Linkstew

I had one plan for my weekend of surgery recovery, but it's gone nothing according to plan, leaving me recovering in a completely different, but equally acceptable way.

Here's what I planned:

Completely on the recommendation of a reader, I ordered Fishing With John. And completely of my own free will, I ordered Gran Turismo 3. I was going to lug my PlayStation 2 home with me, watch Fishing With John, and play Gran Turismo 3.

This did not happen, because I apparently haven't learned my lesson about ordering things before trips yet. I placed both orders on the morning of Thursday, July 12th. I ordered GT3 from EB Games, while I ordered Fishing With John from Amazon.com. I was more concerned with getting GT3, since I knew my brother really wanted to play it (and he doesn't have a PS2), but I didn't think there would be a problem, because EB's default shipping was called "second day air." I did the math, and figured there would be all kinds of time for my package to get there before I left on Wednesday the 18th. It was the DVD from amazon that I was concerned about getting on time. But I didn't want to pay for extra shipping, and I knew I could cope if I didn't get to watch the DVD this weekend, so I just left it at that.

Here's what happened:

Well, of course GT3 didn't come in, but Fishing With John came in without a problem. And as is always the case with my shipping woes, GT3 arrived Wednesday morning, when I was on the way to catch my train. But without GT3, there was no way I was going to lug my PS2 home. And yet, I brought the Fishing With John DVD anyway... So I got stuck here with a DVD without a player to watch it with. Oops.

So I knew Tuesday night that my GT3 plans had fallen through, so I quickly tossed together alternative weekend plans -- Reading! I've had a couple of books in my queue for awhile that I hadn't gotten around to reading, because I tend to get so caught up in books that it really disrupts my sleep schedule. What better time to disrupt my sleep schedule then when I'm already going to be knocked out off and on because of pain killers?

So I've already finished The Science of Discworld, and I'm well into American Gods. And I have GT3 waiting for me when I get back to Berkeley. It wasn't what I had planned, but it's certainly not a bad way to spend a restful weekend . More in depth reviews of all of the above are coming later. Right now, I need to get back to Shadow's tale.

I spent countless hours in Junior High playing Super Mario Kart, and despite it's flaws, I still enjoy Mario Kart 64 -- And I'm eagerly anticipating Mario Kart Advance and Mario Kart Cube. So it was with this background, a shrug, and a moderately good review from IGN PS2 that I rented Star Wars: Episode I: Super Bombad Racing

Where Star Wars: Episode I: Racer set to be a realistic simulation of the Pod Race scenes of Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Super Bombad Racing is designed to be cute and fun. Like all games derived from Super Mario Kart, Super Bombad Racing features racers with tiny bodies and huge heads. Where we had Mario and Luigi, or Diddy Kong, or any number of others in the past, we now have the cast of Star Wars Episode I: From Anakin to Darth Maul, from Queen Amidala to Jar-Jar Binks, most of the important characters are there.

The game does have flaws. The graphics aren't at all impressive, and don't make a very good case for the PS2's supposed power. The control is very loose, and it's very easy to lose control and find yourself bouncing off of walls or flying off in some direction you don't really want to be going. The interface wasn't entirely clear or consistent. The battle mode was pretty terrible, with huge tracks and inaccurate weapons. And most importantly, the game froze several times while we were playing it.

But the game was still fun for a few nights, and it's worth a rent if you're bored and have nothing better to be doing. It doesn't bring much new to the Kart Racing genre, but the genre is pretty saturated to start with. Unless you're a super huge fan of both Mario Kart and Star Wars, I wouldn't recommend buying this game. And let me remind you that I'm a moderate fan of both Star Wars and Mario Kart, so consider a rental if you're at all uncertain. Regardless of it's flaws, the game didn't bomb as bad as it's title might suggest.

3/5.

Haha, I love The GIA. Their assessment of the upcoming console wars sums things up perfectly. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll be enlightened! Well, you might not cry, but you'll definately laugh and/or be enlightened.

I picked up Zone of Enders for two reasons: 1. It came with the Metal Gear Solid 2 demo. And 2. It looked like an amazing, anime inspired, mecha combat game. And having played and beaten the Metal Gear Solid 2 demo, I can say for a fact that it came with ZOE. And having beaten ZOE, I can say for certain that it's an anime inspired mecha combat game. As to whether or not it's amazing... Well, it depends on which scale you're judging.

Let's go with three scales, for simplicity. First, there's gameplay. How much fun is the game to play, how does it control, and how is the experience of beating the game? Well, it's a hell of a lot of fun to play. The game makes controlling the Jehuty feel like second nature, and it reacts like you want it to without getting in your way. In fact, at times it didn't even feel like I was consciously doing something, and it just happened. In fact, it's so easy to play that I spent a couple of hours just playing old missions over and over. Alas, there were only three different kinds of enemies in the whole game (not counting bosses), so I eventually tired of just beating up drones and had to actually play some of the game. The bosses, on the other hand, were moderately interesting, and each had a little trick that had to be figured out to beat them. Unfortunately, there were only three real bosses. Fun factor: 5/5.

Next, there's the story scale. And when it came to playing the game, I discovered the worst voice active I've ever heard, combined with the corniest plot I've ever seen and the most cliche Neon Genesis Evangelion rip off story ever. Little boy accidentally gets in big robot. Little boy kills someone. Little boy doesn't want to kill. Little boy has to kill. I want to kill little boy and whoever his voice actor was and whoever was the voice actor of the big robot's computer. Oh, what's this? Hitting start skips a cut scene? Ohhh... I didn't watch any of the story after the first 15 minutes (Which turns out to have been a pretty large portion of the game, but more on that later). Of course, it didn't help that the missions were all totally cliche, and consisted of any one of Protect everyone, Destroy everything, or fetch item allowing you to destroy everything. And to top it all off, the game was really short. Like three hours short. Story factor: 0/5.

And finally, Graphics and Sound scale. Unfortunately, because "voice acting" falls under "Sound", this scale break down does a huge disservice to both the Graphics and Sound Effects, so I'm going to pretend that the voice acting falls under the previous category. The graphics in this game are amazing, and the attention to detail superb. This game really shows what the PS2 is capable of doing that the PSX wasn't. From the trails that the Jehuty will scrape into the ground if you fly too low, to the countless buildings you can destroy and the cars parked in driveways, it's amazing. And the sound effects are nice, too. Explosions, explosions, everywhere! Graphics and Sound factor: 5/5.

My, what a dilemma we're faced with here. Amazing game play and amazing graphics, but amazingly horrible story and voice acting. So I guess ZOE qualifies as an "amazing anime inspired mecha combat game", as long as your definition of amazing doesn't mean amazingly good in every possible way. Now, normally I'm the story-whore and my roommate Keith is the graphics-whore, and I would have smelled a game with a story this bad a mile away... But the gameplay and graphics are so good that, despite the stinking story, I can say that this is a game you should play. I give it a 3/5, but with all kinds of asterisks and footnotes. However, it's also a game that you should rent and not buy, because it's so short. In the five days Blockbuster allocates you, you'll be able to play this game two or three times and spend plenty of time with the Metal Gear Solid 2 demo while you're at it.

But while I recommend you play this game, I urge you to remember that you can skip every cut scene by hitting start. And if you don't believe me, you can taste the waters yourself, but... I don't recommend that course of action, and don't say I didn't warn you.

It was about a year ago now that Vagrant Story was released to an unsuspecting and an unprepared world, and in that time, it's been highly praised as one of the best PlayStation games ever, right up there with Metal Gear Solid. In fact, along with Soul Calibur and Zelda 64, Vagrant Story holds the honor of being one of the only three games to ever get a perfect score from the terminally picky Japanese gaming magazine, Famitsu. And yet, despite critical praise, few seem outside of the hard core Square fans seem to have heard of this game. Sure, it had a commercial, but it wasn't sold to the average gamer. It was assumed that the average gamer would never play a game like Vagrant Story (and perhaps they were right), and they didn't even try to share it's excellence with the world.

I actually beat this game back in March or April, but I've been dragging my feet on writing this review. Of course, there's the question of why it took me that long to beat such a great game, and I have a number of excuses. Notably, I started Zelda 64 before Vagrant Story was even released, and I'm still working on that one. But more relevant to this review is the fact that when Vagrant Story came to the US, a lot of "game play" was added. What this means is the bosses were made harder, and the city of Lea Monde was populated with a lot more enemies. This, combined with the complete medieval city (complete with catacombs!) the game created for you to explore, made for some... problems... when I got lost. So, since I didn't have a rigid path laid out for me to explore, and I wasn't sure where I was supposed to be, I didn't have any plot driving me along, and I got bored and stopped playing in favor of other games. Finally, I finished it when I got motivated to figure out where I went wrong. It took me a couple of days to do that.

The player controls Ashley Riot, a special agent of sorts, on his mission to uncover the circumstances surrounding an attack on a baron's manner. And of course, Ashley has an obligatory mysterious past, but for once, we're spared a video game romance, and instead get religious philosophy which, in my book, is a good thing. Unfortunately, there isn't enough story to go around. In Japan, the game supposedly took about six hours to beat. When it came to the US, it jumped from a six hour game to a twenty hour game, which spreads the story more than a little thin, requiring a very patient gamer to get through the quest.

This game is not an RPG. It's an adventure. You control a single character, and the battles happen in real time, though you select your attacks and targets via menus. As Ashley takes his journey, he gains special attacks, new weapons, innumerable items, and magical powers. And all of Ashley's abilities are accounted for by the plot. In addition, every weapon and every piece of armor Ashley acquires can be taken apart and reassembled in various ways at workshops scattered throughout the city in (frequently unsuccessful) attempts to create better equipment. The entire system is incredibly complicated, but it allows near limitless flexibility as a reward for the patient players willing to experiment. For the impatient and unwilling to learn the system, this trait of the game is probably undesirable.

The graphics are very impressive, but they stretched the poor little PlayStation to it's limits. The models move with grace, and the attention to detail in the rooms of the city is incredible, but the frame rate is less than stellar, the textures very blurry, and the palette limited. When you play Vagrant Story on the PS2 with psx texture smoothing enabled, however, the quality of the textures increased dramatically, making it practically look like a whole new game. The palette unfortunately remains limited on the PS2, but that was arguably intentional, because of the intended realism of the city Lea Monde.

With a freely movable camera and a highly controllable Ashley, all the buttons on the PlayStation Dual Shock controller are used to their fullest. My only real complaint about the control scheme is that unlike every other Square PlayStation game, they chose to make the O button confirm instead of the X button, which is arguably more clear to the user, but there's something to be said for being consistant over being clear. I found myself frequently tapping X when I meant to tap O, and found myself in all kinds of menus I didn't want to be in because of it.

Vagrant Story is a 5/5, platinum star game, but it's not for everyone. Unlike the mass-marketed Final Fantasy, it takes patience, experimentation, and perseverance to complete. And while the ending set up hooks for a great universe of adventure, it'll never happen because Square failed to sell it's product, and faced with a "failed game", redistributed the development team. Well, I guess it might happen, what with Namco developing Xenosaga, a new installment in Square's Xenogears universe. And I'd love to see it happen, but I'm not holding my breath.

Now first, there are the superficial, consumer level differences between the three consoles. This Christmas, parents are going to find three options for video games. First, there's the newcomer on the block. Microsoft may be well known in your average household, but they don't make games. I don't know how big a factor that will be in the war, but articles like this CNN article painting the Xbox in a bad light are going to filter into the collective unconscious and make it difficult for the Xbox to sell itself with it's $300 price tag -- especially compared to the cheaper options. Some of the extra price of the Xbox might be explained away with it's internal hard drive, built-in broadband connectivity, and the ability to play DVD's. But according to this Xbox FAQ, an additional controller will have to be bought for the Xbox to play DVD's. So total price of an Xbox Christmas: $380 ($300 console + $30 dvd remote + $50 game).

Next, there's the well established Sony Playstation 2. The PS2 also plays back DVD's, without a separate remote. Sony just announced plans for a hard drive and online connectivity, but your first time buyer likely won't get those in their innitial purchase -- especially if they're more than $100. So from a parents perspective, the PS2 has many more games than Xbox, and a PS2 Christmas package will be $335 ($250 console + $34 memory card + $50 game).

And then there's Nintendo. Nintendo is an established name in home video games, so that aspect shouldn't concern buyers like it might with Microsoft. Additionally, the Game Boy will act as a trojan to sell Gamecubes. The Total Gamecube Christams package will cost $280 ($200 console + $30 memory card + $50 game).

Okay, so Nintendo will show off their outstanding graphics, and sell some Gamecubes, because they're the cheap option, and parents are all about cheap. This is good for Nintendo. But wait, there's more!

According to this article, Microsoft is going to lose $130 on each Xbox sold (not even counting marketing and distribution), and according to the article quoted in this message (popup window warning), Sony is also selling it's PS2's at a loss. I can't find a reference, but all the news leading up to Nintendo's price announcement indicated that they would make a profit off of both the Gamecube and the Game Boy Advance. When Nintendo announces their financial results later this week, we'll find out for sure what the financial situation of Nintendo's consoles... But with a monopoly on portable gaming, there's no reason Nintendo would sell the Game Boy Advance at a loss, and Nintendo has learned from their N64 mistakes and the Gamecube was designed to be cheap. If nothing else, the Gamecube is probably saving $50 on plastic...

So how did Sony and Microsoft plan to make money selling game consoles? Well, it's all about Game Licensing. This article talks a little about game licensing. In short, a piece of every game sold goes to the console maker, so the more consoles sold makes for more games sold makes for more money coming in. Microsoft is trying to lure game makers with cheaper costs, but that just means it's going to take more games sold to make money, which means it's going to take more consoles sold to sell the games, and being in a difficult position to sell consoles, Microsoft is going to be in a sticky situation. To say the least.

One notable difference between the Nintendo way of doing things and the Sony/Microsoft way of doing things is that Nintendo had price in mind, and so didn't include things like DVD playback by default. In fact, if you want DVD on your Gamecube, a separate company will be making a Gamecube DVD player hybrid. In fact, DVD playback is a big part of Sony's problems. People are buying PS2's as DVD players that can also occasionally play games -- with this mindset, Sony doesn't sell the games they need to recoup their licensing fees. With this in mind, Microsoft's approach of tacking DVD functionality on via an optional remote is very price smart.

Now you might point out that Sony managed to succeed in Microsoft's position once -- Nintendo was the established brand, and Sony waltzed in with a $300 console and took it all away. But Microsoft's position is hardly the same as Sony's. When Sony did it's thing, Nintendo had yet to release the N64. This time, though, Microsoft will be the last to release. When Sony did it's thing, the N64 wasn't shaping up to be all Nintendo said it would be, while Sony delivered more. When Sony did it's thing, they introduced a new media to the gaming scene, while Nintendo stuck by their carts. This time, everyone has agreed that Discs are the way to go. In other words, Microsoft is going to need to brainwash everyone for the Xbox to succeed, and in the face of the established PS2 and amazing (and fun) games of the Gamecube, the Xbox is going to have a very difficult time of things.

Back when the Xbox was first revealed, no dimensions were distributed, so I made some educated guesses about how big the system would be: About four inches tall, and about a foot in each direction.

Well, The Magicbox has some comparison shots up showing that it's actually bigger still than I estimated... And I thought I was erring on the side of too big! Since the magicbox lacks any way to link directly to a story, here are links to a top view, a 3/4 view, a side view, and a controller view of the Dreamcast, the Xbox, and the PS2. The PS2 is a full foot wide, making the Xbox about 14 inches across, while it's between 10 and 12 inches deep, and it's just about 4 inches tall. (The PS2, for references, is 12 inches wide, 7 inches deep, and a little less than 3 inches tall).

Then we pull in my comparisons of the Game Boy, the Gamecube, and the Apple PowerMac G4 Cube, which I did here, and we see that while the Gamecube is probably about as tall, if not taller, than the Xbox, you could fit AT LEAST four Gamecubes on top of the Xbox. More if you started cutting your Gamecubes into pieces.

Apparenly, Even the Japanese were laughing at how huge the Xbox is. And remember, folks -- those vents on top of the Xbox aren't just for looks. No stacking stuff on top of it, or you'll have some singed silicon smelling up the place!

I really wish I'd posted sooner about Microsoft's upcoming xbox game Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding, because yesterday slashdot reported on how the demo screenshots had been manipulated. I'm posting this anyway, because the majority of what I wanted to say about Amped had nothing to do with the images at all. As long as I'm here, though, I'll comment on the graphics for just a moment before moving on to what I really meant to talk about -- My thoughts on what Amped might be compared to what SSX is, and what I would like to see in a snowboarding game.

First, a word about the graphics. When I first looked at the screenshots, the manipulations hadn't been publically announced, so I was viewing them with an untainted eye. My first impression was that the backgrounds and snow and scenery looked pretty good, but the character models looked really bad. When I found out that the character models had been pasted in to improve the quality of the characters, I couldn't quite believe it. Go look at Soul Calibur to see what character models should look like. If the xbox and Microsoft programmers can't pull off something that good, then the xbox has bigger problems than faking a few images.

But on to the heart of this post -- While I bought a PlayStation 2 to play Star Wars: Starfighter, I haven't played it since the week I got it because SSX is just that much more enjoyable and replayable. SSX, for those who don't know, is a snowboarding game, featuring very intricate controls allowing for a wide variety of stunts, with multiple modes of play, unlockable characters and equipment, multi-player support, and reasonably good graphics. I give SSX a 5/5, as it's more fun than you can shake a waxed snowboard at. If you own a PS2 but don't own SSX, you should buy it right now from Amazon.

As good as SSX is, I have two moderate sized complaints about the game. The first is that the menu interface is anything but intuitive. I still don't know if it supports multiple players, or just supports different high score names. When you unlock new goodies at the end of a race, you have to press accept about five times, but it only takes one or two presses of cancel to lose your hard earned prize. My second complaint is that there's only one course that's something that you'd actually snowboard on in real life, and you can't race or showoff on that course -- it only allows free ride. I would have liked to have seen courses based off of real mountains, and a sane interface, but the game is still a lot of fun, even if the graphics don't really show off what the PS2 is capable of.

So when I read This IGN article about Amped, I got excited about the prospect of courses based off of real mountains and being able to board off into no-man's land. What I'd really like to see in a snowboarding game is a lot of real mountains that can have varying snow conditions, so that some days it's icy, some days it's powdery, and some days the snow just might be packed differently. In other words, I want terrain that's not just modeled off of a real mountain, but which is also covered with real snow, and which is dynamic and can change over the course of the game. I highly doubt that Amped is going to feature that, though, because it's a feature that would have been talked about. So until a snowboard game comes out that features real snow conditions in addition to real terrain, I think I'm going to stick with the wacky courses of SSX, because they're still fun, even if they're the same every time.

And while I'm on the subject of games, check out this interview with a Nintendo exec. I love how level headed Nintendo is.

Today I finally got the PS2 I ordered a week and a half ago. Thanks to EB Games refusing to complete my order unless my shipping address was associated with my credit card, I didn't have a shiny new PS2 to play with last weekend following midterm hell. Though the problems I've had with shipping addresses and my wannabe credit card irritate me to know end, I guess I appreciate their efforts to protect my money. I really should just get a real credit card. It'd solve 84.78% of my problems, while only introducing 34 1/2 new problems into the complex equation of my life.

I got the package within half of an hour of getting to the office this morning, which was unfortunate. All day it sat by my side, calling to me. And yet I couldn't go home and play with it, because I had class, and had to work on a cs project, and had to do some work. An eternity later, I made it home with my package under arm.

The unit itself is very sleek, but it's too big. If I were Sony, I would have made it as wide as the discs, and made it as tall as necessary. It feels very solid compared to the PlayStation, for example, but it makes me wonder how they used all that space, especially when I look at the puny Dreamcast sitting next to it. I don't like the tray loading drive at all. The system has to be on (there's a switch in back) before I can eject the tray to put in my game. The system is also pretty noisy, though I imagine the Xbox will be even worse. My final real comment on the system is that the LEDs on the box are beautiful. One is blue and one is green, and though they're rather harsh and bright, their unique colors make them super cool to look at. No boring red LEDs... except for on the controller. Oops. Way to drop the ball, Sony! A nice blue glow from my controller would have completed the effect.

The first game I popped in there (after turning it on, because I couldn't put in a game until it was on) was Star Wars: Starfighter. This game is the reason I got a PS2. Well, that and the ability to play my PlayStation games. The first thing that hit me about the game was that it took forever (and an evening) to load. After way too many loads, I finally got into the game, had a little fun, and crashed. Upon crashing, I was very displeased to see that the game had to reload the level. As far as gameplay goes, it's pretty much a complete compromise between a simple arcade shooter and a complex computer space flight simulator. This is a good thing. There's a lot of flexibility, but there isn't so much that it'll bog down the casual gamer. Though I played for awhile tonight, I'm still working on perfecting the control. It takes awhile to master, but I'm having fun with it. My only real problem with the game is the horrendous load times. Well, that and the slight visual glitch that happens when the "Mission Completed" banner pops onto the screen. What a shame. So close.

As for SSX -- I didn't spend that long playing it. The load times weren't nearly as bad as Starfighter, but the graphics weren't nearly as amazing nor the courses nearly so complex. SSX looks to be even more difficult to master than Starfighter, but I had a lot of fun just playing it for a few minutes. It made me want to get out and go Snowboarding, which must mean that it's doing a pretty good job. Even the crashes in the game make me wince and think "Ouch! That hurt!"

When I was in San Francisco on Friday, I saw a lot of guys probably being paid next to nothing wearing Star Wars Starfighter t-shirts and handing out stickers, which reminded me that Star Wars Starfighter comes out very soon now for the PlayStation 2. So when I got home, I went and watched a lot of movies of Starfighter, and I watched a video about the making of Starfighter, and I became very excited about this game. In fact, I think it's safe to say that Star Wars Starfighter is the reason that I now actually want a ps2.

Well, that and I went and looked at some other ps2 games that are coming soon, and two others really caught my eye. First up is Gran Turismo 3. I liked the first two Gran Turismo's, but the graphics always got in my way. I can handle graphics that aren't trying to be real, but the first two GT's were trying to be as real as possible on the psx, which wasn't up to snuff. Gran Turismo 3, however, looks like it might be my holy grail of racing games.

And finally, there's Zone of the Enders, which features gigantic robots duking it out. The story looks intricate, the graphics in the video's I watched were great, and if nothing else, Z.O.E. will come with a demo of Metal Gear Solid 2 (aka, the game) when it's released in April.

So there you have it. The three or four games which have turned me from being indifferent towards the ps2 to rather strongly wanting a ps2.

So I've bad mouthed the PlayStation 2 often, and yet, now I'm spending hours reloading Amazon's web page trying to buy one. Why? Well, there are several reasons, but first let me say that I still don't like Sony or the PS2, and there are currently zero games that I want for the system.

The first reason I'm trying to buy a PS2, and really the main reason, is because I sold my Playstation to my brother after his broke. I was just going to wait awhile and get a PS2 when they became more available, but there's no way I'm going to beat Chrono Cross before I leave for Berkeley, so I was hoping to get a PS2 today so that I would have something to play Chrono Cross on back in Berkeley. The reason I'm not going to beat Chrono Cross is the reason I was sitting on the computer reloading Amazon -- My brother has been playing Smack Down 2 since he got it, and then he and his friend were playing it and now they're playing Dreamcast games. I tried pointing out to my brother that he'd have plenty of time to play Smack Down once I went back to Berkeley, but for some reason, that didn't work. At least arguing that they won't be able to play the Dreamcast is a valid argument on their part, and unlike my brother, I'm willing to grant play time for a valid argument.

So I'm kind of resigned to not finishing Chrono Cross, as much as it irritates me. Someday I'm sure I'll manage to buy a PS2, though at this rate, Metal Gear Solid 2 will probably be out by then. At least then I'll be able to tell myself that I got it for a game.

Amazon's PS2 store is advertising that they will have PlayStation 2's in today, so I've been occasionally reloading to see if I can get lucky and get one. My brother has a friend over, and when my brother told his friend what I was doing, the friend said "Yeah, I'm going to get a Playstation 2 as soon as I can. It's got a lot of good games."

To which I replied, "No, it doesn't, the Dreamcast has many more good games than the PS2."

This, of course, got a "Dreamcast sucks" from him, and he asked me what games it had that were so good. So, as I just happened to have my Dreamcast with me, I pulled it out and showed him Crazy Taxi and Soul Calibur.

Half an hour later, while flying through the streets of Crazy Taxi, the words "I need to get a Sega Dreamcast" parted his lips. I love how easy it is to show how good the Dreamcast is.