The Hammer of War!

It's been a few days since I posted, so I'm sorry about all that. But you've got me back, so dry your tears and listen up.

In the last year or so I've encountered a phenomenon. To explain, I'll start from the beginning.

I'm a gamer.

If you didn't know, you do now. I've played video games for quite some time, and I feel I'm rather talented at it. Sure, I'm not terribly competitive, and when I am I'm usually middle of the road decent. But I'm a gamer, and playing video games is my hobby. It's what I do. But recently (as in the last few years or so) I began getting interested in other expressions of my gaming hobby. Video games aren't quite enough.

So I got into tabletop gaming. D&D (Dungeons and Dragons for the uninformed) caught my eye, and my fiance and I (along with our old pal Justin) started playing on Tuesday nights. It's been a year, and while we've lost characters and Justin stopped playing, we're still going strong trying to figure out the mystery that is 4th edition. But even then, its still a "sit and see what happens" style to gaming. I still wanted more.

At the old gaming store here in Hattiesburg, the Gamer Sanctuary, I used to see people playing war with little plastic painted men. Lo and behold, they were playing a game called Warhammer Fantasy Battle and another version called Warhammer 40,000 (40k for short). For a quick and easy description, it's exactly as I said: a war game with little plastic painted me. It's much more deep than that: it involves assembling and painting them yourself, and has a fairly (arguably) complete set of rules. Well, there's something about the dedication of purchasing, assembling, and painting all those figures and taking them out to fight for justice (or death, whichever).

Through various setbacks, I've finally got a fair assemblage of figures. My army size is middle range, and I'm still learning. You, my loyal readers, will likely be hearing a lot about it in the time to come. I'll put up pictures of my figures and do little tactical articles here and there.

Also, these two hobbies have mixed in the form of the relatively fantastic Warhammer Online, based on Warhammer Fantasy.

So... interested? Don't care? Comment!

Infantilism

While I'm thinking of Mega Man 9, I thought I'd share this with you. There's not much of a better way to describe how that games makes me feel than this. Thank you Penny Arcade, thank you very much.

Oh, and I'm trying to figure out Flickr... silly me.

Anniversary

Sorry about the lack of content today. I figured I would take a break as today is my 3 year anniversary with my fiance, Elizabeth. We hung out all day and ended the day by eating a delicious dinner at the Crescent City Grill here in Hattiesburg. I really recommend it if you haven't gone there, it's absolutely worth it. It's really reasonably priced as well. So anyway, I'm getting married in a year from today! Hopefully since we're getting married on the same day as our dating anniversary I can remember our wedding anniversary!

Cheers!

Game Review: Mega Man 9 (Wii Version)

Remember back when video games were hard? Back when games were designed to make people who thought they could do anything cry to their mommies? Sure you do. That was back when the NES reigned supreme and there were no contenders to the throne. The Sega Genesis would come later to challenge them, but for now, Nintendo ruled the day. Back then, games were so mind-numbingly difficult, it was as if they created jumps with such a small margin of error... well needless to say it was frustrating.

The original Mega Man games were like this. With a rock/paper/scissors style gameplay and some of the most difficult platforming around, Mega Man epitomized the state of gaming. However, these games did something that other games would find it hard to do: it made hard gameplay fun. I was little when Mega Man came out. In fact, the original came out the year I was born. Therefore, I grew up with the games. Every couple of years or so, a new iteration would come out, improving (arguably) the formula, and adding newer, weirder Robot Masters. Towards the end, the series kind of petered out, stretching creativity with the boss robots and the powers they gave until things just seemed... unnecessary. Since then there have been spin-off series such as X, Zero, and games that don't even resemble the original like the .net series games.

So with games getting better graphics, becoming more surreal and vicereal in their depiction of violence, wouldn't the newest iteration of the classic Mega Man series do the same?

No bloodly likely.

Mega Man 9 returns to the age of the arguably best game in the series: Mega Man 2. No buster charge, no slide, and no mercy. Everything you would expect of a game in the later 80s/early 90s is here: 8-bit graphics, MIDI music, and simple but difficult and fun gameplay. This is a classic Mega Man game in every way, except nobody's played this exact version until 2008. Let's start from the beginning.

Graphics
8-bit all the way. This is the Mega Man I remember and boy does it make a retro gamer squee (squee: silly noise of joy). The enemies have a limited amount of animations and Mega Man looks just like he did on all the NES games. There can be a bit of slow-down when there is a lot going on on the screen, but this doesn't really harm the gameplay much. In every situation where it matters, the game runs smooth as ice. If you're a recent graphics hog, this game will probably make you vomit a little, however. Mega Man 9 is unapologetically old-school. There are no, and I mean zero new graphical additions to this game. And that's just the way I like it.


Sound
Boy oh boy do I love the MIDI soundtrack. I'm the kind of guy who actually has Mega Man music on my iPod, so you can see how this would tickle my fancy. Just like with the graphics, this is NES style all the way. Heck, on the opening screen the music will lessen when you select something, with one sound effect cancelling out the other. Its jarring for the uninitiated but, again, I'm a retro gamer at heart.

Gameplay
Ah the meat of the game, eh? The core Mega Man experience is all here. You open up with this:



From here you pick one of the 8 Robot Masters. Then you're subjected to what amounts to a 'obstacle course of DEATH' where the boss you chose sits at the end. Then you go toe to mechanical toe with the foe (I rhymed!) where the prize for victory is your opponent's weapon, and the price for failure is death (and rebirth if you have extra lives). Then you rinse and repeat, but this time you'll have the last boss's power to help you out. Then you experience the rock/paper/scissor gameplay I mentioned earlier: every Robot Master has a weakness to another's weapon. Therefore, a big part of the game is figuring out who to fight and in what order.

In each stage, you have to run, jump, shoot, and avoid pitfall/spikes. Each stage presents different obstacles, such as the rain and wind in Tornado Man's stage or the instant-kill magma beams in Magma Man's stage.



Each jump is tentative, and each stage feels like it was designed to make you fail. This isn't a flaw in design (which would be frustrating) but a deliciously devilish idea that makes you feel truly talented to succeed. The biggest problem for me and likely most gamers is the amount of times you will fail. If you don't die a zillion (exact number) times, then you are what I like to call, a super-gamer. Sometimes it IS arbitrary. You'll get hit, which knocks you back a bit, and fall off a ledge. You'll jump just a little too late, plummeting into the dark abyss. There is hope though: if you notice at the bottom of the stage select is a little house icon. There, you can use the screws you pick up throughout each stage to purchase things such as Beat, a bird that will lift you out of a pit once per purchase, or a spike guard that will keep you alive if you touch spikes, again once per purchase. This is very helpful, but ultimately won't help as in my personal experience, they never help when they need to. Only if you stock up will it truly make a difference.

Verdict
If you're a fan of retro games, buy this game right now. Stop reading (comment first, of course) and go buy it. If you don't like old games, stay away. This game is difficult, dated looking, and old sounding. I've read comments by people on forums that say things like "I refuse to play a NES game in this day and age." This game isn't for you, unfortunately. Not a judgment on character or anything. It's just a game made for people who do want to play NES games in this day and age. Heck, I own the anniversary collection on PS2, so I DO play NES games on occasion. Classic in every way, I give this game a personal

A

Agree, disagree? Comment!

Long Time Coming (Update)

Well, looks like I'm a little behind. When I created this blog, I intended on posting often. However, life gets ahold of us, it seems, and keeps us from doing thing like intended. So anyway, I'm back. A new school year has started, my last, and there are a lot of new things in my life.

Since I last posted, I finished studying Greek, got engaged to my beautiful (now fiance) Elizabeth, and my first nephew, Ethan, was born. Justin is still doing well, he's in a class called Historiography with me, though we aren't roommates anymore. I moved back in with my parents because, hey, college is less expensive that way. Lastly, I've now been working at the Best Buy here in Hattiesburg since early March. See? Lots of new things.

With all the good news, I'm afraid I have some bad news. Justin won't be posting on this blog anymore. Don't worry, he still loves you. He just has too much on his plate to worry about keeping up-to-date posts and such. Let's have a moment of silence.

Shh, I hear you talking.

One more minute.

Okay, got that out? Well I'll be keeping up the Randominity, which I'm pretty sure isn't a word. Now that the blog is just with me, you're going to be subject to my terrifying thoughts on things such as Video Games, Movies, Comic Books, Art, Novels, Tabletop Games, as well as my thoughts on Christianity, Politics, and happy/sad events in my life. Good luck, it should be a fun ride.

Glad I'm back? Want Justin back? Got some mean, unsavory names you want to call me? Comment!