Where are the girls?

I'm speeding towards the end of the game's main storyline, and I've been getting ditched by my girlfriends all over the map. I've started dating all 6 of them... because you get some pretty nice rewards for doing so. The biggest deal being NOT having to lose all your weapons when you die or get caught by cops. That's worth it.

The problem with the girlfriends is that they hide a layer of complexity that the game doesn't discuss... which is inconsistent with the game's moderately annoying practice of throwing tips at you when you enter a new facet of gameplay. Well, maybe not "tips" so much as full definitions of what it means to be killed, to dance, to mod your car, etc... all covered on the first time you encounter said example.

The secret's out... I'm working on a Fatal Frame card game.

Disclaimer: Again, this is purely a fan thing... just something I do to kill time. It's not endorsed, supported, approved or requested by the good folks from Tecmo who created this super-awesome PlayStation2 series.

Just like I did with Red Dwarf, Mitchell, and my heretofore crowning achievement, TaleSpin, Fatal Frame: the Card Game will be freely available online in multiple PDF downloads until I get a call from a lawyer. I don't know if it's cathartic or what, but I seem to enjoy designing card games based on the media works I'm currently obsessing over. I have quite a few unfinished efforts sitting around my den, but Fatal Frame is the one that has made it to alpha mode... IE, workable ruleset and first drafts of Photoshopped card designs. Fatal Frame: the Card Game will be subtitled "Crimson Butterfly Edition" because I'm working solely with the second game in the series, Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly.

Been a while, I know. The truth is, I got caught up in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and basically avoided LeafGreen for a time. As a general rule, I try to keep one active game per system - setting LeafGreen aside to play Kingdom Hearts was an anomaly, but it points to the lack of compelling content in LeafGreen. When I was deep in Sapphire, almost nothing could sway me from its grip (over 150 hours!) LeafGreen just sort of skates along in Sapphire's wake. In fact, I'm kind of steamrolling through LeafGreen now so I can get to Minish Cap.

Tri-Island recap. Lostette: Home. Islands' narrow-minded Kanto prejudice: eliminated. Pokemon PC storage system: Fixed. Me: Returned to Cinnabar.

Continuing on the continent's clockwise sweep, I swam north for a glorious return to Pallet Town. But I wasn't really interested in a homecoming; Pallet is a rural suburb of Viridian City, the true goal... for now the Gym is open.

Tonight's Law and Order: SVU rerun tackled the crime-caused-by-video-games issue. The fictional game used in the episode ("Intensity") was obviously a Grand Theft Auto riff, although it looked more like crap than expected. The crux of the episode was that the killers mimicked a crime found in the game, kicking a hooker to death.

Weirdly, they decided to make the hooker-kicking scene an easter egg, rather than just normal gameplay. But I suppose the virtual sandbox concept of GTA is difficult to explain to an audience with little experience in modern video games. If your chief frame of reference is something like NES Mario, where the game consists of a series of levels where you run from Point A to Point B, you probably have trouble imagining what kind of game would include being able to kick hookers.

During the brief moments I can detach the PS2 from being a dedicated San Andreas machine, I played through some demos I recently received in the mail. The Getaway: Black Monday and God of War.

Short version: God of War is a really good demo, and Getaway is a really bad one.

I remember playing a demo of the first Getaway... it was positioned as a huge PS2 title. In fact, early screenshots of Getaway's supposed photo-realistic vision of modern day London were on the streets before the PS2 even came out. At the time, I was looking forward to it, but it dropped off the radar for far too long. Then it re-surfaced, mailed me a demo, and I called Mike 20 minutes later to report that it was merely okay. Gimpy controls, boring driving, with some non-traditional ideas about HP meters and such.

I beat the game Friday night - well, finished the main storyline missions anyway. I believe my game percentage comes in just under %70, and the clock (which, as usual, would not include any unsaved restarts) shows over 80 hours. Yeah, that's no Animal Crossing or Pokemon Sapphire, but it's damn fine investment.

Although the last few missions cover a citywide riot (which even goes on inbetween missions, which I loved) and a nail-biting action movie ending, I thought it could have used a bit more buildup. Particularly when it comes to the Big Smoke sting. Maybe some recon missions to see what he's up to, play up his crack fortress as a truly major league destination. As it is, you're told about his fortress and demolish that fortress in one mission.

The final beat with Toreno seemed unresolved. I was anticipating him going down on Hamburger Hill at some point. Consider him for placement in GTA4.

I'm devoted. I'm willing to stick by a once-great franchise through lean times in silent hope of a return to greatness.

For example, Resident Evil.

I remember watching commercials for Resident Evil 2, before I even owned a PlayStation. I knew it was a Big Game. Thinking back to my early PlayStation library, getting RE2 was a real eye-opener. It showed me that games could tell stories, that content could be gory and adult, and that cutscenes could be worth watching. I jumped when the zombie arms smashed through the window in the police station corridor. I collected keys shaped like chess pieces. I finished the game and considered it a genuine accomplishment.

Thought I'd do a cat update. It will not be long before Zoe turns one, and I'm slowly starting to think that the worst is behind us. As she storms out of kittenhood, she's bothering Annie less and causing less trouble around the house.

We're not there yet. She will still pounce on Annie for no reason, or suddenly fashion an interest in something on the kitchen countertop... but it's nowhere near the crazy claw-and-fang kitten attitude we had half a year ago. She may always be more vertically oriented than Annie, meaning we may never break her of scaling shelves or jumping up to the kitchen sink, and that's just going to be her personality. She's also much more stubborn than Annie. Zoe usually needs to be yelled at (or physically removed) two or three times before she'll give up on something, like batting at a window blind pull or climbing over Rhonda's vanity at 3am. After the first warning, she'll just turn around and go immediately back to it. It's actually sort of cute, when it's not 3am.

I think the Elite Four battle took me an hour, maybe an hour and a half. That's one time through, no restarts. The Four consists of Lorelei, Bruno, Agatha and Lance. As I expected, the Agatha battle was the first difficult one.

I ended the internal debate on which fighters to register by splitting the difference: Gyarados would be my EXP-receiving chump and Zapdos would fill out the 6th slot as additional high-level insurance. Every single opposing pokemon in the Elite Four is above level 50, going up as high as level 60. So my team entered a little below that average. Yeah, my Blastoise and Gengar are beefy battlers, but the rest all centered around 50 (with that young Gyarados checking in around 40). So I had to be ready with some good items in backup: Revive, Full Restore, Max Potion, and my favorite health item: Fresh Water.

So there's this upcoming post-op new wave Looney Tunes cartoon coming, where the usual Warner Bros favorites are remade into futuristic super heroes. It's all over the internet and most people seem to hate it. The concept video (which is also readily found online, although I have a broadcast quality version of it on my desk at work, hyuck) begins with an old-style animation table - the kind that hasn't been used since 1950 - with a cel of six classic Warner characters. Well, five classic characters (Bugs, Daffy, Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote and the Tazmanian Devil) and Lola Bunny, the female rabbit counterpart created for Space Jam. We can debate the merits of including Lola all night. What's the current internet lexography for the rolling of eyes?

It's pointless, but I can't help imagine how things would be different if Resident Evil 4 had been released during GameCube Year One.

Imagine this game as an early GameCube release instead of a late GameCube release... say, Fall 2002. Imagine a big marketing push screaming about the rebirth of the fading Resident Evil franchise, exclusive to Nintendo's budget-priced brand new console. Theatrical trailers, TV ads. Nintendo would have ran away with the holiday season and utterly smacked down the Xbox, rather than competing neck-and-neck. There would be no question of Nintendo's new dedication to older gamers, nor of their commitment to third party developers. Those who bought a GameCube specifically for RE4 would be quickly ushered into Eternal Darkness, Metroid Prime and Metal Gear: Twin Snakes, followed by the long-term promise of Resident Evil 5 as another GameCube exclusive in 2004 (a foregone conclusion given the tremendous sales of this mythical Fall of '02.) Based on all these adult gamers with a 'Cube, the sports and racing games would have returned to Nintendo. Rare and Silicon Knights would have stayed as staunch Nintendo second parties, delivering Perfect Dark Zero and Too Human, respectively. And all the while Nintendo continues the usual business of pumping out quality Mario titles to cement the all-ages demographic.

As much as I like the Ratchet & Clank series, I'm surprised it doesn't get slapped around more for repeating itself. IGN.com has given each entry in the series steadily increasing scores... and good scores to boot. 9.2, 9.4, 9.6. Obviously you don't adjust old scores when new games come out, but the leap from 2 to 3 is nowhere near the leap from 1 to 2... far greater than two tenths of a point. The second game (Going Commando) added in the asteroid worlds, upgradeable weapons and a far improved HP system. The third game (Up Your Arsenal) is really just more of Game 2. (Gamerankings.com shows 89.3, 91.8, 92.3.)

Which is no bad thing. Just not much of a new thing. Arsenal is at times annoyingly identical to Commando, which kind of saps the drive to continue playing. What bugs me the most is the visual/physical similarities. Lots of worlds are comprised of graphics and buildings that are lifted wholesale from previous games with little or no improvement. They're even recycling the same Globetrotters' spin animation whenever Ratchet picks up a new item or titanium bolt. Of course, Arsenal adds in a robust online mode, which has to be upping the score substantially.