In days of old, I established the parameters of Gabriel's affection for RPG in a two strip series entitled The Cycle. He has been my project in this regard, a sort of rogue protege, but until a game came out that combined Star Wars and role-playing my lessons never took root. Immediately after Knights of the Old Republic, he started playing Final Fantasy X, then he moved on to Final Fantasy IX, and now - joy of joys! - he's moved on to the tactical battle game everyone seems to love, Disgaea. Not only is he playing it, he beat me to it. I'm trying to figure out if that makes me mad or not.

I've heard people complain that Valve's Steam won't allow them to play their games on a LAN, which I suppose is a real issue for some people. I guess they're working on a solution to that, but they can take their time as far as I'm concerned - the LANs I go to have Net access, I wasn't aware that was such a luxury. My problem with Steam is that up until Yesterday, it didn't fucking work. So if we're rating these problems on severity, I win.

Any time I get a chance to, I extol the virtues of digital content delivery. What I'd like to do is allay your fears about Steam so you'll agree with me, and then I'll be right, but I could not do that with a straight face. What Valve's recent Steam launch proves is that the concept works great, as long as nobody wants what you're delivering. It was in every way reminiscent of the Chernobyls that accompany the release of an MMO, except that Massively Multiplayer games aren't gong to try and squeeze out a gig to each player. Massively Multiplayer games also don't start out with this kind of inherent userbase. Despite their best efforts, I don't think it could have gone well - Valve is yoked to the largest action playerbase in the world. Two points:

1. Local Content Migration was fucked up the ass.

I thought this was a brilliant concept when I heard about it, because if it had worked I'd imagine things would have gone a lot smoother. People who download Steam aren't exactly indifferent to the Half-Life engine or the mods that sustain it. It is a fair bet that a huge percentage - if not all - of the people who use Steam have Half-Life plus mods somewhere on one of their hard disks. What the content migration facility was supposed to do was take those files you already had and transfer them directly into Steam. That means people don't have to download a gig apiece from beleaguered servers on the first day, which were already in the throes of a data apocalypse. What percentage of that impenetrable load the first two days was due to failed migrations, I couldn't tell you - but I do have the trick from the FAQ I used to get going. Inside your Steam folder, there's a folder called SteamApps, and inside SteamApps there should be a folder named whatever your e-mail address is. If you make a folder inside that folder called "Half-Life" and copy (or install) mods straight in there, they'll show up in Steam under "Third Party Games" and you'll be ready to go. I was just going to link to their FAQ, but their site is broken right now, which I appreciate because it basically vindicates my whole shit. You can see now that they put up a new installer that includes Counter-Strike 1.6, instead of having to get it through them. It was a good idea, even if it does establish their culpability in these failures.

Maybe Content Migration worked just fine for some people, but it didn't work on either of my machines. And every machine it didn't work on represents more load on a system already trying to cope with distributing the most popular game in the world.

2. It doesn't make any difference why it was fucked up.

It just doesn't. That's not the future of content delivery, it's the future of fucking pissing me off. I can't be the only one who was using the Steam launch to determine how my Half-Life 2 install would go when I bought it through their service, and it seems fair to assume that HL2 is going to be a damn sight larger than Counter-Strike. Oh, I'll still try to get it online, because I am stupid and I think that each day will be brighter than the last. My only comfort in this matter is that enough people will be scared off by either this experience or an overall distaste for electronic delivery that I'll be able to get my stuff. Now that's confidence.

I had all these Half-Baked theories about how Valve would still deliver HL2 on the thirtieth as claimed, because it would be a Steam only release that didn't necessarily have to jibe with the release dates we were seeing from retail chains, with Team Fortress 2 as an incentive... I don't know why I invested my mind in creating excuses for them, but they need to start communicating with gamers about when and why things are happening.

(CW)TB out.

where is the victory

I find myself waking up early so that I can get a head start on playing Disgaea. People kept sending me e-mail telling me that I needed to play this game. I had never heard of it before but I was willing to take their advice. I decided to use it as a test for the Gamefly service since I wasn’t ready to purchase it. Now I’ll probably just end up keeping it until I can buy it used from them.

The first thing that surprised me is just how funny this game is. The writing and story line are really well done and it has great voice acting as well. This means that jokes that might have been groaners in any other game actually get a laugh because of the talented people they have voicing these characters. The concept is that your dad, the ruler of the underworld died and now demons everywhere are scrambling to take his place. You being the prince are the rightful heir but you accidentally fell asleep for a few years and so now you have to prove you’re the right demon for the job. This means you’ll have to prove how evil you are to the demon high council. It’s a unique hook that makes for some pretty funny situations. In fact the game actually begins with one of the other characters in your group trying to kill you.

The game is designed for you to level up your characters to absolutely insane heights and unleash crazy special moves and magical attacks on unsuspecting monsters. The creatures you fight are actually pretty stupid which makes beating the shit out them surprisingly fun. Setting up massive chain attacks and combos might be frustrating in any other game where the enemies realize what you’re doing and refuse to cooperate. In Disgeaea they often times seem oblivious to the fact that you are even there, much less surrounding them with ice mages and brawlers in an effort to catapult their tiny bodies into the stratosphere where they will be pummeled by a celestial ice God.

I could talk about how great this game is for days but I really just want to go play it right now. Bottom line, Disgaea is fucking awesome and you should get it. I think we might have some readers at Atlus so let me send out a big pat on the back to you guys. You can’t see me right now but I am giving you a standing ovation. You will just have to imagine me standing up clapping since I can’t take a picture or anything. Please imagine me with pants on even though that might not be entirely accurate.

-Gabe out

When it rains it pours and it’s fucking pouring at my house. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking but I was at the store today looking through the strategy guide for FF:Tactics and I started drooling. I was high off of another marathon session of Disgaea and all the stats and items and jobs in Tactics started looking like an all you can fucking eat buffet at the Sizzler. I had to get in there with a knife and fork and do some Goddamned damage. So I broke down and bought the game and the guide but told myself I wouldn’t start it until I was finished with Disgaea. So of course I crack it open as soon as I get home and now four hours just fell out of my life in what felt like two seconds and I’m craving more. I splashed some cold water in my face and took a hard look at myself in the mirror. What the hell is going on? Am I really trying to play four RPG’s at once. I’m nearing the end of the second disk in FF IX. I’m obsessed with making sure every character learns every possible ability from every single item I get. I’m almost forty hours into FF:Crystal Chronicles. It’s hard to stop thinking about what new evils await our party in the unexplored continent we just discovered. I’m eleven hours into Disgaea and I feel like a baby taking his first wobbly steps into a new and exciting world. I have dreams about transmigrating characters for God’s sake. Now I’m sitting here writing this post by the dim light of a glowing GBA that sits paused on my desk. I can see a tiny moogle there waiting to continue his conversation with me and God help me I am dying to hear what that bobble headed little fucker has to say about Jobs and Judge points. I’ve got so many RPG’s just begging for my attention that I don’t know whether to shit or go blind. This could be the end of me.

-Gabe out

Yeah, you know the elation you're feeling right now? You could have felt like this your entire life.

(CW)TB