Time out!

Time travel in games has always been a tricky subject, yet that hasn't stopped numerous companies from trying it out (see: Shadow of Destiny, Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, Braid, Chrono Trigger, Ocarina of Time, Prince of Persia, and plenty of others). The big paradox with time travel, though, is that if you go back in the past and affect something, you present will not change. It's in the past. Chronologically, you've already changed the past, and your present should be exactly the same. It's destiny. It's complicated, what with all the parallel universes that "could" be created by dabbling in the affairs of history. Games tend to ignore the idea that you can't affect the future. I mean, come on, the whole idea of playing a game is reliant on the idea that you can affect the game's/world's outcome. But did you ever see/read The Time Machine? He made a time machine to save his girlfriend's life, went back in time and saved her, and then she just found a different way to die. If she hadn't died, the time machine would not have been created, so the mere existence of the time machine ensured that she would eventually have to die to necessitate its creation. It's circular and very, very fate-based.

If I was Bill Gates and had a time machine, I'd go back in time and make the PS3 have the Red Ring of Death instead of my precious 360. But the world would already be like that if he did indeed have a time machine... so maybe Shigeru Miyamoto is the one with the time machine? He did invent Mario, Zelda, and Metroid. Despite the Nintendo president's recent assertion, he may, in fact, actually be God. Or at least own a time machine.

Red Ring of Death

Sometimes, after you play a 360 for a month, it breaks. Ok, almost all the time. But Microsoft is really good about it. You mail it in and they'll fix it for free, and you go without games for a month. Of course, there's still the Wii, collecting dust on the shelf. When you realize that you've already beaten all five good Wii games (you know - the ones Nintendo made), you get sad again. You go to GameStop and you buy an original Xbox for $50. You play KOTOR, Riddick, Stranger's Wrath, and Deus Ex 2. You realize that the Xbox wasn't just a bigger, less successful PS2. You discover that you won't be sad and gameless for a month. Yay.

Is this Microsoft's master plan? By not being completely backwards compatible, they encourage you to keep your original XXLbox even though it doubles as a TV stand. Also, pawn shops sell old Xbox games for $5. Kinda makes you never want to go to Best Buy and spend $200 on Rock Band again. You find out that Mirror's Edge is just a polished version of Breakdown and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel is just Baldur's Gate with guns and a different setting. Oh well, there's probably originality out there somewhere. Or not. There used to be, but our NES's aren't even plugged in any more. Whatev.