I really recommend that everyone with any interest at all in Freaks & Geeks reads these articles. IFC seems to be putting Freaks & Geeks back on TV by showing all of the original 18 episodes of the show. Anyone who hasn't watched it should check it out, although I don't know how many people have IFC (I don't think I do). But then again, I own the DVD. I still have one episode left to complete my domination of this puny, one-season show. Suck on it, Apatow and Feig! But that shall be watched soon enough.
In the mean time, I need to catch up to where I am on the show in these articles. Two people give careful analysis to each episode and the respective plights of Sam and Lindsay Weir (does any guy who watches this show not have a crush on Lindsay?). That'd be cool if we did that more often on our blog--I know Daniel agrees with me; I love careful analysis of stuff, as anyone who has read my name commentaries knows by now. I don't think such things should be reserved for school, because at least for me, organized schooling sucks all of the creativity and imagination right out of my mid-sized brain. And such things need not be reserved for high literature or art--I don't see the difference between discussing Brahms or Breaking Bad or whatever else you want to. You can bring just as much intelligence and original thought to anything you want to. Who is to say one is better or more important than the other? Some of us would say that society can say which is more important (I guess this means the majority of people, but does this mean the true majority or the majority of the intellectual establishment?), but again, "some of us" shall remain nameless.
--Edward
PS: Here is the link! http://www.ifc.com/news/2010/07/freaks-and-geeks-pilot.php
Friday, July 30, 2010
A Few Thoughts on Video Games (These Aren't My Final Ones...)
Okay first off: why is it that there is a certain class of guys who only plays first-person shooters and/or sports games?
Also, I think it's annoying how our culture makes it so that girls tend not to play "traditional video games" as much as guys do. A lot of girls won't touch games because they think of it as a boys-only domain, although they are quick to jump on Facebook or cell phone games, which are essentially just video games with a lower budget.
As Daniel mentioned in his previous post, video games tend to have a bad reputation in terms of being "immature" or just in general not "productive" (again, this is referring to a specific person who shall remain nameless). I'm not quite sure why this is. Well, okay, I kinda am. Video games started as toys marketed exclusively towards kids, and only in recent years have they begun to catch up with other mediums in terms of catering towards adults and striving towards art and away from just mindless entertainment.
I just want to use this post as a jumping-off point towards some discussion about the state of video games in our society now and where they are headed in the future. I agree with Daniel that they have unlimited potential towards making great leaps forward as an artistic medium, because no other kind of art allows for the complete immersion of the senses and brain the way video games do. To me, nothing is as frightening as a good horror game; nothing will draw me in for as many hours as some of the more addictive games out there. Ultimately, I feel that in the future, nothing could suck us into an absorbing and immersive storyline the way a video game could (as long as audiences keep showing development companies that we are willing to buy challenging and mature games that aren't just mindless popcorn fare). I respect the Wii for some of its games--Mario Galaxy chief among them--but I sometimes worry that the future of gaming will be baking a cake in a game or getting a workout in a game instead of running or biking outside. I would rather Nintendo push into other dimensions, into things that only games can do. If we want to do yoga, we can do that in real life; we don't need to do it in a Wii game. I'd rather see there be more Shadow of the Collosus's instead of more Wii Fit's.
--Edward
Also, I think it's annoying how our culture makes it so that girls tend not to play "traditional video games" as much as guys do. A lot of girls won't touch games because they think of it as a boys-only domain, although they are quick to jump on Facebook or cell phone games, which are essentially just video games with a lower budget.
As Daniel mentioned in his previous post, video games tend to have a bad reputation in terms of being "immature" or just in general not "productive" (again, this is referring to a specific person who shall remain nameless). I'm not quite sure why this is. Well, okay, I kinda am. Video games started as toys marketed exclusively towards kids, and only in recent years have they begun to catch up with other mediums in terms of catering towards adults and striving towards art and away from just mindless entertainment.
I just want to use this post as a jumping-off point towards some discussion about the state of video games in our society now and where they are headed in the future. I agree with Daniel that they have unlimited potential towards making great leaps forward as an artistic medium, because no other kind of art allows for the complete immersion of the senses and brain the way video games do. To me, nothing is as frightening as a good horror game; nothing will draw me in for as many hours as some of the more addictive games out there. Ultimately, I feel that in the future, nothing could suck us into an absorbing and immersive storyline the way a video game could (as long as audiences keep showing development companies that we are willing to buy challenging and mature games that aren't just mindless popcorn fare). I respect the Wii for some of its games--Mario Galaxy chief among them--but I sometimes worry that the future of gaming will be baking a cake in a game or getting a workout in a game instead of running or biking outside. I would rather Nintendo push into other dimensions, into things that only games can do. If we want to do yoga, we can do that in real life; we don't need to do it in a Wii game. I'd rather see there be more Shadow of the Collosus's instead of more Wii Fit's.
--Edward
Final Thoughts on Videogame Month
Some conclusions from blogging at this point in my life on videogames:
1. Nobody else really wants to blog about videogames at this point in their lives.
2. I hate them all for it.
3. Not really, but come on, it's not that hard to vocalize your love or even hatred or indifference on the matter.
4. Above all, videogames must live on, because like all other things denoted as childish and killed off with the first submittal of taxes at the dawn of adulthood, they preserve our spirit.
5. That's not an overstatement. If anything it's an understatement.
6. Games are fun. Video or otherwise. Somehow sports slip by the security keeping videogames out of adulthood. Sports are amazing, and prove to be one of the very few things that's able to be preserved from childhood and accepted by society. The thought of grown men crying over some game they watch on TV being played by kids in college who've barely hit their twenties if that, is probably more acceptable in society than grown men crying because The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is just so damn hard without a strategy guide. And yet, in the video game scenario, they are actually physically affecting the situation as opposed to miles away from a game being broadcasted on TV. The fact that crossword or sudoku puzzles are considered an intellectual way to pass the time, but video games are immature and fruitless is a real shame. No offense to crosswords and sudoku, but video games are immersive and expansive. You occupy other worlds, become other people and entities, and you live other lives. I can't imagine how people one or two hundred years ago would react to suddenly being sat down with a PS3 controller, but I really don't they would think they would believe that it seemed like something only children should occupy their time with. And thankfully, due to the growth of video games and slowly more-accepting society, the age-range of videogame players is expanding.
7. Video games let people touch the other side of our consciousness. They breed problem-solving, logic, empathy, confidence, and creativity, not to mention hand-eye coordination. And their versatility and potential uses still left to be discovered are boundless. If anything, video games paved the way for generations to take to computers and cell phones like they were breathing air, but it is the video game that still embraces the individual's journey in their experience as one would listening to a song, watching a movie, or reading a book.
8. Games I'm looking forward to playing/beating: Windwaker (beautiful and fun, but Jesus, you think there's enough sailing?), FFVII, Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metroid (yeah, I'm coming back for you time), SSX 3-I never beat you did I?, Knights of the Old Republic-I got a taste and I want more, GH1, GH2, GH 80s (you're welcome), Rock Band, Prince of Persia 3, Resident Evil 4, Jak and Daxter, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and whatever Edward tells me is good.
1. Nobody else really wants to blog about videogames at this point in their lives.
2. I hate them all for it.
3. Not really, but come on, it's not that hard to vocalize your love or even hatred or indifference on the matter.
4. Above all, videogames must live on, because like all other things denoted as childish and killed off with the first submittal of taxes at the dawn of adulthood, they preserve our spirit.
5. That's not an overstatement. If anything it's an understatement.
6. Games are fun. Video or otherwise. Somehow sports slip by the security keeping videogames out of adulthood. Sports are amazing, and prove to be one of the very few things that's able to be preserved from childhood and accepted by society. The thought of grown men crying over some game they watch on TV being played by kids in college who've barely hit their twenties if that, is probably more acceptable in society than grown men crying because The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is just so damn hard without a strategy guide. And yet, in the video game scenario, they are actually physically affecting the situation as opposed to miles away from a game being broadcasted on TV. The fact that crossword or sudoku puzzles are considered an intellectual way to pass the time, but video games are immature and fruitless is a real shame. No offense to crosswords and sudoku, but video games are immersive and expansive. You occupy other worlds, become other people and entities, and you live other lives. I can't imagine how people one or two hundred years ago would react to suddenly being sat down with a PS3 controller, but I really don't they would think they would believe that it seemed like something only children should occupy their time with. And thankfully, due to the growth of video games and slowly more-accepting society, the age-range of videogame players is expanding.
7. Video games let people touch the other side of our consciousness. They breed problem-solving, logic, empathy, confidence, and creativity, not to mention hand-eye coordination. And their versatility and potential uses still left to be discovered are boundless. If anything, video games paved the way for generations to take to computers and cell phones like they were breathing air, but it is the video game that still embraces the individual's journey in their experience as one would listening to a song, watching a movie, or reading a book.
8. Games I'm looking forward to playing/beating: Windwaker (beautiful and fun, but Jesus, you think there's enough sailing?), FFVII, Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metroid (yeah, I'm coming back for you time), SSX 3-I never beat you did I?, Knights of the Old Republic-I got a taste and I want more, GH1, GH2, GH 80s (you're welcome), Rock Band, Prince of Persia 3, Resident Evil 4, Jak and Daxter, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and whatever Edward tells me is good.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Help Self vs. Self Help
I've always been a little skeptical of "Self Help" books and media. I feel a part of me becomes too proud to ever think about using such books that make me recite things to myself, make an effort to smile more whether I want to or not, or come up with impossible thoughts to stretch my mind, all because a book told me to. In a way, it seems very far from self help, because you're getting help from this author or this voice who is making a living out of empowering people (don't get me wrong, people need plenty of empowering, and if it works all the more power to them and the author). But I guess that's the secret to it, enlisting million dollar-level, focus group-tested, research-based help and disguising it as innocent words that you found in a book. And when you read them, they become your own words so that it's you that's helping you.
The other part of me knows I'm being stubborn and would probably buy into some of the crap they tell you to do, and have it work by way of some kind of "Michael's Secret Stuff" effect as in Space Jam, when it's just water the whole time. But I never really get to that point because I sort grimace whenever I see them in stores. I think it's not as much that I feel too proud to take help from a book, but that I can't get over taking help from something so impersonal as a book that is directly trying to help me (I'd rather get help from books trying to take me somewhere completely unrelated to my present life), especially when I know other people are getting help from the exact same book. I want to preserve that selfish notion that I'm so unlike others that some generic book isn't going to get me like I was just another pawn struggling over the same dilemmas and annoyances of life as everyone else (and I bet a mass group of people want to feel that way too).
This is why I inevitably will trust people who know me to help me, because they know me as someone discernable from the sea of billions, with specific traits to myself. I don't think that is too absurd, although I know it could be (like everything) followed to a fault, where you'd never consider the opinion or words of an outsider viewer. It's also hard to hate on the self-help books for me in a way, just because I'm drawn to that tone so much, the tone of speaking to strangers as if they were familiar. But in the end, I do think self help has to come more from the self and being open to the forces at hand, including not just the positive ones of friends or family, but the negative ones as well, of shitty situations that confront and challenge someone to figure out how to get themselves in a better situation. You have to have your own brain to actually help yourself. Like right now, in deciding whether I'm full of shit (as I often wonder when I write).
The other part of me knows I'm being stubborn and would probably buy into some of the crap they tell you to do, and have it work by way of some kind of "Michael's Secret Stuff" effect as in Space Jam, when it's just water the whole time. But I never really get to that point because I sort grimace whenever I see them in stores. I think it's not as much that I feel too proud to take help from a book, but that I can't get over taking help from something so impersonal as a book that is directly trying to help me (I'd rather get help from books trying to take me somewhere completely unrelated to my present life), especially when I know other people are getting help from the exact same book. I want to preserve that selfish notion that I'm so unlike others that some generic book isn't going to get me like I was just another pawn struggling over the same dilemmas and annoyances of life as everyone else (and I bet a mass group of people want to feel that way too).
This is why I inevitably will trust people who know me to help me, because they know me as someone discernable from the sea of billions, with specific traits to myself. I don't think that is too absurd, although I know it could be (like everything) followed to a fault, where you'd never consider the opinion or words of an outsider viewer. It's also hard to hate on the self-help books for me in a way, just because I'm drawn to that tone so much, the tone of speaking to strangers as if they were familiar. But in the end, I do think self help has to come more from the self and being open to the forces at hand, including not just the positive ones of friends or family, but the negative ones as well, of shitty situations that confront and challenge someone to figure out how to get themselves in a better situation. You have to have your own brain to actually help yourself. Like right now, in deciding whether I'm full of shit (as I often wonder when I write).
Friday, July 23, 2010
The Rolling Stones and the Who
So I've come to the conclusion that I'm not very well versed in popular music history. Sure, I know plenty of superficial details, but when it comes to the actual music--the albums, not just what's played on the radio--I feel like I'm a novice. And I don't want to remain one forever. My life is an eternal battle to "catch up" with my probably imaginary peers and become cultured.
For whatever reason, as you can see in my description of the film club we're starting, I am interested in the idea of going through an artist's career chronologically, to chart their development and "grow up" with them. I didn't really used to care about this, and I might well not in the future, but for the time being, that's my thing. And another thing I'm trying to focus on at the moment is really taking the time to get into music artists. Though there are times when I zero in and obsess over a group/artist, buying a lot/all of their albums and listening to only them at the exclusion of others (this has happened with Bob Dylan, Joe Sariani, and Steve Vai), usually I try to buy a wide variety of albums and tend to get all different sorts of things. However, for this particular musical journey, I want to try something new. Until I lose interest, I'm going to try to go through the godfathers of rock, jazz, blues, hip-hop--popular music essentially--one by one, really digging deep into their catalog. Obviously I don't have the financial ability to buy all of their albums, but I'm at least going to try to go through their major albums in chronological order.
Since I already have pretty decent knowledge of Bob Dylan and the Beatles, I figured the next two big artists to go into in terms of rock music would be the Rolling Stones and the Who. Other then what we hear on the radio (and let's not even count that, since it really teaches you nothing about the artist as far as I'm concerned--not in terms of their real music catalog), I have only a minimal acquaintance with either of these giants. I have (in addition to two greatest hits collections) only Exile on Main Street and Beggar's Banquet by the Stones, and only a greatest hits collection for the Who. Although I understand the purpose of greatest hits collections, I think for album-artists like these two bands, it's really doing them a disservice to listen to only their hits. The real meat of their careers, and what they really focused on, are their studio albums (although they are also among the greatest live bands ever). However, I think there is a lot of merit to greatest hits collections for certain groups--stuff like Motown, where it's completely focused on the singles, or the early progenitors of rock music, like Chuck Berry or Elvis. I have a great Chuck Berry CD--The Definitive Collection--with thirty of his hits, but with an artist like him, I feel that I don't necessarily have to dig deeper, whereas someone like the Kinks, you really do have to dig deeper to understand their genius.
I'll probably try to keep track of my journey through various artists here on the blog, but this is a big project that will take place over a long period of time. I am hoping that by recording it publically, I will be motivated to follow through in this endeavor. I asked for the first two albums (The Rolling Stones [England's Newest Hitmakers], 12*5, My Generation, and A Quick One [Happy Jack]) by both the Stones and the Who, respectively, for my birthday, so that will begin the process. I also have to go through a shit-ton of my current albums that I own but haven't listened to all the way through (or at all, in some cases). If something strikes my interest, maybe I'll post about it on here. But I really want to explore more of the foundations of popular music--the big names that I really know nothing about musically, even if I know the facts of their lives.
Other people I would like to explore more: Miles Davis, the Kinks, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, all of those early grandfathers of rock (Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Ray Charles, I'll throw in Fats Domino for Daniel, Buddy Holly), the Beach Boys, Pink Floyd (I own the two obvious records by them, but I think there is more to dig out of them, and I have never listened to The Wall all the way through--some would hate me for that and others are probably like, Don't do it!), Black Sabbath, Public Enemy, and many others. I feel like I have decent knowledge across the board in terms of a variety of styles and time periods (at least compared to people I know--compared to what I would like to be, I'm an absolute and hopeless rook), but I wish I had more really deep and specialized knowledge about some artists that you really should have knowledge of. Anyways, the journey shall begin shortly when I get those CDs. Stay posted.
--Edward
For whatever reason, as you can see in my description of the film club we're starting, I am interested in the idea of going through an artist's career chronologically, to chart their development and "grow up" with them. I didn't really used to care about this, and I might well not in the future, but for the time being, that's my thing. And another thing I'm trying to focus on at the moment is really taking the time to get into music artists. Though there are times when I zero in and obsess over a group/artist, buying a lot/all of their albums and listening to only them at the exclusion of others (this has happened with Bob Dylan, Joe Sariani, and Steve Vai), usually I try to buy a wide variety of albums and tend to get all different sorts of things. However, for this particular musical journey, I want to try something new. Until I lose interest, I'm going to try to go through the godfathers of rock, jazz, blues, hip-hop--popular music essentially--one by one, really digging deep into their catalog. Obviously I don't have the financial ability to buy all of their albums, but I'm at least going to try to go through their major albums in chronological order.
Since I already have pretty decent knowledge of Bob Dylan and the Beatles, I figured the next two big artists to go into in terms of rock music would be the Rolling Stones and the Who. Other then what we hear on the radio (and let's not even count that, since it really teaches you nothing about the artist as far as I'm concerned--not in terms of their real music catalog), I have only a minimal acquaintance with either of these giants. I have (in addition to two greatest hits collections) only Exile on Main Street and Beggar's Banquet by the Stones, and only a greatest hits collection for the Who. Although I understand the purpose of greatest hits collections, I think for album-artists like these two bands, it's really doing them a disservice to listen to only their hits. The real meat of their careers, and what they really focused on, are their studio albums (although they are also among the greatest live bands ever). However, I think there is a lot of merit to greatest hits collections for certain groups--stuff like Motown, where it's completely focused on the singles, or the early progenitors of rock music, like Chuck Berry or Elvis. I have a great Chuck Berry CD--The Definitive Collection--with thirty of his hits, but with an artist like him, I feel that I don't necessarily have to dig deeper, whereas someone like the Kinks, you really do have to dig deeper to understand their genius.
I'll probably try to keep track of my journey through various artists here on the blog, but this is a big project that will take place over a long period of time. I am hoping that by recording it publically, I will be motivated to follow through in this endeavor. I asked for the first two albums (The Rolling Stones [England's Newest Hitmakers], 12*5, My Generation, and A Quick One [Happy Jack]) by both the Stones and the Who, respectively, for my birthday, so that will begin the process. I also have to go through a shit-ton of my current albums that I own but haven't listened to all the way through (or at all, in some cases). If something strikes my interest, maybe I'll post about it on here. But I really want to explore more of the foundations of popular music--the big names that I really know nothing about musically, even if I know the facts of their lives.
Other people I would like to explore more: Miles Davis, the Kinks, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, all of those early grandfathers of rock (Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Ray Charles, I'll throw in Fats Domino for Daniel, Buddy Holly), the Beach Boys, Pink Floyd (I own the two obvious records by them, but I think there is more to dig out of them, and I have never listened to The Wall all the way through--some would hate me for that and others are probably like, Don't do it!), Black Sabbath, Public Enemy, and many others. I feel like I have decent knowledge across the board in terms of a variety of styles and time periods (at least compared to people I know--compared to what I would like to be, I'm an absolute and hopeless rook), but I wish I had more really deep and specialized knowledge about some artists that you really should have knowledge of. Anyways, the journey shall begin shortly when I get those CDs. Stay posted.
--Edward
The Top Ten Video Game Levels
Note that my top 5 Overworlds are down below the top 10 levels. First, let's start off with my many Honorable Mentions. Note that some of these I don't know the actual names: Hot Top Volcano (with hovercraft) - Diddy Kong Racing, Snow Level - Metroid Prime, Level in the City's Ruins - Medal of Honor, Chicago - Perfect Dark, Cradle - Goldeneye, We've Got Hostiles - Half-Life, Wario's Stadium - Mariokart 64, Rainbow Road - Mariokart 64, DK's Jungle - Mariokart 64, Double Deck - Mariokart 64, Block Fort - Mariokart 64, Ord Metal Junkyard - Shadows of the Empire, Ando Prime - Star Wars: Episode I Podracer, The Loop - NBA Street, Level 1-1 - Super Mario Bros., Casino - Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Treasure Trove Cove - Banjo Kazooie, Freezeezy Peak - Banjo Kazooie, Bob-omb Battlefield - Super Mario 64, Cool, Cool Mountain - Super Mario 64, Kalamari Desert - Mariokart 64, Notre Dame - Timesplitters 2, The Water Temple - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (and all the other temples), Tree level - Kirby's Dreamworld, New York City - Spiderman 2, Overworld - Zelda: Windwaker, South America - Little Big Planet, Normandy - Call of Duty: World at War, The Dam - Goldeneye and Timesplitters 2, Robot Factory - Timesplitters 2, Caverns - Goldeneye, Chicago 1920s(?) - Timesplitters 2, Atom Smasher - Timesplitters 2, Overworld - Super Mario Sunshine
Top 10 Levels:
10. Battle of Hoth - Rogue Squadron
9. Dragon Cove - 1080 Snowboarding
8. Canada - Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3
7. Mexican Mission - Timesplitters 2
6. Hazy Maze Cave - Super Mario 64
5. The Silent Cartographer - Halo: Combat Evolved
4. The Second Island of Liberty City - Grand Theft Auto III
3. Garibaldi - SSX Tricky
2. Click Clock Wood - Banjo Kazooie
1. Facility - Goldeneye
Top 5 Overworlds:
5. Diddy Kong Racing 64
4. Grand Theft Auto 3
3. Banjo Kazooie
2. Super Mario 64
1. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Top 10 Levels:
10. Battle of Hoth - Rogue Squadron
9. Dragon Cove - 1080 Snowboarding
8. Canada - Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3
7. Mexican Mission - Timesplitters 2
6. Hazy Maze Cave - Super Mario 64
5. The Silent Cartographer - Halo: Combat Evolved
4. The Second Island of Liberty City - Grand Theft Auto III
3. Garibaldi - SSX Tricky
2. Click Clock Wood - Banjo Kazooie
1. Facility - Goldeneye
Top 5 Overworlds:
5. Diddy Kong Racing 64
4. Grand Theft Auto 3
3. Banjo Kazooie
2. Super Mario 64
1. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Digital Dream Door Has Video Game Lists!
Ahh, so anyone who knows me somewhat well knows that I have a very soft, crumbly part of my heart for the Web site Digital Dream Door, which houses a whopping selection of music lists (and some movie ones, too). It is very informative, and if I'm ever trying to get into a new genre that I don't know very much about (say, New Wave, or reggae), I can easily go on there and see what the top albums are in that particular genre, or who the top artists are, etc.
I just found out today they have a smattering of video game lists too, which is awesome. I'll post the link here of their top 100 greatest video games of the 2000s. You can see all their other video game lists posted at the top of that page. Look at #1! It still baffles me why so few others seem to like this game besides me, Daniel, and Greg. I can see why you'd be sick of them now, since there are so many GTA-clones out there, not to mention a vast amount of real sequels (although all seem to get good scores--the only one I've played is Vice City, which I liked, but it is exactly like the third game, so I never got why people creamed over it so much, other than that most of them didn't play GTA III, so this was their first exposure to the series. If that is true, then I am totally understanding, because when the very concept and execution of the series first washes over for you, you will be in for one long wet dream). But when GTA III hit the market in 2001, it was so breathtaking and so....what we wanted games to be like, that it blew our minds.
Here is the link: http://digitaldreamdoor.nutsie.com/pages/best_video-games-2000s.html (I had to write that manually, so tell me anyone if it doesn't work).
--Edward
I just found out today they have a smattering of video game lists too, which is awesome. I'll post the link here of their top 100 greatest video games of the 2000s. You can see all their other video game lists posted at the top of that page. Look at #1! It still baffles me why so few others seem to like this game besides me, Daniel, and Greg. I can see why you'd be sick of them now, since there are so many GTA-clones out there, not to mention a vast amount of real sequels (although all seem to get good scores--the only one I've played is Vice City, which I liked, but it is exactly like the third game, so I never got why people creamed over it so much, other than that most of them didn't play GTA III, so this was their first exposure to the series. If that is true, then I am totally understanding, because when the very concept and execution of the series first washes over for you, you will be in for one long wet dream). But when GTA III hit the market in 2001, it was so breathtaking and so....what we wanted games to be like, that it blew our minds.
Here is the link: http://digitaldreamdoor.nutsie.com/pages/best_video-games-2000s.html (I had to write that manually, so tell me anyone if it doesn't work).
--Edward
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
All right. So anyone that knows me probably knows that I think one of the best games, if not the best, is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (single player, obviously). I know it already has a shoutout on DIMB, but deal. What makes Ocarina so eternally satisfying is that it lies in the overlapping section of the venn diagram of video game qualities. It has just the right amounts of hack 'n' slash fighting (not like FF), learned weapons/tools that require some attention/practice (not like Dark Alliance), exploring (not like side-scrollers), challenging-but-achievable puzzles (not like bastard Majora's Mask), side quests that are useful to the main quest but not necessary (not stupid things that take all your time and then are like, yay, we put your name on the wall of the inn!), and, my topic for today, mythos.
Mythos is probably one of the most important factors in a game's success. Lastingly, anyway. Given an audience of geeks/nerds/what-have-you, video game designers have recognized that there is nothing geeks/nerds/what-have-yous like better than accumulating knowledge that is in no way useful to any situation or conversation EXCEPT THOSE ABOUT THAT KNOWLEDGE ITSELF. (Actually, Chewbacca had a wife and child, didn't you know?) By building a universe in which a game resides, designers not only guarantee a loyal fanbase that will try MORE THAN ONCE to play Majora's Mask (even though it is clearly not a well planned game. Or too well planned maybe), but they give their players depth and texture so even if they've played Ocarina many times, it is still engaging because it is not limited to the beating of the game itself.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
The Top 10 Co-Op Games of All Time
I've always felt that cooperative modes have gotten the short end of the stick. Everyone laughs them off in favor of competitive multiplayer, but I know Daniel and I had some great times growing up playing many a co-op mode. There is something uniquely satisfying about combining our unique and vast powers together to form some kind of unstoppable team (cue high-fives). Note that I have not included any sports games--since there are so many and I think of co-op more in terms of completing some sort of campaign mode rather then playing on a sports team--or any games where you play together mostly in arcade mode as opposed to story mode (something like Turok: Rage Wars comes to mind). Anyways, we're off!
10.) Guitar Hero series: Not the most notable co-op ever (can you tell I'm straining to include entries?), co-op in the Guitar Hero series meant that one person played lead guitar (the highly sought-after spot which I often hogged) and the other had to play either bass (shit-tastic) or rhythm guitar (pretty close to it). I had some good times with Mike as we tried to beat all the songs in the game ("Hangar 18" of course proved particularly challenging, and as I remember we were only able to beat it with me playing the bass part for whatever reason). This is pretty fun to play on the hardest songs, where it's a fight for survival. Another thing we tried to do was beat "Through the Fire and Flames," and we made it up to the end of the solo, but as both rhythm and lead parts have to solo a lot--and as the solos are easily the hardest in the entire series--we were never able to pass this. At least we made it past the intro, which is more than most teams could say. I would love one day to have a competitive team so that we could battle other teams and perhaps have matching uniforms.
9.) Batman Forever: Do I remember that much about the co-op on this? Not really. You could make a case that I shouldn't include it on this list since I really can't say much about it, but one thing I do remember about Batman Forever (on the Genesis) is that it made me want to go out to a toy store and find Batman's gadget belt, complete with smoke pellets, grappling hook, and the plethora of other gadgets he used in this underrated SEGA game. Daniel and I undoubtedly didn't make it very far, but we tried our hardest (not really).
8.) X-Wing: Not often on a co-op best-of list do you see a PC game that doesn't offer online co-op. No--we played co-op ON THE SAME KEYBOARD. Haha. Our system revolved around (I believe) Daniel controlling the mouse and me hitting a random button to fire at spaceships in this Star Wars-themed space simulator. This was a very early period in our gaming lives, but a rich one. Complete with the soothing sounds of the Z104 radio station in the background (playing such notables as "Waterfalls," the entire soundtrack from Romeo+Juliet [most importantly "Lovefool"], and of course, the oft-mentioned No Doubt), this was a great experience that, like many of our early gaming and other life-experiences, didn't really make sense. We probably didn't beat many levels, and we certainly didn't know how to play the game correctly, but we did have a great time and I look back on this pre-CD-ROM computer game with fondness.
7.) Twisted Metal: Black: A period not spoken of too often, since I gave the game back eventually to whoever rightly owned it (a Round Hill kid perhaps?), Daniel and I almost beat this game during a quick run that we made at the game's co-op mode. It was a lot of fun figuring out how to beat the bosses, and ultimately we were never able to outwit the final boss of this game. If only we had had more time with the game, undoubtedly we would've solved this bitch of a boss, but unfortunately we will forever remain the bitches.
6.) Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy: like X-Wing (although that is really supposed to be only a one-player game), this is a co-op game where you and your friend both control different parts of the same character. In this case, one person controls your character's movement, while the other controls his psychic powers (which was the selling point of this sadly underplayed game). Daniel and I were always players willing to give interesting or underappreciated games the benefit of the doubt, and this is no exception. Because both of us controlled various aspects of the same person, this actually did require quite a bit of teamwork, which added to the fun of an already interesting story mode (complete with various bad guys representing different psi-powers and trips to such interesting places as the Caspian Sea and God knows where else).
5.) TimeSplitters 2: This is just a classic FPS that allows you to relieve the glories of single-player mode with a friend. It raises the question of why more shooters don't have this feature. This was a game from the classic PS2 renaissance of freshman-junior years for Daniel, Greg, and me. We were somehow able to recapture the glory days of the N64 in the tremendous variety of games that the PS2 offered us. TimeSplitters is one of the most iconic games of this time period, and we basically did all that you could do in this game. We did story mode, we did arcade mode, we did fucking Virus mode for hours on end, and we did co-op. I love that classic first level, the Dam, an obvious parody of the first GoldenEye level. I love how you steadily push deeper and discover darker secrets (Aliens and of course the Aliens rip-off level in the first Halo), and finally fight your way out with flamethrowers as time runs out (again, Aliens). Don't forget about the Gothic feel of the Notre Dame level, complete with spooky characters shrouded in hoods and pouring rain. And of course the brilliance of the Atom Smasher level, which was like a videogame version of the campy 1960's Batman show. I was only ever able to beat the challenging Robot Factory level with Daniel's help.
4.) Rock Band series: This is what co-op is all about. Nothing is as primal in videogames as a bunch of drunk people playing "Creep" by Radiohead, everyone repeatedly saving that wasted drummer who keeps failing out of the song. Clearly the go-to game for any sort of social event.
3.) LEGO Indiana Jones: Daniel mentioned in another entry that Banjo-Kazooie is best described as "joy." The same could be said for this game, which by the way comes free with the Xbox 360. Co-op, and basically the game itself, is such pure, heavenly fluff that you can't help falling in love with it after you've played it enough. Cynical people who prefer more macho first-person shooters to satisfy their ghastly needs personally frighten timid old me. I prefer to sit back and listen to the comforting music of John Williams as Jake repeatedly tries to look up hints online to find that last gold thing so we can beat the damn game completely.
2.) Two Crude Dudes: Daniel summarized this pretty well in his post "Children of the Systems Part 1," so I won't take away from his solid descriptions of this post-apocalyptic wasteland (perhaps a social critique about the state urban America was in by the mid-'90s) full of nipple-sucking and crack-smoking. I loved that one level where you climbed up and down ladders on various parts of the screen, so you could be about a few feet above or below your compatriot--what the fuck was the point of all these sub-levels? Also, did I mention the nipple-sucking?
1.) Halo: Combat Evolved (and I suppose by extension, Halo 2): I might never have gotten into the Halo series like the rest of the planet, but if there's one thing this game does right (and I won't lie and say there's only one--this game had perfect controls too), it's the co-op mode. Like TimeSplitters 2, it's nothing fancy. Just add goddamn co-op to a solid one-player game, and you turn it into something great. The scope of this game made it natural to add another player to the campaign mode. Only in Halo can it take three-plus hours to beat a single level with your friend (as Daniel and I proved on a recent excursion in the snow level on Legendary). That's about how long it took to beat the entire Two Crude Dudes co-op campaign (although there was a much greater risk in that, since if you died too many times or wanted to puss out, you had to start the game all over--no save mode).
I have some great, great memories of going through this multiple times with Daniel (at the moment we're working on it on Legendary). It's so much fun to drive Daniel around as he shoots a machine gun wildly in the backseat, preferrably with a friendly, albeit stupid bot in the passenger seat also shooting wildly. Other games should learn something from the co-op of the Halo series: you don't have to make it fancy; just include the damn thing. (I decided to include Halo 2 along with the original, since they essentially have the same type of co-op experience, but let it be known that the campaign mode in the sequel is so much less memorable than the original.)
--Edward
10.) Guitar Hero series: Not the most notable co-op ever (can you tell I'm straining to include entries?), co-op in the Guitar Hero series meant that one person played lead guitar (the highly sought-after spot which I often hogged) and the other had to play either bass (shit-tastic) or rhythm guitar (pretty close to it). I had some good times with Mike as we tried to beat all the songs in the game ("Hangar 18" of course proved particularly challenging, and as I remember we were only able to beat it with me playing the bass part for whatever reason). This is pretty fun to play on the hardest songs, where it's a fight for survival. Another thing we tried to do was beat "Through the Fire and Flames," and we made it up to the end of the solo, but as both rhythm and lead parts have to solo a lot--and as the solos are easily the hardest in the entire series--we were never able to pass this. At least we made it past the intro, which is more than most teams could say. I would love one day to have a competitive team so that we could battle other teams and perhaps have matching uniforms.
9.) Batman Forever: Do I remember that much about the co-op on this? Not really. You could make a case that I shouldn't include it on this list since I really can't say much about it, but one thing I do remember about Batman Forever (on the Genesis) is that it made me want to go out to a toy store and find Batman's gadget belt, complete with smoke pellets, grappling hook, and the plethora of other gadgets he used in this underrated SEGA game. Daniel and I undoubtedly didn't make it very far, but we tried our hardest (not really).
8.) X-Wing: Not often on a co-op best-of list do you see a PC game that doesn't offer online co-op. No--we played co-op ON THE SAME KEYBOARD. Haha. Our system revolved around (I believe) Daniel controlling the mouse and me hitting a random button to fire at spaceships in this Star Wars-themed space simulator. This was a very early period in our gaming lives, but a rich one. Complete with the soothing sounds of the Z104 radio station in the background (playing such notables as "Waterfalls," the entire soundtrack from Romeo+Juliet [most importantly "Lovefool"], and of course, the oft-mentioned No Doubt), this was a great experience that, like many of our early gaming and other life-experiences, didn't really make sense. We probably didn't beat many levels, and we certainly didn't know how to play the game correctly, but we did have a great time and I look back on this pre-CD-ROM computer game with fondness.
7.) Twisted Metal: Black: A period not spoken of too often, since I gave the game back eventually to whoever rightly owned it (a Round Hill kid perhaps?), Daniel and I almost beat this game during a quick run that we made at the game's co-op mode. It was a lot of fun figuring out how to beat the bosses, and ultimately we were never able to outwit the final boss of this game. If only we had had more time with the game, undoubtedly we would've solved this bitch of a boss, but unfortunately we will forever remain the bitches.
6.) Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy: like X-Wing (although that is really supposed to be only a one-player game), this is a co-op game where you and your friend both control different parts of the same character. In this case, one person controls your character's movement, while the other controls his psychic powers (which was the selling point of this sadly underplayed game). Daniel and I were always players willing to give interesting or underappreciated games the benefit of the doubt, and this is no exception. Because both of us controlled various aspects of the same person, this actually did require quite a bit of teamwork, which added to the fun of an already interesting story mode (complete with various bad guys representing different psi-powers and trips to such interesting places as the Caspian Sea and God knows where else).
5.) TimeSplitters 2: This is just a classic FPS that allows you to relieve the glories of single-player mode with a friend. It raises the question of why more shooters don't have this feature. This was a game from the classic PS2 renaissance of freshman-junior years for Daniel, Greg, and me. We were somehow able to recapture the glory days of the N64 in the tremendous variety of games that the PS2 offered us. TimeSplitters is one of the most iconic games of this time period, and we basically did all that you could do in this game. We did story mode, we did arcade mode, we did fucking Virus mode for hours on end, and we did co-op. I love that classic first level, the Dam, an obvious parody of the first GoldenEye level. I love how you steadily push deeper and discover darker secrets (Aliens and of course the Aliens rip-off level in the first Halo), and finally fight your way out with flamethrowers as time runs out (again, Aliens). Don't forget about the Gothic feel of the Notre Dame level, complete with spooky characters shrouded in hoods and pouring rain. And of course the brilliance of the Atom Smasher level, which was like a videogame version of the campy 1960's Batman show. I was only ever able to beat the challenging Robot Factory level with Daniel's help.
4.) Rock Band series: This is what co-op is all about. Nothing is as primal in videogames as a bunch of drunk people playing "Creep" by Radiohead, everyone repeatedly saving that wasted drummer who keeps failing out of the song. Clearly the go-to game for any sort of social event.
3.) LEGO Indiana Jones: Daniel mentioned in another entry that Banjo-Kazooie is best described as "joy." The same could be said for this game, which by the way comes free with the Xbox 360. Co-op, and basically the game itself, is such pure, heavenly fluff that you can't help falling in love with it after you've played it enough. Cynical people who prefer more macho first-person shooters to satisfy their ghastly needs personally frighten timid old me. I prefer to sit back and listen to the comforting music of John Williams as Jake repeatedly tries to look up hints online to find that last gold thing so we can beat the damn game completely.
2.) Two Crude Dudes: Daniel summarized this pretty well in his post "Children of the Systems Part 1," so I won't take away from his solid descriptions of this post-apocalyptic wasteland (perhaps a social critique about the state urban America was in by the mid-'90s) full of nipple-sucking and crack-smoking. I loved that one level where you climbed up and down ladders on various parts of the screen, so you could be about a few feet above or below your compatriot--what the fuck was the point of all these sub-levels? Also, did I mention the nipple-sucking?
1.) Halo: Combat Evolved (and I suppose by extension, Halo 2): I might never have gotten into the Halo series like the rest of the planet, but if there's one thing this game does right (and I won't lie and say there's only one--this game had perfect controls too), it's the co-op mode. Like TimeSplitters 2, it's nothing fancy. Just add goddamn co-op to a solid one-player game, and you turn it into something great. The scope of this game made it natural to add another player to the campaign mode. Only in Halo can it take three-plus hours to beat a single level with your friend (as Daniel and I proved on a recent excursion in the snow level on Legendary). That's about how long it took to beat the entire Two Crude Dudes co-op campaign (although there was a much greater risk in that, since if you died too many times or wanted to puss out, you had to start the game all over--no save mode).
I have some great, great memories of going through this multiple times with Daniel (at the moment we're working on it on Legendary). It's so much fun to drive Daniel around as he shoots a machine gun wildly in the backseat, preferrably with a friendly, albeit stupid bot in the passenger seat also shooting wildly. Other games should learn something from the co-op of the Halo series: you don't have to make it fancy; just include the damn thing. (I decided to include Halo 2 along with the original, since they essentially have the same type of co-op experience, but let it be known that the campaign mode in the sequel is so much less memorable than the original.)
--Edward
Edward's Top PS2 Games
The PlayStation 2 was the first home console system post-N64 for me. The 64 was where I really blossomed as a gamer. Yes, I played my fair share of SEGA Genesis games, but I was still a youngun and things weren't too serious. The N64 was where I started to get more serious. I picked out the games for myself instead of just playing what my parents got me. GoldeneEye and The Ocarina of Time were the first real masterpieces I played that opened up my eyes as to how great games could be--that they could be life-changing and -affirming experiences that I would cherish forever.
The PS2 was when I became a mature gamer however. I decided to stop using strategy guides, since I felt that this was cheating myself as a player, and I really started to focus on actually beating all the games I had, instead of just starting one then giving it up for another one like a cheap, used-up prostitute. The PS2 was a great system and it actually--surprisingly--was able to live up to the mighty legacy of the N64. As I say a few times in the game reviews here, it was the first time that games were able to live up to their potential, as imagined by Daniel and me growing up. Games like SSX: Tricky and Tony Hawk 3 and NBA Street all had intricate trick and combo systems, and games were able to in corporate advanced statistics and leveling systems to clearly show player progress. This was always how the minds of Daniel and me worked growing up, so we had met our match. This is most clearly shown in SSX: Tricky tournaments held between Daniel, Greg, and me. Perhaps later in the month I will post the stats for these mighty tournaments, which included such notable cameos as Matt DeBruycker, Douglas Rickert, and Joe DeBruycker (and Luke Wence!). I wish we had video clips of our snowboard races, but alas, technology had not yet caught up with our mighty intellects at that point. This was pre-JFP.
-Grand Theft Auto III (obviously #1, Daniel and I are the only people who like this game apparently....)
-Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (so many hours put in, so much joy drawn out; "Papparazzi" by Xzibit)
-TimeSplitters 2 (probably more hours than I put into any game until Guitar Hero and TimeSplitters 3 came out)
-Final Fantasy X (epic)
-NBA Street (the PS2 was one of the first systems I got that had so much potential actually unleashed: games like this and Tony Hawk were the kind of games we always wanted to play growing up)
-SSX: Tricky (come on)
-Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (the hidden game that I loved and no one else knew about at the time--the size of the world was staggering--this reminded me most of an update of Banjo-Kazooie, which is easily an all-time game for me)
-Gran Turismo 3 (depth and surprising addictiveness)
-Guitar Hero II (crack)
-Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy (beat out Red Faction to make the list based on its innovative controls, ridiculously bad voice-acting, and the amazing co-op, as well as the idea of a person who lives only in his mind and goes places using remote viewing)
Honorable mentions:
-Red Faction (the hidden, ugly cousin of TimeSplitters that is supposedly all about the one-player, but we uncovered the joy of multiplayer, which is building tunnels)
-Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (one of the premier games on the system sadly ruined by my use of a strategy guide--one day I wil go back and beat this, and the first one, in which I was on the last boss)
-Guitar Hero (didn't need two of these on the list, but this had debatably the best setlist of the series)
-Sly Cooper: Thievius Racoonus (the hidden platformer of the holy trinity of the PS2, less well known than Jak or Ratchet)
-Ratchet and Clank (good, funny, but not great like Jak, although I think a lot disagree and I hear the sequels are even better)
--Edward
The PS2 was when I became a mature gamer however. I decided to stop using strategy guides, since I felt that this was cheating myself as a player, and I really started to focus on actually beating all the games I had, instead of just starting one then giving it up for another one like a cheap, used-up prostitute. The PS2 was a great system and it actually--surprisingly--was able to live up to the mighty legacy of the N64. As I say a few times in the game reviews here, it was the first time that games were able to live up to their potential, as imagined by Daniel and me growing up. Games like SSX: Tricky and Tony Hawk 3 and NBA Street all had intricate trick and combo systems, and games were able to in corporate advanced statistics and leveling systems to clearly show player progress. This was always how the minds of Daniel and me worked growing up, so we had met our match. This is most clearly shown in SSX: Tricky tournaments held between Daniel, Greg, and me. Perhaps later in the month I will post the stats for these mighty tournaments, which included such notable cameos as Matt DeBruycker, Douglas Rickert, and Joe DeBruycker (and Luke Wence!). I wish we had video clips of our snowboard races, but alas, technology had not yet caught up with our mighty intellects at that point. This was pre-JFP.
-Grand Theft Auto III (obviously #1, Daniel and I are the only people who like this game apparently....)
-Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (so many hours put in, so much joy drawn out; "Papparazzi" by Xzibit)
-TimeSplitters 2 (probably more hours than I put into any game until Guitar Hero and TimeSplitters 3 came out)
-Final Fantasy X (epic)
-NBA Street (the PS2 was one of the first systems I got that had so much potential actually unleashed: games like this and Tony Hawk were the kind of games we always wanted to play growing up)
-SSX: Tricky (come on)
-Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (the hidden game that I loved and no one else knew about at the time--the size of the world was staggering--this reminded me most of an update of Banjo-Kazooie, which is easily an all-time game for me)
-Gran Turismo 3 (depth and surprising addictiveness)
-Guitar Hero II (crack)
-Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy (beat out Red Faction to make the list based on its innovative controls, ridiculously bad voice-acting, and the amazing co-op, as well as the idea of a person who lives only in his mind and goes places using remote viewing)
Honorable mentions:
-Red Faction (the hidden, ugly cousin of TimeSplitters that is supposedly all about the one-player, but we uncovered the joy of multiplayer, which is building tunnels)
-Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (one of the premier games on the system sadly ruined by my use of a strategy guide--one day I wil go back and beat this, and the first one, in which I was on the last boss)
-Guitar Hero (didn't need two of these on the list, but this had debatably the best setlist of the series)
-Sly Cooper: Thievius Racoonus (the hidden platformer of the holy trinity of the PS2, less well known than Jak or Ratchet)
-Ratchet and Clank (good, funny, but not great like Jak, although I think a lot disagree and I hear the sequels are even better)
--Edward
Edward's Top Xbox Games
I got an Xbox late--I had owned a PS2 for three or four years. I got it because James, Daniel, and I (and someone else...who?) were going to start a Halo team complete with headbands and matching outfits/team "moves." I wanted to practice the game, and it took me many years to realize that no matter how much I played the one-player mode by myself, even if I got to Legendary, that it would never make me good at multiplayer. I was never really one to get that into Halo's multiplayer--mostly just because I was so far behind, so whenever I played, I just got slaughtered and it was no fun--so I never really got that into the worship of these games like others did. However, I'm not stupid enough to not include them on my list of the top 10 Xbox games (not ranked). Regardless, unlike almost every other Xbox owner on the planet, those two games do not comprise my fondest memories of this cold, intimidating black box. (No order, just the same as the N64 list.)
-Ninja Gaiden (completely epic and lengthy, ridiculously challenging yet satisfying, I loved all the environments and it was vast and full of places to explore almost like a GTA or Jak-type game)
-Half-Life 2 (not quite as memorable as Half-Life the original, but this was probably as gripping and cinematic as any game I've ever played)
-Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (probably the first and only RPG I've ever beaten, this is pure-awesome in itself just for being a good Star Wars game--it has a good story, great characters--like the droid that calls humans "meat-bags"--and it's just quality)
-Burnout 3: Takedown (the purest distillation of an adrenaline rush I've ever seen in a game--also, it let you listen to your own music, which only added to the near-perfection of this game)
-TimeSplitters: Future Perfect (outside of the Guitar Hero series, which doesn't even count because of my level of addictedness to those games, this is probably the game I've put the most hours into--I don't care how much "real shooter fans" would probably say it sucks, the cartooniness and the humor and the pure joy of this game is a revelation)
-Far Cry: Instincts (a surprise vote, this never would have made the list after I beat its single player campaign, which is supposedly the best part of the game, but after we played multiplayer in it, I have to include it--I fucking love the multiplayer)
-Halo: Combat Evolved (enough has been said about this; I'm not as big of a fan as others, but this is undoubtedly because I missed out on the multiplayer craze [I tend to miss out on popular things], but you have to give this game the respect it deserves)
-Halo 2 (do I want to put this on here? Not really, but I apparently didn't have that many Xbox games I was into, or at least that I can remember)
-Fatal Frame (scariest game ever, do not question this or let anyone sway you otherwise)
-Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (Daniel's signature series, this was a solid action-adventure game with a storyline twist at the end that I kinda forget, but I'm pretty sure implied that all of the previous events didn't actually happen)
Honorable mentions:
-Burnout Revenge (were this a standalone game, I'm sure I would have loved it, but it happened to come after the best racer of all time, so it was a bit of a let-down)
Fuck if I know what else?
--Edward
-Ninja Gaiden (completely epic and lengthy, ridiculously challenging yet satisfying, I loved all the environments and it was vast and full of places to explore almost like a GTA or Jak-type game)
-Half-Life 2 (not quite as memorable as Half-Life the original, but this was probably as gripping and cinematic as any game I've ever played)
-Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (probably the first and only RPG I've ever beaten, this is pure-awesome in itself just for being a good Star Wars game--it has a good story, great characters--like the droid that calls humans "meat-bags"--and it's just quality)
-Burnout 3: Takedown (the purest distillation of an adrenaline rush I've ever seen in a game--also, it let you listen to your own music, which only added to the near-perfection of this game)
-TimeSplitters: Future Perfect (outside of the Guitar Hero series, which doesn't even count because of my level of addictedness to those games, this is probably the game I've put the most hours into--I don't care how much "real shooter fans" would probably say it sucks, the cartooniness and the humor and the pure joy of this game is a revelation)
-Far Cry: Instincts (a surprise vote, this never would have made the list after I beat its single player campaign, which is supposedly the best part of the game, but after we played multiplayer in it, I have to include it--I fucking love the multiplayer)
-Halo: Combat Evolved (enough has been said about this; I'm not as big of a fan as others, but this is undoubtedly because I missed out on the multiplayer craze [I tend to miss out on popular things], but you have to give this game the respect it deserves)
-Halo 2 (do I want to put this on here? Not really, but I apparently didn't have that many Xbox games I was into, or at least that I can remember)
-Fatal Frame (scariest game ever, do not question this or let anyone sway you otherwise)
-Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (Daniel's signature series, this was a solid action-adventure game with a storyline twist at the end that I kinda forget, but I'm pretty sure implied that all of the previous events didn't actually happen)
Honorable mentions:
-Burnout Revenge (were this a standalone game, I'm sure I would have loved it, but it happened to come after the best racer of all time, so it was a bit of a let-down)
Fuck if I know what else?
--Edward
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Top 10 Greatest Videogame Moments, Part 3
2.) Draw! (1080 Snowboarding): Somehow, the inconspicuous game 1080 was able to make my list of favorite gaming moments twice. Pretty amazing considering the game wasn't even that great (don't let Daniel tell you it is...I mean it was great, but not actually good, if you know what I mean). Anyways, I believe Daniel and I were racing on the final level of this game, a big glacier/tundra mountain full of lots of powder and basically just a downhill dash to the finish line. Both of us were apparently hungry for that line on this particular day. Neither of us wanted to lose, and this is one of the few times in a racing game against one other person where neither of us did lose. Because we crossed the line pretty far apart from each other in terms of distance, but apparently at the exact same time. In huge golden letters, "DRAW!" sprawled itself across the screen. I am not sure by what measurement of time the game measured races, but somehow we were able to get the EXACT SAME TIME. Such a thing can happen in Tricky, down to the hundredth, but even then, it always awards one racer the victory over the other. I would think most games are this way--that they wouldn't allow ties. However, glorious 1080 is similar to glorious soccer in that you can actually tie in it. I know this is a stupid thing to post so high above some of the other great stuff above, but this was a mythical moment for the Waterford Boys, something dreams are made of. Indeed, the beauty of that final level--Deadly Fall--was dreamlike: stunning vistas capped in white stretching out as far as the eye could see, the bright yellow rays of the sun piercing the icy cold. This was a defining moment in our childhoods.
1.) The Log (Guitar Hero II): Now, as a warning, this is going to be a long post, so please bear with me. A lot of the above moments have been simply cute happenstances or memorable moments, but few have been the product of actual hard work (the 2:40 is one of those, as well as the other Guitar Hero moments). This achievement took me between a year and a year and a half to achieve. But oh God was it ever worth it. Let's clear this up right now: the Log is the guitar you get after 5-starring all of the main setlist songs in Guitar Hero II on expert (so basically every song in story mode). The guitar is an ugly thing itself, crudely shaped out of a log (hence its name). (You get the "Eyeball" for 5-starring all of the setlist songs on hard, which is a really good accomplishment--harder than beating the game on expert.) It is what it stands for that counts. It means that you are one of the elite few who have 5-starred every song from "Shout at the Devil" to "Free Bird." Here is another breakdown thread which shows the difficulty of 5-starring all of the expert songs in the series in comparison to each other: http://www.scorehero.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=60158&highlight=. It shows the pain I went through. Let me just say right now that it is a lot (A LOT A LOT A LOT A LOT A LOT) harder to 5-star songs than beat them. Just because you can beat the game on expert, please do not compare this with getting the Log. Even if you can 5-star 95% of the game, please do not compare this with getting the Log. I had gotten maybe all but 10 out of the 40 songs in the setlist within the first month or two, but it took me the last year to get those last 10. Some songs are exponentially harder to nail than others.
Some people might ask how you 5-star a song as opposed to just beating it. This has to do with your overall final score. Once you have a high enough score on a song, you 5-star it. The score needed to get a 5 star rating is based on your multiplier (the meter that shows whether you have no combo, a x2 combo, a x4 combo, or a x8 combo if you happen to be under starpower holding a combo) using a fancy mathematical formula that I do not know. Basically, if you hit a high enough score, you 5-star it. And you hit a high score by keeping a combo through as much as the song as possible and through using starpower (especially in parts of the song where the starpower is likely to reap you a high score--i.e., chords or passages with a lot of notes). It is obviously easy to combo the early songs, but later songs do not have many easy parts to hold a combo in. "Misirlou," for instance, has almost no passage where you can hold a combo consistently without large amounts of skill.
Let's talk about some of the tough ones. Everything in the first four tiers was not particularly challenging if you have already gotten to the skill level where you are thinking of going after the Log (a once inconceivable goal for me). "Freya" in the fifth tier was an obstacle, but it has so much repetition that once you bring the song into practice mode for a bit, you'll get it. By the way, practice mode becomes invaluable when you are going for five stars. I imagine most people do not utilize this mode during normal play, but it is a gift from God when you need to learn a part, because you are able to slow parts down and do them over and over again, until you get the fingerings right and get some muscle memory down, at which point you can speed it back up. Unfortunately practice mode was always very boring for me (if you haven't noticed in my post about not reading enough, I am a pussy when it comes to discipline and trying to have a long attention span). It was hard mentally to do a short part of a song over and over and over again, often on slow speeds, but that is what you have to do if you want to become a world-beater. I utilized practice mode enough to nab the Log, but I was never able to become a truly talented player because I didn't put in enough time in practice mode. I have read stuff from great players who say that they never even play songs normally outside of practice mode unless they are seriously going for score. That takes discipline.
In the next tier, we have a seriously annoying song, "Rock This Town." In his breakdown, Jesse smartly ranks this as #58 out of 64 in the game to 5-star. I don't know what it is about this song, but the rhythm is all kinds of fucked-up. Mike was known for his early passion for this song (possibly on hard mode? I forget...), but by the time we got to the thoughts of actually 5-starring it, he had to quietly step back into the shadows, because this is a song you don't attempt to tackle without some serious practice, and Mike was never as dedicated as me when it came to practice. Mike kinda stopped playing the game seriously after he completed it on expert. He wasn't ready to take it to that next level, just like I was not ready to take it to the next level after getting my Log (and don't let anyone fool you, there are many levels past this). We all have our limits.
The next tier is the penultimate one, and what a bitch it is (keep in mind I did not 5-star all of the songs in order--my final 5-star was in this tier, for instance, but the later ones do tend to be much, much harder than the earlier ones as you can see). "Madhouse" is the only (relatively) easy song here. You have "Carry Me Home" which is ranked two songs below "Rock This Town." "YYZ" is not exactly easy. Then you have "Laid to Rest," which was a personal enemy of mine. This is what I was talking about in a previous post when I said that some things were very hard for me that were easy to others. Jesse ranks this as a mid-upper level to hard song, but a lot of others never found this too challenging. I remember Mike being pretty good at this song (again, he never 5-starred it, though. Why not, Mike?). This was an absolute and total pain for me. The thing about this tier was that not only were the songs hard, they were all bad songs too. I hated pretty much everything on this tier ("YYZ" wasn't too bad). Fuck you, Lamb of God. I'm sure Greg is rolling in his shallow grave right now. I could never get the fucking melody of this song down, and that is probably the part that is easiest for everyone else. This was my #55 out of 64 total songs (there are only 40 in the main setlist, so this includes bonus songs too).
"Beast and the Harlot" was hard at first, but practice mode really helped me on this one, and I went on to 6-star it (this, "Police Truck," and "Number of the Beast" were my only final tier 6 stars). "Free Bird" also feels like it should be a lot harder then it actually is. "Institutionalized" is another story. This is just a damn hard song to 5-star. No if's, and's, or but's about it. You have to learn to hit the choruses in this song, which is not that easy, but once you do (through practice mode), this song falls apart under your sweaty hands. "Hangar 18" lies next--the second hardest song in the final tier to 5-star. There is no easy way to get around this. You have to learn to hit the bigger riff, which is no cakewalk. But there is absolutely no way you'll be able to combo anything else in the last two minutes of the song, because the rest is solos. Just pray for a good run.
This leaves two songs left, and these two are the hardest motherfuckers there are. "Misirlou" and "Psychobilly Freakout." I got them in that order, although "Misirlou" is conventionally considered to be the harder 5 star to get. I just had a lucky run on "Misirlou," which allowed me to get it. This is one of the few songs where practice mode really doesn't help you (at least not with the majority of the song). This is because you cannot slow down the fast strumming of "Misirlou" to practice it--it will just fuck your rhythm up. A lot of people have trouble with fast strumming in this series, so they get screwed come "Misirlou." The only reason to take the song into practice mode is to practice the final set of triple chords, which is how basically everyone gets the 5 star. Activate SP over these trips and you're pretty much golden if you hit them with a x8 combo. However, it should be noted I didn't do this. I never really practiced this part too much, so I almost never hit it with a perfect multiplier. That is basically how I did things in the game--I never hit the parts you were supposed to when I did pull the 5 star out of my ass for songs. I just had a lucky run where my rhythm was great and I hit most of the verses under x4. This is I would say my greatest 5 star ever (a case could be made for "Texas Flood," but I hit it under the influence of opiates, so I consider it to not be as legitimate).
"Psychobilly Freakout" was the last song I 5-starred out of the main setlist, and it took forever. There is absolutely nothing about this song that is easy. And almost nothing repeats other then that chorus, so you absolutely have to hit it and try to hit those ending chords with a multiplier. This song was a damn pain to get. When I did get that Log, though, God--that whole year and a half was totally worth it. It made the achievement so much more worth it that I put in so much effort.
I was not able to hit the equivalent of the Log in GH1, Guitar Hero: Rock the '80s or GH3. True, I did not put in as much effort as I did in GH2 and that is probably a lot of the reason why. In all of these games I was only one song away. "Cowboys from Hell" in GH1 (no practice mode in this game really makes it a pain to go after 5 stars), "Play with Me" in '80s (I was starting to get close on this one, and I think I could do it with time), and "Raining Blood" from GH3 (I was getting close in this too). It has always let me down that I never got these songs 5-starred, as well as the two bonus songs in GH2 that I never got. "Jordan" is considered to be an easier 5 star to get than "Misirlou," and I believe that. The only thing is, "Jordan" might be the hardest song to pass in the entire series. I have never once beaten it, and that is my biggest let-down. I would rather beat it then Dragonforce's "Through the Fire and Flames" (I can't believe I once got past the solo of "TTFAF" and failed at 90% because my finger was on the wrong button!). I was able to pretty consistently combo everything in "Jordan" outside of the solo, but that fucking solo is absolutely insane on the GH2 engine (a lot more unforgiving than GH3's, and that is one of my problems with GH3: they made the engine so easy to hit HOPO's [hammer-ons and pull-offs] that they overcharted all of their [bad] songs as a result, making a mess of the game). "Six" was the other song I was never able to 5-star in GH2. This is somewhat understandable, just because this song is absoultely damn ridiculous to combo. Jesse ranks it as the fourth-hardest in the series to 5-star, right before "Cowboys from Hell" and "Texas Flood" (this was another luck run, and like I said, I was lightly under the influence of opiates, so I have never been as proud of this one as I have been of "Misirlou").
My goal was always to 5-star every single expert song. I think with a lot of practice I could've gotten almost all of them. After all, I was missing only 10. The only one that I perhaps would not have been able to get is the annoying oh-my-god-look-how-hard-this-song-is-lol song "Through the Fire and Flames" in GH3. This is exponentially harder to 5-star than all of the other songs. But still, I had it as my goal that I would get them all, so I was going to try. My descent into drug addiction prevented me from playing anymore, because, like I mentioned before, I considered being under the influence as cheating since I found that I choked less often when I was high on opiates. They helped with the nervousness of my playing, so I thought it was unfair to count scores while on them.
Let me take a minute here to give shouts out to all of the bonus songs and songs from other games which were also a pain in the ass to 5-star on expert. First, let's do GH1: "Texas Flood" is considered the second-hardest 5-star in the entire series (I believe that "Cowboys from Hell" is harder personally, but that's just me); "Frankenstein" is an absolute bitch to get; "Bark at the Moon" I got soon thereafter, and is an absolute rocking song; "The Breaking Wheel" is the hardest bonus song to get, and the only big strumming song in GH1--it is such a pain to get because its speed keeps on changing randomly.
GH2 bonus songs: "Raw Dog" (fuck you, this song should not be hard); "FTK" (stupid song, no one knows about it, and hence no one wants to play it); "Gemini" (wait...looking up my score, I never 5-starred this?! Maybe I did and never posted it, I dunno, but that sucks if I didn't...I had to have, come on! It is ranked as just above "Thunderhorse" and just below "Carry Me Home"; you know what? I think I got this, but I will go and check sometime, although I think my GH2 is missing at the moment); "Less Talk More Rokk" (hard until you learn it in practice mode, then it's a lot of fun); "The Light That Blinds" (fast strumming craziness); "Thunderhorse" (along with "Laid to Rest," this is the song I hate most in the game--not hard for anyone else but me apparently).
GH '80s: "Electric Eye" (lots o' chord changes); "Caught in a Mosh" (fast strumming without being "fast strumming," w/ lots of chord changes); "Seventeen" (to me this is the hardest song because of hand changes other than "Play with Me," which is all solo).
GH3: I never really tried that seriously at this game, because by the time I bought it, I was losing interest in the series (partly because of how bad I thought GH3 was compared to the first two--two words: sell out). I don't even know what was that hard in this game other than the ones I didn't get ("Raining Blood" and some pain-in-the-ass bonus songs that suck). Fuck this game. It's sad that the games actually got worse in the series after this.
Anyways, hopefully this post shows how important this achievement was for me. This moment is not so much an individual moment as much as it was the summing up of a year's-plus worth of effort towards one goal: 5-starring all of the career songs in Guitar Hero II. I have never been quite so obsessed with a video game as I was at the peak of my playing with the Guitar Hero series. This was always my goal, but it was my biggest fear that I would never quite get the Log. My final goal was to 5-star all of the expert songs and to get a bunch of FCs, and I vaguely knew that I might never get this, but I'm glad I got the Log on the path to that. It's one thing I can cherish forever to picture myself at the top of my abilities at this game. One thing is for sure: I will never be able to 5-star "Misirlou" again.
--Edward
1.) The Log (Guitar Hero II): Now, as a warning, this is going to be a long post, so please bear with me. A lot of the above moments have been simply cute happenstances or memorable moments, but few have been the product of actual hard work (the 2:40 is one of those, as well as the other Guitar Hero moments). This achievement took me between a year and a year and a half to achieve. But oh God was it ever worth it. Let's clear this up right now: the Log is the guitar you get after 5-starring all of the main setlist songs in Guitar Hero II on expert (so basically every song in story mode). The guitar is an ugly thing itself, crudely shaped out of a log (hence its name). (You get the "Eyeball" for 5-starring all of the setlist songs on hard, which is a really good accomplishment--harder than beating the game on expert.) It is what it stands for that counts. It means that you are one of the elite few who have 5-starred every song from "Shout at the Devil" to "Free Bird." Here is another breakdown thread which shows the difficulty of 5-starring all of the expert songs in the series in comparison to each other: http://www.scorehero.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=60158&highlight=. It shows the pain I went through. Let me just say right now that it is a lot (A LOT A LOT A LOT A LOT A LOT) harder to 5-star songs than beat them. Just because you can beat the game on expert, please do not compare this with getting the Log. Even if you can 5-star 95% of the game, please do not compare this with getting the Log. I had gotten maybe all but 10 out of the 40 songs in the setlist within the first month or two, but it took me the last year to get those last 10. Some songs are exponentially harder to nail than others.
Some people might ask how you 5-star a song as opposed to just beating it. This has to do with your overall final score. Once you have a high enough score on a song, you 5-star it. The score needed to get a 5 star rating is based on your multiplier (the meter that shows whether you have no combo, a x2 combo, a x4 combo, or a x8 combo if you happen to be under starpower holding a combo) using a fancy mathematical formula that I do not know. Basically, if you hit a high enough score, you 5-star it. And you hit a high score by keeping a combo through as much as the song as possible and through using starpower (especially in parts of the song where the starpower is likely to reap you a high score--i.e., chords or passages with a lot of notes). It is obviously easy to combo the early songs, but later songs do not have many easy parts to hold a combo in. "Misirlou," for instance, has almost no passage where you can hold a combo consistently without large amounts of skill.
Let's talk about some of the tough ones. Everything in the first four tiers was not particularly challenging if you have already gotten to the skill level where you are thinking of going after the Log (a once inconceivable goal for me). "Freya" in the fifth tier was an obstacle, but it has so much repetition that once you bring the song into practice mode for a bit, you'll get it. By the way, practice mode becomes invaluable when you are going for five stars. I imagine most people do not utilize this mode during normal play, but it is a gift from God when you need to learn a part, because you are able to slow parts down and do them over and over again, until you get the fingerings right and get some muscle memory down, at which point you can speed it back up. Unfortunately practice mode was always very boring for me (if you haven't noticed in my post about not reading enough, I am a pussy when it comes to discipline and trying to have a long attention span). It was hard mentally to do a short part of a song over and over and over again, often on slow speeds, but that is what you have to do if you want to become a world-beater. I utilized practice mode enough to nab the Log, but I was never able to become a truly talented player because I didn't put in enough time in practice mode. I have read stuff from great players who say that they never even play songs normally outside of practice mode unless they are seriously going for score. That takes discipline.
In the next tier, we have a seriously annoying song, "Rock This Town." In his breakdown, Jesse smartly ranks this as #58 out of 64 in the game to 5-star. I don't know what it is about this song, but the rhythm is all kinds of fucked-up. Mike was known for his early passion for this song (possibly on hard mode? I forget...), but by the time we got to the thoughts of actually 5-starring it, he had to quietly step back into the shadows, because this is a song you don't attempt to tackle without some serious practice, and Mike was never as dedicated as me when it came to practice. Mike kinda stopped playing the game seriously after he completed it on expert. He wasn't ready to take it to that next level, just like I was not ready to take it to the next level after getting my Log (and don't let anyone fool you, there are many levels past this). We all have our limits.
The next tier is the penultimate one, and what a bitch it is (keep in mind I did not 5-star all of the songs in order--my final 5-star was in this tier, for instance, but the later ones do tend to be much, much harder than the earlier ones as you can see). "Madhouse" is the only (relatively) easy song here. You have "Carry Me Home" which is ranked two songs below "Rock This Town." "YYZ" is not exactly easy. Then you have "Laid to Rest," which was a personal enemy of mine. This is what I was talking about in a previous post when I said that some things were very hard for me that were easy to others. Jesse ranks this as a mid-upper level to hard song, but a lot of others never found this too challenging. I remember Mike being pretty good at this song (again, he never 5-starred it, though. Why not, Mike?). This was an absolute and total pain for me. The thing about this tier was that not only were the songs hard, they were all bad songs too. I hated pretty much everything on this tier ("YYZ" wasn't too bad). Fuck you, Lamb of God. I'm sure Greg is rolling in his shallow grave right now. I could never get the fucking melody of this song down, and that is probably the part that is easiest for everyone else. This was my #55 out of 64 total songs (there are only 40 in the main setlist, so this includes bonus songs too).
"Beast and the Harlot" was hard at first, but practice mode really helped me on this one, and I went on to 6-star it (this, "Police Truck," and "Number of the Beast" were my only final tier 6 stars). "Free Bird" also feels like it should be a lot harder then it actually is. "Institutionalized" is another story. This is just a damn hard song to 5-star. No if's, and's, or but's about it. You have to learn to hit the choruses in this song, which is not that easy, but once you do (through practice mode), this song falls apart under your sweaty hands. "Hangar 18" lies next--the second hardest song in the final tier to 5-star. There is no easy way to get around this. You have to learn to hit the bigger riff, which is no cakewalk. But there is absolutely no way you'll be able to combo anything else in the last two minutes of the song, because the rest is solos. Just pray for a good run.
This leaves two songs left, and these two are the hardest motherfuckers there are. "Misirlou" and "Psychobilly Freakout." I got them in that order, although "Misirlou" is conventionally considered to be the harder 5 star to get. I just had a lucky run on "Misirlou," which allowed me to get it. This is one of the few songs where practice mode really doesn't help you (at least not with the majority of the song). This is because you cannot slow down the fast strumming of "Misirlou" to practice it--it will just fuck your rhythm up. A lot of people have trouble with fast strumming in this series, so they get screwed come "Misirlou." The only reason to take the song into practice mode is to practice the final set of triple chords, which is how basically everyone gets the 5 star. Activate SP over these trips and you're pretty much golden if you hit them with a x8 combo. However, it should be noted I didn't do this. I never really practiced this part too much, so I almost never hit it with a perfect multiplier. That is basically how I did things in the game--I never hit the parts you were supposed to when I did pull the 5 star out of my ass for songs. I just had a lucky run where my rhythm was great and I hit most of the verses under x4. This is I would say my greatest 5 star ever (a case could be made for "Texas Flood," but I hit it under the influence of opiates, so I consider it to not be as legitimate).
"Psychobilly Freakout" was the last song I 5-starred out of the main setlist, and it took forever. There is absolutely nothing about this song that is easy. And almost nothing repeats other then that chorus, so you absolutely have to hit it and try to hit those ending chords with a multiplier. This song was a damn pain to get. When I did get that Log, though, God--that whole year and a half was totally worth it. It made the achievement so much more worth it that I put in so much effort.
I was not able to hit the equivalent of the Log in GH1, Guitar Hero: Rock the '80s or GH3. True, I did not put in as much effort as I did in GH2 and that is probably a lot of the reason why. In all of these games I was only one song away. "Cowboys from Hell" in GH1 (no practice mode in this game really makes it a pain to go after 5 stars), "Play with Me" in '80s (I was starting to get close on this one, and I think I could do it with time), and "Raining Blood" from GH3 (I was getting close in this too). It has always let me down that I never got these songs 5-starred, as well as the two bonus songs in GH2 that I never got. "Jordan" is considered to be an easier 5 star to get than "Misirlou," and I believe that. The only thing is, "Jordan" might be the hardest song to pass in the entire series. I have never once beaten it, and that is my biggest let-down. I would rather beat it then Dragonforce's "Through the Fire and Flames" (I can't believe I once got past the solo of "TTFAF" and failed at 90% because my finger was on the wrong button!). I was able to pretty consistently combo everything in "Jordan" outside of the solo, but that fucking solo is absolutely insane on the GH2 engine (a lot more unforgiving than GH3's, and that is one of my problems with GH3: they made the engine so easy to hit HOPO's [hammer-ons and pull-offs] that they overcharted all of their [bad] songs as a result, making a mess of the game). "Six" was the other song I was never able to 5-star in GH2. This is somewhat understandable, just because this song is absoultely damn ridiculous to combo. Jesse ranks it as the fourth-hardest in the series to 5-star, right before "Cowboys from Hell" and "Texas Flood" (this was another luck run, and like I said, I was lightly under the influence of opiates, so I have never been as proud of this one as I have been of "Misirlou").
My goal was always to 5-star every single expert song. I think with a lot of practice I could've gotten almost all of them. After all, I was missing only 10. The only one that I perhaps would not have been able to get is the annoying oh-my-god-look-how-hard-this-song-is-lol song "Through the Fire and Flames" in GH3. This is exponentially harder to 5-star than all of the other songs. But still, I had it as my goal that I would get them all, so I was going to try. My descent into drug addiction prevented me from playing anymore, because, like I mentioned before, I considered being under the influence as cheating since I found that I choked less often when I was high on opiates. They helped with the nervousness of my playing, so I thought it was unfair to count scores while on them.
Let me take a minute here to give shouts out to all of the bonus songs and songs from other games which were also a pain in the ass to 5-star on expert. First, let's do GH1: "Texas Flood" is considered the second-hardest 5-star in the entire series (I believe that "Cowboys from Hell" is harder personally, but that's just me); "Frankenstein" is an absolute bitch to get; "Bark at the Moon" I got soon thereafter, and is an absolute rocking song; "The Breaking Wheel" is the hardest bonus song to get, and the only big strumming song in GH1--it is such a pain to get because its speed keeps on changing randomly.
GH2 bonus songs: "Raw Dog" (fuck you, this song should not be hard); "FTK" (stupid song, no one knows about it, and hence no one wants to play it); "Gemini" (wait...looking up my score, I never 5-starred this?! Maybe I did and never posted it, I dunno, but that sucks if I didn't...I had to have, come on! It is ranked as just above "Thunderhorse" and just below "Carry Me Home"; you know what? I think I got this, but I will go and check sometime, although I think my GH2 is missing at the moment); "Less Talk More Rokk" (hard until you learn it in practice mode, then it's a lot of fun); "The Light That Blinds" (fast strumming craziness); "Thunderhorse" (along with "Laid to Rest," this is the song I hate most in the game--not hard for anyone else but me apparently).
GH '80s: "Electric Eye" (lots o' chord changes); "Caught in a Mosh" (fast strumming without being "fast strumming," w/ lots of chord changes); "Seventeen" (to me this is the hardest song because of hand changes other than "Play with Me," which is all solo).
GH3: I never really tried that seriously at this game, because by the time I bought it, I was losing interest in the series (partly because of how bad I thought GH3 was compared to the first two--two words: sell out). I don't even know what was that hard in this game other than the ones I didn't get ("Raining Blood" and some pain-in-the-ass bonus songs that suck). Fuck this game. It's sad that the games actually got worse in the series after this.
Anyways, hopefully this post shows how important this achievement was for me. This moment is not so much an individual moment as much as it was the summing up of a year's-plus worth of effort towards one goal: 5-starring all of the career songs in Guitar Hero II. I have never been quite so obsessed with a video game as I was at the peak of my playing with the Guitar Hero series. This was always my goal, but it was my biggest fear that I would never quite get the Log. My final goal was to 5-star all of the expert songs and to get a bunch of FCs, and I vaguely knew that I might never get this, but I'm glad I got the Log on the path to that. It's one thing I can cherish forever to picture myself at the top of my abilities at this game. One thing is for sure: I will never be able to 5-star "Misirlou" again.
--Edward
Top 10 Greatest Videogame Moments, Part 2
5.) Connecting the Tunnels (Red Faction): Let's be honest, while Red Faction had a decent single-player mode, it was basically just an average shooter until you factored in the unique feature of "Geo-Mod Technology," which allowed players to blow holes in walls and basically any surface using rockets. Daniel, Greg, and I exploited this feature heavily in the multiplayer mode. We didn't even really try to kill each other, but rather took more pleasure in who could create the deepest, coolest looking tunnel. It took us a while to realize that there was a limit to how many rockets you could blow into the walls until they stopped digging your tunnel deeper. This takes a long time--maybe ten minutes--but there is indeed a limit to how deep your tunnel can be. This was like the game developers challenging us to see what we could do within that time limit.
We primarily created tunnels in one specific level that had two fortresses facing each other--big, multi-level affairs with ramps going up to the top and windows that let you drop down into the ground between the two identical buildings. We had created tunnels before connecting one fortress to the other along the side wall. The time had come when we would attempt to create a full circuit along one side wall to the other fortress and then along the other wall back to the first one, so you could walk between fortresses on both sides without ever touching the ground between the two. A plan had been born.
We got to work, Daniel and I, and soon enough we had one tunnel connecting the two. We only needed another tunnel on the other side connecting one base to the other. We sensed time was running out and the other tunnel had not been completed yet. There was some doubt--that fear that the developers had foiled our schemes, that it was impossible within the limited amount of damage we could do. But we were getting close. Have faith! There was only one small portion of rock separating me from Daniel in the middle of that God-forsaken tunnel. Now, all of the work done in tunnel-digging was done using the utlitarian rocket launcher, a specialized tool used to either A) blow people's spinal cords and innards out of their bodies or B) dig tunnels in rock. But, there is another kind of rocket launcher available in this game. A much bigger one. The...Fusion Rocket Launcher. When it goes off, it's like an atom bomb being dropped in your hometown. Hence we designated it as the "Nuclear Holocaust Machine." Daniel and I both strapped this bad boy onto our backs and fired them at the same time at the thin layer of rock separating us from each other and our spiritual needs. This combined nuclear explosion blew the final piece apart, allowing us to go between bases at our own need whenever we chose, without setting foot on the floor way down below, a place reserved for peasants and the stupider, uglier bots, so they could fire automatic weapons at each other's heads like the brainless idiots that they were. No, we would never set foot in such a stinky place. We only roamed the upper levels of this city of paradise (the Nuclear Holocaust Machine was available at the very top of each base). Laughing at our accomplishment well done, we casually fired a rocket launcher into another wall to try to create some other God-forsaken tunnel to take a piss in. NOTHING HAPPENED. We had used our final bit of damage available connecting our two tunnels together. We had come within one rocket blast of our dream being destroyed. One errant misfire would've created the heartbreak of having our tunnels almost touch, but not quite. And like I said, we were firing rockets continously for at least ten minutes, so that is a lot of damage being done. This was debatably the greatest day of our lives up to this point.
4.) Beating "Hangar 18" (...and the Game) (Guitar Hero II): Mike put it well the other day when he said that going through Guitar Hero II for the first time on expert was the greatest gaming experience of his life. This wasn't just a typical pay-as-you-go affair where you carry on at a steady clip until you complete the game and then move on with your life. Beating Guitar Hero on hard and expert was an odyssey of self-doubt, self-loathing, and a whole lot of anger. I remember I had beaten the game on medium easily (can anyone not?), and then I played the first few songs on hard. Wow, there is nothing like the transition from medium to hard in GH2. There was absolutely no mercy on hard. I remember thinking there was no way I could ever beat the game on hard at first. I beat one or two songs after some valiant effort, but some of the songs early on ("Woman," I'm looking at you!) are almost impossible to comprehend at first.
After many months, I began plugging through the game on hard, and after many more months, I was finally able to beat it, with Mike coming up hot on my heels. Now, the transition from hard to expert is not quite as bad as medium to hard--don't let anyone fool you, it's not. Most of the game wasn't hard to get through on expert if you've already beaten hard, which is a tremendous feat in my opinion. That is, until you get to the later tiers. It starts with "Freya." Who doesn't get stuck on this on expert? I was on this song for a solid 2 weeks. Next up is "Psychobilly Freakout." A completely ridiculous and weird song, I was on this for fucking three weeks of my life. There is so much pain in the randomness of this song (sadly, this wasn't to be the last of my struggles with this song--it's even harder and takes longer to 5-star, unfortunately). And finally, the last obstacle to beating the game (and, no, don't kid yourself that it's "Free Bird," which is technically the final song) is the monolith that is "Hangar 18." Oh, you say this isn't too hard as you strum through some chords and get through the verses. Then you hit the solos. And I do stress "solos" in the plural. For there are 9 of them. And they are absolutely unforgiving. This song was to become my nightmare. I played through the beginning so many times I could do it with my eyes closed (literally). I dreaded playing this song. The day that I beat this--I don't know how--after a solid month of trying, was one of the happiest days of my life. I beat "Free Bird" on my first try, the encore to the final set of doom (also check out the 5-star insanity of "Institutionalized" in this set, but of course, "Misirlou" is the hardest song to 5-star out of all the main setlist), and laughed at how easy it was compared to "Hangar 18." I love that songs like "Hangar" are a collective obstacle for everyone trying to beat this game for their first time on expert. "Hangar" is still my favorite song to this day in the game, and it proved to be a very worthy adversary on my quest to 5-star the entire setlist (but that is a story for another entry later).
3.) Garibaldi 2:40 (SSX: Tricky): I had mentioned earlier our efforts put into the first level of SSX: Tricky. This was the peak of my efforts. I remember earlier Daniel and I had questioned whether it was possible to dip below 3:00 in Garibaldi (the first level). I remember well the first time I was able to accomplish this feat, and I think I might've even called Daniel to tell him I did so. This was the first milestone we reached. Greg was the first person to dip below 2:50, which was a very, very solid feat. Once you got below 2:50, that was where the real race began. Greg was usually my motivation for getting new records in this level. I could not live with myself knowing Greg had the faster time. And he often did. Only through hours and hours of practice was I able to beat some of Greg's times, which came out of nowhere. He would demolish a record by over a second, whereas I would squeeze by one of his times by tenths of a second (or occasionally even hundredths). I forget who was the first person below 2:45, but I think I was the first person to get 2:43 and he was the first to get 2:42. I was finally able to top his 2:42 with another, slightly faster one of mine. This took me a long time and much stress. I remember looking up music on Greg's computer as he casually played Tricky in the background. Then I remember turning around and seeing a big, fat 2:41 on the screen and wanting to stab myself in the throat.
Now, keep in mind that we had absolutely gotten this level down to a science at this point. The biggest innovation was using the Select button to manually restart yourself at one point of the level. The computer would start you at a good location which helped shave off precious seconds. Every single bank and jump had to be timed absolutely right to get a perfect time (and I do mean every single one). Greg and I took this science a lot more seriously then Daniel, who ironically actually came up with a way to shave off even more seconds later on, but it was so radical compared to the beloved path that Greg and I used that we were never able to put much enthusiasm into it. I didn't see how it would be possible for me to get a 2:41. I already thought that 2:42 was about as far as I could go theoretically. But Greg had called upon me, and I would never step down from one of his challenges.
After much hard work and yelling at the screen, I was able to pull off that 2:41. I think I lowered his score by a tenth or two-tenths maybe. That was the fastest time Greg ever got, and really an amazing score when you think about it. However, after time had passed and perhaps the tournaments had finished, I decided I wanted to max out what was possible with that original route in Garibaldi. My 2:40.7 was debatably my greatest ever achievement in SSX: Tricky (I say debatably because in all honesty, I think my 2:01 in Snowdream, the second level, is perhaps an even more impressive feat--and one that I honestly didn't believe I had gotten after I had forgotten about it--but Garibaldi is a much more popular level and people know times for it more, so I chose it to make this list, no insult to that 2:01). Perhaps a 2:39 is possible theoretically, based upon several of my fastest split times in which I was not able to complete the race at such a clip, but honestly I believe in practice a 2:40 is as fast as you could get using that route. If anyone ever tops this time, I will first bow down to them, but then go to my room and practice my ass off. But I'm not sure if I'd ever be able to beat their time. The progression of the fastest time in Garibaldi from 3:20 to 2:40 is a quest I can say that I'm very proud to have been a part of. Greg and I shook out this level for all it was worth, spilling its dimes and nickels so we could go buy some greasy corndogs to nourish our inner ambitions and competitive drives.
--Edward
We primarily created tunnels in one specific level that had two fortresses facing each other--big, multi-level affairs with ramps going up to the top and windows that let you drop down into the ground between the two identical buildings. We had created tunnels before connecting one fortress to the other along the side wall. The time had come when we would attempt to create a full circuit along one side wall to the other fortress and then along the other wall back to the first one, so you could walk between fortresses on both sides without ever touching the ground between the two. A plan had been born.
We got to work, Daniel and I, and soon enough we had one tunnel connecting the two. We only needed another tunnel on the other side connecting one base to the other. We sensed time was running out and the other tunnel had not been completed yet. There was some doubt--that fear that the developers had foiled our schemes, that it was impossible within the limited amount of damage we could do. But we were getting close. Have faith! There was only one small portion of rock separating me from Daniel in the middle of that God-forsaken tunnel. Now, all of the work done in tunnel-digging was done using the utlitarian rocket launcher, a specialized tool used to either A) blow people's spinal cords and innards out of their bodies or B) dig tunnels in rock. But, there is another kind of rocket launcher available in this game. A much bigger one. The...Fusion Rocket Launcher. When it goes off, it's like an atom bomb being dropped in your hometown. Hence we designated it as the "Nuclear Holocaust Machine." Daniel and I both strapped this bad boy onto our backs and fired them at the same time at the thin layer of rock separating us from each other and our spiritual needs. This combined nuclear explosion blew the final piece apart, allowing us to go between bases at our own need whenever we chose, without setting foot on the floor way down below, a place reserved for peasants and the stupider, uglier bots, so they could fire automatic weapons at each other's heads like the brainless idiots that they were. No, we would never set foot in such a stinky place. We only roamed the upper levels of this city of paradise (the Nuclear Holocaust Machine was available at the very top of each base). Laughing at our accomplishment well done, we casually fired a rocket launcher into another wall to try to create some other God-forsaken tunnel to take a piss in. NOTHING HAPPENED. We had used our final bit of damage available connecting our two tunnels together. We had come within one rocket blast of our dream being destroyed. One errant misfire would've created the heartbreak of having our tunnels almost touch, but not quite. And like I said, we were firing rockets continously for at least ten minutes, so that is a lot of damage being done. This was debatably the greatest day of our lives up to this point.
4.) Beating "Hangar 18" (...and the Game) (Guitar Hero II): Mike put it well the other day when he said that going through Guitar Hero II for the first time on expert was the greatest gaming experience of his life. This wasn't just a typical pay-as-you-go affair where you carry on at a steady clip until you complete the game and then move on with your life. Beating Guitar Hero on hard and expert was an odyssey of self-doubt, self-loathing, and a whole lot of anger. I remember I had beaten the game on medium easily (can anyone not?), and then I played the first few songs on hard. Wow, there is nothing like the transition from medium to hard in GH2. There was absolutely no mercy on hard. I remember thinking there was no way I could ever beat the game on hard at first. I beat one or two songs after some valiant effort, but some of the songs early on ("Woman," I'm looking at you!) are almost impossible to comprehend at first.
After many months, I began plugging through the game on hard, and after many more months, I was finally able to beat it, with Mike coming up hot on my heels. Now, the transition from hard to expert is not quite as bad as medium to hard--don't let anyone fool you, it's not. Most of the game wasn't hard to get through on expert if you've already beaten hard, which is a tremendous feat in my opinion. That is, until you get to the later tiers. It starts with "Freya." Who doesn't get stuck on this on expert? I was on this song for a solid 2 weeks. Next up is "Psychobilly Freakout." A completely ridiculous and weird song, I was on this for fucking three weeks of my life. There is so much pain in the randomness of this song (sadly, this wasn't to be the last of my struggles with this song--it's even harder and takes longer to 5-star, unfortunately). And finally, the last obstacle to beating the game (and, no, don't kid yourself that it's "Free Bird," which is technically the final song) is the monolith that is "Hangar 18." Oh, you say this isn't too hard as you strum through some chords and get through the verses. Then you hit the solos. And I do stress "solos" in the plural. For there are 9 of them. And they are absolutely unforgiving. This song was to become my nightmare. I played through the beginning so many times I could do it with my eyes closed (literally). I dreaded playing this song. The day that I beat this--I don't know how--after a solid month of trying, was one of the happiest days of my life. I beat "Free Bird" on my first try, the encore to the final set of doom (also check out the 5-star insanity of "Institutionalized" in this set, but of course, "Misirlou" is the hardest song to 5-star out of all the main setlist), and laughed at how easy it was compared to "Hangar 18." I love that songs like "Hangar" are a collective obstacle for everyone trying to beat this game for their first time on expert. "Hangar" is still my favorite song to this day in the game, and it proved to be a very worthy adversary on my quest to 5-star the entire setlist (but that is a story for another entry later).
3.) Garibaldi 2:40 (SSX: Tricky): I had mentioned earlier our efforts put into the first level of SSX: Tricky. This was the peak of my efforts. I remember earlier Daniel and I had questioned whether it was possible to dip below 3:00 in Garibaldi (the first level). I remember well the first time I was able to accomplish this feat, and I think I might've even called Daniel to tell him I did so. This was the first milestone we reached. Greg was the first person to dip below 2:50, which was a very, very solid feat. Once you got below 2:50, that was where the real race began. Greg was usually my motivation for getting new records in this level. I could not live with myself knowing Greg had the faster time. And he often did. Only through hours and hours of practice was I able to beat some of Greg's times, which came out of nowhere. He would demolish a record by over a second, whereas I would squeeze by one of his times by tenths of a second (or occasionally even hundredths). I forget who was the first person below 2:45, but I think I was the first person to get 2:43 and he was the first to get 2:42. I was finally able to top his 2:42 with another, slightly faster one of mine. This took me a long time and much stress. I remember looking up music on Greg's computer as he casually played Tricky in the background. Then I remember turning around and seeing a big, fat 2:41 on the screen and wanting to stab myself in the throat.
Now, keep in mind that we had absolutely gotten this level down to a science at this point. The biggest innovation was using the Select button to manually restart yourself at one point of the level. The computer would start you at a good location which helped shave off precious seconds. Every single bank and jump had to be timed absolutely right to get a perfect time (and I do mean every single one). Greg and I took this science a lot more seriously then Daniel, who ironically actually came up with a way to shave off even more seconds later on, but it was so radical compared to the beloved path that Greg and I used that we were never able to put much enthusiasm into it. I didn't see how it would be possible for me to get a 2:41. I already thought that 2:42 was about as far as I could go theoretically. But Greg had called upon me, and I would never step down from one of his challenges.
After much hard work and yelling at the screen, I was able to pull off that 2:41. I think I lowered his score by a tenth or two-tenths maybe. That was the fastest time Greg ever got, and really an amazing score when you think about it. However, after time had passed and perhaps the tournaments had finished, I decided I wanted to max out what was possible with that original route in Garibaldi. My 2:40.7 was debatably my greatest ever achievement in SSX: Tricky (I say debatably because in all honesty, I think my 2:01 in Snowdream, the second level, is perhaps an even more impressive feat--and one that I honestly didn't believe I had gotten after I had forgotten about it--but Garibaldi is a much more popular level and people know times for it more, so I chose it to make this list, no insult to that 2:01). Perhaps a 2:39 is possible theoretically, based upon several of my fastest split times in which I was not able to complete the race at such a clip, but honestly I believe in practice a 2:40 is as fast as you could get using that route. If anyone ever tops this time, I will first bow down to them, but then go to my room and practice my ass off. But I'm not sure if I'd ever be able to beat their time. The progression of the fastest time in Garibaldi from 3:20 to 2:40 is a quest I can say that I'm very proud to have been a part of. Greg and I shook out this level for all it was worth, spilling its dimes and nickels so we could go buy some greasy corndogs to nourish our inner ambitions and competitive drives.
--Edward
Top 10 Greatest Videogame Moments, Part 1
First off, I realize the inherent subjectivity and you-had-to-be-there factor of this list, but frankly I don't care. I had to get some of these great moments off my shoulders where they've rested for, in some cases, over a decade. Daniel will probably recognize some (or most) of them, and maybe even a few others will spot some too. Sorry if this is weighted a bit heavily towards Guitar Hero, but that is the series I put--by far--the most time into, because I played competitively, via submitting my scores to ScoreHero.com.
Note that there aren't too many traditional bosses or missions from the games themselves. I've always felt games were more fun when we used our own imaginations to create unique challenges for us to go after instead of simply being told by the game what to do. My friends and I doing weird shit has always led to the best gaming moments for us. Anyways, here we go:
10.) 30,000 Point Combo (1080 Snowboarding): I'll start the list with something more mild. 1080 was an early Nintendo 64 extreme sports game that foreshadowed a later obsession with games like Tony Hawk 3 and SSX: Tricky for Daniel and me. We liked that it had options for both tricks mode and racing. This particular moment belongs in the tricks mode. There were two different options: halfpipe and big air. Big air allowed you to get the biggest combo, and of course Daniel and I wanted to see what the biggest possible combo you could get was. That was I think more impressive then even a high score in halfpipe, which was also a really big deal, but the biggest score you could get on a single trick showed the true potential. 13,000 combos were fairly common in big air and I think they could even be done in halfpipe if you were having a magnificent day (correct me if I'm wrong on this, Daniel, for perhaps 8K was the biggest thing you could get on the halfpipe, but I think 13K was possible, and is almost as impressive as a 30K on big air). 20,000 was the highest combo we could get up until this point. It was not particularly easy and I think for a long time we thought this was the limit of what could be accomplished. That was until I stumbled upon a playing style which I only used briefly, for it burned out after its meteoric rise to the top. This style was doing 360-540-360-540 again and again and again. I don't really know how I did it, and obviously I was not able to replicate it later, but I was happy when I briefly had this ability, for it allowed me to rack up some really big fucking scores. The climax of this was the unheard-of 30K combo done in the big air level. What else can I say? It was like God was playing through my fingers, because I had no idea how I was doing this 360-540 thing, and I never could do it again. But it was worth it for this. I wonder if anyone ever got a higher combo in this game?
9.) Deathmatch to 1,000 in Disco (TimeSplitters: Future Perfect): Mike and I had been slumming this idea around for quite some time. Other than the Guitar Hero games, there was no game we put more time into than TimeSplitters 3. We knew this game inside out, like the back of our hands. Whenever we went to set the deathmatch score, we'd always go to 50 or, if we were feeling ambitious, 100. 100 matches took a fair amount of time, maybe 10-15 min. We always laughed at the possiblity of there being a 500 and even 1,000 option. However, being the kind of fans we were of this game, we knew one day we'd have to grow a set and play to 1,000. The time came on a Friday night when Mike and I were pressured into going to another lame JMU party, but seeing as this was our opportunity, we had to decline. The time had come.
Disco had basically always been the venue we were going to do. It offers perhaps the fastest finishing time because of how intense the killing is in this level. There are maybe a few other levels, like Subway or Mars Prison, that offer the same type of killing frenzy madness, but Disco was really the premier place to prove who was the finest player, because the automatic weapons and lack of explosives helped prove who the most accurate and skillful players were.
We realized through math that the match would go on past two hours, but this is a lot different on paper then it is in reality. I have never been so drained physically playing a videogame as I was for this match. Our eyes hurt, our asses hurt, our hands hurt--our brains especially. Let's say for the record here that Mike came back from being in sxith place for over an hour to pull past such notables as Deerhaunter, Gretel, and R-110 to finish in a respectable third place. I believe that wild and unpredictable Beserker Splitter pulled off the second. I must say, it was a lot easier to win a match this long then a shorter one. You had time to get into a groove, and while we thought that the bots would destroy us becuase of human tiredness affecting our playing ability, this proved not to be the case. I beat that dick Beserker by over 150 kills. A match for the ages.
8.) "Race of the Century" (SSX: Tricky): Greg and I were often rivals. We thrived on pushing each other to our limits. This is perhaps best showcased through our band name writing, but the most clear-cut rivalry we had was in the snowboard game SSX: Tricky. This game was the fruition of everything we dreamed that an ultimate sports game could be. Along with NBA Street and the Tony Hawk series, SSX fulfilled all of our wildest childhood fantasies. The tricks in this game were staggering. But most importantly, we took the racing in this game very, very seriously. Specifically in the first level. We had entire tournaments complete with pages and pages of stats. Greg and I competed constantly for the fastest time in the first level, trading off day by day who was considered the fastest at this game (other levels were basically irrelevant, with the possible exception of the second one).
This all came together in one incredibly tight race Greg and I had. This was not in a tournament and I'm not sure exactly what was going on, since we didn't usually have head-to-head races outside of tournaments (it was better to save that competitive energy for when it counted), but all I know is that it was a killer fucking race. We both had solid starts--no one fucked up. That was a rarity for whatever reason in this game. Most races were determined by someone screwing up. Very rarely did both people have good starts and good finishes. But this was shaping out to be just that. What made this race most memorable was when we came out from different parts of the level at around the two-minute mark and we were exactly neck and neck. Right by each other. Our arms faintly touching each other, snow from each other's boards was flying into the other's face. This is the moment that forever defined our relationship from that point on and what separated us as players. It was an unspoken agreement that you don't knock your fellow boarder down. It makes it into a race of skill and beauty if you rely on speed and technique instead of brute force and knockdowns. Greg broke this code that day. It is something (one of many things) I will never forgive him for. I would've given anything to see what the outcome of that race would've been. There had never, ever been a closer one in that game, period. What made it even more amazing (in addition to Greg's later knockdowns--he was really the only person to go for them on other opponents, besides perhaps Daniel going after him when they played each other) was that Greg would later say that his brother's use of knockdowns was "cheap." That about sums it up right there.
An honorable mention would be the "Upset of the Century," which took place in our first SSX: Tricky tournament, Greg's Graptacular of Tricky in Garibaldi #1. For whatever reason (perhaps I had the fastest time at that point), I was considered the favorite to win in this tournament. This all changed with my loss to Greg in the first race of the finals, an event which would shatter my confidence forever and make me nervous in all upcoming tournaments. I think at this point I was flying high, but I was soon to have my wings broken by God and his unfortunate sense of humor. The race was going well, I was about fifteen seconds ahead of Greg going into the final portion of the race--I had about 20 seconds left or so if I was having a good finish. Oh mother of God, I did not have a good finish. I got greedy and tried to cut too far right at the end to shave off precious tenths of a second. I went behind a rock no one has gone behind since, and it started me over so goddamn far back and so out of the way of that shortcut that Greg managed to beat me by less than a second. The sad part is I still almost beat him, and God did that shatter my heart. His comment was "By that point I knew it was all over" (referring to when I went behind the rock), but he's full of shit, because I still almost beat him. But such is life. The SSX: Tricky tournaments were almost always full of tragedy for me, probably just becuase I was the one that cared most, and like I said, God has an unfortunate sense of humor.
7.) "Surface Tension" (Half-Life): This was what I meant by a completely subjective moment. This isn't really an achievement, since this happens to everyone who gets this far in the game, but really just a testament to how awesome the single-player campaign of the original Half-Life was. Every review I read of this game talks about how cinematic and immersive it is, becuase of its lack of cutscenes and other design feats. Let me be the first to say that this is so true. I have never been more involved in a game than I was in Half-Life. It was like a personal quest of mine, digging my way from the very bottom of an underground secret military base through office complexes, rail systems, and all sorts of crazy level designs. Though this game is known for having no distinct levels because Gordon Freeman's journey out of the base is seamless, I liked a lot that there is a distinct feel to each of the "chapters" (distinct from traditional shooter levels) of the game. There is perhaps no game I look back on with more nostalgia then this. I wish I could play through this for the first time again more than any other game. As I said, you climb thorugh sewage and past myriad beasts and this comes to a climax in the "Surface Tension" chapter as you finally, after many, many hours (Half-Life was very long for a FPS, being around 20-30 hours long), see sunlight. This was like the revelation of God to me, for whatever reason. I had finally made it out of the base! Ah, that was such a beautiful part of the game outside too: being hunted by Apache helicopters, shooting them down with RPGs, walking across minefields. This was the biggest "eureka!" moment I ever had in a game. Just love this game so much.
6.) "Message in a Bottle" FC (Guitar Hero II): Most people who played the Guitar Hero series were happy just to play it with friends and have a good time. Some even beat the game on medium. Fewer went on after this to beat it on hard. Even fewer felt compelled to beat it on the most challenging difficulty level, expert. Most people did not see the point of going after 5 stars on a song, or even understood how to do so. Being a member of ScoreHero.com, I knew that 5 stars wasn't the end either. You could get 6 or 7 (or even 8 on some songs!) stars if you got a high enough multiplier on the song. However, this was not the end. The end product of your hard work on a song--often after years of playing it over and over--was an FC (full-combo, or a 100% on a song without overstrums, which, believe me, is different than merely getting 100% of the notes hit on it--I've had 100%'s without getting an FC, and let me tell you, it's a heartbreaker). Only full-out losers go after FCs, but if you get one, you know you did your goddamn best on that song (of course, if you're a really big competitive player, you will continue past the FC onto getting the perfect star power path and--even more intense--perfect squeezing on that song).
Now at this particular point in my life, I was doing leagues for Guitar Hero. What leagues are is you get 2 or 3 songs for that week per league, and everyone works as hard as they can on those songs in that week to get the highest possible score. You get scores based on your points and you compete against others. "Message in a Bottle" by the Police was one of the songs for this week and I had made it my goal to FC it. Normally, this would be considered way, way out of my league, since I had only FCed two songs prior to this on GH2 expert ("Heart-Shaped Box" and "Parasite," ranked as #1 and #3, respectively. To get some perspective here, "Message in a Bottle" is ranked as #15 in the game [I am using this FC breakdown--http://www.scorehero.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=63177&highlight=expert++breakdown--since it is by far the best one I've seen on that site, and believe me, there are many] and #64 overall).
However, for whatever reason, I was able to nail that last part that is really fast very, very consistently in practice mode. People thinking of this song will probably recall it's not that hard on the guitar, and I would agree most of the song isn't, but it is so incredibly annoying that the one taxing part is right at the very end of a 5-minute song. Anyone with any experience going after FCs will be able to tell you this: Prepare to choke a lot. It's even worse when your hard part is at the very end of a song. In fact, it's not even really a choke, since that is the part you are expected to miss on. Now I'm a very nervous Guitar Hero player, so I've been known to choke on very easy parts and it takes me up to two-plus hours to FC even the easiest songs. This took me the entire goddamn week. Even though the song is not particularly challenging (although it is mildly challenging, and retains that steady level of difficulty consistently through the entire song, so it is very easy to slip up if you have been playing it over and over and over and over and over again and break your concentration), it took me a long time even to get to that ending part without missing a note. Once I got there, it took me a long time before I finally nailed the ending, but when I did! Oh God, one of the happiest moments of my entire life. I'm still a little surprised I was able to FC this song at such an early stage in my GH career. I still haven't gotten a higher-rated FC then that, although I almost got "Heart Full of Black," which is rated as #74 (I think I missed one in the outro solo, which is not the hardest part of the song...it's hard to tell if it was a -1 or more, since GH1 does not give you a stats page upon song completion). To put it in perspective, "MiaB" is considered to be a harder FC than "John the Fisherman" and "Cherry Pie," both which have very difficult solos which would take me a lot of time to hit (if I ever could). It is only one step below "Strutter." For whatever reason, I am able to hit a pattern like the one in solo D of "MiaB" very easily--one in which you hold down green or red and then hit other buttons on top of this anchor note. I just never found it to be hard, although apparently it is for others. However, it goes without saying that there is lots of stuff that is very easy for others which absolutely destroys me in this game. I will talk about that more in my Log entry in later in this list.
--Edward
Note that there aren't too many traditional bosses or missions from the games themselves. I've always felt games were more fun when we used our own imaginations to create unique challenges for us to go after instead of simply being told by the game what to do. My friends and I doing weird shit has always led to the best gaming moments for us. Anyways, here we go:
10.) 30,000 Point Combo (1080 Snowboarding): I'll start the list with something more mild. 1080 was an early Nintendo 64 extreme sports game that foreshadowed a later obsession with games like Tony Hawk 3 and SSX: Tricky for Daniel and me. We liked that it had options for both tricks mode and racing. This particular moment belongs in the tricks mode. There were two different options: halfpipe and big air. Big air allowed you to get the biggest combo, and of course Daniel and I wanted to see what the biggest possible combo you could get was. That was I think more impressive then even a high score in halfpipe, which was also a really big deal, but the biggest score you could get on a single trick showed the true potential. 13,000 combos were fairly common in big air and I think they could even be done in halfpipe if you were having a magnificent day (correct me if I'm wrong on this, Daniel, for perhaps 8K was the biggest thing you could get on the halfpipe, but I think 13K was possible, and is almost as impressive as a 30K on big air). 20,000 was the highest combo we could get up until this point. It was not particularly easy and I think for a long time we thought this was the limit of what could be accomplished. That was until I stumbled upon a playing style which I only used briefly, for it burned out after its meteoric rise to the top. This style was doing 360-540-360-540 again and again and again. I don't really know how I did it, and obviously I was not able to replicate it later, but I was happy when I briefly had this ability, for it allowed me to rack up some really big fucking scores. The climax of this was the unheard-of 30K combo done in the big air level. What else can I say? It was like God was playing through my fingers, because I had no idea how I was doing this 360-540 thing, and I never could do it again. But it was worth it for this. I wonder if anyone ever got a higher combo in this game?
9.) Deathmatch to 1,000 in Disco (TimeSplitters: Future Perfect): Mike and I had been slumming this idea around for quite some time. Other than the Guitar Hero games, there was no game we put more time into than TimeSplitters 3. We knew this game inside out, like the back of our hands. Whenever we went to set the deathmatch score, we'd always go to 50 or, if we were feeling ambitious, 100. 100 matches took a fair amount of time, maybe 10-15 min. We always laughed at the possiblity of there being a 500 and even 1,000 option. However, being the kind of fans we were of this game, we knew one day we'd have to grow a set and play to 1,000. The time came on a Friday night when Mike and I were pressured into going to another lame JMU party, but seeing as this was our opportunity, we had to decline. The time had come.
Disco had basically always been the venue we were going to do. It offers perhaps the fastest finishing time because of how intense the killing is in this level. There are maybe a few other levels, like Subway or Mars Prison, that offer the same type of killing frenzy madness, but Disco was really the premier place to prove who was the finest player, because the automatic weapons and lack of explosives helped prove who the most accurate and skillful players were.
We realized through math that the match would go on past two hours, but this is a lot different on paper then it is in reality. I have never been so drained physically playing a videogame as I was for this match. Our eyes hurt, our asses hurt, our hands hurt--our brains especially. Let's say for the record here that Mike came back from being in sxith place for over an hour to pull past such notables as Deerhaunter, Gretel, and R-110 to finish in a respectable third place. I believe that wild and unpredictable Beserker Splitter pulled off the second. I must say, it was a lot easier to win a match this long then a shorter one. You had time to get into a groove, and while we thought that the bots would destroy us becuase of human tiredness affecting our playing ability, this proved not to be the case. I beat that dick Beserker by over 150 kills. A match for the ages.
8.) "Race of the Century" (SSX: Tricky): Greg and I were often rivals. We thrived on pushing each other to our limits. This is perhaps best showcased through our band name writing, but the most clear-cut rivalry we had was in the snowboard game SSX: Tricky. This game was the fruition of everything we dreamed that an ultimate sports game could be. Along with NBA Street and the Tony Hawk series, SSX fulfilled all of our wildest childhood fantasies. The tricks in this game were staggering. But most importantly, we took the racing in this game very, very seriously. Specifically in the first level. We had entire tournaments complete with pages and pages of stats. Greg and I competed constantly for the fastest time in the first level, trading off day by day who was considered the fastest at this game (other levels were basically irrelevant, with the possible exception of the second one).
This all came together in one incredibly tight race Greg and I had. This was not in a tournament and I'm not sure exactly what was going on, since we didn't usually have head-to-head races outside of tournaments (it was better to save that competitive energy for when it counted), but all I know is that it was a killer fucking race. We both had solid starts--no one fucked up. That was a rarity for whatever reason in this game. Most races were determined by someone screwing up. Very rarely did both people have good starts and good finishes. But this was shaping out to be just that. What made this race most memorable was when we came out from different parts of the level at around the two-minute mark and we were exactly neck and neck. Right by each other. Our arms faintly touching each other, snow from each other's boards was flying into the other's face. This is the moment that forever defined our relationship from that point on and what separated us as players. It was an unspoken agreement that you don't knock your fellow boarder down. It makes it into a race of skill and beauty if you rely on speed and technique instead of brute force and knockdowns. Greg broke this code that day. It is something (one of many things) I will never forgive him for. I would've given anything to see what the outcome of that race would've been. There had never, ever been a closer one in that game, period. What made it even more amazing (in addition to Greg's later knockdowns--he was really the only person to go for them on other opponents, besides perhaps Daniel going after him when they played each other) was that Greg would later say that his brother's use of knockdowns was "cheap." That about sums it up right there.
An honorable mention would be the "Upset of the Century," which took place in our first SSX: Tricky tournament, Greg's Graptacular of Tricky in Garibaldi #1. For whatever reason (perhaps I had the fastest time at that point), I was considered the favorite to win in this tournament. This all changed with my loss to Greg in the first race of the finals, an event which would shatter my confidence forever and make me nervous in all upcoming tournaments. I think at this point I was flying high, but I was soon to have my wings broken by God and his unfortunate sense of humor. The race was going well, I was about fifteen seconds ahead of Greg going into the final portion of the race--I had about 20 seconds left or so if I was having a good finish. Oh mother of God, I did not have a good finish. I got greedy and tried to cut too far right at the end to shave off precious tenths of a second. I went behind a rock no one has gone behind since, and it started me over so goddamn far back and so out of the way of that shortcut that Greg managed to beat me by less than a second. The sad part is I still almost beat him, and God did that shatter my heart. His comment was "By that point I knew it was all over" (referring to when I went behind the rock), but he's full of shit, because I still almost beat him. But such is life. The SSX: Tricky tournaments were almost always full of tragedy for me, probably just becuase I was the one that cared most, and like I said, God has an unfortunate sense of humor.
7.) "Surface Tension" (Half-Life): This was what I meant by a completely subjective moment. This isn't really an achievement, since this happens to everyone who gets this far in the game, but really just a testament to how awesome the single-player campaign of the original Half-Life was. Every review I read of this game talks about how cinematic and immersive it is, becuase of its lack of cutscenes and other design feats. Let me be the first to say that this is so true. I have never been more involved in a game than I was in Half-Life. It was like a personal quest of mine, digging my way from the very bottom of an underground secret military base through office complexes, rail systems, and all sorts of crazy level designs. Though this game is known for having no distinct levels because Gordon Freeman's journey out of the base is seamless, I liked a lot that there is a distinct feel to each of the "chapters" (distinct from traditional shooter levels) of the game. There is perhaps no game I look back on with more nostalgia then this. I wish I could play through this for the first time again more than any other game. As I said, you climb thorugh sewage and past myriad beasts and this comes to a climax in the "Surface Tension" chapter as you finally, after many, many hours (Half-Life was very long for a FPS, being around 20-30 hours long), see sunlight. This was like the revelation of God to me, for whatever reason. I had finally made it out of the base! Ah, that was such a beautiful part of the game outside too: being hunted by Apache helicopters, shooting them down with RPGs, walking across minefields. This was the biggest "eureka!" moment I ever had in a game. Just love this game so much.
6.) "Message in a Bottle" FC (Guitar Hero II): Most people who played the Guitar Hero series were happy just to play it with friends and have a good time. Some even beat the game on medium. Fewer went on after this to beat it on hard. Even fewer felt compelled to beat it on the most challenging difficulty level, expert. Most people did not see the point of going after 5 stars on a song, or even understood how to do so. Being a member of ScoreHero.com, I knew that 5 stars wasn't the end either. You could get 6 or 7 (or even 8 on some songs!) stars if you got a high enough multiplier on the song. However, this was not the end. The end product of your hard work on a song--often after years of playing it over and over--was an FC (full-combo, or a 100% on a song without overstrums, which, believe me, is different than merely getting 100% of the notes hit on it--I've had 100%'s without getting an FC, and let me tell you, it's a heartbreaker). Only full-out losers go after FCs, but if you get one, you know you did your goddamn best on that song (of course, if you're a really big competitive player, you will continue past the FC onto getting the perfect star power path and--even more intense--perfect squeezing on that song).
Now at this particular point in my life, I was doing leagues for Guitar Hero. What leagues are is you get 2 or 3 songs for that week per league, and everyone works as hard as they can on those songs in that week to get the highest possible score. You get scores based on your points and you compete against others. "Message in a Bottle" by the Police was one of the songs for this week and I had made it my goal to FC it. Normally, this would be considered way, way out of my league, since I had only FCed two songs prior to this on GH2 expert ("Heart-Shaped Box" and "Parasite," ranked as #1 and #3, respectively. To get some perspective here, "Message in a Bottle" is ranked as #15 in the game [I am using this FC breakdown--http://www.scorehero.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=63177&highlight=expert++breakdown--since it is by far the best one I've seen on that site, and believe me, there are many] and #64 overall).
However, for whatever reason, I was able to nail that last part that is really fast very, very consistently in practice mode. People thinking of this song will probably recall it's not that hard on the guitar, and I would agree most of the song isn't, but it is so incredibly annoying that the one taxing part is right at the very end of a 5-minute song. Anyone with any experience going after FCs will be able to tell you this: Prepare to choke a lot. It's even worse when your hard part is at the very end of a song. In fact, it's not even really a choke, since that is the part you are expected to miss on. Now I'm a very nervous Guitar Hero player, so I've been known to choke on very easy parts and it takes me up to two-plus hours to FC even the easiest songs. This took me the entire goddamn week. Even though the song is not particularly challenging (although it is mildly challenging, and retains that steady level of difficulty consistently through the entire song, so it is very easy to slip up if you have been playing it over and over and over and over and over again and break your concentration), it took me a long time even to get to that ending part without missing a note. Once I got there, it took me a long time before I finally nailed the ending, but when I did! Oh God, one of the happiest moments of my entire life. I'm still a little surprised I was able to FC this song at such an early stage in my GH career. I still haven't gotten a higher-rated FC then that, although I almost got "Heart Full of Black," which is rated as #74 (I think I missed one in the outro solo, which is not the hardest part of the song...it's hard to tell if it was a -1 or more, since GH1 does not give you a stats page upon song completion). To put it in perspective, "MiaB" is considered to be a harder FC than "John the Fisherman" and "Cherry Pie," both which have very difficult solos which would take me a lot of time to hit (if I ever could). It is only one step below "Strutter." For whatever reason, I am able to hit a pattern like the one in solo D of "MiaB" very easily--one in which you hold down green or red and then hit other buttons on top of this anchor note. I just never found it to be hard, although apparently it is for others. However, it goes without saying that there is lots of stuff that is very easy for others which absolutely destroys me in this game. I will talk about that more in my Log entry in later in this list.
--Edward
Monday, July 12, 2010
Edward's Top Nintendo 64 Games
This is a list I made back in January and e-mailed to a few close friends (if you didn't get this e-mail, consider yourself shunned). I have not played any more Nintendo 64 games since then, so I will just copy it onto here. It is not ranked. And by the way, no, I have never played Conker's Bad Fury Day before. Sorry. :(
-Banjo-Kazooie (top position shows my respect for this beast--no matter how much Ryan complains, let's be honest, this game had the best soundtrack of all time, both the music and sound effects)
-Super Mario 64 (best pure platformer of all time)
-The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time (best pure adventure game of all time)
-Perfect Dark (this has the best pre-online multiplayer of any shooter ever, don't ever question this, TimeSplitters is the spiritual descendant of this game)
-GoldenEye (just like I secretly liked the multiplayer in Red Faction and Far Cry, this secretly had the best one-player around for shooters...sure beat Turok, no offense)
-Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire (perhaps becuase of its early release, this game had some sort of mysterious grandeur about it, but I will always love it despite the gameplay not particularly standing out--the cheat where you would spin the controller stick around a lot of times and play as a wampa in the ice level shows how good cheats used to be and how downhill gaming has gone since)
-Star Wars Episode I: Pod Racer (one of the earlier games that we got hopelessly addicted to)
-Turok: Rage Wars (beat out Mario Kart 64 to make this list [note: Mario Kart now makes the list--Donkey Kong 64 got booted off...why would I ever pick that game over Mario Kart?], this was a fine replacement for Perfect Dark in terms of having endless multiplayer modes and a lot of depth in terms of going through one-player challenges, plus some great bad guys--this is perhaps the single most underrated game of all time and one day we should break it out somehow, somewhere)
-Diddy Kong Racing (interesting that they never released a sequel to this, I thought it was pretty succesful and better than its rival Mario Kart, for this had more depth and a much more interesting one-player game, as well as a chicken or turkey that was amazing in the hoverboat thing but no other vehicles)
-Mario Kart 64 (a rarity in that it was a game we were more into before we owned it rather than after, pure early multiplayer goodness)
Honorable mentions:
-Donkey Kong 64 (great? almost)
-Banjo-Tooie (a huge game to live up to, it increased the scope of its predecessor but lost something of the charm of the orginal's levels and storyline [who didn't want to save the female bear?])
-Nagano Winter Olympics (don't tell me you didn't love this game)
-Kobe Bryant NBA Courtside (an early game that wasn't actually good, but sufficed until NBA Street came along)
-FIFA Road to World Cup 98 (good I guess?)
-Mortal Kombat Trilogy (did I play this much? I doubt it, but it had the most Mortal Kombat characters of any of that original set before Mortal Kombat 4 when they switched everything up with new characters without cool backstories or mystery, which the ninjas of the original series had in spades)
-Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (this is perhaps the game with the biggest weaponry of all time: it could boast a gun that was only the 3rd most powerful but that could splinter all of reality within eyesight, which was albeit pretty small, considering how much fog was in this game, but a true classic early game and probably the N64's first [and greatest?] shooter)
-Turok 2: Seeds of Evil (while the original boasted big guns, this boasted big gore and big levels; Turok did all things in terms of size, not in terms of quality, which made them awesome)
-The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (let's be honest, this is easily better than at least most of these honorable mentions; one day I will beat it)
-Star Wars: Rogue Squadron (stupid and amazing at the same time, was the first level on Tatooine? with womp rats? Haha, this was easily better than its GameCube sequel)
-Tony Hawk Pro Skater (foreshadowed the greatness of the third game [and supposedly the second which I only played once in some handheld version] and was a solid entry in the series--us N64 players probably didn't have as good controls as the PS1 players did, where the game rightly belongs)
-Shadow Man (boasting perhaps the best line of dialogue in any video game ever, this didn't have too much else to offer, other than "mature content," which was otherwise lacking on the family-run Japanese madhouse that was the N64)
-1080 Snowboarding (how could I forget this until now? Again, like Kobe Bryant, this was a solid entry that held us over until the PS2 really delivered the goods, in the form of NBA Street and SSX: Tricky, both games that were what we really wanted to play when we spent our time playing Kobe and 1080)
-Mission: Impossible (just look at how many N64 games that I've put down already and it shows the amount of greatness on this system, either that or just how many games our parents got us that we could play--this was a fine, fine game)
-Gex 64 (haha, this got a 4.7 or something on GameSpot; I won't lie and say it deserves better, somehow this has some sort of nostalgic appeal for me)
-Toy Story 64 (I owned this? Haha, great great game)
-Armorines: Project S.W.A.R.M. (really starting to push it in terms of honorable mentions, this gets on here for its early co-op and astonishing badness)
--Edward
-Banjo-Kazooie (top position shows my respect for this beast--no matter how much Ryan complains, let's be honest, this game had the best soundtrack of all time, both the music and sound effects)
-Super Mario 64 (best pure platformer of all time)
-The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time (best pure adventure game of all time)
-Perfect Dark (this has the best pre-online multiplayer of any shooter ever, don't ever question this, TimeSplitters is the spiritual descendant of this game)
-GoldenEye (just like I secretly liked the multiplayer in Red Faction and Far Cry, this secretly had the best one-player around for shooters...sure beat Turok, no offense)
-Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire (perhaps becuase of its early release, this game had some sort of mysterious grandeur about it, but I will always love it despite the gameplay not particularly standing out--the cheat where you would spin the controller stick around a lot of times and play as a wampa in the ice level shows how good cheats used to be and how downhill gaming has gone since)
-Star Wars Episode I: Pod Racer (one of the earlier games that we got hopelessly addicted to)
-Turok: Rage Wars (beat out Mario Kart 64 to make this list [note: Mario Kart now makes the list--Donkey Kong 64 got booted off...why would I ever pick that game over Mario Kart?], this was a fine replacement for Perfect Dark in terms of having endless multiplayer modes and a lot of depth in terms of going through one-player challenges, plus some great bad guys--this is perhaps the single most underrated game of all time and one day we should break it out somehow, somewhere)
-Diddy Kong Racing (interesting that they never released a sequel to this, I thought it was pretty succesful and better than its rival Mario Kart, for this had more depth and a much more interesting one-player game, as well as a chicken or turkey that was amazing in the hoverboat thing but no other vehicles)
-Mario Kart 64 (a rarity in that it was a game we were more into before we owned it rather than after, pure early multiplayer goodness)
Honorable mentions:
-Donkey Kong 64 (great? almost)
-Banjo-Tooie (a huge game to live up to, it increased the scope of its predecessor but lost something of the charm of the orginal's levels and storyline [who didn't want to save the female bear?])
-Nagano Winter Olympics (don't tell me you didn't love this game)
-Kobe Bryant NBA Courtside (an early game that wasn't actually good, but sufficed until NBA Street came along)
-FIFA Road to World Cup 98 (good I guess?)
-Mortal Kombat Trilogy (did I play this much? I doubt it, but it had the most Mortal Kombat characters of any of that original set before Mortal Kombat 4 when they switched everything up with new characters without cool backstories or mystery, which the ninjas of the original series had in spades)
-Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (this is perhaps the game with the biggest weaponry of all time: it could boast a gun that was only the 3rd most powerful but that could splinter all of reality within eyesight, which was albeit pretty small, considering how much fog was in this game, but a true classic early game and probably the N64's first [and greatest?] shooter)
-Turok 2: Seeds of Evil (while the original boasted big guns, this boasted big gore and big levels; Turok did all things in terms of size, not in terms of quality, which made them awesome)
-The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (let's be honest, this is easily better than at least most of these honorable mentions; one day I will beat it)
-Star Wars: Rogue Squadron (stupid and amazing at the same time, was the first level on Tatooine? with womp rats? Haha, this was easily better than its GameCube sequel)
-Tony Hawk Pro Skater (foreshadowed the greatness of the third game [and supposedly the second which I only played once in some handheld version] and was a solid entry in the series--us N64 players probably didn't have as good controls as the PS1 players did, where the game rightly belongs)
-Shadow Man (boasting perhaps the best line of dialogue in any video game ever, this didn't have too much else to offer, other than "mature content," which was otherwise lacking on the family-run Japanese madhouse that was the N64)
-1080 Snowboarding (how could I forget this until now? Again, like Kobe Bryant, this was a solid entry that held us over until the PS2 really delivered the goods, in the form of NBA Street and SSX: Tricky, both games that were what we really wanted to play when we spent our time playing Kobe and 1080)
-Mission: Impossible (just look at how many N64 games that I've put down already and it shows the amount of greatness on this system, either that or just how many games our parents got us that we could play--this was a fine, fine game)
-Gex 64 (haha, this got a 4.7 or something on GameSpot; I won't lie and say it deserves better, somehow this has some sort of nostalgic appeal for me)
-Toy Story 64 (I owned this? Haha, great great game)
-Armorines: Project S.W.A.R.M. (really starting to push it in terms of honorable mentions, this gets on here for its early co-op and astonishing badness)
--Edward
July--Videogame Month!
So I like the idea of having monthly themes. In addition to us doing a film director each month starting in August, I want to start having a topic each month in which bloggers can post about. I was thinking specifically that we come up with our own lists about the topic, since we all know of my fondness for lists.
July will be videogame month. Sample list ideas (please feel free to come up with your own): top 10 (or 25 or 50 or 100 or whatever, ranked, non-ranked, w/ commentary or w/o) favorite/best videogames; favorite characters; favorite soundtracks; best games of each genre; best games on each system; best systems; favorite villains; favorite levels; favorite gaming experiences; best multiplayer games; best weapons; your greatest gaming achievements; best story; hottest character; etc., etc., etc.
I will do some lists shortly probably, although I do not have time at the moment. I also just want to play more videogames. I am the only 20-something guy who says he should play more videogames. Videogames just happen to be fairly low on my priority list--certainly below literature and playing guitar, as well as being below watching film and listening to music and working out--so it is hard to find time out of the day to play them. But it's something I miss: the simple thrill of getting that hard-to-nab Mario star that took you about 45 tries (and only would take Daniel 2); the feeling of awe and wonder you get after crawling through sewer drains and over dead scientist bodies and creeping away from a gigantic tentacle monster to finally reach the blinding sunlight that greets you in "Surface Tension" in the original Half-Life; mysteriously going from 5,000 coins in LEGO Indiana Jones to over six billion, neither Jake nor I knowing what the fuck just happened; endless, endless nights on Danel's pull-out sofa, going through every possible option in the arcade mode of Perfect Dark, forever trying in vain to outwit the the utilitarian PerfectSims and the more deceptive and creative DarkSims, poets of the ambush. I miss the first playthroughs of games that I didn't know at the time would change my life, but that have forever since haunted my mind with their memories: GoldenEye, Super Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie, Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Final Fantasy VII and X, Grand Theft Auto III (why do so many people hate this series now?), and so many others.
Videogames to me have perhaps the most potential of any artistic medium. They have the ability to immerse the audience like no other form of art. This has endless potential. Recently games have innovated beyond their traditional shoot-everything, collect-coins route, with games like Portal or Heavy Rain or others pushing boundaries. I think The Sims should be acknowledged as one of the most innovative games for its time, and this was a very early game to push the boundaries of what a game should be. The idea of controlling everyday people living their lives just like us is a fascinating one, and raises a lot of existential questions about our society and its need for escape and its capacity for voyeurism. Although I think it's true that videogames are far behind such artistic mediums as literature or now film (and TV is also catching up, with shows like The Wire or Breaking Bad or many others), we have to realize just how new the medium is. Film was not as far advanced this short into its history as videogames already are. All of these visual arts are very new things in comparison to literature, so it's not fair if we bemoan the fact that videogames haven't produced a Dante or a Shakespeare yet. They will. I think it is very pessimistic to say that videogames will always just be the domain of teenagers just trying to kill zombies after school given the great leaps and bounds that have been made in recent years towards more artistic games--there are too many for me to even begin to list here.
Anyways, I hope to see others writing on the subject and maybe we can all make lists of our favorite videogame stuff. And it's always fun to see commentary with lists, since I'd much rather read why someone likes something rather then just read a number and a name. This is a blog after all!
--Edward
July will be videogame month. Sample list ideas (please feel free to come up with your own): top 10 (or 25 or 50 or 100 or whatever, ranked, non-ranked, w/ commentary or w/o) favorite/best videogames; favorite characters; favorite soundtracks; best games of each genre; best games on each system; best systems; favorite villains; favorite levels; favorite gaming experiences; best multiplayer games; best weapons; your greatest gaming achievements; best story; hottest character; etc., etc., etc.
I will do some lists shortly probably, although I do not have time at the moment. I also just want to play more videogames. I am the only 20-something guy who says he should play more videogames. Videogames just happen to be fairly low on my priority list--certainly below literature and playing guitar, as well as being below watching film and listening to music and working out--so it is hard to find time out of the day to play them. But it's something I miss: the simple thrill of getting that hard-to-nab Mario star that took you about 45 tries (and only would take Daniel 2); the feeling of awe and wonder you get after crawling through sewer drains and over dead scientist bodies and creeping away from a gigantic tentacle monster to finally reach the blinding sunlight that greets you in "Surface Tension" in the original Half-Life; mysteriously going from 5,000 coins in LEGO Indiana Jones to over six billion, neither Jake nor I knowing what the fuck just happened; endless, endless nights on Danel's pull-out sofa, going through every possible option in the arcade mode of Perfect Dark, forever trying in vain to outwit the the utilitarian PerfectSims and the more deceptive and creative DarkSims, poets of the ambush. I miss the first playthroughs of games that I didn't know at the time would change my life, but that have forever since haunted my mind with their memories: GoldenEye, Super Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie, Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Final Fantasy VII and X, Grand Theft Auto III (why do so many people hate this series now?), and so many others.
Videogames to me have perhaps the most potential of any artistic medium. They have the ability to immerse the audience like no other form of art. This has endless potential. Recently games have innovated beyond their traditional shoot-everything, collect-coins route, with games like Portal or Heavy Rain or others pushing boundaries. I think The Sims should be acknowledged as one of the most innovative games for its time, and this was a very early game to push the boundaries of what a game should be. The idea of controlling everyday people living their lives just like us is a fascinating one, and raises a lot of existential questions about our society and its need for escape and its capacity for voyeurism. Although I think it's true that videogames are far behind such artistic mediums as literature or now film (and TV is also catching up, with shows like The Wire or Breaking Bad or many others), we have to realize just how new the medium is. Film was not as far advanced this short into its history as videogames already are. All of these visual arts are very new things in comparison to literature, so it's not fair if we bemoan the fact that videogames haven't produced a Dante or a Shakespeare yet. They will. I think it is very pessimistic to say that videogames will always just be the domain of teenagers just trying to kill zombies after school given the great leaps and bounds that have been made in recent years towards more artistic games--there are too many for me to even begin to list here.
Anyways, I hope to see others writing on the subject and maybe we can all make lists of our favorite videogame stuff. And it's always fun to see commentary with lists, since I'd much rather read why someone likes something rather then just read a number and a name. This is a blog after all!
--Edward
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Wishing to be where you don't want to be
Reading about the despair that is the existence of an office working so-called productive member of society, I just thought I'd pitch in about the feelings as one looks in, as an unemployed piece of shit with no real goals in life, on this sort of life while frantically hoping to some day finally make it there. To a place where you can bitch about the bleakness of being a paper pushing office worker while being extremely aware that this will provide you with neither happiness nor a sense of fulfillment.
It's a fucked up world we live in, when everyone bends over backwards to make it somewhere they don't want to go. When I think about how to define my life, and in many ways the lives of those around me, the best I can come up with is a high achieving underachiever. There's a rush to get somewhere, even though I definitely don't know where that is and there are classes and a ton of extra-curriculars along the way that are supposed to be useful to you somewhere down the line, they won't tell you when but somewhere , maybe you'll remember something you learned that might help you. You graduate from high school, why? because you want to go to college my boy, they say. So you go and get a degree, why? because no one will hire you if you don't have a degree. And don't take too long to graduate either, don't waste your time son... so you rushed through 18 years of schooling to become a 22 year old man child, who still depends on his parents for sustenance and who has no idea what he wants to do in life, and who can't even find a job doing something he doesn't want to do, so i guess my question is: What was the rush?
It's a fucked up world we live in, when everyone bends over backwards to make it somewhere they don't want to go. When I think about how to define my life, and in many ways the lives of those around me, the best I can come up with is a high achieving underachiever. There's a rush to get somewhere, even though I definitely don't know where that is and there are classes and a ton of extra-curriculars along the way that are supposed to be useful to you somewhere down the line, they won't tell you when but somewhere , maybe you'll remember something you learned that might help you. You graduate from high school, why? because you want to go to college my boy, they say. So you go and get a degree, why? because no one will hire you if you don't have a degree. And don't take too long to graduate either, don't waste your time son... so you rushed through 18 years of schooling to become a 22 year old man child, who still depends on his parents for sustenance and who has no idea what he wants to do in life, and who can't even find a job doing something he doesn't want to do, so i guess my question is: What was the rush?
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Movie Discussion
So Matt and I came up with the idea for a movie discussion group yesterday. This doesn't really have to be organized at all--just a meeting of the minds, so to speak, whether that is just us hanging out and talking or Matt writing his doctoral thesis on the use of color in Antonioni films. Basically, every month we are going to watch the films of a specific director. You don't have to watch all of them--watch as many or as few as you want. I had it in mind that you'd go through the ones you do watch in chronological order. That way you can see the growth of the director through their films. But that's just how I'm going to do it. I made a list of twelve directors I'll attach to the end of this post. I included my suggestions for their five or so biggest movies, but obviously you can watch any movies you'd like by them. I had sent an e-mail to the others in the Jesus Fighter Pilots filmmaking group, and hopefully they will come up with their own list of directors. We wanted it so that a new person picked the director for each month. That way everyone is represented. I also wanted a big variety--foreign or American, new or old, all different kinds of genres--because that way people would see movies they wouldn't normally be watching, and I just think it'll help our discussion. Anyone who reads this and wants to join in, feel free. This is open to everyone. If you want to be represented, send me a list of the directors you'd like to watch. This is really loose and informal, so hopefully we can get others to join in.
I also always liked the idea of a reading group. We could do a different author or a different theme or a different genre each month (or it doesn't have to be monthly, it can be other lengths of time). I just like the idea of everyone experiencing stuff at the same time and discussing it. I know Emily reads a lot, so maybe she can get in on this. This could even be done with music, although I'm not sure how that'd work out. Just an idea.
Anyways, here is my list of directors chosen by me pretty much at random with some suggestions for which movies to watch by them (the first movie listed for each is the earliest chronologically and the rest are in order):
1.) Ingmar Bergman (The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Persona, Cries and Whispers, Autumn Sonata, Fanny and Alexander)
2.) David Lynch (Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks [TV], Lost Highway, Mulholland Dr.)
3.) John Ford (Stagecoach, The Grapes of Wrath, My Darling Clementine, The Quiet Man, The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance)
4.) Francois Truffaut (The 400 Blows, Breathless, Jules and Jim, Day for Night, The Last Metro)
5.) Akira Kurosawa (Rashomon, Ikiru, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, The Hidden Fortress, Yojimbo, Ran)
6.) Coen Bros. (Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink, Fargo, No Country for Old Men)
7.) Frederico Fellini (La Strada, Nights of Cabiria, La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2, Amarcord)
8.) Buster Keaton (The Boat, Our Hospitality, Sherlock Jr., The Navigvator, The General, Steamboat Bill Jr.)
9.) Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Reqiuem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler)
10.) Michael Mann (Thief, Manhunter, The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, The Insider, Collateral, Miami Vice, Public Enemies)
11.) Brian De Palma (Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Blow Out, Scarface, The Untouchables)
12.) David Cronenburg (The Fly, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, Crash, Eastern Promises)
I know, boring picks, right? Some of them are a little obvious (Fellini, Kurosawa), but I haven't seen some of their movies and it seemed like a good opportunity to (and I know the Fellini ones I've seen get better with rewatchings--prepare to be bored your first time!). My goal wasn't really to pick directors I knew all that well, but to pick new stuff to dig into. What is the fun of picking stuff I already know by heart? And I just had to put Lynch on there, becuase he's awesome.
--Edward
I also always liked the idea of a reading group. We could do a different author or a different theme or a different genre each month (or it doesn't have to be monthly, it can be other lengths of time). I just like the idea of everyone experiencing stuff at the same time and discussing it. I know Emily reads a lot, so maybe she can get in on this. This could even be done with music, although I'm not sure how that'd work out. Just an idea.
Anyways, here is my list of directors chosen by me pretty much at random with some suggestions for which movies to watch by them (the first movie listed for each is the earliest chronologically and the rest are in order):
1.) Ingmar Bergman (The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Persona, Cries and Whispers, Autumn Sonata, Fanny and Alexander)
2.) David Lynch (Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks [TV], Lost Highway, Mulholland Dr.)
3.) John Ford (Stagecoach, The Grapes of Wrath, My Darling Clementine, The Quiet Man, The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance)
4.) Francois Truffaut (The 400 Blows, Breathless, Jules and Jim, Day for Night, The Last Metro)
5.) Akira Kurosawa (Rashomon, Ikiru, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, The Hidden Fortress, Yojimbo, Ran)
6.) Coen Bros. (Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink, Fargo, No Country for Old Men)
7.) Frederico Fellini (La Strada, Nights of Cabiria, La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2, Amarcord)
8.) Buster Keaton (The Boat, Our Hospitality, Sherlock Jr., The Navigvator, The General, Steamboat Bill Jr.)
9.) Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Reqiuem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler)
10.) Michael Mann (Thief, Manhunter, The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, The Insider, Collateral, Miami Vice, Public Enemies)
11.) Brian De Palma (Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Blow Out, Scarface, The Untouchables)
12.) David Cronenburg (The Fly, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, Crash, Eastern Promises)
I know, boring picks, right? Some of them are a little obvious (Fellini, Kurosawa), but I haven't seen some of their movies and it seemed like a good opportunity to (and I know the Fellini ones I've seen get better with rewatchings--prepare to be bored your first time!). My goal wasn't really to pick directors I knew all that well, but to pick new stuff to dig into. What is the fun of picking stuff I already know by heart? And I just had to put Lynch on there, becuase he's awesome.
--Edward
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Born on the Fourth of July
Top Ten Tom Cruise Movies (that I've seen):
1. Mission Impossible
2. Top Gun
3. Magnolia
4. A Few Good Men
5. Rain Man
6. The Last Samurai
7. Minority Report
8. Tropic Thunder
9. War of the Worlds
10. Mission Impossible 2 (JOHN WOOOO!)
Notables that I haven't seen and want to...
Interview with the Vampire, Collateral, Days of Thunder, The Firm, Far and Away, Valkyrie, Eyes Wide Shut, All the Right Moves, and Jerry Maguire...
Notables that I have seen, but come on...
Mission Impossible 3 and The Outsiders
1. Mission Impossible
2. Top Gun
3. Magnolia
4. A Few Good Men
5. Rain Man
6. The Last Samurai
7. Minority Report
8. Tropic Thunder
9. War of the Worlds
10. Mission Impossible 2 (JOHN WOOOO!)
Notables that I haven't seen and want to...
Interview with the Vampire, Collateral, Days of Thunder, The Firm, Far and Away, Valkyrie, Eyes Wide Shut, All the Right Moves, and Jerry Maguire...
Notables that I have seen, but come on...
Mission Impossible 3 and The Outsiders
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