Thursday, June 10, 2010

Rosewater Park- A Nostalgic Review of Video Games

Taken from Silent Hill? Oh yes. Are you surprised? I hope not. Again, these are all just little 'base titles' until more appropriate titles appear, because calling everything 'Untitled' is incredibly trite. Now, onto the bittersweet video game nostalgia we all love to lose ourselves in for just a few minutes of our day.

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Alright, first up, I suppose i'll start this off. Asking someone their favorite video game as a child, as a singular no less, is nearly impossible, so I think I shall just go with a few of them and narrow it down. Onto the reminiscing!

Before I even begin, to the few people that tell me that they can't stand old consoles/games for the ONLY reason that "they suck"...without these glorious, amazing beasties you wouldn't even have your precious graphic overdosing machines, so please try to keep your stupidity to a minimum or my brain will inevitably implode. For the record, I don't dislike new games and consoles, on the contrary, I drool with the rest of you waiting impatiently like a crack addict itching for the new systems and games. Apparently the 3DS is going to have graphics close to the PS3 and 360, which i'm going to have to see to believe since, well...after SNES and N64, Nintendos strong point hasn't been graphics. Although you KNOW that it's there. I imagine them all sitting in the meeting room laughing maniacally with uber power. ANYWAYS, back on track to the show at hand!

Silent Hill and Resident Evil/PS1/PS2: Alright, these two are going together because I think of both when I think of survival horror. There are of course MANY others that I LOVE to death, but these two were the main when I was growing up. I clearly remember playing Resident Evil in the basement with my cousin coming up behind me and scaring the T-virus out of me. Horrified and convinced that every single noise that was coming from the darkness was something out to get me. I had goosebumps, my breathing was shallow that is assuming I was actually breathing and I loved every second of it. Enter the games that started my sweet obsession with pure psychological horror, my dear Silent Hill. If you've ever played these, (Not including Homecoming because just...just terrible.) then you already know what I mean and no explanation is needed. If you ever want a little vision of Hell, play them. Notoriously, I will say play Silent Hill 2. Silent Hill 3 is my favorite of the series, I have no real reason for this, but you can't quite compare the games to each other, so...to each their own. Either way, absolutely amazing series of games and you CANNOT go wrong. The soundtracks alone speak for themselves.

Final Fantasy VI(III)/SNES: This one clearly goes without saying. One of the BEST Final Fantasies ever, by far. Storyline, characters, music, etc. A perfect work of art. The only thing that made me cringe slightly is riding a chocobo and you can't really see where you're going on the over world map. But that incredibly minor thing set aside, truly one of the best RPGs ever made and everyone should at least play this once. At least.

Chrono Trigger/SNES: Again, this one needs nothing to really accompany it. The game alone speaks for itself and definitely needs to be played at least once, which...you WILL play it several times, the endings alone are worth it. At least a dozen endings and the replay value, no matter how many times you play it through is still fun and doesn't drag out and leave you with boring parts. The characters are amazing and I absolutely love the fact that there are NO random battles, which is always reassuring while playing an RPG. I have this on my DS now as well, it's nice being able to take this with me wherever I go.

Pokemon Red/Big fatty grey Gameboy: Ohhh yes I did just put this on here. This personally for me, I remember not putting this bastard down. Why yes, yes I WAS a consumer whore that watched the show religiously and pretended to have a pet Raichu. (ONE DAY, I can dream.) Anyways, there's always something about having little monsters chill out with you, accompanying on a grand adventure around the world that's ridiculously appealing and addictive. I still play these, I honestly have NO real reason why either, they're just fun and there's something about them that's so...innocent I suppose?

Azure Dreams/PS1: I simply ADORE this game. I used to rent this game EVERY weekend when I was allowed to rent a game while the parental units got movies. Then one day, it was gone completely and I was heartbroken, until I got a copy, that unfortunately left me and once again was left heartbroken. The game play of this game can be slightly frustrating at times, but the difficulty of having to get as far up a tower full of monsters without dying and getting monsters and items of your own was half the fun. I can't describe how amazing this game truly is.

Sonic 2/Sega Genesis: This one just makes me both automatically enraged and happy to play. Kind of like Megaman...I swear it's always the 'very few buttons to actually play with' games that are the evil, EVIL little bastards that you can't tear yourself away from until you're so convinced it isn't YOU that sucks at it, it's your controller that's screwed up and it's going to go through the t.v if you get one more Game Over by running over a spike strip when you had 99 rings and you were on your last life. This game makes me think of hanging around with family and telling Sonic his blue fur was stupid and he should jump better.

Megaman/NES: Talking about Megaman...this game has over 50 releases now, SO...yes. Obviously sequels, etc. but still. I loved these games. As frustrating as they were...they really, really were. I'm convinced Megaman is a masochist and he secretly just loves not jumping when you're DAMN SURE you hit that button at the right time. The music for these games makes me giggle like a crazed fan girl, especially Snakeman's music from Megaman III. I love the part where it drops down after a few seconds and goes, "Dun dun dunanana"...yes I did just do that. If you're as nerdy as me you can hear the part in your brain case as you read that.

Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon/PS1: These two i'm again putting together since I can't think of one without the other when I think of these games. I used to adore playing these both, their sequels up until they completely RUINED them. I'm referring ONLY to the Playstation versions, not the newest ones, because they make me rage. Nothing much to say about these two other than the games were fun, had some difficulties and had replay value for sure.



I can keep going forever but this is my minor list of a few games that I used to play the living Odin out of and still do to this day. And since i'm sure at this point you're all wondering, "What the FUCK, WHY isn't Final Fantasy VII in there? Blah blah Sephiroth...Is she MAD?!" No, no I am not mad, although somedays...hard to call. The reason I didn't bother with putting Final Fantasy VII in there, even though yes it is a game that I can play a million times over and never be bored of it and played it a TON when I was little was because I didn't think it needed to be said. Same with all the other Final Fantasys I do love to death, FFVIII, FFIX, FFXII, etc. They belong in their own 'epic' category so I didn't forget about them minions, I just didn't want to clog it up with ALL FF games.

3 comments:

  1. SUPER MARIO BRO'S 3, stg fighter, clay fighers, mortal kombat 2, bubble bobble, blades of steel, arcade - dungeons and dragons, secret of mana

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  2. I used to have Deus Ex, I played it a lot at first and then sort of drifted away from it.

    Secret of Mana of course. :D And Legend of Legaia.

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