The Save Spot

Gaming Culture Officially Mainstream

Ok, maybe video game culture has been mainstream for a while already.  But as a cubicle-dwelling business professional, it often feels like gaming as entertainment is atypical - perhaps a straightforward consequence of adult responsibilities.  So I was pleased when during a routine check of the Bloomberg financial news and data service I saw an article with the following headline:

“Mark Peroff Wins ‘Final Fantasy’ Maker’s Law Business by Discounting 20%”

To me this said a lot!  Bloomberg is an established, respected source of business news and they could have titled this article “Mark Peroff Wins Square-Enix Law Business…”  I wonder if the Bloomberg news team expected higher click through rates or google search hits by including ‘final fantasy’ (hey, why not!)  Or, did they expect that more readers would be familiar with Final Fantasy as a franchise than with the company that produces it? 

Either way, this is a nice call-out for gamers in the business world.  You are not alone!  Or maybe it’s simpler than all that - now more than ever finance professionals need an escape, and what better way than a good RPG?  An excellent suggestion, and I think I’ll act on it right away!

 

Can’t we all just get along?

 

 

 

Finally, some common sense from one of the console manufacturers- Sony this time.  As reported by the International Business Times, Sony has required that “everybody’s instruments must work with everybody’s games”.  Hooray for gamers everywhere, who no longer have to worry about where they will store their Guitar Hero World Tour drum set and their Rock Revolution drums along with their new Rock Band compatible MIDI drum set and their original Rock Band four-banger.  

 

One more for the backlist

 

 

 

The RPG, a favorite gaming genre, is stacking up recently as the bane of this busy gamer.  I haven’t had time to play through Oblivion, GTA IV, or Final Fantasy XII but I can’t stop myself from picking up each latest and greatest offering to the role playing gods.  These great games sit on my shelf and mock me with their dozens of hours of gameplay, sidequests, unlockable characters and gaming escape. 

The most recent game to insult me so is Final Fantasy IV DS, the latest in a long series of remakes of the game first released in the US as Final Fantasy II for the SNES.  I spent some time with the game yesterday, to get a feel for the remake and torture myself with guilt and frustration that I won’t be able to give this little gem the hours it deserves.  Here are some initial observations:

1)  The opening cinematics are excellent and well-matched with the Uematsu soundtrack.  Characters retain the look of the cinematics in the Playstation releases, and Cecil and Kain both look imposing in their armor.

2)  There are in-game cutscenes which do a nicer job of presenting the story than just dialog boxes did.  I really like an early scene where Cecil in a contemplative mood is shown with the moon framed through his tower window. 

3)  The 3D models look pretty good, almost PS1 quality, but obviously don’t compare favorably to non-portable final fantasy titles released in the last five years.  The effort at the armor for Cecil and Kain ends up looking cartoon-y, in contrast to the cutscenes where it looks intimidating.  Still, the game pulls a lot of horsepower out of the DS and it’s fun to see familiar sprite-based locations, characters, and enemies get the 3D treatment.

4)   It would be nice if battles moved more quickly.  You’ll want to go into the menus and turn up the battle speed dial as far as it will go.  They should have made it go to 11. 

I haven’t played far enough to get a feel for the difficulty or the amount of grinding that will be necessary to experience this re-telling of a great story.   I’d give even odds that I never will (or at least will have to push off the time when I can get to it until something like “retirement”) but if you’re a lucky gamer with more time than I, I’d certainly recommend giving this game a try.

 

 

 

 

 

HellGate: interview with Bill Roper

 

 

 

1up has a fantastic interview with Bill Roper and what happened with HellGate. It’s easy to blame faceless executives for failures and bad games. It’s a lot harder to remember that they’re just as human and mistake prone as you or I. Reading this interview you can see a lot of the pain and disappointment Roper feels in the whole process. How many of us would be willing to liquidate our 401(k) to save the companies we work at?

 

 

Best gaming podcasts

 

 

 

For the last three years, I’ve been a regular listener of several video game podcasts.  As I began commuting regularly 30-60 minutes to and from work, I was able to spend some of this time indulging my interests in my favorite hobby.  It only seems fair, after all, that the job that is keeping me too busy to enjoy all of the great games that have been coming out can repay me with some time to spend hearing about what I’m missing!  Over the years, I’ve come to follow two podcasts most closely - enjoying something like a weekly one-way conversation with others who share my interest in games.  Today, I immodestly proclaim my favorite two video game podcasts as the best gaming podcasts - here they are!

In second place:  The Giant Bombcast, from Giantbomb.  Ok, this podcast isn’t nearly three years old, but it is the spiritual successor to the Hotspot podcast at Gamespot.  Jeff, Ryan, Brad, and Vinny put together a boisterous, funny show infused with a California counterculture vibe.  Jeff and crew not only have the pulse of the industry, they seem like they’d be a fun group to go out drinking with.  Occasionally.

In first place:  The CAGcast, from CheapAssGamer.  Hosts CheapyD and Wombat pull together an entertaining show and manage to do it with high production value while coordinating from across the globe.  CheapyD is an American living in Japan, and listeners can vicariously enjoy his lifestyle that involves working from home, running a gaming website, an occasional trip to Akihabara, and amusing encounters with locals and other gaijin.  Wombat anchors the show in New York, and brings a quick wit and friendly presence to the show, in addition to some serious nerd credentials of his own.  As a long-time listener it’s easy to come to think of them as friends who join you for your commute once a week, and BS with you about life and games.  In the end, that’s what puts the CAGcast in first place - listening to Cheapy and Wombat is like hanging out with friends, and that’s quite an accomplishment.

What are your favorite gaming podcasts?

  

 

Comfort food

 

 

 

Sometimes I’m in an adventurous mood, eager to zip out to an unproven restauraunt or willing to (gasp) try a new dish at a favorite spot.  Other times, I just want to sit at home with a beer and some salty snackage.  I was in the latter frame of mind on a recent family vacation (yes, I know I’m too old for a National Lampoons-style family vacation.  No, that didn’t stop me!)  Naturally, there was much beer and salty snacking involved but I also indulged in a different kind of comfort food, video game comfort food for my PSP in the form of Marvel Ultimate Alliance.

MUA is a fantastic game, a great example of a dungeon crawl that gets almost everything right and also leverages a genre-appropriate license quite well.  It is a lengthy game (30ish hours), a replayable game (there are many hero combinations you could play again with), a richly deep and customizable game (stats, powers, equipment, and hero teams can all be customized), and a game filled with interesting optional sidequests and colletion goals.  So, when I say this game is comfort food I certainly don’t mean to suggest that it isn’t deep or is not enrossing.  It’s a pleasant romp, a nice way to kill some time, a game that doesn’t require too much thinking, and a well-balanced game that is neither too easy nor too difficult or frustrating. 

For me, it’s a game that I’ve now played through substantial portions three times (the first three acts are well-traveled territory for me, most enjoyably as a core event of GAUGE VII).  It walks a fine line between button-mashing gameplay and a need to sometimes play with more strategy and on my recent trip it provided a pleasant escape that didn’t require too much mental overhead or engagement.  I even let Marvel make an important decision for me, and played as the Fantastic Four. 

MUA is one of those games that came out on almost every game system - you can purchase a copy for Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, or PSP.  If you enjoy Diablo-style gameplay and have even a passing interest in Marvel superheros, go get yourself a greatest-hits copy right away.  I recommend the 360 version since you’ll get access to exclusive playable characters including the Hulk and Dr. Doom, and because nerd points are fun.  Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 has also been announced, and I’m expecting good things!

What’s your video game comfort food?

 

 

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. 

 

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. 

 

 

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?