I won, I won !!!!

I beat a game, and achieved a milestone in another in the last week or two.

I beat the easy level of Earth Defense Force 2017. 53 levels of bug blasting fun. I call this out, because I often say “I play games, I don't beat them.” This attitude comes from the fact that I don't play games like hardcore players do – I sit down for a half hour or hour, and play, then move on. EDF is set up just for people like me – the longest mission took a half hour or so. So I could sit down play a level or three, save and go on. Another really cool bit is that your hit points go up by collecting things enemies drop when killed, and you can go back and play previous levels anytime you want. So when I first got the last mission, I needed a lot of hit points, so I could go back and play an earlier levels and gather hits. I did this for 4 levels, and then I beat the game. Cool.

There are a number different difficulty levels, and because every level you play gives you extra hits, and you can gather more weapons, after you beat the game on easy, you have much more hit points, and a bunch of weapons already, so you can actually play them on the next difficulty level, whereas if you tried to start there (or at least if I did) you die really really fast.

The second game is Rumble Roses XX (yeah yeah, I play the game in spite of the cheesecake, not because of it). Playing (on easy) I just got the singles title belt. Took me a bit, but I got it. And this game is set up in many ways like EDF. I can drop in, play a couple matches, save, and come back to it later. So I can just play for a little while each game, but I never lose where I am.

As a side note, the engine is the best wrestling engine I have ever played. I watched Professional Wrestling a lot when I was younger, so I always wanted a good wrestling game, and I have never really seen one that fit the way I like to play, and this engine is just what I want. The way unlocking things work really well for mimicking the source material; for example to unlock the bad guy (“heel” in wrestling parlance) of a character you have to get the character to having the title, then play another character, and win the title. When you win the title from your previous title holder, the heel version is unlocked – the character lost the title and went bad, a staple of Pro Wrestling.

Both these games highlight something – I play games differently than “hardcore” gamers. I read two reviews of Rumble Roses where they said “This is a great game, but it gets old after half an hour or an hour”. That really implies that these players sit down for hours on end and play. And I do that occasionally – I remember marathon sessions of Doom years ago – but that isn't my normal approach.

So yeah, I've found with the hard drives on the consoles, more and more games are ones you can play in smaller time chunks. And that is a good thing. With the “gamer” stereotype becoming less and less common, and more and more casual gamers are playing (thank you wii) gamer developers are starting to make more games that appeal to a broader market.

Now back to games – jumping on robots to set little animals free and collecting rings.

Games played since last post (long wait, so a big list here)

Half Life (PC)
Solitaire (PC)
Earth Defense Force 2017 (360)
Rumble Roses (360)
Outrun 2006 Coast 2 Coast (Xbox)
Star Trek Legacy (360)
Morrowind (Xbox)
Oblivion (360)
Virtual Fighter 5 (360)
Prey (360)
Call of Duty 3 (Xbox)
Sonic the Hedgehog (Genesis)