JetFable’s Gamer Writer’s Block

I have so much I want to write about but so little time to do it, but if I don’t, well, you know, my brain expands exponentially and then at some point it implodes and I forget everything, literally everything, and this world ceases to exist as we know it, so I have to do another system flush, I hope that I get to flush at least once a week.

OK, I am going to brag about my power of foresight again. Here, these are today’s news: Wii confirmed to be only 1.5 times more powerful than the Gamecube, if thats even a generous number. You get what you paid for, and you know what you paid for won’t last. Here’s what I said last week. Forget people who say graphics don’t matter. These are poeple who refuse to embrace the future. And another of today’s news, Google tesing “My World” later for launch. My world is essentially something like 2nd Life, here’s what I said last month. In order to take over the future world, Google has to own the metaverse, Googleverse? The only thing to do is purchase something like 2nd Life, WOW, or create their own competition.

I read this book called the Secret accidentally. Accidentally meant well I was at someone’s house accidentally watching the pilot eipsode of Bionic Woman on cable, and accidentally I saw this book so I skimmed thru a few chapters while I was half-paying attention to the show. If I had to read during a TV show, it says a lot about the show, so I do not want to talk about it. As for the book, is a book I far from recommend it. In fact I here by declare war to anyone who believe in this load of crap. The person who got rich off this idea should die, and those who believe her should perish from my positive thinking. Read the Amazon Reviews here, yes the reviews are more entertaining than the book. What is it about, it is a self-help book that encourages positive thinking, by literally disregarding every physical law that make up this world. I’ll give a few examples here what the book said (and please do the world a favor and don’t buy the book). It doens’t matter what you eat, if you keep an image of what you want to look like, you can never get fat. So basically all the obese people who have problem don’t want to look thin, right? And people who goes on a diet / exercise is wasting time? Better yet, if you drive to the mall and have a positive thought about getting a parking space, viola, there will be one right there in front of you. People who gets frustrated not being able to find a space is because they carry with them negative energy. What a load of horse crap is this? If there are 10 spaces and 15 people looking to park, 5 people won’t be able to park, I think that is the basic law of the world. Sure I always say that our minds shape the universe. But it isn’t 1 person’s mind that shape the universe (though I’d like to believe that’s me), even in quantum physics, that 15 people searching for 10 parking spaces coverge to exist at that time, even if their minds created the mall and the parking spaces, their viewpoints still give them no free space, because you can’t violate the observer phenomenon — and that this universe must make sense according to the rules we know. The book gets better, it talks about the law of attraction, not the attraction you are thinking about, but the power to attract disaster onto themselves. It says that people who are on a plane crash all have negative thoughts to cause the plane crash. Should I stop talking about the book here? I can’t. Take Fate and random events out of the question, many events need to collide for an accident to happen (like turbulence, tornado), certainly not negative thoughts, even if I agree that negative thoughts tend to make a person more prone to bad things because they expect it, and not to mention, people who gets on a plane buys the ticket in advance, at different times. Even if you can prove that 90% of plane crash victoms are at that moment having their mid-life crisis, what about the rest of the 10%? Who can they blame it on but fate? Anyway, I will stop complaining about the damn book here. On to other things.

Damages, the best TV drama lately. I cannot rave about it anymore than I can, with awesome acting and a lot of twists, okay I am a sucker for twists. Glen Close is awesome in her role as a devious yet brilliant lawyer, and the protagonist of the movie (geez what’s her name?) well innocent and naive and her job and relationship with her mentor changes her. The relationship here reminds me somewhat of Devil Wearing Prada, of the mentor apprentice relationship but of course, without the dark twists. Damages isn’t anything like Unfair, but like Damages, in Unfair, the protagonist can trust nobody, basically everyone has an agenda of his/her own and there’s always a twist ending in a betrayal. The movie was just out, it isn’t anything as good as the TV show, but it’s worth watching, if it isn’t just for 篠原凉子, who is gorgeous for that particular role. The next show I like is Burn Notice, and it reminds me a lot of McGuyver, in many good ways.

I think I stopped thinking emotionally about the world at some point, but try to use economic standards and theory of evolution to explain everything. Its not like I have become and uncaring and emotionless human being, its just there is an answer for everything, pretty much everything, but sometimes the world hide it from us, and it does a very good job of it, so you have to stand and view the world as a economist / scientist / engineer / creative writer / free thinker / philosopher.

I thought about changing jobs, because I don’t think I am paid enough. I often say I am paid both too much and too little. I am not paid enough for what I can do, but I am quite overpaid for the amount of hours I spend on actual working. I had a discussion with friends the other time. The one thing you should learn in your first job, is that hard work don’t pay off. The right way to work is to work smart. People don’t get rewarded for their hardwork. Consultants go into another company and try to change the world, and you start to realize it doesn’t pay for you to want to finish 2 months of work in 1 month. Nobody wants you to do it. Your client don’t want you to be there because you improving things mean more corporate people are laid off or they have to spend less time on a task that would take them longer, and they want it to take longer. Your boss don’t want you to be quick because well you are charged by the hour and get paid 1/10 of it, and essentially if you don’t do crap for the whole day, your employers are more than happy to get 10x the amount of profit you don’t work for. The lesson here is if you work for somebody, your hardwork don’t pay off. The people who kiss ass gets promoted, and thats life. If you want to work hard, start a business on your own so your fate is entirely in your hands. Well I didn’t really want to talk about how I don’t try to work hard, but I am still good at what I do, so even when I do get paid sometimes just doing my own things, I can still get paid more not doing anything, that’s why we went to school. That leads me to talk about market value, getting a new job means evaluating your market value.

I think a job interview is very like a first date (though I hate the former more than the latter), you present an illusion of your own market value and try to make a fair trade. If you know anything about trading, is that trading is never fair, everyone may be happy but somebody is always better off. I think relationship can be broken down to this trading market value elements, okay I know, I am disregarding everything emotional about relationship and try to explain it with math, but math explains everything, the fact is that nobody wants to be with someone who they dont believe to be a fair trade. And by market value of a person, I take into accout Apperance (this counts more for females but its still somewhat a factor for guys), Education / Income level, and that is why we often improve ourselves, and go to school, or start a company, buy a new car, this is how society works. As time moves forward, market value of a person changes, and people become mismatched because they longer think it is a fair trade, like me with my current job, or people around me with their current situation / relationship. I see a guy who doesn’t want to get married because he says he is not financially ready, of course later he dumps the girl, because becamse successful, what was a fair trade before turns rotten, Girl leaves guy for another guy, or prospect of another guy, after she attends more school and go to work, same idea. Like I often go to a starbucks at my lunch hour, and the girls who serve me coffee know my name and what I order, and we chat sometimes, and they would ask me what I do for a living and other things, whatever I say seem to fascinate them (and yes they even ask me how much I make). And no, I am not interested in them, because, well, the market value just don’t match. And by that I meant their attractiveness don’t really compensate for their social status. Sure maybe there are some really hot waitress who think I am not a fair trade to them, because billionares want them as much as I do. Will I ever date a girl from a lower social status, yes, of course, but in order it to be fair, she has to be attractive, just like I can pretty much date a very averge looking college-educated individuals who can talk about many things with me. Thats the trade-off in life. I may sound cruel and shallow but in fact, thats really how the world works. You see non attractive guy with a very attractive girlfiend, they are rarely from the same social ladder, and the reverse apples to the old hag who marries the young handsome stud. What happens in Knocked Up doesnt really happen in real life, though its a good message to the average joe, but in the movie, I can see her getting knocked up happening because he was pretty funny, but I could not see the relationship sustaning becasue he’s basically the bottom feeder of society. In fact he could not afford to go anywhere they went. But what happens in SuperBad, is in fact realistic to a certain degree, which is also why I love the film so much. Yes in the movie, the geeks/nerds whatever you call them are of a lower social ladder than the hot girls (and yes thats how cruel the American Society is), and theres no way they could get them unless they level the playing field. In order to “level up” their class status, and offer a fair trade, they have to do what the higher class couldn’t get, by producing a fake ID and get alchohol while even the cool dudes could not, and McLovin here of course highly level up his charisma by faking to be a bad-ass hacker criminal. If you notice anything here its never really about their apperance but their place in the social heirachy of the world. Of course they got the girls just by being themselves at the end, but the underlying message of it all is that, well others don’t think you can provide something of a equal or higher market value, they are not going to spend the time to get to know the real you (they will not negotiate and trade with you). This is why we work hard (or I mean work smart) right? There is an answer to everything.

So the Wii has become the best selling 3rd generation console worldwide (now who came up with the conventions of generations?). The problem is that, its not even 3rd generation. Its basically Gamecube 2.0 with motion sensor. OK, given that Nintendo did something revoluationary, and it is a good business plan. Creating the Wii was brillaint, as brilliant as they were dumb falling out with sony and sticking to catridge in the N64 era, and creating the biggest rival in the industry, and losing almost all their fans. What is brilliant about the Wii is getting the people who don’t play games to buy a Wii. Not only is Wii not a next generation machine, it’s not even a machine for gamers. To me having a Wii is like owning a set of Cranium, which I love to bring to my friend’s house in a party. But how many hours do people play it? Most people I know who own a Wii never plays it by themselves and never for more than an hour, well most people who own a Wii dont even know Jack about games. The Wii-mote control schematic is revolutionary. It is true for about 3 weeks. But when are people going to be tired of it? There is only so many motion you can do with your hand. There’s only so many Wii sports and Warioware Nintendo can crank out, and the rest of the games, developers are abusing the motion sensing, thinking that moving your hand is cool. It isn’t. Humans are inherently lazy animals, we are especially lazy when we want to entertain ourselves. Thats why the joystick/pad is invented, so we can do the most with minimal movements. Play a game called Alien Syndrome on the Wii, or Zelda, you will know what I mean, for every heavy slash combo you have to do you have to swing your hands 3 times. And you have to draw a big circle if you want to “hurricane” slash. You had to just about wave your hands 5 times every 10 seconds. That in no way translates to fun. There is a reason a button is designed to do many things. I want to press A 3 times for a combo, and I want to do foward + A to stab. I do not want to lash out like a lunatic with my wii-mote, because that motion does in no way immerse me in the game. In Red Steel you had to flip a table with the wii-mote. I wanted to turn off the machine after that. It just isn’t fun. Given that the wii-mote is best used for point and shoot, the Wii is a terrible choice for developing a first-person shooter. Because a first-person game is all about immersion, and the graphics output by a Wii looks like a dead orangatang from the trunk of my 20 year-old car. I am sorry, but technology advances, we just can’t be stuck in the past. But more about graphics later. Wii’s success comes with tricking the non-gamers into playing games, and I guess, thats really ultimately a good thing, and also it’s the cheapest and most hack-friendly machine (just the opposite of the hack-proof gamecube). And Nintendo probably don’t care if you people hack it, they are already making profit from selling you the machine, as opposed to Sony and Microsoft still making a loss with each sale. And perhaps one day all the modded wii will be disabled online with a new firmware, and great, you have to get a 2nd machine, and by that time you probably won’t care, it would cost less than a hundred bucks, and great Nintendo’s sale doubles again. But what developers should learn, and they should learn from the fine example of Mario Strikers Charged, is that to keep the use of the motion sensing to a bare minimal. In Strikers, you flip the wii-mote when you want to tackle someone, but you won’t want to do that as often as you like, and that translates to something emotional everytime you actually had to fling your wrist, and not to mention a very very fun implementation of the goalie catching the “shadow” super shots. But finding the balance of that to produce a fun end product is a challenge, and at the end, the graphics, still suck.

Before I get into gameplay vs graphics, lets talk about Bioshock and Metroid 3. Both first-person adventure-type game, both came out at the same time as a killer app for the 360 and Wii, respectively. I never played more than 5 minutes of Metroid 3 but since it looked identical to Metroid Prime, and since Prime is widely critiqued to be a better game anyway, I will compare it base on that. I’ve always thought of Prime as the spiritual successor to System Shock, of course while Bioshock is the real successor to System Shock 2. But Prime made me feel like being in the System Shock world with a flare of Metroid. Both Shock and Metroid is about exploration. Shock tells a better story with radio clips and abandoned messages through out the game, and Metroid does similar things with the scanning mechanics, even though what you read from scanning in Metroid is more about the natural habitat than plot. But to me, both games are not about shooting things but getting immersed into the world through exploration. Metroid features better puzzle and level designs mostly with its pinball mechanics, and much better boss fights that’s modeled after the use-the-environment puzzle in games like Zelda. Bioshock, less interesting corridor puzzles, enemies, also devoid of boss fights, but tells a much better story and atmosphere with better graphics, design, voice acting, plot. As to which is better really comes down to the perfomance of the Wii vs the 360. I’m sorry, as great looking as Metroid Prime was years ago, now Prime 3 looking exactly identical just doens’t cut it. Bioshock is gorgeous, gorgeous like a supermodel girlfriend, and you know the game hasn’t even begun to maximize the 360’s graphics output while, well Prime 3 is already as good as it gets. No doubt Prime 3 is a great game, but it isn’t an awesome game, so it losses in every aspect, and the Wii loses. Just thinking that the Wii will last 3 years down the road in the future is incomprehensible to me, already it looks like an antique from the museum, rusting in a section soon to be forgotten.

I heard from a friend that graphics isn’t important, but gameplay is. Sure gameplay is more important than graphics, but at the end, where is the need to sacrifice one thing for the other comes in? My friend and I talked about games are like women. A girl needs to have great personality but only average looks. I agree with that personality is more important and nobody should evaluate a person purely on looks (just like gameplay on games), but I don’t agree with the statement. Its like, he is willing to settle for less, and think that beautiful women don’t have a personality or visually stunning games often lack in the gameplay department. This just isn’t true. Bioshock is not by far a perfect game (close, but not yet the perfection of Lazarus / Lenneth / Bully / Colossus / Okami), but one should be awed by its greatness, it is like dating someone who has vise-clamp like legs, is trimmed to a perfect teardrop, wails like a banshee, but can also talk film and politics and philosophy for hours, beat you at tennis, chess, and Street Fighter, even show proper respect to your mom. Okay, who said I was not a slut for colourful metaphors? In any case, Bioshock is that, and Metroid isn’t. And who is to say, a person like that can’t exist, and one shouldn’t strive for perfection? My point is that, if the 360 and the PS3 doesn’t win now, it will win, down the road, as that powerful machine that breaks interactive entertainment barrier, and the Wii will be like that box of Cranium (Premium Edition) which I bought at Toys R Us for 20 bucks, sitting under my piano chair collecting dust, waiting for me to host a party and invite my friends over for some fun time. Alright, the authority has spoken.

On an interesting note, Ken Levine, the creator of Bioshock, designer of Theif and System Shock 2, began his career as a hollywood scriptwriter. His interview with 1 up is somewhat inspirational and humorous.

Finishing Bioshock this weekend and having read this article about big-time plot twists moments put in film, I thought, hay, why don’t I reminisce about the similar shocking moments in video games. Hay, who play games for plots? I do… its the most important elements in games, and take my word for it. After all, I became a writer just to write plot twists. Here goes, in order of memorable importance (roughly), followed by spoilers (well, obviously).

1. Shadow of the Colossus — how does a game that has no narration and well plot manage to have one of the biggest plot twist moments ever? Well this game follows one of the golden rule of writing: show, and not tell. Here the biggest twist moment is at the end, when you find out, that well, you ARE the bad guy, killing off the colossus of the land and trying to use the evil god’s power to ressurrect your diseased loved one. Well, better yet, this becomes the prequel of Ico, where the curse of horny kids (ahem, I mean horned) begin.

2. Final Fantasy X — one of the most memorable moments that fill your eyes with tear, and shocking all the same. If you followed Yuna’s pilgrimage to Zanarkand, where the main character Tidus come from, you find out that, well, he’s nothing but a fragment of the memory of the land, a dream. At the end Tidus fades away while he tries to embrace Yuna. And he’s gone, just like that. Of course that traumatic experience also transforms Yuna from this conservative nun-like priestess pilgrim into a trigger-happy skimpy-dressed cowgirl rockstar. Woh, but that is to be explored, in the possibly, funner but plotless game known as X-2.

3. Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria — Sequel to my favorite-of-all-time game Lenneth, Silmeria is much more structured in its narration than Lenneth, its not a better game, but arguably it does have its suprising moments. You know the trickster Loki is going to betray Odin when the world approaches Ragnorak, so nothing in Lenneth should come in a surprise, but depends on how you played Lenneth, Silmeria becomes somewhat of a delectable experience. In Lenneth you get to meet one of the anti-hero / arch-villlian, a questionable sorceror named Lezard Valeth who is obsessed about the Valkyrie, and he is one of the heroes with an unknown agenda in Silmeria, which happens years before the events in Lenneth. The biggest surprise here is, well, Silmeria turns out to be a sequel trapped in a prequel’s body (now where have you heard that before?) . Well turns out goody Lezard did not become demented after the events of Silmeria, in fact, he time-traveled from Ragnorak back to the events in Silmeria, where he again tries to possess Lenneth’s soul inside the homoculus. Well not only is he the last villian of the game, if you spent time using him as your only magic user through out the game, well you are in for some pain. Because near the end of the game, you are short of a powerful spell caster, and you have the strongest last boss to face ever.

4. Dragon Quest III — A classic title for a change, the moment of twist comes when the “hero” is transported from earth to the land, and you find out that, well the hero IS Erdrick, and this is a prequel to the first 2 Dragon Quests. Of course the name Erdrick only means anything to you if you spent time playing the first two games and you received Erdrick’s sword and armor, he IS the legendary hero.

5. Killer 7 — A classic Fight Club like twist that shouldnt so much as suprise you, but nevertheless shock you as one of the most memorable story-telling moments of game time. The main character Harmon Smith is nothing but an old guy in a wheel chair, and the killer 7, his split personalities, the assasins that he actually killed years before. Mind bending, shall I say, well, play the damn game.

6. Legacy of Kain / Soul Reaver series — I don’t know at what point the real plot twist came in, but this series is just filled with melodramatic twists and turns, well, in a good way, possibly one of the best written stories of all time. So is Kain a good guy, or bad guy, someone who tries to cheat destiny? And Raziel, the ultimate pawn, or the savior of his own fate? At the end of the Soul Reaver, while Kain gives his bad-guy speech, well you find out that not all as is what it seems, Raziel turns out to be one of the bad guys when he was a human, and he persecuted vampires which were the winged god-like creatures of the land. The twist of course doesn’t stop there, while the elder god manipulates fate and the ancient enemy of the vampires try to invade the land, Kain and Raziel must work together, if only they can stop tearing at each other’s throat.

7. Silent Hill — Well different twists depends on how you play the game, the writers here are brilliant, of course they are the ones who crafted Silent Hill and named each street after a different author of the Horror genre. Of course the main plot of the game carries the main twist of the nature of the protagonist’s daughter and his role of returning to Silent Hill, but then if you got one of my favorite ending, the Jacob Ladder twist, you find out that Silent Hill is nothing but a dreamy flash of near-death experience of a car crash. While I liked the atmosphere of the second game better (thanks to the processing power of the PS2), the quite predictable twist of the 2nd could not top the open-ended nature of its predesessor.

8. Persona 3 — A bloody Brilliant game in every way, read my spoilerless review here. While the main plot of the game carries a major plot twist, telling the story of who you are and how you got the power, and a major character betrays you and another die off, the side story social link are the ones that shines. Play Innocent Sin the MMORPG inside the game, and get to meet Maya, the playful online persona of well, big surprise, your homeroom teacher, who has a crush on you. And meet the dying young man who wrote a dark fairy tale after he met you, foreshadowing the later events of the story, well you know what, he faded away at the end. Yes, I see dead people. This game rocks, there’s that.

9. BioShock — tempted, very tempted to put System Shock 2 in here, but I don’t quite remember exactly what happened. There IS no atlas. And there IS no plane crash, well there is, but it isn’t a coincidence.

10. Xenosaga Trilogy / Xenogears– while seperate games, its hard to write about one and not the other, in the Saga trilogy the biggest surprise comes with the Gnosis, are in fact, human souls who reject and fear each other . In Gears, well everything is a gradual culmination of surprises, Elle being the reincarnation of Sophia / Mother, Fei as contact of the wave existence, and houses ID within him. Possibly, well one will never find another more elaborate story in a video game, ever, in his life time, at least not mine.

11. Planescape Torment — Well, finding out who the Nameless one here is and who his companions are and why he lost his memories are the biggest twist of all time.

12. Baten Kaitos Origin — A hidden gem of a Gamecube title, well the twist comes here as “you” (the spirit that follows the protagonist around) are actually the evil god Malpercio, and with that the true nature of everything around you unfolds, if you saw that coming half a mile before, still it is satisfying netherless.

13. Knights of the Old Republic — You play the dark lord that lost his memory, need I say more?

14. Might and Magic: World of Xeen — combine the 4th and the 5th game, and you get one gigantic game with one gigantic twist at the end, well the struggles of Sheltem and Corak continues there, and you would not have seen that coming. Too bad the story ended there, without final resolution.

15. Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterflies — well the twist also plays on the title, the crimson butterflies are not just the faint apparitions flying everywhere, but what they signify are the red marks on your twin sister neck as you strangle her to death for sacrifice. Yes, possibly the creepiest game ever made, and if that didnt shock you, I bet the little red doll running around in the old house will.

16. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty — if this game didn’t define plot twists? What other game would? Everything came as a surprise here, even when Snake was not the main character. Major plot twists include the revelation of the hidden agenda of the god-like Patriots, and to even what Sons of Libery means, leading to the events that already happened in MGS3, another moment of gaming perfection.

17. Shadow Hearts 2: Covenant — protagonist’s potential love interest? No, turns out, its his mom.

18. Shin Megami Tensei: Noctourne — the ultimate villain at the end of the game, the entity you need to destroy, well, it is none other than God. I repeat… God. Just how cool is that?

10 politically incorrect truths about human nature, it deserves to be read, if not worshiped. Of course I already believe most of the facts that the article claimed (other than #6), but I think it might come as a revelation to some people, and they should enlighten themselves. And from the article I really like this quote: Women often say no to men. Men have had to conquer foreign lands, win battles and wars, compose symphonies, author books, write sonnets, paint cathedral ceilings, make scientific discoveries, play in rock bands, and write new computer software in order to impress women so that they will agree to have sex with them. Men have built (and destroyed) civilization in order to impress women, so that they might say yes.

Women saying no to men is the sole driving force of civilization, believe it or not, women rejecting men is what makes men become better men. And really, it isn’t because men are smarter than women, but there are more important and influential men in the history of mankind, just because men needed to be powerful so they could get laid. Neil Strauss, who wrote the Game (which I recommeded before), learned that after infiltrating the pick-up artists society, that he learned to become a better man by learning to pick up women. Freaknomics had a discussion on the Science of Insulting women (the comments are interesting), a technique called “Negging”, which is invented by Mystery, a real-life character from the Game, who now hosts his own TV show on VH1 (think of it as the Apprentice with Mystery instead of Trump). I don’t really think of Negging as insulting women and lowering her self esteem, but to convey non-interest (so they don’t have to say no to you, reacting to their genetic desposition), and to boost self-confidence (which is very important). Making slightly negative comments just means you are not nervous, and stops you from gawking at them.

Which reminds me of the movie Superbad, which I saw this past weekend, and like Donald said, Superbad IS super good, for numerous reasons. Yes it reminded me of high school life, which was total torture, I am not sure if I belonged to either the jocks or the nerds crowd, well I just came from overseas so I was one of the FOBs, which I didn’t even remember if that was even a lower social standing than nerds. To me, then, American Society was a strange place, which I didn’t quite get at that time. In Asia, being the top of your class gets you chicks, everyone knew that. One can study their way into being popular. In US, its the opposite of that, pretty much, you are stuck being where you are and can only hope that this phase of your life passes (maybe past torture propels you to future success). Maybe thats why Asian kids are on a whole better academically, not because our parents force us to, its because, what sex drives us, which also explains what I wrote before, how Chinese societies killed creativity. If women only chose the doctors and lawyers, who would draw comics, design video games, and write a book? Not to say being a writer is aphrodisiac to women in America, its about gaining respect, which the kids in Superbad tried very hard, to earn respect, to get laid, and found that at the end being themselves as more important, and I agreed, overall a pretty good message behind the laughter, and I whole-heartedly recommend the movie, and one you should watch with the guys (though I saw it with a girl).