I was watching some videos last night of James (aka the Angry Video Game Nerd) & Mike playing games and I found out they recently released a video of them playing Metroid. I made a post about it on Facebook and it was so long that it might as well be a blog post. So here I am re-posting it here:
Watching other people play videogames through online streaming is one of the biggest trends in recent years. It wasn't too surprising to me considering a lot of us probably did it when we were younger (I watched my dad and my older cousins play videogames a lot when I was younger). Some like to watch others play to know what the game is like before buying it themselves. Some enjoy watching others play Horror or difficult games to see their reactions. Some people don't want to play games and rather watch other people play. I generally like watching high level play in competitive or super challenging games. But I noticed that the majority of gameplay videos and streams consists of people playing the game normally while talking a lot, making bad jokes, forcefully yelling a lot with screaming and cursing, and worst of all: constantly asking for donation/subscriptions.
I rarely watch videos or streams of other people play games, but I recently started watching James Rolfe's Angry Video Game Nerd (AVGN) sketch again and found out that he's been making videos with his partner Mike Matei of them playing games (old and new). The AVGN was a character and thus James acted in a very specific way that set the theme to his games reviews that was both informative and entertaining. So it was really weird seeing him act normal with Mike Matei when playing videogames. What really sets apart their videos from a lot of others on the internet and Youtube is how insightful they are on the games that they play. They know a lot of history behind each game, cultural references made in the game, fundamentals to design and aesthetics, and they grew up experiencing a lot of the old games they talk about.
Metroid is definitely one of my favorite NES games of all time and so I was excited to see them play through it. What really stood out was watching James go up against Mother Brain and finishing the game. The emotion and reactions were so genuine and so relatable for someone who remembers all the challenges and grief this game gave. That sigh of relief and laugh he gave at the end had such a strong implication of satisfaction. I played the game a lot when I was younger, played it a bunch in high school, and played it again in College. I haven't played it since College and I kind of want to now after I watched James play it.
TL;DR - James beats Metroid and man did it make him work for it. It's one of my favorite games on the NES.
P.S. Kraid's Chamber Theme is the song that helped me understand how to play the left hand on a piano when I was learning how to play. I remember hearing the song when I was playing at 5-7 years old and was thinking "I want to be able to play this on an instrument".
[Updated]
So I ended up playing Metroid tonight and finished it. Made another small rant on FB which I'm pasting back on here:
Well, I said I wanted to play Metroid after watching the video of James and Mike play it yesterday, so I did. It feels a lot easier now than it did back when I was younger other than fighting Mother Brain. I ran out of missiles the first attempt. And then in my 2nd attempt, I remembered I used to skip fighting the Metroids to conserve ammo. Still, I got knocked down to 23 EN/hp before defeating her; it was a very close call.
I was surprised I got "No Armor Suit" Samus Ending considering how many times I had to farm for missiles in the beginning and health mid-game before getting the Screw Attack and Varia Suit. I've always found it weird that Samus is shown as a brunette at the end, green hair in-game, and eventually stayed as a blonde. I've always also found it weird on why people were so shocked that Samus was a female. To me (when I was 4-5 yo), Samus sounded like a feminine name and she looked like she was wearing high heels in-game. People had the same reaction with the protagonist of The Guardian Legend (also one of my favorite games on NES) where they thought it was a guy. It totally looked like a girl to me.
Anyways, playing through Metroid was nostalgic bliss.
September passed by really quickly despite how I've been feeling. I've been feeling lethargic this past month and I can't quite explain the source of the problem. I've been still working, still going to the gym, and still playing games at night, and yet I don't quite want to do exactly those things. That is to say, I want to work on a project that isn't the one I'm doing right now. I rather be playing ping-pong, tennis or some other sport than run on elliptical and lift weights. I want to play all the other games and not the ones I'm playing right now. And then there just some days I don't want to do anything. My father explains that most people don't want to do anything during this time of year. It doesn't seem too long ago where I didn't have a choice and I'd be going to school right about now. And yet, it also feel like a long time ago as I've gone through a lot of changes and learned a lot over the past 5 years. I'm reminded of how I felt when I was still in college: I didn't want to be there. I wanted to be working in the industry already so I could learn, grow, and contribute. Perhaps that's what I'm feeling right now? Perhaps I'm not satisfied with just doing the projects I'm doing right now? As much as I would like a job composing and producing music for a videogame, I can't deny that I'm enjoying the experiments and projects I've been doing the past 2 years to expand my knowledge of various musical genres as well as improving my production quality for a cleaner and dynamic sound from my music. I'm working on the next remix to the Guardian Legend Remix Album, but having difficulties constructing it together. Just this past week, my sister visited home since Christmas and so I held off on working. I've been away from my sister for so long now that I miss her more and more each time we part ways. She's grown so much and matured into such a responsible adult, and yet I still worry about her. It's obvious she's worried about me as she continues to encourage me to make my breakthrough and move down to SoCal already and start working at a game company. She wants me closer to my friends down in LA and Irvine as well as closer to her so we can hang out on a frequent basis rather than seeing each other twice a year. I've been constructing plans and trying different approaches the past 2 years so I can make that a reality. I just hope that it'll have good results.
I don't know why, but it seems every game I play recently just doesn't seem to spark interest or excitement. Everything I seem to play either frustrates me, disappoints me or does both. I began the month playing Ghosts 'n Goblins on NES, a game that I've never beat. I completed Ghouls 'n Ghosts and Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts last year, but I never got around to playing the original. I was talking about old games with my friends and was reminded of the Angry Videogame Nerd and ended up watching a lot of his videos again as I didn't watch most of them.
I decided to give the game a try myself. The game feels a lot more difficult in terms of how it's designed. It's not surprise that it left me frustrated. I've been having an itch to play a beat-em-up again and saw Double Dragon Neon. I've heard all the warnings and did my research, but I still caved in when the game was but a mere $2. The game had great atmosphere and presentation with its 80's themed environment, music, and cheesy dialogues; however, the game was frustrating. The wanted to keep the game close to its origins with clunky combat and tough enemies. There were so many things about the game that annoyed me: long invincible frames on enemies, weird hit-boxes, being overwhelmed by projectiles, enemies with high HP and super armor, high damage output from the enemies, and the worst one was having to grind to be able to get strong enough to defeat the last boss. I eventually had to cheat to finish the last boss just like I had to cheat on the last boss on BloodRayne last month (that was pretty bad, too). Out There Somewhere is a really short indie game with an interesting teleporting mechanic. I finished that in about an hour and didn't think much of it. It was kind of fun, but it was also forgettable. The most memorable thing about the game, besides its main gameplay mechanic, was the reference to Wing Zero's "They set us up the bomb" dialogue in the beginning of the game. Shoot Many Robots was a game I bought back in 2011, I believe. I finally got around to playing through Normal mode and stopped there. I can say that it was a fun game, but I didn't feel compelled to continue playing it on Hard and Very Hard. Disgaea Infinite was a funny little visual novel game based in the world of Disgaea. There wasn't much to it, but it did remind me that I really want to play Disgaea. I really shouldn't have bought Mutant Mudds Deluxe, but I guess I was too curious as to why it was so highly praised. It's just so "meh" for an Action-Platformer. I got bored once I completed the light world and didn't even want to bother with the dark world. Freedom Planet was a pretty good indie game. It plays a lot like Sonic the Hedgehog with a mix of other platformer elements like Shantae. The game had beautiful graphics, pretty good music, and personality, but I kind of felt burnt out after playing one run of the game that I didn't really feel like playing it a second time as the other character. With getting through Ghosts 'n Goblins, I looked up the series and realized I never played through the Vita one. At first, it seemed a lot more forgiving with multiple lives, and even a sort of health bar. Then I quickly realized the game is just as difficult with being knocked into pitfalls to be a frequent threat throughout the game. I eventually got to the end, but was told I needed all 22 gold rings to be worth to enter and fight the last boss. I didn't want to go item fetching through the whole game again. It was sort of fun to see so many new weapons, armors, items, and concepts, but it just left me frustrated once again. STALKER: Clear Sky was kind of fun, but I enjoyed the first game a lot more for some reason considering the game is very similar to the original. The ending was disappointing and dumb, but I should have expected seeing how it's a prequel to the original. No Time to Explain came with the Humble Bundle I bought mainly to get Phantom Breaker Battlegrounds on PC for $1. I've already finished Phantom Breaker: BG twice on PS Vita, but I felt compelled to get it for PC for a larger screen experience at the price of $1. No Time to Explain was a short and somewhat entertaining game. But again, I was frustrated with the boss battles because they were purposely made to last long and felt tedious. After finishing STALKER: Clear Sky, I was looking for the next FPS to play. I could have installed any of the dozen of FPS games I've bought on steam, but I decided to buy Deadfall Adventures instead for $4 when it was 90% off on the weekly deals. The game isn't bad, but I can't say I really like it. The combat competent, at the very least. What really killed the experience was the puzzles in the game. I purposely turned puzzles on Easy difficulty and combat on Normal difficulty. I had fun with the combat, but the puzzles were tedious, boring, and some of them were cryptic. Ultimately, I was disappointed with my experience with the game. I'm starting a new string of games on Steam, so hopefully it'll change things around because I'm not in the mood for frustrating and disappointing. Getting through Lords of the Fallen is starting to become difficult because it's fun, but it's hard. That, in turn, sometimes makes it frustrating.
The one game I have hope for is Senran Kagura 2: Deep Crimson, of which I pre-ordered back in July and finally got this past Saturday. When I started it up, I was a little worried. The camera handling can be pretty whacky at times and you can't really control it. Aside from that, the number of changes the game has gone from its previous two titles have really added a layer of dynamics and fresh perspective on the game. I have to play differently from how I did from Burst or Shinovi Versus, which is totally okay. The game is also a lot tougher this time around where I've failed a few missions on the beginning already. But it doesn't upset me or make me mad. In fact, it gets me excited to face such a challenge in the game. I'm always so thankful that I got into the series in the first place because each game has been so entertaining and I've been able to enjoy them with the exception of Bon Appétit, that wasn't a very good game. Combat has so much more going on now that I can't approach battle as directly as I did before. It'd probably be easy if I actually played the side-missions and grinded, but I realized that I've enjoyed the series a lot more whenever it was more difficult. I just want to get over my slump of disappointment and frustration in games and be able to have fun with one.
On an ending note, I ran into a new animé. It's really cute:
