Interview with Naughty Dog Co-Founder Jason Rubin

This is a very exciting week for us, because after 35 entries to our Top 50 list, we finally get to write about Rings of Power. It might seem a little unusual for us to get this excited about one of our Top 50 entries, but Rings really made an impression on us and was one of the games we specifically had in mind when we decided to write lengthy features for each game on the list. You could say we’ve been waiting this whole time just to write about Rings of Power, but that wouldn’t be entirely true. I think I’ve been waiting to write about Rings since I first played it twenty years ago.

With that in mind, we wanted to do something a little special, so I got in touch with Jason Rubin, one of the two people most responsible for making the game. Jason might not be one of those super-famous game designers, but he and Andy Gavin really ought to be. They co-founded Rings of Power developer Naughty Dog when they were still teenagers, made Rings of Power a few years later, and then went on to make several other really successful games, including Crash Bandicoot, and Jax and Daxter.

To put that into perspective, in the late 80′s, while still in college, Jason and Andy were making Rings of Power for a company they had created themselves. Ten years later, also while in college, I was working a part time job at the mall selling some of the more recent games their company had made.

You know what? I had better get on to the interview before that starts to sink in:

Q: You and Andy Gavin made your first game when you were 15, and Rings of Power was made while both of you were still in college. How did you learn this craft at such a young age?

Jason: When we started making games there were no courses taught, and barely any books to read.  You just sat and hacked.  Andy and I were lucky enough to get computers early and we spent a huge amount of time on them.  Cracking games turned into bad games which became decent games which became good games.  Eventually we got published.  Learning in such a fashion became harder and harder in the 90′s because there wasn’t a good outlet for the games new developers made.  But today, in 2012, it has never been easier to learn to make games and get your titles in front of the audience.  I get a lot of emails asking what to do or what school to enroll in to “get into the business.”  The truth is, if you have a computer and an internet connection you have access to everything you need.  Just do it.

Q: You guys also founded the developer Naughty Dog, which has created a lot of successful games, the most famous of which is probably the Crash Bandicoot series. With so many bigger successes under your belt, does RoP even stand out in your mind at all?

Jason: I have fond memories of Rings of Power.  We spent 3 years on the game, mostly because we were developing the game by modem from two different universities.  It was a huge game, and testing it took forever.  It was also our first console game, and the first game that put us in the mainstream.

Q: Compared to most console RPGs available at the time, Rings of Power is really innovative – the game is much less linear than other RPGs, allowing you to go after the rings in any order you choose, talk to any character about any topic, and you can even fight almost anyone in the game if you choose. Was this a conscious choice to do something really different, a reflection of your PC gaming background, or just the natural result of making the game that you wanted to make?

Jason: Rings was definitely the game we wanted to make.  Back then we took development much more casually than we did later.  We were still making the games we wanted to play rather than the games our audience wanted to play.  As hard core gamers we made Rings detailed, open, and difficult.  Later games were more casually entertaining and easier to love.  That isn’t to suggest that there was anything inferior about Rings, just that it was always going to appeal to a smaller, more dedicated audience.

Q: Was it at all disappointing that not many other console games followed your lead – do you wish Rings of Power had been more influential?

Jason: Rings of Power had a single major challenge: It sold out quickly but was never restocked by EA.  There were multiple reasons for this, from the cost of the cartridge vs. other games (it had more memory and expensive storage), to our royalty (really high), to the internal competition for limited space in the print run (Madden).  Rings became the best selling used game on Genesis very quickly because it simply couldn’t be found new.  So Rings never had a chance to become a major hit.  Frustration with this led Andy and I to leave the game business… briefly.

Q: Were there any major influences for Rings of Power in terms of game design, story or art style?

Jason: Oh sure.  Rings was influenced by dozens of games, books, and other media.  Andy was the leading designer on Rings, a position I would take over there after.  This was a combination of his strong love of RPG’s, and the fact that he was the one who was writing the code and it was impossible for me to have that much influence from 1000 miles away!  It would probably be better to ask him what the specific inspirations were.

Q: During the Sega Genesis era, Electronic Arts seemed like a company that published a lot of really unique games and was willing to take some chances that other publishers might not have. What was it like to work with them back in those days?

Jason: Electronic Arts was named Electronic Artists when it started.  It was completely run by development.  Developers had their pictures on every box.  But larger budgets and teams brought larger risk, and the wild west days of game development led to much more structure.  There was initially no malice in this change, and it happened in every publisher.  I would argue (and have – see my DICE speech) that the pendulum swung way too far in the other direction in the early 2000′s, with publishers believing that games were “packaged good” like cereal or bleach to be differentiated by marketing, but things seem to have worked themselves out in the long run.

(Editor’s note: for those of you who can’t watch the hour long presentation, or perhaps believe that internet video is some kind of evil magic, Gamespy has a pretty decent article on the speech here)

Q: One thing that we really enjoyed about Rings of Power was how funny some parts of it were. Was this something you had intended to do right from the start, or did more and more humorous elements and dialogue work their way in as you went along?

Jason: Andy was responsible for writing all of the dialogue and I think a combination of a twisted sense of humor, and ungodly long hours of writing led to the Rings sensibility.  There were a huge number of lines of dialogue for a game in those days.  I think over time that the humor crept in and then stayed.

Q: Is there anything about the original you would go back and change if you could?

Jason: Rings was abusively long.  While a small percentage of players got benefit of that, I would imagine that most didn’t get close to finishing.  This size led to the expensive memory chips that had to be on the cartridge, and so indirectly led to Rings being a short publishing run.  I would imagine that had Rings been split into two games that EA might have been able to manufacture more of them, and the games would have had a larger impact.  Is there such a thing as too big?  Perhaps there is!

Q: Are you surprised that 20 years later the game still has some fans posting videos, running websites and discussing it on message boards?

Jason: Every creator wishes that his or her creation is appreciated.  So of course we always hoped that this would be the case.  Having said that, there are so many great games out there, not to mention other forms of entertainment, that it is still incredibly gratifying when something I have created strikes a chord with someone. Rings was probably Andy and my last “pure” game.  After Rings, we tried to make the broadest number of people happy, rather than focusing on what we wanted to play ourselves.  So if Rings still has devoted fans, then these are probably gamers who are, or at least were, as close to Andy and my game sensibilities as could be.  Today, with connectivity through the internet it is easy to find someone who shares your tastes.  Hell, these days Zynga changes its games continually based on the audience’s feedback.  When we made Rings, that wasn’t the case.  You just put it out there and hoped that there was someone who appreciated it.  I’m always excited by the fact that we found those souls.

Q: And finally, will there ever be anything Rings of Power related in the future – a re-release for something like PSN of XBLA, or a sequel, or merchandise? I would definitely buy a Rings of Power t-shirt.

Jason: Haha.  You would have to ask Naughty Dog and Sony that question.  Sony owns all of the rights to the games that Andy and I created through their purchase of Naughty Dog.  So neither Andy or I have any say.  It would be cool though!

In their own words… (Non-Gaming)

We wanted to do something to honor President’s Day this year, so Stryker and I got together and made up a list of all the presidents who have ever served this country. Then, combining our research and journalism skills with some good old fashioned voodoo, we asked each of them what their greatest accomplishment was as president. Almost everyone was eager to talk about their legacies, although I think a few of them didn’t really understand the question.

Without further ado, here are the Presidents of the United States of America discussing their greatest accomplishments:

George Washington

“You know that day off from school you would get every February? I’m like, half-responsible for that.”

John Adams

“What do you mean I didn’t do a whole lot as president? Are you suggesting there was something wrong with the country I had just set up for you?”

Thomas Jefferson

“How many other world leaders can say they dealt with Napoleon and came out of it with MORE land than they had started with? Yeah, I’m that awesome.”

James Madison

“I was president during the War of 1812, which worked out pretty well for us, except for the embarrassing part where we got our ass kicked by Canada. I had forgotten about their Bear Cavalry.”

James Monroe

“I’m pretty sure I’m the first person in history to ever tell the British to keep the hell out of their backyard and actually have it work. Oh, and my backyard was the entire Western Hemisphere.”

John Quincy Adams

“In before Jackson!”

Andrew Jackson

“As President, I campaigned against national banks and paper money. You’ve probably seen me on the $20 bill.”

Martin Van Buren

“You know, just getting elected is really an accomplishment in itself.”

William Henry Harrison

“I’m the answer to a trivia question!”

John Tyler

“I had a better immune system than my predecessor.”

James K. Polk

“I was the first ninja to be elected president, but of course, given the secretive nature of the ninja, that’s going to be impossible to prove.”

Zachary Taylor

“My greatest achievement is ruling the nation while sitting upon this giant pile of skulls.”

Millard Fillmore

“I sent Commodore Perry to Japan, to help modernize that nation and open them up from their isolationist ways. So all you video game and anime nerds have me to thank for that.”

Franklin Pierce

“Between my election and inauguration, I was in a goddamn train wreck and survived. Turned out to be sort of a foreshadowing of my presidency, though.”

James Buchanan

“I started the White House tradition of Spaghetti Thursday.”

Abraham Lincoln

“Thanks to me, states like Texas and Florida are still part of the U.S. Also, Alabama… it was sort of a package deal.”

Andrew Johnson

“I gave a speech while absolutely HAMMERED at my own inauguration… Or wait, was  that Lincoln’s inaugural? Man, I was so wasted.”

Ulysses S. Grant

“I established the first national park at Yellowstone… Look, after you lead the Union Army to victory in the Civil War, even being the President is sort of a letdown.”

Rutherford B. Hayes

“I rocked a pretty impressive beard for a while.”

James A. Garfield

“There’s a street named after me in Hamburg. All the other streets in that neighborhood are named after presidents, so I’m pretty sure they meant me and not the cartoon cat.”

Chester Arthur

“People who learned all their history from The Simpsons might think I was the first black president.”

Grover Cleveland

“I was elected to two non-consecutive terms, which is sort of like getting the public to admit  ‘Man, we really screwed up when we elected that other guy’, and let me tell you, the public HATES admitting when they’ve screwed up.”

Benjamin Harrison

“Um, yeah… I was that ‘other guy’ that Cleveland was talking about.”

William McKinley

“I’m the only person in history to get shot at the fair without a carny being involved.”

Theodore Roosevelt

“I’ve basically killed at least one of every living thing on this planet.”

William Howard Taft

“Fattest president of all time. Which also makes me the most American.”

Woodrow Wilson

“I must have done something right for Glen Beck to hate me as much as he does.”

Warren G. Harding

“I ran on a campaign promise to ‘Return to Normalcy’ and then presided over one of the most scandal-ridden administrations in history, thereby normalizing political corruption.”

Calvin Coolidge

“I won a presidential election with the slogan ‘Keep Cool with Coolidge.’ That actually worked. People in the ‘20s were pretty stupid.”

Herbert Hoover

“Babe Ruth made fun of me for making less money than him.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Greatest achievement? Hmm.. kind of hard to choose between defeating Hitler and ending the Great Depression. How am I not on $10 bill? Alexander Hamilton? Seriously?”

Harry S Truman

“I’m sort of like the Mariano Rivera of World War II, except my strikeout pitch is atomic bombs.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Without my administration’s efforts to promote conformity, we’d be living in some kind of a Beatnik dystopia.”

John F. Kennedy

“The greatest thing I did as President? That’s easy. Marilyn Monroe.”

Lyndon B. Johnson

“I outlawed segregation, so that Americans of all races would be treated equally while I sent them to die in a meaningless war.”

Richard Nixon

“I’m the reason why whenever anybody calls Bush the worst president ever, someone else always says ‘Now hold on a minute…’”

Gerald Ford

“I really, really like pizza.”

Jimmy Carter

“I helped Reagan get elected. You know, by sucking.”

Ronald Reagan

“Remember when, after more than 30 years of escalation, the US and USSR finally just launched all their nuclear weapons at each other and ended the world? No? The exact opposite of that actually happened? Yeah, you’re welcome.”

George Bush

“I managed to keep Dana Carvey relevant for an extra couple of years.”

Bill Clinton

“Let’s just say you should have seen some of the other chicks I was banging in the Oval Office. Also, the whole 8 years of economic growth and creating a budget surplus thing.”

George W. Bush

“Thanks to me, Iraq wasn’t able to obtain weapons of mass destruction, while our allies in North Korea and Iran were!”

Barack Obama

“Health Care Reform – I took something that was fundamentally broken, and forced everyone to buy it. That will fix it… somehow.”

We’d like to thank both Fatsquatch and Chris for their input on this project, as well as the awesome website Big Mo’s Presidents Review, where we did a lot of the research for the lesser known presidents. It’s an informative and entertaining read – check it out!

Bad Dudes Vs. Dragon Ninja: A Retrospective

Every so often, a game comes along that really gets some mainstream publicity, and this public attention can have an impact on our ordinary, non-game related lives. Most commonly, it comes in the form of a game such as Mortal Kombat or Grand Theft Auto III, fueling the debate on violence in the media. But Bad Dudes affected our lives in a much different way. Its plotline (that the president had been kidnapped by ninjas) terrified Americans everywhere, but also made them more aware of the threat posed by ninjas to our democratic society.

“President Ronnie has been kidnapped by the ninjas.” If this sounds insane to you, it’s probably because you are too young to remember the late 1980′s, when we were all on a first name basis with the president, and the ninja menace had reached its peak. As a result of the game Bad Dudes, and the hysteria that followed, the nation went on a full-ninja alert, and we learned to never trust the little bastards.

The story to Bad Dudes is very complicated. As the game begins, Duke Nukem brings you up to speed on current events, and then questions your “badness”.

Despite this, however, the game’s main message — that all we really needed were two bad dudes to protect the president from ninjas — was not heeded until the “US Department of Bad Dudes” was opened in 1996; well after the ninja threat had subsided.

But enough of the history lesson. What you really want to know about is the game. Bad Dudes (vs. Dragonninja) is a realistic simulation of the response to such a tragic event as President Ronnie being kidnapped by the ninjas (it bears repeating). You control a “Bad Dude” who has the ability to jump, kick and punch his way to saving the American way of life. But since the ninjas make fun of his girly punches, he only will punch when nobody is around. Otherwise, he just kicks. (What’s truly amazing is that the ninjas don’t make fun of his fashionable sweatpants/muscle shirt combo.) Like any great martial artist, your Bad Dude can also set himself on fire; which discourages others from fighting you, as they all will think that you are nuts. Or else they just assume that you will end up killing yourself that way.

Hurry, Bad Dude! Don’t let that ninja get the clock before you do!

Although you are an elite fighting machine, the challenge in front of you is tall. You must fight through an army of glass-jawed ninjas that can only be killed by kicking, punching, knifing, tripping or sneezing on them. In an emergency, you can also jump over the ninja, causing him to keep running on past you until he eventually reaches the ocean and drowns.

There are several different ranks of “the ninjas”. The main ones are blue ninjas, who apparently have a contagious disease and try to kill you by running into you. Grey ninjas will throw tacks on the ground in front of you, and, convinced that nobody could ever possibly overcome such an obstacle, calmly walk away. Then there are the red ninjas, who follow the ancient ninja art of camouflage by wearing the brightest shade of red they can find. The ninja clan trusts these elite red ninjas to carry their most prized assets, such as knives, nunchuks, cans of coke, and um… clocks (is Flavor Flav one of the ninjas?!). Naturally, you should kill these red ninjas first to obtain their (questionably) useful items.

Just a guy on fire.  No big deal.

The highlight of Bad Dudes is the boss fights. The creators of this game went all out thinking up ideas for bosses and came up with some really original ideas, such as…

* Porting late-80s video game star, Karnov, from his own game

* a Green Ninja

* a guy who looks like Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

* a look-alike for pro wrestler “Hawk” from the Legion of Doom

* a Yellow Ninja

* a Purple Ninja (he’s grape flavored)

* a Pink Ninja

* a Beige Ninja

* an Orange Ninja

If you are skilled enough to defeat any of these evil foes, the Bad Dude will raise his fist in victory and scream something unintelligible, which may be “I’m Bad!”, but could also be “I’m Brad!”, “Hi Dad!”, or “I’m Fat!”. And of course, if you defeat all of the bosses in the game, you rescue President Ronnie (who, if you remember, had been kidnapped by the ninjas). At this point you receive your ultimate reward: President Ronnie eating a hamburger! (I have taken a few liberties in writing this article, but the hamburger thing is 100% true). Then the Bad Dudes tell you not to use drugs and to always wear sweatpants and muscle shirts…then the credits roll. It’s fantastic.

This is, undoubtedly, one of the most moving endings in video game history. (Thanks to Fatsquatch for the slick animated .gif)

Will this game always be remembered fondly by future generations? It’s hard to say for sure. Games of this style were a dime a dozen back when Bad Dudes came out, but many people preferred it over other beat-em-ups such as Double Dragon or Final Fight because of its amazing storyline (which features President Ronnie being kidnapped by the ninjas) and gritty realism. Without a proper sense of the history surrounding it, it may be hard to truly appreciate that realism, and by extension, the game itself.

Why Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven is Unquestionably the Most Realistic Ninja Game Ever

In the history of video games, ninjas are everywhere – from Bad Dudes to Shinobi to Ninja Gaiden to Final Fantasy. Ninjas are so popular in video games that it’s easy to get confused and think that they are simply fictional characters, created by game designers.  You know, like Mario, Pac-Man and John Madden. However, ninjas were real, and played an important role in the history of medieval Japan, although the real ones barely resemble the characters we are used to seeing in video games. Until now.

The Devil will occasionally ask you what time it is, but as long as you show him, he’ll leave you alone.

Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven is the third game in the Tenchu series, and like its predecessors, it is a very realistic simulation of what a real ninja was like. Tenchu encourages the player to rely on stealth and sneaking to complete your objectives, instead of constant fighting seen in most other games about ninjas. This means that instead of walking up to the front door of a heavily guarded compound in broad daylight and whipping throwing stars at everyone, you instead wait until nightfall, then climb over the wall, and then sneak in through an open window.  Only then should you whip throwing stars at everyone.

The realism is evident right from the character select screen, as you are given the choice to play as one of three totally authentic ninjas. The first, Rikimaru, is realistically dressed in traditional ninja garb, which covers up everything except for his most recognizable features – a scar around his eye and his hair, which follows the ancient ninja style of looking like it was cut by a drunk amputee using a flowbee while having a seizure. The female ninja, Ayame, wears the traditional tight pants and tank top that all female ninjas wore in their time. In order to keep her identity a secret, she makes no attempt to cover her face, and constantly yells out her own name when confronted. Then she kills everyone who sees her.

There is also a 3rd ninja, called “Guy I Haven’t Unlocked Yet”, who is not playable until you beat the game as both Rikimaru and Ayame. This is to recreate a special, little-known branch of the ninja, who would only go into action if two other ninjas had already done all the missions and defeated the enemy armies first.  They weren’t very useful.

Note that the enemy ninja goes to great lengths to cover his face and body, whereas Ayame is wearing a tank top, the same belt as Slash from Guns N’ Roses, and no mask.  Also note that Ayame is about to kill the hell out of the enemy ninja.

In order to assist you in completing your missions as stealthily and realistically as possible, there are many items to help you. The time-honored tools of the ancient ninja, such as grenades, mines, sticky bombs, exploding arrows and fireworks, will all make a lot of noise and draw attention to you, which is critical to being sneaky. There are also whiskey flasks that you can drink from to recover your health, throwing stars (which are mandatory for all ninja games) which you can be used to kill dogs or piss off (but not kill) guards from a safe distance, and “strength potions” which even today are still used, no longer by ninjas, but by professional athletes. Less-realistic ninja games rarely offer you the opportunity to go into a mission equipped the same way real ninjas were – with whiskey, steroids, and bottle rockets.

Of course, the best item in the game is the poison rice ball. Guards love to eat rice, and if they see a rice ball, they will go to it without question. The prospect of free rice causes them to forget any other concerns they may have, such as doing their job, the huge cliff they will walk off of in order to get to it, or why there is a big pile of dead guards all around the rice ball. Apparently in medieval Japan, rice grew in a ball shape on trees, and when it turned ripe it would fall from the tree, similar to an apple. So just like you wouldn’t find it unusual to see an apple laying on the ground, the guards in the game understandably find nothing strange about seeing balls of rice laying around outside and eat them. Even if they happen to find them in underground caves, on top of roofs, or inside castles.  Rice can be a very aggressive plant.

You may be asking why the guards are so stupid about the rice balls. It’s because they are stupid about everything. I have to admit that I don’t know much about the profession of being a guard in feudal Japan, but considering how realistic the rest of this game is, I think its safe to say that the guards in this game would also very true to their historical counterparts. Therefore it’s safe to say that only really low-intelligence people were hired as guards. There could be a lot of reasons why. Considering that there are so many evil plots for you to stop, it’s entirely possible that all the people of average intelligence or higher were already evil masterminds, leaving only the dumb people to be their guards. Or maybe the average guard’s diet just contained a lot of mercury.  It’s hard to say.

Hmmm, yesterday when Bob found that ball of rice on the floor and tried to eat it, a ninja came around the corner and almost killed him.  I’d better eat this one before that happens again.

In addition to the characters and weapons, the designers also went to great lengths to make the missions as realistic as possible. Instead of the tired scenarios that we’ve seen in hundreds of other video games, every level in Tenchu is something that you’ve never seen in any other game – for example, in one mission you have to rescue a kidnapped princess. In another mission, you have to cross a graveyard, but instead of having normal human guards, which wouldn’t make any sense at all, the graveyard is full of fire-breathing zombies, just like real life. I can’t even tell you how many books I’ve read about ninjas that described all the times they had to sneak past zombies, often while laying land mines, shooting off fireworks, and drinking whiskey.

Of course, all this realism would be wasted if the player didn’t play along and try to act like a real ninja. So in order to encourage you to sneak through levels, you can kill any guard in one strike if the guard doesn’t see you. You lose points for being seen, but gain points for every “stealth kill”, so getting a high score requires not being seen and killing from the shadows. If your score is high enough, you will get a new item that will help you be even sneakier, so its a reward you can put to good use.

However, if you are bad at sneaking, don’t worry. You can plow through enemy guards pretty effortlessly, or if you want, just run past them – they probably won’t be able to catch up. After a while they will stop chasing and instead mock your cowardice by saying things like “Yeah! Run away! Run away toward that thing I was supposed to be guarding!” Of course, doing this will get you a low score, but that’s okay since getting a high score only rewards you with items that make it easier to sneak around, which you weren’t really doing anyway.

The greatest enemy of any true ninja is Alice Cooper.

There’s no denying the realism of the Tenchu series, and Wrath of Heaven is a perfect example.  Whether you’re sneaking up behind a zombie and cutting its throat, drinking whiskey to recover from a tough battle against wooden robots, or shooting off fireworks to distract evil Buddhist monks while you sneak into their temple, you’ll marvel at the historical accuracy of all these activities.  Nothing could be more closer to the real thing.

A Beginner's Guide To Role-Playing Games

Perhaps no genre of game has undergone such a dramatic increase in popularity as the console RPG. Ten years ago, RPGs were very long, single-player games that relied heavily on story and character development (instead of high-speed action) and were only played by a handful of lonely geeks. These days, it’s still pretty much the same, except that thanks to the internet and the highly disproportionate number of lonely geeks who frequent it, RPGs seem a lot more popular now than they were before. Sure, Gran Turismo 4 outsold Suikoden 4 about 10,000 to 1, and GameStop probably sold more copies of GTA: San Andreas at a single store than they did of Star Ocean 3 company wide — but who’s going to have the more active message boards and fansites? Which games are going to inspire the most fan-fiction, remixed soundtracks, and flash animations? Madden might have the best sales numbers in history, but Chrono Trigger just won its 5th straight online poll for “Best game ever”. So suck it, Madden!

Despite this surge in (perceived) popularity, a lot of gamers out there are still pretty clueless about Role Playing Games. So I’ve taken it upon myself to write this helpful article to let you know all the essential, basic information about RPGs. Once you’ve read this, you’ll be all set for the never-ending excitement of choosing “Fight” off of a menu!

By the way, you’re not an assassin, are you? Because if you are, I probably shouldn’t have told you that.

The Kings in RPGs usually have longish hair, a neat beard, and look a little bit like Jesus. But unlike Jesus, they generally aren’t the greatest military thinkers. When faced with an enemy invasion by an army enhanced by evil magical powers, they don’t bother drafting up a militia or building defensive structures or anything like that. Instead, they prefer to send their least experienced soldier (you), on a “scouting mission”. You know, if you already knew about your enemy’s secret planned invasion and evil magic, maybe scouting isn’t the problem. Just a thought.

Anyway, to give you a better chance of survival, the king will team you up with some allies to form an adventuring party. These allies are different from game to game, but there is generally at least one half-animal half-man who might be a furry or something and can’t really fight OR use magic effectively. His job will be to stand on the front line and take damage, and occasionally use a potion to heal one of your more useful party members. Another character you see in a lot of RPGs is the king’s daughter or niece who, despite being enrolled in magic college for the last 8 years, only knows how to cast Fire 1. I’m sure this goes over real well with the cheapskate kings: “Fire 1? That’s it? Have you been skipping classes again? $200,000 gp a semester and all you can do is cast Fire 1? Is that what I’m paying for? I learned how to do Fire 1 last week off the back of a cereal box. Hell, yesterday the chef undercooked dinner a little and I cast Fire 1 on it because I didn’t feel like getting up and going to the microwave. If you don’t clean up your act, I’m going to start sending you on insane hopeless quests with strangers I just met, young lady.”

I have pink hair and I can cast Fire 1!

More often than not, the king will send you off into the wilderness completely unarmed. Sure, he’ll have swords hanging on the walls and suits of armor lining the hallways, but he’s not going to share them. Every so often, if you’re very lucky, he might be so generous as to give you a rusty sword for all the members of your party to share. “This is for the 3 of you to share,” he’ll say as he gives it to you, just to make it perfectly clear that it’s all you’re getting. He won’t even make one of his many fully armed castle guards go along with you. It’s not like the guards are doing anything they couldn’t be taken away from — they just pace the castle aimlessly, and if you go near them they say helpful things like “The king is just ahead! Go right in!” without bothering to check to see if you’re, say, a terrorist or enemy assassin or anything. They’ll even stand by idly while you loot through the castle’s treasure chests in plain sight. If the king really wanted to help you out, he should order his guards to give you all their weapons — it’s not like they’re ever going to use them for anything.

Sometimes the king is generous enough to give you enough money to buy one healing potion. This is already a bad idea, but what makes it worse is that the king will be wearing more jewels than Liberace, and the castle will be filled with solid gold candleholders, oriental rugs, and marble fountains that are 3 stories high, so it’s not like the kingdom is strapped for cash or anything. Sometimes I wonder if these “quests to save the world” aren’t really just efforts to boost the economy… you know, get some adventurers out there wandering the countryside and killing wild animals to find money to spend on weapons, armor and hotels. Otherwise, those wild dogs and green slimes will just hoard their money forever without spending it, and you can’t create economic growth like that.

A lone voice of reason…

You get some crazy-ass items in RPGs. I once was able to equip my Knight with a diamond helmet, diamond armor, a diamond shield and a diamond sword. He must of looked like some kind of insane combat-ready pimp in that getup. My favorite all-time item in RPGs though is the bandanna, which appears in many different games. You generally get it early in the game before you can afford to buy a helmet for your character. The bandanna raises your defensive rating a little, often about half as much as the cheapest helmet would, which if you really think about, doesn’t make any damn sense at all.

I mean, how exactly does a bandanna raise your defensive rating even a little? Are there enemies who attack by spraying sweat on your forehead and hoping it drips into your eyes? I’m just trying to imagine a scene in an RPG similar to the one in “Fellowship of the Ring” where they first discover Frodo’s mythril armor:

(Goblin stabs Main Character in the forehead with a sword. Main Character falls to the ground, slain. Goblin is killed by various party members who then rush over to aid Main Character.)

King’s Niece Who Can Cast Fire 1: Oh my God! Main Character! Are you alright?

(Main character doesn’t respond. Knight in All-Diamond Equipment and Character With a Useless Special Ability shake their heads solemnly and look sad. Suddenly, Main Character coughs and opens his eyes.)

KiADE: He… he’s alive! That attack should have taken the top of his head clean off!

KNWCCF1: It’s a miracle!

CWaUSA: (pointing to Main Character’s bandanna) It’s not a miracle, it’s his bandanna! The bandanna stopped the sword from cutting him.

KiADE: I’m beginning to think that there’s more to this Main Character than meets the eye…

Screw not panicking the people… You don’t seriously expect to fight off an invasion with 5 inexperienced warriors, do you?

Well, I got a little ahead of myself there, as I didn’t tell you that every RPG has at least one character with a useless special ability. In most RPGs, some if not all of the characters will have a special command you can choose in a fight, which is unique to that character. Some of these abilities are useful, but we always end up with a few beauties like these:

* An “Aim” attack that does less damage or takes longer to use than the standard “Fight” command, but is supposed to be more accurate. It will always miss.

* An attack that hits the same enemy four times, but each hit does 1/4th the damage of a normal attack.

* A “Protect” command that will allow one character to act as a human shield and get hit by all the attacks intended for other characters, thus protecting them. The character who has this ability will invariably be the one character you’d least want to sacrifice.

* A status ailment command that will cause your enemies to be poisoned, fall asleep, or be paralyzed. It will only work on enemies that you could kill in one hit.

* A “Control” ability that will allow you to take control of an enemy character and use it against the other enemies. By the time you actually get this command to work, your other party members will have killed all the other monsters, and as soon as you gain control of the creature, one of your allies will attack it, breaking the spell anyway.

* A “Berserk” ability that will give the character super-strength, but won’t allow you to give him commands for the duration of the battle. He will then use this opportunity to unleash his new super-strength on the other members of your party.

* A “Lore” or “Blue Magic” command which allows you to learn any special attack that a monster does to you. The attacks you learn, despite being utterly devastating to your party when monsters do them, will do far less damage in your hands and generally be less effective than the “fight” command.

That isn’t to say that all special abilities are useless. Thief characters will have the option to “steal”, which allows them to pilfer things from your enemies, right in the middle of a fight. You can get rare weapons and armor this way, as well as ordinary items that you need to keep in high supply. I don’t know why, but apparently wolves always carry tents with them everywhere they go. There is also a weird code of ethics among thieves in RPGs: it’s ok to steal items from an enemy in the middle of a fight, but not his money; and it’s ok to steal money from the body of an enemy you kill, but not his items, unless they’re really crappy items.

Townspeople in RPGs are similar to Canadians — they’re all really friendly,

but they never have anything interesting to say.

Townspeople in RPGS are always so friendly. You can barge right into somebody’s house, and instead of throwing you out or shooting you, they’ll start talking about how this town is the easternmost town on the world map. Nobody seems to care if you take stuff out of their house, though they do go through the trouble of putting it in treasure chests, which they have scattered throughout their living room and kitchen. I think they just do it to trick you into thinking that because it’s in a treasure chest, it’s good stuff worth stealing. Just once, I want to walk off with a townsperson’s kitchen table and cooking caldron just to prove that I’m not falling for their “bandanna in the treasure chest routine” again.

While you’re in town looting people’s houses, it’s important to rest up at the INN. If an RPG gives me a lot of party members, and lets me change them whenever I want, I like to set it up so that I have one guy and the rest of the party is women before I check into the hotel to rest. I figure that’ll give them something to talk about. I can imagine the conversations around town next day:

Innkeeper: That adventurer came to the hotel last night with three women. They all shared a single room! Must have been quite a night for him, huh?

Townsperson: Welcome to Plainsnia! It’s the easternmost town on the world map!

Innkeeper: God, I hate this town!

A lot of people get a chuckle thinking about how the main boss in an RPG rarely does anything except sit in his lair and wait for you to come kill him. Actually, I can’t say I blame him though, because the final bosses tend to live in dungeons loaded with the most dangerous monsters in the world. Sure Sepiroth might have been a real badass, but I’m sure he got sick of killing 10 gigantic spiders whenever he had to go buy groceries. Not to mention that every monster you kill trying to get in and out of your evil lair is one less monster than can attack the good guys when they come to get you. You think the final dungeon of Final Fantasy 3 was hard? Imagine how much harder it was before Kefka went out to mail a letter and ended up having to kill all the Gigadeamons on the way back to his TV room.

Well, that about covers the basics. Hopefully, this information will help you enter the exciting world of fantasy and micromanagement. And if you’re ever in a tough spot and feel overwhelmed, just remember: ALWAYS choose “fight”.

Need For Speed: Most Wanted — Plot Analysis & FAQ

Fans of racing games may have been a bit surprised to learn that one entry to the Need for Speed series, NFS: Most Wanted, features a career mode with a rather extensive back story. Plotlines to racing games are nothing new (who will ever forget the original Test Drive’s riveting story of “You just got a big bonus at work, now go try out these hot cars you want to buy”?), but few of them are as in-depth as the epic tale woven in Most Wanted. Because of this, many racing fans might be too inexperienced to fully understand the complicated ins-and-outs going on throughout the game. As the TJG staff’s racing game expert, I took it upon myself to write this handy little guide to help you navigate through the literary masterpiece that is NFS: Most Wanted. I’ll break down the story as it’s given to you, as well as answer common questions as they come up.

The game begins in the present day, with you about to challenge Razor, the #15 racer on the mysterious “blacklist”. A woman (later revealed to be Mia) collects the pink slip from each driver. The pink slip dictates ownership of the car, so by putting their slip on the line, each racer is essentially betting their car on the outcome of the race. As she takes your slip, Mia gives you some advice on how to beat Razor.

Frequently Asked Question: Mia warns you that Razor will “swap paint” if he has too. What does that mean?

Answer: Allow me to explain this to those of you who aren’t familiar with racing terminology. “Swap paint”, means that if you win and Razor has to give you his car, he will first paint it all ugly colors, and write “I am a loser” across the hood, thus ruining your prize. Psychological games such as this are what makes Razor such a dangerous opponent. Well, that and the fact that he cheats.

Razor is driving a pretty fierce looking Mustang, but your BMW has a much, much bigger spoiler than his car, and that is of course the most important factor in a race. The race begins, but about halfway through, Mia calls. Mia is pretty hot, so you don’t think twice about picking up the phone and talking to her even though you’re in the middle of a death-defying race on crowded public streets with a car worth hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line. She warns you that there is something wrong with your car, and then the game fades out.

FAQ: What does Razor mean when he says “First I’m gonna take your ride, then I’m gonna take your girl?”

A: The first half of Razor’s statement is fairly obvious, since the drivers are racing for pink slips, but the second half is a bit more puzzling. It is possible that in addition to their cars, Razor and the player might have wagered their girlfriends, as well. It’s also possible that this car race is only one half of a biathlon, and the second half is some kind of piggyback or three legged race where each driver partners up with his girlfriend. Since the women would essentially be the “vehicle” in such a race, they would surely be at stake in the second event, in order to maintain some level of consistency.

There is a flashback, and we’re taken back to six days ago, when you first entered the city of Rockport. Illegal street racing is like any other career, and you’ve come to the big city to start climbing the corporate ladder, make the big bucks, and make a name for yourself. Only instead of a “corporate ladder”, it’s more like a small-time crime syndicate. The people of Rockport LOVE illegal street racing — the only businesses in town appear to be car dealerships, tune-up shops, and Burger King — and you even get into a race as you are driving across the bridge into town. This is how we are formally introduced to Mia, who races you for a little bit before both of you stop at a red light.

FAQ: Wait, illegal street racers stop for red lights?

A: No, only Mia. Which should also answer the question “Why isn’t Mia on the Blacklist?”

While you are sitting at the red light, a police Corvette comes out of nowhere and stops in front of both of you. Mia takes off right away, but you don’t know any better. Unfortunately, the game’s main villain, Sgt. Cross, is driving this police car and he hates people who stop for red lights… HATES them. This is probably because people who are stopped at red lights interfere with all the illegal street races that seem to be the basis of Rockport’s economy. He gets out of his car, yells at you for a while, but then has to leave for another call, and lets you go. He keys your car as he’s leaving, which would have been really awful if not for the fact that you’ll end up scraping 90% of the paint off of the car by hitting the walls during every race anyway.

You spend the next few days racing and building up your reputation, and eventually run into Ronnie McCrea, one of Razor’s boys. You race, and after you beat him, he leads you to a covert gathering of the blacklist members, which is like 10 feet away. Apparently when they aren’t racing against each other for ownership of each other’s cars, blacklisters enjoy hanging out together and talking about bands they like or something. Razor yells at Ronnie for leading you to their secret hideout, which seems kind of silly since their hideout is a public boardwalk out in the open. There are probably old men who accidentally stumble in on Blacklist meetings when they go to feed the pigeons.

FAQ: Seriously, what’s up with that spoiler? It’s about twice as big as the entire car.

A: A spoiler is the most important part of any street racer’s ride, as it provides an instantaneous and economical performance boost. As proven by numerous trips through the parking lot of a local mall, any car, be it a Saturn, a 15-year old Buick, or a minivan, can be instantly turned into a high-performance racer simply by haphazardly bolting a few pieces of sheet metal onto the trunk. The bigger the better, so to make sure that his highly tuned, extensively modified BMW doesn’t get embarrassed by an otherwise inferior car (such as a Ford Fiesta) equipped with a top-quality spoiler, the player has installed a comically oversized rear wing.

After a brief scene on the boardwalk and another race, the game flashes to two days before the scene at the beginning of the game. As you are driving, you get a phone call from Rog, who sets up most of Rockport’s races. Apparently, there is some kind of illegal street-racer yellow pages, because as soon as you get off of the phone with Rog, Razor calls you. It may seem weird that so many people want to talk to you, but keep in mind that you do have a ridiculously oversized spoiler on your car. In addition to single-handedly doubling the performance of your car, it’s also a great conversation piece. After a brief conversation with Razor, we are brought back to the present day.

FAQ: What does Rog mean when he says “Look what the Underground brought out. Now let’s see how you do in the daylight”?

A: It is probably a reference to the previous Need for Speed games, Underground 1 & 2, and is meant to imply that you are a character from one of those games. Alternately, it’s possible that your character is supposed to be some kind of goblin or dark elf, who would normally live underground. If this is the case, then you truly are at a disadvantage here, because direct sunlight will make your weapons and armor disintegrate, and all your rolls will receive a -1 penalty.

The opening scene between you and Razor is replayed. Again you race, and during the race Mia calls to let you know that you left a HUGE oil slick at the starting line. Car engines don’t do real well running at over 100 mph with no oil, and shortly after getting the message, the engine explodes and the car is wrecked. Needless to say, you lose the race.

Razor seems pretty happy to win your car, and doesn’t seem to be too concerned about the fact that, according to the game’s own economic model, that engine is going to cost almost $100,000 to replace. Mia runs up and asks what happened, since she is apparently too dense to figure out that the problem she called you about might have led to the demise of the car. Razor vows to “drive it the way you never could,” which we can only assume means “without an engine”.

The cops arrive and the blacklist racers take off. This bodes badly for you, because if there’s one thing Sgt. Cross hates more than people stopped at red lights, its pedestrians. You get arrested for standing near a street-race or something, but are released from jail before too long. Your good friend Mia (who conveniently abandoned you after the last race) picks you up and informs you that Razor sabotaged your car before the last race. Well, dur. You also learn that while you were in jail, Razor used your BMW to move up to the top of the blacklist. Mia drops you off at a car dealership, and that’s where the game really begins.

FAQ: How does Razor move up to the top of the Blacklist using your car, if you wrecked the engine in the last race?

A: Razor couldn’t have earned the money to replace the engine BEFORE moving up on the blacklist, so he clearly had to have figured out to win races using the car without getting it repaired. My guess is that the other drivers just got a load of that spoiler and gave up without even racing. This probably explains why they still have their cars. Either that, or else the blacklist switched to soapbox derby while you were gone.

Throughout the majority of the game, there isn’t much story progression. Rog calls you to set up races with other blacklist members, Razor calls to threaten you, and Mia calls to basically just be your personal cheerleader. About halfway through the game, Sgt. Cross leaves you an insane, rambling message in which he informs you that he has ways of getting your phone number, and that he’s from the “old school”. He also asks if people still call each other “homey” anymore, and then rags on your car for being ugly and says that he will bring you down. It’s vaguely threatening, but not really in the way Cross intends… Instead of sounding mean, the whole thing just makes him seem like a creepy stalker.

Once you defeat all the other Blacklist drivers, you can challenge Razor to the final race. After you beat him, he warns you that nobody will last long at #1 with him breathing down their neck, and if you want the keys to your old car, you’re going to have to take them from him. By this point in my play-through of the game, I already had two Lamborghini’s, a Viper, and a Corvette, so I was content to let him keep the BMW. Mia, however, steps in, takes the keys, and reveals herself to be an undercover cop. She arrests Razor, and the rest of the Rockport P.D. swoops in to get the other Blacklist racers, who have apparently forgotten how to run away. Mia throws you the keys to the BMW and tells you to run for it.

FAQ: Wait a second… Isn’t this the story from The Fast and the Furious?

A: Yes, but that just makes it better. I mean, haven’t we all at one point or another thought that The Fast and the Furious could be turned into the coolest game ever if you got to be Vin Diesel’s character and Paul Walker was replaced by a really attractive woman? I know I have.

As you are running from the police, Mia calls and warns you that Sgt. Cross has gotten wise to your usual escape techniques. This time, the only chance you have to get away will be to go to the broken bridge and jump it (I guess Rockport is located somewhere in Hazzard County). You drive to the bridge, and with the aid of your amazing spoiler, are able to glide over the sizeable gap in the bridge to safety. The police cars, equipped only with merely ordinary sized spoilers, fall off the edge and are unable to continue pursuit. The game ends with you safely driving away while the remaining police can only look on and shake their fists angrily.

FAQ: Why does Mia beg you not to hang up on her when she calls you?

A: Mia feels pretty bad about not telling you she was an undercover cop and then using you to get to the rest of the blacklist members. She figures that you must be pretty mad at her for all the things that happened to you as a result of her undercover work — you know, things like her helping to get your car back, you winning all that money, and her not arresting you and then helping you flee from the other police.

Well, that pretty much concludes the epic saga of Need for Speed: Most Wanted. I hope you enjoyed this guide, and I also hope that it has helped you better appreciate the game. But mostly, I just hope the guy who played Sgt. Cross takes some acting lessons before he appears in any other games. Seriously.

Expanding My Horizons With FIFA 07

Soccer is the world’s most popular sport, but it has never really caught on here in the U.S. This occasionally earns us some derision around the world, as other nations assume that we are either too self-centered to follow a sport that’s not exclusively “ours”, or too ignorant to appreciate it. I think that’s really unfair, if only for the simple fact that Canada also doesn’t give a damn about soccer, but nobody ever makes them feel guilty about it.

Still, in the interest of building some international good will, I decided to buy a soccer game and tell all of you proud U.S. Americans about it, in the hopes that you would read about it and maybe become more interested in the “Beautiful Game”. In order to recreate the sport accurately, I decided to play the most realistic simulation of the sport, which I decided was FIFA 07, based almost entirely on the fact that it only cost $7.

Before we get started, I should disclose the fact that while I don’t watch any pro soccer, I’m not completely ignorant about how the sport is played. I played youth soccer until I was 17. Of course, the league I played in may have had a slightly different interpretation of the rules. The last two years I played, our opponents’ main tactic for scoring was to kick the ball to our goalie, then run into her (it was a co-ed league) to knock the ball loose and into the net. My job was to beat the hell out of anyone who tried to do that. You could determine how well I was playing by counting the number of broken noses the guys on the other team had and subtracting from that the number of times I ended up standing over our goalie saying “Kellie? Are you dead?”

I’ve been told that in most real soccer leagues, they have rules that discourage this kind of behavior.

One last thing I should mention before we go any further: All of the entries will note the time on the game clock when whatever I described happened. Also, like many international sports, the leagues in FIFA use a time clock that counts upward instead of the typical American style of counting down to zero. Now, I’m not some arrogant American who can’t appreciate the styles and preferences of other countries (I mean, I am playing a soccer game after all), but for the life of me I can’t figure how the rest of the world finds it more useful to know how much time has passed in the game rather than how much time is left. As much as I hate to say it, I’m inclined to think that we may have actually gotten that one right. Then again, the rest of the world calls this sport football, and we were the idiots that decided “No, football isn’t a very descriptive name for a sport that is based around kicking a ball around. We’ll call it soccer instead and save the name football for a sport that places much less emphasis on the feet.” So I guess that makes us about even in the stupid department.

Scoring in soccer is easy. You just have to get past those 3 guys AND a goalie. You could pass it to that teammate in the corner, but he’s probably got about 7 guys on him.

Pregame – The first thing I have to do is choose a team. Since I don’t follow professional soccer at all, this is a bigger challenge than you might think. The only soccer team I’ve ever even heard of is Manchester United, and that was only because when I was a junior in high school some kid in my math class wouldn’t shut up about them. Upon remembering this, I immediately decide that any team other than “Man U” would be acceptable. I nearly chose Barcelona, due to their awesome sherbet orange colored jerseys, which look oddly similar to the old Tampa Bay Buccaneers uniforms. Still, something doesn’t quite seem right about them. I press on a little further and stumble upon a team called Real Madrid.

Real Madrid? I’m immediately intrigued by the fact that they needed to specify the fact that they were Real, and ponder the possibility that there might be a Fake Madrid out there. Would the Fake Madrid be an entire false city, or just a knock-off soccer team that pretends to be from Madrid? Just thinking of the intense rivalry that must exist between Real Madrid and Fake Madrid gets me excited. I choose Real Madrid as my team and immediately begin looking for Fake Madrid to select as my opponent.

After a few minutes of looking, I am unable to find Fake Madrid. A quick internet search reveals that there is no such thing as Fake Madrid, and that “real” is the Spanish word for royal. Dammit. Determined not to let this be too much of a setback, I stick with my choice of Real Madrid, and for an opponent, choose FC Lorient, based almost entirely on the fact that their logo appears to be fish balancing a soccer ball on its head. I’m assuming the FC stands for Fish Champions.

0:00 – As the teams take the field and the starting lineups are announced, I discover that I have David Beckham on my team. Yes! Since Beckham is the only active soccer player I’ve heard of, he therefore must also be the best player in the world. That’s only logical. A quick search online seems to reinforce this theory, and provides me with some important insight as well: David Beckham specializes in taking penalties. I immediately start formulating a game plan based around “Dirty” David Beckham tripping his opponents, punching them, and possibly just picking the ball up and throwing it into the goal, until I figure out that in soccer parlance, “taking penalties” refers not to the act of committing a penalty, but rather to the action of taking the free kick after the other team commits a foul. My new strategy is to somehow get my opponents to punch David Beckham, which shouldn’t be too hard since he invented the term “metrosexual” and married Posh Spice. I also discover that Beckham used to play for Manchester United, which in a weird way kind of makes me the equivalent of some English guy who doesn’t know anything about baseball but has heard of the Yankees and Derek Jeter.

12:41 – The game goes back and forth for a little bit, when all of a sudden, FC Lorient breaks through my defense and rushes in on goal. The attacking forward gently kicks the ball right to my goaltender, who catches it. For some reason, this impresses the hell out of the announcers, who go on and on about the “brilliant goalkeeping”. I can’t figure out why they’re so excited about this routine looking save, unless the Spanish league is a lot like a little kid’s soccer league, and most of the goalies are afraid of the ball.

14:13 – The goalies are definitely not afraid of the ball. Mine might be dead, though.

What happened is that Lorient broke through my sieve-like defense with another scoring rush. Once again, they kicked the ball right to my goalkeeper, but this time at about 100 miles an hour. Somehow, he manages to deflect this over the net. The announcers actually seem less impressed by this display of bravery than by the previous save.

Soccer players react to red cards with the kind of awe usually reserved for witnesses of religious miracles in Medieval paintings.

17:57 – One of my players slide tackles an opposing player from behind, resulting in a red card. This means that he is out of the game, and my team must play shorthanded for the remainder of the match. Going from 11 guys to 10 might not seem like a huge disadvantage, but because a soccer field is so large, it essentially means each player’s responsibility has gone from covering an area of the pitch about the size of Vermont to one about the size of Sudan.

24:53 – Scoring in soccer is really hard. That’s a big part of why 1-0 games are considered fairly normal. But while my defense seems to just let everyone on the other team run right by them, confident that scoring will just naturally stay low without their help, the other team takes a more active approach to defending. FC Lorient’s goal is so well defended that attacking it feels like storming the beaches of Normandy all by myself, armed only with a soccer ball. Even so, we do manage to get one good rush going, as my player works his way close to the net, then passes across the inner box to a wide open teammate a foot away from the wide open goal. This teammate then blasts the ball as hard as he can into the outside of the net. Scoring chance eliminated. My players all look disappointed, except for my defenders, who see this as justification that they don’t need to try. Scoring in soccer is just near-impossible on its own.

31:06 – Not ones to wallow in discouragement, Real Madrid soon gets another scoring opportunity. This time a player brings the ball up the sideline, then floats a “cross” (basically, a high kick across the goal area) to an open teammate. Showing an amazing display of skill and coordination, the teammate kicks the ball right out of mid-air, punting it well over the goal and into the upper deck of the stadium. I’m beginning to get frustrated.

34:43 – Beckham comes in on a rush, but is stopped after running right into an opposing player. Apparently simply being David Beckham isn’t enough to get past a defender.

44:02 – Or maybe it is. This time Beckham gets the ball, runs right past everyone on the other team, and basically kicks it through the opposing goalie. I feel kind of silly about all that “strategy” and “passing” I tried earlier. Apparently the trick to scoring in soccer is to simply run in a straight line and then kick the ball really hard.

45:00 – Halftime. Or at least it would be. As the clock reaches 45:00, a “+2″ appears above it, indicating that more time has been added. See, the clock never stops in soccer…not for injuries, or the ball being kicked into the stands, or anything. So at the end of the half, they add a little bit of time to make up for it. How much time? Well, in this case, “+2″. I have no idea if that means seconds, minutes, or days, and the clock doesn’t bother going into anymore detail, it just sits there saying 45:00, with a “+2″ above it. How much of that +2 has gone by? It doesn’t say. I hate to sound like some ignorant American, but how is this even remotely acceptable? Doesn’t anyone want to know how much time is left?

But as I play into this bonus time, I find out something even crazier. The announcers are going on about the “+2″, and what a nice thing it is for the fans that they do that now. Apparently, this is a recent innovation, and only a few years ago, the referee would not tell anyone how much time he was adding. He’d just stop the game at some previously undisclosed point after time had run out. Again, I have to ask: How was that ever ok?

After about two minutes (though that’s just a guess), the ref blows the whistle and we head into the locker room for halftime.

I swear, if those red and white striped jerseys are really what the US National Team wears, I’m moving to freaking Canada.

Halftime – Taking a one goal lead into the half, I try to figure out the best strategy for preserving this lead and coming away with a win. I think back to my youth soccer days and remember one team I played against, whose coach’s entire strategy seemed to consist of yelling “Don’t let them score!” over and over from the sideline. I decide to adopt this tactic into my overall strategy for the rest of the game, though I’m not abandoning my previous plan of trying to get my opponents to punch David Beckham in the face.

47:08 – Fish Champions Lorient starts with the ball this half, and within two minutes, are rushing past my hapless defenders toward the goal. The attacker comes in unchallenged, gets close to the net, and then lazily boots the ball out of bounds, as my goalie watches nonchalantly. I’m beginning to wonder if any of the players are taking this game seriously.

48:28 – Almost immediately after the previous scoring threat is averted, Lorient gets the ball back and again charges in on my goal. Once again, my defenders make ineffectual attempts to stop them, and once again my opponent breaks through for a great scoring chance. As the attacker gets past my defense, he winds up and kicks the ball as hard as he can, launching it over the goal and into the parking lot outside the stadium.

All these close calls are staring to worry me. I decide to change strategy and begin yelling “Don’t let them score!” in Spanish instead. ¡No permítales rayar!

52:38 – My new “Run in a straight line” strategy seems to be working rather well, as I am rewarded with another scoring chance. This time, my player is the one blasting the ball as hard as he can into the crowd. I can’t help but think that there’s a really good chance I just severely injured some poor spectator.

68:13 – My strategy has finally paid off! Beckham gets the ball, comes in on a rush, and then rather brutally has his legs taken out by a defender. Although this foul didn’t occur in the goal box, which would have lead to a one-on-one penalty kick from up close, this still means that he’ll be awarded a free kick not too far away from the goal — his specialty. I can’t wait to “Bend it Like Beckham” and put the game away…

…except that Beckham is still rolling around on the ground holding his leg. That’s not good.

It turns out that the sneaky bastards on FC Lorient have injured him. The offending player is given a red card and kicked out of the game, but I’m out my best player, and now someone else has to take the free kick. The replacement goes up, takes the kick, and…surprise! Knocks it into the crowd. I’m pretty sure with that kick we’ve now tied Lorient in the “shots kicked into crowd” category. This would be great if it were a home run derby.

81:59 – The game is almost over now, but FC Lorient comes in on another rush. “Don’t let them score!” I yell, feebly, as they get through my defense. My goalie thwarts them with a brilliant save, and is so pumped up about it (or else I just forgot the controls) that he celebrates by throwing the ball out of bounds, which essentially gives Lorient possession of the ball again. I hope that doesn’t come back to haunt me.

That shot’s going wide. The goalie’s just trying to save some poor fan from a serious injury.

84:17 – It’s beginning to look like this is going to haunt me. Lorient has had constant possession of the ball in my end of the field ever since I threw the ball out of bounds. I’m yelling “Don’t let them score!” as hard as I can, but I’m not sure we’ll be able to hold them off for the remaining six minutes, plus the additional mystery time.

88:46 – Still haven’t gotten the ball back and the pressure’s really on. They get another good shot off, and it’s all my goalie can do to deflect it over the net. This allows the other team to take a corner kick, which is a fairly advantageous situation for them.

89:16 – They score. Dammit.

90:00 (+2) – Regulation ends with the score tied at one. I’m given the option of standard overtime, or something called “Golden Goal”. Standard overtime means we play a 15 minute overtime period, and if it’s still tied after that, we play another one. Golden Goal is the equivalent of what we here in the U.S. refer to as “Sudden Death” overtime, where the game ends as soon as one team scores. I’m assuming they shy away from calling it sudden death in FIFA because of all the fans who have already suffered a sudden death as the result of my errant shots.

Seeing as the goals each came about 45 minutes apart, the idea of both teams scoring within the same 15 minutes seems highly unlikely. I opt for Golden Goal; if only to avoid dragging out the inevitable should one team take a lead.

99:16 – After a few minutes of back and forth action, Real Madrid takes the ball and runs down the sideline. I cross the ball into the box, one of my players gets it and…GOOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLL! We win!

I try to figure out who scored the winning goal, but on replay it’s revealed that the ball touched a defender on the way into the goal. This didn’t really affect the course of the shot at all, but the announcers are all over him for scoring on his own team. It seems kind of unfair, seeing as he didn’t actually kick the ball into his own goal or anything. But that’s not even the worst part — he’s the one credited with scoring the goal! That’s incredibly harsh – the kind of thing you might tease a guy about in a street hockey game, but would never actually expect to see in a professional sports league.

Later on, I go online and find out that “FC” actually stands for Football Club, not Fish Champions. This is a pretty embarrassing mistake – I had no idea the players were allowed to carry clubs.

Final Fantasy is a Lot Like Metallica

Metallica and Final Fantasy.  At first glance, the RPG franchise and heavy metal band may not seem to have much in common other than often being labeled as “The World’s Most Popular” in their respective realms.  However, their histories are strikingly similar, with both starting out fairly obscure but with loyal fan bases, then enjoying increasing popularity until each became one of the biggest names in their business.  After that peak, each underwent stylistic changes that kept their sales numbers high for a while, but alienated a lot of longtime fans and drew the occasional poor review from critics.  Today, both are still well-known, but not quite as popular or relevant as they used to be.

Don’t believe me?  Here’s a brief history of the Final Fantasy series, with a Metallica Album Equivalent (MAE) listed for comparison.  Take note of how much of what is written about each game could just as easily be said about the MAE as well.  In fact, go back and read the previous paragraph substituting “Metallica” for “Final Fantasy” to see just how eerily accurate each MAE truly is.  Then consider that, in all but a few instances, the Final Fantasy games and the Metallica albums that they are most similar to were released in the same order.  It’s uncanny.

One quick note:  Because some of the games weren’t released in the US, Final Fantasy V was actually called Final Fantasy II when it first came out here, and VI came out as III.  I have used the original Japanese numbering to try to avoid much of the confusion that Square has wrought upon us with their insane concept of how numbers work.

Final Fantasy

One of the earliest RPGs released on consoles, the first Final Fantasy game was kind of unique for its time, but when compared to any of the later entries in the series, it’s easy to see that this title still had a long way to go.  The game had some high points but for the most part was simplistic, unpolished, and repetitive.  It also didn’t sell particularly well at first, though as later games caused the series to become more popular, demand for this title increased accordingly.

Metallica Album Equivalent: Kill ‘Em All

Final Fantasy II & III

These two games were never released in the U.S. (except for the recent reissues on Gameboy), but feature similar gameplay to the original, with minor improvements.   Of course, the few people who managed to obtain a Japanese copy here probably didn’t care much about that anyway.  Let’s face it, if you’re playing through a story-driven, text-heavy game in a language you can’t even read, you’re not really in it for the gameplay.  You’re just doing it to prove to all the other nerds that you’re King Dork of the Final Fantasy Fanclub.

Metallica Album Equivalent – Foreign Versions of Kill ‘Em All with Bonus Tracks

Final Fantasy IV

Drastic improvements were made for this game, resulting in a title that was praised by critics and beloved by the handful of gamers that actually bought it.  A lot of the hardcore Final Fantasy fans say this is their favorite, though it’s hard to know for sure how many genuinely feel that way, and how many are just snobs who say that to be different from all the mainstream fans that prefer the better-known Final Fantasy VI or VII.  Just like with the original, interest in this title increased drastically once later games in the series made the franchise famous.

Metallica Album Equivalents – Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets

Final Fantasy V

Though the few who have played it consider it one of the best of the series, this game was originally not released in the US.  Its rarity later turned the game into a thing of legend as the series grew in popularity, and sometimes gamers even questioned whether it truly existed, or was just a myth.  Those few who had played the game were considered the most elite of all hardcore Final Fantasy fans… at least until it was reissued in 1999, as part of the Final Fantasy Anthology.

Metallica Album Equivalent – Garage Days Revisted

Final Fantasy VI

Hailed by critics as a masterpiece, and considered by many (though certainly not all) fans to be the best game in the franchise, Final Fantasy VI was an important step in the history of the series.  Besides being a deeper, better designed, and just all around better game than the previous entries, it was also the start of Final Fantasy’s rise to fame.  After years of putting out good games that were enjoyed a small, but loyal fanbase, the series finally started to get some mainstream recognition with FF6.  Strategy guides were written for the game, magazines dedicated editorials and features on it, and a growing number of gamers took notice.  Superstardom was still a game away, but this was the title that moved the series of out the realm of the obscure.

Metallica Album Equivalent  – …And Justice for All

Final Fantasy VII

While the previous installment may have started to give the series some name recognition, this was the game that truly made it famous.  No other RPG, and very few games in general at the time, ever had the massive tidal wave of hype and publicity that surrounded Final Fantasy VII’s release.  It was also the first real “crossover RPG”, a role-playing game that appealed to people normally not interested in the genre.  While good marketing certainly helped, one cannot overlook the quality of the game itself, as FF7 was considered by many to be one of the best games to be released not only that year, but of all-time.  But not everyone was happy – some fans felt that the series was “selling out” and straying from its RPG roots in order to sell more copies.  This was a small number of dissidents at the time, but their numbers would grow as later installments continued this trend.

Metallica Album Equivalent  – Metallica (aka – The Black Album)

Final Fantasy VIII

Although eagerly awaited by gamers and the gaming media, the follow-up to FF7 left many feeling disappointed.  The biggest source of outcry from fans was the game’s graphics, which were more realistic and modern-looking than any of the previous games in the series.  While that may seem like a superficial change, many felt that the “new look” was symbolic of a deeper stylistic change in the series.  But that was just one of many reasons why this game failed to impress – others complained that the characters were becoming unlikable, and that the gameplay was repetitive and uninspired.  Another problem was that the RPG market had become overcrowded (ironically, this was due largely to the success of Final Fantasy VII), and FF8 failed to stand out much from the rest of the crowd.  Whatever the reasons may have been, the bottom line was the same – this was the first Final Fantasy game that wasn’t very good.  It remains a low point for the series even to this day.

Metallica Album Equivalent – Load

Final Fantasy IX

Following the backlash that VIII (and to a lesser extent VII) caused among fans, Square promised to get the series back to its roots with FF9.  And while some token effort was made to this effect, the game never truly lived up to this promise.  Instead, it felt almost as if they had taken some older, never-released game and “improved” it by making it play like one of the more recent titles, with grainy pre-rendered graphics, annoying secondary characters, boring side-quests, and a story that went absolutely insane by the third act.  As a result, the promises of going back to their old style went unfulfilled, and this entry ended up feeling a lot more like one of the newer Final Fantasy games than any of the older ones.

Metallica Album Equivalent – Garage, Inc.

Final Fantasy X

After failing to recapture the old magic with FF9, Square decided to give up on clinging to the past and simply embrace what the series had become.  Final Fantasy X was a virtual celebration of everything that old-school fans had hated about the more recent entries – a futuristic setting, throwaway characters, and horrible minigames that were given more attention than they deserved.  While all these changes did manage to bring in some new fans, and resulted in good sales numbers, this was the last straw for many longtime fans.  This game was basically Square’s way of telling them “Screw you, this is what the games will be like from now on, and we both know you’re going to buy it since it says Final Fantasy on the box.”

Metallica Album Equivalent:  Load (again)

Final Fantasy X-2

One fairly unique thing about Final Fantasy is that none of the games in the series are true “sequels” – each takes place in its own world, with new characters, and a storyline that is completely unrelated to any of the previous games.  This all changed with Final Fantasy X-2, which chronicled the adventures of Yuna after the events of FFX.  The game had a lukewarm reception – to a lot of critics, it seemed like it was just a lot of leftover ideas from FFX that were haphazardly thrown together into a new game in order to make a quick buck.  Sales were relatively low for a Final Fantasy game, and many fans felt that if the franchise was going to break tradition and finally make a true sequel to one of their games, they probably could have chosen a better candidate than Final Fantasy X.

Metallica Album Equivalent: Reload

Final Fantasy XI

With its popularity declining, and many accusing the franchise of becoming stale, Square decided to shake things up by making FFXI an online-only MMORPG.  While this was certainly a drastic change for the series, it wasn’t necessarily for the better.  For many gamers, the appeal of the other Final Fantasy was that they weren’t anything like online RPGs, so this was kind of the opposite of what the wanted.  And even if it had been, FFXI still wasn’t as good as a lot of the other MMORPGs that were already out there.

Metallica Album Equivalent – S&M

Final Fantasy XII

Amid declining popularity and after a few years out of the spotlight, the series returned with its twelfth installment.  Some fairly significant changes were made to keep up with the times (no more battle screens), but the game managed to retain a familiar feel.  It was well-received by fans and met with moderate praise by critics, although the gaming public collectively responded with a surprised “Oh, I didn’t know they were still making Final Fantasy games.”

Metallica Album Equivalent – St. Anger

The 10 Most 80s-ish Games

Like music, movies, and books, video games can’t help but occasionally be a reflection of the time and culture during which they are made. This was as true 25 years ago as it is now. Therefore, in the same sense that there are “80s films”, and “80s bands”, there are also “80s videogames”. Which isn’t to say that every game released between 1980 and 1989 was a stereotypical “Eighties Game”, but much like movies and music videos, there were a few that you could see for just a few minutes and feel like you had stepped back in time 20 years.

So what makes something an 80s game worthy of this list? Well, simply being a popular game from the 80s isn’t as important as you might think.  This isn’t a list of the best games to come out in the 80s, it’s a list of games that came out during that decade that are clearly products of that time.  Atmosphere is important – things like mullets, synthesizer music, and 80s cars can add to a game’s rating. But it takes a lot more than that. After all, anyone can throw on a denim jacket, say “rad” a few thousand times, and go rock out to Def Leppard; but someone who really understands the decade does all that while trying to accumulate as much material wealth as humanly possible and talking up the advantages of supply-side economics.

What I’m trying to say is that a great 80s game doesn’t just reflect the style of the decade, but also the culture, values, and attitudes. If playing the game gives you some insight as to what issues were on people’s minds back then, and how people felt about different subjects, it does better on the list.

Starting on Monday, we’ll count down the list.

The 10 Most 80s-ish Games #9 & #10

10. Road Blasters

Year: 1987

What’s so 80s about it? – Midway’s botched interpretation of supply-side economics resulted in about 9 billion Road Blasters arcade machines being put into circulation by 1989.

Why it’s #10 on the list: Roadblasters is interesting, because it’s probably the only game in history to embrace the philosophy of supply-side economics, which was one of the better-known economic policies of the Reagan administration.  How does supply-side economics work?  Well, the theory kind of goes like this.  Let’s say there’s this company, who for this example, we’ll call “Midway”.  And they make a product, which we’ll call “Roadblasters”.  And let’s say that there isn’t a lot of demand for this product because “it’s not very good”.  With me so far?  Great.

Now, the idea is to increase the demand by increasing the supply.  When talking about economic policy, this works by lowering taxes on manufacturers, who use that extra money to make more of their product.  The supply goes up, which drives the price down, which makes more people want to buy it.  Midway took a slightly more simplified approach to this by simply releasing a whole bunch of Roadblasters machines into the world.

During the last few years on the decade, Roadblasters was inescapable.  It was at the arcade. It was at the bowling alley. It was at the movie theater. It was at the ice cream place, the pizzeria, the convenience store, and at the local bar. Hell, the Roadblasters arcade machine was even in the lobby of Ames, right next to those machines that would give you plastic football helmets for a quarter. By 1989, you could run a few errands and have the opportunity to play Roadblasters 17 times without ever going out of your way to do so – it was everywhere.

The strange thing is, Roadblasters was really terrible – even by late 80s standards. For a game that was everywhere, it was pretty hard to find a person who actually enjoyed playing it. There has never been a game so completely unlikable with such vast distribution (with the possible exception of Cruisin’ USA), but regardless of how horrible the game was, it is pretty hard to remember things from back then without a Roadblasters machine ending up in the background of some of those memories.

Legacy: If you need a reason for why the coin-op business is struggling these days, you can probably trace the problem back to Roadblasters. It’s overwhelming presence meant that almost everyone in America was exposed to it, and more than a few of those people probably had little or no previous experience playing arcade games. Its horrendous gameplay is sure to have turned more than a few first-timers off games for the rest of their lives, and probably shook the resolve of those who only had a slight interest in playing games. You might one day meet a person who hasn’t played an arcade game since the late eighties, and they probably won’t remember what the name of the very last game they ever played was. But you’ll know. It was Roadblasters.

9. California Games

Year: 1988

What’s so 80s about it? This is a game that lets you don some neon green spandex and roller skate down the streets of Venice Beach.

Why it’s #9 on the list: Ever since 1849, when they started the fad of finding free gold, California has defined what is “cool” in America. So if you want to see what was cool in the 1980s, you need only check out what was going on in Cali during that time.  In California Games, you get to surf, BMX, roller skate and play hackey-sack while being sponsored by “hip” real-life companies such as Santa Cruz skateboards and Ocean Pacific apparel.  This game is packed jam full of everything that was cool on the West Coast during the late 1980s.

Interestingly, this game isn’t as 80s as you might think.  When you first play it, you’ll be hit with enough neon to make your eyes bleed, slang that nobody has used in 20 years, and a heavily synthesized soundtrack that only Gary Newman could love.  Dig a little deeper though, and you’ll find that times haven’t changed as much as you might like.  Ditch the goofy sponsors, change the character’s clothes, add some punk tunes to the soundtrack and you’ve essentially created a title based on the X-Games.  I wouldn’t be surprised if that actually was how Sony made 2Xtreme.

Legacy: Roller skating has become roller blading, but over than that many of the events in California Games (dirt bikes, surfing, etc.) are still popular today.  The only difference is that today the game would be have the words ULTIMATE or EXTREME in the title and the characters would have more tattoos.  The team sponsors in the game didn’t quite fare so well, however.  All of them were legitimate companies that were trendy brands in the 80s (well, except for Milton Bradley, who published this game), and now most of them are out of business.  I guess when your whole business depends on people thinking that you’re cool, being in a game like this might not be such a great idea.