Growing up, I was one of those kids who didn’t have an original NES. I always had PC games to play (and I played plenty of them), but there was always something magical about the NES. I never felt like any of the PC games I had could capture the awesomeness of something like Super Mario Bros. or The Legend of Zelda. Luckily, a friend decided it would be an acceptable choice to let me borrow his NES for a few months some time back in 1989 or 1990, and I finally had a chance to catch up.
At one point previously, a different friend of mine demonstrated Final Fantasy to me. It reminded me a lot of the Ultima series, one of my favorite PC RPGs, which got me really excited. Unfortunately, I did not have a copy of Final Fantasy and the prospect of buying a game for a system I did not own was obviously unacceptable. Luckily, this was the era when video stores rented NES cartridges. The store my family regularly went to had two copies of the game, so I rented it one weekend and started playing.
Many Friday and Saturday night rentals later, I finished the game (with a fair amount of assistance from the official Nintendo Power Final Fantasy Strategy Guide, borrowed from yet another friend). As it was my first JRPG experience, I enjoyed it quite a bit and made a point to get myself some sort of video game console so I could play more of these games. I always kept my eyes open for JRPG ports on the PC, but that was a relatively rare event in the 1990s.
Looking back, it occurs to me that one of the things that appealed the most to me as a PC RPG player was the linearity of the game. Where a game like Bard’s Tale or Ultima threw you into “the world” and let you figure it out on your own, Final Fantasy was a relatively directed game. You begin the game stuck on an island with only one dungeon to explore. When you complete that, you get to move onto another land mass with a cave and a city to explore. Each piece gives you access to a little bit more of the world, but that little bit ends up being the next bit you needed.
I will undoubtedly have more to say about the game as I continue to play through it, but here’s to the beginning of the Final Fantasy. Final, insomuch that there have been some twenty something sequels.
WEEK IN GEEK: Andrew spent his week diving deeper into the Lego muck and mire, watching a bit of the Lego Ninjago animated series in order to get some more context to the more esoteric Lego Dimensions levels he has encountered.. Dan didn’t stray to far, playing Resident Evil 7: Beginning Hour, the proof-of-concept demo for Capcom’s sequel Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (or Biohazard 7: Resident Evil in Japan).
MAKING UP WORDS: In the first look at mobile gaming this week, Dan and Andrew talk about a game that seems to be made just for them, Square Enix and A-Lim’s Final Fantasy Brave Exvius and how it scratches certain itches while causing others.
POKE MONGO: Pokémon Go is just about the biggest thing in the world right now, topping the charts of the iTunes free apps and is, purportedly, even bigger than porn with Google searches. It’s a veritable point-counterpoint discussion as Andrew relates his experience playing the game while Dan remains in ignorance while discussing the world-wide phenomenon that is Nintendo’s latest genius move.
LINKS:
-Help local Sacramento comic shop, Big Brother Comics, recover from a dreadful fire that ravaged the store by contributing at the GoFundMe page.
FEATURED MUSIC:
-“Stayin’ in Black” by Wax Audio
-“Cayenne (Cyan)” by Nobuo Uematsu (from Final Fantasy VI)
-“The Chase is Better Than the Catch” by Motörhead
-“Through the Fire and Flames” by Dragonforce
I remember having a semantic debate with Andrew back in high school regarding the correct phraseology to use when discussing the completion of a video game’s content. Basically it came down to two choices: did I beat the game or had I won the game?
This was back in the nineties when declaring a victor in order to make discussion about games as clear as possible mattered, because most games were basically the same thing. Most games were linear, most games had a story to tell, most games had an endgame scenario and player reward of some sort. But that’s gone now, and the need to declare a proper usage seems less significant now that there are games that can be beaten (as if the game were the opponent) and games that can be won (as if the end game or post-game content were a reward––with moregame). Some games now don’t ever end due to being competitive arena-type experiences or challenges to accomplish a new personal best.
There’s also the idea that people just aren’t finishinggames any more, which speaks more to how culture uses video games. I would say that in the eighties and nineties, since most games were basically the same thing, sitting down with a game involved pretty much the same process: 1. learn the mechanics, 2. Master the systems to 3. Complete all the programmed tasks and see the ending and/or credits. Now that’s only one of a variety of processes need to have at the ready when sitting down with the game. In fact, the first step of most gaming experiences now is simply figuring out what kind of game it is before loading in a proper order of operations. Gone Home is not Call of Duty which is not The Last of Us which is not Geometry Wars. The spectrum is only gaining more colors and variations.
Lewis Beard’s Paste article looks at how endings have changed over time and how seemingly harmless new systems fundamentally changed how games are made and played (New Game+). With that in mind, he looks at the modern state of game endings and why, perhaps, they just don’t matter anymore, and that’s fine. It’s just part of the evolution of this field and culture that, with hope, has no end in sight.
This is a harrowing article that really shows how much damage the #GamerGate crowd is doing to video games culture beyond just people trying to play and talk about games on the internet. I just know this: the only other time I have seen or heard of doxxing being used was by white supremacists, which is not the best company to keep.
Academia has been having a hard time in the last few decades as it has become the focal point for not only violence but general cultural ire due to the rise of trigger warnings and “safe space” debates. But it comes down to a simple point of fact: a university campus is a place where you gain education through trial and error. If it’s a safe place for anything, it’s a safe place to fail and try again with guidance (if you want it) and feedback (which you’ll get no matter what). That pressure from outside the academic sphere––in this case, virulent gamers who feel they have been tasked with the job of gatekeeping an open medium––is permeating inward is, in my eyes, a direct violation of what academics is about, a point to which A.D. Andrew hints at the end of her article:
Everywhere, academics with a digital focus are forced to make that choice. Can we afford to exist publicly? Others are making the choice in a different way—by not writing that article, by not pursuing that line of thinking. We talk often about the people silenced by online harassment, but research is being silenced as well. We are losing knowledge and with it, the potential for growth.
The problem is that #GamerGaters and sane people all agree on a fundamental point: video games are amazing. Why can’t it just stop there?
Comicsverse is a podcast I have found over the last few months and really enjoy. It’s dedicated to a nigh-academic (but still incredibly silly) look at comics––mostly Big 2 stuff––that really dives deep into the psychology, cultural criticism, and craft behind some of the biggest titles and their characters. I haven’t listened to every episode, instead focusing mostly on their X-Men-related podcasts (including a recent, really good interview with Chris Claremont).
The most recent X-Men podcast, titled “The Dream”, looks at the series and concept as a whole rather than focusing on a specific story arc or character, which is nice, and goes into great depth on a few topics I touched on in my own conversation about the X-Men with Elijah Kaine. Mostly, the panel-based seminar discussion focuses on the idea of “Xavier’s Dream” and how, over the course of the series, it has been iterated on, challenged, and damaged. They also have some fascinating investigations into the X-Men metaphor for minorities and how the characters have echoed specific real-world ideologies throughout history. It’s definitely worth a listen, though I must warn that even though the humor can get juvenile and a little annoying, the overall content actually makes the tiny cringes I went through worth it. They also bleep out the F-word with probably the worst sound effect I have ever heard, which can be a deal breaker when they go on F-word-fueled tangents.
Last Wednesday saw the release of the newest addition to the Pokémon family of games: Pokémon GO, developed by Niantic, Inc. (formerly, Niantic Labs). Niantic, Inc. was previously known for doing the popular mobile game Ingress. They partnered with Nintendo and The Pokemon Company to apply that GPS/map-based play to the popular Nintendo franchise. Although Dan and I will have more to say about this in this week’s podcast, it was worth taking a moment to address all of the news (both good and bad) that has been popping up over this new title.
Little do people realize GO is an acronym for Geographic Obfuscation.
Stories about Pokémon GO and the outcome of so many people playing have been circulating around various social media and news websites. In Wyoming, a nineteen year old woman found a dead body while pursuing an elusive pokémon. A police station in Australia has warned players against entering the station in order to collect pokéballs or to catch pokémon that spawn there. A police department in Missouri recently reported that a group of teens have been luring people to a pokéstop in order to commit robbery. But, with all that gloom and doom, there are some brighter notes. A large number of Pokémon GO players have been discovering that they are inadvertently exercising by playing the game.
Watch out for those pesky dangers wherever you GO!
I learned that some Pokemon just want to watch the world burn.
As could be expected with something this popular, Pokémon GO has had a few awkward moments. Notorious Amazon Kindle “author” Chuck Tingle recently released Pokebutt Go: Pounded by ‘Em All, another title in his (her?) series of erotic (?) fiction. Several websites have been documenting peculiar places that have been designated Pokéstops, including a Los Angeles bathhouse, a Seattle bathhouse with a “mirrored gloryhole maze,” and other odd and inappropriate places. Most of the peculiarities in location data come from the fact that the Pokéstops appear to be primarily based on location data taken from Niantic’s previous title, Ingress; the “Portal” locations of Ingress were user/player submitted. This explains how so many child-inappropriate Pokéstops came to be in the first days of the game.
All in all, Pokémon GO has been making quite a lot of news since its release.
Week in Geek: Andrew simulates walking in Gone Homewhereby he ponders how this mechanic has future ludic applicability; he also starts playing the strange but intriguing indie game, The Bridge. Dan reads volume 1 of the manga, Akira, upon which the classic animated film is based.
Leave your thoughts about this week’s topics as comments at forallintents.net. Be sure to join the official Facebook page for exclusive links and conversations and updates.
Please leave a review of the show on the iTunes store, which will help spread the word to new potential listeners.
For all intents and purposes, that was a Shortcast recap.
As a writing teacher, the research-based portion of my scaffolding tends to always yield at least a few “Do video games contribute to youth violence?” proposals every semester. Honestly, it’s a tired debate but not because of the questions being asked, but for how little conversation actually happens. Lately, the pattern seems to be that when a new study is published that either states that games do or do not incite violent behavior in children, people then post those studies (or, let’s be honest, articles written about the studies) like flags planted in the ground and say, “The problem has been solved,” and walk away until the next one hits.
polygon.com
The point of view Brian Crecente presents in his article is not only unique, but important. What’s most important is not that he picks a side; instead, he actually problem poses the issue as a way to generate discourse and not simply promote the tribalistic partisan yelling that such topics tend to degrade into. To literally pull from my lecture notes, questions that start with a “do” or “is” can only yield yes or no answers, discouraging discussion and investigation. However, problem-posing questions––the classic Who What When Where Why and How questions––don’t do that. They beg for thoughts and ideas and points of view rather than declarative sound bytes. On big topics like this––especially when topics like gun control and mental health are forced into public interest by yet another shooting by a young person––such nuance and differing points of view should be more thoroughly explored rather than just drawing a line in the sand.
What’s also important in this article is that its author is not a single-adjective author the likes of which we normally hear on these issues. He writes as a father, but he is also clearly a gamer, a person who grew up with games––violent games, too, no doubt––and that informs his approach to the topic, which is a new voice in this conversation and one worth listening to, at least.
Superhero movies live and die on their sense of verisimilitude. As discussed when I talked to Elijah Kaine, the X-Men films succeeded at existing within the apparent paradox of being both faithful to the characters but also being incredibly divergent from the source material. The Marvel films (and Deadpool as well) have become renowned for being, probably, the most faithful comic book characters on screen so far, but even then there is a fair share of divergence. But when Man of Steel orBatman v Superman: Dawn of Justice land in theaters, they are derided for being too divergent from the source material. Then there are the ultra-devout interpretations like 300, Sin City, and Watchmen which are all over the place in terms of criticism and praise. This exposes the question embedded in all of our discussion of superhero cinema: “what makes a good comic book movie?” An entire Comic Con panel, I’m sure, could be dedicated to this question, but it’s one that Matt Singer surreptitiously addresses in his article as it relates to the ill-fated Green Lantern movie from 2011.
Warner Bros.
His basic argument is really interesting––is it damning to be, in a sense, too faithful to the source material?
Green Lantern is maybe the best proof to date that when it comes to superhero movies, faithful doesn’t equal excellent.
I’m sure this point is arguable, but I am not a Green Lantern scholar in any sense; however, it does help to focus the discussion around superhero movies––what does a faithful adaptation/movie look like and is it a movie we want to see?
I started reading Penny Arcade in 2002 or 2003. Since that time, it has evolved into the strangest of pop culture chimeras that evokes a sense of awe but has an underpinning of fear that, for some reason, it could all come crashing down at any moment. As a business, it felt like it expanded incredibly fast, but it withstood the current it helped create. They added more and more people to the fold, but the basic personality and attitude of the site persisted. The two creators went from being struggling, edgy voices of the generation to being––I assume––reasonably wealthy magnates of a new industry, but they seem rather unchanged by the developments. It could be argued that all of this growth and stability came from the direct management of the Penny Arcade business manager and president, Robert Khoo.
polygon.com
With Khoo announcing his exit from the company, it understandably has a lot of people worried. He was the master of the Penny Arcade Jenga tower, and, as he walks away from the puzzle, the worry is that it will, surely, crumble in on itself.
Matthew Loffhagen looks at what a post-Khoo Penny Arcade could look like, especially through the lens of PAX, as the keys of the kingdom are handed back to the original creators, Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Loffhagen focuses on a more legitimate worry than the knee-jerk reaction a lot of the internet provided (basically likening Khoo to an internet Jesus), and looks at the co-creators’ behaviors with fans and controversial statements and stances they’ve taken over the years and how that could impact not only the conventions but also the fans (the famous Dickwolves disaster comes to mind, among others). Drawing the line from one poorly-said statement to a massive PR catastrophe seems easy in this new administrative situation.
However, such thinking discounts Khoo himself. If we have learned anything in his decade-long+ tenure as the nerd mastermind, it’s that he knows what he’s doing. Watching everything from PA the Series to Strip Search, it’s clear that Khoo is a chess master, the Deep Blue of business, always three steps ahead of everyone around him. With that in mind, what becomes clear is that Khoo’s decision to leave was not rash; he left because he knew he could and Penny Arcadewould be fine without him. While Loffhagen’s very specific concerns are, indeed, valid, I think overall that Khoo is leaving Penny Arcade exactly where it needs to be, even if it isn’t as clear as we would hope.
When I got new Transformers toys as a kid (and, perhaps, as an adult…maybe) I tended to throw away the packed-in weapons that the toys came with right away. Back in the ’80s, losing weapons was often a consequence of design; it was a problem that G.I. Joe toys had or M.A.S.K.toys had or He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (but not Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, their toys were perfect…not really, I’m sure they had the same problem)––the tiny blasters or swords fit nowhere except for in the hands of the characters. This was less of a problem for the other toys mentioned (since they could just permanently hold their weapons at the ready), but the point of The Transformers was that, at indeterminate intervals, you shouldn’t be able to see the characters’ hands because they were busy being some sort of vehicle (or electronic device or firearm or planet) and, in that case, there would be no place for the weapon to go. So, they got lost.
However, abandoning the weapons of Transformers toys was a choice on my part, not on behalf of any political agenda I held at the age of 5 and 6, but because I wasn’t buying the toys to recreate action scenes. When I spent time with my friends, the talk around playing with toys often came down to the simple binary of who would be the bad guys and who would be the good guys (the Decepticons and the Autobots, respectively, in this case) so that we could either ad-lib or reenact a decisive battle that would result in either global tyranny or peace on earth. I wasn’t particularly interested in these scenarios, possibly because I’m an only child and would often play with my toys alone, and big action set pieces weren’t fun nor particularly interesting.
WEEK IN GEEK: Andrew plays more Lego Dimensions and also attends a Pride-week cosplay contest while Dan plays Mega Man 2 in the Mega Man Legacy Collection.
HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN: Keiji Inafune’s hotly-anticipated, long-delayed, much-derided Mighty No. 9 has finally been released to much controversy. Dan and Andrew wade through the hot mess that some have called the “worst game launch ever” (which it most likely isn’t).
WHAM-BAM EXPLOSIONS: Current James T. Kirk actor, Chris Pine, said in a recent interview with SFX magazine that Star Trek can’t be cerebral in 2016. Andrew and Dan unpack that statement and talk about all the things working for and against the new Star Trek.
Be sure to visit ForAllIntents.net for updates, articles, and videos and leave your comments about the topics discussed there. Be sure to also join our official Facebook and Google+ pages. E-mail the show at forallpod [at] gmail.com or the hosts directly at dbethel [at] forallintents.net or andrew [at] forallintents.net. Please leave a review of the show on iTunes, which will help spread the word to new potential listeners.
For all intents and purposes, that was an episode recap.
FEATURED MUSIC: -“Stayin’ in Black” by Wax Audio
-“Main Theme” by Manami Matsumae (from Mighty No. 9)
-“Sabotage” by Beastie Boys
-“Elec Man Theme” by Manami Matsumae (from Rockman/Mega Man)
We’ve broached the topicof adaptationsfrom one medium to another a few times over the life of the podcast, but this is a nice, focused look at a unique case. Growing up in the early days of anime proliferation––when titles were few and unprofessional translations could be bought (of varying quality) at conventions––Akira was kind of “the” anime. Not in the sense that it was the only one, but fans talked about it as if the film rested atop the peak of quality, outshining everything beneath it. You had to watch it and you were not going to understand it. It existed as a kind of filmic puzzle box that people would attempt to parse and explain which only further confused the discourse. In spite of that, Akira remains quite an amazing movie when watching it as an adult. Technically, it’s an awe-inspiring work of art. Its story, too, while often confusing and obtuse, does have a lot of incredibly complex social ideas and themes, especially about youth/teenage culture.
The truth is that the Akira film is an adaptation of a manga series that wasn’t even close to being done and writer/director, Katsuhiro Otomo, had to draw conclusions that made sense for a two-hour animated film. That’s what makes the movie such a standout from other adapted manga, however. It must carry some legitimacy because Katsuhiro Otomo also wrote and drew the manga; so, the moviegoer must be seeing a glimpse into the future. However, being such a big story, the task of adapting it into a movie that made any kind of sense at all would be an unenviable task, which makes it a fascinating case study in the continuing dialogue about adaptations. Tom Speelman’s article dives into the relationship between the anime and the manga in detailed and cogent fashion, drawing together the point that––despite some uneven spots––Otomo was able to create two masterpieces in two different mediums in the span of a decade. No matter how you look at it, that’s a feat that deserves a closer look.
With the massive success of the Marvel Studios movies and the can’t-help-but-watch trainwreck that Warner Bros. has done with the DC heroes since Chris Nolan left The Dark Knight trilogy, it’s easy to see the Fox and Sony licenses (The Fantastic Four/X-Men and Spider-Man, respectively) get short shrift from comic book fans, especially. Now, with regard to The Fantastic Four, Fox has done itself no favors and Sony straight-up gave up the fight to an extent by––as we all saw in Captain America: Civil War––giving Spider-man back to Marvel in all but the actual rights, so the anti-Fox/Sony arguments do carry a lot of weight, but the X-Men movies have become almost a forgotten undercurrent over which the “superhero movie” genre now flows.
I think “undercurrent” is the right word and that’s what Dan Marcus’ article does its best to show, recreating how the world felt back when the first X-Men movie was released in 2000. The only successful comic book adaptation made before it––aside from the Superman films––was Blade, but a lot of people didn’t even realize that was a comic book character beforehand; knowing that or not, the movie didn’t make any attempts to really draw that connection, either.
The first two X-Men movies were an interesting and important step because even though they didn’t fly the comic book colors in the way Marvel has deemed necessary in a modern context, it was still obliquely reverent, capturing what was important about the comics even if they changed a lot of details. While I personally think that the drubbing X-Men: Apocalypse received was mostly unearned and feverish due to its proximity to both Captain America: Civil War and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, without the X-Men franchise it’s fair to say that we wouldn’t have the Marvel Studios that we have now, and the X-Men should just be allowed to keep on keeping on (except for X-Men: Last Stand; that should be thrown into a fire).
We have previously discussed the announcement a few years ago about a movie based on the Tetris franchise. Film producer Larry Kasanoff, probably best known for his work on the Mortal Kombat series of movies, recently said some words about his current project, the appropriately titled Untitled Tetris Sci-fi Project. In an interview with Empire, he informed the world that this Tetris project would, in fact, be a TRILOGY of movies, to stand alongside such classic trilogies as the I Know What You Did Last Summer trilogy, the Delta Force trilogy, and the BloodRayne trilogy. Actually, given disaster producer Uwe Boll’s involvement in the BloodRayne trilogy, that may not be a bad comparison.
Probably a still from 2005’s BloodRayne movie. Or maybe the writer’s room for the Tetris movie.
Now, the producer has stated that this epic trilogy will not feature anthropomorphized giant blocks with hands and feet. In fact, he seems pleased that people expected that. “We’re not going to have blocks with feet running around the movie, but it’s great that people think so. It sets the bar rather low!” In the alternative, he continues to emphasize that this will be a big sci-fi movie experience. “I came up with the idea as I was thinking about Tetris and the theme of creating order out of chaos.” Apparently, Kasanoff has more respect for the thematic depth of Tetris than I do.
Movies based on video games are nothing new. Producer Larry Kasanoff already made his mark on the genre with 1995’s reasonably successful movie, Mortal Kombat. Others have tried, mostofthemwithlittleactualsuccess. But what concerned me with the original Tetris movie announcement and this more recent trilogy announcement is the fundamental lack of narrative or storytelling depth of Tetris.
The gripping storyline of Tetris, in all its glory.
There’s something to be said about taking a game with some sort of story, no matter how flimsy or poorly conceived, and trying to restructure it into a cinematic experience. There are characters, themes, and vague story lines that a creative writer (or, a mediocre film making hack) can re-purpose into a 90 minute story. It can be done well or it can be done poorly, but there is a clear direction for what the movie will be about.
But that isn’t the case here. We are talking about the classic puzzle game developed by Russian game designer Alexey Pajitnov. There are no characters. There is no story. You drop pieces of a puzzle into a pile and make them disappear. This game has all the narrative pop of taking out the garbage. It may be that the closest comparison to a Tetris movie is the 2012 “military thriller” Battleship, based on the classic board game, or maybe even the 2016 family film Angry Birds, based on the popular toilet-time-waster. Neither of those games had much of a particular story and both were adapted into successful (or, at least profitable) cinematic experiences. But at least those games had a theme that the “writers” were able to latch on to. Or, in the case of Angry Birds, recognizable characters. Tetris has none of these things.
With that in mind, it’s easy to understand the public skepticism concerning this Tetris movie trilogy. ‘I guarantee you it’s not what you think,” Kasanoff told Empire. It’s difficult to imagine any sort of movie based on the popular puzzle game, so his assertion is valid. “No-one has come remotely close to figuring out what we’re doing.” At least we don’t need to worry about a weird spaceship full of astronauts that correspond to Tetris blocks.
