Song Summoner: I'm feeling like nobody loves me/Funky and I'm a microphone junkie

Well, Christmas has come and gone, and Boxing Day is upon us. I made quite the nerdy haul, including a Tamagotchi (wat) and several pounds of sweets. I also received an iTunes gift card from my younger brother, which has proven to be the most well-loved gift of them all.

Now, I very seldom use iTunes for the sole reason that I have better things to do than drain my bank account on the one (besides caffeine) thing I can be considered an absolute addict to: data. Suffice to say, it's fortunate that the size of my PC's hard disk exceeds my wants. Barely. However, with the gift card, I can just spend $50 and be done with it, never to resort to anything but borrowing and ripping friends' CDs ever again.

I figured I might as well get something besides music and Afro Samurai episodes, so I checked out the games section. Up until now, I had assumed from the paltry offering of games included with my iPod that the only games released for the little rectangular lovely were puzzle games (AKA Games for Your Mum) and clones of Windows Games titles from the 1990s. While I was correct in most cases (Chinese Checkers? Colored Googaw Match 47? Sign my ass up!) I noticed, of all the fucking things, a Squeenix title in the mix. Intrigued, I dropped $4.99 of my play money and waited patiently.

The basic premise of Song Summoner, and supposedly its greatest draw, is that you create military units from songs on your iPod and use your army of Tune Troopers (shit you not) to rescue your cute little brother from evil robots. That is, hand to God, the game in a nutshell. Compared to other Squeenix titles, it's almost childishly simple, which is far from a bad thing.

You play as Ziggy (the fellow with the sword, no relation to Mr. Bowie), and must rescue your brother Zero (lower right; seeing him caused me to yelp for reasons I'd rather not explain) using skills taught to you by the Soulmaster, who is a whole other tub of awesomeness himself.

The game plays a lot like Final Fantasy Tactics without the ripping your short hairs out in rage because the enemy mages have unlimited potions and you can't reach them on yonder rocky outcropping. Naturally, you're controlling everything with the click wheel, which lends itself better than one would imagine to SRPGs. I think that this is accomplished so neatly because the game was created with the iPod in mind, rather than being a port of a previously popular time killer like Windows Solitaire.

In fact, the lengths to which the game goes to remind the palyer that it's an iPod game is one of the most amazing parts of the game. It revels in its platform, and that makes it even more lovable. The most obvious feature is, of course, the ability to go to the Hip-o-Drome and create your soldiers from songs on your iPod. Sometimes you'll even get hints as to what kind of song will make a good Trooper at that point in time. The end result looks something like the lovely lady off to the left here. To my surprise, the incorporation did not end at the unit creation. You actually earn points to give your Troopers an extra boost in battle by listening to songs you've used to create them. The game can fucking tell what you're listening to, which song created which unit, and how many times you've listened to a particular song since your last play.

Graphically speaking, it's a pretty little game. It looks like it plays: a lot like Final Fantasy Tactics for the PSX. The character art is consistent and appealing, the maps are simple and polished, and the system graphics are crisp and easy to understand. I actually have no complaints about the graphics.

The music is appropriately grand. For me to compliment a video game's music is rare, since my relationship with game music usually swings between 'mute-button-jabbing rage' and 'grudging acceptance'.

What about the story? Well, let me tell you a secret: It doesn't fucking matter.The premise is simple, as is about everything else. What does matter is the fact that it has taken me two hours to write this sodding review because this game's siren call keeps distracting me from the keyboard. The game is an absolute fucking bloodsucker. I laid myself down with it last night and put two hours in without even realizing what I'd done until it was too late. I think one reason it's so addictive is because it's just so fucking accessible. If you're a misanthrope like me, the iPod is just one of those things you always leave the house with, because you never know when you might have to ignore someone. Pulling it out of your pocket for a quickie is hopelessly easy, and I've caught myself doing jsut that on several occasions just today. Another factor is the fact that it relies on the same principle that the Monster Rancher games did, more or less. Put a CD in, get a creature in return. The only problem with this is that I have, in effect, 773 files with which I can create monsters. It's like having Mosnter Rancher 2 and being told that you can just go hog wild in the Alternative section of the local record shop. Just One More Syndrome sets in immediately, and those little quickies turn into fullblown gaming sessions mighty fast. When this happens in the supermarket, it can culminate in you running your face right into a pole.

Of course, an hour later I realize that I did not end this article. I had intended to end with a bang.

But I didn't.

Because I picked this fucking game up again.

Get it. If you like music, you'll love it. If you don't fuck off. Actually, if you don't love music, why in the fuck do you have an iPod?

Fucker.

A Worthy Complaint

Why don't video game boxes talk to me anymore? We used to be so close. We could tell each other anything. Nowadays though? Never really tell me anything. What happened, video games? When did we drift apart?

I speak, of course, of the recent trend of filling the back-cover blurb of console games with bulleted lists of the game's features without any allusion as to the plot or point of the game. I'd really like to have some idea of an RPG's plot before I pick it up, rather than see something like this.

3D Custom Shoujo Review

Last week, I was browsing an imageboard, as I am wont to do when not enriching my life by riding motorbikes and eating good cheese. I found a thread mentioning a game called 3D Custom Shoujo, which allows you to create female characters to populate your creepy romantic fantasies. Intrigued, I got myself a copy and fired it up. After a few minutes of tinkering with the disturbingly deep character generator, I started to feel like I might be giving Hitler competition for the title of "History's Greatest Monster."

The level of customization that you can go into is frankly astounding. In fact, it's amazing to the point of being out and out creepy. The entire concept of god-type games that allow you to create and control AI-driven things for your own sick amusement is a little creepy. There is, of course, always a natural progression from 'loving god' to 'bored god.' When you go from raising Sims, to burning Sims, to making Sims that look like people that you hate just so you can burn them, the transition is complete. This game, however, really gives you no option not to take the indulgent, hedonistic path of using your creations for your own twisted fancies. You're more or less expected to ogle and molest your creations. I'd feel like a hypocrite if I didn't express some relief over the game's frankness, since I loathe media that would otherwise be purely entertaining if it didn't try to apologize for the fact that all it has to offer is its entertainment value. So, yes, I'm relieved that the game is at least honest in its intent.

It's unfortunate that the game suffers from some very obvious clipping errors, even with items that are hard-coded into the game. I can forgive the lack of separate voice options and the oft-times wacky camera control, but the clipping is painful. It can't be that hard to fiddle with the physics long enough to keep shoes and arms from phasing through clothing and tits.


Koharu here took me three minutes from start to finish to create, from opening the program to closing Photoshop after resizing the screenshot. In about two minutes, I made a fair representation of a vague idea in my mind, and was satisfied with it. Furthermore, I needed no mods to do it.

Oh, about the mods. They're plentiful and largely screwed up. They range from understandable things like packs that allow you to create male characters and familiar characters, to mods dedicated to making amputees. I've asked a friend to challenge me to build a girl to his wild speculations. Hoping to vex me, he requested a girl with drills for hands.



I sure showed him.