Articles

The Trouble with Tactics

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As I’m sure you can tell by my previous articles, I love RPGs and strategy games. It should follow, then, that I love the Strategy RPG genre. Just like peanut butter and pizza. Although I like some SRPGs, I have some issues with the genre, particularly the Tactical subgenre. By “Tactical”, I mean finer-scale games where you manage each individual taking part in battles.

For example, I started up Shining Force a couple months ago via the wonders of Virtual Console. I began noticing occasional oddities; enemies with low agility would move twice when my high-agility archers never got a move in, for example (Hans was useless anyways). Levels would either be quite useful or really suck.

You can’t tell from this picture, but the priest and thief are horribly under-leveled.
 →  You reading at me?

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 2.1.08

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New game from Parappa masterminds
Well this sounds promising. A new Wii game from the creator and lead artist of Parappa the Rapper. What’s this, Majesco is publishing it? That’ll be ok, a good idea doesn’t need 10 million dollars to work. Err, it’s a marching band simulator? That… sounds cool. I mean, I’ve always despised parades and anyone who likes them and walking around while playing music makes as much sense as reading while performing ballet, but… Kick, punch, it’s all in the mind?

90% of American DS owners pirate games
This comes from the Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association and is wrong. It is so wrong it makes normally unbelievable things believable. If you told me the butter on my bagel was not actually butter right after telling me that 90% of DS owners pirate games, I wouldn’t think twice. →  I can has post?

Out of Print: The Trouble of Finding Old Games

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When I began college, the Peer to Peer filesharing scene was dying. With campuses clamping down on the networks, and with iPods making the concept of actually purchasing music legitimate again, the likes of Kazaa and Limewire were hard to find. Despite this I managed to acquire a massive amount of music as a student. Rather than search for high quality files, my freshman self tore through the CD binders of my friends, ripping any album I thought to be interesting. This method of sampling made me not just a fan of new music, but of whole albums. In a world where the single is all the rage, classic rock albums became my poison of choice. And when I got out of college, I realized I wanted physical copies of most of them. →  SaGa Frontier Readmastered

Hidden costs of next gen gaming or how HD killed the video star

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So, here is what happened: I got an Xbox 360 as a gift for Christmas. I had requested it as a gift because I knew that to purchase it on my own would mean a few months of saving; something I’m not good at. I’ve got student loans to pay and blow to snort; there’s just no room for savings in my life. I appreciated the gift and received it with the grace of Ernest Borgnine; but, in the back of my head I braced myself for the added expense of having to buy at least one new game a month. (I don’t rent; renting is un-American; I like to own my media.) Now, if Christmas came every month, or if I lived below the Mason-Dixon line, (which comes to the same thing) I’d be set. →  Game. James Game.

2008 Game Predictions part 2

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Continued from Part 1.

Christian’s predictions

Devil May Cry 4
I realized when I decided to write about this game that I knew very little about it. What are they doing with DMC4? If you look around the ‘net you will find previews, but fewer than I expected. Leave it to Gamespot to write a classic preview that lays out the entire first five levels of the game, complete with story spoilers for me to read.

As nice as the game looks, I’m getting a bad feeling about the whole project. I have no idea how Devil May Cry stacks up to the competition in terms of sales, but I can’t imagine that its last entry led to numbers comparable to God of War or the numerous Ninja Gaiden revisions. →  We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we play.

Best Game Ever — Baldur’s Gate 2, Shadows of Amn

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When Jay asked me to write a “Best Game Ever” entry for Baldur’s Gate 2, my first instinct was to refuse the offer. Why? Because I love the game too much and I feared that nothing I could write would do it justice. It would be like trying to write a review for New York City. I mean where would you even begin something like that? How would you dissect something so steeped in its own mythology? Would you even want to? And just because here I am writing, does not mean that sentiment has changed. Whatever ideas I might express here will ultimately fall short of accurately encompassing the experience of playing Baldur’s Gate 2. However strong my control over language might be, it will ultimately prove woefully inadequate in approximating for you, the reader, the overall feeling I had as a player of Baldur’s Gate 2. →  Read or die.

2008 Game Predictions part 1

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2008 promises to be an excellent year for gaming. The 360’s software lineup should remain strong and the Wii and PS3 are coming into their own. From Spore to Metal Gear Solid 4, there will be some huge titles coming out soon, but will they actually live up to the hype?

Based on released information, knowledge of development history and gut feeling, we have chosen some of the games we most look forward to this year and predicted how they will turn out. These should be about as likely to be accurate as any analysts predictions and we charge less.

Golden Jew’s predictions

Civilization Revolution
I’ve written about this already, so this feels cheap and easy (like your… sister?). I stand by my prediction that this will be a good, if not great game. →  It might come in handy if you, the master of reading, take it with you.

Mario Galaxy Non-Review

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Not long into Super Mario Galaxy, the player will become quite accustomed to, maybe even fond of, seeing Mario enter each level with his arms spread as he flies around and lands on a safe spot, shouting “yes!” on his success. About 20 stars in, it dawned on me; the next time I entered a level, I really wanted to see Mario scream “yes!” as he performed a greased landing, hitting the ground running at top speed, not stopping until he got to the end (or came up to some tricky group of hazards).

This might sound like I am really looking for Sonic the Hedgehog Galaxy, and I suppose that is the point. Back in the day, it was always Sonic who was considered cool and edgy, while Mario was the gentle goofball. →  Read more, before it’s too late!

Retrospectives – Metal Gear Solid series part 5

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Continued from part the last.

Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes
What happens when you decide to remake the original Metal Gear Solid using the MGS 2 engine? What if you promise new cinematics and content?
Chill out.

What if you told people it was being developed by Silicon Knights, with the help of Miyamoto and Kojima.

They say if it sounds too good to be true it probably is, and the case holds here. I do not know the official story, but I’ll venture to guess that the two Gaming Gods had mere advisory roles. Silicon Knights still manages to deliver on the promise. That promise, however, just isn’t much.

If you have played MGS1 before, all the new goodies and even the upgraded visuals are not potent enough to make it feel fresh, nor is the new content worth seeing. →  All I want for Christmas is my PSP.

A Christmas Story

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Gather around children and let me tell you a story of a Christmas long since passed. The year was 1991 and I was eleven years old. It was that magical white time of year when all a kid my age could think of was snowball fights, playing video games, and Christmas morning. You see children, 1991 was not just any other goofy year. Oh no, 1991 was the year the Super Nintendo came out and I was sure that come December 25th, my chubby butt would be glued to a television playing that sleek, grey piece of gaming heaven.

crying.jpgI’m sorry kid, Nintendo is hoarding all of the Wii’s this year. How about a Playstation 3 instead?

 

As the countdown to Christmas began, the yearly rituals were gone though. →  Lame is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.