Hardcasual

Due to a few technical issues—computer has a cough—I am unable to post part two and part three of my interview with Leigh Alexander until this weekend.

I hate to leave you all empty handed, so here are a few links to help soothe the long wait.

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Leigh Alexander’s “Microsoft: “Perception,” Not Us, is PC Gaming’s Big Problem” at Kotaku:
Microsoft’s duty (or lack there of) to the PC gamer.

N’Gai Croal announces Page 6, er… “Page 110” at LevelUp
Finally, gamers get a respectable celebrity column. Will it be a tabloid? Will there be juicy gossip? Or will it wind up like another Page 6?

David Jaffe on “Heartland” at The Escapist
“The player chases after the teenage son, beating him and dragging him down the stairs, and throwing him into the living room. The commanding officer orders the player to douse the family and the house with gasoline, and set it on fire. “It was meant to be, ‘Oh, my God, this is the worst thing in the world,’” says Jaffe.”

You can now get your daily dose of HardCasual at HardCasual.net.

Of course, you can still find us at hardcasual.wordpress.com, but hardcasual.net sounds so bona fide!

Superman will finally return home.

The New York Times just confirmed that Jerome Seigel’s heirs will receive a share of the Superman copyright, making them co-propietors with Time Warner. In 1938, Mr. Seigel and co-creator Joe Shuster sold the Superman rights to Detective Comics for $130. Due to contractual issues and various circumstances, the court ruled his heirs are partially entitled to the character. It’s a complex issue, and well worth a read.

Sure, this isn’t gaming news, but it is proof that a fight well fought is a fight well earned. Congratulations to the Seigel & Shuster families.

What, you still want some videogames? Here, enjoy this trip down Superman lane after the jump…

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Welcome to our weekly thanksgiving for all our supporters, temporarily dubbed ‘Turkey Sandwiches.’

Sexy Video Game Land: Leigh Alexander is not third, nor second, but first on our list. She’s a columnist for many established game websites (GameSetWatch and Variety, to name a couple), but calls SVGL home. If you haven’t already, check out her write-up on Super Smash Bros. Brawl that made a few fanboys second-guess their fresh Olimar tattoos. And when you’ve purged your bedroom of Captain N paraphernalia, check out her rebuttal. To herself.

LevelUp: N’Gai Croal is like our Soccer Mom: loyal, kind, and damn proud he helped make us who we are today. The man has linked us twice, which makes him our biggest fan. As he should be, since we ripped our blog’s title straight from his headlines. This week, he began a no-holds-barred match with another HardCasual favorite, Stephen Totilo. This bloodfest focuses on the PSP’s new game du jour, Patapon. HardCasual enjoys the game vicariously, since they have no money for such a lovely portable device (unless someone at Sony’s reading, then we would love some sweet swag—nudge, nudge).

But enough about us and our BFF’s. It’s time to pay It forward with links to our favorite articles this week.

A New Taxonomy of Gamers at Insult Swordfighting: I can’t believe I missed this article a couple months ago, but, lucky for me, I found this nugget buried in the comments at SVGL. Besides writing reviews for Paste magazine, Mitch Krapta finds time for a dissection of gamer types, including our namesake. He also likes sports.

On Being Gross at Save the Robot: Every week Kotaku posts a new ZeroPunctuation review, and every week their comments section fires up. Many readers hope to be the first to mark the day Ben Croshaw jumps the shark. Chris Dahlen doesn’t seem worried about Croshaw jumping the shark, but videogame reviews as a whole. Influenced by Croshaw’s gross-out gags, what will come of our future reviewers?

Call of Jihadi Interview at Eurogamer.net: What happens when someone re-skins a Pro-Iraq War game titled Quest for Saddam, and molds it into a virtual attack on George Bush? Night of Bush Capturing, that’s what. Chicago based artist, Wafaa Bilaal, famous for his website performance piece, ‘Shoot an Iraqi,’ recently digitized himself into NoBC, dubbing the mod of a mod Virtual Jihadi. He discusses his commentary and intentions with Eurogamer.

Have an awesome article we should read? Hit us up! Want to be our BFF? Link us!

-ctp

If you’re like me, a real sucker, you downloaded Microsoft’s new media app, Silverlight, to sneak a peek through Rare’s dirtied peephole at Banjo-Kazooie 3. And if you’re like me, a real stubborn blockhead, you were upset to find a teaser page featuring a rotating golden puzzle piece. There was no Banjo, no Kazooie, and definitely no Mumbo-Jumbo.

Check it out here, or don’t bother, and imagine this image, gold and twirling.

I shouldn’t be upset. Sure, Rare let me down, but that’s happened before. Why even get my hopes up? So in an effort to save myself from further damage, I will not mention Banjo-Kazooie 3 until it is released.

Screw it, top ten wishes for Rare’s Banjo-Kazooie 3, go!

10.) Pre-Order Swag: Party like it’s 1999 with your Mumbo Jumbo Beanie Baby.

9.) Re-make Rusty Bucket Bay: Technically impressive at the time, the idea of Banjo and Kazooie trapped underwater in a sinking ship whets my whistle. Think Poseidon Adventure meets Brother Bear. It would be hell, upside down.

8.) Guest Appearances: Joanna Dark, Donkey Kong, James Bond, Viva Pinatas, and Conker, however improbable, let’s make it happen. Please.

7.) An Obvious Title: Banjo-Threeie. Do it for me. Or do it for Pony Boy. But please, Just Do It.

6.) Time: I try not to get my hopes up for major releases, but this time I can’t help but be both excited and worried. I’m as anxious as cattle in a meat factory, but please do not rush this product, Rare. I can wait another three years, or even another platform for a great game. I have bloody indulgences like GTA IV, Too Human, and Cooking Mama 3 to hold me over.

5 through 1, including Jinjos and paint balls, after the jump…

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Yesterday’s iPhone SDK Announcement is going to change the games industry. And the mobile web industry. And… Just about everything else. Seriously.

With this announcement (if you’re under a rock - free development kit, $99 fee to have a license to distribute software, 70/30 revenue split with Apple), Apple turned its locked box of genius into the simplest platform to develop and distribute beautiful games on. Ever.

Anyone can make an iPhone application - and for a mere $99 dollars, they can distribute it to anyone who has an iPhone, or an iPod Touch. That’s a lot of people, across a wide variety of markets. Businessmen, socialites, nerds, my girlfriend, the dishwasher at my work who bought a (supposedly hot) one and who I am constantly jealous of - all these people are your audience.

This is where Chris will come in and say “but what about XNA“? And I agree - what about XNA? That development kit has been in the wild for what - a year and a half? And totally free, as well, with a similar pricing structure (but, note, no way to sell your games, or guarantee of a marketplace)? And their big announcement is that you can play your games on Zune?

 Apple, who has never been a gaming company, just slam-dunked Microsoft on their home court. While Apple has ignored PC gaming and Microsoft has made one idiotic plan after another to fight PC gaming’s inevitable death (or perhaps just sea change), Apple got it.

 Just like I want to play my music everywhere, just like I want my email everywhere, and just like I want my phone everywhere, I want my videogames everywhere. And if I can get all those things in one box, and if that box can utilize some pretty unbelievable tech, that’s the machine I want.

 The question, though, and this is where I’m looking to you, Chris… What does this mean for the casual / hardcasual / hardcore divide? Will the low cost of entry mean that we’ll see every kind of title? Or does, even moreso than a DS or a Wii, the market and the technology within mean we’re going to get plotless shovelware?

 We know there’s a full version of Spore on the way (what’s the sound of two clouds of vaporware colliding?), which is better than the DS can say. And to be honest, the best game I have ever played on the DS is a little title called Professor Layton and the Curious Village (which I’ve finished, and my subway rides are not the same without it), which uses a flimsy story to push you through a much looser, more clever version of Brain Age.

 What kind of games do you want on your iPhone? What kind of games will they make for the iPhone? And how awesome will iPhone OS Peggle be?

Kotaku recently posted that Jason Ocampo, a Gamestop reviewer, has chosen to leave for greener pastures. A quick search through Gamasutra shows Gamespot, under the Cnet moniker, has already begun a search for his replacement. Are they trying to plug the employee floodgate? Are they hiding under the Cnet name? Do they offer dental plan?

Links below:

Gamasutra: Cnet Reviews Editor
Kotaku: Another Gamespot Reviewer Leaves…