the future of gaming journalism

Since my return from England in July, more than a few of my tastes have changed. My brother has had a subscription to Nintendo Power since we were both in grade school, but when I picked up a copy of it after coming home, I found that I no longer respond to its Disneyfied tone and its low expectation for all things Nintendo. The age difference between its target audience and mine had become painfully obvious, and their high scores for well-known mediocre games (like Enter the Matrix) proved their reviews untrustworthy. Having been introduced to UK magazines like Edge and GamesTM, the typical game news/reviews seem self-satisfied and unvarying. True, there is a time and place for straightforward news and reviews, but I think we could use more of the game criticism featured in these magazines as well as the US-based insert credit.

When I say these sources are more "intellectual," I mean that they scrutinize the game industry as well as individual games and provide not only overviews but also layered analyses. Edge (and GamesTM, who copied Edge) does this using editorials as well as a strict scoring scale -- a 5 out of 10 means average -- that highly favors originality. Liam does accuse Edge of being "ever so slightly pretentious," and I can't say I disagree. That's perhaps why I liked GamesTM's tone better, but I've only read one or two issues and have nothing else to say except that it's kind of like Edge. I don't know about the quality of Edge's stuff these days though, since my friend whose best friend who knows people who work there said that there were some controversy over an insensitive editorial as well as something involving Edge being paid to score a game better than it deserved, and half the staff ended up quitting. There's no magazine in the US quite like Edge and GamesTM, but my brother's friend Joe who also went to USC pointed me to insert credit, which has good writing and thought-provoking features like this one. It's an interesting site you can spend hours reading if you're so inclined. My one minor complaint is that the site is poorly organized (everything under one category is listed chronologically) so as to be unfriendly to newcomers. That and some of their articles could be a bit less verbose.

*cough* *cough* *cough*

I hate being sick. That's what I've been doing the last four days or so. Walking around made me dizzy and weak, but lying down made my head hurt from being pressed against the pillow (not kidding). So I slept and sat on the couch and played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance when I felt a little better. I feel almost normal now except for a hacking cough that keeps waking me up at night. Conversations with God says that every experience you call into your life serves some purpose, so I wondered about the purpose of this one, as I always wonder what possible purpose a little fever or cold could serve. Okay, I can see that if you're stressed or making yourself too busy, getting sick would be your body's way of slowing you down and saying, "hey, enough of this." However, as I'm out of school with no car and no job, neither of those apply to me (and never really did, except when I had to write that term paper in high school). In any case, I've come to the conclusion that:

1) Once again, I take simple joy in feeling healthy and normal, as I'm reminded every time I get sick.

2) My mother does a lot more for the rest of my family does for her, myself included (she took care of me when she wasn't working).

3) I need to shift my focus from what I don't have (job, relationship, etc) to what I do have, right here, right now. I was worried about the slowness of my job search; I felt frustrated because I couldn't see my friends or go anywhere since I can't drive my dad's new manual Nissan (he's in Taiwan at the moment and can't teach me). But one day I was sitting on my bed and staring (because lying down gave me a headache and focusing too long on a book or my GBA made me nauseous) when I realized that this situation I am in now is perfect for bonding with my mother. With my dad and brother gone temporarily, we have some peace in the house and time together with none of the frustrations those two bring. She'll be working for most of tomorrow, but I can also help make this house (esp. my room) a bit more livable by cleaning things up, bathing my dog and taking him for a walk. Anyway, I won't bore you with the details. I think I've been getting clues that this is what I'm supposed to be doing, but I didn't make a conscious connection until that moment. It was a feeling of "I get it now," like something clicking into place, and by extention, I felt that the job thing and everything else will come when the time comes. Well, neato, and I guess tomorrow's cleaning day.

so i was in the shower...

...after a long day of playing Final Fantasy X-2, chatting with friends on AIM, and going through adventure-gaming websites, and an idea occurred to me as I pondered about making my own adventure game: why not make a Harry Potter adventure? Okay, so it's not really original, but what irks me about the official Harry Potter games published by Electronic Arts is that a) they are painfully mediocre and b) they utilize only a tiny fraction of the possible gameplay elements offered by the Harry Potter universe. In fact, when I took Intro to Interactive Multimedia back in freshman year, for the movie/book-to-game assignment I chose to do a Harry Potter adventure game. This was before the first movie and game came out, and although my design was not entirely groundbreaking (in fact, I had recently played GK 3 and had that on my mind), it would've made a far better game than the crap that came out of EA (I am mostly talking about the first game, not having played the second [slightly improved] one). What I want to do now is make an intelligent game worthy of the Potter name, albeit a small one. However, knowing me, this may never become a finished product. We'll see what happens.

To keep going on this topic, I'd have to introduce a phenomenon I recently discovered: independent freeware adventures. That is, a community of adventure-game fans are developing their own games, since PC adventures are few and far between these days. They use one of a few freely distributed adventure game engines for this purpose, and more info on these engines can be found on Adventure Gamers: Underground. These games are by and large 2D point-and-click adventures, so don't expect any groundbreaking gameplay here. However, they do contain strong narratives and fun inventory-based puzzles and also provide creative outlets for writers and artists. Later I shall do another entry on the best of these adventures I've played so far.

So this is what I'm thinking. I'm going to make a small game, since my graphics skills aren't that strong, and I'd rather work on fewer images and do them well. The story is not going to be Harry's story, nor will the plot follow any of the books'. I want to use either Hermione, Ron, (on second thought, they do enter the main stories quite heavily) or one of the minor Griffindor characters (a Neville Longbottom game!), and make him or her the main character. This allows me to make a smaller story that runs parallel to and occasionally intersect one of the books' plot. Now I have to figure where to get the background music from. Among other things.

this shall be the first...

...of many entries about gaming, one part of the eclectic hobbies in which I spend my free time (which is all the time at the moment. HAH! Well, maybe just a small hah.). Adventure Gamers just did a new feature on Gabriel Knight, an adventure game series published by Sierra. I happen to own all three games in the series and lament the fact that there likely wouldn't be a fourth. The series is notable for its deep, engaging storytelling that revolves around a historical mystery or legend (Voodoo [who do?], werewolves, and the descendents of Jesus). The third game, Gabriel Knight: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned, was the first I played, and it made the biggest impact on me. It had a strong story and smooth gameplay, but what got me the most was the character interactions between Gabriel, Grace, and Mosely. Although only Gabriel's name is in the title, Grace is the other playable character and becomes controllable every other "chapter." She was also a playable character in the second game, though to be honest I only played the first few hours of it because of the crashes and bugs (one of which rendered my saved game unloadable, which really sucked). The third game, however, was perfect in my eyes. Despite some flaws, the emotions the game evoked in me was none I've experienced before or after. The dialogue, characterization, and excellent voice-acting combined to give the emotional intensity normally seen in novels or films. Perhaps I'm exaggerating a bit, but that's what it felt like my first time playing through it.

Some notable voice-actors include: Tim Curry as Gabriel (in game 1 and 3), Charity James as Grace (also in Monkey Island 4 as Elaine Threepwood), Rene Auberjonois and John de Lancie (for you Trekkers out there) as minor characters, Jennifer Hale (Ms. Keane in PowerPuff Girls), and Mark Hamill as Mosely in the first game. A number of these voices can also be found in Knights of the Old Republic, oddly enough (ah, the wonders of IMDB). So in conclusion, if you're dying to hear Tim Curry talk in a southern accent, GK 1 and 3 are a must. Those of you who know me (and don't live on the other side of the globe. Or in another state.), I still have the games in my room somewhere (emphasis on "somewhere") if you'd like to give them a shot.

searchability!

My blog is now searchable via the Google code at the bottom of the main page. All two posts of it. Yay!

Why are you looking at me like that? It's called forward-thinking.

on reading The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings

I think that having seeing all three LOTR movies, and especially the extended versions of the first two before the third, I got back into the feel for high fantasy. Don't get me wrong, Tolkien's writing is still slow--but a good kind of slow. Like sipping tea. There is a real love of language in his writing, which I can certainly understand, and the slow building and layering of atmosphere is best savoured and mulled over. Although I do attribute my patience for this slowness, especially at the beginning of Fellowship, to knowing and caring about the characters. Compared to Fellowship (and from what I've heard, The Silmarillion), The Hobbit is quite easy to get into and not bogged down by references to obscure names and places. After a "leisurely" start, it does pickup as Bilbo gets himself into more and more danger, and to my delighted surprise I could hardly put it down. I'm about a third of the way through Fellowship now, and I can say it's much less boring the second time around (I tried to read it while in England, and stopped after 160 pages). The Hobbit is definitely a helpful read if a new reader wants to give a shit about the places and names mentioned in the first few chapters, as well as references to Bilbo's adventure. I do understand why I gave up the first time (it's STILL quite slow), but I'm glad I came back to it.

new year, new beginning

I suppose it's fitting that I started this at the beginning of the new year. This is just a place for thoughts that pop up from the various stimuli in my newly school-free life, now that I actually have the time to write them instead of working on my next who-gives-a-shit paper. (No more papers! Woohoo! It's worth shouting out more than once.) So I will slightly organize my thoughts and have them live here from now on, otherwise they'd probably end up in Steve's Inbox and whoever else will listen. I'm currently sitting at home, playing Final Fantasy X-2 and going through thousands of job listings to find some place to give me money that wouldn't also drive me nuts. Oh, and I'm reading Lord of the Rings for the first time. More on that later. I do have to say, though, 2003 was a wonderful year for me, what with spending half of it in England, having the last semester of college, and including two wonderful guys in my life. 2004 has a lot to live up to, but I'm sure I'll find ways to make it worthwhile.