

In every other game Mario was my avatar, as it was his party and there is an ongoing superstition that the bullshit randomness of Mario Party seems to favor the red plumber, seeing as it is his party after all. As bizarre as it may be, I vastly prefer the gender-bending, egg-spitting, bow-wearing Birdo in all his/her pinkness to the titular protagonist. In no small way is this due to Birdo's incredibly annoying taunt. Its likeness to someone beatboxing through a kazoo tends to put opponents on Full Tilt.

Much of 7's hidden content has to be unlocked through the Solo Cruise mode, a sort of one-on-one Smashdance against a CPU opponent wherein each board has a unique win condition. I found this to be a revelation and easily the most enjoyable aspect of the game, allowing for more intense and faster paced matches. Bowser's Enchanted Inferno and Pyramid Park are about a kerjillion¹³³⁷ times more fun in this mode than in Party Mode. (And I get to play as the Pink Wonder.)

In case you've been Fishing Upon a Star that your spirit guide to the Mushroom Kingdom will be an avatar in the upcoming Mario Party 8, a gander at Wikipedia's entry reveals some news; All twelve characters from 7 return plus (...Weight for it...) Hammer Bro. and Blooper (!!). The Capsule/Orb/Item system of the past seems to have evolved into a candy shop selling assorted confections that can transform your character, allowing them to navigate the board in new ways. And, in case you were wondering, apparently the board play is controlled with the Wiimote in the sideways NES orientation.

Additionally, Treasure Trawling the Wiki article reveals that the new boards include: DK's Treetop Temple (most likely having a stationary Star space), Goomba's Booty Boardwalk (Akin to Koopa's Seaside Soiree from MP4 supposedly), Koopa's Tycoon Town (Allegedly an interpretation of classic Monopoly), Shy Guy's Perplex Express (Revolving around a train motif, I guess), King Boo's Haunted Hideaway (With a haunted house theme), and the unlockable Bowser's Warped Orbit (Possibly a Star-stealing board a la Snowflake Lake, the Snow Whirled from MP6). 65 new minigames in all and some not-so-mini games like Table Menace, a ping-pong diversion. Apparently, as seen in a one Freeze Frame, Miis may show up in the background of some of the minigames, too.

As long as Birdo's there, I'm in.

Later Skaters. Piece Out.

Bad Mother Snubbers

We all know Mother's Day is a day to make Mom feel special. Well, we did that for Jenova and The Boss, but there are a lot of moms in the gaming universe that we left out. So here's a quick rundown. (And massive apologies for those who didn't make it into this list, either...) >.>

Mother Brain (Metroid) Big Sis Prinny (Disgaea) Justice (Guilty Gear) Sindel (Mortal Kombat) Olga Gurlukovich (MGS2) Wrinkly Kong (Donkey Kong) Elmyra Gainsborough (FFVII) Edea Kramer (FFVIII) Q-Bee (Darkstalkers) Jun Kazama (Tekken) Nina Williams (Tekken)

Bossa Nova Monday: Big Boss

The Notorious

What better boss to boss around the other bosses of Bossa Nova then Big Boss? He is quite possibly the most successful villain in the history of video games, seeing as he went on to star in two games of his own. (And no, I don't acknowledge the Sephiroth Dating Sim, nor Sephiroth Kart Racing: Lifestream Grand Prix.) Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear series is full of double-crosses, but nothing tops the first one: Your commanding officer, the distinguished leader of FOXHOUND, is actually the mastermind of the terrorist nation you were sent to infiltrate. !o.O! (Oh yeah, spoiler warning.)

I could, of course, go on and on (and on) about Naked Snake, but this feature is about bosses, and Big Boss was only the last guy of Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, even though his genetic progeny and military legacy influence much of the plot of Metal Gear Solid 1, 2, and 4. I chose to use art from the Metal Gear Solid era, however, because the original MSX/NES graphics purposely resemble Sean Connery, and that's just... weird.

Pseudonyms:	Naked Snake, Saladin, John Doe, Jack
Weapon:	Survival Knife; later Metal Gear
Signature Move:	Close Quarters Combat; later Pushing the Self-Destruct Button
Weaknesses:	Underestimates Solid Snake, lacks depth perception, flammability
Distinguishing Features:	Missing right eye (thanks a lot, Ocelot)
Difficulty:	6/10
Quote:	"Begin Operation: Intrude N313"
Similar Characters:	Albert Wesker (RE), Captain Blue (Viewtiful Joe)

Happy Mother's Day: Jenova

The one the Professor mistook for a Cetra . . . was named Jenova. That is the "calamity from the sky." We are all nothing more than Jenova's puppets.

Sephiroth says it best when he explains: "The Jenova Project wanted to produce people with the powers of the Ancients . . . no, the Cetra. . . . I am the one that was produced." An itinerant alien creature found sealed in a "2000 year old geological stratum," apparently dead: Jenova. A psychotic scientific experiment injects Jenova's cells into the unborn child Sephiroth. Is Jenova his mother? Sephiroth seems to think so, noting that "With her superior power, knowledge, and magic, Mother was destined to become the ruler of the Planet." But Sephiroth isn't alone. Without realizing it, the cast of Final Fantasy VII and many of the various people and creatures that they meet are being drawn to the Knowlespole (i.e., the Northern Crater), for Jenova's Reunion. Although they believe they are willfully hunting down Sephiroth, the truth is that the alien Jenova cells within Cloud---as well as those within the many black-cloaked figures they encounter---are being inexorably drawn toward Sephiroth's body---the largest concentration of Jenova cells---to reform the creature Jenova.

Throughout the game, whenever the player's party fights Sephiroth, Jenova appears to battle immediately afterward. Later on, as the plot unfolds, it becomes apparent that Sephiroth has been ensconced in the Lifestream, frozen deep within the Northern Crater, the whole time. What you've been fighting are pieces of Jenova under Sephiroth's control impersonating Sephiroth (as Sephiroth says, "The ability to change one's looks, voice, and words, is the power of Jenova"). The fascinating aspect of this Madonna-and-child dynamic is their reciprocal symbiosis: Jenova's cells exist and act from within her son and host, Sephiroth; meanwhile, Sephiroth---frozen and incapacitated beneath the Knowlespole---can only exert his influence in the world by controlling the Jenova cells in others. Although Sephiroth emerges as the primary antagonist of Final Fantasy VII, all of his actions are designed to promote Jenova's agenda: to effect the "Reunion" that will allow her cells to reform, and then to take back the planet in her name.

In the final event of Final Fantasy VII, the Sephiroth > Jenova pattern is reversed: As any mother would do (and, we realize toward the end of the game, as she has done all along), she comes between the player's party and her son, Sephiroth. Only when she has finally been defeated can you battle the real Sephiroth at last and end the game.

In Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, the characters Kadaj, Yazoo, and Loz are introduced as children of Jenova, striving to complete the Jenova Reunion that was foiled during the events Final Fantasy VII. In Advent Children, the trio places a special emphasis upon Jenova as the "mother" of any creature that is infected with her cells (including all of the children experiencing the Geostigma illness). Kadaj and company, oddly enough, don't carry any Jenova cells within themselves, which is why they are so desparate to find the missing head of Jenova (remember that Sephiroth carried it off during the Nibelheim event in FFVII) so that they can infect themselves with her cells and join in the Reunion.

Happy Mother's Day: The Boss

For the Mother of Special Forces...

I raised you, and loved you, I've given you weapons, taught you techniques, endowed you with knowledge. There's nothing more for me to give you. All that's left for you to take is my life.

The Boss, the Joy, Voyevoda; Known by many names, she is one of the most maternal characters in gaming mythos. She can be considered the mother of two of Metal Gear's most central characters; She bore Ocelot on the battlefield via cessarian section (leaving an atrocious serpentine scar) at the Battle of Normandy, and also mentored and loved the most genetically perfect soldier ever born, and the man who would ultimately surpass her, Big Boss. One can infer that she was raising the son she never knew (or never knew she knew).

Look at this scar. This is proof that I was once a mother. I gave up my body and my child for my country. There is nothing left inside me now. Nothing at all. No hatred, not even regret. And yet sometimes at night I can still feel the pain creeping up inside me. Slithering through my body, like a snake.

Soldier, commander, astronaut, teacher, patriot. The part that seemed to anger her pupil Naked Snake the most was that no one would ever know that it was her mission to defect, a ploy to obtain the Philosopher's Legacy, the infathomably enormous war chest that the superpowers had hidden at the end of World War II. When Colonel Volgin used her offering, the mini-nuclear device Davey Crockett, plans changed. Snake was sent in again to rescue Sokolov, destroy the Shagohod, stop Volgin, eliminate the Cobra Unit, and kill The Boss.

And it was her mission to be killed, and to be remembered as a traitor to the country for which she sacrificed absolutely everything.

Jack... or should I say Snake... you're a wonderful man. Kill me now. There's only room for one snake and one boss.

The Liberal Application of the Word "Super"

Super Mario Brothers. Super Street Fighter. Super Metroid. Super Contra. Super Bomberman. Super Double Dragon. Super Robot Wars. Super Monkey Ball.

Super Rub-a-Dub?!

Killa didn't quite believe me when I told him that there was a "rubber-duck-based" game on PSN for download and that I had grabbed the demo. "No," he said, "You're confused. That's the PS3 tech demo; it's not a game."

"It's a game, yo!" I eloquently insisted. A little research turned up an interesting back story: At E3 in 2000, Sony used the "ducks demo" to display the awesome power of the PS2, specifically it's capacity for rendering water and the physics of the single rubber duck that interacted realistically with said water. In 2005, a new ducks demo was shown for the PS3 that featured, among other things, many rubber ducks in the tub to demonstrate the PS3's ability to handle the advanced physics of so many objects interacting. Apparently, someone realized that Sony was missing out on a golden money-making opportunity and subsequently turned the demo into a game (available on PSN for $6.99), and then produced a demo of the game (available for free on PSN).

The game makes use of the sixaxis's tilt function so that play requires no button-pressing at all. You start with a rubber duckie in a bathtub. Tilting the controller tilts the tub, causing the duck to move around. The goal is to (A) Collect smaller rubber ducks from around the tub (which then paddle along behind the main duck in a chain); and (B) get the baby duckies safely to the exit, without (I) jumping out of the tub; or (II) being eaten by deadly, deadly bathtub sharks. Bonus points are awarded for beating a goal time and for getting the longest string of ducklings to the goal at the same time (e.g., picking up ten ducklings and dropping them off at the exit will result in more points than picking up five, dropping them off, and then collecting the other five).

After your performance on a particular tub (level) is scored, the game will either praise you (e.g., "You Quacked It!") or chastize you (e.g., "Featherbrain!") based on your score. The demo includes five different tubs that can be played solo; the full version includes sixty tubs, supports up to four players, and features online leaderboards with viewable replays of the most skillful rub-a-dubbing. Killa and I played through the five demo tubs several times, learning new tricks and trying to beat our best scores. Here's a tip: "Popping" the tub (rapidly jerking the sixasis upward to make your duck "jump") can flip sharks onto their backs, rendering them temporarily harmless---but it can send your ducklings flying out of the tub, too, if you're not careful!

The controls are intuitive, the graphics are colorful and friendly, and the cute duckies have a broad appeal. I had some difficulty getting into the tilt controls of previous PSN darling flOw, but I had no such problems with Super Rub-a-Dub. This is the game that I'm going to have my non-gamer friends play when they come over to visit. I imagine that this cuddly bathtime adventure could bring a whole lot of hesitant would-be gamers over to the dark side.

Bossa Nova Monday: Yunalesca

Reaper of Souls

For 1,000 years, the summoners of Spira have traveled on a pilgrimage to Zanarkand to receive the final aeon, needed to defeat Sin. For 1,000 years---ever since defeating the first coming of Sin and dying in the process---the unsent spirit Yunalesca has waited in the ruined city of Zanarkand with a terrible revelation: There is no final aeon. In order to defeat Sin, not only must the summoner sacrifice his life by performing the final summoning, but he must also sacrifice one of his guardians to become the final aeon. After defeating Sin, the sacrificed guardian will then take its place, becoming the next Sin. Unwilling to make this terrible choice and perpetuate the cycle of destruction, Yuna and her guardians instead undertake to battle Yunalesca and send her to the Farplane for good.

Yunalesca is a classic multi-form boss; each time you defeat her she comes back in a scarier, stronger form (until you defeat her third and final form; then she's really done). Her second form spams curative magic on your party, which would be nice except that she's turned your characters into undead zombies with her Hellbiter attack, so the Cures hurt rather than heal, and the occasional "Full Life" spell can mean instant death. But don't break out the holy water just yet---her Mega Death special casts instant death, killing the entire party . . . unless they happen to be zombies, in which case the attack is harmless (death spells, instant death attacks, and items are traditionally ineffective against the undead).

Weapon:	Absorb (1st form); Curative Magic (2nd & 3rd forms)
Signature Moves:	Mega Death; Mind Blast
Weakness:	Holy Magic
Distinguishing Features:	Her sexy bikini body is hiding a terrible tentacular monster!
Difficulty:	7/10
Death Quote:	"Ah . . . Zaon . . . Forgive me. . . . Spira has been robbed of the light of hope. . . . All that remains is sorrow."
Similar Characters:	Jenova (FFVII), Medusa (Kid Icarus)

Nu Gamma Sigma

Not just an honors society anymore.

At long last, I downloaded the demo of Ninja Gaiden Σ.

Before saying anything else, I want to make a few comments on my downloading experience. Before grabbing the demo I had to update my PS3 with the latest firmware (1.70, I think), which then allowed my PS3 to download things in the background while I do other things with it. This is great because Killa was over for the evening to play some FFXII, and we would have had to stop the download when it became apparent that it was going to take forever. So we have background downloading going on. The download made it to 10 percent in approximately 30 or 45 minutes while I was waiting for Killa to arrive. We then played Tekken DR for another 45 minutes or so while the demo was downloading in the background. I must stress that Tekken has no online component that I'm aware of. During the 45 minutes we were playing Tekken, the download only crept up to 12 percent. Strange. We then spent an hour or two collecting my husband from the subway station and then eating some dinner. The download progressed to 45 percent during that time. Then we played FFXII for the next 4 hours (download still going in the background). At the end of those 4 hours, we shut down FFXII and the NGΣ demo was at 58 percent. What the hell?

If I was going to have to download it overnight anyway, then I have reaped no benefit whatsoever from the background downloading function. I hope they shore it up in the future so that it doesn't require the PS3's undivided attention to, you know, function.

Anyway, the 983 MB download is finally complete and I had a chance to play through the demo yesterday. I was pleased with how responsive the controls are. Ryu handles like the Prince (of Persia, that is), although Rachel, once you get her unlocked, handles more like a Mack truck. Mission mode (featuring Rachel) and hard mode were both unlocked by beating the demo once, which took me a couple of tries. The demo includes a robust set of weapons for Ryu (the quintessential dragon sword; nunchaku; a larger, heavier sword; a staff; and dual-wielded katanas) that you can use from the start to vary the gameplay. I am particularly enamored with the Lunar, a large bo staff useful for mowing down multiple enemies at a time. The entire first chapter seems to have been included and took me approximately 20 minutes to run through on my winning attempt.

The graphics are rich, detailed, and beautiful, especially the backgrounds. Ryu and his many foes are generally moving too fast for me to get a good look at them. The action was very smooth and I found it pretty easy to string moves together to make impressive combos, although I can already see that this game relies more on precise combo input than, say, God of War, in which any combination of button presses will yield the requisite carnage. I'm a little concerned that my skills are going to need a lot of polish before I can expect to succeed at the final version of the game. Apparently there's a tank battle that emasculates all comers. We'll see. This demo is a great move by Tecmo; I was a little ambivalent about Ninja Gaiden Sigma before I played through the demo, but now I'm sure I'm going to buy it at my earliest convenience.

Finally, I'd like to express my feelings of distaste for the numbering system of this series. Ninja Gaiden 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on, would be acceptable. Alternatively, how about Ninja Gaiden I, II, III; or A, B, C; etc. But the series goes: Ninja Gaiden 1; Ninja Gaiden 2; Ninja Gaiden 3; Ninja Gaiden; Ninja Gaiden: Black; Ninja Gaiden Σ. Listen: "1, 2, 3, Black, Σ" is not a sequence! Here are my suggestions for the next next gen: Ninja Gaiden: Gaiden of the Ninja for the DSMicro; Ninja Gaiden ₤ for the PS4; and Ninja Gaiden: Plaid for the XBox 720.

Rumor Mongering

Ever since I began writing this blog, I've managed to stay pretty up-to-date on industry news and trends by keeping abreast of the major sources of news and rumors (e.g., Penny Arcade, Kotaku, Joystiq). I know that prior to this great undertaking, I didn't have the knowledge base that I do now. If, a year ago, someone had told me something along the lines of, for example, "The next God of War game is going to come out for the XBox," I may not have seen the obvious flaws in that equation; most notably, that Sony owns the God of War IP and therefore no God of War game will be released on a Microsoft console as long as Sony is still in the business of making consoles for itself. These are the sorts of distinctions that might not be made by a layperson who doesn't spend all of their time combing gaming-related web sites and their affiliated message boards. Suffice it to say, that type of rumor will never prove to be true; it stems from misunderstanding and is primarily harmless.

Another kind of rumor, more devious, is that created or perpetuated by those with a good working knowledge of the industry and its idiosyncrasies. A good example of this would be, for instance, "Final Fantasy XIII is going to come out for the XBox 360." Since FF is developed and published by a third party company, it's entirely possible that it could come out for multiple platforms. In this iteration of the series I think it's unlikely to happen for other reasons, but it isn't a logical impossibility based on property ownership and rights management. These rumors are harder to discern, and they sometimes end up being (or becoming) true. For example, there were rumors that DMC4 would be multiplatform, and lo, so it has become.

Then there are the rumors that don't make any sense at all. I was at a baby shower (of all places) on Sunday and found myself engaged in conversation with a gentleman on the subject of the 360, Wii, and PS3. When I mentioned to him that I own a PS3, he urged me to sell it on eBay or otherwise try to recoup some of the money I spent on it. He explained to me that Sony has stopped production on the PS3 and is discontinuing the system, and, moreover, that only five games are going to be produced for the system before Sony stops supporting it entirely. Unsure of how to respond to so much incorrect information coming in at once, I simply observed: "That information is incorrect." He shrugged his shoulders and responded, "You'll see. Don't say nobody warned you six months from now when your PS3 is completely obsolete." Ouch!

Fortunately, no one will have to miss out on God of War III, because I hear it's coming out for the XBox 360.