Seems my upgrade to Firefox 3 has freed up some of those lag issues and the image function works again, so I'll stop trash talking and get back to not updating my blog with esoteric commentary.
I like that Giant Bomb has chosen to go with the personal reviewing style, a style I think more reviewers of popular media should at least try. While there is always something to be said for the detached, third-person review (it's a lot easier to read, for starters), I think the more personal a given medium gets, the better it is to talk about it like it's your opinion and not pretend everyone is on board with you. With non-fiction I think it's easier to be detached, but when you start talking about genres of fiction being tired without fessing up that you don't like that particular genre, it feels like the elephant in the room no one's talking about. You should probably have some sort of personal disclosure anyway, just to get the reader to know what context you're talking from.
That said, some of the reviews here have bugged me a bit. I guess even with the acute first person style, I sometimes get the vibe that they're not explaining ENOUGH of their personal opinion in the review, and I'm left wondering what the hell they mean by a given criticism. I've felt this especially with TANG, Ryan's movies about video games that aren't also video games feature. I love watching it, as I'm into movies anyway and often don't see this stuff (I'm hoping he'll check out Postal just to see if he can stand it). I have trouble getting on board with him though when he starts his rants about things being "touchy-feely," "pretentious," "quasi-spiritual nonsense," or any other of the many words he uses to trash something without their being concrete enough to know where he's coming from.
I'm not big on things being spiritual without some sort of grounding, myself. If the movie expects me to care about this stuff, it's at least going to have to do some work to bring me with it. Sometimes I think that's what Ryan is getting at; it's not so much the subject matter itself, it's that it wasn't portrayed properly. The subject perhaps didn't earn the position it was trying to convey. THAT is a really good criticism, and I think I prefer to judge films and games based more on the premise THEY set up than expecting a game or movie to somehow meet my specific needs. It's just that too often Ryan seems to think we all have his taste in these things, because he seems to commence bashing before we really know just what his version of touchy-feely is.
This is a guy who hugs stuffed animals when he's gotta burp but can't, and who says he gets scared of a lot of things (EXCEPT spiders and scorpions). I mean, I know the guy is willing to lay things out. I just wish he'd do it more when it comes to his reviews. Especially with the word pretentious, which even has two pertinent meanings that don't really intersect. I think pretentious is probably the most over-used word in criticism, in part because it's never adequately defined. Instead of saying that something is pretentious, say WHY it is. Otherwise it's just a rant and not a full criticism.
This isn't just me picking on Ryan, but his style sorta evokes the above in me whenever I see it, so I thought I'd just get it out there now that I'm typing in real time and not typing and waiting to see it on the screen a minute later. Other than his use of these less-than-concrete words I'd say Ryan's reviews are usually well informed and sensibly laid out, so it's more about terminology than anything big, although I sincerely hope he backs these sorts of claims up a bit more, either by explaining WHY something is pretentious, or just plain illustrating it without even using the buzz words.
It's hard to write a review, I've tried (here, not so much), so this is more sympathetic than antagonistic. I also won't post this on the forums so I don't seem like I'm trolling or whatever.
I guess the profound maturity and complexity of Persona 4 has sorta made me back down from my previous stridency regarding pop culture entertainment in Japan (although it's too bad some people can't handle the themes that are coming up in P4, I'm happy the designers had the guts to talk about these issues). With that in mind, I took it upon myself to try playing a recently translated freeware title called Brass Restoration. It's rough around the edges, and I have real trouble identifying with the protagonist, but the game's structure and its apparent heart have encouraged me to continue.
Thevisual novel a step removed from the narrative format where you do whatever you want (and struggling with parsers or inventory to get the game to recognize your genius). Instead it's straight up text and pictures with decision gates. That by itself can't make a good game, there has to be a good story or interesting characters along with it. While it would be impossible for me to compare Brass Restoration to Persona 4, I'll say BR is actually fun to play.
And furthermore, if someone were to wipe out my knowledge of what the term Role Playing Game has come to mean, and then told me about the term, I would say that Brass Restoration gets as close as I've ever gotten to playing a role that's GIVEN to you, as opposed to a role you make yourself. Your choices have consequences, and where the main character goes is usually a direct consequence of your choices, but the usual accoutrements we've come to expect from RPGs are absent. It's just story and decisions, with some interesting characters and insight into the nature of coping with tragedy.
I can't say I'm very far into it, and I hope it doesn't become too crass, but so far it's fun, and a bit touching, too.
Well I'm a lot further along. I think some of the surreal elements definitely detract from what I originally thought was going to be more realistic fiction. The translation is crazy vague, especially during some of the decision gates, making for some frustrating situations. It also seems that saving doesn't necessarily bring me to the spot I saved at, more like to the current chapter. It didn't seem to do that the first time I saved, but now I had to scroll forward a lot to get back to the page I was at when I left off.
The humor, though, is great, although I'm guessing I never quite understand some of the references due to the cultural gap. I also keep thinking of the line from the Bloodhound Gang song "Why's Everybody Always Picking on Me?" (time index 2:22). Over and over. I wonder if the main character will ever realize the fact that is stated in the song.
EDIT, Later that Saturday:
Finished it, although it looks like there are tons more endings and things to unlock. I'm a bit of a sap, so you can guess my reaction to the bittersweet ending I wound up seeing :'') I'm still happy I'm capable of such emotion, I thought I'd forgotten how!
As far as the decision gates are concerned, there's tons more replayability and I'll definitely be going back to try out other routes. For all its flaws, I can only see good things happening with this sort of game style. I guess whether or not it's a game is the subject of some future blog post, but for now I'll just smile and sniffle :)
Yes, You Too Can Justify Anything!
Opera Omnia is a recently released independent game by author Stephen Lavelle, which was profiled in AV Club and TIGSource (the latter of which was linked to me by a friend). Unless you want the whole thing ruined, I suggest you just try out the game and see what you think for yourself, since it won't likely take you too long (assuming you have the updated version) after you get used to the way the game wants you to think.
I like it, and I really like the back story that plays out between a scholar-turned politician and his protegé, the protagonist. This particular protagonist is a lot harder to identify with than the one in Brass Restoration, but at the same time his story speaks directly to the importance of history in our lives, even through this fiction setting.
I encourage you to check it out, because now I'm going to say a bit more about the final stages and resolution, which is why I wanted to post this.
SPOILERS
I thought the game was going one way, with the reverse time aspect actually being played prominently. I could have sworn I understood it from that angle, as if the game itself were moving back in time. Maybe I was right, and I'm just slow on the uptake. If anyone has figured the plot out any deeper than I have, please comment below or send me a PM. Beyond the banality of evil I'm afraid I didn't catch the subtext. Maybe it was in the final thesis itself?
END SPOILERS
If you're still on the fence, I'll tell you that the basic game is one of meeting simple goals through a puzzle interface. There are usually multiple ways to a solution, so the biggest puzzle is trying to figure out the strange angle you have to think from. I still haven't completely wrapped my mind around it, but I did manage to complete it, so I'll testify that it's not too big a hassle, and it's an interesting little journey. I doubt Opera Omnia would have gotten this much hype if it were a mainstream release, but I figure that every step forward, even a small one, is more interesting than the safer, pandering releases that get coverage all the time.
Actually, This Sometimes Feels Really Close to the Truth :)
Finally, I'd like to leave everyone with this, which has to be my new absolute favorite Onion video. I will say I feel a bit weird about them co-opting Elisha Cook Jr.'s image from House on Haunted Hill, but I can't get over the amount of DETAIL they put into this.
This is like the perfect joke for someone like me, and I busted up when I realized who the anchor was! (If the playback is as rough for you on this site as it is for me, just link through to the home page for a better rate.)
Hey. I'll try to keep this relatively short. I've noticed in RPGs there is this tendency for min-maxing, which is to say trying your best to be very, very strong in a few things, and running roughshod through the game, finding all the avenues that are in line with these strong attributes, and even finishing the game that way.
In Fallout 3, I remember Jeff saying he was good at-- conversation I think it was, and he got through the game that way, but ran into problems in the Alaska expansion which wasn't so conversation focused. There is a real tendency, in RPGs where there's just one character you control, to allow you to maximize a certain stat, and then give you choices that seem optimized for your having really high percentages in that particular stat. If you're good enough at something that you tend not to fail, it takes the game out of your hands. There's little strategy in this. If you keep picking head shots, and you're good at head shots, congratulations, you've secured yet another path to victory. Maybe 2% of the time you miss, but that ain't often.
I got an uneasy feeling while watching the trailer for Obsidian's new spy RPG. Will this be the same thing? Get really good at pistols and kill everyone with pistols, even when it doesn't make much sense?
RPGs, to me, tend to shine when you have a party, because a party allows these specializations to be spread out among several characters. One character heals, one character sneaks around, one character blasts things, one character hacks things up into itty bitty little pieces. This works because they watch each other's back, making sure any flaw in one character is balanced out by the whole.
When in single-player games you should HAVE to change this strategy, otherwise the design is fundamentally flawed. If you're a loner, you should need to diversify. James Bond gets around because he has a series of convenient skills that get him from place to place (although why the guy isn't dead when he doesn't exactly hide is is beyond me). If he was good at one thing, he might at best be a member of a group, or be inserted into specific situations where his specialty worked well.
But unless there's a lot of richness in this specialty, in a game setting it makes for a very shallow experience. Designers can't concentrate on one thing if there are several skills involved, otherwise these other skills are useless, so they try to make situations where you can use different skills to get by, but each of these are paths that lead to pretty much the same end. A bunch of options, slightly different outcomes, but EACH of these outcomes in and of themselves are not terribly detailed. Thus the only real fun is in choosing the path, and that pretty much begins early on, with the rest of the game charging forward to the conclusion (with hopefully some good, non-stat based puzzles along the way). Unless the stats don't figure that heavily into it, it can't be like that if it's going to be an interesting game.
I'll probably add to this when my head's clearer, as I think RPGs have really gone off track lately and I want to make the point as concise as possible.
The gaming connection is tenuous, but if you've ever been curious about the cold war official story about nuclear war survivability, in contrast to the world that games like Fallout show us, see Duck and Cover.
The Prelinger film that caught my eye, and prompted me to link this in the first place though, is here, and thankfully has little to do with video games. Yet. If you eat meat, like I do, do yourself a favor and watch this. If you don't happen to know already what goes on in this industry, it'll be enlightening and much more candid than you'd probably get from a promo video now. Maybe the processing has changed, but here you go:
I will say that the assuring, sixties-style announcer, free of irony, has a certain comforting quality for me. I guess I grew up during the era of leftover filmstrips and old public service announcements from the sixties. I still view them at a distance, but while the stuff in here may horrify some of you, there are little touches that make me feel nostalgic. You know, in between the slaughter and my laughter at the announcer's assumptions about my reaction to what's going on.
Don't forget to take your B12 pills, vegetarians. More power to you. For the rest of us: mind your fingers!!
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(Since typing seems to go only slightly slower than normal, I'll still ramble now and again, at least. And the video page is strangely less hard to navigate than the information pages, except for them getting rid of the sift-through-types-of-videos-while-you're-watching-another-video function, which I miss. )
A Little of the Ol' Rope-a-Trope
When compared to GB, this Dragon Age promotional site is the worse slog as far as old steam-driven bessie here is concerned, but the reason I bring it up is it's the starting point for a little chat about fantasy worlds (and world building in general). I'm the kind of person who doesn't equate the word "fantasy" with dwarves and elves necessarily; I'm as likely to include stuff written by Harlan Ellison, and quite a bit of what's called science fiction by some, in the category fantasy and not think twice about it. I like fantasy to be just that, an exploration of concepts without worrying so much about following the laws of physics. It's the dream logic that makes stories still interesting to us, even after we've achieved so much with technology.
If I must experience something with dwarves and elves, I enjoy it if there's at least a new spin on an old cliché. Once in a while, popular games will have the wherewithal to manage this; I can't help but cackle with glee when I hear about the latest attempt by the Blizzard crew to break with convention in World of Warcraft, for example. And from what I've gathered from the six profiles on the Dragon Age site above, it seems they're trying something new with the way Elves and Dwarves are depicted. I'll leave it up to you to explore for yourself, or we can chat about in the comment section if you like. The profiles on that site are good examples, from what I've seen so far, of a creative take on time-worn tropes.
What bothers me is the strange fear that a lot of people have for changing things up, and I guess that's the focus of this entry. I like to play pen and paper RPGs once in a while, and the reticence there is probably felt more strongly there than in computer gaming, but there are some similarities. There, people will refuse to buy your product if you mess with elves or dwarves or magic too much. They want their fantasy to follow a narrow, predictable path. Any new stuff will come from political backstabbing, betrayals, and the like. To me that all sounds like the sort of dynamicism you'd find in a potboiler novel, not an attempt at something new and interesting, but some folks are dead set against innovation.
I have a friend who has been running a pen-and-paper game on and off for longer than many of the Giant Bomb users have been alive, back to the first days of Dungeons and Dragons when everything was practically cut and pasted from the world of J.R.R. Tolkien. Over the years, DnD has gone through some changes, branched out into what I, and the dude who runs those games, think is interesting territory. Settings like Spelljammer, which has strange craft powered by mages which float from crystal sphere to crystal sphere in the aether, Dark Sun, which has a brutal desert world forsaken by the gods and run by corrupt kings, and Planescape, the setting that inspired arguably one of the best CRPGs in gaming history (or at least people still look back at that game fondly whenever the subject comes up). I've provided some links to the games they inspired, but I'm still talking about pen-and-paper for a moment. My friend and I were wowed by these new settings, and when we met many years later we reminisced about these neat settings and the clichés they dumped wholesale overboard.
But guess which setting remains, which setting is the favorite, after all these years? The tried and dried Forgotten Realms, which at times doesn't even bother to hide the fact that they're just putting a fantasy patina over what is really ancient Japan or medieval Europe, with ethereal elves, crafting-and-mining dwarves which seem a crossbreed of Klingons and flagrantly stereotypical Scottish Highlanders, and the usual gang of stupid peasants and stuffy nobles you'd normally find at an exceptionally embarrassing ren faire.
If anyone takes me to task for making cheap shots there, I'll just say that was the exasperation talking.
My buddy tried over many years to introduce his own worlds, and many others, including those above and stuff like Eberron, into new campaigns. The players would entertain his desires for a little while, then somehow scuttle the game and go back to Forgotten Realms again. Expand this a bit, and this is what goes on during flame wars when people fiddle with an old formula. In some of my previous entries I've mentioned a couple of examples, like the Forge Town in Heroes of Might and Magic. People really want game designers to toe the line, and some put more energy into stopping the plans of these designers than they put into arguably more important areas of their lives.
I realize why pandering is so popular: it's immediately accessible. Most people who are into fantasy RPGs know the clichés and can immediately build upon them, notice characters who defy the stereotypes, know how a character will act and why, and act accordingly. And gamers are often a lot who are quick to condemn change; We're all trying to repeat that time we had when we were young, that fun space game we played, that great race where we just barely got first place. We want our new console to do the same stuff, only better. We make these demands on game creators and, just like my poor game master friend, they're itching to try something new, but are stuck doing the same damned thing over and over.
It wears creators down, and waters down what they do. I'm betting most of the creators out there who are worth their salt want to go crazy with creativity, trying all kinds of mind-blowing weirdness that would be fine company for the likes of Noby Noby Boy and other genre busters, and even in the more predictable realm of 1st person shooters and computer role-playing games, people might make environments that would be a blast to explore, showing us stuff that simply COULDN'T exist in real life no matter how you tweaked the physics engine. But they're afraid of pissing us off, basically, no matter how sound the gameplay mechanics might be.
So when I see Dragon Age (or even Arcanum, or Gladius) trying something new, even with the same old same old, I get a bit excited. I wonder if maybe THIS will be accessible just enough to slip by people's defenses enough to surprise them. I can't speak for the quality of Dragon Age, and sometimes some experiments of the past would have benefited from a couple more years of development, but I think when designers at least have the guts to change things up a bit they deserve some extra attention, especially when it comes to the stodgy genre that is "fantasy." 5 Comments
Well, I really hope this extreme slowness is just a buggy phase, because if this site is going to be as slow as it is for me now, I'm not sure I have the energy or time to wait while every page chugs into focus.
This site has been a big of a drain on my resources from the outset, but for the most part I've been able to keep things going. But if this new face is how things are going to be, I don't feel like I should have to buy a new PC just to interact here. Things don't have to be this thick with features, especially when you're trying to get a lot of users in.
I had a bit of a sinking feeling when they were talking about the new image editor, and the images were doing little somersaults on the screen, as if that was necessary to actually show the picture. They put a lot of work into the code, and it's great if your machine can hack it, but... Since this site really isn't aimed at video game aficionados as a whole, more people who are into the latest and biggest with the rest sort of a grab-bag of novelty acts that are either praised or scorned for not having enough polygons or trying to build a decent narrative, I guess I'm sort of outside the targeted demographic anyway.
If the new face of GB becomes a test of my endurance, well, it's been fun y'all.
Trying to remain Chan about the whole thing... 8 Comments
The AV Club continues to surprise me with a lot of interesting, hidden games. I'm sorta proud of myself that I discovered Spelunky before they did.
That's it. I've died more than a thousand times, beat it three times, and still have stuff to unlock.
I've also used the person I was trying to rescue as an offensive projectile, shot down a flying saucer with a rock and then squished its parachuting pilot, and stomped on a bee-spitting mummy until it was deader than dirt.
For all the frustration this game has just as many interesting moments. I just hope the unlocking stuff won't take forever...
Speaking of frustrating, I got about 300 points in bastet, anyone beat that?
UPDATE: Spelunky is in version .998 now, for anyone curious. Haven't tried it yet, not sure if the install will erase the old achievements and unlocks.
I like randomly generated stuff. It's sorta like peering into the unknown, or at least a jumbled up version of the known. I've spent many hours with Nethack and other roguelikes, watching as a bunch of ASCII characters or graphical overlays march toward me and tear me to ribbons. One of my favorites is Doom, for example.
Derek Yu (co-creator of Aquaria) has put the peanut butter of random dungeon generation with the chocolate of a graphical multi-function platformer and came up with Spelunky. It's freeware, and almost free of bugs (the only thing that didn't really work properly for me was the music. EDIT: It was my own fault, I put one of the key bindings over the toggle for music. OOPS). It's got secret items, many different tools, and bombs and grappling hooks that come standard to help negotiate the randomly generated dungeon areas (without bombs and grappling hooks you would sometimes be screwed. Make sure you always have at least one rope and a few bombs as you go deeper, just to keep the way clear). Steal from ancient civilizations and kill the odd cave denizen, just remember those ruins might still have a few active traps...
If Nethack has taught me anything, it's to not be greedy and just go for the exit if things look rough. Since I've died about fifty times so far, I apparently still refuse to take my own advice. The vaguely Cave Story-like platforming can sometimes be a little bit tough, but it's nothing a good key layout and patience can't overcome. I won't spoil all the game's intricate little surprises, but just realize that many objects in the game have more than one use.
I've been having a bit of a pulp fiction revolution in my head after seeing the Dark Void footage. However Dark Void may turn out, it's got the modern-adventure-tale gears turning in my head. Then I stumble upon Derek Yu's latest project, as if he read my mind for my desire for more pulp stuff. The pulp sensibilities of Spelunky are nice beyond the obvious main reference the game makes. Yu's inventiveness continues to entertain me; I'm glad he's still young, and still avid about putting a lot of heart into his work.
Having a bit of trouble trying to add images at the moment, but will add a few to liven up the text later. Either that, or I should just learn how to do it in HTML again and not be dependent upon these fancy new machines! Dagnabbit!
Addendum: Now that I got the music working, I have to say it's got a great 8-bit vibe that recalls the echoes and blurring that 8-Bit music consoles had. This game does reference the 8-Bit days platformer days, but what really makes me happy is that if you don't read the instructions and just explore, learning how things work first-hand by experimentation, the game reminds me of even older games, where you were given a simple little environment with its own physics that you could play with, instead of something that necessarily tried to mock how things work in the real world.
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