• 2Dec 09

  November 2009 in review

  I survived Black Weekend. I wasn't sure how I'd handle the monster that the retail industry has created, but I did alright. Now, if I can just stay sane through the rest of this month, I'll be just fine.

  What am I doing here again? Oh yeah...

  I only finished one game this time:

  24. Saints Row 2 (X360)

  But who cares? I met my goal! At any rate, Saints Row 2 is a great game in the mold of GTA. While it's not quite as good as GTA, I like it better for one reason. GTA has started to take it self a bit too seriously over the years. Saints Row reminds me of GTAIII in that some of the humor is just over-the-top silly. The main character doing a reverse header over a couch in the hideout while completely faded in the Sons of Samedi mission strain still makes me laugh. In the end it's a very solid game that stacks up well with GTA.

  On the acquisition front, it was a relatively slow month. My 360 got almost all the love, while I did find a quirky little PS2 game that I'd been seeking for some time. The damage:

  -Damnation (X360)
  -Turning Point: Fall of Liberty (X360)
  -Guitar Hero: Van Halen (X360)
  -Assassin's Creed II (X360)
  -Dog's Life (PS2)
  -Silent Hill: Homecoming (X360)

  Assassin's Creed II is a masterpiece. If you follow my Twitter feed (@jollyroger3251), you'll know I have some complaints. The control isn't quite as precise as it should be and there are way too many assassination sidequests, for example. But overall, it's a completely engrossing experience that you start and find yourself looking at the clock four hours later wondering what happened. I'm almost finished with it and I'm already wondering what they'll do with the inevitable third installment.

  With that, I'm out of here. The Christmas season is here and that means I'm a busy little retail elf. If my devious little plan works, I'll be compiling a bunch of gift cards from my family to the store where I work and combining them with my employee discount to obtain a PS3 and Demon's Souls. I see 2010 shaping up as the year of the epic RPG for me (although, as usual, my best laid gaming plans often go awry).

  Happy holidays to you all (whichever one or ones you celebrate).

  • Posted Dec 2, 2009 11:30 am PT
  • Category: Games
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• 14Nov 09

  How an Obsessive Video Game Collector Was Born-Part 1

  I remember it as if it were yesterday (to use a cliche):

  It was the beginning of the summer vacation after third grade in 1988. I had just brought home my fourth quarter report card...the one that, if it contained straight A's, my father promised to buy me a NES. I had discovered the NES the previous summer (having, up to that point, been an Atari-exclusive kid) and had spent most of the ensuing year begging and pleading with various friends in town to let me play while begging and pleading with my father to get me one. I had always been one of those "underachieving" students, mostly because I was bored stiff and couldn't sit still to save my life, so my dad cut the aforementioned deal. There was the carrot: straight A's = NES.

  Unfortunately for my father (or more accurately, his wallet), he didn't consider that the constant chirping that had finally worn him down would erode the resistance of someone with significantly less willpower...like my teacher. As I jumped off the bus and ran up to my house, I threw my bag full of all the crap a third grader accumulates over a school year and, since my dad was still at work, promptly forgot about my report card and the NES and went to play with my best friend, Steve. That evening, as soon as I realized that my dad was going to be home from work soon, I tore across my giant town of 250 residents as quickly as my bike would take me to await my judgement.

  I hadn't been able to bring myself to look at my report card (which now resembled a cardstock ball from being stuffed in my giant bag o' junk), so I had no idea if I would spend my time playing as a certain mustachioed plumber or if I would go back to hours and hours of Yar's Revenge.

  The moment of truth had arrived. My dad slowly (oh, so slowly) slid the now-mangled blue card from it's yellow envelope and opened it up. As I stood there, holding my breath, I watched my dad's face run a gamut of emotions from "aw, crap" to stunned to sort of happy and back to "aw, crap" as he realized that he was going to be about $150 poorer in a matter of hours. I still wasn't sure though. Then he handed the report card to my mom, who got a big smile on her face. I knew now! I let out a victory cry that scared half the town and promptly got me yelled at for being too loud. I didn't care...I had my NES!

  Dinner was excruciating as I waited for the 10 mile trip to Wal-Mart. I knew that the Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt combo cart came with the system, but I figured that I'd get another game to go with it. By the time we left, I had decided on Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! Then my dad dropped this little bomb on me...since my sister got good grades too (straight S+ for the kindergartener), she would get to pick the game.

  What?!?! Are you kidding me? My sister would go on to become the straightest of straight-A students. She would fart and the teacher would give her an A. This wasn't an event! At any rate, that older sibling instinct kicked in and, using all the salesman skills I'd acquired by trying to get her not to cry when she'd just damn near been killed by some sort of stupidity I'd just pulled, I set about trying to talk her into Punch-Out!!

  Now, we're talking twenty-plus years ago, so the memories are as fuzzy in some spots as they are vivid in others, but I'm fairly certain she was eyeballing Zelda (which, in retrospect, would have been an equally awesome choice). Eventually, my charm (and the promise that she'd get to pick next month's game) won out and Mike Tyson came home with us.

  The one game a month rule eventually fell by the wayside, as my parents discovered the Dragon Warrior series and started playing as well. Their focus on turn-based RPGs began a search far and wide for similar games (which, oddly, did not include the first Final Fantasy). In the meantime, we amassed a then-impressive collection of around 70 games. The reacquisition of these original games (a convoluted story in it's own right) was one of the seeds that started the collection I have today.

  As far as the straight A's go, I'm 99% sure that my grades were fudged a bit. Granted, I was an A-B student (but the Pirate Kid could do sooo much more if he'd only apply himself!), so it wasn't a huge stretch. But, I'd never gotten straight A's before and I never did it again. Whether it was the prospect of a summer of icy stares from the kid behind the catcher's mask (because my failure to get the grades would have totally been her fault) or the fact that she was a sweet lady who didn't want to see a kid's heart broken (my personal guess), something made her give me the grades. For that, I thank you, Mrs. Rincker (and my dad probably doesn't...).

  Coming soon-Part 2: PlayStation, N64, and the reacquisition of old friends.

  • Posted Nov 14, 2009 5:40 am PT
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• 1Nov 09

  October 2009 in review

  Well, Rocktober has come and gone. It wasn't quite as awesome as I'd hoped. It rained so much that many farmers still have crops in the fields (and if you live in the midwestern US, you know that's a pretty big deal). As for me, I'm dreading the holiday season for the first time ever. I've worked retail before, but I've always escaped before the silly season arrived. I don't think I'm going to be that lucky this year.

  Enough of that junk...let's talk about video games, shall we?

  I took down two more games this month, putting me within one of my goal of 24 completions for the year. The gruesome twosome were:

  22. WCW Nitro (PS)
  23. Shadowgate Clas sic (GBC)

  Nitro is one of those games that I loved when it came out, but the shine has worn off pretty badly. It's a really ugly game with some definite control issues, but it has tons of the WCW wrestlers I knew and loved back in the day. It was the most lovingly nostalgic 5.5 I've ever given out.

  Shadowgate Clas sic is a nearly identical port of Shadowgate for the NES (and, oddly enough, the first handheld game I've ever completed). The game itself plays exactly like the NES version, but there are a few cosmetic differences to assist with it's move to a handheld. It's the same game I played before, so it gets the same score.

  I was a little more active in acquisitions this month. I set (and achieved) a goal of acquiring my 200th NES game this month. I got some great suggestions (especially from hart704 and usagi704). Unfortunately, due to availability and/or price issues, I wasn't able to add many (if any) of their suggestions. Instead, they're now on my wishlist for the future. At any rate, here's the month's haul:

  -The Last Remnant (X360)
  -Silent Hill 4: The Room (PS2)
  -Baseball Stars (NES)
  -Elevator Action (NES)
  -Ghostbusters (NES)
  -M.U.S.C.L.E. (NES)
  -Solomon's Key (NES)
  -Track & Field (NES)
  -Family Game Night: Battleship (XBLA)
  -NFL Tour (X360)
  -Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City (X360)

  I'm still trying to knock out that last game to hit my goal for the year. I'm playing a bunch right now, but have settled into Saints Row 2 (again...I never finished it) and am about half done. I also need to finally get around to trying to beat the bonus mission in Medal of Honor: Underground (PS) and slogging my way through WCW/nWo Thunder (PS). Once Assassin's Creed II shows up, I'll probably forget about everything else for awhile.

  Speaking of Assassin's Creed II, I have it preordered...and I can't wait. I played the first one on a whim and fell in love. I hope that I like it as much as I enjoyed the first one. I keep saying I want to pick up Batman: Arkham Asylum and Ghostbusters for my (newly repaired...or more accurately, replaced with a refurb) 360, and you can now add Brutal Legend to that list. And as always, I'm keeping my eyes open for any old-school gems I might find.

  For all you North American 360 fans out there, I found an interesting little site a week or so ago. xboxamerica.com is a site where, if you plug in your gamertag and the state/province you live in, you get ranked according to other site users in your state and country. I'm currently ranked 237th in Illinois and 5,957th nationwide (as of yesterday). It's another cool way to obsess about your gamerscore.

  Well, that's about it for this month. I'm hoping I survive the holiday retail season. We'll see. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have about a third of Stilwater to take over.

  • Posted Nov 1, 2009 11:26 am PT
  • Category: Games
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