Favorite Classic Game

            I have not been posting nearly enough this year and I want to steer back from that.  To that end I have found a 30-day blog challenge and will be writing out entries, hopefully I can get all thirty days without any breaks, and if I manage to do that (since August has 31 days) I will think of an additional entry to write about.  I have done a 30-day challenge before, it for movies, but that was a while back, feel free to read those too if you like.

            Today is day 25 and the topic is “Favorite Classic Game”.

            This is probably not going to surprise anyone.  This game is still considered the underlying superstructure for story and gameplay in its series (and to a lesser extent the world of 3-Dimensional gaming) because it did everything it needed to do so well (FOR THE TIME).

Pretty... Though not representative of the game's angular art style (THAT WAS AWESOME AT THE TIME).

“Zelda: Ocarina of Time” allowed for better conception of puzzles in a 3 dimensional space than any previous Zelda title (yes there were multiple floors before, but this allowed for multiple levels in a single room).  It had big boss monsters that looked and felt big.  It had numerous enemies with visual personality that made them memorable.  The use of color and music to convey tone and information about characters and environments is simple in the best sense of the word, you could show a child any member of the good guys and they would know that they are good guys, and you could show them the bad guys and they would know that they are the bad guys.  It is creepy when it needs to be creepy, not to mention weird, silly, and dramatic at all the right times.

I should point out the one thing that is unquestionably timeless and of great artistic merit: The Score.  The music in “Ocarina” is fantastic (and linked to in the first image).  If I had not so quickly decided on “Halo 2” earlier this month (and had already decided to do “Zelda” for this entry) I would have put the score to this game as my favorite video game music.
The “Zelda” franchise is perhaps the most well-known fantasy series in gaming, and one of the few game series that people who do not play games can point to as recognizable.  I just watched a play thru of the whole game less than 2 months ago by the Game Grumps (mostly it is EgoRaptor sucking at playing and then blaming the game, it is a little strange) and I liked watching it again and seeing how much of it is etched into my mind from having played and replayed the game while combing thru an issue of Nintendo Power for help on the first half of the game and buying a strategy guide so that I wouldn’t miss out or get stuck on any part when the Nintendo Power’s guide ran out.

(I know it sounds strange to say this, but I was taking some advanced math classes for my age and did not have time to learn the hard way how to power thru “Ocarina” without a guide to go to when I got stuck, pay to win has always existed in some form or another; now I would just use the internet).

The Sequel is when things really cut loose.

I do not think I am ruffling any feathers to say that this game is a classic.  I do wish that its continuity had hung around.  Its sequel, “Zelda: Majora’s Mask” is better than “Ocarina” by providing great artwork and reworking of the existing characters and assets while expanding and diversifying the gameplay.  The variety and inventiveness is so cool that you feel like you are getting new experiences in each iteration even while reliving the same three days over and over, “Cause and Effect” style… I could have gone for the “Groundhog’s Day” reference, but I instead went for the Star Trek reference, because “Star Trek” ends in a collision and explosion like “Majora’s Mask” does.  I will point out that this game pretty much required a day 1 purchase of a strategy guide, as the sheer number of stories and hidden things to collect was maddening.

I wish that “Twilight Princess” had found a way to continue the story further in the way “Mask” did.  “Twilight” instead chose to make a redo and I found that to be weak.  Lame even.  I had already seen the story in which Link is a fresh faced adventurer saving the world from Ganon for the first time, and I had seen it again with “Windwaker” (which also should have just been a sequel, but I like to cut it some slack because I like its art style… and no one else at the time cut that game any slack for not being a sequel).

Seriously, look at this thing.  It is god damn gorgeous.

Zelda is a fun series and “Ocarina of Time” is arguably the last time it did anything exceptionally new with how the game was designed on a fundamental level.  “Majora’s Mask” was the last time they did anything original with the story (though I do not know a lot about the Gameboy games so maybe that is flatly untrue).  Since then my passion for the series really only expresses itself thru nostalgia via “Super Smash Bros”. 

And nostalgia is what this thing does best.

             What is your favorite classic game?  What game exists recently that is destined for classic status in years to come?  I am guessing “Minecraft” even though I get motion sickness playing it and thus can’t partake.

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If you like or hate this please take the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my opinion to the world.  I would appreciate it.

My Gaming Related Desktop

            I have not been posting nearly enough this year and I want to steer back from that.  To that end I have found a 30-day blog challenge and will be writing out entries, hopefully I can get all thirty days without any breaks, and if I manage to do that (since August has 31 days) I will think of an additional entry to write about.  I have done a 30-day challenge before, it for movies, but that was a while back, feel free to read those too if you like.

            Today is day 14 and the topic is “Gaming Related Desktop”.

            This is probably the most asinine of the topics for this blog series.  But at the same time it allows me to only write 50 or so words, post a couple images and then scoot on to writing the next entry.  Lot of mental energy to start with, and it is starting to peter out a bit because I kind of said a lot of what I wanted to say… But then I look at the stuff to come and think, “Yeah, I still want to talk about a few of those.”  So, this will be a kind of break day.

            Most of my desktop backgrounds fall into 4 categories, 1) fantasy stuff, more often than not related to Dungeons and Dragons, 2) dystopic science fiction stuff, 3) attractive women, and 4) other.  Sometimes these things overlap.  But I do have 3 or 4 video game images that I have used for a desktop background, and the last one was this.

This link leads to other desktops that I do not use in addition to this one.

             Share link to your video game desktop in the comments if you so wish.  And feel free to read some of my other blogs.

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If you like or hate this please take the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my opinion to the world.  I would appreciate it.

Favorite Video Game Developer

            I have not been posting nearly enough this year and I want to steer back from that.  To that end I have found a 30-day blog challenge and will be writing out entries, hopefully I can get all thirty days without any breaks, and if I manage to do that (since August has 31 days) I will think of an additional entry to write about.  I have done a 30-day challenge before, it for movies, but that was a while back, feel free to read those too if you like.

            Today is day 3 and the topic is “Favorite Game Developer”.

            After yesterday many people are probably guessing that my favorite developer is either Firaxis (makers of “X-Com” and other TBS style games) or Bethesda (makers of the current Fallout franchise and the Elder Scrolls franchise which is massively successful) with possibly a bet on Obsidian (who are big into RPG’s and whose content will be mentioned down the line).  All of these are good guesses and I commend you for knowing enough about video games to know those companies and to have remembered my blog yesterday well enough to make a guess at all with my tastes in mind.  Strangely, it is none of those, and this is going to be weird.

Alright!  Everybody!  1-2-3-Vogue.

            My favorite developer is Nintendo.  Yes, the publisher of Pokemon, a game I damned with faint praise and basically dismissed just yesterday.  But there is a reason for that which runs a little deeper and I can explain why.

            You might be saying, “It is not hard to guess, it is nostalgia.  Nintendo was often a person’s first video game system of choice as it is aimed at younger people, and Nintendo was so synonymous with gaming that many older people don’t even think of Nintendo as a company so much as another word for Video Game.  They saved the home gaming industry in America after Atari’s collapse.  Nintendo is what idiots and losers sputter when they have nothing else to say.”

            Maybe each of those things are a factor.  I am a bit of an idiot who often says the first thing that pops into my head when I have nothing important to say.  And I am getting old.

For a while a NES was my primary system along with a Gameboy, but I owned a Sega Genesis before I got a Super NES (and never owned a lot of games for it).  And I later owned an N64, but I have more memories of Xbox than Game Cube, and Xbox 360 than I do of the Wii.  And I currently don’t own a WiiU, though I would really like to.  Is that enough to be nostalgic?  Maybe my not-constant contact with the company has led me to look on them more favorably than I should.

            But if it is not Nostalgia, why am I picking Nintendo?  Because I know what they are about.  Nintendo is about playing (and milking people’s nostalgia for money with products that could be considered lacking).  They do not allow themselves to get bogged down in the constant one-upmanship of better and better graphics, instead they allow their timeless art design to carry the weight.  They do not allow themselves to get bogged down in dreary story telling trying to illicit a shocked or controversial reaction from the audience, they want to illicite smiles and feeling of accomplishment for having bested a task to fun and lighthearted music.  When they do have cut scenes they don’t go on and on and on.

Nintendo is an entertainment company that makes silly games about cartoon characters.  I like that and I wish they made more games with the GAMEPLAY I am drawn to (though I have no idea what a Fallout game by Nintendo would look like… they are Japanese, which has a complex history with the Atomic Bomb and Nuclear Power; and they do have a zany sense of humor, love of quirky robots, and rarely hesitate to lovingly poke fun at Americana… So maybe it would be the best thing ever.  It is not like they haven’t been able to handle silent protagonists with the fate of the world in the balance before).

They could give the Pip-Boy a grey skin and liquid crystal display so it looks like a classic Gameboy.

From what I can gleam, they do have a single game series that fits my tastes, the “Fire Emblem” franchise looks like just the thing for me, but I do not have money for a 3DS right now, and since there is more of a preset story with premade characters maybe it would not be my thing entirely, but I would still like to give it a go.

So there it is, my favorite game developer is the single most iconic video game company in existence, sort of the Disney of the industry.  Hopefully they stick around for another hundred years trying new things in an attempt to be fun and inviting, even if they do produce mountains of fetid shit in the process.  The game industry needs to be accessible to new people and Nintendo has taken that job and done their best with it.

Feel free to share your favorite developer in the comments.  I would like that.

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If you like or hate this please take the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my opinion to the world.  I would appreciate it.

Future of Video Games

            I would like to make a prediction right now about the future of one of my favorite hobbies, Video Games.  The next gaming system, be it the Playstation 4, Xbox 720, or the Super Wii Cube Virtual Revolution, will be as different from the current disk utilizing and motion control tom-foolery as the current generation is from the Cartridge utilizing systems of years long forgotten.

            My prediction is this: Video Game consoles will stop using game disks.  No more having to go to Game Stop, Best Buy, or Wal Mart to pick up the latest title, they will all be streamed to a large hard drive found in the system utilizing the Web connection you have.  This will give you what you want more or less on demand.  The game companies will sell new hard drives, but really they won't have to.  You will have an online account which will keep track of what games you have purchased and if you ever delete a game from your hard drive for space you can just download it again at any time from the internet, you essentially will be purchasing the right to play a game at any point you wish, forever.

            What in the world makes me say such a ridiculous portent?  Many things, not the least of which being that it already exists and is insanely profitable, efficient, and well liked by gamers all over the world.

            Currently there are services that do this very thing, and you have used them recently to rub yourself off with the pleasurable thoughts of nostalgia, and to add on fresh content to a title that was of particular interest to you.

            The Playstation network allows you access to movies, news, international multiplayer, and more importantly, downloadable content that takes the form of classic games and extra levels, weapons, maps, and just pointless bullshit like clothing all without having to leave your chair to get a new game disk.  Wii has the virtual store, again a source of news, multiplayer (which is balls), and classic games.  XBLA is the best of them as they get you to pay them for the pleasure of playing "Halo" against racist fat kids in Michigan, while downloading classic games.  All of them allow you to download independent titles that showcase new game mechanics, art styles, stories, and other risky ventures that major studios wouldn't put out for fear of loosing money.

            And forget those titans of industry, lets look at Gametap, the Netflix of games, allowing you to stream titles for a monthly fee, which is fucking awesome, at least in theory, my internet connection couldn't handle it I'm sure.  And there is also Onlive, the new system which much like a cable box allows access to games on demand using their own library.  And there is the mach daddy of services, "Steam" which is produced by Valve, makers of "Left 4 Dead", "Portal", and "Half-Life"; Steam has allowed the company to become the go to in online content acquisition for the PC, and I wouldn't be surprised if Valve did the reverse of Sega and moved into Hardware production, creating a system just for the utilization of the Steam network.

            Also, World of Warcraft, and the entire MMO style of play.  Or if you are really interested in throwing out internet related content, lets look at the huge number of flash games on Newgrounds.com, or the staggering number of bullshit available in any given ap-store for tiny little touch screens.  Oh, and Farmville.

            Why in the world would these companies do this?  Abandoning a business model that is tried and true?  Simple: they are getting screwed over by the retail system, and the used game marketplace.  Currently Gamestop is of the practice of buying back games and selling them at a discount, none of that second sale money goes back to the holders of the IP's, none of the coders, none of the development teams, none of the companies who made the games see any of that money.  Gamestop is making a killing as a fucking pawn shop, and none of that money is going toward the creation of new IP's and game technology.  The worst part, Walmart and Best Buy are planning on opening up a used game market themselves, using their superior store placement and technological culture to steal away Gamestop's customers (assuming of course that Best Buy just doesn't buy out Gamestop and use them as the front for this circle jerk).

            The only way to keep money flowing to companies like Double Fine, Bioware, Valve, and Bethesda, the real producers of what we want, is to cut out the retail companies altogether.  And they should.  Retail companies produce nothing, they fence the goods produced by others with a mark up, and pay employees very little.  They are fostering a dystopian future of a Libertarian ideal gone mad.

            I personally do not buy used games.  And in general I dissuade others from buying them.  Other people tell me that a used copy is cheaper but just as good, but fail to realize that it would be cheaper still if we just bought stuff direct from the creators rather than through a middle man who currently offers less and less.  I dream of a world in which we can buy things instantly, play them, and go back to working on creating things for others to instantly buy, be it entertaining junk, food, or clothes, or anything, rather than living in a world where we are all paid tiny amounts working shitty retail jobs, and have to buy used and repacked stuff because it is the only thing we can afford.