The GHZ Forum

InsidePulse has announced their 2004 Year-End Game of the Year Awards, and GG! is either gonna spooge or go "fuckin' duh" (or both) when he finds out that Katamari Damacy was declared not only Best Sony PlayStation2 Game (followed behind by Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas), not just Best Unique Game (to no surprise to anybody) (followed by Ribbit King, whatever the fuck that is), but Inside Pulse gave it the Game of the Year title, with the runner-up being Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. I never did like the GTA franchise, and the fact that it was outdone and anally raped by a game that you can pick up brand-new for $20 gives me the warm fuzzies.

Oh, and SEGA's Feel the Magic: XY/XX was named the Best Nintendo DS Game (runner-up being the obligatory Super Mario DS). Just so you know.

Ribbit King looks neat, and it's only ten bucks. The only thing that's made me wary is the fact that it's from Bandai, and I think it might be based on some manga or something. Is my suspicion accurate?

For me, award shows are like magazine reviews. I generally ignore them completely.

Ribbit King? That the golf thing?

Hmm, I'm starting to conclude that it's harder and harder to visit this forum without knowing what Katamari Damacy is. I may have to check it out if it ever comes out here in Yoorup. Assuming it hasn't already. I don't own a PS2. That games aisle is eeevil.

Green Gibbon! wrote:Ribbit King looks neat, and it's only ten bucks. The only thing that's made me wary is the fact that it's from Bandai, and I think it might be based on some manga or something. Is my suspicion accurate?

For me, award shows are like magazine reviews. I generally ignore them completely.

I actually bought it, just out of sheer principle. It's a decent game-- I mean, it's nothing that'll keep you glued to the t.v. for hours at a time, but its fun to play in little bursts.

It plays like a really simplified golf game-- You aim your shot, and you tap one button on a sliding power bar to determine the strength of your shot. It's pretty simple; just aim toward something, then make sure you hit the bar when it's full and you're pretty much guaranteed to have your frog go where you want.

After you launch your frog, things are pretty much out of your hands. The courses are lined with lots of random objects, like trampolines and giant yeti obstacles that can help or hinder you. Water is actually helpful to you in this game-- If your frog lands in water, he keeps on swimming in a straight line until he reaches land, collecting bonus points along the way. While you only really need one button to play the game, there is some strategy invovled-- If you can get your frog to land in the right place, he'll move from trampoline to trampoline, or across an entire lake, collecting a shit load of points.

It's definetly way to easy though-- Once you figure out to set up "combo's" of these events, you can whip past the game pretty quickly, as none of the other computer opponents put up much of a fight. In reality, you're only play for a couple seconds, then watching your frog move along the course for the next half-a-minute or so.

The graphics are simple, but they're endearing in an Animal Crossing sort of way. The music is pretty forgettable, but some of the voice acting and dialogue is occasionally snicker-worthy-- Like when your talking picnic basket sidekick becomes suspicious of the obviously gay referee, or when a Panda challenges you to a fight, and fighting game style life bars appear on the screen...

Overall, yeah, it's not a great game by any measure, but for 10 bucks, it's pretty decent.

I think it might be based on some manga or something. Is my suspicion accurate?

You may be thinking of the comic Keroro Gunsou (Sergent Frog), which is totally not related to Ribbit King. It's pretty entertaining (not what I'd call brilliant or anything) and there's an anime based on it in Japan already, but no games that I'm aware of.

Is that where the frog is actually a murderous alien trapped in the body of a frog and it "befriends" a small girl, thus ensuing hilarious capers? I'm going on a faded memory from an old issue of Newtype, so don't quote me on that.

Having thought about it...damn, but Newtype gets on my tits. I've yet to find anything more irritating than a 14-year-old American girl that thinks she's Japanese because she watches shows called something like Ecstatic Pizza Delivery Girl Hiromi and knows what "Sore wa kawaii desu" means.

Like Dache? You should've seen it when he dressed as Felicia at Kawaii Con 2003.

That's the one, except he really is that frog. Here's the official page for the English version

http://www.tokyopop.com/dbpage.php?prop ... rycode=BMG

j-man wrote:Having thought about it...damn, but Newtype gets on my tits. I've yet to find anything more irritating than a 14-year-old American girl that thinks she's Japanese because she watches shows called something like Ecstatic Pizza Delivery Girl Hiromi and knows what "Sore wa kawaii desu" means.

There's a girl quite like that at my work. She's kinda gothic and 16 years old, and very energetic. She says stuff like "Watashi wa kawaii desu ka?" and "blah blah kawaii" and "konnichiwa". Ever since she learned that I watch anime, she's been trying to spend more time with me at work. I get the impression she wants me too ask her out, because she messes with my hair and wants me to call her, and she even gave me a picture of herself; but she talks a lot about previous boyfriends.

This was probably my first encounter with an "otaku". I bear no ill-will towards her, but it can be scary, really.

I think you should introduce her to <a href="http://fuku.catsonmars.com">Fuckin' Otaku</a> so she can realize how annoying that whole co-opting of Japanese culture is.

I mean, liking anime and Japan is fine, but if everytime I hear some fangirl describe herself as "genki" or "kawaii", I want to stab a baby. I can't tell you how many people I saw at Anime Expo who fit the description of the girl that you just described.

Well, of course... I suppose that argument is a bit hypocritical of me, seeing as I occasionally spout off the Nip speak, but when I do it, it's cute and endearing ^^

I hate, hate, HATE Japanophiles.

Green Gibbon! wrote:Like Dache? You should've seen it when he dressed as Felicia at Kawaii Con 2003.

oh god im so sorry

Goddamn fucking trends. Anime was <i>my</i> thing, damnit! It wasn't supposed to be popular! Fucking kids!

Ha, I remember those days. When those who liked anime were usually somewhat cool people.

Now every other 10 year old is watching and going LOLZ COOL ANIEMS!

I know a girl like that. She used to shop at GameStop when I still worked there and she was hired as Christmas help one year because we didn't really have a manager at the time and we all thought she was hot (which she was, and is). She was a bit of an airhead, though, so she was let go after the holidays then a few months later she came back and as of now she's the goddamn assisstant manager at the store.

She has mellowed out a bit over the past couple of years, but she's still an airhead and watches really, really bad anime. I hate talking bad about her because she's super sweet (and makes the best chocolate chip cookies in the entire natural universe), but I do kind of think she's missing the point of life on a fundamental level. Most people do, though.

Ha, I remember those days. When those who liked anime were usually somewhat cool people.

I can top that: I remember when games were the same way. I think we lost our domain to the mainstream sometime during the PSX era. With the passing of the Dreamcast and Next Generation magazine (and the true passing of Next Gen happened about a year or so before its actual end), we have no outlets remaining.

Awesome, I started a rant session. A facilitator is me.

Slightly off topic, GG!, did you know that there's actually going to be an <a href="http://s4.invisionfree.com/Mecha_Con/in ... idx">Anime Con in <i><b>Lafayette</b></i></a> in early September this year?

There was a tiny one last year at the library. I was working, but I probably wouldn't have gone anyway. I wonder how many of those people I know?

You should at least try to get to <a href="http://www.numareinocon.com/">Numa</a>, it's right after Mardi Gras, so unless you're working or aren't willing to take the trip, you shouldn't have any trouble going. It's been <i>really</i> fun the last two years, and it's smaller than the other major cons so you actually get to kinda be friends with the people there, specifically the guests.
Funny, their slogan is, "<i>America's Largest Free Anime Convention!</i>" -more like, America's <i>only</i> free Anime convention.

In gaming related news, the team behind the Way of the Samurai series is making a game (Samurai Western) about a samurai searching for his evil malcontent brother in the old west. There will be bullet dodging, and the fighting will be faster than the Way titles.

If nothing else, the slightly dorky have S-RPGs to themselves.

I'm annoyed at people that co-opt the culture of others.

It's not so much the stealing as it is that too often people do it to the first culture they see on TV.

Still, it would be nice to learn Japanese. But I wouldn't randomly talk in it. That'd be annoying.

Yes, talking in a foreign language to a room of people who don't understand it, when you can speak their language perfectly well, is not cultured, intelligent, or classy.

I might swear in it.

Would you rape in it?