According to some Zen books I’ve read, our ego grows a mask of sorts, an interface with reality that grows as we streamline quick ways to get what we want. However, in doing so it limits us, preventing us from seeing the truth of the situation by being unable to see past our own interfaces. The task of an enlightened individual is to transcend this, to destroy our masks and face life truthfully and with consideration for every moment.
So it’s interesting to see the interpretation in Persona 3, my most recent GameFly rental, where these self-limiting masks become entities which can be summoned and used to do battle against shadow fiends existing in a hidden 25th hour between the days. These masks are the Persona in the title.
I scoffed at that on the grounds that I couldn’t see that as being all that concrete. However, as of late, motivation flagging, I’m thinking perhaps there’s something to it after all. In taking it seriously, the brain cogs started turning, I decided that it probably has to do with the idea that caged birds shouldn’t sing.
Today, because it was easier than forcing myself to get back to work on BYOND, I gave Second Life a spin.
I often thought of Second Life as being the game which invited the players in to make their own world from scratch, and consequently was ruined because too many players are too immature to be trusted with the responsibility when given the anonymity of an online experience.
The original Puzzle Quest was renowned by a number of reviewers, fetching a remarkably high review index. However, after playing the demo of Galactrix, I have to say, I absolutely loathe this game.
Take a look at GameFaq’s top accessed games and you’ll see as good of cross-section of what gamers are playing as anything. Right now, we’re apparently forgiving Fallout 3’s bad ending and giving it another spin. At least, that’s what I did, developing a plugin for it before, once again, getting thoroughly sick of it.
I also played quite a bit of game #2 on that list, Fable II, and so far I’ve been enjoying it. It’s more epic than the original Fable on all accounts, although the weapon and armor choices have largely been dumped for cosmetic concerns. The only reason I’m not playing it right now is because I’m feeling a bit guilty about all the time it’s eaten when I should be doing something more productive, like look for work or program something.
I gave the demo of Defend Grid: The Awakening a try, and I have to say that it thoroughly impressed me in terms of being an extremely refined tower defense game. I honestly expected they were simply copping the tower defense formula to the cheapest degree and turning it 3D, but clearly I was mistaken. Here is a very serious attempt to bring Tower Defense and high production values together, and the result feels like a modern RTS. At $20, it’s a steal, I’m shelling out for it.
#5 on our GameFaqs list is Persona 4. I haven’t played any game from the Persona series, and considering the artistic flair that the series is known for, that’s nothing to be proud of. (Perhaps I’ll tweak my Gamefly queue appropriately.) However, I have been playing a bit of the Open Beta for Shin Megami Tensai Imagine, a massively multiplayer take on the series.
In terms of game quality, Shin Megami Tensai Imagine is still very much following the Eastern formulae of MMORPG, which has a heavy emphasis on community and the grind. However, it does have a few redeeming qualities, such as having a rock/paper/scissors combo combat system, and additional involvement in that everyone is essentially playing a pet class by building their own menagerie of demons to command.
Persona Megami Tensai Imagine It emerges as far deeper than your average EverQuest clone, and isn’t that what we’ve always been wanting? That it will be free-to-play doesn’t hurt, either. My only regret about the game is that I’m forced to roll up an androgynous teenager as a character.
That’s pretty much all I’ve been up to lately. I really should get back to work on creating my own game, but for the time being it seems I’ve found a pocket of entertainment that isn’t completely exhausted.
Well, shoot, I’m pretty thoroughly off the game development pony right now. Considering I’m just sitting around the house applying for work in a smaller-than-usual number of employment opportunities, I probably should try to apply myself a bit too, otherwise my brain is going to implode from sheer disuse.
Over the past few days, I recall giving Fallout 3 another spin as well as living up to my “start playing new games, not keep playing the same old game” pledge in trying out Contact and Circuit Defenders.
A gamer is a fickle beast, perhaps, but it is a fickleness of necessity. We play games for reasons beyond simply establishing a feeling of flow – we play them to be continually delighted at a new perspective as one would be upon stumbling for the first time across any art which sought to entertain.
This is an outgrowth of a fundamental realization that I’ve undergone, and that is that I’ve been foolishly retreading the same old circles by playing the same old games and it’s time to move on. There’s a surprisingly thin line between a discerning gamer and one who has beached themselves.
Though I’ve spared some thought towards the refinement of the design, I’ve still yet to master my procrastination adequately to put some serious work in my BYOND game lately. Otherwise, perhaps my 1-week prediction would have been true. I did, at least, reinstall my copy of Ableton Live LE 6, so perhaps I’ll drop another original music clip soon.
In case you had not figured out what the title was referring to yet…
Over the weekend, I picked up a copy of Space Siege being liquidated at a local Target for under $12.50. Having played it a bit, I have to say that it’s a pity the price fell so quickly. Despite being thrashed in reviews, the game wasn’t that bad. Space Siege’s main trouble is just that they’ve added too much of a good thing:
The campaign is too long, vexing for players, but particularly for reviewers tasked with finishing it in order to write a review. A performer has got to know when the audience has had enough.
The streamlining went too far. Stripping out all the tedious inventory management of your average dungeon crawler and replacing it with a single “parts” counter which is used for upgrading exactly what you want to upgrade is good thinking… but your average Diablo fan apparently likes tedious inventory management. It may have helped if upgrades were more influential – in many cases the difference of upgrade levels was a mere 2% per level.
The GUI was too awkward to accommodate what the game was attempting to achieve. I love a game that gives the player a lot of influential skills to learn play with, but the graphical user interface can’t fit them all on the hotbar, which was also difficult to reach in pitched combat. At least the movement and dodging mechanism worked well after I got used to it.
Again, this was too much of a good thing. A simpler, more derivative game wouldn’t have provided the opportunity for these problems to manifest, as it would bring short campaigns, little consideration towards streamlining, and too little gameplay to overload the GUI. With better pacing, better balance, and more time spent refining the GUI, Space Siege could have transcended its problems… but it’s likely the developers simply ran out of time.
Even so, it’s not a terrible game so much as one that feels like it is needlessly dragging because it is buried under too much stuff that’s not been properly managed. I’m glad to have had an opportunity to give it a spin – I love a good Sci-Fi RPG. When Dead Space comes down in price enough (or I gain the freedom that comes with a steady income) it’s first on my list to play.
When I was a kid, computer games were a lot harder to get your hands on. You’d have to go to the store, shell out full price, and then have something to play – kind of like what we’d do at Gamestop now, but that used to be the only way you could (legitimately) get games.
Now, it seems that there’s so many people trying to get you to play their games that they’re willing to let you do it for free. Consequently, there’s really no point to buying them anymore.
Digitally Staving Off Boredom 