Quick thoughts

I'm thinking that you could start overlapping my blogging schedule w/ my wife's crappy reality TV show watching schedule. It's Tuesday and that means it's Biggest Loser night at this house. And not Tomb Raider: Underworld night. I started this yesterday and I'm liking it so far. The wide open ocean sections look like they might be a bit overwhelming, but we'll see how it goes. Endless Ocean is also on it's way from GameFly, so I'll have plenty of opportunities to get lost in the deep blue sea.

It's not really worth it's own post, but I've noticed lately while playing some Guitar Hero: World Tour that rhythm games can put me in sort of a trance. I suppose that's not that uncommon, due to all the repetitive motions and your zoned-out state concentrating on the music. For me, I'll remember random events from the past that have nothing to do with the music. They're usually good memories, and I get to smile to myself and think of what we did on that canoe trip years ago, or old friends I haven't thought of in years. Anyone else do this?

Me and game consoles: a short history

I've had an idea to run down a history of what consoles I've owned for a while. I just never bothered to write it all down. But the wife is preventing me from playing more Galactrix on 360 with ANTM, so I'll sit here and type.

It started, as it did with many others, on an Atari. My much older brothers had an Atari 7800 in all it's fake wood grain glory. So I got my start on Missle Command, Space Invaders, Pac Man, and Donkey Kong, which came on a crazy white cartridge by some company named "Nintendo." When that old hardware eventually crapped out, I asked for an Atari 2600 for Christmas. There were rumors and commercials of a new system but I had done my research (you know, in the JC Penney catalog that passed for the "internet" back then). That Christmas (1985?) I rocked out with a new 2600 and great new games like Pole Position and Battlezone. It only took me a month or two to figure out that I'd made a terrible mistake with my Santa Claus request. The new NES was awesome and I had to have one.

So just a few months later my birthday rolls around and I have a new Nintendo. I soon had what I still consider to be the best game I've ever played, The Legend of Zelda. This dude had a sword! And he could go anywhere he wanted! And fight Octorocks and stuff!

The NES kept me occupied for quite a while. During this time the seeds of my game madness were sown. I subscribed to Nintendo Power. I read every article. I played something new and awesome called "two player simultaneous" games. Before, my friends and I had to take turns on levels or something. Now we can beat up dudes at the same time! Totally rad.

Since I read Nintendo Power all the time I was understandably excited about the Super NES. The painful months between its release and the next birthday or Christmas nearly killed me. I had to make do with my stupid regular Nintendo and play Super Mario World at friends' houses. But I eventually got one and the next Zelda came shortly after that. The Super NES brought with it incredible digitized graphics, one of the best entries in the Metroid series, and a great (looking) Star Wars series.

A similar process repeated itself for the Nintendo 64 even though I was in High School by that time. Let's just...not think too much on that. The 64 upped the graphics again and brought with it the craziest controller I've ever seen. The standouts for this era were Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. My college roommates and I spent waaaaay too much time playing Goldeneye and Mario Kart.

Nintendo took their sweet time coming out with the next console and I'd already gotten a Playstation 2. I rationalized the expensive box saying that I needed a DVD player anyway. To my credit, I still have never bought a standalone DVD player. The PS2 had great realistic sports games and a completely different focus than what I was used to with the Nintendo systems.

Metroid, and the promise of an upcoming Zelda pushed me over the edge and I got a Gamecube. So I split my time between the 'cube and the PS2. They actually complimented each other nicely because of their different focus. I had two systems for the first time and was lovin' it. Later, the new Zelda went in a weird direction that took me quite a while to get used to, but I think I eventually started to like it.

I managed to get an elusive Wii on the day it came out. No, I didn't camp out all night. I just went to the store about 15 minutes before it opened that morning and got in line with all the other antisocial dudes. I was towards the end of folks that got one, but I wasn't about to camp out. Of course I played Zelda again and all the crazy waggle games.

Not too long after I got the Wii, I picked up a used Xbox 360 since I'd been keeping an eye on the games released for it and there were quite a few that seemed worthy. Once again, I had two systems that complemented each other very well. The crazy and different games have a place on the Wii, along with all the classic Nintendo franchises. The 360 (in beautiful HD) gets used for everything else. They've done a tremendous job with the online portion and I've already talked about how well they did points.

So that's it. Maybe some other time I'll talk about portable consoles (original GameBoy, then DS) or why I don't play PC games.

Healthy Living

I was thinking the other day about how your character's health is represented in games. It's always been an imperfect mechanism, but if you're like me, you've played enough games to not really notice anymore. I came to this realization when I was upgrading my "hearts" in Henry Hatsworth. There's something about base-hearts but then you add silver-hearts? I don't know, it was kind of confusing. But why use hearts at all? Because Zelda did it ages ago? Don't get me wrong, the original Legend of Zelda is still my favorite game ever, but a bunch of hearts to represent how healthy Link is? Really? And if you hang out w/ a fairy by a pond you get more hearts? Thats...odd. But the other big franchises aren't any better. Sonic collects golden rings for some reason, and Mario eats strange magic mushrooms that make him bigger.

Should games strive for some sort of realistic representation of health? Doom did a decent job of this w/ a picture of your character's face that became more bloody and decrepit the more damage you took. But they also had the crutch of a 0-100 scale. Actually the ones that seem the most believable are the games with a sci-fi angle that introduce the concept of "shields." The sound of your shields recharghing in Halo is a very familiar and comforting sound. It's like "ah, now I can stop worrying about health and everything is aaaaaaall right." Dead Space attempted to make the health meter more realistic by showing it on the back of the suit with no accompanying 0-100 scale.

Lots of first person shooters now use an approach I first remember seeing in Gears of War, but who knows who actually had it first. Since you see through the characters eyes, the vision is obscured by blood as you take damage. Games like Braid and Prince of Persia take a unique approach where there's really no health meter. If you fall in a pit or touch an enemy you're dead, but no worries since you can just rewind time and go on your merry way. RPG's traditionally have hit points which is just a numeric variation on the 0-100 scale. I know I've seen an EKG meter in a game to indicate health, but it escapes me just what game that was. I'd guess that's the most realistic you're gonna get.

So you run low on health and you "die." Don't worry, if you've collected a few small versions of yourself or sometimes a crazy green mushroom, you can live again.

Hey look! Another actual post about the DS!

So with the DSi coming out recently and a few people I know just getting regular DS's, I thought I'd throw together a list of recommended games. I tried to think about how to organize them and as I threw titles into a list, my mind somehow sorted them on a scale from casual puzzle stuff to really involved, nerdy stuff. So, stuff that my mother-in-law would play on hers to stuff that nerds like me seek out. The casual stuff is pick up and play, while the nerdy stuff is very deep and customizable.

Okay, first up we've got a bunch of puzzle games: Planet Puzzle League, Henry Hatsworth, Professor Layton, Picross, and Puzzle Quest (along with it's updated space version PQ: Galactrix). The gameplay between PPL and Hatsworth is nearly identical, well for the lower screen on Hatsworth at least. The top screen is a side scrolling Mario-type game that can be modified by going into the puzzle game on the lower touch screen with the X button. It's structured so that you never have to worry about both types of gameplay at once, and I'm completely addicted to it. I'll probably play it when I finish this post since Tues. is Biggest Loser night on our DVR and it doesn't seem to have the same strange gravitational pull for me that it does for the wife.

Next up are a few games that make interesting use of the stylus. Kirby's Canvas Curse is neat for drawing paths on the screen that your character interacts with. Even though it came out quite a while ago it's still unmatched in this type of gameplay. Felix & Felicity is an amusing little attempt at it, but not nearly as good. Soul Bubbles is a real sleeper hit. You move an air bubble through a maze using the touch screen. It's a great mix of puzzle & action gameplay. While we're talking about the stylus, it's worth mentioning the touch-controlled Zelda and Animal Crossing. They were some of the first to innovate the "touch where you want your character to go" concept on the DS and they're from Nintendo themselves, so they do it right. I could never get into Animal Crossing since it's basically the Sims, but I've heard that people like it.

Okay, now to the nerdier portion. The Castlevania series are great classic side scrolling action games w/ a ton of enemies, and weapon/item customization. I've spent a bit of time with Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown and have been very impressed. Think GTA3 adapted for the DS but done VERY well. Rounding out this list is the excellent remake Chrono Trigger for some classic Japanese RPG and the absolutely crazy The World Ends With You. Don't pick up this last one unless you enjoy keeping track of very different action on the top and bottom screens and keeping your characters in the latest fashions for the areas they're in. Ya, it was a bit much for me. But I enjoyed the concept that you got new items based on what WiFi connections you connected to or what other DS's wireless signals you came in contact with.

Wow, this is getting long so I'll wrap it up. I purposely tried to avoid all the big sellers on this list since you'll probably get those anyway. But don't take this to mean that they're not good. You can't go wrong w/ Mario Kart, New Super Mario Bros. and Zelda. I've probably played MKDS multiplayer for more hours than all the others combined. That's sort of how this little blog got started, we get together on Wednesdays and play and yap about games.

Starting a few new games

I just started playing Zubo for DS this evening. It's kind of cute. Basically a traditional RPG with rhythm game fight sequences. Tap on the screen in time w/ the music to do damage, etc. Also starting in on Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars on Wii. The art style and 3rd person action stuff remind me a bit of Psychonauts. I'm not enjoying myself nearly as much as I did w/ that game though. Crap like this which I ran into at the beginning doesn't help anything.
I should be getting a copy of Guitar Hero: World Tour soon. Looking forward to seeing how it compares to Rock Band. Okay, and to play some Tool. Ya, mainly to play Tool.