Man oh man... it's been a crazy few days! I've got two weeks of (relative :P) relaxation time from my otherwise busy schedule, and what's the first thing I do? Play Crash Bandicoot! Fuck catch-up, fuck preparation for the future and fuck socialising with friends I don't have; it's time for some old school platforming with our favourite marsupial friend! Perhaps the title should have been "Priorities: I Don't Has" :P I have been doing a lot of work for LittleBigShow in between sessions -- it's taken ages to edit because a new game calls for changes aplenty -- but that furry little bastard has swept me away to a land of pure digital bliss... and seemingly endless cursing that's eventually met with a platinum relic :P It's crazy how something can suck you in like this, and many would consider playing video games for (what I consider to be) long periods of time bad for one's self in terms of physical and mental well being, but those fuckers are probably bored stiff from their 9-to-5 routine and a lack of self esteem that causes them to call anything differing from the norm "unhealthy" -- they should play some Crash Bandicoot! Give these people a PlayStation and the original trilogy! Relieve them of their piousness to conformity!
I actually started out playing Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, skipping the first two games in exchange for something I was more familiar with, seeing as I grew up playing Warped and never had the other two. The nostalgia is mind-blowing; playing a game where I used to scrape through and barely got past the main storyline, but now having the skill and ability to go back and get everything there is to get... it gives me a strong sense of power, as if I'm some kind of gaming God. It's amazing how I can ignore the blocky graphics and the low polygon count, being able to just play and play, enjoying the game for what I'm doing in it rather than what I'm looking at during gameplay. We all know from experience that a more powerful system does not necessarily make for more enjoyable titles; the responsibility for AAA content always has and always will lie with the developer, and Naughty Dog knew what the fuck they were doing :P After I got all the gems and gold relics, I finally earned me 105% completion -- and for those of you pondering on that, remember: this game puts you in the role of a bandicoot with a mystical mask for a friend and a wumpa-bazooka as a weapon; 105% completion is far from the most illogical concept this game has to offer :P -- but I still wanted all the platinum relics, so off I went trying to get them... and fuck me, they can be hard! A few of them are easy, but some of them are damned tricky! You usually can't make a single mistake, or you'll have to restart. Every jump must be timed perfectly, every jump justified, and every time box broken, or you're sweet outta luck, jolly well fucked, and restarting the level as you swear and curse your way in to mental oblivion -- it makes me wonder why I play if I'm just gonna go ape-shit at a TV screen :P And don't get me started on the jet-ski levels... just don't.
After I got all 30 platinum relics (a feat I thought was far beyond my ability) I wondered what to play next... well, isn't it obvious? Let's play the next Crash Bandicoot game! I'm evidently losing control over myself here :P The next one required me to blow the dust off my PS2 -- I'd play it more, but the component cables I used to use to hook it up to the TV are now permanently connected to my capture card for my PS3, and I can't be fucked buying more cables, so the poor bastard's been left alone for months at a time over the past year or so... oh well, this is sure to get his spirits back on high! Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex is basically Warped, minus the cartoony PS1-era presentation and with a few level changes: namely no stinking jet-ski levels, and the added ball-rolling levels! They are sweet! If there's one good thing that came out of this game, it's the ball-rolling. *You may insert a reference to Chamillionare's "Ridin'" here if you find such references humourous.* For every good idea, however, there's a whole bunch of fuck ups -- take the camera, for instance: it's god awful, especially in the underwater levels, where enemies appear on screen out of nowhere, giving you only half a second to react... annoying shit, let me tell you. Speaking of annoying, how about the loading times? The original trilogy didn't even have loading times, and this is the PS1 we're talking about here! These loading times, whilst not totally unbearable, are still irritable... and the music doesn't loop! Naughty Dog figured that shit out; why can't these new guys do it?
They're both enjoyable titles though (hence why I've been barely able to put the controller down) but when I play video games with this chronological density, I wonder... am I playing because I enjoy it, or am I playing because I need to? Did I go "hey, you know what would be fun? Playing the next game in the series" or "gimme a game gimme a game gimme a game any game I don't care so long as I'm not doing anything productive gimme gimme gimme!" What's gonna happen when I finish this one? Am I gonna go out and get Crash Twinsanity in my urge to manipulate this little bandicoot digital existence? Am I gonna go back and play the first or second game in the trilogy? Am I gonna go outside due to a critical Vitamin D shortage? I don't wanna spend my days getting crystals, gems and relics, no matter how fun it is! I have a girl to chase, damn it, and she sure as fuck ain't gonna be impressed by gaming statistics of any kind, even if they do defy the basic laws of mathematics.
That's one question I asked myself during a gaming session: if I had the choice between playing a new game I've been eager to get for a long time, and a date, which would I choose? In theory, I'd pick the date -- that's a fuckin' no-brainer right there -- but in practice... I'm not even sure anymore :P I'd have to put the controller down to get to the stage where I'd be offered a date, so I suppose it's not as simple as my hypothetical makes it out to be. I thought about my fancy as I was doing some work in between gaming sessions (or am I gaming in between writing sessions... o.O) and one lone butterfly came to say hello to my stomach. It makes me glad that I'm not so warped (pardon the reference :P) by games that my mind leaves reality and enters the simulated one; that would suck, hard. I suppose that means I'm OK -- if I can still dream about bliss with people, I can still engage in my bliss with my gamepad.
What? I fell down that hole again!? AGAIN!? Oh, for fuck's sake!
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