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Oh Joy, an old video game site

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Step aside Web 2.0, here comes videolamer 2.lame. Or lame.0. Whichever is stupider. We have returned to offer articles, reviews, complaints, and jokes about video games to the new generation. A lot has changed since we stopped regularly updating the site nearly a dozen years ago. Back then we didn’t even call them video games, but moving interactables. Also, we could pretend we had enough time left to do something about climate change.

2011’s best looking game.

To fill new readers in, this is a site where each contributor can write mostly whatever they want, though we generally share a passion for older and Japanese games. What we lose in unity and coherence, we gain in distinct perspectives. And what perspectives! We are all straight, white men, but one of us doesn’t even live in America. Unlike poser websites and podcasts full of games journalists and developers who use unfair tricks like access and the ability to write well, we are elder millennials from disparate walks of life. →  I’m so excited, my braces are tingling!

How Not to Remake: Langrisser Edition

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I’ve been a fan of the Langrisser series for a long time. The series’ debut entry, Warsong, is the only one that received an official localization until recently. Unfortunately, the Langrisser 1&2 remake available on most platforms is not only missing much of what makes Warsong special, it’s not even a particularly good game in its own right.

There are several things included in the remake that are actually good changes. It includes a fully viewable class change chart, with “secret” final classes spelled out (much of this was hidden in the original games). The skill system is actually a great addition as well. It gives more customization options and incentivizes exploring the tree a little more. It also gives a little more flavor to characters that are otherwise very similar, like Thorne and Hawking. Likewise, route branching is more clear – for example, you can see that things can change later on if you leave certain enemies alive in scenarios. →  You do not simply walk into reading more.

We’re back… kind of

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We’ve managed to bring the site back with https support, removed some older shared content (what even is gamegrep?) and cleaned other things up a bit.

If you happen to actually read this… let us know if anything seems to be broken!

Quantum Link Remembered

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Hey reader(s),
None of us at videolamer (that I could get a hold of) recalls the Quantum Link service, although many of you no doubt remember its successor America On-Line with no small amount of fondness. This is a pretty darn cool article about the Quantum Link worthy of attention:

https://www.tinytickle.co.uk/quantum-link/

We’re not really in a state to reincarnate at the moment, but we do fondly recall the times we would write several articles a week, some of which were worth reading. We’ll keep them online as long as we can.

Keep on keeping on.

Great Greed: Or, I play bad RPGs so you don’t have to

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Many, many years ago I was an avid reader of Nintendo Power.  I had already developed a taste for RPGs, although they were a bit less numerous back then.  A bunch of them were bad — and often, even Nintendo Power was willing to admit that.

Regardless, I would read each article about an RPG with fascination.  When it was a game I knew, I would enjoy flipping through the various artwork and reading about the tricky parts.  Otherwise, I’d quietly file it away in a hidden corner of my mind, to play later.

I’m finally working my way through the last few of those games I filed away — recently Paladin’s Quest and 7th Saga, and a year or so back I played through a good chunk of Arcana.  All of these games I tracked down, purchased, and (with the exception of 7th Saga, which is too tedious) played on real hardware.  The only one left is Lagoon.

From this experience, I’ve learned a few things:

  1.  I actually played most of the good RPGs of the time when I was a kid. 
 →  [link only works on even seconds]

Review — Suikoden Tactics

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Disclaimer: Not really a “glorious revival” of videolamer, but I’ve written this stuff on my own site and by gum this site deserves some activity.  Don’t worry, I’ll probably only update once or twice before the site goes back into hibernation.

Recently, I finally beat Suikoden Tactics, the Strategy RPG semi-sequel to Suikoden IV.  As a long-time fan of the series, I had intended to beat the game for some time, held off by two things.  First, Suikoden IV wasn’t very good and the story never resonated with me.  Second, Suikoden Tactics has the much-maligned feature of permanent death for non-story characters.  When combined with the grid elemental system and a massive set of things enemies can do, it’s extremely difficult at times to predict whether a character will die in any given situation.

Since I beat Suikoden IV for the second time just a few months ago, the time was right.  I didn’t start the game with much gusto, but at about the 15-hour mark (~25 hours total in the game), suddenly everything clicked and I finished Tactics in two days. →  Now is the winter of read this content.

Soft Boiled Software

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When it comes to repairing CD’s and DVD’s, there are a number of practices and household products which people swear can make a disc good as new. I tried several of the most well known methods in my youth, and found that none of them did a damn thing. Brasso, for instance, never managed to make a scratched disc run any better. Same with toothpaste. I even tried boiling a used copy of Devil May Cry. I ended up “fixing” it by buying another copy.

Ever since these failed experiments, I wondered whether any of these methods really, truly could work.  I can report that under certain circumstances, you can fix a game by boiling it. I’m surprised and a bit baffled, but I tried it yesterday, and I can attest to the results.

The game in question Tekken 6 on the 360. I bought it (new and factory sealed) almost two years ago on clearance, but it turned out to be defective out of the box. →  If you die in the article, you die in real life.

We need to talk about the PSP Vita.

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We need to talk about the PSP Vita.

It isn’t exactly lighting up the sales charts.  True, it isn’t technically out yet in the West, but if it is true that its Japanese numbers are still hovering around half a million units, then the 3DS almost matched Vita sales in its first week alone.  Unless fortunes reverse, and the Vita ends up doing gangbusters over here, I think we can agree that Sony has a problem on its hands.

What frustrates me is why this is happening.  For all appearances, the handheld is a marvel of hardware design, is relatively cheap, and has strong launch titles.  So why is it that no one is going nuts over it?  It seems to me that for all the Vita’s strengths, Sony messed up on the little things, and they’re adding up to a lot.  For instance, the Vita’s a pretty good deal considering how powerful the hardware is, but folks are harping on the cost of the 3g data plan (I’m actually not sure why this is happening, considering there’s a wifi model, but whatever).  →  Tony Hawk’s Pro Reader 3

2012 Gaming Uncertainty

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I wanted to write a 2012 predictions piece about how uncertain I am about what gaming in 2012 will look like.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t exactly sure how I wanted to format such an article.  By sheer coincidence, Tim Bray recently wrote a similar piece on his personal blog (albeit about topics much more serious than gaming).  I liked his approach so much that I had to unashamedly use it as a template for my own attempt.  Here then are my Bray inspired 2012 Gaming Uncertainties.

Playstation Vita – Will the West embrace it as tepidly as they did the PSP?  And will it perform as well in Japan as everyone thinks (and hopes) it will?  Already the analysts of the world are framing this as Sony’s fight for survival, and if their words really do have an impact on the business world, then should we be afraid that they seem to have their minds already made up about the Vita’s chances? →  Rayman Reading Rabbids

Time isn’t on my Side (and I’m okay)

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Former VL writer and Powerhead Games designman Matt recently posted a question on Twitter, to which I responded as succinctly as a I could.  All told, it’s an interesting topic, so I wanted to elaborate on it a bit more in a meatier blog post.
Matt’s initial question was the following:

With so many new games being released every single day, what does that do to a player’s appreciation for a single title?

I’m not exactly sure what, if anything, he is getting at with the question, but I know what it means to me.  My response was this:

honestly? It makes me appreciate that title more, if I’ve come to see most of those new games as “noise” in the release year.

This answer is the result of a major change in my gaming habits over the year.  In that time, I got a place of my own, got engaged, and started thinking about and planning for all sorts of “grown up” things.  →  Do a barrel read!