Monday, October 29, 2007

2K7 Game-a-Week Week# 43: Info dump

I had hoped to get to this blog again sooner, but time (and fires) had other plans. Basically I just wanted to reconnect with this journal and put a few items down for posterity.

Game-wise, I've been playing a few different titles - sort of how people say they are reading several books at one time. When Halo 3 came out, I decided it was time to really try to make some progress with Halo 1. For the most part, I have. I've actually gotten to the point of rescuing the captain and finding out that the structure floating in space is called *gasp* Halo! So that's where the name came from. Who knew?

On my DS I've been playing Final Fantasy III. Having the DS is great - I can play for 15-20 minutes before bed, while I'm already in bed and can close it up, put it on the head board and go to sleep without getting up again. The game itself is well made, but I will echo the critics in saying that the touch screen is very under used. I normally don't even take out the stylus. This isn't really a bad thing, however. Running an RPG with just buttons is fine with me.

I got out my old (very old by game standards) Zelda Oracle of Seasons CGB cart and am playing it in my trusty SP. And oh, does it look sweet! The colors they used were terribly muted by the Color Gameboy's hardware (not that the CGB was a bad unit - no such thing; the original GBA was bad!). I will likely have to get another SP to hang onto for the future. Nothing else plays the original Gameboy games in such glory (except the Gameboy player, to a degree).

Online, we are still playing at Dungeon Runners. Nice to play for an hour or so at a time. Nothing too hard or too frustrating, but I do wish it had a bit more diversity of monsters and tile sets.

One thing I have had to change is my videogame addiction spending habits - in short, I was running amok with the credit cards. A hundred dollars a week (or more!) is just not acceptable. And, what I realized is that, I've already got a mountain of games to play that represent some of the best there is to play! Everytime I look at my collection, I frequently see a set of 3 or more games, that I'd love to play that have never seen the inside of my consoles. What's the point of adding to that pile, especially if the games I'm adding are inferior to what I already have? So, I'm running on a budget now. I have to really plan my next purchase instead of just buying whatever looks good. With the coming holiday season (and glut of new releases), that's going to take some restraint. I know my first purchase post-budgeting is going to be Manhunt 2, but I still can't decide if it's going to be for the Wii or PS2. At this point, probably the Wii. (Interesting note: Will Wright, game dev master god, was recently quoted as saying the Wii was the only real "next generation" system, because the others were just graphically enhanced versions of what was already on the market. And ya know what, that's why I got a Wii! There isn't anything the PS3 or 360 can do that can't be done on the respective previous platforms, just in lower resolutions. I remember thinking that at least the Wii wasn't just another game-pad machine.)

Well, that's it for now. With any luck, I'll be able to restart my real Game-a-Week program in the near future - 2008 if nothing else!