For a while there, I was deeply in love with Dragon Quest VIII: The Journey of the Cursed King. Western RPGs like Fable and Jade Empire had made me soft, and I was itching for some stone cold dungeon crawling, the type made famous by the Dragon Quest series. Classic RPG gameplay, the likes of which I have rarely seen in this generation of video games. All this certainly isn’t hurt by it’s beautiful aesthetics: character design by Akira Toriyama, creator of Dragon Ball Z, and the most perfect cell-shading this side of Wind Waker. A beautiful, beautiful game, on many levels.
But having spent a few days away from the Playstation, I’m starting to wonder if I’m just experiencing a mild form of Stockholm syndrome.
I love the fact that it’s all stats. It’s a huge numbers game, knowing which monsters to battle and with what strategy. I love the fact that, if I was so inclined, I could bust out the graphing calculator and compute the outcome of any battle before I even start it. Guitar Hero it ain’t. Ikaruga it ain’t. But it’s still got this wicked, twisted appeal.
Unfortunately - and this is where I think I’ve been spoiled - I’m tired of spending 2 hours a night just running around outside a particular village leveling up. Once I’ve finally reached a level I think is acceptable, I can tackle the quest I’m supposed to be working on, and this might just take a half an hour to complete. But there’s still the 2 hours where I do nothing else in the game except repeat the battle-battle-battle-rest, battle-battle-battle-rest strategy. At least games like Oblivion present side-quests to take the grind out of “leveling up” and turn it into something vaguely entertaining. 8 hours into Dragon Quest, I haven’t seen one side-quest.
And that’s the worst part: if I didn’t have to see the look on my girlfriend’s face when I explain to her that I’m coming to bed at 2am because I’ve just spent the past two hours leveling up, I probably wouldn’t mind this at all.
Hidden in Nintendo’s E3 press pack is a picture of a more “standard” controller. The filename itself is “Wii_Classic_0501.jpg”. I’m guessing this answers the question of how we’re supposed to play downloaded NES/SNES games on the Wii, since the Wii-mote doesn’t seem up to it.
Picture links to very high-res image of the controller.
E3 this week. Biggest, most draining week in the gaming calendar. Not a chance of getting any serious work done.
First up, Sony announcing their PS3s. First up, the facts:
Two versions
20GB version - EUR499 / 60GB version - EUR599
20GB version will not have
Wireless
Memory Stick / SD Storage
HDMI out
Same controller as the PS2 except with Wireless, no rumble feature and - get this - a tilt sensor
Releasing two versions of the same console is a smart move. Especially when you choose to remove such non-essential features (the Xbox 360’s Core pack didn’t include a Hard Drive, meaning developers couldn’t develop games using this feature.) Although the lack of HDMI output struck me as a little weird since this limits the PS3 as a Blu-Ray player. And let’s face it, half of the point of the PS3 is as a way to sell the Blu-Ray format to consumers.
But the news about the controller is just funny. With so much pre-E3 talk focusing on Nintendo’s new Wii-mote controller and how it would change the way we play games like Zelda, it’s not surprising to hear Sony announce something similar. But this is so obviously a knee-jerk reaction, it’s hard not to hear the collective groan rising up from bulletin boards across the internet. From 1up’s report of the Sony press conference:
Ken Kutaragi is out showing off the last PlayStation controller, and basically looks like a sliver version of the Dual Shock 2. What’s different? Sony has basically taken Nintendo’s idea of a movable controller, and introduced the gyroscope technology into the PlayStation 3 controller. Yes, you read that right.
Everyone still watching Lost? No-one given up yet? Good.
With yesterday’s show in the US, the makers also re-launched thehansofoundation.org as part of the Lost Alternate Reality Game (ARG). I haven’t had much of a chance to play about with it yet, so I can’t tell you if there’s any spoilers. But my word, they certainly spent a few quid on the redesign.
For Nintendo, the name “Revolution” had always been a codename. People might say that it had caught on with the public and changing it now will confuse people, but Nintendo were very up-front about this: Revolution was just a codename, just like “Dolphin” (Gamecube) and “Project Reality” (Nintendo 64).
Yesterday, Nintendo announced the official name of their next-generation console.
Wii.
I’m on two minds here. Part of me thinks it’s a brilliant, bold move - “Revolution” was too western, and didn’t mean as much to its home market. Wii is a standard non-specific word bordering on onomatapaea. Whee!
The other part of me is wondering what names were rejected to come to this one. I’m reminded of an Eddie Izzard sketch, describing how Jerry Dorsey changed his name to Englebert Humperdink.
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