Bite Size 2008: In the Palm of my Hand

Slightly delayed. I was benched due to not feeling good and not wanting to sit and think about stuff I have to type, interest in the Windows 7 beta, and various Princes of Persia, so here’s my next post in the series only a bit late.

Bite Size 2008 is my wrap-up of moments in games from the past calendar year. This post is themed around, you guessed it, handheld games! Specifically, DS games, as I delayed my purchase of a PSP once again. The DS was a pretty big component of my gaming in 2008, because portability is awesome, and good games with said portability is even better. Check out this listing for the rest of my Bite Size 2008 posts!

To be Honest, I’d Spend My Quarters on it Again

In 1995, I was nine years old. I had just recently completed my first full playthrough of Final Fantasy III for the SNES, after many failed attempts, and I was looking for something new. In these days, I didn’t own many games. I saved up my quarters and change I got from returning bottles for my grandmother and helping my dad out with odd jobs around the house, and I rented games. One day, I rode my bike up to the nearby Family Video (which was brand new at the time) and rented a game that sat on the corner of the shelf called Chrono Trigger. I took it home, and played. It was a fun game, with cool characters, and I spent many of the aforementioned quarters on renting it in consecutive rentals. I still remember the way I felt when I first traveled into the future, after the Day of Lavos, to see what became of the world. I never completed it at the time (I ran out of funds, and did not fully complete the game until I was running an emulator on my PC a couple years later), yet the game had such an impact on me, it stands as my favorite game of all time. With the DS re-release of the game, I’m on something like my 7th playthrough of the game, and I still enjoy it. It holds up well against the test of time, and I can’t wait until the day I get to show my children what an amazing game it is.

 

Experiencing a Classic

In the last paragraph, I mentioned my love for Final Fantasy III and Chrono Trigger. The 16-bit era was the birth of my love for RPGs, with those two games, as well as The Illusion of Gaia, The Secret of Mana, Super Mario RPG, and more. However, one game I overlooked in this time frame was Final Fantasy IV, known as II at the time. I had started it once in my also previously mentioned emulator phase, but I never stuck with it. This year, I was given a new chance to take a stab at it, and with the release on the DS, it looked more than likely that I would give it a go. I finally see why so many give it high regards. The tale of Cecil and company is a well twisted one, with plenty of drama, excitement, and mystery to craft an interesting narrative. The implementation of an Auto-Battle system also helped to make the game a little less button-mashy than some old school RPGs tended to get in their later stages. While I’ll admit I have not yet finished the game (I picked it up late, and Chrono Trigger may have interrupted me), I’m about 75% complete, and I’ve enjoyed it quite a bit. My only complaint is that Cecil looks a bit too wimpy after his transformation.

 

It Is Four In The Morning, Oh Damn… One More and I’m Done

I was always the kind of kid who liked story problems in school, while everyone else sat there hating them. I love a good mind teaser, and that’s why I love puzzle games. I’ll admit I’ve picked up a paperback logic puzzle book here and there as well (more recently than one would think). Given that prerequisite, Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a no-brainer as far as whether or not I should pick it up. Throw an actually interesting story on top of it (classic murder mystery, with a twist!) and add in downloadable puzzles, and upon picking it up, I was damn near ready to call it my game of the year. I spent so many nights up until 4 AM trying to figure out puzzles. I’ve completed every downloadable puzzle and every puzzle in the game except the very last bonus room puzzle (the block moving puzzles are my least favorite anyway). I’ve already decided that when I have my own classroom, I will start the students off with a warm-up puzzle, just to get their minds running. The only thing I can wait for now is for the second and third games to make their way stateside!

One more piece left in the puzzle of Bite Size 2008, and then it’s off to the races for 2009!

Bite Size 2008: Downloadable Content

Bite Size 2008 is my wrap-up of moments in games from the past calendar year. This post is themed around stuff that is downloadable. Check out this listing for the rest of my Bite Size 2008 posts!

Racing Along “She Is Beautiful”

Along with being a huge gamer, I also try to listen to a lot of music. So, as a music enthusiast and a gaming enthusiast, I was excited to see the release of Audiosurf. It could almost be defined as relying on user generated content, since you provide the MP3s for the game to generate tracks for. The first track I loaded up on the tutorial level was Andrew W.K.’s “She Is Beautiful”, and that really set the par for the course. I had a blast playing, and got to listen to a song I enjoy going a little crazy to. What was even more fun, was playing songs I’ve written. Especially the songs with tempo changes and parts that crescendo and accelerando and the opposites, allowing me to have this extremely varied experience of playing a game backed by music I’ve written. This is an easy grab for one of my top titles of the year.

 

From The Screen To Your… Screen?

I’ve been a huge fan of Penny Arcade for years. Even when my interest in gaming waned a bit (during a period in high school when I thought I had the skills to be in a band), I still checked Penny Arcade daily. Then, as if a reward for my perseverance, we were told of Penny Arcade: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness. However, I was skeptical of the possibilities of the PA game. I feared the humor would not translate into the game, and that it would simply try too hard to be Penny Arcade-ish. These fears were alleviated with the release of the game to XBL and PC. It hit all the nails on their heads, with spot on comedy along with a world that evoked the PA atmosphere on top of a game that was not dull and derivative (Unlike Lost: Via Domus, but I still played that). From start to finish, the six or eight hours I spent in the PA game were enjoyable, and the second one was equally so. I am a bit afraid for the rest of the series, but if it is only a four-part story, as the opening video implies, then it will be over before it gets too stale. Here’s to Episodes 3 and 4.

 

Something About An Atomic Bomb and Platforming

Braid. What can I say that has not already been said? (I totally meant to make that entire sentence full of links but I got lazy, but you still catch my drift). The ending of the game floored me, and totally threw me for a loop. Aside from the big reveal in Bioshock, this was one of my most significant “OMFG” moments in gaming ever. I salute Jonathan Blow and all his hard work, and as the gaggle of my friends and I sat to discuss Braid, we could only speak highly of it.

 

Honorable Mention That I Do Not Want to Write a Paragraph For:

Harmonix gets an honorable mention for their consistency with providing DLC every week! I’ve scored some tracks that I simply love playing, and I commend them for that!

That’s all for today’s post! I’ve got a few more moments to count down – probably two posts worth - and then I’ll discuss the course I’m charting for 2009. Back tomorrow with more!

Bite Size 2008: The Missed Steps and Let Downs

Bite Size 2008 is a brief series of posts about my highs and lows of 2008 gaming. Not “favorite games” or “worst games” by any means, simply just moments or chunks of games that had an impact on me in some form this year.

Check out this listing for the rest of my Bite Size 2008 posts!

Delayed Reaction: Catching Up With Next-Gen

Since I did not get an Xbox 360 until November of 2007, I was a bit behind the times. This was truly unfortunate, because 2006 and 2007 saw some great games. I dabbled in hits such as Oblivion or the Lego Star Wars series, but I found real next-gen love in those two big names of 2007, Bioshock and Portal. I kicked off the year with a rental of The Orange Box, and fell in love with GlaDOS. After a price drop, I entered Rapture, and whether it was Atlas’ “Would You Kindly?” or my own free will, it became one of my favorite games of all time. I honestly have not become so enamored with a game since Chrono Trigger or Kingdom Hearts. I actually just purchased Bioshock again, since my friends have been passing it around for the better part of 8 months, this time for PC off of Steam thanks to the ridiculous price of $4.99 during the Holiday Sale. While I was late to the party, I was glad I got to see the show.

 

Those Things I Loved… Well…

I just dropped the fact that I love Kingdom Hearts. I am the kind of fan who knows what “Deep Dive”, and “Another Side, Another Story” are. I put down my preorder for Kingdom Hearts 2 the day it became available. I played the shit out of the GBA version of Chain of Memories, to the point where I ignored my extended family on Christmas Day and sat on a couch playing it. I admit, I got excited opening the case for RE:Chain of Memories. Seeing that now-standard silver box, with Sora and company waiting for an adventure. However, in the transition from GBA to PS2, the game lost it’s charm. On the portable system, it was a new way to play, even if it was reusing the story progression from KH1 with some additional Organization XIII bits in between. Here, on PS2, it’s almost disappointing. Now it’s an entirely reused game, built on a reused engine. They didn’t even change the menu art from KH2. I played through Traverse Town, but couldn’t help feeling that the game is relying too heavily on it’s pedigree, and is nothing more than a cash cow. Who knows, maybe there is some additional content in here that will change my mind. The new titles from the series hold promise, so let’s hope Square Enix proves the series still has its worth.

 

I Appreciate the Effort

I also downloaded some community game trials this year, as many others did with the launch of the NXE. My friend Joe and I spent a couple hours downloading things that looked interesting, only to be let down by almost all of them. The only one that really held my interest for more than a minute was Word Soup, and that is because it is the exact same mechanic of Bookworm, a PopCap game which I love due to my affection for Scrabble. It’s nothing more than a horde of clones, and we’re not talking Jango Fett clones, but rather something more akin to an attempt at transmuting a human from chemicals.

 

I Seriously Cannot Handle This

I played Ninja Gaiden for the NES. I think I may even own it. I played through most of Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword, and I enjoyed it. Even though it sometimes misinterpreted my actions, it’s not bad. So, with that in mind I got my hands on Ninja Gaiden 2. Ninja Gaiden 2 is hard and not the kind of game I want. From its clumsy camera, to the uneven enemy strength, and punishing deaths, I put it down because it is not the experience I look for in games. At least God of War games let you win on normal difficulty. Something I cannot handle in a different respect is Rock Revolution, because the covers are bad and the top-to-bottom scrolling without a perspective view of the incoming notes, so that you can view things in a natural manner, makes Konami look like a poor copy artist rather than the innovator of the rhythm genre as it is massively known.

That’s a few of my downer moments from 2008, and outside of Dwayne’s phone calls, I think that makes up the bulk of them. From here on out it will probably be the positive moments, of which there were many! I’ll try to fire these things off for the rest of the week, and round it out with my aspirations for 2009.

Hero’s Best Friend

Fable 2 managed to grab me because of its world, and that kept me interested in the story, which got me involved with the characters, namely, my fellow Heroes. Or, at least I tried to get involved with them. Since the support characters are very sparse, and exist only within the story based missions, you would think that they’d take this opportunity to flesh them out and give them a greater place in the world. I found myself gaining no attachment to the other heroes in the story, even when they were in jeopardy. The only one I felt I really knew was Hammer, only because she was around the longest, and the most vocal. Even Theresa only seemed to serve the role of a quest-giver. This is really a disappointment, because I felt like I knew more about the final villain than my teammates, and there we were fighting his troops together.

However, the one character I really gained some feelings for was my dog. Since I was good, my dog was a blonde color, so he was aptly named Luke. Not as in Duke, but as in Skywalker. He ran when I ran. He fought when I fought. When he got hurt, I healed him. We played fetch together. He aided me in my expressions (and covered his head with his paws for others). Overall, though, I felt as if this in-game dog really captured the spirit of a real dog. Unlike Fallout 3’s Dogmeat, who instead had the spirit of a party member. I found myself spending more time healing Dogmeat than I did caring for him. The plus side to Fable 2’s dog is that you don’t have to tell him anything. He automatically finds his treasures and barks for my attention. Dogmeat just attacked anything that was near, and getting him to find ammo or health was more of a chore than anything (and because of this, I rarely used him for this purpose). The fact that Luke waited by my side as my hero grew, and that he ran to greet me at the docks as I returned from a quest showed me that he cared for me before I even began to care for him. I applaud Peter Molyneux and his crew for creating the most inspired character in this year of gaming, and possibly one of the most emotionally realistic support characters of all time.

Until I am able to venture forth to Knothole Island, this is all I’ve got on Fable 2 for now. Coming up soon: My thoughts on 2008.

Impressions: Rock Revolution

TERRIBLE.

I rented it from Gamefly, knowing it would not be that great, and we quit half-way through the first song.

I feel bad for anyone who accidentally picks this up thinking “Hey! It has the word Rock in the title, so maybe it is like Rock Band!” only to be sorely disappointed.

I’m Pretty Sure Venn Diagrams are Necessary Here

Nope, not Fable 2. I’ll come back to that. I’ve got another train of thought.

I currently still live at home with my family, and for the holiday, my dad decided to buy Wii Fit as a “family gift”. I’ll admit that I have not touched the Wii since I put down Super Mario Galaxy back in January. On the other hand, my parents have gotten quite a bit of use out of the game playing Wii Sports. They sometimes take to calling the WIi the “Wii Machine”, which brings an entirely different image to mind, but that is neither here nor there. They’re particularly fond of the bowling in Wii Sports. My parents used to be very enthusiastic about bowling. They own their own bowling balls, and I’ve seen my father bowl a perfect game. However, as they’ve gotten older, my mother’s knees have gotten bad, so Wii Sports gives them an opportunity to do what they used to love in an entirely new way. They also enjoy the fact that they can use their Miis for an even more immersive (and I’m using that word sparingly here) experience.

So, on Christmas day we set up Wii Fit and everyone found out their BMI and COB and all that jazz, and took turns on the mini games. I lost interest after finding out that I am almost overweight and slightly off balance, but the rest of them had fun with the hula hoops, ski jumps, etc. They weren’t even doing it for the health aspect, they were just enjoying small chunks of pseudo-games that they were able to play. As I watched, it was extremely clear that this game was, without a doubt, the epitome of non-gamer, casual gaming.

My dad also bought my mother AMF Bowling World Lanes, also for the Wii. This is a strange game. It’s made by Bethesda, or at least an offshoot of Bethesda. You know, Fallout 3, that game that I love from only weeks ago. They hated it, and wanted to return it. It is a bowling game in which you pick a stereotypically ethnic bowler, and bowl around the world. My parents were excited with the prospect of a potentially more “realistic” Wii bowling game. However, the lack of Mii support frustrated them. They liked how Wii Sports let them live out their old bowling days vicariously through their Miis. Instead now, my mom was playing as a cowboy, and she was not pleased. They also did not like the fact that they had to go through menus, select bowlers and locations, and then on top of that, the controls were more complex than those of Wii Sports, so they could not hook the ball the way they used to.

That brings me to my point here. Who exactly is a game like this made for? The onslaught of Wii shovelware is made with the mindset that they’ll be able to hit this newfound casual demographic that owns a Wii with Wii Sports and rarely anything else. The people in this demographic, however, are hard to please.

They like things simple and easy. To be frank, they like things that Nintendo is making. After explaining to my parents that not every company uses the Miis, they were pretty disappointed. What’s the chances of them buying another third party Wii title now that they know that there will not be more of the same, but something totally different that may be completely foreign to them? I know my parents aren’t going to be the only ones in this boat.

The Choices are Yours and Yours Alone

First off, I promised things and then went silent, and to that, I apologize. I know my number of readers is still scant, but it doesn’t change the fact that I felt bad about it. However, I didn’t realize how much family-related stuff I had to do for the holidays until it was already upon me. However, I’m finally back to gaming and with that, thinking about games. Back to the regularly unscheduled programming, I guess. Once again, here I go with a topic past it’s point of discussion, this time, Fable 2.

I’m wrapping up Fable 2 tonight, after writing this post. I finished the main quest earlier this evening, and just have to mop up some achievements and then I’ll be done wit it. Overall, I’ve taken away a lot of enjoyment from the game. I don’t feel like writing up a full review, since I realize my reviews tend to focus on some things more than others, and have a very subjective taste. So, instead, I’m going to throw up a few posts about various parts of the game.

The story was interesting enough to keep me interested when I was doing the main quest missions, yet, I felt like the main quest was too far removed from the rest of the game. Many of the main quests operated in their own sections totally removed from the rest of the world, and their number was really quite scant when compared to the number of missions in the game. It was really just like three or four missions for the main quest. One could easily blow through the story missions in a long day of playing and be done with the game, if they felt so inclined. Several of the story missions really serve a basic purpose of advancing the game’s time so that your decisions can be reflected in the game world, since your character is removed from the world for a period of years.

While I knew going in to the game that choice would make a big deal, as it has with so many other games this year, I really didn’t realize that this time, the choices would affect how I felt about the world. In Fallout 3, your choices are really restricted to character development or mission based actions, and rarely do they have an overarching affect on the entire atmosphere of the world outside of Three Dog’s radio broadcasts. However, I felt like my actions changed the way the world felt in Fable. When I invested money to develop Westcliffe and came back a few years later, I felt like my actions meant something to the world, not just to the mission. The closest mission to this in Fallout 3 was the mission where you can either help the slaves kill their former owner, or lead the slavers to them. In that sense, it was like you were helping to establish a settlement and help the world develop. In Fable 2, every action feels like that. Whether you decide to build it up or tear it down, you feel like the world is really being shaped by your hands.

Since I took the route of a good character, I got a genuinely good feeling with each time a passerby said something positive about me. As much as I hated the hordes of people crowding around every time I walked into a building and caused problems with exiting, I knew it was because I was a real hero that they seemed to genuinely love. That created a real compelling atmosphere for the world and made me genuinely want to save it. To be honest, I can’t say I’ve felt that way about a game world since the first time I played Chrono Trigger. With that in mind, it is an awesome season to be gaming when I can be playing both Fable 2 and Chrono Trigger as new releases. More to come on Fable 2 later.

I Fought the Law and the Law was Scripted

So, as I mentioned yesterday, I’m playing Chrono Trigger. This is, at least, my sixth time playing through the game. If that doesn’t suffice as a neon-glowing statement of fanboyism, I don’t know what does. This is more or less my first attempt at a relatively academic blog post, so please, bear with me.

For whatever reason, when I play Chrono Trigger, I always play the beginning of the game the same way, even though I know how the events will pan out. I’m not using spoiler tags or anything here because the game is 13 years old at this point, and if you play games and don’t know a damn thing about this game, there is something very wrong with you. In all honesty, this is the first two hours of the game, so if people have any experience with this game, this is the part they encounter.

So as Crono, you enter the Millennial Fair, and you hear Lucca is setting up her new machine at the back of the fairgrounds, and proceed to make your way there. However, in front of Leene’s Bell, you run into a girl and her pendant goes flying. Here is where your actions begin to come under scrutiny. At this point, I always talk to the girl first to make sure the pendant. I wait when she wants candy. I leave the lunch alone. I take the cat to the little girl. Say it’s all my fault in court. However, when it comes time for Crono to fall victim to the judge’s gavel, I always get thrown in jail.

I understand that the event is scripted, and that no matter what, I will be hitting the pen as a result of the plot. However, as I sit there in the trial and watch the jurors account for me as “not guilty”, and see the judge still sentence me to three days of solitary confinement. I can’t help being struck by pangs of dissonance. Despite the fact that I know that I have to spend time in the slammer, I can’t help but feel defeated when I do, regardless of my verdict.

It may have something to do with the first time I played it, where I was destroyed by a totally “Guilty” verdict. That time, I grabbed the pendant first, got impatient waiting, ate the lunch multiple times, etc. Yet, I came away thinking “In this game, I can change the past. Next time, I’ll change how I play it.” So I did, again and again, and now I find myself here.

In my paper on games and narratives (ha! I’ve finally mentioned it!), I began to explore the idea of applying Fisher’s Narrative Paradigm to gaming. Stealing Wikipedia’s line, the theory states that “all meaningful communication is a form of storytelling… and so human beings experience and comprehend life as a series of ongoing narratives”. The way we judge narratives is based on fidelity/rationality, or coherence/probability. This begins to tie in to the oft-discussed topic of ludonarrative dissonance, which Michael Abbott describes very well by saying “The world is alive with possibilities, except when it isn't. The world responds to my actions, except when it doesn't,” (in regards to Fallout 3).

Chrono Trigger is a game trying to tell the story of a ragtag band of spunky heroes trying to save the world (or, everything Squaresoft put out up until about… well, still). I want to experience everything the game has to tell me, or has for me to play. I want to enjoy the story and the gameplay. The reason I begin to feel this dissonance is when Chrono Trigger stops being a game and starts telling the story. You can almost imagine the narrator saying, “Regardless of his actions, Crono was thrown in jail…”. As the gavel swings down, and the judge sentences Crono, Fisher would feel the narrative fidelity/rationality snap under pressure. Suddenly, the story we’re being told is no longer coherent with our world view. We know that if a jury finds you not guilty, you walk free. If O.J. Simpson can walk free, Crono should too. I'm feeling all sorts of narrative static, because this “interactive experience” decided it wants to be a scripted chain of events again, and because these events are not the norm of what I hold true. Granted, we have to suspend our disbelief to some extent, such as when fighting monsters or using magic, but this apparently universal concept of justice seems to be shattered.

I know Yakra did it, but in the end, I’m still always pissed.

Cosmetic Differences

I decided to spend a few minutes leisurely photoshopping a new header for the blog, and some minor tweaks here and there. Other than that, I just spent a few days out of town with no gaming contact aside from Chrono Trigger, which has some thoughts brewing in my mind, so in between a final, a paper, and a presentation all before Thursday, I' may sneak in a post on that. I’m also interested in this month’s Blogs of the Round Table discussion, so I may throw my hat in the ring there. Following the end of the semester, I’ll actually start discussing that paper I wrote earlier this semester about videogames, and maybe my thoughts on the 2008 VGA winners.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed – Jedi Temple DLC Impressions

So I snagged the DLC for TFU for $10 USD, or 800 MSP, and JSYK, IMHO, it is alright. LOL, for good measure.

I think some great, conspiring power was at work here. The DLC was released as I’m in possession of the game from Gamefly. It’s like they knew. Like there was some great force controlling the way everything worked.

For reals, though, it is average. The level is short, and I kind of wonder how it took MTV’s Stephen Totilo a whole 70 minutes to play through it. It took me all of 30 minutes on the Sith Warrior difficulty. I’ll give Stephen the benefit of the doubt, and assume it is because he is rusty in his ways of the Force, while I just finished the game less than 48 hours ago.

I was a little upset that I had to start a new game to play it, because it is self-contained. Your Jedi Temple save is separate from your normal game save. It takes place outside the story, and you are given a Starkiller with your rankings near-fully specced out. It really adds nothing spectacular to the story, as you would expect from DLC. If anything, it’s on par with a deleted scene from a movie, and we know those are generally non-canon. [spoiler]Judging by the guidance of Kota, I assume this takes place roughly before Starkiller begins to put the wheels in motion for the Alliance.[/spoiler]

As gameplay goes, it gives you a bit of what the endgame of the story did not: A ton of stuff to throw around and break apart. At least 60% of the environment is destructible once you get inside the temple. To encourage this, the stormtroopers are of the advanced variation that can throw up Force-resistant shields, encouraging you to launch a globe or some rubble at them. What bothered me was the sheer number of enemies they crammed into this tiny little package. Immediately upon touching down at the temple, you’re swarmed by enemies, and the assault is relatively relentless as you move through the rooms. A large number of Evo Troopers (the kind with the sheilds), Jumptroopers, and Snipers await you as you move through the halls, and they can get irritating. That just makes it all the more gratifying to crush them.

There is also a training chamber with some near-infinitely spawning droids, which I assume would be great if you still need your achievements for using force powers X times, as well as a “Jedi Mind Trial” where you get to use your force grip to move a ball along a path. It’s the closest the game has come to puzzle solving, so we’ve got to take what we can get.

It seems to lock up sometimes while it saves checkpoints, and I had a frequently recurring glitch when entering the main chamber, it took a moment to load everything and I could see through the non-loaded floor to Coruscant below. Quite a view, actually. The audio always seemed to lag, especially with voiceover parts.

With the inclusion of a costume pack containing a handful of costumes that include a very awesome version of Starkiller, as well as Mace Windu, we’re given a little bang for our buck. However, the price point of $10 still doesn’t sit right. I’ve paid less for Rock Band track packs and spent far more time playing them. I managed to get all but one achievement in just over an hour and a half. Spend it if you’ve got the points laying around and are longing for some new TFU content, but if you’re not, I’m sure you can wait until the recession passes.