Pixels Aplenty

I think it’s time to dork out, as the saying supposedly goes.

At least, at one time, playing video games was only a hobby for nerds.  Of course, now damn near everyone plays ’em.  Yet, certain things about certain games make me just totally feel like a dorkus maximus.  I mean, I’m probably one of only about five people on Earth who understands the storyline behind the Mortal Kombat games…character bios, winners, losers, who’s dead, who’s been resurrected…all that shit.  It always used to be a "barely there" story, but I still knew it.  I always found the characters themselves very interesting.  It would make a great series of movies (good ones, I mean…not like the two shitty ones they already did).  When playing Nintendogs, my two dogs are named after movie characters, a black lab named Vader (as in Darth, duh) and a brown Welsh corgi named Fei Shui (which translates to "Flying Snow," the character played by Maggie Cheung in Hero).  Like I said:  Dork.

But, anyway…

I’ve been playing video games since I was very young.  My dad got me started when I was about 4 by occasionally hooking up the Atari to play stuff like Pitfall, River Raid, or Combat.  Good times.  When I was 6, he bought me a Nintendo Entertainment System.  Oh, the glorious NES.  The list of great games for that thing is practically never-ending.  River City Ransom, Mike Tyson’s PunchOut, Super Mario Bros. 1 + 3, Mega Man 2, Super Dodge Ball, Major League Baseball, Ice Hockey, Ikari Warriors, Metal Gear, Castlevania 2, The Legend of Zelda, Tecmo Super Bowl, and just on and on and on until the end of time.  And let us not forget the absolute gayest game of all time, Amagon.  Yikes.  You’d have to see it to believe it.  Literally just reeks of homosexuality.  Not to mention it plays like shit, too.

The first game I ever "beat" (as in, finished) was a Sega Genesis game called Quackshot.  Basically it was Daffy Duck searching for some kind of treasure.  I don’t remember.  I just remember I beat it.  Of course, the Genesis was home to the greatest game ever, NHL ’94 (which, by the way, was butchered for the PS2 release of NHL 06…they had to change all the player names because most of ’em are retired now….which makes it pointless to have).  The most tense I’ve ever been playing a game (tense, but not in an angry way) was the first time I fought, and beat, Bowser at the end of Super Mario World on the SNES.  I lost a lot of hours to NBA Jam, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, Final Fight 3, and Super Mario Kart on that system, too.

The next console generation gave us the N64, PlayStation, and the less remebered Sega Saturn.  The Saturn was really a shitty system.  All the games I played for it sucked ass except for Daytona USA.  And it wouldn’t hold up today.  The N64 had tons of great stuff.  Mario Kart 64, WCW Revenge, WWF No Mercy, GoldenEye, Perfect Dark,  The Legend of Zelda:  The Ocarina of Time, Starfox 64, Mario Tennis, Gauntlet Legends, and many more.  The PS1 had more than its share of great ones, too.  Metal Gear Solid, Star Ocean:  The Second Story, and Chrono Cross being the greatest of them all.

Of the current consoles, I really have gained a ton of respect for the Xbox.  I bought one basically to play Halo (of course) and Star Wars:  Knights of the Old Republic.  It was the last console I bought, but now I have as many games for it as I do for my PS2, which came way before it.  In the annals of gaming history, I think the Xbox, PS2, and Gamecube will be remembered equally fondly.  The Gamecube seems to have more truly classic games.  The kind that invoke rabid followings, or are just plain astounding.  Tales of Symphonia, Super Smash Brothers Melee, Soul Calibur II, Mario Kart Double Dash, and Resident Evil 4, just to name five.  The PS2’s main accomplishment is more in terms of sales and mainstream exposure.  To me, it has the fewest true classics of the three.  Final Fantasy X, Star Ocean:  Till the End of Time, Dynasty Warriors 2-5, Katamari Damacy, and Metal Gear Solid 2 + 3 to again name five (franchises).  The Xbox has Halo 1+2, of course (I like the first one better), but the true gem is the KOTOR series.  Those two games are just awesome.  KOTOR II would be the greatest game ever made if only the developers had been allowed enough time to actually finish the game before release.  The planned endings were going to be flat out beautiful (as the recorded voice overs reveal).  Besides those two heavy hitters, the Xbox has Ninja Gaiden, Dead or Alive 2+3, Jade Empire, not to mention my tendency to buy most multi-platform games on Xbox instead of anything else now.  Yeah, load times are slightly faster.  Yeah, the graphics might be slightly better.  But it’s the controller that I love.  It’s so natural.  The PS2 controller feels small now.  The Gamecube controller has always seemed slightly awkward (and in some games, it is a pain in the hump).

To end this pixellated ramble, here is the list of my favorite ten games, ever:
1.  NHL ’94 (Genesis)
2.  Tales of Symphonia (Gamecube)
3.  Mario Kart 64 (N64)
4.  Star Ocean:  Till the End of Time (PS2)
5.  Star Wars:  Knights of the Old Republic II:  The Sith Lords (Xbox)
6.  NFL 2K1 (Dreamcast)
7.  Mega Man 2 (NES)
8.  Dynasty Warriors 3 (PS2)
9.  Chrono Cross (PS1)
10.  Metal Gear Solid (PS1)

And there you have it.

Now Playing in Dave’s Mental Jukebox:  "Guarded" by Disturbed, the opening theme from Mega Man 2, and the battle music from Chrono Cross….see what typing this crap has done to the mental jukebox?

Sayonara.