The Save Spot

Choosing a band name

 

 

 

Anyone who followed our GAUGE exploits knows that one of our major goals was to play through Hard on Rock Band.  Well this was almost derailed by our inability to come up with a name for our band.  Naming things is NOT our strong suit.  After many weeks and approximately eleventy billion emails, we finally settled on The Wutai Clan. 

That’s why I was glad to see this xkcd comic.  It’s nice to know we aren’t the only ones to struggle with this…

 

 

Collectively speaking

 

 

 

Video games are generally a lousy investment.  Now, before you start writing me angry letters, games can have a tremendously high return as measured in hours of enjoyment per dollar spent on entertainment.  There are many games in my collection which have ended up costing far less than $1/hour of entertainment.   But I’m not talking about the somewhat intangible return of personal enjoyment - I’m talking about cold hard cash!

By a dollars and cents measure of return on investment, most games are quite poor as investments.  I often pay $40 - $60 for a cool new game, that just a few months later can be had in a budget release (or used) for half as much.  As the years go by, only a precious few games hold their resale value - and most never sell for more than orignial MSRP. 

Even so, I find it enjoyable to collect some of my favorite games from over the years and rather than trade them in when I’m “done” with them, I tend to keep new releases on my shelf.  And I’ve enjoyed picking up classic NES and Genesis games from eBay, too.   Remember how expensive the original Phantasy Star was for the Sega Master System, and how revolutionary and expansive the game seemed?  You can pick up a nice, complete copy for $20-30 if you’re so inclined.

As with all collectables, price is a function of supply and demand - and the supply of most games is quite high.  If you start building up a collection of classic games over the past couple of decades, some of the more expensive games are consequently for some of the less successful platforms.  The Sega Saturn, for example, has several classic titles for which you will have to pay $50, $100, $200, or more if you would like to include a nice copy in your collection.  The RPG Panzer Dragoon Saga, for one, typically retails in the $150-$200 range.  It’s an early 3D multi-disc RPG that had an unusually small production.  A classic shmup, Radiant Silvergun, will set you back even more - plus you’ll need to figure out how to play Japanese import games (you’ll need a Japanese Saturn or a special memory card based region-unlocker).  

Limited editions are an interesting step towards adding interest in treating new games as collectables - but it is terribly ineffective unless the limited editions are actually limited in suply (I bet you’re kicking yourself if you paid full MSRP for the Halo 3 Legendary Edition!)  In this regard, I think game publishers could take a page from comics publishers and publish (say) 1 out of 25 copies of a game with variant box art. 

Do you have a game collection?  Do you keep everything or trade in your used games?  Are there any gems in your collection that you keep as an investment?   Let us know in the comments. 

 

Chuck Norris: the video game

 

 

 

It’s Friday so sit back, relax, and enjoy this great video game. Because you have to admit, it’s about 8 different kinds of awesome.

  

Rock Band 2 drum kit

 

 

 

Where we last left our entirely fictional wife she was slowly coming around to the idea of a new drum set for Rock Band 2. 

Well never let anyone say that we at The Save Spot aren’t willing to provide answers to life’s difficult challenges!  Because our (also entirely fictional husband) may have some new arguments in his arsenal - namely this drum kit sitting conveniently to the left. 

These aren’t just plastic toy drums, these are a real set of electronic drums, completely capable of being used outside of Rock Band 2.  If that’s not justification for a new game, then I don’t know what is!

 

 

The Save Spot Comic #3

 

The Save Spot Comic is published semi-occasionally and is widely perceived to be semi-humorous.

Civilized differences

 

 

 

Over the weekend I spent a few hours with a good friend and a fresh copy of Civilization Revolution for the Xbox 360 - an activity I can strongly recommend.  Last night, my copy of Civ Rev for the DS arrived, and I stayed up late enough to be both victorious and quite tired this morning.  Alas, sometimes sleep must be sacrificed at the altar of the busy gamer! 

As a long-time fan of the series, I have fond memories of hours spent in front of my IBM 286 PC, running a copy of Civilization (the first one, before there were numbers!) off of a 1.4 MB floppy disk.   The game was so much fun, much of which shared with aformentioned friend, that as late as 1998 I still had an old 16MhZ 286 PC and a copy of Civ to play in my dorm room at college.  Just writing about it makes me want to go dig up a copy and find a way to play it on an XP or Vista machine.  Of course, since then there have been several successful sequels and I’ve also spent quite a bit of time with those.

 

 

So it’s with this background that I picked up a controller over the weekend, and my DS last night, to experience the latest iteration of Civilization.  Overall, the game on the console and handheld are remarkably similar (graphics not included, but then graphics isn’t really what Civ is all about) and also quite fun.  There are some key differences in gameplay, however, that make Civ Rev different from it’s PC predecessors, including:

1)  You no longer direct the engineering of land and resources directly with settlers or workers.   Roads are built instantly with cash, and land improvements are now made possible by certain city buildings or technologies.

2)  Military units and city buildings no longer have a financial or resource support cost.  Once you spend the resources to build them, there are no ongoing costs.

3)  Many of the techs, city buildings, and wonders have different effects than in the PC series - if you’re a Civ veteran, pay close attention to these as you’re making your choices.

4)  You don’t have tax / science / luxury rates to control in the same way.  Each city can be set to specialize in producing food, gold, science, production, or a balance of each.  But you can’t micromanage here and choose exactly which resource tiles are used by each city.

5)  In my two games on Warlord, there were no unhappy citizens.  Instead of keeping citizens happy, temples and other related city improvements add to your “culture”.

6)  Maps are smaller, overall, and games move quicker. 

There are other changes, as well, of course - many of which are noteworthy, but I won’t cover them all here.  Because of these changes, I’d say that the game is more tilted towards military conflict.  The fact that military units don’t have an ongoing support cost makes it much easier to build up an army and support a war effort.  You can certainly still work towards a technology, cultural, or economic victory though.  My first victory was economic, so I’ll be looking for a more satisfying military victory soon!

While I don’t see Civilization Revolution as Civ 5, it’s certainly been a fun game to enjoy so far - and I’m already strategizing about my next game.  If you’re looking to scratch that ‘just one more turn’ itch, it’s definitely worth a purchase. 

 

 

Flagship going under?

 

 

 

Well color me surprised.  The rumor on the internet says that Flagship went under this last week.  Which puts Hellgate: London in serious jeopardy.

Hellgate has had a very troubled history.  And the fact that they appeared to focus more on the pay model of the game than the actual development caused serious concerns.  So much so that I never bought the game, despite drooling over the fact that I might get my Diablo-esque fix.

As Bill Harris (Dubious Quality) said back in 2007, “Sometimes, you just get a good vibe about an upcoming game.  BioShock had a good vibe before it was released. Mass Effect has a good vibe.  Rock Band has a good vibe.

Then there’s Hellgate: London. Bad vibe.

What’s interesting about Hellgate is that the bad vibe doesn’t come from the game itself, necessarily, but it seems that the developers have spent more time thinking about the revenue models than the game”

Seems like he might have been on to something there.

This is one of my biggest “fears” of the MMO / online / downloadable content monster that’s been created. If the company goes under all your time and money is totally gone.  When you rely on a company’s servers to play the game, when those servers close that’s it.  No more game.

For me that risk isn’t worth it. I don’t want to waste my money (and more importantly my time) on something I can’t control.  There are better options out there.  And right now I’m very happy I didn’t buy Hellgate.

Mandalorian Dance

 

 

 

As lovers of all things nerd, we strongly support nerd parody.  Which is why we proudly present this DailyMotion video. I also think it proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, why Star Trek is a much better franchise.

 

What’s in your pocket?

The Nintendo DS has been selling like crazy.  According to Wikipedia there have been over 70 million total DS units sold worldwide.  Given this success, it’s not surprising that there are also a tremendous number of games being developed for Nintendo’s comely clamshell.  A few titles caught my eye recently.

First, if you’re approached by an adult in a toy and game store and asked “Would you like to play Pocket Paridise?”  Check for a Gamestop employee badge before you reflexively punch someone in the kisser, they may just be asking you if you’d like to try a demo of the DS game Viva Pinata: Pocket Paridise.  I don’t really have any desire to play a portable Viva Pinata game, but I think the name is just fantastic.

Second, as reported by Kotaku, Square Enix is bringing Chrono Trigger to the DS!  Don’t worry, they’re not “upgrading” this one to 3D, it will be classic graphics and gameplay with some tweaks to utilize the touchscreen.  This sounds like a fantastic way to kick off 2009!

Finally, Civilization Revolution DS is coming out this week.  Two reviews have put this at 75% so far on Metacritic, and I’ll be keeping a close eye on this one.  Since the DS launch, giddy gamers have speculated about bringing civilization to their pockets - will this be the week we get what we’ve been waiting for?

 

Diablo 3

 

 

 

There are important moments in history. The Revolutionary War. The first man on the moon. And the development of Diablo 3.

Diablo has been part of my gaming make up for as long as I can remember. In fact, I can’t even recall when I first started playing some iteration of it. As far as I know, I’ve always been playing.

Last week Blizzard began teasing the world with a “major announcement” on June 29th. There was a lot of speculation. Some thought it was another StarCraft game, others wondered if it had something to do with Warcraft, and even a few (myself included) wondered if it might be a sequel to Lost Vikings. Kotaku even made fun of people who thought it was going to be Diablo 3.

Fortunately Blizzard finally announced Diablo 3. After years of rumors, denials, and more rumors, we get to start counting down to its release. It’s too early to have any idea if Diablo 3 will be any good. But it’s made by Blizzard and they always seem to release good stuff.

But as a busy gamer, this poses a challenge for me. I find myself consumed with thoughts of a game that probably won’t be released until 2010 at the earliest. That’s a long time to wait and think about what might be.

Do I have the stamina for that? More importantly do I have the patience for that?

I suppose only time will tell. One can only hope that someone will have built a time machine by then…