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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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. |