Hiding my head in the sand - June 23rd, 1999 - 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. :)
Well, reponse to Poetry Day yesterday was... outspoken. I think one letter summed it up perfectly, below... | Consensus | what the hell was that? Wulfgang |
... yeah, this pretty much summed up reader response to Poetry Day. I just felt like doing something a bit weird, a lot silly, and, well, it flopped. Horribly. Sigh. Back to the drawing board, I guess. I assure you, nothing like that will happen again. Now I know how Kevin Costner feels. | Why DVD? | Hey there, OK, with my limited knowledge on console specs, I will make the following argument. Keep in mind, the following argument will be made with a general understanding of how videogame systems work. It has come to my attention that the PSX2 will use the DVD format, capable of holding over 2 gigs worth of information. It has also come to my attention that the PSX2 has an "Emotion Chip" which allows FMV style cinematics in real-time. I have also learned the PSX2 will be a 32-bit system so it can be backwards compatible which leads me to the conclusion that...they don't really need DVD Discs. A regular PSX CD can hold 660 megs...but the major problem is most of that--a significant portion--is devoted to FMVs. Why would you need all of that space if none (or most likely none) of it will be devoted to FMV? -mista tea |
Well, there's the powerful desire to always have cutting-edge technology available for developers that plays into this. Sony has DVD technology, DVD tech is good and powerful, so why not use it? It's also tougher to pirate than normal CDs, and has faster access rates, which is also good. It's also going to be a while before many companies will be able to exploit the Emotion Chip to their satisfaction, so we may still see CGI FMV in games. Moreover, any company that wants to do live-action or anime FMV will be able to use more of it, in using a DVD. I also suspect that redbook audio will be more prevalent with the advent of DVD-based games, since they'll be able to contain mounds of the stuff. And, of course, some enterprising company might try and fill a DVD with actual game. Yeah, right. :) | Replacing sarcasm | Oh one of seldom mistake: Contrary to what you posted yestarday, Fox currently has rights toResident Evil the Movie. They have George Romero directing and Stanwinston's creature shop for the FX. Although still in pre-production, Foxis saying Fall of 2000 for release. --EidosWetsuit |
Two days ago, I wrote that the Resident Evil movie would be a direct-to-video porn flick. It was intended to be sarcastic. I know that's not true, amusing though I'd find it. EidosWetsuit is quite correct. So now you've got the facts. Ta-daaaaaah. Danke, EW. Gold star for you. | Butt kissing works | How goes it oh might of Double Agents?(My mommy always told me letters that start with the butt kissin get printed..) Pendy from yesterday's letter is wrong about the Dragon Quest V translation..the only groups translating haven't updated their sites in years..although Dragon Quest 6 is suppose to be coming along nicely (Via "Neo Demiforce"...Demi is the guy who got the money together to dump Mother (Aka Earthbound Zero to emulationmanics all over the world...)the only "big" translations that should be done in the near future is Seiken Densetsu 3 and Tales of Phantasia. And about changing the char's names in FFV..it'd be nice..but Butz is the only person in the game whom you can impose changes apon their name.. And for my question..since it's related to everything else..where do you stand on emulation? I wrote in a while back asking you but I never got a answer.. Thanks for the time... Raven PS...tell Drew I still wanna lick his teeth.. |
Kissing my ass DOES work. I don't devote columns to it, and won't print a letter that only consists of it, but it doesn't hurt. A few people mentioned that Butz is the guy you can rename in FFV. I should've pointed that out two days ago. Oops. On a brighter note, at least Bartz is the most obnoxious of the name changes, IMO. So it's some small comfort. Where do I stand on emulation? Well, I stand on the wall and do a sexy gypsy dance. I confess it, I use emulators. I own a pretty hefty number of games, so it's at least quasilegal most of the time. As for the rest, well, I know it's illegal, I don't condone breaking laws, but neither do I deny that it's fun and easy. I'm not going to get involved in a big crusade to legalize emulation, but neither do I condemn anyone for using it. Am I making any sense? | FF8 hack 'n slash | Dear Agent, I'm worried about the American release of Final Fantasy VIII. I can pretty much guarantee you two things. 1) It will have a bad translation. Off course! Is there really any doubt? A bad translation is more certain than the fact that the sun rises every morning. We all know that only big companies can afford to employ competent translators. Wait a minute... Square is a big company. In that case, then, they won't spend the money simply because they don't give a rat's ass about the American market. 2) It will be heavily censored. In the wake of blowback from the recent school shootings, video game companies will play it a lot safer in the future. Square will, in particular, because it is named in the Paducah lawsuit. If Final Fantasy VII had been released this year instead of in 1997, the scene of Aeris' death would have been completely removed. Remember how crippled the industry was back in the early 1990's after Congress gave the industry flak over violence in video games? History repeats. In summation, I have a strong feeling that the American version of Final Fantasy VIII will be massacred. |
On a brighter note, Selphie is very cute. That doesn't address either of the problems you cite, but hey, it's a brighter note. More seriously, I'm resigned to accepting that Square EA and Sony really don't have much reason to spend a lot of time and money on the localization of their games. It's just not profitable, and with companies that big, with so much riding on each and every release, the bottom line is truly supreme. I just accept it as a matter of course now. Will FF8 have a lousy, okay at best translation? Probably yes. Will it be toned down? Well, that's a bit iffier. I'm constantly amazed at how pervasive the reprecussions from the school shootings have been, much less how ass-backwards they tend to be. I suspect that there will be minor cuts to FF8, but without knowing how explicit and graphic is gets, I can't really assess how much, and how important, such cuts would be. I suspect we'll have to wait and see, to compare the US and Japanese versions, before we can truly be angered. | Letting 2D live | Do you believe that 2-D deserves to be retained in RPGs? I mean, it's almost the archtype for the RPG formula...3-D has been aninteresting experiment, but in my opinion, it simply can't compare tothe beauty of a masterfully crafted 2-D world. Compare FFT and FF7...FF7may have been shiny and impressive, but it simply can't compare in myopinion. Then there's character design...They may have been noseless,but no less so than FF7's characters. At least they didn't have forearmsbigger than their thighs. What's your opinion? -Her Majesty the supermodel that shuffles mindlessly through thealleyways of the Free Parking square in Monopoly. |
I think it's unfair to compare a first-generation game like FF7 to a sixth-gen title like FFT. Compare the characters in FF7 to those in FF8, and the difference is staggering. Look at Shen Mue, and the concept that only 2D can be beautiful is tossed out the window and run over by a large truck with spikes on its wheels. As technology advances, the lack of detail and blockiness we currently see in most 3D titles will disappear. I think 2D has a right to continue, it has a certain cachet all its own, and deserves to stick around, but 3D can be utterly gorgeous in its own right. Judging all polygonal games by FF7 is really unfair. Me, I'm wondering why we've been seeing sprite-based titles for eons, and yet the average quality is still so low. Look at Lunar. Tiny, barely animated character sprites with the body proportion of a fetus. Now look at the characters in Star Ocean 2, or if you're feeling cruel, compare the Lunar characters to those in Legend of Oasis. Weep as you will. There's no bloody excuse for doing half-assed 2D games anymore, and with the leaps and bounds that 3D graphics are taking, it's just depressing that a good 2D game from 1999 looks about as good as a decent 2D game from 1991. | Death and swooning | Here's something I've been wondering about: You know how when you die in Final Fantasy you can just ressurect the dead character with a Phoenix down, so how come when Sephiroth kills Aeris they don't just give her a Phoenix down instead of throwing her in the water? SLT |
A basic conceit of the FF series is that your characters don't die in combat - at 0 HP, they're wounded to the point where they can't fight any longer, and need to be revived by a Phoenix Down or what have you, but they're not clinically dead. But, in drama scenes, you *can* be fatally wounded. Not just unable to continue fighting, but actually killed. And a Phoenix Down won't do squat for someone who's actually died. It just rouses the wounded. As to why Aeris can have meteors dropped on her in combat, and keep going, but can't take a sword in the gut, I don't know. That's just video game logic for you. | Stability | alright, excuse the poor paragraphing, but it's 2:00 am and i'm tired. anyhow, on to the letter: I got my PSX back in september '96 through a crappy mail order service called Chips 'N' Bits, you've probably heard of them through old GamePro magazines. Anyhow, I recieved it, played it, enjoyed it, etc., until about after two years, i noticed that the screen started to get very fuzzy whenever I turned on the PSX. I didn't take much notice of it, and it could usually be temporarily removed by moving the psx around. I followed through with that method for about a year, until it got so bad that I couldn't be removed. To this very day, it's sometimes so fuzzy that whenever i turn it on, it's hard to see much of anything at all. And, when I popped in my Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped disc, it froze after the "Sony Computer Entertainment of America" screen. I mean, really, if my system won't be able to last more than three years, then what's the point of buying a PSX2? Don't get me wrong, I'm a die-hard PSXer, but I'd like to have a system that can last me more than three years, and games that don't freeze at random times. I'd get a Dolphin, but Nintendo just can't be trusted, and in my humble opinion, the Dreamcast is going to fail miserably after about a year. Does this leave me in the dust in terms of next-next-generation systems? I certainly hope not, but i'm pretty skeptical of all three systems. -- Lemmer |
My PSX no longer works either, but I can still play my first-generation NES. That's just bizarre, to me. Yeah, the PSX is easily the least stable system that's ever achieve mass market success. I hope that Sony bothers to make sure that the PSX2 will lack these problems, but then again, it'll be too late by the time we find out. Since my finances will be tightening dramatically in the next few months, I'm not sure what, if any, next-gen system I'll be purchasing. I know that the Dreamcast will be stable as a rock, as will Project Dolphin. But the rumored software backing of the PSX2 makes it the one I'm most interested in at this point. So what do I do? For me, I do nothing. I can't afford to make a decision right now. For you, your skepticism is perfectly valid, and if you can bear it, it might be best to wait and see what happens. | Four score | 1) when is pocket station (PDA) coming out for the U.S? 2) Will there be a crono trigger 2 and FFT 2 ? 3)for FF3 how many secret charecters are there and where is the spot in the world of ruin where you can get your espers mastered faster (where you get the most magic point) ? 4) Do you think square will go to nintendo? |
By the numbers... 1) There is no confirmed release for the PocketStation in the US. 2) Maybe and maybe. 3) There are two secret characters, Gogo and Umaro. There's a desert someplace (help, readers?) where you can find Cactrots, which give mucho magic points. Me, I just head to the Tower of Kefka and stomp on the mages there. Fewer magic points, but a lot more fun. 4) Nope. They seem very happy as Sony's golden boy. Why risk messing it up? | Mainstream and assumptions | There's been a lot of argument about video games as being a neglectedpart of the entertainment industry. A lot of us gripe that games aretreated with the same dignity as any children's toy, while low-qualitymovies and television shows are hailed as valuable entertainment. But would we really be happy if video games became a form of mainstreamentertainment? I don't think so. To demonstrate my point I'll use thewell-known example of the Final Fantasy series. I'm one of those people who's been playing FF games since the originaland I look at the old games vs. new games argument with mixed feelings. However, I will agree that the game was too easy and I didn't like themarketing campaign which focused on FMV scenes and Tifa's appearance. The reasons for the new marketing campaign and the easy gameplay isbecause Square wanted to reach a larger audience, and in the processalienated a lot of older fans. I am not saying FF7 was actually worseor better than others in the series; I was just bringing up a couplepoints on contention. Now look at what happened to Square itself. They are no longer thefriendly little company we once knew, but rather a large, facelesscorporation that issues fancy press releases and plays on franchisednames. We would be hard-pressed to find Squaresoft fans who are happywith that change. So imagine this happening to the video game industry as a whole. Aswith movies, games would only be produced by large corporations withbudgets enough to build a huge fancy game and market it. Marketingitself, and eventually game design, would eventually be to please thecasual mass market rather than a small group of dedicated players. Wewouldn't see companies like Working Designs whose own president talksdirectly to fans. And, to the horror of many, every game would bebuild and marketed like FF7, only more so. Not to critisize FF7, butI'm sure this kind of gaming would grow tiresome quickly to fans whogrew up in the niche market. Or maybe I'm just an idiot who should shut up. - He who spews forth vile opinions.r |
I agree that not everyone would be glad if the entire gaming industry became mainstream in the fashion you've described. And yeah, I doubt many people are jumping for joy, saying "Hurrah, Square is impersonal!" By the same token, Square EA ports over a LOT more titles than the old Squaresoft ever did. With greater size comes great output, but lesser capability to be personable and in touch with niche markets. Be that as it may, I doubt video gaming will ever become the mass-media market that movies and television is. Maybe it's the product of growing up simply acknowledging that it's a niche market and always will be, but I can't conceive of my grandma sitting down to play a video game after her tennis lessons. It just seems wrong to me. Of course, that's the obstacle. The lack of vision, the inability of most people to see video games as accessible and appropriate entertainment for all ages. Maybe, in time, such attitude could be changed. But I still can't see it.
Closing Comments Dum dee dum dee dum dee dum. Yeah, that'll do. - Allan Milligan
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