Shell Shocked Edition
Maybe you’re not aware but I have this other site out there in the ether which ostensibly chronicles the non-gaming portions of my life. Life, in this case, that has experienced a substantial sequence of changes since last we spoke and yet I have yet to update that place, content to let spiders move in and a cozy blanket of dust to settle. But I’m here and I’ll be honest with you, if the people who watched that other hamlet knew I was here with you instead of there with them they would probably be pretty peeved. I’m not sure what kind of measures they might take exactly, but I’m guessing they would wave their tiny virtual fists and attempt to hurt me in the only way anyone knows how to in this modern age where the physical proximity required for an actual beatdown is an endangered thing like Bald Eagles and honest Rock n’ Roll: De-friending and un-following on social networks. The joke will be on them, of course. Only you and I know that my true measure of worth is in fact my Gamerscore and they can’t affect that, now can they?
I was surprised to find that when my daughter was born and I had several weeks at home for paternity leave, I was actually able to play a number of games. I had fully expected to have to spend so much time… I don’t actually know what I thought I would be doing, really—soundproofing the shared walls in our apartment perhaps—but that wasn’t the case. Instead I found that a lot of caring for a newborn involves sleeplessly sitting. Now, it isn’t always the case that both hands can be completely free, for example to hold a controller, but the opportunity presents itself often enough that I found myself playing far more often than I ever thought I could.
Among the titles at my disposal were Mirror’s Edge, whch I completed again (this time on the 360) and then spent a few extra days working through some of the time trials which I found almost as enjoyable as the story mode. I’ve heard it said that time trials are in fact what the game should have been as they strip the crust of occasionally questionable combat away and leave the tender parkour-flavored center behind. Being a sucker for narrative and context, I can’t say that I explicitly prefer the time trials to the game itself, especially since the narrative in ME is a cut above the typical senseless excuses-for-action that passes for video game storytelling most of the time. However, I can recognize the inherent appeal of a game mode that takes the most fun aspect of the play (as opposed to the entire experience) and distills it, letting it age until sharp with a full bouquet.
I also dipped my toes into Chrono Trigger for the DS. I keep telling myself that I played the game in its original SNES incarnation and I know this to be true in that a copy of the game existed in my childhood home and I had a save file on it. My memory told me I had actually played through it and loved the game for all it was worth but that memory has never been my greatest asset and honestly before the DS port crossed my doorstep a few weeks ago I couldn’t have told you much about it except that it had a main character named Chrono who I had renamed Klive in my earlier playthrough(?) and there was, at one point, a sword-weilding frog. Playing the game via DS during various lulls in baby-related action and also (pardon the TMI) on the can, I recognized most of the sequences of the early game: The Millenial Fair, the faux chapel, the trial, the introduction of Lavos, the jetbike race. These all came back to me as if from the cold storage lockers of my memory but the game itself is so far recessed in the crevice of my mind that it’s like playing an entirely new game whilst suffering from unending deja vu. It’s not entirely unpleasant.
For a time I had moved from Mirror’s Edge back into Fable II, which had been my game of choice prior to the Xbox crash a few months back. It wasn’t the easiest thing to dive into after an absence due to the game’s occasionally overwhelming demand for full attention. I suppose the game can be played more or less on the rails as a straighforward experience but while I’m not always a completionist I do like to experience as much of what a game has to offer as can be reasonably expected. In this case much of the side questing, social interaction, exploration and minigame playing requires a lot of unstructured faffing about if you’re playing without some sort of cheat guide. I’m definitely not above hint books or FAQs, but a game like Fable seems to have enough built-in help to make it most unnecessary so long as you can keep your game plan at or near the front of your mind. As such, taking a quarter of a year off between activities is not really the way to go.
I abandoned Fable II when my wife persuaded me to rent the new Batman: Arkham Asylum game. The startling thing about B:AA is that it not only manages to successfully translate a comic book story (and a pretty competent one at that) into a video game, but it also manages to do what has yet to be accomplished to date which is make a Metroid-style game work in third-person 3D. What makes Arkham Asylum stand out most remarkably though is that developers Rocksteady really captured what is cool about Batman. I think it’s easy for game designers to focus on the combat prowess of Batman and ignore the “World’s Greatest Detective” aspect of the character. Heck, the comic book writers forget this aspect just as often. It’s not forgivable, I’m just saying it’s so easy as to be almost expected. But in Arkham Asylum the intellect of Batman comes through clearly and helps make the experience transformative as opposed to, say, putting a Batman skin onto Devil May Cry. The combat isn’t what I’d call sublime although it does have a particular charm and it fits the character well; what’s more effective are the tightly integrated stealth aspects of the game which are never clumsily mandated but actually provide a clear benefit. I would have liked to have seen a few more upgrades and gadgets and the final boss battle is a bit disappointing but I finished the game in under a week and then proceeded to plough through the (very welcome) continuation mode to complete the Riddler puzzles. There was little left to accomplish when I returned the game, but I still felt I could have happily spent more time in its world. Consider that my endorsement.
I soothed my loss after returning Batman by purchasing Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers on Dr. Mac’s recommendation from XBLA. I’ve attempted a few video incarnations of M:tG and have generally enjoyed them although none have ever really captured the full appeal of the tabletop CCG. I suppose Magic Online would be the exception but I don’t want to pay for virtual cards any more than I want to pay for physical ones so that option isn’t an improvement over the expensive but addictive game I grew attached to almost 15 years ago. Duels is sort of a compromise between Magic Online and a stand-alone game: It doesn’t attempt to obfuscate the game in any way like the strategy action game on the original Xbox did, but it doesn’t provide the full Magic experience because a key element of the game—deck construction—has been neatly trimmed away. It is nice to have a genuine game of Magic playable vs. an AI opponent if, like me, you find tabletop matches to be difficult to come by. For that reason alone I feel confident in my purchase of the game, which was only about $10 anyway. And it is true that the pre-constructed decks are solidly built and reasonably effective, plus as you win single-player matches with them you unlock additional sideboard cards that can be added or removed as you like which is a nice nod to deck construction. Still, I’m not sure that adding a full deck constructor and allowing completely customized decks from the relatively small pool of cards the game offers would cannibalize Wizards’ profits from other venues. I can even imagine a scenario in which they steadfastly refused to offer additional cards as DLC making the XBLA realm a small standalone subset of the game at large, but by providing a taste of the full range of activities unique to Magic you both entice new tabletop players and give those of us who long for a re-connection to an unfeasible activity enough to stay warm in the long winter of adult responsibility.