Don't worry, I already know what you are thinking and/or wondering. Why in the world would I select Wii Sports, of all the possible games in the world, to play for my 100th game of this blog? Well, because I have a really good story for it, actually. As I wrote about before, there was a couple-year period of my life where I took a sabbatical from video games completely. I was on a total gaming hiatus, and I don't mean not playing any games, but not even owning a single video game or system. I was completely clean. When I started dating the love of my life back then, she had no idea how much I loved video games, because I was game-free at the time. After we moved in together, she started to find out a little bit about my love for games. When the Nintendo Wii was announced, I hardly knew anything about it, or cared for that matter. I knew it was a new Nintendo system, and it some weird new type of controller, but that's pretty much it. The day it came out, I remember her and I were at Toys R Us, doing some early Christmas shopping. They had some right there on the shelves, and I said, "Oh, that's cool. I didn't even know it was out yet." And that's all I said about the system, ever. Until Christmas morning, when I received the best Christmas I have ever gotten in my life. You see, that Christmas, I opened up a present from her, and couldn't believe what I saw. It was a Wii! By this time, the Wii was all over the news and national media, and it was common knowledge that these gaming systems were pretty much impossible to get anywhere, considering the supply and demand and the holiday shopping rush. But there one was, in my hands, bought by the best woman in the world. I asked her how she managed to get one. To be blunt, we were still very early in our relationship with two kids, and didn't have a lot of disposable income at the time. Turns out she had been saving up her tips from the restaurant she worked at during the nights, so as not to effect the money we had for Christmas presents for the kids and such. If that was the only amazing part of the story, it would still be awesome, but oh no, that amazingness doesn't stop there! So then she told me the story of how she actually got the Wii. One day she went to Best Buy to buy me one. They told her they were sold out, but they were getting a shipment that coming Saturday. Come Saturday, she headed down there early with our youngest boy who had just turned one about a month before then. It was a cold, rainy morning, and when she showed up, she was completely shocked to see a massive line waiting outside. She had no idea what she was getting in to, but she was hell bound on getting this Wii for me. She in line she waited, for a couple of hours, with a one year old in the pouring rain. Some kind people in line even bought her a hot chocolate to share with the little guy, because apparently he was super cranky and not enjoying the thrill of waiting in line. Finally, after a long wait, the Best Buy employees came out and started passing out tickets to purchase a new Wii. They, of course, only had a limited amount to sell, so this was their way of keeping track and avoiding madness inside the store. When they got to the people in front of her, they gave out their last ticket. Yeah. Talk about the worst luck ever. She almost broke down. She asked them if there was anything they could do, pleaded her case and played the guilt card to the extreme, making sure they knew how long she was out there with a baby just to buy this game system for the guy she loved. They radioed the employees in the store, asked if there was any extra Wiis laying around the back, and after a long, long wait, finally got the good news that they had one to spare, and she would get it. Lucky her. And lucky me. To this day, because of everything that went in to getting it, that Christmas present remains the best present I've ever gotten (aside from the ring she gave me that belonged to her dad before he died - but that's a completely different ballgame there). So tonight, I played Wii Sports, the game that came packed in with every Wii. I bowled, only because that's the best game on there, and it was fun, But it was more about reliving the good times than it was the game itself. I love this woman, through thick and thin, only because of amazing things like this she has done unselfishly for eight years now. Despite her not being a fan of video games at all, she has still allowed me to enjoy this passion of mine, especially after she enabled me to do so in the first place. Sometimes it's hard to see what you have until you take the time to stop and look.
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So it's crazy to think that this is the last double-digit of the blog, as we have officially reached 99 on this crazy whirlwind of a year-long project. I wish I could say I played a bunch of games today and I have an amazing blog to write, but alas, the real world has kind of slowed down my gaming. Today is Tuesday, however, which means new games and the PSN store update! Since no new games came out today that I know of, I turned to the PSN store to pick up a new game. Actually, because of the awesome PS+ service, I received a free game as well, but we'll save that one for a later date. Tonight, let's get to the good stuff - Guacamelee! In buying Guacamelee!, I received both versions of it for both my PS3 and my Vita, thanks to the continuously awesome cross-buy promotions. At this point, despite the issues the Vita has had, the cross-buy feature of several games have made it an amazing handheld system. Sure, they aren't making as much by giving away games for free, but seriously, is there any better way to reward and thank the Sony fans who have invested in both systems? So anyway, tonight I played Guacamelee! on the Vita, only because of being portable and me not being able to console game again tonight. It is a super fun, stylish game from what I have played so far. It's a beat'em up platformer, with beautiful and engaging graphics and art style, fun and delightful music and a certain charm that isn't easily captured in games these days. You must remember though, this game comes from the same studio that brought the Vita one of its standout downloadable titles at launch, Tales From Space: When Mutant Blobs Attack. DrinkBox Studios knows what they are doing when developing these oddly charming Vita titles, and it's refreshing that Sony is not cornering them into just the Vita market, by putting this game on the PS3 as well. They deserve all the recognition they can get at this point. I love collecting things in game, which this game has plenty of. I love the Metroidvania style of game where you are free to go anywhere on the map as long as your abilities/weapons/tools allow you to, and if you don't have the proper upgrade yet, you can always come back and explore the previously blocked-off section, I also enjoy quirkiness and unique humor, and this game oozes it. If you have a PS3 or a Vita, or both, go buy this game now. PS+ members even get a discount on it this week, making it even harder to resist. Go support the great indie studios, folks! Sorry in advance for making this a somewhat brief post, but I don't know how much time or mental energy I will have later on, so it's this or nothing. And since "nothing" isn't really an option, you'll just have to deal with it. Because y'all love me, of course. Anyway, i played a little bit of Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken today on my PS Vita, mainly just to clear my head and try to focus on something else other than real life problems. I played this game a little bit on my vacation to Disneyland, and I kinda of liked it then, and I kind of liked it today. It's a 2.5D platformer, as the kids are calling this kind of genre these days, where it's not quite 3D but it's more than the standard, flat 2D experience. You play as a chicken, whom from what I gather, has a serious bone to pick with an army of other chickens and birds, who are stylized a bit to look kind of like Nazis. Bold move, but effective in making them clearly the enemy of the game. In actuality, the game feels and reminds me a lot of Shank or Shank 2, if you are familiar with those games. It's actually quite violent too, considering it's a lot of bird-on-bird violence. More so than I expected, I guess. It's not a bad thing, it's just a thing. So yeah, it's available on the PSN for both the PS3 and the Vita, although I think they are bot exactly the same game, but quite similar. They aren't cross-buy either, so watch out for that, since the PS3 version came out long before the Vita version did. If you're looking for a shoot'em up 2.5D platformer, especially if you have a thing for poultry, this game is right up your alley. When I upgraded to my new, beautiful Nintendo 3DS Xl a couple weeks back, I also got a pretty cool reward for doing so. You see, Nintendo, the company that loves its customers, started a promotion that if you register your new 3DS or XL on their Club Nintendo website, along with either Luigi's mansion of Pokemon Rumble Blast as well, you would receive a free download voucher for one of a handful of games from the eShop. I'm not talking about the little titles, but rather full retail games, just in a downloadable version. The game I selected, based on what games I already had and what games actually interested me, was Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask. This weekend has been completely inundated with BioShock Infinite, but we did head over to the in-laws for dinner this afternoon, meaning it was portable handheld gaming time. Usually I bring along my Vita, but because I am no longer on my 3DS protest, I brought my XL instead. I played some more of Luigi's Mansion, which is getting better with every level I get to, but I also fired up Professor Layton for the first time. I've played a Layton game before, and I really enjoyed it because of it's puzzles. Today, I rediscovered my love for the game's puzzles - and that's about it. Sure, it looks beautiful. The characters and charming and engaging. But honestly, I just couldn't get into the story at all. I tried and tried, and maybe it seemed drawn out and lengthy because it was the start of the game, but I found myself skipping through the text dialogue just to get to the game play. In Layton, the puzzles pop up as you encounter characters in the game. The puzzles range in difficulty, but they are all challenging and force you to actually think, even the easiest ones. I got through several puzzles today in my play time, which were very satisfying. I wish I could tell you what the actual story was about, but I can't I think it might have something to do with a Miracle Mask ... but that's just a shot in the dark. In short, I kind of just wish they would make a Professor Layton game of just puzzles. Market it as a daily brain trainer or something like that, and I would bite hard on that (since my Smart As... game didn't hold my interest as long as I hoped it would). The Professor Layton games are wonderfully perfect for gaming on the go. Especially when you can't stop thinking about the BioShock Infinite storyline. Now THAT'S a puzzle! I have been waiting for this weekend all week practically. Well, at least since Tuesday evening, when we got back from our Disneyland. Aside from sheer exhaustion and the lack of time to let my body catch up, combined with a lingering sinus infection that I just haven't been able to kick, I frankly just haven't had time to get some serious console gaming time in. And that has made me sad, especially since all I have wanted to do was play BioShock Infinite. Well, today I played BioShock. I played a lot of it. Actually, I had an almost six hour marathon of it. If I wasn't such a tedious and narcotic collector/scavenger/explorer, I would have probably gotten a little further in the story, but that's neither here nor there, as they say. (Do they actually still use that term, or does it seem dated to you, to?) Anyway, I got to a few particular storyline plot points in BioShock that threw my head for a loop, and I just needed a break from it all. I needed a pallet cleanser. And what better way to clear your head and just relax than with the only "sport" that absolutely relies on sheer mental toughness and thinking ability - golf. So I played the new Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 14 game. Did you notice that I put sport in quotation marks up there? Why did I do that, you ask? Well, that's me paying homage to possibly my favorite comedian of all time, the late great George Carlin. You see, he had some very opinionated and somewhat controversial thoughts on what should and shouldn't be considered a sport. He believed there are only three true sports: baseball, basketball and football. Everything else, he said, is either a game or an activity. "And finally welcome to golf. For my full take on golf, I refer you elsewhere in the book, but let it just be said golf is a game that might possibly be fun, if it could be played alone. But it's the vacuous, striving, superficial, male-bonding joiners one has to associate with that makes it such a repulsive pastime. And it is decidedly not a sport. Period." So what was his full take on golf, you might be wondering? Well, I just so happened to find a video version of his complete thoughts on the activity that is golf. PLEASE NOTE: The following video is NSWF as it does contain strong language. It is George Carlin, after all. With all that being said, yes, I played a golf game. And surprisingly to some (since apparently everyone on the interwebs think I totally despise the Xbox 360, despite using it 22 times now for this blog), I did play Tiger Woods 14 on the Xbox 360 tonight. I did not however, play using the Kinect sensor, as I refuse to have a potentially good game ruined by bad technology.
Thankfully I chose that route, because I honestly enjoyed what I played. It's been a couple years since I have played a Tiger Woods game, so I had to refresh myself on the controls, which shockingly enough, did so quite effectively using a well thought-out tutorial mode. After my tutorial, I jumped into a tournament round, the Sunday of The Masters. I chose Tiger Woods (because really, who else would I pick?) and decided to go head-to-head against Rory McIlroy. The leader board showed us two tied with a third player for the lead, although the third guy had already finished his round, meaning all we had to do was finish one stroke or more better than him and our playing partner to win. The course is spot on Augusta, for those of you who know anything about golf. Myself, I don't tend to watch hardly any golf except the major tournaments, or if I need a good nap on a weekend. I started off the round pretty good, but because the tutorial only showed me how to hit the ball and didn't include a putting section (unless there was an option I missed), that's where my game fell apart. I left put after put short of the cup by inches. Just when I thought I had a good put, I messed it up somehow. Now I'm sure that with putting, just like in real golf, practice makes perfect, but come on now! This was the final round of the Masters! There was no time to practice! Long story short, despite my fantastic tee shots, my struggling putting game forced me to lose by a couple of strokes. I guess that's pretty much par for the course though for Tiger Woods now days, right? After that short-game debacle, I tried out the Legends of the Masters mode, where you go back in time and recreate specific and significant events that have helped shaped golf into what it is today, all while playing as iconic and legendary golfers. You can skip back and forth between eras, but you can't advance to the next challenge in a particular era until the current objective is met. Also, the game looks like the era it's played in, meaning the very first ones are displayed in sepia with a grainy look to the video quality. It's actually really well done and ropes you into the era you're in. Golfers are also dressed accordingly. There are also boss-battle type of challenges, where you are put up against a particular legend that you unlock once you complete the given challenge. It's a great addition to a gaming franchise that probably was starting to suffer from the annualized-game feel. Overall, I enjoyed what I played, and could see myself playing more of it. Too bad it wasn't a sports game, however. For tonight's game and blog posting to accompany it, I chose to play one of my most favorite games from the last few years - Bastion. I heard it brought up on a podcast I was listening to today, which seems to be a major source of inspiration for the games I pick these days, and so I decided to go back and revisit it. When I played it for the first time, I had no idea I would fall in love with it the way I did. Going back and playing it again tonight, I felt that same charm and allure that I did back then, which is comforting and energizing, as well as refreshing to know that it wasn't just a fling I had with the game, but instead, a true love. I want to do something different for this blog post, however. I want to share with you all the review that I wrote for it back when it was released, because honestly, I can't recapture how I felt about the game as well tonight as I did back then. I wrote with pure affinity and admiration for what I played and experienced, and so, I want to share that with you all. Remember, I wrote this when the game came out, so keep that in mind as you read it, for context purposes. Hope you enjoy! Every story has a beginning. Every game needs a narrator… The annual Xbox Live “Summer of Arcade” event kicked off this year with a surprising title called Bastion, a game that not only shatters expectations of “Arcade” titles, but comes dangerously close to breaking down the fourth wall as it’s known in the process.
Bastion is classified as an action RPG game, and that was my first concern. Admittedly, I am not much of a fan of games from that genre, so going in I had reservations about the game play. Seeing previews of the game beforehand, I knew what to expect, and I was hoping the gorgeous visual design and ever-so-intriguing narrator would be enough to make up for the style of game it actually was. My somewhat low expectations were quickly smashed within the first few moments from the game, and by the time my character first stepped foot on The Bastion (a floating battle hub, if you will), I had already forgotten what I was worried about in the first place. You play as a character known simply as “The Kid,” and the game starts off with you waking up on a floating rock. As you wiggle the joystick to move for the first time, the narrator who just got done explaining that every story has a beginning, somehow notices that you have awoken and gotten up. In his raspy, Marlboro Man voice, he begins to not just narrate the story, but narrate The Kid’s every action. As the ground begins to form under your feet from the world down below, the narrator walks you through every step of your journey. The seamless transition from how he is seemingly explaining to The Kid what his purpose of being there is, to almost talking to you, the player, what The Kid is encountering, is nothing short of spectacular. And don’t think the narrator is just there to streamline the story … he will comment on all aspects of the game play. If you accidently roll off the ledge of the floating pathway, the narrator will chime in, saying something like, “They have meant to build guard rails there…” or “… and The Kid falls to his death. Just kidding…” (as you reappear back on the path, slightly lower in health). One time I got carried away smashing everything I could to collect some extra fragments (the main currency in the game.) After a while of smashing and not advancing the story, the narrator interrupted the mayhem, saying, “The Kid keeps on smashing everything in sight … like he is going to get a special reward for doing so.” Needless to say, I immediately stopped my destruction spree and moved along, feeling almost shameful for keeping the narrator from doing his job, like I had interrupted the flow of his story for my own guilty pleasure. Never has a video game made me feel bad for how I played it. But then again, never has there been a game quite like Bastion with an intangible quite like the narrator … and that is what makes this game special. Once your character reaches The Bastion, you meet Rucks for the first time, who it turns out is the mysterious voice who has guided you there. How could an actual character have been narrating your journey? Before that, you assumed the narrator was an ominous-type being, but the fact he is in flesh, right in front of you, only brings up more questions than answers. And that seems to be the reoccurring theme throughout the game. As you progress, you get more and more information about what is going on. Something called the “Great Calamity” has all but destroyed life as you known it, allowing dark creatures to infest the ruins of your now-shattered world. The more you play, the more of the story you get. Trying to explain what is going on halfway through the game is an impossible task, as it is not until the final moments of the game where everything seems to make sense … or does it? Personal interpretation of what you just played seems to be the catalyst for describing the story. As open as the story is, the visual aspect of the game is as sharp as it is whimsical. The game looks like a cross between a cell-shaded game and a watercolor painting. The colors are bright and vibrant, especially for being about the last remaining life. As the path builds stone by stone, it is easy to get lost in the design and forget that games can be beautiful and simple at the same time. Another thing easily forgotten is the fact that it is still an action RPG. All the basic fundamentals are there, from upgrading your weapons, to obtaining XP with every kill or item collected, and even being able to customize your two-weapon/one-special ability load out. The game plays like your normal dungeon crawl game, as enemies lurk around every corner of every path. Between every level, you recharge back at The Bastion, where after constructing the buildings, you can change which weapons you will head out to battle with, as well as upgrade them with acquired materials. You can also activate drinks that add different abilities or health to your character, with more slots available as you level up your character with XP. To add even more customization to the game, you collect different idols throughout your journey that represent different Gods. If you choose, you can activate one or more of these idols, which will evoke the selected deities to add different degrees of difficulty to the game. Naturally though, the more idols you activate, the more XP you get as you play. What fun would it be to make the game hard be if you weren’t rewarded for it, right? Long story short, the game has all the classic elements of an action RPG, but the overall experience of the game makes you quickly forget that classification. If all games were as good and fun as Bastion, I would be an action RPG super-fan. The game also sounds as good as it looks, if not better. Aside from the amazingly-awesome narrator, the soundtrack is fantastic. There is one level in particular where a song is playing in the background that is simply captivating. To be honest, I don’t even remember how the level played, but I do remember turning up my TV as I got lost in the song. Arcade games usually have no business in making soundtracks this good. Speaking of being an arcade game, it has only 200 achievement points out there to get. I am proud to say that this is officially the first game I have ever completed every achievement for, and while I only had to play through the story twice, I enjoyed every step of the way. Unfortunately, however, now that I have completed everything there is to do in Bastion, I don’t ever foresee returning the captivating world of The Kid, his personal narrator and his quest to undo what was done. There are online leader boards for the main story, as well as the three dream quests found in the game, but unless you are uber-competitive, the only real reason to strive for high scores is to top your friends. Taking into consideration the fact that there is no real explanation as to how point totals are given, the leader board concept seems flawed at best. For such a special game, I feel a little slighted by the fact that once you are done, you are done. I wouldn’t mind having Rucks tell me that I’m wasting time smashing meaningless stuff again, but there just isn’t the reason to do so. But I wish there was, because I had so much fun exploring the destroyed world, hearing the story and making some tough choices at the end of it all. Overview: As someone who doesn’t normally like or play action RPG games, Bastion stole my heart and made me an instant fan of the genre. The narrator gives Bastion that “it” factor every great game has. The visual representation of imagination is simply breathtaking, and the soundtrack is riveting, if not down-right beautiful. While the game doesn’t offer much once all achievements are completed, the want and desire for more is a clear indication that the team at Supergiant Games made a great game, and one that I feel I drastically under paid for at the Xbox Live price equivalent of $15. So much for the normal summer drought of good, quality games, huh? Unfortunately, this blog post tonight was inspired by unfortunate events. This week, it was announced that LucasArts has closed its doors, effectively shutting down the long-standing game development studio and laying off over 150 employees. Also, all projects currently being developed are canceled as well, specifically referring to the highly anticipated Star Wars 1313 game that was in development. Everyone is blaming Disney, who technically is to blame for the business decision, but from their end, it's hard to justify keeping a struggling studio open that has become more about producing games as a fan service than they are actually making money. It's a hard pill to swallow for fans, especially considering the list of fantastic games they have put out over the last thirty years. But over the last few years of existence, their games have suffered from critical media reviews and lackluster consumer sales - except for the Angry Birds Star Wars game I'm sure, since anything with "Angry Birds" on it basically prints its own money. With Disney probably going the route of licensing out the studios' franchises for other developers to make games, it will essentially emphasize the fact that this was a business decision through and through. Disney hasn't become what they are today because of bad business decisions. I'm just saying. I trust them that all in all, this will end up to be the best decision for everyone involved, except for the employees that lost their job. That, of course, is the worst part of it, as the hard working employees of every business that shuts down are always the ones to be impacted the most. I'm sure most, if not all, will land on their feet in this wonderful yet sometimes brutal industry. Hopefully, that is. Anyway, when I was trying to decide what game to play tonight, i was flipping through my older games and came across Super Star Wars. To be honest, I didn't even remember I had this game until I found it. I instantly knew what I needed to play, of course, in lieu of the terrible news from the studio who created this Super Nintendo gem. This was probably the first game from LucasArts I remember playing, and while they have made LOTS of Star Wars games, the Super Star Wars franchise on the SNES were some of my favorites, including the non-Star Wars games Zombies Ate My Neighbors and Herc's Adventures. Playing it tonight was like a memorable blast to the past for me. I didn't quite remember how hard this game was though in my nostalgic trip down memory lane. Seriously, the difficulty of this game is very unexpected, especially for the straight-forward simplistic nature of the game. Most of it is a 2D shooting platformer game, but occasionally it mixes in vehicle driving levels (which are stubbornly hard to control). While the actual game play is pretty easy, the re-spawning and annoyingly feisty enemies takes a toll on the overall experience, especially when jumping becomes a crucial game mechanic and one missed platform means replaying an entire section of torturous battles. This game also made me remember just how precise platforming used to be in games back in the day, where the slightest miss would send you hurtling to your death. Games now days feel a lot more lenient when it comes to that aspect. While I enjoyed playing this game tonight, for the most part, it mostly made me realize an underlying reason for the closure of the studio. If we are all being honest here, I feel like the studio hung on to the past for far too long and was afraid to advance into the present day. They never pushed the boundaries or thought outside the box, but instead kept going back to the hand that fed them for so long. Like I said before, they enjoyed making games for the fanboys, not the mass consumer base. And while fanboys appreciated the ideas for the most part, they didn't speak with their wallets. Again, this is all just opinion and speculation. Maybe I am seeing this whole situation in a different light. I never claimed to be an expert, just a crazy dude playing lots of games and writing about them. Here's the deal. I don't know if I am getting sick (a likely outcome after my immune system was bombed with nuclear missiles while at Disneyland, the home of thousands of snotty-nosed kids), or my body is just trying to tell me that I haven't fully recovered from the sheer exhaustion of the trip. Either way, I had a lot more planned for tonight's gaming blog, but I just don't have it in me tonight. It was all I could do to pull myself off the couch long enough to write up this posting, since all I want to do is get sleep. But, a commitment is a commitment, right? The show must go on, as they say. Today, my first day back to work in almost a week, I spent most of it listening to one podcast after another, trying to catch up on the backlog I accumulated by going on vacation. On one of them, the Everyday Gamers Podcast to be specific, they mentioned a game that inspired me to play it tonight for the blog. Retro City Rampage, the perfect example of a game that sounds great on paper, but doesn't live up to the hype. It's not that it's a bad game, I just hoped it was better than it turned out to be. I've already played it a few times before tonight, after getting it for free with PS+ on both my PS3 and my Vita. The game itself is designed to be a love letter of sorts to the 8-bit gaming generation, where it takes inspiration from several different gaming franchises and pop culture references. It is meant to feel like the original Grand Theft Auto games, with an "open-world" being played from a top-down perspective. It also transitions to 2D platforming on certain missions, mixing the two styles pretty seamlessly. While the game is creative in the countless references it has in it, the actual playing of the game gets boring and tedious after a while. The idea of a new-yet-nostalgic game is fantastic, I must admit, but the execution of said idea is less than desirable in this attempt. When Mega Man 9 and 10 were released, they were critically praised for being new games designed to look like the original 8-bit Mega Mans. That idea worked. Retro City Rampage's idea just doesn't, unfortunately. It's a new game made to look like an old game, yes, but every time you come across a really cool old school gaming reference, you realize you would rather be playing that game then Retro City. I give them an A for effort, and I'm sure there is plenty for people to find in it to get some enjoyment, just don't expect to be blown away. On a brighter note, I FINALLY got to start BioShock Infinite tonight. If I felt better, I would probably still be playing it, but alas, the sandman is calling. I bet I will dream of Columbia, though. I hope so, at least. Well folks ... I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaack. Miss me? Probably not, since I managed to keep up on my blog, even while I was away, enjoying a nice, long vacation in the Happiest Place on Earth - Disneyland. My family and I had an amazing time, and it was so fantastic to treat the kids to such an epic vacation. Aside from formatting issues and the lack of automatic tweeting for each update, I think posting blogs from my phone worked out pretty well. And thanks to handheld gaming, I was able to fulfill my gaming quota easily. I even got more recreational gaming in than I anticipated before going into the trip, which was nice. While traveling all around Disneyland and California Adventure theme parks, I carried my 3DS around with me at all times, in the back pack, in hopes of StreetPassing. Well, mission accomplished I can proudly say, as every time I pulled it out to check, I had 10 StreetPasses it seemed. That means I got tons of puzzle pieces and beat quite a few dungeons in the Battle Mii mini game, all while filling in my map of territories of people who I've come across. While doing all this, I chose to put "www.thenoyse.com" as my greeting for everyone who StreetPassed me to see, and I can proudly say, my marketing campaigned worked - at least once. I got a comment on yesterday's blog post from a guy named John who StreetPassed me at Disneyland, and then promptly followed my greeting link to my website, and commented just to say hi. How cool is that! So for my new StreetPass friend and blog reader, I say - HELLO, JOHN (in the green shirt with the Mario hat)!!! Anyway, this morning we just relaxed until it was time to go. We slept in, we watched TV and pretty much did nothing as a way to decompress from the long, busy vacation. While laying in bed, I decided to pick up my almost completely neglected Vita and try out a free game I downloaded thanks to PS+ before we left for vacation, Disgaea 3: Absence of Detention. I knew going into this game that it was a JRPG, and while that is probably my second least favorite game genre (behind MMOs), I wanted to play it just to see if I had any more tolerance of the genre than I did before, especially with how much I enjoyed the little bit of Ni No Kuni that I played. Let's just say, I feel the same now as I did back then. I guess I just don't get JRPGs, nor do I have the patience for them. I totally understand why people love them, as you can completely immerse yourself in the experience. I just can't focus on them long enough to even grasp the game play or understand the complicated storyline. It also doesn't help when you jump into an already-established franchise that you have absolutely no knowledge of or connection to. Playing Disgaea 3 just bored me to death. The story was uninteresting, and I just started skipping through it. The tutorial stage lasted way too long, and felt so overly complicated and daunting to learn that I found myself rushing through it in hopes of just learning on the fly. That was probably a bad decision, as once I started wondering around and actually encountered some battles, I felt helpless and vulnerable. After about an hour of play time, I realized that this is definitely not a game for me. It doesn't nearly have the same charm or personality that Ni No Kuni does, which means that there is still some hope for me enjoying that game at least. But for Disgaea 3, I don't think I will be coming back to it. Speaking of coming back, now that I am home, I have The Walking Dead season finale to watch and BioShock Infinite to play, so despite Disneyland being one of the most amazing experiences I have had with my family, I'm glad to be home. Not to brag or anything, but this might be the coolest game I'll add to my list of games all year. I never expected that I would actually play this game, as I didn't even think it was a real game to play. I played a game, here at Disneyland, that is a fictitious game in a Disney movie that has been turned into a real game. Of course, I'm talking about Fix It Felix Jr. from the Wreck-It Ralph movie. When we were strolling through Tomorrowland here on our last day at Disneyland, we stopped at a gift shop. As we were browsing, I noticed some old-looking arcade gaming cabinets sitting around. I immediately b-lined for them, to see what was going on, and sure enough, it was an arcade littered with all the old, classic games. Ms. Pacman, Donkey Kong Jr., Joust, Asteroids ... They were all there. In total, there was 20-30 machines, also featuring a couple of pinball tables. Mixed in the madness, however, were two giant displays looking like electrical outlets. I recognized them immediately from Wreck-It Ralph. This, of course, peaked my curiosity. I went over to the displays, and their they were - four Fix It Felix Jr. machines. I thought it was a joke, honestly, or just a display. But nope, they were legit, fully operational games, built to look extremely aged and designed to play exactly like the game is conveyed in the movie. Oh, and they were free, also, as opposed to the other games that of course required tokens. Now, I knew they had designed a few of these things as promotional displays for the movie before its release, but I didn't think they could still be found anywhere other than a collector's basement. I guess that will teach me for underestimating Disneyland. So I fired up the game and gave it a go. Everything is spot on, from the animation to the death sequence of Felix, to the audio. Everything you imagined the game playing like from watching the movie, it's all that and then some. It's a surprisingly fun, accurate-to-the-concept game, and could have easily been a real game 20+ years ago as the movie would suggest. It's also quite difficult, but I'm assuming the atmosphere isn't great for focusing much on gaming. The arcade portion of the shop wasn't too crowded, however, and I got to play several times before anyone lined up behind me waiting to play. All in all, it was an awesome experience to play that game, especially with how much I enjoy the movie. Even my little four year old loved playing it, even though she could barely see the screen. Thank you, Disneyland, for making my Play A Game A Day project not only easy to fulfill, but super enjoyable as well. |
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February 2014
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