I'm going to throw out the names of three action games: Devil May Cry, God of War, Resident Evil 4.  These are all good games, but God of War has a very severe flaw that the other two don't.  God of War has the Gaming Repo Men.

In all three of these games you are constantly earning new moves/equipment with which to kill the demon puppets/monsters/not-zombies (that look and act a whole heck of a lot like zombies, but... aren't, supposedly) that are constantly harrying you.  By the end of the game, you've slogged through countless hordes of ever-tougher enemies, you've earned the orbs/orbs/pesetas to buy what you need to become a killing machine, and after overcoming that last nasty boss, what do you want to do?  Why, you want to start over with all your hard-won upgrades and power through the game like an unstoppable juggernaut, of course!

If you want the original experience, you can always start a new save, but the reward for the upgrade-purchase action game is getting to blow off steam by being godlike your second time through.  It's an unspoken part of the deal, like the fortune cookie at the end of your meal in a Chinese restaurant.  The menu doesn't have to say "stir-fried vegetables and and noodles in brown sauce, served with white rice and a fortune cookie," because you know you're getting the fortune cookie.  It's a given, like getting the cup with your drink instead of having them pour iced tea on you.  Devil May Cry understands this.  Resident Evil 4 understands this.  Hell, even a hopelessly mediocre game like Van Helsing understands this!  God of War does not understand this.

In God of War, between the time you defeat Ares and go to start a new game, the Gaming Repo Men come and take away all the moves you purchased.  All your magic is thrown in the truck and taken back to the store.  They don't offer to negotiate payments, they just haul it all off.

Now, I'm singling out God of War here only because was the most recent game to disappoint me that way.  After I beat the game, I played with the Challenge of the Gods a bit, then I started a new game, because I wanted to see the enemies at the beginning of the game get vaporized by my fully-upgraded might.  Instead, I had to constantly stop myself from trying to bust out moves that I used to have, but didn't anymore.  This has happened with other games in the past, just most recently with GoW. 

On the other hand I finally finished Resident Evil 4 recently, started a new game, and ran into the pueblo with my fully-upgraded Striker and my Red9 that is basically now a small, extremely accurate shotgun.  They all died.  Very quickly.  It was great.

One of my two DS games is Episode III, a great beat-'em-up with an upgrade system.  Guess what?  Yup, you can replay any level with all your upgrades.  Even a beat-'em-up, traditionally a play-it-again-exactly-the-same-way genre can get this right.

So my message to developers: don't take my stuff.  If I put in the time and effort to get all the orbs/crystals/bolts/potted-plants to buy all these upgrades, let me actually have them.  Either that, or stop using the word "buy" on the upgrade screen, and start using "rent."  And make sure to proclaim upgrade rental as a feature of the game, to facilitate my not playing it.

Having recently read JonathanL's entry on the future of RPG's, I was moved to set down some thoughts of my own.  For some reason I couldn't post more than half of it as a reply, so I guess I'll put it here instead.

I've always been a little confuzzled over the term RPG as applied to video games...  I'm all for finding items and weapons (Diablo II still owns my soul, and I can't get enough SotN-style Castlevanias), and I like being able to decide how to upgrade my character (Diablo II again), but I don't think those things make a game an RPG. 

I used to play pen & paper RPG's quite a bit (yes, I am an ubergeek), and the marked difference between them and the video games called RPG's is actually creating a role and playing in character.  Like an actor, but with more Cheetos and Mountain Dew.  I don't think that's possible in a video game--until you can program a game that can dynamically respond to whatever the player comes up with, anyway.  When I was leading a p&p game, players often took off in a direction I hadn't thought of, and I had to scramble to adjust--in effect rewriting the whole outline of the adventure on the fly.

JRPGS have always seemed extremely constrained to me.  They're more like interactive novels than role-playing, really.  You can choose one of two dialog options a lot of times, but they usually don't have much impact on the story, so what's the point?  People say that freedom has to be sacrificed so that the amazing stories can be written, but JRPG stories never seemed that great to me.  I was so utterly bored with FFVII and so completely unengaged with the characters that when Aeris got offed all I could say was, "is this cinema almost over?"

KotOR did a much better job in letting you actually decide the character of your character (if that makes sense), which may be why it's the first RPG I'd played in ages.  If that's the way RPG's are going, I'm all for it.  I don't mind the turn-based battle system (I <3 my Heroes of Might and Magic games) if it isn't filled with the same agonizingly long animations over and over and over...  I couldn't get into X-Men Legends in the brief time I played it, but I'll probably pick up the LE of Jade Empire pretty soon here based on my positive experience with KotOR--hopefully it will include the same rudiments of actual role-playing.

It's still no substitute for having human minds behind the characters and settings you encounter.  On that note, check out the Serenity RPG (real RPG...like, with books, paper, and other people)--the designer is a friend-of-a-friend, so it automatically rules.

I'd like to take just a moment to bring up a trend in games that has been troubling me of late.  It's not sequelitis, or each game trying to be a blockbuster, or anything like that--it's the lack of a customizable control scheme. 

By the end of the SNES's glorious reign, it seemed like pretty much every game gave you the obligatory A, B, and C options for button layout, but then there was the Free or Edit option, where you could map the functions to whatever buttons you want.  This seemed to continue through the PS/Saturn/N64 era, but in the current generation of games it seems like more and more often I pop in new game, go to the options menu (I always tweak the options before starting a new game), and I scroll through the pre-selected control schemes (sometimes a LOT of them), but end up looping back to the first one without seeing an Edit option.

I'm not a game designer, but this seems like a fairly simple option to give your players in most games.  Why would they take away the ability to play the game in the way most comfortable to us?  Do they assume, like those guys that drive around the neighborhood with stereos louder than an average heavy construction site, that their personal tastes are so superb that we should all share in them whether we like it or not?

How can we feel in control of the character without being in control of our controls?

This generation is entering the sweet spot for late adopter/budget gamers like myself. Vast libraries are available for each system and the looming next-gen systems are knocking already low prices even lower on established games. I'm not even going to get into all the games that are now available as Greatest/Platinum hits at value prices now.

In the past few weeks, trolling local retailers and eBay, I've managed to pick up quite a few great games on the cheap. The shipping fees on several of my ebay purchases were more then my winning bids, because of the rampant overcharging on ebay to actually get your purchase. Everything below, though is the total price I paid to have the game in my hands whether purchased online of off, and I'm happy with the deals I've nabbed. Between all these and some games I'm still waiting for the right deals on, I'll have plenty to do until those next-gen systems take price drops.

DS
Episode III (used) for $11.89. I can't get the GBA version for any less than $25.

Nanostray (used) for $26.86. This one was kind of pricey, but I learned my lesson on low-production shooters from Ikaruga: pick them up while you can.

GBA
Astroboy (factory sealed) $9.99. One of the scores I made after the recent slew of Best Buy price drops.

Final Fight One (used) $7.23. I could NOT find this game with the package for less than $30, so I settled for cart only and swore a lot as I scrubbed the sticker off the back with Goo Gone. But I'm left with a great version of a great franchise and paid next to nothing for it.

GC
Metroid Prime (FS) $7.49. I didn't like what I played of this game at the store display years ago, but it got so much love from the community that I thought I'd give it another try for that price. So far, I have to say that I still don't like it. Why is it again that can't I look up or down without holding an extra button?

Viewtiful Joe 2 (used) $9.10. I'll have to get a working PS2>GC controller adapter to play it, but I've been meaning to pick one of those up anyway.

PS2
Beyond Good and Evil (FS) $8.41. I played through a friend's XBOX copy, and knew I'd want it in my collection at some point. Couldn't pass it up at this price.

Guilty Gear Isuka (used) $21.99. I broke my $20 rule here, too, but this game kicks ass. Boost mode alone is worth the price I paid.

XBOX
Evil Dead Regeneration (FS) $14.99. The first Evil Dead game was terrible, the second was passable, and this one, in the few minutes I've played of it so far, is not bad at all. An enjoyment of the franchise is required, but assuming that, it's pretty solid for a budget title.

Legacy of Kain: Defiance (used) $8.25. I'm a little irritated with this one--I already had the PS2 version, but wanted the XBOX version for the true widescreen support. I take good care of my games, and try to buy used games only if they're in good shape. This was advertised as being in "great condition," but the disc is scratched and the case has a chunk missing out of the top. I'm waiting for the seller to contact me back about it now.

Ninja Gaiden Black (FS) $24.99. Since NG had never dropped down to my $20 magic price point, I had never played it. I was certainly watching for it to drop, given all the great things I'd heard, but it just held it's value like crazy. With Black out with extra content for $30 (minus the $5 Best Buy coupons you can get with their Gamer's gift cards), I decided to finally pick it up. I had heard so much about the difficulty of the game that I was a bit apprehensive going in, but I got up to speed pretty quickly. "This isn't so bad," I thought as I blocked, rolled and counterattacked to manage 4-way fights during the first level. Sure, it takes a little more deliberation and a little less button-mashing than some other action games, but I didn't think it deserved the reputation of punishing difficulty everyone had given it. Then I got to the first boss, who bent me over and spanked me like a naughty child. Again and again.
After three continues, I got the option to drop to the Ninja Dog difficulty, which I did. When I'd heard about the humiliation the game threw at you for playing the easy mode, I thought it was a great touch, and wanted to see it, anyway. I didn't think I'd actually need to play as a Ninja Dog, though. I'm hoping I'm going to get better, because the second boss is now creaming me even with my little purple ribbon of strength.

Otogi (FS) $13.60. I had played a bit of this at Baroque's place, and thought it was absolutely compelling. A fun game with beautiful visuals and superb art direction.

Otogi 2 (FS) $9.99. Thank you, Best Buy!

Panzer Dragoon Orta (used) $11.99. Why, oh why did I buy a used game from GameStop? It works fine, but I can't stand looking at it--they even put a sticker on the manual. It's like some bizarre fetish with those people.

I have to admit that I haven't digested every bit of news, so my thoughts on the next-gen systems are perhaps behind the times. I always reserve final judgment, anyway, until I actually get my hands on a system and play the games, which is one of the many reasons for my late-adopter position. So far, though, it seems like a race between the big three to see who can shatter my enthusiasm more quickly and efficiently.

Sony so far is losing the fight, with only somewhat off-putting remarks about the PS3 being "not a game machine" and missing promised features. The Batarang certainly doesn't look like an improvement on the Dual Shock line, but I can't really say until I hold one. Rumor is that they might even stick with the trusty design that has won my vote as best ever since it was introduced on the PS1.

I'm not really concerned about the price. I'm not a launch adopter anyway, but I'd rather have to spend up front for quality rather than save a little bit of cash and get the castrated version of the system and limit its possibilities. Or worse, have someone else trying to save a few bucks ruin the possibilities for me. But that's really taking us to

Microsoft! With the announcement of the XBOX 180 ("half the console for three-fourths the price!") and the one-finger salute to the American gamers that actually supported them during this generation, MS pulled into an early lead in the Let's Disappoint Pete contest.

Car companies pull the same "starting at only $12,999!" marketing scam, failing to mention that that DX model doesn't have even have basic equipment like air conditioning. Once the customers at the dealership, though, they're a captive audience for the pitch on the $15,000 LX model that's actually drivable. The thing is, though, if I decide that I want the $16,000 EX model with all the creature comforts and a bit more horsepower, I'm not told that I can't use my AC, anti-lock brakes and extra oomph under the hood because somebody else bought the DX.

Not so with Microsoft. They follow the good old American educational philosophy of holding everybody back to the lowest standards. The gamers out there that buy the XBOX 180 are only screwing themselves. By offering it in the first place, Microsoft is screwing everybody. Way to go, MS, you pretty much cinched the win until

Nintendo revealed the Revolution controller. In that one moment, Nintendo swooped in to scrabble with Microsoft for dubious honor of my most disappointing console. A vicious body blow to MS, but then, just when Nintendo had them reeling, they pulled back a little, gave MS some breathing room. The word of this mysterious "shell" began to circulate.

Now, I am unsure. If the "shell" turns the Point-and-Do controller into something usable, then things might work out. But knowing Nintendo, they're going to give me a completely unworkable controller and tell me that I like it. I'm willing to concede that there could be some really innovative games with the Rev controller. The thing is, I doubt I'll like them. But that doesn't matter--even if I do like them, you release this kind of controller as a peripheral, especially for some games. The Eye-Toy, DDR mats, congas and maracas, and especially the light-gun--they're specialty controllers for specialty games.

I've seen too many forced uses of the DS hardware to trust Nintendo on this Point-and-Do controller. Games that don't have to use it probably will anyway. We'll have a small selection of innovative games that are designed for the Rev controller and a boatload that have the Rev controller's features crammed uncomfortably into them. I don't need to "draw" bricks for Mario to jump on to reach the next platform, and I don't need to "push" on Link's sail to move him across the ocean. Just let me run, jump, and hit things with my sword, please.

And while playing, if I need to bring my controller up so I can rub my nose with the back of my hand to get rid of an itch, or I feel like sinking a little deeper into the couch cushions, I don't want my on-screen avatar to go careening around the gameworld in response. If I get the hiccups, I don't want my character to do a little hop every time my diaphragm spasms.

Echoing through the forums I hear cries of, "Think of the FPS games with the Revolution controller!" Okay, and despite the fact that Nintendo hasn't been even remotely interested in FPS games since the N64 (you can't have it both ways, Nintendo--you swore blind that the Metroid Prime games weren't FPS's), maybe they'll make a really good one. Maybe it'll be fun the first time, to play a different way, but when the novelty wears off, I think I'm going to want to sit back on the couch and use just my thumbs to play one of the 88 billion other FPS games out next gen. Or maybe something that isn't an FPS... isn't that what Nintendo has claimed to be about for a while now?

I also hear people talking about how great the Rev controller will be for light-gun games--Next-Generation Duck Hunt!. The thing is, there there's already a controller for those--it's called the light-gun. Don't get me wrong, I like light-gun games. I have light-gun games for several systems. I don't need many, though, to fill my light-gun game craving. Speaking of light-guns, the GunCon 2 has a D-Pad. It has buttons. It has Rev-tastic Point-and-Do action. So why didn't Sony license it and make it the default controller, with an analog stick dangling off the back? Because that would have been stupid.

If Nintendo packs the "shell" in with the system, and it's good, there's a possibility that they can salvage my custom. I'm not going to get my hopes up, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. And for all three systems, of course, the software needs to be seen before final judgment can be passed.

Current enthusiasm level for next gen:
PS3 - 4
360 - 1
Rev - (pending)

These days, it's hard to get many of my friends together in one place. We've all spread out over the metro area, we have more demands on our time, many of us have families to take care of. Other than infrequent Halo LAN parties that usually only half of us manage to make it to, I'm usually lucky to find time in both our schedules to see even one of my oldest, bestest friends--the old gang.

It wasn't always like that, though. When we were younger-say, oh, 10 years ago-we got together all the time, for movies, basketball, and for Playstation. Having watched the recent GS coverage of the Playstation's 10th anniversary and reading journal entries by such notables as carolynnemichelle and alittlesumnsumn, I got to thinking about just how much time I spent playing Playstation games with other people.

Don't get me wrong, I spent plenty of time on the PS playing games solo, but like no other system, the Playstation found its way into my interpersonal relationships in significant ways.

---

Burning rubber, power-gems, and one-hit kills:
My closest circle of friends are people I've known since high school... elementary school, in some cases. After high school, we all started down our different paths, but still got together fairly often. One whole summer, I remember, between basketball games and pen-and-paper RPG sessions (yes, we're geeks), we were obsessed with The Need for Speed. It was 2-player only, so we had to take turns, and as a driving game it wasn't even all that spectacular, but with the competition, trash-talking, and peanut-gallery commentary, it stands as one of my best all-time gaming experiences.

I always chose the Lamborghini, because it had great acceleration and top-speed. Handling wasn't the best (to quote Douglas Adams: "looks like a fish... moves like a fish... steers like a cow"), but it had a special bonus that more than made up for it in my mind: takedowns. Years before the Burnout series, I was using my black Diablo to surgically remove my competition from the track. I couldn't do it reliably in any other car, and nobody else I played could do it reliably even in the Diablo, but something clicked with me and that car, much to the chagrin of the other racers. Ah, the wails of despair as I would tap the rear quarter-panel of the lead car just before the last turn, cementing my win. Good times.

We had brief obsessions with Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo and, oddly, Bushido Blade, but nothing matched those long summer evenings full of squealing tires and muttered curses.

Convivial horror:
One of the gang of Need for Speed players, my oldest friend, Jim, and I got hooked on the Resident Evil series together. We took turns at the controls on RE1, and played through it again and again, until we had it down to a science. I remember that after we beat the game for the first time, we went to Barnes and Noble and picked up the strategy guide to see what we had missed, and we were appalled. We could have (and would have, if we had known about GameFAQs back then) written a much better guide than that ourselves. They advised using the shotgun on dogs, for Pete's sake!

I rarely get to see Jim anymore--he lives in a far-flung suburb, has a demanding job, a wife and an adorable new baby, church responsibilities, etc. But we've still made sure to play through each RE game that came out. I'll admit that I lost my enthusiasm for the series partway through the second game (until RE4, which has been great so far), but it gave us an excuse to get together, something to stare at while we talked, laughed, caught up with each other.

Obsession loves company:
Baroque-Legacy here on GS and I went to school together, too, and a shared fascination with video games has been a cornerstone of our friendship from the start. We still hang out pretty often, and pretty much of the time we're playing or talking about games. I guess I can't single the Playstation out in particular in this case, but it's in there with all the other systems.

Sibling rivalry:
My older brother and I were inseparable when we were little. He watched out for me and seemed like the smartest person in the world. When I didn't understand something, I'd ask him, and he'd always have an answer. It didn't even occur to me that he might be wrong. Between things he had wrong himself and things he just made up, I'm still occasionally uncovering fundamental misconceptions I have about the world.

By the time he entered middle school, we'd drifted pretty far apart. We had our different interests, different friends. We still saw each other around the house, were still concerned with each other, but we didn't spend a whole lot of time chumming around. Years later, the Playstation helped bridge the gap a little.

We had played together on the Atari 2600 when we were very young (we were expert in every variation of Combat), and had some good times late in the SNES's life with Uniracers, but Tekken 2 became a nightly contest. He hadn't had too much interest in games after the 2600, but he got into Tekken 2 enough to put in at least an hour a night vying against me and my lethal Baek juggles. I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for that game because of the hours of fun he and I had beating the crap out of each other, but also because it brought him back into my life for a while.

Since then we've both moved out and moved along our paths, and he's got a niece-or-nephew on the way for me. He's a busy guy, but I now that Tekken 5 is out, maybe I'll see if I can lure him into a match or two, and see what's been going on with him lately.

"Over there... Check that desk... Look out!":
My ex and I were together a long time... over 11 years. The wounds are still pretty fresh, so I don't like to talk about the relationship much right now, but it bears on this subject. She was never much for video games, although she played a pretty mean Pai in Virtua Fighter 1. She did like the Silent Hill series, though-particularly, like me, the first one. I'd play through the games, she'd scream at key moments (scaring me more than the on-screen action), suggest things to look at or places to go, and usually solve all the puzzles before I could set the problem up for myself, which made me both proud and annoyed with her lightning-fast brain.

We also spent a lot of quality time together playing the Legacy of Kain games. The original Soul Reaver, in particular, was a favorite of ours. We played through it several times on the Playstation before the graphically superior Dreamcast port was released, and aside from her rather overenthusiastic lust for Lieutenant Raziel, I really enjoyed sharing a favorite game with her.

The Silent Hill and LoK games had plenty to talk about, too, and we'd spend hours at meals or in bed discussing the subtleties or vagaries of the plots and character motivations. We tried a few others, like Parasite Eve, but just couldn't get into them like we could the Playstation classics of Silent Hill and Soul Reaver.

---

I'm sure that other people have other systems they can point to as having significant roles in their relationships, but for me it's the Playstation. Sony may be a soulless mega-corporation, and I don't know how the PS3 will turn out as a gaming/media/rotisserie broiler device, but I'll always love that little grey box sitting upside-down next to the TV, and always have an affection for the Playstation brand because of it. Here's to 10 more years!

On Sunday, Baroque and I had stopped by the local Best Buy to see if there was anything we needed in their games section. We picked up a couple of titles each, and then, as we were heading to the registers, we saw it. Street Fighter: The Movie. It was $6.99, which I assured Baroque was too much for that movie, as I had managed to sit though the whole thing years ago when it first came to video. He had never seen all of it, so he picked it up and after playing a bunch of Super Castlevania IV, we got a couple of sandwiches and settled down to watch the sucker.

Oh. My. God. I remembered it being bad, but it was so... it was worse... it was just beyond any ability to describe. It was like that morning after a drinking binge, where you wake up, and as you start to become aware of the world, the pain and discomfort begin. Just when you think you've reached the limit, that nothing could feel worse, it keeps going, showing you new definitions of misery that you had never thought could exist.

It wasn't enough for it to just be awful, either--it had to be confusing, as well. As we stared at the screen, appalled, but helpless to turn away, like witnesses to a train derailment, one of us would occasionally make a futile appeal to logic, to try and apply some sense of sanity or reason to what we were seeing.

Baroque: "Why is Sagat Native American?"
Me: "I... don't know."
Baroque: "Wait, forget that--why is Wes Studi in this movie at all?

He was right. What was a talented actor doing anywhere this thing? And he wasn't the only one, either--Simon Callow was in it, and Raul Julia. Raul Julia! He did Shakespeare, for god's sake!

Why... why was there no fighting in Street Fighter: The Movie? I mean, even forgetting about the games it was supposed to be based on (which everyone in this movie obviously did), doesn't the name alone suggest that there would be fighting? Possibly in the street? But aside from an extremely weak 3 or 4 minutes with Guile and M. Bison and a pathetic excuse for a hurricane kick from Ryu (pronounced almost universally in the movie as RYE-YOO), there was pretty much no action of any sort. Did they think the movie was going to make it on its dialogue?

I checked IMDB, just to see if Uwe Boll had anything to do with this travesty, but he wasn't mentioned. The screenwriter/director, though, was one Steven de Souza, who also gave us such treasures of American Cinema as Hudson Hawk and Judge Dredd. Be warned, gentle reader, this man has three projects in the works, looming like great smelly cowflops on the pastures of next summer.

I was hanging out with Baroque this weekend, and he showed me his import copy of Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (called something else in Japan... I forget what) for the DS. This is probably the game that will finally decide me to buy a DS, since I'm an avid fan of the series. I didn't actually play, but it looked very good. The art style in the character portraits is very generic-anime, since the art designer for the past several Castlevania games is working on the PS2 game, but the in-game graphics were quite satisfactory.

Since Castlevania had been brought up, we decided to test out Baroque's Messiah NES wireless controllers on his Famicom cart of the original. The controllers are great--no sharp corners anywhere, even on the d-pad (which is more of a cup-shaped dealie a la the Neo Geo pad), and the control is very responsive. The direction-cup IS just a tad sensitive, though... just resting your thumb slightly off-center on it will result in character movement.

Playing though old-school Castlevania-and seeing the upcoming one-put me in a Dracula-killing mood, so for the last few days I've been going though the GBA games again on my GB Player. I can't believe that I actually hadn't finished them all! When I fired up my old saves, I found that I had only actually completed Harmony of Dissonance, although I was ready to face off against Dracula in Circle of the Moon and had made significant progress in Aria of Sorrow. I did have a lot going on when I was playing them, and I guess I put them down for a little while and just forgot to pick them back up.

Well, the old me's loss is the new me's gain (how grammatically incorrect was THAT sentence?). I've been finishing out my card collection in CoM and leveling up a bit--and I'm just about ready to try out the Battle Arena I've heard so much about. After that, I'll finish off AoS, then maybe play though the games' other modes. By the time I'm done with all that, DoS will probably be out in the US. Otherwise I could always take the mighty Symphony of the Night off the shelf...

With big developers like Midway, Capcom, Sega, Activision, Taito, Namco, etc. putting out collections, why is Konami sitting on it's duff? Give us the Contra Collection and the Gradius Collection, but most of all, give us the Castlevania Collection! All the 8- and 16-bit games should do for the first volume, but Rondo of Blood better be on it, because not many of us have a PC Engine laying around. I DO have pretty much every other Castlevania game in the original form, but I'd pay good money to have them all in one place.

Heck, just give me easy access to Super Castlevania IV without having to unpack my SNES, and I'll be a happy little vampire-killer...

That is all.

Actually, I managed not to leave anything behind at all, which is surprising given my lack of organizational skills. I made it there and back with only a single heavily-laden backpack for luggage. My body still doesn't know what time or day it is, and has decided that hibernation is a good way to readjust, but the trip was well worth it.

I'm a reserved (read: cowardly) kind of guy, and I don't often take chances on things like this that have the potential to go disastrously wrong. I'm trying to change that trait, so when invited to accompany a friend (Baroque-Legacy here on GS) to the Classic Gaming Expo, I pushed aside my doubts and went for it. It was expensive, yes, it was tiring, true, but I had a blast, and have to say it was all worthwhile.

I hadn't been on a plane since I was 5, so I was even excited for the flight out (straight though, thankfully). I enjoyed every minute of the taxi down the runway (it built anticipation, like ratcheting up the first hill of a roller-coaster), the stylized little dance that the flight attendants put on, trying to make us feel like we might actually survive a crash, and the takeoff itself. I wasn't not bothered much by the pressure changes--a little discomfort, but swallowing once would clear it right up, so I actually enjoyed the fast ascent. The enjoyment began to wane shortly after we got to cruising altitude, when I realized I had 4 hours to kill stuck in the middle seat between Baroque and some complete stranger. I'm a fairly big guy, and had to roll my shoulders in to avoid pushing against my neighbors, and that became uncomfortable pretty quickly. Luckily, the lady next to me was friendly and talkative (especially after the drink service came by with the wine), and the three of us passed the time chatting.

At SFO we walked straight outside to the Hotel shuttle, which was inexplicable upholstered like an 80's nightclub (even the ceiling), and climbed aboard. The shuttle was crowded, since it serviced several hotels, but the cute girl sitting opposite us come out of nowhere and asked if we were headed for the CGE. I realized that we probably had "dork" written all over us, but how did she know about the CGE? I didn't exactly think that would be on the average hottie's radar (except Wedgie, but she's hardly your average hottie). It turns out she was helping some friends at the Messiah booth, which was one of the things Baroque and I were particularly excited to see. This was a good start to the weekend.

At the hotel, we were given a free upgrade to a Bay view room, dropped our stuff, and went out to explore the neighborhood and find something to eat. Everything was closed by that time, but we got a nice walk in, and on our way back to the room, asked a passing hotel employee if there were any delivery places still open. He asked our room number, and said he'd bring a menu up. This was just one instance of the fantastic service we received all weekend at the Hyatt Regency, and aside from strange problems with our keycards (only one or the other seemed to work at any given time), I don't hesitate to recommend it. The pizza was generic, greasy, and absolutely perfect for 3am in a strange city after a 4-hour flight. We both had upset stomachs the next day from the Mr. Pizza Man pizza and garlic bread, but I don't regret it.

Saturday morning, we had an excellent and outrageously expensive room service breakfast, then hit the show. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would, to be honest. I expected to get bored of the show very quickly, but I found plenty to occupy myself with for most of the day. The Messiah NEX was very cool, and the previously mentioned cute girl and her friend who easily could have modeled professionally didn't do anything to discourage me from hanging out there. They actually know what they were talking about, too--they were bona fide gamers, and not just brought in as booth babes. There were tons of vendors there, and an interesting museum, too.

There happened to be a Mongolian barbeque place right across the street (Panda Garden, I think it was called), and since Baroque and I are both regulars at Khan's Mongolian back home, we had to try this place. It was a small Mom & Pop kind of place, but all the ingredients were super fresh, and the flavor was excellent. I'll certainly go back if I get out to SF again.

We stayed for part of the auction, but it wasn't very interesting--people paying unbelievable amounts of money for obscure but pretty uninteresting items. One guy paid like $300 for a briefcase that used to belong to some gaming mogul. Whatever. Baroque and I decided to duck out and hit the town.

On the shuttle back to SFO (and the BART station), we met a cool, kind of hippie-ish girl who turned out to be a Flight Attendant. This was getting ridiculous--how many of my private fantasies was SF going to throw at me, and how did it know? She was nice enough to lead us to Powell station on the BART (Baroque and I had no idea what we were doing, and I think it showed), and then broke off to go to her favorite haunts.

From Powell station, Baroque and I managed not to get lost in the few blocks to the Metreon. We both got Playstation hoodies, since it was far chillier than we expected outside, and since we both got the same style, we looked even more like tourists. Or an alternative-lifestyle couple. Most likely we looked like both. We spent the evening in the Station 1 arcade, then caught the BART/shuttle back to the hotel.

We took a longer tour through the museum on Sunday, but wanted to get back out to see the city. We had to check out at noon, but were able to check our bags at the hotel so we could hit the town unencumbered. We went back to Powell station and decided to try Japantown instead of Pier 39/Fisherman's Wharf. We caught the bus headed that way, had a crazy guy carry on a conversation with his other personality about a foot away from my face, staring at me the whole time, and managed to find Peace Plaza by sighting the Peace Tower. There were some cool import shops there with movies, anime, and music, but none of the video game shops we were hoping for. By the time we got back downtown, we didn't have much time left, so spent a bit more time in the Metreon, then headed back for our bags.

We had each packed in a single backpack, which presented some challenges after hitting the vendors at the CGE. We controlled our spending pretty well, though, and with a little careful management we were able to get everything into our two bags. I waited in the shuttle and chatted with the driver while Baroque ran in and got our stuff. On the way back to the airport, we stopped and picked up a few of the driver's friends, who just wanted to ride around for a while. The driver and his friends were all Filipino, and almost comically friendly and outgoing. With just them, Baroque, and myself in the shuttle, the night club atmosphere was even more pronounced, leading to the term "party bus" being thrown around pretty liberally.

I had the window seat for the flight back, and had picked up a Neo Geo pocket at the CGE. That kept me entertained the whole time, while Baroque hammered away at Nanostray on his DS. We rolled into our local airport just before 5am, and since I had been up since 10am (Pacific Time) the previous morning, it accentuated the disorientation. It was easy enough to get out of my routine at the start of the weekend, but I had a hell of a time getting back into it. I had taken Monday off ahead of time, but had to take Tuesday off as well, and slept at least 2/3 of each day.

I know that there are people of all sorts just about anywhere you go, especially a large city like SF, but I have to say that everybody I met during my trip was incredibly friendly. The locals, the out-of-towners, even the panhandlers, were all really cool. I'm sure I was just lucky not to run into the jerks that must exist there, but based on my trip there, SF seems like a great city for stuff to do AND people to meet. It was an even better trip than I'd hoped it would, and I'd love to go back sometime for a longer stay. I think that taking it a little slower would probably help me not feel so jet-lagged when I got back. There's no CGE next year, but maybe I'll be back out there for 2007...