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December 23, 2003 1:16 PM
Tuesday
with the green-eyed monster
IGN has some
details on “Final
Fantasy X-2 International”. For those who don’t
know, the international version of X-2 allows Japanese gamers to
play the game with the English voice talent, but it also contains
a couple new game features and perhaps more of the story. When I
first heard about this all those months ago it didn’t bother
me: “So they would get a new level with a new ending or another
couple of scenes, no big deal”, I thought. But now having
played the game I must say that I find myself to feel both envious
of the rising sun gamer and a bit shunted by the creators, Square-Enix.
Also, as I was
browsing my favorite sites this morning I found out that Jane
has contributed a
piece to Salon.com. Her piece brings up some interesting points
regarding the marketing of video games. I’m not sure if EyeToy
or other such gimmick games are the key to raising the medium out
of the “hardcore gamer ghetto”, I feel it’s more
important to focus on bringing an air of respectability to games
at this point. We need to project a better image of games and ourselves
as gamers. And since the majority of non-gamers exposure to games
is through their commercials or printed ads, that’s where
we first need to look.
b-ruce |
December 22, 2003 8:05 PM
Oh,
for shame
Alone in the house
tonight, I had to whip up something for dinner at the last moment.
Having been employed as a cook in a couple kitchens in my former
life, I pride myself as somewhat of a chef. But tonight I was too
hungry and in too much of a hurry to create anything too elaborate.
Still, when I had finished cooking and looked down at my plate I
couldn’t help but be somewhat embarrassed at what I saw: hot
dogs and macaroni and cheese. With my experience and training I
had put together a meal that could have been made by a ten year
old. And to add insult to injury the macaroni and cheese was dry
and the noodles were too al dente *sigh*
b-ruce |
December 19, 2003 10:50 AM
Tidbits
I received an
email from Microsoft letting me know that they’re selling
Asheron’s Call, and its red-headed step child, Asheron’s
Call 2 back
to Turbine. The memo assures me that I shouldn’t notice
any change, and I was under the impression that Turbine was always
responsible for managing the content and the monthly patches. So
while I’m glad Microsoft’s keeping me in the loop, I’m
kind of curious why I was told. Also I have to wonder and worry
about my beloved Asheron’s Call, my first MMORPG. Is this
the beginning of the end?
Also in the news:
Take
Two may be charged with cooking the books.
This shouldn’t affect you and me in any way, unless you bought
stock in Take Two without telling me, in which case you’re
a dirty hold-out and I hope you get what you deserve.
b-ruce |
December 18, 2003 8:46 PM
More
like, “Prince of Ninjas”
So John
finally got an Xbox and purchased his first title yesterday, thus
making operation “Make More Video Game Friends” a complete
success. After toying around with “Beyond Good an Evil”
and becoming freakily tempted by “Morrowwind” (I’m
pretty sure he was calling it his precious) he finally settled on
“The
Prince of Persia”.
I was very pleased
to see that someone had finally created a character that had a number
of cool moves to rival a certain fat Italian plumber. Seriously,
this ancient Iranian sovereign scion has hops. The other impression
I had in the hour or two we played was that the game seemed to be
a bit light on the action, opting for more jumping puzzles. Now
don’t get me wrong. They’re good jumping puzzles, I
just prefer my gameplay to be 80% smashy smashy, 20% puzzles/anything
else.
Robin
seems to like it though.
b-ruce |
December 15, 2003 12:22 PM
Paper
bag for your game purchase?
There’s
an interesting
editorial at Gamespot today about a bit a of legislation being
proposed in California which would ask M-rated games to be shelved
separately and to make selling particularly nasty games punishable
by fine and jail time. Bob makes very good points as to why this
should not be made law and why it’s too vague to be enforced.
But you know what? I’m sick of all of this. Parents blaming
games for the actions of their kids, politicians trying to censor
violent works, and all of the lawsuits. Maybe we should have an
18 and up room in our local game shops. I wouldn’t mind parting
the velvet curtain to get at GTA4 and I don’t think any of
the other gamers would either. Another way the game industry could
absolve themselves from this whole mess would be to sell their M-rated
games exclusively online. I think our society would think the parents
would be at fault for letting their children buy bad things with
their credit cards. Apparently that’s more irresponsible than
having
loaded firearms in the house for their kids to use. Notice how
the linked news story spends three paragraphs on how the kid liked
The Matrix and role playing games where as the fact that he procured
his arsenal from his father receives the kind of attention only
one sentence can bring.
It’s the
lesser of many evils. I would gladly swap the joy of playing a new
game on its release date if that meant I would never have to hear
Joan Lunden or any other uninformed idiot/absentee parent complain
about how games are so very bad for the children. It would also
mean that I wouldn’t have to call around on release date and
have my simple question “Did you get <name of game>
in today?” answered with the infuriating non-sequitur “Uh,
well, did you pre-order it?”
b-ruce |
December 14, 2003 10:11 PM
Samurai
on the brain
After seeing
“The Last Samurai” last week I have had the hankering
for all things bushido. I thought about buying another copy of Way
of the Samurai, which has many faults, but also is set in the
same time period and does allow you to be a Samurai. But before
I was going to out and buy WOTS again I broke out my old copy of
Bushido Blade. And I think I’ve got my fix for now. Bushido
Blade really captures the essence of those Samurai films, one good
shot and you or your opponent is dead. However no one’s ever
made a game focusing on Samurai in warfare, have they? Koei might
do well to follow up this latest Tom Cruise hit by taking their
Dynasty
Warriors engine and setting it in feudal Japan. If you know
of any other Samurai games please let me know.
(Edited 12/16/03,
I just found out Koei is doing this, follow the link for screenshots.)
b-ruce |
December 5, 2003 12:44 PM
Please,
don’t do that again.
So I was unfortunate
enough to watch the first 45 minutes of Spike TV’s Video Game
Awards last night. I’m not going to list the horrors I saw
on the screen, for they would be too terrifying and too numerous.
All I’ll
say is this: What’s the point of a video games award show
that doesn’t identify and give voice to those who create video
games?
Once again I
feel as if I’ve been jobbed by TV programmers who know I have
to watch anything video game related in the main stream. I put the
“uck” in sucker.
b-ruce |
December 3, 2003 10:52 AM
Another
good reason to screen your roommates carefully and build a robust
gaming console.
I have to say
given the heft of the Xbox, I wasn’t too terribly amazed by
this
news story. But it’s amusing nonetheless.
b-ruce |
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