It's alright, but it tastes kind of gamey.

• 27Dec 08

  Gamespot Fails at Ranking

  Gamespot said that 2008 was "one of the greatest years ever for video games." Yet I'm sure they said that about 2007, and 2006, and 2005....exactly what does "one of" mean? Maybe Gamespot believes that every year is better than the last, but I can't imagine how one would justify that view, particularly given the continued standardization of the game industry.
  • Posted Dec 27, 2008 6:59 am PT
  • Category: Games
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• 22Dec 08

  Valkyrie Profile: A Failed Experiment

  So I've been playing Valkyrie Profile on the PSP for the vacation. The game is very distinctive and does a lot of things differently from a typical RPG, and this makes it interesting. Unfortunately, it has a number of flaws, most of which come down to the same problem: a lack of information transmitted to the player.
  
  At some level, all gameplay revolves around making strategic decisions. The player is given information, and uses that information to choose a course of action that will be most beneficial to them.
  
  But Valkyrie Profile does not give this information to the player. One example is artifact collection. At the end of each dungeon, there are a few artifacts, which can either be kept or given to Odin. The player cannot keep every artifact he finds, so he must make strategic decisions on which to keep and which to give up. Yet the player is given no information on the items until AFTER he has taken them; and even then, sometimes the usefulness of an item does not become apparent till much later in the game. The end result is that there is no strategic decision; the decision is somewhat random, and this leads to frustration. For instance, in one dungeon there was an object called "fairy bottle". I choose to give it up. It ends up that this item is necessary to get all the good weapons in the game, and so I've made the game considerably more difficult for myself by not getting it.
  
  This is another problem. A single small decision should not have a huge impact on the game unless it is made clear to the player that it will. Otherwise, the player just feels screwed over.
  
  I could go on, but this is representative of most of the problems with the game; it's as if it was designed to be played with a guide at your side. To get a decent ending, you have to do a bunch of semi-random and unintuitive stuff. The entire battle system is never properly explained, nor are the stats on the weapons. This game makes me want to be a playtester. If I had been testing this, I would have caught all this stuff; I can only assume that either the playtesters were incompetent, or the developer chose to ignore them.
  • Posted Dec 22, 2008 8:03 am PT
  • Category: Games
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• 17Jul 07

  An Old Surprise

  [x-posted from Livejournal this time]
  
  Every year or two, there is a surprise game - a game I get or play not expecting anything great, but just fishing for greatness. One year it was Ace Combat 4. This year it was....Final Fantasy VIII.
  
  Now, one would think that a game I'd already played 1 and 3/4 times wouldn't exactly be a big surprise. But I played in back in 99/2000. I was different then. After playing FFX and various other console-style RPGs on the Playstation, I came to the conclusion that I had grown out of the genre, and couldn't take the derivative filler repetition anymore.
  
  I was wrong. Sorta.
  
  Because I decided to replay FF VIII, and I love it. So much, that I was logging 10 hours a day, a couple times playing till 2:30 at night. For the record, I don't think I've EVER played a game that late before. It's fantastic. I've written a lot about all the flaws of the game - and there are a lot - but while playing it they just don't seem to matter. It's more than the sum of its parts, and what's more important, it's FRESH - more fresh than it was when it came out, because at that point the genre was still exploring what it could do with 3D. Now, its been stuck in a rut for the better part of a decade, and going back to a game that did everything different makes me realize there IS hope for the genre. I could write about why I like FF8, but I'm not gonna. Everyone reading this
  
  A. Has played the game, and already has formed opinions on it
  B. Hasn't played the game, and doesn't give a damn
  C. Hasn't played the game but might be interested in my ramblings anyway.
  
  Unfortunately, said ramblings might involve spoilers (when I get to the plot), and for gameplay mechanisms, well, there are plenty of other analysis (analyses? Analysises? How do you say that in plural?) out there. Mine would be different...but eh, I feel like debating FF8 is like debating the Iraq war - at this point, people are very unlikely to change their minds and there isn't a lot of point.
  
  Anyway, played that at Whidbey. Came home. Got Front Mission 4 in the mail. Got Paranoia Agent Disc 2, and the first few episodes of Deadwood to watch. Just met with a friend. Have bowling and movie nights to schedule. Gotta finish my book. And on Monday, I can call Blue Highway Games and *hopefully* get a job or at least some volunteer work there.
  
  Hooray!
  • Posted Jul 17, 2007 1:02 pm PT
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