Author Archive for Pat

Didn’t (Game)Stop Me

Published
by
Pat
on August 7, 2009
in Blogs
. 2 Comments

This is a story about GameStop.  This is not an angry story, this is not a story detailing their screw-ups, this is not a story deriding the incompetency of it’s employees.  This is, in fact, a very positive story, filled with successful conquests and customer service that can only be described using words like… servocity and servicitude.  If such stories bore you or fail to provide you with the punching bag you’re looking for, then look elsewhere, dear surfer.

I rode my noble steed (a Corola, broken and trained by Toyota) to the great commercial crossroads known as 95th and Quivira.  I was searching for one of three titles at a bargain price.  I’d heard that GameStop was having a sale on FEAR 2: Project Origin, so I perused their location on the southwest corner first.  Alas, for the sale had concluded a week prior.  Neither of the other two titles were there, and the cashier there complained of an affliction known as “open to close,” which I imagine sucks something fierce.  My next stop was to the Gameco to the northeast, but the only item of interest there was, again, FEAR 2, and my wallet hadn’t grown any fatter just because I was willing to brave the intersection again.  Fine, said I, fine.  We’ll give the GameStop in the southeasterly Oak Park Mall a shot (yes, another GameStop across the street.  Now you see why I made the distinction in the first place.  And no, I don’t know how they coexist.  I thought these establishments were more territorial than that…).

I wandered the mall for a few minutes before consulting provided charts.  They led me to a cove slightly nicer than the previous ones.  Two employees stood before the Xbox 360 section, speaking of business practices.  One of them sounded like he could’ve been from corporate, the other was a man I had come to identify as a regular employee in this store.  I patiently waited my turn and took a look.  Well, shoot, FEAR 2 was just as pricey as ever, and I couldn’t find the other two titles.  Then the long-time employee man pops out from behind a rack and asks me if I need any help.  I tell him I come seeking rarer games, and that it looks like they don’t have them here.  He says, “Try me.”  I say, “Tales of Vesperia.”  He searches the rows for maybe a second, I’m talking like a “one-one thousand” count here, and pop!  Out of the shelf and into my hand comes the anime box art.  I say “Eternal Sonata” and just as quickly, that’s in my other hand.  Long-time employee man tells me that both are uncommon, but Tales is relatively more so.  Eternal Sonata would take a little less of my gold, but I go with Tales.

At the register I get corporate-looking man.  Tales comes recommended from him, as does Last Odyssey.  I’ll withholding judgment on that, but I play along.  The transaction goes exceedingly smoothly; a couple procedural hic-ups, but I’m in no rush.  Turns out he’s not from corporate, he just transferred to this location.  He’s very professional anyway, explaining GameStop’s discount program to me, but not pressing the issue when I decline.  He also quickly acquiesces when I turn down my pre-order option.  I leave the store, high with feelings one gets from cuddling small furry animals to one’s breast.

To use an old cliche, there’s nothing like a typical GameStop visit, and that was nothing like a typical GameStop visit.  If you’ve had the typical GameStop experience, I’m sorry.  I’m not saying your perspective on the company is wrong, I’m not saying GameStop is  a the best company EV4R, I’m not saying everything GameStop does is wise and prudent (because I’d probably be wrong).  I’m just saying.

As much as I rave about the customer service, I’m really more interested about their end of the incident.  I know that, at food service and retail job it’s easy to feel like your role in things doesn’t matter in the end.  Doing your job well doesn’t disguise the fact that you’re not all that high up the company ladder (you might still be getting paid per hour).  For these guys, you always have to say “no, that disc is too scratched,” “no, we can’t take that,” and “do you want to pre-order this?”  Does dealing with someone like me, someone who doesn’t give them any trouble, someone who knows his games and knows what he wants, make the job any easier?  Any more enjoyable?  Did they feel as good about those few minutes as I did?  Will this have ANY LASTING SIGNIFICANCE in their lives AT ALL?!?!? *hyperventilates*  In any case, I’ve got Tales of Vesperia, which is so far proving a challenging and worthy successor to that GameCube game that sucked 60+ hours out of me, Tales of Symphonia.

So, if you live on the Kansas side of KC, check these guys out in the Oak Park Mall.  No doubt they could stand some more gamers shopping at a games store.

In other news, yesterday was my parents’ 26th anniversary.  Go marriage.

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Wanted: A Little Direction

Published
by
Pat
on August 4, 2009
in Blogs
. 0 Comments

I know my role here: I write about video games while Jon makes comics, occasionally do the two intersect, though never very directly (we keep hoping to catch the demographic that enjoys both these things, but it’s hard to gauge our success at present).  I want to break from that for today and write about a movie.  But hey, it’s not like we don’t have a precedent of these things.

Wanted is a movie sandwich; it gives you the message at the beginning and end so that it can fill the middle with all the meaty special effects-laced combat.  I won’t get into the middle much.  It’s  a bunch of drabble about fate and obeying it and defying it and so on (whenever somebody says something to the effect of “take control of your destiny” it always sounds like “run that red light while the cops aren’t looking”; if you can do it, somebody’s not doing their job).

Oh, and this isn’t a review.  In a review, I would do my best to avoid spoilers.  I can’t guarantee that here.

Anyway, at the beginning we have self-described loser Wesley Gibson.  He works in an oppressive office environment, his “best friend” is bedding his live-in “girlfriend,” and he’s too timid to “do anything” about it.  The way this is drawn, Wesley’s life is almost ordinary in the extreme (but what do I know, this might be reality for some people), but it gets the point across: Wesley is nobody.  His life is going nowhere… until a group of super-assassins jump out, say “boo!” and bring him to their textile factory to teach him how to throw curve-bullets.

By the end, he is in self-described “control.”  He can do everything the super-assassins can do just as well as they can, and he came up with a plan to defeat the bad guys (it was the gun on the wall, but whatever).  As he finishes his last piece of business he asks the audience, “What have you done with your life lately?”

Wanted Movie Still

"Control" is easier when you're packing.

See More Wanted Movie Still at IGN.com

My former roommate of two (school) years came to admire an Icelandic composer/musician by the name of Olafur Arnalds.  Not only was this guy’s music good, but he was 21, the same age as us.  My roommate would ask much the same thing, of himself, I think, as much as of anyone else, “What are you doing with your life?”

It’s almost not fair.  Many of us have talent in one thing or another, but very, very few of us are prodigies.  I don’t have an super-focusing ability that was mistaken for years as an anxiety disorder.  A knowledge and understanding of music wasn’t part of my childhood, so I’m disqualified from early 20′s rockstardom even before you take talent into account.  So, what have I been doing with my life?  Here’s what the list looks like for this year:

February to April: Wrote two short stories, the best I’ve written in my life so far
April: Acted in two short scenes taken from plays, the best acting I’ve done in my life so far, my Gears of War 2 review (and another poem) was published in my school’s literary magazine, which I helped to edit, participated in a hip-hop dance in the spring dance show
Summer: Wrote several pieces of video game criticism, read two novels

That’s what I’ve been doing with my life lately.  Sound good?  Would Wanted‘s writer think it sounds good?  Probably not, on both counts.  Heck, half the list is on a relative scale.  But it’s what I’ve got.  What does Wanted want from me?

There’s a clue in the story progression.  Wesley had the raw ability, but he needed training to hone it.  It’s a reminder that real freedom isn’t the license to do whatever, it’s the uninhibited opportunity to make yourself better.  So applied, does this mean Wanted wants me to seek out the tools of self-improvement?  Maybe.  It’s hard for me to tell just from one watch… and when the message is in the buns instead of the meat, not much gets across (I wonder what the fries would be in this metaphor… the special features?).

Last word: I had Wanted pegged as the summer blockbuster type.  It came out as a little bit more.

Not doing enough,

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Sillyness in Twos

Published
by
Pat
on July 31, 2009
in Blogs
. 0 Comments

Nope, no review for this week.  I can only do so much, which is to say that Jon won’t let me borrow Halo Wars.  He did let me borrow Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, and if I don’t become proficient post-Lego mechanic, I will at least be able to cut out a picture of the game’s box art and paste in the dictionary next to “tongue-in-cheek.”  I think this will work better than the term’s current picture, a tongue in a cheek.

I never played Army of Two, partly out of lack of interest, partly because I heard that it was a little silly .  Somebody must have liked it, though, because they’re making a sequel, Army of Two: The 40th Day.  The Great Hype is not satisfied with a mere sequel, however.  There must be spectacle !  Army of Two Two is going to include moral choices, and the results of these choice sequences will be logged and analyzed by some poor guy at Electronic Arts so that we will finally know the answer to the question that has been burning in the minds of we intellectuals that have not had the opportunity to study overseas: who’s got the moral high ground?  The US of America?  Or Europe?

Man, the things that EA does… I sometimes wonder what they’re binging on that makes them regurgitate their common sense.  Let’s start with this whole “battle of the ethics” deal.  We do realize, don’t we, that when people are set up against moral choice scenarios in games, many of them choose the evil route precisely because this is a game, and they wouldn’t or couldn’t be a jerk anywhere else.  Those who don’t are people like me, who play these types of adventures so that we may save something or someone, from a princess to a galaxy.  Moral choice instances are just opportunities to give our consciences some exercise.  I’m sure there’s a scientific term for people like me, the wannabe saviors of the kitten marooned in a tree, but the layman knows us, colloquially, as weird.

So, assuming those Euros use games for the controlled expression of bastardry as much as the Yanks do, it’s not going to be much of a competition.

Then I’m concerned about the “moral choices” Army of 2 Two is going to present me with.  If you’ve read many of my reviews, you know I’m all for the inclusion of morality in a game’s presentation; it’s a case of art imitating life, and with video gaming, making the player make the tough choices is probably the ultimate expression of that.  But for as much as gaming has evolved, moral choice mechanics really haven’t.  Too often the choice is between something obviously good or obviously evil; no shady areas that player can get lost in and think his or her way out.  The result is that we have a caricature of morality, a set-up that encourages players to let loose and play the evil Sith Lord.  If you’re going to be the good Jedi Master, the route there isn’t too hard either.

Read the Kotaku article , but it doesn’t sound to me like Army of Two II’s moral choices are going to be anything revolutionary.  In co-op, both players have to make the choice, so that might lead to something noteworthy, but… I don’t know.  Maybe someday we’ll get past the  Knights of the Old Republic mentality on morality.

Shouting at the wall to move,

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Not Sophisticated, Just Snobbish

Published
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Pat
on July 28, 2009
in Blogs
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I feel like I should be proud of myself, but I’m not, really.  I achieved a cultural victory in Civilization IV, the same method by which Egypt kicked my Celtic butt in my last game.  To win a cultural victory, three of a player’s cities have to reach “Legendary”-grade culture.  This isn’t easy; you can’t plop down the Taj Mahal and expect to reach Legendary before time runs out.  It’s a series of calculated decisions.  First you have to pick right leader for the job (Louis XIV of France builds wonders faster than other leaders and gets a culture bonus right off the bat).  You should pick the cities you want to go for Legendary early on (your first three will probably work nicely).  You should build wonders that not only give you lots of culture points but give you a better chance of birthing the right Great People (Great Artists are very helpful here), and it helps to find rare resources, like marble and stone, to cut the building time in half.  You should watch out for buildings that multiply your culture points.  You should choose Civics, or forms of government, that help you out (I didn’t separate church and state for a long time, but I had free speech).  Even the Corporation I founded in the late game was a boon to my culture, but by then I already had it in the bag.

So I do all this.  I suppose I expected a magnificent, beautiful video when Lyons joined Paris and Orleans as Legendary cities, but here’s what I get:

That’s it?  Yeah, I know I built cool buildings, but hey, I raised the French out of nothing and, out of all civilizations, I made them the most civilized.  I want to see my citizens drinking fine wine while they listen to Coldplay, or handing the secrets of rock n’ roll to primitive tribes living out in the jungle.  Le sigh.

My opponents were a little disappointing, too.  I kept the same difficulty level, but I made the terrain a series of islands, instead of larger continents.  This seemed to confuse them.  They were trying to trade for my surplus iron when iron deposits were within their borders.  No.  If you’re too stupid to develop your own resources, you’re not ready to make swords yet.

Then there was this episode , a silly publicity stunt put on by, who else, our friends at Electronic Arts.  I was thinking really hard about whether my righteous rath wrath should make an appearance (it looked so tongue-in-cheek, and it was ), but it looks like other people have me covered .  Events don’t exactly plan themselves around your Tuesday/Friday post schedule.

My only real source of distress about this game and its marketing is the fact that Dante’s name is still on this project.  As I remember one Kotaku commenter saying, this game “misses the point so hard, it physically hurts.”  Not that I’m under any illusions that they’re trying, I just think Dante would cry if he saw what these people were doing with his story.  I just keep getting these images of a crumbling skeleton, buried under the grass and the dirt and the rocks, so far down that no one can hear him sob.

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