Exposing my socks to the world

If you couldn’t access my site between 1 and 2 AM this morning, it’s because I was installing a new router, for purposes so nefarious that I can’t even begin to describe them. Well, not yet anyway.

I hadn’t really gotten back into the whole ‘pay to play a game with other people on the network for a monthly fee’ frame of mind since the XBand folded, and I was torn between Final Fantasy and World of Warcraft. Both of them promised that they would keep me occupied for very nearly forever, and since Blizzard has this habit of taking 30 or 40 years to get a game ready, I decided to see what Final Fantasy had to offer.

Now I’ve never actually played a online role playing game, much less one that promised to be both massive and multiplayer. My experience with online gaming has mostly been in the form of playing Unreal Tournament 2003 against people who are much better than me, so I was intrigued by the premise of not actually having anything really defined to do. Just sort of existing. That sounded right up my alley, I exist multiple times a day!

To be quite honest, Final Fantasy XI isn’t really a whole lot different from this free online game in a couple of respects: nearly all of the quests that I have done are ‘go here, fetch/do that’ quests, and you gain levels.

That’s pretty much the gist of the game. There’s a lot of minutae that I could go into, but I don’t really need to.

There are only two real problems that I see with this game:

1. Playing with friends. I know why Square-Enix did what they did. I know that if you let everyone just pick what server they wanted to be in, there would be servers full of people and servers devoid of people. So things are balanced out. Great! But, if I buy the game and my friend does the same, there’s only about a 1/28 chance that we will end up in the same server. Now, of course, I have somewhat of an interest in playing an online game with someone that I know from Real Life. Square-Enix recognized this and let people buy World Passes that allow a player to be created in whatever server they choose. But that’s the thing. You can’t move your character, you have to create a new one (which costs an extra dollar a month). So one of you ends up playing a new character while the other one is cruising along with whatever one he was originally playing with. Not a real big deal, but if the level difference is too big between the players, then neither one of them will get a decent amount of experience, effectiely penalizing you for buying that world pass so you and your friend can play together.

2. Fees. There is a fee with everything about this game. Want more than one character? There’s a fee. Want to play a card game? There’s a fee. Want your significant other to play the game too? You have to buy two copies of the game and two accounts. Bleh. Well, at least I have the option of not paying for the card game. That saves me $0.25 a week!

One of the more interesting things is the auto-translate feature, letting North American and Japanese people play in the same server and, to some degree, communicate with each other. It’s kind of a pain to use, but it gets the job done, especially in a non battle situation. I wouldn’t expect to be able to carry on a conversation with someone like that, but certainly saying, “Thanks,” or, “Watch out!” is doable.

Now, admittedly, I’ve only been able to sink about a week into this game, so my opinion may change slightly as I invest more time into it. If it turns out that this game isn’t as fun as advertised, it’ll probably happen during my 30 day free trial, and then I can give World of Warcraft a try, assuming Blizzard releases it before the Sun goes nova, that is.

It’s the beginning of a new year. A time for reflection on the previous year and anticipation for the new one.

Or an excuse to have a party, I forget which.

Right, that whole reflection thing. I already had a kind of reflection on the site a while ago so there’s no real need to go into that again, so let’s look at some of the games that I’ve had the pleasure (or displeasure) of playing over the last year or so.

Animal Crossing

Animal Crossing is kind of like a simplified version of the Sims… Kind of. The game is strangely compelling, although I will admit that I really bought it for the NES games locked away in it, but I played the actual game part of the game for just over eight months. Eventually, it just got too repetitive. Sure, the holidays were neat, and the random town events were nice, but on the Regular Days, running around and talking to everyone just to hear them say the same thing over and over again just wore a little thin. Maybe I’ll pop the thing in on my birthday and see if anyone remembers me.

Paper Mario

I picked up Paper Mario over the summer on the cheap, and was really impressed by it. Yes, it’s a ‘kiddie’ kind of game, and yes, it’s not an enormous challenge, but it’s a genuinely fun game. I am most impressed at how well the characters in the game are animated. It really looks like you are playing a cartoon.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

I’ve invested over 80 hours into this game so far, and I’m nearly two-thirds of the way done with the missions. I never had a Playstation, so I can’t really compare it to the original version of Tactics, but this one is really fun. Of all the reviews I’ve read on it, people either really like it or they really don’t. There isn’t really any middle ground. Mostly the people who don’t like it are the people who are upset that it’s not Final Fantasy Tactics 2. Well, that and the whole ‘Laws’ thing.

Game Boy Player

Okay, it’s not technically a game, but the Game Boy Player is still a really nice accessory, especially when playing games like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Nintendo seems to have this ‘thing’ lately about connectivity between systems, and this does a fine job. Complaints? Using a Game Boy Camera with it isn’t so possible, and Nintendo says to not hook two of them together with a Game Link cable… But they don’t know why (or won’t say why).

Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne

I bet you thought that I only bought Nintendo games this past year. No, I bought and liked Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne. There really isn’t a whole lot to say about the game except that if you liked the original, then there is a really good chance that you’ll like the expansion as well. It’s a whole lot like the first one, except more. Blizzard doesn’t really break any new ground with this title, but they hardly need to to satisfy fans of the game.

A lot of games for less than $5 apiece

Let me spare you some grief. If you’re in a store and you see a game that costs less than $5 and you need a computer or game console to play it on, turn directly around and run as fast as you can, plowing into the rack behind you and knocking yourself unconsious. Believe me, that’s a much more bearable experience than playing that bargain garbage. While it’s true you might find a gem out there, sifting through the crap infested ‘one step away from the trash compactor’ shelf is rarely worth it.

Right, so there’s a sampling of the games that I bought over the last year. I probably bought more, but I seem to have lost the checklist that may or may not have existed.

Pac-Man Vs. is one of the simplest and most fun games I’ve played in a while.

Everyone knows how to play Pac-Man, right? So picture this: Three people control the Ghosts (Red, Blue, and Green{?}) on the big screen, one person controls the Pac on a GBA, and everyone tries to get to some preset score. The person who plays as Pac-Man gets to see the whole screen while the Ghosts on the Cube get to see a limited area. The Pac gets points in all the standard ways, but the Ghosts have two options: Eat the fruit (which also makes his field of vision bigger temporarily, or eat Pac-Man. Eating Pac-Man steals 1600 points, and then the two players have to swtich controllers.

For some reason or another, someone decided to throw in some kind of Mario-esque voice in the game to randomly scream at the players while the game’s going on. He says stuff like, “This-a looks not so good!”, or, “Pac-Man ate a Power Pellet!”, etc. Other than that, it sounds exactly like a Pac-Man game should.

The bad? The amount of controller switching in an especially close game will quickly turn your controller cables into something resembling a bird’s nest, so at least one Wavebird would be an excellent add-on, otherwise your group will slowly get closer and closer together as the mass of cables grows. Problematic if someone in the room forgot deoderant that day.

I read somewhere (probably the manual) that this game can be played with less than 4 players, but that’s a lie. Sure, all the elements are there, but without the four players, it’s just like a demo mode. It’s like playing Mario Party without the full compliment of 4 players, it’s like a whole other game that’s just not as good.

This game is certainly worth the $20, and it even comes with a copy of Pac-Man World 2 if all your friends leave.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday.

There are quite a few good games that have been released recently (and maybe even a few that aren’t quite so new). At least enough to keep me occupied through the end of the year. I’ll likely be buried under Final Fantasy Tactics Advance or my Legend of Zelda bonus disc for the next two days.

1. Mushrooms make you grow taller.

2. If you find food hidden in a block or a wall, go ahead and eat it.

3. If you ever don’t hear music, a zombie is getting ready to jump through a wall

4. Stores will buy back anything, no matter where you got it from, or what condition it’s in, but they will only give you half price for it.

5. When you kill wild animals, they drop money.

6. The money animals drop is accepted at all stores, worldwide.

7. People who leave their doors unlocked expect you to come in, talk to them, and possibly sleep in their beds.

8. Unless you’re in some sort of vehicle, you will be randomly attacked on any trip you make.

9. A good night’s sleep will heal all wounds and illnesses.

10. If you touch something and it hurts you, it’s evil.

11. If ghosts are blue, you can eat them.

12. On any long trip, you don’t need to worry about bringing food. All you need is a generous supply of ‘potions’

13. If you find a locked door, that just means that you didn’t pick up a key somewhere.

14. Monsters come from the moon.

15. If you get hit, you have about 3 seconds until you can get hit again.

16. I always keep a faery in a bottle in my pocket. You know, just in case.

17. Amnesia is always caused by a conspiracy.

18. Death is not evil, and may even help you if the price is right. In fact, I had Death help me with my laundry the other day. Nothing gets stains out of my slacks better than Death. Well, Death and a little elbow grease.

19. It’s never the first castle.

20. Learn to swim. You don’t float.

Happiness

Sadness

Anger

Frustration

Surprise

Happy about purchasing a new game

Buying KISS: Psycho Circus (and disposing of the evidence)

Playing Hook for the NES

Finals are next week, so I won’t be writing a whole lot of new stuff.

But don’t worry, I’ve decided to resurrect some older articles for you to read in case you missed them the first time around.

I just got my Legend of Zelda bonus disc in the mail yesterday. It has on it:

• The Legend of Zelda
• Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link
• The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time
• The Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask
• The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker (20 minute demo)
• Some movie about The Wind Waker (Think ‘commercial’ without any words)
• The Legend of Zelda Retrospective. This is a little movie of all of the Zelda games released for Nintendo systems (for some reason they left out the CD-i versions).

Just having access to the NES Zelda games in their original form is worth the price of the subscription to Nintendo Power. Around here at the Insanely Overpriced Video Game Store they seem to think that they should go for about $15 each (they also think for some reason that they can sell Crono Trigger for $100. I think they’re nuts).

So far I’ve managed to spend about 20 minutes with the thing. The think I like most about the whole thing is that I don’t have to fiddle with my Game Cube for half an hour wiggling the game around trying to get it to work.

Oh, and that retrospective movie is kind of neat, too.

It took all the creative energy I had in me, but I managed to forge an article out of the raw words that lay all around me.

Then I submitted it to another site.

You should go read it.