Re: My childhood

I've been reverting to my younger years recently. I blame Microsoft and Nintendo with their Arcades and Virtual Consoles, selling me games I paid for ten years ago. I don't mind buying them again, though, because they are – in most cases – worth the extra cash and another play through.

Symphony of the Night, Sonic 2, Punch-Out, Kirby *insert subtitle here*, and many, many more. My XBLA collection has recently passed the 70 games mark, and I've got about a dozen on my Wii.

I think that everybody benefits from this, too. The game companies are getting more money for games they don't have to put much effort into, and the gamers are getting the "classic / hard-to-find / don't feel like getting it out of the garage" games with the tap of a button. It's also nice to have a centralized location for all your favorite games, and not having to switch discs when you want to play something else.

I've also become inexplicably addicted to Pokémon in the last two weeks. I loved Blue and Silver when they had first come out, then I kind of dodged everything after that. You can only play the same game so many times, you know? Somehow, though, I got a sudden urge to pick up my copy of Diamond and beat it, so I've been playing that whenever I have free time lately. I'm almost done with the main game, but then I plan to go level up my minions, do all that crappy EV training, max out my Pokédex, et cetera. I doubt I'll follow through on any of this, but that's the current plan.

This general change in my gaming life also prompted the registering of 8bittheory.com and the relocation of this barely-used blog to said domain.

How long will this phase last? Will it ever end? Yeah, it probably will. But it won't be the last one. Something about those old games just never gets old, ya know?

Smash!

I just thought that I should throw in my two cents regarding Brawl, since everybody else is doing it.

The game is great, don't get me wrong, but come on Nintendo. This could have been so much better. Get a rudimentary leaderboard system in place, tighten up that online play, ditch the damned friend codes already, plan out some DLC... epic possibilities.

That being said, the local multi / single player game is phenomenal. I don't know why everyone be hatin' on Subspace Emissary, it reminds me of The Great Cave Offensive and any game that invokes those memories gets an automatic thumbs-up from me. I suppose the platforming could have been slightly more fun and slightly less repetitive, but damn did those cutscenes make up for it. Talk about fan service.

I'm happy with the game's roster, even if it is a little on the shortish side. Prime opportunity for DLC right there. Everybody's butthurt that Mega Man didn't get in, and I understand that. He's a great character and he'd be good for the game. The characters they did put in should be enough to shut everybody up, but apparently the internet can't get no satisfaction. I'm just happy Sonic is in.

The biggest disappointment in my eyes? The Wii. If that damned thing did HD graphics, this would be Game of the Year. I try not to be a graphics whore, but come on. Look at the screenshots of the game, then play it. Huge difference, right?! I'd like the game to look like those screenshots as I'm playing it, please.

Regardless, I played it for fourteen hours straight the day after I got it, and I still hop on for my daily brawls, so apparently it's doing something right.

Nine and a half out of ten, for acts of bravery performed on some intensely-lacking hardware.