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)

Abuse your speakers/
Lose your manners/
Disturb the neighbors/
This one's a Bangaa.

Gaming Resolutions 2007: Killa Edition

There is, of course, some overlap betwixt our lists, but please enjoy my current agenda of games. This sort of hindsight/foresight foray makes me feel somewhat like the Roman god of doorways, the two-faced Janus. Although, people today may be more familiar with his more recent incarnation, Phanto the two-tone mask from Super Mario Brothers 2. Regardless, you get the point.

Sidenote: This kind of makes me nostalgic for the reoccuring On the Horizon segment from the old blog.

Currently playing, need to finish

• Prince of Persia: Revelations (PSP)
• Final Fantasy XII (PS2) (With Catarina)
• Metal Gear Ghost Babel (GBC*)
• Marvel Ultimate Alliance (Wii) (With the J-Team)
• Ico (PS2)

Purchased, but not yet played

• Metal Gear Solid Porable Ops (PSP)
• Namco Museum Battle Collection (PSP) (A gift)
• Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike (PS2) (Street Fighter Anniversary Collection)

Say Arr! to Piracy

• Snatcher (SegaCD*)
• Samurai Showdown Zero Special (NeoGeo*)

Want to play through again this year

• Final Fantasy VI (SNES)
• Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 (PS2)

Still need to buy

• Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus (PS2)
• Playstation 3 console
• Ridge Racer 7 (PS3)
• Mega Man ZX (DS)
• Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence (PS2)

Forthcoming titles of interest for 2007

• Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patiots (PS3)
• Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)
• Heavenly Sword (PS3)
• Tekken 6 (PS3)
• White Knight Story (PS3)
• Assassin's Creed (PS3)
• Devil May Cry 4 (PS3)
• flOw (PS3)
• Prince of Persia: Rival Swords (PSP)
• Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core (PSP)
• Smash Brothers Brawl (Wii)

*Arr!

Gaming Resolutions 2007: Catarina Edition

The year 2006 had some amazing highlights with the releases of the Wii, the PS3, and the DS Lite on the hardware horizon; some awesome new installments from beloved franchises like Final Fantasy XII and Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess; and some surprise hit titles like Okami and Bully.

The upcoming 2007 promises to be equally amazing with new titles dropping all the time for the infant PS3 and Wii, and more major titles coming to the DS. Catarina's household proudly added a Wii and a DS Lite (hubby's) in Q4/2006, and we plan to usher in a PS3 in the coming months (and a second DS Lite---pink---for my own personal use). To keep organized and make sure nothing important gets overlooked, herewith my gaming resolutions for 2007:

Currently playing, need to finish

• Disgaea II: Cursed Memories (PS2)
• Final Fantasy XII (PS2) (With Killa)
• Legend of Zelda: Twlight Princess (Wii)
• Okami (PS2)

Purchased, but not yet played

• Dragon Quest VIII (PS2) (An X-Mas gift from Killa!)
• ICO (PS2)
• Katamari Damacy (PS2)
• Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (Wii)

Want to play through again this year

• Final Fantasy VI (Originally SNES; rereleased for PS1)
• Final Fantasy VII (PS1)
• Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GCN)
• Shadow of the Colossus (PS2) (Time Attack Mode)
  

Still need to buy

• Final Fantasy IV Advance (GBA)
• Playstation 3 console
• Vagrant Story (PS1) (We consider this part of the "Ivalice Alliance")

Forthcoming titles of interest for 2007

• Assassin's Creed (PS3)
• Dragon Quest IX (DS)
• Dragon Quest Swords (Wii)
• Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings (DS)
• Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)
• Heavenly Sword (PS3)
• Lair (PS3)
• Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS)
• Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii)
• Ninja Gaiden Sigma (PS3)
• Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
• Super Smash Brothers Brawl (Wii)
• Tekken 6 (PS3)
• Virtua Fighter 5 (PS3)
• White Knight Story (PS3) (Working title)

Revenant Wings New Trailer

Worldwide Nintendo news blog C3 has the first trailer for the forthcoming Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings RPG for the Nintendo DS. The release date hasn't yet been announced, but the end of the trailer says it is "coming soon." Hopefully sooner than Phantom Hourglass.

A Grizzled Veteran

Of the MMORPG Wars (Part the First)

The other day, Killa pointed out to me a truth I'd never realized about myself: That I am, in fact, a true veteran of the MMORPG experience. Yea, even the MORPG experience, sans an "m."

Back in the day, perhaps when I was in middle school or just beginning high school, I used to play text-based MUDs over the ZuggSoft zMUD client. Certainly MU*s (i.e., MUDs and their various brethren, such as MUSHs, MOOs, etc.) can't be considered massively multiplayer---not in the contemporary sense of the word---but I think they were probably the earliest recognizable ancestor of the modern MMORPG. Remember, too, that there were far fewer people in the world back then, and so MUDs may actually have had a higher proportion of the population enrolled. We don't know. Also, back in the day, we couldn't count nearly as high as we can today. It's entirely possible that Legend Mud had as many registered users as Second Life, but our primitive calculators just couldn't count that high.

Most of the MUDs I visited never had more than ten or eleven characters milling around at a given time, but that was plenty to get some role-playing, action-packed adventure going. The "con system" found in these MUDs---by which a player could "consider" a target to find out how difficult it would be to defeat---with its classic answers like "Do you feel lucky, punk?" and "Death will thank you for your gift" has become a staple of many subsequent MMORPGs. Likewise, the Orc Scout and the Gnoll Pup have been faithfully reincarnated again and again as the genre has evolved.

MUDs, I believe, are the immediate progeny of the prototypical Zork, with its many "rooms" conceptualized by descriptive text, its white house, its open mailbox, etc. And its means of moving west by typing "Move West," or "Move W," or "West," or even just "W." I remember having memorized long strings of directions---"From the healer to the weapon shop? Oh that's easy, just go S; E; E; E; S; S; W; W; W; N."

As great and wondrous as I know all that sounds, these early ancestors of the modern MMORPG left something to be desired. Graphics, perhaps. And . . . strippers?

(to be continued)

Crouching Babel, Hidden Cobra

While MGS4 may be pretty far off on the horizon, that doesn't mean The End of all stealth franchises isn't as lively as ever. Most recently the stellar Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops dropped for PSP. Bad timing, though. I fear if I pop Prince of Persia Revelations out of my PSP, it may not return, and the Prince may be stranded on the island of time forever...

So, while I try to rush through Revelations, I am currently falling further and further behind the online competitive curve in Ops. The Fear of potential opponenets skilling up without me is alarming, but to comfort myself I am taking a little time to indulge in one of the lesser known entries in the Metal Gear mythos.

After Playstation's Metal Gear Solid, and before PS2's Sons of Liberty, there was a little retro entry for Nintendo's Game Boy Color, Metal Gear Ghost Babel, or simply Metal Gear Solid here in North America. This second title is somewhat misleading, as I consider the Solid term to refer specifically to the 3D aspect of the games, as opposed to the inclusion of the character. You see, Ghost Babel is closest in similarity to Metal Gear 2, and if you haven't played either Ghost Babel or MG2, you are missing out on the Joy of a unique gaming experience.

There is nothing like the Pain of a bad spinoff for a Gameboy system, and luckily, Ghost Babel is not one. It's one final throwback to the original formula of top-down stealth action. You have all the fun gimmicks of MG2 and MGS (the cardboard box, e.g.) with a fresh coat of paint, and a fresh set of wacky bosses (with their wacky names).

Unfortunately, Ghost Babel is not part of the major storyline. It seems to take the place of MGS, wherein Snake is brought out of his Alaskan retirement by Colonel Campbell, but instead of stopping Foxhound's takeover of Shadow Moses, he must travel to Central Africa to stop the terrorist group Black Chamber. Interestingly, one of the more popular interpretations of this storyline is that it is a VR training scenario meant to form Raiden into the Patriot's own "legendary hero". (Oh shit, please excuse the Sorrow caused by any spoilers in this paragraph. Direct all of the Fury you may have to the comments section.)

Anyways, if you can find Ghost Babel at your local game store, and you have the neccesary hardware to play it, get it. You won't be sorry. And if you can't locate a hard copy locally or online, well, you know. Just say Arr! to rom piracy.