JetFable’s Gamer Writer’s Block

I havent blogged for a while, haven’t written anything for a while, so I tend to start again. I drive thru traffic many days. For the last few months I listened to audio book plugged into my Ipod, I listened to the Song of Ice and Fire, and it reminded me of a western version of 3 kingdoms. I think I dont pay much attention to the road, when I listen to an audiobook I think I imagine the scenary. Sometimes I write when I drive…, I even blogged, I certainly dreamed. I thought about playing games in the car. I remember the game Lifeline, a game nobody played, its a voice-activated adventure game done by Konami on the PS2, I thought maybe I can design a role-playing game that can be played in the car. It wont have a lot of graphics, maybe static pictures that u can look at it briefly during traffic, even short CG movies that can be saved to view later after you get off the car (hay, safety is important). The game will be like an audio book. Well maybe more like text adventures in the 80s, the game will be narrated to u. And you will play it with voice commands. You can do a lot of mundane Role-Playing game things in the car, you can fight and customize and train your characters, all with your voice. Sounds complicated? It could be fun…., something different, something to utilize the time we all spend on the road, uselessly reminiscing about life.

I blogged about the Village, so I guess I have to mention about Lady in the Water…., well this time it isnt about who watched it with me and lets dive into the plot. It didn’t suck, but it did all the same. I mean I was disappointed, but I already knew I was going to be disappointed. It had no twist, which I knew as well, but I felt it needed it, it needed an evil twist especially, one that would shock the audience. It had plenty of plotholes, mainly how the Nympth is so distinctly european in the film yet the folklore came from an old Korean woman telling how her grandmother had passed the story through generation. Doesn’t make sense to me. Well the theme of the movie is about finding one’s identity, and the characters are great…., but its missing the twist. If they Nympth became evil and devoured all the humans who helped her…, hmmm, greatness…. still I would go see M.Night’s movie, because he tries to be original, even though he can’t break away from his own mold of doing what he’s best at, bringing the audience the shock of the twist, and it sucked when he broke away from it. Perhaps those of us who are gifted to write, can only tell one or two great stories of our life time, then either success blinds us, or failure discourages us, and either way, we try too hard to churn out the same formula or try to hard to find ideas. I think I said Ideas look for people, not the other way around…, perhaps nobody is meant to be a writer for a life long occupation. We write when the idea possesses us, and then we stop until newer ideas find us again, or not. Perhaps that is why the greatest fiction is never written by famous writers, because they are the ones that are abandoned by ideas.

Ragnarok, the battle of the end of the world, between Odin and the Aesirs, and the fire giants led by Loki, and everything in the universe torn asunder, so that was told in Norse Mythology. Eight months before that, Valkyrie, death goddess is dropped onto Midgard(earth) to harvest souls, humans worthy to join the battle. You play Lenneth, in Valkyrie Profile, personally I think the best game of the last decade, now remade on the PSP, still the best game of the last decade. Lets forget the new CG cutscenes, but playing this on the handheld is a marvel. Why is this the best game? The story is interesting enough, but it never gets in the way of the gameplay, which rules this game. There are many ways to see the story thru, again, choices in a role-playing game is what I value most…, you can finish the game in 10 minutes, because Valkyrie can pass the time, sleep through all 8 months of time, and send no Eihinjars (human souls) to Asgard. There u get the bad ending. But you can be a good girl and find the troubled humans, the worthy heroes…, now each companions that will fight by your side has a sad story behind him/her…, and they also have personalities listed, some are stubborn/snoobish but brave, some are cowardly but caring, none of them are true heroes yet until you bring them up as heroes. And each month you need to send some of those companions to Odin to fight the war. How the war goes will depend on who u send up. But Lenneth Valkyrie has a sad story behind her, with sealed memories. There are 2 ratings in the game, Odin’s evaluation, which goes down or up depending on whehter you send heroes that meet Asgard’s reguirement, and when u come across Odin’s lost artifacts, whether to return them. There’s a seal rating, which doesnt mean much until you play the game in a way u get the true/good ending. You have to play Valkyrie like sort of a bad girl, well, not truly bad but not obedient, and that means not listening to everything Odin tells you to. The seal rating goes down when Valkyrie uncover about the truth about herself, and even falls in love.., and Odin’s schemes, and Loki’s treachery unfolds, all depends on how you play the game. Choices are everything in this game…, but I havent even touched the gameplay yet. While the dungeons and towns are layered like a 2D castlevania game, with some simple platforming / puzzle solving put in, the battle system done by Tri-Ace is created in perfection with the PS2 joypad, which also felt right at home on the PSP. Its a fighting game like itself, 4 buttons, each representing a fighter in Valkyrie’s party, you fight semi-turn-based, but you can chain all your attacks together with button presses, cast your spell with the circle button, then you press X 3 times because your swordsmen has a 3 hit combo, then u hit sqaure 2 times for your crossbowmen to fire, you mix them together…, then u have a finishing move, if you chained all your attacks correctly…, its all about timing…., the battles never get in the way of the story, u look forward to them, and u look forward to how the story unfold, and the choices you make.., a perfectly balanced game in all aspects, a perfect game…..That felt like writing a game review, but thats not the case. The best game of the last decade deserved mention, so I did.