METAL GEAR SOLID 4? Pass. HALO 3? Pass. CASTLE CRASHERS? Argh... but (hesitantly) pass. SCOTT PILGRIM? NOOO!!! Why oh why, gaming gods, must you make me suffer, so!? That pretty much sums up my feelings about the SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD video game that debuts on PSN today.

I'm a long time Scott Pilgrim fan. I've been buying the comic since it's debut. But I wouldn't call myself a Scott Pilgrim fanatic. The ideas are all there... but it's light-hearted free-form approach to both the narrative and artwork make it an introduction to a great concept that is executed in the reader's imagination. The rules of the world are elusive. The artworks often feels rushed. But BEHIND it all there is something fresh, exciting, and brilliant.

I'm a bit shocked and pleasantly surprised that many talented people saw BEYOND the comic. As such, we're soon to be blessed with both an ambitious film and beat-em-up video game.

Fans of Paul Robertson's INSANE sprite animations (that includes TEQUILA's Gobi) DREAM of seeing his unfiltered imagination utilized in a sprite-based videogame. The fandom for Anamanaguchi's chiptune music is just as strong. So the pairing of the two artists on a Scott Pilgrim game should be like Peanut Butter & Jelly!

CLICK HERE for interview with Scott Pilgrim creator/cartoonist Bryan O'Malley and director Edgar Wright regarding the videogame.

I decided to play VIEWTIFUL JOE again. I've had the Gamecube version since it's release, but have not beaten the game.  I'm hoping to FINALLY beat it! The game was released 7 years ago (really!?)... but it still looks great. Stylized graphics, particularly tasteful approaches to it, tend to age well. VIEWTIFUL JOE is proof of that.

I'm still a bit confused as to the overall visual tone of the game. The main character's hero design is clearly inspired by Japanese Super Sentai characters (the best known version of this in the US are the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers). By contrast, in human form, the main character looks like a Limp Bizkit reject. Also, the villains have a bit of a metal/punk/rock vibe to them.So, who's the intended audience? The American audience that appreciate the odd rock vibe of the game have very little awareness of the Super Sentai design. At the same time, Japanese fans with an appreciation of Sentai may not enjoy the American influences.

Despite all that, it's an interesting experiment. It's fun to play and has a great quirky style... now I've just got to find some time to actually beat the game!

I'm looking forward to playing SIN & PUNISHMENT: STAR SUCCESSOR (aka Sin & Punishment 2) on my Nintendo Wii. As a fan of the first game on the N64 (I even spent $90 for an import copy!) I'm curious to see what Treasure (the game makers) are able to do with the Nintendo Wii system and controller. As any regular reader of this blog can gather, my gaming tastes tend to skew "old-school" and "Japanese". Treasure's one of the best developers to capture that.

A quick glance at the game screenshots suggests a somewhat bland art style (I'm not digging the washed colored and zombie puppet protagonists) but anybody that has played a game by Treasure knows that it's all about the gameplay. Treasure games are known for having responsive controls and so much stuff on the screen that your brain feels like it's on the fringe of exploding while maintaining an overall sense of order that makes you feel like you will progress further with a little more practice and skill. From that standpoint, this game looks like it will deliver.

There's an old gaming "legend" that claims that the developers at Treasure were the original programming team that developed several of Konami's classic action games including GRADIUS and CONTRA. A little investigation show that to not be entirely true (only 1-2 Treasure programmers worked for Konami)... but the spirit of many of Treasure's game can be found in many of those Konami classics. Despite having an almost religious reputation amongst old-school gamers, Treasure's never had a huge breakout success. Fortunately their philosophy towards games (making them punishingly difficult and arcade-like) and independent approach to making games (using a small but talented staff to develop games one-at-a-time) allows them to continue developing games for their devoted fans.

Anybody interested in checking out other Treasure classics should try and find Ikaruga (for the Gamecube and Dreamcast; I've talked about it multiple times on this blog), Gunstar Heroes (for the Sega Genesis), or Guardian Heroes (for the Sega Saturn).

Whatever your feelings may be about NEW SUPER MARIO BROS. WII, it proved to Publishers is that there is still money to be made in 2D gaming. After 10+ years of 3D over-the-character's shoulder games, we are now starting to see a plethora of high quality 2D games. I couldn't be happier. Three of the games that caught my eye from 2010 E3: SCOTT PILGRIM (an amazing 2D River City Ransom style brawler to be released in conjunction with the film), DONKEY KONG COUNTRY RETURNS (by the Metroid Prime game developers at Texas-based Retro Studios) and KIRBY EPIC YARN (by Kirby-creator Sakurai's new game studio). So far, Scott Pilgrim has just been announced as a PS3 and Xbox360 downloadable game. If there are no plans for a Wii release, I may have to conspire and find a way to finally own a PS3! It HURTS to think that I may not be able to play Scott Pilgrim when its released... :-(

NOTE: I forgot one more upcoming 2D gem: RAYMAN ORIGINS. Great looking game with a 2D animation style that reminds me of ODIN SPHERE. Thanks to Frédéric Smyczynski for the reminder!

SCOTT PILGRIM:

DONKEY KONG COUNTRY RETURNS:

KIRBY EPIC YARN:

RAYMAN ORIGINS:

I'm very excited that X-SCAPE for the DSi was released today. It's a sequel to 'X', an 18 year-old Game Boy 3D action game whose influence you're sure to have felt, but never played. Tetris' immense success on the Game Boy resulted in Nintendo's focus on making the Game Boy a Puzzle game-centric system. As such 'X' was a Japan-only release despite being co-developed by Yoshio Sakamoto (co-creator of Nintendo's METROID series).

The team behind 'X' eventually moved on to develop the Super Nintendo 'Super FX' chip and the groundbreaking STARFOX game. Now Dylan Cuthbert, one of the key programmers of the original 'X' game, is able to revisit the 'X' universe and reach a worldwide audience with its DSi sequel X-SCAPE.

In the late 1980s, Dylan Cuthbert and his employer, Argonaut Studios Jez San, did something that no other Western studio had: co-develop games with the super successful and incredibly secretive Nintendo game development group. To have had the fortune to collaborate with Nintendo at such a fruitful time in video game development and, furthermore, to have had a palpable influence on the way they make games is fascinating. In fact (as noted in the video interview below), after scrapping the near-complete Star Fox 2 SNES game, Nintendo decided to quit work on the game and develop Super Mario 64 for the Nintendo 64 (assuming that the 3D programming knowledge gained by the team working on Star Fox 2 could be applied to the 3D incarnation of their most popular game series).

The little time I've spent with X-Scape shows plenty of promise. It's a mix of a space vehicle simulator and shooting game. It can be a bit cumbersome with its text-based story and multiple-task gameplay dynamic, but it more than makes up for it with some incredible atmosphere and music. The music alone is worthy of the $8 download!

CLICK HERE for Cuthbert's JOYSTIQ interview about X-Scape.

CLICK HERE for more X-Scape coverage from TINY CARTRIDGE.

X-Scape Gameplay footage:

Dylan Cuthbert Interview:

I've downloaded and played a bit of Gaijin Games BIT.TRIP RUNNER. Despite getting my butt kicked and stuck on level 1-11, I'm enjoying it immensely. It's easily the best game in the Bit.Trip series since the first Bit.Trip game, BEAT. This fourth game in the series continues to experiment with the conventions of the Rhythm Video Game genre while simultaneous exploring the evolution of Video Game design.

With Runner we are starting to finally get into forms of game design that are are a bit more literal. Rather than controlling a blob or square of pixels, the player gets to control Bit.Trip mascot Commander Video. Different buttons allow you to make him jump, slide, kick, and super jump through various levels. Unlike the platforming games of inspiration, you cannot control the speed or direction of the playable character. Keeping with it's rhythm gaming roots, the speed is dictated by the music.

You'd think that such limitations would make the game easy, but it quickly becomes anything but. By forcing you to focus on the timing of button presses, Gaijin tests players' limits of patience, rhythm, and timing. There are no deaths. If you screw up, you're automatically sent back to the beginning of the level. This infinite loop of retries puts you in a hypnotic state that BEGS you to try once more while angrily swearing at the game's cruelty.

The game brought forth a point that I think many have forgotten; that many of the better platforming games are abstractions of rhythm inputs. When playing Super Mario Bros. and Ninja Gaiden on the NES, I'd often find myself in "the zone"... calmly feeling the game levels and breezing through them despite their initial difficulty.

It's a challenge that I wholeheartedly take on, once more.

BIT.TRIP RUNNER 1-11:

SUPER MARIO BROS:

NINJA GAIDEN: