The Final Cut -
August 8, 2001 - Andrea Hartmann and Tamzen Marie Baker
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.
Raw eggs are much more fun to throw than ham or strawberries - take it from Viktor and Flik.
Don't say we didn't warn you.
What rolls down stairs, alone or in pairs
Rolls over your neighbor's dog?
What's great for a snack, and fits on your back?
It's Log, Log, LOG!
Andrea: ...Well, when you have a random topic day, what do you introduce it with?
And hey - Tami made it after all! In fact, she's more here than I am...
| Vitriolic as Always |
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I'm getting really tired of people pointing to Conker's Bad Fur Day as a
poor example of a "mature" title, and immediately passing it off as crud on
that account. Forget the advertising campaign and write-ups about it you've
seen for a moment and go play the damn game. I swear it's a really,
really good game. The humor isn't exactly going to make you pee yourself in
a fit of laughter if you're over the age of 9, but the game itself is one of
the most innovative, enjoyable titles I've played in years. Anyone who is
clamoring for a title that combines the sensibility of cinema with a more
interactive gaming experience needs to play Conker. It's really that
simple. The Tediz level towards the end is one of the few times I've
actually felt as though I were playing a movie. And Rare managed to do all
of this with a game starring a cartoon squirrel, no less.
In closing, I find it ironic that the same people poo-pooing Conker are the
type that would have a hissy fit if someone passed off Final Fantasy as "a
bunch of dorky swords 'n sorcery shit" and refused to play it.
Always glad to preserve his reputation as an irate, self-righteous prig,
-Drew
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Tami: I've never even heard of this game, so out of touch am I, but I'll take Drew's advice. Play Conker.
Andrea: You mentioned yourself that the humor seems childish, and that was really what the debate was about, rather than the gameplay or complexity of level design. So yes, Conker may even be the most innovative and exciting game ever, but it's still up in the air as far as whether it could be called a "mature" game. Or perhaps it's mature in one way, and immature in another. I've not played it myself, so I have no place to pass judgment.
| Asking the Master Again |
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Uh...potato salad? Ooo-kay.
:runs off:
Maybe you can help. Fritz uses an insane amount of
anime style smilies in his stories...I know some, can
figure some out by context, but:
How is ^________________^ different from ^_^ ?
And I've got no clue on this one: ^;;;;;
(Oh, by the way, I totally agree with you on Faris.
Faris is cool. (In my party she also could dish out a
ludicrous amount of damage in about 1.7 seconds...)
I'm not so sure being mistaken for a guy is a good
thing, but hey, it could be useful, I'm sure.
Similarly, I think I need to say Quistis, too. She
*did* have her own fan club, you know. I don't see any
other video game characters with one of those...)
New and improved, or is it just a new name?
-Daedalus
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Fritz: ^________________^ is a much bigger grin than a ^_^. Picture Selphie's mouth stretched way out horizontally so she looks like one of the chickens from Chicken Run or something. ^^;;; is hyperactive triangular eyes followed by a veritable armada of nervous / embarassed sweat drops. WAI!!!! @____~;;; SHINJI NO BAKA LOLOLOLOL
Tami: And there you have it. And Faris is cool. Andrea was right - she has the perfect life. And yes, why did Quistis have such a fan club and then get passed over for Rinoa? I mean, how silly is that?
Andrea: My Faris mastered the Dancer and Ninja classes, then went into the last battle with Dance and 2-Swords, equipped with the Prism Dress and Red Shoes (or whatever their translations here were), and wielding the Masamune and Excaliber. "Captain... I love you..."
Pity about the lame accent they stuck her with, though.
| Sequelitis |
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I mean, there really isn't too much of a good thing, but now a days with
videogames it seems there's so few new ideas. I mean, what are we all
looking forward to, game-wise? The new Final Fantasy. The new Dragon
Warrior. The new Xeno-game. We clamor for "a sequel to Final Fantasy
Tactics" or a sequel to "Vagrant Story."
I don't know if it's because of the new hardwares (and a need to have
familiar names to sell on them) but I'm all sequel'd out. It's enough to
make me head to the movie theatres to see Jurassic Park III or Rush Hour
2 or American Pie 2. Wait, never mind that last comment.
Which is why, above all other games, I'm looking forward to ICO. Why?
Because it LITERALLY is like nothing I've ever played before. yes, it has
some elements of other games, but the whole seems SO much greater than
the sum of its parts. Granted, I'm just judging this by the demo, but MAN
does that game look sweet.
But sequelitis has me SO DOWN. Even the original games I loved on the
LAST generation of hardware (Ape Escape, Parappa the Rapper) are begin
sequel'd to death.
I know I'll never be satisfied, and all the sequels DO look nice... but
there's no real surprise involved in any of them, no real feeling of
"discovery" like with all the classics of NES. I guess what I'm looking
for is something I can be nostalgic about in four years when once again
I'm complaining about "too many sequels." I don't believe nostalgia comes
from age so much as it comes from experience. You have nostalgia for that
FIRST TIME whether it's a month or a year or a decade gone.
ICO. Yeah. ICO on my mind.
Peace.
-- Nick Ware
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Tami: You're right - this reminds me again of recent movies. Everything this summer seems to be a sequel, and msot of them are pretty rotten. Not that all sequels are bad, but most times I'd rather see/play something innovative than play a sequel.
Final Fantasy, being unconnected in each installment, doesn't really fit this. And while there are games I love and adore, and characters I can't get enough of, most times having a sequel would really cheapen the experience of the original game. Suikoden's the only thing I can recall pulling off a decent sequel, by changing a lot but leaving just enough familiar. If every game we loved immediately spawned sequels as bad as those in the movies, what would be left for half the fanfic writers of the world?
I can't wait to play ICO. ICO looks so cool.
Andrea: One reason people say they'd like to see a sequel to some game, more than an original game, is simply that with sequels, since there's an original game, they can actually think about the possibilities before said sequel is actually announced. (Granted, that sort of worked against Chrono Cross, in the sense that people expected something completely different than they ended up getting, and many didn't care for it.) Original games don't have that luxury, unless you randomly say "I'd like to see a game with this plot, using these characters that have never been seen in a game before, and using this system in battle," then a game happens to be in development that fits that criteria.
Yep, original games are often more exciting than sequels, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't proclaim my undying love for Square from the rooftops if they were to announce a VS sequel also.
| Bad to the Bone (Suikoden I and II spoilers) |
|
Hiya girls!
First off, before I get into my topic, I just wanna say how cool it was I
was referenced in a letter (go me!). Also, Tami, can you please tell me the
URL for the shrine sites of Mikkie and Camus? I'd be forever in your debt!
Just like, secretly incript it in a message on the site or send me an e-mail
hehe.
Anyway, I wanted to talk about none other than the Suikoden series (shocker
huh?). More specific than that, the bad guys in the games.
He is the only video game bad guy I've EVER had intense hatred for. Burning
those towns down, making the girl get on all fours and oink like a pig JUST
so he could say "Die pig!" and then kill her, killing off Pohl, killing his
own dad, helping Jowy down the path of evil, and all that mean stuff angered
me so much! You have no clue how much rejoicing I personally did once I
killed him. Who cares that he wasn't even the last boss. He was FAR more
evil than anyone in any video game ever. Windy from Suikoden 1 wasn't near
as vile as he was (or would you consider Barbarossa the main bad guy?
hmmmm...).
Also, how sad is it that Neclord tries and tries, but comes up short every
time? You had to fight him twice in the second game and still he was a push
over. Does he not learn? No doubt he will be back in Suikoden 3 (come on
Konami, give me a release date for the Japanese one any day now), but I
mean, he's so laughable that he can hardly be considered a foe anymore. He
might as well just join the hero's cause in the next game. At least he can
be on screen and have a little dignity.
All other bad guy's really didn't affect me one way or another (Seed and
Culgan are cute together, that was kinda fun) except for Milich Oppenheimer.
I hated him. He didn't have to make Gremio die. I cried when that happened.
And my first time through that game, I killed Milich off the second it gave
me that option. Now I just hate him less. Oh! I also hate Gorudo. Again,
killing off Nanami like that made me bawl. There's no reason for me to even
hate him less because he isn't one of the 108 stars like Milich was. I do
dread that part whenever I play that game.
Wow, I should end this letter, but before I do, I have to say I just started
to play Vagrant Story (picked it up for 20 bucks). Wow. Ashley... he's
missing part of the bottom of his pants. Ahem. And Sydney... I love him. But
I can't have him. Everyone else called him first.
-Shane, who calls Miklotov and Camus right now before anyone else.
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Tami: Give me a few days to dig through old bookmarks and I'll see what I can do.
Most villains in recent games have no real impact on me and I defeat them solely to see the ending. A few villains, however, have inspired such gut wrenching hate in me that I have spent time deciding exactly which way would eb the msot painful to kill them. One such is definitely Luca. Another is Algus. Another is Kefka (my favorite ever villain).
It's the heartless, senseless and insane evil to the core than really makes my blood boil. Notice these are all villains that killed people I cared about.
Suffer long, you terrible wretches.
Andrea: I have yet to play Suikoden 2, but I can honestly say that at least 50% of my desire to play that game is to see Ruka/Luka/whatever-his-romanization-is in action. I was a part of an internet amateur voice acting community for a time (still kind of am), and heard some of them do an audio clip of the "Oink like a pig" bit... I died laughing. And Milich SUCKS. Right now in my game, I'm just after the scene you mentioned, and I'm very much looking forward to beating the crap out of him. Even though what he did definitely made for one of the most touching video game moments I've ever seen...
As for my personal favorite character to absolutely loathe, that would be Romeo Guildenstern. Anyone who's played all the way through Vagrant Story and has taken note of my character obsessions should be able to discern why - very, very easily. Matsuno's games have excellent villains, as well as Suikoden.
| Bubble Bursting |
|
To Tami
Impeccable style..................................check.
Loyal to friends..................................check.
Dedicated to following my heart...................check.
Dedicated to doing the right thing................more or less.
Sensitive.........................................check.
Ability to put up with annoying babble............don't get me started.
Smart-aleck side..................................check.
Hero-type.........................................um, I stopped a shoplifter
once.
So, Tami, what say we...
Checks again...
WHAT?
YOU ACTUALLY LIKED THAT TEARJERKER PAY IT FORWARD AND ITS RIDICULOUSLY
MANIPULATIVE ENDING?
*runs away screaming*
Sir Farren, likes to thank you for crushing his dreams
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Tami: Actually, just because I said I respected and appreciated the end of Pay It Forward doesn't mean I *liked* the ending ( I hated it). I liked parts of the movie, and what it was trying to say, but I think it could have been presented a lot better...
And I am incredibly sorry to turn down someone who so obviously fits the image of my ideal guy, but you see, I already have this smart ass poetic hero-type I put up with and sometimes call my boyfriend. In fact, he's about to get flamed in the next letter...
| Have a Nice Tall Glass. |
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Andrea & Tami-
In response to yesterday's last letter:
Dearest ladies, we adore you not for your vulgar
attributes or your phone skills, to which Brad alluded
yesterday. We love you for your spiritual wisdom,
your prosaic elegance, your artistic souls. We admire
the way you grasp the ineffable, taunt the
tautological, and unscrew the inscrutable. Most of
all, we swoon over the creative beauty you bestow upon
the Double Agent (and bring regularly to the fan art
and fanfic sections).
That being said, I think I can speak for just about
every male gamer out there when I say that I would
sell my soul to spend a weekend with Tamzen, Andrea,
and a jacuzzi full of lime Jello.
--del
ps- Yes, Kit's Del. :)
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Andrea: ...If she doesn't kill you for this, I will.
Tami: ( I thought we were keeping the lime jello between us, traitor! )
I need to borrow something that just seems to fit too damn well as a succinct reply to this letter. Thanks to Drew ( I hope you don't mind)
You earned it, sugar.
| Something about Sydney... |
|
Found something out the other day that really just shocked the knickers
off of me, and seeing as how you're -almost- as big a Sydney Losstarot
fan as myself ^_~ thought I'd pass it along. I always interpretted
Sydney's line, "I gave my limbs to the Gods" to mean he'd
relinquished just his arms. Well, I scanned Sydney's profile pages from
the official Squaresoft/Digicube Ultimania guide and passed them along to
a Japanese friend. Turns out (and this is canon), that Sydney is
possessed of a pair of metal arms AND a pair of metal legs. Um, ouch.
Now personally, this absolutely kills the appeal of writing him in...
risque situations with other characters. I was wondering, 1) If you knew
about the metal legs thing, 2) Turned off at all now?, 3) Who is your
favourite character to pair Sydney up with? My personal favourite is
Hardin, closely followed by the Riskbreaker. Then Grissom. *cackle*
Sorry, I'm trying to make this letter ooze 'fangirl' as much as possible.
There just aren't any gamer's columns around where a chickie can get this
kind of feedback.
--Glass
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Andrea: I heard about this a few weeks ago, and at first, yes, it creeped me out. I mean, that means that all that's really him is... well, anyway, yes. A few people who also write VS stuff said they knew about it, but they just cheerfully ignored it, because it (ooh, fangirl term) squicked them greatly.
But then after I thought about it for a bit, I realized that despite it being terribly disturbing to think about that in that situation... well, it's terribly disturbing. One reason I love Sydney is because he's disturbing. And besides, no matter how initially shocking it is... well, people apparently got used to his arms, right? So nope - I'm cool with it. Though I may ignore it in my stories (if the matter ever comes up), simply because it apparently does freak a lot of people out. Haven't really decided yet, though I am a stickler for canon. And it would actually be kind of fun to deal with what my chosen mate for him might think upon realizing this for the first time. Heh heh heh... Oh, how I torment my muses...
So there's my answer to #1 and #2... and as for #3... well, guys - if you're opposed to yaoi/shounen-ai implications, I tell you now: SKIP TO THE NEXT LETTER.
Ahem.
I'm actually in the process of making a web shrine for my personal favorite pairing right now, and while browsing a friend's web shrine the other day, I was inspired by her pairing support banners to make one supporting my boys... and got a bit carried away, I think.
This should answer your question.
I couldn't help it. I kept thinking up slogans. I'm still thinking them up.
...I just know I'm going to get in trouble for this. Regardless, thanks for the opportunity to vent. This was indeed quite fun.
Tami: Just one thing to say: Sydney & Hardin. yum.
| 'Da MAN |
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Tami and Andrea,
Just wanted to say that it's been nice to have a fresh set of Agents lately.
Chris is great but I like the variety once in awhile, and we get to pick
the staff's brains on a variety of important gaming issues.
Case in point, are you pro-Gilgamesh?
-Pokeytax
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Tami: GILGAMESH ROCKS. He should have been the star of FFVIII!
Andrea: How can anyone who's played FFV not love Gilgamesh? Though I have to say, after playing the game I find him awesome in an entirely different way than I expected. GIA = Gilgamesh Is Awesome.
Or maybe not.
| Mimicking Movietown? |
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Ladies of the GIA,
Where to begin? How about I start by saying what a refreshing change it
is to have not one, but two ladies/girls/women/etc. (whatever) running the
DA. The column is always in need of an alternate viewpoint, even if it is
from two raving Sydney fanatics. ;)
With that bit of gratuitous ass-kissing out of the way, allow me to
officially add Lulu to the fanboy harem (2 days late, yes, but she MUST be
included). Apart from being "dead sexy" (though I'm not quite sure I
understand the physics behind how her dress stays on), she's intelligent,
has a wonderful selection of weapons (moogles, moombas, sabotenders, other
FF mascots), and her motivation/background is much more complicated then
"falls in love with dimwit main character". She's more like a stone-cold
bitch with a chewy nougat center of heartbreak. Okay, I need to shut up now
before I slip into obsession mode (or spoil the game for anyone). Needless
to say, the ridiculous cleavage alone will most likely elevate her into the
upper echelon of fanboy lust.
Dark Schneider
P.S. Oooh. Oooh. I've got a topic, too. With the relatively recent
announcements of Saiyuki (vaguely based off a fairy tale) and Kingdom Hearts
(contains many of Disney's heroes/villains), what book, movie, fairy tale,
TV series, anime, etc. do you think would translate well into a console RPG?
My answer would be "Alice in Wonderland"/"Through the Looking Glass" in case
anyone cared.
P.P.S. Has anyone noticed how much Tida (what's up with American
translations of names adding S where it doesn't belong) resembles J-rock
singer Gackt in the FMVs? Maybe it's just me...
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Andrea: Lulu has... more of those weapons? Each time I hear anything new about her, I love her all the more... and the last time that happened, it was with Laguna, and... Well, I suspect I'll be making another web shrine soon if this trend with Lulu keeps up.
As for books becoming games, pretty much all I read anymore is sci-fi or fantasy novels, which are pretty easy to picture as RPGs. But then that brings to mind the horrible disappointment I received when, as a huge Dragonlance fan, I picked up a certain NES game many years ago...
Tami: Personally, I hope that books stay the hell away from games. Too many reasons to get into, so...
Closing Comments:
Tami: Yeah - books as movies can be good or bad. Now we're seeing games as movies (Tomb Raider, Mortal Kombat) so how about books as games? Impossible or not?
Chris returns to you tomorrow, which is good. I could never keep up with Double Agent and still have a life.
Thank you for letting me be a fangirl and obsess about Flik.
Let's do it again sometime.
Andrea: And if Chris doesn't come back, we're screwed, because the email's directed to his address.
Seriously though, this has been more fun than I expected, despite a few issues... Yep, I'd do it again if necessary. And thanks for the nice personal emails as well as the public ones. Someday I'll actually manage to reply to them all, I hope.
But not the 100+ SirCam viruses I've received in the last week alone. Please, people - do not open random file attachments. Thank you.
Till we update our respective Interact sections...
Tami and Andrea, literal Double Agents, signing off
LOG! By Blammo!
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