Tuesday, September 9, 2008

OPINION: Wiistation 360

I will state here and now that current grouping of consoles is uninspiring and so far basically depressing. This seems to me a little like the console dark ages, a dim period before some great reformation. What really blows my mind however is how I was completely wrong about how it was going to shake out. Here are the problems as I see them in the gaggle of game googahs of this, the seventh generation.

Price- Whoa crap! What the hell happened here? I'm not looking for a game playing battleship thanks, can you please remember this? Wait, no you can't, and now we have $600 Playstations. Ok. I wasn't buying one then and I'm not buying one now at $399, mainly because of the fact that Sony decided to neuter their own console's backward compatibility to preserve the still very brisk market for their own PS2 hardware. Yet the only reason why people were still buying the damn PS2 is because the PS3 was $600 for chrissake! Do you see the craziness here? Should we all run out and buy the PS3 now because of Sony's about face? I say no. Back compat is doable and really only suddenly impossible because of Sony's own misjudgments.

Speaking of misjudgements why not talk about making your A class video game console a tank in your video disc format war and making gamers foot the bill? Perhaps we shouldn't because isn't really pertinent to games. Wait, not pertinent to games? There is a lesson in there somewhere... At any rate I'm waiting for a $299 PS3 with real backward compatibility in hardware before I decide to lay down my money on one of these.

Now lets just get this out of the way. PS2 was frigging king. It wrecked the market because it was a great console, probably the best ever made. Even now top shelf non-kid-type-license titles are coming out for it, especially in Japan. Speaking of Japan, people there are still buying more PS2s than PS3s. Crazy right? Sony forgot about a concept called planned obsolescence when they made the PS2 so great, so much so that in fact it was just too great. Whereas Microsoft got it perfect with a console (XBox 1) that was crap before it was ever obsolete, clearing the way for the 360 with little backtalk from it's previous generation. With infinite resources you knew the next Xbox would take some part of the market anyway. You can't go wrong when you don't have to get it right, way to go guys.

Games- Somewhere in the dawning of the current generation, forces along the battle lines of the console war got the idea that in our American market, what gamers wanted were PC games. Not innovative console titles, but whatever you can get on the PC minus strategy or simulation games. For example; your first person shooters, racing games, sports games, third person action adventure stuff and a few 3D platformers thrown in because, well they are consoles after all. This was always the aim in the Xbox part of the world, so no change there. Sony somehow looked at this and saw this suddenly as the "way to do business in America". Or they could have been following Penny Arcade really closely and were just trying to mollify them, who knows? Either track would have gotten us to this point.

It is possible that things are just changing? That as an aging gamer I am yearning for 2d animation and games that don't require me to stare constantly at a tiny minimap? Perhaps, but things are changing for the worse one way or another. It isn't just my perception. All of this plus the move away from single player games is what is causing this new wasteland to propigate itself. Ask yourself, does every game need to have multi player now? Really? Is this sudden requirement driving publishers to PC based content? The whole Xbox live, "pay for the internet, again, you dummy" model is the real culprit there probably. With that driving development (along with enormous bags of money with the initials MS stamped on them) achievements, voice chat and the other dongles of multi play suddenly became way more important than they really should have been. I am willing to live with the idea that Microsoft was just ahead of the curve and that this is what the new gamers of today are really looking for, I'm just not convinced that it was something that had to happen.

The Wii- This was the one I wanted. THIS was the new console that was going to take it to MS and make them hurt in that special place. The wiimote would the undoing of the rest of the industry and make them understand that game play was king and that shoving Rainbows and Call of Dutys up the tailpipe of the console public wasn't going to win the day. But then... the games sucked. Worse than that some vile miasma drove off the great Japanese developers from the fledgling Wii. If you don't count the Capcom remakes there is practically NO representation from them anywhere. Are they still smarting after the N64 cart debacle, or is there just a serious enmity there now that no amount of controller waggling can repair?

Nintendo even had the whole price thing set up. They made good hardware at a decent price with innovation and design at the forefront. As hardware, actually the Wii is the hands down winner. It's still hard to find and bringing in astronomical numbers that are making their competitors jealous. Does that mean I want to buy the system for it's killer app which just so undeniably happens to be Wii Sports: Bowling? Ummm, no. I learned with the Gamecube that the first party Nintendo stuff, a least in the modern era, doesn't really do it for me. It can be fun at times and always interesting in terms of design, but it lacks something that it used to have. I want to play Galaxy, for sure, but I am going to wait until I'm at a pals house to try it. I'm not made of money ya know.

So lets tidy up this mess and get to the heart of the issue. What do I really think about the current generation in 2008?

Playstation 3- Too expensive and the wrong games to boot. With so much FPS schlock and nothing innovative, I'm waiting for next year. Don't take my word for it just ask gamers in the East how much they love it.

Xbox 360- Vile. I blame everything on Microsoft. The only consolation here is that the Japanese hate this thing more than the PS3.

Wii- Best console, worst games. The silicon version of a Shakespearean tragedy. If blessed with a long life, perhaps the fates will smile on the little white box and give it some titles worth purchasing.

I'll be hiding out with my backlog of PS2 titles until christmas 09 probably. With that and my C64 emulator I should be fine.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

SMT- NOCTURNE (HARD MODE): Demonology 102

I have talked a lot already about what demons in the game do and how they are arranged in relationship to one another but there are a few other points to cover. I wouldn't normally get so deep into mechanics if I wasn't convinced at this point that they are integral to the game's deeper messages. How these cogs and gears turn in the Vortex World (this is the clinical term) is a statement unto themselves. I actually have some trouble thinking of other games where these connections are so clear. I mean, did anyone think the 'materia' system in FF7 really meant anything to the game other than, "We at Square have a cool new word to use when talking about magic!" FF7 is a great game, but like many others the systems involved aren't part of the story. It gets worse when characters in the game's cut scenes use skills or spells in ways impossible to do in the actual player-controlled part of the game. That's not breaking the fourth wall, but a fifth wall or something.

Now returning to the subject, the trait that is most important to demons is clearly their skills. Skills are the building blocks of the combat system and ignoring their role will most likely land you in swirly angel land very quickly. Each demon starts with two or three skills when you first get them, and as they level and get stronger they learn new skills. These skills are predetermined by the demons type and are granted when they become the appropriate level for that particular skill. To get an idea of how important these skills are, think of the lowly Foul Will-o-Wisp that I spoke of in an earlier post. He had a skill called zan, which is a magic attack with good damage and low mp consumption. It was a bit better than his normal physical attack so it saw lots of use. Then upon reaching a certain level he learned mazan, which is the same skill except it hits every enemy on the opposing side. Between mazan and his high agility score, he could go first in nearly every combat and damage the whole opposing team before things even started for them. This made encounters with serious baddies far more survivable, and allowed me to explore parts of the map I had only rushed though before. With the skill mazan the Will-o-Wisp went from regular party member to the center of the offense.

Sometimes you capture a demon out there and you may not be so in love with their current skills, but the skills you see coming up for them are so great you put up with having a dud on the front line so this demon can level up and get the skill you're waiting for. On the status screen you can actually see the next skill that they will learn, though many times you wont know what it does exactly having never actually seen it in the wild. Nonetheless it's hard to pass on something called "Dark Might". That is another skill where it's inclusion in a party changes the landscape so dramatically it can reverse the outcome of boss battles. It is a little unfortunate that the demons in certain ways become backgrounds for the skills they possess, but this is probably to make sure that these demons keep changing and morphing into new forms.

How this happens is a two pronged facet of the game and one of my favs overall. In most major areas of the game is a central location with shops, warp points, healers and a place called the Cathedral of Shadows. A nice place, if you like swirling mist, giant concrete pillars and freaky ZZ-Top looking dudes dressed in purple robes. Upon entering this interesting locale for the first time, the 'Minister' informs you that he is there to aid you specifically. Now he is clearly there to aid the player, none of the shops in any of the other games ever made seem to get other customers than the player, but at least he acknowledges this fact.

The Cathedral is where you can take two demons that you have in your party and turn them into another demon of greater strength (most of the time anyway). The two demons chosen to be "Fused" are put at the top of the pillars where they disintegrate and combine into the new demon in a dramatic cut scene. It is possible from what I hear to have accidents occur during the fusing process where what you get is something totally unexpected, but I haven't seen that yet. Also you can sacrifice a third demon at the same time during regular game events and that will make the resulting demon even stronger. This will add levels and new skills to the resulting demon, but you have to be careful when doing this as their skill sets can change dramatically reflecting the skills of the sacrifice more often than not. I figure this is for when you have two powerful demons with skills you don't want, just throw in another demon with skills you like and you get a powerful and useful demon out of it. It's an expensive option however as the only demons that make good sacrifices are the ones that you have leveled many times through battle.

This fusing system is set alongside a more common idea of evolution. Certain demons have multiple forms and leveling them to the point where they have learned all the skills that are possible for them to learn will allow them to evolve into a higher form. This is something players should concentrate on because these evolved demons are powerful and usually come with two or more really great skills right out of the box. They also tend to jump up many levels, even more than you would normally be allowed to control, so there is a serious bonus there. The one thing here that is a bit confounding is that when they evolve they tend to remain in a similar shape but their clan affiliation can change. One would think that they would stay within the family as it is essentially the same demon. For example the demon Beast Inugami evolves into Avatar Makami. They look very similar but yet are of different clans. It's the same demon too clearly as it possesses many of the same skills right where you left them on the non-evolved form. However this does help to counteract the high turnover that seems to plague the front line of the average party.

That leads me to why I think things are set up in this fashion. As this game starts to unfold I am starting to see the over arching concept. Demons are at the center of everything, a seemingly easy spackle to the game being both friend and foe, but they are also a metaphor. The story puts you into what is essentially a half-baked world, and the idea is that you may or may not have the power somehow to decide what comes out of it. The game calls it "Reason". Whatever your Reason is this is what becomes of the Vortex World. It looks like everyone who survived the destruction has a chance at what comes next, and the one with the strongest Reason is the one who wins.

The demons are the living embodiment of that violent change. Not only are they constantly learning and evolving, they become building blocks for other demons as easily as walking into a shop. You decide who continues to exist and who is ground up for parts. There are allusions to machinery and fate and the inevitability of pain and destruction, all of it pointing to the fact that the new world is a giant crucible. And for all it's power, vastness and variety, it too in the end is only to be ground up into parts for some yet larger construction. As above, so below.