Working Title 12.14.08: Gaming Milestones, Microsoft Points

Posted by John De Large on 12.14.2008

Jordan is in surgery, so this week(end) we'll have a special guest writer for Working Title. JDL will break down his personal gaming milestones and also throw in a quick rant about Microsoft Points.

Welcome to the #1 Column to have it's appendix removed...WORKING TITLE. It seems after #100 my appendix decided it no longer wanted to be a part of my lovely body. So I ejected the fucker. Either way I was in no shape to do a column last week and this week JDL was gracious enough to hop on and cover for me. I'll be back next week with the 2nd Annual Workies Nominations.


Now onto JDL.

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JDL: John De Large's Gaming Milestones

I wonder where the term milestone came from? Did some geologist use some rocks to signify when a mile had passed? That's the only origin I can think of for the term. If that's his definition of a milestone, then my gaming milestones can easily be represented by the Squaresoft library of legend (Secret of Mana, FF3/6, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 7).

My introduction to Squaresoft was when I played Secret of Mana before I moved from Brooklyn to Brentwood, Long Island in the summer of 1994 (8 years old at this point) and the soundtrack mirrored my sadness, at least it did when I got to the village Pandora and I cried my eyes out. Even more traumatic for me was when the hero gets booted from his home within the first 30 minutes of gameplay. As someone having to forcibly leave home themselves, this hero (whom I'd named Link) had my sympathy and I vowed to beat this game, something I made good and sure my parents knew about, resulting in my acquisition of the game that Christmas and my triumphant victory over it months later.



Final Fantasy 3/6 was perhaps the biggest milestone of all these games. Upon moving to Brentwood, I found myself friendless and starting a new. The story begins on the first of school in 1994, when I'd asked another boy if I could read his Nintendo Power. He refused, but I would not give up in my pursuit to make a friend with presumed similar interests. Eventually, I melted his icy exterior to discover his equally nerdy interior. Though it was only the mid 90's, this boy had already conquered the greater parts of the SNES, Sega and NES libraries. When FF3 came out, he was only all too eager to show it to me and once he was done, I was all too eager to borrow his copy and play the shit out of it for the next month. This game was also my first ATB RPG, so it represented a new beginning in many ways. I found a new way to play games and a new friend to play them with.

Chrono Trigger is responsible for a many a good time and an eerie moment. I remember my mother pre ordering the game in 1995 as a present for Christmas for me that year. I was with her, whooping and celebrating that I would be getting only the coolest RPG up this point, embarrassing her to no end. The memory is still clear in my mind, so imagine the weirdness I felt when I reserved the game's remake this year, not once, but twice.

Lastly, I come to FF7, fondly remembered by the anime clique and more obnoxious gamers as "T3H B3St G4M3 3V4R." While FF7 is hardly FF3 perfection, it was MOST special to me for one reason. Sure, Materia is one of the greatest gimmicks of all time and the game took two months to beat back then, making it seem so epic, but FF7 is most fondly remembered to me for inspiring me to spend 20 minutes in the bathroom with a picture of Tifa.



So what was the impact? How did gaming change forever for me?
-I started a lifelong bond to a particular brand.
-I made a lifelong friend.
-I have a memory to tie to both childhood and adulthood.
-I'm looking forward to buying my kid(s) the re-re-release of Chrono Trigger.
-I discovered my body (Gross, but true).

In fact, thanks to these games, my love of RPG's has resulted in my own RPG (being made right now); one which will pay homage to the great games that Squaresoft gave me.



A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT! EXERCISE CAUTION WHEN BUYING MICROSOFT POINTS!

What the hell, Microsoft?

I just traded in a lackluster game and a game that was taking up space (one of which you had a hand in creating) to buy my father a new PS2 controller and some X Box 360 points, 1600 of them to be exact.

In fact, after my adventure in retail and pending a rightfully deserved refund, I'm not even so sure I'm going to bother with your illustrious points from here on out.

First of all, why am I paying $20 USD for 1600 points? Nintendo has 2000 points for $20 dollars, a dollar paid for every 100 points, pretty simple, no? So why can't you get your fucking act together and make the points and payout even? Why am I doing remedial division to figure out how much something costs? I don't want to do math, I want to herb up my friend Freddie in Street Fighter HD!



Secondly, I just redeemed the code on the back of the Microsoft points card I just got. I punched in the 25 digit code, with no keyboard and it didn't take. Okay, maybe I put it wrong, maybe I was a letter short, and I'll try again.

Okay, now I've been awarded 1600 points.

Time to get Street Fighter and clobber the shit out of Freddie as per usual, right?

Wrong! According to my balance, I have NO points! But how can this be? Surely, I put the code in right? I even got a confirmation message!

Well, it seems a confirmation message from Microsoft means dick. I waited 10 minutes, then turned the system off, hoping that maybe something needed catching up and the problem would resolve itself, but that didn't do any good either!

Okay, when something's not working you call a repairman, right? Well, I don't know any X Box repairmen, so I e-mailed the people at Microsoft, got a case number and once it's day time, you can damn well bet I'm going to call Microsoft and ask them what they're going to do about this. Hopefully they can be mature and be willing to work something out, perhaps a slight refund or even 1200 points to buy the game I wanted.

As for everyone else, make sure your gaming store will help you with these technical matters or offer a replacement if things go to shit. Make sure it is a gaming store you buy your points from, not Toys R Us or Kay Bee. Squeezing a refund from them is like getting cake from GlaDos (ba-dum-tish). Will help you with these technical matters or offer a replacement if things go to shit. This essay is not to slam Microsoft, it's not to cast a stone at them, it's not even to call them doody-heads or anything of the sort. It's to warn their customers of their fickle points system and to ask them a simple question (should they be reading this, and they SHOULD):

"What the hell, Microsoft?"

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Until next time, he's JDL and SONIC UNLEASHED IS FUCKING HORRIBLE.