Seth Killian joins Sony's Santa Monica Studio

We previously mentioned on our blog that Seth Killian left Capcom and his position as the Community Manager and Special Combat Advisor. Since then, people wondered what was next for Seth Killian. Well, today Seth announced that he has joined Sony as the lead game designer for the external group at the Santa Monica Studio which means he will be involved with the development of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. Seth explains in his PlayStation.Blog post:

"Fighting games are very close to my heart, and as someone that’s spent much of my life with traditional fighters, All-Stars has been a great opportunity to take a step back and rethink fighting fundamentals from the ground up. The entire team was put together from scratch to create this game, and they are loaded with fighting game superstars (including some impressive tournament credentials–I’m not even the first EVO finalist to join the team!) who love great combat just as much as I do."

Seth then goes and talks about PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale.

"All-Stars is also a total love-letter to Sony fans. From the characters, to their special moves, to the incredible level 3 supers, and the stages themselves, I’m not sure there’s ever been such a giant dose of fan-service in Sony history. Beyond great character designs or all the ingenious little ideas that make combat feel great, the real test of a great game to me is that “just *one* more game!” feeling. If it’s 3am and you have to work the next day, but you’ve still got the urge to play again, you know you’re doing something right. You only have to walk through SuperBot’s studio and see all the staff being scolded to stop playing their own game and get back to work to know that they’ve really got something special cooking."

Seth Killian Leaving Capcom

Seth Killian, community manager, PR and all-around nice guy, is leaving Capcom this Friday to pursue other interests. Seth has been working with Capcom for a few years now on many of their fighting games such as Street Fighter 4 and Marvel vs. Capcom 3. So much so that the final boss of SF4 was named after him. Seth has always been a fan first and a Capcom employee second, but he's always been a great guy.

You likely know by now that we don't have much respect for Capcom anymore these days and seeing the one guy at Capcom who seems to actually give a damn what the fans think leave is absolutely heartbreaking. Seth has always been present in the fighting games community, commentating at events such as Evo and just supporting competitive players and fighting game fans for years. Capcom just won't be the same without him and I personally think with his departure, they now have nothing left to offer anybody. Yeah sure, there's Yoshinori Ono, but he seems to just be going through the motions and doing whatever Capcom wants at this point. Seth actually seemed to care about the games and the fans.

Thanks for being there, Seth. Hope we still get to see you at Evo and hope you go to work for a better company. Just keep being you, buddy.

Let's Try That Again - Mega Man X4 - Zero Playthrough

We're back with Mega Man X's foray into the 32-bit world! For the first time, you get to choose between X and Zero, complete with their own story and cutscenes and unique gameplay. Since Zero has the hair and is top tier, it only makes sense that we had to go with him for this LTTA! So, prepare your butts for some Cyber Mandarins as Don runs through this one.




So Don finally got around to getting this one up. We recorded it a while back, even more Scott Pilgrim, but we never got it up. Well, here it is. It's pretty good. Don knows the game pretty well and David was there and he makes everything better. So yeah, enjoy that.

First part is below, it links to the playlist as does that thumbnail up there. Total runtime:  2:14:35

The Ten Characters I'd Like to See in Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3: Turbo HD Remix Pinball

Capcom is an awful company. They’ve been on the gaming community’s radar for a while now because of their shady business practices involving on disc DLC and releasing entirely separate games featuring things that should have just been in the original. But, Don already wrote a whole article about that so I’m just going to stop that here. 

The Fate of Everybody's Wallets.

Instead, let’s talk about Marvel vs. Capcom 3. We all know that when the game was released, everybody was hyped and constantly discussed characters that should have been in but were left out. Then Capcom released Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 not but 8 months later and included 12 new characters but people still weren’t satisfied. So there’s a rumor going around about a potential third Marvel vs. Capcom 3 being in the pipeline. Now, it’s clearly fake. It was a picture obviously photoshopped by a member of 4Chan or Neogaf or something but that hasn’t stopped the community from talking about it. So hey, let’s pretend they do release a third one or better yet, DLC that isn’t on the disc for ultimate. These are the ten characters (five from Marvel and five from Capcom) I would actually be willing to pay for. So let’s get started, you already know who number one is anyway.

The Disc Locked Content (DLC) Dilemma

There is a pretty big problem in today's generation of games that I feel people aren't making an effort to stop. With increasing support for the digital market, some developers take advantage of this and have figured out ways to extort more money from their consumers. This includes a recent trend of online passes that locks out online multiplayer modes from being available unless you have a one time use code that comes with a brand new retail copy of the game. Which means, if you bought the game used, rented the game, or maybe borrow the game from a friend, you can not play online. If you want to play online in those cases, you have to purchase an online pass which will usually run you for about $5 extra. So, the $5 you typically might save when buying the game used just goes back to the online pass. Some games have a online trial period that will let you play for a certain amount of time like Mortal Kombat. Some other games like Battlefield 3, you're SOL after downloading several gigabytes worth of updates (which is another problem with this generation's games). However, I don't want to get into any of that right now. I want to talk about one of the worst offenders in recent memory when it comes to so-called downloadable content, that culprit being Capcpom.

Nintendo's first Paid DLC is for 3DS Fire Emblem

 
It may come to you as a surprise but you heard right. Nintendo's doing paid DLC with microtransactions for the 3DS. They're aiming to start off this program in March 2012 with the 3DS Fire Emblem.

I was under the impression that Nintendo wasn't interested in doing paid DLC. The title on this article is very misleading. In fact, in the original interview they credited as a source, Reggie pretty much says that they're bring DLC to the 3DS and they were going to do it right.

I've had this conversation with a number of our key developers, and their mentality is, "Reggie, when we sell a game, we want the consumer to feel that they've had a complete experience." Now, in addition, if we want to make other things available, great, and we'll look at that.
But what we're unwilling to do is sell a piece of a game upfront and, if you will, force a consumer to buy more later. That's what they don't want to do, and I completely agree. I think the consumer wants to get, for their money, a complete experience, and then we have opportunities to provide more on top of that.

Other companies may cheat you with "DLC" that's data already on the disc. Nintendo understands that this is a problem and have said it themselves that they're not going to do that. I'm being biased but I'll take their word for it. Paid DLC can be a good thing. I honestly wouldn't mind paying a couple bucks for level pack in Super Mario 3D Land. So, I'm very interested in seeing what exactly they plan on putting out with Fire Emblem. For all we know, it could just be overpowered units you could recruit with real money. Here's hoping it's more like a side campaign with several maps and new units. An optional story arc, if you will. That would be neat.