JetFable’s Gamer Writer’s Block

When you spend a lot of times on the road, you notice many things, like I said last time that women are more likely to get into a car accident when talking on the phone, its not necessary because women are poor multi-taskers (in fact someone showed me a study that proved the reverse) or drivers, but because women spend much more time on the phone than man, and are much more likely to pay attention to the conversation (and I bet, more emotional about it too). Now here’s another phenomenon that I notice. When are you on a main street turning left onto a side street, and there are 2 lanes for the turn before the traffic light. You notice the right lane clustered with cars, and the left lane almost empty, and you have to make a right turn into the mall let’s say within a block after you turn (but not right away), which lane would u go to? Ok, let’s put some actual numbers to it. Now, let’s imagine there are 10 cars on the right lane, 2 cars on the left lane, and on average, 8 cars can pass assuming the driver in the first car isn’t playing with himself when waiting, and the average wait for the next green light to come is about 3 and a half minutes. Now what would you do? I’d go on the left lane and take my chances of cutting into right later, almost 100% of times. But if you think about it, why is the right lane clustered with cars, even when people know that they have to be stuck with 3 extra minutes? Are most drivers even smart enough to think this way? Is time an important factor to them? Or are most of them on the phone anyway and don’t care? I wonder if you can categorize people this way (Do people who get ahead in their cars also more likely to get ahead in life?). What about when you are on the freeway trying to get onto another freeway, and you notice the right 2 lanes are backed up all the way at least a mile back, so you stay on the left lane and try to cut in at the last minute. You can usually get in, assuming you are not terrible at driving and can afford a decent car. But how many people honk at you and give you the middle fingers as if you have slept with their wives and cheated their life savings, and how many people happily and willingly let you pass? Years ago I was on a consulting gig and at a social event one of my clients told me that she hates people who cut in front when getting on the freeway. I told her I was one of those people who do it, and I make sure I do it every chance I get. I never said I was a very tactful consultant. I am the exact opposite of those people who curse at those who get in front of them, I usually let people get ahead of me since I just did it anyway, and I actually pity those who waited in line, so I make sure they wait longer while I let more people get ahead of me (yes, I’m such a jerk). Its like that study in freakonomics about who in the company did not pay for the bagels, its usually the CEO, I bet that’s what they learn in MBA school, to cut corners, while the peons worked fervently and complained and of course, willingly paid for the bagels.

I’ve noticed my mind’s been clogging up with various things so I actually do have a lot of things to write about, but I haven’t had a lot of time lately, so I’ll start here, another gaming article. While a wave of new generation games are coming this month, I haven’t had time to figure out which I want to play. I only had time with the demos, which Gundam Musou was great, forgetting that the translation of the name Dynasty Warrior: Gundam, is the worst in history ever (and I hope you know why). Stranglehold was uninspiring, and even the demo was far too long, let alone it totally feels like Max Payne (I don’t want to hear about Max Payne copying John Woo’s film, but if the games feel totally alike, John Woo ripped off Max Payne, there’s a difference between inspiration/homage and being totally unoriginal), not to mention I can’t understand Chow Yun Fat’s English, and why is the game not in Cantonese? Even then I wouldn’t play it. So back to what I really want to talk about, the final good games on the PS2, which is eating away my spare time.

Persona 3 is the final good game on the PS2, and it is worth every bit of your time. The US version of the game has the name Shin Megami Tensei tagged onto Persona, but they are actually different series. I didn’t play most of the Persona games before, but started with SMT: Noctourne on the PS2, and then the Digital Devil Saga, all developed by Atlas. If you think of Koei as the expert in 3 kingdom history, Atlus is the equivalent of the various gods/demons of folklores. But unlike Koei who churns out updates of the same game every year, Atlus does something completely different, each SMT title carries the same theme, and of coruse come with the vast Demon compendium which contain the demons you will meet on the field and where you can fuse and recruit. I won’t go into too much about Atlus and demon lore here, but all the SMT series is deep and dark, subtle and complicated, and all of them are about introspection, choice, with an open-ended plot as foundation. And all the SMT games since Noctourne carry that deep combat strategy that other RPGs lack, which is based on opposing elements. When you hit an enemy weak to fire, you can exploit its weakness with a fire spell, which gives you an extra turn, you can totally wipe out enemies without them fighting back if you have the necessary knowledge and spells. Same apply in reverse, enough said.

Persona 3 is unique in the way that it feels like a cross between Diablo and Forever With You (the Dating Sim). You spend your daytime building stats like Charm / academics / courage in high school, and then meeting with various people building social links with them. Each social link you build represent a tarot card, which can strengthen the demon you fuse with which belongs to that group. At night, upon the dark hour, you challenge the tower of Tartarus, which is a Diablo-like random generated dungeon, and the story progresses on. The Dark Hour reminds me of Dark City, and here the various citizens are turned into coffin (creepy!) while the persona users can navigate the world and hunt the shadows. I never did like Dating Sim although some of my friends played it a lot, and I was sick of Diablo’s random ongoing dungeons, but the combination works like magic here. It works so well and it is so much fun that my words won’t do it justice.

And that comes to what I want to say next, the last batch of games published by Atlus (developed by Vanillaware) are simply amazing, and they have to be played before you go get a PS3 or 360 or whatever that comes next. Odin Sphere is a 2D side-scroller action RPG (think Final Fight) which follows the a Pulp-Fiction style narrative in a dark fairy tale, its the first time the american voice-acting counterpart was so amazing I actually picked it over the japanese track (not to diss the Jap voice, there was so much dialogue in the game that I didn’t want to pay attention to the subtitles all the time). What shines here are the artwork and the excellent writing and the shattered (but not broken) and incoherent narrative which builds up to this amazing dark fairy tale. And the next game Grim Grimore, a 2-D RTS which story feels like Harry Potter in Groundhog Day. The game is so unique you’ll be amazed why it isnt done before, and also a story finely told. Which brings me to want to talk about Game Reviews. I usually look at reviews before I purchase a game but I really don’t trust other’s opinions, especially on games that are heavy on the narrative side, I feel that the reviewer focus way too much on how the game is played and presented but instead he should spend half of his time to critique the story, the writing, the directing, the dialogue, like a book or movie review. I know, games are not thought of as art, but shouldn’t the people in the industry take a step forward to change it? Sure I also did not review Persona 3’s main storyline, but I did not yet finish the game, while most reviewers should before writing their piece. But what I want to say is that games like FF X should be graded solely on the tear-jerking plot twist near the end of the game, but instead reviewers talk about the combat system (which is lack-luster at best) and graphics (sure it was great but graphics don’t make entertainment). After all, who playes RPG to fight in the random battles? I think they are just interludes that break up the narrative, its like when you are making frequent bathroom trips in the theater. Of course there are exceptions, like all of Atlus’ masterpieces, which open-ended and choice-depedent narrative works very well with the deep combat engine, and that is like the holy grail of gaming. And before we are smothered by the next generation of photorealistic gaming clones, let’s make a last stand here and cherish these final gems of the fading generation, and remember them for the rest of our lives.

This is one of those random thoughts article which I usually dislike, because it lacks artistic unity, but hay, I can’t always stick to art, it is information that gives us power, and well, I got to unload my brain once in a while. Interesting new contenders in the web 2.0 space this week: Newser, which tumbnails news, and surprisingly, I really like it a lot. I am one of those multi-tasking gurus which are doing a million things at the same time, Newser enables me to read and sort out the news I want, in an organized way, while doing other things. Well as this is happening, Google is moving towards having user comments in their news, an idea already used in Slashdot, which I read religiously. The second contender to stealing away Google’s leftover lunch is Spock.com, a search engine that claims to be the google of people, yep you use it to search people (who needs privacy?). So far its very good, and most likely you’ve been indexed if you put in your full name in sites like Friendster and Linkedln. Spock is still in Beta and reminds me of Friendster, which didn’t always work (and failed because of it). It is worth trying out. If you sign in you can manage the entry under your own name, not unlike Wikipedia. As for whether these two companies will be sucessful when we move towards the Metaverse, who knows? But my bet is they are here to stay.

The stock market is going nuts this week, the subprime mess that Bush left us in is finally taking effect, worldwide. But I don’t think we will crash. We are ending this year higher is my guess. If we correct more, that’s more buying opportunity for your 401K account, tech and solar energies still leading the next bull market. A lot of people ask whether housing will crash? I am still waiting. But the fact is that, if you need one, you need one. And it will always be okay if you are in it for the long haul.

Interesting discussion in Freaknomics “Cut God Some Slack” blog about who buys the Religions are bad for you books. Those books generate a lot of controversy, and by looking at the 100 comments a day, you know that both sides of the fence buy these books, making them best sellers. And no, I have never read one, and most likely will never, because I already know what it says. The comments are entertaining to read, and I contributed my own as well. And this one is especially classic: A person asked me on a plane if I believed in God. I said no and he asked me why. I said it was like believing in my wife. He said how is that. I said, I don’t have one. He said,I see, you would almost have to have one first before you could believe in her wouldn’t you. I said right. Plus, even if I did have a wife, over time I might not want anyone to see me with her, if you know what I mean. He said I guess that goes for gods too. We just laughed and shook hands. So much for God in America!

Some other interesting discussions this week I have with my friends are: Well, do you need good language skill to make you a good actor? I still remember Kevin Costner in Robinhood (The prince of Theives?) who couldn’t even mimic an English accent, while everyone around him did. Well that’s not acting skills but language skills, but to me thats just not believable, though I am sure a lot of people don’t care. But if you can’t role-play the character you are in, how can you even be a decent actor? The best actors do have good language skills.

The second topic is, is saying “Women can’t drive” a sexest comment? And is it even true? I am not even going to comment on that, but well, statisically speaking, when you run into really slow drivers, or drivers who aren’t paying attention to the road, if you guess “women”, 75% of times you’ll be correct. Statiscs do speak for themselves. What makes men better drivers? Its very simple, video games. Video games give us better hand-eye coordination, and multi-tasking ability, and that’s very important in driving. Not to mention, most people who race, and know the car inside out, are men, and men drive women out on dates, so practice makes perfect. Men are constantly competing in all sorts of genetic traits for the women to select them as mate, well, while women just have to compete in beauty. This reminds me of this one time, that a woman almost hit my car, and she was on the cell phone, and didn’t even notice she almost hit me, while I dodged safely out of her way. This comes to my next question, are women drivers more dangerous on the cell-phone because they are worse muti-taskers? If you think about it, this is only probably true to a certain extent, because men simply talk less, or as my friend suggested, they have the ability to not pay attention to the woman they are talking to and pretend that they are, so which makes them better concetrated on the road. I remember, this once, during a conversation, my bluetooth got disconnected, so I searched for my handsfree, while changing lanes on the freeway, hook it back up on the phone, and voila, she’s still talking, and didn’t notice I was away for at least 30 sec, I repeated her last sentence into a question, and she thought I was paying attention. Hands down, men ARE better drivers, just because we are jerks.

New US drama I watched this week is Jericho (recommended by a friend), and hands down, its awesome. It’s what happend after Jack Bauer failed in preventing a terrorist attack, after the 10th time. Enough said.

Here’s an insightful article about how Chinese copy the Iphone, and I know, they claimed that the cardboard inside bun story is fake. Fake news, fake buns, same difference to me. They both smell fishy (Coverup!)

This Survey says 40 percent of PS3 owners knew that their console included Bluray, and thats equivalent to saying 100% of idiots in american didn’t know their heads contained a brain. It’s just sad. Another survey also said that people who download video over the internet (legitimately) are dissastisfied with the quality of interent video and they prefer going to blockbusters. They are also idiots (if you don’t know why, so are you). 

Someone said my blog is awesome, I cannot agree more. At least it isn’t depressing. I am generally a happy person, it is not that I can’t get depressed, but I think I am very used to compartmentalizing myself so nothing really devastates me (trust me, don’t attempt if you lack high IQ) , the only depression I get is a writer’s depression, that I am too lazy to find new ideas and too damn lazy to write, and too damn lazy to finalize my manuscript and too damn lazy to publish my work. For those who are depressed about life, I don’t understand why, life is full of interesting new things to investigate and look forward to. T Jefferson Parker, in his book The Fallen, wrote that in order for a man to be happy, there are 3 things: He must have someone he love, he must do the things he love, and he must have something to look forward to (hopefully these 3 things are not refering to the same -> person -> insert sexual joke here). Its very easy to achieve this, I think. You might think that the first one is out of your control, but it’s not, it doesn’t even require that person to love you back. And well, get a hobby, and look forward to something. If not, you can keep refreshing this page and hope that I won’t update my blog (yes I stole this from Tommy), and you may get your wish. Be happy.