Last week I finally broke down and got myself an iPhone. There are myriad reasons for doing it, but mostly I was tired of hearing about the games on there and being unable to play them. I spent my first few hours buying games and apps, then the next few hours playing them. After slogging through meaty games like Crysis 2 and Dragon Age 2 recently, it felt good to just pick up a game that was nothing but solid game play. While I was playing Cut the Rope the other night, I realized how games with great stories and grandiose setting have ruined gaming for me and taken most of the joy out of my favorite pastime.
Ahh the good ole days
When I was younger, I lost entire months of summer break to games like Shining Force and Final Fantasy. I still think back to the sheer joy and addiction of games from my NES and Genesis. While all of those games had stories, they were always secondary to the mechanics of the games themselves. Sonic, Mario, Metroid; all of them used simple plots, more concepts actually, to outline a context for what you were doing. Save a princess, save a forest or defeat a giant brain. Nothing complicated, nothing rich with continuity requiring 4 novels, a comic book series, various animated films and a 6 minute intro to explain. You saw what you needed to in the first 30 seconds and then jumped into the world. Now, it seems, more and more games are becoming so story driven that they seem to forget that games are meant to provide interactive entertainment, not a medium for failed Hollywood screenplays or fantasy series.
This issue really started in earnest with the PS2. Many of the RPG’s started to become vehicles for showing how advanced the system had come. With graphical fidelity comes cut scenes, and with those comes the need for story. Instead of taking the route of games like Shadow of the Colossus, where the game play is what makes the story, games took advantage of growing technology to start injecting movie-quality plots into games. Games like Final Fantasy XII, the hack// games, each installment of the Metal Gear series and even Kingdom Hearts started to put more emphasis on plot and graphics then on engaging game play. Final Fantasy XII was an absolutely incredible translation, and a story that I loved, but the game play itself was so poor that it became impossible to enjoy.
I'm so dark and broody.
This generation the attempt to make games more like the film industry has gone into hyperdrive. More and more games, like the recently released Homefront, are being written by professional screen writers. They are employing Hollywood actors and using new technology to gather more of the performance and more of the realism. Look at LA Noire’s new facial software, a perfect example of creepy realism. Yet, while the game LOOKS incredible, the game play seems to be ignored during the previews, and I’m not confident that the desire to show off their compelling story and animation won’t overshadow the actual game.
As a person who reviews games (not professionally, but still), I tend to fall into that same trap. Often times the storyline weighs heavily into the way I judge a game. I love the original Mass Effect, but when I force myself to look at the actual game portion objectively, I can’t deny that it is a pretty huge mess. However, the events in Mass Effect are so compelling and incredible that it overcomes the flaws, which I think helped set a tone for future games. If you create a solid enough story, the game itself isn’t so important. Now we have an avenue for huge ideas without the constraints of Hollywood, where directors and writers can bring their ideas to life, provided they horseshoe in some game play between scenes. And when games fail to live up to its compatriots in the genre, we easily dismiss them. If we can’t enjoy the movie we’re being shown, we tend to dislike or ignore the actual game.
This is what a battle should look like
When I was a kid, the rush of mastering a level in Sonic, or the thrill of a well planned battle in Shining Force kept me riveted to my screen for hours. Now I get that same feeling from getting three stars in Angry Birds, or from a successful invasion in Zombie Farm. There are precious few big name games that can deliver the same effect. Bulletstorm proved to be an incredible shooter that played solely on the mechanics and let the story be over the top simply to provide new and better areas to play around in. Dragon Age 2 however, tried to be an emotionally driven story while literally repeating the same area over and over again with no real change in game play, leading to nothing but boredom. Sadly, too many games fall into the Dragon Age category.
Perhaps I’m simply waxing nostalgic, playing the “get off my lawn” card, but things really were better back in the old days. We may have breathtaking graphics and top-notch talent in our games, but the “game” portion is being more and more distilled and replaced with the bells and whistles. The skill that was needed to beat Mega Man and Mario, and the joy of getting that perfect run, has been removed in favor of the pontification of Malcolm McDowell. I don’t want great stories to disappear; I just hope that more studios realize that melding the game and the story yields better results than showing off your latest screenplay. We call them games for a reason.
Some people might say that Castlevania is Konami’s greatest creation, while others may say Metal Gear. Some may find Silent Hill to be the crown jewel of Konami, while others may say Dance Dance Revolution. I humbly suggest that they are all wrong (though Castlevania would come close). As a matter of unarguable fact, Konami’s greatest contribution to the world of gaming has been Contra. This can be evidenced by the fact that the “Konami Code” was not made popular by Castlevania, Metal Gear, Silent Hill, or Dance Dance Revolution, but earned its fame through the efforts of Contra. Today, a new entry in the Contra series makes its debut in the form of Hard Corps: Uprising. Read the full story
Recently, while filling a prescription at Walgreens, I came across an unexpected something in the toy isle. Normally anything you find at Walgreens is going to be practically worthless, especially if it is an electronic something, but this really looked like a decent attempt at a cheap gaming alternative gift. I had seen those crappy wanna-be “40 games” Plug & Play, All-In-One, video game toys, and very few actually look like anybody gave a shit in their creation (If you’ll pardon the French).
Update: Shortly after this release schedule was announced, a Konami representative spoke out confirming an alternate schedule. The game will be released on PSN December 14th, and on XBLA December 15th.
A few months ago I discussed the announcement of the classic X-Men arcade game coming to XBLA and PSN with considerable excitement and glee. I am afraid that, in that discussion, I did not make it very clear how greatly the classic arcade port impacted me. Allow me to rectify that now by saying that I have been a great fan of the X-Men since my childhood, and have a special place in my heart for both the X-Men arcade game being ported and, to a different degree, the classic X-Men game for the SEGA Genesis. Today, a new tidbit of information has hit that has made my excitement and glee rise to what most physicians would consider unhealthy levels. Read the full story
Every gamer has one game in their memory. It’s a certain kind of game, one that the gamer in question both loves and hates. The hatred tends to stem from the insane difficulty the game has. For a lot of gamers, that game was Ninja Gaiden. But for those of us who played lots of games for the Sega Genesis, we had Chakan the Forever Man, a game so brutal that even the easy setting was hard. To this day, I don’t know anyone who has beaten it on Hard mode. So, what was this game that haunted my childhood and yet enthralled me? Where did it come from, and what legacy does it leave behind? Read the full story
Sonic the Hedgehog is a character that I proudly grew up with, and I’m sure there are many others out there just like me. When I heard that Sonic 4 would be coming out. I knew I had to get my hands on it.
Last Tuesday, for my birthday, I whipped out my NES and played a beloved game from my childhood, Crystalis. At first I was pretty scared to pop it in, because what if I didn’t feel the same way about it anymore? What if the gameplay or story was too simplistic for my current gaming tastes? What if I don’t enjoy it, and those memories are ruined?
As a little girl, I slept in the same bed as my Grandmother, and would sneak out of it every midnight to go into the extra bedroom that housed my NES. Then, until I had to start getting ready for elementary school, I’d play Crystalis on very low volume so I wouldn’t wake anybody up. I did that for weeks until I eventually beat it. When I played Crystalis last week, it was as if those 20+ years inbetween never happened. I remembered where everything was, I remembered the names of characters and cities, and I even remembered what to do. The only thing that I found different was how short the game felt, but I’m a lot older now, my gaming skills have gotten better over time, and since I knew where everything was, I was able to move through the game faster than when I was a child. Some games are timeless like Contra, Metroid, Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, Sonic the Hedgehog, Altered Beast, Toe Jam & Earl, Super Mario series, and many more, but what about the titles that fail to stand the test of time?
Sure, gaming graphics have changed, but we all know that no matter how visually gorgeous something is, everything else about it can be complete shit. The same goes for the opposite too. Take Final Fantasy VII for example: its graphics at the time were below what the PlayStation console was able to handle, but to this day it’s constantly lauded as the best in the entire franchise. While I strongly disagree with that opinion, it’s a solid case of how, regardless of graphics, gamers can still find a game completely enjoyable well into the future. Gameplay and controls have changed too, but so have the controllers. Is this really a plus? With the original NES controller, you had a d-pad, start/select buttons, and the A/B buttons to perform actions. Nowadays, gamers have to factor in a d-pad, two analog joysticks, left and right triggers, left and right bumper buttons, start/select buttons, four action buttons, and sometimes there is even a home button. Compare the controls for Super Mario on NES, or even SNES, to what is required for Super Mario Galaxy, and it’s insane. Sometimes keeping it simple really pays off.
The music has changed drastically. In our youthful days, MIDI tracks were all the rage, but now we are given some really amazing soundtracks, and also the option of listening to our own music when gaming (Sidenote: Back in the day, I would sometimes pop in a cassette or listen to the radio when playing a game, so it’s nice to see how that has evolved. A prominent memory I have is playing Sonic the Hedgehog 2 at a neighbors house and hearing Evil Empire by Rage Against the Machine for the very first time). Gamers who owned a Sega Genesis should remember the funky soundtrack from Toe Jam & Earl, and NES owners can probably sing every single Super Mario track ever made. Right now I have the theme song to Legend of Zelda in my head, and that will forever be a classic tune.
What hasn’t changed much are the stories. We are still playing adventure games, still playing shooters, and still escaping into elaborate worlds where we are constantly saving the day. Granted, some stories are better than others, but it’s pretty much the same. As children we assumed the roles of Mario, and were tasked with rescuing the Princess from the evil Bowser. For some reason, and 20+ years later, Princess Peach keeps neglecting to hire herself a bodyguard, and Bowser still hasn’t learned his lesson. We have seen some big twists like how Samus Aran was really a female, Aeris getting killed by Sephiroth, and finding out that in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic you were actually Revan. Obviously there are so many more moments that could be listed, but those are the main ones that popped into my head right now.
With Crystalis, I really lucked out because it’s a game that I will always love, and will always find enjoyable. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for all games. So readers, I ask you this: are your fond gaming memories only because of your childhood nostalgia, or were we just given some really amazing games back then?
Check out some classic NES and Genesis games for old times sake. How many do you remember?:
Everyone grows up; this is how the world works. Just because we grow decrepit and old, however, does not mean we have to forsake the things that make us happy, childish though they may seem. This is the core concept of Marooners’ Rock; we geek out on the things of our past, present, and future. Society and cultural norms be damned!
