Sunday, December 6, 2009

Resident Evil: The Remake

Resident Evil, initially, was all about the scares. When mentioning the game, every publication seems to talk about the infamous "dogs jumping through the window" scene -- which is all well and good because the monster-closet scares are what helped to make the game so popular. After you've beaten the game, though, you essentially know what's going to happen in each room, and those frights no longer exist. Instead, those dogs become minor annoyances; hindrances to your progression.

Yet, people still love the old-style Resident Evil, even as we have already entered this age of fantastical boulder-punching. Running through static-camera rooms is still as fun as it was way back in 1996, or even, say, in 2002 when the game was remade for the Gamecube.

And that's because, despite what people will tell you, Resident Evil always has been a strategy game.

Maybe that sounds absurd. Maybe it doesn't! In any case, trying to get from Point A to Point B with a limited inventory and little ammo, knowing what items to leave and what to pick up, and avoiding certain monster-filled hallways because you didn't waste said precious ammo on those couple zombies gives your brain a specific workout that most action games can't even come close to. Granted, the brain power required to manage an inventory is much, much smaller than figuring out a difficult math problem, but there definitely is a level of strategy in Resident Evil that you don't get out of many games nowadays, much less recent entries in the series.

I've played the remake a couple times now, and it still hasn't gotten old. Maybe this is because, much like the Metroid series, the game rewards you for getting through the mansion (and later, the laboratory) as quickly as possible. If you beat the game under three hours, the game gives you a rocket launcher, which -- again, much like Metroid's reward of bikini Samus -- is somewhat superficial. But there's something incredibly satisfying about beating a game under a certain amount of time, and the rocket launcher allows you to do this even faster.

I can't write about the game without mentioning how it looks. With all the topics of conversation about graphical fidelity on high-definition TV sets today, it's still pretty amazing that the remake still looks unbelievable. The character models aren't anything fancy in comparison to many of the current games, but they still are detailed and well-animated. No, what shines here are all the environments -- everything, from the mansion to the surrounding forest to the dank laboratory, looks amazingly realistic and gorgeous. Wind blows through the grass and trees on the path leading up to the old cabin on the edge of the woods. Water shimmers in the moonlight of the old swimming pool, even showing your character's reflection in the small ripples. Much of this game is about atmosphere, and Resident Evil really sucks you in to the whole experience.

And as much as I love Resident Evil 4, it doesn't really capture that Resident Evil "feel". Then again, I don't think it ever was trying to, but I certainly do miss the fact that we probably won't ever get another game where you know that slowly opening that next door might just spell your ultimate demise. I certainly didn't feel terrified in Resident Evil 5, and the light-gun games of the Chronicles series don't provide any of that inventory-management of yesteryear, so I guess I should just appreciate the experience that those games provide.

Still, nothing beats the feeling you get knowing that you made it to the end, conserved all your magnum bullets, and then shot the crap out of Tyrant, watching him explode into a million tiny pieces. He certainly had it coming.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

What Would Kratos Do (WWKD)? Part 4

The gods were gunning for him, and by "him", I mean the friend of a friend.

He had taken it upon himself to follow in the immortal steps of Kratos and punish the gods himself, inescapable brutality and all. To curse such a delicious drink was a crime against humanity. The gods needed to pay.

And not in dollars, my friend.

In blood.

However, the beings upon Mount Olympus were very much aware of his intentions and were tracking his every move. Kratos, the once-powerful warrior and God of War, had tried and failed this dangerous mission before, sent to the depths of Hades for all eternity to burn for his disobedience -- but apparently, Ol' Whitey had mustered enough mental power to send a motivational message to Mankind. Now, humanity's fate was in its own hands.

The friend of a friend was struggling through thickets in the misty forest, slowly making his way toward Mount Olympus, broadsword strapped to his back. No jet or airplane could penetrate the forcefield around the mystical mountain, unfortunately; no, the only epic way was on foot, and as such, an adventure could occur so as people could write stories about it. (It would be boring if someone could just fly up to their destination, in other words.) Also, he had a broadsword on his back. Either this meant he was deadly serious about his intentions, or he was compensating for something.

Slowly, very slowly, the friend of a friend was delving deeper into the forest -- so deep, in fact, that he equipped his massive, phallic weapon and began to hack away at all the vegetation and greenery that dared to stand in his way. Pine needles SWOOSHED! Vines went WAHPPAH! Canadian maple leaves went HUZZAH and were soon shredded to pieces.

"What kind of sorcery is this," he wondered, "where all the greenery in the world gathers in droves to impede my progress?"

He didn't have much time to ponder after that, for the pine needles and vines and Canadian maple leaves were upon him again, this time in a swarm that was thicker and fuller and even more deadly. A shrill scream escaped from the poor man's mouth as he tried to combat the furious vegetation, hacking and slashing as quickly as he could. But the maple leaves blinded him, and the pine needles pierced his skin, and the vines were wrapping themselves around both his body and his gigantic, pulsating broadsword. With his last breath, the friend of a friend was only able to manage one final phrase:

"What would Kratos do?"

He then promptly laid down and died.


Friday, October 30, 2009

What Would Kratos Do (WWKD)? Part 3

"WHAT WOULD KRATOS DO?"

Those were the words that had emerged from the mouth of the friend of my friend while he was stricken with the horrible Stone of the Kidneys disease. Thoughts of Kratos had burst into his head, and thus, the pestilence was eradicated from his body. That's all it took; for the legendary Kratos had slaughtered hundreds upon thousands of harpies, minotaurs, and hydras -- how could something so weak as a couple of stones formed by swallowing the delicious beverage of soda compare to these foul beasts of yore?

They couldn't. And now people were becoming healthy, imbued with an extraordinary strength brought on by the thoughts of Kratos.

"W-what shall we do now?" worried the gods. Kratos had defied them before, and now that he had taken the side of the humans, it seemed as if there was nothing to do to counter mankind's sudden wellness.

"We're powerless!" they wailed.

"We're doomed!" they cried.

"This Mountain Dew: Code Red stuff turns my stools into bright red lozenges of fecal matter!" yelped a lowly god who had, out of sheer curiosity, tasted said delicious human beverage.

Suddenly, Zeus emerged, lightning bolt in hand. His face was calm, though tiny beads of sweat were evident upon his forehead.

"Fear not!" he uttered. "I have an answer to our dilemma..."

Wide eyed, the gods all at once realized their folly. They knew what he spoke of.

"Falbi..." they whispered in unison.
Falbi was different from Kratos in the sense that he ran a chicken-flying mini-game on the cliffs of Lake Hylia; he had never, I am told, torn the wings from a harpy or stabbed a minotaur in the throat. No, Falbi was just a simple, flamboyant, extremely well-dressed man who managed a successful business that may or may not have given customers the chance to earn a piece of heart or an orange 100-rupee prize.

So why did the gods fear him? Why did they utter his name with such reverence?

It was Falbi's enchanting, melodic voice!

That voice ("Hiiiiii!") had the ability to waft through the heavens and mend any complex argument that people might have against the gods. Mankind could be angry at the beings on Mount Olympus for causing a gigantic tornado to pick up and toss all their cows, easily mincing the poor animals into hamburger stew -- but with one word from Falbi, these once-furious people would just shrug and say, "Yeah, maybe all that hamburger would have clogged my arteries. Thanks Falbi!"

Hades, Falbi could even convince a grown man to grab a chicken, hang on for dear life, and jump from a cliff into the shivering waters of the lake below. Chickens don't actually fly, mind you. And they don't support a human's body weight. But such was the power of Falbi!

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

What Would Kratos Do (WWKD)? Part 2

"And so it was..."

No, no it wasn't. Not exactly.

This friend of a friend of mine would not give in to the pain so easily. His insides on fire, he thought that he would just succumb to the torture, that the easiest way out of this excruciating dilemma would be to simply lay down and die.

"No, you're right, Kratos," he muttered. "This can't be the way it ends...no one should die this way. I'm not going to die this way."

Arms shaking, legs quaking, kidney stones rumbling, he vaulted from his hospital bed, shouted to the gods above, "WHAT WOULD KRATOS DO?", and emerged from that villainous room unscathed. The doctors and nurses couldn't explain what had just occurred before their very eyes; a mere boy -- nay! A MAN! -- had just survived the worst of curses that those blasphemous beings from Mount Olympus could have conjured up from the depths of Hades and placed upon the finest beverages of mankind.

How had he done it? Was it some sort of witchcraft? Some kind of Harry Potter voodoo?

"Nay, doctors and nurses! Be not startled! For Kratos, enemy of the gods and friend to Man, came to me in a feverish dream and told me not to worry. He gave me the strength to survive, and will, too, soon give strength to those stricken by these wicked kidney stones! Hurrah!"

"Hurrah!" the medical staff echoed. The entire hospital erupted into a melodious harmony of cheers. Up on Mount Olympus, the gods heard these sounds of joy and happiness, and their bushy brows furrowed.

"What is going on?" they pondered, readjusting their La-Z-Boy recliners to get a better view of what was happening down below. "Didn't we make these 'sodas' undrinkable? Aren't humans stricken with the horrible Stones of the Kidney? Why are these shouts down yonder so joyous?"

The friend of a friend of mine heard the gods' query and let out a bloodthirsty scream.

And the beings upon Mount Olympus recoiled in terror, for they knew that this could only mean one thing:

The gods were going down.

Edit: a video appears!


What Would Kratos Do (WWKD)? Part 1

A friend of a friend of mine was in the hospital some time ago for a problem that might have been related to drinking too much soda, but let's just say it was caused by the gods on Mount Olympus. These ferocious gods had been angry for the longest time! For they had created the fine beverage of water, and blessed the entire world with its presence. One day, however, the gods realized that there may have been too much water for all the world's beings, so they cursed the oceans by contaminating them with the most deadliest of devilry: salt. Oh, were the humans pissed!

"Curse you!" they shouted to the gods, who were relaxed on their La-Z-Boy recliners up on Mount Olympus. "We must drink from these oceans, and now you have contaminated them? Curse you!"

So these humans created a beverage of their own, one that would rival water and put it out of commission in supermarkets across the world. The beverage was called "soda". And most of the world's inhabitants shrieked with joy and frolicked among the flowers and bunnies and fireflies, Diet Dr. Pepper's in hand. This was the beginning of World Peace.

That is, until one fateful day, the gods caught wind of these "Diet Dr. Peppers" and these "Mountain Dew: Code Reds" and decided that they must put a curse on these as well, for humans should not be able to make a beverage as delicious as something the gods could concoct.

"Have some kidney stones, pitiful humans!" they shouted with a chuckle. "Consume too much of your delicious drink and may you have the best of times trying to urinate! Har har!"

And so it was.

Edit: And in consideration for the blind, a narrated version:

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

A Non-Winner

Note: I wrote this for a 1up contest that asked users to explain what they liked best about the game, No More Heroes. I didn't win! But even so, the contest got me writing again, something that I haven't done in a long time. This is good! So, here I am, hopefully about to consistently write here for the months to come. About what, I don't know! Get excited, though, whoever might read this!

If nothing else, No More Heroes has unwavering pizazz, a flashy word that can only exist in the English language if italicized and preceded by an out-of-place adjective. And that maniacal pizazz is usually what people mention first when they talk about the game: the blood, the beam sabers, the wrestling moves, the ridiculous characters, the story -- No More Heroes is essentially a Tarantino flick in game-form without most of the film homages that anybody who isn't a film geek will give a shit about (Wilhelm scream? Who the fuck cares? Okay, I care a little...). Sanctimonious pizazz is good and all, but it only goes so far in the argument of style versus substance.

No, what's best about No More Heroes is how amazingly self-aware it is. Right from the start, it plays as a videogame and then remains a videogame throughout the course of Travis' blood-soaked journey. No matter what the situation, whether you're slicing through spleens or shooting aliens Galaga-style in that out-of-nowhere minigame, No More Heroes revels in its self-consciousness and fourth-wall humor. A couple noteworthy examples of some fourth-wall-breakers: Travis mentions the person "holding the remote out there" in the introductory cutscene, Sylvia's less-than-optimistic phonecalls play through the Wii remote's speaker (welcoming you to the "Garden of Madness"), and without giving too much away, a certain character speeds up their dialogue just to avoid a nastier ESRB rating. Really, when you boil it right down, No More Heroes is a game for people who like games, much like Tarantino movies are generally for people who like movies.

While we're being honest here, yes, No More Heroes is a little uneven, and yes, the overworld may or may not have been intended to be a satire on open-world games, but goddamn it -- if No More Heroes didn't have all the right pieces in exactly the right place, then it more than makes up for it in sheer love of the medium. And in an industry where remembering your roots is slowly becoming the hip, cool thing to do, No More Heroes is undeniably a game worthy of a place on the hip, cool pedestal of unrelentless pizazz.

Friday, May 8, 2009

The Seafood Burrito

There's something terrifyingly uncomfortable about seeing a bunch of white people in a Mexican restaurant, you know? Most of what makes the Mexican restaurant experience is the atmosphere, with the music, the adobe architecture, and most importantly, the authentic Mexican people rounding out the whole package. When you can't even hear the mustachioed guy in the speakers singing about his long-lost love because a large group of obese, middle-aged white people keeping cackling and chewing away at their food, something is wrong with the world.

Our waiter called us "amigos". I don't know why he did. He didn't look like he wanted to be there working, so I doubt serving us food made us welcoming and friendly to him. Still, if I had any friends, I would probably call them "amigos" with an affected accent, but the only friend I have is a pet cat named Amigo. I just renamed her that. I hope she's okay with it.

I had a seafood burrito, though.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

The Grandfather Paradox

I once met my future self in the auditorium of my old high school, a high school that wasn't old at the time because there was still asbestos in the walls and the authorities hadn't yet realized that it was slowly killing us all. Two of my female classmates and I were rehearsing for an upcoming play -- and for the sake of privacy, let's name these girls "Judy" and, the other, oh, I don't know, "Megan O'Flannegan" (how's that for specificity?). After we were finished for the day, Megan, who I may or may not have been unhealthily obsessed with at the time, came up to me looking for some sort of consolation for a problem that had been pestering her:

"You know, sometimes I just can't stand Judy."

"Really?" I inquired with an incredibly handsome smirk. "Why not? She seems fine to me."

"Well," said Megan, who had had more theater and acting experience than Judy and I combined, "she started giving me pointers today about what I could do better. It's like she thinks she knows more about acting than I do."

"That's ridiculous. She probably was just...insecure about her own abilities, so she criticized yours."

That's probably what I should have said. As a complete jackass who then viewed the world as an axe murderer who was out to get me at every whim, I thought that Megan's complaints were childish and immature. She was probably talking to me just for the sake of talking to me, seeing as I was an attractive and lovable guy who was absolutely impossible to resist (but apparently not too impossible, as we will soon see).

Instead, I replied, "Know what, Megan? Just deal with it."

Megan looked at me with disgust.

"'Know what'?" she mocked. "You're an asshole." She stormed off.

Looking back on it, she was wrong about me; I was a jackass, not an asshole. Either way, I had pissed off a girl who I had liked above all other girls in a high school appropriately deemed "The Hot Girl Academy," which only accepted the hottest of the hotties. Oh, and I attended it, too, for some reason. Don't ask how or why. It just pays to know people, that's all.

In any case, I stood alone in that auditorium, feeling both dejected and rejected. But this story isn't about how I had lost the girl of my dreams -- it's about how I lost the girl of my dreams to science. For at that moment, a bright light appeared on stage, and from that bright light appeared...me. I hadn't aged a day.

"Howdy, there, old self," he said.

My jaw dropped. "What the hell? Who...what are you?"

He smiled. "Isn't it obvious? I'm from the future, delivered unto the heavens from my very own homemade time machine, here to correct the sins of my past. I'm you."

"Really, huh?" I accepted this strange twist of fate rather quickly. "You look good."

"Thanks. Eat your vegetables. Drink your milk. Yadda yadda." My future self cleared his throat. "Anyway, delightfully pleasant conversation is not why I'm here, I'm sorry to say. I'm here to correct the si--"

"...'sins of my past'. Yeah, I got it." I was incredulous. "What sins? I haven't committed any sins, uh, per se..."

Now my future self looked incredulous. "You don't consider that a sin, what you just did? You let the goddamn girl of your dreams slip away like that, and you don't consider that a sin?"

"Well, now that you mention it..."

"You're damn right it's a sin! Just because you're all angsty now does not give you the right to bash your future's hopes and dreams against a friggin' brick wall!"

I scoffed. "I haven't bashed anything! You -- I mean 'I' -- built a time machine! Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"No, it's definitely a colossal human achievement; I will admit that. But I slaved hours and hours to build it, and in the process, denied the hundreds upon thousands of gorgeous women knocking at my doorstep just to get here. To get to this one moment."

"Are you serious?" I asked, again incredulous. "Out of all the events in history, out of all the tragedies you could have averted, out of all the wrongs you could have righted, you chose this moment in time...just to tell me to stop being such a jackass?"

"Well, basically."

I stared in amazement. "You know, now that I think about it, I do recall something I learned from the HGA's science class about time travel, something I wouldn't have ever thought about had you not shown up. Or did you forget about that seemingly crucial piece of information, too, even while making your time machine?"

"Like what?"

"Well," I announced, "there's this little thing called the 'Grandfather Paradox'..."

My future self's eyes became headlights.

"Oh, shit..." Realization had hit him in the face, apparently. I continued.

"You remember, now, don't you? You know, the theory that states that if a person were to go back in time and kill his or her grandfather, then the grandchild, AKA the killer, would have never been conceived at all? Come on, man! Have you never seen Back to the Future? ...Well, obviously you have because I have..."

"No, I see where you're going with this."

"Right. This means that by coming back here to warn me about a dumb verbal mistake I had made with Megan, it will seemingly convert one 'bleak' future path to another future path filled with a lifetime of happiness with her, right? But you wouldn't even be here had that happened. What I'm saying is, nothing will come of your time-traveling actions. You being here means I'm still going to go down a lonely, yet extremely technological-savvy road no matter what you do!"

Defeated, my future self admitted, "You know what? You're absolutely right. Huh. Well, that sucks. No use crying over spilt milk, right?"

"Er...not exactly."

It looked like my future self was physically trying to hold back the tears. He probably was about to say something profound, but all he could muster was, "See you later...asshole."

"Jackass."

And with that, he disappeared into the light and, contrary to his farewell, was never to be seen again. Well, except a few months later when I checked my face in the reflection of the time machine I was building.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Dragon Quest IV: The Only Game I Actually Enjoyed Last Year


Yes. It's true. Well, sorta.

Dragon Quest IV, in terms of pacing and set-up, is really the exact opposite of Mother 3, a game that it obviously inspired. Whereas the former's beginning is mind-numbingly slow in order to delve into the respective character backgrounds, the latter begins with tragic events, an Indiana Jones-type excavation for a magical egg, and a fun little romp as a monkey. Honestly, it took me about ten grueling hours to get past Dragon Quest IV's opening chapters, but once the game explores the story of the actual hero, the rollercoaster ride takes off without a hitch.

Mother 3...personally, not so much.

No other game last year had me coming back, night after night, making me crave to see the story through to the end. Yes, there had been Advance Wars: Days of Ruin and Valkyria Chronicles, but Dragon Quest exerted another type of pull...and I can't quite put my finger on it. I will say, however, that the Dragon Quest series has always had a perfect formula: fight difficult monsters, defeat them, obtain gold, buy better armor and weapons, and then kill so-called difficult monsters in one hit.

Repeat.

It sounds somewhat dull on paper, but in practice, the grind can be very addicting. Becoming stronger and "being the very best" has always been a good videogame incentive, and Dragon Quest is probably the master of this tactic. Once I got sucked in, I couldn't put the game down. And that's why I'm giving it 2008 GAME OF THE YEAR! That is, if I cared about GAME OF THE YEAR, but I don't.

This has somewhat opened my eyes a bit to the whole ridiculous Dragon Quest versus Final Fantasy debate -- and I have to say, despite being a Final Fantasy fan since I played X a couple years ago, Dragon Quest has nearly always bested its competition in each and every installment. The slime-slaying series relies more on telling a simple, down-to-earth story rather than delving into melodrama, and as I get older, all the tales revolving around attractive and stylish teenagers in Final Fantasy have become a bit silly. That melodrama silliness has become more and more evident over the years (and especially evident in the recent Final Fantasy IV remake). But don't mistake Dragon Quest's usually light-fared stories as entirely simple, throw-away adventures -- there's certainly depth there. You just have to look for it.

Probably the best, almost-seemingly scripted event in Dragon Quest IV had to be my battle with the Psaro the Manslayer, a multiple-formed, nearly never-ending bastard who made me scrimp and save my magic and dig into the recesses of my inventory just to beat him; in other words, he was the ideal final boss. During his fourth form, Psaro wiped out my ultimate party of Kiryl, Maya, and Alena, and the main character was the only one left standing. I knew within the next turn I was going to lose, and sure enough, the final boss took out the main character as well -- but something strange (and like I said, scripted) happened.

I had an item that, if whoever has it equipped is knocked out, revives all the other members who are out cold, too. So, as it were, Kiryl, Maya, and Alena all returned from the dead, ready to do battle with the bastard that killed them a few minutes before, while the main character lay lifeless on the ground.

He had become a tragic hero, really, like something out of a film or novel. The aspect that amazed me about the whole incident is that it wasn't the developers' intention to happen -- it was something that just occurred naturally during the moments when I was actually playing the game. Later on, I had Kiryl revive the main character, and my party went on to pummel the final boss into submission.

But to have a dramatic event happen randomly like that...that's quite something.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Random Dreams: Part Two

I swear to you, right now, that I am not on drugs. I swear!

There's this dream I've had, one that is quite famous among my friends because I've told it so many times, and it honestly doesn't get any less weird each time I tell it. I have strange dreams -- I can't help it. Speaking of which, many philosophical-minded people seem to analyze dreams and how they pertain to a person's hidden demons or subconscious feelings.

I don't really buy in to that school of thought. That's not really how my mind works: logically, I'm probably insane.

Anyway, the dream begins during one of my science classes in high school. The teacher is an older woman with shoulder-length gray hair, and it should be noted that she and I never really saw eye-to-eye. She's lecturing to the class as always, when she suddenly turns around and says,

"Hold on: I'm going to get the experiment from out of the back room."

Okay, so no big deal, right? Wrong.

After about ten minutes or so, she doesn't emerge from the room, so the class calls upon me to find out what the hell is taking so long. I get up, open the door, and there she is, sitting on a white bucket with her pants down, a determined look on her face.

Now, in the dream, I somehow get a close-up shot of what she's, uh, producing in the bucket, and it turns out to be this:

A vein-y, white sausage. That was her experiment for the class. My god.

If you try to approach this from an analytical perspective, I don't even know where you would begin. I'm sure you could get into the sexual implications or something like that, but that's a topic that doesn't seem too appealing right now. Or ever.

As it stands, the vision of the sausage is something that will haunt me forever.

Hmm.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

An Ode to Dr. Salvador

Resident Evil 4 is good. Real good. The Wii version is even better.


Sure, I'd played the shoot-'em-up to death on the Gamecube before (and even bought it the day it was released -- man, I was hyped!), and then I even went out and bought the PS2 version to play the additional "Seperate Ways" segment. Buying the same game twice in unusual for me, but Resident Evil 4 is always worth the extra cash. My love doesn't end there: I think I might have even wrote an ode to the chainsaw man (named Dr. Salvador, apparently) back in high school, praising his fashion sense (the potato sack is a nice touch) and lovely manner in which he proceeded to remove Leon's head from his body. I still have nightmares.

But the Wii version...man, it's really, really good. I haven't played much of the main game because I've been spending most of my time with the Mercenaries mode, which is still as hectic and addicting as it was when I first played it on the 'Cube. The aiming definitely makes the whole shooting system much easier and accurate, and the remote probably (at the risk of sounding like marketing PR) makes the Resident Evil 4 experience that much more immersive.

This is the third time I've bought the game, though, making it the only game I've bought more than twice. It was on sale at Wal-mart and I couldn't resist. My brother finished the final boss over the weekend, and now I'm back into the Resident Evil mania. Why the hell is it still so addicting a few years later when most games lose their shine within the first couple weeks of release? Was it due to the constant revisions? Probably. When a game is in development stew for so long, it had better be a damn near-masterpiece -- and Resident Evil 4 is definitely that.

And the dialogue?

"Rain or shine, you're goin' down!"

Still so bad, yet still so good.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Super Mario Galaxy

I've kinda been down on the Wii for awhile now -- and that's probably because every time I walk into a Wal-mart or a Target and look at their game selection, I'm bombarded with tons of licensed crap. The Wii became more of a disappointment when my sword-wielding and gun-toting ideas for the remote were shot down and Nintendo started releasing anything and everything that absolutely did not interest me. To add to this, the games that have been released (Super Mario Galaxy, Smash Brothers, Metroid Prime 3) all haven't been as good as their predecessors; or at least, I believed that until I began to replay Super Mario Galaxy last night.


Maybe I was down on the game because Tim Rogers was down on the game. I think his one main complaint was the fact that every character in Mario Galaxy blatantly tells you what to do and how to do it (for example, when you're swimming and already know how to swim, a penguin glides up to you and squawks, "Press A to swim." No kidding!). But the game is good and amazingly creative. I just can't believe it took me so long to realize it.

You've probably heard all the praise and criticisms from the press, so I'm not going to bore you with mine here (too late!). The only real complaint from the wonderful message-board flunkies that I have to disagree with is about the game's lack of challenge -- seriously, the later levels are hard. Sure, they're not "lose-all-your-lives-forcing-you-to-continue" hard, but I guarantee that everyone who played Mario Galaxy through to its completion will have died many times on, say, "Luigi's Purple Coins". When you begin to curse at a game, you know it either has to be difficult or frustrating (and yes, the later levels are a mix of both).

Still, the game is one of the best I've played, and it actually lifts my spirits in regards to the Wii's future lineup. Here's hoping this, this, and this all live up to expectations...

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Random Dreams: Part One

While I have it fresh in my mind, I'm going to tell you about a dream I had this morning:

It began as Uncharted 2 -- I was first dragged down a waterfall into an Italian city, where I was then assaulted by a chef with a meat cleaver. When I grabbed the weapon from him and slashed at his throat, nothing happened....like slicing through air. The chef growled, knocked me out, and I was captured. Next thing I knew, I was handcuffed, running around the city, wondering how and why I had broken free of the chef's culinary clutches. Then, I broke the steel prison around my wrists and decided to attend my dad's birthday party, which was conveniently going on in the vicinity at the time.

I sat down at a table next to my brother, and then a waiter showed up.

"What would you like to order?" he asked.

My brother and I looked around, but we couldn't find our menus. The waiter sighed with exhaustion and sat on a nearby chair, covering his face with his hands.

"It's been a long day..."

Out of nowhere, my aunt appeared in a black dress and looked strikingly similar to Sally Field (she actually does look like Sally Field in real life). She made a comment that subtly dissed my mom's weight, and then she trotted away. I got angry.

The dream falls into this horrific scenario where this party is transported into a basement/cellar combo with dim lights, but with a significant amount of people having a good time. I get up to get a drink, and that's when I encounter the moose.

It's instantly recognizable, but the red eyes and white fur are a little jarring. The moose turns to me and snorts -- the thing only has one antler jutting out the side of its nostril!

I run. I don't know why exactly, but I feel it's my job to protect the kids at the party, and that white beast potentially has some sort of hellish wrath up its sleeve that I don't want anyone to experience. When I get back to the room, everyone has cleared out except this one family: some parents and their two kids. The father tells me to get the hell out of there; the moose is coming! I don't want to leave the people, but I take his advice anyway. I hear the family's shrieks and screams as I run for my life.

One of the adjacent rooms is an old western saloon, and on a table, I pick up two fully-loaded revolvers. They feel good in my hands (even in the dream): heavy and firm. Around the next corner is Woody Harrelson, playing his character from No Country for Old Men, and next to him is his prostitute girlfriend. I draw my gun and Woody does the same. We both fire. The smoke clears. I see Woody collapsed on the floor.

His girlfriend also draws her gun, but I tell her, "No, you can't do that. It's against the rules." I point to Woody.

"He already shot."

She tries to fire anyway, but all she gets are clicks from the hammer hitting an empty cylinder.

And of course, with any strange dream, it concludes with a hot make-out session between me and a girl I knew from high school, who now smokes so much pot that she makes the guys from Half-Baked look normal (and if I made out with her now, I probably would contract some horrible, unknown, druggy disease. No offense, of course.).

And no, as a matter of fact, I am not on any drugs myself! Hooray for plain-ol' insanity!

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Wave Race: Blue Storm -- Sleeping Away the Winter

After reading this article over on Gamespite.net about a week ago, I've kinda been in a Wave Race: Blue Storm feeding-frenzy, and with good reason, too. One, the article touches upon why the game was so good yet universally panned by critics (something I never really understood), and two, it's freaking cold here and I need some virtual beaches and waves to drool over while I wait out the winter. So, into hibernation I go. Unfortunately, it's not so easy to do, you know, with responsibilities and such.

Usually, I'd write a long-winded article about my experience with Wave Race (and you'd sigh and drift in and out of boredom-induced sleep), but that article on Gamespite is so well-written and says much more than I could ever say in that amount of words that I just have to claim defeat and direct you over to Gamespite again. But in case you care about what I think, I guess I'll tell you.

Wave Race is fun. It wasn't very well-received and is supremely underrated. I remember a bet two EGM editors had years ago that basically involved an intense showdown between Wave Race and Splashdown, another jet-ski game that had been released a little while after Nintendo's offering. The bet concluded that Splashdown was leagues better based on the magazine's scores, and Wave Race was officially declared the loser.

I cried a little that night. But who said life was fair?

When you get right down to it, Wave Race: Blue Storm is a game you pick up, finish the championship mode on a certain difficulty, and then turn off. The controls are a little touchy yet incredibly deep, but the game itself is pretty light on content. That doesn't make it bad, though -- and while I isolate myself in a cave for the next three or four months until the sun comes back out again, the game is a perfect substitute for some [occasionally] excellent weather to remind me that, yes, heat does exist in the world. It's just a matter of where you live, I guess.

Let me plug that article again. Yeah, that should do it. Funny how these things pretty much write themselves...now, back to hibernation.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Pokemon Diamond: Revisiting Childhood, or, "A Review No One Will Read"

I might be too old for this shit.

Actually, I really shouldn't call this game "shit" unless it's "the shit," because that's exactly what it is -- the shit.

Pokemon Diamond is an excellent game, one that refines the formula, adds new features and creatures, and most of all, hearkens back to a time when all I had to worry about was how the hell I was gonna beat Giovanni with my one-monster army, Charizard. The only problem is knowing when to play it and when to shove it away in your closet so no one else knows that you are a fully-grown adult male who still enjoys raising and battling (but not parading them around in a beauty contest -- my god!) cute little animal-things who happen to have the worst puns for names. To play Pokemon is to be a kid again, but only mentally.

Whether or not they would ever admit to saying this, my friends have reminisced about how good those old Pokemon titles on the Game Boy used to be. Nevermind the TV show, which consisted of the exact same plot line over the course of what seemed like ten seasons, and nevermind anything else associated with the Pocket Monster craze, like the trading cards or even those terrible Stadium games. The only products to survive the test of time and are still playable today are the handheld main-line Pokemon games -- they stick to the same ol' formula, but it's a formula that works.

Actually, I should revise that statement: a couple years ago, I decided to forgo my vow to never play a Pokemon game again (for fear of becoming a social outcast -- but now that I think about it, it was too late anyway), and play the Ruby version to see what I'd been missing. In all honesty, I hadn't been missing much. The battle system seemed slow and clunky, and the seemingly new emphasis on taking your Pokemon to a beauty show just seemed so...stupid. I mean, c'mon! Really now? I'd much rather be beating the crap out of random Psyducks than feed berries to my team of Psyduck-killers just to level up their "Cute" category! And the new Pokemon designs seemed uninspired compared to the original roster...

Okay, whoa. I realize I'm sounding like everyone else on the Internet, so I'm gonna stop now. Like, right now.

Whew.

Anyway, the Ruby version didn't do much for me, so I guess I should say that that game is the only handheld title in the series that, uh, kinda sucks. To each his own, I guess.

With that bad taste in my mouth, I was hesitant to pick up Diamond when it hit stores. The great aspect about the DS, though, is that nearly every piece of software released for the system, aside from, you know, the Imaginz Babies or Puppies or Crocodiles or What Shit Would You Like to Pretend to Raise Now? series, is generally really, really good. That in mind, I bought Diamond under the pretense that I was, uh, really purchasing it for my cousin's brother's nephew and not-at-all for me, and...loved every minute of the game, from start to finish. Part of that love was knowing I didn't give a shit about beauty contests, and the game was okay with me for not giving a shit.

There's a certain moment in the game that gets me all riled up and exciting whenever I think about it; that moment would have to be when you first encounter Dialga, the time-devouring quadrupedal monster-thing (as shown on the box above), at the summit of Mt. Name Doesn't Really Matter 'Cause I Can't Remember It Right Now. See, I'd like to think my mind works cinematically, wherein most of my memories of past events don't happen in a first-person view, but instead are set in a movie-like, third-person scene, all included with pans and close-ups. And whenever I imagine climbing that mountain in a raging blizzard only to finally meet a frightening beast at the top -- and then engage in a fierce battle, concluding in an epic "please-oh-please-catch-it" Poke-ball toss -- it gets my mind reeling with cinematic possibilities. Honestly, the scene is one of the most memorable set-pieces in any game I've played in the last several years.

Yes, I am a nerd. Perhaps not as big as Quentin Tarantino, but a nerd nevertheless.

I might have mentioned it before in past blog posts, but I recall that one of the game developers mentioned that the best part of Pokemon is the first moment you receive your bike. You've been walking most of the game (at an extremely slow pace, mind you), and the feeling you get once you begin pedaling across city-scapes and landscapes, it just...conjures up memories of your childhood. To some extent, the statement is true. As a kid, you really want nothing more than to grow up, to enjoy certain liberties and responsibilities not granted to you when you're young. You can't drink, you can't drive a car, you can't, uh, legally buy porn -- really, the adult lifestyle seems like a unimaginable dream filled with endless possibilities. Pokemon, even if it's actually fictional, gives you just a taste of adulthood: you're out on your own, slowly growing and maturing, becoming "the very best, like no one ever was". It represents independence. It represents freedom.

Okay, sure, that's a little hyperbolic, but playing through Diamond washed all the cynicism from my system, and for a split second, I felt I could go anywhere and do anything. Of course, that's true to real life, too, but it's just a matter of balls.

In reality, my sense courage and fearlessness happens to be castrated.

In Pokemon, I was the very best, like no one ever was.

Friday, January 9, 2009

The World Ends With You: A Strange Beast, or, "A Review No One Will Read"

Someone on the Wonderful World of the Internet recently pointed out that playing The World Ends With You could be likened to attacking your DS with a cheese grater.

I don't think that's too far from the truth.

Strangely enough, the game is rather enjoyable, even though my DS touchscreen has been shredded to plastic shards and now Neku gives me the finger whenever I blow into the microphone. Don't ask me why! Blame that damn emo disease he's contracted!

In all actuality, The World Ends With You is kind of a mess. I mean, you've got endless amounts of dialogue, two screens to watch and manage, a terribly cluttered inventory system that doesn't make me appreciate the inclusion of a touch screen, and when you get right down to it, gameplay that only consists of running around a gray city looking for the next cutscene to appear. Thinking about all these problems forces me to wonder why the hell I ever finished the game! It's a strange beast -- I'll give you that much.

Most people probably hold the game in such regard because it's something made by Square-Enix that doesn't have the words "Final" or "Fantasy" in the title. While the character designs reek of hipster zipper-fetishists, at least they stray a little from the Tetsuya Nomura random character generator and seem like genuine people with real insecurities. Sure, they wear clothing that would be impossible to pull off in reality, but hey, thank god for suspension of disbelief!

Like I said, though: The World Ends With You is a strange beast. Whenever I think about it, I remember everything that was done poorly or absolutely wrong, but once I begin playing, I seemingly forget about all those imperfections and enjoy myself. The reason behind this is most likely the battle system -- it seems terribly complex at first, but it really only boils down to mashing the d-pad in different directions and "cheese-grating" the hell out of the bottom screen. Don't get me wrong, though; it's fun. It's enjoyable. It's downright chaotic!

When you emerge from battle victorious, however, the game begins to slip a little. The pins you win from defeating monsters generally are earned in droves, and attempting to reorganize your inventory is both frustrating and a hassle, combined into one furious, hemorrhaging pain-in-the-ass . Trying to find the right clothes to wear in a specific part of the city also became a little grating, and by the first third of the game, I ended up simply wearing the apparel that had the highest HP-granting abilities.

The story was something I actually became invested in, despite the endless talking-head moments -- the main character, Neku, as many people have voiced already, is immediately the unlikable, angsty teenager that riddles most games these days, but yes, he does grow and evolve into an actual person. His buddies are okay, too, I guess.

Even now, as I write this, I know I dislike the game for everything it does poorly -- and I really don't want to keep writing about it because of this feeling. The World Ends With You really isn't that great of a game, as it tries to be deeper and more symbolic than the sum of its parts, and I stand by the opinion that most people shower it with praise because the game is a new, original product that surprisingly emerged from the loins of the Final Fantasy-producing monster, Square-Enix. But you know, if I turn it on again, right at this moment, I'll probably end up playing into the wee hours of the morning. And I'm not quite sure why I'll keep playing, but I will.

A strange beast.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Lost Time

I sometimes wonder if putting my time into these videogames are worth the overall outcome. Really, the only positive and "reputable" aspect about this expensive hobby is that it can improve hand-eye coordination and a person's overall intelligence.

But that's about it.

A person can easily invest over one hundred hours into a game -- that's a serious amount of time, time that could be spent doing more productive things. You could be getting exercise, learning a new language, or hanging out with a bunch of friends. One hundred hours? My god, that's a good chunk of life right there, my friend. What have you accomplished in that time? Your entire party is at level 99? Wow, that's quite an American accomplishment, if I do say so myself. Congratulations.

Recently, I read this article on Gamasutra, and I mostly agree with all the author's points. The thing is, yes, you definitely are gearing up for a near-impossible challenge, and by gearing up, you probably will get better at the game. But that's all it is, though: a game. Like the author of that article, I've become really good at a lot of these games, but in the end, I really have nothing to bring to the table of "reality". I've spent a majority of my time in front of the TV playing Soul Calibur and Smash Brothers and yes, even Mega Man 9 -- yet I can't repair a car if it breaks down and I can't cook an excellent meal. Those are fairly good skills to have. I don't have them.

The only reason I'm still here, writing about these silly things is because I believe that this new medium has the potential to become something great, like parts of film and literature -- right now, though, playing these games does not make me feel like I'm growing and improving. In fact, while I play Mega Man 9, I may be, in fact, becoming better at the game, but in real life, I'm still just a so-called "Man-child", someone who is mentally immature and probably will be until I begin to invest more time into "reality". As it is now, I've reached the point of no return; I've spent so much time playing games that there's got to be a way to put that time into something useful in the real world, right?

Professional Smash Brothers player? Yeah, real fulfilling.

The article also points out that there are two types of mindsets: the first mentality believes that when you die in a videogame, that's it -- you give up and go home. The second views that loss as a personal growth, and even though you had lost, the next time you play, you will rise up to the challenge and overcome it. The latter mindset doesn't believe in "wasted time".

Taking this into account, I booted up Persona 4, a game in a series that often doles out cheap, sudden deaths if the player isn't paying attention or makes a tiny mistake. In previous play-throughs, a had put over an hour's worth of time into one of the dungeons, and before I knew it, I ran into an enemy, which randomly "critical-ed" my main character. I was killed in an instant.

This had happened before in Persona 3. I was used to these types of deaths. But this time, after recalling the Gamasutra article and thinking about the hour I had lost and nothing to show for it, I blew up. I usually never get angry over anything, but when that monster randomly (and "random" is the key word here) stole that real-life hour away from me, I couldn't handle it anymore.

Was it worth it? Specifically, I had payed $40 on something that was indeed enjoyable, but ultimately made me feel cheated, worthless, and angry. That's not good, is it? That's not "personal growth," right? When you die in Mega Man or in some action game, yes, you have to restart -- but you've really only invested about fifteen-or-so minutes of your time. In Persona, an excessive amount of time that you've given in real life to develop your fictional characters is lost due to some random element that the player has no control over. It reeks.

So here I am, writing about a hobby that may or may not be a waste of time. Videogames have been a big part of my life, and sadly, nothing else in the world really gets me as excited as when a new Zelda or Dragon Quest comes out. There's something drastically wrong with that. Now that I think about it, though, what's the difference between reading a book and playing a videogame? Nothing much, really. You still put in a good share of time into each activity, and at the end of each, you really have nothing to show for it...well, except a topic for conversation.

Here's hoping that something in this medium shows me that this wasn't a waste of a good twenty years. Otherwise, there's no crying over spilt milk...a lot of spilt milk.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Supporting the Unsuccessful

You know, I was just thinking as I watched my brother mash the hell out of the X button during a session of Resident Evil 4 on the PLAYSTATION 3 REVOLUTIONARY HOME ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM THAT ALSO SOMETIMES RUNS PLAYSTATION 2 GAMES DEPENDING UPON YOUR HARDWARE that my favorite videogame console purchases have often become obsolete in terms of commercial success. Really, the only exception would be the NINTENDO REVOLUTIONARY ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM back in 1989, but that was probably because no one had ever heard of a Master System, and even if you had, no one wanted to play one when you had Mario jumping around in Supremely Awesome Fun Land.

Take a look at my history:

1994: I was given a Sega Genesis packed in with the game Columns (which actually happens to be a pretty good game, but a poor substitute for Sonic). I loved the system. However, Genesis was not as popular as the SNES and apparently tanked in Japan.

1999: A year after Zelda was released, my parents got my brothers and I a Nintendo 64, which, as most of us know and have beaten the dead horse to a pulp by now, was not as successful as the Playstation. I loved the N64 anyway. Crash Bandicoot, while admittedly filled with 'tude, was not appealing.

2001: After seeing screenshots and videos for Super Smash Brothers Melee, I went out and bought one of the first shipments of Gamecubes. Yes, all of them. Okay, just a single Cube. And surprisingly, no matter how bad a reputation that little black cube gets and has gotten (goddamn it!), I still play it more than any system I've ever owned. Gamecubes, though, did not sell as well as the competition.

So now, I own a PLAYSTATION 3. It's not getting very good press and isn't selling as well as it should. How about that? And yet, despite my sarcasm above about how revolutionary it is, I prefer it to the Wii and Xbox 360, just like I've preferred the least commercially successful consoles more than their counterparts in years past. I can't really say why. Maybe it's a subconscious thing, where I have to support the underdog -- almost exactly like people who only listen to Indie music even though it sucks (sorry, Ben Meckley (search engines are great, aren't they?), but yes, it does suck. Well, most of it. But those morning rides to Wildernet while listening to the same mix over and over again became torturous after the third or fourth time. Heck, any music would, I guess.).

Just thought I should put that information out there. I'm hoping I just have good taste and the masses who make certain products popular, uh, don't.