To-crack-o

I got an iPhone about a week ago, and suddenly I feel like Jesus. I can manifest all the world's collected knowledge with a simple wave of my hand, no matter where I happen to be at the moment, and it's goddamn sleek. I can't turn water into wine with the thing yet, but I hear they're working on it.

I downloaded a free game for it called Aurora Feint: The Beginning, and it's addictive. It's basically Tetris Attack meets RPG meets awesomeness. Kind of Puzzle Quest-ish. And apparently an update in the future will implement MMORPG elements. Though I've managed to avoid MMO's for the most part, I certainly understand the allure. MMORPG's, as I see it, are like tobacco products; you can quit them for a while, but you always keep coming back, even if they're not as great as you remember them being. You just need that fix, even if it's nothing more than mindless grinding or loot collecting.

And Tetris Attack, as I've mentioned before, is the crack cocaine of puzzle games.

So essentially Aurora Feint is some ungodly mixture of crack cocaine and tobacco, and sometimes you just want it straight into your veins.

Booxatron's Top Ten

Let me first preface this list by saying that it is impossible, absolutely impossible I tell you, to put these in any sort of order, to place one game any higher than any other. So they're presented in the order in which I thought them up. Perhaps that means something?

Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence - I'm a huge Metal Gear fanboy, ever since the first one made it to the NES (even though I sucked at it and never got very far in). Hell, the only reason I have a PS3 in my living room right now is because of this series. Metal Gear Solid blew my mind when it was released in 1998. It took everything that was great about Escape from New York, quite possibly the greatest movie ever, threw in great stealth gameplay, unforgettable characters, and just the right amount of Japanese (read: bizarre, absurd, wacky) quirks. It was tough to choose just one game out of the series, but MGS3 won in pretty much every important category (story, gameplay, presentation). MGS2 was a little less fun to play, as a game (and Rose was a whiny bitch), but it gets huge points in my book for the postmodern masterpiece that it is.

Super Mario World - If I HAD to choose a number one, this would probably be it. Throughout the ages, no character has ever controlled as smoothly and intuitively as Mario, and SMW was the pinnacle of this. The level design was perfect, the controls were perfectly tuned, the difficulty was never too much but the game was never boring (it was perfect), sound and music were perfect for the setting, perfect, perfect, perfect. Perfect pretty much sums it up.

Castlevania: SOTN - This should be on everyone's top ten list, and I don't even need to say why. Okay, maybe I do - just when you reach 100% completion, the freaking castle flips upside down and you realize you have another 100% to complete. Realizing way, way after the fact that ALUCARD is DRACULA spelled backwards made me feel both stupid and even more infatuated with the game.

Contra - Here's what I have gathered about Contra's story based solely on the game itself: You are two American mercenaries, codenames Mad Dog and Scorpion. Commies are bad. The Vile Red Falcon are a bunch of commies, and they need to die. They've managed to recruit an alien race, consisting mostly of giant scorpions, mouths stuck to walls, and an enormous human heart, to fight for their cause. You must save the universe. The greatest thing about this game is that despite the fact that I can beat in under twenty minutes, I've spent scores of hours playing it.

Final Fantasy Tactics - I love tactics style games, and this one defined the genre. Nothing has come close, and nothing ever will. The story, though it took me a couple playthroughs and a Wikipedia (I love you, Wiki) summary to fully pick up, is one of my favorites.

Final Fantasy VI - ion ray says it all. A FREAKING YETI. Not to mention the Magic Half-Beast lady, the "treasure hunter", the old man, the wild plains boy, or the mime...thing. Best characters ever.

Chrono Trigger - If any game came even close to giving FF6's characters a run for their money, it would be this game. Seriously, a medieval frog knight (named Frog, natch), a robot from the distant future, a brainy genius, and a prehistoric cavewoman all in the same party? With the ability to trip through time? Yes, please. The gameplay was very innovative for its' time and it's still a blast to play.

The Legend of Zelda - This was a tough choice between the original and Link to the Past. There was more to do in LttP, but the first LoZ just felt so much more epic, even after LttP. Maybe I just never got into the lore, but I feel like the introduction of text and other NPC's into the series just ruined the experience. Not that I didn't enjoy the other games in the series, but I never gave a crap about anyone but Link, Ganon, and Zelda. Even then I didn't want to hear them talk to each other. All I ever needed to know about the Legend was "The princess is in trouble, save her" and whatever helpful tidbits the characters felt like writing on their floor when I walked in.

Tetris Attack - I've put more hours into this game than I've put into a lot of RPG's. Addictiveness is a quality you can't quite measure but you can always tell is there, mostly by looking at the clock and seeing that six real hours have passed in the span of twenty in-your-head-minutes. The crack cocaine of puzzle games.

Secret of Monkey Island - I must admit here that I have never played Day of the Tentacle, or Full Throttle, or a lot of classic adventure games that I should have played (and will, whenever "one of these days" hits). But I did play Secret of Monkey Island, and let me tell you, I found love on that day. Between the blind watchman, the insult swordfighting, the rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle, and the ghost pirate whose only vulnerablility is being sprayed with root beer, I can't say enough good things about this game.

first post!

I feel it's necessary to establish a couple things as this gets started. The idea has been basically to have a blog about gaming, so that part's complete. The tricky part is establishing myself in this space of the internet I've set my stake on and figuring out a compelling way to present what ideas I would have. Fortunately for the first part of my predicament I have the ultimate solution, which is completely contradictory to compelling presentation, but ah, fuck it.
It's a time-honored tradition and old ways are best ways, so to start this off I figured I'd give my top ten favorite games.

10. Halo 3 - I'm reluctant to even put this on the list since it's so recent, but I've put as more time into this game than both Morrowind and Oblivion (trust me, that's a lot.) It's so popular that my indie sense goes off and makes me want to hate it, but I keep going back. The multiplayer has an arcade feel to it, reminiscent of Goldeneye, which probably would have been on here, if I could still play FPS on N64 (I don't know how I did it in the first place!)

9. Mario 64 - I was going to write a paragraph about my first experience with this game and the nostalgia involved, but this covered the explanations a while back. Thanks guy.

8. Taiko Drum Master - Those damned squeaky voiced on-screen drums and their plastic controller counterparts were staples of party nights with my friends. We used to talk about how awesome it would be to have other instruments to play before guitar hero came out, then how awesome it would be to combine the two into something akin to having a Rock Band.

7. Incredible Crisis - Music by Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra. 'Nuff Said.

6. Final Fantasy 6 - I've resigned to calling this game by it's appropriate title, though it will always be Final Fantasy 3 in my heart. I got in trouble as a kid for staying up late/getting up early to play this game on several occasions. But I mean, come on! You get a yeti in the party! A freaking yeti! And that's after the ninja, the samurai, the guy with the chainsaw, and the laser-spewing robot armor!

5. Fallout - I always loved the story and narrative in not only this game, but it's excellent sequel as well. Admittedly though, my most recent experience with the game has consisted of nothing more than F5, steal, repeat. Who doesn't want four hundred machetes to give to Ian though?

4. Legend of Zelda - The original. The Classic. Those god-damned like-likes. This was my dad and my own favorite game for a long time. The size of the map itself was staggering for its time, and the game came prepackaged with the balls to tell you that once you beat the game you had to do it again, only harder!

3. Bubble Bobble - As soon as you read the words Bubble Bobble, the theme started playing in your head, didn't it? It's infectious, just like the game itself. Even the concept makes me happy: Bubble-blowing dinosaurs traps enemies in bubbles, converting them to fruit, all in an effort to rescue girlfriends from a guy who, in the Japanese version, is called Super Drunk.

2. Mega Man 2 - Arguably one of the easiest games made next to Chip 'n Dale's Rescue Rangers. I've beaten Mega Man 2 more times than I know, and yet I always feel satisfied in doing so. Maybe it's the killer soundtrack. Maybe it's because it is another NES game where you dominate with bubbles.

1. Chrono Trigger - If you know anything about video games, then you knew this game would be on this list somewhere. Final Fantasy 6 may have been my first foray into Square RPGs, but I think it was just secretly getting me ready for this. Sure, a 1000 year old war is cool, but if you let me time travel through it? And I still get to cast Ultima? Oh, I know they call it Luminaire, but I know Ultima when I see it!