The games of my life
21 Sep 2010 3 Comments
in Sort of a review Tags: more awesome than you can handle, shiny, videogames
So, after watching the Prince (referring to Prince of Persia here — sorry about the wikipedia link, couldn’t find the official website on the first try and couldn’t be bothered searching more) hurl himself comically into the distance when I clearly told him to go toward a ledge to the exactly opposite direction, I can conclude three different things: one, Ubisoft has a thing for collecting glowing things; evidence:
The shiny things you collect in Rayman 2, a Ubisoft game
The shiny things you collect in Prince of Persia (note the ridiculous-looking abs)
Two, they also have a thing with vines, since I pretty much remember climbing as many vines in Rayman 2 (one of my absolute favourite games, by the way, it’s AMAZING and awesome and rather epic, when you think about the fact that it’s a game about a guy whose limbs aren’t connected to his body which isn’t connected to his head and he has a banana peel for hair) as I have in Prince of Persia. Admittedly, there weren’t as many pillars and amusing dashes to the depths in Rayman as there have been in Prince of Persia, but then again, I don’t think the game engine was as intricate as the one in Prince of Persia. Ha. Uh, then there was some third thing that I learnt, but admittedly, I’ve forgotten it during the time it took for me to search for those pictures (in my defense, I actually tried to look for more games with shiny things and vines, but apparently Ubisoft has published a lot of games lol). I think it may have had something to do with learning about the possibility of me feeling like a healthy, sane human being again, which would nicely reference to the fact that I haven’t been posting lately (again) and hinted at why this was without me having to pause and actually explain it to you, hee!
Uh. Anyway. I think I might make this post about videogames, since I’ve already started down that track — and I think I’ll start with announcing some of my favourites. Like I said above, I at least think (because establishing favourites has always been kind of tough for me, since I believe that it exhibits certain narrow-mindedness and favouritism [which, I suppose, is the whole point of it, but SHUT UP I'm being pseudo-philosophical] and doesn’t always allow for new possibilities) that Rayman 2: The Great Escape is one of my favourite games. I was introduced to the game ages ago, when I was still less than halfway through primary school, and mostly I played it by watching my father go through it, since I got too scared in certain levels — I especially remember this one where (this is where I did some searching for any screenshots of the particular enemy I’m going to describe, and since I couldn’t find any, you’re going to have to do with my extremely confusing description) there were these… walking barrels that would shoot beams of electricity at you. What was especially creepy about these particular enemies was that they had this annoying habit of hiding behind corners, even while they’d be shifting their weight a bit, so you could HEAR them there, but you couldn’t see them — you knew they were there, but WHERE? It was TERRIFYING — especially when you got to this one area, where there were more than just one of them (they had huge healthbars, too, so they were actually a pretty real threat, with the huge damage they could do to you), and where there were actually sirens, warning THEM of YOUR presence — so they’d come stomping up to you, trying to zap you.
Terrible! And it doesn’t help that the stupid robots that were your enemies could bury into the ground and randomly jump up at some other place. Try having a robot like this in your face, then disappear and then jump at your back and tell me you wouldn’t be at least startled:
Oh yeah, and they chase after you, too. Anyway, what I really loved about Rayman 2 — what I really love about any game, really — was its huge, way awesome story. And the levels are pretty amazing. As you can see, the graphics aren’t very good at all, but hey, what do you expect form a game that was released millions of years ago? Also, there were some pretty cool puzzles there, I think. And the characters were odd and quirky and stuff. Basically, it had this whole exploration action platform-jumpy element to it, which I really like — because there was just SO much to it! And the controls were pretty simple. Oh, and your powers would be totally awesome when you got more silver lumz from Ly. I remember this one stage that you had to complete where you FLEW through the whole stage and it was all covered in LAVA! Awesome. I can’t wait for Rayman: Origins, which apparently appears through PSN toward the end of this year, hee.
Some more of my favourite games are The Sims series (just to take a break from Ubisoft for a bit — I’ll come back to it sooner or later, trust me), not because I’m such a girl and like playing with interactive dollhouses (ok, maybe a little, but I totally didn’t tell you that), but rather because I genuinely like the gameplay, always have (which, you may argue, is exactly the same thing, but shut up, I never played with dolls anyway, but with plushies, because animals are way cooler than people). Also, I’m a writer, and I enjoy creating a face (and with Sims 3, a personality, because of their AMAZING personality system, which makes each Sim feel unique in a way it never did, before — it’s actually a lot cooler to watch them interact with their environment now than it ever was with Sims 2) to usually faceless characters in my brain. Also, it’s cool to create a bunch of people, stick them together and just string them on through their lives. I seriously can’t put my finger on what the attractive thing about Sims is — I suppose that we’re just all egomaniacs who like toying with other people’s lives, or curious of how other people live their lives (what, that’s just me? Shut up).
Another series with a permanent place in my heart is, of course, Pokémon. I dare you, name one kid who grew up in the 90′s who hasn’t heard of Pokémon. Of course, the “generations” (because usually there are three games to a “generation” — they’re all a slight variation of the same game, with different pokémon and sometimes characters and events and that sort of stuff) that I love most are generation one and two, mostly because those are the ones that started it all, and will always carry this feeling of originality, never-seen-before, at least for me. I especially loved the reboot they made of gen 2 recently, Heart Gold and Soul Silver (I finished Heart Gold in roughly two weeks, not to brag or anything — I love my Ampharos, she kicks ass — oh, and I beat my boyfriend at it twice, too : D), because as much as I love gen 1, gen 2 really took some things gen 1 did well and then elaborated upon them, adding a huge amount of stuff that made the whole thing even better. You could argue that this went on for gen 3 and gen 4 as well, but what I especially love about gen 2 is that it was actually a direct sequel to the gen 1 games, unlike gen 3 & gen 4. Besides, I think that some of the gen 4 things — even the remakes of Gold and Silver — added a huge amount of useless minigames and rubbish that aren’t really central to the game itself in any way. The pokémon contests were pretty cool when they started in … gen 3 (otherwise, I can’t remember much about gen 3 at all, and I think I’ve lost the copy I had of a gen 3 game, so I won’t even try to comment on that), but in gen 4, they’re so overly complicated and full of useless shit that I have to confess that I never even played any of them. Dear game developers, I do appreciate that you try to put more content into my game so that I get as much game as I possibly can, but could you keep it to the actual point of the game, which is to catch and raise pokémon, and not to toddle about doing completely irrelevant and useless shit? I might then regain my faith in you. I’m having this ominous feeling about gen 5, which is on its way, but hey, what can you do. Replay Heart Gold, I s’pose?
The thing I find that makes me so attracted to Pokémon isn’t necessarily the story — because let’s face it, it’s always the same. I mean, there are some cool inspirational quotes and the general underlying theme of “you can do anything you really want to do” that I kind of love, but there’s always the raise-pokémon-defeat-rival-defeat-gym-leaders-defeat-champion-toddle-around-and-look-for-additional-stuff-to-beat. The thing that interests me is the utter freedom of the gameplay. Sure, there’s one place you have to go before the other is unlocked, but you’re free to toddle around in one area for as long as you want: and the pokémon that keep appearing, and your pokémon growing stronger always seems to keep you interested. Then again, there’s always the possibility that toddling around for too long, or having too long transitions from one area to another become too long and annoying — which is also why I loved gen 2, because the area was so compact and everything was so close by; it was an efficient, nice little game for a short attention span like mine. But it wasn’t too short, since it gave you this whole second region and everything, and even there, everything was comfortably close by. Another thing that makes Pokémon so attractive are the cute, awesome Pokémon, of course. Mwaha.
Uhm. Maybe that’s enough talk about Pokémon. Last, but definitely not least, a game I replay on definite intervals (usually about a year and a bit, because that’s enough time to let you forget the specifics of how to do everything, and what happens next), is Beyond Good and Evil. I keep telling pretty much everyone who will listen how underappreciated Beyond Good and Evil is — how amazing a game it is, and how amazing the themes and messages in it are, and how awesome the gameplay and how great the graphics are, considering that this game was released in flippin’ 2003 — and how awesome the soundtrack is, and how lovely (though kind of confusingness) and engaging the story is. Seriously, there are two groups, when considering this game: those who loved it, and those who haven’t played it. Maybe that’s exaggerating a little, but seriously, it is a hell of an awesome game. It’s got sneaky bits, action bits, taking-photograph-y bits, racing with floating vehicles bits, and and and and I must faint now in the face of the awesome that is this game. I’m sorry I can’t adequately express my love for this game — OH HOLY SHIT I FORGOT THAT YOU COLLECT SHINY PEARLS (AND CRYSTALS) IN THIS UBISOFT GAME TOO HOW COULD I FORGET I’m a bad person and I really need to replay this game *catches breath*
Um. Er. Hi. There are other games I play, of course, and I may have forgotten some of the most important gaming experiences of my life, but I don’t have infinite memory (or infinitely patient readers, either), so I’ll have to stop listing and expressing here. Besides… I totally forgot what I was going to say, heeee! Uh. I congratulate you for getting through this long post — in fact, I will reward you by not posting & answering another question tonight. 8D If you have any more questions about the games I play, feel free to drop a comment (but please don’t tell me how much of a girly gamer I am, that’s a sensitive spot :p). Oh, and go play Beyond Good and Evil. Now.
Peace and love and shiny, collectible things.
Rationalising about irrationality
05 Sep 2010 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: late at night, ponderings, seasons, slight angst, suspense, videogames
UPD 13-Sep-2010: While trying to sort out all the prompts for the next post, I realised that this one pretty much fills the one for
Day 21: Something illogical you think or do.
I actually had a pretty good day today, for once. Good on the scale that it’s raining now, and probably rather cold outside, but I don’t even care — yeah, me, the sun-loving, cold-hating little kitty-cat doesn’t care that it’s wet and cold outside (and why should I, I’m inside; but a lot of the time I do, so take that). Or, well, at least I had a good end of the day — it kind of began pretty shittily, with a headache and nausea that caused me to want to eat only frozen raspberries for breakfast and got my mother to nag about how I’m feeling sick just because I haven’t eaten properly, but I, personally, attribute it rather to my incredibly stupid hormonal cycle (though I wouldn’t tell that to her, since you can’t argue with The Ex-Nurse), which causes, along headaches and nausea and various cramps, this incredibly annoying irritability, hyper-sensitivity (because I’m always sensitive) and irrationality.
I’m a very rational human being — I like science, and I like logic. I’ve always been thanked in English for being able to construct a coherent, logical argument. I do like creative writing, too — but even in that, I like my thoughts to be organised, my intentions to be clear, and each and every thing that happens in a short story or in a novel to be rational, and to clearly and logically follow some other action. This applies even to human beings in my stories — except on a more emotional level. My stories are usually character-driven, and before I create anything else, I will create a character; and how I envision that character to feel and to think, that is where the logic of the story is. Everything has a place and a reason — even seemingly random and useless occurrences are usually there because I felt they would suit that spot there, and because later, they will develop into a character trait or a plot twist or something less significant than that.
I know you’re probably confused about where I’m going with all this, but be patient with me — this blog is one of those things that isn’t exactly very organised, logical and coherent, and there’s multiple reasons for that, too; ones that should be clear in the way I write and what I write about. Anyway. If you go into as superficial definitions as stereotypes, you could say that I’m pretty male in a lot of ways; in how I value rational logic (oh, except that I don’t fit those stereotypes at all, because as logical as I like to think that I am, I’m also pretty driven by emotion; but I think that even emotions are logical in some sort of a manner, and all you need to do is understand the origin of the emotion for it to be clear and rational as day — I don’t like the misconception that logic and emotions can’t go hand in hand) and how I’m incredibly unable to multitask. This is completely unrelated, but this should be mentioned, mostly for shits and giggles — especially since my significant other is always so eager to remind me that I can’t do basic things such as drinking and walking at the same time. The explanation for this is a lot more physical than the one for my usual inability to multitask — simple concentration on one thing at a time, I do something with 110% efficiency or not at all.
But I’m obviously not male, and I’ve got a stupidly retarded hormonal cycle to remind me of that. Even forgetting the physical unpleasantries, I would still hate it with a passion, because of what it does to my mind. Once every bleeding month, I become incredibly depressed over nothing in particular, and the smallest, usually perceived shortcomings of myself or the people around me will make me burst into tears. If there is no such outlet, I will be gloomy and depressed and lethargic for a few days. Then, I become irritable and impatient for the next, often going back to being the sarcastic, almost mean-spirited, too-good-for-you human being I was a few years ago. After this, the hormones usually decide to leave me alone and let me be considerably happy for the next few weeks — until it comes back.
The most annoying thing about this stupid cycle (you can probably tell how much I hate it from counting how many times I’ve referred to it as “stupid” — I was never very good with insults, *smiles sheepishly*) is that the extravagant, ridiculous extremes that my emotions fly to are so very real to me. I get incredibly depressed over someone dropping a cookie on the floor (an actual reference I use when I’m bawling over nothing in particular to note the world around me of how no-one died and that I’m actually rather alright), and at that moment, it is the end of the world, for me. Where it gets infuriating and bizarre is the notion that even when I’m feeling so depressed over the death of this cookie, I will still acknowledge how ridiculous I’m being. I could almost bet that 75% of the aforementioned irritability is my internal fury for not being able to contain my stupid, chemical-ridden brain. Those weeks are probably the only ones in which I will feel strongly about nothing in particular, and be just as irrational as women are, according to the stereotype, supposed to be, most of the time. It annoys me SO; and even more so, because there is actually nothing I can do about it. Just bitch and whine like the teenage girl I am, ugh.
So, that’s passing over another time, again — no-one’s dead yet, so I suppose that’s a good sign — and I’ve been having a fairly alright day. In this day, I witnessed once more how it is impossible for me to stay within word limits (writing a report for Chemistry on the industrial production of ethene — there are seven or so points we need to cover, and I’m in the middle of covering point 2, already having used half of the word limit), dabbled with The Sims 3 a bit again (just a bit, though, because I didn’t really have time to REALLY get into it) and talked on the phone with my significant other, the drummer deity, for some 45 minutes or so. God, that was one of the best conversations on phone that I’ve had for ages. Still, I wish he was home already. I wish next week wouldn’t be so busy. I wish it were holidays already. I wish it to be next weekend, when I’m supposed to get my copy of Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep! Most importantly, I wish it were tomorrow, because I’m supposed to get French toast tomorrow, heeee.
Carpe diem, they say, and I endorse that idea — but sometimes it’s just so HARD. It’s hard to not wait for all of this awesome stuff; it’s hard to make yourself concentrate on probability (that I still don’t get; damn you, Markov chains) and on all this school stuff going on, because SPRING IS COMING and summer is almost here and IT’S ALMOST OVER.
Peace and French toast to everybody.
