Back in the days of 8-bit video games, the bane of many a gamer’s existence was a complicated password. While classic games like Mega Man 2 and Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse used a relatively simple graphic-based password system, you had plenty of games that used long strings of text. Metroid and Kid Icarus are perfect examples of this; both had very long passwords that were made up of seemingly random characters (the infamous Justin Bailey code nonwithstanding). Writing those down every time you played could fill a damn book; in fact, that’s exactly what we had to do back then! Separate notebooks were often devoted to each game. What a pain in the ass!

The absolute worst, however, were text string passwords that included non-alphanumeric characters, like the ones used in the Game Boy RPG The Sword of Hope:

What the hell is that? You’d better pray you didn’t fuck up when you copied down those damn things. One mistake, and you were back to square one. This was especially true in RPGs, as you’d likely spent many hours progressing and making your character quite powerful.

Eventually, battery-backed save systems flourished. Passwords became a thing of the past, and all was well with the world. Right?

Wrong.

For those of us that enjoy collecting and playing vintage games, battery save has become the ironic white whale to our Ahab. You see, many of our favorite games came out nearly twenty years ago. The batteries inside have long since crapped out, making saving your game impossible. (They can be replaced, but it takes a lot of work; the batteries are often soldered in there, and you run the risk of destroying your game cart. Not worth it!) In these cases, password-based games have become much more tolerable.

Passwords used to piss me off to no end. Now, they’ve become a saving grace. Who knew?

Holy shit, and I thought LEGO® minifigures were expensive.

I’ve recently gotten into the board game Dungeon Twister. It’s a fantasy strategy game; the object is to escape from a dungeon in which the layout is never the same twice, and even shifts over the course of play! The eight characters assigned to each player are represented by cardboard standup tokens. They get the job done, and the art on them is very good, but what if you wanted some more three-dimensional versions of your team?

“We represent the lollipop guild…”

The good news is that Dungeon Twister‘s distributor Asmodée offers a full set of figurines cast in blue and yellow resin (to denote the game’s two player colors), and they’re fully paintable, as seen above.

The bad news is the price: they’re $24.99 for a set of eight. That may seem relatively reasonable at first; it’s around the same price-per-figure as the popular Warhammer series, and these are single sculpts, not model kits. But to play a full game, you need to take that $24.99 figure, and double it: otherwise, you’ve only got enough figures for one player!

When it comes to the game’s expansion packs (like Paladins & Dragons and Forces of Darkness), things get even worse. Instead of $24.99 for a set of eight, you’re looking at twice as much: $49.99 for eight figurines! And again, you need yellow ones and blue ones to play, so for a playable set of sixteen, you’re looking at a hundred bucks! There’s also additional zombie figurines for use with Forces of Darkness, and these go for $15.99 per four-pack.

“BBRRAAIINSS! …and boobies.”

Altogether, you’re looking at spending an absolutely obscene amount of money if you want playable sets of figurines for Dungeon Twister. Granted, it’s nowhere near the amount you’d spend to build a powerful army in Warhammer, but the difference is that the figures are the game in Warhammer. In Dungeon Twister, they’re just an optional accessory, which sometimes cost more than the game itself!

Talk about highway robbery. I understand that these figures are high quality, and imported from France (which certainly helps drive up the cost), but you’d think that taking a small hit on the price up front would really help the damn things catch on. Sorry, I don’t have hundreds of dollars just to spend on a gaming accessory. I could get Dungeon Twister itself plus every expansion for a hell of a lot less!

I’ve been a longtime board game fan, and I’ll even go out and admit that I think board games are far superior to video games. Coming from a video game enthusiast like myself, I know that may come as a bit of a shock to you, but it’s the truth.

At the same time, it’s not like we’re forced to decide between the two. For almost as long as we’ve had video games, we’ve had digital versions of board games. Chess is the most popular one, of course, closely followed by card games and other classic board games like Monopoly. Aside from the more well-known games, we’re starting to see quite a few video game adaptations of popular European board games. These types of games are generally more complex than their American counterparts, and feature much more strategy, teamwork, and resource management. And ironically, they often have expansion packs, just like some video games!

The Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) is home to many such adaptations, such as Catan, Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, and the upcoming Dungeon Twister (which will eventually make its way to other platforms, likely PlayStation Network and WiiWare). Using the Xbox Live network, this makes it easy for players to engage in some virtual board game fun.

The problem with these video board games is that they’re just not the same as playing the real deal on a tabletop. Not even close. Sure, you can talk with your fellow players over a headset, but it’s no substitute for actually being there, facing down your opponents. Pushing buttons on a controller is a poor replacement for the tactile sensations of picking up and moving game pieces, cards, and dice. And what if you want to change the game’s rules, or the story, et cetera? You can’t do that within the confines of a rigidly-coded video game, no matter how “open-ended” it may claim to be.

It disgusts me to think that plenty of video game stalwarts actually prefer the digital versions of such rich board games to the real thing. Put down the controller, pick up a few dice, and play some real games. You can even play the oft-maligned Dungeons & Dragons, if you wish; it may be a target of ridicule, but at least it’s a social activity. That’s many steps up from video games. (Sorry, playing online doesn’t count, and even having friends over with extra controllers is pushing it.)

The other day, I was listening to the late George Carlin’s final album, It’s Bad for Ya. On it, there’s a bit entitled “Today’s Professional Parents.” As with most things, Carlin was right on the money; sure, he was being funny, but he was also correct in how ridiculous modern parents are when it comes to overprotecting their children. One of my favorite quotes:

Even the simple act of playing has been taken away, and put on Mommy’s schedule in the form of “play dates.” Something that should be spontaneous and free is now being rigidly planned.

You never see kids just going outside and having fun anymore. Their folks either keep them trapped in the backyard under permanent guard (nothing wrong with safety, but this is ridiculous!), or dump them in front of the TV and video games. And we wonder why so many children are obese? Not “fat”…obese, as in disgustingly overweight. I don’t know where this paranoia comes from (maybe the news media’s sensationalization of “sexual predators”?), but it’s gotta stop.

Even in school, where a kid should be balancing their education with downtime and play, it’s out of control. If a kid scrapes a knee during recess, what happens? The parents end up suing the school. It’s no surprise that our educational system is going down the shitter; all of these frivolous lawsuits are draining coffers dry. (Stupid lawsuits are definitely something I’ll have to expound upon in a future post.)

For fuck’s sake, you uptight parents, just leave the damn kids alone once in a while, and let them enjoy their childhood! They don’t have a lot of time to themselves before they end up becoming bitter adults like the rest of us.

Previously, I’ve talked about how the old divide between “hardcore” and “casual” gamers has fallen apart. I can’t take credit for it, but this belief seems to be extending into the gaming media; I’ve seen many outlets eschew the term “hardcore” gamer. Now, the new trend is to refer to them as “core” gamers.

This is just as retarded as calling them “hardcore” gamers, and for the exact same reasons.

On the surface, a “core” gamer is ostensibly one who enjoys “non-casual” games, just like “hardcore” gamers before them. (That is, this gamer is more likely to play Resident Evil or Halo than Bejeweled or Tetris.) To reiterate my reason as to why these labels are stupid: for every extreme Halo fan, there’s a passionate Peggle player, thus rendering the labels pointless. Shortening the term to “core” actually makes it worse; the very word “core” generally means the strong base providing the foundation for something, right? Well, in this case, the application is clearly wrong based on simple logic. Using the exact definition of the word, then we simply must conclude that Nintendo’s Wii and DS are the true “core” platforms, as they’ve got the largest install base. (You could also technically count the PlayStation 2, as it’s still supported and has sold over 150 million units.) Yet, the use of “core” in the gaming press refers to heavy action titles on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3! So, once again, the argument falls apart.

You don’t see this kind of mental diarrhea in other forms of entertainment. There’s no “core” music fans, or “core” movie fans, or “core” book fans. Ditch the stupid adjectives already, and call players everywhere what they are: just gamers.