More Info on the Official GW Wiki

For those of you interested, I've browsed through some of the new Official Guild Wars Wiki and found out some more information about it. To read the full page with all the information, follow this link.

The biggest piece of information I've gathered is that GW has plans to implement its wiki into the game itself. They explain it better than I ever could.

A couple of years from now, we hope that all of our games have wiki support integrated into the game as a built-in help system. We think it would be fantastic if a player could select 'help' and then click on any quest, mission, skill, etc., and get complete documentation about that item in-game from the Guild Wars wiki site. This is a long term vision but something we should start working towards.

There are a few clear problems we need to solve today as a prerequisite to that vision. First, the game's wiki documentation needs to be hosted on a site that can scale to handle the potentially huge volume and huge bandwidth that would come with game integration. Second, the game's wiki documentation needs to be hosted on a site that we can guarantee will always be available. Third, the game's wiki documentation needs to be hosted under a license that permits integration with the game. For all these reasons, we think it makes sense for ArenaNet to start providing free hosting for a wiki site on our servers, and to start working with the community to bring this vision to reality.

Sounds like a great idea to me! It's also a new idea. I haven't heard of any other game working on something as awesome as this. One of the problems with help documents are that they aren't really that helpful. Most of the time I am unable to find what I'm looking for, especially in help documents for Microsoft products. If Microsoft were to follow ArenaNet's example and can manage to make it work out right, this could be huge... and helpful.

One of the biggest questions asked by GW fans is whether or not the site will be monitored closely by "GW police" or whether it will be more like GuildWiki. Here's the answer:

We're offering to provide free bandwidth and servers, but it is our hope that community members will run the wiki, just like community members run Guild Wars wikis today. We encourage those who administer and moderate Guild Wars wikis to contact us; we'll give you equivalent rights on our hosted servers.

Will ArenaNet own the content?

ArenaNet is not attempting to own user-contributed articles or have any special rights over them. ArenaNet is offering to host user-contributed content under the terms of the GNU Free Document License, which is the same license that Wikipedia uses. Contributors will own the copyrights to original content they write, and by uploading them to the ArenaNet-hosted wiki site, they will be making their articles available for other people to use under the terms of the Free Document License.

The GNU Free Document License (GFDL) is the same that StrategyWiki uses as well. It's a great license. Note that GuildWiki uses Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license, so it may be difficult to move things between the two.

Speaking of GuildWiki, another big question was the relationship between the official wiki and GuildWiki. According to the FAQ, Guild Wars has a lot of support from the creators of GuildWiki and has even been given quite a bit of hints and tips. It is likely that both wikis will be able to thrive alongside of each other, and even support each other.

There's more there, so check it out if you want any more information.

Guild Wars News

Lots of news coming out of Guild Wars this week! Here is a brief synopsis. Check the links for more information.

First: Guild Wars has launched its official wiki! The main page is laid out nicely, but as you can imagine there isn't much content up at this point. However, I imagine that this will change rather quickly, given how popular the unofficial GuildWiki is. I haven't seen a discussion on GuildWiki about the new official wiki yet.

Second: Guild Wars has announced an expansion pack to the game. It will be called Guild Wars: Eye of the North and apparently requires one of the previous Guild Wars installations to be played. It is set to be released during the 2007 holiday season. See GuildWiki's page for more information.

Third: Guild Wars has announced a new game, Guild Wars 2. This new game will be similar to Guild Wars in that it is located in the same world. However, new gameplay will be introduced, including five different playable races including humans, Charr, and three new races (Norn, Asura, and Sylvari). There will be no monthly fee to play the game. Check out GuildWiki's page for more information.

Read the press release for the official announcement.

Gamespot Review: Command & Conquer 3

9.0 out of 10

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/commandconquer3/review.html?tag=nl.e579

Greatest Moments in Final Fantasy

This post is going to outline what I think are the three greatest moments in Final Fantasy. I won't put them in any specific order, since they were all amazing moments.

************SPOILER WARNING***************

This section may include major spoilers for people who have not played the game before. If you do not wish to know, do not read this section.

Game: Final Fantasy IV
Section: The Opera Scene
Reason: It was really amazing. It had perfect music. For the technology, they did a lot with it. It was very moving and just really well done.

Game: Final Fantasy VII
Section: Death of Aeris
Reason: Very very moving and well done. Plus, they killed off a main character mid game, something not many are willing to do. Plus, we were attached to her (though admittedly I liked Tifa far far far more).

Game: Final Fantasy VIII
Section: The Dance
Reason: Perfect Music. Perfect story foreshadowing. Probably the best FMV scene ever. Just Freakin Awesome.

Worst...Level...Ever...

In response to Kris' best levels post, I am forced to haul out the worst level I've ever seen in a video game. It's in Bubble Bobble (the NES version), which you may remember I praised for level A6 (a completely freefall level). However, even though I love Bubble Bobble, I can never forgive the developers for level 57:


The baddies at the top are "Super Sockets". They shoot beams down at you. To beat the level, you must either pray for a "kill all the enemies bonus" or bounce on your own bubbles all the way to the top (without being hit by a beam, which is an exercise in luck most of the time), and then kill the baddies before they run into you. Oh, and the bubbles float downward in this level, so you get one chance to jump on it before you start falling all the way back down the wall.

I challenge anyone to come up with a worse level.

Props to Sydlexia.com for the picture. Check out their Top 100 NES games entry for Bubble Bobble.

Gamer Image - Steven

Apparently Shigeru Miyamoto is "concerned about gamer image." See this link for the article. The reason I mention this article is because of the following paragraph.

He also spoke of the 'gamer image' - mentioning that in 1998 the top selling games were Goldeneye 007, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Gran Turismo, Banjo Kazooie and Mario 64. Fast-forward to 2005 and we see the top games were predominantly similar to each other or sequels. Grand Theft Auto:San Andreas, Madden NFL 2005, Halo 2 in two varieties and ESPN NFL 2K5.

While I understand what Miyamoto is saying, I don't think that problem is too serious. He may be right that there are less and less original games, it isn't necessarily a bad thing. For example, the reason Ocarina of Time and Mario 64 were so popular is because they were such great games. Even those were based off of other games. And there were more games after them. Some were flops (Super Mario Sunshine) and others were not (Wind Waker and Twilight Princess). If a game does well then new versions of that game are most welcome, especially if they add a little something new to it.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas may be like GTA 3 and GTA: VC but it adds new gameplay. This goes for Halo 2 and Madden NFL 2005 as well, just like many other games out there. Games that don't add anything new at all don't tend to do well. In other words, we should begin to worry when games can't come up with anything new.

There of course are some really great games out there that are very new and innovative. Take Shadow of the Collosus for example. Never before had a game come up with such a neat idea. You have to climb massive colossi, which move and attempt to shake you off. Not only was it original, it was fun. The Wii adds for a whole new level of possibility with games. I personally can't wait for a flight simulator that utilizes the Wiimote effectively.

What are your thoughts?

Best Video Game Levels

Ok, so as a quzi followup to my best SNES games, I add a new discussion. What are the greatest video game levels of all time?

I will list some in no particular order:

Casino Night from Sonic 2
1-1 and 1-3 from Super Mario Brothers 3
Lavos battles at end of Chrono Trigger
First Dungeon in Legend of Zelda-the original (Steve)
Mine Carts from Donkey Kong Country (Specific name I do not remember)
D-Day from Allied Assault
Facing Worlds from Unreal Tournament (Derek)
The Hunter's Map from StarCraft (Steve)
Castle 4 of Super Mario Brothers (Derek)
A6 of Bubble Bobble (Derek)
The Overlord final battle from StarCraft (Derek)
Altered Beast first level (Steve)
Last race in the Mushroom Cup of Super Mario Kart (Derek)
Colossus 1 in Shadow of the Colossus (Steve)

Add more that you can think of!

What are Fanboys?

Via Button Mashing, I found this link about fanboys. Definitely check out the link. It is pretty darn funny to read.

I am fortunate enough not to know any true fanboys, though I do see traces of it in a few people I know. I have in the past sounded slightly fanboyish, especially in relation to the release of the Wii and the PS3. I am, at least, smart enough and un-fanboyish enough (hurray for making up words) to know when this happens. I am proud to say I've never called myself hardcore.

I'd like to see others' thoughts on this idea. Who is the worst? Nintendo fanboys or Playstation? My vote goes Nintendo, I've never seen more childish discussions than on GameFAQs polls when a Nintendo character goes up against a strong Playstation contender. It gets to the point where even the Nintendo fanboys argue with themselves over the same thing! I've never seen that with PS...

Super Mario 64 Endgame

After having beaten Super Mario 64 with all 120 stars and the maximum number of coins on most levels, what is there left to do? For most games, you'd say nothing. But for SM64, there's a lot left to do.

For most games, glitches are problematic and annoying. But with SM64, they are actually quite the opposite. Having played through the game multiple times and never encountering a serious glitch once, the game retains its fun, not annoying gameplay. But when you have mastered the game, the glitches (which are somewhat hard to find) become a sort of mini-game by themselves.

I find that I now want to seek out these glitches and exploit them. In my mind, I cannot be a true master of SM64 until I am able to do some of the more difficult glitches and tricks throughout the game. For example, I just recently made it to the top of the castle without using the cannon. It is difficult and took me a good amount of time to complete it, but I did it. I also just recently, managed to complete Princess's Secret Slide in 14.0 seconds exactly, another feat that is quite difficult (the record is 12.4).

There is a lot left for me to accomplish, such as the MIPS trick (using the rabbit to finagle your way through a couple doors) and the "backwards long jump up the infinites stairs" trick. It is possible to complete the entire game with only 16 stars (this was done in under 20 minutes). You can also get an infinite number of coins in a few different levels, after a very tedious, lengthy, and difficult process.

So if you have completed Super Mario 64 with 120 stars, make an attempt at getting every coin in each level. Then when you've done that, try getting on top of the castle and beat you record for the races. Try to utilize the various shortcuts in the game. Then start exploiting glitches. There is a great deal of fun to have, even after completing the bulk of the game.

First Thoughts: Command & Conquer 3 Demo

EA seems to have put together a solid sequel to its Tiberium series. I played the demo yesterday, and I thought it was pretty good. The demo was helpful, if a little slow and incomplete. I would have liked to see more units and structures featured in the demo, to get a feel for the different abilities. The prologue mission was pretty good. The demo mission available was really nice, with plenty of Nod and GDI units available. Skirmish was decent, although I've only played it on Easy so far.

Overall, the demo was pretty good. I'm looking forward to the full game, so I would guess the demo did its work.

Sound: Pretty good, but some of the unit sounds are confusing. For example, it seems that when Orcas (aircraft) are ordered to move, the sound is "Return to base!", which makes me think that the aircraft is actually going to rearm and repair, when instead it may just be moving to another area and remaining there.

Graphics: Very nice. The animations are clean and attractive. It has the "futuristic" feel that you would expect. I wish I had more opportunities to use the Ion Cannon, because I really liked the view.

Units: Only GDI units are usable in the demo, but from what I've seen, I like them. Riflemen, however, seem a bit underpowered. I'm still having a little trouble keeping track of the different vehicles and their strengths and weaknesses, also. Mammoth tanks with the railgun upgrade make Derek very happy.

Defense structures: After playing Generals, where sides have only 2 structures (and can generally get by with only 1), three different defense structures are a little difficult to work with.

Interface: Very C&C. The building bar is very reminiscent of any C&C game, except Generals. The actual interface seems to take too much space on the screen, with the main map visibility being severely reduced. If there was one thing I'd change about the demo, it would be making the interface smaller, so I can see more of the battlefield.

Overall, a great demo. I would recommend any fan of RTS to try it out. Nothing terribly innovative in the game, it's just a good RTS installment.

Great SNES Games

There were a ton of games for the old SNES. I saw *some guy* with a DVD of ROMS for the SNES. There were tons and tons of them. The issue is, how many of those games are even worth playing now (even worse, how many were worth playing then). I propose a list of ones actually worth having and playing TODAY so you don't need to waste a DVD :-).

Chrono Trigger (Greatest game on SNES)
Final Fantasy (All of them)
Super Mario Brothers
Super Mario All-Stars
Super Mario RPG
Aerobiz and Aerobiz Supersonic (just trust me on that one, it is ADDICTIVE)
Donkey Kong Country (I, II, and III, they all had good points, but I was the best)
Mario Kart
Zelda
Secret of Mana
Radical Dreamers (need translation, well worth playing for stories)
EarthBound (mentioned for Steve)
Super Metroid (I dunno, I hated it but so many others would disagree so I'll add it)

Add any I'm missing, but that is a pretty short list and probably not missing many. Still, those games make it worth it all :-)