Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Fuzzy Green Ball
I feel like a video game orphan right now. Wait, that doesn't make any sense. Maybe I feel like a shopping cart with one wheel. Or a dog with three legs? Does that mean anything? Let's just say I'm a worm who can't find his rain puddle. I'm at home in Libertyville with a plethora of new games, and a Gamecube hooked up to my old, yet still functioning, television. But, and this is the lamest complaint you will ever hear on this site, without my lovely video game chair I can't even begin to lap up their tasty juices. Told you it was pathetic, didn't I? Well, you try sitting on the floor with nothing to lean against for an extended period of time. You try dealing with that overrated bringer of life and glare - the sun - during the day. And then there's the light that may sound like angles humming but clearly originates from a much darker place that disrupts my playing experience at night. Throw in a housemate (mother for some of you) who does not appreciate the sanctity of gaming and you have an environment that is not conducive to the dark and gritty Echoes experience. So, while I would love to tear into KotOR II instead of updating the site, sadly you can see what I actually did. Oh the horror.
Thankfully, I have been able to brave the less-than-ideal conditions to string together a few matches in Mario Power Tennis. Considering that Mario Tennis (there is no 64 at the end of this title!) is one of my top 5 favorite games of all time, I had very high hopes for its sequel. Sure, it's only tennis, so you can't do much more than update, but I had to buy it nonetheless. Even knowing full well that I was merely going to get Mario Tennis with prettier graphics, I'm still kind of disappointed. The game plays fine for the most part, I guess, but there are two things that are killing the experience for me. First, the game has super moves. I know, it's Mario and his wacky friends. It should offer something besides standard tennis fair. But having super moves just makes the game cheap and significantly less fun. You are allowed to use them at seemingly random intervals - sometimes after one or two hits, other times after more than ten. When they are activated, your racket head glows, and you can let loose with either an ultra-powerful super move (which is actually easily returnable... they always land in the middle of the court) or a defensive maneuver which lets you hit the ball no matter where it is on the court.
In theory, this concept sounds horrible. In practice, it is even worse. It's almost like Square had a part in this game. Every super move has a long animation sequence which cannot be skipped. So while it's mildly entertaining to watch Donkey Kong pound the ground, jump into a barrel and smash head first into a tennis ball the first time, it gets exponentially less fun each time you have to watch it. Kind of like that horrible Colin Quinn show with the C-level comics. I have no idea why Camelot, or Comedy Central, thought this would be a good idea. And, to make matters even worse, the animations are so over-the-top the ball is almost impossible to see. So many times, your opponent will activate their annoyingly cheap defensive move, which lightly returns the ball to your side of the court, and you'll miss it completely because pink hearts are in the way. Lame lame lame.
Thankfully, you can disable these moves in the exhibition mode. Which brings me to my other problem - the Tournament mode. A fresh copy of MPT, using the standard characters, plays really slow. Shockingly slow even. A more appropriate adjective would be painful. Puppy-stompingly painful. A mashed baby could play this game. To make the game, you know, fun, you have to unlock the Star version of your character. To do this, you have to play through Tournament Mode. I don't know who this mode was designed for, but it couldn't be people who actually play games. I have played through the entire tournament 5 times now - each tournament lasts 9 matches (or 15 sets) - and have lost about 10 points total. I obviously haven't lost one set or even a game yet. Just a few random points here and there. Now, I am pretty good at the game. But I'm clearly not godlike. They just made the game ridiculously easy for some reason. So, in order to unlock the fun characters, I have to take about 25 minutes to play through the Tournament with every character in the game. Considering that I already played through everything the first Mario Tennis had to offer a few years ago, I really have no interest playing through the one player mode in the new one to unlock the goodies. I only wish Camelot had realized that many people buying this are Mario Tennis veterans and play the game primarily for it's amazing multiplayer mode and not its ultra-lame single-player crapfest.
I'm disgusted.
The only other game I have been playing this week is.... Donkey Konga! Yeah, I know, of all the one player games I could possibly choose why would I choose the monkey hand clapping game? That's easy - I'm insane. I took it out to show some friends.. and then I kind of got addicted to it all over again. Of course, I can't physically play the game for more than a half hour straight. After clapping too much in such a short period of time, I can no longer produce sound by banging my hands together. I think I should call science about this problem. Despite my handicap, I have now almost unlocked all the Gorilla songs and all but one or two of the secret, ultra-annoying alternate bongo sound effects. Though I completely dominate in the Chimp difficulty (the second hardest/second easiest) I still get owned quite hard at the Gorilla mode. I guess my dreams of being a professional bongo player/clapper will need to be buried next to my dream of retiring when I'm 22. On to my next dream - creating a flying walrus that tastes like chocolate.
One last thing, and then I'm done. You know how I always come up with arbitrary rules? Here's my next one - I'm not buying, or accepting as gifts, any video game until March. I look over my collection and see a ton of games that I still need to beat. I got five new games for Christmas, plus eight $5 games from Circuit City in early December, plus there are still Nick's games I need to play through and the second half of Final Fantasy 2 and many other games. Anyway, I have enough to last me a year or two (I'm still only about 50% through Perfect Dark...) so I think I can last a few months until my next purchase. I said March because that is the magical month that will see the release of Conker (Yay!) and Jade Empire (words cannot express my need for this game). So, just a heads up to Brendan and the nice folks in Edmond - you'll be reading about a lot of old games for the next few months. And you're going to love it.
Thankfully, I have been able to brave the less-than-ideal conditions to string together a few matches in Mario Power Tennis. Considering that Mario Tennis (there is no 64 at the end of this title!) is one of my top 5 favorite games of all time, I had very high hopes for its sequel. Sure, it's only tennis, so you can't do much more than update, but I had to buy it nonetheless. Even knowing full well that I was merely going to get Mario Tennis with prettier graphics, I'm still kind of disappointed. The game plays fine for the most part, I guess, but there are two things that are killing the experience for me. First, the game has super moves. I know, it's Mario and his wacky friends. It should offer something besides standard tennis fair. But having super moves just makes the game cheap and significantly less fun. You are allowed to use them at seemingly random intervals - sometimes after one or two hits, other times after more than ten. When they are activated, your racket head glows, and you can let loose with either an ultra-powerful super move (which is actually easily returnable... they always land in the middle of the court) or a defensive maneuver which lets you hit the ball no matter where it is on the court.
In theory, this concept sounds horrible. In practice, it is even worse. It's almost like Square had a part in this game. Every super move has a long animation sequence which cannot be skipped. So while it's mildly entertaining to watch Donkey Kong pound the ground, jump into a barrel and smash head first into a tennis ball the first time, it gets exponentially less fun each time you have to watch it. Kind of like that horrible Colin Quinn show with the C-level comics. I have no idea why Camelot, or Comedy Central, thought this would be a good idea. And, to make matters even worse, the animations are so over-the-top the ball is almost impossible to see. So many times, your opponent will activate their annoyingly cheap defensive move, which lightly returns the ball to your side of the court, and you'll miss it completely because pink hearts are in the way. Lame lame lame.
Thankfully, you can disable these moves in the exhibition mode. Which brings me to my other problem - the Tournament mode. A fresh copy of MPT, using the standard characters, plays really slow. Shockingly slow even. A more appropriate adjective would be painful. Puppy-stompingly painful. A mashed baby could play this game. To make the game, you know, fun, you have to unlock the Star version of your character. To do this, you have to play through Tournament Mode. I don't know who this mode was designed for, but it couldn't be people who actually play games. I have played through the entire tournament 5 times now - each tournament lasts 9 matches (or 15 sets) - and have lost about 10 points total. I obviously haven't lost one set or even a game yet. Just a few random points here and there. Now, I am pretty good at the game. But I'm clearly not godlike. They just made the game ridiculously easy for some reason. So, in order to unlock the fun characters, I have to take about 25 minutes to play through the Tournament with every character in the game. Considering that I already played through everything the first Mario Tennis had to offer a few years ago, I really have no interest playing through the one player mode in the new one to unlock the goodies. I only wish Camelot had realized that many people buying this are Mario Tennis veterans and play the game primarily for it's amazing multiplayer mode and not its ultra-lame single-player crapfest.
I'm disgusted.
The only other game I have been playing this week is.... Donkey Konga! Yeah, I know, of all the one player games I could possibly choose why would I choose the monkey hand clapping game? That's easy - I'm insane. I took it out to show some friends.. and then I kind of got addicted to it all over again. Of course, I can't physically play the game for more than a half hour straight. After clapping too much in such a short period of time, I can no longer produce sound by banging my hands together. I think I should call science about this problem. Despite my handicap, I have now almost unlocked all the Gorilla songs and all but one or two of the secret, ultra-annoying alternate bongo sound effects. Though I completely dominate in the Chimp difficulty (the second hardest/second easiest) I still get owned quite hard at the Gorilla mode. I guess my dreams of being a professional bongo player/clapper will need to be buried next to my dream of retiring when I'm 22. On to my next dream - creating a flying walrus that tastes like chocolate.
One last thing, and then I'm done. You know how I always come up with arbitrary rules? Here's my next one - I'm not buying, or accepting as gifts, any video game until March. I look over my collection and see a ton of games that I still need to beat. I got five new games for Christmas, plus eight $5 games from Circuit City in early December, plus there are still Nick's games I need to play through and the second half of Final Fantasy 2 and many other games. Anyway, I have enough to last me a year or two (I'm still only about 50% through Perfect Dark...) so I think I can last a few months until my next purchase. I said March because that is the magical month that will see the release of Conker (Yay!) and Jade Empire (words cannot express my need for this game). So, just a heads up to Brendan and the nice folks in Edmond - you'll be reading about a lot of old games for the next few months. And you're going to love it.
// posted by Tom @ 11:56 PM 
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