Hindsight

Let’s step back to yesterday, Tuesday.

I actually had a moment to rest in between the “wrap up” errands I needed to do before closing my time in Kitakyushu. F-Zero AX (the arcade complement to the upcoming “F-Zero GX” for Gamecube) was in a local game center so I tried it out. The sense of speed is definitely there, though there’s a bit more to it now.

(low light + poor hand = blur)

Like other recent arcade games in Japan , F-Zero AX can make you a “license card” for 100 yen. After you’ve raced your first time with the card, you can use it to keep track of your racing stats and upgrade your vehicle parts. Other games like the recent Virtua Fighter arcade game and Initial D (racing game based on the popular manga seres) also feature license cards. It’s a great idea, in my opinion.

After shipping my final boxes off, cancelling my J-Phone service (feeling naked without my cel pone now) returning the English textbooks to the BOE and getting my last great haircut from the guys near Kokura Station, I met up with the Shimomoto family one last time. We ate at a place right below the Lucky Moon (read: gaijin bar) which was really good. Everything was deep fried and tasty.

I had my last Ichiran ramen with Chris and Dion. This is a picture from the 11th floor of Building 7, where Dion now resides.

Dion and I chatted it up well into 2am or so. I’m going to miss our chats about… well just about everything.

This morning I woke up at 5:30. Everything was packed and ready to go the night before, so there was little to run about. I listened to some Mogwai to set the mood right, shut off the gas and power and walked out with my bags. I will miss Building 7. I’ll miss Kanada Kodan.

I took the shinkansen to Osaka and met up with Hiro & Yoshie, Shinji and his wife of three months, Aya. It’s good to see gamer company/friends here again. We went to Nijojo in Kyoto, just an hour-thirty drive away. Temples abound. After we all went to a tonkatsu place that Aya recommended. Quite possibly the best katsu I’ve ever had.

The rest of the evening was spent at Shinji’s (and now Aya’s) apartment. It was a lot cleaner than last time – I’d like to think that Aya had something to do with that.

Things come full circle in strange ways – Shinji was ecstatic to see all of the Final Fantasy soundtracks I had sitting in my laptop and eventually loaded up Final Fantasy X to show me my favorite gaming scene: Yuna (the game’s female lead) walks on water and performs a ritual to send the souls of the dead to a higher plane. Later he played some music from the game. It made me think about my former job where I tested games.

Hiro and Yoshie had to return to Nagoya, as they have work tomorrow. As I said goodbye, Shinji told me “they are good friends”.

“..All because of PSO” I said. All because of a chance meeting at an online console game.
“Yes,” he responded, going on to praise the fact that online games connect people. If he isn’t great, I don’t know who is.

I’ve spent the rest of the evening talking about games with him, and later going online to post this. While I was dabbling on my own PC, he started playing Final Fantasy XI on his PS2. Later, Aya took over the PC.

I feel wonderfully comfortable in this household.

I bought “Ocean Blue” last August when I arrived in Japan. I used it when I had the chance to pick up some Japanese releases and it served me well. Soon it will be in Sissie’s hands – its new owner.

Farewell, trusty console…

I opted for a combo bento of sorts today rather than my usual run of 1,000 yen sushi.

Here is the successor to Ocean Blue. Meet MB or Midnight Blue. It’s a Playstation 2 with a network adapter and hard disk drive already bundled.

PlayStation 2 broadband (BB) has started to get a push here. The 3 releases currently advertised include “Minna no Golf Online” (“Everyone’s Golf” or “Hot Shots Golf” as it’s known in the states), “Final Fantasy XI Online” and “Nobunaga Online”.

“Minna no Golf Online” (or MINGOL as it’s called for short) is enjoyable for those who can’t devote a lot of time towards online RPGs. I’ve already had a few sessions that were a lot of fun. Online play is free until July, when Sony will start charging a 500 yen a month subscription fee (roughly $4.00 US).

Included with the PS2 BB Pack is the latest version of its “BB Navigator” software, which is still in its infancy (version “0.20″) but shows what Sony has been planning to do all along, especially with their upcoming “PSX” media center.

The interface for the navi software is beautiful and, in my opinion, surpasses that of the XBox’s.

Without a game in the console, the system starts up and allows you to jump into the “channel” menu which offers the following channels:

Game
Movie
Music
Photo

Game is self explanatory – you can load up games that have been installed into the hard drive (in my case, “Minna no Golf Online”), manage save data, and so on.

I haven’t experimented with the Movie options that much other than play a DVD movie (which the PS2 has been able to do since its initial release).

Music. Just like the XBox, you can load up CDs and copy them to the hard drive via the music menu. In addition, if you have a NetMD minidisc player, you can hook it up directly to the PS2 via USB and dump the tracks straight to the MD – it’s available right from the menu.

Photo is where you can upload photos to your PS2 – I haven’t tried this but the option is there. Supposedly it supports most Sony digital still cameras off the bat.

While not a full fledged, net-surfing computer (*yet*) it’s easy to see where consoles are headed. Similar to the XBox, it’s not a bad package considering you have a solid video game system that can get online, take photos from a digital camera and send & receive e-mail. Maybe that’s all some consumers need until the next iteration of consoles.

What other kinds of features should we expect from consoles in the coming years?

It appears to me that Lord British (Richard Garriott) is working on his next online role-playing experience under the Destination Games label. What I find interesting is that his studio is partnered with NCSoft, a Korean-based software company.

Speaking of Korean games, I noticed some decent E3 showings in the Kentia Hall of the Los Angeles Convention Center – where the Korean-based developers were stationed. Ragnarok Online has my full attention. Since the main content is obviously in Korean, I’m out of luck when trying to catch the latest news with the game.

Gran Turismo 3 has its funny moments: last night I was playing against Mari – we both decided to drive in Mini Coopers around the oval course in 2P mode. Those things look like RC Cars in the replays. Hilarious.

Alright, I’ll write off some things before they are forgotten, but here are the titles that I’ll want to look into this year after seeing them at E3….

Playstation 2:
ICO
Silpheed (yeah it’s old, but I never saw it until now..)
Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
FF Chronicles
FF X
Gran Turismo 3 (and the wheel by Logitech)
Twisted Metal Black
Harvest Moon for PS2 (maybe?)

“ICO” seems mystical and looks quite nice. At first I wondered why there weren’t any menus or on screen text while playing. What I found out was that this game is reminiscient of Prince of Persia on some respects. Graphics for this are very nice, and it’s supposed to be released July of this year, so keep an eye out for this third
person adventure.

Dark Cloud reminds me of Zelda, I spent a few looking at various sequences and gameplay. I haven’t really seen any RPGs out for the PS2 that I’ve wanted to buy, but this one just might have the elements I want to make it a purchase.

FF Chronicles, which will have Chrono Trigger and FF4, is another pick. Who didn’t like FF4? We have to talk…

GT3 is absolutely gorgeous. It was rather difficult at “Normal” mode, which means I’ll probably have to end up practicing many times to fully enjoy this game. I recall muttering “It’s arcade perfec– wait a minute, that statement is pretty void now isn’t it?”… While playing a night driving mode, the break lights coming from cars in front reflect off the road. During wet weather this is even more apparent. The game ran at a smooth 60fps and I couldn’t see any pop in- you can see off into the distance pretty well, which was impressive. Rally racing even looks wonderful and realistic. Polyphony has nothing to worry about as developers. Are they ever going to make anything else?? GT3 is supposed to be out next month.

Electronic Arts ran with the same booth design as last year.. massive with a huge video setup. The things that I noticed immediately were “SSX Tricky” and “NBA Street”, both by EA BIG.. SSX got my good side, so NBA Street ‘should’ be nice. It is, as with SSX, abundant with “attitude”.

When I heard that Incognito, developers of Twisted Metal 2, came back to make TM Black, I figured I’d give it a chance. It looks real slick, with tight controls and tons of action, so I just may buy it. I recall trying TM 3… Was that the one developed by 989? I know Twisted Metal 4 was, and it was pretty damn bad.

I’ve totally been naive about Harvest Moon.. I saw a “50% complete”, PS2 version over at the Crave/Natsume booth (Crave is publishing for them), and it looked beautiful… I’ll have to rent it. Will it come out by Xmas?

PC Games:
Red Faction
Anarchy Online
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Aliens v. Predator 2

I was curious about Anarchly Online when I heard that it was going to be a MMORPG with cyberpunk elements of sorts. I didn’t get a chance to play the game very much (as I told Rick while we were driving home from the con on day two, I can’t get into an RPG at a fast-paced convention). Funcom says it will be 12.95 a month to play Anarchy Online, and the game ships June 27th. For now I’ll call it “Everquest with tech elements”. It looks very complex and has the potential to destroy my social life.

I’m big on first person shooters, so Medal of Honor, Return… and Aliens v. Predator 2 look like possible buys. I hope my Duron 700 can handle ‘em.

Red Faction, may be published by THQ, but is an FPS developed by Volition (Descent: Freespace for PC). The PS2 version is out this Thursday, with a PC release due out “third quarter”. Personally I’d rather play an FPS like this on a PC, so I’ll hold out.

The key selling point for Red Faction is a weapon which destroys walls/barriers, which can change the gameplay considerably, especially for multiplayer I think. Hear shooting in the other room or hear your opponent picking up an item there? Blow a hole in the wall and freak him out. Fun fun fun. RF takes place on Mars, I believe, and consists of FPS play in addition to flying / controlling certain vehicles. The name of Volition’s engine escapes me, but it’s got to be a derivative from their Freespace engine.

Etc:
Factor 5′s “Star Wars Rogue Leader” for Gamecube looks like the only title I’d really want to buy. The Battle of Yavin looks beautiful, with barrages of laser fire coming at you from turrets and space craft. As usual, John Williams’ score makes everything exciting…

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater on Game Boy Advance was surprisingly fun and smooth.. The game uses a isometric (overhead, 45 degree angle sort of) view. In addition, a Bomberman title was also playable (Bomberman Story).

Reflections’ “Stuntman” was not playable – they only ran a teaser reel. Beneath it was a booth babe setup with a female cop and a crashed police car to boot. While the scenes displayed were impressive (some Bond stunts in there I’m sure), I was sad I couldn’t see anything playable. Stunts I saw included weaving in between cars successfully and one where you drive such that you hit a ramp so that one side of your car goes over it for that all-too-common “car is launched and does a roll” scene used in A-Team and older car chase films. The game, which is sort of self explanatory, involves you trying to pull off stunts successfully for Hollywood productions. The better the movie, the more difficult the stunts. I hope to see this one at E3 next year. Infogrames announces a “Fall 2002″ release.

I guess those are my initial thoughts for now. I’ve been coming home tired every night because of the drive to and from the Convention Center.

Phantasy Star Online is like crack! I was on it from 3 until 6am. I’m quite tired but also relieved that midterms are over.

So I’m reading The First Quarter at 1:30 in the morning… and I’m smiling.

It’s really fascinating to me…. the history of video games. Just because I grew up with an Atari 2600 (“under fifty bucks!”), Nintendo Entertainment System, and so on and so forth. I wasn’t aware that Steve Jobs worked for Atari, and that his best friend (at the time), Steve Wozniak, actually redesigned their title Breakout.

It’s revelations like these that are very interesting to me. Finding out more about the creation / progression of the video game industry…

And I’m only on page 76.