Saturday!
The PS1 era was the first console generation that really allowed for video game publishers to take risks. Prior to CDs, if a wacky game came out in Japanese, for example, you’d have to get a translator for the dialog and then create hard physical media with all kinds of chips in there (and maybe even batteries). CDs were cheap. Practically free. Remember those AOL cds that you’d get in the mail? Enough to put them on a dowel and get a lathe and make an AOL CD baseball bat.
Where was I? Oh, yeah. CDs allowed the cost of making games across cultures into something where you’d really only have to get a translator. For games like dialog heavy RPGs, this would be no small feat but for games where the majority of the action involved shooting or running to the right or some other heavy action variant, you’d pretty much need a translator for stuff like “pause” and “save” as action needs no translation. Maybe you’d have to get a translator for the opening cinematic but you can just hire one of the kids from the local high school for that.
Anyway, one of my favorite games from this era was a little game called No One Can Stop Mr. Domino! (Though the title screen of the game itself added a comma. “No One Can Stop, Mr. Domino!” It made it sound like a game where it was your job to help people stop.)
The idea was that you were a Domino running around a table (with all kinds of little obstacles all over it) and you left dominos behind you as you ran if you managed to run perfectly along a special track. Run around this table three times and then, the third time, you kick over the domino and you were scored on how long your toppling domino trail went. Get a long enough one, go to the next level.
This is a game that never would have made it to US shores until the cost of getting it over here was negligible.
Of course, now that we have the ‘tubes, the cost of getting games over here doesn’t even require physical media at all anymore.
Just the cost of a translator. And, as we’ve seen, those can be pretty extraneous.
So… what are you playing?
(Picture is “Untitled” by our very own Will Truman. Used with permission.)
XCOM 2 in Ironman mode. It turns out that without save-scumming, I’m actually pretty terrible at this game! 🙂Report
praise the sun!Report
I spent my day working as a range safety while my unit brought out it’s crew sereved weapons for practice.Report
I have aborted Ringworld midway in the third novel. The first couple were interesting but now it’s kind of become monster warfare, which interests me less.
I am caught up on Suits. I thought I was a half-season behind but instead had a full season and a half. Which was great! The show is at its best when it is deliberately amoral, though, and it’s kind of been moving away from that.Report
I think I started the second novel. I might even have finished it. The last Niven book I actually enjoyed was The Integral Trees, from 1984. The Legacy of Heorot (1987), if you include collaborations, though “It’s OK to be stupid. You can make up for it if you use enough violence.” is not my favorite theme.Report
My bigger objection in Ringworld is with all of the sex.
“You borrowed my pencil. We should seal this compact with intercourse.”Report
I’d forgotten about that. Isn’t there some universal fetish for inter-species sex?Report
Suits is kind of a guilty pleasure for me; I know it’s basically one step above a daytime soap but I can’t help but get totally invested in it. I’m the same way with Supernatural.
Been playing a fair amount of Just Cause 3 lately, and I’m about 80-85% of the way through it now. Fallout 4 is next on deck, although part of me thinks I should wait a couple more months so that I’ll have all three DLCs when I finally play it.Report
Watched Duck Soup for the first time in years. It’s still hilarious.Report