As a child I was extremely fastidious about large purchases, or even when deliberating over what large gifts to ask for before Christmas and my birthday. I never liked surprises on such occasions and for my sanity, and their own, my parents made sure I understood the gifting parameters and I made sure I knew what I wanted. When it came time to upgrade from my NES to a 16-bit system, this dynamic led to an extraordinary level of research on my part.
In the year leading up to my eleventh birthday I did my due diligence reading every game magazine I could get my hands on. I went so far as to repeatedly check out an issues of the Consumer Reports published magazine Zillions, targeted at children, from my school library. The issue in question featured an in depth analysis which compared the relative benefits of the Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and NEC’s TurboGrafx-16. I also, in turn, rented each 16-bit console and a few different games for a weekend test drive. When I rented a Super Nintendo for the first time I also brought home Final Fantasy II, properly known as Final Fantasy IV.
After the jump, Square sells hardware. Continue reading →
My first command, this expedition, has gone downhill rapidly. The enemy leader is fighting against my grasp, so I tighten my stranglehold and she quiets down for the time being. I can’t tell if it’s the loaded snub so close to her head or the idea of what will happen to her if we get an evac, but her muscles are coiled and trembling. I’m backing up against the wall, watching the corner. Anya and Marcus are watching the one entrance while Baird and Dom grab some grenades from the bunker. I can hear them, grunting in that language of theirs, preparing to come in here, kill my men. All I pray is for my men to die quick, honorably. It won’t be so easy for me.
After the jump, here they come. Continue reading →
I’ve spent some time recently checking out the latest patch for Civilization V. To Firaxis’ credit, they’ve been trying to address some of the game’s problems. However, I kept running into situations like the above screenshot. If you’re a Civilization V aficionado, that should look pretty familiar by now. If you’re not, let me explain what you’re seeing.
I’m playing the Aztecs. Russia has just declared war on me, which is exactly what she should do, since I’ve been pushing against her borders and harassing her allies. What’s more, I’m playing one of the more advanced difficulty levels that gives computer players an advantage, so Russia has a solid economic and military lead on me. At this point in the game, I should be worried.
The closest point of contact between our empires is my city, Tlatelolco, which is tucked between mountains and a coastline. A hilly hex is the approach from the south, where I’ve parked a relatively weak unit of jaguar warriors. Russia has showed up with a unit of superior pikemen that should be able to easily punch through the jaguar warriors, especially with the help of an accompanying catapult and archer. However, the incompetent AI positions the catapult and the archer in front, with the pikemen trapped behind them. Furthermore, as the turns go by, it doesn’t swap their positions. I easily take out the ranged units, and the pikemen wait patiently for me to bring in reinforcements. Russia has essentially marched its army into war backwards.
I still love parts of Civilization V, but the tactical combat plays a significant part of overall design. When it falls apart, the game teeters to one side and eventually topples. The result is like a foot race against a one-legged man. Winning is the easy part. Doing it without feeling foolish is the real challenge.
Listen, what I have to tell you right now must be kept in the strictest confidence. They are onto me, I can feel it. They have spies everywhere. They are legion. Soon they will overtake me and it will be as if I was never here, as if I had never spoken nor written a word. I’m talking about the front page articles, of course. What did you think I was talking about? Grab a tinfoil hat and let’s do this. Mine’s the one with the propeller sticking out of the top. Let’s blow the lid off the whole damned thing!
After the jump through the blue portal, Sony kills Osama bin Laden to cover up Donald Trump’s forged copy of Brave New World. Continue reading →
Assuming you’re not in it for the multiplayer, I suspect the Playstation 3 exclusive, Motorstorm: Apocalypse, is the game to get this week. The previous Motorstorms have had great arcade driving physics and even greater graphics. This latest version’s disaster theme — the idea is that you’re racing through ruined city environments — has probably had a lot of its thunder stolen by the excellent Split/Second, but you can never have too many cutting edge driving games.
If you missed Bangai-O on the Nintendo DS and the Dreamcast before that, you missed one of Treasure’s unique treasures. The Bangai-O games are a cross between a puzzle game, a platformer, a bullet hell shooter, and a giant robot game. And now they’re in high-definition and on Xbox Live with Bangai-O HD: Missile Fury.
If you aren’t interested in playing Section 8: Prejudice on the Xbox 360, you’ll be able to get it on the PC this week. And if you want another overpriced Call of Duty map pack, this time it comes with a new zombie level featuring horror movie celebrities instead of Cold War politicians. Personally, I think it’s hard to top Robert McNamara fighting hordes of faceless zombies, but politically canny metaphors can only get you so far in videogames. At some point, it’s time to resort to the more obvious choices like Sarah Michelle Geller and Robert Englund.
I’m a sucker. I know this and Square-Enix knows this. I’m not alone, either. Like a lot of gamers my age the early Final Fantasy games hold a special place in my heart and that warm glow of nostalgia is enough to ensure that I will never stop re-buying those games. To date I have bought most of the 8 & 16 bit Final Fantasy games three or four times. I put up with absurd load times in the PlayStation compilations. I bought a Gameboy Advance SP as a dedicated Final Fantasy jukebox when Square began porting the Wonderswan Color remakes for the Western market. I’ve avoided the hideous 3D remakes of III and IV for the Nintendo DS on sheer principle.
Luckily, at the same time as Square-Enix has been uglifying Final Fantasy for the DS, they’ve also been creating what have to be the definitive 2D versions for the PlayStation Portable. In 2007 they released Final Fantasy: Anniversary Edition, compiling remastered versions of Final Fantasy I and II to celebrate twenty years since the release of the first game. Now, for the 20th anniversary of Final Fantasy’s first appearance on the SNES, Square-Enix has released Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection for the PSP. Like the Anniversary Edition, it features updated, high resolution sprites, backgrounds and fantastic new 3D spell effects. But best of all, it packs in the episodic sequel, The After Years, previously only available on Japanese cellphones and WiiWare, and a brand new bridging story, Final Fantasy IV: Interlude.
After the jump, I’m finally getting what I’ve always secretly wanted: a new 16 bit Final Fantasy Continue reading →
I’m hunkered down behind a wall of packed dirt and loose stone. The bullets rip the air a few inches from my face. The wall behind me and the surrounding dirt and cobblestone path explode into bits of debris that rise to form a cloud of dust. A smoke grenade comes sailing in and I slide further down my cover to avoid being stunned. My enemies believe I’m stunned, and I want them to.
After the jump, I count on it. Continue reading →
In David Mamet’s Redbelt, a movie he inexplicably made about karate, Chiwetel Ejiofor plays a champion karateist. He explains to a woman how martial arts can teach her to control difficult situations. To demonstrate, he indicates a place across the room from her.
“Could I strike you from there?” he asks.
“No,” she says.
He stands close enough to grapple her, where his arms can’t move freely.
“Could I strike you now?”
“No.”
“Where can I strike you?”
She takes a step backwards, spaced so that his arms would be able to throw a punch and connect.
“Don’t stand there,” he concludes.
And that’s what I like about fighting games.
After the jump, let’s go to gain a little patch of ground Continue reading →
You see, their young enter through the ears and wrap themselves around the cerebral cortex. This has the effect of rendering the victim extremely susceptible to suggestion. Later, as they grow, follows madness and death.
Full disclosure: I’m cheating this week.
That’s not a screenshot of a community level up there. I want to bring you community levels for the above-the-fold part of these weekly columns. The way I did with the dailies. But I couldn’t for this week. My PS3 went all wonky last week and refused to connect to the Play-Stay-shone Network. This happens from time-to-time. Usually I just ride it out. But I couldn’t for this week’s column because I was fixing to go out of town and needed a couple levels in the bank. So I cheated and played a story level. It was called “Invasion of the Body Invaders” and it was great. You go into the body of Dr. Higginbotham and fight infections.
Heh. That makes me think of PC gaming all of a sudden. How stupid that is! With all of those nasty viruses. Glad I switched to my trusty console. Phew! I’m sure all this PSN silliness will be sorted out by the time I get back hom—
Wait. What?
After the jump, stockpile syndrome Continue reading →
The first Final Fantasy was very different from what would be released little more than a year later as Final Fantasy II in America (and is properly known as Final Fantasy IV). People misremember how open the original was, your progress was always gated in the world by very specific choke points even if the game didn’t always tell you where to go next, or why. And while you were able to create your own party of characters, you still never made any decisions that affected the game’s outcome. Final Fantasy IV used that linearity to craft a much tighter, more resonant story. It also eliminated the character creation and substituted a large cast of well defined characters around whom the narrative revolved.
In Japan this was an evolution that took four years and four games, but for the English audience there was little more than a year between the two releases. The change was stark and shocking. By this time the Japanese role-playing game had strayed very far afield of the computer or pen and paper that had once been the inspiration. More than any game before it, Final Fantasy IV placed character drama at the forefront. The result was perhaps the most influential game the genre has ever seen.
After the jump, the primordial ooze from whence all JRPGs are descended. Continue reading →
This year will be the 70th anniversary of the launching of the final German drive on Moscow, Operation Typhoon (in German: Taifun). And it’s the 70th anniversary of the invasion of Russia itself, obviously. Don’t bogart my point, which is that this game diary entry is about Operation Typhoon. It’s probably one of the most significant battles in the history of the world, and some would argue that the outcome was decided before it started. Others would argue that it didn’t have to happen at all. The latter group would be wargamers.
Apologies to Italians, Hungarians, and Rumanians for what they’ll read after the jump Continue reading →
I don’t think Bethesda is clear on how patches for videogames are supposed to work. Ideally, a patch makes a game work better. But with each successive patch for Fallout: New Vegas, Bethesda has made is increasingly difficult for me to play the game on the Xbox 360, where Microsoft’s certification process is doing a fine job being asleep at the switch.
With the first patch, Fallout: New Vegas locked up every time I went into the main city hub. With the second patch, the game locked up every time I entered combat. Now, with the patch that was just released today, Fallout: New Vegas locks up every time I try to load a saved game. Bethesda is nothing if not consistent!
I don’t really know why I like gory horror movies. I hate actual gore. I’m squeamish about the sight of blood. After 9/11, I went to give blood and I fainted before they managed to wring even a pint out of my arm. I hate seeing people get hurt for real in supposedly funny YouTube videos. I once saw someone get hit by a car in the real world, and I was surprised at my reaction: I turned my head away. It only lasted for a moment, and I pretty quickly got my wits about me and went to help the guy. But I’ll never forget my reflexive reaction was to turn my head so I wouldn’t see what was going to happen.
But I like horror movies, on a couple of different levels. A really good horror movie is actually horrifying and cathartic and hopefully has some sort of larger message, but I won’t recommend it to most people, because if it affected me, it’s got to be pretty dire. A really bad horror movie is just flat-out disgusting and I want no part of it. But most horror movies are in between and I would characterize them as basically funny. There’s something fundamentally absurd about movie gore, and slasher films, and creature features, and so forth. That’s why I love a recent horror movie called Rubber, which features shots of exploding heads, but in the context of a meta message about watching horror movies. In its own absurd and slightly pretentious way, Rubber clarified for me why I like gory horror movies.
Speaking of absurd and pretentious, I’ll actually get around to reviewing Mortal Kombat after the jump. Continue reading →
When I was in elementary school two of my best friends, Jeff and Nick, lived within easy biking distance, just three houses away from each other. Nick was a latchkey kid and had the run of his house for a few hours each day after school. Obviously, that was where we always went to hang out. During the summer break, this translated into even more unsupervised time which naturally made his house the home base for all our youthful shenanigans. We built elaborate water parks in his backyard, watched movies were weren’t supposed to, and fought a secret war in the neighboring woods against a pack of rival kids from a nearby cul-de-sac. It was an ideal, free-range childhood.
We also played a lot of video games, mostly the NES titles all nine-year-olds were into at the time: Mario, Metroid, Contra, Mega Man. We played crappier games, too, like Battle Toads or Silver Surfer, games that had us beating our heads against a wall each time the difficulty spiked and passing the controller around until we prevailed. Our tastes were simple and we usually just played whatever had the coolest box art at the local rental shop.
But then we met Chad.
After the jump, my introduction to true nerditry. Continue reading →
One of the minor things that bothers me about Inception is that it’s so high concept that it doesn’t afford much room for characters. So you get tremendously talented actors like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, and Ellen Page, but you come away from the movie with no inkling how talented they are.
After the jump, Super to the rescue Continue reading →
