Derailed trains and other bummers -
May 25, 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.
The talking pig movie is very hard to find on DVD.
Don't say we didn't warn you.
Good to be back in New Orleans, where I can once more slowly destroy my cardiovascular system with too much fried seafood. That's good eatin', as they say.
Onward.
| Counterpoint I |
| Dear Matt Blackie,
So.....let me get this straight. According to you, if a product from a company fails, it's because the consumers wouldn't give them a chance, in other words, it's our fault. But when a product does well, I assume then the accolades and praise go to....us? I don't think so.
Every company, including Microsoft, is ultimately responsible for the quality and workmanship of their own products and if it fails, so be it. But finding a scapegoat and putting the blame on us doesn't cut it.
Your friend,
Saint7
|
Got a fair amount of mail back on Mr. Blackie's letter, and this was the least inflammatory. Since I already said my piece about this yesterday, not much more to say, just wanted to point out the opposition.
| Counterpoint II |
| "Not only is his art style great, but he has boldly (and wisely) moved away from the superdeformed characters that are found in many rpgs even today..."
I doubt Nomura had any say if the characters were super deformed or not. Amano's character designs in all the Final Fantasies, including the NES ones, were drawn to scale, yet were super-deformed in the game. It was most likely the higher-ups at Square who chose to have realistically proportioned characters.
Character designers are under almost direct control by the producers and directors of the project. This differs from company to company of course, but it most likely went along the lines of...
Sakaguchi: So, what do ya got for me today, Nomura-san?
Nomura: Got about 300 possible designs for the main character. Pick your favorite.
Sakaguchi: I like #145, but make him taller, and I want that "kakkoi" boy band look in his face that all the high school girls dig. And damnit man, we need more spiky-haired guys and skinny girls with brown hair! Get to it!
Nomura: Yessir.
This stuff is a lot more calculated than many people think. Maybe Nomura's characters look alike because they had the best response out of a japanese test group. Maybe that explains why Tidus's hair is blonde now. Gameplay also has to come into consideration. The blonde stands out more than the black, so he'll be easier to follow on screen.
Nomura's a great designer, but ya gotta give props to the art director and the rest of the team.
-Duncan Burris, wants some more green haired characters in his RPG
|
Actually, I don't think it's quite as calculated as all that. A lot of people agree that Nomura was picked to do FFVII because his designs translated somewhat better into 3D characters at the time, but beyond that, I don't think there's much test marketing of the character designs beyond the basic requirement that they look cool. Sure Nomura's designs probably wouldn't survive much of a challenge from the art director, producer, etc., but as long as his characters aren't actually stick figures that shouldn't be too much of a problem.
| Counterpoint III |
| From the Howard Lincoln interview: "Sony, and to a lesser degree Microsoft, have been touting the convergence of movies and games. Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy will both see movies released this summer. Why hasn't Nintendo taken that tack?"
Uh, what cave did Ed just crawl out of? Since when has Nintendo never done a video game movie? Unless he's referring specifically to THIS summer, there have been various Nintendo-related movies or TV shows around for years, most recently being Pokemon. Actually, now that I think about it, there's probably another Pokemon movie coming out this summer...what are they up to now, #7?
|
Touche. Actually, though, I think Ed was talking more about making their games more cinematic - Final Fantasy certainly feels a lot like a movie in game form, and even Tomb Raider has an attempt at narratives. Ocarina of Time was not without its share of cutscenes, but it's fairly obvious that Miyamoto's designing for gameplay first, plot second. And from what was shown at E3, it seems that'll be the case again - Pikmin and Luigi's Mansion are both fascinating games, but there's likely no equivalent of FF8's waltz sequence contained therein.
But the nice thing about the Gamecube is that Nintendo's finally given developers the option of going cinematic in their games, even as Nintendo itself continues to forge ahead with largely gameplay driven titles. And that middle ground, as much as anything, is what makes the GC such a potentially kickass system.
| Counterpoint IV |
| Welcome Back Chris!
Well...I was up late yesterday, reading through the
GIA letters and such...and Nich had asked us what our
favorite E3 game deserved, "Best of show". Since he
didn't specify if he meant for console or what...I
commented on how good I thought Duke Nukem Forever
looked. I got a one sentence response.
"See, folks? Equal time, even for games that actively
repulse me on platforms I don't play."
Now...obviously Nich is having a pretty bad day since
he kinda trashed on the publisher
Neversoft...but..come on! One sentence! I need more
of a response then that! :)
What really ticked me off is...he didn't say WHY.
I'd be fine if he said that the game sucked, or PC
games sucked, or whatever. I don't have a problem
with anything like that. It's that he didn't explain
why he was...repulsed? Least he could have done is
explained his ill feelings. Instead, he left it as
some lame, one sentence answer...implying I wasn't a
person who was even worth a real response. Isn't that
the whole point of hosting a column? Discussing the
letters?
So...anyways. Glad you're back. Glad you don't give
lame one answer responses. Keep up the good work.
Sorry for the rant.
Terminator |
Given the general sarcastic tone of the response in question, I'm surprised you even need to ask why - the reason Nich dislikes Duke is clearly secondary to what he was talking about. That said, I'll say why I'm not too nuts about Duke. I've seen the DNF promo trailer, and it's good, and a friend of a friend is actually one of the game's level designers. Still, Duke represents way too much of the dumb, macho, violent exploitation I don't want to see in games. I'm not an idiot, I can see the satire of the character, but a Duke game still embraces themes that got old for me around the time I got my first plasma bazooka in DOOM. Silent Hill and MGS2 take gaming to places I want to go, DNF does not. What more needs to be said?
| Not the phrase I would have used... this year |
| Sometimes you can define the E3 show by a single phrase. This year, it
occured while watching the MGS2 trailer on the first day.
A man in the middle of the crowd stared in disbelief at the late 2001
release date, and then shouted out to the crowd, "What?!? I CAN'T WAIT THAT
LONG!"
Indeed.
KZ
|
One of the coolest things about E3 wasn't the show itself, but the pre-show press conferences where a lot of the big news got announced. Case in point, the first time that video got shown was Wednesday, when Kojima himself presented it at the Sony press conference. Needless to say, the audience, myself included, was wowed beyond belief... but I'm not quite as out of control about the game this year as last. It's one thing to have a video that cool a few months before the game's released, it's another thing entirely to have it more than a year before you're ready to put it on the market, as was the case with E3 2000. Matter of fact, since nearly everything I saw was due to be released before the end of 2001, everything was a pleasant tease, rather than an insatiable hunger.
| Capcom vs. Nintendo vs. Sega vs. Sony vs. the cast of Friends... |
| You've asked several times what new games we'd like to see and I just thought of one. Rather than Melee I'd like to see a Super Smash Bros. title where you can battle back as Sega Characters as well as Nintendo ones.(now that Nintendo and Sega are on speaking terms) I think it'd be fun to see this kind of crossover fighting game between the ex-rivals. Who hasn't wanted to see Sonic vs. Mario at one time or another? or maybe some people from Vuttuia fighter? The posibilites are endless....
Shadowcat
|
I dunno... a lot of companies, Sega included, would be more than happy to donate their mascots to a Smash Bros. game. If Nintendo just said the word, they could probably have everybody from Ashley Riot and Solid Snake to Parappa and Vibri duking it out, but it really says something about Nintendo that they've got enough good characters to staff a game like that solo. Sure there are a couple of questionable inclusions (I doubt if a tenth of the people in the Nintendo press conference knew who the Ice Climber characters were) but by and large the characters are all quality... why mess with that if you don't have to?
| Friends and enemies of modern letters columns |
| Yaaaaaaaay! Chris is back! No more revolving columnists! No more Chris/Drew yaoi action! Wheeeee!
Bring us any suprises, huh huh?
-Negative Creep
I think that you should continue sucking big fat dick. It helps you to
write this crap on this web site. I also think that your boyfrind likes
girls so you need to fuck off dick sucker!
Sincerely,
Penis Head |
The letter that was happiest to see me back combined with the most bitter letter awaiting me upon my return... kind of interesting to see them together, me thinks. NC, I'll try and come up with a better surprise for next Monday, and Mr. Head... nah, you're just too pathetic.
| Pointless rambling... and more pointless rambling |
| Chris!
E3 and Time magazine and all that aside...I got a bone to pick with everyone!
Now, I understand everyone may not be this huge die hard Final Fantasy fan,
but we can't forget that it was FFVII that brought upon us the "new world" of
gaming (by that I mean it was the first to be as long or as graphical as it
was). That's when things took the unexpected turn in the series that they did.
Now, enough pointless ramble....
As I've been reading through Double Agent, I've seen that there isn't too
much talk of FFX as there is of Pikmin, Luigi's Mansion, and the like. Of
course I understand that people may like those games and a bunch of others
like Tomak and all that...but this is SQUARE we're talking about! What
they've shown us of FFX already is looking awesome, but let us not forget, of
course there will be more to FFX than what we have seen. FFVII, FFVIII
(eh..good enough), FFIX (HUGE improvement from VIII, as good as VII if ya ask
me) are all great games and now FFX is coming out...but there's a difference.
We'll be seeing the next title on the PS2! A new and advanced system! Able to
handle bigger and better games! (Am I getting all the FF fans' blood rushing
yet??) FFX, being the first FF on PS2, is bound (or at least has the
greatest possibility) to be the best in the series! Come on people! Think
about it! Map it out! Do whatever it takes for you all to realize what this
means! (Err...sorry...I've suddenly turned into a...well...something that
yells too much.)
As I was hearing of all these new and advanced systems coming out, I said to
myself "PS2? GameCube? X-Box...::twitch::...WHICH TO SAVE FOR?!" for you see,
I do not have all the money in the world, and can't afford to have all of
this, even though I will still try. Well, I chose the PS2 for three reasons,
being: It was the first to come out, the Final Fantasy series and many others
I like were bound to stick on it, and...well...my third reason I must
explain. You see, PS2, as we all know, was the first to come out. Now,
recently we've all found that the GameCube and X-Box are coming out within
three days of each other. Here's my point: GameCube and X-Box will be
battling each other in sales at the same time and all that, while PS2, being
the first to come out, will still have the most sold units (Im guessin
here...) throughout simply because it was out first with no competition of
the like. It's bound to be the top system, even though GameCube will run a
close second.
Summing up all of my nonsense here, FFX has the possibility to be the
greatest game of all time up to now, teamed with the top system, who's
ancestor brought us great gaming and memories.
-Numaro, who's just spent too much time trying to tie those two points
together.
|
Don't have time to fully address your letter, but a couple of quick takes: FF7 wasn't the first game to be that long, FFX looks really damn good, but I don't want to say more because of people trying to avoid all potential spoilers, and the GC and PS2 are pretty complimentary, so I'd get both if at all possible, even if it means waiting a couple of years for one of them to go into bargain mode. Which one you wait for will probably depend on your tastes. More than that, I'll leave for Drew to handle.
Closing Comments:
One of the interesting things about DA is the way it provides a rolling snapshot of gaming tastes. (Yeah, I know, I'll update the archives soon.) That said I think it's time for another status check on what the prevailing opinion is about what next-gen systems are worthwhile, now that you've seen the E3 reports. Tell
Drew, and I'll be back on Memorial Day.
-Chris Jones, smart enough to plan a road trip during the biggest gasoline price hikes in years
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