arise_shine

Is there a Game.com homebrew community?

Do people actually care about all this "social gaming" stuff? And "media center" stuff? Isn't all this all stuff that PCs can do much better? Or, you know, TVs?

I just want to play some good games.

I think a lot of newer consoles suffer from bad names.

Seriously ... "Play Station"? Sounds like a playground for little kids. Because it is.

Seriously .. X Box? It's a Box ... but it has an X in it, because it's so fucking XTREMEXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Seriously .. Wii? As in "wiiiiiiii, I'm swinging around my remote control like a chimpanzee" .. or, "wii had a lot of fun with this thing for a month after wii bought it after wii were on a 3-month waiting list, and wii haven't touched it since."

Seriously ... Wii U? Is it "we" or is it "you"? Maybe more accurately: "wii arent releasing any decent games for it and u are wasting your money lol"

Seriously .. Game Cube? It's shaped like a cube and it plays games .. it's a game cube! Wow! Genious!

Sega was one of the few that had good console names. Dreamcast, Saturn, Genesis .. those are all cool names with character. Even the "Master System" sounds cooler than Nintendo's blander "Entertainment System".

Sadly, my Zelda backlog is pretty extensive at this point, so I can't really comment on a lot of the series. But here's what I think of what I have played:

Zelda I: Groundbreaking for its time, but having to bomb every tree in the world to find the next dungeon gets old after a while. Second quest is incredibly difficult, and even in my hardcore NES gaming days in high school, I didn't make it past the 2nd or 3rd dungeon.

Zelda II: The oddball of the series. Combat action is more intricate, which is cool. XP/levelling-up system makes for a not-insignificant amount of grinding. Travel can be kinda tedious, as has been mentioned. It gets pretty hard at the end, but obviously not impossible.

A Link to the Past: Top-notch. Vast world, lots to explore, gorgeous visuals and sounds. Rewards thorough exploration, but doesn't require a lot of grindiness. Highly recommended.

Ocarina of Time: I loved it at the time, but it feels pretty dated now. 3D engine is a little sluggish and glitchy by today's standards. That said, it's deserving of its "classic" status, and definitely worth playing.

Majora's Mask: Another oddball in the series, not for gameplay (which is pretty much identical to OOT), but because of its tangential story. It's pretty dark and can get emotional. At the time, I liked it better than OOT, but I haven't played through it since the first time I played through it when it first came out. Another one that rewards sidequesting, though the rewards are more emotionally satisfying than game-mechanically satisfying. If that makes sense.

Wind Waker: I like it a lot, but sooooo muchhhhhhh sailingggggggggggggggg. The cel-shaded graphics are a little jarring at first, but it's done so well--very fluid--I found myself not noticing it, and instead reveling in the child-like wonder. Lots of emotion in certain parts .. the kinda thing that makes me choke up when I watch movies like Kung Fu Panda or Wreck-It Ralph.

Dang it .. now I wanna go play some Zelda games. But our HDTV lags when playing console action games that aren't Xbox 360 and there's no room to set up another TV. Maybe I should bust out the 3DS ...

woah