http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3170048
Well I guess the article is more about the Foreign Video Game Unlawful Assembly 2K8 in general, but whatever...
[quote]I can say with complete confidence that I have never been to any industry event quite like "Foreign Video Game Unlawful Assembly 2K8", held by Suda51 of Killer 7 and No More Heroes fame as part of Grasshopper Manufacture's ongoing tenth anniversary celebrations. Essentially an excuse to sit down with three of his industry buddies to chat about his passion for Western games, the event boasted an eclectic lineup: The masked man known only as Mask de UH (a frequent compatriot of Suda's), Masahiro Sakurai (Kirby series, Smash Bros. series), and Kazutoshi Iida (Aquanaut's Holiday, Doshin the Giant, Tail of the Sun).
We'll be bringing you a more in-depth look at the event next week after we sort through four hours of video, cull the best moments, and subtitle them accordingly, but needless to say Unlawful Assembly was jam-packed with seemingly endless industry tidbits that dropped with machine gun rapidity. The candor of the panelists was surprising in a country that typically guards its secrets with superhuman zeal. The only "news", per se, came in the form of Suda announcing that his early PlayStation 1 work The Silver Case will be coming to PSN (his EA project was strictly no comment), but the insights gleaned were fascinating.
The panel commenced with a "History of the first-person shooter" by Mask de UH, which began with Wolfenstein and continued to the latest ultra-violent blast-fests. A particularly amusing moment occurred when Mask de UH tore an in-game enemy apart with machine gun fire while bellowing, "DIE YOU BASTARD!" in English. I was more enthralled with the reactions of the Japanese event goers than the presentation itself. Scenes of carnage were met with uneasy laughter, though the panelists themselves were more magnanimous, citing recent U.S. Army recruitment FPSes as indicative of the infinite potential videogames hold. The first half of the event closed with a trivia bombshell -- according to Suda, the original Resident Evil was being planned as an FPS (!), but series creator Shinji Mikami nixed the idea, "killing" the future of Japanese FPSes in the process.
Being intimately familiar with first-person shooters and their particular shaved-head, ultra-macho charms, the second half of the panel was far more interesting to me. This section was more free-form, with topics ranging from the superior technical skills of Western developers, to recent projects like the new Prince of Persia and Ubisoft's Naruto games displaying a brazenly Japanese aesthetic, to open criticism of Japanese developers' current penchant for low-cost "non-games" like Brain Age. Sakurai in particular was quite damning of this trend, insisting that it can only lead the Japanese game industry to ruin. If Japan continues to concentrate on such a narrow spectrum of genres, Sakurai feels, more and more developers will go out of business, perpetuating an ugly downward spiral. All the panelists seemed to agree that it was time to rethink their processes and reconsider what it means for a game to be uniquely Japanese.
"Foreign Video Game Unlawful Assembly 2K8" made one thing clear: These Japanese developers, at least, are not living in a bubble. All of them have great respect for Western games?Mask de UH is currently enjoying Castle Crashers, and Sakurai mentioned that he had finished BioShock without harvesting any Little Sisters. Much more interesting information will be forthcoming next week when we complete our in-depth report.
wow, they're cool with huge robot tentacle dick rape but not some exploding heads? queers
although having sakurai and suda together would have been awesome