Final Fantasy Tactical Espionage Action - May 17, 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. I'm sitting here working on
the column despite Vagrant Story sitting unopened two feet away. Now that's dedication!
Don't say we didn't warn you.
Some interesting news from the Far East - apparently FF 9 will be shipping earlier rather
than later to avoid tangling with DQ7's new release date. I doubt this will affect the US
release date, but it does make me wonder how strong DQ7 really is, if it continues this
constant tactical withdrawal. The software coder in me smells a botched development cycle
that someone's desperately trying to patch, ala Daikatana. Marketing departments would
generally eat their own livers rather than miss a publicized ship date and this is at
least DQ's 3rd, which makes me think that things were Not Good on the technical side at
one point.
But I admit I don't know the inside details, so we'll find out the truth in August. Or
later, if the game gets delayed again, which wouldn't surprise me.
The Arch Nemesis contest... is over! I'll be tallying
the votes, contacting the winners for acceptance speeches and writing up an awards column
this weekend. Keep an eye peeled for it on Monday.
Onward.
| They get mean when you hit them. Wonder why? |
| With all of this commentary about the AI in MGS for the Playstation, I
thought I'd mention that the guards are considerably smarter in the Gameboy version.
Simply-- if you're spotted, after they've gone through their Alert and Evade schpeils,
they're still looking around, off of their patrol patterns, for a good long time. And they
have a nasty tendency to see right through the cardboard box thing at that point, as well.
Beating the crap out of the guards also garners a much improved response-- instead of a
"Huh?" and then business as usual, you're treated to a faster, meaner guard with
an erratic patrol route.
Thought I'd mention this, just to point out that Kojima and crew are making great
strides in bad guy intelligence. |
Another interesting piece of info regarding the kickass qualities of MGS on the GBC. (I
love saying that.) Kudos to Mr. Kojima, tho this just makes me more anxious to play the
next game in the series.
| Bob from Jersey: the next Sakaguchi |
| howdy Chris, I think that instead of just censoring out cigarettes
from Metal Gear, Konami should simply have Snake bitch alot about how tobacco taxes are
way too high and how he can't afford to smoke them anymore.
On a more serious note, with this whole RPGMaker thing, I myself am not too interested
in making a game because I don't feel I have the creativity in the field. (I would love to
make the music for a game, but that's another story). But i would surely be interested in
playing other people's creations. I assume it won't be hard to find a ton of home-made
games on the net, but I also assume that a good portion of those will be crap and the
really good ones (if there are any) will be tough to find. So do you suppose it's possible
that The GIA might review and post the games that you all feel are exceptional and worthy
of our time? I realize that this would most likely be a bitch to do, but i have faith in
The GIA and the power that your all mighty establishment wields.
yours cruelly,
opul (Map Man of La Mancha) |
I don't think Snake's hurting for cash. The way I see it, the guards in MGS drop the
same amount of cash that enemies in RPGs do, but we never see it because Snake pockets the
loot for himself.
I don't know what plans the site has for dealing with homebrew RPGs, but I doubt we'd
do official reviews since we've got our hands full doing reviews and vaults of
professionally developed games. However, it's possible that we could set up special game
archives or a message board for discussing game development or fan reviews.
| Final Fantasy 101 |
| Eh. Seems to me that if you choose not to attempt to educate yourself
about what your children are doing (like MGS on GBC), then you can't complain when they do
something you don't approve of. But that's just me. |
That would work, if it weren't for the fact that it's nearly impossible for a lot of
parents to get a good idea of what's inside games. I don't think my mom could start a game
of Metal Gear Solid if her life depended on it.
And even if they start the game, how much should they have to play to get an idea of
what's inside? An RPG might be 40 hours long, but nothing objectionable happens for 5
hours. And even 5 hours might be prohibitively long for a busy parent to play a game -
they might simply ban their kids entirely from playing games rather than do the needed
research. If people did this it might mean fewer censorship fights, but also much fewer
people buying games which isn't in anyone's best interests.
| Another 2D Metroid, yeah right |
| Chris, There have been a lot of people talking about who's better,
Miyamoto or Kojima. Well, I don't have much to say on that since I haven't played MGS, and
personally, I have been quite disappointed with the crop of games on N64. Mario wasn't
much fun to me and Zelda was good, but not anywhere near the best game of all time, IMHO.
The story was just too cliche, but then again, almost all stories are.
What I'm getting at is that you mentioned Metroid in one of your replies. Metroid was
one of my fav games for the NES and Super Metroid was DEFINATELY one of my favorite
non-rpg games of all time. I'd LOVE a Metroid 4. My problem is: I'm a purist. If they make
a Metroid game, I want them to make it 2d-side scrolling action and not 3D. I want Metroid
to remain Metroid. But I'm weird. It just seems that everybody wants every game to be
completely 3D, but I know there's people out there that loved some of these 2D games from
back in the day. Why don't they cater to us??? :)
Well, hope to hear back from you on this one.
FLee |
I've already claimed Metroid as one of my favorite games of all time. But the chances
of seeing another 2D Metroid, especially on Dolphin, are nil at best. And I don't mind
that.
Look, we heard a lot of these complaints when Chrono Cross was announced as a 3D title,
but nobody I've talked to who's actually played the game has any complaints about it being
in 3D, or Akira Toriyama's not doing the character designs. I wouldn't want to see a
blurry, foggy FPS Metroid on the N64, but if someone could do a good 3rd person engine on
the Dolphin that preserved the labyrinthine feel of the previous games, I'd be cool with
it. If Samus could look as good or better than Snake does in the MGS2 footage, say by
showing off indirect lighting effects from small displays in her helmet reflecting off of
her near-photorealistic face, that would make my year. It's the fun in the game more than
any specific design attribute that makes or breaks a game, and pretending otherwise is
just dumb.
| More good news from the Ministry of Truth |
Chris Jones in his May 10th column:
"Tons of people have asked how to get one, but unfortunately all shirts are currently
spoken for by staff members, E3 attendees, and various hangers-on." Chris Jones in
his May 16th column:
"In addition to the winner getting a shiny new GIA t-shirt, I've also arranged for
the winner, runner up, and editor's choice winners to receive incredibly valuable
specially commissioned Drew Cosner AwardsT!"
This means that either Chris is giving his own personal GIA shirt away (not likely), OR
he was lying about them being all spoken for, and in that case I want one.
I will expose you Chris. I'll expose you for the liar you really are! (Actually, you'll
be exposing yourself if you print this in the column, so, uhm...damn.)
You've foiled me this time, Chris, but I'll get you next time!
-Aaron L. |
What can I say? I only pass on the information given to me, and I was initially told
all the shirts were spoken for. When I found out that a few might be available, I did my
damnedest to secure at least one of them for the contest. But even now I'm not sure if I
can only get my hands on the one extra, or more. And you're right, I'm sure as heck not
giving up my shirt.
And before you ask, no, we can't sell them, only give them away. It's complicated, so
don't pursue the subject further.
| Stop torturing me, dammit! |
| hey, i've been fortunate to have vagrant story for a few days now, and
i have to say in my opinion it's the best non-"traditional"-(whatever that
means)-RPG in a long ass time, probably since metal gear, and where i am now (in the
town), i might even think it's better than metal gear solid. i do have to say that the
whole opening/intro/thingie was just god damn cool, and the big bad boss almost rivals
sephiroth (someone's plotting my death right now, i can feel it). i tried really hard in
this short letter to not give any spoilers, as i'm kinda far already (i kinda gave up
school for this game), and i hope i didn't ruin anything for you.. i can't wait for you to
see the intro. squaresoft is stronger than ever i'd have to say.
hmm... vagrant story, chrono cross, legend of mana (who gives a f%@$ if the import got
bad reviews), and ff9? squaresoft rules the world.
also, i know your going to 'wait-and-see' about the playstation2 (unless you changed
your mind), but i was hoping you could ask your readers what their plans are. for some
unknown reason i'm prepaying it, and probably without a launch title to go with it. yes i
know thats ridiculous, prepaying a 300 dollar system with no game to play on it, but it's
my video game addiction or something that makes me have to have it on the day of its
release, although the launch titles appear to suck ass (at least the japanese ones did,
i'm not positive what the american launch titles are). so could you ask your readers what
their plans for the ps2 is?, like a topic of the day or some such nonsense?
thanks chris, your a good man,
-Zack "the stone boss in vagrant story is a bastard - you'll see" Ready |
Look, I'm trying to be a good guy and get you your column for the day instead of
running off and playing VS, but you're not making it easy on me. So let's not mention...
that game... and I'll try to keep working. (No, not that game, the other one.)
When I was in the store today picking up... that other game... I noticed a preorder
sign for the PS2 and asked the clerk how many orders they'd gotten so far. "A
lot" was the answer, so if you do pick it up ASAP you'll be in good company. But the
only game I've seen so far that makes me want to pick it up straight away is Square EA's
The Bouncer, which has been announced as a US release title. If the game gets good
reviews, I might take a look, but otherwise I'd just as soon reserve my October for FF9
and wait a few months for the price to come down.
But by all means, if you folks have got comments on picking up the PS2 on launch day,
send 'em in.
| Author: Square Title: Xenogears |
| Yo Chris, As you know, some videogames contain some good sayings or
quotes. Once, I wanted to use one of Krelian's ("Man cannot associate with others
without first deceiving himself") because it fit in with an English paper that I was
writing. Then I realized that I don't know what the proper footnote or bibliographical
form for videogames would be. Do you have any clue?
--The Steve |
No clue. My first instinct would be to check the latest Modern Language Association
(MLA) handbook and see if there's anything in there. Barring that, I'd try to pass it off
as a TV show, movie or novel, whatever you feel comfortable with.
Closing Comments:
Ok, that was short and I apologize. I didn't get to as many letters as I would have
liked, because even though the column's shorter than usual it's taken longer than usual,
due to me stopping to think about Vagrant Story every five minutes. The preoccupation
probably shows through in my replies, but I'm sure you can sympathize.
No set topic for tomorrow, let me see what's on your minds. I'll have VS impressions
next column. Later.
-Chris Jones: "Come on, it's a Square game, what did you expect?" |
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