Monthly Archive for April, 2004

Terence Ang, Infamous Freelance Game Reviewer

Published
by
KIRBYSIM
on 29/4/2004
in Gaming
. 4 Comments

It’s hard to review a game these days. Not only are the games getting so much more sophisticated, making playing through them quickly and yet accurately describing most of its pros and cons a difficult task, the reviewer also has to put up with criticism of his writing, sometimes only over the lack of one or two words or points.

That is why, in general, I respect people’s reviews even if I don’t agree with it, or if I spot a few grammatical or spelling mistakes in it.

However, there is a limit to how much one can put up with. That’s where Mr Terence Ang here comes in.

Recently, on my stay at i-CON, I managed to pick up a copy of the April issue of GameAxis Unwired. It’s a great publication, by the way - it’s free, has great content (mostly, anyway), is well-organised, has stuff to give away, and.. did I mention that it’s FREE?

Anyway, one fine day, I was sitting on the toilet bowl, reading GameAxis Unwired while ‘minding my own (big) business’ when I came to this Sonic Heroes review, written by freelance writer Terence Ang. It gave me the shock of my life - my standard of what a lousy review is just got lower.

Usually, if a review, say, makes a number of unforgiving grammatical mistakes or leaves out certain important details that may affect the score when describing a certain aspect, in my books it is considered bad. If it does both, it is considered awful. If on top of doing both, the reviewer also uses inept description, then it is considered lousy.

Mr Terence Ang’s Sonic Heroes review tops all that. It is ridiculous.

If you’ve still got the April issue of GameAxis Unwired somewhere in your backyard, please fetch it and do a read on the Sonic Heroes review (page 9) if you haven’t already, in order to better understand my rantings. I’m not going to quote the whole disaster.
Continue reading ‘Terence Ang, Infamous Freelance Game Reviewer’

Popularity: 9% [?]

Cycles

Published
by
CrashWire
on 27/4/2004
in Gaming
. 0 Comments

I need my level 30 in Final Fantasy XI. That’s after wasting so much money on months unplayed and having the misconception that cancelling my content ID would lead to the deletion of my character.

Ok, that’s as far as I will go. And it’s come to my attention that a lot of roleplaying games rely on this monotonous cycle to provide for “hours and hours of gameplay”. Final Fantasy, Zelda, Dragon Quest. What most games do to break out of the cycle is by providing high quality animations that would make graphic whores wet themselves and storylines that beat the number of cultural references in The Matrix hands down. And they are still one of the most popular genres today for the supposedly “thinking” crowd.

Thankfully there are platformers, first person shooters and strategy games to break the cycle. Oh wait, platformers involve you jumping on monsters or robots to slay them. First person shooters make you kill and kill. Same for strategy games.

Perhaps that’s why the better games try to break out of the cycle in different ways, and break out they sometimes do. Give me something that requires my brain to think everytime. Bah, it’s just too tempting to refer to the numerous FAQs up on the Internet.

Oh well, back to the endless levelling that is Vana’diel.

On a side note, if anyone wants to meet a couple of us for the Xbox Live Launch, do post in the topic. Hope to see some blog readers there!

Popularity: 8% [?]

Nerd Lang Syne - Retrospection From An Arcade Geek

Published
by
NPC #16
on 24/4/2004
in Gaming
. 1 Comment

To say I used to be a fan of the arcade would be like telling Michael Jackson ‘Hey, you REALLY like kids huh?’.

Disturbing opening analogy over and done with, readers, I would like you to meet Nerd Lang Syne, a record of the highlights of my quirkier experiences in the arcade. Nerd Lang Syne, stop drooling in the corner and meet the readers.

As you might’ve guessed, the content of Nerd Lang Syne is reflective of the kind of personalities I come across in the arcade. In other words, expect mild retardation and the online verbal equivalent of projectile vomiting.

When I can find the time to expound on them, upcoming highlights will tentatively include:

Arcade hygiene, or the lack thereof
Baby butch and girlfriend
The weighing of the phallus
The Sponsor
Money buys suckage
Mr Personality
The correlation between Puzzle Bobble and leaking brains

Oooh! We’ll have so much fun!! Let’s paint some toenails next! *claps*

Popularity: 7% [?]

1337 sP34k? Emoticons? OUTDATED!

Published
by
KIRBYSIM
on 24/4/2004
in Gaming
. 0 Comments

Withstand the temptation I could not. Two weeks ago, I finally took the plunge for a new GameCube after selling off my old one only half a month before, and picked up where I left off in Phantasy Star Online Episode III (PSO3). That explains why there were no new entries from me within that last fortnight.

It was only after two weeks from the date of my resubmergence that I would be able to spam rantings (some famous examples include ‘OMG U FUGGING NOOB!’ and ‘W7F! CH34P!’) with a GameCube-compatible keyboard. In the meantime, I had to make do with the software keyboard, a ‘Word Select’ system, and an intriguing something Sonic Team affectionately dubbed ‘Symbol Chat’.

‘Word Select’ allows you to flip through a list of the most commonly used phrases, and pick one to say. That may not sound very interesting - it isn’t. What IS interesting is that if you select the phrase in English, Japanese, German, French, etc, players would see them in their respective native languages, if the language was supported. All in all, you could say ‘I want my mummy!~’ in 5 different languages in PSO Episode 1&2, and in 2 with Ep3.

Of course, just a simple list of basic phrases isn’t going to satisfy all the non-keyboard-owning players’ spamming needs. In fact, this ‘Word Select’ system isn’t all that interesting now anymore - Final Fantasy XI has a similar, and better system, whereby you could type anything in English/Japanese, and it would be machine-translated to the other language automatically.

‘Symbol Chat’ is something that no online game has been able to top yet. Welcome to the next level of online communication.

Elite speak? Lame. Emoticons? A thing of the past. ‘Symbol Chat’ and all its creative possibilities? Now we’re talking.

Basically, a ‘Symbol Chat’ is a rectangular-shaped signboard that shows a bunch of shapes and symbols you’ve prearranged, with a selected sound effect played. The signboard itself consists of a ‘face’ (either a square, circle, triangle, or am inverted pentagon), which you then add face parts or objects parts to, until you obtain the desired image. It’s not easy though - the variety of both face and object parts are quite limited. As if driving the car uphill isn’t hard enough, Sonic Team had to give you worn-out tires by limiting the amount of each type of parts you can add as well. How I wished they had just adopted an MS Paint approach for this.

Face parts include lines, various shapes, and hand signs. Object items include speech bubbles and signs.

‘With great challenge comes great rewards,’ I’m sure a great man once said. Alas, he was right. Creative players have managed to express a number of emotions and implications with this nifty innovation.

From the classic anime faces,

Dot dot dot.

'Yatta!' says a deformed Chun Li

to the simple pictures,

Ribbit.. ribbit.. oops, wrong sound.

and the absolutely pWn-ing ones.

Pika, Chu!

Of course, this is but a small sample of what creative PSO players are capable of. For starters, two out of four creations (the lame face and ‘byebye’) here came from me, although I was more or less ‘inspired’ by the other players’ masterpieces. Some of the other more impressive ones that I could not show you at the time of publication include a whacky version of that Pikachu greeting, with his eyes popped out and his face red, a Pikmin greeting not unlike the Pikachu one, and a whole bunch of facial expressions featuring the adorable anime kitty a fellow PSO friend of mine designed. There was also this one time, when I entered a lobby full of players, that this Japanese player repeatedly show 3 similar frames of ‘Symbol Chat’ to illustrate a Kirby dancing. If you thought the classic Kirby dance < (", <) <( '.' )> (> ,”)> was cute, then you’ve got to see the Symbol Chat version.

It is innovative features like this that make videogames such wondrous examples of contemporary art. So please give Sonic Team more money, by buying more copies of Phantasy Star Online, Billy Hatcher, Sonic Heroes, and Puyo Puyo Fever to innovate!

If you don’t, then you’re officially an enemy of PSO players around the world. And if you are an enemy, I believe I represent Yuji Naka (president of Sonic Team) when I say:

Just kidding!

***************************************

Did’ja know.. that Phantasy Star Online is not only available on the GameCube? Episode 1 was originally launched on the Dreamcast, but the online servers for that version have long been shut down. Episode 3 probably won’t be available on anything else apart from the GameCube, but so far Episode 1&2 has also been available on the Xbox, and will soon be on the PC as well.

Enter Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst. Featuring new additions such as up to 12 shortcut commands (previous versions only allowed up to 6 or 8), server-side character saving, and more. Detailed descriptions here.

Phantasy Star Online Episode 1&2 or Blue Burst is best described as an up-to-4-player, 3D, futuristic version of Diablo.

Popularity: 9% [?]

I’m Addicted

Published
by
CrashWire
on 24/4/2004
in Gaming
. 1 Comment

If you have never touched a MMORPG (that’s Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game for you acronym-haters people not too well versed with acronyms) before and are considering investing in one, be prepared to spend time on it. Why?

  1. You probably pay for the MMORPG. At least, for playing in it. So make every hour count. If you aren’t paying for it, then your character is probably going to be reset after the (rather long) beta anyway, so why bother?
  2. You probably have nothing better to do with your life (except studying if you’re a student) if you’re playing a MMORPG anyway.
  3. MMORPGs are addictive. They force you to go through this endless cycle of gaining levels, buying new items and gaining more levels. So naturally the testosterone-pumped many will aim to compete with their friends in how fast they gain levels and cool items.
  4. You might be running away from reality practising the form of art named escapism. MMORPGs allow you to lord over puny monsters and slap dragons silly. Of course it’s better than the game called Life, which by the way is not a MMORPG to me. It’s life.
  5. Your friends might have been the ones influencing you to buy the MMORPG in the first place. And thus you are pretty much forced to keep up with them to keep within the social circle of no-lifers fellow MMORPGeans.
  6. You can make new friends in MMORPGs. People who you won’t meet anywhere else online. People who you won’t meet anywhere else offline. Japanese friends. Now that’s expanding your social circle.
  7. Final Fantasy XI rocks! ‘Nuff said.

Some of the above points might make no sense. Of course, it’s almost 3am right now and I’ve just been through a ten hour FFXI marathon. Off to the place called dreamland… might even see a couple of pink monsters balloons there.

Popularity: 10% [?]

The Sad State Of PC Game Collectibility

Published
by
Guest
on 21/4/2004
in Gaming
. 3 Comments

Guest Submission by Titanus

Recently, I was browsing some of the local online gaming bazaars, having a look at the games and other products being sold inside. Surprisingly, many of the so-called “old games” can be considered new, having been on retail for the past one or two months.

I briefly consider the value of the really old games purchased in the late 80s and early 90s. Back then, the game packaging usually includes a hefty-sized colour manual, a cloth or leather map, or even goodies such as a comic book or newspaper clippings. With the advance of graphics, sound and multiplayer capabilities, there seems to be something truly lacking in the $59.90 boxes we usually buy from gaming shops.

What do we get today then? Well, a thin black-and-white manual, PDF files, CD in jewel casings (or, in the lack of one, paper jackets), and…. That’s about it. Once in a while there are the one or two colour maps, but then they are made out of paper. I hardly think that cloth or leather are expensive.

With that in mind, I would like to say that PC games are sadly lacking in long term collectibility, what with the low prices of recent games being resold, and the apparent lack of quality in today’s game packaging. Is it surprising that PC game piracy still remains rampant after all this time then? Perhaps the situation would change if the publishers aren’t so bent on only making money.

Popularity: 8% [?]

PlayStation 1, Graphics and Game

Published
by
Marill
on 19/4/2004
in Gaming
. 0 Comments

A friend of mine asked me this question when I bought a 2nd hand PlayStation 1 console. “Don’t you find the graphics of the PS1 dated?” as he was curious how I could have spent money on a machine that doesn’t produce good graphics.

Well, yeah. I do agree with him totally about the absolute ugliness of the graphics that the PS1 can produce. I mean, when I see the textures in Metal Gear Solid “popping” and “swishing” around like no tomorrow in absense-of-perspective-correction-heaven, I wanted to puke my lunch out!

But after the in-game credits have disappeared, and you’re sneaking around in full 3D environment playing the cool-ass Solid Snake character, you don’t even care about “popping” textures anymore. The game draws you into the game world and the game character that you ignore the other unimportant shortcomings. That is the mark of a good game.

Graphic capabilities are an important consideration, no doubt about that. Graphics are the immediate link that connects the player to the game world, but not the only link. Music, sound and controls play equal importance in the role as links to connect the player to the game. The player uses the controls to manipulate the world, and the effects are comunicated back to the player through music, sound and graphics. Having good quality “connections” will definitely improve the game playing experience for the player.

But “gameplay” is the true meat of any game. Gameplay is about the set of possible situations that the player can affect in the game world. It’s about the methods the player can use to affect the game world, and also, it’s about the results that the player can see happening due to the player’s interaction in the game world.

It is the thing that makes sense of why the player is actually trying to kill this highly-textured, high-polygon, motion-captured, bump-mapped monster, and why the player needs to hide under the cool refraction-mapped, reflection-mapped water surface.

What is the reason Solid Snake knocks out some guards, hangs over the ledge and shimmies across to the other side in Metal Gear Solid 2? In order to see the real-time cloth animation on his bandana? When that novelty has passed, what is the thing that will make the player continue the game? Gameplay.

Yup, so why did I buy the PS1 console? I didn’t buy it for the graphics, that’s for sure, I bought it for the games. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night was the game that made me plonk down money for the console. Is it so difficult to realise that the gameplay provided by the game is a more important consideration than its graphics?

Popularity: 9% [?]