It’s StarCraft 2 Day! Actually, the UPS man won’t get here with my copy of the Collector’s Edition until later, so I won’t be starting the Southerners in SpaceWings of Liberty campaign until this evening at the earliest. I have much to do in the meantime, anyway. Such as brushing up on StarCraft canon, for starters; I remember the original (“vanilla”) game’s plot pretty clearly, but need to rewatch much of Brood War‘s cutscenes. On the non-StarCraft front, I’ve taken up DDR again, and want to sink more time into Dragon Quest IX.
Ah, DQIX. Originally, the plan was to beat the game before today, but as time went on, I realized that this would be an impossibility. I’m currently some forty hours in and (by my own rough estimate) a bit of a ways from the end—not because of any steep difficulty or lengthy story, but due to the fact that there’s so much to do in between main quests.
The central story revolves around the player hero character, this time an angel—sorry, Celestrian—who gathers the thanks of earthly mortals to feed the Yggdrasil Tree. Something bad happens, and the quest starts in earnest. The bare-bones plot moves forward by means of smaller, compact stories that occur in each new town the hero visits. Naturally, this bite-size approach to questing is ideal for lots of side-questing and other distractions. One of these is the Alchemy Pot, a modern-day Dragon Quest mainstay which is used to fuse multiple items into new ones that are stronger, rarer, or just all around better than what they were before. New to the series is a job/class system, reminiscent of—but not entirely comparable to—the ones in certain Final Fantasy games.
The job system is only one indicator of how different this Dragon Quest is from its predecessors. The look of the hero is entirely customizable. There’s also the other party members, none of which have the distinct names and personalities of the past, and can either be randomly generated or created from scratch. In terms of the world, the Goddess has been replaced with a male Almighty, and the abstract religious symbols typically seen in the series are different in most places. All enemies are visible when walking across the field, and in dungeons. Certain things have been tweaked easier, though the overall difficulty feels about the same as ever. Much has already been written about the ad-hoc multiplayer features and the platform that its on (it’s worth noting that nearly the entire game can be controlled with the touchscreen, which, incidentally, is how I’ve been playing it). It’s no wonder that, in Jamin Smith’s review at VideoGamer.com, he felt the game was more like a spinoff than a true main-series entry.
However, despite all of change DQIX has brought with it, two hallmarks of the series shine throughout: its aesthetics, and its quality. There is no mistaking this as anything but a mainline Dragon Quest, with all its Koichi Sugiyama musical stylings Akira Toriyama visuals, and much more care and polish than any of the (still great) spinoffs get. The controls are intuitive and, though the menu arrows could be a little larger for those of us using the stylus, sensible. The graphics and sound are among the very best on the DS. The game itself is diverse, easy to play on-the-go, and addictive. On top of all that, all of the new stuff (at least that which I’ve dealt with so far) is well done, and much of it enhances the overall experience; the visible enemies is one feature I would love to see in all future entries. This is a Dragon Quest for today, a JRPG for those who doubt the viability of the genre in a time when WRPGs have stormed consoles like FPSes did before them. It makes me want to play more, and also to wonder what a Dragon Quest MMO would be like.
It’s going to be really hard to juggle this and StarCraft 2.
I’ve been back for awhile now, but have been either too lazy, busy, or tired to update this place. I did, however, post at my CAG blog; there, I shared a whole set of photos from the Dragon Quest IX launch event that took place a little over a week ago at Manhattan’s Nintendo World Store. There were lots of people, demo stations, freebies, and frozen treats from a Dragon Quest-themed Mister Softee truck.
This slime is almost as big as my backlog!
Funnily enough, although I got DQIX a day early, I didn’t actually start playing the damned thing until the following Monday. I’ve played quite a bit of it since then, though. It’s an unusual game for the franchise, in terms of how it breaks with tradition, though I don’t have anything bad to say about it so far. I do wish the dungeon designs were more puzzle-intensive, along the lines of certain ones in earlier Dragon Quest games, but that sort of thing doesn’t seem to be Level-5’s strong suit. This game also seems to have eased the difficulty in certain subtle ways, which I feel ambivalent about. On the other hand, a feature that I really like reminds me of one of Earthbound‘s best: enemies—which are all now visible on the field—are likely to run away from your party if you’re too strong.
I’ve also made a lot of progress in Pokemon Platinum. Actually, that was the only game I played on the trip, which means Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes has been relegated to the backlog for the time being. Later, I put Platinum down upon starting DQIX, then picked it up again this weekend. I’m currently up to five gym badges and am beefing up my team before taking on Pokemon Gym #6 (not its real name).
Along with the DS RPGs, I’ve been plugging away at Kirby Super Star, but I don’t know when I’ll beat it, though I’m very close to being done with everything, save the minigames, which I’ve mostly ignored. And then there’s StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty, which will arrive here in less than ten days in all its Collector’s Edition glory. Right now the plan is to beat DQIX before SC2 gets here, which will leave my August free for a super-long, and super-shiny, Terran campaign, plus some possible multiplayer and/or modding.
Oh, and my birthday happened. One of the presents I received was an Amazon gift card, which was spent in part on a used copy of Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja, an Atlus-published roguelike I’ve had my eye on. It’s now in the backlog pile, along with Clash of Heroes. Plus, I preordered Etrian Odyssey III, which is due out in September, since I had to have that artbook.
Every year, gamers complain about the “drought” that happens in the summer. Pssh. Even without Dragon Quest IX and StarCraft 2, I would be overwhelmed; there’s just so much in my backlog, and so much more I haven’t even picked up yet, like late-winter and spring releases Bayonetta, Nier, and Super Mario Galaxy 2. Come the fall, while my husband is consumed by Civilization V and World of WarCraft: Cataclysm, there will be the aforementioned Etrian Odyssey III, along with Rune Factory 3 and, if it turns out to be any good, Front Mission Evolved. Then there’s the “epic” games that I will not get right away but will likely pick up sometime, namely Kirby’s Epic Yarn and Disney Epic Mickey.
So I came home the night before last, exhausted. The next day, I caught up on internetty-type things. One of the sites I sifted through was Game Journalists Are Incompetent Fuckwits, a recent find and the best angry video game blog I’ve read since the deceased (and missed) Pre-Order Pushers. As usual, there’s a ton of stuff about Kotaku, including a link to a funny Something Awful parody, but little did I realize that a raging, gusty shitstorm was on the horizon. I’m still piecing together the entire story from GJAIF posts, Kotaku comments, and other places, but here’s what I’ve gathered:
• On the morning of July 5th, Kotaku EIC Brian Crecente posted an entry titled “This is Kotaku”. It’s an introductory article for newbies to the site, with links to articles, broken down by category, that serve as “a taste of what we do”. iambeaker on CAG later noted, in a thread titled “What is up with Kotaku?”, “I know many of the Gawker blogs place an article similar to this when a blog is featured on a major network (i.e. The Today Show) or when the blog is being sold (i.e. Consumerist).” FriskyTanuki replied: “That post is their response to the Game Journalists Are Incompetent Fuckwits blog that criticizes sites that post stupid articles or gets information completely wrong and Kotaku accounts for probably 60% of the blog’s content.” If that’s true, seems the post didn’t work.
• According to GJAIF, “After Crecente posted the ‘This Is Kotaku’ article, there was a bit of a meltdown in the comments.” To say the least. Evidenced by the handful of comments still left on the post, many more were “disemvoweled” (the vowels were stripped from them) and later deleted (or at least, hidden from non-Kotakuites). One critical comment by lineypi—which I am unable to link to directly—stood out to me as I began putting this post together. I’m not sure if it is representative of its deleted brethren, but here it is in its entirety, in case it should disappear later on:
Just out of curiosity, but are the other Gawker sites doing something similar to this? I feel like there’d be a lot of overlap between things on here and things on Gizmodo (and a few of the other gawker sites) just based on this overview.
It would also be interesting to see these different things sorted into what you plan to post most about compared to what you see the least of.
At the moment the impression is that top of the list is what Kotaku has chosen to rank as the highest importance.
So for instance, you’ve got Sex really high on that list, but personally I don’t see sex & games as something intrinsically linked. Gawker has ..alternative.. sites for sex.
So the implication here is that Kotaku will have a sex article posted each day or something, but if that’s the case then I can see that driving away (the mature) gamers rather than attracting them.
I dunno, I just feel like with this summary list Kotaku isn’t really representing itself the way that I, as a visitor, experience it. And if this list is indicative of changes that are going around or about to occur, then I’m concerned that the experience will change.
PS – I’d also really like to see some sort of internal news that is purely a response to the mass banning/censorship that has recently occurred.
If there’s a way you can tag something so that it is only visible to registered members, or if you just use the internal messaging system, then I could see that being a solution that would answer a lot of the community’s questions without having something so off topic & purely internally focussed end up in your blog feed.
In the #speakup section of Kotaku, I found much more. In particular, the banning of a user named dean seems to have been a major flashpoint for the implosion. kanji08 goes into further detail about yesterday’s events in this comment.
• The conversation and arguments continued beyond Kotaku, spilling into a fan forum and Steam group. Again, GJAIF has more details regarding that, including a lengthy bit of chatlog from the Steam group, for which Kotaku writer Owen Good is present. GJAIF is later kicked out of the chat.
That’s about all for now. There’s still some fuzzy bits here and there, such as the precise role of certain individuals, and the nature of the deleted comments. It’s disconcerting how much has been covered up. I understand editors wanting to have a certain degree of control over their site, and I’m pretty neutral in my feelings toward Kotaku, but this is kind of nuts. It doesn’t seem like much is being written about this implosion right now, which is a shame; I’d like to see more. Something tells me that the meaning of “community” on Kotaku has just been considerably altered for its users, and it’ll be up to the Kotaku staff (and parent company Gawker) to decide what this means for everyone.
This afternoon, I’ll be boarding a plane to California for a personal trip. What this means is that, for the past week or so, I’ve been tying up some loose ends beforehand, so I wouldn’t have to deal with them when I got back. The usual errands notwithstanding, this has meant returning to the final, postgame stratum of Etrian Odyssey.
One of the monsters I didn't fight.
I had originally begun tackling it last year, immediately after beating the main quest. Unfortunately, the most advantageous stat boosts required me to restart with new characters at Level 1, and thus, a lot of grinding was required. I took up the grind again earlier this month, and eventually maxed out the five stat-enhanced characters I had created way back when at Level 70. When my party was strong enough to venture into that last stratum again, around Level 60 or so, I began mapping it out thoroughly, finding it an even more devious bastard than the snippets I had seen last year. In the end, I never got through the whole thing due to some insanely tough bosses that I would’ve had to have defeated. Still, I’m glad that I got as far as I did, even though I had to spam the items and abilities that cut down on random encounters after maxing out my party and building up my cash hoard, as fighting monsters was a waste of time by that point.
In general, the plan was to be “done” with Etrian Odyssey so I wouldn’t have to take it along with me, but I also wanted something new to play on this trip, since Pokemon Platinum by itself would get a little boring after awhile. Thus, I ordered Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes, which I’ve had an eye on ever since its release. (It’s also, I believe, the first Ubisoft-published title I’ve bought since Grandia II for the Dreamcast, which says more about my tastes than the company’s games.) Yeah, another RPG, but with more of a strategy and puzzle bent from what I understand. I’m looking forward to playing it.
I also picked up the issue of Edge that’s currently on the US newsstands, because that’s what I do nowadays before a long trip. It’s the June issue with Little Big Planet 2 on the cover. I wouldn’t be surprised if I have every Edge cover appearance of LBP by this point, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if I’m missing one or two. Something interesting I’ve heard about LBP2 is that the gravity is adjustable, which might mitigate my one major turn off from the first game: the floaty animation. You can bet I got sick of seeing all those Edge covers (and stories) real fast after seeing the original LBP in motion for the first time…
Anyway, that’s all for now. See you again in a little over a week!
As someone who doesn’t/can’t/won’t attend E3, one of the best parts of the annual event is the swag auctions that crop up on eBay. The tchotchkes placed on sale are neat little windows onto the expo, inherently different from the avalanche of news reports, written impressions, screenshots, trailers, and press conference livestreams that are available to anyone and everyone with a decent internet connection. They are trinkets that were actually there, instant collectables that show how an industry markets itself to itself, and to the world at large, in physical form.
L@@K!!!The E3 goodies on eBay traditionally take many different forms. Every year, without fail, there’s at least one auction for the daily magazines/guides for the event itself. There are also always auctions for t-shirts, as well as lots containing a variety of items; the latter listings are very hard to find after E3 has come and gone. Other common items that appear year after year include lanyards, magazines, keychains, and, for some reason, Square Enix catalogs.
Other items are more on the quirky side. One of my favorites this year—and not just because I love the character and the franchise—are the patches that were given away to promote Kirby’s Epic Yarn. How better to promote a fabric-themed Kirby game than with a fabric Kirby? Several of these patches, with a Buy it Now (BIN) of $9.95, sold quickly, and at least one that has gone up since then as a regular auction is hitting an even higher price. I thought the initial $9.95 BIN listing was a bit high, but I’m a born cheapskate, and now I’m wondering if I should’ve bit before that same seller doubled their price.
Another item of note this year is the Epic Mickey cloisonne pin. Not only is there a huge Disneyana collecting scene, but there is a subset of Disneyana collecting that specializes in pins. Throw in video game memorabilia collectors on top of that, and you wind up with BIN asking prices as high as $24.99 for these pins. A search of completed listings has revealed that only three of these pins has sold so far, which makes me think that the highest of these BINs are too optimistic.
Two bits of Natsume swag have caught my attention. First is the Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar plush horse. Since Natsume typically gives away plushes as preorder bonuses, I think we’ll be seeing this specific item again, on a wider scale, in the future. More unusual is this catalog for Natsume’s games. Again, I believe this to be an overly optimistic BIN. Meanwhile, one enterprising auctioneer has combined the two into one lot.
Some things which could become scarce in the years ahead are the Sonic Colors plush and the two Portal 2 t-shirts. There haven’t been many posted, which is always an interesting sign. The Dreamcast shirts are a little bit more common, but seem to be quite popular. And then there’s the Zelda shirts, of which there are a ton, but might also become nice collector’s pieces, given the size of fanbase and the popularity of past Zelda-related swag of all kinds.
Some general shopping tips: swag traditionally starts hitting eBay on the first day of E3, and BINs, if utilized, trend toward the high end. Both starting prices and selection generally improve toward the end of the event and in the days afterward, but bidding can be fierce. Even so, during and after E3 is the absolute best time to get one’s hands on a piece of swag that might be rare down the line. Please note that it’s sometimes hard to know what will be valuable, even for the most seasoned collector; as with any other type of collecting, it is always best to go after the pieces you personally like the most.
In the months and years following an E3, it will, naturally, be harder to track down many items on eBay or other auction sites. However, when older E3 stuff does pop up, it can sometimes be had at a relative bargain, since there isn’t nearly as much competition. Here are the results I got for “E3 2009” in the Entertainment Memorabilia category, which contained the most number of relevant results. Slim pickings, to be sure, but I bet that Left 4 Dead 2 poster was going for a lot more last summer. It should be interesting to see what an “E3 2010” search brings up a year from now.
Company: Microsoft Unofficial Motto:Great, cutting-edge ideas ganked from other companies, without all that fussy “style” and “ease of use” nonsense. Typical E3 Press Conference Methodology: Throwing lots of money around, making whatever’s on stage look slick and made-for-TV presentable by any means possible. This Year’s Event Details: Kinect event with Cirque du Soleil, 06/13/10; press conference, 10:30am PST, 06/14/10 Did it Start on Time?: Yes This Year’s Players: At the press conference specifically, there was Mark Lamia (Treyarch); Don Mattrick; Hideo Kojima and Shigenobu Matsuyama (Kojima Productions); Phil Spencer; Cliff Bleszinski (Epic); Peter Molyneux (Microsoft/Lionhead); Marcus Lehto (Bungie); Mark Whitten; Laura and her friend; Josh Elliott and Trey Wingo, the hosts of ESPN SportsCenter; Kudo Tsunoda; a little girl and Skittles the tiger; “Shin from Rare Studios”; Felicia Williams (Ubisoft); celebrity trainer Michael George; Naoko Takamoto, Alex Rigopulos, and Kasson Crooker (Harmonix); and Dan Greenwalt and Bill Giese (Turn 10). Whew!
CliffyB makes everything better.
Featured Hardware: Kinect, formerly known as Project Natal; a smaller, slimmer, shinier Xbox 360 Featured Games:Call of Duty: Black Ops; Metal Gear Solid: Rising; Gears of War 3; Fable III; a mysterious Crytek game called Codename: Kingdoms; Halo: Reach; several Kinect games with Wii, DS, and EyeToy analogues; a Kinect Star Wars game; and a version of Forza running with Kinect, now with more lifelike car porn! Featured Features: Kinect’s features covered, including Minority Report menu navigation, video chat a la Skype, and voice control; Xbox Live on Windows Phone 7; ESPN on Xbox Live; the new 360 finally has built-in wi-fi. Biggest Difference Compared to Last Year: Less of a reliance on mainstream celebrities.
Additional Notes: The structure of the press conference was pretty much unchanged from last year: open with a big, multiplatform title and follow it up with some Xbox-exclusive DLC-related announcement for it. Then, show something else multiplatform before going into the exclusive hardcore stuff before finally setting into Casual Land. Noticeably absent this time around were XBLA games, which is a shame considering that there are some interesting things coming down the pipe, but I suppose that that’s more of a hardcore thing, and since E3’s something of a mainstream showcase, not as important in Microsoft’s eyes.
As for Kinect: first off, it’s going to take awhile to get used to the new name, but at least it’s better than “Natal”; secondly, the launch lineup is about what I expected, coming from Microsoft. The Kinect hardware looks like a solid product, but that’s about all it looks like. So far, the software doesn’t transform it into anything special. If Just Dance hadn’t already existed, Dance Central might’ve been Kinect’s killer app. As it stands… we’ll see. Especially since Microsoft is being so cagey about Kinect’s price; so much so that one wasn’t mentioned during the press conference, even while a release date was.
*****
Company: Nintendo Unofficial Motto:Simultaneously surprising and baffling people, simultaneously lifting the hearts of and infuriating fanboys, printing money, and just generally doing our own damn thing the best we know how for over a hundred years. Typical E3 Press Conference Methodology: Sincere confidence mixed with the hope of acceptance, executives playing games on stage. This Year’s Event Details: Press conference, 9am PST, 06/15/10 Did it Start on Time?: Yes This Year’s Players: Reggie Fils-Aime, Shigeru Miyamoto, Bill Trinen, Warren Spector (Junction Point), Satoru Iwata, and dozens of women with 3DSes attached to them. About that last bit: if ever we needed absolute proof of the return of the “old E3″…
Featured Hardware: Nintendo 3DS Featured Games:The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Mario Sports Mix, Just Dance 2, Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, GoldenEye, Epic Mickey, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, Dragon Quest IX, Metroid: Other M, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Kid Icarus Uprising, and a slew of big franchise name-drops for future 3DS titles, including Kingdom Hearts and Metal Gear Solid. Featured Features: For the 3DS, an adjustment scale for the 3D effect, the two cameras on the outer case for taking 3D pictures, and the availability of 3D movies on the system, which seemed to me to be a rather pointed jab at Apple, specifically. Biggest Difference Compared to Last Year: Reggie served as the ringmaster, instead of Cammie Dunaway.
Additional Notes: First off, I’m glad to have Reggie back in the driver’s seat. Cammie probably does a great job in her day-to-day work at Nintendo, but Reggie has a much better stage presence. Secondly, Nintendo was… impressive this year; so much so that all over the internet, hardcore gamers and press types are singing many praises about the 3DS, Zelda, and certain other things they showed. There are the usual spate of whiners complaining about the sole analog nub on the 3DS, just like they did with the original PSP, but such is to be expected.
As for my own thoughts? Zelda looked beautiful and interesting, though the glitchy stage demo was worrying; GoldenEye brought back memories, but I thought the graphics could’ve been better (yes, even “for the Wii”; look at what Capcom and Square Enix have managed to wring out of the system); I am sold on Epic Mickey; Kirby‘s style and very announcement filled me with joy; Reggie’s saying that DQIX comes out in “26 days” had me thinking, “Wow, that soon?!”; the trailer music for Metroid sent chills up my spine even though I’ve never played a game in that series; Donkey Kong Country Returns looks good on the surface, but I’m skeptical about its core; and I don’t have any strong opinions or feelings about the rest. Oh, and like many people, I’m looking forward to learning more about the 3DS, and eventually trying one out for myself.
Funniest bit about the Nintendo press conference: the Vitality Sensor that was introduced last year to much confusion was nowhere to be seen this time around… that is, if you don’t count the devices it inspired from EA and Ubisoft.
*****
Company: Sony Unofficial Motto:You may hate 90% of our proprietary formats, but at least we make some awesome entertainment! Typical E3 Press Conference Methodology: Montages, lots and lots of talking. This Year’s Event Details: Press conference, 12pm PST, 06/15/10 Did it Start on Time?: Yes This Year’s Players: Jack Tretton, Kazuo “Kaz” Hirai, hundreds of 3D glasses, Kevin Butler, new PSP pitchman Marcus, Alex Evans (Media Molecule), John Schappert and Greg Goodrich (EA), Gabe Newell (Valve), and David Jaffe and Scott Campbell (Eat Sleep Play).
I would've liked to have seen more of echochrome ii at Sony's press conference. Have a trailer instead.
Featured Hardware: PlayStation Move Featured Games:Killzone 3; the Move-ready Sorcery, Tiger Woods PGA Tour ’11 (uhh…), and Heroes on the Move; InviZimals; God of War: Ghost of Sparta; Little Big Planet 2; Medal of Honor; Dead Space 2; Portal 2; Final Fantasy XIV; Mafia 2; Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood; Gran Turismo 5; Twisted Metal; and many, many more in the montages. Featured Features: 3D gaming, via Killzone 3, and Move’s “1:1 movement”. A new, premium subscriber service for PSN called “PlayStation Plus”. The PS3 version of Portal 2 will have Steam integration, something which I was curious to hear more about, but not much else was said at the event. Biggest Difference Compared to Last Year: Sony formally announced most all of their biggest stuff before the press conference, instead of risking leaks. (And even though Twisted Metal wasn’t one of these, rumors still abounded pre-show.)
Additional Notes: Sony conferences are… problematic for me. Two years ago, it was fascinating (in the same way a trainwreck is) because Final Fantasy XIII had just slipped from their exclusivity grasp. Last year came the much-anticipated Final Fantasy VII-on-PSN announcement, and my preoccupation with that tidbit, both on the FFVII Citadel site and in conversation with Citadel denizens, caused me to miss a lot. This year, a cousin called about three-quarters of the way in, and I was far too polite to ask them to call back later. The call went on until roughly the end of the press conference, and I had to catch up on Gran Turismo 5 and Twisted Metal details elsewhere.
This year’s press conference was kind of dull, as Sony’s tend to be. Sony lacks the Hollywood flash of Microsoft and the warm fuzzy nostalgia of Nintendo, and Tretton likes to drone on and on sometimes. Last year, charts made in LittleBigPlanet broke things up nicely. This year’s similar moments came courtesy of Sony spokesman Kevin Butler, and, in the most authentic moment from any of the three conferences, Gabe Newell, introduced with some help from GLaDOS.
One of the biggest surprises of Sony’s presser was the absence of a game: The Last Guardian. I was also half-expecting/hoping to see a Sly 4 announcement, what with The Sly Collection having been revealed the day before. Oh well, perhaps next year.
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The central story revolves around the player hero character, this time an angel—sorry, Celestrian—who gathers the thanks of earthly mortals to feed the Yggdrasil Tree. Something bad happens, and the quest starts in earnest. The bare-bones plot moves forward by means of smaller, compact stories that occur in each new town the hero visits. Naturally, this bite-size approach to questing is ideal for lots of side-questing and other distractions. One of these is the Alchemy Pot, a modern-day Dragon Quest mainstay which is used to fuse multiple items into new ones that are stronger, rarer, or just all around better than what they were before. New to the series is a job/class system, reminiscent of—but not entirely comparable to—the ones in certain Final Fantasy games.
