Confessions/Obsessions

Everyone has done things they are ashamed of and stalking often seems like a reasonable pastime. We at videolamer tend to channel our sick obsessions through the outlet of gaming, leaving the stalking up to the professionals. In this column we will admit to things we’d be embarrassed if our parents read and tell you everything about our weird sex fetishes, all in the name of truth. And also to feed stereotypes about gamers being misogynistic hermits who can’t get dates. For your information, we actually could get dates if we’d stop stalking women.

Requiem for a Dreamcast

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I used to think I was pretty clever when I told folks that “Nintendo made me a gamer. Ocarina of Time made me hardcore”. I kept thinking this for quite some time, but eventually realized that pre-OOT, I wasn’t really a “gamer”, just a kid whose game experience consisted of little more than a string of Nintendo consoles, a few hours on the Genesis, and a dusty old 486 PC. This was a time when fresh games came to my house twice a year if I was lucky.

After Zelda I truly became a “gamer”, though now I think it had less to with that game in particular and more to do with the fact that around that time I was introduced to a modern day computer, Next Generation Magazine, and a Sony Playstation. →  While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not gaming.

Can’t Escape the Escapism Part 2

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There are reasons why we can’t escape certain games. And there’s a reason why it matters. Sometimes a game comes to mind simply because something in our real world reminds us of it. Once, I was on a campsite standing at the edge of a cluster of trees and the light of the setting sun fell in such a way to make me say, “ohmygoditlookslikezelda!” Now, I love Zelda games and I’ve spent many hours with them, but that’s the only time the land of Hyrule came close to interfering with my perception of the real world.

Other times, a game comes to mind simply because it’s awesome. We like it enough that we wish some of its elements actually existed. →  Michigan: Article from Hell

Gaming Meccas of Japan Pt. 1 — Den Den Town, Osaka, Japan

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Being a geek and living in Japan is kind of like mixing Ecstasy with LSD – it’s one hell of a trip. There are four places in Japan that should be on the must-see list for anyone who calls himself a nerd. The big one is Akihabara in Tokyo and I will be covering that in September along with The Tokyo Game Show. The third spot goes to Nintendo’s world headquarters in Kyoto but there isn’t much to see there because no one is allowed into the facility and tours are never provided. The fourth spot and topic of today’s installment is Den Den Town in Osaka.

Den Den Town can best be described as the poor man’s Akihabara. It is smaller in size, about four or five square blocks instead of an entire section of Tokyo. →  SaGa Frontier Readmastered

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. →  How many games must a gamer play before you call him a gamer?

Hidden Beneath the Waves: Tech Guide to your PSP

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Having trouble figuring out how to make the most out of that super-sexy but dust-covered Sony PSP? Well, you came to the right place. In this guide, I will help you understand and utilize all of the abilities of the Playstation Portable. You’ll finally understand how to get podcasts, mp3’s, videos and demos working on your PSP. Sadly, this does not include homebrew, as that is beyond my technical expertise. I’m trying to make you use your PSP more, not break it in the process, as it is not legal to put homebrew on the system (dictated by Sony, of course).

Before you start, I suggest you go out and buy a 1GB Memory Stick Pro Duo from Sandisk. The memory card that Sony supplies (256MB) is far too small to use for anything worthwhile. →  In the beginning games created the heavens and the earth.

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. →  Hell is other gamers.

Parents just don’t understand

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My parents recently started reading this website. I’m confident they are happy with what their 120 thousand dollar college investment has yielded. The down side is I may have to watch my language and sexual innuendos from now on because those things didn’t exist in the olden days and would surely shock anyone over 30.

A more disturbing problem is that my parents have no idea what any of these articles are about. It’s a proven fact that most specialized fields use vocabulary outsiders cannot understand just for the sake of being exclusionary (cardiac arrest? Yeah, sure doctor, those are real words). Gaming journalism is no different and I’m afraid this site is part of the problem. What problem, I’m not sure, possibly global warming. →  Theme Postital

Recovering from World of Warcraft Part 2

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Continued from part 1

What ultimately made me stop playing WoW wasn’t so much the new content or the failure in clearing it, but rather the monotony of clearing the old. Let me explain for those not familiar. When you kill a boss in WoW, it drops 2-4 pieces of loot. This can be class specific armor, or a weapon, or jewelry, or whatever. Your average dungeon has 7-12 bosses. A raid dungeon is typically cleared once a week due to reset timers. A raid group has 40 people. Each player has 19 slots of possible gear that can be worn at any time, not to mention extra sets of gear for certain battle roles (such as resistances, damage absorption, damage dealing, etc). →  Do the math.

Recovering from World of Warcraft Part 1

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This article is long overdue, particularly because I haven’t played WoW in months. I’ve tried to write it several times, but it’s hard to capture all of my feelings about both the game and the genre and transmit it to you in a meaningful way. Plus, I’m lazy. Pimpin ain’t easy, yo.

Let me give you a bit of my MMO background. First, if you read this site and any of my postings, you know I crave connectivity. As a console RPG player, and an occasional table top gamer, I crave persistence. Although I love Final Fantasy and leveling my characters, I get frustrated with the fact that once they are topped out, the secrets of the game revealed and last boss beaten–they are done. →  You reading at me?

Laying this generation to rest: Xbox

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The Xbox cost Microsoft a lot of money but as far as first entries into the console market go, was pretty successful. Not NES or PlayStation successful, but it sure made the Master System and CDi feel stupid. Microsoft’s machine thrived in Western markets and is seen by some as the hardcore system of choice. Apparently to these people, terrible Japanese support equals hardcore. Still, if you are a fan of FPSs and PC developers console games, the Xbox is an excellent system to own.

What would zombie Jesus do?

Joe –
Ninja Gaiden (Team Ninja/2004) — Told everyone what I’d been trying to say for years. Nintendo may have bought Sega (not literally) but Xbox got most of the games and the teams that made the Dreamcast fly. →  Shadow of Read