PC Master Race Fail

Some douchebags are all like PC rulz j00! PC Master Race FTW! Now, why this is pretty racist sounding has been explored quite adquetely. But I'd like to notice that PC games stereotyped as being played by your mom aren't being considered as part of the 'PC games that are so much better than wimpy console games' crap.

I think it's all about keeping games the preserve of adolescent like boys. Games that can be played in short bursts to accommodate the schedules of adults with demanding jobs and women dealing with the leisure gap are stigmtized as not 'real' games, even though in the past, games like the simple rpgs, hidden object games[descended from Myst, I believe] farm sims[I have a theory that Harvest Moon started the farm sim genre] and puzzle games that are being called 'casual' and 'not real' games were considered 'real' when they weren't believed to be played by women or older people, but now that we realize that they do, we think they aren't 'real' games.

I think that the definition of 'real' games will soon narrow so much that only first person shooters with tons of gore on the PC will be considered real games, and even CiV wouldn't be considered a real game because it's too easy to play or some mess. The faster we decide that gaming is gaming, the less silliness there will be.

Civilization IV is still the best civilization game

As I loved the espionage ,race for religion, and the fact that you can turn off vassal states. However, despite how annoying I find city states[I need to remember who is allied with who? Is this high school? You barely give me shit. can't I just crush you? Please?] , and how much I love to go into people's cities, steal their technology and cause a revolt, I do like the fact that there are NOT giant roving stacks of doom, that you can discover natural wonders, that you can buy new land tiles, that the resources are limited, and the new civics while not as good as civ 4 is still a good system- I like buying things with culture points. I am confused about some mechanics like 'why can't I just put my settler on a boat so I can get across the ocean quickly instead of embarking him and he crawls across the ocean and I have to find my frigate to protect him..." I do miss the randomness of the events and religions, and being able to crush barbarians and add them to my civilization instead of just getting a few gold which you can barely use to bribe anyone.

The graphics are good as far as the land is concerned, but I don't like how the units are depicted on the map. They don't seem 'solid' somehow, which is probably just my computer not being a gaming computer. However, some images have a real charm to them, such as the leader images,which are more attractive than the leader images from Civ4.

Eh,I'll play it for a few hundred hours.


Someone else loves civ 4 too.

As an asshole...

really...I don't need 'art' to tell me that 'girl gamers' are appropriately feminine, and shit. You know why women[really, to me a girl gamer is a five year old girl playing with a DS] game? Because games are awesome fun. We don't play games so that you can have eye candy to look at while playing Halo or to make sure you have a hawt girlfriend who loves games too.

Even if all girl gamers were the most stone butch women ever, you know what? Our looks are none of your beeswax. We're not in it to please your eyes. We're in it to crush Rome, destroy the zombies, and harvest the most tomatoes.

Where have you been?

To me the next big step in game design is going to be someone who figures out how to make an involving game that does not revolve around physical confrontation.

What Tom Bissel? You haven't been playing Tetris,Bejeweled, Diner Dash, Harvest Moon, Ranch Rush, Virtual Villagers, The Sims, and all the zillion games that don't revolve around physical confrontation with enemies? They are involving to many- having sold millions and having been played thousands of times. I don't understand how this guy has only played such a narrow slice of video games- especially since he is talking about the narrative value thereof! He acts like he hasn't heard of Final Fantasy- a gaming franchise which has sold millions, and doesn't talk about RPGs at all in his musings on the stories of games.

I understand that we can't sample all the gaming genres there are, but dude, there's Final Fantasy on my mobile phone. Not a fancy Iphone or whatever. A regular phone. Gaming is exploding now- consoles, PC, cell phones, ipads[I saw a nice rogue like game being played on the ipad-niiice], heck, you can download games to consoles now! Gaming is exploding- don't just stick to the core, guys, go out to the edges and seek out fun wherever it is, whether you're seating gusts at a wedding or soaring through the clouds!

Gaming Is So Dead!11!

Says some dude at Cracked. Personally, I think Microsoft and Sony misstepped with the whole motion thing. If I want to do a fitness game, hey, plenty of people have Wiis. Why should I buy some new thing? And yea, I think the folks that say- you know, we have plenty of games to play already, so maybe I'm not going to go out and buy whatever is new- have a point. I still play Civilization 4 despite it being an older game, and replays of stuff like Persona 3 and 4 also take up my gamer slots. The gaming audience is getting older as well- there are a lot of children playing with their DSes in restaurants[where they shouldn't] but there are also grannies, my mom and me, playing and we tend to have less time to devote to long sessions of gaming, so we need new games less often. And of course there's the recession. Fear of losing your job can make you decide that you're fine with another playthrough of Persona 4, rather than a new game.

Also, I would like to take some time to talk about casual gaming versus 'core' or 'real' gaming. I'm an old old person[26] and so I remember when Mario Kart was a 'real' game, and now it's supposedly not a 'real' game. I find that when a game broadens its audience beyond pimply teen and immature males, it ends up being 'not a real game'.

That's bunk. Whether I'm pretending to hula hoop or pretending to murder zombies with a shotgun, it's all gaming. What I want to see is solid game play. I don't care if it's got white women in service jobs or John McMuscles,Space Marine in it as long as I can have a solid good time.

I don't get it again!

You know, folks who talk about how video games all have horrid stories all seem to play GTA and never Final Fantasy or Persona. That's like expecting Madden 2010 to be Shakespeare. And yes, some games don't have a story or a bad one. Ciivlization 4 and My Tribe are have almost no story- occasionally I make something up, and someone is probably writing about how the silly mini stories people make up- "Gandhi continues his reign of terror with his helicopter gunships over the Ethiopian landscape"- is either making us smarter or dumber or rewriting our brains somehow.

As far as bad stories, I love Ranch Rush 2, and I don't really care about the excuse plot about food pills, and in Diner Town Tycoon, whatever Grub Burger has going on with Chemical X...not interested. Although I'm sure someone could write a thesis on the themes of big business and contamination in casual games, that's not the point of the game.

And that's not a bad thing. When I watch Chopped or The Rachael Maddow Show- I'm not looking for a show that is great art. I'm not looking at Shrek or Forgetting Sarah Marshall for deathless themes, and so it is with video games. Not every single piece of entertainment has to strike a great blow for art, truth and justice. That doesn't give a pass for misogyny and racism in art, but if a game is merely entertaining, merely a pleasant way to pass the time- so be it.

I have no idea why Mario and pals are go kart racing on rainbows and through castles, and I don't need to.

I admit it. I love emo

People complain about recent Final Fantasies being too emo. I laugh as if 99% of people were facing either the destruction of the world, the death of their mother or the fear of being turned into unfeeling unthinking monsters, we'd be howling for fucking mercy. The sad fact about human psychology is that we all believe that we'd never falter in a world spanning crisis, and we'd never be distracted from the pain of others with our own pain. Sadly, this isn't true at all.

I think even Snow's optimism is false. He has to tell himself these things to keep going. That's why I tend to find the sort of forced optimism pushed on us sort of depressing... To not be able to face the problem, to constantly tell yourself you're a hero... it doesn't bode well in my view.

I think some of the disdain for 'emo' characters is the idea that emotions are for girls, but that's bunk. Emotions are for everyone!

Oh Atlus!

Now, I don't need a stupid baseball hat, but my panties are indescribable at the idea of gameplay improvements for the masterpiece Persona 3. I wonder what sort of part time jobs they'll come up with. I still haven't done all of them in Persona 4...

In the 13th hour of FF13

There will be spoilers. I'm at the part right after Szah and Vanille skip through a beautiful forest filled with evil sentient bell peppers. Right now in my game, Lightening and Hope are having a realization which shows that they really are their stated ages. Lightening wanting to actually do something productive, and Hope wanting to shut out the world by blasting some robots with flames.

People say that they don't know what is going on, which is odd since there are useful explanations every time you reload your saved game. To recap, you live in a futuristic hell scape where strange beings toy with you at will. Also, the government is apparently run by the military.

The battle system seems fine to me. The cute names for various paradigms helps me because I can remember to switch on the fly. To me, it's basically a more streamlined way of saying "I want to spam cure three times! Now change paradigms! Time to asskick!" I was not especially tied to the choose attack from the menu three times' mechanic, so I'm all good . I also don't mind the 'lack' of shops. In a futuristic hellscape, apparently they use computers for shops now.
I don't like the lack of control over the other party members. That was the worst part of Persona 3, except for your team mates aren't going to actively kill you with their terrible AI decisions in FF13.

My favorite character is Lightening. I'm all GIRL CLOUD! YOU ARE SO COOL! Hope is slightly improving with his desire to get stronger, even if it's for the wrong reasons. Vanille is annoying, and probably from Pulse.

Is Kanji's Sexuality A Red Herring?

Some dude with a blog says that gender issues are the real focus. Personally, I think in game, Kanji's sexuality is whatever is funniest at the time, and in my personal canon, he is bi.

My favorite character is Naoto, who gets less essay time, even though I did like how Naoto's story is also about strict gender roles. Spoilers from here on. Naoto has internalized that cool detectives are all men, and also, the fact that while she is already treated as a child by agencies, but being a girl would make that worse.

Her dungoen is nice through- underscoring the fact that even though she acts like an adult, she has the underlying immaturity that most highschoolers have. I like that about Persona 4- even though they have AWESOME MYSTICAL POWERS! They are still teens- Yosuke is exceedingly immature about Kanji's possible sexuality, Chie bickers with Yosuke, Yukiko goes on insane giggle fits...

It's weird to see works with high schoolers being invincible heroes who never angst or do anything stupid.

Slavery, Civilization and Complaining

Pro slavery sci fi writers are discussed.

I'm playing Civ 4 as native america, and of course, I'm a nitpicker, wondering why braids and buckskin Indians united under Sitting Bull have totem poles as their unique building and dog soldiers as their unique unit.

A white man says this:

well, that's a problem with picking historical leaders as the leaders of a fantasy world/race not based on earth history.

many times, it doesn't make much sense

He does have a point there, but some of the civilizations are based on real empires, such as you have Louis XIV and Napoleon for France and Mana Musa for Mali, and then you have strange mismashes like Native America and the Arabian empire... It just bugs me, even though the Zulu, the Koreans and the Germans all ganged up on me- Japan to try to annihilate me, at least we all seemed to be coherent countries...

I'm a small minded bigot

because I don't want to play some game I haven't heard of before. Dude, I don't have enough money for most of the media I want. Why should I make space in my small small budget, maybe $30 a month, for media for you if you hate goodness, decency and pie? Anyway, Orson Scott Card used to be good, now he sucks. and that's that on that.

Epic Suck on EA's Part

EA decides to take the focus off crazy things like games or quality to focus on some stupid booth babe contest. I'm sure that causing some asshole to harass the booth babes even more, leading to possible law suits and also turning off female gamers[I hate the term girl gamers. I'm 25, I am not a girl gamer. I was maybe a girl gamer at age 10.] and dudes with any sense in their heads. You know what gamers care about? FUCKING GAMES. Shut up about stupid sexist objectifying contests and bring me some fucking games.

Also notice that even though casual games are said by some to tilt too far in the direction of girliness[personally I don't care about wedding or baby themed games just as long as the mechanics are solid, and prefer blood and violence to be related either to the story or to have a purpose], the companies aren't encouraging us to sexually harass men for a free wine and dine dinner!

You know why I play casual games? Not only because the whole easy download without worries about spyware thing comforts me, but because they have to pump out games without this bullshit. Screw you, EA.

Casual Game Blather

People debate casual vs hardcore games. This guy says we should talk about games as far as their genre, not as far as being 'hardcore' or 'casual'. I think many hardcore gamers would be lost as far as casual game genres. Time management or hidden object might get a 'huh' from hardcore gamers. I'm a hardcore casual gamer, btw. I loved Diner Dash Tycoon, but thought that there should be a hard mode. I'm certainly a tourist in this taxonomy. I don't compete to be the best at a game, because I know I can't compete. I'll be tired of a game way before I get anywhere near good enough to compete at any level. When I replay a game, it's because I want to experience more of it- I replayed Persona 3 so that I could unlock some more costumes and see more of the social links I had bypassed, not so much that I could say that I had done everything in the game or that I was somehow the best.


I love playing casual games, especially if there's a new twist or if the same old gameplay is executed really really well. I have several casual game mechanics that bother me. I hate sliding customers into stations- what, they can't walk? and I also dislike hidden object games. I also love games in which I can micromanage things. Bigfish is pissing me off with hidden object games every day now, BTW. I need games that can be played in bursts now, because even though I only work 30 hours a week, that means that sometimes for 3 or 4 days in a row, I don't get to game more than 15 or maybe 30 minutes. I don't even have kids!

A Long Time Ago

A Long Time Ago annoyed me within three seconds of opening it. If you can customize the character's skin color, why can you pick from only white, slightly tan, and very tan? I'm fairly light skinned, and I can't even create a character my color. Shame on you guys!

Thanks for the Transphobia!

And btw, japanator guys, crossdressing and gender bending anime characters are popular in America. We have Fruits Basket, a very popular series with about three cross dressing characters in it, Ouran is also loved. Persona 4 also has a cross dressing character in it. The video game market has progressed a little, since the shocking inclusion of Cloud dressing up as a woman in FF7. I think it's good for that sort of thing to be acceptable in western gaming, because that game looks really cute, and if people don't agree with cross dressing, they can just play the many other games that don't have any gender bending characters. I wish the Nana games would be translated over here too.

Red State Americans!

My favorite part of this writeup is the red state americans on their DS' bit. Gaming is bursting out of the narrow niche of sweaty boys, and exploding onto mom's computer screen with online Scrabble and of course, the amazing DS! But the problem with games is that there have to be a lot of remakes of the classics as older systems become obsolete.

You know...

I was thinking about Persona 3. Video games are so relaxing. Anyway, my musings are full of spoilers. I was thinking that that theme that plays sometimes, such as when you're walking Koromaru sounds like a poppy version of Kimi no Kioku or whatever the ending theme is called. I also thought that Fuuka and Junpei's powers are interesting. Fuuka says in game that her power connects her to others, and it's obvious that Junpei wants to be a cool hero instead of a zero. Everyone else is to protect someone, or find out the truth, I guess.

About Ryoji...you know, if I was the appriser of death, I wouldn't go around macking on every girl I saw... But that's just me!

Bitter Virgin

Ok, I'm pretty creeped out. Before he learns she was raped, she's a 'pass', but afterwards, it's all love story from then. I'm not sure rape and abortion makes a good ground for a romance. I mean, what is the attraction? "The girl who is hard to get'? The thought that he can 'save' her from her past? I'm not sure that's healthy. Of course, I think it's uncomfortable for me because even when reading manga with plots including rape, like Nana, or child abuse, like Fruits Basket or Kare Kano, we have a whole lot of time to get acquainted with the characters before the heavy stuff hits, so it doesn't come off as the typical 'excuse plot' to get people together. By that time, the story has grown beyond its premise and become it's own.

An additional Persona 3 note: Even on a second play through, I feel weirded out that MC is in a love triangle including a robot.

This AMV[ignore the silly look at my AMV group credits] is full of spoilers for Persona 3 but pretty good anyway.