Saturday, February 02, 2008

Good to be back home in the pubs with the people that you love

Fat got me a 'Cube for xmas. With a Gameboy Player.1

I never had a 'Cube before, so it was purty kewl. Especially w/ the Wavebird controller.

I've dinked around w/ some of my GBA games on the GBPlayer, but basically I went out and immediately got myself a copy of Animal Crossing.2

I don't claim to be a great "player" of Animal Crossing. Many places have been around longer than my pissant village of Ivon. Fuck, one resident (one of the chickens) has already left town. And I still can't consistently write letters anyone fuggin' understands!

But. BUT. I can design the hell out of patterns. I got on that right off the bat.

So it was pretty awesome to be wandering around the green the other day and find Pecan the squirrel, who seems to always have a "headache" in the morning, wearing my Dreamcast Swirl shirt!

Pecan in DC shirt

Then, I find not one, not 2, but three neighbors rockin' my Ms. Pac-Man shirt!!! Here's Dotty wearing 1 after a long night in my basement drinking JD & talking Blazers & Roy & Outlaw.

Dotty in Ms Pacman shirt

Nothing groundbreaking (the newer designs - those might be earth-shattering), but noteworthy on how we roll here at Reviewiera.

-d.d.


1 Just to make note, so it doesn't seem like he lavishes gifts on me w/ nothing in return, I got him a NeoGeo Pocket Color w/ 18 games for his birfday. Retro consoles & handhelds: the gifts that keep on giving.
2 In no small part due to this.

1 comment:

Fat Contradiction said...

Well, look. Your history of gift and reciprocation is accurate, but the actual genesis (no pun intended) of my gift was this: you needed a GameBoy Player. And you couldn't have had mine...

The GBP is shockingly rare in the field. I know the Goodwill had no idea what they had. I mean, not only did yr 'Cube have the GBP bolted onto it, it had a copy of the rareish--and intensely wonderful Chibi-Robo!! (I'm gonna write about this game someday. For now I'll simply note that everything that's right about video games is right about Chibi-Robo.)

In this case, the GameCube was simply an adaptor for the GBP. Also it was clear to me that you needed a WaveBird. Which happened to be in the 'Cube bag. So my intention with the gift was to facilitate you playing wireless Super Robot Taisen in sober, turn-based fashion, whilst...y'know. Raising yr kids.

I'm glad UK: Resistance helped sell you on Animal Crossing, though. It's funny: I wouldn't think to list in on any of my lists of great games, but I sure have played it more than any of those great games. (For a long time, my BIG FOUR has been: Metroid Prime; Jet Grind Radio; Shenmue; Skies of Arcadia. I guarantee I've played Animal Crossing more than the first three combined. And it's not impossible that AC has had more of my time than all 4.) And given yr satisfaction-theory, it's clear to me that my AC time is better spent than on a lot of those other games. That is, I enjoy all the time I spend w/ AC. Whereas I'm stuck on annoying, impossible missions in JGR and Shenmue, and always did suck dong at Metroid.

Again, I'll write about this later, but on the Wii side, there's this game Endless Ocean. It's got lovely, Dreamcast-caliber graphics, and plays a little like AC, in that you can kinda do what you want when you want. If you put some effort in, you get additional rewards, but the game also facilitates simple Dicking Around. It's a SCUBA-diving game, dig, and of course the home environment (read: Main Menu, if it were a text-based game) is the deck of a ship. One of the options from the deck? Gaze at the Ocean. And honestly? One night I just sat there and watched a crescent moon set on the horizon. It was great.

-Fat