Yesterday Mister Adequate and I were reminiscing about quirks in older video games that wouldn’t exactly work today. He mentioned inputting code into your computer from a booklet and getting a complete game out of it (I wonder if this is a Britfriend thing because I don’t recall that on this side of the pond), and I mentioned amusing anti-piracy devices in game booklets (“To continue, enter the code on page 24.”)
Obviously these aren’t exactly the types of things that could be replicated today, to much effect– most games are much, much too big for the code to fit into a small booklet, and any anti-piracy devices of the earlier type could be completely negated by the internet. Still, it’s neat when games take that as inspiration to push themselves outside of the confines of their digital world– getting Meryl’s codec code from the Metal Gear Solid box comes to mind.
What are some fun or interesting quirks that you guys remember from earlier games?
I recently had a thought which arose when I was having a discussion with people about various forms of entertainment and how educational/not educational they are. Most people seemed to agree that games, as a whole, are not educational. Now this instantly drove me into defensive mode because after all, I am Pike, Tireless Defender of the Vidya. But then I got to thinking and realized that perhaps my experience is different from others. After all, most of the games that I play are historical strategy games or simulation games, which are educational by nature.
Cheerilee approved.
I realized that this had given me a different view on games than other people might have. I’m a hands-on learner and so I’ve learned more about, say, historical geography from Paradox games than anything else ever. This is an interesting experience that maybe not everyone has had. So maybe other people have a point when they say that games aren’t very educational for them. Huh.
…of course, then I went back to being Pike, Tireless Defender of the Vidya. Hey, someone’s got to be.
Have you ever thought “Man, I’d love to play a version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 that is exactly like the original except with updated graphics and great reimaginings of the music?”
If so, you’re in luck. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 HD is a fan project that is setting out to do exactly that, and judging by the alpha demo released yesterday they’re going to succeed. All fans of classic Sonic the Hedgehog need to download this demo right the heck now. Being an alpha, there are a couple of bugs and glitches here and there, and only Emerald Hill Zone is available, but if you’re anything like me you won’t care and you’ll just play it over and over.
Look you guys, it even comes with Flaily Arms Sonic. FLAILY. ARMS. SONIC.
Okay, so maybe I’m a little overly enthusiastic about this thing. Maybe I’ve done nothing but play old Sonic games for the last week so I’m all hyped about it. But seriously, check it out. aslkgh;aslkhg;lakha I can’t wait for Chemical Plant Zone.
I really can’t get over how great Sonic the Hedgehog is. As some of you may know, I was mostly a Nintendo kid growing up, but we had a next-door neighbor with a Genesis and I’d go over there and play his games for hours. Sonic 2 is a game I can still go back to, and which has not only aged gracefully but seems to get better each time I play it. I can’t decide what, exactly, makes it so great, but it might be that perfect balance between speed and careful exploration that it somehow managed to strike.
So who, besides me, would play this forever?
Now back in the day Sonic used to be considered “cool”, but these days the poor hedgehog has rather lost his luster. Sonic is now the realm of horrifying fanart and failed attempts at comebacks. I know that some of his new games are pretty good, but it still feels like he hasn’t yet made a truly triumphant return. I miss when Sonic was cool and when Sonic 2 was basically the pinnacle of human achievement.
My computer is a hulking six-year-old leviathan that is turning into more and more of an eldritch horror as the days go on. Recently it decided that it was no longer going to run my beloved Crusader Kings 2 without throwing a major fit. I’ve been going through several phases of emotions and actions since then, like a twisted grief cycle:
Denial
Trying the game four times in a row (each one resulting in a major crash)
Playing Sonic 2 while waiting for my computer to run fsck and dskchk
Reattempting Crusader Kings 2
Playing Sonic while I reinstall EVERYTHING because CK2 crashed again
Retrying CK2
Playing Victoria 2 when CK2 crashes again
Feeling dissatisfied with Vicky because it’s not The Sims Medieval CK2, and giving it another shot
Playing more Sonic while waiting for my computer to check itself again because it crashed again
And so forth. So… basically I never got past the denial stage.
Twilight: Me, Scootaloo: Anyone who knows me
Really, I think I just need a new computer. You know you’re having problems when a.) you can’t run a simple map-painting simulator game because it eats up all of your RAM, and b.) you can’t add more RAM because your computer throws a snitfit. Unfortunately getting a new computer is much easier said than done, especially when you’re busy saving for other things, so I’m trying to talk myself into playing other games while I wait.
…stay tuned for “Things Pike Does While Trying to Talk Herself Into Playing Games that Aren’t CK2.”
I’m not gonna lie: I never got around to playing much of the Assassin’s Creed series. While the premise looked interesting, it was never quite interesting enough for me to give it a shot.
Then Assassin’s Creed 3 was announced.
For starters, it takes place in colonial America. For those who aren’t aware, I am a major sucker for anything that takes place during this time period.
Look at this. LOOK AT THIS. I want to run around here forever.
Then, they started announcing several tantalizing details. Here is some select information from Game Informer:
“You will see the great fire of New York. You will visit Valley Forge as a location that is currently occupied by Washington’s forces. You will visit these places in the moment that they were important, and hopefully, experience the reason why we know where they are today. That’s the goal.”
Not all the Colonists will be cast as good people, and not all the British will be cast as evil oppressors. They’re trying to focus on how both the Assassins and Templars viewpoints exist in a gray morality as the Templars really believe they’re saving the world.
The wilderness traversal plays a big part in the gameplay in the Frontier, allowing you to use trees, cliffs, ledges, and more to set up kills and combat.
The world changes as time passes, so a field where a battle happened in one year may just be a series of empty encampments a few months later.
The entire world will change with seasons, so the cities and the wilderness will all exist in both Summer and Winter settings.
In the winter, soldiers will move slowly and stumble about in the snow, and lakes and rivers will freeze over allowing you to go new places. This gives Connor an extra advantage since he can still use the trees and wilderness pretty effectively during this time of year.
This is just a small sample of the stuff they’re talking about. Now I don’t know about you guys, but when you take all of the above stuff and toss it in a blender with some delicious Redcoat uniforms, you get Pike throwing her wallet at the screen and wondering why nothing is happening.
A criticism I often see leveled at games and gaming is that it’s an “escape”. The idea is that, by immersing yourself in a game, you’re removing yourself from real life. Usually– though not always– there is often a sort of “hiding from your problems” undertone here. And is there a valid point here? Of course there is. One can escape into anything and games are not immune from this.
But what if an escape is good, sometimes?
Let me tell you all a little personal story. As you may or may not know, I have an anxiety disorder, and it’s one that is bad enough that I’m on meds and therapy for it. This disorder manifests itself in a few different ways, including panic attacks that strike at random and a never-ending undercurrent of worry. Aside from these, I’ve pinpointed a couple of specific triggers as well, one of which is being surrounded by people and having no escape route. I wish I could express how terrifying this is to me. I guess I’ll just say that when that feeling strikes, I’ve never felt more like the rabbit species that I frequently compare myself to.
I'm certainly not a very terrifying one.
To make things worse, I currently work in retail, where being surrounded by people is a given. Working weekends– the busy days– is hell, but nothing is more hellish than working during the holiday season, which basically feels like a neverending stream of weekends.
Where am I going with this? Well, let me tell you a bit about this last holiday season. It was about halfway into December and with just a couple of weeks left before Christmas, things were really starting to pick up. Going into work every day was utterly terrifying. We were understaffed, overworked, and I was surrounded by hundreds of squirming, loud, and demanding bodies coming from every direction. I think my anxiety must have been emanating from my brain and pouring out my ears. It was pretty rough. There is one thing that really kept me from completely losing it, though:
Skyrim.
See, Mister Adequate, sweetheart that he is, got it for me as an early Birthday/Christmas present, so I started playing it at right about the time that work was getting really bad. And for those few anxious weeks, it became my escape. I could come home from the worst, most anxiety-inducing day at work and bury myself in a beautiful world of near-solitude, wandering around and harvesting herbs and listening to the gentle flow of the rivers that crisscrossed Tamriel. Sometimes my mind would start to wander back to real life and to the impending next work day, but I soon learned to keep my mind “bounded” within the confines of the television screen, so to speak. If my thoughts wandered, I’d catch myself and refocus myself on the crisp visuals of the game and lose myself in them again. Skyrim taught me this skill, and I was able to use it to calm myself and keep my anxiety levels down even after the very worst days.
The game’s story, too, was therapeutic; this will sound remarkably cheesy but the truth is that thinking of myself as Dragonborn and of every day of work as a dragon to slay made going in so much easier than it would have been otherwise.
Just like this.
Well, to make a long story short, I survived the holidays and came out none the worse for wear. It’s March, now, and Christmas is long gone. I haven’t played Skyrim in a little while. In fact, I sort of fizzled out on it not long after the holidays were over. I’ve returned to my strategy games. In a way, though, I think of that game as a digital guardian angel which descended from the gaming gods to make sure I got through a rough period in my life alright, and then stepped back into the shadows once it saw that I’d be okay. It’ll be there if I need it again, just like all the other games which held my hand and guided me through rough and uncertain times in my life: Final Fantasy 6. Yoshi’s Island. Ocarina of Time.
Gaming is an escape, but sometimes it’s an escape you need more than anything else. And that’s a truth that this little bunny knows very well.
There is a big big BIG rumor going around right now that Maxis has got SimCity 5 in the works. Now as you may recall, Mr. Adequate and I are rather devout fans of this series, so upon hearing this we did some digging around and discovered this very roughly translated article (from German) as well as pictures which, from what we can tell, are concept art.
Very lovely concept art! (All dem delicious curvy roads)
Supposedly we’re going to get confirmation and more details in the coming weeks, so in the meantime all we can do is speculate and feverishly hope that this isn’t going to turn into Spore or SimCity Societies.
What do you want to see in SimCity 5? Besides more Arcologies, I mean. Because we always need more Arcologies.
Lately I’ve been playing Super Mario RPG. This game is, as I’ve written before, one of my all-time favorites, and it gladdens me to see that, replaying it years later, I still love it.
One of the things I’ve noticed about it is how relentlessly upbeat the game is, between the happy music, happy visuals, and overall way that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. The result is a game that, almost unfailingly, cheers me up and puts me in a good mood. It’s really been helpful during these last couple of weeks where work is stressful and piling more hours on me. At least I can come home and play some Super Mario RPG and cheer up a bit.
