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
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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
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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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• 9Jul 07

  late = short

  To make a potentially super-long entry into something short:
  
  Instead of making any progress in God of War, I opted to play the other scenario of Front Mission 3. When that got boring, I decided to replay FF VIII - despite the number of serious problems with it (I pretty much agree with Gamespot's review of the PC version), it has a lot of heart/soul, and so I'm excited about replaying it, even if it would make more sense to replay something else - or make progress in God of War. But honestly, just like the similiarly titled Gears of War, I'm finding it quite boring. Kill stuff, kill more stuff, mash button mash button...I dunno, I guess there's just something that bothers me about brutal violence, and I get no rush from it.

  • Posted Jul 9, 2007 11:42 pm PT
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• 6Jul 07

  Front Addiction 3

  So I'm at Whidbey. EB/Gamestop had a good deal on used games, so I get 2. One (God of War, which I'm finally playing despite major reservations) does not run on my PS2, as it is all scratched to hell. Maybe it will run on a brand-new PS2, but not mine. Which wouldn't be their fault, except they sold the faulty used PS2 to my mom in the first place, so it is. So, back it goes, and hopefully they'll be nice enough to give me a relatively clean copy (they had 5 used copies - ONE of them should be in decent condition). Honestly, what are people doing, using the discs as a nail file?
  
  Other game I got was Bully. It's good. Not great. Not bad. About what I expected. It's one of those games where I one could write a perfectly legitimate review that gave it a **** score for its various faults. Gameplay recycled from GTA + storyline/characters that resolve entirely around stereotypes and such easy jokes at various cliques that it can barely be called satire. "RICH PEOPLE ARE SNOBBY AND INBRED HAHAHA", stuff like that. But it's fun in spite of itself.
  
  But my main addiction is Front Mission 3. I was 49 hours into it when I stopped like, 5-6 years ago. So of course I completely forgot what was going on. But there are two scenarios, so I just started with the other scenario. It has plenty of faults, but instead of listing them, I'll just say that it's maddeningly addictive. If the battle sequences were skippable (as they apparently are in Front Mission 4) it would be that much better, but it's still good.
  
  Apparently, while Front Mission 4 is regarded as the black sheep of the series, as it retains the basic gameplay while only adding a single new feature, and yet strips out a few others, has a storyline riddled with plot holes, and completely retarded AI. Front Mission 5, however, seems to be considered by many to be the best yet - it ties all the stories together, adds many new features while at the same time streamlining things and reducing unneeded complexity and crazy-menu-overload. No more "90 separate menus for customizing your Wanzers" apparently. But Squeenix decided that instead of bothering to translate it and release it in the US, they'd focus their efforts on driving other established series into the ground (see: Dawn of Mana). JACKASSES. I'm sure FM5 wouldn't be a super-hit, but it almost certainly would have made a profit given that the game is already done, so the expenditure wouldn't be that much. Plus, the series has a hard core fanbase that will guarantee a minimum number of sales, and good reviews could help introduce new people. But NOOO.
  
  Addendum 1: Finished FM3, Alisa scenario. Wooo.
  
  Addendum 2: Coming up next: Why are modern GOTYs all violent, heavilly-scripted action games?

  • Posted Jul 6, 2007 12:02 pm PT
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• 24Jun 07

  "Isn't he from Quake 3?"

  Avatar Story:
  
  This little dude, appearing next to my comments and (I think) these posts, is the Master Chief. Some of you may have heard of him.
  
  A long time ago, in a physical location very close but in a mental state far away, I worked on a little Halo fan site, called The Cole Protocol. This was before Halo Fever had set in - I worked on it in the post-launch period, so Halo certainly wasn't an obscure game or anything, but it was yet to become a cultural phenomenon - few people owned an Xbox in 2001, hence few people actually played Halo, despite the press.
  
  The art dude for the site created a good 70 halo avatars or so. I licked this one, and used it as my avatar.
  
  Eventually, the site folded, as fan sites based upon a single thing are wont to do. I kept the avatar.
  
  As time passed, Halo became more and more prominent. People stopped thinking it was of some guy from Quake 3 and started recognizing it as the Master Chief. This presented a problem.
  
  I had been using the avatar for so long, that I had long stopped identifying it as anything other than "my avatar".
  
  I'm currently at a crossroads - get a new avatar? And if so, what? I love the little guy, but honestly I'm not much of a Halo fan these days and it feels kind of awkward advertising myself thus.
  
  This post was brought to you by sleep-deprivation and the letter C.

  • Posted Jun 24, 2007 11:44 pm PT
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• 22Jun 07

  To anyone reading this...

  Should I:
  
  1. Collect some game posts from the last year or so that are in my LiveJournal, and paste them here, to give a foundation, or
  
  2. Start fresh.

  • Posted Jun 22, 2007 6:22 pm PT
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• 22Jun 07

  Thinking of You

  I was just thinking about this blog.
  
  Gamespot has been my game site of choice, and my homepage, since Daily Radar collapsed. Yes, I loved Daily Radar. When I was, like, 11-13. Cut me some slack.
  
  I've always had issues with it (the "WE ARE THE BORG" reviewing mentality foremost among them - one day I'll paste here a marvelous post on the subject I found years ago in the forum), but I've always respected them for putting forth the effort to not just be a decent games site, but also to meet the highest of journalistic ideals, something IGN & co. make no pretense of doing (for better or worse).
  
  That said, with my membership now at $40 a month, I am questioning as to whether I should renew. I have yet to see anything to justify the price increase...
  
  If I can get into this blog, maybe I'll stay.
  
  I need gaming buddies
  
  On another note, I just bought a new monitor - the Samsung 206BW - for gaming and movie-watching. Hooray.

  • Posted Jun 22, 2007 6:09 pm PT
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• 3Jan 07

  P.s.s.

  I'm putting this here to make a promise to write a gaming post in here relatively soon. Heck, I write em all the time, just forget to post em here. So, see you soon! Maybe I'll even write a soapbox editorial one of these days

  • Posted Jan 3, 2007 7:50 pm PT
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• 3Jan 07

  A New Dawn for the Empire

  So yeah, I never post in this thing and hence no one reads it, but I am here! Heck, I have a lot less time for gaming than I used to, and fewer new games I want to play, but it's still my homepage! I've always been quick to defend Gamespot while also quick to criticize it, and...uh...where am I going here? If this was an essay I'd do some real editing but it's a blog post, so screw it.
  
  Basically, I wanted to say that Greg K was the #1 reason I hung around Gamespot. Which doesn't mean I'm jumping ship or anything, but he's just such a good guy and while it's sad to see him go, I'm happy that he's pursuing his dream. Yeah, sounds mushy, and I never do that, but I have emotions and ideals too! Really!
  
  Anyway, other than that, I'm still here, and I'm still updating my livejournal (aerothorn.livejournal.com) for anyone who wants to keep in touch. If you ever just want to talk games, I'm happy to do it.
  
  Till next time I get around to posting in this thing - ciao!
  
  P.S. For all its flaws, Chibi-Robo is a real gem of a game and is some of the most fun I've had in 2006. Considering that you can pick it up for between $10-$20 these days, I highly recommend that anyone looking for good, charming gaming, and willing to play a game that doesn't involve things blowing up, check it out.

  • Posted Jan 3, 2007 7:45 pm PT
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• 4Feb 06

  *tumbleweed rolls by*

  Yeah, so I have really been pretty poor in keeping up with this thing (I've never been able to keep two journals at once ) and I never even got around to pasting all my game-oriented Livejournal entries in here. Oh well. Just updating to remind myself to do that. Maybe it's just that I'm not really part of the community here. I like Gamespot as a website - I don't love it, I feel their could be some serious improvements (most notably with the whole "WE ARE THE BORG" editorial policy - I still have that rant saved somewhere), but I like it better then its competitors and all my personal experience with the staff (mostly Greg Kasavin) has been very posistive, and I trust them to do their best. But that's the site. While I think this whole profile system is really nifty, the heart of any online community is the forums, and whenever I look at the forums I see mostly posts that go like:
  
  1. "I like [insert game here]
  2. "[aforementioned game] sucks!
  3. "You suck!"
  4" no your momlol1"
  
  etc.
  
  That's a bit unfair maybe , I haven't checked in a while, I really should. And one of these days I'll get a photo cropped down small enough that I can stick it on here.
  
  But anyway, yeah, guess I'm just too content with Livejournal and the TTLG forums to use this thing a lot. And with Gamespot's membership fee bumped up to $40 (which I am somewhat annoyed about, as their was no actual announcement of this that I can remember, so a lot of people will be auto-billed and only find out AFTER they paid, which is why auto-billing systems suck large amounts of glutius maximus), I'm not sure if I'll be renewing, so don't want to invest too much in this place.
  
  Still, we'll see.
  
  Oh yeah, and I finished Advance Wars today. The first one. Yeah, I'm slow, tends to take me years to finish Game Boy games. Actually, I think this is only the second GBA game I've ever finished...maybe the first, but I think there's another that I'm not thinking of. Anyway, yay for me.

  • Posted Feb 4, 2006 4:59 pm PT
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• 19Dec 04

  Thems Shadows Beesy Deadly

  [copied and pasted from my livejournal. Sorry I forget about this Gamespot one so much!]
  
  Thems Shadows Beesy Deadly
  Just finished Thief: Deadly Shadows. Didn't pick it up earlier in the year due to tech issues I had with the demo (which I quickly figured out once I got the retail version- was using external anti-aliasing when the game had a hard to find internal anti-aliasing option). I'm pretty sure a wrote a series of entries about the highlights of the first two Thief games earlier in the year, when I played through and finished both of em (The disadvantage of having a friends-locked journal is that google can't search it for this stuff). Anyway, suffice it to say that while I may not be as diehard of a fan as some of the folks at TTLG, I am a big fan and think Thief: The Dark Project is one of the biggest contributors to gaming of the past decade, in everything from gameplay (arguably inventing the stealth genre) to audio (too much to list). Anywayyy...
  
  Played this. After Invisible War, people feared this game would be a butchery, but many were pleasantly suprised- while some folks really hate it and everything, I think most liked it- found it not as good as the first two (or, to those who disliked Thief II, not as good as the first one) but good in it's own right. I'm too lazy to write a full on review about all the issues I have with it, so I'll just make one of those positives/negatives lists. Well, actually, I'll just make a negative list since I remember those more. But don't get a bad impression from this; I give it 8.3 out of 10. Still fun, great game, consistent enough with the rest of the series. But they did make some 'questionable' design decisions. Such as....
  
  - No rope arrows. WTF. When thinking about what my favorite game weapon of all time was, I'd be tempted to nominate the Rope Arrow from Thief: The Dark Project. Ok, so it's not really technically a weapon. But it was so COOL. Back when 3D gaming was still relatively new and generally functioned in 2 dimensions - that is, the graphics may be polygons but you were still moveing are horizontally, thinking horizontally - Thief dared you to think of multiple routes in 3 dimensions, and the rope arrow made that possible. It was an arrow that simply had a rope attached; you could shoot it into wood - be it a beam, a wood wall, the roof of a well, etc - and a rope would extend, allowing you to climb up and reach otherwise unreachable places. You could swing from the rope too, using actually momentum, not some dumb scripted tarzan swing thing. Very fun. Especially in the final sequence. Hehehe.
  
  - Garret can't swim. WTF. When did this happen? When it was annouced that Invisible War would not have water, people were ticked off. Water wasn't instrumental to Deus Ex, but it played a major role- providing alternate routes and new gameplay types. But it could work without it. But Thief- without water, there would be no Thief. In the first part of the first mission of the first game, what do you do? Sneak past a drunk guard and HOP DOWN A WELL, to swim along and infiltrate into Lord Bafford's mansion. If rooftops are the Thieves' Highway, then water was...uh...the Thieves' Interstate. or something. Apparently there was something wrong with the engine that prevented it from doing water. Now, in their defense, I thought this spelled disaster for the game, but in the game I rarely noticed; they were able to make it work (albeit probably not as well) without swimmable water. But the first time I encoutered deep water, at the docks, I dove in. And died instantly.
  
  This drove me insane. Garrett was a master swimmer in the previous games. All of a sudden jumping into water is like jumping into magma. What happened? There is no even remotely logical explanation for this. It's just bull****.
  
  - The cutscenes. As you will know from my previous entries on the series, for all the great things they had, my favorite of previous games was the cutscenes. These weren't just normal FMV or CG cutscenes. Nothing like them has been done before or since- they exuded style like nothing else. The cinematography was miles ahead of anything else at the time, and has yet to be bet except maybe by portions of MGS3 (which is kind of comparing apples and oranges). Visually, they were excellent- they seamlessly combined hand-drawn stills, very unique animation, a bit of CG and some full-motion video (but not in the live actors running around sense- it was always dark and shaded, you never saw anyone's faces, just outlines of cloaks and stuff). The cutscenes in Thief III, while competent and much better then your average game's, simply aren't as good. Some are in-engine cutscenes, which is just despicable. The ones that aren't often show character's faces in full light, even Garrett's, something which totally clashes with the previously established visual style. The faces look really wrong, too- Garret looks like some 16 year old prettyboy, which is bizarre and we KNOW he doesn't look like that.
  
  - The subtitle. Deadly Shadows. Eidos Marketing, you suck.
  
  There are various other things but I'm getting tired of writing this and am missing out on a store trip.
  
  On the upside, I very much appreciated the last part of the ending. Coming full circle may be one of the oldest tricks in the book for writers to please fans, they probably could have done something more original, but it worked and was cool, and the Thief snob in me smiles at the idea that people who haven't played the first one won't get it at all (my friend Hunter thought Deadly Shadows was inspired by Splinter Cell, which was what Eidos Marketing was trying to get people to thing, hence the lack of a III- trying to trick people into thinking it was not a sequel. WHY DOES NO ONE READ REVIEWS OR INFORMATION OF PRODUCTS BEFORE BUYING?).

  • Posted Dec 19, 2004 9:59 pm PT
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• 17Oct 04

  Jungle Flair (pasted from livejournal)

  Ok, here's an obligatory journal entry. I need to figure out when the games I want are coming out. There's always games I'm waiting for but they always get pushed back...the last eagerly awaited one to come out was...um...Tribe Vengenace, I guess, but before that Invisible War. So, for my own reference, am gonna try and find release dates for games on my wish/interest list. Will use Gamespot for reference. Will also mention how excited I am (low generally means I see potential in it, or it's from developers I respect but I don't know enough to be confident that it will be good.). Will be listed in chronological order.
  
  Vampire: The Masquerade: Redemption (excitement level: high). 11/08/2004. Oh yeah, November's gonna be sweet. Then again, I think that's what I said last year and November sucked.
  
  Halo 2 (excitment level: laconically awaiting). Overcoverage of Halo 2 and the fact that Halo ended up being super-popular has kind of made me avoid all preview coverage. I awaited Halo eagerly, it exceeded my expectations, and became a big hit. Another interest gone mainstream. Grrr. Plus, the first Halo novel was great (it's what got me into Eric Nylund). The second I didn't like and couldn't finish due to the over-military nature (William C. Dietz can do better, but he was never my favorite author). Plus it was just a retelling of the game. The third was built heavilly on the second, so I got totally lost and couldn't finish. Now I'll only half-get the game's story. Plus, Xbox Live is still not set up and probably never will be, because the broadband is upstairs but my parents say consoles have to be downstairs. Release dates: 11/09/2004. Chances of making that release date are 97%, because Microsoft can't afford to welsch on it.
  
  Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (Excitement level: HIGH): 11/17/04. Is definitly gonna happen- the only reason MGS2 got pushed back was post 9/11 editing changes, and Kojima wouldn't do something like that today.
  
  S.T.A.L.K.E.R. : Shadow of Cheronobyl (excitement level - medium): Q1 2005.
  
  Dreamfall: The Longest Journey (Excitement level: medium-high. Would be high if I was confident that it would live up to the legacy of it's predecessor, but there are a lot of game mechanic changes in the name of accessing a wider audience and the adventure genre being dead. Which isn't necessarilly bad. We'll see how things turn out.) - 1/10/2004. Dunno how accurate that is, though.
  
  Psychonauts (excitement level: high): Release date is 2005.
  
  The Bard's Tale (Excitement level: low): Gamespot just says "2005" for PC version.
  
  Bioshock(excitement level: low) Was just annouced, so no release date yet.
  
  The Fall - Last Days of Gaia (excitement level: low....good potential, but from an unproven developer. Plus, they're Russian I believe, so plenty of oppurtunity for awful translation): Not in the EB games databse.
  
  Jagged Alliance 3 (excitement level: low) : No date annouced.
  
  Current Music: Chivalry - Metal Gear Solid 3 (on Gaming FM)

  • Posted Oct 17, 2004 2:11 am PT
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• 4Sep 04

  Meaningless Numbers

  My first entry in my Gamespot journal. Yay! I'm gonna have to look up the html codes for this thing- I just know the ones for Livejournal, and while presumably some carries over, others (like lj-cut) will not. It's nice to know that this thing has a check spelling button, though- maybe I can finely get in the habit of editing these things.
  
  I just spent a log time writing a huge entry, until I realized that the entire basis of the entry was faulty because I was misreading a stat in the Gamespot collections. I thought the "my score" column on other people's collections was their score of it- but no, it was actually my score. So how do you see their personal rating of things? I dunno. Oh well.

  • Posted Sep 4, 2004 6:07 pm PT
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