The Curmudgeonly Gamer

One Box to Rule the Dull

2013-05-27T07:00:00.001-07:00

So, this past week saw a seemingly endless deluge of negative press for Microsoft's reveal of their next foray into console gaming, XBOX One.

Let's just be clear - that criticism was wholly deserved.

Microsoft has made it clear that they want to rule your living room. According to their own press conference, you can seamlessly switch between playing a game and watching television! Oh, and you can watch television! And sports! And Halo (for five minutes)...and TELEVISION!!!

What Microsoft has done is basically create the world's most expensive CableBox One, capable of doing everything you can already do with another remote, and all for the sake of being your One source for entertainment in the home.

Unfortunately, they have essentially doomed their product to obscurity of the Virtual Boy variety. I hate to be the bearer of bad news (actually, when it comes to XBOX, I love it), but people can already do everything that the XBOX One does for much cheaper, without the nonsense of having to pay a fee to play used games, and without having to have a connection to the Internet with your previous machine.

Now, I've never been a fan of the XBOX. I have always felt it to be an extraneous bit of machinery, about as interesting to me as the Neo Geo. It's not that the machine, itself, is bad - it's just that there's nothing on it that I want to play.

The Kinect, I will admit, is a very cool piece of machinery, and that it's now going to be standard is very "Next Gen," to use the nonsense term used to describe anything newer than the current model of products. It was, however, poorly integrated into gameplay over the course of its late-stage lifespan, and really functions as more of a motion controller...for your television.

Prior to owning an XBOX 360, I would constantly decry its worthlessness. I ran into some extra cash, however, and ended purchasing one with every intention of falling in love with it. Sadly...no.

To date, I own fewer than ten games for the system, and about once a week, I go to the website to check on any new releases for the system, only to be disappointed.

XBOX has built up a fan base that consists almost wholly of 18-35-year-old males (mostly white) who enjoy nothing more than cracking open some Nattie Ice, firing up their bongs, and reclining in their beanbags or faux leather sofas to play an EA sports game, shoot some guns, or...not much else.

In fact, I'd go further to say that the system is almost entirely aimed only at the American audience, as few other countries have hopped on the XBOX bandwagon. Hell, in Japan, you can barely give the damned things away, much less expect them to purchase one, and Japan is very likely the culture in which gaming is most integrated into daily life.

Yet another revelation, this past week, was that the XBOX One would be region-locked, meaning that only software purchase from the same country as that of the XBOX console will work with the machine. I'm not really certain why Region-Locking is such a big thing, these days (as Nintendo has hopped on that stupid bandwagon, as well), but there's really no point in locking the XBOX One - few others have any plans to purchase it.

I wasn't really hoping for something new; rather, I was expecting to be pleasantly smug when it came to their big reveal. I did not, however, expect to be dumbfounded by how off the mark Microsoft would be when it comes to gaming.

Given the direction of both Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo looks to be the only company actually dedicated to putting out actual games, and simply dedicating Apps to deal with other types of media.

As someone who grew up through the video game era, I got into playing games with Nintendo, and it looks like I'm going to be sticking with them, in the long run.

The Vicious Cycle of Broken Game Industry Logic

2013-04-09T23:23:00.002-07:00

I have been a game enthusiast for the vast majority of my life, excepting the few years when I was too young to actually play the games, and one of the newer trends of the last decade in gaming that has driven me up the wall is the circular logic of game production companies and consumer interest.

What do I mean by that? Well, let's take a look at the most recent (and, to me, irksome) example of a game creator using circular logic to justify his refusal to localize two games for Western audiences:

In a recent interview with Kotaku, the Tales of... series creator, Hideo Baba, informed the world that there were no plans to localize Tales of Hearts R or Tales of Innocence R:

"Unfortunately, at this present time we don't have any plans to release any of the Vita titles," Baba said. "One of the main reasons is, unfortunately the PlayStation Vita is doing relatively poorly in North America, so it's one of those things that if the numbers increased considerably, then it's something we could consider."

Really? That is maddeningly stupid.

So, the PlayStation Vita is Sony's latest attempting to beat out Nintendo in the handheld gaming market, and a little more than a year out the gate, it's very clear that this is unlikely to happen.

Now, don't get me wrong - I'm a big fan of early adoption when it comes to new systems, especially if they show promise - and the PS Vita does a lot of things right; but, for everything it does right in terms of design and output, it makes up for by doing something wrong:

The graphics output is admittedly better than that of the PSP...which would be more apparent if those graphics got the chance to shine in the form of games.

You see, it's great to boast that your system has the potential for amazing graphics, but when the games released for the system are really only a bit better than their PSP counterparts, it's just not enough to pique the interest of anyone other than the most hardcore of game enthusiasts who will notice those differences.

Granted, it's very early in the system's lifespan, and graphics don't generally get noticeably better until later in a console's lifespan, but that's no excuse for certain gaming studios to simply port PSP versions of games to the Vita when it has better graphics capacity.

The LEGO games, for example, are a prime example of games that could have been better made to take advantage of the Vita's higher graphics capacity. It wouldn't have been that hard to scale back the resolution on the graphics from the PS3 version and make it playable on the Vita; instead, we get the PSP version with slightly upscaled graphics.

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The Vita has a great touchscreen...but, it also has an entirely worthless backside touchscreen.

Not to sound like a Luddite (or like Dolores Umbridge), but innovation for the sake of innovation should be discouraged.

I'm not certain what Sony was thinking, but who on earth felt the need to include a touchscreen on the back of a handheld console? Who thought this was going to be either useful or useable? Not only does the addition make it annoying to hold the console, but it makes the thing a bitch to store and transport without scratching the back of it.

And there really haven't been a whole lot of games that make a lot of use for the damned thing.

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Which brings us to the next few things on the list of reasons why the Vita isn't popular...well, anywhere:

It's too expensive in every market, at every price point, for both versions. After a price drop in Japan, sales of the system soared, but prior to that, it sold fewer consoles than the XBOX in Japan. And this is what makes Baba's statement about popularity even more infuriating - to say that they won't localize games in the West because the system isn't that popular, here, is ridiculous; the Vita isn't popular in Japan, either, and yet, they remade not one, but two games in the series for an unpopular, overpriced system.

In addition to the exorbitant price point, there just aren't very many games for the system that are either interesting or worth buying in the NA and EU markets. Don't believe me? Take a trip to your local video game retailer, and count the number of available titles for the Vita.

Go ahead...I'll give you a moment.

...

Okay, I'm impatient, so I did it for you.

I went to the Gamestop website and did a search for Vita games with the following parameters: All Games; New

This is what I found: 64 games

Of those, 32 are "Currently Unavailable Online," 9 are "Pre-Release," and several of those games are different versions of the same game.

It's been over a year, and there are barely any damned games out for your system in America. How do you expect people to be interested in your system if you don't release any games for it?

Which leads us back to Hideo Baba's argument about not localizing games. Why would you argue that a system isn't popular enough to localize when part of the problem is that there aren't enough games out to make the system popular?

It's that circular logic that prevents the Vita from being a truly great handheld console.

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And so, we're here, a year later, and really no better off than we were a year ago. The system's not popular, so they don't release more games in the West, so the system doesn't become more popular.

Nintendo Fanboys Shocked That 3rd Party Developers Aren't Jumping on the Wii U Bandwagon

2013-02-03T21:24:00.001-08:00

If there's one thing as a gamer with which I have a major issue, it's the concept of Fanboy-ism. Fanboys are people whom, for whatever reason, back their developer, console, handheld, et cetera ad infinitum to the point of insanity. The object of their fanatical allegiance can do no wrong, and anyone who disagrees with them just has no taste, no idea what they're talking about, or is too dense to understand the genius that is x.

XBOX 360 adherents rave about the system like it's the best thing since the HDMI port; Nintendo fanboys never stop going on about how 3rd Party titles always bypass their favorite Nintendo systems, handheld or console. I don't often run across PlayStation fanboys, though, as their systems really do seem to have something for everybody.

As an owner of all of these systems (and sometimes two or three of the same ones), I can honestly say that I'm not that impressed with XBOX or Nintendo, most of the time.

I grew up playing the Nintendo Entertainment Systems (NES) and the Super Nintendo (SNES); for me, the greatest days in gaming are long since behind us. Those games were the pioneers - the games that set the stage for good home gaming design (and bad design), and to which I return when I need a pick me up.

Call me a luddite, but I just have little desire to play games that don't hold my attention for longer than a few hours. I don't care so much about graphics, as much as I do about story, gameplay, and replay value.

I've owned an XBOX for nearly a year, and it does a lot of things well. Play DVDs? Meh. It's okay. Motion controls? The Kinect is pretty awesome.

But, want to play anything other than an FPS or a Sports game? Your options are pretty limited. To date, I have maybe six games for the system, and I don't think I've played any of them with the same kind of dedication I've paid my 3DS, DS, or PS3.

If you want a JRPG, that narrows the field down to a handful of decent titles worth playing, which is understandable, given the XBOX's almost wholesale rejection by the Japanese market.

My Wii? I've owned that since 2008, and frankly, I use it more for the Virtual Console than I do any of the current games. The Zelda games for the system, though critically acclaimed and certainly well-designed, just don't feel like Zelda, to me. I don't care about the Twilight Princess, or the Sky People.

As for any JRPG/RPG gaming? Nintendo's handhelds are far superior in terms of their offerings in that regard.

But, the big whine we hear from Nintendo Fanboys (and girls) is that 3rd Party developers don't release games for "core gamers" on Nintendo platforms.

Well, suck it up and go buy a different system.

So, you want the best in games? Go to a different system.

I've had my Wii U since the week it came out, and frankly, it's just not there, yet. Much like the Wii, it's going to take time to get on its feet, and until they come out with more games, better games, and more content, in general, there just isn't going to be a whole lot going on for developers to take the bait.

Nintendo really lost its reputation as the company for hardcore gamers when they lost ground to the PlayStation. Say what you will about the N64's cartridge capabilities, but that's not where the market was, and that wasn't what consumers wanted.

When they finally went to a disc system with the Gamecube, it was with a proprietary disc that was awkward, and in a system that clearly had enough room for a full-size disc. And the graphics capacity just wasn't there.

When they released the Wii, they broke ground, but presented and marketed it as a family-friendly system for casual gamers. And it worked. It gained them that market. But, still, it was kids' stuff for "serious gamers."

In fact, the only arena wherein Nintendo remains the uncontested master is the handheld gaming market. Sure, you won't get the best graphics money can buy, but you get good, solid games, and a shit ton of games that interest other gamers.

So, any image that Nintendo has that makes developers think twice about bringing hardcore content to their consoles is an image that they, themselves, have crafted.

If you want more proof of that, go to Nintendo's website.

This is a website designed for kids; designed to be family-friendly. Everything is bright and colorful, and bubbly and happy. This is a site that no web monitor would filter out.

Now, go to the PlayStation website.

Aside from the very creepy Sack Boy, there's a guy point a handgun on the front page. Well...unless you're in the NRA, I doubt that's a family website you'd send your kids to to check out their newest system.

Now, to the XBOX 360 website.

Call of Duty, Gears of War, Skulls of the Shogun. The only thing family-friendly about this front page is the picture of the family in the tiny square talking about family-friendly movies.

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Now, to be fair, all of these consoles release games that are family-friendly, and perfectly appropriate for children. Each of these companies have a bevy of games that parents can get behind their kids playing without fear that they're going to end up shooting up an elementary school.

Unfortunately for the Nintendo Fanboys who want these games on their Wii Us, Sony and Microsoft didn't build their gaming franchise based on video games meant for kids. Nintendo was around longer as a gaming entity, and so they got the unfortunate reputation for putting out games geared towards kids, and if they want to break away from that image, it's going to take a decade or more of hardcore change, and that's not likely to occur.

So...Nintendo Fanboys - start accepting reality, and understand that 3rd Party games don't make their way to the Wii and Wii U because there just isn't that much of a market for the games. These developers know that they have a consistent market with Sony and XBOX, and those gamers aren't very likely to grab a Wii or Wii U just to play Call of Duty.

I'm sorry. Suck it up, and move on.

It's Okay to NOT Like Something...

2012-12-13T03:09:00.003-08:00

I get into arguments all the time; I wouldn't call myself "curmudgeonly," otherwise. Some of the most frequent video game-related arguments I encounter involve one or another aspect of "Fan Boy-ism" - when someone likes everything a company puts out regardless of whether or not it's actually good.

I have, at certain points in my life, been guilty of this sort of fanaticism. For several years, I ate at the trough of Final Fantasy, pretending to like everything that Squaresoft/Square-Enix released, regardless of how great or awful it was. We must, however, eventually put our blind adherence aside and just be honest, not only with ourselves, but with others, as well.

Take, for example, and argument I got into early in 2012, where I asserted that few video games put out music that sticks in your head. Case in point - the Zelda series of games.

I have, for almost my entire life, been a musician. I am a classically trained opera singer, a trumpet/horn player, a fair pianist, and a music arranger for both instrumental and choral music. I have literally thousands of songs stored in my memory, for one reason or another, and I can identify the source, whistle, hum, sing, or play the melody, and give you a time signature, key signature, and count structure for almost any piece that's ever caught my attention. Most of the past twelve years have been spent choreographing movement and equipment work to music. I get music; I understand it; I have a deep connection with it.

The Zelda series has often been the source of several haunting, annoying, and memorable melodies, ranging from the unforgettable overworld theme in the original NES game to the opening theme in A Link to the Past. Ocarina of Time presented us with several irksome ocarina tunes so catchy that I still hear them when I'm trying to go to sleep. Even Windwaker had a few melodies in it that were worth humming.

But, for the life of me, I can't remember a single note from either Twilight Princess or Skyward Sword. Nothing grabbed me as particularly moving, poignant, or memorable. The music was well-written, to be certain, and I won't argue that it was a case of bad composition; but it was utilized so sparsely and poorly that it served only as occasional background noise. It never became a focal piece of the game, and provided the player with a moment that made you pay attention to it.

A heated argument, of course, ensued, and several video links were posted; how could I not find Midna's Theme (or whatever it was called) beautiful and moving?

Well, honestly, the piece, itself, is moving, and were I sitting in a dark room or a concert hall listening to a performance of it, I'd most certainly be moved. However, in the context of the game, it falls largely flat.

And the problem doesn't lie only with the Zelda franchise; Final Fantasy, a series whose soundtracks have spawned countless orchestral arrangements, concerts, CDs, rearrangements, and OSTs, has fallen victim to the badly used music trend.

Even Final Fantasy XII, for all it's flaws, had gameplay-appropriate music, and the occasionally memorable moments in an inexorably tedious game were made almost completely by the soundtrack that accompanied them. Final Fantasy XIII, though? Aside from being a shitty game, the music seems largely like an afterthought.

I'm certain that the composers really went out of their way to come up with a complex and nuanced score, but it is very clear that no one sitting in the room asked anyone outside of the room whether or not the music was effective.

It's okay to not like something, just as it's okay to like something. While cases of "like" are always subjective, there are reasons why certain things become popular where others do not. Much as I loathe Lady Gaga (and her music), her songs are catchy (like the plague); I can't tell you who sings a certain song, but I can probably recite a line or two from it if it's accessible. I'm not a huge fan of Sir Mix-a-Lot, but I can bust out with "Baby Got Back" every time it comes on at Frat Rat Karaoke.

And when I get a video game theme stuck in my head, chances are it's going to be the repetitive, tinny refrain of a classic NES game, where music HAD to be thoughtfully composed to make the best use of the sound chip, rather than an overly complex score written to fill in the gap when you're sitting in front of your screen watching an FMV instead of actively playing. Hell, I often use those video breaks as time to take a piss.

Nintendo Power's Big Leap

2012-12-11T13:08:00.002-08:00

You know, I get it; people are nostalgic for Nintendo Power, and at first, I felt the same way...until I remembered the last issue I picked up.

Maybe I'm showing my age, here, but what Nintendo Power became in this century is a pale shadow of what it once was. I understand that times changed, and Nintendo needed to update its format to meet the needs of current gamers, but at some point in the last decade, it failed to live up to the promise of its name.

I vividly remember getting my first issue of Nintendo Power - the very first issue. It was amazing in terms of what it offered: gaming tips and tricks to give you the "power" to play your "Nintendo." Maps, codes, hidden items...all of these were explicitly laid out for the reader alongside previews of upcoming games, cheesy and awful 80s/90s advertising gimmicks, contests, interviews, and game reviews. It was a go-to source for everything you needed in gaming, and if it wasn't in the book, for just the price of a long-distance phone call to Redmond, WA, you could call a Nintendo Game Counselor to help you through that tough level (just ask my parents; I'm certain their wallets remember).

As I became an adult and shifted away from Nintendo's consoles, I left behind Nintendo Power as the games I wanted to play were seldom on the system. By the time I'd graduated high school, my subscription to the magazine had long since lapsed, and aside from occasionally picking up a copy in Walden Books if the cover image grabbed my attention, I rarely, if ever, thought of the magazine.

And then, I went Christmas Shopping for Myself (which is really the best way to do Christmas).

In December of 2003, I went to a Super Wal*Mart in Turkey Creek Pavilion in Knoxville, TN, and wandered over to the video game section where I found the Nintendo Gamecube being offered in a bundle with a Legend of Zelda Collection game and a year's subscription to Nintendo Power. On a whim, I bought it, and sent in my subscription information.

What I got in the mail honestly shocked me. It was such a pretty magazine with so little of the content that once made it great. Gone were the maps, codes, tips, and tricks, and in their place were overly enthusiastic reviews for games that would've never gotten past the door a decade earlier and shit tons of statements reading, "Want to find out what's next for Nintendo? Stay tuned for the next issue of Nintendo Power!"

...And the next issue was just as lame with even less information.

I get the Nintendo of America sold the magazine to a different company, and no longer backed it, but seriously? It didn't get better.

(Flash forward seven years to a Borders Books and Music in Los Angeles)

While waiting for my partner to get out of work so we can go meet a friend for dinner, I wandered into the gaming section of the magazine aisles and picked up a copy of Nintendo Power. So little content was present that, after flipping listlessly through the pages, I literally dropped it back into the rack without putting it with its mates. I may have actively hidden the magazine, so terrible was its offering.

So, what happened to the once great NP? I honestly don't know. At some point, I suppose, Nintendo decided to focus on doing what every other gaming company was doing and just focus on making games. They left the magazine behind, and the staff, I guess, went to find other jobs.

Interestingly enough, there was a market, at one point, for moving their original format to the web and monetizing what they had to offer in electronic form, but, as with most gaming trends, they weren't very quick on the uptake. Nintendo got out of the business of offering maps, tips, tricks, and codes, leaving that to Prima, Brady Games, and whomever else started putting out player guides.

It didn't have to be that way. They could have shifted all of those aspects of the magazine to the web. But, they didn't.

Go to Nintendo's website, now, and you can tell that, as a company, they still don't really grasp the whole "online" thing. A paragon of feckless design, the Nintendo website offers visitors a flashy front page displaying whichever big product they're pimping at the moment, and then...there's the rest of the site.

It's hard to navigate around the site, and trying to find information beyond the surface requires some serious digging through layer upon layer of bad website design and misleading links. Go to their Club Nintendo section, and the "Member Sign In" link is so much smaller than the "SIGN UP NOW!!!" button, that it's almost invisible. Try to find out information about your account, and you have to go on a scavenger hunt to find the right link.

Want to get support for a product you own? They have that...sort of. It's just the most basic of information.

Want to get more details on an upcoming game? They have pictures and a few sentences, as well as an advertising video that shows as little gameplay as possible.

Want to know what games they have in the eShop, DSi Shop, or Wii Shop? Good fucking luck. The search function doesn't even return with all the games available at the time. Trust me...I've hunted for them.

Ultimately, I get it. Nintendo's goal is to make great consoles, which it does...eventually. But, as with Nintendo Power, they've left gamers in the dust.

Some of my favorite memories from my childhood and early adolescence was getting my monthly issue of Nintendo Power, with the lame game cards, Pogs, and whatever other "collectibles" they were offering at the time. I loved opening up a new issue and poring over the contents and, unlike the porn I'd steal from under my dad's mattress, actually reading every sentence. Every "Special Issue," Collector's Cover, and sweepstakes was full of possibilities, and every month, I'd scour the "Coming Soon" section for the release dates of game in my favorites series of games, and every month, I'd be let down to find no new information.

So, yes...there's a part of me that mourns for the loss of Nintendo Power; unfortunately, that part has been mourning for so long that there are no longer tears to cry.

How Marketing Works (And How Not to Do It...)

2012-09-29T01:38:00.001-07:00

One of my favorite phrases, as of late, has been "fanboys." iPhone fanboys; Nintendo fanboys; XBOX fanboys. There's a fanboy for everything to do with consumer electronics, and there's nothing funnier or more pathetic than watching them unbox their new products on video.

That having been said, I'll just get to the point of this screed - how two companies can produce vastly different products at roughly the same price point, and the one with the lower tech specs will (and already has) won the day. These two companies are Nintendo and Sony.

If there are two companies whose consoles and gaming devices need almost no introduction, they are Nintendo and Sony Playstation. Both companies have made consistently impressive contributions to the world of gaming, but when it comes to handheld gaming, one company just keeps getting it right, while the other continues to fail.

It is hard to argue that Nintendo has and likely always will win the day when it comes to handheld gaming devices. Since the release of the Gameboy in the late 80s, Nintendo has consistently released products that provide an endless amount of return on consumer investment. These devices never seem to die, barring catastrophic accidents, and the games, while not always the highest in technology, are consistently remembered as being staples of their respective generations' childhoods. Each new handheld system brings something unique to the market - the Gameboy was the first that allowed gamers to play full games at home; the Gameboy Color brought darkened colors to life; the Gameboy Advance brought backlighting; the DS brought touchscreens, then cameras, and now 3-D.

Sony, on the other hand, has always had the more impressive technology. The PSP could seemingly do everything; games in full, bright color, graphics capacity that made games a pleasure to play, internet connectivity via WiFi, UMD movies and games, and eventually, a fantastic catalogue of downloadable full games, both new and classic. Unfortunately for Sony, their handheld devices have just never been that successful when compared to their lower-tech competition. They've almost always had subtle design flaws - the original PSP was too thick; the PSP Go was too small, and uncomfortable to play; the PS Vita...well, that shit's just a mess, all around.

So, when Nintendo announced that its next "Next Gen" console system, the Wii U, would have a handheld gaming component that would allow gamers to take the game off the big screen and into their hands, it seemed like the perfect marriage of their successes - combining their more dedicated handheld gamers with their more casual Wii gamers.

Of course, every market analyst predicted that this system would be "another" massive failure - it wasn't high-tech enough, innovative enough, or dedicated to the hardcore gamer. When they speak of this being "another" failure, they are, of course, speaking of the stumble-ridden release of the 3DS handheld system, which initially suffered from a massive dearth of games that anyone wanted (or wants, even now) to play. What these naysayers all seem to forget is how lackluster was the release of the first Nintendo DS. A year later, when the 3DS had by far surpassed the first-year sales of the original DS, those same market analysts had to eat a little bit of crow, as their predictions fell far short.

Luckily for their jobs, the Wii U came along to underwhelm them. But, once again, they're going to be wrong. In fact, they already are - every single retailer of the Wii U has sold out of the 32GB Black Wii U pre-order, and most have sold out of the 8GB White Wii U version...two months prior to its release.

When the Vita hit their hands, however, reviewers could blow enough hot air into the gamersphere, praising its fantastic resolution, innovative back-side touch screen, dual analogue sticks, and the promise of great things to come. And it could have been all of those things (even with that still-useless back-side touch screen)...but Sony, it would seem, is not Nintendo.

Sony has yet to understand that they don't dominate the gaming market. They continue to overestimate their popularity, hoping that an almost invisible marketing campaign will be sufficient to sell their overpriced device that can't seem to decide what it wants to be or to whom it should be geared.

The tech specs appeal to hardcore gamers...and those capabilities have yet to even begin to be tapped. They can't get any 3rd party developers to even touch the damn thing, since no one in Japan seems to want one, and even fewer people over here want it.

Worse is that it STILL has yet to do what it was promised to do. Yes, it can Skype. It took two months, but it could do it. And yeah, you can watch Netflix on it...so long as you don't mind holding the damn thing and draining your battery just to get through a single episode of Sons of Anarchy.

And that brings up the nightmare of its terrible design aesthetic. The thing is just a nightmare to hold, because the backside has that worthless touchscreen on it. Conveniently, Sony has placed two painful indentations on both sides of the bottom where you can hold it up on your physiologically weaker pinky fingers, while attempting to hold it with the rest of your fingers held in a claw grip to hold onto the two vagina-shaped indentations on either side of the back-side touch screen. The design requires you to both hold it gingerly and squeeze it in the least comfortable of ways.

But, ask any market analyst, and they'll tell you all about how the PS Vita is an amazing device. Well...so was the Apple Lisa. And anyone who knows their Apple history knows how THAT one worked out. Actually, the Apple Newton would be a better comparison. Or the current Maps App.

At any rate, if you want to know why Nintendo continues to win the day, all you need to do is look at their reputation for putting out devices that last, even if the novelty of their innovation wears off. It's not always about graphics and spec techs; it's often more about appealing to the right audiences with the right kinds of disposable income. Fanboys may love you, but you're never going to build a cottage industry if you rely on them.

Square-Enix Peg in a Round Hole World...

2012-06-14T07:59:00.000-07:00

After paying little to no attention to the happenings at the E3 convention (as per usual), I am just now catching up with some of the goings on with my former favorite video game company, Square-Enix.

There is much shared history between S-E and myself; together, we had a relationship that spanned almost three decades. It has become apparent, however, that the time has come for me to bid farewell to them on a sour note...which is ironic, considering their next "major" release is Final Fantasy Theatrhythm, a lame ass rhythm game featuring music from their once glorious past for the Nintendo 3DS.

Some of my best memories from childhood involve Squaresoft games, before I even knew that a single company was responsible for my favorite games. I would rent Final Fantasy for the NES from the local video store, Video Madness, nearly every weekend just to start back where I left off (assuming someone hadn't replaced my save file). When I finally purchased the game, I would take it everywhere I went. Family beach trips were spent indoors with the tinny 8-bit music filling our condo while the rest of the family were outside on the sand and in the Atlantic. As they enjoyed the waves pounding against the coastline, I was traveling by boat from one port to the next to fulfill my quest to save the world from Chaos.

As I got older, my love of Final Fantasy grew with the platforms; from Final Fantasy Legend on Gameboy, to Final Fantasy II (which they never told us was actually IV) on the SNES, the Final Fantasy series of games grew up, it seemed, alongside me. When I entered high school, Final Fantasy VII and VIII introduced the novel concept that characters used vulgar language, blood was actually red, characters got drunk off of alcohol as opposed to milk or soda, and, surprisingly enough, some characters who inhabit the worlds of Final Fantasy were gay.

Sure, they were gay at a bathhouse in a slum, participated in a very confusing exercise-based gangbang, and then dragged a barely unwilling Cloud into a sauna to relax the muscles...all so he could gain access to the "best" pair of underwear to dress up like the most attractive female he could be......

Actually, now that I look back on that, this scene was pretty transformational, for me, at the time when I was just coming out in high school.

I digress.

Square-Enix was once a transformational company, constantly pushing the boundaries of RPGs to new heights, and fundamentally redefining for an entire generation of gamers what it meant to play a Role Playing Game.

And then came the ability to have realistic graphics.

With the release of the PS2, their landmark series, Final Fantasy, suddenly shifted from a series that was more about the story to one that was more about the graphics. Square-Enix went from releasing a new main-series Final Fantasy game once every 1-4 years, to suddenly having six-year release schedules. They instead focused on releasing spinoffs, remakes, ports, and a slew of Final Fantasy VII drivel that just needed to stop.

At this year's E3, Square-Enix unveiled their Luminous game engine with a tech demo that featured a fake Final Fantasy game, and of course the tech geeks lost their fucking minds. What's sad is that they didn't actually present anything worth buying.

Instead of localizing the series that it bought when they enveloped Enix, Dragon Quest, they continue to release the games only in Japan, despite the cries from their Western fans. They went even further to ruin the series by making the latest iteration of the game, number ten in the series, an online game. Awesome. So, you've taken the last bastion of the classic JRPG and turned it into an online nightmare? Great.

Unfortunately, gone are the days of the good JRPG from Square-Enix, and instead, we're left with gaming travesties like Final Fantasy XIIII and XIII-2.

The moral of the story is this:

RPG fans don't want better graphics; they just want better games.

Best Buy is Often the Worst Buy...

2012-02-22T08:41:00.000-08:00

I have a shopping addiction. There. I've admitted it.

Whenever I have money and I want something, I'll have it in my hands within the week. This is a terrible habit, but it's one that has followed me my whole life.

I have no self-control when it comes to shopping, and when I think back to when I first got out on my own, I remember frequenting Best Buy in Knoxville, TN to satisfy all of my multi-media shopping binges.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I came across this article, today:

Why Best Buy is Going Out of Business...Slowly

I wish I could say that I'm dismayed or surprised by this article, but I'm not. I've been noticing Best Buy's decline for the past six years, and have communicated this dismay to the corporate structure and local managers (at many stores) dozens of times.

I won't paraphrase the article by repeating it verbatim, but here are my experiences with Best Buy over time:

I first began shopping at Best Buy in 2002 when I lived in Knoxville, TN. I bought my first personally purchased DVD player, and literally dozens of DVDs, there. I would go at least once a week after my shift at Famous Dave's or Macaroni Grill and pick up a new release on DVD or a new video game. The staff knew me personally, and could always count on me to drop $100 there on every visit.

When I moved to Atlanta, however, I didn't have access to a local Best Buy. Hell, I didn't even know where one was. So, I switched my purchasing dollars to Borders. There, I could purchase movies AND books. I did find a Best Buy near where I worked, but when I went, the experience was markedly different.

I once was physically bowled over by one of the Atlanta Falcons' players who was doing some stupid recorded shopping trip to show how he spent his millions. After running me over, instead of apologizing to me, he told me to watch where I was walking (I had been standing still), and then asked me if I knew who he was. I told him I had no idea who the hell he was, but that he was a dick. When he told me he was an Atlanta Falcon, I said, "Whatever. I'm a Patriots fan."

This experience pretty much ended my "good times" with Best Buy.

The next time I went to a Best Buy was in December of 2005 when I went to purchase a computer. At this point, the company began to change...

Gone was the attractive staff that actually knew what they were selling, and in their place were ungroomed idiot boys who had no clue how to differentiate between a television and a computer monitor. This trend continued, and as the staff got less knowledgable, the product offerings got less affordable.

I remember when DVDs, CDs, and games were reasonably priced - Best Buy, however, believes that these items come at a premium.

Here's a cost comparison:

Fright Night (2011) 3-D Blu-Ray, DVD, Blu-Ray Combo Pack -

List Price: $49.99 (Ridiculous to being with)

Amazon: $30.99

Best Buy: $34.99

It seems like a small difference, but that makes a BIG difference. That's just off the Best Buy website. In the store, I can almost guarantee you that the price would be $39.99.

Any chance that Best Buy gets to jack up its in-store prices, it takes, and then it wonders why consumers don't buy small electronics in their stores? Figure it out!

That doesn't even begin to cover the fact that the stores are ridiculously disorganized. Aisles are oddly placed, and products are barely alphabetized. Appliances are stacked on top of one another like a game of Jenga, and the television section is filled with TVs on the blink.

None of the employees seem qualified to handle money, much less answer technical questions about products.

Here's a hint to all of the specialty electronics stores - if you hire qualified people and pay them well, you will have customers who are happy with the services you offer. If you hire idiots, cut your product supply, and focus only on your bottom line, you will lose customers. It's easy.

Downloadable Content is Usually Crap...

2012-02-22T07:29:00.000-08:00

So, I'm a gamer, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I enjoy RPGs, puzzle games, and the occasional Zelda/Mario game.

Square-Enix has been my favorite company for over two decades of my gaming career, and I've tried to stick by them for most of the last five years only to be continually rebuffed with shitty games.

Final Fantasy XIII - You're pretty, but your story sucks and your characters unlikable.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 - You're prettier, but your story sucks, your character are unlikable, and you're a sequel to a game that just wasn't that good to begin with...

OH...and then, there's Downloadable Content.

I guess this must be a Japanese thing, but I don't care what "costumes" my character are wearing, S-E. $3 for a new costume for my character of choice is fucking shitty deal, and that you think this qualifies as something worth paying money for shows us just how little you care about the quality of your gamers' experiences. That shit should be free. How about you offer DLC that allows gamers to play games that have real value for their money?

I understand Square-Enix is attempting to tap new markets, but online gaming is NOT the answer. You are ruining the Dragon Quest series by forcing players to go online to play a game that should be an RPG, but instead forces me to play with others. I don't want to play with others; that's why I purchase RPGs. Dragon Quest is one of the most storied and successful gaming franchises in the world, and rather than continue its great traditions, Square-Enix has managed to pump out crap title after crap title.

It doesn't help that Square-Enix cares so little about gamers in other localities. When Nintendo of America has to step in to localize your RPGs to the United States, you aren't doing your fucking jobs. Fucking figure it out.

I'm done.

Continuing Adult Gaming...

2011-09-07T08:39:00.000-07:00

Today, I am picking up where I left off in my last post in August. Having established that the majority of "gamers" in the American market are roughly the age of 37, game studios have caught onto the fact that gamers just don't want to finish games that can't hold their interest. Their response? Instead of creating better games with more interesting and compelling content, they have chosen to focus their attentions on creating the same games, but in chapter form.

This morning, I will look into how things have changed, and call for a more conservative approach to gaming:

3.) If games were more interesting, people would spend more time playing them.

I love a great RPG. I make no bones about the fact that I despise FPS (First-Person Shooter) games with a fiery passion - I feel like they further entrench us into this "reality gaming" nonsense that seems to be so popular. What I love about RPGs is that they take me outside of my reality and place me into a world of magic, knights, and clearly defined quests of good against evil. The argument can be made that FPS, Zombie Killer Games, and war games allow us to do the very same thing. Realizing that trend, RPG producers are serving up more and more mixed-genre games to try and attract that audience.

What RPG companies need to do is take a lesson from EA Sports. Every year, they release the exact same game with minor tweaks, new faces, and better graphics. The overall concept is the same. For those of us who grew up with Namco Football (which was little more than electric football in video game form), looking at the sports games of today is an amazing transition. Realistically, however, we keep getting fed the same game year in and year out - to FANTASTIC sales and astronomical profits.

Similarly, World of Warcraft (for all of its addictive flaws) found a niche market of people who want to do the same thing all the time, with moderately altered storylines and settings. So long as graphics get updated every so often, their base gamers don't complain. They have, for quite some time, maintained a consistently or growing subscription base since their inception. Console-based RPG companies don't seem to be getting the picture.

Gamers, like all other people, are creatures of habit. They want familiarity and consistency, because it provides them with a sense of comfort. Square-Enix is the worst offender amongst RPG companies because they left behind their core audience long ago to produce what most RPG-lovers refer to as "dreck." Does this make games formulaic? Yes. But, when you have a winning formula, stick with it. Don't drastically alter time-honored franchises to try and drag in another niche audience - it is rarely successful, profitable, or worth the time and effort.

Ultimately, the answer is simple - if you want people to finish games, don't make them shorter to keep up with their hectic pace of living, make them more interesting to keep their attention. Despite the common wisdom that this generation has no attention span, you'd better believe they're willing to stop everything to watch dreadful awards shows, embarrassing reality shows, and movies whose run time is about an hour too long. They want to be entertained, and if your games can't even offer that, what the hell is the point of being in the entertainment industry, anyway.

How Game Studios Perceive Their Consumers...

2011-08-17T12:44:00.000-07:00

Being an avid gamer who is currently working on completing no fewer than eight games, at the moment (yes - ambitious, I know), I am full aware of my tendency to fail to complete a game that I've purchased. Today, I ran across this article on CNN:

"Why Most People Don't Finish Video Games"

After attempting to finish the article itself, it was so poorly written and supported in its claims, though interesting in its statistics, I found myself feeling somewhat insulted by the belief that shorter games with less engaging story lines are the remedy to unfinished games.

My initial reaction is to believe that game studios are out of touch with what their consumers want, particularly since they have very easily identified their consumers: the average age of gamers is 37, with the average age of game purchasers being 41. This being the case, I think that we should reexamine the reasons why this age of people might try to enter the world of gaming.

1.) Games were originally designed as a form of entertainment and distraction.

Today, many game markets have moved forward to require so much time that they can overtake life, itself. I'm not talking about games like Pokemon - though you've "Gotta Catch 'Em All," you can very easily put the game down for a few weeks or months or years, and pick up right where you left off. I am talking instead of real-time games that require constant attention in order to maintain a positive experience.

Take, for example, a simple children's game, Animal Crossing. The most recent iteration of this game for the Wii was a massive step forward, in terms of the interface, and had many of the hallmarks of games geared toward the obsessive compulsive - a game designed around collecting objects, items, and fish, and the ability to endlessly customize the world around you with different types of plants, flowers, insects, houses, furniture, paintings, clothing, and...Jesus Christ...that's just too much many options. On its face, this is just good business. What better way to ensure repeated gaming experience than to offer endless play?

But then, there is the interactive feature. Animal Crossing City Folk was offered with the Wii Speak accessory, which allowed players the ability to contact another person playing the game at the same time to visit their city, during which time they could speak with them in real time. Great. Just what any parent wants for their kids. Given that the average age of gamers is 37, the likelihood that you're going to find someone under the age of 18 to chat with while touring their city is slim to none (I found no one who was under 25), leaving unattended children able to freely connect with any creepy adult. Ugh.

In addition, in order to obtain everything, you must constantly attend to your game, checking in at least weekly, if not daily, to see what new things are available. Every holiday in imagination has its own special events with special prizes and insects and contests and add-ons. The game operates off a real-time clock set inside your Wii, which you CAN change to affect the game play, but at that point, is it really worth it? The amount of time required to "complete" the game is never ending, and frankly, the gameplay and rewards just aren't worth it.

Once one peels back this very thin veneer of good business, there is a far more insidious product underneath the surface. The game has its own form of currency - Bells - which one collects and exchanges for many of these upgrades to their house and home. Consumerism at its best! In fact, much of this game is predicated around a very consumer-driven concept of happiness. The commercials for this game were very clear that there are no children playing this game, showing grown women playing the game together, either in person or via Wii Speak, talking about what new items to buy in the boutique. Great. Not only is it consumerist propaganda, but it's sexist, as well?

Ultimately, Animal Crossing: City Folk has about as much staying power and long-lasting appeal as a Calorie Counter website. Unless you're truly dedicated, updating it just isn't worth the effort.

2.) The online gaming experience, outside of simple games, just isn't a good replacement for real life.

We've all seen the fantastic video wherein the irate teenager freaks out when he finds out his World of Warcraft account has been canceled. Whether the video is real or fake, it presents an interesting perspective on the negative repercussions that social gaming can have on one's life. If I have one more person tell me that they've got to "water their crops" on Farmville, I might punch them in the face.

REALLY? You're at work! Take a freakin' break! These are the game players for whom video game companies have a massive fetish. They are easily manipulated into repeating a simple experience over and over again, so long as their friends are doing so with them. These are the people for whom The Sims was an addiction, because it so clearly mirrored an idealized form of daily life.

Which I understand the appeal of sim games, I have yet to have the time or sustained interest to "finish" one of them. There is, in fact, no finish to be had other than to throw one's hands up in frustration and walk away.

(To Be Continued...)

The Ocarina's a Crime...

2011-06-22T23:42:00.000-07:00

So, a quick rant from The Curmudgeonly Gamer -

Today, I received my copy of The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time 3D in the mail (three days after its release date..."THANKS, Gamestop Expedited Shipping!!!" NOT!!!), and I have to say, while at first I was impressed, I have nearly thrown my 3DS across the room in frustration and annoyance.

I have four primary gripes about the game:

1.) The game was already polygonal and had the appearance of late-90s 3D. Upping the resolution to make it 3D doesn't really "add" anything to the game...although it doesn't subtract anything, either. Or, does it? Yes...the cut scenes are awesome in 3D (in a janky stereoscopic kind of way), but the game was already "viewed" with a 3D aspect thanks to fantastic art by the N64 artists. Now, objects fly AT you and obscure the screen in a way that makes it not only annoying, but downright frightening at times.

2.) The Circle Pad motion controls are (excuse my French) a f**king travesty. First of all, the Circle Pad is poorly calibrated to begin with; the previous games designed to use it for motion had designers who were smart enough to realize that people LIKE the D-Pad when they need specific directional movement. The Circle Pad offers no such movement. F**k that noise.

3.) While at first I thought the neat trick whereby when you move the 3DS, the screen moves with it in targeting mode was cool, I now realize after twenty minutes of trying to win a target game that was previously simple, that it f**king sucks! Are you kidding me? It basically just randomly selects where to start you on the screen, and then, you have to use the freaking Circle Pad to readjust the starting point, which then makes moving the screen via motion control even more awkward as you try to move your arms around and up and down to get it to go where you want, and then, after all that f**king work, you can't see the goddamned screen because the stereoscopic 3D aspect is fucked up because it's not directly in front of your face!

Really...this game is very poorly redone. Great smoothing of the graphics, but otherwise in NO WAY worth the money.

Four Months, Six Games...

2011-05-02T01:57:00.000-07:00

So, it's certainly been a while since I bothered to post anything on The Curmudgeonly Gamer, primarily because it seemed that there was no audience for it. I have since reevaluated that decision after a number of fantastic games have come out this year, and they haven't gotten more than a glancing blow by the blogosphere or by traditional gaming news outlets. In fact, no fewer than six great games have come out, most of which have either slipped under the radar or have simply fallen to the wayside as "relics of games gone by." By now, we should know this perception of games to be a non-starter in the world of game reviews, but the urge for all things bright and shiny still seems to trump a quality gaming experience. So, without further ado, I give you the Six Games in Just Four Months:

6.) Pokemon Black/White (Nintendo DS)

I have spent much of the last fifteen years avoiding Pokemon like the plague, calling the "fad" (which swept all of Japan and much of the below-15 U.S. population like a tsunami......too soon?) childish and not worth my attentions. However, over the past few months, I went on a massive online shopping binge and ended up purchasing almost every Pokemon game for nearly ever system (discount the Gamecube/Wii games), and I have to say, aside from the massively repetitive gameplay and underwhelming graphics, I have been quite impressed with the series as a whole.

The most recent incarnation of this series has been Pokemon Black/White; two separate games for the Nintendo DS that came out, this spring, to the welcoming arms of a highly anticipatory gaming community (both the gamers and the reviewers). While most fans of the games, themselves, were concerned, these games were just another opportunity to increase the number of unique Pokemon in their Pokedexes; the reviewers, however, were not so forgiving.

The overall consensus about the games was "We're really glad to see a new Pokemon game, but the gameplay hasn't really improved ENOUGH over the last release to make it worth the money." I have to say, only having played LeafGreen and Black at this point (I'm trying to go from the beginning of the storyline to the end in chronological order), I have to say that I likely agree with that sentiment.

Pokemon Black/White was, in my opinion, a bit premature for its release date, which doesn't make much sense until you see the timing of its release in comparison to the release of the Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo's newest market-crushing handheld console. Here we have the next-gen Pokemon game, which offers gameplay in mostly 3D polygonal graphics with smooth screen-to-screen transitions, animated Pokemon, and a fully functional world, and they couldn't have simply developed it for a system that could really take the series to the next level?

Ah, but wait...there's more to this story than meets the jaundiced eye. When planning a game's release, the system of that release is something to think about in terms of profit margins. This game was released in a massively intelligent manner, as it could be purchased either separately or in a Nintendo DSi bundle, which included individually designed DSi consoles to match the game you purchased. What a PERFECT way to ensure continuing sales of the outgoing system (which is still superior to the awkward DSi XL)! Release a game that you are certain will sell like hotcakes to prop up the system you're going to be phasing out over the next two years.

Hot on the heels of Black/White came the Nintendo 3DS, which, unfortunately for Nintendo, was not released with any games worth more than a passing glace. Sure...Street Fighter 3DS, The Sims 3D, and LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars 3D all deserve an honorable mention, but frankly, neither the gamers nor the reviewers were impressed with the lackluster cadre of games released for the initial launch of Nintendo's first salvo in their war on the gaming world.

Sadly, the 3DS could have offered Pokemon Black/White a perfect platform for the game, which might have increased its value, but let's face it: a main-series Pokemon title is going to fly off the shelves regardless of whether or not it's living up to its full potential as a game, and Nintendo, as well as every gaming fan, knows it.

Overall, however, Pokemon Black/White offers dedicated Pokemon fans yet another opportunity to while away dozens, if not hundreds, of hours in their crack-like addiction to "catching them all." The new Pokemon are similar to their older brethren, and while there's not much fresh in the way of innovative gaming involved, there doesn't really need to be. Fans will buy it just for the sake of continuing the adventures they have so loved for nearly two decades.

5.) Dissidia 012 [duodecim] Final Fantasy (PSP)

Ever wonder what it would be like if your favorite characters from the Final Fantasy series battled it out Mortal Combat-style?

......No?......

Me, either.

So, being that I am a collector of all things Final Fantasy, I purchased the Dissidia Final Fantasy games simply to complete my collection (much like Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus, the oft maligned and critically panned shooter from the FF VII collection), and frankly, I should have stuck with my gut instinct and just skipped them both altogether.

Dissidia Final Fantasy games operate on the premise that there are two opposing factions of Light and Darkness in the world, and gives you the opportunity (after completing the main game) to fight as either side. You, too, can now experience the boredom of fighting through a wholly linear script and feel like you've just spent $30 for a total waste of time and effort.

Luckily, Square-Enix recognizes the massively limited replay value of these games and, in a half-hearted effort to compensate for what is ultimately a beautiful yet underwhelmingly lackluster gaming experience by supplementing every other SE release with a special game code to unlock special costumes for the playable characters. Now, you can dress Cecil from Final Fantasy IV in his Paladin outfit OR his Dark Knight outfit. Wow!!! WHAT A VALUE!!!

The problem with attempting to branch out to new audiences is that you ultimately end up losing some of your potential audiences. With each fighting game fan SE gains with this series, it loses out on potential RPG fans - the gamers that are SE's bread and butter. Though the technology and graphics are beautiful, the games just fall flat for anyone who would rather seek out new treasures, farm for rare item drops, and care about his characters.

Overall, Dissidia 012 [duodecim] Final Fantasy is such a letdown that it's almost not even worth the money to download it. For those of you who have a PSP, save yourself the load times and the loud UMD disk and download it off the Playstation Network (once they finally bring it back online). You'll thank yourself in the end.

4.) Ys I & II Chronicles (PSP)

Ys is one of the most storied game series of the last thirty years, and the first two games, in particular, have been released and re-released ad nauseum. Though this incarnation is certainly graphically beautiful, the game, itself, is just not worth retelling over and over again.

But, let my back up a bit, to the original release of the game. Ys was one of those games that required the patience of a saint. Seemingly modeled off of The Legend of Zelda, minus the use of a sword or any sort of direction, Ys pits the player against a mostly unnamed and unidentifiable dark force that's stolen the two Books of Ys. How you're supposed to know where to go and what to do is still a mystery to me, and without the aid of game guides, I would have NO clue where to go.

Though these games are classics, I have to question why they needed yet another release. To date, these games have been re-released three times in the span of a little over two years, including both games being released on the Wii Virtual Console, as well as on the Nintendo DS. How many times do these games need to be released before the profits fail to show. I would imagine that this is the one that might finally do them in.

3.) LEGO Star Wars III: Clone Wars (PS3/3DS)

I have been a big fan of the LEGO game series, but have always been a somewhat vocal critic of the LEGO Star Wars series, primarily because of their gameplay mechanics. This game is no different.

While the other games in the LEGO series tell fantastic and engaging stories with cute characters, the Star Wars series have always fallen flat with me. Maybe it's because I feel like the story has already been adequately told and retold thousands of times, and I just don't need to see anymore Star Wars; but really...it's just not that great a story without words.

The biggest issue I have with the series is the gameplay mechanics. The 3D version of the game goes a long way to fix some of the depth perception issues that plagued the first three games, but ended up creating new ones by insisting that space battles were necessary to advance the story. Imagine it...you're fighting a battle in a tiny aircraft in boundless space, surrounded by identical stars, and myriad 3D objects flying at you so quickly that it's impossible to keep track of what's going on around you. Throw in some difficult to maneuver controls and a nearly worthless radar screen at the bottom, and you've got yourself a clutster fuck!

Those who like Star Wars are certain to love this game. I, however, do not.

2.) Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation (Nintendo DS)

Finally, after over a decade of waiting, Dragon Quest VI, the only main series DQ game to never hit US soil, made its way Stateside on the Nintendo DS. Avid DQ fans have been chomping at the bit for an official release ever since the game was illegally translated and ported via rom on the internet some ten years ago. And the verdict is...

It's okay. Not a revelation, by any means, in the JRPG franchise, but a good game, nonetheless.

DQ VI takes place in two corresponding worlds that affect one another - if you do something in one world, a corresponding change occurs in the other. This was a pretty revolutionary advent in the 1990s, but doesn't really carry over well to today's gamers.

Part of the issue is that Dragon Quests IV-VI were remade by the same company for the DS, and all look graphically identical. The game sprites look similar, as do the monsters, and the gameplay is identical in all three games. While it's great to see these games get a new port, and I'm very glad to complete my entire DQ collection, the freshness just falls flat when three very identical games are released over three years.

Don't get me wrong; I loved EVERY single hour of gameplay on all three games, but it didn't fulfill my craving for a newer, better Dragon Quest. With the release of last year's Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies, Square-Enix ventured into downloadable and social gaming in a way that revolutionized the series...and I can't WAIT for that nonsense to be done with. What may work in Japan where scores of Japanese DQ fans wander around with their DS ready to play, does not work in the US and EU markets. Try as Gamestop might, it's often difficult to get the often agoraphobic gamer community to gather together in one location. Those who do connect with one another do so in an online setting; not by getting within twenty-five feet to exchange treasure maps and get guests in their inns.

To my way of thinking, Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King is still the quintessential DQ game, bringing together phenomenal gameplay with excellent music, mapping, and a storyline. The perspective was wonderful when traveling around the world, allowing you to see things from the character's perspective as you wander around woods, castles, towns, and oceans. This was the game that rebooted the flagging and forgotten Dragon Quest series, and made it, once again, a beloved title in the US. Let's hope that Dragon Quest X on the Nintendo Wii will bring us back to that style of gaming.

1.) Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection (PSP)

Without further ado, my favorite game this year, by far, is Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection. I have to admit that FFIV was the one game in the series that, more than any other, drew me into its world wholly and completely. The game came out in 1991, and was originally released in the US as Final Fantasy II on the SNES, and I purchased it on my tenth birthday with all the money I'd received over the holidays - to put that in perspective, I purchased the game for around $85 at a K-Mart. Yes...games actually sold for $85 each for cartridge game. Ridiculous.

At any rate, Final Fantasy IV has since seen no fewer than five remakes localized in the US for the PSX, GBA, Wii Virtual Console, DS, and finally for the PSP, each of which brought its own unique updates on the game that revolutionized the JRPG industry by incorporating a set of complex characters with a great plot, an overarching theme, and standard setting Active-Time Battle system (also the first of its kind). But, is The Complete Collection the best version of the game, to date?

Honestly, I'd have to say, "Possibly." Really, it's a toss-up between the DS version and the PSP version, but for different reasons. While the DS version of this game brought a literally new perspective and voice acting to the game, the underlying framework that made the game wonderful in the first place remained intact. I wasn't thrilled, however, with the confusing and oftentimes overwrought Augment System, whereby certain abilities and skills could be taught to characters to customize them to your liking. I've never been a big fan of this kind of system, as it often leaves players uncertain as to the best way to complete the game, nor does it really make for great replay value.

The PSP version has what the others don't - more content. The new release contains the original game with updated graphics, music, and gameplay, along with the previously serialized Final Fantasy IV: The After Years (a somewhat disjointed and convoluted mess of a downloadable game released first on mobile phones in Japan and then on the Wii Ware network), as well as a brief Interlude game to bridge the gap between the two games. The graphics alone are enough to make me squeal with joy, but when I have prospect of not having to pay for a new update every week, my heart skips a beat. In this version, the 3D perspective is missing, but that's okay. We're back to what made the game great, in the first place - a solid story, great characters, and cool monsters with impossible to attack rare drops...which leads me to the following bad news:

There are some drawbacks, however, as with any game, regardless of how nostalgic, and Final Fantasy IV suffers from one severe drawback - rare item drops from its myriad monsters. I get it - getting that ultimate weapon shouldn't be something easy, but an item with a .078% drop rate is a bit outlandish. After having the game for nearly two weeks, I have now spent almost 70 hours playing the game, about 60 of which were spent farming for these rare (and surprisingly not-worth-it) items. Sure, the collector in me likes getting a perfect game, but at this point, is it really worth it? I say, "YES, BITCH!" Others may disagree.

All that aside, I will always think of Final Fantasy IV as the game that helped me get through my childhood. It offered solace for me when I needed a break from my crazy family, and I spent countless hours playing and beating the game over and over again. When I step back into that world, I am transported back to a time when I honestly believed that I could be that knight; that I could fight and win these battles; that I could be the hero. If only life were a bit more like that, with floating Bomb creatures, and kingdoms that protect a crystal behind the throne...

Dare to dream.

And with that, I bid thee adieu, and wish all of you a fantastic week!

An Easy Way to Pass the Time...

2011-01-28T14:48:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, I am always on the lookout for new downloadable games that will serve the purpose of distracting me from my curmudgeonly attitude towards gaming. Yesterday, I decided to splurge on my PSN account and purchase one of the half-off games offered in their Specials, and ended up coming across a game called Costume Quest, a mind-numbing and delightfully fun candy-centered adventure RPG-lite available on both the PS3 and the XBOX 360.

At first glance, many of you may wonder why in the world I decided to go with this game over the myriad...all right, seven other games i could have chosen. Ultimately, I liked the characters' big eyes, which reminded me of the cartoonish and cell shaded days of The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker from the Gamecube days of yore. Other than that, it was $7.99 to purchase ($4.99 for the additional downloadable content), and the cheaper ones looked even less appealing - so, I took a blind leap, and hoped for the best.

While certainly not the most impressive game, it is a very easy way to while away a few hours gathering candy, beating up monsters, and collecting costume pieces to complete whole costumes. Plus, it's an easy way to get a few PSN trophies...albeit girly ones. It's not too detailed, and there's nothing amazing about any aspect of it, other than the originality, but it's certainly unique in the way it allows you to use the special skills of various costumes to travel around the areas.

The music is very Halloween-ish, by which I mean "Halloween Sound Effects Tapes from the 1990s. Very good for background music, because it doesn't get in the way, doesn't sound overly triumphant, and doesn't have the traditional RPG "march into battle" feel made famous by Nobuo Uematsu in the Final Fantasy series. It's kooky and sufficiently creepy to eight-year-olds, which is the perspective from which this game is told. For those of you old enough to remember, this game really brings back fond memories of the late Jim Varney's Ernest Scared Stupid.

The battle scenes are fun, with the sole exception of the random button pushing that occurs to either boost your own or defend from enemies' attacks. Part of this is my curmudgeonly attitude towards Playstation's shape-based button system ("REALLY??? How the hell am I supposed to remember where Square and Triangle are on the controller? And Circle and Square look exactly the same!!!"). The same problem existed in Final Fantasy X-2 during the Thunder Plains mini-game. It is infinitely easier to remember simple letters (and their corresponding buttons) than shapes. But...that's likely just me being an old man, unwilling to change his ways...despite the fact that I've owned Playstation products since 1997.

What makes me infinitely happy is the brevity of this game. It's very easy to finish, and when you do, it luckily comes just when you've finally gotten tired of playing the damn game. While the game is, at first, quite cute, it does get a bit trying after long-term play. The premise, though interesting when you first start playing the game, doesn't hold its freshness throughout, and by the end of the second section, I found myself wishing that there wasn't a third, much less a fourth downloadable section.

Overall, however, the concept is fresh, the gameplay is decent, and it's cheap enough to be worth the $13.

Ghosts From the Past...

2011-01-14T11:56:00.000-08:00

On a whim I decided to purchase and download a game from the Playstation Network called Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers partly out of a sense of nostalgia for my high school years, and partly because I liked the idea of a game to keep me occupied when I'm bored and don't want to focus on collecting a whole bunch of stuff or blow anything up. This game provided the perfect outlet for me to do just that - I can think and strategize while simultaneously not worry about getting destroyed by a passing enemy.

For those of you unfamiliar with Magic: The Gathering, the game has long been associated with all things "geek." Imagine, if you will, a cadre of slightly overweight, white males with greasy hair, all stooped over decks of brightly colored cards, moving with lightning speed as they draw cards, turn them sideways, and argue over whether or not moves are illegal under current rules that they've seemed to memorize to the letter. For two years during my high school career, I was a part of this crowd. Though I was never terribly good at playing the game, I enjoyed the thrill of play, even if I was sure to lose against far better players.

The card game, itself, focuses on five basic colors - Red, White, Black, Blue, and Green. Each color has its strengths and weaknesses, but players can easily create and adapt their decks to suit their style of play, and customize it endlessly to meet their needs. When I played the game, I focused on making esoteric decks that were never really effective, and frankly were so far out there that no one against whom I played had any respect for my "creativity," and easily beat the crap out of me when we played.

The video game version, however, does not allow for such creativity (at least not to my knowledge). Duels of the Planeswalkers provides players with pre-built decks to use in their campaigns, and with each successive battle fought, a new (and generally more powerful) card is unlocked and added to your deck. As you continue to battle, new decks are unlocked for you, but your options for customization are limited.

While this game provides me with loads of time killing strategy and fun, there are a few qualms I have with the game:

1.) The issue of deck customization is something of a sticking point for me. While I understand that it's difficult to program a game to allow for the literally millions of different combinations of cards you can choose, I feel very backed into a corner because I am unable to play to my strengths and weaknesses. This is a double-edged sword, though, as these decks are pre-built with the idea of effectiveness in mind - a feat that I was never quite able to manage. In some ways, the lack of customization is probably saving me from experiencing humiliating losses at the hands of the computer.

2.) The background music is honestly terrible. It's this mix between dramatic guitar rock and suspenseful and slow riffs that are really only tolerable, at best. It's a throwback to crappy game music from the mid-90s, and frankly, the best part about the settings is that it allows you to turn off the music, altogether.

3.) The ability to connect with others and play against the seems, at first, to be cool. In my case, it allowed me to reconnect with a friend of mine from thirteen years ago who then proceeded to completely annihilate me in less than ten minutes. It was fun, for the first few minutes, but frankly, unless you enjoy the prospect of wearing a headset to chat with someone while you play cards with them, it's not very much worth the effort or the glitches it will cause on your PS3.

Overall, Magic: The Gathering Duels of the Planeswalkers is definitely worth the $9.99 investment, and the $4.99 for three expansion packs are worth it, after you've exhausted all the regular play hours. As for paying $0.99 to unlock individual cards, I find them to be almost entirely worthless. You can unlock them through gameplay, anyway, so why pay extra for the early advantage?

GAMES MENTIONED IN THIS POST:

Magic: The Gathering Duels of the Planeswalkers

When Expectations Meet Reality...

2011-01-12T16:54:00.000-08:00

Over the past month, I have frequently lauded the LEGO game series, from Batman to Indiana Jones to their greatest culmination, LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4. With each game, I was more and more impressed with the time, energy, and effort that went into creating these fantastic worlds.

And then, there came LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga by LucasArts games - reality had to set in at some point.

Having just come down off of the fantastic gaming high that was LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues, I entered into this game with the high expectations that my previous endeavors into LEGO Land gaming had created. Boy was I ever disappointed.

I should preface this entire Blog post by saying that I am not only bored by Star Wars, in general, but that I loathe it. Even as a kid, I never got the sense of wonder and amazement that my father or uncles got, and I never really cared about the characters, the dime store storyline, or its penchant for preachy dialogue and plot devices. I was never amazed by the creatures in this Sci-Fi wunderkind, nor was I really compelled by its setting or its heroes. As an entire franchise, I really just find it rather boring.

Now that I've alienated what is likely to be the entire male gamer population, I shall continue on with this week's rant.

LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga manages to get nearly everything wrong when it comes to creating a playable game. Everything about it is off kilter, from its play control to its depth of view.

Play Control:

Now, I shouldn't really have any expectations that I'm going to be playing the next generation of highly responsive controls while playing something released in 2007, but seriously...we've been at this whole gaming thing for nearly 30 years, and this is what you come up with, LucasArts? The characters are both unwieldy and difficult to control. Most characters are basically useless when it comes to using them for fighting, and it's nearly impossible to survive a single level without being exploded into tiny LEGO bits because you are unable to get your characters to react to the buttons you are pushing (yes...I actually invoked the "HE DIDN'T DO WHAT I TOLD HIM TO DO" argument from the days of yore).

Game Play:

The game itself plays a bit like some of the worst Doom games from the 90s. Whereas other LEGO games would have you smash things to obtain studs (money), and even Harry Potter's characters get to "Leviosa" objects to get them, this game insists that you stop nearly every five steps to use "The Force" on everything from plant life to cups in the Mos Eisley Pub (which serves as the Hub for the different episodes...the Pub Hub). This takes up not only value time and energy, but proves massive dangerous as enemies come at you at a nearly constant rate, seemingly without relent, and you end up getting blown up and losing more studs than you might have collected for all this "Force" nonsense.

Graphics:

While a lot of the attention to detail is there, the graphics aren't terribly inspired, as far as LEGO games go. The worlds are rendered in a nearly impossible to grasp 3-D environment, and it is often unclear where your character needs to jump or where he (or she) will land after performing a jump. The depth perception is incredibly awkward, here, while creates more frustration for players who are used to more clearly defined and accessible landscapes. It's not that the levels aren't well made, rather that they're not designed to be anything more than art. Playing in them is incredibly difficult, and this is compounded by the awful play control exhibited by the characters.

Music:

While the music is, of course, the original John Williams score, levels are often overwhelming in the amount of sound effects that are played. It's just too much noise, damn it! They're all true to the Star Wars legacy, and any geek who loves authenticity will love them, but it's a near constant din, making every level too loud, particularly when you have great speakers.

Story:

If you don't know the story from Star Wars Episodes I-VI, you were either born after they were released or have been living in exile in a cave for the past forty years. That does not mean, however, that the story should not be told in the course of the game that purports to tell it. Entire segments of the story are left out, and not much is explained in the way of the story, except at the beginning of each level by means of the classic Star Wars intro text that scrolls up the screen in yellow letters against a starry background. This would help, except that what you do in the level has little to do with anything that was ever seen in the movies, and barely functions as a story device because the cut scenes don't tell the story any better than does the text.

This game relies almost entirely upon the legacy of the Star Wars series to get people to purchase it. It is, however, the weakest entry into the LEGO gaming universe to date. Without the almost assured crossover appeal between gamers and Star Wars enthusiasts, this game would likely fare poorly. It's really just a very poor attempt to capitalize upon a franchise, and makes me think twice about even bothering with the next entry in LEGO gaming, LEGO Star Wars Episode III: The Clone Wars.

GAMES MENTIONED IN THIS POST:

Ringing in the New Year...

2011-01-10T09:06:00.000-08:00

Being the curmudgeon that I am, I occasionally take the time to reflect on things and take a more measured approach to certain situations. Obviously, passionate response is, for me, a way of life. That does not, though, mean that it is the only way to go.

Today, I would like to talk about something that I've hinted at before during my rants about Square-Enix, and its abysmal failures at breaking into new markets successfully. It is vital to understand that my problem lies not only with Square-Enix, but with the concept that every company has to become multi-faceted and provide games for everyone.

I currently work for a restaurant whose menu has literally 1,000 items on it. For some people, this seems great - they can choose from dozens of different types of food, and more choices always equals better, right?

No. It isn't.

I know this because I have the responsibility of answering to my guests whenever they are unhappy with a selection. We are, of course, told never to say something is "bad," but to asked to gently guide them to an option that we like. This rarely works, and sometimes brute force is the way to go - it is generally appreciated when a server is just honest with you and tells you that the food just isn't that good, and you would be better served going with something else entirely.

There is, however, a reason why some things are awful and others are mediocre or better - when you try to be everything to everybody, you lose the ability to do any one thing excellently, and mediocrity is the tone of everything.

I know that I like RPGs (for the most part). I like the fact that I don't have to fight, Mortal Kombat-style, and can focus on a storyline that is cohesive and compelling. I know that I like puzzle games like sudoku and crossword puzzles. These are games that I can play on my own, without having to bother with anyone else, which is really a good thing.

Perhaps the only company to successfully break into other markets is Nintendo...and that's only because they led the industry for most of the 80s and created those genres. Other companies have attempt to create games for multiple genres, and for the most part, all have failed miserably.

We wouldn't expect EA to start dealing in JRPGs, nor would we expect Konami or Capcom to produce a high-energy crossword puzzle game. No - in fact, these efforts would be dismissed outright - and yet, when Square-Enix puts out war games, first-person shooters, and rereleases Space Invaders, no one says to them, "HEY!!! THAT'S NOT YOUR JOB!!!"

EA is there to put out copycat replications of sports games (they all operate basically the same way...just with better graphics with each new release. It's sad to me, for example, how people keep purchasing Madden NFL games - it's the same shit, every year. There aren't even new stories...just new players, better graphics, and...well, that's about it. In fact, it brings me to question the intelligence of their target audience who keep buying the new version every year. But...they are smart, because they have cornered the market. Every other company that attempts to break into the sports gaming market falls flat.

Konami is supposed to put out games like Castlevania. They have been leaders in the industry in developing new action games that are both engaging and increasingly impossible to play, especially for old curmudgeons like me who get vertigo when playing 3-D games. But, even I must admit that these games are beautiful.

Overall, video game companies, much like restaurants, need to focus on doing one or two types of things to the best of their abilities, and stop trying to please everyone. It just produces beautifully rendered, but terribly mediocre-to-poor quality games.

GAMES MENTIONED IN THIS POST:

The Curmudgeonly Gamer Presents The 10 Best/Worst of 2010...

2010-12-31T23:27:00.000-08:00

It is traditional, at year's end, for bloggers, journalists, and late night talk show hosts, alike, present what they believe to be the best or worst of the year behind them. Often, we forget just how boring these lists can be, so I've decided that, instead of presenting the 10 Best and 10 Worst of 2010, I shall simply combine them into one list to rule them all.

I likely will not meet with everyone's approval, but that's not my aim - these are clearly just my observations and opinions - and oh, what opinions they are. So, without further ado, I give you...

The 10 Best/Worst in Gaming of 2010:

10.) BEST: 3-D Dot Games Heroes

3-D Dot Game Heroes for the PS3 really took me by surprise, this year. My expectations for the game were, unsurprisingly, low (my motto is "Guilt, until proven decent"), and when I got into playing the game, I instantly fell in love with it.

The gameplay hearkens back to the days of Zelda Long-Since Past, invoking the very best of The Legend of Zelda and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, presenting a slow-paced, traditional style of overhead world map and dungeon adventuring with a twist: you can purchase and upgrade swords to your liking. This can result in any number of hilarious effects, including giant baseball bats, and creates swords that literally fill up the entire screen and kill everything in sight (this is the game's biggest claim to fame). There is actually little else to differentiate 3-D Dot Game Heroes from the Zelda overhead-style games other than these swords, though, which can be somewhat tiresome after the novelty has worn off.

As far as graphics are concerned, however, there is nothing new to see here...except the amazing detail with which the PS3 can display water effects. Water and the reflections cast in water have always been the challenge for game consoles, and this game provides a much appreciated break from the norm. The surfaces are reflective and brilliant, and do their best to ensnare unwary passersby to a watery grave.

The music is relatively good, I suppose, though like every game in this genre can become taxing when heard on a loop. Most of us have fond memories of the Zelda theme songs by Koji Kondo, and could easily whistle them in our sleep - few of us would like to listen to them for hours at a time. With 3-D Dot Game Heroes, the music goes from "Tolerable" to "Buzz Saw in the Amazon" in a matter of minutes due to the fact that it's either non-existant or at full blast, regardless of the volume setting.

Overall, this game was one of the best games for PS3 in 2010 because it reminded people what good gaming used to be like before better graphics and shorter attention spans led us down the primrose path to cookie-cutter games with little thought or effort put into them.

9.) WORST: Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light

Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light was likely one of the most depressing Square-Enix releases in recent memory. The game was touted as a return to the classic style of gaming that made the first Final Fantasy so popular - a straightforward and simple JRPG, with four heroes on a quest to save a world from darkness. At this prospect, I was wicked excited...a game that finally could restore my faith in Square-Enix's ability to reinvent the Final Fantasy series in a way that stays true to its roots without turning it into a 3D space opera.

God, was I ever wrong.

There are very few games that I am willing to sell as soon as I play them; this is one of those games. The straightforward aspect of this game really speaks more to the linear nature of the gameplay which all but forces the characters to go to specific places and complete specific (easy) tasks, all while collecting crappy ass "gems" from the monsters they beat to use as accessories to upgrade their "Crowns."

There is not a unique thing about this game; every "innovation" is just a poor imitation (read: "ripoff") of another game's idea:

The "Crown" system is FF: T4HoL's answer to a job system. Similar in every way to the Dress Sphere from Final Fantasy X-2, this system takes a stab at allowing each character to play in the classic roles of Warrior, Thief, White Mage, etc. The only difference from the Dress Sphere, however, is that you must use gems collected from hours of pointless enemy grinding to level up each individual Crown...for each individual character. Basically, all of the level grinding you do is spent casting attempting to get these upgrades so that you can insert better abilities into your customizable list of abilities. It's basically like a Materia system, with all of its drawbacks and hangups, without the same level of tedium it took to level up those glowing stones.

The graphics are nothing special, basically importing the same technology used in the Final Fantasy III Nintendo DS release from 2006. There's nothing really impressive about it, as the characters have the awkwardly shaped bodies with a ridiculous gait that barely gets you where you want to go. The backgrounds and world in which the game is set are also nothing special, being little more than poor renderings aimed to clearly display what type of land they "are." While Matrix's remake of FF III was fantastic because it brought the game to the U.S. for the first time in nearly twenty years, this game's graphics are an inexcusable lapse in modernization.

The gameplay is, much like the FF III remake, both awkward and uninspired. The touch screen is used only as a last resort because sorting through the menus manually using the directional pad is tedious, at best. Everything from movement around the screen to the flow of battle has an awkward and ungainly feel about it, which for some gamers (primarily children) doesn't present too much of an issue. The controls aren't great; neither are they responsive, nor are they intuitive to use, feeling wholly unnatural.

The music is basically a rearrangement of Nobuo Uematsu's genius scoring for FF III, with reduced sound quality and instrumentation. Naoshi Mizuta has a few inspired moments of genius to his composition, but pales in comparison to Uematsu's talent for capturing a moment.

In reviewing this game, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that I am one of the lone detractors of this game and its so-called "old school" style. Nearly every other reviewer sings this game the praises of a thousand angels in chorus, going on about how fantastically unique it is, and how refreshing it is to see the Final Fantasy series rebooted. These people are likely either being paid to say these things or they're on a really good peyote trip. If Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light is the reboot for the Final Fantasy series, I think we can safely say that the future is bleak.

8.) BEST: Nintendo 3DS

The news of the upcoming release for Nintendo's latest handheld domination console certainly rates a spot on my Top Ten list, even if it won't see release until next year...maybe. This console has so much promise, it's sick, with its ability to provide 3D images without the aid of glasses - a marvel of modern technology. Did I mention that this effect is adjustable? Gamers can adjust the "level" of 3D imagery in the game from "Full 3D" to "2D," which is massively revolutionary in and of itself. Never before have players been able to turn off and on major features of a machine; generally, we've only been able to adjust the volume, brightness, or screen position. This option allows the player to really take control of their 3D experience, and use it in ways that best suit their preferences.

The details about the 3DS are not held as closely to Nintendo's chest as are the details about the upcoming iPad 2 (now with greater absorbency), so I can only give a speculative review, but the prospect is very promising. While the price tag seems a bit high, even by Japanese standards, it will likely come down by the time it hits Western shores.

There is a risk, however, with this product following in the footsteps of the woebegone, oft-reviled, and gladly forgotten Virtual Boy console, the failure of which led to the ousting of one of Nintendo's long time designers who later went on to create a failed handheld gaming device for Bandai. It seems unlikely that this will be the case with the Nintendo 3DS, primarily because the games will be in full-color instead of monochromatic red LED lights.

The Nintendo 3DS will, I believe, be the "Next Generation" of gaming, all but assuring Nintendo's continued domination of the handheld gaming market.

7.) WORST: Final Fantasy XIII

My hatred for this game has already been vented in an earlier post, but not in detail. Let's give it a go:

While visually stunning, Square-Enix managed to deliver yet another recycled storyline with unlikable characters that are simply regurgitations of character from previous games, all of whom are introduced in haphazard ways that leave the player wondering, "Wait...who are these people, and why should I care about them?"

Meet Lightning - Square-Enix's female version of Cloud Strife and Squall Leonhart. Sullen, moody, and seemingly always bitter about the path her life has taken, Lightning goes out of her way to alienate the rest of the characters from her using her icy Bitch Ray. Nothing gets in the way of her mission to...oh, who the hell cares??? Even S-E admitted that she was created to be the female version of these two characters, and they have managed to succeed, though without either the whimsy or likability of either of the originals.

The music is okay - again, not a Uematsu score (I'm a bit biased), but he's moved on to bigger, brighter, and more profitable pastures - making new music and playing concerts of his famous Final Fantasy hits. Though well-orchestrated and certainly well played, the arrangements can, at times, be heavy handed. This is a common mistake when it comes to blending video game genres (do you need a more Action feel, or an epic RPG feel?), and it's difficult to strike that delicate balance, so I have to give Masashi Hamauzu (of Final Fantasy X co-composer fame) credit for doing the best he could with a lackluster game.

The gameplay is, perhaps, one of the least successful elements of this game. The story is told primarily through a series of tiresome and repetitive cut scenes which take up almost half of the initial run through the game. The battle system is awkward, at best, attempting to blend the real-time fighting feel of Final Fantasy XII with a new approach to ATB battle gauge fighting. The lead character runs around the battlefield like a chicken with her head cut off and runs into standing groups of enemies, which then launches into a fight sequence. You can surprise these creatures by "sneaking up on them," but it rarely works, and isn't really that helpful. The battle system could easily be the least successful element of the game, trumped only by the overly long summoning cut scenes during battles. Each fight is ranked on the amount of time it takes to finish the battle (which is seemingly subjective, and doesn't really seem to make much real sense); the higher the ranking, the more likely you are to receive marginally better, but ultimately worthless item drops from the enemies.

Enemy design is yet another lackluster element to this game. Though beautifully drawn and very clearly well-thought out, the enemies fail to inspire any real enthusiasm to beat them. Most of the time, the player worries more about beating the crap out of something as quickly as possible to attain the best drop without paying much attention to the creatures themselves.

Another failure is the leveling system, the Crystarium. Reminiscent of Final Fantasy X's Sphere Grid, the character spend certain amounts of Crystarium Points to obtain boosts to MP, HP, and various other attributes. It's no small surprise that gaining these points in the initial ten chapters is both tedious and not worth the effort, but hey...I'm a curmudgeon (hence the name of this blog).

In addition, both Square-Enix and Sony have faced class action lawsuits over "freezing glitches" that damage and physically destroy the PS3 in the process of playing. Of course, both party blames the other for faulty hardware; neither have offered to fix the problem.

Once again, I am the lone detractor in a sea of worshipers. All other reviewers have praised all of the "developments" that I've just bashed, almost to the point of idolatry. What really bugs me about these reviews, both by bloggers and game-oriented publications, is the clearly defined line between what the industry thinks constitutes greatness and what the consumers think constitutes greatness. I've been following video games for most of my life, and reading reviews that sing the praises of each new game that comes out seemingly without ever playing them. I am generally the game hater of my group of gaming friends, but what really gets my goat is how quick these reviewers are to praise the corporations that allow them to preview and review their games. Unless I've missed the mark, most of these reviews are based entirely upon talking points generated by the companies who make the games, and not from any real-life interaction with the game or the consumers who have to buy this crap.

Overall, Final Fantasy XIII has earned its place in infamy on my Worst list because of its all-too-linear gameplay, its sad sack storyline, and its entirely uninspired characters and controls. My advice is to skip this one altogether, unless you're just a collector, like me.

6.) BEST/WORST: Super Mario All-Stars 25th Anniversary Limited Edition

When Nintendo announced plans to release their 25th Anniversary Super Mario All-Stars Limited Edition for Wii in early November, people went crazy, both here and in Japan. For those of us who are old enough to remember it from the first time around, Super Mario All-Stars is a re-port of a classic SNES game released in 1993 that compiled the first three Super Mario Bros. games all onto one cartridge, along with the Japanese sequel to the original game that never got released in the U.S. On both shores, this was great, because it allowed the Japanese to play Super Mario Bros. 2, the American sequel that was released in Japan as Super Mario USA.

This release is both a Best and a Worst for one very simple reason: it is a straight re-port of the original game (Best), but it doesn't in any way live up to the hype from Nintendo of "enhanced graphics" (which are the same from the original - Worst). Additionally, it does not come with Super Mario World, unlike the link I provided above. SMBA-S had a fantastic second release that included the first Mario game for the SNES, making it a surprisingly fantastic value - five games on one cartridge.

What the 25th Anniversary Limited Edition has that makes up for the lack of new content and better graphics is a host of collectables, including a book with original art from the series and history about the games, and a short CD packed with music from the various Mario games. At an MSRP of $29.99 (+tax), this game really does hit the mark on both nostalgia and value, though seeing better graphics, sound, and gameplay control would have been a great improvement, or at least the inclusion of a few of the newer games.

5.) WORST: Final Fantasy XIV

Maybe it's just me and my hatred for all things MMORPG, but this game just sucked, and for once, I'm not the only person in the world who thinks as much. When Square-Enix announced that Final Fantasy XIV was going to be yet another MMORPG, I immediately knew that this was going to be crap. Nearly every reviewer who got a chance to play this game panned it without exception.

The MMORPG genre just isn't my bag; I have to be honest and say that I have no intention of playing this game, nor have I played Final Fantasy XI - the thought of playing a game with other people just doesn't interest me. This game, however, is special in that it has received nearly every criticism possible, from its lack of innovation to its limiting quest restrictions, and not one reviewer recommended the game in its current form. One went so far as to call it "a step backward in the genre," which is how I've felt about most of Square-Enix's releases, this year.

Ultimately, the game will likely do well, though I don't see the purpose of paying $50 upfront and $12.99 a month after the first 30 days. It just doesn't seem fiscally responsible, nor does it seem worth either the time or the money.

4.) BEST: LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4

I've already done an entire post dedicated to this game, so I'll just link you there, now:

http://curmudgeonlygamer.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-second-childhood-pass-time-come-to.html

3.) WORST: Michael Jackson: The Experience

I will be honest and say that I have not played this game; I will go further and say that I have no intention to do so, after the demos I've seen. First and foremost, I think these dancing games are kind of awful, from the start - worse is that Michael Jackson: The Experience goes out of its way to capitalize on the deceased performer's name, going so far as to use a poorly rendered image of him in the process.

You, too, can learn how to do dumbed down versions of the dances done by Michael Jackson's former back-up dancers, including Beat It and Thriller. The goal of this game (apparently) is to match Michael Jackson's steps step-for-step. To help you understand what to do, he is flanked by two dreadlocked shadows on either side.

The biggest problem, for me, is how distasteful this game is in terms of its unabashed attempt to make money by playing off the Michael Jackson post-death popularity that swept the nation. It's honestly kind of sickening.

2.) BEST: Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies

This game is by far one of the best releases Square-Enix has seen in the past five years in terms of new games. Both a throwback to the classic Dragon Quest style and a new venture forward into the 21st century, Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies is easily the game I've spent most of my year playing since its release in early July, and most likely will occupy my game card slot until mid-February when my #1 entry finally makes its way into the American market for the first time (legally) ever.

There are not enough good things to say about this game, honestly. Everything about this game really speaks to the part of me that resonates with a desire to play great video games, even into my thirties (next year). Koichi Sugiyama delivers yet another fantastic and moving score (his ninth main installment in twenty-one years), and he never fails to deliver a wonderful product. The gameplay is both easy to grasp and fun to master, without seeming tedious or monotonous, making it a fantastic choice for adults and kids, alike. A MUCH appreciated easing of the ability to steal and win items from monsters was incorporated into this game, greatly reducing the amount of time spent grinding for that rare Alchemy ingredient (one of my few qualms with Dragon Quest VIII). The introduction of the DQVC, a feature that allows gamers to access rare and drastically reduced items by way of a daily download, really does make the game worth playing for a completion freak like myself. Most importantly, the lack of random battles really does save a lot of time and pointless grinding when it comes to finishing one's Bestiary; I love having the ability to hunt for the enemy I'm seeking, find it, and knock the crap out of it.

There are, however, a few things I should mention that aren't so great about the game:

It is sad that, after so many total failures on behalf of Square-Enix, that Nintendo had to pick up the slack to get this game released in the U.S. After their last commercial success with Dragon Quest VIII, you would think they could read the writing on the American and European walls - Western gamers love Dragon Quest, and can't get enough of it. It is, however, Square-Enix's loss. It's sad to see such a once great company fall into the rut they can't seem to shake off; good for Nintendo for correctly reading the consumer tea leaves.

The main storyline is also considerably shorter and more linear than any of the previous Dragon Quest installments in the main series. Gone are the days of freely roaming complex and increasingly dangerous world maps in search of whatever you're supposed to do, next; this game tells you where to go, how to get there, and what you need to do once you arrive. I was saddened to see a departure from the fantastic world map view from Dragon Quest VIII, with the first-person perspective in all its glory, but understand that it's just not feasible on the Nintendo DS platform to make a world that lush, details, and intricate without having a larger amount of space on the disc.

My last issue with this game is the fact that players are limited to having only one save file for the game. I'm assuming this has something to do with the amount of space on the cartridge that was taken up by the game itself, but this is the first installment in the main series to restrict gamers to the one file, which frankly kind of sucks. I always enjoy going back and starting from scratch, while also having the ability to go back to my more completed game.

Those three issues aside, I highly suggest that you take a look at this fantastic game.

1.) BEST: Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation

Three years after announcing their intention to bring Dragon Quests IV, V, and VI to the U.S. newly remade for the Nintendo DS, Square-Enix (by way of Nintendo, once again) has finally come through on their promise to release the never-before-seen (legally) Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation on Valentine's Day, 2011 (February 14th).

I can't express my excitement enough that this game is finally coming out, and must say that it made quite the fantastic Christmas/Birthday surprise for me. Stay tuned in 2011 for my review once I've had a few days (or weeks) to dive into it, and see what the Curmudgeonly Gamer has to say about this beloved title.

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Well, there we go, folks. I managed to finish this post just before the deadline, and hope that you enjoyed my Top Ten for 2010 list. Make sure to spread the word about this blog in the new year, and I look forward to seeing everyone on the other side!

Sincerely,

Marcus J. Hopkins

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

The Console of the Future?

2010-12-31T03:26:00.000-08:00

I will be the first to admit that I was the last person to jump on a few of the bandwagons in terms of video game advances over the past thirty years. That is not to say that I didn't later hop on, but there are certain trends that I have missed entirely in their beginning phases, but later caught on to when the technology improved, the price came down, or there was a particular game I wanted to play.

This was the case with my decision to finally purchase a Playstation 3.

A number of reasons prevented me from purchasing this Next Gen system:

1.) The Game Selection is Crap:

Unless you're a teenage/post-pubescent-but-living-in-the-past male, the PS3 has very little to offer you in the way of gaming titles. The PS3 is really a boy's toy, designed almost primarily to take advantage of high-tech graphics capabilities which ultimately translates to a huge supply of beautifully rendered games in the following genres: Sports, First-Person Shooters, Fighting, Action, and War Simulation. Other genres need not apply. This is great for people who enjoy playing the same game over and over, again (Madden Pick-a-Year) or those who enjoy shooting people or beating them to a pulp for fun.

While this does create a vacuum for other genres to pick up the slack, we have yet to see more than a handful of worthy titles. Square-Enix (as I've mentioned before) has seemingly moved away from producing quality JRPGs, and into producing beautifully rendered crap - action games that are designed to appeal to the demographic that enjoys the far superior PS3 offerings in the aforementioned genres. It is worth noting that Square-Enix has been posting consistent losses over the past few years, and that each of these titles have gone basically unnoticed, except by the reviewers who can't help but collectively worship at the altar of Square. Ironically, the most successful title of the year for Square-Enix has been Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies, both in Japan in the U.S. - a title that was in no way "Next Gen," sporting graphics that most people deemed "Old School," gameplay that was basically antediluvian, and only barely took advantage of the Nintendo DS's touch-screen capabilities. I guess that goes to show you that you should stick to what you know.

What finally convinced me to purchase the system was the creation of the Playstation Network, an online feature that allows gamers to purchase, download, and play new and classic titles, as well as movies in standard or high definition and store them on the PS3's internal memory. This, for me, was the selling point - I could download and play the classic games that I already owned, but for one reason or another (a PS2 that sometimes doesn't work or scratched game discs), I was unable to play again. Ironically, this was what convinced me to get the Wii, as well (the Virtual Console - the first of the online game downloading networks for the "Next Gens," after which all others will pale in comparison). It is telling that, at the age of 29, I am more interested in playing games from the past than looking forward to the crap of the future.

2.) The Cost was (and is) Prohibitive for the Entertainment Value Offered:

When the PS3 first debuted, it was one of the few affordable ways for consumers to get a Blu Ray player...and you got the next big thing in video gaming, as well. At the time, this was a justifiable excuse for the ridiculous price tag that accompanied the technology. Sony argued, at the time, that they were offering a superior product with superior technology (which was technically true - and, hey...it works for Apple).

The time has come where that excuse no longer passes scrutiny.

The PS3 was originally introduced at the E3 2005 Conference sporting 2 HDMI ports, three Ethernet ports, and six USB ports - when it was released, however, it came with one HDMI port, one Ethernet port, and four USB ports, ostensibly to lower costs. That did not, however, seem to do the trick. When the PS3 hit the U.S. market, the MSRP for the 20GB model was $499, with the 60GB model coming in at a modest $599.

While those initial prices have dropped (which the storage capacity has thankfully increased), they are still prohibitive when it comes to expanding their market reach. Priced at just below $300, the PS3 still cannot outperform the Nintendo Wii in terms of global sales. Though the Wii does not support high-quality graphics, it does manage to outsell both the PS3 and the (dreadful) XBOX 360. Of the three consoles, the best graphics are clearly a tie between the latter two options, but the Wii supports the greatest variety of game genres at a much more competitive price, making it the obvious choice for parents looking to entertain their entire family. The XBOX 360, more than the PS3, is really geared almost entirely to single males over the age of 14, and with rare exception, serves little other purpose than to work beautifully for six months, overheat, break, and have to be replaced, which makes it worth even less than the Wii, despite its superior graphics and sound quality.

Until the introduction of the Kinect and the Playstation Move in late 2010, the Wii also offered the only interactive gaming experience outside of cameras and headsets. Unfortunately, I'm not yet convinced that either of these gaming experiences really warrant the price tag that accompanies them - and that price is for something that is, for all intents and purposes, an add-on. We have seen dozen of examples of well-intentioned products meant to make gaming experiences more interactive that just didn't work out: NES Power Glove, NES R.O.B., NES Power Pad, Gameboy Camera, SNES Mouse, SNES Super Scope 6, Virtual Boy, and various other failures in interactive technology over the years have shown that players will be initially impressed with the novelty of these gimmicks, but unless there is sufficient content to support the gimmick, it will quickly fall to the wayside in the Isle of Misfit Toys.

The Wii is successful because the system is the gimmick; every game released for the Wii finds a new way to utilize the Wii Remote (which I just find kind of suggestive, even for me), allowing players to cast spells as Harry Potter, use it as a flashlight in Silent Hill, and turn it sideways for use as a classic controller for various other games - and that's before we even begin to get into the various accessories available for the controller, like the Wii Nunchuck (which comes standard with the system), the Classic Controller, and various other controllers into which you can place the wand to get Wii Wheels, Wii Crossbows, Wii Tennis Rackets, and Wii almost anything else you can imagine. The possibilities with the Wii Remote are limited only by the imaginations of the geniuses at Nintendo. The same cannot be said of the Playstation Move, for which I can't really find a real use; the Kinect, though promising in terms of technology, doesn't really impress me. Watching people jump around like idiots is the reason I avoid DDR games in the mall; the last thing I want to do is have to do that shit at home while trying to relax and play a video game.

3.) The Affordable Supporting Technologies Just Weren't Impressive Enough to Support the Cost

At the time of the PS3 release, the supporting technology that could take advantage of the machine's graphics capabilities still was not affordable enough to justify a $500 price tag, particularly since televisions that offered 1080p upscaling and resolution in 2007 ranged about $1500 for a 42-inch television, and the affordability of quality HDMI cables and connections was also unrealistically high. That doesn't include the receivers, speakers, and cables that could take full advantage of the PS3's enhanced sound capabilities, either. For those obsessed with this kind of technology (like my partner), the total cost after purchasing all of the requisite equipment needed to fully take advantage of the technology would end up costing somewhere around $3000 for a fully functional entertainment system.

This was, of course, only the cost for the most obsessive of gamers and technogeeks. For those who just wanted the next best thing in gaming, they should have realized that the system was going to see massive improvement in just a few short years that would make the initial release basically worthless in terms of cost/benefits. Today, the 160GB PS3 is roughly $300, which is great...except that it is no longer the only affordable Blu Ray player on the market.

While not the king of high quality electronics retail, Wal*Mart offers a Blu Ray player for the low price of $88. While it doesn't play video games or have internet access, once could easily purchase a new Wii, a Blu Ray player, and get a Netflix Instant View account for less than the cost of the 160GB PS3, and still come out with a better value as the Wii has more and cheaper games for the platform, has internet access, and can entertain the whole family, all while being able to watch Blu Ray videos after you turn off the system. It's not perfect, but it's still a better value.

Now that the PS3 is no longer the only Blu Ray game in town, it would behoove them to lower the price of their system to make way for a new option to arise...which leads me to my next sticking point.

4.) Oh Where, Oh Where Has My PS2 Gone?

When the PS2 was released, the real value of the system laid not in its much improved graphics capabilities, but in the fact that you could continue to play your old Playstation games, as well. Backwards compatibility is something that is greatly overlooked, these days, when the Big Three (Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft) release their new systems, primarily because of the cost associated with continuing to produce and support outgoing technology.

With each consecutive system that is released, obviously old technology will have to fall to the wayside, and with certain consoles, this is of particular concern as it creates a situation in which continuing to produce the old technology is vastly ineffective in terms of cost, and requires at least a five-year transition period to wean consumers off of the old technology and introduce them to the new kid of the block. This was the case with the transition from the NES to the SNES, which supported an entirely different type of game cartridge and a much different game engine that could not support playing the old cartridge in slot on the SNES. The PS3, however, was not different enough of a format to justify the lack of backwards compatibility.

What differentiates the PS3 from PS2 (apparently) is the difference between the drives (or engines) used to run the games. Certain games, however, were still able to be played on the PS3...but the list was sparse. PSX games could still be played, though, which was so far removed in terms of the release date of the software that it was ridiculous. Don't get me wrong - I love the PSX and its games more than anyone, but really? How hard would it have been to throw in an extra PS2 drive to phase out the old system, but still continue making the old discs, especially when the consumer's going to shell out $500 freakin' bucks for your new system. They do say, now, that "some" PS2 games can be played on the PS3, but which that distinction is not made clear. If this sounds like a gyp to you, you're right. They could have made the system fully backwards compatible, just like they could have included all the extra ports...they chose not to because it 'seemed more cost effective, at the time.' Boy, did they misread their tealeaves...

Hopefully, Sony will learn a valuable lesson and make the PS4 completely backwards compatible, particularly if it's going to use another disc-based format. It seems unlikely, though, that any new system will do much more than capitalize upon the current obsession (aka - resurgence) of the 3D craze. However, much like higher quality graphics and resolution, the supporting technologies just aren't there. The Nintendo 3DS has already met this criteria because it allows the player to adjust the "level" of 3D visualization, which basically means that games can be played in either 3D or 2D. Nintendo has just issued a press release warning consumers that children under the age of six should not, under any circumstances, play games in 3D at any depth of perception due to the risk of permanent damage to their children's undeveloped eyesight. This, to my way of thinking, is a no-brainer. The world's fascination, however, with 3D and all the wonderful things it can('t) bring to the table will undoubtedly continue (for as long as it's fashionable), until the next big craze comes along.

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What ultimately threw me over the fence in favor of purchasing my PS3, this September, was the availability of money. I knew that, under no circumstances, was I ever going to purchase an XBOX 360 due to its predictably massive unpredictable failure, not to mention the paucity of game selection. I knew, also, that I was growing tired of the family-friendly games that kept being released for the Wii, and that I was using it primarily (all right...solely) for its access to classic games from the 80s and 90s. My decision to purchase a PS3 really came down to the fact that I had just received my student loan money, had paid for my classes, books, and rent, and had some extra cash to spare. My partner actually had to convince me to purchase it from Amazon instead of from Wal*Mart, due to the price difference. I actually made the Amazon purchase on my phone while still in Wal*Mart, which made the entire process even more ironic.

Since purchasing the PS3, I have to say that I'm surprisingly impressed, though not by the fantastic image quality, nor by the sound profile - instead, I am impressed by my ability to personalize my PS3 to suit the type of gamer that I tend to be: an old, disconnected and disgruntled fart who enjoys the games of yore rather than the Gods of War. I am still exploring the possibilities of this system, honestly, and must report that I do use it more than any of my other consoles (including my Nintendo DSi, since Dragon Quest IX has gotten boring over the last six months). It may not be Super Mario Bros. 2 or Zelda II: The Adventures of Link, but it is most definitely 3-D Dot Game Heroes (a much-overlooked game from the past year) and LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4.

All in all, while the PS3 may not be worth its $300 price tag, it is still a system that really delivers, despite its numerous flaws.

That's all for my birthday post. I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas (or whatever the hell holiday you celebrate), and stay tuned for the Curmudgeonly Gamer's 2010 Year-End Wrap Up to be posted before the New Year.

Peace the F*** Out (PTFO)!

-Marcus J. Hopkins

GAMES AND PRODUCTS MENTIONED IN THIS POST:

When One Game Just Wasn't Enough...

2010-12-24T19:37:00.000-08:00

I know that I already did a post about Square-Enix and its penchant for beating the same drum for thirteen years, I realize exactly how much I have to say on the topic. Don't get me wrong...the news of Square-Enix's forthcoming release of Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation on Valentine's Day, 2011 is something that made me nearly piss myself with excitement - I've been waiting for that release date for nearly three years. More to the point, I have actually enjoyed playing the rereleased titles much more than any of the other tripe S-E has put out over the past five years. Still, for most of the last half of the past decade, Square-Enix seemed intent upon living off of the fame of one game:

Final Fantasy VII

Final Fantasy VII was originally released on August of 1997 (my sophomore year of high school), and was Squaresoft's first venture into the world of disc-based gaming. Easily the largest game made by Squaresoft at the time, this installment in the series introduced an entire generation to the JRPG genre, and for many is the best Final Fantasy game against which all others are measured.

Before I get too far into the history of the game, I'm going to leave the research to my readers and move on to my "Compliment Sandwich," in which I praise the game, rip it to shreds, and then give some redeeming qualities. I often do this with videos games as a way of determining whether or not something worthwhile can be gleaned from a title, and if not, I generally sell it back to Gamestop.

1.)

Final Fantasy VII was the first, and arguably best, Square release for the Playstation One. It was certainly the most commercially successful. It blended together many elements perfectly - a fantastic score provided by Nobuo Uematsu, a vast story set in an increasingly complex and expanding world, and a number of extra side quests to entertain even the most vocal critics of linear gameplay. To date, Uematsu's track, "One-Winged Angel," is used to close all of the Final Fantasy video game concerts, and often leads the entire audience to clap throughout the piece along with the beat; should an encore be in order, this song comes first, always to uproarious cheers. This game sports the most spin-offs, accessories, and merchandise of any other installment - it is no small wonder that this game is used by Square as a cottage industry.

FF VII was also the first game in the series to be set outside of the world of knights and castles that made Final Fantasy games popular, instead placing the player in a modern and futuristic setting. The characters were the first in the series to be rendered in 3D polygonal models, and even though they looked both blocky and awkward, at the time, they were a great triumph in terms of graphics and it was no surprise that people were impressed.

2.)

There are, however, MANY shortcomings with this game that rarely receive mention when being reviewed by people for whom this was their first Final Fantasy:

a.) While the characters were revolutionary in terms of their rendering, and were, for the first time in America, allowed to swear, they were not relatable. The main character had no character (which ends up being a plot point), and the others around him, with the sole exception of Aerith, are almost entirely unlikable. When you finally get to the point where you can unlock Vincent (the sole "mystery" character in the entire game), you are excited just to get a character whose abilities are in the slightest bit useful.

This is not entirely the fault of the character designers; rather, it is a direct result of poor development on the part of the writers and a rushed production schedule on the part of the game developers. When pushed for time, both the writers and developers caved to the pressure of clamoring business executives who insisted that they needed the much-awaited hit sooner, rather than later; when money is the main concern, the plot and integrity take a major hit. Always.

b.) FF VII has more plot holes than a mystery novel written by an Alzheimer's patient. It is very clear that Aerith is supposed to be resurrected before the end of the game from the list of "dummied" items (items removed from the game by the developers that were intended to be used by the players for an undisclosed purpose - the reasons for their removal is often because they would too greatly sway the game in a player's favor or they simply ran out of time to include them in the sequence of events).

This is just one of the MANY plot holes surrounding the characters, whether it concerns their backgrounds, their relationships to the other characters, or their importance to the story. Certain characters (Cait Sith, for example) are almost entirely useless, serving no other purpose than to entertain a captive audience. Yes, he eventually factors into the grand scheme of things as a spy, but when you eventually find the man behind the character in the Shinra Building, it's such a let down that you don't even care to use the character ever again.

c.) While the game is incredibly engaging in terms of its story, it is not, in fact, a plausible story arc. The fact that it is engaging has more to do with the fact that you have no clue what's going on for most of the game. Suddenly, you're in a janky truck, or on a motorcycle, or snowboarding down a mountain...but, for what? Why, exactly, are you marching in this parade with the other military soldiers? There must be some sort of cultural disconnect between Japanese and American culture that leaves me thinking, "...What?"

To be entirely honest, the game's storyline is almsot indecipherable. Somehow, this former special-ops soldier found out that he (along with the main character, Cloud...who never says anything intelligible or even gripping) was an experiment made from this alien creature's DNA. And somehow, JENOVA is his mother...and Cloud's mother, as well). The whole thing smacks of bad Dark Shadows reruns. Perhaps it is because the game's landscape is so far removed from the world of antiquity, and I just don't like Sci-Fi that I find it preposterous.

d.) The magic and abilities system is cumbersome, at best, and allows only for very limited character customization. Each piece of Materia must be leveled up and upgraded in addition to leveling up your characters, and with each new piece of Materia acquired, you must level it up from scratch. This more than doubles the necessary amount of requisite level grinding needed in order to have any chance against stronger enemies, and forces an unnecessary and often just doesn't have the payoff that it did in older games.

3.) Despite all of the things that I find wrong with this game, it was, perhaps, the last Final Fantasy game that I enjoyed on even the most basic levels. The play control was decent, and even the giant holes in the plot were more than made up for by the vastness of the world in which it was set. To this day, listening to the music from this game when I sleep provides some of best dreams I've ever had, and the most peaceful rest of my week.

Overall, Final Fantasy VII provides for some great entertainment so long as you aren't too particular about things like story, plot, or character development. It is a fantastic introduction to the world of RPGs, with a setting that is likely more accessible for a younger generation of gamers who didn't grow up in the world of dragons, knights, wizards, and castles. It is ironic, though, that the current trend in MMORPGs is a return to this Medieval setting, though World of Warcraft really is geared toward adult gamers more so than teens.

What is not okay is how Square-Enix continues to pimp this game out over and over again to try to capitalize on the success of this one title - and if they ARE going to do it, at least make games that are (a.) remotely playable, (b.) worth the money, and (c.) are more than just gimmicky test projects for other titles outside of the series to see if a game will be successful.

Merry Christmas, everyone, from the Curmudgeonly Gamer!

-Marcus J. Hopkins

GAMES MENTIONED IN THIS POST:

Available on PSX and Playstation Network

My Second Childhood Pass Time Come to Vibrant Life...

2010-12-24T07:45:00.000-08:00

This is likely to surprise my readers, but there are, in fact, games in this world that I like that are not more than a decade old. In fact, one of my more recent "discoveries" (a term I am loathe to use because it cheapens the review) is the wonderful world of LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 on the PS3. But before I get to the meat of this review, let me treat you to a little bit of history about the Curmudgeonly Gamer...

As a child, there were two things I loved more than any others - video games and LEGOs. Both of these outlets for childhood activity allowed me to escape from my reality in ways that allowed me to be both mentally stimulated and comfortable with my often insular childhood. By choice, I would rather spend my days playing games and building magical castles out of tiny blocks than ever go out and bike around my neighborhood block. LEGOs in particular allowed me to create worlds of my own that mirrored the ideal lands I had in my head and did not, yet, have the words to put onto paper.

This is what I discovered when I first began playing LEGO Harry Potter. A couple of days into the month of December, I had a $25 Gamestop giftcard, and was both unwilling and incapable of waiting to blow my money. I had been wondering about the game and figured I'd give it a shot. Rather than purchase it for cheaper on Amazon (but not use the Giftcard), I went to my local store and picked up a copy.

From the first moment the game hit my screen, I was immediately impressed at the level of quality in the graphics - not the ADORABLE little LEGO characters whose every grunt, sigh, and laugh never fail to send me into spasms of inner glee, but the amazingly rendered and painstakingly detailed world in which the game takes place.

Rather than rehash what numerous other "paid" reviewers will tell you, my take on the game is one of sheer enjoyment. Perhaps my only issue of discontent is that there isn't more of this game to love. Being an avid Harry Potter fan (though not of the dressing up variety), I was more than impressed at the level of attention paid to recreating the wizarding world of everyone's favorite English wizard. From the Leaky Cauldron to Gringott's Bank to Hogwarts, LEGO Harry Potter is everything that is right about a great game.

This game has something for everyone:

For the RPG-happy, OCD, 100% Completion nut, there is a seemingly endless bevy of things to collect, from playable characters that must be both unlocked and purchased (giving you more bang for you stud, as it were), to Extras that can be found, purchased, and turned on to "enhance" the gaming experience.

For the Underage Wizard who's just making his first foray into the world of video games, the game play is simple enough for even my uncoordinated partner to make a successful run while still enjoying himself...and that's saying a lot for someone who detests video games.

For the Nihilistic Gamer who feels the need to destroy everything in site, this game gives you that opportunity. Almost everything that isn't attached to the walls (and even some that are) can be exploded into tiny little LEGO pieces, and when you finally unlock a playable character who has access to Dark Magic, you can, in fact, both torture and explode a character (which is only temporary...for the most part), and all in the name of collecting "studs" - LEGO Land's chosen currency.

For the Music Loving Gamer, Warner Bros. studios licensed the use of the original soundtrack, and each chapter of the game uses live recordings of the soundtracks from the film. The theme, however, does get a bit grating after a few hours, but the fact that this game actually has a real orchestra playing music in the background is amazing, as the music really is what makes the movies so fantastic. John William's original score is one of those few scores that reaches around the world, and when you hear the opening notes, you know you're watching Harry Potter.

For the Harry Potter collector, this game represents the very best of Harry Potter Memorabilia. It is an excellent addition to one's collection that retells in fantastic measure of Years 1-4, from Harry Potter's arrival at Number 4, Privet Drive to the resurrection of Lord Voldemort in the cemetery. There are only a few minor differences, here and there, that are there only for comic relief.

Perhaps the only major concern I have for this game is its lack of context. For anyone who hasn't either read or seen the Harry Potter series (though I doubt that includes anyone in the Western world), much of LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 will be something of a mystery. The main limitation of retelling this fantastic story in this medium is that the LEGO characters are incapable of speech, and must tell the story through a series of amusing, yet sometimes inarticulate gestures. When you encounter other characters in the game, they may or may not make sounds that aren't very clearly explained as to what they mean - are they saying "Hello, Harry!" or "You can't come this way, Harry!"

If you are unfamiliar with the first four movies, even the story arcs may not make much sense. Why does Harry need to go to that first Charms Class? And what, exactly, CAN'T you do with the Leviosa spell? It seems that every sconce, torch, suit of armor, and student can be levitated, and really...why must you float almost EVERYTHING just to move on to the next screen, scene, or year? Without knowing the basics of the story, it is difficult to know what's going on around you, where to go, or who each character is.

After playing LEGO Harry Potter, I was hooked... I HAD to have the rest of the LEGO games, so over the next couple of days, I went about purchasing LEGO Batman, LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures, LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues, and LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga. By the way...can anyone tell that I'm something of a collector?

I've only really had an opportunity to delve into LEGO Batman, thus far, but must say that I am still massively entertained. Tt has gone out of its way to create worlds in which even curmudgeonly gamers such as myself can very easily get lost. The music and beautifully rendered background art (particularly in Harry Potter) really allow you to get sucked in...even WITH the LEGO characters inability to speak.

While all of these things are wonderful, there is something to be said for all of these games. They can very quickly become repetitive, as the main task in the game consists of destroying anything and everything in sight in the hopes of collecting more studs to purchase upgrades, extras, and playable characters. For those unused to the wonderful world of level grinding so common in JRPGs, this can become tiresome sooner than not, and may lead other gamers to put the game aside after finishing the main game. I, however, revel in this kind of gameplay, and feel that the best part of the game is going back and picking up all of the extras I couldn't get during the first couple of times through the levels.

All in all, the world of LEGO video games is one that I am incredibly glad to have become a part, and I look forward to the release of LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars and LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean coming out in 2011.

Until next time, this is Curmudgeonly Gamer signing off, and wishing everyone the Happiest of Christmases, or whatever else you celebrate.

Sincerely,
Marcus J. Hopkins

GAMES MENTIONED IN THIS POST:

When the Tower Begins to Tumble...

2010-12-22T21:52:00.000-08:00

Square-Enix Slashes Outlook, Delays Game Launch

On December 16th, 2010, news hit the gaming world that Square-Enix, the long-venerated video game producer of Role Playing Game fame, had to revise it's financial outlook for the year downward by roughly 92% from last year. For those of us who have been with the company since its humble Final Fantasy beginnings, this really comes as no surprise. Those readers who are less familiar with the world of RPGs are likely to need a bit of a quick primer course concerning the history of the company.

In 1987 Square Co., Ltd. was facing failure. After a series of poorly received, and frankly poorly designed, video game releases, the company released Final Fantasy, thus named because it was expected to be the final game released before the company filed for bankruptcy. This game revolutionized the gaming industry, not only in Japan, but worldwide. Built upon the success of Enix's Dragon Quest (also known as Dragon Warrior in the U.S.), Final Fantasy was one of the first accessible games that managed to successfully bridge to gap between American and Japanese RPG gamers, with a focus on turn-based battle systems, sweeping and epic story arcs, and a departure from the highly popular screen-to-screen dungeon games in which players would be presented with a menu of options and actions, select one, and see what happens ("You've punched the wall." "The wall gives way.")

Throughout the 90s, Squaresoft dominated the American RPG market (though Enix continued to control the greater sales in Japan), and their rising star seemed unstoppable. The turn of the millenium, however, brought with it a worldwide desire to "rebrand" oneself, and nearly every industry saw its companies attempt to branch out into new realms. New technology allowed video game companies to explore increasingly realistic realms, and with that rush to make everything look realistic, Square began to lose some of the characteristics that defined its meteoric rise.

In 2003, Square Co. Ltd. merged with the highly successful Enix (makers of the Dragon Quest series) after three years of negotiations. Enix feared that merging with Square would be a massive failure after the company managed to lose a massive amount of money on the critical and box office flop, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. To this day, I'm not sure that I disagree with that assessment.

Square-Enix has crumbled significantly over the past decade, primarily because they lost something of the charm that was their saving grace along the way. I am certain that other game reviewers will rant about the failure of the gaming industry to provide quality rants, but as this is my introductory review of a news item, it seems only apropos that I begin by setting my readers' expectations of my positions.

This rant will likely follow the same path as many of the other ancient gamers who have become increasingly vocal of their displeasure with Square-Enix's departure from quality game production. It all starts with a single game that shapes one's expectation of a great game, and ends in disappointment as those expectations are repeatedly bashed against the rocks in one company's attempt to move into the future and attract and increasingly inept gaming crowd.

When I began playing the NES as a child, Final Fantasy was the one game that I rented every weekend, without fail, until I convinced my parents that it was cheaper to just purchase the game rather than to rent it until the cartridge exploded. On my 10th birthday, I used all of my birthday and Christmas money to pay the $85 to purchase Final Fantasy II (US - AKA Final Fantasy IV) on the SNES. With each successive release of a new Square title, I was one of the first in line to purchase the game, up to and including the dreadful Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest.

Each game was unique - the characters, while only sprites, had more character and charm in their unrealistic bodies than almost any of the newer characters (post-Final Fantasy VIII). The storylines were both complex and yet struck at the very core of what makes a great story - the struggle of good over evil. And then came the Playstation.

Watching Squaresoft go down the primrose Playstation path to gaming (while it was infinitely more cost effective) changed the way that people thought about JRPGs. No longer did we need a coherent, complete storyline without plot holes, free from disappearing characters, or the ability to freely wander around an overhead shot of a map fighting monsters and attempting to figure out the next task out of a list of vague clues. We had graphics, now, and those would make up for what was very often simply a bad game masked by very impressive graphics.

With the emergence of the PS2, we were introduced to the wholesale abandonment of characters with whom you could either identify or in whom you could see any depth or development. Final Fantasy X introduced us to a world where the exploration was both limited and limiting; where the progression and development of characters was based upon what you could purchase instead of what you earned through hard-fought battles (and many hours of grinding). This combined with nearly impossible to complete Ultimate Weapon tasks (that alone could take up hours of play) resulted in what was a visually stunning, yet ultimately unsatisfying gaming experience.

The foray into MMORPGs destroyed in me any hope that the Final Fantasy franchise would see a return to its better days. In fact, Square-Enix's entire adventure into internet communications (beginning with its failure of a FF IX online-guide book) has been lackluster, at best, providing the least interesting approach to social networking on record.

Meanwhile, the only title in its entire lexicon that still lives up to some of the charm and whimsy that made me (and countless others) love Square-Enix was one that it acquired in the merger with Enix - Dragon Quest. As each Final Fantasy moves further away from being a game and further toward being a B-Rated movie, the Dragon Quest series continues to deliver the classic gaming experience.

While some of the younger gamers will complain about the lack of innovation, modern graphics, and in-game cut scenes to dazzle the senses (but dull the wits), those of us who have been around to watch the JRPGs develop are often excited by the noticeable LACK of these characteristics. It seems as if much of the money Square-Enix keeps doling out to produce these next-gen games is wasted to create a graphically stunning CGI film of Avatar proportions rather than a functional game.

I purchased the PS3, this fall, because I had the cash and wanted a Blu Ray player that would upscale to 1080p, despite knowing that I would only like about 2% of the games available for the system - none of which were made by Square-Enix. I had refused to purchase the system for three years, but the lure of the Playstation Network and its downloadable classics lured me in - I have not been disappointed. The ability to replay the games of yesteryear was what led me to purchase many of the systems I own, including the Wii, which is otherwise unplayable.

My first game purchase was Final Fantasy XIII, which I played for approximately four hour (cumulatively) before I put it back in its case from which it will likely never return. This game is perfect for the modern gamer that prefers style over substance - a story comprised of disposable characters modeled entirely off of the most popular character from Final Fantasies VII, X, and XII that makes only the barest attempt to actually be a game, much less an RPG.

The biggest disappointment associated with this game is the paper-thin storyline and ultra-linear gameplay that has, sadly, become commonplace in modern gaming. Younger gamers complain of the lack of flashy graphics and the repetitive nature of having to grind for hours just to make it through the next boss, and on that last point, they are correct. Those of us with more experience, however, can attest that flashy graphics do not make up for a story that would likely earn a mid-C in any fiction writing course, and would likely doom any major box office release to an early and painful demise. Final Fantasy XIII is the prime example of everything that is wrong with modern gaming - it renders the player almost completely incapable of exploring the world around them, wastes most of the game play time with pointless and boring cut scenes, and adds nothing new to the world of gaming stories. The game relies entirely on its graphics to suck people into the game, and once you're trapped, you only finish it so that you feel you haven't wasted $60 to watch what is little more than a subpar ripoff of Avatar.

If Final Fantasy XIII isn't enough to sink a company's stock, let's take a look at some of Square-Enix's other woeful decisions:

Outside of releasing nearly unplayable games, Square-Enix has seemed bound and determined to rest the success of its operations entirely upon the popularity Final Fantasy VII. To date, Final Fantasy VII has been the most beloved by younger fans, as it was, for many, their first introduction into the world of Final Fantasy and JRPGs, in general. Since its initial release in 1997, this one game alone has seen no fewer than nine related game and films releases on various platforms...none of which are particularly amazing or even remarkable. Nothing of real value is added to the mythology by these subsequent releases, and some of the games (most notably Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII) were damn near unplayable. They are little more than half-assed attempts to capitalize upon the critical and financial success of the original title.

In addition to piggybacking on the success of a single title, Square-Enix has spent much of the last decade rereleasing old favorites on various gaming consoles in what I can only assume is an attempt to placate the growing discontent from its most vocal fanbase - people like me. Final Fantasies I-VI have all seen rereleases on various consoles, while parts VII-IX have recently been released on the Playstation Network under PSOne Classics. These games have, in fact, been my favorite Square-Enix releases in the past ten years, with the sole exceptions of Dragon Quest VIII and Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies, as each new release allows me the opportunity to escape from the dismal reality that is Next-Gen RPG Gaming.

Despite Square-Enix's seemingly bankruptcy-inducing financial outlook, the opportunity still exists for the company to rise like the Phoenix from the ashes - a return to its roots (along with those of Enix) is in order. Instead of focusing on breaking into newer, seemingly greener game genre pastures, Square-Enix should go back to basics: great story lines, simplified graphics in exchange for more engaging characters and stories, and an emphasis on making players think instead of check out and reach for the next "trophy" (example - "You've completed the first mission!" My reaction: "Who gives a crap?"). Instead of wasting money on graphics that can only carry the company so far in the eyes of both the industry and public reviewers, reassemble the original team and ask them to create a classic gaming experience that will ensnare the player and bring them into the world along with their well-developed, likable characters.

Here's an idea - put the Final Fantasy franchise to rest for a while. Spend more time focusing on the Dragon Quest franchise that you worked so hard to procure in your merger with Enix, and capitalize on the growing US interest in the series, almost entirely thanks to Nintendo's efforts - not your own. Get out of action games and first-person shooters, and go back to what you know and once did better than almost everyone else.

Ultimately, the ends did NOT justify the means, and if Square-Enix fails to correct the path of the Titanic, an iceberg looms ahead.

With curmudgeonly regard,
Marcus J. Hopkins

GAMES MENTIONED IN THIS POST:

The Curmudgeonly Gamer Comes Home to Roost...

2010-12-22T20:07:00.000-08:00

When I first moved to Los Angeles, CA a year ago, I assumed that I would be leaving behind some of my gaming ways. The pass time that had been a staple of my adolescence and early adulthood should have been replaced by my newfound drive to complete my college education...this however, was not to be the case.

I came into the L.A. leather community to discover a number of dedicated gamers of various levels of dedication, and quickly discovered that there was (and is) a growing discontent within the ranks that cannot and should not be dismissed as the last gasps of a dying breed - there is real merit to many of these complaints, and those in the gaming industry should take heed if they plan to maintain their connection to this well-funded demographic.

As the Nintendo Generation begins their journey in their 30s, video game companies have been smart to grow with their early followers, providing more and more adult-themed games that appeal not only to the older players but can draw in the emerging gamer class. While this may seem intelligent, at first glance, there is some suspension of disbelief at work, here; there is a man behind the curtain away from whom they want to drag your attention - the truth is that there is little substance in exchange for greater style.

This blog is dedicated to identifying the things that made the video game industry great, the problems that continue to plague the market, and the pitfalls that should be avoided if the industry expects to continue to thrive. In addition, I'll be ranting about some of my pet peeves about modern gaming, and my opinion on the state of things.

I am also linking my Amazon.com account to this blog so that I can include product reviews, recommendations, and links to upcoming products that are exciting to me. This IS a shameless attempt to make a very small amount of money, so please be sure to follow these links to help me continue to provide content that is relavent and helpful in an increasingly accepting game review market.

With that said, I hope that you enjoy my newest blog, and can't wait to hear some feedback!

Sincerely,
Marcus J. Hopkins