The Sands of Time

Between my last two plane rides - once to go home to Houston for vacation, and once to go to Austin for an interview - I have completed The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass. The game is alot of fun, and while it may be "short" it's a lot longer than Minnish cap was, not to mention all the extra stuff you could do to really extend the life of the game.

To say that the entirely touch screen implementation was a complete success would be lying - movement still seemed odd, especially when my right hand would cross in front of the screen because I was trying to quickly move left. Things like rolling on the ground felt awkward and never seemed to work right 100% of the time; instead, I'd end up just slashing in that direction or making Link walk like some drunkard. It did not get me killed or anything serious, but it did prevent me from using those moves, especially when in the heat of battle, and provide a little frustration here or there.

However, to say the touch controls are a complete flop is not only a lie, but a great disservice to the game's greatest strength: it's uniqueness. How Link handles items in game is so refreshing and so much "fun" that it can take some of even the most basic puzzles and give a smile while you are playing it. It's hard to not enjoy drawing your own path with a boomerang or guiding a bombchu directly into an enemy or switch. It's hard to not draw on the map, and allows the game to drop you far more "clues" throughout the game for you to piece together, instead of having to rely on writer's hand-feeding you choice pieces of information over and over again to make sure you don't forget it. When you've beaten a dungeon or explored the ocean and you see all your notes scribbled everywhere with notes like "How do I reach this?!?!" or "big treasure here" it just makes interacting with the world much more fun and less running around at random or memorizing enormous dungeon maps.

If you own a DS, you owe it to yourself to get this game. It's a breath of fresh air, and proves once again that the basic Zelda formula can be applied to a new game mechanic and feel like it's a completely new experience unlike any other Zelda you've ever played. I guarantee, you would not be disappointed.

But enough about Zelda, let's get to ranting. This is something I've wanted to talk about for a long time, but have never found the right opportunity to do so. This past week has given me the spark I need to finally get this out in the open.

Consoles. These mystical, magical devices provide some of the greatest gaming experiences of my time - Final Fantasy VII, Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess - but at the same time it seems to have created a sub-culture in the gaming industry, where everything is a war and you must fight tooth and nail at every moment to prove your console of choice superior to all others in every single way possible, simultaneously, and watch them bow in shameful defeat whilst you gloat about your amazing "exclusives" and praise those whom provide you your daily sustenance of electrons. Why someone would take this insanely high level of devotion towards a video game company is striking at best, and annoying beyond all reason the rest of the time. Reading Digg's gaming stories (or IGN... or Slashdot... or basically anything that has to do with gaming and allows comments), you would think that this was the Presidential election (wait, nevermind, there's more interest than that seems to garner) or some religious debate (although, to some, gaming may indeed be a religion of sorts).

But, no, it is just some lost fool's completely misguided devotion to a single, "do no wrong" entity. What drives these people to such madness? What creates "X-bots", or the "Sony Defence Force", or Nintendo "Fanboi's"? The only thing I can even begin to compare it to is Apple's loyal following, who (though small in number) have created a community so tight knit and engulfing that once Apple released a product that was actually a commercial success, it seems to have spread like a freaking disease, turning normal people into completely unreasonable product zombies. What causes such a crazy, innate desire to defend a company at all costs?

Well, I have my theories, although most of them are drawn from my own experiences. While I try to stray away from the usual "I love company X and they can do no wrong", I am not without my preferences when it comes to games. Certian companies - namely, Blizzard, Square-Enix, and Nintendo - do get some benefit of the doubt because they have proven time and time again that the games they make will be top notch, AAA titles that will define genres and stay in my console (or PC) for years or even decades without feeling old or boring. When a company has several franchises that it consistently performs well with (Starcraft, Warcraft, Diablo... or Mario, Zelda, Metroid) it's hard to treat these masters of the business the same as one might treat, say, Electronic Arts, who's only legacy is that they have stockpiles of money and can buy you up whenever they start running out of ways to profitably resell the same Madden game each year for $60.

That's not to say, however, that these companies are flawless. Nintendo has more than it's fair share of mistakes - Virtual Boy, Cartridges, Online, Friend Codes, to name very few - so when someone feels the need to complain about these things, I can whole heartedly agree. Currently, Nintendo's greatest faults (despite it's numerous successes) is the butchering of the Gamecube to promote the Wii (Twilight Princess, Super Paper Mario, etc), the insistence on using "Friend Codes" instead of something halfway reasonable like personal name tags, and lack of true High Definition gaming.
I'd even settle for 720p - a good step forward without the price tag of forcing 1080p - but instead I'm stuck playing games in 480p which we've had available for almost the past 5 years. Yes, HD adoption rates are still relatively low over all, but that number will more than likely swing the other way within the next year or two, and the Wii will start to look worse compared to the crisp, vibrant picture of even a 720p output. Halo 3, which only runs at 640p, may not look much different from Halo2 in terms of style, but seeing it on a HDTV makes everything like crisper and significantly better than the bland, blocky look of Halo 1 and 2. I won't even go into games like Gears of War or MGS4, which look simply stunning visually. And while I'm glad I didn't have to shell out $300 or (even $500 or $600) for my Wii, I do wish that some more horsepower could've been placed into the Wii to at least push out 720p content once developers got familiar with the platform.

Does this make the Wii terrible? No. I still love the system, and play it frequently. Nintendo has certainly proven it can still innovate and be creative in a business that was slowly stagnating into "the same old with more power!", and significant credit should be given for the Risk they took in marketing the Wii (and, before it, the Nintendo DS). But why do Nintendo "fanboys" have to act like the Wii will make incredible looking games, or that the friend code system is "great", or that any of the other flaws Nintendo still suffers from don't exist? It's the same with Sony fans trying to justify the flaws of the PS3 (let's not go THERE) or an "X-bot" shrugging off the Red Rings of Death as though massive failures in hardware units should be acceptable. These are still companies, and the only thing that they care about (WARNING: Generalization ahead. Not to be taken to be 100% accurate for everyone it encompasses) is making money.

So why are there people who, day in and day out, fight for these entities as though they are their best friends? Are they afraid they will feel foolish or laughed at because they bought a flawed product? Or that explaining away abuses of power will someone cause other people to jump ship and fight for the "just cause"? Why can't I just enjoy my games and you enjoy yours?

To me, having more than 1 console is a great thing, contrary to EA's desire to have only one. Let's face it, name the last time that an industry turned into a monopoly and it was GOOD for the consumer? If Sony was the only game in town... we'd have to still be using Betamax, UMD, or any other of their failed standards that try to lock you down (Rootkits, anyone?). If Nintendo was the only game in town, we wouldn't be playing games via the internet and would probably still have sweat coming out of our enemies when we hit them. Microsoft, well, we wouldn't have any products that actually work on a reliable basis. ;) But because Xbox Live was such a big hit, Sony and Nintendo are now providing online gaming. Because Sony has been pushing HD, Microsoft updated the 360 to run games at 1080p (or is it 1080i?) and to add an HD-DVD addon. Nintendo has been there to once again completely reinvent the wheel, and to show us that gaming, when marketed correctly, can become a mass-market entertainment device.

So I don't understand when someone wishes for their brand to succeed and the others to fail. Are PS3 owners glad that Sony had to have Microsoft Mop the floor with their Internet offerings before finally getting serious about online? Are Nintendo owners hoping that Microsoft and Sony will disappear so Nintendo can focus on Nintendogs 2 and lose focus on games like Project HAMMER and Disaster: Day of Crisis? Or, perhaps, be stuck at 480p NEXT generation too, with friend codes? Or maybe Microsoft's fan base would love to send their 360's in for repair every 6 months and severely over-hyping even the blandest of games through powerhouse marketing and running billions of dollars in debt every year.

Personally, I want all 3 companies to succeed. Competition will continue to breed better results, and Nintendo's return to the top is already causing Sony to take desperate action and Microsoft to extend it's warranty. Maybe Next generation Microsoft will draw the luck of the cards and it will be Nintendo's turn to once again play second fiddle while it improves it's offerings. Whatever it is, competition has given us all the things that make consoles great today - online functionality, improved involvement (via Wii or Sixaxis), better graphics and expanded ideas.

But please, fanbois, give it a rest. It's great that you love your system, but it's not flawless. Just stay at home and enjoy your games in peace, and hope that this generation stays close so that NEXT generation, we'll see even better improvements as each party fights to win our support and our money. And that, end in the end, means that we gamers will be the true winners. I just hope we aren't winners just in the month of november (seriously, couldn't they release some of these games earlier or later instead of dropping 120+ titles onto the market in 1 month?).