Microsoft Can Suggit

If you aren’t up to speed, I invite you to read this.

It lays it all out in fancy writing. The quick version? I called out Lost Odyssey’s poor performance in my review. The game chugged, with loading times of sometimes over a minute, shitty framerates, and fucking long combat intros. It was something I was able to mostly overlook, since graphical performance doesn’t have a lot of bearing on a Japanese RPG. However, it did contribute to the game’s fairly plodding pace, and in this modern world, it was a drawback worth noting.

The problem? Microsoft further tweaked the code and released a product that shaved up to 60 seconds off the load times as compared to the discs the press outlets received. In turn, this crops a good bit off of the combat intros, which were hiding further loading times.

And let me say: I am pissed. At this point, GS is still under a microscope due to this perception of compromised credibility. And it makes a whole lot more work for me, since I plan on playing a full 2 discs before adjusting the text of the review to account for these differences. It also highlights one of the few drawbacks to our existing scoring system. In the past, we could have just changed the graphics score, which may have meant a 7.4 becoming a 7.7, or something like that. In other words, a good game is still a good game. I highly doubt that improved loading times and a smoother framerate will make such a difference that a “very good” game turns magically into a “great” game. But with no maneuvering room, keeping the score at a 7.5 just feeds the monster. I will say this, though: the performance improvement is dramatic, and of course it affects the pace of Lost Odyssey.

In the end, I don’t see a score change here, but I resent being put in a position by a publisher to publicly suffer for their own ill-advised internal policies. I’ve suggested to Justin and Ricardo that we adjust–and publicly announce–a policy regarding all pre-release review code provided by Microsoft: we purchase and verify the performance of the retail discs before committing, in the event that MS refuses to provide us the same code that goes into retail boxes. In a world where whiny gamers complain when we don’t put up a review eight weeks in advance of release, it isn’t the best solution, but it may be the only honest option available to us.

In other news, I picked up Gears of War for the PC and downloaded Sins of the Solar Empire. I’ve played a bit of Sins, and Jason’s reviews was dead on. This is possibly the best space strategy game ever made, and this comes from the man that considers Homeworld to be one of the best 5 games ever made. Relic, I think you have been bested. Also, I received the best shwag ever. Yes, indeed, No More Heroes bathroom tissue. I don’t know whether to wipe my ass with it or display it in a vacuum-sealed display case.

In other news, I’ve been seeing someone I rather like. Chris is his name. He’s really cute *blush.*

 

The Perils of Reviewing

Some of my comrades are using their personal blogs for discussing of anything but games, but I don’t know that that’s a possibility for me. How do I separate my work from the rest of my life, when games are such an integral part of both? I don’t think it’s possible. In reality, I just wanted the freedom to speak my mind about any aspect of my life without the hassle of editing my thoughts for a GameSpot audience.

And face it, the subject of Japanese RPGs is fresh on my mind this evening as I reflect on my experiences with Lost Odyssey and the usual fanboy emails and private messages that inevitably result. There was a time when severe negative feedback truly disheartened me, and part of that’s just my very nature. I shouldn’t care what people think, but I do. The pinnacle of that depression came last year when my reviews of Blue Dragon, Lair, and Metroid Prime 3 were published in the same week, with scores of 6.0, 4.5, and 8.5, respectively. I literally received death threats, and the whole thing floored me. I expected negativity, but I don’t think I expected that kind of vehemence.

It’s more funny to me than anything else now, particularly because the fanboy blindness gets remarkably transparent. I certainly want to know if I have made a factual error, but the accusations become silly because they’re so baseless. Today, in particular, made me laugh, because someone responded in my GameSpot blog that he will be embarking on a crusade to spread the word of my anti-Xbox bias (an unusual one, because all too often we get accused of the opposite). Another sent me a note that he was leaving GameSpot because of my unreliable reviews, though his forum signature betrayed him as a No More Heroes fan–which leads me to believe that perhaps he appreciated the 9.0 that game received. Yes indeed, gamers are a fickle bunch. I don’t so much care about this kind of feedback anymore as much as I weed through the shit for something useful. If there are actual errors or contradictions, I need to know. Thankfully, the accusations are almost solely off-base rants from people who have decided upon a game’s deserved score before ever playing it, or use scores from other sites as some kind of proof of bias or lack of qualification.

But inevitably there come the accusations that I dislike RPGs, particularly Japanese RPGs. It’s a silly notion, honestly. After all, I lobbied heavily for Persona 3 to win RPG of the year at the site, and it was one of my favorite games all year. It’s the typical “shoot the messenger” tactic, and I’d be interested to know if movie and music reviewers encounter the same stupidity. In reality, I adore role-playing games, of both the Japanese and the western varieties, but JRPG fans are a strong-willed bunch. The thing is, Lost Odyssey is a good game–and a flawed one. Its best aspects are peripheral ones–unlocked memories, choice bits of dialogue, minor gameplay variants like aim rings and other minor tweaks that make it, generally, enjoyable.

But there is so much room to grow, and it’s a shame that so many gamers are happy to be spoon-fed unevolving gameplay mechanics, particularly when games like Eternal Sonata, Persona 3, and Jeanne d’Arc are paving the way to what I hope is a truly new generation of role-playing games. I can’t always pretend to understand why people continue to plunk down hard-earned dollars (or hard-earned dollars handed over by their parents) on games that ignore a decade worth of evolution, with Blue Dragon sticking out clearly in my mind. I don’t think Blue Dragon is a bad game, but it’s mired deeply in the past, and I can’t help think that if this hadn’t been a game created by such a respected team–and had it been made for a dwindling platform, like the PS2–it wouldn’t have been so well-regarded by so many.

Of course, Lost Odyssey is noticeably better than Blue Dragon. Yes, it looks into the distant past (at least, distant in gaming terms) for its inspirations, but the end result is a little tighter than Blue Dragon and features far better characters. But isn’t it a bit disappointing that the JRPG featuring the most evolved gameplay in the last year is for the PlayStation 2? In fact, I can name any number of PS2 RPGs that took more chances than any on the supposed next-gen platforms (Wild Arms 4/5, Persona 3, Nocturne, Shadow Hearts, Rogue Galaxy, Xenosaga 1-3, Dark Cloud 2, Suikoden 3, etc…), yet with games like that raising the bar, why does the general standard never seem to rise? I am not sure if it’s a matter of comfort, a willingness to overlook a lack of originality in lieu of the same old teen-saves-the-fantasy-world story, or if fans of the genre are simply more inclined to love any game classified as such, regardless of its quality.

It’s because I love RPGs that I expect something more than the same thing from every game. I want so desperately for something new to emerge and truly capture our hearts–another Final Fantasy VII, another Dragon Quest VIII, another Chrono Cross. Yet even when such a game appears, the whole genre seems to eventually collapse and return to its comfort zone. Why are we ok with that? With other genres doing truly new, fun things (and yes, this is why I think games like No More Heroes and Assassin’s Creed deserve kudos), why shouldn’t JRPG’s? Why do I have to look to five-year-old PlayStation 2 games when I want different, interesting features, when I have three current-gen consoles sitting in my bedroom?

I don’t think games need to do something new to be good, so don’t take this to mean that a game has to be innovative to be worth playing. Some of my favorite games of 2007–Command & Conquer 3, Ninja Gaiden Sigma, RE4 Wii Edition–were great because they were shitloads of fun. And yes, Lost Odyssey is worth playing, even if it liberally borrows from other games at the expense of anything new. But last year, I cried out to PC gamers not to let shit be shoveled into their mouths in the form of bad console ports (Capcom, you should be ashamed of your disrespectful PC ports of Onimusha 3, RE4, Lost Planet, and others), and now, I send out a heartfelt plea to stodgy JRPG fans that layer love onto any game in the genre with abandon: expect more.

Welcome to… whatever this is.

As Peter says in Family Guy: Blue Harvest, “I’m a slave to trends.” The current trend amongst current and past GameSpot editors is to start a personal blog, where–personal things go. I am not a big fan of MySpace’s blog (or a big fan of MySpace at all, for that matter), and in the past, before I became an editor, I used my GameSpot blog to post about more personal issues. So here I am, and it’s strangely liberating. “Look at me! I am going to type fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck holy fucking fuck!” And no one can stop me.

Not that I have a lot to write about on this particular evening. I’ve started disc 3 of Lost Odyssey, and it’s starting to grow on me the more I play. I’ll have more to say about that in my review, but it’s such a mix of highs and lows that it’s tough to get a real handle on. I’ve also finished Assassin’s Creed on the DS, and I have plenty to say on that subject as well, but I will let the review speak for itself.

Aside from that, the weekend has been relatively quiet. Tomorrow I am playing violin in the morning church service at my beloved St. Clare’s Episcopal Church in Pleasanton, and in the evening we are holding an evensong service called Road To Freedom in honor of Black History Month. I’ve sung the Freedom music before, and it’s a lovely mix of spirituals, hymns, and a couple of old-fashioned favorites that draws parallels between the Israelites’ escape from Egyptian slavery and the similar plight of African Americans. I am also working on my own evensong music, which would consist of the traditional stuff: Magnificat, Nunc Dimittis, preces and responses, and so on. I have a lot of ideas but nothing on paper. It’s something I need to get to, but work keeps getting in the way.

I’m also upset that my stepdad just left my mother. They’ve only been together for maybe 4 years, but I’d kinda grown to like this dude. My mother is 55 now, and she deserves happiness, yet she always gets the short end of the man stick (I didn’t mean that to sound raunchy, it just came out that way). Apparently the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and I tend to fall for the same kind of assholes, though I am not sure if that means I am genetically predisposed to liking bastards, or whether it’s behavior I learned from my trusting mother. There was nothing leading up to it, no big fight and no ongoing drama, just “boom.” I need to fly home to see her. It’s an expensive ticket, but it’s something that must be done soon.

It’s funny, in my own romantic life, that I am in a city simply brimming with gay men, yet finding love here is like finding a Wii at Toys ‘r’ Us. The whole “east coast versus west coast” mentality thing isn’t a stereotype–as far as I can tell, it’s very real. Guys in SF want flings, and many of them are really good at saying what you want to hear until they’ve grown bored with you, and frankly, I don’t find myself to be a very boring person as a rule, so the fact that I keep getting left high and dry just pisses me off. OK, OK, so I have a lazy streak a mile wide, but you tell someone to play video games for a living and see if they don’t sit on their fat ass on a couch more often than not. But here’s hoping something wonderful makes it’s way in my direction.

But I do have good news from Microsoft:

• Device: Xbox360 Hardware
• Serial Number: ************
• Warranty Status: In Warranty

Repair Status: Device Shipped to Customer

It’s about fucking time.