Editorial: No Man's Sky

Release Date: August 9th, 2016
Played on: PlayStation 4

I didn't buy into the hype as much as most people. No Man's Sky always seemed like a survival game first, exploration game second, sci-fi adventure third. I thought it was a cool concept, but not the type of game I want to play.

I don't have time to figure out the survival parts of games like Don't Starve. In the limited gaming time I do have, I like to be able to hit the ground running with a clear objective and clean instructions.

My buddy put a solid 15-20 hours into No Man's Sky and generally he liked it, but there were times where he would call and say, "I just don't know what's motivating me. I'm doing the same things over and over again, but I keep coming back."

So he let me borrow his copy just so he had someone to talk to about it.

I did get a little excited as I booted the game up and saw the loading screen where it was generating my opening planet. I got a sense that this was my planet and no one else would see it.

What generated was a mostly green and rocky gas planet. I saw my downed ship and had some vague goals flashing on my screen that I need to collect some matter to get my ship going.

First things first, I knew I could name my planet and make my mark on this game. So, because I'm an adult, I named the system "PooPoo" and my planet, "PooPoo Junction."

So I start walking around, firing my mining laser at rocks, some plants, even a mini-brontosaurus looking animal. I was just getting a feel for the game.

And then I got a warning that my environment protection was running out and I needed to find a second material to stave off gas asphyxiation.

I didn't know where to get this material so I continued mining a bunch of things and seeing some numbers under requirements count up.

I wandered through some small, empty habitats that looked incredibly like the empty, soulless habitats in Mass Effect. And these little hyena bastards kept nipping at my heels.

Then only thing propelling me forward is that deep human need to check things off my list. I saw another question mark on the horizon, and I had to head toward it to see what it was.

Then I got a warning that my mining laser was out of ammo. I didn't know this could happen. It looked like an overheat sort of system. I was just firing at everything. But there I was, staring at a warning that I'm out of ammo and need to recharge it.

I still hadn't found the first two materials I needed, now I needed a third. I took a look at my inventory and I didn't have any of the three materials, but I had picked up the materials to upgrade something on my suit, so sure, I'll do that.

Since I'm out of ammo in my mining gun, the thing that gets me resources, I was now told to start hitting rocks and animals with my mining gun to collect materials. So I run up to a rock, hit it, see that the health of this rock only goes down about 1/20th of it's life and I sort of flip out at the game.

I was done, officially, 20 minutes in, I was done.

I didn't expect No Man's Sky to change my life like other people. I didn't even expect to like it. What I found was a completely competent, great looking game, that wasn't meant for people like me. And maybe later when they add updates and DLC to it and put in more of their sci-fi stuff, maybe then it'll speak to me. But right now, the No Man's Sky vanilla version is not a game I want to interact with.

And people, that's OK. Games don't have to change your life. Games can be just a surface level building block which what to build with. Look at how Minecraft started out. It was a game that was like, "I don't know, here's a couple tools, figure this shit out." Now it's the top selling game of all time.

No Man's Sky might not ever get near that level. In fact, it probably won't. But the backlash the dev team are getting from this is sickening. It's yet another poisonous well that is going to probably cause a few great minds in gaming to leave forever.

Editorial: The Fans of a Dying Platform

Nintendo recently announced that the Zelda Wii-U game that they kept promising would be Wii-U exclusive that was still coming... is now going to be cross platform. This essentially means we're going to get a Twilight Princess situation where the NX version isn't as good as it could be and the Wii-U version is going to be missing whatever gimmick the NX version has.

I have a Wii-U and a Vita. Both are probably the most depressed of fan bases in the mid-2010s. It's interesting to see how each handles it. 

Vita

The Vita fanbase started getting really salty the first E3 that Sony didn't mention the Vita. I can't remember the exact year, but I think it was 2014. 

I think Sony's marketing has long been the issue with the fans of the Vita. 

The PSP fans were generally people that liked weird or Japanese games, were into home brewed systems, or wanted console experiences on a handheld. All three of these groups were very happy with what they got. 

Well, Sony said the Vita would be almost as powerful as the PS3 and promised AAA console games on the run. Their first big marketing campaign backed Call of Duty: Black Ops: Declassified. The commercial had a bunch of teenager / 20 somethings dudes jumping around and fighting. 

Generally the more sub-titles in a game title, the larger the dumpster fire it will be. And it was. This game was critically and commercially panned. 

Another AAA third party title came in Assassin's Creed, but it was an incredibly boring adventure. They took the worst parts of Assassin's Creed, slowed the combat down a ton, and soon people weren't sure they ever wanted these games in the first place.

Well, it was too late to pull the plug. Killzone and Uncharted were already coming, so Sony doubled down on the "this is a console in your hands." 

And a significant percentage of Vita owners bought the handheld on the promise that we would be seeing Drake's adventures, Helghast being assassinated, perhaps even a new Infamous or Grand Turismo. 

Well, things went from bad to worse. We learned that Bioshock Vita was never going to happen. There wouldn't be a new Infamous. Hell, there wouldn't even be a second Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed.

Soon indie developers were put to the forefront of the Vita marketing. Some Japanese games like Freedom Wars filled AAA gaps. But the one thing we weren't getting was the AAA console games we dreamed of. 

It was impossible to go to the internet forums and not see people throwing so much hate toward Sony. They felt abandoned, ripped off, swindled. 

These are the same people however that spoke of how they put 100 hours into Persona 4, played through Uncharted 2-3 times, loved Gravity Rush, could not wait for Tearaway to be another bullet point on why the Vita is so great. 

But they hated Sony. 

I feel like an outlier. Maybe I'm just part of the silent and happy. Until I got my Wii-U, I sat on the couch almost nightly embraced by the warm glow of my Vita. I'd play through PS1 JRPGS while watching TV. I spent several hospital stays with Uncharted, Killzone, and Persona 4. I was happy with what I got out of my Vita. 

I wish the handheld wasn't dying because it truly is one of the greatest devices I've ever used, but sometimes you have to let things go. 

Sony made several missteps. The marketing being the obvious one, but they created what was supposed to be a "console" experience with two touch screens but no bottom triggers. This has recently filled the Vita releases with phone ports. And don't even get me started on the memory cards. 

Wii-U

The Wii-U crowd reacted a little differently. 

I think because they were one of the "three major consoles" this generation, they've been beat down by every non-Wii-U user for years telling them how much their console is inferior and how it's sales are the worst. 

People that bought a Wii-U after launch knew that they would have to stay out of general gaming forums because it would just be punishment. 

But the other thing Wii-U owners felt was that Nintendo would never abandon them. Until the news of Zelda being ported to the NX, the forums were still filled with people saying, "Nintendo promised us that if we just waited this would be a Wii-U only Zelda." Fans took the countless delays with grace.

And now they feel hurt. It's much less anger. Much more depression. It's like when dad goes out on a cigarette run and never comes home.

If you look at the Wii-U library, there are some insanely good games. New Mario Wii-U, Super Mario Maker, Splatoon, Zombie-U, Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze... but half the library is filled with ports of Nintendo's Gamecube games.

I've killed the battery on the gamepad a dozen times playing Twilight Princess, Mario World, and Mario Maker on the couch.

I do wish the console had another year of life. I felt like I was just hitting a great stride, but at the same time, I've gotten many hours out of the Wii-U and I haven't touched large portions of the library like Pikmin 3, Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze, New Mario Wii-U, Wonderful 101, and Smash Brothers.

There's a part of me that wishes the internet was more widely used in the 90s. I'd love to see how the Sega Saturn and Dreamcast fans dealt with the quick death of their consoles. Or the couple hundred people that bought into the Virtual Boy learning that they would never see more than the 30 or so games they got.

It's a weird situation we have nowadays. We're more than happy to shell out more than a console for a new phone every two years, a tablet, a TV. But we have this expectation that our game consoles should be around for 7-8 years. Do we need to shift expectations or is the list of traditional consoles so close to be over that we just complain for the next couple years and get on with our lives?

Editorial: The 3D Beat 'Em Up

Beat 'em up games were incredibly popular on 8 and 16 bit systems. They usually took the framework of an arcade like game and let you and your friends team up. There was a hesitation when the 3D platforms were coming out. What do we do with the Beat 'em up?

Some games just boosted the graphics and stuck with 2D like Iron Man and X-O Manowar in Heavy Metal. But some took the challenge of 3D on.

There was a period in 1996-1998 where 50% of Playstation demo disks had a demo for the first level of a 3D beat 'em up called Fighting Force.

Editorial: The Death of Game Hunting

I was unexpectedly given a WiiU for Christmas this year and my mind immediately started making the checklist of games and accessories I would want.

One of the games toward the top of my list was a puzzle game I thoroughly enjoyed on the Gamecube, Pikmin.



I added Pikmin 3 to my Amazon wishlist, and I was astounded to find a game that was only two years old was going for $120 on Amazon. I know Nintendo first party games have a reputation for holding their value, but I had never witnessed a game double in price while it's system was still on sale.

So I started digging around and I found if retailers had copies of Pikmin 3 in brick and mortar stores, it would only cost me the normal $60.

Editorial: The Things Resident Evil Got Wrong

Resident Evil has a storied history of making people scratch their heads at decisions made. Most of their legacy is seen in the positive, but of course there is the insane fall from grace with Resident Evil 6. Here are some of Resident Evil's questionable decisions.

1. Resident Evil 2 - The Moth
   You've fought your way through the police station, slugged knee deep through poopy-water, and battled William Birkin away multiple times. There's a giant metal blast door staring you down. You ready your customized shotgun, not knowing what creature awaits you. And.... moth. Giant, fluttering moth. In a way it was somewhat creepy and I have to applaud that someone had to design and program the moth for this one room. But once you do research, you find out that unless you are a giant flower, this moth is mostly harmless.
   
   
2. Resident Evil 0 - Opera Singing Leech Doctor
   
   Leeches creep me out. So it should have been one hell of a scary edition. Unfortunately, from the moment I saw Dr. Marcus singing opera on a mountain top to call the leeches, I realized this is when the series was going to lose some of it's luster. And it did.
3. Resident Evil Survivor
   
   Underneath all the terrible design decisions, Resident Evil Survivor has a pretty OK story. There's no way to save, you couldn't use a light gun in the North American version, and when you died, there were no checkpoints. The rage I felt when I died during the last tyrant battle and saw the title scream cannot be described. New curse words would need to be invented.
   
4. Call of Duty: Resident Evil 6
   
   There were several issues with Resident Evil 6. The couch co-op is great. My wife and I really loved playing through Resident Evil 5 together. Issue with 6, on the PS3... well that second player couldn't sign into their PSN profile or upgrade any weapons or upgrade anything. That made an already death filled game harder. The inventory system was terrible, there was no way to pause the game, and I still don't really understand how herbs work. On top of that, Chris' campaign might as well have been the new Call of Duty. Run and gun through eastern European towns with the arm-swollen Chris.
5. The Resident Evil Magazines
   
   The Resident Evil Magazines were comic books that came out in 1998. The first two comics were actually pretty great, covering the events of the first two games. But beyond that, they suffered from lazy writing. Essentially, "Ummm... an Umbrella facility has an accident... in South America... and here's Barry."
6. Resident Evil 5 Boss Battles
   
   Part of the tension of the Resident Evil series was the battle between your character and the bosses. They were chess matches of firing a few shots and running like hell. In Resident Evil 5, most the boss battles involved you jumping on a mounted machine gun and firing away.
   
   The height of the RE5 boss battles was the first one, the executioner. And you know why? Because it felt like an old Resident Evil boss battle. I didn't get a quick time event every 45 seconds so that a giant didn't punch the jeep I was holed up in.
   
   

Editorial: Doom's 20th Anniversary

Doom turned 20 this week. TWENTY!!! (Oh GOD I'M GETTING SO OLD)

I actually liked Doom 2 a bit better than the original Doom, but the original Doom was the first time, father and son sat down, and said, "Wow, there might be something more to this gaming thing."

Side note: This is also the last first person shooter my dad could play. Once things went to 3D, it was game over.

Doom was the first game that I can remember sitting in my windowless basement office, on a gorgeous Saturday, and just playing for 8 hours straight with my buddy Spencer.

I started typing this on Tuesday and have had to just leave and come back and try to figure out where I wanted to focus the post. This game just means so much to my childhood.

1. Wolfenstein 3D was impressive and great in it's own right, but Doom hit the culture so hard, it was the first computer game I remember talking about on the playground. Mario, Sonic, and if you were a hardcore gamer, Doom, were subjects of, "Oh I found this secret in level 1-3" or had that one kid claiming to have an uncle that worked at ID. That's how you knew the game was good, everyone's uncle somehow worked at ID after they left their gig at Nintendo.
2. This was the first time I remember hearing someone refer to "hardcore gamers." 
3. Any FPS that came after this had to set their weapon number toggles the same way as Doom. If the number 3 did not give me a shotgun or their equivalent of a shotgun, I just didn't understand. 4 was always going to be a machine gun. And 5 through the end was always the rocket launches, plasma guns, and explosives. 
4. Doom was the first time I realized that I loved horror games. I didn't know that's why I liked Doom so much until I played Resident Evil a few years later, but nowadays a game in the horror genre gets my money about 90% of the time.  
5. Doom is also the first time I started thinking about level design. To this day, when I boot up Doom, I can remember things about each map. "Oh, this one has that huge outdoor space." Or "Damn, this is the one with the dark area where the Imps will keep jumping out." 
6. And damn the enemy design. So creative. Most of those enemies were inspired by Dungeons and Dragons, but it was Doom that made most of those architects standard in any Sci-Fi/Horror game. 
7. Doom was the first time I bought a game on multiple platforms and didn't feel dirty about it. I had it on floppy, CD, and Playstation as a kid. And now I own it on CD, Steam, and Android. 

20 years later, Doom is still a mainstay in my collection. I generally play through the first three Resident Evils, Super Mario World, and Doom every year. 

IGN probably did the coolest thing for the Doom anniversary, Ryan McCaffery played Episode 1 with John "Make You His Bitch" Romero. The 90 minute video is worth every minute.

Also, if you love Doom, you should read "Masters of Doom" which tells the history of ID Games up until the early 2000s. This book makes you realize how much genius got together to create Doom.

Editorial: Nintendo Launch Retrospective

With the Nintendo WiiU launching back in November, there still isn’t an impressive library. My local game store has one half shelf dedicated to WiiU games. Most of the real estate has Wii overflow from the full Wii shelf next to it.

When you think about it, besides the Mario game that came packed in with the system, most Nintendo launches were weak on the software side. You got that one killer app, but for months, nothing else.

I’m going to break down the classic Nintendo 1^st party game, the biggest 3^rd party game, and the worst game at launch.

NES (1985): The NES had a soft launch, only releasing to FAO Schwartz in New York originally and eventually would find its way everywhere. It obviously wasn’t a blockbuster seller immediately, but this is the system that built the Nintendo name.

• 1^st Party: Super Mario Bros
• 3^rd Party: Kung-Fu
• Worst Game: Gyromite

Gameboy (1989): Again, hard to get concrete numbers and dates, the Gameboy managed to sell really well. Most people mostly used the portable as a Tetris machine for the first several months of its life, but eventually the Gameboy would go on to sell more than 118 million units.

• 1^st Party: Super Mario Land
• 3^rd Party: Tetris
• Worst Game: Baseball (bad port of original NES game)

Super NES (1991): The Super NES has one of the smaller launches in Nintendo history, but they launched with a much greater quality of games.

• 1^st Party: Super Mario World
• 3^rd Party: Sim City
• Worst Game: Gradius 3 (It’s not a bad game, just the worst out of the launch titles.)

Nintendo 64 (1997): Quite literally there were only two games at the launch of the N64 as far as I can tell, but both games were fantastic.

• 1^st Party: Super Mario 64, Pilotwings 64
• 3^rd Party: N/A
• Worst Game: Pilotwings (?)

Nintendo Game Cube (2001): The Gamecube is often frowned upon as one of the worst Nintendo systems to hit the market. I believe it was the best. But the launch was mostly ports from other consoles.

The Gamecube launched with 13 games. Not only did it have the weakest 1^st party launch title in Nintendo’s history, Luigi’s Mansion, it also only contained games that could be purchased for other consoles.

• 1^st Party: Luigi’s Mansion
• 3^rd Party: Star Wars Rogue Squadron II
• Worst Game: Fur Fighters: Viggo’s Revenge

Gameboy Advance (2001): The Gameboy Advance had a fairly limited launch line up. It had many games, but was almost all ports from other systems.

• 1^st Party: Super Mario Advance (Super Mario 2 Repackaged)
• 3^rd Party:  Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, Earthworm Jim, Rayman Advance
• Worst: Army Men Advance

Nintendo DS (2004): The Nintendo DS had a mildly better launch than the Game Cube. Since most games didn’t know how to use the touchpad yet, most had little reason to actually be on the DS, other than the cheap production value. The worst game, Ping Pals, managed to get many <1 10s="" 500="" america="" around="" ds="" in="" launch="" media.="" north="" of="" on="" out="" p="" sold="" somewhere="" still="" supposedly="" the="" units="" week.="">

• 1^st Party: Metroid Prime Hunters: First hunt
• 3^rd Party: The Urbs: Sims in the City
• Worst Game: Ping Pals

Nintendo Wii (2006): Nintendo Wii had a weak launch lineup with bang up marketing. Games that were broken like “Red Steel” were pushed like the second coming. The strongest non-pack in release, Zelda, was a Gamecube port. Now Wii fans have been treated to at best, three worthwhile releases a year.

• 1^st Party: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Wii Sports
• 3^rd Party: Call of Duty 3, Red Steel
• Worst Game: Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam

Nintendo 3DS (2011): I’m still confused about the 3DS launch. As far as I can tell, there pretty much wasn’t software at the launch of the 3DS. Literally there were games, but not really. Most were rehashing of other games or games that hadn’t figured out the tech quite yet.

• 1^st Party: Pilotwings Resort, Nintendogs + Cats
• 3^rd Party: Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition,
• Worst Game: Combat of Giants: Dinosaurs 3D, Asphalt 3D

Nintendo WiiU (2012):  Jokes aside, I want this console to work. Failing consoles are good for no one. Still, it seems Nintendo rushed the hardware out the door knowing that it's tech specs wouldn't be able to compete with PS4 and Xbox One. There weren't a lot of launch games and besides the release of Pikmin 3, there really haven't been many game releases since launch.

Most of the third party games are ports of older games from this generation like Mass Effect 3 and Batman Arkham City.

• 1st Party: New Super Mario Bros U
• 3rd Party: Mass Effect 3: Special Edition
• Worst Game: Game Party Champions

I guess my conclusion from looking at all the Nintendo launches is that I should stop expecting these insanely great pack in launches like the SNES and N64. The launches weren't as bad as I thought, but there weren't many stand outs.

The business model has changed. Xbox 360 launched with nothing. Playstation 3 took forever to get some great exclusives out. Kinect and Move are both jokes. PS4 and Xbox One both have weak launches.

I guess I held Nintendo at a higher level. But nowadays, it’s all about the hardware sales. No one wants to take a risk on an unproven console and install base. 

Editorial: How Did You Get Your Nintendo to Work?

There was nothing worse than seeing two flashing colors on your TV screen when you should be seeing that glorious NES game title screen.

A un-countable number of comedians have already covered the subject of how everyone had their special way of getting their Nintendo to work and how you could only get your own NES working.

My cousin Ryan would lick the game and then press the game down as hard as he could. In desperation, I once licked a particularly troublesome game and remember tasting a dusty battery.

One of my best friend's in high-school had to use a Game Genie even if they weren't putting in codes. Without the Genie, the console wouldn't recognize a game was inserted.

My neighbor across the street would discard the warnings about only using the official Nintendo cleaning kit and would dab rubbing alcohol on a Q-tip and rub it in the games.

My wife's family would do a combo of blowing into the game, rubbing it down with a dry Q-tip, and in some cases shoving a Popsicle stick into the system to hold the games at the perfect height to make contact with the terminals. 

I would blow into a game for exactly 30 seconds. I'd then push the game all the way into the system and then pull the game out just a pinch. And I could never push the game down into the system. If I pushed it down how you were supposed to, blinking color screens all day long. 

You don't get these great stories anymore. 

Telling the heroic tale of putting your red-ringed 360 into the official Microsoft casket and waiting two to six weeks for a refurbished console to make its way back just doesn't have the same comedic feel of laying in your pajamas on the floor at 6:00 a.m. getting dizzy from blowing into a game for too long. 

So how did you get your NES to work?

Editorial: Inverted Axis and Inverted Choices

My wife humors me and plays video games with me sometimes. She's pretty good at them. But there's one setting she always needs to change immediately, and that's to turn on the inverted Y axis.

It's not often you meet someone that prefers the inverted axis. I know only three people that prefer the inverted axis, and two of them are in my wife's family. It seems to be a relic of the Flight Simulator days, or at least that's where my wife traces it back to.

There are times where she plays as the first player, saves the inverted setting, and the next time I pick up the controller I find I can't hit the side of a barn. And sometimes its not immediately apparent what is wrong. I'll play ten minutes just thinking I'm having a really off day before I remember that my wife had the controller last.

It's just strange how some settings are just assumed now and when a developer does them differently, it can really mess up your life.

Remember during the Playstation 1 era where many Japanese developed games had "O" as the select option in menus and "X" as the cancel option. (I'm looking at you Konami and Square)

I can't tell you how many times I spent five minutes stuck on the title screen of Metal Gear Solid because I would press "X" to load the game.

Or when you try to play Halo and end up throwing grenade when you really just want to aim down the sites.

Things that seem to have been ingrained into our gaming DNA by large adoption of standard settings. Call of Duty and Battlefield have taught us that the left trigger should aim down the site and the joystick-less games of the present just about shun the inverted axis.

I wonder if research and development studied the best way to handle these settings or if a few guys on the development team picked up a controller and found their preference, forcing it on the masses.

Editorial: The Importance of the Controller (Top 3 List)

With this new generation of consoles coming, the controller seems to be the most talked about feature. (You know, other than that whole DRM thing) I don't remember the controller design being all that important up until the Playstation 1 / N64 era. Moving into "3D" worlds required much more precision than ever before. Manufacturers had to concentrate on more than going left or right and having 2-6 input buttons.

The controller had to be an afterthought for most console designers before the early 90s.

The NES came with its harsh rectangle and stiff D-pad. The Colecovision had its calculator with the joystick at the top. Or the similarly designed Intellivision with the calculator at the top instead.

Sega seemed to have the worst designs. I never really got comfortable with the Dreamcast controller and the few times I held a Saturn controller I wanted to throw it out the window. Even the simplicity of the Genesis controller wasn't exactly perfect. I still have scars from the blisters that controller gave me when playing Royal Rumble.

There have actually been more controller failures than successes. But, being ever the positive person, I'm going to focus on my top three favorite controllers.

3. Xbox 360

There's no way this controller could be in the top list if the D-pad was used more often in modern games. We can all agree, it is probably the worst D-pad on a controller. 

But in the age of the console first person shooter, this controller is the best. The triggers, bumpers, and placement of the sticks are ergonomically perfect for the modern console game. 

It wasn't until I switched to the Playstation 3 when I realized just how perfect this controller is. And considering where it came from, it's design was no small feat. Just look at the original Xbox's controller (I count it among the worst) compared to where Microsoft brought the design for the 360. 

2. Playstation Dual Shock 2: Specifically, the emerald green see through Dual Shock 2 controller. 

The weight was great, the design gorgeous, and I could play for five hours without getting tired. 

I loved being able to see through the case and see how the Dual Shock worked. 

I used this bad boy so much that the analog sticks eventually stopped working. Not willing to throw it in the trash, I took the controller apart and figured out how the thing worked. Turned out one of the pads the joystick interacted with was lose. Just had to reseat it and it worked perfectly. 

It felt solid to. I knew I could use it as a weapon if I somehow came under attack while playing games. 

1. Nintendo Gamecube

A small confession, I might spend time on the weekends writing love poetry to this controller. 

I don't hear this controller talked about often, but no other controller comes close to the Gamecube. My fingers instantly knew where all the buttons were. It was light, it had a lot of beautiful feminine curves, and it came in just about every color you could want.

It felt like the games were built around the controller, whether you were playing MarioKart or Resident Evil 4. Everything just worked. 

I still boot up my Gamecube from time to time and just wish I could pair that controller up with my Playstation 3. 

Editorial: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and the Personality of the Level

A buddy came over last weekend for a kickback, old-school sleepover with pizza, video games, and general nerd discussion. (The only difference is instead of drinking Mountain Dew, we drank beer.)

When he saw that I had several Genesis classics on PSN, he demanded we boot them up. 

First up was Sonic the Hedgehog 2. My buddy is a Sonic fiend. He's one of those few people that have been able to forgive the countless terrible games featuring our favorite blue mascot. He's one of those mythological people that get excited before every Sonic game that comes out.  

I have a soft spot for the first three Sonic games on the Genesis, but I drifted apart from the chili dog eating animal after the Genesis. 

There are sections of the game I vividly remember. The beautiful first zone, Emerald Hill, bouncing off the flippers in Casino Night Zone, and the frustrating Shoots and Ladders of the Oil Ocean Zone. 

And then there are the ones I always forget about, not because they are lesser zones, but they were the ones I didn't have to play as much or they didn't cause me to throw my controller at the TV. It had been so long since I'd played Sonic 2, that when we came to Aquatic Ruin, Hill Top, or that damned Metropolis Zone, it was like seeing the game for the first time again. 

I was amazed at how varied each zone was. It's something missing from games today. Gears of War and Call of Duty are filled with the same brown and gray hues for the entire 10 hour campaign. 

In Sonic 2, each Zone has a personality, its own music and enemies. You came to know the new difficulties that awaiting in each area. It was handy when talking about the new secret you found on the playground to reference the lava river in Hill Top Zone or the bottomless pit in Mystic Cave. I can't say, "oh, there's a dog tag hidden in the ruined city, with all the cement and dust when the locusts attack," because that's the entire game. 

It took maybe 15 minutes for my buddy to get to the Winged Fortress, where hundreds of times I gave up on the game in my childhood.

We didn't beat it Saturday night. It might have been because we did not have a Genesis controller so the muscle memory was just slightly off. It might have just been the 7 beers we each had already. But Dr. "Eggman" Robotnic would continue to hold the last Chaos Emeralds. 

Editorial: Biggest E3 Misteps

Watching Microsoft confirm our worst DRM fears and then the subsequent bitch slap Sony delivered only hours later made me think of the biggest E3 missteps. Konami is a perennial failure forcing Japanese executives to read intense English scripts about their games. And damn if there aren't always CEOs that obviously know nothing about games, nervously standing in front of the crowd, talking about games, spewing buzz words. All of these clips could be cut into a 3 hour montage on YouTube.

Here are 3 of my favorite failures at E3.

Nintendo 2008
E3 has only been widely available to watch for maybe 8 years now, and there have been some pretty pathetic pressers, but nothing was as disappointing as Nintendo in 2008 when they spent what felt like half their conference showing the future failure that is Wii music.




Sega 1995

I read this one in countless magazines and just couldn't believe it. I was a Genesis guy and was incredibly excited about the Saturn.

Sega decided they would surprise release the Sega Saturn the day of the conference, but only to some stores and with only 6 launch games. On top of that, the Saturn was $100 more than the Playstation. All these missteps culminated in the Saturn sitting in the 1990s shame circle right next to the Virtual Boy and Apple Pippin.

Sony 2006

Sony already had a misstep with their 2005 conference where they egotistically announced a $499 price point, but then came the realistic-battles-from-feudal-Japan-crab-battle. Just watch the video, it explains itself.

Editorial: Losing Steam with the JRPG

I've always had this internal battle raging. About twice a year I get this yearning to play a JRPG style game and about 1.9 times a year I get this yearning to not finish that game.

This all started with Final Fantasy VII in the summer of 1997. My cousin and I went to the local rental store, saw this cool cover with a guy and a huge sword, and took it home. No amount of pizza and Mountain Dew could dull the disappointment that we weren't actively running into large hordes of enemies and cutting them down with this man sized sword.

That night, thinking maybe we missed something, I popped the game in after my cousin went to bed. I tried to take the game in. The prerendered backgrounds were beautiful. The music, some of the best I'd heard. But still, I just didn't understand the battle engine. My 13 year old self couldn't understand why my characters were taking breaks between hits. I didn't feel their fate actually rested in my hands, but rather rested in the hands of Lady Luck.

I've revisted Final Fantasy VII on my PSP in 2009 and enjoyed it much more. In fact, I've made it to the end of disk two... and I've been stuck there for 2 years. This isn't because I've come against a tough boss, its because I read a spoiler that said, "Don't even bother fighting the last boss without Knights of the Round," which I did not get.

The only two JRPG style games that I've actually finished are Legend of Legaia (PS1) and Lost Odyssey (Xbox 360). Both gave me an intense feeling of accomplishment and I think that's the feeling I'm chasing when I boot up that JRPG every year.

And while I chase that, the list of JRPGs that sit unfinished on my Vita and PS3 memory cards grows and this is almost a memorial for them, because I just don't know if I will ever finish any of them. The world will remain in chaos and the hero will remain casually living life at the last save point.

• Final Fantasy IV - Corrupt save state has me stuck in a dungeon I immediately die in
• Final Fantasy V - 3 hours in and I lost steam
• Final Fantasy VII - Sitting at the end of disk two where I have to decide whether to grind my level up to 99 or try to go back and get Knights of the Round. 
• Final Fantasy VIII - There's really no good reason. I actually liked this one better than VII, bought a copy of it, but never played more than the demo. 
• Grandia - I just don't know where I'm supposed to go after the first town and am too lazy to look it up. 
• Chrono Cross - It just seems so daunting to play this. 
• Persona 4 Golden - Can't beat a boss about 6 hours in.