Fighting Stanzas: Accent Cure

Localization How sweet a thing it can be ^Core - fuck yes Sleek white box be damned Waggle controls? What the fuck? C'mon, stick with it Coming soon... stateside A.B.A. and throw escapes Order Sol's Force Breaks Fighters, Celebrate! Aksys to be commended Killa's problem solved

Enough Is Never Enough

Ever since I got my PS3 in January, my PS2 has been collecting dust back behind the TV. (In all honesty, the PS3 is collecting dust too, because I don't dust as frequently as I should, but the PS3 is at least in use.) However, I primarily use the PS3 to play PS2 games and Blu-Ray movies. Not so much with the PS3 games just yet.

I guess I "officially" moved into the next gen when I picked up my Wii on November 19. The previous month I had purchased Okami (late) and Final Fantasy XII (at a midnight launch event). I figured these would be the swan song of the PS2 for me. I still have a PS2 backlog to work through, but my main focus was going to be on the exciting new world of HD graphics and motion controls.

Then I started to hear good things about Rogue Galaxy so I picked that up as well. One more RPG on the pile isn't going to make a difference anyway. When God of War II came out and topped the sales charts, I finally picked up the original God of War and played through some of it to get a feel for the title, seeing as it's one of the best-loved games of the previous gen. I haven't played God of War II yet, but I probably will eventually. I have also heard glad tidings that SquareEnix's Dawn of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 4) is coming to the PS2 in late May.

And now, skulking around Penny Arcade and its associated forums has turned up information about Odin Sphere, a sidescrolling, 2-D action RPG, and gRimgRiMoiRe (i.e., Grim Grimoire), a NIS real-time strategy game, both forthcoming for the PS2. Odin Sphere got a glowing review from Tycho that has helped push me into its party. It's not the sort of thing I'd be attracted to at a glance, but the more I look at it, the more I want to play it. It kind of reminds me of Altered Beast with the sidescrolling, power-upping game mechanics and 2-D sprites, although probably with fewer wise fwom your gwave hijinks. gRimgRiMoiRe, although its inexplicable internal caps pierce my heart like so many deadly, deadly lawn darts, is sure to be a big hit in my household, some members of which still wake up in a cold sweat in the dead of night, all these long years later, from nightmares of Prinny Baal to which they can not give voice.

I guess this should not surprise me. Seeing as the DreamCast had a new game come out this year, and this morning Kotaku even covered a new Super Famicon game, the PSDouble is a long way from defunct. I've also been fleshing out my GameCube holdings recently, as I now have a machiine capable of playing them. As excited as I am about the new generation of gaming (even about the Wii, with as much buzz as it's been getting), it seems like some of the juiciest new offerings around are still for ye grande ole system.

Ode on a console:

Tho' in power deficit,

Hark! She rumbles yet.

Fighting Stanzas: The Aerial Projectile

	Striking from safety A videogame tactic Midair projectiles
	Fiery Mario Eight bit plumber's final form Hammer brothers' bane
	Air cutting surge fist Gouki's Zankuu Hadouken See, Street Fighter, too
	Float while bullets rain Dante's rapid fire descent Teh third dimension
	Guilty Gear's princess Creative delayed assault Dizzy's bubbles - Pop!
	Best valor discrete Advantageous strategy This death from above

Odds and Ends

Hope everyone likes the banner. I've had the actual logo done for some time, but retrofitting it into this template was trickier than I would have hoped. Sooner or later we'll give this space a new coat of hyper paint; until then, consider this the first step of our Spring cleaning.

My time with GGXX#Reload has been going well. I've found Sol to be very easy to pick up due in large part to the familiarity of his control scheme. Entranced by the unique character design of Dizzy, I have forced myself to learn to use her properly, though her mishmash of bizarre projectiles and furious ground combos took some time to absorb.

I pretty much have the idea of Bursting down, but Roman Cancelling is still alien to me. I've been studying the frame inputs in Training Mode, but I'm still nowhere near a point where I can use RCs or FRCs in the heat of battle. This game really makes me thirst for a console version of Slash or Accent Core sometime soon.

I ran into this recap of MGS2 in haiku form on the PA G&T forums awhile back. Thought I'd share it with you, and likewise post it in a more accessible location for my own viewing. Many thanks to aett, and his mad summation skills.

Turn off the console

I need scissors! 61!

We have Rosemary "

Now that we've delved pretty deeply into FFXII, and have gained a working understanding of the gambit system, it makes me think about how many menu choices I've made over the years in Final Fantasies, and RPGs in general. FFX-2 alone could be near a million... C'est la vie.

A Grizzled Veteran (II)

Of the MMORPG Wars (Part the Second)

A few years later, an early and geeky boyfriend of mine became fascinated at the prospect of a female gamer---heretofore a complete unknown---and promptly installed Duke Nukem 3D (now with one more D) on my family's very swanky computer, which (I believe) was a Pentium II (now with one more pentium).

I was then initiated in the process of dialing into his family's PC across town via TCP/IP, allowing us to play Duke Nukem competitively against one another, usually in the wee hours of the morning. Every time I got fragged, I would screech and wake up my parents who were sleeping in the next room. Mother thought it inappropriate and even alarming for a girl of 15 to be "fragged." Duke Nukem 3D was the first online game I experienced that featured cutting edge concepts like graphics (also strippers).

A few more years ushered in the release of the epochal EverQuest. It was not merely online and multiplayer, but massively multiplayer in addition to online, and had graphics. Except for these major advances, EverQuest was just like the text-based MUDs of yesteryear. The MOBs, races, and job classes were familiar, and some of the commands such as "/con" were carried over as well.

EverQuest also introduced us to the archetypal concepts that would remain forever etched in our collective MMORPGing psyche in myriad forms---like "KoS" ("Look out---that monster is aggressive"), "SoW PLZ" ("Kindly cast a spell or use an ability to help me run faster"), and "Rogues are nerfed" ("My job class has the effectiveness of a bullet made from foam and fired out of a neon orange tube by a highly excitable five-year-old"). I played EQ for quite some time, both pre- and immediately post-Kunark, before leaving for what were promised to be broader, bloodier pastures.

EQ's addictiveness was also featured centrally in one of my earliest gaming haikus:

EverQuest is not
A good game for us to get
If we are busy.

(to be concluded)

Happy Hour

I haven't had a chance to fire up either my Wii or my PS2 for the last couple of days, because November 27 marked my return to working life after a long absence (hubby and I had been enjoying the good life since November 16). Being back at work returns me to the presence of my coworkers who, as well as I get along with them and they with me, are mostly non-gamers. They have, however, shared in my joy at getting a Wii at 00:01 A.M on launch day---in fact, more than a few coworkers were surprised that I was able to get this coveted toy, and I may have earned some cool points by having the latest gadget in time for the X-Mas season.

Tonight, a former coworker was visiting the area, so my work gang gathered at our local DuClaw for a drink and some revelry. Three beers later found found me sitting at a table with my next-door-cubemate and our boss, explaining my lifelong fear of fish via an explanation of colossus number 7---codename Hydrus, the electric eel---from Shadow of the Colossus. I don't think they understood what I was getting at, but the experience brought me to an overwhelming question: How do you explain the appeal of a video game that good to the uninitiated?

It's no easy feat, obviously. Specifically, trying to explain a concept already as radical and groundbreaking as SotC to people who didn't even realize that Mario had gone 64-bit. I think in my inebriated state I managed to say "You play as this little guy---I mean this normal sized guy---who has to kill these giant [here I flailed my arms out wildly, possibly knocking over someone's drink] monsters by climbing up them and stabbing them [mimes stabbing motion with an imaginary sword, knocking over more drinks] in their glowing magical weakpoints. It's revolutionary. . . . Man!"

If I had the chance again---to explain SotC to an uninitiated but interested third party---what would I say?

It's the story of an ordinary boy, so consumed by guilt and love, that he has traveled to the ends of the earth to resurrect the object of his affection at any price. And the price is terrible. Sixteen majestic monsters---sky-scraper-sized on the screen---each a vastly complex puzzle in its own right, must be felled in order to return this girl from her undeserved grave. The game mechanics are revolutionary but that's not a point that my colleagues care about. They haven't seen a video game since their princess was in another castle.

The most magnificent aspect of Shadow of the Colossus is the ambiguous morality that it occupies. The hero, Wander, will stop at nothing to undo the wrongdoing that has caused Mono's untimely death (a death which, evidence indicates to me, probably occured at his own hand), and never stops to think whether what he is doing is right or wrong. The spirit Dormin warns Wander that the price will be great, but how great is it? At the end of the game, has Wander felled sixteen terrible creatures and undone a terrible wrong at the cost of his own life? Or has he slain sixteen innocent creatures that were set upon protecting the world from the release of a terrible evil with the power to reverse even death. . . .

This is the sort of moral quandary that I know would appeal to my colleagues if they could get past the circle-triangle-square-X mechanics of it. I'm afraid I botched it. . . . I see many gamer geek jokes in my future at work.

In closing, a short haiku on Shadow of the Colossus:

Sixteen stone giants.
A boy, a horse, a dead girl.
"Don't fall off, Fucktard."