I've been on a buying spree, picking up clearanced and used games online. Tis the season, after all. Of course, my backlog is so enormous that a sane man would declare a moratorium. I am not that man. And the simple fact is, there are a lot of games on my backlog I really don't want to play. Manhunt isn't fun. Hunter: The Reckoning: Wayward isn't fun. Headhunter: Redemption isn't fun. I think it's time to move on. Anything on my backlog that isn't fun is officially kaput.
If you were waiting for reviews of:
- Burnout 3
- Headhunter: Redemption
- Hunter: The Reckoning: Wayward
- Manhunt
- New Super Mario Bros.
- Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
- Sam & Max: Season One
- Zack & Wiki
You can stop. They didn't hold my interest. That isn't to say they're bad games. But after getting the gist of them, I didn't see anything that lead me to believe that continuing the experience was worthwhile.
Part of that has to do with being old. Being old means I've seen a lot of games, so I can see where things are going and decide when to bail out earlier than some people. Being old means I have some money, so I can afford to cut my losses. (It also helps that I am cheap and bought most of these games for under $20.) Being old also means I have big hands and don't see as well, so the experience of most portable games is pretty awful for me. If I could play on a screen I could actually see, with a controller that didn't cramp my hand, I'd probably have finished New Super Mario Bros. months ago. As it is, the experience just isn't appealing.
That was cleansing. What else is going on?
I'm playing stuff I haven't been talking about, mostly on GameTap. They supposedly lost 70 games off of their service because EA didn't feel like renewing a contract. It kind of sucks because part of me liked knowing I could check out the old Ultima games for research purposes. But I probably wasn't going to. :) As to the stuff I'm actually playing, well, it's embarrassing. Well, not all of it. I smoked Gunstar Heroes the other night. It was good to know it's still fun and that I can beat it on Normal with only a few deaths, validating my opinion of the overly difficult GBA version. In a Genesis mood, I decided to check out Beyond Oasis. I'd heard it was the Genesis' Zelda, and I can already tell why I never heard of it. It's pretty low rent. Add it to the list of games I probably won't bother to finish. Also, I've downloaded PlaneScape: Torment. I hear a lot of love for it in the PA forums (for the theatrics, not the gameplay), so I figured I should give it a look. The same goes for Baldur's Gate 2.
Did you forget about the embarrassing part yet? Whew. Wait, what? I brought it up again? Phooey! Okay. But there were extenuating circumstances! I had a bad day at work last week and decided to take it out on some swimmers by playing Jaws: Unleashed and am having enough fun that I'm well on my way to finishing it. Unfortunately GameTap seems to prevent taking screen shots as I spent a few minutes yesterday trying to photograph the sea of legs and torsos I created by using the body part targeting to rip the shore patrol jerks attacking me in half. Take that! Shore patrol jerks!
Mmmm. Shore patrol jerks.
Also, I'm making a new gamer friend. (Hi!) We started playing System Shock 2 co-op, and it got me in a mood, a good mood. I've been thinking about making some co-op DooM levels for the new years weekend network party he'll be holding. Turn out's been low lately, but that's great for co-op. I'm planning to use the Skulltag engine, as it supports all of ZDooM's fun wackiness but with joining and leaving the server at any time. Still, I've got a lot of work to do if I want to have enough co-op to be worth playing in only two weeks.
There's more I could talk about, mostly about the state of the industry, articles that have interested / annoyed me lately, etc. But who really cares. Life's too short to spend time not gaming. :)
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