Midweek Post: What I Play

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   Good Wednesday to you all; the past few days I've been toiling away on Suzuka, restarting Valkyrie, and polising up Poison (still haven't started painting her yet, sadly :S; maybe today'll change that) and beginning work on another girl (on the one hand, having this many ladies around is quite pleasing...on the other hand I don't think I've drawn a dude in who-know-how-long).  But I'm actually not here to post up anything on that stuff; it can wait until the weekend.  Instead I'm going to start mid-week updates that have nothing to do w/ that stuff.  I can take this time to talk about stuff that interests me in general, or just what I've been up to.

    I'd like to consider myself a big gamer.  True, I don't play as much as I used to (the time simply isn't there, and it'll only get worst in that respect from here) but when I do, I like to absorb myself into their world and turn each play into a little adventure.  I enjoy seeing how the game works, and somehow bending its reality to my twisted sense of humor.  Also, I do thoroughly enjoy messing up a lot, but that's something else entirely. 

    The past few weeks I've been making a transformation from being a guy who plays mostly fighting games to being a guy who plays mostly Zelda.  I was never a big Zelda fan before, but that had more to do w/ not getting an opportunity to play them.  As A Link to the Past has shown me, it's probably Nintendo's best-regarded series for a reason.  It's simply pure fun and a smooth-going (in terms of the absorption factor) affair from start to end.

   So far I've managed to grab all three pendants, the Master Sword and that Triforce-looking symbol thingamajig (as I mentioned in the last blog post), so sometime this weekend I would suppose it's back to the Castle to once again save Zelda...yep, she's been kidnapped again.  You would think the King would have the witch create some anti-kidnapping amulet or atleast give his daughter a dagger and weekend swordsman practice; if Link can attack w/ the equivalent of a broken toothpick (sorry, still can't get over that, coming off the Mongolor boss) and survive pretty well, Zelda should do about as decent w/ a sharp daggar.

    But continuing w/ this old-school feast of playing games I missed out on when they came out (b/c, understandably, I was too young to play them then), I also decided to start up Super Mario World.  I actually tried playing through the other older Mario games earlier (or at least tried getting a feel for them), and the general concesus was:  Mario 1- jump=bad; Mario 2 (US version)-me=dumb, Mario 2 (Japan version)-game=HARD (tho I might can do it now), Mario 3-sun=bastard (tho I owe Arino of Game Center CX a thanks for showing a, honestly obvious, method to dealing w/ him.).  In other words, Mario was serving me some nasty pasta :S.

    But, who would think it would've taken World to finally get me on his good side!  Everything feels just right here; I have no issue w/ his jumps and the stages ramp up nicely in difficulty.  Right now I'm around 3-3 (having just gotten past that Boo house; those green floating balls kept giving me some headaches, not to mention times in 3-1 and 3-2 where I died needlessly, forcing my own restarts), so this weekend I'm aiming to get atleast through the end of World 4 completed.  If it's like the other Mario games, that'll be half the quest complete, which is about good enough for me given the time frame.

     Then there is, of course, Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts.  There's no reason for me to lampoon on it's story, history or mind-exaberating challenge; this is all historically and scientifically documented.  Yet being the fiend I am, I come to relish that challenge.  Spending a good deal of time w/ the American version and some w/ the Japanese original, it's pretty obvious Capcom skimped on the challenge in the former, though that's only relatively speaking.  I was almost ballsy enough to just play the Japanese version through..I got up to start of Stage 2 before things really discouraged me, but for now I'm content to try and get through the American version first.

   Still, there's a vast deal of differences (little differences to some, but they do add up) btwn the two I'd love to outline the future once I get through both versions, though there's no solid time I'm aiming for doing that.  Maybe this weekend I can have the stride to beat the Level 2 boss and carry onward to Level 3, as Level 1's pretty much a joke by this point (gasp, how could I even think of saying such a thing on a such a...lol nah it really is now, I swear) but the watercraft part of level 2 is still causing some headache.  Most brutal of all is the set of...arrows I believe?...it gives you in the middle of that ocean.  As any respectable GnG player will tell you, the holy trinity of weapons in those games are (in order of power) Daggars, Chakrams, and Lances.  Play w/ any others and you are asking for an early(ier) demise.

   Given all this, right now of all the games I'm playing through the one that impresses me most is actually a Sega CD gem...on a system that had a lot of pretty bad games, a few good games, a handful of greats and a couple of gems, can you guess what game it is?  I'll give you a hint:  it doesn't involve hedgehogs.  I'll give you another hint:  it's company is currently in danger of being accused of pimping out Metal Gear Solid.  Yes, I'm speaking of none other than Snatcher, and I'm happy to finally get into this one.  "Happy" is a bit of an understatement; "estatic" is more the word.  I'm already a HUGE sucker for dark sci-fi and cyberpunk everything (well, it has to be GOOD too, but you get the picture x3), and Snatcher covers both highly well. 

    However, it's not just that; huge doses of Blade Runner notwithstanding, I can tell Kojima poured his heart into this game's story and universe.  It's crammed w/ extremely meticulous and thought-out backstories and mythos, interesting concepts and well-written characters that are very human.  It also has some of the best animation, visuals and voice-acting I've seen of any 16-bit game; even the action segments (this being a graphic adventure game..or a visual novel-meets-graphic adventure game...action comes off as very smooth which isn't typical of these sorts) are well done.

    The level of story to this game, honestly, puts most modern-day efforts to absolute shame; they try to be cinematic in ways that are overly artificial (or end up feeling that way, since the substance for that 'cinematic feel' is not there), forgetting to create a WORLD for their characters to inhabit, even the parts that the player may never visit.  Something should be there, something should let the player know of these interesting tales and oddity facts.  Kojima's one of the few designers out there that I think still cares and has the drive to do that sort of stuff...I just wish he'd do it w/ properties other than MGS.  I...smell a Snatcher/Policenauts sequel petition in the works here x3...

"And since I am calling it here..."

        That's all I have to say for this afternoon; just some general thoughts on four games I've been circling through.  Moreso than just playing them, I'm more interested in the little oddities of these games and seeing how they work and why they work, so some time soon inbetween all the artwork I'd love to do some deep analysis on each one and other games I happen to really enjoy.  All I can say is, it'll be interesting to see what happens w/ this, and it is a nice break from the artwork, as I mentioned above.  So while I'll be back this weekend w/ some new progress on current pictures, at least next week I'll maybe try this again, just a general blog post...there's a bad movie I want to wash out of my head at the moment, maybe I'll talk about that xD.

         Anyway that's all for now; thanks for reading.  Take care and see 'ya l8r.