Wednesday, 29 July 2009 04:56 pm
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deckardcanineFirst I'm about ready to give up on computer CD games, because too often they turn out to be incompatible with my system. It happened in 2006 with Dreamfall, and then Oblivion -- which predates my current PC by four years -- worked for only the first dungeon levels, even when I reinstalled. I may go for Diablo III (wouldn't choose my screen name if I didn't love the series), but it's the medium's last chance as far as I'm concerned. Wii games make it simple and obvious if you don't have everything you need.
Now I'm about ready to give up on Wii Ware -- the games that can be downloaded to the Wii and were not ported from a past console. Lost Winds is fairly fun and impressive while it lasts, but as the $10 price might suggest, that's not very long. It ends on a note of incompleteness, which led me to believe that Part 2 would be available in a short time. Fifteen months later, LW2 is in development with no projected release date.
Much more frustrating is my recent experience with Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. As a fan of the original FFIV, I paid $8 for it right away. It's only slightly updated in style from 1991, and most of it feels welcomely familiar. The plot contains at least as much drama.
...Which is where the problem comes in. I got to a long-awaited encounter, with one of the characters transformed too recently for me to try out his new abilities... and the credits rolled. If they weren't extremely long, I'd still have been steaming at the end of them. It wasn't altogether a cliffhanger, but it was hardly a good stopping point.
At the game's main menu screen, I noted the possibility of ordering more installments. The four available were all about what was happening with another character in the meantime, so they wouldn't advance from where I was. Each one cost $3, so they surely wouldn't last long. Later, I went onto Wikipedia and saw how many months it would take for the last installment to come out. The total would be $37 -- more than 4 times the price of a Super NES game previously unavailable in the U.S. You can get more extensive 128-bit games for less. Sorry, but I don't love it that much.
The worst part is that when I double-checked the Wii Shop Channel's description of the game, there was absolutely no indication that I wasn't buying the whole game at once for the usual price of a 16-bit title. That's the real swindle.
From now on, I'm looking up Web reviews before I buy anything. It's a good policy anyway.
Now I'm about ready to give up on Wii Ware -- the games that can be downloaded to the Wii and were not ported from a past console. Lost Winds is fairly fun and impressive while it lasts, but as the $10 price might suggest, that's not very long. It ends on a note of incompleteness, which led me to believe that Part 2 would be available in a short time. Fifteen months later, LW2 is in development with no projected release date.
Much more frustrating is my recent experience with Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. As a fan of the original FFIV, I paid $8 for it right away. It's only slightly updated in style from 1991, and most of it feels welcomely familiar. The plot contains at least as much drama.
...Which is where the problem comes in. I got to a long-awaited encounter, with one of the characters transformed too recently for me to try out his new abilities... and the credits rolled. If they weren't extremely long, I'd still have been steaming at the end of them. It wasn't altogether a cliffhanger, but it was hardly a good stopping point.
At the game's main menu screen, I noted the possibility of ordering more installments. The four available were all about what was happening with another character in the meantime, so they wouldn't advance from where I was. Each one cost $3, so they surely wouldn't last long. Later, I went onto Wikipedia and saw how many months it would take for the last installment to come out. The total would be $37 -- more than 4 times the price of a Super NES game previously unavailable in the U.S. You can get more extensive 128-bit games for less. Sorry, but I don't love it that much.
The worst part is that when I double-checked the Wii Shop Channel's description of the game, there was absolutely no indication that I wasn't buying the whole game at once for the usual price of a 16-bit title. That's the real swindle.
From now on, I'm looking up Web reviews before I buy anything. It's a good policy anyway.
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