My wife and I are always looking for the next great video game to play with each other. I can’t stand television too much and she doesn’t care for some of the more “hardcore” games that I play. Some of the big hits have been Rock Band, Rock Band 2, Castle Crashers, Pixel Junk: Eden, Bioshock, Assassin’s Creed, and Pain. Trivial Pursuit will not make our favorites list… not by a long shot. (more…)
By Joe Mattucci
I have been called lots of things in my life and most are not fit to be put into print. But one moniker that does suit me and can be said in mixed company is “cheap.” With a mortgage, car payments, daycare costs, and other financial pains of adult life, I do not have piles of cash laying around to be burned on video game frivolity.
Rarely do I pay full price for electronics. I don’t haggle and I don’t beg, but I do painstakingly research what I am buying with the hope of uncovering a deal. Most recently I managed to pick up an 80 GB Playstation 3 for $223.99, taxes included. Granted this required me to sign up for a store credit card, but that 3”x2” piece of plastic will meet with my scissors-of-doom as soon as it reaches my mail box. (Side note: scissors-of-doom are not currently available for purchase at any retailer, but can be created at home with a standard pair of scissors, a permanent marker in the color of your choice, and the ability to write “scissors-of-doom” on the side of the blade.)
Deals are out there, you just need to know where to look for them. Entire online communities are dedicated to helping those of us who want to keep foldable money in our wallets. www.dealnews.com, www.fatwallet.com, www.slickdeals.net, and www.cheapassgamer.com are a few of my favorite money savers. Where I dabble in a frugal gaming lifestyle, there are others out there who live and breathe to find the best deal available. To them, MSRP is something to be looked at with disdain and contempt; thankfully through their whimsical avatars they gladly share their money saving discoveries.
If you are searching for a deal I recommend hitting up the sites mentioned above, as I plan to do in the next day or so. I’m trying to get my hands on a USB headset for my PS3. This will require checking user reviews at CNET and Amazon.com, searching the deal discussions at fatwallet and slickdeals, and if all else fails glimpsing at what is sitting on eBay. Hopefully in the next week or so I will have procured a shiny new headset for less than the retail price.
With all that being said, I do have a pain threshold for money saving risks taken on games and electronics. I break into cold sweats thinking about plunking down $200.00 for a game system on eBay only to have a Playstation box filled with packing peanuts and marbles show up on my doorstep. I eye Craigslist with caution, constantly thinking I am about to go to my local grocery store parking lot to buy a used iPod and somehow wind up in a bathtub full of ice with my kidneys missing.
Setting aside the risks of opening an expensive box of marbles or losing some of my more necessary internal organs, there are other pitfalls to being a spendthrift. I typically do not play the newest blockbuster game on its release date. I usually get my hands on a game a few months after it hit the store shelves. $50 to $60 for a game is steep and I can not logically part with that sum of money. Yes, yes, I know, it costs millions of dollars to create that game and the sticker price is somewhat reflective of that. But to that argument I have to counter that I have wound up with some terrible games (Nintendo, I’m looking at you) that had I known better I would have bought a ball peen hammer for half the price of the game, smacked myself in the head with it, and would have enjoyed it more.
Games are not cheap and with the gaming industry thriving, there is little chance prices will start dropping. The only viable weapon I have against these prices is to troll about the internet in the hopes of finding a deal that will save me 15% off the list price and give me free shipping.
Why not rent games? Well occasionally I do. But there are those titles that I need to own since I am someone who likes to play through my games a number of times to ensure I have found every power-up, every Easter egg, and every glitchy enemy that floats up to the ceiling if you shoot him with a Klobb.
Being a gamer is going to cost you money, but if you are willing to put forth a little bit of effort, you can often times find that deals are out there.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Joe Mattucci.
By Raymond McCrum
Have you ever been excited for a sequel to one of your favourite games only to find out after playing it firsthand you wish it never saw the light of day? Well, that’s the feeling I got after playing Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, the sequel to the popular Gamecube Japanese role-playing game Tales of Symphonia.
When you start the game up you’re treated to a beautiful animated introduction cinematic with excellent music. It’s not that animated intros are uncommon in Japanese RPGs, but be prepared to sit through the intro every time you boot the game. You’ll want to watch it that many times. It’s that good. The game is however plauged with a few unskippable cut-scenes before boss fights.
The game begins in Luin, a village that was attacked and set ablaze in the original Tales of Symphonia, and was later restored if you took the time to do a side quest. The side quest turns out to be a canon truth in the sequel as the town is completely restored. The village features statues of the original heroes including Lloyd Irving, the main protagonist of the Tales of Symphonia and all-around nice fellow.
Or so it seemed…..
As shown in the opening cutscene, Lloyd has been doing some naughty things in Palmacosta. He murders the new main protagonist’s parents. The new protagonist’s name is Emil . . . and you’re going to hate him for at least 75% of the game.
Emil treats “I’m sorry” as a catch phrase during the first 15 minutes of the game. It seems cute at first, but it quickly ramps up on the aggravation scale. It made me want to turn off the console, and sob the rest of the night in a corner over what this sequel seemed to be.
But the review must go on.
The story is strictly for fans, if you haven’t played through Tales of Symphonia on the Gamecube, you’ll be lost. You spend most of your time meeting up with familiar faces and, unfortunately, most of them have lost their original voice actors. With the exception of Collette, Regal and Presea I felt all the characters were poorly recreated and don’t seem like their old selves.
While the story wanes, the gameplay is where ToS:DotNW shines. Combat makes use of the “Linear Motion Battle System” the series is known for. If you’ve never experienced a Tales game before, it plays similarly to a fighting game with real time movement and actions. You are able to control one character at a time, but you’re still free to issue commands out to the remaining party members.
A few improvements have been made to the combat system over the original like moving in full 3D space around the battlefield which was first introduced in 2006’s Tales of the Abyss. The combat system also includes elemental attributes and “Mystic Artes” which can be pulled off once the unison attack bar is filled up entirely.
The biggest new addition is the ability to capture defeated monsters and add them to your party. The monsters are able to level up and learn new abilities; however they are exclusively under the CPU’s control. You can eventually sign your monsters up for tournaments to win gald (the Tales series’ currency) and special items.
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World does include a local multiplayer option. Your friends need to be a little patient, however. Since they can’t control individual characters in the non-combat environments, they’ll be sitting with nothing to do until you encounter a monster.
ToS:DotNW will last 20-25 hours. This seems short but there’s no overworld to explore. It’s 20 + hours of solid gameplay. Capturing monsters can add a bit of extended play value after you finish the game if that’s your cup of tea.
In the end, Tales is just a decent JRPG but right now it is definitely the best Japanese RPG you’ll find on the Nintendo Wii. The voice acting can be downright awful at times, the new characters are annoying, and the story is a mess, but the combat is fun. If you’re a newcomer to the series give it a try. If you’re a fan of the original like me, don’t buy it. It’s a very disappointing continuation of a great game and will most likely leave you unsatisfied at the end.
About the Author: Raymond McCrum is a collector of classic video games and a lifelong gamer. His collection currently consists of over 250 classic video games and around 20 video game systems. This is his first article for Elder-Geek.com.
Gaming has always bore the brunt of parental and media criticism, with titles like those in the Grand Theft Auto series and many others being accused of polluting the minds and souls of our youth. Many activist groups will target games and condemns them for objectifying women and perpetuating negative stereotypes. They see games as turning women either into shameless sex objects or unintelligent and powerless NPC’s subservient to the male protagonists.
Unfortunately, in many cases this is true. In fighting games, 99% of all female fighters are scantily clad and trying to support a pair of watermelons with a tube top. In games like GTA, yes, you can kill prostitutes—but it isn’t an integral gameplay element and it’s done in the spirit of realism (and to increase sales). Games like those in the Leisure Suit Larry series portray all women as ‘bounties’ of sorts, the goal of the game being to ‘score’ as many times as possible. Princess Peach is a horrible stereotype in that she’s a damsel in distress in need of saving, and, at times, a dutiful housewife. (See Super Mario RPG where her most powerful weapon is a frying pan.)
I won’t mention the slew of Japanese adults-only games that often have sexual content and even violent sexual content because these games aren’t in the mainstream either here in the US or in Japan. They are released almost always exclusively online and only a small handful of people have heard of them. They are also never seen on consoles because no one would license it.
However, the groups who target gaming often overlook (through ignorance or choice) the positive images of females in games. Women who are both strong and independent, often reaching the ideal that so many feminists strive for.
I can name dozens of female characters that are excellent role models to young girls and women: Terra, Celes, and Relm from Final Fantasy VI, for instance. Though Relm is a bit tomboyish, Terra and Celes are powerful and motivated characters who, despite their strength, maintain their femininity. There’s Marle from Chrono Trigger, who, in the game emancipates herself from her father, the King, to choose her own life instead of accepting the life that had been chosen for her. There’s also Schala from the same game, who defies her mother to save the protagonist. Farah from The Prince of Persia: Sands of Time must help correct the once-misogynistic Prince’s mistake in order to save his kingdom.
There are plenty of action-oriented females, as well, like Alyx Vance from the Half-Life 2 series, Jill Valentine from the Resident Evil series, Nariko from Heavenly Sword, and, of course, Samus Aran from the long-standing Metroid series. Each of these characters do things that men do and often they do them better.
Female characters like Governor Elaine Marley from the Monkey Island series are strong to the point of emasculating the males in the game, but not to the point of losing their allure and femininity. In fact, a female in a game with a domineering attitude is often MORE attractive because of it.
The Boss from Metal Gear Solid 3 was one of the best characters in the franchise. She was integral to the storyline and development of the main character, Solid Snake. Yet there are also characters like EVA from the same series and Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider series who, though being incredibly powerful and assertive, are still portrayed as sex objects. (Note the increase of Lara’s bust over the years.)
Females also assume the role of villains in many games, with such characters as The Queen from Chrono Trigger being responsible for the downfall of an entire civilization and being so ruthless that she would sacrifice her children for power. Nicole Horne from Max Payne systematically and cold-heartedly destroys the protagonist’s life before trying to destroy the man himself. While these villainesses aren’t exactly positive depictions of females, it does show that the ‘boss of the game’ need not be a man.
There are hundreds of other characters that I could mention, but you get the idea. In my opinion and based on my gaming experience, video games are an incredibly progressive medium that have hosted several female characters that activists should extol. However, these characters are often eclipsed by the negative images of females in gaming. Although personally I think that any complaints about the depiction of women in mainstream gaming are senseless and that the arguments of those who made the complaints are empty. There are plenty of positive female figures in gaming. You don’t need to look hard to find them.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Eliot Hagen.