Well, I’m getting ready to go to South Korea and I must say that there’s certainly an unprecedented amount of insanity involved in that. However, since that’s personal and this is supposed to be a game blog, let’s blog about games.

The only games I’ve been keeping track of as of late are pretty much the MMO, specifically WoW. So let’s discuss that for a bit. First off: WoW is in dire straits. Gamasutra recently posted an article on Vivendi Universal’s Blizzard losing money (sales are down 11% despite gaining 1.8 million new customers–how that happens is beyond me) and this serves as a cushion to the new but uninteresting ways that Blizzard is attempting to get people playing their games again. Unfortunately, short of the expansion release, they’re not going to get that sales bump they desperately need. The game’s old and even the veteran players are starting to realize it, particularly with the backwards thinking that still continues to occur with the game’s development.

Big changes at this point are always insubstantial, not enough, weak, what have you. The basic reality is that World of Warcraft very much needs a huge image boost, because after the rather disappointing game itself in Burning Crusade (while the “pieces” of Naxxramas were perhaps somewhat too complicated, they were exactly what that audience wanted in vanilla WoW), the game aspect, the entertainment is gone. The main world feels abandoned, players don’t feel a part of the game and those who continue attempt to weakly salvage it with ideas that could potentially dig it out of its grave, are either shutdown or become shells of that good original idea.

Blizzard, if you hear nothing else, hear this. Wrath of the Lich King is your last chance and big changes are the only way you will keep your subscriber base. Keep satisfying them with more big changes and you might even keep them.

First, some silly things that every class really needs to have/lose. Firstly Blizzard, can we lose the reagent costs for spells? These are really just silly things put in to annoy us, seemingly. The motto of Blizzard as of late has been all about making classes “more efficient” at what they do, and yet these annoying reagent costs have somehow managed to last into forever with this game. Let’s remove some of the following. Why? Because they’re just annoying.
Arrow costs–This is just silly. Yes it gives a buff to Hunter DPS. Who cares. Thoridal basically throws any good argument available out the window for “buying” arrows. Hunters have gone long enough with a lost bag space because of this, and it really doesn’t make sense with the current state of the game.
Arcane Powder, Symbols of Kings, etc. Again, silly reagent costs. They fill up bag space needlessly and are just a nuisance. There’s no reason to continue to have these anymore as they’re not significant in any way.
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Chrono Cross is craptastic. Nothing will make it not craptastic. If you look at it separately, it’s basically just fucking nuts and when you place it in the context of other Square stuff like Final Fantasy 8, it gets even more fucking nuts. Speaking of which, what the hell was the deal with multiple dimensions in jRPGs that became so popular for that brief period? I really want to know. As for Square, I haven’t really played anything by them since the PS2 era that I’d say is really in the “great” category of games. Whether or not the games are original is kinda irrelevant on that point, but I never accused them of making non-original games, so.

The last thing I’ve bought by Square Enix (i.e. haven’t downloaded to play) was Valkyrie Profile 2, and that’s mostly rabid fanboyism of the series. Unfortunately Valkyrie Profile 2 was so terrible that it’s unlikely that I’ll even try the third in the series, despite it having my favorite character, Hrist, as the main character.

I’ve played a lot of Square’s other games, and most of their games feel more like they’re just the same idea recycled from games they had released in the SNES era polished until you’re blinded with hip-pop graphics and MONSTROUS grind. Hell, the only redeeming factor is that they’ve got Amano still working on their team and even he only does promotional work anymore. Uematsu’s music has become rather poor compared to his older works, so to be honest I don’t really see a lot coming out of the company other than games like Chrono Trigger DS which fragrantly milks an intellectual property and will probably end up milking said property poorly.

Just started watching Jigoku Shoujo (a.k.a. Hell Girl). Art and music direction are great, I need to find more stuff by these guys. The stories are haunting and from what I’ve seen so far seem to repeat themselves, it’s more of a situational horror show. I’m really enjoying it though, the series itself is already making me mull the whole idea of “justice” in my head quite a bit. Not to mention the meaning of life/death and what’s worth it/not worth it. Lots of that too actually, the side by side comparisons of stuff like good/evil. I particularly like how peaceful Jigoku Shoujo seems despite being a shinigami. Lots of references to heaven and hell so if you’re really tied to a religious affiliation, this might not be the show for you, particularly since it seems to take from many different mythologies, Shinto and Grecian mythology in particular being popular.

I will keep watching this more tomorrow. Good stuff though, I’d recommend it already and haven’t even seen the whole thing. Though if these first episodes are any indication, I’m looking forward to the rest of the series.
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I consider Code Geass and Gundam 00 to be rather poor examples of anime. They seem to go back to the Neon Genesis Evangelion idea (whiny character is whiny) and turn that up until you’re deaf. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann on the other hand is much more about the entire idea of a mecha anime being a roller coaster ride. One of those “you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you might even be thrown for a loop” type series. While I’ve been watching Geass in the hopes that it will get better/interesting, I don’t think I’ll give Gundam 00 the time of day for the second season. Just the fact that all the characters end up dead and yet there’s a second season, it’s like telling you to grasp at straws after they’ve taken all the straws away. So while it might be a matter of taste, I think that if you really consider Geass or Gundam 00 to be better than Gurren Lagann, you simply haven’t watched Gurren Lagann. The difference in quality is that much.

I watched some of the Gundam series only after the urging of some of my friends, and to be honest I’m not really that impressed by it. I do really want to know where the fanboyism came from for mecha, because it’s really nowhere near the best anime out there. If you really want a “political” series, watch something like Lain or Ergo Proxy; you’ll get both your sci-fi and political brain twinked a bit. If you’re really out there, you can also watch pretty much any of the Ghost in the Shell series or Satoshi Kon’s works. Gundam is also a repeat of itself, which is the other reason I’m amazed mecha has maintained popularity as long as it has. The same lesson is basically shown ad nauseam. The characters are all cardboard cutouts of either earlier characters or common archetypes. It’s really kind of soul-sucking to watch a series that is based upon such mind-numbingly droll idea.  Particularly that anyone will actually care or that things will change if the same “war is bad” “people are bad” message is repeated. People are already aware of this fact!  There’s no need to create entire series based on a simple concept that is poorly executed!  Erich Maria Remarque these writers are not.

Well, I know that it’s pompous, but I don’t really find any of the new systems terribly exceptional. None of them have released anything I’ve been really interested in (even Metal Gear Solid 4, after watching it–or maybe thinking about it–seemed drab). I’ve certainly saved a lot of money by taking this attitude, and seeing things the way they are, I’m afraid that’s how it will have to stay. I found myself playing some of those Wii games with some friends the other day, and while it was enjoyable, it certainly wasn’t any different than playing the game on any of the systems past.

What games are lacking isn’t really corporate humbleness, it’s more that the games have taken this sort of downhill slide from being obvious but practical (stuff like Doom comes to mind) into Call of Duty or Metal Gear Solid 4, which seems to be an attempt to give reason to something that, for all basic purposes, doesn’t really have a lot of reason (war, famine, strife, etc). Then of course, the things that really do have reason are summarily ignored by game creators (idealism, chivalry, hope, etc). Game developers seem, quite literally in their games, ambivalent about their own portrayal of games. Maybe what makes that worse is that the public at large has accepted that amibvalence. Games have become a soapbox for the wrong things perhaps or the soapbox is shouting the wrong message. Anymore, I’m not really sure which one because I very seldomly get to play new games, excepting the few times I do end up at a friend’s house. Previous to just recently even, I was fairly ambivalent myself, simply sighing all the time at World of Warcraft, despite the knowledge that the game is a system incorporated to do one thing only really, and do it well: make money. I think the difference between this fact now and then is that more people are aware of the fact now versus then. Progress comes with risk, but companies wanting to make money don’t take risks.

So instead we have “Kojima Sony,” “Wii Miyamoto,” and “Halo 360.” None of them really gets the big picture anymore. With that, they’ve basically become mainstream entertainment media. From my perspective, this is a bad thing, but it’s hard to say what the companies themselves think of that reality. From their spending habits though, they seem quite happy to be making games with production budgets bigger than many mainstream movies. Then again, this has probably been a reality since the existence of the “indie developer,” and the systems themselves are really only the realization of that separation between what is largely considered “good” and what splinter groups in terms of ideology would consider “good.”

To me, something is art when it has a distinctive culture. Videogames have that. They’ve etched out a niche that has undeniably influenced our world. Essentially, I’d define art as something that creates real change, and videogames, in particular the good ones (as well as, ironically enough, some of the bad ones) have done just that.

You look at Van Gogh, or Bach, or Tesla, they were artists because what they made created change. In the same sense, we now have companies that attempt to do this as well. Companies like Squaresoft forever changed what it meant make an RPG on a console or a PC, and later Blizzard would change what it meant for the MMORPG on PC (and these changes have become such common knowledge that I need not even tell you that they exist, they are now part of a collective unconscious about the knowledge that has accumulated about games). Perhaps they are not as memorable simply because of the fact that a game is a conglomeration of many works, all of which might be considered art, but the company itself then, has become the new artist of our century.

A rather strange revelation has occurred to me.

I play games like FF12 to watch their cinematics play out, not to go on hunts (and I’ve not been terribly interested in the series since FFVI to be honest). The game’s not terribly interesting to me, simply because I’m not terribly interested in programming my characters to fight. So instead, I try to find interest in the characters and their problems, and attempt to find some semblance of interest in their story(ies).

I found the Dress Spheres of X-2 far more interesting from a gameplay perspective than programming my characters to fight in XII and then just watching them (granted, the fact that the X-2 plot revolves around spheres is retarded, but that’s a different can of worms). I do not see a character as something to be programmed, but to be played or interacted with. The very fact that the characters can perform these “gambits” with robot-like precision makes them even worse.

http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/

I was rather disappointed by the gameplay. Sure it LOOKS/SOUNDS great, but it doesn’t seem like the gameplay itself is all that interesting. In fact it seems like they’re cloning WoW.

“Look, a Witch Doctor! He can fear!”

/sigh

Blizzard North, come back to us…

I swear to god if they don’t have Assassins though, I’m not even going to bother picking it up.

Ultimately, it will be just like all the other Diablo games in the series. That’s just what is ultimately disappointing about it as well.

http://blizzard.com

It would be great if it’s just something that’s totally out of left field.

Blizzard is proud to announce that it won’t be releasing a new game!

And people just stare in amazement. While I laugh my ass off.