G-pinions

For some reason, today turned into the day of the old school game for me. While my 3 most shiny, most new systems stood eagerly in front of me, I shied away from their fancy new games and unearthed some old classics for the first time in quite a while. So no, this post won't chronicle any of the awesome new games I have yet to mention, such as Alien Hominid, nor the huge games no writer of this site has played yet, such as Echoes. If you fear what is not new, please stay far away.

This strange journey started while I innocently watched G4Tv. They have this really horrible show (like most of their shows....) where some geek like you or I has a young, attractive, gaming ignorant female celebrity over to his house. There he introduces her to some game far too complex for her while he tries desperately to get inside her pants. It's only worth watching if you enjoy unsettling moments of the truly awkward. Anyway, while flipping through the channels today I caught them playing Crazy Taxi. Granted, it was the Gamecube version, but it was still Crazy Taxi. She was sucking it up, as always. At one point he said "I'll help you" and proceeded to put his arms around her golf-lesson style in order to "help" her "control" it. Awk Ward.

Besides having my insides throwing up a little just watching this sickening display, I did enjoy watching footage of the game. One of my favorite Dreamcast games, though I do admit feeling dirty for trading in Powerstone and Armanda to own it. It is quite sad that, when it came out, it was considered one of the freshest (that's right, I said freshest) games around. But now that Burnout and Grand Theft Auto have stolen CT's wonderful ideas (like getting a bonus by driving extra close to another car or doing taxi missions for money), they thrive in the public eye while Crazy Taxi collects dust. Another sad but true story.

Sometimes the mind remembers past games more fondly than it should, so I decided to fire up the original taxi simulator for the first time in years. At first, I was shocked how bad the game controlled. We really are lucky having 3 incredibly tight controllers this generation. The Dreamcast stick, which felt so good years ago, is just a mess now. Only half way through my first race, though, I was back on the paddle and doing all the things a San Fran driver does. It's shocking how good this game still is. Sure, I got tired of it after only an hour of driving through the same city over and over (I never did like that "other" city) but it was still really fun. All the cool little control quirks, like quickly switching between Reverse and Drive to do a speed burst or to turn tightly, still work really well. It doesn't really have the depth of GTA or Burnout, but it's nice to go back to the game that really started it all.

Then I took a little break from gaming (the horror!), ate some food and got dressed. By that time, Scotty made an appearance and we were back into what we do best. After finding out the GBA/GC connection for Prince of Persia is little more than an illusion, we fired up some Nester DC emulation to play the most awesome of old school titles. We started with Bard's Tale which really sucks. When I played it the first time more than a year ago I remember creating a small army of characters named Bardly or Bartly (yes, 4 characters with virtually the same name) but forgot what the game was like. Turns out it's one of those craptacular first person RPGs that have thankfully disappeared. We lasted about 5 minutes in the game before Bartly died from a nasty wolf bite and we got bored.

From there we fired up my all time favorite NES game - Bubble Bobble. While Metroid was probably my favorite title growing up, and Legend of Zelda is my favorite 1 player NES game right now, Bubble Bobble is the best two player co-op game and therefore my favorite overall game. It took me only a second or two to get right back into this. It's just so simple and lovely and perfect. You shoot bubbles. You capture enemies. You pop bubbles and collect the loot inside. Pure genius. I love it. Scott wasn't too great at it so we quit after 15 levels, but I had a blast throughout. I really need to play through that game in its entirety again. One of the truly great classics that better not get a lame 3D sequel.

Anyone getting tired of this recap of random NES games? No? Well then I think I'll just keep on going. Only 3 more games so stay with me.

Next, I suggested Cabal. Shockingly, Scott had never even heard of this game. There's a good chance no one else has either so I'll give a quick run down. You control two army guys at the bottom of the screen. You can move only left and right, shoot (grenades and bullets) as well as barrel roll. You shoot enemy troops using a cursor. If you hold down the shoot button you stand still and move the cursor around. If you let go you can move out of the way of bullets. Surprisingly fun. Once again, we didn't last too long - just the first 4 levels and the first end boss - but it was still really good while it lasted. The game actually plays a lot like the second level of Contra. And, because the imitator is never as good as the original, we decided to fire up Contra to see if we were bad enough dudes to rescue the president's daughter.

Ok, Alien Hominid and Metal Slug are clearly better than Contra. You aren't given any vehicles or grenades in Contra. Heck, you can't even bite people's heads off. All you do is run to the end of the level and shoot stuff. But, you know what? It's still really fun. Granted, we went through 60 combined lives in 6 levels, but when we weren't dying we (or at least I) were laughing with glee. Even without all that fancy new fangled gameplay, the game still had a ton of variety. There's the first level, which is a left to right scrolling affair. Then the infamous second level, which has you standing at the bottom of the screen, running left and right while shooting that blue dot thingy. Finally, you have the third level, which is a vertical scrolling ordeal where you will "accidentally" kill your friend by jumping too fast on at least one occasion. Not as much variety as current shoot 'em ups, but pretty good for its time. I still stand by the fact that the laser is the best weapon in the game. Only lames need the spread shot. Real men use focused light as their weapon of choice.

The last game we played was a bit more recent, and is in the enviable position of being number 5 on my all time favorite games list. Can't guess what it is? What if I tell you it's only behind Super Mario Kart, Goldeneye/Perfect Dark and Soul Calibur? Still don't know? I'm shocked. It's Mario Tennis, ok? It's so much fun it's ridiculous. Though anyone can pick up and play this easy game, it's at its best when two old pros - such as Scott and I - go toe to toe in a heated, winner takes all one on one battle to the death. Yes, though only one of us died (guess who) it was clearly a fight to the death. Ok, so in actuality, we each won two games before eating a pizza and watching Not Another Teen Movie. Either way, MT is still the king of all sports titles. I'm getting Mario Power Tennis in only a few weeks. Other sequels on my top 5 list, like every subsequent Mario Kart and Soul Calibur 2, couldn't overtake their predecessor. Only time will tell if MPT has what it takes. My early thought is no, simply because the controller is weird, but I'm crossing my fingers.

Wait, I said only 3 more games and that's 3 more games. Am I really stopping before I talk about Dawn of Souls? You're damn right I am. Well, maybe just a hint: It's fantastic.

Though we'll be a lot more timely on such things after having attended E3 2005, I've finally gotten to play a couple demos of games I've been looking forward to coming out in the next 3-4 months. Namely Conker: Live and Reloaded, Resident Evil 4, and The Punisher.

Conker is probably the best-looking console game of the generation, and considering this generation isn't looking like it's going to last much longer, it might end up as the graphical crown jewel. I'm speaking in terms of sheer technical wizardry of course, the art direction and design is a lot more subjective. There's just so much crazy blood-on-lens-splatter, particle effects, er...fur-shaders (*bites knuckle*), focus changes and dynamic lighting that you can't help but be engulfed completely by the visuals. The audio is up there too, with piercing Teddy Bear screams and thundering gunfire around every corner. It's shockingly immersive considering it doesn't look real, per se, at all, and the sight of scalpel-throwing psycho doctor Tediz ends up being as frightening as it sounds. Anyhow, the game looks amazing, just take my word for it. As for the gameplay, it did make me significantly less excited to lay hands on the finished product. It was an experience, for sure, but it still controls like an N64 game (slow and sloppy). In the glorious time of games like Ratchet and Clank that provide you with such perfect basic movement and shooting controls (not to mention a ton of other maneuvers you can pull off if you desire), Conker just feels imprecise and frustrating. Jumping through a couple of lasers was a massive chore, and taking down the bad guys just felt chaotic and impulsive. That, and it's just too....simple, as much as I hate to say it. Simplicity can be elegant, but here it's just kind of boring fighting every fight the same way. The visuals and audio will probably be enough reason to venture through the single-player when it comes out, but I really hope the control scheme gets tweaked heavily for the multiplayer, lest it blow goats.

Resident Evil 4 is really fucking good and really fucking scary. I was a bit worried about it for some reason (probably because it's on the GC, which I worry about a lot these days), but it looks great and plays well. Though a good amount of the tension still comes from wrestling with the controls in intense situations (such as having an axe hurled at you from a running villager/quasi-zombie), it's the first RE game I've actually had fun fighting in since...ever. The aiming isn't so hot on the GC's twitchy analog stick, but it works ten times better than any incarnation before it. Shooting weapons out of evil's hands is sweet, as is close-quarters brain disassembling. There's not really too much to say about the game if you've watched any trailers for it; yes, it really does look that good, yes, the quasi-zombies do yell to each other in some creepy devil-tongue (some call it "Spanish"), and yes, there is still goofy herb-mixing and inventory management (hit 'y' to bring up my items while 'start' brings up a useless map? not exactly intuitive...). It's a very enjoyable mixture of fun and terror, and I'm really looking forward to playing through the entire game (accompanied by my fellow pussy Tom, of course).

Finally, The Punisher is pure fun. The comic was always badass, and the movie was only bad-bad, not awful-bad, but the main reason I was so looking forward to it is that it's Volition's first game since Red Faction 2, a personal favorite of mine (it's where PA and I disagree the most). The game looks and controls like most any other third-person action game (such as, say, Max Payne), but the interrogation parts and general close-quarters options really add a lot. Instead of killing a bad guy right away, you can grab him and either A) use him as a human shield, B) 'quick kill' him by putting your gun to the back of his head and executing him (different animations for every gun, always with a satisfying pop), C) interrogate him by punching him in the stomach/balls or smashing his head on the ground, or D) drag him to a specific torture point (such as a piranha habitat in the zoo) and get information the easy (and usually bloody) way. The A.I. is as simple as it comes (hit, shoot, repeat) and the presentation is far from outstanding, but when I can blow the legs off of a dead body I'll at least be renting your game, thank you).

Odd how all three of those games are intensely violent, eh? Seems like more of a coincidence than anything for me to muse about, but the blood and guts actually add a lot to each game. I'm just glad that the industry's maturity has kind of leveled off a bit, and that violence is being used more wisely in games and not so excessively. But what do I know.