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. KHAAAAAAAAN!!! (He's Laotian!) Don't say we didn't warn you.

Did I ever tell you about my musical RPG idea? Probably not, but since it's Friday and you all get to babble about whatever you like, then so do I. This goes way back into the early 90's, when CD gaming systems were just starting to come out, and so had the last Traveling Wilbury album.

Yep, that's right, I wanted to make a game starring the Wilburys themselves, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne and Roy Orbison, all in SD guises. The game would have featured much of their music (including the opening from "Margarita" playing as the game opened, featuring the Wilburys themselves strumming on their guitars as their Wilburymobile crossed the vast plains) and revolved around their quest to save the world after the King (Elvis, natch) passed away.

I saw sound in general playing a big part of the game - people would attack by playing guitars, drums, rapping, etc. - and all manner of music styles and musicians would put in appearances, from country to reggae, from the Beastie Boys to Frank Zappa. Each Wilbury would have their own bit of personal history to confront (Harrison would revisit the Beatles breakup, etc.) and the game would end with Orbison nobly sacrificing himself to save rock and roll as we know it. Of course, copyright limits would probably make it so that the names would have to be changed - Harrison would have been part of "The Terrif Three" (hey, who needs Ringo?) - but it still would have been cool.

And now you know what I was doing when I should have been paying attention in French class, thus ending forever my dream of becoming a UN translator, all so you can mock my pathetic idea for a few moments. I hope you're satisfied.

Onward.

I have no real response to this, I just wanted to put up an example of the collective grief the UK must be feeling because of our rampant American consumerism. Not that mere pity for some British people is gonna make me give up on my mad quest to secure a PS2 this year, but at least we're aware of the pain we're causing.

Works for me, Kaeru. Good call. Now the question is, do any other games, PSX, DC, or otherwise, do the same thing? (Please Euro edition of Vib Ribbon...)

That's about as canny an interpretation of Nintendo's latest maneuverings as I've yet seen, but frankly, I tend to think it's the latter hypothesis you put forth in your summation. This Space World was Nintendo's best hope to shove an iron bar inbetween the moving spokes of the PS2's unicycle - without rave reviews from the media about Dolphin software, there's nothing to give pause to consumers rushing to buy Sony's new box. (Although really good tech demos of the Dolphin hardware might make some people indecisive between the two.) If Nintendo doesn't move now, I'm not sure when else it'll get another high profile event to showcase the Dolphin demos, except maybe next May at E3, by which point it'll be far too late to unseat the PS2. I realize Big N feels that they have a lot of life left in the N64 and Game Boy, but not giving Dolphin full priority will almost certainly cost them in the long run.

And far be it from me to argue with Yamauchi, but I really don't see portables replacing consoles anytime soon, at least for the kind of deeply involving games that tend to get covered on this site. Even if you could come up with a portable that had a great display, good battery life, lots of processor power, a roomy storage medium and connectivity (none of which are impossible) you'd still have to push games that could be played at the drop of a hat, whenever the user had a free moment. Which is not RPGs, so I'm already dubious. Plus you've got the fact that no portable is ever going to be able to compete with the latest FF running on a big TV with Surround Sound for sheer immersive joy.

My feeling is that you don't have much to worry about, as long as there aren't any large boxes with question marks mysteriously floating near Albano. But even so, I'd think twice before messing with anyone who can smash through solid brick ceilings. Scary.

I really think you've hit on a key point when you say that you can have a great story in an interactive, online setting, but that it'll end up being an impersonal one about places and nations and worlds, rather than a few people. Or perhaps it can still be about people, but only a few select NPCs with detailed personalities. Such a game could end up being a very solid character study, but would probably lack the dramatic friction produced by having two or more detailed characters inhabiting the core of the plot without outside interference..

On the other hand, I'm probably overreacting - the two types of stories we've described so far, grand scale dramas and NPC character studies, can probably be pushed a long, long way. There's no real reason online games couldn't be highly successful, even without individual characters acting in preset ways. Perhaps it's just another limitation for the genre to overcome, the way many early RPGs overcame the limited expressions possible with in-game sprites.

That said, I agree with you that FFXI really should have been a spin-off title, unless Sakaguchi's got far more up his sleeve than I think he does.

Damn that's cool. Nothing more to add, but thanks for the heads up.

Thanks for the balloon, Jemmy. It's pretty. And thank you for restoring my faith in my literary memory, although I'm sure you're building me up just to knock me back down once more.

It's possible that Mr. Ireland is planning to try to sell Lunar 2 to those RPG fans disenchanted with FF as a series, but given 9's old-school leanings, I think most people will at least try it out. More likely he's just sticking to WD's basic tenant, that game quality will win out in the market no matter what the competition. And it wouldn't be the first time Working Designs has produced the last game ever for a console, so don't worry too much about them.

Lastly, those who don't need the CC music sampler because they already have the full OST should see if they can trade it in on the desk clock, or, barring that, give it away to a friend to hook said friend on Mitsuda's music. If enough people do it, we could be looking at a freakin' revolution. Man, that would be beautiful.

Closing Comments:

Yeah, I know this is late. Sorry. And there are still one or two really good (albeit long) letters I didn't get a chance to put up about stories in online RPGs that I'm saving until Monday. Meantime, be nice to AK, because he'll need a lot of support from all of us to become the guitar legend that he has the potential to be. See you next week.

-Chris Jones, actually putting the column out in record time, considering