VG Tribune

EDITOR’S NOTE: I originally published this on Facebook for a small group of industry friends and professionals and was subsequently urged to put this up on the site. If you are currently looking for work in the games industry or simply looking for an avenue to understand it, hopefully you’ll get something out of this.

As a man who is still trying to find his proper place in this crazy industry, I know that things can be tough for those of you who are looking to break into it. But, instead of dwelling on the companies that have rejected you so far, think about the ones that are still out there and waiting for you to send your resume and cover letter their way. Think about future opportunities; opportunities that you never would’ve otherwise experienced if not for the rejection letter that you received this afternoon.

There will be days where the future will seem terribly bleak. You’ll stay home all day waiting on a phone call from an employer that will never come. You’ll take all Saturday to write a perfectly worded cover letter to your dream company only to have that cover letter, the one you that just poured your heart and soul into, rejected by an automatic filtering service that leaves you with an emotionless “We do not have an appropriate match for your profile at this time” mere hours after sending it out. If that time comes, I challenge you to ask yourself how you became involved in this industry in the first place and, more importantly, why.

Whether you’re aware of it or not, something caused you to wake up and say “I want to work on games”. The beautiful thing about this industry is that we are all here for a reason. Something triggered you to want to be here, whether it was sheer wonder you felt when playing a video game for the first time or the desire to craft that wonder for others to experience. Find that fire inside of yourself, that inherent need to be here, and soon enough, after months, sometimes even years of working at it, something will click and you will find your place in the giant puzzle that is this business. And, when that day finally comes, and you’ll realize that those experiences were some of the most valuable moments of your working life.

The next Nintendo Direct starts in about 10 minutes from the time of this posting.  For the first time in a while, we’ve had more than 24-hour notice of this event, which has allowed for rumor and speculation to take place among the citizens of the Internet.  I won’t go over those rumors now, since the show will start before I’m done typing.  Click the link below to view our live blogging of the event while you watch the above video.
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Today Sega announced a remake of the 1990 Genesis classic Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse produced in collaboration with Disney Interactive and developed by Sega Studios Australia. The updated rerelease of this platformer will be available worldwide this summer on Playstation Network, XBox Live, and Windows PC.

Source: Sega blogs

Last night, Nintendo put out a short video showing a comparison between a Wii U system without the new update along side a system that has the new update showing the time it takes to go from a running game back to the Wii U Menu.

The results are pretty impressive.  I didn’t time them for myself, but it seems the time has been reduced to approximately a third of how long it took without the update.

I hope whatever they did to fix this also affects other menu related actions, like launching a game, which I’ve had more complaints about than the length of leaving the game.  When you press a button, you expect to get some response from the system immediately showing that it received your button press.  Right now, it sits there for about 2 or 3 seconds before making a ‘button press’ sound and/or taking any other action on my button press.

We’ll find out if this gets fixed with the update when it comes out sometime next month.  A specific date for this system update has not yet been announced.

Speaking as someone who is interested in game development, I’m happy to announce that according to this article on IGN, Nintendo has changed some of their developer policies that will likely result in many great new games coming to the eShop.

Prior to the changes, independent game developers were required to have a designated office in order to keep their materials secure. That is no longer the case, and comes as great news because many independent developers work remotely, and constantly send files back and forth through the net.

But most importantly, the unit threshold has been eliminated. This was perhaps the worst element of Nintendo’s old policies, and required developers to sell a certain amount of copies of their game before they ever saw any revenue from it. Now that the unit threshold has been removed, developers will receive revenue from the first game they sell, which is incredible! That’s a much better business practice, and how it should have been to begin with.

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This morning, my Mii Plaza received a rare SpotPass hit.  Miyamoto’s Mii visited Mii Plaza stating that he is playing Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon.  With his visit, he gives you any puzzle pieces from any of the puzzles that you are missing, a good chance to get one of those rare pink puzzle pieces.  He also counts as a level 5 character in Find Mii.

This is the second Miyamoto Mii that I have in my system, receiving the first one back in 2011 when I was at E3 when he was using his personal (Non-Nintendo, Non-Gold Pants) Mii.  I have video proof of that, here.

SQUARE ENIX today released the FINAL FANTASY X/X-2 HD Remaster Announcement trailer. The new trailer showcases Tidus, Yuna and the beautiful fantasy world of Spira in HD.

FINAL FANTASY X/X-2 HD Remaster is a single disc bundle that will be available on the PlayStation®3 system. FINAL FANTASY X HD Remaster and FINAL FANTASY X-2 HD Remaster will be available for the PlayStation®Vita. These titles will be available in 2013.

Ducktales Remastered not enough for ya? Well, how about some D&D-based beat-em-up action? Over at PAX East, Capcom has just doubled up on rerelease announcements with something even more surprising, but hardly any less in demand from the dedicated throngs: Dungeons and Dragons: Chronicles over Mystara, a double pack comprising Tower of Doom and Shadow over Mystara.  Previously, the only way to play these games in the US without importing was in the arcades; the Sega Saturn collection released in 1999, a year after the system was dead stateside, and predictably became worth a pretty penny.

Both games are notable for being among the first to be developed by the team that would come to be known as Vanillaware, they of Odin Sphere, Muramasa, and the soon to be released Dragon’s Crown, the latter actually intended as a spiritual descendant. Even with their arcade origins, the two games had a surprising amount of depth, with multiple level paths, several class-based melee maneuvers and magical attacks, consumables, weapons, armor, enchanted items… basically, everything but the dungeon master (pardon the lame pun). The games also had 4-player co-op, which the new collection will not only support, but offer online via GGPO.

Dungeons and Dragons: Chronicles over Mystara is set for a June release on XBox 360, Playstation 3, WiiU, and Windows PC via Steam at $14.99/1200 MSP.

Yesterday at PAX East, Capcom announced that they have partnered with Disney and WayForward, the company responsible for revamping classic games including A Boy and his Blob, Double Dragon, and Contra, to modernize the nostalgia-inducing NES DuckTales video game. The new game, DuckTales Remastered, stars Scrooge McDuck on a journey to collect valuable treasures from all around the world in order to become the world’s richest duck. DuckTales Remastered features a combination of gorgeous hand-drawn sprites and three-dimensional assets in a side-scrolling three-dimensional world. The game is set to feature all of the original voice actors from the Disney cartoon, appears to have a few new levels to explore, and will release this summer on Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and the Wii U Nintendo eShop. I can’t wait to hear composer Jake Kaufmann’s version of the Moon theme!

Now all that’s left for WayForward to have the world’s best company portfolio is to unleash a new Battletoads game.

Trying to finish up school must have placed me under a pretty deep rock to not have noticed this.

Two weeks ago, Machinima put out a 41 second trailer for this new Web Series and I knew nothing of it.

Episode one launched yesterday, and I just happened to stumble upon it while waiting for Portal to install on my new Mac to see if it runs any better than it ran on my last one.

Anyway.  Here is Episode 1 of Aperture R&D.  Enjoy!