Editorial

Post Masturbation Thoughts

Sitting in the dark waiting for the red light to flash. Then a bright red flicker flashes in the dark. It lasted for only half a second but the way it lit up the wall and lampshade above seemed like an eternity. Maybe it's that email I've been waiting for all day. Nope, just some nuab twitter ass spammer. Fuckin' Jimmys! Go follow FranktheNuab. I'm not one at all to say fuck life. But I joke about hanging myself with a wet towel. People ask me, why a wet towel? I heard once that if you strangle a person with a wet towel, it won't leave any marks. Yeah I get it, when I'm found, I'll still have a wet towel around my neck. Fuck man, I'm not gonna kill myself. As of right now this is all still hypothetical. 

There's also a bit about how I'm gonna play the iPad commercial music, while I hang myself with a wet towel. That fuckin' song drives me crazy and I couldn't think of anything else to have on in the background, to push myself over the edge. Gouki.com just wrapped up some awesome CES 2011 coverage and we've been PWNn the traffic ever since. AEE was a blast, finishing that video was certainly a load off. Or load out, get it? Load? I hope the Jimmys enjoy that video. I would like to make a personal vow to all of my Halo brothers, who are patiently waiting for PWNtober 2010. PWNtober is on the way, get ready for some serious RAIL TIME! Nublock!

Thank you to everyone who is reading, contributing and enjoying Gouki.com. BatRastered and I are grateful for every post you make on any of our sites. So keep writing stories, leaving comments and sharing with your friends. Now lets go fuck 2011 in her sweet ass Jimmy! - There was something else written here, but the the paper looks like it got wet or something.

Thanks for reading.

A brand new editorial from yours truly: should we be tired of sequels?

I have a confession to make, if you don't mind: I'm tired of sequels.  I've played a handful of them from this generation; even when the overall quality of the game is shining (Uncharted 2, for instance), I hate the sense of deja vu that I experience.  And it doesn't help that it seems like half the games that come out anymore end with a number.

I mentioned Uncharted 2, so let's start there.  Is it an improvement over the original?  Most certainly; I think that's a fair assessment.  And while I did notice those improvements when I was playing, it hardly seemed to matter much in the end.  By the end of the first one, I was pretty tired of Nathan "Cocksucking" Drake's adventures (yes, I hate Nathan Drake as a character!).  I wasn't very far into Uncharted 2 before I could barely take it anymore.  If I hadn't spent $40 on the game and felt obligated to continue, I would have quit then and there.

Now let's look at Mass Effect 2.  Again, there were great improvements made over the first Mass Effect - although admittedly, the first Mass Effect was much superior to the first Uncharted.  The problem was that I felt like I could have popped in the first Mass Effect and gotten such a similar experience that it was hardly exciting.  In fact, at one point I did start playing the first one, and I barely skipped a beat.  And for the record, Shepherd wasn't much more interesting than Nathan Drake, so as far as I'm concerned they can both go take a flying leap together.

I think I'm starting to see the problem here: video game characters aren't typically interesting enough to span out multiple stories and remain interesting.  Maybe that's why I beat Fable 2 with a smile and groaned my way through Uncharted 2, even though Fable 2 was a vastly inferior game.

And what about the gameplay?  Do the gameplay "evolutions" amount to all that much?  Did Bioware's changes make Mass Effect 2 feel like much more than the first one?  I didn't think so.  Mass Effect 1 was fresh; Mass Effect 2 was polished but basically more of the same.  I don't know about anyone else, but I'm a bit concerned that we're willing to wait two years and pay full price again for refinements that really should have been there in the first place.  Oh yeah, and you're also getting a sloppy-seconds story too.  I guess there's that much.

So what would I have you do?  Would I have you give the industry the finger until they decide to stop rehashing?  No, not at all.  What I would like is for gamers to demand higher-quality the first time around; I would like the gaming community to care about quality instead of what the hype machine is putting out.

Maybe if we do that, crappy refinement sequels will be weeded out, and we can be left with the sequels that really matter - and all that extra downtime would let developers give us new experiences.  Talk about your win-win.

I'm sure there are still quite a few fans of the genre here in the states, but I can get my RPG on in a much more digestible form these days.

Background

I've played many Japanese role playing games (JRPG) in my life. I count a few of them as some of my all time favorite games (Final Fantasy III, Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy VII). JRPGs were really all I had back in the day as far as RPGs go, and really as far as stories went, because the action/adventure/shooter games of that generation had very little in the way of story (you were usually just given some brief guide to the world in the manual).

I played about 8 hours of Final Fantasy XIII. That was too much for me. These fantasy worlds with gunswords and pointy hair are getting a little played out, and I have no idea what's going on half the time. Couple that with the fact that the first 2-3 hours of battles are played using only one button and I was not impressed. Sure the cut scenes look great, but they have since the PS1. Then there's the way you choose your character's skills in the Crystarium, I ended up flipping the damn thing over and around so bad that I had to exit out and come back in to figure out what was going on. Can I have a simple menu please? I think that nicely illustrates the essence JRPG experience for me; there is so much emphasis on style that the creators forget to make the game FUN.

Don't even get me started on the 10 minute cut scenes after every 3 minutes of game play...

Rise of the Western (RPG that is)

With more recent games like Star Wars: KOTR, the Mass Effect series, Red Dead Redemption, and even some first-person shooter games that are now layering in RPG elements (see Borderlands) the American gamer has a lot more to choose from to get his RPG fix. This is especially true when you consider the migration of some of the more serious RPG gamers to MMOs like World of Warcraft.

The Western RPG is really a different animal than the JRPG when you think about it. There's a much bigger emphasis on action than on story, which I like because the JRPG stories don't make any fucking sense to me anymore. I'm not sure they ever did, but it sure seems like I understood them when I was a kid. I love the depth of the story in games like Mass Effect and how all the background details of the universe can be discovered, but even non-RPG games these days have some serious story, a trend that started with games like Half-life and Halo and continues on in just about every game today. Two of my favorite games from 2009, Batman: Arkham Asylum and Uncharted 2, are both excellent examples of this. There's hardly any RPG to them at all, but there's a ton of story and cinematics. I've mentioned to my friends many times that the story from Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is probably my favorite Star Wars story (easily better than any of the movie prequels and in my mind better than most of the original trilogy).

What's Next

I'm looking forward to the new MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic and to Mass Effect 3 and any number of action games more so than I am a future Final Fantasy game. I'm not sure where the JRPG goes from here, they definitely need to branch out into different settings. As Mass Effect so neatly illustrates, not every RPG needs swords.

I'm sure there are still quite a few fans of the genre here in the states, but I can get my RPG on in a much more digestible form these days.

Just a little bit of my venting about Square-Enix - why I love 'em and why I hate 'em.

I want to talk to you, Dear Reader, about something that I've discussed at some lengths before (although not on here): Square-Enix.  Most of my friends can tell you my favorite developer/publisher without hesitation; some of them will say it and then roll their eyes as if it's an embarassment, while others will say it with some enthusiasm.  What my friends don't know - and what I'll share here, probably for the first time - is that I really have a love-hate relationship with Square-Enix.

If I may, allow me to share a little history: my first Square-Enix game was Final Fantasy VII, back in the glory days when Square and Enix were competitors and not one-in-the-same.  I remember how perplexed I was the first time I played the game, because my gaming history prior had been rather sketchy; I was, indeed, lost in the intricicies of the game.  The story was overwhelmingly epic in scope and scale, and the gameplay was likewise adorned with more features than you could shake a stick at.  And I remember playing through the game and discovering things about the story and the gameplay, and I remember how apsects of the gameplay that had perplexed me suddenly becoming part of my strategy.  I still have a somewhat fond recollection of the moment when I mastered the Materia system; from that moment on, the whole game was never the same again.  That sense of discovery was the driving factor.  The game became a constant quest to find the next nook or cranny, to find that one little thing I'd not realized; it was all about strategy building.  And you want to know something?  It was fantastic.

You see, that was what Squaresoft was good at: creating those elements of discovery both in plot and gameplay.  After the merger with Enix, I'd somewhat abandoned hope in their ability to recreate that sense of discovery.  The games became utterly monotonous and repetitive.  Well, that's not quite fair: the games had always been monotonous and repetitive, but that discovery process did a good job of covering up that fact.  Well, guess what?  Enter Final Fantasy XIII.  Yes, this game has - and still is; I'm not done with it yet - rekindled that flame of discovery.  I know, I know; I went into Final Fantasy XIII thinking it was somewhat shallow, but as the game progresses, you realize exactly how much you didnt' know when you started.  That Paradigm Deck - that thing that you started off thinking wouldn't be very important - became a central part of combat strategy.  And that Crystalium system, that thing you gave little thought to in the beginning?  Well, now I can spend more than ten minutes just contemplating where and how to spend those points.  That's the curve set up by the game, I believe with all of my heart and soul that it was intentional on the part of Square-Enix.  In fact, I just believe it's splendid design at work.

So Square-Enix can design a complex, multi-layered experience, but I'm sure you all knew that much.  And you already know that they have a knack for choosing which games are most in need of rereleases (assuming you overlook their excessive releasing of the first two Final Fantasy games, that is).  They have a near-divine ability to figure out where - and indeed, when - to release sequels to their properties.  Well....yeah, about that...

Now I get to vent my frustration with Square-Enix: Kingdom Hearts.  Now, I admit that the first Kingdom Hearts grabbed me with its charm, even if it did lack wit or depth (and it was certainly horrible in the subtlety department, but that could be a whole other Editorial in itself).  But really, once I got over the charm, Kingdom Hearts was a steaming pile; yes, despite the fact that some very rabbid fanboys will tell you it's a great franchise...no, it's just not.  Next to the SaGa games - Unlimted SaGa: also another entire Editorial in and of itself - I've never so much wished Square-Enix would just put a property to rest.  And that was before the second one had even been released.  So here comes Kingdom Hearts 2, and I'm like: "Yeah, this'll be the end of it."  And then what?  A PSP game and a DS game?  What?!?!?  How absurd; how incredibly absurd.  Well, at that point I'm starting to reevaluate Square-Enix as a developer.  Final Fantasy XIII may have done so much to redeem them in my eyes, but then I read that Kingdom Hearts 3 is - allegedly, mind you - in the works.  Oh, but wait...it has to get worse, because Kingdom Hearts 3 was to be expected, unfortunately.  Oh yes, it gets much worse: how about an annual installment in the Kingdom Hearts franchise?  Now, I wasn't a particularly camper when Kingdom Hearts 2 came out, and I was downright fed up when the DS game came out.  But if they follow through with this annual installment crap: that'll be The End, Game Over; yes, that will be the point when Square-Enix can kiss my hard-earned money good bye.

So please, Square-Enix, I beg you to listen to my pleading.  I'll compromise: make Kingdom Hearts 3, but please put the series to rest after that.  It's not cute or charming anymore; now it's just annoying.  It's like that girl that you take on a date and then don't want to see anymore, but she just won't stop calling you.  The novelty and the charm are dead, Square-Enix, so just get over it already and move on.

Oh, and one more thing if you don't mind: if you do decide to move on, please spare my wallet and don't make anything as abysmal as Infinite Undiscovery or Last Remnant.  You're still a talented developer, and I see no reason for your quality releases to be so sporadic.  Hit Star Ocean, keep hitting Final Fantasy, for Christ's sakes team up with Monolith and hit Xenogears one last time, but if there is a divine power watching over the gaming industry, let me make it perfectly clear: NO MORE KINGDOM HEARTS.

Take a minute to smell the......

Hey, what's up Gouki.com fam? How's everything tonight? I played a few games this week, even finished Assassin's Creed 2 but took a break today. That's right I took a break.  When was the last time you took a day off?

Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to Splinter Cell Conviction and all, UFC 2010 and all that, but there's a break in good games at the moment and we should take advantage. Shit man, take a moment to smell the vagina/balls, whatever you're into. Today I went out with my lady and just looked for crab to cook for dinner,  In other words, I didn't play Xbox 360 today!! Well at least most of today, at one point she was in the shower and I didn't know what to do.

I don't want to cut this short or sound like I'm bragging but,,,,

Shit people, take time in your busy lives to enjoy things that Xbox didn't make. I heard that thing called vagina is pretty good.

As far as I go, I'm gonna go get some. In other words I'll see you in a few minutes...Gotta download some demos..