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If you read my Recaps recently, you will know that I made a bit of a call to action. Long story short, I want us all to show some passion for videogames again. I want random posts on how fantastic Game X is looking. Or about how great the music in Game Y was. Or the co-op in Z. I want all of that and more, even (especially?) when it’s irrelevant.
Let’s be excited again, if only for the sake of being excited. Let’s take some time out of our days to show our love for videogames for no other reason than because we can. Let’s do this thing, because of REASONS. And most of all, let’s do it because VIDEOGAMES.
This blog is meant to be exactly that. I don’t care what today’s big news is. Be it racism, DLC or whatever. I just want to share 10 random things about videogames that have me hyping all over my best pair of pants. Yes, I’m borrowing bbain‘s premise for this blog. I hope people will follow my example, because I’d love to know what it is about videogames that gets YOU all fired up. That goes for everyone. Whether you’re a newbie or a veteran, a Cblogger, forumgoer or (dare I hope?) even a front page writer. Gimme that shit.
So let’s put on our best squee face and get this baby started!
Gabe, Tycho, if you would be so kind?
Thank you.
10. I’m currently experiencing Deadly Premonition for the first time
Everyone knows about Deadly Premonition and what an odd game it is. Until recently, however, I most certainly didn’t know. I simply never took the time out of my day to do research into this one, so it stayed on the sidelines.
That state of affairs is changing as we speak. Just this week I started watching this Let’s Play of the game. The player is clearly very knowledgeable about the game and he has a kind of humor I can appreciate. Combine that with some of this game’s weirder habits, and it makes for great viewing material. Whenever York busts out his borderline encyclopedic knowledge of obscure old movies, I can’t help but crack a smile. It makes the hour-long viewing sessions fly by.
I’m still not too far into the game’s plot yet, but I have a feeling that it’s going to be something special. Can’t wait to see what it has in store for me.
Actually, this isn’t the only Let’s Play I’m currently watching. I like to have my options, so I have about 5 other LParchive tabs open. One of which features a very familiar pink marshmallow being made out of some very stringy material.
9. I was completely wrong about Super Mario 3D World.
Nobody likes being wrong. That’s a basic fact of humanity if there ever was one. Still, there are times when being wrong can be the best feeling in the world. That’s what happened to me with Super Mario 3D World.
When this game was first announced during E3, I gave it a lot of shit. I said here that is was the prime example of Nintendo losing its creativity. That while I wanted a game that would take the genre in new directions, all we got was, well, this. A WiiU follow-up to a 3DS game which, while fun, would not be anything like I wanted.
No more of that. The more I get to see from this game, the better it looks. The multiplayer in a 3D environment looks like a blast, the stages are purdy as all hell, and it’s clear that Nintendo has added a lot of cool stuff. Cat power-ups, duplication cherries, wearable cannon(?)-blocks, “stealthy” Goomba costumes and a whole lot more. Do I still think Nintendo is losing its creativity? Far from it. Super Mario 3D World is oozing with it, and I can’t wait to play it for myself. I’ve already got plans for multiplayer too, and I’m excited to see how that will turn out.
8. More great indie games are coming out than I can keep up with.
Ah, the backlog. The bane of gamers everywhere. But is it really all that bad?
Sure, we might not have time to play everything all the time, but on the other hand we always have games to play as back-up. Feeling bored? Well surely you could just play Don’t Starve for a while? Or any of those other great games you still have lying around?
And what’s even better is that at least 80% of my backlog consists of indie games. To me, that speaks volumes of the industry. Small-time developers are getting so numerous and altogether so great at what they do, that I can’t even keep up with them anymore. Just from a short look at my available Steam Library, we’ve got: Teleglitch, Volgarr, The Swapper, Reus, Rogue Legacy and tons more. And that’s not even going into my Wishlist!
That’s the situation right now. I have buttloads of indie games I have yet to play, and I know each of them is going to be a great experience. If that’s not a beautiful prospect, I don’t know what is.
7. My sister is getting knee-deep into Guitar Hero.
Is there anything more satisfying to a gamer than seeing non-gamers get into your hobby? And I don’t mean by playing Candy Crush. I mean playing a game that we hardcorez could look at with approval. Guitar Hero, when it was still alive, was probably the single best game for achieving exactly that.
My sister has never been a gamer. Sure she takes a DS with her on holiday, but even that doesn’t see much use. Imagine my surprise when just recently she got up to me to ask whether there were any Guitar Hero games for the (read: my) Wii!
Wasting not a second, we got online to search for the best guitar we could find, and the best game to go along with it. In the end we got very nice deals on both, and we’ve been playing a bunch of Guitar Hero V and Warriors of Rock.
My sister is really partial to “We’re not Gonna Take it” by Twisted Sister (which I admit is pretty good), I’ve got a thing for Foo Fighters’ “No Way Back” (or anything by Foo Fighters, honestly) and while they’re impossible to play the DragonForce songs are great too, to the point that I went looking for their actual albums.
By now, my sister is getting so invested in this thing that’s she’s planning on getting pretty much every Guitar Hero game that has ever been released for the Wii. Just goes to show that even after all these years, there’s still something to the Guitar Hero franchise. More than that, I’m super excited that she gets to understand why I do what I do, if even just a little bit.
6. I got Kirby’s Air Ride back.
Throughout my life as a gamer, there are only about 4 games I ever sold or traded away. Off the top of my head those are: Taz Wanted, Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg, Sonic Riders, and Kirby’s Air Ride. Now, years later, I miss every single one of those. Even Taz. Sure, these were never the best games around; you would never find these on any top 10 list, but there was something about them regardless. They were just plain fun to play. Billy Hatcher was an interesting platformer based on rolling eggs around, and both Riders and Air Ride were simple but fun racing games.
So I am incredibly pleased to announce that I got Air Ride back.
I simply got fed up with the very premise of not having it, so I did what any nostalgia-driven gamer would do. I went on eBay and got myself a new copy. Fortunately I still had my old save on the memory card: it’s like I never lost it in the first place.
And I love having it back. Why is this game so great? Let me count the ways.
- Kirby can ride a unicycle.
- Kirby can ride a mothersh*tting unicycle!
Seriously though, this game is loads of fun. While you only have the option to steer and drift, that’s plenty to get a nice little racing experience going. Top that off with some vehicles that change up the pace way more than just “this one goes slightly faster but has slightly worse handling” (you can even play as Dedede and Meta Knight!) and you’ve got the game that made me want to slap myself for ever getting rid of it.
Kirby’s Air Ride is only the first of four. If nothing else, you can bet your ass that I’m getting my hands on another copy of Billy Hatcher, if it’s the last thing I do! For now though I’m content with just jumping on the Swerve Star and destroying fucking everything.
5. Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem is a thing that is happening.
I never played a SMT game. I played Fire Emblem though, and I know enough about SMT to realize it’s a series worth looking out for. That’s why I’m excited for this game despite only being familiar with one of the two.
But more in general, I love these kinds of cross-overs. Two companies coming together to make something unique and memorable is one of the awesome things about our industry. Remember Pokémon Conquest? That was a super neat game! Or what about Tatsunoko vs. Capcom? Anyone remember that? Hell I suck at fighting games, but I still enjoyed that one a heck of a lot.
I have no idea what these two companies could do with SMT X FE. I honestly don’t. All I know is that it’s got potential from here to the moon and back again. That alone gets me mad hype, not to mention eager to see more.
4. The Steam Family Sharing beta is up
Do you remember hearing about Steam’s Family Sharing program? It would allow you to share your game library with 10 family members or friends of your choosing. They would face restrictions obviously, but nothing that couldn’t be overcome.
Guess what? It’s operational! Everyone who was in the official group last week got full fledged access to the new system to give it a test run and work out the kinks. Setting it up is kind of unintuitive, but easy enough if you’re tech-savvy. After that, you’re good to go!
Myself I took the opportunity to recruit some new family, both Dtoiders and otherwise. By now I’ve got a couple of friends with access to my games, and I have access to some of my friends’. That means I can play their Magic: The Gathering 2013, their Skyrim, their anything. And at least one of my friends has made good use of my Antichamber and my Of Orcs and Men. Fine choices, if I say so myself.
So yeah, that backlog I mentioned above? Consider it tripled at the very least. It’s bloody awesome.
3. Eevee.
That’s all that needs to be said, really.
2. I finally bought No More Heroes 2.
No More Heroes was one of my favorite games on the Wii. I think I was one of the few people who actually preferred MadWorld, but it was a fantastic game regardless. And then the sequel came out, and by all accounts it was even better than the original.
But I never played it.
It was one of those games that would just keep getting forgotten, or a new game would come out that had priority. Something would always happen that prevented me from getting this game. But much like Kirby’s Air Ride above, I just got fed up with the very idea that I didn’t have this game. I didn’t just simply “buy” No More Heroes 2. I saw where No More Heroes 2 was NOT, and said: “No. This will not do.”
Now, I hold No More Heroes 2 in my greedy little mitts, and it’s a good feeling. I even played a little already; what I played filled me with hope.
First of all, this game’s got blood in it. That doesn’t sound like anything special, but it is once you realize that the original game was censored in Europe. For reasons which I choose to blame on Germany, all of the blood was changed to ashes. It looked terrible. And for the love of god don’t get me started on the death cutscenes of the bosses. Let’s just say that when you put a grenade in your mouth the expected effect isn’t exactly that your face gets dirty, and leave it at that.
Anyway, the sequel has none of that crap. It has good old-fashioned blood and beheadings. It also has optional minigames that could perfectly well have been release titles back in the NES days, it has expanded combat mechanics, cool bosses and if I hear correctly two other playable characters.
It’s a game well worth having even after all this time, and I can’t wait to play more of it.
1. X
First of all, watch this trailer:
Done? Good. Now watch it again.
Now let’s say for a moment that you’re a big fan of Xenoblade. Let’s say you love it. And not just love it either, you fucking luuuurve Xenoblade. Now let’s take this completely hypothetical scenario, and say that you got your mind subjected to that trailer. You would faint from excitement.
And that’s pretty much what happened!
When we first heard about this game, I was completely blown away. It looks beyond amazing. For me the best part about Xenoblade was the massive overworld it featured. It was already incredibly impressive that the Wii would be able to render all of that, let alone give you the ability to explore every single inch should you so desire (I did). And what are they going to do now for the WiiU? They’re going to give you even more freedom to explore! You can hop in your transforming mech (also holy shit this game has Transformers) at seemingly any time to drive around the huge landscapes. But not only that, the mechs will even allow you to fly! And let me tell you, the ability to fly through Xenoblade-like worlds is going to be the best thing.
We can see giant monsters in the trailer, which I’m sure we’re going to be fighting. We see a battle system that is very similar to the one in Xenoblade, which was brilliant I might add. We get some very vague hints as to the story: that tower with the percentage on it seems to suggest the town is running out of power quick. And perhaps the most interesting thing: it looks like we’re going to be getting online multiplayer! I can’t imagine what it must be like to explore Monolith Soft’s worlds with friends, but it can’t possibly NOT be amazing.
Oh, and one final thing: the composer for this game is the same guy who did the ridiculously excellent soundtrack to the ridiculously excellent Attack on Titan. If that doesn’t inspire giddy excitement, I don’t know what will.
The game that is currently only known as “X” is without a doubt my most anticipated game right now. More anticipated than Smash Bros. More than Super Mario 3D World. More than anything. It’s worth mentioning just for that fact.
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And those are just 10 things I’m excited about! If I wanted I could fill plenty of other spaces, but let’s not hog all the good stuff. I’m leaving room for you guys to chip in!
So tell me, either in the comments or in a blog of your own, what are you excited for? Are you replaying your favorite game? Did you get a high score on the leaderboards? Is that game you’re looking forward to getting close to release? Or is there anything else?
Tell the internet, tell the world, tell Destructoid, tell me. Let’s get all good and positive and excited and squeeeee up in this joint.
Why?
Because VIDEOGAMES. And because they’re kind of amazing.
Andy’s note: Like the tone of this blog? Then check out these ones by other community bloggers!
Published: Nov 8, 2013 06:00 pm