The Mature – Pietriots

About a month before suffering my Professional Engineer Exams at the end of October, I fired up Geist for the Nintendo SHEETKYUUB (actually, my Wii system) in an effort to update my aging, neglected GC video library. This recording session was the FIRST and ONLY time I played ANY “dual analog” shooter this entire generation (2006-2011). This experience was HORRIBLE. I kept tarding-out into walls like classic Resident Evil controls, and the screen was stiff and jerky while the camera dragged ass. And the enemies were kind enough to shoot me with 20-30 rifle rounds without killing me, sympathetic to your inability to be a real threat (impotence) given the limitations of the “traditional” input method.

From what I hear, today’s shooty games treat customers like children more than ever; probably because it’s the most appropriate thing to do.

Why do people keep playing like this after 10 years? (and keep paying for it?) Why are games still made this way? What’s wrong with this industry?

Luckily, the game’s first-person adventure (FPA) principles are still intact and meaningful after all these years.

Does anyone remember the former upcoming next-generation “possession mechanic” zombie action-strategy title, Possession? Nope, nobody.

Congrats, n-Space – despite the cruel passage of time, your masterpiece is still unrivaled.

View/Download:
Geist, 7 videos (DivX)

NEVER FORGET

Before they cancelled Mega Man Legends 3, before they ignored Wii Pointer controls in Monster Hunter Tri, before they rewarded Resident Evil fans with rail shooters, before Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop could handle 6 zombies at once, before they announce Resident Evil: Revelations including the free Mercenaries HD for PS Vita launching simultaneously with the 3DS version (hi-ho 2012 release date) – Capcom presented… THE FIVE.

Never one to forget 3rd Party achievements, I put this little post together to help last generation’s players and this gen’s newcomers remember the pain for years to come. Actually, before rambling about the quintet’s history that everyone’s heard before, I want to bring attention to the titles as they were announced: by sharing nice-quality versions of their debut trailers (well, 4 out of 5 of them). If we’ll remember ANY of it, let’s at least see clean copies of them; one last face-to-face before closing the casket. I know you can search for the moldy Flash videos originating from Matt C.’s IGN, but try to have some respect for the departed. Those videos came from a time when magazine, internet, and even Nintendo’s own coverage made “good” GameCube games look crappy.

Tracking down known copies of these trailers a couple years ago took some time and $rupees$. My search was narrowed to a couple auctions for rare promo DVDs from Japan, eventually making some sellers very happy. In addition, I managed to gather almost all the promo videos for these games since their announcement. One last step (took forever), each video was processed piece by piece – deinterlacing, cropping out blank borders, scaling the frames for consistency – whenever reasonable, trying to help them look their best. It’s only these past couple months that I seriously sat down to finish converting this junk. When hobbies start to feel like work… I tend to avoid them. Recently feeling an urgent sense of justice, I could delay no more.

So here’s what I got: a few custom screencaps, my personal thoughts/description of each game at inconsistent degrees of relevance, and links to the DivX-formatted media on my homepage. But seriously, I went overboard, so don’t read all of it.

This first one up was the first one to go down…

Continue reading “The Capcom Five – Video Memorial” →