Top Games of 2011… For me, most likely not for you :P

This last year has been excellent for games–a jaw-dropping list of AAA titles (only one of which appears on this list, hahah) padded by plenty of wonderful indie surprises. Unfortunately, I spent this year catching up on other gems I hadn’t played yet, and I haven’t gotten around to even half of the games I’ve wanted to play from this year. But from what I did get to play, I recapped my favorites below.

Leave your comments of agreement or disgruntlement below! Now in no particular order….

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Catherine
More often than not, Atlus will publish a Japanese game that makes me go, “Aw, guys, you shouldn’t have… You made this just for me?” Catherine was no exception, and, personally, I quickly found it to be quintessentially my perfect game: An insane plot that questions free will and choices; crazy characters backed by excellent voice acting and brought to life by nicely animated anime cut scenes; and a dash of dating sim spliced in with a heap of unforgiving puzzles. I’ve long been a fan of Atlus and was so happy to see them have such success with releasing this. “A” to the triple plus, Atlus.

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JS Joust
Johann Sebastian Joust, a.k.a., the only reason I want a Move controller.

I love peoples’ reaction to this game. They sheepishly wander over to the Mac that Joust is running on, attracted by the music, multicolored lights of the Move controllers, and well, the large group of players who are trying to smack each other around. After going through the 30-second how-do-I-play rigamarole, they’re in on the game, too, and always come away with glowing things to say about it.

Trying to knock over your opponent’s Move controller while having your very movements limited by the pacing of the music is simple, fun and exhilirating.

Joust also wins my GOTY for best graphics, as they’re the most realistic I’ve ever seen in a game because the graphics are me. Playing videogames without screens is great. I played an alpha build of Joust  (thanks to Venus Patrol and Doug Wilson!) with IGDA DC, and I really hope it makes strides toward commercialization in the new year.

NOTE: Joust has been around for a while, but I just started playing Die Gute Fabrik’s titles this year, and, guys, this is die gute stuff. Big time. Which is why I have two of their games on my list.  :D

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Where is My Heart
Just when I thought I was setting my PSP down for the year, @treyher tweeted a glowing mini-review of Where is my Heart. I had enjoyed Joust a lot, so I had plenty of faith that this PSN Mini would be a good experience. Plus, it looked so darned cute!

The mindbendery and forethought required to navigate safely through puzzle-platforming is insane. Which is to say, I often did not navigate safely through most of the levels on my first play-through.

while the three main characters don’t speak, I found them incredibly endearing. I wondered what their unique abilities meant, and why Orange kept crying, both randomly and when the other two characters perish. This  story on Giant Bomb sums it up nicely though.

It’s the pinnacle of interweaving personal experience into gameplay. I’m not even a game designer, but I can’t help but be envious of Die Gute Fabrik’s ability to so cleanly execute this style of storytelling. More, plz!

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Ruins
I really enjoy Cardboard Computer‘s takes on visual novels. Ruins is a sad short story that unfolds in a sparse, foggy dreamscape. At an unhurried pace, it unfurls peculiar prose and presents a couple of dialogue options at the end of each part. Your choices affect which information will be revealed to you, so Ruins will take three or four playthroughs if you want the full plot. Although Ruins primarily confronts themes like loneliness and loss, I find playing it cathartic and comforting.

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Sworcery
I love the lunatic rhythms of the loquacious language used in this dark, Zelda-like adventure game. If you missed it, you have to go download it now. Required gaming, people. Get. It.

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Skyward Sword
I haven’t finished it yet, but it’s far and away a favorite for this year. After being disenchanted with Twilight Princess and feeling ho-hum about the recent handheld iterations, Skyward Sword has rekindled my fangirl love for this series. The Ancient Cistern, my favorite Zelda dungeon in a long time, alone is reason enough for made to believe in the series again. It’s classic console Zelda gameplay.

The precision waggle controls are great, too (provided you recalibrate when necessary, but that’s very easy to do, even mid-fight). I don’t stand often when playing console games, but when I play Skyward Sword, I spend at least three-quarters of the time on my feet. I bet it’s hilarious to watch me play, too, because I find I end up shuffling left and right in particularly intense fights. If this isn’t Miyamoto’s magnum opus, I don’t know what would be.

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So that’s it! I’ve gotten to scratch the surface on Skyrim this month, and Uncharted 3 and the SotC/ICO Collection are first on my list for 2012. Happy New Year, everyone! :D

Onward and Upward: First Impressions of Skyward Sword

[Minor spoilers throughout. Don't highlight the text if you want to avoid them. If you've made it to the first dungeon/temple you should be fine.]

Before I go hurtling into a Thanksgiving “no-work” zone, I wrote up this quick post on what I like about Skyward Sword so far. Because I do like it. A lot. Not sure if I’d say love yet because I just arrived at the first temple after a good amount of sidequesting and exploring and still have a long way to go. I know I probably should focus on plowing through the main quest (especially since I’ve promised to trade this game for ICO/SotC and/or Uncharted 3 when I finish this!), but I’ve always really enjoyed the nook-and-cranny exploration and the high risk of investing lots of time but high reward side questing the Zelda series usually offers.

I gotta complement Skyward Sword’s colorful, dreamy photorealistic style, first. I’m always happy to see a console Zelda game that opts for a more interesting and distinctive graphics rather than realistic. (I honestly don’t think it could compete with the “realistic”-ness that Skyrim presents, for example. It’d probably try and it would just be a little sad.) I don’t think this is a popular opinion about Zelda series graphics, but I stick to it.

The addition of the Shadow of the Colossus-like stamina gauge seems like a neat idea, although I haven’t been in enough of a pinch or tough enough battle to push it to it’s limit while under pressure. You have to press A to dash, but you jump across gaps automatically. Although to be completely honest, I think I like the gauge because it reminds me of Shadow of the Colossus. Every time it pops up and I’m climbing up some vines, I can’t help but think of SotC.

Baller.

Skyward Sword Gives Link Wiiiings
Flying is really fun. Falling Mission Impossible-style through the skies equally so. The controls for Link’s Loftwing, or the ginormous bird he flies around on in Skyward Sword, are super easy to pick up and respond well to Wiimote tilting and waggling. I have the sneaking suspicion that sailing in Wind Waker was supposed to be exhilarating like this, and while I enjoyed the unhurried pace of sailing around on the high seas, I know some people who within a whisper of Wind Waker, are already complaining about that mode of transportation.

That’s not to say this faster-paced form of transversing the world map is without it’s laggy moments. I’ve only done a couple dives, but there’s been a few descents where I can’t help put wonder, “am I there yet?” or “can’t I plummet any faster?” while I circle the beacon that’s piercing through the clouds. I suspect I’ll learn to fly lower and have less of a fall.

I’ve also aimed for some mini-islands that skirt the edges of the Skyloft, only to find that I can’t land on them–I get relocated to a more central location in the area. Another thing I find kind of strange (but attribute to the restrictions that seem to come with programming a working game) is that you can only mount your Loftwing (laymen’s terms: bird) by jumping off a specific dock. Even if you jump off a nearby cliff and try to immediately summon your Loftwing, then you get scooped up Mario Kart-style a Skyloft knight, who places you back on the island and admonishes you for being careless.

Still, tip of the hat to the Skyward Sword team on implementing flying—I sometimes feel like I’ve fallen into the final scenes of How to Train Your Dragon.

It’s Getting Hot in Here
Uh, guys, is it just me, or did Zelda dialogue suddenly get flirtier? Of course, there’s Link’s plot device of a slimeball archnemesis who just wants to steal Zelda away from Link and get some alone time with her, but there’s at least a couple of NPCs I’ve ran into who, well, talk about love, romance, courtship or who’s trying to get after who. And I’m not even at the first dungeon yet!

While you start to notice a little of this in the first scenes that take place on Skyloft, the very next little island I find has a bar, the Lumpy Pumpkin, where a customer complaining about the stories an old man there is spouting off about a demon. The customer says the man is trying to impress the cute barmaid with his boasting, but the stories will probably just creep the girl out.

Also, I haven’t gotten to this point yet, but the Internet dug up this suggestive screenshot.

Yowza.

Granted, this isn’t a *huge* deal, but it’s a noticeable change. Actually, it’s kind of refreshing to see Zelda NPCs acting like, well, sort of normal people. I dig it. Minor spoiler: Zelda has a big-time crush on Link in Skyward Sword. The first handful of scenes definitely do not let you forget!

Damsel in Imma Kick Yo’ Ass Mode
It’s true. Zelda is in trouble in Skyward Sword, and Link does have to save her. And while Zelda does exhibit the sometimes painfully overemphasized feminine trait of being a motherly worrywart, she can throw down when she needs to. Whether it’s bossing around village bullies or saving Link (!), Zelda is portrayed as a capable human being, sans Sheik alter ego. (Minor spoiler: Apparently, she’s journeying ahead of Link! A female in distress that’s paving the adventure trail ahead of the male protagonist?! Unheard of. Excited to see where this leads..

Madoka Magica: Video Game Roundup

Cover art for the doujin/fan-made Madoka Magica game.

Even if I love an anime franchise to death, I usually avoid its game spin-offs like the plague. (This probably because these games are traditionally subpar with some exceptions, such as Naruto’s well-received brawling series and a handful of others.) For me, it’s often a combination of clunky gameplay mechanics with losing what I loved about the series in translating it from its original medium. Their reviews are perpetually tarnished with “Might be good for fans, but there’s still problems x, y and z.” After many generations of so-so spin-offs, I often just gloss over announcements of upcoming anime-based games.

Until the Mahou Shojo Madoka Magica PSP game was announced for March 15 in Japan [oy vey, has that already been two months ago?], causing my hype gears to shift from apathetic to GIMME MADOKA GAMES. As the series’ officially licensed game, developed by Namco-Bandai Games and Nitroplus, it soon began singing its expensive siren song to my wallet.

The Madoka Magica anime make me believe that it could produce some really excellent game spin-offs. Some of this blind optimism could be because the series itself caught me off-guard: Earlier this year, I had already pigeon-holed it as another stereotypical magical girl anime, all about frilly pink justice and friendship, until I found three episodes in that it’s actually Fullmetal Alchemist in magical girl clothing—a distopian take on traditional magical girl tropes where nothing is as it initially seems. Everyone has their own subversive motives and the plot twists are delightfully unpredictable. I have a lot of affection for this series pulling off so many surprises and am eager to see what other spin-offs it might yield.

However, with Siliconera reporting that this title will be a dungeon-crawler where “you have to pay attention to the distance between your character and the enemies,”  my hopes for it have dimmed a little bit. Most of the thrill in watching Madoka Magica comes from the fast-paced, fight-to-the-death battle scenes, where survival depends on dodging attacks, running like a maniac and thinking on your feet—not standing in a square on a grid and carefully deliberating your next sequence of attacks. (Again, see below, as Grief Syndrome captures this especially well.)

Cover art for the official Madoka Magica game.

Madoka Magica has mechanics that are promising for JRPG gameplay: The series clearly outlines each magical girl’s strengths, weaknesses, special powers and weapon of choice, ripe for turning into combat-based statistics; the plot is compelling, heart-wrenching and conducive to multiple endings; and the series’ occurrences is neatly divided into a Persona-style split—going to school and socializing with classmates by day and, by night, fighting in hidden netherworlds chock-full of minions and crowned with a show-stopping boss. From what Siliconera reports, it seems the official game will be incorporating a lot of these aspects. I’m just not sold on turn- and grid-based battles being the crux of witch-hunting gameplay.

While a turn-based dungeon crawler is a surprising choice for the official game, fan-based Madoka Magica creations sprawl across other unexpected genres. There’s the sensible translation of an action platformer, but there’s some far-out Flash-based versions that extend from real-time strategy to rhythm. These fan-made tributes (and the one Bandai-Namco-made smartphone app) are listed below in no particular order, with the exception of Grief Syndrome, the obvious winner.

[If you're still interested in watching the series, I suggest waiting to read about these games, as they are slightly spoiler-ish]

Grief Syndrome

Finally! The game I’ve been talking this whole post!

Capturing the essence of an anime series into an interactive experience is something I feel that anime games have always struggled with. But not Grief Syndrome, no way. This PC game reconstructs the nightmarish world of witch hunting perfectly. Everything was instantly familiar; it felt like a Madoka game should feel like. This beat-’em-up side-scroller is an intoxicating mix of everything I loved about the show, capturing the smallest details, such each girl’s movement and animations and enemies from the show, with apparent ease. It’s just the right degree of challenging, and the characters are very well-balanced, also true to their respective strengths, weaknesses and fighting styles in the show. Even though it was created by Japanese doujin game studio Twilight Frontier, it’s almost entirely in English and is very accessible to those who don’t speak Japanese.

At the start of a level, you select Madoka, Mami, Sayaka, Kyouko, Homura or Moemura and fight your way through several action/platform stages, which ends with fighting one of the witches from the anime series. There are alternate endings and, accurately and surprisingly (to me anyway), permadeath. If a girl dies during your run-through, she is gone until you clear the game and start a new round. This also affects which ending you get. Anyway, if you can figure out a way to get this game I would. The official game has a lot to live up to after playing this fan tribute. Oh, and Twilight Frontier keeps patching and improving it—there’s even multiplayer now! Check out the Puella Magi wiki for more info on this game. It’s updated often and very convenient.

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Incubator

In spite of its surprising genre choice of real-time strategy, Incubator is probably my favorite flash-based Madoka game of the bunch listed here. It’s an odd concept, for sure: Magical girls appear and you move Kyuubey over to them to grant their wishes and turn them into fighting Puella Magi. At the same time, however, witches and their weaker versions, familiars, are spawning across the map. Once a girl becomes a Puella Magi, you drag her within range of a witch to fight it. It’s essentially magical girl resource management and all about placing your girls at the right place at the right time. Ultimately, you face Walpurgisnacht/Walpurgis Night, which is pretty challenging the first time through. Good luck! Play it here.

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Little Big Planet 2: Madoka Magica Level

Uh, wow. Someone put a lot of time into this, and it definitely shows. This LBP level is a remix of the first real witch hunt in episode three of Madoka Magica, and it’s absolutely gorgeous. It even mimics Mami’s artillery attacks, which seem to handle decently enough, but since I haven’t actually played this level, I can’t speak from experience. Just watch the video or give the level a whirl. Nice work, Enoch_Shaddai. (Unrelated: He/she has also made an Uncharted level.)

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マミ☆まう (Mami to the Mouth)

You play DDR to save Mami. Ohhhh, how you think I’m joking. It’s half reflex-based fun, half lol-wut. Put those arrow keys to work and play here (press any key to start).

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契約取付人！キュゥべえさん ゲーム編

If hitting girls who are dodging between pieces of cake with Kyuubey heads to form contracts with them isn’t weird enough, then there’s another kicker—the Nyancat song is looping in the background. The controls for aiming are wonky, but it’s fun for a couple playthroughs. At the end, your score is ranked according to a set of salaryman-based titles (I guess they chose to rate it with salaryman titles because Kyuubey’s work is also to form contracts?). The highest I got was kakarichou, chief clerk. Watch the craziness in the video below.

Unfortunately, this game has since disappeared from the Internet. Sorry D: I’ll put up a link if I find it.

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Madoka/Final Fantasy III Mashup

Holy amazing. This homage to both series blends the best of epic FF3 boss battles with an excellently executed magical girl party in an epic 8-bit tribute to both series. I only watched the YouTube video above, but apparently it’s playable, too (I got scared off after the download link started to get a little sketchy; maybe a braver soul can confirm this?). Each character’s attacks are based off thorough and clever references to Madoka Magica with in a loveable FF3 throwback. Worth the watch. Dunno if the download is worth the potential viruses. : )

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Throw the Gem

I’m including this game just for the fact that it takes one of the (most?) pivotal points of the series and boils it down to a simplistic one-shot Warioware-style game. I find that really interesting. Play it here.

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Official Game:
Mami no Dokidoki Tiro Finale (Mami’s Heart-Pounding Tiro Finale)

To promote the official PSP Madoka Magica game, Puella Magi Madoka Magica Portable, Bandai-Namco Games released a free smartphone game featuring Mami for iOS and Android in Japan. After 500 players hit a perfect score of 100,000 points (within the same day of the app’s release!), the box art for Puella Magi Madoka Magica Portable was unveiled on the game’s official website.

I enjoyed playing it, but I don’t think I’m going to the practice into getting the perfect score. You play as the gun-summoning Mami, protecting Madoka and Sayaka from waves of minions and ultimately fighting against Charlotte, the witch from episode three. You hop among platforms, which provide different vantage points for shooting down enemies  that stream in from all angles, and try to chain your shots into combos to charge a meter that releases various special powers depending on how full it is. Make those shots count though—your Soul Gem meter diminishes with each attack, and the game ends if it reaches zero.

While there are some slower-paced sections, the levels definitely dokidoki moments where the screen is choked with enemies. The boss battle at the end of each is disappointing. It’s like fighting a wall that has hitpoints. Maybe the dokidoki-ness of the final battle is supposed to come from watching your dwindling Soul Gem meter and wondering if you’ll have enough magic to make it to the end of the fight? It’s not the kind of battle I was anticipating.

The official (Japanese) site for the smartphone game is here. If you have a Japanese iTunes account (or if not, you can get one here), you can download Bandai-Namco Games’ free game for iPhone or iPad here. I don’t have an Android device, so, er, good luck, Android users! Here’s the link to the game on the Android Market.

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Improving Level Design: Architecture, Zombies and Nintendo Power

If you’re going to GDC China and have any interest in level design, make sure you pencil in some time for Chris Totten’s talk, Designing Better Levels Through Human Survival Instincts, which should get props alone for rolling architecture and lighting, zombie games, level design and a technique called the “Nintendo Power” method into a heckuva interesting discussion.

His method is simplistic and sensible, firmly grounded in the architect’s mantra of “form follows function.” (He hails from an academic background in the subject, after all.) In the hour-long preview he presented at a IGDA Washington, D.C., meeting in October, Totten reviewed the design methods used in two of his recent projects: Dead Man’s Trail, an Oregon Trail-styled survival game where successfully raiding zombie-flooded towns is key, and a Lovecraftian-titled game with Tim Burton overtones called The Nightmare Over Innsmouth.

Chris Totten previews his talk at IGDA's October meeting.

The Power Trip’s Over
Throughout their rise to mainstream popularity, zombie games and media have become something of a “power fantasy,” Totten said. Disenchanted with overpowered protagonists mowing down waves of zombies in a blaze of bullets and gory glory, he and his student design team of Westwood College took a different approach—making the player feel weak.
In Dead Man’s Trail, a player’s party thrives or perishes based on the supplies they can scrape from towns that have been abandoned by humanity but overrun by zombies. While it’d be ideal to loot the entire town, the longer players dawdle, the larger of a horde they’ll eventually draw. The goal is to get in, complete missions (taking out zombies that stand in the way) and get out.

The obvious way of making the player feel weak would be to overwhelm them with brainthirsty enemies. Dead Man’s Trail does implement ever-expanding hordes to “teach helplessness” to players, but it also tries to rely more heavily on the placement of zombies throughout the level. By using zombies to corral the player into tight spots, where fleeing is sometimes the only option for survival, Totten turns zombies into “moving architecture” as the fleshiest, gushiest and most aggressive kind of wall there is.

Blending zombie horde rushes with such precise placement is an interesting, anxiety-inspiring concept and one that seemed to work well in the barebones white-block demo level Totten presented, as his avatar was squeezed across areas ranging from narrow hallways to wide-open areas, escaping through gaps among the enclosing zombie ranks.

Drawing Design from Nintendo Power 
Balancing a level’s design so that it inspires fear and helplessness in a player but still gives them a viable way out and chance at survival seems like it would be an overwhelming task in of itself. But that’s where the Nintendo Power method, making a guest appearance from 1980s/1990s, comes into play.

Most gamers will remember the magazine’s colorful maps of game levels that had break-out bubbles pointing to where various secrets, strategies or items were hidden. Totten suggests using this approach to help plan the pacing in levels. He used it to plot where “moving architecture,” a.k.a. zombies, would close in. It’s a weird but wonderful idea–using enemies to guide a player through a level.

Shade, Shadow, Survival
Is it possible to fall in love with a game after just seeing a skeletal white-block demo of it? Because I’m pretty sure that’s what happened with the quaintly creepy The Nightmare Over Innsmouth, which looks like someone threw Professor Layton backdrops in a blender with the grim helter-skelterness of Tim Burton. The word “love” might be a little strong, but The Nightmare Over Innsmouth immediately falls into my “I’d play that” category.
It takes a different tack to the fear and helplessness approach, with the demo focusing more on using lighting, heights and slightly warped architecture.

Rather than revolving around creating enclosed spaces, as Dead Man’s Trail does, it seems to use a bit more open areas—or “prospect space” as Totten calls it—where the player can survey a potentially dangerous area from afar and plan their moves accordingly before they advance. The demo opens with the protagonist scrabbling across rooftops and balancing on bare ceiling beams over heights that are startingly dizzying. Even though you’re safely on the other side of the screen, as soon as the game camera pans over the rooftops, you can’t help but think “whoa-mygod, I hope I don’t fall.” As Totten said, height is both “useful and threatening.” (But really, just imagine what that an effect like that could be like after the game is finished!)

After a dashing escape through a spooky courtyard, the demo ends with a cliffhanger as the protagonist takes a leap of faith into the unknown. This was a relatively simple concept made memorable with well-executed lighting, architecture and spacing that brought a lot of style to a literally grayscale world. Totten detailed many of his design decisions and motivations as he progressed through the demo, and afterwards cited a lot of interesting examples of architecture in FPS that I wish I would’ve written down more details on (But I guess I can’t give hiswhole talk away).

A Man with a Plan
I’m always fascinated with interdisciplinary approaches to games, so Totten’s hybrid of architecture and psychology was very interesting. But another key takeaway came from good project management. As with everything in life, planning ahead and performing quality assurance on your project in the early stages is key. Totten stressed the importance of white block demos in the development process, as they allow developers to see what mechanics work and what don’t and nix these issues early on, thus saving money, time and the painful process of rehashing a mostly finished project. Nintendo Power mapping is also helpful for initial blueprinting purposes.

I wish I would’ve thought to ask him this afterward but since I’m still thinking about it I’ll ask the Interwebs (and maybe Chris will answer, too!). Is white-blocking or making skeletal mock-ups of games and demoing them early a common practice in the industry? Do game companies, big and small, test games that early on or does much of this stuff usually wait til QA?

Animal Crossing 3D Trailer: English Translation

[ Someone asked me if I could translate the Japanese in this video for them. Thought I'd post it here in case other people had the same question. It's a very direct, rough translation with little context to go on; no fun Animal Crossing-speak frills here.]

0:06 Tom Nook: Yes, yes, you’d like to build a house around here?

0:18 Rainy: Huh? Are you, by chance, our new mayor? Nice to meet you! I’m Rainy! Let’s all make a nice (lit.: fun) town together!

0:42 Garigari*: Welcome~! Mosakichi-kun just visited/came by here. [Note: Dunno who Mosakichi is... maybe the the player or someone else who's offscreen. Sorry :( ]

0:48 Secretary: Yes, Mayor! Do you think this would be a good place to build the cafe?

The screen at the end is just a warning about how 3D will burn out your eyeballs, especially if you’re younger than six years old. If anyone has any fixes or more accurate translations for this, please leave your suggestions in the comments.

*Garigari can be an Japanese onomatopoeia for crunchy/grinding/scratching sounds, but when describing people, it can mean greedy :)

Ghost Trick and Japan’s Not-So-Fantastic Four

Why Ghost Trick’s Timer Counts Down from Four Minutes Instead of, Well, Any Other Number

I finally picked up Ghost Trick. No, not on the DS. The first two chapters of the game have been free on the Japanese iTunes store since December of last year. And it’s about time I checked it out because I adore nearly every game Shu Takumi touches.

Ghost Trick offers a unique concept that’s simultaneously grim and charming. The main character, Sissel, is murdered while trying to save a woman from the same fate and then continues to try to protect her and stop the killer from beyond the grave through “ghost tricks,” which involve setting off Rube Goldberg-like chain reactions by possessing nearby inanimate objects. However, poor Sissel’s not successful—on the first attempt, anyway. But with his newfound powers, he can turn back time by four minutes.

Four minutes. It’s certainly not a typical time limit. Why not five? Or up the anxiety and just make it—duhn, duhn, DUHN—one?

Well, there’s a reason. It’s a pun. (No Shu Takumi game would be complete without at least a handful, or you know, one every other cut scene.)

In Japanese, the number four (四) is pronounced a couple different ways depending on the context: yo, yon or shi. The last one on that list is important because with that pronunciation, four becomes the American/English equivalent of unlucky number 13. Four is considered a foreboding number (HAH, puns) because shi shares the same pronunciation as 死, or death. Like any superstition, fear of the number four isn’t overbearingly prevalent in Japanese culture, but it occasionally appears in smaller ways, like a hotel elevator not having a button for the fourth floor or avoiding giving a gift that comes in four different pieces.

So placing Sissel in a life-and-death situation where he only has four minutes is not only a nail-biting premise but an ominous word pun. But let me warn you that this is all my own speculation and guessing, even though I doubt four minutes was just an arbitrary number the developers chose.

Way to go, Ghost Trick. I knew I would love you in any language.

Shinto explained in one dialogue box

If Ys: The Oath in Felghana gets one award as a game it should be this: Best Summary of Shinto in a JRPG.

Shinto isn’t an overly complicated body of beliefs, but not something that I thought could be summarized in one sentence. It sure is a foreign idea to Western audiences, especially in the U.S. where monotheistic religions dominates, so it’s impressive to see it so succinctly stuffed into one box of JRPG dialogue.

In the first scene of the game, the protagonist Adol and his friend Dogi come across a small, ruined roadside Shinto-esque shrine and Dogi gives a simple, direct explanation that flows naturally with the scene’s dialogue:

“It’s a relic of the old religion, from when people believed that sprits existed in stuff that wasn’t even alive.”

So mega A+ to whoever localized that line. Covers the basics of shinto: 1) it’s old, old, old, 2) people believed spirits dwelled in  inanimate objects and 3) it’s spirits, so not monotheistic. I love how it’s barebones but effective and doesn’t even use the word “gods” in it. It also doesn’t directly say it’s shinto, but if you know your way around Japanese culture, you can infer that’s what it’s referring to. (And, uh, yes, it’s pretty typical of me to sweat these insignificant details of game dialogue ^_^;; hahah)

Can anyone else think of J-games that explain shinto particularly well? Or doesn’t do it well at all?

Why “the King” would be “teh n00b” at RPGs/SRPGs

NOTE: See this post on Bitmob. I keep Tweeting the URL to this blog post on accident :( Sorry. Will be more careful in the future. Or just wait til Twitter gets an “edit” button. Whatevs.

He *can* play ball, but rest assured he's awful at RPGs. And maintaining friendships :x

Lebron James taught me one thing with his decision (aside from the fact that he’s heartless, greedy and now officially a jerk): He and I would not play RPGs the same way. Sounds ridiculous, yes, but I’m pretty sure I’m on to something.

Sitting at a small local bar, my dad and I waited with the rest of the crowd for LeBron’s announcement. We were divided on the issue: I didn’t trust Lebron, and thought he would leave, while my dad blindly believed he would stay. The fact Lebron’s announcement wasn’t in Cleveland was an ill omen in itself (seriously, way to pick Switzerland Connecticut for your announcement).

Both my dad and I didn’t personally care about Lebron’s announcement—we were concerned about the city that was 30 minutes east of us. Cleveland.

Cleveland needs needed LeBron. While Cleveland does indeed have its highlights, those are mostly overshadowed by a negative image so bleak that even Clevelanders ridicule the city’s rep. For as long as I can remember (and long before that, to be sure), the once-booming industrial region has been riddled with problems to a Gotham-City degree: political corruption, crime, poverty, foreclosure, and homelessness.

Right: When Cleveland sports are winning! Left: Other days of the year.

But when the sports teams are winning, which is a rare and auspicious phenomena to say the least, Cleveland is a slightly happier place. The atmosphere is different. The air doesn’t feel as saturated with pollution and depression. You could go as far to say that for the last seven years LeBron symbolized hope for Cleveland’s luckless sports history. Clevelanders will miss that glimmer, that slight hiccup of positivity. Susan Orlean put it best in her blog, “The only good outcome is that Cleveland might now rally around this sense of injury and abandonment.”

So here is the point where LeBron and I would clash on the way we play SRPGs.

In videogames, I play to save everybody, whether its NPCs or party members. I’m the kind of gamer who will make strategic sacrifices just so all of my party members and allies come out alive and well. It’s not easy (or effective even) to play games like Final Fantasy Tactics: WoTL or Disgaea this way, but I feel better when my whole team only comes out with a few scratches rather than a few corpses. I guess I’d say, I play to win, but I play to win with the least damage possible.

Lebron, on the other hand, is playing to win and only win. That’s it. He wants a ring so bad that he sacrificed his relationship with an entire city (one that happens to be his hometown). He knows how much Cleveland depended on him for the occasional mood-lifting win.

He’s the jerk that kills 100 party members by a quarter of the way through the game just to unlock the special ending. The guy who has a backlog of items stashed because he can’t be arsed to heal his party members on his way to victory. He’s your disillusioned rival in PokeMon (don’t worry, I’m not going to go Professor Oak on this and dive into a lecture on love and friendship).

Now, I’m going to go rally around a sense of injury and abandonment before having a marathon escapism session into Disgaea Infinite. Let’s grab a stiff drinks and some tickets to the next Cavs vs. Heat game, eh?

my E3 round-up

Here are a few linkies from MyGamer E3 coverage I contributed to. I managed and edited much more.

•Biggest WTF Moments of the Big Three’s Conferences
•E3 Cliff’s Notes
•Sony Press Conference Summary

Recent 3DS screenshots also make me wonder how game companies are going to hawk 3D games via 2D media.

I’m working on a few other articles and my next installment of Game Characters Who Tweet (nope, haven’t forgotten about that yet). Updates soon to follow (I hope).

Why does Kevin Butler know what my living room looks like?

(a belated, post-E3 2010 post)

At Sony’s E3 2010 press conference, Kevin Butler, the fast-talking, snarky marketing character from PS3 commercials, came on stage to give an epic, rallying speech to the crowd. One of his quotes in particular resonated with the Internet (defined as Twitter, game news sites and blogs).

This photo is brought to you by Kevin Butler's poetic imagery. (actually its via ABC News Australia, but whatevs)

“Gaming is having a huge TV in a tiny one-room apartment,” he said. Then the crowd went wild.

Initially, I thought, wow what a cool, poetic way to describe gaming. And then my brain switched on, and I realized, hold on there, buddy, you just made some potentially gross assumptions about my lifestyle.

I mean, picture it. The tiny one-room apartment and big-screen TV.

It’s dark, cluttered and lonely, right? And why do I live in a one-room apartment in this instance, Kevin Butler? Is it because I spent all of my rent money on Playstation Move? Don’t I have any friends over playing games with me in that apartment? Why are you assuming these things about the way I play games?

All of a sudden, that quote wasn’t as chic and awesome as it originally sounded.

[Note: Yes, I realized my last two posts have been harping on Sony's E3 presser. The reason—Sony's press conference was the only one I actually watched (and had time to watch during E3 week).I don't hate Sony or anything like that. I like KB, too. He's charismatic, hilarious, and one of the best things that could've happened for Playstation's marketing.

Sheesh, what am I doing. I shouldn't have to justify myself on this, right, Internet?

ANYWAY, new FRESH content is forthcoming. I have lots of cool ideas. Just need the time to see them through.

Word to the wise: do NOT search "video games" on Google Images with only Moderate Safe Search on. You and your eyes are not safe.]