Thursday, February 5, 2009
Contra III: Old School Shoot 'em Up
Contra III: The Alien Wars is the third installment of the popular Contra series and was the first to be released on the SNES. Like it's predecessors, Contra III is a side-scrolling shooter that relies heavily on its addictive, fast-paced game-play to keep the player entertained. The issues of a storyline and character development take a backseat to the thrills provided by rampaging through each level with your automatic machine gun and its unlimited supply of ammunition, blowing away anything unlucky enough to cross your path.
I loved this game as a kid because you could pop the catridge into your SNES and be blasting away at aliens in less than 30 seconds. There was no load time, no cut scenes, no tutorials; nothing that attempted to cut down on the action. You pressed start and immediately found yourself in the middle of a war of the worlds.
Sort of like this, but with machine guns.Like I said, Contra III is a side-scrolling shooter, which basically means you move your character to the right until there are no more bad guys to kill. If you want to get technical about it, you could argue that you are in fact fighting to save humanity from the invading alien forces who, it would be safe to assume, are here to enslave mankind, destroy our cities, and generally be huge pains in the neck. In my opinion this storyline simply gets in the way of what the kids who are playing the game really want to do: Shoot guns and see things explode. That's it. They really don't need to be told why they must launch all these missiles, toss all these grenades, and set so many things on fire. They just want to be handed a bazooka and be told, "Go get 'em."
"Billy, we're shooting those guys because th-- Oh, nevermind. Have fun."You start with three lives. That's it. And if you are hit just one time, in any part of your body, you die. Get hit three times and you have to start the level all over again. Now, I don't know if the game's creators intentionally made it so incredibly hard to beat, or if they simply underestimated the skill level of the game's target audience, but I have never even come close to beating this game. There are rumors out there that the game only has six levels, but I doubt anyone has ever seen them all. Personally, I usually run out of lives somewhere between the end of the level 1 and the middle of level 2. In fact, I have only seen pictures of the bosses for levels 2-6. The only boss I have ever faced and beaten is the turtle/alien/skeleton boss from level 1, and even he was no cake walk.
At one point during the first level the gamer is forced to climb over a flaming abyss, using what appears to be a set of monkey bars (like I said, the storyline is insignificant), while simultaneously fighting off an oncoming hoard of winged aliens. As a kid I always had a hard time timing my jumps to kill the invaders, avoid the leaping fireballs, and land unharmed on the small patch of safe ground. The idea that the game's creators expected us to be able to do all that, fight a few more waves of enemies, and then destroy a tank - which practically takes up the entire screen - with only a single machine gun, and all in just three lives, is laughable. And remember, that's just the first level.
Here's an example of what I mean:
As far as shooters go, Contra III is as good as it gets if you're simply looking to disengage yourself from reality and have some fun. This shoot 'em up presents its players with non-stop action to go along with some pretty impressive visuals and sounds (for its time anyway). It offers exactly what kids are looking for in a game, or at least what I was looking for.
Simply put, even though the game lacks any real storyline, is unbelievably frustrating, and even sometimes downright infuriating, it keeps people coming back for more. If you are looking for a game that will allow you to take a mental vacation while also guaranteeing to keep your pulse racing, this is definitely one you should check out.
Contra III's final boss . . . or so they say. No one knows for sure.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Behold - the Wii Fit!
I would have to think that the Wii Fit is one of the finest gaming ideas ever introduced. There have been games in the past that have gotten people off their couches and more actively involved in the game-play (the Eye-Toy and Dance Dance Revolution, for example), but never before has a game been created specifically to help the gamer get into shape.
I ran out and bought the Wii Fit as soon as I could. However, that was an adventure in and of itself. Apparently I wasn't the only guy who wanted a Wii Fit; they were sold out everywhere. It took me a while to track one down, and when I finally did I had to get up at 5:30 am and travel into Manhattan to stand on line at the Nintendo Store for two hours.
It was worth it.
I was immediately hooked. I began waking up early each morning just so I could squeeze in my 45 minutes of Wii Fit before work. I loved the array of exercises the game offers. I would begin my workouts with some Yoga to warm up, followed by some strength exercises, and I would end with some cardio (free-run and hula-hoop are the best).
This brings me to what I would like to blog about today. I want to discuss a strange anomoly I stumbled across after using the Wii Fit for a few weeks. When I first started doing the hula-hoop exercises I would routinely score around 800 or 900 rotations, which I thought was pretty impressive and felt gave me a nice workout (my girlfriend tried it one day after watching me and scored 1100 without breaking a sweat.)
Anyway, I would continue my workout with the hula-hoop exercise daily for the next few weeks and I noticed that I was gradually getting lower and lower scores, until one day my Mii character simply refused to keep the hula-hoop spinning, no matter how violently I spun my own hips. I would start over, and again, the Mii just let the hoop fall to the floor. I couldn't figure out what I was doing differently so I just assumed there was something wrong with the game.
I mentioned this to my girlfriend one day and she decided she wanted to give it a try. I told her it was a waste of time because the game was clearly malfunctioning, but she was persistent. So we booted up the Wii Fit, selected the hula-hoop exercise, and she hopped onto the Wii Fit balance board.
1310. She scored 1310 spins.
1039 and counting . . .Her Mii's hips were spinning so fast I thought she was going to take off like a helicopter.
"I guess it's just you," she tells me.
I refused to accept that, so I loaded up my Mii character and chose hula-hoop. I was determined to spin that hoop like nobody's ever spun it before. The bell sounded, signalling the start of the exercise, and I began to spin my hips like mad. Sweat broke out on my face as I hula'ed my hardest. At the start, I was watching my feet to make sure they were centered properly on the board. I was scared to look up at the TV because I felt I was in a good rhythm and I didn't want to screw it up. After about 30 seconds I decided to peek at the TV just to see how many rotations I had completed. I felt I must have been up to at least 100, maybe even 200. I looked up just in time to see my Mii stare down dejectedly at the hoop which had just clattered to the floor. My score stood at 27.
For comparison, here are two videos that I believe accurately describe the differences between my girlfriend and I hula-hooping.
First me:
Now her:
Maybe it's a gender thing. . .
Well, it's been about 4 months and I am yet to have another go at the hula-hoop exercise. I've continued doing all of the other exercises since then, but I just can't bear to see the heartbroken look on my Mii's face when he again realizes he will not crack 30 spins with the hula-hoop . . .
(Editor's note: Those people in the video are neither I nor my girlfriend, but the point remains the same.)
*UPDATE Feb 9, 2009*
I asked my girlfriend today to try her hand at the hula-hoop again for the sake of experiment. I went first and didn't do as bad as usual. She went next and . . . well . . .
I hate this game.Welcome to My Take on Gaming
Hi there. Welcome to My Take on Gaming, where I will introduce you to the world of video games as I see it.
My name is Jimmy Lynch and I am what you might call a "casual gamer." I enjoy playing video games in my spare time, but I rarely postpone more important activities in order to get more gaming in.
Compared to more serious gamers, my video game collection is very modest. I own a Nintendo Wii and an Xbox 360, although I rarely play the latter at all. My game collection for each console can be counted on both hands because I tend to only buy games that I will not get tired of too quickly. Games that you play through once, simply to say you beat the game, and then never touch again are not very appealing to me. Those are the types of games I usually rent from Blockbuster.
The goal of this blog is to share my experiences and opinions on random games that I have loved throughout my life. I do not have one specific genre of games that I would call my favorite, as I tend to enjoy games of all varieties. One minute I could be all about first-person shooters, such as Call of Duty 4, and then without warning I could fall in love with action-adventure games, such as The Legend of Zelda, forgetting all about my previous infatuation with COD4. My taste in games is very oscillating.
I will be running this blog throughout the Spring Semester (possibly longer if I really get into it), and I hope you enjoy the ride.
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