Over the course of the last couple of days I have been replaying Pokemon Gold. It has probably been a good 12 years or so since I last played this game – I never even got around to playing the HeartGold/SoulSilver remakes. While I was initially wary of going back to an older Pokemon game after being spoiled by the ridiculously good Pokemon X/Y, I’ve found that, much to my delight, the game is actually really pulling me in. I do often feel like I’m m-o-v-i-n-g v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y, but since I’m emulating I just press the turbo button when I want to get from place to place quicker. Hey, it’s a valid replacement for the roller blades, right?
“But… that’s like… 1000% speed rollerblades.”
Other than that I’m having a blast. What a great game. What a great Pokemon generation.
Dear readers, when is the last time YOU played through an older game that you hadn’t touched in forever? And how did that go for you?
Genuine question. I want to know. I can’t think of anything.
Now for all three of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, well, the good old BBC has got you covered (and so does Twitch of course.) Basically for the last week or so tens of thousands of people from around the globe have been trying to collaborate on a romhack of Pokemon Red. It’s about as chaotic as you might expect, although somehow the stream has managed to get about halfway through the game.
Essentially
I keep trying to think of something that this can compare to but for the life of me I can’t. We’ve seen multitudes of people get together for a gaming event (like a game launch), even multitudes of people all in the same place in the same game (like Ahn-Qiraj in World of Warcraft), but all controlling one single character and trying to collaborate on a single player game?
I’ve been playing games for three decades and can’t think of something similar. This might be unprecedented.
Go check it out or alternatively help me think of a previous similar event of this scale so I stop beating myself up and racking my brains over it.
I’m sure most everyone has heard by now, but Flappy Bird has been removed from sale, so while those of us who already have it on our phone can continue to play it, for everyone else the titular creature has flapped into the sunset.
Insert Metal Gear Solid theme song here.
Do not fret, however! The guy behind games like Super Hexagon and VVVVVV has us covered with a flash game that makes Flappy Bird look like Fisher Price’s My First Difficulty Level.
If you score higher than about ten I’m pretty sure you’re a legend.*
Have at it! You’ll probably be playing for a while as this game comes complete with Robot Unicorn Attack Syndrome (aka you won’t stop playing until the catchy song is done).
* EDIT: I have surpassed ten and been informed that some of my friends have done likewise. I’m bumping the new score-to-beat up to 20. Mister Adequate has 31. ARE YOU A BAD ENOUGH DUDE?
In this post I am actually going to live up to the blog namesake a bit and talk about an Android game. You have probably played it, and if you haven’t played it, you have probably heard of it.
I am, of course, talking about Flappy Bird.
It is the dumbest game ever. It involves tapping the screen to guide a bird through some obstacles. You get one point for every obstacle you successfully negotiate and you go until you lose. That’s it.
So why can’t I stop playing it? No, really?
This is my actual face upon realizing that I cannot stop playing this dumb game.
Have any of you fallen prey to this game? What other really stupid games can you not stop playing?
This, my friends, is a sad tale of foolishness and folly, and I share it so that you may, perhaps, learn from my own mistakes.
Three months ago I splurged and got myself one of those super fancy mechanical gaming keyboards. I reasoned that it would be a good investment that would last me forever, and also function as a consolidation prize for having to send Mister Adequate back to England after a nice visit of his.
And oh, it was a lovely keyboard and made the most wonderous clickety-clackety noises when I typed! It was, I was sure, the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Until yesterday, when I somehow managed to knock a full glass of chocolate milk right onto the thing.
Basically.
As you can imagine, watching chocolate milk seep into all the little nooks and crannies of my prized keyboard was horrifying and put me right into a terrific panic. Unsure of what to do, I unplugged it, dragged it over to the sink, drained out the milk and then gave it a shower. At the time I was fully aware dousing it in water might just have been putting the nail in the coffin but I had no idea how to approach this whole situation and I figured that time was of the essence.
After this I let it sit and dry for a while and then plugged it in and gave it a shot.
The keyboard worked… sort of. Certain keys gave ridiculous results; for example, anything on the numpad gave me “abcdef” and the shift key gave me “333333333”. After a while everything quit working UNLESS I WAS WRITING IN CAPS LOCK. Then nothing would work, and then everything was normal for about three minutes before the keyboard started to press random buttons at random intervals, shutting down various programs against my will.
After several hours of trying to salvage this situation I gave up and bought myself a new keyboard. One which was just as expensive as the first.
Mon visage quand.
Why am I telling you this sad, sad story, dear reader? It is so you can avoid this fate. Eating and drinking at our computer is, for many of us, a fact of life, but I’ve already ordered this keyboard protector because I am clumsy and really should have done that a million years ago. In the meantime, because I am paranoid, I have saranwrapped my super expensive keyboard. Yes, it’s silly. I don’t care. Typing on a saranwrapped keyboard is a lot easier than you’d think and I sure as hell am not going to let this happen again.
Friends. Do not let this happen to you. Get a keyboard protector and/or be careful where you keep your drinks. Just… trust me.
Any of you longtime readers who have followed me here from Aspect of the Hare, that blog I started writing some seven years ago or so (any of you guys left? One, maybe two of you there in the back? Hi!) will remember that my operating system of choice was Linux and I was very proud of the fact that I played World of Warcraft exclusively on that system. As a matter of fact I continued to use Linux either exclusively or near-exclusively for a very long time, until probably about a year or two back when I realized that Windows 7 was actually a pretty good OS and I switched to that– largely for the ease of gaming.
Well, on a whim I decided to reinstall Linux today. The first thing I noticed is how easily Steam installs, and the second thing I noticed is that I have over 80 games in my Steam list that I can install on Linux.
Damn.
I remember when Linux gaming involved either playing copious amounts of Frozen Bubble, KSolitaire and SuperTux and then calling it good, or wrangling with Wine for hours on end. And here I am, able to play fantastic games like Europa Universalis IV, Crusader Kings II, and Awesomenauts natively on Linux! And what’s more, they run beautifully too!
Pretty much.
So if any of you guys out there maybe gave Linux a shot once upon a time and then decided that it wasn’t worth the effort because you wanted to play games, now’s a good time to give it another whirl. And as far as I’m concerned, the future is only bright – now that Steam and the SteamBox are really pushing Linux gaming, things are really starting to get super exciting. Just think where we’ll be in a few more years!
Quite some time back I tried to figure out the infamous game Dark Souls. I really did. I dumped hours into it, trying to like it. But I didn’t. I found it to be very puzzle-game-esque, which isn’t exactly bad in and of itself, but trying to figure out the puzzle every time you want to beat a sequence just grew tiring to me– especially when you’ve been stuck in the same sequence forever.
However, several months later people are still telling me how wonderful and amazing this game is and so I’ve decided it deserves another shot. I’ve reinstalled it and having put a half hour into it so far I… uh… well my opinion hasn’t changed much from last time. But I refuse to give up for at least another few hours! Eventually I am going to figure out this game!
This is actually occurring in game right now because I’m alt-tabbed out to write this.
So that is what I am going to do. I am going to play this game, dagnabit, until I like it. Or at least until I remember that I’ve got a great Victoria 2 save going on right now. Probably the latter.
…yeah, let’s face it, the latter is going to happen. Hey, it really is a great Vicky 2 save though. I’ll tell you guys about it later.
