-Screw the American League. Can't give the NL one lousy all star win. I'm telling you, its the Yankee Magic. Even in a game like this they sprinkly it on the bloody field for clutch performance. I really, really, really wanted NL homefield this year more than ever. Nothing, and I mean nothing could happen in my Senior Year of college that would be better than a Mets championship 20 years after their last. Well, maybe sex every night, but that won't happen, so I'll stick with gunning for my team.
-Isn't it sad that the Tour de France is going on and no one in America gives a shit now that Lance isn't in it? I'm actually following it closer than usual now that I don't have to hear about him every 10 minutes. A great athlete to be sure, but our nation's bandwagon culture was smothering the media with him to the point of cheapening the man.
-Speaking of ruining things, a plea to the Internet; stop it with the Zidane headbutt. One of the most badass moments in sports is being ruined because 4chan and the rest can't let up on a good meme. I have seen exactly two mock ups of the clip that were funny. Two. Out of the whole Web. Let it go, so we can look back at it five years from now in something other than tired disgust.
For gaming news, Next Gen.biz has an interesting new feature where they ask people behind particular games to comment on choice quotes from reviews. Here's one from Sony about the Advance Wars ripoff Field Commander on the PSP. This is one from Atlus USA about the wonderful Steambot Chronicles. Our friend at Sony replies with the usual script about being "more mature" and how certain issues are really features. Right.
As is typical with Atlus, we get an honest and human response about Steambot, filled with swearing, admittance to certain problems and good old smack talk. The best quote?
"The Trotmobile controls work well when you're exploring and fighting low level enemies, but fail miserably when you have to take on boss characters and the plethora of Trotmobile gladiators in the town arenas. You'll be out maneuvered time and time again due to the sluggish controls, floating jumps, and the multitude of uncircumventable projectiles aimed at you by your foes. As the game progresses, you'll learn to cope with the controls, but the feeling of sluggishness never really goes away." --GamePro: 3/5
Atlus USA: We'll give 'em that the controls weren't perfect, but to quote one of our in-house peeps, "the control scheme is similar to that of Virtual On, and nobody bitched about that." Honestly, it's nowhere near as bad as the GamePro graf makes it out to be. (A GamePro editor messaged us after receiving a review build, asking about nonexistent "bugs," so we were prepared ahead of time for an iffy review.)
Also, about those "uncircumventable" [sic] projectiles, you don't need to dodge 'em; that's what the block function is for. Someone didn't play through the tutorial mode...
Owned? Most definitely. Read the rest of the Atlus remarks if you have the time. Few people in the development side of the industry act so frank and sincere. If more people responded like this maybe we would see some game journalists grow up a little and take their jobs a little more seriously.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a well earned 12 pack of Summer Ale to put a dent in.
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