JRPGs

I was just reading a very interesting article on gamespy (http://www.gamespy.com/articles/977/977228p1.html) and reading the comments section I found myself nodding. Wada said "Japanese games makers excel at complex role-playing adventure games" and... I disagree.

I feel that they did excel in that field, once upon a time, but not anymore. I look in at modern RPGs, both western and Japanese and the JRPGs are just unplayable. They tell a story but offer no freedom to the player. It could be argued that they offer less freedom to maintain the storyline but I don't think that it's at all necessary. KOTOR is the perfect example of a very strong story driven game that still gave the player choices, still let them make the storyline thier own. From character appearance to dialog. You just can't do that in a JRPG. Thus I find myself staring at a character I just don't like half the time. I won't sink 40 hours on a character I don't like and his story, I have better things to do.

The most recent JRPGs to my mind, Lost Odyssey and the Last Remnant were both... unplayable. Part of that is the art design which I have always critized in japenese games. Frankly most everything looks fucking rediculious and impractical as hell. it's offensive to me. But... the gameplay. It doesn't seem to have evolved any. You still have the invisible party on one screen that all suddenly appear for the turn based combat sequences. I have nothing against turn based combat but... it feels tired to me these days. There's no dynamic to it, no enivorment, combat happens in a vaccum basically and that annoys me. Hell, Last Remnant combat wasn't as annoying as say, the main character (who annoyed the shit out of me within 10 minutes. Honestly, I could not hate him more) started combat, every combat, by saying "Let's kick some A" because gods know you can't say "ass." Where is the option for him to shut the fuck up?

I don't identify with the character or even like him. His dialog just makes me angry. Most western RPGs these days give you dialog options. KOTOR, Mass Effect, Fallout 3. I vividly recall the start of Last Remnant where the main character acted like a disrespectful prole to a local Prince who just saved his ass. It made me angry. I slogged through it and found out about the lack of an autosave and bugs with the save game system the hard way and haven't put the game near my console since. I felt abused. Those same bugs wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't already hate the main character. (Let's kick some A!)

But these games are complex... I'll give him that. The options menu, the stupid fucking inventory and upgrade systems, the convoluted classes and just stupid numbers. Ugh. The truth of the matter is that when a player's level is capped at over 100 then there is something wrong to my mind. Like Disgea... wanna grind up to level 99999? Or whatever the stupidly large number is? FUCK NO! Nor do I want to see an enemy with several million HP. Shit, you can have challenge and feel like you've built up a strong character without breaking into the tens of thousands for damage numbers or HP, or any other bloody number (other than the in-game currency). At a certain point the math involved in it just disgusts me. I don't want to deal with a 10 million HP boss enemy regularly, it's just stupid. Just throwing numbers around isn't a challenge. ... Although I suppose that *is* the only way to challenge a player in a JRPG.

In Fallout 3, in the latest piece of DLC (Downloadable content) they managed to challenge (briefly) even my high level character. They did it by taking away all my hard earned weapons for some time and throwing me into a hostile enviroment. It left me feeling exposed and made for a great bit of gameplay. Sure, I killed everything and eventually found enough equipment that the loss of my old gear didn't matter. Although that was close to the time I was going to get my own gear back anyway. heh. The point is that they were looking for a way to make the game challenging without just throwing stupid numbers of enemies or enemies so strong that it's silly at the player and I feel that succeeded to a degree. Not so much an option in your average JRPG. Nor is stealth usually... nor a social focused character. It's disappointing.

Innovation has passed by the RPG industry in Japan. I couldn't be happier honestly, more and more good games are coming out of western studios. Maybe the japs will look at these innovations and add some freedom and choice to their games... but... I doubt it. Ah well.

Repo! The Genetic Opera

Just dropping in with a short blurb. Almost a tweet. I have just finished watching Repo! The Genetic Opera. It is far and away the most unique thing I have seen in ages. It was... Wonderful. The title is a good clue as to the content, Repo is a musical, an opera of the finest type. The cast shines, even Paris Hilton (sigh. To think I would ever say that). Doctor Horrible made me sit up and take notice of musicals again, ones that aren't wearing a Disney label, but Repo!... Repo! is what will keep me singing for weeks.

If you have the opportunity, buy this movie. And the soundtrack. (Gods know I will as soon as payday rolls around). You could rent it, but that doesn't nearly do the movie justice.

The Mall Files, part one

It's clear by now that I work in a shopping mall yes? Good. Now let's be clear, my jobs at the mall generally keep me pretty isolated from the general population. Modern teenagers are borderline illiterate unless sparkly vampires are involved somewhere. So help me god I heard a teenage girl talk scornfully about another girl saying “She reads like... four books a month.” Possibly the figure was less than four. But... alas. The unwashed masses are idiots, we already knew that. So I generally don't get the full “mall experience” since I'm safely tucked away in Borders.

But, on the other hand, I work closing shifts, sometimes even on Friday nights. Now, I'm not exactly sure why, but Friday nights are the worst. Hordes of teenagers descend upon the mall. They walk the mall in packs, the smallest in groups of 4-5 ranging to groups of around 30. If only I was joking. God how I hate them. Saturdays aren't as bad... still awful... but not nearly as bad. The little bastards arrive far earlier. I've learned, on Friday the very first teens are there around 1530, around 1700 they begin to arrive in force, by 1800 no sane adults remain. I know for a fact that there are groups that do nothing but pace the mall and who have no money to buy anything. Maybe a bottle of soda, maybe.

So modern teenagers are fucking retarded. Twilight proves it, modern “music,” and oh god the clothing. Who the fuck lets a young man out of the house wearing a black latex dress liberally coated with chains? Now, I've got no problems with the fetish scene, shit I don't even have problems with a man in drag. Even in public. (I've been to Provincetown. I may be a racist but I've got nothing against people with different sexual orientation from me) HOWEVER, as with most things I'm tolerant about. I'll tolerate it or ignore it in adults. In a kid who is probably not even in Highschool? Nope. I don't give a shit about tolerance. Dress like you care about yourself and maybe one day want a job. Going out dressed in latex is great if you're heading to a club, not when you're going to the mall or out to eat or nearly anywhere else.

To my mind, if you're going to leave the house, you should dress like you want to be respected. Now, I'm almost always in business casual even if I have black jeans rather than proper slacks. Sure, that's not always necessary... but if you go out to shop or out to eat in shit that belongs in a fetish club? Barely even deserve contempt. Same with wearing your pants around your knees, same with a girl wearing what amounts to panties and calling them shorts. I won't treat you like a slut or expect you to act like one just because you dress like one... but to my mind you don't respect yourself and I really don't feel the need to show you anything other than contempt.

You know, I can get over the fact that teens are retarded, dress and act like idiots, and generally don't even deserve my time. I like to bitch about it, but I can get over it. What I can't get over is the parents. Yeah... dropping your kid off at the mall with 20 bucks for food or what the fuck ever and then driving off... that's good parenting. Sure, the fuckers are driving away all of the mall's legitimate business and don't buy a damn thing... we love to look after them.

I work there, I talk to parents and other adults on Friday nights. More than once I've made a point of asking why they would come on Friday night. Most express shock and fear at conditions inside. The majority vow never to come back again on a Friday. That's not right. No one over the age of say, 23, likes going to the mall on that night. 'least no one I've ever spoken with. That fucking sucks for everyone involved.

The real issue here, is the parents. If parents stayed with their kids they wouldn't cause problems. Wouldn't fight (although the fights are goddamn HILARIOUS! Ever seen a couple of 12 year olds have a messy break up fight? I wanted popcorn!) or make a mess out of the place. But no, that's too much like work. So they just drive up to the door at around 6, drop the kids off, and come back around 9. Fuckers. Can't stand to look after your kids? Use protection, get an abortion, just don't have the fucking kids. You obviously shouldn't have had them. Yes, your teenage bastards are annoying, I know that better than you. Act like an adult and keep an eye on them.

Here's a newsflash, I'm paid less than ten dollars an hour. I am NOT paid well enough to be a babysitter. I'm also not going to go out of my way to look after your kids. At all. You want to look around and send your (young) kids into the kids section at Borders? Go ahead, but let's be very clear. Pedophiles do hang out at malls, sometimes even work there (bastards. I'm fine with a whole lot of fetishes amongst consenting adults. That's the key, consenting adults). Yeah, we've had that, luckily the police caught him. If you don't want to look after your kids, you shouldn't have had any. And really, if your kids are younger than say, 14-15 and you're dropping them off at the mall unsupervised then I really would like to talk to Social Services about you. And that does happen.

See, I know the security guys, they're great people. Understaffed as hell, underpaid, and definitely unappreciated. One of them told me his goal is to see at least one teen leave the mall in handcuffs every single Friday night. Most weeks he succeeds. I shake his hand for this and congratulate him. It's rather amusing to see kids get escorted out and given anything from a six month ban to a lifetime ban. And if the little fucks are young enough (and sometimes they are) DSS gets involved. Those nights make me smile, I may not usually be a witness but it does please me!

I hate your kids, they get injured? I laugh. They get arrested and I cheer. They aren't my responsibility and with all the shit they do I more than hate them. Cut this shit out and act like fucking adults. Take care of your responsibilities. Oh, and to the parents to braved a FUCKING BLIZZARD to drop their kids off at the Mall (which did in fact close early because of how bad conditions were) and leave them with us. FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING FUCKERS! I want you to die, slowly, in a car fire hopefully.

I hate Twilight and you should too

I'd like to take a minute to talk about something this is, disturbingly, very important. That's right, I want to talk about Twilight. Beating a dead horse? Certainly, but I still see people buying this abortion of literature every day. Good, decent people who don't know any better. They can't know how bad what they're picking up is. (Without say 3-4 minutes of solid research but this is America damn it! No one will do that.) Also, I want to be very clear, we're not going to talk about the movie. I deal with a lot of Twilight fans and not a one can defend the movie or its “acting.” That waste of several hours isn't worth talking about.

Before anyone jumps down my throat (all... one of our readers) I did read the books. All of them. Shit I even paid for Breaking Dawn since I wanted to read it and didn't feel like waiting the week before I could borrow the book from Borders to read it. I read them cover to cover. The first three I read in the span of two days (right before the midnight release party) and the fourth a few days later. And I did go to see the movie (On reflection the fact that I paid more for popcorn and a coke isn't so much of an insult in this case). I sat through the entire thing and laughed pretty hard at some of the “acting.” I've been in the the Twilight trenches, so if anyone can talk about these books, it's me.

I was going to talk about each book in turn... but I only own a copy of Breaking Dawn (somewhere... maybe... I may have set it aflame). I don't feel right talking about specifics without reference materials on hand so I'm just going to speak of generalities. They're all poorly written. Breaking Dawn especially seems like it was pushed out the door and didn't get enough attention from an editor. Hell I bet she only wrote maybe 3 drafts. Sure, they're technically written for teenagers, so maybe demanding that they be quality literature is missing the point. But on the other hand, Fuck You! Saying that you don't need to have high quality or use your full vocabulary because you're writing for teens is bullshit. If you were trying to write for ten year olds, maybe. Maybe. But on the other hand, they might read that at a young age and think that it's how books are meant to be written, how literature is supposed to work, AND THAT'S NOT RIGHT!

So it's poorly written, that can be forgiven if it has a great story right? In short, no. Because it doesn't have a great story. It has a sappy bullshit story that is drawn out and shallow. My co-workers think it's fine that the main character is incredibly shallow because, hey, she's a teenage girl, they're all shallow right? Yeah and fuck you too. It wasn't that long ago that I was a teenager, not everyone is shallow. Stupid, yes, ignorant, definitely, but shallow? I don't believe that. What I do believe is that the main character is just a shitty way for the author to try and feel young again, like a crappy fanfiction self-insert. What I do believe is that the only characters with any depth are those one the sidelines who are almost unrelated to the story and who simply have depth because their motivations aren't explored by Meyer and thus we can come up with our own ideas about them.

But I want to make a point about our friend hindsight... because... I can honestly say that after reading books three and four of the series (Eclipse and Breaking Dawn respectively) that books one and two aren't THAT bad. That really says more about the former two than it does the latter. This is particularly true of Breaking Dawn. I could spoil it, but that's been done enough. You want to know about the horrific Dhampire baby, the craptastic wedding, and the rape-filled honeymoon? Go somewhere else. I recommend Head Trip (http://headtripcomics.comicgenesis.com/d/20080915.html) Sure it's a comic, it's also completely accurate. A co-worker of mine read Breaking Dawn and we had a great conversation about how horrible it was. I can sum it up with one sentence: “You really shouldn't have read that (Breaking Dawn) so you could at least have remembered the other three books fondly.” And that's the truth. They're all crap, but in comparison to Breaking Dawn the rest is actually readable if not particularly enjoyable.

Side Note: Stephany Meyer is so offensive to my sensibilities that she makes me physically ill. I'm not talking about the Mormon crap. Well, wait, YES I AM! I read four books and not once was there a single obscenity. What the fuck? I'm sorry, was the main character just cornered by several drunken men who intended to rape and (hopefully) kill her? Yes, and her reaction was probably “Holy Crow.” At least the bitch didn't say “Holy Cow,” which is a total mockery of the Hindus and... that's another rant in an of itself. Later. I suppose “Holy Crow” mocks a pagan diety or the druids but I couldn't care less about the pagans or the wiccans. All of that aside, what really gets my goat is that the author has not read any other Vampire novels. None. She hasn't even read Stoker's Dracula. When someone told me this I didn't want to believe it although having read the books it doesn't surprise me at all. But I figured they had to be kidding me. How can you write about vampires and not have done some solid research and at least read Dracula? I can forgive not reading the more modern vampire books like all the Anne Rice shit but not reading Stoker? Come on. (http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20049578,00.html) There's the interview where she admitted she didn't read Dracula.

Although I suppose this explains why her “vampires” are so fucking stupid. Last I checked, in myth vampires were inhuman rape machines that drank blood. Even allowing for some of the shitty western conventions on Vampires that have changed over time and made the myths less interesting just throwing all the myths into the dust makes me alternatively sad and fucking PISSED! Oh, they don't die in the sunlight, they sparkle. I could cry. I really could. But can we talk about that for a minute? Please.

There are a whole bunch of myths about how vampires came to be, but the most common theme to my mind is “cursed by God Himself.” I like that. Cursed to become a soul-less beast what is literally a parasite, feeding on humans to survive. Unable to gain entrance to Heaven or Hell, forced to walk the earth until the end times. What kind of curse is it to fucking sparkle? What kind of God does this? Not mine! And unless I'm completely ass backwards essentially Meyer's “vampires” are immune to all the mythological ways to kill vampires... so why aren't they ruling humanity like gods amongst ants? Seriously, there is no answer here that fits. There is no way for humans to kill these vampires until the modern day (Nukes. They seem to be the only answer. Or 20mm Anti-material sniper rifles from several kilometers away so the vampire is completely unaware of the shot being fired and thus taken by surprise and unable to dodge.) And if we're honest if a “vampire” of her styling were to reveal itself in ancient times in all its sparkly goodness they would be worshiped as a God. Even with the blood sacrifice, it's not like that was uncommon in ancient times. It makes no sense and makes me angry.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this, DON'T READ TWILIGHT! Just don't do it. It's not worth the hours of your life... in fact it's not worth anything.


Oh, one last note, Meyer's The Host is actually worse than Twilight. It made me vomit in a mixture of loathing and disgust. I actually express pity to those who pick this book up and buy it when I'm checking them out. I'm not joking. I almost wanted to kill myself while reading the Host. Then I got to the last page and re-read The Black Company. In fact, after reading Meyer's first person crapfests I'm typically unable to read anything in the first person perspective for weeks. This even includes the Dresden Files.

Random Musing: Death

What if a doctor told you that you had some strange disease or maybe cancer and that you were going to die in say, three months, what would you do?

This came to me, like so many questions, as I lay in bed trying desperately to fall asleep. Now, I'm poor... I work in retail and live week to week. I can't quit my job and go on a three month bender. I'm pretty sure I'd want to but that's just not an option. Besides, I have a job to do. They hired me, I accept their paychecks, I'll be damned if I won't do my job to the best of my ability.

So what would I do? I'd do the professional fucking thing. Nothing. I'd go to work like usual, I'd come home and read too much, I'd play video games until like 3 am with people who annoy the shit out of me. Why would I do anything else? I think the only thing that would change is my smoking... basically I'd do it a lot more. Right about now I only smoke about one cigarette a day, just enough to give me a smoker's cough. If I only had three months to live and didn't have to worry about cancer? I'd kick my smoking into third gear, pack a day at least... so long as I can afford it.

That's the other part, my savings account? Fuck that. I have no future, I'm not going to retire. I'll spend money like it's going out of style, eat off the dollar menu so I can afford expensive scotch and new release movies, cds, games, what the fuck ever. If it's new and shiny and I've only got three months to enjoy new and shiny things then I want 'em!

But I'd still be professional at work. I'd still be cheerful to every customer, positive and happy to help. I wouldn't slack off or even tell my bosses or co-workers I was dying. Why should they care? I'd wait until the proverbial midnight hour before I told anyone and then I'd have as big a party as I could manage. Or at least a night out at some place with good food followed by many many hours of sitting around talking while I at least smoke. The only day I'd break from my typical professionalism is my last day, because it'd be wrong to not turn in my two week's notice. You can't just drop off the radar and stop showing up, that's not fair to your co-workers.

My last day? I'd want to have some fun. Come in dressed as normal, maybe with a tie because I want to go out in style. Then... put on my headset in one ear and my zune in the other. Loud. What if a customer has a question you ask, I hope they can out-yell Clawfinger. I think I'd hang out at the info desk (if you've been to Borders you know what I mean) with an ashtray in one hand and a cigarette in the other until security or (more likely) the police made me leave. Just relax, smoke, drink from a flask bought just for the occasion. I think it'd be a pretty fun day until the fines and the being escorted out part.

'cause you know I wouldn't die that day. I'd die in like half a week after the consequences of my last day at least started to catch up with me.