Gaming off the Beaten Path

  As I come to the end of year 4 of GOTBP, I've come to realize that some genres are less conducive to innovation than others. I feel like RPGs, first person shooters and 3D platformers are all genres where innovation is relatively common. Whenever I write about those kinds of games, I always feel like I have a lot to say about each individual game. Other genres, however, just don't seem to have as much innovation from title to title. Whether that's due to lack of opportunity or lack of desire, it just seems to be the case. Of all the genres I've played, it feels like beat 'em ups are always lacking in innovation. I will admit some bias, as it isn't my favorite genre, but I think even fans would admit that a lot of these games start to feel very same-y after a while. However, this can have advantages as well. Sometimes, small innovations in these genres can make games stand out in a big way, which was sort of the case with this week's entry. Released for the...

  I always felt like the 6th generation was where gaming really started to take off as a mainstream hobby. It's not that a there weren't a lot of people playing video games during the previous two generations, because there were. But it always felt like it was predominately a medium targeted at boys age seven to 17. I didn't realize it at the time, I fit right into that group after all, but games were almost exclusively made for that demographic. It was around the 6th gen where I feel like that began to change. My guess would be that some gaming execs realized there was money being left on the table. "Hey, maybe girls like video games too?" "Our user base is getting older, maybe we should make more titles aimed at adults?" "If we made educational or child friendly games that don't suck, maybe parents will buy them for their kids?" Anyone that's ever sat in a marketing meeting knows exactly what I'm talking about. In this case, it wa...

  It's come to my attention that last week was the 30th anniversary of one of gaming's most iconic franchises: Mortal Kombat. I can't believe it's been 30 years since the bone crunching, blood gushing debut of MK, a franchise that's now a household name even outside of gaming circles. It may not have always given us the best games, but few IPs have had as much impact on media as a whole as Mortal Kombat. Not going to lie, I wasn't quite there from the beginning. I was only 4 in 1992 when the original game hit the arcade, I was dabbling in video games at the time but it's not like I could get in the car and drive myself to an arcade. It wasn't really the next year, when MKII hit the arcades where I got found the franchise for the first time. I will never forget walking into the arcade at the now-defunct Bowcraft, seeing the cabinet with Raiden calling down thunderbolts and thinking to myself "I have to play that." Of course my parents let me, th...

  Hey wait, didn't you already play that? Nah, you guys aren't crazy, I already played Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers for the SNES, quite a while ago at this point. This time, I'm previewing the Genesis version. But remember, the gaming industry wasn't always like it is now, where every game that gets released across different consoles is essentially the same. It's not that that never happened during the bit wars, because it did. Street Fighter II Turbo and Champion Edition are essentially the same and I could think of tons of examples like that. But in a lot of cases, especially during the 4th generation, every console got different versions of a game. And we aren't just talking slightly different, we are talking a completely different game entirely. I actually kind of like the way it is now, where each console gets the same version. Because back in the day, there was a lot of contention over which version of which game was better, especially between SNES a...

Last week, we looked at one of my favorite, and one of the internet's least favorite, video games of all time, Final Fantasy VIII. I'm not going to say that all the criticism of the game is unfounded, but a lot of it is and I want to explore why, or at least why I think that's the case. Be prepared for some nerd rage, because I may get a little more testy than I usually. The hate spewed at this game is often very vitriolic, far more so than any other title I've ever seen, and I may end up paying some of that back in kind. First, let's go back to my post on unfairly hated games . Let's run down the list of common factors and see how many of them FFVIII checks: -It was released unfinished - actually, a little bit, though I don't think it was a major factor in all the hate. The game was released with support for the Pocket PlayStation, with some items and a Chocobo minigame exclusive to the peripheral. The problem here? The Pocket PlayStation was never release...

  I'll be here. I'll be waiting for you. If you come here, you will find me, I promise. So, I think this is going to be a two-part post, because I have a lot to say about Final Fantasy VIII. I was going to come out guns blazing as to why this game is so misunderstood, but I think that wouldn't do the game the justice it deserves. Despite all the negativity its name carries, Final Fantasy VIII is one of my favorite games of all time. In case it wasn't immediately apparent by my post last week, I find it to be one of the most, if not the most, unfairly maligned video games of all time. I'm not entirely surprised as it checks just about all the boxes I outlined last week and it came on the heels of one of the most beloved games of all time. It's very different from the previous Final Fantasy games, almost to the point of not feeling like one at all. Its aesthetic is different, its characters are different, it's gameplay is different, it's just generally dif...

As with any media format, video games are often hated for reasons that have nothing to do with their actual quality. Don't get me wrong, not every game that gets hate gets it undeservedly. You would be hard pressed to find a gamer that will go to bat for Superman 64, it's easy to explain why that game is hated. It's hated because it is a miserable, barely functioning mess that is an absolutely abysmal experience from the time you press start to the time you inevitably shut it off in a rage when you can't fly through a million stupid rings because of the crappy controls. That's a problem with most media, how "good" or "bad" it can be both subjective or objective. Sometimes one will just completely outweigh the other, like the aforementioned Superman 64. You can like the art style all you want, I know indistinguishable blobs and random fog are some people's thing, but the bottom line is any subjective enjoyment you get out of the game is render...