I had to create a video games section because video games have been a fairly big part of my life for quite some time now.  And now, in my adult years I have found that Video Games are a true hobby for me.  By hobby, I mean like stamp collecting, golfing, or coin collecting is a hobby for some others.  This is a hobby that requires exorbitant amounts of time and money on my part and, like golf, quite a bit of skill and practice.  I travel to tournaments around the nation and compete as well as travel just for the fun of playing games against new, different, and better players.  The general public don't realize it but contrary to popular belief Video Games are not "kiddy stuff" nor is it this "child living in an adult's body."  The difference here is that kids play video games for the novelty, "coolness" factor, or just as fun or a time passer.  I play them quite seriously and for the purpose of winning and getting better.  Tournaments, while they are fun, are quite serious events.  In fact video game tournaments are filled with all the same anticipation, nervousness, competitiveness, and excitement of sporting events.  Like sports, these are fun, but also can cause competitive behavior to get our of hand and yes, fights can break out over a VIDEO GAME!  It's THAT serious!

Now that you understand, I feel it necessary to say that I do indeed play some games simply for the fun of it or to pass the time and not competitively.  Likening it to sports again, this would be the equivalent of a football player playing basketball because it's fun.

Currently I really only play 3 games with any level of seriousness.  Those are Marvel vs Capcom 2, Halo (and Halo 2), and Guilty Gear XX.  Technically I really only play Marvel vs Capcom 2 for real.  I say this because that is the only game I can claim any real level of skill at and have actually entered into competitions for and have actually traveled for.  Halo (and Halo 2) I do claim some skill at, however I have yet to enter any sort of Halo tournaments.  Guilty Gear XX, I truly have a love/hate relationship with this game.  I genuinely feel that the game is good and should be a great game, but I simply can not over come the lack of variety this game offers with regard to game-play.  See below to see what I'm talking about here.

 

 

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is probably the best and most in-depth game ever made and takes a ridiculously long time to do everything there is to do in the game. 

This is a role-playing game which isn't usually my type of game.  This game however has the best of every type of games' worlds.  It can be as fast paced as you want it to be, you can truly decide your fate in the game (unlike other games that purport to do this but in the end the outcome is the same).  Not to mention the genuinely interesting stories, quests, and characters the game has.

 

Marvel vs Capcom 2 (MvC2) is a 2 dimensional fighting game that came out in Spring 2000 by game publisher Capcom.  By 2-dimensional I mean the game plays where you fight on a 2-d plane moving side to side and up and down.  Unlike 3 dimensional games like Tekken where you can move side to side, up and down and front to back.

MvC2 has 56 characters 23 of which are Capcom characters from their various fighting games in the past such as Street Fighter and Dark Stalkers, and the other 23 characters are Marvel Characters from the Marvel Comics line such as the X-Men, Spiderman, Hulk, Ironman, etc.

Halo is a First Person Shooter (FPS) game.  This where you have a gun that sticks out of the bottom of your screen as if you are carrying it and you go around and shoot people.  First person as opposed to Third Person because in a Third Person game you can see the entire body of your character not just the gun.

I don't typically like FPS games, but Halo somehow convinced me that it has revolutionized something in the FPS gaming industry and apparently has done so for the rest of the world, as it is a wildly popular game.  My favorite aspects of Halo that don't seem to be in other FPS games is the fact that you can shoot a gun AND throw grenades at the same time AND use melee attacks.  Where as in other FPS games you have to pick up a grenades and carry them around instead of a gun to use them as well you have to pick up some sort of blunt object instead of a gun to hit people with.

Guilty Gear XX (GGXX) is also a 2 dimensional fighting game.  This one debuted in by game publisher Sammy.

GGXX has 23 characters all of which are quite intriguing and strange in their own way.  This oddness is what makes this game fairly attractive.  Another positive to this game is that all of the characters are very well balanced unlike MvC2 and other games.  By balanced I mean that no one character is so much better than another character that the other character has little to no chance of beating that character.  While there are clearly better characters than others on GGXX none is so good that no one can defeate it.

My biggest issue with this game however is the lack of strategic options when actually playing the game.  You see generically speaking there are several types of things you can do in fighting games to pull out the win.  Among the most common are:

  • Rush Down - This means to stay on the constant offensive and not let the opponent do much of anything.
  • Run Away - This means you basically hit and run.  Hit them a few times then constantly dodge and evade everything they do to you.
  • Turtle - This is similar to run away however, you don't actually run anywhere, you just sit back on the defensive and block a lot and await your opponent to mess up.
  • Keep Away - This is basically a technique where you control the area around your character and don't allow the other character to get close to them.  A good defense against Rush Down.
  • Chip - This is essentially block damage.  When a character is blocking certain moves still take damage (albeit minimal).
  • Trap - This is quite similar to rush down, but not the same in that what you do here is trap your opponent in a corner or on the ground so that they can not move.  All the while Chipping them and hopefully forcing their defenses down to miss a block and actually hitting them.

Now, this game really only allows for the Rush Down technique.  Anyone running away, or turtling is punished by the game system.  Traps, depending on the trap, can also be punished.  You see I tend to gravitate toward characters that have a multitude of options at their disposal.  Take for example in MvC2 I use the character "Storm" who has excellent abilities in all of, Rush Down, Run Away, Turtle, and Chip.  I also use Blackheart who can Turtle, Chip, Keep Away, and Trap.  In this game I use the character Eddie, because he does actually have Keep Away, Trap, and Run Away ability, but like I said the game system will punish you if you try to use them too much.

Resident Evil is one of the games that is not a competitive game for me.  In fact Resident Evil is only a 1 player game.  I had heard of the Resident Evil games through my friend Chaz first, but never really got into them until I got my Dreamcast, where the first RE game I played was Resident Evil 3: Nemesis.  I loved this game and proceeded to get the next one in line Resident Evil: Code Veronica.  After finally beating Code Veronica I decided that I really really liked playing these games, not only because it was a challenging game but because this was a game with a huge and in depth storyline.  I was dying to play the previous two games too but couldn't find them.  Then the Nintendo Gamecube came out and Capcom decided they were going to rerelease all of the Resident Evil games again for Gamecube in additon to that there were going to be two Gamecube exclusive RE games. Those being Resident Evil 0 and Resident Evil 4.  In addition to those Capcom completely remade the 1st Resident Evil with new features, creatures, and graphics.  I was ecstatic and purchased a Gamecube for the sole purpose of getting all of the Resident Evil Games for it.  I later found that Resident Evil was also novelized.  So I purchased all 6 of the novels that were out at the time where 4 of them were simply novelizations of the games.  Resident Evil proceeded to be a hugely popular phenomenon and two movies were then made both of which I saw and loved and purchased on DVD (although the second one messed up the story greatly).  Then of course there were novelizations of the movies, which I promptly purchased.  I have officially dubbed myself a Resident Evil Fanboy, as I like anything that has to do with RE and will likely purchase it.  Recently the 7th RE book that novelizes Resident Evil 0 was published (December 2004) and it's on it's way to me now.
Bomberman is another game I only play for fun.  Not much to say about it other than it's likely the most "kiddy" game that I play.  For no really known reason this game is just tons of fun.
Mario Kart Double Dash is essentially a racing game that uses Nintendo's Mario Characters and gives them specialized weapons so use on other carts on the road.  This could also be construed as a "kiddy" game, but there are techniques in this game that some kids couldn't master.

While the group of us that play Video Games in KC haven't been to or held a tournament in quite a while we do have a website for any information pertaining to our Video Gaming.  It just so happens I'm the webmaster of that site.  View it Here.