Massively Multiplayer: Gaming In The New Millennium
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AeroTheZealousOne
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It does, doesn't it? The world has changed in TTL, in my eyes, for the better. Sure, unfortunate things happen, but they are usually made up for in another area twofold. Or at the very least, butterflies balance everything out in the end.
My next hope is for a certain eurodance hit coming out later in 2005 to remain intact...
To be fair, I'd take American Idiot over 99.9% of the new music introduced ITTL
To be fair, I'd take American Idiot over 99.9% of the new music introduced ITTL
Oh, that reminds me. What happened to Green Day?
Covered in the update, their recent album has stalled due to Billie Joe Armstrong's drug problems and a lack of ideas.
Speaking of Japanese culture, how is Takashi Miike doing? Still the most prolific director?
Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Seriously, "Dragostea Din Tei" got a remarkable spread in the pre-YouTube era - had it come a few years later, or like in this TL, with a more advanced Internet and social media, O-Zone and Eurobeat could have found the same level of success as, say, Psy and K-pop.
You want "Numa-Numa" to be even more viral than it already was? Is that even possible?!Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Seriously, "Dragostea Din Tei" got a remarkable spread in the pre-YouTube era - had it come a few years later, or like in this TL, with a more advanced Internet and social media, O-Zone and Eurobeat could have found the same level of success as, say, Psy and K-pop.
And yes I legitimately keep forgetting that's not the name of the song.
You want "Numa-Numa" to be even more viral than it already was? Is that even possible?!
And yes I legitimately keep forgetting that's not the name of the song.
It never really caught on in the USA - and given TTL has had a long, sustained Latin boom, a Romanian (Latin sounding) song charting isn't TOO odd.
Dude, I'm Italian and I can't understand a single word of spoken and/or sung Romanian; on the other hand, Spanish is quite easy to understand for me, especially if it's spoken by someone with an Argentinian/Chilean/Uruguayan accent. I doubt an English-speaking audience would ever find Romanian similar to the Spanish spoken in the countries of Latin America north of Brazil.
Now, a certain Italian europop song would have a slightly better chance of becoming a meme in the US.
Mmmm...thinking more about it it's impossible for us to say at the moment if he's the biggest. He's still directing but there might be someone more prolific. We'll think about it a bit more.
Hmmm....yeah, I think that death gets butterflied away. So he's out of jail for now and will probably stay that way.
Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Seriously, "Dragostea Din Tei" got a remarkable spread in the pre-YouTube era - had it come a few years later, or like in this TL, with a more advanced Internet and social media, O-Zone and Eurobeat could have found the same level of success as, say, Psy and K-pop.
We may or may not do another 2005 update, so Eurobeat could be covered...we still have to decide if it's going to blow up or not. Right now R+B is still the big thing, with Destiny's Child doing really well and Mariah Carey poised to have another big album, along with artists like Usher and a few of the original TTL artists. So Eurobeat may get muscled out regardless, it's just too obscure.
AeroTheZealousOne
Monthly Donor
Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Seriously, "Dragostea Din Tei" got a remarkable spread in the pre-YouTube era - had it come a few years later, or like in this TL, with a more advanced Internet and social media, O-Zone and Eurobeat could have found the same level of success as, say, Psy and K-pop.
While I was thinking about Cascada's "Everytime We Touch", this would also be very nice to see remain as OTL. It's likely, but I can only imagine that since they have also received wonderful SNES-CD games and beyond, butterflies are bound to occur.
Spring 2005 (Part 4) - Sirens And Pixies: The Wave's Fantastic Fantasies
Star Siren Nakama
Star Siren Nakama is Capcom's sequel to its hit 2003 sidescrolling title Star Siren. Like its predecessor, the game is an homage to magical superheroine shows such as Sailor Moon, and plays much like OTL's Viewtiful Joe, though with its comic/movie tropes replaced by anime tropes. It takes place a few weeks after the original game, and sees heroine Saiyuki (AKA Star Siren) return to battle King Apocalypse, who has stolen the seven Galactic Gems (in a somewhat similar storyline to the Rainbow Oscars featured in OTL's Viewtiful Joe 2) that are required to maintain goodness and love in the galaxy. Star Siren can't defeat King Apocalypse alone, so she must find and recruit four friends to transform into superheroines to battle at her side.
Star Siren's four teammates, known as Star Souls, are:
Star Soul Blue: Saiyuki's kind but somewhat danger-prone friend Mariko is Star Soul Blue, who commands the power of water. Star Soul Blue is Saiyuki's most loyal companion, but her tendency to get herself into trouble doesn't stop after she becomes a superheroine. Star Soul Blue is best for players who like to take their time, strategize, and build up a big magical attack. She's voiced by Julie Maddalena.
Star Soul Red: Star Soul Red is Kagata, the school tough girl, who uses the power of fire and is also the best physical fighter out of all the girls. While she can definitely hold her own in a fight, her tendency to rush into things and argue with Saiyuki does cause the team some trouble at times. Star Soul Red is best for aggressive players who like using melee on enemies, but she does have some trouble with groups. She's voiced by Danielle Judovits.
Star Soul Green: Star Soul Green is Chikyu, a hippie-like girl and the only girl not seen in the original game. She's a bit of a loopy weirdo but she's brave and friendly all the same. She commands plant life in battle, and is best for players who want a heroine who can handle big groups of enemies. She's voiced by Riki Lindhome.
Star Soul Yellow: Star Soul Yellow is Megami, the idol girl from the original game who served as a foot soldier for Empress Oberion before being saved by Star Siren. She's the last to join the team, and controls the powers of light (and occasionally darkness when her negative emotions surface). She takes arguably the most skill to play of all five heroines, but her spells are exceedingly powerful and a skillful player can decimate bosses with her. She's voiced by Hynden Walch.
Cristina Pucelli reprises her role as Star Siren/Saiyuki, and Keith Ferguson voices the main villain, King Apocalypse.
While the gameplay largely remains the same as the original, there are a number of changes and upgrades, due to there being five playable heroines instead of one. Players can generally choose between heroines once they're recruited to the team. Blue is available after Episode 1, Red is available after Episode 3, Green is available after Episode 5, and Yellow is available after Episode 10. Each heroine has a Star meter that can be charged to power progressively stronger attacks, and there are also Star meters for the non-active heroines that are charged as the episode plays out even though they're not on the battlefield. Charging up these auxiliary meters allows for special Assist techniques where two or more heroines strike together, and once all five heroines are on the team, there are even powerful Unity attacks that enable all five Star Souls to combine their powers for one spectacular (and visually lengthy) strike. This is usually enough to clear the screen of all but the toughest enemies, while heavily damaging most bosses. When the heroine that the player is playing as has their life meter depleted, it's game over, but sometimes the heroine is merely "captured", and when this happens, the player can take control of another Star Soul to come in and save that heroine within a certain amount of time. The game also features multiplayer in which up to four players can control a hero at once and can play together. Enemies are made tougher and more numerous during this mode to compensate for the added firepower and survivability of the players. There's no online multiplayer in Star Siren Nakama, only local multiplayer.
The game features 18 episodes in all. That's less than the 26 featured in the original game, though they are slightly longer to compensate. Despite this, gameplay IS a bit shorter than it was in the previous game, with more cutscenes between and within levels. Star Siren Nakama is a very cinematic game and gets comparisons to Thrillseekers for its storyline which focuses heavily on the friendship between these five girls. The first six "episodes" have a somewhat formulaic approach: They come in three "sets" of two, each involving both the recruitment of one of the Star Souls and then an adventure spotlighting them (though the player can choose which of the playable heroines to control, cutscenes play out largely the same). During these sets of levels, King Apocalypse's flunkies try to steal the goodness from Mariko, Kagata, and Chikyu respectively, but Saiyuki helps the girls to find the courage inside them and overcome their problems, allowing them to inherit their Star Soul powers and join Saiyuki's team. Starting with Episode 7, the plot gets more complex. King Apocalypse begins to directly intervene, and preys on Megami's vulnerable soul, while using his stolen Galactic Gems to conjure powerful monsters. Megami's transformation into a hero is a six-episode arc taking up a full third of the game, even after she joins the team in Episode 10 she still has a lot of demons to overcome. Finally, in Episode 12, the full team fights together for the first time, dealing a wound to King Apocalypse with a combined attack and taking one of the seven Galactic Gems. Episodes 13-17 see the Star Souls capture five more Gems, but at the end of Episode 17, Saiyuki's friends are captured and she's forced to give up their six collected Gems in exchange for their lives, allowing King Apocalypse to gain ultimate power. Finally, in Episode 18, Star Siren and the Star Souls battle King Apocalypse's ultimate form in an epic battle worthy of an anime finale, and regain the power of the Galactic Gems for good, banishing King Apocalypse to a dimension of darkness where he'll be trapped forever. Star Siren and her friends celebrate, but know that their lives as superheroine guardians of the universe have just begun...
Star Siren Nakama is a highly anticipated game, coming off the heels of a successful Wave title, and it doesn't disappoint, with high marks from critics (90%+ on Gamerankings and 93 on Metacritic, similar to the original game's scores), making it one of 2005's Game of the Year contenders. Sales are spectacular, easily topping those of OTL's Viewtiful Joe sequel, with over 250,000 units sold in both North America and Japan in their first weeks of release there (Japan sees it in March 2005, North America gets it on May 17, 2005). It's released exclusively for the Nintendo Wave, but Capcom does leave open the possibility that the Star Siren games might eventually be ported to other consoles (though it wouldn't be until the seventh generation). The success of Star Siren Nakama makes it one of Capcom's most popular franchises and one of the most popular girl-centric franchises in all of gaming.
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Haze
Haze is a 3-D adventure title in the vein of games such as The Legend Of Zelda: Hero Eternal and Beyond Good And Evil. It's published by Electronic Arts and developed by an internal team known as Project Remnant, featuring mostly new developers under the direction of longtime EA staff. Some of the interns for Project Remnant, who contributed small but meaningful elements of the game, included Amir Rao and Gavin Simon, the founders of OTL's Supergiant Games indie studio. The game takes place in a gorgeous fantastical world, a giant forest with seemingly no end, obscured by a mysterious fog that's been there for many aeons. The protagonist is Azora, a beautiful humanoid pixie with a sleek pinkish-purple body featuring plant and bird-like elements, though she still looks largely human, her skin transforms with her emotions and surroundings and she has small insect-like wings that enable her to hover a few inches off the ground when she moves about. Azora has a large level of contextual control over her surroundings. She doesn't have a strict melee attack, she uses magic to attack enemies for the most part but is able to pick up and throw objects as well, and when pinned down or surrounded by enemies and unable to use her magic, the player can use quick-time contextual commands to allow Azora to defend herself or (this is recommended) to escape so she can regroup. Though Haze isn't a combat-heavy game, there are lots of enemies to fight, and eight total bosses (ten if certain "special" encounters are counted, though these are more like mid/puzzle bosses). Azora starts out alone, and stays that way for about the first 20% of the game (save for enemies and non-hostile creatures) before encountering her first friendly and intelligent beings to talk to. Even with these first few people, Azora largely spends much of the game by herself, exploring and interacting with the world. The game's exploration is unique in that it takes on a "radial" form: Azora starts out in a fairly small area and as she pushes outward, the game naturally expands in such a way that the world map grows in all directions, you typically won't start on one end of the map and push onward in a single direction but will explore in a circle as the fog permeating the world recedes due to Azora's actions. The fog, known in Azora's world as "haze" (giving the game its title) has its own mysterious properties, to the point where both the player and characters will get the sense that it has a life of its own. It can randomly move in and out of places, it causes objects and creatures to take on different properties, and there are times when it even seems to "talk" to Azora. The haze ultimately is revealed to have its own personality, but is not entirely malevolent, though it is the main antagonist of the game. Azora's relationship to the haze forms the central basis of the game's plot and drives the action of the game forward as it reaches its climax. Of all the elements of the game, Haze's graphics are easily its most praised. The game combines both stylistic and technical elements and is easily one of the most impressive looking console games ever seen at the time of its release (which is exclusively for the Nintendo Wave). The game pushes the Wave's graphics quite far, with realistic looking shadows and environments and gorgeous animation, and is compared in many ways to Rare's Kameo: The Dreamer, a similar title which would be released two months later. In a lot of ways, Haze is the more impressive of the two, thanks to having EA's considerable resources behind it. The game's musical score is composed by Jeremy Soule, and was his first major post-Lord Of The Rings composition project (having turned down a lucrative film scoring offer to return to scoring games at least for the time being), and the voice acting is performed largely by unknowns. There actually isn't much spoken dialogue in the game, though Azora does speak frequently in narration during cutscenes. She's voiced by an extremely obscure British actress who has little other voice acting experience on her resume either before or since, but her performance is almost universally praised.
Haze begins with Azora waking up after being pursued by some kind of great monster. She awakens in a beautiful field of flowers and doesn't know how long she's been running, but can hear the monster's distant roars and knows she needs to get moving. The first segments of gameplay are an introductory segment, showing off the controls and the first part of the world that Azora needs to explore. She needs to make her way to a great stream, across which the monster cannot cross. Along the way she encounters the game's first real boss, a malevolent goblin, and encounters a scary cave in which she's nearly eaten by a giant spider. She finally makes her way to the stream and crosses it, leaving the monster behind but entering a totally unfamiliar realm. After battling another boss, Azora comes across a small village and the game's first NPCs, and learns of an ancient hollowed out tree and a missing girl. Azora explores the tree and finds the girl turned to stone, along with the evil monster that petrified her. Azora defeats the monster and is able to free the girl from her predicament by crying over her. The girl returns to the village and Azora continues on. A few more adventures and a couple more bosses later and the player will begin to hear the familiar horrifying roars of the monster, who has somehow made it across the stream and is in pursuit of her again. Azora is nearly cornered and killed, but is saved by a legion of pixie knights who seem friendly at first but are actually evil, being influenced by the haze. Though Azora finally realizes their true nature when they burn a village of spritekin to the ground, she is reluctant to fight them because of their strength and because she's befriended one of them, a young male pixie named Leo. Azora flees the pixie knights and goes deeper into the forest, where the monster once again corners her. Azora tries to fight it but is knocked down again, and when Leo shows up and tries to save her, the monster swats him down easily. Azora gathers her courage and learns a new magic spell to defeat the monster at last, which parts a massive section of fog. However, Azora has been weakened in the battle, and is found by the remaining knights and taken as a prisoner to a grand city, where she is recognized as a Wayward One: an intended sacrifice to the fog, who managed to escape her fate. Leo is eventually revealed as the one who saved Azora from being sacrificed, but the haze stole her memories in the process. Azora manages to escape the city, but is confronted once more by the knights, whose leader battles Azora. Azora defeats him, but the other knights surround her, and Leo sacrifices himself to take out the knights and save Azora. Azora can see the haze lifting from the knights, and they realize that they have all been deceived by the haze, which even now threatens to destroy the entire forest. In his dying moment, the leader of the knights makes Azora promise to save everyone, before dying himself. Azora eventually makes her way to a great temple, said to be the source of the haze itself, and battles a mighty dragon. She defeats the dragon, and this seems to scour the haze from the forest. The disappearance of the haze allows Azora to walk out of the forest and into the sunlight for the first time. It's beautiful, and Azora wants to run out into the sunlight's glow... but then she cries out and collapses as the sunlight hits her body. It seems to burn her flesh, and she is nearly killed, but for the haze seemingly pulling her back behind the trees. She wakes up in a lagoon, her wounds being nursed by the haze. The haze tells Azora it is not an oppressor, but a protector, as the forest's denizens have all grown vulnerable to the world outside, which will kill them if they step out of the forest's protection. Azora doesn't want to believe this, and asks what the purpose of sacrificing her was. The haze tells her that it needs to find a new carrier to sustain itself, and because Azora refused the sacrifice, it has begun to lose control and will eventually fade, causing the forest's protection to fail. The haze tells Azora if she can find a new sacrifice, it will restore the haze and the forest's protection will continue. Azora resolves to sacrifice the queen of the pixies, who even now pursues her. Azora confronts the queen on a great battlefield atop a tall forest temple, and the two have a long discussion about everything that's happened thus far. The two realize that both of them are just trying to do what's best for their civilization, but Azora realizes that she can't ask anyone else to make a sacrifice. However, the queen, seeing the purity in Azora's heart and desiring to help her own people, volunteers herself. The haze enters the queen, but it is corrupt, and the queen herself becomes a corrupted being that Azora must battle. Azora defeats the queen, and purges her of the haze. It seems as if the haze will be destroyed by all of this, but Azora is able to contain its power, and takes all of it into herself, purifying the haze, saving the forest, and assuming her role as the "sacrifice". Azora becomes the guardian of the forest, but because of her power and her strength of will, she maintains her sentience and assumes her role as sentinel willingly. The queen, whom Azora saved, becomes Azora's best friend and confidant and her connection to the civilization she protects as the new haze and guardian of all living things.
Haze's excellent production values, gameplay, and storyline all lead to it receiving excellent critical reviews and joining Star Siren Nakama as one of the year's best reviewed games. Though Electronic Arts promotes it heavily, its strange visual appearance and lack of appeal to mainstream gaming demographics cause it to have mediocre sales initially. It's still a "strong" early seller, with around 100,000 or so copies sold in its first week of North American release, but it's not a blockbuster hit, at least right away. It would take good word of mouth, price drops, and a strong holiday sales season to eventually push past a million copies and beyond, but once the game caught its stride, it finally got its critical due. According to Alex Stansfield of Games Over Matter, who gave the game a perfect score: "Take the adventure gameplay and strong female characters of Beyond Good And Evil and combine them with the beautiful but slightly unsettling themes of Fairytale and you have Haze, easily the best game I've played since last year's The Legend Of Zelda: Hero Eternal." The game would be released on June 7, 2005 in North America, with a European release later that month and a Japanese release later that summer. It would perform well in all three territories, and Azora would become an especially popular character amongst fanartists for her strange but gorgeous appearance. Project Remnant would eventually become a separate development studio inside Electronic Arts, which would develop more games in the future, including at least one sequel to Haze. However, not every member of the team would remain with the company for its future projects.
Star Siren Nakama is Capcom's sequel to its hit 2003 sidescrolling title Star Siren. Like its predecessor, the game is an homage to magical superheroine shows such as Sailor Moon, and plays much like OTL's Viewtiful Joe, though with its comic/movie tropes replaced by anime tropes. It takes place a few weeks after the original game, and sees heroine Saiyuki (AKA Star Siren) return to battle King Apocalypse, who has stolen the seven Galactic Gems (in a somewhat similar storyline to the Rainbow Oscars featured in OTL's Viewtiful Joe 2) that are required to maintain goodness and love in the galaxy. Star Siren can't defeat King Apocalypse alone, so she must find and recruit four friends to transform into superheroines to battle at her side.
Star Siren's four teammates, known as Star Souls, are:
Star Soul Blue: Saiyuki's kind but somewhat danger-prone friend Mariko is Star Soul Blue, who commands the power of water. Star Soul Blue is Saiyuki's most loyal companion, but her tendency to get herself into trouble doesn't stop after she becomes a superheroine. Star Soul Blue is best for players who like to take their time, strategize, and build up a big magical attack. She's voiced by Julie Maddalena.
Star Soul Red: Star Soul Red is Kagata, the school tough girl, who uses the power of fire and is also the best physical fighter out of all the girls. While she can definitely hold her own in a fight, her tendency to rush into things and argue with Saiyuki does cause the team some trouble at times. Star Soul Red is best for aggressive players who like using melee on enemies, but she does have some trouble with groups. She's voiced by Danielle Judovits.
Star Soul Green: Star Soul Green is Chikyu, a hippie-like girl and the only girl not seen in the original game. She's a bit of a loopy weirdo but she's brave and friendly all the same. She commands plant life in battle, and is best for players who want a heroine who can handle big groups of enemies. She's voiced by Riki Lindhome.
Star Soul Yellow: Star Soul Yellow is Megami, the idol girl from the original game who served as a foot soldier for Empress Oberion before being saved by Star Siren. She's the last to join the team, and controls the powers of light (and occasionally darkness when her negative emotions surface). She takes arguably the most skill to play of all five heroines, but her spells are exceedingly powerful and a skillful player can decimate bosses with her. She's voiced by Hynden Walch.
Cristina Pucelli reprises her role as Star Siren/Saiyuki, and Keith Ferguson voices the main villain, King Apocalypse.
While the gameplay largely remains the same as the original, there are a number of changes and upgrades, due to there being five playable heroines instead of one. Players can generally choose between heroines once they're recruited to the team. Blue is available after Episode 1, Red is available after Episode 3, Green is available after Episode 5, and Yellow is available after Episode 10. Each heroine has a Star meter that can be charged to power progressively stronger attacks, and there are also Star meters for the non-active heroines that are charged as the episode plays out even though they're not on the battlefield. Charging up these auxiliary meters allows for special Assist techniques where two or more heroines strike together, and once all five heroines are on the team, there are even powerful Unity attacks that enable all five Star Souls to combine their powers for one spectacular (and visually lengthy) strike. This is usually enough to clear the screen of all but the toughest enemies, while heavily damaging most bosses. When the heroine that the player is playing as has their life meter depleted, it's game over, but sometimes the heroine is merely "captured", and when this happens, the player can take control of another Star Soul to come in and save that heroine within a certain amount of time. The game also features multiplayer in which up to four players can control a hero at once and can play together. Enemies are made tougher and more numerous during this mode to compensate for the added firepower and survivability of the players. There's no online multiplayer in Star Siren Nakama, only local multiplayer.
The game features 18 episodes in all. That's less than the 26 featured in the original game, though they are slightly longer to compensate. Despite this, gameplay IS a bit shorter than it was in the previous game, with more cutscenes between and within levels. Star Siren Nakama is a very cinematic game and gets comparisons to Thrillseekers for its storyline which focuses heavily on the friendship between these five girls. The first six "episodes" have a somewhat formulaic approach: They come in three "sets" of two, each involving both the recruitment of one of the Star Souls and then an adventure spotlighting them (though the player can choose which of the playable heroines to control, cutscenes play out largely the same). During these sets of levels, King Apocalypse's flunkies try to steal the goodness from Mariko, Kagata, and Chikyu respectively, but Saiyuki helps the girls to find the courage inside them and overcome their problems, allowing them to inherit their Star Soul powers and join Saiyuki's team. Starting with Episode 7, the plot gets more complex. King Apocalypse begins to directly intervene, and preys on Megami's vulnerable soul, while using his stolen Galactic Gems to conjure powerful monsters. Megami's transformation into a hero is a six-episode arc taking up a full third of the game, even after she joins the team in Episode 10 she still has a lot of demons to overcome. Finally, in Episode 12, the full team fights together for the first time, dealing a wound to King Apocalypse with a combined attack and taking one of the seven Galactic Gems. Episodes 13-17 see the Star Souls capture five more Gems, but at the end of Episode 17, Saiyuki's friends are captured and she's forced to give up their six collected Gems in exchange for their lives, allowing King Apocalypse to gain ultimate power. Finally, in Episode 18, Star Siren and the Star Souls battle King Apocalypse's ultimate form in an epic battle worthy of an anime finale, and regain the power of the Galactic Gems for good, banishing King Apocalypse to a dimension of darkness where he'll be trapped forever. Star Siren and her friends celebrate, but know that their lives as superheroine guardians of the universe have just begun...
Star Siren Nakama is a highly anticipated game, coming off the heels of a successful Wave title, and it doesn't disappoint, with high marks from critics (90%+ on Gamerankings and 93 on Metacritic, similar to the original game's scores), making it one of 2005's Game of the Year contenders. Sales are spectacular, easily topping those of OTL's Viewtiful Joe sequel, with over 250,000 units sold in both North America and Japan in their first weeks of release there (Japan sees it in March 2005, North America gets it on May 17, 2005). It's released exclusively for the Nintendo Wave, but Capcom does leave open the possibility that the Star Siren games might eventually be ported to other consoles (though it wouldn't be until the seventh generation). The success of Star Siren Nakama makes it one of Capcom's most popular franchises and one of the most popular girl-centric franchises in all of gaming.
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Haze
Haze is a 3-D adventure title in the vein of games such as The Legend Of Zelda: Hero Eternal and Beyond Good And Evil. It's published by Electronic Arts and developed by an internal team known as Project Remnant, featuring mostly new developers under the direction of longtime EA staff. Some of the interns for Project Remnant, who contributed small but meaningful elements of the game, included Amir Rao and Gavin Simon, the founders of OTL's Supergiant Games indie studio. The game takes place in a gorgeous fantastical world, a giant forest with seemingly no end, obscured by a mysterious fog that's been there for many aeons. The protagonist is Azora, a beautiful humanoid pixie with a sleek pinkish-purple body featuring plant and bird-like elements, though she still looks largely human, her skin transforms with her emotions and surroundings and she has small insect-like wings that enable her to hover a few inches off the ground when she moves about. Azora has a large level of contextual control over her surroundings. She doesn't have a strict melee attack, she uses magic to attack enemies for the most part but is able to pick up and throw objects as well, and when pinned down or surrounded by enemies and unable to use her magic, the player can use quick-time contextual commands to allow Azora to defend herself or (this is recommended) to escape so she can regroup. Though Haze isn't a combat-heavy game, there are lots of enemies to fight, and eight total bosses (ten if certain "special" encounters are counted, though these are more like mid/puzzle bosses). Azora starts out alone, and stays that way for about the first 20% of the game (save for enemies and non-hostile creatures) before encountering her first friendly and intelligent beings to talk to. Even with these first few people, Azora largely spends much of the game by herself, exploring and interacting with the world. The game's exploration is unique in that it takes on a "radial" form: Azora starts out in a fairly small area and as she pushes outward, the game naturally expands in such a way that the world map grows in all directions, you typically won't start on one end of the map and push onward in a single direction but will explore in a circle as the fog permeating the world recedes due to Azora's actions. The fog, known in Azora's world as "haze" (giving the game its title) has its own mysterious properties, to the point where both the player and characters will get the sense that it has a life of its own. It can randomly move in and out of places, it causes objects and creatures to take on different properties, and there are times when it even seems to "talk" to Azora. The haze ultimately is revealed to have its own personality, but is not entirely malevolent, though it is the main antagonist of the game. Azora's relationship to the haze forms the central basis of the game's plot and drives the action of the game forward as it reaches its climax. Of all the elements of the game, Haze's graphics are easily its most praised. The game combines both stylistic and technical elements and is easily one of the most impressive looking console games ever seen at the time of its release (which is exclusively for the Nintendo Wave). The game pushes the Wave's graphics quite far, with realistic looking shadows and environments and gorgeous animation, and is compared in many ways to Rare's Kameo: The Dreamer, a similar title which would be released two months later. In a lot of ways, Haze is the more impressive of the two, thanks to having EA's considerable resources behind it. The game's musical score is composed by Jeremy Soule, and was his first major post-Lord Of The Rings composition project (having turned down a lucrative film scoring offer to return to scoring games at least for the time being), and the voice acting is performed largely by unknowns. There actually isn't much spoken dialogue in the game, though Azora does speak frequently in narration during cutscenes. She's voiced by an extremely obscure British actress who has little other voice acting experience on her resume either before or since, but her performance is almost universally praised.
Haze begins with Azora waking up after being pursued by some kind of great monster. She awakens in a beautiful field of flowers and doesn't know how long she's been running, but can hear the monster's distant roars and knows she needs to get moving. The first segments of gameplay are an introductory segment, showing off the controls and the first part of the world that Azora needs to explore. She needs to make her way to a great stream, across which the monster cannot cross. Along the way she encounters the game's first real boss, a malevolent goblin, and encounters a scary cave in which she's nearly eaten by a giant spider. She finally makes her way to the stream and crosses it, leaving the monster behind but entering a totally unfamiliar realm. After battling another boss, Azora comes across a small village and the game's first NPCs, and learns of an ancient hollowed out tree and a missing girl. Azora explores the tree and finds the girl turned to stone, along with the evil monster that petrified her. Azora defeats the monster and is able to free the girl from her predicament by crying over her. The girl returns to the village and Azora continues on. A few more adventures and a couple more bosses later and the player will begin to hear the familiar horrifying roars of the monster, who has somehow made it across the stream and is in pursuit of her again. Azora is nearly cornered and killed, but is saved by a legion of pixie knights who seem friendly at first but are actually evil, being influenced by the haze. Though Azora finally realizes their true nature when they burn a village of spritekin to the ground, she is reluctant to fight them because of their strength and because she's befriended one of them, a young male pixie named Leo. Azora flees the pixie knights and goes deeper into the forest, where the monster once again corners her. Azora tries to fight it but is knocked down again, and when Leo shows up and tries to save her, the monster swats him down easily. Azora gathers her courage and learns a new magic spell to defeat the monster at last, which parts a massive section of fog. However, Azora has been weakened in the battle, and is found by the remaining knights and taken as a prisoner to a grand city, where she is recognized as a Wayward One: an intended sacrifice to the fog, who managed to escape her fate. Leo is eventually revealed as the one who saved Azora from being sacrificed, but the haze stole her memories in the process. Azora manages to escape the city, but is confronted once more by the knights, whose leader battles Azora. Azora defeats him, but the other knights surround her, and Leo sacrifices himself to take out the knights and save Azora. Azora can see the haze lifting from the knights, and they realize that they have all been deceived by the haze, which even now threatens to destroy the entire forest. In his dying moment, the leader of the knights makes Azora promise to save everyone, before dying himself. Azora eventually makes her way to a great temple, said to be the source of the haze itself, and battles a mighty dragon. She defeats the dragon, and this seems to scour the haze from the forest. The disappearance of the haze allows Azora to walk out of the forest and into the sunlight for the first time. It's beautiful, and Azora wants to run out into the sunlight's glow... but then she cries out and collapses as the sunlight hits her body. It seems to burn her flesh, and she is nearly killed, but for the haze seemingly pulling her back behind the trees. She wakes up in a lagoon, her wounds being nursed by the haze. The haze tells Azora it is not an oppressor, but a protector, as the forest's denizens have all grown vulnerable to the world outside, which will kill them if they step out of the forest's protection. Azora doesn't want to believe this, and asks what the purpose of sacrificing her was. The haze tells her that it needs to find a new carrier to sustain itself, and because Azora refused the sacrifice, it has begun to lose control and will eventually fade, causing the forest's protection to fail. The haze tells Azora if she can find a new sacrifice, it will restore the haze and the forest's protection will continue. Azora resolves to sacrifice the queen of the pixies, who even now pursues her. Azora confronts the queen on a great battlefield atop a tall forest temple, and the two have a long discussion about everything that's happened thus far. The two realize that both of them are just trying to do what's best for their civilization, but Azora realizes that she can't ask anyone else to make a sacrifice. However, the queen, seeing the purity in Azora's heart and desiring to help her own people, volunteers herself. The haze enters the queen, but it is corrupt, and the queen herself becomes a corrupted being that Azora must battle. Azora defeats the queen, and purges her of the haze. It seems as if the haze will be destroyed by all of this, but Azora is able to contain its power, and takes all of it into herself, purifying the haze, saving the forest, and assuming her role as the "sacrifice". Azora becomes the guardian of the forest, but because of her power and her strength of will, she maintains her sentience and assumes her role as sentinel willingly. The queen, whom Azora saved, becomes Azora's best friend and confidant and her connection to the civilization she protects as the new haze and guardian of all living things.
Haze's excellent production values, gameplay, and storyline all lead to it receiving excellent critical reviews and joining Star Siren Nakama as one of the year's best reviewed games. Though Electronic Arts promotes it heavily, its strange visual appearance and lack of appeal to mainstream gaming demographics cause it to have mediocre sales initially. It's still a "strong" early seller, with around 100,000 or so copies sold in its first week of North American release, but it's not a blockbuster hit, at least right away. It would take good word of mouth, price drops, and a strong holiday sales season to eventually push past a million copies and beyond, but once the game caught its stride, it finally got its critical due. According to Alex Stansfield of Games Over Matter, who gave the game a perfect score: "Take the adventure gameplay and strong female characters of Beyond Good And Evil and combine them with the beautiful but slightly unsettling themes of Fairytale and you have Haze, easily the best game I've played since last year's The Legend Of Zelda: Hero Eternal." The game would be released on June 7, 2005 in North America, with a European release later that month and a Japanese release later that summer. It would perform well in all three territories, and Azora would become an especially popular character amongst fanartists for her strange but gorgeous appearance. Project Remnant would eventually become a separate development studio inside Electronic Arts, which would develop more games in the future, including at least one sequel to Haze. However, not every member of the team would remain with the company for its future projects.
Errrmmm... there's such a massive disparity between how little I know about those shows and how much some of the readers admire them that I'm really nervous I wouldn't be able to do either show justice if I covered them at all ^_^;;; The Thick Of It probably isn't likely to be butterflied away but it's certainly possible it could be by now, so I suppose we'll just say that it ended up mostly like it did IOTL. As for the Doctor Who revival, I mean....honestly I've never followed the show, so I'd be really REALLY worried about blowing it if I covered it. I'm nervous about the upcoming Avatar: The Last Airbender update and it's one of my top 12 favorite TV shows of all time, so that's how nervous I am about doing anything with Doctor Who. I'm sure it'd have to be addressed eventually but let me carve out a day when I can sit down and do it proper justice, even if that day is a long, long, long, LONG time from now.
They're doing just fine. I imagine they'd have done an album at some point between 2004-2006. Honestly, they're probably doing even better than IOTL and may get a #1 song in 2005. We'll see!
Much better, definitely. TTL's Rage isn't quite as good as OTL's Rage though. I imagine that there will be more original games that share titles with OTL games, especially ones with really common nouns as names.
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