Category: Video Game Musings

Pulled this one out of mothballs recently and popped it in my NES, which has a tendency of working when it feels like it. Man, this brings back so many memories. The Middle-English dialogue, the simplistic quest to save the damsel and slay the dragon, the one-on-one random encounters, and the dreaded STAIRS command.

The original Dragon Warrior (now Dragon Quest) was one of the first RPGs on the NES and it managed to be a fairly satisfying game even to a 12-year-old kid at the time who couldn’t be bothered with them long, complicated game. The menu system was fairly simple to navigate and the battle system is even simpler. There’s no worries about getting poisoned or determining which elemental power does more damage; you either attack, cast a spell, use an item, or run away. That’s all you do and that’s all you really need.

Yeah, leveling-up is a bitch because each battle nets so little experience points and the need to go back to the castle to save your game is a nuissance, but on the other hand, it’s not a bad game. It’s a test of patience, but in a good way. If you can find a copy of this game, go ahead and give it a try.

I just read a report somewhere that attonery Jack Thompson, a longtime critic of video games, might face jail time for contempt in court due to his ramblings over the video game called Bully.

First thing that comes to mind is who’s Jack Thompson.  No, seriously. I don’t know who this guy is. Usually when I hear someone complain about a video game’s content, it’s usually incompetent parent organizations who would rather push censorship rather than regulate what their own kids play. If a guy’s name comes up and I don’t know him, goes to show how much of an impact he truly has.

Second thing that comes to mind is… this game Bully has controversial content? I better buy it then. I mean seriously. I absolutely love it when these people push a game into the limelight, telling consumers not to spend their money due to some hot coffee incident, and suddenly sales would spike because of it.

In a sense it’s similar to the MPAA giving free promotion to the pirate sites so that people, rather than avoiding them, will go ahead and download stuff off that site.

Of course, I don’t get why you’d want to download movies off the Internet. Sure, ticket prices are high these days, but would you rather pay twelve bucks for a clear picture and sound quality or download a video of some shoddy picture and camera work that a 3-year-old could probably outperform. It’s absolutely nuts.

But I digress.

It’d be interesting to see what comes out of this. But what really wacks me is that this Jack Thompson guy is apparently going after Midway because he is apparently creatable in the new Mortal Kombat game. Okay, so we can make a lawyer. Please, get over yourself. This is just an attempt to get more money off of people who’ve earned it. This guy, ironically enough, seems like a bully to me.

Then again, most religious groups tend to be.

I won’t go farther than that.

Later.

Originally posted on November 24th 2005:

Someone had managed to get a copy of the teaser trailer for the Dead or Alive movie, based on the series of fighting games featuring big-boobed women. All I can say is… WTF Indeed!

Just a few minutes ago, I caught a glimpse of the teaser for the movie again. Of course, now that I’ve shed my DOA virginity, I can comment on it a little more clearly… it’s still gonna suck and I don’t need any experience other than the game’s bouncing boobs to see that. Not that it doesn’t follow the game story or anything, but it just looks like a poor man’s Charlie’s Angels… with worse actors.

Another bit of info I recently realized as I researched this thing: Kevin Nash plays Bass Armstrong here, the pro-wrestler daddy to Tina, one of the bouncing-boobs in the game. If the two ever collide in the movie, Tina doesn’t have to worry because Nash will probably tear a quad trying to act.

If you don’t get the reference, it’s a wrestling thing.

So I’ve said it before: WTF indeed.

On a sidenote, apparently people are disappointed that Silent Hill is a subpar movie despite the kick-ass trailer. Welcome to the wonderful world of media hype.

Later, kids.

I’ve picked up this article and question its validity concerning the subject matter. For the sake of clarity, I’ll post it here:

SCE has secured the patent for a new disc technology that, if used, would not allow the PS3 to read used games for that platform. The technology was invented by Kutaragi himself, as well as two others.

Details regarding the patent are featured here: http://www.ipdl.ncipi.go.jp/homepg.ipdl

It is indicated specifically that the technology is to prevent the use of used as well as pirated software.

The technology involves actually rendering a authentication code originally encrypted on the game disk unreadable to other machines once the disk it is used.

This would mean that Net-based and other such games will not be the only ones to be affected by the technology.

Naturally third software developers would embrace this technology, and it would ensure sales of the inevitable “Best series” for the PS3, but used games shops would be put out of business if the PS3 were to become the primary platform in the next generation.

While information regarding the patent does not specify outright that the technology will be used in the PS3, Kutaragi has gone on record saying that copy management is absolutely necessary in order to endure that no “Napsters” of the game industry create problems in the future.

Yeah right. This kind of copy management is absolutely necessary so that the “Napsters” can’t cause problems that this little doohickey (if implemented) will cause. Used game shops will practically be put out of business because of this technology. Video game sections of rental chains such as Blockbuster won’t see as much business as before (or at least fall reign to other gaming consoles that lack this wretched technology). Friends can’t even trade games to play for the weekend. And what if your machine breaks and you have to get a new one? Does this mean you’ll have to rebuy all your games too just so they work? This is complete bullshit.

I’m not going to turn this into a pro-pirating or anti-pirating lecture. My line of thought is pretty blurred on the subject, but clearly if there had to be a means of fighting pirates, this isn’t one of them. If anything, you’re more likely to drive more people into piracy or purchasing bootleg materials that might be of an inferior make, but at least won’t have any restrictions. Hopefully, Sony will be smart and not implement such technology into their PS3. Whether you like or not, piracy is a rampant thing that is NEVER going to go away regardless of how much you try to stop. They’re everywhere!

There’s my rant of the day.

According to a site called DVDToons.com:

Sony Music announces a 4-disc set for the Super Mario Brothers Super Show. Once again, not many details for any of their announcements today, but the dvd is scheduled for release on October 25, 2005, with a retail tag of $29.95, according to DVDplanet.

Sony Music prepares the complete series of The Legend of Zelda. Sony has scheduled the set for this October 11, 2005, with a retail tag of only $29.95. The Legend of Zelda will be a 3-disc set, according to DVDplanet.

What? No Captain N? Damn those DICs.

I’m rather split on the whole deal. You see, on the one hand, it’ll be really good to see these things on a regular TV again… although the Zelda is the only set I’m really looking forward to; I don’t need anymore horrible recollections of the Lou Albano-portrayed Mario in either live or animated form.

On the other hand, you can watch these for free on Yahoo’s service thingy… eh, who cares? I forgot the point I wanted to make.

Later.

So for the past week, during my free time, I was attempting to get back into Zelda Classic and its more important component, quest building. After getting the basic feel of things and trying out a few custom quests, I started work on a couple of them. One being a full-quest using the original 8-bit graphics (along with the new ones that comes with it) and the other being nothing but an action game where you do nothing but slay monsters while earning useful items along the way.

I’ve been wanting to put out a full-on quest for the program and have attempted to do so numerous times, but previous attempts usually came to a halt and entered a long period of stagnation afterwards. The idea here is to try and maintain some sort of progress journal and record what I’ve been doing. I hope to parlay this into a separate blog.

Here’s to a successful experiment.

Later.