I've been wondering if we'd ever end up with a PS3. The only reason for getting one would be for Gran Turismo and Final Fantasy. Since neither of these games are out yet, I'm willing to wait and see if the price will drop again. Right now, it's still too high for me. And what's with these bundles? I don't want some motorsport thing packaged with my system.
All the news surrounding the backwards compatibility is disappointing too. I would have liked it to have been backwards compatible with all my PS2 games, but it seems like that is not the case, unless you try and find the 60gb one. What is Sony doing?
I still can't believe it's so hard to find a Wii still. Of course, since I have one, I haven't been paying much attention. :p I still have all these Wii games I need to play...
People made fun of Guitar Hero because it made people who had no musical talent pretend that they did. Before that was Dance Dance Revolution, which didn't really involve any dance skills, but some of the more hardcore players drew in a captive audience regardless.
Now with Rock Band, a combination of vocals, guitar, and drums, you can have your very own band without much musical talent at all and people will definitely be mesmerized. However, you can't be completely tone deaf if you want to sing, and the drums is actually kind of hard. We played Rock Band throughout the entire Thanksgiving weekend and the only person who nailed the drum portion was actually a drummer... in a real band.
Rock Band is a way for people to bond and have fun together. With my brother on drums, my husband and sister on guitar and bass and me on vocals, it actually felt like we were working together. We had to, because each member has to pull their own weight to get through the song.
The downside is that the Rock Band guitar was poorly made. If you thought the Guitar Hero guitars were bad, the buttons became unresponsive after a few hours of play. We have already put in an order for a replacement guitar.
The hefty price tag is another issue, but with some friends you'll definitely get your money's worth. We hosted Thanksgiving and had over 30+ people over and it was something that people actually sat around and waited to have a turn. (We had other game stations set up, like Wii, poker, board games etc.)
So if you haven't had a chance to try it yet... run out to Best Buy, I'm sure they have it set up. :)
I've been drowning in so much school work I haven't even had a chance to touch a console in awhile. I played maybe 10 minutes of Halo 3 last night and that was it. But on a video game related note, I am doing an independent study with a professor on video games.
I will be looking for research subjects, male and female to answer some questions via e-mail. I would have liked to do it in person, but it is easier online with people's schedules. So if you are interested, please get in touch, I'm looking for anyone over 18 who considers themselves either a hardcore or casual gamer. I'll have a list of questions to answer and I may end up following up for more detail.
The purpose of my study to look at gender differences when it comes to games, and to take a look at habits and other random details. This is just an independent study for credit, I'm not writing a thesis, so yes I know that this isn't the most exciting or original idea out there, but it's more of an exercise of doing a research study than to actually come across some kind of new revelation. Maybe if I get grant money :p
So if you're interested, just drop me an e-mail soapy(at)gamersinfo.net
Since my last Wii post, I still haven't played the Wii yet. Oh wait, I did a few times, but only to play Mario Strikers which I had to review. Otherwise, I am really not that interested in anything that's on the Wii. This Wii fit thing though looks promising. I highly doubt that I'll be at home doing yoga with my Wii, but I'd be curious to see how it works. It reminds me of the Eye Toy which slowly faded into oblivion. I thought it was fun... except it did get kind of old after awhile. It gave your arms a good work out at least.
Nintendo put out this huge list of Wii and DS games over the next few months, and in that entire list, there is only a small handful that I'd even bother looking up. At a glance, half of them looked like games based off cheesy cartoons. Cartoons that I don't understand while watching. I find it odd that kids can watch Spongebob and other things on the Cartoon network and still have a clue as to what is going on. Or do they? Then they play the video game which also makes very little sense. I don't remember having so many non sensical games and cartoons growing up. But then again, I was a Transformers, He-man, She-ra, Smurfs, TMNT kind of girl. Turtles in sewers made more sense to me than a sponge (who I thought was a piece of cheese) in the ocean.
Anyways, back to Wii fit. I wonder if they will have Wii jump rope. Pushups? Circuit training? That way maybe people won't have to go to the gym anymore. I wonder what other tricks Nintendo has up its sleeve to ensure that everyone on the planet that can afford a tv will want to own a Wii.
Halo games make me dizzy, to the point where sometimes I actually want to throw up. I've only played Halo and Halo 2 multiplayer, since there was no way I was going to go through an entire campaign. Although now that Halo 3 is out, it's prettier, it's smoother, I was thinking of actually giving the campaign mode a try. I had played the beta and it was fun, so I figure this was my chance to jump on the Halo bandwagon.
But I also wanted to review Halo 3, and I felt that if I did, I should probably play Halo and Halo 2 first. This was Friday, I figured if I played all weekend, I might actually be able to get through at least one of them.
I'm not sure if it's the location, but I haven't touched the Wii since the last time I played Mario Party 8 when I had people over. Not only that, it seems that the ONLY time I end up playing with the Wii is when I have people over who want to play video games. It's sitting there more as a guest entertainment tool than for my own enjoyment.
I wonder if I ever liked the Wii. I wasn't the one who wanted to camp for it the first day it came out. I never spent hours on it. I played awhile during Thanksgiving last year and the next day I had to take pain killers to stop this shooting pain that was in my arm. I've been wanting to give Super Paper Mario and Zelda a shot, but I haven't really started either of them.
Maybe I haven't been able to try enough games on them. So far it's only been a lot of Wii Sports, Wii Play, Super Monkey Ball and Mario Party 8. Maybe I need to change it up a little, maybe I need Wii fit or something, but right now I'm not sure if I can think of any games I want to play on it. I can't wait for Super Smash Bros however, maybe I'll start playing then. But once again, it's not a game I'd likely play on my own.
I want to like the Wii, and maybe it does boil down to the location, since I'm usually upstairs and the Wii is downstairs, but I find myself more likely to play PS2 games these days than the 360 or the Wii.
There's something about being online that manages to keep people captivated to the point where the world can go on without them knowing it. Whether it's the never-ending slew of information or the ability to communicate with anyone and everyone, when you combine the internet and video games, that's a recipe for a new addiction.
Having spent a good portion, if not my entire high school life playing MUDs (text-based MMOs) I made a deal with myself to not play any online games anymore. It's too easy to get involved, sucked in to the point where you lose all concept of time. I was never able to play moderately, mostly because these games don't allow moderate playing unless you want really slow progress.
Other than sleeping, there aren't that many activities that can keep me fixated for more than 8 hours, yet online games can do it. For my own health and well being, I stay clear of online games, not because I don't enjoy them, but out of fear of enjoying them too much. It's really too easy to let your life slip away and realize that days have gone by and you don't have anything to show for it except maybe 20 levels.
There are too many people who have let jobs and relationships slip away because they can't control the amount of time that they play. It really is too bad. I always thought, when I was a teenager, that when I 'grew up' I wouldn't be caught dead playing these games. But there are people who are retired, or people with families who play online to relax. Personally online games stress me out more than anything. I'm sure there are many who are able to play casually, and have a great time doing so as one of their many hobbies.
Maybe it depends on the game, and it depends on the person. I hear that WoW is for the pick up and play type of players, but I also know too many people who have given up jobs and their real lives to play that game 24/7. I wonder how people do manage to balance a real life and an online one?
Before The Sims went on to be the best-selling game of all time, Myst was one of the most popular games in the 90s when games were starting to come up on CD. I had Myst when it first came out, and I wandered around that little island for days, poking/pushing/moving/clicking things but I could not figure out what to do. I found all the parts that I could interact with but for the life of me, I didn't know what to do. It was only until I came across a strategy guide, one of the first I've ever had a chance to read, I was able to finally figure out what I was supposed to do. I had read walkthroughs before for King's Quest games, but they were like "Go here, pick this up."
Myst is a completely different animal. If you've played these games before, you'll know that the puzzles are incredibly complex and involve skills that someone with an engineering degree might have. Trial and error didn't really work here, you'd really have to think about where the water flows, how the electricity is generated... things that I didn't really think about beyond the fact that I used water and electricity every day.
Now, as popular as Myst was, it seemed that after that, the adventure genre just disappeared. Sierra was eventualy bought out, but they had a string of not-so-great games leading up to that.
There are still many adventure games out there, some casual, some more involved, but nothing like how it used to be. People don't seem to be that interested in adventure games anymore, why is that? Did they get too complicated?
What I liked about adventure games was the story. The Sierra games like King's Quest and Police Quest had an engaging story to follow. Monkey Island was great too, especially when you were able to choose the dialogue to determine what would happen. I could spend hours playing these games and trying to figure out what to do next. It didn't seem like the game was too complex, eventually you'd figure it out.
It seemed that after that, games got harder, now, even other genres like RPGs, action games, they all come with strategy guides. Manuals aren't worth reading anymore because the guide is out which could provide you with everything you wanted to know. You could still try to figure the game out on your own to feel that sense of accomplishment, but when games do things like, game perecent completed, it makes you feel like you'd be wasting your time running through the game without figuring out EVERYTHING. So instead, we buy strategy guides, look at walkthroughs to make sure we have the most complete experience.
For adventure games, with a walkthrough, there is really nothing to do anymore except follow instructions. At least with RPGs, you'd still have to level on your own, make your own choices. The fun is gone when you play a game where you know exactly what you need to do without figuring it out on your own with the "aha" lightbulb going off. But without the guide, you'd be stuck. It's a catch 22... do you want to spend the time to figure out it (if ever)? Or do you want to follow a guide to get through the game?
Has the adventure genre lost this balance where it's either one or the other?
I don't really understand the appeal of this genre. Nor do I understand the appeal of horror movies, comics, shows, books or action figures in general.
At least with a movie, you can close your eyes, but if it's a video game, closing your eyes will force you to have to do everything over again from the last save point.
I also don't understand why people like to be scared. Or why some people find horror funny and entertaining. I can understand the really bad cheesy ketchup-blood horror movies. Those are so bad that it's amusing. But with the new technology we have today, things are looking pretty realistic.
So why would you want to control someone to go fight zombies? Or explore a creepy haunted house only to have demons jump out at you when you least expect it? Is it fun to have high blood pressure and pee your pants?
I love remakes. There's always people complaining about remakes and how it ruins the original. Well, technically the original is still there for you to enjoy, so I never see the real problem when companies come out with a newer version of a classic game.
