the.skunkape User Info

April 17, 2009 12:01:56 PM

I can't remember playing a video game I enjoyed that didn't also frustrate me in some way. TFU had some unforgivable problems as far as bugs go. The fight scene with Proxy just stopped working at one point. There was a situation where I got caught in a little crevice of rock and couldn't get out. Little things like that are annoying just really ruin the illusion.

But, I've played so many games where the illusion gets ruined. From trees that explode when you hit them twice with your combat knife, to buildings that the Hulk can't smash.

Every game comes to a point where the engine defies straight-up logic. When TFU failed, it felt like an error. Not something where the developers hoped we'd never find the problem (like impervious cows in Hulk: Ultimate Destruction). I resented that the Dark Troopers were so powerful, as well, but I was able to understand why. The Jedi were hunted down and killed off. Which means there must have been something out there that could do the job.

For the most part, I liked TFU, not just the story, but the gaming part of it as well. It was fun, and I didn't feel too insulted by the game engine. Except for the fact that I could pull down a Star Destroyer, but I couldn't throw the Emperor around a bit. That kind of broke it for me, but at that point I was already at the end of the game and willing to finish it up.

Essentially, I liked the game and never understood the amount of negative press it received. It was a really good game.

April 4, 2009 1:34:32 AM

I love the fact how you point out that Mr. Rogers never condescended to the kid, never moralized, never admonished. He honestly asks the kid what the game is about and leaves it at that.

I feel lucky that I grew up watching Mr. Rogers. It has informed my opinion about raising my own children. I'd like to think that I televisually inherited some of his ability to trust my own children and treat them like people with love.

Thanks for reminding me about a truly remarkable person. Thanks for also reminding me of Donkey Kong. My parents had a friend who actually owned the full arcade box at his house. It was flippin' sweet. We'd go over for pool parties and I'd alternate between games of chicken in the pool and unfettered access to Donkey Kong without having to feed it quarters. All in all, this post just totally rocks. The confluence of Mr. Rogers and Donkey Kong. All I need now is a GI Joe (Snake Eyes mint-in-box) and an old Spider Man comic (wrinkled and rolled up from actually having been read over and over).

April 1, 2009 3:55:24 PM

Next week's article: Top 10 video game characters we'd like to teabag?

March 19, 2009 11:32:06 PM

I have a PS3. I have actually bothered "playing" Home. After trying to create an avatar with the half-assed software that often times left a tri-color test bar where the sunglasses I selected should be, I suddenly remembered that line from The Matrix: "Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost."

Uh, yeah. That quote pretty much sums up everything that's wrong with Sony's "Home". It's this ideal always summer, always day-time, always happy little world where NOTHING EVER HAPPENS. I spent 3 hours (seriously I should seek therapy) trying to find where the "action" was. Maybe in the theater? Maybe in the arcade? Maybe near the dance floor? No, not really. I looked in every nook and cranny. There was nothing.

I've tried PS3. I really have. It's not you, it's me. We're just not the same people any more. I want to play video games that developers actually support and you think that this corporate homage to the "Stepford Children" is going to bring more people online. Why not slip some of the cash you used to develop "Home" to the folks at Rock Star so those of us fools who actually Bought GTA IV for the PS3 could have downloadable content, too.

March 18, 2009 7:25:56 PM

@MSUSteve:

I'm loathe to give that kind of direction. Going back to the analogy about my son, I honestly instruct him about right and wrong. I tell him why people feel the way they do about certain words and phrases. Beyond that, I have to depend on his innate decency as a human to behave accordingly. It sounds a little idealistic, but the alternative results in punitive measures over an innocent mistake.

Likewise, I'm the kind of guy that still holds a grudge against Al and Tipper Gore because they fought so hard to censor music in the 80's as fundamental members of the PMRC. I resent the fact that America's rating industry can say that a movie is only rated R with scenes of untold carnage (Saving Private Ryan), but if you show two people actually involved in intercourse, it's rated X. Basically, I'm allowed to see something I should never do, but I should avoid watching something I actually work really hard and *want* to do.

Likewise, video games are about solving puzzles, and throwing obscene amounts of ordnance at imaginary enemies. We have a rating system that accepts violent games and consumers enjoy them. My opinion is that it's the press' responsibility to honestly call a company on its mistakes and then leave them alone. Otherwise, we find ourselves regulating the creation of art.

I'm in no position to tell the developers at Capcom how to make videogames. Even if I knew how to do it, I'd refrain on the grounds that I don't believe in dictating what is and is not acceptable in art.

The same reason I believe terrorists should be allowed to have recruiting web sites and that the KKK should be allowed to demonstrate. I hate what they stand for, but I hate the idea of becoming the enemy while fighting them even more.

So, just like my son. I don't want him to grow up to be a racist. I tell him what I believe to be right and wrong. But I have no control over what he does with those lessons and where life leads him.