The inevitable return of the great pink dope - March 11th, 2000 - Fritz Fraundorf
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not neccessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. I like pie :))). Don't say we didn't warn you.
Drew had a final to study for, so the staff had to drag me away from Paper Mario long enough to bring you what Daily Radar has already declared to be the "BEST LETTER COLUMN EVER." And since Chris will be out next week, you'll be stuck with my scary Chu-Chu-fetishizing self for at least another day. (Yes, the rumors are true: I loved SaGa Frontier.) I hope I don't frighten too many of you away from the site for good.
But enough talk. Have at you!
| LOLOLOLOLOL@TSUBABABA!!!!111 |
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Frankly, I was deeply impressed with the Japanese commercials. Well,
okay, "deeply impressed" is a ludicrous exaggeration, but it made me go
"damn, that's a good idea". Despite the fact that nobody's paying you
for it, you guys still have to sell the GIA to readers, and it's
important when doing that to establish a strong brand identity. The GIA
is pretty darn good at that, as it manages to have a lot of personality
and convey an attitude which is appealing to its target demographic
while still remaining more professional than most of the
corporate-sponsored gaming sites out there. However, you need little
quirks, clever interesting things that people can look at and say
"that's GIA". It also helps if these things don't suck. The early
decision to become a repository of box art in addition to all the normal
stuff was a good step in that direction, but ultimately box art isn't
that big a thing for most people. I mean, I look at it all anyway unless
it's a game I absolutely don't care about (say, anything with "Resident
Evil" in the title"), but the most pleasure I derive from it is being
able to sneer at how much worse it is on certain English versions and
feel like an intellectual like people who complain that movies aren't as
good as the books. So in conclusion, I guess what I'm trying to say is
that the "Lord of the Rings" films will suck because they're not
hardcore enough.
Wait, that wasn't what I was talking about. Oh, right. Gamers love zany
but sincere Japanese stuff, since the cultural stereotype is so deeply
ingrained into our minds that it becomes impossible to look at a
Japanese man in a business suit without imagining comical slide whistle
effects and dancing schoolgirls in the background. Also, if I can curb
my out-of-control sarcasm for a moment, a lot of those Japanese ads are
just plain COOL. Basically, it's something I think holds interest for
the demographic in question, and, most importantly, it's a market that
no other gaming site has cornered. So, bravo! Now you just need to start
posting those nude pictures and I guarantee you'll double your uniques
per month.
-AJ
PS. What the fuck am I talking about?
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Ah, yes. The mythical wacky, hyperactive 100% sugoi version of Japan, where all the English is poor but lovably well-intentioned and all the rabbits on crack. Favorite refuge of would-be Internet humorists who have deluded themselves into believing that subject-verb disagreement
constitutes some new form of underground intellectual humor. Don't you just love condescending racial stereotypes?
PS. I was sorta wondering the same thing myself.
| Still stuck in the middle of a bad TV show |
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Hey Drew!
No, actually, I don't bother looking at those Japanese commercials. Why? Well, most of the time, instead of showing game footage, they're about the adventures of some Japanese guy dressed as a banana, or about what you should do when you wake up in the middle of a rainforest and your body is entirely covered by monkey fur.
If I wanted to know the extent of wackiness in Japanese media, I'd go to ThoseCrazyJapanese.com, alright!?
Sir Farren, already KNOWS what to do when he wakes up in the middle of the rainforest covered by monkey fur, dammit!
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Look at this way: even people dressed up like bananas beat looping footage of VIVI lying in the rain with his pants down.
Then again, I'd be hard-pressed to come up with examples of any game commercials that have much to do with the game in question, save the PSX FF commercials. Most game commercials are usually live-action affairs spoofing some key aspect of the game. These range from the funny (Paper Mario) to the downright embarassing (Metal Gear Solid). Overcoming this kind of pandering advertising will be a big step towards mainstreaming games -- after all, how can we expect anyone to take a game seriously when even its commercials poke fun at it? You didn't see people jumping around on pogo sticks in the trailers for Gladiator, after all.
I'd ask you what you do when you wake up in the middle of the rainforest entirely covered by monkey fur, but I'm not sure I want to know.
| WTF? |
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Tasty Cola hunka treat, it fits so small it cant be beat.
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You people scare me.
| Short but bitter and vile-tasting |
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Considering my modem speed, I could probably fly to Japan, watch TV for a day, and fly back before even one of those movies was done downloading. So I'll answer your question in a form you can understand: No. Does that make me a bad person?
-dmb, wondering what extradimensional void his last letter ended up in..
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Yes. Yes, it does.
| The grass is always greener... |
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Drew,
I downloaded the earlier set of commercials you released, but not the "GIA Commercial Break: Week One" commercials. Why? Because the earlier set had commercials for really cool games that I'm interested in. >From those I downloaded the Onimusha and RE:CVC commercials, which were GREAT! These new commercials..... are for games I'm not really interested in... Perhaps I would have been if the GIA had supplied summaries, descriptions, or even just captions under each commercial to better inform me of the commercials content.
- Shake
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Not a bad idea, though it may prove to be trouble than its worth. The commercials were mostly posted as a regular, minor update and only developed into a weekly feature because the response to the first batch was so positive. We've been receiving a lot of requests for more coverage of import titles, though, so I'll see what I can do.
I'll pass the idea along, in any case.
| I WANT THE SEXY DWARVE |
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Dr.Cosner,
I'm guessing since you can't get Milligan, asking for Jenna Jameson
instead would be completely out of the question?
~Ian P.
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Yes. But you got me instead, baby. What more could you possibly ask for?
And now a few more words on Friday's religion-in-games topic:
| MAMBO 3:16 |
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Honestly, I don't know what kind of mayonnaise jar Mr. Blackie has been in for the past few years, or what drugs he was smoking when he played RPG's, but I've seen almost no negative portrayal of religion in RPG's lately.
In Tactics/Vagrant Story, the emphasis was on corruption within the church. The scene on the rooftops where the power of the stones resurrects Malak showed that there was indeed a holy power behind the stones that Ramza and the others were fighting to protect. The conflict was that of truth versus history, and especially religious truth versus a history controlled by a political church.
In Xenogears the game's theme was the transition from paganism to belief in God. Every portrayal of the "wave existence" is symbolic and divine, while the bioweapon was a corrupt physical entity with an insidious stranglehold on human nature. It showed that a religion like Billy's (modelled heavily on Western Christianity) concentrated on keeping the faithful in line and using them for power in the world, while there were still faithful people who, even if they didn't know it, worshipped a true God. It also had a lot of hackneyed and pointless angelic and crucifix symbolism, but I'm not trying to convince anyone it was a good game.
Even Breath of Fire 2 was very much oriented around the corruption of heavily institutionalized religion taking people away from old forms of Eastern religion. This theme is common in Japanese RPG's, and it always seems to be against overinvolvement in political matters by religion.
So Beaujolais to the Japanese for not being afraid to express their opinions through their art!
- Zen, religious as ever and playing RPG's
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I gotta agree with you. While there have been a few power-hungry religious organizations over the years, I can't think of any too many games that contains any moral or philosophical arguments against religion in general. (The Shin Megami Tensei games do, but only if you elect to join the Chaos path -- you can also choose to side with Law and smack down Satan's minions.)
For the record, I've never understood the claim that Xenogears is anti-religion (certainly not one made by Zen here, but one attempted by various XG fanboys over the past couple years). As in FF Tactics, the Ethos is bad not because it is an religion, but because it wasn't a religion, merely a puppet organization. The other religions in the game -- the Chu-chu Tribe's Wondrous Mambo God and the Nimrod religion / Nisan sect -- were both on the good guys' side. (Heck, even the leaders of the Ethos were trying to free themselves from Solaris' control.)
If anything, I'd say Xenogears' plot was more pro-religion and anti-religion: bad humans create weapon by tampering with Wave Existence, Wave Existence allies with good humans to free itself, good guys defeat "terminal interface weapon" with power of Wave Existence, Wave Existence returns to its dimension and everyone lives happily every after.
Then again, most of the people who claims Xenogears is some sort of deep, insightful exposé of organized religion are probably angsty 13 year-olds who spend the whole day posting on Serial Experiments Lain message boards and cling to Xenogears' promise of "mature religious themes" to justify to themselves that, like, the rest of society is, like, totally stupid 'n stuff, and, like, they're the only people who, like, aren't all superficial 'n sttuff. And, like, J-Pop is, like, sooo much better than all that mainstream American music!
| My pointless DQ rants can beat up your pointless DQ rants |
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Drew,
In yesterday's column, someone wrote:
Since we've been talking lately about where the industry is
going, and about innovation and the like, I've been thinking on some
things I'd like to see happen. One thing I would kinda like to see is a
game that doesn't portray religion in a terrible light.
The two major games that I think of when I think of this are FFT
and Xenogears. Both of them didn't have good things to say--the Glabados
Church was a Machiavellian power-monger, using God for its own wicked
ends, and the entire religious system in Xenogears was based on the
worship of a being that was essentially an advanced bio-weapon. There are
lesser examples, such as BoF2, but on the whole, religion is portrayed in
a very false, cult-like manner in videogames.
I can think of an entire series of RPGs that feature more or less
benevolent religious organizations, that don't plot to take over the world
or worship an alien genocide-machine or whatnot. I'm thinking of the
Dragon Quest series.
Of course, the actual theological beliefs of DQ's churches are barely
touched on in the games... they seem to exist primarily for the purpose of
curing poison, removing curses, resurrecting dead heroes, and (in the
later games) saving your game. But nevertheless, DQ5 in particular had a
scene or two that gave me (as a quasi-observent Catholic) a warm and fuzzy
feeling inside.
All I'm saying is, not every RPG portrays religion as a dark and sinister
force... just a few recent ones that happen to be highly popular do.
--AWJ--
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True. That's pretty much all I can say without
spoiling anything about DQ VII. (Besides, I think there's
some taboo against talking about DQ VII in this column without
leveling all sorts of bizarre unfounded charges against it.)
Still, I think the original letter writer's point was that religion
is rarely seen as an influence in individual characters' lives in
the gaming world. Sure, we tend to see churches as save points and
whatnot, but there aren't too many cases where religious beliefs
form a part of someone's personality. RPG characters are usually
either completely centered around religion (e.g. Billy in Xenogears)
or have no religious beliefs at all (the vast majority of 'em). I'd
like to see more characters who, like the majority of the world's
population, have religious beliefs that comprise part of their identity
but don't utterly define their character.
I wonder if that even made any sense.
| Miscellenia |
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I realize that today`s topic is about Japanese CM on which I have no comment except that I worry watching Japanese television might cause me to break out in epileptic seizures. Perhaps you can post this question on the next free topic day:
When game systems are fully internet compatible, do you think we`ll see emulators capable of being played through the console? For instance, is it perceivable that one day I can download NESticle onto my PS2 harddrive, play Metal Gear using the PS controller and then save my game onto the PS memory card?
Being a nostalgia whore, this is an exciting prospect to me. But do you think emu hackers would be able to write software compatible with the Playstation controller, memory card, etc?
I have another question, which you can answer on another day if you have too little time. That is, why can the Analog controller not handle the D-pad function? On my original NES I had a controller with an analog stick that functioned for the D-pad. So why should it be any different to program the analog stick to work as a D-pad as well? Personally I would like to use the analog on games like Final Fantasy Anthology simply because my fingers ache after prolonged pressing. Any thoughts?
Feel free to post my questions whenever and edit for length, etc. If possible I would rather not have one of the glibly immediate response-type responses which have recently come into vogue at GIA.
Thanks,
Jeriaska
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Well, here's my glibly semi-immediate response-type response: Actually, there's already a number of console emulators out there for use on other console systems, particulary the DC. (Bleemcast!, a PSX emulator for the DC, is probably the most well known.) Granted, burning an emulator and some ROMs onto a CD isn't nearly as convenient as downloading them directly onto your system, but, hey, the technology out there.
As for your second question, my guess would be that it's because the PSX considers the analog sticks to be completely separate buttons, not just alternate D-pads. A very small fraction of games -- Ape Escape and Tobal 2 being the only ones I can think of -- use the analog sticks for separate functions; hence, the PSX cannot consider them to be mirrors of the D-pad.
Closing comments:
Looks I need to give you folks a topic, so here goes: While Square is still being extremely sting-y with Final Fantasy X media (and, consequently, people hate them), we've still managed to scrounge together a fair amount of info about Square's latest undertaking. So what are you feelings on the game thus far? I'm expecting lots of angry, misinformed ranting about this topic, so don't disappoint me -- I promise I won't make fun of you. At least not too much.
Or keep writing about religion in games, commercials, emulators, analog controls, or your nonsensical analyses of why you think Megaman X4's bosses had more detailed character development than X5's. I don't care.
I'll be back tomorrow -- same GIA time, same GIA channel.
- Fritz Fraundorf, Tilmittie No. 1
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