Um, yay?

Adding to his stock of being the most awesome english teacher I've ever had, my professor gave out extra credit (in the form of extra participation points) to those the class deemed "Most Helpful", as according to a survey he handed out today.

I tied for second, netting myself an extra 2/3 of a grade on participation.

Woot!

He also included some funny things that were said on the surveys.

[Helpful people]: "I can't believe I'm saying this, but Eric"

...

*cough*

Now THAT'S an edged compliment.

What took them so long?

Raze's Hell Preview over at Gamespot

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"If you've ever felt like turning the tables on all those cute characters you've had to rescue throughout your long and storied gaming career, Artech Studios' Raze's Hell may just be your game. You play as Raze, a monster whose twisted lands are being invaded by hordes of adorable characters that must be obliterated by the most violent means possible."

---

Words cannot describe the joy that I am feeling right now...

Okay, its been proven...

My English teacher fscking rocks.

This was an email he sent out in an email to the entire class:

----------------------------

Here is a good procrastination tool for the end of the quarter. It's a
web page translator. You can filter any site through it:

www.gizoogle.com

I tried it with Camus' Myth of Sysiphus. It's pretty funny, especially
if you scroll to the last few paragraphs:

http://sites.gizoogle.com/?url=http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/00/pwillen1/lit/msysip.htm

----------------------------

Awesome :).

The Really Fun and Annoying thing about Writing Essays...

I'm writing this essay for my english class, and it occurs to me, I don't believe a word of what I'm saying!

Sure, the technical aspects behind it, I see them. But the conclutions that I'm drawing from them aren't something I actually think.

I'm chewing out this published playwright, who was nominated for a rather prestigeous award, about how she seems to have done a half-assed adaptation of "The Country Wife."

Its kinda amazing. I just have to make a plausible, and well supported argument.

I can consider it to be complete bullshit, and its okay!

Cause I may not agree with the assesment that I'm making, but it makes more sense than anything else I could prove...

Ninja Gaiden (and some platforming ranting)

On friday I broke down and got a blockbuster card, so that I could play video games that I probably don't want to shell out fifty bucks for.

Sixty, come next-generation consoles.

So I get two weeks to play a game and beat it. Usually not too hard.

I was going to rent EA's latest Baseball game, see how it was, but it was rented out. So I got this little game released a year ago called Ninja Gaiden, who's reviews were indeed rave.

First off, the game is beautiful. While the technical aspects of the graphics are indeed superb, the style is what makes it great. There may not be 50,000 polygons everywhere, but you don't care, because the excellent textures not only look great but they also mask the fact that these images are all computer generated, by making flat walls look like they are as rocky as the inside of a cave should be, for example, and masking the edges that do exist but shouldn't.

Also, your little ninja not only moves just like a ninja should, quickly and acrobatically, but he's got this bandana, which serves two purposes: 1: To disguise his features and 2: So that there's this long tail of fabric going down his back to look cool when fully animated.

The damn bandana tail moves so fluidly with your movement, its sorta awe-inspiring. Its sort of a little graphical thing that says "ooh, look at me, look at how cool I am, look at how awesome the graphics programmers are!" Its showing off. And it does it so well.

Okay, now that the requisite, and kinda pointless graphics commentary is over (I mean, come on, you play a game for the gameplay, not to say ooh and ahh!), lets get to the meat of the matter, the gameplay.

Its sorta a beat-em-up with some platforming elements. TECHNICALLY this is called an action-platformer, but the platforming, where you run, jump, swing and climb to get from one spot to another without falling to your grisly demise, isn't very important, or as well done as the combat is.

The combat is superb. Amazing. Awesome. So many applicable hyperbolic adjectives, so little time.

Most fighting games, either Streetfighter-esque or beat-em-ups, fall into the button-mashing trap, where the faster you hit the attack buttons the better you do. Not here. While, true, if you grap your nunchuka, you can go into a mass of baddies swinging and rack up some insane combos. You'll usually come out on the other side in one piece, too!

But if you use your sword you can deal a few really powerful, and quick attacks, then jump away from the crowd before they can counter attack. Lure a group of them towards a wall and then you can jump up off of it, high into the air, and land, sword down, dealing one punishing blow to the whole group. Or jump on one, throw him far, and charge his ass finishing him off in one blow.

It really gets fun when you fight zombies. They are slow, and their attacks are easy to avoid because their animations that lead into the attack are long and obvoius (like when they pull their giant axe behind them, lean back, and THEN swing, five seconds after starting the attack motions), but they soak up damage like nobody's buisness and when they hit you, you feel it. Its sort of like you spend a second on the ground checking yourself for missing limbs. They're virtually impossible to beat with the nunchuka, simply because they take so long to kill and you'll often be in the middle of a combat animation when you see the zombie rear back and think "F***. That guys about to split me in two".

However, with the sword, you can do a jump charge and lop off thier heads. Sure, it doesn't kill them (they're zombies, after all), but they do lose their eyes. So, headless zombies basically spend all their time walking around and swinging randomly. Its kinda funny, and they're really easy to kill once you do this.

Its strategy, its tactics. Its FUN. Its almost perfect combat.

The almost comes from the camera. You know, that little thing that shows you what's going on? While it isn't bad, per se, its not very good, either. You see, the camera does an excellent job of following Ryu, the player-controlled character, so that you don't get lost, and if it is being uncooperative, you can pull the right-trigger to center the camera right behind Ryu. But it isn't directly controllable. Most other games use the right thumbstick to allow the player to rotate the camera in up, down, and side-to-side, which comes in handy in combat, so that you can always see where the baddies are, but Ninja Gaiden has the right stick automatically move the camera into first person mode, which allows you to look freely about but you are unable to move or fight while in this mode, which makes it useless in combat.

Its servicable, and the problems it creates are rarely major, but its still a bit clunky.

The main problem I have with the game is the platforming. I've played great platforming in the Prince of Persia games. The trick to good 3D platforming is precision and accuracy. You should be able to jump from one platform to another that's withing your simple jumping range easily. You should be able to line up the jump without having to re-position yourself or rotate your avatar ten degrees clockwise in order to make it.

The best way of putting this, without delving into terminology only gamers are going to get, is that platforming is not about whether or not you traverse the course. Its about how you do it. Its about recognizing the series of jumps, wall runs, swings, etc, that make up the path you need to take. Its like an algebra program. Its not about the answer, but the steps taken to get there.

An intellectual exercise, not a physical (or metaphysical, in a sense) one.

Ninja Gaiden falls a bit flat there. There are some platforming sections that I know how to do. They're simple. Wall jump up to this platform, jump across a pit to another, wall run to a third, and then jump to the exit. But I have to try again and again to line everything up just right, and far too often I'm off by a centimeter and Ryu goes too far off the edge of the platform, down to the bottom of the area, and I have to try again. Or when I try to do a horizontal wall run, but the game thinks I'm trying to do a vertical one.

Its gets frustrating quickly.

Hard is one thing. Cause boy howdy is this game hard. It will eat you alive. The combat requires such a huge degree of ability that there's a feeling of jubilation when you finally beat that one damn boss. But when a game gets frustrating, that's a bad sign, because instead of jubilation, you feel relief when you get by an annoying platforming section. Instead of a "F*** YEAH!", its a "about f***ing time..."

But the platforming is such a minor aspect of Ninja Gaiden that it doesn't really matter. You want platforming, play one of the Prince of Persia games. Ninja Gaiden is all about the action, and its just so awesome that the lackluster camera and poor platforming just don't really matter.

(geez, what's with me and these oppresively long posts?)

The Other Side Speaks...

Well, more preachy than anything else. The word "crusade" was floating around in my mind...

CBS News: GameSpeak: Jack Thompson on Video Game Violence

For some context, Jack Thompson is "one of the most outspoken and visible critics of "violent entertainment." He has represented victims of "video game-related violence" and in 1992, the American Civil Liberties Union named him one of its "top ten" censors of the year."

So, if he isn't on the other side of the proverbial isle, the I don't know who is.

Now, lets get something straight: I do not agree with him in any way in many of his arguments, such as how gaming "is not a release of aggression. It is training for aggression."

Well, before being a rather avid gamer, I was suspended from Middle School three times for hitting another kid.

Zero since.

Of course, this is only one data point, and the rate of my maturity might be a contributing factor to my mellowed-outness, as well as a change in environment, but the numbers are still there.

Nor do I agree that the notable increase in school killings (from 17 and 16 in 2001 and 2002 to 48 in 2003) is because the Video Game Generation is coming of age.

Mainly because a study showed that the top two demographics for gaming are Male 18-35 (no duh) and Women 18-35. The video game generation grew up a long time ago. There may be other contributing factors in 2003 to the increase. Besides, just as my example above, we're dealing with a small data set here. Can't really make any claims that stand up to mathematical scrutinty.

And then there's the whole "Murder Simulators" thing. I mean, seriously, most of what you could possibly garner from a realistic (Tom Clancy, for example) FPS is that:

A: Head shots kill faster.

B: Automatic weapons are less accurate than rifles and pistols.

C: How to lead a target.

Part A is common sense. B is likewise. C might come in handy, I suppose, if you were to need it. But the things video games don't/can't cover are far more important.

Recoil. The biggest problem a person has when shooting a gun is that the gun packs a considerable kick, which throws off the aim of an amateur shooter. You can't include this in a game without, say, a light gun that shoots out a large blast of air with each shot, which still wouldn't be accurate.

There are others, but Recoil is the big one.

Still, he makes a few interesting, and good, points. Such as:

1: Despite a heavy emphasis on punishing the evil companies, he does recognize the need to punish the parents who knowingly lets their 13 year old kid play GTA.

2: He is right to nitpick the whole "most games are not heavily violent" argument, because the number of M rated games sold is more important than the number of M rated games made. Its not a lie, but a fact that's intentionally being relied upon too much. At least not a traditional lie.

3: Manhunt is the video game equivalent of a snuff film.

But he brings up Full Spectrum Warrior, a game that I will soon rent once I decide to get a blockbuster membership (look, I'll only use it for the games, liz, please don't hurt me).

Its a real time tactics strategy/tactics game. Not a FPS. Yes, it trains military thinking, but so what? He jumps on the Pandemic Studios bandwagon because FSW was made for the military, but was considered not realistic enough for training purposes, so it was turned into a commercial product.

But, ya know what? I've played many tactics/strategy games.

Starcraft. Warcraft I/II/III: The iconic RTS games, teaching resource management and the value of both overwhelming armies, smaller but more diverse squadrons, and how to effectively use skirmishers to negate an enemy's production capabilities.

Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain: A little known Mac game that teaches empire management, research, and several key aspects of war that are often overlooked by strategy games: Supply lines, the use of different vessels for different types of combat, and one of the key parts of battle: There is no combat without movement.

Ghost Recon: A Team Based, Tactical FPS that uses realism to teach, above all, patience and how a small force could defeat another, larger one if it can choose the ground on which to fight.

Fire Emblem: A Role Playing Tactics game that can teach the value of a small number of strong troops, how to hold a defensive line, and how to use a specific unit's strengths and weaknesses to good measure.

Advance Wars: A Turn-based Tactics game that uses resource management for troop construction, as well as having to make do with a set group of units and how to use the terrain to your expressed advantage.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance: An amazingly deep Role Playing Tactics game that shows everything one needs to know about small-unit combat.

And he's ranting about Full Spectrum Warrior, which is just a RTT that just teaches caution and flanking, but just happens to be a modern game?

Oh, and the last three games?

Made in Japan, and all aimed at the little 'uns.

Sorry, but not only is he wrong, but he's using bad examples!

But, hey, don't take my word for it. After all, weren't all of the old politicians and demagogues totally right about how Dungeons and Dragons encourages people to be evil heathens?

Zod, this was longer than I entended.

I don't really mind it when people rail against FPS's. Its nothing new. But when they yell at a strategy game, it annoys me, because they are perhaps the best examples of how a game can actually improve one's intellect.