Cinematech Episode 206: “Controversial Games”
An episode full of games that gained fame for controversial adult content, such as the violence of Manhunt, and the sexuality and violence of Phantasmagoria and Night Trap (moreso the former than the latter). I believe that this episode's more extreme content was one of the inspirations behind the eventual creation of Cinematech: Nocturnal Emissions.
Cinematech Episode 207: “Animal Games”
Games about and otherwise starring animals, from classics such as Animal Crossing to mainstream hits like [[Nintendogs, to obscurities like Spider, an early PS1 game from 1997 about... a spider who could equip different weapons to any of its legs. It probably should go on a list of games starring the least likely animals to be featured in a game such as Bad Mojo, which starred a human turned into a cockroach.
Spider was about a scientist who accidentally transferred his consciousness into the nanotech-enhanced spider he was experimenting with after his corporate backers decided to assassinate him and steal his research. Well, isn't that just disturbingly similar to a certain megahit PS1 game that came out a year later? I shall chalk it up to an amusing coincidence.
Episode 212: “E 3 2005 Post Report”
One of many eps that Cinematech had about games from E3 2005. Around this time, Cinematech got rid of the queue that appeared between games telling you which games were coming up next, segueing from game to game. Later on in the series, the producers would put in short clips of random games in between titles with more exposure, often for humorous value.
Timecode: 0:25: A trailer for Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King (PS2, 2005), co-developed by Level-5 (Dark Cloud, Dark Chronicle), featuring the resplendent Dragon Quest theme composed by Koichi Sugiyama and performed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra.
- A sceptre spoken of in lore...And sealed away since days of yore...Unleashes its forbidden power,And heralds Trodain's darkest hour.Brave hero! Take up your sword! Your quest has begun!
In this game, Dhoulmagus the evil jester used the forbidden sceptre to wrap Castle Trodain in thorns and to turn King Trode into a hideous, squat creature, and the princess into a horse. The only one at the castle who escaped Dhoulmagus' wrath was a humble court guard, the main character, who goes on a journey with the king and princess to track Dhoulmagus down and undo the curse inflicted upon Trodain.
Along the way, the trio acquires such allies as Yangus, the stout reformed bandit; Jessica, the redheaded fledgling magician; and Angelo, the dashing rogue knight.
The trailer features some of the game's cutscenes and battle scenes, including some of the awesome abilities you can earn waaayyy later on in the game.
The game's original Japanese subtitle translates into Dragon Quest VIII: The Sky, the Ocean, the Earth, and the Cursed Princess, which is pretty cool but far more cumbersome than the eventual English subtitle.
2:52: An undubbed trailer for the oft-delayed Final Fantasy XII (2006, PS2). It introduces the main characters and the basic plot of the game, about warring countries and the human casualties wracked up along the way. Among these casualties was the Prince of Damlasca, who would die not long after getting married to Ashelia B'nargian Damlasca, and Reks, a soldier and the older brother of a young man named Vaan. Two years later, both would be involved in a plot to overthrow the Archadian empire that stole so much from them. Ashe sought revenge for the deaths of her father and her husband, while Vaan and his female friend Penelo... just sort of tag along.
Other characters include Balthier, a super-cool, gun-wielding sky pirate voiced by the inimitable Gideon Emery in the English dub; Balthier's partner Fran, a viera exiled from her people due to her associating with humes; and Captain Basch fon Ronsenburg, the soldier falsely imprisoned for the assassination of Asch's husband.
6:08: A montage of games announced at E3 '05 for the Xbox{{360}}, including Madden NFL 06 (which was just a prerendered concept video demonstrating what Madden could look like on seventh-gen consoles), Project Gotham Racing 3, Need for Speed: Most Wanted (not to be confused with the later 2012 game of the same name), Full Auto, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 3 (ultimately named Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter), Gears of War (huh, at this point in development, hero Marcus Fenix's face looked less squat!), Quake 4, The Darkness, Kameo: Elements of Power, Saints Row, Tony Hawk's American Wasteland, Namco's Frame City Killer (which would ultimately be canceled), and Condemned: Criminal Origins. Some good games in there.
10:38: A montage of early PS3 game footage... technically speaking. Before commenting on the games, let's take a moment to appreciate how... unusual the PS3 was when it was first originally announced at E3 '05. It was silver, had a font left over from the logo for the original Spider-Man movie trilogy, and, oh yes, had a boomerang-shaped controller.
The montage included snippets from trailers for such games as a Formula 1 game; Motor Storm; “Vision Gran Turismo” (the trailer for which had a really cool song that sounded like it could have come from the soundtrack for the CG Appleseed movie) which promised a move from “partial reality to complete reality”; Fight Night Round 3 , which was actually one of the first major seventh-gen hits with its incredible physics and slo-mo KOs; it was the first game in the Official Xbox Magazine to get a 10 out of 10; Tekken PS3, which was really just a fancy trailer
showing off a sweaty Jin Kazama; a game based on Mobile Suit Gundam, which had an amazing-looking trailer, but the game itself totally bombed;, Devil May Cry 4, which featured a gloomier and scrawnier-looking Dante than the one that appeared in the final game; Eyedentify, a canceled game that would have had you giving orders to two cute anime chicks via microphone and camera communication; the graphics look believably real-time unlike some of these trailers; and finally, the notorious, show-stopping, and probably not real-time trailer for a PS3 Killzone game, which looked more like a fancy cutscene version of general Killzone gameplay.
The DMC4 trailer had a summary of the series thus far, with clips from past games and little taglines for them: “We are born...” (DMC1), “The innocent suffer...” (possible self-depreciation in regards to the mixed-to-negative reception of DMC2?), “Legends are made...” (DMC3), and finally, “Evil is punished...” for DMC4. The trailer showed a brief glimpse of Dante in a snowy environment and a castle in the distance.
This was the E3 where Nintendo had nothing for the next-gen portion of their conference except that vagueness was coming. To that end, they had previews and demos for many GameCube, Nintendo DS, and Game Boy Advance games instead.
Reader Participation: What particular reveals at a big gaming show such as E3 or the Tokyo Game Show have blown you away?
