Gamers With Jobs

The consideration was whether to head back into the Safari Zone for the one or two Pokémon I saw whom I didn’t have in my troupe. However, I was all out of patience with jumping around in a jungle and getting to different spots for the mere chance I’d get the Pokémon of my choice. I wanted to progress! Plus, the zoo-like nature of Fuchsia City was starting to depress me, and make me feel guilty once again.

Taking out my trusty map, I began plotting my course. It looked like Cinnabar Island was my next destination, as the only other one was to fight against the ultimate Pokémon masters, or some such game-like nonsense. Seeing as Cinnabar Island was, well, an island, I figured it was time to break out my HM case and tape the Surf ability disc to Artax’s head for a few minutes until he got the gist of it. For a moment I did contemplate which of my water-based Pokémon would be the one to ferry me across the Swamp of Sa— the sea, but Artax could be the only true fit. Just imagine me, Denis, AKA Leeloo Dallas Multi-Drag, riding across the ocean on a drag-king Horsea’s back.

We headed on south.

It’s hard to convey why I care about MMOs to people who don’t.

I would say that the mechanics and gameplay of these games are an acquired taste, but they’re not. No one ever starts from a position of disliking combat-by-number or long hours of grinding collection quests only to come to appreciate all of their subtle joys later. It doesn’t work like that.

Sometimes I feel like being an MMO gamer is a bit like being a smoker. As a former smoker from the mid-nineties, I can tell you from experience no one ever starts or continues smoking because they taste delicious. Or because of all that awesome coughing you get to do. Or the repellent smell. Or the cost. No, you smoke because there is something about it that makes you feel comfortable and internally sustained. That eventually gives way, of course, to the fact that you smoke because you smoke and you can’t stop, but that’s not where it starts. It starts with the odd satisfaction of grass-filled paper perched between your fingers and a calm that rushes into your brain when your lungs fill with what can only be described as a toxic miasma of soot, tar and cancer catalysts.

When I fire up World of WarCraft or The Old Republic or EverQuest 2 or RIFT or any of the dozens of MMOs I’ve played, I get that same kind of rush before I ever hit the auto-attack key or click on the first guy with a question mark over his head. Which is part of the reason why I also am part of a mostly quiet segment of gamers that doesn't want MMOs to change.

It may not be good for me, but there it is.

This week the guys talk about video games and explore some topic or another. This description is amazing because I wasn't on the show and I've been on a plane all day. Hurray!

I tried to play Final Fantasy XIII when it released last year, and I made it a good 15 hours into the game, which is to say I made it about halfway through the tutorial section. After that nearly 2 full work days of effort here is what I can say for certain, Final Fantasy XIII is a game on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. That's about it.

I can't say it was terrible, but I can't say I enjoyed my time either. I can't really say anything about the story, because as far as I understand it, I had read basically the first few paragraphs of the first chapter, though I again can't say I really cared for what I'd seen up to that point. I suppose I could say that I didn't care for the characters, but honestly I don't remember any of them, except for the vague, nagging sense that there was one character who was basically a young, annoying girl stereotype.

And, now Square-Enix is releasing Final Fantasy XIII-2, which I really don't know whether it is a sequel or an expansion or what. Again, what I can say with relative certainty is that it is a game on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, and beyond that not much, except that the likelihood that I will ever play it is extraordinarily low.

Which is all to say that I'm giving game of the week to Soul Calibur V.

I have had the DOTA2 beta at my disposal and ready to play for some three or four months now, and I’ve played it exactly twice. This is not a badge of misplaced honor, or some kind of self-congratulatory example of restraint. No, the reason I have not played this game is distressingly simple, not to mention more than a little shameful.

Fact is, I’m completely intimidated by it.

And, it’s not alone. There are lots of games that intimidate me, and try as I might to rationalize and logic my way out of this silly trepidation, I can’t get over my hesitation to play certain games. Games like Magic the Gathering Online, Hearts of Iron III, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Demon’s Souls, Team Fortress 2, Dwarf Fortress, League of Legends and a scattering of others. Sometimes they just seem too complex. Other times the community surrounding the game seems too uninviting, most often competing players have been at the game for so long that it all just seems impenetrable from the outside.

And the tragedy, the real shame of it all, is that all of those games above are ones I’d like to learn and get involved in, right up til the moment that I casually look through an online starter guide that talks about how in just five or six months I might begin to understand the fundamentals. Moments like that, I should have a fully functioning and very real ejector seat, because I would pull that rip cord like I was opening a Christmas present from my long-lost billionaire uncle.

This week Lara, Karla and Shawn talk loads of games and the non-gameplay stuff pushing further into games.

Sometimes with game narrative it’s a simple question of where do you want to put the story in relation to the game mechanics. The method of delivery and its relationship with the game mechanics ultimately is going to define the overall meaning of the game. If the player has to process content to engage and understand what’s going on, you risk content degradation as their mind grinds away at the meaning, turning it into a system of mechanics.

Ok. I'm ready for some big game releases again.

The break from the busy holiday season was nice and all, and I happily feel like I've cleansed my palate, but I'd be fine with some massive game to get really excited about again. I know a lot of people don't leap to thoughts of over-hyped, mass produced, focus group marketed AAA titles when they think of video gaming worth giving a damn about, but as many of you already well know I do. There's something I really enjoy about the pomp and bombast of a game like Battlefied 3, Skyrim or The Old Republic releasing, and I am anxiously looking forward to that kind of noise again for games like Mass Effect 3, Diablo 3 or Max Payne 3. On a side note, is basically every current game franchise sitting at the number 3 right now?

That said, I've been enjoying my time in some less highly visible games lately. I've been working on improving my scores in Orcs Must Die!, a game I can come back to over and over again and have exactly the same amount of fun. I also went back to Defense Grid to play out some of the levels I'd missed. And, I've been cautiously pleased with the beta for Elemental: Fallen Enchantress, something I think I've already put more time into than the original. There's a long way to go there, but it's much more promising than I expected it to be.

As for this week, King Arthur II: The Role-Playing Wargame looks like the best option if you need something new to play, unless you're a glutton for punishment in which case Victoria II: A House Divided may be your cup of tea.

It wasn’t that long ago at all that the idea of protest on the web was the sort of thing you laughed at. Casually irritated people taking 13 seconds to sign what might be their actual name to a toothless petition with all the impact of a softly drifting soap bubble was great for shouting at the wind, but the idea that anyone would actually take an online protest or movement seriously was fantasy of the highest order.

And yet, here we are on the far side of the great internet blackout, assuming the internet is entirely made up of Google, Wikipedia and places that aggregate pictures of cats, which I have to admit is a pretty reasonable assumption. The once seemingly invulnerable legislation of SOPA and PIPA that could have changed the web as we knew it is now all but dead, and you can be forgiven for feeling like we can chalk one up for the good guys and pop open the champagne.

Which is exactly the kind of complacent, short-sighted, self-congratulatory lack of direction that will leave us having won a battle and lost the war. While everyone is deciding how we’re going to refocus our illusion of new-found authority in the world of politics and advocacy, the ground will be crumbling under our feet, and when the fall comes I fear it will be a horrible shock, leaving us far worse for a time than we might have been had SOPA just passed quietly in the night as had been intended.

No, the watch-word of today can not be success. It must be vigilance.