Did I ever mention that I hate American moble phone companies? In Japan, I got a good plan for $35/month, plus an awesome phone for $50. This was also on a 6-month contract, so I didn’t get screwed when I left. Here in the States, I get violated by contracts all the time, and the only decent phone that my carrier offers is the stupidly trendy (and old) Motorola RAZR, which’ll set you back 150 bones. The base billing plan also gives you absolutely nothign in terms of minutes. So last night I bit the bullet and changed my phone plan to one that gives me a reasonable amount of talk time, and got the RAZR to replace the crap clamshell I got for free when I signed up.
OK, in light of the insane party which went on at my new house on Saturday, I have a new assignment for you, Poorbaugh: create a playlist/mix of mid-90’s era electronic music, suitable for strobe light-driven dancing. I will review the submission, and, by Jove, we won’t have as much useless rap at the next ‘event.’
To do anything. ANYTHING. I don’t even use my laptop anymore. I’d thought about redesigning the webpage, but that’s like the biggest joke ever. Write about Mario Kart? No way. I’m moving on Saturday, I think. <p>Ughh, tired, and need sleep. I’ve been like half-sick for the past week, and it seems to be getting worse. Life=grand!
What would you do if your father, the King of All Cosmos, went on a drunken rampage and knocked all the stars out of the sky? Good question, eh? The solution, obviously, is to roll a sticky ball around the earth. When enough stuff sticks to the ball, you can use it as a star, right? Right. And, as we all know, the earth is full of stuff just waiting to be rolled up.
The PS2 title Katamari Damacy uses this lighthearted story as the premise for hours of rolling fun. In teh Japanese, katamari damashii means something like "soul of the clod." Playing as the Prince, your job is to roll your katamari damashii around, picking up more and more objects as you go. Think of it as making a huge snowball, except instead of snow, you use everyday objects, people, and buildings.
Controlling your katamari is natural and intuitive. For all intents and purposes, the only method of control is using the two analog sticks on the Playstation controller. The player can think of each stick as representing one arm. Push forward on the right stick, and the katamari moves left, just as if you'd given a large ball a hard shove on the right side in real life. The same applies for the left stick; used in tandem, they offer total control.
The goal of the main section of Katamari Damacy is to gather as much junk as you can on to your katamari, all while under the pressure of a time limit. Each level is riddled with random junk to pick up. The more you pick up, the bigger your katamari becomes, which in turn means you can pick up bigger items. At the beginning of the game, you pick up tacks, erasers and coins. Towards the end, you pick up cars, office buildings, and then the land masses those buildings recently resided on.
The other stages of the game involve certain specific tasks, the goal of which is to create constellations. For example, in order to create a swan constellation, you must roll up as many birds as you can in a certain time limit. Other constellations are created by carefully avoiding certain animals: the King of All Cosmos hates bears, for example, so creating a bear constellation involves only picking up one kuso kuma.
Katamari Damacy also includes a two player mode, which involves you and a friend racing around an arena, trying to pick up as many items as you can. You can even pick up the opposing player's katamari, if yours is big enough.
A number of things impressed me about Katamari. One of these is the scalability of the game. The transition from picking up paper clips to rolls of toilet paper to cats to buildings is seamless. Everything just keeps getting bigger, and there are no obvious transition points from one section of the game to another. The other thing that was particularly interesting to me is that the game has a lot of Japanese culture embedded within. Many of the items in the game would have no meaning for a western player: <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takoyaki>takoyaki</a>, <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneki_Neko>maneki neko</a>, <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daruma>daruma</a>, and much more. I feel rather lucky to be actually able to appreciate the inclusion of these items. Of course, it doesn't impede your ability to enjoy the game if you don't know what any of these things are, but adds a bit if you do.
The soundtrack is another one of the high points of the game. The introductory theme provides the exact level of quirkiness you might expect from such an offbeat game, and the rest of the tracks compliment the game action nicely. A well-made soundtrack that adds to the play experience is something of a rarity, and this is a soundtrack that I'm sure many would consider purchasing on CD.
In conclusion, I recommend Katamari Damacy to everyone. The reason I can do so is the simplicity of the game: casual gamers can appreciate the action, and the will strive to beat their best scores again and again. These days, when milking franchises is the norm, it's refreshing to see a game that uses truly new and innovative ideas and gameplay.
I’ve been on an old-school SNES RPG kick recently. For some reason, I had an insatiable craving to play Earthbound, and when I’d finished with that, I moved on to Super Mario RPG. I find it quite amazing that even after almost ten years, games like these can still hold their own. I thought I’d write a bit on why exactly I can play a game like Super Mario RPG and still enjoy it.
One of the main problems with older games is that they become horribly dated due to graphic quality. Something like Final Fantasy II is probably not going to attract any new players, due to the small, blocky graphics. However, towards the end of the SNES's life cycle, developers began to make simulated 3D computer-generated graphics; the most famous example of this is probably Donkey Kong Country. Super Mario RPG takes advantage of this graphical trick, and the result is a game that doesn't show its age quite so much. Ironically, although we may say that a game's graphics are superficial, in older games I think they are quite a large part of whether a new player will enjoy the game or not.
Of course, with any RPG, the plot and dialogue determine a large part of the quality of the game. The main plot of Super Mario RPG will be nothing new for fans of the Mario series: it involves collecting stars. However, many subplots and strange situations arise throughout the game, and are superbly scripted. Add entirely new areas in the Mario universe, new characters, and viola! You get a game that is actually story driven.
Another area that propels SMRPG to high levels of replayability is the gameplay itself. The game mixes action and RPG elements quite adroitly. Most of the game takes place in a 3/4 perspective, and plays just like a Mario platformer. Holding Y makes Mario run, and B jumps. However, in this game, if Mario jumps on a baddie, a RPG-style battle starts, bringing fans of the genre into more familiar territory. Super Mario RPG also introduces the concept of "timed hits," where pressing the A button at specific times will cause a character to deal more or take less damage in battle. While mastering timed hits is not essential for completing the game, it gives the player a large advantage. SMRPG is also chock-full of interesting mini-games, which, unlike those in other games, are actually fun to play. There are so many of these games that it is almost impossible to list them all here.
Super Mario RPG also made strides ahead in the RPG genre that other games have yet to copy. One such feature is the fact that experience is given to all characters after a battle, even those not in the active party. This significantly reduces the most tedious part of RPGS: leveling up. Some of the tedium still exists, but is reduced because of this excellent idea. In addition, the maximum character level is 30, and after playing through the game normally, the average level is 25. This makes SMRPG much less tedious than most RPGs.
Of course, no game is without problems. SMRPG is the most flawed in regards to character balance. With a little work, your party can be literally invincible, even to the most difficult enemies in the game. The characters Geno and the Princess are particularly overpowered. There is also a particular area of the game which allows the player to infinitely level up and get infinite coins very quickly; this wouldn't be so bad, except that it's about half-way through the game, making the rest way too easy.
However, when it comes right down to it, these problems are rather small and trivial. Overall, the game remains extremely playable, and is one of my favorite RPGs. There have been various "spiritual" sequels to this game (such as Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga), and I would definitely recommend every to play the game that started it all.