My own personal thoughts, concerns and general Brainstorming about Mobygames.com (an online database) and the role of videogames as form of media and of art.
It’s been a long time since I had a World of Warcraft account (and sometimes I miss it, but not to the point of keeping up with it every month I buy a gamecard). Even so, I’ve enjoyed a lot of the machinima that’s been made from the game’s engine. WOW, along with some of the more open ’sandbox’ games of the modern time seem just great for creating fan-content. However most of these creations still look like players running their actors/objects back and forth of the screen of a game. So… the following is a metal video via Gametrailers that just looks better edited than many I’ve seen (update: okay, it’s by Blizzard themselves, that always helps)… because of how long it’s been since I’ve played, I forget exactly what is Blizzard-provided content and what isn’t: but in any case, those mighty axes look mighty impressive, and would bring the envy of Nigel Tufnel.
Hmm… I can’t seem to get the gametrailers embedded to work on wordpress, so here’s a direct link. Followed by a youtube version:
It’s been a long time since I’ve taken a look at RPG Maker… I remember being informed of the first release of the game in a “hey, that’s kindof cool” way, but as an editor for making one’s RPGs… it seemed overly difficult. Fast forward a decade and RPG Maker 2003 seems to have been the latest edition. I’ve never heard of it and I’ve never known of what it can do… But Aethis in vgmusic’s IRC channel posted the following video and to my eyes… it certainly looks just as good or better than half the RPGs that ever graced the Super Nintendo game system. Now if I start comparing it to the “best” in console RPG sub-genre… I might find things that the editor can’t do that a real programmer can… but for a single product (and the RPG content displayed below), this is fairly impressive.
On the other hand, many of the sprites and graphics are “borrowed” from Final Fantasy IV… and it’s difficult to know how good this same video would look using the… uh… let’s say art talents of a single independent fan. Still, I respect that the design is possible.
Just thought I’d also note that “RPG Maker” may not be fully covered on Mobygames since only the versions which come with a pre-assembled game world as a demonstration (in other words, a game) are eligible into the database. MG does not cover standalone programming tools and editors.
On yet another hand, this might just be the logical extention of having to compete with powerful game editors such as Neverwinter Nights or The Elder Scrolls games.
I’m still too busy to get back to get back to my NGAD project… but certainly this blog hiatus has gone on longer than I wanted (though not unfortunately longer than I expected). Part of the problem is that I keep chatting about “meaningful topics” to people in a 1-on-1 format… and once that’s done, I don’t feel like repeating myself for the benefit of my blog.
So…. since I have nothing useful to say, I’m going to start doing what a lot of bloggers do… and just post more videos that I find fun. In the offchance someone is watching this page on RSS or some other form, this will give them some updates to watch. And as for me? Well… having a video embedded gives me an easy way to share the video with friends.
Bloody Tears… what a catchy tune… no, that’s not me playing.
I’m still busy this week, but I thought I’d throw a quick blog up about something somewhat important to me. During my day, whether working on Mobygames or “day job” or just chilling out, I listen to podcasts and streaming Internet radio stations. Lately the later has become threatened by new legislation which raises the United States licensing fees for music played over the Intenet. Basically the fees are much greater than they are for FM stations or even satellite radio and are threatening to put some of my favorite Internet “stations” out of business, as it’s unlikely they’ll ever make enough money to pay the licensing.
To make an analogy, imagine there was a law passed on an ice cream tax, and the tax rate depended on the number of visitors visiting your store rather than how much ice cream the store sold. So imagine the tax does not care if ice cream buyers came just to hang out and get a little bit of icecream – all ice cream stands would go out of business except those who sell wholesale mega packs to a few visitors in places like Sams Club or Costco, or Walmart if it was willing to lose money just to get you into their store.
Now I don’t live in the United States, but this law affects me as the Internet is international. My sanity also depends on a variety of these stations including Digitally Imported, RadioParadise, WOXY: The Future of Rock & Roll, all of which I recommend for listening. Like I said, I tune into them regularly while doing work, cooking, cleaning or simply if I’m playing another game whose soundtrack I don’t really get into (I listen to DI’s chillout and trance channels when playing Starflight, a spaceflight game from the 80s without much music).
Just another attempt by the music industry to stuff genies back into bottles… be sure to fight it!
And here’s a longer youtube video for those who don’t like to read:
This is the standard “I’m not dead yet, please don’t stop visiting!” post that appears sometimes on blogs that have been inactive for some time. As I write this, I’m standing next to a pile of boxes slightly taller than myself, which contain almost every game I own. Next to it is a much scarrier pile of electronics, gizmos and such that I’ve collected over the years.
Now that I’ve made the setup. The punchline is that: I’m busy… and haven’t had time to play many new games for the NGAD project. And my gaming in general is down to once or twice a week… so I’m not having any fun without you all. Don’t feel left behind.
I apologize for the inactivity and just wanted to mention I don’t plan to abandon this blog. All I can offer as consolance is a flash game about killing zombies. No really! It’s more fun than it sounds. By night, you hold off the zombie attack and by day you look for survivors and new weapons… and you’ll need plenty of both, because all kinds of evil undead stop by to visit. Okay… maybe I’ve been playing something after all… but only for an hour.
If there’s any interest… I could spawn the “New Game of the Day” into a new blog (something I’ve been considering anyway) and making it shared, so anyone can post to it about their wacky adventures with games they’ve never played before. *shrug*
Okay I admit it… the decided to try this game out almost entirely out of curiosity about the title. I’ve never played Zombie Smashers X or X2, but I understand that they’re pretty common action games. X3 is not. X3 is an Elite-style space trading game. Only one with a definite sense of humor. Instead of flying through space using hi-tech (sexy!) spaceships and powerful alien weaponry, Ninjastamageddon puts the player behind the wheel of interstellar jalopies and other beat-up cars. Though the largest ships are giagantic galleons. Each with their own weapon capacities and cargo space. All in all the game is probably described as an Elite/Privateer that does not take itself seriously in any form.
[[Screenshots go here - will be uploaded sometime after posting.]]
The game’s story at least belongs to the Zombie Smashers X series: Ninjas and Zombies have forever hated one another throughout the ages. Only when humanity reached space were these factions able to go their separate ways and find enough space to live independently. However the ruling Pterodactyl Government encourages trade and the lure for profit causes these factions to interact once more. On top of things, there are nasty space pirates and crazy Cyborgs who want to assimilate everyone (usually after killing them first). In this crazy galaxy… tensions rise approaching Ninjastarmageddon!
Ahem. Yeah… So players begin by choosing a starting vehicle, a player skin and a co-pilot’s skin. The co-pilot mans the secondary weapon, from missiles to rocket launchers, once purchased from the hardware store. In addition to hardware, there also exists the Bank (load/save game), the supermarket (the big ones are named Ultra-Shopper-Mart) (buy/sell goods), the Shipyards, the Weapons store, Mission Control (sign up for new missions), Gas Blaster station (cars need gas, even in space!) and possibly one or two other spots I’m forgetting. The player travels between different “node” star system locations on the space map, which may contain some or none of the services listed… usually to fulfill some mission or to sell off goods tractor beamed in from a defeated ship. If all of this is beginning to sound familiar, it’s because this type of gameplay is used quite a bit among the Space Trader sub-genre. What sets X3 apart, aside from the cel shaded graphics, is it’s ability to make a humorous game in a genre that’s been traditionally filled with “serious” spaceships and alien weaponry.
ZSX3 also allows players to purchase larger vehicles (such as galleons) which are able to store and launch smaller cars for combat situations (such as the jeeps and 4-door flying cars), at the cost of cargo space. As the galaxy is opened up, it becomes clear that there is much debris in the universe, many direlects, and a lot of places where Zombies, Ninjas, Pirates and Cyborgs clash together in combat. I haven’t progressed far enough, but it seems possible that the game features a “main plot” which the player must find by talking to and accepting the right missions. I’ll definitely continue playing this wacky game.
[I'll edit from here if I decide I should be talking more about this.... Tomorrow's Game: Skygunner]
I’m actually cheating here since this isn’t technically a new game today, but rather something I played around December. The cheating is necessary due to my computer problems. However the game was “new to me” only a few short months ago, as someone I know was getting rid of old “computer junk”, and I convinced him to let me grab any games that looked interesting. That’s how I ended up with a box of Sid Meier’s Covert Action. Now some gamers swear by Sid’s works, citing him as one of the few people in the videogames industry whose name in the title motivates a purchase (sorry American McGee… I don’t think you’re on this A-list yet… I really tried to like Scrapland though, so keep plugging away . In any case, I had never heard of or played Covert Action before. Covert Action in short is a spygame. Obviously influenced by the secretive spy world of ciphers and tracking suspects and gathering clues together and even a slight touch of 007 thrown in. After a few hours of playing though, my attitude is somewhat adjusted: I’m playing the adult version of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Only there’s nothing about matching geographical clues. Instead I’m trying to figure out which enemy agents are working for which organizations (some politically apropos 20 years later) and what exactly they’re planning.
To give better detail, Covert Action is a series of minigames linked together by the common theme. The four minigames are basically: Wiretap (get hidden messages and clues, Cryptography (decode hidden messages), Break-in (the bulk of the game can be spent here, as clues are more frequently found) and Driving (chase down a suspect). Even including the extra challenges brought about by difficulty levels, the Wiretap and Driving minigames can be completely ignored and the player is still able to solve his or her case. Each sequence plays differently, Wiretap and Cyrptography are logic puzzles… while Break-In and Driving are action games from an overhead view. Each of these minigames is only so-so on it’s own. The real fun comes after clues are gathered with these methods: Trying to piece together the puzzle of the enemy plot and decide which partipants to go after first. However as the heat starts closing in and arresting the plot participants, they start to panic… and the most important ones go into hiding. Thus it’s always a gamble whether to arrest the peons, and delay the success of the evil scheme… or try to gather enough evidence to capture a criminal mastermind. All the while the clock is ticking and none of these agents necessarily have to be anywhere near one another on the globe, so it’s not uncommon to be traveling quickly to a new city hoping to arrest an enemy sniper BEFORE he kills his target. It’s particularly satisfying to find “incriminating evidence” (in the Break-In minigame only, hidden in conspicious red safes) which then can be used to turn enemy agents… which has the same result as an arrest, but without alerting any other members of the plot (turned criminals will “go along” with the scheme up to the point of actually making it a success (e.g. pulling the trigger)).
Covert Action was a game that’s never quite listed among Sid Meier’s greatest achivements. Sid himself complains that he doesn’t really like the game, thinking it an uneven mishmash of minigames that can’t quite decide what they want to be. In that he’s right, but the overall product and experience is still an enjoyable one and I had a lot of fun putting pieces of a international intrigue puzzle together. In that, it’s probably similar to the “spy novels” or Tom Clancy-esque material that sells well at bookstores. A worthwhile experience, but one that’s not “heavy” and can definitely be laughed at.
Some technical difficulties underway. In my personal life, which only marginally affects this blog and has a tiny tiny impact on MobyGames discussion. One of my partitions is experiencing errors. A terrible thing for data loss, but luckily it’s nothing important, just the drive on which I install games. It’s also the drive where I’ve kept quite a bit of screenshots taken of different games.
I’ve quickly whipped up an NGAD entry, for a game I hadn’t planned to mention until later… but which had it’s screenshots stored elsewhere at the moment. In the meantime, there’s some cleanup and salvage I’ll have to do before things are all normal again. Also, since I’ve moved my blog to wordpress I’ve also noticed that I’ll need to reorganize the different tags attached to posts in order to have them make sense. This blog was originally intended as personal observations of the MobyGames project… the NGAD games are just a sideline to that to make life more fun and keep me playing wacky things.
Finally I have a friend taking me out to lunch in order to convince me that HIS website is a worthwhile goal and that I should spend amounts of time on it. All this leisure is hard work.
Galcon’s advertising slogan on the website is “Conquer the Galaxy in 5 minutes” and it’s an apt assessment. The game plays like a simplified real-time version of Risk or other strategy games… without all the brainpower that a strategy game typically requires. The premise is simple: A bunch of planets are placed on the screen and the player who conquers all wins. Unoccupied planets start with a basic “defense” against intruders, which basically identifies how difficult it is to capture. As planets are taken, they produce spaceships which are then used as the attack/defense against the computer’s planets. The bigger planets produce more spaceships (incrementally), so the strategy is to gain control of those first and use it’s resources to fend off the enemy. There is no interstellar battles. There is no starship tactics… the game is simply to send as many tiny spaceships as needed to fortify one’s own planets and to steal those that don’t already belong to you.
Simplistic? Heck yes. Each game takes place entirely on one randomly generated game board. But simplicity is good, as Galcon is easy to pick up and burn several rounds at, trying to gain the upper hand in owning the number of planets. It’s Master of Orion without all the micromanagement of colonies and research and diplomacy. That’s the only strategy there is. The game is completely mouse controlled and fits into 10MB of space.
I started playing Galcon at 10pm and finished at around 11:30pm, after dozens of games. But other than the need to play “just one more round”… it could easily be something to play while on lunch breaks or waiting for a chkdsk or any other time consuming activity.
The full version advertises more different types of games, including the ambitious sounding “3-on-3″ and “Herd” modes. As I’m just quickly trying this out based on the recommendation of a friend, I haven’t gone through the process of registration. Certainly all I can comment about is the “basic game” and it’s definitely loads of fun.
For best results… play Holst’s “Mars” from the planet suite (already an overplayed tune I know… especially as I’ve never heard anyone playing any of the other Planet suite tunes), as you watch tiny triangles spew across the galaxy.
Posted by wildkard 
Posted by wildkard 
Posted by wildkard 
. In any case, I had never heard of or played Covert Action before. Covert Action in short is a spygame. Obviously influenced by the secretive spy world of ciphers and tracking suspects and gathering clues together and even a slight touch of 007 thrown in. After a few hours of playing though, my attitude is somewhat adjusted: I’m playing the adult version of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Only there’s nothing about matching geographical clues. Instead I’m trying to figure out which enemy agents are working for which organizations (some politically apropos 20 years later) and what exactly they’re planning.
