Video Game Maps: Turok, Dinosaur Hunter

When Turok the Dinosaur Hunter came out, there really weren't very many first person shooters (FPS) available for consoles.  And, compared to today, there weren't very many FPS in existence.  Turok was the first in the genre to be released for the Nintendo 64.  It featured over-the-top violence, combat vs dinosaurs and really cool weapons.  However, I think the most important feature, and most innovative, was the map overlay.  

Unlike other common map features, which might require you to pause the game and bring up a subscreen, or be confined to a circle in the corner of the screen, Turok's map was drawn over the screen while you played.  The small arrow representing the player was located in the center of the screen, and could also perform the role of an aiming reticle.    

Oddly enough, the method never seemed to take, and I don't know of any games outside the Turok series that used this map style since.  I really love this map.  When I play Turok, I find a really cool mental zone where I'm watching the scenery and watching the map at the same time.  It's almost like playing two games simultaneously, and it's really cool.  

It helps that Turok is full of wide open spaces not too many enemies. When I get into that meditative zone, it doesn't seem to take that long to traverse the enormous levels.

Monthly Update: April 2015

Whew!  Actually, I don't know why I said that.  I just finished writing another post for later in this fine month of April.  A few weeks of April are going to consist of long delayed articles about Dead Space that will span everything from before the Aegis VII incident and everything leading up to the events in Dead Space 2.  One of the articles has been sitting on the back burner since late 2013 even, but now I have found the right time to release everything.  Because nothing says April like Easter and Easter is when Jesus rose from the dead, like um, the necromorphs. . .because you know, Unitology is a religion. . . moving on.

Aside from this past week, I actually haven't been able to give a whole lot of time over to playing video games and with this current week coming to a close, 16 units of accounting schoolwork has started up again, so after the first couple of weeks, I will be going back to my sporadic posting schedule.

Conklederp and I did pick up another card game called Gloom, which was recommended to us from one of our friends.  We inadvertently bought the Unwelcome Guests expansion before first acquiring the stand alone game, so now we have more cards than we know what to do with for a game that neither of us have played, but it's a game that can be played with two to five people so I'm sure that Conklederp and I will give it a go before inviting others to join in.

Sadly, Dungeons & Dragons has yet to happen again due to scheduling mishaps, but this is something that tends to happen when you are trying to schedule between six people.  Maybe I should start killing off PCs?  An offering has been sent out so hopefully they will take the bait and by bait I mean invitation.

Lastly, Conklederp and I finally finished in setting up (mostly) our office / retro video game room.  I am still having issues with the SNES as it will display tinted color bars that scroll down the screen indefinitely.  Originally I thought it was due to a 1990 console to a 2011 HD TV, but I still get the color bars on an older tube TV.  The N64 and Game Cube run fine though.  The only N64 game giving me trouble is F-Zero X, which will automatically reset anywhere from three seconds to about two minutes in.  I'll have to look into that.  The point though, is hopefully I'll be putting out some more posts in the coming months looking back at the last 20 years of Nintendo video gaming.

We'll see you later in the month.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Like Anything Was Possible

MIDI Week Singles: "Zoness" - Star Fox 64 (N64)

"Zoness" from Star Fox 64 on the Nintendo 64 (1997)
Composer: Hajime Wakai
Record Label: Pony Canon PCCG-00421
Game Developer: Nintendo

First off, did you know that with this song (and 22 others), this was Hajime Wakai's first soundtrack that he composed?  Sure he worked on Yoshi's Story doing sound effects, but this, right here is his first soundtrack.  Damn.

That aside, the music used in the Zoness stage in Star Fox 64 was probably my favorite track from the entire game.  Coupled with the fact that Zoness was one of those stages that you had to make the conscious decision to go to meant that you either enjoyed the level, enjoyed the music or you hated it and wanted to get to Sector Z to finally destroy both of those damn missiles before one of them collided with the Great Fox.  

But for me, it was the music in Zoness.  After completing the game you were awarded with being able to listen to the soundtrack and I don't know why I never got around to purchasing the soundtrack when I first had the chance, but since then I've been able to acquire the whole thing and this was the first song I listen to upon fixing all the ID3 tags; or maybe I made that part up, but it sounds good anyway.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Instrumental

MIDI Week Singles: "All I Need Is 30 Deaths" - F-Zero X (N64)

"All I Need Is 30 Deaths" from F-Zero X on the Nintendo 64 (1998)

F-Zero X Original Sound Track

Record Label: Pony Canon (PCCG-00459)

Composers: Taro Bando & Hajime Wakai

Game Developer: Nintendo EAD

Now, anyone familiar with the F-Zero franchise will probably be wondering why I chose such a random song from such a large catalogue of recognizable music.  Simply put, until last week, my brain had misinformed me about the origins of this particular song.

Up until last week, I was convinced that the melody from this track (starting at 0:22) was from Faceball 2000.  How sure was I about this apparent fact?  I would have put money on it.  I have been so sure that this song was used in Faceball 2000 that since the first time I heard it, probably back in 1999 that I absolutely knew that this song was in that SNES game from 1992.

That is, until last week when I went looking for it.  

Can you blame me though?  Listen to that odd little bit of melody that lasts a mere 10 seconds.  Now go back to last weeks MWS and tell me that this melody would not have worked perfectly in Faceball 2000.  I am just a bit sad that this has not been the case.

Nevertheless, I find this to be a pretty catchy little ditty that lasts 10 seconds amidst rising driving chord progressions (pun not intended).  And despite this song being an original composition and not based off of a weird and quirky soundtrack from 11 years prior, I still like it.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Running In Circles

Game Scores: Castlevania 64 (N64)

Since 1986, Castlevania has been a staple for great baroque-esque music despite have different composers in almost every game until Michiru Yamane came on board with the franchise in 1994 with Castlevania: Bloodlines.  1999's N64 release of Castlevania 64 was no different in the franchise however with regards to the composers.  This time around, Konami went with three composers, Masahiko Kimura (who later worked on Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow), Motoaki Furukawa (who had previously worked on Castlevania X: Rondo of Blood) and Mariko Egawa (whose only work on work in the Castlevania series would be this title).

I had been in love with the games and music of the Castlevania series since I first played and Castlevania 64 was no exception.  I remember on my first run through of the game, I chose the "Easy" difficulty which turned out to stop about halfway through the game  which then required me to restart on the normal difficulty setting to finish the game.  Although on my second pass through the game I did not receive the "good ending" until I re-replayed through the game again for a third time using Reinhardt Schneider, (I was never able to get past the Tower of Sorcery's disappearing platforms with Carrie Fernandez).

It wasn't until after I bought the soundtrack that I realized how good the music for Castlevania 64 was.  I obviously liked it enough to purchase the soundtrack, but listening to the music outside of the game environment is a different experience.  I remember after listening to the CD for the first time that I felt that I had listened to a film soundtrack.  While the CD did not contain all of the tracks and some of the incidental music that I had enjoyed in the game, there was so much music that I did like.

For the entirety of this review, I will not be able to say specifically which of the composers wrote which piece.  And being a Castlevania game, Castlevania 64 does reuse themes from previous games in the series and despite the fact that the staple "Vampire Killer" is not present anywhere on the soundtrack, I do not find that this detracts from the overall quality and enjoyment of the album.

The opening track is entitled Introduction/Opening or more majestically, "Sign of Blood Relationship," and also uses the theme from Castlevania: Bloodlines' "Bloodlines."  The song not only fits perfectly into the existing Castlevania universe, but is a great introduction into this Castlevania game.

That amazing violin solo in the second half of the piece was performed by Tomokuni Katayama, and even being surrounded by a MIDI score, the track sounds amazing.

The track "Lamented Rose" is both a beautiful yet ominous piece that really surprised me both in-game and upon hearing it in the soundtrack.  In the game, the music happens when your character enters a room and looks upon a flower vase and is confronted (I think) by the first vampire you meet in the game that isn't Count Dracula.  The scene plays out really well as a cut-scene, but we're focusing on music here.

One of my favorite tracks, both in-game as well as on the soundtrack is the "Dungeon - Main Theme."  Like a lot of the music from the game it is fairly subdued compared to other musical cues from the Castlevania franchise, but it works for this game and the world that was created.  The music creates the feeling that you need to keep plodding onward and that you may actually survive and not be turned into a vampire.

Lastly, I wanted to highlight one of the liturgical sounding songs, which almost seems required for a Castlevania game.  "Stairway to the Clouds" happens on your approach to Dracula's tower while going up flight after flight of stairs.  How many games can you think of that have something this dramatic, just to walk up a flight of stairs?

If any/all of these tracks have interested you into either playing Castlevania 64 on that N64 gathering dust in the garage or perhaps to pop on over to eBay to purchase the soundtrack, then you've made my Friday or whatever day it is that you are reading this.  Happy weekend.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

While Capturing the Stench of Devine

Emulator Hour: Nintendo 64 - the return

Hey all, so, when I moved into my new place, I discovered an old friend:  My Nintendo 64!

Nintendo 64 was the first video game system I purchased entirely with my own money.  This system was certainly controversial for being cartridge based in a brave new, cd world.  And for the lack of RPGs, which is totally related.  Or at least it seems to be.  The games were also pretty expensive, most being between 60 and 80 bucks, while the Playstation was pitching out hockey pucks at a cool 50 a piece.

No worries or concerns, that just meant I had to love the games I owned all the more.  And I still do!  Waverace, Pilotwings 64, Goldeneye, just to name a few.  I played the ever loving SHIT out of these games.  got all the qualifiers.  Or... almost all of them.  Still no 2 RCP 90s and there's one gold I can't get on Pilotwings.  But I got some pretty high trick attack scores on Waverace.

So, the unfortunate news is that some of my games are lost.  As in I don't know where they are.  I want to believe I gave them away to some needy collector, during a brief period when I was giving away all my worldly possessions.  Or something.  But the thing is, I can't find my copy of Ocarina of Time, the oft declared Greatest Video Game of All Time.  Nor can I find the gold controller I received with my purchase--  You damn well bet I pre-ordered that game!

Actually, I don't really give a shit.  I will probably change my mind about what kinds of shits I give, but at this moment, I can shrug it off.  I'm pretty sure Jaconian has his gold controller (though it was sacrificed during a period of house-wide 1080 Snowboarding competition)  and also his copies of Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask.  That's good enough for me.  He kept the fires burning and I succumbed to  the darkness.  Oh well.

It's cool, I'm rebuilding.  That is to say, I saw that the website half.com has a bunch of used n64 games for cheap!  I bought Blast Corps, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Excitebike 64, Turok 2 and Body Harvest.  It cost me about as much as it would have cost me to rent those games in 1998.  If you're too young to remember Video Rental, then I'm sorry.  There were some good times to be had in those stacks.

Anyhow-- the nintendo 64 is a real fun machine.  I had great times alone, and I had even more great times with friends.  It was a joy to play these games again and indulge in some nostalgia.  

-D

This Just Happened.

I know this isn't the day that I "officially" put up posts, but seriously, this just happened.

I recently came back from Gamestop (recently as in the last hour, but before I stopped at Fred Meyer to buy a busket of cat food).  I don't go to Gamestop very often as their frequently inflated prices on both used and new games is very much a deterrent.  Sometimes though, they'll have a used game (no this is not a post about the "evils" of used game purchases, which I don't subscribe to) that you can't find new anymore for any particular reason (too old, limited release, game was crapped on by Game Informer and Metacritic).  

The point is, I was finally able to track down a used copy of SEGA's Infinite Space for the DS.  Yes, I could buy a new copy off Amazon.com, but not for fucking $77.  I had a $25 gift card from doing online surveys.  So I went to Gamestop, picked up Infinite Space and Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, because a used copy was only $12.  Turns out with the two games I only owed 18¢ after using the gift card.

So now the point of this special edition post:  I know have more games for the DS than I have for any other console system I've had.  I owned maybe 16-20 games on the  SNES, 18 on the Gamecube, maybe another 15 or so on the N64, but I've just passed 32 on the DS.  I'm going to need to buy another game case, and really, these are the best DS game cases I've ever come across.  

That's all I wanted to say.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

They"ve Learned To Reproduce On Their Own

First Impressions: Pilotwings Resort (3DS)

Pilotwings Resort was the first game that I was able to fully tinker around with on the 3DS.  Yes, that was because I received the game free as a promotional thing when I purchased the system, but I had plans of buying the game anyway before the promotional deal came about.  It was just what I needed to kick me in the pants-side to get around to purchasing one.  That and the previously mentioned $100 in Gamestop gift cards I'd been saving for the past year.  Anyway!  Pilotwings Resort!

All I knew about the game before playing it was that it took place on an island and that your characters would be the user created Miis as opposed to the selectable characters as in Pilotwings 64.  The only thing that I "Ahhhh'd" about in a somewhat negative way, was that your characters didn't have any attributes.  You know, now that I think about it, I don't know if the planes/jetpack/parachute/hang-glider/flying squirrel suit act any differently if you played with the tallest/shortest and heaviest/lightest options for a Mii.

Yes.  I said there's a Flying Fucking Squirrel Suit option in one of the levels.  But possibly more on that later.

The game plays very much like Pilotwings 64 for which I was very happy about.  That also is why I'm not able to complete/get full stars on some of the levels.  In Pilotwings 64, I was never great with the hang-glider missions.  I liked it well enough, but hitting the thermals in the way so that you would not only gain altitude, but also increase your speed to hit that other mid-air thermal in order to fly through that one ring; yeah, those gave me problems.  I seem to recall Dr. Potts having some skill with the bloody hang-glider.  So yes, Pilotwings Resort is kicking my Mii's ass in some of the levels, for which I do appreciate it very much.

I was very happy to see that there was a "Free Flight" around the island of Wuhu, albeit a timed free flight.  Then after playing for a couple of hours, I found that through completing various tasks in the main game, you're able to extend the amount of time for your free flight.  And, you're able to have various optional tasks added to the free flight to earn points/coins/what-nots in order to unlock other features for Free Flight.  Kudos to you Nintendo.  You've tricked me into thinking that this little flight around your island was simple and basic, and here you've added mini missions that I don't have to participate in.  But, what kind of person would I be if I didn't fly through that ring and perform a counter clockwise roll while banking around the lighthouse.

Since the game is on the 3DS system, it wouldn't be a complete initial review without mentioning the 3D effects in the game.  The 3D effects are very well done.  I've played levels with and without the 3D effect as well as varying degrees of 3D-ness.  In this game, I like to either have it off, or turned all the way up, and now I don't feel so silly (not that I ever did in the first place) leaning with the system, hoping beyond hope that the system's built in gyroscope will register what I'm doing, be a bro, and help another brutha out so that I don't crash into the ocean.

At the moment, my only critiques are minimal:

1)  I feel that landing a plane is too easy.  Do I mind that I'm able to land a plane without crashing into the ocean?  Nope.

2)  I would say that I am sad that there's no cannon, but as I know that I haven't unlocked everything in the game, I'm hoping that there's a good chance that the canon will be unlockable.

To sum up, if I hadn't received the game for free, I would not have been disappointed in spending the $19 necessary to play this game without the risk of being arrested for walking out of the store without making the transaction.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

3-2-1 Break Right!

Cheating, cracking, breaking?

As I got to typing my thoughts about what JWFW had to say about cheating in video games, they got to be so voluminous that I thought it was best to respond with a new post, rather than to write an very long comment.

It seems to me that from your point of view, Mr. Jac O'Nian,  a system of "best practices" outlines how you view 'getting help' vs 'cheating.'  It seems to me that you're actually interested in how the player cheats themself out of the experience of playing the game; when they choose to use cheat codes or maps without ever having put in the effort.  And I've got to say, that's pretty damn cool.   It does seem like it even cheats the game designers, because they are not able to show their game for what it is.  However, I do love the game genie for its ability to show what the game COULD be.

For me, the fun and the very best joy of using a game genie comes from using it on games that I already know intimately well.  I remember getting Super High Jumping for Super Mario Bros, which was very exciting.  I had no thoughts of how "easy" it would make the game, more like: "what can I do with this?"  With super-high jumping, I now had access to the top half of the screen, an area that is normally closed off to the player without the correctly placed blocks.  What was possible, with these new powers?

My favorite GG cheats were 'do your moves in the air' on street fighter, and 'give Terra Shock' on FFVI also 'Completely Random Item Drop' on FFVI.  By the time Street Fighter II had come out on SNES there were hyper editions of the game floating through arcades, where Chun Li could shoot a fireball and everyone could do their moves in the air.  I remember salivating over the all-out mayhem that this brought to the game.  Game Genie was able to replicate some of these, but the results were pretty silly, complete with graphical glitches and control kerfuffles.

For FFVI, the best cheats were much better integrated into the game.  There was  no doubting that Shock was a totally badass move, and one that the player only sees very briefly (in one of the best scenes of the whole game, I might add.)  Who could resist giving Terra Shock?  It certainly  made the first part of the game stupidly-easy, but I got a lot of mileage out of using that move over and over again.  And then the cheat that makes items-all items in the game- appear completely randomly.  I had a Genji Glove and Offering before I left Figaro!  The Offering is a unique (and totally badass) item that doesn't appear until 3/4 of the way through the game (and is also a General Leo tease).

Granted, I never beat FFVI with these codes.  While it was fun for a while, it got boring pretty quickly.  The Game Genie served to disrupt the flow of what was obviously a very finely tuned game.  And I gained a renewed respect for the craftsmanship that went into the making of Final Fantasy III (VI).  So, that's my favorite part about Game Genie, breaking the game to see how it works.

------------------------------

I would like to also talk about Conklederp's observation #2, about the difference between Easter Eggs and cheating.  There are some easter eggs that make the game better.  Konami code when used in Contra being one.  That game is so hard, and really  not all that much fun without it.  And it's clear that the Konami designers knew how hard the game was, which is why they included the now infamous code.   Shout out to Gradius for the same code with a different, but still totally wicked, benefit.

And Goldeneye is a great example of Easter Eggs (among the many, many other things Goldeneye is a good example for).  They just nailed it with this game.  And let me tell you, getting that Facility cheat was fucking, fucking hard.  I could do everything correctly, but if the goddamn scientist wasn't in the first room I looked, I was fucked.  Man, that was a good game.  There was no better publisher in the world than Rare when that game came out.  So, yeah, I don't have the capacity to carefully explain every way in which Goldeneye is a great game, but Jaconian said it right in his post that they made 'a form of functional achievement.'

The only Easter egg I never got in 007 was Two RCP90's.  I think it's the cavern level in under 10 minutes.  I just.. never could quite do it.  Not patient enough, I suppose.

Never Too Old For Video Games

I like to visit Cracked.com on about a weekly basis.  Conklederp knows which authors she likes while I usually don't remember who wrote what article.  I recently read two video gaming articles by John Cheese, whom I thought I didn't like after reading two of his articles, although I don't remember what those articles were about.  Anyway, one of his recent articles was titled "5 Ways to Tell You're Getting Too Old For Video Games."  It was a pretty good article, as far as Cracked articles go anyway, in that I was agreeing or disagreeing with what I thought were reasonable thoughts.

Here, I'll list his headlines along with my own thoughts on each topic.

5.  You Think Multiplayer is Bullshit.

While I don't think that multiplayer in its entirety is the collected fecal matter of our tasty bovine friends, I do not find it to be as much a selling point as other people.  Having grown up as a console gamer, multiplayer, let alone online multiplayer wasn't always an option.  The majority of the games I purchased and played were single player games (Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, Eternal Darkness, Dragon Warrior, et cetera), and those that had a multiplayer element to them (Duck Hunt, Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy III/VI, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Time Splitters), I didn't play to their fullest extent.  Sure I played a bit of multiplayer on Goldeneye whenever Dr. Potts was over, or a couple other friends, but it was never my main purpose for the game.  

With current generation consoles, each have some type of subscription/fee  component (Xbox Live, PSN and Wii Points), which I don't feel that I will ever need, partly because I don't have either system, but also because I don't want to interact with teenage douche bags yelling obscenities at me.  If I'm going to play multiplayer (most likely on the PC), I'd rather just play online with someone whom I know.

4.  You Think Games Are Suddenly Too Long

The three games that John Cheese references in this article (Skyrim, Fallout 3 and World of Warcraft) I have never played so I can't comment directly on any of these games.  I do know what he is talking about when he says that there seem to be a lot more side quests than actual story points.  I on the other hand tend to like side quests, but only to a certain extent.

I didn't do the Golden Chocobo side quest in Final Fantasy VII so that I could earn the "Knights of the Round" materia.  I liked the initial idea of breeding Chocobos, but the amount of time that it would have taken to find Chocobos from all over the world, to me seemed pointless; especially when there was a chuck of rock plummeting towards the planet.  In other games like Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2: Grimoire of the Rift, however, I did as many side quests as I could lay my hands on.  Maybe this is something with more recent video games trying to drag out the length of time it takes to "complete" a game, but then that just reinforces that I'm aging when it comes to video games, but whatever.

3. You Miss Game Storylines That Were Actually Compelling

I'm about 50/50 with Mr. Cheese's views on this point.  While I do agree that some of the Final Fantasy or Dragon Warrior  (I'm also going to throw in Chrono Trigger) games had very in depth story lines that would rival that of some of the books that I was reading at the time, I don't feel that I was putting myself into the role of the characters that I was playing, which would be why I felt they were more "in depth" when I was a kid than now that I'm an "adult."

Part of my problem might be that as I don't have any of the "next-gen systems," I haven't played many of the newer games that seem to lack story lines.  However, how many people who played Super Mario Bros. felt that the story line was lacking and how did an Italian plumber, presumably from New York got to the Mushroom Kingdom.  That's never explained in-game.  In The Legend of Zelda, all the back story is told in the instruction booklet and just after the opening titles, which don't even play when you start a game.

But yes, I feel that story, for me at least, is very important if I want to have any emotional feelings towards the game I'm playing.  Sometimes I don't want there to be a story, for example, in the first Doom.  You start the game without any introduction, but you know that you need to shoot anything on the screen, and sometimes, that's all I want to do.

2.  You Think Originality is Dead

Sometimes I'll think "Huh.  I've played this game before, why do I want to play it again?"  Being the person that I am, I will usually look into games before I buy them (although with the Humble Bundles, I don't really care too much, and just think that this type of business model is very awesome).  That being said, I sometimes don't mind playing a familiar type of game over and over again.  

Yes, I do appreciate originality in video games, but sometimes I like to play something that I know, even if it's a "brand new" game that came out the previous year that's based on a platformer from 1990.  Mr. Cheese acknowledges this too when he says "The industry looked just as cookie cutter then as it does now." It's very similar to the movie industry. There'll be a period when westerns are all the rage, or where we're at right now, where anything to do with zombies or vampires will sell millions, just because of the subject matter.

1. You Miss When Games Used To Be "All About Fun."

To be honest, it seemed like Mr. Cheese began to ramble here, as if he didn't actually have "5 Reasons...." but only had four and desparately tried to come up with the fifth.  He starts off about the "look" of games versus the amount of "fun" and then trails off  about how the repetitiveness of games meant they were fun for younger players.

Maybe it's because I've been constantly playing video games for, roughly, the last 24 - 25 years, that I'm able to go back and play Castlevania or Donkey Kong Country and still have fun.  Granted some of that fun may turn into frustration, but I'd rather have that feeling than the feeling that I'm kicking ass at a game because it's too easy.  I actually remember not being able to beat a lot of games, which probably bothered me on some level, but yeah, I had fun.

Conclusion:  No, I don't believe that I'm too old for video games.  Like anybody in any genre in any form of media, I'm not going to like everything out there, but I tend to know what I like.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

The Road Goes Ever On And On....

But First, Introductions

My first thought was to jump right into games.  Specifically video games.

But first, introductions.

My name's Jack, JWfW, JDub or Jaconian.  All depending where I am on the internet.

I've been playing video games since the ripe young age of I don't remember when.  My first memory of playing video games of any kind was either on Dr. Potts' Atari 2600 or on the Intellivision down in Lake Arrowhead at a house my grandparent's rented for the first half of my life.  The first time I played on a Nintendo Entertainment System was probably sometime around 1986 or 1987 at a neighbors house up the street.  The following Christmas, my sisters and I received the "deluxe" packaging NES that came with the Power Pad (because when my Mom sent my Dad out to buy it, he naturally bought the biggest available version; a bit ironic since my Dad doesn't play video games on any level).

So my childhood and teenage years was during the height of the Console Wars of which I was on the side of Nintendo.  NES, SNES, Gameboy (original and Play It Loud series), Gameboy Advance, N64, Gamecube, DS lite.  All Nintendo.  I did buy a PS2 from Dr. Potts after he won it in one of those Coke bottle cap contests and I did buy a PSP from my friend Chreekat (since we're using aliases here) before he moved out to go adventuring.  These I bought so I could play Final Fantasy XII and Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions, on their respective systems.  I have played some PC games, but until recently as 2003, I never owned what one might call a "gaming computer," and even then, the computer I had still wasn't very powerful (80 gig hard drive, Pentium III processor, 256 Mb or RAM).

I tend to play mostly role-playing games although I do also love and play other types as well.  The one big exception is rhythm and music games.  Sure I've played Guitar Hero and Rock Band and I've even gotten on a DDR pad a couple of times, but they're just not my pint of beer.  There's a wall that I definitely hit right after the "Easy" stage that I can't get past without hours of practicing, which doesn't happen since I don't own any of the games.  Figures.

Now to close with a short story.  In elementary school, our school decided to have a dance.  It was the first dance the school had ever had (that's what we were told, maybe they lied) and it was going to be on Valentines Day.  A lot of kids went either because they wanted to go to a dance before going to Jr. High, or because of the novelty of our school having a dance.  I on the other had was very not enthused about the prospect of a dance.  Plus I had recently rented Captain Skyhawk for the NES and was most likely trying to get passed the second stage.  A number of my friends had asked if I was going to go and felt bad/guilty that I didn't want to go because I'd rather sit at home and play a video game.  Whatever, I'm all the better because of it.  And I never beat the game either.

~Jack/JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Copying People More Famous Than I.