cooties
i'm moving in with two boys in two weeks, so facts other than the loss of space for my shoes (i'm sorry, poor lover shoes) must be faced: i have to learn how to play video games.
i used to be quite the video game afficionado about, oh, 12 years ago. i was all over anything mario-related, and became quite good at sonic the hedgehog as well. also, i rocked that duck hunting game and the motorbike one. but then i hit puberty, figured out that video games were for loser boys, started to use my hand-eye coordination for tennis instead, and generally lost all sorts of video gaming skills i might have ever possessed. this was proved time after time when i tried to bond with the cute boys living upstairs from my apartment in college by playing mario kart with them, only to embarrass myself by losing constantly. i don't want to even think about the number of times i drove the poor princess off the track into some hellish abyss. i figured if i ever wanted to find someone to love me, they'd have to put up with the fact that i hate video games (mostly because i'm bad at them, and i hate doing anything that i am not good at/will not assuredly win).
thankfully, tommy came along, who will even put up with me screeching drunkenly about how much i hate mario party and how terribly unfair of a game it is whenever we play it. now, in an effort to be an affable roommate to him and charles, i've decided, grudgingly, that i will learn the rudiments of playing video games. i hope to even one day enjoy this venture. i have to admit to being a little apprehensive -- back when i enjoyed nintendo, the controllers only had the little up-down-right-left thing and an A and B button. now, i look at the controllers that involve about 32 different buttons and can like, levitate in midair and stuff, and i'm sure i'll never learn how to work them. but i keep telling myself: patience, grasshopper. the day will come.
anyway, i wanted to mine the vast video game knowledge of zunta's readers, and take suggestions for games that will be most suited to a neophyte. please try to avoid football, basketball, or games where you win by exploding everyone's head with some sort of ninja staff and spray blood all over the screen. i thank you in advance for your wisdom. wish me luck in my endeavors.
Comments
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time,
It's a 3D platformer but controls are simple. It "feels" like a 2d game.
Ico,
Hard to find but a beautiful game.
We in fact already have PoP, so Catherine could definitely give that a try. Good suggestion.
However, I think that remedial videogaming requires going back to the basics. And by that I mean Mike Tyson's Punch-Out.
I have discovered that people who have no concept of how video games work are completely rubbish at 3D platformers, have no concept of how analogue control works, and can probably whoop my ass at Tetris the first time they play.
Being a video game aficionado and after reading your post, the one game I must recommend to you is Wario Ware for the GBA or preferably the Gamecube. It's probably the best game I've played over the past two years and it requires very little controller skill beyond pressing the A button and maybe a direction or two at its hardest. It makes those old school Mario games look like calculus in comparison. Basically, there are these 3 second minigames where you have to complete one action to play the next 3-second minigame. Very compulsive gaming and simple enough that even my mother would be able to play it.
Also, Animal Crossing on the Gamecube is a nice bit of non-gaming, where you decorate houses, catch bugs and write letters to other animals. Best thing about Animal Crossing is the real-time aspect, meaning if you go on at 3am, it's 3am in town.
Lastly, Super Monkey Ball is another game where you literally only need to use the control stick. Basically, you need to get your monkey-in-a-ball through the exit. This game has reduced grown men to tears and probably has contributed to countless broken controllers. Which must be a good thing, right?
As you can see, I'm a bit of a Nintendork. I blame it on the parents for thrusting Game & Watches in my hands when I was four.
How about some music games? I don't mean dancing and singing games (although I'm a fan of both), but perhaps rhythm games like Parappa The Rapper and Amplitube are both lots of fun. Oh, and Rez is a very special game.
Anyway, I could go on for ages, but have a go at my first three recommendations and maybe you'll be pleasantly surprised.
You guys are all trying to start her off on a Master's track when she's asking for grade-school education here. Tom's got the right idea, and I follow up his thought with a suggestion: enroll at the Nunnery's School of Nintendo for Wayward Girls. Let me give you a sampling of our courses:
- Intro to Codes, Cheats, and Hints
- Japanese I & II with Ninja Gaiden I & II
- Intro to Pharmacology (taught by Mario, Ph.D.)
- Intro to Ethics: The Power Pad
- Descriptivism vs Prescriptivism: The NES Max and the NES Advantage
- Transformation Texts: Super Mario Bros. 3 and Kafka's Metamorphosis
Here at the Nunnery we offer a wide range of electives (Tecmo Bowl, Super Spike V'Ball) to offer a complement to the difficult academic courseload. While our students are encouraged to get plastered, throwing controllers will not be permitted.Excellent, Kriston. Are there any tenure track teaching positions available at the Nunnery?
OJ had some good suggestions too, though. I've got WarioWare for the GC and made Catherine play it with some success, but it's not that hard to work through most of the minigames in just 3 or 4 sessions, and I didn't think they could compare to mario party's minigames (although admittedly the game is a lot less tedious than mario party's boardgame setup).
I really like the Rez suggestion, though -- it's pretty much the only reason I still have a Dreamcast hooked up to my TV (and, just as important, stereo). I'll have to remember to break that one out again.
Alright Catherine, although I believe that the boys have their hearts in the right place, I think that you need some girl gaming advice. Here's the deal in order to get back into video games start with a game that intrigues you, not anyone else, find something that you think is cute or funny maybe. I think that monkey ball is a good idea, I've been meaning to get that game for a while. But basically go through Tom's house's collection, since they have a TON, and find something you like.
Another idea is that as girls we are not automatically programmed to want to play video games day in and day out. So you have to artificially motivate yourself. Try a game that has a story line where you can start and then save where you are in order to come back the next day and continue where you left off. I know you can do it catherine you've watched Pride and Prejudice in three day increments too many times. I'm not sure that you'd be up for Zelda but you can of course borrow mine if you like as well as my gamecube.
My third suggestion is to start where you left off! Go back to the classic mario games or even duck hunt if you can find someone that still has them. Also, as you mentioned before stay far away from the games with excess blood and professional sports. And by all means never even watch the Matrix games, I nearly got queazy simply watching someone else play that game, it's aweful!!
Dr. Mario!!!!! only because I can kick everyone's ass.
Any scholarships offered, Kriston?
Sheesh, and I had this vision of you all pouring over texts of the great artists and political thinkers of our times and waxing philosophic over hours-long chess games.
It's really all tacos, beer & video games, ain't it...
i think julie probably has the right idea when she says to get something with a storyline. i have been mildly intrigued by zelda in the past...we shall see. this is all very informative. you are all so wise.
what's prince of persia about, btw?
Prince of Persia is about dying a lot and then reversing time so that you don't. Sometimes you run around and stab things, but most of the time you try and figure out where to wall run and leap to in order to get through the room. It's a lot of fun for a while, but it gets old eventually. Thankfully the game is pretty short.
I have a NES and SNES and a fair collection of old games if you want to go retro. I recently revisited Super Mario III and found it kept me up past my bedtime.
PoP looked pretty cool to me too, mind if i come over and try it out sometime, Tom?
The best video game of all time is still one of the easiest to immerse yourself in and is playable by gamers of all levels. Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past has hooked people of all age groups, genders (both of them) and social statuses. Each of the levels only takes a few hours to beat (more like 15 minutes if you've already done it about a hundred times) and you can save your game at any time, so it's pretty easy to pick up and put down. And Brian, if you want to see the game beaten in under 3 hours and suffocate in a plastic bag of your own hubris, bring 20 bucks and a six pack of PBR to Tommy's house any weekend.
Competition Is the focus of all non-experience-point-related enjoyment derived from video games and for that reason I grudgingly second Naomi's recommendation of Dr. Mario. If I have to lose, I couldn't ask for a more sweet ass-ed gloating bitch to lose to. Other good ones not mentioend so far: Bomberman!, Super Mario World for the super intendo, Contra (with 30 life code - ↑↑↓↓←→←→BA select start), and I would be denying my fighting destiny if I didn't mention games like SoulCaliber or Street Fighter III , where beginners and advanced players have an equal chance for victory.
In conclusion, the only game that ever netted me any booty was Final Fantasy 7.
Jon, that's not a conclusion, that's the beginning of a new story. Cough it up!
it was a hot stuffy night in the Syracuse summmer. Heat lightning danced across the sky like breaking waves over the sand, or fireballs blasting from the hands of a street fighter. My own eyes were trained on the television screen as Vincent the Vampire used his DeathBlow technique in conjunction with his Sniper gun (225% accuracy) to deadly effect. The windows were open and the fans blew the smell of cut grass and barbecue on our sweaty bodies as we shared the comfort and slight old-man-smell of a rented house couch. I could see her reflection inching closer to mine in the Bob Seger and the SIlver Bullet Band mirror behind the television, but pretended not to notice as I deftly maneuvered my motley party through the nefarious Shinra Mansion.
The convection of air evaporated the condensed water from our skin, but the temperature continued to rise. Perceiving the heat from between her smooth brown thighs, I became aware of a dryness in my throat. We both reached for the same can of Pabst Blue Ribbon lite...
xxxx xx xxxx xxxxx xxxx xxx xxxx xxx xxxxx xxxxx
We learned a lot about the shrouded history of the maniacal villan Sephiroth and the enigmatic hero Cloud Strife and a little about ourselves and life is good, love is real, and beauty is everywhere
"suffocate in a plastic bag of your own hubris"
you need to copyright that now.
Has anyone actually timed Jon down to the second to see how long it takes for him to play through Zelda III? If not, I suggest we make this into an event and come up with a way to wager on his performance. There could even be a drinking element to keep him (and others) off balance. Who's in?
Jon timed himself when he recently beat Zelda. I don't remember his time, but he has beaten the game enough times to know how long it takes him...So I put $20 on Jon.
Did someone say drinking game?
Did someone just call me a gloating bitch? :)
I've decided to bring back my retro Nintendo system from my parents' (with Dr. Mario and Super Mario 3 (which I also beat), if it still works...
Jon, I think you should worry about your own plastic bag of hubris.
Friday Night Zelda Fight?
I like that a good video game discussion can keep us interested far longer than any of that boring political crap.
yes, i am learning how to appeal to my base readership. video games and/or beer discussions.
What else needs to be said to provoke this video game and/or beer throwdown? When do we hit critical mass? . . . Charles, you're a gloating bitch.
Charles, at least you're not a sweet-assed gloating bitch :) You guys supply the games, we have 3 cases of beer. Bring it.
if tommy, charles and jon allow this bizarre thing to take place, can it be any other night than friday? i have to run 18 miles 6am saturday morning. however, if i must miss the video game orgy, i suppose i will live.
I volunteer to host this video game challenge and drinking extravaganza a week from this Saturday. I live just outside the beltway in Fairfax, which might be a bit of a commute for some of you. However, the nerdery of our place rivals Tom and friends' in quantity if not quality.
We Have:
- a big screen TV (for those stunning 16 bit graphics)
- 2 secondary TVs
- many game systems: NES, SNES, Dreamcast, PS2, 2 Xboxes
- 4 computer LAN in with space for laptops
- a decent collection of hard liquors
naomi, i have no idea who you are, but i wish i lived up there so i could match my triumphant smirk against your sweet-assed gloating in a d-mario battle royale. ask kriston, he's seen the epic struggles between me and his old roommate reid. we even had a soundtrack (highlight: rod stewart's "downtown train").
and i will lay to waste almost anyone when it comes to tetris -- even the hard-to-find Tetris 64.
see, catherine, competition is the real fun of video games. if you really want to get into video games, find one that tom hasn't played and get better at it than him.
brian, it's a generous offer, but alas, we're moving the weekend after this one. So I'm not sure when this horrifying social event will take place, but probably not a week from saturday.
competition is the real fun of video games. if you really want to get into video games, find one that tom hasn't played and get better at it than him.
omg matty, it's like you're talking directly to my soul. i would immediately fall in love with video games if i knew i could be better at some of them than someone else. i'm gonna work on it.
it's like you're talking directly to my soul
Somebody pass me that plastic bag for my hubris...
well anyone who appeals to my scarily competitive nature is talking directly to my soul. i heart winning!
Well, my offer stands for any Saturday people can agree on.
Games girls always whoop my ass at:
Tetris
Dr Mario
Puyo Puyo
Can you see where this is going? I know it's a bit of stereotype that girls are better at puzzley-type games than guys, but this fact has been proven again and again... either the girls are great, or I'm shit. Or both.
RE: Old school games - The Gameboy is the way to go. Nintendo selling 10-20 year old games at full price = easiest money made ever.
Post A Comment