NiGHTS HD to hit XBLA, PSN and PC

Remember that boy/girl that you used to hang out with back in school, and the two of you had the biggest crush on each other and figured that you’d get married when you’re older, have lots of babies and live happily ever after? Remember how you went to separate colleges after school, and then quickly drifted apart as your lives went in completely different directions?

I’m sure you remember that, because you probably can’t stop talking about how awesome he/she was and think back fondly about those times.

Well, Sega, in all their infinite goodness, has made an announcement on the Sega Blog that is pretty much the equivalent of bringing this person back… in HD!

NiGHTS into Dreams, the much-loved classic on the Sega Saturn, is being remade and ported to XBLA, PSN, and PC! This is great news for tons of people, including myself, because quite frankly it’s a frustrating experience trying to get a Sega Saturn emulator to work on a PC.

Newer gamers probably won’t remember NiGHTS, or might have only played the terrible sequel on the Nintendo Wii… but this is a game you absolutely HAVE to play. There aren’t any guns and aliens, but there is something innately magical about the NiGHTS experience that will give you a genuine feeling of warmth and joy that you just don’t get with many games.

I distinctly remember that there were times in this game that I’d get so into the zone that I swear I experienced what the samurai refer to as muga, when thought and action are as one. In digital terms, it’s like a zero ping between your brain and your fingers.

I was playing really well without actively thinking, and it was a beautiful feeling that I didn’t experience again until I unlocked that 50-hit Perfect Freeflow 2.0 achievement in Arkham City.

Nay-sayers might have a lot of criticism for the early-gen 3D graphics, even with the HD makeover, but to that I once again apply the nostalgic crush example. If he/she appeared on your doorstep, with more wrinkles and older eyes, but with the same personality and warmth that you fell in love with all those years ago, would you really care?

A J-RPG with EVERYONE in it

Sometimes, you just can’t decide who you want to feature in a game. After all, there are so many iconic videogame characters out there, each with their own little quirks and fanbase. What’s a game developer to do?

Why, you can just stick them ALL into one giant mess of a game!

Thus was born Project X Zone, a collaboration between three of the largest Japanese game companies out there: Sega, Namco Bandai and Capcom.

As you can see, it’s a relentless assault on your senses with tons of pyrotechnics, a ridiculous amount of characters that includes the guys from Tekken, Street Fighter, Virtua Fighter, and Ghost and Goblins etc, and even more pyrotechnics. It’s basically what happens if Michael Bay made a videogame and was given free rein with Japanese gaming characters. BOOM!

Project X Zone is slated to come out on the Nintendo 3DS in Oct 11, 2012. Until then, you can slap yourself silly with every Japanese videogame cartridge ever released, as that’ll give you a similar experience.

Crazy Xbox-killing chicks

Hell hath no fury like a woman’s scorn for Sega.

These immortal words were spoken by Jason Lee in Mallrats, shortly after he was dumped by his girlfriend while he was playing NHL on his Sega Genesis. While that phrase might be a little bit out of date after the demise of Sega as a console maker, the warning is still valid because most girls HATE videogames.

Mess with a girl and you're going to find your Xbox nailed to a tree

Back in the day, when a girl breaks a guy’s videogame console, it’s because she plugged it into the wall socket without going through a power converter, or she forced a SNES cartridge into a Genesis. But that’s no longer the case, because Xbox-killing is the new crazy chick craze.

Case in point: there’s been a whole bunch of videos popping up on the Internet lately where a girl just goes ape-shit and trashes her boyfriend’s Xbox. It doesn’t matter that most of them are faked, because it’s something that most girls already want to do on instinct, and all these videos are going to make them think it’s okay or even cool to do it.

Smashing a guy’s Xbox is the new kick-in-the-balls, because while you can get sued for assaulting a guy’s genitals, there ain’t no jury out there who’s going to take pity on your mangled Xbox.

So bolt your Xboxes down to the table, or hide them somewhere safe… because those crazy Xbox-killing chicks are out there. I guess it’s a good thing that most gamers are too socially awkward to have a girlfriend in the first place. In their case, no-sex really is safe-sex.

As for me, I’m a pretty lucky guy. I have a wife who not only respects my gaming time, but was also kind enough to get me a new Xbox 360 when my old one broke down. Come to think of it, she paid for half of the first one too. But I’d worry about game-savvy girls even more, because while you might think that these girls are cool enough to respect your Xbox, they’re actually the ones who will make sure that your precious hard drive gets fucked up too.

And Playstation people? You’re not off the hook at all.

Why do gaming consoles have to die?

In the span of two days, both my Xbox 360 and Jo’s tamagotchi died. Hers died because she left it home one day and those little critters throw a hissy fit and die if you don’t feed them by pressing some buttons every few hours. Mine died because… well… I’m not sure why mine died. I think it’s cos it was old. I dunno… is three years old for a gaming console? I guess my Sega consoles lasted only about three years too. But they “died” in the sense that they became obsolete and people stopped making games for them. My Xbox on the other hand, died in the “ack, I can’t breathe!” way.

My dead Xbox and Jo's dead Tamagotchis

This recent dead Xbox is a refurbished set that I got to replace another one that had a graphics glitch about a year after I bought it. So basically, in four years, I’ve only gone through two Xboxes. My friends tell me that I’ve been pretty luckily, as they’ve got horror stories about making bi-monthly trips to the Xbox service centre and so forth. At any rate, it’s past the warranty date so I guess I’ll be picking up a replacement Xbox 360 soon.

Similarly, I also had to replace my first generation Xbox. It didn’t really die, but the laser couldn’t read games anymore (making it nothing more than a really expensive CD/DVD player). So I’ve now got two of those sitting in my home (which bugs Jo a lot; she wants me to toss them out), and a new dead Xbox 360 to complete the collection. Then of course, I’ve got my Segas still lying around.