| Grad school: Year One, Day One - August 23, 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 a computer engineer who's starting to hate computers. Is that a bad thing? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Long day. It's strange that a mere two grad level classes now seem as daunting to me as 5 undergrad classes did, once upon a time, but there you are. I dunno, maybe I'm getting old or something.
But if anything will make me feel young again, it's the perennial cycle of death and rebirth - in this case, Nintendo finally laying the venerable Game Boy hardware to rest and releasing a shiny new portable. Everybody has differing reactions to this one, which we'll get into below, but for me the main question is gonna be how it plays. The vaguely SNES look and specs are a good thing, no question, but with PDAs like the Palm Pilot advancing by leaps and bounds, I think the GBA's got some heavy lifting to do.
Onward.
| The mark of the damned |
| hey Double Agent,
is it just me or is Nintendo never going to get his feet back on the ground i looks from my point of view they won't. Frist and for most they went for the Virtual Boy, then They made N64 was Cartrige based. is it just me or has nintendo made some pretty dumb mistakes. Now the make there Game Boy into what i have must say is the worst shape they could have. its the game gear shape. the shape that cursed both Neo - Geo and Sega. can dolphin bring them back, is nintendo making a foolish move by changing the shape of the Game Boy.
Yahoo,
ophid |
It's probably not so much the wide rectangle shape that's cursed the Lynx, NGPC and Game Gear, but going up against the mighty Nintendo, and, more importantly, their army of 3rd party developers. Remember, even in the N64 era when everybody was developing for Sony's console, the GB and GBC were still the favored portable platform for developers. From time to time, pointless trivia does seem to impact on console success (like the "gray box good, black box bad" rule) but from what I can tell Nintendo has a real winner on their hands, at least versus other game companies.
| The last Harlequin trivia in the column, I promise! |
| Wow, I'm impressed that someone other than me is really into going on a limb for references...but you know, the freaky part about the Harlequin thing is that in some stories, he's supposed to have a wife that dresses exactly like him, and has no name, having been dubbed simply as "Harlequin's wife". Yeah, I have too much brain matter devoted to stupid tidbits like that... no wonder people never cease to wonder about my weirdness. So wanna hear me expound on the origin of the number 'zero'? No, wait, put that rock down!!!! I was kidding...
So, stuck with a TA job that you know nothing about? Don't feel too bad. I had my share of TAs that were stuck teaching in something other than their expertise area; think of it as a chance for professional growth...
Man, it's hard not to talk about Chrono Cross... Oh, there is one thing I can say and still keep this letter spoiler-free: a while back, there was a mini debate over whether having a game soundtrack before the game would spoil the enjoyment of it while playing the game. Well, it is totally not the case for Chrono Cross. It's more like stumbling into old treasures. Must be due to the fact that the music in question is great...
Princess Jemmy, who could listen to "On the brink of death" until my ears fall off....
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I'm not real worried about not knowing x86 assembly language - I'm a pretty quick study, and I can probably keep ahead of the undergrads if I push myself. Still, if there are any UIUC CS or ECE students reading this, go easy on me, okay?
I agree about the music. In fact, I'm looking forward to Chrono Cross as much as anything because I know so much about the music - the various tracks have painted pictures in my head as to what the accompanying game moment will be like, and I'm curious as to how far off I am. Probably pretty far off the mark, admittedly, but isn't being surprised at the developer's inventiveness part of the fun of playing RPGs in the first place?
| Is that the one with the lava, or the one with the ice? |
Hi Chris,
First off welcome back and sorry about all the bad Karma (Chrono Cross but you can't play it? That's like the seventh sphere of hell (see it's a Dante's Inferno ref...never mind (see it's a yesterday's column ref...never mind))).
My friend's been telling me about this RPG he has on his computer. It's an old SNES game called Terrornigma (or at least it's pronounced that way). Anyways he says it's really cool and I was wondering if anyone out there has ever heard of the game?
-Figure Four
PS: Amano Rulz!!
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Circle. It's 7th Circle of Hell, not sphere. And it's Terranigma (terra + enigma, get it?) an Enix game, part of the SoulBlazer/Illusion of Gaia series that strangely enough saw a European release but never made it over to the US. Good game, from what I've heard.
| Working Designs sues us, Harry Shearer sues WD, the list goes on... |
I am not pleased,
Agent of Double
In your response to Brian W.s letter you said that CC and VS go to 11. You of many people should know that the GIA rates on a one to five scale so they would be sixes. also, breaking another thing, you said they went to eleven, and that happens to be Working Designs slogan, so they should sue you for alll you got.
Brian B. "YOU also made the designers of Chrono Cross forget a save counter!!!" |
Look, kids, if we can't all play nice with the "spot the reference" game then nobody gets to play at all, right? "Goes to 11" is a classic reference from the movie This is Spinal Tap which chronicled the antics of a fictional heavy metal band. (It also features Harry Shearer, who does an ungodly number of voices for The Simpsons.) Yeah, WD uses that phrase, but they got it from the movie, as did Reboot and Toy Story 2.
But I plead guilty to the save counter thing.
| Terry McGinnis is part of an elite order... |
Neal Stephenson is doing gadget/world design for a new Batman movie? And here I thought nothing could make me want to see anything Batman again. =P I'm sure we're in for some really badass gizmos, especially considering the kind of stuff Batman usually screws around with, but won't there be something missing?
Don't YOU want to see a Toyota get magna-pooned at 90 MPH?
~Game Cat
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I dunno - the idea of skateboarders 'pooning passing bimbo boxes is pretty cool in and of itself. I don't really need to see a visual depiction of it to feel complete. Besides, in the show Batman's always harpooning flying cars and stuff, so if they can show me that instead I'll be quite happy.
| Marketers are evil, but you should have known that already |
Yo, Christy!
Ya know, I was sittin the other day (Hard to believe, huh?) and watchin TV (Freakazoid!, the best damn show the WB ever thought up.) and my lil brother was bitchin bout how Toy Story 2 wasn't out yet (Cuz that movie rocked), and that stupid Buzz Lightyear cartoon was. Well, my dad (who's actually pretty smart) explained to him that this was actually a marketing ploy (remember the marketing guys in Dilbert? Never mind...) to arouse even more interest in Toy Story 2 (This'll become a game letter, I promise). You know, so peole'll buy it, say, that was cool, I want more, thus boosting Toy Story 2 sales. Well, yesteday, I was playing CC, and I was at the part where Ser--whoops, that almost became a spoiler--anyways, I was thinking (Imagine that!) "Well, why the hell didn't Square drop the Chrono Trigger PS port over here to maybe boost CC sales? Seems smart, right? Plus, I wanted the nifty anime cutscenes...
--The Parenthetical Jabberwock, who was brought back from game-hating limbo because of CC.
P.S. Does the fact that I have perfect spelling and grammar get me printed, or is content a factor, too? |
Don't call me Christy. Bad Kindergarten flashbacks man, it ain't pleasant.
I've heard something about a Toy Story "Ultimate Toy Box", featuring DVD releases of both movies. Pretty cool if true, and explains the delay. At the same time, I'm just as happy the CT remake didn't get bought over, because given Square's already unbelieveably crowded schedule this year it would have meant that a new game might have gone unreleased. The CT remake is supposed to be fairly slow compared to the original, and we've got the anime sequences online, so you're not really missing much.
Good grammar helps, but it's really the content that gets you in.
| Return to Paradise |
Gameboy Advance: A 2D system made by Nintendo that is more powerful than the Super NES and is portable, huh?
Nintendo, I love you with all my heart.
--Brad G.
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It's true - once you get past the portable nature of the system, I think the GBA may end up being what a lot of diehard old schoolers really wanted the PSX generation of consoles to be. Now the question is whether developers will provide classic 2D RPG gaming goodness for the platform... and the magic 8 ball says "Wait and see."
| Get down with your bad self |
My brother says Chrono Cross sucks because your characters don't dance after winning a battle. So nyah.
-- Justin Toon
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Well, if that's true, then forget it! I'm trading my copy of CC back in for a used Wild Arms just so I can watch Celia's 3D model occasionally wiggle her butt at the end of a battle.
Closing Comments:
For tomorrow, let's hear what you think of the GBA stuff so far, or what you'd really like to see coming out of SpaceWorld, if anything. Adios for now.
-Chris Jones - thirsty, but it's gonna rain soon. |
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