Tangled Up In Blue - October
21, 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. So I drifted down to New Orleans / where I happended to
be employed / Yeah I was workin' for a while on a fishin' boat / right
outside of Delacroix...
Don't say we didn't warn you.
Man, I never realized how hard it is to write an intro on
Saturday, when nothing much happened in the gaming universe and I
personally sat on my butt all day studying and watching TV. Really
the only thing worth mentioning is the Subway Series, and although
a lot of you could care less about baseball these days, I'm gonna
go ahead and say I hope the Yankees take this thing, mostly
because it ticks friends of mine off.
Onward.
| It's good advice -
we're treacherous bastards |
| Chris,
Your intro made laugh. I'm 18, so my earliest memories
of videogaming are Frogger and Sega's Congo Bongo,
both on the Atari. Since starting college, my
experience with fellows 22 and older have been that
they defend He-Man and Transformers cartoons to the
bone, insisting that neither was designed merely to
sell toys (which they both were, of course). Most of
them seem to have stopped playing videogames before
entering high school, and the few they remember have
confused titles like "Super Mario on Genesis" and
"Mortal Street Fighter". They also tend to think
Michael Jackson is a good musician.
My conclusion? Don't trust anyone over the age of 22.
---Anthony James Larrea |
I admit that older gamers can be at least as clueless as
anybody else - I'm sure there are lots of people out there who were
intimately familiar with Combat (which was actually a really stupid
game, nostalgia aside) who wouldn't know a Square game if it came up
and bit them in the ass. And nobody in their right minds can honestly
defend He-Man as anything but blatant marketing... but I think I'll
stick with my irrational, prejudiced, small-minded beliefs all the
same, thanks.
| Yeah, but our
forefathers never had cable modems... |
| I am frightened of FFXI. I'll admit it. I don't want a multiplayer RPG,
and I don't want one of the coolest series to go that way, exclusively.
I LIKE having my OWN adventure, and not having to share it with anyone
else. When I want to experience other people, I will LEAVE MY HOUSE and
go do that. That's the way our forefathers did it, and it worked for
them.
Moreover, who said I, or the large group of console gamers, wanted a
multiplayer network anyway? I'd rather save my money, play regular games
and invite my friends over, than pay monthly to rumble against someone
I've never met, and probably won't. The rumblings I've seen against
network multiplayer have been few, but they've been there, but I haven't
seen anything that said how excited they were seganet or the future PS2
or X-box networks were coming.
But if FFXI does do well, then I hope they do spin it off, 'cause I
still want to play killer RPG's that don't force me to be on a network,
and Square does some of the best.
DIM |
I can't argue with personal tastes, but playing devil's advocate
for a moment, I would like to say why the idea of an online FF isn't
completely terrifying to me. One of the strengths of the series, going
all the way back to the original but definitely becoming more
pronounced as of late, has been the artistry involved in making and
displaying the worlds the games take place in. FF1's desolate desert
tower, FF4's crystal terraces deep within the Moon, and any one of a
dozen rendered vistas in FF8 have all been places that I desperately
wanted to see more of, to explore and hang out in. (As an aside, some
might argue that this is all the FFs have going for them, but
I'll leave that up to you to decide.)
So how does this tie in to online RPGs? Well, in my admittedly
limited experience with them, nothing has struck me as that
interesting from a world-building standpoint. The ability to build
characters, homes, castles, skills, make friendships and fight wars
with other actual people goes a long way towards making up for
the generic medieval worlds most online RPGs seem to be set in, but
these games would be a lot more enticing to me if they gave me the buzz
I got from looking at the churches and castles in FFT. So basically
I'm hoping that a good bit of the visual style and design flair we've
seen from recent FFs will leak over into FF 11, which would make it a
lot more likely that FFXI's a product I'd want to buy.
From what I've seen of Phantasy Star Online, it has a similar
philosophy, and I'll be looking closely at that one too, come
January.
| But it's the
insane amounts of violence that's important, I tell you |
| Your mentioning Rare's Jet Force Gemini as an example of a game being released
uncensored and for adults in the U.S. regardless of the government is one of
the funniest things I've heard today! Don't you remember all the screenshots
of JFG up until a few months before the game's release? Remember how they
featured superdeformed childish characters? They were taken out of the final
release, replaced with more mature, realistic characters. This was because
after Columbine, Nintendo/Rare were afraid that shipping a game featuring kids
shooting things would bring about controversy.
-BadMonkey
|
Ok, I stand corrected on that one - but given the over the top
violence the game still exhibits, not to mention other Rare games like
Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, I think my main point still stands.
| More online flames...
er, discussion |
| Consoles having modems has opened up a new possibility for gaming. Sega is
already planning to do it with Skies of Arcadia. You buy the game, and then
go on to their website and unlock an area of the game that is otherwise
unavailable.
I'm wondering what you and other RPG players think about this idea. I, for
one, think it's great as long as it's nothing important in the game. A
secret item, a secret boss, a secret area with no real plot signifigance,
etc... but I think this opens up a very undesirable possibility for games.
If they start making you unlock things like an extra character, an extra
level with storyline signifigance, or things like that I think they've taken
it too far.
I believe that an extra online bonus is nice, but the entire experience
should be found on the game itself. The main issue there with me is replay
value. I like to replay RPGs. Not for extras or secrets, but because the
quality of the game COMMANDS a second (or third, fourth, and so on) time
through. If I enjoy an RPG and want to play it several years later, I want
the entire experience to still be there for me, not some incomplete version
of the game.
I think this could be a contraversial issue for RPGs in the future and we
might as well start flaming each other... er... discussing it now.
|
Ok, let's look at it from this perspective: everybody's worried that
online RPGs will supercede existing standalone RPGs, but what if
they're merely introducing an entirely new genre that exists
alongside regular RPGs? After all, the action RPG and strategy
RPG both arguably have advantages over standard "stand around and take
turns hitting each other" RPGs, but developers are still churning out
games in the classic style. You're dead on that online RPGs offer
something completely different from current games, and I think
developers are gonna be smart enough to realize this and give players
the choice of either/or/both. So don't worry too much, for the moment.
| What, you too good for
the US version or somethin'? |
|
Just been reading over all the reports and buzz about Dragon Quest VII being
censored.
While I personally don't care what happens to the US version of the game, I
do want to point out a few things, that may change some people's viewpoints
on the issue. It's fairly common for Japanese companies to assume things
about the US market, since they for the most part have very little input
into what goes on in the North American market. Many of them think that
their games are unsuitable for any culture outside of Japan, and this is the
primary reason that they choose to either ignore the US market or allow for
significant "cultural changes". This is one of the reasons why Game Arts
has consistently approved, even applauded Working Design's translations (I'm
neutral on THAT particular issue).
This brings me to a previous example of this "Oh no, it's not gonna come
out/gonna be censored!" treatment. If most recall, Square originally did
not want to bring Xenogears out in the US because of its religious content,
and they even considered censoring it. While some might argue that a
petition helped convince Square to bring the game out here, I am actually of
the opinion that somewhere along the lines, Square USA simply informed
Square co. ltd. that they had misunderstood US culture and that Xenogears
would be an ok game to come out here. And some might consider one thing
(backing up Fritz's argument), Xenogears became one of the best selling
console RPGs in the US, selling almost 300,000 copies. No doubt, the
controversy surrounding the game attributes to a lot of sales of the title.
I wouldn't assume Enix is following such a "strategy" but it is worth
keeping in mind.
So I'm not really concerned about this so-called censorship, and really,
other than Sony's kiddie games (Unjammer Lammy), what games have been
censored that much on the Playstation? If anything, the only religious
toning down I can see is changing a Pope character into a Cardinal (which
was done in Final Fantasy Tactics). Whatever "censorship" (or is that
really, cultural changes?) occurs will most likely not affect the enjoyment
of the title. |
Your point about Xenogears is well taken, but raises the question of
why Enix hasn't learned from Square's mistake. When games like JoJo's
Bizarre Adventure and Incredible Crisis are getting released daily,
there should be no excuse for Enix still thinking that Japanese games
won't sell in the US as is. There has been very little editing in the
PSX era, and I certainly hope that the game won't be censored, but
until the game gets officially announced one way or another, I'll
remain skeptical.
| Mr. Freeman gets angry |
Chris
I don't do it very much in my letters to this column, but I think I have to
rant a bit here.
First off, the way the GIA has handled DQVII and Enix in general is
completely ludicrous, and it takes some credibility away from the site.
Leave the bashing and the flaming and the bias to the message boards.
There is simply no reason to harp on a game/series/company while reporting
on it. It accomplishes nothing, save instill a juvenile atmosphere around
a mostly well done site.
Next up, I simply HAVE to comment on what Fritz said. Its only common
sense that you can't legitimize an argument by turning around and bashing
the people you're arguing with. You don't bring up a point about DQ and
then go off on how Square's games and fans lack depth, or how Xenogears has
no "actual entertainment value"; it severely cheapens the effect. Perhaps
Fritz shouldn't say all Xenogears does is cater to "angsty teenagers" (an
obvious knock on a specific age group) when he was all of, what, 15 or 16
when the game came out himself? I suppose all non Xenogears fans that
happen to be teenagers are inherently superior to those that are fans?
Being a Xeno fan, and around the same age as Fritz myself, I find that more
than slightly annoying.
Justin Freeman |
I can't speak to why we don't have more DQ coverage, except to say
that aside from a relatively small group we haven't seen much interest
in the game, certainly not near the level of interest we've seen on
any given FF. In fact, as I keep pointing out, Enix still hasn't
confirmed the game's coming out in the US. The story we put up was
the closest thing we've yet seen to any news about the game being
released at all, although that's been quashed now that EoA has taken us back
to square zero. I've published links to just about every recent story
I've seen on the issue in the column, but it doesn't surprise me that
nothing's gone up on the main news page as long as there's still no
info on a US release.
As to Fritz's comments on Xenogears, it's no worse than what I and
others have said about DQ games - we've all got different opinions, and as long
as everybody gets a chance to say their piece, I can't argue much one
way or the other about any given opinion being wrong.
| How to get a PS2
without resorting to crime |
| No one seems to have addressed this topic yet, and time is short, so I
thought I'd make myself into 'Ye olde town crier' and try to help a few
of my fellow gamers out there...
You say you want a PS2, but you didn't pre-pay in full back when
preorders first began in 1982? Well, you'll need to be ready and waiting
at one of those few big chain stores that never took preorders...
(Wal~Mart, K-Mart, Target, etc) ...and you're probably thinking you
should be there at 5am on the morning of the 26th, right? Wrong...
In order to have units in place on a specified date like that, the
company in question, in this case, Sony, must have the units shipped and
ready for sale on that date. Despite the fact that many of these stores
have a vendor-retailer contract with Sony in which they agreed not to
sell PS2s before the 26th, many of these stores will indeed be selling
PS2s as soon as they have them in stock. As early as the 24th, and
possibly earlier.
If you need more proof, look no further than Pokémon G/S. Certainly a
high profile release. Over 700,000 copies were preordered. It's
publicized release date was the 16th, yet it was selling on the 11th.
Bottom line, if you're determined and properly informed, you'll be able
to snag a PS2, and remember, the hunt is half the fun...
~Jason |
Wow, this takes me back to the days of Zelda 2 and SMB 3, when games
didn't have release dates and you had to call the store on a daily basis
to see if the cart had come in yet. Good times... good times.
Closing Comments:
AK's back tomorrow, so email him about whatever you please. I'll be
back Monday, and he'll be back again Tuesday, and so on and so forth.
Sorta.
Whatever, talk to you later.
-Chris Jones, heading off to
Desolation Road |
