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A New Leaf with Wireless Controllers
2006-12-05 19:14
by Mark T.R. Donohue

My PlayStation 2 stopped working last week. Well, it didn't completely shut down, you could still use the browser and edit the files on your memory cards, if you wanted to for some reason, but it stopped recognizing games and no amount of lens cleaning seemed to make a difference. This was my second PS2. The first one stopped working in the exact same manner. I can't remember what possessed me to buy a second one, but that's enough of that. Fool me once, Sony, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

It doesn't seem to have dissuaded the dozen or so people who lined up in front of the local Target the day before the PlayStation 3 came out, but the PS2's established record of fragility and my profound annoyance at having a second system break only hours into Final Fantasy XII was enough to get me to go out and buy an XBox 360 that very minute. I packed up my PS2, several dozen games, my old XBox, and since I was getting into the spirit of things my seldom-used Gamecube as well and hauled them down to Electronics Boutique. Thanks to my pack rat tendencies I had cases and manuals and in most cases the original twisty-ties for everything from the Game Boy Player to PS2 controller extension cables to the GC/GBA link cable I used exactly once to play Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. I think tallying up what the trade-in value for all of this crap was severely taxed the patience of the EB clerk, but eventually I walked out with an XBox 360 premium bundle, a second wireless controller, rechargeable battery packs, Call of Duty 2, FIFA Soccer '07, and Gears of War. Besides an entire generation's worth of accumulated gaming hardware, all it cost me was $21.

The XBox 360 is great. It's just a very sleek consumer device, taking advantage of Microsoft's superior engineering corps and the lessons they learned from their first console (no more giant-sized controllers). I've barely scratched the surface of its online functionality, noting only that you can download movies, TV shows, and old games including Lumines and the original DOOM. I didn't play a lot online with my old XBox, because I'm not a very competitive person and being trashed-talked by foul-mouthed 12-year-olds isn't exactly my idea of a good time, but even so one of the major selling points of the 360 is Microsoft's incredibly well-designed and functional XBox Live service. The 360 is designed from top to bottom with Live in mind; there's a dashboard button right on the controller so you can send and receive messages from friends even when you are playing single-player games. The way Microsoft forces its brand into every bit of every game, even third-party tiles, is insidious and reminiscent of how Windows tries to force you to use Word, Internet Explorer, and Media Player. For a video game console, however, the enforced uniformity is largely a good development. It's neat that every game has a set of "achievements" which automatically get posted to your gamer profile and even the XBox web site. Of course, now that my crummy skills are a matter of public record, all claims I ever might have had to being a real hardcore gamer are lost and gone forever.

I identify with hardcore gamers because almost all of my circle of friends in high school were those kind of guys. I don't play first-person shooters with their reflexive ease, sadly, because most of the time they spent fragging, I spent practicing the guitar, which in terms of eventual college hookup currency was definitely the right choice. Nonetheless I wish I was hardcore, and I realized trading in all of those old PS2, Gamecube, and XBox games that I have been buying games for many years as if I was. A lot of those games I traded in I barely played. They turned out to be too difficult, or too time-consuming, and I went right back to playing franchise mode in FIFA. And practicing the guitar more.

Well, I still want to be a gamer, but this changeover of systems presents a good opportunity for me to be realistic about what kind of gamer I am. From now on, I'm not buying any games except for ones I know I'm going to play backwards and forwards (again, FIFA). For the rest, well, I signed up for Gamefly and I am going to make an effort to play major new games and record my thoroughly non-hardcore perspective here in this space. I might be a few months behind the curve, but at least I won't be pretending I'm something I'm not. And I'll definitely save a lot of money.

Comments
2006-12-06 05:20:48
1.   Underbruin
What, no Wii? Hey, you might have even gotten a chance to get some usefulness out of your old Gamecube stuff... Well, okay, maybe not. Depends. =P

Glad to see there'll be some continuing gaming coverage on this blog - and I hope you'll continue with the more analytical takes on gaming in between accolades for Masi Oka (did you know he translates all his lines himself? Whattaguy!)

2006-12-06 07:57:07
2.   Benaiah
I am not a huge gamer, but I have some friends that are and also are rabid soccer fans (footie they call it). Anyway, they say that Fifa pales in comparison to Winning Eleven. If I were you I would check it out (it might be just for P.S. unfortunately, I know that is what they played it on, but I have no clue if that is its sole platform).
2006-12-06 09:54:07
3.   Mark T.R. Donohue
1 Even for an admitted non-hardcore user like myself, it's hard not to be underwhelmed by the graphical power of the Wii. It might be the result of the launch titles mostly being games hastily ported over from Gamecube builds, but at the moment the the thing looks decidedly current-gen. I'm not ruling out buying one in the future -- I did end up buying all of the systems of the last hardware cycle, some even twice -- but at the moment I wanted the system with some time since launch (to work out the inevitable first-year bugs), a big library of titles already for sale, and the best balance of price tag to processor might. Oh, and AAA titles. Gears of War is rad and BioShock looks like it is going to be a classic. As I understand it the next-gen Grand Theft Auto will come out for 360 and PS3 simultaneously. Xbox Live's established functionality is a big selling point too. And, you have to stand up to play a lot of the Wii games. Who wants to get exercise playing video games?

2 For a period of three years I bought both the FIFA and Winning Eleven games (which were initially PS2-only, then available for XBox as well starting I think in '05 or '06). Although I have heard it echoed in many different places, I never understood people's opinions of W11's clear superiority. When I first starting playing soccer vids a big part of the selling point was learning the players and the clubs in the real-life game, which I was trying to rapidly absorb from a starting point of basically zero knowledge. W11 never had complete licenses so the uniforms, sponsors, club names, and some players were all wrong. It did have the superior engine, much more realistic and sim-like, but a lot of that advantage was wasted with an idiosyncratic control scheme, underperforming visuals, and a vastly inferior franchise mode. To my mind FIFA has caught up in terms of gameplay and was always the better package in terms of everything else. The new 360 version, which is short a ton of teams but introduces independent ball physics which are THE next thing in soccer games, shows a lot of promise for the series. It usually takes a year or two for sports titles to fully take advantage of new hardware -- I distinctly remember the colossal leap from Madden '01 to '02 on the PS2.

2006-12-06 11:48:25
4.   Shaun P
3 Mark, does your lack of a PS2 mean an end to your "play every Final Fantasy all the way through in order" quest?
2006-12-06 12:50:19
5.   Mark T.R. Donohue
4 Sadly, yes. I will play V and VI on my DS and then go back and play the new remake of III, but that will be the end of it. Still, I did get to the final dungeon of V, and that's pretty good. Along the way I beat II and III (on an emulator) for the first times ever.
2006-12-06 20:49:55
6.   Benaiah
3 - My friends always played against each other so I guess the superior gameplay more that made up for the Franchise mode for them. I agree with you, I want to improve my team and generally I am far more excited about the roster moves than the games (which are pretty repetitive after awhile).
2006-12-07 12:08:00
7.   ninjavshippo
my unsolicited 2 cents:

1c) winning eleven and pro-evolution soccer both outdo fifa, imho.

2c) i've tried both the wii and the 360 and ended up buying a wii. you don't have to stand up to play, the motion-sensing remotes are worth the price of admission for the expanded gameplay possibilities, and it won't break the bank. i haven't regretted it for a second. i'm not saying it's for everyone, but for those of us without hdtvs who've grown weary of non-innovative FPSes think it's refreshing. besides, if it gets my anti-gaming girlfriend to grab a wii-mote for 2 hrs+ (which she has), they've developed something fun and new.

just sayin, don't disregard it just bc of its graphics. it's not meant to compete with the others in that aspect and dismissing it on those grounds is a non-starting straw man, imo. criticisms of the online play (yet to be upgraded via firmware updates) and the limited game library (unless you missed out on the cube generation altogether) are warranted.

that said, if game developers aren't creative enough to make other games like zelda: twilight pricess or trauma center, the wii-mote thing could end up like the next power glove or virtual boy.

2006-12-07 14:29:33
8.   Mark T.R. Donohue
7 I do have an HDTV, and I don't have a girlfriend.
2006-12-07 17:43:12
9.   Ali Nagib
"I love the Power Glove...it's so bad."
"Yeah, well you just keep your Power Gloves off of her, pal."

Crazy game controller + crappy TVs = Girlfriend? Is this the equation being debated? Just curious.

2006-12-07 21:00:40
10.   Mark T.R. Donohue
9 For the record, my TV is roughly 900 times better than any girlfriend I've ever had. And I've had a few girlfriends.
2006-12-07 22:43:15
11.   ninjavshippo
10
well, technically i have a terrific girlfriend with an awesome tv. i'm not sure who wins. guessing by the empty spots in our wallets, nintendo and microsoft.
2006-12-09 21:05:17
12.   thinkblue88
My Wii-mote is giving me troubles. It pains me to see Link just standing around getting his ass kicked while I wave my arms furiously hoping he will swing his Master Sword. =(
2006-12-10 12:13:48
13.   Greg Brock
Great piece. My PS2 broke in the exact same fashion about two years ago, and I got a used one, which suffered the same fate as well.

I've been debating whether or not to buy the PS3 or 360, and yours is among the chorus of consumers that have led me to buy a 360. Plus, I can finally see what all this Halo excitement is about.

2006-12-10 23:26:29
14.   ninjavshippo
12
have you tried the zelda pointer config in-game? It helped me a lot to get it to work accurately.

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