This is the first in our author-vs.-author Boss Fight Q&A series. Both Mike's book on Silent Hill 2 and Matt's book on Red Dead are funding now on Kickstarter.
You're writing a book on a game that is both inspired by and subverts tropes found in traditional Westerns. What was your previous experience with the genre? If you had little experience before, what about Red Dead Redemption made you interested in the Western setting?
Honestly, my experience with the Western was limited before I started thinking about this book. I suspect a lot of people my age absorbed the genre from their boomer dads via osmosis; mine was not the biggest Western fan. But The Searchers has been embedded in my brain ever since an eccentric old lefty named Mr. Loose showed it to us in high school film class, freely throwing around terms like "phallic symbol" and "miscegenation." He really showed us how you could look beneath the surface of the genre to find the values undergirding it (American exceptionalism, gruff machismo, gun culture, etc.), and his head kept reappearing in my mind like a foul-mouthed Obi-Wan when I sat down to play Red Dead for the umpteenth time. It seemed clear to me that the best way to understand what Red Dead does, as a game and as a narrative, was to delve into the source code of the genre that it tries to emulate, cannibalize, and ultimately outdo.
[RDR1 SPOILER IN THIS QUESTION AND ITS ANSWER] Red Dead Redemption ends in the death of its hero. As someone who also wrote about a game with a sad ending, how do you feel a game protagonist's death affects the "interactivity" of the form? How does it clash with regular gameplay in which a death outside of the narrative is curable with a restart?
To me, Marston's death scene might be the most interesting moment in Red Dead -- the way Dead Eye blankets the screen in orange and makes you scramble furiously to pop off headshots, only to watch him get pumped full of bullets. I think it's amazing because both Red Dead's game genre (open-world action game) and its narrative genre (Western) let you indulge in a fantasy of lawless freedom, yet it ends with this death that clamps down so brutally on both the character and the player. Other games have tried to wag their finger at you and be like, "No no! Not so fast! You're not so free and powerful after all, gamer! Heeheehee!" -- but because Red Dead makes you feel so free, because it has GTA in its DNA, because it makes you inhabit a cinematic and literary genre that has meditated in so many ways on the promise and meaning of freedom, the moment lands in a way that feels authentically tragic. I think the interactivity of the form makes his death a hundred times more effective as an ending. And then "respawning" as Jack, doomed to continue the cycle of violence and run into the same Big Government buzzsaw -- that, to me, is authentically tragic, too.
We both went to grad school for English, although you got a PhD and I most certainly did not. How did your academic experience reflect on your view of the game? How did it reflect the way you approached the book itself?
Somewhere on ProQuest is my 350-page dissertation on Victorian literature and the concept of species. This is not that book; this is nothing close to that book, which I think only 4 people will ever read. But I guess one thing that really fascinated me when I was doing my degree was the way that we (and by we I mean 21st-century Americans) keep returning obsessively to the Victorian era as an aesthetic touchstone: e.g. steampunk, Assassin's Creed Syndicate, these
Vox sickos from a few years ago who decided to live like Victorians by bathing with a bowl and pitcher and using a letter opener made from a taxidermied deer foot. To me, steampunk Victorian England and the "West" are two sides of the same coin -- the Western is the rugged, American version of the same idealized 19th century, just as packed with stereotypes. I think my academic work made me predisposed to question why we keep returning to that period, and what we get out of reimagining it over and over.
Despite the massive success of Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2, games set in the Wild West are few and far between. Why do you think that is? What do you think are the challenges of the setting for other games?
I have some theories. First of all, Westerns dole out violence at a slower, more deliberate tempo than other movie genres. They're all about tension and release -- the quick, precise revolver shot. There's nothing about that rhythm that's impossible to translate into gameplay, but it needs to be done properly, and when done properly I think it translates into gameplay that has a more niche flavor. The closest analogue I can think of is something like Sekiro, which borrows from another prominent movie genre (Samurai flicks) that isn't replicated faithfully by games as often as you would think. In a true Western video game, bullet sponges of any kind should be illegal; XP systems and skill trees should be heavily frowned upon; damage in number form -- any kind of damage that isn't completely binary, kill or no kill -- has no place. In other words, a lot of the basic design principles of modern AAA games besides the open-world don't really gel with the Western.
But also, the genre isn't the towering cultural behemoth it used to be. Critics used to say the Western was "dead" every 10 years or so, and they were always wrong; the last time it "died," which was around the mid-90s, after Unforgiven and Dances with Wolves, it just ended up migrating to TV (Deadwood, Westworld), along with a bunch of other genres that used to fall within the category of mid-budget prestige pictures for adults. But it is true that sometime around the late 70s, after Star Wars and the original Superman, the Western lost its pride of place as the premiere form of pop-cultural American mythmaking. Sci-fi and superhero blockbusters superseded it, both in terms of box office and in terms of cultural importance. And those are the genres that videogames borrow from, more often than not.
If you couldn't have written about Red Dead Redemption for your book, which other game would you have chosen? Why?
Someday I will write the definitive critical study of Banjo-Kazooie and everyone will laugh at me for defending collectathons and toilets with googly eyes. But by God, I will do it.
Rockstar games has been criticized in the past for its working conditions, especially during crunch. While this is a common problems in the games industry, how does this knowledge affect your view of the game?
It's a problem throughout the industry, but what gets me about Rockstar's particular brand of crunch is the level of irony and complete lack of self-awareness. Every Rockstar game -- including this one! -- has snarky things to say about evil corporations, capitalism, and an authoritarian state bureaucracy that consumes and coerces ordinary people. Every Rockstar game starts to seem a wee bit hypocritical when you peel back the curtain and look at Rockstar itself. I generally try to keep that curtain in place when I think about games, because I tend to look at them -- like books or movies -- as cultural artifacts. But it's impossible to ignore the disconnect between the values Rockstar espouse in their games and the values embedded in their corporate culture, and that disconnect casts a shadow over the games themselves.
"The first time I called Turmell for an interview, I asked him one question and he spoke for something like 30 minutes straight, telling me a summarized version of his life story and what happened with NBA Jam."
As we get closer to the Nov 14 paperback release, I wanted to share an excerpt of the book that we published in Polygon about the game's history of including secret characters:
Already,
Old School Gamer Magazine raves,
"It is incredible how much of an influence NBA Jam had, and now it is carefully curated in this book. If you’ve ever played a game of NBA Jam, you owe yourself to hear the story behind this game."
GDC's Simon Carless says he's "Loving the book," citing "lots of meticulously researched detail on obscure hidden characters & loads more."
And from Youtube reviewer Caleb J Ross: "I'm not a sports game fan or an arcade game fan, but the story Ali tells is so interesting and well-researched that it doesn't matter. If you like video game history, you need to buy this book."
When you're ready, you can head over to our store and pick up
copy from us today.
Last, if you get a chance, we would LOVE for you to share your thoughts about our books on
Amazon and
Goodreads. Reviews help us learn how we're doing and help others find books worth reading.
Thanks so much for your support!
One of our favorite Kickstarter traditions is the "gamer profile tier," in which one of our authors interviews a Kickstarter backer. Today, Gabe Durham (Boss Fight's editor and author of Bible Adventures) interviews Daniel Greenberg about his gaming history.
Gabe and Daniel did the interview in person from the Portland Retro Gaming Expo. The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity by Michael P. Williams. Enjoy! - BFB
Gabe Durham: What got you into video games?
Daniel Greenberg: When the NES has its worldwide launch in 1986, we couldn't get one for a while. It was kind of a novelty... My brother, who is about eight years older than me, had a Commodore 64, which my was father could afford at the time. When I was old enough to be able to crawl up into the seat and mess with it and play with it, I think I was playing Test Drive and Kickman and whatever else I could get to boot. We also an old Atari 2600, and this was when you could get the games for literally nothing: KB Toys had bins that were like three for a dollar.
G: So you benefited from the Atari Crash.
D: Oh yeah. And by the time we could afford an NES in 1988, there was plenty out to pick and choose from. We ended up getting some great games by sheer luck. With those covers, there was no way of knowing what you’d get! Games like Bubble Bobble, Mario, Zelda, Marble Madness—
G: Oh, that was a big one for you?
D: That was the only game I could get my father to play. He held the controller upside down. I have no idea why he did that to this day.
G: What do you think made you stick with gaming over time?
D: Probably the shared memories. I remember playing the first Final Fantasy with cousins, one of whom has since passed away. We’d all huddle around the TV at my grandmother’s house and play Final Fantasy or Championship Bowling. A lot of people remember running around outside and playing with friends as popular characters like Ninja Turtles, but for us it was video game characters. It was just so familiar to us. So when I moved away, which was not quite in the age of online gaming, we were able to stay connected by talking about the games were were playing on the Nintendo and Super Nintendo.
G: How has your taste in games changed over time?
D: Part of it is my ability to play them. When I was young, for example, I loved the music in Ninja Gaiden, but little me never had the skill to get far enough in that game to actually enjoy it. Whereas Bubble Bobble’s music was a 40-second loop, and we could get all the way through that, so that's burned into my head forever.
G: Oh man, that song!
D: As you get older, you get into longer-form stuff like strategy games and RPG. I got into Civilization when I was at an age to be able to crunch the math and appreciate what was going on behind the scenes. Civilization for the PC wouldn't have appealed to me, with the traditional war-gamer and utilitarian user interface, but the polished-up version with the mouse interface for the SNES made it really accessible.
G: How has your career intersected with games?
D: When I got older, and was interested in computer programming—and I’ve programmed for a number of different companies—I always appreciated the code and complexity that goes into game design. My second undergraduate degree at George Mason University was in computer science, and I’d see students working late at night on game projects in the labs. As I’d help them debug their work, it occured to me very quickly that the projects they were assigned were way more fun than my own assignments! I pivoted over to a degree in applied computer science in game design degree, and followed through to a master’s, and then into teaching as an adjunct professor of game design at George Mason, teaching game history and game design, and working closely with first- and second-year students to make sure they know the fundamentals and work from a common lexicon.
G: How do you put together your syllabi when there are so many resources out there? What are the fundamentals?
D: You can lost in game history, so you need to look for the touchstones. One of my favorite books is Tristan Donovan’s Replay, which takes a slow, segmented approach from the Festival of Britain in 1951 all the way to the end of the 20th century, offering a controlled window into some key events. And his storytelling really makes it work: I don’t care for games textbooks that read like social studies texts, listing just facts and figures. I find it doesn’t engage college-age students and it doesn’t stick with them either.
G: Is a lot of the study of games also the simultaneous study of games history? Learning how to do it by how people did it?
D: My students typically take the two classes "History of Computer Game Design" and "Basic Game Design" concurrently. “Basic Game Design” is about understanding the shared language and common patterns, and since this is usually their first time designing games, we focus on simple 2D experiences in GameMaker or Construct and help them get a few games under their belt. One thing we absolutely must have them do is develop a portfolio by the time they finish the program. We encourage them to go to game jams like Ludum Dare or Global Game Jam and work in the student programs like the Game Analysis and Design Interest Group we have at George Mason. In a few weeks, we’re going to be doing a 24-hour livestream to benefit Extra Life, but in addition to playing games, they'll also be making games for the stream.
G: So then they’ll watch the streamers play the games that they just made.
D: That’s the hope, yeah!
G: Is that one of the most satisfying things for your students, when they've completed a game and can watch someone else enjoy a game they had made?
D: When they’ve finished their first midterm, and they’ve finished their first thing—it’s not really a complete game, but they’ve seen that they can do it. And that's huge. The inertia of getting there is a big problem. When they first come into the program, you ask, “Who has an idea here for a game?” And everyone will raise their hand. Everyone comes in with their golden baby, and we have to give them two options. Either try to make it while understanding where you are in your skill development, or take the “James Cameron route”: Wrap up that game, set it aside, and work on other stuff until you feel like you’re ready for it.
G: Oh, the old Avatar treatment!
D: Exactly. He’s said how he wrote that in high school. “Unobtanium,” right? I believe him when he says he wrote it in high school! So if something is precious enough to you, and you don't want to damage it with amateur efforts, you’ll work on other things until you get to the point that you can make it.
G: Are you working on any of your own projects?
D: A few! I’ve been a writer for a few years. I’m currently working on Pat Contri’s Super Nintendo book with a group of other writers. I’m also part of a group called Winterion Game Studios currently based in Maryland. It's sort of a creative clearinghouse for me and my friends. I had bought all of this video equipment when I was a graduate student, and my friends and I decided to use it to make let’s plays, which we’ve been making for about three years now, focusing on older titles. It gives us a chance to do post-hoc analysis where we sit down and experience the game as accurately as it was intended. There’s something to be said for taking a single work, breaking it open, and getting some context for it. That’s why I wanted to back Boss Fight Books for Season 4. I hadn't even realized it existed until then! I appreciate the format and the concept: deep-diving into games, getting out and interviewing people. Those are time-limited things: There are amazing anecdotes from people in this industry, and we’re not going to have the opportunity to talk to them in 50 years, 100 years. The people and events behind the games, the context, the development, the marketing, what's going on in the world at the time, all form interesting and crucial stories.
G: Absolutely. I think many people have started realizing this as people in the industry have started to retire, or get older.
D: We just had Nolan Bushnell spend some time with us at George Mason as a game pioneer in residence. He was able to explain his time at Atari in the 1970s to our students, and that was invaluable. The students have read the history in books, but to hear it from the source was so good for them.
G: Speaking of books, tell me a bit more about your work on Pat Contri’s SNES book.
D: We had the stack of over 700 games made for the system to write for. No one is champing at the bit to review Dirt Racer or Bébé's Kids or some other dreaded games, so we just split the games up as made sense. I had a good set-up for Super Scope games, so I tackled a lot of those. You also don’t want to give somebody twenty RPGs, because some games are going to be longer to digest.
G: How does Super Scope hold up these days?
D: Surprisingly well! The device’s accuracy is pretty good, so as long as you’ve got a good receiver and a light gun. We’ve also got a nice Sony Trinitron TV that we’ll play on. But for the games themselves, there’s not a whole lot there. A few are fun, but by and large it was a novelty. A lot of rail shooters.
G: What in gaming tends to excite you the most?
D: I’m always compelled by what my students, present and former, are doing. We have a program called the Virginia Serious Game Institute, where we given students some office space and the time to work on their ideas. Some of the people I’ve worked with are doing UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) flight simulators, and others had a great simulation program for training firefighters: It’s a lot cheaper to practice 100 times in a simulator than set a real building on fire and then rebuild it! We’ve also had a program for the State Department for diplomats to simulate emergencies in VR renditions of embassies. It can be invaluable training.
G: Is there anything else we should know about you?
D: Gaming helped me meet the love of my life! When I founded Winterion, I started getting into discussions on Twitter about older games, and suddenly Alex and I are talking back and forth about The Legend of Kyrandia, a lesser-known point-and-click adventure series from Westwood. She knew it, I knew it, and before I knew it, a few months later we’re going to see Madame Butterfly together at the Kennedy Center. And now it's been a wonderful year-and-a-half together and counting!
*
Check out Daniel's projects below!
https://youtube.com/winteriongamestudios
https://twitter.com/winterion
https://winterion.com
Our latest books are Katamari Damacy and Shovel Knight. Click through to learn more.
Come see us October 20-21 at the Porland Retro Gaming Expo. Meet Boss Fight's editor/Bible Adventures author Gabe Durham and Final Fantasy V author Chris Kohler.
We now have audiobooks! Chrono Trigger and Bible Adventures are available now on Audible.
Six of our books are now out in French. You can pick them up from Omake Books.
7/26 - Los Angeles: Boss Fight Books: Season 4 Launch Party Funtimes
- Alyse Knorr (Super Mario Bros. 3)
- Daniel Lisi (World of Warcraft)
- Jarett Kobek (Soft & Cuddly)
- Brock Wilbur (Postal)
8/10 - San Francisco: Boss Fight Books Presents: Kingdom Hearts II Release Party
- Alexa Ray Corriea, author of the new Kingdom Hearts II
- Nick Suttner, author of Shadow of the Colossus
- Chris Kohler, author of the forthcoming Final Fantasy V
9/1 - PAX West (Seattle) Panel
Details forthcoming. Alexa Ray Corriea, Nick Suttner, Chris Kohler, L.E. Hall, Gabe Durham.
One of our favorite Kickstarter traditions is the "gamer profile tier," in which one of our authors interviews a Kickstarter backer. Today, Alyse Knorr (author of Super Mario Bros. 3) interviews Alraz.exe about his gaming history.
Enjoy! - BFB
Alyse Knorr: What is your favorite game and why?
Alraz: This is a very tough one, but after much consideration, I'll go with Mega Man 3 on the NES. The main reason why it's my favorite game is because it's the Mega Man game I played the most as a kid. Though I never owned the game back then, a friend of mine had it and I used to borrow his copy and play it all day long.
I know is Inafune-san's "least favorite" of the whole franchise because of all of the things that went behind it's development, but as a kid, I was completely unaware of any of that and couldn't care less. The game was awesome. It had very addicting music and a kind of mystic dark mood to it that rather than scare you away, it lures you into it, makes you wonder "what's in there..?"; and my Gosh, you are in for quite a ride! Even to this day, I feel that Mega Man 3 has the best and most nostalgia-inducing credits music.
A few other runner-ups for the title of "top favorite game" would be: Marvel vs Capcom 1 and Diablo 2. Those games stole so many years of my youth ^_^"
What was the first game you fell in love with?
This was definitely Mega Man 2: My first Mega Man game ever. I was like 7 years old when I first played it; was not aware of the first one, but it didn't matter. Mega Man 2 was so different to anything I had played until then, with it's colorful visuals, it's lively music and the fluid and responsive controller. Of course, back in the day I had no clue that those were all elements that were drawing me into the game, all I knew was that, even though I kept dying over and over again, I was really enjoying it.
It was so powerful that it eventually led me into taking a career in computer science because I wanted to know how these games were made. I wanted to make them myself.
I owe so much to this inspiration: I come from what in my country we would call "a humble background", which is just euphemism for "a poor family", but I liked these game so much that I couldn't stop. I had to learn more. Today, I owe my professional career to the inspiration that Mega Man games in general gave me; I loved them so much as a kid, and that love kept feeding my curiosity and that curiosity eventually led me to learn about computers and programming. Had there been no Mega Man, I would not be talking to you right now about my favorite anything, I would probably be a low level employee at a department store or something like that...
As a homage to that inspiration and that life-changing experience, I have been building the Mega Man collection that I could not afford back when I was a poor kid and I support Inafune-san on everything he does (you may or may not be aware: I'm a voluntary moderator on MN9's forums). I owe them.
Is there anything about Mega Man as a character that you’re drawn to?
More than the character, the gameplay!
Call me "simple-minded", but to me, simple things work better; and that's one of the many reasons why I always regard the original Mega Man series as the best one: while I acknowledge that other series have other more complex elements that enhance the gameplay experience, classic Mega Man has something that can never be matched: there is charm in its simplicity.
You mentioned that you’re “building the Mega Man collection [you] could not afford back when [you were a kid].” Can you tell me a little about this collection?
Well, the collection contains a few hundreds of items (mostly merchandising stuff like comics, mangas, toys, etc.)
Keeping up with what I have and what I don't has become such a complex task that I'm working on a website to document the whole thing so that I can have a quick reference before purchasing something that I most likely already have ^_^". The site is still years away from complete, but it's a lot of fun to work on.
This whole "collect them all" thing started kinda unintentionally, when, after getting my first professional job, I realized I could buy some of the many games I always wanted to have as a kid. Then I realized there were many other nice Mega Man related things that I was unaware of at the time and new merchandise that Capcom kept releasing...
I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but I eventually decided that I wanted a more proper, more complete and more coherent collection (at the time, all I had was a few items of this and a few others of that).
Here is an early picture of Jan 2011 when I was barely starting in this obsession with collecting mega man: https://goo.gl/photos/aM1h2JJ6L4FujugX7
And here are a few more recent pics, which does not include all items, and many of them are a bit outdated by now, but it's a good reference:
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/Y3fGPWpLSbGhkE4B3hN7ctPlSC7row82WFpC7sTltix?v=grid&ref_=cd_ph_share_link_copy
Are there any items in your collection that you’re particularly proud of or excited about?
This one:
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/mPvdYyKBZ3tRJRJBF2M02oiXuxb33PMJLcsle8yKTjk?v=grid&ref_=cd_ph_share_link_copy
The Mega Man face on the right was drawn by Keiji Inafune himself (the so-called "Father of Mega Man").
Best of all: this is NOT some overpriced stuff that I bought from a scalper on ebay. Inafune-san drew it for me, and for me only.
I’m intrigued by what you said about your background growing up. What is your home country, and would you say there’s anything unique about gaming culture there?
I was born in the north-west-ish part of Mexico. A region dominated by drug dealers, corruption and an antiquated old-world culture.
Back in the day, being a gamer was seen as a weird thing. We were the exception. Technology hadn't caught up there, so, those technology addicted geeks like me had a hard time trying to fit in. It wasn't so hard for me because I have always been an anti-social ^_^". So, all I had to do is keep being myself.
Thankfully, things have been improving over time. Specially with the advent of the internet, things have improved a lot. Mexico in general is now a big marketplace for AAA titles. So much that some big game studios like Microsoft now translate their games to "latin american spanish"; previously, all you would get was European Spanish, which, while perfectly understandable to any latin american, sounds a bit weird due to the marked European accent (imagine all your english subs and dubs being in British English).
Gaming has become so important in Mexico that, in fact, the roles have reversed: now it's harder to find someone who doesn't play any games than someone who does.
Something unique about gaming in Mexico: the video game making industry is almost completely non existent. For such a big market, one would expect everybody to be making games and trying to get a slice of the cake; but nope. We are happy to play games made by everybody else.
It’s so fascinating that you owe your computer programming career to Mega Man. When did you start coding, and did your early coding involve games?
I started coding at around age 14, when I got my first computer: an IBM PC 80383, with 1 Megabyte of RAM (yes, MEGAbyte, not Gigabyte) and a black and white monitor... Well, more like black and nuclear glowing green... aaah~, those were the days~
I would code in something called Quick Basic, a programming language that, if I recall correctly, was included with MS-DOS, the command line OS that was available on my computer.
And yes, most of my early works were very VERY VEEERY crappy text-only video games. Unfortunately, none of them survive to this day.
While my current job is not related to making games, I still take some of my free time to play around with available video game creation engines like Unreal 4, Unity 5 and so on. So much fun :)
I have a dream of making a more modern and story driven Mega Man game that remains truthful to it's old school NES roots... but that takes way more resources (especially time) than I have available... at least for now... Have not given up yet!
What games are you into today?
Today, I barely have any free time to play, but I'd have to admit I have a soft spot for construction games ^_^. I got very addicted to this game called "Project Highrise", although I think I'm almost cured of the addiction by now... I have also been playing Mega Man Zero on a live stream with a friend, as well as Dragon Ball Z Xenoverse sporadically.
I guess I can summarize my gaming preferences as follows:
1-Mega Man
2-Fighting games (mostly Capcom ones)
3-J-RPGs
4-Everything else. Not too much into AAA titles, but would give them a try if I have the chance.
Is there anything else about you that you think someone would need to know to truly understand your gaming history, and who you are as a gamer?
I'm a very shy guy!
Actually, I've always been a very anti-social, quiet, reserved, introverted person... but once I open up, you'd wish I had stayed that way ^_^"
One of our favorite Kickstarter traditions is the "gamer profile tier," in which one of our authors interviews a Kickstarter backer. Today, Alexa Ray Corriea (author of the forthcoming Kingdom Hearts 2) interviews Sam Grawe about his gaming history.
Sam Grawe is a 27-yr.-old programmer currently looking for a new location to settle down in. You can follow him on Twitter at @smgrawe.
Enjoy! - BFB
Alexa Ray Corriea: How did you get started playing video games? What is your earliest memory of playing one?
Sam Grawe: Oh boy, the earliest I can remember getting into games was when I was like 6 maybe? Probably earlier. My older brothers had an NES I loved to mess with, but I can remember anything specific from that. I liked messing with my older brother's Virtual Boy and remember getting in trouble for playing with a wire stripper and the virtual boy's cable to it's controller. I vividly remember always wanting to play with my friends' Nomad and or Game Boys while I was going to daycare. Tetris was awesome, but I never felt like I was good at it. The earliest memory I can identify as playing a game was a Sonic game on the Nomad and never being able to get past some crab/squid boss that had bouncing balls that you had to dodge to get pass. The stupid balls never bounced consistently.
I didn't have a system I could consistently play or use on my own until my parents got me a Game Boy Pocket. It was green! I was so cool. The first game that was mine and that remember playing on it was Pokemon Red because red was my favorite color at the time and dragons were (and still are!) cool.
Alexa: What were the first system and game you bought yourself and why?
Sam: The first game I bought on my own was Ratchet and Clank on the PS2 right around the time it came out. I was so hype for that game, I think I was like 12 or 13 at the time I got it. I don't remember how I learned about it, but I wanted it because it was Insomniac's first game for PS2 and I had loved and played that crap out of the first two Spyro games (Unfortunately I never did convince my parents to get me Spyro 3 before I got my PS2 and forgot all about PS1 games). I remember opening the game up on my way home and thinking it was so cool that the game manual was just a big ol' poster of the now iconic duo. I loved that game and will probably play every single Ratchet game that ever comes out because of my nostalgia for it.
The first console I bought on my own was a PS4 since it came out while I was an adult and had a real full time job, but I did manage to split the cost of my PS3 with my dad so both can technically qualify.
Alexa: What genre of games did you gravitate towards, and why?
Sam: I tend to gravitate toward character driven RPGs (JRPGs and the western RPGs that don't make me think about the numbers too much a la Mass Effect 2) and action/character action/action RPGs (KH series, Ys, Spyro/Ratchet, Assassin's Creed, etc).
Alexa: Is there any particular game or series that you played when you were young that had a significant impact on you? This can be your views on life, your views on yourself, your personal goals, fitness goals, career goals, etc. For example, I've been very open about my connection to Kingdom Hearts with my family, and how Lara Croft impacted my values.
Sam: Oh boy. This is the last question I've gotten to and I've been thinking about it ever since I've got your email. I've played a lot of games and it all sort of meshes together at some point. I contribute to our favorite manic pixie dream boy in KH, Sora, the fact that I try to act like it's generally a better idea to look try to look at something positively than it is to "give in to the darkness." Kingdom Hearts is also why I first dived into online forums since I first joined a forum to speculate with other fans about just what the hell might happen in KH2 (OH BOY were we in for a treat) especially as the KH: FM special ending and all of those things made their way over here. I tried my hand at writing for the first time on those boards. FFX is the game that cemented my love for JRPGs (while I liked VII and VIII they didn't quite make me feel like these were my favorite type of games). I still tear up a little when I watch Titus disintegrate into oblivion (or so I thought) while Yuna just doesn't want him to leave at the end of FFX. Persona 4 (or more accurately Giant Bomb's endurance run and then my personal P4:G playthroughs) let me know that video games can actually have fully realized characters in them, and that JRPGs didn't need to always feel like comfort food when I played them. Playing the Trails in the Sky duology is the closest I've ever come to finally trying to learn Japanese so I could play Kiseki games that haven't come out here, and that there are JRPGs whose story can actually stand tall when put up against my favorite books.
Alexa: Is there a particular character you identify with?
Sam: Not really? It's been an odd thing thinking about this since you'd think a semi-generic white dude who has played games for most of his life would have identified with a character in a game by now. I'm answering this question before I answer the "significant impact" question so I might elaborate on that there. So I'm going to pivot the question a little: "Is there a particular character you admire?" That I can answer a bit better.
I would say Estelle Bright from the Trails In the Sky duology is one of the character whom I admire most in video games, and is one of the primary reasons why Trail in the Sky is my favorite game of all time (I may have yelled at the Airship podcast a couple of times for never mentioning the Trails series). Estelle Bright is probably one of the only protagonists I have ever played as whose motivations for a decision I have never disagreed with in terms of how the position was presented and made. Most times in a video game story (especially in a JRPG) there will be times in the story where I want to slap a character and scream "YOU ARE BEING BLATANTLY STUPID AND NAIVE" or the entire reason I can discern for something to be happening is because the plot had demanded it or the game makers decided that there needed to be a bit of fan service (or whatever). That never really happens in Trails in the Sky, and if somebody does do something stupid they usually get slapped. She starts the game knowing who she is and who she want to be, and even though there are many opportunities for her to deviate from the path along her journey she never does. She's just so cool and I aspire to be as cool as her (in my own way). Characters like her make me excited for my little girls to start playing video games even though there are many many reasons for me to be terrified for them to even pick up a controller in the first place. Her characterization, and the characterization of most of the other characters in Trails in the Sky, made me feel like they were real people I could meet and would like to meet. I had only felt that happened before in Persona 4, my old most favorite game.
Alexa: Is there a particular console you favor? And does your choice have to do with usability or the catalog or the values of the platform?
Sam: At this point in my life I tend to just go where the games are. When I have a choice I tend to go Vita first due to portability and ease of use (I'm currently playing Trails of Cold Steel II on my imported P4: DaN Vita). It also makes it easier to pick up and play or put down so I can help out with two wonderful daughters. If my Vita is an option I'll probably be playing it on my PS4 since I don't have the time/money to build myself a proper PC yet. I used to be a PS fanboy, but I'm now more just nostalgic for the brand than I am a fanboy.
Alexa: Have you been to any conventions like PAX, E3, or PSX? Have you had any excellent fan moments at any of these with a creator or someone else in the industry you particularly admire?
Sam: I have only gone to a single day of PAX and that was back in 2013. I met Greg Kasavin and some of the Super Giant team after I played Transistor... and it crashed on me. I also poked by the Double Fine booth, but didn't exactly try to talk to anybody. To be honest I was kind of out of it the whole day since there were just so many people there, so even when I did talk to Greg I just thanked him for doing a great job with a game I was excited to play. After that I just sort of scooted away since I tend to be shy and get terrible anxiety when I think I might be wasting someone's time. My highlight of the whole thing was actually when I got to meet Vinny the day before when he commented on my Giant Bomb hoodie, but it was in passing since I think he was doing other stuff. It would be awesome to go again to PAX or some other gaming convention again some day, but at this point it's mostly been a problem of not having the time or the money to go do something like that. My favorite dev interaction these days has actually been following Keita Takahashi (@KeitaTakahash) on twitter since the man is a delight on that platform.
Arrange by Book Release Date
- EarthBound
- Chrono Trigger
- ZZT
- Galaga
- Jagged Alliance 2
- Super Mario Bros. 2
- Bible Adventures
- Baldur's Gate II
- Metal Gear Solid
- Shadow of the Colossus
- Spelunky
- World of Warcraft
- Super Mario Bros. 3
- Mega Man 3 (not out yet)
- Soft & Cuddly (not out yet)
- Kingdom Hearts II (not out yet)
- Katamari Damacy (not out yet)
Arrange by System
Arcade
PC
- Soft & Cuddly (not out yet)
- ZZT
- Jagged Alliance 2
- Baldur’s Gate II
- World of Warcraft
- Spelunky
NES
-
Super Mario Bros. 2
- Super Mario Bros. 3
- Bible Adventures
- Mega Man 3 (not out yet)
Super NES
- EarthBound
- Chrono Trigger
PS1 / PS2
- Metal Gear Solid
- Shadow of the Colossus
- Kingdom Hearts II
Arrange by Game's North American Release Date
1981
1987
- Soft & Cuddly (not out yet)
1988
1990
- Super Mario Bros. 3
- Bible Adventures
- Mega Man 3 (not out yet)
1991
1995
- EarthBound
- Chrono Trigger
1998
1999
2000
2004
- World of Warcraft
- Katamari Damacy (not out yet)
2005
2006
- Kingdom Hearts II (not out yet)
2008
We've got two live readings coming up! Both of them are planned around conferences (GDC and AWP) to maximize the number of you who can potentially make it:
1. Spelunky Release Party - San Francisco, CA - March 17 - 7:30 pm - Green Apple Books on the Park - Readings from Derek Yu, Nick Suttner, Anna Anthropy, and Gabe Durham
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/174260796285720/
2. Heart-Pounding Panic - Los Angeles, CA - April 1 - 7:30pm - Stories Books and Cafe - Readings from Alyse Knorr, Matt Bell, Salvatore Pane, Jarrett Kobek, Nick Suttner, Daniel Lisi, and Gabe Durham
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/562825637219672/
So if you're around, please join! See some readings, buy some books, get them signed, drink some drinks, meet some authors. It's going to be a couple of great nights.
