Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rage at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" I was looking for a good cliche to start this blog off on. It had to be something topical, but utterly geeky and familiar to my readership. (Which is, I'm quite certain, overwhelmingly composed of geeks.) The thing is, I couldn't quite find something that conveyed the level of simmering hatred, bile and resentment festering in my decaying soul adequately enough. All the usual cliches like: "There's been a great disturbance in The Force, as if a million gamers cried out in terror and were abruptly silenced forever" ...failed to capture the scale of the disgust that I'm feeling at this moment. Instead, you got yourself a snippet of Dylan Thomas poem and the longest intro in history. So what crime against humanity has caused me to break my long blog drought and emerge from my awesome Fortress of Solitude? Ladies and gentleman, I direct your attention to this piece of evil. [quote="Jonathon Leo Toyad"] Tailored after the likes of World of Warcraft and Everquest, Dragon Quest X: Awakening of the Five Tribes is billed as an online RPG, but Saito stated that gamers can play the game solo.

I have, upon occasion, been accused of a touch of hyperbole in my blogging efforts. I suspect this is because generally when I feel the desire to blog about something it is something that causes me to feel strongly about a subject that I want other people to hear my point of view. So, take this next statement with a grain of salt. This is one of the few definitive proofs that I've ever been able to find that the Antichrist is real and that the fat bastard is walking among us. Dragon Quest VIII is one of the greatest games of all-time. In my humble opinion, no other JRPG can come close to matching it's unparalleled and unique combination of attributes. Simply put, where you can pick apart many other JRPG games, Dragon Quest VIII is a masterpiece that managed to be a true JRPG without the pitfalls of the genre. JRPGs, in general, and Square-Enix ones in particular, tend to have the following strengths: 1. Long, immersive storylines 2. Lots of character development 3. Tons of gameplay hours 4. Old-fashioned gameplay mechanics that appeal to folks like me And, unfortunately, they also tend to have the following weaknesses. 1. Gigantic plotholes that your average ten year old can see through 2. Overly angsty plots that people who have outgrown Twilight or Harry Potter find to be more headache inducing than emotion inducing 3. Ridiculous over-the-top bosses 4. At least a couple of incredibly annoying characters per game

Somehow, Dragon Quest VIII managed to keep all of the good stuff, add in an absolutely beautiful artistic design and soundtrack, craft a story and characters that didn't feel like they were directed 100% at teenagers and leave out all the bad stuff. In other words, they somehow managed to do what Pixar has managed to do so often: craft a fairy tale that grownups can like too. You can imagine my disappointment when Dragon Quest IX decided to toss all of that good stuff like character development out the window just so they could make a multiplayer focused traditional RPG. You can also imagine my joy and happiness when early reports indicated that Dragon Quest X was going to go back to the Dragon Quest VIII formula and was even bringing in DQVIII's developer, Level 5, to create the game. "At last!" I thought to myself. "Square Enix has decided to go back to its roots of making long, great single-player games for current generation technology instead of trying to make very s**** MMO" titles." Well, my guess is that the abomination that was Final Fantasy XIV is going to smite gamers for a second time. I could be very wrong here, but what could cause such a dramatic about-face for SE's intentions towards DQX to go from a game that was outright billed as being modeled after FFVIII to basically being modeled after World of Warcraft and Everquest? Could it...could it possibly be that because Square-Enix is still looking for a cash-cow MMORPG and they know that after the absolutely disastrous launch of FFXIV (a game that they actually had to release a formal apology for) they decided to try for a third time (let's not forget the pathetic FFXI either) and make DQX their next MMORPG attempt? Hence, my disgust and shame. I do not begrudge other gamers their games. I don't mind that there exists out there a World of Warcraft (at the expense of delaying Warcraft IV and Starcraft II how many years?) or a Guild Wars. What I begrudge is ALL of MY games being taken away from me and given to them. Knights of the Old Republic III goes away and now we have an upcoming, and utterly generic looking, "The Old Republic" by Bioware. Dragon Quest X goes away in spirit and we're left with Dragon Quest MMO that "can" be played single player courtesy of SE's neverending pursuit of a successful MMO. (Just like, I'm sure, it is technically possible to play ANY MMORPG by yourself, it just isn't intended to be played that way.) I'm sure it's only a matter of time before Bethesda decides to make their next Elder Scrolls game an MMO. (I'll pause for a moment. I suspect I now need to drive over to Rragnar's house and give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation after the shock to his system that my last comment caused.) Like I said, there's room for other types of gamers to have their games, but damnit, keep your grubby little paws off of MY games. I don't want or need Kinect on my Mass Effect 3. I certainly don't need the rumored multiplayer coming to Mass Effect 3 (which, if the Bioware boards are to be believed, is going to be DLC to avoid the fact that they all but promised their core fans that they wouldn't make ME3 a multiplayer game). Bottom line: This is the most unwelcome announcement that I've seen on Gamespot since the one saying that Bioware was going to make their next Knights of the Old Republic game an MMO. It is now 10:30 local time. I discovered the article about DQX at 9:30 and have been eagerly waiting for the time to show "afternoon" so I could get roaringly drunk without feeling like a COMPLETE alcoholic. Only one and a half hours to go.

I suppose that I should have made the topic for this post a bit more explanatory: "Unsurprisingly, Game Developers and Publishers are Clueless and Deceitful Idiots" but that seemed a bit too long of a title. There's a couple of articles out on Gamespot recently that drive this point home. So let's tackle my adjectives one at a time so I can explain where I'm coming from in my admittedly harsh condemnation for an industry that I haven't been very pleased with at times lately. Game Developers are Clueless Are we still in this place when it comes to female gamers? REALLY? Look, I get it. Female gamers are still a growth market with a lot of potential for developers that they want to reach out to and hook. But is THIS really what we think female video gamers want? Just for fun, I reached out to the one who lives with me and asked her if I should get her that game for our anniversary. Longtime readers of either my blog or hers (or both) can pretty much guess how THAT question turned out. I may need surgery to repair the damage from the death glare she gave me. Cyclops eat your heart out. Coming up with games for female gamers isn't hard. They are not some alternate species that you need to do advanced sociological research studies to understand. They more or less like, astonishingly, GOOD games. The kicker is that for females the games have to not only be good, they also have to not completely objectify and demean the female gender.

Level-5, who I actually love to death for developing the the greatest JRPG of all-time, really screwed the pooch on this idea. I suppose it's possible that there are a few female gamers out there that have just been waiting for a game where they can pretend to slavishly serve men so they can be rewarded with money for furniture and shoes but I'm guessing they aren't as numerous as Level-5 thinks. Particularly not outside of Japan. Look, this isn't complicated. If you want to do an RPG for female gamers, then just create what you would for male gamers and let them have the option of playing a female. Do this consistently over time, and the female gamers will come. Alternatively, if you don't want to do the extra coding to allow for gamers to select their gender, then do what The Witcher 2 did and create strong, independent and well-written female characters like Triss Merigold that bring something to the table and add to the story. Game Developers are Deceitful X-Com is a bit old-school so I don't know how many of my readers are familiar with the game, but let me tell you, when I saw a trailer for it online after E3 and downloaded it onto my 360 I sure as hell wasn't expecting a shooter game. Neither, I imagine, was anyone who ever played an X-Com game before! Towards that end, I officially declare the statement by 2K's president, "It's not a case of cashing in on the name" to be one of the biggest f****** lies in the history of the video game industry. What the hell would be the point of naming it "X-Com" if NOT to cash-in on the name? Anyone who is at all familiar with the name is going to BE familiar with it because they played the STRATEGY games by the same name. Rhetorical Question: If Blizzard lost their damned marbles and decided to make the next part of the Starcraft II trilogy a shooter but left the name the same "Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm", does anyone out there REALLY think it would be truthful of them to claim that they weren't trying to cash in on the name for fans of Starcraft who didn't do their homework and assumed that a game with the name "Starcraft" would be a real time strategy game? And on a separate question, if, as Hartmann claims, "But this is not just a commercial thing--strategy games are just not contemporary", then how is it that strategy games that come out, including the ones that his own company makes, (The wildly successful "Civilization" series.) still sell so well?

Been playing through the PC version of Jade Empire. After finding Dragon Age 2 to be very disappointing, and not liking at all what I heard out of lead developer Mike Laidlaw in the famous interview he gave to Gamespot, I started looking into his history to figure out what to expect out of Dragon Age 3. Essentially, I was wanting to know if the problems that I saw in DA2 were caused more by the developer's vision or the truncated timeline/budget. I learned that Jade Empire was very heavily influenced by Laidlaw and went back to replay it again to get a better feel for things. I can definitely see the influences. Jade Empire has: 1. Very limited, or streamlined, character customization. You have the Dragon Amulet and can decide which essence gems to load into it. None of your followers have even that much. 2. No real changes to character appearance throughout the game, just like in DA2. 3. Very limited or non-existent "looting". Kill enemies and the loot just automatically gets added in.

4. A very non-traditional approach to combat. Stats influenced, but also skill based determining a lot of things. These are all things that I think are design decided. In other words, they're "on purpose". On the other hand, some of the other things that DA2 REALLY had issues with: 1. Unique environments 2. Choice elements where story changes based on your choices 3. Very deep and unique characters rather than somewhat canned ones 4. A real ability to influence how the setting around you changes based on your actions 5. Plot holes, realistic action gaps, ability to influence/change your companions mostly point towards a truncated timeline and/or budget. The exception is #5 above. DA2 does not appear to give you much ability to really change characters. Certain actions, VERY significant actions, happen regardless of how much a character likes or dislikes you. It also has some (Possible spoiler warning) plot holes big enough to drive a truck through at times. This is in stark contrast to Jade Empire where you can massively change the personalities of most characters and the story outcome. The biggest problem with Dragon Age 2 when you get right down to it was the general feeling that you're watching a story happen rather than writing it yourself. You can't change the characters in big ways (personality) or small (attire), quest outcomes, or what happens to the city in any really meaningful way in most cases. I know that the amount of truly significant storyline branches in even the best WRPG is always fairly small when you really put games under a microscope, but the illusion of choice is usually done a LOT better. Dragon Age 2 makes it completely impossible not to notice that your choices are having zero impact. Rather than being an agent of change as is traditionally the case with WRPGs, things just sort of are inflicted upon you. (Despite Flemeth's ominous prophesying that you were going to have a major impact on stuff.) You're simultaneously portrayed as being a complete badass and utterly at the mercy of events around you. Jade Empire was one person's vision that worked extremely well, in part because didn't have to be consistent with another separate vision. (Unlike DA2 having to follow and be consistent with DAO) Where Mike Laidlaw went horribly wrong with DA2 is that he took the series in a complete 180 from DAO. He took it from a player driven story (ala Dragon Age Origins) and tried to turn it overnight into something more resembling a tightly constrained narrative (ala Mass Effect).

Jade Empire is an exceptional game. It's got a truly unique setting, fun and varied combat styles that promote massive replayability, one of the most exceptional villains of all time, and fascinating characters to interact with. It has a bit of pacing issues at times (with Chapters 2 and 3 being massively longer than all other chapters) but it shows you can indeed "streamline" an RPG to make it more accessible for a wider audience without losing your core fans if you do it the right way.

Hi everyone. Yesterday I fractured my wrist playing basketball. That wrist is completely unusable now. Since I'm both in great deal of pain and required to hunt and peck type one-handed style, I won't be online much for at least a week or two. Wish me luck healing.

I had originally planned on saving Witcher 2 until after I finished L.A. Noire. I figured that Witcher 2 would be even better if I gave CD Projekt Red some time to do a little patching before I began playing it. I even started L.A. Noire and got to the last case for the Homicide desk. Then, yesterday during the holiday, I got up in the morning and thought to myself, "Y'know, I'm just too curious. I think I'll give the game just a bit of a peek." Excluding meals, bathroom/shower breaks, and my normal one hour Monday evening workout I played the game non-stop from 9:00 in the morning until after midnight.

The game is that. damn. good. I won't be going back to L.A. Noire anytime soon. I'm just about through the first chapter of the game and I am now hopelessly addicted. The game has a few minor issues. There are one or two bugs. Combat is not very intuitive and the game doesn't do a very good job introducing you to the new system. There are some early moments of frustration that lead to a great many deaths. All of these pale next to what is one of the signature RPG achievements of this generation.

1. Gameplay choices with actual consquences? Check. 2. A magnificent setting beautifully displayed by absolutely breathtaking graphics and design? Check. 3. Fascinating characters that are fun to interact with and capture your attention? Check. 4. An immersive storyline with nice carryover from the events of the first game? Check. 5. Thrilling boss fights? Check. 6. Impressive new features that weren't there in the previous game like an improved crafting system? Check. 7. Improved gameplay balance and character development choices from the first game? Check. 8. Doesn't shy away from mature content while being a bit more realistic in the portrayal from the first game? Check. 9. Resistance to the idea of "dumbing down" RPGs to go after the casual crowd/mass market? Check!! I could keep going, but all I'd be doing is continuing to say "check" next to all the great features this game has going for it. After a series of letdowns from the competition in the form of Alpha Protocol, Dragon Age Awakenings and Dragon Age 2 all being disappointing to varying degrees, The Witcher 2 is like a breath of fresh air.

Be still my heart! Planescape: Torment is perhaps the greatest game of all-time. If you had asked me on any random day over the last few years what I'd be willing to potentially give up in a negotiation with god for a well-done Torment remake, a few possible answers that I might have given depending upon my mood at the time could have been: 1. My house 2. My wife 3. My first born child (if I ever had one) 4. Pick any of my family members...go ahead and smite them lord. 5. Any body part other than "Jeans Jesus" You get the idea. I loved the original game. It remains the gold standard for the Western RPG genre. Having said that, here's the list of developers that I'd even consider trusting with a remake of the game. 1. Bioware 2. CD Projekt Red 3. Obsidian That's it. Note, I said "consider". Even then, each of these companies would have MAJOR question marks.



Bioware, as you've noted by my many recent posts, reviews and other writings on them, has not been the same company since EA took them over. I'm not sure I'd trust them with a Torment remake any longer. This is sad because, pre-EA acquisition, I'd have probably offered up god TWO of the items on my list above to have Bioware do a Torment remake. CD Projekt Red has stolen - at least for now - the title of "Greatest RPG Maker in the world" for me. But unfortunately, they just don't have a long enough track record of success that I'd feel 100% comfortable with them doing a Torment remake. That brings us to Obsidian. Obsidian writes great characters. They write great stories. They have a large number of employees working for them that were involved in the creation of the ORIGINAL Torment. They also can't turn out a POLISHED, NON-BUGGY game to save their lives. Alpha Protocol or New Vegas level quality doesn't cut it when you're considering remaking possibly the greatest game ever made. I don't know whether to be thrilled or horrified that they're considering trying.

For those folks who haven't already seen this... Link In advance of The Witcher 2 next week, Good Old Games is releasing The Witcher 1: Enhanced Edition for $5. Remains one of the best RPGs of this generation.

Translated from the following sources in order of least to most contributed... 1. Teenage death metal music 2. Vampire worshiping goths losers 3. Emo whiners 4. Japanese anime lovers 5. The French 6. Our own beloved Off-Topic forum. Link As always, may The Force be with you. And, as always, please take anything I say with a grain of salt and a smile.

I have something of an unhealthy obsession with EA's NCAA Football games. While I know they've long been the redheaded stepchild next to the more popular Madden franchise, I honestly feel that there's a ton more relevance to the games if you are, like me, a gamer who doesn't come from a city with an NFL franchise in it or even have one nearby. Disclaimer, I am an ardent Boise State University Bronco fan where I got my undergraduate degree from. My other rooting school of interest is the University of Oregon where I got my Masters degree.



With that out of the way, there are a lot of ways that EA could really improve this franchise if they had the inclination and were willing to put in the time and effort to do so. The EA tagline for their sports games used to be: "If it's in the game, it's in the game." This was later shortened to simple, "It's in the game." With the NCAA Football games, however, this simply is not true. I'm here to prove it by listing a few new features that would freshen up a franchise that has begun to feel a bit like a ripoff due to lack of innovations and customers paying full price for what effectively has amounted to a fresh coat of paint and a roster update in recent years. 1. Let me act like the Athletic Director if I want to. For years, NCAA football has allowed you to assume the role of head coach when you're not actively running plays. You recruit players. You call the plays. You manage the substitution patterns. That's all well and good, even if player recruitment is basically nothing more than a glorified mini-game. But what about the other aspects of college football? True, you can do custom scheduling. But how about letting me raise funds for stadium expansion? Or facilities upgrades? What about managing some finances? As a BSU fan, I know that my school is at a large competitive disadvantage due to not being a member of an AQ conference. Our athletic budget is tiny compared to many others. Our stadium is small, which makes getting teams to come and play us at home very difficult and also has a very real impact on recruitment of top blue chip players. My team has succeeded nicely on the field despite some of these handicaps for years, but wouldn't it be fun if these sorts of things were included somehow? Imagine how much fun it would be to have options to raise funds and then purchase optional stadium upgrades to improve your program. There are all sorts of things you could include in this feature. Additional seating, better jumbotrons, improved sound-system, stadium designs that trapped noise to give a better home field advantage, etc. In addition to making the game as a whole more realistic, it would make fans of schools that don't already have these things in place have even more fun playing out their dreams in real time. 2. Update recruiting to reflect reality a little better. This can tie into #1 above by beefing up the GM aspect so you have to actually work to improve things like TV exposure and scheduling top opponents or bigger/better stadiums, but other things that could be included could be the ability to make under-the-table deals with recruits. Several of the biggest name schools in the nation are currently either under investigation, or have just recently finished being investigated, for shady/illegal recruiting practices. Getting rid of the smiling footballs was nice and all, but what about the option to offer money or other benefits to a prospect under the table? How about incorporating the risk of being caught and, if caught, the option to assess your own penalties or stonewall similar to what exists in the real world of college football. Do you think it might be an exciting thing to run the risk of being banned from postseason play or having scholarships revoked in return for better odds of landing a true blue-chip stud player? How about if doing this was combined with an auto-save feature so you're stuck with the consequences either way and can't reset and go back to where you were before? 3. Expand player stats to include things other than their athletic skill. Each year there are thousands of kids coming out of high school who have a chance to play football at the next level. Some are good kids. Some are bad kids. Some are smart and excel in the classroom. Others struggle to qualify academically and end up at Junior Colleges. Some obey all team rules and show exceptional leadership. Others pull crap like this and then fight with fans and cops on the way out. My point? Other than the fact that Blount is a complete jackass I mean? Well, my point is that some people - some college football players - ARE complete jackasses. Why not have stats to reflect that? You can recruit "troubled" talent if you want to do so and are willing to accept the risk of something like the video I linked taking place. Maybe they get involved with steroids or something else instead? Or you can recruit players with low academics scores and run the risk of them failing to make the grades and missing crucial games. Alternatively, maybe there are kids out there with sky-high leadership stats that can help keep troublemakers in line? Perhaps kids with good leadership talent also help in recruiting by reaching out to kids that came from their same high school but are a couple of years behind them? The possibilities are as limitless as reality and completely unexplored at present with EA's recent offerings. But the point of all this is that it would actually make the kids on your team more "real" to you. If the tagline of EA's sports games is to make the game feel as authentic and real as possible, then why not? I know at this point some people are probably thinking that there's a limit to how realistic that they want their games and if you add too much of this stuff in, then you could genuinely get in the way of being able to go out and "just play some ****ing football!" So, make these things optional. You can turn them on or off without losing a thing. 4. Personalize the schools better. (Note: It looks like NCAA Football 2012 is attempting this.) The franchise is off to a nice start with this. They've got each team's unique stadium. They flash little bits of trivia information during loading screens. They show mascots. But part of what makes college football great is the pageantry of it all. Using my own school as an example, one of the trivia bits that gets shown to people while Boise State games load is that, yes, we do have a real horse that a hot blonde babe rides around the stadium on the track after each Bronco touchdown.



Author's Note: Bronco riding blonde babe, if you happen to be a gamer and you're reading this and ever want to say hello at some point. Please feel free to drop me a PM. :P So why not show that? Or Notre Dame's "Touchdown Jesus"? Or any of the thousand or so OTHER unique things that each school has? You don't have to go overboard, but including maybe one or two unique things for each school as a way to make them stand out a little more could only aid in immersion. These are the sorts of ongoing and continual innovations that could be added gradually over time with each new iteration of the franchise that would partially justify the currently absurd $60 price tag for each new yearly NCAA Football release. Those are my ideas. What does everyone think?

Some of you may remember a terrible nightmare that I had a little over a month ago where EA turned the Dragon Age series into a multiplayer fully hack-and-slash experience. As it turns out, exactly one month after my dream this gets written. [quote="Action Trip"] The Official PlayStation Magazine has the word that the third installment in BioWare's fantasy themed series (reportedly already in production) will feature an all-new multiplayer mode. The 'Inside whispers' section of OPM says: "More elf sexy time! Dragon Age 3 is on the way, with an added multiplayer component".

Brutal. Absolutely brutal. Let me say this flat-out right now: If this happens to be true then Bioware is dead to me. They'll never get another penny from me again until there's new management. Some things, and I firmly maintain that RPGs - true, traditional RPGs - are one of them, are just intended to be done singleplayer. There's a reason why most people don't invite people to coop read a book together. It should be noted that this is only a rumor at this point. It's just a rumor that seems to make logical sense with the overall direction that Bioware has been going in and comments from EA's CEO about the commercial ramifications of having multiplayer in games.