Hart & Usagi #113: PS Store Non-Closure

In episode 113 we talk about the PlayStation Store closing and then not closing, EVO being sold to Sony, Space Suplex podcast wrestling topics, and much more.

Enjoy and remember to subscribe via RSS or Apple Podcasts and follow the Hart & Usagi Podcast on Twitter!

TOPICS:

• Neo Geo Pocket Color Selection Vol. 1 for Switch now available, includes 10 titles
• Here’s why Johnny Cage isn’t in the Mortal Kombat movie
• Sony acquires fighting game tournament Evo, but it remains open to all platforms
• PS3, PS Vita, and PlayStation Portable stores to shutter in summer – report
• Discord Wants to Go Public or Sell to Company Like Microsoft for $10 Billion: Report
• The PS3, Vita and PSP PlayStation Store on the web has gone offline
• Ratchet & Clank PS5 is getting a 60fps patch in April
• Team Ninja unable to salvage Ninja Gaiden Black for upcoming Master Collection
• Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown rated for PS4 in Korea
• Embracer Group completes merger with The Gearbox Entertainment Company
• Battle royale game Pac-Man 99 launches today on Nintendo Switch
• Ubisoft shutting down servers for some of its classic games
• PS5’s first major firmware update this year arrives tomorrow, adds USB storage (Mystic’s YouTube video)
• Street Fighter cross-over pack coming to Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid
• Days Gone Director John Garvin Says Metacritic Score Is Everything to Sony
• Sony Interactive Entertainment backpedals on decision to close PlayStation Store for PS3 and PS Vita

SPACE SUPLEX TOPICS:

• 10 Times TNA Put An Aging Star Over A Young Wrestler
• Andrade released from WWE
• Monty Brown to train police academy recruits in Michigan
• 10 Things We’re Tired Of Seeing At WrestleMania
• Every nWo Leader, Ranked From Worst To Best
• WWE announces Adnan Virk as the new lead announcer on Raw
• What We Learnt From Chris Jericho’s Broken Skull Sessions With Stone Cold
• Listed salaries for Vince & Stephanie McMahon, Triple H, Nick Khan, Kristina Salen
• Billie Kay, Mickie James, Kalisto, Chelsea Green and more released by WWE
• Samoa Joe, Peyton Royce, Bo Dallas released from WWE

Listen or Download (1:39:05)

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Hart & Usagi Podcast at the Internet Archive

Matt: @HartKnight | HartKnight’s Archive | Buy some games from me.

Mike: @usagi704 | Domain of Usagi704 | Instagram | Games for sale at PriceCharting.com

@HartandUsagi

@SpaceSuplex

Purchase Stats 2016

The following stats are for all of my video game purchases throughout 2016.

Total number of games: 30
Amount bought decreased by 10 from 2015.

18 PS4 (60%)
DMC
Hotline Miami
Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate
Batman: Arkham Knight
Bloodborne
Far Cry 4
Just Cause 3
Wolfenstein: The New Order
Broken Sword 5: The Serpent’s Cruse
Transformers: Devastation
Grand Theft Auto V
Ratchet & Clank
Dark Souls III
Doom
Mafia III
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Wild Guns Reloaded

1 PSP (4%)
Kamen Rider Chou Climax Heroes

4 PS3 (13%)
Painkiller: Hell & Damnation
Yakuza 5
Far Cry Compilation
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Danger of the Ooze

2 PC (7%)
The King of Fighters 2002: Unlimited Match
Strife

5 GBA (16%)
Island Xtreme Stunts
Stuntman
SSX Tricky
American Dragon: Jake Long – Rise of the Huntsclan
Tak 2: The Staff of Dreams

1 MISC.
SNES Capcom Soldier Pad

******

I also bought myself one last game in the final week of 2016 which is included in the stats above. It’s Nastume’s Wild Guns Reloaded!

The Movie Boys Best Their Buys

To take a line from Jim Sterling’s movie podcast, it’s time for the Movie Boys. I have here three new movie purchases.

First up is DOA: Dead or Alive. It’s over the top and ridiculous, but that’s to be expected if you know anything about the Dead or Alive gaming series (volleyballs and all). Kevin Nash as Bass Armstrong is the very best thing about this film. I watched it on a second viewing for him alone and it was totally worth it.

The Lost Boys was another movie I was reminded of by a review podcast. This one is called Say You Love Satan (and you know you do) and they talk about the horror genre. As you know, I’m not much into horror, but The Lost Boys is one movie that stuck with me that I saw growing up.

The third film is the 2003 remake of Freaky Friday starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan. I think Curtis steals the show here. Sadly I had to settle for the DVD release from the same year.

Don’t think I forgot about the games because I got you covered. I was waiting for a good, cheap price for Grand Theft Auto V on the PS4, but it didn’t seem like it was ever going to happen. So I bought the used copy eStarland notified me about that they had in stock. I added Transformers: Devastation to complete the order.

Yesterday on Halloween I was at Best Buy and they had the 2016 Ratchet & Clank game for $20. I got it for $16 thanks to Usagi704 for letting me bum his membership off him for a quick moment.

E3 2015: Times-a-Wastin’

The following are my comments on the blog post “The Year Ahead in Gaming” as written by @ebbderelict.

I’m interested in the newest Batman Arkham game as well. I haven’t yet played City, but I’m sure to get to it since I do own it. The main reason I had not cared for Origins was mainly because of the buggy mess I heard it was.

Star Wars: Battlefront is, well, Star Wars. That alone makes it uninteresting to me. But then again I don’t completely lack Star Wars games in my current collection. I own Episode III on GBA. I want to say WayForward developed it, but all I can find is information that Ubisoft did it.

Deus Ex on PS2 was fun, but since I’m not the biggest fan of those types of games, I don’t hope it up highly even though it was an enjoyable time. With that said I’ve had my fill of the series.

I’m still trying to get up to speed on all the E3 news and I didn’t realize Platinum was doing a Transformers game. I’m interested because they have a good pedigree. I’m less excited because Activision may rush them like they did with The Legend of Korra game. It’s a wait and see for sure.

I quite liked Mirror’s Edge. I was happy when it became known awhile back that a sequel was in the works. I have high hopes for Catalyst improving on what didn’t work so well last time.

Doom 4, as I’ll be calling it unofficially to avoid confusion with the PC classic, has the Doom 3 aesthetics with what looks like faster gameplay similar to the original two games. It really looks like this could be what fans of Doom have been waiting for since 2004.

I own the majority of the Ratchet & Clank series and I always have fun with them, but since they all feel about the same to me (says the guy who loves God of War games), I don’t see the need to get to them when picking an unplayed game to tackle next. Regardless I know I’ll pick up the first R&C outing on the PS4 to see how it turns out.

We’re simply old men who feel “times-a-wastin'” so the bird-dog needs to pick up the slack and get moving. The Last Guardian will probably be another title, along with this studio’s previous efforts, that I’ll buy with little interest in actually playing. You know, as in “I’ll get to it when I get to it.”

I’m in the opposite camp. I’m excited about Uncharted 4. I also liked the first game, but I was stoked for the second game and enjoyed it too. The third game, however, not so much though I do plan to get to it whenever that will be.

I’m always amused by the fact that Square Enix themselves said years ago that a remake of Final Fantasy VII would not happen, but despite this fans of the game just wouldn’t shut up about it. They went so far as in to actually expect the remake announcement at PSX last year. No doubt the remake actually happening is a shocker, but I still do not care in the slightest other than finally they can all collectively be quiet on this since they finally got what they wanted.

Shenmue III: see Final Fantasy VII remake from above.

Hart & Usagi Podcast #64: Twitch’s Hatred

On this episode of the Hart & Usagi Podcast we welcome back Steve (first time since ep. 58) to chat about Simon Pegg’s recent “nerd culture” comments and the reaction along with Twitch banning AO-rated games on streams as well as other news items. Also, Vita a legacy platform?

Enjoy and remember to subscribe via RSS or iTunes and follow the Hart & Usagi Podcast on Twitter!

NEWS/TOPICS:
* Project X Zone
* Daxter
* Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure
* Law firm files petition with FCC claiming new net neutrality rules don’t go far enough
* Ratchet & Clank Movie Delayed, But Cast Is Surprisingly Good
* Konami CEO: ‘Mobile is where the future of gaming lies’
* Doom 4 Video Shows Scrapped Project Looked More Like Call of Duty
* Doom Gets Tantalising Ten Second Teaser
* The People vs. “Nerd Culture”
* Simon Pegg is worried that our obsession with nerd culture is “infantilizing”
* Scrabble Dictionary Adds “Newb,” “Pwn,” and “LOLZ”
* Report: French billionaire eyeing Time Warner Cable
* Charter seeks to buy Time Warner Cable in $55.1 billion deal
* Charter promises no data caps for customers under new mega-cable company structure
* Sony Brands Vita a ‘Legacy Platform’ Outside Japan
* Twitch bans ‘Adults Only’ game streams
* Twitch Bans Adult-Only Games, but Provides No Clarity on Mature Titles

Listen or Download (1:31:45)

Subscribe: RSS | iTunes

Hart & Usagi Podcast at the Internet Archive

Matt: @HartKnight | HartKnight’s Archive

Mike: @usagi704 | Domain of Usagi704

Steve: @ebbderelict | ipernity blog

@HartandUsagi

Game of the Year 2014

I had a lot of fun throughout 2014, but the five games which stuck with me the most was Wild Guns, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Hotline Miami, Ratchet: Deadlocked, and Yakuza 3.

Natsume’s Wild Guns is a great game in the style of Cabal and Nam-1975. However, where those games were more plain, Wild Guns kicks up the action a notch with a meter that builds when enemy bullets are shot. Once full your character pulls out the Vulcan gun and is invincible. Is a great reward for such a risk taking measure to get there.

I’d already talked about Hotline Miami in my 2014 Biggest Surprise award, which it won, so check that out.

Ratchet: Deadlocked was the first of three Ratchet & Clank games I played last November and it was more fun than it was for me back in 2010. It had less mini-games to bother with and boxes to smash for bolts which I found to be a good thing. It made for a much more focused adventure. One for which I appreciated.

I love me some beat-’em-ups and, as usual, Yakuza 3 delivered. And while I feel it deserved a spot on this list of nominees for my Game of the Year, there was just too much of finding things for and tending to the kids in the game made it more tedious than I’d had liked. Still the combat portion of the game, once you get to them, is great as always.

Finally, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, a game I played for the first time in 2014, earned its way into my top three Castlevania games of the series. This is the conclusion I came to on episode 52 of the Hart & Usagi Podcast. Also, as you can see by the image at the top of this awards post, SotN has also earned my top award for 2014. At the time in 1997 it was a brand new experience for series veterans, but the game also remembered where it came from with nods to past titles like Simon’s Quest and Dracula’s Cruse. Just as I said then after playing it I say it now: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is rightfully an all-time classic.

Thanks for reading and make sure to check out the rest of my awards if you haven’t done so already.

Game of the Year 2014 – Most Disappointing Game

There’s been a few games that have disappointed over the previous year and there were many before this with, I’m sure, many more to come. Some are as simple as being a bit too hyped up by time I got around to it and wasn’t as great as I’d hoped (Batman: Arkham Asylum). There’s also the titles that are infuriating (Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams) and others which lacked much of what made other entries in the same series endearing (Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest For Booty). However, Bastion was the one which disappointed me the most.

Upon Bastion’s initial release in the Summer of 2011, I was hoping for a PSN version for the PS3 which was never to come. Regardless, I was still very interested in playing the very first game developed by Greg Kasavin’s team, Supergiant Games. As a former GameSpot editor, I’ve always had a respect for Kasavin’s work. Maybe that’s what put his team’s first game very high on my list and just maybe I should’ve tempered my expectations a bit once I was able to play it in 2014 thanks to NiceGuyNeon.

As I said back in September once I played it via Steam, the gameplay overall was quite boring to me. It felt sort of like the Atari arcade classic Gauntlet without some of the charm of that game. I’m sure fans of Bastion will say it has plenty of charm all its own thanks to the deep-throat narrator. The voices were well done, no doubt, but the combat itself felt like I was going through the motions. There wasn’t any intriguing feedback from taking out the many enemies on the screen, viscerally or otherwise. It was a pretty flat experience and that’s saying something after playing Riot Zone.

Games Finished In 2014

The list below shows every game that I finished in 2014. The total number comes to 46. That’s up 10 from 2013.

March proved to be the best month for beating games with 16 in total thanks to getting back to my gaming roots. The monthly average throughout the year was 3.8.

1. Bayonetta (PS3) – 1/14
2. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (PSN) – 1/27
3. The Saboteur (PS3) – 2/4
4. Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS3) – 2/12
5. Mortal Kombat Trilogy (PS) – 2/14
6. Street Fighter II: Champion Edition (VC) – 2/15
7. Robocop (ARC) – 2/21
8. Muramasa: The Demon Blade (WII) – 2/26
9. Soldner-X 2: Final Prototype (PSN) – 3/3
10. Streets of Rage 3 via Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection (PS3) – 3/10
11. Jackal (NES) – 3/11
12. Tetris Plus 2 (ARC) – 3/13
13. Metamorphic Force (ARC) – 3/13
14. Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers (NES) – 3/14
15. P.O.W.: Prisoners of War (NES) – 3/16
16. Vice: Project Doom (NES) – 3/18
17. Fortified Zone (GB) – 3/19
18. Sunset Riders (SNES) – 3/21
19. Castlevania: Bloodlines (GEN) – 3/23
20. Super Double Dragon (SNES) – 3/24
21. Contra (NES) – 3/25
22. Sparkster (SNES) – 3/25
23. Code Name: Viper (NES) – 3/29
24. Operation Logic Bomb (SNES) – 3/31
25. Wild Guns (SNES) – 4/5
26. Return of Double Dragon (SFC) – 4/8
27. Ninja Warriors (SNES) – 4/8
28. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (PS3) – 5/3
29. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations (PS3) – 6/30
30. Klonoa: Empire of Dreams (GBA) – 7/7
31. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PS) – 8/20
32. Syndicate (PS3) – 9/3
33. Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II (PC) – 9/10
34. Hotline Miami (PC) – 9/14
35. Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS) – 10/15
36. Castlevania: Dracula X (SNES) – 10/21
37. Splatterhouse (TG-16) – 10/27
38. Ratchet: Deadlocked (PS2) – 11/6
39. Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3) – 11/16
40. Batman (ARC) – 11/20
41. Crime Fighters (ARC) – 11/20
42. Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty (PSN) – 11/20
43. Yakuza 3 (PS3) – 12/21
44. RayCrisis: Series Termination (PS) – 12/28
45. Panzer Bandit (PS) – 12/29
46. Strider 2 (PS) – 12/31

Hart & Usagi Podcast #56: The Rosetta Stone

In this new episode of the Hart & Usagi Podcast we discuss what we played during the month of November, Ted Cruz’s lies about Net Neutrality, and The Game Awards 2014. All this and more so turn in now!

Enjoy the show and remember to subscribe via RSS or iTunes and follow the Hart & Usagi Podcast today!

NEWS/TOPICS:
* Destiny
* The Wonderful 101
* #RatchetNov
* Super Smash Bros. on Wii U
* Rev3Games
* CoD: Advanced Warfare Lead Developer: Our Fans Are Not ‘Toxic or Misogynistic’
* After Burner 2 leads Sega’s second set of 3DS classics next year
* Blood Dragon 2 Not Happening, Says Far Cry 4 Dev
* President Obama Promotes Trans-Pacific Partnerships on Tour of Asia
* Senator Ted Cruz Calls Net Neutrality ‘Obama Care For the Internet’
* It’s Time To Stop Blaming Video Games For Mass Shootings, Study Shows.
* Rosetta Project Scientist’s Shocking Shirt. Sexist?
* The Game Awards Nominees Announced
* GameStop Will Be Closed On Thanksgiving
* Report: Valve Making Changes to Steam Early Access Guidelines

Listen or Download (1:21:02)

Subscribe: RSS | iTunes

Hart & Usagi Podcast at the Internet Archive

Matt: @HartKnight | HartKnight’s Archive

Mike: @usagi704 | WP blog

@HartandUsagi

Now Playing: November 2014

If you haven’t been paying attention in the last month, then you missed out on my adventures of #RatchetNov. It was a month where I played three previously unplayed Ratchet & Clank games. Well don’t fear because you can still read my thoughts on those games. I covered Ratchet: Deadlocked on PlayStation 2 and Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction and Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest For Booty on PlayStation 3.

The other two games I played I’ve yet to mention are the 1990 Batman arcade game by Atari Games based on the 1989 movie of the same name and the Konami arcade beat-’em-up Crime Fighters. Either are all that good, but at least the Batman game has the licensed property thing going for it.

Other than the Batman license, the game itself isn’t all that exciting. It is entertaining in that it roughly follows the progression of the movie. When fighting the Joker you don’t hurt him as much as push him back. This is done to knock him into the vat of acid on the second stage and, once you get a load of him, to have him fall off of the cathedral.

Crime Fighters was an early attempt by Konami to improve their beat-’em-up titles. This one wasn’t what you’d call a success. It’s a pretty frustrating game to play even once you get a handle on it. The consistent ticking down of your health over time doesn’t make things better. Luckily that same year, 1989, saw the release of a much better 4-player beat-’em-up in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

That’s all for now. Make sure to catch me on the audio side of things in a new episode of the Hart & Usagi Podcast on December 1st and then again on December 8th for Space Suplex.