Oldschool Hard

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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I may be behind one of these tiny lights in the near future.

Once again I must make excuses for my absence – between the wedding that I was involved in – it went well – a cold that just seemed to come and go as it pleased before finally fucking off, trying to write 15,000 odd words of business plan and thesis so I can finish grad school, Operation Stop Being a Fat Bastard (down 22kg/48lb, nearly 6 inches around (not below) the waist, and fitting into a medium shirt for the first time in living memory – the ‘trick’ is to eat well and exercise, sorry) and being sucked back into raiding on WoW (I know), time’s slipped away from me, again.

There’s been a storm of gaming-related bullshit since I last posted, as there always seems to be: PS3s having clock errors, Activision causing havoc at Infinity Ward (so as to have as much control over the ‘brand’ and ‘annualisation’ as possible?) with subsequent claims and counter-claims, Ubisoft’s DRM servers getting hacked.

In good news, there was the Portal update, with its mysterious messages that showed what the power of nerds can do, and with Michael Atkinson showing himself out of parliament in South Australia we might be able to get a proper go at an 18+ games rating in Australia. I believe his true character was shown by the fact that he decided to retire after being voted back in with a massive swing against him.

In my own personal news, short of being offered a fabulous job here in the next 2 months, I’ll be moving to the US when I finish my grad studies (oh, the joy of hereditary dual citizenship). Either New York or San Francisco seem to be where the majority of jobs around my skill sets are, although I’m not ruling out other cities. Despite Australia supposedly having a much better job market, I can’t seem to get a job in one of my chosen fields (writing and/or editing) here, and through the strange nature of the internet and family networks, I know more people in New York than I know in Sydney, the other Australian publishing city.

This is a logistical challenge for me, as I did a count other day, and not counting my homebrew games, ’50 retro games on one disc!’ collections and so on, and estimating how many games are on some discs (eg. Space and Kings Quest collections), I currently own approximately 285 games, across 7 formats. I’ve probably sold about 70 games in my life, the vast majority when selling systems to get new systems, and I usually hang onto games rather than sell them, even if I don’t intend on ever playing them again.

So the question is raised: If I go, what games would I bring with me, and what would I leave behind? PC games are a no brainer – they work anywhere, and I just need to bring manuals (or even just a list of keys), a folder of discs, and downloads on an external HDD – boxes can be sent later when I’m settled in. PS3 games, not that I own many, are another no brainer – they’re region-free. DS/GBA games will also work anywhere. 360 games are tougher – some are region-free, some aren’t. My collection on 360 is a good pile without being huge, and I’m tempted to just play through the ones I haven’t finished before I leave and then sell them all, rather than try and sort out what works where.

The one collection that really drives me to confusion is my PS2 games. It’s approximately 70 games, including a bunch of rare ones (at least in PAL territories) like the .Hack collection, ICO, the Shadow Hearts games, (the subsequently banned from sale) Manhunt, Rez, Gitaroo Man, and the two Space Channel 5 games. There’s just too many issues: these won’t work on an overseas PS2 without modding and I have no idea if chipping PS2s is commonplace in the US, transporting many games is unwieldy and expensive, I don’t want to deal with the hassles of transformers and TV compatibility, and I don’t know if PS2 emulation is good enough yet to just play them through a PC. There’s a lot of games I’m yet to play through, I don’t have nearly enough time before my degree is finished, and while selling them would make me a decent chunk of change, I’d probably just put that out again buying US versions of the same games.

There’s always the prospect of me coming back, I can’t say any move would be forever. Should I let them sit because I can’t make up my mind definitively either way? Some things, it doesn’t matter – DVDs I can rip to computer, the same with CDs. But I need the physical media with these games, and I have a limited amount of luggage space. I also fret about my guitars and amplifiers, my books and certain magazines – much loved and important to me, but expensive to move in bulk, and barring a few Australian titles, first editions, and such, easy enough to buy again. Clothes, computer parts, most everything else, I’m not emotionally attached to, but some things mean a lot to me, and my games are part of that.

Image from art.com

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