Blitzcol II -
June 8, 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.
Why don't all TV shows have two robot puppets and a nerdy wiseass at the bottom of the screen?
Don't say we didn't warn you.
Everybody likes the Systems Wars feature, as well they should.
This column must be up by 10pm CDT tonight, so sorry if I'm a bit rushed in my responses.
Onward.
| Why am I posting a long letter about an FPS? Nothing good on TV. |
| I'd like to know what you guys think about Bungie's upcoming Xbox FPS,
Halo. I've heard all sorts of things about it since E3: "Microsoft's doing
it, so it's gonna suck"; "FPS games don't work on consoles"; "It doesn't
have online multiplayer, so it's gonna suck"; "The framerate in multiplayer
was terrible, so it's gonna suck". And I know people who witnesses the
framerate problem firsthand. Bungie explained the reason for this (the sound
was being emulated since the sound chip wasn't in the XDKs at the show);
makes sense to me, so I can concentrate on the things that got me excited
about the game in the first place.
Now, I'm a gamer who likes two kinds of games, mainly: RPGs, and action
games. I like RPGs because they're epic, they're involving, they're
character-driven and have good storylines (the good ones do, anyway). I like
action games because they're just fun to play; they're totally about
gameplay and the best ones can get really intense. (Is it any wonder my
favorite genre of game is the action RPG?)
Long ago, though, Bungie broke out with a game called Marathon that was,
in a sense, the best of both worlds: great first-person single- and
multi-player gameplay plus a deep sci-fi storyline that's still being
analyzed and dissected to this day in certain places, even though the game
was released in 1994. It's as dated by today's standards as anything
released then, yet Bungie's still making games and they've always centered
their development on two things: storyline and gameplay. Their next game
after Marathon, which was a tactical game called Myth, followed in this
tradition. Oni was developed by one of Bungie's branch studios.
Now, the team behind Marathon is making Halo and I'm pretty excited. Too
long it has been since we had an action game with a really good sci-fi
storyline. Red Faction and Half-Life have tried, but Red Faction's story is
lifted heavily from Total Recall and Half-Life is more about great
presentation than anything else. Marathon, even though its storyline was
displayed through text-based terminals, had a really cool sci-fi epic
storyline and plenty of action to boot.
What we've seen of Halo so far-- some guys on a beach in a Jeep running
around killing aliens-- might not suggest it, but this is a game from a team
known for making games both with heavy storyline and heavy action.
Personally, I can't wait to play it. When first-person shooters are made to
work well on consoles, they're very fun to play; I think Red Faction is a
blast, and I certainly enjoyed GoldenEye. While there are plenty of Xbox
games on the way that don't excite me, I'm very much looking forward to Halo
mainly because of its storyline.
To date, though, we haven't learned much of that storyline. You guys were
at E3; assumedly, someone from the GIA got to play, or at least see, the
game. I was wondering what your opinions on it were.
-Nij
|
That was an extremely roundabout way of asking what we thought of Halo, but here goes: although I'm well aware of the technical aspects of Halo, the history of the team and Bungie's reputation, little of that showed through at the show. The combat looked relatively clean, compared to some of the other FPSs out there, but the actual graphics needed some clearer textures and anti-aliasing. I played the first Marathon soon after it came out, and loved the presentation at the time, but absolutely no plot, backstory, or anything else showed up at E3. Actually, that's true of nearly all the XBox games - for all I know, some of them might have plots rivaling Vagrant Story, but there was nothing there to draw me in, unlike, say, Konami's Silent Hill 2 video.
| More three stage stuff |
| Chris,
I noticed this too a while ago, about the first three games of a series
sometimes following this three-stage pattern. I defined it more along the
lines of original - experimental - back-to-basics.
It's even true of the Japanese Mario series as well: Mario 2, as you well
know, was a bunch of designers playing around, thinking "What kind of
messed-up shit can we cram into this pre-existing game engine?" So you got
all sorts of stuff that didn't make it into any other games like poison
mushrooms and wind, and stuff that did like upside-down pipes and red pirana
plants. Then you have Mario 3 - "Well, we went a bit too far, but we had a
few good ideas, so let's keep them and go back to what worked before."
Furthermore, I do think you can categorize the NES Final Fantasies in this
way. FF2 was truly an experimental game - weird level-up system (which was
ditched in later games but made it into the SaGa series), pre-determined
characters with personalities, whatnot. Then FF3 went back to the original's
system, just greatly expanded.
And we saw this in Zelda, Castlevania, and other series as well. So why are
we not seeing this pattern as much anymore? Probably because these days a
"sequel" means a few more textures and a new levels pack. INNOVATION IS
DEAD, I TELL YOU!
Chris Kohler, needs to go put his dentures in now.
|
I dunno - the real Mario 2 had some wacky stuff in it, but I thought it was a lot closer to Mario 1 than Mario 3 was. At any rate, I don't think innovation's dead, I just think that companies aren't pushing their main series quite as hard as they used to. Back in the NES days, nobody thought much about having Miyamoto churn out a new Mario or Zelda game every year or so; the games were popular, sure, but they were still more or less seen as a commodity. Now a new Mario or Zelda game is a huge deal, and Miyamoto gets treated less like a programmer with a deadline and more like a respected movie director, who's afforded the luxury of tweaking everything until it's just right. I'm not 10 anymore, so games don't quite give me the buzz they used to, but even now I can see that a lot more thought goes in to major series installments, and I can appreciate that.
| You never know when you might have to bomb that wall |
| chris,
peter's letter got me thinking about the actual benefits of gaming. aside
from the usual "it helps my hand eye coordination" we've all fed our
parents i started thinking about how games like zelda really do cause
players to not only solve problems, but to think of creative solutions to
those problems. recently for some reason my older sister has been playing
zelda and its fascinating to see her at first struggling and cursing
trying to get past that ever so painful first dungeon, but then she
starts thinking about things, she gets better as she progresses and
instead of getting ticked off she is figureing out how to get to that
last chicken in kakariko village or clobbering that once "impossible"
boss. i dunno maybe its simply justification of my hobby, but it does
seem that there is a "real" benefit... somewhere.
-fred "stayed home from school once to hone his hand eye coordination
skills"
http://www.j0nyquest.8k.com
|
I suppose if your sister faces daily situations wherein she needs to figure out which of several basement levels to flood with water...
Ok, that was a glib response, as was my answer to the question yesterday. Fact of the matter is, I don't know how much games effect us, because I've been playing them all my life, and if I have been effected, I might not know it anymore than I know what the back of my head looks like. I never played a lot of really fast paced action games, although I do know that after a really intense session of Tetris or one of the latter stages of Starfox, everything I saw became a stack of blocks to fit a falling piece into, or an oncoming missile I had to dodge away from or shoot... but that never lasted long.
On the other hand, playing through games like Zelda and Mario taught me to methodically test everything, in hope of finding some secret item or passage, and that patient, methodical mindset comes in very handy when I'm trying to get a buggy program to work. So while I can't say for sure if games have effected my personality, I do know I've picked up at least one or two useful skills from them.
| More stuff on reviews |
| Chris,
Here is the summary of a recent review on dc.ign.com:
Crazy Taxi 2 may have new gameplay mechanics, new cities, and new
mini-games than Crazy Taxi but that doesn't make it better than the
original. And like I said above, there are some controls issues that I
noticed, but that really doesn't effect the enjoyment of the game. For that
matter, it's not that I didn't enjoy Crazy Taxi 2 at all; the new gameplay
features, new mini-games, and new maps will certainly make most Crazy Taxi
players feel home as they go out and make some more - but not better - crazy
money.
The ENTIRE review is like that - all 1300 words. And I still have no idea
whether or not this guy LIKES the game. Does it sound coherent to you? Does
IGN actually pay their reviewers money? Are they real journalists? Or does
IGN's fascination with monkeys reveal its roots at last - that their
workforce is 97% simian (and, of course, paid in bananas)?
Joshua Jarvis
|
If nothing else, the fact that he gave it an 8.8 out of 10 might have clued you in to what his final opinion was, and I actually thought that paragraph made a fair amount of sense, when taken in context of the rest of the review. Still, I'd be lying if I said it didn't need some editing... but on the other hand, from the comments I've seen flying around the past few weeks, I'm starting to wonder if IGN's not starting to become the next Daily Radar-esque scapegoat. I don't think that's quite fair, if so: IGN tries damn hard, and they often put out some excellent work. They just need a few more editors, here and there, perhaps.
| what is it with you people you have no lives and I run on |
| chris,
I'm not writing this to piss people off but these people that e-mail you must have no lives because i mean look they say they have played this game and that game beat it then played it again and again until it's label fell off from their sweaty palm carresing the cartridge. then went out baught the next installment played that to death and went to the next one in line i have so many rpg's to play but i can never find the time i work i have a girl friend a social life but hey i love games but we all should have something out side of video games this is just a question to ask the gia fans but really ask if they have a life outside aeris and chrono your fan.
crisis1x4
|
One possible answer that suggests itself is that many of the individuals you speak of actually choose to have no social life, so they can devote all their attention to the ancient, lost arts of spelling and punctuation.
Alternatively, your basic premise could be flawed. There are some people out there who play games obsessively and do little else, but that's their choice, and as a former hardcore nerd myself, I can testify that there's a great deal of enjoyment to be had from doing something you love as much as you possibly can. But a lot of people out there also have balanced lives - not that I had any excuse to think otherwise, but I've been consistently impressed at how well rounded the GIA staff is. These are people who can draw a map of FFI's Ice Cave from memory, sure, but they can also debate literature, modern composition theory, or have wild nights where somebody gets stuffed into the trunk of a car for 10 miles. Most of my readers are much the same; they like games, they like thinking and talking about games, but their lives don't end there... it's just that's all you see, from reading the column.
| *sniff* That's so beautiful, man... |
| Howdy Chris,
I just have to share this with you, and the community if they want. I went on a date with a girl tonight...real nice girl, real friendly, real nice personality. Well, we went out and ate, we went to see Shrek...It lasted much shorter than I thought, so we came back to my house. We talked for an hour or so, and then the strangest goddang thing happened...
...She asked me if I would show her the ending to FF8. She wanted to see FF7's and CC's, too, but we didn't have time tonight. As it turns out, she got a PSX from someone a few years ago, and FF7 was one of the games. She played it, got into it, and became...
........She became one of us.
--Big J
|
It's a beautiful dream come true, my friend. True, you probably had to sell your soul to one of the major archdemons to have such a thing happen to you, but isn't it worth it in the long run?
Closing Comments:
Drew is in tomorrow, and for a topic, how about more of what Big J speaks of above: send in letters about how games have affected your social and romantic lives, in the real world. Bring hope to all those lonely fools out there who think that they'll never find a true love who also appreciates FF6. See you Monday.
-Chris Jones, recovering nerd, one day at a time
|
