Peripherals Accumulate: Killing The Earth With Awesome Plastic Crap and Happy Meal Toys For Man Children

As a longtime fan of fighting games, I have more than a few arcade sticks. That's an understatement, actually: I have a ridiculous perfectly sane number of arcade sticks. In fact, I have more arcade sticks than I have actual consoles! An intervention from family and friends can't be far off, but I figure I can get out of that by tricking them into a Street Fighter match wherein the loser has to fuck off. Smart money is on me winning, in case you were curious.

Franchise Fatigue... Or, Castlevania and Where It's Going.

I am an unapologetic Castlevania nerd. To the core, sons and daughters. To illustrate just how far I've gone into the realm of fanatical fanboy territory, I own a Castlevania T-shirt and have been known to actually wear it in public. Sometimes. Seriously. Send help.

I'm not usually one for fanatical devotion to anything related to a specific 'brand' in media. It's unhealthy. It clouds judgment and leads to idiot behavior, like any other kind of fanaticism. A relevant example would be the Nintendo and Sony fanboys who lurk on GameFAQs and other gaming related message boards. Go ahead and try to reason with them. Pick a subject guaranteed to cause them to crawl out of their anime wall-scroll and manga collections to respond. Like, "The PS3 has fallen behind in gaming mind-share". Point out objective facts and try to appeal to them using rational, logical thought. Go ahead. I'll wait. Be polite and thorough with your thesis. Point out your neutrality in the overall discussion. Do not post pictures of retards crossing the finish line or LOLcats. Rise above it.

See how well that works?

I have no room to speak. I've recently discovered that I'm that guy when it comes to Konami's signature Dracula-slaying platformer. I loved Portrait of Ruin, arguably the least interesting and most formulaic of the DS series entries and, to my shame, I'm going to buy the controversial new Castlevania fighting game when it's released on Wii later this year. I can't help it. It's like a cult, or a narcotic. I just cant say "NO" to the Castlevania. I know. I feel sorry for me. too. I'm hanging my head in shame right now. In my Castlevania shirt, no less.

Why Castlevania, you ask? A healthy part of it is pure, unadulterated nostalgia. The first game I got seriously hooked on for NES was Castlevania; the same is true for Playstation(the indefatigable Symphony of the Night). Part of it is comfort. The formula(s) for any given Castlevania game haven't changed since the eighties and nineties. I know exactly what I'm getting when I pop in a new Castlevania game. Part of it, and this is going to sound weird but hear me out, is how disposable the experience is. I can steal twenty minutes of play time on the DS or PSP on lunch break or between classes: I've played the series so thoroughly that even new games are almost rote by association. It's low impact gaming, and it's relaxing. It doesn't change the amount of sheer enjoyment I can squeeze out of them, but it does illustrate the amount of monkey-level conditioning that I've allowed the Castlevania development guys(helmed by the infamous IGA)to subject me to.

(A quick interjection: adult readers? Let's play a drinking game. Every time I type 'Castlevania', you take a drink. For example, I will now type 'Castlevania'. When you read the word 'Castlevania', you will then take a drink. Ready? Castlevania. You can take a drink now, because I typed 'Castlevania'. Get it? Anyone who can finish reading this post without throwing up or passing out gets an anime wall scroll. Castlevania.)

Let's pause a minute so you can re-read the post so far, just so we're clear on what the issues are. Remember to take your drinks.

Still with me? Let us, then, continue, gentle reader.

Bearing all that in mind, it's no surprise then that I bought the newest game for DS last week, the stupidly titled 'Order of Ecclesia'. On the surface, it's the same game they've been releasing since the Playstation one era. It's got the signature open-world roaming. It's got leveling and item grinding. It's got the same enemies and backgrounds they've been using since the GBA days. The same items populate the stores(once you open them up). You can still back dash and (eventually) double-jump. So basically, I thought 'here we go again! Glee!', and set to the task of whacking Dracula for the ten-thousanth time. An hour later, I realized I was playing something much more ambitious than any Castlevania game since Symphony of the Night. I died a lot. I struggled to wrap my head around the new weapons system, dubbed the "glyph system", and the custom combos you can create with it. I noted how far up the difficulty had been ramped. I meditated on how you don't start off in Dracula's castle(cleverly named 'Castlevania'). I balked at the map screen, not seen since Castlevania II: Simon's Quest on NES. While all the usual stuff you find in a Castlevania game is present and accounted for, it's cleverly rearranged. There are things in the game for which I have no reference at all. It's an honest to God attempt to move the series in a new direction.

It irrationally pissed me off.

I shut the game off, frustrated, and took a long look at how I approached the Castlevania series as a fan. I thought about how static and cookie-cutter the series was, and thought harder about all the posts I'd written defending that on various gaming forums. I might have posted a picture of a retard crossing a finish line. I might even have done that wearing my Castlevania T-shirt. I discovered I was one of 'those people', like on GameFAQs. I was wearing a Castlevania T-shirt, and I was suddenly struck with how ridiculous that was.

(A quick digression: did I mention that if Castlevania is in italics, you have to drink double? Well, you do. So there. Bottoms up champ.)

I went back to Order of Ecclesia determined to play the game without prejudice. I applied myself to learning the new systems. I adjusted my expectations in regards to difficulty. I'm really enjoying it. In fact, it might be my favorite of the portable entries. I might even buy a T-shirt.

In an industry that thrives on milking recognizable brands, it's refreshing to see a franchise that's usually so formulaic try and stretch it's boundaries, albeit slowly. Or, at least it should be. Maybe if we gamers were more open to experimenting in our legacy gaming franchises, we'd see more innovation and less rehashes than we do now. Keep that in mind when next year's Madden is a rhythm-action dating sim.

Castlevania Castlevania Castlevania Castlevania Castlevania.

How Difficult Games Ruined and Enriched My Life. Or, How many controllers have YOU broken?

I'll answer my own question first, so I can speak with a clear conscience: two. My first broken controller was for the NES. I broke it playing Castlevania, and I was twelve years old. I didn't screw around, either; after yet another humiliating death at the hands of Frankenstein, I stormed out of the room, got a twenty pound weight from my dad's weight bench, stormed back to the den, and threw that sumbitch at the offending piece of hardware, which died a quick, agonizing and inglorious death. At that point in my life, I had never felt so satisfied. In my juvenile and offended mind, righteous justice had been served. Score one for organic life.

The second controller was about a year ago. It was a SIXAXIS controller for the PS3, I broke it playing Call of Duty 4 single player, and I was twenty seven. I had been trying to clear the infamous TV station level for nearly an hour, and even though I could see how to advance, infinitely spawning enemies kept killing me just as I'd finally manage to approach their spawn point. "Just one more time", I promised myself, and reloaded my save. I died within a minute. I didn't screw around then, either: I launched that controller through the wall at top speed, inadvertently reloading my save and making lifelong enemies with my neighbors. My girlfriend was mortified. At that point in my life, and to this day, I've never been more annoyed with myself. Score one for cold, indifferent technology.

(Adding insult to injury, while retrieving the controller from the hole in the wall, those goddamn terrorists killed me again. Score TWO for cold, indifferent technology.)

I did eventually clear the TV station, but only after a long period of postponement. I had other things to do. Work, school, and all the other stuff that adults are forced into to pay their way through life are now more important than pretending to be a soldier. My real life responsibilities came to call, and I had no interest in spending more of my life being angry. My free time is too precious for that. I'd rather play a few rounds of Virtua Fighter 5 on the sofa with my friends than be shamefully slaughtered by computer controlled terrorists over and over again.

So. When does a game become so difficult and infuriating that it drives me into a situation where I actually choose to interact with other humans in order to beat them silly(virtually) on my couch, as opposed to shooting terrorists solo in an unnamed middle-eastern location in order to further the cause of freedom(also virtually)? When does it cross that invisible, blurry line that separates 'frustrating' from merely 'challenging'? There's no easy answer that fits everyone(an experience will always differ from person to person), but I think I understand how I personally react to difficulty in games. If I'm not being consistently rewarded for playing the game, then I give up and move on to something else.

That seems simple, or even self-evident, but it's more art than science. I can lose in a Street Fighter 3 or Virtua Fighter match because I know that I'm being rewarded with a deeper understanding of how the game works every time I hit the mat. Over time, my mastery of the game increases, which manifests in beating the A.I. consistently and making my friends on the couch break more of my controllers. Other games offer more immediate rewards; experience points, unlockable characters, or loot. Some rewards are more intangible; the atmosphere of Silent Hill and Shadow of the Colossus, the exploration of Oblivion, or the 'wow' factor of how good Metal Gear Solid 4 looks on my HDTV. There's a feeling of equal pay(reward) for equal time(...um..time), and it might be the single most important factor in deciding whether or not I'll continue to play a game.

Guys like Criterion get it. In Burnout: Paradise, I choose how I want to advance. Alternately, I can choose NOT to advance, and it's still fun and rewarding. If I crash or fail an event, there's no 'Game Over' and a kick to the title screen. I'm not being punished for learning the ropes. I honestly think that games like Call of Duty 4 single player and Ninja Gaiden are going to die out as gaming becomes more and more mainstream; casual players don't have a history with arcade or 8 bit games that insulates them from being frustrated with something that seems like it hates them personally. They'll move on, and so, eventually, will the developers.

That isn't to say that all games should be objectively easy, either. Don't get reductive; that's MY job. What developers will do is figure out ways to cater to both crowds, without something as crude(and historically uneven) as a difficulty setting. What could that be? I encourage the reader to check out the scaling difficulty in Sin Episodes, or the TrueSkill mechanic on Xbox Live for a good idea.

I've paid my dues. I did finally beat Frankenstein in Castlevania. I can still play through Einhander without a continue, and I walk tall in Ninja Gaiden. Xbox or NES. You pick. I've decided that I'll never again break a controller in anger. It's not worth my time.

Plus, I figure this post scores a point on cold, unfeeling technology. That makes us even.

My car better start tomorrow.