One Moment of Perfect Beauty - Queenstown Water
Queenstown, NZ via my friend, Julia Voye.
Queenstown, NZ via my friend, Julia Voye.
Look, I play video games. I don't play lots of them, but I do play them alot, and sometimes I can even be arsed enough to blog about the experience. This is one such time.
When playing a game, when is it done vs. when is it finished? Put a better way, when are you done with a game vs. when are you finished with it?
I asked myself this question the other day after getting to 98.8% Completion on Lego: Batman, and then getting frustrated with the next to last level. I was trying to collect all one hundred 10K studs hidden in the Wayne Manor, but was short the last one. After nearly an hour of frustration I finally turned off my Wii and went to do something else.
Only to turn my Wii back on ten minutes later to try again.
Thus, twenty minutes later I had finally completed my first game in...well, Lego: Batman is possibly the first game I've 100% Completed since the advent of bonus content. Castlevania:SoTN doesn't count, because while I did get the 100.2% map completion, I never did manage to get all the weapons and items. I certainly never got 100% on Kingdom Hearts, FFX, Drake's Fortune, Metroid Prime, Psychonauts, Metal Arms, or any of the other games I've played on 32-bit systems and higher.
However, I beat all those games and consider my time with them to be finished. That when the credits rolled I feel as though I had gotten a full and satisfying experience from my time with the game.
Then there are the games that I am done with, but never actually beat.
Final Fantasy X-2. God of War II. Pokemon Pearl. Final Fantasy VII. Final Fantasy VIII. Final Fantasy XII. And others that slip my sieve-like memory at the moment. These are all games that gave me the opposite feeling when I played them. With FFX-2 and FFXII, it was a feeling of apathy that killed the game for me. When given the choice of playing those games, or staring at a wall, wall-staring won hands down. With FFVII, it was a growing sense of annoyance that did me in. I had gotten to the end game, but a growing realization that I didn't really care for Cloud, Tifa, and the rest of the emo-crusaders made me put the game on the shelf and forget about it.
Pokemon Pearl is an odd one, because while I completed the story mode, I gave up long before becoming a true Pokemon master. Blame boredom for that one. The prospect of grinding for another sixty hours to collect all those little freaks, and make the Sinnoh region my bitch really didn't appeal to me. That, and I got Lock's Quest in the mail. Now that is a fantastic game!
As for God of War II, well, you can read all about my problems with that game in the link above. For the lazy, the short version is that Kratos is a dick, and I hope he suffers for eternity.
So, what are some of yours?*
*Question is almost entirely rhetorical since almost no one reads this.
Friend: smartass
Me: yes, well, if no one else will appreciate my genius, then I might as well bask in my own glory
Friend: is that a euphamism?
Me: no, but it is a sad statement about my life that it works as one
Friend: hahahah
I was just going through the Youtube playlists I've put together for YiEMB, and it is heartbreaking to see how many videos have been pulled down because the copyright owners have such a dim view of free advertising. Well, I wonder how long it will be until the three videos featured today are made to vanish!
While I am not much of a fan of Hulu for a variety of inconsequential reasons (not the least of which is that there is shite to watch on TV anway), and I certainly do not foresee great things coming of Jimmy Fallon's ascension to late night talk show stardom, I have to say that this clip of Paul Simon backed by Late Night's house band The Roots, with Antibalas on horns, performing "Late in the Evening", justifies the existence of both.
In case you were wondering what a mauzy morning might look like, Flickr user Greg from Maine captured this beautiful shot of a scallop dragger at mooring as the sun rises.
Look, I play video games. Lots of video games. And sometimes I even finish one or two of them. The latest one I saw through to completion was Puzzle Quest: Galactrix on the DS, the long-awaited sequel to the crack-a-licious Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords.