The YouTube "behind-the-scenes" commentary trailer for the King of Fighters movie.

I always try to reserve judgement before seeing the final product, but after watching that trailer, well...it's like these people were trying to be as wrong as possible.

What I'm really torn about is whether I want to bother renting it when it inevitably comes rocketing to DVD. Good heavens.

He's ahead on votes and might take it.

Again, thanks for doing the right thing.

Make the right choice, guys.

Thanks in advance.

There are a lot of things to like about this game. And there are things about it that still throw me. (Fortunately, it at least requires both punch buttons to do so.)

My latest impressions.

Sadly, actress Bea Arthur, star of the TV sitcoms Maude and The Golden Girls passed away this past Saturday at the age of 86.

News report from CNN here.

Farewell to a talented actress with a tremendous ability to deliver a punchline.

Congratulations, console games. Welcome to the world of patches.

The King of Fighters XII, now making early appearances in the Land of the Rising Sun.

For those who hadn't seen, The King of Fighters XII is making public appearances on the other side of the Pacific at the Amusement Machine Show 2008. Videos of the game are also starting to pop up on YouTube, beyond the original trailer from AOU.

KOF '94: The start of a great fighting series.

For those who aren't familiar, The King of Fighters is a series of 2D, one-on-one fighting games that started in 1994 with The King of Fighters '94. The original game offered plenty of interesting new gameplay features that combined some of the best (and arguably, some of the worst) features of the two SNK fighting series that influenced it, Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting. KOF had the meter charging and taunting of Art of Fighting (the series that invented both), the knockdown attacks and the defensive attacks of Fatal Fury, plus new mechanics like stationary dodging and super jumps. Most notably, it let you play as a team of three characters (not just a single character, like in most traditional fighters), which meant more bang for your arcade buck (or quarters, or tokens).

KOF '98: A fighting-game classic.

Since then, there have been 11 games in the 2D series, not counting the compilations that have been released over the years (like the excellent KOF '02/'03 compilation for PS2) and "re-mixed" games like the disappointing KOF '94 Re-Bout and the very intriguing KOF '98: Ultimate Match. I consider KOF '98 to be my single favorite fighting game of all time--it's the kind of game you can sit and play for hours on end, and is rewarding in competitive play for weeks on end because of its many different characters and strategies. The series also gave rise to a mediocre 3D spinoff series known as Maximum Impact, which hasn't been all that impressive so far.

KOF: Maximum Impact.

The entire series has evolved and added and subtracted different features that didn't always work well, such as dodge attacks, recovery rolling and offensive rolling, numerous types of block cancel attack, "strikers" (external characters that leap onscreen to deliver a single attack), designated "leader" characters in your team that had access to a powerful and unique "leader desperation attack," and others. KOF XII's biggest claim to fame seems to be its "redrawn" 2D graphics, which show very, very strong influence by SNK artist-turned-video-game-producer Falcoon.

SNK character Mai Shiranui as interpreted by Falcoon. I've never been a big fan of the character myself.

I guess the idea is to get excited about the higher-res graphics with more frames of animation. As you can see by watching some of the gameplay videos that have started to trickle out of Japan, the character "sprites" (effectively the 2D "models" of each character" have been enlarged and either redrawn or retouched with new frames of animation. In motion, the game seems to move slightly slower than traditional KOF--you can tell the development team had to accommodate having more frames of animation to improve the game's graphical quality against having the kind of fast-paced action fans have come to expect from the series. KOF has always leaned toward speed over pretty animations, since every frame of animation counts in gameplay terms--yes, your characters are winding up to throw a punch, but won't actually connect with your opponents until they get to the actual hit frames (the actual "punching part" of their animations).

KOF XII:Ralf's unblockable Galactica Phantom attack still packs a mean punch.

The influence of Falcoon's art style, which tends to favor big, bulky men (and big, voluptuous women) over thin, wispy characters is clearly visible so far from what can be seen in screenshots and videos. Ralf, the former Ikari Warrior-turned-fighting-game-character-turned-Metal-Slug-character-turned-fighting-game-character-again is absolutely huge. Seriously, he's really big now. There's a video floating around on YouTube that shows him fighting the now-tank-top-clad Leona which really shows off the size differential.

KOF XII's preliminary character roster includes, from left, Terry, Kim, Ryo, Leona, Ralf, Robert, Shen Woo, Benimaru, Kyo, Ash, and Athena.

I'm reserving judgment on the character roster, which hasn't been fully revealed yet, but it's clearly leaning towards the roster of KOF 2003, which included the debut of Shen Woo (who is playable in KOF XII), the less-than-interesting hipster with spiky hair, chain belt, and the ability to slide forward and deliver a straight punch, and Ash Crimson, the new "hero" of KOF 2003, who clearly has some new moves in XII (he appears to have Orochi Shermie's old "lightning kiss" attacks, for instance), and will obviously be a very strong character to play once all is said and done. Several of my personal favorite characters, including Terry Bogard, Kim Kaphwan, Ryo Sakazaki, and Robert Garcia have also made the cut, so I guess I can't complain all that much.The game still seems to have offensive and recovery rolling, CD block cancels, and a lot of the characters' original arsenals. I'm reserving judgment until I can finally get my hands on the game myself (though I still need to get ahold of Ultimate Match first), but I'm cautiously optimistic.

For whatever reason, this news report makes multiple mentions of the criminals' hobby of playing games, as though the game-playing habits of the criminals are somehow relevant to the crime.

Can anyone explain why the news report went to the trouble of digging up the unrelated issue of the criminals' time spent playing games for a news story about a robbery?

I was just reminded today that I never got around to playing Capcom's critically acclaimed Okami for the PS2. I think I have it at home. I remember ordering some games right around that time last year, but it's all a bit hazy. It might've just been God Hand. which I know I have, for sure. I know I got...some stuff, late last year, for PS2. Did I get them both? I'll have to look tonight, but since my living area always looks like a tornado just hit it, I doubt I'll find it. If I even have it.

DirectX 10 is finally here (sort of). Take a look at some new screenshots of Company of Heroes comparing scenes from the game in DX9 versus the same scenes rendered in DX10.

This first set of screenshots come to us provided by the game's publisher, THQ, to show off the differences in lighting and textures with DX10 turned on.

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Cube shadow mapping in DX9: (screenshot from THQ)

Cube shadow mapping in DX10: (screenshot from THQ)

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Fire and smoke effects in DX9: (screenshots from THQ)

Fire and smoke effects in DX10: (screenshots from THQ)

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DX9 grass: (screenshot from THQ)

DX10 grass: (screenshot from THQ)

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Night scenes in DX9: (screenshots from THQ) 

Night scenes in DX10: (screenshots from THQ)

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If you haven't downloaded the patch yet, you can get it here. Also, the official forums of the developer, Relic Entertertainment, have some notes about the patch.

It's hard not to have mixed feelings about the newly announced game from EA based on The Simpsons. To give you some context, I'm one of those guys who thinks that the TV show used to be a top-notch, consistently entertaining comedy series that has become...something different.

The Simpsons: Hit and Run for PS2 / Xbox / GameCube (2003) 

As far as the game goes, it's not clear what direction it will take. The most recent Simpsons-licensed video game, The Simpsons: Hit and Run from 2003, was actually a pretty good take-off on the open-ended, driving-focused Grand Theft Auto series. The licensed games before that, well, they weren't so good. Simpsons Skateboarding from 2002 was a terrible attempt to grab hold of the already-peaking "extreme sports" trend that was created by the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series but fell flat on its face with a broken control scheme and really bad graphics. Before that came The Simpsons Road Rage from December 2001, a Crazy Taxi knock-off that had lousy control and physics, and the extremely disappointing The Simpsons Wrestling for the original PlayStation from April 2001, which had control problems, camera problems, and really, really unsatisfying gameplay. Aside from the other sparse bright spots in Simpsons video game history, the surprisingly decent The Simpsons: Night of the Living Treehouse of Horror for the original Game Boy from March 2001, and the flawed-but-fun The Simpsons Arcade Game from Konami back in 1991, Our Favorite Family hasn't had much luck in the world of video games.

Simpsons Skateboarding for PS2 (2002)

If you've played all of the above games (I won't mention the pre-PlayStation-era games, most of which were flat-out garbage), you'll know what I'm talking about. However, you'll also know that with all the licensed Simpsons games released in the past 6 or 7 years or so, that the show's creative team has at least made an effort to contribute to the games. Every Simpsons game from Simpsons Wrestling on up has featured original voiceover from the show's actual cast, as well as numerous sight gags and in-jokes that cater directly to fans of the show, such as how the the scratchy-voiced Krusty the Clown character is the announcer in Road Rage, similar to how Crazy Taxi's scratchy-voiced Wolfman Jack impersonator. So, at the risk of editorializing and coming off biased, I'd have to say that the series' uneven history in the world of video games isn't the fault of the show's creators--from what I can tell, they seem to have at least tried to hold up their end of the bargain. According to our recent preview story, the new game will include self-conscious video game parodies, which is definitely territory that the show has explored before. I think most fans would agree that the show has successfully parodied video games (and video game-related marketing) in older episodes with bits like Video Boxing (a classic parody of Mike Tyson's Punch-Out! featuring Homer- and Bart-like boxers in place of Glass Joe and Little Mac) and BoneStorm! (a not-so-subtle parody of the over-the-top advertising campaigns used for the Mortal Kombat games). As far as what this means for the new game, and how well the current writing staff will be able to handle it, I'll leave that for you to decide.

The Simpsons Wrestling for PlayStation (2001)

As far as the gameplay goes, we don't have many details yet, but whether the new project succeeds as a game will, of course, come down to execution. Working with a property as big and as popular as The Simpsons almost seems like a license to print money, so it's easy for us to get cynical about these games and assume the developers will use the license as a crutch--not really bothering to make a decent game and letting the name on the box sell the game. I really hope the team at EA doesn't fall into this trap. A Simpsons game that stays true to its source material will be appealing to the show's fans, but a Simpsons game that also plays really well could be a much, much bigger success...for everyone, not just EA.

This update isn't related to video games. It's really more to share with you, if you hadn't already heard, the story of the small-business lawsuit that's currently in progress in Washington D.C.. A courtroom judge is representing himself in a case in which he's suing for more than $60 million USD for damages relating to...a lost pair of pants which were found a week later.

Lawyers are one of the oldest targets for criticism and nasty jokes out there. As the tired old joke goes, there's only one real lawyer joke...the rest are all true stories. But the incredible abuse of the justice system that the plaintiff is committing is no joke. It's outrageous. The courtroom battle is about one greedy/insane judge up against a small business, but it's easy to see it, in principle, as a battle between the maniacal, lawsuit-fueled greed of America...and the American dream of coming to this country with nothing, starting from scratch, and working hard to build a new life. From the sound of things, the American dream is losing this one.

A colleague of mine passed me a disc that contained some old photos. If you don't recognize any of them, feel free to ignore them. If they mean anything to you, enjoy.

[EDIT - Sorry for the confusion, the image links should work now.]

Eric B. and Rakim -- one of the greatest duos in hip hop history.

I made yet another visit to that giant Internet video repository, YouTube.com, this weekend, after someone passed me a link to something I hadn't seen or heard in a long, long time. It brought back a lot of memories and raised the same question I'm sure most music listeners have asked and answered thousands of times by now: What killed rap music? (Because surely, it's dead today.)

The Low End Theory from A Tribe Called Quest -- One of the best rap albums of the 1990s.

Was it the mainstream success, the wealth, and the fame? Did people really just forget what the music was all about when they realized there was so much money to be made? I'll be honest with you, I don't know the answer, and I've tried to block out the question since I stopped listening to it more than 10 years ago. Yes, rap had risen to the top 40 charts, but it had not only gotten stale, much of it, particularly West Coast rap, had become too fixated on negativity--violence, drugs, and the stupid, pointless glorification of crime.

De La Soul - One of the last bastions of thoughtful hip hop.

There was a time when the most successful hip hop artists got to the top by putting together the best lyrics and the best beats to create a kind of musical poetry. Some of best music back then was smart, had a great flow, and was supported by a great musical backdrop of an addictive baseline / backbeat plus musical accompaniment from creative sampling of older tunes.

These days? It seems like it's all pretty much garbage. Just a bunch of jackasses singing about how much money they have, or something. I don't know what happened, but someone wake me up when it's over.

Don't be fooled. Even Jean-Claude doesn't get it.

If you're puzzled too, don't feel bad. I'm even less clear about why production company Hyde Park Entertainment is taking a shot at a second Street Fighter licensed motion picture than you are. As much as I enjoy the source material, it has never translated well to any non-game format.

Hardcore fans know this game. Does anyone else?

Aside from the fact that the characters are all pretty thin and have few to no meaningful relationships, why would a Hollywood company go after Street Fighter as a film license now, of all times? When the last (first) movie was a critical and commercial failure; led to a horrendous and conceptually confusing licensed game ("the game based on the movie based on the game"); and marked an embarrassing end to an otherwise illustrous film career? When the last new game in the series was released seven years ago? The series is only relevant on a day-to-day basis to die-hard fighting game fans (like myself), but after seeing the lousy performances from Van Damme & company in the first movie, I can't imagine that any fans of the games would actually want to see another live-action film, especially not at this point. I sure as hell don't.

And if we're lucky, maybe we'll get another one of these next, huh?

Movies based on licenses with strong, loyal fan followings need to have some kind of insight into what fans like most about the original properties. From the sound of things, I really doubt there are m/any hardcore Street Fighter fans on the cast and crew of this one to provide that kind of insight. Forgive me for being a pessimist, but I can't see this film turning out to be anything but bad.

Microsoft's X06 press event is underway, and while we have a crew of fearless GameSpot editors and video producers attending the event in person, we also have several people back at the home office scratching their heads about some of the news coming out from the event.

What jumped out at me immediately was the announcement of Halo Wars, a 360-exclusive real-time strategy game using the Halo license and in development at Ensemble Studios (the creator of the world-history-inspired Age of Empires series). It seems a little weird that Halo is finally becoming a strategy game--it was reportedly conceived of as one by Bungie originally, you know, back when Bungie was allowed to make games other than Halo--but with a different developer.

Previously, Bungie actually had a lot of experience creating real-time strategy games with the Myth PC/Mac series, which included highly acclaimed fantasy strategy games that let you command armies of knights and pyromaniac dwarves against evil hordes of monsters. Then, Bungie was acquired by Microsoft, a third-party developer created a solid-but-otherwise-unmemorable Myth III, and that was the end of it.

If a Halo RTS must be made, I'm glad to hear that an experienced studio like Ensemble was chosen for the task. Ensemble has proven it isn't just married to the exact same gameplay and features--it took a considerable risk and did something radically different with the excellent 2002 game Age of Mythology (which featured Greek and Egyptian gods and mythological monsters, rather than trebuchets and pikemen), and also introduced a totally new concept in Age of Empires III with the RPG-like home city system. I'm sure Ensemble will make sure to avoid the mistakes made other games that have tried to shoehorn existing licenses into game settings that didn't quite fit, such as a certain 2D real-time strategy game that had wookiees driving tanks and R2-D2 chopping wood.

When you get down to it, I'm still probably most taken aback by game companies trying to get real-time strategy games onto modern consoles. To be fair, historically, those have been few and far between--Starcraft 64, Goblin Commander, the Pikmin games, and really, only a few others. The only recent attempt at console real-time strategy is EA's Xbox 360 version of The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth II, which, I have to admit, ended up looking pretty good for a console strategy game. 

But do game companies think that figuring out how to successfully put real-time strategy games on consoles is the Da Vinci Code, and once it's cracked, it'll be a gold mine? Will this somehow make them rich beyond their wildest dreams as millions of users buy console real-time strategy games? I'm primarily a PC game player (though I own all major consoles and handhelds) and I enjoy my real-time strategy just fine on the PC, thank you. And I don't know of any console game player on the planet who actually pines for real-time strategy but is handicapped by their lack of a good gaming PC. Do you? I made an analogy while I was speaking with Greg earlier today: both he and I are fighting game enthusiasts, but you don't see us clamoring for fighting games on the PC--primarily because as things stand, fighting games are best suited for consoles (and arcades), based on control schemes and more importantly, the audience that plays them. Maybe that's just me, though.

I could be totally wrong about this, and I hope I am. Anyway, I'm know Halo Wars is in good hands and if nothing else, I'm looking forward to seeing more of the game in the coming months.

A great character, but good luck performing her moves on the PSP.

Like several other GameSpot editors, I have the Tekken: Dark Resurrection UMD sitting in my Sony PlayStation Portable, since that game is, as far as I'm concerned, the most exciting game to be released for the PSP in quite some time. If you've read Jeff's review, or even if you haven't, you'll still have to agree that the game is a technical marvel, and looks absolutely astounding. No, seriously--watch some videos of the game in motion if you haven't seen it. Unfortunately, playing it on the PSP feels like trying to play the piano with boxing gloves on, not because of any fault of the game itself, but because of the hardware. Simply put: the PSP hardware, as-is, isn't capable of delivering a good experience with modern fighting games.

And good luck performing King's multi-part grapples. Me, I've given up.

You heard me. Fighting game enthusiasts who have played the PSP version of Dark Resurrection, or any other PSP fighting game, know what I'm talking about. Yes, the console does have four face buttons, which ostensibly gives it the same button layout as Tekken, and with two additional shoulder buttons, it technically has a total of six, so, theoretically, it should be able to support Capcom's six-button fighting games as well. But in practice, the handheld just doesn't work--if you want to play Tekken like you do in the arcades, you need to lay your PSP unit on a flat or slightly tilted surface to be able to tap the face buttons with your index, middle, and ring fingers, like you would on a Tekken cabinet.

A 6-year old game on a dead handheld has a better control scheme.

Except that if you do, you won't be able to make good use of either of the controller options--like the overly stiff D-pad which is completely unusable for fighting games, or the imperfect analog thumbstick, which lacks the tactile responsiveness of something like the NeoGeo Pocket (which had a circular indented well around it that was extremely helpful to orient complex joystick maneuvers). You say you want to make the best use of the thumbstick for complex joystick motions like the Mishima godfists, or King's Giant Swing? You're going to have to hold the PSP in both your hands, which makes reaching for the face buttons with your right thumb cumbersome, and virtually impossible to do accurately in a fast-paced game like Tekken, which requires precise control input with strict timing. You say you want to pull off complex series of button presses, like the sequence of horizontal and vertical two-button combinations that King uses for his multi-part grapples, or even the three-button presses for some of Nina's advanced grapples? Yeah, good luck with that.

Street Fighter Alpha 3 has hit the PSP. Who's next? 

It's frustrating enough to have to limp along through such an impressive a game using an imperfect control setup, but Dark Resurrection for the PSP raises a more important issue. Tekken is one of the heaviest hitters in [what remains of] the fighting game scene these days. The PSP is also already home to ports of games from the Street Fighter Alpha (for which Capcom took the embarrassingly drastic step of releasing a potentially warranty-voiding limited edition D-pad overlay to compensate for the PSP's shortcomings), Guilty Gear, and Darkstalkers / Vampire series, and considering Namco's close relationship with Sony and its history of producing fighting game ports for Sony console hardware, it seems pretty obvious that a port of some version of Soul Calibur will appear on the PSP at some point. (For Ivy players like me, the PSP control layout will probably give the name of her infamous Summon Suffering grapple a whole new meaning.)

Little work + little cost + lots of sales = big profits!

That's a lot of quality fighting games shoehorned onto the PSP, and could provide more momentum for game companies who care less about delivering a good fighting game experience and more about the "slam dunk" of expending little-to-no effort porting a classic fighting game onto a handheld console with what is becoming an established library for the genre. Hey, Tekken's there, so let's keep pumping and dumping fighting game ports onto the PSP. It's easy money!

This works just fine on the PSP. Do more of this.

Don't get me wrong: I still think the PSP is a very impressive gadget, and it works very well for racing games like Burnout: Legends and puzzle games like Lumines. I also think it has, or could have, a very promising future as a platform for console role-playing games like Square Enix's Final Fantasy and Namco Bandai's Tales series, as well as for "strategy RPGs" like Final Fantasy Tactics and Disgaea 2. But it should not be playing host to modern fighting games--not unless their control schemes are somehow retuned to work with the PSP layout. Nice-looking ports of classic fighting games with lousy control schemes that ultimately don't deliver a good game experience don't really benefit anyone in the long run--they don't help the PSP's cause; they don't benefit fighting game products which could come to be thought of as frustratingly difficult to control; and they don't benefit the customers: fighting game enthusiasts who demand tight, responsive game controls.

Mattel toys has taken the wraps off the reason mothers all across America will risk frostbite, starvation, and death by merciless trampling:

Say hello to "Tickle Me Elmo Extreme." Yes, that's really the name.

That's right: a new Tickle Me Elmo doll released by Mattel.

Apparently the original product was released 10 years ago, and this year, the new version will "laugh" differently if repeatedly poked (it will apparently lean over and hold its belly, pictured above). This is what may end up causing mothers everywhere to wait in line in freezing weather and fight with each other to grab the last one. The item will reportedly sell for $39.99 in stores. I'm sure you can already imagine what it will end up going for on EBay from scalpers.

I'm not a smart man. I don't know much about this world, and that I understand even less about how it works. This would be one of the many things I just don't get.

 
Yes, this is how desperate I am to get your attention.

This is long overdue, in my opinion. No, not the Paris Hilton photo. I'm talking about how the Entertainment Software Rating Board has launched a campaign to get young adults who play video games to get out and vote, at least on issues related to game regulation. No offense to anyone in these forums (and anyone who posts a response to this entry is automatically an exception to what I'm about to say), but from my experience talking with people who play games both in person and over the Internet (which probably shouldn't count), most don't really know a whole lot about the issue, nor do they seem to care. They don't seem to care that Congress and state legislators are going on the offensive against the video game industry and are pursuing much stricter about age enforcement guidelines now...but may be going after actual content regulations in the future, at the rate things are going.

You just keep that sword up nice and high, where we can see it, missy.

For most people who work in the game industry (and I guess this goes for several people who don't work in the game industry, but wish they did), a lot of the politicking and speechifying up to around 2004 to early 2005 was basically hand-waving and silliness. Conventional wisdom used to suggest that local politicians would accuse the video game industry of being a negative influence on children to boost their own image as upstanding re-election candidates because the video game industry never really fought back. Most people in the biz didn't take notice of crackpot Florida "lawyers" because all the speeches and such didn't seem to affect their daily business, and therefore, they could be safely ignored. Also, acting really dismissive and talking trash about politicians, the Entertainment Software Rating Board, and Florida "lawyers" on the Internet--talking about how over them you are--it just makes you look so cool.

This is an election year. Do you know these politicians are?

That started to change in 2005, when heavier hitters like Hilary Clinton and several state supreme courts started pushing for much stricter regulation, while several games had some embarrassing "scandals" that resulted from explicit content that "somehow" got past the standards group at the Entertainment Software Ratings Board. This made the ESRB look quite bad and raised questions among politicians about whether the game industry was fit to regulate and rate its own content, or whether the government (state and federal) should get involved in regulating what goes into and out of games. This should have set off some alarms among people who play games, because when all is said and done, deciding what goes into World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade should be done by Blizzard Entertainment. Not California state assemblyman Leland Yee.

Please consider visiting the ESRB's Video Game Voters Network site, get some basic information and try using the information to help you make a more educated decision when you vote this year, assuming you're of voting age.