I've moved this blog to a new location, as Word Press has more features and control options than blogger does. You can find a blog about common things at http://blogaboutcommonthings.wordpress.com/. My schedule is still Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday, with today's blog in the works. I hope you enjoy the new location and layout, bigger and better things are in store.
Thanks for your continued readership and/or bookmarking, it means quite a bit to know that others enjoy my hobby as much as I do.
Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
We all got left behind, we let it all slip away.
As promised, I now finish my discussion of disposable media.
Games
This was a difficult task at first, until I realized a few very important things. Not only is a Gamecube a small system (built for being brought as a party favor), but the games came on Minidisk. They're tiny, and easily deposited into a minidisk case. As such, none were left behind (I only own seven to begin with, making things easier). The Playstation 2 games were much more difficult. I left behind Final Fantasy X2, The Sims, Kingdom Hearts, and Unreal Tournament. I'm yet to pack PS1 games, but in the event I do, only King's Field, Martian Gothic, Dragonseeds, and ReBoot will be left behind. All NES games will stay (besides Punch Out!!, one of my favorite games of all time).
I'm not abandoning classics, not really. FFX2 was mostly a marketing experiment that shouldn't've ever seen the light of day. There were a lot of cool things in it, but the whole thing reeked of spin off. The game should've been marketed as a stand-alone, with a new world and new characters. It would've done better, and not tarnished the reputation of an otherwise very good game. Whatever people say about Final Fantasy X, I will defend it better than they will bash it. I can't do that for FFX2. The Sims is an art project. Chuck Klosterman said in Sex, Drugs and Cocoa-Puffs something to the effect of "people playing a game about watching their lives while they play games." I don't play games to get surreal, I play to get rid of realism when I can help it.
Kingdom Hearts is another great game, but I'm not so big on showing constant love for Squeenix. They've failed in the past (see FFX2, most FFVII spin-offs, and most early games), and they know it. Kingdom Hearts isn't a failure (though Chain of Memories was), but it isn't vital enough to my personality. I haven't played it in three years or more, and I don't feel I'm missing all that much. I know what happens now, the grinding wasn't all that great, and the novelty of playing with Disney characters wore off within a half hour of playing the game. There's nothing there for me now. Unrelated, Unreal Tournament was only good for the PC. Getting it for the PS2 was an impulse buy from the used bin. Still one of the only FPS' I will play (besides Portal and Metroid Prime Hunters), but this version is nothing worth holding onto.
The average reader won't know three of the four PS1 games mentioned, and this might not be a bad thing. They were all pretty kickass in theory, but execution killed them. King's Field is a first-person hack and slash that was actually too good for the PS1's engine to handle. I played it recently on an emulator (since my PS1 decided to commit ritual suicide) and the enhanced frame-rate made the game actually playable... but it didn't help. The game was overly difficult, too advanced for the system it was on, and generally moody. Martian Gothic is a generic horror/survival in a haunted house in space. Scared the bejezus out of me when I was a kid, but now it's just cheesy in a bad way.
Dragonseeds was a cool game with a fun premise. You bred test-tube baby dragons to fight against one another in tournaments. They were given weapons, and told to fight to the death against one another. There was no other gameplay besides breeding, fighting, and shopping. What made it awesome was the combat system (preprogrammed moves, trying to foresee the opponent's moves for two turns) and the "wild" dragon area. The game would read the data from your memory cards and generate a random dragon based on what game info you had there... from other games. It's like an own-able MGS moment.
ReBoot was a show in the 90's that took place inside a computer and was made in Canada. The show was amazing. The game came out towards the end of the show's lifetime. It's a piece of shit. The controls are terrible, the motion is difficult without any momentum breakers (you're on Bob's hover-board... he can't seem to walk at all, and you need to pull back to slow down and stop), and the targeting makes me want to hang Bob with my controller cable. The game should've been good, and if the player could walk/lock on, then it would've been. Instead it's unplayable, and only makes for a nice conversation piece.
"Oh writer, how could you abandon those NES games?! I thought you were a real gamer!" Oh dear reader, how narrow minded of you. The old NES games were mostly fun, and it's credited as the system that brought video games to the forefront of home entertainment... but that doesn't make them good. I love the original Mario/Duck Hunt, and Contra. And even Dragon Warrior. I played them all until my controller wore out, and then I went to the spare. I don't care that I'm leaving them behind anyway, because they've all been rendered obsolete. Super Mario Bros. has been done so many times after that it could only get better. Super Mario Bros 3 is far superior, and Super Mario World surpassed that too. Then others came out down the line that were equally awesome, but for systems I'm going to keep, like the DS. My NES is in pieces right now, and I don't own a light gun. Why should I hold on to things that literally are unplayable? Besides that, Ikari Warriors sucks.
Books
This was the hardest of them all, as my readers know. I love books, and in a way they become a measure of my progress as a thinking person. They aren't all/mostly intellectual, but they can't all come with me. It's unrealistic. So a small section of the stuff that was left behind includes most of Shakespeare's work, Pet Sematary, the Lord of the Rings books (including Hobbit), Something Wicked This Way Comes, the Harry Potter series, and most of my Calvin and Hobbes collections.
I don't mind leaving behind Shakespeare so much, he's public domain. I can look him up anywhere and print his work out for my leisure for free. I left behind Measure for Measure, The Tempest, a version of Othello, Antony and Cleopatra, All's Well that Ends Well, Much Ado About Nothing, Coriolanus, and Cymbelline. That said, I kept the other half of the Shakespeare I owned. At one point I was strongly considering becoming a literature major with a supreme concentration in Shakespeare's work. Then I realized it's silly, when he's been dead for centuries. I'd rather study things that are still alive and fresh, rather than trying to breathe fresh life into the dead. I don't love his work any less (though I know many can't stand him), but I don't think it matters that much to have every obscure play he's done. Coriolanus is a fine example of a steaming lump of yesterday's supper that The Bard emitted to pay his bills when he got old. It happens sometimes.
I don't like Stephen King's written work for the most part. He's a wonderful storyteller, and I respect him greatly, but his style of writing is too poppy for my taste. He can create a character's snapshot perfectly in three sentences (usually to kill them a page later), and his stories are beyond words. I just hate his stuff when it's written, and not filmed. Pet Sematary is one of three exceptions so far (the other two being Green Mile and On Writing, the later of which was kept). I loved this story, and the writing was passable because of the build. It's not that I'm a zombie buff, or that I love twisted takes on innocence being distorted. The characters grabbed me better than nearly any other pop-lit novel has, and the story came together perfectly. Why's it getting left behind? I've got somewhere around 400 books, and I can only afford the space for (maybe) 75 of them. This gets left behind in favor of something more vital.
Tolkien is another man I respect greatly, but not for his writing. Tolkien was an amazing linguist, and a man of great conviction to his faith. He's probably the most popular Christian author anyone is likely to read, and most people don't even realize it. I respect anyone who can mix their faith with their personal hobbies (the study of folklore and mythology was a major theme in his life, obviously) and make something enduring. Of all the things Tolkien was, he was NOT a writer. He created the Lord of the Rings series to give his languages a home. Elvish is a fully fleshed language, and LotR exists for it. Not the other way around. The stories have terrible pacing, the characters are mostly bland, and it offers little else besides beautiful shots of being lost in the woods. Just like a certain book later in this list thing. If I wanted to wander in the woods, I'd go do it in reality.
Ray Bradbury's brilliant, but Something Wicked... isn't one of my favorites from him. The evil carnival motif is cool at first, but the entire first quarter of the book is "OMINOUS OMINOUS AND DARK," without any plot development. Cool atmosphere, bad build. Fahrenheit 451 wins instead.
Harry Potter's a lot of fun after the first two children's books. The series really starts at the third novel, with extended backstory. I do like the series greatly, and perhaps if it wasn't so over-saturated in today's culture, I'd bring them with me. I don't really need to though, this shit's everywhere. A few years ago I couldn't look anywhere without seeing something relating to the boy that lived. As the series progressed it got darker, and the writing got more mature. By book 7, Rowlnig took a turn for the Tolkien, wasting half the book wandering in the woods. I actually stopped reading this book for a few weeks because I couldn't get out of the fucking woods. I began to suspect that Voldemort was hiding inside a goddamned tree. This series, while wonderful, is also largely unoriginal. Nearly all aspects - while used creatively - are drawn from most of the same sources Tolkien used. If I owned it in paperback and it wasn't so common, I might consider braving the extra weight. It isn't, so I won't bring it.
Calvin and Hobbes has a very special place in my heart, it was the first comic I really got attached to. Bill Watterson is one of my heroes, and when I was doing a comic strip column for Serpentine Magazine I referenced him frequently. He was my first exposure to many fantastic concepts that I wouldn't've cared about otherwise. He gave some of the best dialogue I've ever seen. He presented the option of imagination. In nearly every way, Watterson shaped me - in some part - into who I am now. As such, I own 10 of the collections. I only have the space for one or two. I still haven't decided which I will keep.
There are hundreds of other books left behind too, including things I got for class and novels I really enjoyed when I was younger. They're innocent victims of circumstance mostly, but circumstance is really all that matters. A man fishing is fine in most cases, unless he's catching endangered fish. Then he's become a felon. These aren't really all disposable, but they must all be disposed of.
Games
This was a difficult task at first, until I realized a few very important things. Not only is a Gamecube a small system (built for being brought as a party favor), but the games came on Minidisk. They're tiny, and easily deposited into a minidisk case. As such, none were left behind (I only own seven to begin with, making things easier). The Playstation 2 games were much more difficult. I left behind Final Fantasy X2, The Sims, Kingdom Hearts, and Unreal Tournament. I'm yet to pack PS1 games, but in the event I do, only King's Field, Martian Gothic, Dragonseeds, and ReBoot will be left behind. All NES games will stay (besides Punch Out!!, one of my favorite games of all time).
I'm not abandoning classics, not really. FFX2 was mostly a marketing experiment that shouldn't've ever seen the light of day. There were a lot of cool things in it, but the whole thing reeked of spin off. The game should've been marketed as a stand-alone, with a new world and new characters. It would've done better, and not tarnished the reputation of an otherwise very good game. Whatever people say about Final Fantasy X, I will defend it better than they will bash it. I can't do that for FFX2. The Sims is an art project. Chuck Klosterman said in Sex, Drugs and Cocoa-Puffs something to the effect of "people playing a game about watching their lives while they play games." I don't play games to get surreal, I play to get rid of realism when I can help it.
Kingdom Hearts is another great game, but I'm not so big on showing constant love for Squeenix. They've failed in the past (see FFX2, most FFVII spin-offs, and most early games), and they know it. Kingdom Hearts isn't a failure (though Chain of Memories was), but it isn't vital enough to my personality. I haven't played it in three years or more, and I don't feel I'm missing all that much. I know what happens now, the grinding wasn't all that great, and the novelty of playing with Disney characters wore off within a half hour of playing the game. There's nothing there for me now. Unrelated, Unreal Tournament was only good for the PC. Getting it for the PS2 was an impulse buy from the used bin. Still one of the only FPS' I will play (besides Portal and Metroid Prime Hunters), but this version is nothing worth holding onto.
The average reader won't know three of the four PS1 games mentioned, and this might not be a bad thing. They were all pretty kickass in theory, but execution killed them. King's Field is a first-person hack and slash that was actually too good for the PS1's engine to handle. I played it recently on an emulator (since my PS1 decided to commit ritual suicide) and the enhanced frame-rate made the game actually playable... but it didn't help. The game was overly difficult, too advanced for the system it was on, and generally moody. Martian Gothic is a generic horror/survival in a haunted house in space. Scared the bejezus out of me when I was a kid, but now it's just cheesy in a bad way.
Dragonseeds was a cool game with a fun premise. You bred test-tube baby dragons to fight against one another in tournaments. They were given weapons, and told to fight to the death against one another. There was no other gameplay besides breeding, fighting, and shopping. What made it awesome was the combat system (preprogrammed moves, trying to foresee the opponent's moves for two turns) and the "wild" dragon area. The game would read the data from your memory cards and generate a random dragon based on what game info you had there... from other games. It's like an own-able MGS moment.
ReBoot was a show in the 90's that took place inside a computer and was made in Canada. The show was amazing. The game came out towards the end of the show's lifetime. It's a piece of shit. The controls are terrible, the motion is difficult without any momentum breakers (you're on Bob's hover-board... he can't seem to walk at all, and you need to pull back to slow down and stop), and the targeting makes me want to hang Bob with my controller cable. The game should've been good, and if the player could walk/lock on, then it would've been. Instead it's unplayable, and only makes for a nice conversation piece.
"Oh writer, how could you abandon those NES games?! I thought you were a real gamer!" Oh dear reader, how narrow minded of you. The old NES games were mostly fun, and it's credited as the system that brought video games to the forefront of home entertainment... but that doesn't make them good. I love the original Mario/Duck Hunt, and Contra. And even Dragon Warrior. I played them all until my controller wore out, and then I went to the spare. I don't care that I'm leaving them behind anyway, because they've all been rendered obsolete. Super Mario Bros. has been done so many times after that it could only get better. Super Mario Bros 3 is far superior, and Super Mario World surpassed that too. Then others came out down the line that were equally awesome, but for systems I'm going to keep, like the DS. My NES is in pieces right now, and I don't own a light gun. Why should I hold on to things that literally are unplayable? Besides that, Ikari Warriors sucks.
Books
This was the hardest of them all, as my readers know. I love books, and in a way they become a measure of my progress as a thinking person. They aren't all/mostly intellectual, but they can't all come with me. It's unrealistic. So a small section of the stuff that was left behind includes most of Shakespeare's work, Pet Sematary, the Lord of the Rings books (including Hobbit), Something Wicked This Way Comes, the Harry Potter series, and most of my Calvin and Hobbes collections.
I don't mind leaving behind Shakespeare so much, he's public domain. I can look him up anywhere and print his work out for my leisure for free. I left behind Measure for Measure, The Tempest, a version of Othello, Antony and Cleopatra, All's Well that Ends Well, Much Ado About Nothing, Coriolanus, and Cymbelline. That said, I kept the other half of the Shakespeare I owned. At one point I was strongly considering becoming a literature major with a supreme concentration in Shakespeare's work. Then I realized it's silly, when he's been dead for centuries. I'd rather study things that are still alive and fresh, rather than trying to breathe fresh life into the dead. I don't love his work any less (though I know many can't stand him), but I don't think it matters that much to have every obscure play he's done. Coriolanus is a fine example of a steaming lump of yesterday's supper that The Bard emitted to pay his bills when he got old. It happens sometimes.
I don't like Stephen King's written work for the most part. He's a wonderful storyteller, and I respect him greatly, but his style of writing is too poppy for my taste. He can create a character's snapshot perfectly in three sentences (usually to kill them a page later), and his stories are beyond words. I just hate his stuff when it's written, and not filmed. Pet Sematary is one of three exceptions so far (the other two being Green Mile and On Writing, the later of which was kept). I loved this story, and the writing was passable because of the build. It's not that I'm a zombie buff, or that I love twisted takes on innocence being distorted. The characters grabbed me better than nearly any other pop-lit novel has, and the story came together perfectly. Why's it getting left behind? I've got somewhere around 400 books, and I can only afford the space for (maybe) 75 of them. This gets left behind in favor of something more vital.
Tolkien is another man I respect greatly, but not for his writing. Tolkien was an amazing linguist, and a man of great conviction to his faith. He's probably the most popular Christian author anyone is likely to read, and most people don't even realize it. I respect anyone who can mix their faith with their personal hobbies (the study of folklore and mythology was a major theme in his life, obviously) and make something enduring. Of all the things Tolkien was, he was NOT a writer. He created the Lord of the Rings series to give his languages a home. Elvish is a fully fleshed language, and LotR exists for it. Not the other way around. The stories have terrible pacing, the characters are mostly bland, and it offers little else besides beautiful shots of being lost in the woods. Just like a certain book later in this list thing. If I wanted to wander in the woods, I'd go do it in reality.
Ray Bradbury's brilliant, but Something Wicked... isn't one of my favorites from him. The evil carnival motif is cool at first, but the entire first quarter of the book is "OMINOUS OMINOUS AND DARK," without any plot development. Cool atmosphere, bad build. Fahrenheit 451 wins instead.
Harry Potter's a lot of fun after the first two children's books. The series really starts at the third novel, with extended backstory. I do like the series greatly, and perhaps if it wasn't so over-saturated in today's culture, I'd bring them with me. I don't really need to though, this shit's everywhere. A few years ago I couldn't look anywhere without seeing something relating to the boy that lived. As the series progressed it got darker, and the writing got more mature. By book 7, Rowlnig took a turn for the Tolkien, wasting half the book wandering in the woods. I actually stopped reading this book for a few weeks because I couldn't get out of the fucking woods. I began to suspect that Voldemort was hiding inside a goddamned tree. This series, while wonderful, is also largely unoriginal. Nearly all aspects - while used creatively - are drawn from most of the same sources Tolkien used. If I owned it in paperback and it wasn't so common, I might consider braving the extra weight. It isn't, so I won't bring it.
Calvin and Hobbes has a very special place in my heart, it was the first comic I really got attached to. Bill Watterson is one of my heroes, and when I was doing a comic strip column for Serpentine Magazine I referenced him frequently. He was my first exposure to many fantastic concepts that I wouldn't've cared about otherwise. He gave some of the best dialogue I've ever seen. He presented the option of imagination. In nearly every way, Watterson shaped me - in some part - into who I am now. As such, I own 10 of the collections. I only have the space for one or two. I still haven't decided which I will keep.
There are hundreds of other books left behind too, including things I got for class and novels I really enjoyed when I was younger. They're innocent victims of circumstance mostly, but circumstance is really all that matters. A man fishing is fine in most cases, unless he's catching endangered fish. Then he's become a felon. These aren't really all disposable, but they must all be disposed of.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Games filler rant!
Post number 70 is a throw away. Why? Because I have other things that are more pressing. I'll edit this with a proper post after I'm finished with my midterm, work, meetings, and getting an incomplete class fixed tomorrow.
Also; Nintendo needs to step up their game for the downloadable games. PSN's got a pretty awesome lineup. Granted, Nintendo's also much less expensive in many cases, but the quality of games is vastly different. Even just looking at the family friendly things, like puzzlers, Sony's finally matched Nintendo. Never thought the day would come.
Also; Nintendo needs to step up their game for the downloadable games. PSN's got a pretty awesome lineup. Granted, Nintendo's also much less expensive in many cases, but the quality of games is vastly different. Even just looking at the family friendly things, like puzzlers, Sony's finally matched Nintendo. Never thought the day would come.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Games I Obsess Over
Earlier a friend of mine went on a ten minute rant about why she loves World of Warcraft. Her points were all valid and the sort made by fan-children of that game. I don't bash World of Warcraft, even if I do occasionally poke fun at it. All gamers (and most people in general) have a game (or something else) that they obsess over. Most have many.
I've got a bunch. Most reflect various times in my life, but all are amazing games that you should play.
Without any order, my 11 favorite games:
Diablo II: This game is so good that I've recently put it back on my computer. The expansion pack (the only real way to have a complete game) came out in 2001. While it's somewhat pixelated compared to most modern games for the PC, it's aged much better than most games in it's time. I blame Blizzard, since they engineer electronic crack on a level beyond normal human consumption. The game is addictive, has extremely high replay value, and was in many ways a dark humor piece. If you read my blog, then you know I'm all over that kind of stuff.
Final Fantasy VII: My first major RPG is still one of my most memorable. I'm not as rabid a fanatic as many other fans of FFVII, but I do defend it for what it's worth. The graphics have aged like raw meat, story is full of holes, the main character is a stereotype for "generic-stoic-swordsman" that many RPGs have adopted since, and the game takes forever. That said, the graphics were amazing when it came out, the story (holes and all) is quite engaging, the characters are better developed than most video games (even if some are cheesy grabs at niche audiences), and the huge amount of play time only keeps you coming back. On top of all this, the music is fantastic.
Katamari Damacy: An art game, a stoner's daydream, a statement about consumerism - all are applicable labels for Katamari Damacy. The gameplay is simple and addictive (if you can push a ball, you can play this game). Plot synopsis: Your father - God - gets drunk and smashes all the stars in the sky. As his son, it's your job to fix it while he makes fun of you. You do this by taking a self contained quantum singularity and pushing it around on earth against objects. The ball gets bigger as you absorb objects. When it's big enough, your father turns it into a star. All the while he tells you it's tiny, because you are tiny, because he doesn't remember you're his kid in the later games. What a fucked up family.
Gex: Enter the Gecko: This is a sequel to another game I adore, but I remember this one much better. That just means that this one ate my life in late grade school and the beginning of high school. You play a Gecko that was sucked into the dimension of television to fight some metallic asshole that wants to kill you. As you play, you go through many popular movie genres and change costumes as you do. You use your tongue and tail (mostly for terrible puns) while you solve puzzles and die frequently. It made me very happy when I was younger, though when I look back I don't see as much appeal in this sequel as I did in the original. Still worth playing, but perhaps not as much as others on this list.
Gunbound: Oh Jesus. This game ate most of my senior year. That's not a bad thing though, there was a large group of my friends in this game as well. Ten or twelve of us would talk about it mostly in class, then go home and kick each others asses when we got in. It was a lot of fun, until people started hacking it and the host changed formats to only support Internet Explorer. The gist of it is that you're a kid in a tank/on an animal/riding a hovercraft/etc that has to kill everyone else on their vehicles by shooting at odd angles and compensating for the wind. It's very Korean-anime style, and cutesy for it. The game had some really hardcore players though. Worth the time if you're an IE user.
Gunstar Heroes: Best Genesis game ever. It's available on the Wii's Virtual Console. Go buy it if you can. There's some kind of rescue plot to save the world or some bullshit like that, but no one cares. The graphics were very polished, the gameplay was an addictive shooter/action (like Contra, but better. No, I didn't just blaspheme. It's truth), the music was catchy and well constructed, and the two-player mode was just as much fun as single player (the game is very difficult for only one person to beat in a timely manner). I still love the hell out of this game, and I always will.
The World Ends With You: This is the most recent, but it's earned it's spot. This game is the reason why I had screen protectors on my DS, and one of the few RPGs that made me actually wonder what the hell was happening. The story has some interesting metaphysical stuff going on, hooky music, and a unique combat system that will keep you frantically scratching at your screen until you finally get off a huge (two screens!) cinematic uber-death-fest attack with the two characters you're controlling independently working together. If that run-on sentence didn't sell you, consider that you're doing everything based entirely on collectible pins. The game's cool.
Starcraft: The RTS that's inspired most games since then. A lot of my friends play Warhammer 4000, but in many cases Starcraft was the game that got them into real time strategy in the first place. Personally, I started on the original Warcraft, but that's another story. Starcraft is probably the best balanced RTS that I've ever seen, and has enormous replay value. The game has changed competitively over time too, giving greater player interaction. The strategies I used five years ago (this game's expansion came out in 1999) no longer apply in online play. I was destroyed last time I played online in ways I didn't realize I could lose against. Another case of Blizzard pushing digital drugs onto an unsuspecting population.
Pokemon Blue: My little brother got Red, so I got Blue. As time went on I also got Yellow, Silver, Gold (Japanese) and "borrowed" his copy of Crystal. After that I didn't have a portable until the DS, and I'm waiting for Soul Silver for this generation. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you should really pay more attention to pop culture phenomena.
I was absolutely obsessed with the original Pokemon games. I had 149 at one point, but the save was erased. I had a notebook dedicated entirely to being my personal "Pokedex." I had hand-drawn pictures of each pokemon in there. Looking back I was pathetic, but it was much better than going out and discovering how to knock girls up like other kids in my catholic school were. I suppose being a geek has it's perks.
MediEvil: You play an animate corpse. You were painted by history as a hero, when in reality you were killed by the first arrow in the first volley, shot through the eye. You've been brought back to set your place right, kill an evil sorcerer, and save the people of a country you only have a loose connection to anymore. The game is amazing, and has a lot of quirky humor to the writing. It's a must-play for any PlayStation owner/ePSXe user. I think it's available for the PSP now, go play it.
Bushido Blade: A lot of people didn't like this game when it came out. Then again, a lot of people are fucking morons. Bushido Blade is one of the most realistic fighting games to ever exist, and I believe the best. There is no life bar, there are no super attacks and bullshit moves. Everything they do is based on swordplay, set styles, and the character builds. If you are stabbed in the head, you die. If you get slashed across a main artery, you die. If you deflect or there is a poor connection, you don't take serious damage. If your legs get bashed with a sledge hammer (yes, it's a playable weapon), you have to fight on your knees/crawling. There was a sequel, but it didn't do the series justice. It should be as enduring as Street Fighter and Tekken, but instead it's lost in the annals of the PlayStation back-catalog. If you've ever considered playing with a sword ever, you should play this game.
I've got a bunch. Most reflect various times in my life, but all are amazing games that you should play.
Without any order, my 11 favorite games:
Diablo II: This game is so good that I've recently put it back on my computer. The expansion pack (the only real way to have a complete game) came out in 2001. While it's somewhat pixelated compared to most modern games for the PC, it's aged much better than most games in it's time. I blame Blizzard, since they engineer electronic crack on a level beyond normal human consumption. The game is addictive, has extremely high replay value, and was in many ways a dark humor piece. If you read my blog, then you know I'm all over that kind of stuff.
Final Fantasy VII: My first major RPG is still one of my most memorable. I'm not as rabid a fanatic as many other fans of FFVII, but I do defend it for what it's worth. The graphics have aged like raw meat, story is full of holes, the main character is a stereotype for "generic-stoic-swordsman" that many RPGs have adopted since, and the game takes forever. That said, the graphics were amazing when it came out, the story (holes and all) is quite engaging, the characters are better developed than most video games (even if some are cheesy grabs at niche audiences), and the huge amount of play time only keeps you coming back. On top of all this, the music is fantastic.
Katamari Damacy: An art game, a stoner's daydream, a statement about consumerism - all are applicable labels for Katamari Damacy. The gameplay is simple and addictive (if you can push a ball, you can play this game). Plot synopsis: Your father - God - gets drunk and smashes all the stars in the sky. As his son, it's your job to fix it while he makes fun of you. You do this by taking a self contained quantum singularity and pushing it around on earth against objects. The ball gets bigger as you absorb objects. When it's big enough, your father turns it into a star. All the while he tells you it's tiny, because you are tiny, because he doesn't remember you're his kid in the later games. What a fucked up family.
Gex: Enter the Gecko: This is a sequel to another game I adore, but I remember this one much better. That just means that this one ate my life in late grade school and the beginning of high school. You play a Gecko that was sucked into the dimension of television to fight some metallic asshole that wants to kill you. As you play, you go through many popular movie genres and change costumes as you do. You use your tongue and tail (mostly for terrible puns) while you solve puzzles and die frequently. It made me very happy when I was younger, though when I look back I don't see as much appeal in this sequel as I did in the original. Still worth playing, but perhaps not as much as others on this list.
Gunbound: Oh Jesus. This game ate most of my senior year. That's not a bad thing though, there was a large group of my friends in this game as well. Ten or twelve of us would talk about it mostly in class, then go home and kick each others asses when we got in. It was a lot of fun, until people started hacking it and the host changed formats to only support Internet Explorer. The gist of it is that you're a kid in a tank/on an animal/riding a hovercraft/etc that has to kill everyone else on their vehicles by shooting at odd angles and compensating for the wind. It's very Korean-anime style, and cutesy for it. The game had some really hardcore players though. Worth the time if you're an IE user.
Gunstar Heroes: Best Genesis game ever. It's available on the Wii's Virtual Console. Go buy it if you can. There's some kind of rescue plot to save the world or some bullshit like that, but no one cares. The graphics were very polished, the gameplay was an addictive shooter/action (like Contra, but better. No, I didn't just blaspheme. It's truth), the music was catchy and well constructed, and the two-player mode was just as much fun as single player (the game is very difficult for only one person to beat in a timely manner). I still love the hell out of this game, and I always will.
The World Ends With You: This is the most recent, but it's earned it's spot. This game is the reason why I had screen protectors on my DS, and one of the few RPGs that made me actually wonder what the hell was happening. The story has some interesting metaphysical stuff going on, hooky music, and a unique combat system that will keep you frantically scratching at your screen until you finally get off a huge (two screens!) cinematic uber-death-fest attack with the two characters you're controlling independently working together. If that run-on sentence didn't sell you, consider that you're doing everything based entirely on collectible pins. The game's cool.
Starcraft: The RTS that's inspired most games since then. A lot of my friends play Warhammer 4000, but in many cases Starcraft was the game that got them into real time strategy in the first place. Personally, I started on the original Warcraft, but that's another story. Starcraft is probably the best balanced RTS that I've ever seen, and has enormous replay value. The game has changed competitively over time too, giving greater player interaction. The strategies I used five years ago (this game's expansion came out in 1999) no longer apply in online play. I was destroyed last time I played online in ways I didn't realize I could lose against. Another case of Blizzard pushing digital drugs onto an unsuspecting population.
Pokemon Blue: My little brother got Red, so I got Blue. As time went on I also got Yellow, Silver, Gold (Japanese) and "borrowed" his copy of Crystal. After that I didn't have a portable until the DS, and I'm waiting for Soul Silver for this generation. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you should really pay more attention to pop culture phenomena.
I was absolutely obsessed with the original Pokemon games. I had 149 at one point, but the save was erased. I had a notebook dedicated entirely to being my personal "Pokedex." I had hand-drawn pictures of each pokemon in there. Looking back I was pathetic, but it was much better than going out and discovering how to knock girls up like other kids in my catholic school were. I suppose being a geek has it's perks.
MediEvil: You play an animate corpse. You were painted by history as a hero, when in reality you were killed by the first arrow in the first volley, shot through the eye. You've been brought back to set your place right, kill an evil sorcerer, and save the people of a country you only have a loose connection to anymore. The game is amazing, and has a lot of quirky humor to the writing. It's a must-play for any PlayStation owner/ePSXe user. I think it's available for the PSP now, go play it.
Bushido Blade: A lot of people didn't like this game when it came out. Then again, a lot of people are fucking morons. Bushido Blade is one of the most realistic fighting games to ever exist, and I believe the best. There is no life bar, there are no super attacks and bullshit moves. Everything they do is based on swordplay, set styles, and the character builds. If you are stabbed in the head, you die. If you get slashed across a main artery, you die. If you deflect or there is a poor connection, you don't take serious damage. If your legs get bashed with a sledge hammer (yes, it's a playable weapon), you have to fight on your knees/crawling. There was a sequel, but it didn't do the series justice. It should be as enduring as Street Fighter and Tekken, but instead it's lost in the annals of the PlayStation back-catalog. If you've ever considered playing with a sword ever, you should play this game.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Interactive Art?
Don't mind me, I'm on a video game kick of late.
Whether or not video game design is considered an art form has been debated many times over by geeks like me, and I still hold that in some cases it might be. Ultimately as a whole video games cannot be considered an art, no matter how artistic some are, but in time certain franchises (occasionally from the start) become works of art in the design, rather than just the visual representations they have. Unfortunately it's very difficult to determine which games fall into this category, since most exist solely to make money. In other cases, game franchises that previously held artistic integrity may have lost it as it became a franchise, rather than just a game.
Katamari Damacy (only the first, and maybe the second, We <3 Katamari) is an example of an art game, as the entire game was an experimental statement about consumerism. The game play is essentially rolling up a snowman with two analog sticks. The concept was probably written in an acid trip, and the soundtrack was a very varied electronica-cumshot that was mostly loosely self referential. The visuals were made boxy and overly simplified, almost like Lego mockeries of reality.
The short of the story is that your father is God, who gets drunk one night and smashes all the stars in the sky. As his son, you need to fix it while he belittles you. You do this with the help of a spherical self contained quantum singularity. This mini-black hole will cling to any object smaller than itself, growing bigger while you push it around the earth. Once it's big enough, your father turns it into a star.
As the series went on, it seemed like it was making more fun of itself. In the second game your father realizes the popularity of the first game, and forces you to keep rolling shit up into your gravity-ball so he can keep his fan base. This would've been a fitting end to the series, since the game was better designed than the first. It also featured a long time endurance level, in which you need to roll up one million roses.
The series didn't stop. No more were made for the PS2, but instead ported to many other systems that could better handle the visuals. Why? Namco got greedy. Beautiful Katamari (Xbox 360), Katamari Forever (PS3), Me and My Katamari (PSP), I Love Katamari (iShit), and an only loosely related Tetris-like game has been released for the DSi in Japan rounds out the list of other games in this series. This franchise has only been out since 2004. 7 games in 6 years. From a game that was supposed to be a stand alone. It's become a parody of it's original message.
I don't love the franchise any less now, but it is no longer art.
In contrast, the Nintendo DSi Art Style series might actually fall into the category it's named after, or at least Art Style: Aquia does.
Art Style is a series of puzzle games built to milk the DSi for it's crisp visuals and simple design, and each game is a $5.00 download. There are seven now, making it a $35.00 series to own. I haven't played them all, or even most of them. Aquia is the only one I own, but the game was worth the download.
Aquia places you as a diver going deep under water to discover new breeds of fish. As you do so, you fight off the darkness inherent in deep sea diving and try not to black out from lack of oxygen. You keep this diver alive by moving colored squares into lines of 3 or more with a slider. This slider only moves from left to right. If you clear more than one line in a chain reaction, you get more air. If you don't clear lines fast enough, your screen transitions to black and you lose.
At first, the music is supplied by your slider and actions. All movements in each level are tied to a set key, and give random sounds in that key as you clear your lines. As you dive deeper the level music raises in volume, and by the end you can hear some pretty thumpin' tunes from each level of difficulty. All sound cuts out as you get closer to death as well, replaced by an ominous beep that happens between silence.
What's nice about the Art Style series is that none of the games are related outside of production house and name. Every game in this series is made to have nothing to do with one another, from game play to audio to rewards. Each represents itself.
What makes this (possibly) art is the level of simplicity that exists in such an avant garde exterior. It's layered enough to care about if you're the kind of geek that likes to analyze puzzle games (like me), but simple enough where you won't need to. It's addictive enough to eat hours harmlessly, but not in the harmful way like World of Warcraft or any strategy game.
This was going to be a list, but I don't really have time to give this kind of detail to everything I'd want to list. Here's one anyway, I might reference it again down the line.
Katamari Damacy
Art Style: Aquia
The Sims
Portal
Postal
Tetris
LSD (that's what the game was actually called)
Final Fantasy X
An honorable mention is Little Big Planet. In itself it is not art, though it is very artistic. It's beautiful, and the music is wonderful, but stripped away it's just a customizable platformer.
Whether or not video game design is considered an art form has been debated many times over by geeks like me, and I still hold that in some cases it might be. Ultimately as a whole video games cannot be considered an art, no matter how artistic some are, but in time certain franchises (occasionally from the start) become works of art in the design, rather than just the visual representations they have. Unfortunately it's very difficult to determine which games fall into this category, since most exist solely to make money. In other cases, game franchises that previously held artistic integrity may have lost it as it became a franchise, rather than just a game.
Katamari Damacy (only the first, and maybe the second, We <3 Katamari) is an example of an art game, as the entire game was an experimental statement about consumerism. The game play is essentially rolling up a snowman with two analog sticks. The concept was probably written in an acid trip, and the soundtrack was a very varied electronica-cumshot that was mostly loosely self referential. The visuals were made boxy and overly simplified, almost like Lego mockeries of reality.
The short of the story is that your father is God, who gets drunk one night and smashes all the stars in the sky. As his son, you need to fix it while he belittles you. You do this with the help of a spherical self contained quantum singularity. This mini-black hole will cling to any object smaller than itself, growing bigger while you push it around the earth. Once it's big enough, your father turns it into a star.
As the series went on, it seemed like it was making more fun of itself. In the second game your father realizes the popularity of the first game, and forces you to keep rolling shit up into your gravity-ball so he can keep his fan base. This would've been a fitting end to the series, since the game was better designed than the first. It also featured a long time endurance level, in which you need to roll up one million roses.
The series didn't stop. No more were made for the PS2, but instead ported to many other systems that could better handle the visuals. Why? Namco got greedy. Beautiful Katamari (Xbox 360), Katamari Forever (PS3), Me and My Katamari (PSP), I Love Katamari (iShit), and an only loosely related Tetris-like game has been released for the DSi in Japan rounds out the list of other games in this series. This franchise has only been out since 2004. 7 games in 6 years. From a game that was supposed to be a stand alone. It's become a parody of it's original message.
I don't love the franchise any less now, but it is no longer art.
In contrast, the Nintendo DSi Art Style series might actually fall into the category it's named after, or at least Art Style: Aquia does.
Art Style is a series of puzzle games built to milk the DSi for it's crisp visuals and simple design, and each game is a $5.00 download. There are seven now, making it a $35.00 series to own. I haven't played them all, or even most of them. Aquia is the only one I own, but the game was worth the download.
Aquia places you as a diver going deep under water to discover new breeds of fish. As you do so, you fight off the darkness inherent in deep sea diving and try not to black out from lack of oxygen. You keep this diver alive by moving colored squares into lines of 3 or more with a slider. This slider only moves from left to right. If you clear more than one line in a chain reaction, you get more air. If you don't clear lines fast enough, your screen transitions to black and you lose.
At first, the music is supplied by your slider and actions. All movements in each level are tied to a set key, and give random sounds in that key as you clear your lines. As you dive deeper the level music raises in volume, and by the end you can hear some pretty thumpin' tunes from each level of difficulty. All sound cuts out as you get closer to death as well, replaced by an ominous beep that happens between silence.
What's nice about the Art Style series is that none of the games are related outside of production house and name. Every game in this series is made to have nothing to do with one another, from game play to audio to rewards. Each represents itself.
What makes this (possibly) art is the level of simplicity that exists in such an avant garde exterior. It's layered enough to care about if you're the kind of geek that likes to analyze puzzle games (like me), but simple enough where you won't need to. It's addictive enough to eat hours harmlessly, but not in the harmful way like World of Warcraft or any strategy game.
This was going to be a list, but I don't really have time to give this kind of detail to everything I'd want to list. Here's one anyway, I might reference it again down the line.
Katamari Damacy
Art Style: Aquia
The Sims
Portal
Postal
Tetris
LSD (that's what the game was actually called)
Final Fantasy X
An honorable mention is Little Big Planet. In itself it is not art, though it is very artistic. It's beautiful, and the music is wonderful, but stripped away it's just a customizable platformer.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Sackboy just shot Master Chief in the face.
I am bothered by the current state of video game design. This isn't anything important or life changing, but it does bother me as it is a representation of the number one entertainment industry (and still fastest growing) in the United States.
In years prior, there was to a limited extent diversity among games. One was just as likely to find an original action/adventure game on the shelves as they were a fighter, shooter, puzzle, or role playing game (RPG). This was a cross-system boon, and it made gaming more rich for it. With current gaming consoles, it seems that a huge divide exists between which consoles have which kinds of games.
As a child of the 90's that grew up with Genesis, Playstation, and PC games, I played a lot of action/adventure platform games. These were generally games that told a mostly linear story in which a character has to get from point A to point B. Said character will have a set of skills that they will use to overcome these obstacles, occasionally a few new ones will be given as the game goes on. Some were 3D from a third person prospective, some were 2D from a side view. All were fun.
I played others too, particularly on the PC. I wasted many, many hours of my life playing StarCraft and WarCraft, back when Blizzard had better things to do than push digital crack to a helpless population. Civilization II ate large bits of my free time as well, and all were amazing games. They put the player in a position where they need to work out a unique way to pass each scenario. While strategy guides exist, most are terrible. You, as the player, have to think more deeply.
I had RPGs I loved (mostly Final Fantasy and Pokemon games), some terrible fighters (Star Wars made a fighting game once. It was quite uninspired, and while it was bad, it was amazing for it. Mortal Kombat eventually turned into something similar), and lastly there were First Person Shooters.
I liked FPS' the least, and still do. I played GoldenEye on the Nintendo 64 at a friend's when I was young, and I owned a few of the old ID games (Doom II, Quake). I had a lot of these back then, but they were all PC games, and most were too terrible for serious play. Redneck Rampage was the most creative of them at the time, when you play a hick who gets drunk to shoot better and eats pork rinds to walk straight... fighting aliens. With machine guns built into breasts. The game was beyond fucked.
Games are still a big part of my life, but I don't personally own any of the current consoles. My brother has a Wii, my girlfriend has a PS3 now too, and one of the places I work uses all three current consoles extensively, but none personally. This is because I generally don't like FPS'.
Particularly for the PS3 (the technically best, most useful, and most stable of the three major consoles), most of the noteworthy games are either cross-system releases or first person shooters. With what the system is capable of, more should be done that doesn't involve pointing a gun at someone and jumping behind a rock so they can't do the same. The thing that saves it for me is Little Big Planet, which is possibly the best, most creative platformer that I've ever seen. I know it's a year or so old, but that doesn't change the fact that Sony seems to have focused too much on blood.
Microsoft is worse, but their system is prone to killing itself. The 360 probably knows it's only a box for people to release their bloody fetishes through and snaps after a while. I can't blame them for red rings.
The Wii (the technically weakest) system in the bunch has the best games right now, because Nintendo knows that if people love them, they'll keep giving them money. It's a good business practice, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't love them for it. Right now they're fixing my DSi for free under warranty. The games, however, are only notable because they aren't a constant barrage of bullets. The only official Nintendo FPS isn't even this mostly, as it focuses on situational puzzle solving rather than killing space-Nazis or zombies. Even then, Metroid didn't start out this way. It adapted in a way that Nintendo hoped would keep the fledgling FPS players endeared.
I can't say that most modern FPS' are bad either, which annoys me more. I can't even bash them, because Left 4 Dead and Borderlands are too good for me to put down. Portal might be the best game ever made. Even fucking Halo (first only) is a great game. How can I bash these things?
For the most part, because they're not creative. Few innovate heavily on anything, most regurgitate with minor tweaks that will be stolen and done better in the future by another game. At least with Little Big Planet they took an already bloated genre from the past and stripped it down to a character that's literally made of a burlap sack who can only really run, jump, and pull things. There's other stuff that happens as you go too, but in essence, Sackboy is the most basic character you can have.
Some fanboys will be angry at me for this, and point out all the games I've ignored to make my point. Sure, Metal Gear Solid 4 is the best rated PS3 game. It's an awesome movie. Street Fighter IV is also out and golden. That's awesome if you dig antiquated fighting systems that should've been done away with when Bushido Blade introduced the "You get stabbed in the neck, you die," mechanic rather than a life bar, back in 1998. Final Fantasy XIII and Kingdom Hearts III will soon be out for the PS3 too. JRPG's aren't everyone's bag (see Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw).
I want to upgrade, badly. But without the ability to play all the old PS2 games, there's no point. I would buy a system for a small handful of games and online rehashes of games better than all the new FPS'.
Little Big Planet
Katamari Forever
Metal Gear Solid 4
Final Fantasy XIII
Borderlands
Arkham Asylum
Dante's Inferno
Demon's Souls (maybe)
Rock Band
Little Big Planet alone might be enough to sell me a system down the line if I ever decide, or when I have no choice but to switch to Blue-Ray. But after three years, I'd hoped there'd be more. Maybe a Spyro game that didn't suck, or something that innovates as much as Little Big Planet and Katamari Damacy did when they came out. Give me a new Bushido Blade. Something less stale than most of the "Point and Shoot" pieces of shit.
In years prior, there was to a limited extent diversity among games. One was just as likely to find an original action/adventure game on the shelves as they were a fighter, shooter, puzzle, or role playing game (RPG). This was a cross-system boon, and it made gaming more rich for it. With current gaming consoles, it seems that a huge divide exists between which consoles have which kinds of games.
As a child of the 90's that grew up with Genesis, Playstation, and PC games, I played a lot of action/adventure platform games. These were generally games that told a mostly linear story in which a character has to get from point A to point B. Said character will have a set of skills that they will use to overcome these obstacles, occasionally a few new ones will be given as the game goes on. Some were 3D from a third person prospective, some were 2D from a side view. All were fun.
I played others too, particularly on the PC. I wasted many, many hours of my life playing StarCraft and WarCraft, back when Blizzard had better things to do than push digital crack to a helpless population. Civilization II ate large bits of my free time as well, and all were amazing games. They put the player in a position where they need to work out a unique way to pass each scenario. While strategy guides exist, most are terrible. You, as the player, have to think more deeply.
I had RPGs I loved (mostly Final Fantasy and Pokemon games), some terrible fighters (Star Wars made a fighting game once. It was quite uninspired, and while it was bad, it was amazing for it. Mortal Kombat eventually turned into something similar), and lastly there were First Person Shooters.
I liked FPS' the least, and still do. I played GoldenEye on the Nintendo 64 at a friend's when I was young, and I owned a few of the old ID games (Doom II, Quake). I had a lot of these back then, but they were all PC games, and most were too terrible for serious play. Redneck Rampage was the most creative of them at the time, when you play a hick who gets drunk to shoot better and eats pork rinds to walk straight... fighting aliens. With machine guns built into breasts. The game was beyond fucked.
Games are still a big part of my life, but I don't personally own any of the current consoles. My brother has a Wii, my girlfriend has a PS3 now too, and one of the places I work uses all three current consoles extensively, but none personally. This is because I generally don't like FPS'.
Particularly for the PS3 (the technically best, most useful, and most stable of the three major consoles), most of the noteworthy games are either cross-system releases or first person shooters. With what the system is capable of, more should be done that doesn't involve pointing a gun at someone and jumping behind a rock so they can't do the same. The thing that saves it for me is Little Big Planet, which is possibly the best, most creative platformer that I've ever seen. I know it's a year or so old, but that doesn't change the fact that Sony seems to have focused too much on blood.
Microsoft is worse, but their system is prone to killing itself. The 360 probably knows it's only a box for people to release their bloody fetishes through and snaps after a while. I can't blame them for red rings.
The Wii (the technically weakest) system in the bunch has the best games right now, because Nintendo knows that if people love them, they'll keep giving them money. It's a good business practice, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't love them for it. Right now they're fixing my DSi for free under warranty. The games, however, are only notable because they aren't a constant barrage of bullets. The only official Nintendo FPS isn't even this mostly, as it focuses on situational puzzle solving rather than killing space-Nazis or zombies. Even then, Metroid didn't start out this way. It adapted in a way that Nintendo hoped would keep the fledgling FPS players endeared.
I can't say that most modern FPS' are bad either, which annoys me more. I can't even bash them, because Left 4 Dead and Borderlands are too good for me to put down. Portal might be the best game ever made. Even fucking Halo (first only) is a great game. How can I bash these things?
For the most part, because they're not creative. Few innovate heavily on anything, most regurgitate with minor tweaks that will be stolen and done better in the future by another game. At least with Little Big Planet they took an already bloated genre from the past and stripped it down to a character that's literally made of a burlap sack who can only really run, jump, and pull things. There's other stuff that happens as you go too, but in essence, Sackboy is the most basic character you can have.
Some fanboys will be angry at me for this, and point out all the games I've ignored to make my point. Sure, Metal Gear Solid 4 is the best rated PS3 game. It's an awesome movie. Street Fighter IV is also out and golden. That's awesome if you dig antiquated fighting systems that should've been done away with when Bushido Blade introduced the "You get stabbed in the neck, you die," mechanic rather than a life bar, back in 1998. Final Fantasy XIII and Kingdom Hearts III will soon be out for the PS3 too. JRPG's aren't everyone's bag (see Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw).
I want to upgrade, badly. But without the ability to play all the old PS2 games, there's no point. I would buy a system for a small handful of games and online rehashes of games better than all the new FPS'.
Little Big Planet
Katamari Forever
Metal Gear Solid 4
Final Fantasy XIII
Borderlands
Arkham Asylum
Dante's Inferno
Demon's Souls (maybe)
Rock Band
Little Big Planet alone might be enough to sell me a system down the line if I ever decide, or when I have no choice but to switch to Blue-Ray. But after three years, I'd hoped there'd be more. Maybe a Spyro game that didn't suck, or something that innovates as much as Little Big Planet and Katamari Damacy did when they came out. Give me a new Bushido Blade. Something less stale than most of the "Point and Shoot" pieces of shit.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Ubercon (less brief)
Every year I go to Ubercon, I find something awesome and worth bringing home with me. This year I played more new games than ever previously, many brand new to me. So now I'm going to review these games. If you don't like this, and want me to go back to my usual tone of writing, then piss off for now and come back tomorrow. My full roster of games played now follows, with previously unplayed games marked:
Martian Fluxx*
Uber-Fluxx
Monty Python Fluxx*
Are You a Werewolf?
Disney Apples to Apples*
Plants vs Zombies*
Smash Bros. Brawl
Wii Bowling
Revolution!*
The Tee-Shirt Game*
DJ Hero*
Rock Band: Beatles*
Three Dragon Ante*
We Didn't Playtest this Game at All*
We Didn't Playtest this Either*
Win Loose Banana*
Zuma's Revenge*
I'm fairly certain I'm forgetting others too, but this is most of what occupied my time at this convention. Besides the Fluxx's (which really shouldn't be explained without a deck of cards handy), most of these games were either new or revisions of games I've already played or own.
Therefore, I will not be discussing Tee-Shirt Game (Apples to Apples with pictures), Rock Band: Beatles, Zuma's Revenge, Brawl, Are You a Werewolf?, or Wii Bowling. If you're disappointed or don't know these games, I might write about them down the line. The Looney Labs games (Fluxx and Werewolf) will probably each receive commentary down the line eventually anyway. That said, this was Ubercon for me.
Apples to Apples is a fantastic word game that plays on senses of humor and reality, matching nouns with adjectives. That said, Disney Apples to Apples is an atrocious, steaming brown lump on the unspoiled lawn that was AtA's legacy. I know it's geared to a younger audience. The audience I had played it literally, which didn't seem in the spirit of the game. More importantly, the game itself seemed too much like a marketing gimmick, rather than a spin-off game that needed to be made (unlike RB:Beatles and Monty Python Fluxx, which are awesome for existing). Disney Apples to Apples sucked the humor out of the game and replaced it with Hannah Montana, who is the new Hitler card. I stayed for the whole game in hopes of improvement. I was disappointed.
Plants vs Zombies is a computer game made by one of Ubercon's sponsors, Popcap Games. They make lots of games that play like crack, and bring down GPA's and productivity in businesses. PvZ is no exception, loaded now on the main computer in the office I work through. It's a simple defense strategy game in which you protect your house from the zombie apocalypse with the help of your friend "Crazy Dave" using mutant plants. If you aren't immediately interested, you might be a Cylon. Since coming back from the convention, I've beaten this game 1.5 times, and am tearing through the two dozen minigames. I expect to be able to work again in a few weeks' time.
Revolution is a board game that plays like a gambling addiction. Rather than rolling dice to move pieces, you place bets and bids on various people around a city. If you win these people, you get more control over the city. When the revolution is over, the person with the most control wins. It took five minutes to learn, and it was worth the hour of game play. It probably isn't for everyone, but I enjoyed it.
DJ Hero is a game I should hate. I should loathe it with all my being, as it symbolizes a franchise that should have died when Rock Band came out and nailed it to a tree. DJ Hero is a game that shouldn't ever be considered playable or fun. I don't know why I love it so much. The controls are overly complicated, yet dramatically simplified from that of an actual turntable scratch setup. The mixes are pretty awesome, and I'd be a liar if I said there weren't a few I want on disk. The harder difficulties are actually VERY challenging, and work more senses than any other Hero simulation game so far. I shouldn't like it on principle, but I do. Fuck you, Activision.
Three Dragon Ante, like any other gambling card game, is reasonably simple and addictive in base. Since it's rooted in D&D, it's more complicated than it should be. It's enjoyable, and relatively cheap compared to most D&D paraphenalia, but it's really a matter of personal opinion as to if it's worth getting. Play it once for yourself. I don't think I'd buy it.
We Didn't Playtest [These Goddamn Games] are amazing for the stoner/internet/college demographic. They're nonsense, in the form of 100+ cards when meshed together. They make little to no sense, sometimes end within 20 seconds of dealing out the opening hand, and have a tendency to make people's heads hurt when they lose the ability to reference themselves, others, or the cards verbally. It's amazing for the amount of random [something] that's been packed into the game, but this makes it impossible to play competitively. There can be no strategy. There is only luck, Dragons, Ninjas, Secret Attack Kittens, and Voting. I don't know if I should love this game for how fun it is (probably) or despise it for how terribly designed it is (probably not).
It should be said that I did not spend the entire convention playing games, though that's obviously the focus of this particular event. Most of the other things were far less interesting, or already discussed earlier this week. That's not what anyone really cares about though when reading about a gaming convention. You don't care about the amazing, two foot high food. You don't care about the lovely hotel rooms with TV's nicer than mine. You don't care about the trip to Dairy Queen and Burger King (who get hitched and produce a sushi place somehow) on the last night of the event, though you'll probably read about that sometime this month. This weekend was about the games, and that's what I'm giving you.
So play them. Especially PvZ. That's fucking badass.
Martian Fluxx*
Uber-Fluxx
Monty Python Fluxx*
Are You a Werewolf?
Disney Apples to Apples*
Plants vs Zombies*
Smash Bros. Brawl
Wii Bowling
Revolution!*
The Tee-Shirt Game*
DJ Hero*
Rock Band: Beatles*
Three Dragon Ante*
We Didn't Playtest this Game at All*
We Didn't Playtest this Either*
Win Loose Banana*
Zuma's Revenge*
I'm fairly certain I'm forgetting others too, but this is most of what occupied my time at this convention. Besides the Fluxx's (which really shouldn't be explained without a deck of cards handy), most of these games were either new or revisions of games I've already played or own.
Therefore, I will not be discussing Tee-Shirt Game (Apples to Apples with pictures), Rock Band: Beatles, Zuma's Revenge, Brawl, Are You a Werewolf?, or Wii Bowling. If you're disappointed or don't know these games, I might write about them down the line. The Looney Labs games (Fluxx and Werewolf) will probably each receive commentary down the line eventually anyway. That said, this was Ubercon for me.
Apples to Apples is a fantastic word game that plays on senses of humor and reality, matching nouns with adjectives. That said, Disney Apples to Apples is an atrocious, steaming brown lump on the unspoiled lawn that was AtA's legacy. I know it's geared to a younger audience. The audience I had played it literally, which didn't seem in the spirit of the game. More importantly, the game itself seemed too much like a marketing gimmick, rather than a spin-off game that needed to be made (unlike RB:Beatles and Monty Python Fluxx, which are awesome for existing). Disney Apples to Apples sucked the humor out of the game and replaced it with Hannah Montana, who is the new Hitler card. I stayed for the whole game in hopes of improvement. I was disappointed.
Plants vs Zombies is a computer game made by one of Ubercon's sponsors, Popcap Games. They make lots of games that play like crack, and bring down GPA's and productivity in businesses. PvZ is no exception, loaded now on the main computer in the office I work through. It's a simple defense strategy game in which you protect your house from the zombie apocalypse with the help of your friend "Crazy Dave" using mutant plants. If you aren't immediately interested, you might be a Cylon. Since coming back from the convention, I've beaten this game 1.5 times, and am tearing through the two dozen minigames. I expect to be able to work again in a few weeks' time.
Revolution is a board game that plays like a gambling addiction. Rather than rolling dice to move pieces, you place bets and bids on various people around a city. If you win these people, you get more control over the city. When the revolution is over, the person with the most control wins. It took five minutes to learn, and it was worth the hour of game play. It probably isn't for everyone, but I enjoyed it.
DJ Hero is a game I should hate. I should loathe it with all my being, as it symbolizes a franchise that should have died when Rock Band came out and nailed it to a tree. DJ Hero is a game that shouldn't ever be considered playable or fun. I don't know why I love it so much. The controls are overly complicated, yet dramatically simplified from that of an actual turntable scratch setup. The mixes are pretty awesome, and I'd be a liar if I said there weren't a few I want on disk. The harder difficulties are actually VERY challenging, and work more senses than any other Hero simulation game so far. I shouldn't like it on principle, but I do. Fuck you, Activision.
Three Dragon Ante, like any other gambling card game, is reasonably simple and addictive in base. Since it's rooted in D&D, it's more complicated than it should be. It's enjoyable, and relatively cheap compared to most D&D paraphenalia, but it's really a matter of personal opinion as to if it's worth getting. Play it once for yourself. I don't think I'd buy it.
We Didn't Playtest [These Goddamn Games] are amazing for the stoner/internet/college demographic. They're nonsense, in the form of 100+ cards when meshed together. They make little to no sense, sometimes end within 20 seconds of dealing out the opening hand, and have a tendency to make people's heads hurt when they lose the ability to reference themselves, others, or the cards verbally. It's amazing for the amount of random [something] that's been packed into the game, but this makes it impossible to play competitively. There can be no strategy. There is only luck, Dragons, Ninjas, Secret Attack Kittens, and Voting. I don't know if I should love this game for how fun it is (probably) or despise it for how terribly designed it is (probably not).
It should be said that I did not spend the entire convention playing games, though that's obviously the focus of this particular event. Most of the other things were far less interesting, or already discussed earlier this week. That's not what anyone really cares about though when reading about a gaming convention. You don't care about the amazing, two foot high food. You don't care about the lovely hotel rooms with TV's nicer than mine. You don't care about the trip to Dairy Queen and Burger King (who get hitched and produce a sushi place somehow) on the last night of the event, though you'll probably read about that sometime this month. This weekend was about the games, and that's what I'm giving you.
So play them. Especially PvZ. That's fucking badass.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Ubercon (in brief)
Ubercon was fucking fantastic. While I have never been to a bad Ubercon, this year somehow seemed to make all the others I've been to previously seem less fun. It wasn't that the games were better (many were the same as previous), or that the people were different (some were, but many weren't), or that I did better in the games I played (lost miserably in most of the ones I've never played, and didn't do as well as I normally do for the ones I have played). Ubercon is not really a convention, it's an annual bonding session that builds a community of people who love to play games.
I was able to play many games I've never experienced before (including my new crack, Plants Vs Zombies. I love you, Pop Cap Games), for free(*), and made several new friends. These things are more valuable to me than most people would realize, but that's for another post.
The other wonderful perk this year was the hotel. The Holiday Inn had Harold's New York Deli attached, which is renowned for portions bigger than a child's body at prices that are very fair when considering the amount of food you get. One day my party decided to order pancakes. Three manhole-cover sized pancakes show up five minutes later. We end up calling in some friends (bringing the group to six) to finish off two of the three. The third was brought home and to the office I work in to share with my coworkers. It was the coolest thing ever.
This is your brief. Part 2 comes tomorrow.
I was able to play many games I've never experienced before (including my new crack, Plants Vs Zombies. I love you, Pop Cap Games), for free(*), and made several new friends. These things are more valuable to me than most people would realize, but that's for another post.
The other wonderful perk this year was the hotel. The Holiday Inn had Harold's New York Deli attached, which is renowned for portions bigger than a child's body at prices that are very fair when considering the amount of food you get. One day my party decided to order pancakes. Three manhole-cover sized pancakes show up five minutes later. We end up calling in some friends (bringing the group to six) to finish off two of the three. The third was brought home and to the office I work in to share with my coworkers. It was the coolest thing ever.
This is your brief. Part 2 comes tomorrow.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Ubercon prep filler.
Ubercon is this weekend. If you're in the New York/New Jersey area, you should go. It's amazing. From previous years it can be summed up as 48 straight hours of gaming (all sorts.) There's other stuff too (Harold's Deli, anime screenings, Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog as a singalong, etc.) but the gaming is really what matters.
I'm a geek, and I love it. I know of no other place where I can wake up at 3AM and play a "quick" game of Risk (3ish hours) and jump to Rock Band before my friends wake up. I'm not likely to see most of these games anywhere else, nevermind finding other people that play them. It's fantastic, and you should go. Look at their website (ubercon.com), register, and have fun. Do it.
That said, I should be packing for the weekend. Instead I'm typing to you. I demand you feel the love that pours from these keys. Tonight's not a productive night, even though I got in early from campus. I wasted time watching V (a full hour of my life gone for something that seems too compressed and rushed to be worth following seriously), and my continuing saga of trying to beat StarCraft's single player campaign ate another hour or two (if you play, Protoss 7 without expansion).
This is going to be a shorty tonight. One of the long-planned ones is coming up before the convention. Hopefully no more filler.
I'm a geek, and I love it. I know of no other place where I can wake up at 3AM and play a "quick" game of Risk (3ish hours) and jump to Rock Band before my friends wake up. I'm not likely to see most of these games anywhere else, nevermind finding other people that play them. It's fantastic, and you should go. Look at their website (ubercon.com), register, and have fun. Do it.
That said, I should be packing for the weekend. Instead I'm typing to you. I demand you feel the love that pours from these keys. Tonight's not a productive night, even though I got in early from campus. I wasted time watching V (a full hour of my life gone for something that seems too compressed and rushed to be worth following seriously), and my continuing saga of trying to beat StarCraft's single player campaign ate another hour or two (if you play, Protoss 7 without expansion).
This is going to be a shorty tonight. One of the long-planned ones is coming up before the convention. Hopefully no more filler.
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