ironSoap

Interesting article over on Wired about video game boss fights. I think my favorite bosses are probably the ones who taunt you openly. Best boss fight of all time has to be Psycho Mantis from Metal Gear Solid, though. The worst boss of all time is the beast from Resident Evil: Code Veronica who cannot be killed and you have to run in terror from. One or perhaps two hits is all it takes it to kill you and it is literally luck that keeps you alive. Both HB and I gave up on this game after being slain by this stupid, stupid “boss” forty bajillion times over and finally giving up for mental health considerations. Neither of us have ever actually finished the game as a result.

On an only semi-related subject as I was sort of browsing around Wikipedia reading about video game bosses, I started thinking about older games that I never got around to playing but often wish I did. Games like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time which everybody says is the best Zelda (or the best game) ever. They even have a version I think for the Gamecube that I’m just too lazy to track down.

Which got me thinking about games I wish would be either remade or re-released for current systems as ports because I would like to give them a shot sometime.

• Resident Evil 2: Okay, I actually played this but it was a rental and I didn’t even get 25% of the way through. I tried to go back and play it on the Gamecube re-release but the graphics are so 1997 it was painful. It’s a shame because most of the series’ storyline (at least in terms of understanding the subsequent game plots) stem from this game. If anything needed the remake/facelift treatment, it would be this game. Maybe even a DS port would allow me to get over my graphic snobbery enough to push through.
• System Shock series: Adventure-style games that people swear scared the heck out of them. Count me in.
• Maniac Mansion/Sam and Max/Grim Fandango/Monkey Island: Lucasarts used to put out stellar PC games. I mean, I guess, because people are pretty hyperactive about them still to this day. So much so that they have a mechanism to allow them to be played on modern hardware. I never played any of them but they sure looked interesting and if they were available again (without hoops; I’m way too lazy for hoops) I’d definitely pick them up.
• Final Fantasy VII: Okay, I actually played this game. A lot. But I think I’ve explained before that I never finished and it still bugs me that I didn’t to this day. Of course now the graphics look dated but since it was the last FF game that was actually playable, I would sure love to see a facelift on this puppy. And please, like a re-released, sexified new PS3 version wouldn’t sell 200 bogrillion copies in half an hour. If you don’t believe me, are we reading the same Internet?
• Honorable Mention for Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, because I could probably pick it up cheap and play it on the backward compatible PS2 but am too dim to actually do so. Plus it wouldn’t suffer from the RE2 issues because it’s 2D sprite-based and so it probably looks pretty good. In fact, maybe I’ll do that. Yeah.

Weekend Bulletin:

• I went ahead and put in a pre-order for my DS Lite. I don’t care what you say, that thing is smooth and I mean, c’mon: New Super Mario Brothers and new Secret of Mana game? You just don’t know.
• As a matter of fact, for a system I once derided as something I didn’t really see the point of there are just so many games I want to play for it, I’m not sure where to begin. Aside from the above mentioned Mario Bros. and Children of Mana, there’s also the new 3D-ized Final Fantasy III (no, not FFVI, the real III); some sort of Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest, whatever) where you play as a blue slime (I know, right?); the non-optional Mario Kart DS; Metroid Prime: Hunters; Age of Empires (turn-based!); Advance Wars: Dual Strike (more turn-based strategy joy!); Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow… that’s not even talking about my weird desire to check out the girl-targeted Princess Peach platformer nor the Resident Evil remake and oh hey, did I forget to mention the puzzle games? Yeah, Tetris DS, Meteos, Puyo Pop Fever and Bust-a-Move DS. Considering how hard it has been to come up with games I want to play for the systems I have at the moment (recall that I went back and played an old game over again because pickin’s have been so slim) a wealth of options is a blessing.
• The Sharks won last night and for some weird reason they play again tonight for game two. I also caught some of the Ducks/Avalanche game yesterday afternoon and I have to say that Bryzgalov isn’t some lucky Duck. I mean, he’s pretty impressive. The side-to-side glove stop robbery on Alex Tanguay’s open net gambit was flat out brilliant. But the Ducks in general made the Avs look silly. In fact, considering how much the Sharks owned the Oilers in the second period, making them look pretty silly for not even coming up with a shot on goal for over ten minutes, I’m just about set to see a Ducks/Sharks Western Conferenece Finals.
• Also? They play Pennywise at the Pond when the Ducks score a goal. That’s just cool. I mean, I don’t like the Ducks (I’m not allowed, see… I’m a Sharks fan), but I’m only saying they impressed me and I want to see the Sharks beat them to make it to the Cup series.
• First things first, the Sharks need to finish off Edmonton. I liked that Marleau’s line was still cookin’ and the top line played well, but I need to see Cheechoo beat some of these chump goalies. I mean, Roloson? Seriously? Seriously?
• Gin and HB picked up RAZRs over the weekend and after stuffing ourselves with barbequed ribs and chicken while cheering the Sharks to victory yesterday evening I showed them how to transfer files from their iMac to their phones via bluetooth. They expressed that I might be a genius which is patently and provably false but I had to forgive them because the beauty of bluetooth has been known to spawn uncontrollable fits of hyperbole in the past.
• I caught an episode of a show I’ve been meaning to watch for weeks now called Deadliest Catch about Alaskan Crab fishermen. It’s pretty much as good as I had hoped and if you have a chance you might want to check it out. Those dudes are pretty hardcore. What else are you going to watch? Desperate Housewives?
• What I wonder is whether the camera crews have to be as crazy as the fishermen to stand out there on those boats filming while they haul in those big crab traps. I guess it isn’t as bad as having to do the work but I still don’t think I’d be too cool with waiting for a wall of freezing Alaskan water to hit me in the face so I can get a shot of freezing Alaskan water hitting someone else, just in case the footage might make it in the show.
• My iPod is starting to go south on me. The headphone jack is dirty and has poor connections now so it hisses, gets quiet and crackles when the jack gets twisted around or even nuged the wrong way. Plus it resets itself probably once every two or three hours of use and holds about half the battery charge it once did. Granted I’ve used and abused the heck out of the thing for two years so I’m not making any quality comments here, I’m just saying it may be time to start saving up for a new one.
• So we’re going shopping tonight before the game to look for a new couch and possibly some sort of book storage unit. Our old couch was one of the first things we bought when we got married six and a half years ago and it was a cool couch back then: Two reclining seats, leather, pull-down center console with built-in heat and massage features plus cup holders and flip-up armrests with remote control storage. Fast forward to the present. As a state-of-the-art sofa it fails. As a comfrotable place to sit, it fails. As an attractive centerpiece to our living room, it fails on about sixteen levels. So it’s gotta go. I’d rather be spending the money on, say, an HD TV set, but even I can see the logic that having a super sweet TV wouldn’t matter if you didn’t want to sit in front of it.
• The bookcase situation has gotten pretty dire, itself. Nik and I are both readers and, perhaps more pointedly, avid book collectors. We have about six bookshelves already stacked and stuffed with hundreds of books plus there are about six or seven other places around the house where books sit piled on top of each other. I originally thought I could just put some cinder blocks and plywood together but then I remembered that our apartment floor is not level and slanted surfaces and cinder blocks on the second floor… I mean, what could go wrong? Also, I remembered that I’m married and not living in a fraternity house so, you know, yeah, right.