The Dumbest Thing I Ever Did

 

If you play games long enough your bound to have done something stupid at some point.  Some kind of dire mis-play in an online game or some stupid decision in a single player one, it happens to the best of us.  One of my favorite Braindead Gamer Moments can be found on Game Center CX where Shinya Arino, the host, is playing Bonks Adventure.  He enters a bonus stage, jumps off the ledge to the first platform and immediately overshoots it and eats shit, ending the stage and getting nothing for his trouble, hilarious.

That's just a silly mistake though, my personal dumbest gaming moment I feel is far worse because it was influenced by an advert and entirely self inflicted.  The picture at the top of this post is an advert for Playstation 1 memory cards.  Just in case some zoomer stumbles on this post, the PS1 didn't have an internal memory so if you didn't have a card, you couldn't save your game.  You may notice that at the bottom of the image it says "Try beating Final Fantasy VII without it!".  This of course is because FF7 is a big ass game and the idea of beating it in one go without a card is unthinkable to most.  I however, was quite young and instead of being sold the idea of going out and buying a memory card I instead took it as a challenge.  "Fuck you, reverse side of the manual, I'll fukken show you", I thought. So for years I would play Final Fantasy 7 without ever saving.  I would sit and play and then at the end of a session I would turn off the PS1 and then start from the beginning every time I came back.  What made this even dumber was that I owned 2 fuckin memory cards for my PS1.  It wasn't like I didn't have a card and couldn't just give up the idea of finishing in one go, I was just to stupid to realize how long a 3 disc game was and too stubborn to ever give up and so it took me an embarassingly long time to beat Final Fantasy 7 for the first time.

What made this worse was that this mindset extended into other games.  Another title that took me an embarassingly long time to finish was Zelda: Ocarina of Time.  Even though that DID have internal memory I was so pressed by the challenge at the bottom of that FF7 advert that every time I came back to OoT I would delete my file and start over.  I think the furthest I ever got for a long, LONG time was the end of the Forest Temple.

If my memory serves then the tipping point for me breaking this habit was when Final Fantasy 9 came out.  I think that was around the time I wised up and though "yeah you right, I can't beat it without one" and started saving like a normal human being.  I spent an embarassingly long amount of time not beating many games because I refused to save because I wanted to show a marketing team whos boss.

Ironically, in my adult years I have taken up speedrunning and there are now many games I can finish in one sitting.  Hell, even big  RPGs like Panzer Dragoon Saga on the Sega Saturn I am now capable of finishing in a single sitting but that doesn't change the fact that child me refusing to use saves was probably the dumbest gaming releated thing I have ever done

Fuck An Ice Level

Holy shit Nagoya is fucking cold and I'm going to do what any other self respecting British person does and complain about the weather.  Except if I just did a post about how much I hate the cold weather it wouldn't really fit the whole "Gaming" part of  Identity Gaming so instead I'm going to moan about a type of level in video games I fucking hate with a passion, the ice level!

Now we all know about the sewer level and how much that sucks but that one is fucking obvious.  You step into a sewer and you know from the levels entry point that it's going to be a fucking maze with terrible backtracking, stupid level puzzles and crap enemies.  The ice level though, while generally a giant stinking pile of shit is a bit less obvious because there do exist good ones.  A great example of a highly enjoyable ice stage is the Ice Cap Zone in Sonic 3, an ice level so iconic in gaming that almost everyone and their dog knows the fucking theme for it regardless of if they have played the game or not.

For the most part though, ice levels are only one step above a sewer level when it comes to most games.  It's always a terrible excuse to have a shitty slip-sliding mechanic where the level designer to do their best to slide you into an enemy or a pit for an instant kill.  If it's not that then it's stupid sliding block puzzles where the blocks will fall into pits and never stay where the fuck you want.  Failing that it's stupid crap that involves freezing or defrosting things which usually involves copious amounts of stupid backtracking, the same concept as a level puzzle just with ice instead of levers.

One that's sticking out in my mind right now is the Ice Cavern in Ocarina of Time.  It's strange that this one should stick out so much because in terms of difficulty it's not all that bad.  However, it has all the things I hate about ice areas.  Slippy block puzzles, enemies that screw you with your lack of normal mobility, defrosting puzzles that involve backtracking if you didn't manage your bottles right, the whole shabang.  That and at the end of it you get iron boots, which on the N64 version of that game sucked because switching gear in that game was tedious as all hell although it's an issue the 3DS version does not have.

Another middle finger goes to Final Fantasy 10s Cloister of Trails for Shiva.  The cloisters were more of a mild annoyance than anything else while you solve baby's first RPG puzzle but the Macalania trail is just fucking dumb.  Lots of chances to fuck things up which means you have to reset stuff and getting the destruction sphere in that trail is probably the biggest pain in the dick thing to do in that whole game.  I'd rather spend HOURS grinding master/clear spheres to max stats then do that fucking trail.

Unlike the sewer level, I don't think ice levels should be abolished because like I said before there do exist good ice levels.  Just if you are going to make an ice level, don't be a fucking asshole about it.

3D Is Crap

Contrary to what the heading picture might make you think, I actually quite like my 3DS.  Just for the record that picture was taken by me when making a post about region locking.  The 3DS itself is actually pretty awesome, there are a ton of good games for that thing and the original model that I have is nice and compact unlike the mammoth Vita.

That said, today I went to see Jurassic World in 3D and it got me thinking just what a massive piece of shit 3D actually is.  Why do people care so much about it?  It's just annoying for both watching movies and playing games and doesn't actually add anything to the experience.  Hell the 3D isn't even really that good, having some objects or text in the foreground pop out a little bit isn't worth raving about on a console or spending the extra money for on a cinema ticket.

On the 3DS is extra annoying though because at least with a movie the screen isn't moving around.  Right now I'm playing Bravely Default which is OK for the 3D since it's an RPG and I can chill when playing it.  Previously though, I was playing Ocarina of time and that shit uses the fucking gyro inside in order to aim weapons and that REALLY fucks with the 3D since you have to hold it at some kind of sweet spot to get the effect.  Also if you're playing the thing on a train or a car that's being a little bumpy then fucking forget it, just turn that 3D slider all the way down because you ain't gonna get much out of that shit.

For a movie the screen itself isn't so much an issue but you have to wear those fucking glasses that I just find super annoying.  Especially if the movie is long they start to get really irritating but that could just be me.

But really, do you really gain anything by adding 3D to your game?  I'm not more immersed in the experience and instead I'm just pisses off because this gigantic waste of time is draining the battery faster.  You can immerse a player with good writing or engaging game play.  Adding a few poppy out objects to the game world doesn't actually add anything to the experience and I doubt there is really anybody who was wowed by this shit even when it was new.

3D can fuck off

Glitching is Not Cheating

As someone who enjoys watching and doing lots of speed runs, there is nothing that irks me more than some idiot in a comment on a video going "durr, you just used glitches to get through the game, this is cheating".  Using glitches within the game isn't cheating and I thought I'd take a moment to explain why.

First of all, let's define the term "cheating".  Cheating, as far as I and most others are concerned, is where people use some kind of code or some kind of external device (Game Genie for example) to change the way the game is played.  For example, codes used to skip or select levels are great examples of cheats.  Another good example of a cheat are the codes found in things such as GTA in order to just make guns and vehicles materialize right out of no where.  You are changing the rules of the game in order to win and that's why it is called cheating.

Glitching is something completely different and it involves exploiting things that the developers either didn't notice during testing or thought that no one would find.  The absolute best example of something like this is the glitch in Ocarina of Time that warps you from the first dungeon to the final showdown with Gannon.  Even though you are achieving a cheat-like effect (skipping most of the game), the method to achieve this is completely different from cheating.  You aren't tapping in a code and selecting the final battle, in the case of Ocarina of Time you are manipulating something in the games code by using a specific set of actions.  The game essentially "fucks up" and drops you off at the wrong spot and what speed runners do is trigger these fuck ups on purpose in order to make a game faster.

This is very simplistic but think of it this way, a cheat requires no skill in order to pull of while a glitch usually requires the player to do a lot of backwards ass shit that you'd never be expected to do in normal play in order to make work.  Another example could be found in Sonic 3 where there is a level select code that has to be input during the appearance of the SEGA logo.  If you put the code in correctly you can select any level you like and skip anything you came before it.  In a speed run they skip levels but in a very different way.  Using a technique that I think is called screen wrapping, they manipulate the sprite and or the camera in order to enter walls and zip through the stage to the end.  This isn't as easy as just tapping a few directions when starting up the game and requires a great deal of good timing and positioning and fucking it up will usually lose you time.

Maybe I've not done a particularly good job of explaining it but I've tried.  Recreating glitches at will actually takes a fair amount of skill and it's kind of insulting to see a speed run that someone put a lot of time and effort into get shit on by some idiot in a comment section who doesn't understand what he or she is watching.   

Did I become stupid?

So recently I've been working my way through my small collection of 3DS games.  The first one I pulled off my shelf was Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D and I'm having a grand old time but holy shit does it make me feel stupid.

A lot of the stuff I'm doing in the game I'm doing from memory but I decided to stop and take my time and talk to some of the NPCs.  A lot of the time I can get what certain characters are hinting at but I can't help but feel like I have become considerably stupider when it comes to this kind of thing.  I have NO fucking idea how my child self, without the internet, figured some of the shit out in this game.  Granted I've not resorted to using GameFAQs yet for my current play through but I'm putting that more down to my memory than my smarts.

It's the same kind of thing with old action games on things like SNES and Mega Drive.  I die a lot more now than I remember doing back then and I can't seem to get as far as I used to.  Granted, I think it's because I'm out of practice but I just don't have the patience for multiple attempts at old games anymore.  As a kid my collection was a lot smaller and my backlog nonexistent so I guess I didn't mind sitting there and grinding runs in order to get good.  Now, when I start dying I just shut the thing off and play something else, my skill is being ruined by my vast choice of games.

I think there is an argument to be made that the internet does spoil a lot of gamers nowadays.  Way back then, when Internet access was extremely limited we couldn't just resort to a quick Google search for an answer and we had to play a bit smarter and be a bit more persistent in order to see those endings.  I also can't help but feel that modern gaming is a lot easier than it used to be.  We are constantly having our hand held by overly long tutorials and way point markers telling us where to go at all times and unfortunately a lot of people, including myself, become overly reliant on shit like that.

Doing a bit of retro gaming is good for you I think, gets those old gaming senses that you may have lost to brain dead current gen shit going and the end result of beating a game that doesn't hold your hand is super satisfying.  I think I'm going to force myself to be a bit more persistent with these older games and not just give up to go play something else.  Can't moan about current gen being too easy if I give up on the retro stuff too quickly for being too hard. 

New Glitchy Games are NOT OK!

I've probably said it once on this blog before but I'm going to say it again because it keeps happening and it pisses me off.

Recently Assassin's Creed Unity got released and the first things I see about the game aren't launch trailers or reviews or people hyping up the game.  No, what I see are a number of articles talking about just how fucking buggy the game is.  There's even a video on YouTube I watched on my commute home called "Glitch in the Animus" or something, showing all the buggy shit in action.  Paying customers aren't happy with the current state of the game either with it weighing in at 4.6 on Metacritic.  I know that's not really the best way to judge anything but it's clear to see that people are pissed and apparently for good reason.

What I don't understand is that they've been making these games since fucking 2007 and judging from the ones I've played there isn't too much drastically different from each title.  I'm not a developer and I have no idea about coding, so forgive me if I sound stupid, but one would think that if you keep using the same shit to produce these games that it would get more stable, not less, right?  I know open world games tend to have quite a few bugs with them but judging from what I'm reading on the net, AC: Unity is just taking the piss.

Now I've not played AC: Unity yet and I don't think I will for a long time but what I'm about to say applies to any game really.  If you're going to release a game, especially one that's part of a popular series and you expect people to pay full price, make sure it's fucking finished.  At a very basic level, make sure that the player is able to play and enjoy the game without being dragged out of the experience because they fell through the world or NPCs are spazzing out weirdly all over the map or whatever.  Make sure to release a game that doesn't frustrate people by having a significant amount of slowdown or crashing issues or anything like that because we're paying a lot of money for this shit at launch, it better fucking work.

I hate this fucking attitude of the modern game industry of "release now, fix later" because by the time "later" rolls around I'm already pissed off and have shelved your shitty game.  Almost every game has glitches to some degree, no body's perfect, but they shouldn't be this prevalent from day 1.  Just look at fucking Ocarina of Time, that game is glitch crazy but when I was playing it for the first time back in the day, I didn't notice any of them, the game worked flawlessly.  Now, when I buy a new game, I have to cross my fingers and hope that it isn't so infested with bugs that I have to wait for a patch or whatever.

I'm using AC: Unity as an example because it's the newest one out, but there are plenty of games that I have played and thought to myself "this simply wasn't finished or tested properly".  I don't give a shit that game development is hard, if you want my money, produce a quality product you wankers.

Still sore about Silent Hill: HD Collection.

Speed Running

With the end of the great Speed Demos Archive charity marathon, I thought I'd take a brief moment to talk about Speed Running.

Even though this sort of thing seems like basic knowledge to me, I know a staggering amount of people who don't really know what speed running is all about.  Speed Running, as you can probably tell from the name, is the art of beating a game as quickly as possible.  Some people have asked me "how can it possibly be fun to play a game like that?" Well, it's not exactly the kind of thing you can do the first time round, so you still get to experience the game as is on your first go.  The fun comes from trying to figure out tricks to shave that time down.  It might be something as simple as finding the most efficient way to move the character, or something really awesome like going out of the game boundaries.

The most awesome thing I saw on the stream was a guy who beat Ocarina of Time in 22 minutes by fooling the game into placing him in the final encounter after the first dungeon.  It required an immense amount of technical knowledge and it was super impressive to see pulled off right before my eyes.

My Speed Running experience however, is rather limited.  I tried to put one together for Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, but gave up due to my move to Japan.  That said, I've been thinking about putting a run together on Biohazard with a friend just for the funsies, so maybe one day you'll get to see how that turns out.

In short, speed running is awesome, look up some videos!

THOSE Moments in Games

So today I'm playing Etrian Odyssey on the DS, a cool little dungeon crawl that involves drawing your own map and exploring a vast network of tunnels filled with equal parts treasure and danger.  I thought this game was pretty awesome until I got a certain side-quest, a side quest to spend 5 in game days on the 8th floor of the dungeon. 

That means moving 3600 steps, which means patrolling in that 3 square little space for 5 game days because otherwise I have to fight boring monsters that I can kill in one hit!

This got me thinking, there are a lot of games that have THOSE moments, you know the ones I mean, the moments that throw a dirty big wrench into an otherwise really enjoyable game.  The most famous example that comes to my mind is the Ocarina of Time Water Temple

People love the shit out of this game but this dungeon is one of the most hated things in all of gaming. 

While most of these sections usually involve a sewer, this doesn't quite qualify as a rant on sewer levels because there are a good handful of games where these sections take place outside of those infernal underground pieces of shit.

The problem with these sections is that it can really kill the replay value of a game.  There are plenty of games in my collection that I would actually love to play again, but as soon as I go to play it, I remember THAT bit and suddenly I don't want to play anymore.  I don't know why these are so common as well, I'm sure developers know that what they are putting in kills pacing/fun, so why do they do it?

Fucking. Stop it!