Gaming off the Beaten Path

Last week, we looked at one of my favorite, and one of the internet's least favorite, video games of all time, Final Fantasy VIII. I'm not going to say that all the criticism of the game is unfounded, but a lot of it is and I want to explore why, or at least why I think that's the case. Be prepared for some nerd rage, because I may get a little more testy than I usually. The hate spewed at this game is often very vitriolic, far more so than any other title I've ever seen, and I may end up paying some of that back in kind. First, let's go back to my post on unfairly hated games . Let's run down the list of common factors and see how many of them FFVIII checks: -It was released unfinished - actually, a little bit, though I don't think it was a major factor in all the hate. The game was released with support for the Pocket PlayStation, with some items and a Chocobo minigame exclusive to the peripheral. The problem here? The Pocket PlayStation was never release...

  I'll be here. I'll be waiting for you. If you come here, you will find me, I promise. So, I think this is going to be a two-part post, because I have a lot to say about Final Fantasy VIII. I was going to come out guns blazing as to why this game is so misunderstood, but I think that wouldn't do the game the justice it deserves. Despite all the negativity its name carries, Final Fantasy VIII is one of my favorite games of all time. In case it wasn't immediately apparent by my post last week, I find it to be one of the most, if not the most, unfairly maligned video games of all time. I'm not entirely surprised as it checks just about all the boxes I outlined last week and it came on the heels of one of the most beloved games of all time. It's very different from the previous Final Fantasy games, almost to the point of not feeling like one at all. Its aesthetic is different, its characters are different, it's gameplay is different, it's just generally dif...

As with any media format, video games are often hated for reasons that have nothing to do with their actual quality. Don't get me wrong, not every game that gets hate gets it undeservedly. You would be hard pressed to find a gamer that will go to bat for Superman 64, it's easy to explain why that game is hated. It's hated because it is a miserable, barely functioning mess that is an absolutely abysmal experience from the time you press start to the time you inevitably shut it off in a rage when you can't fly through a million stupid rings because of the crappy controls. That's a problem with most media, how "good" or "bad" it can be both subjective or objective. Sometimes one will just completely outweigh the other, like the aforementioned Superman 64. You can like the art style all you want, I know indistinguishable blobs and random fog are some people's thing, but the bottom line is any subjective enjoyment you get out of the game is render...

  Uuhhhhh....huh huh huh. Huh huh huh. Huh huh huh. Heh. Eh Heh Heh heh. Heh Heh.. Ummmm, so, like, this time we're going to be talking about the Beavis and Butt-Head game for Super Nintendo or something. I don't know if it's going to be good, but like... it looks pretty cool. Yeah! heh heh. This game is going to rule! There's going to be tons of action! And Music Videos! And FIRE! Uuuhhhh, yeah. Sounds pretty cool. But what if it like, sucks? Like it's just a bunch of Bon Jovi videos or something? Beavis and Butt-Head in a video game? I'm there dude! In all seriousness, I figured I would give Beavis and Butt-Head on the SNES a shot now that the not-so-dynamic duo is back. I have yet to see the new show or movie, but they have received what I feel is a surprising amount of critical acclaim. Remember, Beavis and Butt-Head was the show that represented the oncoming downfall of society, the animated effigies of disinterested, braindead youth into which video games ...

  Growing up, a lot of the games we played regularly ended up with nicknames for one reason or the other. It was pretty common to call Goldeneye: 007 just "Goldeneye," but we eventually just started calling it "Bond." Sure, there were other James Bond games out there, but at the time, this was the only one that mattered. PS1 skating titles 2Xtreme and 3Xtreme were "2X" and "3X" respectively.   Vigilante 8 came to be known as "Tomato Juice," get it, because V8? Final Fantasy VII was so essential to us that it was simply "VII," though not too many console series had seventh entries at that point anyway. This week's game, simply called the Pokemon Trading Card game, also had a nickname, one of my good friends came up with it and it stuck like glue: "The addiction game." Yeah, that pretty well covers it. Even after playing it some 20+ years later, I can't put my finger on just what was so enticing about a digi...

  Quick, what's the first brand you would associate with a video game? Would it be a major media franchise? There are tons of those, name a media franchise and it's had a video game made about it. Would it be a food company? That's been pretty common since the early days of gaming. A consumer goods company? Depending on the game, it could make sense. Maybe a sports league or wrestling promotion? Hell, that may be the most common situation you see, there's a new NFL, NBA, NHL and WWE game every year.  At this point, many video game franchises have become brands themselves. Mario, Sonic, Resident Evil, Street Fighter, and a host of others are essentially brands of their own at this point. Look, video games are, were and always have been great opportunities for branding, at least when the branding makes sense. But sometimes, you still find games featuring brands that shock you. If you asked me "which brands do you think would best lend themselves to video games?"...

  After a few years of doing this, I've come to realize that what constitutes "off the beaten path" is entirely subjective. There are certainly video game series' that are part of more general popular culture. I would venture a guess that most people out there have heard of Mario or Sonic, even if they've never picked up a controller in their lives. But by the same token, I'm sure there's also someone out there that's like "Shadow Madness? That's not obscure! You don't know what obscure is until you've played Kaiju No Riho: Gaijin Densetsu Gaiden: Don't Panic! without an English translation patch!" I know I've certainly played my share of games that aren't all that obscure. But some of them are really out there for me. I grew up without a Sega console, so stuff like Phantasy Star and Shining Force were completely foreign to me. And that's true of all of us. Ask an American gamer what their favorite ZX Spectrum ga...