Old News: Page Six
So. I'm back. Where have I been? Yeah, about that. See, I've been playing World of Warcraft. I know, shut up. It's all Stephen's fault and Terry's fault and everybody's fault but mine. I'm the victim here.
So while I was in Azeroth and stuff, E3 came and went. As far as I can tell, this was the least interesting E3 that ever debuted three new consoles. We saw the PS3, the X360, and cardboard standees representing the real-name-still-unrevealed Nintendo Revolution that will probably, if Nintendo follows its recent trend, end up being called the Nintendo Revolution. Excuse me, I mean the NINTENDO REVOLUTION. Whossit like?
The PS3 looks to be a great big lousy money sink, just like the PS2. And it will move forty million units, just like the PS2. and amazing quantities of people will buy it at launch for four hundred dollars with no software support, just like the PS2. Why Sony bothered with the expense involved in electronics instead of just filling it with breadcrumbs and maximising the profits I have no idea.
The X360, at the moment, is one of the funniest things Microsoft has ever said. Can you believe what these people think passes for a marketing campaign? The annoying thing, though, is that it will probably work. Did you see that hilariously whorish cover shot on Time magazine where they declare the X360 the saviour of humanity? Bill Gates is holding it up next to his head, and the thing extends WAY out of the top of the shot. Less is not more, friends.
The Nintendo GameRectangularSolid, on the other hand, is still all PR and no hard product. The only thing we know for sure is that the thing makes the GameCube look large. According to Nintendo, it can play all GCN titles, and it has access to a big pile of downloadable classic games. According to Nintendo, it will launch with Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and online-capable Smash Bros. According to Nintendo, it will revolutionise the way we play video games. According to me, Nintendo says things like that about EVERY system. So, basically, all we know is that it's small. I'm going to go out on a limb and say it'll come in all sort of fruity colours, though. So that's one hard fact you can take to the bank.
Where was the Phantom? After being made the laughingstock of the whole industry by years of crazy claims and no evidence, the Phantom actually SHOWED at E3 last year. And it actually looked, you know, real. But then, this year? Nothing. No Infinium Labs anywhere. Could it be possible that it really IS just a scam after all? I certainly won't say so - no way can I afford the court costs. But it certainly DOES make one wonder.
Software doesn't look like it's experiencing any type of rennaissance this season. Sure, there's Zelda, but we knew that already. Sure, there's the crazy voice-recognition real-time-strategy pinball game, but we knew about that already. What was actually new this year? Well, Square Enix showed off the fact that it evidently read that poll where all you clowns declared Final Fantasy VII the best game ever made, because no fewer than FIVE games showed this year with "Final Fantasy VII" somewhere in their titles. Ever seen those television shows where the guys get an idea for how to make a quick buck and their eyes turn into dollar signs and cash-register noises play in the background? Picture a bunch of Japanese guys in suits doing that, and you've envisioned the board meeting that led to THAT decision.
Other than that, there wasn't much to speak of at E3, except that I discovered that the Gizmondo actually ever launched, and the N-Gage is evidently still around and still being supported. Who knew?
So it's about time, right? About time to open a new feature! Click somewhere around here for the link to GameFAGs: video game reviews Darien-style!
How, I hear you tentatively ask, is this different from that other feature devoted to reviewing video games? Well, these are shorter, more focused reviews, designed actually to impart information rather than simply to be entertaining. We cover good games and bad games alike, old and new. It's a bit sparse right now, but more reviews are going up all the time, and it should eventually be huge and unwieldy and cause me all sorts of headaches.
Is there a particular game you want reviewed? Patience, grasshopper. My staff is not very large (frankly, everybody other than me is generally tentative anyhow), and nobody sends us free review product. So unless you want to send us a game for review, or maybe Paypal the money over so we can buy the game and review it, we can get to them only as time and money permit.
If, of course, you happen to be somebody in a position to send us free review product, we're all ears.
What's that? You don't feel like playing hunt-and-poke for the link? Fine. Here you go, crybaby. Don't say I never did anything for you.
So, I fixed SSOD, too. The game now works once again, and should be more fun this time, to boot, since you shouldn't spend your entire life walking around a ship full of dead bodies with nothing to do. The game resets its state at half-past every hour. Have at it!
... his sidekick comes back from his eighteen-month coma and posts some stuff. Score.
I must tell you this. I'm talking to Terry the other day, and he's bitching at me to update my web site. So I told him he'd need to be patient, since my sidekick vanished on me. And we then discovered that he had entirely forgotten about his prestigious job as a multimillionaire interweb celebrity. That's gratitude for you.
So that Stacked game looks as useless as anything I've seen lately. Look for cameo appearances by screenshots from that game in the coming days, as I try to incorporate making fun of it into my usual routine of making fun of everything else.
We all know that the "poker craze" was over sometime last year, but fortunately the long development times of video games means we're going to be subjected to crappy poker video games in the coming months.
So with this game called "Stacked" (an awful name if ever there was one) you'll be able to experience all the fun of poker without any of the annoying things such as winning money or human interaction. Sounds great so far, I know. Hey, look at screenshots like this and you can just tell it'll be thrilling.
There's only one problem I see with this. Poker is the most boring game on the planet this side of Morrowind. Don't get me wrong, I love it, but I like it when it involves either winning money or having a good time in a social setting. The mechanics of the game itself involve hours of just sitting around and waiting. It's dull.
Consider this: NASCAR involves driving around in a circle for fixty hours, but they show entire NASCAR races on TV. Poker tournaments, on the other hand, are so long and tedious that even when they televise eight hours worth of a tournament, it's heavily edited. That's right, it's less interesting than driving in a circle.
Not to mention that computers are unlikely to make particularly interesting opponents to play against. I don't care what garbage the developer talks about using math to simulate the brains of the poker pros -- anyone who's ever played a video game knows the the computer can only win if it cheats. The computer can't beat me at Soul Calibur, a game that's about pounding buttons to hit the other guy with your sword. How's it supposed to win at a game that actually requires pychology to play well?
Oh, but you say I'll be able to play with other people? Online? Great! Anyone who has ever played online poker knows that: 1) it's actually more dull than live poker and 2) if you're not playing for real money, nobody even tries to play remotely correctly.
They might as well just call this game "Slot Machine Simulator 9000" because the online component will involve just about as much skill as pulling a lever and hoping for the best.
Like that mythological bird that rises from its own ashes only to be basically the same as always, I have returned.
Where've I been, you ask? Since I'm not convinced anyone but Darien reads this page -- and he already knows -- I won't bother you with the story, even though it's full of intrigue. Let's just say I have several World of Warcraft characters.
Here's what's been on my mind. When did having a Nintendo system require you to have friends? It used to be the Nintendo was what I did because I didn't have friends. We didn't all beat Final Fantasy 3 because we were busy going to parties.
These days every great Nintendo game requires you to actually know other people. Microsoft supplies you with a microphone and an ethernet port so you can go online with their multiplayer titles, an experience that generally reminds you try your best to avoid other people in the first place. But if I want to play the latest Mario Kart game or Mario Party 74 or whatever, I need 3 other friends to actually be there. Nintendo even got Square in on the act with Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles.
Something needs to be done about this situation before it gets out of hand. Right now you need to get three people in the same room to play the good games, but it's clear that the problem is growing. Soon playing video games will only be in the domain of those who actually do attend parties, and the rest of us will be forced to just troll IRC rooms, mocking federal agents who are posing as 14-year-olds.
I've finally been arsed to install a new Message Forum script. This one looks as though it actually works! Check it out sometime. You'll have to register for this one, but it doesn't cost anything and should keep down the amount of time I spend fighting forum spam. So that's good for everybody. At least me, anyhow.
Hey, what do you know. An actual update! There's a new Heroes of Communism kicking around here someplace. The first person to find it wins a prize: genuine authentic absolutely mofo nothing. Have at it!
Well, it's time for the PSP's coming out party. What does this mean to you, the consumer? It means that it's time to decide whether you should buy a DS, a PSP, or - heavens! - both. What's the Darien man's advice? Save your stinking money. Some media outlets are going ape over the fact that the PSP is launching with twenty-four games, but let's be serious for a moment. Look at the list and tell me how many of those games are interesting. A whopping fourteen of those 24 are sports titles, which, if you're into that sort of thing, is fantastic, but doesn't really portray a lot of depth and/or range of initial selection. So forget the largeness of the list for a minute, since it's all padding. Also, while you're at it, forget (if you can) the part where Gamespot says "The Sony PSP represents one of the most important video game hardware launches in years." While one can't fault Gamespot's bottomless capacity for sucking the dicks of the sponsors, one can still marvel at the foolish things that pop out after the "job" is "done."
So what is my honest opinion of the PSP? Well, the price point is intolerable, and the battery life is abominable, and the physical size of the unit is laughable. But - and here's the key - I don't buy video game systems because of some kinky hardware fetish. It's all about the games. And neither that list nor the list of available DS games excites me. "But!" I hear you say, "But! Metal Gear!" "But!" I respond, "But! $300!"
Of course, there are the PSP's vaunted multimedia features. Frankly, if it really could double as a portable DVD player like Sony insists, that would somewhat justify the crazy price point. And, to be fair, it can; the PSP is just like a portable DVD player, except for one trivial little detail: it doesn't play DVDs. Any movies you want to watch on the PSP have to be in Sony's brand-new proprietary storage format, which, for the sake of ease, isn't at all compatible with the other brand-new proprietary storage format Sony's going to use the PS3 to force down everybody's throat. To date, the list of actual non-game-demo movies that are available on the PSP? One: Spider-Man 2. Third-parties aside, not even Sony itself has announced much interest in porting movies to the PSP format. Who knows? Maybe one day you'll be able to watch all movies everywhere on your PSP. So buy one then. They'll be cheaper, anyhow.
So let's take a post-release look at the DS, too, in all fairness. It certainly has the potential to be interesting, but it isn't doing much So let's close with a chart. I'll list all the selling points for both systems and let you decide for yourself.Resons to buy a DSReasons to buy a PSP
Just about every day, beautiful women come up to me and say "Darien, you are the sexiest man alive. You should write a strategy guide for a Nintendo game." Aiight.
Have you all seen this? I like music as much as the next guy, but I believe that I speak for the entire United States Marine Corps, as well as the Pope, when I say: what the fuck?
Sometimes you really do intend to update your world-famous web page, but you just don't get around to it until - wham! - it's half a year later. I'm sure you've all experienced that. Basically, the agonised (yet not unexpected) demise of my computer's power supply left all my data stranded on the other side of the room, and I used that as a remarkable excuse to play Nintendo games instead of making jokes about Nintendo games for what seemed at the time not to be entirely as long as it evidently was. But that's all in the past. I'm back now, and the parades and processions in my honour can recommence.
In my absence, I got an e-mail from a gentleman by the name of Dave Barker who informs me that he is, in fact, the original authour of the original Spaceship of Death that I so shamefully ripped off. Sometime soon I'll update the info on the SSOD page to reflect that. Probably sooner than when I'll fix the damn game so it's actually playable. But that's on my list, too.
What can I do for you now, you ask? I can hook you up with mini game reviews, since that's what I've been doing since I've been gone. Let's start with Donkey Konga. Yes, the faggy bongo game. Let this be said for the faggy bongo game: what it does, it does well. It just doesn't do enough of it. On the surface, it looks like the game offers gen-yoo-ine tons of different game modes. The trouble is this. First off, the Monkey and Chimp difficulties are much too easy. The "Challenge Mode" in which one attempts to play through all the songs all in a row gets boring long before it gets over. The mini-games are dumb, boring, and hard to control. The multiplayer options seem like they would be fun, but who the hell has four sets of GCN bongo drums? So that means you're stuck with just the one-off performances on the Gorilla level. That doesn't give you a whole lot of different things to do, but it's still a lot of fun. Just be prepared to find some purple shirts and develop a lisp afterwards.
Next we have Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal on the PS2. This is the third in a series of solid, reliable games. Like its predecessors, it is solid and reliable. Unlike its predecessors, however, it is easy and short. There's still some fun to be had here - a lot of fun, actually - but don't expect the same level of harditude and lengthitude that you've grown familiar with. A lot of the annoyances from Going Commando have been fixed here - specifically, Lock-On now actually works. That was the big thing for me. If you were frustrated that the "classic" weapons in Going Commando were, so to speak, batshit useless due to their obnoxiously low attack power, you'll be relieved to know that the "classics" in Up Your Arsenal do not have that liability. In fact, they're so powerful that you won't really use anything else once you get them - and they're free with a Going Commando savefile. So that contributes to the lack of difficulty right there. The Captain Qwark minigames are great fun, but I'm not impressed with the siege levels. I like my action platformers to contain some actual, you know, platforming, see. Big, wide-open maps where monsters teleport in all around you and you just keep firing the Plasma Storm until they're all dead aren't really my cup of tea. And don't even get me started on the dumbass hovership. Bottom line: fun game, but not as good as its predecessors.
Paper Mario: The Y2K-Compliant Door is Nintendo's third-and-a-halfth wacky Mario RPG. It's fun, and the visual design is appealing, but, much like the previous two games, it lacks any semblance of testicles in the diffculty area. In the vernacular, this game does not exactly kick you in the balls until you bleed. Rather, it looks sheepishly in your direction as if to say "please don't hurt me too badly, sir." There is virtually no exploring to be done off the main path, so basically one trip through the game and you've seen it all. But still, the game is fun, and it's long enough that you won't feel ripped off, even though there isn't really anything to make you play through it again. It's split into "chapters," which is a device I always dislike in RPGs, though here it's handled in such a fashion as to be relatively inoffensive. The chapters range in quality, with the absolute high point being chapter 3, in which Mario goes deep undercover as a Mexican professional wrestler so he can help solve a mystery, a la Scooby-Doo. And if you think I made that up just to get a laugh, well, think again. That actually happens. And the side-scrolling Bowser levels are fantastic. Bottom line here: Definitely worth a play, especially if you can get the error variant cover version, which you can probably sell on eBay when you're done with it for MORE than you paid for it. Rock out.
Last but lot least, there's Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean. First, just let me say that I refuse any responsibility for the title of this game. Second, let me say that we all owe a debt of gratitude to the developer for including an option to disable the voice-overs, for they are bad. Yet they fail the Symphony of the Night acid test for bad voice acting, and are merely annoying, rather than hysterical. The gameplay itself seems solid - the unconventional card game interface seems to keep combat fresh and interesting, and forces you to make quick decisions. More on this one once I've had more time with it. Gimme a break; the thing came out yesterday. And it is the first GCN game I've seen that ships on two discs, so, with any luck, there's some volume of game present.
Also, I took the opportunity to get my hands all over (yes, all over) the bizarro handheld that is the Nintendo DS. It seems to be a pretty sexy piece of hardware. I was unable to find a unit equipped with anything but the Metroid demo (which was a shame, since I wanted to give the weird Mario 64 update a whack), but what I saw there was impressive. The game looks good and sounds good, and gives you five control schemes to decipher, depending on your level of comfort with the stylus. As far as I'm concerned, it's all about the control scheme that puts movement on the D-pad, jumping on the L-button, and shooting on the stylus. It's a simple matter of tap your target to shoot the hell out of it. Hells yes, I like that. So there's some promise in the web of weirdness that is the Nintendo DS, certainly, and I'll defeinitely be picking one up once there's actually some software support.
In closing, a few words on the PSP. I've not actually had a chance to fondle Sony's unit, but, based on the specs, I can't see what's good about it. Large, expensive, and power-hungry do not turn me on, and are more in line with what I'd expect from Microsoft. But here's my number one PSP turnoff: the thing's killer app is a goddamn movie about goddamn Final Fantasy VII. As the Germans would say, les puke.
Guess what I forgot to do? Upload the new Heroes of Communism strip that I wrote three months ago. Whoops. Well, it's done now. Guess that's the sort of thing that happens when you more or less forget about your high-profile web site. And now I have a convenient excuse to delay the update I was going to do today - two new strips in one day, after all, would be downright rash. And we don't want to be rash.
Besides, I'm pissed at you right now. I was hoping that when Friends mercifully went the hell off the air to rot away in whatever passes for a TV show nursing home - Nick at Nite, I imagine - we as a nation may have begun to recapture some element of taste. And, as always, my faith in humanity was poorly served. In fact, one might say, it got served. What am I talking about? Several things. First off, Let's talk about how that there new Spielberg film starring Tom Hanks opened the other week, but wasn't the box office leader. What was? Not Shrek 2 or Harry Potter and the Whatever the Hell This Year's Installment Is, which would be perfectly understandable, but godforsaken Dodgeball. By which I mean this movie here. That's harmful to our reputation among me, guys. Also, what's rocking the box office this week? Paranoid gasbag extrordinaire Michael Moore has his latest pseudo-documentary about how evil The Man and those damn Republicans are. I guess people were entertained enough by his improv performance at the Academy Awards a few years back that they couldn't wait to see what else could come out of his mouth. So I can understand that one. But White Chicks? I was under the impression that Scary Movie 7 had thoroughly defeated the last of the patience that the American people had with the Wayans brothers, and that it would be at least a few years before they made another major theatrical terrorist strike. Again, I get burned.
I'd probably be alright with all this bad taste, but I'm still trying to recover from when you people collectively declared Final Fantasy goddamn VII the best game ever made. What was that, a quirk of timing? That poll happened to be held on National Get Way the Hell Drunk and Take Internet Polls day? Did you all figure it would be funny to throw some votes at that crapper, but that it couldn't possibly win? Or is it that everybody voted for the hype and forgot to try playing the damn thing? Not that I recommend you do it, mind. It could be worse - for instance, it could be Final Fantasy VIII - but it's not the best game of all time. There are lots of games that have lots of betterness, and there's no way I can be arsed to list them all. I can, however, be arsed for a cross-section, so here are all the games beginning with F that I can think of offhand that are better than Final Fantasy VII:
That list may not be complete. I'm sure there are some games starting with F I haven't played. If you can think of any F games that are better than Final Fantasy VII, feel free to content yourself with that knowledge and not send me angry comments about not respecting your undying love for whatever it is. And for those of you wondering if you're just not seeing the leading F on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, that was your special bonus prize that I threw in because it's superior in every single way to Final Fantasy VII and yet lost. And I hold each and every one of you personally responsible for this atrocity. Me? I draw stupid cartoons about historical figures, so I'm exempt. Also I'm gay. So if you try to blame me, it's a hate crime.
Want to help the upcoming delayed project at perfectlydarien.com? You know you do. Everybody's doing it. And it's so simple, too; all you have to do is contact me and tell me you're interested. What am I looking for? I'm looking for artisty-types to art up some art. I can't give you any more details than that at present - secrecy, you know, what what - but it shouldn't be anything overly difficult. I don't have any money to hand out, mind, but you'll get credit for your work at any rate. Any takers? Let me know about it.
So everybody keeps talking about how great World of Warcraft is, and it's starting to get to me. I mean, in that "maybe I should pick that up - it sounds like fun" kind of way. I mean, I know MMORPGs are a misery that has no equal even in the realm of snoozefest Squaresoft titles - until just recently, anyhow - but they really make it sound like World of Warcraft is, you know, fun. But I must remember that, even if Blizzard has taken the tedium out of the genre, there is one fatal problem that no amount of code wizardry will fix: the other players. I'm pretty sure that, no matter what the hell Blizzard does, all the people I'll be surrounded by will be horrible, horrible little children constantly spewing their fewmets into the shout channel. You know, just like in every other MMORPG around. That will be my mantra as I steadfastly attempt to avoid this temptation.
... To perfectlydarien.com. In celebration, I'll be updating the site for the first time in forever. Unfortunately, I'll be doing it a bit later. Just remember that, next time you see something new here, it's an anniversary celebration and not just a regular old occasional update. You could maybe even send a card, if you felt like it. You know. If.
Questions, comments, suggestions, or insults? Send them right along to darien@perfectlydarien.com
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