VideogameVagabond.com

Where would you rather vacation? In a nice house on some tidy West Palm Beach real estate, or in a videogame fantasy world of your choosing?

A few years ago, I might’ve gone for the videogame world. After all, nearly everyone in a videogame world is at least mildly pleasant-looking and you don’t even need to worry about using the can in most of them; no one needs to!

But of late, I’ve come to favor someplace like West Palm Beach over a fantasy land. Why?

Easy: who needs to be hounded by chocobos, evil nasties, out-of-control wildlife transformed into monsters, the evil dead and all sorts of other unpleasantness that pops up in videogame worlds? And who needs the fate of the world resting on their shoulders when you’re after a vacation?

Give me the real world any time over all that mess.

The secret gaming obsession I’ve held this summer is centered around one game: Persona 3, by Atlus. It’s a supernatural, kinda spooky thriller that comes in the form of an RPG with some action elements, some turn-based, and some strategy.

And it’s a school-year sim.

How’s that for odd? A dating mini-game is part of the fabric of school life and to get a girlfriend in the game all you have to do is: don’t say mean things, spend time with them and buy them nice things. Like that would ever…

…umm, never mind.

Anyway, if you like your games with a touch of the supernatural and lots of steel buildings, Persona 3 is for you!

While many of the adjustments and tweaks for the upcoming redesign on the PSP sound great, here’s some things I haven’t heard mentioned that I’d love to see included, or else we may have to exile Sony’s design group to an Orlando vacation rental until they think of something better and… err… they’d like that too much! Back to the drawing board for a more appropriate punishment, men! Meantime, here’s some no-brainer improvements that could be made to PSP Slim, but haven’t been announced so far:

1) A screen that can be left uncovered by a thick, clear sticker without scratching.

2) Better carrying case options that don’t cost half as much again as the PSP itself.

3) Better ways to acquire music and video and get it on your memory stick without all the hassle.

4) Cheaper memory sticks!

Not bad for a Top 4, is it?

Jeanne d’Arc has staying power. Although it’s just hitting store shelves about now, I’ve been pleased to say I’ve been playing it for over six weeks and the game is still going strong when it comes to holding my interest.

I’m logging a lot of hours on it, looking for that miracle burn transformation that allows Jeanne and select other characters to transform into super-soldiers who can wipe out large groups at a time thanks to the addictive One More battle system.

Seriously, this is every bit the must-have I’ve been saying it is for some time now.

I have to give credit where it’s due. Namco-Bandai’s Tales series is getting better.

While Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology isn’t groundbreaking by any means and still eats tailpipe from a game like Jeanne d’Arc, it is one of the more playable Tales titles in quite a while. And it’s on PSP!

Costume changes from armor to jewelry is reflected on-screen in the nice graphics, and the load times are kept to a minimum.

It’s not my first RPG of choice on the system, but it’s playable for certain. Hopefully more solid, playable RPGs will soon appear.

Finding the right cabinet hardware for a modern entertainment system is harder than ever. Just think of all the stuff you need to fit on it. Here’s a list of what I’d want, if budget were no barrier:

1) 48-inch TrueHD (1080p) Sony LCD HDTV

2) 6.1 Surround Sound stereo system, preferably by Bose

3) DirecTV HD digital video recorder

4) 80GB Apple video iPod with docking station for home play and charging.

5) Xbox 380 (top bundle available)

6) PlayStation 3 (top bundle available)

7) HD Radio and Satellite Radio tuners

Blu-Ray DVD player (HD-DVD sucks and I don’t want to overuse my PS3)

9) Entertainment center chairs

10) Nice cherrywood construction on the entertainment center

Think about it. How easy is it to build all that and yet have room for some DVD / games / music CD storage racks nearby? They don’t come cheap, that’s for sure.

If scantily clad women in HD is all it takes to please you as a gamer, then Sony’s forthcoming Heavenly Sword for PS3 will make you dress up in an animal costume. However, for the more discerning gamer, it might not end up being quite all it’s cracked up to be.

The game casts you in the role of a Xena Warrior Princess-style hero and has you play out a very God of War-style plot. The story’s OK, the graphics are solid, but the game play feels no different than God of War or any other top action game.

Actually, it doesn’t really feel at all, per se; with the PS3 controller lacking the Dual Shock 2 tactile sensation that both God of War games afford on the PS2, God of War actually is a bit less immersive.

But hey, it’s a pre-release build and sometimes these games turn out better than the preview code makes them appear. We’ll know soon enough.

It’s just a rumor at this point, but word has it that The History Channel’s summer hit, Ice Road Truckers, which has very little to do with history, has already drawn interest from more than one maker of videogames, and they’re in hot pursuit of the license to the concept.

While a truck accident lawyer can’t help but smile at the concept of the TV show, which pits truckers in a race against each other and time to deliver huge loads across big, frozen sections of iced-up Alaskan landscape, the appeal to videogame makers isn’t obvious until one considers the power of the current generation of videogame hardware.

An Ice Road Truckers videogame could combine a ton of atmospheric and physics-based effects into a standard racing game. But instead of a sleek Lambourghini, driving a multi-ton semi on icy roads could lead to some spectacular visuals and thrilling game play.

I say, go for it!

Here’s another good one for my personal PlayStation 4 wishlist, and all the Pigeon Forge vacation rentals in the wold isn’t going to make me right with the world if PS4 is released without this addressed and dealt with:

3) Stupid glitches in otherwise near-perfect games.

I know this one has less to do with hardware power and more to do with developer discipline and publisher scheduling, but it’s annoying nonetheless.

Take a nice next-gen game like Oblivion for example. Is it a great game with unparalleled depth? Sure. But it has many flaws that take the bloom off the rose after a while.

For example, after hours and hours of laboring in the game to become the head of the thieves guild, your payoff is *spoiler alert* becoming the Grey Fox yourself. Well, that’s fine… except that then there’s simply no more to it than that. You can enter the hidden thieves guild meeting places, but nothing ever goes on there. The quests and subplots are at an then. It’s merely, “oh, you’re the Gray Fox now” and that’s it.

You mean I put in all those hours just to have nothing happen after I become the Gray Fox? Forget that!

This sense of emptiness after a lot of work invades many other professions, also. Become the head of the assassin’s guild and get paid… about 200 gold a month ferrying orders from the Night Mother to the guild leader. That’s what I became the head of the assassin’s guild for? A mere 200 gp per month, after all that work and I already have tens and hundreds of thousands in gold already earned? Bite me. That’s just not a good payoff.

Things like this could stand improvement, even in games that, otherwise, are masterpieces.

Continuing my PS4 wishlist, here’s another feature I long for, and you won’t need experience in Branson real estate to understand its appeal:

2) The end of in-game loading times, after the initial game has loaded. This has plagued such “top” next-gen titles as Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, so it’s not solved yet. Despite the great detail to the world of Oblivion, every minute or so while roaming the world, your character runs into an invisible border and the action pauses as the next “segment” of world loads into machine memory. Reportedly, Bethesda had to trash plans for a flight ability in the game because the “loading area” borders were so close together. The frustrating part is, the algorithm that solves this - background streaming data - has been around since the original PlayStation. Developed by Crystal Dynamics for the Soul Reaver series, published by Eidos, they overcame the loading times problem by having the game constantly streaming data into memory as a player moves through the game world.

But has Eidos or Crystal Dynamics ever shared this technology, even for a licensing fee? Not that I’m aware of. If they are licensing it, clearly it’s priced so that not many other companies are using it, even within the Eidos family.

It’s time Sony either licensed this code so it’s available to every developer as part of a standard Sony SDK, or they invent something similar and make it part of a new Sony SDK.

C’mon, Sony and other software publishers… get the LOAD out!

It’s way early to be talking about a PlayStation 4 wish list. Which is the best reason to do just that. Right here, right now. before someone else does it.

Now, I’m not talking about just raw stats. I’m talking about, “what would I like to see from PS4 games, in concept, that probably won’t be possible on a PS3?”

So put on your Wiley X shades and get ready:

1) The end of collision detection problems: Every generation, this is promised as part of the power of each new generation of hardware. And every generation, we still have sports titles that have running backs literally walking through guards after a play, during a post-play cut-scene. We still have characters getting caught in obscure areas programmers never quite made safe for adventurous, “explore every nook and cranny” gamers to roam around in. Every generation, we have too many look-alike character models roaming around while their arms pass through each other instead of bumping into one another. And there’s always some poor schmuck whose AI was so poor that you run into this NPC trying to walk, walk, walk forward through a wall that, sure, won’t let him pass, but doesn’t self-correct his path, ever… he just keeps trying to forever walk through that wall that’s never going to give.

That’s one of the first things that has to go. I’ll have more coming!

Not everything in videogames is all that fun to report on. In fact, some things are a bit boring, like the recently-announced upgrade to the Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP). Now, maybe some tech geeks can get into mild variances like the new PSP Slim being 33 percent lighter, 19 percent thinner and coming in new, optional colors, Ice Silver and a Star Wars Battleground white unit.

OK, maybe the Star Wars version is a little exciting. But dry stats like this are only one rung up from reporting on incontinence supplies. It’s a yawner.

Still, mild changes can make a difference. The Nintendo DS only took off after its redesign; perhaps Sony’s new design will help put the Sony portable out front again, as long as it is followed up with great games. At least the PSP Slim will launch at $199, although a Piano Black version will also be released a few weeks later in Slim design at the current price of $169.99.