Posted on Nov 12th 2016 at 01:00:00 PM by (Pam) Posted under video, rpg
This video was inspired by the recent Playcast conversation about The Legend of Zelda and whether or not it should be classified as an RPG. While I don't think it should, it does have some elements common to RPGs. Here I take a look at the genre's roots in tabletop games and examine how video games let us develop characters in both mechanical and narrative ways. I also compare western and Japanese RPGs in how they tend to favor one type of character development over the other.
Check out the video and let me know how you define an RPG!
[img width=318 height=320]https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-baiV1FEVCTk/VzqNjrfp1RI/AAAAAAAAAfI/Qcxl5ooFrg0aI0EN4oLTLDrrJzXDI4i_wCLcB/s320/Pit-Fighter%2Bcover%2BGamesDBase.jpg[/img] Image shamelessly stolen from GamesDBase. 3 buff dudes and a lady in dominatrix gear. Nothing can go wrong with this scenario, right? Nothing at all...
Since the inception of the modern fighting game with Street Fighter II: The World Warrior in 1991, scores of video game developers have attempted to jump on the head-to-head fighting game bandwagon at least once. SNK had Fatal Fury, Midway had Mortal Kombat, Data East had Fighter's History, and even Capcom rivals Konami had the little known Martial Champion. However, prior to the fighting game craze companies were still trying to figure out a way to make a fighting game that wasn't just walking left to right, mindlessly punching enemies in the face, but focused more on actual human interaction. Atari threw their hat in the ring (sorry, pun intended) with 1990's Pit-Fighter, originally released in the arcade. The game was received well enough to receive a whole cadre of home conversions, including a port for Nintendo's own Game Boy.
I'm cheating a bit with this entry, both because Halloween is over, and because I've chosen to highlight a game that isn't a typical spooky game in the traditional sense. But I think I'm justified in doing so since before we know it, we'll be drowning in Christmas decorations and muzak carols. I'm not quite ready to let Halloween go just yet.
As we grow up, most of us either decide we don't like scary things and avoid them as much as possible, or can't get enough and watch all the horror movies we can get our hands on. That's all well and good; I love a well done horror flick or game as much as the next person. However, when I think of Halloween, some of my favorite memories of this fall holiday have come not in adulthood, but from my youth, when the most important things in my life were the costumes and candy.
I've moved a few times in my life. It's never been much of a hassle and I usually kind of enjoy it. My family and I had lived in the same house for about 7 years now. Over the last 7 years, while feeling settled, I've definitely added the most pieces to my collection in that time. Last time I moved to a new home, I had around 1000 items in my collection and just a few shelves and a handful of consoles. Nothing crazy and was a fairly smooth move. Turns out it's moving time once again......
But this time there is SO much more to worry about!!
As a hardcore fan of horror movies, there's something that I feel slightly embarrassed to admit. The truth is that I find many horror games actually scare me. Now you might be correct in telling me that that is exactly the point of those games. But it's still odd to me. It is extremely rare for a movie to scare me. I've even found that jump-scares in film have become less effective on me over time. And yet games that many of you play and have no problem with will often leave me totally stressed out.
So what is it about horror games that make me nervous while a movie may not? I've given that some thought and I think the best I can come up with is the way in which we interact (or don't) with media. Which is to say that watching a movie is a passive experience. Though I certainly may feel tense at times, I never really feel like I'm the one in the movie. But a game is an active experience. I'm the one controlling the character in the game. It's easier to put myself in the terror when my decisions matter. If I were to ever yell "don't go up those stairs!" at a movie, the actor wouldn't care less.
Another year, another RetroWorld Expo. As a show organizer, it is an insanely fun and exhausting experience. It's amazing to see how the expo has grown in just a few short years. Let's take a look at RetroWorld Expo 2016.
Galerians is considered a bit of a hidden game for Sony's first Playstation. The game was released in 1999 in Japan, and the following year in Western markets. It was developed by Polygon Magic, published by ASCII Entertainment, and carries the Crave logo for distribution. It seems to have been hidden as a result of the game's late timing on the system, coming just as the hype for Playstation 2 was in full gear. It's also a game that does little to advance the survival horror design formula, other than giving you a different story and weapons that fit the story.
As with most Sony consoles, I purchased my first PSP solely for the purpose of playing the Metal Gear Solid title for the platform. It wasn't Portable Ops though, it was Peace Walker. This means I acquired my PSP pretty late in its life cycle. However, I have played it quite a lot and physical PSP games make up a nice chunk of my overall game collection. I recently added a second PSP to my collection and decided to spend some time with a few games I've never tried before. If I've learned anything from watching MetalJesusRocks on YouTube for years, it's that the PSP is home to many incredible racing games and rpgs. In fact, the first two games here have been mentioned by MJR so many times that once I got back into playing the PSP they were the first games I checked out.
One of the biggest drawbacks of the NES Model 2, or the "Toploader," is its lack of AV out. Being tethered to coaxial output these days seems almost barbaric, especially since the Model 1 Nintendo has it standard! Thanks to the wonders of the internet, and a neat little circuit board, I fixed that issue in short order.
As a bonus, I did some repair to my GBA SP, which warrants some attention in case any would be handymen decided to undertake the job themselves.
Date : Early Winter, 1998 Time : 2am Place: The bedroom in my first apartment
It is cold, maybe forty-five degrees Fahrenheit. It's just the way my room is; like a cool spring day in Michigan, nearly all year round. Suits me just fine. But just for once, I want it to be a teensy bit warmer. I've been glued in front of my crappy CRT for close to five hours now, ever since I got off the phone with my fiancee, and my toes are starting to go numb, but I'm not ready to move yet. DOOM, for the Sony PlayStation, has gotten it's claws into me once again, and this time I'm not moving until I see those credits roll.
There's something inherently natural about the desire to make rhythm. Leave a conga drum out in the open, and it's guaranteed to get bopped a bit by random folks passing by. We may not all have perfect timing, but thumping hands in a percussive manner comes as natural as whistling or toe-tapping to pretty much everyone.
In that sense, the real surprise isn't so much the recent rise and fall of music video games, but rather that they haven't had more of a longstanding presence alongside other classic genres. We've pretty much always seen some variant; sound and pattern recognition (endless runners like Temple Run), instrument training (Miracle Piano, Rocksmith), exercise and dancing (Dance Dance Revolution, Pump It Up), abstract music integration and layering (Frequency, Amplitude, Rock Band Blitz) and of course, the playful guitar/band sims (Rock Band, Guitar Hero).
Most people know that I am a huge fan of the survival-horror genre, particularly the Resident Evil series, so I was immediately intrigued when The Evil Within was announced back in 2013. This was a brand new survival-horror IP directed by Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami, and it promised to bring the genre back to its survival roots rather than the action-oriented approach of more recent horror games. While I still enjoyed more recent horror titles that have been given the label of 'action-horror,' the prospect of a modern title that recaptures what made the old-school games so unique and interesting was exactly what survival-horror fans had been hoping for.
It's October, so it's time for spooky games. Phantasmagoria is a point and click horror adventure game by Sierra. It was controversial due to its depiction of graphic FMV gore and adult themes and became a best seller. But is it any good?
I remember seeing the box art for this game all the time when I was a kid. Though point and click adventure was a staple of my gaming history, I had never played this game before. I've always had a soft spot for FMV as well, though this wasn't quite what I was expecting.
Like many of you, October (or as I call it, Scary Month) is one of my favorite times of the year for theming my gaming habit. Generally, I tend to enjoy playing a small pool of games that are scary or perceived to be scary by others, but I've been doing this a long time now, and I do believe a change is in order. So I will play some Scary Month-themed games that I either haven't played in years or that I am completely new to, with the idea being to play as much as I can and pound out articles as time permits. In the end, hopefully something coherent will come out of this effort. Well, no point in beating around the bush. Let's go.
As RWX approaches and Bil prepares, Crabby and Duke take time to discuss a few topics including PlayStation VR, the art of CRT repair, and the end of a collecting journey.
We are a community of collectors, gamers and the likes, and some of us enjoy to let the world know what is on our mind. For those members, we have the community blogs, a place where they can publish their thoughts and feelings regarding life, universe, and everything. Some of those members might even choose to write about gaming and collecting! Whatever they write about, you can find it on their blog. You can either see the latest community blog entries in the feed you see to the left, or you can browse for your favorite blog using the menu above. Interested in having your own blog hosted on RF Generation? It's rather simple, first be a registered member, and then click the "My Blog" link that you see in the navigation above. Following those two steps will certainly get you on your way to blogging.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy our entries, rantings, and completely unrelated series of thoughts. We write for you to read, so we certainly hope that you enjoy our material.
