posts by chris
chris

The Worlds of Power book series

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Strange as it may seem, video games and reading have always been closely related in my mind. When I was four years old, I would watch my older brother play RPGs and other text-heavy games. After a year or so of observation, I could more or less understand what was going on. Eventually, I figured out that letters written on paper were the same as those shown in Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy, and thus I “learned” to read all at once (naturally, my kindergarten teacher took the credit).

Astonishingly, terrible game cover art is also terrible book cover art.

Back in the NES era, there were a lot of random game-related paraphernalia. Nintendo had merchandising on its side, and Super Mario towels, sheets, lunchboxes, etc. abounded. All well and good, but a more interesting event during this time was the publishing of the Worlds of Power series of short novels.

Again, this was during the time of the NES. Action and even adventure games didn’t have much memory space for plot, and even the instruction manuals were too short to have more than a brief blurb about why you’re liberating an island nation or killing a vampire. →  Are you ready for some readball?

Puzzle Quest – I’ll see your red gem and raise you three yellow ones!

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As you’ve probably heard from other places, one of the “next big things” is a recently released game by the name of Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords.
I challenge you… to a duel even more ridiculous than turn-based combat!

Puzzle Quest can best be described as a Puzzle RPG – you play a competitive puzzle, something like Yoshi’s Cookie or Bejeweled, where you take turns on the same board. Matching 3 or more of any object gives you mana, gold, or experience or does damage to your opponent, and you win by running your opponent out of HP. To top off the RPG bits, the single-player mode plays has an RPG-esque quest system complete with stylized fantasy portraits, and you can get equipment that modifies your stats or various board effects. On level-up, you can upgrade stats that increase your gains from matching gems or increase damage you deal.

The game itself is currently only for PSP and DS, but there was a PC demo (accessible from the official site) released a little over a week ago to widespread acclaim. →  Knock knock. Who’s there? This article.

Why I play the games I play

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Pat’s article here about this particular subject interested me, and was obviously the inspiration for this article. Props to him for coming up with the idea of a “why” article of this type.

Since I haven’t had much better to do with my thinking time lately, I’ve been thinking about why I play games. I love strategy games, RPGs, and some adventure/platforming games, but there are some things that will make me enjoy any genre.

The first and most obvious idea, as in Pat’s case, is that I could never do activities I do in a game, whether it be fighting ninja who kidnapped the president or managing a farm. This may be true (and it almost certainly is to some degree in most games), but this aspect is entirely dependent on whether I can empathize with the character. If I can empathize with a character, then it may actually feel like I’m the one fighting evil. If not, it becomes entirely a game of skill or strategy and I’m an entire layer of separation apart. →  Read Danger!

Review – Rogue Galaxy

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It’s not often you come across two games released in quick succession that sound as similar as Final Fantasy XII and Rogue Galaxy. FFXII has Sky Pirates; RG has Space Pirates. Both start off in a desert town. FFXII takes several plot points from Star Wars, RG takes several characters from Star Wars. The main characters even sound rather similar for a while.

But I digress. They are actually very different games, and although comparison would be fun, it wouldn’t do as an unbiased review.

In Rogue Galaxy, you follow the story of Jaster, a young native of the desert planet Rosa who wants to explore space. Through a few coincidences, he is mistaken for a famous mercenary and hired to work for a group of space pirates, led by the notorious Dorgengoa. Soon enough, you find out about an ancient treasure-filled planet and Dorgengoa assigns to you the task of finding the way there.

The “space pirate” part is where the story unfortunately breaks down somewhat. →  18 Wheeler American Pro Reader

A sense of accomplishment in video games

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What is it that makes a game particularly memorable?

When you finish a game, you want to feel as if you’ve accomplished something. By the time you beat some games, you want to really feel you’ve made the game world a better place through your actions (or, perhaps, you have intentionally left a horrifying wake of devastation). You’ve solved all major problems, and probably a lot of minor ones as well. Maybe you’ve beaten a particularly tough platformer or shooter and you feel like you’ve done a superhuman feat or twelve. The important part is you feel like you’ve done something significant or participated in a memorable story. The main pieces used to bring about this feeling are plot and challenge.

Unfortunately, this sense of accomplishment can be out of reach when playing a game. Sometimes, this is because the game simply doesn’t establish a concrete goal or follow through on it, but other times there are a variety of details that might do away with this idea. →  Read Theft Auto 4

(Re)Translations present & forthcoming

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Those who have played the Final Fantasy VI remake for GBA have surely noticed something in addition to the new Espers and dungeons.

Apparently the game was actually partially retranslated, whether due to the fact that mysterious ninja video game company TOSE actually did the port or because somebody along the localization chain realized it might be a good thing.

A translation making fun of nitpicky fans? Heresy.

Not to disparage Ted Woolsey’s work on the original game (which is nothing short of heroic, as he had just one month for his original translation of FFVI), but the game could probably use it. Some parts were a bit sketchy, others unclear, and the retranslation has generally been received quite well. Many of Woolsey’s original lines were kept in the script as well, so many of the better original lines will still bring back nostalgia. I’m hoping to try it soon.

This could mean more retranslations for games that get remade in Japan. →  Destroy All Articles! 2

Best Game Ever – Master of Magic

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Back when Microprose was still making games, they came out with a bunch of ideas for similarly themed titles spanning multiple universes. Although Master of Orion, Civilization, and X-Com were all well and good (that is to say, well, very good), my favorite was always Master of Magic. Master of Magic took the best parts of Civilization and being a wizard and put them together.

You play a wizard starting with control of one city, and your goal is simply the annihilation of all other wizards. You pick a difficulty, pick which spell types and special enhancements you want, and go. A randomly generated map is created, and you get to start playing.

Red Creek. What a depressing name for a hamlet.

The elements of Civilization come into play with city management. You build improvements to enhance the city, and manage labor to make sure the city is producing enough food to keep your troops alive. Although it’s a bit simpler than Civilization, the key elements are there, and the fact that each race (of which there are around a dozen) has a unique set of buildings and units lends a greater variety than in Civ. →  To be this lame takes ages.

Review – Space Rangers 2: Rise of the Dominators

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It’s hard to find a recent game with a name more cheesy than Space Rangers 2: Rise of the Dominators. It has all the classiness of a corny low-budget science fiction movie.

In fact, its name could be the main reason why nobody’s noticed the game, despite a lot of acclaim from reviewers. So much so that the publishing company is now asking users to suggest a better game name… possibly to re-release it.

In any case, Space Rangers 2 hails from Russia, courtesy of Cinemaware Marquee. Most of the game script feels pretty natural, but there’s just enough awkwardness to indicate it was not originally in English (other ships will ask your help to take out “this type”). That said, the script actually contains a lot of jokes. For example, the Faeyans discover a human toothbrush, and claim to have “improved” it to the point of also cleaning out the brain cavity. Maloqs will tell you of their annual Scoffing Ceremony, where they assert the superiority of their race over all others. →  SaGa Frontier Readmastered

Farewell to the Game Boy

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Since I, like many of my fellow videolamer staff, now have a DS Lite, I am enjoying many new and interesting games. It even has backwards compatibility, making my GBA titles more vibrant and colorful than ever. But I was left with a small pang of sadness when I noticed that the original Game Boy games – as had been reported – simply don’t fit into the GBA slot. This isn’t so much of a surprise, although I had been keeping up hope.

And so, I must bid farewell to my old portable games. They kept me engaged through even the longest road trips when I was younger, and I will now move on to newer, more colorful and touch-friendly games.

The original Game Boy somewhat resembles a grey brick. It’s large and quite heavy by today’s standards. It takes four AA batteries and doesn’t last very long on them. The screen is consistently an unpleasant green color and any scrolling will blur the graphics, making most action games annoying to play. →  Ba da bam ba baa I’m readin’ it.

Let Us Cling Together: The joy of playing games cooperatively

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Imagine you’re delving into a dark labyrinth. You’re exploring the endless hallways, looking for a path leading deeper into the ruin when you’re ambushed by a dozen demons both ahead and behind. You’re certain this is the end… but then you realize your partner was trailing a ways behind you, and by now she should blasting her way through the enemies attacking from the rear. Thus assured, you unsheath your sword and charge on ahead… This is the magic of cooperative gaming.

I find it hard to get into any competitive game (with the exception of Smash Bros). The idea of playing against other people just isn’t as fun as playing alongside them. I tend to find cooperative games much more enjoyable, but it’s a much under-appreciated genre. Before the release of Half-Life, Valve promised cooperative play in the game but never delivered, instead creating only an online deathmatch mode. Now, Sven Co-op, a fan-made mod created for the express purpose of adding that feature is one of the more popular Half-Life mods out there. →  Eh, I’ve got nothing better to do.