http://cruiseelroy.net Intelligent discussion of video games Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:46:34 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en It's important to balance the difficulty of a game in an absolute sense, but it's also important to pick the right types of difficulty. When I play a sports management simulator or a Japanese RPG, I accept that my actions won't directly decide the results. The challenge in these games, and ... http://cruiseelroy.net/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28%29&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fcruiseelroy.net%2F2008%2F07%2Fright-kind-of-hard%2F&seed_title=The+right+kind+of+hard This is just a reminder for anyone interested in the Vintage Game Club -- we start tomorrow! If you want to join us, install Grim Fandango and sign up for the message board and you'll be all set. Much of my bloviating intelligent criticism about the game will probably be offsite, ... http://cruiseelroy.net/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28%29&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fcruiseelroy.net%2F2008%2F07%2Fvgc-tomorrow%2F&seed_title=Vintage+Game+Club+begins+tomorrow During my last semester of college my composition professor went on sabbatical, and the music department brought in a temporary replacement from another school. While my old prof had a frivolous experimental streak -- he once had us write pieces to cover up the nameplates outside people's offices -- the ... http://cruiseelroy.net/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28%29&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fcruiseelroy.net%2F2008%2F07%2Freal-music%2F&seed_title=Real+music Today I subscribed to the excellent new blog Versus CluClu Land (thanks, Michael), a heady project from one Iroquois Pliskin which analyzes games from a philosophical perspective. Its unique focus got me thinking that many of my favorite writers often approach games from the perspective of another branch of knowledge. Leigh ... http://cruiseelroy.net/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28%29&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fcruiseelroy.net%2F2008%2F07%2Fgames-and-x%2F&seed_title=Games+and+x One of my biggest gripes with Twilight Princess (and, indeed, many adventure games) is that I never felt any attachment to the world. It's nice that I can defeat Ganon and save Hyrule, but what is it, exactly, that needs saving? Most of the game world is a vast expanse ... http://cruiseelroy.net/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28%29&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fcruiseelroy.net%2F2008%2F07%2Fokami%2F&seed_title=Okami%3A+first+impressions Are you a fan of the Cruise Elroy music posts, or of game composer Nobuo Uematsu? Well, I've just added a bunch of new pieces to my irregular meter collection! Part two now includes songs from Final Fantasy VII, VIII and IX, as well as a bonus tune from Chrono ... http://cruiseelroy.net/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28%29&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fcruiseelroy.net%2F2008%2F07%2Fnobuo-uematsu-extravaganza%2F&seed_title=Nobuo+Uematsu+extravaganza The Vintage Game Club is a new project from David Carlton, Michael Abbott and me that aims to get people playing and talking about classic video games. On July 21 we're going to fire up Grim Fandango and play through it collectively, sharing our thoughts along the way. Interested in joining? ... http://cruiseelroy.net/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28%29&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fcruiseelroy.net%2F2008%2F07%2Fvintage-game-club%2F&seed_title=Vintage+Game+Club As a left-handed guitarist who plays righty, I've always found it odd that most people fret the strings with their non-dominant hand. It seems to me that you'd need more dexterity to make complex chord shapes than to strum; why waste your good hand on a simple repetitive motion? I've often ... http://cruiseelroy.net/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28%29&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fcruiseelroy.net%2F2008%2F07%2Fsinister-gamer%2F&seed_title=Lamentations+of+a+sinister+gamer My post on fidelity and quality uses music as its example, but the real battleground in this debate is with graphics. Indeed, the desire for more realistic graphics has been a driving force in hardware improvements for decades; it's only recently with the Wii that graphical fidelity has been intentionally ... http://cruiseelroy.net/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28%29&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fcruiseelroy.net%2F2008%2F07%2Fgraphics%2F&seed_title=Graphics Today, a bit of wanton silliness. Take a look at Robo's theme from Chrono Trigger: [audio:http://cruiseelroy.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/robo.mp3] I want to draw your attention to two things: the IV-V-V-vi harmonic progression, and the rising melodic contour using scale degrees 1-2-2-3. Now listen to number-one hit and internet sensation "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley: [audio:http://cruiseelroy.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/rick.mp3] As ... http://cruiseelroy.net/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=Articles+%28%29&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fcruiseelroy.net%2F2008%2F07%2Frobo-roll%2F&seed_title=Robo+roll