A Little True Life Story

So a couple of weeks back I’m in my local Gamestop. I went to put a copy of Halo: Reach Legendary Edition on pre-order for my son’s birthday. I go in, make my request, plunk down the deposit and then do a little looking around the store. I have some time to kill and I might turn up some hitherto unneeded video game gem in the used racks.
I’m at the bottom of the Xbox 360 section having to pick through the unalphabetized titles when I overhear this snippet of conversation between a recently-arrived customer and one of the pale, paunchy salespeople… and NOT paraphrased either:

GS Emp: So how about E3, huh? Excited about anything coming out?

Cust: Not so much. A few things maybe.

GS Emp: What about that Sony move? That’s going to be amazing!

Cust: It looks just like what the Wii already does.

GS Emp: But the Wii is a failed system.

Cue customer shrug.

So I stand up from where I’m shopping, turn to face Lord Dork of Gamestop and say:
‘On which planet of idiots is the Wii a failed system?’
Then THIS snippet of conversation took place:

GS Emp: Well… it just isn’t doing, uh, good.

Me: By whose standards? Where are you getting your information?

GS Emp: Well, if you go on the internet you can see it is failing.

Me: Where can you read that? Every ‘official’ source, online or in magazines, will tell you that the Wii is the runaway bestselling console. As a gaming unit, its sales are only exceeded by OTHER Nintendo products. The top selling spots for software are routinely occupied by Wii games. What the hell are you talking about? I’d really like to know.

GS Emp: Well, uh, in THIS store the Wii doesn’t do, um, good. We sell more Call of Duty.

Me: And you sold NO copies of Mario Galaxy 2? And you expect to sell no copies of Metroid: Other M? This single store in this podunk town is the yardstick by which Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo measure success?

GS Emp: Well, no, but customers I’ve talked to don’t like Wii games.

Me: Then if the Wii has FAILED at anything, it is catering enough to some specific gamer tastes like yours. And THAT my friend is what you will read on the internet when you read fanboys bashing the Wii, if you’ve got an ounce of discernment. That THEIR tastes in games don’t seem to be well-represented on that console. And maybe yours aren’t either.

GS Emp:…

Me: You can like what you like and you can hold your opinions. But just blanket badmouthing makes you look stupid and it certainly isn’t what the suits up at Gamestop Nazi Central want you to be saying, is it? IS IT? The biggest segment of your customer base… and you’re badmouthing the system they plunked money down for? Whether you like it or not, what kind salesman does that make you?

GS Emp:…

Me: It makes you a shitty salesman. It makes you a great frothing fanboy, but a shitty salesperson. It’d make my day if this guy (pointing to original customer) was a secret shopper for Gamestop Nazi Central. Dude, turn in your gamer card and go back to nerd school.

Cue me walking out of store with the other staffer, the one who took my deposit, just staring slack-jawed.

Jiminy Christmas people. It is the games that make the systems. Even for the hardcore, the Wii has great games on it. But if you don’t think so, keep yourself from sounding the fool by acknowledging your bullshit is opinion and not fact.

If there’d been some Mom with her kid in there, shopping for a Wii game, when this dork had spouted off, then I probably would’ve gotten mean.

Bonehead

Right. So I watched Quarantine last night and watching the end credits I realised I'd done something uncharacteristically dumb. I mean I do dumb stuff all the time, but this particular oversight isn't one I usually fall prey to.

I watched a remake before seeing the original.

Somehow in the hurly-burly I missed the fact that Quarantine is a remake of a movie called REC. When I pick out movies for my NetFlix queue or when I order DVDs to collect, I usually make such decisions based on a little research. I rarely just pop something onto my 'watch' list just because the trailer looks good or because it has a flashy ad on Yahoo! I dig up a little something. No spoilers obviously... and I don't necessarily regard reviews (especially on extreme films) as a deciding factor but enough info about plot or director to give me some idea that the film is worth my time.

Quarantine WAS worth my time. I thought it was done pretty well and some effectively creepy or shocking moments. It had a very downbeat ending uncharacteristic of Hollywood.

I should've known. Hollywood didn't come up with that ending, a group of filmakers from Spain did. The American group gets the credit for not lightening the ending up at all. But I DID see the trailer in the theater, was intrigued and so when NetFlix put it on there as a suggestion, I said 'what the hey' and added it to my queue.

Now after seeing 'based on the film REC' in the end credits and then looking into REC, I REALLY wish I'd been less impulsive. Looking around, most genre reviewers didn't think Quarantine was bad, but they almost universally consider REC better. Quarantine actually fares better than most remakes when compared to the (usually foreign) original. See Pulse, the Grudge or any number of J-horror movies. I hear the French film Martyrs has been bought for an American remake, but I can tell you right now there is no way that any theatrical cut of that movie will come anywhere near the original, which is one of the most disturbing movies in recent years. In fact, that's pretty typically why you want to see the original of anything Hollywood remakes. If there's a compelling story there it is often a much better experience if you remove big studio gloss, name actors, or test screening-directed edits.

Moral of the story: if you are into genre films, especially various transgressive genres or horror it really pays to look into what you watch before you watch it. I still put REC on my list because I do want to see 'the better one', but Quanrantine was made only two years after the original and is almost a shot-for-shot copy apparently. I'm going to now know everything that happens in a film that puts a lot of weight into the unknown.

Over It

Ugh. I know I'm not the only one who dislikes all the coverage that E3 gets. It looks to all be winding down now, but for three weeks it just dominated every site and magazine... and owing to the delays in publishing will probably still permeate some of the print mags still to come.

The almost universal best-in-show would have to be the Nintendo 3DS... about which I'll admit some curiosity. I really don't dig handhelds, and have very few games for them... but my kids love 'em so this is probably going to be on Christmas lists and I should be properly informed.

I finished Marvel Ultimate Alliance, managing to overcome by distaste of the aesthetic choices to see the game through twice. Since it splits into two narratives in the middle section owing to Marvel Comics' Civil War storyline there's a few different levels and bosses and two different endings for doing so. At the end of the day, the game was fun, if a bit repetitive. This stems from the game being so much like the first one... and the first one didn't come out all that long ago either... and from the fact that a lot of the enemies and bosses just require the same techniques to overcome regardless of their variety in appearance or weapons. Frankly, I just liked to play as my favorite heroes the most, and only subbed in the others to earn their boosts and constumes, so I sort of aggravated the repetition.

So now I'm on to Okami. This is a game I received as a gift like two years ago, and never got around to. It threatens to also be repetitive in the combat area (I'm six hours into it) but it has a cool, detailed narrative, and absolutely amazing aesthetics. Almost everything about the game is either cool or breathtaking... if one enjoys a stylised version of the Japanese watercolor (sumi-e) tradition. But... and why is it lately that there is always one rub to my highly anticipated games... the 'brush' control is really difficult for me to use.

In Okami, there are quite a number of times you are called on to use the wiimote to 'draw' on the screen. In theory this is a really neat addition. You have to use heavenly powers imbued into your brush to create bridges or bombs, slice away gates or boulders, or bring new life to dead trees. At times you even freeze the screen in mid-combat and slash an oppenent, like some painterly version of bullet time. Originally released for PS2 this aspect of the game was accomplished using the analog sticks on the DualShock controller, but it screams for motion control. But in practice it just isn't that simple. At least not for me. The wiimote seems accurate, but the lack of tactile feedback and the vertical orientation of the screen (and therefore the plane on which you paint) make this frustrating. Particularly when the game wants a straight line in a specific spot with a small window for timing. I've done certain 'quick slash' sections a dozen times over and it makes a cool idea just bog you down. If I could turn off the brush sections I'd seriously consider it at this point.

I didn't realise how big Okami is. I thought it'd be sort of 20 or so hours like most action games with leveling up mechanics. Apparently not. Reviews that I've re-read put it at closer to 50 hours. That's more of an investment than I was looking for in my current 'long' game, but I'll try to stay in for the long haul.

If the brush thing doesn't piss me off too much. But if I can get through MUA2's ugmo heroes and Skies of Arcadia's random encounters, I should be able to manage this.

Fugly

Having finished Skies of Arcadia (59 hours put into it) I was casting about for my next 'big' game.

I usually have one sort of long-commit game I play (big racing game, RPG, or FPS) surrounded by several shorter games (STGs, fighting games, etc). While I'll still plug away at Keio and Ketsui as the 'small games', I think I've settled on Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 as my next biggie.

Hyped up from seeing Iron Man 2, and the continual coverage about the various Avengers movies in the future, enthusiasm is high for me and my children to dig into this game. We played the PS2 prequel and despite all the knacking around with the characters that must be done to make a playable game, it was really enjoyable.

There's just one problem.
MUA2 is fucking ugly. I mean seriously fucking ugly.
The environments are alright, but the in-game characters are borderline grotesque. Wow.

Originally I wrote a version of this post prior to my ever having booted the game. I went on a rant about the manual and guidebook artwork. I allowed as to how that might have nothing to do with what was presented in the actual game, but having played the game now I know that I was wrong. So I've rewritten this to bitch about ALL the character art associated with the game, since all printed illustrations are just shots of the in-game models, sometimes treated with Alex Ross-esque effects for the printed page.

I'd like to think I'm not the total graphics snob (read whore), but the visuals DO matter. Even to really old school shooter players who say dumb shit like 'the play is the thing, not the graphics'. The truth is that if graphics did not matter at all to shmup fans, then one game with nothing but a square ship shooting different size triangle enemies against a black background would suffice. I'm not saying visuals all need to be cutting edge. Some genres can benefit from older-style sprite-based graphics, or there are games where abstract objects are aesthetically pleasing. And intelligent players put the graphics presented in the proper chronological context, or the era being emulated if it is a current but retro-styled game. 8-bit games can have great visuals, but they need to be judged by the standards of their day, not some new PS3 game.

Simply put, graphics offer interest (and possibly immersion). And that frequently leads the player to wanting to experience the 'nobler' aspects, the mechanics. Shadow of the Colossus wouldn't be nearly the game that it is if it was just an exercise in climbing up moving towers of Lego-like blocks. Anyone who REALLY believes graphics have no bearing on the quality of a game is a soulless asshole. It is possible for a great game to have merely serviceable or even shitty visuals-- MUA2 may be such a game-- but it still has a deleterious effect on your game experience even if only in providing a distraction that you have to get around to find out the game is actually good.

So here is Ultimate Alliance 2, an action game drawing on one of most visually dynamic fantasy worlds ever created, and it looks a bowl of sick. WTF Activision?

Like the movies, the Ultimate Alliance games seem willing to hit up the Ultimate line of Marvel comics for a lot of their inspiration, or recent innovations and experiments within either line of books to update uniforms, ie the Captain America of MUA2 is clearly inspired by John Cassiday's visual update to the character introduced a few years ago. Also like the films, there have been some alterations to distance the heroes from 'mere' comics and make them seem more substantial and badass. Film's track record with this is really hit-or-miss. So it seems really odd that Activision (or developer studio Vicarious Visions) would even think that this was necessary given the considerable latitude for graphic style that video games have... almost as much as comics frankly. Do they think Marvel vs Capcom games should've done it this way? And the first MUA, that looked more comic book accurate, was just fine anyway.

It isn't just the costumes. The figures themselves are either bland or repellant. Like they stuffed any old schmoes in the costumes. Or they tried to use life models like Alex Ross, but have no sense of tuning the looks of the images to make them larger-than-life as Ross does. I'm not expecting incredibly lifelike figures in this game. Hell, no film has managed to do CG humans in full roles and make them believably real (the technical reason the natives of Pandora are huge and blue). People are just too complex and we are all too familiar with them for our current tech to manage this yet. So maybe not lifelike, but characters in games don't have to be distorted and gross either. These are. Whether this was an effort to real it up, or just some sort of stylistic decision it really rubs me the wrong way. They have an incredibly serviceable example of a realistic superhero in the Iron Man films, but the one in MUA2 is as grotesque as all the other characters. He wound up resembling some sort of vinyl model of a man-shaped insect. Or a Guyver. He's recognisable as Iron Man, but only because of the iconic red and gold coloring.

Whatever the reason the choices blow. I think whoever had final say on the visuals had their judgement impaired by thinking this was a chance for them to stamp their imprint on these beloved characters. Y'know really make a difference, and show something inspired. They shouldn't have bothered.

Fortunately, during actual play, the characters onscreen are rather small. Even on a big screen TV you don't really see tons of details in the heroes. Its an angled top-down view with the camera backed quite a ways out, to encompass lots of enemies attacking your party. You see their shape and coloring, and their moves are still pretty cool. You only see the yucky details during the menu screens and when the camera zooms in for the cutscenes and story sequences.

THAT's when I'm going to have to fight down my gorge.

(image cribbed from someplace on IGN)

Lolis Gonna Pass Me By

So it is looking more and more like the US localisation of Cave's Loliween horizontal shooter, Deathsmiles, is going to be region-locked to this country. That sucks because my Xbox 360 is Japanese.

I already own the Japanese version of the game, but it'd been nice to get the goodies that are being made available in the American limited edition, and to be able to see the in-game dialogue in English.

Info on the teh intarwebs is conflicted because no one will own a retail copy for another three weeks as of this writing, but I think some staffer from Aksys, the US publisher, has been quoted as saying USA-only.

That being the case if I decided to buy it to get the LE extras, I probably would have to wait until it showed up on Games on Demand to actually play the English version. No intention at this point of buying another 360.

For the Xbox 360, as usual it appears the smaller publishers are the ones to region lock here in the USA. Which is really odd considering how copy-protection in any media is usually considered to be 'big corporate stupidity'. In my collection the USA games that are not region-coded are either the American ones or the ones from big Japanese companies, like Capcom and Sega.

I just find that interesting and paradoxical. The companies that would benefit the most (seemingly to me) are the least likely to make their games region free in this country, ie Koei, Genki, and D3 Pub. So if I want to play a 'little game'-- one that could probably use all the sales it can get-- like Dynasty Warriors Gundam, Kengo Zero, or Earth Defense Force 2017, I have to get the JPN one. But if I want to play Super Street Fighter IV or Sonic Unleashed-- games that were never going to lack for sales no matter what restrictions they might've had-- I can just have at it on any region's console.

WTF?

Mind you, I'm not complaining about Capcom and Sega's choices. Its just how often do the big guys stand up as the exemplars of customer convenience? I don't think they made a conscious choice, they probably just can't be arsed to deal with it, 'cause they'll sell so many copies no matter who buys it where.

The thing with Deathsmiles is a little different and even more paradoxical. Given US company Aksys' track record they don't region-code (see BlazBlue or Agarest), yet THIS game, designed by one of the few small JPN companies that HAS flirted with all-region discs themselves (Cave) IS probably locked.

Double WTF?

This sort of bullshit used to be a big problem with DVDs in this country. You'd have to buy an all-region player or hit the conventions for fansubs or fan versions. It can still be kind of a hangup if you're an anime fan who wants the latest shit currently showing over in Japan. But nowadays most foreign films can be had on USA region discs if you are patient or know some good gray marketeers on the internet. I want to get the big fat five hour version of Red Cliff, released in theaters in Asia but not here. So when I went shopping for it I half expected to have to hassle around like I did in the old days when I built my kaiju/tokusatsu film on VHS. Who'd release a five hour chinese historical film here? One of the HK distros like Tai Seng or Meh Ah could have a fully subtitled one, but they are frequently expensive and of dodgy quality.

I needn't have worried. There's a US-printed Blu-Ray available on Amazon, all five hours-- nineteen and a half dollars. There is a network of publishers of all sizes, keenly aware of fanbases and snapping up all sorts of properties. There's frickin' competition to get these weird, obscure things released here these days.

Boy, I wish video gaming was like that. If it was, even with region coding there'd be no need to buy overseas versions. I wouldn't even have had to buy a JPN Xbox 360.

The Skies are Endless

The 'Currently Playing' list on the side looks like it might be stuck for a while, because Skies of Arcadia is taking forever.

I know I've spent a lot of time looking for Discoveries in the game, and the game's encounter frequency just makes this an exercise in frustration and tedium. A game about exploring and yet you can't walk or fly longer than fifteen or twenty seconds before you're halted by another fight.

If the game was just 'straight lines' between towns or dungeons, then the encounter rate wouldn't be all that bad. BUT. They want you to find stuff. Not just secret stuff scattered around the map, but you often have to search out your next location based on the plot or dialogue. It isn't usually super far away or hidden to any real degree... but any looking around you have to do AT ALL will be utterly plagued with random encounters.

Actually, the word 'random' is kinda stupid in this case, because the frequency of them is all too predictable. Choose one; a) as soon as you think you're going the right way, b) if you are impatient to advance the plot, c) right now. Any one of those criteria filled seemingly triggers another battle. I'll tell you one thing. I have yet to enter a single boss fight where I didn't feel completely comfortable with my items, spells, and levels. Y'know why? Because the game basically makes you grind, grind, grind, just to get anywhere. You don't have to force yourself to do it to make sure you are powerful enough... it's going to happen to you anyway. You are going to fight and gain levels and gold whether you fucking well like it or not.

There are six major treasures (plot-crucial items) and therefore theoretically six chapters or stretches of the game. But that doesn't take into account a sort of 'prologue' stretch, a separation from your shipmates stretch, and a earn and crew your own ship stretch, that are each about as long as one of the basic six. So I've plunked in about 35 hours and I'm just getting to area of the third treasure, and I've had the second one for umpteen hours now.

The plot and cutscenes are fun and interesting. I really do want to see how this is going to go and have scrupulously avoided all references to the narrative or the battles coming up. I've used a FAQ once. When something I was navigating to find was just not appearing to me, and I got tired of all the fights while I tried to find it.

50 hours my ass. How would this game be 50 hours long (DC version) if you actually hunted out all the discoveries? Honestly.

I still like the game, but this sure as shit reminds me why I've long since gotten stuck on the idea that I 'don't have time' for RPGs.

And I want to play Baroque at some point in the future. I must be insane.

Everything Old Is New Again

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Video Game *cough* Journalism

Pardon the recent spate of negative essays. I'll try to get all this out of my system soon.

Here's a conundrum. How do you 'tell it like it is' in an industry where the guys you report on supply your advertising dollars?

Well, if you're reporting on cinema you don't rely solely on running movie ads (Premiere). Or you come out on a less frequent schedule to reduce costs or keep the distribution ambitions for your magazine modest (Video Watchdog). A lot of movie magazines are total ass-kissing fests but they don't try to pretend that they aren't (Starlog, any franchise-specific authorised poster magazine). They don't profess to be journalism. If you see film mags with REAL reviews in them than they aren't beholden to the studios. It isn't that there are NO perks, but generally you can't bribe Roger Ebert, Pete Travers, or any of the reviewers at Fangoria. It doesn't hurt that film reviews are stretched across all sorts of outlets including general lifestyle publications and newspapers.

Music magazines, at least the ones I read, do rely on advertising from the objects of their reportage. Yet somehow they maintain their impartiality. I'm not saying a reader can agree with all views and reviews... they are opinions after all... but you can tell (particularly with a mag like Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles) that the deal is: 'We run your ads but we're going to call it as we see it'. And if that means a record company pulls its ads, so be it. Plenty more where that guy came from. I can even remember a specific example of that... a space of time where John Schaeffer of Iced Earth got into a dispute with BWBK over some article and stopped all cooperation. And really, the music publishers HAVE to advertise somewhere. The framework for information outlets to be critical already exists and there is nowhere else for them to go.

What the fuck game industry? You want so much to be considered legit in similar ways to the movie industry (despite Hollywood's own set of hypocrisies) and yet there isn't a standard by which watchmen are enshrined inviolate. The major mags and sites can barely get enough superlatives out on their keyboards because their hands are too busy ball-tickling while they fellate the game companies. How did we, the gamers, let it get to this state? We (well some of us) want to be taken so seriously as art but we just let legitimate criticism and commentary (necessary in the arts) br spoken only in a few corners of the internet.

Y'know, perks and swag doled out by manufacturers DOES have a place in an industry. AT THE RETAIL LEVEL. As a reward for sellers who sell the products. Or as incentive to push a new/future product. Sellers don't have an obligation to be unbiased. It might help them with their customers if they have legitimate experience-based reasons why they prefer a product. That inspires consumer confidence, but they can reasonably push anything they want. Caveat Emptor buyer. Game magazines and websites, despite the advertising ARE NOT THE SELLERS. Top sellers at fucking Gamestop should be the ones getting free shit on Capcom's nickel not Gamepro's magazine editors.

In other endeavors we call that corruption or bribery. I love the posts on Kotaku and IGN where they talk about the latest package arriving from Konami with all the cool Metal Gear stuff in it or whatever. I don't blame the game companies for doing this actually. If you'd found that sending out swag or threatening to pull advertising got you what you wanted, I can see pursuing those courses. They will pursue any legal means (and a few illegal or unethical) they can to maximise profits. Especially the listed (publically held) ones. But if you are supposed to report on the industry or review their products you're not supposed to be presenting your willing ass to them. Film, print/literature, and television media don't do this, as a rule. Journalism is supposed to be above it.

You can find inependent, uninfluenced voices if you look, but most hi-profile video game information outlets are hopelessly corrupt or are house organs/sanctions like Nintendo Power or Official Xbox Magazine. For the so-called hardcore gamer (whether you identify yourself that way or not, you know who you are) it is easy to find writers voicing their opinions in unvarnished colors on all gaming topics imaginable, including the topic of... yep... video game journalism. But how many hits do these guys get compared to the number seen at Kotaku or IGN? How much exposure and money does Gamespite Quarterly get compared to Gamepro?

A large part of the problem is the masses. The herd.

The more experienced supposedly-'levelheaded' commentators maintain that harcore gamers are a whiny, spoiled lot who are never happy with anything and really shouldn't be responsible for steering the industry. Conversely, the non-hardcore vote with their wallets for the same genres and franchises over and over again. And seem completely indifferent to breaking out of their rut. So we run into this sort of 'I want something new and different' from all the loudmouths, but there aren't enough loudmouths to justify work and assets taken away from Gears of Duty 9, a game directly targeting the common denominator. So a buying public that has its most massive, influential segment not particularly wanting to be informed is not helping.

Most of the gamers I know will by Gears of Duty 9, but will also fork out for the new Treasure, Vanillaware or Cave game. Hardcore maybe, but broad-minded in addition to being outspoken. They are also very much the minority. Joe gamer that goes into Gamestop once a week is going to buy Gears of Duty 9.

It reminds me of a vicious circle Charles L. Grant mentioned. Charles L. Grant is a horror novelist. His brand is a sort of quiet horror more atmospheric than in-your-face. He was talking about marketing, and complained (in a non-strident way) about getting attention drawn to his book. He had a publisher who thought his work warranted a contract and the release of his books, but they still lavished the in-store displays, wall-hangings, and huge spaces in the Barnes & Noble newsletter on the latest Stephen King novel. I don't think Grant has any personal grudge against King, but his point was that King doesn't NEED all that exposure. Its like the publisher is throwing even more money at an author for what is probably a negligible effect, a minor upping, weighed next to all the other publicity a new King work will get. Is that cardboard standup necessary for customers to find out there's a new King novel out? In the case of Grant and other middle-sales authors a cardboard standup could make a profound difference. Especially if it is put right next to the pyramid of King books sure to be located right at the front door of the bookstore. But because this isn't how it is done, King squeaks out a few more sales MAYBE. He also continues to be a golden child that the publisher throws yet more advertising behind, yet the same publisher also wonders why the new Grant novel just isn't selling as expected. So Grant gets LESS attention the next time. No use 'wasting' cash on that under-performer! Let it be said, I have no problems with Stephen King, and in fact he comes across as a fairly generous person most of the time. I don't think he's insisting he get umpteen feet of space and all other authors must defer. Movie celebrities might do that sort of shit, but I'm not accusing King. No, this has marketing suits and their logic written all over it.

But the point is that the game companies are already pushing money by the wheelbarrow-load to their big franchises. So that's what Joe Gamer sees. He also doesn't necessarily understand that there are other games worthy of his time OR a whole world of information that would tell him about it. Even if he's on the internet looking around, if he Googles Gears of Duty 9 the first page of entries is going to be dominated by Gamespot and IGN. Once he's read their 'reviews' (nee mating display) why would he go looking for another? How would he even know there is another view? What would compel him to look?

Nothing really. It is a quality-squashing cycle. The companies know Gears of Duty makes money, so they push Gears of Duty to the detriment of other games. Part of the push is to bribe the media. So when it comes time for Joe Gamer to buy a game all fronts are united, including the supposedly unbiased front, IF Joe Gamer even cared. Which most often seems he doesn't.

So in a way, you might almost look at this journalist corruption as a victimless crime. If the end customer is getting games he's happy playing within the system as it stands, what's the problem? The problem is that Joe Gamer is NOT the only gamer out there even if the others are a minority. And there is nothing wrong with that minority attempting to stand up for games that Joe Gamer could like just as much or more if only given a chance.

Also the situation pisses ME off, so that's justification enough for a major change right there. Even if a review or opinion piece in one of the major outlets was uninfluenced... how would you know? All credibility lies smeared into the journalists' bedsheets post-bukakke session.

See ECM's site (and some of the others in his sidebar) for egregious examples of this whorish behavior as it crops up. I really don't have the energy or the will to run this crap down on a regular basis. Being The Daily Show of the video game world can be their deal and not mine. I'll just bitch when my fed-up-o-meter tops out.

Note: I'm pretty much describing USA and Japan-based media in this rant. The UK-based mags present something of an exception. They DO report on the seedy underbelly of various game company doings, and are critical in their previews and reviews. The problem for me with these periodicals is one of tone mostly. It might be a fine balancing act to be positive without being fawning, but I'll save that for another post.

On Cinco de Mayo

This is bullshit.

Just About Enough

Okay, some games are just too goshdamn big. I’m all in favor of value for money, but there’s limits… or there should be limits.

The game that has got me posting is Tokyo Xtreme Racer Drift 2. A Genki racing game that is a fucking fixture on my Backloggery work in progress list. You’d think I’d be used to this by now, with as many of these games as I’ve gone through, but they just keep getting bigger and more complicated!

Don’t get me wrong. Its fine for a game to have some meat on its bones. The hour-long runs on a Mushihimesama or Street Fighter IV are great. The twelve hours of delicious combat action to get through the story in Bayonetta, awesome. But sometimes you need something you can just dig into like a big book. Spending two or three weeks on an RPG can be truly enjoyable with the right game… I’ll be playing Skies of Arcadia before long.

BUT. Jeezis. Enough is enough! TXRD2 is gigantimous! There’s the usual, for Genki, SEVERAL HUNDRED listed rivals. THEN there are a bunch of randomly-created ones… some forum guy has counted FIVE HUNDRED random rivals. Then there are dozens of sponsors to earn (with races) so they basically count as rivals. Ten long courses each with sets of basic, advanced and master level races. Six short courses full of daytime rivals (and YET MORE sponsors to race). And each long course also has a gymkhana parking lot with ten levels of both time attack and drift attack to master.

The stuff you’re given to handle all that shit: A gigantic list of like two hundred cars, some based on real life track cars, some only available in the used lot… yes, there are like four car dealers in the goshdamn game… umpteen squillion parts, an ingame computer complete with multiple forums (one for each track!) a general info site, and an effin’ email system! What the fuck? I pride myself on beating all rivals and finishing each Genki racer into the ground, but who the hell has time for all this?

Role-playing game? I’ll give you role-playing game! You are an up and coming racer, and you will get up each day, check your emails and forum posts including replying to the asswipes that challenge you, back out and go make yourself a sandwich (that’s a real-life sandwich, by the way). Then you’ll go down to all the car shops. Sometimes some motherfucker is waiting for you at one (or more!) of the shops and challenges you. Then after you are all done shopping… oh I dunno, for parts or paint or layers and layers of vinyls or gauges, you go back to your garage and install your parts, tweaking the settings in every detail including reflashing the engine management chips. THEN you can test drive it on any course including a GIGANTIC circuit that isn’t even used for anything else in the game. Once that’s all good you can… wait, better make sure your sponsor stickers are all up to date and placed in optimum position on your car! Don’t want to lose out on any sponsorship money every time you win!

Now motherfucker! Go race! Pick a course. Either do an official course challenge; time attack or drift. Or choose one of the more advanced races limited to certain engine sizes or cars or ability levels YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE YET! And if you don’t have them you MUST buy the appropriate make or size of car and go shop and install all the shit that car will need to be competitive. AND/OR go to the parking area and see if that dickburger that challenged you in the shop is there. After you’ve done everything you can do, go on to the next course. Make sure you alter your tires or suspension for each different kind of track, challenge or CLIMATE CHANGE.

Oh yeah. There’s climate in the game. Sunny, cloudy/foggy, rainy and snow. So don’t fuck up your tire choice. And after you’ve gone over all ten long courses and six short courses, depending on how much you’ve unlocked, and done whatever you can do or until you keel over… THEN go back to your garage and save your game.

Guess what? If you were to do all that for umpteen days in a row and rested every game night you wouldn’t even scratch the street race rival portion of the game. So just like a street racing junkie who has no money for drugs but pours all his funds into repairs, parts, and RockStar energy drink… you get to stay up at night and race, race, race until dawn. And as you face each rival he has some shit he needs to say to you—usually trash talk, and if you want he has a whole background card you can read up on. Fuck you, man! I don’t want your life story. Shut up and race!

Day/night/day/night. Over and over. And some of these guys WAIT. They wait until a certain day or a certain type of weather, or you’ve beaten someone else.

All of this should be great. And in a way it is. It is the culmination of everything Genki has been doing to make the street racing experience immersive. It takes like EVERYTHING they’ve used in games before and mooshes it altogether into one monster highway world. The only thing that I think is missing is the freeway tracks from the Shutokou games (this is about rural racing) and the special non-car items you could buff your abilities with in Racing Battle. It is really impressive actually. The parking areas are detailed. The rivals are all fleshed out. When you read a post from one of them, if you’ve beaten them you can link to their car and their bio. Its all connected and well detailed. And there’s a lot of tracks. A lot of cars. The rivals cars all look different and they act and talk as individuals with their own interests or emphases. There’s cool dramatic cutscenes of the bosses. It all adds up to make a compelling race world.

But it is JUST TOO BIG. I thought Racing Battle: C1 Grand Prix was big. RB isn’t Gran Turismo big, but it’s close. I generally don’t play Gran Turismo because for the size of the thing it is just too dry and colorless. Even if it did have more flavor it’d still be too big. Which is becoming the problem for me with TXRD2. It is so big that even all the cool immersive shit is beginning to get old. And it is so complicated that you just flat forget to cover all your bases. Its realistic in its way. The street racing world, especially with internet communications, is a really big sphere. But there’s a point where non-driving aspects threaten to overwhelm the fun. Amazingly, there is almost NO grinding in the game. Everything you do moves you forward. The game doesn’t make it difficult to buy new cars. There is always something new to do. But there is just so much. What fun is the fact that you are the fastest swimmer if the goal is crossing the Atlantic? I don’t care how fast you are, that opposite shore is going to seem a long way away!

I think I’m just tired of seeing this thing in my PS2. I could take a break from it, but the last time I did that, when I came back I discovered my drift skills had atrophied and I went through about two weeks of struggling to get back to being able to handle it. Never mind forgetting where I left off in this vast, non-linear game world. The thing is, it’s a great game. I’ve felt bitchy about Genki games before, much as I love them, but that usually revolves around grinding. Having to race over and over in order to get the cash to upgrade enough to beat a boss or buy a car to get a rival to appear. This game has none of that, but it seems like Genki felt you still needed X number of hours in the game, so if there’s no grinding we’ll just have to have more of everything.

I will persevere of course. I’m actually not that far from finishing the game if online rival lists are anything to go by… probably 85% done. It might be telling that Genki’s race game output went WAY down after this.

I said somewhere before that the smaller scale of Import Tuner Challenge was because of time probably spent on current-gen graphics, but now I think it is because most of the staff committed suicide after giving every iota of themselves in building TXRD2. They had nothing else to give and nothing to live for. I’m going to eat a bullet soon to if I don’t finish the damn game! I’m one of those players who doesn’t like to just rush pell-mell through RPGs, action adventures, or even first person shooters. I like to explore. Look at the art, interact with the characters, do the side quests. I’m not super-meticulous about it, but I don’t need to rush my game experience to get to the end. I probably dragged Bayonetta out about 40% longer than a straight-ahead playthrough because I just wanted to ‘look’ at everything. But with TXRD2, unfortunately, I now find myself skipping the color and just trying to be as efficient as possible and get shit done. My goal is 100% rivals defeated, so no skipping opponents, but there is no way I’m going to try to win every non-critical event too.

There really can be too much of a good thing.

Where's My Gun?

I just washed my car.

I didn't know we had condors where I live.

The Limits of Manliness

Quote from on online vendor:

Cain Maduro (Nicaragua)
Strong and complex, Cain cigars are a blend of 100% Ligero tobaccos. That's 25% Esteli, 27% Condega, and 30% Jalapa. Because these cigars feature a blend of some of the strongest tobaccos in the world close attention is placed on the fermentation process. Triple fermentation allows flavors and strength to fully develop and makes these 100% ligero cigars rich and complex.

********************************************
Okay. As I said before, summertime is cigar time. A couple of days ago, my beginning-of-summer cigar order arrived and some of these sticks pictured above were amongst the purchases. As with many cigar smokers my tastes have matured over time, and I have worked stronger and stronger cigars into my rotation. ‘Strength’ in the case of cigars doesn’t typically mean intensity of flavor… it means more the ‘richness’ of the smoke… the amount of nicotine and other particulate matter that make up other aspects of the smoking experience. So it is analogous to the alcohol content in a drink. You can have a strongly alcoholic drink but the taste could range from very sweet to very dry.

As you can see from the description up top, these cigars are made to be potent. Ligero tobacco is usually used as just a fraction of the mix in most cigars. Being oily and super-fermented it doesn’t burn as well as the viso and seco tobaccos that dominate most cigars. More or less ligero doesn’t typically make a huge difference in a cigar’s price, but it can affect flavor and it most definitely affects strength.

So I was game to try one of these babies. MY cigar vendor’s catalog description suggests a really big meal before trying one (probably for the same reason having food in your stomach helps you handle strong booze). But did I pay attention to that? No. No I did not.

I was thinking: y’know, I’m up for a good challenge here. I’m a seasoned man of the world. Let’s move on to a new level. Let’s BE a connoisseur.

I had a normal, not-really-big dinner, then about an hour later I poured myself a glass of port, went outside and fired one of these up. Oh it tasted good. Not the best ever, but pretty decent.

But now I’ve discovered a limit I’m not set to go beyond. Certainly not yet. Despite my bravado, I am not equipped. I could only manage about two-thirds of this toro-sized (four of its six inches) before putting it down.

A lot of men have stories of when they were boys and had their first experience with tobacco. For me it was chewing tobacco when I was in Little League Baseball. Other dudes it’s cigarettes with edgier friends in the school bathroom. Along with the gagging on tobacco juice, or coughing your lungs out on smoke, there is a nausea, dizziness, or headache component that usually accompanies your first time. The pain, as it were, of losing your tobacco virginity.

Cain cigars made me feel like a virgin again. And not the cinematic, two-tears-of-happiness, sighing-on-her-pillow kind either. I’m not proud saying that, but wow. Not only was I made dizzy during the smoking, but I had something of an upset stomach and mild vertigo for almost an hour after I quit. I felt like a complete pussy. I had a cigar hangover.

I’m not going to just throw them away or anything because they are good, and quite different to other cigars I have. But these are going to need a little caution and experimentation before I settle on the best way to enjoy them. Part of the issue is that ligero tobacco doesn’t stay lit quite as well, so you wind up puffing on it a bit more than other cigars. Lightening up on how big my draw is each time would probably help. And the big goshdamn meal thing too.

I might just have to resolve that these are cigars I smoke halfway down and then exit. There’s no way I’m going to smoke enough cigars to just ‘condition’ myself to be able to handle these the same way as other smokes. I’d have to be one of those big Italian or Latin American guys who always has a giant Churchill sized motherfucker in hand.

I think the adline should be: Cain. The cigar that makes you its bitch.

Irony

It has been smoky in my town for close to two weeks. Forest fires burning nearby and no wind to carry the smoke in a different direction or blow it out of here. Sometimes it gets so bad your throat hurts and it your breathing is affected. There have been mornings I've found a thin layer of ash on the car.

We are getting into a part of the year now that is traditionally rainy. We have a county fair, but almost every time it comes some or most of the days are pretty miserable from rain. The good thing about rain here is that frequently douses the smoke.

Not this time. At present, we have both rain and smoke. The air is a mixture of smoke and water! Why the fuck do people live here? This is our last 'warm' weather before long months of subzero temperatures start. This place is a literal hell most months of the year. I yearn to be out of here, and for more reasons than just the climate.

This isn't the place to start up a rant about how much I hate where I live, but I'm struck by the irony of having read three books about the ultimate place of punishment, with the final volume called Escape From Hell.

Yeah. Good idea.