Malik
(12/15/08)
Snow is awesome.
Well, except when it destroys any part of your property (like a deck
cover...sigh...). Saying that, it would have been good fun if the
Seahawks played at home yesterday. The cold, the wind, the ice...it
would have made for a great football game.
Instead, the game
was on the road in St. Louis. At least the Seahawks won in the most
unlikely way. Instead of giving up a decent lead in the fourth, the
Seahawks took the fourth quarter to win from behind. It may have
only been a small 3 point margin, but a win is a win. Now Seattle is
not tied for last in the NFC West. In fact, unless something weird
happens (like St. Louis winning another game), Seattle will remain
3-13 over the Rams at 2-14 when the year draws to a close.
Since I have
stopped caring, I actually saw little of the game until there was
2:49 remaining. That would be when Seattle tied the Rams at 20-20.
It's hard to put much more effort into watching than that when your
team is such a disgrace from the previous few years of constantly
seeing the playoffs.
I'm still playing
Chrono Trigger DS on the side. That is to say that I've now finished
every quest before defeating Lavos (final boss). Then I can get some
bonus endings, and more importantly I can face the final extra
dungeon that opens after you beat the game normally. That's the one
part I'm most interested in, since I've seen each ending a few times
of the original twelve endings.
On a final note
for today (which will require another shorter post), I never used
Ayla (the cave woman) on Chrono Trigger. I used her, on the SNES
version, only when required. Beyond that, I did use her for the
Blackbird (a dungeon in which a person who fights with no weapons is
a blessing). This time I changed my mind and gave her a chance. Not
because I like her abilities (she's the only character with no
magical attacks, which makes enemies immune to physical damage a
pain for her to face). However, that was easily ignored when you
take advantage of her charm (steal) technique. Holy crap...nothing
like pillaging all your foes for some of the best shit in the game.
I cannot believe I ignored this ability for so long. I guess that's
why replaying these ports can be so much fun...the new things you
learn.
On a final note
for today, I don't watch game award shows. I find them completely
off base with anything I care about, which (by the logic of Fight
Club that we are not all unique snowflakes...quite true, even if it
does sound pessimistic) means they probably don't carry any weight
for the majority of other gamers. For example, I like RPGs, which
are still usually a niche audience type of genre. The same can be
said for puzzle games. In fact, beyond action, FPS, and (now) rhythm
games, most genres are beyond the mainstream...at least enough to
make most popularity contests (like makeshift award shows for games)
irrelevant. Plus, everyone, much like with asses, has an opinion.
Also, like asses, most opinions stink. So, with that in mind, the
only real award for "Game of the Year" that I care about is my own
opinion. In my opinion, the "GotY" for 2008 is Rock Band 2. However,
some people will say GTA4, some will say Fallout 3, some will say
whatever the latest Tom Clancy offering was. For some it's...any
game can be game of the year to someone out there. If I only played
Braid this year, I'd call it GotY. If I only played GH:WT, then I'd
have to, by logic, call it GotY.
I bring this up
because of two things. First off, it let's me say that you will
never find me go "OMG, teh GTA4-zor is teh GotY!!11!!1" I have no
stake in my favorite game being awarded an award which holds no
meaning. I don't ever hold any stake in my favorite game winning a
worthwhile award (like being put in the Smithsonian, like the Virtua
Fighter games have been). I don't make the game, I don't earn money
on it, and the only thing that matters is sales...and that's because
a good game will usually only find a sequel in it's future due to
good sales of the original (like how Okami and Beyond Good and Evil
are both prime targets for me to have cared about their sales, and
nothing else...wonder if the BG&E sequel will ever materialize...).
Secondly, I didn't
see anything about Dante's Inferno until this morning while looking
at gaming sites. I didn't see some big announcement on Spike's Video
Game Awards show (since when did Spike even become an authority
on...anything?). However, I can now, after reading about it, present
my ass...I mean my opinion.
I love classic
literature. I don't mean the crap that gets passed off in modern
Western society as literature. Jane Austin is nothing more than the
older equivalent of one of those novels from the 1980's with Fabio
on the cover. I mean the really old school marvels. A good example
is Dante's Divine Comedy. This was one of the first examples, in
Western literature, of a narrative being told in a complex and
complete format. Even if the material is not interesting (which it
is), it's an amazing example to browse to see the evolution of
modern narratives from ancient writing styles.
Ok...enough with
me sounding high and mighty and elitist (which wasn't my
intention...just saying where I'm coming from on my opinion).
This game is
retarded. That is my opinion. Inferno was not written with some idea
of a violent FPS (or third person shooter) being evolved from it. It
was written as a study of many things. Action is not in any way
relevant. This was Dante's chance to examine the metaphysical,
emotional, and to strike a chord of revenge against his enemies (who
are seen as being in the Inferno for crimes committed, usually
against Dante during his life). All of this was done to set the
stage for a story of love that goes beyond the realm of the living.
Dante's ultimate destiny (in the narrative) was to find his beloved
in Paradisio. This journey would take him through the Inferno,
beyond Purgatorio, and would conclude with Paradisio. In fact,
that's one important part missing from anything you'll find in any
game set to the Inferno; there's two places in which violence and
action would be the farthest thing from the matter of the story, and
the narrative cannot be concluded without these two other
destinations.
Two destinations
that are often times dismissed by the less refined literature lovers
simply because they don't have the classic sex appeal of hell.
Inferno is rock/country (pain and anger forming a rush of adrenaline
for your senses). Meanwhile, Purgatorio is jazz and blues (mellow,
but still with a soul all it's own with both highs and lows
averaging into a medium ground). Paradisio would be classical
(soothing and comforting, but with some energy usually missed by
those who are just looking for a lot of quick gratification).
Inferno (like with rock) is a blast, but it cannot be fully
understood and appreciated without the other two parts.
While I hold
Dante's classic in full esteem and would recommend it to anyone
looking for quality literature (and this comes from someone who
generally prefers to play a game over reading an old tomb of written
works), I can say with full certainty that this game will never find
it's way into my hands. Even if the game is fun, it will still be
like blasphemy to the written word as we all know it in modern
society. Plus, I bet it will be a game that's simply "generic
FPS/third person shooter" set in the setting with the least amount
of skill needed to create...a setting that's in public domain and is
already created.
Paying homage to
Dante's classic is great (for example, the fiends in FFIV are named
for demons in Dante's Inferno)...but distorting it for nothing more
than an easy buck (which will sell just because of how it can make
any random person feel like they are a master of the classics, which
doesn't equate to real mastery of anything) is an insult to a great
artist. I know I would definitely not be happy to see my own work
distorted by someone for a cheap thrill, and I imagine this type of
treatment of his visions would not be appreciated by any of the
classical masters.
What will be next?
Maybe "The Merchant of Venice"? You must slay, in one on one arena
combat, all who stand in your way until you collect your pound of
flesh (each kill gives you one ounce and sixteen will let you beat
the game). At least games based on "Three Kingdoms" are using war
situations to recreate a tale set in a war filled time.
Malik |
Malik
(12/16/08)
Just a short post
today, since I have little to say beyond how much cold weather is
starting to piss me off. Nothing like ice, winds, and hills to make
for a fun time...or a hellish time if you are sick of this already.
Anyway, there's
now word, as of a couple nights ago, that Ten (the first Pearl Jam
studio album)
is coming to Rock Band on March 24th. I haven't brought it up
because it's three months away right now. I only bring it up now so
I can try to avoid looking like life is so damned crazy right now
that I've given up on paying attention to anything beyond my own
self.
Also, I must say
that as a Seattleite, I hate this news. "But don't people in Seattle
love Pearl Jam?" No. Well, not all people. I grew up having their
music crammed down my ears with non-stop all day Pearl Jam marathons
on the two local not-classic rock stations every time they held a
concert here...which was nearly every month it seemed. This wasn't
the case with other local bands (Presidents, Alice in Chains,
Nirvana, Sound Garden, etc.)...just Pearl Jam. Non-stop Pearl Jam. I
still can't avoid a day of hearing Alive or Even Flow on the radio,
no matter how much I try.
On a final note
for today, there's some lawsuits out there in the gaming world. Most
seem to revolve, at least on the consumer involved suits, towards
the 360. There's the RRoD suits. There's suits about Microsoft
failing to deliver on Live any time a surge in use triggers an
outage. There's suits about poor customer service in repairs of
warranted systems. However, I think
my favorite is on scratched disks.
I don't mean it's
my favorite because of how it's a well founded suit with great
merit. I mean it's great because it's funny as hell (in a sad way)
and reminds me of how much lawsuits can easily show how people
simply fail at life. If I took my old fat PS2, my 360, or any other
disk based system with a slide out tray (instead of the top loader
GCN/slim-PS2 style, or the self injecting system like the Wii) and
rotated it while a disk was in the tray and the system was running
it would be scratched. It is a defect? Yes. However, this would be a
user defect. Simple logic says that a high speed drive, with a front
load tray style, would cause scratches on the disk if it's moving
when I decided to flip around the drive/drive's housing. It's
logical.
If your system is
scratching disks while the console is not moving, which is sometimes
the case, then it's only fair to expect compensation. However, if a
suit is brought forth with the idea in mind that Microsoft did
nothing to protect the disk when it's spinning if the user to too
damned stupid to paid any attention to either the manual (which says
to not do it) or logic (which says to play your damned game and not
play with your damned system physically), I have to call bullshit on
it. What next? Maybe we could all sue Microsoft is our consoles
scratch disks when we drop the 360 a few feet to the ground while
it's running. Afterall, that would scratch any disk inside.
People need common
sense and a sense of responsibility. If you do something inane, like
turn your 360 from vertical to horizontal (or the opposite) while a
disk is spinning inside, then it's your own damned fault for
scratching your disk. Microsoft didn't tell you to move the console
while it's running (in fact, the manual tells you to not do
this...ever). You got the damned idea in your head on your own.
However, we live in a damned time when self-entitlement feelings
overshadow any common sense. We are not entitled to compensation
from uninvolved parties just because we fail at life. In a big
hypothetical situation (meaning it would never happen...have to say
that when you type anything like the following); If I spill hot
coffee in my crotch, while moving my running 360 to a horizontal
position, while committing an act of violence (read: murder) with a
firearm, I cannot sue McDonalds, Microsoft, and Rockstar for my own
failing at life. It would be my own damned fault, and that alone is
reason enough for why I won't ever have third degree burns on my
groin, scratched 360 disks, and a pending murder trial.
Malik |
Malik
(12/17/08)
Just a quick post
today. I was reading random stuff online and had to hold back
a good laugh at this. To top how the personal PC, which will
only ever need 640kb of RAM, is now extinct since it was said that
it will have died by now (and it no longer plays games either since
gaming would move entirely away from PCs before 2008), it will soon
no longer use keyboards! Yes! I'm so glad to know the future
predictions of techies, since they are always right!
To be serious,
this is hilarious since a prediction of this sort is a lot like
trying to answer all questions with lies. DRM will only get stronger
(or at least more half-assed and intrusive). This is obvious. It was
one thing when the RIAA was freaking out due to Napster, Kazaa, and
all those good old P2P servers. This is what introduced the damned
DRM idea to the masses, and only helped to proliferate it's use so
much that games would soon have deeper ideas than hard to copy
CDs/DVDs. It was all done in the lame concept that piracy cost RIAA
(and software makers) dollars per year.
In reality,
sometimes piracy would hurt the bottom line, but more times than not
piracy seemed (in my humble opinion) as a solution to a consumer
base that was starved for entertainment but lacked a good outlet for
their money. Read: crappie CDs (including clone bands, like the
billion of identical emo/scene bands we now have proliferating the
market), games that are more tech demos than full games, and
products with numerous flaws/glitches led to a consumer base that
just didn't want to waste their money on flawed merchandise. In
fact, sometimes piracy was seen as a solution to DRM. You could
avoid a malware DRM protocol by finding the DRM-free pirated version
of a game you'd want instead of buying something which would
permanently infect your PC. Sometimes the consumer would have to
make a choice that could be recognized as wrong in order to
appreciate something said consumer would want to pay for and support
legally.
DRM will only get
worse in the future, not be eliminated. This is due to a few simple
facts. First, as the economy gets worse, the RIAA and game
publishers will be in dire need of income. DRM is seen as a solution
to this problem of a lack of consumer money. In reality, if
anything, this will exaggerate the existing problem and lower sales
numbers even more. Secondly, the RIAA and publishers both feel very
smart...even if they are the exact opposite. This false sense of
grandeur will let them think that by making a more advanced DRM
utility that they will win over consumers while covering their
assets (or is that asses?). In reality, it will only worsen the
matter. In the end, however, the RIAA and DRM-fanatical publishers
will be too damned blind (self induced ignorance...it is bliss,
after all) to their target audience (consumers) to stop and realize
that they should think out better options (good music, a chance for
diverse genres and ideas within their catalogues, finished products
that are not simply glitched tech demos in constant need of
patches/updates).
As for
keyboards...wow. Think this scenario. First off, what is the easiest
way to type a long message/document? The keyboard. A touch screen
is, for one thing, less responsive. Secondly, is a touch screen
keyboard somehow not a keyboard? It's still a keyboard no matter
what tactile feel it has. Now imagine you are in a cubical at work
(where many hours of keyboard use is done by a hundred or so million
people each day). If speach recognition is so damned good to replace
a keyboard, then what will this cube filled office be like? Simply
put, hell on Earth. Try to get work done over the noise of a hundred
fellow cube dwellers trying to out-speak their neighbors. If this
ever happened, which it won't, I sure as hell am leaving the
civilized world behind. I think it's officially a sign of the
apocalypse...non-stop chatting to non-existent people surrounding
you every single day. Libraries would even be more fun as the
librarian hushes the people who must speak for their PC to do a
simple card catalogue search.
The rough
consensus was that "few lines divide professional time from personal
time," and that professionals are happy with the way work and play
are "seamlessly integrated in most of these workers' lives."
Glad I don't live
in this constant hell in which my personal and profession lives
overlap so damned much...unless it means I now get to play Rock Band
at work! Awesome! Because unless I'm getting paid for it, my
professional life is not coming home with this geek. Also, that's
not just me speaking as a microbiologist would be arrested for
having a biohazardous substance if I took it home with
me...uncontained.
Another, which
also met with broad agreement: "Talk and touch are common technology
interfaces. People have adjusted to hearing individuals dictating
information in public to their computing devices. In addition 'haptic'
technologies based on touch feedback have been fully developed, so,
for instance, a small handheld Internet appliance allows you to
display and use a full-size virtual keyboard on any flat surface for
those moments when you would prefer not to talk aloud to your
networked computer."
So says this
source of oracle like vision. Well, I can tell you two things...the
bubbles these techies live in must be great...even if they are very
isolated and lonesome. Secondly, my addition to this quote; "People
are also used to dealing with trying to vocalize to their personal
data devices while people around them tell them to 'shut the
mother-f#@$ up before I shove that up your ass', so it's win-win".
Also, did I just
read the keyboard is coming back in this future vision?
Also, when it
comes to some game genres (I know, according to techies, games will
not be on PCs anymore since they would have vanished from this
platform a decade ago), like FPS and MMORPG, could you imagine not
having the good old keyboard? No more quick number macros for your
spells? No more movement via WASD? No more quick save button sitting
right above your left hand? Yeah...keyboards are definitely obsolete
in the year 2012. That's called sarcasm.
These types of
informal surveys remind me too much of the old Conan O'Brien routine
"In The Year 2000" that he did before the year 2000. He'd name some
incredibly impossible scenario with a slight joke aimed at a current
event. Maybe these supposed tech experts are trying to recreate that
routine with their "In The Year 2012" version.
Now to go walk my
robot dog, turn my briefcase back into my flying car, and to enter
my VR holodeck to play some of that futuristic craze known as
"Pong". Don't forget to not feed your tribble...but keep him handy
in case a Klingon is anywhere around plotting to take your dilithium
crystals.
Malik |
Malik
(12/19/08)
Next week will not
be a whole album for Rock Band DLC. In fact, this means that
we will not, unless Harmonix releases two the next week, see all of
the albums from that announcement in August this year.
Of course it was never quite stated, beyond rumors, to be all coming
in 2008. So, it's not like Harmonix is letting down anyone as
much as the rumor mill is letting people down.
This week will see
the second batch of Foo Fighters in the last month and a half (or
close to two months) with
DOA, Times Like These, and This is a Call. While I'm all
for variety, this is a nice step up from the Christmas offering of
2007. Besides Dirty Little Secret (which is one hell of a
guilty pleasure), that was a pretty bad week. Even if it was
the first week, beyond launch, to offer more than three songs and to
offer $1 tracks. Anyway, the three pack of Foo Fighters is
going for the usual price of $2 per track or $5.50 for the discount
pack price. Not bad for a week when Harmonix employees
probably cannot get into their work due to the blizzards hitting the
country.
Speaking of which,
time to get back to my early starting vacation thanks to massive
snow storms in the Seattle region.
Malik |
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