posts by jay
jay

The cost of gaming (or not gaming)

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This New Year’s, I’ll be in London. My vacation promises to be sweet, but something struck me earlier today. Does it count as regicide if the royal family is merely allowed to keep their castle for show? If you accidentally run down the Queen whilst driving the wrong way (which would be her fault in the first place for allowing people to drive on the left side of the street) does it count as vehicular regicide?

Also, if I didn’t go to England, I could afford a PS3. You must be saying, “What are you, a fucking idiot? The point of life is to experience new things, see new places, run over queens. It’ll do you good to get out of your bedroom and will give your forearm muscles some time to heal.” →  Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Post

Yet another peculiar top 10 list

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Slightly (extremely) bitter about not having my stories picked up by the big sites, I scour Slashdot, Kotaku, etc for sub par stories that gets attention on a daily basis. Today’s highlight is a top 10 list (where’d they get the idea for this one?) on the “10 lamest game consoles, ever.” Ignore the fiery rage that builds within you when you see misplaced commas and other grammar atrocities. For now, focus on the gross injustice of including the Saturn amongst the Virtual Boy, CDi, 32X and N-Gage.

The guy who proclaimed Prince of Persia: Warrior Within one of the worst games of all time clearly had some input in forming this list. Please name for me the classics for the consoles on this list:

Action Max
N Gage
32X
Gizmondo

In turn, I will name amazing Saturn games: Guardian Heroes, NiGHTS, Panzer Dragoon, Panzer Dragoon Zwei, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Shining Force 3, Dragon Force, and Bomberman. →  50 Cent: Readproof

Biggest losers in the world wait for the PS3

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According to Games Are Fun, a line for the PS3 has already formed in front of a Best Buy in Burbank, California. People have been waiting since at least Wednesday for a console that launches next Friday. If these people can afford to miss over a week of work for a PS3, can’t they just get one on eBay for $2000?

As someone who may end up waiting in a line for a Wii despite having no intentions of purchasing one, I may not have much right to insult these stupid people. If it makes a difference, I will be waiting for three hours against my will (stupid friends) and not for 216 hours.

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 11.10.06

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One of the worst Top Ten Worst Games of All Time lists
Top 10, 25, 50, whatever lists are one of my worst enemies. They are vacuous and a cheap excuse for content. Even an unnumbered list is significantly better because from the outset the author wasn’t just trying to fill a number of slots. This link is to one of the dumbest Top 10 lists I’ve seen in a while but since it’s posted on a major site, many big blogs picked it up. Oh, the injustice!

Significantly worse than Postal.

It seems as if the author of this list may not play games. He acknowledges that peoples’ opinions will differ and that it’s hard compiling a list of the worst games ever made, but that caveat doesn’t save him. →  Frankly my dear, I don’t read a damn.

What the dilly with the DS?

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I was psyched for a handful of recent DS releases but then the reviews came. Yes, reviews aren’t gospel, but they aren’t as worthless as fanboys would like you to believe (for an interesting case study on the power of denial, visit the Sega forums). These once promising DS games now look significantly less promising.

The first of the bunch is Children of Mana. I don’t know why I expected anything from this game after Legend of Mana sucked so hard. Perhaps it’s the small hope I still carry that one day there will be another game in the series as good as Secret of Mana. Most reviewers describe the game as a “slow,” or “boring,” dungeon crawl with barely any plot. →  It might come in handy if you, the master of reading, take it with you.

Metacritic loves popular sites

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This may be old news to many of you, especially since they even tell you on their About page, but Metacritic weighs reviews. Meaning they count a review more or less depending on how big the site the review came from is. This seems a little shady, but they at least don’t hide the fact. Here’s what tipped me off to some sort of mathematical incongruity.

Something struck me about the math. Mostly it was how (100 + 90 + 90 + 80) /4 = 90 and not 89. If CNET owns Gamespot and CNET owns Metacritic and Metacritic favors some sites over others, and CNET has competitors…well, isn’t this a possible conflict of interests?

Lame Discussion: To Pull a Review

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It’s been a while since the last discussion. The format will be the same as always; I just drop you into our chat room. Today we are talking about the pull of 1up’s Neverwinter Nights 2 review. If you aren’t sure what I’m talking about, don’t worry, Horatio wasn’t, either. For those of you who would prefer to read opinions in a more traditional format, check out Craig’s editorial on this issue.

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Horatio: Before we start, I quickly read the article, but can someone do like a three sentence explanation of what happened?

Christian: Basically, Matt Peckham wrote a scathing review of NWN, 5/10. People thought it wasn’t a fair review, and 1up’s editorial staff pulled it. Later it was explained that their editorial process was a bit different for this one. →  Now with fewer vowels.

As long as we’ve got each other

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Kirk Cameron was once a normal B actor. Then he found Jesus. Not in the standard “knowing you’re not alone in the universe, finding comfort through God when faced with tragedy, realizing men should help each other and love thy neighbor” way, though.

No. He is now a complete nutjob who roams LA in a sports car (What Would Jesus Drive?) looking for people to call liars and thieves. When he isn’t busy accosting strangers with the good news (which is that the stranger never has to see him again), he is flexing his intellectual muscle for the camera. So far on his TV show he has proven, with the help of Ray Comfort (based only on his name, he must be an ex-pornstar), that atheists have nightmares about bananas, that the Church of Satan PR guy is much more polite than he, and that orangutans are much, much stupider than people. →  Now bear my arctic post.

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 11.3.06

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Halo movie indefinitely stalled
That a Peter Jackson backed Halo movie probably won’t get made despite the fact that Uwe Boll continually releases game based movies is beyond hilarious. Clearly, if there is a god he is evil, or maybe he just has a great sense of humor.

A scene from the upcoming Castlevania movie.

Castlevania movie coming
Odds are, this movie will be slightly better than Van Helsing. The problem is that Van Helsing is solidly on “so bad it’s good” ground, and so Castlevania, by being better, will be worse. Castlevania’s only hope is to be crappier than Van Helsing (or actually good, but let’s not get crazy) and therefore better. This all makes sense, right?

PS3 launching in Hong Kong and Taiwan on November 17
As an American, it is my god given right to believe I am more important than any damn foreigner. →  All I want for Christmas is my PSP.

Review – Disgaea

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As I’ve grown older I have become more acutely aware that compromises are ubiquitous in game design. I once raised common questions like, “Why don’t they make this game longer,” “Why isn’t this game more open ended,” and “Why isn’t there more dialog in this game?”

A longer game time may dilute the story and make gameplay tedious. An open ended game is less focused and loses narrative potency, and more dialog can slow down fast paced gameplay. I now realize that for every obvious improvement, there is at least a small case to be made for keeping a design choice unchanged.

If you look closely, you’ll notice some soldiers measuring their height relative to their enemies and others looking through their item packs for healing herbs.

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