It's Christmas.

Merry Christmas everyone. We had a good one this year. It was a good Christmas, but not the best Christmas. That was in the 90's and I opened a SEGA Genesis with a Sonic 2 pack in! I hope there were more memories like that made today. Maybe a kid got an XBOX One, or a 29 year old got a 12 pack and Call of Duty. Whatever they were. Don't forget em. Merry Christmas.

Goatee: A Game Good Enough to Savor

Every year around the holiday season people chime in to declare what the best game of the year is. Journalists clawing and scratching at each other to try and get a box quote. Many high profile releases from the year come back into relevance and may get a bump in sales from the extra publicity. I’m going to do my part and tell you Rogue Legacy from Cellar Door Games is the best of the year!

The masses of you that have been following my generic video game blog have probably heard of my love for pixels and may not be surprised that Rogue Legacy is my favorite. Was it the game that I spent the most time on? No. Was it the most emotional story told? No. Was it a marvel of current technology’s capabilities? No. Was it the most fun I’ve had this year? YES!  A Metroid based side scroller with the flavorings of Castlevania and Rogue? Sign me the hell up, I haven’t had this much fun since Symphony of the Night.

First off, the presentation of the game is ridiculously charming. The graphical resolution is exaggerated to show you all of the pixels and scale in Super Nintendo style. There are only a handful of areas to the ever changing castle that easily identify with enemy sets that differ between them. It all looks and controls like it should. It’s Rogue Legacy and you should be okay with that.

The story is incredibly thin, but it’s the gameplay that shines through here. You begin with a pretty simple tutorial that makes sure you understand basic platforming and then dumps you in the middle with hardly any direction. When you enter the castle there’s a large door with an emblem for each area boss and a rough map on the wall. You have a sword to hit enemies and candle sticks. Last as long as you can and amass a big a fortune as you can. You’re terrible weak in the beginning and will die. That’s the point of a game that changes every time you restart. The money you earn will be used to make your children more likely to succeed where you have failed by upgrading the family manor that provides permanent hereditary stat boosts. Make sure you use all of your money before you jump back because you have to forfeit your fortune.

The dying mechanic is pretty novel. Whenever you fail to finish the game, your descendants pick up right where you left off. They keep your stat boosts, equipment, and rune powers that affect mobility and life leech. This is great idea, but gets even better when each generation has its own quirks along with random semi-standard job classes. You may have a character that suffers from vertigo (the entire game is upside down), Alzheimer’s (large map is unavailable), and Dextrocardia (HP and MP values are switched); or positives like Peripheral Artery Disease (no foot pulse, spikes not triggered), Eidetic Memory (everything you’ve seen is marked on the map), or even ADHD (move faster). They even through in a few traits that don’t affect gameplay like baldness, sexuality, and Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

Rogue Legacy isn’t a good pick for a novice gamer or anyone who rarely steps outside of the Call of Duty/Madden Camp. It’s just like anything else; you suck at first but might get better if you stick with it. Don’t worry though, if you get too good the game gets exponentially harder on multiple playthroughs. The difficulty is part of the appeal and really gives you a sense of accomplishment. Besides the difficulty spike, I can’t criticize Rogue Legacy. It’s new every time, there’s a sense of progression, and you laugh while you play.

This is the most fun I’ve had with a video game this year. That’s the ultimate measure while gaming. There’s still room for games that try to make statements like Gone Home, The Last of Us, and Spec Ops: The Line, but the games I come back to are the ones I felt joy playing. It goes to show that my runner up is Saint’s Row IV (yes, more fun than Grand Theft Auto V), that game was funny and has completely transformed from the open world rip off it started as. While you’re looking at what’s on the Steam sale this Christmas give my GOTY Rogue Legacy a try, it’s worth more than the $15 they regularly charge. 

Reverse Sequelitis

Triple A games have become a kind overblown derogatory item. Back in the day before games had street dates we would read about the carts that could hit stores any day. The hype machine wasn’t as well oiled and we wanted anything that has to do with gaming. Huge titles occasionally hit the sweet spot and rarely receive acclaim from everyone. Today we fight on the largest scale!

Assassin’s Creed has become one of our beloved yearly franchises that try to pump as much money out of our pockets with little innovation. There was a time when AC was a new and interesting intellectual property, and it was amazing. We had never seen parkour that flowed so smoothly and time periods that traditionally weren’t represented because they had nothing to do with World War II. The idea of a non wargame taking place during the Crusades or Revolutionary War is an inventive place to begin brainstorming. Even better is the idea of game during the Italian Renaissance, now there’s something we weren’t expecting.

If the proper care is taken in crafting a sequel it can be a shining example of progression. Elements from the previous games need to be enhanced or cut for the best experience. The first Assassin’s Creed had a main character that was a jerk, repetitive gameplay objectives, and a framing story no one cares about (or remembers). Assassin’s Creed II took everything from the first game and made it much better. Ezio is a loveable jerk of a lady’s man, objectives are varied, and they did something with the framing story that made it bearable.  To take the story further they somehow made me care more about the jerk face Altair character, talk about pulling a rabbit out of hat.

There are still plenty of flaws in the Assassin’s Creed formula. It’s understood that collectathons are around to lengthen game time with little effort or creativity. The item hunts are still around but not quite as obnoxious. The addition of small puzzles hidden in the environment was awesome, and the best part was there were only 20 of them to find. There’s nothing I really hate to see more than hundreds of collectable items thrown all over the place; look at Batman: Arkham Asylum versus Batman: Arkham City’s Riddler trophies. I prefer Asylum to City and one of the main reasons was I felt compelled to find all the Riddler collectables because there were fewer well thought out items as opposed to what felt like a sloppy selection of underwhelming widgets. It goes without saying that the 100 feather hunt in ACII is something I didn’t participate in. You obtain a villa to upgrade a few hours in, and it’s a take it or leave it experience. It’s nice to have what seems to be a Suikoden castle but it’s more of a diversion towards affording the best equipment in the game.

In a time when Assassin’s Creed was a new and exciting venture there were some neat combinations thrown together. Now we just expect another title every year. When I look at the “greater” games of a generation, they seem to have multi-year development cycles. Grand Theft Auto 5 took years and delivered an awesome single player experience, The Last of Us had been in development for years, and Assassin’s Creed II came out a few after after the first with a lot of thought behind it. It’s too bad that video games are no longer dominated by artists and are geared more toward making investors happy, but America has proven that the Michael Bay larger than life style has a place in our collective wallets. This is why the games press is so obsessed with smaller studios because this is where the innovation is coming from; support your local game makers.

Top 10 Reasons Internet People Do Top 10 Lists

Well, what do you know? I’ve reached an impressive 500 hits since I started! And only 497 of them are me obsessively hitting refresh! Everyone on the internet does top ten lists because they can and now I will do the same. Today we fight with convention!

10.  It’s the internet, the place where things are organized in the order of importance all the time. You know, like High School.

9.  “My friends told me I was funny; let’s see if I can throw 10 witty comments together!”

8.  Some people decided they needed to do hours of “research” to rank the top busts of the stars.

6.  Dammit Letterman.

5.  To drum up discussion! Please tell me how much you hate my opinion in the comments below so I won’t read them to prove once and for all I am literally above you!

4.  “I know no one knows what this is but I think the world needs to know all about it.”

3.  “I’ve got writer’s block and can’t think of anything relevant to paper. I know, I’ll make as specific a top ten as I can!”

2.  Adding a “controversial” item in the top five. I’m a unique snowflake that has had different experiences than you and love this because I grew up with it!

1.  Because they get more views than anything else. Youtube is a prime example, click on any personality’s profile and check what consistently gets the most views. These top ten’s make a person’s rent. And Chrono Trigger.

I hope you enjoyed the top ten garbage I threw up there! I really care about what you think about the blog where I post my opinions! That was actually kinda fun…

*Undercooked Content Should Be Consumed At One’s Own Risk

I seem to want to talk about money quite often. Well, I love money and so does everyone else. We do what we can to create and store cash like energy and like energy it seems like money is always transferred but destroyed if there is a fire. Today we’ll fight premature holes burning in our pockets.

The last couple of years have yielded some amazing video game related projects from some interesting funding methods. The best examples of this are Minecraft and several high profile Kickstarter projects. Crowd sourcing and selling Alpha/Beta access is a dream come true for smaller studios with niche projects that wouldn’t otherwise see the light of day. This is great, but there is no guarantee that a final product will be delivered. It’s kind of fun to imagine the gamer population as some sort of confederacy of venture capitalists that can shape the horizon. A bunch of people assume it functions as a pre order service and forget about the risk involved, you may get a bad game or no game at all. Pulling together and funding something you believe in is a great feeling and everyone should feel what it’s like to get a better than expected investment return.

If you’ve logged into Steam in the last six months you’ve probably noticed a ton of Early Access programs that have peppered the new release list. These games aren’t finished and some don’t even resemble the final product. This can be an awesome experience for some, akin to seeing a car built from the ground up and witnessing every change as it is made. The historical value here is great and will interest those who are into game design theory but can rub others the wrong way because the games may not be “fun” yet. The most successful example of this has been Minecraft, it was available for purchase in its early stages. Sorry kids, I played some early builds and there wasn’t even any mining to be done. Being in on the podcast conversations and seeing the newest games can be a huge bump in your nerd cred but you have to remember you paid to beta test. People usually volunteer their free time or even get paid to make sure code is up to scratch, wouldn’t it be awesome is someone would come over to your house and pay you to clean it? Do your research and make sure you’re throwing your money at something you believe in, there are plenty of developers that figured out how to siphon money out of the big name publishers and there are people in this world who will steal your milkshake.

The internet has changed our lives and how business is done. The record and movie industries have had their fights and seen independent ventures eat a little more into the profit margins by mainlining straight into the audience. Well, that topic sounded a lot more interesting in my head. Join me next time I update, but you have to bring your own snacks.

It Slices, It Dices…

The PS4 is coming. I’m sure you’ve seen the ads and are eating stupid amounts of Taco Bell to get one before release, please don’t do that to yourself. Interconnectivity between devices is one of the major themes Sony is rolling with this time and it’s as good a time as any to look at what seems to be the number one accessory to pair with your shiny new black box; the tablet, music player, web browser, 3G surfing, two analog sticked, picture taking, AR card using, app device, which also plays games. Today we fight against all odds (really, taking on Nintendo in the handheld market?).

I recently purchased a Playstation Vita. Recent news about the next model of the handheld have alluded to Sony downgrading the OLED screen they use in the device and I saw one bundled with The Walking Dead adventure game I hadn’t played, so why not buy it. It’s shaped like the PSP with smaller buttons, a second analog stick, and many more slots to put things in. This is definitely an attractive system with much more sleek look than other clamshell offerings. Holding it isn’t a chore with divots on the back side to rest your fingers with good button spacing make cramps a non issue if played for an hour or more because the battery will actually last long enough. The Vita is a well designed contraption; there are even TWO eyelets on the bottom to poke a lanyard through!

Let’s start with the good. That screen, oh that screen. It’s gorgeous, HD gaming in the palm of your hand is truly here. 3D games like Wipeout 2048 and Killzone: Mercenary move smoothly and look close to what you would expect on a PS3, while 2D games a la Rayman: Origins and Spelunky look exactly as the developers intended. You can also play the PSP and PSone titles bound to your Playstation Network account; they got rid of the UMD drive so you still can’t play your physical PSP games but it’s great to see some sort of backward compatibility attempted. I’ve beat the fact that there are two analog sticks into the ground, but this is the first handheld we’ve had with them out of the box and it does wonders for the feel of control. Before you had to arrange you hand into a cramping claw shape or use the face buttons to look around in a shooter and neither one of those is satisfying. Sony switched out the cross media bar that was present on the PSP and PS3 for an icon based touch screen interface that gets the job done. You’ve got control and good looking games on a pretty powerful platform, sounds too good to be true doesn’t it?

Here we go; the Vita tries to do too much. I’m not too sure the back panel touch screen was the greatest innovation. Sure, it can be used as a gimmick or help with quick time events but when it all boils down to are gimmicks and game features no one likes. The proprietary memory cards show their ugly heads again, and this time they can cost quite a bit. On a system where they’re trying to push digital downloads (the physical games don’t even have paper manuals or inserts) you’d think they’d try to reduce the entrance cost to make it more appealing to the average consumer. 3G through AT&T sounds like maybe a good idea, but in reality there are enough WiFi hotspots around where you can connect if you need to. Adding a SIM card to a device that isn’t my phone is pretty useless, the phone goes with me everywhere and I’m not into paying extra for adding a gaming device that primarily uses my home wireless. The majority of gripes I have are non gaming centric, I bought this thing to play games and it does that well.

If you plan on drinking the Sony Kool-Aid it makes the most sense to register for a PSN Plus account. Pay $50 a year and you get access to premium content and it’s likely to play a similar role to XBOX Live Gold in the next generation. The bright side to this is that you get full games to play on all of your connected systems, it pays for itself really quickly with titles for your PS3, PSP, Vita, and soon to be PS4. You spent $60 on Grand Theft Auto V already, take the plunge. The full programs and reduced prices on software rotate out every week to keep it fresh.

If you couldn’t tell I’m pretty happy with my Playstation Vita and I recommend a purchase for anyone interested. I know there’s no Pokemon to be had here, but there is a gravity shifting girl with a cat. I seriously hope the Vita catches on just so I have more games to play on it. 

A Drift, At Seas.

We have a new console generation on the horizon and that means there are some extremely impressive looking racing games on their way! The new Forza and something called Drive Club look to show us how next gen (or not so next gen) these new pieces of entertainment center hardware render multi colored blurs. Car simulations have been extremely popular since the PS1 era, but sometimes you just want to drive an unrealistic power boat through an unrealistic track and love every second. Today we fight Hyper Realism!

With respect for the new arrivals we look at another racing launch title. Do you remember where you were on 9.9.99? Probably in line to buy Final Fantasy VIII looking over at the stack of brand new Dreamcasts wishing you had an extra $199 to buy one. C’mon, Sonic Adventure was still part of the “Cool Sonic” golden age. Then you remember that awesome racer with boats you played last time you were at the mall, no way could it be ported to a home system but the Dreamcast can do it!

I probably seem like I’m phoning this one in; but seriously, what’s there to hate about Hydro Thunder? You get exactly what you see. Everything is bonkers, but in such a fun way. From the crazy time based boosts that double as a battering ram to wreck other racers and impressive water that doesn’t quite meet Wave Race standards; Hydro Thunder is the premier power boat racer.

Sure, the polygonal graphics on a 14 year old game are pretty dated. The visuals occupy that place somewhere between the Playstation and Playstation 2’s capability expected with the hardware. There’s no real career mode other than finishing races in the top 3 to unlock more boats and tracks with a decent for the time total of 13 tracks and 13 boats. At its core there is only a bare bones arcade racer, and for some that may not be enough.

Next time you’re driving across country and decide that you’re tired of driving a car, drive ultra unrealistic power boats instead. You know you’ve seen plenty of these arcade cabinets at truck stops the nation over. Hydro Thunder is giant pile of stupid fun that should be played, even if your butt is already numb from sitting too long.

Things Come In Three Sets of Three.

It’s been well known that the fear of waking up in unfamiliar surroundings is the basis for a great story. This is why there are so many movies that have you on the edge of your seat for the big reveal at the end. Nothing is more enticing and scary than the unknown, so today we encounter digital roots.

I’ve had 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors for the Nintendo DS in my backlog for some time but hadn’t played it due to reading ridiculously long books by George R.R. Martin and wanted a less “strenuous” experience while gaming. I’m happy to report that I slogged through those and am now free to read video games. That’s right, 999 is one of those digital novels that get released every week in Japan but has puzzle solving and choose your own adventure elements thrown in. Lucky for us the story is a stronger center than the puzzles.

You wake up in a room with a locked door with a big red 5 painted on it. You kind of remember being attacked by someone in a gas mask. The porthole in the wall suggests you’re on a ship of some sort. There’s a crack in the little window; water slowly starts to seep in before blowing out the rest of the glass and a torrent of ocean threatens your life. How’s that for a cold open? Solve the puzzle by figuring out digital roots and running upstairs. Digital roots were something you did in pre algebra where you add all the digits in a number together until you get a single digit. The number 786’s digital root is 7+8+6=21 and then 2+1=3; so the root is 3. On the upper deck you meet the other 8 characters.

999 relies quite a bit on its strong cast to convey the story, everyone is there for a reason and of course you have no idea where to begin. Everyone has a numbered bracelet they are identified with. This is where the genius in the story telling is, the doors in the game only open when the digital root of the people that enter match the number painted on it. This causes the party to split up based on what door you want to choose and you learn a little bit about each person as you are stuck solving puzzles with them.

The puzzles on the other hand aren’t the worst of a million “escape the room” flash games you’ve likely played on the net. Most rooms can be solved by touching everything and using every item in every way the game will let you. No cat mustaches here. Just touch the environment and if you take too long you’ll get more specific hints; when in doubt use a digital root or alphanumeric code, the game will teach you alphanumeric too. You’re stuck until you make it through the door with a “9” on it.

There are six different endings possible depending on what rooms you choose to go through. Yes, this means you have to replay the “book” multiple times; the best thing about this is that you can skip all text you’ve already seen by holding right on the D-pad! There is a metric ton of text here, that right button is your best friend. If you have to go through a room again on another play through the puzzle is exactly the same with no differences and it can be really annoying to solve the first few rooms several times.

I had a great time playing through this title, even with all of the text. The characters were strange enough to make you want to know more and the endings are radically different. If you’ve got a long commute, are a passenger on a road trip, or are out of fantasy books that double as bludgeoning weapons pick it up. It got a reprint when the sequel (Virtue’s Last Reward) came out on 3DS and Vita last year so it’s easy to find. You know you want to see where the Nonary Game goes…

Would You Like To Play A Story?

When was the last time you walked through an empty house? Remember what that felt like? Have you ever been to your parents’ new house shortly after they've moved? It’d be pretty unsettling if no one was home to greet you. Today we fight with atmosphere.

  

Storytelling has been around since the beginning of everything and we have adapted every one of our cultural advances to convey a tale. Pictures told stories before words did and actors wove tales before they were preserved on film. Until recently getting a compelling message across in a video game was difficult because it got in the way of the core gameplay. Gone Home is a recent indie release that not only manages to captivate you in its narrative but makes it the core gameplay.

You arrive in the middle of the night at the rather large house your parents and sister have moved into while you were abroad for a year in Europe. No one is home and the air is not quite right. Boxes are stacked in various places which makes the dwelling feel not quite lived in. The unease in the atmosphere is so thick that you’ll be searching everywhere for a light switch and every item has been fully rendered to the point where it can be picked up and rotated. In a time where it seems like every indie game is a callback to retro graphics it’s nice to see such realistic lighting and modeling.

The game takes place in 1994 which is a brilliant move. This was the time before everyone had regular access to the internet and calling outside of your zip code (let alone country) cost quite a bit of money. The family has recorded TV shows and movies on blank VHS tapes and music mixes are on cassette tapes; I remember living in these times and they’ve nailed the feel. The items you find in the house are extremely well thought out as almost everything is relevant, at one point you find a school assignment that was completed by your younger sister and later find the same assignment you completed years before and it illustrates the very different personalities better than any descriptive text could.

There are several plot lines running through the house. The younger sister’s is told through what sounds like journal entries as you progress room to room and feels like the front and center narrative. The incredible aspect is that the other items around the house tell you about the other situations in the household. So pay attention, this is video game storytelling at its finest.

After praising Gone Home all this time I did have one gripe about it. It’s the price. $20 for a game where everything can be seen in under 3 hours is kind of a hard pill to swallow. I don’t regret my purchase at all but I worry that people are less likely to buy at such a premium. That’s it. The experience is one of the most fulfilling game stories I've ever played through.

I was kind of surprised at how I was expecting the worst case scenario the entire time. Maybe we need to look at the other stories we pay attention to, not everything needs to get “Law and Order dark”. Take an evening and play Gone Home, there’s a reason it’s going to be talked about for quite a while.

Xeno-what?

Xenoblade Chronicles is an excellent game. Many would say it’s the best RPG on the Wii, possibly the best RPG of last generation. There’s been a lot of attention attached to the title lately not based on its merit but its price. GameStop is selling pre-owned copies for $90. Let’s fight corporate profits.

I went on and on about gaming finances a while ago and it looks like a lot of what I said rings true about the used games market. Let’s have a look at what people are saying and the situation surrounding this “controversy”.

The internet is up in arms! Vloggers from all sides of Youtube and bloggers from the ends of the earth are screaming “Betrayal!” from whatever rooftop they can find. No one ever yells at the multitude of resellers on Ebay who’ve been hawking this game for over $100 for quite some time, GameStop just decided to price some of their games accordingly. Back in the days of the PSone they sold some used games at a premium like Dragon Ball GT Final Bout and Final Fantasy Tactics before its Greatest Hits reprint, so there’s really nothing new here besides the marketing.

When did Xenoblade become vintage? This is probably what bothers me the most about the current situation. The game was released April 6, 2012, that’s just over 16 months before this writing. It’s kind of hard to believe a game that came out a month after Mass Effect 3 is a vintage title; I’ll agree that it’s an extremely high quality game but it’s not quite dated yet.

What is a used game? I’ve wondered that many times, but I think it’s the sticker in the top right of the cover of the game. How many times have you purchased the last copy of a game where they hand you the display case with a sticker closing it to satisfy the “sealed” requirements? A lot of these “resurfacing” copies of Xenoblade are spotless with working Nintendo Club codes; they just lack the shrink wrap. I’ve never seen any declaration as to what constitutes what makes a game used. I guess GameStop owns the physical property and can do what they like with it. Would you slap a sticker on it and sell it for $40 less? It’s business, plain and simple.

GameQuestDirect is a company that reprints certain games under contract with the original publisher with a 50% splint in sales. So at least the original company is getting some sort of revenue from the units shipped. Several times before they’ve rerun games that were going for a premium in the second hand market (Guitarooman, Rhapsody, REZ, Fatal Frame series) and fulfilled demand to the point that drove the price down. Seems like a good deal; it’s a legit copy, you can find it clean, and avoid crazy resell prices. Here’s where it gets fishy, GameStop is the only company in the US that can distribute new copies of Xenblade so they essentially control 100% of the supply. Nintendo gave them a contractual monopoly.

The reseller’s market has determined the price of high demand games for years now, and the big corporations know it. With the obvious path to primarily digital distribution for video game consoles in the future GameStop has seen a few areas to get a few more dollars before their business model becomes “vintage”. 

A Quest Draws Near-er

A few months ago I went on about how much fun I had playing the original Dragon Warrior it was a pleasant surprise while I was looking for a history lesson. Dragon Quest instantly became one of my favorite 8-bit Nintendo games and piqued my interest in the other games. Today we no longer fight slimes alone.

After a pretty impressive title screen Dragon Warrior 2 starts out much like the first one with the descendant of great hero readying for an epic quest in a king’s throne room. Once he’s acquired some starting equipment and healing items; multiple slimes attack at once outside of the castle. This is different, that single file line of monsters waiting to jump you has widened to up to 6 foes per encounter. That’s a game changer folks, it’s still one action per round per participant but now turn order plays a much larger role. Fear not, there may be multiple monsters in each encounter but you have your two cousins to join in the fray. Each of you has a unique skill set; the main hero is all brawn with the use of all of the most powerful equipment, the male cousin is a mixture of magic and physical power, and the girl has the most powerful magic in the game.

Comparing Dragon Quest 2 with its predecessor is pretty impressive, it looks like they took everything from the first game and made it bigger. The first noticeable change is the upgraded battle system that adds a new layer of strategy to battles. Difficulty has been ramped up quite a bit, but not any worse any other RPG from the late 80’s. The world map is 4 times larger with a ship to traverse the seas. You can even travel to the island and visit the castles from the first game, the Dragonlord’s descendant still lives in the same castle and encourages your fight against a the new evil.

There are growing pains. Oh the growing pains. Having multiple party members with different roles is cool at first until you realize the balancing is totally off. The main hero is amazing; he hits really hard and can take punishment like a champ. The female is semi useful once she gets the better healing spells and attack magic but will fall in a single hit. Your male cousin is useful at first, but later on his magic and physical abilities aren’t up to snuff save for being the only character with a revive spell. Your party is pretty much reduced to a tank and two heal bots. My other major gripe with the game is the success rate of instant death spells; this can be great for you but sucks when you get ambushed in one of the final areas and your fully refreshed party is leveled before they can act by a monster that poses no threat otherwise. Deaths like that happened pretty often in the endgame and make it really tempting to throw your controller.

I’ve heard that the SNES and Game Boy remakes of the game help with the balance issues in the game, so you might want to pick up one of those in place of the original NES cartridge. Dragon Warrior 2 isn’t the best game in the series; actually it’s likely close to the bottom of the stack. I’d recommend playing Dragon Quest 1 or 3 instead if you have to play an NES Dragon Warrior, but it’s interesting to see the bridge between the two. 

Ready Player Book Report

What if the real world sucked? Sucked so hard that no one lived in it. Everyone dons a visor and special gloves and is whisked away into an OASIS that started as the most elaborate MMO ever made and became some sort of super realistic version of Second Life. When we’re not the only ones fighting we fight to get there first.

Wade Watts is your typical unpopular, overweight, and poor protagonist with a wonderfully alliterative name. Wade’s character is pretty two dimensional, he’s obsessed with a game wide contest that mostly resembles Willy Wonka’s (I see what you did there) search for an heir and escaping whatever analog life he has. We learn through his routine that the world is in disarray; there are mobile homes stacked on top of each other in future slums, everything worthwhile seems to be done in an online environment, and he’s stupidly obsessed with the 80’s.

The universe setup in this novel is extremely well done and thought out. The actions of the few real world characters convey the dire state of the economy and values of the common man. Almost half of the story is world crafting and Wade’s quest through the first stage of the contest, and I was satisfied with where everything is going. At one point I was pretty convinced this will be a movie. Then the second half of the book happened. Deus Ex Machina is a literary term you remember from High School English class that involves the writer using some sort of divine intervention to explain themselves out of a corner, it translates to “God from machine” for crying out loud. This is Deus Ex Machina the book. Almost every problem presented is explained away within a few pages of its introduction, aside from some clever foreshadowing that involves arcades and quarters that made me grin when I figured it out before the resolution.

I mentioned the 80’s earlier. I was born in the 80’s and remember a bunch of these references, but there is a line. It’s obvious that there was a mountain of research done to cross check facts and relevancies but all of that knowledge is presented in lists. The references were fun at first; the first page of the story quotes Bill Murray in Ghostbusters! There are several witty “stealth” references that escape over exposition (the Bill and Ted phone booth) but they’re few and far between. So what started as cheeky Psych-like jabs turned into chunks of text you could probably skip and miss nothing. George R. R. Martin loves lemon cakes and capons; Ernest Cline loves the 80’s. This is overkill in the highest order.

I hate to see a promising story turn so hard downhill at the midpoint. The only reason I kept reading was from the interest in the world that took place outside of OASIS, and seemingly like its inhabitants we leave it behind once the video game truly begins. The central ideas are solid, and I wanted to like it; but in the end I can’t really recommend Ready Player One to anyone.

Goddesses Are Greedy

It’s been a couple of weeks since I said anything about one game in particular. You could say that maybe I’ve developed a mildish case of Attention Deficit Disorder in my later years and some generous soul created a handheld game that even I can play! Today we fight for about 30 seconds!

Half Minute Hero’s Hero 30 starts out pretty standardly: you are a youth with spikey blonde hair who might have to save the world…until a 30 second timer appears on the top of the screen, runs out and the world ends. Out of nowhere the Time Goddess shows up and tells you that she can reset time with little effort and will help you in your quest, as long as you pay her increasing rates she’ll refrain from letting the universe collapse on itself. Evil Lord 30 has you taking the role of one of the many stage bosses from Hero 30 who’s searching to turn is beautiful (she’s the only creation more attractive than he) girlfriend back into a human from a curse that made her a bat. Princess 30 has a young girl leave her castle while being carried by soldiers to collect something and return before her 30 curfew is up. Finally, Knight 30 involves a valiant soldier protecting a sage in 30 second escort missions. There are plenty of different game modes to mess around with while the meat of game in Hero 30, which is the most realized of the lot.  I’d recommend skipping around rather than binging each mode to keep it fresh.

Hero 30 is a total blast to experience with a copious amount of self aware dialog, secrets, titles, and hidden paths throughout the campaign. The graphics are some kind of pixelated awesome from a time before we were over saturated with them in indies. There’s the option to go back and play previous missions (but you can’t bring equipment from later, cause you know…logical time lines in video games) and roll through the random battle that play out like early Y’s bumper car matches. Time stops when you enter a village to let you purchase life restoring items, equipment, and time extensions. This portion of the game knows exactly what it is and does what it needs to do, you couldn’t ask any more from it.

Evil Lord 30 is an interesting rock/paper/scissors RTS styled attempt. You summon monsters to do your bidding which usually consists of defeat all enemies or destroy statues. The minions you summon come in three varieties of strong, fast, and ranged mapped to a different button: strong beats fast, fast beats ranged, and ranged beats strong. The Time Goddess is back, she’ll take all of the money you’ve picked on the current level to return the clock to 30 seconds. There are no experience levels, titles to collect, or alternate paths and it really hurts the replay value in and otherwise fun to play mode.

I’ll get this out of the way; Princess 30 is the worst of the bunch. The story is cute; she’s trying to help her kingdom by retrieving essential items that seem to be only a short trip outside the castle while wielding her magical cross bow that changes her personality. It plays like a shmup, and I’m a huge scrolling shooter fan; it’s just a not a very compelling design. There seems to be more of an emphasis on moving into time extending zones and dodging trees than shooting things. 30 soldiers carry our princess on a litter and fall out when you take damage affecting her traveling speed; naturally you have 30 seconds to complete your task so each servant is crucial. Once again, there are no bonuses or reason to replay any of these stages at all; this may be a blessing in this case.

You must protect the Sage in Knight 30 while he casts a 30 second spell. It’s pretty much a glorified (30) escort quests. Pick the Sage up and move him around, set traps to thwart enemies, and body slam your way to saving the world one chanted spell at a time. This set of levels in the game is fairly forgettable compared to the greatness of Hero 30, the difference of Evil Lord 30, and the offensiveness of Princess 30; as expected by now there’s no need to try and remember by playing it later.

I loved the time I spent with Hero 30 (and later Hero 300 and Hero 3). The entire experience is crafted in self aware humor that takes jabs at convention. It was obvious that a ton of time went into the planning and production (the concept art alone is awesome to see before the bosses were pixelized) to make the game wonderful. I just wish the same care could have been put into the other modes, or they should have been cut entirely to flesh out the Hero campaign even further. The game has had two re-releases on Xbox Live Arcade and Steam that I've never played that have needlessly updated the graphics and focus primarily on the main Hero levels. A sequel was released in Japan in 2011, but it never left the country; I know PSP games aren't region locked, but it’s a franchise that definitely benefits from the witty Western localization. I encourage anyone to pick some form of this title up, you won’t be disappointed with most of it!

It Hurts Your Wallet

There have been too many complaints lately about the cost of gaming. It’s understandable that someone would have reservations any time the numerical price of their hobby goes up, but after so many years at a fixed price it’s kind of hard to argue in favor of the consumer. The days where a new AAA Playstation title was $40 are well behind us, although the costs of developing a game have skyrocketed while buying the damn things has never been cheaper. Today we fight the economy.

As a gamer I can understand how shelling out a higher number of Dollars every year for a new game can seem like you’re getting a raw deal, but you have to consider cost. This is a world where a game (Homefront by THQ) can sell over a million copies and be deemed a failure that almost bankrupts a company. In some cases maybe the game is just bad or the amount of money spent on it was too much to recover. When Tomb Raider was released earlier this year it sold over 3.4 million copies, was the second best selling game in the month of March, and was loved by critics; it was deemed a commercial failure. No wonder Square-Enix keeps rehashing Final Fantasy titles, they seem to make money no matter what. The accountants at these companies need to get their act together with better projections or at least more realistic sales figures. The end user isn’t to blame for poor money handling, but in the end it will affect the price we pay to cover previous losses.

Another argument can be made about the devaluation of the games market in general. We have Steam sales and used game stores all across the country that tends to coax the mental aspect of game purchasing. Every season Steam has huge multi week sales where they sell off digital versions of well known games at “so crazy you have to buy!” prices, we’re talking up to 90% off in some cases. In the world of PC games this is a godsend to the gamers who would rather wait a few months to nab a $60 at $30 instead. Going back to the second paragraph, hopefully those company accountants projected higher volume to make up for a lower price. While physical games are your property to with what you please, used game sales do hurt the industry. None of the money you spend goes back to the machine of publisher and developers that created it. GameStop pushes trade ins and pre owned sales as they are almost completely profit on their end, any situation where you can purchase new stock at a reduced price with your current stock is a total win…it’s like trading someone a quarter for a dollar. In the end the consumer pays a slightly lower price (did you notice that gap has gotten smaller too?), but all of the profits are kept in house. Some of that Xbox ONE DRM is starting to make a little more sense, although they went about the wrong way in every aspect.

Lastly, let’s talk inflation. Everyone should know that money from years ago is worth more than it is today. Costs of living have gone up, the dollar has gone down, and Congress can’t really figure out what to do with itself. The NES came out in 1985 and a new game cart was (for simplicity’s sake) $50, that’s $108.51 in today’s money. Yeah, that’s your wireless bill. The $40 Playstation games mentioned earlier in 1999 would equal $56.06 today at a much lower cost of creation. Cartridge games with a save function are the biggest shocks with Chrono Trigger (SNES) and Phantasy Star IV (GEN) released at $80+ in 1995 which is $122.57 today! With the price of software being so static over the last decade there’s no wonder the psychological conditioning has people complaining about $60 games today. Inflation seems to be increasing at an exponential rate and that’s bad for everybody.

There has never been a better time to be gamer. There are so many options when it comes to purchasing what is wanted at a reasonable rate compared to yesteryear. Support the studios you want to keep in business, but still only pay what you think is the right price for what you want. Capitalism, your money is your vote. 

(All inflation data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.)

Nostalgia Bombs

Why is it that developers seem to be trying to cash in on my love for the games of my childhood? Is it easier to make a game like this? Is this because development teams are getting smaller? Why do I keep giving them money? Tonight we fight our memories.

If you look through game online game catalogs nowadays, you see a ton of games that invoke the style of yesteryear. It’s cool to see pixels around still as they definitely age better than three dimensional graphics from the same period; you show someone Super Metroid next to Star Fox and Samus will win every time. What makes this even better is when someone takes dead mainstream genres and modernizes them like Super Meatboy with precision platforming or Jamestown with old shumps. Each release potentially exposes someone to what gaming used to be, keeping in mind 12 year olds are younger than the Playstation 2 at this point.

So nostalgia can be great! But what about when keeping it old school goes wrong? Rabid fanboys (and girls) hurt the community. We've all been annoyed by them, Sega vs. Nintendo and Crash Bandicoot vs. Kameo; the majority of us could care less. It’s interesting how these scenarios mirror real life, I like to imagine a Sonic vs. Mario filibuster on Capitol Hill.

On another hand, how many times have you gone back to a game that just wasn't as good as you remember it? Sometimes it’s as simple as the version you know and love was terribly localized (Barf!) or poorly ported (anything Neo Geo) from another source. Seriously, go back and play an RPG (Legend of Dragoon) from the PSone era and try to follow every facet of the story while reading the wiki afterward. I guarantee you missed a few things. Badly designed games that got popular are a reality as well; everybody has a bad game (heh…Boogerman) they played the hell out of without knowing better.

I’m getting old. In gamer years I’m practically ancient. It’s probably due to the fact that these “retro” gaming developers are my age and played the same games I did. In the next few years we’ll see independent projects that resemble later systems; A Hat in Time is already happening for 3D platforming…I wonder when we’ll see “Harkens back to the days of Call of Duty!”

We should tread carefully when it comes to our pasts. Do yourself a favor and don’t download Final Fantasy 7 from Steam (keep the memory pristine), install Rogue Legacy instead. Make some new memories with retro inspired games!

A Six Hour History Lesson

If you have an evening or two to kill and have a history of playing various Role Playing Games, you should probably give Evoland a shot. It’s a simple concept that started as a flash game that ended up being green lit for mass consumption of its target audience. You begin with the ability to walk to the right and build an entire adventure from there. Let’s fight through the ages.

In the beginning there was green scale. And only green scale. The lucky were able to walk in only the cardinal directions of up, down, left, and right. Inventions aren’t dreamt up by the gifted, they are found in treasure chests left by the programmer gods. The world changes upon opening these boxes. Sound came into being followed shortly by color.

In the first area you are fighting simple monsters in the old school Zelda style, and until you unlock the privilege of having heart containers don’t get hit or you’ll have to start over. It’s really not an issue because you unlock things so quickly you may not even be used to the last change. After you leave the forest you go to the world map and fight in SNES Final Fantasy style (complete with obnoxious encounter rate), and later unlock experience points. After the creation of forced dialog options and finding the companion character, you quickly run through a dungeon for each play style that’s been introduced so far.

This is where the game introduces the third dimension and turns into a love letter to Final Fantasy 7. Sometime when I run out of ideas I’ll post what I think of that game. The pre rendered backgrounds, airship, and main plot points mirror FF7. Final Fantasy worship aside, there are a couple of areas where you have to switch between 2D and 3D to solve puzzles. These puzzles are easily the best part of the game. Hitting crystals swaps between dimensions to let you bypass certain areas and change the environment to progress. 

Then there’s a tacked on Diablo dungeon thrown in there, it’s not terribly realized.

In the endgame you’re given an airship (that looks a lot like the Highwind) and the world is opened up. There are even a couple optional dungeons and side quests. If you like collecting things there are treasure chests littered throughout the game filled with stars that have no use and character cards used in the Double Twin (Triple Triad…get it?!) to artificially pad out the already short game time. When you’re ready to face the final boss it’s done like an action game, kind of a departure from the RPG theme throughout the rest of the game.

This is one of those indie titles that you have a good time for the duration, but afterwards you have the “Yep, that was a game.” feeling. I’d recommend people play it they have some extra time and maybe find the game at a discount. It would really be something to see some sort of epic told in this fashion to create a complete product instead of being just a novelty. 

A Quest Draws Near

Quite recently I found myself living in a hotel for work purposes with a ridiculous amount of time to kill. My birthday came around and my loving girlfriend purchased a Hyperkin Retron 3 system. Access to a large retro game store and the internet may have created a monster that should not be. Today we fight slimes. A lot of slimes.

Dragon Warrior is a very charming game that I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to into. To be honest the game hasn’t really aged that well but it still stands as a streamlined version of the RPG’s of the late 80’s. It’s clear a lot of the design decisions were based on computer based RPG’s that came before; the perspective is top down like Ultima, the entire game is tile based like Wizardry, and the story is nothing more than “Kill the Evil Wizard, Save the Princess” like real life.

 The monsters of Alefgard are polite enough come at you one at a time. Every encounter is the hero versus a single enemy, which is fortunate because our descendant of Erdrick is pretty adept at dueling. The player character learns offensive and defensive magic, hits like a truck, and dons the most powerful equipment in the land to kill monsters for experience and profit…to buy more equipment and learn more spells to kill even stronger enemies one at a time. Expect a bit of a grind, but while encounters can be frequent most can resolved just as fast.

The original Dragon Quest is very out dated. Graphics aren’t important, the game plays well enough. I’m sorry to admit that playing NES games on a clone console makes your 8-bit adventures sound like ass, so I can’t really comment on the status of that. The menus are obtuse; you have to open the base menu to get anything done, like talking or going up or down stairs. I understand stairs can be tricky when you are traveling alone, but when you walk around on the world map and automatically enter towns and caves there’s no reason you should have pick it from a menu. Finding certain items without a guide might seem a little difficult for newer gamers, but the overall difficulty is not as tough as other games in the genre.

I came into this game expecting a history lesson. I got one. I loved every minute of it. There’s just something  about this game where you don’t question yourself and just agree “But, thou must!”

Why Do We Fight?

In the wake of a new generation of console wars I realized I have an opinion that hasn't really seemed to be voiced. Yes, I'm a grown man that loves his video games. Yes, I feel like I have a stake in whatever these corporations make available to us to fuel this hobby. Too bad I there doesn't seem to be anything inventive going on this generation, save terrible press conferences and retractions. Microsoft has completely alienated its consumer base while Sony seems to want make things easier for indie developers to get down the pipe. All the chatter seems to be about these issues. To be honest I don't plan on spending four or five hundred dollars for a new console at launch where it looks like everything that will be done looks like it could have been done on the generation before it. 

When we were graced with the change from 8 to 16 bit gaming sound, graphic quality, and controller design seemed to improve leaps and bounds. When we went from 16 to 32 bit gaming the third dimension was a revolution. The jump to the 128 bit times brought us the beginnings of online play and a huge jump in storage media. And this last generation was the unveiling of the HD experience. Where are we going from here? I can't really see anything truly next gen happening here (I don't buy cloud computing yet, bandwidth is still quite expensive).

Why are we fighting over this anyway? The days of SEGA vs. Nintendo are long gone, games cost so much money to make that titles that move millions of units are considered failures, and it seems the masses are just fine with buying similar games every year. We can't completely blame the public where we blame the economy for everything. Sure games are technically cheaper than they've ever been, but now people work harder to keep what they have; buying multiple $60 games every month (or several a year) can't be expected. There's a reason some of the sleeper hits from the last few years didn't get widespread discovery until prices went down.

Alright you can fight. I'll watch. From my backlog of games from the 8 bit era until now. I really mean to finish Contra without the Konami Code at some point...