My Gaming Life (what I'm playing between SMG)

Where to begin... You know, if I thought anybody actually read these, I'd probably write an outline, organize it, and know exactly where I was going to begin. Meh.

I just finished watching "Anachronox: The Movie", which is basically all the cinemas from Anachronox strung together. It's over two hours, so I had put it off and forgotten about it, but a thread on the PA boards reminded me. By Hollywood standards, it's still not a great movie. There are a lot of bits that aren't explained in the cinemas, and the pacing is often slow, which is to be expected as cinemas are usually a rest between combat sessions. Regardless, the imagination that went into the story and characters was impressive, and I'm glad I finally saw it.

On the actual gaming front, Super Mario Galaxy dominates, even though I'm barely playing. No matter what else I'm playing, I'm essentially just making time until I feel just right to play Galaxy. When I play Galaxy I want to clear a hub, getting every possible star. I also don't want to clear more than one hub at a time, lest I spoil the experience by getting burned out. Also, I want to be feeling good in general. Considering these circumstances don't come together very often, it's not surprising that I've had Galaxy for a week and only cleared three hubs. So what have I learned in three hubs?

2D rules. The most amazing segments of Galaxy (the "I can't believe I'm doing this segments", as I believe they've been dubbed online) are essentially 2D overhead platforming. Sure the terrain curves away from you, but the basic concept could be done using an engine not much different from Tower Toppler (1987). What 3D allows is a greater sense of scale, and the ability to let the camera get a little bit off center, making the jumps appear much dicier than they really are. This lets the player feel like they're doing the impossible, when in fact they're pretty safe. Ingenious.

Back to the filler, I followed a couple links off of the free games thread on the PA boards and tried a couple games. The Last Stand is a side view game where you have to fight off zombies at night. During the day you choose how to allocate your 12 hours. You can repair your barricade, search for other survivors, and search for weapons. I find the game fairly easy, but still fun.

Then I checked out Desktop Tower Defense. Stephen Totilo (of the MTV Multiplayer blog and frequent N'Gai Croal sparring partner) said it was on his short list for game of the year. In a year with Galaxy, Halo 3, and a pile of other high profile games, that's a bold statement. It's probably also a reflection of his completist tendencies, as I beat the game on medium, beat it a couple more times until I had a score over 6000, then got bored.

While I was in the neighborhood I checked out The Fancy Pants Adventures. It's main claim to fame is some nice animation and special moves. But the environments are a little too sparse for an action game. If it was more puzzly, like Seiklus, maybe the relative emptiness would work better.

Finally I enjoyed Indestruct2Tank, a whimsical game where you score points by colliding your indestructible tank into enemy bombs, choppers, jets, and fuel trucks.

I also tried out Boxhead, Bowmaster: Prelude, and Starfighter: Disputed Galaxy, but didn't really get into any of them.

Back outside of flash games, I played through Gunstar Super Heroes on easy. Ordinarily, I wouldn't think of such a thing as I enjoyed the challenge of the original on the Genesis. But the game is so short they had to make it ludicrously challenging on normal. Plus you get kicked back to the title screen every time you die. No fun. Once I turned the difficulty down it was more fun, but too easy as I basically killed the final boss by just holding down the trigger. Meh.

In general, I hate playing action games on the tiny screen of a handheld. I'm too old, I guess. I even have a hard time getting myself to sit down with New Super Mario Brothers.

And finally, I overpayed for Zack & Wiki and have been playing through that. I say I overpayed because I was voting for good third party games for the Wii. I'm a cheap bastard and couldn't see paying more than $20 for my own personal enjoyment. Zack & Wiki is essentially an adventure game, but uses the Wiimote to make the puzzles more interactive. I do not appreciate the trial and error gameplay of some levels, but overall I'm enjoying myself so far (working on the lava hub).

See? This is what happens when you give me free time. :P