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.

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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

Man, I've been there.

And now I'm not.

Woohoo!

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?

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.

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