And Now, For Something Completely Different

I started this a week or so ago in the hopes of somehow cataloging my video game experience, and I'm not sure if it came out the way I wanted it to. It reads more like "My Summer Vacation" than my typical reviews. But anyway, here it is: the somewhat complete history of my video gaming.

Enjoy :)

Since before the days of elementary school, I found myself drawn to video games. I played Centipede in arcades, standing on crates my mom would lug over so I could reach the buttons. Later, I spent all my pocket money playing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game between bowling matches. I got a Nintendo and played Marble Madness, Paperboy, Tetris, Zelda II: the Adventures of Link, Gauntlet, Gradius, Contra, and Battle of Olympus to exhaustion. When the Super Nintendo came out, my stepfather surprised me by buying me a pile of on-sale Nintendo games, including Ultima III: Exodus, The Immortal, Milon’s Secret Castle, Wizards and Warriors, Solstice, and Legacy of the Wizard. I borrowed – and beat – the first Final Fantasy game, as well as Shadowgate and the first Legend of Zelda. I had fewer games for Super Nintendo – Paperboy 2, Road Runner’s Death Valley Rally, Final Fantasy II & Mystic Quest, The Secret of Mana, and The Seventh Saga – all except the last of which I beat. I also delighted in the Super Mario series of games, as well as the Castlevania games – beating all except the fourth, which never ceased to frustrate me. And let’s not forget Megaman – I can’t remember how many there were, but I know I beat all the ones I could get my hands on. So, I would have to say that, initially, I was mostly into side-scrolling games that were considered platformers, and a handful of RPGs.

Once I got to high school, I started playing sports and joining clubs, and stopped playing video games almost completely. This changed when I got to college – my roommate’s boyfriend had a Playstation, and I started playing the first three of the Crash Bandicoot series – another set of platformers – constantly. The third, “Warped,” was my all-time favorite. After that, it was on-again, off-again with video games – I got heavily into both Grand Theft Auto III and Final Fantasy VII during my winter break my senior year of college, and then put it down when classes started again. In 2003, I started playing again – mainly Diablo II on my PC, my first time playing any game at all on a computer. I owned my first computer at age 8, but it was a Tandy 3000, which wasn’t amenable to much other than word processing and making my own music. On my new computer, I also played some Quake 2, Doom 3, and even a little Tribes. I collected a pile of games I never played – Enter the Matrix, God of War, Kingdom Hearts, Castlevania: Lament of Sorrow, Jak and Daxter: the Precursor Legacy, and Ratchet and Clank, all for the PS2. The reason I never played these could be attributed to two more major addictions – the first was Mario Kart: Double Dash, which brought me to a new level of cursing with the introduction of blue shells into my life. The second was Katamari Damacy and We <3 Katamari, both of which I beat within a month of owning them. But things really changed for me in 2005, when I got my first hand-held gaming system.

It started with a Game Boy Advance, and simple games, like ports of Zelda II and Mario 2. Then I got a DS, and mostly played Mario Kart (and later, New Super Mario Brothers, Speed Racer, and Ninjatown – the last of which being the only one I’ve beaten). In March of 2006, I got a PSP, which changed my view of handheld gaming completely. I was playing Me and My Katamari (the only game I’ve beaten on the PSP so far) and Death, Jr. – the two main reasons I got the system – and later got N+ and Loco Roco. But the real treat came at the end of 2008 – in August, I went to the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle; in October, I got my PS3; and in November, I met the love of my life, who I ended up taking to the Video Game Expo in Philly later that very month.

The Penny Arcade Expo was incredible, as I’ve mentioned previously in this blog. It was overwhelming and amazing to really feel like I was around a bunch of people who were like me. It felt like home. I get the same feeling whenever I’m around Mike – that I’ve found someone who finally gets me, who I can be myself around and not hide any aspects of my inner geek. The Playstation 3 has been a ton of fun and has been instrumental in getting me into the new world of gaming, in which games can be downloaded as well as played online, something I’d never done with a console. The first game I got for it was Little Big Planet – I scored a post-recall clean copy a week before it was supposed to come out – and Dead Space. I went back and forth between the two games, playing Little Big Planet for hours until I felt like changing it up a bit, and then playing Dead Space until I felt I needed to change my pants. It was just before this time that Mike and I met, and we started discussing video games all the time – I got him interested in Fallout 3, and he got me into Resistance 2, both of which I bought after we started dating. Resistance 2 was so amazing that, on black Friday, I got a copy of Resistance: Fall of Man. I mostly played Little Big Planet until I beat it, and then I started in on Resistance. When Mike got me F.E.A.R. 2 for Valentine’s Day, that was all I played for a week or so, and then I went back to Resistance, because he had started playing Resistance 2 online again and I wanted to get to where he was. (I should mention I’ve got an annoying habit of wanting to play games in order, and read books in order, and see tv shows and movies in order, etc; however, in this case, it was also that I wanted to beat Resistance and Resistance 2 because I felt like those were good places to start in order to get better at playing first person shooters). Since Friday, though, the main thing that’s been in the PS3 has been Killzone 2, which was my Valentine’s Day gift to Mike, and which is SO insane and intimidating that I haven’t played it for more than 20 minutes or so. I’ll get there, though…I will make it to Helghan!

So, there it is – everything I can remember about my video game history. I’m sure I’ve missed a handful here and there, especially with Nintendo and Super Nintendo games. I tried to make it sound creative, though it seems more matter-of-fact than imaginative. Hopefully it’s not too pedantic, and gives my faithful readers a little more background into this side of me.

Video Game Review: Ninjatown

I did, in fact, take that mythical trip to Oz, not this morning, but starting last night. I am definitely pleased with the gameplay of Resistance 2, but holy FUCK, it is nigh impossible. The guns are far more effective (especially the Auger), but the enemies are harder. The colors make everything more beautiful, but sometimes, I find myself regretting asking for more color – specifically running through the town of Orick, being chased by Grims, which exploded from cocoons all over the damn town and scared the shit out of me. GOOD TIMES!

Really, the game is great, but I need to take a break from it to do some homework and laundry, and to let Mike play more Killzone 2. Now that I’m full of dinner and I don’t quite feel like finishing up my homework, I thought I’d write another review of a game I beat about 2 months ago, Ninjatown.

The characters in Ninjatown come from the mind, palette, and soul of Shawn Smith, the creative genius behind Shawnimals (www.shawnimals.com). I had the pleasure of meeting Shawn at the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle in September of 2008, after seeing Wee Ninjas and Wee Devils running around the convention center (I even got my picture taken with them, as you can see). I was intrigued, and decided to check out the game. I was interested in the pins as well, scattered across a table with a sign begging people to be honest and take only one – which, in addition to the fact that they were the cutest pins I had ever seen, made me want a pocketful. My evil plot was thwarted by the appearance of Shawn himself, who explained how the game was played on the demo that had been set up next to the pins, and also recognized my Patrick the Wolfboy shirt and commented on it. It turns out that Art and Franco had worked on his Ninjatown comic! It was a righteous coincidence.

Ninjatown itself is a painfully adorable tower defense game for the DS. You help Ol’ Master Ninja defend Ninjatown by strategically defending it from Mr. Demon and his angry hordes. A variety of ninjas can be called upon to help, starting with Wee Ninjas and later getting volunteer Business Ninjas and even Lava Ninjas. Each Ninja has specific powers and is ideal against certain devils – I find the Anti-Ninja to be the best defense against the Chubby Devil, and the Business Devil is best defeated by his swift Ninja counterpart. Each level requires another area to be defended, and you can choose which Ninja Houses you want to build – depending on how many Ninja Cookies you have. Yes, that’s right, I said Ninja Cookies – that is the monetary value you’re dealing with here in Ninjatown, and Mr. Demon is trying to steal the recipe.

Not cute enough for you? What if I were to tell you that you can gain tokens with each level beaten, and that the tokens include Baby Ninjas, who are so cute the Devils must slow down, as well as Ninja Droppings, which…well…that one’s obvious, now isn’t it? You can also enlist the direct aid of Master Ninja, who flies above you in a hot-air balloon. You can unlock various powers for him to help you in your defense of your beloved town.

On top of being cute, it’s also addictive. I found myself playing levels again and again, trying to best mixes of Ninjas to defeat the onslaught of Devils, addicted to seeing that grade of “A” after each one was finished.

So, the gameplay is fun, the characters are fun and lovable, and it’s a level of challenging I found quite satisfying – it wasn’t so easy I beat it in a day, but it also wasn’t so hard that I got frustrated with it. All in all, I would say Ninjatown is definitely a game I heartily recommend to everyone.

Video Game Review: Resistance

For the last two weeks or so, I’ve been playing the original Resistance, broken up only with frustrations at playing Phantom Hourglass on my DS and frustrations playing Death, Jr. on my PSP. Both of those handheld games have their obnoxious sides; the former is a kid's game full of puzzles and riddles and going through the same fucking map 10 fucking times, the latter, a not-so-kid's game that I’m sure I’m not playing in the right order because I’m constantly getting my ass kicked. When I am home and playing Resistance, however, I can say that I have very few complaints. It’s a very good FPS (first person shooter, as they call it in the biz), other than the fact that everything is GREY, grey, grey. I can't complain about the fact that I have a health bar and it's not just the typical "if I hide behind this wall, I’ll regenerate like any normal person" FPS health meter. Not that there's anything wrong with that, that's how things are in Resistance 2, which I’m really looking forward to getting back into, now that I can tell the different between a black Carbine and a Frag grenade and the grey ground/wall/door/dirt. I love the guns in the game - the Bullseye, with its tagging feature, allows you to shoot around walls, and the Auger, while not as powerful as I’d hoped, allows you to shoot your enemies through a wall, which is pretty amazing (I should point out these are both Chimeran guns - though I will also grudgingly admit I like the shotgun in this game – the Rossmore – more than I have in any other FPS I’ve played, and that the Carbine has grown on me exponentially every time I fight a wave of Leapers). The firefights never get boring to me; they're not too impossibly easy or hard in either direction, and in addition, things get changed up constantly. My one and only complaint is that it is LONG as all hell - I really can't wait to be in the colorful world of Resistance 2, which will feel much like Dorothy must have felt when she walked out of the house after the twister and realized she wasn't in monochromatic Kansas anymore. I’m also eagerly anticipating the release of Resistance: Retribution on the PSP next month, which, according to what I saw in the latest Qore episode, promises to be anything but a disappointment. All in all, two thumbs up, and I hope to be finished with it tonight and well on my way to Oz by morning.

Addendum: an hour after writing this, I did, in fact, beat Resistance. The final fight was definitely a worthy one, though the ending itself left much to be desired in comparison to the ending of the second one (which I saw when Mike was playing it, and now wish I hadn’t). But I dutifully watched the credits and I was rewarded with a partially satisfying scene that made me want to start the second one even more. So, hopefully, I’ll have a follow-up review for that one within the week – that is, if I don’t end up writing my critical essay due Tuesday, or work on my application to graduate school, or do any of the work for my travel writing course, or, you know, sleep.

Life Review

I have totally fallen off the face of the internet. Several things happened:

-I went to Japan for two weeks.
-I went to see Shudder to Think for an entire weekend.
-I went to a dozen Halloween parties.
-I bought a PS3...and 4 games.
-I sort-of fell in love.

Those events are listed in chronological order. And they are all fabulous.

I will be writing more in the upcoming weeks - I promise. I was trying to do NaNo but please see list above for reasons why it simply hasn't worked out. I'm in that early stage of the relationship (can I call it "blithesome"?) and it's wonderful. But I'm going to get back into the swing of things. I've been:

-reading the Stephen King "Dark Tower" series;
-watching loads of horror movies;
-playing tons of video games.

So, I have plenty of fodder for the blog cannon. And I think it's time I got the creative juices flowing again.

Band Review: Shudder to Think (part 2)

I just got back from the show. I'm 29 years old. And I still - and always will - love Craig Wedren.

You'll always be my number one, Craig. <3

Band Review: Shudder to Think

I wrote this completely corny review yesterday, and I am a little self-conscious about it, but whatever. I'm corny! I don't care. I'm seeing Shudder to Think tonight and I couldn't be more thrilled. So, enjoy! -n

In my teenage years, one of my favorite hobbies was to stay up all night watching MTV. This could happen any night, and occasionally fell in a Sunday, when they used to have a show called “120 Minutes.” It was an amalgam of what was considered “alternative” music, back when that genre was still relatively new. It was on one of these beloved night/mornings that I discovered a band that would change my life forever: Shudder to Think. The video was for “X-French T-shirt” on what remains my favorite album, Pony Express Record. And from the moment Craig Wedren’s voice poured out of those shitty RCA television speakers and started to Shake My Halo Down, I knew I was in love, and that nothing would ever be the same again.

When they broke up, it made me Grow Cold. I had finally been able to procure all of their albums, thanks largely to a used record store in Reading called “Warrior Music” – I hope that, somewhere, my old Saab still has their “Screw Corporate America!” bumper sticker I so affectionately placed on there – and they broke up. I was devastated, certain that it was The Saddest Day of My Life. I continued listening to them, and they remained my favorite band, despite the many bands that have ebbed and flowed in and out of my eclectic musical taste.

Then I heard The Call of the Playground: they were getting back together for a reunion tour. No way! It can’t be! I could not believe these Lies About the Sky. I, of course, bought tickets to both the Philadelphia and New York shows, determined to see them as much as I possibly could. I’ve been listening daily to every Day Ditty, and suddenly, this morning, while listening to “Just Really Wanna See You” from the First Love, Last Rites soundtrack, it hit me like a Love Catastrophe: I’m going to see Shudder to Think tomorrow.

Tomorrow night, I am going to walk into the TLA and see them perform, live, and I will most likely sob my heart out the entire show. Tomorrow, I am going to be in the same room as Craig Wedren and he is going to perform the songs that have helped me to get through some of my most awkward and painful moments. Tomorrow, I’m going to hear, in person, some of the words that, like the loving grip of a friend, squeezed my hand in my time of need. Tomorrow, my dear Earthquakes will Come Home. And I’m sorry to anyone who tries to love me ever again, for I am So Into You, Shudder to Think: you Own Me.

A word or two on PAX, before reality seeps back in.

so i just got back from PAX. it was...an incredible experience, to say the least. i got to check out (though not as much as i wanted to) a gorgeous new city, seattle. i FINALLY managed to make it to the west coast for the first time in my life. i got to see and play all kinds of awesome new video games as well as pick up loads of awesome (and lots of free!) merch. i got to see mc frontalot perform...AND he signed my cds...AND i got my picture taken with him. i got to see an amazing q&a with the penny arcade boys, as well as watch them play rock band (AWESOME!) and vs. excitebike. i got to experience the omegathon in all its geektastic glory. the creator of ninjatown recognized my patrick the wolfboy t-shirt and talked to me about art and franco (shawn says hi, guys!). i got to see a fantastic spore demo and realized IT IS COMING OUT NEXT WEEK - after YEARS of waiting for it. and...possibly the best part...i got to see a panel (and new exclusive stuff - live!) from the rooster teeth guys as well as get my stuff signed AND get my picture taken with them. they were...just...amazing. really fantastic.

i have to admit, i'm no stranger to conventions. this was, i think, my eighth year going to philadelphia's wizard world comic-con. it was my third year going to monster mania in cherry hill. it was my first year going to otakon. it was my first pax. (those last three all happened in this month of august, in fact.) while i love the comic book convention (it's got my favorite geek flea market) and the horror convention (there's nothing quite like breathlessly accusing tom savini of being a genius) and otakon was a blast (so much KAWAII), i can honestly say that PAX was the first time i felt like i was really home. i guess it's because of those four things - comics, horror movies, anime, and video games - i've been into video games the longest, since my mom used to haul crates over to arcade games at the mall so i could play them when i was 3 or 4 years old. it took going to PAX to bring back the full nostalgia of it for me and remind me how much of a gaming geek i am - and always have been - at heart. i also have a hard time choosing between watching movies, reading books, and playing video games (and even playing the guitar and knitting), but i think for a while i know which mode i'm going to be stuck on again.

the other thing that i want to comment on is just...seattle. WOW. i could never imagine wanting to live anywhere other than philadelphia. my second favorite city is boston, and my third, baltimore. but seattle...seattle just blew them all away. i could see myself living in dublin, and even belfast, but i could never imagine calling those places my home. the same with boston and baltimore. but seattle...i could see myself living in seattle and calling it my home, really. it's laid back, and from what i saw, it's just my style, from the clothes to the food to the attitude. i utterly loved it there. i'm not sure if i'll be singing the same tune in a few weeks, after i get back from japan, but these are just my rambling, sleep-deprived, jetlagged thoughts as i'm having them.

PAX changed me. it re-opened a place that i had in my heart that's been buried under failed relationships, japanese grammar, netflix queues, and complications of life. too much of my energy and passion is constantly misdirected. but i promise myself - i will never let that place get buried again.

<3