There's something alluring about Guitar Hero. It must seriously be the Playstation 2 game that I've played the most, even more than Gradius V and Onimusha 2 - which were the only PS2 games I'd played with any regularity up until that point. I could do a rough estimate of the time I spent - 30 songs, average four minutes each multiplied by three difficulty levels (I didn't bother with Easy) comes out to six hours just to play through it. This doesn't factor in the indie tracks. This doesn't factor in the multiplayer. This doesn't factor in the numerous retries and the countless amount of times I've been trying to get Bark at the Moon complete on Expert - I still haven't beaten it yet. I would probably estimate that my total time spent on that game is between 12 and 15 hours.
That's not really a lot, but consider two things:
(a) I play my Gamecube and Project Gotham Racing 2 (no, I'm not in J Allard's Eych-Dee era yet) with far more consistency than any PS2 game.
(b) With all the writing for Trigames, Community Contributions Union participation, and real-life job effort I'm involved in, I have the littlest amount of time in the world to actually play games.
Recently, I've been on a Strategy Game hunting spree. I went downloading video reviews of Civilization IV, Age of Empires III, Age of Wonders 2, and WarCraft III - more to come, surely - in an attempt to finally plant my foot firmly in the genre. The Advance Wars series and Age of Empires on the Nintendo DS really got me interested in turn-based strategy. It's just that my interest is culminating at this boiling point now where I have to seek out any and every (somewhat newbie-friendly) strategy title to see what the rest of the fuss is all about.
When I bought Project Gotham Racing 2 many months back when Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition was released, I found myself using my Xbox more than I'd ever imagined I would. It had me hooked more than Visual Concepts' NBA 2K series. The only racers I really played before that were simply arcade-style power sliders. But after that, I relished the semi-real feel that PGR2 provided while still letting me get loose once in a while. I got Forza Motorsport and - again - I was overwhelmed with joy at trying out this realistic style that I had been too chicken to try before. Sure, I stunk - but I wanted to learn it. I wanted to get better.
These three ideas have a connection - I swear. The binding force between my yammering is that I've realized how - well - bored I was with videogames. Let's clarify. "Bored" is probably too harsh of a word for what I'm trying to describe, but I suppose it best conveys just why I've been reaching out to try new genres that I never touched before. It best helps me realize why I relish Guitar Hero so much.
These things are new to me. I want more.
I've been playing Black and 24: The Game recently, and that feeling of sameness washed over me. Red Faction on steroids and Winback starring Jack Bauer, I cynically (and possibly irrationally) thought. For the life of me, I can't go back and finish Super Mario Sunshine. Sameness. Eventually, I'll get equally as tired of the strategy and driving games that I'll inevitably be inundated with.
Even Final Fantasy XII - something that I'd anticipated so highly that I refused to spoil myself by playing the demo in the Dragon Quest VIII package - is starting to slip out of my mind very quickly. Sameness.
I want more. Different. I want more different.
Aside from my butchering of grammatical correctness, you can see what I'm getting at with that statement. I'm growing restless and impatient. I want to gobble up different gaming experiences. New, fresh, innovative. I suppose that's why I've been playing my Nintendo DS the most out of every piece of video game equipment I own, but even then - what did we just get? Another iteration of Super Monkey Ball, a sequel to Feel the Magic, and yet another port of the original Resident Evil.
Bring on the Nintendo Revolution, already. Get Sony to give me some crazy EyeToy game - and not the throwaway minigame packs, but something more involved and focused. Hurry up and bring over Brain Age for the DS (along with that tasty, tasty new DS Lite). Where's my Loco Roco already?
The games that I've known and played for the past 19 years will never die. I'll never stop having fun with them. But as the same types of games keep coming and coming in torrents, thanks EA by the way, I'll always be having fun while wistfully wishing for something different. Spoiled? Certainly. Different = better? Not necessarily. But throw a little spice in there. Give me a little Killer 7 with my Resident Evil more often. Give the God of War a Heroic Guitar more often. Encourage Orta and Master Chief to snort a little bit of Phantom Dust (which I still have to open) with more regularity.
I suppose as long as cash rules everything around me, "more different" is a dream that's far away. Still, one can pray for a Revolution.
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