The holidays are over, and I suppose it's back to slaving over a gaggle of websites every waking moment for me. To demonstrate how I've accepted my grim fate, please accept this, the first GameSpite update of 2009. Continuing Issue 12 is a weirdly Nintendo-focused update. I say weirdly because there's not even a hint of NES or Super NES about this update. Bizarre! What other freakish new phenomena does the new year hold for us?
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
You know, if I'd posted this in a more timely fashion, it would have made a pretty decent 10th anniversary commemoration of the first 3D Legend of Zelda outing. But alas! You'll have to settle for it a few months late. Don't worry, though; my tardiness doesn't diminish the author's gushing fanboyism for the game.
Wave Race: Blue Storm
And at the other extreme, we have a look back at the third Wave Race title that's...also full of gushing fanboyism. Ah, but the thing about Blue Storm is that this is the only positive article that's ever been written about the game, whereas everybody's all "Oh Ocarina of Time is just so special." Revel in the iconoclasm!
And the first customized hardcover copy of GameSpite Year One, Vol. 1 is complete and ready to hit the mail for one Kurt Adam, who was the first to plop down his filthy blood money to transform webpages into physical printed matter. By request: a very literal Retronaut, and one with very little fear of explosive decompression. This one should be bounding its way slowly through 1/6 earth-standard gravity to the post office tomorrow morning. Only 30-something to go.
Covering Macworld Expo is going to make a mess of my week, but I should be sending out quite a few of these in the coming days. Oh, and the Internet-based, new-content-providing aspect of GameSpite will be resuming its normal routine very soon.
It's 2009, but I'm not done with this 2008 thing yet. Because apparently my new modus operandi in life is to run behind with all the things I schedule for myself. Although I suppose it's not always my fault -- for instance, I was planning to mail out the first batch of GameSpite Vol. 1 yesterday, but the fact that it was pissing rain put a crimp in that plan (since said plan involved toting open boxes of books in paper envelopes five blocks to the post office). And so I run slow, as ever, with reviewing my reviews...or non-reviews, as in this case.
Grand Theft Auto IV | Rockstar North/Take 2 | PC/PS3/XB360 | Criminal sandbox I gave it:(Didn't review it) | In retrospect, I would have given it: C+, maybe B-
I started writing this entry while I was at my sister's house watching my brother-in-law play Crackdown. This made me sad for two reasons. One, because he was the one playing Crackdown, not me, and Crackdown is the sort of game that's far more entertaining when you're the one at the controller. And two, because I was writing about Grand Theft Auto IV, the latest in a series that was far more entertaining before its creator split off to go create Crackdown.
GTA is one of those series that used to strike me as self-consciously crass, a naked attempt to gather attention through juvenile shock value and amateurish parody. Which it is! But once I actually triedGTA III, I realized that all of those things are a distraction from GTA's real point, which is freedom. DMA Designs' created in GTA a giant, city-shaped playground with lots of fun toys for creating mayhem, encouraging violence so over-the-top and unrealistic that it ceased to be objectionable and became simply fun. And though GTA III did offer a definite story-driven progression through the game, no one really cared: the only thing the plotline really accomplished was to unlock new areas and new toys. GTA's brilliance lay in the fact that it was entertaining no matter how you played it -- even if you went about it completely wrong, in fact.
Unfortunately, somewhere along the way that original vision was lost, and with GTA IV the entire series' purpose has been inverted. Now freedom is a secondary consideration, and the amateurish plotline and heavy-handed parody/homage/rip-off are the point. That's a shame, because those have never been the series' strengths...much as its creators would like to think so.
I never owned a PS2, so when I picked up a backwards-compatible PS3 I initially started collecting all the well-known RPG games I missed. I had a shelf full of games that included Nocturne, Digital Devil Saga, Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2, Final Fantasy XII, Rogue Galaxy, Dragon Quest VIII, et al. As more and more next gen games were released I found myself never getting around to playing my "backlog," as it were. When my gaming time is limited, devoting dozens of hours to a single RPG just wasn't as appealing as knocking out four or five titles in other genres within the same timeframe. Also, with action or puzzle or sports games I can multitask, and listen to audio books or podcasts while I play. Since so many RPGs are filled with text and/or voiced narrative it's impossible to do that same thing.
Eventually, I just gave up and sold all the games that made me feel bad for not playing them. What's the use of having a shelf full of games if you're never going to get to them?
I think my main problem was that I am something of a gaming dilettante. I like a wide variety of games and I like to play everything that's current. For me, part of the fun of this hobby is the community, and much of the discussion in the community hinges on being familiar with what's "hot". There are, of course, niches you can insert yourself into. For example, on this very website is a forum full of people who are perfectly happy discussing old RPGs from the previous era. So if I really wanted, I could give up my addiction to the new and shiny and focus on old games. There are plenty of places online where I could find a supportive group of people to discuss those games with. So why don't I?
The image above is what I see when I look out the window. A nice, snowy Minneapolis street. It's where I'll be spending the next month or so, acclimating myself to the States before I pick up and move to San Francisco. Good old Minnesota.
With me are a stack of games to play and several packages of Sour Patch Kids, both of which should go a long way toward keeping me busy for a while. I've got Chrono Trigger on my DS, Bleach: Soul Carnival and Super Stardust Portable on my PSP, Persona 3: FES on my PS2 and Far Cry 2 and BioShock on my PC -- two shooters that are making their to their computer. You might be surprised to know that they are joined by Half-Life 2. This is my attempt at pretending that I'm a well-rounded gamer. Also, actually being able to access certain content (like, you know, BioShock) has a way of loosening your purse strings a bit.
It's for that reason, at least, that I'm happy to be back in America. When you don't have access to something for a few years, it tends to get elevated to the status of myth in your head. Thus, good Mexican, certain items on Steam, root beer and timely new movies (see my tragically belated reviews of Iron Man and Wall-E) are all making a welcome return to my life. Of course, I'm also bidding goodbye to friends, decent sushi, and a population of nerds who rank the original Mobile Suit Gundam next to the likes of Star Wars (that is, the good Star Wars). I'll be feeling the pain whenever I get a craving for okonomiyaki.
Somehow I ended up kicking off the new year by playing Super Mario Bros. 2. After watching everyone else flail around for half an hour trying to get past world 1-2, I jumped in and powered through a few stages, building up a healthy stock of lives before handing the controller back. They burned through all those 1UPs in five minutes and it was game over. Man, I hope this isn't how the rest of the year goes.
As far back as I can remember, I’ve liked listening to metal. It isn’t the only genre of music I listen to, but it’s definitely one of my favorites. Imagine my surprise, then, when my best friend shot me a link to 8-bit Metallica songs:
...I suddenly feel like I understand a lot more about myself as a person, thanks to this. You have no idea how happy this makes me.
A good end to a crappy year: GameSpite Year One, Vol. 1 arrived today. Someone mentioned in the comments for my last update on the book's status that the listed weight of 16 lbs. seemed a bit light for a box containing more than a hundred 350-page books, and it turns out they were partially correct. The box was 16 lbs. But it was the smallest of seven boxes.
Uh, yeah. I guess I didn't really appreciate the sheer scale of this operation until I saw a palette of books waiting for me at the office.
I brought home a batch of hardcovers to start doing custom sketches, but I confess there's no way I'll be able to ship all of these out right away. I'll be mailing books in the order in which they were purchased and hopefully should have everything distributed by the middle of January -- except, of course, for books ordered after the initial print run was accounted for. I'll have to do a second printing on those, and they'll arrive in February.
Logistical nightmares aside -- I'll definitely be taking a different approach to distribution with Vol. 2 -- this is a great way to close out 2008. The books look fantastic. I don't think anyone will be disappointed! Hopefully.
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike a good flight
31 December 08 | 10:55 | Posted by:
I'm pretty sure that after having a miserable flight across the country last Christmas, I asked you people to remind me not to fly at the holidays. But you didn't! So while I was able to see lots of beloved relatives, do various family things to make sure my fiancée and I are properly engaged according to Vietnamese standards, and have a generally fantastic week, I also had to put up with yesterday. And all because you people failed me. For shame.
Yesterday's flight, which was supposed to be a quick three-hour jaunt from DFW to SFO, was a carefully-planned test by the airlines to see just how far they could push their luck without doing anything that would actually justify a refund. Tricky devils. The coup de grace was when they almost (but not quite!) lost my luggage: it didn't show up on the conveyer belt, it wasn't in the rows of misplaced suitcases, but once I was good and angry and had stood in line for a few minutes to report the problem they paged me a split second before I could get to the customer service desk and demand justice. Diabolical.
Anyway, I'm back in San Francisco where the water is potable straight from the tap. That's nice! Growing in Texas, I never appreciated just how disgusting the water there really is. But going back after five years living here, I've discovered Lubbock water tastes like chlorine and Dallas water smells and tastes like mildew. Yum.
On the plus side, I did find Prince Albert in a can. And being the good soul that I am, I let him out.
Some of you have asked me how the Mysterious Kitty-Bunny has been doing. If you're not caught up, I wrote about her here. The short version, we found a sickly, starving small kitten living with our rabbits, eating their rabbit feed and attempting to nurse from them. Underweight and anemic, she was adorably heartbreaking and apparently under the delusion that she was a rabbit. Since then, she has moved inside to live with me and my wife and the other cats, and she's got a round little tummy and a feisty disposition.
I recently picked up a used copy of the Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon, a Shin Megami Tensei spinoff action-RPG. While the title may be hilariously long, it’s definitely the most mindless fun I’ve ever had with an SMT game. I’ve never played the first title in the series (Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army), but I am sure that this is a tremendous improvement, if only because my two favorite parts of this game’s battle system were apparently not present in the first game.
One of these presumable improvements is the way the battle system manages the use and replenishment of MAG points, which keeps the combat brisk and full of options. Like most SMT games, attacking your enemies’ weak point is practically required to get through even random battles, and Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon gives even greater rewards for doing so than normal. When an enemy is hit by an element they are weak against, not only are they stunned, but following up with successive physical attacks will then replenish your MAG. This essentially means that your most powerful attacks restore rather than diminish your MAG supply. While this system is obviously tilted heavily in the player’s favor and might ruin a turn based RPG with a greater focus on resource management, in an action-RPG the ability to easily restore MAG keeps random encounters from becoming a button-mashing chore by widening the possibilities of combat.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Wave Race: Blue Storm
