G-pinions

Aside from his occasional crazy rants, Nick has clearly demonstrated himself as the more rational, enthusiastic gamer on this site. He loves most anything, regardless of the quality. He buys bagfuls of $5 games and actually plays all of them; even the lame ones that involve running around a barren fields cutting down trees. Nick is that hardcore. He loves all that is gaming. I, on the other hand, do not.

This leads me to my newest, or should I say revised, complaint about the industry. There seems to always be some huge, new craze taking over my games. A few years back you might remember stealth games bursting onto the scene. From Metal Gear to Tenchu, and even Zelda, every single game had stealth in it. Unfortunately, that trend has stuck around somehow… Anyway, just when I thought I survived that, a new, even worse disease has mutated into a deadly threat. I fear that, just like stealth gaming, this new presence will be along for a very, very long time. I call this plague online gaming.

I know you’re all shocked that I’m not embracing the newest gaming toy. Nick just dropped his pipe and a baby is probably crying somewhere. How could I not like online gaming? It hasn’t even been two days since Nick and I fired up Crimson Skies and took on 14 other players in classic dog fighting action. It hasn’t even been 48 hours since I leapt from Nick’s confining sofa and moved closer to the television so I could fully experience the online revolution. What could have possibly happened in the last two days to make me go from loving all that online gaming entails to realizing it is actually quite boring?

For the first time today, I was able to go online with my very own Xbox. From the confines of my suburban home, I changed from Tom to Noble Penguin as I fired up my own copy of Crimson Skies. Yesterday, I gasped at the beauty of the game. The play mechanics – the pure, arcade delight of streaking towards the ground only to pull up at the last second – that made me giggle with the glee that hadn’t escaped my mouth since youth.

But as I sat there, alone in my chair trying to outmaneuver a guy named Mauve762, I realized how terribly boring it is to try shooting down a person I don’t even know. It was fun insulting Nick during the entire match, only to see at the conclusion that he had doubled my pathetic score. Alone, the game loses any semblance of fun. The voice technology that Microsoft claims creates a gaming community unlike any seen before was shaky at best. I don’t think I went through one complete match without someone’s voice shorting out a few times.

I’ve said this before and now that I’ve actually gone online I’ll say it again: multiplayer gaming is something that should be done with 3 friends sitting together in the same room. I’ll deal with split screens and stinky feet as long as I can shout extremely personal tiny penis jokes whenever someone kills me. Half of multiplayer gaming is the competitiveness in throwing a group of people in a room together. Online gaming is no better than destroying mindless bots.

Nintendo should be a software-only company. Outside of the GBA/DS, they should stop making consoles, the way Sega has been for a couple of years now. I came to this conclusion after reading a quote in EGM from their message boards that said "GameCube's a format for playing Nintendo games and little else." The rumor has been going around forever that they're going to take that path, despite their constant denials, and announcement of work on future hardware. And honestly, I think as long as they're a company, they'll keep making consoles. But they shouldn't.

The quote I mentioned above really struck a chord with me. It's so succinct, but totally true. When you think of a "Nintendo game", you think of great, classic characters, you think of the games you grew up on, you think of sitting around with your pals in high school playing Mario Kart 64 until your retinas gave out. Their family of games define gaming for most people, and will always be a reliable constant in the industry. They make great games, and that's all you need to know, or care about. Going along with that, the games defined their systems. While the Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 might not have 'won' their respective generations, they were always head-to-head with their competitors in pretty much every respect. Other consoles came and went, but Nintendo have always stood strong. This is all because of their games. Not the general games released on those platforms, but Nintendo games, the games the company makes themselves. They take their time, and they get things right, so the games have always held up the system. Mario 64 is the game that launched a thousand platformers, and equal praise can be put upon many of their other titles.

Now, we reach the problem. Nintendo games are still great, if a little more derivative of themselves these days than usual. They once again blew everyone away at E3, and got millions of gamers wetting their short shorts over the DS and a new Zelda game. And that's fine. Those are their strengths. They will always make great portable hardware (every if the PSP somehow takes the lead this generation), and they will always make great games, and that's what people expect from them. And as successful as they've been this generation (second or third in sales, depending on your sources, but making a larger profit than the other two), they've fallen behind in countless other ways. They have so few third party developers left; if a game is released for two platforms, it's usually always PS2 and XBX, and rarely does a game see release on three nowadays. And people want to buy and play games. Lots of games. Almost all of their second-party developers are now making games for other platforms (Factor 5 and Silicon Knights fled ship, and HAL Laboratory is the only one I can think of off-hand that's still around, and barely at that). They've refused to lower the price on the majority of their titles, ever-so-slowly adding games to their Player's Choice list. They've given their best multiplayer games ridiculous GBA hardware requirements, making them impossible to enjoy for anyone outside of the most die-hard Nintendo fans. Worst of all, they've failed to make the jump online (two games doesn't count), the undeniable, unavoidable future (and present, for that matter) of the industry.

So why do we need a GameCube? Well, it's not to play a large variety of games. It's not to play the best-looking games. It's not to be able to buy cheap games. It's not to watch dvds. It's not to play online. So why then? To play Nintendo games. Not one GameCube owner in the country would tell you otherwise. And they'd all buy whatever hardware/software needed and spend whatever amount of money required in the future to keep playing Nintendo games. As would I. So, again I ask, why do we need the middle-man, the GameCube? Are their any other reasons? Sure, it's cheap and relatively portable and...uh....well, that's pretty much it. Nintendo likes to talk about how they only focus on games. Fine - let them focus on games. Take all the hardware out of the equation completely. If Nintendo made games for other consoles, they could only sell more games than they do now. Every Nintendo fan (most gamers) would still buy them, and casual PS2 and XBX owners would buy them as well. I think that's pretty much inarguable. They'd still be the best-selling games on any other platform. Hell, they wouldn't even have to publish them, they could just spend all their time working on Mario 512. On top of that, they'd have the user base and ready technology to be able to make online games, or experiment with whatever goofy concepts they could come up with. Just add a GBA/DS adapter to the other consoles, and they can still have all the wacky multiplayer requirements they want. Everything would be the same for Nintendo fans, and the only changes would be positive.

Sure, you can call this blasphemy - I felt really uneasy when I first saw the Sega logo whip across my PS2 screen. But as soon as the game started, I quickly forgot that I even gave a damn, because the game was as fun as ever. Sega were forced into it, and as a result, were a little under-prepared in the beginning. But if Nintendo foresaw what I foresee, they could make the jump at the end of this generation, smooth as butter, and we could all happily be playing Zelda: Hay Bale of Relevance online on our Playstation3 and Xenon come 2006. I don't think it will ever happen, but I think it's more sensible than anything Nintendo has done in a long, long time.

I'm not in the mood for controversy tonight, but I assume you, it's coming. Anyhow.

With my newfound X-Boxness, and the hunting down and obtaining of Gun Valkyrie and Otogi, I'm finally able to play two games I've had my eye on for a while. One is very, very good. One has a few problems that make it almost unplayable.

They're both published by Sega, both exclusive to X-Box, and on the surface, pretty similar games. Gun Valkyrie is about exploring beautiful alien landscapes, taking out hordes of enemies with several types of guns, ad nauseum. Otogi is about exploring gorgeous Japanese temples, taking out hordes of enemies with several types of swords, ad nauseum. I've played a couple levels of both, and very quickly come to some conclusions. Otogi rocks, so very, very hard, and Gun Valkyrie shall be condemned to hell for it's flaws.

Let me start by telling you why Otogi rocks so. First, it is possibly the best-looking game I have ever played. It's Ninja Gaiden with the soft specular lighting and shading of Prince of Persia. The color palette is as varied as the environments, and the art design is spectacular. The levels are destructible, and every piece of wall you slice through with your singing blade stays crumbled, even after returning to the same level later. Even the menus burst with softness and elegance. This is one classy game. Secondly, the gameplay is simple, fast, and hella fun. You're dropped into each level to "purify" it, which usually consists of destroying every creature/evil mirror/etc. within. You can run, jump and slash with the utmost smoothness, and teleport and cast spells with ease. You can hang in the air and juggle a beast until it dies, or stay low and bring down a nearby wall on top of it. And even though the bulk of the levels involve near-constant creature destruction in various acrobatic pursuits, it feels as natural and responsive as throwing a frisbee. They're the first X-Box controls I've felt completely comfortable with, and that's saying something. Apparently the left trigger locks on to enemies, but I haven't even touched it yet. This is how games should be made. This is art. This is entertainment. And I didn't even mention the dozens of badass weapons and spells you can buy.

So how can Gun Valkyrie be that different? Easy. Mainly, in the control department (the other problems all spiral out from there, such are weird environmental glitches when trying to scale some areas). I don't know who decided to make this game play the way it does, but it makes me want to throw myself off of a clock tower into a cage of starving badgers. The left analog stick moves you around. The right analog stick moves the camera and your aim...about fourty-five degrees to either side of you. And then it stops, for no good reason. Oh, and you can't really do any complex actions, like, say, looking one way while running another. At least I haven't figured out a useable way to. Several guns even root you to the ground while being used, which isn't too fun when you're being swarmed by enemies and can't dodge and shoot at the same time. Or even jump up. This game also has a fair share of midair battling, and forced platforming, all done through the sickeningly ineffective method of pushing in the left analog stick and then flicking it in the direction you want to boost. After doing this roughly two times, I was ready to smash my controller with a tire iron. I read later that the right analog stick has a similar 'pressing-in' function for quick turns, which makes me even sadder. It's just such a shame. The game looks great, has some cool weapons, two very different playable characters, and a somewhat novel premise. But when it's such an uncontrollable pig-beast to play, it's just not any fun. I plan to give it another shot some time in the future, but I can't imagine I'll ever be able to get past such broken movement/combat mechanics. The game is considered by many to be a huge challenge, but it's certainly not one in the way I was expecting it to be. Anyone who can deal with this shit long enough it beat it deserves a fucking purple heart.

Go play Otogi, and buy Otogi 2 later this year. If you like fun, that is.

For those of you who have missed my updates this past week, I apologize. I have dedicated myself fully to school for 2 weeks of the year. With so many papers due this final stretch, I felt it would behoove us all if I focused on my school work 100% instead of doing a half assed job of school and updating the site. I apologize for not being around and, because of that, I present an original, non video game related short story. I hope you enjoy and know that I will be returning to full time writerly duties come Friday. Until then...

There was just something in the air that fine June morning. Aldo was strutting along the street with such a bounce he had to duck his head under oncoming branches for fear of being knocked out. Everything just felt right. The sun was burning bright. It smelled like burning leaves, even though he was knee deep in the suffocating concrete and monstrous buildings of a downtown city. He felt like doing something new and different, that he had never tried to do before.

Aldo walked merrily down the street, smiling from ear to ear. As he came to the intersection of Congress and State, always a pain to cross, he was delighted to see the little white man was shining brightly on the other side, beckoning him. He crossed the road happily, peering into every windshield as he walked by. When he crossed the path of the last car, a taxi, he stopped.

Inside the taxi was the meanest, most gruff looking man Aldo had ever seen. He seemed like he could crush baby skulls with his bare hands, and not even wash them before he ate a Big Mac. This man wouldn't do at all for Aldo. Certainly not on a day as great and beautiful as today. The sun was shining for Christ's sake, what did this man have to be upset about anyway?

Without even thinking, Aldo pointed his finger. For fear of redundancy, the word happy will not be applied to his finger, but, if it was at all possible, his finger was certainly happy. He extended his arm and pointed right at the taxi driver. He stood right in front of the cab so the driver could not help but notice this young man. His first reaction was anger, who was this kid to point at him? But the shock of the moment took hold, causing him to just continue sitting and staring at the boy.

With the gracefulness of a Russian gymnast, Aldo kicked his shoes out to the sidewalk and slowly pulled off his socks. He was staring right at the driver, burning a hole clear to the back of the cab. And the driver, right back at him.

He stood straight up a moment, barefoot on the dirty asphalt. Then, using the music in his head for inspiration, he started dancing. A rhythmic, almost tribal dance. He swayed from side to side, seemingly oblivious to all of his surroundings. While he danced, he started to slowly roll up his shirt. First his belly button become visible. Then it was the bottom of his rib cage, in clear view for the whole city to see. His nipples, slowly and surely, made their way out of the confining cotton shirt and into the warm sun the face had been enjoying the whole day.

With his shirt rolled all the way up to his neck, he swiftly pulled it off the rest of the way. He held the shirt in his arms now, his torso fully exposed for the gasping taxi driver's pleasure. Aldo continued to stare straight ahead, unperturbed by the disgust on the imprisoned man's face. The driver, mesmerized, stared back. Aldo, at this point, was in a different world, on a different plane from ours. His mind was a blank as he twirled his shirt around. It sailed past his ears. Through his legs. Up over the hood of the car. He tossed it on the roof, the sleeve hanging over ever so slightly, yet clearly visible to the driver, if he ever dared to take his eyes off the boy.

Aldo was sweating pretty hard now. The sun, shining as bright as ever, took no credit in his sudden liquid release. The exhilaration of the moment was the culprit. Aldo was still in his semi-conscious state when he calmly glanced to his left. The light had turned yellow. His dance would be over shortly. As if in slow motion he looked back at his audience. The driver's head was also turned slightly to the side, noticing for himself that the light was going to change. The light that had frozen him in this spot. The light that had forced him to watch this young man undress in front of his very eyes.

He smiled and hit the gas.