For the Final Fantasy 7 fan, there is no question about whether or not they should purchase Crisis Core. Even if the game was a hastily assembled, inferior mess, it would still be have to be added to the collection.

Luckily, it isn’t that bad. It isn’t great, but it’s not bad. Yes, it does suffer from a few problems, problems that have become endemic to Square Enix, and all their current titles. Specifically, an over reliance on extended and unskippable cut-scenes that do not always advance the plot, and a battle system that requires little more than hitting X repeatedly, and occasionally remembering to cure. You have more options than this, but enemy intelligence is lacking, and the fights themselves so easy, that you don’t need to avail yourself of any of the more advanced combat options. In addition to that, most of the more powerful options (limit breaks, summons etc) are controlled by the DMV, essentially a slot machine. The result is wasting powerful moves on weak enemies, or at the end of battles. This random element is very frustrating and removes any sense of strategy. It’s also somewhat jarring to keep having control pulled away from you without warning.

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Last week I told you why I loved graphics. Juicy polygons, full of shine, make me happy. But, I have to say, there is one other thing that makes me fall in love with a game.

Just to review, we covered the little details that make a game great - such as the GTA IV cellphone. We covered the plot, which in some cases can make a game instantly a classic, and in other cases can destroy it entirely. And we covered the graphics, the spit and polish of a game.

I’m going to finish up this series with what I think is personally the most important part of a video-game - assuming that I can play it halfway intuitively and it isn’t broken.

The most important part of making a video game great is the characters. Those would be Link. Sephiroth. Mario. Knuckles. Dante. Leon. Master Chief. Samus. Lara Croft. Sonic the Hedgehog. Solid Snake. Iconic, classic, and with that certain something that makes fangirls and boys everywhere go weak at the knees.

Quite what it is that makes gamers so attached to the characters they play I’m not quite sure. Maybe it’s because there’s a little piece of us in them. Maybe it’s because they are hot. Maybe it’s because they can defeat three thousand enemies single-handedly.
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Our top stories in the video game industry today are as follows: “GTA IV to bring about the world’s first age of peace,” “GTA IV donates $10,000,000 to various charities,” and “GTA IV has cured cancer.” Tee-hee. You’re right. Those are gross exaggerations.

However, with the alarming amount of coverage by basically every video game website, magazine, or fan ever, you tend to start believing that GTA IV is, well, the most phenomenal commodity since sliced bread. Now, I haven’t gotten a chance to play it yet, and I probably won’t pick it up until it’s a bargain or until I get around to using my boyfriend’s copy. I’m sure it’s got all kinds of things to offer. I’m not criticizing the actual gameplay whatsoever. Honestly, though, the amount of attention it’s received is actually quite ridiculous in my eyes.

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I have a scenario in my head. Turning to my friend I say, “I want to be an engineer like Bulma, that way I can just generally be useless and need to be rescued all the time. Then eventually I’ll somehow have a kid with a guy who seems totally clueless to anything besides standing around going, ‘HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA’.”

He laughs and says, “No, what we need to do is be namekians. You can be Flute, I’ll be Bassoon, and we can form the infamous ‘Woodwind Trio’ with someone else.”

Does this scenario confuse you? Do you feel like you’ve just stepped into a bad anime fanfiction site? What does this have to do with games? Well, I’ll tell you. Dragon Ball. Online. No, I’m not kidding. Just like Hello Kitty, game makers are looking to cash in on another big name anime.

To answer your first question, no you can’t play a Saiyan. QQ.

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There’s a certain sense of inevitability waiting at the end of the corridor. The young man’s parade boots echo sternly on the grated floor as he strides purposefully toward the blast doors. After a theatrical pause, the blast doors fly open and the snap-hiss of a lightsaber ignites the air with a sharp tang of ozone. With a nod, the TIE fighters in the hangar swerve into motion and systematically crush the scrambling stormtroopers clinging to each other for dear life. I’ve dreamed of this before.

Since early childhood I’ve been compelled by the darting lasers of interstellar battle juxtaposed with the serene mysticism of the Force–and I’m certainly not the only one. LucasArts has created a veritable empire, no pun intended, from the interest garnered from a simple desert farm boy’s destiny. Obviously the screaming TIE fighters, Mandalorian armor, wookiees, wry robots and promise of planetary destruction helped too, but since the spawn of Star Wars in the late seventies, we’ve seen three more (admittedly lukewarm) movies, PEZ dispensers, action figures, bed sheets, lunch boxes, over a hundred books, Legos and, more pertinent to this discussion, over seventy five video game titles.

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Fandom. All games have a positive fandom following. That’s the people who make kick-ass websites and wallpapers and avatars, or construct painfully detailed walkthroughs for you. Without these guys, games would be a lot more difficult - especially when you’re missing that one Dalmatian puppy / heart container / summon, and you’ve searched every damn level twenty times over.

But there’s another side to fandom too, as anyone who has ever waded into the murky waters of fanfiction.net knows. Yaoi artwork, Mary-Sue fanfiction, bizarre crossovers… if you ever got into a particular series or game, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

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