The Gamer’s Quagmire #32: Final Hopes on Bardboard
The Gamer’s Quagmire: 32nd Edition
- Jamison DeLorenzo
Any dedicated reader of these rants that I’ve been spewing out over the past several years have noticed a continuing subject tend throughout most of it- a dedication to the Final Fantasy series. Above any other gaming franchise this game has been around with me almost since the beginning of my video gaming journey (as if the journey itself has been some form of epic quest). Sadly as I missed out on ownership of the original Nintendo system my first entanglement with the series was the fourth iteration in the franchise- of course, it became known as Final Fantasy II here in the United States.
It was not until well after my familiarity with the Internet became high that I started to notice these things. After hearing statements like “Final Fantasy 7’s name came from the number of years it took to make the game” it was hard to comprehend the real value of the Internet. After Google’s inception into mainstream society (most likely when the name of the site somehow became a verb) it finally became clear to most people the Internet is nothing more than a giant collection of information. As a gamer I’m perfectly happy with my constantly growing list of sites that I visit daily about the world of gaming, yet somehow after years of this practice I almost missed out on what could be the most important development for me as a gamer in the past five years.
Tonight, at midnight, Final Fantasy XII becomes available in the US market. I only found this information out one week before the game’s release. My identity as a die hard gamer started to waver. That was before I figured out a way to soundly plan my sleep schedule this week so as to still get in over 30 hours of gaming before Friday, not require any vacation hours from the office, and not be tired. Naturally, when Thursday rolls around I will regret writing these words but it made me realize that my priorities are still in the right place. I cannot very well be a gaming guru and place frivolous items such as sleep before gaming.
Somehow in the midst of this sudden end in the boring summer months of 2006, where the fresh injections into the gaming world where the new releases were about as welcome as a colonoscopy, several new games are coming out over the next couple months that I have been dying to play. No more complaining about nothing to play for me! Naturally Final Fantasy XII’s release puts at bay the next gaming addiction that had a 100% chance of otherwise happening- Neverwinter Nights 2. Behold, the summer of hallowed RPG’s! This is a gift from the gaming gods and a curse upon my already hectic normal schedule. Part of me wants to complain that there are now way too many hours backlogged for gaming through the end of the year (as there are only 2 Final Fantasy titles that I have not replayed), but then I remember the simple truth: I have been waiting for this game since 2004.
After scouring several of my past articles that have graced both this site and my old site I found a few gems that I thought were worth sharing once again (and not just for the sake of bumping up my word count):
| Quote: |
| Here’s what bugs me most about the video game world (seriously)- that different markets receive games at different times. Every single Final Fantasy fan outside of the Asian market is feeling this current effect. All of us are debating learning Japanese so we can play through Final Fantasy XII- pretty much the next game in the main series after X. The franchise has undergone some very interesting changes- perhaps a direct effect of Square being purchased by Enix. Whatever your theory, it doesn’t solve the overall problem of Final Fantasy being months away from being released on the PS2. In other words, let me thank Square for giving me one reason to keep my PS2 dust free before it permanently takes up residence in my console retirement home (a.k.a. closet). |
An interesting thing to get some perspective on. I wrote this near the beginning of the year not knowing when XII would hit the US market. What scares me occassionally is that when one of my paragraphs that I barely bother editing almost could not possibly ring truer months after letting the world share in its splendor. Translating games is not exactly a trivial task considering you have to translate all of the subtitles and game text, record all of the dialog in the new language, and, if you are really good, redo all of the character animations. It would be asking too much to as the Japanese market to wait for the game to be released before the game was proofed in English (and however many other languages the game comes in, although methinks there are only two).
And in case you are wondering, my PS2 is still in working order and was recovered from its cardboard (previously typed as bardboard which, for games like Everquest and the upcoming Vanguard, sounds like a great invention) box and turned on for testing purposes over the weekend.
In preparation for viewing Final Fantasy tonight I’ve caught up on all my e-mail and most of my mail, returned every phone call, and made myself unavailable until at least next Monday. Of course somehow I will have to allocate time for some necessary yardwork. Somehow I knew buying a house would quickly bite me. Still, the week should go off mostly without a hitch. I even have a special bottle of wine ready for the occasion- a ritual that became part of the main ceremony with the release of Final Fantasy X. It has reached the point where this could be dangerously close to taking my television out on a date. I do not spend too much time thinking about this as, frankly, it might dawn on me how disturbing most of this behavior truly is.
What bothers me the most about this release is that I have managed to allow my impulsive behavior to find everything imaginable on the game before its release here. Cardinal mistake! Huh, that’s a statement has special meaning for me over the past couple weeks. Anyway, after reading through tons of reviews, sifting through writeups on game mechanics, oggling over screenshots, and drueling over trailers and movies I basically have set myself up for a disastrous fall if this game is not as awesome as I want to be and as breathtaking as most every other person claims it is. Still, wanting this game to be the best the series has had to offer is something I have wanted since X-2’s release, as past rantings have indicated, so this just goes to show that this gamer has not changed all that much over the past five years.
Lucky me.
Moving on, let me share some of the material that is floating around the web on this game. Fear not- no items ruining the story will be presented here. My jerkiness does have its limits.
Veterans of the franchise know that the battle system changes with every new installment, and this time is no different. Espers, introduced in the first Super Nintendo Final Fantasy installment, are back as well as an interesting modification of Final Fantasy X’s Sphere Grid. The big one, however, is the removal of random encounters. Final Fantasy XII employs what Square successfully implemented in Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy’s online installment- the exploring window is the same as the encounter window. All battles with enemies now happen out in the open. Based on several short movies I can tell you this is much more compelling than you could initially picture. Because I have no direct experience with the mechanism that is all I will permit myself to say now.
So what message am I trying to send here? It’s very simple: if you like RPG’s and have access to a PS2 there is no reason to not check this game out. Not one. There is one element of the Final Fantasy series that I always fall back on that I have yet to mention, and that is the story and the characters. X-2 is the only true sequel in the franchise, so with that sole caveat every game showcases all new characters and a new universe for gamers in which to frolic. The writing is by no means perfect but the story is always interesting to me, even when playing through past iterations of the franchise for the fifth time. Maybe that’s the reason I hold this series in the highest regard amongst any other: the name Final Fantasy is a label and while it is easy to pin each new release in the series a sequel, in reality it is just another game whose quality since Final Fantasy has almost unequivocally been at a level that I wish most games would reside.
Next week I will relay all of my impressions of the game and, if there is a God, it will be positive.
This article is written and copyrighted by Jamison DeLorenzo and all thoughts are solely his and do not necessarily represent anyone else’s including anyone else at this site. This is a weekly article which deals with anything and almost everything gaming. Feel free to post comments or e-mail. Thanks for reading.
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October 23, 2006
The Gamer’s Quagmire #31: Solid Snake In a Blue Blazer
The Gamer’s Quagmire: 31st Edition
- Jamison DeLorenzo
Trying to find the right game to talk about can be an daunting task at times. Given how often I wind up writing about GTA I made a conscious decision to stay away from the controversial games for a while. Still, it was inevitable that I’d be writing about the new Rockstar game “Bully,” as such this article now fulfills said obligation. The reason I avoided it for so long was simple- this is nothing more than another example of Rockstar being the best at writing edgy and controversial games. The GTA series proved this and now Bully fulfills Rockstar’s controversy quotient until GTA 4 is ready for mass consumption next year.
Most of the problems surrounding this game are not because the game glorifies bullies but because it promotes violence and revenge. Somehow all of the Tom Clancy games avoid scrutiny as well as games like Dead Rising, God of War, Mortal Kombat (which hasn’t caused a stir since its initial release), and so on. This new Rockstar games lets you control a student in a school seeking revenge on bullies. To me this sounds like an interactive punching bag, in that if students would not rather work out their frustrations by unloading on a punching bag for an hour or more they can just go around and beat up bullies in a fictional and safe environment. Most kids have thought about ways to stop the torture they get from bullies as it can become quite ugly. This game provides, at the very least, a creative outlet.
Of course there are other means. The punching bag is one. Taking martial arts, working out, learning the subtle art of humor, becoming the dork who does everyone’s homework, and other classics are alternatives. Somehow video games are the mainstream media’s, politicians’, and several lawyers’ own personal punching bag. By all means actually learn how to beat someone up and give them a lifelong debilitating injury but whatever you do don’t just relieve stress at home in front of your television. I had to deal with this before getting to high school and I’m quite thankful it never became all that serious, so don’t think that this is just some hypothetical babbling. I’m certainly not going to suggest diving directly into video games to beat up bullies. The issue is much deeper than that.
What needs to be said, again, is that this game is getting much more press than normal simply because Rockstar’s name is on the box. I hate being the one to tell you this (okay, not really) but sometimes a reputation is far more important to people than fact. Not all that surprisingly a lawyer has decided to continue his misguided quest against Rockstar by claiming, among other things, that this Bully game is nothing more than a “Columbine simulator.” I can’t even begin to describe all the things wrong with this statement. As a global statement I’ll just say this- making a statement this detached from the truth is an incredible slap across the face of everyone traumatized at Columbine. Considering this was made by an attorney as someone who claims to be a crusader for victims of violence in my mind the statement’s even more insulting. At least the main GTA theme is still there, which is that the game somehow trains you commit unspeakable violent acts.
Right… I’ve completed every GTA game ever released. Feel free to take a look at my yellow sheet any time you want. Not to ruin a surprise, but it is eerily reminiscent of the deer in the headlights look- BLANK.
Honestly though I was expecting several sources to complain about this game (including Hillary Clinton, who apparently doesn’t care about games not named “GTA”), so it was much more of an amusement that these comments were made. Sure, maybe that is trivializing everything surrounding this game but that is the point I’m trying to make here. Bully is really not a whole lot more than a mole hill. Rockstar found a good hot button, thought up some good gameplay and script, and made the game, thereby pressing the button. You have to stick with your strengths, and Rockstar found yet another way to piece together a creative game that is so close to GTA in concept it’s scary. The environment in the game still basically speaks of a hypocritical society where those in power and speak for the moral good are more corrupt than anyone and the world you are in is filled with all the downsides of high school. The fact that they pick a private school, where uniforms are supposed to somehow remove this element, makes the statement all the more satirically brilliant.
How well the games sells is yet to be seen, but the numbers will only increase as the game gets more coverage. If nothing else, despite all the negative press Rockstar games get they probably save a boatload in the advertising department. If people think Rockstar is just ignorant and perpetuating slime they have every right to believe that but you have to admire them for creating games for which they know they will get free press from. They even got some press for releasing Table Tennis because it wasn’t controversial, which to me says that the media expects Rockstar to be the gaming industry’s central hub for controversy.
Don’t believe me? Negative press was being churned out about the game over a year before it was released. The groups designed to lend special help to kids that are victims of bullying openly complained about it by claiming that the game actually promoted bullying. There’s nothing quite like doing a little research first before getting all your ducks in order (this saying has to stem from the water gun game at the carnival, right?). The majority of the game has you helping out the victims at an prep school by stealing stuff from bullies, sneaking around without being noticed (something Metal Gear fans would appreciate), and occasionally directly defending people being attacked. The game also has a noticeable lack of blood and death (another dagger in the appalling Columbine analogy). To me speaks of just how ignorant and arrogant people are when they decry games, like Bully, when they know close to nothing about them. This isn’t like yelling fire in a movie theater or bomb on an airplane- you should be allowed to bring up controversial topics in this country without being demonized.
On top of specific people not liking the game there are several major retailers not carrying the game here in the United States. The game is even called something different in the UK gaming region (Latin translated into “dog eat dog”, because, as we all know, game titles in Latin are infinitely cooler than the otherwise rudimentary English). No, I don’t expect companies to make rational decisions about what to carry but this type of decision making happens all the time.
Honestly I only know about the game because of so many people complaining about it. The odds of me going to look at the game are swimming around 5% despite all the intriguing things built into the game. If you’re one of those people that enjoy seeing the world change as you interact with it then this game should be up your alley. Everything I’ve read and seen talks about you being able to ally yourself with the bullies or protect the weak. In the end while this game sticks closely to the vest of the GTA games the violence isn’t there, which is the flash that usually draws people into buying Rockstar games (and if that doesn’t make you question if society has a problem as opposed to a game publisher then nothing can help you). If you are honestly worried about this game there is no need to panic- after a couple weeks the whining and moaning about the game will die down and you’ll forget the game was ever released. That is, until someone sues Rockstar over a bully getting beaten up by some otherwise docile victim.
This article is written and copyrighted by Jamison DeLorenzo and all thoughts are solely his and do not necessarily represent anyone else’s including anyone else at this site. This is a weekly article which deals with anything and almost everything gaming. Feel free to post comments or e-mail. Thanks for reading.
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October 16, 2006
The Gamer’s Quagmire #30: E3 Takes G4?
The Gamer’s Quagmire: 30th Edition
- Jamison DeLorenzo
One of the more recent installments here in the quagmire probably will be the most morbid of topics that could ever be discussed here. Discussion revolving around the death of a gamer and then discussing parallel deaths in an online universe was almost could not have been more morose. Still, I had fun writing about it. This, however, is not the first time I have written about it. Recalling my article on the death of G4 as a gaming network I’m happy to write about a similar topic.
It time to talk about the upcoming demise of E3. Apparently if you are abbreviated down to a letter and a number you had better watch out. E3 has been the biggest gaming event every year for a while, almost since its doors opened a while ago during the glory days of COMDEX. As gaming becomes more and more popular and the gaming industry continues to rake in a seemingly endless supply of cash this little gaming expo (electronic entertainment expo, no less) was effectively a mirrored version of the Oscars for the gaming industry.
Not that I have a remotely negative opinion of Hollywood.
Much as the Oscars have become not a whole lot more than glitz and superficial glamour that had a show highlighting the previous year in film, E3 has become the same glitz and glamour gala (or G3, the beta version of G4… yeah, I couldn’t resist the stretch, sorry) which highlights the upcoming year in gaming. If it feels like there is some lingering disgust in my tone you are spot on. E3, partly because of all the money in the industry and because of the 3 major console producers engaged in something resembling a gaming holy war, has become an overcrowded theme park where you stand in line for 3 hours to get limited access to a booth.
You’ll forgive me if this doesn’t sound like fun. When you need a media or special backstage pass to find the interesting tidbits buried at the event it sucks the fun out of the event for gamers (no matter how much they will not admit it). The biggest gamers are not impressed by flashing lights (we play games in dungeons), booth babes (we have trouble getting along with women), 30 second demos (we can download those online), or long lines to play games (we have our own couches). If you’ve seen coverage of E3 recently or been to the event in person you’ll understand these gripes.
People seem to think that plans to reduce the size of the expo dramatically for next year stem from the wealth of information online or the cost to get a booth set up at the event. What bugs me is that when the event started, while it is true that the event does generate buzz about gaming, it was about opening up the gaming world to gamers. Money coming into the event pushed the best stuff to people willing to pay more money or just to media outlets that would shine some more light on the hidden secrets of E3. Eventually there is a saturation point where an event simply becomes too popular for every gamer that wants to run around in a land of, what ideally is, gaming nirvana and is capable of traveling to the event.
E3 isn’t exactly Mecca because it only exists for what amounts to a weekend. You cannot comfortably put hundreds of thousands of people into a building for events like this without chaos. The popularity of the event simply pushed the expo way beyond the amount of people it could comfortably support. Imagine trying to squeeze over 100,000 people into a football stadium for the Super Bowl. This just isn’t possible. And if you catch my analogy in its entirety you see where I’m going with this.
The trade show that used to be about accommodating anyone who wanted to get in is now transition to an expensive backstage pass to a big party. Demand for getting into the show isn’t exactly dwindling, so now E3, with the planned cutbacks in the size of the event, has now evolved into an exclusive party. Sure I’m a little bitter that I have not yet gone to the event and now may have to pay through the nose to get at what I would want to, but this is the evolution of E3. Most people should be upset by the upcoming changes even though we really do not have the full story yet.
I am delighted. E3 is collapsing under its own weight. I have gotten more compelling information over the web and from magazines about the upcoming consoles- information that should be spilling out of E3. The major stories from the past couple years of the event simply have not been compelling. While I do realize that it is hard to become emotionally invested in an event without ever having been to it my eagerness to attend has significantly dwindled over the past 5 years. Now instead of saving up cash for a plane ticket and trying to convince friends to join me in the trek I am almost completely cognitively dissonant from the whole event.
So now E3 is heading down the road of demise that COMDEX has already reached the end of. In time it will probably get there. Turning an ideally open-door show into an exclusive access party is, while in some respects necessary, a mistake. First come first serve has always been a personal favorite of mine. This is more than providing a bigger profit margin for ticket scalpers. If you turn an event from something that feels like it welcomes people in into a club that requires you fork over some extra cash the positive aura of the event quickly dissipates. If this is where E3 is going after 20 years then we may as well stick the proverbial fork in it.
Me? I’m too busy ignoring the event- in my eyes the event died years ago.
This article is written and copyrighted by Jamison DeLorenzo and all thoughts are solely his and do not necessarily represent anyone else’s including anyone else at this site. This is a weekly article which deals with anything and almost everything gaming. Feel free to post comments or e-mail. Thanks for reading.
Post your comments in the Forum!
October 9, 2006
The Gamer’s Quagmire #29: Circular Interview Dynamics
The Gamer’s Quagmire: 29th Edition
- Jamison DeLorenzo
I got this idea the other day that it would be a good idea to get out from under the rock I’ve been hiding and read a slew of articles to get idea of what the summer of 2006 means to gamers. Not that surprisingly the majority of articles floating around the web deal with, or simply derail back into, the great new Wii, the ineptness of Sony, and Microsoft waiting for Christmas to do anything. Sadly my summer has had me primarily invested, with time and money, in a new house and not with gaming. What little gaming has been done by me has been in World of Warcraft.
What scares me is that I’ve barely had the motivation to play any games at all. So now I wait for new games to come out to give me something to shoot for. The new Tiger Woods game is appealing but, due to my EA boycott, which as miraculously stayed in tact, requires locating a used copy before buying it. Neverwinter Nights 2 presents a great opportunity to play a great role playing game. It also is a perfect time to see if BioWare’s gaming production quality has been affected by their Microsoft owners.
If this sounds like a pathetic summer for gaming to you then you’re right in line with what I’m going through. There hasn’t been a whole lot to become excited about. The new 360 games, Saint’s Row for one, just don’t look intriguing enough to look at. I’ve been so bored that I almost bought a sequel on the 360 (Top Spin 2) to an original game whose disc I snapped in half after 3 days of sheer aggravation. What I’m inclined to think is that owning a house now has had a massive detrimental effect on my willingness to play anything, and once that passes the gaming ship will be righted once again. In the meantime I hope I don’t crash into an iceberg… such as by giving Madden 2007 a try.
Something that steered the ship off course in the first place was all the premature console holy war garbage being tossed around about the two consoles that have yet to ship. Just like going to a nightclub I get sick of the repetitiveness after an hour. Amazingly the loud repetitive beats from the bass in the clubs does not yield a big of a headache as does the repetitive “Wii is awesome” and “Sony sucks” comments. My overwhelming indifference to hip hop dancing allows me to not get as irritated in that domain. Who said apathy never paid off?
Ah, who cares.
Once my urge to start rummaging through gaming articles and buying a ton of new titles started coming back the holy war garbage was quickly encountered, however. It is not as though I wasn’t expecting it, but avoiding it for more than 20 minutes would have been a true pleasure. Still, interviews with big people from one of the console companies are always interesting reads because they have the best potential for highlighting the direction of a console without a lot of hype… if you can read between the self-serving propaganda. Thankfully my highly experienced BS-O-Meter is still working like it first did out of the box.
Neil Thompson of the Xbox 360 ilk had plenty of interesting things to say about what was going on with their console, although it wasn’t what he directly said. In a sense his latest interview left me with a familiar feeling- Microsoft employees will say anything in order to confuse people into thinking that only they have a clear direction with their products. His interview also instilled in me the confidence and necessity to put this in print- people need to learn what schizophrenia is. 90% of the time when people outside the medical community use this term they think it refers to something that is dealing with an identity crisis. This is more commonly known as multiple personality disorder. In truth schizophrenia deals with hearing voices.
The reason I feel the need to print this, aside from pointing out another idiotic statement Americans insist on using, is because what he was trying to say is that Sony is all over the map with PS3 functionality with no primary attack plan. We all know by now that Microsoft is fortifying a position with Live and Nintendo is going after accessibility (everyone goes after gameplay, despite what you read, but some are much more focused on it). Sony, believe it or not, does have an attack plan- technology. I have no plans to attempt to convince you that this is the right way to go, but Sony uses their technology innovations in their other business ventures. Marketing, however, is still a concern. Their inability to promote many of their media technologies has convinced me that Sony marketers couldn’t sell sunscreen to a naked Albino.
Thompson made another statement that served as the highlight of the interview- “If you want to offer the definite high def entertainment platform then you have to have HD-DVD.” This is coming from the same company that justified not shipping the 360 with an HD-DVD drive by stating it wasn’t necessary and it wasn’t their focus. Sony hasn’t shipped yet because of their HD drive they want in all of their PS3 configurations, so it stands to reason that Thompson doesn’t know what he’s talking about by stating Sony doesn’t have an attack plan. It is quite clear that Sony wants to deliver the most technically capable console, and in the long run they feel that is the foundation for building the most successful console.
Microsoft has now created a situation where the largest console is going to need even more space if you want to take advantage of HD-DVD technology with it. Anybody who still was holding out hope of Microsoft making a positive move in the Japanese market now needs to drop this hope or be incessantly mocked. I’m serious about this. Having a console with a peripheral is quite hideous and cumbersome. Of course if Microsoft releases a version of the console such that the HD-DVD drive is built into it then, well, the 360 will be even more of a monstrosity. Streamlined? Absolutely, but even monsters can be streamlined- just ask the Green Goblin. Hey, the 360 is green also… maybe this is more than coincidence.
After everything I’ve read I still have yet to change my mind about any of the consoles. Give me games or give me death. So please, I’m begging you, give me some games.
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