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15 Oct 04
If anyone is playing Kohan II or Warhammer 40k online, let me know. I'm just learning both and I'm sure doing that simultaneously will result in poorer play on both. So if you're looking for an easy win, drop me a line.
Speaking of email, you probably noticed that I sign off each column with my email address (and a handy comments link that people don't use too much). Of course, that means that my email is publicly available on the web each day. That also means that nefarious people know it's a valid email address. Unfortunately, it's been spoofed quite a lot. If anyone's wondering, I haven't been sending out all those virus laden emails. Some of them bounce and come to me. I'm all excited about getting some reader feedback and I get a stack of undeliverable virii. Thank you anonymous scumbag, we really appreciated. The short of it is, if I it looks like I emailed you out of the blue, don't trust the attachments until you scan them. Also, I have some ads here, but I don't do any active marketing via email. Those are spoofed too.
Anyone using Voice over IP as your primary telephone service? My cable company is going to offer it; AT&T has it; I think Vonage is still out there. I might be going that way soon. I'm tiring of my local company. If it happens, I'll let you know how it works out.
Jason
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14 Oct 04
I heard the weirdest thing today. Ok, maybe it's not really that weird, but it doesn't fit in well with the way the world should work (at least in my mind). The thing is the original link got pulled down and I don't have a hard copy of other source. So I'll just treat it as a rumor.
Anyway, the Gamecube doesn't have that many exclusives. Most of the big ones come from Nintendo directly. Well, Nintendo can only pump out high quality games so quickly. So each major Nintendo release is something of an event. This week's event is Paper Mario 2. It's a console style RPG with Mario in two dimensions playing before an audience. It's a pretty cool idea.
Here's where the weird comes in. It's getting pretty universal great reviews. Then along comes Game Informer giving it a 6.75. Well, the rumor is they explained the score on their message boards. Their reasoning was that even though it was a great game, a lot of people wouldn't like it because it's so quirky. In other words they have a popularity figure calculated into each score. So even if it was a perfect 10, if the mythical average gamer won't like it it's not scoring high.
Then someone pipes in that PC Gamer has decided that niche games can't score higher than 90% Since large sections of the strategy genre could fall into the niche category, this bothers me as well. I'm still trying to digest that idea.
Of course, once you start down this path, scores become even more meaningless than they are now. I do think reviewers have the responsibility to point out to readers when a game is not for everyone. I was reading one review (I think it was War in the Pacific in CGW), where they pointed out how incredibly detailed the game was and how long a turn could take. And they made it clear that the game was only great if you were willing to take the time and effort to dig in and understand everything. That's fine, but don't dock the score.
Maybe I'm old fashioned, but games really have to be rated on their merits. Could you imagine the furor if all art house films got docked a star or two simply because they're not mainstream?
Jason
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13 Oct 04
I thought I'd go old school again. There were a couple of early influences on my gaming tastes. For good or ill, several can be traced back to my brother. Let's just say family Monopoly wasn't too fun with a brother who refused to lose at any cost (and usually demanded to be banker). On a more positive note, my brother wrote one of the first strategy games I played.
We learned to program basic on the early Timex-Sinclairs. It's kind of foggy now, but as I recall you were trying to lead Magellan's trip around the world. You had limited control over your course, but you had to balance speed with safety, provisioning, and weather. Most events were randomly generated and you had a series of responses. Sure it was primitive, but it was interesting to see all that went in to creating a challenge you could win, but making it feel like you were walking the razor's edge between success and failure. It even had a nifty feature where you could print out your route and stats if you won.
Before that most of my early gaming was limited to the arcade. I was in a small town, so there weren't too many games. I'm pretty sure the first one I played was PacMan. I played for a while then I notice that the best players used a pattern to clear the level. That struck me as uninteresting. The next game I really got into was Donkey Kong. Who knew I'd be playing Miyamoto games for years to come? It was different. The levels changed not only in minor appearances, but actually in your goals. Sure I almost never got past the elevator level when I played in the mall, but I enjoyed it. In fact, I later enjoyed it all over again when I played the cartridge on my Atari home computer. Of course, I played a lot of the early classics, Space Invaders, Defender, Phoenix, Pole Position, Pengo, Gorf, Galaxian and Donkey Kong Jr. One of the early ones that stands out was Tron. I never found a disks of Tron cabinet, but I did play one of the first Tron units on a family trip to Disney World. It was great, four completely different games for one quarter. That cool ice blue joystick didn't hurt either.
I guess I like games now that give me that same thrill. It's the feeling of something new, pushing boundaries and giving me more than I bargained for. It just seems that strategy games are the ones that do that the most, but if I need to scratch that twitch itch, I can always grab a tactical shooter. I guess I'm just a gamer at heart.
This week's game is another import. It's Heroes of Annihilated Empires (official site) from GSC Game World. It's a RTS set in an original Fantasy world. They're promising six different races battling with huge armies with total units approaching 64,000. That's a lot. They're adding RPG elements for the heroes who lead the armies. They're also promising a deep spell system, magical artifacts and neutral parties to deal with. Look for the massive destruction to begin in 2005.
Jason
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12 Oct 04
I'll get a game of the week up tomorrow. I have been a little maudlin with the death of Gone Gold. It has gotten me thinking about what makes a good site. A good site starts with good people. It kind of reminds me that I haven't been sharing too much about myself lately.
I thought I tell you about how I got my wife into gaming. My wife is a civil engineer. She's much smarter than I am. She'd never admit that though. When she married me, she knew my recreation consisted of gaming and golf. Fortunately for me she was willing to try both. While I haven't really succeeded on the golf front, I had better success with gaming.
Of course, puzzle games are the gateway drug of gaming. The problem with them is that you don't win so much as delay losing. My wife is competitive enough that she likes to win. I should clarify. She doesn't like to beat me, but she does like overcoming a challenge. She doesn't like losing to me either. I quickly realized that head to head games were out of the question.
The problem was that at the end of the Playstation's life, there weren't too many good cooperative games coming out. Going back to my computer gaming roots, I tried a few strategy games. There were two that really pushed her over the edge.
The first was Majesty from Cyberlore. It billed itself as the Kingdom Simulator. In many ways it was a typical fantasy RTS. However it simplified things by taking control away from you. So while Debbie learned build orders and the pros and cons of the various tech trees, she didn't have to worry about battle formations or coordinated offensives. It was a game easy to learn but hard to master. Though she needed some help in the beginning, she eventually went on to conquer all the scenarios including the expansion pack.
The second was Rollercoaster Tycoon from Chris Sawyer. Talk about a gateway. Everyone loves theme parks. The thought of building one was enticing to me. I think my wife got me the game for Christmas, but soon she was watching me play and telling me what I was doing wrong. She loved taking care of the customers needs and I liked building the big rides. It turns out we were a great team. We made some great parks together. We're also looking forward to the next installment.
After that it was a downhill slide for her. She got hooked on Starcraft. Then we played Gauntlet on the PS2. Ah, then came Ratchet and Clank, Sly Cooper and Super Smash Brothers. I think the killer blow came with Kingdom Hearts. She had watched me play through all the Final Fantasy games, but now here was one she could play and get Donald Duck and Goofy on her team. I think defeating Malificent may be her proudest gaming moment. I'm still amazed at the brilliance of that game even though I only handled the controller for a few moments here and there.
Needless to say, it's great having a wife who plays games. She understands when I'm on the computer for hours or hogging the TV. The best is still when we find time and a game to play together. It's especially good on those games where we complement each other. I love my wife.
Jason
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11 Oct 04
Sorry, I'm still a little down. According to the information in this thread at Console Gold, it looks like Gone Gold is really gone. It's sad, but I can certainly understand how hard it must have been for Rich not to be able to continue to work on something he put so much of himself into. I've only run this place for a few months and only have a small fraction of the members of Gone Gold, but it would be tough if I couldn't do this anymore.
Rich did it much longer and much better than I. So it's time to move on. I guess the best tribute is to make each place we visit on the net as friendly, helpful and personal as Gone Gold was. While Console Gold is the new home for the refugees from the GGF, hopefully a few will stop by here and feel at home as well.
Goodbye Gone Gold. Thank you, Rich (and Andy and Bill and Stephen and Joel and Jason). Rich, you and your family will be in our thought and our prayers. Good Job Chief.
Jason
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