How can I give credit where credit's due?

There have been many articles written recently on blogs and in magazines decrying the buying of used games. They don't make any money for the game's creator or publisher. It just makes money for GameStop or the pawn shop. You'll usually only save $5 or so on new games... isn't helping the game industry continue producing terrific games worth $5? I think it is.

But what about older games that are still new? When I bought No More Heroes for $20 at Wal-Mart, the receipt said "Wii Software," not "No More Heroes." Does Ubisoft still get some money for this? Does Suda51? Does it even count? I refused to pay $18 for NMH used at GameStop because I knew that nobody would get credit for me trying something new on Wii. Did my plans fail anyway? Maybe... I don't steal music off the Internet anymore either. I can't expect credit for my work if I refuse to give it to others.

Free Crap! Yay!

Remember shareware? I think iD started it with Doom (at least, that's the earliest high profile game I can recall). You play the entire first episode for free, then you make copies for your friends. If you like it, you could buy the other two episodes. This was a potential marketing disaster, but it created so much buzz for the most violent game of its time that it went on to become a controversial legend.

Today, we get demos for free. We can play the first ten levels of N+, or the first mission of The Force Unleashed, or a few tracks on Guitar Hero. We can't play the first third of a whole, complete game. There are, of course, exceptions... and I think they can be an answer.

Yaris is free. Doritos: Dash of Destruction is free. Complete games. Downloadable, yes, but complete and free. See any similarities between the two games? Yeah, advertising. Many games already have piles of advertising packed into them. Madden's stadium walls are covered with ads. SSX is loaded with billboards. These ads really add nothing to the experience (except maybe some realism to liken the game world to our already ad-laden reality). The ads make more money for the developers. Why can't these savings be passed onto the gamers? Instead of charging $60 for the new iteration of Madden every year, why not charge $30 for an ad-supported version? Or $20? Or free? EA can make its money on downloadable content.

Even more, the ads can be dynamic, changing daily or weekly as long as you're connected to the internet. Maybe even a banner on the top of the screen that can annoy you continuously, reminding you constantly that you were too cheap to pay for the entire $60 ad-free version.

All right. This idea is lame. Sorry, games are expensive. And there's going to be ads in games no matter what. Why can't we get something out of it?

Jacko in the Box

Michael Jackson is selling his collection of arcade machines and pop culture paraphernalia. They all look like they're in beautiful condition, and I would be attracted to him if this was the kind of stuff he kept in his basement...

Deal.

Yeah, I missed two days. I was on vacation for the first time since Christmas. I'm back.

Games are expensive. Sometimes, good games are even more expensive. Also, certain genres have a tendency to maintain their value better. Sports games halve in price after a few months. After a few years, Madden is $3 and WWF Smackdown Vs. Raw is $5. Conversely, Pokemon is worth as much today used as it was when first released brand new. Many RPG's are super rare and valuable to people with lots of expendable income... Any Final Fantasy, Shining Force, or Panzer Dragoon game is worth way more today than it probably should be, although many of these games are timeless. The only way a serious game collector will accrue all of his most wanted games is with a lot of money, or a lot of luck. Pawn shops are great places for finding deals, because many of them will have a rack of games with a sign like "SNES games $3." All SNES games are not worth $3. But I sure wish I could get by paying just $3 for every one of 'em...

I thought it would be fun to compile a list of the best deals I've found on games in my years of garage saling and pawn shopping:

Shining Force for Genesis - $2 (This morning! Awesome!)
Final Fantasy II for SNES - $4 at a comic shop, $15 at a garage sale
Super Mario RPG for SNES - $15 at the same garage sale
Illusion of Gaia on SNES - $3 at a used CD store
Final Fantasy 3 for SNES - $40 with SimCity and a Super Nintendo
Final Fantasy Tactics - $15 at a garage sale (original not greatest hits)
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - $15 brand new at Blockbuster! Too bad I opened it to, you know, play and enjoy it. I could have retired if I sold that when I hit 60.
Dragon Quest VIII on PS2 - $20 new at Best Buy. Best bang for your buck of any new game ever in the history of the world. If only I could find Dragon Warrior 2, 3, or 4 on NES for less than $50...

Newsie-ness

Video game news is still just news. If you don't care about video games, you won't care about video game news. The same can be said for topics such as the Iraq war and the peanut butter scare. If you ignore them and don't watch the five o'clock news, it'll just go away right? No no no... video games probably won't affect our safety as Americans, or our health as sandwich eaters. But it is the best selling form of entertainment in the country, and it's nice to have the freedom and the expendable income to spend on being entertained instead of having to worry if you can eat today. If you are a starving African child, you won't care if Left 4 Dead is 50% on Steam, or if Microsoft is readying a red 360, or if Earthbound isn't actually going to be released on the Wii Virtual Console. But we (people who read video game blogs) do care. Video games aren't just games to us. Gamers are a community of like-minded people who won't call us nerds for playing Pokemon when we were younger (or, still today). They won't question when you request a particular night off of work because your guild is having a big quest. And they'll link up with you halfway across the world to be digital rock stars on fake plastic instruments. We have the luxury of being able to have messed up priorities like this. Isn't America great?

Right on Target, but not always in Target

Target sells video games. No way! That's where I used to buy my games before I found out that Wal-Mart is open 24 hours. Now, I buy my games at Best Buy because I get Reward Zone points, but that's not my point. Target is no longer a viable avenue for purchasing games! And that's sad, because we need all the options we can get (like 7-Eleven). Target's always out of stock of the good games, and there are 3 times as many Wii games as there are anything and everything else. Not good Wii games. Target is triple-stocked on Wii Music and the latest Animal Crossing remake, and the "$20 Wii Crap" section is bigger than the entire PSP area. I don't think this is because there's more Wii Crap than PSP games (even though there is). I think this is because people are dumb and will buy anything on Wii that has a colorful box, and Target's top men know this. "$20 for a next-gen game? No way! I'll take three!" PSP is a good system, but it's its own system, and it's not being utilized to its potential. Wii is also a good system, and its gimmicky potential is being fully realized. As a gimmick. There are interesting ways to utilize the Wii controls, or don't! Make a good game that just happens to be on the Wii, even if it doesn't fully utilize the motion controls (Geometry Wars: Galaxies, Guitar Hero/Rock Band). The best DS game of last year, Chrono Trigger, barely used the touch screen, but it's a classic. A pure pedigree shows even if the controls are "traditional." Traditional means functional. And what are the first three letters of functional?

Beatdown

You know when you go to a Street Fighter tournament, and there's one guy there that's obviously way too hardcore into the game because he dresses up as Ryu? When it's time to pair off the contestants, guess which one you get? Yep. That guy. The guy off to the side that bounces in place in a very convincing Ryu battle stance while the tournament rules are being read. The guy that, if he doesn't win, has wasted countless hours of his life that he will never get back on a game that he's only second best at. I lost to that guy in the first round. Then I cheered for him, because when you lose to the eventual winner, you don't feel so bad. Well, Ryu-guy lost later... oh well. I'm not good at Street Fighter. Still, I want to be. I might actually buy a strategy guide for SF4. Weird! Why buy something for $20 that you can get a GameFAQs.com for free? First, because the art is b-e-a-utiful. Second, because then I can read it in the bathroom. Nothing beats improving yourself while you poo. Still, I don't have 10-12 hours a day that I can devote to one game to be the best in the world. Sure, it's a lot cheaper than buying a new game every couple of weeks, but just the sheer time investment is almost unfathomable. Professional gamers have dedication to something that, in all reality, is nothing. Being good at a game doesn't mean you have real, marketable skills. Having 16 level 60 WoW characters doesn't mean you can get a six-digit job being a WoWzer. Being able to 100% Through the Fire and Flames will get you a mention in Guinness but it won't get you much free money. You can't just rest on your laurels like you can if you won the Super Bowl or the Tour de France. You can retire and not have to work for the rest of your life; you're set. Gamer culture is fast-moving, fickle, and ever-more-demanding. There's always someone to challenge you. Can you stay on top?

Brevity.

Yesterday: car broke.
Today: fixed.
Tonight: late for work.
Tomorrow morning: more work. Late again.
Afternoon: Street Fighter.
Night: rest.

Whew.

Backwards Style

When will backwards compatibility go out of style? Four different next-gen systems have it, at least to some degree. The only one lacking is the PSP, because the format is just too weird. By including all the games from a previous system, game makers can say, "Hey look! We already have 500 games you can play on your PS3! Now you don't have to buy Resistance, the only good launch game." It keeps game makers from really trying somthing different. The controllers have to remain roughly the same, the circuit boards can't be radically different, and the customers have to feel that their brand new system is still a good investment even when the first generation of new games is... lacking. The argument can be made that the controllers, after year's of research, are approaching perfection in the user-interface department; that's why the PS3 and 360 controllers are almost exactly the same. (Nintendo, it seems, is just being difficult.) Or, people are used to controlling games in a certain way, and change is hard and scary. Unfortunately, it looks like we're gonna be stuck with DualShock 3's, 4's, and 5's for the rest of video games conceivable future. Oh well. At least it's an improvement on the Jaguar controllers...

Tournament Time!

This Saturday, there is a Street Fighter IV tournament at your local GameStop. Practice quick, the game just came out today! Luckily for SF aficionados, most of the moves are the same. I haven't played SF since the SNES days... but I have Saturday off, so why not try it out? If I lose, I'll have wasted an hour of my life mingling with other nerdy otaku types. But the winners go to regionals, and then nationals! That might be fun... or it might be AWESOME.

A new old game

Games have been advancing for years and years, both in the technical aspects and the presentation. When Mega Man 9 came out on WiiWare, PSN, and XBOX Live, people applauded its Mega Man 2 likenesses. But this is a prime example that games are simply better now. Old games were so hard that they bordered on unplayable, and harkening back to the old days is not so much fan service as it is fan punishment. Have you ever played the original TMNT on the NES? There were so few health pizzas that death was almost inevitable, and if one of your teammates died, there were only two different places in the whole game where you could revive one of them. Also, the controls were stiff and unresponsive. At least the sequel was cool...

Even Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, widely regarded as one of its generation's greatest games, fell prey to "classic" game conventions such as not being able to turn in mid-jump. Nowadays, some things are just expected in current games, like, being able to control your characters. Maybe that's just me.

Arcades Live!

...in your living room.

Street Fighter IV releases tomorrow in America after selling out in Japan. Every copy in stores is now in someone's home. Wow. I haven't played a fighting game seriously since my friend Vega and I got every single costume in DOA 2: Hardcore on the PS2. Come to think of it, that was the last time I had friends that would actually hang out with me... Fighting games just aren't as fun alone. Still, I am a fan of the classics. I haven't found a single review of SF4 that doesn't say, "keeps the best of the old while bringing in the best of the new." Apparently, it is the perfect sequel, and I will actually pay my hard-earned $60 to see a game company make a perfect upgrade of a genre they invented that was on the verge of death. Fighting games have always been about direct one-on-one competition, and now that Street Fighter finally has online play, maybe I can get into the genre a little better. It's hard to find people to come over and play video games all night when there's school, jobs, and girlfriends in the way. Now that I know there are people gaming at 3 a.m. when I finally drag myself home from Domino's, I can find friends again in a game that, until yesterday, I honestly had no intention of buying. I want to be part of something great, something beautiful.

Not-so-Special Features

One of the biggest gripes people have with UMD's versus DVD's is the lack of special features. But honestly, how often do you actually watch the special features? I've tried sitting through a commentary track exactly one time, for an episode of Futurama that I loved. There were a few interesting points brought up by the show's creators, but mostly I just wanted to yell, "Zip it! I can't hear the show!" It was like watching Mystery Science Theater, only not funny. Now, you can find a selection of UMD's at GameStop for $5, and they're still not selling, despite the crystal clear PSP display and the sneaky way the small screen forces you to cuddle with your movie-watching partner. Awwww... romantic! But if you don't want to cuddle, you're going to watch the movie by yourself. And not many people do that often, or want to.

Other things like Making-Of documentaries, almost a DVD staple, have crept into game "special editions." Usually, the special editions are just an excuse for game companies to milk you out of another ten dollars or, in the case of Halo 3's Legendary Edition, another $70. On the upside, you did get a helmet that your cat can wear for its kitty cosplay convention. So far, the only special editions I've found that were worth the extra cash were ones including art books (I'm a sucker for art) or games that include free downloadable game content (which probably should have been in the game to start with... but whatever). The best idea is just to wait a few months, then the special edition will drop to the price of the regular edition. You can now get Devil May Cry 4 super-sized at Wal-Mart for $40, or the Fallout 3 lunchbox version with bobblehead for the standard 360 game price of $60 at Best Buy. You can pay a premium, wait, or deal with the standard versions. Your choice.

Game Music - Not for Every Taste

Intelligent Qube, an obscure yet wonderful PlayStation title, had a terrific, beautifully orchestral soundtrack. I don't think it was licensed classical music; it was just music. It was ambient and calming yet intensified at just the right moment (usually when you were just about to die). With IQ's simple premise and graphics, the mood music did a great deal to add to the memorability of the game.

Much music in games today is licensed, especially since the popularization of the music game genre. Actually, it was Road Rash that first made licensing music matter - when games could be put on CD's, there was plenty of space on the disc for things like Soundgarden songs. But now, only sports games (EA Trax) and Tony Hawk games get the licensed music, and it all sounds the same: rap and hair metal. Where can we hear some indie music, or techno, or Beck? Puzzle games would be an obvious fit for all three, but where else? Indie music in indie games? I could imagine some Radiohead or Death Cab for Cutie playing while I slash my way through The Dishwasher. Recent PlayStation Network games like Fl0w and Flower seem almost made for weird ambient music that can sit with you while you inhabit a strange, surreal world. Maybe instead of just throwing together a Tony Hawk tracklist, developers could design games around certain styles of music - to let the gamer feel what it might be like in a techno bass beat, or a faux-gay emo chorus, or a sweeping Vivaldi symphony. Even video games could use a little synaesthesia. Something different. The genres have become so defined that it is difficult for anyone to take a risk on something new for fear of going out of business... just like Okami developer Clover Studios. People, en masse, fear change. But we need it.

(Virtual) Reality Pt. 2

I play Wii Sports tennis, and it really makes me want to play real tennis, despite the fun I may be having playing fake tennis. I play Mirror's Edge, and it really makes me want to parkour, despite how weak I am and how much I suck at both running and jumping (I feel like I can do it... someday!). I play Half-Life 2, and it makes me want to cruise around in a go-kart. I play Guitar Hero, and it makes me want to learn to play the song on a real guitar (it also made me appreciate classic rock, a genre I had no interest in before I could fake rock out to it). Yet, when I play Madden, I don't want to play football. And NBA Live doesn't make me want to b-ball. And NHL Live doesn't make me want to play hockey. Do I just not like sports? Or teams? Or is the team sport experience on TV just so far different than actual sports than my mind can't make the link? Yeah, the rules are the same, but that's about it. No matter how realistic NFL 2K5's first person mode is, it's just not the same. Since the days of Madden's debut back on the Sega Genesis, there have been people who buy no games other than sports games, and they will buy the new version every year, no matter how miniscule the changes may be. Strangely enough, the people who buy new Madden's every year are the college football jocks. Maybe they have the mysterious brain link between real and fake sports that I seem to be missing. Maybe the link between real and fake life only exists for people who are actually good at the things they see on TV. This would explain why I play guitar but I don't play free safety. And, really, why I don't want to and never will. Hmmmmm...

(Virtual) Reality

Computer graphics are getting too good. Once, your onscreen representation was nothing more than a monochrome bar against a black, endless background in the Pong universe. Now, computerized ninjas look almost indistinguishable from real ninjas. Scratch that, we'll go with football players. If a person across the room sees his buddy playing Madden, he might easily confuse it for a real football game on TV. What happened to the days where games were easily separated from reality? Now that Call of Duty finally has the technological prowess to look just like Jarhead, the lines are blurred even further. In the original Super Mario Bros., you only controlled Mario - you weren't actually Mario. Now, when you play Mirror's Edge, you are Faith. You control her and look out of her eyes; you feel when she's hit and you die when she dies.

It makes the whole experience feel more immersive, and yet... I am not a young, supple Japanese girl. I'm a tall white guy with no real athletic ability. I am not Faith, and there's always going to be that distinction in the back of my mind. I can't relate to a free runner parkouring all across Tokyo rooftops. I can relate to Pac-man. In the words of D.B. Weiss, author of Lucky Wander Boy, "Pac-man is just a mouth. I have a mouth. You have a mouth. Everyone has a mouth." Mario is the everyman plumber type. Jesus was a carpenter. See the similarities?

Another recent trend in games like Metal Gear Solid 4, God of War II, and pretty much any FPS is the whole "ugly is the new pretty" motif. With the enhanced graphics on the PS3 and Xbox 360, you can see scars, stubble, and all sorts of imperfections on main characters' faces. Remember back in the day? Mike Tyson's Punch-Out - Little Mac was the pretty boy good guy facing off against the big ugly behemoths like King Hippo and Bald Bull. Very Ayn Rand-ian. The good guys are pure and beautiful; the bad guys are obviously immoral. It's a fun concept, but games are only recently coming to discover all the small nuances of what actually constitutes good and evil. It's not as clear-cut black and white as Saturday morning cartoons and The Fountainhead lead us to believe. Maybe that's why the ug-ifying of main character anti-hero types? To show that they are human too, that Solid Snake also lies on his taxes and leaves the toilet seat up? Maybe. Maybe people just want to do the bad things in games that they can't do in real life. Yet 9 out of 10 people still pick the good guy path in Fable. People don't know what they want.

Greatest. Thing. Ever.

Now here's a peripheral I can get excited about. Or here. (Two different sources makes it more true, right?) And so can every other teenage boy and lonely guy... and pretty much any guy. Life is fun. Check the Kleenex box in the images too. Sweet!

Review: No More Heroes on Wii

No More Heroes is not a great game. Still, I couldn't stop playing. It's the first Wii game I've actually completed, and one of the few that are actually enjoyable on this terrifically selling yet wholly underachieving system.

First off, it's a Suda51 game. You know, the guy that brought you Killer 7? It's weird. But it's also funny and ridiculously over-the-top. You play Travis Touchdown, a guy that won a lightsaber (excuse me - beam katana) in an online auction. He then decides to climb the ranks of the Assassination Association and maybe get some sex when he reaches #1. He's an assassin, so there's gonna be killing. Not Wii-style killing. This is bloody, spurting, Kill Bill killing. It's goofy crazy, and it's like nothing else on the Wii. There are F-bombs and half-naked women all over the place, and Travis keeps getting calls from the movie rental store letting him know that his porn is late. This is M-rated for a reason. Still, the stylish, cartoony look and sarcastic sense of humor keeps you from taking things too seriously.

However, the coolest aspect of the game by far is something the Wii was made for, yet few games actually utilize: an innovative control scheme. You push the A button to swing your sword, but after a combo you can push B to enter a quick wrestling mini-game in which you swing both the remote and the nunchuck in different directions once or twice to throw your enemy through the air. Or, if you lock swords with an enemy, you have to quickly rotate the remote in a circle to push them back, then swing the remote, sword-style, in the direction indicated on the screen. It sounds gimmicky, but it keeps you on your toes and keeps the battles engaging. You'll be swinging your arms all over the place and slicing the heads off 3, 4, or 5 enemies at once. It's supremely satisfying, and the only momentary slowdown you'll see is when you cut off 5 or more heads at once. Imagine it's just a slow-motion showcase for your mad killin' skills and it doesn't seem so bad. Another neat use of the remote: when Travis gets a cell phone call, the voice on the phone comes out of the Wii remote speaker, forcing you to hold the remote up to your ear like it's a phone, too. The first time I got a call, and I heard a faint voice, and I realized that it was coming from the remote, I thought, "No way! That's awesome!" Moments like this make the game so different, memorable and remarkable.

Still, like I said at the beginning, No More Heroes has a lot of issues. First, it's ugly as butt. Imagine playing Grand Theft Auto III... on a PS1. That's how bad the pop-up is. Also, you drive your motorcycle through town with surprisingly good handling, but the bike drives like it's twice as wide. You think that you're going to miss that car driving towards you, but SLAM! You crash and smash your face. Luckily, you don't get hurt, and neither does your bike. This is also kind of lame. No consequences for crashing? Weak. Also, there's a lot of unnecessary stuff in the game. You can collect trading cards during missions, but they serve exactly NO purpose. You live in a motel room with a phone, a fridge, and a cat, but none of these have a purpose. The fridge restores your health, but so does entering the motel room. The cat will stretch out on your belly and you can pet it, but this does nothing. You have a phone that receives calls, but you can't make calls, and you only answer the phone when you enter the room. Why does it even give you the option to pick up your phone then? Also, you can dress Travis in a variety of increasingly expensive clothing, but this serves no purpose other than your personal aesthetic taste. You're better off spending your money on one of the interesting strength-building training mini-games. You can also collect things called Lovikov Balls hidden around the city (similar to GTA's hidden packages), but the bonuses they provide are pointless. Also, the "open world" is far from open. It's small and constrained, and the cops, pedestrians, and traffic inhabiting it serve no purpose other than to increase the polygon count and impede your progress unnecessarily. And then there's the whole flow of the game...

The progression goes like this:
1. Get an invoice on your fax machine. This says how much money you need to deposit into the Association's bank account to buy your way into the next ranking match.
2. Collect money to pay the fee by doing a part-time job (collecting coconuts, mowing lawns) and then 2-3 assassination missions. The money you get paid for missions and jobs varies, but the pay feels rather arbitrary. In general, the farther you progress into the game, the more the fee is, and the more you'll get paid for jobs. The lack of a fast-travel option to get to and from missions is kind of a drag, though, and you'll be forced to continually bike your way back and forth across the featureless city.
3. Train at the gym (to a remake of "Eye of the Tiger" - sweet). Buy weapons, clothes, and new wrestling moves.
4. Deposit the money into the Assassination Association's account at the ATM.
5. Return to the motel; start a ranking mission.
6. Go through a level and fight a bunch of peons before you face the boss.
7. Repeat this ten times until you're ranked #1.

That's about it. The gameplay never changes drastically, but the pacing is just about perfect. You'll only have to do each mission once, and the progression is fast and happenin'. Also, the cutscenes that flesh out the story are wonderfully ridiculous, and the characters and bosses are clever and super weird. Also, there's a Galaga-like mini-game right in the middle of the story that breaks the monotony nicely. The game lasts about 10 hours, but you'll remember the fun characters and crazy weird storyline for much longer than that. No More Heroes isn't great, but it's memorable, different, and now only twenty bucks. If you have a Wii and are grown up enough for naughty words, inappropriate talk, and spurting blood, you need to play this. It's quite the experience, and its charms almost make up for its obvious flaws. Almost.

Rating: 7/10

No More Heroes Haiku

Geeky otaku
Beam katana - quest for sex
That's Travis Touchdown.

Recession

The economy is in the toilet. People are losing their houses. People are losing their jobs. Video games are still selling. 2008 was one of their best years ever. Why? You can take a date to see a movie and spend $30 in two hours, or you can buy Fallout 3 for $60 and play it for months. Which is the better investment? Face it, she's not going to sleep with you anyway. Might as well save your money and have some real fun.

Still, the media is painting the game industry as "recession-proof." Is that why THQ just laid off 600 employees? Is that why Pandemic and Eidos are also suffering from the layoff bug? Sure, games are doing better than other industries, but that's like being the tallest guy in Japan - it's really not that impressive. Will this trend continue into the new year?

The only good thing to come out of all this is that people are, in general, more focused on buying better games. The deluge of $20 Wii Crap that pooped onto store shelves right before Christmas was pretty much ignored (as well as Wii Music. HA!). When people have less money, they actually take half a second before they buy something now. Will Americans be more thrifty in the future? Probably not, but we can hope. Maybe someday games like Mirror's Edge will be given the commercial success they deserve and we won't even have to ignore Chicken Shoot, because there won't even be a spot on the shelf for it.

What's this worth?

When new games are released, they are all basically the same price, give or take $10. Strangely, the prices for new games has hovered at around $50-60 since the days of the SNES. Back then, it was because cartridges were so expensive to produce; now, it's mostly because of high production values. Still, games don't really seem to be subject to inflation. When the original Nintendo came out, it was $200. That's over $400 when you take inflation into account. When the Wii was released, it was $250. Today, that's approximately $250. What a deal.

As games get older, their value to collectors decreases. Even big-budget SNES games like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 3, which retailed for upwards of $80 back in the 90's when they were first released, can be found on eBay today for around $50. (Or sometimes you find "deals" like this.) Most 16-bit games can be found at pawn shops for about $5. If a game includes the box and instructions, it's value increases exponentially. Spider-Man on the Atari 2600 is worth about $3 if you just have the cartridge. The box is worth hundreds. Why? Collectors know that the condition and completeness of any item, not just video games, affects it value. Even if you have a Honus Wagner card (the most valuable baseball card in teh world), it's not going to sell for $2.5 million at an auction if it's torn in half. I guess the moral of the story is this: don't ever open your games, baseball cards, or action figures, and then when you hit 40 you can sell them all and retire from your job at Domino's. How's that for a five-year plan.

Violent Video Games = Bad People. Apparently.

Hey, look! There's a new study that says, "the frequency and type of video games played appears to parallel risky drug and alcohol use, poorer personal relationships, and low levels of self-esteem." Apparently, guys play more violent video games than girls and also have poorer personal relationships. According to a professor in Utah, the land of fun, "these findings... indicate video gaming may cluster with a number of negative outcomes." So, the study doesn't prove that video games breed bad people, or that bad people play video games, or even that video games are one of the many factors bringing about the downfall of traditional American values. No way! Violent kids play violent games! I thought they'd go home after a long day of gang warfare and play Viva Pinata.

...

Anyways. My favorite part is the section that implies that people who play video games have more sexual partners than people who don't (i.e. emotionally stable people). Remember back in the day when being a gamer ensured that you NEVER got laid? Things are changing!

Review: Metroid: Zero Mission on GBA

Zero Mission is, firstly, a remake of the original Metroid on NES. The original Metroid is widely regarded as a classic of... classic systems. Still, have you played it recently? It's wildly difficult because there's only one direction you can aim, and you will get lost without a map more than you'd like to admit. Zero Mission is less of a direct remake, and more of a re-imagining. It's an improvement in every way. If the original Metroid had sex with Super Metroid and shrunk to GBA size, this would be the spawn of their cartridgey loins. You can shoot in angles and squat. There's super missles. There are hidden secrets everywhere. This is Metroid-vania at it's finest. The graphics are crisp and colorful and the animations bring classic enemies to new life. The sounds and music drip of nostalgia and make you fall in love with Samus Aran all over again.

There are very few complaints I can come up with. One is that once you start finding the extra energy tanks packed into planet Zebes, the game gets pretty easy. None of the bosses pose much of a challenge, but the exploration aspect makes up for it. You always feel like you're discovering something new, and Samus continually improves in tangible ways. Also, the levels added into Zero Mission that were not in the original Metroid are beautifully crafted and full of clever puzzles and uses for your suit's upgrades. Unfortunately, this reminds you that the original levels were rather sparse and uninteresting. Maybe they should have just remade the entire game with all new levels, a la Master Quest (the Ocarina of Time remake on Gamecube)? Maybe Nintendo left them in and merely added to them for nostalgic fanboys.

One last note: the last level level packs in so much action that you may poop your pants a little. The final boss, Mother Brain, reminds you that classic games were TOUGH, and the appearance of the metroids remind you just how much you hated them when you were a kid. And then, here's the kicker... Mother Brain isn't the final boss! There's even more game after you think you won, and it's all heart-pounding and awesome. This trip down memory lane is well worth taking, and you can find this game at GameStop for $7 in their glass case. Get it.

Warning: if you play this while you're on the toilet, you'll forget what you were supposed to be doing in there, and you will sit there playing Metroid until your legs fall asleep. Don't fall on your Game Boy when you stand up with wobble-legs.

Rating: 9.5/10

Some Inappropriate Video Game Pick-up Lines (will be added to in the future)

Wanna see my pocket monster?
You look pretty Wii Fit... wanna Wii Play?
Are you backwards compatible?
Wanna do a system link?
Let's wait for someone else to join... three isn't enough.

Time vs. Games

I have two jobs and work 50 hours on a slow week. This means I have plenty of money for games but no time to play them. I have games from last Christmas I haven't even played yet. That's Christmas 2007, not 2008. Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition, No More Heroes, Blue Dragon, The World Ends With You... all quality games that there are just not enough hours in the day for. It took a year to finally complete Oblivion - the first and so far only game that I've been able to get all the achievements in. I find that XBOX Live is like my new A.D.D. best friend. I can have 20 minutes of arcade fun much more easily than I can slog through Metal Gear Solid's 2-hour intro or an hour-long tutorial level on any other $60 360 game. Bite-sized fun is easier, faster, and more likely to be had by people with responsibilities. I'd love to complete Fallout 3, and maybe I will. In a year or two.

Rock Band Vs. Guitar Hero World Tour

Rock Band is better. Simple as that. The games are basically the same: notes scroll down the screen and you fake play them on fake plastic instruments, or you sing pitches without embellishment. Even many of the songs are the same (this is unacceptable). But Rock Band, also known as the iTunes of music games, is clean and elegant. Guitar Hero's presentation hasn't changed since 2005, when the series debuted on the PS2. That's really not that long ago, but when you bring out pseudo-sequel after pseudo-sequel, once-innovative ideas get stale fast. Now, playing World Tour is like seeing a Motley Crue concert in 2008... you just want to say, "You're too old! Go home!" Before music games, presentation in games was more of a scondary, back-burner, we-still-have-a-few-weeks-before-ship-date-and-we-still-have-$3,000,000-left kind of priority. Now, it's the only thing separating Activision's and Harmonix's babies. The difference: Harmonix is full of musicians. Activision is full of businessmen. Who do you think will make a better music game?

Still, Guitar Hero does have a 3D drum set that feels more authentic, and the create-a-song aspect lets aspiring fake musicians create and share unlimited free songs (at least for now, until Activision starts selling subscriptions to GHTunes...). But when you consider that all the drum sets are interchangeable between games now, and the fact that basically any given downloadable song that you have to pay for will be better than a free one, the choice is still clear. Rock Band rocks. Guitar Hero, once the master, is no longer the only music game on the block. Time to bring something new to the table, Madden.

Nudity in Games

Classic renaissance sculptures and paintings are art. Video games are art. They are not the same, and they are not held to the same standard. Is it the age difference? Classic artists realized long ago the inherent beauty of the nude human form - the curves, the lines, the obvious grace etched into every peak and valley. Now, nudity is taboo. People are taught to be ashamed of nakedness. They are told it is immoral - that even beaches and network TV are obscene places where only philanderers and harlots may venture. Video games are not helping. Nudity is often used as a reward for hours of sub-par gameplay (BMX XXX, Leisure Suit Larry), or as a mere gimmick (God of War, Metal Gear Solid). Instead of elevating the human form on a beautiful golden pedestal, game developers are cheapening it by implying that nudity is something to be won. Impressionable teenage boys then learn subconsciously that seeing a girl naked is the end-all, be-all of human existence. Then, in the noble words of Ferris Bueller, the gullible boy tends to "marry the first girl he lays." He then buys flowers and jewelry all in the name of "winning" a small slice of naked female flesh. This is unhealthy. This is wrong.

Despite the lackluster "game" part, one thing the most recent Leisure Suit Larry game does well is its conclusions. Larry spends the game searching for sex from various girls all across a digital college campus. He meets them, courts them, gets them drunk, and then... something always goes wrong. They become lesbians, or they want babies instead of no-strings-attached sex, or they're Jewish. In the rare occasions Larry does get laid, it's never what he expects or wants. That is reality. You quest after something long enough, you may eventually catch it. Unfortunately, what you catch may not have been what you wanted after all. You seek love, or acceptance, or a person you can grow old with, and you just end with the clap.

Games may never reach the level where nudity is accepted or used in an artistic way, because, despite the fact that gamers are now a completely different demographic than the D&D playing nerds of the 80's, game developers are still dogs with a bone. If gamers get what they say they want, be it a nude Lara Croft of the Dead or Alive girls having an orgy, the mystery will be gone. In games, the journey is the fun part. When you complete a game, you haven't actually "completed" anything. You wasted some hours, you had some fun, and then it's over. Gamers and humans in general love the chase. Please, don't let it end with something as simple as a cheat code.