Make up your own pun about Wii for the title of this blog entry
So it's to be called "Wii." Wii. As is the case with many fans, I went through various phases in letting go of the Nintendo Revolution moniker and accepting that this new name is likely here to stay. I wholeheartedly agree with all of the fans who protest this Wii business, but I also agree that the name seems more reasonable over time. A lot of consoles have kind of dumb names, actually; I don't think that, for instance, "PlayStation," "GameCube," or "XBox" are very good titles. Sega had the right idea with names like "Genesis," "Saturn," and "Dreamcast," although in much the same way that many Nintendo fans are now clamouring that they prefer the name "Revolution" to "Wii," I preferred the Dreamcast's development title, "Katana."
Anyway, that's about all that I'm going to say about this whole business of naming and brand-building, which is all bullshit anyway, since all that really matters are the games. So let's talk about games.
I'm almost 10 hours into Oblivion now and I've finally gotten over the initial novelty of it to the point where it's starting to seem like just another great RPG rather than some kind of entirely new gaming experience unlike anything I've seen before. I went through something similar with Neverwinter Nights a few years back, where when I first started playing it I was so completely drawn into it that it felt like I'd never played a video game before at all, but as the novelty of it wore down, I began to see how NWN is a lot like every other RPG I've ever played. Oblivion is also reaching that point with me now, but it's still an amazing game.
I went on a game spending-spree last week, but I found myself at EB Games again yesterday to pick up my pre-ordered copy of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children--not the kind of movie that I usually spend money on, but it's Final Fantasy VII, so what the hell. While my resolve was melting away and I was adding a copy of Tourist Trophy to my order, some guy lounging around there complains that there's nothing new out this week. I always find that attitude amusing because at times like this I'm really thankful for the reprieve.
Hell, even during these lulls in the frantic pace of the gaming industry, I'm still starting to play and enjoy more games every month than I will have time to finish. Just to name a couple of games that I haven't succumbed to yet (and am not certain to ever get into, although they're each tempting), there's Ace Combat Zero: The Balkan War, Atelier Iris 2, and Guild Wars: Factions out right now. Sure, those may not be everyone's cup of tea, and not everyone waited as long as I did to get into games like Oblivion (or Tekken 5) to tide themselves over at a time like this, but surely a serious gamer can find something new to get into right now. Maybe I should have told him about Galactic Civilizations II.
And for those of us that can manage to sit tight for another week, the new Mario Brothers game for DS is going to be out. Once again, the DS rules over all other consoles, where the year of 2006 is concerned. It sure would be sweet if Nintendo could somehow carry this momentum over to the Wii when it comes out.
Oblivion
I was doing pretty good these past three weeks about not buying new games and trying to make progress in the ones that I already have. I managed to make some real progress in getting the hang of GalCiv II, which is a real gem of a game and fully worth checking out, and I've been plodding through Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow which I've found to be much more challenging than Harmony of Dissonance was. I still haven't finished Digital Devil Saga and both Xenogears and Ace Combat 5 are being neglected, but I did manage to make some real progress in Disgaea, and I think I've finally reached the final chapter of that game. I've also been playing through the original Metal Gear for MSX which comes on MGS3: Subsistence, and although I haven't put a lot of time into it yet, it's really good--I'd certainly like to finish it (and probably the sequel as well.)
Things just got a bit hairy though, since yesterday I broke down and bought four new games: Odama, Tekken 5, Brain Age, and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. What I'm really here to write about today are these.
Odama is that genre-bending GameCube game that combines pinball with feudal Japanese warfare. It's an interesting game with a colourful theme, but I'd read bad reviews of it, which made me hesitant to buy it. As it turns out, Odama is every bit as fun as I'd hoped it would be; I promptly played it for over two hours after opening it.
I can definitely see where the bad criticism came from, since many elements of Odama are unpolished, and the game can feel frustratingly clumsy at times. The microphone aspect of the game really is just a gimmick, although a fun one--but it adds an unnecessary complication to the game. The pinball "feel" of the game is much clumsier than Metroid Pinball; I find that the "Odama" (rolling ball weapon dealie) often comes off of the pinball paddels at unexpected angles, and I've had a hard time adjusting to the feel of this game. Critical parts of the user interface are poorly explained, and it took me a long time to figure out that you could use the D-pad to select various rally targets for your troops, etc. This can be a very frustrating game and can feel completely chaotic because it's so difficult to control things.
On the other hand, I really enjoy the challenge factor, and learning to play this game has been a lot of fun--particularly because there is so much to learn. Sometimes I like to play a game where I can just pick it up and instinctively know how everything works, and sometimes I really want a game to be confusing at first so that I have to go through the process of figuring it out. Odama has been the latter kind of game for me. Each level of the game has repeatedly kicked my ass, yet I've seen myself continually improving my skill at the game, which is both exciting and refreshing. Although Odama may have fallen well short of the mark of a classic game, it's still fun and interesting enough that I've become addicted to it, and that's all that I really expected of it.
Tekken 5 was a purchase that I put off for a long time. I knew that it was a great game back when it first came out, and I knew that I should be making time for it--but I never did. It's out now as a greatest hits title, and in much the same way that I scooped up Devil May Cry 3 and Ace Combat 5 for cheap, I figured that Tekken 5 was worth the new purchase price. I've played it for less than an hour so far, but it does seem to live up to everything that I'd heard about it: the gameplay is very refined, the graphics are good, and the whole experience that it provides is all-round fantastic. I particularly love the fact that Tekken 5 and Soul Calibur III are both such great 3-D fighting games while both feeling so completely different; I think that part of why I'd been reluctant to get Tekken 5 was that I was waiting for Soul Calibur III and I felt that having both games would be somewhat redundant, but there is no redundancy at all.
I haven't played Brain Age yet. I mostly got this game for my girlfriend, Sunny, and she played several games of it while waiting in the queue for WoW battlegrounds. Apparently her brain age is 22, or something.
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was the surprise hit of the night last night, however. After gorging myself on Odama with a bit of Tekken 5, I decided to install Oblivion "just to see what it looks like." Now my experience with Elder Scrolls up to this point has been very limited. I once bought Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind as a cheap compliation title (came with both expansion packs) and played it for an hour or two. It was a neat game, but somewhat intimidating in scope, and I didn't really have the time to get into it, so I set it aside and kept telling myself "yeah, I'll play that someday." I wasn't planning on getting Oblivion for a while, but people have been saying that it's friendlier and more accessible than Elder Scrolls III, and the fact that Gabe & Tycho from Penny Arcade have been enjoying it so much was no small factor either.
I had a hard time tearing myself away from that game last night. It is so beautiful, so immersive, and so much fun. The only shame is that right now I have to run it on pathetic 640x480 resolution with low detail, and even then it is choppy a lot of the time. Fortunately I have plans in the works for a new computer, although completing these plans is a matter of weeks off yet. Still, I can't even really wait for the new computer to play this game--it's so fun and amazing that getting even a fraction of the experience that it provides is enough to sweep me off of my feet. I've had so much fun with Oblivion so far that it reminds me of how I used to feel about RPGs back in the days when they still seemed exotic and mysterious to me. I feel the same way about Oblivion that I felt about Ultima VII when it was new, which is to say that there's this vast fantasy world waiting for me to discover--and one that hasn't been corrupted so much by internet culture or plagued with monthly subscription fees as your average MMORPG is. I've been craving this kind of single-player PC RPG experience in much the same way that one begins to crave a good sitcom after too much time spent watching only reality TV shows.
Perhaps the best part of the whole Oblivion deal, although I may be getting ahead of myself here, is that Oblivion will be a gentle introduction to the Elder Scrolls series that will enable me to go back and thoroughly enjoy Morrowind later on. I'd like to see that happen. First I should probably finish Digital Devil Saga, Disgaea, and Xenogears. (Hmm... I wonder if I'll still be saying that a year from now.)
GalCiv II - First Impressions
My most recent acquisition is Galactic Civilizations II, the formidable new 4X genre game. I've only just begun to play it and am still heavily immersed in learning the game, but so far it's been very enjoyable. It does remind me of Master of Orion, only a bit more detailed and with a more overt and silly sense of humor. The dialogue for the science advisors when they explain new tech advancements are quite amusing, as are some of the random events, although these things might dampen the mood for you if you're dead serious about your space-faring wargame experience. Still, overall GalCiv II has been more-or-less exactly what I wanted it to be. I was curious about the game for a while, and reading some recent glowing reviews for the game pushed me into buying it.
Another PC game that's been getting good reviews lately is Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Once again this is exactly the kind of game that I'd be all eager to rush out and get if it weren't for the fact that I simply don't feel that I have the time for it. The aging nature of my PC hardware is also a factor; I have a Radeon 9600 which makes it possible to play games like Age of Empires III and F.E.A.R., but I'd really like to get a new PC and replay some of these games for the "full effect." Anyway, according to some of the reviews I've read of Oblivion, it's more accessible and prettier than its predecessor Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, which I've tried to get into unsuccesfully. I'd still like to get properly into Morrowind and see what all the fuss was about (er, four years ago, I guess), but then again, there are so many games like that at the moment.
Speaking of which, it's hard to believe, but even after all of this friggin time, I still have Xenogears, Digital Devil Saga, and Disgaea to complete. I actually made some time to play Disgaea yesterday, and I am drawing tantilizingly close to the final chapter of the game, although it will be several hours of play-time yet before I can cross that one off (then I have Phantom Brave and Makai Kingtom to play.) Similarly, I am on either the last or next-to-last dungeon in Digital Devil Saga, and it should only be a matter of hours before the game is concluded (then I have Digital Devil Saga 2 and Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne to play.) As for Xenogears, well, I'm not on disc 2 yet. Actually, I haven't moved an inch in the game since I last mentioned it several weeks ago.
As for games that I actually have made progress in, well, I did go back and get the "good" ending for Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance (with a bit of help from GameFAQs in tracking down the last of Dracula's parts), and I've started up on Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. That Castlevania Double Pack GBA game is such a great deal--both of those games are beautiful and addictive. I've decided to put off Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow until I'm done with Aria of Sorrow, and it really isn't that hard because I have so many other Nintendo DS games to occupy my attention in the meantime. Mario Kart DS, Metroid Pinball, and Tetris DS are a powerhouse of casual gaming fun that provide incredible gaming value whether you plan to take your DS on the road or not. I'm also still enjoying Resident Evil DS, although my progress in the game has really slowed down. I intend to polish that one off pretty soon.
Literally a couple of months ago I talked about picking up Ace Combat 5 and Devil May Cry 3 Special Ed. for cheap. At the time I opened Ace Combat 5 and played through a significant portion. Amazingly, I still haven't opened up Devil May Cry 3 yet, and I'll have to fix that soon. My fear at the time was that starting on DMC3 would kill any chance that I had of finishing Ace Combat 5. It should be quite obvious to you that this problem occurs frequently with me, and as a result I have not only a large library of games that I haven't finished, but also a growing population of games that I've been too nervous to even open! Some of my unopened games aside from Devil May Cry 3 include Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana, Beyond Good and Evil, Dark Cloud 2, Star Ocean: 'Till the End of Time, and Riviera: The Promised Land. Several of these are bargain bin games or used copies that I picked up for cheap, although Atelier Iris is a game that I bought way back in the fall and still haven't touched. In a matter of months the sequel, Atelier Iris 2, will be out, and I want it even though I still haven't started the original game!
Now obviously I have games piling up on me faster than I have time to play them, which is not something that I feel bad about (quite the contrary--it's fun and exciting), but there's also the fact that I've been in a bit of a gaming slump the last couple of months. At some point in the next few weeks I think that my appetite for video games will pick up again, and I'll be able to take a bite out of this huge buffet of gaming goodness laid out before me. Who knows, maybe I'll even take a few days off from work to mark the occasion. ;)
