I’m not known for venturing out of my gaming comfort zone very often. There was that one time I became a “hardcore” gamer during the PS2/Xbox/GameCube era and tried to dabble in a multitude of genres, but for the most part I try to listen to my gut more than the media. It’s not that I don’t enjoy diversity, because I do; it’s just that I’d rather be having an enjoyable experience over one that’s culturally relevant.

That isn’t always the case though. When I first got my shiny new Super NES, it came with this poster filled with games who’s objectives defied my feeble middle school logic. Beyond Super Mario World there was a game based on aeronautical simulations (PilotWings), shmups with what seemed like infinite levels or parallax scrolling (Gradius III) and that futuristic space racer I ended up not liking (F-Zero).

And then there was Sim City.

Out of all those thrill-seeking teenage-demographed marvels of 16-bit technology advertised on that poster, who knew that something as innocuous as a world building sim would be the game to titillate me this side of Street Fighter II?

As far as ways to be introduced to Will Wright’s work, you can’t do much better than the Super NES version of Sim City. As far as being introduced to Will Wright himself, it doesn’t get much weirder than the green-haired and mustachioed consultant that became his synonymous avatar in Nintendo titles.

The genius behind it is that I never played it as a game proper. I don’t think it ever gave you a set goal that completed the game (not that I’d know from personal experience), but most people I knew set their own by way of a population marker to hit or seeing if they could survive a natural disaster and so on. I was just content with building. It sounds mundane, but there’s a satisfaction with feeling like you’re doing great as a leader by keeping your residential, industrial and commercial zones in check and not getting that pop-up stating there’s road congestion.

What’s really interesting is that, twenty years later, I still build up my burgs in the exact same fashion. The redundancy is weird, but there’s also a calm gratification in knowing my system worked. Most of my choices weren’t based on suggestions from Dr. Wright, rather things that felt like common sense. I’d always build the main zones in four block sets and always keep them separated. When it was time to focus on my mayoral digs I’d stick close to the suburbs, and the more efficient nuclear power plant was always placed far away or on a remote island in fear of a recreation of Chernobyl that likely didn’t exist. I never shifted the status quo; but that’s OK because I was never looking to do so anyways.

The comfort I got from building the same city ad naseum always leads to me getting bored of it by the time the tax coffers dry up. Even at my advanced age, I can’t get into the economic systems of Sim City. Spending money is fine; trying to refill the village funds was not. For the first year you can just ignore it altogether, but when Dr. Wright pops up and tells you that it’s your responsibility to set the budget and dole out money for things like maintenance and paying your police and fire department I kind of freeze up. I’ve tried it a few times, but the slightest hint of anger from the populace and I feel like a coup is coming and my days as mayor are soon to be up.

In other words, I don’t have a future as a politician.

Regardless, I still have fun turning empty plains and rolling hills into a palatial city state for citizens I can’t see. I can build you an awesome place to live…I just can’t rule it with the iron fist it deserves. Gah, being a nice guy is for the birds!

In all my years of playing games and writing about them, I’ve never once typed a thing about a Zelda game.

While no single game in the series gets mentioned in my top five (picking one would be like asking which of my children is my favorite), I hold Zelda close to my heart and as a whole is the reason I even play videogames in the first place.  I’ve certainly thought about posting my impressions from time to time, but I always worry myself out of it in fear that I won’t do it justice.

As you can tell, after having a coming to Jesus meeting and playing an exorbitant amount of Twilight Princess in anticipation for Skyward Sword, I’m ready to give Link his due.

My reasoning behind kicking the phobia is that I think Twilight Princess is underrated; not just as a Zelda game, but in general.  It came at a strange time, that transitional period between hardware cycles where Nintendo couldn’t decide which console to release it on.  Their solution: put it on both.  That put it in the unenviable position of being a GameCube game that people wanted to get for their Wii and a Wii game that people felt should have just stayed on the GameCube.  With that in mind, nobody sees it for what it is, and instead point to it as the beginning of tacked on motion control.

I’ll be honest for a moment — those people are right; playing through it a second time didn’t assuage that complaint at all.  While aiming with ranged weapons still feels great, the melee combat suffers from a clumsiness that is no thanks to the hard shaking it requires to unsheathe your blade let alone swing it.  That being said, once you get over the half-assedness of that blunder and begin to soak in the realm of Hyrule and carry on with your adventure…it stops mattering so much.

A big reason for my love of the Zelda series is the familiarity of how everything works.  It’s the gaming equivalent of comfort food for me.  I enjoy the tale of the Triforce, of the Sacred Realm and the goddesses.  I love how you gain new tools for your kitbag that help you conquer not only a dungeon but the boss and how said tools open up the world to you when you see daylight again.  I have fun taking in the sights, finding hidden grottoes and partaking in side quests.  Hell, it’s even acceptable that Ganon’s always the one mucking about with Hyrule’s peace and prosperity.  These are the things that make me happy.  What puts a Zelda game over the top though is how it weaves that familiarity into a new world.

Zelda defines itself by one of two tropes: either introducing an alternate world that’s supposed to serve as a plot twist or by it’s means of locomotion.  In the case of Twilight Princess, it chose the former.  In this other dimension, the obligatorily named Twilight Realm, Link takes the form of a wolf.  It changes up the flow of the game as being a wolf means you need to keep to the shadows, search for hidden entrances and items with a sensing ability and traverse areas you couldn’t as a human.  During the early hours you have to track down tears to revive spirits and eavesdrop on conversations, then switch back to your well-worn green tunic to tackle the next temple.

Considering the prominence of this game play element, it’s surprising to realize that you only really need to be a wolf for maybe a quarter of the game.  After completing the Fused Shadow segments, your wolf form is used to dig up a few hidden things, warp and not much else.  Maybe it just seems weird in hind sight; perhaps it wouldn’t feel strange if the quarter of the game it was in was towards the end.  Again, nothing that really impacted how much fun I had with Twilight Princess, just an observation.

Something that is prevalent throughout the entire game however is how cohesive Hyrule is.  In most Zelda games all the locales feel something like a bunch of interconnected hubs.  In Twilight Princess they flow seamlessly into each other making it feel like a complete world.  You don’t just randomly stumble into the desert; it’s tucked away on the other side of a mountain range.  The majority of the landscape are grasslands and countryside, and when things change it makes sense.  Death Mountain is past a trail near a canyon and the place the Zoras call home is more a tributary and waterfall that feeds into Lake Hylia than some out of place tropical realm.  Even the Ooccoo areas fit in the grand scheme of things.  The wholeness makes Twilight Princess‘ version of Hyrule my favorite so far.

Even the temples, dungeons and forts fit nicely in the grand scheme of things, which is a nice change of pace because most of them don’t feel like temples, dungeons and forts.  They’re more like natural spaces that have been invaded by an outside source, which I think was the intent.  Death Mountain isn’t a fire castle; it’s a mine.  There’s also stages based on a frost-covered manse, an occupied city, a desert prison and a ruined temple that you time travel to in order to complete.  They work because of their natural context with what’s around you and what’s going on.

Beyond their unique layout, their fundamental design makes them some of the more interesting dungeons in recent memory for a Zelda game.  As if I haven’t used the word fit enough, that’s how the puzzles and challenges feel in them as well.  While every Zelda game charges you with finding some gear and using it in their respective hiding place, Twilight Princess  integrates them into the world in a way that doesn’t make them obtuse but also doesn’t have them sticking out as a point where you have to use your new trinket.  Although I have no proof, it feels like you use your kit much more than I remember, as if each area is built around it.

Which is good, because they aren’t used as much once you take them back out onto the field.  Then again, that’s never been a focus.  I’m not sure what my expectations were there, but apparently they were higher than what’s there.  You might use them a couple times here or there, but it’s enough to make side-questing as fun as usual.  There seems to be a glut of them in Twilight Princess.  For whatever reason you have to get one more (for a total of five) containers to finish a heart, there’s twenty bugs you can collect and a hundred Poes that need capturing.  While I can appreciate the heart containers and bugs because they get you exploring the world, the Poes weren’t worth the hassle because they were everywhere, hard to keep track of and often didn’t show up until dusk.  While playing through the game I was aiming to get 100% completion, but I should have known that some doodads where hidden by random luck before trying to run a fool’s errand.

What makes Twilight Princess special to me is how the cinematic aspects of the game finally help drive home how epic these tales truly are.  Things like facial expressions and body language integrate feelings better than a text box.  There are moments of tension, drama, tenderness, triumph and pure, unadulterated joy that have been in every game, but they finally make you genuinely feel that way because of the way they convey it.  Link still doesn’t utter a word, but if Skyward Sword goes by Twilight Princess, that shouldn’t be anyone’s worry anymore.

Considering how large this post got, it’s safe to say that not only was I able to tackle the 800 pound gorilla in the room, I also got the ten count on him as well.  Considering as I write this it’s still the 25th anniversary of the Legend of Zelda series, I figured I’d celebrate not only by playing all the games again (of which I’ve made a significant dent in) but by finally putting my thoughts down as well.  Fair warning: this is probably the first of many.  It’s crazy that it’s taken me this long to give a Zelda game a proper post; but not as crazy as realizing that they’ve been making me as happy as they have for twenty-five years.

Here’s to twenty-five more!

Although I love role-playing games, I myself am not a role-player.

Part of the problem stems from the fact that the term didn’t come to me by the traditional way of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons; rather from the very loosely based JRPG, which took care of the character creation portion for the sake of story and left me with fiddling with statistics.  I’ve used plenty of imagination creating fantastical characters when outside playing with my brothers and cousin as a kid, but in the sense of a videogame I strictly inject what little of myself I can into whatever spiky-haired amnesiac I was told to cypher.

Then I played Skyrim.

Although I’m sure I did the same thing in Oblivion, it’s only now that I realize, given the freedom that the Elder Scrolls series provides, that I’ve been subconsciously role-playing this whole time without me even realizing it.

For the most part, I still just simply inject myself into whatever character I’ve built; but as I continue to cross the vast countryside of northern Tamriel, I’ve started subliminally adding foibles.  Also: just through experiences and my reactions to them, the more interesting story here is the one happening around me and not the one that the quest log says should be a big deal.

Right from the get-go I was creating lore.  I decided to play as an Argonian (lizard-man) again and as such I immediately thought to myself that my avatar, George, would not just be Dragonborn, but a descendant to the hero of Cyrodiil, Slappy.  Which was the Argonian I played in Oblivion.  Not even five minutes in and I was already blatantly disregarding my super-deformed/statistician sensibilities.

As I made my escape from an unjust execution, I came to the conclusion that George would not be a barbarian like his predecessor.  Instead, he would be a mastermind at magic using, wantonly flicking his wrists in any direction to mete out death with fireballs and bolts of electricity.  But then I realized I’d really like to sink axes into the skulls of mine enemies, especially when you get a slow motion fatality for a well-placed blow.  And thus George became the type of hero who would light his foes on fire before quickly dispensing of them with his battle hatchet.

As I further explored the areas surrounding Whiterun, I came to realize that, unless provoked, I wasn’t the bloody magic-wielding savage I set out to be.  I was kind of adverse to conflict in general, so I changed up my strategy again.  Suddenly George became a sneak who sunk ancient Nord arrows into people than asked questions later.  If my opponent wasn’t felled by my well-placed missile, then I’d run in and light them on fire and cut them down.

More so than my combat style, George was fleshed out through my actions in just about every situation I’ve come across.  I am always inherently playing a good guy; not because I think about doing so, but because that’s who I am.  I’m one who will assess things, ponder for a bit on who is right and who is wrong, then give my verdict.  Sometimes things don’t pan out the way I hope they would; but rather than reload a save and try again, I live with my decisions and let the consequences of my action give weight to the world.

But the most definitive bit of gaming I did in Skyrim was the quest I gave myself.

Much like Oblivion, I couldn’t help but pick up just about every book I found and read it.  Most people find a tome hoping to upgrade a skill or trait, then quickly toss it aside and continue plundering whatever fort/cave/wayside attraction they’re at.  I thumb through them for different riches: a deeper appreciation for the lore.  It’s fun to find books that retell your adventures from Oblivion and Morrowind, or rediscover stories that have survived the hundreds of years between Skyrim and those games.  Folk tales, instructive literature, riddles and moral stories all interest me.  But instead of putting a book back that no bandit would likely ever pick up again, I began to amass the collected works of Tamriel’s authors.

Obsessively.

I bought a house in Whiterun and quickly furnished it.  A fire pit, an alchemy lab, a room for my housecarl (whatever that may be) and of course, shelves to be lined with books.  As  I ventured forth, I started a list on my smart phone so that I could be sure if I needed to pick up a book or not.  Reading books within a videogame!?  As Harold Burnett pointed out, that makes me double the nerd I already am.

But it’s a hell of a lot of fun, and the only thing the developers furnished me were the means to read and store a library I created on a whim.  What’s nice is it’s the kind of thing I can do while I go about the business of slaying every dragon, making my mark on Skyrim and yelling “BOOSH!” in dining rooms and watching every piece of flatware and food fly everywhere.

Who says videogames don’t use your imagination?

At the behest of my younger brother and pretty much the entirety of the internet, I decided to give Dark Souls a go.

It’s kind of funny; there was all this buzz surrounding it, and yet I knew next to nothing about the game.  Nobody could explain or describe it succinctly enough for me to draw a bead on what the gist was, only that it was “hard” and, for some people, completely life absorbing.  Curiosity got the best of me, and sure enough, I’m making my way through Lordren with the best of them.

For me, the one word Dark Souls has become synonymous with, hard, is actually a misnomer.  It’s been challenging, mentally engaging and I’ve died plenty of times; but every set back that I’ve had has been my fault and my fault only.  The game is not hard — you just have to play by its rules, not yours.  I think the reason my brother recommended it to me is because I play every game deliberately; unless I’m forced to go in guns blazing, I often sit back and assess situations.  Which, to be honest, is why I’m such a big role-playing game fan in general.

I won’t go so far as to say that gamers have been coddled up to this point, there are plenty of difficult games out there, it just takes a certain fortitude and awareness that people aren’t used to needing when playing a videogame.  You are still a hero and champion in Dark Souls, sure; it’s just that you are a vulnerable and fallible one as well.

The allure of the game comes from learning its systems; discovering the world by taking baby steps.  Death isn’t a hindrance in the traditional sense — it’s a learning tool.  Everything about Dark Souls is steeped in studying your surroundings, exploring the nooks and crannies and engaging in combat to discover what you need to defeat your opponent.  Sometimes these lessons involve running away with your tail between your legs. Or dying.  If the idea of returning to an area to recover your lost souls (the currency used to level up in the game) makes you hate life — you’re doing it wrong.

Being as I rented the game, I don’t have the pleasure of referring to a manual and my insistence on keeping the experience pure I’ve avoided online wikis and FAQs.  That means every inch I gain is an educational experience.  Even things that should be simple like navigating menus, leveling up and equipping gear are fumbled through and learned.  It reminds me of when I rented games back in the NES era, where the only thing keeping me from constant peril were inherent skill, my wits and a willingness to learn from my mistakes.

Strangely, the one thing I haven’t discovered yet is if I actually like Dark Souls.  I can definitely appreciate it for what it does and how it does it…I’m just not sure I have the time to get absorbed into it.  I’d be lying if I didn’t say I play videogames for the sense of accomplishment I get from getting tasks done.  I’d also be lying if I didn’t note that that feeling is lost when you can only play Dark Souls for twenty minutes or so.  I definitely plan on exploring Lordren some more, but I think this is the type of game you pick up when you have a staycation or your family is out of town for a few days.  It’s definitely a commitment; and one I don’t think I can keep right now.

Don’t worry my pyromancer; we’ll find your humanity some day.  Just not today.

Granted, it’s not a full-fledged adventure like his usual outings, but I was excited at the proposition of finally getting to play Four Swords, even if it was by myself.  It was always that lonely bonus attached to the Game Boy Advance version of A Link to the Past whose intro cinematic I watched longingly as I quickly realized I would never get the prerequisite amount of players, Game Boys and link cables to play properly.  Even with the game being offered for free (for a time, anyways) and our handheld gaming devices being untethered, I still lack the most important ingredient to the formula: more players.

It’s striking how different the game is played dependent on how many people you have with you.  It’s normally meant to be a chaotic test of wills as you try to collect the most rupees while remaining civil just long enough to finish the stage.  By yourself it’s something of a puzzle game as you alternate between two Links in a bid to complete the stages while rubbing your tummy and patting your head at the same time.  In the end the former is more satisfying: there’s nothing overly challenging that would keep you motivated as much as trying to outdo your friends would.  I took a leisurely stroll in what should have been a marathon.

Walking when I should have been running has it’s merits though; namely being able to take in the sights and peruse the level design.  It’s a curious mix of dungeons that take in a dash of the exploratory aspects and outdoor aesthetic that you’d normally get from an overworld.  Add to the that the fact that’s it’s also in some ways a competitive arena and you’ve got yourself a pretty unique Zelda game.

Unfortunately, without the myriad colored tunics and swinging swords, the game’s challenge kind of falls flat.  Combat is a little weak in that there aren’t a whole lot of enemies around without any infighting and the bosses are a joke.  A lot of end battles rely on not just your usual pattern memorization but also which colored Link needs to press the attack.  With only two colors to deal with, you can make pretty quick work of every boss; even the almighty wind mage, Vaati.

But I can kind of gloss over that thanks to the nostalgic stages that Grezzo included in addendum to the original GBA release.  To say having worlds based on Link’s Awakening, A Link to the Past and the original Legend of Zelda is fan service is a colossal understatement.  It’s really cool how they retro-fitted existing areas to kind of gel with the Four Swords style.  While they’re pixel-perfect recreations of past glories, the Link’s still remain cartoony, with special care given to make sure they always fit into whatever world they’ve been tossed into.  It’s not often that post-game content is compelling enough to keep me playing, let alone become the highlight of the experience.

Regardless of how well done Four Swords Anniversary Edition is, it can’t mask my disappointment that I’ll probably never get to play it as it was meant to be.  Sure, I’ll probably  play it again when next I see my middle brother next, but that will still only be a sample of it’s true greatness.  But I guess beggars can’t be choosers, at least I got to sample instead of just look at the menu.

The best thing about having a videogame blog is that I can talk about independent games that I enjoyed without my brother poo-pooing them like he does in our phone conversations.

Part of me thinks he does so out of jealously because he’s also a budding indie creator, but I also think a big part of it simply has to do with the fact that he views videogames through a different lens than I. I’m not sure we totally agree to disagree, but it doesn’t matter — this is my blog and I can write what I want!

One game in particular, the hard to pronounce VVVVVV, has a soft spot in my heart. It’s a brilliant and punishing platforming game, but also one that reminds me of this collection of odd floppy disk-based games that mysteriously showed up at our house one day when my parents got their first computer. It was a time when owning one was a rarity; where towers were called such because that’s how big they were, where the most exciting part about it was you could get software to do your taxes and if you were patient you could see a screen shots of Super NES games before Nintendo Power had them on this thing called the internet.

But my fondest memories of that beast of a Tandy were these one-hundred free floppy disks my Pop got somewhere, with software ranging from bicycle repair pamphlets to study guides for learning Portuguese. But the best software was the games. There was this ASCII version of Dracula in London that I adored, a pretty spiffy pinball game and an odd (and probably copyright infringing) version of Mega Man. They weren’t much to look at or technologically competent, but damn were they fun.

So what does that have to do with VVVVVV? Between it’s simple mechanic hook and monochromatic beauty, the moment I booted it up it felt like I found a lost floppy.

What makes VVVVVV, and any platformer really, special is that it takes the established formula and tweaks it just enough to make it feel unique. In this case, instead of being able to jump, you have the ability to flip your character, Viridian. At fist blush it doesn’t look like much, but actually playing it gives you the sense that it takes a certain deftness and control to manage. In later areas that sense turns into quick realization that precision is everything.

You’re only given one “hit” as it where, but you instantly come back to life at the nearest checkpoint. While I can appreciate the conceit, it’s also the only way VVVVVV would ever properly function. While the challenge of having three lives is taken from you and you can die as often as you’d like (or dislike, as it were), there’s a counter in the pause menu that reminds you of how many times you screwed up. It’s a great concession for both those who want to play it casually and those who want a stiff challenge.

I also found it interesting that the game is set in an open world, more than slightly like Metroid. There are traditional stages where you have to rescue your remaining crew, but you have to find them first. The open areas are vast and a bit lifeless, but there is the occasional shiny trinket to plunder. I like that it feels lonely traversing the dual-toned world, it sets an interesting mood. It also gives you those warm fuzzies when you’re back in your ship and you can chat with those you’ve rescued or view your trinkets. It’s nice to have a home base, a central location of safety. Also not coincidentally similar to Samus’ ride in Super Metroid.

I loved VVVVVV on the PC, but eventually got stuck because I couldn’t get the precision I wanted out of WASD. But once it was ported to the 3DS everything clicked. Not just because of the controls, but because the ability to quick save made it a perfect pick-up-and-play game that I was more likely to turn on in bed than I would on my computer (there are too many people in my house using the same PC for me to consistently game on it). Add to that a bunch of user created levels by the likes of the games composer and the creator of Minecraft and you have a pretty robust package.

So yes Luke — I called you out. Maybe VVVVVV is a simple concept created by one guy that got more buzz than it deserved. Or maybe it’s a simple concept created by one guy that’s more fun than it has any right to be.

]]> http://mhmason.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/veni-vidi-vicious/feed/ 2 mhmason VVVVVV http://mhmason.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/from-f-to-zero-in-sixty-seconds/ http://mhmason.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/from-f-to-zero-in-sixty-seconds/#comments Sun, 12 Feb 2012 16:30:45 +0000 Matt Mason http://mhmason.wordpress.com/?p=2432 ]]>
[NOTE: I took this post down because it didn't hit the critical analysis I wanted at the time; but now that I've gone back to first-person writing it seems apt again. I played F-Zero the other day and the feelings are still the same.]

It’s funny that, for the first stop on my trip down memory lane, I played a game I don’t really have any sentimentality for.

I always wanted F-Zero, it just never graced my Super NES with it’s Mode-7 antics.  The closest I ever got was an advert-poster I happily hung on my wall from another Nintendo published game I had.  But this is the brilliance of the Virtual Console: I could go back and play those games I missed out on.  Legally.  Unfortunately, there was something missing in the special sauce — nostalgia.

I’ll admit that fondness will play a part in my articles; anything I haven’t played before won’t have the luxury of rose-tinted glasses, meaning its game play has to hold up to the test of time.  And while I can admire F-Zero a little bit more now than I did the first time I played it a few years back, it’s still kind of broken.

The most obvious flaw is that there’s no option for multiplayer.  In a racing game!  That’s like playing a platformer with no gaps to jump across or playing a fighting game with no opponent.  Well, you get my point.  The real reason I miss being able to split the screen and race another person is because the rules of engagement with the AI is cheap and unforgiving.

In general I’m not someone who enjoys hard games, but there’s a difference between me losing because the competition is stiff and me losing because there’s a different standard between what I’m able to do and what my competition can do.  I also understand that during that era creating competitors that feel real was out of the question, but that doesn’t make their immaculate racing any less irritating.  Beyond their ability to follow the perfect line through a course, things like the fact that they don’t have to go through a pit stop or that they never hit a drone makes it feel like an uphill battle every time.  Figuratively, that is.  Mode-7 didn’t do hills…n’stuff.

It was such a hindrance that I didn’t even bother to try and finish the game.  My boiling point was reached when I was in a snowy stage in the second circuit and every time I tried to hit a specific jump, a rival racer would bump me off course and I would careen out of bounds to my death.  This happened almost ten times.  Being a father, I have the patience of a monk; but even that couldn’t help me get past Captain Falcon’s dirty tactics.
Which sucks, because I loved the course design.  They’re very tight in that it never felt out of place that there were ninety degree angled turns, jump pads and side bars that slowed you down; sometimes all at once.  And the cars handle quite well, too.  It didn’t take me long to get a grip on it, proficiently using my power slide and brakes to handle any situation.  Well, except for unintentionally malicious opponents who would ping-pong me across the barriers leaving me with not enough health to make it to the pit stop to recharge my shields.

I’m sorry, that sounded kind of bitter.  Was that bitter?  OK, I’m a little bitter.

But that’s only because I really wanted to like F-Zero.  The idea of racing at insane speeds in a futuristic setting is still appealing to me and the fact that there’s a back story and lore to it’s universe makes it stick out from it’s competition.  Alas, the actual game feels unfair and unforgiving.  It’s too bad it didn’t turn out to be half as cool as I thought it looked on that poster.

One of the benefits (of which there are many) to growing up in a ghost town with a population of like ten is that you can walk into the local saloon without anyone batting an eye. My parents either didn’t care or weren’t worried, the owners of said bar even less so and the closest authorities that could possibly give me a stern talking to were no less than twenty miles away. I never went in to partake in underage imbibing (which would have made this story much cooler), rather I went in to toss the cue ball into the holes of  a very worn pool table or I’d gaze longingly into the fuzzy embrace of the Galaga machine tucked in between a impaired pinball machine and some flipped over tables. OK, so the place was something of a cafe (which ruins the ambiance of my story) during the daytime so there’s no cause for alarm, but it had a bar and I was in it, so let me live my fantasy!

I was the best Galaga player in town. Which isn’t saying much as I never fed the thing any quarters; instead living vicariously through the demo that played after the title screen stopped blinking in its plea for you to put a coin in it. For most it was a way to learn the mechanics or entice you into feeding it. For me it was a way to stretch my imagination, pretending there was a story going on beyond just shooting aliens.

When Galaga released on Xbox Live Arcade, I jumped on the opportunity to relive and actually play it and without any burn-in to boot. I also quickly discovered that I most likely was not the best Galaga player in Rochford…or anywhere else for that matter.

What I lose in confidence I gained in appreciation for the nuance and strategy that’s still as fun today as it was thirty years ago when it was innovative.

Not that I have any experience with Space Invaders, but Galaga seemed to take its core and soup it up to the nth degree. Well, as souped as anything could get in 1981. The aliens taunt you by flying erratically towards you before lining up on the top of the screen for the traditional battle formation. They also used the same loopy patterns as they close in on you, giving it a seeming randomness that I never saw in Space Invaders. But its claim to fame were the bosses, whom could swoop down and suck up one of your ships.

I’ll be honest; it still gives me the willies when it happens. Back in the day the thought of losing a precious ship and not getting the full extent of my quarter was terrifying. It’s compounded by the fact that your previous ride becomes this mean looking red doppelganger which makes you freak out, either in anger or fear. It was a long time before I realized that this was a key strategy in Galaga; because if you can save your ship, it flies alongside you and you get double the artillery. It was a gutsy maneuver; something akin to Luke firing into that little porthole on the Death Star. If done properly it’s a game changer. If not you may lose the only quarter you have.

It loses some of its impact when you have free play turned on, but it opened up Galaga in a way that let me be a bit more brazen and try new things. It also opens the door to the fact that I spent $5 on a pixel-perfect rendition (replete with sweet cabinet art) of something that cost thousands in an arcade.

Funnily enough, I still like to watch the demo reel play, the leader board scroll by as well as the point total for each enemy. I can’t muster up the imagination to conjure up fan fiction on the fly anymore, but the thought that I used to is enough to put a smile on my face anyways.

]]> http://mhmason.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/its-pronounced-gal-luh-guh/feed/ 2 mhmason Galaga http://mhmason.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/imagination-improv/ http://mhmason.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/imagination-improv/#comments Sat, 11 Feb 2012 22:15:02 +0000 Matt Mason http://mhmason.wordpress.com/?p=2530 ]]>

While every else is talking about how Double Fine crowd source funded their next game, I’m content knowing I contributed to their well-being by buying the game they released last week.

More importantly though, it’s the type of software that finally gets my little boys into the Kinect they got from Santa the other month. It’s supposed to be this stop-gap tech that gets people who don’t normally play videogames in by removing the complexity of a controller, and in some ways it works in that way, but for the most part it has it’s own hurdles and difficulties. Especially when you’re trying to get a three- and two-year-old involved in the action.

When you remove the demands and rules often associated with it being a “game” and instead tailor experiences to what’s going on, you get Double Fine Happy Action Theater.

It offers various stages (in a more literal sense of the term) that you can just play with. My kids likened it to the blue screen at Chuck E. Cheese’s, only you’re affecting what’s going on around you as much as you are goofing around with what’s on the screen. And really, that’s all they need.

It’s been referred to at the house as “my game”, which inevitably ends up with the boys playing in lava. Every time. While I like to spice things up when playing DJ with the controller, I can get a lot of work done just by leaving them to swim in virtual magma. What makes the lava field, an all the other stage for that matter, so much fun is how it plays with your expectations of what you can do. You can interact with things on screen and in turn use that to interact with each other.

For instance, you can light your hands on fire and toss fireballs. Doing so adds a lighting effect that differentiates space and distance. You can throw said fireball at someone else and they’ll turn to ash and disappear from the screen for a few moments. One time while wrestling with my two-year-old, I was ignited and exploded in a puff of dust, while it looked like Breckin was floating in the air.  As a tech demo, Happy Action Theater impresses.

Barring the special effects, what’s more entertaining is just playing, pretending and messing around. While I appreciate the technology used, my kids appreciate that it’s basically a virtual playground for them to run wild in. Whether trying to avoid the molten rock by jumping on the couch or reenacting that Anakin/Obi-Wan fight from Revenge of the Sith, they’ve invented their own fun. It’s not often you can say that about electronic entertainment. Most pundits even go so far as to say it robs kids of their imagination, actually.

Some stages get more mileage than others. The more game-like ones are often pushed to the wayside for the more free form ones. But there isn’t a bad one in the bunch that doesn’t get played at all. And I’ll be honest, finding the achievements has been all the game I really needed out of this. With the exception of the last one on my list (which I will get because I looked and have a gaggle of people in my house to obtain), most of them were found with deductive reasoning or just plain luck. Regardless, all are funnily titled and rewarding to get.

I didn’t think Double Fine Happy Action Theater would be a bad bit of software, but I am surprised at how long it’s legs are. “My game” has been played almost nightly for the last two weeks. I’m hoping that’s as helpful to Double Fine as every one pitching in to their Kickstarter.

]]> http://mhmason.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/imagination-improv/feed/ 0 mhmason Double Fine Happy Action Theater http://mhmason.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/treasures-from-the-man-cave-circle-pad-pro/ http://mhmason.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/treasures-from-the-man-cave-circle-pad-pro/#comments Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:41:27 +0000 Matt Mason http://mhmason.wordpress.com/?p=2513 ]]> The Circle Pad Pro, or as it’s been affectionately dubbed on the internet Frankenstick, is the red-headed stepchild of the Nintendo family.

It’s there and it exists…but Nintendo doesn’t pay it any mind. It’s an obvious piece of  transitional tech that jury-rigs the blatant omission of a second analog stick. There’s no doubt that a 3DS redesign is in the works, but Nintendo is loathe to admit it in fear of another backlash; but they’re also want to make sure original adopters aren’t left in the cold when the transition happens. Thus: Frankenstick.

I picked one up because A) I wanted to future-proof my 3DS because I know there’ll eventually be “that game” that I want that uses it and B) because it would make the 3DS more ergonomic, something I didn’t see as relevant until I got numb thumbs from Mario Kart 7. I love my turquoise gaming machine even though it’s terribly designed and am not afraid to admit I’m becoming fond of that ugly piece of kit that helps it fit into my man hands.

Regardless of aesthetics, my 3DS now feels good in my hands. The Circle Pad Pro is rounded on the sides in a way that my fingers fit in it snugly, with a ridge on the top (similar to the Wii U controller design) that helps with keeping the system upright. The new button and triggers also feel pretty good, a weird in between to a DualShock and an Xbox 360 controller. Where as the face buttons are now more comfortable, the second circle pad is relegated to the uncomfortable position to the far right. Surprisingly it hasn’t been an issue with the Resident Evil: Revelations demo because the triggers become the main buttons, but it could be a problem down the road as there’s a disconnect when you’re subliminally trained to have your face buttons and analog stick in the opposite spot.

I’ve only noticed a couple of downsides to the Circle Pad Pro. The first is that when it’s on it covers both the slots for game cards and the stylus. Not a big deal as I’m not one to constantly swap games and any title that uses this probably doesn’t need the stylus; but again, could be an annoyance down the road. The other is that, unless a game is specifically built for the Circle Pad Pro, you can’t use the additional buttons for other games. I would have loved to use the triggers in Mario Kart 7 for what would be a close to perfect play style. There should be no reason you can’t customize your play style at this point, which makes this feel like an oversight.

Is the Circle Pad Pro gawky, unwieldy and atrocious to look at? Absolutely. Does it serve it’s function admirably? Most definitely. I’ll be honest: I don’t play my 3DS out in public, so portability and being seen with it aren’t an issue. And I’m not interested in buying the redesigned 3DS no matter how slick it is because it’s just not economical for me. Frankenstick gives me the functionality I’ll eventually need and lets me play without getting hand cramps. To me, that’s worth the fugliness.