The Save Spot

Mass Effect & Current Events

I am just playing through Mass Effect (an RPG from Bioware, similar to Knights of the Old Republic).  When something struck me.  As I write this post North Korea is making a lot of noise about pulling out of the Armistice that it signed after the Korean War.  They are doing this because they have detonated nuclear weapons and Kim Jong Il is hardly the most stable of governmental leaders.  What does this have to do with Mass Effect you ask?

Part of the plot in Mass Effect revolves around stopping a terrorist.  The galactic ruling body refuses to get involved because they don’t want to face the implications.  Your character wonders why they can’t see the threat before them.

I guess, as I listen to reports from the UN saying that North Korea is all talk and not serious, I can’t help but echo Shepard’s comments.  Funny how video games often reflect what we see in the world around us.

Fallout 3 Diary: Day 13

 

 

 

I’m playing Fallout 3, and it’s captured my imagination like few other games have.  So instead of writing about the game in a standard “journalist” way, I want to capture my impressions in a more “immersive” way.  Every time I fire up the game, I can’t help but envision myself as a survivor of a post-nuclear world.  How would it feel to roam the wastelands?  How would I respond to the strange, terrifying, and brutal world?  Would I choose to remain faithful to God?  Or would I respond to the horrors around me by becoming a monster myself?

All of those reactions are captured in these diary features. 

 

Today was a hard day.
 
I had a long hike today.  Frankly I never thought I’d make it.  I ran out of water a few clicks back, and I am starting to feel the heat of that thing the upworlders call “the Sun”.  I have to admit, I miss the comforts of the vault.  Living underground wasn’t great, but at least I had food and water. 
 
Eventually I made it to a place called “Germantown police HQ”  I’m not really sure what that means, but it looked like I might be able to scavenge for some parts.  That was a mistake.  Instead of finding parts, I found supermutants.  With clubs.  Why must supermutants always have clubs?  With nails?
 
It took some work, but I found through trial and error that my shotgun was pretty effective.  It only has 2 rounds, so I have to let them get pretty close before I squeeze off a few rounds.  I’m glad my dad taught me how to shoot back in the Vault. 
 
In many ways today was the most disturbing day yet – I hacked into an old computer terminal.  Looks like it was an old abandoned medical facility for people immediately following the nuclear blast.  I found myself surprisingly disturbed by what I read.  For some reason it made all of this miserable wasteland feel more personal.  All those people who died.  Are we humans destined to kill one another for ever?  Am I destined to kill people to survive?
 
Today was a hard day.

   

Fallout 3 Pirated

 

 

 

When I first read that headline I thought, “great just one more game some yahoo’s (yes I actually use words like ‘yahoo’) pirated for the PC.”  Much to my surprise though I realized someone pirated a copy for the 360.  After months and months of executives telling us that the reason the PC market is in decline is because of piracy we see that the same can be said of the Xbox market.

The problem isn’t the system, the problem is the people.  But I’m not going to write about why piracy is no different than theft.  And why piracy is most certainly immoral.  What I’m more interested in today is the vast number of gamers who are not pirates, yet sit around saying, “I never would pirate anything, but I understand why they pirate it.”

How can you hold such a position? 

Let me ask a simple question: Do you believe software piracy is wrong?

If you do, why do you support it?

If you don’t, why don’t you actively engage in it?

I hear a lot of justifications for piracy from the “I would never pirate, but I understand…” crowd.  Yet none of them are particularly satisfying.  If Microsoft is the epitome of greed, how is being greedy ourselves going to teach them a lesson?  If EA is evil for using DRM, how is stealing their game going to solve the DRM issue?

We will never change the structure of DRM and corporate pricing if our answer is to steal.  We need a better solution.  Martin Luther King Jr taught civil disobedience, but he emphasized nonviolent methods.  He didn’t advocate breaking into “the man’s” bank and stealing “his” money.  He offered wisdom, visible protests, and boycotts.  While the issues of the computer industry can never be compared to the serious stakes in the Civil Rights movement, King knew that repaying violence with violence was not a winnable solution.

That’s why I don’t see how stealing to prevent piracy will ever improve the situation.  I don’t like DRM any more than anyone else.  But as the cliche goes, two wrongs don’t make a right.

  

Console Wars

 

 

 

Final Fantasy is my favorite gaming franchise.  To me its bigger than Civilization, Half Life, Dragon Quest, and yes, even Diablo.  It’s also the only video game franchise that I would buy a console just to play.  (Actually that’s what I did with the PS2). 

So when it was announced that Final Fantasy would appear on the Xbox I think that’s pretty bad news for Sony.  This move takes away the one thing that made me think about buying a PS3.  Now the last card Sony has to play is the Blu-Ray angle.  Unfortunately for them, I watch very few regular movies at home, so the chances of me wanting to watch HD movies is slim to none.  

Which means I’m only buying a console to play video games.   

Both Microsoft and Sony are in trouble right now (even with Microsoft’s recent price cut).  As much as I hate to admit it, the Wii is dominating both of them.  But I’m a PC gamer first and foremost.  Which means that I’m not really in the market to buy more than one console.   That means I have a tough decision.  I haven’t wanted to buy the 360 because of it’s manufacturing issues.  The PS3 is just really expensive.  And the Wii doesn’t have many games I’m interested in playing.

Apparently my inability to choose sides in this console war makes me Switzerland. 

That’s why Sony losing an exclusive Final Fantasy game is bad for them, but good for me.  I’ll probably end up with a 360.  I’ll take that price cut, the better game library, a more robust online experience and my Final Fantasy.  But that means I’ll probably lose out on the Wii “experience”. 

Who knew staying neutral was such a pain?

 

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?

 

 

I hate better graphics

 

 

 

Have you ever heard the argument that goes something like this, “I’m tired of better graphics, I want new game play. I don’t care about processing power, I want innovation.” But what happens when innovative game play requires processing power that simply isn’t there?

That’s the case with Dead Rising, a game originally released on the Xbox 360. The Wii simply lacks the ability to put the endless waves of zombies on the screen which makes an interesting game rather mundane. Part of the intensity of the game comes from the claustrophobia of being surrounded by masses of zombies.

This is completely lost in the Wii version, where it feels more like you’re surrounded by 10 annoying friends.

There’s no doubt that “better” graphics are a poor substitute for quality game play. But lets not fool ourselves into thinking that better graphics are somehow inferior to game play. Clearly the Wii, since it’s a weaker system, loses something with a port like Dead Rising.

Everything has it’s own place. Including graphics.

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…

 

 

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. 

 

 

Guitar Hero 2: Hind Sight

 

 

 

As a kid Voltron was my favorite cartoon. Not even GI Joe or Transformers could compete. In fact, my love of that show left such an impression on me, I can still vividly remember watching it.

One day in particular stands out – for some reason I came home early from school. I don’t remember if I was sick, or had a doctor’s appointment or what. But I was home and I knew Voltron was going to be on.

The anticipation I felt knowing that I was going to sneak in an extra episode was intense. The irony is all I really remember from that day was my anticipation. But in many ways that’s all that mattered. I loved Voltron and I was convinced nothing could change that.

And nothing did. Until last year when Cartoon Network began airing the show.

Let’s just say it didn’t age well. In fact it aged so poorly that I’m in disbelief that I ever thought Voltron was good. How did I miss the gaping holes in the plot? The horrible voice acting? Even the animation was awful. In short, what was I thinking?!

That’s what I fear is happening to Guitar Hero 2.

Having spent 4 days playing Rock Band with friends, Guitar Hero just seems empty. It’s like I’m trying to play catch by myself. Sure it’s fun for the first few minutes. But walking across the field to get the ball gets old.

Don’t get me wrong, Guitar Hero was an awesome game. It’s simply been eclipsed by a much better game. And there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s the way the video game industry works.

Everything I thought was fun and cool about Guitar Hero has been improved by Rock Band. The songs are better, downloadable content is awesome, and playing with friends is just fantastic.

I even prefer the Rock Band controller.

The problem is I don’t own Rock Band. I don’t even own a 360. And while I’ve enjoyed not worrying about the Red Ring of Death, now I find myself thinking about that green and white console. I just don’t think I can go back to playing Guitar Hero regularly.

Sometimes learning something new really ruins the old experience.