Double Agent
Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung - April 19th, 2000 - Chris Jones

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. Running for our lives through the ducks in heat with our eyes closed... worship the comic. Don't say we didn't warn you.


We're gonna talk about the X-Box today, people. We're gonna argue about how closely it conforms to the PC paradigm, how well the PC itself will survive in a world with the PS2 and X-Box, and how evil Microsoft may or may not be.

But first, there's a few burning question on my mind: If I bash Microsoft on a Windows system, does that mean Microsoft knows I'm bashing them? Can they see me through the glass screen I stare into all day? If I burn paper offerings of money in front of my computer, will they be converted to real dollars in Redmond, Washington, and thus appease the Gates god, causing me to be safe from all manner of glitches and crashes? Oh vengeful Bill, tell me who to smite and they shall be smoten!

Ahem... anyway, on with the show.

He's simplifying because he's a slacker
Consoles are designed to do ONE thing. PCs are designed to do MANY things. I think that's it.

-So anyway, I called airport management, and they recommended checking your ski bags and other bulky luggage like assault rifles at the curb, so I'll remember that next time.

AL

This is true, but somewhat irrelevant. Consoles are indeed designed to do one thing, the SNES was supposed to be a bad ass sprite-pusher, while the PS2 is designed to spew out an ungodly number of polygons per second. In the past, if a new type of application came along that did different kinds of calculations than a console was designed for (pushing polys on the SNES) there was nothing that could be done. Theoretically, this could also be the case with the PS2 and X-Box, and it's entirely possible that there'll soon be some great new computationally intensive idea that the PS2 just can't hack because it's not a general processing unit. If we have a repeat of 1993, when somebody comes out with this thing called "Mosaic", you'll probably want a PC and not a PS2 to run it on.

However, even though the PS2 is more a scalpel than a swiss army knife, it's still such a powerful system that it can easily do all the current general things someone might use a PC for - word processing, web surfing, email, spreadsheets. It's like hooking your car engine up to a lawnmower, it's not what the engine was designed for, but it's certainly up to the task. And the PS2 looks way cooler than an iMac, so it's got my vote right there.

Henny Youngman returns
Do you print one-liners?

No, but I've got a million of 'em! *rimshot*

Yeah, I don't get it either. Just walk away...

Domestic stalwart sounds like a really lame superhero
Domestic stalwart. I don't see the all-in-one-box thing happening anytime soon. Besides, I figure it'd be much harder to download porn with a console than PC.

Speaking of the X-Box, why haven't I heard anything good about it? Pretend your Bill Gate's for a second and try to sell me one, Chris. Humor me.

~Ian P.

Ian asks, and I obey. While I can't be as convincingly wishy-washy as Gates is in marketing mode, X-Box does have some strong points, as follows:

  • It's releasing at least 6 months after Dolphin, and a solid year and a half after the PS2. This is a huge lead time to develop some very impressive technology, and while some would argue that the PS2 is already approaching graphical perfection, I think the X-Box could be the difference between "almost photorealistic" and "really photorealistic."
  • It's got Microsoft behind it. Microsoft is never my choice if I want something done perfectly, but they always manage to do enough of a semi-competent job to stay afloat in an area, if not take it over outright. (Web browsers, operating systems in both home and office, productivity applications, web content, and PC games... little of it is really top notch, but it's all out there and not doing badly.)
  • Microsoft also knows how to market, to both end users and developers. Getting both to buy into the X-Box will be key, but I think they can pull it off.
  • There's some argument over to what extent Microsoft will leverage what they have for the PC, as far as software and existing business setups. But if they do manage to use anything they've got for the PC, that's probably a bonus.

So there you have it. While I don't like the idea of Microsoft in the console world, and probably won't buy the X-Box myself, they've got potential to be a major player. Deal with it, folks.

My evil opposite. I must destroy him.
Wowsers, I'm pretty much your evil opposite on this whole music thing. Although I don't personally dislike Bruce Springsteen as many people seem to (I remember when he was the Man, when Born to Run was fairly contemporary rather than a classic, and I can even pinpoint when he stopped being "cool" - the Bloom Country strip where the middle-aged suburbanite got him mixed up with Billy Joel), the vast majority of the music I listen to these days is game related. You know how hard it is to explain that to most people? The average schmoe doesn't realize that game music has evolved beyond Super Mario Bros. Apparently, it's laughable to enjoy things like the haunting, atmospheric Japanese-tinged acoustic/electronic-hybrid themes of Tenchu, but ideal to listen to the latest market-driven Top 40 inventions approved for play 15 times daily on your favorite satellite-fed radio station. Ah, America.

I can sympathize with your disinterest in MIDI-based music though. I find that as much as I enjoyed my FFIII and Chrono Trigger OSTs 4 or 5 years ago, they sound pretty flat and lifeless these days... although interestingly, I still enjoy listening to more energetic and less orchestral MIDI stuff. Symphonic string-and-horn arrangements don't really work as simple samples, but the battle themes from Final Fantasy II still kick patootie.

I suppose it would be a bald-faced lie for me to deny there's a strong element of nostalgia here. I'm currently listening to the Megaman Legends OST, which by most accounts isn't a great album. However, it's the closest in spirit I've ever heard a 32-bit soundtrack come to the old NES action games like Megaman 2 and Contra. Simple, catchy, but just interesting and varied enough to rise above the "stop playing that or I'll kill you" feeling of, say, the Zelda overworld theme. I even have a few REALLY old soundtracks, like the Dracula MIDI collection (with all the old 8/16-bit Castlevania themes) and Salamander Again (best known as Life Force stateside), but that's mostly because I'm a freak.

I'm sadly addicted to video games and have been for 20 years. Listening to their themes has the same sort of pleasant flashback quality that I get when I smell certain sorts of food. Except it tends not to make me as hungry. There's also the fact that game OSTs tend to remind me of British "prog rock," which I shamefully love - compare Uematsu's work to Emerson Lake and Palmer sometime: Dancing Mad is basically the The Three Fates featuring Kefka's Theme.

And there are, in my opinion, a number of OSTs that do stand up on their own - besides Chrono Cross and FFTactics as you mentioned, Tenchu, Metal Gear Solid, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Suikoden and Einhander are all solid performers. And Strider 2 is great for an that olde-tyme gaming feeling. And so forth.

Riverdancing my way to the stars,
J. Parish

While I too remember the Bloom County strip of which you speak, I believe Breathed still thinks the Boss is pretty cool. Witness the similarity between the covers of Springsteen's live 3 CD set and "Billy and the Boingers Bootleg". Berke Breathed rocks, btw, he went to school here in Austin and was arrested twice for keeping a live alligator in his bathtub. You just gotta admire that.

Anyway, moving on to topics that people who don't remember the 80's can still enjoy, I can certainly respect listening to video game music instead of Pop Song of the Month #183. Morons follow the charts, the rest of us have these things called "character" and "personal taste", and listen to what we like accordingly.

I tend to see nostalgia as the driving force behind most video game music. I thought FF8's OST was good enough to warrant importing from Japan for a relatively hefty sum of money, and even though I don't listen to it all that much anymore, I'm not sorry I did. But I'd be lying if I said the evocative pull of the music wasn't the reason why I appreciate a good chunk of it. The Extreme is a good song, but if I hadn't fought the final boss while listening to it I don't think I'd enjoy it near as much. Other, non-RPG playing people I've loaned the soundtrack to tend not to care for it, even when they have a significantly stronger taste for classical music than I do, which supports my theory.

The good news (or bad, depending on your point of view) is that music seems to be getting better (or at least more accessible) as games become more mainstream. Chrono Cross is easily good enough for me or anyone else to enjoy, even when they haven't played the game. With the heavy duty sound processing most consoles have today and the huge storage space post-CD games have, we should still see much more game music that can't be told apart from live performance. Even if most of it's still pop crap, there should be one or two gems forthcoming. Can't wait.

It's an idea. Not a good one, but an idea.
You do a lot of columns. Have you ever thought of doing a row?

No, but here's a secret. If you assemble any given month's DA columns together and place them side by side, they'll form a two dimensional matrix of letters and replies. The patterns of tan, white, black and red will either form a picture of a character from an upcoming Square game, or represent a binary code naming the hidden web page where Hironobu Sakaguchi has outlined the plot for the next 5 Final Fantasies. Try it and see!

I'm honored, sir, really
A dying breed hopefully. I absolutely hate playing games on a PC. The only good thing about them is the availibility of extra buttons that allows more complicated stuff. But the problems of bugs, compatibility, constant expensive upgrades in graphics/sound cards really piss me off. What I want to see is Sony release a keyboard (actually it has USB capability so you can just connect a regular keyboard huh?) so you can have the best of both worlds. Well, umm, that's it. At least it's under 500 words right? ; )

P.S: Since everyone's recommending S.F. books to you I'll give you my personal favorite. Armor by John Steakley. Hands down the best book I've read yet. At least look into it on Amazon or something.

Your #1 Fan,
Bruce Springsteen

(you wish)

Extra buttons and upgrades aside, I just don't find the PC as comfortable a place for playing games as I do the TV. I'm not sure why, since for a time I sat in the same place to use either one and my computer monitor was actually bigger than my television. It may actually have something to do with ease of use - plug in a cart or CD, press the button, and you're there, on a console. None of the hassle of logging on to the system, selecting what game you want to play, and making sure that no other program is running that will interfere with the game. Anybody else have opinions on the matter?

The Insider. No not him, the other one
Alright.

This is in response to Jessica Diane Reitz's statement yesterday about why the X-box must/will fail. First of all, I will state that I do work for Microsoft's Playtesting Department, and as such have had exposure to what Microsoft is planning on doing with the X-box.

First point - Microsoft does *not* intend to make any direct conversions of PC games to the console. They are aware that the game play 'paradigm' is different. Some games may be 'ported' with edited user interfaces and such, but no direct crossovers. Also, I do not beleive Microsoft is going to adopt a 'Release Now, Port Later' model. The hard drive is too small for such things, first of all. And secondly, Microsoft has taken a long hard look at the console market and knows that while some PC gamers will put up with it, this behavior will spell death for a console.

Microsoft, much to my suprise, seems to understand the console market. The fact that many of us are rabid gamers in our own right doesn't hurt. I think people will be pleasantly suprised by the X-box, and personally hope to be astounded at least once.

Peace.

-Sean Achterman

I assume you're referring to the "Release Now, Patch Later" model, and from what I've read, the hard drive is quite roomy at 8 gigs, plenty of room for several good sized (~50 meg) patches.

If what you say is correct, tho, I'm a little disappointed. While I'm a die hard console gamer, there are a lot of PC games I've wished I could play, PC interface and all, such as Starcraft and Half-Life. I reject the notion that these games need to be watered down for me to enjoy them, and I think Microsoft is making things much harder for developers by not having a PC/X-Box transparent development environment. At the very least, being able to port directly on to the X-Box would mean tiny homebrew projects would have a remote chance of seeing their game on a console system, if the game was really good enough. And none of the Net Yaroze "inside 2 megs of RAM" limitations either.

The PS2 is a threat to this entire country
If, in fact the PS2 can be used as a missile guiding system, don't you think that it would have been wiser of Japan not to bring the point up? I really doubt that terrorists were sitting around going "Hey...That new PS2 might just be able to launch missiles!" However, now that that fact has been broadcast on CNN, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them try to get some to see if it could in fact launch missiles.

-JWH

BTW...Bruce does rule. You gotta respect someone that puts on 3+ hour concert sets....

I don't think any sane person actually believes the PS2 could successfully be adapted as a missile system, or that if it could be, any paltry restrictions on it would stop it from leaving the country. This looks to be a bit of preening to me - Japan saying, "look, we're such technological badasses that even our video games are potentially dangerous." The US did the same thing with the G4 Macintosh, and in both cases the manufacturers played the hell out of it in the media.

Closing Comments:

That was better than squishing frogs with a sledgehammer, but not as good as squishing copies of Superman 64 with a sledgehammer. If you've got any feedback on PCs vs consoles or game music, let's hear it. Catch you tomorrow.

-Chris Jones, who thinks "X-Box" should have a better name

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