This is where my screen grabbed evidence would go if I could figure out how at work
A best week ever is coming.
According to doing a search here for "Super" with "Wii" as the console , Super Dodge Ball has been rated by the ESRB for the Wii, which I am interpreting to mean as an incoming VC titles for the NES.
This and RCR make up a significant portion of my ultra-joyous memories on the NES. So much win to be had on my first page of Wii Channels!
also, note that Aksys is the publisher. I loves these guys. I imagine this will drop before the DS game goes retail on May 27th.
Would you like to join us in a dodge ball game today?
I'm here at work, trying to focus on the task at hand.
And all I can think of is where to put my guild hall, when I'm going to start building houses near the White Mage Shrine, and What type of parties I'll have when I earn a Tavern.
Why is building a house fun!? Why don't I want to shoot things!?!!
Let me tell you, those in doubt, that Final Fantasy: "ZOMGACRONYM" for WiiWare is a damn fine game, without the DLC.
All that DLC stuff is optional, and frankly, I can see myself enjoying this game in a complete manner without it.
From little things like being able to drop in on the families of your individual adventurers, to watching the emerging personalities of your stat-heroes (Artha's a hardcore loot whore, while Gawain gets bitchslapped on almost every outing these days) take shape.
Not to mention city management. Once I get the ability to demolish and rearrange my town, I've got grand schemes for class specific ghettos and a one stop, efficient "Hero Quarter" for all my adventurers needs.
Let alone the stories I'll get to tell myself about the parties I send out, once I unlock that.
I hate to wall of text geek out most days, but I just have to say: FFCC:MLAAK is scratching that serious city building/personnel management itch that I talked about a few articles ago.
Not really making a series here, but I honestly had two moments the other night that kind of struck me as wicked incidental yet powerful. So I've broken them up into these two blogs.
From my last blog, my Niko was very much starting to doubt himself and his murderous
ways. After losing Carmen and getting through another particularly vicious mission for one
of the McCrearys, Niko decided to take a little time to hit Firefly beach and check out the
boardwalk.
Hadn't stopped around that part of town for quite a while. The Mikhail incident was months
ago. However, the seething hatred of Dmitri is still fresh. After Niko finds that special
someone, that bastard's next on the list . . .
And then there she was, out of the random. Mrs. Faustin.
Mrs. Faustin isn't any better off after the Mikhail incident. She tells Niko about all these
horrible things resulting from what happened. He's clearly shaken by all this. This is
probably one of the most awkward conversations he's ever had, and it shows like a
lighthouse in the way he won't make eye contact with her. He's in pain.
There's hope there though. Mrs. Faustin wants to protect her daughter, and Niko, having
been down this road before, knows he can take care of this problem for her. Its the least
he could do. But her leaving words echoed hard in Niko's head "Please, No More Killing!".
He would handle this with his fists.
He tracks down the scumbug, and delivers a message: keep your distance. When it's
become clear that he doesn't understand, Niko goes to work on him. I'm not sure if it was
the anger at the situation, the chance to pound on a guy that's unarmed and clearly isn't a
good fighter, or just the cruel devine guiding his hands, but Bellic is pounding out brutal
combos on the guy. He's efficient. Its clear that he's had to resort to fisticuffs before. The
brawl ends with Niko delivering a pro combo ending in a backhanded fist to the guy's skull.
Niko leaves, stepping over the guy as he calmly emerges from the alley, and rejoins
civilized society.
A day later, Niko gets a call from an unknown caller. Its Mrs. Faustin, spouting disapproval
and a world of sadness at Niko. She said no more killing, but it turns out that the guy died.
You can hear that she's devastated.
Is there virtual redemption in virtual Sanctuary?
I questioned the death. Maybe someone one came along and finished him off? He moved
after the last hit, right? This can't be right. But looking back, it must be right. Niko's a
trained killer. As awkward as his melee had become, he was still lethal. That combo, in
the heat of the heat of the moment, broke that guy, and broke Mrs. Faustin's heart. More
bloodshed on the head of her family. No peace for a family that's lost it all at the hands of
people acting on their behalf.
However, Niko can't stop to console her. He didn't say a word in response. Despite the
random lives he encounters, he has to continue his path of vengeance. Clean the slate.
Maybe afterwards, there'll be time for redemption . . .
This is not an impressions post. Lets move past that.
So I'm pretty well into the game now. Third island is open, and people are blowing up my
cell constantly to just hangout. Niko's been through some shit by now. The government
thing, the Holland Play, the kidnapping (which was a major turning point for that character,
I think). Niko's done alot of bad things for missions.
But its the bad things outside of missions that's got me feeling pretty sorry for Niko.
Last night, Niko scared one of his girlfriends by getting into a minor wreck on a
motorocycle. Protip: Motorcycles are not necessarily good date vehicles. Even though
she's a thrill seeker, she didn't appreciate being flung 10 feet in the air after impact. She
promptly left to walk home.
Niko tried calling her. Tried to make everything better. He even called for help. All he got
was the answering machine. A few hours later, she called it off. They were through.
Sure, Niko was pretty much just in it for the nookie (yeah, the nookie) and the perk, which
frankly, hadn't worked yet. But there was something sad about how final that break up is.
She's not even on the internet anymore. One motorcycle crash ended it all.
Everywhere I go, reminds me of her . . .
I hadn't saved after getting through a few tough missions, and I really didn't want to
backtrack. So I'm living with that one.
There's still Niko's other women on the side. But, as shallow and self centered as that chick
was, she was kind of comforting to take out. She'd complain about her job, Niko would
listen. They'd get twisted, stumble home, and have a good time. She appreciated Niko's
nicer suits and shirts from Perseus, and was generally down for anything.
Basically, Mother's Against Drunk Driving has negative criticism for GTAIV and is demanding (no details given on in what form of action) that the game is rated higher. The full statement -
***********
MADD’s Statement Regarding Grand Theft Auto IV
4/29/2008
Contact Information
Kelley Tway, MADD National
469-420-4493
MADD’s Statement Regarding Grand Theft Auto IV
Each year nearly 13,500 people die in drunk driving crashes and another half a million are injured in alcohol-related traffic crashes. This is why MADD is extremely disappointed by the decision of the manufacturers of the game Grand Theft Auto IV to include a game module where players have to drive drunk. Drunk driving is not a game and it is not a joke. Drunk driving is a choice, a violent crime and it is also 100 percent preventable. MADD is calling on the Entertainment Software Ratings Board to reclassify Grand Theft Auto IV as an Adults Only game, a step up from the current rating of Mature and for the manufacturer to consider a stop in distribution – if not out of responsibility to society then out of respect for the millions of victims/survivors of drunk driving.
************
I would just like to ask that the staff, if not the whole D-Toid community, approach this topic without kneejerk defense and uncorked FanRage. The group clearly has the wrong information about how this is handled in game. Given the correct information, I'd like to think that they would appreciate the way its handled in game. From a conversation I had earlier . . .
me: I think their passion's in the right place, but they're just misinformed
me: They shoudl actualyl be very happy about how its handled
me: 1) its all optional. you dont' have to go drinking in the first place (so far)
me: 2) not forced to drive. The in game tip when you first get drunk suggests that you can hail or call a cab
me: 3) even when you do drive drunk, the cops will try to pull you over
me: aside from the fact that driving drunk is fun as hell in the game, its really a very responsible handling of the situation
That's all I got. Just asking for classy-ness when seriously unfortunate/senseless/reckless stuff is involved. I gotta get back to work.
Strauss Zelnick, as he thinks to himself "Dance, puppets!"
From the department of Copy Pasta, I bring you a snippet from the highly respectable
GamePolitcs.com. They have an article up that mentions
the reviews that GTA has allegedly already received (and which, its implied, Take Two has
already been privy to). What's the verdict so far, according to a guy that has a keen
investment in GTAIV reviewing well?
"We’ve already received numerous [GTA IV] reviews, and to a one, they are perfect scores. My mom couldn’t write better reviews… " *Now, not from GP's article*
- Strauss Zelnick, that Chairman Guy at Take Two
While its nice to hear of positive things, we also have to consider that this report comes
from such a lopsided source (The guy that gets a paycheck for good sales performance)
and that there's no way to validate him until reviews start to honestly publish and populate.
And further, what's this guy doing talking about reviews? I personally think that talking
about reviews you haven't actually received yet, considering the landscape of gaming
fandom, is a fiendish move. Even in the wake of Gerstmann-Gate, one feels that there's
still a bit of squimishness in the act of reviewing games still. There this blinding force of
fan-rage that works intensely at every turn to comment-flood a "bad" review in order to invalidate
unfavorable opinions.
It all works in T2's favor, and none of their GTA fans really see a cent for their fervor.
They're the best street team the money doesn't have to buy. And I'll bet Zelnick knows it.
So, are we ready for the fan-rage when someone inevitably dares now to give the game
less than full marks? Someone earlier today pointed out that many Destructoid reviews lately
have come with a comment related post-mortem to respond to the wave of comments wherein
review quality is called into question. Perhaps, given this, there should be a preface article to
fortify the ramparts?
On a recent visit back home, I ended up helping my dad take some measurements in the
basement. Once we were done, I turned around and realized how AMAZING our video
game collection is!
I've said before that my parents were and are gamers. They pretty much went along with most
every gaming purchase I showed interest in. Aside from the CD-i. My parents were very
wise. So as a result, I was that kid that had just about every system.
The great thing now, come 2008, is that we never sold any of our systems, and didn't throw
away most of the boxes. Just about everything you about to see is either actually in the box, or otherwise being
used in my parent's house.
So, for your retro enjoyment, Behold! The Tubatic Family Console Collection!
Turbo CD. I used to use the CD unit by itself as my personal discman. It was cool, but
hands down the worst discman I ever had.
Yep. I have a 32X. I had Doom, rented some fighter game set in space. And that's about
it.
Lots going on in this picture. Notice the TurboExpress, which was fucking genius. I think
my dad still uses it as a portable TV. That gray folded thing on the left. Power Pad. Also,
the box for the case to the PXL camcorder. We kept the box for that, too.
Notice the box on the right. I had soo many Transformers. There's probably two more just
like that one. Notice here the Mario Paint box and the Caleco Vision near the top. Smurfs
was the bomb.
Lethal Enforcers and Super Scope at the top of the heap. Also Super Simon keeping my
mom's PS2 box in check. And take note of the red box near the middle.
That was a basically a tabletop "Game and Watch" style game involving Mario and Buckets
of paint. I played that game ALOT!
I'll have to come back and raid this box. There's another right under it, full of NES
cartridges. Highlight here: Legend of Zelda 1 and 2, in box, gold cartridges. Coolest Boxes
EVER!
And to bring it all home, here's our first Macintosh. Hypercards FTW. We had a cassette
tape memory unit for this rig. Doesn't even do color. And I dare say, it has about 1MB of
HardDrive, if that.
There's a bunch of other stuff in this room that would boggle and amaze you. There's no
trace in these pics of the Captain Power vehicles, our Pong console, or our Commodore64.
Next time I'm back home, I'll see about getting a few more snapshots to tickle your retro.
SLOWPOKE uses SPOILERS! Its super ineffective . . .
Hey, I got my Wii a year ago in April, I play a lot of WoW and I had to pickup and play
Prime3, Galaxy, NMH and Brawl. Get off my back.
The thing that's at once awesome and frustrating about the Zelda series is its ability to
bring it all home by the end of the game, connecting the Legend back around to itself.
Twilight Princess does a decent job of stating the validity of its presence in the "canon" lore
of Zelda during the end sequences. The principal players end up in a room again. There's
a stand off, there's rounds of final battle, and the action at the end of the game proves to
be pretty exciting and memorably dramatic.
The frustration comes in playing through the whole game to get to that end point. Its not
that i didn't enjoy the game a lot. However, for as much fun as I had, there was nearly as
much a feeling of wanting to speed through the very standard puzzle progression in the
game.
I kind of wish i could have a Zelda game that takes a very Shadow of the Colossus
approach to the lore. We've done so many puzzles already, lets just get Link into waves of
exciting boss fights. Skip the vegetables and go straight to the desert. That's really where
these games have excelled recently, and it would be just pure satisfying hedonism to get a
gluttonous, Link vs Evil boss-fest.
About 12 hours of this will be fine, please.
The other thing I'd want, is a Zelda game that crosses multiple eras in a single game.
Eternal Darkness did this, and I've loved it because of it. We get the point by now that this
is the same legend, being played out in different eras each game. Why not go all out, and
have a a single game that show's different generations connecting to fight the ever present
evil of Ganon? How about a reluctant Link, or a magic using Link that carries the sword for
its magical properties. Maybe a female Link existing in a world that refuses to accept a girl
as the chosen one?
Find this in somebody's bargain bin and play it.
There's so much potential with that universe that hasn't been tapped.
Ah well. I'll look forward to the next one, even if it is more of the same . . . I guess . . .
This isn't the fanciest blog I've ever done, but I really wanted to get some ideas of my chest. I'll try to make sense of it in subsequent posts. All I want is for at least a few people to understand my take on this issue. I'm not proving a point, I just want you to read and hopefully understand.
This old song again?
It frustrates me that every time the topic of *race and perception* is brought up, the
immediate reply so often about *racism and disenfranchisement*, which really are two
separate issues.
Also, I think its completely possible to get a meaning from imagery that is valid from an
image that isn't intended to invoke a particular meaning.
Mr. Sparkle, for example. Mr. Sparkle isn't an image of Homer Simpson. However, given
Homer Simpson's context of looking like Homer Simpson and his family's ability to
recognize what a Homer Simpson looks like, they see his image in Mr. Sparkle.
The intent of Mr. Sparkle, however, was just a combination of two logos without any
consideration of what it might look like to a subset of people all the way across the world.
Misuta Supakuruuuu!!!!!!!
The RE5 trailer thing is similar.
(Let me preface this with a few things. I like that RE5 is taking the zombie genre to a
different locale. Zombies in broad daylight are creepy. I'm looking forward to knowing
how it plays out, even if I don't get around to playing it. Also, the graphics didn't blow me
away, because it looks realistic enough to just be taken at face value. Seriously, the fact
that we're focusing on the imagery means that games are really advancing over the
uncanny valley)
I'm sure it wasn't *intentional* for imagery reminiscent of hateful rhetoric and events to be
seen in the trailer. But, for a subset of people, myself included, this is what I see when I
see that combination of images.
- The image of a savage black man. The intent is to show a crazed zombie. What I see is
this stereotype of someone that should be perceived as not normal, or "othered" as N'Gai
put it.
- Black People in poor conditions. That one isn't in itself a problem, but Socio-Economic
status is another stereotype. In college, for example, I've been asked questions before on
the assumption that I know how welfare works because I'm black. Asshats will be asshats,
but its something I've been approached with before.
- Black People enmasse being attacked by a single white guy. I know, he's doing his job/its
a game/he's the hero/its really some guy vs zombies/they did that with spanish people in
RE4. I get all that. And that's fine. But the imagery invokes ideas of a guy dealing with
the "problem" of a set of black people. Or of an authority figure reigning in a problem that's
out of control.
Somewhere around here, I lose people. No, I don't expect them to change the
setting/make Chris Redfield black/make it a story about white people in dusty surroundings
and scrap huts/ have every portrayal of a black person be positive. But . . . ok compare it
to Legend of Zelda.
Dyson hates Twilight Princess, but really enjoys Zelda games. It was a major let down to
him because, he was expecting so much more from it. What he got was more of the same.
It disappointed him, and kinda pissed him off.
I'm not waiting for images of black people to come up. I am not holding a pre-order ticket
for the next black imagery, in the hopes that it'll blow my mind. But what I would like,
somewhere along the way, is for something different. Something that doesn't pigeon hole
someone of a brown skin or black/african american culture into a stereotype and allows
them to be defined by, for example, their job or their real context in the greater lore of a
story. Not because I need all imagery of Black people to be pristine. Nor do i need
unrealistic things like people in an inner city setting speaking ultra eloquent english in a
game world.
Because, come on, just do something new! To try to bring it home, don't you wish that the
imagery of gamers in the -majority- of the media was more than just slacker losers that
don't care about anything?
My parents spent months doing the post story dungeons. They're kinda hardcore.
A few weeks back, I went back home to visit my parents. My dad, a bigtime RPG
enthusiast and newly retired postal employee, basically asked me "So, what else
you got?", after having completely squeezed all fun he possibly could out of
Final Fantasy XII (with strategy guide, but still, I admire his followthrough).
Unfortunately, I had nothing else! Not for dad anyway. He's a big turned based
RPG/Final Fantasy/Dragon Warrior fan, and I somehow don't think he's bee too
keen on the actiony slant that Kingdom Hearts takes, or the plodding war
strategy gameplay in Front Mission. I end up looking around for a really good
PS2 RPG to turn him on to, and for the most part, came up with nothing.
He beat it, and took screenshots . . . with a camera.
Aside from Suikoden, which I hear is pretty righteous. I got him Suikoden III to start out. I never got around to playing them, but they always seemed like a good time. And lucky
for dad, if he enjoys that, there's two more in the series that he can checkout.
Are there any other classically turnbased RPGs on PS2 that are really top notch?
I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything. There's Wild Arms (personal
meh), but I know I'm missing some other old school style outings.
Attached photos:
I've beaten all the properly numbered original Mega Man games.
Mrs. Tubatic is a Sims player, and played a mean game of Harvest Moon back in the day.
Way of The Samurai, Shadow of the Colossus, Jet Grind Radio, ICO, Super DodgeBall, Final Fantasy VI and X-Com are some of the finest games ever made in ever
