Rekindle the Flame

In a recent assignment in class regarding game genres, I talked about several games in the "adventure" category which happens to be one of my favorites. The two games I talked about were Super Mario 64 and God of War. After talking about these games, I really got in the mood to play them so I dug out my Nintendo 64 and Playstation 2 and I'm really glad I did

New games come out all the time but after you play one so much, you begin to have an attachment to it. For example, Super Mario 64, I haven't played that game in years and talking about it in class brought back many memories of playing with friends when I was no older than 8 years old. Now, as I pick up that oddly shaped Nintendo 64 controller, I am having just as much fun playing now as I did when I was younger with the added perk of actually being able to complete many missions I was unable to complete as a child because they were too difficult. I am currently in competition with my friend Lauren Haley to see who could get the most stars in the game. She is winning (for now).

With God of War, unfortunately I do not own the original because I failed to remember that I borrowed that from a friend years ago. However, I own God of War 2 which is just as good, if not better. A few years back, I made a deal with my friend Danny that we would only play the game together because it was just that awesome that we didn't wanna miss anything. After playing for about an hour, I sent Danny a text telling him I started playing again. He suddenly really wanted to play. I wouldn't be surprised if we end up playing later today. Sadly, God of War 3 will only be available for Playstation 3 which I do not have. I need to find someone with one asap. Until then, this trailer will have to hold me over:

With that said, the games of today will probably have the same effect years from now. I can already imagine me popping in Arkham Asylum 5 years from now and being just as excited to play as I am now. Now, I am probably going to go play some more God of War 2. Greek mythology for the win!

MotionPlus Gets an A+

Almost everyone has played the Wii at least once since it was released back in 2006. The most popular game is probably Wii Sports which comes bundled with the system itself. To this day, it still remains very popular and almost anyone can tell you that they love Wii Bowling. Even in senior citizen centers, Wii Sports is everywhere. However, the newest accessory for the Wii, the "Wii MotionPlus", allows for a whole slew of new games to be played thanks to its new technology.

The Wii MotionPlus is a small add-on that attaches to the bottom of the Wiimote where you would plug in the nunchuck extension. With this piece of equipment, the motion sensing becomes more of a 1:1 ratio literally mimicking whatever the controller does on screen. This new accessory comes bundled with the newly released Wii Sports Resort. Thanks to the new technology, new games such as basketball, frisbee, wakeboarding, and my personal favorite archery are now possible.

When I first started playing Wii Sports Resort, I was surpirsed at how accurate the Wii was able to pick up my movements. Not surprising, I instantly excelled past my older sister at nearly every sport including archery. In order to do the archery portion of the game, you simply hold the controller vertically directly in front of you in one hand and hold A, in the other hand you have the nunchuck and hold Z, then you pull the nunchuck back, aim, and release Z and watch your arrow soar through the screen.

I actually really enjoy this new addition because it makes the Wii even more interactive than it was before. This definitely adds something to the Wii that it didn't have. Even if you think its nothing special, it is nice to have some new sports to play besides the tired old bowling, golf, and tennis (all of which are included in Wii Sports Resort except tennis which has now become TABLE tennis.)

Games -> Movies

Games based on movies. We've all seen them. They're everywhere. It seems that most blockbuster movies these days have their video game counterpart. However, every once in a while a movie will be made based on a game. Most of the time the movies tend to not live up to their respective games but there are some instances when despite its difference from the game, it becomes a lucrative film franchise. One particular franchise that comes to mind is the Resident Evil franchise. Since 2002, three films based on the popular game franchise have been released with an upcoming fourth installment to be released next Summer.

The first Resident Evil film was a disappointment to most fans due to its lack of relation to the original game. The game featured Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine among others in a mansion filled with zombies. Instead, the movie is an original story with the same premise as the games...virus that turns you into a flesh eating zombie. The only common denominator was the Umbrella Corporation, the company that created the T-Virus turning people into zombies. There were no characters from the games in this movie nor did it take place in a mansion; it took place in a "top secret underground facility called 'The Hive"

It's sequel, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, took place at the same time as the games and included characters from the game series including Jill Valentine, Carlos Olivera, and NEMESIS. This movie could technically be a combination of the 2nd and 3rd games in the series due to its inclusion of the character Nemesis, which was a zombie killing monster in Racoon City. Although it was far closer to the game series than the original movie, it still had its differences due to the made up character, Alice, from the original movie. Her interactions with everyone else caused certain elements from the games to change such as her love affair with Carlos, which would become evident in the third entry of the film franchise, Resident Evil: Extinction.

Resident Evil: Extinction was meant to take place after the games and would therefore have another completely original storyline with references to the game franchise similar to that of the first movie. The one major reference to the games in this movie was its inclusion of the character Claire Redfield (played by Ali Larter) and her journey to find her brother, Chris (this story originated from the game Resident Evil: Code Veronica). By the end of this movie, Carlos is dead, Claire is on her way to Alaska to search for more survivors and Alice has discovered that Umbrella has been trying to make clones of her. The final scene involves dozens of the Alice clones waking up and a hint at a possible sequel taking place in Japan.

Little is known about the upcoming fourth installment, Resident Evil: Afterlife other than Chris Redfield finally making an appearance played by Wentworth Miller. I personally enjoy these movies despite their differences from the games although I have to admit I don't know what they could do with this movie considering it takes place way after the events of the games and it would have a bunch of Alice's running killing people. That sounds pretty lame. Only time will tell.

BEST GAME EVER!

The title of this blog entry may make it seem like there is one game out there that I can really call a favorite. The truth is, I cannot name one single game as my favorite. The main reason for this being that I started playing games at a young age and as I grew up, my taste in games changed with me. A game that I would have considered my favorite when I was younger would have probably been replaced as the years went by.

For example, when I was younger my friend Amanda and I were obsessed with Donkey Kong 64 for Nintendo 64. This game revolved around not only Donkey Kong, but his family as well. Each member of this family had different special abilities that were required to advance in the game. Some of these that I found most memorable were Tiny Kong's ability to shrink and her ability to use her pig tails to hover in a helicopter-like fashion. One thing that sticks out in my mind the most is the very end of the game due to the fact that i was incredibly upset. We had finally gotten to the very end of the game and we discover we needed the "rareware coin" to complete the game. We had no idea where this coin was and we did not want to play the entire game over again to find it. As a result, the game went unfinished. To be fair, we were practically 99% done with the game. That coin was the one thing keeping us from the end credits.

As the years went by, I began to play darker and more mature games such as the Resident Evil franchise. My favorite among the franchise would have to be Resident Evil 5 mainly due to it's co-op play mode in which you and a friend could both play the story mode at the same time as the main character, Chris Redfield, and his partner, Sheva Alomar rather than taking turns or fighting against each other. There were days where my friend Angelo and I would play this game for hours and completely lose track of time. Its actually really fun to play a game like that with someone. To restore health, you needed green and/or red herbs so there were countless times when we would be in the middle of a big fight and we would yell "HEAL ME!" or "I NEED AMMO!" Once we finally completed the game, it was like we didn't know what to do with ourselves because it consumed so much of our time, we needed more.

I recently downloaded a demo for Batman: Arkham Asylum and I can honestly say that this would probably take the cake as my favorite game at this point in my life once I get around to actually getting it (maybe for my birthday!). The fighting style as well as familiar villains such as The Joker, Harley Quinn, and Poison Ivy (three of my favorites) make this game one of the best I've played in a while. Hopefully i'll get it soon and find myself unable to put the controller down.