14 posts tagged “video games”

Holy guacamole, where did November go? It..it just came, and now it's almost gone...:(

I am feeling very good about this trip. Despite a few hiccups here and there, it has been extremely lovely and relaxing and I've met some interesting people and seen some interesting things. I am just over two weeks into a seven week trip, so I still have quite a ways to go. I don't really miss home in the sense that I can't wait to go back, though I will certainly be excited to go home and see my family and sleep in my bed.

One reason I think that I have been able to keep off any real sort of homesickness is that I have my computer and can easily keep in touch with people pretty much all the time with email and Skype. I didn't realize Skype was so easy and cheap. I just had a 45 minute conversation with my sister in Denver and it cost me about a dollar (99 cents to be exact) which is significantly cheaper than it ever was to call from an internet cafe/international calling place. So, yay Skype!

Anyway. I've been thinking a bit about what I want to do with my life. I'm pretty sure I want to work in video games, but not 100% (though that's most likely where I'll at least start out.) I don't like how I don't really have any...like...passions. Something that I am obsessed with and love and would want to do all day every day for the rest of my life. I tend to go in and out of things, loving something for a bit until I get over it and then moving on to something else. Video games are my most consistently-loved thing, and I go through periods of months at a time where I barely pick up a controller. This is probably completely normal but I feel like I'm just sort of lost and floating around in the world, waiting for something to come up that really hits me somewhere inside. Thinking about it the only thing that I have always wanted to do pretty much my entire life is tell stories in some fashion. Movies, books, TV, video games, what have you - I enjoy a good story and wish I was good at telling them. Maybe I am and just need to give myself the opportunity.

On a similar note, having just finished reading the Alchemist, the phrase "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" has been stuck in my head. It's from the Bible (and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! Which is where I first saw it), which doesn't really matter, but I really like what it means to me. It also makes me kind of sad because I'm not sure where my heart is. I suppose I haven't found it yet. Maybe that's why I wanted to travel in the first place, because I'm still looking for it.

Anyway, not to get all philosophizing on y'all. I am currently in Lisbon and am kind of intimidated because I don't know, like, any Portuguese (other than "ola," "obrigado" and "praça"....so I can basically say "hi, plaza please?" [ETA: ok, maybe not. Apparently "obrigado" is "thank you," not "please." So I can't even say that. Damnit.]) I can actually read it pretty well since it's similar enough to Spanish and can figure out what stuff means, but as far as understanding the spoken language and pronouncing it...not so much. It's a pretty language though, it sounds kind of like Spanish with French pronunciation, if that makes any sense at all.

Soooo I guess I should write something up about E3, given that I'm a huge video game nerd and going to E3 is like near the top of the list as far as things that video game nerds would love to do. I don't really feel like writing all that much though, but knowing me I'll probably write up a ton anyway. [note, after writing up everything: yeah, pretty long. also not spell-checked because i'm too lazy to reread over it. sorry!]

I got in to LA on Monday afternoon, and met up with Ben at the hotel. I hadn't seen him since two Mays ago, in Barcelona, so it was nice seeing him again. We hopped on a bus and went over to the Electronic Arts press conference, where I got my first batch of shwag (including a much-needed 1GB flash drive. Thanks, EA!) and saw such people as Will Wright (SimCity, Sims, Spore, etc), John Carmack (id software), Gabe Newell (Valve) and a bunch of people from media outlets that I follow, such as 1UP and Kotaku. It was so weird! More on that later though.

After the press conference we made our way over to the Los Angeles Convention Center and I got my press pass, which was amazingly un-complicated. There wasn't even a line! I just walked up, gave them my ID and two minutes later had my press pass in hand. After that we went to the "Into the Pixel" art show, where we drank free beer and talked with fellow nerds. This was the first time I really mingled with people from the show, so it was kind of daunting. I'm not the most socially assertive person in the world, so I pretty much spent the entire time smiling and nodding and piping into the conversation whenever it was appropriate. After that we went and got some dinner and just hung out.

Tuesday we woke up bright and early and took the subway (which was depressingly similar to the metro in Barcelona D: I want to go back!) up to Hollywood for the Nintendo press conference at the Kodak Theater. Yes, as in the place where they have the Oscars. It was.....not that exciting, which I'm sure you've already read about, heh. Though I did get to see Shigeru Miyamoto. In person. It was quite amazing (though, as I said above, more on that later). Then they shuttled us over to the Shrine Auditorium for Sony's press conference, which was a bit better than Nintendo's. After that we were shuttled to the Convention Center, and began our first real day on the E3 show floor.

First, an explanation. E3 is a "business summit," and it's set up as such. Each participating company had its own room where it had certain games set up that it would show to the press via appointments and, sometimes, walk-ins. There's also the "showcase pavilion" which is essentially a giant room with lots of little kiosks set up. Most companies had a kiosk or two. They're not the fancy booths of E3s past, but just a triangle of TVs set up. So nothing too fancy, but decent enough if you just want to play the games.

Anyway....I don't remember what happened on specific days, but we visited several companies' rooms and got to play a bunch of games. Some of the ones that stand out are Left 4 Dead (Valve), Fable 2 (Lionhead), Fallout 3 (Bethesda), Street Fighter IV (Capcom), Chrono Trigger DS (Square Enix), Halo Wars (Ensemble), LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule), Dead Space (EA), Mirror's Edge (EA), Flower (not sure...but it's gonna be on PSN) for the games I actually got a chance to play. There were some other games that I didn't actually get to play but that looked awesome nonetheless, like Rock Band 2 and Resistance 2. We also went to the Capcom press conference which was basically just about the Lost Planet movie, and everyone pretty much said nothing but "I'm really honored to be working with so-and-so." Though one of the so-and-sos was David Hayter, also known as the man who voices Solid Snake, so that was pretty much amazing.

Ok, so I guess that means I should talk about how absolutely star-struck I was the entire time. While I didn't personally meet anyone "major" other than Cliff Bleszinski (of Unreal and Gears of War fame) and Alex Navarro (formerly of Gamespot, currently of Harmonix), I got to rub shoulders with guys from Kotaku (which I read daily), Joystiq, Giant Bomb, and other places I'm sure. I also got a one and a half hour tour of Fable 2 from two guys straight from Lionhead (that is to say, no PR bitches. Just guys from the dev team who were there. Sweet? Sweet.) which is pretty much near the top of my list of shit that happened. I also walked by Satoru Iwata in the hallway and did a double-take. It was totally weird to be surrounded by people who I consider to be "celebrities." Not in the sense that, say, Angelina Jolie is a celebrity. If I saw her in real life, I'd probably get all excited and whatever. But it wouldn't really affect me that deeply, because as much as I like Ms Jolie, nothing she's done has really deeply affected my life. Which is why I got so excited seeing Shigeru Miyamoto. My sister and I used to talk about "Mr Miyamoto" (though we pronounced it "my-ah-moto," not "mee-ah-moto") when we were youngins playing our SNES, and I have pretty much had a bizarre nerdcrush on him since then. So that's a long time! So to finally actually see the man, was quite extraordinary. Anyway, in short: seeing all these people was nothing short of amazing.

Aaaanyway. After a couple days in the heart of E3, we went to EA's cocktail party on Wednesday night. We went there, rubbed shoulders with some people (including people from BioWare! omg! They weren't working on Mass Effect 2 though D:) and drank free booze. We met a fellow journalist there named Heidi, and the three of us went down a few blocks to the Orpheum theater for the Rock Band Bash (which was basically a concert. Who was at the concert, you ask? Oh, some nothing band called "The Who." Or something. I don't know, never heard of them. They're not like a hugely amazing and influential band or anything.) She didn't have a ticket so we waited a bit while one of the Harmonix guy got her a ticket. We went in, got more free alcohol, and then sat down for the concert, which was pretty much amazing. The Who, performing all their greatest hits for about 1,000 people. Hell yeah!

Thursday was the last day of E3 so we just caught up on some companies that we hadn't hit yet. This was actually the best day, I think, since we went to Microsoft, Sony, Bethesda and Capcom. At Microsoft's room we played Halo Wars (which was actually....like....really fucking good, especially for a console RTS. I was pleasantly shocked) and Fable 2 (amazing!!! so excited for that game).  At Sony, we played LittleBigPlanet and Flower, and got a nice private demo of Resistance 2 by none other than Ted Price (pres and CEO of Insomniac). That night we went out to Santa Monica (by way of an obnoxious cab ride...ew, cabs, how I hate you) for the Joystiq party. It was pretty cool, I got to play Rock Band (and embarrass myself in front of a group of people by having to pause the game to change it to a left handed guitar...not my fault I was built weird, people D:) We also met and talked with Stephen Totilo and the other guys from the MTV Multiplayer blog. It was fun! I got a copy of Final Fantasy II on PSP, as well as a dope Nintendo pin and some other random shit. It was fun, though the 2 hours it took us to get back to LA via bus wasn't, heh.

Friday morning, we went and got breakfast, then Ben had to go down to meet with some game dev guys about their Wii FPS, the Conduit. I would have gone but I didn't have time, since I had to be at the airport soon. So we said our goodbyes, which was kinda sad since I won't see him for at least a year, probably more. Sad! The trip coming home was uneventful, though I've decided that LAX pretty much sucks. My flight was delayed by a couple hours, which apparently was a big deal for my parents, though I wasn't really phased by it at all. Maybe it was all that crazy-ass traveling I did while I was in Barcelona, but nothing really bothers me now in regards to traveling. Oh, I have to wait? Ok. Whatever. No big.

So, yeah, that was my time in LA for E3. Words cannot describe how amazing it was to be amongst like-minded people for several days in a row. 80% of the conversations I overheard were about video games. It was "work," yes, but at the same time, it wasn't. It reinforced my desire to work in the games industry, which I plan on doing sometime next year. God willing!

Last night I created an account for Metal Gear Online and went to create my character only to see that....I can't be a girl! Wtf? I guess in this day and age, where more and more games are not only letting you pick a gender, but are also going out of their way to include an option for a female character (i.e. Mass Effect), I expected MGO to give me the option of being a girl. Especially MGO! I mean, c'mon, while the series obviously is aimed towards the straight male crowd (excessive booby and ass shots during cutscenes, dirty magazines, etc), there are still a lot of strong female characters throughout the series (Meryl, Olga, Naomi, EVA, The Boss....) So why not let us create our own female character?! For shame, Konami, for shame!

And it's not like it would be that hard, anyway. Just create a couple more character models, record some more voices, and boom.

OK that's a lame subject heading but I couldn't think of anything else and I'm tired.

So the mainstream media shit-storm over Mass Effect is still in full swing (someone needs to tell these people the game was released in November!) and people are still spouting the ol' "teenage boys are playing it" and "statistics show that..." blah blah blah crap. I've already defended the game, so I'm not going to beat that dead horse any more.

But one thing that has always sort of annoyed me is the constant generalizations of things, how they always imply that kids who play violent or sexual games are going to be warped and negatively affected. A game, movie, TV show, whatever, is only going to negatively affect someone if there are already some screws loose to begin with. My parents were never particularly up in my business as far as the games that I played when I was younger. My mom drove me to the mall to pick up all three Grand Theft Autos on the PS2, heh. They've also let me be pretty free with the Internet, I bought my own computer when I was like 15 or so and they never got on it to make sure I wasn't downloading porn or anything else inappropriate for my fragile little mind (because we all know that we suddenly grow up on our 18th birthday and can suddenly handle "adult" content that we couldn't the previous day). And yes, I did download some porn, I did go to some websites and forums that I probably shouldn't have, I did download R rated movies. Egads!

But look at me! I'd like to think I'm a pretty "good" person, I've never gotten into a physical fight, the only drug I've ever even been exposed to has been weed, I don't engage in random sex, I've never had a run-in with the law. I have my own morals that a video game isn't going to change, or even affect. I'm still horrified to hear of murders and fatal car accidents, even after all that GTA and Halo.

And since when is sex so bad, anyway? It's as natural as eating, sleeping, peeing. We all do it, that's how we all got here and is our biologic reason for staying here. People are trying to corrupt something beautiful and natural into something ugly and taboo. Some sex is ugly and taboo (rape, incest, other such unpleasantnesses) but sex within a healthy relationship is far from damaging and wrong.

I guess I've always thought that "honesty is the best policy." Kids shouldn't be lied to about sex, violence, anything. No, we shouldn't go into the gory details of it all with them, but we shouldn't pretend that the stork brings babies to pregnant mommies and that the man lying on the sidewalk with blood everywhere is "just sleeping." That sort of petty lying is going to damage the kids far more than the truth will in the long run.

Ok, rant over.

More nerdish rambling.

I take back anything bad I said about the second and third discs of FFVII. While I still don't think they're as good as the first (though that might have something to do with the fact that Aeris is one of my favorite video game characters ever) the game definitely wraps up nicely. For some reason I thought the whole bit with the Huge Materia and returning to Midgar were longer than they actually were, but I tore through most of the second disc and all of the third today (the ending credits just rolled.)

**Spoilers for FFVII, Halo 3, Gears of War, Mass Effect and Assassin's Creed...and a bit of FFIX as well**

It was nice though to beat a game and have a nice longish ending that wrapped up the story in a nice little bow. The past four games I've beaten before this - Halo 3, Gears, Mass Effect and Assassin's - all totally failed me in the ending department. I don't even remember Halo 3's. I do remember mouthing "what the fuck?!" and feeling cheated. Gears, I kind of felt like I hadn't accomplished anything, one of those "But the Princess is in another castle!" type of things. Mass Effect and Assassin's can be forgiven for their obscenely short (in the case of Mass Effect) and non-existent (in the case of Assassin's) endings because they're each the first installment of their respective series, so the story will be wrapped up eventually. But I was left majorly disappointed in both. Given the amount of character development in Mass Effect, and the quality of the narration of the entire game, it was pretty shitty for NOTHING TO HAPPEN at the end. I talk to a politician. I fly off into the sunset. I get a nice corny dramatic shot of my character with a backdrop of space. What? No pat on the back and a beer from my crew? Nothing? :( Assassin's threw a bit of a curveball near the end. You THINK you're about to find out something important, you think everything - or at least something - is about to be explained by a gorgeous ending cinema. Nope. You get to walk around a room and look at red shit on the walls with your super special vision skills. That's it. I was saddened by this because by that time in the game, I was really starting to get drawn in and interested, and then it just ends. No, it doesn't even end. It stops. :|

FFVII on the other hand....going into the battle, you know you have to defeat Sephiroth because he's blocking Holy from doin' its thang against Meteor. After the battle is won, Cloud defeats Sephiroth once and for all (is it actually Sephiroth? Or is Cloud fighting something inside of himself finally?) Everyone flies away, yay. Meteor comes in, but it still doesn't look good. Aeris, in all her glory (and alongside Zack, Jessie, Biggs and Wedge, I'm told), rallies the troops in the Lifestream and they help Holy defeat Meteor. Happiness ensues, we get one last shot of our savior in pink, and two years later we see that Midgar is practically destroyed and Red XIII leads his two little cubs up a cliff. The theme of FFVII is life, and that theme continues to the end. The end wraps things up, it keeps in tune with the rest of the game, and it doesn't feel like some cheap cop-out like all these developers are crapping out these days.  They also didn't suddenly change the story around and make it into something crazy that makes no sense and is completely inconsistent with the game. You're fighting Sephiroth for the entire game (except for the first bit in Midgar). The only thing that changes (develops, rather) is why you're fighting him, and throughout the game you learn more stuff about the situation as a whole that makes it more necessary to fight him. So after spending a long time (about 35 hours for me...which is about my usual time for traditional RPGs) fighting this one dude, to finally beat him in the end gives me much more satisfaction than defeating some random thing that I've never heard of before and that just pops out of nowhere, announces he's the final boss and proceeds to attack (I'm looking at YOU, Necron from FFIX!!)

Anyway this was way longer than it was originally intended. No one rants like a geek who just beat her favorite RPG for the first time in several years!! :)

I'd also like to note that, while I don't particularly care for One-Winged Angel as much as most people seem to, it's absolutely perfect music for that final battle. It's so epic! Definitely excellent.

Despite being on a self-imposed semi-ban from the interwebs due to the fact that I need more of two essential things to a healthy lifestyle, called "sunlight" and "socialization," (it's a "semi"-ban because the Internet is my newspaper) I found it necessary to log into Vox and share this:

http://hawtymcbloggy.com/2007/07/06/top-10-things-female-gamers-hear-on-xbox-live/

I especially like this one:

"Girls belong in the kitchen. Go make me a sandwich.*
I am in the kitchen making a sandwich. I just beat you playing with one hand.

I have, I believe/hope, fully gotten over that "can't get excited for anything since Harry Potter" thing. I'm sure there's an erectile dysfunction joke in there somewhere, but seeing as I'm both a girl and healthy in that regard....well nevermind. ANYWAY, I have spent the last couple days positively peeing my pants in anticipation of three glorious video games, one that I will be playing on Friday (Assassin's Creed), one sometime next week (Mass Effect) and the third hopefully at Christmas (Mario Galaxy). I haven't been in this "must doodle video game characters on my notes" mood for a while, it's kind of nice. Kinda like having a crush on someone after you haven't for a while...well, ok, maybe not. But that's fun too (fun? Or...whatever).

*sigh* I drive home on Friday for like 10 days of Thanksgiving break...I'm debating whether or not to go to Geology or just skip town early. Of course in Art today, my teacher was like "so in class on monday blah blah blah WE'LL BE GOING OVER STUFF THAT ISN'T IN THE BOOK THAT WILL BE ON THE TEST THAT YOU WILL FAIL UNLESS YOU'RE IN CLASS ON MONDAY." Pfft, fuck that. All my other classes are canceled on Monday/Tuesday, I'm going home, bitch. Though I'm kinda sad to miss it for other reasons (recall the hint at a crush earlier in the entry.) Fuck all I feel like I'm in 6th grade again. D:

And we conclude this "Pointless and Rambling Entry of the Day" with something so incredibly dorky, you can't help but love it.

Assassin's Creed comes out next week, and I should get it within a week of that (cheap slow shipping ftw!) I'm excited for it, it looks like an awesome game. It's kind of annoying though, half the articles about it just have a bunch of creepy comments about Jade Raymond, the producer, and then they talk about the game itself almost as an afterthought. Yes, she's a ridiculously attractive video game producer, but c'mon. Hot though she may be, she's also (I'm guessing, given the high ratings the game is already racking up) worked her butt off on this game for the past three and a half years, and deserves some props for that and not just her perfect bone structure and stunning features.

Not to get all feministy, because I can't stand feminists, but I guess it sort of symbolizes just how far women in gaming have to go before we can be taken seriously. Not just as people actually working on the games themselves, but those of us who play them, too. We're not gamers first, we're girls first. The fact that we have a vagina is, somehow, more important in a game of Halo 3 online than killing the enemy team. I've been blatantly hit on in online games (and communities, like the PSX forums) because I'm a girl and have a girly name. And then those who don't hit on me are just like "woah, girl gamer" as if I'm some bizarre new lifeform they've never seen before. Yes, I've been playing games since I was really young. What's that? My brother? No, I don't have a brother who got me into games. No, this game I'm buying is not a gift for my boyfriend (something that gets asked - well not necessarily the boyfriend part - surprisingly often). Why are you giving me a weird look when I buy a 360 with Gears of War? Hey, sorry - Barbie's Pony Pals Parade was sold out, and Gears was my second choice....

I also think it's funny, in all these articles about the Wii's success, how they often bring up the fact that the Wii is "accessible to everyone but still has a nice library of 'serious' games." So Joe Q. Public can play Zelda and Resident Evil 4 on his Wii, while his girlfriend can enjoy Wii Sports and Mama's Cooking. Because those are simple games. Casual games. Lord knows a girl can't aim the Wiimote at the screen to shoot an arrow in Zelda! And aiming a GUN in RE4? Hah!

I know guys outnumber girls like crazy in the gaming world, but I wish there wasn't such a big "omg!" reaction when there's a girl gamer anywhere. I don't think we get enough....I dunno....coverage? I don't know how you'd "cover" something like that. Maybe as more "making of" documentary type things are included with games and people see that there are, in fact, women working behind the scenes on the making of a game, then it won't be so shocking when a guy hears a higher-pitched voice over his Xbox 360 headset.

Ok I'm done.

I finished Halo 3 today, it was pretty sweet, even if it was a bit short...I had some beefs with it, though overall it was a great game. Unfortunately right now I can't get my 360 online because I have a wireless connection and think it's fucking crazy to spend $100 on the 360 wireless adapter, but I think I might be able to get it to work after some puttering around with some stuff ("the Plugger's network setup").

I really want a game that like...totally, completely consumes me. Like I want to be so distracted by a game that I doodle the characters in class, have dialogue from it running in my head and automatically incorporate concepts from the game into everyday life (anyone who's played a bit too much Tetris and has found themselves imagining blocks falling into doorways and chairs and crowds of people will know what I'm talking about). I want to go crazy over a game. That hasn't happened in so long, I can't even think of the last time I was downright addicted to a video game. I can get into games, I got into Zelda: Twilight Princess, my replaying of Chrono Cross, FFXII (though that's going on a break for now...) and now Halo 3. I've played them, I've gotten excited about them, I've thoroughly enjoyed them...but that's it. Maybe this is something else I can blame on Harry Potter. After that, I guess nothing satisfies. Damnit.

Anyway, due to general family drama, I'm going home tomorrow. My parents don't know, but my sister said she'd suggest to them that they go out to dinner tomorrow, so I'm just going to pop up and be like "sup?"

I guess this means I should do dishes and sort of clean up my apartment so I don't get back on Monday morning and be like "what is that awful smell?" I've yet to master this whole "cleaning up after myself" thing, especially with living alone and not having any regular visitors. My bedroom is literally carpeted with dirty laundry. The worst experience came this morning when I poured myself a cup of coffee and reached for a spoon that I thought was the spoon I had just eaten cereal with, so I licked off the "milk" on the spoon only to discover that it was dried sour cream from about two days ago instead. Ew? *shudder*