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Archive for June, 2011

I wrote the news today, oh boy

30 Jun

In case you missed it on 1UP, or on Twitter, or with various message forums where people are complaining about how I need to die in a fire because I once criticized a game they liked, I began working as 1UP’s editor-in-chief this week. It’s a pretty big change for me, and obviously it’s going to eat a lot of my time, because I want to make 1UP a site people speak of in reverent tones. But like I said the other day, you kids are still the bee’s knees, and I don’t intend to stop writing here after 15 years just because I have a fancy new title. GameSpite will still be a thing, and I’d still like to produce books here as well. That being said, GameSpite Quarterly 9 (which by the way is very nearly finished now) will be published as GameSpite Journal 9, because I don’t want to commit to a schedule I know I won’t be able to maintain. The books will come out… whenever.

But it’s OK, because I’m pretty sure that the sort of writing you associate with the books will be showing up on 1UP, too. I’m already working on a 20,000-word essay on Etrian Odyssey II to match the one I wrote for the original game! Well, OK, maybe I won’t take things quite that far. But still. You get what I’m saying.

I have a goal of reestablishing the trust and interest of disenfranchised former 1UP readers. Starting with some of you guys. Hit that link above and leave some suggestions and feedback in the comments area at the bottom, won’t you?

 
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Le something something

28 Jun

I’m back from Montreal. It’s an interesting city; I’ve heard more French in the past two days than the rest of my life combined. I wondered aloud before arriving if the Canadian reputation for niceness or the French reputation for snootiness would triumph; ultimately, it seems, French-Canadians are like those hyphenated crayon colors, where the second color in the name is the dominant base and the first color is simply the modifier. Likewise, my experience in Montreal suggests that the “Canadian” part dominates. Although apparently some Québécoise would find such a characterization insulting, so never mind.

The thing that really strikes me about Montreal is that it appears to be some sort of temporal nexus. I planned out this trip months ago; meanwhile, it turns out my parents independently planned a trip there ages ago. We didn’t find out we’d all be in the city at the same time — our first time there for each of us — until a week ago. So I ended up having breakfast with my parents on a business trip. But that’s not all! I also ran into a former coworker who was on the same flight as me, stopping in Montreal for a night on a layover to Spain. And then it turns out another former coworker works PR for Eidos Montreal and we ended up unexpectedly having dinner together.

All that, and I still didn’t have a chance to try poutine. I was hoping to get both that and natto under my belt by the end of the year so I could say I’ve had them and never have to eat them again. Alas.

Oh, right. And to make this relevant to “game spite” and also the justify the image to the right, I should mention I continue trudging my way back toward where I left off in Etrian Odyssey II‘s fourth stratum. After playing some of the game while browsing through articles and Let’s Plays of Final Fantasy VI, though, I’ve decided that what I want more than any other kind of game in the world is an RPG that somehow combines the style and mechanics and perspective of an Etrian Odyssey-like first-person dungeon-crawler with the warmth, charm, characters, and story-driven events of a game like FFVI. Does such a thing exist!? I need to know, world.

 
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Posted in Blog, Games

 

A reminder

26 Jun

I just want to let you all know that I think you’re the bee’s knees. Yes, you. And you. And you over there. Please remember that no matter what kind of crazy news or announcements you may hear in the next couple of days, you’re all still number one in my heart.

In other news, I’ve spent the past week mucking around in Floor 8 of Etrian Odyssey II rather than venturing forth to beat the boss of the fourth stratum. I don’t think I’ve ever procrastinated in a video game like this before. It’s kind of strange!

Edit: Uh, this doesn’t mean I’m going to die or anything, guys. No need to panic; all is well.

 
30 Comments

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20 years of Happy-ness

25 Jun

Talk about a blast from the past — a friend of mine on Facebook dug up this old chestnut yesterday:

My very first independent publication project, Happy Guy Presents! Well, I shouldn’t say “my,” since it was actually the brain child of my friends Jay and John. I contributed to it, but they masterminded it. It was pretty much exactly what you’d expect a bunch of high schoolers to put together in that curious time of transition between the ’80s and the ’90s proper (the Berlin Wall had fallen, but we were still unaware of the potent aroma possessed by Teen Spirit). It featured lots of snarky articles about the school system, as well as forays into crass humor that, in retrospect, seem so squeaky clean it’s almost embarrassing. A more innocent time, to be certain.

My only contribution to the book was art, since this was back when I still thought I had some sort of artistic talent. Among other things, I drew the cover, which as you can see featured the publication’s eponymous mascot (a smiley face with bloodshot eyes and a drooling grin) as a superhero being loathed and despised by more established heroes. As another sign of the times, this was just before X-Men #1 propelled that particular franchise to the top of the charts, so I used the Fantastic Four as my Marvel stand-ins (because they were being drawn and written by Walt Simonson at the time, and it was an amazing run). I have to say, though, the little Enterprise in the background that slightly overlaps the edge of Galactus’ skirt to demonstrate his scale is a pretty thoughtful detail. Also, stippling for superhero comic shading was definitely going against the Jim Lee crosshatching zeitgeist of the day. Good job, younger version of Jeremy Parish. You get a cookie. Just one, though. One cookie.

Happy Guy #1 was photocopied and distributed at local comic shops on consignment. I don’t think we sold a single copy. We did, however, nearly get our journalism teacher Mr. Kopf fired. Apparently the school administration caught wind of this book and its rather pointed attacks on the district superintendent and some of his lackeys, so they called Mr. Kopf in on the carpet to blame him for our shenanigans. As near as I can figure it, their case was that in teaching us to create publications (which was, you know, his job), he gave us the tools to make fun of the school district in print and therefore was to blame for the book. This was very much in line with our district administration’s general disdain for education and independent thought, so it’s not really much of a surprise in hindsight. Why, his journalism class was a veritable CIA, teaching us little Osama bin Ladens to commit acts of word-terrorism! Wait, no, never mind, bad analogy. No one’s ever been called on the carpet for the bin Laden thing.

There was never a Happy Guy Presents #2, as the second issue sort of fizzled out over the summer as we got summer jobs. Last I saw, Jay was busy using his family’s jaw-droppingly-awesome-at-the-time Macintosh Quadra to play SimEarth rather than dabbling in further seditious desktop publishing exploits. But hey, Happy Guy‘s legacy lives on in its small way: I still publish my own books and magazines. Although I don’t think I’ve gotten anyone else in trouble over them lately. I guess I’ve lost my edge.

 
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Eight-love

23 Jun

Nintendo released Tennis for the 3DS Virtual Console today, and this fact makes me happy.

Now, I don’t like sports, and I especially don’t care for sports games. Tennis isn’t interesting, and a primitive black-and-white (or green-and-grey) simulation of the sport that barely rises above Game & Watch-level sophistication isn’t really the sort of thing to get anyone’s blood pumping.

No, what excites me about seeing games like Tennis is just the prospect of having a huge library of classic portable games on a single system that can be held in the palm of my hand. And unlike, say, emulation on PSP, I don’t have to feel guilty about it.

Sometimes I am more enthusiastic about the idea of games than I am about the games themselves. I suppose this would be one of those cases.

 
16 Comments

Posted in Games

 

The Pit of despair

22 Jun

I’ve been revisiting Kid Icarus for various reasons over the past day (mostly involving preparing for its incipient sequel), and I’m boggled by just how backward its sense of difficult seems to be by contemporary standards. All the challenge is front-loaded: The game begins as one of the most vicious, unrelenting acts of brutality ever programmed and steadily becomes easier and easier as you power-up. By the end of it, they’re throwing dudes at you who steal your stuff or turn you into fruit because it’s the only way to pose any sort of challenge. The last stage is as toothless as the first stage is brutal. It’s kind of crazy.

Are there any games these days that use a similar difficulty curve, or is this something that’s been stamped out as developers come to realize that maybe starting off by discouraging players isn’t necessarily the best way to win fans?

 
23 Comments

Posted in Games

 

One of the most important questions of our age

21 Jun

By “most important” I really mean “it randomly popped into my head just now and I couldn’t find a satisfying answer via Google.”

Why on earth is the spider boss in Metroid Fusion called Yakuza? Does it secretly have a giant dragon tattoo across its back or something? Seriously, I need an answer to this.

 
12 Comments

Posted in Games

 

The thrall of Reach

20 Jun

I finished up Halo: Reach over the weekend. It was a pretty good game! I didn’t like it nearly as much as ODST, though, which is sort of funny given that ODST was the random side project and Reach was the grand farewell to the series. But I also like Super Mario Bros. 2 (USA) more than Super Mario Bros. 3, so maybe I’m just damaged goods or something.

Reach had some really great moments, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the ones which stuck with me weren’t the ones Bungie intended to stand out. The big sweeping moments of fighting side-by-side with your Spartan pals generally pulled me out of the game; so much action tended to be going on, and so much of it was handled by the A.I. before I could even get my bearings, that it felt like I was just gliding along as the game played itself. It was the quieter moments that I found more intense: The sneaking mission early in the game where I crept about with a precision weapon and active cloaking camouflage, trying to take down as many foes as possible without being seen. The eerie streets of New Alexandria, littered with the bodies of civilians in the wake of the Brutes’ ruthless urban extermination. Those were the moments that grabbed my guts and squeezed.

Oh, and the epilogue, of course.

Now that I’m through with Reach, it’s time to clean off my plate of all the half-finished games I’ve in progress. I’ve decided to start by digging back into Etrian Odyssey II. I currently have a level 55 party and no clue what my next objective was. Promising!

 
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Posted in Games

 

Unclear on the concept

19 Jun

You know how most people, when they take a day off work for an extra-long weekend, actually enjoy their time? I still need to figure out how to do that. With my three-day weekend, I:

  1. Wrote a lengthy piece for 1UP;
  2. Copy-edited GameSpite Quarterly 9;
  3. Spent about six hours on the elliptical in a vain attempt to curtail the inevitable re-thickening of my midsection;
  4. Played the final two-thirds of Halo: Reach.

OK, the last one was pretty fun, but there was still a sense of obligation about it, because I’m tired of leaving games half-finished and needed to wrap Reach before I can move onto other things I feel obligated to play in order to feel up-to-date with industry trends and hits. Yeah!

Next up, I need to finish my illustrations for the fourth Bonus Book. The plan is to have that ready for proofing in a couple of weeks when I send GSQ9 off to have a proof printed of that as well. Efficiency! I’ve drawn most of the art for the bonus book, except I kind of hate it and feel like you guys deserve better. That image to the right is one of the images that’s being discarded due to its being generally sort of terrible.

Now to eat a giant piece of chocolate cake and completely undermine item three from above. Guys, I am a giant idiot.

 
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A link to the Link

17 Jun

Hey baby, how’s it going? Oh yeah? Good, good. Me, I’m good, too. I’ve been working on stuff all week and it seems that most of it has gone online within the past 24 hours or so. I feel like I should remark on these things as I link to them for you! But then again, I just stopped in for a sushi dinner at a place I used to frequent and apparently the waitress was so glad to see me back she decided to drown me with free sake. So, you know, my judgment is suspect at the moment. But let’s go ahead with this anyway.

First of all, we jumbled two weeks’ worth of Retronauts into a single podcast. This makes more sense than you might think, because both weeks were about E3. Though each week was very different in tone and substance than the other. Sounds quality’s pretty different, too. It’s easily one of the most laid-back and casual episodes we’ve ever recorded, so that’s something. I guess.

Second, I’ve reviewed Ocarina of Time 3D. Let me stress that: I’ve reviewed Ocarina of Time 3D. This is not a review of the original game, but rather of the remake. I don’t have to read the comments under the review (and since I don’t want to hate the Internet, I never will) to know that this review made a lot of people angry for terribly insubstantial and frankly incorrect reasons. So it goes. It doesn’t help that Metacritic is, as usual, completely misrepresenting my score and changing the authorial intent of the review by forcing 1UP’s scale into some rubric that we’ve never intended, but that’s par for the course, and it’s the industry’s own fault that this happens; they’re the ones who decided to treat Metacritic as the definitive voice of authority. Anyway, Ocarina of Time is a great game, but this remake — and yeah, it’s a remake rather than a port when the graphics and animation are completely updated — didn’t quite hit the mark for me. I debated for quite a while whether to give it a B+ or an A-, but then I realized that I was only considering the higher score because it seems unthinkable to give anything concerning Ocarina of Time anything lower, not because I really feel the remake stacks up to that rating. Of course, I only added a score because we’re obligated to. Ignore it and just read the damn text, OK?

I’ve also previewed the new Tomb Raider game, and I’m sad about that. Specifically, I’m sad because this preview is going to be read by far fewer people than the Ocarina review, and that’s a damn shame, because this preview is easily one of the best things I’ve ever written for 1UP. I’m rarely proud of my work, but this is pretty much my platonic ideal of what a game preview — or any kind of critique, really — ought to be. I wish everything I write could be this good. But it’s probably just as well that it’s not, because this isn’t the sort of game writing the world at large wants to read, and we’d probably go out of business if this was all we published. Now, cosplay galleries of Lara Croft — those pay the bills. But thoughtful analyses of the social and cultural challenges that exist for a reinvention of Lara Croft? Yeah, we’d probably get better traffic if I flung balloons full of cat urine in people’s faces whenever they clicked a link.

Anyway, it looks like sake makes me kind of ranty, so I think maybe I should shut up now. Yup.

 
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Posted in Games

 
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