I want YOU…to want MEME!
Any Cheap Trick fans in the house? Yeah, me neither.
Anywho, thanks to my blood siblings Filmgeek, Kai and Ruth for tagging me as a verified Versatile Blogger. You guys are the coolest, we should have a birthday party at McDonald’s together. It’ll be so awesome. They even have a Play Place.
So as these things usually go, I now have to dish out seven juicy facts about myself, stuff that lands paparazzi outside my front door when I’m just trying to take my five kids to school, stuff that the LAPD have been after for years. But since I’ve already exhausted every last interesting fact about me in the last 36 memes, I’m making this one genre-specific.
That’s right, my nerds. This one’s about video games (cue the eye-rolls).
7. First system I ever got: Sega Genesis w/ Sonic the Hedgehog 2. That was a kickass Christmas, Santa had no idea of the crack he had just given me.
6. The Top Ten
(10) Gears of War [better memories with the first one even though 2 is better]
(9) Final Fantasy X
(8) Halo 2
(7) Shadow of the Colossus
(6) Metal Gear Solid
(5) Half- Life 2
(4) Knights of the Old Republic
(3) Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
(2) The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
(1) Final Fantasy VII [single-handedly renewed my faith in video games]
5. The best kinds of video games are the ones that make you think. Big RPG fan, but who am I kidding, I lost sleep playing that first Modern Warfare game. Nonetheless, most games today – much like movies – are just too damn repetitive and have zero originality to them outside of how much blood and firepower they can throw into the mix. How about something new, guys? Crazy idea, I know.
4. Met all my best friends from college through Halo. Turns out that they all lived on my floor, were all totally awesome dudes that were just as hooked as I was and we ended up winning a campus-wide Halo 2 tournament later that year. Again, I can feel the eye-rolls, but good times all the same. Rest assured, we drank a lot, too.
3. Games I’ve spent an effing ungodly/embarrassing amount of time playing to the point where I practically shut myself off from the world except for the occasional bathroom/food/sunlight break: Final Fantasy VII, Knights of the Old Republic, and Day of Defeat. Great games, but the flashbacks I’m getting right now are making me shudder.
2. The two games that I really considered destroying my television over because they were so hard: Ninja Gaiden for XBOX and Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening. Both great games, beat them both – and I take great pride in that – but FUCK were those two infuriating!
1. Despite all this ranting, I actually stopped playing video games recently after putting 35 hours of my time into Final Fantasy XIII and hitting a wall where I realized the story sucked, the characters sucked, I wasn’t having fun and I likely had another 30 hours in front of me that I didn’t want to waste on something that I nor anyone else was gonna give a shit about. Needless to say, wildly disappointing game, might be the second-worst of the series after X-2, but hey, more time to grind out that screenplay of mine.
Alright, got that out of my system. Hoping at least one of you hasn’t written me off for good after that.
And as for who I’m passing this little ditty along to (AND IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE ABOUT VIDEO GAMES):
1. Travis over at The Movie Encyclopedia (I know for a fact that you’re an RPG junkie)
2. The Hatter over at The Dark of the Matinee
3. Darren over at the mOvie blog (dug our Metal Gear convo over at The List, you brought it on yourself)
4. Peter and his Magic Lantern Film Blog
5. And Dan the Man
Guys, you’re all a hell of a lot more versatile than I am and I’m pretty sure I’d take a bullet for ya’s. Now get to it!
Cut The Crap Movie Reviews 
Are you talking about Day of Defeat, the Half Life/HL2 mod? Because that game absolutely rocked and I played many hours of it although my favorite were the HL1 deathmatch mode. Also a big fan of Modern Warfare online although teamplay certainly is of very low quality compared to my heydays of playing Half life
Hell yeah, that’s exactly the game I’m talking about! Rare to find someone else who was hooked, but once again, you’re a man after my own heart, Castor. And as good as MW multiplayer is, that campaign mode was arguably the best FPS campaign mode ever made. Unreal.
Yea! The campaign definitely was really good and I played it a few times too many. We should play a multiplayer round someday 😉
Haha, you got it, man. Still don’t have the new one, but the first one is dirt cheap now. Do you have a PS3 or a 360?
No!!! I play it on PC (the real way FPS should be played!). Guess we can’t play together darn 😦
I’m actually playing FF13 right now (well… not as I type this, but it’s the current game in my system). I’m a pretty avid FF fan, and this one definitely isn’t one of the better ones. With a couple exceptions, the characters are pretty annoying, and the gameplay is essentially a non-stop string of battles that can fluctuate between insanely easy and impossibly difficult (even with what are supposed to be random encounter-type monsters). I mean, I don’t think there’s ever been another Final Fantasy that I’ve played where I’ve gotten multiple Game Overs on ‘random encounter’ battles. Hell, I can’t think of any specific time outside of FF13 where I’ve died during a non-boss battle (where I wasn’t already on the verge of death due to a prior battle and just got caught up in a random battle at the wrong time). The story, however, isn’t too bad. It’s keeping me playing. Sure, it’s nowhere near the best or most engaging of FF stories, but it’s interesting enough (for me).
I also know what you mean about DMC3. I still haven’t beaten that game yet. Though you want a super-hard game? One of the hardest platformers I’ve ever played… Jak 2. I love the Jak and Daxter series, but that game is ridiculously difficult.
Funnily enough… our first family system was the original NES (actually, I think my parents had a Commodor 64 before that). But the first system that was ‘mine’… given as a gift, anyway… was the Sega Genesis, and I believe it game with Sonic 2, as well.
Man, cut from the same tree. What a combo that was, huh?
And as for FF13, here’s my thoughts:
– I like the combat, I like how you really have to strategize each fight even if it seems pretty automatic while you’re actually fighting. Also helps that there’s practically no load times.
– Graphics are gorgeous, but this is just another example of how graphics are over-appreciated.
– And I don’t know if you’ve gotten to it yet, but the whole “One of you needs to become Ragnarok to defeat Orphan” is a total rehash of the FFX story, a total cop-out. There’s no main villain like there is in EVERY OTHER FF, and all the characters are such whiney bitches it’s making my blood boil. Ugh, idk man, very disappointing. Square is capable of such better stuff.
And never played any of the Jak & Daxter games (even though I’ve heard nothing but great things), but keep plugging away at DMC3, it’s worth it. You see the videos of Dante in the new Marvel vs. Capcom game?
No, haven’t gotten that far in FF13 yet… but nice spoilerization there 😛 . Actually, there is a TON in FF13 that pays homage to all the previous games. I notice something similar to an older game every time I play. Hell, there are even Spirits Within homages.
I honestly don’t think these things are rip-offs as much as they are paying tribute to the rest of the series.
Lol, sorry about that, man. I don’t know, I just wanted something new and at least something well-written with a good story. If I wanted to play FFX again, I’d play FFX again. Call me crazy, dude.
Never saw Spirits Within actually. Your thoughts?
Spirits Within is a decent movie… if you take away the fact that it’s title is “Final Fantasy.” It has absolutely NOTHING to do with the games, even tonally. There’s a guy named Sid, but as you can see, they even spell it wrong. If they went with their original title, Gaia, and not tried to make it a “Final Fantasy” movie, I think it would have done better. Most boycotted it due to the title alone, and it failed mostly because it had nothing to do with the games.
However, there are great visuals, decent characters, and a decent story. So if you remove “FF” from it, it’s a decent movie.
Interesting, never heard that before. Pretty surprised I’ve never seen it to be honest, but hey, now might be the time. Will stick to downloading FF9 to my PSP for the time being though. Great, wildly underappreciated entry in the series.
I have stayed away from games ever since Tony Hawk got lame but just had an XBOX 360 land in my lap with a handful of games and am totally hooked on Modern Warfare… DAMN.
PS. I thought forever for a clever title for this post and couldn’t do it. Why you gotta be a one-upper? 🙂
Hahaha, that game is a fuckin’ addiction, dude. great game, but good luck putting it down. exactly why I haven’t bought the second one. and how the hell did a 360 fall in your lap? how do I arrange such an amazing arrangement.
and sorry about the name, man. I was grabbin’ at sticks as well, hardly anything to envy.
It’s easy… marry a smokin’ hot red head with a one year old son. Wait 9 years until his deadbeat Dad gets kicked out of his Mom’s house and then take and play the XBOX he gives to his kid cuz he has nowhere to put it! haha
geez, i think you got me beat on that one. way to plan ahead!
My best friend and I became best friends through Ninja Gaiden. He’d be playing it in my dorm on my Xbox, I’d be asleep, and at 2 in the morning I’d hear a loud “God fucking damn it!” Which I knew meant that a bunch of ninjas just pwned him. And over that, a friendship was born.
Well…that and projectile vomit…
Hahaha, I’ll leave the projectile vomit between you two, but that’s a beautiful story, man. It all really boils down to that first boss fight with Alma. One of the few times where I died so quickly and so many times that I really thought it was impossible to beat her after a while. But I pushed forward and oh how I celebrated when I finally whupped her ass. Good times.
You have way more then just 30 hours left to go in FFXII. Don’t even bother. It’s not worth the time. If you want a game that will get you back into the medium in a great way, pick up Red Dead Redemption. It’s GTA IV, but with horses, and ten times better!!
Yeah, I’m done with it, had a feeling I had more ahead of me than 30 hours. And I have heard nothing but effing incredible things about Red Dead. Only thing is that I didn’t really like GTA4, just felt like the same game I’ve been playing since GTA3 only with better graphics, but whatever, Red Dead looks badass. Might have to check it out when it’s not 60 bucks.
Love that first pic. That brought me back to so many Christmas mornings on the floor of my parents sitting room as I ripped through the packaging to get to one console after another, year after year, from the humble SEGA Master system II, through the SNES and N64 to the XBOX and finally the wii, which stays at my parents house, for health and safety reasons (I brained a youngster at a friends house and since then have been reluctant to let fly).
hahaha, that Wii is a dangerous machine, dude. Yeah, I miss that feeling, I flipped OUT when I opened up that Sega Genesis. You ever see the video that image is from? YouTube “N64 kid” or “N64 kid remix”, too good.
I’m fairly certain I played through Knights of the Old Republic seven times. That’s right, seven times! But I was young and it was the only game I played for about a year.
I’m with you on RPGs. I dig the depth and choice you are given as opposed to just the generic aim at dude and shoot his head.
I do not blame you on playing KOTOR 7 times. Was into that game so completely, I refuse to pickup the second one just because I know I’ll get totally lost in it even though it’s probably great. Game I’ve probably beaten the most and still want to play through again really badly is Half Life 2. Absolutely phenomenal.
I didn’t forget about this, Aiden. Again, much thanks for the link love. Finally got my post up…
http://magiclanternfilm.wordpress.com/2010/06/19/the-versatile-blogger-award/
Glad to know we share some of the same video game loves as well. I’ll def be getting to this one soon.
I need to play more videogames. I tend to “binge game”. I’ll buy a game at Christmas and play it during the awkward family stuff until New Years – typically GTA (although last year it was the fan-friendly nerdgasm-inducingly awesome Batman: Arkham Asylum).
hahaha. I heard good things about that one. It’s been a while since I really fell in love with a game, maybe The Orange Box (or more specifically Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and Portal), but that’s about it. The search continues, but I know the “binge game” feeling quite well.
You ever played Mass Effect? That and its sequel are in my top games of time. I’ve haven’t been more sold on a sci-fi world since I was a kid watching Star Wars.
Gotta echo the great things about Half Life 2 as well! That game is great. I think I still like the first better because I played it so much, but part 2 is awesome.
I did play through Mass Effect, and while there are aspects that kicked ass, I actually wasn’t totally sold on it for some reason. Sidequests were awfully repetitive and it was way too easy. But I am ITCHING to play ME2, that looks unbelievable.
And glad you agree on Half-Life 2. First one is great, too, only thing is that I played it for the first time maybe five years after it came out. Nonetheless, great freakin’ game. You ever play Half-Life 2: Episode 1 & 2?
The second Mass Effect will most likely solve any problems you had with the first one. It’s so fun.
I haven’t played Ep 1 & 2 yet. I have them but haven’t got to them. Recently played through Portal though, it was great.
Portal was so great, absolutely hilarious game, too. If you’ve got a 360, do yourself a favor and pick up The Orange Box. It’s probably no more than 15 bucks now and it is the steal of a century. Episode 2 is one of the best shooters out there, dude. Damn, Valve is so on point, so is Bioware actually.
Yeah I recently got Orange Box for PC. I wish more publishers put out a package with as much value as that!
I just watched that n64 kid movie, that is both funny and relatable. Not so long ago I reacted very similarly to that (seriously, it’s quite embarrassing now that I remember it) when I got a wii for christmas. That kid is me… I just haven’t grown up.
hahaha. the wii was a big deal, man. i understand.
there’s a remix video of it somewhere that leaves me short of breath every time i watch it, and i hate remix videos. i’ll send it your way one of these days, you will be glad.
Nice list! I was once relatively committed to World of Warcraft, until I eventually turned against it and bitterly removed it from my computer. Highly addictive.
Yeah, I was lucky enough to dodge that bullet, but some of my friends were hooked like crackheads for literally years, something tells me I would have been too if I had gotten on board.
If you’re ever tempted to begin playing WoW….Run!
There’s not a huge amount of depth in it and levelling up is not an impossible feat, but that’s probably why it appeals to the masses.
Now and then I get the feeling that “Oh, I wouldn’t mind going on a raid with my friends today”, but then I remember that day last September when I scared a bunch of non-gamers by mentioning that I had a lovely Raging Beserkers helmet from Scarlet Monastery and decide that uninstalling was probably a wise decision!
hahaha, i’ve been running from the start and I don’t see myself stopping any time soon. thanks for the heads up though, just can’t see myself playing a game with no end. crazy stuff…
I completely know where you are coming from when it comes to playing Knights of the Old Republic for an insane amount of hours in a row. One of my all-time favorite games, and I really had no drive to do anything but to continue playing that game. And then the second game came out and did the same thing to me.
And that’s exactly why I haven’t played the second one. I had no effing social life for a solid week in college when i started that. Quite sad, but great freakin’ game, huh?
Oh definitely. And if I remember right, the second game offers even a few more ways to go through the game, so you spend even more time at the console.
Too rich for my blood, homey. Sure it’s awesome though.
One of my darker gaming moments was when I was in the city (ie: socialising), but I decided I didn’t feel like going to a pub and went to an internet café and played Warcraft instead :O
Because I’m female, everytime I go into the Game shop, I get asked if I know what I am looking for. They never ask any of the guy customers. I have a reward card FFS. Or that time the shop assistant “explained” Warcraft to me and I was all “Dude..please..”. Or when I went in to buy the special edition of Wrath of the Lich King and a group of guys behind the counter laughed at me when I asked for it.
I’m not bitter though.
;D
Two things: I don’t even know what to say about that internet cafe incident. You would have caught a world of heat and humiliation if I were waiting at the pub. But we all have our vices.
And I effing HATE going to video game stores. Honestly, the people who work there and the grating game convos amongst the clientele just make my skin crawl. I hate being given the rundown about signing up for a member card every time I just want to get out of there asap, I hate everyone’s holier-than-thou attitude and I hate that one time my friend went in there and heard a conversation that went like this:
CUSTOMER: “Can you help me?” GAMESTOP STAFF: “I have an IQ of 160. I think I can help you.”
Just awful. Fuck those guys.
I did a list similar to this, all facts about myself. Check it out here: http://dtmmr.wordpress.com/2010/06/26/7-facts-about-me/ Nice list!
Hey Whats up, I’m a new Reviewer, just started reviewing moviews, you think you can give me, a couple of pointers? See what Im doing wrong? Btw Like all of your reviews, lots of personality
http://koungaroo.wordpress.com/2010/06/27/killers-2010/