GayGamer Mailbag for October 27, 2008
In this week's mailbag controllers start flying, a PC gamer gets some advice, and The Doctor reveals his game designer side.
Oh, and The Doctor is also calling for more questions so send them in, keep them game related or ask advice on how to ask out the hot employee at GameStop. Send questions here!
Hit the jump for this week's letters
Hello, The Doctor!
I've come to pick the minds of the GG staff about a few not-so-pressing things. Well. A thing.
When you were younger (or heck--recently, age be darned), did you ever come up with "fake video games?" I did, all the time. I was a 90's child, so a lot of my fake games were "sequels" to games I liked (Fangames, I think they call them on the 'Net these days). One weird one was a Pokemon spin-off that inexplicably had Ash and the gang from the anime... Bowling. Yes. And you could use different Pokemon to affect your ball. No, it made no sense. Another one was a Zelda game--it was 3-D, like Ocarina of Time, but set on Koholint Island from Link's Awakening. Inexplicably, I made Saria a playable character--she used staves to fight instead of swords, and she had an item called the "Goron Glove" that let her do a big punch attack.
But my favorite one was an "original IP," so to speak, called Nano Beasts. It was quite a bit like Pokemon, only with a lot more Genre Savviness--for example, being set in the modern day, its version of the "Mimic" monster found in most RPGs was a Tupperware container with eyes. I drew up TONS of monsters, and I made hundreds of maps, sheets, and stats for it. I still have most of them in a giant, flaking folder, which I remember buying from the 6th grade book fair. Ah, nostalgia...
Or am I just a huge weirdo?
-Freezair
Since it is no secret that I'm kind of a big Doctor Who fan, I've had an idea or two floating around in my cerebral cortex on how a proper Doctor Who game could be made. First off, it'd be a series of adventure games with each one revolving around an incarnation of The Doctor. There would be combat segments, but in them you would control one of the companions and the normally pacifist title character. I'd want each entry to have it's own complete storyline featuring memorable villains from the show's 30 series, but there would also be an overarching narrative tying them all together. There would be plenty of puzzle solving, but the main focus would be on telling a story. If you remember the obscure PS2 game Shadow of Destiny, it would be similar to that. While I wait for it to be made I'll sit and play the card game released on the DS. Stupid card game.
Howdy. I'm a PC gamer who has mostly stuck to adventure and casual games, with an occasional Tomb Raider thrown in. Since the adventure genre continues not only to shrink but to be stuck in a rut with what does come out, I decided to try to branch out and try some RPGs. I decided to try Morrowind, since that and Oblivion seem to still be the biggest fish in the PC circles.
After well over an hour, I'm still falling over while trying to walk around, haven't understood a fraction of the important game instructions that NPCs have bombarded me with, I not only haven't had a combat, I'm not sure I understand what to do when I am, and I've made zero progress on the one little mini-quest I managed to uncover. Not to mention that I suspect my largely random choices during character generation are going to wind up being so poor that I'm going to have to start over from the beginning once I finally understand the game. Not only am I still not beginning the game proper after nearly two hours, I don't even feel like I'm ready for it to start.
I know the game is supposed to be incredibly long even by RPG standards, but I have difficulty believing that it would have been so successful if everyone had this much trouble getting started. I can see three possibilities:
1) I'm just not putting in enough elbow grease, and I need to stick it out,
2) I need to find an easier game to start with, in which case, I could use suggestions;
3) I spent 20 years studiously avoiding all of the evolutions of the RPG that would have allowed me to grasp all the complexities of the modern genre entries, and now I'm just too old and set in my ways to make the change now.
Any advice on which it is? Is it actually normal to fall to your death from the lighthouse 90 minutes in because you can't master basic directional controls?
~Dave
Dave, my friend, you're being far too hard on yourself. While my expertise in PC gaming is far from advanced, I've played my share of games on the old computer and found myself in your shoes more than once. I think what you might be having the most difficulty with is that games like Morrowind are set in an open world. Adventure games tend to push you along on a set path with puzzles along the way. You're in this mindset, I think, and it can negatively effect the way you play RPGs. My advice right now is to check out Oblivion, mostly because I'm more familiar with the game as I have spent many hours playing it. When I had first begun playing it I tried to just follow from story point to story point and found myself becoming bored. I didn't grasp a lot of the finer parts in leveling my character and was ready to quit. What saved my experience was the decision to ditch the main quest. I wandered to a completely new town and just sort of lived the life of my character. Often times the NPCs would say things that seemed important but were actually just random bits of dialogue I had no need for. I ended up joining the Mages Guild while also trying to become a bit of an assassin as well. Everything that took place outside of the main quest was where I found the real meat of the game.
My advice to you is to just step back, both in-game and out of game and look at these games as a blank slate for you to tell your own story with. Don't get bogged with trying follow a rigid structure as doing this will certainly cause more headaches than bouts of joy.
As for other games, I encourage our readers to post their picks for PC games that can ease Dave into the RPG loving fold. If you were looking for JRPGs then I'm your man, but for PC games I give the power to the people
Hi!
Have you or anyone else in the castle thrown controllers about in anger?
And if so, how many brave controllers have lost their lives due to being thrown to heck during white hot rage of video gaming frustration?
Thanks for a great site,
~Teh_Wülf
I've gotten angry at games. We're talking pillow punching, curse word spewing, foot stomping angry. I've never thrown a controller though. Perhaps it was seeing my cousin destroy his Nintendo and TV during Legend of Zelda II, I value my controllers far too much to hurt them. Ok, I don't value them so much as I'm cheap and don't want to have to replace them. I find it is much healthier to direct your anger at others, namely humans who can defend themselves. Careful if they're bigger than you, they'll hit you back.
Mikey: Never, although I've had many bouts of sore thumbs from mashing too hard.
NaviFairy: I haven't ever gotten mad enough to throw a controller, but I have yelled at my controller a number of times. I think some of the most hateful, evil things I've ever said have been directed toward game controllers.
PixelPoet: I guess I don't have anger issues, since I have never lost a controller due to seething anger from playing a game. I think the closest I have come is when I'd play Battle Mode in Super Mario Kart with my older brothers when I was younger and if you lost all your balloons early you'd usually throw/lob)your controller at whoever got you out.
Sgt. Sausagepants: No, but I came very close with Tomb Raider 2.
Game-Boy: Yes, I've thrown controllers. Namely the NES, Genesis, and PS1 (pre sticks/shock) controllers. All lived to tell the tale, but I'm not exactly sure if that says more about their construction or just how much I threw like a noddle-armed wimp in my youth. Now that I have to buy my own console goods and I'm ever so much buffer (yeah, right!) you won't catch me throwing anything. I don't know about you, but with controllers now about $60 a pop I'm treating my them like the finely crafted instruments that they are.
TheDoctor
Posted to Video Games on 27 October 2008
· Comments (12)
Other stuff like this: gaygamer mailbag
... the "hot employees at Gamestop"?
Riiiiight.
@ScoobyG: Hey! I resemble that remark!
I happen to think I look rather dashing in a dress shirt and black slacks.
I don't know about the first two questions but I DO know that when I was a kid I would bite my controller especially on extremely long periods of Super Mario Bros. 3 on the NES......I still have the controller and it works perfectly but it still has the marks to prove it....
Holy crap! Someone else bit their controller? The last game I think I bit a controller though was somewhere in the PS2 Generation. Now with controllers being so expensive and rubber cover-protectors I've moved to chewing bottles in stress. Also, it's hard to fit a Dreamcast controller in your mouth.
Paz, just stay away from the old first gen X-Box controlers.... you'll break your jaw that way.
"Gen 1 X-Box..... seats a family of four"
-Viper
Trauma Center is the hardest freaking game I've ever played.
Flying DS.
I've never gotten so angry that I've thrown a controller, but I have been so angry that I never returned to finish the game.
I still haven't finished the Diamond Cup on Expert in F-Zero GX.
Sorry EshuElegbara I guess I haven't been visiting the right Gamestops :-)
I crushed a PS2 controller in my hands playing Soul Calibur 3. I mean literally just crushed it; I felt the plastic buckle and then it imploded.
It was getting old anyway so it was kind of nice to have an excuse to buy another one.
Oh I did break a controller on God of War, I got all the way to the end on God mode, but I couldn't pass the part where the Kratos clones kill your family.
I was like freaking out: "Fine kill the bitch, I hate her anyway!!!"
But I didn't throw the controller, I sort of beat the shit out of it and ripped its guts out and threw pieces all over the place.
Then maybe I threw it, can't quite remember.
I've never thrown a controller, but I've slammed a few, and I've more than once mashed all the buttons on my keyboard in frustration. Usually results in a nice "beeeeeeeeep" and pretty blue color from the computer screen. :P
I've thrown a controller once.
Ninja Gaiden, on the Xbox.
damned cheating Ninja enemies . . .