Tomlinson Holman Experiment 2276 - June 12, 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. Why 2276? Because we're twice
as cool, baby! Don't say we didn't warn you.
Rage.
That's what I felt last night, at about 1am CDT. I was so close to the end of Vagrant
Story, but then hit a snag where I was locked out of somewhere. I wandered around for an
hour, but accomplished nothing. Finally talked to someone who told me what I have to do,
although it's gonna have to wait until I'm done with the column. But I swear, I'll beat
Vagrant Story tonight or die trying, and maybe even get into LoM if I'm lucky. So no time
to waste.
Onward.
| Still not as good as a coder's job |
| It seems to me that many people are against the advantages of the PS One,
but I am not. You see, I have a security job and I work from 10pm to 4am, I usually read
or play GBC to while away the 6 hours (would you believe they pay me 9.50$ an hour to do
this?) I for one would be thrilled to own a PS One. I could play all of my favorite PSX
games at work. The only problem is no report of any type of battery pack, but that's okay,
I have outlets at work. I think it would be far easier to lug a PS One to work as opposed
to a TV, VCR (I never bought an RFU adapter) and my PSX. I guess technology isn't far
enough along for a handheld PSX..... Akira Toriyama
(Really! 9.50$ an hour to sit on my ass and do whatever my heart desires!) |
I'll concede that you may be one of the few people for whom it makes sense to get a PS
One and LCD display - lots of free time, semi-remote location. I think for the rest of us
however, it's unlikely to be much more than an aesthetic upgrade.
$9.50 an hour to do nothing, until some random night somebody comes in and shoots you
for the $20 located on the premises. I'll stick with programming, thanks all the same.
| You can't resist it |
| Crap. All that talk of LoM has convinced me to pick it up sometime. And I
wasn't planning to either. Damn it. ~Ian P. |
It's ok, Ian, I'm sure there's an upcoming purchase you can put off for a while. You
know, like food or something.
| But without brand loyalty, how would I chose
GAP over Sears? |
| Chris, You know what I'm sick of? You know what I'm REALLY sick of?
Brand loyalty.
Brand loyalty is why WWF attitude sold. Brand loyalty is why SNK shut its doors. And
brand loyalty, my friend, is why the Dreamcast is going to eventually flop.
Here we have Sega. A happy, wonderful company, with hundreds of employees gladly
displaying their bright, shining faces as they crank out thoughtful, innovative titles
like Space Channel 5, Shen Mue, Jet Grind Radio, and much of Resident Evil: Code Veronica.
Their programmers are second to none. Yu Suzuki and Yuji Naka are their top innovators.
Then, over here, we have Sony. They're a large multimedia conglomerate with some
gigantic market share. Their system is more powerful, despite a few chinks in the armor.
They have Street Fighter 3 EX Plus Alpha, IQ Remix+, and Tekken Tag Tournament. They are a
hardware company with many, many bad first-party titles. They have oodles of third-party
support, yet they are only good at manufacturing hardware. Why is this?
Brand loyalty.
Microsoft has a big bin full of money attached to the side of its building. They are a
bunch of people who enjoy writing "USAR FRENDLY" programs which everyone's
complained about, and yet only a specific few have even TRIED to fix by making something
better. You know why this is?
No, it's not brand loyalty. It's laziness. Got ya for a second.
The Neo Geo Pocket Color. SNK thought they had it MADE. A 16-bit portable system with
GREAT games. A cool advertising campaign on Comedy Central. Metal Slug: First Mission and
SNK Versus Capcom. They died. The Game Boy Color, Nintendo's nuclear missile with a Tommy
Hilfiger logo slapped onto the front, stamped it out like a chihuahua under my sneaker.
Why is this?
Brand Loyalty. People would rather have excrement-filled ports of Tony Hawk Pro Skater
and "original" games like Ring Rage and Dinosaur. Sad.
Anyway, back to Sony and Sega. People say that it's not who can supply the most eye
candy, but rather, it's who can ship more quality entertainment out of their little
crank-operated programming machines, but we all know that Sega has been doing that for a
year and a half in Japan and it hasn't done a thing for them. It all stopped mattering
when the bigger, prettier system with gigantic, beautiful silicon microchips. Look at an
issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly for further proof. Honestly, how many good games are
out for the PSX2 right now? Two? Three?
Now keep in mind; I'm not saying that Sony isn't going to have some sweet games for its
new, boffo system; I am personally looking forward to Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee. But it
INFURIATES me that so many people are drooling over the PSX2 for its hardware and NOT
where they SHOULD be, at the SOFTWARE. I'd best be getting a used Genesis and a DVD player
before getting that. Nothing is worth seeing a good and decent brand die out simply
because people wanted to see Crash Bash and The Bouncer for. Come on.
Brand loyalty: As serious gamers, our worst enemy.
-Cedric "Lobst" Henry |
I feel your pain, specifically at the death of SNK and the Neo Geo Pocket. I don't go
for handheld systems for reasons I've mentioned before, but it would have been nice to
have an alternative to the GBC if and when I did start playing handhelds again.
On the other hand, there may have been a few things SNK could have done better. Like, I
don't know, ads on a network somebody watches instead of Comedy Central (can you say
Toonami?) And making the original Neo Geo a workable home system instead of an obscure
monstrosity that only the super wealthy could afford would have probably given SNK a much
stronger position in the US these days.
By most accounts, the Dreamcast is actually doing ok, even in Japan, so maybe you're
overstating the rest of your case a bit. And even I, the apotheosis of gaming wisdom
incarnate, had some serious brand loyalty once upon a time. I got an SNES instead of a
Genesis because of my Nintendo fixation, even though the Genesis was a quite decent little
machine with some solid games, if only I'd bothered to play them. I got lucky when the
SNES grew into an excellent platform, although I haven't been quite so lucky with the N64
thus far.
In a perfect world, the Dreamcast would be strongly positioned, and the PS2 would be
the underdog. Heck, in a perfect world most people would use Macs (or Be), hard core users
would do Linux, and Windows would have died a short, painful death. But this ain't that
world, and all we can do is hope people learn better. I think I have.
| Belfor's not the man, Pikachu is! How many
times must I say it? |
| Dear AK I know this is kind of late, but I just heard the news of the
Stars yesterday and wanted to share my condolences with you. Im not even from Dallas, but
my hatred for the avs makes the Stars like my go-to team for revenge of the Red Wings. I
didnt see many of the series games, but I gotta say of the ones I did see, Belfour is the
man. He is a very talented goalie with all kinds of skills.
A squid in Rota Spain
PS:I understand everything that was said about Microsofts dealings with other companies
and Ill admit I dont know to much about the things they did to those other companies, Its
just that in my opinion the government fouls up most things it gets its hands into,
especially the business world. I must admit though, the trillionaire that is Bill Gates
doesnt have much in common with joe schmoe who is just trying to keep his small pizza
place above water but has trouble because of the governments interference. I wonder if I
can say these things even though Im on the mans payroll? Hmmmm?
PPS: Yes Im talking about your avs Mr. Freeman....Detroit all the way! |
I don't know much about hockey or sports in general, although much like the man who
goes to see ballgames for the hot dogs, I do like good sports writing. In this case, I
think a recent
column by the great Frank Deford sums up the current state of hockey quite well.
I don't know enough about your situation to accurately assess the irony of disapproving
of the government and soldiering for them at the same time. But to play devil's advocate
yet again, I think the US has an excellent free market system, thanks to the government as
much as anything. We're not nearly as regulated as in other countries, like in Europe, and
the presence of a certain amount of oversight prevents serious corruption problems, like
in East Asia and Russia. There's always the possibility that more fine tuning one way or
another could strengthen the economy more, but perhaps the reason Joe Schmoe's pizza place
exists at all is thanks to a government loan, or because of laws that prevent Domino's
from muscling him out of business. Who knows?
The application of the above logic to the SNK/GBC situation will be left as an exercise
to the reader.
| Nightmare of Mana *Potential LoM spoilers, I
guess* |
| After writing how easy the enemies were, I restarted Legend of Mana, to
find out what Square had put in for the second go-around. One little tid bit is the
"Forbidden Tome" encyclopedia. Go into the study and select this book. It will
ask you if you want to live in peace. Say no. Then say "yes" to whether you wish
to live a nightmare. By doing so, it activates "Nightmare Mode" where the
enemies become stronger and tougher. This should help balance out the enemy problem.
Legend of Mana IS a fun game, I wouldn't give it a second time if it weren't, but I
agree with AK, Square turned a masterpiece into something less than.
EdgarFigaro |
I hope to know what he's talking about in a few days. As it is I'll just pass this
along and move on.
| More Rage Against the (Political) Machine |
| Yo Chirs, Check this out. I was on break the other day, and because I
was really bored and had nothing better to do, I picked up the Supermarket News in the
lounge and read an interesting article in the entertainment section. It seems good ol Sen.
Lieberman and John McCain are pushing for a better ratings system for movies. They feel
the current ratings just don't cut it anymore, so they want a ratings system more like the
ESRB, because they think that it is the most effective system out there.
Uh, the ESRB? Effective? Does this mean that all movies will now say "Suggestive
Themes" and "Mild Violence" on them (I think those are the only ones they
have now, because they're the only ones on just about every game I own). The ESRB is a
joke, ineffective and completely pointless. I think it was created for the sole purpose of
getting stupid people screaming "video games are evil" to shut up and feel like
they actually accomplished something. I'd give some examples of stupid ESRB ratings, but
they've all been mentioned before though I have yet to see any "Suggestive
Themes" in LoM (please, please tell me that the quest where the penguin is going to
lay an egg isn't to blame). But really, no one takes these ratings seriously. Most of the
time, I don't even know what games are rated because I never bother to look. I know it
supposedly prevents kids from buying M rated games, but then again, that doesn't mean they
can't have their parents buy/rent these games for them instead (that is, provided
retailers and video stores even pay attention to game ratings, which most haven't since
about '96 or '97).
Anyway, let's hope this bill (forgot it's name) doesn't pass, because that means that
not only will we have ridiculous ratings on both movies and video games, but video stores
everywhere will have to spend many hours taking down every movie in stock and labeling
them with the new ratings (and that could take a very long time).
Z Man |
"Suggestive themes," near as I can tell, means any kind of romantic
relationship, or even hinting that two characters might be thinking of such a thing. It's
fortunate no game developer seems to care about getting this rating, or else we'd have to
go back to the days when Mario and the Princess consummated their relationship by standing
five feet away from each other and looking confused.
I guess Lieberman and Mr. McCain (who generally didn't seem to be so delusional as
Lieberman when he was on the campaign trail - what happened, John?) like the ESRB because
it gives some indication about what causes a Teen or Mature rating. (Language, violence,
etc.) The fact that such sub-ratings are at least as fuzzy as the primary ratings movies
currently get seems to have slipped their attention.
But as you say, the perception that something's been done is often a boon to those who
might be afflicted. Some television got significantly better once ratings went up - I
don't think certain Batman Beyond episodes could have been shown on Saturday mornings
prior to the "Y7-FV" warning label. (Some television also got much trashier, but
fortunately you don't have to watch it.) A lot of people, from Lieberman and McCain to
Trey Parker and Matt Stone (South Park) all think the current movie ratings system needs
overhauling. If this calms people down, maybe it's worth it.
| I... don't... see... any... slowdown... |
| You know I've had insane battles with both characters casting
spells/using special techniques at the same time a huge boss unleashes his mega flashy
attack and I did not notice a hair of lag. I was surprised myself, "wow, my psx
rocks." Do you guys really notice slowdown? And hey, don't say I probably wouldn't be
able to notice the slowdown. I regularly tweak my Quake3 framerates - I can notice a
difference in framerate up to the refresh rate of my ancient monitor. Sincerely,
Fares Alhassen
P.S. I did notice a slowdown while loading a town section in Domina, but that was
probably due more to my worn out cd lens than anything else |
Again, haven't played it, but passing the info along to the rest of you.
| It's an idea... not a good one, but an idea... |
| Couldn't we just fix the PS2 anti-aliasing problem our selves by placing
wax paper over our tv screens. Everything would be smooth and blurred together then. |
That would work, but I've got a better idea - hit yourself in the head so that
everything gets blurred like in Perfect Dark. That way you save the expense of the wax
paper!
| I got your Robert Zimmerman right here, man! |
| Chris You better enjoy LoM 'cause it's probably gonna be Square's last
2D game. Handhelds not included.
-Agent X "the times, they are a changin'"
P.S. Am I the only one who thinks that Survivor is just Road Rules without the road? |
I don't think LoM is gonna be Square's last 2D game, because there's still a big
difference between the ultra-detailed cartooniness of SD4 and the ultra-realism we've seen
in the FF Movie. (I think we have to treat the FF Movie footage as the current best
indicator of where Sakaguchi wants to put the series in 5-10 years.)
However, that thought lets me segue neatly into tomorrow's topic, so...
Closing Comments:
Downloaded the FF9 trailer, and I'm starting to be impressed. The realism and fluidity
of FF8 is there, which I didn't expect, but the visual style's entirely different. The
point being that I'm interested in hearing what your take on the matter is. I'm also
interested in hearing if you think LoM is the last of Square's 2D games. (Or any major
developer's, for that matter - after all, even DQ has gone 3D.) If you're a hard
core fan, are there any visual tricks can do in 3D to give you that old school 2D feeling,
or is only the real thing acceptable?
Also, try to articulate why you think this is gonna happen. Letters about the joy of
playing DQ1 for the first time are great, and suggesting that there's always gonna be a
core market of 2D fans out there is great too. But take into consideration that games are
tied into evolving hardware, and must nearly always change as the chips do. What concrete,
rational argument could you make to a development house CEO, his eyes locked on the 3D
promised land, that would make him want to make a "true" sequel to Chrono
Trigger or Metroid? I'm really interested in seeing what ya'll come up with. Later.
-Chris Jones: "This is the end for you, Agent Riot!" |
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