When I discovered that I was sick this weekend, it was not necessarily the end of the world. After all, “taking it easy” meant that I could game for hours on end. That sounds great, right? Unfortunately, the games I’ve been playing recently (with the exception of Elite Beat Agents and Ouendan) haven’t been able to grab me. I’m still searching for the next Okami, Final Fantasy VIII or original Kingdom Hearts. I want a game I can really sink my teeth into for 50+ hours and make it my own. While I really love the DS, I haven’t found a game yet that can provide that type of immersive experience.

I like to think I'm a forgiving person when it comes to games, and I really wanted to give Final Fantasy XII another shot. I had similarly hated the constant movies in Final Fantasy X, but after playing past the ten-hour mark, it got better. It may have just been that I was finally used to the characters and had enough invested in the game at that point that I grew to like it. However, I hope that wasn’t the case and ended up playing FFXII for several hours, hoping it, too, would get better.

I was at a point in the game where I could run around and fight for several hours. I fought monster after monster, getting battle chains of 36 enemies or more so I thought I would get some great items. I then went to sell my items at a shop (since that’s how you make a large portion of your money, as enemies don’t drop much money). I was so excited because I had fought for nearly two hours straight and had leveled up my characters to the point where they finally surpassed the level of my guest character. I was so happy because I finally had enough money to upgrade my weapons.

I was able to afford new weapons for most characters…except one. I then discovered that, not only did I not have enough to upgrade everyone’s weapons, but I also had forgotten about armor upgrades and regular items. Even when I sold my old weapons I barely had enough and then there were still some vital spells I had to buy. Once again, I was back where I started. I needed money but there was no fast way to get it. Even fighting didn’t help that much, because you spend so much time fighting that your stats seem to increase before you could buy a weapon that would do the same thing. I wouldn’t be so upset if I wasn’t so frugal with my money. I hardly ever use items if I can help it, to the point where I consistenyl endanger my party due to low MP. Yet I still never seem to have enough money.

To make it worse, I’m not too happy with the license board character improvement system. I wasn’t fond of Final Fantasy X’s sphere grid, but at least characters would be on certain tracks that would turn them into more of a healer or a warrior or a black mage. With this game, I have to spend a ridiculous amount of time peering at tiny print in my strategy guide's license board, trying to figure out who should learn what. I think this is a case when there are just too many choices. Every character can learn everything and I really don’t think that should be the case. When you have six characters, it makes sense that they should specialize. So why aren’t there more licenses in the magic section that increase MP or evasion? Why is it that you can have everyone as a melee fighter and a ranged fighter? This method is very expensive, as you have to keep so many types of weapons on hand. It just takes way too much effort to try to outfit everyone so they are balanced fighters and mages. I really get frustrated with this system, as I feel I have too little direction.

Finally, I was aggravated to unlock new “quickenings” (like limit breaks in previous final fantasies) and discover no help at all in how to use them. I skimmed through the section in my strategy guide before the boss fight and it seems like something terribly complicated with buttons and timing. All the game needs is a mini interactive tutorial on quickenings. It would take two minutes of our time and yet the game just leaves you hanging.

I think it’s time to take another break from FFXII. Between the stupid movies (where they say phrases such as “manufacted nethicite” in every other sentence) and the frustrations in the economy and leveling system, there is little to enjoy. I have a couple of the older final fantasies, and it may be time that I replayed them to rediscover my love of RPGs. I really miss that case of game addiction. I just can’t stand the thought of playing FFXII again, only to discover more and more issues that make it feel like I’m wasting my time for nothing.  

I have already proclaimed my unabashed love for Elite Beat Agents (EBA), so it should come as no surprise that Osu! Tatake! Ouendan! found its way into my mailbox. As the original Japanese game that inspired EBA, Ouendan has been critically acclaimed and developed a large fan base, both in its native Japan and foreign countries. I couldn’t wait to try it out.

When I began on the easiest level, I was a little surprised. Like EBA, it was hard when it was too slow (you have to concentrate to hit the sparse buttons, a drastic change from the more constant buttons that practically keep the tempo of the later levels). However, the overall pacing of the difficulties was much, much better. Levels progressed at an accelerated rate to that of the Westernized EBA. While it may be challenging for the new player, I felt that there was less of a plateau in difficulty among the levels. While in EBA there would seem to be a couple easy songs and many harder songs (in each of the four difficulty levels), Ouendan provided levels that progressed more steadily. As a player (and an EBA veteran), I felt respected. The game adjusts to the player’s rising skill, making it more fun.

Also high on the fun factor were the charts themselves. By charts, I mean the layout and pacing of the touch buttons and other devices during the songs. They were laid out in such a way so that they were not frustrating (such as not placing buttons all the way across the screen so you have to rush over to that spot) but high on the fun factor (such as laying out a string of buttons for a fun little drum solo). Perhaps it was the songs themselves, as many felt more like dance songs than those in EBA. Overall, there were fewer tricky rhythms to stumble over (like triplets in even time signatures) and the beat patterns fit the songs really well.

One you get past the fantastic gameplay, the main difference between EBA and Ouendan is the language. Ouendan is in Japanese. While I know some Japanese, I cannot read most of this game. The stories are still fairly easy to figure out from the pictures alone, but it appears the there are some stories that I may not understand due to language and/or cultural barriers. Keiichi Yano described how he changed the stories entriely for EBA because some problems just don’t suit Western audiences, such as the student having trouble focusing to study for an important exam. I have to admit, I found the stories for EBA to be much easier to relate to, perhaps because I’d seen stories like them so many times (the oil tycoon falls from power, the stealthy ninja steals secret plans, the lost puppy must find his way home).

Considering that I skip past most of the story animation after watching it once or twice, I really believe that the gameplay is the most important aspect of these iNiS games. If I had to pick between the two, I’d say Ouendan is definitely the more solid of the two and more fun in terms of gameplay. However, I’d definitely recommend Elite Beat Agents to most of my friends first since it is much more accessible. I am really glad that I played EBA first because it seems less difficult in general, making Ouendan quite a treat.  

I have the privilege of living in university-owned housing, meaning we have a ridiculous amount of fire drills. From smoking in the stairwell to hanging coat hangers on sprinkler heads, the silliest actions can cause everyone to evacuate the building at odd hours of the day. So I thought it was no big deal when the fire alarm scared me half to death last Sunday afternoon. I grabbed my DS Lite and a handful of games, heading out for what I hoped would be a normal 20-minute exercise in patience.

I wasn’t able to touch my DS for the first 20 minutes I spent outside. My mother called on my cell phone and I felt slightly disappointed, as homework awaited me inside. However, we did not get let back in after 20 minutes. I started up the DS and played a little Mario Kart. I really wanted to play Elite Beat Agents, but I didn’t want to disturb the other residents nearby with some of the mediocre covers of decent songs.

Unfortunately, Mario Kart was a lot less fun outside. I was doing okay for a while, but the bright California sun was washing out my screen, even on the brightest setting. I think part of it was due to the relatively low contrast of the game, since most of the colors are equally bright. It got practically unplayable when I was racing in Luigi’s Mansion. I couldn’t tell a shadowed door from a solid wall, getting me turned around entirely and causing me to come in at 5th place.

At this point, I was slightly miffed because I was in first place for the cup before. I still did win the cup (as it was on one of the easiest difficulties), but decided it was time to switch games. I played Super Mario Bros. for a grand total of seven minutes. That was the amount of time it took for me to get a game over and accept that, despite my ineptitude with Mario, it was really hard to see because of the low contrast issue.

I then moved on to Brain Age. I’ve been playing that game for a while and I really enjoy using it to take short study breaks. I love listening to the happy music and solving puzzles. I never really understood Sudoku before playing it in this game but I now it's one of my favorite puzzles. However, my mother called back in the middle of my play session and I turned it off, as you can’t really pause easily in that game.

I was getting pretty anxious now, as we had been outside for nearly an hour and I was getting cold. Also, people had begun sneaking back in the building at this point so there weren’t that many of us left outside, preferring not to commit a federal crime by re-entering the building. I turned to Elite Beat Agents, hoping that my recent favorite would help me feel better. Unfortunately, this was also a bit hard to see and I was self-conscious about the music. Finally, I turned off the DS and stood around like everyone else.

While my DS did help to stave off my boredom for a while, I felt that my anxiousness regarding the fire drill prevented me from truly appreciating any of the games. Also, the sun made it difficult to see many of the bright, happy games (like the Mario games). I have certainly played my DS for an hour at a time, but I find that many of the games lend themselves to shorter play sessions. If I learned anything that day, it’s that the DS may not perform the best outside, but it is certainly handy when you’re stuck outside your building.  

My Grandma loves to ask questions. When I saw her over spring break, she asked me all about games. I happily told her all about the industry, the many different consoles, and how I hope to produce games. She was a very good listener, but she also loves it when I can show her what I’m doing. So it only seemed natural that I should show her my DS.

I first showed my grandparents Elite Beat Agents because I had been telling them how much I enjoyed it. I felt that this game would be a good way to demonstrate the touch screen capabilities of the DS. Also, my grandparents hadn’t seen many rhythm games. They thought Elite Beat Agents was really neat. They were impressed by how far the technology has come and the tiny size of the cartridges. However, they didn’t show any interest in playing.

Fortunately, my grandma is a huge fan of Sudoku. She’s been doing those puzzles for over a year – she’ll get books of them or print them off the internet. I brought Brain Age with me and have really enjoyed playing the virtual Sudoku. I thought my grandma might like to see it since it has a lot of neat features, such as writing in possible numbers and being able to erase them just as if you had a pencil.

My grandma got very engrossed in Sudoku on my DS. She was a little confused at first since it would sometimes misread her numbers. Once she understood how to make her numbers easily readable by the touch screen, she was totally focused. The woman who had once been leading the conversation dropped out entirely, only making comments like “Oh no! I lost!” She is a good Sudoku player, but she made more mistakes than usual due to the DS misreading her handwritten numbers.

It was pretty amusing to watch my grandma play the DS. She looked incredibly distraught when she lost. Although the game would play happy music, she was upset because “It says I failed in those big black letters!” However, this did not stop her from trying again and she quickly beat a level.

One puzzle was enough for my grandma, but I was really glad that she took the time to sit down with a new piece of technology. She wants to be a part of my life, and I really appreciate how she put a real effort into learning about new types of games. She is pretty tech-savvy for a grandma and I hope she will continue playing games to stay sharp.  

Five months ago, in that basement classroom we Interactive Entertainment majors can call home, I had my first taste of Zelda. I wrote about it on this very blog last October and how impressed I was with the puzzles and charming fantasy world. I thought about buying a GameCube to play it, but it was good thing that I didn’t. Two months later, I had a Wii.

My excitement with Wii games temporarily made me forget that the Wii had backwards compatibility. I had forgotten about playing Zelda until I stumbled upon the Wind Waker strategy guide in a used bookstore for $3. This guide is hard to get for under $30 these days, so I was very excited. I then bought a used GameCube remote and memory card. Now I could play Wind Waker again.

I wanted to savor my return to The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. I sat down on a Friday night and played to my heart’s content. With the help of the strategy guide, I felt like I got a lot more out of the first hour of the game (which is how far I had played before without any help). I already knew what to do for the most part, but it was neat to know certain things, such as which spots to avoid if you don’t want to trigger events yet.

I also discovered some new content in previously-visited areas of the game, such as a mini-game. There was a pig-herding side quest on the island. When I first played, I simply thought it was fun to run around with a pig over my head. However, I now knew that there was a purpose to this silliness. I usually don’t care for mini-games, but I found this one to be fun because of the novelty factor. Some games, like Spyro, have silly herding games with creatures you kick and then make annoying noises. You have to do mini-games like this to move forward. In Wind Waker, this herding game involved pigs that would run away from you but were never too hard to catch if you used your brain. The pigs were believable and not aggravatingly stupid. I felt like I had accomplished something simply by being able to catch the pig, especially since I was rewarded with the amusing animation of a plump pink piglet squirming above my head.

Despite my appreciation for this game, I did learn one important things: I should really spend more time practicing jumps. There is one portion where you must swing on lanterns to get to platforms in a pirate ship. I had a lot of trouble with this thre first time I played, and my previous attempts provided no help when I had to do it again last Friday. Fortunately, I made it through by telling myself each time that it would be the last time. Then, I discovered that all my time spent jumping on lanterns was actually meant to help me. The pirate ship drops you off on an island fortress that also has several lantern jumps. Usually it was only one at a time (and not a string of them). I was glad I had some practice because it significantly reduced the number of times I fell.

Even if I do have a little trouble with jumps at first, I do learn eventually. This is no fault of the game and I actually appreciate a good jump now and then. After all, it’s much more fun to virtually rope jump for me because I’m way too scared to perform many of those stunts in real life. I really enjoyed my experience in Wind Waker and I look forward to playing it more again.  

I finally beat Elite Beat Agents (EBA) today. Last night, I played the second stage of the final level (set to "Jumpin’ Jack Flash") for about an hour before I beat it. This morning, I unlocked the final bonus level and beat it on all four difficulties.

What does it mean to beat a game? In many of the games I beat, you get a nice little movie and that ties up the story. EBA had a small movie where the agents helped save the world and everyone was happy. It sounds typical enough, but EBA is very different from a game with a more linear narrative.

EBA rewards players in a different way – it has unlockables that are present in so few games that I’ve beaten. I have to admit, it’s very satisfying to mark your progress in an episodic game with milestones such as increasing rand and new difficulty levels. Although this game took relatively little time to beat, I found my confidence increasing and I felt like an Elite Beat Diva by the end.

After finishing EBA, I wondered how much more I would play it. I did go back to increase my score and unlock the final bonus level. I after beating every level on every difficulty, I also got access to the character Commander Kahn. I really love this game and I will happily share it with others, but I don’t know if I will have nearly the same devotion to it in the future that I did while I was beating it. I have unlocked most of what I want, and the only way to get points now is to beat my near-perfect scores. That is no small feat, and I have endured much frustration due to the repetition involved getting those scores in the first place.

While some may want to play the game until they have perfect score in everything, I don’t think I’m that type of player. Going back to Richard Bartle’s player types, I think I am an achiever but not in the extreme. I am driven to beat a game I enjoy, but I don’t want to spend hours on perfection. After all, the frustration I would find through going through these levels over and over again just to get a certain score do not make it worth my time.

However, I would highly recommend this game to almost anyone who owns a DS. I really enjoyed its originality and excellent understanding of design for a portable console. I love it so much, in fact, that I am considering getting the imported original version. Perhaps I’ll have it finished by the time the newly-announced sequel is released.  

I have never owned a Nintendo console until I purchased my Wii last December. I feel a little bit embarrassed to admit it, especially when many of my gamer classmates all have fond memories of Mario and Zelda. They can go on and on for hours, talking about their favorite Super Smash Bros. tournaments or nodding knowingly at someone’s Mario shirt. I wondered about this secret club of Children Who Grew Up with Nintendo and hoped to someday understand.

Perhaps that was why I decided to try playing the old-school Super Mario Bros. I loaded the game up and pressed all the buttons, trying to figure out what to do. I figured out how to move forward and jump, and did okay for a little bit. Then I found a nice chasm and seemed to have a magnetic attraction to it. If falling off a cliff didn’t killed me, I seemed to accidentally hit some random googly-eyed enemy within seconds. I had to admit the hopeless truth: I was a Mario Moron. I couldn’t even make it past the first level.

I quit the Super Nintendo game in frustration, hoping that failing at Mario didn’t mean that I was a failure as a gamer. I hoped to someday conquer it, but I didn’t try again until recently, with the New Super Mario Bros. for DS. I had originally seen this game last May while I was in Japan. The DS Lite had just been released there, and I would often see the commercial for New Super Mario Bros. on the train. It showed a young Japanese woman sitting on her bed at home, talking to the game as she played. I thought it was neat that they showed a girl playing, but it didn’t make me want a DS. I thought they were nice, but why would I want something so small? I changed my mind recently and haven’t regretted my choice.

New Super Mario Bros. was the second game I got for the DS. I had heard great things about it, and I was excited to play. I started the game and soon had difficulty getting past the first level. Again. I now owned the game, and I didn’t want to give up so easily. I took my DS with me later that day when I my sister and I were getting haircuts. After I had my hair done, I sat by the front desk, playing Mario with ridiculously good-looking hair. One of the other stylists sat near me and snuck a few peeks at my game. I’m sure he must’ve thought I was a little odd.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get very far in the game, but I did get past the first level. I figured out a few things, like when to jump to kill enemies and how the physics change when you grow or shrink. I made it past the first two or three levels, but that wasn’t enough to save. I was frustrated because I couldn’t save after each level. I should probably just read the manual, but I still don’t know how to save. I’m hoping that, when I get better, I will earn the privilege to save.

I haven’t played Mario much since that day at the salon. After becoming obsessed with Elite Beat Agents, I think it will be hard for me to play much else until I’ve completed that game. The only reason I brought Mario to the salon instead of Elite Beat Agents was the fact that Mario didn't need any sound to succeed. I think it just requires more patience and perseverance on my part. I hoping that, if I stick with Mario a little longer, someday I will no longer be a Mario Moron.