Double Agent
Let the feast of fools begin! - June 22, 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. Calling Elvis, is anybody home? Don't say we didn't warn you.

We got a lot of good emails on dumbass things people have done in games, several of which made me laugh out loud as they came in, which made everybody at work look funny at me. But no matter, I think you'll enjoy this.

And just for the sake of fairness, let me start off with one of the many, many stupid things I've done in my many years of game playing: I didn't realize you could change the level of your Limit Breaks in FF7 until after I was done with the whole game. Yep, I played through thinking Cross Slash was as good as it got.

Needless to say, Omnislash looked comparatively much more interesting...

Onward.

Starting off easy
The stupidest thing I have ever done in a game would have to be messing up my Gran Turismo 2 save by turning my playstation off a nanosecond before the game finished saving. This game must have had at lest 50 hours of game time on it. I finished all of the events, all of the endurance races and most of the manufacturers events. I had almost every significant car, even the rare ones. Not to mention the time I spent fine tuning. I actually felt my heart stop upon discovering that I couldn't load. Biggest pain in the ass ever.

-Sideshow Jeff

This wasn't real bright of Jeff, but I suspect we've all done something similar at one point or another. I've never lost a console game that way, but I have deleted more than a few computer files by accident, even after I was repeatedly asked "Are you sure you wish to delete?" It happens.

Mo' better
In FFT I didn't know you could change jobs, so I went into the first boss battle with just squires and chemists. I got slaughtered!

Not bad, but it would have been funnier if you'd leveled up through random battles to the point where you actually beat the game with nothing but 99 year old squires and chemists.

Well, most books do vaporize after being read
My personal Dumbest Mistake was working 4 hours into Vagrant Story and refusing to use Grimoires, because I thought they were one-time 'spell' items like FFVI's magic rods. Needless to say, before I realized my mistake, I cleaned out my curative items and wondered when the hell I was going to learn some magic...

SonicPanda

Many people I know didn't want to mess with the Grimoires right away, in case they were limited use items and because they were doing so well without them. Heck, I finished the game without using a few elemental alignment spells at all, meaning I'm short the full compliment of magic on my second play through.

Again, it would have been funnier if you'd finished the game without realizing this, but not bad.

To dust, I guess *Xenogears spoilers*
CJ,

On a side note from a letter from yesterday: "Deus ex Machina" is actually the title to the latest Smashing Pumpkins CD. It is really too bad that they plan to break up at the end of their world tour. I like that band.

Really stupid things I've done in a video game? I know you'll probably get many letters about stupid things done in FF Tactics, but mine could be a contender. I did not know until the end of chapter 1 that each town had a shop where you could buy items. I lived off of "war trophy's" potions and phoenix downs for way to long.

I also did a stupid thing in FF7, I played in front of my parents. During the whole Midgar scene they constantly were watching me play and asking me questions like "Is Barret from a mixed marriage?" and stuff like that. It ruined the first part of the game for me. I understand that they had just spent $345 for a Playstation, memory card, and FF7, and wanted to watch me enjoy it, but that really was too much to handle.

Which leads me to a question, do you play games in a room by yourself? I absolutely feel I have too, for the sake of the story. I've been known to skip dinner several nights in a row because of intense game playing sessions (witness pretty much the entire game of Xenogears) . I just hate having to explain my RPGs to other people, in addition to them trying to be funny about them (I actually had a friend ask "Where is the blood?" after I showed them the FMV of Aries being stabbed. Thank God I had already beaten the game at that point). What's your opinion?

-Red Raven, 6 RPGs short of being hardcore. *sigh*

I like the thing about item shops, it's very much in the "digging your way through the mountain because you don't see the tunnel" mindset. Your ignorance amuses me greatly, Raven.

Your question leads me into some thoughts I've had recently about games and suspension of disbelief. It should be obvious that just about any story depends on having an audience in a receptive state for its really big moments - if you walk in right as Luke's screaming "That's impossible!" in Empire Strikes Back, the scene plays much more poorly. Narratives generally start off with neutral characters and gradually increase the audience's affection (or hatred) for them to the point where there's enough emotional investment to allow lines like "You had me at hello."

Well, usually there's enough.

Games have an advantage and a disadvantage here. An average RPG runs around 30-40 hours of play, which means a player has a LOT of investment in seeing what happens to a character. This investment means that when the payoffs come, they seem much more compelling than in other media, but it also means that lame situations are accepted much more easily. It often doesn't matter that the dialog is bad, or the plot is trite - you want to see what happens. Add in the fact that many games feature Japanese characters who appear intrinsically strange to Americans, and you have a situation rife for misunderstandings if not outright ridicule.

This was made abundantly clear to me when I was over at someone's house and a roommate was playing Xenogears. It was right at the first Fei/Elly mech battle, which I had found fairly compelling during my (solo) play through. Here it was comedy on par with the Simpsons, from the bizarre expression on Elly's face after the Drive kicked in to the little hearts that came out when Vierge hit something. Perspective is everything, in games and out of them, so you're probably best staying away from those without the right perspective while playing.

The most hated man in America, kind of
Hey Chris

Holy crap. You've become the Lars Ulrich of Emulation.

Donald

Ps I'm still a little cranky. End of Course exams coming up and i'm spending my time eating chocolate and not caring about anything until TRIBES 2 and CC come out.

This seriously cracked me up, so thanks, I think.

Last emulation rant, I promise
I decided I had to speak after your little anti-emulation rant yesterday. I'm going to have to confess that I a big time emulation fan. I have a very large supply of roms and am constantly on the lookout for new translations and such (I have played FF4's original version translated into English, FF5 translated long before FF Anthology ever came out here, SD3 translated, and even FF2j and FF3j both translated to English, the old nes titles we never got.) However, I never really feel guilty about using them. Maybe it's partly because the oppurtunity seems too great to pass up for moral qualms.

But another way I have justifying it is the way that companies make estimates of their losses to piracy. When an estimate of monetary loss because of piracy is made, the company just estimates how many copies are used, and multiplies by the cost of the product. However, this method's fatal flaw is that it assumes that every single person would have bought the original, had other methods not been available. This is obviously far from the truth, as I would never have actually bought the games without the availability of emulation, so I am really not denying the company money they would have gotten otherwise. They wouldn't have gotten my money either way.

I'm sure your next argument is that "you are still playing the game that they worked so hard on for free." Well I don't really know what I can say to that one. You are right that they worked hard, and deserve cash for it, but just how much money does Square still get from sales of FF2j, FF3j and FF5 for example. I'm willing to bet not a whole lot.

But anyway, it's just mostly that the temptation is too great. I mean FF2j, FF3j, FF4j, and FF5, all in English nonetheless? There is even a re-translation of FF6 in the works. How could anyone pass that up? Call me whatever you want, but I just don't see how such a great oppurtunity could be ignored.

Wooflord

I have to admit something - I played through part of the FFV translated ROM. It got old quick, since being on the computer wasn't as good as on the TV, and FFT was waiting. There's also the little matter of me purchasing the Japanese cart a few years prior (still have it) but I'm not a complete emulation virgin.

I know temptation, I understand temptation. Temptation is a good friend of mine. That still doesn't give you the right to play hacked ROMs you haven't paid for, like it or not. And your own letter has the logic needed to refute itself: how much money does Square get from FF2j and 3j? None of course, as it doesn't sell them over here. But just as there are those who wouldn't have bought the games when they can play the ROMs for free, there are those who would. There is a demand for those games, and that demand is Square's to satisfy or not as they see fit. It may be that the ROMs cutting in to the demand are the reason why the games haven't been brought out here: who would play a 10+ year old game for the NES who hasn't played the ROM already? Well, I would.

The bottom line is that no matter how odious it may be that the guy with the one remaining copy of Action Comics #1 uses it for toilet paper, it still ain't yours to steal. But in many ways this is purely academic - I know that no matter what I say people are still gonna do it, and not feel real guilty about it. I don't even care that much, I'm not going to cross the street to spit at you if I catch you emulating. I'm not even gonna leave the room if you fire up that SD3 hack, though I won't use it myself. Hell, I'll even admit that emulation has it's place. If your copy of Zelda died years ago, but you bought it fair and square, you have the legal and ethical right to have made a copy, and play that copy at your discretion however you wish. But as for everything else, you don't have the right. It's all just rationalization.

The Aussies proves me wrong
In Thursday's letters page, you made the following comment on the ethics of emulation:

The problem with Brad's argument is the idea that people have some sort of right to play old games that they don't own. "Gosh, I can't buy/afford them, I might as well steal them!" But here's the deal: you don't have that right.

This may be true in the United States, but it's interesting to note that in several countries, you *do* have that right. In Australia, and I believe in some European countries, if a copyrighted work is out of print and the publisher refuses to sell you a copy, you have the right to make a copy by any means necessary and can't be sued for infringement.

Frankly, I think this approach makes more sense than the North American copyright law. Copyright should, if anything, only allow authors and publishers to make a profit on each work they produce, not to control what works the public can or can't see at all. Disney is infamous for engaging in "copyright censorship": refusing to reprint certain films and aggressively attacking anyone who attempts to distribute them, for the express purpose of preventing anyone from watching films which Disney might be embarrassed by in this day and age (e.g. Song of the South)

Speaking of Disney, they recently successfully lobbied to extend the duration of copyright to 95 years. Yes, NINETY-FIVE F**KING YEARS. No copyright has entered the public domain since 1922, and at this rate none ever will. The US Constitution specifically states that intellectual property rights must be "for a Limited Time". Thomas Jefferson must be rolling in his grave.

--AWJ--

This is a reasonable argument, although you might wonder what it means in some cases: has FF2j gone "out of print", or could Square argue they "just haven't got around to selling it in the US yet"? Is the slow-loading PSX copy of FF6 a legitimate offering, or do they have to sell you the actual cart?

But if the law's on your side, I can't argue against you. The logic makes sense.

And yes, Disney is evil. But you should have known that by now.

I'm all right, but I'm no Special K
If you could get this column worth economic credits, I would almost worship you as my god... I REALLY don't wanna take a 8-9:50pm class....

You were joking?....Crap...Well... at least a night class ain't a 8AM class...

-JWH

Remember kiddies...No matter how good intentioned you are, there is no way you're gonna be able to get up earlier than 9 on a regular basis in college...

I really was going to make the column worth a credit, but then I read the phrase "good intentioned" and realized several of you still need more legitimate education. I suggest you start with English class.

...says the man who once wrote "sounds like they was done by Yanni."

What, the bullets don't pass through you?
Well...This isn't really a _stupid_ thing per se, but I'd say the best "Moment of realization" I ever had in a game was the first time we played multi-player DOOM back in High School and we figured out that we could shoot each _other_, too, rather than only the aliens.

We spent the next thirty minutes nailing each other with the pistol right next to the spawn. (We didn't even want to get out of co-op mode, we were having so much fun.) Every so often someone would wander off and get a shotgun, but that didn't last long.

Mike Powers

And that, children, is the story of how the Deathmatch came to be. So the next time you make some punk eat rail gun ammo, remember to thank Mr. Powers and his crazed bunch of rampaging Marines.

You should be one of those farmers that grows dirt *Perfect Dark spoilers, I think*
Hi Agent,

Most of my stupidest game moments come from one of my favorite games, Harvest Moon 64.

1. Accidentally hit my horse with the sickle.

2. Sickled the wrong plants and messed up my tomato patch.

3. This isn't stupid, but I'll say it anyway. I like to take out the automilker, go up to people, and milk them.

Oh, and here's some from one of my other favorite 64 game, Perfect Dark.

1. I accidentally killed the president in the Alsaka stage. Stupid mines...

2. I never saw that door to the containment lab where you hide Elvis in Area 51 Escape and was doing nothing for a few days, besides sedating Jonathan.

By the way, doesn't Elvis sound like Marvin the Martian?
Rune

I gotta say, the automilking thing was my favorite letter of the day, despite not actually being something done out of stupidity. Very Far Side-esque.

You're still one sick bastard for doing such a thing, however.

Closing Comments:

Many people pointed out that Weird Al's "Dare to Be Stupid" was used in the Transformers movie, so this isn't the first time he's sold out. Still, it's a bit depressing, I think.

To paraphrase Mel Gibson in Braveheart: "I may take your wives, but I'll never take your freedom!" Your freedom to send in whatever the heck you like for Fridays, that is. And what do I care, with your wives to keep me company? See you tomorrow.

-Chris Jones, once wondered if equipping weapons really made a difference

Recent Columns  
06.21.00
06.20.00
06.19.00
Double Agent Archives
Email is like talking, only not. So talk to me. Or not.