Oldschool Hard

Wow,  how quickly a year flies by. I’d apologize for my absence, but I’ve been genuinely busy, not just lazy. I’m now halfway across the world, in Brooklyn, having moved apartments twice, and am now slowly rebuilding my stock of things, having picked up a newer XBox slim,  built a new PC (that needs to be taken apart again; seems like a dead motherboard), and a little TV/monitor that serves as the center of it all. I’ve been doing plenty of gaming, but life often intrudes, so most of it has been Live Arcade games that I can duck into and out of, like Deathspank, Outrun Arcade, and the like.

I flailed around for a while, applying for dozens of jobs, then got an internship, which lead to a part-time job, where I helped to make a few books, and then finally got a full time job at another place, working downtown in Manhattan, at a newswire. I guess I’m now officially ‘in the media.’

I decided to leave all my PS2 games behind, but brought my PC games in CD wallets, my PS3 games (haven’t got around to actually picking up another of those, yet) and most of my XBox games, except the EA games, which I knew were region locked. Once I got here, I discovered that Rockstar region-locks their XBox games, too. Eternal Sonata was another no-go, and Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts was also region-locked, but not Viva Pinata, so it’s clearly not all Rare games. I’m still playing WoW, although with a busted smartphone that had my authenticator on it, the non-working new PC, and other things that I’ve needed to do, I haven’t played in probably 6 weeks.

Now that I seem to be settled in one place again, with the essentials of life and a steady schedule, I’m going to start blogging again. You may commence celebrations.

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I usually got to see this about 50 times a match, 0.1 seconds before waiting to respawn.

My first post to Bitmob made the front page a few weeks ago. It’s about the coming changes to raiding in the next WoW expansion, Cataclysm. If you’re interested, you can check it out over here.

Also, for a fun little retro gaming mashup, check out Super Mario Crossover.

Work is nearly finished on my thesis, with a week left before I hand it in. No fabulous job offer has presented itself, tickets have been purchased, and in just under two weeks I move halfway across the world with a suitcase, a laptop, and a guitar. I ultimately made the decision to take my PS3, DS, PC and 360 games with me, and not sell my PS2 games. It’s keeping a foot in two camps, I guess, but whether or not I decide to stay or come back, I figure that my PS2 collection is essentially worth as little as it’s ever going to be worth, and I can sell it on a later visit back, should I need to, or it’s there for me if I come running back with my tail between my legs.

I’ve been reading, even if I haven’t been writing, and I found one particular article to strike a chord. Here is an admission of guilt within, rather than about, videogames.

My own admission: Well, I’ve thrown my controller a few times before in frustration, but I’ve already mentioned that. The general tone of this blog probably indicates that I’m prone to being a tad surly at times, so that should come as no real surprise.

A deeper admission, for someone who complains so much about what games should and shouldn’t be and thus likes to portray himself as a switched-on gamer: I’m terrible at multiplayer gaming.

WoW? Well, not WoW. I’m not the best but I’m in the upper half. PvE WoW is easy. Do some maths or read someone else’s maths so you gear correctly, don’t stand in the fire, watch the cast bar, hit the right buttons. PvP WoW is rock paper scissors, pick your battles and you’ll probably win. Other types of games, though, well…

Generally, it’s the speed of the game that gets me.

RTS? I build too slowly, try and get massively fortified, and end up getting rushed and stomped very quickly with my fortifications half-done.

FPS? I panic when someone starts shooting at me and when I fire back my shots tend to go everywhere but where they should. I can do reasonably well with an AoE class like the Pyro in Team Fortress 2, where I don’t have to be dead-on with my shots, and I’m adept at not dying when I play a support class, like someone repairing, doling out ammo, or chucking healthpacks around, but by genre definition, the games are shooters, and I fail at that part. I’m especially bad at the fastest-paced games, and vividly recall the thrashings I got when Quake 3 came out. In single player FPS, I can hide, take my time, rely on the predictability of the AI, and think about things. I don’t have that luxury in multiplayer FPS. The same problems also largely apply to me and third-person multiplayer games. Shit, even when I played on various MUDs, MUSHes, and MOOs, I’d panic during combat and not be able to type quickly enough half the time.

Sports games? I lack the aftertouch finesse, reflexes and, in most sports, tactical awareness needed.

I can’t think of any other common multiplayer genres at the moment, but it’s a good bet I suck at them, too. I generally need time to consider what I’m going to do, and other people don’t, it’s that simple. Me fail gaming? That’s unpossible!

Image from Unreality Magazine.

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No, that is not a typo. Welcome to Australia(n pricing).

As I mentioned in my post pondering about what to take with me when (if) I move, PS2 games are locked to a geographical region, split by technology and language into three regions: NTSC-J, NTSC-US, and PAL (Europe/Aus), with other countries being bundled into one of these regions. This can be circumvented, but requires a combination of a chip or chips and a lot of fly leads, making it quite complicated.

Region locking is nothing new, going back to at least the NES, and possibly before. Ostensibly it was about the differences between PAL and NTSC, that scanline differences and different speeds (50Hz vs. 60Hz) would create problems displaying foreign games on your TV. While there were issues with black bars, and slower gameplay and sound, most TVs, once a system had been chipped, or a cartridge put onto a region converter, were fine. Although you had to create a large, precarious stack on top of your machine (DON’T MAKE ANY SUDDEN MOVEMENTS!), foreign games usually worked, without any damage to TVs, game cartridges, or systems. So, more likely, it was instead about being able to control pricing of games in any particular region.

Now, handheld systems have always been happy to deal with multiple regions of games, both as a benefit to travellers, and because there was no ability to make claims about compatibility with TVs, PC games have also always been region-free, thanks to the (relatively) open nature of PCs, and things are changing somewhat in consoles, with the PS3 region free for games (although not for Blu-rays), the XBox 360 leaving region locking up to publishers, so some games are locked and some aren’t, and only the Wii still being locked down tighter than a nun’s proverbial. While a lot of people still use standard definition TVs, most standard-def TVs are, and have been for many years, both PAL/NTSC and 50/60Hz compatible, and HDTVs certainly remove any issues involving scanlines and refresh rates.

Still, you won’t find any overt advertising about the PS3 and its lack of region locking, and the only way to know if a 360 game will work in an overseas system is to either try it and hope, or refer to a range of lists maintained on the internet – the game boxes certainly won’t tell you. Most galling of all, games are still locked into a regional pricing model, with retailers sometimes prevented from shipping overseas or between countries, a patently absurd way to go in the day of ubiquitous internet. While, admittedly, exchange rates fluctuate, it doesn’t always explain the difference in pricing between countries. I laugh bitterly when US gamers complain about games being $60 USD. Considering the standard RRP of a game in Australia is $100-110 AUD, and the Australian dollar has been above 90c US for quite some time, we currently pay the equivalent of $90-100 USD for new games. As a result, I tend to buy most of my games on sale, the only time they’re worth buying locally. Any recent game I want to buy, I buy from either the UK, due to the exchange rate and guarantee of compatibility (for a 360 game) or through Play Asia, set the option to ‘English’ in the menu, and enjoy the extra 50 dollars in my pocket.

At least with a physical product, you can argue about localisation costs, shipping costs, and so on being contributors to an increased price in certain markets. The difference in regional pricing for some games and occasional locking out of sales for certain regions on download services like Steam shows an utter contempt for the consumer, and there is absolutely no technical reason why the prices can’t be the same. The only reason is price gouging. Again, a lot of these issues can be worked around, using VPNs, and false addresses, but with the digital download model, it’s not a stretch to think that if you’re discovered, you’ll lose access to the games you paid for – and you shouldn’t have to be forced into doing this just to get the IMO reasonable option of paying the same price as the US market.

(PS. I’m still waiting for the local release of Demon’s Souls in June, or at least I would be, if, you know, I hadn’t bought it from Play Asia A FUCKING YEAR AGO, like most of the Aussies really interested in this game. What are the odds on it being a flop here and Atlus blaming anything but their own tardiness?)

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I am on the road crew. This is my stop sign.

Happy birthday, Psychonauts. Today you are 5, and if you got through kindy ok, played nicely with the other children, showed appropriate motor-skill development, and did not set anyone on fire with your psychokinetic abilities, you should just be settling into your first year of school.

My, they grow up so fast, don’t they?

Now, I can understand why people don’t quite get what a special little person you are. Your charms are not necessarily immediately apparent. Quite frankly, you are not aging well, looks-wise, even at the tender age of 5. You have good bone structure, but a new haircut wouldn’t hurt, and the best of your personality only comes out after some time spent with you. However, among other heartwarming moments, the way you traipse through that city and your wonderful friendship with the Milkman show you truly are a special individual, and if only people would give you a chance, they would see the care put into your upbringing. More people should spend an evening in your company, especially now that you make such small demands on their wallet.

Yes, yes, you can start opening your presents. But please stop trying to enter my mind, and for the love of Jebus, you need more control before you start trying to light the candles on your cake with your powers. There’s only so much scorched buttercream I can take the smell of…

****

In more current news, hol-eeeee shit, Blizzard has made, by estimates, somewhere in the realm of $3-5 million USD from ethereal sparklehorsies. They couldn’t make money more easily if they became an outpost of the mint. As for me, I’m gonna hold off until the /mountspecial is changed to shitting rainbows, thanks.

Annnnnd, we’re having that ‘are games art?’ hand-wringing competition again, are we? Oh, joy. This is such a useful conversation to have, because, without fail, it always changes the minds of those criticising games, and doesn’t look at all painfully insecure.

Yeah, most games probably don’t approach ‘art’, just as Hot Tub Time Machine is never going to be used as an example of the singular artistic vision of a cinematic auteur. It’s entertainment. ‘Games are not art’ does not have to be extrapolated to ‘games have no value/legitimacy’ every time. Games are usually fun. That’s enough. However, once again we (as gamers) rise to the bait like a dolphin at Sea World. Well, maybe with slightly more or less chattering, but to the untrained eye I imagine it looks quite similar.

Roger Ebert doesn’t get it, what a surprise. News at 11, old man doesn’t understand technology/a medium that rose to popularity after his own youth! It’s just like my grandpa using ‘back in my day…’ to rail against anything he doesn’t understand, without actually judging it on its own terms. Fuggedaboudit. For more, refer to my prior comments about seeking validation from those who are in no position to give it.

Image from Double Fine’s official site.

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