Blog of Geen

My gaming system of choice seems to change now and then, but right now I would say it's Xbox 360 at home and iPod Touch on the go.

The Xbox 360 I mainly love because of Xbox Live Arcade. Most of the games I have been most excited about have come out on that digital distribution channel. The second reason is Xbox Live and the fact that most people I game with, if not all, play almost exclusively on XBL. The third reason is Xbox Live Indie Games - I have found more gems there, even if 98% of the titles are pure crap.
The fact that most games that I want to play these days are multiplatform is just a side bullet to everything else. I really don't have a brand loyalty to the Xbox name, but it's simply got it's shit together and I play on that system more than any other.

As for the iPod Touch, I've just been extremely impressed with it since I picked one up in October of 2010. For the most part, I don't want console experiences on my portable machine. I want five minute games I can play while I have a few minutes to kill or as I'm laying in bed. 100 Rogues, Angry Birds, Puzzle Bobble -- these have all been fantastic gaming experiences on the iPod Touch. Also, the value can not be beat. I've played games I bought for a dollar more than I've played games I bought for $30 or, hell, even $60.

On that note, the next generation of machines, home and portable, are going to have to work harder to get me to buy them. I'm not planning on buying a new home system until I see multiple games that simply make me say, "Wow. I really want that!" Gone are the days where I would hear that a new Zelda game is coming and I would be ready to drop $300 on name alone. I don't know if it's my age that's making me change my stance or the fact that I'm getting tired of franchises that I've been playing for 20 years, but whatever it is it's the reality of the situation.
On that note, the Nintendo 3DS has a hard sale to make to me. I'm very impressed with the technical aspects of the machine, but $250 or more for the system plus anywhere from $30 to $60 for a game? It's going to need to damn near blow my mind in order for that to happen. The PSP didn't sell me when it was $250 with $50 games, I don't see the 3DS doing it either right at the moment. Then again, I have been wrong before.

I'm a firm believer that the best gameplay theory is "complex in it's simplicity." Simple mechanics that extend into deeper actions.
For an example of this, let's look at Sonic in Sonic the Hedgehog 2. He can run, jump, roll into a ball, and perform one special move by pushing down and jump. You could boil the controls of Sonic 2 down to a Atari 2600 joystick and, besides the Atari 2600 joystick feeling like shit, it would still play identically. Yet, Sonic 2 has depth, takes skill, and is not a game you're likely to master on your first go. By getting to know how Sonic handles and how to use his simple actions you can improve your skill with Sonic over time.
This is the core of what I think makes the "best gameplay" for me. I think most of my favorite games have this in common.

I'm not going to pick a single game to declare as "best gameplay." There are tons of games with the "best gameplay" for what they're doing. Can you stack Panel de Pon against Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, or Picross DS against Bayonetta? No. There is no common ground in those cases to compare. I do think all those games have the right ideas of introducing simple to learn concepts and allowing them to have depth to grow, though. That's probably why they're all extremely memorable as well.

Alright, this isn't happening today. Lesson learned - don't try and write when there is an incoming holiday party and you may need to help with the set up.

December 26th I'll do my best to resume, at least with one entry.

This week has been crazy. It's Christmas week, how could it not? Friends are in from out of town, family and friends have some time off from work, and I probably had one too many Caribbean Rums with Pineapple juice. Hell, I think I'm still feeling the Caribbean Rum with Pineapple juice. But, I'm going to do my best to catch up on the six entries I'm late on right now!

There were a few non-30 Days of Gaming things I wanted to touch on first, though, that I thought was interesting.

Once the 30 Days of Gaming is complete here, I'm playing with the idea of trying Word Press and doing some blogging over there, since that seems a tad more professional than LiveJournal. I'm at a strange point in my life right now where I am not working and have no clue what I am going to do with the remainder of my years. Is any sort of professional writing in my future? I have no clue, but it has always been something that I've been interested in and, at least while I'm exploring options, I wouldn't mind giving it a shot.

Speaking of new ventures, I'm also thinking of trying to host a podcast. I like podcasts, I like to talk, and I often hear how I have the voice for it... So... Yeah... We'll see how that goes. It'd probably be video game focused since, well, my life is pretty much video game focused when it comes to entertainment, but I wouldn't mind diving into other discussions either. If anything, I'm thinking of it being more about the life of people in my generation bracket - what is catching our eyes, what we are thinking, what our opinions are. Chances are, it'll turn into Gamer's With Jobs podcast format, but I think I'm okay with that.

The last thing I wanted to mention was a funny notion that mzo and I discussed yesterday - It's hilarious that we, as gamers, are having to put our foot down and ignore sales for being too incredible. In the past week I've literally have had to say, "No, Steam, I know you have an incredible deal on your games, but I don't have time! Yes, I know you're selling it for pocket change, but I shouldn't! I can't! WHY DOES IT HURT!?"
And don't get me started on iOS games. I've had an iPod Touch for only two months and I own more games for that than I do my DS that I've had for six years. But, on that same token, I don't think I've really finished any of those iOS games either. I would love to type here that I'm completely ignoring iTunes Game sales until I work through my pile some, and for the most part I am, but I did just buy Worms 2 for it last week. I really need to ignore it from this point forward, though.

Alright, 30 Days of Gaming time!

I love games, as I'm sure anyone reading anything I write here or on Twitter may have picked up on. I love them quite a bit but I really don't get emotional with them.
It's hard to in gaming. What's there to get emotional over, really? Most characters always seem to come back even if they did die because most of the developers are too scared to piss of their fans.

I'm happy Aerith stayed dead in Final Fantasy 7, at least. But, even then, she kind of still came back in the form of the life energy near the end and helped out the rest of the party from beyond the grave or something among those lines (I really don't remember all the details. It's been at least 10 years since I played through FF7; probably longer).

Alright! So, on topic, my saddest game scene.
There are two I keep coming back to in my head.
The first is Final Fantasy IV when the two twins turn themselves to stone in order to save the party from the walls that were going to crush them. That's sad, and it upsets me that they were kids taking on adult responsibility, but then there is a voice in my head that says, "Well, they were trained to do that and devoted their lives towards their mage-hood; they knew what was coming."

So, the other scene that keeps coming back to me is Ico. I could possibly say just the entire game, nearly all of it is depressing, but the part that got me the most was the boy struggling so hard to save the girl, Yorda, and, despite all his efforts, can't do squat to stop her mother from taking her away.

Actually, I lied - I have a third scene as well, and this may be my favorite saddest scene for making me sad... That scene would be from Shadow of the Colossus. The poor guy that you control just spent the entire game slaying these massive beasts to save his love's life, with each slaying losing a little bit more of his self-being. When he finally is able to save the girl there is nothing left of him and he becomes a beast no different than the ones he just destroyed. He is dead. There is nothing you, as the player, can do to help the hero. You can flail, you can move around a crowded room in confusion, but there is not a damn thing you can do to change the outcome of your fate - you had to die for her to live. The happy ending is that she is going to be alright, but you will never see it.
It's a cold reality that I can relate to in my own life. That, sometimes, by trying to save someone else you are only going to kill yourself. That sometimes we become the essence of what we hate and, by the time we realize it, it's too late to do anything about it.
It's a constructive sad that we, as people, can look at, learn from, and become better people from it. It's a beautiful sad because of that.

So, today's topic: best soundtrack.
Hard choice. Do you choose a best soundtrack because of great the music is, or do you choose it based on how well it suits the game? Then, do we narrow this down to only one game or do we make it as broad as an entire series?

Well, I'm going to base it on which game has the most music that gets stuck in my head the most often and which I could recognize without hesitation. That honor would have to go to Sonic Rush on the DS.
What an incredible soundtrack this is! Listen to a track:

Really, if I have any problem with Sonic Rush, it's that I remember the soundtrack better than I remember the game. Although I think it's a good game and still have it sitting on my shelf, I really have no interest to ever go back to it. The soundtrack, on the other hand, I want to always have in my iPod rotation. That is damn near a must.