- Tekken. This is a drastically underrated series and, for my money, it's better than Virtua Fighter. Why? Because, though the moves themselves may be less realistic (Mestre Marcelo gets crap to this day about Eddy Gordo's ginga), it feels more like a real fight, and understanding the conceptual underpinnings of real fighting will make you better at it. Lee, for instance, is damned near unstoppable once you understand he's basically doing savate, meaning his sidesteps and dodging/closing moves should be the foundation of his game. Eddy/Cristie could stand to be better, but in fairness to Namco capoeira's concepts are drastically different from most systems they're probably used to (and malandragem is a hard thing to incorporate as a game mechanic).
- Started playing Zone of the Enders. Only actually finished the first part, and remain cautiously optimistic; Hideo Kojima's works always leave me afraid he's going to screw something up for the sake of some half-baked ideological "teachable moment". Nevertheless, any game where you can actually do a Gundam-esque "twitterpated hummingbirds" fight, in real time, is a good game, and prevents me having to run off to join the Itano Circus.
- Replaying Xenosaga a third time, and noticing a lot of stuff I missed before. One thing, for instance, is Shion seems older this time through, and the only thing that's different is I had her walk rather than run when moving around the Woglinde—her run is just a girly run, but her walk looks much more mature (the art style, involving what TV Tropes calls Generic Cuteness, threw me; she looks about 14). There's an almost disturbing attention to the cultural setting details, too—like that the captain of the Elsa (a salvage ship) doesn't like being compared to vultures, jackals or hyenas...not because they're scavengers, but because they're extinct and he doesn't want to be jinxed. They call that writing, Whedon, maybe you should fricking try it some time. It also manages to make life in its hugely technological civilization believable, simply by not being Post-Scarcity (mostly because, y'know, Second Law). That last point might occasion its own post.
- Visual novels, as a genre. Why can't we get them Stateside? Yeah, I know people think they're all H-games (doesn't help most of the famous ones are, albeit tear-jerking, sweetly sentimental H-games), but there's no reason not to release the cleaned-up second-run versions over here. I only play RPGs for the story (does anyone play them for the combat—can anyone just not get enough of JRPG combat?), and if I only had story to worry about, I'd be a hell of a lot happier.
- All that I will say about the Assassin's Creed games, made by Ubisoft, is, "Haven't the French already done enough to the Knights Templar?" Pigs.
- Skygunner is a great game, though good luck finding the thing. The control system is very counterintuitive, at least to me, but the story and, especially, the art, make it worthwhile. Probably the poster child for the concept, "When the Japanese set out to do 'charmingly quirky', they don't kid around."
2009/12/01
Video Games
So, I borrowed the ane-ue's Playstation 2, so I thought I'd post some thoughts about video games—not exactly gonna put Tycho Brahe out of business, but anyway, such as it is, here it is.
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3 comments:
I agree. Tekken is pretty much my favorite fighting game, because it's just the most fun. And the capoeira is getting better - they even named a bunch of the moves their real names in 5.
And I love Skygunner. Just the opening animation makes me happy, and even when it makes me want to throw the controller through the screen, it's just so pretty and cute. I can't unlock my favorite character though . . .
The dogfighting in it is pretty unrealistic, but I don't even care, and I am a huge geek about that particular subject. That's how much fun it is. A game with decent dogfighting is Spitfire Heroes for the DS, an even lesser-know title. I like it because it was pretty hard at first, and then I tried really applying the Dicta Boelke, and it works (I said I was a geek)! Also the controls are straightforward.
What's funny to me about the Dicta Boelke is that, despite what the half-brights will tell you, they'd even work for space combat (since they're determined by tactics, rather than the particulars of flight). Attacking with the sun behind you, for instance: that'll even let you get the legendary "stealth in space", since the sun is a bigger radiation source than your ship could ever be.
^-^ squee That made my day. Because it is just pretty much tactics - not much that applies specifically to airplanes (Mannock's rules are a little more specific to those types of aircraft - talking about not trying to climb, remembering where the wind is coming from etc. That's probably why Dicta Boelcke is the standard after all this time)
Of course computerized targeting systems make a lot of rules a little unnecessary, like not shooting until you are close, and keeping your eye on the target (although if your computer's lock is broken, you'd better be aware of where that enemy went). It will keep evolving as weapons do, and as new environments become available. Like space. Whoo.
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