Chrono Trigger: I got stuck fighting Magus. Apparently I didn't get to the exciting part of the game. What I like about Japanese RPGs is the totally unintuitive way they approach puzzles. Bad translation doesn't help, but they just expect you to do things and don't tell you what they are. I like adventure games. I like puzzles. It's just that if you've got a non-linear world, you need to give your puzzle a few parameters like, say, a general idea of what you need to do to proceed.
Chrono Cross: I liked the part where it didn't have an ending unless you beat the game in a stupid, arbitrary way! To its credit, this was the only non-Pokemon Japanese RPG I've beaten. But that was mostly for Young.
Pokemon: The entire game comes down to "can I use a super-effective attack against his guy?" Also it basically forces you to level-grind, which is a pretty shitty way to pad out your game.
Freedom Force: I only really play this for the cutscenes. Boss battles pretty much come down to making the one hurt member of your team run around until he heals while the other guys use the same attacks as often as they can.
Icewind Dale I and II: It's better than Baldur's Gate, but, still, same shitty combat engine. Also I hope you like fighting the entire army by yourself, because you have to do that at least five times per game. But the army's polite and will let you chill out a few days in their base while you heal between encounters, so it's not so bad. It's the most hardcore RPG I've played, because if you don't have exactly the right party certain monsters will just mop the floor with you. In the second game at least you can multiclass everyone into Fighter for the extra HP. But there's a guy that's immune to basically all magic and anything less than +5 weapons. I gave up then because I only had one +5 sword.
20071203
20071202
rpgs suck if they don't have "planescape" or "fallout" in the title (except for fallout tactics): part three
Deus Ex: When you make a hybrid RPG/first-person shooter, basically what you are saying is, "let's make a terrible first-person shooter and then let them customize their character to compensate for it." Once you get enough skill points and good weapons, there's really no challenge whatsoever. Especially if you have a flamethrower, because nobody can attack you if they're on fire. Sometimes there's robots that you can't set on fire, though. That's why you have a rocket launcher. You can get a badass nanotech sword with a blade a molecule thick, but it kind of sounds like it's made out of paper. And it looks like a cheap plastic toy.
Deus Ex: Invisibile War: It's like Deus Ex, only with fewer abilities to customize your character and less to do. In the future everything will be oversimplified for the benefit of console gaming.
Bioshock: It stops becoming cool once you realize there aren't going to be any new enemies, and the bosses are the regular enemies, only with more hit points, and there's no challenge in the game because it doesn't penalize you for dying at all. I will give them bonus points for finally giving me the ability to murder Ayn Rand with a golf club, at least in spirit. Oh, and there's a moral decision whether to save the Little Sisters and not take their stem cells or harvest them for their precious stem cells, except the payoff's ultimately the same no matter what you do, because they leave you gifts if you don't harvest them. One day there'll be a game that forces you to make sacrifices to uphold morality. Of course, nobody would ever do that, because at the end of the day gamers would all rather save some gold than save the orphanage.
Morrowind: If I'm standing right next to someone and swinging my sword literally into their face, why doesn't that hit them? Because BethSoft hates me. The fun part is wondering when bugs will choose to corrupt your save file next!
Oblivion: Interacting with the environment would be more fun if your character wasn't the clumsiest person imaginable. He/she/furry just holds everything at arm's length, apparently, and always grips things loosely from the top. Somebody needs to make a mod that lets you break plates and stuff, since trying to move any object results in knocking over everything else nearby, but apparently they're all busy making disturbing sex mods. Props to BethSoft, though, for taking a really cool concept for a story and making it really boring. As to the scaling monsters: what part of you made you think the reason people play RPGs constantly is to have the exact same level as every monster you encounter?
Deus Ex: Invisibile War: It's like Deus Ex, only with fewer abilities to customize your character and less to do. In the future everything will be oversimplified for the benefit of console gaming.
Bioshock: It stops becoming cool once you realize there aren't going to be any new enemies, and the bosses are the regular enemies, only with more hit points, and there's no challenge in the game because it doesn't penalize you for dying at all. I will give them bonus points for finally giving me the ability to murder Ayn Rand with a golf club, at least in spirit. Oh, and there's a moral decision whether to save the Little Sisters and not take their stem cells or harvest them for their precious stem cells, except the payoff's ultimately the same no matter what you do, because they leave you gifts if you don't harvest them. One day there'll be a game that forces you to make sacrifices to uphold morality. Of course, nobody would ever do that, because at the end of the day gamers would all rather save some gold than save the orphanage.
Morrowind: If I'm standing right next to someone and swinging my sword literally into their face, why doesn't that hit them? Because BethSoft hates me. The fun part is wondering when bugs will choose to corrupt your save file next!
Oblivion: Interacting with the environment would be more fun if your character wasn't the clumsiest person imaginable. He/she/furry just holds everything at arm's length, apparently, and always grips things loosely from the top. Somebody needs to make a mod that lets you break plates and stuff, since trying to move any object results in knocking over everything else nearby, but apparently they're all busy making disturbing sex mods. Props to BethSoft, though, for taking a really cool concept for a story and making it really boring. As to the scaling monsters: what part of you made you think the reason people play RPGs constantly is to have the exact same level as every monster you encounter?
20071129
all rpgs that aren't planescape or fallout are terrible: part two
Part two examines Bioware, the most popular American RPG studio. All Bioware games share the same flaw: they're badly written. Bioware can write excellent, memorable, and unique characters, but they can't write a plot without using every cliche they could think of. Bioware more or less originated the concept of freedom of choice in RPGs, which makes them better than Japanese RPGs where the plot has absolutely nothing to do with your input and you may as well be watching a TV show with menus. A TV show that makes you watch parts of it again sometimes. Over and over again. So yeah, freedom of choice is better than that. But Bioware only ever gives you three options:
1. "I will help you find your dog."
2. "I will help you find your dog, but only if you pay me."
3. "I will find your dog so I can kill it. Because I'm evil."
You will either become really good or really evil by the end of the game, because there are no benefits from being somewhere in between. Go Manichaeism.
Baldur's Gate: Let's just lump Baldur's Gate I and II together because I never got very far in them and probably never will. BECAUSE THEY'RE BORING. Baldur's Gate II is somewhat less boring at the beginning, but after the prologue it gets boring again real quick. The Sword Coast is a mediocre, standardized fantasy setting at best. At worst? It's boring, and then you get killed by an ogre because your main character's not a fighter and only has 3 HP. Yes, under AD&D rules, low-level wizards are terrible, have 1d4 starting HP, and can only cast one spell once before they have to go lie down for 8 hours. Assuming that kobolds don't ambush you while you're sleeping. Not to mention that the combat system involves people standing around swinging swords at each other without actually hitting each other. Sometimes they aren't even looking at the combat. Good parts: miniature giant space hamster.
Knights of the Old Republic: Not the sequel, though, that was by Obsidian. Yay HK-47 and Jolee Bindo and all that, but this is the start of a pattern for Bioware. From this point on, their games will all involve an ancient relic, have a humorously violent party character (although Minsk was the start of that, actually), and have a level that takes place in a spooky research facility. Combat consists of using your most powerful attacks over and over again, like a Japanese RPG only you don't have to wait as long for enemies to die. And the main villain has no personality whatsoever. His only distinguishing characteristic is that he doesn't have a jaw. Good parts: go play through the game as a Dark Side female and tell me you don't love Carth at the end.
Jade Empire: Bioware read Bridge of Birds and really liked it, I guess. Me too. Anyway, they tried to make a martial-arts-based combat system that wasn't terrible. They failed, because all you have to do is jump around a lot and poke the enemy sometimes. If you're a magic-based character, you can poke them from a distance. Meanwhile, whatever character you're traveling with will stand around and do no damage. Since Asian philosophy doesn't follow traditional views of good versus evil, you can follow the path of either the "Open Hand" (which is all about helping other people) or the "Closed Fist" (which is all about teaching other people self-reliance by killing them and taking their stuff). This is completely different from good and evil. Over the course of the story, you will discover an ancient relic that holds the key to saving the kingdom, meet a humorously violent mercenary, and infiltrate a spooky underground production facility for golems. CLICHE SPOILER ALERT: Your master is actually evil and you were following his plan all along. The best part is that the flashback that get told over and over again to you, the story of how the emperor and his brothers decided to end the drought by going against the will of Heaven and enslaving the Water Dragon, is actually more interesting and less cliche than the plot you follow in the game. Good parts: John Cleese plays a European explorer and you can duel him and then he gives you his gun which is called Mirabelle.
Mass Effect: I just beat it today. The plot involves an ancient alien relic. Lots of them, actually. Over the course of the game you will go to a spooky underground research facility, and you will pick up a humorously violent companion. Oh, and one main-quest planet you go to has a corporate experiment on an ancient alien race gone out of control, and then the next main-quest planet has another corporate experiment on an ancient alien race gone out of control. Also, there are basically no side quests. Well, there are, but they're boring and sometimes don't even have dialog or any choices to be made at all. Combat plays out like a really bad first-person shooter. Also elevators, inventory, no tutorial, etc. The dialog system is pretty cool, until you figure out that it's actually really shallow and basically giving you only good, neutral, and evil dialog options. Then you just pick one direction on the D-pad and stick with it for the rest of the game. Good parts: there's actually a few moral decisions that aren't completely straightforward! Wow! Maybe next game they'll make situations with more than two options of resolving them! I was a Paragon, but it looks like they've decided to make Renegade to be more of a "bad cop" than an "evil bastard." So that should be fun.
1. "I will help you find your dog."
2. "I will help you find your dog, but only if you pay me."
3. "I will find your dog so I can kill it. Because I'm evil."
You will either become really good or really evil by the end of the game, because there are no benefits from being somewhere in between. Go Manichaeism.
Baldur's Gate: Let's just lump Baldur's Gate I and II together because I never got very far in them and probably never will. BECAUSE THEY'RE BORING. Baldur's Gate II is somewhat less boring at the beginning, but after the prologue it gets boring again real quick. The Sword Coast is a mediocre, standardized fantasy setting at best. At worst? It's boring, and then you get killed by an ogre because your main character's not a fighter and only has 3 HP. Yes, under AD&D rules, low-level wizards are terrible, have 1d4 starting HP, and can only cast one spell once before they have to go lie down for 8 hours. Assuming that kobolds don't ambush you while you're sleeping. Not to mention that the combat system involves people standing around swinging swords at each other without actually hitting each other. Sometimes they aren't even looking at the combat. Good parts: miniature giant space hamster.
Knights of the Old Republic: Not the sequel, though, that was by Obsidian. Yay HK-47 and Jolee Bindo and all that, but this is the start of a pattern for Bioware. From this point on, their games will all involve an ancient relic, have a humorously violent party character (although Minsk was the start of that, actually), and have a level that takes place in a spooky research facility. Combat consists of using your most powerful attacks over and over again, like a Japanese RPG only you don't have to wait as long for enemies to die. And the main villain has no personality whatsoever. His only distinguishing characteristic is that he doesn't have a jaw. Good parts: go play through the game as a Dark Side female and tell me you don't love Carth at the end.
Jade Empire: Bioware read Bridge of Birds and really liked it, I guess. Me too. Anyway, they tried to make a martial-arts-based combat system that wasn't terrible. They failed, because all you have to do is jump around a lot and poke the enemy sometimes. If you're a magic-based character, you can poke them from a distance. Meanwhile, whatever character you're traveling with will stand around and do no damage. Since Asian philosophy doesn't follow traditional views of good versus evil, you can follow the path of either the "Open Hand" (which is all about helping other people) or the "Closed Fist" (which is all about teaching other people self-reliance by killing them and taking their stuff). This is completely different from good and evil. Over the course of the story, you will discover an ancient relic that holds the key to saving the kingdom, meet a humorously violent mercenary, and infiltrate a spooky underground production facility for golems. CLICHE SPOILER ALERT: Your master is actually evil and you were following his plan all along. The best part is that the flashback that get told over and over again to you, the story of how the emperor and his brothers decided to end the drought by going against the will of Heaven and enslaving the Water Dragon, is actually more interesting and less cliche than the plot you follow in the game. Good parts: John Cleese plays a European explorer and you can duel him and then he gives you his gun which is called Mirabelle.
Mass Effect: I just beat it today. The plot involves an ancient alien relic. Lots of them, actually. Over the course of the game you will go to a spooky underground research facility, and you will pick up a humorously violent companion. Oh, and one main-quest planet you go to has a corporate experiment on an ancient alien race gone out of control, and then the next main-quest planet has another corporate experiment on an ancient alien race gone out of control. Also, there are basically no side quests. Well, there are, but they're boring and sometimes don't even have dialog or any choices to be made at all. Combat plays out like a really bad first-person shooter. Also elevators, inventory, no tutorial, etc. The dialog system is pretty cool, until you figure out that it's actually really shallow and basically giving you only good, neutral, and evil dialog options. Then you just pick one direction on the D-pad and stick with it for the rest of the game. Good parts: there's actually a few moral decisions that aren't completely straightforward! Wow! Maybe next game they'll make situations with more than two options of resolving them! I was a Paragon, but it looks like they've decided to make Renegade to be more of a "bad cop" than an "evil bastard." So that should be fun.
20071126
why all rpgs that aren't planescape or fallout are terrible: part one
Let's start with the Final Fantasies. The ones that I've played.
Final Fantasy I: The villain is named Garland. Also the combat system is terrible. I gave up after nothing interesting at all had happened.
Final Fantasy VII: It would probably have helped their dramatic generic anime storyline if the characters didn't look like Duplos. Not even Legos. Duplos. Also the combat system is terrible. I gave up after I got killed by a pheasant that turned my party to stone. In Square's defense, it was a giant pheasant.
Final Fantasy X: The main character has 1.5 pants. The story was actually kind of interesting for a while, except for the terrible dialog. You know the part I'm talking about. So it felt like I was watching a decent anime while simultaneously playing a terrible video game. I like how the leveling system is a board game! Also the combat is terrible. Also also: blitzball. I gave up after fighting Seymour again for the thousandth time. P.S.: The entire plotline where Yuna decides she wants to marry Seymour and retire is completely out of character for her, since, y'know, she's supposed to be totally dedicated to her quest to defeat Sin.
Final Fantasy XI: I've only watched people play it, but the combat (which is terrible) involves waiting for an hour to get a group of five guys together and then spend five minutes trying to kill a fish floating in midair. If you level up, you can fight the same fish, expect they call it something different.
Final Fantasy XII: I gave up before finishing the tutorial because I didn't actually own the game and I don't live with people who do anymore. I don't remember the combat being terrible.
Final Fantasy I: The villain is named Garland. Also the combat system is terrible. I gave up after nothing interesting at all had happened.
Final Fantasy VII: It would probably have helped their dramatic generic anime storyline if the characters didn't look like Duplos. Not even Legos. Duplos. Also the combat system is terrible. I gave up after I got killed by a pheasant that turned my party to stone. In Square's defense, it was a giant pheasant.
Final Fantasy X: The main character has 1.5 pants. The story was actually kind of interesting for a while, except for the terrible dialog. You know the part I'm talking about. So it felt like I was watching a decent anime while simultaneously playing a terrible video game. I like how the leveling system is a board game! Also the combat is terrible. Also also: blitzball. I gave up after fighting Seymour again for the thousandth time. P.S.: The entire plotline where Yuna decides she wants to marry Seymour and retire is completely out of character for her, since, y'know, she's supposed to be totally dedicated to her quest to defeat Sin.
Final Fantasy XI: I've only watched people play it, but the combat (which is terrible) involves waiting for an hour to get a group of five guys together and then spend five minutes trying to kill a fish floating in midair. If you level up, you can fight the same fish, expect they call it something different.
Final Fantasy XII: I gave up before finishing the tutorial because I didn't actually own the game and I don't live with people who do anymore. I don't remember the combat being terrible.
20071119
mortification!
So I keep forgetting which one is Roger Bacon and which one is Francis Bacon. Stupid other Francis Bacon.
Also, I posted my first drawing on Corrugate, after finally struggling with my scanner settings. Whee.
Also, I posted my first drawing on Corrugate, after finally struggling with my scanner settings. Whee.
20071113
asians?
So I counted on Facebook, and it turns out that a little over 50% of the girls I've liked have been Asian. I think that might actually be pretty good based on the Earth's overall population, but still, Asian girls. My experience dating/trying to date Asian girls kind of tells me I shouldn't try to date Asian girls. Or at least not Asian-Americans. There's this one girl I like right now who's Filipino, but that doesn't count, right?
20071104
the emo report
So it turns out I don't have any really good friends in Seattle right now other than Nat. And since Nat's Nat, that means I don't really spend a lot of my spare time around people. Well, not people I know anyway. It's not like I go home and wander around a cold unlit maze of slick black hallways.
And when I get lonely, my first instinct is to play video games until I start to feel empty. Then I get kind of sad at being lonely. Not so much depression as soul-rending boredom combined with severe annoyance at being lonely. And then I usually go outside and wander around, because apparently my instinct when I'm left alone is:
1. Hollow myself out until I am an empty shell, filled only with insatiable hunger for something unknown
2. Follow the setting sun as far as I can and watch it die, drawing dark comfort from the cold wind on my face and the roaring surf in my ears
3. Go live in the deepest part of the woods (or north Seattle neighborhoods, if deep woods not available) and stalk and kill people, ripping them apart with my bare fangs
I don't know if that's really emo though, because I'm kind of happy by the time I get to part 2. And I've never really finished part 3, but if you hear about brutal, animalistic killings in Ravenna, you know who to blame.
Given as there's nobody in Seattle that calls me up and says "let's hang out" and all my attempts to date girls have met with gigantic obstacles and will probably continue to meet obstacles until I die alone or go live in the deep woods, it's fair to say my social life sucks right now. And gas prices combined with my limited budget makes driving up to Bellingham regularly kind of worrisomely expensive. So I might have to go with part 3, that or force Nat to invite me over to pet her kittens on a bi-weekly basis. Or steal them and raise them as my own.
Also this week: I lost my watch somehow, so I will eventually get a new one, but it probably won't be pink.
And when I get lonely, my first instinct is to play video games until I start to feel empty. Then I get kind of sad at being lonely. Not so much depression as soul-rending boredom combined with severe annoyance at being lonely. And then I usually go outside and wander around, because apparently my instinct when I'm left alone is:
1. Hollow myself out until I am an empty shell, filled only with insatiable hunger for something unknown
2. Follow the setting sun as far as I can and watch it die, drawing dark comfort from the cold wind on my face and the roaring surf in my ears
3. Go live in the deepest part of the woods (or north Seattle neighborhoods, if deep woods not available) and stalk and kill people, ripping them apart with my bare fangs
I don't know if that's really emo though, because I'm kind of happy by the time I get to part 2. And I've never really finished part 3, but if you hear about brutal, animalistic killings in Ravenna, you know who to blame.
Given as there's nobody in Seattle that calls me up and says "let's hang out" and all my attempts to date girls have met with gigantic obstacles and will probably continue to meet obstacles until I die alone or go live in the deep woods, it's fair to say my social life sucks right now. And gas prices combined with my limited budget makes driving up to Bellingham regularly kind of worrisomely expensive. So I might have to go with part 3, that or force Nat to invite me over to pet her kittens on a bi-weekly basis. Or steal them and raise them as my own.
Also this week: I lost my watch somehow, so I will eventually get a new one, but it probably won't be pink.
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