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.

My Deal With MMOs

Every now and then I'm forced to remember why I prefer the regular RPGs as opposed to these MMOs that most people basically live their lives through anymore. I'm not saying that they're particularly a bad thing but I am saying that the good intentions behind them have bred the breed of gamer I like to address as the fucktard population of gaming.

It basically starts out as a normal game, sometimes you can take things seriously because heck, you've put a lot of work into getting at something and someone else takes that one item that you've spent several hours [or days] on trying to obtain. I can understand the anger and frustration that lies behind some fucktard bullshitting you like that and I'm happy to say that's a normal reaction. but it's the people that DO it that need a lesson as well as an ass whupping because they've just meandered along and basically come to terms with it being ok to jack whatever they can when it best suits their needs. I'd really like to meet some of these dickish 12 year olds and show them what I really think of them with the proper application of force up their arse with an industrial strength steel rod to ensure that they'd have a hard time sitting for long periods of time and go out and get some exercise.

The next portion of these fucktards are the people that alienate their friends due to the idea that because they don't play the same MMO you do that you're not worth the time to even talk to. While your former friends are now better off without you, you suddenly have only your online guild to turn to in times of need and you'd better pray some live nearby in the event your house burns down because otherwise you're fucked. You may wonder where all your other friends have gone in that kind of situation but you have only yourself to blame. I'll pick on the World of Warcraft idiots because most of the ones I know will surf the online forums when they can't play and yammer on and on about their epic level Death Knight while those of us that don't play it are doomed to listen to your incessent babbling and pray that the gods will save us by having a semi-truck burst through the wall like the Kool Aide man and smish you like the annoying twat you are. If we've expressed that we don't play then it's most likely a good probability that we don't want to hear it. Fuck your Death Knight.

Also amongst the WoWtwats and the moronic 12 year olds we have the glitchers. Many MMOs have glitches and many of them aren't addressed. I'll take the example from Exteel where if you have a sword and you've jumped you can attack and if an opponent is close enough you close in automatically. The Bunny Hopping talentless n00bs have confused the term Dragooning with this which is wrong. Dragooning is done with a lance and you boost into the air much higher than just jumping, dropping down on your opponent. Dragooning takes skill, Bunny Hopping takes n00bs ... or nubs ... either one really since neither have any real skills other than cheap shots and button mashing.

Another problem with MMOs are bots, third party programs making use of a character and basically leveling it while you're AFK. While they never ever pick up drops they're annoying because anything mobs near them are fair game and can lead to kill stealing which can be annoying when you're trying to get x amount of mobs and the bastard keeps mowing them down before you get to them.

Lastly you have the player killers and these guys are dicks. Granted if I felt like I could get away with offing whoever I might try it once or twice but it'd never be an everyday occurance for me. In a PVP server it's expected but when I goto PVE servers I expect to be able to level in peace and not have to worry about PKers 50 levels higher than me running by and one hitting me in the middle of my training area. Fuck off and goto the PVP servers you wankers and leave me alone. If you can' deal with the hardcore PVPers then go play another game or level up and get better gear.

Testing, Testing, 1...2...3...

Most just throwing this post up to test out embedding videos. That and the fact that I love Zero Punctuation and Unskippable and I wish more crossover events could be this fulfilling.

Yelling From the Mountain Top: Smile for the camera

I decided to get some food while I was out and about today and since one of my errands took me to an area where the handiest thing was and Au Bon Pain so that is where I went. I asked for a steak sandwich and was directed over to a warmer to get a sandwich from there. Now I could go on for hours about how this is not quality, nor is this very good service, but hell it's a franchise what did I really expect (that's a whole different rant altogether). So I take my sandwich and proceed to eat it and I have to admit, for what it is it wasn't really bad, sure there was too much jalapeno for me to finish it let alone enjoy it after a few minutes, but it was palitable.

Now as I sat there eating my mediocre sandwich I am looking over the menu behind the counter and more specifically the pictures of the food and that got me thinking. Why are those pistures such good advertising. We all know that the food will never look that nice, after all the food in those ads is crafted by the exectutive chefs of the company and photgraphed by professionals. it's something I've never been able to get a really satisfactory answer for so it continues to bug me.