Street Fighter IV: Fighting Games Casual? Or, Capcom Lies To Everyone

Street Fighter IV is here.

I could probably just leave it at that, because anyone who reads gaming blogs can probably fill in the rest for themselves. I obviously won't though, because... Well, I don't have a reason. Pure, unmitigated verbosity, I guess. It's a trait of mine.

The hype machine has been churning overtime on this game for quite some time now. Websites, magazines, and blogs have been covering the release non-stop. Capcom, the developer and publisher of the game, has already sold two million copies in less than two weeks. The hardcore fighting game crowd seems to have embraced the game wholeheartedly, with very little in the way of reservation. Online battles are easy to get. Trash is talked, strategies are learned, and character tiers are being debated.

I don't think it'll last long, though.

Why The Hell Do I To This To Myself? Or, Post Holiday Gaming Apocalypse

Thank fucking God. The holidays are over. My savings account survives another year: scarred, wounded, but not defeated. Victoria.

The holidays are a financial apocalypse for me, and every year it only gets worse. On top of gifts for loved ones and friends, I end up spending way too much of what I choose to call 'disposable income' on all the triple A games that an irrational and confused games industry hoards for months and months, ignoring the obvious fact that, hey, people play games in June too, before gleefully releasing them in a frantic stampede in the months of November and December. That I continue to obediently buy them all raises the possibility that I too and irrational and confused, but let's not discuss that right now. I need all the credibility I can muster.

After the dust settled on my annual financial doomsday this year, I ended up with a soul-crushing stack of new games. I felt their quiet insistence that I play them as I put them away on the shelf, untouched shrink wrap tormenting me. Free time is at a premium for me, always: when would I get a chance to play the games I had been given or purchased? When would I be able to validate both my idiot compulsions and the good intentions of friends and family? Compounding the issue is my addiction to Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix and Persona 4: both time sinks of incredible density and power. Even when I have the time to play, those two games are always my first and second choice.

This year? Much sooner than usual. For once, the games industry has done me a solid(albeit accidentally). There is literally nothing coming out that I want until Street Fighter 4 in February. That is nearly unprecedented, and leaves me almost two months to play catch up and knock out some of my back log. All of which is very handy, because I had begun to experience what I like to call 'collector's depression'. Anyone who seriously plays and collects games knows what I mean, but we'll define it just in case anyone rational ever reads this.

'Collectors Depression: If a collection of games grows at a faster pace than a collector can play those games, then eventually playing the games stops being fun and becomes a job, leading to that collector temporarily abandoning the hobby and taking up knitting, crochet, or religion'.

So thanks, Games Industry. You've coincidentally helped in keeping me out of fashion, for which you deserve a medal; especially considering my taste in clothes and questionable manual dexterity. I'm already a man of the cloth, so obviously you weren't much help in the past, but hey. It's the holidays, and I am a reverend for some reason. All is forgiven. We'll move on so no one thinks too hard about this paragraph, and the ugly truths contained within.

The games residing in my immediate backlog are, in no order, Folklore, Lair, Far Cry 2, Gradius Collection, Siren: New Translation, and Suikoden. It's not as bad as some years, but still a mighty and powerful stack of software to wade through. Interestingly, I realized as I was putting them away that none of the games I mentioned are new at all. In fact, Suikoden is a download for the PS3. I have no real desire to play Resistance 2 or Gears of War 2, the huge platform exclusive shooters for the PS3 and 360 respectively, and I'd already bought and fell in love with Little Big Planet long before the Christmas season. Prince of Persia? No thanks. I've already beaten Fallout 3. Tomb Raider? No, sir. Legendary? Are you kidding?

The powers that be have granted me a respite, and I intend to use it. Collecting games is fun and sometimes profitable, but often leads to a 'less gaming, more collecting' mindset that I intend to avoid. One of my new years resolutions is to not buy any game until Street Fighter comes out: that gives me a month and a half to cleanse my backlog and shore up the holiday related bills in preparation for next year's assault on my money. Why would I do this? Why alter years of habit and subject myself to Lair on purpose? Because I realized something else over the holidays as I was talking to my friend Randy at work. This guy never has more than three or four games at a time. He buys them, plays them, sells them, and buys some more: lean and mean gaming at it's finest. His philosophy? Games are for playing first, collecting second. He told me, "I've beaten every game I've played, unless it was so bad that even achievements couldn't make me continue". A quick glance at his gamer score affirms this mighty declaration. I was impressed, because I have nearly five hundred games for more than fifteen systems, and I've beaten probably a quarter of them. That doesn't seem like a very good ratio. I figure I've got some catching up to do.

So. What did I realize with the able assistance of Randy? Resolution number two: play the stupid goddamn things. I didn't get into this hobby because I love having all my free space taken up by plastic and cardboard. I got into it because I love to play video games. I should spend more time doing that, instead of adding yet more crap to the collection.

I'll start with Lair, because it's the shortest game on the stack. We'll see how dedicated to this premise I really am when someone invites me to play Street Fighter.

Playing Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix Online: Or How I Learned To Stop Worying And Love Being Beaten

I usually avoid playing games online. I do this for three reasons. First, I suck at competitive shooters and fighting games(though I love them so!), and if I'm going to lose to someone, then I want to be able to punch them in the gut until they learn not to toy with my emotions like that. Second, if I want to be called an impressive list of racial epithets by a twelve year old in a trailer smoking a joint, I'll go to any number of trailer parks I know of. Or Idaho. The third reason is more complex, and we'll get to it in a minute. The point is, I have seldom ventured into online gaming, and I've often gone on record as a genuine 'hater'. Lately though, all my usual gaming friends are busy with school, work, kids, and the usual 'non-gaming crap' that gets in the way of productive free time, and I've been in a fighting game mood. I was up against the wall. I had no choice.

So it was with great trepidation and more than a little shame that I bought Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, plugged in my fighting stick, and plunged headfirst into the world of competitive fighting games online. Now that I've played the game against some truly excellent folk, and have seen firsthand just how deep and rewarding that learning a system can be by being repeatedly brutalized by people I don't know, I think I finally understand what I've been missing all this time; not just in fighting games, but in competitive gaming in general.

I thought I was going to do pretty well when I first loaded the game. I've been a devotee of fighting games for nearly a decade now, but I made one fatal mistake: I never took them seriously. They were games to play with friends on the couch to while away a few hours in between having incredible sex with beautiful strangers and fighting crime in my pajamas, or something to play between meatier, more story-oriented games. A sort of digital palate cleanser if you will: a binary sorbet. I willingly reduced the entire genre to a sort of high-level casual game, which I'm sure completely kills whatever hardcore credibility I had with a certain segment of the gaming population. They're probably pulling out their list of racial epithets as we speak. I'm not particularly worried about it because not only am I having incredible sex right now, but I'm doing so in my pajamas, if you catch my drift. In any case, pajamas and sex have nothing to do with winning games online, which I learned to my initial shock and horror. In fact, it could be argued that pajamas and sex are actually detrimental to winning online games, but that's an entirely different post.

Street Fighter II is actually a religion for some people, and if the community at large is any indication, then genuine tax-exempt status can't be far away. Ever since it's release into arcades in the early nineties, it's been a pillar of the gaming community, something that many games have borrowed from. It founded the current fighting game genre as it stands all on it's own, and countless imitators rushed into the arcades in it's wake did nothing to diminish it's impact or popularity. It's one of those rare games that even non-gamers are aware of, like Super Mario Bros., Doom, and Pac-Man. There were many iterations of Street Fighter II released over the years in between the original arcade game(1991) and the true Street Fighter III(1997); tiny, tiny incremental adjustments to a system that became more and more complex with each release. The final version of Street Fighter II, Super Street Fighter II Turbo, is still considered one of the finest and most balanced fighting games ever made by the fighting games community, and they're still playing it fervently today. HD Remix is a high-definition remake of that game, and the same group of fanatical players have embraced it enthusiastically, making it one of the best selling and most popular download titles ever released. That's fourteen years of devotion to a game. I probably should have seen my beatings coming, in retrospect.

The game launched and I chose to play a 'friendly quick match', which was only half true in that I lost in less than thirty seconds. "An error", I said to myself. "An aberration. Let's try that again". I chose to play another round. I lost again. And again. I lost fifteen matches in a row. Fifteen. And then I lost another twenty. And then another ten in 'ranked' matches. And for some reason, I didn't give up. In fact, I loved every minute of it.

Because you see, as I listened to the in-game announcer say "You Lose!!" for the fiftieth(but not final!) time, I realized that by playing the game casually I had stunted my skills badly. There's a reason that fighting game devotees lament the death of the arcade, or more accurately the arcade scene, in the US; the surest way to improve at something competitive is to play people better than you. Anything else is just 'casual fun'. Which I'm pretty sure is against their religion or something, considering the humiliations I've endured lately. But despite the setbacks, something interesting happened: instead of giving up and playing something else, I actually felt my resolve harden. And when I finally won a two out of three match it felt like I'd conquered Asia. Naked. With only a rock. It felt almost as good as incredible sex with beautiful strangers, in pajamas or out. And lemme tell you folks: that's a pretty good feeling.

I bought the game on the PS3, because the 360 D-pad is completely worthless and I already owned a stick for Sony's current-gen console. For Christmas, I received a stick for my 360, and I bought the game again. Yeah. I'm hooked, and with Street Fighter IV coming out in February, I don't see an end in sight. I've gotten a taste of victory, and I want more.

Which brings us to the third reason I always avoided playing games online. It might be reductive and overly Freudian, but as I was getting stomped for the umpteenth time, I realized that I've always thought of games as 'something I can beat'. Life is full of bullshit that you can't control, no matter who you are or what you do. You can't control the economy, or what professor you end up with for a difficult class, or even whether your car will start in the morning. Games were always something that I knew I could bend to my will: after all, games are far simpler systems than the complex and ineffable webs that govern everything from our government down to our relationships with our friends, lovers and co-workers. I might have to fire someone today, or I might have forgotten a paper was due this week, or a good friend might be getting divorced and needs somewhere to stay and someone to lean on, but I can rock the ever-loving shit out of Fallout 3. It's an artificial constant. Like everyone else, I hate losing. Only now, I'm seeing it's long term value. If you don't lose, you don't learn. And if you don't learn, you don't improve. And then all you are is a coward.

Of course, that isn't going to stop me from putting a serious hurt on my friend this weekend. He says he used to play Street Fighter II on the Super Nintendo, and he says he used to be 'pretty good'. He says he thinks he played 'the white guy'. He wants to play me in order to 'show me who's boss'.

Hey, I've taken my beatings. I think it's only fair that I pay it back.

Don't judge me.

I will now succumb to the lure of lists....Or, the top ten games of 2008 and what they mean to me

It has, my friends, been a pretty good year for gaming.

By what standard? Well, quite frankly, by any standard. Consider, for example, the holiday release lists for 1973 and compare them with the lists for 2008. Note the lack of compelling, triple 'A' games. Ruminate on the absence of quality downloadable content. Ponder the poor showing of Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft at retail, and the corresponding lack of up-to-the-minute media coverage. The only good thing about gaming in 1973 was there were no fanboys peeing on each other in GameFAQ forums, on account of GameFAQs not being in existence yet... You know, 1973 was a pretty good year too, come to think of it.

Now that we've determined that 2008 is a year in gaming worth noting, we should consider just how the releases we've been gifted with this year stack up in relation to each other. We do this annually. We do this annually because we are gamers, and if you take 'NU' out of 'annually', you'll have yourself a word that perfectly describes how deeply and obsessively we dissect and analyze everything about our hobby; we take our games and franchises very seriously. Seriously enough to buy a game we already have three copies of ten years later just because it's been re-released on a different platform. Seriously enough to threaten any idiot who doesn't appreciate the finer nuances of the alleged plot of Xenosaga with forced castration if he doesn't just shut up and admit it was incredible. We take this hobby seriously enough, if truth were told, to add yet another 'top ten list' to the ever growing morass of stupid crap on the internet.

I admit that I have a 'list problem'. I am at one with the protagonist of the delightful Nick Hornsby novel 'High Fidelity': I love to classify and order things. I am full of 'top five' and 'top ten ever' lists. I examine things in relation to each other as naturally and readily as your average Naruto fan can say the word 'jitsu', or hang an anime wall scroll. And so, with all that in mind, we come to the meat of this despicable little screed.

My Top Ten Video Games of 2008 are listed below, from tenth to first. After the game I've provided my personal reasons for it's inclusion on this list, as well as some insight as to why I think that the game might be important in the future. I've done my best to span the entire year's releases, and have even gone so far as to include (gasp!) downloadable games. Something else that you should bear in mind is that I've included only games that I've actually played myself. Therefore, Fallout 3 and Fable II(among others) are notably absent. I've allowed remakes(...Well, one, anyway) because, you know... It came out in 2008.

And away we go!

10) Persona 3: FES edition. I fell in love with this game at the title screen. It's that music.
You might have heard this game referred to as 'that game where emo kids shoot themselves in the head to summon helpful demons'. If that doesn't grab you, I don't know what to tell you. Persona 3 is a terrific spin off of Atlus' incredibly prolific Shin Megami Tensei series of Japanese role playing games. You play a kid who joins a group of gifted psychic youngsters who attend high school during the day(including taking tests and joining sports and drama clubs) while fighting evil and saving the world at night. The FES edition is a special re-release that includes the original 100 hour game as well as a thirty to forty hour epilogue game. The plot is interesting and far more adult than your average JRPG, the dialogue and combat are sharp, and the music is hot in a weaboo, J-Pop kind of way.

I think Persona 3 is important overall because it shows that one of the most stagnant and cliched genres in gaming, the Japanese role playing game, can transcend genre stereotypes and reach a smarter, more grown up audience. As someone who's been tired of the rehash bullshit that SquareEnix has been dishing up for years, Persona 3 is a gentle reminder that it isn't the genre that's become stagnant: it's the people who are making games in that genre. We could argue about how recursive that argument is, but lets not. Instead, let us move on to:

9) Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix I'm a fan of fighting games, and a fan of Street Fighter above all others except Virtua Fighter. The game that first sparked my love of whupping my friends digitally was, of course, Street Fighter II, and the finest installment of Street Fighter II is...(deep breath)... Super Street Fighter II Turbo. This is (intake breath) Super Street Fighter II Turbo (...exhale breath), only rebalanced by tournament champion and game designer Dave Sirlin and lavished with a full set of 1080p high definition graphics. It's a labor of love, and it shows.

I think we should examine how well games like Soul Calibur IV and Street Fighter IV have done critically and commercially this year: is there a resurgence in fighting game popularity at long last? The evidence certainly points in that direction. If so, it will mark the resurrection of a genre that has become more and more exclusive and niche in the minds of regular folk, and that's pretty important in my opinion. Especially if I can then whup them digitally.

8) Burnout: Paradise How would you like to crash into things as hard as you can and not be punished? In fact, how would you like to be encouraged to do so? How would you like to casually destroy municipal property, smash oncoming traffic out of your way like a righteous automobile GOD, and be jabbered at by an ass named Atomica during the entire experience? You would? Then I have the game for YOU, good sir or madam.

Burnout is great, and I believe that as we get farther and farther into the current generation of games, the impact Burnout Paradise will have on balancing and design will be undeniable. There is little to no penalty for crashing(read: losing). You decide how you want to advance the game and upgrade your 'license'(read: win). There are tons of secrets and hidden areas. The game has been updated, and upgraded regularly, for free, with all kinds of new and exciting content. You can buy the game outright for download on the PS3, which is something I expected would have caused a bigger stir. And most importantly, this game made arcade racing fun for me again.

7) God of War: Chains of Olympus I love my PSP, but lets face it: there just aren't a huge number of exclusive 'must play' games available for it. So imagine my excitement and surprise when I played God of War and found myself as hooked as I'd been when playing the two PS2 installments. The combat grabs you by the impressive chin squirrel beard and doesn't let go until the final cinematic. I've never sat on a toilet for an hour before because I didn't want to stop playing a game. I'm going to name my first hemorrhoid 'Kratos' to mark the occasion.

If anything, God of War PSP shows that the PSP is, in the right hands, a truly excellent platform for gaming. You just have to adapt to the limitations of the hardware.

6) Ninja Gaiden II This game basically points out to the world that I am an idiot. Only a genuine, bonafide moron would pay sixty US dollars for the privilege of getting his ass kicked by anime ninja and demon stereotypes over and over and over while a buxom CIA agent dressed like a five dollar whore blabbers meaningless tripe into his surround sound system until he gets so pissed off that he shuts his 360 off and refuses to play a game for three days in a sullen childish sulk... Much less claim to enjoy it later. Dumbass.

Under certain circumstances, I really get into the challenge that a good action game can provide. Ninja Gaiden II has a depth in mechanics that games like God of War and Devil May Cry, good as they are, simply don't have. When I finally ace a level in Ninja Gaiden, I feel like I earned it. That's a nostalgic feeling for me(under certain circumstances). When I lose in Ninja Gaiden, it feels like I lost because I screwed up. That's an entirely different kind of frustration than getting screwed by the game itself(GTA, I'm calling you out).

5) Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia I wrote a whole blog dedicated to this game, so I don't think I need to say much more about it. It's very good, and it's had permanent residence in my DS ever since it came out. It'll probably still be there six months from now. Let's move along.

4) Condemned 2: Bloodshot Some games place you gently into a new world and quietly urge you to explore it's lens flare laden forests and glades. Some games require you to explore their lushly rendered cities and candlelit dungeons. Some games smash you in the face with a two by four studded with nails while screaming "Fuck you!!" as loud as it can while you scramble through the muck of a twisted and shadowy alley gasping and crying like a little girl. Condemned is squarely in the last category.

Few games have an atmosphere as noxious and repulsive as Condemned 2, and believe it or not, that's a good thing. As ugly and repugnant as it is, it draws you in so completely that you'll be dodging and swinging in time with your character on screen. After one particularly disturbing boss fight, I found that I had been clenching my teeth so hard that my jaw actually hurt. I loved it.

In addition, the first person melee combat has yet to be equaled. It's intuitive and works perfectly. The 'execution moves' are, perhaps, a bit much even for a hardened horror vet, but the sensation of fighting off a horde of loud, hostile, dangerous creeps using only your fists(or maybe a pipe if the fancy takes you) is something that other first person games should pay close attention to.

3) Dead Space Anyone who loves science fiction horror is basically going to be right at home with this one. Combine the best control elements of Resident Evil 4 and Gears of War with the atmosphere and plot of Aliens, Solaris and John Carpenter's The Thing? Sold! It's like the design document read, "How to get sixty dollars out of Geoff's wallet the easy way". I have no proof that it says something else, so I have no choice but to assume that EA has evil psychic gnomes working for them. Admit it; it makes sense. How else can you explain the fact that Madden sells 3 million copies every year? It sure as Hell isn't the bugs, arcane interface, or being insulted by twelve year old trailer trash while playing online, that's for sure.

Back to good games, like Dead Space. Seldom do you see a level of polish this high on a game. Everything looks and feels perfect. The set pieces, like a mile-long engine or an enormous, million ton enemy are jaw dropping. The sound design is spot on. The HUD, or lack thereof, is nothing short of brilliant. The dialogue is well acted and surprisingly engaging. Basically, it's the best twelve hours of whacking sentient cancer gunk you'll ever have. And surprisingly, it comes from EA, whose reputation in regards to excellent new first party IP is somewhat in question. Actually, EA has been kicking ass this year. Dead Space, Mirror's Edge, Bad Company... Good on you, EA. I'll make you a deal; you keep knocking out the bad ass original games, and I won't call the SEC to complain about the psychic gnomes.

2) Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots I've been gaga for the Metal Gear Solid series since the original Solid incarnation for Playstation. The Metal Gear series has sold me every console on which it has appeared. I somehow own no less than three copies of Metal Gear Solid 3, and I will own two copies of Metal Gear Solid 4 when the inevitable greatest hits version hits shelves sometime next year. Actually, I'm as bad with Metal Gear Solid as I am with Castlevania. That being said, even with all the hype surrounding it and the cosmic mess that was the story of Metal Gear Solid 2, which Metal Gear Solid 4 is the direct sequel of, I was supremely satisfied with the end of Solid Snake's adventures. In fact, I rank the overall Metal Gear Solid 4 experience as one of the finest and most cherished gaming experiences I've had in my long gaming career.

To appreciate the game, you must view it in the proper context. The entire game is a love letter to it's fans. Sure, the new stuff like buying weapons and ammo on the go and the westernized control scheme are evolutions, especially compared to the controls of MGS 2 or the original release of 3, but the core of the game is designed to cater to those of us who have been along for the ride the entire time. There's a satisfying conclusion for every character in the series, and the ending was so perfect and touching in my estimation that I shed a tear. I'm sensitive like that. Don't judge me.

Yes, the cut scenes are long and sometimes poorly directed. Yes, chapter three is an abomination unto the Lord and should never have been allowed to exist. Yes, Snake has an iPod. None of it matters. Snake has had his swan song, and it's one that will ring in my ears for a long time to come. Call me fanboy; I don't care. I'll see you on GameFAQs, and my aim is better than yours.

1) Little Big Planet On the weekend that Little Big Planet came out, I spent every waking minute for two days in front of the television playing four player co-op with my brothers and my oldest younger brothers' boyfriend(...which is actually more annoying to read than Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. I apologize). Four of us, all adults with jobs and social lives and everything, laughing and yelling like ten year olds, having the time of our lives. There's something almost primal in the execution and style of Little Big Planet. You run left to right. You collect stuff. You jump and swing. It can either bring you back to your childhood gaming roots, or introduce you to the joy of gaming for the very first time. It's accessible. It's incredibly cute. It's clever. And if you muck around with the packed in level editor, it can be surprisingly deep.

The level editor is nothing short of a revelation: it's simultaneously the most complex goddamn thing I've ever messed with and the simplest and most intuitive thing I've ever made a giant flaming penis with. It's almost a game in and of itself: making weird crap and just seeing what it's capable of doing. It also provides the biggest draw the game has for me; an unlimited, never ending supply of new levels to play, provided by other gamers.

That's the single coolest thing about Little Big Planet, and the single most important thing I've seen this year: accessible user created content. Of course level editors have been around ever since Marathon and Doom in the early nineties, but Little Big Planet makes level creation seem easy and within the reach of even casual gamers.

I almost wish I'd made it my top twenty games, actually. I didn't get to praise Valkyria Chronicles, or Left 4 Dead, or Bionic Command Rearmed, or Rez HD, or... you know what, I'm going to stop. My fanboy is hanging out, and I'm trying to cultivate an illusion of 'coolness'. Can't have 'coolness' with a fanboy flopping around like so much male stripper sausage. No need to thank me for that image. I know you appreciate it, and that's all the thanks I need.

I think I'm going to fire up the 'Ol entertainment center and actually play some of those games I've mentioned now. I have four days off, something nearly unheard of, and I'm going to take shameless advantage of it.

Happy Thanksgiving, and remember to play some games this weekend.

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.

And Now, In This Corner... Mainstream Media Vs. Gaming. Fight!

Let's not talk about Jack Thompson. Enough is enough. He's had his time in the sun, and if we're lucky, he's been discredited so thoroughly that we no longer have to see his face on television or on Digg. He was a dangerous man in his early days, when the specter of GTA-inspired violence and porn rock threatened the purity of the nations youth, but his time has passed. Another attention whore crucified on his own self-righteous rhetoric.

Let's talk, instead, about the relationship between the media and that most savage beast, the Hardcore Gamer.

I'm always interested in how popular media covers games(Lately, the tide has been turning toward a more even keeled approach, but historically games and gaming culture have gotten the greasy end of the stick). Even more interesting to yours truly is how gamers themselves respond to the attention. I've noticed that more and more, the focus of mainstream media's gaming coverage is the business side of things: how much money is being made and spent, lines of faithful gamers waiting to buy the newest games and consoles on release day, World of Warcraft of course, and how much more money games are making than Hollywood. That's all well and good, but it ignores a legacy of slander and misinformation that's left scars on the psyche of gaming culture. And without sounding too melodramatic, those scars may take a long time to heal.

Earlier this year, a trailer for Resident Evil 5 was called out for presenting itself in a racist light. Gamers exploded in a storm of self-righteous rage, accusing those reporting the story of having an anti-gaming bias. Forums blew the Hell up. Enthusiast sites talked about it endlessly. Capcom, the makers of the game, responded with a press release and with interviews, denying that their game was racist. Those of us in the hardcore gaming scene thought it was the end of the world.

When the dust settled though, the joke was on us. None of the usual detractors had bothered to show up; not even Jack. We, ourselves, had created a veritable tempest in a teapot, and the few intelligent, well-spoken folk in the press who were trying to open an honest to goodness dialogue about the subject had been entirely drowned out by the waves.

N'Gai Croal of Newsweek was a sane and intelligent voice in the midst of all the hyperbole and vitriol. He wrote an excellent article that illustrated better than any other why the trailer was controversial. In a nutshell, He suggested not that the game was racist, but that the imagery presented in the trailer had some serious psychological and historical baggage attached to it. As an african american, he couldn't help but be affected by the image of a huge white guy shooting up a crowd of black africans. It didn't help that the trailer was devoid of context; to those who were not already familiar with the series, it would be even more jarring. Whether or not the development team had intended for the viewer to interpret the trailer in that manner was irrelevant. the imagery would speak for itself.

It was a well-reasoned and insightful argument, but it went unheard amongst the furious typing of ten thousand angry gamers telling the internet just how insane people were for condemning yet another innocent video game for a crime it didn't commit. To the gamers, it was Hot Coffee and Manhunt 2 all over again. Reason didn't factor into it; we were under attack, and we responded with ridicule, rhetoric, and empty threats. It was embarrassing.

Just as Mr. Croal highlighted how he was conditioned to react to the imagery present in the offending trailer in a certain way, so did gamers illustrate how they had been conditioned to react when they perceived their hobby to be under attack. And the resulting picture disturbed me greatly.

New media has always come under attack by those who didn't understand it. When Stravinsky premiered his Rite of Spring, it was uniformly panned by critics and actually started a bonafide riot. A book on the corrupting influence of comic books in the fifties actually contributed to a congressional hearing on morality and ethics in the medium. Midnight Cowboy was slapped with an 'X' rating in the time of it's theatrical release, though the movie barely rates a PG-13 in modern times. I mean, compare Midnight Cowboy to Saw. Which one was rated 'X' again?

And that right there is the answer to our problem: familiarity eventually breeds understanding.

Also contempt. But that's for a different post.

People like Jack Thompson, Joe Lieberman, and all the other people crusading for the regulation of games are simply repeating history. It should be noted that the Rite of Spring is now considered a masterpiece, and that your mom probably does aerobics to Prince and Guns N' Roses. For every reporter who writes a condescending article on video games, there's an N'Gai Croal or Jon Davison trying to educate and inform an ignorant population about what games actually are. For every Cooper Lawrence, a Leigh Alexander. We should remember that we have friends, too, and that as gaming grows to be more and more integrated into popular culture, the outcry and controversies will eventually be replaced by a calmer dialogue, just as it always has in the past. This too shall pass, and when it does, we'll all be able to laugh about it over a game of Halo 6 or Guitar Hero 315 Remix. It's practically in the cards.

We gamers should remember that the next time someone points out something controversial in a video game. If gaming is going to grow up to be a relevant part of our culture, there will sometimes be criticism and slander. Film and literature aren't exempt from that; why should video games be?

Media is subjective. Scars only heal if you learn to stop picking at them. Meaningful discussion sometimes comes from the most surprising places. The mainstream media has cautiously started to embrace the idea that, hey, video games... There might be something to them. We should try and view that as the tentative first steps toward something greater.

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.