Jurisdiction -
July 22, 2001 - Nich Maragos
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.
Hatred is good for me!
Don't say we didn't warn you.
Sometime I'm going to have to learn how to come to grips with this whole "positive feedback" thing. It's very, very unnerving.
| Loose ends |
| Nich,
True - I don't think Mitsuda's name appeared in the credits of the Super NES
version OR the Super Famicom version. My thought is they wanted to sell the
game on Uematsu's fame and gave him full credit. Kind of sad. However, it's
important to note that for the PS release they added another staff roll after
the game ended, which did credit Mitsuda. So that was definitely Square
USA's job to translate correctly, and if they didn't... well, then my comment
still stands.
Chris Kohler
|
Yeah, good point, I'd forgotten about the extra staff roll. Seems like a strange omission in 2001, when as many Americans know Mitsuda's name as they do Uematsu's.
| Vanilla Flan ingredients |
| Hi! How are you?
I send you this file in order to have your advice
See you later. Thanks
|
Thanks! I was in the mood for some vanilla flan, and here you sent me this helpful recipe attached to your email. Let me open it right up ... noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
| Neverquest |
| Nich!
*sniff*
I want coverage of my EQ..but no one will give it to me...*snort*..
Damn the man!
-Numaro
|
I know you're kidding, but the reason why we don't cover it is because everyone will give you EQ coverage. The 'net is hardly lacking for sites about Everquest. It's not lacking for Final Fantasy sites either, granted, but then we're we're talking about exceptions to our stated coverage area, which FF decidedly is not.
| I want! |
| Well, I don't know about other readers, but I've been known to go out and drown 50+$ after reading a review or vault from your site. Heck, I wouldn't have TOUCHED VS or PSO had
A: The game(s) not looked massivly appealing as far as the reviewer's opinion went
B: Said reviewer didn't love them into a 4 and not explain why.
I mean, site features and such from other area's of cyber space tend to try and focus on every.single.aspect and usually get me scrolling after the first *aw man aw man, this game is great awman* sentence to see the ratings. (*cough*IGN*cough*) MOST GIA reviews trim the fat and say the good and bad, rather than the boring crap.
Anyway, punctuality and the fact that I can look at the homepage without being blinded are why I visit GIA. *heart*
-ZDX
|
I'm certainly not immune to the site's influences myself; Fritz and his Shin Megami Tensei previews make me want to go import the games even though I read barely any Japanese at all. Being broke has saved me so far, but I'm not sure how much longer I can hold out.
I feel sorry for IGN editors a bit, because I'm pretty sure they have some kind of mandatory word count to meet. Some strange business practices over there, to be sure ... I know at least one editor has bragged about none of the sites having copy editors(!).
| Keeping the flame |
| Nich,
About that long, whiny letter I sent you. It wasn't necessarily directed
towards you in particular, but more to the readers out there, in the hopes
I'd maybe get some sort of dicussion going. I realize now how much of an ass
I've made myself look now, though. I can stop writing to you if you'd like.
Topicwise: The GIA is on my daily list of sites to look at. Besides having
all the news on the big, high-profile games - and copious amounts of it, at
that (600 FF4 screenshots - yum!), you cover games that really need to be
covered, but aren't. Without this site, I probably wouldn't know or care
about Vib Ribbon, Rez, ICO, the Shin Megami Tensi games, and all the rest.
The GIA is really the only place I ever need to go for my fix of gaming
news - it's specialized enough to be of interest to the RPG and videogaming
hobbyist niche but broad enough that the content isn't completely inbred.
Add a good sense of humor and the occasional bit of scathing sarcasm, and
you've got a great site. Keep up the good work.
-Matt
|
No harm done, Matt, just wanted to point out that disliking the FF series isn't as nearly as transgressive an act as you seem to have thought.
As for the smaller titles, we're proud of the way we keep up our coverage on stuff that needs to be looked at (like Saiyuki, for instance) instead of posting a bit of media and filing the game away forever. All of the games you mentioned that you wouldn't know about but for us have been covered by the majors, but they don't seem to have their hearts in it sometimes.
| Paranoia |
| Nich-
When I first started coming to the GIA around 6 or 7 months ago, I wanted
LOTS of gaming news. I wanted however many headlines, previews, reviews, etc.
you could fit on the main page! Maybe something similar to what they have now
at GameFAQS.com, ya know , just the headlines. And what I saw was a few
stories that you guys would slap up there every day (along with the DA
collumn of course! Ah, pure literary excellence, my good man! Fit for a
king!).
Well, I was dissapointed with you guys at first.
"What kind of site only posts only a few stories each day? This is absurd!
Why do I settle for such sporadic filth?!!!" I was losing sleep. All that was
left was the empty shell of the sensitive teen that I used to be. I began to
frequent oher game news sites (Good Lord!!! A heretic!!!). Gamespot.com
seemed to deliver a fairly good amount of news, but I found the actual body
of each report to be waaaaaaay to short for my taste and craving for
information. Don't get me wrong, I think their reporting is excellent. I just
got tired of clicking on a headline that would get me all excited, and then
receive only a small blurb about the topic.
So, I came crawling back to the GIA in a last ditch effort to satisfy my
desires. I discovered that its not quantity, but quality that counts. Really.
The reports at GIA seem to have a definately higher level of sophiscation
than many other sites, even if they are not as many and come at further
intervals in between. You make up for the lack of constantly new material
with your focus on good, hardhitting, and downright informative nuggets of
pure reading happiness! I dont know how you got into my head and know exactly
what I want to read, but you manage to pull it off just about everytime. Must
be something in the water.
So basically, the GIA seems to be a lot more competent when it comes to
reporting the latest game news and info, in a selective and unbiased way of
course. Keep bringing us "just the facts" and I swear I'll never go to
another gaming site again. I promise.
Also, just out of curiosity, whats the daily hit count for the site?
specifically the DA section even, if you could be so kind you old cheeky
knave, you!
-Terin "action" Jackson
|
I've never been sure how to respond to compliments without sounding like an ass, so I won't.
As for our hit count, we got about 1.2 million hits yesterday across the site from roughly 39,000 visitors. I'm not sure about the letters section individually, but it's a small fraction of that, most likely since the updates don't call attention to themselves the way news stories and updates do.
| Better never than late |
| Nich,
Overall, for a no-to-low budget website, you guys do pretty good
overall. Sure, sometimes you don't put up a review of a game that was
previewed a while back, like Dance Dance Revolution, and a lot of good puzzle
games are ignored. But, overall, based on what you've got to work with, you
all do a really good job.
Especially considering, a large part of your main audience seems to
act like the Comic Book Guy on the Simpsons. "Worst game review, ever."
-Mike Drucker
|
Ah. Heh. The thing about those weird late (or sometimes nonexistent) reviews of games we've been covering faithfully, like DDR, is simple miscommunication. My best guess about that title in specific is that four separate people all had the review at one time or another, and when it came down to the actual release everyone thought someone else had it. By the time we realized the mistake, it was so late that posting a completely irrelevant review would be more embarassing than leaving the preview up to hope no one noticed. Still embarassing, mind you.
| Making a difference |
| Just plugging my two cents in about the GIA's coverage. Few complaints here, but one major pet peeve I have is when I read a whole damn preview, get all drooling and excited, just to see at the bottom "Unfortunately, (insert game name here) will most likely never see release in the United States...". Gwah?? Godamnit people!! I understand having previews for Japanese releases for all the importers out there, but could you at least mention the fact early in the article so the English speakers know better than to waste their time, get their hopes up and then have them dashed all in the span of one article?
And two words about rhythm games: Nobody Cares. At least, nobody with the smallest shred of dignity or self respect does.
-The Trooper
|
That's a valid complaint, and it's one I'm ill-equipped to answer. The GIA ostensibly only covers games that have some chance of American release, but this is pretty plainly a sham. The bottom line is, there are some games we really like that we think should get a bit more exposure. Sure, it's doubtful we'll ever make a difference. We certainly didn't in Vib Ribbon's case. But it would be nice if someday we got enough people interested in a passed-over gem that it got picked up by someone somewhere.
And self-respect is for weenies. True zen calmness comes when you can flail around on a mat and not care what other people think.
| The arbiters of taste |
| I've been wondering something for a long time. Who exactly decides what "intelligent" gaming is?
-Shawn K.
|
Why, we do, silly. It's our website and we generally cover whatever we want. There are some exceptions--many of our fans (and one or two of our staffers) have talked about Smash Brothers Melee as something that doesn't fall into our normal coverage areas but deserves to be included anyway on its own merits, but in the end we decided that such a flagship GameCube title is getting no shortage of attention elsewhere and there's nothing we could really add.
While our boundaries of coverage are usually pretty loose, sometimes we tighten them up especially for particular games. For instance, while we do cover Adventure games and by extension Survival Horror stuff, there's a little-known subclause called the "Countdown Vampires Rule." It's very simple: when a game looks as ugly and terrible as Countdown Vampires, we don't cover it by virtue of its not being an intelligent game. So really, the Countdown Vampires Rule stating we don't cover certain games in our sphere of interest is just a corollary to something like the Jet Set Radio Future clause, stating that we can't help but cover such obviously cool games outside our boundaries. Make sense? Who cares.
| Paranoia rebirth |
| Nick,
Well, this is the Gaming Intelligence Agency, and I would expect you
guys to cover the games that actually require intelligence to enjoy. You
have never failed in the task thus far, and I am eternally grateful for your
humor, tact, and intelligent banter these past, well, number of years. I go
to no other sites for the gaming new that I want, as you guys are the
undisputed champs. I'm sure that my opinion is shared by the vast majority
of the readership as well. Keep up the good work!
-Red Raven
|
What do you want? You're being nice to me. You want something. What is it? Or are you being sincere? I'm so confused.
| Online another website |
| Nich,
I'm not really sure why I always go to the GIA first when I get online.
I've never owned anything other than a Nintendo system because I don't
have enough money to buy anything else and my dad really likes the Zelda
series. So no PSX, PS2, or Dreamcast, the consoles that most often
appear on your site for having RPGs. I've never gotten a gameboy color
either so I haven't been able to truely appreciate anything in that
area. I do plan to buy a Gameboy Advance soley for Lufia III, however.
Were it not for you guys I would have never heard of it.
So why do I go to you? I really don't know. Maybe for the fan art from
games that I have played.
It would be really nice if you guys would cover PC RPGs. I know that
you've gone over time and time why you don't do that stuff, but you
know, I'm the person who is still hoping taht maybe FFIX will be
released for the PC. I'm afraid taht I'll be waiting for the rest of my
life on that because I haven't seen any signs of Square pausing the
assembly line of FFs to make that transition.
Online RPGs. There's something that might be nice as well although I'm
not sure how well the GIA would hold up once all of it's staff became
too addicted some online game out there to do anything else.
I'm pushing for that cold day in hell aren't I? Luckily for me,
there've already been a few of those in my book.
-Eric Wright
|
Well, there are valid arguments for covering PC games [note: none of them will be successful] but I'm not sure a desire for FFIX on the PC is one of them. Honestly, given the state of VII and VIII on PC, why would you want to play the game on hardware it wasn't designed for?
And we do cover the online console RPGs out there, both of them. If more crop up you can expect to see us add those, such as Sakura Taisen Online.
Closing Comments:
Well, there you have it. Proof positive that I have absolutely no use for agreeing with people. Somebody get me a straw man, stat.
For tomorrow, are you interested in Saiyuki? It's rare that a real-world RPG moves outside Japan or America, but here we have Chinese folk heroes going to India. Is anyone looking forward to a change in locale?
-Nich Maragos, still trying to work it all out
|
