I had a revelation this morning.
The past two nights have afforded me something quite rare and unusual - an uninterrupted hour, each night, with which I was able to indulge my fading passion for video games. That may not sound like such an occurrence, but it actually has given me quite a bit of insight into my behavior and tendencies as a gamer as I've gotten older. What I've realized, on further reflection, is that I am quite the outdated dinosaur when it comes to games. Allow me to explain.
I'm not ready for the retirement home, but I'm no spring chicken, either. The closer I edge to the big 3-0, the more I realize (thanks to steady employment and scrupulous saving) that time, not money, is the commodity now. I could buy a game or console on launch day, sure, but when would I ever have time to play it? I'm up before six, not home from the office until six at night, and in bed by ten. If you account for cooking (yes, that is possible and actually necessary for good health) and running, let alone the things necessary for the next day like doing dishes and laundry and cleaning the cat box, there's so little time that I find it amazing I get anything done at all. I don't even have kids. I want to enjoy the evening with my better half. Sure, I could pull a late night marathon session, but at this point in my life I'd rather be well rested than at the next level, of which only I would care.
Which brings me to my next point - I am absolutely of the old guard when it comes to gaming. I have taken my 360 (which I only purchased in 2010) online once. That single foray into online gaming wasn't even to play with others - it was to update the console and download a game. That game? An re-working of the decade old N64 choking Perfect Dark. It barely ran on that old system, now it looks fantastic when running at 1080p and 60 fps. I don't want to play with a bunch of people who are online incessantly, insanely better than me and more likely than not to spend the entire time belittling me with xenophobic slurs. Why should I put up with that? The games I play are completely solo endeavors, as is the nature of the experience. My preferred experience is a huge TV in a darkened room with some headphones, and maybe a glass of wine to steady the nerves. The games I'm playing hardly have any mutli-player of which to play. Other people would just take me out of the moment.
Not only am I an isolated gamer, I can't play for very long anymore, these days. I remember a sleepless series of nights in college while I waited to have a root canal dealt with. I coped with insomnia by working my way through Resident Evil 2, front to back in all permutations of the plot. If that happened now, I'd be risking my job by coming in as a sleepwalker. The most I can sit and play is an hour. After that, my joints start to hurt and my eyes burn. I either have to take a break and walk around or just call it quits for the night. At this point in my life I feel like gaming is such an indulgence that more than an hour or two a week is time that could be better spent writing, reading, cooking, cleaning, running. Really, the guilt accumulates just as the saved games do.
On top of this is the recent realization that I have moral quandaries about the games I play. I want nothing to do with pretending to be a soldier in the midst of a horrible war. I don't want to inflict pain or cruelty onto others unless the game requires it to progress. Life is hard and nasty enough, I don't want my downtime filled with unsettling moral choices and wanton destruction. Sounds pretentious, I know, but I prefer games that tell a story and have a reason for the madness, not mindless 'point and shoot'. Bioshock had an amazing story and surreal artwork to bolster the experience. Arkham Asylum let me indulge my childhood obsession with Batman delivering justice. Alan Wake was a spooky trip through a world quite similar to Twin Peaks. I recall playing Dead Rising and feeling kind of exhausted and wrung out after the despair and death in that game, just from the first hour or so. I love it, but more for the Romero-esque fantasy than seeing the imagery. Forget Call of Duty. Give me a story.
Realizing I'm not a modern gamer has helped me reconcile my fading habit with my current life. I don't mind not being as culturally relevant as I used to. The industry is a juggernaut. It's more a realization that my tastes and habits are changing, ever so slightly, in ways that I only occasionally pick up on. I would have thought that this would make me sad to see, that not gaming as much meant I was getting old and stiff and boring. Instead, I love who I am more and more, I just appreciate my time and what I do with it more. Time is the commodity. I'm not going to make anyone watch me play a a game any more than I would make them watch a movie they can't stand. It's all much more personal for me, as a result. I get a personal, private adventure. The scarcity makes it all the more memorable.
...and with that, we draw to a close.
It's been one insane year. I don't know about you, but I am about to start getting duded up for a costume party. Lots to do and miles to go, etc. I've really enjoyed writing for this site every day (or as often as possible, as the occasion would permit). Sometimes it has been a snap, when coming up with ideas. Other times I've had to push myself to get an idea out there. One little trick has been to keep a running list of things I want to cover and write about, in case the well ran dry or inspiration never struck. As a result, there have been some things I've wanted to do longer posts on but have never been able to fit in to the schedule. So rather than force a bunch of half-hearted ideas and arbitrary posts, I thought I'd just run through them all in one shot, to show what could have been.
In no particular order, here are the ideas and things I wanted to write about and will be culling from the year's to-do file:
The Goonies - I wrote about the soundtrack, but never mustered the wherewithal to really dig into why I love this childhood staple so much. Still a favorite of mine, all these years later.
Despicable Me - Super fun and overlooked. An adorable, surprisingly funny movie with Steve Carrell and Jason Segel providing voice work. Mad scientists doing wacky stuff.
Ectopiary - A crazy, long running web comic that only gets better and better. Free and not for the faint of heart.
The Elephant Vanishes - A great collection of short stories by one of my favorite authors. Simply too overwhelming to attempt to unpack the myriad of ideas put forth.
Bioshock - This amazing game got me into the modern era of videogames after holding out for about five years. Astounding and groundbreaking in every way. A must play, if you missed it (like I did).
Earthbound - My favorite old school SNES game. The internet already had enough articles about this quirky and idiosyncratic masterpiece.
Lunds Sandwich - No joke. Didn't want to be another food blogger, but this thing had turkey, cranberry mayo, swiss and bacon on cinnamon bread. I was in heaven every time I had it.
That about does it for 2011. It's been phenomenal for me. Thank you so much for reading. I'll see you on the other side. Happy New Year!
Evening, gang.
The year is coming to an end, faster than I'd care to admit. It's been a huge year for me - getting married, a crazy honeymoon, starting this site, new job, new home. I've done more in one year than I feel I have in the last five. It's been damn good to me. I won't bother you with the typical year-end, best-of lists that are so pervasive this season, though. For me, it's been a time full of office deadlines that demand I keep my head down and just push through, processing invoice after invoice. Super fun stuff, let me tell you. So how do I get through this? By devotedly listening to one of my favorite podcasts - The Indoor Kids, courtesy of Nerdist Industries.
I had long been a listener of 1Up's Retronauts, viewing it in my own mind as a be-all, end-all for gaming. I had a big gap in my video game lexicon, ending in the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube era. I didn't go modern until last summer, and that was only because a friend gave me an incredible deal on a 360. That's the thing about getting older - money is no longer the scarcity; time is the valuable commodity now. Getting married and starting a new job consumed most of my free time. When I could steal a free hour, here or there, I would have to make the most of it. Bit by bit, I caught up on what I had missed out on - Biohazard, Arkham Asylum, Alan Wake. Lots of genre specific, niche-heavy titles. I slowly went modern. When my favorite podcast announced a satellite series, hosted by Kumail Nanjiani, I was wary but excited.
Turns out, my curiosity was rewarded.
I had been a fan of Kumail since I had seen his stand up on Comedy Central. He's hysterical and sweet, the kind of comic who can make you howl at jokes about the depths of the ocean ("It's when God says "...and here's all these mistakes I've made!""). His obsessive, devoted appreciation for the world of gaming is so pure and sincere that hours of fantastic content spring forth from his discussions he hosts, both with friend Ali Baker and wife Emily V Gordon. In particular, hearing the married couple's take on gaming is both endearing and fascinating - you get a glimpse not only at how their relationship as writers and comics work, but how gaming is a force in the course of their lives.
On top of the great hosts, some of the themes and guests they've had for episodes have been unparalleled. There have been down-the-rabbit-hole discussions on Gears of War with voice actor Carlos Ferro, entire episodes dedicated to the discussion of music in gaming, and the overwrought notion of girl gamers. Tom Lennon lead an eye-opening episode on addiction and the time sink that is gaming. I was agog at how Paul Scheer consistently (and without fail) backed the wrong technological horse. Dan Harmon extolled the virtues of evolution and story telling around the merits of Skyrim as it consumed everyone's lives.
I love this podcast and look forward to it every week. Kumail and Emily are top notch and open minded in a field that too often yields nit picking and negativity. If you have any interest at all in the idea of games as a commodity or cultural phenomenon, or just the guests themselves, listen to an episode. I guarantee you'll learn something.
It's oh so quiet.
I'm writing this from the new digs. What strikes me most, aside from the obvious, hit you on the head nature of moving, is the quiet. In the last five years I became quite accustomed to the sound of drunken howling, passing ambulances and car horns. The general ambiance of Uptown, in short. Escaping to the farther rings of the city offers something that I used to associate with living in my parent's house as a teenager - total silence. A quiet night like this one, totally bereft of noise, sneaking into the kitchen so as not to wake anyone sleeping with my footsteps and opening of cupboard doors...suddenly I"m 17 again, living in my parent's basement.
Not all was silent, though. Through out the winter I spent my share of quiet, late nights playing PS2 games with the volume at the audible threshold. Between GTA3, Silent Hill 2 and Tony Hawk 3 I was a content Midwestern recluse. No matter the depths of a blizzard or quiet solitude of a Sunday night, I was happy to sit in the quiet and vid out. A night like this makes me think of a favorite lost song I should be hearing. If I still had my PS2 still hooked up (somewhere, packed away in a box with our shared systems - Atari, Nes, Snes, Sega, N64, PS2, Xbox, GameCube and a Wii) I would get all nostalgic and play Tony Hawk 3 with 'Not The Same' by Bodyjar on a loop.
The Tony Hawk video games weren't just frenetic, addictive fun. They had killer soundtracks, too. As a Midwestern recluse I heard a fair amount of good, fresh music from these games. I can attest that among my friends more than a share of us had memorized lyrics due to marathon gaming sessions. We all had our favorites. Mine was the melodic punk offering of the (now defunct) Australian band Bodyjar. Countless sessions of fevered two-minute rounds were played to the strains of blasting guitars and snide, rounded vocals only half discerned. The only thing missing from tonight that would complete the recollection is a PS2 controller and about three feet of snow, which, being the end of November, should be here by now.
Hearing the song now, I still dig it, even if my tastes have slowed down slightly. While I listen to more down-tempo instrumental and ambient music, I still have an affinity for the unresolved tension of the main riff to 'Not The Same'. The pre-chorus, with its not-quite-out-of-key chord progression, still sounds great. If you're at all near my age bracket (which you can figure out via context clues) you might be familiar with this song. Give it a spin or hey - bust out the PS2. It's about 10 years on from that sweet spot with all those great games. On a quiet night like this, I'm quite tempted, myself.
Well, good evening!
It's pretty darn late as I type this. Late enough, in fact, on a Sunday night that instead of doing a full on, emphatic recommendation on something amazing, I'd rather do a Warm Fuzzy Viewing. It's one of those quiet, rainy Sunday evenings where the day has passed rather uneventfully (in my case, running a couple errands and making curry while watching the Emmys and doing laundry) and now I sit in the dark, typing away. This is basically prime time for a Warm Fuzzy Viewing, where in you watch something or do something that makes you feel like you're taking in this little, private thing that only you know about. Instead of a late-night cartoon, though, this one's on a game.
Super Metroid is, without question, one of the best and most critically acclaimed games ever made. It's so economical and perfectly designed in its experience that one feels guided through playing it without consciously realizing it's happening. You get nudged in the proper direction without explicit direction or hand holding, but rather through insightful, well conveyed contextual clues. My favorite part of this Super Nintendo classic has to be the moments immediately after the dramatic opening.
What unfolds is this: bounty hunter Samus Aran is summoned to a space station studying the deadly but lucrative Metroid by distress signal. Awaiting her arrival is Space Pirate Ridley, in the midst of stealing the titular Metroid. A battle ensues and Ridley escapes, as does Samus. Giving chase, Samus heads to the hideout of the Space Pirates, the planet Zebes. From there, a sprawling yet intricately constructed adventure takes place as Samus seeks to recover the captured Metroid. The arrival to Zebes is what necessitates this particular Warm Fuzzy Viewing.
In masterful style, the player is introduced to the world in which the game takes place. Your iconic yellow spaceship lands on the surface in the middle of a rainstorm as night is falling. For a 16 bit game, it's a dynamic and mood-establishing stroke of artistry. There are no enemies present, no sense of urgency. It's just raining and dark out. You're left to your own devices to start the quest, slowly and with trepidation making your way into the Space Pirate lair. Its ominous and eerie - its quiet, a little too quiet. You make your way down into the interior of the planet, retreading old ground covered years prior. There's some familiar technology to make use of at the bottom of an abandons elevator shaft. Once you grab it, though, the spotlights go off and the guards come out in full force. The enemies are aware of your presence and the action starts. It's a fantastically crafted way to convey a sense of drama and adventure in a game with almost no dialogue.
I love this whole introductory sequence and how it unfolds in such a tense and quiet manner. You get to explore a silent, rainy world at your own pace. No one's around as you explore. It's no wonder this game routinely tops lists of the best games ever made.
Evening.
I won't talk too much about today and what goes through one's head when faced with the inconceivable. I arrived back at my apartment around 2pm. I went for a run (sitting in a car, even a roomy one, after coffee is unbearable) and went about making dinner and more apple crisp with my better half. Apple crisp happens every fall and is delicious, a soothing comfort food for what would unfold. Both the better half and I adore getting context on events through documentaries - today, unfortunately, weighs heavier on the self than other days. Among other footage we watched was a doc showing, in real time, civilian footage of the events ten years ago. Hearing the people's reactions and rationalizations was bad enough. The stunning silence that permeated the footage after both buildings collapsed was even more jarring. It was, in an impossibly distilled word, brutal. So a glass of wine and some fresh apple crisp are serving as a simple comfort, as well as tucking in with my better half at the end of the day.
So where do we go from here? How do we shake the unshakable?
One simple, stupid step at a time. Personally, I find peaceful, pleasant distraction where I can. I ran today, putting so much energy and exertion into the process that I will fall asleep tonight, but I don't know when. Until that happens, I have something simple and serene to distract me - I'll make my stupid monkey brain focus on the trivial to ensure I can arrive at sleep contented and calm. I'll use the same thing I resorted to last night in the hotel when my anxieties got the best of me. It's a simple, but beautiful game for IOS devices - Contre Jour.
A game that was developed by Mokus Studios for Chillingo under the acquiring force of Electronic Arts, Contre Jour is, in essence an interactive lullaby. The game was heavily hyped following its E3 debut and I downloaded it after seeing the trailer here. Drawing inspiration from such IOS heavy hitters as Angry Birds and Cut the Rope, Contre Jour is a sweet but intricately designed puzzler that draws you in, with the help of an astoundingly gorgeous soundtrack. All you have to do is maneuver the little creature, Petite, to the glowing light. To do so, you can alter the surrounding terrain as well as utilize a variety of tools like elastic connectors and blowing fans to move Petite into place. It's the perfect mix - easy to learn, impossible to master. It's incredibly fun yet engaging and difficult enough that you persevere long into the night, edging closer to sleep all the while.
The art design for Contre Jour is just as important as that game play. The stark, contrasting environments are eye-catching and wonderfully rendered, all without being distracting. Modern indie games like Limbo have clearly been a source of dynamic influence. Big, beautiful creatures come to live with every poke and prod. It makes me feel strangely happy whenever I hear Petite giggle at being tossed around in search of the goal. The music is just as integral. A series of sublime piano pieces by David Ari Leon sweep you through the world of Contre Jour in a way that suggests you may already be dreaming. To paraphrase the company's own blurb, the line between art and game is blurred here, to create a phenomenal bit of interactive entertainment.
If you don't have an IOS device, be patient - Contre Jour hopefully is on the way. If you do, do yourself the favor of picking up this game. After a contemplative and weighty day such as this, it's a beautiful and relaxing way to round out the day. Indulge and relax. It's what keeps us human.
What's up kids?
I'm on the road at the moment. Visiting some in laws up in northern Minnesota. Staying in a hotel room. I do not care for hotel rooms. They make me all kinds of nervous. I could go further into this, but to do so would only exacerbate my nervous nature. Tell you what I'll do instead - I'll recommend a good get-down track for your Saturday night and leave it at that, while I drown my sorrows in hotel-related snacks like pistachios and bananas. I'll eat my feelings like a freshman in college - deal? Deal.
Recently I was looking through my iTunes and assembling different playlists out of my existing tracks. One of the lists I made was an ad hoc soundtrack to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. Turns out I have a bunch of those tracks already, by coincidence. it just so happens that I acquired something like half the soundtrack through my normal inclinations and tastes. There was one song I loved that I didn't have though. I was honestly kind of bummed I didn't have it, so after a quick justification to myself I just shelled out the buck and downloaded it. Totally worth it.
Del the Funky Homosapien is a rapper with a distinct voice, one that is unmistakably unique. When you hear his raps, you know it's him immediately, without question. So no doubt that when I heard his track on THPS3, 'If You Must', I knew I had to hear more of it. I loved grinding away to this song, the bouncing, steady bassline getting in my head and hypnotizing me.
The track from his 200 album Both Sides of the Brain is actually a really funny look at some nasty, grody people Del has to deal with - he raps in clever turns of phrase about the various hygiene maladies this character suffers, and how he has to put up with his unpleasant personal funk. Verses tolling the perils of lax grooming habits give way to a chorus that's both funky and amusingly sincere, the main refrain being "You gotta wash your ayyass, if you must. You gotta wash your hair if you must. You gotta brush your teeth, if you must or else you'll be funkayyy!" Its so goofy and sincere I can't help but love it.
This track? Totally dance-able and catchy. Forgot about it for years after hearing it sooo many times.
It's funny how you have to justify these little purchases but I'm really glad I spent that dollar. The song makes me think back to all the fun I had back in high school, waiting out snowstorms in my parents basement. Now, as I sit in a hotel room, it gets my mind off of anxieties I wish to ignore. I only wish I could play some THPS3 and skate around to this track. Hopefully you can use it to shake it loose and get funkayy. Enjoy!
Happy Weekend, kids!
How about something fun for the weekend? Something a little left of center to amuse you? You guys ever heard of Overclocked Remix? I love this site, both for the content and the concept. My neighbor in college told me about it, telling me if I had any love for video games at all, I simply had to check it out. At that point the site was already seven or eight years old. What I found there blew my mind.
I adore this site. In the years since being turned on to it I've been consistently amazed at the work produced. It's made me really appreciate the music in games I love and better understand how the composers affect my experience. Old games I've loved have had new life breathed into them. Friends have loved music I've played for them, having no idea the songs originated from a 16 bit game. Normally they'd scoff and think me a geek. Instead they ask for a copy of it. I just want the world at large to know about this amazing community of artists and the crazy work they do. Give 'em a look and see if your old favorites are there.
The week ends, finally.
I spent some of last night indulging in a little late night videogame session with my 360. Having finally made it to the current generation of consoles (I always seem to wait, saving tons of time and money as a result) I have had quite a backlog of the Best-ofs to work through, to my joy and my wife's dismay. One of the games, though, was rather fresh and less acclaimed. Alan Wake, a freaky deeky affair drawing heavily on Silent Hill, Twin Peaks and Stephen King, was a no-brainer. Touching on all the hallmarks I love, it's been super fun and super creepy so far. I'm only into the third chapter as of this writing. What came leaping out of the blue, though, was the song that closed the second chapter, 'Haunted' by Poe. As soon as I heard it, I had one of those striking moments of clarity where you see just how much overlap there is in your life when you really hone in on what makes you tick. Hearing the song set the gears in my head to work and I sat listening to the track, marvelling at the coincidence and how great the song is.
I love this song - that it keeps popping up in my life only makes me appreciate it's vibe and story all the more. I dug Poe back around her first album; this song was in the soundtrack of a movie I took a date to, which was an all around disaster; I fell heavy for it during my first read-through of House of Leaves; now it pops up in one of my favorite games. I love little coincidences like that, that this same song could keep popping up, this little thread running through my life whether or not I'm aware of it. It reminds me of how 'Make Your Own Kind of Music' kept popping up in Lost. It becomes a sort of leit motif.
'Haunted' by Poe is no doubt going to keep popping up in my life, whether I want it to or not. I'm going to embrace it and count myself lucky that it's a great song by an artist who would appreciate the attention. Maybe she doesn't want to be a multi platinum act, selling out stadiums. That doesn't mean I shouldn't spread the good word about this talented, criminally under-appreciated artist. Go download her music now, before another label causes problems.
Kids, it's time we say goodbye to Video Game Week.
This most likely comes with a rounding cheer from a heart segment of my audience, while coming from a heavy heart. I really do love to apply analysis and critical thought to my gaming. Whether its the simplest indulgence, like button mashing and rhythm games, or the headiest, most convention defying experience to date, I love examining the phenomenon that occurs when we play games. I really appreciate the fact that anyone here would read my thoughts on a field that has no shortage of self-righteous essays and pretentious diatribes, not just from me but from much more talented, witty writers.
Here's anything and everything I've written about button mashing:
Zombies Ate My Neighbors - an old post about a sublime SNES game, which is a love letter to B-Movies.
Silent Hill 2 - the scariest and most captivating experience I've ever had with a game, bar none.
Gamespite - a look at the most funny and intelligent gaming community I've seen, headed by Jeremy Parish.
S.T.U.N. Runner - a whimsical tale about lost memories from my childhood. And Chuck E. Cheese!
Scribblenauts - I wrote about this smart little game after a pre-flight happy-hour and some in-flight DS time.
Grabbed By The Ghoulies - Rare's black sheep that's really not too bad, worth the few dollars it goes for these days.
Maniac Mansion - a groundbreaking classic, as fun then as it is now. Another of many loving homages to Horror.
ToeJam & Earl - Co-op ahead of its time, a stealth masterpiece of the Sega Genesis.
Link's Awakening - The secret-best Zelda game which goes undeservedly neglected these days.
Dragon Warrior 4 - In which I wax nostalgic about exploring and having a curious mind as a child.
Virtual Bart - The hidden redemptive qualities of minigames and the mindless pleasures they afford.
That wraps up Video Game Week for me, kids. Starting tomorrow I get back on my grind with the more traditional music-based posts and articles. Down the line we'll have more themed weeks, like Book Worm Week and a special Halloween themed series. Until then, I'll see you guys on the flip side. Thanks for reading.
Evening, kids.
A brief word about tonight's post - the title is, to be blunt, stolen from a 30 Rock joke about horrible cereals. I found it fitting for the subject matter, because like stealing jokes, minigames are often mindless, lazy and derivative. There are times, though, when no matter how capable you may be or how broad your palette may be, you just want mindless, stupid laughs. That's where minigames come in.
To be honest I'm not a devoted advocate of the much maligned yet massively popular format. Certainly the Wii helped popularize them. Indeed there seems to be a glut of shovelware these days - just games crammed into the checkout aisle next to candy-bars and bottle soda, eager to swindle you out of $10 and your respect for the gaming industry. Not all minigame collections are inherently bad; more to the core of the issue not all are created equal. One of my favorite of the genre is a comparative antique - the launch title for the original Xbox, Fusion Frenzy. I loved making drinking games out of the 60-second intervals of frantic gameplay the inexpensive title brought in college. Simple games that mimicked the Powerball game from American Gladiators or the one in which you either jump over or duck under hurtles and pipes as they come flying toward your character - these were great for a little levity before heading out on a Friday or Saturday night with friends. While it is common place now, a few rounds of Halo wouldn't have quite the same jovial effect on our group of friends. Some mindless button mashing, timed to ever-changing patterns and reflex tests? Super fun when beer is added to the mix.
Not all gaming has to be high-brow, expensive execution. Sometimes all you need is a simple, gratifying execution of concept. Time your throws and take aim - that's all you need to blow off a little steam and kill a cold, lonely winter night.
I'm still in the grips of another Middle West heat wave, kids. It's tough.
Everyone here makes jokes about risking death by venturing out in the winter months when wind chill can get down to 40 below zero, but the secret about Minnesota is that the summer can be just as dangerous. Case in point - in search of a specific dinner ingredient last night, I braved the 110+ heat index for all of 20 minutes. Having not had dinner yet and slowly navigating the jungle-like conditions, I returned home with the elusive ingredient on the verge of fainting. I just needed something to munch on (keeping mind and body together) and a cool glass of water to lower the temp. But it reaffirmed the notion that, for long stretches of time here in MPLS, it's simply not safe to venture out. One of the best outlets I've found to combat these potential cabin-fever conditions is exploring in video games. Not all games provide it, but it is a motive that was instilled at an early age.
I know it seems really childish and foolish to speak of it in such reverent terms, but the experience did set into motion my love of playing with boundaries in games. I spent hours with my younger brother glitching and sequence breaking The Ocarina of Time. Goldeneye on the 64? I still dig up bugs and tricks on it, just to see if anything new was discovered, like the test level 'Citadel'. As games have evolved this sense of "Can I do this?" has changed with the design. I remember how exasperated the older brother was when I was playing some hunting game on our PS2 and kept trying to get the little guy to go into a cabin.
"Man, it's a hunting game!" he insisted, frustrated at my nebbish, indoor-only attitude.
"Dude, you're missing the point," I tried to explain. But he would have none of it.
Games now reward that sense of rule-bending. They reward you for thinking outside of the box. Look at the driving concept behind of Dead Rising, where your entire experience in the game is predicated on dispatching zombies in the most creative, outside of the box conceivable. Modern classic Bioshock is nothing but a philosophical examination of choice and free will in gaming told through the eyes of an Ayn Rand-obsessed studio. Some of the most fun I've had in gaming comes from just dinking around in the environment. I remember bouts of insomnia combatted with tooling around in GTA: San Andreas just observing the generation and mechanics of the traffic around the city.
I never got carsick playing this. Not once.
As a child of the late 80s/early 90s I was a proud owner of a Game Boy, the inexplicably gender-specific portable device courtesy of Nintendo. My parents, in their infinite wisdom and generosity, decided the best way to pacify me on long car trips (of which there were many) and trips to my grandparents (of which there were even more). I adored the Gameboy both for what it was and what it afforded - gaming on the go! Official, transportable Nintendo games! I was sold. Rather, mom and dad were. The requisite title was Tetris, of course, but there were other games that mesmerized me beyond the gratifying disappearing of bricks. Of particular quality and experience is the subject of today's Video Game Week piece about neglected and forgotten games - The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.
Zelda and Nintendo (especially of the portable variety) have become inextricably intertwined in the two decades, but that wasn't always the case. At the time of the release of Link's Awakening there had been a total of three Zelda titles - the original and establishing title, the uneven and divisive sequel and the instant-classic Link to the Past. A quality gaming experience was not the guarantee at this point. But with it's pedigree and reputation, it was already known at the time to be a solid, reliable series in the Nintendo canon. When Link's Awakening was announced people were excited but wary - some titles had shown a drop in quality in the journey to the smaller screen. When it finally was released we got something that was a little unlike any Zelda game we'd seen before, and nothing since then has been quite like it. In fact Link's Awakening remains an anomaly in both structure and plot, setting it apart from the rest of the games in the series.
In the midst of another relentless Middle West heat wave, I bring you more of Video Game Week!
Some estimates have put the heat index well above 110 (Fahrenheit, you metric-loving world, you!) and that is just too darn hot to function. Consequently my better half and I have spent the day reassembling our humble abode in the wake of our wedding and honeymoon. We hit a Farmer's Market before 9 in the morning and it was still so hot we decided that cleaning in the AC with the blinds down was the best way to be productive today. Any further venturing would have risked certain death. Since subsequent adventuring would have required the use of video games, so when she wasn't watching me clean in our office I fired up my copy of my favorite old Sega game, ToeJam & Earl!
My love of the world of hip hop clearly started at a young age.
Released in 1991 for the Sega Genesis (Mega Drive to you Japanese readers), the game was a favorite of mine for a variety of reasons. My friend Matt owned a copy and we spent our share of winter afternoons playing the game, whose titular aliens ToeJam (the skinny one) and Earl (the fat one) seemed not-at-all a desperate grab at relevancy and hip vernacular from marketing teams. Basic plot was as follows: Aliens crash on a bizarre version of Earth, fight off stereotypes of humans to find pieces of wrecked craft to get home. A rap-themed take on ET, basically.
