Ridin' the Alan Wake Hype Train

Alan Wake is a self-described "psychological thriller" (read: survival horror) game first announced over five years ago. It is finally set for release on May 18.

Despite my general proclivity towards role-playing games and my aversion to "blood n'guts" (that I managed to play through Resident Evil 5 without vomiting is, to quote Ben Franklin's aphorism, "proof that God loves me and wants me to happy") that such "survival horror" games tend to possess in spades, Alan Wake's emphasis on narrative development and puzzle-solving gameplay is certainly palpable to a role-playing gamer like me, and the "T for teen" rating would seem to indicate that the carnage will be kept to a minimum.

Many in the gaming community are already extolling Alan Wake as a "game-of-the-year" contender. There's even an online webisode series prequel to promote the game before its release in the coming weeks.

The metacritic average is in the 80th percentile, which would seem to indicate its not quite the foretaste of heaven some gamers apparently think it is. Still, if I ever manage to finish FFXIII and Pokemon Heartgold, I'm convinced Alan Wake can give me a good jolt of summer fun.

U.S. Supreme Court to hear case on Violent Video Games

h/t Sr. Helena at the Hell Burns blog.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-court-videos-20100427-39,0,5997035.story

Prayers!

Hey all,

Yours truly is undergoing something of a dark night right now and could use some spiritual backup.

St. John of the cross, ora pro nobis!

Console games on a Laptop screen

I don't really want to have a television in my seminary room and I couldn't afford the TV licence either, so I use a little device called EasyCap (and there are tonnes of clone devices with different names) all on ebay for around £10. The device converts the three colour wires that would normally go into a scart lead into a USB head. The USB goes into your PC/Laptop and then you use a video capture program to capture the video coming out of the USB. A decent free program is VirtualDub, a better premium one is AMCap.

Anyway, all this means I can play PS2 games or XBOX 360 on my Laptop screen. There is a tiny lag time between input and display and small sound sync delay but for playing RPGs it is more than sufficient. The device is useful to record the stuff happening in the game and so my brother wants to borrow it to continue his boss walkthroughs for games beyond 5th generation consoles.

The return of 2D platformers

I think it is fantastic that in the last 2 years game developers have started to create some new 2D platform games- there has been Little Big planet, the phenomenally successful New Super Mario Bros and the upcoming Sonic 4. I have never been a fan of the 3D platformers which I think either tend towards becoming adventure games, lame RPGs or simply a continued quest to get a good camera angle. So, lets hear it for neo-retro 2D platformers that get back to the jumping, running, dodging, waiting, timing, falling into lava/spikes, getting crushed, using little springs and squashing enemies that we remember and love.

Video Game Walkthroughs

I'm not exactly sure what I think about walkthrough guides. I wonder if anyone growing up playing games today has had the experience of having had to put aside a game that they simply cannot conquer. When I think back to my NES games there are so many games I never completed- Zelda II, Metal Gear, Wizard and Warriors II. There weren't any walkthroughs around at the time as far as I can recall.

I think nowadays the internet is saturated with walkthrough guides for games. I wonder whether games would be more enjoyable if there was a 6 month lag time before any guides could be produced. Sure it would get on our nerves, but I think that completing a difficult game solo has its own special reward. I am pretty sure I finished FFVII without any guides the first time round and how long it took and how much more of an achievement it was at the end.

It has been one of my resolutions for a while now to complete games first without looking up anything online and it really seems to add to the enjoyment- in the long run. It is also a healthy discipline against curiosity and a kind of soft sacrifice- because we all can get very impatient when we are stuck in a game. In modern seminary language, I think the approach is good "human formation" ;)

Afterwards it can then be fun finding out the millions of side-quests you missed and bosses that could have been defeated in 10 seconds with the right tactic. One of my younger brothers has started a YouTube channel with his boss fights of old Squaresoft games, if you have completed the games already ;), you might enjoy checking out some of the sneaky ways of beating various bosses.

Stories that just get more confusing...

I don't know if anyone else has been following the Final Fantasy VII 'series', my take on it is that the whole thing is getting more and more ridiculous... (at least in terms of storyline). Final Fantasy VII certaily had a wierd enough plotline but the sequals, prequals and side-stories have simply squared the number of questions and expanded plot holes even further.

The identity of Cloud, the identity of Zack, the motive/origin of Sephiroth, the pantheistic planet-worship, the lifestream, the 'resurrection' of Aeris.

Does it matter? That's a good question, and I think it does, certainly so if the games are proposing themselves to be more that just mindless entertainment. Why has it happend? What is causing apparently 'serious' games to tend towards growing into illogical, confusing and incomplete storylines as the game progresses? Chrono Cross, Xenogears even FFVIII are other good examples of this.

Are gamers taking the storylines too seriously? Should the Final Fantasy VII series make sense?

Something in me says yes, that storylines should be completed, that questions should be answered. Pope Benedict in his encyclical Spe Salvi suggests that the desire that we all have for justice in life is due to a fundamental deeply held conviction that there will one day be a final judgement. Things on earth that were unsettled will be settled. The ultimate balance of injustice against God and neighbour will be put right. Our justice will be satisfied because God will bring about true justice. If we are among the saints (which I sincerely hope) we will praise God's justice as we see the accursed sent into hell.

Perhaps in the same vein, the desire for a closure and completeness to a storyline relates to a deeply held desire that is part of human nature. A desire for life to have a meaning a desire to know its meaning. Praise God that we do- in Jesus Christ.