The Weird Longevity of DDR and IIDX

 

Rhythm games are a thing that I assume most people, even the most enthusiastic of gamers, don't think about very often.  Around 2005 the genre got a pretty big boost in popularity for a while with the release of Guitar Hero and that boost was bolstered in part by the subsequent release of Rock Band but the whole thing turned out to be just a fad and the genre once again faded back into obscurity once those games died.  If you are a person who owns a Guitar Hero, Rock Band or DJ Hero controller I can almost guarantee that it's caked in dust and you probably forgot to take the batteries out and they have no leaked everywhere.

This is a bit less true for the Japanese arcade scene where the genre has been a staple almost for as long as the genre has existed but even in a space like this games come and go all the time.  Various rhythm games will pop up for a while and then vanish without a trace or be reduced to one machine stuffed in a single corner of the arcade that never gets used.  For example when I first moved into my new house in January of this year, there was a new game called Chrono Circle and at current time of writing I am completely unable to find a single cab for it anywhere.  It's been removed from my local place despite them initially having 5 cabinets and none of the bigger arcades I frequent in central Nagoya have them either, dead on arrival.  

But then there's Dance Dance Revolution, a game that has been a core part of the arcade experience both in Japan and the west since I was in primary school and a series that doesn't seem to be slowing down its content updates even in the current day.  I remember seeing it for the first time, I must have been about 10, in a bowling alley near my old house in Manchester.  Most arcades were either sit-down fighting game cabs, novelty games or rail shooters but then this motherfucker just sat there with its giant pad and massive speakers blasting out J-Beats and it sure as hell got peoples attention.  I played in that arcade pretty much all the way to me graduating high school and it was the one machine that would often stay fairly well maintained and updated with the place replacing the Euromix 1 cab with a Euromix 2 cab almost as soon as that version dropped.  Fast foward to my life in Japan in 2022 and DDR is STILL going strong, being one of the most popular games in basically any game center you go to and still being updated on the regular.  Hell, the last version to be released was DDR A3 which came out March of THIS YEAR with new songs being added constantly.  Also I can't speak with any degree of certainty but the few enthusiast arcade places I know about in the UK seem to always be packing at least a Euromix 1 or 2 cab.

Beatmania IIDX is another game with a similar life span as DDR but with it being Japan only its a game that most people outside of the rhythm game enthusiast circles actually know about.  It started with Beatmania back in 1997 which had 5 buttons and a turn table for a controller which was probably quite unique at the time.  Then in 1999 Konami released Beatmania IIDX which was a bigger, badder, louder looking machine with 7 buttons and then there was a Beatmania 3 in 2000 which had a pedal or something? and everyone hated it and it died after 2 years.  IIDX however, like DDR, is still getting content updates and new versions to this very day with the newest version IIDX 30: Resident being released very recently 

There are other games in the Bemani franchise such as Guitar Freaks and Drum Mania which have also had similar life spans and still get updates but the machines are stocked less and barely used by anyone that I can see.  Meanwhile, DDR and IIDX are so popular that most places have to have multiple copies of them and even with an average (based on places I go to) of 2 DDR cabs and 4 IIDX cabs there are still queues CONSTANTLY to actually get to play them.  Some of newer games from the Konami library are starting to cement their places in the arcade such as Jubeat and Voltex but if they are still around in, lets say 10 years, only time will tell 

I can't imagine why this is the case really other than that the skill ceiling for mastering these two games inparticular is IMMENSELY high.  Seeing extremely high level play for games like Voltex, Chunithm, Taiko etc. isn't exactly uncommon if you spend enough time hanging around these places but really high level play for DDR and IIDX is not something you see very often at all.  If I was to hazard a guess I guess it's the drive that these players have to truly master these games that keeps them coming back and pumping coins or Paseli credit into the machines which in turn keeps Konami updating them and pumping out new versions for people to get good at.

That's just my game theory on the matter anyway.  Does make me wonder if DDR will still be around in 30 more years.....and if I'll still be able to play it at that point

2022 Horror Challenge Roundup

 

On October 1st 2022 I started a challenge that involved playing though 31 horror games within a month (outlined in this post http://identitygaming.blogspot.com/2022/09/31-game-horror-challenge-2022.html) and on October 30th 2022 I completed that challenge!  It was a stressful month, for sure, but it was an immensely fun challenge and I'm totally planning to do it all again next October.  For now I wanted to just go over a few of the games from the challenge that I thought stood out, so think of this post as a sort of "Halloween spooky game award post" 

Best Game

I did a horror game challenge about 2 years ago and failed it miserably because I'm an idiot that put some IMMENSELY long (and shitty, Days Gone) games and Yuppie Psycho was one of the ones I didn't get to back then, so better late than never I guess.  It's a game that's truly best experienced by knowing as little as possible about it but, let's be honest, is there anything more frightening that office work?  Pepper in a unique setting and some occult-type beats and you have a rather unique experience that is as charming as it is scary. 

That's all you're getting for this one, go play it

Worst Game

Dread X Collection is a collection of short horror games made by various developers that I played off stream and was deeply disappointed by.  Dread X Collection 2 I played on stream and it was probably one of the most miserable experiences I've had with a horror title in a very long time.  The ideas behind the games are bad, the games themselves are bad and there's this sort of air of smugness about the whole thing that makes it pretty unbearable to play.  It's a level of incompetancy that is rarely found anywhere within game development and I feel that most of the people involved should probably fuck off to some other medium.  Most of the games in this collection are barely playing, boring, try-hard messes that despite having an extremely short length feel like they drag on and on just because of how vile they are.

There are 2 exceptions to this though.  One game was called Squirrel Stapler which was really daft but sort of fun to play.  The other was called Sucker for Love which is a sort of joke dating-sim where you have to try and woo an Eldritch God which was pretty funny and also came with some decently creepy concepts and imagery.  However play Sucker for Love with the voices OFF because the voice acting was extremely cringe worthy.  

I own 3 or 4 more Dread X games since I got a bunch of them as a set and after playing these two I have 0 motivation to continue the Action52 of horror games.  

Biggest Surprise

After seeing the AVGN review and being told about it by various people I was expecting something truly awful, something akin to the level of quality of Dread X Collection 2.  However Countdown Vampires is a game that's actually pretty fun to play, at least on stream with a group of people to banter with and revel in its insanity.  It's just a shoddy clone of Resident Evil that has basically no vampires and like, 4 countdowns in it but there's something sort of endering about the whole thing.  The 3D FMV sequences are non-sensical but weirdly well produced and a decent amount of effort went into the pre-rendered backgrounds even if the actual render quality is sort of shoddy.  Also the game is really, REALLY funny between absolute batshit character design and voice acting that makes Resident Evil 1 sound like Shakespear; the whole thing, while not good, was highly entertaining and I'd happily play it again 

Scariest Game

I know that saying Silent Hill 2 is scary is like saying that the sky is blue, just obvious bullshit thus making this pick seem like a complete cop-out but the one "mistake" I made this year was that most of the games I picked almost completely failed on their horror fronts.  F.E.A.R gets a close second for, while not being scary in the slightest, at least TRYING to get an ambience down and Alien Isolation gets props for making me make silly noises when I messed up but I wasn't actually scared by any of the games this year except for maybe this one. Even then its more fear of a concept of my wife getting sick and dying before my eyes than it is of the actual game but it scared me pretty badly in my teenage years so it gets the scariest game spot for being creepy on multiple levels at least. 

Least Scary Game

I didn't know anything about Geist when I put it on the list.  I mean, it's called "Ghost" but in German so I was expecting something at least a little spooky but what I got was a sort of ghost-themed action game/puzzle game?  Not that I'm going to bash it too hard, it was fun to play and the ghost-based puzzles were equal parts interesting and funny but there was a bit too much just shooting dudes with guns in first person for me to really consider it a proper horror game.  Still, I feel like a lot of people haven't tried this one so if you get a chance, give it a go. 

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So that's it for this year!  There will be other horror games peppered into the stream here and there throughout the year, of course, but we wont be going full spooky again until next October.  Keep me informed of any cool horror games you find via Discord or twitch chat and maybe they'll get put on the list! 

 

It Follows? It Sucks! (Kinda)

 

Between streaming horror games on my Twitch channel I've been trying to squeeze in a few horror movies as well, with it currently being the season for it and all.  One film that I've had my eye on since it came out and never got around to watching was It Follows from 2015 a film that has had quite a lot of positive press surrounding it for a long time and now I finally got to see it.  

Despite the title of this blog post I'm not about to attempt to tear it a new one, it wasn't THAT bad.  The acting is fine, the cinematography is really nice and there's a handful of pretty effective scenes and touches that stop it from being a stinker but overall the whole thing is just kind of silly

The premise to the film is that there is a person who is being followed by some kind of thing in human form that is invisible to everyone except the person who is the current target and previous targets.  If you are the target, the only way to get the creature off you is to have sex with another person, where the curse is then sexually transmitted to the person that you had sex with and then they must pass it on to someone else.  However, if the person you had sex with is killed, then the thing starts going back up the line so, for example, if I was the creatures current target and then I have sex with you, the reader, and then the monster kills you it will then come right after me again.  This isn't a Ring style situation where you can just have someone watch the tape and then be rid of it, you'll always be sort of concerned that your turn is coming. 

The idea of a slow yet tireless thing that will follow you for all of time is a decent premise despite the whole "sexually transmitted" part being a bit daft and the scene at the very start of the film is extremely good in giving you an idea of whats going on while still leaving a bit of mystery.  It's after that scene though where the whole thing starts to fall apart a little.

See, the thing in It Follows is a real thing that exists in the world its inhabiting.  It's not a ghost than can walk through walls, its got maybe some slightly higher than average strength but for the most part its similar to a human and while its invisible to everyone except the victim, other people can interact with it and you can even make it partially visible by throwing a sheet on it.  Also you seemingly can't kill it but you can stun it for a small amount of time but shooting it in the head or using some other means.

Now that I've explained all that, the reason I think this movie is quite silly is that despite all of this being figured out by a group of about 5 people, they spend the entire movie making absolutely braindead decisions and putting themselves in danger for pretty much no reason.  Anyone watching the movie could figure out that the trick to stopping it would be to simply trap it in something.  The main character in a scene about half way through the film stuns it by blasting it in the head and on multiple occasions she also sees it being blocked by doors and walls and yet, despite this, the idea to lock it inside a place NEVER CROSSES HER MIND.  Instead she goes for some absolutely batshit insane plan where they try and electrocute it inside a swimming pool which completely fails and then their plan after that is to just....have sex with hookers?  

A long time ago I watched an anime that I quite enjoyed called Ajin, a series about immortal people getting up to some shenanigans.  There's a scene in that show where the army is trying to aprehend an Ajin who's up to no good and they know that while they can't kill him they can stun him, like the thing from It Follows, for a small amount of time by hitting him in the head.  So they get the first hit on him and then their plan is nearly successful because they surround the body and have a guy with a rifle putting another bullet between his eyes every couple of seconds as they try to carry him into containment.  

The characters in It Follows have a gun, have a means to blast it in the head over and over and could probably quite easily get their hands on some kind of container that they could lob into the ocean and yet it's never done, it's never tried and its never even talked about.  They are more than willing to barricade themselves IN to rooms at multiple points but the very basic idea of just trapping the thing is left completely off the table.

The situation in It Follows reminds me of why I had such a problem with other horror movies such as A Quiet Place, where very obvious solutions to an issue seem to be all around around them but because they are "horror movie characters" they go with the most stupid, nonsensical actions possible so that the film actually has something to work with which in my opinion is just shitty writing.  My first thought actually was to just flee to a different country but the film actually establishes that the thing can swim so that obviously goes right out the window but it puts so many solutions so blatently there on the table that the characters not rubbing their brain cells together just takes me out of the film completely.

Like I said, it's not an awful film by any stretch and if you're looking for a competently shot, competently acted movie with some decent scares here and there to maybe have on in the background or watch with friends, It Follows is a good pick for that.  Just don't buy into all that hype about it being "striking" or those weirdo critics claiming that its "deep" because the demon is sexually transmitted.  

One of the most 6/10 movies I've ever seen

The Bayonetta 3 Debacle

 It's been a hot minute since I've paid any kind of attention to some industry drama and good golly has a sort of big one managed to fall in front of me.  

Bayonetta is a sort of niche series I think but she IS featured in Smash so I assume most people know about her but just in case you live under a rock being stored in a nuclear bunkers panic room Bayonetta is game series about a freakishly tall women fighting angels or something.  Granted I've only played the first game and even that was way back when it first came out but I'm pretty sure its something to that effect.  It's basically Devil May Cry but with a freakishly tall and lanky lady instead of a freakishly handsome and funny dude.

On Sunday I came across a series of videos from the voice actor for Bayonetta, Hellena Taylor, talking through sobs and tears about how shes SO well educated and SO well versed in her field and was somehow only offered a total of $4000 to voice the entire game.  Not only this, but as a result of her shitty offer she was calling upon fans of the Bayonetta series to boycott the release of the game and not buy it.  Also at this point I think news came out that by not taking the offer she was dropped from the series and a new woman, Jennifer Hale, has now taken up the role for the third game.  ALSO  ALSO Hideki Kamiya, one of the big boys over at Platinum Games, the developer of Bayonetta, went on an all caps tirade about how shes lying and the offer was closer to $150,000 before his account got deleted, seemingly by his own volition but I have no idea whats going on with him.

So at this point I was sort of torn.  It's a well known thing that voice actors are underpaid in a lot of cases and $4000 to do all the voice work for the 3rd game in a niche yet quite succesful franchise of character action games seems insanely low even by shitty game industry standards.  But something felt off about Taylor's videos.  The chest beating regarding her education and experience, the call for a boycott and the crying just gave her videos a weird stank that had me siding with Platinum Games instead of her despite her shitty situation.

Now I'm not going to go down the stupid Twitter argument route of "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER DEVS BEING PAID FOR THEIR WORK" because, like most people are eager to point out, the other developers of the game are probably salaried or have some kind of other contract going on and have already made their money or have agreements about their money with the company.  But put the money aside for a second.  Imagine you are a programmer, a level designer, sound engineer, 3D or 2D artist or one of the myriad other jobs required for a game to get made.  You've spent YEARS of your life putting this thing together, working hard, probably doing a fair bit of overtime and maybe even making some personal sacrifice to try and ensure that the fans of this game get an experience that they enjoy and that you can be proud of.  Then, some suit in your company, completely devoid and separate from your work goes and makes a bad decision and makes ONE member of the team a crappy offer suddenly all the work you did for all those years is getting hate thrown at it and potentially thrown to the wayside just because of that.  You'd feel like complete shit.  If I was, for example, Takaaki Yamaguchi (the lead Animator according to Bayonetta 2s credits, assuming its still him) and I heard that you were trying to sabotage years of my animation work because some businessman in the company offered you a shitty contract, I would want to find you and smash a glass bottle right across your stupid fucking head.  Takaaki is probably a bit more level headed than that, but the rage I would feel over even the SUGGESTION of something like that would be incredible.

BUT THEN I load up Twitter this morning and I find that the plot had thickened.

Turns out that, if true, the actual offer for Hellena Taylor's voice over was $4000 per session in the booth (which according to the same Twitter user is 4 hours) and that she would be paid that 4 or 5 times.  That's considerably more money than what she was claiming to be the case in her original videos.  This still seems sort of low, I guess, I am not entirely sure what is considered to be a "good wage" for video game voice work but its still significantly higher than what she originally suggested in her fishy as fuck run of videos on Twitter.

My inital theory on Sunday when discussing it with a friend of mine was that Bayonetta is just not a very voice heavy game.  Most of it is high action with a couple of cutscenes here and there and even of those cutscenes, a percentage of those are going to be mostly unvoiced action scenes.  Getting $4000 for 4 hours of work to get into a booth, say a few lines in an over the top British accent and then spend the rest of my work day going "HYA!" "HOO YA!" "TAKE THIS!" into a microphone seems like a pretty good fucking deal to me.  Then again I guess I don't have the "pedigree" that Ms Taylor has now, do I?

If Taylor hadn't have made an attempt at emotional manipulation in that first run of videos my reaction would have been "wow, that sucks, I hope she can negotiate something better" and I would have moved on.  But this has now EXPLODED into a big story with people potentially lying and parties skirting what can and cant be said thanks to NDAs and it's now something I'll be watching quite closely.

Oh and by the way, I'm going to go play Bayo 2 right now and I'll pick up Bayo 3 on launch, fuck you and fuck your tears, Hellena