The Asian Power Hour

Recently released on Xbox-Live, R-Type Dimensions is a graphically overhauled version of the first two classic R-Type arcade games. While it doesn't change much mechanically, it feels silky smooth on the Xbox. What REALLY was interesting about the game though, was that the player can switch between the new and shiny graphics and the old classic sprite graphics on the fly anytime.

For reference, the same stage in the general area, new screenshot at the top, classic on the bottom. While this doesn't really change the game in any drastic fashion, I feel that it's a neat little feature to include in a remake, especially the on the fly transition. Hopefully this means that iRem will be able to resurrect the struggle against the Bydo Empire!

After a few bouts of SFIV and Melty Blood with Rick "The Trick" Nelson down at the 'ol arcade, I had the good fortune of having this wonderful little music video presented to me. It's a bit old, but still a fantastic take on the music game genre. A few interesting points:

1. Directed by Keith Schofield, of internet nerdery fame.
2. Shot entirely in the UCLA arcade.
3. Why doesn't USC have an arcade on it's campus?

DJ Format ft. MC Abdominal & MC D-Sisive - 3 Feet Deep

Check out more of Keith's fantastic work at his official website here, especially Wintergreen's "When I Wake Up".

-Al Yang

Nvidia has launched a new line of video cards capable of delivering 3-D stereoscopic versions of games and movies from your PC. I'm not exactly sure how it will work on standard video, but it seems that games have to be tweaked to allow for this system to work. For more information, check our their official website at:

Nvidia's GeForce 3-D Vision

Usually I don't post observations on the main page that I have about individual games, but after starting to play it, I think that White Knight Story (白騎士物語 -古の鼓動), a recently released (in Japan...for the moment) RPG for the PS3 by Professor Layton developer Level 5 deserves a look for a very particular reason.

As far as JRPG's (Japanese Role Playing Games) go, White Knight Story is fairly standard fare except for the way that the narrative is presented to the player.

Continue reading "The White Knight's Story: Eastern Narrative with a Western Compromise" »

Ever since our soon-to-be former president's surprise visit to Iraq, and the subsequent vigilante Iraqi shoe justice incident, flash games, photoshops, animated gifs, the works, etc. have been popping up left and right. It's always amazing when something like this gets subsumed into pop culture, doubly so when gamers take a hold of this. Rather than list the jabgillion flash games out there I'm going to leave you with two animated gifs that have been touched by the power of the gamer imagination. Enjoy!

Thanks to Mike Rossmassler for showing me his Pokemans

Hey it's that time of year again! The 3rd year MFAs are having an open house at the thesis space on 555 23rd Street this Friday from 6 p.m. to as long as there are interested people around. There will be food provided, so come on down and check out our projects. A lot of us are still looking for team members in a variety of disciplines, so it's a good way to see what we're working on and hopefully we can pique your interest! See you there!

Reminder: These are all work in progresses!

This Friday, Dec. 5th, 6 p.m. - 9 p.m.
555 23rd St. Thesis Space
Snacks and Drinks will be provided

I eat your food, I eat it up!

Entries in the Show include:

Continue reading "3rd Year MFA Winter Work in Progress Thesis Show! Dec 5th Starting 6 PM @ 555 23rd St." »

Hello all! For the second Design for Online Games workshop next Monday (11/24/08), we will be covering Game Design and Business decisions in Western versus Eastern online games, an interesting topic that is becoming more and more prevalent. We will also have a special guest, as Jeffrey Kaplan, the lead designer of World of Warcraft, the only wildly successful game in both Eastern and Western markets, will be coming in to give a post-mortem and open Q&A on the newest WoW expansion, Wrath of the Lich King.

The schedule for the workshop will include 3 main parts:
1. A brief hands-on play session of World of Warcraft and Maple Story
2. Seminar and open discussion on Design and Business affordances in East versus West online games
3. Jeffrey Kaplan: Post-Mortem on design decisions for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King with open Q&A following

The Workshop is:
Monday 1-5 Nov. 24th in the Robert Zemeckis Center, Zemeckis Media Lab (2F)
3131 S. Figueroa St.
Los Angeles, CA 90007

There may not be enough computers for a larger crowd, so if you have a laptop, please bring it so that you will be able to run World of Warcraft and/or Maple Story on it. Also, a university recruiter from Blizzard Entertainment will be present if you have any questions about jobs or internships.

A Very Special Thanks to Jeffrey Kaplan for coming in to lecture for this workshop and Blizzard Entertainment for their support.

If you interested in coming, please RSVP to albertya at usc dot edu

Hello all! I'm running the workshop next Monday on design for online based games. This covers not only MMORPGS, but general considerations for platforms like XBOX Live and Facebook and also games with online components, like FPS. This will be a very casual session and attendees should feel free to discuss questions and comments at anytime.

The schedule for the workshop will include 3 main parts:
1. An introduction to the history, growth, and general information of Online Games
2. Hands-on session with the new MMORPG Warhammer Online
3. Comparative discussion of design used in Warhammer Online

The Workshop is:
Monday 1-5 Nov. 3rd in the Robert Zemeckis Center, Zemeckis Media Lab (2F)

There may not be enough computers for a larger crowd, so if you have a windows laptop, please bring it so that you will be able to run Warhammer Online on it.

A Very Special Thanks to Electronic Arts and EA Mythic for providing us with the resources for this workshop.

Also, as a shameless plug, the next series in the workshop on Nov. 24th will cover online design and business considerations in Asia versus the Western Gaming World and we will have a special guest as Jeffery Kaplan, the lead designer for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King has graciously offered to give a post-mortem on the design challenges and affordances while making the expansion to the most popular MMORPG currently in the world.

While perusing a DIRECTV circular, I noticed that they have a feature called Gamelounge, which is a channel on their service that serves a large variety of casual games that viewers play with their remote, effectively (and cleverly) creating a game controller that users are already familiar and comfortable with navigating.

Continue reading "Reinventing the Game Control Interface with DIRECTV" »

One of SEGA's flagship barcode arcade games (along with Love and Berry and Mushi [Beetle] King), Dinosaur King, after enjoying moderate success in the US kid's television market is finally getting a DS port here in the US. However, what seems a bit off is that SEGA is forgoing the card reader that it packaged with the other games in it's DS series. Two things:

1. The arcade version of Dinosaur King is actually localized in the US and available at almost every Gameworks (SEGA owned) and uses cards that are compatible with the Japanese arcade version.

2. The cards for Love and Berry and Mushi King are actually cross-platform compatible too, allowing cards from the arcade to be used in the home version (and the special edition cards that come with the console edition to be used in the arcade).

It seems that with a platform already in the US, it would be foolhardy not to use this as a stepping stone for all of SEGA's popular physical/digital card based games (Sangokushi Taisen!) to be released in the US. It's also interesting to note that Konami has, to this day, not touched their Juushinden technology for use in the US market (Yu-Gi-Oh anyone?). With something like taking the very niche audience based Arkanoid paddle out of the DS version for the US audience it makes some business sense, but how about for this?

What do you guys think, after the failure of Spectrobes and Eye of Judgement in the US, do you think that Western audiences are just not ready for a combination of two game types that are already popular here?