The Mammon Philosophy

Dunno how I managed to miss this one, must’ve had something to do with my seething rage at the press yesterday. But Reggie Fils-Aime said yesterday that the big N was focusing on more user-generated content. Yeah, so I guess they like the whole “make your fanbase work for you” strategy now? Just as long as it doesn’t involve homebrew or translation patches, and I’m assuming mod chips are right out. So the real message here is “we like user-content, as long as it conforms utterly to the strict limitations of creativity that we’ve set out as the untouchable framework.” This is akin to asking someone to whistle a new chart-topping song while the oft-quoted boot continues stamping on your face forever and ever. Is that a little unfair? I guess a more N-friendly comparison would be that these grey-zone illicit activities are like driving on the wrong side of the two-way street. But I’m a safe driver, and it drives me crazy to get stuck behind a Sunday-grandma type who’s going ten clicks under the limit in a no-passing zone. Give it some gas or take the next off-ramp, Nintendo.

That said, I do eagerly await The Conduit and Madworld. Formulaic creativity through violence is definitely something I can get behind — there’s nothing I like better than a developer with an eye for more than the standard “shoot that guy” mentality.

Steve Crisp spoke to reporters today about the foundation being instituted in his son’s name to help underprivileged kids play minor sports.

Steve Crisp said his son was a hockey goalie, but stopped after his size became a factor. He said he believes children should be allowed to play whatever sports they want to.

“He got to a point where he was a little shorter than the other kids, and, you know, his position was kind of moved off the team, and we decided to quit minor sports at that point,” he said.

It frankly outrages me that this is the first we’ve heard of this particular detail. Every news report up until now repeated the same mantra about Brandon quitting sports due to his “addiction” to Call of Duty 4. Being removed from your chosen sport is a different matter altogether, and may even have been the event that drove Brandon to gaming in the first place. When you’re on a sports team, a number of things are set in place: the routine of practising, the excitement of competition, the camaraderie of your teammates. If you’re yanked off the team, all of those things go away, and they leave a void. If something new comes in and fills the void in a destructive way, it is not the new element’s fault. Don’t go telling me that he unequivocally had to quit because he was too short to play in goal. In that case, you move the kid to defense or forward. You do not simply walk away from the organization. That’s just shameful.

The first time I played Majora’s Mask, I felt simultaneously overwhelmed and unimpressed. On the one hand, there was almost too much to do: aside from the traditional dungeon staples, there were a multitude of sidequests (to the point that the game gives you a notebook to keep track of many of them) and tons of collectible heart pieces, masks, and other paraphernalia. But those same elements were something of a turnoff; the dungeons were great, but there were only four, and I was no big fan of lengthy treks to get one or two hearts at most. I think I still got most of the stuff, but I had no great desire to pick up the game and replay it.

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In the wake of the discovery of Brandon Crisp’s body, Future Shop decided to cancel two midnight launch parties for Gears Of War 2 in Toronto and Vancouver. And the National Post seems to think that it singlehandedly saved us from these parties.

“The Post called Future Shop on Thursday to ask whether it was appropriate, in light of Brandon’s death, for the store to hold a festive launch planned for last night across Canada for the new Xbox game, Gears of War 2. In the game, participants are embroiled in a genocidal war with subterranean locusts. On Thursday night the chain cancelled the parties outside its stores in Toronto and Vancouver.”

Emphasis mine to highlight another example of underinformed reporting — they make it sound like you just run around snuffing bugs, which is a slight understatement to say the least.

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So today, I almost decided not to play any video games for a week. Allow me to explain: the latest Brandon Crisp story at GamePolitics invited the attention of “Yawheh,” the wife of one of the professional search-and-rescue workers who was in the Barrie area. She issued this peculiar query:

Tell me something! what do you folks get out of gaming.

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I wrote this literally 20 minutes before the news broke that Brandon’s body was found. Once again, my heart goes out to the family.

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Spotted this first on CTV.ca, then followed it around the horn. First off, let me say my thoughts are with this family, and I hope they find Brandon soon. Anyone with information should contact the Barrie police.

However, I thought this bit from the Star story was interesting:

“Steve suspects the 5-foot-3, 100-pound boy was on his way to meet some friends in Oro-Medonte Township. His three best buddies from school were also members of his “Call of Duty Clan.” Steve has since learned from these friends that Brandon may be part of another clan, but the friends have no idea who those members are. He fears the boy was lured into meeting someone from that clan and is now being held against his will.”

Or your kid is holed up in Oro-Medonte with his pals, Steve. It’s not hard to hide in the basement while your friends lie to the authorities.

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My sense of nostalgia is currently in tatters. Years upon years ago, shopping malls in Ottawa still had coin-op games present in their free spaces. Today, if there’s any games to begin with, they’re located in designated “entertainment zones” and typically cost a dollar a shot for the opportunity to pretend to dance or ride a motorcycle. But in those glorious times when you could play Raiden or Super Sprint for a mere twenty-five cents, the machines would be distributed throughout the centre, huddled around pillars or pushed back into corner alcoves. You never knew when the flash of an attract screen would catch the corner of your eye, and even if you did learn the places where you could expect to find a cabinet, you weren’t always assured that the same game would be there on the next visit.

When I was young, or so much younger than today, I remember catching a glance at one of these games just before it was swept away. It appeared to feature some sort of backflipping superhero, battling large men with spiked bats in an amusement park and, later, an angry yellow boss with waving ball-and-chain extendo-arms. It even seemed that you could switch characters! Unfortunately, the pair of “big kids” on the machine had a steady supply of quarters to pay for their continues, so I had to leave the game unplayed, never to see it again or even learn its name.

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I was lucky; I decided to wait for the Wii version of Okami, so I didn’t play it until after Twilight Princess. This is a good thing because I would’ve been more disappointed with TP if I’d done it in the other order. I said while I was playing it that it would be better if you could just be Wolf Link all the time, and Okami proves me right.

If you haven’t played this wolf-hopping adventure yet, you owe yourself a treat. It can be best described as “beautiful,” perhaps. Flowers grow in your wake as you steer the sun goddess Amaterasu across the ground; trees blossom when you paint them with your celestial ink; the history of the land, taken almost verbatim (though with a few welcome liberties) from Shinto mythology, is retold in flowing style. But naturally, it’s the little details that make the game: for example, the handling of the cutscenes. I was caught off guard in an early sequence where a would-be swordsman attempts to slice through a training dummy. It turned out I had to take up the remote and draw a power slash to cut it down for him, since his own combat skills were rather subpar. This convention continues throughout the adventure, as Amaterasu surreptitiously aids villagers and travelers with secret manipulations of the environment. I’m continually reminded of a line from the end of Princess Mononoke: “huh, I didn’t know the forest god made trees grow.”

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I’m a little embarrassed, because I went on at length about how badly I was waiting for Ys, and now it’s been out for a week and I only got around to playing it last night — right before downloading Super Mario RPG, which I’m enjoying properly on a TV screen for the first time in six years or so, and right after getting my bubble-sliding on with Clu Clu Land. I don’t know if there’s something in the ventilation at Big N HQ, but I hope it causes permanent effects if this is what it means for the Wii faithful.

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