everyday gamer

These past two weeks in Whatcha Been Playin’ (I apologize for not having one last week) were spent playing my two of my favorite games from my favorite jrpg series: Final Fantasy XII and Final Fantasy IV DS.  No new games…just good old games.  Yeah, yeah FFIV DS is technically new, but c’mon now.  It’s an old game.

Final Fantasy XII is a very special game to me as it’s the only Final Fantasy that I’ve played through completely only once and actually enjoyed.  FFVIII I barely played through the first time and swore never to draw a damned curaga again.  I appreciated the scope and presentation of FFX, but for the most part found the story (summarized by “I hate you dad!”) and the voice acting obnoxious enough to merit a “no thanks” on the second go-around.  On the other hand, I just loved XII.  Between the deep fusion of traditional jRPG and MMO styled gameplay to the made-for-adult (read: not 4 ragtag teens out to save the world) storyline to the Gambit system that tweaked the programmer inside of me, the game just clicked for me and I loved every minute of it.

Last week I felt a nostalgic obligation to continue playing my PS3 save that I started when I first bought the system.  Unsurprisingly, I found that the game play and story really does hold up, though perhaps I was just itching for an RPG to play without having to spend money.  FFXII is a really good game.  However, I do wish this game was given the high-def treatment.  It looked beautiful on standard def; less so on high.

Final Fantasy IV DS was the other game I spent a significant amount of time playing.  Good lord, this game is tough.  Similar to how old NES games did little more than drill you on muscle memory by subjecting you to learn by dying, FFIV DS seems to do the same thing.  Minus the muscle memory.  And many times more dying.  During one play session in the final dungeon, my level 65ish or so party was running around collecting the final armor sets for the better part of an hour only to get demolished by the Red Dragon guarding the Crystal Gloves.  I wanted to scream.  When I cooled off a few days later, I decided to skip that chest and head to the save point a handful of screens later.

“Ok, I have a save point.  Time to try that chest again!”

Three rounds later, I was met with another death.  Wonderful.  “How about I just skip this one for now?”

Two rooms down, I accept the challenge from the Lunasaur guarding a pair of Ribbons for Rosa and Rydia.  Five rounds of damage dealing and no problems!  Home free!  And then all of my guys get breathed for a billion status effects and are confused and uncontrollable.  Ok, no problem: use a remedy and fix the party turn by turn.  Next round, breathed again.  And again.  And again.  And then I turn the system off.  Damn.  This game is hard.

I did wind up finishing the game a few nights ago.  Don’t get me wrong, the storyline is still in my top 3 in the series.  But wow, was this game frustrating.

I find it ironic that the day I officially announce my resignation at my own place of employment is the same day that Jeff Green, Editor-in-Chief of the PC Gaming section of 1UP.com, announces his.

Jeff will be headed to Electronic Arts as an Associate Producer to the Sims franchise.

On the NeoGAF thread, Jeff shed a lot of light on the reasons for his departure.

The thing to understand about this trend is that for some of us in the gaming journalism biz, there are simply not many options. Especially if you have a family to support. It doesn’t pay well, to start. And then, really, where is there to go? The mags are vanishing, and the websites mostly blow. And they pay worse than the magazines did. Trying to branch out into another area of journalism is a possibility–but game writers often get ghettoized and not taken seriously when they try to go that way.

So, as in any career–people go where they know people, where they have contacts, where their previous work experience is going to matter. I was actually *never* one of those guys who always just wanted to work at a game company. That was never my aspiration. Mine always involved writing. When it became clear my time was up at Ziff, I knew I wanted to stay involved in a creative field, that I still wanted to be involved in something that would entertain people and make them laugh. So, game production ends up as natural, logical extension for those who want to be involved in a creative process.

Now if someone had thrown a pile of money at me to keep making a magazine–which I loved doing–this would be another thread entirely.

Given this, I totally understand the reason as to why he’s leaving following the closing of Computer Gaming World/Games for Windows magazine and the departure his friend and coworker Sean Molloy to Blizzard Entertainment.  Games journalism and the enthusiast press was always closer to being a labor of love than a lucrative profession.

Jeff established himself as an industry legend as the Editor-in-Chief of the venerable Computer Gaming World magazine and I consider him one the pillars of the 1UP Network.  His insight and humor are among the top reasons to why I love 1up so much.  I was distraught when Dan ‘Shoe’ Hsu announced his resignation earlier this year but for some reason Jeff’s departure has so much more significance to me.

I’ll definitely miss hearing Jeff on the GFW Brodeo podcast; The gaming press has lost one of its true luminaries.  EA has gained one of the best enthusiast minds.

Good luck at the EA and the Sims studio Jeff.

I’ve been teetering the past two days on whether or not to pick up Spore.  To be honest, I’m not precisely sure why: The buzz from the Spore Creature Creator has been phenomenal.  Undoubtedly, the game will be critically acclaimed; it is a Will Wright game after all.  So after milling it over, I placed my preorder for Spore (and LittleBigPlanet) this morning at 10:05 AM and will be playing it in less than a week.

I suppose one of the major contributors to my general Spore lethargy has been the exceptionally large development time.  The game itself might as well be called SimEverything because that’s basically what it is: controlling the physical and social evolution a singular-celled organism through time.  The idea of Spore is so high concept that the long dev time is suitably justified, earning multiple E3 Game of the Shows in the process. But at the same time, I can’t help but feel that Spore‘s long fuse leading to it’s inevitable explosion had sort of become an exercise in patience: we’ve been expecting this game for far too long.

I forsee another problem related to this:  Will Wright is an exceptionally intelligent man.  His enormous cranium might perhaps the most biggest in the industry.  Spore could easily be too intelligent for a lot of us.  Garnett Lee of 1Up yours has listed Spore in his list of overhyped games for 2008.  I halfheartedly agree: Personally, I don’t picture the game to be as big of a break out success as The Sims was.  Spore just does not seem as accessible enough for the fickle and casual market, the same people that catapulted The Sims to it’s place in gaming history.  I hope that I am incorrect in this regard – this game deserves its own spotlight.

Anyone else picking this up?