A Link to the Past (SNES, 1991):
This game is the epitome of Zelda. It's a common refrain that all Zelda games after Ocarina of Time are remakes of that classic. If that's true, then considering that Ocarina is in essence a 3D remake of Link to the Past, then we owe a lot to the sole Zelda game for the SNES. It's easy to forget that the series could have gone in so many different directions after Zelda 2. The developers decided to scale back from the larger size of that world, in order to focus on a smaller, more detailed Hyrule. Somehow the world doesn't feel smaller, because each area has a different theme and feel. However, the inclusion of the dark world does continue the more depressing tone that originated in Zelda 2.
I didn't play this game until a year or so ago. After I did, I was ready to call it my favorite in the series. It felt like an awesome compromise between the soul-crushing difficulty of the NES incarnations and the hand-holding of later entries. The puzzles made sense, and yet solving them felt like a major breakthrough. This time I was slightly less entranced. The dungeons feel a little too combat-heavy - not in itself a bad thing, but constantly refilling my 4 fairy jars began to wear on me after a while. Maybe I just suck at this game.
As the last major 2D Zelda on consoles, this game is drop-dead gorgeous though.
Link's Awakening (Game Boy, 1993):
Handheld games don't have a right to be this good. I'd played both this game and its predecessor before, but back-to-back it's incredible how this game improves on Link to the Past in nearly every respect. It's got better dungeons, with cool puzzles, minibosses, and different music for each. It's got dynamic NPCs that travel around, have conversations, and generally react to your presence. It's got new items, including a feather that lets you jump around like your pants are on fire. And somehow it does all this with hardware that was embarassingly bad for its time. In what kind of dream world does the existence of this game even make sense?
But seriously, I'm ready to place this game among my all-time favorites. My 'original hardware' stipulation game me an excuse to buy an old Fat Boy (which I haven't owned since I was 10 - L.A. was the second game I owned). There's no getting around the dim screen, but the speakers are terrific. By the way, L.A. has awesome music.
A footnote: Link's Awakening might be the most light-hearted Zelda game - it has a great sense of humor. And as much as I love darker entries like Majora's Mask, the series can stand some lightening up.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Friday, February 1, 2013
Zelda Runthrough Part 1: NES Era
Last year, I finally finished the first two Legend of Zelda games for the NES. I've since decided to continue on and play the rest of the series (in order, on their original hardware). This is a good excuse to replay some beloved favorites, and catch up on quite a few games that I've missed out on. As I play them, I'll post some random thoughts here on the blog - don't expect anything very comprehensive.
The Legend of Zelda (NES):
I have a lot of mixed feelings about this game. On the one hand, it's one of the most expansive, fun-to-explore adventures on the NES. The wide variety of tools at your disposal are fun to mess around with. There's an awesome thrill to be had when you discover a new passageway, or decode some oblique hint from a friendly old man that you wrote down hours ago. The game has a sense of humor too, for its age. One of my favorite moments is burning a tree down to discover a hidden cave, entering it, and then being fined by its inhabitant for destroying the entryway.
However, finishing Zelda 1 was one of the most frustrating gaming-related experiences in recent memory. Being stuck in this game is a real drag, because you can have no idea what you should be looking for, or where to start. Also, it takes far too long to collect rupees (there are no twenty-rupee crystals). More than once, I lost my metal shield to one of those awful body-hugging things, and then had to spend at least 30 minutes grinding to afford another one.
To top it off, I had the constant and realizable fear that my save game would be lost for no reason. In a previous playthrough, this happened after I finished 7 dungeons. Nothing like that to up the anxiety level.
Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link (NES):
Ah, the black sheep. This one's actually quite a bit of fun, in the right mindset. All of the items are now used passively - all of the combat takes place with the sword and shield. (Magic plays a role in defense and healing.) The gameplay actually feels quite a bit like Castlevania - as in that game, it's quite easy to get knocked into pits, especially late in the game. (The comparison is ironic, because I think Konami stole considerably from Zelda 2 in turn to make Castlevania 2.) The punishments for failure also get considerably more severe.
However, Zelda 2 is the first game to have actual towns (and quite a few at that). The dungeons are a lot smarter, with a lot more variation. And the combat can be pretty fun, especially after you learn the down strike, which lets you bounce on enemies' heads with your sword.
Which game is harder? For me, it's something of a toss-up. Some of the hidden passageways in Zelda 1 are far too difficult to find. Locating the silver arrows (which no one tells you are necessary to defeat Ganon) would have been impossible for me without help. On the other hand, the final dungeon in Zelda 2 is an extreme endurance test (even getting to it can be extremely difficult), and I needed serious help to beat that game as well. Overall, they were interesting experiences, but too flawed to be among my favorite games.
The Legend of Zelda (NES):
I have a lot of mixed feelings about this game. On the one hand, it's one of the most expansive, fun-to-explore adventures on the NES. The wide variety of tools at your disposal are fun to mess around with. There's an awesome thrill to be had when you discover a new passageway, or decode some oblique hint from a friendly old man that you wrote down hours ago. The game has a sense of humor too, for its age. One of my favorite moments is burning a tree down to discover a hidden cave, entering it, and then being fined by its inhabitant for destroying the entryway.
However, finishing Zelda 1 was one of the most frustrating gaming-related experiences in recent memory. Being stuck in this game is a real drag, because you can have no idea what you should be looking for, or where to start. Also, it takes far too long to collect rupees (there are no twenty-rupee crystals). More than once, I lost my metal shield to one of those awful body-hugging things, and then had to spend at least 30 minutes grinding to afford another one.
To top it off, I had the constant and realizable fear that my save game would be lost for no reason. In a previous playthrough, this happened after I finished 7 dungeons. Nothing like that to up the anxiety level.
Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link (NES):
Ah, the black sheep. This one's actually quite a bit of fun, in the right mindset. All of the items are now used passively - all of the combat takes place with the sword and shield. (Magic plays a role in defense and healing.) The gameplay actually feels quite a bit like Castlevania - as in that game, it's quite easy to get knocked into pits, especially late in the game. (The comparison is ironic, because I think Konami stole considerably from Zelda 2 in turn to make Castlevania 2.) The punishments for failure also get considerably more severe.
However, Zelda 2 is the first game to have actual towns (and quite a few at that). The dungeons are a lot smarter, with a lot more variation. And the combat can be pretty fun, especially after you learn the down strike, which lets you bounce on enemies' heads with your sword.
Which game is harder? For me, it's something of a toss-up. Some of the hidden passageways in Zelda 1 are far too difficult to find. Locating the silver arrows (which no one tells you are necessary to defeat Ganon) would have been impossible for me without help. On the other hand, the final dungeon in Zelda 2 is an extreme endurance test (even getting to it can be extremely difficult), and I needed serious help to beat that game as well. Overall, they were interesting experiences, but too flawed to be among my favorite games.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Dead Space (PS3, 2008)
Like adventure games and Indian food, survival horror games are usually good even when they're pretty bad. Even Dino Crisis couldn't really go wrong, though it certainly tried. However, aside from a brief flirtation with Fatal Frame, which might be the scariest game of its generation, I largely abandoned the genre after the Silent Hill series stopped being developed in Japan. Getting into the Halloween spirit, I decided to give Dead Space a shot this October.
Dead Space is firmly in the post-Resident Evil 4 tradition of horror games, which is to say that it tries a little too hard to satisfy the action gamer's itch. What was lost in this transition was the true feeling of helplessness that games like Silent Hill fostered, where bad aiming and horrible controls were as much your enemy as the monsters. Isaac Clarke, the protagonist of Dead Space, is a one-man army.
Although each weapon is interestingly flawed, you get to carry four of them, so it's not too hard to find a strategy that will let you stay in control. Ammo wasn't too hard to find, even in Hard mode, after I discovered (late in the game) that the green boxes were breakable, and I always had enough credits to buy what I was low on, at the plentiful stores spread throughout the map. None of this stopped me from getting horribly dismembered every two minutes, but the checkpoint system kept this from being too frustrating, and made the save points largely anachronistic.
Speaking of dismemberment, the game has a weird fetish about it. Any weapon can tear apart limbs like cottage cheese, and it's usually the fastest way to kill monsters (a back-of-the-box bullet point calls it "Strategic Dismemberment", which might be what the Republican party is considering these days).
The monsters are called necromorphs, which take over a mining spaceship after they bring aboard some big rock called the "Marker". Isaac is part of the rescue party, which gets predictably separated after it arrives. Most of the character interaction is over one-sided radio transmission, which keeps you from getting too attached. Some of the rescuers may or may not be secretly working for the government, and there's some nonsense about a cult with a denigrating and completely unnecessary parallel to Scientology.
All of this is to set up some "big reveals", like the fact that the Marker was created by the government as a replica of the actual alien marker. Not that there's an important distinction there. Also, the appearances of your wife are hallucinations caused by the aliens (or whatever), a blindingly obvious fact that somehow needs to be confirmed by video evidence.
With all of its faults, though, Dead Space was still a pretty fun game. It has some cool innovations, like having all map and inventory interactions be via holograms, instead of time-stopping menu screens. There's a scary subplot involving a monster that can't be killed, an obvious but effective ploy since Resident Evil 3. Most importantly, on a dark Boston night, with the lights out and the headphones plugged in, it's capable of freaking you out, and that's really all that matters.
(Dead Space is out for PS3, 360, and PC. I would encourage you to play a console version; I hear the controls on the PC are no good.)
Dead Space is firmly in the post-Resident Evil 4 tradition of horror games, which is to say that it tries a little too hard to satisfy the action gamer's itch. What was lost in this transition was the true feeling of helplessness that games like Silent Hill fostered, where bad aiming and horrible controls were as much your enemy as the monsters. Isaac Clarke, the protagonist of Dead Space, is a one-man army.
Although each weapon is interestingly flawed, you get to carry four of them, so it's not too hard to find a strategy that will let you stay in control. Ammo wasn't too hard to find, even in Hard mode, after I discovered (late in the game) that the green boxes were breakable, and I always had enough credits to buy what I was low on, at the plentiful stores spread throughout the map. None of this stopped me from getting horribly dismembered every two minutes, but the checkpoint system kept this from being too frustrating, and made the save points largely anachronistic.
Speaking of dismemberment, the game has a weird fetish about it. Any weapon can tear apart limbs like cottage cheese, and it's usually the fastest way to kill monsters (a back-of-the-box bullet point calls it "Strategic Dismemberment", which might be what the Republican party is considering these days).
The monsters are called necromorphs, which take over a mining spaceship after they bring aboard some big rock called the "Marker". Isaac is part of the rescue party, which gets predictably separated after it arrives. Most of the character interaction is over one-sided radio transmission, which keeps you from getting too attached. Some of the rescuers may or may not be secretly working for the government, and there's some nonsense about a cult with a denigrating and completely unnecessary parallel to Scientology.
All of this is to set up some "big reveals", like the fact that the Marker was created by the government as a replica of the actual alien marker. Not that there's an important distinction there. Also, the appearances of your wife are hallucinations caused by the aliens (or whatever), a blindingly obvious fact that somehow needs to be confirmed by video evidence.
With all of its faults, though, Dead Space was still a pretty fun game. It has some cool innovations, like having all map and inventory interactions be via holograms, instead of time-stopping menu screens. There's a scary subplot involving a monster that can't be killed, an obvious but effective ploy since Resident Evil 3. Most importantly, on a dark Boston night, with the lights out and the headphones plugged in, it's capable of freaking you out, and that's really all that matters.
(Dead Space is out for PS3, 360, and PC. I would encourage you to play a console version; I hear the controls on the PC are no good.)
Friday, September 30, 2011
Snatcher (Sega CD, 1994)
The trouble with being a lifelong adventure gamer is that eventually you run out of classic adventure games. Snatcher had been at the top of my to-play list for a while, waiting for the moment when I'd finally buy a Sega CD. After a few years, I scrapped that idea and decided to go the emulator route.
Snatcher has a bit of an odd history. It's the first of two Japanese adventure games produced by Hideo Kojima, and was originally released in 1988 for the MSX2 and PC88, two Japanese computers. Those versions ended on a pretty bad cliffhanger, and in 1992 the game was rereleased on the PC Engine with a third and final act. It was this version that was translated and released in America and Europe in 1994, exclusively for the Sega CD, of all systems. For a number of reasons, including the mature rating and the fact that it played nothing like the FMV titles that most of us associate with the console, the game was a complete flop in the US and dropped off the radar. Snatcher is the epitome of a cult classic, and today it has a fair number of devoted fans.
The Japanese adventure game evolved entirely separately from the western equivalent; it's more closely related (though not nearly as un-interactive as) the visual novel. Instead of a text parser or point-and-click interface, the genre conventially lets you choose from a menu of verbs, with submenus for the objects you can apply them to. These mechanics are first seen in The Portopia Serial Murder Case, a 1983 computer game that actually predates King's Quest I. (Snatcher contains at least a couple references to this landmark title, which has been fan-translated and might be worth checking out.)
These mechanics make for a much more linear and controlled experience. Snatcher has few puzzles, and much of the game consists of simply looking at and investigating everything there is to see in each room. The game for this reason avoids all of the major pitfalls (pixel hunting, uninspired puzzles) of early western adventure games, although it's very easy and took me about six or seven hours to finish. To add excitement, a few shooting gallery segments are thrown in. These play just fine on a controller (you move the crosshairs on a 3x3 grid), but the dedicated gamer can choose to use the Sega CD's light gun. Like all action sequences in adventure games, they're just fine unless they're at all difficult - one such segment at the very end of Snatcher very nearly caused me to quit the game.
Snatcher would be forgettable, but for the plot and setting. It has all the hallmarks of a classic Hideo Kojima game - suspenseful, terrific attention to detail, a very advanced and unique piece of genre fiction. It even has one extremely long cutscene, at the very end of the game. The game is billed on the title menu as a "Cyberpunk Adventure", and the big influences this time are Blade Runner and the Terminator series. As with Metal Gear Solid, Kojima uses overtly political themes, centering around Cold War paranoia and the effects of the arms race. In his own peculiar fashion, he invites you to stop being cynical and care about these themes with a strikingly sentimental appeal.
The characters are well-defined and memorable, although you'll find plenty of sci-fi cliches, including an amnesiac main character. Any discussion of Snatcher must also take account of this fact: it is widely considered to be the first game with generally terrific English voice acting. Although contained to the cutscenes, there's plenty of it and it makes a huge difference. You can tell the localization team really cared about the project; I can only think of a few better examples with this standard of localization (the later Persona games, and the fan translation of Mother 3).
Like most of Kojima's games (with the exception of the original Metal Gear Solid), it makes few major innovations, but you can't help enjoying the ride.
Snatcher has a bit of an odd history. It's the first of two Japanese adventure games produced by Hideo Kojima, and was originally released in 1988 for the MSX2 and PC88, two Japanese computers. Those versions ended on a pretty bad cliffhanger, and in 1992 the game was rereleased on the PC Engine with a third and final act. It was this version that was translated and released in America and Europe in 1994, exclusively for the Sega CD, of all systems. For a number of reasons, including the mature rating and the fact that it played nothing like the FMV titles that most of us associate with the console, the game was a complete flop in the US and dropped off the radar. Snatcher is the epitome of a cult classic, and today it has a fair number of devoted fans.
The Japanese adventure game evolved entirely separately from the western equivalent; it's more closely related (though not nearly as un-interactive as) the visual novel. Instead of a text parser or point-and-click interface, the genre conventially lets you choose from a menu of verbs, with submenus for the objects you can apply them to. These mechanics are first seen in The Portopia Serial Murder Case, a 1983 computer game that actually predates King's Quest I. (Snatcher contains at least a couple references to this landmark title, which has been fan-translated and might be worth checking out.)
These mechanics make for a much more linear and controlled experience. Snatcher has few puzzles, and much of the game consists of simply looking at and investigating everything there is to see in each room. The game for this reason avoids all of the major pitfalls (pixel hunting, uninspired puzzles) of early western adventure games, although it's very easy and took me about six or seven hours to finish. To add excitement, a few shooting gallery segments are thrown in. These play just fine on a controller (you move the crosshairs on a 3x3 grid), but the dedicated gamer can choose to use the Sega CD's light gun. Like all action sequences in adventure games, they're just fine unless they're at all difficult - one such segment at the very end of Snatcher very nearly caused me to quit the game.
Snatcher would be forgettable, but for the plot and setting. It has all the hallmarks of a classic Hideo Kojima game - suspenseful, terrific attention to detail, a very advanced and unique piece of genre fiction. It even has one extremely long cutscene, at the very end of the game. The game is billed on the title menu as a "Cyberpunk Adventure", and the big influences this time are Blade Runner and the Terminator series. As with Metal Gear Solid, Kojima uses overtly political themes, centering around Cold War paranoia and the effects of the arms race. In his own peculiar fashion, he invites you to stop being cynical and care about these themes with a strikingly sentimental appeal.
The characters are well-defined and memorable, although you'll find plenty of sci-fi cliches, including an amnesiac main character. Any discussion of Snatcher must also take account of this fact: it is widely considered to be the first game with generally terrific English voice acting. Although contained to the cutscenes, there's plenty of it and it makes a huge difference. You can tell the localization team really cared about the project; I can only think of a few better examples with this standard of localization (the later Persona games, and the fan translation of Mother 3).
Like most of Kojima's games (with the exception of the original Metal Gear Solid), it makes few major innovations, but you can't help enjoying the ride.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Star Wars: Tie Fighter Collector's CD-ROM (PC, 1995)
Here's a genre that's deader than the adventure game, so dead that nobody seemed to notice its passing: the flight sim. While you can still see the occasional arcade-style flight game, will anybody ever make a game with the balance of careful joystick manuevering and complex controls that Tie Fighter mastered in 1994? This game has never been surpassed, and won't be anytime soon.
Tie Fighter is a tough game, but I don't think I've ever played a flight game, or any action game for that matter, with such an emphasis on strategy over acrobatics. While good flying skills are useful, this is a game that inspires you to think hard about how to approach each mission. If you fail a mission a few times, there are many ways to get the upper hand; the targeting system, communication with wingmen, and the balance of power between engines, shields, and lasers all give you a way to improve your chances. The controls are daunting at first, but gradually become intuitive.
This is also a game that knows what to take from the Star Wars license. The starfighters are there, of course, and Vader and the Emperor play bit roles. But you're far removed from the events of the movie; from your perspective, the evil Empire is just a benevolent superpower out to promote law and order in the far reaches of the galaxy. Sound familiar? It's supposed to. Here's an excellent essay that will really want to make you play this game.
Tie Fighter is a tough game, but I don't think I've ever played a flight game, or any action game for that matter, with such an emphasis on strategy over acrobatics. While good flying skills are useful, this is a game that inspires you to think hard about how to approach each mission. If you fail a mission a few times, there are many ways to get the upper hand; the targeting system, communication with wingmen, and the balance of power between engines, shields, and lasers all give you a way to improve your chances. The controls are daunting at first, but gradually become intuitive.
This is also a game that knows what to take from the Star Wars license. The starfighters are there, of course, and Vader and the Emperor play bit roles. But you're far removed from the events of the movie; from your perspective, the evil Empire is just a benevolent superpower out to promote law and order in the far reaches of the galaxy. Sound familiar? It's supposed to. Here's an excellent essay that will really want to make you play this game.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Halo: Fantasy for the Privileged
First person shooters are escapist fantasies, more than most genres. Doom and Duke Nukem 3D put you in the shoes of an 80s action movie hero. Half-Life is a revenge of the computer nerd fantasy.
Halo is a fantasy for the privileged child. The story of the Master Chief is not the story of the underdog, no matter how many Covenant ships are against you. You are pretty much invincible, and allies and enemies all seem to respect this. No character in this game really doubts your capability in any respect; everyone seems to have full confidence in you, and you don't disappoint them.
I had fun playing this game, or I least I wasn't bored enough to quit. But Halo has definitely lost whatever lustre it had. The characters are cut-out. There aren't enough enemy types to spread through ten levels. Worst is the level design itself - as if the areas weren't bland enough, they have the balls to force you to run through an identical-looking region three or four times in a row, in the same level. On more than one level. (We'll see what people think when the HD remake is released.)
I know this is a landmark shooter, but the repetition kills its fun value, at least in single player. The woefully underrated Timesplitters 2 was just a year later, and it solved this problem admirably.
Halo is a fantasy for the privileged child. The story of the Master Chief is not the story of the underdog, no matter how many Covenant ships are against you. You are pretty much invincible, and allies and enemies all seem to respect this. No character in this game really doubts your capability in any respect; everyone seems to have full confidence in you, and you don't disappoint them.
I had fun playing this game, or I least I wasn't bored enough to quit. But Halo has definitely lost whatever lustre it had. The characters are cut-out. There aren't enough enemy types to spread through ten levels. Worst is the level design itself - as if the areas weren't bland enough, they have the balls to force you to run through an identical-looking region three or four times in a row, in the same level. On more than one level. (We'll see what people think when the HD remake is released.)
I know this is a landmark shooter, but the repetition kills its fun value, at least in single player. The woefully underrated Timesplitters 2 was just a year later, and it solved this problem admirably.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Executor, we must build additional pylons. Executor!?!
I suck at real-time strategy games. Building my headquarters, training a well-balanced and effective force, with only a guess as to the opponent's strength, strategy, and even location; it all makes me...exceedingly anxious. I get paranoid, and never make the bold move necessary to be a good commander.
When I was 10 or 11, I had a friend, the son of a youth pastor, who was addicted to Command and Conquer: Red Alert. I used to come over, watch him play, and admire his skills. The opening FMV, in which Einstein builds a time machine to go back and kill Hitler, unintentionally causing the rise of a greater Soviet threat, was fascinating to me. My friend's father eventually limited the time he could spend playing "war games," but by that time I owned the first C&C myself (a gift from another friend). I loved the FMVs (I was a child of the 90's), but I could never muster enough enthusiasm for the gameplay itself to finish it.
Last week, I finished my first RTS: the gold standard of the genre, Starcraft. It took me months, but I did it. And I have to say that it was, on the whole, not fun. I can appreciate how the different races, each forcing fundamentally different strategies, remain so delicately balanced. I even enjoyed the simple story of humans and honor-loving aliens joining forces to remove an infestation of large insects. I love that the outworld Terrans all sound like hicks. But it is very likely that, for me, the RTS will forever be a chore.
When I was 10 or 11, I had a friend, the son of a youth pastor, who was addicted to Command and Conquer: Red Alert. I used to come over, watch him play, and admire his skills. The opening FMV, in which Einstein builds a time machine to go back and kill Hitler, unintentionally causing the rise of a greater Soviet threat, was fascinating to me. My friend's father eventually limited the time he could spend playing "war games," but by that time I owned the first C&C myself (a gift from another friend). I loved the FMVs (I was a child of the 90's), but I could never muster enough enthusiasm for the gameplay itself to finish it.
Last week, I finished my first RTS: the gold standard of the genre, Starcraft. It took me months, but I did it. And I have to say that it was, on the whole, not fun. I can appreciate how the different races, each forcing fundamentally different strategies, remain so delicately balanced. I even enjoyed the simple story of humans and honor-loving aliens joining forces to remove an infestation of large insects. I love that the outworld Terrans all sound like hicks. But it is very likely that, for me, the RTS will forever be a chore.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
