Povert

It’s been over a year since I posted my video game stack of shame.

I haven’t done so well. I beat some games that weren’t on that list (Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box), but of the games that were, I can cross out “New Super Mario Brothers”.

That’s it.

That said, I made a lot of progress on FF XIII a while back. I’m pretty much at the end; I just need some time to sit down and play it (and I need to be in the right mood).

I’ve also added some games to the list, including 3 very, very old games.

Here’s the Ultra Turbo Video Game Stack of Shame 2012 Stack of the Year Edition, ordered by likelihood of me playing them:

• Final Fantasy I
• Final Fantasy XIII
• Fez
• Bard’s Tale I
• Professor Layton and the Unwound Future
• Final Fantasy IV (PSP or DS version)
• Oblivion
• Assassin’s Creed:Brotherhood
• Monkey Island Chapter 5
• Mass Effect 2
• Dragon Age
• The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess
• Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles
• Final Fantasy IV: The After Years
• New Super Mario Brothers Wii
• Okami
• Xenosaga II
• Super Mario RPG
• Paper Mario
• Final Fantasy III
• Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
• Assassin’s Creed Bloodlines
• Bard’s Tale II
• Bioshock
• Bard’s Tale III
• Grand Theft Auto IV

This list is depressing. I’ve crossed one game off in since last year, and added 6 more. I’m sure I’m forgetting some too. Sure, we had Julian last year, but that was November. Late November.

That said, here’s what’s happening now. I’m playing a few in parallel, because apparently I prefer to fail at several things at the same time rather than in sequence. Here they are:

• Final Fantasy I: It’s old-school, but it’s a straightforward game. Grinding is the main obstacle, and I’m a patient grinder. I’m early on in this, but I might just stick with it this time. Contrast this with…
• Bard’s Tale I: I know, wtf, right? I’ve been playing the Bard’s Tale games on and off for over 25 years. Partly inspired by The CRPG Addict, I’m going to make a real go at it. These games involve serious grinding, are super-punishing, require mapping by hand (unless you cheat, and what’s the point of that?) and involve a lot of luck. Fortunately, these games are easy to pick up after a break. There’s only a very thin plot and they’re fairly linear. So it might take a long time, but I’m going for it. You might think I’m crazy, but I’ll bet you’re paying attention to this year’s election and you probably don’t think that’s insane, so we’re at a stalemate.
• Final Fantasy XIII: As I mentioned above, I think I’m very, very close to the end. In fact, I think that I’m at the last save point in the game. Next weekend will be busy for me, so I may wait until the following one to really try to beat it. On a related note, I picked up XIII-2 a month or so ago, but I obviously haven’t started it yet, so that’s why it’s not on the list.
• Professor Layton and the Unwound Future: There’s a plot, but it’s basically a casual puzzle game. I can pick it up and set it aside easily.
• Fez: I started this last night. Very fun and clever.

How can I possibly play a video game (let alone 5) with a 5-month baby? Good question. Actually, it’s a good way to unwind in the evening when Julian and Kelly have gone to bed. Of course I have to keep an eye on the clock, and I’m always super-tired. But if I just slept and worked I’d lose my mind. So I give up a little extra sleep for entertainment.

I think Fez is going to distract from FFI and BTI. Still, they’re all on different platforms (FFI is on PSP, BT1 on a mac running Boxer, Layton on DS and Fez on Xbox 360) and I can play them in different situations, so I think it will work out. I might drop Layton and Fez for a while if I get too distracted.

I might try updating this blog frequently with my progress. I’m sure you all want to see my hand-drawn Bard’s Tale dungeon maps.

P.S. Screw GTA IV. I’m still mad about that last stupid mission. I’m sure it wouldn’t be that bad if I really wanted to beat it, but screw that for the foreseeable future.

When I first saw the Playstation Plus would include online storage, I got excited. I love buying old PS1 games on PSN and playing them both on my PS3 and my PSP. It’s great to be able to take my PSP on a trip or something, play a few hours of Xenogears or whatever, then come home and continue to play it on my console.

The process for doing that, though, sucks. You have to plug (!) the PSP into the PS3 with a USB cable. Then you have to go through some menus, select the relevant save games and copy them. Not the most difficult thing in the world, but it is annoying and tedious. It’s the kind of process that only seriously devoted Sony partisan would call “simple”.

What I’d really like is the ability to designate all save games for game X to be stored online. I tell my PS3 and I tell my PSP, and then it’s just works from now on. Sure, I’d have to make sure that my PSP has a chance to sync up before going somewhere, but that would be a minor nuisance.

So, my hopes were raised when I saw “Online Storage” advertised as a part of Playstation Plus. I don’t currently pay for Plus, but I would do so in a second if they offered this. Sadly, they’re not offering anything that I want. From the Technical Solutions section of their English forums:

PS1,PS2,PSP and minis save data cannot be backed up.

Boo. It gets worse:

You can back up your data to Online Storage as often as you wish, however you may only restore data to your PS3 from online storage once every 24 hours.

This is not such a big deal since PSP/PS1 games can’t be backed up, but would be if they could.

But the absolute worst part, for me:

To backup Save Game Data to Online Storage

 

• You can back up or copy the save by navigating to the ‘GAME’ icon > scroll through the options until you are on ‘SAVE DATA UTILITY (PS3)’ > Press X
• Select the save you wish to backup press the triangle button and select ‘COPY’
• You will be asked to select the destination of the back up save, navigate to the new option ‘ONLINE STORAGE’ and press X to copy over.

 

To restore Save Game Data from Online Storage:

 

• Go to ‘GAME’ icon, select ‘SAVE DATA UTILITY’ and then ‘ONLINE STORAGE’
• Highlight the saved data you wish to copy.
• Press triangle and select ‘COPY’ to retrieve the save.

Why should anyone have to go through that every time? How tedious is that? This really is just a way to back up game saves. It’s the equivalent of plugging in a usb drive and backing up game saves one at a time.

What I was really hoping for was something like Dropbox for PS3/PSP. I don’t want to have to care about individual game save files, whether I’m using a console or a handheld, whether I’ve gone through the proper three-step procedures. What I want is an invisible process where I can save my progress in a PS1 game on my PS3 and pick it up on my PSP without any difficulty.

This seems to be the experience with Sony. They make products with tons of potential then either don’t develop that potential or (even worse) remove functionality down the road. Which is another topic.

Maybe the audience for this sort of feature is small. I don’t know. But I can say that I currently have no plans to subscribe to Playstation Plus. The potential features I’ve described would get me to pay for it in a heartbeat.

Games that I own, have started, and still need to beat:

• Final Fantasy XIII
• Mass Effect 2
• Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles
• The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess
• Bioshock
• Oblivion
• Grand Theft Auto IV
• Xenosaga II
• Okami
• Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
• New Super Mario Brothers
• New Super Mario Brothers Wii
• Super Mario RPG
• Paper Mario
• Final Fantasy IV: The After Years
• Monkey Island Chapter 5
• Final Fantasy I
• Final Fantasy IV (I beat it a long time ago, but not the DS version)
• Final Fantasy III
• Assassin’s Creed Bloodlines

I’m currently playing Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, so it’s not on this list (yet).

On the upside, I recently knocked The Secret of Monkey Island 2 off the list. And I’m very, very close to beating New Super Mario Brothers (last level of world 8).

I think I’m very close with FF 13, but it’ll take a day to get back in the swing of it. ME 2 will be easy to pick up.  I don’t think I was too far along in that.

I quit on the last mission of Grand Theft Auto IV. That stupid motorcycle mission where you go off the ramp into the boat or something. Missed it every time, and my frustration has resulted in me not cranking the game up for something like 3 years.

If I can get this list halved by the end of the year, I’ll be happy. Not going to happen, but I’ll try.

This list doesn’t include games I own but haven’t started yet, like FF 2, KH 382/2 Days, Xenosaga 3.