Gamers in the Wild

Last night, my husband and I went to the Kennedy Center to see Video Games Live, the game music concert. As I mentioned previously, Killa was unable to attend because of a work function. His history with the event is thus: He was all set to see VGL when they were touring in 2005, but they canceled their DC show (along with others) and so he didn't get to see it then. This time around, his place of business is in the middle of their busiest week of the year, so, again, he wasn't able to see it. He will have to live it vicariously through this blog post.

I feel obligated to briefly explain what Video Games Live is, because apparently this knowledge is not ubiquitous. Perhaps fifteen minutes before leaving for the show, my husband said to me: "So, is this going to be people on the stage playing video games, live? Or what?" VGL is a symphonic performance (in this case, performed by the National Symphony Orchestra and the Master Chorale of Washington) of music from various video games, accompanied by video clips from the featured games and some onstage live performance. During the pre-show they held a cosplay contest in which a young man dressed as Link beat out a couple dressed as Mario and Peach cart-racers to win a Nintendo Wii. I imagine he then went home and played Twilight Princess on it in the most Escheresque example of meta-gaming imaginable.

The show itself featured a medley of classic arcade music and the music from Super Mario Brothers, Legend of Zelda, Sonic the Hedgehog, World of Warcraft, Halo, Kingdom Hearts, Metal Gear Solid, Advent Rising, Final Fantasy, Medal of Honor, Civilization IV, God of War, Tron, and possibly others I can't remember offhand. Sid Meier himself came on stage to introduce the music from Civ IV and to announce (in what host Tommy Tallarico called a "Video Games Live exclusive") that the Civilization series would be coming to handhelds and consoles, which would have been exciting if I had not read it on Kotaku last week. Oh well.

The Metal Gear Solid segment featured a hilarious live-action skit with a man (ostensibly Snake) in the infamous cardboard box giving an armed guard the slip. My husband, having just finished God of War last week, was particularly impressed with that segment. And, even though I'm picking on Sid Meier, and though I haven't played any of his games, I thought the music from Civ IV was especially beautiful and moving.

The absolute highlight of the evening (for me) was Martin Leung, the Video Game Pianist, who made a guest appearance playing a solo piano rendition of his Final Fantasy medley. SquareEnix apparently won't let them show game footage from any of its games on the monitor during the show (boo? This was also a hindrance to the Kingdom Hearts segment, which featured footage from Disney movies only). Instead, the monitor showed Leung playing his piano for the duration, which was fine with me, as he's one of the most animated players I've ever seen. I was able to pick out "Zanarkand" from X, "Aerith's Theme" from VII, "Eyes on Me" from VIII, "One-Winged Angel" from VII, and, of course, the recurring victory fanfare and the crystal theme.

All in all, I suppose I would have liked to hear more music from Final Fantasy ("Liberi Fatali" or "Eyes on Me" are highly recognizable favorites); perhaps I should have just gone to see Dear Friends. The symphony played "One-Winged Angel" as their final encore, and the entire house went nuts. We had a wonderful time and would go again if the opportunity presents itself (hopefully, next time, with Killa and Poptart). I would encourage anyone to go see this show if you have the chance.

The End of the World

Yesterday, June 13, was "Blog Like It's the End of the World Day." Everyone was supposed to write a blog entry as though the world were under attack by zombies. I would have participated, had I known in advance, but these things have a way of sneaking up on me (see also Talk Like a Pirate Day).

I don't know about you, but I treat every day like we're only one zombie attack away from obliteration because, let's face it, we may well be only one zombie attack away from obliteration. There's just no way to know.

In any case, I'm sorry I missed international zombie uprising blog day because gaming has a long, rich history of zombie inclusion and representation. A colleague and I, shirking work for a few minutes, were discussing the brilliance of a collaborative, War of the Worlds-esque "widespread zombie attacks" scenario in the blogosphere when it came to light that I have never played Resident Evil in any of its various iterations.

My colleague, a non-gamer at that, was visibly shocked and said incredulously: "But even I've played Resident Evil." My gamer cred is suffering with her, I can tell. I must stress that it would be impossible to overemphasize her shock and incredulity.

It is a damn shame, and I'm properly embarassed about it. Resident Evil (Biohazard in Japan) is a gaming industry mainstay and in the top 20 best-selling game franchises of all time. Japan has even issued a commemorative stamp in honor of its ten-year anniversary. The thing is, playing as Jill Valentine all those years ago I walked into the hallway where the zombie dobermans come crashing in through the window and that was it for me. Too scary. I mean zombies are scary enough, but you can get away from them because they're shambling. Not so the MA-39 Cerberus; they're fast, and snarling and slavering and scary. My Jill Valentine took shelter in a nearby closet, and she's been in there ever since.

Resident Evil was really a pioneer of the survival horror genre, which has become an increasingly popular subset of games. Capcom's 2006 blockbuster Dead Rising for the XBox 360 is a testament to this phenomenon. Naturally, I haven't played Dead Rising as I don't own a 360; as Killa has mentioned before, Dead Rising is one of the few titles on the Microsoft platform that really inspires jealousy in us.

Even outside of the survival horror genre, zombies make memorable appearances throughout the industry. Take ReDeads from the Legend of Zelda series, for example. These creepy f***ers have no business being in a Legend of Zelda game. That ear-splitting, paralyzing shriek when Link makes eye contact with them; their slow, shambling progression toward Link as he stands frozen in place, quaking, waiting for the paralysis to wear; you desperately jam every controller button---or swing your wiimote around like a cowboy, if you're playing Twilight Princess---but they just keep coming. It's been noted that the frightening ReDeads are out of place in the Legend of Zelda series, an unexpectedly terrifying apparition in a series that is often suitable for children.

Not all zombies are horrible, though. Perhaps the least loathable game zombie is Sir Auron from Final Fantasy X. On the surface FFX appears to be, much like every other FF game, a convoluted, action-packed adventure full of political overtones and set in a rich, detailed fantasy milieux, all overlying a poignant love story. Another analysis of FFX is that it's a crazy, zombie-infested doomsday tale; a zombie sleeper hit, even. Think about it---who among them is not an unsent (that is, a person who has died but whose spirit has not been sent to the farplane)? Every turn in FFX leads you to the revelation that someone is a zombie. Even the main boss, Yu Yevon, is cruising around the world in a giant zombie fish thing. Likewise, Seymour Guado---and his creepy mother, the aeon Anima (or Fish Mummy, Killa and I like to call her)---, the Maesters of Yevon, Beldemine, Yunalesca, one by one turn out to be unsent. Finally, Yuna's trusty bodyguard, Auron, too, turns out to be undead.

If I had had time to concoct a blog entry for yesterday's event, it would have read something like this:

Work is cancelled because there's a zombie uprising. Going to try to finish Odin Sphere with the unexpected free time. If I'm not too tired later, maybe looting and rioting.

If there was a mass zombie uprising, I'm afraid I'd be woefully unprepared, having never played through the training manual.

Odds and Ends (Catarina Edition)

Allergy season is in full swing and I could not be any more miserable than I am. I have gone through several boxes of Kleenex in the last month alone. The Claritin, it does nothing! Fortunately, I have at least one thing to look forward to in the coming weeks. After being alerted by Joystiq's post on the subject, I got tickets for myself and my husband to see Video Games Live at the Kennedy Center. Unfortunately, Killa won't be able to join us due to a work obligation.

Because there wasn't enough fussin' and a-feudin' in the world already, Square Enix definitively confirmed Final Fantasy XIII as a PS3 exclusive (via IGN). Read through the comments at your own risk, if you feel you are prepared to witness the depth and breadth of fan's inhumanity to fan. I'm less interested in the news itself than in the reaction from soldiers on both sides of the console war.

In other news, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link was the one-hundredth game offered on the Wii Virtual Console, debuting this week. I never beat Zelda II when I was playing it twenty years ago, because it was too difficult. However, in the age of the Internet (the GameFAQs age), anything is possible. Also new this week is one of my all-time favorite NES games, Milon's Secret Castle. If, like me, you have forgotten how to get the spring shoes, you should check out the awesome Milon's Secret Website.

Finally---I saved this for the end since it has embedded video, although it's probably the most interesting tidbit in this post---Bethesda Softworks has released a teaser trailer for Fallout 3. I'm looking forward to this game more, perhaps, than is appropriate considering I never played Fallout 1 or Fallout 2. And not simply because Liam Neeson is going to be providing some of the voice work. Enjoy!

This Mortal Koil

You would think that, with Square Enix's Final Fantasy 20th Anniversary Party event last weekend and Sony's Gamer's Day 2007 earlier this week, I'd have something more compelling to write about than a port of a fourteen-year-old quarter quaffer, but you would think wrong.

While waiting for my hubby and Killa's Poptart to show up, Killa and I decided to play a few rounds of MK:II on the PS3 for old time's sake. Mortal Kombat II came out in the arcades when we were both preadolescent and we used to play all the time. I mean that seriously. We played on arcade machines at least once per week, for hours. When we went on family vacations, I would seek out MK:II machines in exotic locales and play those. The arcade inside Busch Gardens (Williamsburg) had a couple of MK:II machines with the blood and gore turned off; Disney World didn't have the game on their premises at all. I didn't care for MK:I before it. I didn't care for MK:III after it. As MK:II was phased out of the arcades in favor of its later iterations and the burgeoning lineup of 3D fighters in the mid-1990s, I phased myself out of the arcades in turn.

This is just another example of me and Killa growing up gaming.

Such was the background we brought with us as we commenced our first experience with playing online over PSN. You would think that this foray into the brave new world of the PlayStation Network would be the crux of this article, but, again, you would think wrong. Anyway, we signed in to my PSN account and proceeded to search for a game to join. Finding none, we set ourselves up as a host game and waited. And waited. I excused myself to use the restroom, and when I returned Killa had found a challenger and was going to town. We took turns playing against the first challenger for 20 or 30 minutes until he got fed up and left (presumably dishearted by our m4d ski11z). We were then dumped into single-player arcade mode but we only got through half of a round before a new challenger joined in. Subsequently we trounced a number of other challengers before meeting our match (and then some).

This guy random-selected his character every time and murdered us with every character. Even Johnny Cage! He knew every special move and every finishing move (apparently) with every character. Which brought us around to an overwhelming question: What has this guy been doing these past fourteen years? Is it possible that he's been playing Mortal Kombat II this whole time? Biding his time, always waiting for the second coming of the second coming of Mortal Kombat? That glorious day when he could finally emerge from his dark basement and once again feel the sun on his face? I wish I had his dedication, whoever he is. If I had had fourteen years of practice I'd be that good, too. If only I had known at the time that, fourteen years later, I'd be playing MK:II again. But this guy, he knew. Oh, he knew.

The only hitch I noticed in the online play was when I joined a game being hosted by someone else. There was tremendous lag and latency in the remotely hosted game. I imagine it's just that the host was playing with dial-up; I certainly hope this isn't the case whenever one joins a game that is hosted by someone else. I wasn't able to find any other games to join, so I can't be sure.

I've abandoned all of the other games I've been playing to brush up on my Kombat skills, so that when I meet this guy again I can krush him.

Top 10, Again and Again

By now we're all used to the Top 10 [Somethings] in [Something] lists that proliferate all over the internets (e.g., Top 10 Most Clichéd Items on the Internet). Top 10 women in gaming lists are a frequent enough occurrence that there's no need for any more of them (see, e.g., yada yada). The other day, though, I was directed to a blog called ShinyShiny that apparently is in the business of explaining tech gadgets to helpless females(?). The specific article to which I was directed is a top ten list of female video-game characters you should idolise [sic x 2], which is a new enough twist on an old favorite that I was willing to give it a look.

I gave up hope for the ShinyShiny list as soon as I saw Ico's Yorda at number nine. It's true that Yorda can open some doors with magic that the protagonist can not otherwise get through, as they noted. That doesn't outweigh her role in the bulk of the game, which is spent dragging her along behind you like a deadweight, literally leading her around by the hand, helping her jump across tiny gaps and coaxing her up steps, yelling at her, and defending her from shadow monsters. She's completely helpless, and, should you turn your back on her for even a moment, she'll wander off and get into some terrible predicament. I don't understand how she is worthy of idolization. Is it because she's taller than Ico? Did ShinyShiny even play Ico?

Likewise, simply having appeared in many games doesn't make a character worthy of idolization. Consider Princess Zelda of Legend of Zelda fame: She's certainly physically lovely, magically powerful, and deeply good in ever fiber of her being, but she isn't a good candidate for an idol---i.e., someone to look up to and emulate. Advising a woman to idolize Princess Zelda is advising her to play a supporting role in her own story. (For the same reason, Yuna Braska of FFX and FFX-2 didn't make my cut.) Moreover, there isn't "one" Princess Zelda to idolize; every Legend of Zelda game features a different Zelda. Is this what I should idolize? A series of women, each interchangeable with all the others? Should I aspire to be confused with anyone who happens to have the same name as me?

It's not that there's anything wrong with Princess Zelda or Princess Yorda. They're both very interesting, multifaceted characters and have appeared in some of the greatest games ever made. It's just that those qualities aren't something to be idolized or emulated by real-life women. Trying to behave like Yorda would be just as foolish and ridiculous as trying to look like Lara Croft. And anyway, not every female character has to be admirable and aspirational---just like not all male video game characters are great role models. It's just that if you're going to compile and put forth a list of female characters who are worthy of idolization, I feel like a little care should be taken to see that they have some quality that makes them worth admiring (other than having "ethereal good looks" or "great hair"), or at least that you can put forth a legitimate reason why you feel they make a good role model (see Shiny's blurb on Zelda).

Without any more complaning, here is my Top 10 List of Video Game Women You Can Actually Idolize.

10. Beauty Queen Etna (Disgaea). Etna doesn't get to be a Netherworld Demon Lord by using her feminine charms. Instead, she fights her way tooth and nail to the top and then bestows upon herself the title of Beauty Queen. Etna never asks anybody for anything; if she wants something, she goes out and gets it---often, she takes it. And she makes no apologies for her caustic sense of humor. I'm looking forward to the PSP remake of Disgaea: Hour of Darkness with an all-new Etna-based storyline branch.

9. Chun-Li (Street Fighter). "I'm the strongest woman in the world!" Of all the fighting games in all the arcades in all the world, she walks into mine. There are a lot of fighting games out there with a lot of token cheesecake characters, but Chun-Li has been there from the start; her Lightning Kick and Kikoken are iconic; and her little dance of joy when she wins---"Ha, ha, ha, Yatta!"---taught a whole generation of boys to be ashamed when they got beat by a girl.

8. Rydia (Final Fantasy IV). I didn't want to flood the list with Final Fantasy characters, so I had to be pretty choosy. Rydia isn't the most memorable FF character (maybe I'm showing my age by remembering her), but she fairly embodies personal growth. Rydia is the only FF character we see grow from a child to a young woman in the course of a game. She's also the first powerful summoner of the Final Fantasy series. Throughout the Final Fantasy games, the female characters have always tended toward the mage classes while the male characters tend to be the fighters. As a summoner, Rydia was an incredibly powerful damage dealer, blazing the trail for later summoners like Garnet and Yuna.

7. Princess Peach (Super Mario Brothers). Princess Peach evolved from Donkey Kong's Lady (aka Pauline) character, the original damsel in distress. In recent years, however, Peach has really come into her own. Sure, she still needs to be rescued every now and then, but now she does the rescuing sometimes, too (see, e.g., Super Princess Peach). She was a playable character as early as 1988 in Super Mario Brothers 2, and since then she's been holding her own in other titles like the Paper Mario series and the Mario Party series. She's also proved an able go-kart racer, tennis player, golfer, and even a basketball player. She also made an appearance as a formidable fighter in Super Smash Brothers Melee. All without breaking a nail.

6. Impa (Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time). There have been several Impas over the years; we met her first in the original Legend of Zelda and just recently we ran into one of her descendants in Twilight Princess. For my money, the most admirable Impa is the iteration found in the Ocarina of Time. As the young princess's nursemaid and bodyguard, Impa---last of the warrior race of Sheikah---whisks the child Zelda away from Hyrule Castle ahead of disaster and spends the next seven years teaching her young charge everything she needs to know so that, when the time comes, Zelda will be ready to do her part to save Hyrule. When that mission is completed she takes up her post as the Shadow Sage. Impa is both nurturing and ass-kicking, a hallmark of the wise warrior archetype.

5. Ms. Pac-Man (Ms. Pac-Man). When Ms. Pac-Man first pakku-pakku'd her way onto the arcade scene in 1981 she was a female original. The only other lady in the land was Lady from Donkey Kong, and Lady was just a damsel. Ms. Pac-Man, the first female video game protagonist of all time, could do everything that Pac-Man could do---but she was actually faster than Pac-Man and, as a bonus, she had a sassy bow and a cute mole.

4. Jill Valentine (Resident Evil). The original Zombie Stomper from Resident Evil. She could carry more stuff than Chris Redfield (maybe she had a purse?) and open doors with her lock picks, but she couldn't take as much damage as Chris. One of the most common arguments supporting uneven representation of women in video games is that "men play games, and people want to play characters that represent them." Moreover, as I learned in the MMORPG wars, when men play a female character they want a fine (and largely unclothed) female body to watch to make it interesting. Resident Evil split the difference by offering two protagonists from the start. One man, one woman; both completely capable, each with unique advantages and challenges. Jill Valentine wasn't a skinny, skanky supermodel with a couple of guns and a hankerin' for some zombie spankerin'. She really did give the impression of being a fully capable, totally badass paramilitary solider.

3. Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca (Final Fantasy XII). The best female protagonist in an FF game in a long time (but with the worst name). Ashe is sort of an evolved form of FFIX's Garnet. More than anything, I appreciate her bringing the Final Fantasy series back around to more of an expansive epic plot and certainly more of a group dynamic than in recent games. Ashe isn't the narrator (narratrix?) of FFXII, but she is the main character and protagonist. A young widow, resistance leader, and displaced monarch, Ashe is incredibly accomplished for a nineteen-year-old. She's not afraid to indulge her emotions, but she knows when to move beyond them.

2. Amaterasu Okami (Okami). When the sun goddess Amaterasu has to come down to Earth, she doesn't choose to come in the form of a scantily clad bimbo, but in that of the legendary white wolf Shiranui. Her mission is purely benevolent: Armed only with a celestial paintbrush, to restore all the color of the world and drive out an unnatural darkness. Apparently, she is also endowed with infinite patience (I would never have been able to put up with Issun).

1. Samus Aran (Metroid). We spent the whole game of Metroid thinking Samus was a dude. Why? Because she was clad head to toe in her power suit and it didn't have built-in breasts or a tiny cinched waist; because the instruction manual referred to Samus as "he"; but mostly because we had never seen a female character in a video game before who wasn't sitting around waiting to be rescued, and we certainly didn't see them flying around space shooting brains with their totally awesome ray guns. Only Ms. Pac-Man approaches Samus's early protagonist status, and never forget that Ms. Pac-Man was just having a snack; Samus Aran was saving the whole galaxy.


Honorable Mentions
---Judge Magister Drace (FFXII). I would have given Drace a spot in the main list, but her appearance in FFXII is so brief. Drace is the only female among the Judge Magisters of the Archadean Empire and the champion of the youthful Prince Larsa. Drace is a decent person first and a judge second, and she proves herself when she attempts to arrest her corrupt monarch, even knowing that the futile effort will cost her life.

---Mama (Cooking Mama). No, she's not saying "You're not mine!" when you mess up. She's saying "Do not mind!" Mama doesn't want you to feel bad when you burn the toast or drop the eggs on the floor. She just wants to spend time with her kids, doing something fun and educational (cooking). It's too bad more mamas aren't like her.

The John DiMaggio Fan Club

(This post is only partially gaming related.)

I recently learned that I have a new idol, and his name is John DiMaggio. I've always wanted to be some kind of creepy celebrophile but there was never a celebrity I liked enough to devote my energy to (and we thought that if e'er a celebrity would inspire me to get up off the couch, it would be Jessica Alba).

John DiMaggio did the voices of Wakka and Kimahri Ronso in FFX and FFX-2 and the voice of the lovable pimp-and-dry-goods-salesman Migelo in FFXII. He was the Juggernaut (bitch!) in X-Men Legends and X-Men Legends II. He did voices for Kingdom Hearts II and the animated film Princess Mononoke. Apparently, he also played some guy called Marcus Fenix in some other game. Perhaps most important of all, he was the voice of Bender Bending Rodriguez in Futurama, the greatest television show ever made by man.

In all seriousness, though, the phenomenon of voice acting as a profession bears thought. In the United States, we don't think about voice actors very much (if at all), unless a person who is famous in some other arena lends their voice to a project (for example, Andy Serkis in Heavenly Sword, or Patrick Stewart in Oblivion). In Japan, however, voice acting is on an entirely different plane. "Seiyuu," or Japanese voice actors, have a celebrity status in Japan akin to movie actors in the United States, or Posh Beckham in the United Kingdom. Magazines profile them, and they're recognized in the street.

What I'm trying to say is, it's a crying shame that John DiMaggio has been involved in pretty much everything I've liked in the last ten years or so (and some 360 game I don't care about, but whatever), and I didn't even know it. A brief googular foray turns up no evidence of an existing John DiMaggio fan club, so I would like to start one. I can make up T-shirts with his face plastered all over them. I can be not just a member of the fan club, but also the president. If Futurama ever goes on tour, I can follow it around the country just like in episode 3ACV13, Bendin' in the Wind.

In unrelated news, I'm cooking up an article that I thought to have ready yesterday, should be along in the next few days. It would have been done sooner, but I was distracted by the sudden realization of John DiMaggio.

P S Plea

(Or, SKU You!)

After a number of heart-to-heart conversations and much soul searching, my husband and I have made the decision to add another handheld gaming system to our little family. We currently have a DS Lite (his) comprising the entire mobile contingent of our gaming hardware, the stationary branch of which is well represented by Nintendo's and Sony's most recent offerings. (We also have a broken XBox, but, hey, who doesn't?) We had initially planned to add another DS Lite to the brood, in part so that we could play multiplayer games together over WiFi, but primarily so that I could join his FFIII friends list; apparently, you can't unlock the ultimate items in that game if you don't have anyone on your WiFi friend list. And no one hates leaving a game unfinished more than my husband.

Then we began to hear mutterings of a Disgaea port for PSP and SquareEnix announced that the twentieth anniversary of Final Fantasy collection is going to include several entries for the PSP (Final Fantasy I and II Anniversary Editions, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core). Knowing that I have no higher aspiration in life than to buy and play every Final Fantasy title, again and again, as frequently as Square releases it, my husband suggested that we might get a PSP instead of a second DS Lite. Other notable forthcoming titles like Jeanne D'Arc (by the same folks who made Rogue Galaxy and DQVIII) and Tales of the World, and a host of existing titles that I never got to play (LocoRoco, Valkyrie Profile, etc.) are starting to make the PSP look pretty tempting. With the long-rumored price drop in effect as of April 3, there's more reason than ever to move forward with picking one up.

I have one big reservation, though. It's not really limited to the PSP, but since I already own all of the consoles I'm planning to need for the next five to ten years, this is the area that best spotlights the problem in my case.

I have a sinking feeling that the moment I run out and pick up a PSP, Sony is going to announce a new SKU. It happened to early adopters of the XBox 360---the new XBox 360 Elite is going to be a bargain compared to the Premium model that was previously the high-end 360 (the Elite is more expensive, yes, but not proportionately more expensive for all of the upgrades that it contains). What is disturbing about news of the impending new MS SKU is not necessarily that they're releasing a new "trim level" of the 360; that might disturb some early adopters who feel as though they were mislead when they purchased the "best" 360 early on, and I understand their feelings, but MS hasn't defrauded them or anything. What I do think is underhanded is MS's deliberate campaign to cover up development of the Elite in order to prevent sales of the Premium from dipping. See, e.g., Peter Moore's comments as of January 2007 to the tune of "You know, certainly the price point of the PS3 isn't something that I want to emulate. It's very difficult for me to point to anything there that I think we're missing right now."

Is it possible that the 360 Elite, announced in March of 2007, was not yet in development as of January 2007 when Moore made these comments that directly imply that the 360 doesn't need any upgrades? If the 360 wasn't missing anything, why was a new SKU announced three months later? Indeed, a SKU that is intended to compete with the PS3? In fact, there is some suggestion that Sony, too, is working on an upgraded PS3. That's all fine with me; I don't feel that my PS3 is missing anything, and if I decide I need a larger harddrive for it, I can easily upgrade the one I have. With the PSP, however, rumors of a redesign have been flying around for ages---now confirmed, now debunked---so that I have to prepare myself for the eventuality that, the moment I commit my money to a PSP, Sony is going to announce a redesign---Internal storage! Bluetooth! Improved D-Pad functionality! And then I'll be the fool parted from her money too soon, wishing I had waited longer for the new and improved PSP.

I have no beef with the game industry expanding its offerings in the console and handheld departments. Considering that new items in this industry become available only once every five to ten years, it makes sense for developers to give us more options from the start. What I am concerned about is the sudden shift toward releasing an item, selling 10 million of them, and then turning around and releasing a "new and improved" model so that you can sell said item again to some of those same 10 million who already purchased it. I can understand the allure of this business model. After all, once you sell a console to a customer, assuming your high-quality product doesn't break (again, not a safe assumption *cough XBOX cough*), they're not going to buy another one. Nobody replaces their console annually or every couple of years like they do with PCs and cars. But if a new SKU is in development, I think console makers have an ethical obligation to let consumers know, so that we can make an educated purchases.

In the mean time, I'm going to delay my purchase until my birthday this summer; if I haven't heard any news of a redesigned or reissued PSP by then, I'll take the plunge. I can't avoid the guilty feeling, though, that my decision to wait is only holding up the impending news of a redesign. I'm sure they're only waiting for the charge to hit my credit card before the press release rolls out.

For Every Samus

(There is an Equal and Opposite Lara)

"Why aren't there more female gaming bloggers?" asks Kotaku's Brian Crecente. It's a good question and I'm glad somebody has asked it "aloud." Why are they so hard to find? The fact is that we're looking for individuals with three crucial characteristics, each harder to find than the one before.

The community of women is not small; the community of gamers is smaller than that, but still by no means small; finally, the community of writers falls somewhere in between, depending on how you define a "writer." We're looking for a person who is all three of these things in one person, so we have to ask ourselves: "Where is the stumbling block?" I have no doubt that there are plenty of writers who are women. I know that there is no shortage of gamers who are writers. If we accept both of these premises as true, then we must conclude that the choke point is women who are also gamers.

To get to the root cause of this, we must puzzle out why the community of female gamers is not proportionate in size to the community of male gamers. By way of a disclaimer, I don't purport to be an anthropologist, sociologist, psychologist, or ethnographer, so I can't make these claims with any sort of academic authority. All I have is my own perception.

Is it that women as a demographic are ambivalent toward video games in the same way that they are ambivalent toward sports? I think this is a possibility that accounts for some women---it's possible that a greater proportion of women than men just aren't interested in games---but we're comparing apples and oranges. On the one hand, sports and video games are both forms of entertainment, and in that sense it's fair to say that some women in general may simply be uninterested in these forms of entertainment. On the other hand, video games are a type of media. To say that games aren't interesting to women is akin to saying that television, radio, or books aren't of interest to women (or men, or any other demographic).

Is it that there is a stigma attached to playing video games? For an adult woman---in my experience, yes. When I told one colleague at my place of employment that I enjoy playing video games, she responded: "Really? You don't look like that kind of person." Another response I have received from another coworker is: "At your age?" The other day I received a phone call in the evening from a colleague who knows that I work a full-time job, plus a part-time job, on top of caring for a husband, a home, a dog, and this blog. Instead of asking what I was up to that evening, she simply said: "You're probably playing your video games."

The perception that gaming is the province of adolescent boys leads to the assumption among the misinformed that an adult man who is a gamer simply has not grown out of a boyish habit, whereas an adult woman who is a gamer is doing something that is not only age inappropriate, but also gender inappropriate. When pressed, non-gaming colleagues have told me they feel that gaming is a waste of time, or that it is a lot of time to spend on something that has no lasting results and leads to no measurable gain. For some reason, though, these same people don't feel that watching Lost or Ugly Betty on television, browsing YouTube on the computer, or spending an evening at a nightclub are profitless wastes of time.

Is it also possible that there is negativity toward women within the male gaming community? Yes. Although it's much more comfortable to direct the blame outside of the gaming community that I love, the fact is that male gamers engage in hostility toward female gamers, often without even realizing they are doing so.

"It's up to you [women] to help change perceptions, because god knows we've had enough Barbie Adventures for a lifetime," Crecente writes, but there's a major logic flaw in his plea. It won't help for women gamers to come forward and tell the world that we're sick of Barbie Adventures. The perception problem here is that people---even people who are seriously in the know---assume that games like Barbie ____ Adventures are being made for and marketed to women when they are in fact being made for and marketed to children. Nora Helmer, do you hear this? Is it possible that confusing these two demographics might be part of the reason adult women are steering clear?

In high school, I took a co-ed gym class (scandalous!) that did weight training on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and free exercise on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. On the first Monday of class, the coach tossed a basketball into the center of the gym and said: "Today is free exercise. Boys, play basketball. Girls, sit in the bleachers and gossip." (This is absolutely a true account.) I sort of feel the same way about the welcome women gamers receive from gentleman gamers: "Boys, play Halo. Girls, play Barbie's Latest Adventure."

While We Were Sleeping

(Breaking News: Sony To Take Ball, Go Home.)

It was a dark and stormy night, and I was out like a light, sleeping the sleep of the chronically afflicted. I have this cold from November through March, every year. As soon as the weather warms up, and I get some sun, and the sniffles finally disperse, it will be allergy season.

Somewhere in the gathering darkness Killa, too, was sleeping, dreaming his headshot dreams. Suddenly, a shot rang out! A door slammed! The maid screamed! Suddenly, PR snafu appeared on the horizon.

In an interview on Wednesday, February 28, the GDC executive director (Jamil Moledina) told the media that (SCEI executive) Phil Harrison's keynote speech at GDC next week would leave PS3 owners "very happy." I didn't pay too much attention to this at the time; I'm enjoying my PS3. I'd be "very happy" with a FFXIII demo, but that would be SE news, not SCEI news. Well whatever. I filed it away in my brain for future reference. Although prompted for further information, Moledina was rightly reticent.

Yesterday, March 1, Kotaku.com editors Brian Crecente and Michael McWhertor ran a rumor that the highly anticipated announcement Phil Harrison would be making on March 7 was to be the unveiling of PlayStation Home, Sony's take on XBox Live and Nintendo's Mii channel---a virtual space where PS3 players can house an avatar and display their gaming achievments (sort of like one's house in Animal Crossing, I have heard it said). When they tried to verify the story with Sony, Crecente and McWhertor were asked not to publish the story, then threatened with ominous consequences if they ran it, which they did anyway. Kotaku and Sony seem to have since made up, but not quickly enough to keep diehard Sony fanboys Tycho and Gabe over at PA from commenting on the events.

Let this be a lesson to anyone who is in the field of, or considering going into, public relations. The news media and the blogging community are not part of your PR machine. It is the job of your PR department to keep news under wraps until it is advantageous for you to reveal it, while generating as much excitement about it as possible. SCEI and GDC representatives did this by leaking teaser tidbits about Harrison's keynotes. That was the correct thing for them to do. It is then the job of the news media and the blogging community to disseminate information when they have it. It is ludicrous for Sony to expect Kotaku to hold their information for them, and the implication that Crecente and McWhertor were somehow behaving unethically or discourteously is equally ludicrous.

If Sony hadn't made such a big fuss over this, it would have remained a rumor. The gaming community would have speculated about it over the next week and then, come March 7, Phil Harrison could have made his keynote as planned with even more buzz than before, because Kotaku's readers would have all tuned in to find out if the rumors were true.

Instead, Sony essentially confirmed the story by vehemently insisting that Kotaku sit on the rumor. If Sony had simply said to Kotaku, "Hey, we wish you wouldn't run this," the story would have run as a rumor and that's it. But the PR explosion serves the dual purpose of convincing everyone who heard it that A) the information is true, and B) the Sony PR machine is a big jerk. Had Sony let the story run as a rumor and held back any comments, it would have turned out pretty well for them, I think. It's unfortunate that Sony's judgement was so poor in this case; they really need all the good PR they can get.

They had learned about public relations, but more importantly, they had learned something about life.

Headshot Dreamin'

109:19/18-3 DM Harbor

I'll get back to those figures in a moment, just wanted to write them down while they were in front of me.

For years, my dreams have been invaded by whatever activity I may have been concentrating on most at the time. As an avid gamer, video and otherwise, this often means dreams about games. I can recall the patterns of Mega Man 3 stimulating my rapid eye movement or a book's of worth backgammon positions flashing through my mind as I lay sleeping. This is not uncommon for me.

Part of my interpretation of this effect comes from my background in psych. I'm not going to bore into this issue ad nauseum as not to alienate those uninitiated nor to reveal my own lack of authority on the subject, but please indulge me for a moment. Sleep is important to memory, as anyone who has stayed up for two or three days straight could tell you. Attempting to recall some of the basic things you did at the beginning of the period, such as what you ate for breakfast the morning of day one, are nigh impossible. Science also tells us that a part of the brain called the hippocampus replays activities of the current day while we sleep, and this plays a central role in memory consolidation, or the transfer from working memory into long term memory.

This entire process is not entirely understood by the scientific community, so I feel no great guilt in referencing it without complete detail. The point is that these elements of games are experienced during sleep, much as they are during the day, just as any activity, virtual or not, may be. In some cases this facilitates latent learning.

It is through this lens that I mention that after marathon sessions of Portable Ops Online just before bed, I've had dreams that centrally involve shooting people in the head. Headshots, you see, are the absolute most important skill in the aforementioned arena of electronic competition. Sure, some n00bz will get a kill here or there with a shotgun blast, or a few swipes of a machete, but if you want to dominate in MPO, you better get used to aiming for the head.

Now, back to those cryptic numbers. 109:19/18-3 DM Harbor. My best score ever was 109 in a Deathmatch at the Harbor. 109 total points, 19 kills (18 of which were headshots) and three deaths. A real killing spree. I have to attribute this to having a group of below average players in that round, as even when I do happen to be the best of the six, I don't dominate to such a degree.

Of course, when you mention to people that you've been having dreams about shooting people in the head, they look at you kinda funny. Without a little background it can be unnerving for someone who knows you to hear that your unconscious mind is obsessed with executing anyone that comes into their field of vision. But, in MPO and most any other online shooter, whether it be first-person or third, the headshot is admirable. You see, I don't become angry or upset when a bullet finds its speeding way into my gulliver. If throughout the duration of a ten minute match someone continuously catches me off guard and lands death dealing blows right between my eyes, over and over and over, it becomes something almost fraternal. Like a big brother dishing out noogies. It's similar to a salute in a way. Although, you can perform a salute in MPO, but doing so leaves you momentarily open to a headshot, natch.

Even though I may try to explain these aesthetics to those unfamiliar, I can't help but think they may come away with a negative impression. In retrospect, perhaps I shouldn't mention these kinds of dreams to the people with whom I work. I suppose this is the sort of talk one should reserve for blogging.

Now if you don't mind, I have some heads to shoot.

There's No "L"

I have decided that it is finally time to take the plunge and buy a game for my PS3, which has been functioning basically as a glorified PS2 since I bought it. This arrangement has been just fine with me because, after upgrading the firmware and over HDMI cables, I don't notice any image degradation when playing PS2 games on PS3---in fact, the picture looks better than it does on my PS2, which is connected via composite cable, which, for the uninitiated, is pretty much just a shoelace and a couple of paperclips.

There haven't been any games that have been worth my $60 just yet. My husband almost broke down and bought Sonic the Hedgehog, but I stopped him just in the nick of time. Most of what is out there so far is racing, real sports, or trash. Since I, personally, am not particularly interested in any of those fine genres, I've taken a pass on the offerings thus far. The lack of substance in the current catalog is also the main reason I've found myself interested in Virtua Fighter 5. I wholeheartedly prefer Soul Caliber, and Killa is a Tekken man through and through. Although I don't have any dislike of Virtua Fighter, it is definitely a distant third for me, falling well behind the Namco/Bandai contenders. I would like to take this opportunity to review Virtua Fighter 5, but I can't, because I haven't played it yet.

At this point I should interject that Killa warned me against airing this tirade. "Don't pick on EB Games/Gamestop," he says, "It's too easy, and anyway it's kind of ripping off Penny Arcade."

On Tuesday, misinformed about the street date of VF5, Killa and I went to down to Ye Olde Game Shoppe. Not the closest location, though. In addition to VF5, I wanted to pick up La Pucelle Tactics for my hubby, and an inventory search of their website showed that only a more distant location had this particular used item in stock. Once we arrived, La Pucelle was procured in short order; I then asked for Virtua Fighter 5.

"That's not out 'til tomorrow," I was told. That’s alright. I realized I had my dates mixed up, or read the website wrong, but it was no biggie. The real prize, La Pucelle, was in hand. Then, the clerk added, "Did you preorder it?" I said I had not.

"Mmmm. Then you won’t be able to get it," chimed in the manager.

"What? Why?" I asked.

"Because it’s going to be sold out," she said.

"Sold out here, you mean?"

"No. . . . everywhere. Nobody is going to have this game. Trust me," she said, with the same sort of ominous tone that is usually reserved for warning one about the dangers of blu-ray lasers. I found that very hard to believe, since Best Buy and the other "big box" retailers usually have scads of these games on hand when they come out---scads, that is, that haven’t already been presold.

"Why don’t you preorder it now?" offered the clerk. "It's just five dollars down and you can come pick it up tomorrow." Now, remember, I’m at the location that is not nearest to my home. That’s part of the reason I don’t preorder to begin with---it necessitates two trips to the store, whereas I really feel that one trip should be sufficient to, you know, buy the thing I came in for. Before I could answer, the manager piped up as well:

"They only send me as many copies as I've presold, plus maybe one extra copy, so if you don’t preorder it, I won’t have one for you." At this, I became incensed. Since the game was to come out the next day, it must have already been shipped. So all the copies she was going to receive were already in the store, or on the way. Yet, they were still trying to take my preorder money on something I was just told would not be available for me the next day.

"So what you’re telling me," I reasoned aloud, "Is that I should not come here tomorrow to try to buy this game?"

"Right."

"In fact, I should never come to your store to buy a new game, unless I've preordered it?"

"Right." And that was all I needed to hear.

The cardinal rule of sales is the ABC rule, to always be closing. I would add a prerequisite to that: For brick-and-mortar retail stores, before you can even begin to close, you have to have the customer in your store; that is, physically in your presence. If the customer is in your store, then you can sell her something. Or at least try to. If the customer is not in your store, then your opportunity for sales is totally null. Telling the customer not to come to your store is the opposite of everything you are endeavoring to do by running a store that sells items.

Although, in fact, this store seems not to sell items.

I understand this phenomenon of scarcity. In the electronic game industry, unsold stock is a huge liability. Price cuts happen all the time, and unsold stock can't be returned to its manufacturer. Moreover, there is no accurate advance predictor of how well a given game will sell. In the movie industry, one can analyze the box office grosses to estimate how many DVDs are going to sell, but there's no such preview for games. It only makes sense for EB Games/Gamestop to stock only as many copies of a game as they are guaranteed to sell. The difficulty in buying a new game on release day from this store is not at issue.

The issue is this: When I do preorder a game, even if I pay in full for it up front at the time of the order, I must pick the game up within 48 hours of its release date, lest it be sold to someone else. Now, in my experience, when I have paid for something in full, it is mine and belongs to me, but the policies at this establishment disagree, which makes me uneasy. In addition---the primary reason that I do not preorder games---I frequently change my mind and my plans. I don’t want to have to drive to Shelbyville to pick up my game when I'm hanging out in Springfield all day. Or if I happen to be at a mall in Capitol City, it’s easier for me to pick the game up there rather than making a stop back in Springfield after my shopping spree.

I left with La Pucelle and a heavy heart, but this tale has a happy ending. On my way home from work this afternoon I stopped by the Gamestop that is nearest to my home. I strolled in and enquired as to whether there might be a copy of Virtua Fighter 5 on hand that I could readily purchase. The clerk looked at me like I had three heads---but only briefly, before handing me my game.

"I didn't preorder this," I said, "Is it really OK for me to buy? I heard this was going to be sold out everywhere?"

The clerk only snorted, and asked "Who told you that?"

Bid Me Discourse, I Will Enchant Thine . . . Arm?

(One Step Forward, Two Steps Back)

The crux of the issue is that I really want to know the street date for Enchanted Arms for the PS3, but I’m afraid to ask. The two main reasons (for my fear) are: First, that I don’t want to hear any PS3 jokes; and, second, neither do I want to hear any Enchanted Arms jokes. I’m a fan of JRPGs, so when reviews arise that advise against purchasing a game based on the fact that the game in question---itself in fact a JRPG---exhibits characteristics suspiciously like those found in a---wait for it!---JRPG, I may somehow not be warned off buying it. But I don’t fancy getting into this conversation with the clerk at EBStop, so I am loathe to call them up and enquire about the street date. Wikipedia says March 13. Gamestop.com says March 27. Ubisoft is only confirming March, 2007. I averaged the two street dates and came up with March 20, which is good enough for the moment.

The street date for Enchanted Arms isn’t really the crux of the issue, however. That was all just a clever ruse. Apparently the game is a piece---I still want to/intend to give it a try, but, to be fair, I hear it’s really terrible. I checked out some comments on the web from players of the previously released X-Box 360 version, and I must say there was an almost palpable sense of displeasure wafting up from the forums. Complaints cover the whole spectrum: People just don’t like the gameplay; the graphics aren’t very good for "next gen"; the voice acting is terrible; the plot is lame; the encounter rate is uneven and generally engineered badly; the battle mechanics are troublesome; the list goes on, and on, and on.

What I did not find on the list was any complaint about the fact that one of the main party characters in Enchanted Arms, Makoto, is a flamboyant transvestite and homosexual. In a demographic primarily populated by males aged 14 to 35 (my approximation), and specifically by the subgroup (X-Box 360 owners) that enjoys games based on shooting every living thing that isn’t from the same country/planet as them, I was pleasantly surprised to find such a complete and utter lack of bigotry in terms of this game.

Congratulations, gaming industry, for your sensitivity! Kudos to you, Ubisoft, for your inclusive sexual politics! I think we should all be very proud of ourselves. Although gaming is often maligned as a catalyst for violence and a hotbed of unfortunate stereotypes, you must admit that the industry has a long and illustrious history of tolerance for transvestism in its products.

Perhaps the most famous and most inspiring instance is Princess Zelda’s male alter ego, Sheik, from The Ocarina of Time. After narrowly escaping Ganondorf’s clutches as a young child, Zelda spends the next seven years, while Link is frozen in the Temple of Time, studying the arts of war under her tutor and bodyguard, Impa. She then returns to Hyrule disguised as (or magically transformed into?) a man in order to aid Link in the battle against Ganondorf and his evil influence. A major theme of The Legend of Zelda series is that of disguising and/or discovering one’s true nature. Even as The Ocarina of Time begins, Link learns that he is actually a Hylian after having been raised as a Kokiri for his whole life. So it is, too, with Zelda, one of the most archetypically feminine characters in the entire genre, who must discover her untapped potential as a warrior in order to save her kingdom after having been raised as a pampered princess for her whole life.

This is one of the oldest plot devices in the history of the book: In order to accomplish her goal, a woman must disguise herself as a man. We don't even bat an eye at this, because we all know that the heroine won't be able to accomplish anything if everyone knows she's a woman. Eventually, inevitably, her hair and breasts will come tumbling out of their hiding places and the male lead will fall in love on the spot, ending the lady's cross-dressing career forever. Shakespeare did it. Tolkien, too. Even Disney has tapped this one without raising any eyebrows.

For some reason, though, it's a completely different story when it's a man dressing as a woman.

As early as 1988, when Nintendo rolled out Super Mario Bros. 2 (arguably one of the weirdest games of all time), they were already on the path to equal representation for sexual minorities. One of the first boss fights was versus Birdo, a pink dinosaur-bird-thing that hopped around like mad and spat eggs at you. The instruction manual had this to say of him: "He thinks he is a girl and he spits eggs from his mouth. He'd rather be called 'Birdetta.'" Later documentation insists that Birdo has always been a girl.

This backpedaling would be distasteful enough if Nintendo were trying to conceal a cross-dresser in the otherwise irreproachable Super Mario Brothers family, but the truth is actually worse. Although at the time---I was seven?---I didn't find anything particularly strange or funny about Birdo, I now suspect that s/he was intended to be a joke---ala, that guy who wants so badly to be a woman that he's quite literally got eggs spewing out of him. In order to defeat Birdo, the player is tasked with catching the eggs in midair and hurling them back at Birdo until s/he is knocked unconscious, dropping the key to the next level. (I don't think that metaphor needs any explanation.)

Which brings me back to the case of Enchanted Arms, in a sort of roundabout way. What I mean to point out is that it’s hardly revolutionary to feature a transvestite in a video game. (Much more revolutionary is that Makoto is also gay, which doesn’t seem to have been the case with Sheik, or even at issue with Birdo.) Ubisoft, you don't score any points for being on the cutting edge of youth subculture. It's been done before. What would have scored some points, and been truly revolutionary, would have been to include a transvestite or homosexual character who isn't a running joke, as Makoto appears to be. From Ubisoft's website:

Atsuma and Toya's classmate at Enchant University. Atsuma and Toya are his best friends. Makoto is openly gay and his friends like to call him the "yellow otomegokoro."* He is blindly in love with Toya and centers all of his actions and thoughts around Toya. Makoto has a confrontational attitude with Atsuma because he is jealous of Atsuma and Toya's close friendship.

* According to this dictionary, "otomegokoro" seems to translate to "girl's feeling, maiden's mind."

I was proud to see people in the gaming community refraining from making fun of this character, even when Ubisoft appears to have set him up as comic relief, in favor of making fun of more concrete aspects of the game, like the gameplay. Ubisoft's brief description of him defines him only in terms of his relationship to his "best friends," Toya and Atsuma, who call him names. I wonder if they also throw eggs at him? I'll have to play the game for myself to really assess the situation, but you have to admit, on the surface at least, it looks pretty bad.

Therefore, in conclusion: If you know the street date for Enchanted Arms PS3, can you please leave a message in the comments? kthxbye

Are They or Aren't They?

Here's my little couples in gaming response, coming hot on the heels of (read: ripping off) Catarina's Three Great Couples post. However, this supplement is going to focus on three of the more ambiguous relationships in games.

Jun Kazama and Kazuya Mishima

Well, we know they had sex; their son Jin is a testament to that. So some of the ambiguity goes out the window there. (Yeah, great choice, Killa.) The actual nature of their relationship is hard to pin down, though. The Tekken anime depicts their connection in great detail, using it as a central part of the storyline.

The anime, though, is not considered canon, and, unlike cinema, fighting game storylines are rarely so simple. What we do know from the games themselves is that Jun Kazama entered the the second King of Iron Fist tournament to stop Kazuya Mishima's illegal trade of endangered animals. When she encountered him, being the Chosen Kazama, she could sense that his supernatural power came from his deal with Devil. So... she hooked up with him. (Okay, you kind of lost me there, Namco.) Devil would later try to possess her unborn child, but she defeated him, and kept Jin safe by relocating to some remote mountains. And that is virtually all we know of Jun and Kazuya's temporary union. But, hell, it really is the closest thing to a coupling in Tekken, besides Xiaoyu's crush on Jin. Or Kuma's crush on Panda.

Naked Snake and the Boss



Perhaps the most perplexing couple in modern gaming is The Boss and Naked Snake, as shown in MGS3. Having her own son taken from her moments after giving birth, The Boss developed a maternal attachment to Naked Snake, or Jack, as she would call him. Snake denies to Eva in dialogue that there was a sexual component to their relationship, but speculation still runs rampant among Metal Gear fans. Having been comrades for ten years it is problematic for Snake to be charged with hunting her down and killing her as part of Operation Snake Eater. On an emotional level, personally, killing her may have been the hardest part of any videogame I've played. That defining moment would create a chain reaction guiding the events in Naked Snake's, and in turn Solid Snake's life.

Cammy and Vega

Master Vega, the leader of the Shadaloo crime syndicate, claims at one point that Cammy is a clone of him. This most likely is untrue. It is much more plausible, given other evidence, that she was kidnapped and subjected to gene therapy to make her more like Vega, as the original plan was to use her as his next body should his Psycho Power overwhelm his current manifestation. She was also brainwashed, enhanced with experimental drugs, and trained to be the assassin codenamed Killer Bee. In Cammy's ending from Street Fighter Zero 3 (her first canonically chronological appearance) she defeats Vega, destroying his body, and he utters the phrase, "How could I lose to a copy of myself...?" He then begins to invade her mind, until Chun Li intervenes.

Skip ahead to the Street Fighter II timeline. Cammy is an amnesiac agent of the British special forces unit Delta Red. Upon defeating Vega, he tells her, "How could you forget about me, Cammy? [...] We were in love!" Expectedly, she has a hard time believing this.

And then there's her win quote from the non-canonical X-Men Vs. Street Fighter...

Three Great Couples in Gaming

. . . And Three Couples That Aren't . . . And Three Honorable Mentions, for Good Measure

In honor of today, February 14th, St. Valentine's day, National Hallmark day, I have compiled a list of my three favorite couples in gaming, my favorite three non-couples in gaming, and three influential couples that didn't make the cut, but deserved honorable mentions nonetheless.

[Avast! Here thar be plot spoilers!]

Couples That Just Won't Quit
Mario and Peach: Super Mario Brothers

By now, these two ought to be like the old married couple of gaming---all nagging, no spark. But they are still as lovey-dovey as a couple of school kids, still going strong after twenty-six years. It's the classic story---ordinary plumber makes good, meets nice princess. They always lend each other a helping hand when one or the other gets kidnapped. They play sports together, like tennis, baseball, and soccer---they even race go-karts. They get along well with each other's WAcky family members. They care for a pet Yoshi together. Mario is a good provider---he's plumber and a doctor, you know---and Peach is always a perfect lady; she's never snotty and never lords her royal heritage over her honey's head. These two are the cornerstone of love in gaming. I suspect that years from now we'll all be playing games featuring their grandkids.

Yuri and Alice: Shadow Hearts

The most striking thing about this relationship is that it powered not only one entire game, but it also went on to be the basis of another entire game, even after one of the lovers has perished. The original Shadow Hearts had two endings---in the good ending, Alice and Yuri win the fight, and wake up together on the train. In the other, Yuri wakes from the dreamworld to find Alice peacefully asleep on his shoulder; sadly, having sacrificed her soul to save Yuri in the dream world, she never awakens. When Shadow Hearts Covenant rolls around, we learn that the "bad ending"---the one in which Alice died---was the canon ending. She is replaced by the shapely, red-headed Karen Koenig, who travels the world over at Yuri's side and falls madly in love with him. But Yuri can never stop loving Alice, and the flashback train scenes are some of the most emotional footage I've ever seen in a game. Poor Karen goes home empty-handed. Which, it turns out, is a good thing, since she turns out to be Yuri's---!?!

Squall and Rinoa: Final Fantasy VIII

If you come here. . . . You'll find me. . . . I promise. . . . It was tough to pick just one couple out of the Final Fantasy ether. But when you carefully analyze the storylines of FFVII through XII, I think it becomes apparent that the only real love story in the bunch was Final Fantasy VIII. Final Fantasy VII, IX, and XII are political stories with love in the mix, and X, while it comes close, is really the story of a summoner and her companions trying to save the world. There's not really a whole lot of world saving going on in FFVIII---it's mostly saving Rinoa. Because we need her to save the world (ala Aerith and Yuna)? No---just because we luv her. The entire plot and backstory of the game---think Laguna and Julia and the saccharine "Eyes on Me" theme (am I the only one who still remembers the chorus?)---is all an elaborate setup for Squall and Rinoa to fall in love.

Couples That . . . Aren't
Link and Zelda: The Legend of Zelda

These two have been bumping into each other practically nonstop for more than twenty years now. But, although this fan-favorite pair have spent something like a dozen games together, they're not "together." An interesting item to note about Link and Zelda is that---unlike all the other couples in this list, and unlike most main characters throughout gamingdom---they aren't always the same Link and Zelda from game to game. The Zelda from Ocarina of Time is not the same woman we meet in Twilight Princess. Likewise, the Link you play in Wind Waker isn't the same Link that you play in The Legend of Zelda---although the Link from The Legend of Zelda is the same Link as the one in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. That lucky Link---from the first two games to be released, which happen to be the last two events in the overarching LoZ timeline---does get the girl at the end. But most of the Links throughout LoZ history don't end up romantically linked with Zelda. As children in Ocarina of Time, they're friends; as adults later in the same game they're companions in battle; in some games---like Majora's Mask---there's no Zelda at all! The fact remains that Link is traditionally a farm boy or a shepherd, and Zelda is the princess of the kingdom he lives in. He respects her and admires her, and protects her at the cost of his life, but he never makes a move on her. She's just out of his league.

Wanda and Mono: Shadow of the Colossus

On its surface, Shadow of the Colossus appears to be a beautiful and poignant love story about a boy who will do anything to bring his true love back from beyond the grave. It is a beautiful story about a boy and his quest to bring the woman back from the dead, but theres a problem---Wanda (the hero) and Mono (the damsel in deathly distress) don't seem to be romantically attached. In fact, Mono doesn't seem to have even known Wanda when she was alive. Why would someone go to such great lengths for the life of a stranger? That's the real mystery here. Is Wanda some kind of crazy stalker? Rather than an undying love, is it an undying sense of responsibility for the maiden's death that drives him? Whatever you make of their relationship, the fact is that in Shadow of the Colossus, there's no love going on between them---they never interact; they're like ships in the night. The real story of love, companionship, and devotion in this game---not to be all Equus---is that of Wanda and his trusty steed, Aggro.

Pac Man and Ms Pac Man: Pac Man

First of all, she's MS Pac Man---not MRS Pac Man. We don't know what the deal is with these two hockey pucks. Are they siblings? Friends? Maybe even THE SAME PERSON?! I like to think they were once married (that's why they have the same name) but now divorced (that's why she's Ms instead of Mrs.). The breakup was probably a result of Pac Man's unbearable feelings of inadequacy when Ms Pac Man proved to be his match in the pellet-eating, ghost-evading battle for marital supremacy.

Honorable Mentions
Lara Croft's Breasts: Tomb Raider

They're always together, inseparable and larger-than-life. Lara Croft's hypermamiferous headlights (headlamps, actually, since she's British) have fueled the popularity of the series through ten games and two films. Thank you, Lara Croft's breasts, for teaching a generation of gamers how to love.

Ash and Pikachu: Pokémon

You'll never find a more devoted, loving pair than Ash Ketchum and his prized Pikachu. So what if one of them is a preadolescent boy and the other one is a football-sized electric mouse? If loving a football-sized electric mouse is wrong, Ash doesn't want to be right.

Nana and Popo: Ice Climber

I'm not sure what's up with these two. They've been retconned as a couple (see Super Smash Bros. Melee), but is it just a diversion? Can we even tell what genders they are beneath those adorable pastel parkas? Are they man and wife? Adam and Steve? Lesbians? All we know for sure is that they club seals together.

Thinking Outside the Box

Catherine’s Blog, Supplemental

In lieu of posting some completely inane musing, as I usually do, I have something kind of useful for once. And for my friends who stop by this blog out of kindness, and not out of any particular love of, or even interest in, gaming, maybe this will be interesting for them, since it applies to movies and music as well as games.

Do not come to expect this diversity from my writing! This could be a fatal mistake!

Gaming is not a cheap hobby, but I try to make it as cheap as possible by buying used whenever I can. E-Bay and Gamestop are premium outlets for keeping costs down. Gamestop is ideal for anything from the current or previous generation of consoles (e.g., Wii, PS3, X-Box 360, GCN, PS2, and X-Box games). A little googling can usually turn up Gamestop coupon codes for 15% off used games or free shipping for even more savings. For older titles or rare titles, E-Bay is good. No matter how old or obscure a game is, someone, somewhere, is probably trying to unload it. Amazon.com's Z-Shops are even a little preferable, for me, for this purpose, since you can load up on games from different sellers and then pay all at once with a credit card. However, Amazon.com can't match E-Bay's selection.

In any CASE, a little sleuthing can save a gamer big bucks over time if he or she consistently seeks out savings by buying used whenever feasible. There is, however, one big drawback to buying used. Specifically, that used games don't always come in their original case.

I, for one, am slightly neurotic about the boxes that my games and movies are in. I don't like games that originally came in a DVD-size keep case to be stored in a jewel case, or vice versa. And I especially hate the little cardboard or paper sleeve that they sometimes come in---sometimes even when they are new (Wii Sports, I mean you)! Maybe others are less concerned about this aesthetic than me; but I really want to see my games, CDs, and movies lined up, spines out, in uniform packaging with appropriate spine art on display. And when a guest is perusing my library, I want them to be able to read the package description of a movie or game, should they so desire.

In practical terms, I recently ordered Tales of Symphonia for the GCN, used, and it arrived in a DVD keep case with no box art. In searching for a remedy, a little research turned up this gem of a site: CDCovers.cc.

This website hosts a huge archive of cover art for various media including VHS, DVD, video games of several varieties, and CDs. You can search by title or browse by section and download any artwork you're missing, adjust the size, and then print it out, trim it down, and place it inside the sleeve of any keep case or jewel case. Many of the titles also have artwork for the inset as well.

I find that for a DVD or anything DVD-size, you'll want to open the artwork up in Photoshop (or whatever image editor you use) and set the height of the image to 184.15 millimeters and the PPI to 300 (ideal for printing). If you're printing the whole spread, you won't be able to print the entire thing on one 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper; I split the image into two overlapping images and printed both, and then taped them together from behind before trimming them down. On a related note, I also found a great thread at VGBoxArt that has several downloadable Photoshop templates for various game boxes (e.g., the GCN box, the PS2 box, etc.).

Gamers Don't Have an Old Timer's Day

It can be hard for a gamer to think about aging. Most gamers are young. Characters in videogames are usually young. The player character is usually a strong, young man. Typically, in games, the more times you do something, the easier it becomes. Either your character becomes stronger as you progress, like levels in an RPG, or the player's experience of a scenario makes it easier the next time, like in a platformer or a racing game. The idea that with time one can become weaker, and less able to cope with challenges, is a frightening thought.

I remember Final Fantasy IV very fondly, as it was the second game of the series that I played. In fact, the SNES cartridge I had did indeed say "Final Fantasy II" but this was merely to prevent the οἱ πολλοί from knowing what they were missing.

Even as a youth I was steadfast in my good RPG habits, which primarily are (1) save, save every chance you get, and (2) when in doubt, level up. Whenever, wherever, just fight random encounters to build yourself up a bit. Well, I luckily didn't fall into a pitfall that was likely to ensnare anyone who follows these tenets blindly. You see, in the Water Cavern, you gain the once great sage Tellah of Mysidia. And as Tellah gains levels, his stats go down, to indicate his advanced age and frailty. If one first leveled "up" for an extended period, and then saved, one would be stuck with an extremely vulnerable sage.

Not only does he become weaker with every battle, in the original version he had a command called Recall, which would allow him to randomly remember one of the powerful spells he once knew. So not only is his body withering with age, his once great magic prowess is now hindered by his failing memory. As a young gamer in the earlier 90's, this struck me as a very interesting mechanic; immediately unfamiliar due to my internalization of the concept that leveling up made characters stronger.

Skip ahead about half a decade to 1996. Capcom was refining the formula of its popular Street Fighter Zero/Alpha to quickly produce a sequel. They had reincarnated Birdie and Adon from the original Street Fighter into the interquel series, and to expand the roster for SFZ2 they again drew from their back catalog of fighters. After his stint as a Chinese assassin in the mediocre original, Gen returned to action in the Zero series after learning that he was dying from leukemia. He sought a worthy opponent, and came across Gouki/Akuma, the master of the Satsui no Hadou. Although it is not entirely clear, one would have to postulate that Gen was finished off since it was a fight to the death, and Gouki was later seen chronologically killing Vega/M. Bison's second body in Street Fighter II Turbo. Although, with fighting games, you never know what's canon, right? Regardless of the timeline, Gen did manage to make a large contribution to the next generation. He is responsible for training the young relatives of his Street Fighter (I) countryman Lee. Of course, I speak of Yun and Yang Lee of Street Fighter III. In particular, Yang's Mantis style is very similar to some of Gen's techniques.

Fatally afflicted, yes, but Gen is still a treacherous challenge in Zero 2 and 3. His ability to switch between his Sou-ryuu and Ki-ryuu styles mid-match makes his moveset formidable. He is remarkably quick and agile for being old and terminally ill, and for this reason doesn't really give the sense of mortality one gets from Tellah's predicament.

But with nothing to lose, Gen faces the deadliest opponent of the Zero series, and dies the way he wished, in battle with a worthy adversary.

Skip ahead to the new millenium, and please take into consideration the character EGM called the fourth greatest boss of all time.

Let me linger in this world just a little longer... I have already slept enough for one lifetime... enough for an eternity...

These words echo through the dense woodland of Sokrovenno, signaling the dawn of one of the toughest challenges the Metal Gear series will ever dish out. Personally, I have an attachment to The End and I can say without hesitation that he is my favorite boss fight. Ever. I believe my first successful attempt took about forty minutes. Even on my Foxhound run it took me almost twenty. And if you're having a really hard time, just keep trying. If you haven't beaten him in two weeks, he will just die of old age. Of course, you could save, and advance your PS2's internal clock a fortnight. Or you could just snipe him in his wheelchair immediately following an earlier cutscene. If you're a cheap fucking coward.

Like the rest of the Cobra Unit, The End is codenamed after the emotion he carries with him into battle, in this case the desire to continue to exist. He is over one hundred years old during the events of Snake Eater, and doesn't have any interest in killing Snake. The Ancient Sniper merely wants to test his ability, and to try once more to do what he does best, to hunt his prey.

Hideo Kojima seems to be revisiting similar themes again in MGS4, wherein Solid Snake is suffering from advanced aging. Preview trailers show this new Old Snake apparently commiting suicide, and there is speculation that his health and stamina may steadily decrease throughout the game, not unlike our first example. Of course, this is merely assumptions made about a Kojima game, which means absolutely nothing, as Hideo loves to shock his audience with unexpected twists.

So from this, what should a gamer learn about aging? About sickness and mortality? I think that in continuing, and finding extra lives, and dodging bullets and Bullet Bills, one forgets that no amount of skill or effort can allow one to evade the inevitable; That there is no eternal life code; And that nothing lasts forever.