Monday, July 30, 2007

the ultimate tagteam of reading and gaming

So it looks like this post won't quite make the Monday update I wanted, but that's okay. Only missed it by a few minutes, and this way I can just skip over to woot.com for my daily bargain-buy geek gadget.

Anyway, on to business. The Chicago Tribune featured a lovely article relaying the story of libraries using videogame tournaments to draw in the elusive 13-year-old boy demographic. The tournaments are intended to lure the boys into the library and then take home graphic novels and other fiction books. Not a bad ploy because graphic novels are closely associated to gaming as a hobby.

It's unfortunate that because they are digital, supposively brain-numbing media, that videogames automatically are denoted as inferior to the printed storybook. For example, as a lifeguard, I usually have a considerable chunk of time at work where I have no actual work to do and can sit there and enjoy some leisure time. If I'm at a single-guard pool, I usually read when patrons are around, and only bust out the Nintendo DS when I'm completely alone. Why? I'd be perceived as a much lazier guard if I was clicking buttons instead of poring over words.

Sure, games lack the lustrous vocabulary of books and tend to relate easier to pop culture vernacular (which is a necessary supplement for any vocabulary). But, granted you're playing the right genre of game, your brain is being engaged in an even more interactive way than in a book. Instead of thinking about and reading about the characters, you have to think and act for them.

And this ties nicely into the current item in the Now Playing box, which makes its home at the top-right corner of this blog. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. In short, it's a playable novel in which the player determines the characters' fates through their ability to think logically and, ultimately, their actions. The game's dialogue must be hundred's of pages of text (I'll see if I can find a number), and the character's tout a vivacious vocabulary as colorful as each of their personalities.


The main reason why I love these playable novels (they are others like Lost in Blue, Hotel Dusk) and believe in them so much, is that they help bridge that gap between games and novels.
Some larger RPGs consist of 1000s of pages of text, so you do way more reading than you think by playing them.

The Chicago Tribune article says that among 13-year-old boys, reading is not the cool thing to do.

"'
Boys don't want to let their friends know they're a reader, even if they are.' said librarian Maggie Hommel."

Don't lose hope if your kid refuses to read, and please don't blame videogames. Try offering a game like Phoenix Wright (there might be enough intrigue in the plot to hold their attention). Encourage them to read graphic novels. (Graphic novel is just a fancy term for "big-kid, novella-sized comic book." Their content is not at all graphic, explicit, and the cover usually has an age-rating on it.) As for graphic novels, boys usually enjoy anything that says "Shonen Jump" on it, meaning titles like Naruto, One Piece or Bleach.

Some game series, like Halo, even have their own book series. Give them those to read.

There's no shortage of strategies as far as introducing a child to reading. And even when they'
re busy pushing buttons.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Power to the PS2

I'm still sifting through E3 articles (and still can't believe I had to work 55 hours E3 week), and found something unsurprising, yet completely noteworthy--the Playstation 2 is still THE most played console, at least according to a Nielson study.

I believe it, and would completely recommend a PS2 to anyone, especially with its price tag of $129 MSRP or better yet, just $99 for a used one.

What made the PS2 so great, and what is giving the "next-gen" systems such trouble, was its vast library of incredible games, especially the RPG/Adventure sort. If you're an RPG fan, chances are the PS2 is your system. PS2 also stood solidly in other genres, as well, catering to pretty much everyone's tastes.

And another plus for the PS2? Games are still being published for it. Publishers/developers still seem to be a little skittish when it comes to designing a game to the PS3 expensive specs. If the game fails to sell, then they could easily take a huge loss.

So here's to the PS2: a list of games that were and still are tons of fun (and could be considered "must-haves" in any library). PS2 had so many great titles, I can't possibly recount them all (at least in the 5-10 minutes I'm writing this ^_^;; ). Please let me know what's missing!


  • Final Fantasy, especially 7**, 8**, 10, or 12
  • Kingdom Hearts 1 & 2
  • Disgaea
  • Okami (note: one of my all-time favorites)
  • Guitar Hero
  • Katamari games
  • Jak and Daxter
  • LEGO Starwars
  • Lumines
  • Beyond Good and Evil
  • Simpsons Hit and Run
  • Dance Dance Revolution, Karaoke Revolution
  • Shadow of the Colossus
**denotes PlayStation 1 game (still playable on PS2 because of backwards compatibility)
[PICTURED right: game art of Okami]

Friday, July 27, 2007

Ready? Fight!!



Wow. So I just spent two minutes of my life watching the Video Game Voter's trailer, and can't help but feel like they've just tried to draft me into fighting for Middle Earth or the X-Men or something. They make fighting government video game legislation seem like the most epic struggle EVER: the ad features the announcer with the gravelly voice, music
reminiscent of Carmina Burana O Fortuna, and frightening clipart of politicians. What's really sad is I think I've seen better Army recruitment commercials.

I had heard rumblings of anti-legislation sentiments around the Internet for a while, but seeing something like this surface--I've never seen my beloved videogame community so propagandistic (even if it is intentional, as I just found out from the VGVN states in the video's description). I've noticed most gamers on the Web are calm, collected, but always willing to dish out a few pointed, well-phrased insults. This is an over-the-top outcry from the gaming community that I haven't seen or heard before, and am not too sure that I like it.
Most people who commented on the video at YouTube and Kotaku express the similar feelings about the ad. Even if they were parodying dramatic movie teaser advertising, I think they need to scale back the drama a bit if they want people to take them seriously. Because if the gamers don't take their own cause seriously, I doubt the "evil, corrupt" politicians pictured below won't either.

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
I guess this is what happens when you don't like your congressman

The VGVN should reassess how they're going to advertise this movement against government legislation and start from scratch. (The black-backgrounded template for the VGVN website isn't that welcoming either). It's incredibly important that if you're going to try to reach and rally the masses of gamers, you have to approach them in the right way. If you approach with an open mind and state your ideas logically and reasonably, they'll listen. I hate grouping gamers into one giant mass, but that's generally how it works (unless you run into rabid fanboys, in which case you can expect to be flamed). And if you try to pull an over-dramatic stunt like this, they'll just look at you funny and wonder why you thought it would be a good idea. Maybe poke you a couple of times and then be on their way.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want government intervention with videogames. I think the current system ESRB system we have is solid, but it does have a few flaws here and there (like differentiating between Mature and Adults Only). People can decide what's good for them and what's not. Parents can decide for their kids what's good for them and what's not. So let's put a little faith back in humanity and move on with the uninhibited progression of technology.


Thursday, July 26, 2007

from saving the city, to saving the world this is excellent advice no matter what your kid is into

Regrettably, I have not been making time for newspaper-reading. I love the print form--so much more welcoming than any Internet format, and at the same time more tangible and portable than digital news. I did, however, get to read the paper a few days ago and found a column by Plain Dealer writer Regina Brett. The advice in the column is more specifically meant for holding families together and being a good parent, but there's some good advice that can apply to family gaming as well.

If you look real close, somewhere on the Xbox, PlayStation, stereo and big screen is an amazing feature. It's called an off button. Get to know it.

Ouch, okay that's a little harsh. If your child enjoys playing games, by all means let them. Even better, play some games with them. But they're no substitute for playing games outside (I find this to be true even coming back from college, dropping the Wiimote to go play "water baseball" out in the neighborhood).

Read to them. Go to the library. Tuck them in.

I loved books as a kid, and still do. Books are just another form of media every kid should be exposed to. Even if your kids don't like to read, bring them a graphic novel/comic book or buy a game that's very text/dialogue-heavy (RPGs usually fall into this category (Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, etc); there are also novel-games for the DS)

Monitor what goes into your child's brain. Stop buying and playing music, videos, movies, games and TV shows that debase and disrespect others.

Again, a little harsh. I can hardly think of a game that directly "debases and disrespects" others outside of Grand Theft Auto, but even if your kids are playing games with "violent" content, it's all right for you to look over their shoulder and make sure this exposure isn't dangerous. I remember reading a story on video game violence and then the comments that followed it up. One of the commenters was a dad who allows his 9-year-old daughter to play GTA, but only under his/his wife's supervision. His post went on to say that the daughter also plays Zelda. A common way to get some spare change in Zelda games is to walk into a house and smash up pots and furniture to reveal small money pieces. While his daughter was doing so, he jokingly asked something to the effect of, "now when you're at school do you smash up the desks and chairs?" His daughter would laugh and respond no. (I wish I could find the link to this).

But the most important advice anyone can glean from this column is

You are a child's moral compass. Watch where your own North is pointing. Raise your kids to be better than you are.

Keep this in mind, and no form of media will ever be able to effect your child.

Monday, July 23, 2007

should've seen it coming...

Nintendo: Revised Wii "not out of the question"
Jul 23, 2007 @ 1:43pm

I know it's just talk for now, but until I came across this article, I hadn't even considered it to be a possibility. It's still a mere rumor, a hint of suggestion borne from an interview.

"It's not out of the question," Harrison said when asked in an interview with GameDaily if a revised Wii is already in the works. "But we're not even to our second holiday yet, so it's kind of premature to talk about any revisions to the hardware itself," he concluded. -Article at GameTrailers
Revising and re-releasing hardware is incredibly common in the game industry. I remember I had been dragging my feet about buying a Nintendo DS and by the time I actually bought one, the DS Lite was announced. I still have the clunky DS, with the few design flaws it has, and don't plan on upgrading for another $130+.

The thing that surprised me the most about this article is that the Nintendo Wii is only 8 months old, and rumors about a re-release are already blossoming. Sure, Sony's Playstation 2 underwent many revisions since its release in 2000, but nothing extremely noticeable until the Slimline version, a smaller, more compact PS2, was released in September of 2004.

So why has this topic merited a few paragraphs? Most likely when a new system is released (in this example, the Wii), keep in mind an upgrade will be on its way in 1.5-2 years or so.

The only time this is actually a good option is:
  • if you haven't bought the older version yet (However, I wouldn't skip on buying the initial release just to wait for the upgrade)
  • if the older version happened to die on you
OR
  • you are such a hardcore gamer and absolutely have to have those extra spiffed-up specs (which as far as family gaming is concerned, this usually isn't the case).


##fin##



Thursday, July 12, 2007

oh yeah, that big expo thing (part 2)...

So, I've decided that instead of justing spewing hype about E3, I'm going to focus my hype-spew into one specific area: Look at and evaluate announced games and accessories, and attempt to determine what family gaming could evolve into over the next year.

Simple. And it will keep me writing fairly consistently.

Perfect.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

oh yeah, that big expo thing...

Wow, I know I've been busy when I've almost forgotten about the E3 buzz. Can't wait to see what's coming up. To modify my previous post about the PS3 price drop, I'd say with E3, Sony has a big chance to turn things around and churn out some much-needed hype. (Because it's practically a theorem that when hype increases, so do sales. At least, that's what I can tell from being on the consumer end.)

I almost forgot that the PS3 does have something big on the horizon (ick on the cliche). It's called Little Big World and falls into the genre of one of those insanely customizable online social worlds. It looks super-cute and lots of fun. **Will add pics and maybe video trailer later**

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

4 days later and there's still chaos on the streets

Yep, it's been all of four days since the PS3's price drop of $100 has been announced. And I now see an article that I completely agree with, from Forbes.com:

"
Sony's best chance of catching up to Nintendo, and even Microsoft, in this round of the console wars is to produce a slew of highly anticipated, exclusive games for its system."
-It's the Games, Stupid, by Rachel Rosmarin (yay, a female writing about the game industry... you go girl *turns off the fangirl switch in her brain and gets back to writing*)

Seeing an article like this makes me very happy because it shows that once and for all that I do have a shred of foresight and even more amazingly, it was correct.

I'd been saying since the beginning of the next-gen (PS3/Xbox/Wii) "console wars" that a lackluster lineup would be the PS3's pitfall. Microsoft has Halo, Nintendo has Zelda/Mario/Metroid/etc, and Sony's got plans to release... *crickets chirping*.

And it's still part of my pithy prediction that if (emphasis on
if! I do not want to spawn any rumors) Final Fantasy VII was remade for the PS3, fanboys and -girls all over the world would go absolutely crazy, buy a PS3, and then start waiting in line for FFVII's release. In full cosplay of course.

I remember the hype that was started over a simple video in which scenes from FFVII were used to demonstrate the PS3's new graphical power. Fans (me included) were already foaming at the mouth at the mere suggestion of a remake.

Otherwise the PS3 might get snagged in the doomed cycle of:

Customer: Hm... no one is making any good titles for this totally awesome game system I bought... I guess I just won't buy any games until a good game comes out...

Game developer: Well, no one's buying games for this system... so as a game developer I'm not going to waste time or money developing for this system.

Customer: Hm... no one is making any good titles for this totally awesome game system I bought... I guess I just won't buy any games until a good game comes out...

Game developer: Well, no one's buying games for this system... so as a game developer I'm not going to waste time or money developing for this system.

Don't get caught in the cycle Sony! Use Final Fantasy! Use Kingdom Hearts! Use all of your lovable franchises and bring them over to the next generation! (Heck, Nintendo still hasn't gone wrong with Mario, and is still even carrying PokéMon pretty strong after more than a decade). Great games are still being made for the PS2 (i.e. Odin Sphere). Those need to be moved to the PS3.

Okay Sony, you've got my gameplan. Ready? Break!

//VERY IMPORTANT EDIT NOTES: I do plan to go over this article, or at least try to define some terms (i.e. "next-gen", "fanboy"). It would probably be a good idea to explain the phenomenon that is Final Fantasy VII. In due time though. We'll shoot for a week where I'm not working 57 hours (<-for real, unfortunately).

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