Wild Guns Reloaded Has A Fat Female Protagonist And She's Awesome!!

 

Natsume, as a developer, has always been big on rewarding their small yet hardcore fan base throughout the years. While most know them as "The Harvest Moon people", they are so much more. Their legacy "pre-Harvest Moon" catalog includes some of the greats in the annals of retro action gaming history including "Shadow of the Ninja", "Shatterhand" (published by Jaleco but developed by Natsume), and perhaps one of the most obscure action games of the 16-Bit era, "Wild Guns". For the uninitiated, Wild Guns is a 1994 arcade style shooter in the same vein as "Cabal" or Konami's incredible "G.I. Joe" arcade game. "Wild Guns" quickly became a cult classic and in turn became very expensive in the resale market. Because of the price tag, I had given up hope of getting a physical copy of this game in any iteration, but suddenly, Natsume announced a remake of sorts of the title for PS4 and released a series of trailers for the game as well as the two new characters. While Bullet the dog is fun and cute but not shocking, the other new character, Doris is pretty surprising and actually pretty awesome in a world where some gamers take anything different from the norm as an affront. In reality though, Doris is pretty awesome and also quite important.

 

The reason Doris is important as a character is not because she's the "power" character of the four, or because she's a

female character. Both of those things have been tropes in gaming for a while, but it is a big deal that she's a visibly fat woman. She wears a crop top and throws grenades as her primary ranged weapon. If that isn't the definition of bad-ass, I'm not sure what is. In addition to being a pretty cool character design wise, her character also lacks the weird trope of being tied to a love interest that tends to bog down a lot of character backstories in games regardless of gender. She's a soldier first, and the mission is supreme above all. So, she has something in common with legendary male gaming protagonists like Sam Fisher and Solid Snake, also filed under bad-ass.

With the addition of Bullet and Doris, the playable roster of "Wild Guns Reloaded" is majority woman. That's a rarity in gaming nowadays. Having capable characters in those roles is a great thing in general but having a fat character in one of those slots can do a lot towards filling representation gaps in gaming for big groups of folks who have been long underrepresented in gaming. Now, if we could just get a small update with a playable person of color...

One: A Grizzled Old Vet

Today's video takes a look at One, an oft-forgotten PS1 action game from ASC Games.

Einhander: Square's SHMUP Masterpiece

For the longest time, Square has been known exclusively as the "Final Fantasy people" by those who only know them for that long running series. Square is responsible for some awesome titles that aren't even tied to their landmark RPG series, especially during the days of the first Sony Playstation. One of their most underrated titles is a shoot em up that features an interesting play on traditional power up mechanics seen in other titles in the genre, an incredible soundtrack, and visuals that have held up much better than most titles from that console generation.

Einhander, which is German for "single handed" has a rather typical "Earth vs. Somewhere Else" storyline. That "Somewhere Else" in this case being being the Moon, or more specifically, the Moon colony of Selene. The game takes place during the second war between the two factions, with the player controlling a lone fighter from Selene sent to disrupt Earth military activity and be a general nuisance. Everything in this game as far as story goes has been done before, so what makes Einhander such a great experience for Shoot Em Up fans? The victory for Einhander lies in it's gameplay, haunting soundtrack, and it's shadowy visuals.

Record Of The 16-Bit War: Nintendo, Sony, And Phillips Walk Into A Bar

Today's video takes a look at the history behind the Super NES CD-ROM drive that never happened

Is The PSVita Worth The Purchase? F$*# YEAH!!!

Today's post comes from Daniel Francis, who's music has also been featured here in the past. You can find him on twitter @_DFrancis.

So after about 3 debates, 4 changes of my mind and pricing systems I finally decided to purchase the PSVita. Now from sources I’ll choose not to disclose (ry...) sorry... I felt as though I was making a mistake by buying this system. Sure enough my concerns were taken away with the unboxing of this powerful system. This system is a solid choice for any gamer so let's jump into the pros and cons of this system since that's why you’re reading this.

Pros: The PSVita’s best feature has to be cross-platform gaming. Being able to play PS3 owners online using your PSVita is a pretty cool feature. Processor power for this device is on par with current gen home consoles. It's basically a ps3 (minus the resolution and bluray) in your hand. The PSVita also comes equipped with front and rear mounted cameras, high resolution pictures, Skype should be coming soon, and cool video play back. The weight and feel of the PSVita feels right so PSP owners will make the adjustment very nicely. Controls are solid. The buttons are small but responsive, and the analog controls are decent as well. The major question mark that gamers had, the rear mounted touchpad, handles great. The game prices vary from $30-$50 which isn’t bad considering how a comparable version of the same game for PS3 will cost around $60

Cons: The PSVita is priced at $250 or $300 for wifi and 3g. Now this is high as hell knowing most gamers can get a console game for less. Why pay this much for a handheld? Well, the next gen consoles are all rumored to drop this year and next, and like the PSP, Sony knows the vita will be around for the next 6 years. The vita has a very small library of games right now, much like the PSP. New titles will be dropping soon so unless you like playing Marvel vs. Capcom for 3mths until the newest games drop don't get this.

The little things that gamers will need for the PSVita to properly work are always the most expensive. The memory cards are such little things. Unlike the PSP memory cards which you could buy for 10 dollars, Sony decided to designed their own. It's small as hell easy to lose and they start at about $30. It comes in 4 GB, 8 GB, so on and so on, but don't even bother buying the 4 gig because it’s a waste. Sony has also basically made this thing unable to be modded. So if you were thinking of considering modifying this system don't even bother because right now you’ll be highly disappointed.

I honestly don't have a lot of negative comments about PSVita. This is probably the 1st handheld console that will give you the feeling that you got your money’s worth. I say check it out it’s worth the money and with new gaming titles like Modern Warfare, Madden, and others on the horizon; the PSVita is going to be a dominant player in the portable gaming world.

Bigger Isn't Always Better: The Two Versions Of Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night

When Castlevania: Symphony of the Night was released in 1997, it was heralded as not only the greatest game in the Castlevania franchise, but also one of the greatest games to be released in the 90s. It has been ported to the Xbox 360, Playstation Portable, and Playstation 3 consoles in recent years, and those versions typically utilize the source code of the Playstation 1 iteration of this game. There was a Saturn version, however, and while it may have had some issues with it's graphics engine on Sega's 6th console, it was a game that as far as gameplay is concerned, was superior in some ways that folks may have missed.

For whatever reason, there are more areas in the Saturn game than the PS1 version. The Underground Garden and Cursed Prison areas were partially coded into

the final game, but were scrapped at the last second for some reason. In addition to these extra areas, there are enemies specific to them that don't appear in the PS1 version. For the curious, walkthroughs on how to find these typically unreachable areas can be found online, though once you reach them, you may freeze the game so make sure you save your game first.

As far as the Playstation version is concerned, once you have beaten the game or the first time, players can do their next run through Dracula's castle as Richter Belmont. In the Saturn version, however, you can play as Richter Belmont and Maria Renard, the girl Richter rescues in Rondo of Blood, right from the start. Each character brings a different play style to the game, and gives Symphony quite the shelf life. This may be the biggest advantage the Saturn version of Symphony of the Night has over it's PS1 counterpart, and this intangible should make it a far more desirable version of the game. For some reason, though, The Saturn version, with it's extra levels and characters feels like it was far less complete than the PS1 version. This was honestly the theme of the 32 bit console skirmish between Sega and Sony. Games released on both consoles typically fared better on the PS1, while the Saturn was filled with sub par and seemingly rushed ports.

There was a big reason why the Saturn version of Symphony of the Night was a Japan exclusive. With the console all but dead in the US a few years before, Konami saw no need in releasing the game in our country. With the game selling limited numbers in Japan, it has become a sought after collector's item and has garnered auction prices almost as high as the highly touted Radiant Silvergun. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night has been regarded as one of the greatest games of the 32-Bit era, but the Saturn version, while decent in it's own right falls flat to it's more scaled back Playstation brother. This may explain why the PS1 version has been ported to so many consoles while the Saturn version, with all of it's frills, seems to be forgotten.

So, The SNES Is The Great Grandfather To The PS3

Over the years, Sony and Nintendo have gone from collaborators to bitter rivals. Many of Sony's moves in the video game market have been executed with the intention of breaking Nintendo. They got into the market by taking a concept that was originally intended to be a CD-Rom add on for the SNES and modding it into the original Playstation console. Much of Sony's success came from wooing away third party support from Nintendo in the mid 90s.

It was always strange to me that their relationship soured, as Sony had released several great games for the SNES including Extra Innings and Sky Blazer. Also, Sony's CD-Rom technology was being used everywhere, including by Nintendo's chief rival Sega, so one would think the partnership for this SNES CD add on would be a win for everybody involved. Money and Ego got in the way, however, and led to Sony jumping into the video game market strictly off the back of that unused tech and a desire to crush Nintendo under their heel.

a funny thing happened though, and Sony's rise in the home gaming market seemed to mirror what Nintendo had done during the 80s The NES came out of nowhere much like the Playstation did. The most popular games on Sony's systems tend to be first party exclusives, much like Nintendo, both are major players in the handheld market (though Sony is just starting to get the buzz Nintendo did with it's Game Boy line), and a growing number of gamers are fiercely loyal to one or the other. I have gone on many message boards and noticed the almost ingrained hate for Nintendo that owners of Sony's systems have and vice versa.

The quality of each company's second home console has been a tale of the same story told on different days. Much like the SNES was superior technically to the NES in every category, so was the PS2 considered a major jump over the original Playstation. With the good also comes the bad, as both the SNES and PS2 both suffered from huge amounts of shovelware that came as a result of folks figuring out that parents buy anything tied to kid's favorite movie or cartoon.

At the end of the day, a corporate rivalry led to the creation of the Playstation, and while the consoles came at different points in the game industry, their evolution seems to have mirrored each other. So the next time you hear of see a Fanboy waxing on about how great Sony is or how great Nintendo is, let them know how dependent one had to be on the other to get to this point.