After Midnight -
November 29, 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. And yet, ironically, this column was written well
before midnight. Don't say we didn't warn you.
So Phantasy Star Online looks to be fee-free, eh? Good deal. On
the one hand, I
honestly don't think I'd begrudge a couple of bucks a month (say 10
or so) for a truly immersive online world, but on the other hand
if there's one thing online games need at the moment, it's player
support. If PSO is successful, other online games may decide they
want to start charging a fee, but at least PSO will let people get
interested in online console gaming to begin with. Still, if
people can get on PSO for free and are pleased with it, you gotta
wonder how this'll affect PlayOnline.
And just because people are asking so much, I should admit we've got
some snow here in Champaign... just no accumulations yet. Which is
fine with me, since I'm pretty sure I'll crash my car spectacularly the
first time I try to drive on ice, but in the meantime my Illinois
experience has not been significantly different than Austin, just a bit
colder. But I know, I know... it'll change.
Onward.
Other people make
stupid games better
(that is, more enjoyable, not that they actually make the games... never mind) |
| What needs to be going on for me to play video games. It really depends on
what kind of games. Over Thanksgiving I went to my sisters house and played
Namco Museum 3. One of the games on it was Phozon, a game in which you move
your curser around, picking up atoms at cornes and dodging the evil balloon
thingys that kill you. If I was by myself, this game would have been demoted
to coaster, but as I was surrounded by friends and family (all of them easily
impressed) I found the game fun, probably because my high score was higher
then anybody elses. However, when I play games with a plot that is updated
withen the game (read RPG's) I prefer quiet, possibly because my family are
the idiots at the theater constantly wondering who that guy is and why did
she get shot, and I don't like to condense an epic story spanning 25-30 hrs
into their 5-minute attention spans. Fighting games or anyother game with
immediate action (platformers, FPS, Sports etc) Are more fun with a group of
people, friends if you will. Mostly because it's fun to beat the snot out of
them.
Urth
who's wondering if he's too late for electro shock therapy |
As you'll see later in the column, about 95% of the letters I got
today said this exact same thing. Some games are party games, some
games are to be enjoyed without distraction. Not a lot more to it, but
we'll try to dig up some interesting variations on the theme.
| Character Design by
Yoshitaka Amano, Music by David Gilmour |
| Hello sir,
Unless I'm at a new important scene in an RPG, nine inch nails, Pink
Floyd, or Radiohead HAS to be playing, especially if I'm leveling up or
doing extra optional things, like you said. The best time for games
(mostly all I play is RPGs) is after work until bed, like 7 to 1, except
hungover Saturday or Sunday mornings usually start an all-day RPG fest, I
played through the middle 2 disks of FF9 this past Sunday! I'd agree with
NinjaPirateMan's statement about being sad, when I'm depressed which is
alot of the time I get alot more gaming in, Mario 64 probably saved me
from doing some real stupid things when it first came out, after losing a
girlfriend. That sucks I guess, but at least the games do something
besides use up time, they let us forget real life problems for awhile and
be a hero.
thanks,
Z |
Talking about playing games with music on reminds me that I hardly
ever do it anymore... the fact is, most game music these days is good
enough and varied enough so that it really is the best of all possible
accompaniments for the track. Brian Eno himself would be hard pressed
to come up with a better ambient soundtrack for Vagrant Story than what
we got... but perhaps I'm just not playing around with things enough.
Who knows, maybe there's an album out there that would compliment the
FMV in FF7 the same way that "Dark Side of the Moon" synchs up with
"The Wizard of Oz".
| Silent Hill, alcohol
and darkness... a winning combination! |
|
For me, it would have to be playing Silent Hill in the dark. It was at a
friends house, last year. We were all over at Bill's place, having fun,
getting drunk, and playing SH. So, as luck would have it, we ran out of
munchies. Bill and the death squad piled into the car, headed for the
closest convenience store (which was about three miles away. Not very
convenient). I stayed behind, wanting to play further.
One thing you have to understand about Bill's TV: It's one of those
projector things that shows the image on the wall, or a screen, or any
white surface roughly five foot square. So, I get the crazy idea of turning
off all the lights and playing in the dark.
Ten minutes later, when Bill and his cronies returned, toting bags of
Fritos and jugs of M.D., all the lights in the house were on, and I was
watching cartoons.
And hanging on car door handle was a bloody hook!
No, wait, I'm getting my stories crossed. Nevermind.
-Banjax, lying in the fetal position and sucking his thumb like a bad ass
mo-fo |
I had a similar experience playing SH, which is probably why it was
so vivid in my mind. I was working my way through a review copy for the
Daily Texan when I started to get a bad stomach flu, complete with
the kind of high, buzzy fever that seems to tilt the whole world just a
bit. That night when I went to sleep I had vivid fever dreams where my
body was under attack by zombie viruses, and I was supposed to defend
it, but never quite had enough ammo, so I ended up racing down hallways
floored by rusty metal grates, running from shadow babies... weird.
And if you think that's crazy, there was this one time when I
dreamed I was a butterfly and when I woke up, I couldn't remember if I
was a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming it was a
man...
The guy who wrote the Chuang Tzu's dead and can't sue me,
right? Good.
| Comments from the
peanut gallery: |
| "What's going on? What's he saying? Why they'd do that? Who's she? Kill
him. Use a big spell. Use your axe. Why is there so much reading in this
game? I hate reading. Doooo something! Fight bad guys! Don't you get
bored with stupid games like this?"
Yes. An empty, quiet, dark house is optimum to truly become one with a
game. Such is rarely the case.
~Ian P. |
It could be worse, Ian... I just can't think of how at the
moment.
| Gotta be the OST |
|
Personally, I prefer the standard game music while playing. It seems that
if I try to listen to an album, I only end up tuning it out to concentrate
on the game anyway. When I pause for some load time, and realize that
I've missed the past 2 songs, I feel rather foolish.
What's really important to me, in regard to environment, is my annoying
family. It is insanely hard to focus with my parents bickering, my ignorant
brother blaring some horrible rap music from the next room, this unbearably
loud heater drowning out my thoughts, and my evil weiner dog grownling at me to
protect his... whatever... Nevermind music, the only thing I really need is peace and quiet.
Potential Roommates, Apply Within
- Servbot 32 |>_<| |
It usually works the other way for me... I get so wrapped up in an
NPR broadcast or something that I don't play the game as well as I
should, and end up dying in some really stupid manner. Still, it's not
like you can't replay both the game and the music, so no big deal.
| 7th Saga and Beck's
"Loser", a perfect match |
|
Personally, I hardly ever listen to game music. Usually I just play a game
with the sound on the first time through. All my friends think I'm a freak
(I'm rather inclined to agree). I mean, I like it and all, but I prefer to
put on some CDs or something with words, y'know? What's fun is to listen to
a song and have it remind you of the game you were playing when you heard it.
Offspring's "Pretty Fly for a White Guy" will forever remind me of playing
BoF3...
And by the way, we people of Southern California feel rather alienated by
yesterday's topic. How's is playing FFT in 90 degree July any different from
playing it in 80 degree January?
Christoph, relaxing in a pair of shorts and the window cracked, laughing at
all you losers and your "seasons" |
Hey, I grew up in New Orleans, not exactly the frozen north. Which
makes it all the more interesting that I associate cold weather with
RPGs, since it's still a relatively rare thing down south. Meantime, I
pity you Cali folks... I've never been quite as comfortable on a clear
sunny day as I have been trudging through the rain in 40 degree
weather. But I'm crazy like that.
| Practical multitasking |
|
I usually play hooked up to my TV-card on my PC. That way if I'm
in a boring battle that I can just keep attacking, I can flip over
to the Simpsons to kill some time.
JT3 |
Used to do something similar, myself... I'd play F-Zero a lot to
unwind in college, but because the music was so tedious and because
the RCA cables weren't buried behind the TV the way it was set up, I'd
wire the sound from my VCR and the picture from my SNES into the TV,
and race down courses while I listened to the Simpsons. These days,
tho, I just use picture in picture.
| I'd like to use a
lifeline on whether I should use this "Nuke" spell, Reege... |
|
Hi! (I already closed the window with your coloumn so I don't remember your
name... Great, now I'm out of the coloumn. ;-) )
I usually like to play in an empty house... Or at least, quiet people. I
hate it when the 'common folk' come and start watching me play, asking
annoying questions bla bla bla. I always listen to the in-game music. Or,
maybe, so far I haven't found a game with such horrible music that it
deserved to get muted.
Speaking of which, I had an idea for something, for turn-based RPGs (or any
RPG where you can take your time, ATB would do fine, you know what I mean).
Get a really big group of people, the more the merrier. Give them all
controllers and show the game on a wall or just big enough so everyone can
see. The controllers will be hooked into a computer or something similar.
Every time an option would rise (which attack to do in battle, where to go
etc.), everyone would press what *they* think is the best way to go. The
computer will find out what most people wanted and use that in the game.
Not very probable, since the computer will have to udnerstand each and
every game and what the buttons do and so on, but what do you think?
Zohar Gilboa |
I tell ya, I get no respect. No respect at all. Near as I can tell,
I'm the longest running columnist in GIA history (by number of columns
written, at least), and if I'm not, I will be soon. And still I get
crap for taking a vacation... if I didn't realize that people were
just screwing me for the heck of it, I'd quit and go join RPGamer or
something...
...or not. No, almost certainly not. I'd pronounce it "R P G Gamer" and
they'd make me eat my liver.
Your idea reminds me of those stupid audience lifelines on Who Wants
to Be a Millionaire, and based on what I've seen of the collective
audience intelligence, your character would end up running from slimes,
using elixirs when attacked by imps, and trying to kill behemoths with
bronze swords. Could be good for a laugh, tho.
Closing Comments:
I gotta stop doing these types of columns... I babble on about
myself too much, and I do enough of that outside the column.
Fortunately, tomorrow's topic is a bit more substantive. All I'll
say up front about this is that I think the chance of the ratings
process ever actually changing is slim to nil... but it should be cool
to talk about. See you later.
-Chris Jones, would require
300+ hours of gameplay for all ratings participants
| Topic for Thursday,
11/30/2000 |
| Chris,
I know this is way off topic, maybe you could use it for your next one or
something, but I need your help. I read an article in Spin Magazine a while
ago that detailed the way video games are rated. How its done is, a "gamer" on the rating staff plays through the game, and then makes a video tape of around "10-45 minutes" representing "levels" of the game. A group of parents then rate the game based on the video tape. This kinda annoyed me, and I personally couldnt help but think about games like Final Fantasy or DQ that take upwards of 50 hours to play through. Also, the rating kinda hinges on what the "gamer" puts in the tape. I emailed Dr. David Walsh, who controls the ratings process. He said he would welcome any suggestions I have, but I dont know what to tell him, besides I think that the people who rate the games, should play through them first. What do you guys think? Thanks for your help. (great column by the way)
Jarrod |
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