(no subject)
I feel like trash today. My head feels a little thick and swollen, my body infected with a deep lethargy.
I've come to find that my stomach has an unpleasant reaction to salty foods. It engages a tight knotting reflex which seems to endure for a few days after making dietary intake adjustments. So it was that we ended up eating at Ikea. I don't know why it seemed like a good idea. I mean, it wasn't bad. But it wasn't good. Their cafeteria aside, I always step out of that place in a rotten mood. I know from experience that the happy gaud of Swedish charm is mostly an illusion, and that place is more accurately portrayed as the bleak, black, and gray home of Nordic death metal/rock/noise, or maybe death-rock-noise. You can configure your perspective as you see fit to accept either. Anyway, I feel that underpinning exists within the happy blue-and-yellow confines as some sort of atmosphere, or miasma. I walk out of there as unhappy as possible, especially, mind you, when I visit the as-is section by checkout.
I like to have one or two of an assortment of genres to fulfill my gaming hankerings. The 3D shooter held its apex with counter-strike, but is now filled by Gears of War 2. Originally, I sort of just tagged along in this genre. I played quake X or Unreal whatever whenever anyone else was playing. I never achieved any sort of proficiency, so I spent alot of time learning how to just have fun with them.
As you know, the embargo on fighting games was broken by Street Fighter 4. I get frustrated easily with my own on-the-spot strategy and execution failures. In the Tranquilo era I dedicated solid blocks of time practicing so that I could hold my own in a pond of bigger fish, but the practice never really translated into performance come gametime. Not following up with a maximum damage attack on a prone opponent was beyond embarassing. After a while, I got used to being a punching bag through the KOF 96-99 era, and finally just conceded that my shortcomings had to be accepted.
Strategy and RPG games fall under the same broad umbrella so usually it takes two or three games to fill the spot. Heavy hitters in this arena are pretty typical underground classics: Tactics Ogre, Ogre Battle, Ogre Battle 64, any Valkyrie Profile, I'm forgetting a bunch. Actually Dynasty Warriors Tactics, while not terribly good, did get a substantial amount of playtime due to its moderately complex and exploitable combo-tactics system. Right now, Valkyria Chronicles going it alone. Though having Ogre Battle on my phone helps alot. Puzzle Quest Galactrix also belongs here, but its NDS incarnation is ... ugly. I can't really find a new tactics game that is terribly enjoyable at the moment, not in English anyway. I find that I am looking for a fresh take on games that I have enjoyed in the past, but the industry long-ago discovered that it was not lucrative or unprogressive to continue, so you get alot of derivative rehash and combat systems that are too shallow to really enjoy digging into to find meaty nuggets to exploit. I think if the balance and character quality of the Ogre games could be combined with the top-view tactical management of DWT and further combined with the combat timing elements VP or Tales, it would be way fun, but too complex and unfriendly to find a substantial audience.
The shmup game falls under a slightly broader category of what I label as 'panic' games. I actually don't like playing shmups that are too focused on memorizing a script of where to be and where to shoot at any given time. R-type is like this, and actually neither is Gradius free of guilt on this point. They both have a charm to them that make them good shmups, but don't fall into the panic category. I'm talking about DonPachi, Raiden, 19XX, Psyvariar, Shikigame etc. Bullet hell shmups with a healthy robust system based on reflexes, timing, and execution. The stimulation is a big part of it, make no mistake. I get this tingle in the back of my forearms that signals sort of a magic synchronicity amongst eye, hand, and forebrain. My breathing relaxes and I become to exist. Geometry wars 2 is the current panic shmup, but it definitely carries a different flavor. Pacifism seems to require a similar relaxed focus, but the rapidly escalating difficulty requires a good deal of fore-brained strategic changes, first to fully exploit the generously lax opening, aggressively maximize scoring in the midgame while managing space for the eventual endgame which requires a finely focused balance between simply staying alive by staying clear of danger and getting as close as possible to danger to clear space and stay alive. Clearing space is itself a balance between aggressively pursuing large kills and taking every opportunity to score and chain. Play it too safe and you end up with a field crowded by dense rod regions and fast diamonds that will collapse upon you. Clear too many rods alone and you're left with nothing to kill diamonds. Chain too much and you miss out on geoms, deflating your future scoring, not to mention distracting from the endless rush of diamonds. You must quickly identify and pursue every opportunity to it's optimum, and only retreat when absolutely necessary and become immediately aggressive at the next opportunity. Good games will last a few minutes. Slim or I will promptly shut up and become very still the very moment nine digits scores appear for the other. I once held a sneeze for nearly thirty seconds just so she could take a fair stab at her current goal of two-hundred-million.
Puzzlers also fall into the panic category. I was okay at Puzzle Fighter and Puzzle Bobble. I never really played Puyo. Tetris was of course the inception, but there is this repeated theme where everyone who played Tetris was 'good' at it, and it was even competive. I take that to mean that everyone could get to and survive for a while on Level9 NES Tetris. Still, after watching super-plays of Tetris, I know that there is only one guy who is 'good' at Tetris and the rest of us just play. Personally, the puzzling greats are Magical Drop and Panel de Pon(or Tetris Attacks, or Pokemon/Planet Puzzle League). Both are panic games at their best incorporating planning into reflex and recognition of complex progressions. I would hazard that the two sit about equal for me. I wouldn't ever want to decide between the two. If we're talking desert island, I would just close my eyes and pick one and lament the loss of the other. I think Tetris Attacks might have a nudge more of a sentimental vote since I played that largely with good friends, and I played Magical Drop largely alone.
Loot whoring. A similar, but distinct animal from the RPG. I left behind the classic RPG formula of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest behind somewhere around Dragon Quest 3. Sure, I played FF7, but I didn't enjoy it. I played it intensely to avoid losing a bet, also during the Tranquilo era. The last person of six who had Final Fantasy 7 unbeaten had to do something utterly despicable and unpleasant. I finished third. I would say that the loot whoring game is characterized by collecting items at its endgame, and they do not really end per-say. MMOs typically fall into this category. EQ then WoW predominant among those. Still, the king of Loot Whoring games in my personal history is Diablo II. Back when loot whoring was fun, I like to think to myself. Still, it also has quite a bit to do with having friends to play with, and being competitive in terms of ladder ranking progression in the months following release. Present day, I've found Phantasy Star uh worlds? on the PSP a good stand-in. It's short-session capable and there's a variety of ways to play it among the different classes and weapons. It's good enough of a game where too good can be a bad thing.
Rhythm games are another left-behind classification. Occupying a pretty substantial timeframe between 99 and, what 03?, Beatmania in its delirious number of incarnations, by far holds the most influence. In comparison, Guitar Hero and Rock Band are simply derivative technically and historically. You don't get scored on 'how accurately' you hit the notes in GH/RB. I don't want to understate it, so I'll just say that it was better when it was underground. Not because it was underground, but because the community was more vibrant and colorful and creative. I would hazard to say it was avant garde, then hazard to die of something terrible. People did crazy, but interesting shit to stand out. I think those of us who straddled the communities between Japan and US, California and Nevada, SoCal and NorCal were exposed to a really important developing subculture. But more than anything, it was fun to be a part of and I'm really sad that time has passed.
I'm going to be incensed now.
When I heard that Konami/Bemani is on the precipice of losing it's patent battle with Activision/RedOctane/Neversoft/Harmonix over Guitar Freaks vs Guitar Hero, I lost alot of faith in industry. Even just the idea of industry. It's one thing to say that Guitar Hero is a facsimile of Guitar Freaks with minor additions. While that is certainly true, it overshadows the work done by Bemani and the community they incubated towards making these games not only good, not only better, but fun and accessible and acceptable. I'm personally involved, so I obviously have a bias, but I also have a perspective that any typical Guitar Hero/Rock Bander doesn't have. In the end, doing it big is more important than doing it first. But Bemani didn't just do it first, they did it right and only after a long learning process. It is undermining that process yet benefiting from it that I take exception to. It's ungrateful and exemplifies their character. In the end, the suit settled out of court, undisclosed. By this time, my own fallout with Bemani had run tangent to it's reluctance to pursue a more high-profile lineup and mainstream audience. They are up to something like 16 iterations of DXII, and also 16 iterations of Guitar Freaks. I won't go as far as refusing to play GH/RB. They are fun games to play with other people, but I won't ever try to get better, or even good at them. It makes me melancholy every time I hear from people who are trying to beat whatever crazy song in GH/RB, because the echo will sound in another bygone voice.
What? You're still reading?
Games genres I miss are the dungeon crawling fighters like Tobal2 and Ergheiz. I would love another puzzle game renaissance. I wouldn't complain if they made another Ogre Battle.
Nothing on the conventional upcoming release lists are really piquing my interest. I'm looking forward to the opening of Valkyrie Sky, an MMO shmup(!). Of course, Diablo III is approaching. Otherwise I'm at a loss. I'm sure things will liven up with spring fast approaching.
Awash in the history of my youth.
-tJ
I've come to find that my stomach has an unpleasant reaction to salty foods. It engages a tight knotting reflex which seems to endure for a few days after making dietary intake adjustments. So it was that we ended up eating at Ikea. I don't know why it seemed like a good idea. I mean, it wasn't bad. But it wasn't good. Their cafeteria aside, I always step out of that place in a rotten mood. I know from experience that the happy gaud of Swedish charm is mostly an illusion, and that place is more accurately portrayed as the bleak, black, and gray home of Nordic death metal/rock/noise, or maybe death-rock-noise. You can configure your perspective as you see fit to accept either. Anyway, I feel that underpinning exists within the happy blue-and-yellow confines as some sort of atmosphere, or miasma. I walk out of there as unhappy as possible, especially, mind you, when I visit the as-is section by checkout.
I like to have one or two of an assortment of genres to fulfill my gaming hankerings. The 3D shooter held its apex with counter-strike, but is now filled by Gears of War 2. Originally, I sort of just tagged along in this genre. I played quake X or Unreal whatever whenever anyone else was playing. I never achieved any sort of proficiency, so I spent alot of time learning how to just have fun with them.
As you know, the embargo on fighting games was broken by Street Fighter 4. I get frustrated easily with my own on-the-spot strategy and execution failures. In the Tranquilo era I dedicated solid blocks of time practicing so that I could hold my own in a pond of bigger fish, but the practice never really translated into performance come gametime. Not following up with a maximum damage attack on a prone opponent was beyond embarassing. After a while, I got used to being a punching bag through the KOF 96-99 era, and finally just conceded that my shortcomings had to be accepted.
Strategy and RPG games fall under the same broad umbrella so usually it takes two or three games to fill the spot. Heavy hitters in this arena are pretty typical underground classics: Tactics Ogre, Ogre Battle, Ogre Battle 64, any Valkyrie Profile, I'm forgetting a bunch. Actually Dynasty Warriors Tactics, while not terribly good, did get a substantial amount of playtime due to its moderately complex and exploitable combo-tactics system. Right now, Valkyria Chronicles going it alone. Though having Ogre Battle on my phone helps alot. Puzzle Quest Galactrix also belongs here, but its NDS incarnation is ... ugly. I can't really find a new tactics game that is terribly enjoyable at the moment, not in English anyway. I find that I am looking for a fresh take on games that I have enjoyed in the past, but the industry long-ago discovered that it was not lucrative or unprogressive to continue, so you get alot of derivative rehash and combat systems that are too shallow to really enjoy digging into to find meaty nuggets to exploit. I think if the balance and character quality of the Ogre games could be combined with the top-view tactical management of DWT and further combined with the combat timing elements VP or Tales, it would be way fun, but too complex and unfriendly to find a substantial audience.
The shmup game falls under a slightly broader category of what I label as 'panic' games. I actually don't like playing shmups that are too focused on memorizing a script of where to be and where to shoot at any given time. R-type is like this, and actually neither is Gradius free of guilt on this point. They both have a charm to them that make them good shmups, but don't fall into the panic category. I'm talking about DonPachi, Raiden, 19XX, Psyvariar, Shikigame etc. Bullet hell shmups with a healthy robust system based on reflexes, timing, and execution. The stimulation is a big part of it, make no mistake. I get this tingle in the back of my forearms that signals sort of a magic synchronicity amongst eye, hand, and forebrain. My breathing relaxes and I become to exist. Geometry wars 2 is the current panic shmup, but it definitely carries a different flavor. Pacifism seems to require a similar relaxed focus, but the rapidly escalating difficulty requires a good deal of fore-brained strategic changes, first to fully exploit the generously lax opening, aggressively maximize scoring in the midgame while managing space for the eventual endgame which requires a finely focused balance between simply staying alive by staying clear of danger and getting as close as possible to danger to clear space and stay alive. Clearing space is itself a balance between aggressively pursuing large kills and taking every opportunity to score and chain. Play it too safe and you end up with a field crowded by dense rod regions and fast diamonds that will collapse upon you. Clear too many rods alone and you're left with nothing to kill diamonds. Chain too much and you miss out on geoms, deflating your future scoring, not to mention distracting from the endless rush of diamonds. You must quickly identify and pursue every opportunity to it's optimum, and only retreat when absolutely necessary and become immediately aggressive at the next opportunity. Good games will last a few minutes. Slim or I will promptly shut up and become very still the very moment nine digits scores appear for the other. I once held a sneeze for nearly thirty seconds just so she could take a fair stab at her current goal of two-hundred-million.
Puzzlers also fall into the panic category. I was okay at Puzzle Fighter and Puzzle Bobble. I never really played Puyo. Tetris was of course the inception, but there is this repeated theme where everyone who played Tetris was 'good' at it, and it was even competive. I take that to mean that everyone could get to and survive for a while on Level9 NES Tetris. Still, after watching super-plays of Tetris, I know that there is only one guy who is 'good' at Tetris and the rest of us just play. Personally, the puzzling greats are Magical Drop and Panel de Pon(or Tetris Attacks, or Pokemon/Planet Puzzle League). Both are panic games at their best incorporating planning into reflex and recognition of complex progressions. I would hazard that the two sit about equal for me. I wouldn't ever want to decide between the two. If we're talking desert island, I would just close my eyes and pick one and lament the loss of the other. I think Tetris Attacks might have a nudge more of a sentimental vote since I played that largely with good friends, and I played Magical Drop largely alone.
Loot whoring. A similar, but distinct animal from the RPG. I left behind the classic RPG formula of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest behind somewhere around Dragon Quest 3. Sure, I played FF7, but I didn't enjoy it. I played it intensely to avoid losing a bet, also during the Tranquilo era. The last person of six who had Final Fantasy 7 unbeaten had to do something utterly despicable and unpleasant. I finished third. I would say that the loot whoring game is characterized by collecting items at its endgame, and they do not really end per-say. MMOs typically fall into this category. EQ then WoW predominant among those. Still, the king of Loot Whoring games in my personal history is Diablo II. Back when loot whoring was fun, I like to think to myself. Still, it also has quite a bit to do with having friends to play with, and being competitive in terms of ladder ranking progression in the months following release. Present day, I've found Phantasy Star uh worlds? on the PSP a good stand-in. It's short-session capable and there's a variety of ways to play it among the different classes and weapons. It's good enough of a game where too good can be a bad thing.
Rhythm games are another left-behind classification. Occupying a pretty substantial timeframe between 99 and, what 03?, Beatmania in its delirious number of incarnations, by far holds the most influence. In comparison, Guitar Hero and Rock Band are simply derivative technically and historically. You don't get scored on 'how accurately' you hit the notes in GH/RB. I don't want to understate it, so I'll just say that it was better when it was underground. Not because it was underground, but because the community was more vibrant and colorful and creative. I would hazard to say it was avant garde, then hazard to die of something terrible. People did crazy, but interesting shit to stand out. I think those of us who straddled the communities between Japan and US, California and Nevada, SoCal and NorCal were exposed to a really important developing subculture. But more than anything, it was fun to be a part of and I'm really sad that time has passed.
I'm going to be incensed now.
When I heard that Konami/Bemani is on the precipice of losing it's patent battle with Activision/RedOctane/Neversoft/Harmonix over Guitar Freaks vs Guitar Hero, I lost alot of faith in industry. Even just the idea of industry. It's one thing to say that Guitar Hero is a facsimile of Guitar Freaks with minor additions. While that is certainly true, it overshadows the work done by Bemani and the community they incubated towards making these games not only good, not only better, but fun and accessible and acceptable. I'm personally involved, so I obviously have a bias, but I also have a perspective that any typical Guitar Hero/Rock Bander doesn't have. In the end, doing it big is more important than doing it first. But Bemani didn't just do it first, they did it right and only after a long learning process. It is undermining that process yet benefiting from it that I take exception to. It's ungrateful and exemplifies their character. In the end, the suit settled out of court, undisclosed. By this time, my own fallout with Bemani had run tangent to it's reluctance to pursue a more high-profile lineup and mainstream audience. They are up to something like 16 iterations of DXII, and also 16 iterations of Guitar Freaks. I won't go as far as refusing to play GH/RB. They are fun games to play with other people, but I won't ever try to get better, or even good at them. It makes me melancholy every time I hear from people who are trying to beat whatever crazy song in GH/RB, because the echo will sound in another bygone voice.
What? You're still reading?
Games genres I miss are the dungeon crawling fighters like Tobal2 and Ergheiz. I would love another puzzle game renaissance. I wouldn't complain if they made another Ogre Battle.
Nothing on the conventional upcoming release lists are really piquing my interest. I'm looking forward to the opening of Valkyrie Sky, an MMO shmup(!). Of course, Diablo III is approaching. Otherwise I'm at a loss. I'm sure things will liven up with spring fast approaching.
Awash in the history of my youth.
-tJ