Is going to destroy me.
I spent way too much time editing the “stealth concept” article. So, visit GiantBomb.com and be sure to listen to the podcast.
Those guys are great.
Is going to destroy me.
I spent way too much time editing the “stealth concept” article. So, visit GiantBomb.com and be sure to listen to the podcast.
Those guys are great.
I loved answering the phone.
Which is probably why I didn’t get to do it very often.
I would clock in, and then ask the shift supervisor who the sponsor was this week. Every week, a publishing house paid corporate money to have us push a game when we answered the phone. I heard that corporate often “cold called” stores to make sure that they were pushing the right product. I hated corporate, but I enjoyed what I was doing for one day a week.
So I decided to combine the two.
“So, who owns us this week?” I ask as I finish clocking in.
“SEGA, Virtua Tennis, pre order for only five dollars, blah blah blah. You know the drill.” Rob sounds bored, but then he always sounds bored. “You got the phone today so don’t forget the sponsor.”
“Sure.” The phone rings. I pick it up, and take a deep breath.
“Hello!” My voice booms through the too small space of the too crowded storefront.
“And thank you for calling EBGames! Brought to you by SEGA!” I make sure that they know that SEGA is all caps.
Customers begin to stare. My face is contorted with manic enthusiasm for SEGA and Virtua Tennis.
“Located in the beautiful Pentagon City Mall in Arlington Virginia! Come visit us today!” I remember that we have a sponsor, and take another deep breath.
“Where you can preorder SEGA Virtua Tennis for only five dollars down! This is John, how may I help you?!”
Rob stares.
No response from the phone. I think I hear breathing, then an abrupt click.
“Hello?” I shrug and hang up. I turn to Rob. “No one was there.”
“You know what ‘John,'” Rob says taking the phone from my hand, “I think I’ll answer the phone today.”
I think one of the best reasons I still play City of Heroes (and Villains) is because of the people. Which is funny because the reason I’ve left other MMOs is because of the people. I’ve been playing for nearly five years now and still, I’m surprised and entertained by the humor and creativity displayed by the players of the City of games.
Most of it is due to the setting.
Which is Rhode Island.
Of course, since this is a video game, it happens to be the nexus for all sorts of super powered things happening in the entire world. As a consequence of that setting, anything goes. Anything from a knight errant magically transported through time, to a gritty streetwise martial artist that fights crime with his bare hands is fair play in the City of Heroes, and the developers wisely gave you a convenient location for you to put all the juicy details of your heroic or villainous background for other players to read.
Most people (at least in my experience) seem to be older, and it’s many a mission interrupted by a quick chat message, “AFK, putting the kids to bed.” or its like.
Besides, in what other game could I run into “G. Gordon Liddy” and “Neal Patrick Harris?”
Both Villains, of course.
Regarding the Cartoon Network’s free to play MMO, Fusionfall:
If it’s as half as cool as its trailer and comic, then it’s well worth the cost of entry.
Which is, of course, free. A lot of it reminds me of the Power Puff Girls fan comic from Snafu comics. Mainly the older characters and the darker tone. Both take their characters a short time period into the future, both have a Japanese influence, and both are fun reads with story lines a little bit older than you think they would be. I’ve yet to sign up for an account, but I’m thinking about it.
A lot of it reminds me of Phantasy Star Online, a game I played so much that I actually fell asleep while playing it. I was woken up by one of my teammates, who was telling me they needed me to open a door, and was wondering where I had gone about four rooms ago. I awoke to find my character running headlong into a corner in an empty room.
This was during its second release, on the original xbox, with voice chat. I played it through on its initial run on the Dreamcast and then proceeded to play it again on an entirely different console because it was so fun.
So, I’m already sold on the gameplay.
I have a box of books from my mother here, and it’s mostly filled with Choose Your Own Adventure books. They’re really interesting, mainly because they’re written in the second person. That is, they always address, “you.”
Which is of course, similar to how Interactive Fiction has to be written. They are games, in a way, although in book form. It’s like a puzzle, but really written so that you’ll be encouraged to try different paths. Of course, being a paperback book, you inevitably end up on the same path every now and again.
There are the straight up, “Choose Your Own Adventure” but I also had a few of the “Time Machine” books where you went back in time to observe or repair the past. Of course, if you went back to observe, you always ended up having to repair the past anyway. Looking at the Wikipedia entry I realize now that those books are old.
I know people younger than those books.
But they’re fun reads, and it’s nice to be able to revisit them, although the plots are simplistic and they’re sparse on details. A lot of the “choices” wind up on the same two or three paths. Of course, the same complaints can be made about video games today. No matter what the medium, the ability to give an interactive participant real choices with real consequences is always going to be limited by the story they are trying to tell.
And ultimately the story is what is going to make me put up with these artificial choices. As long as the story is compelling, I will overlook being railroaded into one or two paths.
Of course with video games, there’s the added impetus of whether or not the game is fun or not. Books have the equivalent of whether or not it’s fun to read, but considering these have all been written for around the fifth grade reading level, they’re not so engaging anymore.