Why I Like Duke Nukem Forever

Duke Nukem Forever is probably one of the biggest gaming disappointments in the past two decades.  After 15 years in development, how could it not be?  Part of what made it so disappointing, I think, is that people remembered how incredibly awesome Duke Nukem 3D was and expected the same feeling without realizing how different the world had become.  In the mid-90s, there just weren't that many games that had just blatantly crude and sexual humor.  These days, between Leisure Suit Larry and Grand Theft Auto, sex in video games isn't nearly as shocking as it once was.  Even games that don't appeal to that kind of humor or interest have sex; just look at Fable, The Sims, and Fallout: New Vegas for examples.  I wasn't nearly disappointed with Duke Nukem Forever as most people, though.  On the contrary, I quite enjoyed the game.  The single player (which I'm sure few gamers played more than a level or two of because they're online-obsessed noobs) was very reminiscent of older shooters in that it didn't go for realism; it went for absurdity.  Absurdity is what made the old shooters great.  I mean, look at Wolfenstein 3D; how many "realistic" games would have Adolf Hitler in a mechanized battle suit with four chainguns?  Duke Nukem 3D was the same way - trying to save the world's babes from aliens while saving humanity just ended up being a nice plus - and Duke Nukem Forever held on to that.  Whether it was intentional or not to style the game as an "old fashioned" shooter instead of a "modern" shooter, that got it some major points in my book.  One last side note about how sex isn't anything unique in games anymore - having acquiring a vibrator as one of the objectives and having a level actually titled "Duke Nukem's Titty City" while showing several fully exposed boobs was still pretty damn awesome, even for today.

Now I'll address the part most people spend most of their time playing - online multiplayer.  This was another part of the game that I found quite satisfying.  There aren't teams like "Americans vs Russians" or "Allies vs Nazis" or "Humans vs Aliens" in this game.  Nope, it went back to the good old "Red vs Blue" with no difference between the two except for color, and that's how I like it.  Maybe I'm too nostalgic, but whatever the reason, I truly enjoy seeing random red guys fighting random blue guys for no reason except that reds hate blues.  Halo was the last great game that did this, and while the original Halo was the iconic "Red vs Blue" game for most people (hence the machinima series of the same name), I was most reminded of the old Quake and Unreal Tournament games, and because of my fond memories of those games, Duke Nukem Forever's online multiplayer is okay in my book.

I know I'm in a small minority of gamers who were truly satisfied with Duke Nukem Forever, and by not means am I implying that it's 2k Games' masterpiece.  I'm just trying to say that it actually is quite a good game, and to brush it aside because of bad reviews would be a mistake (especially since I got my copy for only $4 at GameStop; a large coffee from Starbucks is more expensive than that).  If you have a gaming PC, a 360, or a PS3 (which is what I have), I definitely suggest at least giving Duke Nukem Forever a fair chance.  The campaign is a lot of fun, and the online multiplayer, at least in my opinion, doesn't really disappoint.

The Legend of Zelda/Metroid

So, I've been on a dual Legend of Zelda and Metroid kick for the past couple weeks.  It started when I realized right after I finished Final Fantasy VII that I had never actually finished Ocarina of Time even though I was on the second to last temple, so I decided to buckle down and finish the game.  As I was doing that, I had a series of doctor's appointments to which to take my grandmother, so I decided to finish Spirit Tracks while I was waiting for her over the various hours of waiting that week (I was similarly close to finishing Spirit Tracks but never actually finished it).  That week, I finished both Legend of Zelda games, bringing my total of finished Zelda games up to two (along with Legend of Zelda and Phantom Hourglass).  I realized that, despite being such a Nintendo fanboy, I really hadn't finished that many Zelda games.  I also realized that, aside from the original Metroid, I had never finished a game of that series, either; that situation had to be rectified.

Over the course of a week and a half, with Wiimote and nunchuk in hand, I plowed through all three Metroid Prime games (I have Metroid Prime Trilogy, so it felt like a fluid transition from one game to the next) and Metroid: Other M.  After I finished Other M, I jumped right into Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and over the next week (I didn't get a lot of game time any one day during that week since I was fixing my room from some flooding on which I'll elaborate in a later blog), I finished Twilight Princess.  After that, I decided to finish up the NES duo and take on Adventure of Link.  Needless to say, I got my balls busted over and over again, but I did, after two days of nearly non-stop gaming, finish it (and I've never been so glad to shelve a cartridge in my life).  Now I'm on to Link to the Past, and I plan to play Majora's Mask and Windwaker (respectively) after I finish it.  Legend of Zelda is just such a great series that it's a shame not to play the games you own.  Going back to Metroid, I hope to get Super Metroid at some point in the not-too-distant future and play through that as I've heard it's one of the best games on the Super Nintendo.

On a side note, I just updated the poll, and in it, I ask what you all think the best Legend of Zelda game is.  The last option is "Other," and I invite anyone who chooses that option to write a comment to this post telling what his or her choice for the best Zelda game is and why.

Why We Game; Why We Collect

I know gamers sometimes take some criticism for gaming, and at least from my experience as a collector, I've taken a LOT of criticism for having a collection the size that mine is.  So why do we game?  Why have I amassed a nearly 500 game collection that spans 20 consoles?  Because it makes me happy.  Because I see the art when I look at the landscapes on Monster Hunter 3.  Because I hear the beauty when I listen to the soundtrack on any Legend of Zelda game.  Because I can appreciate the depth of gameplay to the point of monotony in Shenmue.  Why do people cover their walls in paintings and posters?  Why do people have dozens or hundreds of CDs?  Why do people have multiple shelves of fiction books?  Why do people have dozens of movies?  Most importantly, why is gaming any different?  How is it different?

I'll tell you how it's different from my point of view - a movie can provide two hours of enjoyment for the price of $20.  That comes down to $10 per hour.  A game, on the other hand, provides MUCH longer enjoyment for a lightly higher price.  Let's say that the average game provides roughly 25 hours of enjoyment.  At the average $60, that's $2.40 per hour.  Let's take a monumentally long game like Skyrim, which boasts roughly 300 hours of gameplay.  At $60, that's only 20 cents per hour; a movie, based on hours of entertainment, costs 100 times that much.  Lets even use a short game as an example.  Conduit 2's campaign took me roughly 10 hours to beat, including finding the hidden secrets, and since it's a Wii game, it cost $50.  That's $5 per hour - half of what a movie would cost in entertainment per hour.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I'm not saying that we should all buy video games and never buy another movie.  On the contrary, I'm quite proud to own all 11 Star Trek movies on DVD even though I swore to myself that I would never watch the first or fifth movies again.  What I'm trying to say is that it's wrong for society to view a large movie collection as acceptable or even worthwhile but then look down on gaming.  A word frequently tossed around when it comes to gaming and has been thrown at me numerous times is "addiction."  The definition of addiction is "to devote to something obsessively."  I fully acknowledge that gaming addictions exist.  I admit that I was borderline there last year.  To be addicted to something, though, it has to interfere with other parts of life.  Someone truly addicted to video games would stop hanging out with friends or making time for loved ones.  He/she would neglect school or work or social responsibilities.  Someone who simply prefers to spend his or her spare time playing video games after his or her work and responsibilities are completed, however, is NOT addicted.  That's a hobby.  Addicted is blowing off friends to play Skyrim.  Addicted is not writing a paper for class to play Call of Duty.  Addicted is calling in sick to work to play Fallout.  Writing a paper after class and then sitting down after finishing to play Zelda is not addicted.

"A strong liking of some activity."  That's the definition of passion.  A strong liking.  Yes, I am passionate about video games.  I am passionate about my collection.  I am not addicted to either.  But I haven't addressed the issue of why we game.  I've only talked about why we collect and whether or not we're addicted.  So why do we game?  Why do we pretend to be the Hero of Time and face down Gannondorf to save Hyrule?  It's an escape.  Have you ever heard someone say "I need a drink..."?  It's the same principle, except without the liver damage and poor judgement.  Have you ever known someone who smoked when they got stressed?  It's the same principle, except without coating our lungs in tar and carcinogens while dumping rat poison into our bodies.  The great irony is when smokers, alcoholics, and pot heads criticize gamers.  We want an escape from reality, just like them.  We just prefer to get that escape without damaging our bodies.  Sure, a sedentary lifestyle isn't healthy, either, but I'm a gamer, and I weigh less than 150 pounds.

I'll summarize my point here.  Stop criticizing us.  We (for the most part) are addicted.  We do not have a "problem."  We aren't pathetic.  Our medium of choice is just newer and less respected, but it's no less valid.  Our escape of choice is just nerdier, but if anything, it's less bad.

Die Hard Trilogy (Sega Saturn)

Die Hard Trilogy, also released for Playstation, is actually three games in one (as the name might suggest) - Die Hard, Die Harder, and Die Hard with a Vengeance.  This game is NOT to be confused with the utterly and amazingly badass Die Hard Arcade because this game isn't even worth playing.  Each of the three games are a different genre; Die Hard is a third person shooter, Die Harder is a light gun rail shooter, and Die Hard with a Vengeance is a driving game.  Die Hard gets decent after a while, and Die Harder isn't the worst game in the world, but Die Hard with a Vengeance is just terrible.  It's poorly made, poorly tested, and poorly entertaining.

Game 1 - Die Hard


Die Hard starts off a lot of fun.  Running around shooting people and finding ever better weapons.  What's not to love?  Well, for one, the graphics.  Now, anyone who knows me knows that I don't really care about graphics.  I have more fun playing Chopper Command for Atari 2600 than I do playing Call of Duty: Black Ops for Playstation 3.  My gripe about these graphics is that they make the game almost unplayable.

It's incredibly difficult to tell where you are at times or where you need to go because the walls become transparent to let you see what's a room and what's just a wall.  This isn't so bad at first, but as levels get more complex and have more rooms, it starts to get worse and worse until about halfway through the game, you're ready to give up.  The hardest part by far (at least in my opinion) is finding the bomb at the end of the level.  Whenever you deal with all of the hostages (either saving them or killing them), a bomb appears in an elevator somewhere in the level, and you have thirty seconds to get to that elevator before the bomb explodes and you lose a life and start over from the beginning of the level (if you have extra lives) or get game over (if you don't).  Sometimes the bombs aren't that hard to find; there are levels where there are six elevators, all on one hallway.  There are bombs that take dumb luck to find; there's a level with four elevators, one on each corner of the map.  Fortunately, your mini-map pings red to show you the location of the bomb, but you have to get close enough.

Game 2 - Die Harder

Die Harder is the light gun rail shooter, and it's probably the best (or least bad) of the three.  I had some trouble getting my light gun to register shots even after calibrating it (it wouldn't register anything about an inch and a half from any edge of the screen), but I was using a Nyko's "Cobra" light gun, and while it never got good, the hit recognition did seem to improve when I used Sega's Stunner.  It's a pretty short game - I think it was 6 levels, though I could be off with that - but it's actually a fair bit of fun when the light gun decides to cooperate.  You get a variety of weapons in the game, by far my favorite of which was the exploding shotgun.  It's really more like an RPG.  I was killing two or three enemies at a time if they were close enough together and I aimed my shot well enough.  The MP5 was also a good gun, though, since it gave the rapid fire helpful in taking out a group of enemies before they shot you.

Game 3 - Die Hard with a Vengeance

This game REALLY pushed the limits of how disappointing a game can be.  It seems cool at first - a fast paced driving game - until you get into the nitty-gritty of the game.  Most of the objectives in each level (of which there are roughly 16, I think) are to find bombs as quickly as you can, usually hidden in idle cars or telephone booths.  Occasionally, though, you'll have to chase a bomb car and hit it enough times to destroy it before time runs out and the bomb detonates.  That's where the game gets, at least for me, too difficult to be fun, especially the last level.  What really makes this game suck, though, is the border glitches.  Extra lives are fairly hard to come by in this game, and each time you fail to find a bomb or destroy a bomb car in the allotted time costs you a life.  There are three main stages on which you play (excluding the brief race levels) - city, park, and pier.  On the city levels, the only real difficulty is avoiding traffic and making turns quickly enough to get to your objective in time.  On the park levels, ponds are introduced, and driving into the water, even a little bit, costs you a life and puts you back at the beginning of whatever objective you were doing (it usually happened to me chasing bomb cars).  The pier, however, is where shit really hits the fan.  As you can imagine from being on a pier, there's water.  Everywhere.  But you've got wooden railing surrounding the pier, so you should be safe, right?  Well, maybe if the game were well made.  Unfortunately, this game is FULL of border glitches on this level.  You get snagged by invisible forces around boxes, you get caught in black holes hiding in buildings, and you get warped off of the pier and into the ocean if you get too close.  The first pier level took me literally an hour and a half of trial, error, epic failure, and eventual lucky success to get past because I kept glitching into the ocean and losing lives.


I haven't played the Playstation version (which a Racketboy forum member threw in an extra gift when I bought my two Saturn light guns and Virtua Cop 2) enough to be able to say much about whether or not it's better or worse than the Saturn port.  Maybe I'll play through that version in the future and write a follow up blog talking about any version differences I notice.

Why Shitty Games Suck So Good

Anyone who knows me knows that I have an affinity for shitty video games.  Hell, look at the last entry I posted.  There were few offerings of the fourth/fifth generation shittier than Corpse Killer.  But why do I love shitty games so much?  Wouldn't it be so much more fun to play good games?  Well, yes and no.  For the same reason that Mystery Science Theater 3000 was such a great television show, trainwrecks of video games can also offer a great deal of enjoyment.

I'm sure many of you have seen James Rolf, better known as the Angry Video Game Nerd.  Well, aside from being the person who inspired me to begin collecting video games, he's also the one who inspired me to buy shitty video games.  Ask yourself the following: What's more fun to show to/play with your friends, even if only for ten or twenty minutes, an incredibly average game like Bubsy, or a hilariously shitty game like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?  Now, I know I was leading a bit with that question, but honestly, if we break video games down into three basic categories - the great games, the shit games, and the average in-between games, which ones are most fun to play with friends?  The good ones and the awful ones, but because they're good, your friends have probably played the good ones.

When I want to have some fun and laughs playing my NES with my friends, they've probably all played Super Mario Bros, Legend of Zelda, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  You know what NONE of them have played, though?  Bible Adventures.  You know what is probably the crappiest NES game I own (aside from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which has cemented itself as "Worst NES Game Ever")?  Bible Adventures.  I've tried this, and it's true; Bible Adventures offered more laughs than just about any other NES game I have.  Don't get me wrong, playing great games like Battletoads and Medal of Honor: Rising Sun is a lot of fun, too, and will stay fun for longer, so I'm not advocating buying bad games instead of good games.  What I'm saying is that you should have some of both.  No one watches American Idol for the good singers; people watch is for the nails-on-a-chalkboard singers.  Games follow the same principle.

So, I'm going to give my Top 10 suggestions for crappy games to play with friends based on what I own or have played a considerable amount.

10. Dragon's Lair (Nintendo Entertainment System)

Angry Video Game Nerd did a great video about this game, and he's actually the only reason I know about it.  It's brutally difficult, but that's not what makes it bad - after all, Battletoads is amazing, and it's one of the hardest games ever made.  What makes Dragon's Lair truly craptastic is the controls.  Seriously, if you drank an entire gallon of Everclear and tried to drive in Grand Theft Auto III, it would STILL be better than trying to play Dragon's Lair completely sober.


9. Corpse Killer (Sega Saturn)

I don't think I need to say too much about this game since I just wrote a blog about it a week ago.  The quality of the acting in the FMV is just TERRIBLE, but it's a LOT of fun to play with friends.


8. Super Troll Islands (Super Nintendo Entertainment System)

This is one of the most bizarre platformers I've EVER played.  You're a troll (the creepy naked ones with funky hair), and you have paint a colorless world to purge it of evil.  Seriously.  That's the whole damn game.  It's fantastically stoneriffic.


7. Bible Adventure (Nintendo Entertainment System)

Wisdom Tree must be a giant video game producing anus, because the only thing that ever comes from it is crap.  Bible Adventures is another game about which I know because of Angry Video Game Nerd, and I actually managed to get it for $5 at a flea market a few years ago.  Want to teach kids about God?  Why not make the crappiest game most of them will ever play?  There are actually three games on this cartridge, by far the best of which is Noah's Ark.  You're a guy who's GOT to be like 70 at least, and you can stack two cows, two oxen, two pigs, and two horses, lift them up over your head, and still sprint so fast that you outrun the screen.  PLAY IT.  If you have any religiously cynical friends (-ahem- Grant -ahem-), make sure they're there when you play this; they'll enjoy it even more than you will.


6. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

This game was actually the subject of the first AVGN video I ever saw.  The line from his theme song "Why don't the weapons do anything?" is about this game.  You play as Dr. Jekyll initially, whose cane weapon LITERALLY does nothing to any enemy in the game, until you take enough damage to turn into Mr. Hyde.  AVGN dubbed this the worst Nintendo game ever made, and I certainly agree, hence why I had to buy it as soon as I saw that video.  It really is a terrible game, and you have no clue what to do.


5. Shaq Fu (Super Nintendo Entertainment System/Sega Genesis)

 

Why?  That's all I can say.  Why?  I've read numerous "Worst Fighting Game Ever" lists, and Shaq Fu is almost almost number one.  The controls are dreadful, but seriously?  A Shaquille O'Neil fighting game, let alone one that takes place in a spirit world where you fight demons?  Yeah, although this isn't number one on this list because there are games that suck more, this might just be the most fun game to play with friends if you're going on the basis of Crap Factor.


4. Pac-man (Atari 2600)

I know what you're all thinking.  "But Pac-man's awesome!!"  No, the arcade Pac-man is awesome.  The 2600 version is that game's bastard red headed step child.  The controls are terrible, the graphics flicker so that you always think the game's messing up, and it's just...awful.  It really does ruin Pac-man just a little bit.


3. Cool World (Super Nintendo Entertainment System)

Don't let the name fool you.  There's nothing cool about this game.  It's based on a movie (I haven't seen it, but I'm scared to if it's anything remotely like the game).  I've played a lot of games that didn't make the least bit of sense, but this game is right near the top of that list.  I honestly don't have too much to say about the game; I couldn't figure out how to get past the first screen, so I haven't seen too much of it.  It makes that little sense.


2. Superman (Nintendo 64)

Ah yes, Superman (or Superman 64 as it's more commonly known, even though "64" was never actually anywhere in the title), my generation's standard for crap.  It was by far the most infamous game of the 1990s, and for good reason.  Hell, I've seen site give "Superman 64 Awards" for especially terrible games.  Plagued by some of the most horrendous controls in gaming history and some of the most absurdly pointless and difficult stages ever, it's a miracle this game wasn't banned by Congress for crimes against humanity.  But in all honestly, that honor should be saved for the last game on this list.


1. E.T. (Atari 2600)

Ladies and gentlemen, you are looking at what it widely accepted to be the single worst video game ever made.  It is frequently blamed for being the "point of no return" or the "straw that broke the camel's back" of the Video Game Crash of 1982.  In the developer's defense (who honestly was an amazing programmer and made some fantastic games), it did go from concept to store shelves in five weeks.  That's barely enough time to do a final project for a class, much less make a video game based on a HUGE blockbuster movie.  The quality was SO bad, though, that a lot of people already pissed off at Atari's lack of quality control finally snapped.  The aforementioned crash sent the video game industry from (correct me if my numbers are wrong) a $2 billion per year industry to a $10 million per year industry.  Adjusted for inflation, that's a drop from almost $5 billion per year to less than $24 million per year.  Although ET didn't cause that by itself, I do think it's fair to say that it finally kicked the plunge into motion.


HONORABLE MENTION

There is one game that, while not bad enough to be worthy of this list, was just an absolute crap heap.  That game is Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter for Playstation 2.

This is the only version that I've played since I'm not a big fan of these games, and I've heard that the Xbox 360 version is much better, but this is just painful to play.  It's on the best selling console in history and in the 6th generation of gaming when dual analog was standard, but you know what?  You can only move in four directions.  No diagonal movement even though there were games that had that in the 1980's.  I think the controls really do single handedly kill this game.  It's not bad enough to be on my list, but I had to give it a sidenote.