I missed my anniversary, it was apparently yesterday! Two years since my very first blog post. During that time I have accumulated 356 posts and 698 comments. Thanks to everyone who’s reading and enjoying. I’ll keep on writing!
Oh, and don’t I mean revealed. Soul Calibur IV (or, to be accurate, Soulcalibur IV, since they’ve removed the space for some reason) was announced last month and now we’re getting some more info about it. I was reading the August issue of EGM and the cover story was on SC4 (let’s abbreviate to avoid the whole question of space or no space).
I loved Soul Calibur for the Dreamcast. It was actually the game that got me to buy the console. Soul Calibur II was a lot of fun, III was not quite as good but the series remains my favorite fighting game series. Unfortunately, there’s been a disturbing trend in the character design. The female characters have become hyper-sexualized to the point that I’m actually offended by the art that I’ve seen of SC4.
I can’t find the really most awesome shot that was in EGM but here’s one that I found on Gamespot:
You can’t see the true “glory” that is Ivy’s frontside but her backside gives you an idea of what’s going on with the look of the characters.
In the article, one of the developers is talking about a new way to win. He says there’s a way that doesn’t involve health or ringouts. And he indicates that we should look at the screenshots to get a clue to what it is. I think I’ve figured it out! It’s Strip Fighting! Every hit knocks some more clothing off of your opponent and you win when they’re naked! Clever of them to hide that in the screenshots.
Here’s what Taki has become. She’s covered up, but it looks like she got some porn-star-implants and her outfit is more body paint than actual coverage.
I’m truly upset about this. I want to play SC4. I’ve been quite excited for it from when I first heard rumors of it. Next-gen action fighter? Yeah! Next-gen jiggle tech? Nooo!
Come on, isn’t it enough to have excellent gameplay? Are they really truly attracting more sales by making these characters so ridiculously sexual? Because they’re repelling me.
Some co-workers suggested this was a war of escalation started by Dead or Alive. But we have to be bigger than this! The games industry needs to realize that juvenile antics and puerile art direction are not helping our market grow. The Wii is successful because it’s games for everyone, not because it’s approaching porn.
I’m starting to think that I publish way too much information about myself. Not only do I have this blog, I twitter. I’m on Friendster, MySpace, LinkedIn and Facebook. Since Facebook isn’t just a social network but also an application platform there are a gazillion apps you can install on your profile to share even more information. I added apps to share my music tastes and link to my Last.fm information. I’m trying an app that let’s you share information about what books you’re reading (which is redundant info since I’m already sharing all that information in my blog sidebar, you can see just about every book I’ve read in the last year+ at my library). Movies I like, an app to pull in my twitter info, pictures, etc etc.
Is this too much information? Is it a bit creepy that I’m putting all this out there for everyone to find out? I remember back in college when I made my very first web page. I was studying Computer Science, and my web page was linked to by the official department web page. I had very little there, but I did have a picture of myself and my email address. I got a totally weird email from some guy asking me out. He was a single father living in Chicago (right near where I went to school) and he’d seen my web page and thought I was great! Umm. Ok… I think I figured he’d be looking at the school web pages, looking for female CS students. But that made me totally uncomfortable and prompted me to take down all public links to pictures of myself.
Now here I am. If you google my name, you find this page. You can quickly find all my social network profiles and read way more about a complete stranger than you ever needed to know. And why? Why do we feel compelled to share everything?
I just don’t know, yet here I am, talking to you lot.
Sorry for the lack of posts, I have no real excuse. Work has been relatively calm, I spent my weekend relaxing: watching a ton of movies, yay! (Transformers, Ratatouille, Upside of Anger, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Ghost Rider), reading (Harry Potter, check), and playing games (WoW is back, though not with a vengeance). And there’s just not that much going on. I have some thrilling posts planned in my head. Ok, they’re not really thrilling. And there hasn’t been that much planning. But when I have some focus, I’ll return with my usual.
There was some news today about new hires on House. Seems like House really did lose his entire staff. I like Cameron and Chase! I hope they’re not gone for good. According to some comments over on TV Squad they’ll be coming back, just not working for House. Hope so!