Journal Entry 01.13.09

I see the milestones dwindling toward the horizon

• I see each day stetching out before me
• I can see new friends waiting for me to arrive

These lines are possible divergences from a line in the poem The Layers by Stanley Kunitz

Topics

6 titles you might want to write about:

1. On Snowstorms & Suburbs
2. On Roleplaying Games
3. On Game Development
4. On Where You Want Your Life to Go
5. On Space
6. Pn Equestrianism

6 titles you don't want to write about:

1. On Girlfriends
2. On Vegetables
3. On

6 titles where "On" is a pun:

1. On Lightbulbs
2. On Vacuums
3. On Computing
4. On Game Consoles *
5. On Air
6. On Route 66

6 titles you don't know anything about:

1. On Skydiving
2. On Medicine
3. On Artistry
4. On Geology
5. On Manufactory
6. On Religion

On Game Consoles: Free Writing

Game consoles have an intersting history in the world of games, as an alternative to the PC or board games. When the first consoles were made, such as the Atari or the Amiga, they were much cheaper than any PC you could buy. So, if you wanted to play video games, they were the obvious choice. Today, consoles such as the Xbox 360, Play Station 3, and Wii are still cheaper than the powerful "gaming rigs" that some players of PC games boast of having.

The console is also more reliable avenue for the developer, with one single hardware configuration to build for. Though a PC may be more powerful than an Xbox, other PCs will be much less so, and PC developers must build for as many PC configurations as feasible.

However, most consoles are very difficult to get permission to build for. The Xbox 360, for example, requires that a developer purchase a $10,000 Xbox Development Kit from Microsoft. Additionally, in order to actially publish a game on a console, the developer must pass their game on an exhaustive list of rules, call the Technical Certification Requirements for Xbox, Technical Requirements Checklist for Play Station, and I don't know what Nintendo call their version of the same, only that they have one.

The other disadvantage of consoles is also their ficed hardware. A PC user can just upgrade bits of hardware as they need, while a console player must buy an entirely new console to play the new games at all - a PC that isn't upgraded can probably still play the game at a lower resolution or framerate.

Penultimate Fantasy

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII is due in North America tomorrow. Why aren't I lined up outside some game store waiting to buy it the moment they open their doors? Well, I've got class tomorrow, for one thing. And I don't own a PSP. And I'm pretty sure I'm the only person on the planet that didn't think FFVII was the most awesome game ever made.

Don't get me wrong, Square is a great company (I suppose they're Squeenix now, though). Square even produced the game that I do consider the most awesome RPG ever made (Xenogears, for those interested). I just never really got into FFVII. And much like my reaction to MegaTokyo, the presence of a hundred other people ranting to me about how amazingly amazing it is really turned me off. Xenogears' production money being slashed in favor of the original FFVII probably didn't hurt my resentment any, either.

But I understand why Squeenix wanted another FFVII title out on the shelves: it was one of their most profitable games, and they want more money. That's not really my problem. It's that the original Final Fantasy was named such because it was a fantasy game, and was likely going to be the last one Square ever made, because they were bankrupt. The games in the series are decent enough; I've played all of them except XI and XII to some extent (the first movie was crap, though, and I never saw the FFVII movie because as I've said, FFVII didn't really interest me). The issue is that Square(-Enix) is still making Final Fantasy titles. Isn't it time to make the final Final Fantasy? Like was promised to us by the title of the very first game?

1. Final Fantasy
2. Final Fantasy II
3. Final Fantasy III
4. Final Fantasy IV
5. Final Fantasy V
6. Final Fantasy VI
7. Final Fantasy VII
8. Final Fantasy Tactics
9. Final Fantasy VIII
10. Final Fantasy IX
11. Final Fantasy X
12. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
13. Final Fantasy XI
14. Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII
15. Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII
16. Final Fantasy XII
17. Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions
18. Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings
19. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (future release)
20. Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift (future release)
21. Final Fantasy IV the After: Tsuki no Kikan (release date TBA)
22. Final Fantasy XIII (release date TBA)
23. Final Fantasy Agito XIII (release date TBA)
24. Final Fantasy Versus XIII (release date TBA)
25. 10 spin-off series
26. 8 collections
27. 5 animated films/short films
28. 16 companion books
29. 12 novels/manga
30. 3 radio shows
31. 30 music albums

Can we please end this thing already? Take a risk and start a new series up!

Obligatory Gygax memorial

I'm going to put this out first and foremost: I'm not a D&D player. I've played it in the past, but Dungeons and Dragons is not where my tabletop spirit lies.

Despite that, I still think Gary Gygax was a very important figure in the gaming world. He is, essentially, the father of tabletop RPGs, which are the root of half the games in existence today. There are some things Gygax believed that I disagree with ("Role-playing isn't storytelling, If the dungeon master is directing it, it's not a game." - storytelling, at its roots, was something interactive, exactly what the tabletop games should be. This is probably part of the reason I enjoy White Wolf's Storytelling system so much), but one thing is clear: Gygax designed a game that, while it didn't necessarily make RPGs mainstream, made them acceptable, and popular to a certain type of person. D&D laid the groundwork for many games to come, both those which utilize the same d20 system and those which use new systems such as the Storytelling system used by the White Wolf games and the Lucid system used by The Dreaming and Legacy Crossing.

So here's to the memory of the man that started it all - or at least most of it - without whom many of our lives would have been vastly different than it is now. You say you found God; now you can be with Him. Rest In Peace, Gary.