2536: NES Remix and the Art of Good Game Design

Still on a Nintendo kick at the moment. I've been playing a fair amount of NES Remix on Wii U, a rather peculiar package that consists of an enormous number of bite-size challenges based on a variety of Nintendo's old 8-bit NES games.

Structurally, it's rather like a mobile game in that each level tends to take less than a minute to complete, and upon completion you're graded between one and three stars, which are subsequently collected and used to unlock further challenges.

The rating system isn't needlessly complicated, however; you get one star just for clearing the challenge, even if you ran out of lives and had to continue partway through a multi-stage task; you get two stars for clearing the challenge without using a continue; and you get three stars for clearing the challenge without using a continue and within a (hidden) par time. (You can also attain "rainbow stars" for each challenge by beating an even tighter par time, but these are purely for your own satisfaction; they don't count as extra stars as far as the game is concerned.)

The genius of NES Remix is that it teaches you to play all of these old games as you go, and it does so without using any hand-holding tutorials whatsoever. Rather, with each of the games in the package, it starts you off with simple tasks and gradually advances you to more complex, multi-stage challenges. And once you're done with all that, the "Remix" and "Bonus" stages provide their own twists on the classic NES games in all manner of ways, perhaps by mashing up characters from one game into the levels of another, or by doing weird things with the visuals, or by making you play the game upside down or back to front.

What NES Remix successfully does is revitalise every game it incorporates — even those which, when played in their original forms, would look a little tired and primitive now. By trimming the experience down to less than a minute rather than expecting someone to play, say, an entire round in Golf, or a complete game in Baseball, you get a feel for the solid base mechanics of these games without having to invest a lot of time in them and risk them outstaying their welcome. NES Remix instead tasks you with, to use the same examples, simply getting on the green in less than 2 hits from a variety of situations, or winning a game from its final innings.

NES Remix is also interesting from a historical perspective to see how far we've come in certain genres. As you may have surmised from the examples I've given so far, this is particularly apparent in the sports games. Tennis, for example, requires far more split-second timing than its more modern counterparts. And while Golf features an early version of the classic "two tap" power-and-accuracy meter that many modern equivalents still use today, the lack of features such as the ability to put spin on the ball or estimate the maximum distance a given club will hit makes you realise how much we take for granted today.

It's not just true for sports games, either. Ice Climber makes me incredibly grateful that Nintendo finally got the hang of jumping controls with the Mario series, because they certainly didn't in Ice Climber. The Legend of Zelda will make you miss the ability to move diagonally. And Donkey Kong will make you glad that modern platform game heroes have significantly stronger knee joints and don't die if they fall more than the length of their own shins.

As infuriating as some of these old games can be, NES Remix embraces their foibles and quirks and turns them into simple but compelling and addictive challenges that have kept me very much entertained over the last few days. And when you're done with Nintendo's oldest games, NES Remix 2 then moves onto later titles such as Super Mario Bros. 2 and 3, Metroid and Zelda II as we see a company getting more adventurous and attempting to refine their craft further.

For some, there will be no substitute for playing the original games — perhaps even on original hardware — but NES Remix is a great way of revisiting a wide variety of Nintendo classics and having a bit of fun with them. Plus I can't help thinking it would make a hell of a great basis for group competitive play.

2535: A Very Nintendo Christmas

Familial duties for Christmas Day are all done and dusted, and the wife and I are back home. After giving a bit of fuss to the cats — who got an impressively large haul of gifts, because everyone likes to buy presents for cats, and cats are easy to buy gifts for — my main plan for this evening is to sit down in front of the Wii U for a whole bunch of Nintendo gaming.

I'm not entirely sure why my brain has made an unbreakable association between Nintendo games and the festive season, but I get this feeling and this desire to binge on Nintendo games every Christmas.

I suspect it's a combination of factors, beginning with the fact that one of the most exciting Christmas presents I ever received as a child was a Super NES — the first console I'd ever owned, as up until that point we'd previously been a computer game-only household thanks to our collection of 8- and 16-bit Atari computers.

During that Christmas, I spent a great amount of time between the three games I had at the time: Super Mario World, Street Fighter II and Chuck Rock. (The latter two were American imports for some reason, necessitating the use of one of those enormous and unwieldy "converter" cartridges in which you had to plug the game you wanted to play in the top, and an English game in the back.) Consequently, I have very fond memories of that Christmas, and notably, the original Street Fighter II is one of the only fighting games I've ever felt like I actually "got".

I think it's more than that, though. I wrote yesterday about how I have generally positive associations with Christmas thanks to generally pleasant family gatherings growing up, and Nintendo as a whole prides itself on its family-friendly output. Now, to be honest, my parents were never particularly ones for playing two-player games with me — though my brother would join in when he was present — but the association is still there. First-party Nintendo games in particular are wrapped in a wonderful feeling of warmth and friendliness — a feeling that they're designed for families to gather round and enjoy themselves with, even if it's only one person playing at a time while others look on and enjoy the cartoonish silliness.

Then there's also the fact that Nintendo games are generally very "pure" experiences that often — not always — forego ambitious, thought-provoking storytelling in favour of extremely solid gameplay, and as such are the perfect fodder for those times of year when you don't want or need to think too hard about things, such as, say, when you've eaten several tons of turkey.

Whatever the reasoning behind it, I can't break the association between Nintendo games and the holiday season, and nor do I want to. So the remainder of my Christmas day is going to be spent in the company of Mario and all his friends.

2534: Christmas Cheer

While I've somewhat lost enthusiasm for Christmas over the last ten years or so — I used to absolutely love it as a child — one thing I am pretty grateful for is the fact that I don't recall ever having a "bad" Christmas.

I mention this simply because one of the most popular stereotypes used when describing the Christmas period is that of "the inevitable family arguments" that apparently occur in many households. While I feel that the descriptions of these are often somewhat overblown and exaggerated for comedic effect in most cases, these stereotypes presumably came about for a reason.

My Christmases growing up were fairly formulaic and predictable, but that brought them a certain sense of comfort about them. I'd wake up to find a selection of small gifts that had been snuck into a "Santa's sack" at the foot of my bed, then go downstairs for a bacon sandwich and, once I was a little older, a Bucks Fizz. After breakfast, we'd go up to the lounge and open presents — my mother usually being the one who was most enthusiastic about this part of the day, and my father urging a certain degree of restraint — before relaxing with our new acquisitions for a little while.

After that, lunch preparations would get underway, with my mother taking the lead on things — we were a household of traditional gender roles, and also my mother is an excellent cook — and the rest of us alternating between staying well out of the way and occasionally fetching and carrying things as requested.

Lunchtime would come, and sprouts would always be on everyone's plate, regardless of protestations, though those of us who really objected to them (such as me) would typically only have one of them, drowned in gravy to make it as inoffensive as possible. This would be followed by Christmas pudding, which would always be set aflame, and which I'd never quite work out if I actually liked or not — after 35 years of contemplation, I don't think I do — and perhaps a cheeseboard to finish.

At some point during the day, the whole family would troop down to a local family friends' place for wine and conversation for an hour or two; this was never a formal affair, but was always pleasant, particularly if the circumstances of the rest of the year had meant that we hadn't had the time to catch up as frequently as we all might have liked to do. Then we'd return home, flop into our respective chairs and go back to enjoying our presents, mountains of snack foods and a generally relaxed, calm atmosphere.

I don't remember a single Christmas that was blighted with arguments or troublesome political discussions, and I'm grateful for that. Perhaps these things did happen and I just don't remember them, but they couldn't have been especially traumatic for me if I can't recall them at all.

These days, a Christmas exactly as I describe above is something that only happens once every couple of years now, since being married, we have the "one family, other family, quiet Christmas by ourselves" cycle going on. This year, we're with my in-laws, who have routines of their own very similar to those that my family have enjoyed over the years, albeit with their own little twists.

And after a turbulent year — not to mention the chaos of working retail over the holiday period — I'm looking forward to a day where everyone, everywhere can just take some time to relax and enjoy themselves for once. At least, I hope that's what everyone, everywhere is at least going to make an effort to try and do.

Merry Christmas.

2533: Future Collector's Item

You've probably seen me mention my friend Chris on these pages a few times. (You might even be my friend Chris, in which case hi.) Chris and I have differing opinions on a number of things, but one thing we both agree on is the importance, value and general sense of satisfaction inherent in archiving and collecting games and gaming hardware for the future.

The other day, Chris and I were discussing Nintendo's Wii U. We're both a fan of the console and many of the games on it, and find the self-fulfilling prophecy of its "failure" rather frustrating; had people been a bit more willing to celebrate its most interesting and exciting titles rather than playing the usual "lol, Nintendo got no third party support" game things might have turned out a bit more differently. Or perhaps they might not have. Either way, it doesn't really matter; it's on the way out come March when Nintendo launches its new console, the Switch.

Chris raised a really interesting point about the Wii U that I hadn't considered before: it is a new TurboGrafx or Neo-Geo.

"Tiny library of mostly excellent stuff?" he explained. "Check. Very short lifespan? Check. Innovative tech that was received poorly? Check. The Wii U in general is going to be a hardcore collecting legend in 5+ years."

NEC and SNK's consoles weren't bad at the time they were released; they were simply competing with more popular (and particularly in the Neo-Geo's case, more affordable) alternatives from Sega and Nintendo. In 2016, Nintendo finds itself in a similar position as these "second-tier" console manufacturers were in back in the 16- and 32-bit eras: the market is dominated by two more popular, more widely supported consoles (not to mention the endless sprawl of PC gaming) and is perceived as a "failure" despite having a small but beautifully formed library of games, most of which are not only excellent, but markedly distinct from the big-budget affairs that make up the frontline of the PS4 and Xbox One's respective software libraries.

For the last few years, I've taken the attitude that, with a few exceptions — the most recent being Final Fantasy XV and Pokémon Moon — I will prioritise buying games that will more than likely be difficult to find in a year or two. (That said, old copies of Pokémon appear to absolutely skyrocket in value after a few years, so I'm certainly glad I grabbed that one, and especially glad I grabbed the apparently considerably less popular Moon variant.) Since I have an enormous backlog to get through already, I feel that the next few additions to my collection will more than likely be Wii U titles in an attempt to fill out an "essential" catalogue of games that I will be proud to keep alongside the console once it leaves the market.

So far I've got quite a decent selection: Bayonetta 2, Hyrule Warriors, Lego City Undercover, Mario Kart 8, NintendoLand, Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing Transformed (multi-platform, so I sort of don't really count this one, as fun as it is), Super Smash Bros., Super Mario Maker, Star Fox Guard, Star Fox Zero, Super Mario 3D World, Wii Party U, Wind Waker HD, Xenoblade Chronicles X and ZombiU. (The latter has been subsequently ported to other platforms, but the Wii U version features a unique local multiplayer mode that is a surprising amount of fun.)

I also have digital copies of Pikmin 3 and The Wonderful 101 that I'd like to replace with physical editions at some point in the near future, and I've ordered copies of Rodea the Sky Soldier and Captain Toad Treasure Tracker. The game I'm most concerned about becoming difficult to acquire in the near future is Tokyo Mirage Sessions, so I'll likely grab that in the new year, and I think I'd also like to round out the Mario collection with Mario Tennis and Mario Party 10 at some point, too.

At that point, I think I'll be satisfied with what I have; I don't feel the numerous Lego games (aside from Wii U exclusive Lego City Undercover) have much value due to their multi-platform, cross-generational status, and likewise for stuff like Ubisoft's dreadful but inexplicably popular Just Dance series and yet another port of the inescapable Minecraft — although I must confess I do like the idea of Minecraft making use of the GamePad's touchscreen for its interface.

The prospect of the Wii U becoming highly collectible in the next few years is quite an exciting one, because for once, I not only have one, I have a good collection of games to go alongside it, too. It's not exciting from the perspective that I'll be able to make a lot of money from it — on the contrary; I don't intend on letting it go anywhere — but rather because it's a tangible piece of collectible history that I'll be able to look back on fondly in the future.

2532: Five Games You Should Get in the Steam Sale

Steam's Winter Sale has rolled around again! As always, there's a wealth of great games on offer. On the off-chance that you don't already own some or all of these games, here are five of my favourites that you should check out.

Recettear (£2.59)

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I find it hard to imagine that anyone doesn't have Recettear yet, but on the offchance you don't, here's the pitch.

Recette is a young girl saddled with an enormous debt. Fortunately, she has a shop with which she can attempt to clear said debt by selling items to the local community, as well as through making good use of the assistance of her fairy companion Tear (actually a representative of the bank keeping an eye on her finances) and the local adventurer's guild.

Recettear is split into two main components. Firstly, there's running the shop, which involves putting out items for people to buy, correctly answering their requests and haggling over prices. Secondly, there's a significant roguelike-esque action RPG component in which Recette can hire one of the local adventurer's guild to go into one of the nearby dungeons to fight monsters and acquire items that she can subsequently craft into more interesting items or simply sell as-is.

The closest comparison is probably Gust's Atelier series, though there's much less of a focus on crafting in Recettear and more on the dungeon crawling and customer interaction side of things. It's one of the most charming games ever created, with a stunning localisation from the original Japanese by Carpe Fulgur, and is well worth your time.

Steam page

Binary Domain (£2.74)

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An absolutely wonderful third-person shooter, Binary Domain takes Gears of War's po-faced, joyless over the shoulder cover-based shooting and ramps up the adrenaline to make something with a bunch more personality and drama about it, albeit with (arguably) a few more clunky edges to it.

In Binary Domain you spend a lot of time shooting the shit out of robots, all of which shatter into pieces rather satisfyingly. There's a variety of upgradeable weapons to acquire over the course of your adventure, and some truly entertaining setpieces. The story is good, too, featuring a cast who are all much more interesting than the walking military stereotypes found in shooters that take themselves a bit too seriously, and the whole thing feels like it's been designed on the understanding that games are supposed to be fun.

Steam page

HuniePop (£1.74)

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One of the absolute best puzzle games to be released in the last few years — hell, one of the only puzzle games to be released in the last few years that isn't a free-to-play mobile phone-based Bejeweled ripoff — and a game full of endearingly cheeky humour designed by a team who doesn't give a fuck about political correctness.

HuniePop is ostensibly a dating sim in that you build up your stats in order to attempt to woo the various girls on the cast, but the twist is that in order to have successful dates (or "intimate" encounters) you need to indulge in some mind-bending, highly strategic puzzle-solving using a combination of your pattern-spotting skills and the items you collect throughout the dating sim gameplay.

HuniePop is beautifully presented, highly playable, shamelessly lewd and an absolute pleasure to play.

Steam page

VA-11 HALL-A (£9.34)

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VA-11 HALL-A is a brilliant visual novel-cum-bartending sim in which you take on the role of Jill, a rather ordinary young woman who lives in a cyberpunk future and tends bar in the titular drinking establishment.

VA-11 HALL-A tells its story rather wonderfully through what it doesn't show you — since the majority of the action unfolds from Jill's perspective behind the bar, you tend to see the immediate prelude to and aftermath of important events in the game world rather than the events themselves, which allows you to develop a much more personal attachment to them by hearing firsthand accounts from people who were there.

There's a wonderful cast of characters — effortlessly "diverse", I might add, and without making a big song and dance about it at any point, unlike its spiritual predecessor Read Only Memories, which very much wanted you to know how progressive it was at every opportunity — and a compelling story to enjoy here, all beautifully presented in the style of an old PC-98-era visual novel from Japan. Except this masterpiece was put together by a couple of dudes from Venezuela over the course of the last couple of years.

Steam page

Assault Android Cactus (£5.49)

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One of the best shoot 'em ups I've ever had the pleasure of playing, Assault Android Cactus channels a variety of influences ranging from bullet hell shooters to Rare's Jet Force Gemini to create a marvelously entertaining and meticulously designed twin-stick shooter for up to four players simultaneously.

Unfolding across some beautiful-looking dynamic levels, Cactus will challenge your shooter skills to the limit if you want to attain the best scores and grades, but the game also remains accessible to newcomers who just want to blast their way through to the end to say they've beaten it.

The whole package is capped off with an amazing soundtrack and some brilliant old-school Sega-style "EX options" that can completely change the way the game plays, and is an absolutely essential purchase for anyone who enjoys a bit of quality arcade action.

Steam page

2531: Planning to Unplug

After some discussion with my friend Chris recently — partly inspired by my recent post on mobile phone apathy — I've made the not particularly difficult decision to try and "unplug" as much as possible from the general noise of the Internet in 2017.

And I'm talking about more than just stepping away from Twitter and Facebook like I have done a few times in the past, as positive as those experiences turned out to be for me. I'm talking about a pretty thorough purge, and a return to a simpler, quieter life with fewer external stressors.

You see, the allure of the Internet and its ability to connect people from all over the world has kind of worn off somewhat for me. The last few years have demonstrated that there are a significant number of people out there who are more interested in conflict, oneupmanship and narcissism than actual meaningful interaction. The fall from grace of the games press — and many game journalists' pretty much unveiled hatred of their audiences — is just one of many examples of this, but the overall negativity that infuses what feels like the vast majority of online communications these days is just proving to be more trouble than it's worth.

I don't need that. It's not adding anything to my life — nothing good, anyway — so, I figure, why continue to put up with it? There's no need to.

As such, starting on New Year's Day, I'm going to begin a process of unplugging as much as I possibly can. Twitter and Facebook are both going completely, since the annoyance both of those bring to my life far outweighs the benefits of both of them. More significantly, I'm planning on ditching the smartphone age in favour of an older, simpler phone that doesn't bug me every five minutes with updates and notifications. At this point, I'm strongly considering picking up a second-hand N-Gage I've seen on Amazon, since that has the added benefit of being an underappreciated and increasingly rare gaming platform as well as a phone I very much enjoyed using when I originally had one.

I'm also going to draw my time with this blog to a close. I'm satisfied with what I've achieved here since I started, but the time has come to move on. I'm not going to give up regular writing, mind you; I'm still going to post weekly articles over on MoeGamer, since those have a clear focus, and I'm also intending to start a weekly TinyLetter as a more private, more personal substitute for my daily updates here. I'll post details on how to sign up for that towards the end of the year, so those of you who want to continue to follow what I'm up to can do so.

I'll be keeping more personal means of communication open. My email address and Google Hangouts accounts will still be active, as will my gaming accounts on Steam, Xbox Live and PSN. But the shouting into the void that is public social media will, hopefully, become a thing of the past. It's no longer enjoyable, useful or fun, so I have no need for it.

I'm not going to put my personal email, Google Hangouts and gaming account addresses in this post for obvious reasons, but if you are interested in staying in touch via any of these means, please feel free to drop me a line via my Contact page explaining who you are and how you know me. If we've chatted before in the past, great, no problem; if we've never spoken before, however, please do include a bit about yourself in your message.

That's the plan, then. And I anticipate that it will lead to a happier, more peaceful and less stressful 2017 for me. At least I hope it does, anyway!

2530: Pokémon's World of Colour and Joy

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One of the things I tend to find pretty consistently appealing about the types of RPGs I enjoy playing is the fact that they're typically set in rather colourful places, even if the stories told in those places sometimes veer into dark territory.

It occurred to me during conversation with my friend Chris last night that this is one of the things that I'm finding particularly enjoyable about Pokémon Moon, too. Except in Pokémon's case, it arguably goes a little further: everything about that game is designed to make the player feel like they're special, like they're valued as a human being and like they're loved.

Although the game has its antagonists — mostly the entertainingly incompetent Team Skull this time around, who are channelling the attitudes of youths desperately trying to be "gangsta" — the emphasis is not on any great conflict. Instead, it's on your protagonist's journey across the islands of Alola, gathering Pokémon and growing in strength and confidence as a trainer.

The way the characters interact with your protagonist is endearing and warm. You're welcomed to the game as soon as you start, and in the early stages it feels like the game is "holding your hand" but not in an obnoxious way. After a certain point, it feels like it shakes you by the hand and invites you to explore more freely, but always wants you to know that "safety" is never far away. Your achievements are recognised and celebrated, and even your Pokémon act in ways that emphasise your bond with them — "[name] endured the hit so you wouldn't be sad!" is the one that tugs at the heartstrings the most as you see them cling on to consciousness at 1HP after taking a particularly heavy blow.

To put all this another way, Pokémon Moon is one of the most endearingly "Nintendo" games I've played for a long time. It's a game that invites all its players — regardless of their actual age — to remember the joy and wonder of being a youngster. It's a totally inclusive game that has something to appeal to everyone — and best of all, without any sense that it's either attempting to fulfil a "diversity quota" or frantically virtue signal about how progressive it is. It has cute girls and hunky boys; it has people of all manner of different skin colours; it has cool Pokémon and cute Pokémon; it has an enjoyable story and mechanical depth; and it has this all-encompassing sense that everyone involved with the project simply wanted all the end users, regardless of age, race, gender or any other characteristic that people like to divide themselves up by, to have a really nice time playing it.

At this time of year it's exactly the sort of thing I needed to play to forget about the cold, dark nights of winter and the increasingly exhausting debacle that is Christmas.

2529: Mobile Phone Apathy

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I've always thought of myself as something of a gadget-head, but over the last few years I've become increasingly underwhelmed and bored with those most ubiquitous of devices, the mobile phone.

I remember getting my first mobile phone towards the end of my schooldays. It was a big fat Motorola thing with an extendable aerial, and I remember the most exciting thing about it was discovering that I could hold down a button to write lower-case letters in text messages, whereas I'd previously been writing in all-caps like a grandmother learning to use email for the first time. (We were all writing in all-caps like a grandmother learning to use email for the first time at the time.)

Every year or two after that, there was the excitement of The Upgrade. I upgraded from my Motorola to a Nokia 3210, which was exciting because it had Snake on it, and everyone loved Snake, despite it being something that I'd played some 15 years earlier on my old Atari 8-bit computers. Then I upgraded to a Nokia 3330, which had Snake II on it (which was essentially Snake with mildly better graphics). These two phones were pretty similar to one another, though this was also the age that phones were getting smaller rather than bigger, so the 3330 was pleasingly compact after the relatively bulky 3210.

After that, I went for a Sony Ericsson phone that had a colour screen and a camera. Well, I say it had a camera; actually, the camera was a separate unit you had to snap on to the bottom of it which took photos at approximately the size of a postage stamp that weren't any use to anyone. The colour screen was nice, though.

After that, I got a phone whose make and model I can't remember, but which I think was actually one of my favourite phones of all time. It had a pretty big screen — in colour again, a reasonable quality camera and, best of all, the ability to record sounds that could subsequently be used for ringtones, message tones, alarm tones and all manner of other things. It was a lot of fun, and an early phone to support Java, too, which meant you could download games for it. And there were some decent games available, too — most notably the excellent puzzle game Lumines, which had previously been something exclusive to PSP owners.

If I remember correctly, my next phone after that was the ill-fated Nokia N-Gage, which I picked up out of interest in its gaming capabilities. I actually ended up liking it as a phone more than a gaming device, since its vertically-oriented screen made a lot of games impractical and tricky to play, but the dedicated directional pad, the way you held it and the big, bright, clear screen made it a very comfortable personal organiser device. Sure, you looked dumb talking on it — it was notorious for its "side-talking" posture, whereby you looked like you were holding a taco up to your ear while talking on it — but I rarely talked on the phone anyway, so this simply wasn't a big issue for me. It's actually one of my most fondly remembered phones.

I forget if I had any other phones between the N-Gage and the iPhone that I was given for free while I worked at Apple — I was working retail during the launch of the device — but none spring to mind. The iPhone, meanwhile, was actually a little underwhelming when it first launched; while its bright display and capacitive touchscreen certainly looked lovely, iOS 1.X was severely limited in what you could actually do with it. About the most interesting thing you could do with a first-gen iPhone was browse the "full" Internet rather than only WAP-enabled mobile-specific pages. (Interestingly, with responsive sites, we've now actually gone back to having mobile-specific pages, albeit with a lot more functionality than old-school WAP sites.)

The iPhone was a bit of a watershed moment for mobile phones, though, because it's at that point that devices stopped being quite so different and unique from one another. Each and every iPhone is much like the last — perhaps a little faster, a little bigger, a little clearer, a little more lacking connection ports we've previously taken for granted — and each and every Android phone is much like the last too, except, of course, for the ones that function as inadvertent incendiary devices.

I've had my HTC One M8 phone for over two years now. I picked it up as an upgrade from my crusty old iPhone 4 because I was bored with iOS and wanted to see what Android was like, and discovered that yes, I liked Android, though it's just as boring as iOS is. Now, even as I'm eligible for an upgrade to the newest, latest and greatest, I have absolutely no desire to investigate my options whatsoever. The M8 works fine for what I use it for, and I find most new phones virtually indistinguishable from what the M8 offers. Again, they might be a little bit faster or offer a higher resolution screen — although at the size of a mobile phone, there comes a point where resolution becomes completely irrelevant, since individual pixels are too small to distinguish — but they don't do anything new or exciting in the same way that my pre-smartphone upgrades offered.

Each and every upgrade before the iPhone I had was genuinely thrilling, and something I wanted to show off to people. Each phone was unique from the last, and each brand offered its own particular twist on things. Now, the actual devices themselves are uninteresting and virtually indistinguishable from one another; simply a delivery medium for their operating system of choice. And operating systems aren't interesting.

I think a big part of my growing cynicism and apathy for this particular side of technology also comes from the fact that the mobile marketplace in general just feels a bit sleazy. Ever since the world was given in-app purchases — something which I knew would be a terrible idea as soon as it was announced — we've been subjected to revolting, exploitative free-to-play garbage, ad-infested messes and all manner of other bullshit. Rather than being the cool, exciting gadgets they once were, mobile phones feel increasingly like just another way for advertisers to invade your life and snake oil salesmen to part you with your case — although what part of life isn't this way these days?

All this is a rather long-winded way of saying that I'm in no hurry to upgrade my HTC One M8, and in fact, I've considered on more than one occasion actually "downgrading" to a feature phone rather than a smartphone. Maybe I should see how much N-Gages are going for on eBay…

2528: 30 Day Video Game Challenge All in One Day Because Otherwise I Won't Remember to Do the Rest of It

Every so often, one of those "30-day challenges" does the rounds on Twitter, Facebook and whatever, and while I'm often tempted to participate, I know that a few days in I'll probably forget all about it.

So to prevent that from happening, I'm going to answer all 30 prompts from the "30 Day Video Game Challenge" — which most people seem to have been doing throughout December, which is nearly over, anyway — in one post because fuck convention, I do what I want because I'm a strong independent woman who don't need no man.

All right. Let's begin.

1. Very first video game

Honestly hard to recall, because I grew up with gaming as part of my household. I was born in 1981 and estimate I probably started playing video games around the age of maybe 4 or 5 or so, which would mean my first video game would be one of the hundreds of pirated Atari 8-Bit games that my father and brother had acquired from the local "computer club".

Let's go with Star Raiders, even if it wasn't, because Star Raiders is awesome and naming that as my first video game surely gets me some gaming hipster cred.

2. Your favourite character

I have a whole bunch of favourite characters from a variety of different franchises, so again it's hard to pick one. If absolutely pressed to name just a single one, however, I think I'd probably have to go with Estelle from Trails in the Sky. She's cute, sassy, tomboyish and immensely appealing to me in all manner of different ways, both in terms of her looks and her attitude.

3. A game that is underrated

The original Hyperdimension Neptunia. While its technical shortcomings are self-evident from the moment you start playing it, and it makes some baffling mechanical decisions, it's one of the most memorable games I've ever played, through a combination of its absolutely charming characterisation and those aforementioned baffling mechanical decisions.

4. Your guilty pleasure game

I have no guilt in enjoying any games whatsoever, regardless of their content. I guess the only one I probably wouldn't make a point of talking about in polite company would be Custom Maid 3D 2, and even then I have been known to talk about its interesting stat-raising gameplay as much as its explicit polygonal pornography.

5. Game character you feel you are most like (or wish you were)

I've encountered quite a few relatable characters over the course of my years in gaming. It's tempting to pick someone like Noire from the Neptunia series for her somewhat solitary tendencies, though I wouldn't describe myself as tsundere as she is. Someone like Rosangela Blackwell from the Blackwell series of adventure games from Wadjet Eye Games springs to mind; she's a writer who attempts to make the best of a difficult situation. And okay, I don't have a ghost partner with whom I put restless spirits to rest, but I did feel a certain degree of kinship with Rosa's general personality and attitude.

6. Most annoying character

The dude who had the "FOLLOW" marker over his head for almost the entire duration of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, who got to do all the interesting things while I ran along behind him shooting predictable waves of bad guys. That was the last Call of Duty I ever played.

7. Favourite game couple

Gotta be someone from Grisaia here, though I'm somewhat torn between Yuuji and Amane (Amane was my own personal "best girl") and Yuuji and Yumiko (whom I felt arguably made a "better" couple). Let's say Yuuji and Amane.

8. Best soundtrack

Final Fantasy XIV. My enthusiasm for Square's reborn MMO may have lapsed for the moment, but I never, ever tire of its masterful soundtrack by Masayoshi Soken.

9. Saddest game scene

The end of To The Moon. That was the first game since the first time I played Final Fantasy VII to genuinely make me sob uncontrollably.

10. Best gameplay

This is near-impossible to answer because I play so many different types of games that aren't directly comparable. If we're just talking games I've played in the last year, Dungeon Travelers 2's beautiful mechanics and level design are definitely near the top of the pile.

11. Gaming system of choice

Again, hard to pick one, since I do a lot of gaming on a variety of different platforms. I think in terms of "platform that has the most games I want to play on it", though, it's between PS4 and Vita, with Vita having the slight edge by virtue of having been around a little longer as well as being backwards compatible.

12. A game everyone should play

Splatoon. It's just such an utterly joyful experience — and totally free of the arrogant elitism that often plagues online games, thanks to Nintendo's arguably overprotective approach to online interactions — that even the most staunch anti-multiplayer gamer can't fail to have a good time with this one. And then it goes and has a fantastic single-player mode with one of my favourite final bosses of all time, too. Everyone should play Splatoon, and I hope it makes a comeback on Nintendo Switch.

13. A game you've played more than five times

I'm assuming this means "to completion". Final Fantasy VII is the first that springs to mind (I completed this at least 10 times during the first summer I became aware of the series) but you can also throw in Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, too.

14. Current (or most recent) gaming wallpaper

15. Post a screenshot from the game you're playing right now.

(Stock screenshot, I know, but I can't be arsed to turn my PS4 on and go through the faff of getting a screenshot off it.)

16. Game with the best cutscenes

The big "oh shit" moment halfway through Final Fantasy Type-0 is going to take some beating this year, but Final Fantasy XV also has plenty of incredible cutscenes, too. I can't in good conscience give this one to anything but a modern Final Fantasy game.

17. Favourite antagonist

Metal Face from the original Xenoblade Chronicles. In the English… uh, British dub, he struck an incredible balance between being comedic and terrifying. I remember I was genuinely shocked at quite how far that game went with the brutality and unpleasantness, and Metal Face was a great figure to express your anger towards.

18. Favourite protagonist

I've already given "favourite character" to Estelle from Trails in the Sky, so it's only right I give this one to Nepgear. Yes, Nepgear, because she was totally the protagonist of Neptunia mk2/Re;Birth2 and I will not hear a word said against the dear girl by anyone. Also I like Nepgear because she reminds me of myself. If, you know, I was a pretty young girl with a figure to die for rather than a 30-something hairy dude.

19. Picture of a game setting you wish you lived in

20. Favourite genre

RPG, no question. Honourable mentions to point-and-click adventures, visual novels and arcade-style racing games.

21. Game with the best story

If you count visual novels, The Fruit of Grisaia, with absolutely no hesitation.

If you don't count visual novels, which I know some people don't, then I loved the Ys series, particularly Ys Origin. The amount of thought which had gone into the lore of that world is simply incredible, and Origin brought the legends you learn about in the first two games well and truly to life.

Damn, now I want to play Ys Origin again.

22. A game sequel that disappointed you

Mass Effect 2 is the only example that springs immediately to mind. I was one of the few people who actually rather liked the clunky RPG systems of the original, so I was disappointed when 2 felt like more of a conventional shooter, both in terms of mechanics and structure. The story was decent and I enjoyed my time with it, but not enough to want to either go back or play the sequel.

23. Game you think had the best graphics or art style

I absolutely adore the art in the Atelier series, particularly the Arland trilogy. The lovely soft lines and pastel colours project such a wonderful aura of calm about them, and that's something that's altogether much too rare in an era of increasing grimdark.

24. Favourite classic game

At last, a question where I can honestly put Star Raiders as my answer and know there can be no argument about it.

25. A game you plan on playing

Trails in the Sky SC, Trails of Cold Steel and Trails of Cold Steel II. I've only played the first Trails in the Sky, but that was enough for me to fall in love with Estelle.

26. Best voice acting

The original Corpse Party on PSP. This was the game that made me switch from dubs to Japanese voiceovers whenever I get the opportunity. Although the audio was in a different language to one I understood, the sheer amount of passion that the actors infused their lines with was incredible, and a big part of the reason that game had such a profound impact on me.

27. Most epic scene ever

Battling Bahamut in Final Coil in Final Fantasy XIV is hard to beat, if that counts as a "scene".

28. Favourite game developer

I'm a fan of Falcom and Square Enix's Final Fantasy team, but I've grown to adore Idea Factory/Compile Heart over the last few years, so I think it's only right to give this title to them.

29. A game you thought you wouldn't like, but ended up loving

Criminal Girls. I picked it up mostly out of curiosity — and partly because I'd heard people call it shit and wanted to judge for myself — but discovered to my surprise that it was a brilliant game with some inventive mechanics and a thought-provoking story.

30. Favourite game of all time

I haven't played it for years now, but whenever anyone asks me this question my immediate thought is always Final Fantasy VII. So it's probably that.

Honourable mentions to Recettear, Geometry Wars 2 and Pac-Man Championship Edition DX+.

2527: One for One!

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I completed my first couple of Pokémon trades over the last couple of days, giving me all three of the "starter" Pokémon from Sun and Moon to add to my Pokédex.

Since Pokémon is essentially a well-disguised trading card game (and a not-at-all-disguised trading card game in its Trading Card Game format, but that's something else entirely) a key part of its appeal is working with other players to collect the things you want to collect.

This is an aspect of the game I always felt like I was obliged to miss out on in the earlier installments, particularly back in the Game Boy days when it was direct link or nothing. Although I had a number of friends who were big into video games, I didn't know anyone who had a Game Boy and a copy of Pokémon, so I was denied access to what I understood from the beginning to be a significant part of the experience.

This has all changed with more recent platforms and widespread access to the Internet, meanwhile. Using Pokémon Moon's Global Trade System (GTS) I managed to find a Rowlet that someone wanted a Pokémon I had for, and subsequently I listed another Pokémon I had and indicated that I was interested in acquiring a Popplio. The first trade was immediate, since the Rowlet owner had already listed the little owl for trade, and the second trade was complete within a day. As a relative Pokémon newbie, I wasn't familiar with what is apparently a widespread Eevee trafficking market, but it seems as if evolved Eevees make for pretty reliable trade currency, so I'm probably going to have to farm some of those at some point.

Dipping my toes into this side of Pokémon is helping me to further understand the appeal of the series. Although the main game is a single-player adventure and there's a significant amount of content to play through, both during and after the main story, a core part of the Pokémon experience as a whole appears to be the social aspect of it. And while Nintendo's heavy-handed approach to online safety and privacy means that it's literally impossible to communicate directly with another player — all communication is asynchronous, using a wide selection of preset words and phrases that auto-translate into different languages — there's still a surprisingly strong feeling of "interaction" with other players when you successfully complete something like a trade or a Festival Plaza mission.

To be honest, I think I kind of prefer Nintendo's way of doing things online these days — at least when it comes to playing with strangers. Playing with friends is a great laugh if you get on voice chat and indulge in some light-hearted banter, but when playing with strangers, there's a fairly high probability you will run into at least one insufferable arsehole during a play session. With Nintendo's approach, said insufferable arseholes are completely neutered and will never bother you or disrupt your enjoyment of the game. Of course, with Nintendo's approach, your friends are similarly neutered, too, though chances are if you're actual friends with those people you have alternative means of communicating anyway.

Meanwhile, my Pokémon Moon adventure is going pretty well. I'm onto the third island now with a strong team of Pokémon that cover a variety of different types, though I think I'll be needing to train up some Ground or Rock types next. I also have an outfit that I'm pretty pleased with for the moment — big love to Nintendo and Game Freak for providing the option to purchase thigh-high socks in the very first clothing shop you come to — and I feel like I'm deepening my understanding of the overall metagame with every hour I play.

So yep. Think it's safe to say I'm in this one for the long haul.