Square-Enix Burns Down the Walled Garden

AND STAY OUT!

Figuratively, anyway, because you won’t be playing FF XIV, ever, on 360:

“The main reason why we couldn’t go with Xbox 360 was the Xbox Live system,” he explained at E3. “[Live is] different to the normal internet environment, so when we wanted to introduce this game in the same environment as Windows PC it had to be PS3, so that was our choice.

This isn’t the first time that the prison yard set-up of Live has cost owners of that platform games, mainly those in the MMO category.¹

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^{1 Aren’t you glad you’re paying for that service only to actively be denied games you might want to play?}

Stuff You May Have Missed Yesterday

SHINING FORCE HD by modusprodukt

• One game to rule them all gets a trailer.
• Sounds great until China has a meltdown any month now.
• I really don’t want my “expectations challenged” on this one.
• Ze Germans get it.
• An Epic game gets an epic staff.
• This story brought to you by PCP.
• And all the stuff you didn’t read on WE.

AM In Your Head All Day

Super Mario Mind Blown

Technically I’m late to this but only because this dude has racked up 1.2 million views in less than 7 days:

And:

And more.

Despair: Castelvania Comes to HD

This isn’t exactly what I had in mind¹ for a 2D, HD, Castlevania, but it might be good…right?:

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^{1 I guess it was too much to hope that they’d just do something kinda normal, i.e. not some bizarre, MP-focused, game, but HD owners just gotta have online MP, even if it makes little sense, right?! (Yes, I was hoping/praying for another SOTN or Drac X or, gasp, even another CVIII.)}

Around the Sidebar in 120 Seconds

CATASTROPHE

• First up, Taro tells a tale of woe as beer is now actually cheaper in Japan than soda.
• Shaggy weighs in w/ the latest info on KOFXIII’s arcade release, but no word yet on whether this one is going to not suck.
• The Cat o’ Nine Edits continues to regale us with his recent trials and tribulations w/ the stoner that runs Kotaku.
• Jack points out that Sony isn’t terribly good at this whole ‘the customer is always right’ thing–on the upside (for Sony), neither is Microsoft.
• KoG stamps out a few more, short-ish, posts, the latest of which dwells on manga, something I’ve never spent more than a few microseconds thinking about.
• Fei proposes a deal: you listen to some of his music–for free!–and he’ll keep making more.
• The Nerd posts up a commercial that, for whatever reason, I failed to see when it was new, centering around a bouquet of flowers and some ass-beating.
• El hombre de Mexico shares w/ us the trailer to the Parasite Eve sequel, and hasn’t updated in a week, leaving him this week’s winner of the Thoughts of Fei Sidebar Super-Failure of the Week.
• Oh! Spoke too soon! It seems that Thoughts of Fei has actually nicked the trophy from The Wanderer as he hasn’t updated in 10 days! Congrats! Again!
• Zig pontificates on Suda51′s latest opus (or dirge, depending on whom you ask), No More Heroes 2.
• And, finally, the Knight points out that feminism (of the kind found in the fever swamps of academia), in the final summation, probably hasn’t done women a whole lotta good.

Dreamcast Chus On An NES

NES I CHUSE YOU!

The newest in the demake stakes is a port of ChuChu Rocket to NES from Dreamcast:

There is no sound or music yet.

It does not yet keep track of which levels you have cleared.

Puzzle mode is basically complete.

Stage Challenge mode isn’t finished:

* Missing the 30 second time limit
* The 100 mice and Cat Soccer levels don’t do anything.

There is no multiplayer mode yet.

Controls:

* Start or A: Confirm or select something
* B or Select: Cancel or go back
Puzzle Mode:
* A + Arrow: place an arrow, replace an arrow, or pick up an arrow
* B: Take back the latest placed arrow
* Select: Quit, or return to puzzle mode if the game is running.
* Start: Set the game in motion! Also toggles double speed mode while the game is running.
Stage Challenge:
* A + Arrow: place an arrow. You can only have 3 on at a time, and can not place arrows on top of another. Arrows last for 10 seconds before they expire.
* Select: Quit

Emulator Compatibility:

Works great in FCEUX, Nintendulator, Nestopia, VirtuaNES, QuickNES, Mednafen.

Grab it here.

3PM Snapshot: Alucard Rising

WTTW: One Man Against…Himself?

UNKILLABLE

You are Invincible Man, a superhero with the uncanny ability to die–over and over–and be resurrected on the spot while your corpses serve as the tools of your trade. However, of  late, yo have grown weary of the trials and tribulations of being the world’s only Undead-American, and are seeking a permanent exit via a serum hidden deep in the bowels of a maze-like fortress, which, strangely enough, resembles a puzzle-platformer of epic scope and duration. (Go figure.)

Stuff You May Have Missed Yesterday

OLD BOY by WinterArtwork

• Must be…any day of the week: another Culdcept DS patch.
• Yes, it’ll ‘cost’ too much for them to let us keep *our* money.
• Sonic looking statuesque.
• Maybe now he’ll have some time to spend with his illegitimate child. Dick.
• Want to play Monster Hunter on 360? Get out your pricing decoder ring.
• Britain decides to club their economy into submission.
• And all the stuff you didn’t read on WE.