Hey Man, well this is Babylon

Let’s start with the quickies, and then we’ll talk gaming:

Reading: RunePunk
Wearing: Comfortable close-fitting clothes suitable for cycling. I love this weather.
Planning: The first session for the Sky Pirates game, this Sunday
Playing: Rule of Rose and Skies of Arcadia
Not Playing: The Siren: Blood Curse demo. Laaaaaaaaame. Tried it last night, and seriously, what’s with these crap-looking games not making the most of their platform’s hardware specs?
Writing: Some notes for various game design projects, mostly an Art List for the Cannibal Contagion book.
Listening: Pimsleur Spanish I
Watching: The Wire, Season 4. Man, the end of Season 3 almost brought tears to my eyes. One of the things that gets me the most is seeing people fail when they’ve worked so goddamned hard to succeed.
Anticipating: Dead Space in October. Read more

Recently, Bethany (the wonderful roommate) and I have had some scattered discussions about Challenge and such in video games. What I find most rewarding are the challenges in games that require ingenuity and grit to overcome. When I fight a bad guy and have to use the environment to my advantage, and only barely manage to come out of it with a bar or two of health and no ammo, that’s rewarding (who’s yo daddy now, motherfucker?!). When there’s a complex series of puzzles involving non-ridiculous assembly and manipulation of in-game objects and variables, and I figure it out after a good deal of puzzling over the components, that’s rewarding. When I defeat a Big Bad against which I exhaust all my ammo and am forced to resort to using only a crowbar or a rusty pipe, that last meaty crunch is a very satisfying reward. When I defeat a gaggle of goddamned Malboros despite all my party being Doomed, Poisoned, Charmed, Berserk, and/or Confused, that’s rewarding. When a game gives me a task to complete and leaves the choice of resolution up to me, figuring out interesting ways to complete it is definitely rewarding.

When the game environment steps away from the game’s mechanics and tells me I have to press a button in the next 0.7 seconds or flat-out die? That’s not rewarding. When a section of the game can only be overcome by memorizing a precise pattern that can only be discovered by either A) reading a walkthrough or B) playing it over and over and over and over again until you learn the pattern, that’s not rewarding. When the only way to solve a puzzle is by assembling seven completely unrelated (and completely missable and forgettable and droppable) items from scattered stages of the game either by A) reading a walkthrough or B) doing it accidentally, that’s not rewarding. When I fight a normal human boss that can only be overcome by filling it with twice as many bullets as it took to take out every stage enemy from the last three game levels combined, for no other reason than “that’s just how stage bosses work” (I’m looking at you, Max Payne), that’s not rewarding.

Frustration does not equal reward. Essentially, when the gameplay becomes grueling, the game loses me.

Also…

The fact that Fallout 3 will come to the PS3 really excites me. Even more exciting, though, is this video - Dead Space has strafing and total camera control, yay! The camera controls and movement look pretty damn perfect for my preferred style of play. My day is now complete. WANT. VERY MUCH WANT.

What a weekend!

Good Times (anytime you need a favor!)

Friday night Avatar: good times! Thanks for bringing over those episodes, Trinity. I’m glad you’re finally getting to see Season 3. Soon you will understand why I love Zuko so much! And thanks for Skies of Arcadia Legends, Andrea. I’m enjoying it greatly. Plus, it’s good inspirational fodder for the Sky Pirates game (further below). Also, Bethany picked up a copy of No More Heroes for the Wii, and so far, it’s pretty sweet. My one complaint: so far, I don’t notice any strategy in it. There’s several things you can do in it when facing enemies, but mainly it seems that the “hit A repeatedly to beat them down” strategy is really the best tactic. Regardless, it’s bloody and brutal and lots of fun. Read more

Edit: Ugh. Yeah. As I said before, this game is obviously not for me. I’m not going to be touching it on here any further past this post. I’ve wasted enough time and front page space on this as it is. You would think I actually care about it, or something… *wink*

I am a failure as a reviewer. I just couldn’t finish my first character, but this hardly surprises me. In the last few years, I’ve reached a point where I can’t even make 3rd Ed. characters anymore. I’ll approach the game with a basic character concept, and by about halfway through the creation process I’ll realize one of two things: either I’ve been completely distracted by all the other character options and the idea has morphed entirely into a different min-maxed character altogether, or I just can’t make the character I want to play now (instead being forced to make the character who will be the character I want to play 10 or so levels from now). When a new 3rd Ed. game pops up - provided I even express a desire to play in it (a rare occasion) - I just ask the GM to make my character for me so I don’t have to worry about those problems. Hell, he can go ahead and plot me out a 20-level build plan while he’s at it, too. Read more

In this article, Tycho loudly lambastes Electronic Arts’s chosen DRM encoding which will be present in the upcoming PC port of Mass Effect. Sounds awesome of them to say so, right?

But lookee here, they’ve gone and added it to their own game!

That is just not cool, man. Not cool at all. I was looking forward to this game. I really, really hope there is some kind of misunderstanding. If not, this will be yet another game that I can add to the list of “new games which are driving me further and further away from PC gaming.” It is indeed getting close to time for me to purchase an Xbox 360. Thank the gods I’ll soon be living with a proud owner of a PS3. At least the consoles never have to deal with this total BS.

When I spend money on a game, I want to purchase it; what I do not want to do is purchase the right to request permission to be able to play their game.

EDIT:

Here’s the link for the discussion at Penny-Arcade. Here’s the link for the discussion at the Greenhouse forums.