General gaming |
- Reality Check: The Truth About "Perverted" Japanese Games
- Why Gundam is Gaming's Secret Time Capsule
- Unchained Blades Review: Too Much Anime, Not Enough Amazing
| Reality Check: The Truth About "Perverted" Japanese Games Posted: 18 Sep 2012 04:10 PM PDT
Feature 1UP COVER STORY  1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 17 | RETHINKING JAPAN Reality Check: The Truth About "Perverted" Japanese GamesCover Story: Tongues wag at its more salacious games, but what do they really say about Japan?S everal years ago, American game blogs and forums exploded with scandal at news of a Japanese game called Rapelay. It was exactly what you'd expect from the name: an adventure/visual novel title in which players assumed the role of a serial rapist, assaulting a family of women (and girls) the ran the gamut of anime archetypes, from busty older lady to the weeping preteen. The general response in the West, unsurprisingly, alternated between titillated amusement and genuine outrage. But at both ends of the spectrum, a single common undercurrent unified the reactions: Oh, Japan! Japan's so crazy! Did you know a guy married his virtual Love Plus "girlfriend"? Japan's so full of lonely perverts! Did you see the photos of that man who went skydiving with his sex pillow that had a cartoon girl's image printed on it? Japan's so weird! Did you know you can buy used schoolgirl panties in vending machines over there? Oh, Japan! |
| Why Gundam is Gaming's Secret Time Capsule Posted: 18 Sep 2012 02:39 PM PDT
Feature 1UP COVER STORY  1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 17 | RETHINKING JAPAN Why Gundam is Gaming's Secret Time CapsuleCover Story: A brief history of gaming through the lens of one of its most prolific franchises.S urprisingly few licensed game franchises can claim to be as old as Mobile Suit Gundam, and fewer still can claim to have the legacy that Gundam does. Gundam, if you didn't know, is almost as old as home gaming itself. Bandai's seminal robot anime first found popularity in the early 1980s, when the Famicom was also finding its feet, and has been a big part of gaming ever since. True, you don't see a lot of Gundam games in the U.S.; but over in Japan, Bandai (and later Namco Bandai) has released one or two Gundam games per year since at least 1986. That's a lot of Gundam. |
| Unchained Blades Review: Too Much Anime, Not Enough Amazing Posted: 18 Sep 2012 11:13 AM PDT 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 17 | RETHINKING JAPAN A tlus' Etrian Odyssey games piqued my interest in the venerable first-person dungeon crawler role-playing genre, and I know I'm hardly alone in that regard. That series somehow manages to combine unrelenting old-school demands -- high difficulty, little guidance, and the need for players to draft dungeon maps on graph paper -- with a modern sensibility that minimized the genre's more unfair traditions. Etrian Odyssey sparked a modest dungeon crawler revival, with games like The Dark Spire and Class of Heroes following in its wake. With each new release, I keep hoping for a game that'll scratch the same itch as Etrian Odyssey... and with each new release, I inevitably find myself disappointed. Unfortunately, Xseed's Unchained Blades doesn't break that streak. Its heart is in the right place, but ultimately those very same good intentions end up doing more harm than good. |
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