I appreciate when games are hard and challenging. That is especially true when the difficulty has a meaning, a reason, a point to the madness. But when a game is just plain ridiculously hard for the sake of being hard, I have a hard time accepting it. When a game is hard to cover up missing aspects of the game, like depth, graphics, game play or the fun factor, then I just plain and simple don't want to anything to do with something like that. I say that provisionally and conditionally, as one of the fondest games of my childhood and a game I still hold near and dear to my heart falls under this category of games I usually won't touch with a 10 foot pole. Adventures of Dino Riki, for the original NES, almost ruined my childhood memories for video games, but looking back, it is one of the games I remember the most. I was rage quitting video games before "rage quitting" was a thing. It was a game that I dumped several, several hours in, all in hopes of one day beating it. It wasn't a long game, it wasn't a great game, and it was barely considered a fun game, but damn, was it a hard game. I honestly can't even remember how long it took me to finally beat the game (all 6 levels of it), but I remember that moment when I finally did. I had played it all morning, lost several times over and over again, until finally - FINALLY - I had the PERFECT run. And a perfect run is exactly what is needed to beat this frustrating game, as once you lose your lives and continues, it's all back to square one. And that can happen in a blink of an eye. Once I beat the final boss, I expected a huge celebration and the best end-game cut scene EVER. Instead, the game simply starts over from the first level, only at an elevated difficulty, as if the game wasn't hard enough. This pattern, apparently, just continues forever. I have never even come close to beating the game a second time through, and I don't even remember getting past the first or second level of the second play through. A second play through, just harder? Really? That's all I get for throwing hours of my precious childhood away? I hate you, Dino Riki. But I love you oh so much, for reasons I'll never be able to explain. I randomly thought about this game today, as I do from time to time, for no apparent reason whatsoever. And thus, I played it for my blog tonight. I didn't play it to try and beat it, because after not touching it for so long (I play it once every few years or so), there is no way to regain "perfect run form" just in a couple of tries. I played it to remind myself why I hate stupidly hard games with no purpose. I played it to remember my childhood, and how this game almost broke me of my love for video games before it ever was fully established. And I played it to try to understand what the hell it is that makes me love this game so much. Guess what? I didn't beat it, it's still harder than it should be, I'm glad it didn't make me hate video games forever, and I still have no idea why I love the game. I don't even remember why I originally got the game in the first place back in the day, and now, I don't have idea why I love it. I honestly don't. Maybe I am a glutton for punishment? Maybe I just played the game so much that I fell in love with it based solely on quantity of quality. No, I didn't beat it tonight. Not even close. I suppose I could have fired up the Game Genie and dispatched the game quickly and painlessly, but that is the equivalent of getting a henna tattoo instead of the real thing. It's painless and anyone can do it, but in the end, the excitement wears off quicker than you would hope, and there is no long-lasting satisfaction. A real tattoo, however, hurts, but you can always show it off as a symbol of whatever you want it to mean - a badge of honor, if you will. Dino Riki is my tattoo. I may not have full sleeves, but I have a couple that I am proud to say I got the hard way. I can't quit you, Dino Riki. I love you, and always will ... you hard SOB, you.
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I can't say I had high expectations for this game going in to it. For the most part, I wanted to try it out to play with my seven year old, as we had a lot of fun during our week of Halo, and ever since then, he has been clamoring to play more and more games. While we are still making our way through the Halo 4 campaign co-op, he asks me almost daily to play something on the Wii U. Lately, the only thing I have played on the Wii U has been BIT.TRIP presents Runner 2, but that is a one player experience. Due to the ridiculous lack of new games, my Wii U is going mostly underplayed, except for the few games I have played on it for this bog project. He would be happy playing NintendoLand, to be honest, but U just haven't found the motivation. Please, Nintendo, give me a reason not to regret buying this damn machine. And do it soon! Anyway, enough griping, let's get to the game. Like I said, I didn't have high hopes for the game going in, based on reviews and the fact that it is a port from an Xbox Kinect game, of all things. A Kinect game being ported to other systems? What is this world coming to? Understandable that my expectations were tempered quite a bit. Right off the bat, I found the menu confusing, and swore I was pushing the wrong buttons as we tried to get a 2-player campaign mode started. Unbeknownst to the me, the game is all pretty much the same no matter what mode you have it on. It's a two-on-two tag-team style fighting game, with limited move sets and confusing meters. I actually jumped back and forth between the campaign mode and arcade mode to try to figure out what the hell I was playing. Turns out, the campaign mode is just a glorified arcade mode with a couple cut-scenes and predetermined match-ups. There are three Super Moves for each character, a melee attack, a kick attack and a limited range of movements. That's it. If you are using the GamePad, you use finger swipe motions and on-screen buttons to execute the moves, but if you are the lucky player to wield the Wii Motion+ controller/Nunchuck combination, you are basically resigned to frantically waiving the controller all over the place in a feasible attempt to pull off moves. I will offer this caveat to the discussion, though: my seven year old LOVED using the controller combo, and had to stand up to play just because of how much he was getting into the punching combos and move motions, keeping him from slamming the controller against the couch over and over again. Me? Not interested in that type of game play at all, but it's pretty clear, based on the difficulty and lack of depth, that this game is geared towards kids in his age range than it is gaming adults like myself. I can appreciate that for what it is, actually. They have a nice selection of characters, from all of the Avengers, some X-men, Spidey and even some Marvel villains. All the characters pretty much play the same, despite having different attribute points. One other cool thing is the ranking system for each match, which goes: bronze, silver, gold and then Adamantium (instead of the normal platinum). Nice touch, there. Anyway, in just a couple of hours, we got about 3/4 through the "campaign," and while I was bored and frustrated at first, the game actually grew on me and I enjoyed it for what it was. Plus, seeing how much my little guy enjoyed it, how could I really hate the game? Of course, little sister wanted to get into the action, but she eventually conceded her attempt to get a turn and instead just enjoyed mimicking all the catch phrases and eventually just started stomping around like Hulk. She was a happy camper. We will probably finish up the game this weekend, and then call it good. I wish I could say this is the game to get me out of my Wii U funk, but it's not. At least it will keep Caleb off my back for a little bit about it. Two months. I honestly can not believe it has been two months since I started this project. Even more so, I can't believe I have successfully kept it going for two months. After that first, rough week where I felt like I was going to die from the sickness of death, I thought for sure it was going to crash and burn in a horrible, fiery wreck before ever really getting off the ground. Good thing about that, if it did happen, was that no one would have noticed or cared, or missed it once it was gone.
Two months later, that is no longer the case. I am proud to say I have built up a nice little readership here at The Noyse, as people seem genuinely interested in my attempt to play a new game every day for an entire year and then ramble on about it in some form or fashion. Honestly though, I can't hardly take any credit for doing anything to build the fan base up, other than to fall into some dumb luck. If it wasn't for the amazing support I have gotten from some really awesome people and sites, I would still be writing this for my own amusement. If you want to know who all is helping me along in this journey, head over to the "SUPPORT" page and check out the friends of The Noyse, and please, check out what they are doing with their own sites and projects. Two months in, 59 games down, and boy, has it been fun. I am experiencing, playing and rediscovering games in a way that was never possible before this project. Sure, it's not all sunshine and rainbows, as I have made some sacrifices for the sake of keeping the project going as planned. For one, my sleep is almost non-existent at this point, managing a few mere hours a night. I've always been a nocturnal night owl, and have battled with insomnia most of my life. But choosing to stay up and feeling forced to stay up to accomplish something are two different feelings, and the latter scenario seems to be more physically and mentally draining. Also, I find that I am almost doing more damage to my gaming ADD condition, as finishing games feels harder and more overwhelming before, due to having to play other games in addition to the ones I am trying to finish. Of course, that could have a lot to do with all the amazing and fun games that have come out and will be coming out in the next couple of months. Two months and still going strong. I have a few more editorials to go along with my PS4 announcement reaction article that I hope to get out soon. Like I tweeted out today, I am finding it hard to balance my available free time with stuff I want to write and games I need to play. But I promise to get them out. I want to write more than just the daily blogs, and show a little versatility. Two months is still a long way from a complete year - 1/6 of the way, to be exact. Yet I am already starting to think about, plan and worry what will happen come January 1st, 2014. By then, I hope to have something sturdy in place to keep on doing, well, something. I don't quite know what, but I do know that I don't want to just pack up my opinions and leave the wonderful community starting to form. So we will see. I know it's only two months, but the last 10 will go quicker than you think, and quicker than I want them to, for sure. Thank you all, for two months of support. All I can hope for is that I will continue to deliver blog postings worthy of your time to read on a daily basis, and that if you do enjoy what I am trying to do, you pass it on to people who might also appreciate it. I can't just keep writing about the last two months, however. I do have the first post to write for March. While I need to take time to reflect on what's happened thus far, that clock keeps ticking and the calendar keeps turning over daily. Here we go... |
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February 2014
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