All posts in Video Games

Not all of us were lucky enough to score a Wii yet!

Last week I picked up a copy of Zelda Twilight Princess for the Nintendo GameCube at Circuit City for the fair price of $37.99. I’ve been waiting for this game to come out for at least three years now, actually six, but I guess they gave us Wind Waker . Anyway, I had pretty high expectations going in. Unfortunately, the game has not lived up to them so far.

I have only completed two dungeons so far, and I am almost to the third, but I already have thirteen hours of game play. As you can obviously see doing anything in this game tasks forever, and I thought it bad sailing all the way across the map in Wind Waker! However, the time issues don’t bother me, the stages are setup fairly large, and there is not a whole lot of grinding going on so it does not usually feel the long.

Those who have played Wind Waker will be very familiar with the controls, because practically nothing has changed, with the exception of a few additions you get later on. Now, these controls were fine in Wind Waker, since the visuals were cell shaded, so the simplified controls felt right. Now, however they have brought the visuals up to a level that the series deserves. The downside is that the fisher price controls feel constraining and clumsy. This is particularly evident while riding the horse. If someone knows how to slow down the horse without coming to a complete stop let me know ASAP! It is very frustrating when you over taking an enemy and you need to slow to match their speed. When you pull the stick back, even just a little, expecting the horse to slow, it rears up and comes to a complete stop.

Still, there is no jumping. Still, this frustrates me to no end. I know that in Wind Waker, I played for a few hours and got frustrated and bored, until I found an action replay code to allow jumping. Instantly the game became 1,000% more fun. So, naturally, I have been watching code junkies to see if they were going to release a jump code for Twilight Prince. Well, they released their codes, but there is no a jump code…the disappointment.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of good in this game. However, not only do I not think that it is the best Zelda game, but it isn’t even the best for the GameCube. So far, I would have to put Wind Waker ahead of it, because the visuals in Wind Waker match the controls much more than than the “realistic” visuals of Twilight Princess. Still, A Link to the Past utterly dominants any other game in the series.

Now, I should admit that I have not defeated either of the N64 games. I have played both, but did not beat them for different reasons. I stopped in OoT because the game glitched inside the whale, and there was no way I was going to start over. However, I am considering playing it in the collector’s edition after I finish Twilight Princess. I did not beat Majora’s Mask because it was so frustrating to have everything that I did become undone after each day passed. I think I beat the first four dungeons in it, then called it quits.

Ugh…the wolf. I am not sure who thought this was a good idea, but they should be put out of my misery. I wonder what the meeting was like for it, did someone pose the question, “what can we do to piss fans of the series off, but still have them buy the game?” I could see that if it were something that you could control, and flip back and forth so that you did not have to use it if you did not want to, it would be ok. But, the lack of control over it is frustrating. Leading me into my next point: linearity.

I know that all of the games have been basically linear, but Twilight Princess is ridiculous. It seems as though every action you make is strictly scripted by the developers. In most of the other games, you are not necessarily required to do the dungeons any in particular order, the only linearity is enforced by what items are required to do whatever. In Twilight Princess you are basically up against the wall, you cannot even explore different areas, because they passages to them are blocked off.

Now, not everything about the game is bad, but those are really just the glaring things that I have been wanting to get off my chest. I’m sure that when I do my more finalized post about the game, I will spend more time talking about the stuff that I like about the game.

P.S. Do not waste your money on the blasted STAR game in Castle Town. I wasted 100 rupees playing that damn game.

Unto thee I usher a new age of handheld devices.

For those of you that do not rabidly following the developments of the major video game manufacturers, the Nintendo DS Lite came out last Sunday. This is the second iteration of the DS. From a functional perspective, it is essentially the same as the original, so it isn’t like the jump from GameBoy to GameBoy Advance. However, it does have some delightful new features, included a smaller size (which is actually worse for me, as they are both too small), and brighter screen. I cannot really say enough about the screen, I was really surprised how bright and crisp it looks compared to what I am used to seeing come out of Nintendo.

This has been my first handheld purchase in quite some time. I believe the last was when I purchased a GameBoy Color in order to play Pokemon so that I could prove to some douche bag that I could easily create a bunch of Pokemon, which I did and moved on with my life. I eventually gave that GameBoy to my little brother, Jesse, which he very rarely uses.

At the time I picked up the DS, I only grabbed Metriod Hunters, as it was one of the few games that they had that I wanted. The game itself is a trip, I’m surprised at both how well, and how poorly they pulled of looking around with the stylus. But, at this time I would say the game is pretty fun, but I haven’t even tried the multiplayer yet. Hopefully that is good, although I cannot imagine being very good at it.

Right now, there are basically just two more games that I want that are out right now, the New Super Mario Brothers, and Advance Wars: Dual Strike. This combination would give me a nice balance of FPS, platformer, and strategy. My brother Jason has a bunch of old GBA games that I have been wanting to give a shot, so this might be a good time to try them out. However, I might be picking up a couple other GBA game for myself, such as A Link to the Past, which is my favorite Zelda game of all time, it would be nice to have it in a pocket sized version that I could just pick up and play whenever.

If anyone has any good suggestions for GBA, or DS games feel free to let me know. I haven’t really kept up on the systems much at all

Recently, I watched Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children. The film itself was nothing special, as it did not really have much of a story, and was basically a series of drawn out CGI fight sequences. I guess there is a website that you can go to that is supposed to explain everything, but it did not peak enough interest to actually try to read it. However, since it did feature several characters from FF7, so I kind of wanted to go back to the game to check it out again.

Now I remember why I don’t replay PSX games. I always thought that it was weird that I still go back and play NES, SNES, and the such still. Heck, Brad just posted about playing Dr. Mario (which I still play as well). These games were and are still fun. I think that PSX marks the age of graphics over game play. It was pretty obvious during the opening sequence of FF7. I still remember seeing it for the first time and being amazed. This time, I was just frantically hitting buttons trying to figure out a way to skip it. The reality of the graphics craze is that 3D games simply do not hold up against the test of time. And, this problem is made even worse by the fact that the game play underneath is not polished enough for it to be fun regardless of the graphics.

Not to mention the numerous problems with the actual machine itself. I spent the better part of an hour just trying to track down all the parts of the PSX to get it to boot. Apparently, the drive bay no longer stays closed on its own, so I have to set a book on it when the game is in it. Then, there are the functional problems. For whatever reason, the sound is not flawless, as it cuts out periodically. I vaguely remember having this problem in the past. Sometimes it is hard to notice the sound problems over the noise of the system. The noise of the system is particularly annoying while you are waiting for the hideously long load times. Yup, good times. I forgot how loud the machine is, it seem ancient compared to present day technology. Jaggies, who does not love jaggies? Well, the PSX is full of them. It is seriously an eye sore. Tomorrow, I plan on trying the game on the PS2 to see if the anti-aliasing on that makes it look any better.