Monday, December 13, 2010

Pokemon Emerald (GBA)

As I grew up as a kid living in an urban town, we got fads late.  Pokemon was the one fad that hit us at the right time.  I started way back when with Red.  I had Gold and Silver.  Then, nothing.  Through my middle years, I didn't play pokemon.  It was because it wasn't cool.  Nobody thought it was cool anymore.

I forgot the most cardinal rule of gaming, you don't play games to look cool.  You play games to have fun.  What is more fun than collecting hundreds of little monsters and battling.  Nothing.

As I write this, two months of time have probably passed since I played this game for the first time and beat it.  I have to say, it was enjoyable.  I like the additions to the series from Gold/Silver (although now I have played Heartgold and Pearl, I won't dwell on this fact) and some of the new pokemon were okay.

What gets me with each new gen is that they try to add to the existing ones in ways that are just boring.  Like baby versions of useless pokemon (Azurill is useless) or evolutions for pokemon that didn't need them.  What happened to the first gen pokemon that were fan favorites but have been left in the dark.  Pinsir is popular, why hasn't he had anything change for him yet?  Can't give him an evolution.

If I had played this game when it first came out, I would have been disappointed.  Only after maturing in my gaming tastes can I say that I enjoyed this game.  It has the makings of an in depth RPG but you can still just go with the flow and have fun.  EV/IV training is still confusing to me but that's okay.  That isn't required to be good enough in this game.  That's why I think the Pokemon series as a whole is great.  There is depth in what you can do but they don't force it on you to have fun.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PS3)

As the second game in the series that I played (yes, I played this second), I have to say it was incredibly enjoyable.  Let me get this out of the way, the cutscenes are long.  Very long.  But they are worth it.  The parts that you play are great and the balance between scenes and gameplay are nice.

I'll make this short since this game is very heavily reviewed.  I enjoyed this game.  Sure I'm not very good at being stealthy (I had so many alerts), but even a newb at these types of games can be good enough to beat it.  I will also say something, to the developers (as if they read this).  Please, PLEASE!  More Metal Gear vs. Metal Gear battles.  That was incredibly fun.