Jane Jensen's Kickstarter

For those who aren't adventure gaming nuts you might not be aware of who Jane Jensen is. Well, she's one of the cooler names in the world of the genre with such titles under her belt as the Gabriel Knight series and Gray Matter. Gabriel Knight games are so intensely good, even all these years later so I recommend trying them out (at least the first two) if you're ever in the mood.

Anyway, a Kickstarter has popped up today. It's for Jane's Pinkerton Road development studio. By donating you help fund the company, games, and even help choose the first game that will get worked on. It might not seem like a huge deal to many, but to me it's incredibly cool. Aside from Gray Matter, Jane has mostly been wrapped up in doing Women's Murder Club games. Now, that's fine and all but it's not a series where you have the creative ability to make any story you desire. To hear that she may be returning to making her own games is fantastic and I hope it happens.

With all these Kickstarter projects out I continue to worry they will fail. When I saw the Leisure Suit Larry one I was almost certain it would not make its $500,000 goal. I thought that only I and older gamers would still care about the series. However, it's already racking up mega money. Jane Jensen seems like an even more niche part of the adventure game world. Still, I'm hoping the goal is reached so I, as well as everyone else, can enjoy more stories from her.

Simpson Arcade Game

There's been talk recently that the old The Simpsons Arcade Game might be coming to consoles. Although it's really only expected to be a straight port for the XBLA/PSN market it is awesome news if it turns out to be true!

Back when arcades were still popular I found the Simpsons game to be some of the best fun out there. It's probably because the game was not inherently competitive. I didn't like going near the fighting games or anything like that where someone would be waiting to pound my digital face in or something. The Simpsons was all about getting four players on it and beating up everything together. I'd love to have that experience again, although certainly a digital release will never be able to get it back entirely. There'll always be something "magic" about being shoulder to shoulder with strangers or with having a teammate you don't know well give you a quarter to keep on fighting. Man, I miss those days.

Anyway, The Simpsons Arcade Game was awesome and I really, really, really hope the rumor is true.

Catherine Special Edition Thoughts

So, there's a special edition for Catherine now! I hate to admit I'm a sucker for "weird" special editions and this one looks to hit all the points. With a pillowcase, shirt, and boxers all stuffed inside a pizza box this is one of the most unusual US special editions in recent memory. I'm just waiting for a US release to come with a dinner plate, spoon and fork like Cardcaptor Sakura: Tomoyo's Video War did on Dreamcast.

For the most part, it's just the items stuffed inside a pizza box that interests me the most. It's a creative way of stuffing all the items together, for sure. A t-shirt isn't that exciting. Even a pillowcase is old news now that NIS has done that twice with the horrendous Record of Agarest War series. Even underwear has come with games released in the US before... However, I think the only time boxers came out anywhere with a game were for a version of Maximo in Japan. Girly panties seem to be much more the norm.

I admit I like the boxers the most because it's definitely different. I don't think I'd ever wear them though since they're not very good looking. Secondly, boxers always bunch up and generally annoy me.


Edit: Not going to do a full post for this but just saw Destructoid's post for this edition. "It's been perfectly designed for rigid-cocked gamers, aching to burst their bags over drawings of girls" is part of the lead in paragraph. I'll never understand why Jim Sterling seems so obsessed with talking about dicks and masturbating whenever humanly possible. I mean, even I don't think about them that much!

Harvest Moon Alpaca

I gotta tell you, when I first experienced Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town on GBA I was hooked. Even though I was a lot younger I was able to realize that the entire series is mostly the same thing over and over again. That doesn't make it any less fun, but because of that I have only two Harvest Moon games in my collection.

For all the years between then and now I barely realized they gave out plush toys for preorders. It was only once my partner talked about the most recent one to me that I learned there were tons. If I had known, I probably would have picked up a few more new games in the series. It's too late now though.

The latest toy for the 3DS and DS version of Harvest Moon looks to be the cutest of the bunch. I can't say I ever was a fan of alpacas, but I'm a huge fan of this one.

Video Game Museums, Huh

Making the rounds this morning I saw a post that was on various gaming sites. Apparently, a group of people are intending to start up a gaming history museum in San Francisco. Now, I think that's a perfectly wonderful thought and why not do it? There are other digital media museums but they're not really on the west coast. However, upon going to their web space and viewing their proposal video my tune changed.

Full disclosure, I don't know any of the people involved in this and completely adore San Francisco... and want to someday create my own gaming museum. Perhaps it's because of the last comment that I am viewing this upstart so harshly. They don't seem to have any true focused idea for what they're doing. They're looking to scrounge up money for a retail outlet-sized space and yet they have their aspirations set way too high. 

They want to have LAN parties and classes on programming/game design. Excuse me? I can understand the desire for interactivity in the museum but a LAN party is not how you do that. Have some games and arcades up for playing, and maybe a small computer space for 8 players at any time. But to have a specific "party" night or time seems hilariously useless. Something that also caught my attention was something about resurrecting servers for games that have long since been offline. Now, I don't know what games they really mean but the big fans of any online games have since found ways around the official servers. Phantasy Star Online is still going strong and so is M.U.L.E.! Even that Sierra On-Line online game world thing (the name completely escapes me) has been brought back. Who are they expecting to play online games with them anyway? I doubt it'd be enough to warrant an entire "fat internet connection". It'd be much nicer to do something along the lines of what Classic Gaming Expo does where they recreate a small living room and hook up consoles to an old analog set (the kind with knobs!) for local multiplayer.   

A retail space is not very large and I wonder what it is they'd choose to display. The guy behind it all said it would display pieces from his collection as well as the collections of those involved. While he seems like a nice guy overall, that sounds like a really conceited thing to say, at least that's how I took it. "Relics from my collection"... Whatever, this is just over-analyzing things, but it seriously didn't jive with me. In fact, I am curious as to what his collection entails, so maybe I should go if/when it opens. Something else that bothered me about the video was the numerous slides of Shadow of the Colossus. Yes, this is a great game but it's always brought up as such an ARTSY FARTSY game. It feels like using multiple images of this game is trying to prove how super artsy and amazing this place will be, but they don't even have the imagination to come up with something else to show. 

It seems like the people involved in this project are terribly unfocused. They also estimate the cost for their first year to be $25,000. Hell no, it won't be that cheap, especially if they are able to roll out classes and get their crazy internet connection they want. Are they dreaming? I know that living in the freaking Bay Area is expensive as hell and so I can only assume opening up a storefront in San Francisco would be terribly pricey without any extra features at all. One might assume they'd get revenue from people visiting the museum, but if it is only 1000 square feet who is going to pay to visit that? I want a fully featured museum experience, not some cramped place I assume would be filled with hipster kids who don't even really understand what's going on. 

For some reason this post is making me feel like a crotchety old man but I swear that's not the case! Perhaps I'm just sore that they might open up a museum before I do in California. Mostly I think the problem is I expect them to fail spectacularly. Prove me wrong, MADE.