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Posts with tag game-center-cx

Game Center CX at New York Asian Film Festival

Posted Jun 17th 2008 9:30AM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: Fan stuff, Imports


Stylejam, distributor of the Japanese Game Center CX DVDs, is showcasing the retrogaming marathon show in the U.S. for the first time, at this year's New York Asian Film Festival. Two subtitled episodes of the show, titled Retro Game Master for the American release, will be shown during the festival at the IFC Center, for free. On June 21, 25, and 28, NYC locals can catch Shinya Arino's attempt to conquer Atlantis no Nazo, and on June 22, 29, and July 2, the festival will show Arino's battle with Ghosts 'n Goblins.

We're pretty upset at the limited nature of the showings (as in, limited to places that are really far away), but Stylejam's first tentative steps into a U.S. release of Game Center CX give us hope for a subtitled DVD release (as does the poster text) and, in our wildest dreams, a localized release of Namco Bandai's Game Center CX mock retro game collection.

[Via Ray Barnholt's 1UP blog]
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The dirt on Cave Story DS, Cave Story-engraved DS

Posted May 13th 2008 9:30AM by Eric Caoili
Filed under: Fan stuff, Homebrew, Imports



Praised by almost everyone who's played the freeware PC title, Cave Story is considered by many to be the pinnacle of the "Metroidvania" genre, a polished action platformer embellished with endearing characters and a catchy soundtrack. No matter how many times we're reminded of the fact, it always astounds us that the game was designed and developed by a single programmer, Daisuke Amaya, or Pixel, as he's more commonly known.

As you might should know, homebrew developer Ravenworks has been working on a DS port for Cave Story. As it turns out, however, Pixel doesn't own a Nintendo DS, so it would be unlikely that he'd be able to play the port once it's completed. In fact, he hasn't owned a handheld or home console since the Nintendo 64! Isn't it a crime nowadays for gamers in Japan to not own a Nintendo DS?

To keep Pixel out of jail, Ravenworks and the rest of the "All Things Studio Pixel (ATSP)" LiveJournal community raised $410 and put together a care package of handheld treats as a "thank you" for the DS-less developer's work. Here's everything the group purchased and sent:
So, how did Pixel take to the package? You can read his reaction, as well as the community's reasons for picking those two particular games for their offering, past the post break! We also used this effort as an excuse to catch up with Ravenworks on Cave Story DS's progress.

Gallery: Pixel's Cave Story-engraved DS

Continue reading The dirt on Cave Story DS, Cave Story-engraved DS

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Game Center CX's Arino returns to the DS

Posted Dec 10th 2007 9:50AM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: Screens, Imports

Shinya Arino, the put-upon host of Game Center CX, is also a member of a comedy duo called Yoiko along with Masaru Hamaguchi. They starred in a television special in December of last year called Mujintou Seikatsu (Deserted Island Life) in which the two of them survived on an island for three days. That sounds like a perfectly reasonable basis for a minigame collection, right?

Namco Bandai assessed the situation similarly, and thus Tottado!~ Yoiko no Mujintou Seikatsu (Yoiko's Deserted Island Life) was born. The minigames involve survival-related tasks -- building and maintaining a shelter, catching fish, and cooking -- with lots of wacky comedy faces. "I caught a fish WACKY COMEDY FACE!"

We don't need to tell you how likely we think this is to leave Japan.
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Gifts for us (or people like us)

Posted Dec 6th 2007 12:00PM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: Features



Gaming sites are inundated with holiday gift guides at the end of the year, listing the best and most popular games that everyone pretty much already has (or knows about). Well, we're not going in for that this year. Our gift guide will help you find the best gifts in categories the other sites won't cover -- because we just made them up.

Of course we recommend buying DS games and accessories for everyone on your shopping list -- whether they want them or not. But, ironically, the hardest people to give the gift of DS are the people who love the DS the most -- people who live the DS. In a word, us. Game bloggers. Well, not us specifically, but people like us who are far too enthusiastic about the Nintendo DS.

We're so nuts about the DS that we devote most of our lives to talking about it. We know pretty much everything out there, and we spend entirely too much time building our collections. We're emblematic of exactly the kind of brutally insane people for whom it's nearly impossible to shop. That's why we've put together this handy guide to the kind of stuff we would love, but wouldn't necessarily think to buy ourselves. Not because we want you to buy gifts for us, although we certainly won't stop you if you think we deserve a little token of appreciation.

See what we did there? We've given you the gift of an obvious opening through which to insult us! 'Tis the season!

Continue reading Gifts for us (or people like us)

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1UP Show CX

Posted Nov 30th 2007 5:40PM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: Video


This week's 1UP Show video ... podcast ... show ... thing-with-people-talking-and-also-footage-of-games takes a break from the constant Rock Band coverage to talk about new games on some weirdo handheld system with two screens. If, instead of reading about Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wings and Dementium, you'd like to watch and hear about them, this is a prime opportunity for that!

The discussion about categorizing Revenant Wings for a country with few strategy games is particularly interesting. As is the pronunciation of "Ivalice" -- who knew? The real star of this video, of course, is Game Center CX, the current obsession of every retrogamer who can get it and read the text. There's video! Oh, Game Center CX. We will continue to read and watch things about you for as long as we can. Fun fact: Ray Barnholt, who leads the discussion of the game, is also largely responsible for bringing the show to the attention of the American enthusiast audience with his exhaustive guide.
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Game Center CX in loving detail

Posted Nov 16th 2007 2:50PM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: News, Imports

Continuing with his coverage of Game Center CX, Chris Kohler has posted descriptions of the game's progression, along with details about each of the games. A few games at a time are unlocked, and you earn more games by completing specific challenges. For example, getting all your characters to level 7 in the Dragon Quest-like Guadia Quest, or shooting a giant asteroid in the Galaga-inspired Cosmic Gate fulfill requirements set by the game.

Every element of Game Center CX accurately parodies Japanese retrogaming: Rally King SP is a remade version of the (also fake) top-down racer Rally King with branding from a fictional ramen company. Product tie-in games like this were common in Japan at the time (though they've all become frustratingly rare now!) and in fact, some, like Gradius: ArchiMENdes Edition, were actually given away by ramen companies.

The "challenge" focus of the game actually sort of makes Game Center CX a bit more modern. Rather than simply completing levels, you're fulfilling objectives. It's almost mission-based, but in an interesting way.
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DS Daily: Game Survey CX

Posted Nov 15th 2007 9:00AM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: Imports, DS Daily


A very simple topic today: would you play the Game Center CX game? Check out our previous coverage of the game and make a hard decision about whether parody retrogames, combined with parody game magazines, are the kind of thing you'd like to experience.

Just in case somebody from Namco Bandai happens to wander into our little website, we'd like to have proof that there's an Anglophone audience for this game. Your comments will be that proof! (Note to hypothetical Namco Bandai representative: if nobody comments, it's just because our readership has puckishly decided in unison to play a little joke.)
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Game Center CX sounds really great

Posted Nov 14th 2007 10:40AM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: News, Imports

We knew that Namco Bandai's Game Center CX strongly exhibited the spirit of awesomeness, as a collection of fake retro games tied into a TV show about playing old games. Chris Kohler reports that the game is actually pretty great, and a lot more clever than even the premise of parody retro games.

Basically, you're tasked with performing specific challenges in each game, and you need to go through the made-up instruction book included in each game's pause menu to figure out how to achieve those objectives. Furthermore, you can find secrets by looking through fake game magazines. The game simultaneously parodies the inscrutability of old games and accurately models real gameplay experiences. That's pretty cool!

Kohler recommends a localization for this game, and we'd like to agree. It sounds great, but the game requires rather a lot of Japanese reading. Since, as Kohler says, "you need not be at all familiar with the source material to understand the premise," it would probably be okay to bring it over without the license, or possibly as the only representative of the license. The retrogaming theme is enough context for us.

But those Japanese gamers who are familiar with the show get a clever bonus: a replica of host Shinya Arino's Bandai Namco business card, given to him at Bandai Namco's offices while playing The Quest of Ki. Everyone should get some kind of consolation prize for playing The Quest of Ki.
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A day on the Game Center CX set

Posted Oct 26th 2007 9:50AM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: Imports


Brian Ashcraft went to the Bandai Namco offices to witness the pain of Shinya Arino, the tortured host of the Japanese TV show Game Center CX, soon to be a DS game from the same company. The game is about kids playing fake retro games; the show is about one guy playing real retro games all the way through, even if-- especially if-- they're senselessly difficult. During the show Ashcraft visited, Arino tried his best and failed to complete the Tower of Druaga prequel The Quest of Ki. We would not like to be filmed trying to play The Quest of Ki.

The feature, much of which is contained in the photo gallery, describes a normal day on the set of the show, as Arino spends the entire day trying to finish this game, getting covert tips from Namco staffers, applying cooling pads to his forehead to stay alert, and facing the constant danger of failure. Will the games in the DS adaptation be as hard as the real thing? Will we be expected to suffer?

We have an ulterior motive for posting about Game Center CX. We continually hope that our posts about the show will convince someone at one of the companies who localizes and releases anime to pick up the license for this show and subtitle it in English. We'd totally buy the DVDs, and that's not something we can say for any current anime offerings! And then, in this hypothetical ideal universe we've built up, a localized version of the DS game could come out!
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TGS07: Game Center CX, the new game about old games, previewed

Posted Sep 20th 2007 4:40PM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: News, Imports

1UP's original Retronaut, Jeremy Parish, took in some Game Center CX at TGS, and it sounds as meta-fabulous as we thought. The central gimmick of the game is that you play as two kids who are themselves playing games; they have a Famicom-esque system in front of them and a pile of magazines. Both the games and the magazines are original creations based on classics; the games imitate Galaga, Lode Runner, and others, and the magazines talk about those games in a style reminiscent of Famitsu.

We're as bummed about the fact that this game will never make it to the U.S. as we are about the Game Center CX show. We're sure Spike TV or G4 or somebody could make decent money from a subtitled version of the show, but we don't know how big the market would be for a game about it. Too bad for what is basically a love letter to retrogaming.
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Game Center CX: the game

Posted Sep 14th 2007 2:00PM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: Screens, Imports

Game Center CX is an absolutely brilliant Japanese TV show in which, with the help of some production assistants, Shinya Arino plays old games to completion. The show documents the hardships involved in trying to finish the most unfairly difficult and nonsensical old games from the Famicom generation and beyond.

And now it's getting its own DS game. The game consists of fake retro games made in authentic NES style, including a ninja platformer (Karakuri Ninja Haguruman) and its sequel, a shooter (Starprince) and even an RPG; to go along with the fake games, there's even a fake weekly game magazine. Maybe in 20 years, someone will play through this whole game on TV.
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