Well well well, we've got a special batch of letters today. A near-end to the Colorado discussion, thank you everybody, some interesting new topics, a surprising number of tech-related questions which I'm deferring until tomorrow, and an honest-to-goodness troll. Those with sensitive eyes would be well advised to skip the last letter in this column. I'm not in a very touchy-feeling mood today... | Da staff | Drew sucks. Although he's better than Andrew Kauffman, whose idea ofwriting a letter column is...uh...NOT writing a letter column. We wantyou! You are cool. On a related note, isn't GIA getting to be kind of...obscenely bloatedin terms of staff members? I mean, I know it's a goodly bit of work, butcome on, even if you ARE all in college, is it REALLY necessary to haveten staff members just to scrounge for information, post pics, and dothe letters column? My main concern is that the more people you haveworking on a website, the more bland and impersonalized it gets, as perRPGamer (well, Thor's column is okay, but...). Anyway, I'm notRPGamer-bashing precisely, I just don't want this to be one of thosewebsites that has to have a constant supply of fresh meat becauseeveryone else is either leaving or not working on it because they're allcollege guys. You see a lot of that in the anime scene, and DAMN thatwas a long sentence. |
You've got me! I'm cool! Just five days a week now, instead of seven. And Drew will grow on you. Or he'll piss you off s'more. But unless there's a crushing amount of Drew Hate manifesting itself, I'm giving him his fair shot. And, for the record, I liked Drew's cols. Your concerns about having too large a staff are well-taken, and it's something we've discussed and worried about ourselves. Less so because it becomes depersonalized and bland, which can never happen so long as I have this column to make crack jokes in, but more because it's damned tough to co-ordinate ten people. Getting ten people to agree on pizza toppings is tough. Getting ten people to work efficiently as a unit on one project is even tougher. We do need a lot of people. We're busy people. Sometimes, one or more of us is basically sidelined for whatever reason. Having a large staff gives us the padding required to let that happen without a dip in quality. The other main advantage is freedom to expand. We've got some new features coming in with the Community section, and when that happens, we won't need to bring on additional staff. We just give existing ones a chance to really cut loose. Yes, GIA is getting bigger. Staff-wise, focus-wise, and in a few short weeks, you'll really see what the difference is. Trust me. | Misquoted | A hey and a yo, and a yo and hey hey hey... Now, you've stated that video games make children more aggressive, butah...I've read from a pretty reliable and mainstream source that that isNot the case, and that it's their adrenline that rises and THEN they getaggressive. Basically kids being excitable. Of course, I read this a year ago somewhere I can't even remember. And Itrust you more, with your recent studies... Also, are you saying video games for a person who is well ajusted couldbe a BAD thing? I've heard you preach as loud as anyone the uselessnessof Sen. Liberman... And is AK taping Party of Five since they're having REM on? ~Ian "No, I never shut up." P. |
I never stated that video games make children more aggressive. I said that it doesn't reduce aggression, but that's not the same thing. But yes, the report your read is at least partially correct, playing a competitive video games usually does result in raised adrenaline levels. And again, no, I never said video games can be bad for someone who is mature and well-adjusted. Most people have no problems with them. But some can be impacted negatively, and that's what we need to recongize and watch out for. Yes, AK is taping Party of Five. Yes, it's because REM is on. Yes, it distresses me greatly. | The ESRB, under the gun | Having once worked at a toy store that sold video games I can tell youthat the ESRB doesn't really do jack. While it is great in theory, itfalls apart in practice, for various reasons. First, it (or they, I'm not sure which is the proper possesive)often distort the contents of games. Let's compare two sucsessfullPlaystation games: Final Fantasy 7 and Metal Gear Solid. FF7 is ratedTeen (13+), for possessing "realistic violence", while MGS is Mature(17+) for "animated blood & gore, animated violence, and mature sexualthemes". Is it just me, or do these descriptions seem screwed up?While I agree with the way they assessed the ratings, the reasons seem alittle, backwards. Which game has the piles (well, hallway full) ofrather realistic looking dead bodies, real weapons, and a character whobegs to die? Which game had the brothel, crossdressers, and charactersthat actually have sex (off camera, but still...)? I'll concede on theblood thing but other than that, come on. (Another example of screwedup workings: Starcraft gets a Mature rating, but the expansion Broodwargets a Teen rating. Huh?) Secondly, parents ingnore them. I don't know how many times I sawparents buy Turok 2 for their ten year-olds. It makes me shudder tothink about it. Finally, no-one makes the stores pay any attention to the ratings.Not only would the parents buy Turok 2, the ten year-olds would too.And I (who worked in the console game hand-out section) really couldn'tsay anything about it, because they had already paid for the gameelsewhere. And many places don't even bother to build this excuse intotheir system. So in ESRB In Review: Great system, except it gives poor gameevaluations, is over looked by parents, and ignored by retailers. Did Imiss anything? V. Jaeger |
This, for my money, sums up the ESRB pretty nicely. Don't think you missed anything. So, with this in mind, the questions raised are 'is the ESRB needed at all, and if we either need it, or can't get rid of it, how can we make it useful?' Any thoughts to these ends? | What's so great about Mana? | Dear Allan, There is something that I've been trying to figure out. What is so goodabout Secret of Mana? I keep hearing people say how great this game isand how absolutely fabulous it is, but I don't get it. I mean, I couldn'tcare less when people started crying about whether or not Seiken Densetsu4 comes to the States, but I was on the edge of my seat and very veryhappy when I found out that Saga Frontier 2 was coming to this country.Please, let me know what is so cool about this game. I usually considermyself able to enjoy even the typically most hated games (Saga Frontier,Beyond the Beyond, etc. - though I must admit, I couldn't even bare toplay through the Shadow Madness demo, man that game was horrible). I justwant to know what is it about this game that I'm just not seeing. Oh, and I personally am playing the Sega CD version of Lunar while waitingfor the PSX version to come out (I've played much of the demo), and I amjust astounded at the difference. It's almost as though someone knew thesame general story, then totally redid everything. All the graphics,bits of the plot, even the layout of the world and how you encounterenemies, all different. They seemed to get the same voice actors,though, which is nice. It's great, I love this game. I just can't waituntill it finally comes out in full. Kirk B. |
I'm sure we'll get responses about this for tomorrow, but what I loved about Secret of Mana was the gameplay. The story was pretty dull, the music was catchy, but more than any other action/RPG on the market at the time, it was fun to kick the hell out of things in that game. It wasn't just the normal slash-and-run stuff that most action/RPGs recycle time and time again. Eight weapons, powering up, elemental aspects you could use, all that. More than anything, I just had fun playing through SoM, finding which weapons worked best for me. The graphics were quite good for the time, and the music contains some genuine classics (the Mana theme itself is very memorable), but it's the gameplay that earns it a spot in my heart. To me, it's everything SaGa Frontier failed to be - a light-hearted RPG with an emphasis on strong gameplay. The difference was that I enjoyed SoM, and was bored to tears by SF. | Feeling that positive WD mojo | New topics it is Allan! OK everyone, we've all debated the "Square issue" to death more times than we'd like to admit. We want to know how they've changed, why they don't seem to care about the American market, etc. I think we all need a break from that. Everyone asks for a company that cares about its gamers (at least its American ones), well I have two words for you: Working Designs. Whenever the gaming industry looks or sounds like its going to a place far worse then hell, I turn to good ol' WD. Its refreshing to see a company that does care about its fans. Why Mr. Ireland continues to fight battles for his company, and himself, on the Internet in person is a mystery to me, but its refreshing nonetheless. Sure, there's a fair amount of WD bitching as well, but all of their fans still know that its all trivial at best. Got a question about WDs games, or a suggestion about what they should do next? Just ask them. Its sad that in this day and age I'm surprised to see such a company-in any industry, that'll do this, but I don't care; they do what they do for the fans. Nobody can argue that. Is anyone with me? WD fans unite! Justin Freeman |
As probably the longest-standing WD fan I know (I owned Cadash, Parasol Stars, Vasteel, both Exiles, Cosmic Fantasy 2... man, that was a long time ago), it tickles me pink to see so many people turning into WD fans, courtesy of Lunar. Working Designs is the most human, fannish company I've ever encountered. How they remain in business is truly mind-boggling to me. They have a long history of supporting ill-fated systems. They delay games like nobody's business. They come under heavy flak from gamers of all stripes for their translation practices. They cheerfully pick fights and hold public grudges. And yet, through it all, they stick it out, and turn out some pretty damned great games. They're not all gems, of course, but they seem to sell well enough to keep the operation afloat. Any other company that runs like WD does would go under, but somehow they're still around, and more popular than ever. Incredible. | Resident Evil and getting it right | Dear D.A Since The GIA has started to cover adventure games, her I am with[SHOCK!!HORROR!!GASP!!BURP!! :-)] an adventure game related query. Aroundthe 1st week of April or so, IGN and another site which I don't rememberconfirmed that Capcom was making a 'survival horror' [gotta love thatterm!] game entitled Biohazard:Nemesis. For anyone who doesn't know, thisgame is supposed to take place either before or after Biohazard/ResidentEvil 2. IGN said that the game was actually going to be a surpriseannouncement at E3 but IGN revealed it anyway (Capcom is probably cursingthem now). Now that Biohazard 3:The Last Escape has been announced, isNemesis still in development or has it 'morphed' into Biohazard 3? It wouldbe great if both Nemesis and 'The Last Escape' were in development. Thatwould mean that we'd get an overdose of survival horror! Dino Crisis,Nemesis AND Biohazard 3 all (hopefully) in 1 year? OOOooooh Yesss!! On another note, your site is fantastic for the RPG/Adventure gamer likeme, but I have a (semi-significant)complaint. ["COMPLAINT?!! Against theGIA?!!", you scream, "How could this be?!! Micro$oft promised that theywould turn our readers into mindless zombies!! NOOO!!" :-)] Actually, thecomplaint is about your server [and the staff collectively breathes a sighof relief]. I don't spend too much time online in one sitting so I usedownload managers (Gawd bless 'em, sniff) to easily resume my downloadseverytime I go online. Unfortunately, The GIA's server doesn't supportresumeable downloads. So I was wondering if your server will ever beupgraded so I can finally download some of the bigger files from your sitein peace? Hey, I just thought of a surefire money-making game: ResidentEvil:Pokemon!! Yes, finally you can collect and bread your favourite undeadmutants!! Gotta catch 'em all! (Or, more appropriately, Gotta catch andmutilate 'em all!) Finally, to all the people who think it's cool to hate Square (there are alot of you): You bleepin blankety-blank bleeps (Aaah, the wonders ofProfanity) should go back to playing with your teletubbies (Ee-oh!). Betteryet, go complain about Appaloosa, they deserve your flames. 'Til next time Vishal [insert catch phrase here] Bharadwaj (Don't even TRY to pronounce it) |
The idea of Resident Evil: Pokemon is just too priceless. Hmmm... gears began to turn slowly, like serrated hamster wheels inside Allan's thick head... We're looking into having GetRight, or some other resumeable download manager, implemented sometime soon. Cross yer fingers. Last and first, the RE situation is pretty simple. Nemesis was the rumored title, and perhaps a working title, for a PSX RE game set after the firsr two. It was never confirmed. A little while later, RE3 is formally announced, with the exact same concept. No mention of Nemesis at all. Basically, Nemesis was the old name for RE3, which has since been ditched. | The Agent and the Troll | Agent's Note: I'd strongly suggest rereading the letter entitled "Biting and Pushing Buttons" in yesterday's DA to catch yourself up on the context of this discussion. Hey, you, the one that writes the "funny" (ho ho ho) replies to myinput/inquiries. There is something I would like to divulge upon you characters. Have you ever tried to pick a lock of a Victorian soap dispenser with atoothpick, while holding a desert-bound porcupine that's trying to ejaculateout of its nostrils, while visiting the lavatory of your favorite friggin'restuarant. HUHHHHHHHHHHHHHH? Didn't think so. Have you ever amused yourself by rolling downhill naked in a cardboard boxfilled with green Jello while trying to eat chicken fried rice out of a testtube and reading the Wall Street Journal with your sunglasses on?HUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH? Well, did you see the movie? Huh? Have you ever tried to get that one last gumball that won't drop out of thegoddamn machine cause some smallpox-cultivating Commie pig rigged the deviceto show you how their bladder-infested intelligence incorporates thecircuitous innecessities of everyday life into their agenda more-so-oftenthan an L.A. hooker? HUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH????????/ Well, if not, stop bashing by comments you're on some whack, if all you'veexperienced is button-pushing and all you watch is Star Wars shit. So, don't take advantage of my FRIGGIN' civility concerning your desecrationof my letters regarding MacGyver and Square, cause I believe you game-freaksneed a life. I tried to voice my opinion like everyone FRIGGIN' else, andall you could reply was with your unwitty sarcasm. Well, this is myresponse to your unbridled disparagement of my viewpoints in GODDAMN public. And even though you won't print this letter, cause of your COMMUNIST ways, Ijust wanted you to know one thing... Acknowledge the phenom. Eggman |
I make it a point to print any criticism of me or my columning practices publically, and respond to them. Days like this, I regret that policy. You want to be treated with respect? You want not to be mocked, and not have your opinions tossed aside like crap? Then express them in a coherent way. Your letter was so incoherent and useless that I assumed it had to be a joke. I mean, "totem-pushers"? But no, today I learn that you were indeed serious, that you're coming to a video game site, into a column dedicated to the discussion and debate of said games, and saying that we all need a life. You're making totally baseless judgements about how I and my readers spend our time and energy. You're demanding civility while tossing off insults. You're calling me a Communist for no reason whatsoever, and then throwing in a meaningless catchphrase as if I'm actually supposed to respect that. Ahem. You don't like video games? Fine. You think gamers should all get a life? Fine. But you know what? I don't care. Your opinions, as presented yesterday and today, are worth approximately jack shit. You are incoherent. You are rude. You're a troll. So shove your precious viewpoints. If you, or anyone else, has something to contribute to this column, you're welcome to. But trolling isn't contributing. Contribute or piss off. That's the rule.
Closing comments Jetmode wonders why people object to changing Tina of FF6's name to Terra for the US version. Because it's a change from the Japanese version. That's it. No big mystery. In a damned-if-we-do kinda moment, two people wrote in. One was asking us never to use MPEG movies. The other asked us never to use Quicktime movies. God, I love this job. Basically, we'll use whichever format is more convenient. Using both would chew up too much server space for pretty thin reasoning, and sometimes, it's just handier to use one or the other. Yeah, that'll do. Deep Thought coming up tomorrow, so keep an eye out. Turbines to speed, baby. - Allan Milligan | | | |
