Famicom Dojo Podcast: Played to Death

I too played a lot of Phantasy Star Online, and like Vinnk, I often played a girl character.  Of course, in that game, some of the character classes were gender exclusive.  Though I did take the Dreamcast version online, I probably played the Gamecube version more because of the more readily available broadband adapter for the Gamecube.  However, my parents only had dialup for the longest time, so I also got the dial up modem for it as well.  Strange how you could play those games with only a dial-up modem.  But that was the begining and end of MMORPGs for me. 

However, my video gaming kyrptonite would be any SRPG made by NIS, but more specifically, the game Disgaea for the PS2.  It was the only game I played throughout the summer of 2004, and I didn’t even “finish” the game after 300+ hours until a couple years later when I just decided to sit down and beat it.  I could easily have doubled my play time if I wanted to.  The problem with the game is that it’s all about grinding.  You can level up everything, including your weapons or armor.  But you do so by going inside your weapon and fighting a number of stages.  However, as you do so, you’ll undoubtedly find better weapons and armor, and you’ll want to level those up too.  Add to that you get bonus points for causing a change reaction of colors which gives the game an almost puzzle game element to it.  There’s also a ton of optional side quest, and of course a new game plus mode.  And while it was a lot of fun, I never want to touch the game again unless I end up bed ridden in a hospital for a few months.

Oh and, the podcast description for this week’s epsisode in iTunes reads exactly like last weeks.  Just thought I’d let you know. 

I played an old text based MUD called Majic Realm, when the server shut down, they had like support groups for the players…  It was great because it was mostly localized to the city where I lived and so you knew several people already and there were always parties and meet ups so you would get to know everyone else who played.  It seems hilarious now, though because that game was *so* expensive compared to mmo games today..
It was like 30$/month + 10$ for every hour over like 30 hours / month or something.
 
Personally I have a hard time blaming games for people’s being losers and ignoring their kids or whatever.
 
There are physical addictions and non-physical (which I will show great restraint and refrain from calling made-up) ones.  The difference is that physical addictions have actual withdrawal symptoms when you stop.  The mental ones are psychosomatic, you can stop any time you want with no problem and I have very little sympathy for anyone “addicted” to those..  It’s like… you want to play a video game and don’t want to work or handle your other responsibilities and I’m supposed to feel sorry for you or blame the video game?  Ya… you will have a hard time convincing me you didn’t just die from extreme laziness.

old man with fake beard
rambles a nintendo yarn
falls asleep on couch