prog: (Default)
[personal profile] prog
I've been feeling kind of poopy these last few days. It doesn't quite make sense given that things around me are exciting and interesting. I theorize it's because this is my last week at ICCB and I've been reacting to this by hiding from ICCB, so that makes me want to feel lame and useless even as other things give me cause to feel energized and leaderly.

Today's my last day and I don't wanna go in. But I really oughtta. I mean, I'm currently typing on a laptop that will no longer be mine to use in a day, technically speaking. Well, not very technically speaking.



I may be sitting next to the guy that [livejournal.com profile] tahnan was sitting next to the other day. I was doing pretty good at not listening to him when he chose to illustrate a point to his friend by pointing at me and splurting "LIKE THIS GUY HERE HA HA!" I shot eye-lasers at him pshew pshew and he looked away.



Video Game thoughts:

I am finally playing Super Mario 64, more or less. (The DS version adds some star-gathering missions and a modicum of touchscreen gimmicks to the original game, as well as the earnable ability to switch between four different Mario-world characters. You actually start the game as Yoshi, that freaky nudist dinosaur, and need to fight through some prologue levels in order to unlock Mario.) I actually owned a Nintendo 64 several years ago, and for some reason I never played this game on it. (Instead I played through Ocarina of Time, which was great, and then traded the whole thing in for a Sony PlayStation.)

It's kind of incredible... after I got past the nearly 10-year-old 3D graphics and the mushy controls (the lack of a real analog joystick is a bummer, and I just can't use the emulated analog control that the touchscreen offers) I was a little stunned to realize that the star-gathering mechanic is the root of all the treasure-hunt 3D platformers that have appeared since, like Jak & Daxter (with its power cells) and Beyond Good & Evil (with its pearls). I mean, these newer games don't even attempt to hide their design debt to Mario 64. I did not know this. It's an interesting discovery, to me.

And it's all so tight; each level has a whole bunch of different ways to approach it, all layered over each other in the same physical space. The newer games do that too, but they tend to prefer vast, sprawling spaces. Take Jak & Daxter: the levels are rolling fields, lush jungles and craggy hills, all a joy to leisurely explore, and it's up to the player to figure out where the actual challenges lie within them. Mario 64, on the other hand, acts like a bridge between the old 2D "every pixel on the screen is an obstacle" design aesthetic and the potential that 3D games had opened. While there's a lot more freedom of movement than any of the 2D Super Mario games, it's still true that every piece of ground you can stand on is there for a reason, playing a role in at least one of the physically overlapping missions on the level; no space is "wasted".

I like it.

Date: 2005-09-16 06:00 pm (UTC)
jadelennox: Senora Sabasa Garcia, by Goya (norton)
From: [personal profile] jadelennox
what was the point he was trying to illustrate?

Called out

Date: 2005-09-16 07:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] prog.livejournal.com
I don't know; was doing a pretty good job not listening, but couldn't help it when he turned his head and used that voice of his to smash into my personal bubble. Geesh. 2d6 sonic damage

(Possible personally identifying information deleted from first response to this comment, ha ha. I really don't want this guy bouncing up to me next time I'm there and going HEY I READ YOUR POST THAT WAS MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!)

Date: 2005-09-16 06:11 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mrmorse.livejournal.com
When I was running a Nintendo 64 review website, Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64 were the only two games we gave scores of 10 to. I've been interested in checking out the DS version, but I haven't had the opportunity yet.

Date: 2005-09-16 06:25 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] prog.livejournal.com
If you end up getting a DS of your own we can try out the multiplayer game, which actually doesn't sound all that interesting... basically seems to be Super Smash Bros. fought inside Mario 64 levels.

I was about to say that the DS-specific additions seem like an afterthought but that's clearly not true with the character-switching element, which succeeds in feeling integral to the whole single-player game. I actually assumed that the N64 version had that feature too until I read the Mario 64 Wikipedia article last night, heh heh.

Date: 2005-09-16 08:58 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cramerica.livejournal.com
"Treasure hunt platformer" characterization really sums it up.

I remember when Mario 64 first came out, my friend Ray's comment was "well, that's something other." Now I guess it's a standard.

Date: 2005-09-17 03:17 pm (UTC)
ext_2472: (Default)
From: [identity profile] radiotelescope.livejournal.com
A discussion of game genre once brought up the question "What's the difference between a 'platformer' and an 'action game'?" That is, why isn't _Tomb Raider_ -- a game entirely constructed of jumping platforms -- a platformer?

My standard answer is: If you're collecting coins, it's a platformer.

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