61 Frames Per Second : gaming habits

Rez: 4/20 Game of the Day

Bob Mackey — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:00:00 GMT

It may be a bit of a stereotype, but I'm willing to bet a lot of you gamers out there--people known for laid-back, couch-bound fun--plan on celebrating the High Holiday (of course, no pun intended) of April 20th. People unfamiliar with this special day should probably be aware that--wait, you're not a cop, are you?

To avoid personal incrimination and also to talk about naughty, illegal things in a self-aware, cheeky fashion, I'm just going to assume that you know entirely what this holiday is about. And if you're wondering if I'll be participating, know that we video game bloggers lack the disposable income to take part in in today's many rich customs--also, some of us have to spend the rest of our daylight hours writing an insufferable term paper about 19th century working-class women's autobiographies. I'm thinking about selling my blood.

But if you're lucky enough to have ample free time and a steady supply of towels to jam underneath doors, you may be wondering about any video games out there that may enhance your experience. It's a bit cliche at this point, but you should really look no further than Rez; it was designed by a rave-friendly DJ (for Christ's sake) as an experience that envelops all of the senses--except for taste and smell, which may require the use of accessories found in your local supermarket.

Rez could be the stereotypical Bob Marley poster of the video game world, but it's hard to think of many other games that fit today's festivities so appropriately--and it helps that the game has a built-in mode where losing is impossible. It's almost as if designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi built an altered-state lightshow that requires only as much input as your body will allow; this may work out well for those out there who find both arms trapped inside of bags of Cheetos, the traditional food of today's feasts.

I might have went for the most obvious choice, but I'm sure you 61FPSers have some good ideas. Are there any overlooked games out there that are particularly enhanced by the good vibes of April 20?

Related Links:

The Long and Winding Road: Rez’s Journey From Proof-of-Concept to Game
Ports That Need To Be Made: iTouchRez
BIT.TRIP BEAT is Hella Sweet

Breaking Out of Your Gaming Comfort Zone

Bob Mackey — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 16:00:00 GMT

Longtime readers of 61FPS should be aware of my love-hate relationship with Japanese RPGs; for as much as I hate the genre's crippling flaws, I find myself crawling back to them time and time again, because they've sort of become a "comfort food" for me. As much as I hate being strangled by the slimy tentacles of nostalgia, I have to admit that my continuing fascination with all things JRPG has to do with the fact that I was practically raised on the things--though, to give myself some credit, I can at least say that I've managed to avoid quite a few of this generations biggest disappointments, like Star Ocean: The Last Hope. This does not explain why I played through all of Blue Dragon, though.

Since becoming a member of the enthusiast press, I've been trying to break away from my old tendencies to try new and otherwise scary experiences. It's safe to say that I'm most comfortable with organized, linear, Japanese game design; as a former Nintendo and Playstation (once the JRPG Mecca) fanboy, this was once the only world I ever knew. And to this day, the non-linearity of open-world games is still a bit anxiety-inducing to me. So I thought, "What better way to break me out of this rut than by playing a free-roaming game where just about everything wants to murder you?"

And this is where Fallout 3 came in.

Granted, the third Fallout benefits from years of learning through game design that the older titles in the series simply didn't have; hell, I'm sure that Fallout 3 is considered a baby game to the hardest of the old-school hardcore Fallout fans. But for a newbie like me, the world of Fallout is completely terrifying; even the "tutorial" in the beginning of the game barely tells you the basics before you're thrown out into the cold, unforgiving nuclear wasteland of Washington D.C. After leaving Vault 101, I had no idea where to go, no idea what half of my stats meant, and only a basic understanding of how my map even worked--and I had to deal with all of this while being surrounded by critters and scumbags taking potshots at me from a distance.

Keep in mind that I'm used to games that (frustratingly) spend hours and hours introducing you to their mechanics before letting you have any fun with them on your own. With Fallout 3, getting my bearings with all of the in-game systems took a few hours of experimentation and trial-and-error, but in the end this made the experience far more rewarding. I'm not sure if this is what the designers had in mind, but getting acclimated to Fallout 3's outside world is like stepping into the tattered shoes of your vault-born character--you can't expect complete mastery right away.

What also surprised me about Fallout 3's game design was the real sense of consequence that influences your decisions. As a veteran JRPGer, I'm used to searching every dresser, flower pot, and treasure chest that I stumble upon, regardless of whether they belong to me or not. This policy obviously doesn't apply to Fallout 3; I instinctively searched an off-limits computer terminal in a supply store, only to find an angry security guard trying to murder me when my reading was done. I ran out of the store and soon discovered that the whole town was after my blood; I barely made it out alive after three escape attempts. The citizens eventually forgot about my transgression a few days later, but this incident makes still me think about the effects of my actions before I do just about anything in the game.

Fallout 3 didn't entirely eliminate my hunger for gaming comfort food, but I'm glad to say that it's at least broadening my horizons and changing my expectations of what an RPG can be. Who knows; by the end I may give up spiky-haired, angsty teenage heroes for good.

Related Links:

Whatcha Playing: Fallout (Metaphorically Speaking)
Too Soon? No Nukes for Japanese Fallout 3
Facepalm: Crispy Gamer

The Things We Do For Levels

Bob Mackey — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:00:00 GMT

It all started about 10 years ago with a little game called Final Fantasy VII--actually, it started many years before that, but in my head the origin of this particular issue starts with Square's world-changing blockbuster. You see, as a teenager with a lot of time on his hands and no real income to speak of, I felt obligated to get the most out of every game I purchased; and with Final Fantasy VII, this meant I eventually invested hours and hours in the delightful field of Chocobo breeding. But there was just one problem: the racing necessary to beef up your breeding Chocobo's stats was extremely boring, and, if I remember correctly, only required the mashing of a single button.

My solution to combat this boredom? Whenever a race started, I would entertain myself by hitting "play" on the nearest VCR remote control--usually with a recent episode of The Simpsons--and come back to my game minutes later, already in progress. But the problem of needing backup entertainment to entertain me when my regular entertainment wasn't cutting the mustard didn't really dawn on me until later in life. Let's just say that I'm happy I never played video games on a picture-in-picture set; it probably would have corrupted my gaming habits permanently.

Since I still play RPGs, the problem of grinding (for levels, money, or anything) hasn't really gone away--though most modern developers are far more generous in this area than they have been in the past. Still, even remakes of old RPGs can pose a problem; I'm currently going through the bonus content of Dragon Quest IV, and I need about five more levels before I can take on some overpowered optional bosses--the only problem is that, at this point in the game, it takes about 45 minutes (my estimation) to gain a single level. So what have I been doing to combat the endless joy of hammering on the A button? You name it: listening to podcasts and audio commentaries, browsing the Internet on my laptop, catching up on old TV shows over at Hulu--anything, really, to keep me distracted from the task at hand. If I were to explain my mad multi-tasking to someone unfamiliar with RPGs, they'd probably think I was crazy--and I just may be.

So, what does everyone else out there do when grinding becomes a necessity? I can't imagine that I'm the only one who keeps multiple sources of entertainment at hand in case of boredom-based emergencies. Ah, the privileges of first-world living.

Related Links:

Roundtable Discussion: The Relevance of Japanese RPGs
Star Ocean and the HD-JRPG Conundrum
The 61FPS Review: Dragon Quest IV – Chapters of the Chosen

Whatcha Not Playing: Persona 4

Bob Mackey — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Persona 4 may not actually be out, but I'm still making an effort to actively avoid it. This is more than a little depressing, because I'm sure it's a fantastic RPG, and, quite possibly, the last good Playstation 2 release--unless the series decides to stay on Sony's eight year-old console. I'm not one to have a restraining order on good JRPGs, as they are kind of rare these days, but playing Persona 4 could be very hazardous to my health. It's not all of the demons and Satanic imagery that has me scared; it's the fact that this game could very well take over my upcoming (and desperately-needed) break from work, school, and life.

Typically, it's extremely rare for me to play a game for me than 100 hours--and hell, most games don't have that much content to spread around. But the last Persona game, Persona 3: FES, can be found in the handful of games where I've actually spent hours in the triple digits. Before you think that I'm a loser with too much time on my hands, please let me explain: Persona 3: FES was released at a time that I could take advantage of the most: the end of a long, tortuous semester, with 12 weeks of absolute freedom in front of me. Grad school doesn't give you much to do in the way of jobs or work during the summer.

Essentially, I had a Summer of George. And Persona 3 was the catalyst that kicked it off.

In retrospect, I can't actually be sure if FES was actually a good game; it was hella repetitive (moreso than most JRPGs), looked like a Dreamcast game, and had an irritating, repetitive soundtrack. Yet I could not stop playing. This game consumed the first half of my summer in a way that I hadn't seen since the original Tales of Symphonia; in fact, my daily ritual started with playing a solid three hours of FES every morning while trying to forget about how many new experiences I could have if not for investing so many damn hours into the game. And, even after all of these marathon sessions, the bonus content of the game is calling to me from a little, black memory card. But I must stay strong.

This post is by no means an attack on the quality of the Persona series--it's an attack on my obsessive nature, if anything. But Persona is something I'm not going to be able to go back to until there's a major overhaul of the franchise; at this point in my life, I really can't justify sinking 100 hours into what seems to be a nearly-identical experience. Still, it would be fun.

No. No. Must stay strong.

Related Links:

And Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Love: Atlus Reprints Persona 2
Yeah, But Is It Art?: Persona 3 FES
The Ten Videogames That Should Have Been Controversial, Part 3

Rock Band: My Anti-Music

Bob Mackey — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Last Friday, Joe blogged about the curmudgeonly Nickelback and their outrage over how music games like Guitar Hero are supposedly preventing people from actually picking up real instruments and starting bands. As I said in the comments section of that post, if the world needs anything, it's fewer local bands; the town I come from is so lousy with them, you can't leave your car parked anywhere for more than ten minutes without your entire windshield getting plastered with an inch-thick layer of fliers. So I don't think we need to worry about rock and roll going anywhere anytime soon--and if anything, Nickelback is only contributing to the death of the genre, what with their general shittyness and all.

For me, though, Rock Band is my only real musical outlet. You see, between the ages of 16 and 17, I had about a year-and-a-half of guitar lessons--and while it didn't give me much of a musical foundation, I still picked up some fundamental skills that manifested into a sort of prototype Guitar Hero. I'd put on a song, try to play along with it to the best of my ability, and think "Damn, this would be pretty sweet as a video game." Of course, I'm not exactly claiming I had the idea first; everyone knows that GuitarFreaks predated Guitar Hero by a good seven years--I think my imagination was mainly stoked by my obsession with Um Jammer Lammy and the guitar controllers found on the Japan-only arcade release of the game.

So, essentially, I'm now reliving a far less authentic version of my teenage years; but it really doesn't bother me. I may be keeping Nickelback up at night, but at this point in my life, I don't really have the time or patience for playing "real" music. It's a little surreal to play songs in Rock Band that I actually know on the real guitar, but the instant gratification completely makes up for guilt over my stunning lack of musical discipline and my utter contempt for the act of stringing. And now, I'm pretty sure that I have some vague idea of how drums work! Oh, and speaking of drums: any of you aspiring drum players out there, heed my words. Your friends do not want to come over and listen to you drum along to that Rage Against the Machine CD. They're just too polite to tell you.

I'm no hypocrite; if all the kids out there were playing Freelance Writer Hero, I wouldn't even think to bemoan the death of my chosen art. Though I would question their idea of "fun."

Related Links:

Miyamoto Says, "It Would Be Great If Music Education Started With Wii Music."
Warner Music Wants More Royalties
Surprise! Nickelback Misunderstands Guitar Hero

Gaming Impulse Buys

Bob Mackey — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 23:00:00 GMT

Gaming is an expensive hobby, and freelance writing is not exactly a lucrative career (no offense to my kind, handsome bosses). So, when it comes to buckling down and buying a game, I tend to split my time between fretting and doing online research for hours on end. But with certain games, something just snaps and shuts down the reason center of my brain--which tends to operate even when I'm drunk. I've fallen victim to the siren song of music games so much that I really should have started to notice a pattern in my life by now. Let me break it down for you:

- 2000: I walk into my nearest Funcoland (coincidentally, the worst name for a business ever), see a new copy of Samba de Amigo and the maracas, and promptly hand over $120 + tax. I had no idea why I was even in the store in the first place.

- 2001: I see an official Konami Dance Dance Revolution bundle featuring the game plus a dance pad. Inexplicably, I find myself buying it. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

- 2005: What's this? Taiko Drum Master? At this point, it had been marked down to twenty bucks, so it's probably my least impulsive impulse buy.

- Today: I get a fat freelancing check in the mail, and my paycheck was just deposited in my bank account last night. I immediately drive to target and purchase Rock Band 2 against my will. IT IS HAPPENING AGAIN

Mind you, I had the common sense to be ashamed of myself. Here I was, on the income of a student and in economically insecure times, buying 200 dollars' worth of fake instruments. When the kindly clerk rung me out, she asked if I was buying it for myself, to which I sheepishly lied, "It's a gift." I don't expect Target to save me from myself, but they don't need to know about my secret shame.

So far, it's been worth it; I've ignored these guitar games for their generally lousy (in my opinion) track selections, but being able to play Weezer, The Cars, The Pixies, etc. is right up my alley. I just hope said alley is nice and warm for when I'm homeless in the future. Also, a place to crap would be nice.

Related Links:

Warner Music Wants More Royalties
The Economist Weighs in On Music Games
Wii Music: A Rare Miss For Miyamoto?

Game Length Versus Quality: The Debate Continues

Bob Mackey — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

When it comes to game length, how long is too long? This is a question I've personally pondered for quite some time; thankfully, GameSetWatch's Mister Raroo has done an excellent job of detailing this dilemma in a recent article. So, what exactly is wrong with the bloated, modern game?

Nobody wants to pay $60 for an experience that is over in an evening. Thus, games are usually stuffed with enough content keep players busy for weeks or even months. That said, too often the length of games is artificially lengthened in order to provide players with the perception of a longer experience. I’ve done enough backtracking and fetch quests in games to know filler when I see it.

It's true; there's a certain dollar-to-content ratio that we've all come to expect over the years. But just how much of that content are we actually going to play? Personally, I tend to check out of a game when it's stopped giving me anything new to care about. As much as I liked Odin Sphere, the mechanics--essentially unchanged throughout the game's entirety--were so repetitive that I didn't feel bad checking out shortly after finishing the first chapter. In my eyes, I had "finished" the game. The "seen about enough of you" defense has been a huge help in getting me to stop playing through games I'm no longer enjoying; though this new healthy lifestyle has only developed recently in my adult life.

So where has everyone else either drawn the line, or continued to suffer through a game for the purpose of finishing it? My most egregious cases of the latter always happened with JRPGs--and sometimes continue to happen, despite my awareness of bad gaming habits. There's just something about seeing all of those numbers onscreen that makes it impossible to look away.

Related Links:

Time Investment
Too Many Crayons
Question of the Day: How Do You Make a Horror Game Horrifying?

Gamers: Let's Slow Things Down

Bob Mackey — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:00:00 GMT

There's been a certain problem with gaming that's only gotten worse over time: it's what I like to call Late to the Party Syndrome. It happens whenever people on the Internet venture to talk about a game more than two weeks after its release date; daring to excuse their transgression, they proclaim themselves "late to the party" and sheepishly try to revive a lost conversation.

Of course, the problem isn't these "latecomers." We, as gamers, are becoming--or may have already become--a culture that absorbs new products as fast as possible in order to move onto the newest and next biggest thing. There's something to be said about the only acceptable window of conversation for a game being the two week period around its release, and when said game becomes retro rougly a decade later.

This is why I'm thankful for podcasts like 1UPFM, which has a "Backlog" section that features editors' thoughts on playing games from as far back as the mythical age of 2005. And, to be completely fair, the consume-and-forget lifestyle doesn't exist in the world of video games alone. I remember back when the last Harry Potter book came out, everyone on the Internet practically had a race to see who could finish it first. Whatever happened to savoring something you enjoy, and taking time out to reflect instead of binge?

Oh, and now that Stephanie Meyer's god-awful Twilight books are the Next Big Thing, several articles about them have basically stated, "Potter who?" ARGH.

Between schooling, writing, teaching, and blogging, I have very little free time as it is, so I may sound like a hypocrite in asking people to be less effective with their spare time. I, too, could joylessly rush through as many games as I could in my gaming time--but that doesn't sound very fun to me. Last night, I finished Fable 2, a game that took me roughly a month to get through. The main quest probably could have been finished in about a week, but I wanted to get as much out of the game as I could. Yes, I did miss out on the nine million other games that were released in that month-long time span, but you know what? They're not going anywhere.

Places like GameStop may be encouraging this sort of "Get rid of your games ASAP" behavior, but that doesn't mean you have to buy into it. I know I pimp the place out enough (and receive nothing from my pimpings), but get a GameFly subscription, stop hoarding, and quit viewing your games as ticking time bombs steadily decreasing in value. And most importantly, slow the hell down. Don't become an automaton speedrunning through Corporate Blockbuster Version A-13 motivated by peer pressure alone.

Related Links:

Square-Enix's Prez Sez: "Japan needs to be #1 in gaming again, homeslices."
Video Games Are Haute Couture
Going Back in There: My Very First Hour With Pokemon, part 1

Games to Play While You Poop

Bob Mackey — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:30:00 GMT

What is it about the bathroom that makes it the perfect place for sitting, reading, thinking and gaming? I've done my share of all these activities while doing...other activities; in fact, the lousy screen of the original Game boy Advance ensured that I spent at least half of my day in the perfect lighting conditions of my parent's bathroom. People didn't see much of me between the years of 2001 to 2003.

Even when backlighting on handhelds became standard, my habits still continued. In fact, bathroom gaming might have saved my life; in 2007 I was stuck in such a boring, depressing temp job that I had no choice but to sit on a toilet and play a shitty cell phone version of Mr. Driller for most of my eight-hour shift. Luckily for me, I was not trained or monitored--and even though I worked in a bank, I feel I am in no way responsible for our current economic meltdown.

These days, my bathroom game of choice is the iPod version of Peggle; it's only five bucks, it doesn't require precise controls, and, most importantly, it's very symbolic of bathroom activities. There's also a huge amount of levels, challenges, and versus modes that have been sustaining me through various bathroom visits for more than six months. Note: no one has ever asked to borrow my iPod. I am not proud of what I am.

So, does anyone else out there want to share their bathroom gaming habits? I can't be the only one who takes advantage of their quiet time on the throne.

Related Links:

Earthbound's Other Secret Evil