Just in case you were wondering -
March 23, 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.
This is not a kind of Space-Opera. It is a sort of Space-Jazz which is
filled with street-sense and life.
Don't say we didn't warn you.
Sometimes I wonder why I'm in the Midwest.
I'm still wondering.
Onward.
Damn! I mean...
DAMN! |
Here's a question for anyone who's been priviliged enough to play the
Metal Gear Solid 2 demo. You see, one of my favorite lines in Metal Gear
Solid is "Damn". It's Snake's quintensential catch-phrase, analagous to
Homer's "Doh". See a big helicopter heading towards you -- "Damn".
Surrounded by terrorists? "Damn". Heck, Meryl in trouble? "Damn".
And the numerous ways Snake is able to say this word... amazing.
So the big question, is does "Damn" return in MGS2? Granted the
English voices haven't been released yet, but the English subtitles must
reveal at least one or two "Damn"s, or perhaps the Japanese Snake voice
lets fly with a few "Damn"s. Please, I must know that MGS2 will be as
good as the original!
-Adam
|
Like the rest of you mortals I've got to wait for next week to try the demo out, but I can't imagine that they'd back down from such a classic catch phrase. I mean, the game's got a pregnant knife throwing general's daughter, which should be sufficient to make anyone say "damn".
Somebody has to worry
about Microsoft, I guess |
Chris,
I'm not quite sure why, but I'm not remotely excited about the X-Box. And
that sort of troubles me, because there's absolutely no reason why I
SHOULDN'T be. It's the new kid on the block, super-fast, and by most
accounts will garner tons of third-party support.
Maybe the problem is with the games I've seen previewed so far - almost
strictly PC ports (and where are my RPGs?). Or maybe it's the appearance of
the console and controllers - overweight and unwieldy, respectively. Or
maybe all I need is for Square (or Konami, or Capcom, or Sega, or Game Arts,
or Enix) to say, "Hey! This console looks great! We're going to make one or
two exclusive games for it!" (Konami's MGS "remix" notwithstanding)
I'd chalk it up to the fact that I'm a jaded gamer, but I AM excited about
the prospect of a new Mario and Zelda on GameCube, or a new Final Fantasy
(or, even better, FFT!) on PS2.
Clearly this was a poorly designed letter. It seems I've answered my own
question. It's the games. Or lack thereof.
So...I guess my new question is this: is it just me?
Joshua Jarvis
|
Nope, it's not just you. Halo and the new Oddworld are interesting games, but nothing for RPG fans to get too incredibly excited about. There's still a way to go before it launches, but between the PS2 and the GameCube, I just don't feel a burning desire to get the Box, and don't see anyone else saying anything different.
Lunar and sensible
shoes |
Ok...i'm not sure if this is exactly topical--it's really a response to a
bunch of columns i never really wrote about all smushed together--but dammit
i'm sending it in anyway. And it's 7:30 in the morning, so I'm allowed to be
incoherent, dammit.
I was stunned that in neither the strong female character column a few weeks
ago nor the comfy clothing column no-one even mentioned the Lunar games. It
seems to me that in both of these areas they're way ahead of their time--not
only do they have extremely strong female main characters (Jessica and Mia
in SSS and Jean and Lemina in EB), but those characters, and, in fact, the
male characters as well, actually dress in eminently practical clothing.
So I'm a little befuddled as to why no-one mentioned them in either column.
I mean, they seem like perfect examples of both games with awesome
characterization, AND of games with heroines...but *gasp* no
miniskirts!!!!
Ok. that's all I really wanted to say. Sorry about the sporadic
capitalization.
-rachel, who pre-ordered all the games, but still hasn't gotten her pictures
of victor ireland naked on a motorcycle |
It's true that Game Arts' games, as a rule, seem to have reasonably, but not overwhelmingly strong female characters. Jessica and Mia were largely defined by their relationships with their boyfriends, but Lemina and Jean had their own independent goals, which they carried out with reasonable competence. If nothing else Jean deserves kudos for knowing when high heels are appropriate and when to break out the karate uniform.
Surrender all hope |
Hey Chris, an important query for ye....
I want to go into video game journalism, *Well, that or a job somewhere like
the GIA, but that's a pipe dream for us bottom-feeders* but I'm unsure on
what classes I should take. Suggestions?
Negative Creep
|
This question comes over the transom so often I need to add it to the FAQ. But I don't know that I've ever answered it straight out in the col, so here goes:
First, keep in mind that the GIA isn't a job by any means - it's a hobby. There's very little money, and not even that many free games, so in other words, don't quit your day job.
That said, regardless of if you're looking to work here or at any other serious games publication, the number one thing to practice is your writing - specifically, how to write a professional news story or review. Basic journalism and English classes are great for this. I really can't stress how important this is - we get plenty of people who obviously love games and would be hard workers, but to be a great site we need great writing that sounds like it could have come from any serious print magazine (or better, in some cases.)
It's also great if you can do work for your college or local paper, just to get real world practice and build up a portfolio of writing samples. Basically, a game review isn't that much different from writing a film (or book, or music) review, so worst case scenario, you can go work for Entertainment Weekly instead of EGM when you graduate. But someone with intelligence, solid writing skills, and an interest in games shouldn't have too much trouble landing somewhere good, whatever happens.
Yet another DC snub |
Dear Chris,
http://www.fgnonline.com/industry/news/17916.html
As you can see, the computer game of the year and overall game of the year
is Diablo II, which to this day still has playability problems on battle.net.
Phantasy Star Online is a much better representative of that action RPG genre
than Diablo II will ever be, but nevertheless it never sold millions of copies
as Diablo II did.
Anyway the AIAS awards always seem to be skewed to marketplace successes, as
opposed to the critical successes. Earlier this year, the nominations list from
an organization of game developers rightly gave credit to PC games that may
have not been financially successfully enterprises, but at least those games were
at least decent, respectable games. I cannot say that of Diablo II.
-Fares |
As you say, these awards are simply skewed towards marketplace success, or at best, some elite's idea of what "good" is. When you get down to it, awards of any type really aren't worth that much when it comes to art - if the award has any kind of standing in the public's eyes, it'll eventually get co-opted by somebody's hype machine, and if it has no standing... well, it has no standing, so who cares? The best that you can honestly hope for is some reasonably intelligent opinions on what a credible group of critics thought was good in a particular year, and more importantly, why they thought so, so you can decide if they're full of it yourself.
Ah, the nostalgia... |
"But we should all be so lucky to be in a great relationship with a cute girl... wait, I am that
lucky, so nuts the rest of you who aren't."
Listen, buddy... I have my games and my classes and that's all I need! IT'S ALL I NEED, I TELL
YOU!!!
*cries*
- Mr. Nip (my Mom says I'm cool!) |
Man, I've been there.
And now I'm not.
Woohoo!
Behold the power of
Ginsu |
Chris:
The discussion about clothing in RPGs got me to thinking, and I suddenly realized that there is another, far more unrealistic and overused convention which has been in RPGs as long as they've been around.
The sword. Or, more generally, hack-and-slash weaponry of all types. Even in games which take on a more futuristic tone, such as FFVIII or Star Ocean, the sword is almost always present, almost always capable of going toe-to-toe with adversaries it has no business defeating. Things like dragons are fine. After all, they're made of flesh and bone. But a sword against an Iron Giant, or worse, a giant crab-like tank, is simply ludicrous.
It gets even worse when you consider that not only are swords ever-present, they're also nearly always the most powerful weapon available, eclipsing firearms of, realistically, overwhelmingly greater power. Consider BoF3, in which Ryu's sword is much stronger than Momo's bazooka. Or more recently, Squall's gunblade overpowering Irvine's shotgun. (Yes, the gunblade had a revolver incorporated into it, but even without pressing the timed trigger, it far outclassed any of Irvine's weapons.)
And yet, the problem I see is that, while the swords and axes and such of RPGs have been far overused and are quite unrealistic, there seems to be no alternative. In a realistic RPG, there would be little use for anything other than firearms, which could grow just as stale. And non-realistic RPGs that try to venture away from the sword for creative reasons often find themselves with weapons that simply make no sense at all. (Flutes? Fans? -Blitzballs-?!)
What the answer to this problem may be, I don't know. But I'd certainly like to find out. Wouldn't you?
Lord Pendragon |
I see where you're coming from, but I'd argue that it tends to be more of a generalized problem than that: RPG combat bears little resemblance towards any kind of "real" combat, period.
Think about it for a second: in the real world, if you get hit by a bullet, you generally die. Sometimes instantly, sometimes very quickly, and sometimes you'll hear about people being able to crawl a fair distance or dial a phone before succumbing to massive blood loss, but as a rule, if you don't get rapid medical attention, you're not going to make it. This isn't just limited to guns either - real, serious, no kidding martial arts are less about flashy sparring techniques and more about kicking somebody in the kneecap so that they go down fast and don't get up again until they've undergone months of therapy and reconstructive surgery. Ditto swordplay, although that probably has more natural back-and-forth than anything else.
RPGs, on the other hand, give you the opportunity to survive tons of hits from anything between a dagger and a meteor, usually with no real loss of function. And characters can power up hugely from experience - true, exercise can do wonders, but body builders aren't usually several orders of magnitude stronger or tougher than normal people.
So at that level, the only way to rein in swords is to institute something closer to a one-hit kill for anyone not wearing full body armor. Which isn't completely out of the question (early games of all kinds were basically one-hit kills, and they did pretty well) but if people are so fixated on keeping menus around, how do you think they'll react to getting rid of HP and EXP?
How the hell
did he figure that out? |
"Konami has hinted that promising sales [of Dance Dance Revolution] might
lead to versions specific to North America."
Great. Flerking great. It took them two years to finish a zero-effort
port of DDR, which they're not promoting, are only making available in
particular retailers, and the only thing that makes the game any better
than Parappa is still in absentia.
So basically they're saying "if you take the effort to find this game that
we couldn't be bothered to market at all and buy it despite other obviously
superior products, then we might consider giving it a another try." Or
more simply, "we figure that if you buy this, you'll buy anything."
Whatever. On a quasi-related note, anyone have any idea if Sega's gonna
make more sets of Maracas for the US release of Samba de Amigo 2001?
-Anson (It's Lyman! Hel-lo?!) |
I'd be harsher on Konami, except A) I suck at rhythm games, and B) I'm hard pressed to make fun of the super-geniuses behind MGS2. Still, your rage is duly noted.
And no idea about the maracas, but I'd doubt it with their current hardware woes.
Things you never even
knew about |
Dear Caeser Julius,
the following text was taken from a conversation between 2 programmers on the
FFVII team who just finished reading yesterday's letter regarding the film
techniques applied in the game:
"I don't remember doing any of that stuff."
"Me neither."
yours cruelly,
opultaM Forward |
It's been my experience that there's a heck of a lot more subtext to nearly everything than you're aware of - in-jokes, obscure references, and subtleties show up in everything from comic books to action movies. Fortunately, this is balanced out by stuff like Xenogears, which have far more meaning read into them than they generally deserve.
Closing Comments:
Ok, Drew's on break this weekend, so we've got Ed covering for at least part of the time. And for a rant-worth topic tomorrow, try this: what game are you most upset about never coming over to the US, or never properly coming over to the US? SD3? Soul Hackers? Vib Ribbon? DDR? Tell Ed, and I'll catch you Monday.
-Chris Jones, would never have seen that text if he hadn't watched on his computer
|