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DS Daily: Game Survey CX
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.)
A day on the Game Center CX set
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!
TGS07: Game Center CX, the new game about old games, previewed
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.
Game Center CX: the game
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.
Game Center CX is TV for retro game nerds
Fuji TV's Game Center CX has everything: exclusive developer interviews, looks at early versions of some of our favorite games, and, every episode, one man giving his very best to play a classic game to completion. The first season of the show focused more on the interviews and features; from season 2 on, the focus of the show became the gaming-- suffering along with host Shinya Arino as he tries to play old games from start to finish. The games range from the classic (Metroid, Prince of Persia, Actraiser) to the classic-to-us (Kato-chan & Ken-chan) to the painful (Takeshi no Chousenjou, which seems to have been designed as a cynical joke against gamers). Of course, the show is edited to fit into its format, so you aren't stuck watching all twelve hours or however long it takes.Crunk Games's Ray Barnholt is our hero for compiling this exhaustive episode guide. He has profiled the personalities and written detailed descriptions of each episode, including who is interviewed, what is discussed, and, most importantly, a play-by-play of the game sessions. Reading his descriptions is almost as good as watching the actual show. Speaking of the actual show, he's provided links to Japanese fanpages, at least one of which has Youtube links.We're generally glad that the Virtual Console is raising awareness of old games in general. Now we're glad that the VC enables whole new generations to do what Arino is doing, and experience game history first hand, one complete game at a time.Would you watch this kind of thing if it were on American TV? How about a similar show in English on the web? We wouldn't mind some personal narrative or gameplay videos on the Wii, to add value to the VC experience.
