Video Games edit
Holy crizap, wanna spend about 4 hours reading this section? Assuming I go over everything concerning these little bastards and how great they are it might take that long to get through it all, maybe longer. Oh well, on with it already...
I was introduced to the concept of video games at the ripe old age of 1.5 years old. I've been obsessed with the damn things ever since. If you do the math that means I've got over 22 years of gaming experience under my belt, so I consider myself a bit of an authority on the subject. Since then, I've owned a truckload of gaming goodness. A semi-complete list is:
- 1 Atari 2600 (gave it to a pair of my cousins, it and the games belonged to my great-grandmother and then was given to me)
- I want to say I had 20-35 games for the 2600
- 2 Colecovisions, both of which still work and have controllers that are semi-operational (will probably work better if they're repaired)
- 50-75 Colecovision games (most to all work)
- 1 Nintendo Entertainment System
- somewhere between 40 and 75 NES games
- 1 Super Nintendo Entertainment System
- 15-20 or so SNES games
- 1 Sega Genesis
- 10-15 Genesis games
- 2 Sega Game Gears
- 5 Game Gear games
- 1 Nintendo 64 (was given to me by a friend, he left it over my house and just told me to keep it)
- like 3-5 N64 games
- 2 Sony Playstations
- 30-50+ PSX games
- 1 Sega Dreamcast (a system that died way before its time)
- 10 DC games
- 1 Microsoft XBox
- 8 XBox games
- PC games - 30+ PC games
Through the years my taste in games has gotten better (I hope) and my preferences have developed into what they are right now. As for what my preferences are, that's not too hard. Very generally, I'm most into games with high attention paid to gameplay, storyline (if any is present), ease of control, seamlessness, sound, and graphics. Oh, and fun too of course. You should be able to tell a good game from a mediocre game by observing these basic characteristics (save graphics, as even mediocre games can have pretty graphics and unfortunately some people/companies seem to feel good graphics makes up for a massively flawed game... it doesn't). If a company has put the proper time and effort into development that will translate to the gamer, assuming of course the publisher hasn't raped the dev company/team of valuable time or money needed to complete a game. This happens all too often unfortunately. But I digress...
For quite a few years now my favorite genre of game has been of the role playing variety. I played D&D for a short while but not long enough to call myself highly experienced; considering the small group of friends/other people I had a chance to get together with I didn't get in too many sessions, though apparently according to people I DM'd for (I DM'd probably 90% of the time I played) I was pretty good. My main RPG experience, therefore, is of the console and PC variety. My favorite RPG sub-genre is traditional turn-based, and my favorite game thus far is in this genre: Final Fantasy 7. I swear when it comes to the Final Fantasy series and that game in particular I turn into such a fanboy, it's disgusting. As far as FF7 is concerned, I think that the story was particularly well written, the battle/materia systems worked well, and most of the characters (PC&NPC) were pretty well fleshed out, though Vincent and Yuffie in particular could've had more content. I do have issues with the game, like the bad localization which honestly I find damn hilarious for the most part.
As far as other RPGs including TRPGs (traditional RPGs), SRPGs (strategy RPGs), ARPGs (action RPGs), and MMORPG (massively multiplayer online RPGs) are concerned, I'm a fan of many other games. For example:
- Final Fantasy MQ/6/8/9/10/Tactics
- Atlus's Persona 1 and Persona 2: Eternal Punishment1
- Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete
- Chrono Trigger
- Chrono Cross
- Suikoden 1
- Wild ARMs
- Xenogears
- The Legend of Dragoon
- The Legend of Zelda 1/3/Ocarina of Time (Zelda 2 was a travesty. Also, oddly enough the BEST and most hardcore player I've ever seen regarding LoZ1 is my grandmother [mom's mom]. My grandmother is insane when it comes to that game. Back when she used to play it all the time she manually mapped out the overworld and every single labyrinth by hand on graph paper, both the normal game and the extra game, complete with locations for equipment, shops, old mens' hideouts, goblin rupee caches, treasure chests, keys, maps, compasses, stairs and where they lead, bosses, and triforce pieces. Not to mention I personally witnessed her on at least 2 separate occasions start up a new game from scratch, beat the entire normal game without dying or saving once, immediately go into the extra game, and beat the entire extra game also without dying or saving once.)
- Shining Force 1/2 (I seriously want to get ahold of a copy of an English version of Shining Force 3, unfortunately only the first disc was released outside of Japan and I don't speak Japanese yet so I'd be missing out on a lot. There's new Shining Force games being made, like Shining Force Neo; unfortunately SFN and any other new SF games being made at this point have been/will be Action RPGs instead of the old Strategy RPGs, which imo is a horrible decision regarding this series and the route it's taking. It's too bad.)
- Illusion of Gaia
- Terranigma
- Landstalker
- Breath of Fire 1/2/3
- Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals
- Secret of Mana and Secret of Mana 2(a.k.a. Seiken Densetsu 3)
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1/2
- Fable (to an extent, it fell so short of its expectations it's pathetic)
- Jade Empire (actually right after beating this I was reading some critical reviews at a few sites and came to realize that this game is mediocre at best, given its short gameplay time, lack of many areas to visit, etc.)
- Everquest (I've played off and on since September 2001)
- Diablo (the first one owned, the 2nd was ok for a while but got boring quick).
1: I've only played the US versions though seeing how I live in the US and I don't yet read Japanese, and unfortunately according to people in the know both of those games' US localizations were HORRIBLE compared to the original Japanese releases. However, I'm still a big fan of both.
I know there are a lot of games I am missing in this list. Some of them I'm just forgetting, but unfortunately given the lack of having my own PS2 I haven't really had much of a reason to keep up on games for that console. Unfortunately XBox hasn't become a big RPG console, hell there aren't very many. I know I own KotOR 1 and 2 but they're not my favorite type of RPG really, and I own Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, but that game has major problems and I won't even bother touching it anymore. I need to eventually get my hands on a PS2 and copies of games like Final Fantasy X and X-2, Suikoden 3, Xenosaga 1 and 2, the .hack series, Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga and SMT: Nocturne, Shadow Hearts 1 and 2, and others, as well as a GameCube(really) and copies of the Tales... series (Tales of Symphonia, etc.), Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, and a few other games.
To be continued...