09.29.06

Of Straws, and the Dwindling Number Thereof

Posted in Gaming, Rants at 7:41 am

Alas, Joystiq, you had a good run. I’m not saying that Mr. Cole isn’t entitled to his opinion. I’m saying that his opinion– that Nintendo should go back to cardboard game boxes for the DS– is freaking stupid and wrong, and there was no reason for it to completely envelop the news story of a shortage of DS cases in Europe.

Games these days are a high-quality item. Nintendo has used the same form-factor box for Game Boy games since 1989– that’s a seventeen-year legacy continuing all the way to the GBA. However, it just isn’t going to work for the DS titles. First off, making a cardboard package that big that’s solely for a 32mm by 34mm card is very wasteful. The majority of gamers do not keep their GBA game boxes– once the game is opened, the box usualyl goes in the trash. And even if the game is traded in, the store won’t take the boxes and instructions, tossing THOSE in the trash as well. A cardboard box in this day and age is destined for the trash, where it may or may not be recycled.

I took a look at the DS cases that I have. I’ll admit, I did not see anywhere on them that said they were made from recycled material, and while that disappoints me, it won’t get me up in arms about it. The cases are actually a bit more beneficial because they are more likely to be kept and reused. Furthermore, the cases are generic– that is, all you need to do is replace a paper sleeve (which can be made from recycled paper) and swap in the card and manual, and there’s no difference; this makes them much, MUCH cheaper to produce en masse. More than anything, however, they’re competitive with the other current game packaging. A DS case looks nice in between DVD cases and even jewel cases; a GBA game case looks oddly out of place.

I’m all for the environment, and I use a very nice DS bag to carry my games, preferring to leave the cases on my shelf at home. But when I have more games than my bag can carry (a rare phenomenon, but it does happen), it’s nice to be able to put them away temporarily and know that they’re safe, and won’t get lost. In short: you can have my DS cases when you pry them from my sunburned, ozoneless, crispy-fried dead hands.

And before you ask, I said that I was upset not because of the article’s opinion, but because the focus of the article was the opinion and not the actual news. It might be a dry news day what with X06 ended, but that does not mean you are absolved from putting the news first and opinions second. For the record and my own satisfaction, here is how I would have presented the piece were I to take Mr. Cole’s position:

Nintendo Switches To Cardboard DS Cases In Europe
Citing a shortage of the plastic DVD-style cases in the Benelux (that’s Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg) region, Nintendo has temporarily begun shipping some of its first-party DS titles in cardboard boxes. This shortage isn’t expected to affect Japan or the US, whose DS game cases are made of a different material and are sized differently. The cardboard replacements include a note from NoE and an order form to obtain a replacement case once they are available.
Personally, I think that Nintendo should switch to the cardboard cases permanently. There’s never in history been a shortage of cardboard, and quite frankly it’s also better for the environment, as the paper’s more easily recycled than the plastic. It just seems silly to have such a bulky plastic case for something so small.

See? It gets the point across and isn’t sensational. Plus it more accurately reflects the real situation– the change is only in one section of Europe, and not all of the continent. And finally, it doesn’t bludgeon readers with the opinion first off. I’m half of the opinion that these recent articles are tests to recruit new writers for the site. Meh.

I won’t be able to run through Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for Unbelievers for quite some time. This is because I am too broke. I had to sell off way too many games for cash, San Andreas being one of them (it was more valuable than most of what I had left). Also, I did play some of it and I just can’t bring myself to mock it as much as I know I should. Believe it or not it does have an interesting and well-told story. Just not one I’m at all interested in playing through. And the final reason is that I really don’t want to get anyone truly mad at me. I mean, race is one of those things that sets people on edge, and the game is almost pervasive with remarks based on race. I hate that kind of thing. I don’t find racial humor funny in any form, and I know that I can’t say a single damn word about the game without someone somewhere saying, “He called me a WHAT?” even if I don’t actually use the word signified by “WHAT?”. So, someone else is welcome to do that. I’m really thinking I ought to re-focus Unbelievers into a blog mocking the “gaming press” and calling them to task for stunts like the last few Joystiq articles.

In any event. Almost done with the secret project. Wish me luck today and tomorrow, folks.

09.27.06

Deteriorata

Posted in Gaming, Rants, Writing at 8:43 am

Is it just me, or has Joystiq’s writing gone to hell lately? I mean, first there was the “rational gamers will spend more money on garbage they don’t want” article, then the “big non-news! stay up late with us for no reason!” thing, and now this “let’s troll the DDR players with the oldest god damned stereotype we can find” article. I have no problem, of course, with the fact that the writer doesn’t like DDR. I would, however, expect a professional blog (that’s not The Unbelievers) to not let him write an article about the newest DDR game if he hates them. Hell, he didn’t even write this one! He just copied-and-pasted a bunch of really lame trolls from the DDR Freak forums with the factually incorrect “it’s not all bad, you can lose weight, RedOctane says so!” false appeasement. Gah.

Yes, I fell hard for it. Can you blame me? When they stop being stupid I’ll stop complaining about it. Matter of fact, to pad the content on Unbelievers I might start snapping back at “the media” just because, hell, there’s nothing else going on there.

09.25.06

Shifting And Settling

Posted in City of Heroes/Villains, Gaming, Site News, Writing at 9:03 am

Hey, folks. I’m at the “run my mouth off way too much” phase of the project that’s been keeping me so incredibly busy, but I still don’t want to announce it here. I’ve been going ahead with small little bits in other places that people know me frequent, so it’s sort of an “open secret”, if you will, but as soon as I get the OK, I’ll let you all know.

In any event, let’s talk about some interesting things, shall we? Interesting things interest both me and you, so they are worth talking about. Mac Hall is “moving to the next phase”, which is really just some weird codephrase for “Ian got a real job and doesn’t have time to draw anymore, so the partnership is breaking up and who knows what they’re going to do”. I’ll admit, a month between updates is a bit excessive, but hey. It’s not like I’ll get too broken up about it. Just as long as they sell the books, I’ll be happy. Still, I wish them both the best of luck, and I’ll likely be keeping them on the links list, at least until the “next phase” shows itself. Speaking of webcomics, I got the strange urge last night to go take a look to see if Jackie’s Fridge had ever updated. Short answer: no. I read through the archives, though, and got a few more laughs out of it.

I’d played Lunar Knights for about ten minutes back in May, and wasn’t terribly impressed; I mean, it’s a solid game and all, but wasn’t anything that really shone. Apparently, that’s on purpose. I knew it was tangentially related to the Boktai series, but had little knowledge of just how.

So, next-gen systems. It’s no real secret that my tastes are running along the lines of the so-called “Wii60″ combination. The biggest news out of the Tokyo Game Show for me, then, was that Trusty Bell: Chopin’s Dream was going to get a US release. Joystiq reports that the game is similar to Xenosaga, which leads me to believe that Namco Bandai politely requested the engine be retooled for such an endeavor. I don’t really have that much of a problem with Xenosaga’s combat system, aside from the fact that it’s got a WAY too steep difficulty curve. Incidentally, to the classical music fans in my audience (all three of you), the soundtrack has probably been in stores for a while now. My best guess, for about 150-some years.

I can’t think of a good way to transition to the next topic, which really doesn’t matter as I don’t actually do that in my writing. So.

I have a job interview today, and I have to pester a few other people for updates and information. I also, in a very rare show of me being overly generous with my time estimates, am very nearly done with most of the work for the project. So, yeah. Not much going on today aside from those two things. To unwind yesterday, I played some City of Heroes, and am now just mere inches away from level 47. Once I hit 50, folks, I will stop whining about it. I mean it. That might happen this week, if all goes well. We shall see; depends on if I decide to just blaze through Warburg or actually concentrate on finishing some of the Praetorian arc.

I kinda lost steam with this entry, so I’m off to hopefully JOB GET. If I can prevent myself from spouting off random 4chan memes during the interview, that is.

09.18.06

Today on NPR: The “Why?” Data

Posted in Gaming, Rants at 12:14 pm

So, as I may have mentioned, I’m currently playing through Xenosaga III. During the course of the first disc, much of the backstory revolving around the Miltian Conflict and supposed madman Joachim Mizrahi has been established. The name “Mizrahi” has always been somewhat suspect to me, since the first time I started up Episode I way, WAY back in 2002. However, I’d just finally managed to divorce the name from its real-world connotations during this most recent run-through.

So naturally, this week on NPR’s “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me”, the celebrity guest for “Not My Job” was fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi. And even though Joachim’s voice actor is completely different from Isaac’s (almost stereotypical fashion-designer) voice, I still could not get away from wondering why the man who built the Song of Nephilim not only was talking about skirts and clothing, but was sounding flamingly gay while doing so. And I mean that in the actual man-sex sense, not the disparaging sense.

Lose one problem, gain the opposite. My bain seriously frightens me sometimes.

09.15.06

All Things Inequal

Posted in Gaming, Rants, Writing at 6:13 pm

Taking a quick break from the site work, I came across the lovely little spat between former best buds Joystiq and Penny Arcade. I’ve been slowly growing far more irritated with the “blogging” style of news reporting, where apparently common sense and rational thought have no place in favor of inciting fury and flames. The whole deal is currently centered around this editorial. The central point of the piece is as follows:

All else equal, shouldn’t a rational consumer choose the console with the largest built-in subsidy?

I don’t know about you, but I’m a gamer. I consider myself to be marginally “hardcore”. But the fact of the matter is that when you are dealing with video game consoles, you can never, never use the phrase “all else being equal” because “all else” will never be “equal”.

A gamer doesn’t care about subsidies or profit margins. The only time that a gamer even thinks about this sort of thing is when the item in question is priced higher than its perceived value. The fury is apparently that Nintendo is daring to price the Wii at $250 and is going to be making money on all of their systems. Heaven forbid! A company can’t be allowed to make money, that’s just wrong!

And lest you think I’m being a Nintendo fanboy here, let me explain this. I am seriously considering buying an Xbox 360 (in addition to the Wii) here, a year after launch, after they must undoubtedly be making money on the machines. I’m even considering the full system and not the crippled core system. Why?

Because cheap crap is still crap.

Most gamers will go buy the system that they feel is the best value for the dollar; they won’t buy a system they don’t like or don’t want just because it’s $XX cheaper, because they don’t freaking want it. Thus, even though it has a lower price than the higher-priced system, it has a lower perceived value. How value is computed depends entirely on the gamer’s perception of what that particular system has to offer. In other words, value is entirely subjective. It can’t be separated from the price. There’s no point in saying “if all else is equal” because if all else truly was equal, the systems would be priced identically and this whole stupid problem would not arise. Manufacturing and marketing costs drive up the price point of a system, and a company can choose to lower the price point by gambling that game sales will make up for the “subsidy”. These subsidies are really nothing more than loans taken out against the software sales revenues.

Just because a company can lower their price point doesn’t mean they have to. It may be customary, but there’s also the perceived value to take into account. I’m learning an interesting lesson during my job search: there is such a thing as pricing too low. I have to play a dangerous game when people ask me for my salary requirements, because if I go too high, I’ll be considered not enough value for the money (there’s that “V” word again!); but if I price myself too low, the employer immediately becomes suspicious, saying “what’s wrong with him that he has to undercut himself to make us look at him?” If the price is too low, the perceived value can take a major hit. If Console X is priced too low, the consumer looks at it and thinks, “What’s wrong with it, why should I buy it when this other system is probably much more powerful because it’s more expensive?” No, it’s not a rational thought.

But gamers seldom emply rational thought when it comes to games. Thus, we have fanboys.

It is literally impossible to separate the human element from an evaluation of anything. Not only do you have the critic’s prejudices and perceptions to take into account, but that reviewer has taken into account the general prejudices and preconceptions when writing his own work. True objectivity may be damn near impossible, but folks have shown that they can come really close. Just look at the old news reporters we all claim to be the “best”. The fact of the matter is, all things are never equal.

Now, I’ve said that, and it is a defense of Nintendo. Let me say this again: I know I’m a bit of a fanboy when it comes to Nintendo. But the thing is, to me, the perceived value is there in both the Wii and the 360. The Wii has a control scheme I like, games I’m interested in playing, and interoperability with tech that I already own. The 360 has games that I’m interested in playing, the XBLA system (and the Live framework and opponent base that go with it), and graphics and storage capability that make it attractive to me. Both systems are priced at a point that I think is fair and “worth it”. Would I be happier if they were lower? Yeah, who wouldn’t; but if they’re priced too low, then I would be suspicious of the quality of the devices. The PS3 has only two games I’m interested in at this point, is (in my opinion) less visually impressive than the other machines, and has the added “bonus” of Blu-Ray which I don’t want or need now. The fact that those two games I’m interested in are FF 13 and MGS 4 adds a significant amount of perceived value to the machine; but the lack of impression that the graphics have made, coupled with the clunky addition of Blu-Ray (which I consider to be useless and stupid right now– and yes, I’ve seen it, and no, I couldn’t tell a difference between that and an ordinary DVD running on a high-end HDTV) decreases the perceived value too much to be congruous with the price tag.

Those are my reasons. I don’t expect them to convince anyone else, and they’re not intended to; in fact, the only thing I really wanted to convince my readers (all two dozen of you) of is that the Joystiq editorial is predicated on an incredible logical flaw. I’m stating them just to say that I’m making the decision not out of mere fanboyism, or out of a hatred of Sony. If I was being a fanboy, I’d be getting the PS3 just for Final Fantasy (like I did with the PS2). If I was hating on Sony, I’d have trashed my PS2 (and likely taken pictures), and I wouldn’t be looking forward to a few big-name PS2 titles. I’m choosing the systems I have chosen because to me, working from my set of biases and preferences, those two decisions are rational. From the perspective of a non-gamer, it’s still completely irrational.

But, like I said, gamers aren’t entirely rational to begin with; that’s why we buy high-priced toys.

It’s slightly insulting to be called “irrational” by a fellow gamer just because I like a different system. Not out of a sense of being a fanboy, but because quite frankly it’s like walking up to me and shouting, “Hey you! You’re a white guy! HEY!! WE GOT A WHITE KID HERE!!” It’s obvious. It’s rude. And it’s more than a little uncalled for.

My basic point is, people really need to learn to keep their preferences to themselves in certain matters. I used to say that politics, race, and religion are the three big areas where I just won’t say anything because I don’t want to start any trouble. I may have to add gaming to that list, simply because I’m starting to get the feeling I’ll be lynched if I go to pre-order a Wii.

It’s just games, folks. Let people play what they want in peace, and we’ll let you play in peace. That’s not to say that you can’t have an opinion and express it. Just be prepared to take the backlash when you sound like an idiot.

09.07.06

Why I Like The Browns

Posted in Rants at 11:28 pm

OK, kind of related to the Volkswagen commercials from a few posts ago. DirecTV has a campaign where they take familiar or famous settings– such as a scene from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, to cite one tame example– and cut in a pitch for the satellite service.

I don’t know about you, but Bill Cowher, head coach of the Steelers, scares the hell out of me. So having him encourage folks to consider the NFL Sunday Ticket is far more than a little counterproductive. On the plus side, I’m buying a lot more toilet paper these days.

09.04.06

Ready…. Aim…

Posted in Gaming, World of Warcraft, Writing at 9:38 pm

Finished up my current project for Unbelievers just a few minutes ago. I’m waiting to hear back from my counterpoint person to post it; but the verdict in a nutshell is that WoW could be fun if I knew more people. So, sionce I’ve reconnected with the Erie folks who are playing, I’m going to re-start on their server and enjoy myself a bit more. It could be fun but it takes a little work to get to the fun.

I also added the XFire thingy above. I play a lot of PC games lately, more than console games, but that’s partly because I have a decent gaming PC now. (To say nothing of my snazzy desk… man, I am still proud of it even after all weekend.) As of right now it shows… no games played. This may have something to do with the fact that I only installed it after I finished my CoH session for the night. I am, however, going to get on WoW and set up a character on the Erie crew’s server. But that’s it.

My next project for Unbelievers is sure to make Jack Thompson cream his shorts. That’s right, I’m opening fire on Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The game’s in my media rack right now, untouched since I picked it up; I’m taking a week or so off from writing, before I start a new project. Oh yeah, and to finish my run through Star Fox Command for the ‘Jak. Short story on that one is that it could have been good if Nintendo hadn’t screwed up the controls.

Finally, in a wonderful act of procrastination, I went to see Crank this afternoon. I liked it– it was a decent enough “kill stuff” flick, and the plot was just flimsy enough to be relevant yet enjoyable. The gags flowed freely, and I really liked some of the more subtle ones, like the elevator guy’s subtitles, and “do I look like I have c*** written all over my forehead?” when in fact that word did appear on his head for that sentence. It looked and felt a lot like, well, a session of Grand Theft Auto. Which is always good for visceral thrills.

Incidentally, that Coke commercial starring a clone of “the GTA guy” still is damn disturbing to watch.

Good night, all. Hopefully there will be very good news this week.

09.03.06

Capitulations A Plenty

Posted in Rants at 11:45 am

Hey, remember that big stink about Time Warner and the NFL Network? Remember how today was the cutoff date? Well, apparently there’s some progress being made, as the message channel now says “effective September 15th” as opposed to “effective September 3rd”.

Anybody else get the feeling that we have always been at war with our hated enemies, the NFL Network?

09.01.06

Just An Experiment…

Posted in Gaming, Site News at 6:57 pm

I’m trying something new with the WordPress software– uploading a pic along with the post. This picture, of course, is my current desk. Not my desktop image– which would be cool– but my desk. I cleaned it off today, a little anyway, but the big reason is to show off the side panels I installed. (EDIT: Didn’t work. Hold on, let me try something else… All right. I’ll have to think of something to make that easier…)

Basically, the keyboard tray on the desk was fine before I’d acquired the positively massive G15. Plus, well, my love affair with specialized button boxes (the Nostromo pad and the Wolf King half-keyboard) meant there just wasn’t enough room. I had intended to install another sliding component, but the fact of the matter is that that would have been even more cramped. My next idea was just to double the width of the tray by creating a fold-out panel to the right. I then noticed that this would cause trouble by not only blocking off the right-hand shelves of the desk more than I eventually did, but the length of wood I brought home would actually require me to move the desk over by another six inches to avoid striking the wall. I was less than thrilled by that prospect, so I figured the next best thing would be to just extend it a little on either side. Now, I have a perfectly-wide control center for my computer. I just need a flat-panel monitor and I’ll be all set. It may not look pretty, but it’s functional. And really, that’s what it’s all about.

The Pikachu is on the desk mostly to creep me out. It doesn’t work, since after about ten seconds of staring into his dead, glazed eyes– eyes which have seen the horror of a thousand worlds; eyes which know the fear latent in the dark hearts of all mankind, a fear which lays in check by a thin framework of delusion and religion in varying degrees according to each wretch– I get this uncontrollable urge to grab him and give him the mother of all hugs. Is it childish? You betcha. Does it make me feel better? Brothers and sisters, you have no idea how much it helps me. In fact, I’m doin’ it right now.

[long, deep, satisfied sigh of complete peace]

Anyway, that’s all for now. With any luck, this will work. Incidentally, things are looking up in regards to the job hunt– but I can’t say why just yet. Needless to say, next week should bring me some good news and possibly a very hard decision to make. Wish me luck, folks.