#oneaday Day 805: Geek and Sundry

I’m a big fan of both Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day. The pair of them, along with people like Jonathan Coulton, Paul & Storm, Gabe and Tycho and numerous others, have done a great deal to make being a geek “cool”. And not in a particularly obvious “hey, we’re going to make geekdom cool!” way — simply by being themselves and exhibiting an admirable amount of passion in their interests, they’ve brought numerous geeky pursuits to the attention of a wide variety of people who may not have investigated things like board games, web shows and other eccentricities before.

Today, Wheaton, Day and several others took a big new step in their campaign to provide bored geeks with ways to waste their time. The launch of Geek and Sundry had been teased — particularly by Day — for some time, and Sunday saw a 12-hour Google+ hangout “subscription drive” show to promote the new site, featuring a variety of events and very cool-sounding interviews. As I live in the silly UK time zone, I was fast asleep for most of these, but the good bits are likely on YouTube somewhere.

Anyway, what is Geek and Sundry? It’s a YouTube channel. Nothing overly fancy there, but unlike a lot of YouTube channels, Wheaton, Day and their team have made a big effort to organise their work and provide regular programming. And between them, there’s a wide variety of different shows that will cater to most (geeky) tastes. I spent a bit of time checking out a couple of the shows today, and I can see myself regularly checking in on them. They’re good quality, interesting and presented by charismatic, likeable people. Doubtless not everything will be to everyone’s taste — I know for a fact I have a number of friends who find Day’s ditzy “Elliot Reed”-style personality quite irritating, for example, so they may wish to avoid her content — but there’s a broad mix of things that should, between them, appeal to most people.

So what’s on offer? Well, I could spend some time describing each show in detail but they’ve been good enough to provide trailers for each bit, so let’s just explore those, shall we?

The Guild

Many of you will be familiar with The Guild by now, as it’s been running since 2007 and has appeared on YouTube, the Xbox Live Marketplace, Zune Marketplace, MSN Video, iTunes, Netflix, Hulu and DVD. For those of you who aren’t, it’s a comedy series about the lives of a group of online gamers who all play a massively-multiplayer online RPG together. Exactly what game they play is never revealed, with them referring to it only as “The Game”, but the focus is more on the quirky “real people” who make up the titular Guild rather than their online personae.

Day stars as Cyd “Codex” Sherman, who has to attempt to do her best when a guildmate — previously only known online — shows up on her doorstep. Hilarity, as you may expect, ensues.

Geek and Sundry will be showing the fifth season of the successful show.

The Flog

Fans of Felicia Day, this is where to go. The Flog is a weekly “vlog” show in which Felicia Day babbles nonsense for a few minutes and then goes off to do something interesting. The first episode sees her going to visit a blacksmith so she can better appreciate her Skyrim character’s level 100 blacksmithing skill. She gets very excited about hammers, which is kind of adorable.

Tabletop

This has been the highlight of what I’ve watched so far. Wil Wheaton hosts a half-hour show devoted to a specific tabletop game. Throughout the course of each episode, he and his companions explain the rules of the game under scrutiny and play through it. (You don’t see the whole game — just “edited highlights”. Probably for the best, given the lengthy playtime of many board games.)

The format looks to be a great way to find out more about various tabletop games, and the banter between Wheaton and his guests is entertaining. The first episode demonstrates Small World, which is a game I’ve been interested in for a while.

Sword and Laser

Those who enjoy those strange tablet devices with paper pages will want to check out Veronica Belmont and Tom Merritt’s show Sword and Laser. Based on the duo’s podcast, the show focuses on sci-fi and fantasy and features interviews with authors, reviews of new releases and discussion of recent news in these genres.

Written By a Kid

This has the potential to be a lot of fun: original sci-fi, fantasy and horror stories by kids aged between 4 and 9 are turned into live-action and animated shorts by a variety of directors including Dane Boedigheimer (Annoying Orange), Rhett & Link (IFC’s Commercial Kings) and Daniel Strange (Between Two Ferns with Zach Galfianakis).

LearningTown

Fans of “nerdcore” music will be right at home with this one, as dynamic musical duo Paul & Storm “blend vocal harmonies with comedic scenarios as they are tasked with reviving the flagging educational show of their childhoods”.

If you’ve ever witnessed the majesty of Paul & Storm performing “Frogger: The Musical”, then you’ll likely know what to expect from this one.

Dark Horse Motion Comics

Finally, comic book fans will want to check in on the Dark Horse Motion Comics show, where a number of Dark Horse Comics properties including Hellboy, The Goon, The Umbrella Academy and others will be brought to live with motion graphics. The first episode is already up, based on “The Secret” by Mike Richardson, with art by Jason Shawn Alexander. (I know nothing about comics. I include these names for the benefit of people who do!)

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I’ve subscribed already, as several of these shows sound like they’re going to be great. The first episodes of some are now available, with others to follow in the next couple of weeks.

To find out more, check out the official website or subscribe on YouTube.

#oneaday Day 791: Give Me More J

The Squadron of Shame recently tackled the subject of Japanese role-playing games in the first of a new format show that we’re experimenting with. You can check out the show here, or if you’re on something Flash-enabled, you can use the fancy-pants player below. (If you’re not, you’ll simply see a white space, for which I apologise.)

If I had to pick a favourite genre of interactive entertainment, it would, without doubt, be the Japanese role-playing game. I came to the genre relatively late (yes, I was one of those people who discovered RPGs in general through Final Fantasy VII) so I didn’t really have the NES-era epiphany of realising that RPGs were the only genre of games that were attempting to tell a story — for a while, at least. I also didn’t discover the earlier Final Fantasy games until much later, though I have, to date, played every one of them (except XIV) and have finished most of them. I still have V and VI outstanding. Shameful, I know.

There’s something about the JRPG genre that has resonated with me ever since I first got off that train in Midgar and that awesome music started up, though. For one, I find the sort of over-the-top wackiness and melodrama that typifies the genre to many people to be entertaining and fun to get invested in. For another, I have absolutely no objection to a bit of moe in my games, and generally find anime characters of this type very appealing despite the fact that in many ways they’re just as generic and widespread as the bald space marine with no neck. And for yet another, I enjoy the creativity frequently on display in the genre, both from an artistic and a narrative perspective.

It’s a cliché to say that Japanese RPGs are clichéd, and a lot of people who accuse the genre of that probably haven’t played one for a while. Sure, there are certain thematic elements and tropes which many of them have in common, but all are unique in some way. I can remember pretty much every JRPG I’ve played over the years in great detail — contrast this with the fact that there are a whole bunch of shooters I struggle to distinguish from one another, and it’s pretty rare than I can even remember characters’ names from Western RPGs like The Elder Scrolls. Each JRPG has its own unique cast of characters who are (in most cases) well-developed and display plenty of growth and change over the course of the story. Sure, some of them start their journeys as unlikable arseholes (Squall from FFVIII and Neku from The World Ends With You spring immediately to mind) but having a strong emotional reaction to a character — “I really don’t like this guy” — is surely a sign that the writers have done their job well. It’s sometimes a difficult experience to play a game with a seemingly dislikable protagonist, but often this is a sign that he’s going to go through some experiences to soften that stony heart of his, and I’m a big fan of that particular narrative trope.

Leaving narrative aside, I’ve always been a fan of the often abstract, creative battle systems that populate Japanese role-playing games. This is perhaps best exemplified by the Final Fantasy series, which significantly shakes up its core mechanics with every single instalment. Don’t believe me? Here’s how the battle system and related mechanics differ from game to game:

Final Fantasy — Traditional D&D-style turn-based combat without movement. Spells split into levels, like D&D, and characters have a limited number of casts per level that increases with their character level. Characters have set classes and, later in the game, may promote these to “prestige” classes.
Final Fantasy II — Turn-based combat, but progression is tied to an Elder Scrolls-like system whereby using something makes it improve. Whack things with a sword and your sword skill will increase. Take a lot of damage and your hit points will increase. Use a lot of magic and your magic points will increase. This system proved rather divisive at the time, and predated Bethesda’s implementation of a very similar levelling system into its flagship Western RPG series by six years.
Final Fantasy III — Turn-based combat, with progression tied to a “Job” system where characters could switch classes almost at will, allowing players to dynamically build a party to fit the situation at hand.
Final Fantasy IV — The first appearance of “Active Time Battle”, the almost-real-time-but-not-quite system which has been present in most of the subsequent titles. Progression and skill unlocks were static and unique for each character.
Final Fantasy V — The Job system returns in a much more well-implemented fashion. Players may develop Jobs at will, and may also equip certain skills that they have learned from another Job to build multi-purpose characters.
Final Fantasy VI — Each character has unique special abilities but everyone has the opportunity to learn the same spells by fighting with “Espers” equipped.
Final Fantasy VII — The Materia system allowed for deep customisation of characters with a slightly puzzly element — how best to fill the available slots in a character’s weapon and armour?
Final Fantasy VIII — By drawing magic out of enemies and “junctioning” these spells to statistics, players could create powerhouses that made their character level practically irrelevant. A bizarre and abstract system that didn’t quite work.
Final Fantasy IX — Characters learned skills from their equipment. Once they had learned the skill, they could use it any time, otherwise they had to keep the equipment in question in use to perform the action.
Final Fantasy X — A brief break from the Active Time Battle system brought a clever turn-based system where certain actions could rearrange the turn order. Also saw the first appearance of a non-traditional levelling system in the form of the “Sphere Grid”
Final Fantasy X-2 — A return to the Active Time Battle system and a variation on the Job system came with X-2’s Dressphere setup, whereby each of the game’s three playable characters could equip several Jobs and switch between them mid-battle.
Final Fantasy XI — The first MMO entry in the series had another variation on the Job system whereby a single character had levels in every Job, but could only have one active at a time, with a “Sub-Job” becoming available after some progression had been made and allowing characters to use skills from this second Job.
Final Fantasy XII — Taking the combat of XI and applying it to a single-player game allowed XII to have a real-time feel while still feeling strategic, as players were able to pause the game to issue commands to characters while battling without being sent to a separate screen. Progression was split between a traditional levelling system and the “License Grid”, whereby characters had to purchase licenses to use specific pieces of equipment and abilities, then purchase the equipment and abilities separately.
Final Fantasy XIII — Active Time Battle on a separate combat screen returns, this time with players taking control of a single character in fights that focus more on carefully-timed Paradigm Shifts (effectively Job changes by another name) rather than using specific abilities. Had a distinctly unconventional levelling system whereby characters could gain levels and abilities from six different classes independently.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 — Similar to XIII, but with only two characters available. Players could catch various monsters to fill the third party slot. Characters could once again develop down the six different paths, though monsters had a fixed class which could also be developed. Unlike XIII, where you were stuck playing as the party leader, in XIII-2 you could switch between the two characters at will, and one of them getting knocked out did not mean failure.

As you can see, Final Fantasy is a series which has evolved significantly over the years, and yet many accuse Square Enix of letting it stagnate. Sure, they’ve arguably made a few missteps over the years — XII, XIII and XIII-2 have all proven somewhat divisive in particular (though I enjoyed all three of them) — but one thing that the Final Fantasy team really can’t be accused of is sitting on their laurels and churning out the same old thing year after year. The same is true for many other JRPG developers. It’s one of the richest, most creative genres out there.

So why has it fallen from grace? A combination of factors. With the increasingly-busy lives people lead today, a 100-hour game is no longer necessarily seen as a good thing. Budgets for high-definition games spiral out of control, making the production of an HD JRPG an impractical prospect for many studios, particularly when they can’t necessarily count on huge sales numbers to recoup their expenditure. (This is perhaps why MonolithSoft and Mistwalker chose to release the gobsmackingly brilliant Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story on the Wii rather than the more popular/”hardcore” Xbox 360 and PS3.) And the eye of “the average gamer”, whoever that might be, has drifted towards the West these days for the majority of their gaming fixes, rather than the East as once was.

There’s still a rich back catalogue of excellent titles out there to explore in this deep genre, however — even more so if you learn Japanese. I’m making a point to go back and revisit some titles I missed the first time around at the moment — having recently played Shadow Hearts I’m now on to its excellent sequel, for example — and I’m having a great time. For the vast majority of these games, they’re a reminder of a simpler time — no “Your friend is online!” notifications, no party chat invites, no DLC, no controversy over endings even when they sucked — and they’re great.

So while the rest of the Internet yells and screams about each other about Mass Effect 3 (still!) I’m more than happy to immerse myself in a world of HP, MP, Attack, Magic, Item, Escape.

#oneaday, Day 209: Coming Soon

Tomorrow night, The Squadron of Shame are back in action after something of a hiatus.

For those of you unfamiliar with our unique brand of discussion and podcastery, let me explain what it’s all about, and when the new podcast hits, you’ll be able to come and join the fun.

The Squadron of Shame started as a result of a feature on 1up Yours dubbed “The Pile of Shame”. The term has since spread around the Internet somewhat, and it refers to all of the things that you’ve bought and never got around to reading, listening to or playing. In the case of the original 1up feature, it referred to that pile of games you have on your shelf that are begging to be played, but somehow inevitably get left behind whenever the latest triple-A hotness makes an appearance. The first game they took on was the excellent Psychonauts.

As it happened, the feature was somewhat short-lived on the 1up podcast. But a number of community members ran with the concept on the companion forums for the 1up “radio” output. We formed a club page on 1up which is still there, though largely inactive these days. We’d pick a game which was supposed to be good (or at least interesting), play it through as a group and discuss it all together. Some fascinating discussions resulted, and it also allowed many people to expose themselves to a variety of games which they might not have done otherwise. Games like Star Control II, Freespace 2, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth and Psi-Ops.

As time moved on, the group wanted more. The merging of all the 1up boards into one mangled mess meant that the reasoned debate of the old threads was much more difficult. Topics would get derailed and it was clear that a new approach was needed.

Thus began the SquadCast, the Squadron of Shame’s official podcast. Starting with independent rabbinical adventure game The Shivah, select members of the group banded together to do what they did best: play through a game together, then put their heads together and have a discussion about it. Ably hosted by the fine Mr Chris Whittington and edited/produced in a sort-of OKish manner by my good self, the show is now 29 episodes strong and has covered subjects as diverse as the Commodore 64, Russian FPS-adventure depress ’em up Pathologic and charming indie puzzler Machinarium.

Following circumstances beyond their control (mostly beyond my control, I admit) there’s been something of a gap since our last episode. So we’ve thought that now is the time to take a break, consider how to make the show better and come back stronger than ever with some brand new output in a whole new format.

So, tomorrow we’re recording. And next week we’ll be proudly presenting The Squadron of Shame SquadCast, Season Two. Taking some of the advice we got from Jeff Green, Shawn Elliott, Ken Levine and some others who I’ve forgotten speaking on the Podcasting for PR panel at PAX East, we’ve made some changes.

The show’s going to be bi-weekly. This means that rather than have variable gaps as everyone clamours to complete a “mission” before we talk about it, some regularity will allow us to build up a more, well, regular listenership.

Next up, it’s going to have a static cast of host Chris Whittington, Mark Whiting, Jeff Parsons and myself with occasional guest spots available where appropriate. Jeff is in the process of composing us a brand new theme tune, too, so it’s going to be a complete sonic reboot.

Most importantly, though, each episode is no longer going to be focused on a specific game. Instead, the focus will be on particular “topics”, with occasional traditional “mission” podcasts interspersed as appropriate. This means that people will hopefully be more inclined to tune in regularly and hear what we have to say, rather than skipping episodes about games they have no interest in. As part of this, the official Squawkbox of the Squad will be playing a more prominent role, with community questions and discussions a regular occurrence. If you already have a WordPress account, you can head right over and start chatting with us. If not, it’s simple to sign up. Everyone who’s interested in discussing video games and who isn’t afraid of the odd (all right, frequent) wall of text is very welcome to pay us a visit.

Besides the changes, it’ll be our same wordy, intellectual, chin-stroking discussion about video games, representing one of the most unique podcasts on the Internet. We’d love it if you could join us for our relaunch. Visit the Squawkbox, follow us on Twitter, become a Fan… sorry, Like us on Facebook and find our past episodes and those of our sister podcast The Exploding Barrel Podcast here.

2010 is going to be a great year for the Squad. We hope you’ll come along for the ride.

#oneaday, Day 98: Have You Heard…

It’s always a pleasure to find something entertaining and new to enjoy. A little while back, I discovered Kevin Smith‘s podcast, or SModcast as he calls it. I’d been following Smith on Twitter for some time. He tweets a lot, and the fact that he makes all his replies public irritates some people, but I’ve always found him extremely entertaining. He’s not afraid to speak his mind, at least, not on the Internet, as he claims he’d be a “pussy” in real life. I can identify with that. I speak my mind on the Internet too, but I sometimes find it difficult to do so face-to-face.

His podcast is such an entertaining listen because it has almost nothing in the way of structure. It’s a simple case of him and at least one other person sitting down and chewing the fat (no pun intended) about something or other, usually something that’s happened that week either in the news, or to the people involved personally. The talk is always spattered with absolute filth (even more so since his sponsorship deal with male sex toy maker Fleshlight) but it never seems to degenerate into total nonsense, despite Smith’s love of sparking up a doobie in mid-recording. There’s always a point, however much they may get off it throughout the course of their discussions.

The thing I love the most about the SModcast, though, is that it’s like sitting down with Smith and Mosier (or whoever is sitting in for him) and enjoying a thoroughly silly chat with them. You know, the sort of chats you have with your friends late at night when the drinks have been flowing and the “party” atmosphere has died down a bit. The kind of conversation that usually starts with “You know, I found out the weirdest thing today…” and generally meanders throughout diverse topics, including complete nonsense, without really settling anywhere for some time. The kind of conversation that easily falls into fits of the giggles. And Smith often gets the giggles, big time. I think I enjoy his giggle fits more because his laugh reminds me a lot of an old friend from school that I unfortunately haven’t seen for a long time now.

SModcast breaks every rule about what should be a “good” podcast, except for the “you should be regular” one. Smith and his team make sure there’s something for fans to listen to regularly. Each one may be completely different in terms of subject matter (but it’s a fair bet that there will be at least some mention of jerking off or anal sex in there) but they’re always entertaining. And they’re not always filthy, too. A couple of episodes a month or two back involved Smith talking to his mother and reminiscing about the “good old days”. Smith isn’t afraid to be a pottymouth in front of his mother, but the stories they told, despite their relative mundanity, were extremely compelling and interesting. Smith is nothing if not a good storyteller.

So if you want something interesting to listen to in the car or at the gym and don’t mind a bit of filth creeping in here and there (yeah… it’s totally not for kids) then you could certainly do far worse than show a fat man some support. Head over to SModcast.com and have a listen.

One A Day, Day 35: Eve of the War

Don’t know what happened with yesterday’s post – I definitely wrote the whole thing, but for some inexplicable reason, half of it disappeared. Oh well. Can’t go back now.

Well, here it is – the end of my week-long vacation, which has gone by far too quickly for my liking. I feel suitably rested – or I did, at least. Right now? I don’t feel very good about tomorrow. I have a 40 mile drive followed by 8 hours of being somewhere I don’t want to be with people I don’t want to be with, followed by another 40 mile drive back. But at least there are only four weeks to go. Four weeks! I can manage that, right? Of course I can.

It’s the other obstacles that are in my way that are stressing me out more, to be honest. The daily grind I can just about deal with, by simply telling myself “It doesn’t matter” (in the style of The Rock) repeatedly, over and over again. The things I’m not looking forward to are the two-day Parents Evening (yes, you read that correctly – a two-day Parents Evening), where I will inevitably be stuck 40 miles from home until late at night; the inevitable re-inspection of the school (which, knowing it doesn’t matter, I don’t really care about the result of but still don’t want to have to put up with the stupidity of); and finding a new job.

I don’t have a new job yet. I have applied to several. I haven’t heard anything back from any of them yet, but going on past experiences of applying for jobs, HR departments are extremely slow. I haven’t given up hope yet, and the Universe may well surprise me by throwing something I actually want to do for a good amount of money my way. Until then, though, the uncertainty is the killer. If I had the security of knowing that I had a new job to go to – to look forward to – after the end of this particular nightmare, I’d feel a lot better about my remaining time.

Still, can’t be helped. All I can do is just keep applying for things and eventually someone will appreciate me. Right? Right. Of course.

On a lighter note, we recorded the SquadCast for Machinarium tonight – an adorable little indie point-and-click adventure featuring robots and no language. My current tentative plan is to edit that next weekend, so keep an eye out for that one. Also watch this space for more exciting Squadron of Shame podcast news.

See, I like doing that stuff. The annoying thing is no-one wants to pay me for it!

The Squadron of Shame Squadcast #12: No Shame

The long-awaited first 2009 episode of The Squadron of Shame SquadCast is now available for download!

Subscribe now using one of the following links:

Subscribe via iTunes (M4A version)
Subscribe via RSS (M4A version)

Subscribe via iTunes (MP3 version)
Subscribe via RSS (MP3 version)

Direct download this episode (M4A version)
Direct download this episode (MP3 version)

You can also follow the Squad’s updates on Twitter here.

This episode, we delve into Games of No Shame. These fall into several categories – the games everyone loves that you hate, the games everyone loves that you love too, the games that everyone hates that you love and the games you’re terrified of being caught playing.

Also on this episode, Beige talks about jizz and Pokémon, we use the phrase “sucks like a banshee” and Pishu goes a-hustlin’.

Follow us on Twitter for up to date news, including rollout information of our exciting new website now that 1up has witnessed the power of that fully operational battle station that is UGO.

Stay tuned!

The Squadron of Shame SquadCast #7: Okami

Released today is the seventh episode of The Squadron of Shame SquadCast focusing on Clover Studios’ beautiful game (poncey as it sounds, there really is no other way to describe it) Okami. Along the way we take in a lengthy journey into the depths of Papapishu’s mind (fueled by Dance Mania and ADD meds), discuss why good is boring and evil is awesome (and Braid is either a work of art or emo bullshit) and delve into the “this could go on for months” territory of Eastern vs Western game design philosophy.

We also, as usual, discuss our personal piles of shame, including comment on Geometry Wars 2, Braid (twice), Soul Calibur IV, Star Control 2 (hold on, haven’t we done that one already?), Siren: Blood Curse and, much to Pishu’s disgust, EVE Online.

This episode features a triumvirate of hot Chris action, with Chrises “RocGaude” Whittington, “Iscariot83” Hernandez and “Papapishu” Person making an appearance, along with myself, Mark “Beige” Whiting, Tom “sinfony” Haley and George “Regulus Loves EVE” Kokoris.

Grab the M4A file here, or the MP3 file here. Alternatively, subscribe in iTunes or via RSS.

Enjoy! Please feel free to post comments here or on the Squadron of Shame’s club page on 1up.com.