I would like to meet the idiot who sent me seventy-one screenshots of Final Fantasy VIII today. All of them thumbnail-sized. I would like to meet this person, to shake their hand, to listen to how the mumblings of their weeks-dead tabby convinced them that sending me mounds of useless screenshots was a really compelling. I'll listen, and smile, and then take an X-Acto knife and peel off every last flap of skin on their miserable little form. Not that I'm irritable or anything. | Turnaround | Ok, here goes. In response to Rumor's letter; first of all don't misquote me, that's rude .Next, contrary to what seems to be the popluar opinion, I don't dislike Andrea or her work in the fanart section. In fact, I talked to her in that GIA chat a while back, and she seems pretty cool. I just think that the page could use some changes. What I wrote in my letter is called constructive criticism. The act of writing a letter to me saying that I shouldn't tell people what to do has a formal name that you may have heard of. It's called hypocricy. Look it up, genius. You see, as a free speaking American I have to right to speak my mind. Take it or leave it. Have all the naked fictional characters leering at you that you want. I just wont read the fanart column anymore, which sucks for me ( the loyal reader). I wouldn't have written the letter if I didn't like the column, I'd have just left. No, I didn't click on the thumbnails... what makes you say that I did is total crap, which is the substance of your letter. About the other letter... sure, whatever... death threats make the world go 'round, don't they? Way to react to an opinion like the child you obviously are. And my thanks for printing that instead of a valid response.... If you, or anyone else has an intelligent reply, send it. (andyr@speed-racer.com) In closing, you can do whatever you want with the GIA. However, it goes back to what was written in today's column about covering the collective ass. I don't want to see it, and I bet a good deal of other readers don't either. This includes possible readers and sponsors. AndyR. |
It's hypocrisy, by the way. And glad to hear that you enjoy the fan art section, generally. I'll leave Rumor's arguments to him to deal with. As for the wisdom of printing the "stick with spikes" letter, well, it served three purposes. First of all, it was a short letter that could serve as an introduction to the linked-to letter from Rumor. Second, I thought it was funny. It clearly wasn't serious, was an easy mark for a one-liner, and generally made me smile. It's like the time someone wrote in to say I should be eaten by badgers, since I don't like Jar Jar Binks - it's too silly to be offended by. Your mileage varied, naturally. And lastly, aside from Rumor's letter, it was the printable response to you in the books, and seemed to capture a popular sentiment. There were about seven letters I didn't print along those lines, and regardless of the less-than-reasoned approach, I'd be remiss to ignore such a popular sentiment entirely. Lastly, you're perfectly welcome to dislike something we post, to not read it, and to complain to us about it. We are not, however, obligated to agree, nor are any other readers of Double Agent. And, on balance, it's very apparent that a clear majority of our visitors ("a good deal", in your words) are either indifferent towards, or actively support, the prospect of risque, but not obscene, fan art in Sketch Artist. You had your say, you were effectively outvoted, and there endeth the discussion. Tad and dah. | Is a disclaimer needed? | I like your column. I really do. For one, you've managed to stay aroundas the letters guy -- even AFTER a hiatus. I don't agree with everythingyou say, but you manage to (pretty much) daily produce a column withseveral viewpoints, some containing valid points and intelligence,interspersed with your own commentary, with a brand of humor I've come toappreciate. But then there's this little thing. It's the kinda of thing that justplain irks me. First, though, the whole "professionalism" debate just plain pissed meoff. Everyone was way off the mark on what the word means. I work on ahigh school newspaper, and my own personal definition is a dedication toaccuracy, objectivity and fairness in reporting. No more, no less. Sobeing professional is a GOOD thing, in my eyes. A "professionally" donesite is accurate; a place I trust. I have come to trust your site(honestly can't say I can think of a time you guys have been wrong). Now this disclaimer. It's unneeded. To warn that opinions representedbelong to you and those that send in material is fine, but the offensivecontent part? Come on. What I'm seeing is you unnecessarily callingattention to your "independence." If you want to say fuck, just sayfuck. No need to wave flags calling attention to it, or yourindependence. Which you do often enough that I've noted it. There's ahorn, it's yours, and it seems like your tooting it. I just cringe everytime I read you say "Look at how independent I am! I take risks!" Ifyou present material that is such, people will think that on their own --you don't need to tell them that. If you warn people about how "rough'n' tough" your column's going to be, it's going to seem really, really... tame. Again, I think you do a good job -- better than any of the other sites Ivisit. I just wanted to voice this one criticism. Thanks for listening. --Kupek |
I do sympathize with your opinion here. Yes, I have overplayed the "I'm a rebel, look at me!" card, and for that, I apologize. It's tiresome, it's lame, and it won't happen any longer. By the same token, that's part of the advantage of using the disclaimer. Each time I've done my independence rant, it's been a response to pressure being applied to me to clean up my act. From parents, from fellow staffers, from readers, and most crucially, from lawyers. The disclaimer gives GIA a degree of legal protection if I go totally off my rocker in here. I'm pretty much keeping the column going as is, but rather than try and reassert my independence periodically, and risk the reputation and legality of the site week after week, the disclaimer keeps GIA in the clear. It states the obvious, and makes it official. It probably produces undue expectations that I'll suddenly get really depraved in here, but on balance, I think keeping GIA safe from reprecussions from my misdeeds in here is worth it. And hey, it also means I won't do those independence rants anymore. If nothing else, I hope that'll please you. :) | Sebulba | Hey Seb, Why are people calling you Seb, did I miss something? Chocobert |
Sort of. See, for about three years now, I've been a pretty heavy IRC user. On IRC, by nick is Seb, for reasons that would bore all of you to tears. Since I hang out in video game channels quite a bit, most of the people I know via IRC are interested in, and read, and contribute to, Double Agent. Most of them even like it. In any event, since they know me primarily as Seb, they refer to me as much in their letters. I'm known by different names in different places. Allan, Mr. Milligan, Seb, Double Agent, Hey White Bitch... it's all about context. | Underdog number one | "...Favourite underdog favourite game?" Well...odd phrasing aside, I'd have to say that my favorite underdog game, and, heck, my second favorite game of any sort, is Uncharted Waters: New Horizons for the SNES. I don't think anyone else on the planet has played this thing, the one (yes, *one*) FAQ I've seen for it online aside. It sits smack-dab on the line between historical simulation and RPG and benefits from both genres. Naturally, Koei has the historical bit down, but also manages to give you six distinct characters and storylines, which allow you to muck around with leaders of the nations of the time, as well as the other characters of the game. Is it thrilling? Well, no, even the one-on-one duels are pretty laid-back. Are the backgrounds of the characters explored in depth? Joao, Catalina, and Ali, maybe, but you don't even get the exploration of their motivations that you do of, say, Setzer's; that is to say, one big event of their past is revealed, but no others. Are the visuals lush and appealing? C'mon, it's Koei. Yet, for some reason, it sucks you in and will not...let...go! There's something incredibly satisfying about being granted a dukeship by Henry VIII or being able to put in an order for a full-rigged ship in Bristol after working for years to get their shipyards up to snuff. Or training enough to become the most feared pirate on the Seven Seas. Maybe it's just because Nobunaga's Ambition (okay, okay, along with Dragon Warrior) was what got me into console gaming, but I've always had a soft spot for Koei games: Gemstone, Aerobiz, and good ol' Nobunaga. New Horizons, though, is their most RPG-esque game, at least, out of the ones I've played, and, with those two things going for it, has won a spot in my heart. Well, with that for my second favorite game and Dragon Warrior IV as my all-time number one...I've effectively convinced any FMV junkies out there that I'm certifiable. Bring on the straightjackets, baby. -Nšelle |
Oooooo. You have just won cool points from me, on the basis that, along with the guy who wrote the FAQ for it, we are the three people who actually played Uncharted Waters. :) Yeah, I played it, and New Horizons was leagues better than the original, especially in terms of the gorgeous score by Yoko Kanno. There's an orchestral version of the soundtrack kicking about, and it's just plain gorgeous. It just sweeps you away. Anyhow, good call mentioning it. It's not for everyone, and yeah, you don't buy Koei games for graphics. I mean, these are the people that produced a historically accurate fighting game. "Quirky" is just the tip of the iceberg. Koei's got a nasty habit of producing sequels that barely improve on the original, often adding complexity without making it more fun. Still, I've got a soft spot for some of their games, and Uncharted Waters 2 is top of the list. Doing some Vaulting of Koei titles is one of those backburner projects I'll get to someday. In the meantime, very good call mentioning UW2. You rule. | One way to record game music | When I record music of my psx, I use a little game enhancer thing frommicrosmarts (it's lika a game shark), that looks for sound and movie files(.xa and .str, I think) and plays them. It's great for games that don'thave sound tests. From there I record onto a minidisc. It doesn't work onall games though. I think games with midi don't work as xenogears and ff7dont work, but the movies from ff7 do. Paul |
There ya go. For games with MIDI-based music, I would assume you could just record it directly off the TV set/stereo system. If the system is good enough, there shouldn't be much, if any, loss of quality. | Underdogs, second wave | First of all, my least favorite game character: The pink-haired little girl from Sailor Moon. Her name is Rini in the dub shown on cartoon network, I forget if that's the original name or not. Yeah, she's an anime character, but there are a lot of Sailor Moon games so she counts. Forget C-Ko, Rini is far more irritating. Now, on to the real reason I'm sending this, my secret favorite games. Tenchi Muyo. An SNES rpg/tactics sort of game. Fun, but short. Final Fantasy Legend (Saga) 2. A gameboy rpg with some flaws, but very fun. Tip: The best party is four female mutants. Agility and massive damage spells all the way. Paladin's Quest. One of the weirdest RPG's ever. Everything about the game was bizarre, and this probably turned off a lot of people. If you really want a trip to another world, check this one out. Brain Lord. You want puzzles? Mind-rending, brain-aching puzzles? How does a pitch black room full of conveyer belts sound? And the thing is, you don't even know there are conveyer belts in the room until you've been walking nowhere for five minutes. And the super-obscure winner is: Clash at Demonhead. An NES platform action game with RPG elements. Many of the game's features remain unique to this day. It had anime-style characters and cutesy enemies, and it was quite hard(and at times easy to get lost or stuck). No one I know has liked it, but somehow all its odd features rub me the right way. -sanagi (known as "Some large-breasted tarantula and his lust for two degrees south of the North Pole" to his friends.) |
Clash at Demonhead! Woo! Oh man, I knew we'd get some obscure favourites of mine mentioned in this conversation thread, but this is beyond my expectations. Yeah, I remember Clash. Like you said, it's not especially good in most ways, but damn, I had a blast with it. It's one of those old NES games which weren't great, but memorable, like Demon Sword (jump HIGHER!), Karnov (fire-breathing circus strongman saves world, film at 11), and... what was that shooting game where you were a giant demonic head, for no discernable reason? Played all the above. Had a blast with Tenchi, liked FFL2, was made mildly ill by the color scheme of Paladin's Quest but generally found it okay, and hated Brain Lord with a passion. If I wanted to solve puzzles that badly, I'd just go The Adventurers of Lolo 1-3. Now THAT is how you do a puzzle game. And Lala was pretty durn cute for a pink sphere with eyes and feet. Ahem. Still, glad you liked the above. Anyone else a Brainlord fan, who wants to smite me for badmouthing it? :) | Amano hatred unleashed | Greetings, fearsome Double Agent. You've made it known that you encourage debate with a higher body countthan your average video game letters columnist. Well, after spendingmany an agonizing minute, I developed an insidious plot to bring justthat to the daily fare in Double Agent: debate. "How about a debate centering on Amano's artwork?" says I. "Why, what awonderous idea!" I answer myself. So, here goes, Mr. Milligan. Treadinto forbidden territory, if you dare. [The author of this letter will be teaching a seminar entitled "How To Get Allan to Print Your Letter" this Friday in Fresno. ;) - DA] I think Amano, while not necessarily a bad artist, falls flat in hisrole as a character designer (artistically speaking, that is) and thathis conceptual artwork horribly maligns the games that contain it. Why,yes, you heard what I said. I have spoken the impossible, thesacrilegious, the blasphemous in the RPG community: Amano is a badconceptual artist. Let's begin with Final Fantasy VI. I take issue with just about everylast image I see of every last character in that game that Amano drew.Terra's personality, as we see in the game, is fundamentally shy andreserved. However, Amano's conception of her as depicted in his artworkshows her wearing clothing so ostentatious that a pampered court dandywould have second thoughts about wearing them. Terra, by her verynature, wouldn't wear such flashy, gaudy clothing. Secondly, her skin ispale beyond belief. She was a soldier in the Empire, which probablyconsisted of quite a bit of outdoor training and exercises, and yetshe's whiter than a Gothic ghost. Amano's conception falls flat whencompared to the game itself. Secondly, let's talk about Edgar. Edgar is the party's residentlady-killer, the man who's always trying to worm his way into a woman'sheart. From this, we get the impression that he has quite a bit ofmasculinity (and ego, to boot), and isn't afraid to assert it. However,Amano's portrayals of Edgar show the engineer/king with nails over fourinches in length. My mother doesn't even have nails that long. Edgar isby nature a macho man, but artwork of him simply screams "I Am A SexualDeviant." Kartia. The game was excellent (in my opinion), but I found thecharacter designs (most certainly used by Atlus as a method to sell thegame in the first place) to be distressing and particularly repelling.Troy, one of my favorite characters in the game (certainly NOT becauseof the character art), was even whiter than Terra, and had the same "IAm A Sexual Deviant" look that Edgar had. Zakuro's face reminded me of asquashed meatloaf. In both FF6 and Kartia, the heroes are trying to save the world, right?You couldn't tell that from the character art. To me, they look morelikely to be powdering up for a Miss America pagaent, not battling evilin a dramatic story of good versus evil. Fortunately, I haven't seen any of Amano's artwork for the previousFinal Fantasies, and hopefully, I never will. Simply looking at hisartwork makes me want to cry, and I'm infinitely glad that Nomura didthe artwork for FF7 instead of Amano. I'm glad that ANYONE did theartwork for FF7 instead of Amano, for that matter. Well, there you go, Allan. Post if you dare bring upon this columnmounds of Amano Good vs. Amano Bad letters. -Matt Blackie blackie@isgroup.net (I welcome hate mail 'cause it's fun to laugh at.) |
I dare. :) I've babbled enough this column, so I'll leave you readers to the task of supporting or refuting Matt's opinion. I've got to say, though, that Matt's managed to play me like a harp here. I couldn't have resisted printing this if I wanted to. | I'm asking for it here, but... | 1) Do you think the fact that Ogre Battle 3 has not been released yet(in Japan, of course) affected Nintendo's decision not to show the gameat E3? 2) Which game do you like more, Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics? Why? (For me, it's rather amusing when people praise FFT by *solely*addressing TO's alleged "flaws", like "oh no, you can't get Revivifyuntil Gruborza or Lyme" or "these maps are too large, but I'm too damnedlazy to implement some long-term strategy; therefore TO is crap".) - Paul |
First off, I'm sure there are betas that Nintendo could have shown off at E3, if they really felt they needed to. The projected changes being made for the US release, which are substantial, are more likely culprits for their resistance to showing it off. Why tease reporters with pictures of a game with an uncertain US release date, and will have pretty significant changes made for the final release in the US? Sigh. This will undoubtedly sully my good (snicker) name in some circles, but I actually enjoyed Final Fantasy Tactics more than Tactics Ogre - I specify at this point that I'm dealing with the PSX versions here, since they're the US releases, and are thus germane to this column. Tactics Ogre must certainly be recognized as a significant and detailed game, with gobs of replay value. By the same token, I found FFT to be a much more polished and playable product. Cleaner, faster-reacting menu system. Vastly superior loading times. The invaluable ability to rotate the battlefield. Even the controller scheme for TO is awkward, switching buttons for functions almost at random. And lastly, Tactics Ogre was complex and detailed to the point where it stopped being fun to me. The micromanagement aspect of it, balancing for speed, attack power, defense power, terrain usefulness, and so forth, eventually just became a chore, rather than something I was eager to do. I can appreciate very complex games. Carnage Heart springs to mind as one of my favourite PSX games. But, with the clunkiness of TO's gameplay adding to the annoyance, TO simply passed beyond my tolerance for being clever and complex, and became a chore rather than a game. I finished it twice. I finished the Hell Gate twice. I really wanted to love it, to sink into the deep gameplay and never look back. I gave it a very, very fair shake, and it failed the fundamental test for me. It wasn't fun. FFT, for all its flaws, was much more playable and polished a product, and the detail and depth was a lot more pleasurable to delve into. And I had fun with it. | Deep Thought Archive response | People have been complaining about how it wouldn't work because it'd be difficult to upgrade the consoles. Well there is already a solution for that in the PC market. A PC company (not sure which one, there are so many) developed a way of displaying graphics where the engine decides how much resolution, detail, polygon count, etc. should be displayed based on how powerful your system is. All games could include this feature. Individual companies could make their consoles as powerful as they wanted, and all games would tailor themselves to the power of your current system. In theory, old games could get higher resolution and polygon count when run on a newer console. Of course there's still the problem of cost. Console developers make money by licensing software, not from making the console. We still need to work that part out. ;-) - John |
If you figure out a way for companies to make a profit producing the console, I'm sure Nintendo, Sega, and Sony would love to have your phone number. :) Still, point taken, regarding a "one standard" console industry. I remain unconvinced that it could actually happen, but it's a very interesting idea on a purely intellectual basis. I'll have to find Clyde and get him to finish his theories. | Underdog games abroad | Greetings from Ireland, Allan. I'm not exactly sure if these games could be described as 'underdog', but oneof my favourate games of all time are the games known as 'Lords of Midnight',and its sequel 'Doomdarks Revenge' by Mike Singleton. They were for an old Z80computer called the 'Sinclar ZX Spectrum', which was popular in Europe in the1980's (The North American version of the Spectrum was made by Timex, Ithink). The introduction of Lords of Midnight best describes the games : "The Lords of Midnight is not simply an adventure game nor simply awar game. It is really a new type that we have chosen to call an epicgame, for as you play the Lords of Midnight you will be writing a newchapter in the history of the peoples of the Free." You started off with four characters, Luxor the Moonprince, who held theMoonring, Morkin, his son, who was the only person immune to the 'Ice Fear'(I'll describe this later), Corleth the Fey, and Ronathan the wise. You had to travel around the Land of Midnight, recruiting other lords to dobattle with Doomdark's own Lords. This was no easy task in itself, as there weretwo different races, the Free and the Fey, the Free living in the plains, andthe Fey living in the Forests. These two races are distrustful of each other.Only Luxor (and Ronathan) could recruit people from both races. Things are madeeven more difficult by the 'Ice Fear' which is coming from the Ice Crown in thenorth. This causes fear in all of the Lords, and can cause them to desert, orrefuse to join your Party. It increases as Doomdark's forces spread south.Luxors Moonring sent out it's own 'anti-Ice Fear' field, so you had to keep mostpeople close to him to stop them from deserting. Each Lord would have their own Army, for which you could recruit members atkeeps and citadels scattered around the place. The game took place in a 3D world, which I thought was amazing back then.Each lord could move a certian amount of spaces each day. The terrain wouldaffect the amount of moves you could take, and you had to keep track of thefatuige levels of your lords and troops, or they could not move at all. Youcould find various artifacts in the different areas you came across, such asHenges and Ruins To complete the game, you had a choice of two paths:
1) Destroy the citadel of Ushgarak in the north. (By war)
2) Guide Morkin north to steal the Ice Crown, and destroy it using one of threemethods. (By quest) This game was quite complex and deep, considering the machine it was on (48kcomputer), and the time it came out It's sequel, Doomdarks Revenge, was more of the same really, except with moreraces including the Giants, and more areas to visit, such as temples andunderground tunnels. this time, Doomdark's Daughter, It was set in a land farnorth of Midnight. Sarah the Heartstealer, had kidnapped Morkin, and you had tofree him. You also had to struggle with Sarah's forces. This time, the bad Guyscolud recruit also, so you had to get as many recruits as possible, before theywere all recruted by the other side. I know I've left out some things in these descriptions, so if you want to tryout this classic for yourself, some nice person converted it for the PC. You canget it at his website at http://www.anam.demon.co.uk . It's Freeware (or Shareware. Doesn't sayanything about paying for it.) It's a very small file, and it will even run on286 computers. I think there was a third game planned, although I have never seen it, Ibelieve it was released on the PC a while back. I don't know though. By the way, could you please start putting European Release dates on thepreviews pages etc. as well? It would be a great help to us European Gamers. I'msure you have many Europeans visiting your site (Now that you are 'Pro') Sorry about typos, my spellchecker isn't working and I've got a migrane --Shinryuu, God of Dragons |
Wow. Never heard of the game, but by gum, I think I'll have to, now that you've introduced it to me. That and Metal Marines, I'll be doing those as soon as I do my Lunar binge. As for European releases, it's certainly a thought. I freely confess that I'm fairly ignorant of the European gaming scene, and it's not our focus generally, but it wouldn't be a taxing prospect to start putting up European release dates, and I can see how it'd be helpful for our European visitors. Tell you what. European visitors, send me URLs for what you consider to be leading sources for European gaming news, and I'll set about beefing up GIA's European support. Everyone else on-staff has plenty to do, so I'll make this my pet project. All right? Closing Comments Long column today. More tomorrow. Me talk like Ayla now. Good tea. Nice house. - Allan Milligan
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not neccessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. Don't say I didn't warn you. :) | | | |
