2010 in Review: Part 1

After putting it off for months, I've finally cracked and started a blog.  I had wanted to do so for a while and, after having recently received a few requests to talk about games in this format, that's what I'm going to do.  To be clear, I'm not writing reviews.  What will follow will mostly be musings, where I'll talk about what made particular games salient or interesting to me.  Don't expect coherence or some unified message.  These are my thoughts and I'd love to hear anyone's supporting or opposing ones in the comments.

Unsure of how exactly to start my blog, I took a cue from Matt Weiss's blog, Outside Your Heaven, and I'll start by looking at the games I played in 2010.  I'm planning on going through in chronological order of my playthroughs, so this will start with my Christmas spoils and move on from there.  Enough introductions, let's see the games.

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (DS)

As I plan to make absolutely clear in later posts, I'm a huge fan of the Zelda franchise.  Majora's Mask is easily one of my favorite games of all time, and I'd rank the Oracles similarly among portable games.  Spirit Tracks is the second DS Zelda title, building upon the engine of the first, Phantom Hourglass.  Consequently, the games are quite similar, so many of the remarks I will make apply to both.

Stylus Controls
Upon picking up the game, you will soon discover the game's inventive control scheme.  Rather than using the directional pad to move your avatar, Link, you use the stylus to indicate on the touch screen where you want him to move.  Despite being fairly new to me the first time I picked the game up, I admit to finding it fairly intuitive.   When you want to interact with objects, the stylus functions very much like a mouse cursor in point and click adventure games, you can tap items on screen to interact with them.  I definitely thought this was a pretty cool way to make use of the touch screen as an analog interface when all other inputs are digital.  I wasn't sure whether I would have preferred a standard control scheme when I played these games, as they didn't give you an option.  However, when I played Golden Sun: Dark Dawn later, it DOES give you an option between standard D-pad movement and analog touch screen movement, and I found myself sticking with the D-pad movement and not turning back.  Still, while I don't see it replacing D-pad movement, it was nice to see that one of the most fundamental actions in a game, moving, is still having its interface innovated, which is pretty cool.  Just a couple more thoughts about the movement.  Yes, your fingers so sometimes get in the way of the action.  It seems Sony picked up on that when they started the design of the PSP2 (I can't bear to call it the NGP).  In addition to movement and basic interaction, you can also use items with the stylus.  One of the iconic items in the game is the boomerang.  When throwing, you can trace out the path the boomerang will follow.  No complaints about that, that controls really well, and using the stylus based movement leaves your stylus-carrying hand poised to use such items.

Transportation
A key element of each of the games can be seen on the boxart

Phantom Hourglass has boats, and Spirit Tracks has trains!  World navigation is a huge part of each game.  They followed the mold set by Wind Waker on this one.  Some people found the navigation tedious.  I didn't mind them too much.  They're both very pretty games, and I enjoyed the chance to admire the scenery.  I'm not sure which mode of transportation I preferred.  In Phantom Hourglass, you control a boat on open water.  This means that you have continuous motion available to you...however, since you're in a body of water sparsely populated by islands, there's not always a whole lot of scenery.  Still though, when you do find a coast, you've got full control to circle the island and take it all in.  In Spirit Tracks, you're on rails, so you can't move wherever you want, you need to stay on the train tracks.  Sure, there are plenty of junctions, but it's a different feeling than exploring a more continuous space.  However, since you're (generally) on land, there's a lot more to see.

Continuous/Discrete Exploration
Part of me thinks it's great that 3D games like this are readily available on handhelds.  However, part of me also kind of misses the 2D Zeldas.  With technology moving forward as it is, I have my doubts about the number of games like the Oracles that will come out in the future.  Maybe on a watch or calculator or something, phones are already too advanced, too.  I can appreciate good looking games, but sometimes simple looking games have some appeal to them.  My eyes like seeing a grid like world and simple sprites with black borders.  I mentioned before that there is a difference between continuous and discrete exploration, and the discrete exploration of the Oracles has some charm for me.  Perhaps it was done for technical reasons, I can't say, but, in general, each 'screen' of the game is static until you reach the edge, after which it scrolls.  There's something satisfying about trying to explore the whole map, trying to find a way into that mysterious gray square with no apparent entry.  Dungeons are laid out similarly.  Ask any mathematician, problem solving for a discrete system is very different than problem solving for a continuous system.  It's a totally different experience.  I just hope that this type of design isn't dismissed as an artifact of old technology, and some modern games incorporate something similar as a conscious design choice.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii)

I hope the previous paragraph didn't convince anyone that I'm wearing rose tinted nostalgia glasses lamenting for the simple days of old.  While it true that I do have a sweet spot for simple or 'retro' games, I hadn't many of the 'old classics' until I was older, so I hope that dismisses that notion a little, at least.  New Super Mario Bros. Wii builds on the good reception of New Super Mario Bros. for DS.  A "2.5D" (3D graphics, 2D gameplay) attempt at recreating the classic Mario formula, what does this game bring to the table?

Multiplayer
This is the core of what makes this game memorable.  It's extremely conducive to fun, frustrating, and intense multiplayer sessions.  Up to four players can play through the levels at a time.  An element of the in game physics which seems so simple has such a dramatic effect on the game - collision detection.  Cooperating players can collide with one another.  This means that if two players go for a jump at the same time, they may collide in the air and both die, or perhaps one makes it, inadvertently blocking the other player's access to the platform.  While it may sound like I'm criticizing the mechanic, that's not the case at all.  If such a scenario happens where a partner inadvertently kills you, neither I nor anyone I play with has accused the game of having an unfair set of rules.  Rather, all of the blame, for better or for worse, is placed on the other players.  The emotions I've seen this game bring out of people have been nothing short of incredible.  The emotion is usually anger and often physical violence is involved, but hey, if the game can cause that sort of chaos in the real world, then it's doing something right.

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (DS)

I've had a lot of fun with the Mario & Luigi series.  For those unfamiliar, these games are the spiritual successors to Super Mario RPG for the SNES.  (Tangent: Speaking of Mario RPGs, I've never tried any of the Paper Mario games, perhaps I'll have to sample those at some point).  This was my "vacation game" over spring break, nothing like killing odd hours on a cruise with a DS.  Besides, what was I going to do when my friends were reading, read??

Combat
I love the combat system for these games.  Yes, it does have a pretty standard turn-based battle system where you and your opponents decide your attacks for the next round.  What makes it interesting is that the player still intervenes during attack sequences (both yours and your opponents).  When you're attacking, you may have to make Mario and Luigi jump at certain times to maximize your jump height.  When the enemy is attacking, you might be able to attempt to block them with a well timed swing of your hammer.  While the enemies may have several different attacks, they often have small animation quirks which signal the attack they're about to do, giving this a Punch-Out!! sort of flare.  This is not the type of RPG where you can fall asleep mid combat (don't worry, I'll get to FFXIII later).

Humor
Also following in the SMRPG tradition, these games incorporate a great sense of humor.  In particular, with this entry, you control Bowser for a large part of the game.  Big, brash, and brutish, his personality as characterized by his interactions with NPCs or the Mario Bros. is matched by your primary verbs, punch and breathe fire.  I don't expect anyone to experience any of the humor from my description, but if you play the game, you'll see that it is a salient part of the play experience.  Other times, the characters poke fun at Internet culture.  Notable are characters are a pair of hammer bros. who speak in 1337, and a villain who speaks in Engrish ("I have fury!").

Mega Man 10 (Wii)

I mentioned retro rebirth a bit with New Super Mario Bros. Wii.  New Super Mario Bros. (DS) was definitely a big catalyst in what's been a recent revival of classic 2D platforming, but Mega Man 9 and 10 decided to go big or go home, and imitated NES era hardware as much as reasonably possible, down to (optional) sprite flicker and cheesy, irrelevant box art.

Challenge
I will readily confess that I'm a sucker for difficulty in games.  I won't even claim that I'll be particularly good at any game when I first pick it up, I'm not some godlike player.  But I'm extremely persistent, and am driven forward by apparently unattainable goals.  I enjoy the feeling of improving, and I feel kind of let down if I beat a game without failing, that's an important part of the experience for me.  In so many ways, it feels like Capcom made Mega Man 9 and 10 for me.  The first time through each of them (particularly 9, I had refined my Mega Man skills enough after that to be a bit more ready to go for 10), I died lots on the stages.  And very few of the deaths are cheap shots either, the games just present challenges to assess your skill level, and you will only move forward if you are skilled enough.  Despite sticking to the typical NES Mega Man formula (and totally nailing the level and boss design), each of these adds 'challenges.'  These are sort of like 360 achievements (and many of them would be if I played that version, but I prefer the NESesque Wii controller for this).  I can see why "beat the game using the minimum amount of weapon energy" might not be appealing for everyone, but, when you can playthrough the game in about a half hour, I found it to be a very fun challenge.  The ultimate entry on the list is particularly daunting, "Mr. Perfect: Clear the game without taking damage."  If you've sampled either game, this seems insane.  However, I pulled it off in 9 on playthrough #29, but pretty quickly in 10 (yeah I did easy mode, you can save between the Wily stages).  Made the difference between the first being a 100 hour game and the second being a 50.  (Don't check the Nintendo channel for game play time, it's terrifying.  300+ in guitar hero 3??).  The best challenges in the second game though, were to beat each boss on hard mode (they get extra attacks and speed) using mega buster only (they all take 28 hits) without taking damage.  I'm sure these don't sound fun for everyone, but if you love platformers and you're a bit of a gaming masochist, play to your heart's content.

I made a spreadsheet in MM9 detailing everywhere where I would get hit.  Here is a graph of my number of hits against trial number.  Run #28 where I got hit once was heartbreaking.

Retro
I mentioned when I was talking about Spirit Tracks my laments about technological advances removing the quantity of games out there that leverage simplicity to their advantage, since technology isn't nearly as restrictive as it used to be.  Sure, skinning your game like an NES game helps, maybe it got the development team in the right mindset helps as well, but they really did a great job crafting a game where you can just blissfully jump and shoot, the player having a complete understanding of the simple and clear world around them.  With my own attempts to further physics in 3D worlds I might seem almost hypocritical, but I don't want to suggest that realism is a bad thing.  I just want to make my stance clear that having a simple and visually clear world can give a unique play experience, and it should not be abandoned, so I wholeheartedly support Capcom in their production of these games.

End of Part 1
Well it felt good to rant for a bit about those games.  If anyone else has played any of those, I'd love to know what you think as well.  I've got 16 games from last year I wanted to talk about, so let's try 4/4/4/4.  Next time, we relive my summer:

-Super Mario Galaxy 2
-Monster Hunter 3
-Final Fantasy 13
-Metroid: Other M