E3: Nintendo Fears Gaming

I'll reserve a lot of my thoughts for the next episode of Daikenkai, but call it safe to say we just witnessed murder, and gaming was the victim.

Hopefully Sony will save us from this abortion. Nintendo has made a habit lately of putting Sony in a position where their conference is an opportunity to help us gamers cope with a terrible Nintendo showing. Let's see if they actually take that opportunity this year.

Why do I own a Wii, again?

Oh yeah.

Virtual Console.

Daikenkai

Enjoy.

Daikenkai

Stay tuned.

Street Fighter IV: A Call To Arms

Being a huge MMA fan, it's no question that I tuned in to EliteXC's network television debut on CBS. As this is a gaming blog, we'll ignore the abysmal state of the show, as it is actually one of its sponsors I wish to focus on here.

Specifically, I want to comment on what is already the brilliant marketing of Street Fighter IV by Capcom USA. I certainly didn't see it coming. Not this early and not this way.

For those who didn't see it, or didn't want to bother with the above link, viewers are initially greeted by gameplay footage of Street Fighter II, while Faith No More's Epic plays in the background. More SFII footage is shown, with short clips of the original October 2007 Street Fighter IV trailer sprinkled throughout. Eventually that portion of the trailer passes, and we're treated to much more new footage including most of the game's cast.

After the nostalgia-charged rush is over, we're informed that preorders are already being taken. That's unheard of for any game not called Halo these days! Capcom is clearly putting a lot of faith in Street Fighter IV, perhaps even to the extent of making it their centerpiece franchise once again.

Clearly this was not a mere advertisement, but a full-blown call to arms. Invoking Street Fighter II as they did was nothing short of an attempt to grab the attention of each and every participant from the early-1990s Street Fighter community, and it will be incredibly effective if they keep running it on network TV in prime time. Running a trailer on TV at the end of May when the game isn't supposed to come out until February or so can only, in the (presumable) lack of Halo confidence internally at Capcom, be put to use by rallying the troops to such an immense degree.

Capcom has balls for doing this. While the word is "revitalization" to the lost players from back in the day, the presentation of Street Fighter IV as so closely connected to Street Fighter II might make the word something more like "rehash" to the garden variety casual gamer - the usual crop of retards that have stunted some past Street Fighter resurgences. This time, those guys will hopefully be drowned out by both the existing pros and returning competitors from days gone by.

Of course, we've seen these so-called resurrections of the glory days of Street Fighter II before. Street Fighter Alpha 3 was supposed to do it. Street Fighter III: New Generation was supposed to do it. Hell, even the cancelled Capcom Fighting All-Stars was supposed to do it.

Something just feels right about this one. Capcom is pulling out all the stops for this one. It'll be on us, the players, to follow through when the time comes, though, since we won't have arcades to prop up the social end of it on this side of the Pacific this time.

...on life and the state of the gaming media. (v3 #1)

So, in the wake of my recent spontaneous disappearance from the Gamer 2.0 team, I figured it was time to clarify a few issues.

Sadly, I did not leave Gamer 2.0 as a result of a hiring by a certain major upcoming site. It'd be nice if that were the case. Nor did I leave because of a general disgust with the state of the gaming media, though I'd be lying if I claimed that didn't make my decision a whole lot easier. More on that in a moment.

My reason for leaving Gamer 2.0 is simply that it was an unneeded stressor in my life while already focusing on my IT education and my martial arts training. I haven't quit writing entirely, as I am still technically an editor for Pro Gam3r Magazine, do quite a bit of creative writing on the side to relax in my spare time, and have every intention of supporting this new home for Sound Off. I'm just doing it primarily for me now.

On to the inaugural edition of Patrick Sounds Off: Volume 3.

While on the subject of the state of the gaming media, I would like to firmly establish that I'm not one of those doom-and-gloomers who feel that credible gaming journalism died outright because of Gerstmanngate. What I do feel is that we have entered into an era in which credible gaming journalism is at a premium. Every review, every score, every single word that we in the field turn out will be subject to immediate, justifiable, and unavoidable scrutiny and skepticism.

The idea, of course, is that if GameSpot yielded their opinions to the almighty marketing dollar, anything can justifiably be called into question. Was Kane & Lynch a one-time thing, or just the first revelation of a long history of this type of practice? No one can ever say for sure that it's not the latter, and that's the heart of the problem.

"Trust takes years to gain and moments to lose." That has always been true in the gaming media, but the past several months have amplified that fact to an unprecedented degree. Given what brought Giant Bomb about, they might be the only site that has good faith with its readership, and even with them, it's surely only a matter of time before the "Well, that just puts them in better position to reap the whirlwind" accusations start flying from the truly paranoid.

I don't want to go so far as to say that the reviews media is becoming a moot factor - yet - but there's definitely a clear, tangible problem in the equation that will be extremely difficult to solve, even as the years go by.