57 Channels -
February 19, 2001 - 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.
When Elvis shot his TV, was he a prophetic genius or some redneck wacko
with a gun? You make the call!
Don't say we didn't warn you.
Not much to say in intro, although there is something I want to set up
in the closing comments for a topic tomorrow. In the meantime, I'd like to
make an official request to Drew and the rest of the site's command staff
to make a T-shirt out of some of those bumper stickers, if not for public sale
then just for the rest of the staff. I'd look damn sharp with that lunatic
Teddy Roosevelt on my chest.
Onward.
| The greatest betrayal
since Bob Dylan converted... |
| I don't know who made that fast food analogy (I didn't see a name), but
wouldn't a hard-shell taco, a diet Pepsi, and some of those crispy cinnamon
thingies (or something like that) be a more accurate replacement? I mean a
bacon cheeseburger and a chicken sandwich aren't really that different, just
the meat...then again it might not be *too* far off...
But with Metroid, there were always lots of vertical corridors to navigate
with the spaced out (no pun intended) platforms, it just wouldn't be the
same?? And as far as her doing somersaults, remember PO'ed?? (you could flip
in that game too) it just really wouldn't work in a 3d environment, you know?
Sure they could take them out, but then Metroid GC (or Metroid 4, or
whatever) would just be another FPS...
Joe Reno
|
I'm somewhat neutral on this whole thing - I'm still hopeful that the
game won't be completely first-person, and we'll be able to get
some of that classic platforming goodness we all know and love. On the
other hand, I can think of some neat things that might be done with a
first-person Metroid - greater attention to environmental detail, more of a
puzzle-oriented setup made possible by a direct view of doors, walls,
switches, etc, and more intense, accurate shooting action. Also, I've
always wondered what it'd be like to see through Samus's eyes, to see the low
illumination of oxygen and energy readouts in her helmet and to hear the sound of her
own breathing echoing in her ears.
Still, the best approach to take may be to give the project up right now
as a lost cause. It's possible that the developers in question are
absolutely committed to bringing the classic Metroid gameplay in to the
third dimension, but it's also possible that this is just some generic
development team out to make Nintendo some money by churning out a mediocre
FPS with Metroid trappings. Lowered expectations are a good way to handle
either situation.
| I'm not sure what
possessed him to write this |
| 'Sup Chris,
The RPG market will explode. Why? Old people.
To be more specific, the generation of people who grew up on videogames will
eventually age and retire from the workforce. This will lead to large
amounts of free time...which will make playing through 65+ hour
monstrosities like Xenogears an attractive prospect.
However, the old people's reflexes and eyesight will not be what they used
to be. Games like MGS will simply move too fast to be enjoyable. The
solution? RPGs. With their methodical combat systems, even 90-year-olds will
be able to follow the action easily.
Old people are the future of RPGs.
-Ybhan D'Ari
|
What's interesting about this letter is what the future might
actually look like fifty or so years down the road. I seriously doubt
our entire generation will become enraptured with the current RPGs - they're not
now, and many of them won't be any more likely to embrace long
philosophical rants in the middle of a menu-driven boss fight. And I
doubt RPGs of the future will look much like what we're currently
playing, anymore than the original Great Train Robbery stands up to,
say, Gladiator.
On the other hand, there will be a few hundred thousand of us who'll
be looking to relive their youth when we get that old, and console RPGs,
both classics and new games made in a retro style, will likely be somewhat
popular as a niche market. It'll never be a huge market, tho,
probably a substantial fraction of what an RPG currently sells. What'll be
interesting is if the plot material will have changed along with its
audience - maybe it'll be a spunky grandfather rather than a spunky
teenager who ends up saving the world.
| The only time I'll ever
make a Zero Wing reference in DA, I swear |
| This message is regarding a link to a strange movie in the "banally banal"
double agent section of your site.
What the hell? What game is this movie making fun of? I need to know!
reply make your time.
-David |
First off, let me say I agree with Sharkey that Zero Wing humor's pretty
much been beaten into the ground by this point. On the other hand, it is
the case that while the majority of the web is either making witty
references to all your bases are belong to us, or making witty put-downs
about the people making the witty references, there's also a small
minority who's wondering what the hell we're all talking about.
Thus: the video in question is a reference to Zero Wing, an old 16-bit
era shooter notable primarily for its truly horrendous opening translation.
The translation's floated around on the web for some years, but it's just
recently that the video in question has come out, the product of people
with way too much time on their hands. But it's not the first
project of it's kind either - about a year ago some friends put together a
parody of the intro involving an overly loud stereo and the phrase
"Destroy all 'keg' for great silence". Zero Wing's an insidious little
meme, not quite as bad as the Chu Chu Rocket commercial, but a virus
that's hopefully run it's course. End of discussion.
| My evil twin |
| Chris Jones, have you worked as a programmer in Fallout 2? I saw "Chris
Jones" in the credits. (=
-Cloud
|
There are three possibilities here: either there's another Chris
Jones out there who makes a living as a games programmer (very
possible, it's an extremely common name), or at some point in the
future I go back in time to work on PC games, or I have an evil
doppelganger who's as committed to PC games as I am to console games.
In that latter case it's probably our destiny to engage in mortal
combat until one of us dies... I'll keep you posted.
| Time is on my side |
| Chris,
I have to say I've felt the same thing recently; it seems that many of last
year's games had sort of a chore-like feel to them; they needed to be finished,
but I didn't really want to finish them. I think this has less to do with my
own personal taste for the games than it does with the fact that there were simply
MORE good RPGs last year than there recently have been.
From late 1999 through right now, I've bought Final Fantasy Anthology, Front
Mission 3, Vagrant Story, Legend of Dragoon(shh!), Chrono Cross, Valkyrie Profile,
FFIX, Lunar 2: EB, Grandia, Grandia II, and Skies of Arcadia; I sold Grandia
without finishing it, and also have yet to finish FM3, FFA, L2:EB, LoD, and VP.
Of the games I DID finish, I only really got that sense of timelessness in
Vagrant Story and FFIX. The others I beat all felt a bit laborious to get through,
and those that I haven't, for the most part, do as well. This leads me to two
possible answers, which may or may not parallel your thoughts on this.
One, the games that are coming out aren't as good as they used to be, and
are unable to immerse me in the same way they could before; this is possibly
due in part to my own age and experience; a game needs that certain extra "oomph,"
like VS had, to draw me in like it used to.
Two, and the one I think is more likely, the games ARE as good as they used
to be, but there were simply too many last year, and too close together. Honestly,
there was an enormous glut of VERY good games last year(not just RPGs), more
than one a month, and since I tend to buy games that I'm looking forward to
as soon as they come out, I ended up having several I was working on at once,
and played them on a rotation, or rushed through them so I could get to the
next one that was out or about to come out, and so never got totally immersed in most of them.
VS and FFIX, however, came in sort of quiet zones for me; the only other
games around those two were Perfect Dark, which I took a break from VS
to play a bit, and which didn't break VS' spell on me in the least(which is
in itself a testament to that game's excellence.), and Lunar 2, which was, like
Lunar 1, a game I got with rainy-day intentions; something I wanted to have
and play, but not something I had to finish RIGHT NOW.
The forecast for this year, however, seems to be a bit on the dry side, as
far as games I'm looking forward to. I guess we'll see, then, since I will
now have more time to play through and digest the games I get, which of those
two possibilities was the right one...
Long letter. Sorry.
Mud Pepper |
Personally, I'm still too busy trying to finish digesting that past glut
of games to enjoy the current lull, but other than that, agreed. It's a
shame Square couldn't have translated a little faster - the last year might
have been more enjoyable if a few games like Legend of Mana had come out
the same time here that they did in Japan (Summer '99, in LoD's case.)
| Q&A in DA? What has the
world come to? |
| Chris -
After my long-winded letter Friday, I've simmered down to some (relatively)
simple Q&A:
1. Has anyone heard anything about a PC release of Final Fantasy IX? It's
how I experienced VII and VIII and it will be a big disappointment if they break
the PC porting trend.
2. I've gotten conflicting reports: The Dreamcast Jump Pack requires no battery
for its rumbling because it draws power from the controller. I've read that
you shouldn't pause your game and leave the Dreamcast running for long periods
of time because it will drain your VMU battery. If the Jump Pack draws power
from the controller, why doesn't the VMU (at least while it's plugged in)?
3. Is the graphical improvement of running your Dreamcast games on a VGA monitor
worth the investment of an adapter?
And finally...
4. Is it bad if you walk out of your Calculus exam because the questions might
as well have been written in Sanskrit for all you understand the
material?
Thanks for any help you can provide.
-MeekayD |
Wow, some questions that I actually know the answers to off the top of
my head. Scary.
1. I haven't heard anything about it, and doubt it'll happen - the
quality of the last two ports aside (although they did sell well enough) I
don't think we've seen the same kind of marketing push for 9 that we did
for the last two, which doesn't bode well for PC crossover sales.
2. The VMU does draw power from the controller - I say this as the
owner of two VMUs with burnt-out batteries that don't work when
disconnected, but display well enough when inserted in the controller. I
think the warning has more to do with shorting out the VMU's internal power,
which seems to happen distressingly easily.
3. I'd say it depends on what you're running on now, and what you might
run on with an adapter. VGA is certainly much sharper than RCA, but S-Video
gives it a run for its money. In a strange way, VGA is almost too sharp -
on progressive scan, some anti-aliasing problems that don't occur on a regular TV become painfully obvious. On the other hand, I once used my VGA
converter to hook my Dreamcast up to an LCD digital projector, and you
haven't lived until you've played Soul Calibur with life-sized
characters.
4. As long as calculus isn't integral to your major, I wouldn't sweat
it - just retake the class next semester.
| On reviews I |
| I hardly ever read this column, I just decided to
check it out on the 18th. I just have some things to say about some
letters I read recently about fans getting pissy because of reviews.
In all honesty anyone who has been into gaming as long as I have
doesn't read reviews anymore. I think there is a problem with reviews
on both sides, first off I agree with the statement about RPG fans
getting mad because some games almost become an extention of
themselves (god knows the hours i've spent on the palace chat defending
Xenogears since the day it came out)I think that can cause a lot of problem.
To be fair, I do believe however (and it seems to be getting more widespread)
that a lot of reviewers have a bad habit of throwing in too many personal
opinions and biases. To correctly read most reviews you have to cut and paste
parts of them to have a real review, like for example "Personally I think Final
Fantasy VIII was crap, and anything square creates is a big smelly turd.
The graphics were a definite 8 for a playstation title if you can stand the kinda
crap square juices out", see what I mean? I'm not saying anyone in particular
does it, i've seen every site or magazine have at least one review with this sorts
of stuff thrown in. Not to mention i've met a few reviewers who are veteran
gamers like me, who are jaded to high hell and back, and they think know it all.
I don't mean to harp on reviewers in general, I realize this is DEFINATELY not
true in all cases. Just to clarify though, I still believe most of the gamers need
to get off of it and not be so offended by a little review, And I think i'll leave
it at that for now before I start ranting and have a two page letter.
-Steven
|
First off, I've been playing games about as long as anyone else, and I
still read reviews - not so much as a recommendation on what to buy, but to
get a flavor of what the consensus opinion on something is. I think
there's a place for some personal interpretation in a review, but if you've
been reading reviews like the one you quoted above, you're
reading some very amateur sites. We here at the GIA aren't completely
impartial automatons (how could we be and still enjoy games ourselves?) but
I can say that in every review of ours that I've ever seen, if we trash a
game at least we try to give valid, objective reasons as to why it sucks.
And the most important thing to remember with any review is this: it's
just a review. I'd like to think that a site like the GIA carries some
additional weight because gaming savvy is what we're based on, when all's
said and done, but even here it's just somebody's opinion. It can be a
well-reasoned, well-argued, well-supported opinion, but it's not a big deal
if you don't agree with it... or they disagree with you.
| On reviews II
*Possible FF9 spoilers* |
| Dear Chris,
I was just rereading GIA's FF9 review, and I noticed something that was
missing. I thought that FF9's themes of memories, life and death could
be considered possibly the one of the most outstanding features of the game.
While the GIA reviewer Zak mentioned some of the cosmetic changes in
FF9 from the previous two titles, he was talking about the medieval setting -
but I would have thrown in the heroes vs. evil empire plot in there too. In
each of the characters, the real story was how they made the most of their
lives. In Vivi's case he had only a few years to carve out an existence,
possibly making him the central focus of this theme. Zak mentions Vivi
as the thematic centerpiece, but just throwing off that comment on the side
doesn't do justice to the other characters who in the end will eventually pass
away as Vivi did.
One comment that really bothers me in most reviews is that FF9 is just all
the Final Fantasies rolled into one. Cosmetically, probably. Thematically -
it's a continuation of the life and death themes that started in FF4 and
really took off in FF6. For example, If the central part of the drama in
FF7 was grappling with the tragic death of Aeris, in FF9 it would be
Garnet's quest to live a real life. Anyway, my real point is that reviews
are not the same as studies of a video game. It takes time to reflect on a
game, and I know time is something GIA reviewers have very little off.
There are vaults that reflect on older games, but I find many of them
lacking in discussion of story themes. Not only GIA, but other serious
video game publications should consider the value of video game studies
(and I don't mean strategy guides!).
-Fares
P.S. While some would call FF9's "Melodies of Life" an obligatory sappy
romantic song in vein of FF8, it is far from it. The lyrics convey exactly the themes
I discussed above.
|
I think you're confusing the role of a review (or a vault) with the
kind of interpretation that you might get in an editorial or discussion
forum. The facts of a game should be obvious to nearly everyone, what those
facts mean about the quality of the game should be obvious to most, but
the theme and symbolism of a game can be completely different for everyone
who plays it. Vagrant Story was my favorite game of all last year, but I
don't expect for it to be anywhere near the same game for anyone else as
for me, and I don't expect any review of the game to be able to scratch the
surface of what the title really represents (or even if it represents anything at all).
Closing Comments:
I'd like to lighten up on the Square discussions for a while, but this
article over at Ain't It Cool News is worthy of some consideration. As the
reviewer keeps pointing out, it's still early to make any sweeping
judgements, but from my perspective we're seeing exactly what I feared
would happen as soon as The Spirits Within was revealed as the subtitle:
the movie's strangling on the kind of gratuitous philosophical stuff that's
been a hallmark of RPGs for years, but doesn't translate over to movies at
all well. Maybe you have a more hopeful take on it tho, so let me know.
See you tomorrow.
-Chris Jones, thinks Sakaguchi
should let the metaphysics take care of itself
|
