Hey Nintendo? Please rethink this...

Yesterday Nintendo announced the official name for their next console: Wii. Pronounced "we", Nintendo PR sells the idea as a coming together of sorts; of a convergence of people of all types to play games together.

Since reading the first announcement yesterday, I've gone through a few phases of response to this:

Revulsion
Revolution was a great name. Admittedly a bit long-winded, the Revolution moniker carried a certain edge to it, almost as if Nintendo was revolting against the status quo and busting down the doors of convention. A sense of cool that Nintendo has lacked since the SNES era. If need be, four syllables can be cut to one, and we can call it the Rev. That's got a nice ring to it too.

Wii on the other hand does not strike me as cool, instead giving me the impression of a bunch of people in a board room talking themselves into a bad idea. A room full of people suffering from groupthink and trying to be too clever. Images float through my mind of a haughty chuckle rippling through the room, with people rapping their knuckles against the desk or snapping their fingers in an expression of approval. Essentially, it strikes me as an Apple type of move.

Wii also comes across as childish, like "Wheee!" or "wee-wee". Nintendo has struggled to break free of the reaction to the GameCube as a system for children. They designed the... Wii... as though they'd learned their lesson, but then turned around and gave it a lame name that has a built-in setup for childish jokes. It's as if they got so caught up with how clever the name matches the message that they lost sight of the fact that people will actually have to refer to the system as Wii.

"Want to play _____ on my Wii?"

"Did you see that new game for the Wii?"

"What games are good for the Wii? Where can I find a Wii for my child?"

Good God, that's horrendous.

Justification
Ok, maybe it's not so bad. After all, it does do a good job of conveying where Nintendo wants to go with the system; that is, if the general public has the opportunity to read the press release where they spell out what they mean by Wii, why there's two i's, and why the "We" concept is so important. If not, well, Wii is just crap.

As in “we.”

While the code-name “Revolution” expressed our direction, Wii represents the answer.

Wii will break down that wall that separates video game players from everybody else.

Wii will put people more in touch with their games … and each other. But you’re probably asking: What does the name mean?

Wii sounds like “we,” which emphasizes this console is for everyone.

Wii can easily be remembered by people around the world, no matter what language they speak. No confusion. No need to abbreviate. Just Wii.

Wii has a distinctive “ii” spelling that symbolizes both the unique controllers and the image of people gathering to play.

And Wii, as a name and a console, brings something revolutionary to the world of video games that sets it apart from the crowd.

So that’s Wii. But now Nintendo needs you.

Because, it’s really not about you or me.

It’s about Wii.

And together, Wii will change everything.

Effective marketing could solve this dilemma. Wii can overcome such a crappy name... wii will buy the system anyway, right? Wii will enjoy the games and have a great time with the system. Wii will download NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, and TurboGrafix-16 games. Wii will rejoice.

(suddenly I feel like I'm writing subtitles to the opening of Holy Grail... also also wik?)


Refusal
Ok, I won't be calling the system Wii. I refuse. It sounds too stupid in normal conversation. Even switching it around a bit and calling it dubya-two makes it sound like income tax, and that is not a good connection. I will continue calling it Revolution, at least until the point -- if it occurs that is -- where Nintendo again becomes synonymous with Video Game in the American vernacular. I will then simply call it "The Nintendo".

"Want to play ____ on the Nintendo?"

"Did you see that new Nintendo game?"

"What games are good for the Nintendo? Where can I buy a Nintendo?"

Much better.

UPDATE: Resolution
Behold this solid bit of logic from a wise man in DC:

dude... the wii is an excellent name - people are so stupid - and i agree that its very apple

think about when you tell a non-gamer that you have a game for the playstation 2 or the xbox 360... you always hesitate or maybe say - its for playstation or some abbreviation that's not really the same system so you don't have to say the number in the name of the system

anyone could just say - i got a wii - its totally cool and has this wand you wave around - anyone can play it...

everyone wants some crazy name like the nintendo supernova or the nintendo lightning dominator... you can't underestimate the power of a simple one syllable name - everyone will love the name in a year and if they look back at all they wrote about it now they'll feel like morons...

That's step 1 in coming around to the Cult of Wii.

(come to think of it, they should rename the Mario Club or Nintendo Fan Club to the Cult of Wii -- it makes perfect use of the duality of Wii/We/Wheeeeeee!)

Thinking over the above statements put me in the right frame of mind when I came across this gem of a logo over at GoNintendo :


This really does it for me. The logo above means two things to me: old school and fun. The ball bouncing back and forth between the i's looks a lot like Pong and to me points out the intention of the Virtual Console in bringing the past back into the present. The i's are also hopping around and animate in a playful manner; they look like they are having fun. Impressive that so simple a logo can convey the reasons I am most excited about buying a Wii.

(the fact that I'm talking about animated i's like they're people either means I'm insane or Nintendo's marketing just might work)

So I'll probably come around to calling it Wii, likely sometime after I buy one. Talking gamer-to-gamer will consistently sound weird -- and probably will never stop sounding weird even long into the system's life cycle -- but it may just work for talking with Average Joe Consumer.

Bravo, Nintendo. Maybe.

Level Five, you are my special bane

First things first: Why didn't we get this awesome startup screen for the U.S. version of the game? I came across this on a European gaming site, and I believe it had a comment below it to the effect that this was the U.K. version of the game. That is really awesome...

But I digress.

I can't think of any game that I've completed more times than this one -- no less than three times on the SNES, once or twice on emulator, and working on a second pass through the GBA port. There have been a few things that remain consistent through all those play-throughs:

1. The death of the flute-playing kid gets to me every time. The way the tune fades away as he turns into a tree. His final statement to the effect of "promise me you'll play for the animals in the forest after I've gone...". It really was the first time I'd felt emotional response (besides anger and frustration, that is) to a video game.
2. That arrow shooting mini-game never seems to get any easier.
3. I catch all of the crystals in the Dark World before they hit the ground. OCD, I guess.
   
4. I struggle with the fifth dungeon in the Dark World (Crystal).
   

The Crystal Dungeon seems to be designed to work completely against my higher brain functions. It's really not that difficult, but for some reason there's a disconnect in my problem solving engine when it comes to multi-level Zelda puzzles. The only other times I can recall having this much trouble with a puzzle in a Zelda game are the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time and the Zora temple in Oracle of Seasons (could have been Oracle of Ages but I keep getting them confused) -- both of these are multi-level dungeon puzzles.

Every time I replay LTTP, I end up wandering around the Crystal Dungeon for about a half an hour or more before stumbling across the solution. Once I do solve it, I slap myself in the head for being so stupid. Unfortunately my brain never seems to record how I solved it, so I am doomed to repeat my struggle. Nintendo even dumbed down this dungeon in the GBA port. No matter. This is the Crystal Dungeon. I will wander it aimlessly for at least 15 minutes.

After all, it is my special bane.

A sleep-deprived brain is an addled brain...

I've now spent an entire week with Brain Age on the DS and let me say it was worth every penny of the $20 it cost me. I "play" it on the way in to work every morning and arrive considerably more awake and aware as a result. I'd go into detail about each activity, but really that's not all that interesting when you don't have the option of trying it out (who wants to talk about speed math and reading aloud anyway?).

What I will mention, however, is the strong indication for how important sleep is to effective thought. I started last week with a Brain Age Check and clocked in at 32 years old (+8 years). Not horrible for a first attempt, given that I was multiplication-table-retarded and couldn't remember half of what I should remember, and this was after a very draining day at work. Two days later I did another Check and ended up at 37 (+13!). Now we're getting awful. Another Check on Friday netted 44 (+20!). Good god. I hadn't slept well (or much) all week and was getting progressively exhausted as the week went on -- culminating in a three-alarm (energy drinks x3) Friday -- so while +20 is really horrendous I justified it by noting how exhausted and unfocused I was while taking the Brain Age Check.

Lucky for me, when I took it on Sunday morning after two nights of 10 hour sleep, my justification was proven valid. With proper rest I ended up at 26 brain-years (+2).

Moral of the story? Buy a DS, and get some good quality sleep.

(the moral of every story starts with "Buy a DS" -- you won't regret it!)

Hey! This sandbox has a shovel in it!

sand·box
n.

1. A low box filled with sand for children to play in.
2. A litter box, especially for a cat.
3. Open-ended gameplay allowing the player to explore a large area and interact with it outside of sequential gaming structures.

Oblivion has rewritten what I'd come to accept as the definition of a sandbox game. Up until this point I've accepted a certain level of restriction while I run around "free" within the large world presented in a sandbox style game: what I do outside of the main story doesn't have any impact, and the end product is always the same. The sand castle I create will be very similar to the one you create, since all we were given was a bucket and some water.

I Like Bucket-Shaped Castles!

There is a surprising dearth of evolution in the style that "Grand Theft Auto built." From the very first GTA on the PC, the formula has pretty much remained the same (the transition to 3D just brought it more attention, is all): you're dropped in the middle of a large city and provided with an endless supply of inhabitants to shoot, hookers to run over, and cars to steal, as if there was a factory somewhere churning them out for your amusement. Lay waste to thousands of people and methodically move about the city leaving a path of destruction akin to a woman getting ahold of her SO's credit card, and nothing changes. In order to see something new, you'll need to complete more of the main story.

When the third entry in the GTA series burst onto the scene early in the PS2 era, me-too games began popping up all over the place. Games like True Crime and The Getaway added some window dressing -- nicer graphics, improved story, a gimmick here or there -- but nothing of substance. Others modified the how and some of the what involved in interacting with the game world but exhibit the same lack of flexibility and customizable experience; the superhero subgenre is a very good example of this approach. In Spiderman for example, the same damn kid loses his balloon over and over again, the same construction worker keeps falling off of different buildings, and the same poor schmuck gets mugged repeatedly... help them or not, it doesn't really change anything. People won't react any differently to Spiderman whether I ignore people's cries for help or come swinging to their aid. If the design allowed I could become the ultimate villain but the story sections wouldn't be the wiser.

Dozens of games exhibiting only a handful of modifications -- even less with any substance. It's as if the child in the sandbox is taught to use their fingers to add ramparts to their bucket castle.

Are Those Murder Holes in Your Castle's Keep?

What Oblivion brings to the table is this notion of lasting impact. Someone that plays it in a maniacal GTA fashion and lays waste to entire villages will have a drastically different experience than someone who plays within the bounds of morality and the law. The former would have access to less in the way of sidequests, since when an NPC dies they die for good, but may profit more in the short term from items taken and sold. The latter will have much more in the way of sidequests but it could take quite a while to make significant monetary gains by legitimite means.

On the surface these alterations to the game world seem superficial to the main quest; after all, killing a random NPC is unlikely to change whether or not you can close an Oblivion Gate or rescue the next emperor. At the same time, however, the choices you make as you play around in the sand affect how your character develops; what skills become stronger, what weapons become available, how much money you have, etc. All those factors will change how you approach the main quest; my impression of playing through main story missions will likely differ from the next player and that is no small addition to the open-world design.

The kid is given a shovel with their bucket and can build a true castle in the sand.

Back in the Saddle: Two more hours of KH2

So I was finally able to pull myself away from Oblivion for a bit to get back into some Kingdom Hearts 2. As it seems, I put it aside about an hour before stuff actually happens -- meaning, of course, that I probably shouldn't have put it down in the first place, but I give myself a free pass on this one since I'd just gone through 10 hours of in-game filler. That much filler pretty much demands a break from the game for awhile, if not permanently.

A couple of notes and adjustments from the "revelations" of the last few hours of the game:

• This game looks like it should be about half of its (expected) length. The first pass through all of the worlds was ultimately pointless and by and large uninspired, with the added bonus of doing nothing purposeful in advancing the plot. It would have been much more entertaining had they just gotten to the point; I am now revisiting each world and doing what I should have been initially: chasing the Organization. It's like the writers went on vacation for a few months, and the developers figured it'd be better to just throw some content in there to make good use of their time while waiting for the writers to come back. Hopefully the writers didn't contract some horrible diseases on their vacation, so the game will finish strong.
  
• I find it interesting how they're drawing out the activities on the Little Mermaid world by imposing random restrictions on getting to the next song. I suppose they thought to treat it as a reward for progressing through the game -- like they did with the Hundred Acre Wood -- but the irony is that the "reward" that you reap here is playing through a horrendous rhythm game. Actually, calling it a rhythm game does rhythm games a great injustice; pressing buttons with "excellent" timing has little to no relationship with the music.
• The Tron world was far too short (at least in the first pass... I'm guessing I'll be back later) but they really did a great job capturing it visually, especially Sark and the MCP. So good, in fact, that I ended up watching Tron after putting the game down for the night.
• I really enjoy seeing the reimagining of some of the early Final Fantasy characters smattered throughout this game. Setzer was rather blah but I think that was because the artist for KH had nothing to do with FF1-6 -- he took over character design duties for 7-9 -- so there was less of a connection there. What I'd like to think I'm seeing here is how the artist would have liked to model his characters back when the technology couldn't accomplish it. Despite my distaste for all things FF7-Fanboy, I'm starting to think I'd like to see a remake of that game just from a visual standpoint.

Oblivion Succeeds Where Morrowind Failed

Due to a large amount of not-going-to-play-again games sitting on my shelf and some rainy day free time, trade-ins resulted in a free-to-me purchase of Oblivion over the weekend. Since my PC would likely be locked into 1024x768 with maybe 2x anti-aliasing, I opted for the 360 version at an extra $10 not directly drawn from my pocket.

(plus I get to sit on the couch... such an improvement from cramping over the keyboard and mouse)

This purchase was an interesting one since I hated Morrowind, the last entry in this series. Yet I'm glad I did, since Oblivion is a much better game. Here's what I see as the improvements that were made, and some that weren't, through the first 10 hours of play:

Things Oblivion Fixed

• Missing with sword swipes. In Morrowind attacks were governed by a D&D-like die roll... there was a good chance you'd be 1 foot away from your enemy, swinging with a giant claymore, and miss completely. This is a horrible system for an action-RPG, or one that purports to be an action-RPG. Don't put me in first-person, allow me to SEE the blade swing at the target, then tell me I missed. It's a giant crab; kind of hard to miss, no?
• Gradual increase in difficulty. I was able to run around through random environments for four hours right off the bat and not have to run for my life every time I saw an enemy. Perhaps this is because I could actually HIT them (see above), but I never felt that the system was out to get me. Nothing worse than wandering for hours just to be slaughtered by some random harmless looking animal in the forest. Now at 10 hours, and up to level 5, I 'm starting to come across stuff that can really kick my ass. Feels about right to me.
  
• Abbreviated travel. Oblivion allows you to click on a location and go there immediately if you've been there before. Getting from place to place is not as laborious or confusing as it was in Morrowind.
• Useful Journal. It used to be that you'd spend twenty minutes re-reading a ridiculous amount of information in your journal just to figure out where you should be going. Not so in Oblivion, where the nicely updated Journal information is concise and nicely arranged. Add to that the ability to switch the Active Quest and get a marker on the map for where you're supposed to be going next. Hallelujah I can find what I'm looking for!
• Interesting environments. The Elder Scrolls series should have just waited until the graphics could handle what they intended them to. Wandering around walking into random caves/abandoned forts/mines/etc is, simply put, more enjoyable due to the beautifully rendered environments. Gone are the muddy, boring textures of Morrowind and its predecessors. Hello HDR and individually modeled blades of grass! I spent two hours just walking through the mountains, accomplishing absolutely nothing.

Things Oblivion Did Not Fix

• Useless third person view. It's surprising that the designers can watch excellent uses of third-person perspective go by (Resident Evil 4) and think that what they implemented is anywhere near sufficient. I'd love to see a real person move around mirroring how the main character animates -- it'd be ridiculous. You float along with apparently no regard to the terrain and look like you're on rollerblades. Oh yeah, and it makes me dizzy moving around in this view. Not a good sign.
• True interaction with the environment. Don't impose limitations on me based on the slope of the ground... there's a "grab" button, let me claw my way up sheer rockfaces and such. Let me clamber up onto ledges. Make my presence felt on the ground by having it deform to impacts and slush in heavy rainfall. The little things that make it even more immersive.
• Real impact of good deeds versus bad deeds. You can get through the game, albeit playing in a completely different style, no matter what you choose in terms of morality. Something as open-ended as this series is screams for a main story that is truly affected by what you do in the game. Sure, people react to you differently if you're a notorious murderer versus a famous hero, but in terms of the main story nothing different will happen. A fine and possibly some jailtime don't do much in the big scheme of things.

I'd love to have Bethesda, BioWare, and the Capcom team that did RE4 combine their powers Captain Planet-style and create the ultimate RPG, thus offsetting much of the gripes (albeit minor) that I have with the design of Oblivion. What is here is fantastic and very involving, and after only 10 hours I'd recommend it to anyone with some free time that they'd like sucked away from them.

Kingdom Hearts 2 Fourteen -> Sixteen

It occurs to me that it's been a while since a sequel did not have a subtitle. Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones. You get the point. I think that Kingdom Hearts 2 needs one, and I'll provide one that is appropriately descriptive:

Kingdom Hearts 2: Continual Disappointment

or how about another:

Kingdom Hearts 2: Lost Magic

Something that conveys that KH2 just doesn't have it. Like I said earlier, it seems as though the developers were shackled by the fact that it needed to be an RPG rather than freed by it. Every time I enter into battle it feels forced; I can see the developers sitting there mapping out the levels and going: "Damn, I guess we have to throw in some more fighting in here." I also use "mapping out" lightly since most of the worlds can be contained in a 3x3 grid of screens; there really is little to no exploration and feels like the bare minimum amount of environments was met in order to say "this is the [insert Disney movie here] world, see? It is! Really!"

how about:

Kingdom Hearts 2: Chain of Mediocrity

or

Kingdom Hearts 2: You'll buy me anyway, so shut up and do it

The RPG trappings that are here feel hollow: leveling up doesn't have much impact (I barely notice the name attached to the Level Up graphic that appears in the corner), the skills really aren't interesting, and the disconnect between the speed with which your Drive/Summon meter recovers and how much more often you'd prefer to use your Drives and Summons is a vast one -- not a good thing when that is your main addition to combat.

They should definitely cut down on the number of worlds in order to spend more time crafting unique experiences for each. Make each one almost a game unto itself, with a new set of things to do and new methods by which to do them, according to the Disney movie it emulates. They bothered to change me into a lion in the Lion King world, so why not have me do things like a lion instead of slapping the keyblade in my mouth and having me do the same thing as other worlds?

The game isn't horrible, but it isn't exactly enthralling either. This week I've had, according to xfire's count, six hours that I could have spent playing KH2 that I instead spent playing Guild Wars. Will I finish KH2? Yes, most definitely. There's enough here that the fact that I am already invested in the series is enough to keep me playing, despite its flaws. Yet it may be a bit longer than anticipated before I finish it (unless the end is nearer than I expect, which is possible even though I feel like the last 10 hours have been filler).

More updates when I get around to playing it some more.

Real vs Artificial difficulty and the Aging Gamer

Playing through Tomb Raider yesterday made me think back to Legacy of Kain: Defiance, and why I never finished that game. I really enjoyed the mix of platforming, puzzles, and action in that game but couldn't bring myself to finish it. Why?

Like a lot of games that I play through these days, there was a bit of a tripping point where I got frustrated, put the game down, and didn't come back. With so many games to play, getting irritated and/or frustrated seems to have a greater impact than it used to; as I've gotten older my patience for frustration in my games has decreased immensely. A tripping point for me has become something that I used to tolerate in just about every game; it has become what I now like to call an Artificial difficulty; something that is a result of either poor coding, design flaws, or apparent disdain for the unfortunate souls that buy the game on the part of the developer.

Artificial Difficulty
Some examples of what I mean by Artificial difficulty:

• The tripping point in Legacy of Kain for me was a section where I felt like I was totally lost with no clear objective. I don't have time or patience for wandering around the same sections over and over again because I didn't happen to notice that small lever hidden in the corner, or that path leading back to a new area that isn't clear due to pre-rendered backgrounds or fixed camera angles. You want me to solve a puzzle? I'll solve the damn puzzle even if it takes me three hours. Just be clear about what I'm supposed to be doing.
  
• Most FPS games shoot themselves in the foot with filler missions that do not advance the plot or seem to be connected in any way with what I should be doing. I get bored and irritated when these non-essential activities end up being really hard. I put them down. Sometimes I'll pick it up again later, but not all the time.
  
• Technical flaws can often get in the way and make things more difficult than they should be. Bad cameras in a 3D action title, for instance, can make it unduly frustrating in the middle of a difficult fight. I enjoy challenging fights in my action titles, but can't tolerate losing based on shoddy design and not my own lack of skill. Don't make me work around the flaws -- fix them first please.
• Lack of checkpoints. This will make a bit of a hypocrite out of me, since I played all the way through the curse-inducing controller-chucker Shinobi on the PS2 (a game with a horrendous lack of checkpoints), but I loathe when games make you run through huge expanses of territory leading up to a boss fight. The boss is really challenging in these situations, which is by no means a bad thing, but for the love of God why do I have to spend 20 minutes getting back to the fight? I especially love when I die before the boss in these situations, mostly due to my impatience with the whole thing after trekking through the same section 10 times.
  

Real Difficulty
It's a bit of a nebulous thing, and really is more in the eye of the beholder, but what I like to consider real difficulty is the sort that you can overcome by getting better at the game. This applies to some of the examples I cited above in the artificial difficulty section, but the main difference I see is a feeling of accomplishment when I get through the tough spots in a real difficult game.

The best example of this in recent memory was Ninja Gaiden. It had me cursing at the screen and sometimes even putting the controller down and walking out of the room, but in the end it was my insufficient skills with the battle system that was causing the difficulty. This was proven when I went back to play some early sections after completing the game and found it to be quite easy, even in sections that I remember having a lot of trouble.

Gaming Age 15+
I wonder what really caused this shift towards low tolerance for difficulty. I wonder if this post would have any text in it back when I was 10 and playing through Blaster Master. Years ago difficulty was a badge a game could wear proudly around, daring gamers everywhere to complete it, flaws and all. Can't really control the length or height of your jump in Castlevania? Tough. Nicked your head on those spikes in Mega Man? You're dead. Deal with it.

And yet we loved it, every minute of it.

"I beat Mega Man in two hours! Beat that sucker!"

"Oh yeah? Well I finished Metroid in a half-hour! With only 30 missiles! In the middle of a snowstorm! With my mom yelling at me to go to bed!"

"Well... well I beat Dracula while only using those lame fire potions in Castlevania!"

... you get the point. Games back then were difficult, and flawed, but it just didn't matter. Now it most assuredly does. Perhaps it's because I've spent over 15 years of my life playing through games that continue to exhibit similar flaws, and I'm just tired of it and expect better. Perhaps it's because I don't have the time I used to have to work my way through the frustration to get that "A Winner Is You" or "Consider yourself a hero" message at the end of games. Perhaps it's because I now have enough resources that one game doesn't have to last me for months; that I can go out and buy something that doesn't frustrate me. Maybe it's a little of all of that.

Maybe it's just part of being a long-time gamer.

The ironic thing about this is that I now have a desire to pick up the game that sparked this discussion -- Legacy of Kain: Defiance -- and give it another chance. I think I still have it in my HDLoader library...

Demo downloads should be a required feature

Sony and Nintendo need to take note: demo downloads should be a part of every console made from this point forward.

In the three weeks or so that I've had my 360 set up, I've only taken advantage of the downloadable demos twice, once for Battlefield Modern Combat and again yesterday for Tomb Raider Legend. It's fortunate that those are the two that I've experienced thus far, since it proves the utility of the demo downloads: it saves me money and wasted time.

You see, I will most definitely not be buying Battlefield. Despite the fact that I've enjoyed what I've played of the series on the PC (BF1942, BF Vietnam) it just doesn't translate well to the console. The developers made some judgement calls on the movement and aiming systems that just don't do it for me -- while running, your reticule bobs up and down like a drunkard walking the line at a sobriety test, and don't even get me started on how bad it is to look through a scope while moving. (debating the realism of this is pointless, since I've never held a rifle much less shot one while moving side-to-side, but in terms of video games this system sucks).

I'm glad the demo was there to prevent me from ever buying that game.

On the flipside, I will definitely be buying Tomb Raider at some point. Not now, and definitely not for full price, but there was enough in that demo to convince me that I will enjoy it once I get around to it. I enjoyed much of the Legacy of Kain series and the influence of that developer (Crystal Dynamics) can be seen all over Tomb Raider. Clean, fluid control, excellent puzzles, and interactive environments have been hallmarks of Crystal Dynamics games in the past, and in this their new game does not disappoint. Slap on a mix of Indiana Jones and some Prince of Persia platforming and they've got what looks to be a really fun game.

And here I could have cared less about Tomb Raider, but the ease of access to the demo had me try it for the hell of it.

That GW group just said "let them eat cake"

It's no small wonder that online game worlds have become a hot topic for sociology experiments. Take people out of real life and plop them into an online world where they can be a different person, and watch the aspects of real life begin to manifest themselves. A great example of this was a recent furor over a Blizzard moderator chastising a gay-lesbian-bi-trans-friendly guild for advertising their GLBT tolerance. They feared that advertising GLBT-friendliness would open them up to harassment from other, less worldly folk, within the game world. Common sense prevailed and Blizzard apologized.

My example, however, is far less personal a matter and likely less interesting (but you're here already, so you'll probably read it anyway), and it comes from a not-quite-MMORPG source in Guild Wars.

First, a little background on how the game is structured. Unlike most MMO's, Guild Wars is fairly rigidly structured: all outdoor areas are instanced (meaning just you and your group against AI monsters) and all PvP (Player vs Player) is distinctly separate from PvE (Player vs Environment, or "Role Playing"). PvP takes place in arenas that may or may not be directly connected to locales that you run into during the PvE story. It is also distinct in that you can play Guild Wars without ever doing PvP, or even PvE for that matter, as you can define a PvP-only character that is maxed out at lvl20.

This separation of PvP and PvE is what leads to the purpose of this post. There's an interesting caste system ("Let them eat cake"... get it?) in place based on what your primary and secondary profession is. For the clearest example, I'll look at the Monk.

Monktastic
In PvE, the Monk is the king of the hill. Every group needs at least one skilled monk beyond a certain point in the game -- you can get away without some other professions in your grouping that are also important (but not as essential), like the Warrior for tanking purposes, but you're basically sunk without a Monk. It's such a pronounced advantage that any time you walk into an outpost that is the starting point for a mission, you'll see 10-20 broadcasts that look like this within a minute: "GLF monk for mission/bonus!" (GLF = Group Looking For).

Monks get their pick of the litter, as it were.

And they're cocky for it.

On the flipside if you're a Ranger or a Necro or an Elementalist without intricate knowledge of specialized builds or without specifically useful skills, you're SOL. You may see one "GLF MM or Nuker" (MM and Nuker are specialized builds for Necros) request for every twenty Monk queries. Invite yourself into your average nearly-full group as a Necro -- I keep using that because my main character is a Necro -- and you'll be ignored 7 out of 10 times. Do so as a Monk -- my second char is a monk -- and you get in 9.5 times out of 10.

Reverse Discrimination
As one would hope, things do even out in the end. Switch to PvP after hours and hours of PvE as a Monk and you're in for a rough ride. Like a rich landowner walking through city slums, the Monk gets its comeuppance at the hands of the peon professions in PvP. Many strategies in the arena target healer classes immediately, often "spiking" damage on them with coordinated attacks.

From comfort into the teeth of the tiger.

I have no ending for this, so I'll take a small bow.

Kingdom Hearts 2 Four -> Fourteen

Now a good chunk of the game is behind me, so here's what I think so far:

• Antiseptic. That word keeps popping up in my head as I go through the motions on each of the themed worlds. It feels as if a certain something is missing from the formula here, and it's missing in most of the worlds. It feels like they put all of their energy into recreating the characters and environs from a visual standpoint, but neglected to capture the essence. Almost... soulless, really, which is definitely ironic in this context.
• The visuals really are astounding. I'm continually impressed by the vibrant use of color, sharply defined characters, and just overall attention to detail. I haven't played God of War since I got my HDTV, but I can fairly easily say this is the most attractive game I've played on my PS2 in recent memory. They need to sell their voice-matching software as middleware -- hell, Ghost Recon is "next generation" and doesn't look this good in how the characters express themselves.
  
• This game is RPG-on-rails. I feel like it's an RPG in as few ways as possible, just so that people in Japan will buy it. There's no exploration, barely any NPC interaction outside of cutscenes, and (so far anyway) almost no use for magic. KH2 would be better served as an action-adventure rather than an action-RPG, since the -adventure would bring with it exploration and puzzle solving, and remove some of the tedium (ideally).
• Along that same vein, it seems as though developing Chain of Memories sapped some of the creative juices that were flowing in the original Kingdom Hearts. Chain was very much point-A to point-B with repetitive battles that seemed more like an aside than they did an integral part of the game. KH2 has been very similar to this, and battles are more going through the motions than doing something engaging and interesting. That's not to say there haven't been some creative sparks thus far, but they're few and far between.
• The new battle system in KH2, the Drive system, comes off as half-baked at best, crippled at worst. For much of the early part of the game, there's so little opportunity to use them that you may as well not have the Drives. Hell, its as if the designers really don't want me to use the new feature. Some levels refuse you the option of using the Drive by either putting you by yourself (Drives require at least Donald, Goofy, or both of them to execute) or blatantly removing the option for a section or entire world, as the case may be.
  
• Speaking of the battle system, it's interesting to see how other successful action games have added to the KH setup -- and in a good way, no less. The "Reaction" button (triangle) is used mid-battle in a myriad of ways, from dodging to specialized attacks to counters. Against bosses they often end up feeling like God of War and it's rip-off-the-medusa's-head button mashing. When in a crowded fight with Heartless or Nobodies, it's much like Genji and it's reactive crowd-clearing attacks. Overall it serves to spice up what would otherwise be a fight that screams for a turbo button.
  
• The substitute voice acting is really quite good so far. They were even able to pull off Eddie Murphy and Johnny Depp -- this bodes well for Tigger. C'mon! Don't screw up the Hundred Acre Wood!
• A lot of the music is coming across as rather cheap MIDI synth, the worst example of which thus far has to be the battle music on the Pirates of the Carribean world. I thought these games came on DVD... can't they spare a megabyte or two for a compressed mp3 or something?

I'm trying to stay away from mentioning too many specifics, since the game did just come out this week and I wouldn't want to spoil stuff for those that just haven't gotten around to playing it as yet. Know this, though: the best part of the game thus far was the tail end of the opening section. It had more impact than anything that has happened since, and unfortunately that's not saying much. All this negativity aside, I'm still enjoying KH2. More later in the week, as I draw nearer to finishing the game.