In-Depth Review of Phantasy Star Zero

[As Internet deprivation continues to take its toll on Lurid, another article is written in the wee hours of the morning. This it that article.]

In another article I discussed my experiences with the Phantasy Star series. In this one, I'm going to do a review of Phantasy Star Zero. I'll point out the things that I really liked, the things that I didn't, and the things they can hopefully improve on if Sonic Team decides to make a sequel.

I was very excited to receive Phantasy Star Zero after its initial launch. I knew of Phantasy Star Portable, and I knew this game was going to be very different. Whereas PSPortable is more-or-less a port of the Phantasy Star Universe engine to PSP, PSZero is an entirely new game from scratch on the DS. I'm sure the DS's limited hardware played a role in this necessity, but I was craving a game more like PSO than PSU, and Zero promised to be just that.

As soon as you slide the game card into your DS and start up the game, you'll notice that the opening movie sequence is well done, and has a nice song with it. After that, you'll notice my first and absolute biggest complaint about the game. The title screen displays the text, "Press Start". Pretty standard stuff here, the only problem being that you can actually press any button. Fair enough, but you can't touch the touch screen in place of that. No worries, it said "Press Start" and touching the screen certainly isn't pressing Start, so we'll let that slide. Other games let you pull such a trick, and if you're used to that, this is a little upsetting. In any case, we'll move on.

Now we're at the character select screen. There are three save slots. Okay, I'm used to four in PSO and eight in PSPortable, but that can slide, too. Now that we've built up plenty of sliding momentum, let's crash into a large brick building when you touch one of the character slots and nothing happens. There are other options on this screen, and touching them does nothing.

I know what you're thinking, "The touch screen is just a gimmick! They didn't want to bother programming it because no one would use it when you can just use the D-pad!" That's actually among the dumbest things I've ever heard. When you're programming a game from the ground up on a specific hardware device, you should USE ALL THE AVAILABLE CAPABILITIES OF THE DEVICE. Especially when other games on the market condition you to do so. I have had the game for a couple of years now and I swear to whatever deities my hold reign over this reality that I still, to this day, tap my finger on the character file that I want to load up. I'll probably do it again next time I play even after writing this article.

Here's why that bothers me so much: Conditioning. I mentioned it above, but here's the long version. Every DS game I own has some user interface (UI) elements on the touch screen. That's why Nintendo put the damn thing on the bottom of the console. That's the purpose it serves. From triggering stored power-ups in New Super Mario, to aiming the gun in Metroid, to moving characters in Disgaea... I could go on forever. When Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver moved the entire menu system to the touch screen I was in heaven. It made the game so much more enjoyable to be able to just touch around on that screen rather than popping up a menu and using the D-pad to navigate it. Because so many games use the touch screen in this way, when I look at PSZero, I see buttons. They look like buttons and they're on the touch screen. But you can't tap them to do what you expect. And when doing something doesn't work the way you expect, the UI is broken.

If this issue was merely limited to the character select screen, I would be able to get over it. But it isn't. When you're actually in the field, there are a few touch functions, and honestly they work beautifully. There's a mini-map on the touch screen, and when you touch it, a larger and more detailed map along with an area map take over the touch screen. That's EXACTLY what you want to have happen and it works great. There's a button for chat, which opens up a little Pictochat-style canvas for writing messages to one another. There's also a button for switching up your AI partners' tactics (a whole other can of worms I'll get to). These things work very well. Unfortunately, that's it. You have a life meter, there are life meters for your partners, and there's your action palette. There's also an area that shows you information on what you're targeting, and (my personal "favorite"), a tab that simply tells you that pressing Start opens the menu.

Now, the area that shows your health shows your level, Photon Blast meter (used for the powerful Photon Blast attacks), health, and photon points (used for casting techniques). Touching this area does nothing. That's fine, I suppose, not sure what it WOULD do. Each of your partners simply gets a health meter and a dot indicating their color on that map. This dot blinks when their PB gauge is full. Touching these areas does nothing. That's fine as well. The information area also does nothing when touched, and that's acceptable.

But there are some things that bug me about this. Touching the icons on the action palette does nothing. I'll admit that most of the time, it would probably be better to just use the buttons to launch your attacks. I won't argue against that, but I will say that I'm not sure why the option isn't there. Why not let ME decide how to play the game? But the "best" is the Start tab. What happens when you touch it? You guessed it: not a damn thing. It just TELLS you to press Start to open the menu. It is not a button, despite the fact that it looks like one and is labeled like one. And finally, after you tap this area, grunt in anger, and press the Start button to show the menu, it appears on the touch screen. I'm sure you know where this is going. Quite predictably, the menu is completely oblivious to being touched, despite being on the touch screen.

The menu is the biggest problem of all and here's why. In PSO and PSU, every console it was available for had an analog stick in addition to a D-pad. This means that, even if you have to do some finger-yoga to do it, you can open the menu and continue moving with the analog stick while moving through the menu with the D-pad. This is an invaluable ability in PSO when you need to use a healing item, revive a teammate, or switch weapons while avoiding enemy attacks. In fact, the game even has a built-in quick menus for quickly accessing items, techniques and weapons without going through the main menu at all. PSZero falls flat on its face in this regard. Holding L and pressing Start puts you at the Item menu and holding R and pressing Start puts you in the equipment menu, skipping the main menu. That's all well and good aside from the fact that while the menu is open, all your character can do is stand in place, waiting patiently to be cut down by the enemy.

How would you fix this? It isn't too difficult to imagine. There's a button for Chat and a button for Tactics. How about freeing up some of that unused space on the touch screen for an Items button and a Weapons button? There's plenty of wasted space all between the various on-screen items, and even that useless menu "button" that could be removed. Allow players to scroll through and use items by touch, probably by double-tapping an item to limit accidentally using an unintended item or weapon. To return to the main touch screen view, just tap a little X in the top-right corner, just like with the map. Did no one at Sonic Team think of this shit? It seems so obvious!

Okay, after all that bitching, I'm in the mood to discuss some of the positive points about the game. While the art style is a bit on the child-friendly side (this was intentional, I'm sure, and I'm not going to knock it), the graphics are respectable for being on the DS's limited hardware. Everything and everyone is identifiable and you can easily tell what is going on.

This was achieved by making large maps nothing more than a series of disconnected "rooms" that are then connected by "doorways". This is unlike PSO or PSU (or any other 3D Phantasy Star game for that matter). However, in PSO, much of this same "connected but separate rooms" technique was used. For instance, in PSO, the rooms are separate in that each one will have its own monsters that spawn in. Monsters cannot move from one room to another, so you can stand in the doorway of a cleared room and be safe, even if the monsters are just a couple of meters away. They'll act like they don't even see you (and I'm sure as far as AI is concerned, they can't). This leads to funny moments in PSU where you walk back to a cleared room thinking you're safe, head to the bathroom and come back to find yourself dead at the hands of monsters from the next room. (Well, funny in retrospect, anyway.)

The small rooms of PSZero don't really detract from the game in my opinion. The rooms vary wildly in the shape of the traversible area, though they are generally the same size. This simplifies the map compared to PSO since it can just be a grid, and just because you can't see into the next room before you get to it doesn't really detract anything from the experience. The small size and reused textures allow them to be loaded very fast, and after a while you don't notice the transitions.

The sound is another area that I think the game does well in. It has one (or more?) of the well-known composers from PSO and PSU, and he turns in some good work on this soundtrack. I really got a PSO vibe the first time I played the game and entered the Forest-like first area. The music switches between two tracks depending on whether there are enemies nearby or not in the same way that PSO does, but the transitions are better in that there are more transition points. In PSO, for instance, you could enter an infested room and keep listening to the non-battle track for five or ten seconds before it switched over, and vice versa after the room was cleared of enemies. This isn't an issue in PSZero.

The musical tracks themselves are of good quality. The samples used for playback are a little suspect, but it's a DS for crying out loud. There are some good songs in DS games, but bad samples playing them back are common, so no points taken off here. There are good, memorable tracks and there are also mediocre, unmemorable ones. Not really any bad ones, so again, no points deducted. 

Now that we've calmed down from our anger-high, let's build up another one as I discuss the NPCs that join you in your journey. The story itself isn't bad. It's not going to win any awards, but for a hack-and-slash RPG, it's more than you would require and that's fine by me. The characters are interesting enough and the plot gets pretty thick but doesn't take any major twists or turns (except near the end and I'm sure I'll be bitching about that later). Outside of combat, the dialog is decent if not over-abundant.

The in-battle experience with these people, however, will have you swearing at your DS. It doesn't matter how you play through the game or what character class you choose, you WILL be doing more damage than your teammates. My force (technique-based warrior, skilled in "magic" but weak physically) was doing more damage at all stages of the game than the Hunter-class NPCs, and I mean by hitting stuff with her staff. As if that isn't ridiculous enough, the difference was not by small amounts, either. We're talking 10x the damage, and for God's sake my character isn't even supposed to be performing physical attacks!

So not only are you going to be the only one in the party doing any decent damage, you're also going to be the only one staying alive. It didn't matter how many times I issued the command "Keep your distance" or "Safety first!" through the Tactics menu. They just did whatever the hell they felt like, and they felt like running up to the enemy, hitting it with their pathetic attacks once or twice, then getting slaughtered like sheep as they refused to heal themselves or each other. It's sickening to watch, particularly in the final boss battles when you KNOW you could win if only your teammates were more combat-effective than the Goombas of Mushroom Kingdom. But again and again, you find yourself getting slaughtered while trying to resurrect them or slaughtered without them drawing some of the attacks away from you.

Now, I haven't spoiled anything thus far, and I'm going to try and register my one complaint with the plot in keeping with this trend, but it'll be difficult. Skip the rest of this paragraph if you'd rather not take the chance. ... There's a point where you might think to yourself, "What a mature twist to this story that should cause character development for all those involved! I didn't expect that at all!" (Hint: Similar things happen in Final Fantasy 7 and Phantasy Star 4. Sort of.) Well, it's a sham. That's right, they're faking you out and going the "inexplicably survived that" bullshit route. Okay, spoilers over, let's get back to what I was saying before. If I can remember what that was...

Well, let's sum this up. The graphics and sound are good, given the restrictions of the DS hardware. The plot is good enough, and the characters are as well. However, the touch screen is woefully underutilized, which would be okay if they didn't put all the options you'd want to manipulate with the touch screen ON the touch screen to tease and frustrate you. The one curve-ball the plot does throw at you is reversed as if to prevent kids from crying or something and the ally AI hovers between Useless and Less-than-Useless.

It's a game that made some big promises and delivered on many of them, but screwed up a lot of small, but very vital details. If you like the PSO style of hack-and-slash RPG games, I would recommend it. If you don't, it sure as hell doesn't have anything that's going to persuade you, so you may as well pass on it.

My History with Phantasy Star Online

[Away from the Internet for nearly an entire day, Lurid becomes bored enough to write not one, but two full-length posts. This is the first.]

This summer, Phantasy Star Online 2 will enter alpha-testing in Japan. As a huge fan of the Phantasy Star series, particularly the Online games and their spinoffs, I'm very excited for this game and friends that I often play with share my feelings.

I feel this is a perfect opportunity (read: excuse) for me to share some of the history I've had with the series. It is chronologically mixed up and subjective, and I'll eventually discuss my expectations for the next entry into the series.

The Gamecube Era

Our story begins with two of my friends and myself at a local game store. It was an uneventful visit until Joe picked up a Gamecube game called Phantasy Star Online: Episodes 1 & 2. He'd read about the game in one of the gaming magazines he subscribed to, and thought it looked interesting. We saw that it offered 4-player split-screen, a feature you don't see much these days. I believe the game was new, and sold for the regular retail price, at the time $50. I was confused about his willingness to gamble that kind of money on a game, but it wasn't my money so I wasn't too concerned (greedy bastard that I am, at times).

When we got back, we hooked up three controllers to the Gamecube and crowded around the 12” TV screen. We were greeted with a story about colonists fleeing their ruined planet. A transport, Pioneer 1, was sent in search of a new world to inhabit. They'd found a planet, Ragol, and shortly after establishing bases, a large explosion occurred and contact was lost. A second transport, Pioneer 2, was sent to figure out what happened to Pioneer 1 and search for survivors. We were passengers of Pioneer 2, trained warriors in search of the truth.

We took turns creating characters with the detailed character creation system, and figured out how to actually enter the game together. At the time, we didn't know that the split-screen multi-player differed from single player mode in that NPCs throughout the city wouldn't talk to us, and hints about what we were supposed to do weren't available. We wandered through the city for probably about an hour before discovering the warp down to Ragol itself. We probably would have discovered its purpose faster if not for the fact that we all had to travel together, unlike online multi-player and single player modes. Eventually, we worked through the controls and began killing Boomas and leveling up.

We had a slow start figuring the game out, but it soon became our obsession. We played for hours and hours together, and Joe, who played single player when we weren't there, discovered more and more about the game and told us about it when we got together.

We played for months, and our characters were getting pretty strong. We were running out of things to discover, then we started finding special weapons. We devoted even more hours to find more and more special weapons, and began employing guides to help us find them. The effectiveness of the guides was limited, but we had fun searching anyway.

Eventually we introduced the game to other friends. Passing on the knowledge we'd gained, one of these friends, Derek, quickly surpassed our characters. For him, we'd already done the discovery, and he was able to focus on building good characters and gathering good equipment.

We were all excited at the announcement of a new game, Phantasy Star Online: Episode 3. Our excitement was burst like an over-inflated birthday balloon when we saw some screenshots of the game. The premise is that the investigation of Ragol is leaving many things unanswered, and some of the Hunters employed in the search have decided to break away and rebel against the government in search of the truth they are covering up, while others are attempting to continue the investigation and not question the authorities. It sounds amazing, but unfortunately the game is merely a card-based strategy game set on a grid. Derek was the only one who bought the game and we were all hugely disappointed with it. It isn't really a horrible game, but it isn't great. It's slow-paced, the AI seems to cheat sometimes, and it sure as hell isn't PSO.

Moving to the PC

Soon, our Gamecube days would come to a close. With me going away to college, and Joe going to the Navy, we weren't going to be able to play like we used to. And then, a miracle was discovered: a private PSO server on which we could play Phantasy Star Online for PC. It's an older version of the game, missing episode 2 (which we didn't play much anyway) and a few character classes. It was complicated to set up and pretty unstable, but it worked. Derek and I were the only ones that played it much. We got our girlfriends into the game, but it was still incomplete.

While the official PSO servers for online play had been offline by then, a new version of the game was still available and running online, Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst, a newer version of the game with episodes 1 and 2, plus a brand new episode, 4. Unfortunately, none of us had the money to pay the subscription fee, and it was online-only.

When the official Blue Burst servers shut down, the same private server we'd been playing on added support for Blue Burst. We played that a while and we still do play every once in a while. It's an amazing version of the game, with good graphics and the same gameplay we've all grown accustomed to. Derek, however, played it far more than the rest of us. He has several high-level characters and actually found friends online, whereas the rest of us just tried to play with each other.

For some reason I can't exactly explain, I purchased Phantasy Star Online: Version 2 for my Dreamcast. The servers were long-dead, and getting the game online with the private server was going to be extremely difficult, but I did it anyway. I was questioned numerous times why I bothered, and I really didn't have an answer. It didn't cost me much and fed my curiosity.

Universally Disappointed

Finally, the era of PSO had passed. Sonic Team moved on to a new sub-series, Phantasy Star Universe. The graphics were amazing, the gameplay was much improved, and a new race was added. As with previous games, there were Humans, Newmans (similar to humans, but especially skilled with the magic-like Techniques), and Casts (Technique-less androids), but in addition there were Beasts.

Derek is the only one who really got into this game. He paid the subscription fee to play online with his friends from Blue Burst, but one by one they began to dislike the game and quit. Derek stuck with the game for quite a while, but he complained rather constantly about it. He complained about balance issues, lack of content, harsh leveling curves and Sega's patching practices. An expansion for the game was released, which temporarily brought some people back, but eventually they left for the same reasons as before. Eventually, the servers became too sparsely populated to sustain, and they were shut down.

At the time of this writing, there is a Phantasy Star Universe private server project, but it is not very advanced and does not work properly yet. I have seen others that supposedly work better, but they've all turned out to be frauds.

Portable Phantasies

The Playstation Portable saw its own share of Phantasy Star. PSU was reworked to run on the PSP platform, and for being on a portable device, it looked very impressive. I was skeptical until I got a chance to play a demo of the game. I didn't have my own PSP, but I eventually bought one, partially in order to play this game. The game wasn't perfect, for example in towns the game switched to a sort of menu mode whereas in PSU you could explore these areas in full 3D, and it offered multi-player only via ad-hoc networking; no Internet play options were available.

We were all excited to hear about Phantasy Star Zero, an all-new Phantasy Star game in the style of PSO, for Nintendo DS. Derek, Joe and I had PSPs, but the rest of our group only had DS systems. Zero disappointed in several ways as well, but overall it is a good game. There was a huge lack of touch-screen control, quick menus from PSO were completely absent making item use in battle complicated and dangerous, and the AI-controlled NPCs were so weak that they were basically useless. The characters were decently well done, and the story was okay, however. It offered Internet-based multi-player and introduced a roll-dodge maneuver, both were welcome additions compared to PSU or even PSO.

Phantasy Star Portable 2 was out in Japan for a while before it was even announced for the US. Derek and I were worried that it might not arrive at all. It did eventually come overseas, and we both have and love the game. It fixes many of the issues in Portable 1 and improves the graphical quality. The roll-dodge from PSZero was incorporated into the game as well as an online multi-player mode. The story was much less corny (though not corn-free). Overall, I'm convinced that the game is about as good as a Phantasy Star-style game can be on PSP. An expanded version, called Phantasy Star Online 2: Infinity is out in Japan and hopefully will be coming to the US before too long. We're suckers, and we'll buy it for sure.

What About PSO2?

I can't explain how piss-your-pants excited I was when I saw the trailer for PSO2. The game is returning to the PC and will feature many new enhancements such as jumping and dynamic events that happen randomly. I'm excited about everything shown in the trailer. The graphics look great, the gameplay looks fun and exciting, and it looks like a true sequel.

However, I want to address some things I'm worried about with the game. These are issues that haven't yet been brought up, not things that have been announced that I don't like. Many of them are subjective, and would likely be difficult for Sega to really nail down. Regardless, I'll discuss them. They're my hopes for the game and criteria for it to become as legendary to me as Episodes 1 & 2.

The main things that drew me into PSO were the discovery and mystery. What DID happen on Ragol? Where did all of the colonists go? What IS Dark Falz? These questions have lead us to lengthy debates and interesting theories. Even when we aren't playing the game, we're thinking about the story and trying to figure these things out. Discovery is probably going to be a little more difficult considering how much we know from the original PSO. I'm a little concerned that the element of discovery will be missing. We need to see areas that aren't merely recreations of the areas from the original. We need bosses that aren't just ripoffs of bosses from the original, and we certainly don't need four different dragons or Dark Falz-like battles.

The controls leave me a little bit curious, also. We know that there is mouse-based aiming for guns. We also know that the game will be on PC and may be exclusive. So are we going to lose our familiar gameplay style? A new control style would be fine as long as it is functional and configurable.

Surprisingly, this will be the first time I've paid a subscription for a Phantasy Star game. In fact, I've avoided subscription-based games with extreme prejudice, but I'm willing to change my ways for PSO2. Derek and I have been doing a lot of talking about the game, and our standards our high but our faith is not. We're worried that they'll make the same mistakes they did with PSU, in that when the game was first released only one planet (of four) was accessible and the level cap was a mere 20. There should me more content in the game, even at the start, than that.

A couple of final things that bothered me about PSU and prevented me from buying the game were GameGuard and a lack of LAN play. GameGuard is an overly invasive anti-cheating utility built into the game. Blue Burst and PSU both used it, and versions of the game that are modified for private servers thankfully have it ripped out. But the big problem I had with PSU was the fact that you can play offline with a character you created (story missions are done with a character created by the game designers), but there was no way to play this character with other players over a local area network. Your online characters are trapped online and your offline characters are trapped offline. I can only pray that PSO2 will not have GameGuard and will not relegate my offline characters to single-player-only experiences.

Let's Wrap This Up

To conclude all of this, I'll say that I'm a long-time fan of the series. I'm finally willing to put down some money on a subscription, and I'm very excited about what the new game will have to offer. However, there are mistakes Sonic Team has made in the past and I get worried that they'll make those or other mistakes in PSO2. Hopefully these issues will be resolved during the closed alpha-testing period.

We're hoping for the best, expecting something much less than that, but we're suckers and we'll pay for it anyway.

Thoughts on the Wii U

Nintendo's new console has been revealed at E3, which was several days ago. Since watching the reveal live, I've had lots of time to think about the console's design, the choices Nintendo has made with it, and the advances they hope it will bring to their brand. I'm sure many, many people are out there blogging their thoughts on the machine, and I'm going to join them. I can't be certain because I've purposely avoided such articles so that I can claim my opinions, thoughts, and predictions are my own, and not influenced by any outsiders. That having been said, I don't claim to have any knowledge of the industry, and predictions I've made in the past have been all over the map with regards to being factually true in the end.

With all that out of the way, I'd like to state that I'm not doing this as a way to claim I know better than any other speculator out there. I don't, and I'm only putting my thoughts down as a writing exercise. Also, if I'm right, it'll be nice to have documented evidence that I knew how things would turn out. If I'm wrong, however, it'll still be fun years down the road to look back and laugh at myself.

If you have not seen the Wii U announcement and don't know how it will differ from the Wii, you can check at http://e3.nintendo.com. I'm not sure how long this site will be up, but for now it is the best place to check.

First, I'd like to comment on the graphical capabilities of the system. To the best of my knowledge, he system is capable of 1080p high-definition video. Considering how good the graphics of first-party games have been on the Wii and Gamecube at 480i, I think Nintendo will be able to make great use of the Wii U's visual capabilities, and we can expect their own game franchises to have incredible-looking entries. Also, I'm hoping that High-Voltage Software gets around to creating Conduit 3 on the system. I'm sure the graphics will be on-par with the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, and fewer games will be exclusive to these two consoles with the Wii U's updated processing power.

First party games will be fantastic. Dedicated third parties will be able to create amazing gaming experiences on the console. But what worries me is the massive "shovelware" market that exists on the Wii. The grand majority of third-party games on the Wii are just crap, developed by companies you've never heard of at minimal cost in order to rake in a few dollars from grandparents who don't know any better, or at least that's the impression I get when I go down to the local game shop. I'm a bit afraid that the Wii U's capabilities are going to be wasted on games that don't even try to use the console's full capabilities, and tarnish the brand further with the label of being "for casual gamers only."

Another fear of mine is that even large third parties such as Activison, EA and others will neglect to take advantage of the systems more advanced features. The console's controller is very unique, having a 6.2-inch touch screen along with the dual-analog sticks and all the buttons we're used to having. The Wii U is able to make extraordinary use of it, but I don't know if developers working on a game for multiple platforms will bother to take the effort to use a peripheral only one console has. Even if they don't, I don't think it'll be a big deal anyway. It would be a shame, but it would be even more of a shame if you couldn't play Call of Duty 3 or Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on the machine in the first place.

Nintendo is trying to paint the Wii U as a machine for serious gamers. It is capable of playing modern games in high-definition, it offers a unique but familiar control interface, and it seems to have a lot of third-party support behind it. I think Nintendo's console is up to the challenge, but I'm skeptical that game developers will feel that way.

The Wii U is backwards compatible with Wii games and peripherals. Accessories like the Balance Board, Wii Remote (and attachments) will work fine with the console. This is great, but there's something missing from that list. No one said explicitly that the Wii U will not be compatible with Gamecube games and controllers, but the subject seemed to be carefully avoided. Personally, I love the Gamecube's controller, and I have many Gamecube games that I greatly enjoy. I would hate to have a Wii that couldn't play them, but at the same time I don't think it would stop me from buying the console if that compatibility didn't exist.

The most revolutionary part of the console is its controller, which, as I mentioned, has a built-in screen. The controller looks a lot like a tablet computer crossbred with a Wii Classic Controller. Personally, I like it and I can't wait to get my hands on one.  However, I do have some concerns about it. I'm not sure how comfortable it would be to hold for long gaming sessions. Is it shaped to fit comfortably in the hands? Is it too heavy to hold for long periods of time? Also, I'm concerned about power. Does it take AA's like the Wii Remotes do, or does it have a built-in rechargeable battery? How long will the battery power last with a screen like that? All these questions remain unanswered, but I get the feeling Nintendo would not screw these details up.

Finally, I had heard mention that the Wii U is a lot like Dreamcast in that it has a screen on the controller. This point is valid, but there's another similarity to the Dreamcast that I'm a bit nervous of. Sega had, for basically their entire console-building life, created systems that were nested between console generations.

The Genesis was created near the end of the NES's lifetime and was intended to compete with it. Then, Nintendo released the SNES, a console technically superior to the Genesis. The hardware of the Genesis was good, but the SNES still had it beat in raw power. Sega did a great job of turning their ship to compete with the SNES, but it was no easy task. Several other missteps occurred, such as the extension peripherals for the Genesis, and the Saturn, and when Sega had finally corrected their mistakes with the Dreamcast it was too late. They were the first console in the generation, and a year later when the Playstation 2 came out, it crushed the poor Dreamcast. There were other issues as well, but the fact remains that the Dreamcast didn't survive and Sega got out of the hardware business in 2001.

None of this matters except that Nintendo is bringing the first console of the next generation to the table. I'm hoping that the Playstation 4 and Xbox 720 don't suddenly appear and destroy the console. Sega made a lot more mistakes than Nintendo seems to have, but it's hindsight that's 20/20, not foresight, and there's always the possibility that there's more going on at Nintendo than we know.

To wrap up, I think the Wii U's hardware has been long-overdue. Though I don't like the name, I'll get used to it. The new controller has some amazing potential and I can't wait to use one. I am worried about the cost and durability of these controllers, however. I think the console will do pretty well, but I have trouble believing that it will tear dedicated gamers away from their Playstations and Xboxes or convert my mom into a pro-gamer.

Made a Blog

Why the hell did I do that? Good question. Perhaps I just want another outlet for my ramblings that no one reads (much like Facebook and Twitter).  Maybe I think one day I'll be famous and I'll have embarrassing trivia here that my most dedicated fans will be able to spout to prove their fanboyism. Perhaps I want to keep a log of the things going on in my life so that when I'm 20 years older than I am now, I can look back and long for the good old days (while I sat here typing about the gooder older days). Most likely, though, I just have too much free time and need an excuse to pound on the keyboard some more while not doing anything productive.

So here I am.

Here's some things I've been up to that my future self may or may not find interesting, starting with my recently-played video games.

I've been playing Pokémon Silver lately, working on my Pokédex. I've already completed the Generation I Pokédex (in Pokémon Red) and the Generation IV Pokédex (in Pokémon Pearl). Both were huge pains in the ass, but command some serious bragging rights. (Okay, only the first 50% of that statement is true.)

Before Pokémon Silver, I'd been playing  Morrowind. I honestly do prefer it over Oblivion for many reasons, though I wish the combat was as streamlined and fun as Oblivion's. Also, it would be nice to run faster than a man with two broken legs and one arm can crawl. After ascending nearly to the highest rank of the Mage's Guild, I grew somewhat bored of the game and stopped playing. Not strong enough to snag myself a wizard's staff, and not invested enough in the main storyline to do that.

I picked up two copies of Act of War: Direct Action from Big Lots. They were a dollar each, so I figured, "Why the hell not?" Then I was struck with the bright idea of doing a Lurid & Zain Play of the game, for which much video has been recorded and many photos taken. It'll be a big project, but I like how it's turning out so far. I need to work a little more diligently on it, though.

Finally, the most recent game I've purchased is Wing Commander: Privateer! Finally, after all these years I have a legitimate copy of the game. I purchased it on GOG.com, an amazing website for people who can't seem to shake the love of old games that only run in emulators. I've been playing it with my PS3's controller and having a good time. Not too sure how to get the story rolling, but I'm not terribly concerned about that.

Within the next few days I'm hoping to get some parallel parking practice in and take my driver's test. A bit nervous about that, but I guess I'll have to suck it up. Also hoping to work on the Kalarsys rulebook, but right now I'm not very inspired. Working in a group would help solve that, but we rarely get anything done that way. Maybe once I get 0.7.2 finished up I'll reorganize the chapters, bump the version number to 0.8.0 and consider publishing through Amazon.

On a more somber note, my girlfriend's pet hen was recently killed by a wild animal. That bird was a pet like any other, and it is a devastating loss. Though she was getting pretty old and was only likely to live another year or two, it's still sad to see something like this happen. She was a bird with a personality, and she'll be deeply missed.

Well, that was long and rambling. Future posts will likely be shorter. Or non-existent because I have a tendency to forget about blogs I have and leave them abandoned. Regardless, we'll see what happens. Cheers until next time!