The Many Failings of Capcom (or "How Not to Develop a Game")

So, yeah, this is gonna be an article about the failings of Capcom as a company. It’s funny, because a year ago, I would be singing Capcom’s praises as though they were one of the greatest companies ever. Not only did they release Mega Man 9 and 10, two excellent throwback titles, but they also announced sequels to two of their beloved franchises, Marvel vs. Capcom and Mega Man Legends. Capcom had been releasing pretty good games for a while, and I honestly didn’t have much to complain about. But, as I watch recent developments, I can’t help but see a failing trend at Capcom, and I think if we look at the evidence, we’ll see that it has existed for quite a long time ago.

The Japanese game industry has been having problems for a while now. Former Capcom employee Keiji Inafune was long-quoted as saying that the industry was unwilling to change, and that they were sticking to the same tired old formula. This was ultimately the reason Inafune left Capcom in October of 2010. If we look at Capcom’s recent history, we will see that it very much follows the idea of an industry unwilling to change.

The Shape of Things to Come: Skyward Sword

Original Writer: Andrew S.

It's really hard not to be a Zelda fan. Over time Nintendo has pumped out some grade A titles for the Zelda franchise. Ocarina of Time is widely accepted to be one of the best games of all time. Recently however there has been some doubt in Nintendo. Twilight Princess was pretty, but it really did not live up to what it could have been. Skyward Sword seems to be shaping up to redeem Link in his console endeavors and there are a few key reasons why. 

EA didn't ruin Dragon Age II

Earlier this year, EA and Bioware released Dragon Age II on the PS3, Xbox 360, PC, and Mac platforms. The game has since stirred up tons of controversy and talk, with fans of the first game and new players both citing numerous faults in the game’s methodology of presenting its story, characters, and gameplay. Dragon Age II’s predecessor, Dragon Age: Origins (henceforth referred to as DAII and DA:O, respectively), was a slow-paced game with lots of exploration, a wide-spread story, tons of decision making, and an almost entirely customizable character. DAII eschewed this idea in favor of a more set in stone protagonist and storyline, with less obvious choices like in the first game and more intention on telling a specific story. However, I’m not here to review DAII (though I personally enjoyed the game). I’m here to talk about EA.

Super Meat Chaos: A Good Design/Bad Design Review

Through fire, flames and mounds of salt, Super Meat Boy left aches in my fingers and nightmares in my sleep. But like everyone else, I'll say that it was worth every minute. Was it hard? Yes. But the simplistic charm of a game that tries so hard to emulate the difficulty of a long gone era of platformers is impossible to ignore.

The First Post

Welcome to a blog created by a group of friends who thought it'd be fun to write about all the geeky things they do in their spare time. If that sounds pathetic, its because it is. But there are plenty of other pathetic blogs such as this, so its socially acceptable.

As far as content goes, its probably stunningly boring right now. This is probably the only thing on here. But give it a week or so...we're only doing this for fun. Not to berate any professional journalists that may do this, but this is the internet, so therefore everyone's opinion carries the some weight to those who will listen.

Finally, this is only for fun. Which means, write-ins are accepted. Chances are you only stumbled on this site because we yelled about it on Facebook, but hey,anyone is welcome.

Other than that, wait a few days, now that we have a website, and have our own expectations to motivate us, we should start to get up off our asses and write about stuff. Expect lots of video games, anime, sci fi, technology, and all that geek stuff. Y'all know the drill.

Tyler B.