When I was your age, I played in a closet

Retro gaming, god I love it. Damman mentioned last night that with our respective bouts of retro fever, he picking up the new Street Fighter and myself opting for the Sega Genesis collection, we were both feeling like kids again. I mentioned I always feel like a child, then corrected myself and opted for the more appropriate “I always ACT like a child.” None the less, I enjoyed my walk down memory lane to the tune of $30 and figured we could have a chat about it.

Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection on the 360 has a tremendous 40 titles from what I could gather was 1988-1995. Filled with every Sonic game, Streets of Rage Game, Phantasy Star, and even Ecco 1 and 2, it’s a big piece of nostalgia. Plugging the game in to a CD drive does not give the same satisfaction of snapping a cartridge into a port, but once it booted and I heard the muted “Seeeegaaaaaaa” come out the speakers, I knew I was home.

For me, my Genesis years were spent in a closet. Stop the jokes, I really mean a closet, not a figurative one. I shared a bedroom with my brother and in it we had a closet about 12 feet long and 4 feet deep. In the back corner we stuffed a tiny TV, our Genesis (and later my Sega CD) and a bean bag chair. Many an hour was spent hiding away in that corner conquering the kind of cartoonish villains today’s games seem to have drifted away from. I thought for a moment about stuffing my 47” into my tiny closet at home and playing, but realized that just was not gonna work. Ahh progress.

I’ll give the Collection an A+ for throwback effort as the menu of the disc does its best to replicate the top down look of a Sega. Scrolling through the 40 titles is easy, as you can sort alphabetically, by year, or genre. I jumped right into Sonic the Hedgehog and realized I blow. Seriously, today’s games have made me so nervous about crossing a platformer screen, I did not possess the speed and prowess needed to even complete Act I. From here I moved onto Sonic Spinball, and had a blast remembering how much I cursed this game in the past. The difference today is I possess a greater amount of curse words which to use.

What I really need, is my brother here so we can beat Streets of Rage in 3 hours flat, and then move onto some Golden Axe. What the Collection needs is to cut the crap with this “Now in HD!!” selling point. Look, I don’t know what you did to tweak these games and say they are HD now; the sound is still 16 bit, graphics are 16 bit, and you have to pattern out the extra 6 inches of space on my cinematic TV because they are still 4:3 games. Just sell the collection for what it is, nostalgia, and forget trying to sex it up.

Overall, I want to march through the first level of each of these classics and feel like a kid again. My only hope is that someday when I have children, my 13th Xbox 360 might still be alive and I can show them what daddy used to play when he was in the closet.

Score: 3 out of 5 mountain dew fueled adolescent gaming parties

Time to bring the pizazz back to Detroit

So this has been on my mind for awhile, but really was chipped into my head this weekend. The Red Wings are old. Ironic considering I just watched three Grand Rapids call ups play and score in the Wings versus Capitals game this weekend, which Medium and other friends joined me in D.C. for. The Caps won 4-2, and they won thanks to three goals from two electrifying young players, Alex Ovechkin and Mike Green. Now when I call the Wings old, I don't mean the players, I mean the organization, the owners, the mindset.

I write this tonight (during a really boring Super bowl) to hopefully better my beloved Wings. I think it is time to take a fresh look at how the team markets and sells its product to the fans. Detroit and Michigan is mired in a horrid economic downturn and people claim this is why the Joe is empty even during the Stanley Cup finals. I think with a different look at how you display the greatest team in the world to the fans, some of that can change. The perfect example of how to market a hockey team? The Washington Capitals.

When I was home for Thanksgiving, I saw a first in my life. A token female "Crowd Pleaser." This is the girl they have roaming the crowd during stoppage of play, giving away gifts and food on the big screen with trivia and random drawings. These crowd pleasers are designed to draw people to a game with more of a chance to win bonus value from their presence. The Red Wings are a part of the NHL's vanguard. One of the original six, second most ever in cups, the best player ever, the best captain ever, the best defensemen ever. Gimmicks don't fly here. No dancers, no crowd pleasers please.

Most teams have this type of roamer now, I get this, The Caps have it too. What the Capitals do that the Wings don't however, is market their stars. Alex O is all over D.C. Buses, buildings, tattoos. Yzerman was once on a building, but what now? The Capitals make you feel as if their young stars are superheros. What happens after a goal? The crowd is witness to an animated hero of their player on the big screen. AO scores, and the "Russian Machine" takes the jumbo; Mike Green, he becomes the Incredible Hulk; Backstrom morphs into Thor. Real life heroes marketed as fictional heroes, the crowd loves it, it builds the persona.

The team tries its damnedest to make you connect and love the players on a personal level as well. Copying down to the on screen graphics and camera style, is the "Caps Cribs" intermission show. The young players show off their homes, cars and an abundant amount of personality.

These are simple things, but they have a point. They build emotion, they build a connection beyond the stat sheet and overly boring post game interviews. The Red Wings may feel that simply by being the Wings, they should be loved and admired, and the true red and white do, lord knows I do. Why not build off of that base though? How much do we really know about Pavel, Lids, or Z? Happy Huds is hilarious when we get any kind of a look at him. Surely there must be ways to make our Detroit heroes seem bigger than just players, something more than just athletes, something that Detroit can embrace maybe just a margin more than they do now.

This may never change while Mike the pizza man owns the team, and I love the way he runs it, but I wish he would take a little inspiration from one of the youngest, fastest, and most animated teams in the league, and market our team, stars and history with a little more pizazz then a glorified puck bunny giving away free hair cuts.

Also

Is anyone planning on going to see MSU play in the Capital One Bowl? I am interested in checking out prices... exploring the possibilities, if you would.

Turkey comas on a plane are no fun

I had yet another terrific trip home to the mitten world, 

where the skies are gray unless you desire a good game of football in nasty weather. Then they will be beautiful and sunny. None the less, Thanksgiving was a blessing, a chance to see my family and friends that does not come enough. Medium and I were treated to a Red Wings game by young Patrice on Friday. There lil Patrick asked us to be co-best men for his wedding, an honor accepted dutifully.

Saturday was the epic football game(s). I think all told we got 19 or 20 guys to show up and give 4 or 5 hours in exchange for a weeks worth of pain and agony. The plays were epic, the scores were epic, the hits more epic, the ball hits... less than epic but more frequent. I think next year we might need to start wearing cups.

Saturday night proved to be just as much fun. Lots of good friends for good beer, stories and antics. What can you say about a night that ends with girls sneaking beer out of the bar in their purse so we can play beer pong with two bottle caps taped together?

I will write up a music review and another winter beer review this week before I go to D.C. Come to think of it, maybe I won't... but I promise I'll try.

xoxo

Me too!

I will join Newman in vowing to have a renewed (read: new) effort to post on this blog.

The topic of my first post: Ice Hockey.

The younger class of Ninja Monks (Mike, Ken and Myself) are coming out of a brief hockey retirement and starting some drop in at Troy Sports Center and the Onyx. The end goal will be to join a league. If any Metro Detroit Area 3Bers are interested we'd be glad to have you.

For your added humor I will be attempting to combine minimal roller hockey goalie experience and minimal ice hockey experience into playing goalie on ice. I have yet to buy the goalie skates, but once I do... well... I don't expect it to be pretty. I would really appreciate it if anyone familiar with Royal Oak (Howie) might be able to direct me to a frozen pond / outdoor ice rink where i can slip and slide in my pads before going to a drop in (where I expect to disappoint the paying customers).

The new eleventh month is Gametober

Oh it has been a long time since writing. And lo and behold what happens when I venture away from my blog for too long? A Damman goes and grows out of the cracks…

So lately life has been a whirlwind. I suppose when you step away and look at two months in any scenario, it will amount to an excess of thought and feelings, but these two months felt like more. In a situation where you’ve found your life void of security, lacking definition, and where once you felt solid, you are now weak; escapism is a fantastic thing. And so a month where I thought I would lose my job among other things, gave way to the greatest video game month in history. Thank god for virtual worlds.

It began simply enough with Fable II. A fantasy RPG truly allowing you to be someone else, I had a lot of high hopes for this. Driven more than it should have been by the desire to co-play with Damman, I grabbed this one on day of release. The multi-player proved buggier than Castle Crashers and wholly unsatisfying. The game provided a few days of exploration and then I dove into the story and was greeted by the worst character development and ultimate ending I have experienced in a decade. Much was made of this title being the deep, thought provoking game of the year. What it was, is an example of how off track and horrible a game can be when it relies on gimmicks. Here is a hint Lionsgate; Dog equals less than Awesome ending.

Score: Two out of Five Dammans.

That same trip to the store for Fable produced an unexpected purchase. I felt rich that day for reasons I have none. I managed to put down a copy of Armoured Core (for you Canadians) and pick up a copy of Dead Space. As Damman wept over the loss of reality in me rejecting a giant robot game, I dug into the most terrifying experience of my video game life. In all honesty, I never played Silent Hill, Resident Evil, or anything remotely shock inducing, except for maybe Phantasmagoria like 15 years ago. Dead Space kept the lights on for the first few nights, and it hunts me. I sit there now on chapter 5 of 12, not wanting to turn it on. I don’t want to walk down the hallways and look behind me, I don’t want to watch my air run out as I flee baddies, I don’t want to play a game and be scared into finishing it quickly. My gosh though, do I want to see it’s sights, not hear it’s sfx in the volume of space, and feel the design of the world. It is an arty masterpiece, redefining sensory involvement, but at times, it is off track. Judging solely on 6 hours of play, I cannot rate this total experience, but I rate it based on enjoyment … and fear.

Score: Four out of Five Dammans.

Fallout 3 came out in the middle of all of this, and honestly, it is going to be ridiculously awesome. All I have done is escape from the vault and walk out into the nuclear disaster of D.C. and I stopped. I cannot approach this until all else is at rest. I want to be as dedicated to this as I am to my nose.

Score: Five out of Five Dammans for anticipation.

Red Alert 3 is as campy as they get. I bought this for two reasons. My brother and I have a bond going back to before we had a bond when it comes to RTS games. Red Alert seems to have always been there. I remember him first introducing me to the concept when C&C first came out. And then there are the cut scenes. Oh I love the cut scenes. Ironic that last night as Medium and I lay the first campaign to bed, the cut scene is what ultimately KO’d my super computer. Somehow my PC was now convinced that a floppy drive was needed to boot my system. After fixing that little annoyance, I eagerly await claiming the Statue of Liberty back from the Soviets. Spasiba Comrade. The game play may be a bit faster than it should be, and the units are farther from reality than I would have liked, but overall, it is what RA is.

Score: Three out of Five Dammans.

Gears of War 2 is kind of like Nickleback. Frat boys and teenage girls will flock to this one and pollute the message boards and online community with thoughts I do not want to hear. This is the same crowd that forces me to unplug my headset while playing Halo. The quality of story in the media is lacking, but the professional polish is what it is. That all said, Damman and I plowed through this in marathon session part 1 and 2. I enjoyed it greatly and that probably says more about me than I hoped. The story, and ending, leave me kind of chilly, but oh my, does horde mode warm me up. That sir, is not sketch.

Score: Four out of Five Dammans.

Finally, Medium, Damman and I tried out Left 4 Dead last night in 360 demo form, and while I was first overwhelmed with hope and excitement over the promise of this, I left our session dulled. It felt too one dimensional. In a way this was Wolfenstein 3D all over again. I knew where to run, where to point, how to use my one of two guns. Any gimmicks that were there did not save my opinion. I cannot rate it as just a demo, but I think I’ll pass on this one.

And so, the story goes, November became Gametober, and the wallet screamed in agony, while the hearth rejoiced.